Paul gave them the code and told the AEP units not to come because they were changing it. "That's fine. We never send them there. You'd never know if the AEP might jump out and attack." "Attack?" one of the clan members asked in confusion. "They still get a bit jumpy near humans. We are very slowly getting them used to human contact." I told them. "So, you just have them talking with humans all day!? Even for mutts, that's a waste!" "We can't risk a human getting hurt. None of them know the code." Paul replied. There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. I was about to hang up when I heard them talk again. "Understood. Since they are clearly not busy, we actually have a task for them to do." the clan vice-leader said. It was to go to a government research facility. "Ryder and I infiltrated and rescued PEP units from Neo-Rutten once. We can take this job on easy." I said as I cracked my knuckles. This seemed like an interesting mission. "Why am I not surprised? However, this is an AEP mission. They need experience in combat and hacking." the clan leader said.
That was true, we had 9 AEP units and they had not done anything yet. A squad was 6 members, so they could go down to the AEP lab to get briefed on the mission. I held back Ava, Caleb and Cameron and told them to wait. I had my soft spots for them. They did not seem to care much at all about it. That one-sided decision I did also made Sunny, Lucy, Maroon, Orange and Ryder really annoyed with me. This was their offspring being denied a chance to show their worth to the clan and to Cold Clan. I looked them and said "Ana, Caleb and Cameron are going to be doing another mission. One more direct for the clan." They looked at me intently. "What will they be doing, engineer?" Orange asked. I sighed and said "We need a team that can travel around and figure out where the hell Toxic and Water Clans are. I want them out searching for them." Cold Clan had its second AEP online. All the clans that did not get wiped out during the "Next Stage" did. Even the wiped out ones had restarted the program and had their first by now." Toxic and Water were in the process of replacement.
It would be good to know where they were and form a plan of attack. Once we had a general idea, we could get the guild on it. I bet we could convince Cold Clan that the contingency plans were needed. Saying it out loud, I was able to convince Sunny, Lucy, Maroon, Orange and Ryder. I then joined them on a series of missions that they had. One was to assassinate a nurse getting to close to the safehouse. Another was to lead a rescue mission of a grunt that got captured by a reprogrammer. That took priority. The third mission was to hack into one of the local scrapper's computer to sabotage further plans in Dwan Town. That was fine with me, We got them all done in a day. Doing missions raised my opinions with them. All of them really liked me except for Orange. He was just neutral. Ava, Caleb and Cameron were still walking about and lounging in the clan building when we got back. I had forgot to actually assign them the mission. They nodded and then left. I let them use one of the cool sedans we had spawned. They could have an adventure together. They wanted Ashton and Riley too.
