“Alright, guys! We got a new mission!” shouted Eilios to the general public through the intercom. There was a collective clatter as people all around the ship stopped the activities they were doing to pay attention. Eilios heard this, and smiled to himself. “We have to infiltrate a recon clan’s operation for BLUE. We’ll get extra cash if we don’t get seen, and we get even more if we don’t kill them. Since we usually rarely get paid, let alone get bonuses, we’re going for gold!”, he exclaimed enthusiastically.  “Now, everyone who thinks they’re up to it come to the cockpit! Everyone else... we’ll need you to keep the ship safe and keep an eye out. Autobots, roll out!”, Eilios finished. Eilios chuckled at his own joke, and then he opened the sliding door. John raised his hand sheepishly, and RipIt, Adler, and Weewoo walked in.

Eilios smiled and turned to them. “Alright, the plan - John, you too, - is to infiltrate this clan’s mode of operations, figure out the three main questions. What, why, and how. Once we’ve gotten that, we need to send reports and make sure those guys get their just desserts, so we can get dessert. Savvy?” he asked. The group nodded and poured out of the room. Eilios slid the intercom out again and added “Oh yeah, Julius, I want to see you in my room. You have clearance,” he said, “BUT NOBODY ELSE DOES,” he added sharply. Eilios walked off to his room, and met with Julius. He closed the door.

“E.. Eilios? Am I in trouble? D-” he said, but he was cut off. “No, you’re not in trouble, although I should be worried on why you think you would be, but I’ll let you off the hook this time. We need to get into their computer system, and I...” Eilios mumbled. “‘And you’ what?” he asked. “I don’t know how to use computers.” Eilios said. Julius looked at him with an incredulous look, first of confusion, then of amazement. “You mean, you did everything here analogue..?” he asked, dumbfounded. Eilios nodded, ashamed. Julius looked shocked. “That’s the most amazing thing I ever heard!” he said with gusto. Eilios smiled and said “Alright, I have a computer, I call it the Master Computer of None, but I don’t know how to use it well enough... can you do it?” he asked. Julius nodded and began to walk over to the Master Computer of None.

“Computer! Turn on!” Julius announced assertively. The computer turned on and beeped once, then relayed the start-up message. “Hello, User, I am the Master Computer. Would you like to begin installing Ubuntu 96.04?” MCO asked. Julius stared at him and said “You mean you didn’t install it yet?” he asked. Eilios shrugged, and Julius turned back. “Install, ext8 filesystem.” The computer beeped again, and said “installing...” and a torrent of numbers began to fill the room. “Complete! Rebooting... power on!”, it said. Eilios cheered, and Julius let out a sigh of happiness. “Personality match complete! The personality chosen for this specific household is: Cheerful 90, excited 10!” Julius started to stammer. “w..wait, I don’t want it th-” but he was cut off by MCO. “The User or Users appear to have some form of stutter. I w-will be m-m-ma-matching this for y-yo-your own s-sake.”

Julius said “u-undo! Please!” but it was too late. The computer flashed and said “h-hello Master! I am Master Computer! D-do you need my help? I appear to be c-connected to nothing at all, but that’s OK! I’m s-sure you can do it later!”. Julius groaned and turned to Eilios. “Want me to change it? We’ll just have to reinstall?” he asked. Eilios broke out laughing and said “You’re the techie, you installed this, you have to deal with it!”. Julius stammered, “B-but.. I don’t want it to b-be this happy!”, but it fell on death ears. Eilios was too busy laughing. After the giggle fit stopped, Eilios turned to Julius. “Can you get us in the RED project database?” Julius smiled and said “Sure! Computer!” and broke into crazy technical lingo that Eilios could  not follow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adler sat down with John, RipIt, and Weewoo. The bar was crowded, and dimly lit, but surprisingly cool. RipIt would occasionally point at people he suspected to be the elusive clan, but they’d always end up nothing. Finally, Adler lost his cool and said “Alright gang, we’re going.” Weewoo left behind to compliment the bartender, and they all left. John’s phone started ringing, so he picked it up. “John, where the hell are you?” asked Eilios. John said “At the...”, he look up at the sign, “Blue Moon Bar. Why?” he asked. Eilios breathed out sharply. “GET OUT OF THERE. N-” but it fell on death ears. Eilios heard the sounds of shotguns firing, and then the phone was picked up. An effeminate man was on the other side, and said “Hello, Eilios. We know who you are, because you guys can’t hack your way out of a paper bag. Now, listen carefully. Either you tell me what you are doing, or the girl dies. Alright?” he asked. “Fine. We meet in an alleyway around the Blue Moon Bar?” replied Eilios. “Great, then again, not like your little group could take us on." the man agreed.

Eilios moved everyone out, keeping the ship locked, and went into a small alleyway. “Alright, guys, some of us got captured. They traced it back to our ship, and they know who we are. There goes one bonus, and if we’re going to take them back, we sure as hell are going to lose the other. The bright side is, they’re not DEMUS, so we shouldn’t have trouble taking them down, and they don’t think that we’re nearly as big as we are.” Timeline pulled out his sword and let out a warcry. Eilios stifled him, and pointed to the alleyway where 6 of the mystery clan were hiding, albeit badly. Eilios gave hand-signals to Trance, who nodded, and pulled out her crossbow. She took a shot at one guy on the perimeter, knocking him out silently, and reloaded. Trance shot at a would-be sniper, taking him down as well. She motioned for Timeline, Eilios, and herself to make the charge.

They ran in, cutting at people, with Irish and Julius providing backup. After a short battle, only 1 was left. Eilios grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “Where are they?!” he asked, barely trying to conceal his anger. The man spat at him, so Eilios kneed him in-between the legs. “Where. Are. They.” The man looked at him, then at Timeline, then gave a look of horror. He turned to Eilios and said “the old abandoned warehouse! We thought nobody would look there because it would be too cliched!” he said. Eilios chuckled, and searched him for any form of electronic device. “You’re not free to go. Julius, keep him with the ship until we come back. I don’t want any word coming out of our victory.” Julius nodded.

The remainder of their group breached the warehouse, and began shooting down people. Eilios threw a home-made smoke grenade by the hostages, and charged in, sword drawn, cutting down the executioners, and freeing the group. Adler snorted and said “about time...” before picking up the executioner’s pistol and taking down two gunmen, and running for his revolver. RipIt merely took his sword and quietly attacked a group of soldiers. Trance fired a shot into the group, bouncing it off one of the pillars to make the bolt go sideways, resulting in two deaths. RipIt finished the rest off quickly. A man ran at Eilios with an axe drawn, but Eilios twisted his body, aiming his hand at him, and fired a nail at him, piercing his skull. “New device! It’s called the Power Glove!” he shouted at RipIt. John escorted Weewoo out of the building, which was a clamour of gunfire.

After the end of the battle, only one guy was remaining. He was dressed in black leather, and had an axe. “Oh, so you’re the infamous AXE clan,” Eilios mused. “We used to be, until you killed us,” replied the man, with despair. A light filled his eyes, and he said “Well, you may have killed us, but we’ll get the last laugh. The mafia will take you down, they’ll ruin your reputation and then kill you!” A maniacal laugh filled the room, until Eilios shot him through the head with the power glove. “What? The guy was crazy, and he had an axe!” he said. RipIt shrugged, but Trance looked worried. “What did he say about the mafia?” she asked. Eilios sighed and said “Oh yeah, we might want to do something about it.” Eilios wiped the blood off his sword, and walked out, with a look of concern masking his usually calm face