I swung my leg over the side of the sparrow as I took my seat and patted the cushion Infront of me while looking over at Riley.
She hesitantly made her way over and I picked her up and ploped her down Infront of me while nudged North with my mind to transmat a helmet for the little one.
"You could just ask properly you know" he said as he created a pink helmet that I gave to Riley.
"Yeah but we both know you would have disabled the sparrow if I tried riding without a helmet on her head" it was something he had done before while in a escort mission with a little boy who the hive had taken.
"Touché" I revved the engine which growled like something alive before I gunned the throttle and we blasted off into the night, not even bothering to bury the bodies of the Slaughterhouse 9.
At first Riley screamed in fright from the acceleration before it changed to screams of delight as her fear of me crashing faded and she watched the scenery pass by in a flash.
In less than 3 hours we had already left he state and had already made it most of the way from where the Slaughterhouse 9 were a few miles from Gary, Indiana to Brockton bay, Massachusetts.
I slowed the sparrow down as we arrived at a gas station on the way to Brockton, after we came to a complete stop I helped Riley get off the bike before swinging my leg over and climbing off myself.
When I was off North transmatted the hover bike back to his personal inventory and me and Riley entered the store.
I grabbed a few things of food for Riley and a drink for myself before walking up to the counter and pulling out my wallet, as I do is see the cashier flinch back and I realised he probably thinks I'm robbing him because of the full face covering helmet I have on.
"Yeah mate just these few things please, oh and a couple of ciggies" I let my Australian accent become much more prominent as I talk so my normal voice doesn't match.
"Oh ah sure sir, give me a second" he grabs the cigarettes and I happily pay for them along with my drink and Riley's (who was looking around the small selection of electronics they had) food.
Grabbing the groceries I whistled lightly to get the kiddos attention before motioning at the door with my head.
She got the idea and put the small out of date phone (even for 2011) back and followed after me as we sat at a bench near the gas station.
I popped the airtight seal of my helmet and take it off which draws Riley's eyes as she stares at my robotic features.
"Your a robot?" She asks to which I nod and press a button inside my jaw which makes the plating around my neck open showing the complete lack of meaty bits.
"Yep, we are called EXO a human mind put in a robotic body" I explain as her eyes shine with curiousity.
"We can eat and drink but don't really get anything from it, it's mainly there so we don't start rejecting the body" I say as I crack open my can of lemonade and take a drink.
*That's so cool, but how do you know your actually a person and not just a copy?" She asks.
"Oh I'm aware that I'm a copy, infact my name is mask-65 and the end number signifies how many times my mind has been wiped after my it rejected my body" I say as I point to the small "65" printed on the inside of my neck.
"But just because I'm a copy doesn't mean I'm not alive or don't have a soul" I pull lightly on my Light and above my palm a orb of gentle light softly floats.
"Infact I'm so alive that I can't die" I say as the light coalesces into North.
"Say hello to North, my best friend and companion" north bobs up and down as he inspects the child.
"Hi" she waves shyly as North floats over to her.
"Good to meet you Riley" he says as his eye lights up and a small machine is transmatted onto her lap.
"We saw you inspecting those phones inside so we figured you tinker urge is starting to play up. so here is a bit of tech for you to play with, it's basically a very advanced form of the CAD software for disigning." He explained as the small tablet unfolded into a larger touchscreen display.
"Wow" she awed as she started going through all of the feature before I bopped her on the head and pointed at her food which she had forgotten about.
"Eat first kid, we don't want you to go hungry" I said to which she hurriedly eat.
I shook my head and was about o put my helmet back on when I remember that other than weapons I only had the complete basic gear on right now.
"Hey North do we have my armour?" I asked as he floated back over to me from watching Riley disign lungs that could breath any level of air perfectly even at super high altitudes.
"Yeah I was wondering why you were wearing the armour I gave you when you first revived" the blank black and grey armour vanished and in its place was my normal gold and blue masterwork TM EARP set with three pieces of exotic armour on my head arms and torso.
On my head was the hunter graviton forfeit, it's masked face glowing a deep purple while on my chest sat the armamentarium titan chest plate. Apon my arms the gauntlets I wore glowed a bright gold as the solar energy in the churned angrily when ever I push even the tiniest bit of solar energy into my arms.
"That is so much better" I say as I take off the hat of the TM EARP hood to inspect if it was the same as I remember it.
"What happened to your armour?" Riley asked after a while the next time she looked up from her CAD tablet.
"Changed it cuz I was bored" I said as I transmatted my sparrow to me and climbed on, "come on kid we are almost there" I say as I pat the seat and help her climb on.
"How much longer do we have, this seat gets a bit uncomfortable after a while" I hummed before the sparrow beneath us flashed a blue colour and was swapped out for the Silver Tercel as it had much more padding on the seat.
"Shouldn't be more than an hour kid" I gently ruffled her hair as I tested the throttle to see if I could remember how this sparrow handles.
After a few tests I was sure I wouldn't crash I took off and slowly sped up until we were moving at a good pase (read very much over any speed limit in the world).