Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Empty. There was nothing more that Josh hated more than emptiness. When it came to moods or emotions, he preferred not understanding, that way he could just ask and be told, or even nudle the answer. When it came to the hackerspace when he was the only one there. Especially when it was empty and quiet enough that he could hear the buzzing of the light bulbs overhead, loud enough to make his skin itch. Well, he could just call Sitara or Marcus, or put on a podcast if they were on a job and couldn’t be disturbed.

But this was a different empty, a hollow empty, the kind Josh had only truly felt twice before. The first time was when Horatio passed away and at his funeral back in 2016. It was the first time someone close to Josh, someone who cared for him as family, had died. It broke Josh and terrified him. He never wanted to feel that way again, but he learned how to live with that emptiness, the kind you feel when you lose someone close to you.

The second time was about 5 years later, and it confused him more, even to this day. With Horatio, it was a grieving kind of hollow, but the second? He had to pretend to be happy even if Josh couldn’t understand why he felt the opposite. Nether the less he remembered it as clearly as the first time, on a mid-spring evening just after sunset, Wrench bursting into the hackerspace, half running, half falling down the stairs before yelling at the small group of hackers inside.

"GUESS WHAT, FUCKERS!"

"We know! Zane’s so hot you can cook an egg on him. Tell us something we don’t know, Lover Boy! " Sitara shouted back, not looking up from her latest art design. Josh groaned, not being able to concentrate with all the yelling.

"Ah-ha! That’s where you’re wrong! Well, not wrong exactly, he is! But if you’re going to be like that, I guess you won’t be invited to see the first appearance of Mr and Mr Blechman! " Josh froze, staring at the code on his screen. He could barely hear the sound of Marcus dropping his can to the floor as he jumped over to the anarchist. Josh could see them in the reflection on his monitor as he tried to process why the hollow feeling had returned. He tried to think of why, clenching and unclenching his hands, but nothing came up.

"Josh? " Buddy, OK? " The familiar auto-tuned voice jolted the programmer back to reality, during these past few years Wrench had gotten better at approaching Josh and talking to him, he still played pranks on the programmer but Sitara and Marcus had scolded him enough times by now that Wrench would only prank Josh if he knew Josh knew he was there or it was something everyone would find funny or else he’d get a similar prank back at him a week or so later courtesy of Marcus helping Josh out. Blinking a few times to refocus himself before Josh spun around in his chair, seeing Wrench, now crouched on the ground beside him and the other two hackers missing from the room. "Ah! Sorry! M and Sitara went to get beer n energy drinks and to tell Ray to come celebrate, but you haven’t moved an inch. "

"Oh... I" Josh looked down, seeing Wrench’s hand and the new, shiny black ring with a thin cobalt blue band going around the centre. Taking a deep breath before continuing, the hollowness slowly growing inside him "I was processing. You were so loud it shocked me, Con… Congratulations."

A few agonising moments passed, Josh looked for a sign, any sign that Wrench couldn’t see through the lie. Josh hated lying but seeing his friends sad at a time that was supposed to be happy, but after a minute, Wrench’s mask changed from his standard two X’s to a pair of ^’s so it must have worked.

"Thanks, man! Don’t worry, I’ve already spoken to Zane. You don’t have to wear a suit if you don’t want to, or if you need your beanie or anything that’s cool! Oh, venue-wise, we’re making sure there’s a separate room in case the party gets too overwhelming for you. " Josh smiled softly, watching his friend’s exaggerated hand movements as he started listing all the plans he wanted for his wedding.

A year and a half later, Wrench, no, it’s Reggie now, Josh had to constantly remind himself, was married. It was only a small event, with mostly Dedsec members going as his family and friends. Marcus as his best man, and an empty chair for Horatio. In the end, the happy couple announced they were moving to England, specifically Zane’s home city of London, as Reggie had an amazing job opportunity with his robotics company.

And that was it... Josh had lost two of his friends, one forever and the other on the other side of the world. Which wasn't too bad in all honesty. The San Francisco Dedsec Squad had regular phone calls to hang out whenever schedules allowed, but as the years went on, the calls got shorter and less frequent as Reggie and Zane would end up in an argument over something trivial and end the call.

It had been about eight months since they got their last call from Reggie, announcing his and Zane’s divorce. A month since they started seeing news on a variety of forums that "The Wrench" had started causing minor chaos in London; nothing too troublesome, but it still worried the trio that stayed behind.

In mid-October, the worst hollow feeling Josh had ever felt happened. He had been feeling weird and crappy all morning, uneasy but not in a sick kind of way, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. That was until Sitara turned on the news at 14:08 for some background noise as she and Marcus were planning a new operation, Josh working on his laptop on the central table because it was too cold over at his normal desk for him to focus. The giant text of "Emergency: Breaking News" and the muttering of "Guys" made the three hackers go silent, staring at the wall-mounted monitors covering the walls.

"Good afternoon, We have just received urgent news from the United Kingdom. Moments ago, at around 10 pm local time, three sites in the City of London have been devastated due to a suspected terrorist attack led by the hacker group Dedsec.

"Dedsec would never do such a thing..."

"Sitara wait, let's hear this first."

"Nigel Cass, leader of Albion, has asked residents to stay in their homes as he vows to hunt down the last remaining members of the group. As of this time, there are no confirmed casualties, but it is estimated that the casualties could be in the thousands. We will update you as soon as we hear more from our reporters in London." Josh had zoned out at that point. He stared at the flame and smoke-filled images that were shown next to the newscaster as the hollow feeling in his chest grew and expanded, enveloping him as he started to shut down. He couldn't hear Sitara's horrified yells or Marcus's repeated "come on Reggie, pick up!" as he tried to call his best friend.

"Hunt the last few... they’re hunting Dedsec. They're hunting us... no.... no no no nononono! " Josh couldn’t hear his voice as he started tugging on his hat, trying to focus on anything but the newscaster’s voice. Sitara noticed quickly. She was always quick to notice when he started having a shutdown. Turning all but one of the monitors off, before heading over to Josh. The artist placed her hands in front of the programmer, waiting until he felt safe enough to let go of the poor beanie and hold her hands so she could lead him to the other sofa, where she draped a blanket around him.

"We’ll find him, Josh. Ok, it’s happened before, remember? With the FBI? They took Wrench and we got him back. Marcus is working on it. If anyone can find Reggie, it’ll be through the power of their bromance! " Josh opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. "Why don’t you take a nap? That sometimes helps calm you down from shocks and surprises. If we hear anything, we’ll wake you, OK? I promise you immediately, I swear we will. You know, we don’t break promises here, do we? " Josh could only nod as he wrapped the blanket tighter around him, turning his back to face away from the hackerspace as tears welled up in his eyes.

Chapter Text

Since the London attacks made the news, the entire San Francisco team diverted most of their attention to finding out anything about their British counterparts, from checking on members outside of the city to make sure they were safe or needed assistance. Digging through the lists of those injured or killed. If anyone in San Francisco were family or friends of London operatives needed to be notified, but the name that was given the highest priority was Reginald Blechman. Any sightings or mention of his name in any footage, live streams or online forums had to be reported to Sitara immediately.

"Nothing... It’s been how many weeks? And still nothing? Reggie, C'mon, you must know we’re worried about you." Sitara complained rhetorically, throwing an empty soda can in the general direction of the bin.

"31 days, 18 hours and 30 minutes, not exactly, but close enough. Um, what do they use to make anime body pillows?"

"Thanks for upping my worry, Josh, but why the fuck are you bringing up anime body pillows? Fabric... polyester, I assume, ink and stuffing." The artist looked up at Josh like he had just grown a second head but humoured him with an answer, as Marcus walked over to his desk and looked over Josh’s shoulder at his screen, an advert for "Anime Sex Pillows LLC" taking up a portion of the screen.

"So they don’t need repair parts for Haum 2.0 security robots, cargo drone parts, or LTL parts?"

"Haum 2.0? Aren’t we already at 3 point? Wait, Josh, what parts exactly!?" Marcus grabbed the nearest chair and got his laptop out.

"Motherboards, memory drives, motors, basically everything except the outer shell... I mean, they could have their own to protect the pillows? But that’s just weird. Also, it's based iiiin..." Josh tapped away as Sitara excused herself to take a phone call. "Here it is! The Brixton Barrier Block in Lambeth, which is just south of where Reggie lived with Zane, I know it’s not concrete, but it’s something, right? Reggie would make an anime body pillow shop as a front." Josh looked over to Marcus, hopeful, scanning the other man’s eyes and mouth for some kind of reaction.

"And! He took Wrench Jr. with him! We’ve been looking for him the wrong way around! We should have looked for him in a Wrench way, not in a normal hacker approach! You’re a genius, Josh!" It was at this point that Sitara came running back down the stairs and to the back of the room.

"WE GOT A HIT! We found him. He’s..."

"South Lambeth? Near Brixton?" Sitara froze, staring at Marcus, then Josh, then back to the hipster.

"How did you..."

"The sexy anime pillows company is buying Haum 2.0 parts, but your reaction just confirmed what Josh suspected... Whatcha got?" Marcus smirked, lightly patting Josh on the shoulder as Sitara grinned and flipped her phone around. The image staring back showed two blurry hands in the foreground, but an image of a familiar spiked jacket of a masked man with X’s for eyes, wielding a sledgehammer, looked back at them.

"This was just taken from the body cam of an Albion officer in Brixton. He’s alive and, judging by Josh’s hunch, we have an exact location to work with. We just need to find a way to contact him without the authorities finding out he has ties to Dedsec."

"Don’t we still have a number for Jimmy Siska? He was filming the new Devon V Devin film in London before the attacks. There's no way Reggie would turn down helping with the film, right? Especially if you called him about it. You two love Devon Von Devon." Josh stated, still staring at the image until Sitara put her phone away. Thoughts and ideas were coming into his head, but every one of them seemed impossible.

"Perfect! And I still remember that fixer. What was his name, Jordan? No Jordi. I'm sure if anyone can get me in contact with Reggie, he can, I’m sure of it. I’ll go call Jimmy and see where we can go from there. At least that’s one major worry we can cross off, right? Maybe we could contact the front for London’s headquarters? See if they know what caused this whole mess." Marcus yawned, stretching one of his arms as he spoke, tapping on his phone with his other hand. "Either way, it's getting late, so I’m gonna call it a night. Keep me posted, though! Same time, same place tomorrow?"

Josh turned around and went onto Nudle. He had an idea, a small one that had a tiny chance of working, but there was no way he could bring it up with the others. However, if Marcus can work out something with his favourite actor, then they might be too distracted to notice his plans. In that case, he had better work fast.

The following day, everything seemed to be going perfectly. After deciding to work in the garage for a change of scenery, Marcus had just finished up a call to Jimmy, who was going to talk to his team in London about having a way to film the last three scenes needed for the film via a friend of his.

Sitara had been on the phone with Marcus’s fixer friend, persuading him that it would be beneficial to them both if he could get in contact with Wrench for a job that could mutually benefit them both. Jordi would get more money if he got Wrench specifically, and the group could get in contact with their missing member. She had also been sorting out relief efforts to help the families in London.

Josh, however, managed to find a small resistance group fighting back underground made of the few remaining members of London’s Dedsec. At least the ones that hadn’t been caught by Albion or Clan Kelley. From this Josh was able to find their base of operations. A small pub in the City of Westminster. With this information, the group now had a clear line of communication and a place to send help, either digitally or physically. The resistance seemed glad of the additional help, even though they weren’t ready to go public with the fact that Dedsec London had risen from the ashes just yet. Josh had been awfully quiet as he worked today, more so than normal. causing the other two hackers to become suspicious.

"What are you working on, Josh? Things going well with the resistance? " Marcus leaned over to look at Josh’s screen. The pair of them were working under Josh’s giant drone that hung from the ceiling.

"They need parts to fix up their mechanisms to get into their safe house and to fix some of their equipment, so I’m trying to organise a "Routine Maintenance" shipment to be shipped over from Blume to the chain of pubs owned by the contact. That way, Albion won’t get suspicious. I just need to get the parts that Connie sent me a list of and they’ll be good to go. There are a couple of other steps, but that’ll be easy and they’ll have the parts by Monday at the earliest. If I can modify some of the parts that I already have, I’ll be able to make some things easier for them, even find a way to recruit new members." Josh half mumbled as he started to stretch and curl his fingers.

"Right, that's good, but I gotta ask why the directions to the pubs?" The hacker questioned, pointing but not quite touching Josh’s screen over a small notepad document that was open on the side.

"Well, I need to make sure they go to the right place. Otherwise, this will be pointless and I’ll have wasted a lot of resources for no reason. " Josh held his breath for a moment until Marcus nodded, exhaling and standing. Josh turned to the artist at the other side of the room. "I’m going to head upstairs. We've got a couple of bits here that I can start playing with. But I want to work on the older Optik with Bagley on it. So I can make sure everything is compatible. and see how difficult it is to fake a profile."

"Alright, send us a message if you need pizza or anything. We’ll try and be quiet so you can focus," Sitara called back, watching the programmer ascend the ladder up to Wrench’s old office, raising an eyebrow at Marcus the moment the door closed behind him.

The early hours of Tuesday soon rolled around. Josh had trusted that Sitara and Marcus hadn’t caught onto his plans, and they were still asleep in their respective apartments, as he sat in the international departure lounge of the San Francisco International Airport. He was nervously checking his phone to see if either of the others had woken up and gone to the hackerspace. Why they would be there at 2:19 in the morning, he couldn’t work out why he was worrying, but he never technically lied. He just left some details out, and he left a note with his flight times on it and that he would be in contact the moment he landed, so neither should be too mad, right? They didn’t ask who was delivering the parts, and by the time one of them got to the hackerspace, he’d be over the North Atlantic ocean.

Josh thought it would be more difficult to sort out travel to England. But he found out that if he sorted and modified his Optik, he could just set up a fake job as a CTOS Technician being transferred to "help" the UK Headquarters, and after he did that, it was pretty simple. It seems they’re just being stricter on tourists or people travelling for non-business reasons. Josh had already planned everything. Right down to the minute, unless there were delays: first contacting Sitara and getting his ear chewed off for running off, what time he’d get to the Earl’s Fortune pub, finding a nearby hotel to stay at, and finally a night of rest. He’d be able to try and make his way to Brixton and work out which flat belonged to his anarchist friend the following morning.

"This is the call for all passengers flying on the 2:25 flight to London Heathrow that the flight is ready for boarding..." standing up and heading towards the gate. Josh turned his phone off and his Optik on, documents in hand. Judging by how quiet the terminal was, it was safe to say there wouldn't be too many people flying, and hopefully, no one would be sitting next to him for the duration of the long flight ahead of him.

Chapter Text

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’RE IN LONDON?! "

Josh flinched. Using an Optik was very different from using a regular phone. He despised it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. You had to wear one by law.
"Sitara… please, please don’t shout. I don’t know how to control the volume on this thing. "

"Right, right, sorry, I just, do you realise how worried me and Marcus have been? Hold on... OK, you’re on speaker, we can both hear you now. " Sitara's voice gets quieter as she sets the phone away from her. "Start from the beginning We read your note, but I’m still confused. "

"I can’t go into it too much right now, I’m on the subway to Westminster, but if we sent the parts the normal way, it would take weeks or months at a minimum, maybe even never arrive, but if I took a flight over with them, then we could deliver and set them up in a matter of days." Josh was patting his knees. There were a few others on the tube with him. He got lucky, arriving in the evening after rush hour. "I couldn't ask you, because you’re better at keeping an eye on things than me, and I couldn’t ask Marcus. He was sorting out those filming stunts and both him and Reggie in one place? Nothing serious would get done. "

"Hey! We aren’t that bad! "

"Good point, Josh."

"Sitara!"

"Oh, stop your pouting. Marcus, he’s not wrong, anyway! Josh, that makes sense, but you still should’ve told us. There’s nothing we can really do now. What’s London like? How bad is it? You aren’t in danger being there? "

"It’s nothing like home; it’s loud but a gloomy loud, lots of small protests almost on every other street; it's different from home and there are armed Albion guards everywhere. Two keep walking in and out of the subway car I’m in. " Looking up at the little screen above the doors, Josh realised his stop was next. Not wanting to miss it and cause a panic, Josh stood and pulled his two cases carefully over to the doors. "I have my Optik emergency tracker connected to the computers at home just in case something happens, so if it goes anywhere odd or turns off, you’ll get a message. Connie’s going to help with accommodation when I get to the pub. Her contact is on the letter I left as well. "

"OK, we’ll get that tracker set up on our end. I’ll let you go so you can focus on finding the pub. Just message us OK. We trust you, Josh, but we just worry. Talk later! "

Josh smiled as he said goodbye and hung up. That was one of his favourite things about Sitara; she was protective but still gave him space and encouraged him whenever he wanted to try and step out of his comfort zone.

Upon walking through the ticket barrier and out of the entrance to the tube station, Josh looked up at one of London’s most iconic landmarks, Big Ben. Smiling and nodding to himself, he was glad he at least got to the right station on the first try before checking the map on his phone.

"hmm OK, so take a right, walk straight ahead, cross two roads, walk until I reach the other side of the park, turn left and cross the road and it should be on the right hand side.! Josh muttered to himself before turning 90 degrees to his right and taking his first steps into what appeared to be the polar opposite of San Francisco. There were bags filled with trash left on the pavement, and newspapers were strewn on the floor and an eerie humming coming from all the drones flying above his head.

Following the instructions, he mumbled to himself repeatedly, until he stood outside a green-tiled pub with a sign above it with the words "The Earl’s Fortune" written in a fancy traditional gold font. Stepping through the door, Josh was hit by a wave of the smell of alcohol. It was not as bad as some of the bars back home. He had never been to a proper pub before, but he definitely preferred this to the loud, cramped, and too bright places Marcus and Sitara liked to go to. Noticing the man behind the bar was looking at him as he talked to a woman sitting on one of the barstools, Josh wandered over nervously, gulping slightly. His hand was twitching on one of his suitcase handles.

"Looking for a drink or anything? I’ve never seen your face before, mate. "

"Oh, I’m... I’m here to see Connie? Connie Robinson? My name’s Josh. She should be expecting me. " The programmer asked, desperately wanting to be out of this situation. The lady sat to his left, turning to face him, looking at him up and down, then at her watch, before answering for the bartender.

"From "Blume"? Wow, you’re punctual! Right down to the minute, it's a pleasure to meet you, Josh. I’m Connie. Thank you for delivering these parts to us. It’s really helped us out. I still can’t believe they ran out of the parts at the warehouses here, especially the temperature regulator. " Josh nodded, pushing the smaller suitcase towards her. They had discussed before his flight one of the "missing parts" that was going to be their code word, so Josh knew who to hand the tech to.

"All the pieces are in here, there’s a manual for setting it up if you need it, and you can ask if there’s anything else you need whilst I’m here, although I might not be available as I’ll be in Brixton for a few days."

"Of course! I’ll keep that in mind. Tell you what have a seat, your drinks are on me tonight. I’m going to go put these in the back, then I’ll help you find somewhere affordable to stay for however long you’re staying here. " With that, Connie got up and pulled the case out through a door at the back that had "private" written on it, disappearing into the room beyond it. While he waited, Josh hopped up onto the barstool, pulling his case closer to himself, ordered a coke, and pulled the hood of his old green hoodie over his head as he focused on the sounds around him. The chatter of the people throwing darts behind him, the muffled robotic voice of the PA system outside, and the sounds of cars and sirens in the distance.

Five minutes passed, and Connie still wasn’t back yet. At first, it started making Josh anxious as he was starting to get extremely tired from all the travelling he had been doing. The pub was practically empty now; just him, the bartender, and one other patron sat in one of the nearby armchairs. Josh spent the last few minutes looking at where the Brixton Barrier Block was, planning to travel there first thing in the morning and just waiting until he saw someone who looked like Wrench or until it got dark. The building was nearly silent. That was until the sound of wood smashing into hard plastic came from the back entrance of the building, causing the programmer to jump, almost knocking his drink over, turning toward the source of the noise. catching only a glimpse of black denim running into the room Connie went into earlier.

"Here we go again." the bartender mumbled, grabbing a pint glass, filling it up with beer, and placing it on the bar at the end nearest the door. Before Josh could question what was happening, Connie re-emerged from the back room, dragging the man who had just run in back out by the ear.

"OW! Ow ow ow! Connie, let go! That- fuck! Don’t twist my ear off! "

"We don’t need Albion sniffing around again because you broke into Broca Tech again. You only run in here to hide or get a drink, and you didn’t get a drink first. " Connie scolded, letting go, pointing to the beer on the side, "I’ve got a guest here and you come barging in like a mad man."

"Ok, first of all, it was Clan Kelley chasing me. Second, thanks, Alf." The man looked up, the mask covering his face, well, half of his face now as he pushed it up to start drinking his pint. blue X’s blinking up towards the ceiling. Connie turned back towards Josh, who was furiously rubbing his eyes with the base of his palms out of shock and tiredness.

"Right, anyway, you said you needed to be in Brixton, right? I know of a couple of places down there that I can trust. It has good Wi-Fi too, and it's pretty close to the tube station as well... You ok there Josh? Tired?" Connie started, turning to speak to Josh. The other man was pulling his mask down, the symbols refreshing.

"Ugh, don't go for that Lord's Crown one. The owners are assholes, why who needs a place to...? was all he could say before dropping his empty glass on the bar, which fortunately did not break. The goggles turned from X’s to !’s "No, there’s no fucking way."

"You two know each other or something? Sure, you’re both American but it’s a pretty big country you got. "

"Re...Wrench was the reason I needed to go to Brixton. We’ve been super worried about him back home, so I came to find him. He’s from our "group" back in San Francisco, or well, used to be before he moved here. " Josh stated, quickly changing Reggie’s name to his old nickname when he saw the older man’s shoulders stiffen, rubbing his knuckles quickly, the warmth the friction caused grounding him as he started to worry that he made a mistake coming here. Wrench’s expression was unchanging.

"well then Wrench as payment for using my pub as a place to hide and causing me no end of issues when Albion come in here searching the whole damn place. Why don’t you take Josh with you and sort him out a place to stay? Good? " Wrench nodded as he stood up, motioning to the back door, waiting for Josh to stand and walk over before taking his case for him.

"Yes Ma’am, come on Josh, we’ll take a car. It’ll be quieter for you and no Albion dickheads."

The pair said their goodbyes as they left the building, it had started to lightly rain at some point after Josh arrived and didn’t show any signs of clearing up. Sticking close to Wrench as they wandered to the nearest car, Wrench put Josh’s case in the back before getting into the right-hand side and opening the passenger door from the inside.

"So... what do I call you?" Josh turned to the anarchist after shutting the door and putting on his seatbelt, noticing Wrench had taken his mask off to make the car drive on auto-drive.

"In front of others? Wrench. Hmmm, how about if I don’t have the mask on, you can call me whatever is easier for you. How about that? " Josh nodded as his eyes grew heavier, trying to focus on Wrench’s face. It was almost the same as the day the group waved him and Zane off at the airport, with some minor changes. For one, he had started getting wrinkles, probably from frowning as he worked. As Josh assumed, he also looked more tired with dark circles under his eyes, which wasn’t helped by the fact that he also looked paler, although going from sunny California to rainy England wasn’t that shocking.

One thing that hadn’t changed was his eyes. Josh didn’t usually like looking people in the eyes, especially when they were staring back at him, but there was something different about Wrench’s. The way they almost seemed to glow when the light hit them, reminded him of Nemophila menziesii, or rather conveniently named "Baby Blue Eyes". Josh didn’t know much about flowers, just a few of their names and the fact his mother grew them in his childhood home, but he knew they were pretty and easy to look at. Smiling softly to himself, listening to the sound of the car’s near quiet engine and Wrench’s mutterings as he tapped away on his phone, soon lulled him off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Buzzing and whirring were the first things Josh heard the next day when he woke up. Refusing to open his eyes, as he had a slight headache, but Josh assumed that was the jet lag finally catching up to him. He decided to focus on his other senses until he felt awake enough to open his eyes.

Along with the whirring of electrical equipment, the faint smell of burnt tobacco and a spicy cologne wafted through the air. Josh wasn’t a huge fan of tobacco, but the familiarity of it caused him to relax a little on the mattress he was led on. It wasn’t the comfiest one in the world, it was like the couch back in the hackerspace. Lastly, there was a warm glow of orange light that he could see through his closed eyelids.

Deciding he had been asleep long enough, Josh pushed himself up to a sitting position. He groaned slightly when he attempted to open his eyes, but the brief sight of neon lights quickly made him regret that decision.

"Hm? Oh! Good morning, sleepyhead. Want a coffee? I just made a pot. " Josh covered where the neon lights were, opening his eyes the smallest amount possible and looking in the direction of the voice and footsteps. The rest of the room was pretty dark, with almost bare concrete walls covered in graffiti and posters. Wrench was leaning against a wall, almost dividing the room in half, mask off, sipping what Josh assumed was coffee from the strangest-shaped novelty mug he'd ever seen.

"I can’t, they mess with my medication... Where are we? "

"Oh, right, I forgot about that. Here? My safe house in Brixton It’s not much, but I couldn’t just abandon you at a hotel after you fell asleep in the car, could I? The others would catch the next plane over and kick my ass. So I brought you to my flat. I'm sorry the bed isn’t much, I wasn’t expecting more guests so soon. " Wrench walked over to a wheeled storage container close to Josh, pushing some of the tools on top to the back before hopping onto it like it was a chair.

"Look, Josh, I need to know how did you know I was in Brixton? London I can get but to the district? I was careful not to have anything related to my name in this area. I’m sure of it. " Wrench questioned with a concerned look on his face.

“Well, after the attack, we got worried. I... We thought you got hurt or worse, so we all started digging, and I found a body pillow company buying outdated Haum tech that Wrench Jr would need. I had no clue if it was actually you or not. Until another member found a body-cam photo of you attacking someone with a sledgehammer near here, did we realise it was most likely you. " Explaining everything that happened in San Francisco in detail, watching Wrench nod along, listening carefully as he sipped his coffee until a growl interrupted Josh’s explanation. causing the older man to chuckle.

"How about you get changed, your case is behind you, and we’ll go grab some late breakfast. There’s a cafe nearby that does killer American pancakes that you’ll probably love. I’m working on something out in the back, so just come grab me when you’re ready, cool? " Without waiting for a response, Wrench jumped off the container and stretched, cracking his back at the same time, before walking back around the partition.

Five minutes later, Josh had changed into a new pair of jeans and a poly-cotton t-shirt that Sitara made him buy because "you can’t just wear the same outfit every day of your life." At least it wasn’t itchy and plain. Grabbing his hoodie off of a humanoid robot sitting in a deck chair, he walked around to the partition, giving the deactivated Wrench Jr. a pat above his spray-painted face. Lines of melted plastic cover most of his shell, scars of what happened back in 2016. Looking around, Josh saw that Wrench hadn’t changed one bit in another way, the mess. Tech hardware was everywhere, probably at least 13 disassembled drones that Josh could see at a glance, but what took up the most space was a modified cargo drone that Wrench was led under, shuffling out when he heard Josh’s footsteps approaching.

"Ready? It’s like five minutes away, tops. " Grabbing his mask from the side, putting it into an old messenger bag and walking over to Josh, he turned to his beloved bot and continued, "Right Wrench Jr! Hold down the fort for us, look after your brother and sister for me, we’ll be back later! ", walking around Josh and opening the door for him.

"You aren’t wearing your mask?" Josh asked as he stepped outside. The ground was still damp from the rain the night before, but the sky was now a blinding white from all the clouds above.

"You aren’t wearing your beanie; you’ve always worn your beanie. Honestly, though, I got used to not wearing it from being with Dickhead, and to access the auto-drive in cars, I need to take the mask off, so I just bring it everywhere with me and just wear it when I need to throw a Wrench in the works to get back to Rempart or to help Connie. " The blond responded, leading the other down the maze of stairs and down the road.

"Although from what I’ve been hearing, I’ll be helping them out a lot more now thanks to the tech you brought. We can talk about that later! Breakfast first! "

An hour later, the pair were sitting in the back corner of a small cafe, their plates empty with only the remnants of syrup left from the pancakes. Wrench was leaning back in his chair, watching Josh use his spoon to submerge the marshmallows one at a time into his hot chocolate before fishing them out.

"I still can’t believe you’re here. You rarely left our hangout spots back home, and now look at you, flying halfway across the world. "

"I couldn’t do nothing, I needed to see you alive with my own eyes. That person in the photo could have been a copycat. " Josh looked up at Wrench but quickly glanced back down when he realised the blond was watching him closely. "I don’t plan on going back until you can too."

"You wouldn’t be able to easily anyway. The only way people are getting out of the country is if they’re deported. There's no information on where they go, though. I remember how stubborn you get when you give yourself a mission. Also, I’m not planning to leave for a good few months. I still have work crap to deal with. So I guess I’ll need to buy a camp mattress or something. It’ll be cheaper and safer if you just crash at mine. "

"No, I couldn’t. I’d be intruding."

"Can you spend 1,500 Etokens a night for at least a few months? Just for a place to sleep, not including food, clothes, and bits like that? " The blond stated, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.

"Well, no, but..."

"Exactly, it will also stop your mind from worrying, and you can easily contact Sitara and Marcus, right? With all the shit that’s going on, I’ve got a bad fucking feeling in my gut, just like all that shit with Dušan and I need someone I can genuinely trust not to stab me in the fucking back and hold down the fort. " Wrench looked around the cafe, tapping on his phone briefly and humming before looking up at Josh, who had placed his now empty mug on the checkered table.

"Can I at least tidy up in there? It's too messy to focus, and turn the neon lights off at night; they hurt my eyes. "

"Why the lights? Oh! Ohhh shit, my bad, of course! And for tidying, only the desk, not the big table, and we have a deal. " Josh nodded in response, and the pair stood up before walking to the door. "Right, let's hit the shops, then go back and make the flat more like back home. "

By early evening, the pair decided it was a good time to start heading back. With all the stuff they ended up buying, Wrench had to order most of the items to be delivered to his address via cargo drone as it was too much to carry or send by delivery.

"Why do you keep checking behind us?" Josh asked, after what seemed like the hundredth time Wrench had checked nervously over his shoulder.

"Oh! No reason, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. " The response made Josh frown. Wrench had been gripping tightly onto his bag as well, as if ready to take his mask out and put it on.

"Reggie, are we being followed or something?" Josh peered over his shoulder. The street had gotten busier with people heading home from work, but there wasn’t anyone looking at them, nor any police or Albion members.

"What? No, I just... I thought I saw someone I didn’t really want to see. I was mistaken, though. Let’s, let's just get home. "

"Zane?" Wrench’s shoulders flinching at the sound of the name, followed by a small nod, was all Josh needed to know. He heard from Marcus that the break-up was messy, but he didn’t give any details as to how, but it was clearly much worse than he originally thought, Wrench's entire demeanour changing completely to how it was earlier in the day. "Does he still look the same as when we used to video call? "

Another silent nod as Josh looked back over his shoulder, looking for dark red hair. The only person he could see was a short woman, definitely not Wrench’s ex-husband. What would Marcus say if he was here? Marcus always knew how to help after the FBI incident, but he wasn’t here this time.

"I don’t see him behind us... Why don’t we just grab a Driver car? Take the long way back to yours. " Reaching out and tugging on the hem of Wrench’s sleeve, he pointed to one of the driverless cars nearby. "We can order takeout too, so we don’t need to leave the flat when we get back and... we can check CCTV, make sure he’s not nearby. Will that help? "

Wrench nodded, grabbing Josh’s hand and dragging him over to the Driver car, pulling him inside before setting it to go around the block a few times before his flat.

"I’m going to booby trap the damned door. If anyone other than us two opens the front door, they get shocked. "

The rest of the car ride was in silence, with Josh checking CCTV cameras on his phone. When he was satisfied that they weren’t being followed, he set the car to take them to the flat.

A short while later, they were back inside, Wrench, with his mask now secured to his face. Was angrily getting to work on his new security system as Josh got set to work tidying up the smaller desk.

"Reggie I..."

"I don’t want to talk about him, Josh."

"I wasn’t going to ask about him. What’s stopping you from coming home? Is there anything I can do to speed things up so we can leave as soon as possible? " The programmer turned towards the door, noticing Wrench was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

"Well, first I need to do all the paperwork for my robotics company, but that got paused when the attacks happened. Other than that, I stupidly forgot to grab my passport when I moved out, and I can’t bring myself to go back and get it yet. " The glasses part of his mask flashed red in anger directed at himself. "When I get it, I’m on the first plane home and never looking back, but whatever, it’s not like I can fly back anyway right now until this shit dies down."

Josh silently nodded, looking back down at the desk, grabbing a pen and scribbling on the wooden surface, deciding to drop the conversation for now as Wrench got out his phone to order them both dinner.

Chapter Text

Weeks have flown by since Josh arrived in England. During that time, Wrench occupied his evenings helping out the newly reformed Dedsec London, who had already rallied the Camden and Lambeth boroughs behind their cause. Josh stayed in Wrench’s flat though, and the group, except for Connie, was unaware of his ties to the group. Which was fine. Reggie kept him up to speed with what the group was doing or planning.

Wrench never left the building without his mask now and often never came back before 2 am, often with small red welts, bruises, and occasional paint splatters on his arms, which concerned Josh to no end but always got the response of "You think these babies are bad? You should see the state of the other guys! "

Josh looked down at the clock on the corner of Wrench’s laptop that he was borrowing. It was past 3 am and he was starting to get worried. He despised staying up this late for no good reason, but couldn’t bring himself to go to sleep until he knew his battle-loving friend had returned, deciding to fetch the first aid kit he bought a few days after Wrench first started coming home injured, before checking the nearby CCTV camera outside, catching a glimpse of a familiar leather jacket amongst the small cluster of glitches slowly walking up the stairs towards the front door.

After letting out a sigh of relief, Josh rushed to open the door, seeing Wrench had just turned the corner at the top of the steps, pushing down his hood. A large bruise that was starting to form peaked out from under the bottom of his hoodie sleeve.

"You’re out later than normal... I’ve left some food that can be reheated for you if you’re hungry. " Wrench silently nodded as he walked past Josh, the programmer, only just now noticing the mask was completely turned off and there was a large crack on the visor. He closed the door behind them before asking, "Something bad happened. Are you hurt? "

"I... holy fuck, where do I start?" Wrench removed his mask and placed it on the side, a look of shock and disgust plastered on his face, wincing and hissing as he moved his arm.

"How about where you went this morning? And please let me see your arm properly. " Wrench slowly removed his jacket and hoodie in response to the question, allowing them to fall to the floor; the bruise, or bruises, was worse than Josh had expected. The one he caught a glimpse of earlier wasn’t too bad, just on Reggie’s forearm. However, the one growing on his right side was more worrying. Josh quickly rushed to the small freezer. Grabbing a large pack of peas from it, wrapping it in a cloth, and returning to Wrench’s side, as the older man continued, leaning against the table.

"Well, first I had to sneak into where they’re keeping all the people they’re deporting out of the country to try and find an original Dedsec London member. Long story short, the fuckers are injecting the people trapped in there with fucking microchips that can inject them with some poison crap if they step out of line. He was taken away, so I had to follow them. OW FUCK! " Wrench bit his lip as Josh tried to carefully place the makeshift ice pack on his side.

"Sorry, this is the best thing for bruises. Is it too cold? I can wrap it up more. "

"No, no, it’s fine, just... fuuuck, it stings like a bitch. So we had to track down where they took him. It turns out it was the Southwark incinerator. The old one is not used properly anymore, but Clan Kelley has taken it over. Turns out they knew what they were doing and locked the basement door from the inside, so Bagley found another route. At least one floor down, in a trash chute, I think No soft landing at the bottom, just metal. " Josh looked up at Reggie, eyes wide.

"You fell 14 feet?!?"

"Mmmhm."

"How are you not concerned about that?!"

"Josh, the shit I saw down there would make you puke if I told you in detail. It was worse than the fall. I had to help this police inspector from being operated on illegally. I saw corpses. They were not exactly nice ones. One of them was the guy we were looking for. Clan Kelly is like the Auntie Shu Boys dialled up to 11. It took me hours just to get home. If it was bad, I wouldn’t have made it back at all. " Wrench placed his hand on the ice pack before picking his mask back up.

"One of the new guys is going to look into that shit tonight. I’ve got more work tomorrow. It's just prep work following another lead Helen was following. It’s Broca Tech related, so it’s my field of expertise. I’ve run into Skye Larson, well, her hologram at least once, and I still have all the access codes from when I worked with Rempart. So I just need to get to a CtOS box and get some information. It’s the last stage before we make a plan of attack. "

"Tomorrow? But that bruise is not going to go away by tomorrow. Climbing up to a CtOS box that’s most likely guarded isn’t a good idea. You might have broken a rib or something worse. You should rest. " Josh stood up, looking Wrench over for any other injuries.

"I’ll go straight to A&E after I get back, I promise. It's completely a recon mission. I don’t plan on getting into a fight. I’ve got some broken spiderbot parts coming and was hoping you could modify one for me to pass the time whilst I’m out. "

Josh narrowed his eyes. "You can’t distract me with robots, Reggie. Have you seen your bruise? " The anarchist rolled his eyes dramatically before looking down at his torso, then at the programmer in front of him.

"Look, I can breathe OK. I just need to be careful. Be all sneaky sneaky, stealthy stealthy. I’ll get Bagley to get Connie to message you if I don’t respond to him in a 30-minute window or if I yell for backup, with my exact last location. I’m seriously the only one available who can do this. "

"As long as I can use Sergei and the spiderbot to go after you if I get a call." Wrench simply nodded in response, carefully standing up and taking small steps towards the stack of mattresses on the floor, taking a sharp breath as he lowered himself onto them, kicking his shoes off.

"If it makes you worry less and if you take good care of my son, you can. He’s weaponised too, so if there’s an issue and I need serious help, you can use him. I better try and sleep if I want this to heal up in any way before tomorrow. Thanks for waiting up for me, Josh." Reggie smiled up at the black-haired man as he took the bag of peas back to put them in the freezer, glancing over at his discarded mask. "Fucked up my mask though. If I can’t fix it, I guess I’ll be wearing the original one, but first... sleep, as the sleep fairy is calling me."

"We’ll look at that in the morning. Sleep well, Reggie. " Josh shook his head when he heard the groan in response as Wrench laid down, turning the lights off after closing the freezer, using the light from his phone to carefully walk back and into his camping bed before finally drifting off into one of the lightest sleep he’d ever had.

The following morning, Josh wouldn’t let Wrench leave until he gave the man a second once over. Reggie sat on Josh’s desk, shirtless as he tried to replace the screen on his mask. The bruising had gone down enough that Josh could see some of his tattoos over the shades of reds, yellows, and purples, almost like they were colouring the tattoos in.

"I’m still not happy that you’re going out before going to the hospital. You could be bleeding internally pretty badly based on the size of this and what I read online earlier. " Josh mumbled as he ran his fingers lightly across the bruise, trying to feel if any of Wrench’s ribs were broken. Occasionally, he checked his phone, which was open on a medical website.

"I’ll be fine. I can lift my arms if I’m careful. One short climb and back down and I’ll go to the nearest hospital where I'm working, get a car ride home, and then you can tie me to the mattress so I can’t … that came out wrong." The blonde chuckled as he watched the other go slightly red and scrunch his face slightly at the unfortunate choice of words, placing his mask on his face. The screen flickering, going through all the programmed emotes before stopping at its default setting.

Waiting for Josh to regain his composure before slipping his hoodie and jacket on, then placing a hand on Josh’s shoulder to grab his attention.

"Tomorrow I’ll take a day off and we can go out somewhere, or build some bots. I mean, Wrenchesca needs an upgrade, so she needs some work I could do with some help. No jobs, no danger. " Before walking to the door, he gave Josh a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.

"Oh! I left Jackson Pearce’s number on the Sergei. Good kid, He’ll be able to help you out if you have any problems or need directions, and he’s been here before. "

"Just stay safe! "

"I always try to cyberchild!" Wrench chuckled as he left, leaving Josh groaning at the old nickname.

After working on the spiderbot, affectionately named Arachne, for a few hours, Josh decided to go out and explore the city for a bit, putting a spare leather jacket of Wrench’s over his hoodie for extra warmth. Upon winding up in Covent Garden, where Jackson had told him a few art shops could be found within walking distance, It was fairly uneventful, having a couple of bags of various paints and stickers. Things changed when he heard a voice come through on his Optik.

"Mr. Blechman, I presume is not your real name?" Josh froze, staring into the window of a clothes shop in front of him.

"You presume correctly, who is this? I didn’t give anyone this number. " Looking down at his phone, he was greeted by his home screen and not a call screen.

"I’m the super-intelligent AI that fits inside your pocket and knows more information than your tiny mortal brain can handle, but you can call me Bagley. Our mutual self-destructive friend asked me to call you. "

"Wrench? Has he gone missing? Is he OK? " Josh panicked. He was nowhere near the flat, so he couldn’t get Sergei out to go save his friend.

"Oh, right, he did say to call if something went wrong as well. Nevermind! He’s OK and asked me to directly pass on a message. He’s going to a hospital near Westminster as per your instructions this morning, I’ll send the location and best route to your Optik now. "

"I’ll message him now. Thank you, Bagley. If I can ask, did he get hurt on today's job?"

"Physically, he’s fine, but he’s not gone into many details. We’re currently talking about it with the other worker on the job. If that is all, I’ll love you and leave you. Goodbye, Mr. Not-actually-called-Blechman. " Josh hummed in response, following the directions he was given as he sent a text to Wrench with a copy of the directions he was taking.

Chapter Text

One night in the hospital and a trip on the Tube later, the pair were home. Josh thought for a moment, when did this place become home? Or feel in any way like a home? Shrugging off his internal questions before turning to face his injured companion who had shuffled past him and was currently attempting to wriggle out of his hoodie

“You’re insanely lucky it’s just a bruised rib, Reggie. What excuse did you tell the Doctor? ”

“I didn’t tell one, both her and the nurse are in Dedsec, so they knew what happened days ago… Can I have some help? ” looking back at Josh, Wrench sheepishly grinned until the programmer walked over to him, rolling his eyes as he proceeded to pull the rest of the hoodie over the blond’s head.

“So then they’ll be able to tell the others that you aren’t allowed to go on any jobs for a while. ” Josh turned his back for a moment to fold up Reggie’s jacket and hoodie, taking the leaflet they got at the hospital out of the pocket and flicking through it. “Rest, take pain relief, keep mobile like going out for walks and stop smoking is what it says here. ”

“Ughhhh the first three I can do but I’m sure one smoke won’t hurt Josh. ”

“No, no smoking until you’re better… wait what are you doing now? ”

Josh looked up to see Reggie, fishing through his suitcase and pulling out one of his baggy shirts he wears as a PJ top before carefully putting it on. It wasn’t huge on the anarchist however it definitely made it more obvious to Josh that Reggie was both slightly shorter and lanky with how the shirt hung on the Blond’s frame compared to his own.

“Well if I can’t get my hoodie off there’s no way in hell I can get into one of my shirts, they’re a too tight fit. Also, you always wore baggier shirts so it’ll be more comfortable. That and you don’t like stiff n itchy clothes so it won’t irritate my sides. aaaanyway what’s the plan, Batman? ”

“I’m not...oh … I mean I bought paints for your new robot.. ”

“Wrenchesca. ”

“And Arachne so we can do that for a bit and then what about going out for food? That should be okay with what the leaflet says. ” The mention of Josh’s spiderbot caught Wrench’s attention and he zipped over to Josh’s desk looking at the little bot.

“Oooooh! I see you’ve used some of the scraps I’ve had lying around like my old Multi drone’s legs … which shouldn’t be able to hold the weight of this make, walk me through it. ”

Josh wandered over, fidgeting with his fingers and smiling slightly at the fact Reggie noticed some of the details he already changed. Getting out his phone to activate the little bot, a panel on the top of the bot lighting up and displayed a little “ ^-^ “ face on it as it started to scan the two humans in the room.

“I swapped the main legs for the multi drone legs but I used the original legs to create 4 pairs of smaller legs underneath for added mobility as well as to support the weight. I also added an LCD display on top similar to your mask, primarily to display how much battery is remaining but it also functions as a remote communication method. Kind of like what Marcus did during the FBI incident. ”

Josh continued to list a variety of other minor improvements he made to the small bot. As Reggie listened, amazed at the amount of changes such a small robot could have. Placing his hand onto the desk to let the small bot climb onto his hand.

“Tell you what Josh, after we go back home, you need to work with me. The improvements you could make on the bots I have would be amazing! Hell, I might get you to help with Wrenchesca seeing as I’ll be working on her for a while, at least until I can get the last few pieces for Junior over there. ”

“Really? This isn’t a prank, right? ” Josh questioned as he took out the paints and waterproof stickers he bought the day before and placed them on the desk. His little bot climbing up Reggie’s arm and onto his shoulder.

“I don’t prank about serious shit, not since Sitara chewed me out for the time I added random spaces to the coding of your mega drone, learnt my lesson the hard way. ”

The pair spent the next couple of hours decorating the bots, Josh helped Reggie bring his RADS MK1 closer to the desk so he could sit comfortably as he worked. The RADS MK1 gradually became brighter and brighter with each splash of neon paint that landed on the outer plates, on the other hand, The spider bot became darker, with a matte black base with white lines in the style of cracks and cobwebs down the limbs of the bot.

Once the final leg was painted, Josh carefully placed it on the small charging station whilst it dried, the faceplate changing to “Zzz...” the moment it started charging. Looking over to Reggie, who was walking back from the other end of the room with a glass of water.

“Everything OK? ”

“Yeah, Just needed to take paracetamol I was sitting too long, ugh I feel all stiff now think I need to walk around a bit or something. ” Josh looked at the time on his phone.

“What about lunch? The main lunch rush would be over now so people won’t be bumping into you. ”

“Sounds like a plan, how does burgers and coffee in a park sound? It's two Tube stops away and it's pretty small and quiet normally so perfect for you, and bonus Albion rarely ever goes there either. ” Josh nodded in response, getting up and grabbing Reggie’s messenger bag and swinging it over his shoulder as his friend carefully made his way after the blond.

After slowly and steadily making their way to the tube station, Josh held on to the hem of the shirt Reggie was wearing. More for his own comfort than getting lost in the non-existent crowds. He would hold Reggie’s hand but that would be weird, Reggie might find it way too weird, so Josh decided to go against that decision. Letting the blond lead him towards the nearest Staroger’s coffee before heading to a burger van just outside.

“Right it’s just the other side of the Strom building, the park used to be bigger but you know what corporate fuckers are like, gotta take nice things and slap a new soul-sucking building on top. ”

“...Don’t you need a building like that to make your robots? ” this caused Reggie to look at Josh like he had just grown a second head.

“I try to go for Abandoned buildings that aren’t needed anymore, not taking away parks and cool shit like that anyway let's not talk about that crap, its a b-e-a-u-tiful day we got burgers n coffee what more could we want? ” turning the corner and finally they arrived at a small park, pretty empty but there were a few tunnels made from a series of wooden arches and a few benches dotted around Josh liked it a lot, it reminded him of back home in San Francisco but downsized. After sitting down at a bench farthest away from the road Josh started handing Reggie his burger and fries, eyeing the second cup of coffee suspiciously.

“What did you order for me? They don’t do my normal order here. How do you know I’ll like it? ” Josh questioned as Reggie handed over the cold coffee replying as the Black-haired main carefully inspected the beverage.

“It’s a Cookies & Cream Frappuccino; which has whipped cream, crumbled cookie topping and whole milk. Oh, 1 shot of coffee because you don’t like the strong taste, with extra caramel drizzle and double blended, I’d offer mine but … it’s very strong and you probably won't like it. ”

Satisfied with his friend's detailed response Josh took a small, tentative sip of the coffee waiting for a moment before tilting his head and nodding. It wasn’t as good as his usual order but it wasn’t a bad alternative.

“We need to do this when we go home, just our gang. Down by the Golden Gate bridge unless that little beach area y’know? Unless that’s gotten all built up as London has. ” Reggie reminisced as he bit into his burger.

“Every city has now, but the beach is still there, your garage too. Probably because they can’t build much more because of the highway above it, I still work in there so there isn’t a huge layer of dust covering the place. Oh, I think Marcus has been planning a welcome home party since you moved here, just in case. ”

“That sounds like M, I’m glad some things haven’t changed hopefully we can do it in the new year when all this mess is over and done with. ”

“Can you tell me anything about the mess? I want to help you, obviously not do the same stuff you’ve been doing but we still have access to that satellite so I can look in other places your team can’t. ” The programmer pulled his hood over his head, sipping on his coffee before leaning on Reggie’s shoulder. Too focussed on looking at the wall opposite them to even notice he had done it. The blond froze for a second, not used to this kind of physical touch, although that's partly due to all the spikes he normally wears. Pulling his phone out before whispering in response so passersby can’t hear.

“We’re going after a person or group called Zero-Day who probably has ties to Clan Kelley, Albion and Brocatech… Well, I’ve already tied up the loose end at Broca with a hacker from 404 called Nowt. ”

“Wait, Skye Larsen? Was she the loose end? ”

“Yeah, The news obviously is hiding all the details about her fucked up experiments. Surrounding turning people’s brains into literal coding and cutting away the unneeded parts and turning them into AI’s… Poor Ada that shit was so so fucked Josh we had to stop her. Anyway, luckily we’ve got a team of 10 operatives, including myself and some outside source help working on all the leads we got. This Zero-Day is good, pretty evil but good at covering their fucking tracks. ” Reggie sighed as he started to scroll through the GBB website, frowning slightly.

“I’ll ask the others if they hear anything internationally, let the others focus on the work for now I don’t want you to get hurt more than you already are. ” The programmer mumbled, placing his coffee cup on the bench.

“Awww, This is unlike you Josh. Well don’t worry The others have put me out of service for a while on Dr’s orders, I uh, actually was looking at some things you might like to do last night. The first thing I found that seemed like your kind of thing was the science museum. It’ll be quiet and they have a science-fiction and space themed exhibit going on including an IMAX screening that’s got special quiet screenings in the evening for Autistic people so it won’t be super loud. ” Josh sat back up to look at Reggie, nodding quickly as he took a bite into his now half-cold burger.

“I’ll book us some tickets then. I don’t think I’ve ever even been there myself either so it’ll be fun! Aaaand we can go to the gift shop after! We can get anything, no Sitara to say no! ” Reggie exclaimed, incredibly excited at going to a museum with Josh. Who in turn found the excitement contagious enough to start planning a few different routines for that day. finishing his burger before looking up at the clear blue sky above him, seeing a magpie soar over their heads. Enjoying the moment of peace they had been given.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take Reggie long to find available tickets to the quiet hour session at the Science Museum, but there was a week and a half wait. If you asked Josh, it was definitely worth it; spending time helping Reggie with his robotics business, hanging out and being introduced to "Magic Goat Battle Princess" Josh wouldn't say the anime was his sort of thing, but it certainly wasn’t bad, and from the animation and writing side of things, it was very well made.

One thing Josh didn’t know is that Reggie couldn’t watch TV without doing something else at the same time. Well, he knew when Wrench was still a part of Dedsec San Francisco, he often had anime on whilst he worked, but Josh thought that was Reggie needing some kind of background noise to keep him focused. It turns out it was the other way around. Three episodes into season one and Reggie had made the pair of them both a scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves that turn into mittens. blue and pink for himself and sage green and black for Josh. When the programmer asked when his chaotic friend had learned how to knit and crochet, he was met with a shrug and a "got bored during a power-cut." but Josh could swear he heard muttering about living in a car.

Not that he complained, especially as they were on the way to the Science Museum. The temperature on the weather app was showing 10°C, but it certainly felt a lot colder than that as the pair huddled close together as they scurried down the road from the tube station, kitted out in their home-knit accessories and thick hoodies, Reggie deciding to match the blue and pink scarves with a matching coloured hoodie.

"Think it will snow? It feels cold enough for snow. "

"Pff! I doubt it. It’ll need to be later in the month and waaaay colder for a chance of snow. Also, the rain earlier? No way it will stick after that." Reggie chuckled as he kicked a puddle for emphasis. "Not long now, Joshie, you can see the building just up there on the left... just past the ugly, fucking huge, over-compensating Albion truck."

"Let's try not to get arrested by the private military police that controls the city. Connie would have your head on a stick mounted in front of the pub." Josh responded, smiling as he shook his head as the pair continued until they were outside the museum and waiting for the staff to let them inside.

"I’ve been meaning to ask Reggie. You know when you got Bagley to call me the other week? "
Reggie hummed in response, signalling Josh to continue.

"He called me Mr Blechman... Why? "

"Well, it's... no... hmm okay honestly. I couldn’t remember the surname on your profile, so I just kind of just gave you my surname when he asked what to call you and I couldn’t just use your alias. You’re not weirded out by that, right? I can update him on the right one later. " blushing slightly from embarrassment as he confessed.

Josh couldn’t reply before an employee of the museum stepped out and asked to see their tickets, which Reggie showed her on his phone. After checking the tickets were valid, she let the pair inside, explaining there were no tours planned for tonight but if they needed any assistance, there would be an assistant in each exhibit. She finished off by saying that the IMAX screening started every 45 minutes before heading to the entrance to check the tickets for more visitors that showed up.

"IMAX first? Most people tend to want to walk around before going to see the show. That and it means we don’t have to rush the rest of the exhibits. I would’ve gotten us a tour, but Albion’s law of no gatherings of over 5 people in the evenings meant they had to stop them. Which is fucking annoying. "

Reggie waited patiently, looking over towards an Albion security guard in the corner of the entrance hall. As Josh put his gloves into his pocket, picking up a booklet on the exhibits, flicking through it until he got to the floorplans. His brown eyes flicking back and forth as he mentally planned different routes, trying to work out which would be best suited for them.

"Actually, as the IMAX is on this floor, most people will do the opposite and go there first. I think we should take the elevator up and walk down through the exhibits as we go. That way, we can rest our feet at the end as we watch the show. The top floor is dedicated to science fiction and how stories shaped how we adapted technology. Then it goes to robots, then space... The ground floor has some stuff about Broca Tech as well as the show on space travel and the latest space discoveries. " Josh turned the booklet towards Reggie, pointing at where each exhibit was as he named them.

"Actually, yeah, that sounds better than my idea. elevator A? Theeeen we can zig-zag perfectly to the screening. Take as long as we need and get to see everything at the same time. " Josh hummed in agreement as the pair started walking to the elevator, sticking closer to Wrench when he noticed an Albion security guard staring at them until they entered the elevator and the doors slid shut behind them. "Hey, Josh? I know it’ll be tough, but let's try and ignore those fucks. If it helps, pretend they’re staring at my ugly mug. "

Josh looked at his companion, who was pointing to his own face, smirking slightly as he spoke. self-conscious as always, but masking it with humour now instead of a literal mask.

"I’ll try, but you aren’t ugly, Reggie... Ah! " Josh jumped slightly as the elevator announced they had arrived on the third floor before opening the doors. Dimmed blue lights greeted them, bright enough to see yet not harsh on the eyes. Grabbing Reggie’s free arm, Josh excitedly led the other man out over to cases of old movie and TV props placed next to inventions they inspired that stood feet away from the door. The technology was stored in order of when the reality technology was made. The autistic man was already listing random facts related to displays as his brain wandered into a new train of thought as soon as they had stepped into the room.

Reggie listened, staying oddly silent as Josh continued to ramble on, occasionally asking questions regarding what was in front of them at that point. Tech had always been Josh’s main hyper fixation, just as destroying and blowing shit up was Reggie’s. The anarchist knew most of the information, having used the tech personally or as inspiration for his bots. That didn’t matter; he simply pretended to forget until they made their way to the other end of the exhibits.

"Ugh, my cheeks hurt. " Josh groaned, rubbing his cheeks in circular motions

"Well, you were talking a mile a minute, Joshie, so that's not surprising. You usually stay pretty quiet."

"Sorry," Reggie stopped in his tracks, already on the first step down the stairs. Turning around to crane his face up to look at the now much taller man who was now mumbling less enthusiastically, "I was probably annoying, wasn’t I?"

"Not at all! Hell, Josh! You know things they didn’t include in those lil info thingys, which is amazing! Keep rambling, you’re teaching me shit here... I meant what I said as a compliment. " Wrench lightly fist-bumped his arm, grinning

"Oh, okay, if you’re sure, but promise you’ll tell me if I need to be quiet. I’m used to reading your emotions by your mask. " Reggie responded by linking his pinky finger with Josh’s

"I promise, but I don’t think I’ll need to. Now come on! There’s more cool crap to see and so little time. " Turning back around to continue down the stairs, pinkies still linked as they made their way through the museum, eventually coming across small families going the opposite direction.

When they eventually got to the ground floor, the pair still had some time to kill before the next IMAX viewing, so Reggie started whispering facts about the Brocatech AI displays nearby, company secrets he found out through his Dedsec missions and his own break-ins as well. Omitting the more terrifying details regarding the horrific experiments that led to the creation of the AI.

"So the AI in the taxis..."

"Deceased Cabbie."

"Whoa... That’s insane, although if the tech is available and the person is willing, that's amazing. " Reggie could only pause and mutter "sure." before motioning to the open theatre doors to get Josh’s attention as a family of 5 walked out. The children excitedly babbled about the show they just watched.

"Shall we? No one else is down here, so we can grab the best seats in there." Reggie questioned, already taking steps backwards towards the IMAX doors, almost walking straight into a pillar.

"Only if you walk normally… Your ribs just started to heal. I’ll tell Marcus if you do something to hurt yourself again. " Josh smiled as he stepped towards the blond, grabbing his striped sleeve to turn his older friend around to walk forward. "We’ll want centre seats, second to the last row from the back or the back row. That’s usually the best ones for IMAX."

Reggie couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease Josh, especially when he made it so easy. He dramatically placed his hands on his chest, lowering his shoulders for extra emphasis.

"Really, Josh? The back row? without taking me to dinner first. I didn’t know you could be so forward! "

"What? Wait! No! I didn’t. It’s the best place to see the whole screen without moving your head. That's all! Nothing weird! " Josh retorted defensively, his ears and cheeks going redder as they walked through the doors and made their way to the seats Josh had mentioned.

"Relax, Josh. I’m only teasing. I couldn't resist. Although when we finally go home, we should go wreak havoc at the Exploratorium. At least that one's interactive, which would be sick!"

The moment he sat down, Reggie groaned and pointed to his Optik.

"Fucking typical, I need to take this. You mind if I?" Josh shook his head, perching on the seat next to him, the theatre appearing larger than he imagined,
especially with just the two of them, patting his thighs. Reggie’s now autotuned voice whispers beside him.

"In public, so I can’t talk much. What’s up? mhm... Okay, honestly, I find it suspicious, and we shouldn't put our trust in him... I know he’s our best bet but... If Aiden thinks we should do what he says, then I’ll agree, but just make a backup plan or five. Before someone gets kidnapped, keep me updated... Right... right... look I gotta go. I’ll be unavailable for the next 30-40 minutes, but if there’s anything I can do to help..." Josh turned his head to face Reggie, shaking his head. Not fully understanding what the conversation is about, "Remotely, let me know and I’ll do my best.. ‘kay I really gotta go, bye guys."

" ‘Work’?" Reggie nodded in response, his brow furrowed as he looked straight ahead as Josh continued, "I won’t ask, but if the team needs outside help, tell me."

"I’ll be counting on you when I call that favour in ooh! Enough work, the shows starting!"

Josh swore in that short, brief moment when Reggie’s eyes almost sparkled with excitement. face lit up by the recording of the stars and planets. He would never forget that night.

Chapter Text

The brief moment of peace that was the night in the science museum was just that, a brief moment. The following day, Wrench had returned to leaving at some unholy hour before Josh woke up. Coming back with a variety of hardware, chucking most of it onto his already messy workbench but put a small collection on Josh’s desk in front of the hacker.

"Are you trying to distract me again? " he questioned as Wrench pushed his mask up onto the top of his head, pushing his thin blond fringe back as he did so, strands sticking up in every direction.

"If it works and you are distracted, yes; if not, consider it a souvenir that might help Arachne. I also picked you up something from the safehouse just in case. " With that, he placed a mask down on the desk. It was similar in style to his original mask but white and red in colour. The spikes glowing slightly. "It's programmed the same as mine, and I made sure it was breathable and made of a material you’d be okay with. "

Josh tentatively picked up the mask. Fingers running over the cool deactivated visor before flipping it over, noticing that it was surprisingly easy to see through as well as a small voice modulator near where his mouth would go. Putting the mask on briefly to test the feeling on his face, it wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t unbearable either.

"Why would I need a mask? " the white mask flickering to life, Josh finally seeing how the flat looked like to his friend, literally.

"Dedsec London’s whole gimmick is wearing funky masks to hide their identities, and honestly, I’m worried things are going too well at the moment, so if ZeroDay or Albion come after you thinking you’re Dedsec, So this will hide your identity from their facial recognition software. "

"So if Albion comes after me...? "

"They’ll hopefully think you’re ‘The Wrench’ and hassle me instead. Anyway! That bag is more up your alley. They should be signal boosters. Spiderbots don’t have the greatest range, so you might be able to reverse engineer them to make them work for your bot. Is that a good enough distraction? "

Pulling the mask carefully off his face and placing it on a spare spot on the desk before inspecting the small pile of hardware, Josh raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Hm, OK, where did you get this? " Unbeknownst to Josh, Reggie was biting his lower lip, pausing for a moment before perching on the desk, placing his own mask next to Josh’s white one.

"We might have gone into SIRS headquarters. Mina did. I was at the base, but I asked her to grab some shit for me while she was in there. I’ve got to try and get some info off some hard drives as payment, buuut that can’t be too fucking hard, right? "

If Josh had moved his head any faster to look at Reggie, he would’ve gotten some form of whiplash.

"SIRS?! "

"Sh! Shshsh! Don’t yell about it! " The blond defensively raised his hands up in response to his friend's shock.

"Aren’t they the British version of the FBI? Reggie, what if they kidnap you like they did or do something worse?! "

"Relax, Joshie, deep breaths. As I said, Mina went in, not me, so they would have kidnapped her, not me. I’m still not allowed to do fieldwork at the moment anyway. And I thought if we could increase the range on Arachne, she could accompany me and you’d worry less... Well within reason, don’t think Bagley would let her in the safe house. " This satisfied Josh, not fully, but just enough. Reaching forward and opening his laptop.

"Fine, I don’t like it, but fine. Oh, Sitara messaged when you were out, in an encrypted chat. She wanted to make sure we weren’t bingeing on junk food and drinks and complained when she found out I haven’t been out in the sun much. "

Reggie chuckled an infectious chuckle that caused Josh to smile softly, as he connected his laptop to a motherboard from the small pile. The blond hopping off the desk to grab his own laptop.

"Like we had any sun to begin with! Did you tell her about your adventures in the capital? "

Josh nodded in response on instinct. "I told her about our trip to the park and the museum. Sent photos of Westminster Palace, Camden, and a few other really nice street art pieces she would like. "

Reggie returned, ripping down a bunch of pictures off the nearby noticeboard before replacing them with five names: Albion, Clan Kelley, Brocatech, SIRS, and Zero-Day. 30 minutes later, it started to look like a conspiracy theorists' board, with coloured string connecting each of the factions. Josh couldn’t help being curious.

"Is it that serious? I mean, obviously, it's serious, but you used to make these boards if it was really serious. " Reggie sighed in response, scratching his head.

"It's just, we think we’ve worked out Zero-Day’s identity, but argh. It seems too fucking easy. The original London Dedsec was wiped out by this guy, and they were an amazing team. Meanwhile, me, Aiden, and I mean this in a nice way, but the other members are still a little green about all this, were able to bring down three of these five in just over a month. It feels wrong. "

Josh skimmed over the board. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes would help. Eyes flickering between the words and crudely scribbled on pictures, each faction had some kind of benefit to working with Zero-Day. Albion got the support of the people to become more powerful than the military. Mary Kelley could then use this connection to get away with her crimes more easily. BrocaTech, that one was probably up there for personal reasons more so than being related to Zero-Day. However, there was one that stuck out to Josh as a bit odd.

"I don’t see how this Emily Child fits in. All the others have some kind of benefit they can get from helping Zero-Day, but Emily’s benefit only works if Zero-Day was working for her and then immediately surrendered themselves to SIRS. They’re no better than Dedsec to SIRS. "

"Well, our insider thinks that Emily might be the leader of Zero-Day and we’re helping them retrieve the proof. " Reggie scratched the back of his head before changing the string from blue to a yellow one. His programmer friend was already searching through Nudle for easily accessible information. "OK, sure, when you word it like that, it does seem a little dumb. "

"I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense if the contact wasn’t the one in charge of counter-terrorism? But someone who would benefit if the chief of counter-terrorism was removed from that position? That person would owe Zero-Day big time that way, and Zero-Day would benefit from having that person under their thumb. "

"Fuck, that means they’ve been getting us to follow Emily for no fucking reason! " Reggie snapped at no one in particular, grabbing a screwdriver off the desk and throwing it to the floor in frustration. "I knew I should’ve suggested Aiden focus on SIRS, not Albion. He's better with this crap! "

Josh looked up from his phone, watching the anarchist pacing in circles, his hands gripping thin strands of hair as he muttered nothing but profanities, would-haves, should-haves, and could-haves. Josh was sure they were back home in America. Wrench would have his sledgehammer in hand and have turned a corner of his garage into a mini rage room. An act that was strangely therapeutic to watch and had the benefit of Josh being given the remains of hardware to mess about with afterwards.

"I don’t know if this will help you, but I found an article from 3 years ago that says if Emily Child were to resign. Then, Jack McCaffrey, Beibei Yu, Richard Malik, and Tracy Buckley will be most likely to take her role in SIRS. "

"Wait, who? " Reggie froze mid-pace, eyes widening as he interrupted Josh who had already moved on to the next part of the article.

"Jack McCaffrey 38, Beibei Yu 51, Richard Malik 48, and Tracy Buckley 54? "

Reggie’s hand flew to his Optik

"Bags? Who was our SIRS informant? …Right, ok, who’s working on the...? Yes, please. " Josh turned back to his desk, confused, trying not to eavesdrop, but in such a confined flat it was near impossible not to.

"Darcy, We've got a problem: Emily Child isn't... What do you mean you already know?!…fuck….fuuuuuckkkk well trust me, she’s telling the truth My uh, my associate just found out that if Childs resigned, Malik is one of the fuckers that’ll replace her! Look I... I’m coming to the safe house. Look, I'm well enough to get on the tube and walk down some stairs. I'll be there in an hour tops. '' An aggravated sigh escaped from Reggie as he hung up, turning to Josh.

"Look, I need to, fuck Josh, you have no idea how bad this could be. I’m not going after him, but they might need me nearby. I’ll keep a channel open. "

"Reggie, you aren’t on house arrest… Just don’t bruise your ribs again by jumping down any chutes. " Josh chuckled as he heard a sarcastic groan of "Yes Moooom! " Preceded by a hand ruffling through his hair as Reggie leaned over Josh and grabbed his mask. Placing the plastic over his face, the LCD screen displaying his signature wink as he turned and left the flat.

Josh stayed seated watching the CCTV on his phone, followingWrench until he got to the tube station. He was worried; how could he not be if Wrench didn’t find trouble, but trouble found him instead. Like a curse following the anarchist. But that’s probably why he could just as easily get out of trouble as well, with Marcus usually helping to bail him out or be his getaway driver.

Marcus, that was an idea.

Quickly opening up an encrypted call, hoping it wasn’t too early.

"Nnnn Josh? "

It was too early.

"Marcus, I think I need some help. "

Josh started to explain everything that had happened since he showed up in London, as well as his fears that something bad was going to happen soon. Marcus listened patiently the entire time. Waiting for Josh to finish before talking.

"That’s fucking … I... wow. Right, so me and Sitara can’t fly over there, but I might have a way to help from here. When I did the Cyber Driver shit with Reggie, I hacked a local camera drone to film the stunts, but we have two problems: first, they literally only have a camera, so I’ll be next to no help on that front; second, they have to be within range of the CtOS box I’m hacking it from. If you have any ideas on how to fix either, we can help from home. "

Josh thought for a moment, looking between the parts Reggie left for him and his laptop.

"What if I made a remote CtOS box? Or an extension signal that can move about? That would fix the latter. For the former, the Clan Kelley spot nearby has a drone terminal. I can try and get a riot drone or something similar those have guns, so would that work well? "

Marcus thought for a bit, saying something quietly to whoever was in the room with him before talking back to Josh.

"The drones sound perfect; the portable CtOS box? I don’t know if those are still bulky, but if you think you can make one, well that would be insane. I guess that’s what you’re going to be working on today then? "

"Mhm, I’ve got some tech that could work. If it goes well, we could test it as early as tonight. " Josh mumbled as he opened his laptop and carefully picking up Arachne, taking off her outer casing to look at her motherboard

"Can you tell Sitara? The sooner I get started on this, the sooner we can be of help to Reggie. "

"You got it, buddy. Take care of yourself, okay? We know you’ll be fine, but we still worry about you both. "

Josh nodded before verbally responding and saying his goodbyes. It was going to be a long day, but Josh was confident he could do this. This was his area of expertise, after all.