Zero was not pleased he was heading to the scrap yard; he had gotten a call from Ryan asking for someone to come pick up a group of thugs who had tried to rob him. He had sounded completely calm and had been too light on details for Zeros liking.

As his driver smoothly navigated the streets Zeros hand dropped to the plasma pistol under arm holster, it had been upgraded significantly by Ryan. The young man and his sister intrigued Zero, they had shown up two years ago quietly taking over the decent sized scrap yard and accompanying workshop by paying off the previous proprietor's debts.

The old owner had been a low life running up large debts on his many addictions doing little actual work. Zero assumed the disgusting man had slunk off to die in a gutter somewhere, to celebrate his freedom from debt.

Zero had approached the two himself, slightly surprised the young siblings could afford the substantial debt, though he had to admit they got a good deal. He had approached the dilapidated property to find a relatively tall young man well built with handsome features, dark hair and electric blue eyes working with two beaten and rusty service bots to remove junk from the workshop.

As Zero and a few of his guys had approached he had noted that the usual scrap from the front lot had already been tidied, not bad going for less than a week's work. The following conversation had been surprisingly easy, Ryan had shown no fear and calmly negotiated offering his mechanical and technological services instead of credits until he could get the workshop in working order and got the scrapyard systems working. Zero had found himself liking the kid and decided to give the young man a chance.

As they were finishing the sister Kate had come out of an old but obviously well looked after truck that was parked alongside the workshop. She had breezed right past them to stand beside Ryan and Zero could tell immediately that they were siblings. She had the same black hair and incredibly blue eyes, he had guessed their age to be around 18. Ryan simply handed her a data pad and asked her to keep an eye on the bots so she shrugged and moved a few meters away tapping at the tablet and clearly listening to the rest of the conversation.

They finished up with the kind of things Ryan claimed he could work on, which surprisingly included a range of weapon types. So Zero had left one of his crew's laser rifles with the promise to return two days later and see if his work was worth anything.

They had returned to find the workshop already empty and a laser rifle that looked nearly new, from there the next three months had shown Ryan to be hardworking and capable providing solid repairs and upgrades to anything Zero brought to him whilst also getting the scrapyard presentable.

The memories faded as they pulled up to the much improved yard all the fences, paving, security systems, buildings and machinery were repaired or replaced. Zero could hear the automated systems working to disassemble and melt down useful materials to be sold whilst keeping anything valuable or interesting.

As he climbed out of his car he was greeted with the sight of four newbies to the gang sitting against a couple of crates in clear view of a security pulse weapon above the door to the workshop. Three nameless thugs who seemed to be zip tied hand and foot then a new category 2 brawler he was pretty sure had unimaginatively named himself crusher. The super was restrained using what looked to be metal cabling whilst the mechanical arm was limp by his side. All four were gagged and were alternating glares into the workshop and fearful glances to zero

Zero waved his bodyguard towards the thugs while stepping into the workshop now clean and organised. Ryan stood from where he had been sitting at a workbench and came to shake hands.

“Zero, I didn’t expect you to come personally, it wasn’t anything serious”

“Well I was curious and I can’t have my favourite engineer getting into trouble. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Ryan gestured to a chair whilst heading to a small fridge in the corner and offering a beer. It was coming up to evening so zero accepted and relaxed into the chair sipping beer as Ryan sat also and launched into the story.

It was a short story, thugs threatened him, he refused, then they got aggressive, firing the security system then trying to run when he realised one was powered, not having time to activate stronger security systems so having a maintenance bot knock crusher unconscious.

The story fit the thugs were stupid enough to try it and a Brawler was difficult to put down for a normal human but a maintenance bot was could definitely get the job done on a category 2.

When the thugs had regained consciousness they had sent reports claiming to have been attacked by a super on a routine patrol which was obviously fiction Ryan had no motive, he also wasn’t awakened Zero had checked there was reliable tech that could scan people to see if they were powered and he had used it on Ryan in the first couple of weeks because he suspected he was a techno.

Zero sat contemplating what to do about Crusher, the thugs would be kicked from the gang they could be replaced easily but the brawler was an issue. Any super was important to the gang and this one was recruited by Mechrons son Caesar.

Zero disliked Caesar, a spoiled bully who surrounded himself with sycophants and thought himself his fathers general. Zero had already shut down plenty of the idiots' stupidest schemes and knew the boy wanted him gone for it.

That was when a commotion started outside.