"Next time for sure. Right, Sammy?"

Samuel was laying on the floor of the designated training room, catching his breath and feeling the pain of exhaustion pulsing through his muscles. He turned his head to the elevated observation terrace where Debbie was sitting, one leg crossed over the other, face adorned with a smug smile.

She was a frequent watcher to his training with Abel, partially as a supervising programmer but mostly to watch with pride as her combat android was consistently going unmatched against the ambitious-to-a-fault security officer.

"For sure," he panted, closing the fingers of his bionic arm to give a thumbs up, smiling wide. After another moment of recuperating while staring at the brightly lit ceiling, Samuel sat up and looked to Abel looming over him, hardly bearing any sign of what probably not much more than a scuffle for him.

To anyone else this massive robot would have probably been terrifying to stare at from such a disadvantage, with the rigid lower jaw and inhumanly black eyes, but Samuel just kept smiling and reached his hand to him, wincing a little in pain as the majority of his bruised muscles refused to cooperate at that moment.

"Brace yourself," Abel ordered once grabbing his arm, and Samuel inhaled sharply when he was quickly pulled up to his feet, regaining his balance by some miraculous way. "You might have overdone it this time."

"No, I-" He was cut short when Abel lightly shoved him back, almost making him stumble and lose his balance. "Ow, okay! Maybe I did go overboard..." he sighed and looked over his left arm, noticing some scrapes and minor dents he'll have to get checked.

Abel stared him down, still being taller even once Samuel was on his feet. "There's no 'maybe' about it, you have signed up for every training time-slot in the past five days. Your performance has been declining over time," his voice sounded as harsh as it has always been. "Would you like a full summary?"

"Do you want me to ask a MedBot for a burn kit?" Debbie grinned at them from the terrace, now rocking her legs over the edge.

Seems even she was able to notice. "I think I'll ask them myself once I'll get to the infirmary," Samuel returned a smile again and turned back to the android. "Mind giving me a lift? We can talk all about how bad I performed on the way there."

Debbie chuckled and hopped off the terrace while Abel lifted Samuel up in a bridal-style carry, trying to be as careful as possible to not hurt the fragile human any further. "Can I listen to your roast, too?" she hummed and walked next to them when Abel walked out of the training room.

"Can't really stop you," Samuel leaned his head back, glancing at the robot's menacing complexion. "Go on, then. I can handle it."

"You clearly don't get enough rest between training sessions, as your stamina was steadily decreasing. I can assume you kept taking on night patrol or casual workouts. Or both," Abel began his assessment, seeing a guilty look adorning the man's face. "As I suspected. You should know how much this affects your overall abilities in combat. Anything from your momentum to your timing is thrown off balance with a decreasing reaction time."

Samuel let out a deep sigh, sinking into Abel's arms and trying to relax his body, hoping to reduce the pained physical strain. "Is that so? Well, I guess it's not really something I can measure myself."

"That sounds like Rookie talk," Debbie huffed, hurrying next to Abel to catch up with his wide steps.

Abel gave a low hum of agreement. "She has a point, you know. With your years of experience, this can't be news to you," he mentioned, watching to make sure the human wasn't in too much pain. "I can tell when you're in your prime, in this case being during the first two sessions. While it's true that you still can't make a dent, your hits get significantly weaker over time, and your slower reaction time means you are slower to block, dodge or just brace yourself for impact," Abel began listing the faults in their training. "Your lunge is also lacking in every aspect once you lose your stamina - in reach, height and the ability to throw your mass properly."

"Yeah, I... that one I did notice," Samuel leaned his head back and stared at the passing rows of bluish-white light.

"Of course, your general strength was gradually faltering," Abel added shortly after, "and I believe you've been exhausting your enhanced limb. It's understandable to practice the use of a new, artificial arm, even though you're long past the accommodation period."

Samuel nodded slowly, letting his eyelids drop a little against the harsh lighting.

Debbie peered over Abel's arm until she caught the man's gaze. "I think we should lay off before he'll need a 3rd degree treatment," she smiled at him and patted Samuel's arm, relieved to see him looking up and smiling back again.

"Please."

"Nothing's broken," Raphael sat down next to the officer's bed, drawing out a long-suffering sigh while jotting down findings from the exams, "some bruises, mostly overall exhaustion... I'd say it's as easy as just taking a few days of rest, but then again," he looked up, "it's you we're talking about."

"Just like old times," Samuel tried to grin, managing only a grimace as his expression mixed into a wince of pain.

"You know what else was in 'old times'?" the doctor tapped the metal arm, "the plague," he was quick to answer his own question. " 'Old times' and 'good times' aren't always interchangeable."

Samuel let his body sink into the mattress, still feeling sore from the recent training session. "You haven't changed a bit."

"Neither have you," Raphael updated the patient's file on his tablet before storing it in a case under his coat, getting up from his chair. "If you feel the pain becoming unbearable, call one of the MedBots for a painkiller," he instructed while turning to take his leave.

"I'll let them know," Samuel watched the doctor exit the infirmary before leaning his head back. Propped up to a partial sitting, he ran one hand over his face and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. The pain has yet to subside, but he didn't feel the need for medication right then and there, as he was clearly not going anywhere any time soon.

The smell of the various medicinal solutions and sterilized equipment wouldn't let him drift too far into relaxation. The times he had been there since being hired for the security job could be counted on his one good hand, and he could never get used to that hospital smell. It just seems to smell the same everywhere.

Samuel began dozing off and on to the silence of the room, somewhere between eerie and blissful, disrupted only by the gentle hum of the MedBots charging up. He couldn't tell if he really fell asleep at some point or not, but his body instinctively jolted awake at the sound of hard-sole boots entering the infirmary.

"Great, now I owe double the money."

He pushed himself to sit up straight, seeing Joshua walking into the Bay, tapping his tablet like an accountant calculating expenses. There was always something odd about seeing the single uniformed person in the security team not donning any kind of protective gear other than the heavy boots - that were somehow oddly complementary to the strategist's lanky figure.

Hearing that, Samuel let out a short chuckle and ran his hand over the back of his neck. "Okay, you can either tell me what the bet was about or how much do you owe for losing this bet."

"Why, do you have any intention on paying me back?" Joshua teased, looking up from his tablet to see his team's leader just shrugging in response. "If that's the case...Mike said you're going to end up in the infirmary before the last training slot and Raph took his side. I argued you'd survive until the next deployment."

" 'Survive'?" Samuel raised an eyebrow as the strategist walked up to take a seat next to the bed. "That's quite an ominous phrasing."

Joshua just laughed in response, leaning back and turning off his tablet. "I may be paraphrasing."

The head of security shook his head with a sigh, running his hand from the back of his neck to his face through his short, black hair. "Sorry for the disappointment," he gave a faint smile. "When did you make that bet, anyway?"

"Just under a week ago," Joshua glanced up, counting how long it's been. "Pretty much right after the first training slot, maybe even through its duration."

Samuel's arm dropped to his side as he stared at him, surprised. "That recently?"

"Guess Mike had already observed something was different," Joshua wondered, his tone suggesting he didn't really put much thought into what brought up that issue. "It's not like he just came up with a wager. We both watched the first training session to see the new protocols in action, and he just...he kinda brought it up, out of nowhere, so I told him he's crazy and he asked if I'm willing to make a bet of it. Thought he was just taking pride in the new armor assembly or something, but..." he stopped, looking over the bruised officer. "I think he was on to something else- Ah, sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?" he stopped himself with an embarrassed chuckle.

"Sure sounds like you've been around Lucy a lot, but-" the officer got quiet and glanced over at his prosthetic arm before looking back at his teammate. "Did Mike say anything about what seemed off?"

Joshua's smile dropped and he narrowed his eyes a little. "I didn't say 'off', just different. You're making it sound like something went wrong," he pointed out, leaning forward in his chair. "So... Is something wrong?"

A bitter smile crept to Samuel's face, turning his expression to a bit of a grimace before he lowered his head. "You sure are getting as sharp as her," he admitted, and it was clear to the strategist that the man was trying to avoid any immediate addressing of the issue, but upon getting no response he scratched his jawline and continued. "If that's the case, I won't be able to lie to you for much longer, anyway."

"Alright, if we ignore your confession of lying right now..." Joshua rested his elbows on his knees, but before he could continue a stroke of confusion stopped his train of thoughts. "Wait, what'd you even be lying about? Sam, I've known you since before Isaac hired you. What could you possibly be hiding?" he wondered, straightening his posture again.

Samuel sighed, keeping his head down and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I was so grateful to meet Isaac after..." he stopped for a moment, "after that incident...I was blown away by this tech and when he told me his plan for it in future developments- It felt like entering a science fiction novel, you know?" he looked up, seeing Joshua nodding and knowing exactly what he just referred to. "I was stoked to get a call from him a couple of years later when he told me about the merge and that the new complex needs a security team, and when they started making prototypes I felt like I'm witnessing history in the making."

"Sound like living the dream," Joshua could see the gleam in the man's eyes fading away as he continued. "What happened, technology got a little too advanced, a little too fast?" he laughed, but his voice soon died out when Samuel looked away again.

"At the risk of sounding like an old man - yeah," the man huffed and looked up at the MedBots rolling around the infirmary. "Cass always seemed like the most competent security guard. If it wasn't for the need to manually update their A.I they would have probably been the perfect ones for the job. It was still fun and exciting to work with androids, and training with them," he stopped again and glanced at the infirmary's entrance, "and then development on Abel started, after they were satisfied with Cain. He was just a program that we helped developing by teaching it how to fight, and before we knew it that little simulator turned into a combat android. The perfect soldier; everything you'd want from a unit in one prototype-"

"Hold on, Sam," Joshua interrupted, bewildered, "are you...Jealous? Of the robots?"

Samuel looked back at him in disbelief. "Josh, are you even listening to yourself?" he tried to stare him down, but the man had a look to him of someone who knows exactly what he was asking. It didn't take long for Samuel to break, running his hands over his face. "No, I wasn't jealous..." he sighed. "I was... scared. Lately, every moment I'm still working here feels like a goddamn miracle."

"So... You're afraid of losing your job to robots?" the strategist wondered, getting up from his chair. "Is that all?" he added with a smile.

Samuel ran his hands through his hair in a short, nervous laugh. "Pretty pathetic, isn't it?"

"No, not at all." Joshua shrugged and turned to sit back down next to Samuel on the bed. "If anything, it makes sense, at first."

" 'At first'?"

"Yeah," he nodded, looking to the MedBots' charging station. "Look at Raphael - he may be a little off in the head and the MedBots are several times more capable than any human can be on their own, but management won't fire him-" he stopped, letting out a chuckle, "assuming they're not fearing retribution of any sort," he added before continuing. "They keep a human in charge despite medical robots having the lowest possible mortality rate, at least when it comes to anything caused by human error."

Samuel followed Joshua's gaze, turning to hang his legs over the edge of the bed. "Can't argue with the fact they still keep this mad doctor around."

Joshua stared ahead for another moment, still smiling. "I used to fear the same, once. That strategists and combat coordinators would become obsolete with super computers being improved on, constantly," he admitted. "But it never happened, and never will."

"What makes you so sure?" Samuel looked to his side, impressed by the sheer confidence.

"Human intuition is irreplaceable. Invaluable," he answered. "Sometimes we make decisions that we can't explain, and more often than not these turn out to be the right decisions that can result in anything from getting a promotion to preventing a nuclear war," Joshua explained, almost enamored with the idea. "Simply put, it's what we'd call a 'gut feeling', something I doubt even Cain would have anytime soon," he went silent for a few seconds before turning to playfully smack the officer on the back of his head. "And humans can't be remotely hacked."

Rubbing his head and laughing at the surprise hit, Samuel was catching up to the idea, feeling his long-held doubts and fears slowly being chipped away. "You make a damn good point there, Josh. Several of them."

"I know. That's my job," he grinned and hopped down to the floor, barely making a jump as his feet were already close to it. "As for your plan of action, I suggest you heed the doctor's instructions and get some proper rest."

Samuel rolled his eyes at the comment. "You know what? I think I will, for once," he announced, lying back down.

"It's a good start," Joshua waved off as he walked away. "See you around, Chief."