[X] "Fortunately, I am a bit of a combat instructor. That's why Weld sends me out to teach you people lessons."
----
You return to find Weld's workshop surprisingly busy, given how early in the morning it is. As you walk in he waves the customers – a couple of masspro units in bronze armor - out. They leave with cash in hand, and Weld stashes a couple of shiny pointed sticks behind the counter.
You brush past them as you walk in, wincing a bit. "I gave Badger and her militia friends their ultimatum. They should be calling you soon."
"They already did. Refreshing, how prompt they suddenly are. Now, up on the slab. My customers might expect people to come in injured, but if you leave with bullet wounds it'll spoil the atmosphere."
You glance around pointedly, eyes landing on the cracked computer monitors, the peeling paint on the operating table, and the rust-stained metal flooring.
"Trust me, in this business people want someone who's been around a while. Nobody trusts a surgeon who hasn't gotten his hands bloody. Plus, if they don't think I'm rich, people don't bargain so hard."
You peel off your heavily scorched parka and hop onto the 'operating table', and prepare to go under for a diagnostic.
-----
You blink back to wakefulness. The damage looks worse under the harsh lights of Weld's operating table, and without the concealment of your Leidenfrost. Weld has your breastplate armor off, and you can see his eye glowing through the bullet holes as he examines them. The front is punched through cleanly, and droplets of metals are spattered and pooled across the back He inspects it for a few more moments, turning it around in his hands, then his third arm reaches back and grabs a metal bar off the toolrack. Grabbing it carefully between two elongated fingers, he touches it to the edge of the wound and slowly moves it across, leaving a white-hot stream of molten steel behind. With the patch in place, he drops the bar back on the rack, then puts his third and fourth hands on each side of the armor and squeeze them together around the bullethole. There's a bright actinic flash, a popping sound, and he pulls them away, leaving a smooth unpainted segment of pebbly gray ceramic steel behind. He continues. All told it takes about five minutes to fix the breastplate, and a couple more to reattach.
You set to work on the arm next, mentally giving a command to detach the plating from it. Each segment comes off in two pieces like a clamshell. Weld holds it up so you can see, and to your untrained eye it definitely looks nastier to fix. While the breastplate had clean, well-defined wounds, large patches of the armplate have been converted into various amounts of steel wool. At the edge thin metallic fibers are peeling off the surface, but towards the center the entire armor is just a tangled spongey mass. Weld inspects it for a few minutes, seeming very puzzled, and eventually asks what you got hit by.
"Got shot by the Dachone. Four shot burst, managed to dodge one."
"Oh!" He says, smallest arm slapping him on the forehead. "Yeah, duh."
You don't really get it, and after a moment Weld realizes that.
"Dachones are built for light and fast recon. The buster is as much for clearing obstacles as it is for shooting enemies. It's a Loki/Hush system - tuned for low kinetic/high shear projectiles."
That doesn't explain it either. Weld sees your face.
"Since they're planning to deal with soft targets, instead of punching deep molten holes into things, it shreds them into tiny pieces then incinerates them. These metal strings are formed in the short gap between shear and thermal components being applied, which is normally only visible in highspeed footage. Seeing the filament stage like this is actually pretty interesting. Mind if I keep the plate?"
You glare at him.
"Okay, it's interesting for
me. I've seen a lot of gunshot wounds, I'm entitled to an opinion. Once you get shot a few more times you'll start finding these things interesting yourself."
"I doubt it," you say. "So how bad is my arm hurt?"
Weld waves his hand. "I said the damage was interesting, not that it was bad. Sure, the plating is toast, but the innards weren't hit too badly. They were mostly just gummed up with this shit." His fourth hand reaches down to your skinned and paralyzed arm, and pulls a long thin ribbon of armor material out. He squints at it a moment, then turns to size up the armplate again. "The biggest problem here is that whoever built you didn't bother to use a standard arm size, so I'm gonna need to actually hand-form a replacement plate. Pain in the ass." His third arm hands you a big can of compressed air. "While I'm doing that, make yourself useful and clean it out, so your autorepair can start working."
Weld grumbles in the back, accompanied by the spark and fizzling sounds of smelting. You spend half an hour carefully blowing tinsel out of your arm.
You take both segments of the armor replacement from Weld. They're still warm to the touch, and snap together seamlessly to cover the inner mechanisms again. It looks identical to your other arm, aside from having the pebbly gray texture of unpainted ceramic steel. "You gonna finish the job?" you ask Weld, pointing at it.
He shrugs all four of his shoulders. "The name's Weld Scarab, not Paint Stylist. I don't do art."
"So what, you want me to just walk around like this?"
"Out the door, at least," he says. "Having a guy walk out with obvious repairs is good advertising. Speaking of which, this is the first time I've had a client ask for the enforcer to come back. How'd you manage
that?"
"Paralyzed her, then gave her the pitch while standing over her frozen body. It's called a captive audience."
"Ha! Good one." He claps you on the back. "You've got a rare talent as a communicator, Boreas. I appreciate it. Lots of people think all that a repo man needs is the capacity for violence, but you actually need some people skills to get more than what's in a client's wallet. The last half-decent person I had doing your job shot the wrong 'loid and had to skip town. And of my current hires… Ember isn't a real people person, Hare's not the one-on-one combat type, and Turbine is... well, Turbine. They're good at what they do, but aren't cut out for your job."
"And you don't do your own dirty work?", you ask.
It doesn't seem to offend him. "It's best if someone else is at the client's door. People make deals with me because they think I'm a friendly and generous guy. It's even true, most of the time. If you show up, then negotiations start with them worried about the big scary enforcer, instead of with them trying to play on my heartstrings. If you're unreasonable, it's what they expect, and if you're reasonable, they're less willing to push their luck."
"You just want them to be angry at me instead of you."
"Ideally not," he replies. "I mean, that chauffeur is probably gonna have nightmares, no question, but so far you haven't made a lot of enemies or corpses. Speaking of which, your cut'd normally be a buck-fifty for this, but I'll toss in a quarter bonus for not damaging the collateral."
"Any chance of handling upgrades now," you ask, "since I'm already on the surgery table and all?"
Weld shakes his head. "You should head home and get some rest, first. Better to wait for your autorepair to finish on the arm. You'll know it's done when it stops itching."
You didn't realize it was itching before, but now you can't ignore it. You miss the start of his next sentence.
"- a couple of complications with Jaff. Good ones, I think, but it'll be a while before Wasp finishes filling in the details. So, sleep tight and hang tight, this might be big."
As you exit, you notice a surprisingly long line of reploids waiting to sell things off. Business must be booming.
-----------------------
Your apartment is, in all respects, better than where you used to live. For one thing, you're above the first layer of highways, and have a window that gets occasional sunlight, instead of facing a slimy concrete wall and looking down on a slimier storm drain. You have a charging pod that reclines properly, instead of leaning against the wall supported by a few rusty bolts. The door locks every time, without needing to be shoulder-checked.
And even if you go to sleep mode early in the morning, and wake up after most people are at work, you don't keep getting jolted out of it by hearing noisy neighbors through flimsy walls. You're really appreciating that last one. Of course, now that you're awake again, there isn't much else to do. As far as furnishings go, you have a television, with a few borrowed films piled beneath. And that's it, really. You flip on the TV and scan through the newsfeed.
Rome World Shuttered!
Rome World, the once-bustling theme park chain, has abruptly shuttered all attractions, including its popular Orlando and New York City locations. "While many of our attractions had lasting appeal, increased competition and continued challenges in the entertainment industry impeded the company's progress as well as its ability to refinance its debt," the company said in Monday's news release. "As a result, we are not in a financial position to continue to operate Rome World on a go-forward basis. However, while our parks will no longer be in service, SPQR Inc. will continue to expand and profit off our extremely valuable trademarks and other intellectual property. Over the past 30 years, we've become far more than a theme park. And sometimes you have to let go of the past to make room for the future."
One of the first theme parks to commission novel reploid designs as workers, a focus on historical inspiration ensured Rome World avoided the early legal pitfalls of the Mascot Era (RELATED ARTICLE: Mickey Mouse v. The Walt Disney Company, XX-56441). Licensing of these designs - including the popular 'Hoganmer' model - now provide the majority of SPQR's income. While both the employee union and Unlimited Pass holders have criticized the choice to close locations without warning, a SPQR representative has stated no refunds are forthcoming.
On the news, their stock (NYSE:SPQR) has rallied 4.6% to an all-time high.
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Promoted Content: Chrome Dome or Redcap? Five ways to tell if YOUR reploid has joined a gang!
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New York Architect defends controversial changes to the Empire State Building
NEW YORK - Three years after the conclusion of the Algol Conflicts, reconstruction of the Empire State Building remains a controversial topic. Although no civilians were killed in the crossfire during the final confrontation between now Hunter Commander Sigma and Algol, the 86th floors and above sustained significant structural damage, necessitating a near-total rebuild. Against severe criticism from The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), instead of rebuilding the historical monument from original plans, the city elected to hire the Phoenix Consortium for a totally redesigned, and significantly taller, tower. As the building nears completion, the complaints from its detractors have only intensified.
Max Ledly, chief architect of the reconstruction process, has defended the authenticity of his revisions. "Ultimately, the chief design consideration of the Empire State Building was sheer height - the original blueprints were redesigned over a dozen times to ensure it would be the tallest building on the planet. In the centuries since it was first constructed, the city has grown around it, leaving the tower a dwarf among giants. Rather than being a desecration of the original vision, my redesign is restoring its proper place in the city skyline."
You switch it off, and realize that you're actually bored.
[ ] You need to return some video tapes. Drop by Red Hare's place, give him back The Scarface Trilogy (Director's Recut Edition) and see what's up.
[ ] Hit up the bar. Ember Skink's probably there.
[ ] Hang out with Turbine. Maybe you can spar again?
[ ] Talk to Sienna about business at Ingram. If there's something they need, you'll be a few steps closer to getting old project data from Ice Core.
[ ] Write In
