“It’s fine Noe, It’s just the payout being too much to ignore is all. I get my mom into this street and safe, along with some cash and some other stuff. It’ll set me up going forward really well and Marchand knew it would, she seemed to need me on this and was willing to lean on it hard.” I said.
“Well it still sounds like trouble Mal. If you need help I can come along you know?” Noe offered as she finished her juice box. She then leaned across and grabbed mine, how much did she even like prunes.
“Nah, I think I can handle this one if I take it right.” I said, full in the knowledge that I could likely not handle this job. “But I’m going to get some back up plans going anyway just in case. You know me.
I’m going to get some iron for the job, maybe a Belanger pistol from one of their nine millimeter models. On top of that I’ve got some other stuff already prepared for emergencies.”
Hearing the prune juice in the little carton sputter as she took a big gulp on it and drank it almost all at once was gross. That’s prune flavor. It’s basically a war crime. I wondered if real prunes had ever actually been good.
“If you need a gun do you want to try using one of mine? Saves you a trip to wherever you were going to get one from.” Noe said while she put the empty juice box next to her old one on the table.
“You make it sound like you bought an armory since we last talked. I hope you’re not offering me one of your mom’s guns without asking her first. Messing with other people’s iron isn’t nova Noe.” I said.
“I didn’t buy an armory Mal. I made an armory. Well, just a few guns I made from parts of others and a load of custom work. My mom has been using my guns all year and she’s had nothing but good things to say.” Noe said getting up and walking over to the third door in the living room. “Come on in here. It’s my little workshop slash mom’s gear stash. You can pick something you like and I’ll give you a good price for it, material cost only.”
I had to see this, so I got up and walked over to the door she was opening up and entered with her. The room was filled with sturdy storage crated and netted bags holding various tools and packages.
With Noe’s mom being a sabotage specialist I tried not to think about how much of the various plastic packages and plastic tubs of stuff were explosive ingredients or just explosives on their own.
Looking past the cluttered storage area there was a row of desks against the wall with tools and devices that I guessed were either the gun making tools of Noe or bomb making tools of her mother.
Likely a mixture of both.
There was a large unit that stood out by it’s size I recognized as being a object printer. They had a similar one at the back of the stockpile store that they used to make repair parts for the store itself.
They were usually expensive and these bigger models were even more expensive, with the power costs being another expense. From what I’d heard they had to be powered with two or three power cells at once just due to the constant power needed to keep up temperatures up and micro-mechanical elements in constant motion to prevent shrinkage or seizing.
They were very good at what they did though, you put in scrap and it melts it down so that deconstruction nanites could purify the liquid metals and plastics into separate materials that would then either be ejected as little bricks or moved on to produce whatever the device was programmed to make.
The actual interface was mostly just a few buttons and an IR receiver with the actual object designer being through an app on your cerebral display.
Noe walked over to the far corner of the desk area where there was a small rack with a few gun handles visible. She pulled one out of the rack and showed it off.
“This is my best one so far, it’s also taken the longest to get right. For a long time I had trouble getting it balanced properly and the rifling was a real puzzle to get right without good software to run simulations. Eventually I managed to get a basic Clarke mass produced Senator model from a simple nine millimeter semi auto build to a forty five caliber full auto pistol with three different automatic stabilizing systems that don’t fight with each other. Even I can fire it one handed on auto without losing accuracy. It’s my current show piece.” She said smiling brilliantly as she waved the gun around in both hands with pride.
It looked like a nova, black pistol with a few extra parts not normally seen on a pistol but were built into the actual body of the gun. I guessed these were the stabilizers to stop the gun’s aim wandering as it kicked. The barrel was a tiny bit bigger than I’d guess from the grip but if Noe said it worked then that’s fine.
“It looks preem Noe, I like the grip.” I said noting the shape of the grip, it seemed undersized but if you looked closely it would sit just about right in the hand but with no additional mass around it. “You said it shoots forty five though? I’m just looking for a nine mil for this mission, just some scratched gangers down there. No borgs to gun down.”
“Mal, you’d need more than forty five caliber to put down an actual borged ganger or corpo or whatever. You’d be needing something like a fifty six or sixty one, at the very least you’d want to get your forty five rounds armor penetrating to have hope against one of them and their subdermals, over-skins and then whatever bullet proof vest or armor they’re wearing. That’s not even including burn-fields or react-hards some of the crazy ones use.” Noe went on a rant at me.
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“I didn’t know you’d got into the books since I’d seen you last. You’ve turned into a regular gunsmith. Did you start this to help your mom? And you’re up to date on cyberware as well. Where’s the girl who wanted to be the next big rocker?” I asked as I looked over the boxes of screws and various parts.
Shlunk. The sound of the gun Noe was holding sliding back into the rack before she reached over and knocked her knuckles against my forehead.
“You’re mean Mal. I was five. And we’re still kids anyway, we’re allowed to dream still. And now I dream about keeping my mom alive even when I can’t follow after her. I do that by making sure she has the guns she needs the way she needs them for the type of job she is doing.” Noe said before sitting down in an office chair against the wall.
“I’m sorry Noe, I didn’t mean to step on your dream and all.” I said, and meant it too. You shouldn’t hurt your friend’s dreams, they can be all they got left.
“It’s fine, I know you didn’t mean anything. It just bothers me to be sitting around at home while mom is out in the dark sometimes. I know she’s usually just sitting quiet waiting for her time to move and then she’s home before anything dangerous happens. But I worry she’ll get tagged at some point and then she’ll have to work with a target on her back from then on. I don’t think she’d last long then.” Noe said looking miserable. I moved over to give her a hug. She smelled like prunes. Gross.
“You shouldn’t worry so much Noe, your mom has always made looking after you the priority. If she got made she’d just pack in the operator job and do something else so she could stay with you. My mom worries the same with me and in the same way if I got in trouble where carrying on would be walking into a fire, I’d just collect scrap from then on so I could always go home to her. She knows that too. And you should know that about your mom as well.” I said into her curly hair that seemed to be eating me somehow.
Noe just stood there for a few moments in silence as we hugged before speaking.
“I’ve missed you Mal. I’ve not had any friends around for a while you know. The other kids don’t come round Marchand’s street. The other girl who lives here on the street doesn’t even talk to me and everyone else is older and are operators and don’t have time for me.” Noe said.
We broke off the hug.
“Well, I’m heading off on my mission soon but my mom will be moving in soon. You can always go talk to her. So you’ll soon have at least one person to spend time with even if I don’t make it back.” I said while smirking at the end to make it more of a dark humor thing.
Noe didn’t like that at all. She limply slapped me, it was a proper effort but she just didn’t know how to hit someone.
“You’re going to come back to this street, you’re going to spend time with your mom yourself. Stop talking like this job is already over.” She said looking unhappy. “I’m going to give you my last gun, the one I’m working on now isn’t finished. It’s a modified Grant Signet model. Nine millimeter like you wanted with a better grip, improved magwell, overhauled accurizing with a mini-sight and the chamber and barrel are remade from aluminum-scandium to a stainless steel and the frame is mostly polymer to match the new the weight distribution.”
“I got most of that at least.” I said lamely, I knew guns a bit but this was getting away from me. “I’ll take it and a few extra magazines if you have them. I’d buy some boxes of ammo but I don’t know if I’ll even have time to load the mags on this mission. I’ll likely be too busy running for my life if I’ve already gone through the ammo in them.”
“I’ll give you six mags of my hand loaded nine millimeter and a filler can of normal rounds. I made those first lot myself and they pack a better punch even if they cost nearly five times the cost per round. Very little smoke after as well for less discernibility in combat though you do have to clean the gun more to prevent it from gunking up.” She said back to looking proud.
“Nova Noe, you really have hit the books, not just iron and chrome but chemistry too. I’ll take the lot then, how much is it coming to?” I asked while checking my interface to see I had just over one fifty left to my name.
“You said you’re getting a payday after this so I’ll get my money then. It’ll cost you three hundred at material price and that’s rounded down. So you better get back here and pay your tab!” Noe said while pointing her finger at me under my nose.
“Yeah I will, Noe. I’ll be coming back here to pay my bill before the most powerful gunsmith in the city sends her knee breakers after me.” I said holding up my hands in surrender.
“Never mind the knee breakers I’ll hunt you down myself. Now take this signet pistol, it’s yours. I’ll dig out the rest of the stuff.” Noe said handing me the pistol walking over to the piles of boxes and crates.
I grabbed the signet and looked it over, the mini-sight was indeed mini with it being a very small rectangular digital sight on top of the gun. The sight was on some kind of gyroscope because when I tilted the gun from side to side the scope would smoothly slide on its tiny black mount to roll side to side around the barrel. I’d not seen something like that on something this small before.
Otherwise the gun was stainless steel on top along the slide and the rest of it was a black polymer, like Noe has said, and the grip was some kind of thermoplastic with little gritty bits in it but it still felt quite nice in the hand.
I was still checking out the gun when Noe came over again.
“Do you like the sight? I copied most of the mechanism from VDW rifle sight schematic but managed to make it small enough for a pistol without too much bulk. It’s just a red dot though, nothing else, no vision modes or anything. Part of the trimming down meant the circuitry had to be cut right down to basics.”
“It’s really preem Noe. Operator as hell. You mentioning vision modes though does remind me I’ll be going in the dark, I’ll need to grab a torch on my way at least.” I said thinking about the mission carefully now it seemed I was gearing up earlier than I thought I would.
“I’ll let you have a pencil light but the signet, they’re only cheap PLEDs, and I’ve got a night vision scope you can use to check ahead you can borrow for now. It’s too bulky for a pistol but if you just use it as a scouting tool then it’ll work alright.” Noe said before turning back to the pile and pulling out the two items.
The pencil light just being a little black thing where the small wire clamp that fit it to the pistol was bigger than the light itself and the NV scope was long and bulky but would be fine to use by hand.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a tank or a ballistics drone around here?” I asked jokingly.
“Gun stuff only I’m afraid, I don’t even have a packed lunch for you. Best I can do you is prune juice boxes.” She said smiling at my grossed out expression.
“Well, I should go tell mom to cancel moving into our old place and just head over here before she totally settles in. I’ll be back in at most three days to pay you for the gun and so on. We can hang out again and talk about your other gun projects or just about what we’ve been up to. I’ve got some heroic tales of my battles with scrap piles if you’re interested.” I said as I holstered the signet into my storage rig under my right arm, it would do for now and I’d buy an actual holster later. I scooped the clips into the other side of the rig and put the other items into my duffel bag to sort out on the way.