I realized I was awake a few minutes after I’d opened my eyes. I’d been staring at the ceiling for a while, quietly marveling at how far away it was from my face. Why, I could sit up on the bed without needing to worry about my head banging against anything. And it got even better when I got up and went to shower. A hot shower at the turn of a knob, I let myself marinate under the heat and steam, entirely uncaring for whether I was late for anything. I didn’t even know what time it was! I’d gotten back to Motel 18 very late and tired, barely managing to drag myself through a shower before collapsing on the bed. Maybe I’d slept a few hours, maybe most of the day, I couldn’t bring myself to worry too much over it.
Because I killed a D-class. Granted, it’d been a bit of crapshot, relying on a whole lot more luck than I was comfortable with, but it had still been a D-class!
My happy hums carried me through cleaning yesterday’s clothes in the shower and putting on a fresh set while I left the other one hanging to dry. Then came a good nutritional shroom-juice breakfast as I planned for the day ahead.
Today I’d promised to do another stream, but I didn’t want to push myself while the system was still conked. My Bulstra needed a trip to a gunsmith, and I definitely needed to figure out some way to get the tablet fixed. There was also Kali’s request to go to the Rusty Pitch, which… hm. Maybe look for the place, since I’d likely need to take a trip into the city for the Bulstra? That sounded about right.
I glanced over at the picture of my father and aunt and swelled a little. “A lot sooner than I would’ve thought possible, but my first D-class.” I whispered, giddily getting dressed and prepared for a day out.
A quick check of Moreau’s communicator confirmed she remained unavailable.
Pulling out a tupperware from the bottom of my backpack, I opened the lid to see whether last night’s test had worked properly. The webbing was just a little bit less gooey and stringy than last night, but apparently still useful. “Just needs to remain moist.” I chuckled, undoing the strands I’d left at the door and layering a few new ones before closing the lid and heading out.
Even if I was taking everything of value with me, I still wanted to be sure whether someone had gone into my room or not. That, and it could also serve as a useful test on possible range.
With a happy little tune, I marched down to the lobby.
“Good morning, Axel Garcia!” Grills greeted with a crackling speaker, stiffly waving from behind the counter.
Checking whether the android had her shotgun within her reach, I relaxed a little once I noticed she was polishing a… bronze ingot? “What’s that you’ve got there?”
“I am cleaning!” She happily chirped, setting down the ingot with a ‘thunk’, and picking up a second ingot from behind the counter.
“May I ask what those are for?” I wondered, trying to gauge the android’s behaviour.
“For cleaning!”
I tried to make sense of what I was looking at. Not the cleaning itself, but the android. With how much of her body was missing, it was easy to spot the processor units within the chest cavity. I was no engineer, but if I had to guess, Grills had the AI running within her chassis rather than being remotely puppeteered. It made sense if the designer had sought to create something resilient to hacking, since you can’t hack that which is disconnected. But at the same time, that meant her AI couldn’t be much further along than an SLLM variant…
That raised a rather crucial question.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked. “Could you access my tab? How many days do I have left?”
Stiffening, the fans began to whirl at full blast, the android’s body radiating heat as the mechanical jaw opened and closed mechanically. After what had to be five or so minutes, it twitched. “Good morning, Axel Garcia!”
Oh.
That had to be a reboot, hadn’t it? “Am I a customer?” I asked cautiously.
Grills’ head fractionally moved back and forth. “You are a five-star guest!”
“And what is the five-star guest rate?”
Again, the fans began to whirl to full blast, and again, she twitched. “Good morning, Axel Garcia!”
It looked like the android had glitched somehow. “If… someone came, and asked for a room, how much would they pay per day?”
“Twenty credits a night!”
“And how many days have I spent here?”
Twitch. “Good morning, Axel Garcia!”
I sighed, awkwardly scratching my chin in thought. It looked like something from our interactions had slotted my profile into a glitch of some sort. Normally, this would be the sort of issue someone might fix, but… “Do you have an owner? A technician?”
The blank, robotic eyes regarded me, unmoving and unblinking.
“Hello.” I said.
“Hello, Axel Garcia!” She cheerfully replied.
Had she filtered my question entirely? I grimaced. This was going nowhere, and I wasn’t about to look for an excuse to stay here without paying. Grills was clearly not stable, and I definitely didn’t want to find out what might happen if the glitch resolved. Who knew what sort of extreme responses the android might take if she thought I owed her too much?
It also didn’t sit right to be using as much hot water as I had and not even pay for the room fees.
“Would you accept cred-chip payment?”
“What for?”
Hm… “What about tips?”
“This establishment does not employ people, therefore tips are not allowed.” She replied in a tone that was stiff even for her.
“Then… donations?” I offered.
“This establishment does not accept cash donations.”
Aha.
“What about physical donations?” I offered. “If I brought a bucket of paint, would that be acceptable?”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“This establishment would not turn down FREX-V00454-TX regex-error charitable aid!” The modulated voice hitched, shoulders twitching, jaw clamping shut with a ‘ting’ of metal. “Have a good day, Axel Garcia!”
Then the android’s lights went out, slumping slightly on the spot. Having learned not to try and check whether she was ok or not, I wrote down the serial number she’d provide. It was probably part of an error code, hopefully not from some homebrew program, otherwise there would be very little I could do.
A fluffy sky with very little sunlight greeted me, and I couldn’t help but smile a little again at the realization that today might be the end of the heatwave. Hopefully there would be no more need to go around in weather-protection gear. As much as I enjoyed the relative privacy, it had started to get a bit awkward walking around crowds where most folk looked like discount biohazard management crew.
That thought made me freeze mid-step and blink.
A half formed memory about uniforms and a thought that felt just out of reach, unable to coalesce into a proper thought. Had I remembered to return my Baconado work-uniform? No, that wasn’t it, I’d left it in the change rooms.
What was it…
Well, I had enough on my plate right now, I was sure I’d figure it out later.
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“Someone’s in a good mood.” Isia commented idly as she found me snacking while on the curb in front of the Motel. She’d shown up with the car-from-hell, dressed up in stained faux-camouflage fatigues, oil and grease smeared across her arms and chest.
“That’s because I am.” I grinned back, finishing up my mid-morning burrito snack.
Past the morning rush, there weren’t that many people moving about. Still, it had taken the android-hookers a good half hour before they realized I wasn’t particularly interested and left me to just enjoy the calm.
“You got laid?”
I choked.
“Huh, that’s not it, then.” She crossed her arms, pensive. “Well I'm stumped now. What’s the good news?”
“Do I need good news to be in a good mood?” I asked defensively, hurrying to get into the car. “Let’s get going, got to start the stream, right? Wouldn’t want to be late.”
“Sure… sure…” Isia eyed me suspiciously for a moment before opting to drop the subject.
Which was the perfect opportunity for me to bring up a different one I’d been thinking about for a while. “Hey, my tablet kinda broke, and I was wondering… do you think Quinn would be able to help with that?”
She immediately broke into cackling laughter, suppressing it after barely a minute. “Sure!” She added, with the sort of evil grin that left me doubting the validity of my idea.
Then she stepped on the accelerator, and my concerns quickly took a far more immediate turn.
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“I can’t fathom how you got your driver’s license.” I said, hurrying to step off of the vehicle and into the Well.
It was noon, so there was plenty of shade to be had under the looming highways overhead. Apparently, the Sewer Saints had set up a small base of operations. That is to say: they set up a cube-shaped light-gray tent. Though the tent itself looked rather worn and shoddy, the straps and nails used to fix it in place weren’t.
Vesper had been sitting next to the tent entrance, checking over her rifle. “You only need a license for AV piloting,” she said without raising her head from her work.
I stared in horror. “You can’t be serious.”
“Is it illegal if no one gives enough of a shit to check?” Isia pipped in, opening the trunk of her car and pulling out several suitcases. “License or not, if the cops stop you, they’re gonna stuff enough fines up your ass to cover for whatever new fancy thing they bought.”
There wasn’t much I could comment about that, but choosing to move things along, I gestured at the tent. “What’s that for?”
“Forecast says it’s gonna rain, and Quinn’s not taking risk for their precious Cecil.”
“It’s Cecilia!” A voice shouted from inside the tent.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s your favorite waifunator.” Isia chuckled, opening up one of the cases and revealing what I immediately recognized as her sniper rifle. “Hey Vesp, our star needs prep.”
“I gotta make some calls, Quinn’s got it covered.” She pointed at the tent behind her, and I followed along.
The inside was about the size of my room. On the end closer to the door there was a plastic foldable chair and some boxes. On the other side of the tent, there was a large mat, with “Cecilia” lying on top, surrounded by the remains of some poor drone that had exploded. There were definitely way more parts littering the place than the oversized drone would require. I could only fathom that Quinn was working on dismantling and replacing certain internal components.
It was hard to miss how many of these components were 3D printed cheap plastic.
Quinn was at the center of it all, sitting cross-legged next to the drone.
“You ok?” I couldn’t help but ask, seeing how they were wearing the weather-protection gear.
“Hm?” The blank helmet glanced at me, then shrugged. “My body’s not that great at handling heat.” They gestured at the chair. “Your change of clothes is over there, I’ll help with the other stuff in a minute.”
“This one’s different from the last time?” I asked. While there was no shirt, and the shorts were equally small, the loincloth was larger. That, and the sneakers had been wrapped up in some kind of faux-leather. “Any particular reason?”
“It’s just for metrics, experimentation with the image before properly settling into the first iteration.” They replied. “It also creates the impression of progression… speaking of…” Putting down their tools, they turned my way and hesitated.
“What?” I asked, having already taken the opportunity to change.
“That was… no, nevermind.” They opened one of the suitcases, revealing a crowbar. “Your new weapon.”
“Is it going to bend?” The paint job was a definite improvement from last time, rather than merely dipping the thing in brown paint, it had been wrapped up in a wood-grain sticker of some kind. “Looks neat.”
“It’s made out of a tougher alloy, but I can’t make promises without testing it first.” Their voice hitched as they tried to lift the suitcase, letting out a grunt and barely managing to drag it a few feet before letting it go with a groan.
“Here, lemme-”
“I got it.” Quinn replied, gripping the crowbar within its foam casing and pulling it out, dropping it on my lap. “There.” They declared in triumph, grunting after a moment as they wheezed for a moment.
I caught the faintest sound of metal scratching against metal, muffled under the suit they wore. Had they strained some cybernetic? “It’s got more heft than the last one.” I commented instead, moving the crowbar back and forth a little, noticing how it weighed more than before, but in an otherwise comfortable way.
“Great.” Quinn didn’t sound too happy, reaching for another suitcase and opening it up, pulling out several black flasks. “Now, did you check the documents I sent? They have the details for the new lines.”
I flinched. “I had a small accident yesterday and I broke my tablet.” I gave them a hesitant smile. “I was hoping maybe you’d be able to help? Whatever M-the Doctor did with it is not something I could even hope to replicate.”
Before they could say anything, I pulled out the bag currently containing the pieces of the disaster. Quinn just stared at the bag, expression entirely unreadable behind the helmet, but the tension in their shoulders was apparent.
“How?” They finally asked, voice full of incredulity.
My first instinct was to tell them I’d tripped, or some other lie, but I felt like it might not be the right thing to do. “I’d rather not say,” I said instead. “Isia kind of implied you might be too busy to deal with something like this, but if you have any suggestions, or-”
Quinn sighed. “Yes.”
“...what?”
“I said yes.” They snatched the bag off of my hands, closing it back up and leaving it atop the suitcases. ”I have spare parts that could work for it, maybe, I’ll look into it.” They hesitated. “I owe you at least that much.”
I could only blink. “Owe?”
“For… the thing.” Quinn awkwardly shuffled. “The fuckup.”
I blinked again.
It took a second.
“Ah, you mean that monster getting the jump on me? It happens, so long as-”
“Forget it, just focus on the work.” They brusquely pulled out a piece of paper from what I only now realized was a printer, shoving it into my hands. “Memorize that, and stay still while I apply this stupid body paint. Don’t want any smears.”
There were a few things I would’ve wanted to say, but I had the distinct impression that Quinn clearly wasn’t exactly the most talkative of the bunch. I did my best to read the updates to the script, while doing my best not to giggle at how ticklish the brush was against my skin.
A thought did manage to get through, though.
“If it’s any consolation, I am sorry you made me shoot Cecilia… not too sorry about being paid for it, though.”
Quinn glowered. “Next time I’ll make sure the monsters don’t miss.”