"Looking to Upgrade" - Reboot.exe - S1 Chapter 5.

## Looking to Upgrade

Jenn

"Looking to Upgrade" is the fifth chapter of season 1 of Reboot.exe. It was released on 17 January 2021 and is narrated by Dave.

## Synopsis

Picking up where we left off, having a few drinks with Ugly, Pr0 is now intoxicated bordering on alcohol poisoning. Even Ugly, after enough moonshine to kill a normal person three times over, is a bit tipsy, and Eve decides it’s time to call it a night. On their way out, Eve tries to stealthily take the Fusion off Pr0 so she can keep it safe and distribute a dose to Songbird. She fails (critically) and he catches her and makes a fool of himself for a minute (as drunk people tend to) and then hands it over.

Seb and Eve get Pr0 back to his hideout. Eve makes sure that both he and the fusion are safe. Seb starts to leave but runs into Songbird and invites her inside. Eve is reluctant to let a relative stranger into she and Pr0’s humble abode, but Seb convinces her. They give Songbird a dose of the Fusion, and Seb asks her about why she is working for Ugly.

She reveals that she lost her arm and both legs in a building collapse and that Ugly saved her. He pays her for her work as a lookout and provides her with Fusion at half price. The reason she’s running low is that she’s trying to keep her Fusion-dependent friend alive too. Seb offers to keep helping her. She’s confused as to why, and what he wants. He simply asks that she keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. She mentions there’s a strange man from the city who actually has a heart (Seb, it’s Seb. It’s a very cute scene.) Songbird leaves and Eve powers down for the night.

Seb, needing less sleep than a normal human, heads out to find an internet café, and finds one just a few hundred meters from The Glass Slipper. He looks up Eve’s manufacturer and the different models they produce, and while he is interested in buying one, but they are too expensive to acquire without his parents noticing. Unfortunately, data-packs are not available separately from drones. He also looks at robots, specifically a robot to perform kitchen tasks. On that note, he searches for real estate in the slums , specifically something with a kitchen, but quickly discovers that he’ll need to go through less savory avenues than a simple internet query if he wants to buy property. Window-shopping complete for the time being, Seb spends the night in a capsule hotel.

The next morning, Pr0’s phone rings. He ignores it, but Eve answers. Ugly is on the other end, asking to talk to Pr0, who is still *very* unwell after the previous night’s drinking. Eve dumps a glass of cold puddle water on his head to no effect. Ugly passes on a message that it will be a few days before he has any more information on The Circle, but Vinod is working again and can provide fake ID if they want to go into the city in the meantime.

Seb arrives and borrows Pr0’s phone to call Ugly again, asking for any tips on the real estate he’s looking for. Hours laer, Pr0 finally rejoins the living, albeit reluctantly, and almost immediately goes back to sleep. Eve asks Seb to take her to the Ningyou showroom, and he tells her about the research he did, admitting that they may need to steal her upgrades. She is surprisingly okay with this.

A few days pass, and the group discuss their options for upgrading Eve. They want to install new data-packs, which will give her the knowledge and skills of other units, though not the physical capabilities. After some discussion they decide against physically augmenting her, sticking with her medical functions but hoping to fully replenish her supplies with more than just children’s Nurofen.

Pr0 calls Ugly and gives him the run down on what they’re planning- their first mission in the city.

## TL;DR

* Pr0 gets absolutely shitfaced so the party heads back to the storage closet where Eve ensures Pr0 won’t die overnight.
* Seb notices Songbird across from the hideout, inviting her in to give her a dose of fusion and having a brief conversation about how she came to work for Ugly.
* Seb heads out to an internet cafe and does a late-night google shopping spree- attempting to buy a soup kitchen and robot to no avail.
* A few days pass and the party comes up with a plan to infiltrate the city and upgrade Eve.