“You ain’t so bad android!”

“Same to you, robot.”

With that, Greg launched himself towards the door and clotheslined a poor Beiorg member before escaping back into the thick of the fight. Luckily these orange boxes were fairly secluded from the rest of the fight and nobody would likely come here without reason. Unless they were hiding of course.

“So… where is it?”

“Uhh… start digging?”

Luke sighed, but started digging through the parts, showing Crash whenever he came across a regulator. Crash was quite a bit faster, being able to scan through parts of boxes in only a few seconds, and was tossing them aside as he dug deeper. Suddenly he found something.

“Hah! Oh!”

“Did you find it?”

Instead of answering, Crash pulled out what he did find. It… it was Dan. The guy from the Beiorg hideout. How was he here?! Seeing Luke’s face, he smiled.

“Aha… I knew you meant bad news. Looks like I should have followed my gut.”

“W-what?! What are you doing here? And why are you in a suit?”

“Oh this? I’m not actually a Beiorg member come on. Nope! I work for the upper ministry. The plan was to destroy them from the inside over a few months, but it looks like a few insurgents are going to ruin that little plan. Oh well, this might work out anyways. To answer what I’m doing here, I was looking for this.”

Immediately, Dan held up what could only have been Crash’s regulator, which was confirmed less than a second later.

“My damn regulator!”

Surprised, Dan looked at Crash with questioning eyes.

“Yours? I believe this is the property of Dr. James Thickton. As a project set up by the ministry, I believe that in the absence of the good doctor, the item has become property of the ministry. I have simply come to retrieve the ite- baaaaa!”

Before Dan could even finish his sentence, Crash sent a fist into his stomach and sent him crashing through the upper window and out into the river. Luke was sure he’d heard bones break on that terrible impact… He almost felt bad for the guy but fucking around with Crash was something… unwise.

Wheezing a few times, Crash picked up the regulator and dusted it off with a metallic hand.

“Hey uh… pal. Mind helping me out here?”

Luke smiled and opened the back of Crash’s head, fitting the regulator in with a satisfying snap.

“[email protected] OPERATING SYSTEMS ONLINE. PRODUCT PRODUCED BY JAMES R. THICKTON FINANCED BY THE UPPER MINISTRY. FILES INSTALLING… FINISHED. POWERING ON. SUBJECT APPROVED.”

A popping noise was heard and within seconds Crash was back to his old self. Subject approved… just like with Sayuri. It didn’t come from the bracelets but maybe Thickton set it up this way. Maybe...

“Bahahaha we did it!”

“What?! I thought you’d be all laid back now! Isn’t the regulator supposed to… regulate your emotions?!”

“Yeah, it does! Now I don’t feel like killing randomly!”

Leaning his hand on his chin, Luke shook his head. Either way, he was finished. He was one step closer… to saving her.

After the hideout had been cleaned out and the unconscious Beiorg members had been rounded up and bound together, Greg approached Crash and Luke.

“Thank you… we really couldn’t have gotten rid of this scum without you. I have Sam and Guillermo on the line if you would like to…”

Greg handed them a small square and a holographic Sam popped up. He was holding a mug of beer and sitting around a campfire with Guillermo. It looked like they were burning pieces of the Beiorg hideout…

“Luke! Glad that you got out in one piece! Did you find the regulator?”

“Yeah actually, some guy from the upper ministry who was trying to take down the Beiorgs from the inside had it.”

“What?! The upper ministry was on their case too? Hmm… What did you do with the guy?”

“Well, he didn’t really get to finish his sentence before Crash broke his ribs and tossed him out into the river…”