Breakfast Greetings

  “Breakfast! The most important meal of the day!”

  “You’re a speedster! Every meal is the most important of the day! You’re all Hobbits on crack.”

  Solaris found herself smiling as she sat at the table, loaded with breakfast and her Fledglings all about. She was feeling better after the fight and a few hours alone, to weep for the dead and the lost, alone with no one watching. “How badly was Kreigsmarine’s car damaged? she asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “Couple of bullets hit the roof, so Kar1n will need to weave new carbon fiber into that.” Levi replied, between bites of pancake. “Course, we also discovered its water pump is going to go, so we have to pull that and either rebuild or replace it, depending on what’s wrong with it. Either way, he’s going to be without his wheels for a few days.”

  “I’m sure Killian can muddle through without his toy.” She turned to consider Erica who was sitting next to the nervous Talia, though the smaller girl was crushing the French toast in front of her despite her nerves.

  “This must be the mechanic he mentioned, she is younger than I thought she’d be. Solaris said, her voice kind as she passed Erica bacon for the girl. “Looks like you are getting her settled in.”

  “I’m Metallica, Talia for short. Thank you for the food and room.”

  “You are welcome, Killian doesn’t give recommendations lightly so you must have impressed him somehow.”

  “I think he heard me tell my uncle he was being stupid by taking his car then um, saw him smack me. He said something about common sense is not something he sees regularly, or something?”

  “It is a rare gift.” Solaris agreed. “Now does anyone need anything from the city. I am going to the UNLOC offices to talk to LazorLad’s parole officer.”

  “Why? Did the dumbass do something else? Escape or something?”

  “No. he was paroled, so decided to attack the Intrepid. He didn’t even get an attack off before Kriegsmarine blew up the bot.”

  “Yeah, we saw that on the TV.” Carl said. “So why are you getting involved?”

  “I am not sure yet if I am. I’m going to get more information before I decide. I’ve now encountered him twice, both times he could have been far more destructive than he was, I am going to see if I can help him, and if he’s worth helping.”

  “Well, that sounds fun.” Erica said non-committal.

  “I’ll go get my beating stick.” Marcus commented.

  “Yes, I recognize he’s likely to be a complete toad, but I wouldn’t be me I’d I didn’t at least try.”

  “Fair, but if and when he causes a problem, don’t get annoyed at us when we put him in his place, one way or the other. You bring him in, we’ll try to keep him out of jail, but no promises about casts.” Z grumbled. She was not a morning person.

  Solaris chuckled, “That is perfectly fair, none of you are bullies, if he earns a punch in the nose so be it, kindness goes so far, some people also need the stick not just the carrot.”

  “Fair. If we can put him in his place if he needs it.” Levi nodded. “If he doesn’t, great. We have plenty of projects a bright kid like him could work on. Otherwise, he gets to work with Kar1n on part cleaning.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Sounds fair he’ll maybe learn to build better robots.”

  “Hey, who left this big thing in the media room. Nearly broke my foot on it.” Granny demanded, holding an enormous gun in her arms. “Penny?”

  “That’s not one of mine.” Penny said, frowning. She glanced at Badger who shrugged.

  “All my projects are at the shop.”

  “Um… me… I am pretty sure I built it last night. I had trouble sleeping, and I think I blacked out.” Talia said, raising a hand. “It looks like my style.”

  “Should I assume you tend to have your blackouts when you’re feeling a bit stressed?”

  “Um, unusually.” She blushed standing to look at it. “Looks like I did projectile and sonic. I don’t remember making things, but I usually can figure out what I made, and my brain loves sonic stuff for some reason.”

  “Well, we should probably figure out what it does.” Penny chuckled. “We can do that in my own workshop later. Then maybe take it apart and see if we can duplicate it. A sonic cannon sounds fun.” She even knew just the right place to put one on Dreadful, if she could figure out how to build one, and make it fit.

  “Did you build it to fire game disks?” Marcus asked looking it over.

  She looked at the gun, spotting an X-box logo. “Yeah, sorry. I tend to repurpose things around me. Looks like it shoots disks and pens…”

  “I think those are Xbox parts.” Marcus said.

  “Going to need to replace that. And hope the hard drive is somewhere. “

  Solaris saw the young girl wince and smiled calmly. “Don’t worry dear, nothing we can’t replace. Penny, do we need to take Talia in for registration, or shall we let her settle a bit first?”

  “I need to take her to register, but I can get the offices there to handle the fosterage to. UNLOC understands unconventional paperwork streams.”

  “I can come with, keep her company.” Erica offered.

  “Alright then, that is five if we have Marcus drive…. She puffed “I have no desire to squish in, Penny do you mind driving? Levi, can you and Erica look at getting some people movers? We might need something with larger seating arrangements.”

  “Do you want the limo or the bus? Or just a big SUV or two? We just finished redoing the bus the other day. The limo is detailed and clean, but we haven’t done any of the update work we want to do yet.”

  “Bus? Limo? When did we get those? I was thinking of one of those three row SUVs…”

  “We’ve had the bus. We stumbled across it when looking for other things. It was super cheap to buy, but ugly pink and purple. We ripped out the seats to put more comfortable stuff in, and we painted it. The Limo was used but still in good shape, so we’re doing updates, so we have one handy. But yeah, a big SUV would be easy enough to track down and set up for smaller groups. The bus was kind of “When everyone goes on a plane together” kind of ride.”

  “You want us to recondition one, or just buy something? I mean, a Lincoln Navigator with a nice package should be easy to track down in the tri-state area. Or an Escalade.”

  “Personally, I’d go Cadilac. They have like the biggest on the market right now, and I mean, you can’t go wrong with a Caddy.” Carl suggested.

  “I’ll leave it to your discretion; I think maybe get two. One for here and one for the shop. It will also be good for hauling parts on rainy days.”

  “We’ll split the difference. Buy one, find something to rebuild and spiff out, then we can take the first offline and really do it right.”

  “That works for me. Z would you and Marcus run to the store and get Talia kitted out, toothbrush, soap, brushes, makeup, those sorts of things.”

  “Can do.” She nodded, tapping some notes on her phone, a habit she picked up from Elenore.

  “I ordered her some basic clothes online last night.” Granny Ruan added.

  “Badger and I will start working on Kreigsmarine’s car.” Levi said.

  “I can go looking at the cars we need.” Elenore said, though she was more accurately going to go to the highest rated Cadilac dealership and order what they needed. It had to be in inventory somewhere that it could be shipped in quickly.

  “Excellent. Any other morning business before we head for the city?”

  “Not really, before last night, it was going to be a lazy day, really.”

  “Alright Talia go get your shoes, Erica grab what you need and meet us at the car. She paused. “Do you have a cell phone, Talia?”

  “Um. No. My uncle didn’t think I needed one. “

  Granny Ruan opened one of the drawers in the dining room hutch and pulled out a box and card. “Here is one of the burners. We can get her something on the plan when it’s calmer. “

  “That works for me, might just hit the Apple Store, they have all my information so it shouldn’t take much to set up but that depends on how long other things take.”

  Erica nodded. “That will do for now. I will help you set it up in the car, so we have it if we get separated. “

  “Thank you. Siri, and I are mostly getting along well, but I’m working on mastering more complicated applications. Well, let’s get going.” Solaris stood and went to get her favorite bright blue purse and matching heels then headed to the car.

  “Why do you have a drawer of phones?” Tallia asked.

  “In case we break one. It comes up. Especially for Z. “

  Z waved that’s me. My dad is a hero, as well as a judgy drone parent.

  “Right. Okay. So, let’s go, I guess. “