I had to carry the cooked food in a hermetically sealed container, because the smell somehow carried very far inside Zion's mostly enclosed living spaces. When I had opened the hatch to our apartment to take some of the food I made to Dozer and his family, the smell spread like a noxious gas down the hallway.

By the time I reached the first corner in the hallway to head to the elevator, a bunch of hatches had already been opened in the next section and several people darted out into the hallway with their noses sniffing around. I had to duck back around the corner and rushed back to the apartment, ducked inside, and shut the hatch quietly to hide that it was me that caused the delicious smells.

Mouse was giggling with a hand over his mouth and pointed at me, the portable display on his lap showing some coding. I shook a fist at him and he just laughed more. To be fair, he did warn me that the smell was so good that he stumbled across the living room to get to it. So, I stuffed the food into a sealed container and waited for a while before trying again.

Funnily enough, Mouse decided not to dive right into the jack-in station, even if we could have done it together. He wanted to check things over first to see what he had to work with, which was why he was coding.

There was almost no real way to shunt his VI from the ship's computers into a personal setup, not without losing some of the essential data, since her code referenced things inside said ship's database. She had to be reworked a little to either add those references into her code, making her much bigger in relation, or change all the references to the personal computer setup, put them in place first, and then port her over.

I reached Dozer's place and knocked on the hatch and waited for it to open. Thanks to my screw-up earlier, I had unintentionally delayed the delivery until it was close to lunchtime when I made the journey up to Deck 4. It just so happened to work out that I could give him something good to eat as he shared a meal with his family.

The hatch wheel spun and the Door opened to reveal Cas, the tall black woman he was married to. She wore a think slip underneath a beige knitted dress that was pretty much see-through. She also looked freshly washed and her hair was still slightly damp.

Of course, I looked at her, since I felt like she would be insulted if I didn't. When Cas saw I was wearing the sweater she had knitted for Dozer, that he had gifted to me, she smiled widely.

“You've been in Zion for four days now, Neo.” Cas said and stepped back to let me in. “You can't tell me that is the only sweater you have to wear.”

I smirked at her. “It's the only one I want to wear.”

Cas let out a laugh and shut the hatch. “Dozer warned me you were a flirt.”

“He was lucky enough to snag you as a wife. I have to tease him about it or I wouldn't be a good friend.” I joked and Cas led me into their living area.

“And making Switch try to convince Apoc to give you a go, counts too?” Dozer asked as he tickled the little boy and girl on his lap, whom laughed loudly and unrestrained.

“She what?” I asked, surprised.

Dozer laughed and pushed his kids off his lap onto the couch, where they started play fighting and wrestling. “You impressed her and made her laugh. If she wasn't with Apoc, she'd be all over you.”

I resolved to use a bit more telepathy when around her after hearing that. “I did not know she was that into me that she'd try and make Apoc do anything like that.”

“I can see you're against it.” Cas said and looked a little disappointed.

Apparently, Switch was not the only one I needed to me more careful around.

“Honestly, I never want to get between people that genuinely love each other. Being an add-on, or a secondary lover, isn't fair to the woman or to the man she is with.” I said and Dozer looked relieved. “I won't deny that I'm a little jealous of what Dozer has with you and a happy family; but, I won't deny him that just so I can have what he already does. How fair would that be for you and the kids?”

Both Dozer and Cas smiled warmly at me and nodded in understanding.

I held up the container and brought their attention to it. “I've been experimenting with a few things in the kitchen and came up with these.”

Cas took it and put it onto Dozer's lap and opened it. The smells instantly filled the entire apartment and the two kids immediately stopped carrying on and took in long slow sniffs. Dozer drooled a little and Cas bent over and stared inside the container, which just so happened to give me a great view of her ass.

“Ohhh.” Cas whispered a moan and rubbed her thighs together. “Oh, my.”

I had to fight off a hard-on after hearing her husky voice like that with her ass sticking out. “Mouse already approved of what's inside as edible, so you don't have to worry about that.” I said to distract myself, except my words were not heard as all four of them dug their hands inside the container and pulled out pieces of toasted bread and a handful of bacon each.

It was surprisingly quiet as Cas and the two kids sat down right there on the floor around Dozer and enjoyed my creations. I tried talking again to tell them it was faux bacon and leavened bread, only they didn't hear me at all and kept munching quietly and making pleased sounds, even the kids.

I took that as a cue to leave and backed away, then left the apartment. I was sure I'd hear about it later, assuming Dozer bothered to track me down before we had to leave on the ship. After a reaction like that, and after hearing what Switch was trying to convince Apoc to do with me, I decided to not deliver a similar container of food to them.

Who else could I give it to, though? Trinity was out, as was Cypher. Maybe Tank or Morpheus? My thoughts stuttered that it might be considered a courting gift and I decided I'd keep the container in inventory. I could make as many as I wanted anyway, as long as I ignored the implications giving them out would cause.

That made my decision for me and I took out a copy of the container and rode the cargo elevator up to the main deck. I made my way to Councillor Dillard's office and knocked. She told me to enter and I didn't say anything as I put the container on her desk with a note saying it wasn't a proposal, bowed deeply, then left and shut the hatch.

I quickly walked away and was halfway back to the hangar when I heard her shout my name. I laughed and ran instead of answering her. I reached the main hangar and saw several of the large open-style mech things lumbering around in formation, apparently doing drills. The awkward ape-like thing looked like it would fall over if you breathed on it, which made me laugh again.

I walked over to the defense forces station at the side of the hangar bay and asked who I could talk to about the mechs and their design. I was redirected to the command center of Zion and I had to agree to a guard escort to be allowed in, even with a councillor's recommendation. There were sensitive things inside and I also agreed that I wouldn't discuss anything I saw with anyone.

We passed through the large main area and passed by where an operator and an array of barber chairs with people was near them. These were the ones controlling most of the functions of the city in virtual programs and kept everything running smoothly, for the most part.

A hatch was knocked on and opened, allowing us to enter a small office with a short man wearing a beige-green long sleeve sweater and close cropped black hair. He had a stern face and looked like a man you did not want to piss off. He also looked freshly washed and that gave me a perfect opportunity to start the meeting off on a great footing.

“Good afternoon, Commander Lock. I see the showers I designed are starting to make the rounds.” I said and stood at attention and saluted.

The man gave me a calculating look, as if judging me, then he stood and returned the salute. “At ease, even if you haven't signed up for the forces yet.”

The guard gave me a pointed look before he looked back at his commanding officer.

“You can return to your post, Corporal. Neo's contributions have given him some leeway without him having any official status.”

“Yessir.” The guard said and saluted, then marched out and shut the hatch.

“Now.” Commander Lock said and sat as he gave me a similar pointed look. “What brings you to me today?”

I had to think about how I wanted to word things without insulting him or his forces, then decided to just go with my initial impression. “Your ape-like mechs are unstable and unwieldy. I just saw a squad of them trying to do drills in formation and I had a hard time not laughing my ass off at how awkward it looked.”

Several emotions played across the man's face, a few of them hostile and angry, before he closed his eyes and softly sighed. He took a moment to calm himself and opened his eyes to look at me.

“You are not the first to point that out, and you won't be the last.” Lock said and almost sounded defeated.

“Would you like me to be?” I asked.

Lock looked surprised for a second before his eyes narrowed. “You better explain before I assume you just threatened me.”

I barely stopped my laugh at him jumping to a completely wrong conclusion. I didn't intend for him to think I'd kill him, just so he wouldn't have to hear anything about the mechs anymore.

“I have the knowledge to fix them without harming their current functionality.” I responded.

Lock lost the angry look and sat back in his chair. “How?”

“The first thing that needs to be done is to cut down on their weight. They are too heavy for the job they are supposed to fulfill.” I said and he motioned for me to continue. “Change the legs from the stumps they are to streamline the metal shape, adjust the hydraulics for better coverage, and it will increase their movement ability by a factor of ten.”

“They can't carry their weapons if their legs are smaller.” Lock countered right away.

“You're right, they can't.” I said and he frowned. “So, move the weapons from the ends of their long awkward arms to mount them on the mech's shoulders instead. The torso is a much more stable platform to fire such heavy weapons from anyway.”

“How would they aim...” Lock tried to say.

“Swivel mounts on either gears or bearings. You're using motors and cables to move the arms to aim, so put them into the torso instead and it reduces the aim time significantly.” I said. “If that can't be done, then torso twisting can handle the side to side and all you need to worry about is elevation.”

Lock sat there and stared at me for a moment. “You want to remove the arms?”

I chuckled. “No, sir. Improved arms with more functionality, versatility, and actual hands for carrying things... like another rifle, a grenade launcher, or for grabbing onto a squiddy and tearing it apart, limb from limb.”

Lock's eyes widened slightly as he imagined the possibilities. “It would take our engineers a long time before we could do anything like reworking the mechs like that. The tech upgrades alone...”

“You already have the parts needed, including the means to move the new arms and legs. They are just in the wrong places.” I said and made a hand gabbing motion with both hands and pretended to drive one of the mechs.

“Son of a bitch.” Lock whispered as he got it. “The controls in the hand grips already run both the legs and arms for movement, since the programming does it automatically. If we split the leg programs to be run with pedals where the pilots put their feet, that leaves more than half of the control runs free to use the arms and operate the torso mounted weapons with just the hand grips!”

“Exactly.” I said. “With how big and over-engineered the damn things are, thanks mostly to those much larger legs needed to balance them, you could get the metal for two smaller mechs out of one original.”

“The hydraulics?” Lock asked.

“Same system, just adjusted for a smaller frame. That goes for the guns and loading mechanisms, too. Since the guns will be attached to the torso, there's no need for those long external ammo belts. It can easily be handled internally.”

Lock nodded and reached for his comm console. He typed in a number and a woman's face appeared. “Niobe, something important has come up. I'm going to be busy with work for the rest of the day.” Lock said and the black woman's face frowned.

“He should still make it home for supper.” I added.

“Who's that?” Niobe asked.

“I'm the something that's come up.” I joked and both she and Lock looked surprised. “I have a redesign for the mechs to make them better, faster, more efficient, and more effective.”

Niobe kept the frown for only a moment and then huffed. “I get it. You appealed to his sense of duty.”

“Only a little.” I said and she let out a soft chuckle. “You should come to wherever we're going to access the current mech's design schematics when its time for him to meet with you.”

Niobe gave me a nod. “I'll do that.” She said and looked at Lock. “See you then.”

Lock turned the comm screen off and gave me a look that was a mix of gratefulness and exasperation. “Do you realize you've just given her an excuse to interrupt me at work whenever she wants?”

“Yep.” I said and grinned at him. “You must suffer from the attention of a smart and talented woman. Poor you.”

Lock looked surprised and then huffed in a similar way to Niobe. “Smart-ass.”

“Yessir.” I said and saluted.

Lock shook his head and made another call. I stayed quiet for this one, since he was talking to the councillor assigned to war resources and there were a lot of questions and answers before the man agreed to let us go to his section to talk to him and his people about fixing the mechs. He even agreed to arrange for several broken mechs with enough spare parts for me to create a mock-up of what I proposed.

The thing was, I was sure this was going to be fun for everyone involved, Lock included. Once he saw how much the mech was going to change, including encasing the pilot behind actual armor, he would be fully onboard with eventually deactivating and reworking all of the existing mechs into a much larger fighting force to have under his command.

Since the mechs didn't have to all be decommissioned right away, there would be a constant flow of existing resources and parts that could be converted into new units without having to add anything new, except for the controls, programs, and extra guns to the second mech, which could be solved by decommissioning two old mechs at the same time and we could worry about outfitting the remainder later.

With a plan like that in place, and so much extra metal and things from the original mechs themselves, there shouldn't be a bottleneck when producing the new mechs.

*

Switch was in the shower again and washed herself using a similar soap to what she gifted to Neo. She just could not resist enjoying herself by cleaning places she hadn't cleaned in a very long time. The water might only be room temperature; but, that was tons better than the sponge baths with ice cold water from the city's pipes.

Apoc wasn't as interested in enjoying it as she was, though. He did wash every day, at her request, and they had a lot of fun exploring each other afterwards. She loved him dearly and they had been together for years. He was the point man and she was the rear guard, their roles defining and refining their skills to the point that they were the best ranked pair from any of the ships.

That was also a problem for her, since Switch had gained a slight obsession with their newest crew member. Apoc did not share her thoughts on Neo, at all, and he wasn't receptive to having the tall muscular man join them for any activities, let alone going all the way like she wanted. It was disappointing, to be sure.

Switch did not have it in her to get rid of Apoc, someone she had grown up with and been with for years, just to have a possibly great time in bed with another man. She was not that shallow, even if the man's natural hair color drove her wild and his taste in music matched hers, too.

She just had to accept that Neo could only be a fantasy that she could use to make her own sex life better, and she did. Apoc appreciated that part, at least. Switch left the shower, dripping wet in more ways than the shower caused, and left the bathroom. Apoc saw her and he let out a little laugh at the state she was in, then they both went into the bedroom for another fun romp in bed.

*

Morpheus sat in his large captain's cabin and wondered how he was going to convince Neo to crew on his ship without actually talking to him about it. He had tried to make an appointment to meet with him for the last five days, ever since they arrived in Zion, and Neo was never in his assigned living space.

It was only just today that he tried to contact Councillor Dillard, to see if she had heard from Neo herself, only to suffer through several minutes of her ranting about Neo's shamelessly poking fun at her over how old she was. He eventually learned that Neo had given her a large gift of great tasting food, which was shocking, since that was usually saved for special occasions and took months to prepare for.

Where did Neo get the food from? He had only just started living in Zion and shouldn't have had any kind of connections yet. Morpheus wasn't sure how to proceed, since leaving a message several times didn't seem to work to get the young man's attention. Perhaps going to find Neo himself would have to suffice. He just had no clue where to start looking.

Morpheus thought about contacting his crew members to see if any of them saw Neo lately, then shrugged. Neo wouldn't know where they lived, since he hadn't asked anyone except Dozer where he stayed, just so he could go meet Cas and thank her for the nice thick sweater.

With that thought in mind, Morpheus tried to call Dozer and there was no answer. He sighed and left his apartment to wander around, with no real destination in mind. With luck, he might meet someone that knew something about where Neo was.