Chapter 1-B - May 24 2275: Dont Wanna Know by bye spencer Lyrics
May 24, 2275: Don't Wanna Know
The virtual world was pleasant on the inside, but on the outside? Garth couldn't stay still. His body twitches and spasms after a few hours, waking Morgan. She rolled over in her own bed and watched as he mumbled and gripped the sheets. She sighed and sat at the edge of her bed, watching with her elbows on her knees. Her gaze transfixed on the lone tear escaping from beneath the headset and trickling down his cheek. Morgan wasn't watching over him for his safety, she was asking herself whether it was a good idea to keep him along. He was green when it came to any kind of wet-work or merc-work, he'd told her that himself. Morgan activated her augmented eyes and scanned the headset. It was an SDEU Series 2 with a 650 petabyte capacity SSD, a vintage by about 60 years. The metadata also stated someone else as the owner, but the name was scuffed.
Catching a few of the more audible words leaking from Garth's mouth, she stood over him; her ear mere centimeters from his mouth. He mumbled, "I can't, I can't... stay... please..." His expression switched to pain, like someone was stabbing him. He winced for a few more moments then relaxed again. Morgan narrowed her eyes, wondering why he would voluntarily experience some kind of pain while sleeping. He took in a deep breath, and exhaled. The tiny blue light on the side of the headset started blinking red. Garth sat up and removed it, and wiped his face. Morgan touched his shoulder, "What the f– How long have you been there?" She shifted and leaned on her right leg, "Were you watching me sleep..?" He asked, now looking very concerned and a little unnerved.
Morgan walked over to her pack and started pulling out clothes. "It's 7am, we slept in. Hurry your ass up and get ready!" She demanded, struggling to put on a black and blue jumper. Garth got up, making sure his sleeves were still pulled down to his wrists, and put on some mechanic's cargo pants. As Morgan danced around, shoving her arms into the coverall's sleeves, Garth saw the logo on its back. His mind started racing, a volatile cocktail of fear and confusion.
Garth cleared his throat, "Morgan."
Morgan looked at the zipper as she pulled it up, "Yeah? Whatchu need?" She folded the flap over the zipper and pressed the snaps together, one after another they popped shut.
"Why is there a goddamn Cazatalento symbol on your suit?" He asked, distraught. Garth's trembling hand rested on the blade holstered on his hip.
Morgan grabbed her collar, pulled it taught, and tried to look over her shoulder, "Oh shit, I totally forgot about that." She faced the scared boy across the room from her, "Yeah, I'm not with them, don't worry. Those pricks didn't exactly give this to me out of trust." She patted the stitched up tear on her chest, "I took this as a souvenir from a job a few months ago." She chuckled, "Actually, that job is what allowed me to buy you for the trip." As she turned around, Garth saw the large tear opposite the first, an exit wound that resembled the size of a fist.
Garth relaxed and shuttered, "Jesus fuckin' Cripitter, Morgan. Have you ever thought that maybe someone might, I dunno, try to kill you for wearing something like that?"
She snickered, "You mean you?" She quickly looked him over, "Pfft, doubt it." Morgan slipped on a dual shoulder holster, "This is actually my first time wearing it." She smiled at Garth. The woman that intimidated him a few hours ago was gone, replaced by this person before him who gave off a sort of 'older sister' vibe. Morgan clipped her sawed-off on her left, letting it hang, and inserted her revolver into her right holster. She threw her jacket on and tapped the small black circle on her temple. Her eyes went from normal to pitch black, like a computer monitor, tiny micropixels gradually going dark in a random pattern; though she could still see everything in front of her, like wearing sunglasses.
Garth slid his pistol into his thigh holster and nodded at Morgan, "What're you looking at? Anything good?"
Morgan wet her lips for a moment and replied, "I'm checking the news. Heh, another corpo slackjaw got dropped in the street down in the Historic District; the war in Alaska is still going strong; a B.T.C. bar in that fucked up city-state got bombed. What else, what else. Cute dog. Shitty meme, dead meme, shitty-er meme. Jesus, fuck me, at least try to be original."
Garth frustratingly massaged his eyes and said, “Morgan, anything about the weather? Because it was terrible last night.”
"Just open the blinds and look out the window, jeez." Garth walked over to the window and pressed one of the small buttons on the wall next to it. The blinds were made of dark, brushed metal and looked like they could cleave off someone's fingers. As the metal slats raised into the sill above, beams of sunlight shot through, lighting up the whole room. Specks of dust and particles that probably caused cancer floated in the light. Little droplets of rain water danced along the window's outer rim before plummeting into the ground below. "Oh hey, some good news, finally." Morgan said, with a light but genuine grin.
The motel's backside curved around like a 'U' with a small public space in the middle. Garth kept looking out the window, watching the few people awake as early as them. Many of them seemed augmented or mutated in some way; some subtle, some very conspicuous. He leaned on one leg and hung his thumb in his pocket, "Good news? That's uncommon." He didn't look back to her, but kept watching as a couple kids kicked a patched ball around, bouncing it off and between the steel pillars holding up some balconies.
"You really won't believe it," she walked over to Garth and tapped her temple again, her eyes returned to normal, "Synthetic Bodyworks, you know that company that makes those– Uh, what're they called?" She snapped her fingers, trying to remember, "Wireless puppets, yeah, those. They just released a new line of 'em based on fantasy races." She pulled out a smartphone from her pocket and showed the screen to Garth. The article about the puppets was already pulled up due to Morgan's internal OS being linked to her devices. As she scrolled the page remotely and a photo of the new bodies appeared. The subheader said 'the new races are elves, goblins, orcs, and demons in various genders.'
Garth squinted and looked over the photo, "They look less realistic and more like some design a hentai artist would come up with..."
Morgan moved the phone to her face and looked over the image, "Yeah, they do look really polished. Kinda cartoony, like those VStreamers." She turned off the phone and stuck it back in her pocket. She mumbled under her breath, "Fuckin' weirdos."
"We good to go now?" Garth asked her. She grabbed a protein bar out of her pocket and slapped it to his chest, "Uh, thanks." He unwrapped the bar and scarfed it down. The label said 'chocolate and 100% real peanut butter,' but it tasted like cardboard. Morgan ate one too, she looked like she wanted to puke while chewing. "Why did you bring these along? You coulda brought those MRE's you had in your pantry. Those were actual meals."
Morgan's eyes opened wide. Her smugness melted away, "Fuck! You're right, and I spent so much cascs on those too." She shrugged and went towards the door, "But we don't have time to cook anyways, so let's go." She pointed at the front door with both of her hands.
As they walked outside, Garth asked Morgan, "Hey, when are we coming back here? We left stuff in there." Morgan just gave him a thumbs up and said nothing more. Garth rolled his eyes and looked left down the aisle, facing their room's door. There was a young couple flirting next to some vending machines. The man had his arm on the well next to the woman's head, she had a wide smile and stared into his eyes. Garth watched as the man played with her hair. He took notice of their augments, his arms seemed reinforced with piston bone crushers, a special prosthetic set of full arms meant to apply extra force behind every punch. Both had significant amounts of tattoos all over their bodies, his were mostly colorless while hers were pretty neons and various hues. The woman closed her eyes while she laughed at her partner's joke, then shifted her gaze to Garth, making eye contact with a puzzled expression. Garth got startled and quickly turned into Morgan, bouncing his face off her shoulder. "Hey, wat–" He cut himself off out of embarrassment.
Morgan raised an eyebrow with a smug grin, "Whatcha lookin' at?"
"N-Nothin', let's just go." He pushed past her. Morgan looked over at the couple, now making out. She stuck out her tongue in disgust, "Blegh, really?" And followed after Garth. As they turned the corner around the motel, Morgan asked Garth, "So, what do you want to do today?" Garth stopped. Morgan kept walking until she was a few meters ahead, and stopped to face him.
Garth was confused, "Wait," he pointed at her, palm up, "Aren't you the one who hired me for a job? Do you not have an idea of what we need from this tiny shithole?" He leaned against the building, maintaining eye contact with her.
"No, no, I do. I just asked out of formality. We're heading to that junkyard."
"I'm not gonna find you half-conscious on the ground again, am I?" He said, expecting Morgan to throw back an equally snarky remark.
"No. I have a feeling there's some cool shit that's been forgotten by these hillbillies." She gingerly walked up to Garth, and leaned against the same wall as him, "You down for some scavenging, or are you above that?"
He sighed, "Yeah, sure. Fuck it, why not."
Morgan slugged him in the shoulder with her right fist, "Great, le's go." She speedwalked a few meters, Garth looked down and shook his head. He trailed behind her, fiddling with his phone. Morgan stopped at the top of the stairs waiting until Garth caught up, and then walked beside him down the street. She hooked her thumbs in her pockets and badly whistled, "You realize you didn't actually have a choice? You know, in what we're gonna be doing."
"I'm aware." He kept looking at his phone. Morgan giggled, but Garth didn't notice. They kept walking in silence to a Quik-E-Mart a block behind the motel. Morgan was people-watching, looking at all the odd characters trudging through the fresh muck of a street. The poorly maintained and wonked implants were an amusing sight.
"You ever wonder why ArchAinne never paved roads out here? Batto isn't even that far out." She said, kicking a mound of mud across the ground.
"Probably because it wasn't profitable. Most of the people who live out this far and beyond don't exactly work for a corp or send resources back to Central. You do know that the Arch got bought out and became a megacorp like, three years ago, right?"
She ruffled his hair and he frantically slapped her hand away, "I don't really check the news, it's usually just toxic crap and misinformation." Morgan said with a smirk.
Garth was taken aback, "But di– Didn't you just check the news back in our room, like, thirty minutes ago?"
She turned her head to look at him, "Huh? I don't remember that." She smiled at him and snickered, she was fucking with him.
"You aren't funny, that was barely a joke." Garth looked unamused.
"Whatever. You're no fun," the beat up Quik-E had a cheap metal interior and exterior, both had slivers of rust and decay but the outside was worse, probably due to last night's weather. Morgan examined the amateur looking welding seams. Garth took a step inside but stopped to watch Morgan and her investigation. She was mumbling to herself about the quality of the building. She froze, feeling Garth's cold stare creeping down her spine. She cocked her head and stared back, "What? Don't judge me." Garth rolled his eyes and headed inside.
There was a heavily modified man behind the counter reading something on his monitor screen. The store clerk's right forearm had an odd implant with an open hole protruding out a bit; Garth assumed it was a razorwire. He had a stained, white tank-top, a thick unkempt mustache and a receding hairline that stopped a touch before the back of his head. On his counter was a cat, black fur with a white blob on its side. Garth couldn't tell if the cat was real or synthetic, and he couldn't reach behind the glass to pet it and find out. The bell above the door clanged as it finally slid shut. The burly man peaked up from his screen, saw Garth, and went back to it. Garth walked around the convenience store, checking out the various bags of overpriced processed candies and chips, all with disgustingly high amounts of sodium and sugar. Morgan finally entered too and went straight to the clerk, tapping on the glass with her metal arm. She was asking him if he had any magnum cartridges for sale, but Garth could barely hear her. He looked at the security cameras around the store, checking for blindspots. Garth grabbed a couple processed synthetic-meat ImposSticks, and moved to tuck them in his jacket.
Morgan reached around and grabbed his hand, holding his arm towards the ceiling, "Hey!" Garth struggled, "Let go of me." She let go, and he stumbled back but kept his footing.
Morgan said under her breath, "The fuck you think you're doing!?" She pointed to a few of the cameras, "The clerk over there has the CTV feed in the corner of his screen, you really think he wouldn't hesitate to blow you away with that?" She gestured to a large dark-metallic circle in the ceiling. It was a stationary civilian-issue security turret, folded into itself. "And for what?" She briefly glanced at Garth's clenched fist, "Give me whatever was worth dying for, I'll go pay for it." she opened and closed her hand, gesturing for Garth to hand her the sticks. He groaned and forcefully slammed the junk food into her hand, "That wasn't so hard." She grabbed him by the collar, "We'll talk about this outside." Garth stood by the door and leaned against the glass, Morgan went to the clerk and paid for her ammo and the not-meat sticks. She walked to the door and it slid open automatically. She snapped her fingers twice, Garth looked over and she gestured for him to leave. He stepped into the muck, "Catch!" He turned around just as Morgan tossed a stick at his face. He fumbled with it for a moment then dropped it. Garth breathed in deep, trying to keep calm and picked up the stick. As he came up, Morgan was standing right in front of him. Their eyes met, hers looking down at his, "How old are you, Garth." She rhetorically asked.
"You already know, I've sai–"
"But apparently you don't," Morgan's face became stern, and Garth felt anxiety setting in, "You're what, 22? You're not some street rat who needs to scrounge for scraps to survive." She started walking back towards the motel. Garth stood there, still processing her odd alliteration, "I just wanted to grab some extra rounds from there. I wasn't planning on leaving with bullets and a body. Now c'mon," she still didn't look back, "You've got a job to do, and we're late."
Garth snapped out of it and jogged to walk beside Morgan , "What do you mean 'late'?" Morgan didn't say anything back, but kept walking with complete disregard for Garth's existence. They walked past the motel, and past Morgan's towards the junkyard. It looked tiny from a distance, nestled behind a couple buildings.
As they approached the large gate protecting the scrapyard, Garth realized that the junkyard was large enough to be its own town. All the garbage and rusted scrap seemed to make this dusty, thick haze hang over the whole plot. The sounds of metal clinking together and figures moving about bounced off the yard's corroded steel walls. He could see silhouetted blobs of things moving along the tall towers of abandoned cars, parts, and cargo. He squinted to try and get a better look at the yard's occupants but nothing helped. He couldn't tell if they were even human. Morgan activated her HUD and began scanning random pieces until her reticle briefly picked up what she was looking for. The people walking past sent odd looks at the two as they stood a few meters in front the gate, squinting and looking around. Eventually Morgan ran up to the fence and leapt at it, scaling it in a few seconds but stopping once her waist met the top. She kept looking until she found her target again and finished scanning. She smiled and said, "Gotcha."
Garth looked at her, "You find somethin'?"
"Yup, but it's pretty deep in there." She pointed but the smog obscured whatever the thing was. Morgan walked up to the main gate, to its right was a building. Small but sturdy with a thick iron door facing the street, but the door had a tiny glass window and a buzzer on the wall next to it. Garth sighed as Morgan kept looking over the gate, for some reason, ignoring the obvious. He knocked on the door. Waited a couple seconds, no answer. He knocked harder and Morgan heard him. There was still no answer. Morgan leaned against the wall next to him, and Garth punched the buzzer. The sound of an alarm going off inside was muffled but clearly loud enough to get whoever was inside's attention. Morgan pushed Garth aside and peeked through the glass.
A tall, muscular man approached and hit the intercom, "What in the hell do you want? You need an appointment to come diggin' 'round in here, and I don't got anyone on my schedule."
Morgan grabbed the glass's sill and shoved her face against it, "Mr. Cardo, it's me! Don't bullshit me, just let us in." She dropped and took a step back. Garth's eyes kept bouncing between her and the door. He was trying to figure out why Morgan was being so demanding with a stranger.
Cardo mumbled to himself, "God damn it." He pressed the intercom again, "So you're the one they hired? Thought they'd choose someone a little more... amped."
Garth walked to Morgan and quietly asked, "Hired? Wait, we're doing a job right now? Right now, right now?" Morgan puckered her lips and slowly nodded, "You're not broke right?" She slowly shook her head. The door made a 'ker-chunk' sound as Cardo turned the deadlock. The door swung outward to reveal a muscular black man in early 50's, wearing a long sleeve shirt, a dirty trench coat and a dirty but bright orange jumpsuit with numerous pockets tied around his waist. Both of them tried to step inside but Cardo stopped them. He took a moment to look them over; he was a little surprised that Morgan was taller than him but refused to show it. He ushered them inside and slammed the door shut.
Morgan and Garth wandered around, looking at the many random projects lying around on tables, scrap parts across the floor and personally decorated office. To the right of the front door was a workbench covered in broken drones and robots, their parts sat in bins next to it. On the bench's wall was the usual assortment of tools; screwdrivers, wrenches, nails, soldering gun, and miscellaneous wires. There were cabinets that looked amateur, almost like whoever made the bench decided to add the cabinets later. On the building's left were a long row of old lockers, most likely for any employees. But in front of those was a beat up couch and a coffee table, piles of papers, magazines and books sat covered in dust. They could see the dust floating in the air.
Garth noticed that Cardo had a picture of him holding a small boy, the frame said 'I love you, dad.' Garth felt a sting of jealousy.
"You know, I didn't think Arakami would ask for that fuckin' thing after it sat there for over a month," Cardo sat down at his desk and kicked his legs up. The ceiling fan slowly spun its blades, the light came in and out across his body. He nodded his head at Morgan, "So, how much are they paying you."
Morgan walked up to his desk, "It doesn't matter to you, now does it. We're here to collect whatever the hell is back there and get out." She sat halfway on his desk and crossed her legs, bouncing her foot off the desk's back.
Garth ignored their conversation and perused the small office, admiring all the junk projects strewn around. There was a broken cleaning drone underneath some cloth. It seemed to be a rather old model, long since discontinued and easily hackable. He picked it up, it's adaptable legs lifelessly dangling, and began tinkering with it. Cardo, only half-listening to Morgan's one-sided negotiation, watched Garth take apart the drone and dig through its guts.
Morgan snapped her fingers at Cardo, like he was her partner, "So, you gonna let us through?" She leaned back, feeling smug.
Cardo cocked his head, "It's Liam, and yes, I will." He dropped his legs down and stood up, Morgan did too. Garth kept repairing and adjusting the drone until its eye sprung to life with a bright blue hue. Morgan began walking to the door behind Liam's desk, "But you're gonna have to give me ten percent." Morgan stopped and stood straight. She cocked her head back and then let it hang forward a moment before turning to Liam.
"Fine. But you," she took another step towards him, her nose barely touching the bridge between his eyes, "You have to carry the damn thing. Got it?" She pressed her finger into his chest and quickly pulled it back.
He tilted his head up and looked her in the eye, "Got it." Morgan walked over to Garth, his new toy spinning and picking up litter from the floor. She reached down to tap his shoulder, but hesitated. She looked at Liam's workstation, squinting her eyes before going to it. Beneath the cloth Garth had removed from his formerly-dead drone was the severed prosthetic from the night prior. She adjusted her jaw and picked up the limb, looking it over before turning to Liam.
"Where'd you find this?" She asked Liam.
Liam walked closer to her and gently took the busted appendage, "One of the neighborhood kids brought it to me." He bent the hand back until something inside clicked, then he tapped his thumb and index twice, causing sparks and a brief flash of electricity to string between them. Liam pinched one of the loose wires protruding from the forearm's stump. The limb opened, and a retracting blade slowly extended out, but stopped short and jammed. "They said they found it up on one of the roofs a couple blocks down."
Morgan leaned back against the workstation, "You wouldn't happen to be able to find out who's arm that is, would you?" She gestured to the implant.
"Actually, I already tried that. Whoever's shit this is took the precaution of scratching out the serial number and installing their own homebrew. All manufacturing data, ID numbers, all of it got deleted. Except for the base functions, obviously." Liam set the limb on the couch behind him and turned his attention to Garth, "Hey, uh, what's your name?" Garth looked at Liam from the corner of his eye but didn't say anything, "My son's also pretty good at that tech stuff," Liam glanced at Morgan, looking for a response but she just subtly shrugged, "I've got a synthetic dog out back that none of my employees could get workin', if that interests you at all." Garth looked away and smiled to himself.
He'd never gotten the opportunity to work on a synth before, only bots and Androids, "Do you know what condition it's in?" Garth stood up and the cleaner-bot proceeded to jump and fold into Garth's pack. Liam was surprised, he didn't know those drones could do that. "Do you mind if I take this? Considering it was broken and it was just lying there." Garth timidly asked him.
Liam chuckled a little, "Yeah, kid. Go ahead. It seems to like you more anyways." Garth opened his mouth to correct him, but Liam waved his hand in Garth's face, "I know, it's a robot. It can't actually– Whatever. God, you're just like my son." Garth's face eased up, it felt weird having someone talk to him this way. Liam rested his hand on Morgan's shoulder to get her attention, "Listen, we should get this over with," his eyes had a brief blue blur along their edges, "It's eight-thirteen and I wanna get this done before our lunch break." Morgan smirked at the idea of eating a homemade meal, a luxury she barely knew.
As Liam walked over to the backdoor, Garth stopped Morgan, "When'd you even take this job anyways? And how? Don't you normally need someone to, you know, hook you up with a gig?" Liam pulled a thin, grey steel card with a barcode etched into it and a series of three black lines just above its bottom edge. He paused just before tapping it against the black box planted next to the door, looking back to the two strangers talking amongst themselves.
"Back in the motel room, when I was checking the news. One of my contacts a little further out West sent me the job before anyone else since it was so easy." She winked and slapped Garth on the back. She walked up to Liam but turned back to Garth, "It's a simple retrieval job. I'm sure you've worked as an errand boy before?" Liam tapped his card and the door gently slid open with a beep. Garth ignored the slight against him and followed them.
The courtyard was clear of debris but still had a sea of metal and scrap parts encircling it; the way everything was spaced apart was evidence that Liam had moved all the junk to give the back entrance some breathing room. The three of them walked a few meters and Liam fiver-finger-pointed to a damaged crate that sat comfortably on top of the rubble, "There's your new best friend, ki–"
Garth piped up, "It's Garth. And, um... thanks." He tried to hide his excitement at the prospect of working on the synthetic, he pried off the crate's lid. Liam smirked, and tapped Morgan's shoulder, gesturing with his head to come with him. Inside the crate was a large, clear plastic bag zip-tied shut. A large, brown, black, and white-tan blob lay inside. He pulled his knife from its sheath and sliced open the bag. A pudgy basset hound rolled out, a chunk of the dog's upper right side was torn, exposing some of the biomechanics inside. That wasn't much of an issue, but the missing front right leg definitely was. Garth pulled his own HUD and searched the net for the location of the dog's jack-in port. The small angled port was lodged deep inside the ear canal according to some forum posts from 12 years ago. Garth picked up the broken mutt, sat cross-legged on the ground and lay it gently in his lap. Hoping to find the port immediately, he flipped the dog's large, floppy ear pinna but the canal looked normal. Garth lifted up the mutt's head and stuck his finger inside the right ear canal. It was the same at the entrance, so he pushed in deeper and felt a hard cylindrical object. He sighed while picking up the whole dog and laying it on its other side.
"The item you're looking for is a ways back," Liam and Morgan walked up a makeshift ramp leading over the top of a scrap hill. Morgan observed some of Liam's employees using power tools and plasma cutters slicing up broken cars, bikes, and some drones. All of them had the same outfit as Liam, except for his scrapyard logo on the back of their shirts and no jackets. There were three of them, one on the ground pulling pieces from the piles while the other two hung by rappels, slowly cutting into the twisted metal. Each one appeared to be a different class of people; a refurbished combat Android, a mutant woman and a slender, androgynous-looking Replicant. The Android's outer coating was a decayed, spotty orange with scattered flecks of dark silvery metal. Its body was thin, yet bulky as the bot's main body was a solid casing containing its 'organs,' with exposed joints, wires and pistons for easier movement. As for the Rep, his gender was vague as his smooth, fair-skin was light but not quite pale; while his hair was rather long and dirty blonde, tied up into a amatuer high ponytail. Both of his ears had piercings, one a simple silver ring and the other was a metallic stud that Morgan assumed was handmade. The mutant glanced down at Morgan and dropped down to her eye-level and took off her welding goggles to get a better look at her. Morgan was surprised by the woman's appearance; both of her eyes had dual pupils but different colors, her skin seemed oddly insect-like and her smile was filled with sharp, jagged teeth. Morgan was a little flustered by the woman's sharp jawline and muscular-athletic physique. Her hair was partly dyed blonde, crossfading into her natural hazel color. She gave off a friendly vibe to Morgan, but the woman's mutated features still made her uneasy. She rarely interacted with what people commonly referred to as "sub-humans," and their appearance and psychological condition varied so drastically, Morgan never knew what to expect.
Morgan picked up her pace and matched Liam's. She flicked his shoulder with her prosthetic, "Are those your workers?" She gestured to the three people in jumpsuits,
Liam smiled and answered, "Yup, each one of them needed a purpose and I gave them one, or so I say. That gal right there," he tried to subtly point at the mutant, "Her name's Gweneth. I found her OD-ing in an Icarta alleyway," Morgan pulled her lips back in disgust and horror, she knew exactly what Liam was talking about, "and brought her to a doc. I'm still amazed with how far she's come." Liam was beaming, and kind of looked like he was going to tear up.
"How long's she been clean?" Morgan asked, a single eyebrow cocked.
"About eight years. I told her she could leave and find better work elsewhere," he laughed a little, "But nope! She told me she likes it just fine, right here."
Morgan widened her eyes and briefly raised her eyebrows, angling her head and glancing away from Liam, "Well, she looks like she's doing very good." Liam tightened his brow and shot a crooked half-smirk at Morgan. He didn't know how to respond to her comment, and just brushed it off.
They walked onto a small industrial lift and Liam slammed his fist into the button to go down. Morgan could hear the hydraulics hiss as the platform began to lower, "I fixed up that combat droid myself, took forever though. Gwen had to help since she has experience working on DesBikes and electrics. I'm good at taking things apart, putting 'em back together is a whole 'nother story. I call 'im Tony," he quickly did an eyebrow flash, "Couldn't come up with anything better." He looked at Morgan from the corner of his eye, waiting for a response from her but got nothing back.
The lift only went down about four meters and stopped with a ker-chunk, "And the Rep?"
Liam raised the lift's gate, "Lexi. He's technically a refugee." He extended his hand toward the VTOL, gesturing for Morgan to go ahead, "It was actually about a year ago today that I found him hiding back here." Liam walked beside her. Morgan knew the package was inside a VTOL, but she didn't think the craft would be so large. The thing had only one wing as the other was torn off, along with a majority of the left side being heavily damaged. The VTOL was partially covered in tarps, Morgan assumed Liam and his crew threw them on the vehicle. Morgan noticed Liam tense up for a moment, "Poor kid spent his first few years as a pet for some fucked up people," he exhaled and relaxed somewhat. Morgan felt a little nervous looking over Liam's body language, "I kept trying, and trying to get him to tell me who he worked for and why he ran away. I don't know if he was programmed to never speak about it or what."
Morgan narrowed her brow and tensed up her face trying to think for a moment. She looked at Liam and lightly shook her head, "Wait, it's illegal to own Reps. Hell, it's been illegal for 50-something years. What do you mean 'pet'?"
Liam raised his eyebrows and his lips formed a frown, "You're right, but indentured servitude is still a thing. Reps are easily taken advantage of since most don't," Liam jerked the tarp covering the VTOL's side door loose and threw it on the ground, "see them as human. Yes, they are a 'product' made by Nitsunis for easy labor, but they are still legally emancipated after one year of said labor."
Morgan folded her arms, leaned back on her leg and covered her mouth, her eyes intensely fixed on the ground in front of her. She then held her hand open towards Liam, "I knew the Replicants had it bad after they got cut loose, but I didn't realize people were taking advantage of them like that."
The inside of the craft was large, but appeared smaller from the outside. Grey was its outer color, and that shade carried over into the interior. There were two segregated sections inside divided by a thick titanium wall with circular ballistic-proof windows evenly spaced on both sides, and a single sliding door sat perfectly in the middle. Several rows of seats were visible through the windows, about four of them with four seats on either side separated by an aisleway. Liam struggled to get the dividing door open, the sound of crunching metal could be heard from inside the door as its tiered panels shifted closer together under Liam's strength. Morgan noticed that his hands had thin seams running around the back of his hands, his knuckles had exposed dark metallic joints flexing with each tug against the door's resistance. Morgan looked around the medium-size cargo bay, peeking through some of the lockers embedded in the aircraft's walls. She was pleasantly surprised that Liam and his crew didn't pick it clean already, finding a case with Arakami's logo firmly printed with its signature deep crimson coloring on the topside of the case. There were five locks: one bio-scanner on the front and two cycling locks on both sides, all of which were "no-net." Morgan's expressionless face twisted into one of mischief. Her lips carving through her cheeks as she realized just how easy breaking open the case would be. Her eyes dotted solid black and her thumb print became a clean slate as she hovered her thumb over the fingerprint reader. Her nervous system began to run an electrical current through the surface of her thumb, etching a new print into her synthetic skin as it collected information from the reader. She opened her mouth, letting her jaw hang, raking her tongue across the back of her teeth. Pressing her thumb into the scanner caused the case's display screen to play Arakami's logo animation; their logo faded in from the black background and a streak of white light cut lines across it before disappearing off-screen.
The logo vanished, being replaced with a photo of a young Asian woman and Japanese text, all formatted like someone's corporate profile. A slightly ridged, electrical voice projected from the case, "Furusawa Amaya-san, konnichiwa. Kōjin kabushikigaisha ga hakkō shita burīfukēsu wa, seventy-two-kakan akusesu sa rete imasen." Morgan's auto-translator worked fast and relayed the English to her: "Greetings, Ms. Amaya Furusawa. Your Arakami Corporation issued briefcase has not been accessed for seventy-two days." The screen switched to a new red-tinted display in Japanese, "Sarani D-N-A kantei ga hitsuyōdesu."
Morgan's smiles faded due to frustration, and the corners of her lips bent downward. She stressed her jaw, letting it snap back in place with a clack. Liam finally got the door all the way open and turned to tell Morgan, but hesitated at the sight of her squatting down, fiddling with the black case. Morgan mumbled to herself, "You little, piece of shit. Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? 'Genetic I.D.,' why am I not surprised. Thank you, Ms. Amaya Furusawa." She cycled through a myriad of frequencies in her HUD before she picked up on the scanner's signal. She snickered, the case may not be connected to any network, but it still emitted an open connection. Its encryption was the standard corporate affair, nothing super advanced with only a few layers of protection since most corporations couldn't be bothered to keep their cybersecurity up-to-date. Morgan's own breach software fired up and unloaded upon the barrier. Each one gave way with relative ease.
Furusawa Amaya's profile was replaced by a new, green-hued screen with fresh Japanese text. The computer's voice spoke again, "Akusesu ga kyoka sa remashita." The case's locks cycled, stopped suddenly and popped out with a click. Morgan didn't know what to expect, the case wasn't mentioned in the job description and no one seemed to care about it. Having zero expectations was a blessing in this instance, the case held something she'd only heard about: a pre-market, Arakami prototype 'Return-2-Sender' pistol. The handgun was thin but rather bulky; its slender, textured grip appeared custom made. Hell, the whole thing was custom. Two chambers, one on top for sending out rounds and one on the bottom for retrieval. An unknown caliber as it wasn't available yet, but that didn't matter much as she couldn't run out of the prototype's ammo. The rounds didn't have primers, they were solid pieces of stainless steel shaped like bullets with unique mag-lock signatures tethered to the firearm. Morgan picked up the gun, it was fairly heavy. She looked it over and couldn't find any signs of external or internal moving parts, she had to assume it was all electrical. She learned nothing scanning the gun, there wasn't any metadata imprinted, which meant she had a clean slate to enter her own information.
Liam leaned against the dividing wall, waiting for Morgan to finish examining her new toy, "Miss, we don't got a lot of time, so can we please get this over with? I get that it's a cool gun and all."
Morgan kept staring at the gun, rotating it around, and extended her free arm towards Liam with her index pointed at the ceiling, "Hold on, I gotta sync with this bitch." Her pitch-black eyes creeped out Liam. The handgun was automatically installing its own built-in programs and drivers onto Morgan's OS, one of which was an augmented reality targeting system linked to the pistol and its ammunition. She'd definitely need to test it all out later. For now, she stood up and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. Morgan approached Liam as he got off the wall, "A'ight, all done. Do you know where the package is?" Her black, mirror-like eyes dissolved into her usual light-brown. A cold tingle ran up Liam's steel spine as a reaction to Morgan's enhanced eyes.
Liam pointed through the doorway, "Yeah, the Arakami bastards hid it pretty damn well. I haven't been able to find it yet." Morgan followed the electrical connections floating in the air, each one seemed to lead to nowhere, just an empty space in the ceiling. Liam walked around in a circle, "What're you looking at?"
She tapped the ceiling's odd, flat surface, "There's a lot of, um, connections coming from this spot, but there's something blocking me from scanning whatever the hell this is." She lightly punched the ceiling.
The name 'Garth Bennett' appeared in the corner of her HUD, "Hey, Morgan. Can you do me a favor? That synth dog is missing a leg, and I was wondering if you could try to find a replacement for 'im. I can't find a part over here, and since you're already on the other side."
"What's the model number? I might be able to, but I'm not guaranteeing I'll find anything." The ceiling's circular plate dropped down by a hair, then continued lowering until it jammed. The sounds of weak pistons fighting to extend whimpered from inside it.
"Yeeeah, I don't know where that is. But, uh, the synth is a basset hound, maybe it's around the scrapyard?"
Morgan snorted out loud, "Maybe if you pay me for the gig." Liam looked at her funny.
Garth didn't respond, giving Morgan and Liam a moment to trade glances, "You–? You are joking, right? It's just a leg." Garth said to her over their WICS connection.
"Hold on, Garth, I'm tryna get the package loose. Dumb thing's stuck," she turned to Liam, "Can you help me pull this piece of shit down, it's not goin' any further."
Liam looked over the small space where the package was visible, the bottom half of the Arakami logo was just barely visible, "How are you even supposed to get this back into Arakami's possession?"
"I don't really know yet, but put your hands there," she placed her hand on the edge of the platform, "The job description said something about calling them. I'm not too thrilled about it. Now c'mon, pull!" The two of them crumpled the steel edges, the crunching of metal scraping against each other. The platform kept fighting against them no matter how hard they tried. "Garth, I'll find your puppy a new paw."
"It's not a– Whatever. See ya in a minute," Morgan's WICS quietly beeped as he hung up. Morgan and Liam jerked on the platform, its joints buckling under the pressure but refusing to give. Morgan's frustration peaked, her fist came down on the hydraulics, tearing the platform from the ceiling. Both of them took a step back. The large black case stayed solid slamming into the floor, barely shifting while being held down by the straps that held it in place. Morgan squats down, feeling around the case's body, looking for any sign of a way to crack it open.
Liam squatted down too, meeting her gaze, "Aren't supposed to not open the product?"
Her eyes darted up and locked with his, "Yeah, but shut up. Arakami forgot the damn thing existed for like, what? Two months? That's what you said, right?"
Liam stood up and looked around the VTOL before coming back to Morgan, "What's your point?"
She stands too, and crosses her arms, "I don't understand why a corp as big as them would abandon their tech for such a long time, then order an open-public job, with little-to-no details on the package. Does that not seem odd to you?" She subtly shook her head, trying to physically convey to Liam her confusion. Sadly, he wasn't really paying attention to her, his focus was on the unknown black case strapped to a chunk of broken metal.
"When you put it that way, I really don't know. But it's a corp that pushes for human evolution, they always act like this."
Morgan kicked the case and stared at Liam, "You gon' carry this?"
He twisted his tongue in his mouth for a moment, "You serious? It's still strapped to the... whatever the heck that metal is." She clenched her fist, the outer side of her left arm raised up a few centimeters; this black, metallic-like liquid formed a straight rectangular blade extended out a few millimeters past her fist. Morgan pressed the blade's edge up into one of the straps, testing its resistance. She took a deep breath, breathing back out through her nose, and with one motion, the blade sliced through the strap. "I didn't realize you had some combat implants like that. What is that? A nanite-blade? Thought that shit was illegal."
Morgan cut the other strap and picked up the case, tucking it under her other arm as the blade broke down, retracting back inside. She walked back through the dividing wall but stopped after a few steps in, "I'll carry the package, and you," she looked back to him over her shoulder, "You're still gonna get paid. I ain't no gonk."
Liam raised his brow, "So, you are a gonk."
"What?" She turned her body halfway.
He walked up to her, "Double negative. You actually said you are a gonk."
Morgan's puzzled face snapped to the floor, her eyes darting as she processed the error. She came back to Liam, subtly shaking her head, "Sh-Shut up." She walked away, dropping down from the VTOL's back ramp. Liam followed her as she mumbled to herself, "Fuckin' grammar Nazi." She peeked back to Liam again, "Hey! You got any synth parts lying around? You got a pretty big yard here, so you gotta have a good variety."
"Yeah, uh, we got some leftovers around here. Somewhere," Liam went over to some beat up milk-crates of miscellaneous parts. Morgan slapped the case a few times and tossed it to Liam, he fumbled with it for a second but ultimately caught it. She scanned over the stacks of plastic crates packed full of partial synthetic pieces.
As she pulled random crates out and sifted through their contents, tossing the wrong parts into the piles of scrap around her, she asked Liam, "You ever listen to that Satori group? The one where the 'A' is a four and the 'O' is a zero?"
Liam hopped up onto the hood of an old spinner's frame, long since scavenged and hollowed out, "Maybe? They're that Japanese, pop-idol group with forty members, right?"
"Yee-up, I tried listening to their stuff, and it's okay. Usually less than 'okay.' Way too overproduced and trying too hard to replicate the idols of the 21st century. I still can't understand why their dumb faces are plastered all over Central, they creep me out. Half of them don't look human, 'Uncanny Valley' and all that. But the dumb-as-fuck annoying ads play constantly on every streaming app. They definitely know how to kill the vibe, that's for sure."
Liam immediately chimed in once she stopped talking, "Is this your attempt at small talk?" He leaned forward, propping himself with one hand on his knee.
Morgan was just about to give up when she found a leg, she held it up in front of her face and waited for her optical implants to process the part's serial number, "Well, I'm trying to, but clearly I'm not great at it." She stood back up, brushing her hair out of her face as she walked back over to Liam. She held up the severed dog appendage to his face, "You think this'll work? Gar said it was a basset."
"Basset?" Liam asked, slightly confused. He's seen very few dogs in his life, especially out here.
"Hound."
"That'll probably be fine, it's a universal replacement," Liam hopped back down, Morgan recoiled as he landed, "When'd he tell you the synth's breed?"
She gestured to the VTOL with her thumb, "He called me while I was fiddling with the pistol I found."
Morgan patted his shoulder as she passed by him, Liam followed behind, keeping a slight distance, "Speaking of that gun you found."
She looked around the piles of junk while ignoring Liam, "Uh-huh."
"What was it?" Liam stepped over some corroded, steel beams.
She peeked over her shoulder, "What was what?"
"Wha– The weird looking, Arakami handgun tucked in your pants." He pointed in the general direction of Morgan's waist. Her attention was drawn to the various cranes littered around the top of the pit the VTOL was in. A few of them seemed extremely old but refurbished, maybe late-22nd century, crap from the last decade never ages.
She stayed silent for a moment, letting the awkward silence settle while they walked back to the lift. She raised the lift's gate, waiting for Liam to step aboard before finally saying something to him, "Do you want to know what's inside that case?"
Liam kept looking out from the lift, his gaze didn't acknowledge Morgan's presence, "No. But you're just gonna not answer me?" With his eyes alone, he glanced over to her. He still couldn't really handle her height, it didn't quite intimidate him but the reality of it made the back his head itch.
Morgan leaned against the lift's railing and crossed her arms, "You gonna be free later?"
Liam turned a little to the left, just barely facing her with his left eyebrow raised, "I'm sorry, come again?"
"Lunch. You said something about a lunch break. I'd like to join you and your crew," the lifts stopped as it reached their destination. She briefly bounced her head to the right as she said, "With Garth, of course."
Liam checked his HUD clock, "You gotta go play 'delivery boy' with your boy, and we got a couple more hours 'til then." He raised the gate and let her go on ahead. Lexi was leaning against an upturned car with its front bumper jammed into the ground, his left foot firmly planted against the car's hood. He was flipping around a multi-colored flash-drive in his hands with inhuman dexterity. "Hey, Lex," Lexi stopped zoning out and tossed the drive in the air before catching it. His attention was drawn to Liam and Morgan, "You takin' a break? What about Tony and Gwenny, they takin' one, too?"
Liam and Morgan walked passed, and Lexi joined them, walking right next to Liam, "I am, but the other two are still pulling apart that AutoEuropa car that got abandoned here." Morgan took note of Lexi's height, he was a few millimeters below Liam's shoulder. His deep blue eyes looked like their pupils were swirling with sparkles, almost like a galaxy.
Liam placed his left hand on Lexi's shoulder, "The one from last week?"
"Yup, it didn't have any personal items but its internal parts are pretty valuable."
"How valuable? You think we could sell 'em online, on the night market, or Hell, back to the manufacturer?"
Lexi shook his head, "Nah, each part I've scanned has a serial number that comes up as stolen in their database." He laughed and swiped his thumb against his nose, "That's actually why I came up here."
Liam pulled Lexi aside and turned to Morgan, she stopped walking a few meters from the two. Liam waved her away, "Go check on your boy," Morgan nodded and began to walk away, "Oh, uh, can you do me a favor and check on my crew? Just make sure to tell 'em they're good to take a ten once they're done tearin' that piece of shit apart." Morgan gave him a thumbs up and kept going back toward the main office.
As Morgan came up on Tony and Gweneth, she could hear feminine-sounding yelling, she picked up her pace and vaulted over the railing, slamming down into the ground into a squat. She mumbled to herself, "Fuck my knees, that hurt." The faint sound of a grunge, garage-rock song was echoing across the rusted, metal mountains from the same place as the shouting.
Gweneth kept yelling, her strange, Europian accent was lingering on her every word, "Stupid droid, the hinges are right there! Just cut 'em off already, agh!"
Morgan walked up to Gwen as she jerked Tony's right arm around, attempting to aim the pinpoint plasma cutter mounted to his arm. Tony's single functioning eye flashes red, "Unable to identify target, please repeat command." His head swiveled in an acute angle, his retinal panning back and forth over the hinges holding the car door to the frame, "Unable to identify target, please repeat com
Gweneth winded up her leg, "Shut up and fookin' work!" As the tip of her foot crumpled into Tony's left leg, her face lit up and she hopped backwards, holding her foot, "Ow, shit, shit." She stomped her foot into the ground, stiffening her body and took a deep breath, as Morgan stepped forward. With Gweneth's back to her, she asked Morgan, "What did you see?" The music kept banging from the mobile speaker labeled 'Lexi's, don't touch' sitting a few meters on a table with random junk.
Tony turned to Morgan with an oddly smooth wobble, "Please identify yourself."
Morgan leaned away from Tony with her upper body, "Name's Sebastian Morgan," she looked over to the seething Gweneth, "And I didn't see anything." She sucked in her lips and sarcastically shook her head.
Tony's eye flashes blue then red, "Identity unable to verify, name could not be found."
Morgan shakily pointed to the Android while staring at Gweneth, "Is he gonna hurt me or something."
Gweneth finally looked at Morgan, fluttering her hand towards her in a dismissive manner, "Nah, don't worry. Liam programmed him to be virtually harmless, and also terrible at his job."
Morgan got really close to Tony, his head slowly moved to face her, She squinted and moved in closer to his head, "His right optical is busted. Have you tried repairing it?"
Gweneth cocked her head with a blank look on her face, "I dunno how to do that."
Morgan silently requested her Cerebral to identify the song that was playing, and said to Gweneth, "Fine, I'll find a part for 'im."
"What's with the box?" Gweneth briefly tilted her head, inspecting the case from afar.
Morgan held up the Arakami case, "It's what we came here for." She gave Gweneth a thumbs up and turned to walk away, but stopped once she remembered what Liam told her, "Oh yeah, Liam said that you two could take a break once you're done doing whatever your job is. Cool? Cool." The song's title finally appeared on her HUD: 'STARGAZING by Travis Scott, 2018.' Morgan thought to herself, "Hm, that's old as Hell." She stopped herself again and awkwardly asked Gweneth, "By the way, do you work out? 'Cause you've got a, uh, really nice figure."
Gweneth raised one eyebrow and hesitated to respond as Morgan slowly backed away, "Um, thank you?"
Morgan's face turned red, "Okie," she pointed over her shoulder, "I'm gonna go off myself now." Gweneth just stood still, confused as to why Morgan was behaving like an antisocial teenager talking to their crush.
She jumped five meters up over the large pile of junk with ease, drawing the attention of Gweneth, "Never seen that before." Tony continued to stand still, doing nothing but watching her, "What do you think you're doing? Back to work!"
Morgan walked up to Garth, who was laying down on the ground letting the chubby, floppy-eared basset hound lick his face. He pushed the dog aside, and without noticing her, pulled out a scuffed inhaler full of Czerwony, taking in a deep hit. Morgan stayed silent and lightly kicked his right leg, leaning back on one leg with her hands on her hips, "You do realize that mutt's been inactive, sitting in a junkyard for who knows how long? Probably got at least a couple diseases." The basset let out a couple deep barks at Morgan, trying to warn her to stay away from his new owner. She took a step back and the dog tried to chase, but struggled to stand up with its lack of a front right leg.
Garth propped himself up with his hands, "Yes, ma'am, I am aware. Did you get a leg replacement for Crash?"
Morgan was laughing at the basset hound trying to nip at her, "Who the Hell is Crash? No wait, don't tell me you named the dog 'Crash'?"
Garth got a little flustered, he fought the feeling of embarrassment swelling up in the back of his mind, "Y-Yes I did. It's from an old video game, you wouldn't know it."
Morgan snickered, bouncing her body for a moment, turning away with a smirk before returning to Garth, "I wouldn't know it, yeah, right." She tossed the naked synthetic leg into the air, catching it then tossing it into Garth's chest.
He fell back while catching the leg, "Oh shit, you actually found something. But it's got no skin or muscle on it."
Morgan frowned, sending a weak scowl at him, "Will it work?"
Garth slapped his left thigh, ushering Crash to come to him, the clumsy basset waddled over, "It looks like it will fit, but it is gonna look weird." He grabbed the hound's scruff and pulled him up onto his lap while crossing his legs and sat up, "Wanna know something? This boy here would be slobbering everywhere if he wasn't completely dehydrated. It's strange how synths need liquids to produce similar effects as organics and Reps, yet can function totally fine without 'em."
Morgan crooked her jaw to the right, "No, I didn't know that, huh." Garth pressed the severed, skeletal leg against the dog's bare shoulder joint, testing to see if it would fit. He scraped the inner socket on the limb, removing any excess dirt and grime before holding down Crash, popping the limb into the poor boy's shoulder with a click. She took a step back before spinning around, walking back towards the main building.
Garth held up the floppy hound, looking past Crash to Morgan, "Hey, you alright? You've been acting really weird, it's like you're switching."
She kept walking away from him, "I'm fine, Garth. I do appreciate the concern."
Garth put down Crash, and looked away from Morgan, "Okay? Are we done here?"
Morgan forced the door Liam's office open to and went inside. As Garth popped himself up, she leaned through the doorway, "Yup. Come on, Gar. We gotta go deliver this piece of junk." She held out the black case and loosely shook it around to get his attention. Garth picked up Crash and let him rest on his shoulder, as the basset relaxed, its skin looked like it was melting.
Liam walked up to them with Lexi just behind him, and he said, "You two leavin' now?"
Morgan stepped out a bit and let Garth walk past her, "Yeah, we are. I gotta get some things from our room first," she patted the case, "Before we go drop this off."
Lexi tapped Liam on the shoulder, pointing to his own chest then back towards the inner scrapyard. Liam dismissively nodded to him, "You're good, man. I'll come find you later." He turned back to Morgan, "Hey, are you and Garth gonna meet us around noon? Lunch is on me."
As Morgan slowly slid the door shut, she said through the gap, "Eh, maybe. I'll let you know. I don't know how long this'll take. Sayonara." The door slid shut.
"Weird people." Liam said as he walked away.
The virtual world was pleasant on the inside, but on the outside? Garth couldn't stay still. His body twitches and spasms after a few hours, waking Morgan. She rolled over in her own bed and watched as he mumbled and gripped the sheets. She sighed and sat at the edge of her bed, watching with her elbows on her knees. Her gaze transfixed on the lone tear escaping from beneath the headset and trickling down his cheek. Morgan wasn't watching over him for his safety, she was asking herself whether it was a good idea to keep him along. He was green when it came to any kind of wet-work or merc-work, he'd told her that himself. Morgan activated her augmented eyes and scanned the headset. It was an SDEU Series 2 with a 650 petabyte capacity SSD, a vintage by about 60 years. The metadata also stated someone else as the owner, but the name was scuffed.
Catching a few of the more audible words leaking from Garth's mouth, she stood over him; her ear mere centimeters from his mouth. He mumbled, "I can't, I can't... stay... please..." His expression switched to pain, like someone was stabbing him. He winced for a few more moments then relaxed again. Morgan narrowed her eyes, wondering why he would voluntarily experience some kind of pain while sleeping. He took in a deep breath, and exhaled. The tiny blue light on the side of the headset started blinking red. Garth sat up and removed it, and wiped his face. Morgan touched his shoulder, "What the f– How long have you been there?" She shifted and leaned on her right leg, "Were you watching me sleep..?" He asked, now looking very concerned and a little unnerved.
Morgan walked over to her pack and started pulling out clothes. "It's 7am, we slept in. Hurry your ass up and get ready!" She demanded, struggling to put on a black and blue jumper. Garth got up, making sure his sleeves were still pulled down to his wrists, and put on some mechanic's cargo pants. As Morgan danced around, shoving her arms into the coverall's sleeves, Garth saw the logo on its back. His mind started racing, a volatile cocktail of fear and confusion.
Garth cleared his throat, "Morgan."
Morgan looked at the zipper as she pulled it up, "Yeah? Whatchu need?" She folded the flap over the zipper and pressed the snaps together, one after another they popped shut.
"Why is there a goddamn Cazatalento symbol on your suit?" He asked, distraught. Garth's trembling hand rested on the blade holstered on his hip.
Morgan grabbed her collar, pulled it taught, and tried to look over her shoulder, "Oh shit, I totally forgot about that." She faced the scared boy across the room from her, "Yeah, I'm not with them, don't worry. Those pricks didn't exactly give this to me out of trust." She patted the stitched up tear on her chest, "I took this as a souvenir from a job a few months ago." She chuckled, "Actually, that job is what allowed me to buy you for the trip." As she turned around, Garth saw the large tear opposite the first, an exit wound that resembled the size of a fist.
Garth relaxed and shuttered, "Jesus fuckin' Cripitter, Morgan. Have you ever thought that maybe someone might, I dunno, try to kill you for wearing something like that?"
She snickered, "You mean you?" She quickly looked him over, "Pfft, doubt it." Morgan slipped on a dual shoulder holster, "This is actually my first time wearing it." She smiled at Garth. The woman that intimidated him a few hours ago was gone, replaced by this person before him who gave off a sort of 'older sister' vibe. Morgan clipped her sawed-off on her left, letting it hang, and inserted her revolver into her right holster. She threw her jacket on and tapped the small black circle on her temple. Her eyes went from normal to pitch black, like a computer monitor, tiny micropixels gradually going dark in a random pattern; though she could still see everything in front of her, like wearing sunglasses.
Garth slid his pistol into his thigh holster and nodded at Morgan, "What're you looking at? Anything good?"
Morgan wet her lips for a moment and replied, "I'm checking the news. Heh, another corpo slackjaw got dropped in the street down in the Historic District; the war in Alaska is still going strong; a B.T.C. bar in that fucked up city-state got bombed. What else, what else. Cute dog. Shitty meme, dead meme, shitty-er meme. Jesus, fuck me, at least try to be original."
Garth frustratingly massaged his eyes and said, “Morgan, anything about the weather? Because it was terrible last night.”
"Just open the blinds and look out the window, jeez." Garth walked over to the window and pressed one of the small buttons on the wall next to it. The blinds were made of dark, brushed metal and looked like they could cleave off someone's fingers. As the metal slats raised into the sill above, beams of sunlight shot through, lighting up the whole room. Specks of dust and particles that probably caused cancer floated in the light. Little droplets of rain water danced along the window's outer rim before plummeting into the ground below. "Oh hey, some good news, finally." Morgan said, with a light but genuine grin.
The motel's backside curved around like a 'U' with a small public space in the middle. Garth kept looking out the window, watching the few people awake as early as them. Many of them seemed augmented or mutated in some way; some subtle, some very conspicuous. He leaned on one leg and hung his thumb in his pocket, "Good news? That's uncommon." He didn't look back to her, but kept watching as a couple kids kicked a patched ball around, bouncing it off and between the steel pillars holding up some balconies.
"You really won't believe it," she walked over to Garth and tapped her temple again, her eyes returned to normal, "Synthetic Bodyworks, you know that company that makes those– Uh, what're they called?" She snapped her fingers, trying to remember, "Wireless puppets, yeah, those. They just released a new line of 'em based on fantasy races." She pulled out a smartphone from her pocket and showed the screen to Garth. The article about the puppets was already pulled up due to Morgan's internal OS being linked to her devices. As she scrolled the page remotely and a photo of the new bodies appeared. The subheader said 'the new races are elves, goblins, orcs, and demons in various genders.'
Garth squinted and looked over the photo, "They look less realistic and more like some design a hentai artist would come up with..."
Morgan moved the phone to her face and looked over the image, "Yeah, they do look really polished. Kinda cartoony, like those VStreamers." She turned off the phone and stuck it back in her pocket. She mumbled under her breath, "Fuckin' weirdos."
"We good to go now?" Garth asked her. She grabbed a protein bar out of her pocket and slapped it to his chest, "Uh, thanks." He unwrapped the bar and scarfed it down. The label said 'chocolate and 100% real peanut butter,' but it tasted like cardboard. Morgan ate one too, she looked like she wanted to puke while chewing. "Why did you bring these along? You coulda brought those MRE's you had in your pantry. Those were actual meals."
Morgan's eyes opened wide. Her smugness melted away, "Fuck! You're right, and I spent so much cascs on those too." She shrugged and went towards the door, "But we don't have time to cook anyways, so let's go." She pointed at the front door with both of her hands.
As they walked outside, Garth asked Morgan, "Hey, when are we coming back here? We left stuff in there." Morgan just gave him a thumbs up and said nothing more. Garth rolled his eyes and looked left down the aisle, facing their room's door. There was a young couple flirting next to some vending machines. The man had his arm on the well next to the woman's head, she had a wide smile and stared into his eyes. Garth watched as the man played with her hair. He took notice of their augments, his arms seemed reinforced with piston bone crushers, a special prosthetic set of full arms meant to apply extra force behind every punch. Both had significant amounts of tattoos all over their bodies, his were mostly colorless while hers were pretty neons and various hues. The woman closed her eyes while she laughed at her partner's joke, then shifted her gaze to Garth, making eye contact with a puzzled expression. Garth got startled and quickly turned into Morgan, bouncing his face off her shoulder. "Hey, wat–" He cut himself off out of embarrassment.
Morgan raised an eyebrow with a smug grin, "Whatcha lookin' at?"
"N-Nothin', let's just go." He pushed past her. Morgan looked over at the couple, now making out. She stuck out her tongue in disgust, "Blegh, really?" And followed after Garth. As they turned the corner around the motel, Morgan asked Garth, "So, what do you want to do today?" Garth stopped. Morgan kept walking until she was a few meters ahead, and stopped to face him.
Garth was confused, "Wait," he pointed at her, palm up, "Aren't you the one who hired me for a job? Do you not have an idea of what we need from this tiny shithole?" He leaned against the building, maintaining eye contact with her.
"No, no, I do. I just asked out of formality. We're heading to that junkyard."
"I'm not gonna find you half-conscious on the ground again, am I?" He said, expecting Morgan to throw back an equally snarky remark.
"No. I have a feeling there's some cool shit that's been forgotten by these hillbillies." She gingerly walked up to Garth, and leaned against the same wall as him, "You down for some scavenging, or are you above that?"
He sighed, "Yeah, sure. Fuck it, why not."
Morgan slugged him in the shoulder with her right fist, "Great, le's go." She speedwalked a few meters, Garth looked down and shook his head. He trailed behind her, fiddling with his phone. Morgan stopped at the top of the stairs waiting until Garth caught up, and then walked beside him down the street. She hooked her thumbs in her pockets and badly whistled, "You realize you didn't actually have a choice? You know, in what we're gonna be doing."
"I'm aware." He kept looking at his phone. Morgan giggled, but Garth didn't notice. They kept walking in silence to a Quik-E-Mart a block behind the motel. Morgan was people-watching, looking at all the odd characters trudging through the fresh muck of a street. The poorly maintained and wonked implants were an amusing sight.
"You ever wonder why ArchAinne never paved roads out here? Batto isn't even that far out." She said, kicking a mound of mud across the ground.
"Probably because it wasn't profitable. Most of the people who live out this far and beyond don't exactly work for a corp or send resources back to Central. You do know that the Arch got bought out and became a megacorp like, three years ago, right?"
She ruffled his hair and he frantically slapped her hand away, "I don't really check the news, it's usually just toxic crap and misinformation." Morgan said with a smirk.
Garth was taken aback, "But di– Didn't you just check the news back in our room, like, thirty minutes ago?"
She turned her head to look at him, "Huh? I don't remember that." She smiled at him and snickered, she was fucking with him.
"You aren't funny, that was barely a joke." Garth looked unamused.
"Whatever. You're no fun," the beat up Quik-E had a cheap metal interior and exterior, both had slivers of rust and decay but the outside was worse, probably due to last night's weather. Morgan examined the amateur looking welding seams. Garth took a step inside but stopped to watch Morgan and her investigation. She was mumbling to herself about the quality of the building. She froze, feeling Garth's cold stare creeping down her spine. She cocked her head and stared back, "What? Don't judge me." Garth rolled his eyes and headed inside.
There was a heavily modified man behind the counter reading something on his monitor screen. The store clerk's right forearm had an odd implant with an open hole protruding out a bit; Garth assumed it was a razorwire. He had a stained, white tank-top, a thick unkempt mustache and a receding hairline that stopped a touch before the back of his head. On his counter was a cat, black fur with a white blob on its side. Garth couldn't tell if the cat was real or synthetic, and he couldn't reach behind the glass to pet it and find out. The bell above the door clanged as it finally slid shut. The burly man peaked up from his screen, saw Garth, and went back to it. Garth walked around the convenience store, checking out the various bags of overpriced processed candies and chips, all with disgustingly high amounts of sodium and sugar. Morgan finally entered too and went straight to the clerk, tapping on the glass with her metal arm. She was asking him if he had any magnum cartridges for sale, but Garth could barely hear her. He looked at the security cameras around the store, checking for blindspots. Garth grabbed a couple processed synthetic-meat ImposSticks, and moved to tuck them in his jacket.
Morgan reached around and grabbed his hand, holding his arm towards the ceiling, "Hey!" Garth struggled, "Let go of me." She let go, and he stumbled back but kept his footing.
Morgan said under her breath, "The fuck you think you're doing!?" She pointed to a few of the cameras, "The clerk over there has the CTV feed in the corner of his screen, you really think he wouldn't hesitate to blow you away with that?" She gestured to a large dark-metallic circle in the ceiling. It was a stationary civilian-issue security turret, folded into itself. "And for what?" She briefly glanced at Garth's clenched fist, "Give me whatever was worth dying for, I'll go pay for it." she opened and closed her hand, gesturing for Garth to hand her the sticks. He groaned and forcefully slammed the junk food into her hand, "That wasn't so hard." She grabbed him by the collar, "We'll talk about this outside." Garth stood by the door and leaned against the glass, Morgan went to the clerk and paid for her ammo and the not-meat sticks. She walked to the door and it slid open automatically. She snapped her fingers twice, Garth looked over and she gestured for him to leave. He stepped into the muck, "Catch!" He turned around just as Morgan tossed a stick at his face. He fumbled with it for a moment then dropped it. Garth breathed in deep, trying to keep calm and picked up the stick. As he came up, Morgan was standing right in front of him. Their eyes met, hers looking down at his, "How old are you, Garth." She rhetorically asked.
"You already know, I've sai–"
"But apparently you don't," Morgan's face became stern, and Garth felt anxiety setting in, "You're what, 22? You're not some street rat who needs to scrounge for scraps to survive." She started walking back towards the motel. Garth stood there, still processing her odd alliteration, "I just wanted to grab some extra rounds from there. I wasn't planning on leaving with bullets and a body. Now c'mon," she still didn't look back, "You've got a job to do, and we're late."
Garth snapped out of it and jogged to walk beside Morgan , "What do you mean 'late'?" Morgan didn't say anything back, but kept walking with complete disregard for Garth's existence. They walked past the motel, and past Morgan's towards the junkyard. It looked tiny from a distance, nestled behind a couple buildings.
As they approached the large gate protecting the scrapyard, Garth realized that the junkyard was large enough to be its own town. All the garbage and rusted scrap seemed to make this dusty, thick haze hang over the whole plot. The sounds of metal clinking together and figures moving about bounced off the yard's corroded steel walls. He could see silhouetted blobs of things moving along the tall towers of abandoned cars, parts, and cargo. He squinted to try and get a better look at the yard's occupants but nothing helped. He couldn't tell if they were even human. Morgan activated her HUD and began scanning random pieces until her reticle briefly picked up what she was looking for. The people walking past sent odd looks at the two as they stood a few meters in front the gate, squinting and looking around. Eventually Morgan ran up to the fence and leapt at it, scaling it in a few seconds but stopping once her waist met the top. She kept looking until she found her target again and finished scanning. She smiled and said, "Gotcha."
Garth looked at her, "You find somethin'?"
"Yup, but it's pretty deep in there." She pointed but the smog obscured whatever the thing was. Morgan walked up to the main gate, to its right was a building. Small but sturdy with a thick iron door facing the street, but the door had a tiny glass window and a buzzer on the wall next to it. Garth sighed as Morgan kept looking over the gate, for some reason, ignoring the obvious. He knocked on the door. Waited a couple seconds, no answer. He knocked harder and Morgan heard him. There was still no answer. Morgan leaned against the wall next to him, and Garth punched the buzzer. The sound of an alarm going off inside was muffled but clearly loud enough to get whoever was inside's attention. Morgan pushed Garth aside and peeked through the glass.
A tall, muscular man approached and hit the intercom, "What in the hell do you want? You need an appointment to come diggin' 'round in here, and I don't got anyone on my schedule."
Morgan grabbed the glass's sill and shoved her face against it, "Mr. Cardo, it's me! Don't bullshit me, just let us in." She dropped and took a step back. Garth's eyes kept bouncing between her and the door. He was trying to figure out why Morgan was being so demanding with a stranger.
Cardo mumbled to himself, "God damn it." He pressed the intercom again, "So you're the one they hired? Thought they'd choose someone a little more... amped."
Garth walked to Morgan and quietly asked, "Hired? Wait, we're doing a job right now? Right now, right now?" Morgan puckered her lips and slowly nodded, "You're not broke right?" She slowly shook her head. The door made a 'ker-chunk' sound as Cardo turned the deadlock. The door swung outward to reveal a muscular black man in early 50's, wearing a long sleeve shirt, a dirty trench coat and a dirty but bright orange jumpsuit with numerous pockets tied around his waist. Both of them tried to step inside but Cardo stopped them. He took a moment to look them over; he was a little surprised that Morgan was taller than him but refused to show it. He ushered them inside and slammed the door shut.
Morgan and Garth wandered around, looking at the many random projects lying around on tables, scrap parts across the floor and personally decorated office. To the right of the front door was a workbench covered in broken drones and robots, their parts sat in bins next to it. On the bench's wall was the usual assortment of tools; screwdrivers, wrenches, nails, soldering gun, and miscellaneous wires. There were cabinets that looked amateur, almost like whoever made the bench decided to add the cabinets later. On the building's left were a long row of old lockers, most likely for any employees. But in front of those was a beat up couch and a coffee table, piles of papers, magazines and books sat covered in dust. They could see the dust floating in the air.
Garth noticed that Cardo had a picture of him holding a small boy, the frame said 'I love you, dad.' Garth felt a sting of jealousy.
"You know, I didn't think Arakami would ask for that fuckin' thing after it sat there for over a month," Cardo sat down at his desk and kicked his legs up. The ceiling fan slowly spun its blades, the light came in and out across his body. He nodded his head at Morgan, "So, how much are they paying you."
Morgan walked up to his desk, "It doesn't matter to you, now does it. We're here to collect whatever the hell is back there and get out." She sat halfway on his desk and crossed her legs, bouncing her foot off the desk's back.
Garth ignored their conversation and perused the small office, admiring all the junk projects strewn around. There was a broken cleaning drone underneath some cloth. It seemed to be a rather old model, long since discontinued and easily hackable. He picked it up, it's adaptable legs lifelessly dangling, and began tinkering with it. Cardo, only half-listening to Morgan's one-sided negotiation, watched Garth take apart the drone and dig through its guts.
Morgan snapped her fingers at Cardo, like he was her partner, "So, you gonna let us through?" She leaned back, feeling smug.
Cardo cocked his head, "It's Liam, and yes, I will." He dropped his legs down and stood up, Morgan did too. Garth kept repairing and adjusting the drone until its eye sprung to life with a bright blue hue. Morgan began walking to the door behind Liam's desk, "But you're gonna have to give me ten percent." Morgan stopped and stood straight. She cocked her head back and then let it hang forward a moment before turning to Liam.
"Fine. But you," she took another step towards him, her nose barely touching the bridge between his eyes, "You have to carry the damn thing. Got it?" She pressed her finger into his chest and quickly pulled it back.
He tilted his head up and looked her in the eye, "Got it." Morgan walked over to Garth, his new toy spinning and picking up litter from the floor. She reached down to tap his shoulder, but hesitated. She looked at Liam's workstation, squinting her eyes before going to it. Beneath the cloth Garth had removed from his formerly-dead drone was the severed prosthetic from the night prior. She adjusted her jaw and picked up the limb, looking it over before turning to Liam.
"Where'd you find this?" She asked Liam.
Liam walked closer to her and gently took the busted appendage, "One of the neighborhood kids brought it to me." He bent the hand back until something inside clicked, then he tapped his thumb and index twice, causing sparks and a brief flash of electricity to string between them. Liam pinched one of the loose wires protruding from the forearm's stump. The limb opened, and a retracting blade slowly extended out, but stopped short and jammed. "They said they found it up on one of the roofs a couple blocks down."
Morgan leaned back against the workstation, "You wouldn't happen to be able to find out who's arm that is, would you?" She gestured to the implant.
"Actually, I already tried that. Whoever's shit this is took the precaution of scratching out the serial number and installing their own homebrew. All manufacturing data, ID numbers, all of it got deleted. Except for the base functions, obviously." Liam set the limb on the couch behind him and turned his attention to Garth, "Hey, uh, what's your name?" Garth looked at Liam from the corner of his eye but didn't say anything, "My son's also pretty good at that tech stuff," Liam glanced at Morgan, looking for a response but she just subtly shrugged, "I've got a synthetic dog out back that none of my employees could get workin', if that interests you at all." Garth looked away and smiled to himself.
He'd never gotten the opportunity to work on a synth before, only bots and Androids, "Do you know what condition it's in?" Garth stood up and the cleaner-bot proceeded to jump and fold into Garth's pack. Liam was surprised, he didn't know those drones could do that. "Do you mind if I take this? Considering it was broken and it was just lying there." Garth timidly asked him.
Liam chuckled a little, "Yeah, kid. Go ahead. It seems to like you more anyways." Garth opened his mouth to correct him, but Liam waved his hand in Garth's face, "I know, it's a robot. It can't actually– Whatever. God, you're just like my son." Garth's face eased up, it felt weird having someone talk to him this way. Liam rested his hand on Morgan's shoulder to get her attention, "Listen, we should get this over with," his eyes had a brief blue blur along their edges, "It's eight-thirteen and I wanna get this done before our lunch break." Morgan smirked at the idea of eating a homemade meal, a luxury she barely knew.
As Liam walked over to the backdoor, Garth stopped Morgan, "When'd you even take this job anyways? And how? Don't you normally need someone to, you know, hook you up with a gig?" Liam pulled a thin, grey steel card with a barcode etched into it and a series of three black lines just above its bottom edge. He paused just before tapping it against the black box planted next to the door, looking back to the two strangers talking amongst themselves.
"Back in the motel room, when I was checking the news. One of my contacts a little further out West sent me the job before anyone else since it was so easy." She winked and slapped Garth on the back. She walked up to Liam but turned back to Garth, "It's a simple retrieval job. I'm sure you've worked as an errand boy before?" Liam tapped his card and the door gently slid open with a beep. Garth ignored the slight against him and followed them.
The courtyard was clear of debris but still had a sea of metal and scrap parts encircling it; the way everything was spaced apart was evidence that Liam had moved all the junk to give the back entrance some breathing room. The three of them walked a few meters and Liam fiver-finger-pointed to a damaged crate that sat comfortably on top of the rubble, "There's your new best friend, ki–"
Garth piped up, "It's Garth. And, um... thanks." He tried to hide his excitement at the prospect of working on the synthetic, he pried off the crate's lid. Liam smirked, and tapped Morgan's shoulder, gesturing with his head to come with him. Inside the crate was a large, clear plastic bag zip-tied shut. A large, brown, black, and white-tan blob lay inside. He pulled his knife from its sheath and sliced open the bag. A pudgy basset hound rolled out, a chunk of the dog's upper right side was torn, exposing some of the biomechanics inside. That wasn't much of an issue, but the missing front right leg definitely was. Garth pulled his own HUD and searched the net for the location of the dog's jack-in port. The small angled port was lodged deep inside the ear canal according to some forum posts from 12 years ago. Garth picked up the broken mutt, sat cross-legged on the ground and lay it gently in his lap. Hoping to find the port immediately, he flipped the dog's large, floppy ear pinna but the canal looked normal. Garth lifted up the mutt's head and stuck his finger inside the right ear canal. It was the same at the entrance, so he pushed in deeper and felt a hard cylindrical object. He sighed while picking up the whole dog and laying it on its other side.
"The item you're looking for is a ways back," Liam and Morgan walked up a makeshift ramp leading over the top of a scrap hill. Morgan observed some of Liam's employees using power tools and plasma cutters slicing up broken cars, bikes, and some drones. All of them had the same outfit as Liam, except for his scrapyard logo on the back of their shirts and no jackets. There were three of them, one on the ground pulling pieces from the piles while the other two hung by rappels, slowly cutting into the twisted metal. Each one appeared to be a different class of people; a refurbished combat Android, a mutant woman and a slender, androgynous-looking Replicant. The Android's outer coating was a decayed, spotty orange with scattered flecks of dark silvery metal. Its body was thin, yet bulky as the bot's main body was a solid casing containing its 'organs,' with exposed joints, wires and pistons for easier movement. As for the Rep, his gender was vague as his smooth, fair-skin was light but not quite pale; while his hair was rather long and dirty blonde, tied up into a amatuer high ponytail. Both of his ears had piercings, one a simple silver ring and the other was a metallic stud that Morgan assumed was handmade. The mutant glanced down at Morgan and dropped down to her eye-level and took off her welding goggles to get a better look at her. Morgan was surprised by the woman's appearance; both of her eyes had dual pupils but different colors, her skin seemed oddly insect-like and her smile was filled with sharp, jagged teeth. Morgan was a little flustered by the woman's sharp jawline and muscular-athletic physique. Her hair was partly dyed blonde, crossfading into her natural hazel color. She gave off a friendly vibe to Morgan, but the woman's mutated features still made her uneasy. She rarely interacted with what people commonly referred to as "sub-humans," and their appearance and psychological condition varied so drastically, Morgan never knew what to expect.
Morgan picked up her pace and matched Liam's. She flicked his shoulder with her prosthetic, "Are those your workers?" She gestured to the three people in jumpsuits,
Liam smiled and answered, "Yup, each one of them needed a purpose and I gave them one, or so I say. That gal right there," he tried to subtly point at the mutant, "Her name's Gweneth. I found her OD-ing in an Icarta alleyway," Morgan pulled her lips back in disgust and horror, she knew exactly what Liam was talking about, "and brought her to a doc. I'm still amazed with how far she's come." Liam was beaming, and kind of looked like he was going to tear up.
"How long's she been clean?" Morgan asked, a single eyebrow cocked.
"About eight years. I told her she could leave and find better work elsewhere," he laughed a little, "But nope! She told me she likes it just fine, right here."
Morgan widened her eyes and briefly raised her eyebrows, angling her head and glancing away from Liam, "Well, she looks like she's doing very good." Liam tightened his brow and shot a crooked half-smirk at Morgan. He didn't know how to respond to her comment, and just brushed it off.
They walked onto a small industrial lift and Liam slammed his fist into the button to go down. Morgan could hear the hydraulics hiss as the platform began to lower, "I fixed up that combat droid myself, took forever though. Gwen had to help since she has experience working on DesBikes and electrics. I'm good at taking things apart, putting 'em back together is a whole 'nother story. I call 'im Tony," he quickly did an eyebrow flash, "Couldn't come up with anything better." He looked at Morgan from the corner of his eye, waiting for a response from her but got nothing back.
The lift only went down about four meters and stopped with a ker-chunk, "And the Rep?"
Liam raised the lift's gate, "Lexi. He's technically a refugee." He extended his hand toward the VTOL, gesturing for Morgan to go ahead, "It was actually about a year ago today that I found him hiding back here." Liam walked beside her. Morgan knew the package was inside a VTOL, but she didn't think the craft would be so large. The thing had only one wing as the other was torn off, along with a majority of the left side being heavily damaged. The VTOL was partially covered in tarps, Morgan assumed Liam and his crew threw them on the vehicle. Morgan noticed Liam tense up for a moment, "Poor kid spent his first few years as a pet for some fucked up people," he exhaled and relaxed somewhat. Morgan felt a little nervous looking over Liam's body language, "I kept trying, and trying to get him to tell me who he worked for and why he ran away. I don't know if he was programmed to never speak about it or what."
Morgan narrowed her brow and tensed up her face trying to think for a moment. She looked at Liam and lightly shook her head, "Wait, it's illegal to own Reps. Hell, it's been illegal for 50-something years. What do you mean 'pet'?"
Liam raised his eyebrows and his lips formed a frown, "You're right, but indentured servitude is still a thing. Reps are easily taken advantage of since most don't," Liam jerked the tarp covering the VTOL's side door loose and threw it on the ground, "see them as human. Yes, they are a 'product' made by Nitsunis for easy labor, but they are still legally emancipated after one year of said labor."
Morgan folded her arms, leaned back on her leg and covered her mouth, her eyes intensely fixed on the ground in front of her. She then held her hand open towards Liam, "I knew the Replicants had it bad after they got cut loose, but I didn't realize people were taking advantage of them like that."
The inside of the craft was large, but appeared smaller from the outside. Grey was its outer color, and that shade carried over into the interior. There were two segregated sections inside divided by a thick titanium wall with circular ballistic-proof windows evenly spaced on both sides, and a single sliding door sat perfectly in the middle. Several rows of seats were visible through the windows, about four of them with four seats on either side separated by an aisleway. Liam struggled to get the dividing door open, the sound of crunching metal could be heard from inside the door as its tiered panels shifted closer together under Liam's strength. Morgan noticed that his hands had thin seams running around the back of his hands, his knuckles had exposed dark metallic joints flexing with each tug against the door's resistance. Morgan looked around the medium-size cargo bay, peeking through some of the lockers embedded in the aircraft's walls. She was pleasantly surprised that Liam and his crew didn't pick it clean already, finding a case with Arakami's logo firmly printed with its signature deep crimson coloring on the topside of the case. There were five locks: one bio-scanner on the front and two cycling locks on both sides, all of which were "no-net." Morgan's expressionless face twisted into one of mischief. Her lips carving through her cheeks as she realized just how easy breaking open the case would be. Her eyes dotted solid black and her thumb print became a clean slate as she hovered her thumb over the fingerprint reader. Her nervous system began to run an electrical current through the surface of her thumb, etching a new print into her synthetic skin as it collected information from the reader. She opened her mouth, letting her jaw hang, raking her tongue across the back of her teeth. Pressing her thumb into the scanner caused the case's display screen to play Arakami's logo animation; their logo faded in from the black background and a streak of white light cut lines across it before disappearing off-screen.
The logo vanished, being replaced with a photo of a young Asian woman and Japanese text, all formatted like someone's corporate profile. A slightly ridged, electrical voice projected from the case, "Furusawa Amaya-san, konnichiwa. Kōjin kabushikigaisha ga hakkō shita burīfukēsu wa, seventy-two-kakan akusesu sa rete imasen." Morgan's auto-translator worked fast and relayed the English to her: "Greetings, Ms. Amaya Furusawa. Your Arakami Corporation issued briefcase has not been accessed for seventy-two days." The screen switched to a new red-tinted display in Japanese, "Sarani D-N-A kantei ga hitsuyōdesu."
Morgan's smiles faded due to frustration, and the corners of her lips bent downward. She stressed her jaw, letting it snap back in place with a clack. Liam finally got the door all the way open and turned to tell Morgan, but hesitated at the sight of her squatting down, fiddling with the black case. Morgan mumbled to herself, "You little, piece of shit. Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? 'Genetic I.D.,' why am I not surprised. Thank you, Ms. Amaya Furusawa." She cycled through a myriad of frequencies in her HUD before she picked up on the scanner's signal. She snickered, the case may not be connected to any network, but it still emitted an open connection. Its encryption was the standard corporate affair, nothing super advanced with only a few layers of protection since most corporations couldn't be bothered to keep their cybersecurity up-to-date. Morgan's own breach software fired up and unloaded upon the barrier. Each one gave way with relative ease.
Furusawa Amaya's profile was replaced by a new, green-hued screen with fresh Japanese text. The computer's voice spoke again, "Akusesu ga kyoka sa remashita." The case's locks cycled, stopped suddenly and popped out with a click. Morgan didn't know what to expect, the case wasn't mentioned in the job description and no one seemed to care about it. Having zero expectations was a blessing in this instance, the case held something she'd only heard about: a pre-market, Arakami prototype 'Return-2-Sender' pistol. The handgun was thin but rather bulky; its slender, textured grip appeared custom made. Hell, the whole thing was custom. Two chambers, one on top for sending out rounds and one on the bottom for retrieval. An unknown caliber as it wasn't available yet, but that didn't matter much as she couldn't run out of the prototype's ammo. The rounds didn't have primers, they were solid pieces of stainless steel shaped like bullets with unique mag-lock signatures tethered to the firearm. Morgan picked up the gun, it was fairly heavy. She looked it over and couldn't find any signs of external or internal moving parts, she had to assume it was all electrical. She learned nothing scanning the gun, there wasn't any metadata imprinted, which meant she had a clean slate to enter her own information.
Liam leaned against the dividing wall, waiting for Morgan to finish examining her new toy, "Miss, we don't got a lot of time, so can we please get this over with? I get that it's a cool gun and all."
Morgan kept staring at the gun, rotating it around, and extended her free arm towards Liam with her index pointed at the ceiling, "Hold on, I gotta sync with this bitch." Her pitch-black eyes creeped out Liam. The handgun was automatically installing its own built-in programs and drivers onto Morgan's OS, one of which was an augmented reality targeting system linked to the pistol and its ammunition. She'd definitely need to test it all out later. For now, she stood up and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. Morgan approached Liam as he got off the wall, "A'ight, all done. Do you know where the package is?" Her black, mirror-like eyes dissolved into her usual light-brown. A cold tingle ran up Liam's steel spine as a reaction to Morgan's enhanced eyes.
Liam pointed through the doorway, "Yeah, the Arakami bastards hid it pretty damn well. I haven't been able to find it yet." Morgan followed the electrical connections floating in the air, each one seemed to lead to nowhere, just an empty space in the ceiling. Liam walked around in a circle, "What're you looking at?"
She tapped the ceiling's odd, flat surface, "There's a lot of, um, connections coming from this spot, but there's something blocking me from scanning whatever the hell this is." She lightly punched the ceiling.
The name 'Garth Bennett' appeared in the corner of her HUD, "Hey, Morgan. Can you do me a favor? That synth dog is missing a leg, and I was wondering if you could try to find a replacement for 'im. I can't find a part over here, and since you're already on the other side."
"What's the model number? I might be able to, but I'm not guaranteeing I'll find anything." The ceiling's circular plate dropped down by a hair, then continued lowering until it jammed. The sounds of weak pistons fighting to extend whimpered from inside it.
"Yeeeah, I don't know where that is. But, uh, the synth is a basset hound, maybe it's around the scrapyard?"
Morgan snorted out loud, "Maybe if you pay me for the gig." Liam looked at her funny.
Garth didn't respond, giving Morgan and Liam a moment to trade glances, "You–? You are joking, right? It's just a leg." Garth said to her over their WICS connection.
"Hold on, Garth, I'm tryna get the package loose. Dumb thing's stuck," she turned to Liam, "Can you help me pull this piece of shit down, it's not goin' any further."
Liam looked over the small space where the package was visible, the bottom half of the Arakami logo was just barely visible, "How are you even supposed to get this back into Arakami's possession?"
"I don't really know yet, but put your hands there," she placed her hand on the edge of the platform, "The job description said something about calling them. I'm not too thrilled about it. Now c'mon, pull!" The two of them crumpled the steel edges, the crunching of metal scraping against each other. The platform kept fighting against them no matter how hard they tried. "Garth, I'll find your puppy a new paw."
"It's not a– Whatever. See ya in a minute," Morgan's WICS quietly beeped as he hung up. Morgan and Liam jerked on the platform, its joints buckling under the pressure but refusing to give. Morgan's frustration peaked, her fist came down on the hydraulics, tearing the platform from the ceiling. Both of them took a step back. The large black case stayed solid slamming into the floor, barely shifting while being held down by the straps that held it in place. Morgan squats down, feeling around the case's body, looking for any sign of a way to crack it open.
Liam squatted down too, meeting her gaze, "Aren't supposed to not open the product?"
Her eyes darted up and locked with his, "Yeah, but shut up. Arakami forgot the damn thing existed for like, what? Two months? That's what you said, right?"
Liam stood up and looked around the VTOL before coming back to Morgan, "What's your point?"
She stands too, and crosses her arms, "I don't understand why a corp as big as them would abandon their tech for such a long time, then order an open-public job, with little-to-no details on the package. Does that not seem odd to you?" She subtly shook her head, trying to physically convey to Liam her confusion. Sadly, he wasn't really paying attention to her, his focus was on the unknown black case strapped to a chunk of broken metal.
"When you put it that way, I really don't know. But it's a corp that pushes for human evolution, they always act like this."
Morgan kicked the case and stared at Liam, "You gon' carry this?"
He twisted his tongue in his mouth for a moment, "You serious? It's still strapped to the... whatever the heck that metal is." She clenched her fist, the outer side of her left arm raised up a few centimeters; this black, metallic-like liquid formed a straight rectangular blade extended out a few millimeters past her fist. Morgan pressed the blade's edge up into one of the straps, testing its resistance. She took a deep breath, breathing back out through her nose, and with one motion, the blade sliced through the strap. "I didn't realize you had some combat implants like that. What is that? A nanite-blade? Thought that shit was illegal."
Morgan cut the other strap and picked up the case, tucking it under her other arm as the blade broke down, retracting back inside. She walked back through the dividing wall but stopped after a few steps in, "I'll carry the package, and you," she looked back to him over her shoulder, "You're still gonna get paid. I ain't no gonk."
Liam raised his brow, "So, you are a gonk."
"What?" She turned her body halfway.
He walked up to her, "Double negative. You actually said you are a gonk."
Morgan's puzzled face snapped to the floor, her eyes darting as she processed the error. She came back to Liam, subtly shaking her head, "Sh-Shut up." She walked away, dropping down from the VTOL's back ramp. Liam followed her as she mumbled to herself, "Fuckin' grammar Nazi." She peeked back to Liam again, "Hey! You got any synth parts lying around? You got a pretty big yard here, so you gotta have a good variety."
"Yeah, uh, we got some leftovers around here. Somewhere," Liam went over to some beat up milk-crates of miscellaneous parts. Morgan slapped the case a few times and tossed it to Liam, he fumbled with it for a second but ultimately caught it. She scanned over the stacks of plastic crates packed full of partial synthetic pieces.
As she pulled random crates out and sifted through their contents, tossing the wrong parts into the piles of scrap around her, she asked Liam, "You ever listen to that Satori group? The one where the 'A' is a four and the 'O' is a zero?"
Liam hopped up onto the hood of an old spinner's frame, long since scavenged and hollowed out, "Maybe? They're that Japanese, pop-idol group with forty members, right?"
"Yee-up, I tried listening to their stuff, and it's okay. Usually less than 'okay.' Way too overproduced and trying too hard to replicate the idols of the 21st century. I still can't understand why their dumb faces are plastered all over Central, they creep me out. Half of them don't look human, 'Uncanny Valley' and all that. But the dumb-as-fuck annoying ads play constantly on every streaming app. They definitely know how to kill the vibe, that's for sure."
Liam immediately chimed in once she stopped talking, "Is this your attempt at small talk?" He leaned forward, propping himself with one hand on his knee.
Morgan was just about to give up when she found a leg, she held it up in front of her face and waited for her optical implants to process the part's serial number, "Well, I'm trying to, but clearly I'm not great at it." She stood back up, brushing her hair out of her face as she walked back over to Liam. She held up the severed dog appendage to his face, "You think this'll work? Gar said it was a basset."
"Basset?" Liam asked, slightly confused. He's seen very few dogs in his life, especially out here.
"Hound."
"That'll probably be fine, it's a universal replacement," Liam hopped back down, Morgan recoiled as he landed, "When'd he tell you the synth's breed?"
She gestured to the VTOL with her thumb, "He called me while I was fiddling with the pistol I found."
Morgan patted his shoulder as she passed by him, Liam followed behind, keeping a slight distance, "Speaking of that gun you found."
She looked around the piles of junk while ignoring Liam, "Uh-huh."
"What was it?" Liam stepped over some corroded, steel beams.
She peeked over her shoulder, "What was what?"
"Wha– The weird looking, Arakami handgun tucked in your pants." He pointed in the general direction of Morgan's waist. Her attention was drawn to the various cranes littered around the top of the pit the VTOL was in. A few of them seemed extremely old but refurbished, maybe late-22nd century, crap from the last decade never ages.
She stayed silent for a moment, letting the awkward silence settle while they walked back to the lift. She raised the lift's gate, waiting for Liam to step aboard before finally saying something to him, "Do you want to know what's inside that case?"
Liam kept looking out from the lift, his gaze didn't acknowledge Morgan's presence, "No. But you're just gonna not answer me?" With his eyes alone, he glanced over to her. He still couldn't really handle her height, it didn't quite intimidate him but the reality of it made the back his head itch.
Morgan leaned against the lift's railing and crossed her arms, "You gonna be free later?"
Liam turned a little to the left, just barely facing her with his left eyebrow raised, "I'm sorry, come again?"
"Lunch. You said something about a lunch break. I'd like to join you and your crew," the lifts stopped as it reached their destination. She briefly bounced her head to the right as she said, "With Garth, of course."
Liam checked his HUD clock, "You gotta go play 'delivery boy' with your boy, and we got a couple more hours 'til then." He raised the gate and let her go on ahead. Lexi was leaning against an upturned car with its front bumper jammed into the ground, his left foot firmly planted against the car's hood. He was flipping around a multi-colored flash-drive in his hands with inhuman dexterity. "Hey, Lex," Lexi stopped zoning out and tossed the drive in the air before catching it. His attention was drawn to Liam and Morgan, "You takin' a break? What about Tony and Gwenny, they takin' one, too?"
Liam and Morgan walked passed, and Lexi joined them, walking right next to Liam, "I am, but the other two are still pulling apart that AutoEuropa car that got abandoned here." Morgan took note of Lexi's height, he was a few millimeters below Liam's shoulder. His deep blue eyes looked like their pupils were swirling with sparkles, almost like a galaxy.
Liam placed his left hand on Lexi's shoulder, "The one from last week?"
"Yup, it didn't have any personal items but its internal parts are pretty valuable."
"How valuable? You think we could sell 'em online, on the night market, or Hell, back to the manufacturer?"
Lexi shook his head, "Nah, each part I've scanned has a serial number that comes up as stolen in their database." He laughed and swiped his thumb against his nose, "That's actually why I came up here."
Liam pulled Lexi aside and turned to Morgan, she stopped walking a few meters from the two. Liam waved her away, "Go check on your boy," Morgan nodded and began to walk away, "Oh, uh, can you do me a favor and check on my crew? Just make sure to tell 'em they're good to take a ten once they're done tearin' that piece of shit apart." Morgan gave him a thumbs up and kept going back toward the main office.
As Morgan came up on Tony and Gweneth, she could hear feminine-sounding yelling, she picked up her pace and vaulted over the railing, slamming down into the ground into a squat. She mumbled to herself, "Fuck my knees, that hurt." The faint sound of a grunge, garage-rock song was echoing across the rusted, metal mountains from the same place as the shouting.
Gweneth kept yelling, her strange, Europian accent was lingering on her every word, "Stupid droid, the hinges are right there! Just cut 'em off already, agh!"
Morgan walked up to Gwen as she jerked Tony's right arm around, attempting to aim the pinpoint plasma cutter mounted to his arm. Tony's single functioning eye flashes red, "Unable to identify target, please repeat command." His head swiveled in an acute angle, his retinal panning back and forth over the hinges holding the car door to the frame, "Unable to identify target, please repeat com
Gweneth winded up her leg, "Shut up and fookin' work!" As the tip of her foot crumpled into Tony's left leg, her face lit up and she hopped backwards, holding her foot, "Ow, shit, shit." She stomped her foot into the ground, stiffening her body and took a deep breath, as Morgan stepped forward. With Gweneth's back to her, she asked Morgan, "What did you see?" The music kept banging from the mobile speaker labeled 'Lexi's, don't touch' sitting a few meters on a table with random junk.
Tony turned to Morgan with an oddly smooth wobble, "Please identify yourself."
Morgan leaned away from Tony with her upper body, "Name's Sebastian Morgan," she looked over to the seething Gweneth, "And I didn't see anything." She sucked in her lips and sarcastically shook her head.
Tony's eye flashes blue then red, "Identity unable to verify, name could not be found."
Morgan shakily pointed to the Android while staring at Gweneth, "Is he gonna hurt me or something."
Gweneth finally looked at Morgan, fluttering her hand towards her in a dismissive manner, "Nah, don't worry. Liam programmed him to be virtually harmless, and also terrible at his job."
Morgan got really close to Tony, his head slowly moved to face her, She squinted and moved in closer to his head, "His right optical is busted. Have you tried repairing it?"
Gweneth cocked her head with a blank look on her face, "I dunno how to do that."
Morgan silently requested her Cerebral to identify the song that was playing, and said to Gweneth, "Fine, I'll find a part for 'im."
"What's with the box?" Gweneth briefly tilted her head, inspecting the case from afar.
Morgan held up the Arakami case, "It's what we came here for." She gave Gweneth a thumbs up and turned to walk away, but stopped once she remembered what Liam told her, "Oh yeah, Liam said that you two could take a break once you're done doing whatever your job is. Cool? Cool." The song's title finally appeared on her HUD: 'STARGAZING by Travis Scott, 2018.' Morgan thought to herself, "Hm, that's old as Hell." She stopped herself again and awkwardly asked Gweneth, "By the way, do you work out? 'Cause you've got a, uh, really nice figure."
Gweneth raised one eyebrow and hesitated to respond as Morgan slowly backed away, "Um, thank you?"
Morgan's face turned red, "Okie," she pointed over her shoulder, "I'm gonna go off myself now." Gweneth just stood still, confused as to why Morgan was behaving like an antisocial teenager talking to their crush.
She jumped five meters up over the large pile of junk with ease, drawing the attention of Gweneth, "Never seen that before." Tony continued to stand still, doing nothing but watching her, "What do you think you're doing? Back to work!"
Morgan walked up to Garth, who was laying down on the ground letting the chubby, floppy-eared basset hound lick his face. He pushed the dog aside, and without noticing her, pulled out a scuffed inhaler full of Czerwony, taking in a deep hit. Morgan stayed silent and lightly kicked his right leg, leaning back on one leg with her hands on her hips, "You do realize that mutt's been inactive, sitting in a junkyard for who knows how long? Probably got at least a couple diseases." The basset let out a couple deep barks at Morgan, trying to warn her to stay away from his new owner. She took a step back and the dog tried to chase, but struggled to stand up with its lack of a front right leg.
Garth propped himself up with his hands, "Yes, ma'am, I am aware. Did you get a leg replacement for Crash?"
Morgan was laughing at the basset hound trying to nip at her, "Who the Hell is Crash? No wait, don't tell me you named the dog 'Crash'?"
Garth got a little flustered, he fought the feeling of embarrassment swelling up in the back of his mind, "Y-Yes I did. It's from an old video game, you wouldn't know it."
Morgan snickered, bouncing her body for a moment, turning away with a smirk before returning to Garth, "I wouldn't know it, yeah, right." She tossed the naked synthetic leg into the air, catching it then tossing it into Garth's chest.
He fell back while catching the leg, "Oh shit, you actually found something. But it's got no skin or muscle on it."
Morgan frowned, sending a weak scowl at him, "Will it work?"
Garth slapped his left thigh, ushering Crash to come to him, the clumsy basset waddled over, "It looks like it will fit, but it is gonna look weird." He grabbed the hound's scruff and pulled him up onto his lap while crossing his legs and sat up, "Wanna know something? This boy here would be slobbering everywhere if he wasn't completely dehydrated. It's strange how synths need liquids to produce similar effects as organics and Reps, yet can function totally fine without 'em."
Morgan crooked her jaw to the right, "No, I didn't know that, huh." Garth pressed the severed, skeletal leg against the dog's bare shoulder joint, testing to see if it would fit. He scraped the inner socket on the limb, removing any excess dirt and grime before holding down Crash, popping the limb into the poor boy's shoulder with a click. She took a step back before spinning around, walking back towards the main building.
Garth held up the floppy hound, looking past Crash to Morgan, "Hey, you alright? You've been acting really weird, it's like you're switching."
She kept walking away from him, "I'm fine, Garth. I do appreciate the concern."
Garth put down Crash, and looked away from Morgan, "Okay? Are we done here?"
Morgan forced the door Liam's office open to and went inside. As Garth popped himself up, she leaned through the doorway, "Yup. Come on, Gar. We gotta go deliver this piece of junk." She held out the black case and loosely shook it around to get his attention. Garth picked up Crash and let him rest on his shoulder, as the basset relaxed, its skin looked like it was melting.
Liam walked up to them with Lexi just behind him, and he said, "You two leavin' now?"
Morgan stepped out a bit and let Garth walk past her, "Yeah, we are. I gotta get some things from our room first," she patted the case, "Before we go drop this off."
Lexi tapped Liam on the shoulder, pointing to his own chest then back towards the inner scrapyard. Liam dismissively nodded to him, "You're good, man. I'll come find you later." He turned back to Morgan, "Hey, are you and Garth gonna meet us around noon? Lunch is on me."
As Morgan slowly slid the door shut, she said through the gap, "Eh, maybe. I'll let you know. I don't know how long this'll take. Sayonara." The door slid shut.
"Weird people." Liam said as he walked away.