<br/>Oni  stood at one of the main junctions of the Empire State Bridge, overlooking New York City. A barge passed slowly beneath him, with an odd assortment of birds in a near constant orbit around it. A gust of wind strong enough to knock him down only made his clothes ruffle wildly. A flag to a bygone era. Two tall buildings stood side-by-side in the distance, a symbol on the very city it stood on…perhaps even more so than lady liberty. He’d let the real historians debate that.<br/><br/>Overhead, the blue sky seemed to phase out, as patches of darkness appeared and then vanished to leave the sky blue again. Beside him knelt a woman not there before. She looked over the skyline for a moment before rising to face him. He regarded her with a raised eyebrow and small grin. He had no idea what caused the change a month back, but Big Boi decided to ditch a skin of Oni’s own choosing, a marvelous armored male ninja, and go with a scantily clad, heavy breasted female partially based on the original’s color scheme. He thinks Big Boi was scanning his net history, and decided the present skin was more appropriate. What the hell, who was he to complain?<br/><br/>Big Boi spoke to him, the articulation and tone matching that of one of his favorite animated character “We’ve received word of a meet from Iron Fist. Looks like you’re going to get what you asked for. Should I reply?” Oni thought it over for a moment and shook his head “No. We’re not dealing with our type of people. If I’m going, then I’m going. If I don’t, they’ll find someone else.” Big Boi nodded slightly, which caused a comical after-jiggle to its skin’s breasts. Oni thought that maybe putting a limiter on Big Boi’s net usage would be a good idea, but shook the notion away. They were partners, and it was obvious that the A.I. was only doing what he probably wanted it to do, without having the RAM to tell him...her...it.<br/><br/>Which raised another question. Though he affectionately called his rig ‘Big Boi’, it would appear as though the rig would rather be classified differently? To think there would come a day when he had to ponder the sexual orientation of an A.I. What a truly fucked world. “Alright BB. How are we for maintenance?” Big Boi’s image shuddered for a brief moment before answering “Max is all set, and says you can wake your sick ass up. Apparently he hasn’t seen me in this skin yet. His heart rate increased 15% for the span of 4.7 seconds. A request for medical assistance was about to be made, before he settled back into his usual stable rate…which still isn’t altogether healthy”<br/><br/>With a slight chuckle, Oni looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was sitting in a  chair surrounded by monitors of different shapes and sizes. Max was typing in a few commands, before getting up to look Oni over “Next time, just have your friend send me a text pulse. It damn near made my heart bust!” Oni disconnected from the chair and smiled “Sorry…Big Boi seems to be going through some things…I’ll have to talk to him or her about it. Are we good to go?”<br/><br/>Max nodded and waved to the monitors “You’re clean as a whistle my friend. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve grown accustomed to being the fine specimen of man you see today, then your config would be on my top 5 to copy. Considering my clientele, you should be pleased by that.” Oni nodded and tapped Max’s rig “I had Big Boi make the arrangements. We should be all set.” Max waved him off “Your credits I never had to check, Oni. First, because I know you trust me enough to come back here, and Second is you know I would hunt your skinny ass down if I had to. Take care of yourself out there, kiddo”. Oni could only shake his head as he left the shop through an Instameal store that was Max’s front and out into the steady flow of traffic outside.<br/><br/>With BB’s help, his arrangements for travel were all set as well, and it took him half a day on the rail to get to the Wharf. His walk to the meeting place was interesting, though uneventful. His eye picked up multiple groups that were poised to take him while on his walk, but they backed down before anything could come of it. Maybe they found something out, like he was pulsing a fake police transponder signal maybe? Who knows? They left him alone, and he was alright with that. He offed the signal as he got near the meeting place, not wanting to spook the others there, and requested that Big Boi make contact to announce his arrival. Last thing he needed was to take a bullet because someone got jumpy.<br/>