I was thinking about it when Ryder said "I don't like the missions where we have to go hacking the humans. It takes my processors too long to bypass their security and I get caught. These ciphers would be really good." That is something to think about. If we were to specialize into hackers, I would have to access how good they actually are. I went on a hacking mission with Ryder and Claire. They were fine. Definitely not as fast as Toby was. Speaking of Toby, I had no reason to see him since we we left the city. I could go back and find him; he might even join our clan. I put the ciphers as the next research topic. I then left the lab. We then went to the Energy lab. I had taken the pistol and used it research a rifle from it. After the 3 days it took to make, I had been fabricating them. These were primarily for the X-frames so they were big and heavy. The same was true with the pistols, but you could just use the off hand to brace it. There was one for everyone. I decided to go down the melee route and make the weapon with the generator: a polearm with energy razors that dealt Electricity damage.
Going with this would be nice. Sparks picked me up. I was surprised and yelped. "What the hell are you doing?" I snapped at him. He flinched and said "Don't worry. You won't fall. I want to spar with you. I will put you back down when we get to the dojo." I just sighed. I was not really interested in sparring. Especially not with Sparks. When he placed me down, I just left the dojo. He looked at me in confusion. He came over and walked beside me for a moment before trying to pick me up again. I dodged and he gave me a determined look on his face. "Why are you resisting? Sparring is a normal activity among members of a clan." he asked. "I don't want to right now. I have to get things ready for tomorrow. I have an artist here to do some portraits of us." Sparks straightened up and said "That sounds like a waste. Why hire an artist? Any of us could get an accurate depiction if we had a pen and paper." That might be true. They were able to do anything a human could do better than any human. It was not as if Keith was imaginative and would add anything new. "Because I just like him a lot." I said.
He was going to be there in the morning. That meant I had to get the people from Ether on board and ready for their portraits. I left the clan building and went across the street to the condo. Everyone was excited and I told them that they could wear their gear from their old land. When they were ready, I had them wait outside. Keith came with his art supplies and Sarah tagged along. When he saw all 21 Etherals and the 8 cyborgs, he was pissed. The deep frown on his face told me that clearly. Sarah just laughed. "If you think I'm going to spend all week around these freaks, you're damn wrong!" he hissed. "5000 credits for a portrait." I reminded him. He groaned out loud and set an easel down. There was a bit of shuffling as I got them all in line. I had all of the Etherals in one group portrait together. The older ones were on a row of chairs while the shorter ones stood behind them. Taller members stood in the back. With that, we were able to have a good showing. I then had my workers of the cab depot together. The 3 knights sat while the cyborgs stood behind them. I laid on my side in front.
I made sure that all of PBJ Crew was together for a portrait as well. He was glaring at me as we stood together with our arms overlapping each others shoulders. From a small time artist's perspective, I was pushing the situation quite a but. It was obvious that he hated humans. Capturing them in a good light was probably very distasteful for him. Next, I had the cyborgs get solo portraits. That seemed to relax Keith as he rolled his shoulders so he could paint. "These guys are a nice group of subjects." he remarked with a smirk at me. Brett, Paul and I then went next. Keith was a bit confused. He could tell that Brett and Paul were not cyborgs, but they were also clearly not human. "I don't know who these guys are, but I did what I could." he said. The same was true for Omnikid, Jamie and Mikey. Michiel, Rulf and Elsa worked in the depot so they went next. Keith had had enough. "This is clearly too much work for one person! You better be ready with the cash." he snapped when I went to get another. "I thought you could handle it. You're only human after all though. My bad." I teased him a bit.
