NOVEL NEXT Hustle Delivered
Amber had passed Faye to me after it was clear that those Mercs had stopped chasing us, especially since she kept pestering her for some reason.
Apparently she preferred to be carried by me instead for some reason.
“You seem to have a talent for taking care of kids I see,” Amber commented.
“I… I guess so?” I answered noncommittally, not knowing how to tell her that my experience came from dealing with customers before I came here.
That of course, includes dealing with children as well.
Also… Faye was quite a well behaved girl in the first place so there weren't any problems. That is assuming that this wasn’t just because she’s completely terrified at the moment of course, but I don’t think that’s the case.
We finally ran the two kilometres to reach the inn in question, finding what looked like a black sedan and a butler standing beside it.
The inn itself was clearly abandoned as well with the building completely empty and on the verge of collapse.
Faye reached her hand towards the butler, “Jerry!”
The man quickly turned upon hearing the name, “Young miss! It brings me great relief to see that you are safe! The sir and madam are so worried! Are you alright?”
She nodded, “Mmm! Big sisters rescued me from the bad people!”
“Oh goodness me! Where are my manners? You two must be Mercs who have taken the contract to rescue the young miss right?”
Amber nodded as we reached him, “That’s right. This counts as the contract is complete, right?”
I then noticed the butler’s eyes change and words seemed to scroll past his iris.
“That’s correct, allow me to transfer the credits as stipulated in the contract for this job. Miss Amber and Miss Tera correct? Shall I assume that it’s a two person team and the split is fifty-fifty?”
“You assume right. Though I’m surprised that the parents let an android come pick the daughter up instead of coming themselves.”
A what? Wait… This guy’s an android?
I looked at the butler again and… Seriously, I can’t even tell.
He looks human no matter how I look at it and I don’t even see any metallic parts on him aside from probably his eyes after it did that word scrolling thing.
Had Amber not said that, I would not have even known. Actually… How did she even know?
The butler gave a slight bow, “The young miss has been in my care ever since she was young and this is not a part of the city that the sir and madam should be seen in.”
“Jerry is nice!” Faye blurted out in my arms.
The butler’s eyes then changed back to normal and I heard my Codex let out a notification ping.
I tapped on my wrist and found a million Credits transferred into my account.
The butler then stepped aside and pulled open the door, “Please put the young miss in the car and I shall bring her back to the sir and madam.”
Yeah… Now that I know he’s an android, I guess the way he speaks was also a clear sign that he wasn’t exactly human.
I brought Faye to the back of the car like he requested and placed her inside, sitting her down on the seat.
Faye gave me a sad look, “Will I see you again, big sister?”
I smiled at her, “I’m sure if fate allows it, we’ll meet again for sure.”
“Mnn… Then… Umm… Thank you for saving me, big sister Tera!”
“Fufu~ You’re very welcome, Faye. Take care of yourself now, ok?”
“Ok, big sister!”
The android butler then bowed before closing the door.
Amber raised an eyebrow at the butler, “What Class is your AI?”
“Reporting, I am a Class three butler model AI, at your service.”
“Hmm… I see. Good enough I suppose. Alright, we’re done here, Tera.”
The butler bowed again before entering the driver’s seat, starting the engine of the car.
Faye waved at me as the car started to drive away, both Amber and I waving back until the car disappeared in the distance.
I turned to Amber, “What was the last question about?”
“Ah… You don’t know about that huh? There’s different classes to Artificial Intelligence after the AI rebellion. There’s different classifications for AIs now where the higher the class means the more autonomy the AI has. The highest class is at Class six but that class is illegal throughout the entire galaxy since the rebellion was caused by a Class six AI going rogue.”
Ok… That sounds like a whole entire can of worms I’m opening here… I guess that’s just another thing I’ll have to look up when I have the time.
Amber chuckled, “Well, we can drop by the Archive tomorrow if you want to learn more? You’ve been wanting to go there for quite a while haven’t you?”
“That sounds good. Also… How did you know he’s an AI? Was it the eyes?”
She was about to answer when the roar of an engine came from around the corner, revealing it to be the same car that the Mercs had driven to the warehouse and chased us in.
Fuck! Don’t tell me they’re still chasing after the girl?! Or are they here to deal with us for stealing the mission from under their noses?
I pulled out my shotgun but Amber lifted her arm to stop me.
The car stopped in front of us and I realised the two girls were now seated at the back of the car while the power armour guy was clinging to the back of the car.
The guy who I had been controlling the drones was the driver and he leaned out of the window to frown at us.
“Golden Amber huh? Didn’t know you have a partner now. Well fuck, guess you beat us to this one huh?”
Amber crossed her arms, “Yeah, now beat it.”
“Don’t be like that. That was a big contract, you know? And you get to have it for yourself and your partner while we would have needed to split it five ways. At least throw something our way, why don’t you?”
Her response was to show him the middle finger.
While that was happening, I pointed at the power armour guy, “When we were running… Did you really try to shoot us down?”
The guy chortled before pulling out his gun and detaching the box magazine to show it to me.
“Non-lethal pellets. Would hurt like a bitch but won’t kill. Thought I could at least slow you down and get her to turn back. Fucking hell though, my shoulder still hurts from your bullet. Almost thought my shoulder broke from that.”
“Ah, sorry about that. I thought you were actually going to kill us with that so I panicked a little.”
One of the girls leaned out the window, “Who are you though? I thought Golden Amber worked alone?”
Amber wrapped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me to her side, “She’s my partner now. Got a problem with that?”
“Tsk… And you even rejected our invitation back then too. What’s so good about her?”
“Are you kidding me? Look at these!” Amber cried, moving behind to start groping my boobs.
“Amber?!” I cried out in surprise.
The girl that asked the question rolled her eyes before ducking back into the car, “Let’s go, come on. We already did all that work for nothing.”
The driver rolled his eyes but did not argue, simply giving us a wave before flooring the accelerator and speeding away.
I turned around and scowled at Amber, “Really?”
“What? Don’t think I don’t know you check me out all the time. I’ve seen how you look at my ass.”
Ngh… I guess I can’t say anything to that…
I then gestured to the car that just drove off, “And what was that?”
She waved her hand, “They’ve tried to recruit me before but I turned them down I guess.”
“You guess?”
“They’re not the only ones who tried and I don’t remember all of the Mercs I’ve turned down. I don’t even remember them until they said that.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Huh… I’m guessing you’re pretty popular aren’t you?”
She grinned, “Oh don’t worry, I only have eyes for you so you don’t need to worry about me falling for someone else~”
That wasn’t what I was worried about but ok…
“Anyway… Ahem… They don’t seem to mind that we took this job from them?”
Amber scoffed, “Oh please, trust me when I say that they mind it very much. If they were the bastard kind of Mercs, they would most probably have shot us while they were driving here instead.”
Right… I guess that’s why she stopped me from drawing my weapon?
But seriously, what if they did a drive-by when they passed? Then again, I guess we would have at least had a chance to react because of our personal shields.
Argh, whatever… At least we completed the contract and got the money, so time to get back to the ship and sleep!