away while the Cloud Relegus satellites powered up. They were satellites which induced daylight, more like inverters which stored energy from the sun and emitted it in form of light once Phase II's brightness dropped below a certain point. This part of the world couldn't to ever fall dark, or even depend on the weaning moon after sunset due to the high concentration of Sentry companies like Tri Tech which stored data on every living human, making it the second busiest place area, the first being Cloud 6,the largest residential skyline.

Protocol demanded that Porters reported to section 16 to get information on their crew mates. This part of was nicked 'rough edge' since it was the domain for the tough looking security officials, Guardians as they were often referred to. The transit pod opened up to a wide hall way, activities on the floor weren't as busy as the training grounds or medical wing except for the messenger drones and bots which whizzed past often as he made his way to one of the machines in the intel arcade.

"How's it going bud?" The machine started after Bishop had inputted his access codes.

"What?" Bishop cocked an eyebrow in wonder.

"Oh, I know you're surprised. Some moron's messed with my setup, I'm still a hundred though," the machine replied, making Bishop scoff in amusement of how much like a Guardian the machine now sounded unlike its former casual responses.

"So what're you called now, Robo Cop?" Bishop said in sarcasm.

"Name's still the same; ITX-51A, baby."

Bishop shook his head. It was pretty obvious that Section 16 had revamped their systems and had hired a geek-moron-for the job.

"I need updates on the crew for PORT69-27-BR001."

"Man! This is the real shit and you got a badass squad heading out with you," ITX answered, displaying headshots and short profiles of 4 Guardians on its screen.

"What do you mean 'the real shit'?"

"Synthesis. That's a super classified job you got yourself on," ITX replied, making Bishop wonder if it was a human operator he was conversing with or just an artificially intelligent system on an overdose of information.

A roar erupted from down the floor which caught his attention. His head swung in the direction it had come from, he needn't be told what had caused it and as though compelled, Bishop strolled towards the other end of the hallway.

The Drill was a usual event for Guardians. For the viewing audience, it was simply a form of entertainment watching Guardians fitted in super cool beta gears run around the virtual field while trying to overcome potentially dangerous scenarios. To the Guardians and Tech Specialists, The Drill served as a way to test run new gears developed by emerging Tech Specialists to grade their usability, a source of revenue to the economy of Capital city.

The Drill placed participants in virtually similar cases any Porter-Guardian crew was likely to encounter while on an assignment. This created a real time response with the participants beta tested gears.

Bishop pressed his palms against the cold transparent glass of the platform where he stood watching the arena which was large enough to occupy a crowd of 9 thousand. His eyes bounced from one Guardian to another on the field as they played their game of 'bring-the-Porter-home-alive.'

It was already the final round and the last team was halfway through their progress. Bishop watched with high interest as the 4 man team progressed along the arena which was larger than 12 million square feet. How was it possible to fit in a space that large in a hall so small? Technology at its finest. Although the original size spanned just over 2 million square feet, the training sequences span a virtual distance of 12 million square feet, landscape and environment of the arena changed every few million square feet into a new sector which came with a new set of challenge for the Guardians to react and adapt to. Every advancement into a new sector meant the players had to adjust their gears to the new conditions the arena presented.

Bishop stumbled away from the glass wall when surreal molten splashed on the glass, heating it up immediately. His breath kicked up a notch and his heart thumped faster, shocked at how sudden that had happened.

"Sequence change, welcome to sector P91," a computerized female voice announced.

A muffled giggle from behind him made Bishop look over his shoulder. His breath paused for a second upon seeing Dorie. Although her eyes were fixed on the games behind him, Bishop could tell she'd seen him flinch.

"How long have you been watching me?" Bishop said, almost stuttering.

Dorie scoffed. "I heard the cheers and came over to see what was happening," she answered with a giggle hiding in her throat.

"Oh," he said, nodding, trying not to sound awkward.

"What?" She raised an eyebrow at Bishop, only then did he realize he'd been staring for a moment.

"What?" He trailed off. "Oh, um-so uh, briefed up on your team?" He swallowed.

"Yep," Dorie nodded, she folded her arms. Her eyes were still fixed on the games beyond Bishop. "Got Zigma X."

"Not bad."

"Uh-hun," she gestured at the score screen with her eyes. Bishop turned to see ZIgma X trailing at 4th position of the 7 teams that'd participated in the event, only leading the 5th group by a slight mark. Bishop shrugged, short of words. "How about you?"

"Lumber Jacks," Bishop cleared his throat.

Systems: Check. Upgrade: Running Synchronization: Good. Compatibility: Good.

"-but the drilling system has its own flaws too. The gears take a 4 second window transition time which only happens after a new section is reached. A 4 second window is dangerous if this it were to happen, and then there's the issue of body type synchronization, entrée model and of course optimization with linking team members for team work."

"Wow," Dorie turned to face Bishop, her mind tried to arrange and comprehend all what he'd just blurted out. Wow! "Where did you get all that information from? Definitely 'not in the file' this time."

Bishop blinked, his pulse once again had gone up a notch and his vision swam back into focus. "I-I don't know, must've read of it sometime. These are well-well, well known stuff."

"Well know, hmm?" A smirk crossed her lips.

Where did that come from, really? Even he couldn't find a logical explanation to it. Of a sudden, his brain now assimilated questions and spurted out replies on its own, even on abstract things which he knew nothing about.

"Explains how you got Bathfog," Dorie teased him with a smile. "Have a safe trip Einstein." She patted his chest before leaving him there on the platform.

Bishop scoffed, Einstein. Why did she have to relate him with someone who'd died almost 4 centuries ago, there were cool modern day prodigies she could've used. Bishop turned back to the games just in time to see one of the Guardians duck a laser bullet and with a swift move, blow up one of the humanoids with hi force field enabled gloves causing the audience to roar.

The door unlocked and Bishop was welcomed by the soft ping of his apartment come to live. He walked over to the large glass window, swiping his hand over an interface which caused the graphics blinds to disperse, revealing the magnificent view of the city from his 9th line apartment of Tri tech's residential quarters. The sky was filled with small Phaser Stealth ships, medium sized Maerio Explorers and a few large Storm Raptor spaceships used in carrying cargos, the former two being passenger ships. Considering the number of elites occupying this side of the world, it was only natural that the exquisite out-of-the-world Star Weasel ships were seen often whizzing by. They were used by people whose worth was 500% more than Bishop's.

"Your systems record instability," the digital voice said, disrupting Bishop's chain of thought about what to expect for his next trip.

"Of course I'm not stable, not when my next job looks like a death ride since Alexaki said to hug a loved one."

"Well, there's Dorie Peg."

What!!! "I-I'm not into her," Bishop found himself in a conversation about his love life with a machine.

"Your body chemistry says otherwise."

"Oh shut up already," Bishop muttered, trying to avoid the AI reading further into him, No one could be sure where all the data they got were sent off to.

Bishop slipped out of hisoutfit into something more refreshing and then got set for bed after he'd set instructionto the digital home manager to wake him in next 4 hours.