Hotrod's hand shot upward to check the NSC-only datajack nestled behind her left ear, as if to make sure this wasn't just a Scrambz-induced hallucination. She found the 'jack to be currently uninhabited. It was, in fact, not a hallucination.
“What,” she repeated.
“…Ah. Crap. I did it without—” Mary slapped her forehead and stopped fussing with the clasp of her cloak in the process. “Sorry, sometimes I get a little bit ahead of myself. Body augmentation. Er, that part is mostly obvious, I suppose.” Mary gestured up and down her cloak, somewhere between casually and frantically. “Full body replacement. Apologies again.”
“That's pretty fucking rad,” Hotrod blurted out. She lifted herself up from her lounging position and crouched down beside the couch that Mary laid on. “You mind if I..?”
“Feel free?” The response had just a hint of uncertainty. “—You know, this is probably the first time that I've had someone ask instead of trying to derail the subject immediately or leave the room.”
Mary finally managed to tug her cloak free, revealing the rest of her centipede body, which consisted of dozens of shifting jet-black plates, forming the facade of a carapace at a casual glance. Alongside that, several claws hugged her body, matching the ones that took part in the original horror show. To Hotrod's trained eyes, it was apparent that the 'ware Mary's rocking wasn't exactly available off the shelf at Primo Purchase.
But hey, at least Hotrod could now see that she was wearing a Banshees jacket all along.
If only for modesty reasons.
Mostly.
Hotrod let out a low appreciative whistle. “This is some serious custom work. The claws can operate individually, I presume? Titanium plating?”
“Er, yes. Titanium. Recently polished up. By myself.” More confusion crept into her voice. Nobody sticks around to check her out. At least, not when she's like this.
“Oh, you hand-polish it yourself? How long does that take you?” She nodded to herself as she continued to study the hybrid of cyberbody and cyberlimbs laying before her.
“I do. It's a—It takes a few hours. It's worth it. The sensors pick up dust and it just feels… itchy? It's not the most pleasant sensation.” She paused and balanced her ass-end on a single claw, swivelling the other one around freely in the air. “And, uh, yes to the first question. I don't think they'd be useful for climbing if they couldn't—Is this weird? I usually don't get this response. And by usually, I mean ever. I wear the cloak for a good reason.”
“What's weird? My questions or your upgrade?” She swiveled her head to face Mary and made eye contact. The artificial way her pupils contracted and the now-subtle glow around her grey irises betrayed the fact that those were cybereyes, despite looking almost natural.
Mary stared back; unnaturally bright orange eyes made it rather easy to identify that she had cybereyes of her own. With the cloak shed, it was very apparent that she was almost completely chrome at this point.
“I wonder if the polishing can be automated, or if the sensors can be fine-tuned to not overload your somatosensory cortex.” Hotrod was clearly fascinated by all this.
“You're not from around here—” Mary cut herself short to laugh and shake her head. The composure in her voice seemed to trot back in as she spoke back up. “—Apologies, again. I'm used to being the cryptid.”
“Oh, you can tell? I'm not from around here, yeah. Sorry for all the questions, by the way.”
“You're saying a lot of things that someone born here wouldn't say.“
“—oh. That obvious, huh?” Hotrod ceased her close inspection and knelt on the carpeted part of the floor now.
“I don't think it's a bad thing.” Mary gently shook her head and promptly rolled off the couch with a clatter. Despite how clumsy the entire act looked, her claws quickly sprung into action, hefting her back up to somewhat of a standing position before she even fully hit the ground. Or, at least, the closest approximation that a centipede person could achieve. “But, I suppose there's no harm in messing with the sensors. Just… Uh—I tend to do all the maintenance on myself. The other girls keep their distance and I don't really think that it'd be wise to go to a clinic. I'm sort of… expensive.”
“Push comes to shove I can probably have a drone do the polishing for you. Wouldn't trust it to calibrate your sensors, though.”
“You don't have to. Besides, it's wasted effort the moment I climb into an air duct or through a drainage ditch. Well, wasted effort for your drone, maybe. You know, first time I've had anyone offer to do that for me.”
“Yeah, but it's not like you're going to be stuck in an air duct or drainage ditch twenty-four seven, y'know? Otherwise you wouldn't have polished before you dropped by.” Hotrod reached behind for her beer, taking another swig from it, still holding her posture.
Mary's expression somehow managed to show a decent amount of conflict; regardless of her toothy grin that's been maintained throughout most of the conversation. “I should ask why you're offering, I suppose,” she finally asked, but not before sipping from her beer in return; forgetting that she had it in hand until that moment.
“Do I need a reason other than thinking this upgrade is cool as tits?” Hotrod finally picked herself off the floor, stretching with her beer still in hand.
“I suppose not?” She once again poised her statement as a question. “I must reiterate my apology. No one has ever taken interest in my augmentations, really. Either they don't like them, or they're looking to sell it for—” She paused. Again. Apparently she's had enough of talking about herself. “What do you have for chrome?”
“Oh, me? Pretty standard stuff.” Hotrod whisked her mane of black hair to the left, tapping a hexagon-shaped cutout near her right temple. “Control rig-slash-datajack, with additional rig booster.” She flipped her hair to the other side, showing the datajack hidden behind her pointy left ear. “And this here's the 'jack where I slot in Scrambz chips, just so I don't mix drone control with neural tampering.”
“Scrambz?”
“Yeah. You know, NSCs?”
“Oh! Neuron Scrambler Chips?”
“That's the one.” She looked from side to side, showing her almost-natural grey cybereyes. “Cybereyes modeled to look like my old meat eyes. Standard upgrades inside, including different light modes and triple vis-enhancement.” She spinned in place with arms outstretched to show off her physique. “The rest isn't so much chrome as it is vat-grown, but yeah. That's about what I'm rocking so far.”
Mary leaned forwards to investigate, despite the fact that she should be able to see perfectly fine with her own cybereyes. “Ah. So you're not—You haven't gone the full monty, then.”
“Oh yeah, I haven't. Don't think I will too, but it's pretty rad to see someone who has, y'know?”
Mary twisted her head at an unnatural angle. “The way you were looking at me, I'd assumed that you had, like, some hidden retractable arm-blade or something crazy. Or even mandibles—I shouldn't project.”
“I'm not much for wading into the thick of it, so I never even considered those. But! Would you mind waiting a bit before we hit the Night Market? Just gotta clean off the maintenance gunk and whatnot.“
“I'm not in a rush. I've been walking all day,” she responded slightly more cohesively than before and skittered backwards, giving Hotrod some breathing space. She held her arms out wide, as if emphasizing the need to work the non-existent kinks in her synthetic muscles. “And it's nice to stretch, so don't hurry for the sake of me. Take all the time you'd like! It's nice to talk to someone who isn't trying to kill me. Or is jumping straight to euphemisms every third sentence.”
“I'd probably jump into euphemisms every fifth sentence, if that compromise works. But yeah, shower time.” Hotrod traipsed off into the direction of the bathroom, fully stripping halfway of the journey to discard her tank top and overalls into the nearby hamper before stepping inside.
“Just ask Sylvain for whatever you need!” Hotrod called out before fully closing the door, leaving Mary to her own devices in the living room.
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Just across the street from Hotrod's pad, five silhouettes kept to the shadows, avoiding the overhead searchlights of Black Wolf Security helicopters as best as they could. Neon yellow reflectors on their clothes flashed when they rushed across the street in an undisciplined line. The biggest of them—vaguely ork-shaped, definitely ork-sized—lugged a boombox that was barely held together by prayers and duct tape.
“Maybe this isn't such a good idea, Leif.”
“Shush! Don't chicken out on me now. We have to show that saseko that the Noize Fiends aren't to be messed with!”
----------------------------------------
Mary managed to avert her eyes at the very last second, realizing that she likely shouldn't be staring.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“—I don't need anything! Thank you, though!” she called back out, obviously missing the context on who or what Sylvain is. She decided to take the time to skitter around the shop; curiosity getting the best of her as she tried to look over the project that Hotrod was working on before she interrupted.
The half-gutted drone was a medium-sized crawler, looking like an Aceveda Gigatronics Scrudder on steroids. The wires that hung out of its exposed underbelly created the appearance of an eviscerated giant metal tarantula, its four legs ending in needle-fine tips, gleaming wickedly in the garage's harsh light. The garage looked tidy otherwise, with tools and parts stored and categorized neatly in sturdy racks. It could almost be mistaken for a corp facility rather than a go-ganger's personal workshop.
Mary may or may not have a certain fascination with bugs. And anything that happened to be shaped like a bug. And this drone was shaped like a bug. Sort of.
It might've been a bad idea to leave her alone in the room with this thing.
She immediately figured her best course of action would be to clamber up and around the thing; doing her best impression of the creature her bodymod was modeled after. The end result is best described as a controlled mess, with the length of her centipede body looped over and under the drone, and her face stuck into the guts of something she doesn't understand whatsoever. At least she wasn't sticking her hands inside of it.
The arachnid-looking drone did not react in any discernible way, most likely due to its power core sitting beside it atop the worktable.
However, ominous whirring and high-pitched chirping indicated that something else reacted.
Mary partially dislodged herself to investigate the whirring, no doubt assuming that she had upset one of the active drones in the room. She didn't quite dismount herself from the drone, instead swivelling around with her body to look for the source of the sound.
A pair of matte black Flügelgeist drones hovered within reach, their external cameras aimed at her. No hostile movement just yet.
An ARO popped up in front of one of the drones, simply bearing the word: [https://i.imgur.com/thdotuu.png]
Mary's confusion quickly twisted to that of amusement. Not to say that she wasn't almost always wearing a toothy smile, but it was enough for her to burst into full blown laughter again. It actually took her a moment to regather herself, the plates of her carapace silently tapping together as she glanced between the two.
“—I don't think I've ever actually met a drone who has the courtesy to ask!” she half-laughed, a childish energy practically flowing out of her, as if she was permitting herself to relax more than usual now that she was presumably by herself. The elf extended herself towards the Flügelgeist, now shoving her face into the poor thing's camera. Maybe not the wisest of ideas. “Yes? Affirmative?”
Maybe this was the real reason people don't put up with her.
The drone chirped in acknowledgement, the ARO flicking to display:
[https://i.imgur.com/Rm2ALjb.png]
They both remained hovering in place.
“Did she actually program her drones to—” She swiveled her body around again, this time to slowly rotate around one of the drones to get a better look. Too bad looking at them actually answered her question. “Can you guys talk? Do you have, like, talking autosofts or something? Like those secretary drones?”
The Flügelgeist chirped again as if affirming the question and circled in place to follow Mary's movement, its ARO now displaying:
[https://i.imgur.com/lMWSji1.png]
“Oh. Oh. Ohh. You totally do. That's neat. That's—Wait. Rad? I think rad is the term.” She continued to circle around, the plates on her body rotating to accomodate for her bizarre contortions. “…I really need to get better with the slang. I've been out here for years and I still don't have a grip on it.”
For emphasis, she reached out to grab onto the Flügelgeist that she's fixated on. Which was probably a stupid idea.
The Flügelgeist didn't react beyond emitting a high-pitched chirp and increasing its rotor speed while remaining in place. It was either feeling excited or threatened, who knows.
The other Flügelgeist rotated in place and faced its camera towards the garage door.
[https://i.imgur.com/QumkVE2.png]
[https://i.imgur.com/A9Ob1de.png]
“Wha—” Mary swiveled her body once more and followed the drone's gaze.
----------------------------------------
As if on cue, Hotrod emerged from the side door, already dolled up in her classic ‘let's go out and have a good time’ getup. Black crop top, hip-hugging leather pants, heavy boots, the works. A bulky armored jacket is draped over one shoulder, her trusty Mühl AMP machine pistol gripped in the other hand. “Okay, who executed Protocol 18D? Mary? You in here?”
Mary almost shat herself. Or would, if she had the physical capability to. She promptly released Sylvain as quickly as she latched on, if only to quickly untangle herself from the gutted Scrudder drone in a quick flurry of motion. Despite the weight of her frame and all other factors involved, she did all of this while remaining deadly silent.
“One of your drones did. Something about your motion detector outside?”
Hotrod clicked her tongue and called up an ARO for the outside camera feed. Sure enough, she spotted the usual suspects creeping closer to her garage door. Of course it's the Noize Fiends. “—always after I fucking showered,” she grumbled under her breath.
Sylvain and Johnny hovered near the wall-mounted gun display where their AM-77 assault rifles hung, waiting for Hotrod to arm them.
“Sorry, Mary. This'll only take a minute.”
“Oh, actual intruders? Allow me to help.” The segments near what should be Mary's abdomen popped open, accompanied by hydraulic hissing. Jet black hands remove what looked like parts of a light machine gun, deftly assembling it as she went.
Hotrod ceased what she was doing, her gaze affixed on Mary's smooth moves. Hidden compartments in each segment, pretty snazzy. She recognized the silhouette of the LMG once it was fully assembled. “An RPM? Good choice.”
Mary inserted a fresh drum mag and flicked the safety off. “I can say the same about your AM-77s. Okay, time to show you what I can do.”
“You don't have to—”
Mary ignored Hotrod's words and swung the side door of the garage open, muzzle leading the way. “Halt!”
----------------------------------------
“—fuck.” The lead Noize Fiend instinctively raised his arms to the sky upon seeing the centipede woman one-handing an LMG, dropping the spray paint can he was holding.
His cronies followed suit. Except the ork. Defiantly, he kept holding the mangled boombox in front of his chest, which was playing a horribly warbled tune this whole time at a really low volume.
“We told you this was a bad idea, Leif.”
“Look,” Leif tried his best to keep his cool. Not really succeeding, judging from his quivering mohawk. “We're not looking for a shootout, alright? It's just a respect thing, alright? The saseko that lives here busted up our boombox, and we just want compensation. Alright?”
Mary gestured with her free hand towards the discarded spray paint can. “By vandalizing her house?”
“Well, uh…”
Mary aimed at the ground near Leif's feet and held down the trigger. RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT. The impacting rounds kicked up dust and debris from the driveway, prompting Leif to get jiggy with it to avoid getting hit.
“Okay, stop! Stop! We'll leave! STOP!”
Mary relaxed her trigger finger and trained her aim at Leif. “Not so fast.”
The supposed fearless leader of the Noize Fiends froze in place. “—you got it.”
“Leave that thing behind.” Mary pointed with her free hand, vaguely towards the back.
Leif followed her gesturing, his gaze resting on his orkish member holding the boombox. “Marc? Look, calling him a thing might be a bit ra—”
RAT-TAT-TAT!
“Not him, stupid. The boombox.”
Leif winced at yet another blow to his pride. “The Noize Fiends aren't the Noize Fiends without our boom—”
“Would you prefer to have your boombox but be dead, or be alive but without your boombox?”
“Easy choice. We're outta here. Come on, Leif, just let it go.” The two female Noize Fiends dragged Leif by the arms and Marc the ork dropped the battered boombox with a heavy sigh.
----------------------------------------
Hotrod let out a low whistle for the second time tonight. She leaned against the garage door.
“One-handing an RPM? Impressive. So, did you want to freshen up before we head out?”
“Er… I'll be fine. I think.” Mary grabbed the boombox and skittered her way back inside the garage. “—Totally washed up before I got here.”
“Alright. You said you walked here? Where'd you leave your bike?”
“Er… Well, I might've committed a faux pas by leaving it at your clubhouse. I hope it was your clubhouse.” She rubbed the back of her neck, her soft-toned voice struggling to keep to an audible level. “I don't know. Someone said they would tell Switch and keep an eye on it.” She managed an awkward laugh,
before continuing. “—Considering that I don't think anyone was told I was coming, I think I probably made a faux pas.”
“Nah, it's probably fine. Pretty easy to tell a Banshee bike apart, y'know? There might've been some confusion on who you were, but it's not a mega big deal.”
“My bike is—Nevermind, actually. I'll cross that bridge when I have to cross it.” She managed an uncharacteristic awkward laugh that was very much different from her usual laughs. She shifted back down to a more humanoid shape to actually be able to ride pillion; carapace plates slowly folding over and under each other and clicking into place. When all was said and done, she was actually kind of roughly closer to Hotrod's height, compared to how tall she was when she entered.
“So that means you'll be riding with me, yeah?” Hotrod straddled the matte black Katana, its sleek silhouette kept stock, most of the upgrades being under the hood.
“No issue with that. I'm used to it. 'Cause, nature of my work. Can't exactly leave my bike sitting on the street for a week.” She threw on her cloak and mounted the portion of the bike dedicated to bitch mode.
“Ah, yeah. Gotcha. Climbing into air ducts.”
A series of quick NeuroLine commands killed the garage's lights and enveloped them both in pitch black darkness, save for the external lights of Johnny and Sylvain, both still hovering nearby. Hotrod's cybereyes lit up when the Katana screamed to life, followed by short wails as she revved the engine a couple of times. Bright headlight glared harshly against the garage's partially open door, rolling upwards ever so slowly as if reluctant to let the go-gang girls go.
“Hold tight.”