Mira held up a black turtleneck sweater. “How about this one?”

”Really, Mira? That one’s litterally marked with the Crusade’s symbol.” I pointed out the small badge on the chest of the sweater. I don’t even know when I bought that one. Not like I wear sweaters.

“Fine, fine…” She looked through my closet and sighed. “I don’t know what you want? Maybe a femme fatale type deal?”

I motioned at myself and checked my Transporter. Just a bit longer till the portal was ready. “Do you really think I could pull something like that off?”

She frowned and crossed her arms. “We could get you heels.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” I could move in them just as easily as normal walking thanks to the training from Fox’s Paw. It’d been over a year since I got that Perk, but its training was deeply ingrained into my very bones. Still, heals weren’t the most practical piece of clothing. ”Not for this one though.”

”What about this?” She pulled out a suit jacket and pants. “Slay girl boss?” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

”Can we be serious?” The portal finished, and I stepped into my bunker. Mira followed me a moment later.

I rooted around the piles of junk I’d been collecting ever since I got the Transporter. After a bit of digging, I found what I was looking for and pulled out a skin tight body suit. It was the same model of stealth bodysuit as the one I snatched from the Neo-Jokers oh so long ago. “What about this?”

I cringed slightly as a memory flowed through me. I’d totally butchered the original suit for that blackout armor I made back then, didn’t I? I took a breath through my nose and tried to shove away the memory. Back then I was young and dumb to think that’d work. Today? Still dumb, but not so young.

“Femme fatale!” Mira clapped her hands and snatched the dark fabric from my hands. She stretched the fiber across her hand. “You could totally rock this. Your poncho on top, I assume?”

”Probably.” I never went anywhere without it, at least. I should really look at upgrading it. I used it more than most of my other gear combined since it was everyday wear for me. “It’s kind a stupid, though, isn’t it? I mean, if I do my job right, no one will even see me.”

”Yeah, but outfits are half the fun.” Mira motioned at herself. “Why do you think I’m so excited about that power armor? You are still making it, right?”

”It’s almost done.” And by almost, I meant it was done. I finished it a while back, and was just waiting for her birthday. Not like we were going to need it between then and now.

I grabbed the hem of my shirt. “Turn around.”

“Like I’d want to get an eyeful.” She huffed and flicked around. “So you’re going with the body suit after all?”

”Maybe.” I quickly changed clothes, and tugged on the bodysuit. How did people operate in these things? I pulled uncomfortably at the fabric. It was padded so it wouldn’t rub, but still. I tugged on my holographic mask, and activated the holograms to project an Oni mask over the top half of my face. “How do I look?”

Mira glanced over her shoulder. “Like a kid playing in her sister’s closet.”

”Chek?” Figures it didn’t look good on me. I rubbed my hands together and looked around my place. How come I had everything in here except a mirror?

“I’m just messing with you. It’s looks good.” She grinned at me me. “We should get you fishnets and a leotard. You could totally go all in on a netrunner look.”

I pulled at the fabric over my stomach. I honestly didn’t need the bodysuit. The noise and heat blocking fibers were nice enough, but I had Fox’s Paw and Cold-blooded to take care of those. Like Mira said, this kind of thing would be great for a runner since their chrome generated so much heat.

Should I just give it to Luna? She was always in casual clothes, and didn’t seem to like using her chrome very much. I mean, she used her external deck way more than her internal one. Granted, she didn’t have a setup to capitalize on her netrunning capabilities at the moment.

”There’s nowhere to hide stuff on this thing.” I shrugged on my poncho. Normal clothes just couldn’t be beat.

“Oh! Toss this on, then.” She threw a hip holster covered in pouches at me. A revolver lazily dangled from the holster. “Now you’re a net cowgirl.”

”… let’s not call me that.” I’d been on the net enough to get flash banged by net cowgirls.

I followed her orders and buckled the thing on. It was a bit loose, and hung low on the side of my hips. That was the style though, wasn’t it? Maybe Mira’s femme fatale idea wasn’t totally outlandish if I added some stuffing to the bodysuit.

Jokes aside, should I make a toolbelt? I looked through the pouches. My bag was starting to get heavy, and I could totally move my common gear and drones into a toolbelt. They’d be a lot more convenient to access than slinging my bag off my shoulder every time. I’d have to get used to it, but it could totally solve the issue I’d been having.

”H-hello?” A voice called through the portal. A moment later, Luna poked her head in through the tear in space. ”Woah…”

”…” I stared back at the stunned netrunner. A pang of annoyance flowed through me. The meeting wasn’t for a couple hours, so why was she here so early? I had no doubt she knew I had something like this, but this should be her first time actually seeing my bunker. “Pretend you didn’t see this.”

”A bit late for that, don’t you think?” Luna leaned further through the tear in space, though paused just shy of fully coming into the Aether. “Permission to come in?”

”Granted, cadet.” Mira playfully saluted her, and motioned to me. “We were just picking out Cadet Tsukuyomi’s outfit.”

Luna sighed and entered the bunker. She looked a little uncomfortable passing through the portal. ”O-only you two take a job so unseriously that you’d be playing dress up a couple hours before the heist.”

“Hey! I take heists very seriously.” They were probably the thing I took the most seriously outside of staying alive.

Mira crossed her arms and harrumphed coldly. “Yeah, we’re so serious. You’re just jealous of Cadet Tsukuyomi’s outfit, aren’t you?”

”Of her Netrunner cosplay?” She arched a snow white eyebrow at me. “Hardly. Of this place though? Maybe a bit.”

“Yeah, well…” I looked down at myself and shook my head. Whatever. “Best we don’t stay here too long. Wouldn’t want you getting Aether sickness.”

”Are we in the Aether?” Her eyes widened, and she looked around the place with a much more interested look. “How’d you manage that?”

”A lot of effort.” I pulled on a pair of tech pants to cover the bottom half of the body suit. “You guy’s ready?”

Mira shrugged. “My parts easy… are you ready? Been a while since you did this kind of thing, right?”

“Chek.” I’d been busy with other things. My one true passion had taken a back burner while I handled everything else. That’d change tonight, though. “You finished the subroutine core, Luna?”

”Yeah…” Luna stuck a hand in her pocket and pulled out a small glowing sphere. “We should do a couple more tests, but she’s ready. What should we name her? I-I was thinking Silver-One.”

“How about Foxinator?” I rubbed my arms together and shrugged. Her name wasn’t bad, but a little basic. “Or Foxinstein? Foxy?”

“Or Vix?” Mira piped up. “You’re talking about that fox thingie in your workshop, right?”

”Vix isn’t bad.” I dunno—I felt like Foxinstein had a nice ring to it. Or maybe Vixenstein? Woah, that was so much better.

“U-um… what about Vox?” Luna passed me the subroutine core. “You know, because it’ll be my link to you?”

”Not bad, not bad…” The main idea with the thing, outside of giving Luna something to mess with so she wouldn’t think about AI, was that it’d act like a conduit for the netrunner to use. It’d have a much more stable connection than going through my chrome or phone like she’d been doing since the fox had dedicated relays built in. Not to mention she’d be able to help a lot more with proper gear.

“Vox?” Mira twisted her head. “It has a nice ring to it.”

I stepped back through the portal, and closed it once everyone was back in my speakeasy. We headed down to the workshop where Vox awaited us. I messed around with the fox robot and lightly brushed the silver faux-fur with my hand. A pulse of Technical Expertise ran through it just to ensure everything was ready.

Aside from the tail, she was ready to go. Her tail lay in pieces just next to Vox’s body. “Hey, I was thinking about implanting one of your pyramid things into her tail. I can’t for the life of me figure out how it works though.”

Luna froze for a moment. Her eyes darted around, and then resettled on me. “T-that’s fine. W-we don’t need it.”

”You sure? It seemed like it’d be awfully convenient just having it built into the fox so I don’t have to lug them around.” I motioned to a different table where I’d taken one of the pyramids apart. “Might as well make it portable on Vox.”

“Good idea.” Mira snorted. “Now you won’t have to carry a power drill in that magical bag of yours.”

”Hey, never know when I might need it.” I shrugged and walked over to the disassembled pyramid. It was mostly just a cryo unit. I pulled up a vial of black liquid that the entire thing seemed to run off of. I’d already made the parts, ‘course, I just couldn’t figure out what the liquid was. “What’s this liquid, anyway?”

I hadn’t run too many tests on the stuff yet. I figured I should ask first. Besides, if it was some kind of super nano-virus or something, I didn’t want it to infect my tech. A nano-virus wasn’t even that far outside of the box considering what she’d used it for.

She gulped dryly and stared at the vial of liquid like it was some kind of monster. There was a sense of wariness in her eyes, but it was overwhelmed by her Cues that radiated discomfort and fear. “I-it’s a secret. D-do we really have to do this now?”

“Not if you don’t want to.” I put the vial down and hopped up onto the table to eye the netrunner. “You know almost all of my secrets though.”

Her shoulder tensed, and I instantly felt a pang of regret flow through me. I wasn’t even sure why I said that… I wasn’t actively trying to guilt-trip her or anything. Maybe since I felt a little uncomfortable with her knowing all about me, but I knew next to nothing actually concrete about her?

”Y-yeah…” She dropped her head and stared at the ground. Just when I thought she’d be done talking, she spoke up in a quiet voice. “Y-you know how I said Kaynis and I came from a lab?”

“Chek.”

Mira shifted from foot to foot. “Um… Imma just head over there—“

“I-it’s fine.” Luna shook her head. “The lab… I was picked up because I was a Kinetic. I have, uh, t-technokinesis."

“Oh…” That explained how she completely bypassed the jammers and stuff that Lavender put up. Not to mention how she took over the AI so quickly when we were in the server room. If the pyramids ran off her kinetic ability, it was no wonder I couldn’t figure out how they worked. They weren’t tech based in the first place.

”Y-yeah.” She picked up the vial and held it up to the light. “I can only use it in close proximity.”

Close proximity, huh? So the pyramids weren’t just a netrunning tool, but an extension to her kinetic ability? I stared at the black liquid. It was kept on cryo and preserved… ”Is it blood?”

She flinched and rubbed the crook of her elbow. Her eyes dipped down, and her fingers faintly trembled. “A mix, b-but yeah. Don’t tell anyone.”

Seeing her look so weak and scared made something in my chest feel heavy. I’d seen a lot of weird things… I could guess why a lab would want someone like her. Technokinesis in this day and age was bound to make corporations hungry. It seemed like I wasn’t the only one on this team that was worried about people coming after me for my blood.

My voice came out quieter than usual. It wasn’t a conscious thing, but it dipped as if to offer her some comfort. “You don’t have to worry about me spilling secrets.”

“Or me.” Mira sighed and ran a hand up along her halo. “Sorry you had to go through that. If you want to talk about it sometime—“

”I’m over it.” Luna said a little too quickly. She seemed to realize that too and winced. “I-I appreciate the offer, though.”

I turned back to Vox and patted the tail. ”If you’d rather not, I can just put an extra relay into the tail.”

Luna sighed and shook her head. “I—I can give you some fresh for Vox. My connection is starting to fade, so I need to refill them anyway.”

“Mira, go grab my medical stuff.” I tossed the Transporter into the room and moved over to the silver fox. I’d have to give her a transfusion afterward to get her back in top shape for tonight. She was already frail, and I didn’t want blood loss to compound ontop of that.

I checked Vox once more. There were a couple hours till Saint got here and we could start the hit on Artoras Construction. Should be just enough time to finish building the robotic vixen.