"Sure am." Sara said, charm oozing from her words, as she walked towards him. "Did you fix it up yourself?"

He relaxed further and rested the gun against his motor home. Sara definitely had a way with people. He'd gone from 'get off my lawn' to 'want to stay the night' in seconds.

"I sure did. Took me two years. And I spared no expense. Custom machined the parts myself."

Sara put her hands down slowly and motioned for me to get out of the car. "Mind showing us?"

"Sure! My name's Charlie by the way."

"I'm Sara and this is James."

Charlie's eyes just about popped out when he saw my arm. "What is that?" he asked. He walked right up to me and began examining my arm.

"Charlie?" Sara waved. "Can you show us the truck?"

Charlie struggled to pull his eyes from my arm. "Oh yeah, come on."

I made to say something to Sara but she shut me up with a gesture of her hand.

Charlie started showing us the truck. "These trucks are more like military construction vehicles. But don't let that fool you, they are built tough and as a bonus they are easy to repair. Check this out." He opened the double doors on the back. "I added this monster cab in the back." We walked up a set of stairs to get inside. The interior housed chairs and tables and a little kitchen. Just above our heads I saw eight cots.

"What's it run on?" I asked.

"Diesel, but I also installed Tesla batteries along the under carriage. It won't be enough to run the truck, but you won't need the engine running to power the cab. It even has heating and air conditioning back here."

This guy was a magician. I sent a text over to Sara.

"Screw the truck, we should recruit this guy. Can you convince him to network with us so we can examine his traits?"

Sara asked without skipping a beat, "Charlie, this is magnificent. We'd love to make you an offer. If we do buy it, it would be important that we could chat with you whenever we have questions. I'm guessing you had the same crazy experience we had this morning?"

Charlie hesitated, "I thought maybe I had just gone crazy. So that was real?"

Sara continued, her voice soothing, "It seems so. Do you mind if we network with you? Then we could chat anytime."

Charlie shrugged, "Sure."

I sent a network request and I knew Sara had done the same by her next chat message.

"His mechanical design skills are plus 40!"

I pulled up the full list:

Charles Saber

48 Years Old

Skills:

Mechanical Design: 40

Machine Shop: 33

Electrical Engineering: 17

Checkers: 13

52032 other skills

How can you you have a skill in Checkers? Focus James.

Not as proficient as Sara or I across a broad range of skills, but the one's he had, he dominated.

I messaged Sara. "I want him."

She replied, "You want him?"

My checks reddened, even though we were inside chat, "Not like that Sara. Get him on our team."

Sara continued, "Charlie, you clearly love this vehicle, why do you want to sell it?"

Charlie's eyes dropped, "I'm not great with money. I sorta lost track of my savings and, well, I'm broke."

Sara smiled and put her hand on his arm. "I'll make you a deal. I'll pay you the $75,000 and I'll let you keep the vehicle."

Charlie looked stunned, "I don't understand."

"Let's just call it an advance. I'd like to hire you. We are building a team. We need someone like you. Our plan is to take..."

Charlie interrupted, "Little Jefe?"

"Yes, take Little Jefe as our base of operations and go recruit the rest of our team."

Charlie looked over at me. "Would you throw in that arm if I knocked $25K off the price?"

Before I could answer hell no, Sara jumped in, "With the team we are building, you'll be building that and better within the year."

God she was good.

Charlie smiled. "Deal."

Charlie ran to get his things while we moved our stuff from my car into the cab of Little Jefe.

Sara looked at me, "Alright hot shot, now we just have to convince this Maga guy to join us."

That sounded all wrong, "Krav Ma ga," I corrected her and emphasized the 'ah' in Ma.

Sara ignored me. "This cab sleeps eight. I suggest we put a team of six together right now and leave two spots open for later."

"Ok, we have our hardware guy. Once we get our fighter, the system is suggesting we recruit..." I sent the list via chat.

Hunter

Linguist

Medic

Musician

Thief

Weapons Engineer

I continued, "It looks like other than Hunters and Weapons Engineers we have our pick in Manhattan. Although... I wonder if we can drive this thing into the city without attracting too much attention."

Sara pffted, "You haven't spent enough time there. This sort of weird shit appears all the time. Plus, I think it might become one of our best selling points."

Charlie returned with a hand cart stacked to the top with metal cabinets.

"I thought you were just going to get some clothes," I said.

"Oh, clothes. Yeah I should probably go get some of those too."

"So, what's in these?"

Charlie patted each box lovingly as he spoke. "Electrical. Hand Tools. Parts. Power Tools."

"You know you can put all that stuff into inventory now, don't you?"

Charlie smacked his forehead. "I forgot about that. Hell, do you think that means I could bring the really big stuff too? I've got a lathe, a mill, a bandsaw, welder, sander and CNC router I'd love to bring."

"Take everything. And if you need anything from us just say the word." Sara answered.

We waited a few more hours as Charlie pulled items into his inventory. As the day went on we saw more signs that things were breaking down. Screams off in the distance. A plume of smoke. An explosion. Gunfire.

I felt the adrenaline spike in my body. It made me feel a little nauseous. Sara seemed nonplussed. I guess being an investment banker put your body in stressful situations on a regular basis.

Charlie emerged from a large shed looking very sleepy.

"All done?" Sara asked.

"Yup. I'm beat." Charlie passed us by, climbed up the stairs and hauled himself up onto one of the cots.

"Wait," I said, "We need you to drive this thing."

I received a notification:

You have received plus five truck driving from Charlie.

"Oh, thanks Charlie," I replied, but I could hear him snoring already.

"Let's go Mr. Roboto." Sara said as she closed the cab door and walked to the passenger side door of the truck.

I climbed up into the driver side and looked around. My brain spun. I recognized nothing and yet also understood and felt confident in what I needed to do. I started up the truck, put her in gear, and we were off.

About one hour later we arrived at our next destination. We entered the parking lot of the strip mall and parked the truck across seven spaces at the back of the lot.

Sara and I jumped down from the truck and made our way to the front door of "The Krav Maga Zone."

I opened the door and a little bell tinkled, announcing our presence. A man walked out from a room in the back. He looked gaunt but not weak. I felt his steely eyes put me in a metaphorical choke hold as he approached. He wore green khaki pants and a tight black t-shirt.

"No lessons today," he said with passing English in what I assumed was an Israeli accent.

Sara took over. "We are responding to your ad."

He looked confused for a moment, and then must have remembered the ad he placed.

"Ah. You have my truck?"

He didn't waste time.

Sara didn't lose control. "I have A truck. How our conversation goes will determine if we invite you to use it."

He stared. She stared. I opened a chat with Sara. "What are you doing Sara?"

She replied. "Shut up. I'm negotiating."

I don't think a staring game constitutes negotiation, but I shut up.

"Show me." This guy acted so rudely. I wanted to punch him. I wouldn't because I was quite certain he could take me apart.

We walked out to the parking lot and he acted like he owned the truck already. He opened the driver side door, looked inside, then proceeded to the back. He opened the back door and walked inside. A moment later he hopped back down.

He looked at Sara again, "What do you want?"

Sara had all the answers. "WE want you to join us."

He shook his head. "I am good."

"You were good up until this morning. None of us are good now. People are already starting to attack each other."

He smiled. "I can defend myself."

"Against a few, yes, for now." Sara walked over and pointed at my arm. "You see this? This is just the beginning."

He stared at the arm. Then he looked back at Sara. "What is your plan?"

"We are recruiting a crew of the best. We are going make this truck our base. And then we are going to make sure that no one can fuck with us."

Eyal smiled but remained quiet for a long time. I thought we'd lost him when he finally spoke, "Ok. I'm interested. What is the guy sleeping in the truck good for?"

Sara answered, "He built the truck."

Eyal nodded, satisfied. "And this guy?" He pointed to me.

"I'm standing right here. You can ask me."

Eyal did not, he kept his eyes on Sara. "He finds things. He found the truck and he found you."

Eyal nodded. "Ok. There are two of us. You must take us both."

Sara shook her head. "We have limited space."

The steel went back into his eyes. "You don't take her, you don't take me."

I texted Sara. "Let's network with them both and see what they have to offer."

"Where is she?" Sara asked.

Eyal began walking back to his studio. We both followed.

He walked us to the back room where we first saw him come out.

The studio had been very sparse. Your typical dojo for training. Cushions on the ground and a few chairs along the wall. The room we entered looked like it belonged to a teenager. Posters on the wall, a four poster bed, and a mess of a floor.

I looked over and saw a teenage girl sitting on a futon watching the news. My eyes caught on the broadcast. It looked like a riot taking place in front of the Capitol. I pulled myself away to look at the girl more closely.

She had messy brown hair just below her shoulders, she wore no makeup, and she looked at me with the same steely eyes as Eyal. I had a feeling this was...

"This is my daughter Noa," Eyal said.

"Nice to meet you Noa. Eyal and Noa, we need to network with you so that we can see what you both have to offer. You are welcome to see our own skills when we do."

I sent the request. Noa looked over at her father. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. She and he accepted my request.

Eyal Peretz

Age 43

Skills:

Krav Maga: 58

Small Arms Handling: 43

Military Vehicle Operation: 24

Fitness: 19

Texas Hold'em: 16

45,721 other skills...

Noa Peretz

Age 16

Skills:

Magic: 26

Krav Maga: 23

Chemistry: 16

Rubik's Cube: 11

39,204 other skills...

That surprised me, "Magic? Like real magic?" I asked.

"There is no such thing as real magic," Noa responded. "Do you not know what magic is?"

Yup, she was definitely her father's daughter. She made me feel just as stupid.

Sara messaged me privately. "So? What are our options?"

I decided to look for anyone else with fighting skills on the job board. Four came back in my query, but they were all back in New Jersey and we needed to go into Manhattan next.

I replied to Sara, "We will lose a lot of time and there is no guarantee that the others will be better. I think we take them for now."

I could almost hear the sarcasm in Sara's next text. "For now? Ok, but you get to tell them they are uninvited."

"We'd be delighted to have you both join us. We have more people we need to recruit, so I suggest you take as much as you can into inventory and get on board."

As she said that the bell from the front door rang. We all walked into the dojo to see Charlie walk/running to the bathroom.

"Sorry, gotta go," he pulled the door to the bathroom open and then paused, "Nice to meet you!" And disappeared into the loo.