"I’m looking to commission a multi-component, radially segmented, load-bearing defensive structure, approximately 1.75 meters in diameter. The assembly should consist of six equal sectors, each featuring its own independent grasp point. These segments must integrate using a high-tolerance, self-aligning, interlocking system that ensures rigid structural continuity across the whole construct.” I leaned forward, showing the design on my datapad’s screen. “This is the rough concept, though I’m no expert, so I trust in whatever alterations you might need to make to it.”
The man on the seat opposite to me stared blankly down at the tablet, then up at me, then back down at the screen, then back up at me. He nervously reached up and pulled on the collar of his overalls. “Could you… say that again?”
This was the true first important point of the day. We’d been going around buying some items and burning through the cash, but this one was the first big pitstop.
My brows furrowed a little, my goal had been to obfuscate the real utility of the commission. Because Isia was right there, looking bored out of her mind and poking my shoulder to get me to hurry things along. It’d been done under my request, since I didn’t want to stall and extend our stay in the second district more than absolutely necessary. The car parking lot charged by the ten-second interval.
“Are you the engineer in charge of design?”
“I… am not, erm, sir?” The guy was at least a decade older than me, and clearly struggling to get anything across. He’d keep looking at me, at the cred-chip, and then at the datapad, as if entirely uncertain what to do with all of that. “Usually requests are for drone parts, this is a drone part shop.”
“Quick question, would you happen to know what ‘FREX-V00454-TX regex-error’ is?”
“Uh…” He paused, gaze becoming distant. “Nothing’s coming up.”
“Figures.” Deep breath. “Back on topic. This is a part for a drone. Just a very atypical one.” I took a heavy breath, trying to put my thoughts in order. “It’s meant to be a shield a drone carries. Segmented into six pieces, and that can be joined together. Each piece is meant to work as a potential impromptu shield by a user, but it’s also meant to work as a singular unit when put together.”
It was as if a lightbulb had gone off inside his head. “Oh. Wouldn’t it be easier to just have six sacrificial drones instead?”
“I’m not the idea guy, or the money guy. I’m just the guy that looks for the guys that do the things.” My statement was met by Isia’s poking to stop for a moment and make a pensive inquisitive noise. I just shot her a glare, and she returned to poking right after. “So anyway, it’s not technically complicated, and I’m a bit on the urgent side. Could it be prioritized?”
“Hm…” The guy poked at the screen, twisting the image this way and that. “Doesn’t look like you’d need to worry about tolerances, it’s simple but large, though… you do know that a single disk would be far sturdier than if you broke it into pieces, right?”
“Portability is an issue.” I replied. “A disk that large is too cumbersome if it can’t be split.” I grimaced. “Would there be some way to be able to ensure it’s sturdier when put together?”
“Hey.” Isia spoke up. “Maybe you should try doing one of those tower shields things?”
I stared at her. “A what now?”
“You know, tower shields? The shit’s all over in fantasy media. Big bulky rectangular, slightly curved… that sort of stuff?” She cocked her head, looking me over. “Or not, I guess, I just can’t quite imagine someone wielding a circular shield that large, it’s just so… cumbersome.” Standing up, she mimed holding some sort of invisible shield, pushing with her arm.
I opened my mouth for a second, then snapped it shut. “Let me… think about it for a moment and contact the client.” Taking the tablet, I began to look into the subject a little. I hadn’t considered using the big-shield version in my human form. Like she’d said, it would be far too unwieldy. Even with all the strength required, it was just too big. I scratched my head for a second, cocking my head at the side. “Would segmenting the tower-shield be viable, structurally?”
“Better than a concave disk, that’s for sure.” The engineer nodded, sketching a quick design.
“Then let’s go for that.” A tower shield in the hands of my monster self would be a bit comical, likely working better as over-sized vambraces. But that was still roughly the original intention anyway. “How soon?”
“Here are our rates for a graphenium-tungstate meeting those requirements.”
The rates were fair. I repeated the thought to myself, even as I suppressed the impulse to boggle at the number. Isia did not mirror that self-control, however. “Ten thousand creds!?”
“For the materials required. If we add in the rush-job…”
That made the rates a bit less fair.
That would be practically everything I had saved up from… everything. It was more money in one sitting than I’d ever spent in anything. Ever. I kept looking at the five-digit number and trying to ask whether it was worth it. Was this tool really potentially that useful to be so expensive? Wouldn’t it be just far better to buy an equally expensive very big gun instead?
Gritting my teeth, I held out the cred-chip. “So it’d be done by today? When do we come to pick it up?”
He grabbed the chip, and pulled, but it took a moment before I let go. “Rush job comes with same-day drone delivery.” He poked the tablet, but I ignored it. Because the online website was not tablet-compatible, it could only be accessed through a 3D neuralink sensorial interface. “You could’ve made this through the online platform. But since you’re here, you get a complimentary super-sturdy cup!” Reaching under his desk, he handed me a metal cup with the company’s logo engraved on it.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I looked at the metal cup for a very quiet second. “Just so we’re clear. This shield is meant to be used in live combat.” I mate his gaze. “If it does not meet specifications…” I gripped the cup with one hand. And squeezed tightly. There was a horrible screeching sound as the metal crumpled. “...I will make sure to write a thoroughly negative review.”
Placing the destroyed cup on the counter, and ignoring the very pale and very eager nodding the guy did, I wrote down all the necessary details and handed them over. The guy practically ran out of the room as soon as he’d gathered everything up, not that I blamed him.
Isia held her tongue until we were outside.
“That was so freaking awesome! That guy almost shit himself! No, seriously, he totally shit himself!”
Shoulders slumping, I couldn’t help but feel like a massive hole had been burned into my pocket. “Thanks for the idea back there. I’ve never been much for the fantasy stuff.”
“Of course you’re not, you’re a corpo dirt-bag, you dream of being able to watch real-life soldier-boy combat streams.”
Feeling a bit flustered, I replied. “They are perfectly valid forms of entertainment and study.” I hurried my steps.
“You don’t seriously… oh god, you do! You watch corpo streams!” Letting out a cackle, she tried to pat my back, but I’d stepped up my pace. “Hey! Compared to you, I’ve got lil-dwarf legs! You can’t split the team or management will get mad!”
My feet ground to a halt, I spun around to glare, and she just cackled evilly.
The manipulative little demon knew what she was doing, hooking an arm into one of mine. “Now let’s hurry back to the car, team-leader alpha-bravo-bravo! Where’s the next stop?”
“Third district, northern edge. Scorpion gang territory. The Rusty Pitch bar.”
That shut her up.
----------------------------------------
“I don’t care who you’re meant to meet here. It could be the head of the mayor himself, this place’s not good news.” Isia looked at me as she tightened her hands on the steering wheel, eyes looking every which way. “Scorpions aren’t a gang you can fuck with. They’re upper third district, they’ve got borgs on their payroll, and those gonks earn that paycheck.”
I could only glance around at the indistinct massive gray cubes that were the third-district mega-buildings. Isia must’ve been seeing something digital being projected all over the place, because to me the whole area was no less dull overbearing concrete than any other part of the third district. Whatever it was, it had her down and truly spooked.
“Look, this is the second last important thing of the day, and the other one I can do on my own.” I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder. “So long as you take all the stuff I got back to the motel, I won’t mind.”
Isia grimaced. “No. You’re part of the gang, we gotta stick together… right? Can’t let you get run over without at least catching the license plates.” She laughed nervously.
It took a second. “Oh, right, because of the, thing, yeah.” I nodded quickly, remembering my little lie about what had left me battered black and blue that day I spent unconscious. “I… ok. I guess.” So long as I asked for some privacy while talking with Kali, then that’d be that. “Do you think it’d be better to go in with the gang shirts, or…”
“God no,” she said quickly. “If they thought we’re a gang starting shit, we’d get into trouble. Scorpion’s don’t fuck around, they’re…” Her gaze lingered out the car window. “...territorial.”
“I’m guessing there’s something in the ads?”
“You don’t want to know.” She rubbed her face and shuddered.
“Well, time to get to it, I guess.”
She found the mega-building’s garage and pre-paid for parking. The inside of the structure was not much different to any other mega-building I’ve been to, just long defensible corridors cluttered with trash. Elevator shafts didn’t go all the way through the building but only ever 4 or five stories. And the open spaces tended to be harsh concrete choke-points. It was the bog-standard structure meant to make the insides of the building defensible against monster attacks.
Though… there was something that caught my attention: bullet holes. A lot of the spaces were riddled with bullet holes, and through the slight smell of lingering mold and air-conditioning, there was also traces of blood and gunpowder. All of it far too faint to have been recent, and yet pervasive enough that it was hard to imagine this had been a single incident. I could only imagine that the same features that made the mega-building defensible against monsters also made it easier for a gang to entrench itself.
But beyond the presence of bullet holes and strange smells, there was no clear indication of gang activity. Everyone we crossed along the way were just the normal fare of people going to and fro, and not once did we encounter someone wearing gang paraphernalia. Heck, if it weren’t because of the way Isia kept looking at certain blank walls and shuddering, I would’ve assumed there were no other signs of gang activity.
Meandering through this very not-commercially focused mega-building, we eventually reached our destination. Unlike every other corridor with rows of lifeless apartment doors, this one had only one. The walls had been covered in polished bronze, the flickering lights replaced with dim red LED’s, and I realized there were no signs of violence here, in the sense that there were neither strange scents nor holes on the walls and ceiling.
“Hey, the maps app says the bar’s that way.” Isia pointed further down the corridor. “Why are you… oh wow, that’s trippy.”
“What?” I glanced back at her.
“You just walked through a wall.” She waved her hand in front of her as she took tentative steps. “They set up a digital illusion of some kind.” She waved her hand some more. “It doesn’t even register as ad-space, but now that I’m touching the thing, my neuralink keeps bugging out. I’ll definitely tell Quinn, I bet they’d love seeing if they can integrate it into CC.”
“CC?”
“Cecilia. The drone you shot.”
“Oh, huh.” I shrugged, turning my attention towards the lone door underneath the ‘Rusty Pitch’ neon sign that was currently off. “I wonder if they’re open.” Despite my concerns, the door swung open as we approached.
There was a small lobby covered in black varnished wood, with a light scent of… vanilla? There were no distinguishing features in the area, just the door we’d come through, and another one opposite. “Who are you lot?” A voice spoke through a speaker.
“I am Axel Garcia?” I replied. “I’m here to talk to a friend, Kali.”
“And the girl?”
“Isia.” She’d remained glued to the exit door. “I’m moral support.”
The speakers crackled a few times. “Lockers are down to the left. No weapons allowed.” The voice instructed. “Girly, you’re not on the guest list, but you can wait for your friend at the bar. We’ve got milkshakes.”
“Fuck you, I’m legal.” Isia snapped, the bravado dying out as I gave her a look. “But midday drinking is for gonks, so of course I’d rather have a milkshake.”
The door opposite ours slid open.
“Welcome to the Rusty Pitch.”