“I don’t like the idea of shackling myself to her for my whole life, she says it’s hardly like I’ll be a dog getting dragged around and I’d have more than enough freedom to do what I wanted with my life outside of work and emergencies but I just don’t see Marchand dying of old age before I do. I want to get out into the world, into the system and find things that blow my mind. Not die of old age pouring tea for Marchand.” I said, waving my hands around to show the wonder of the universe as best I could.
“Oh Mal, so cute. Sometimes if someone makes you an offer that has strings you need to look more at the offer than the strings. Nothing in life is free, that includes people. Everyone is a slave to someone else, or something else. Marchand might not be the kindest fixer or master but she is one of the most consistent and well connected, that is very valuable in a world where there a million different things just waiting to tear your life apart for no better reason than random chance.” Miss. Gibson said as she sat back and pulled her legs onto the sofa and getting comfy. Noe sat nearly the same way in that chair.
“I’m not blind to the upsides. I’m just not ready to make the decision one way or the other. I’ve been given three jobs to do before I need to make the choice, I don’t know how long it’ll be time wise but likely a few weeks.”
“How’s Noe been while I was away? She always puts on a brave face but you were always close, even if it’s been a while you must be able to tell.”
“Noe’s been good, she’s missed you a lot I think. She’s big into iron these days, like really into them. She made me a pretty nova smg that I use on my jobs now. She’s working on some sort of shrapnel smart round now. Really high spec stuff.”
“She started getting into that stuff a while ago, she wanted to help me make my explosives and gear but I didn’t want her working with explosives at a young age. It’s something you build up to and get trained for, you have to be an actual craftsman first before you can consider working with something where a single tiny, tiny mistake can kill you instantly.”
“Yeah, she complained about that a bit. So she got into gun smithing to still help out then?”
“She’s hoping to get into full on manufacturing from what I get from her. She doesn’t like to be too detailed in her hopes, she’s said guns, armor, bombs, robotics. I don’t know what she’ll wind up doing as she gets older but as long as she keeps working on stuff in the field then she’ll get good enough to bend around to a specialization eventually.”
“I don’t think she’ll need to lock herself into any specific thing. If she stays a solo craftsman then she’ll be able to make her own decisions on stuff, even if it’s just working on whatever she want to. Even if she’ll end up needing more tools and workshop stuff.”
“That’s a nice dream but if you start to shine too brightly in the city you’re likely to be snatched up by someone before long. She’s already been visited by talent scouts for research and development departments due to her downloading tracked blueprints and searching for schematics and so on, basically her digital footprint being traced.”
“What’s wrong with that? She’s got talent and she’ll build on it, no issue there.”
“Because the more she builds up behind her name, the more she shines and the more likely it’ll be the corps or smaller business interests will stop being nice and just take her or put her down. If you can’t be an asset for them then you’re a liability. Typical corpo think. I’ll protect her how I can but I’m not omnipresent and Marchand’s street will only protect her to a certain limit.”
“Marchand wouldn’t let a corpo squad push their way into her street, it just wouldn’t happen.”
“Marchand will okay a kill team to enter if it’s from a big enough corp, not like Noe is worth much to her compared to the trouble being hostile to a big corp would be. Furious and vengeful as I would be, it’ll mean nothing to Marchand if it comes to that sort of thing. She only holds sentimental ties until they step past the boundary and interfere in business.”
“Hm. She’s said something similar to me before. Something about keeping my relationships fluid and easy to switch from friend to enemy. We actually got into an argument and she sprang a knee blade straight through my torso. She used some spacer meds on me though and I’m still kicking, she apologized for overreacting.”
“… Marchand isn’t usually one for overreacting. Maybe it’s a hook for her plan about making you her new right hand? No idea really. Just odd behavior for her, she’s usually wearing such a heavy facade and doesn’t show a lot of emotion or action.”
“I get what you mean. She’s got a big difference in her when she lets down some layers of her little defensive acting.”
“Little Mal is taking layers off old Marchand while I was away? Scandalous.” She said as she held the back of her hand to her mouth in mocking bashfulness.
My face grew red but I was more disgusted than embarrassed.
“That’s gross Miss. Gibson, extreme levels of gross. I don’t want to think of Marchand of anything but a fixer with added danger.” I said, shaking the thoughts of Marchand blowing a kiss from my head as it betrayed me by forming such thoughts.
“I love kids reactions to things like that. You guys always reel away from talk like that.” She said chuckling.
Suddenly Noe opened her bedroom door and walked out wearing some pajamas and a big fluffy dressing gown. She yawned at the door and then saw her mother.
“Mom!” Noe screamed and then ran forward into the living room and jumped onto her mother to give her a big hug.
“My Noe. Have you been okay? Did you miss me?” Noe’s Moms asked as she hugged her back.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
It seemed like a nice family moment so I shuffled off quietly to the bathroom while Noe babbled to her mom about everything that had happened and that she’d worked on while her mom was away.
Giving my face a clean and trying to get my bed head under control I looked into the mirror and checked the time in the corner of my interface. It was six AM, a little early for my liking but I had work today, it was time for the job. Suddenly a knock at the bathroom door made me turn from the mirror.
“Hey Mal, Noe was telling me about your storage rig. Do you want me to fit one of mine to you? I bought a pair on the way home that you can have one of. It’s a medium but it can be adjusted to anything basically.” Noe’s mom said through the door.
I opened up the door to respond.
“That’d be great Miss. Gibson. My current rig works fine but I’ve kind of mangled it trying to fit things into it as I’ve scavenged on the move. A few of the straps are fraying and nearly all the buckles are either strained or cracked.” I said, gesturing to the imaginary hardness around my torso to show where I’d noticed damage on mine.
“Come into the workshop then, I’ll fit it to you properly and make sure you’ve got all the holsters you need. Don’t want you to have to give up your loot goblin ways just because you can’t carry everything now so we?” She said, leading me into the workshop slash storeroom.
I stood there amongst the crates as she took a rig out of her backpack and then placed it against my chest to judge the sizes. She then pulled in a bunch of the belts and placed it back against me. Still too big apparently, back to adjusting.
Looking around as I was used as a manikin I noticed Noe was going through her old projects and putting them into a single box, a bigger crate that used to store some of the more fragile big items like helmets and stuff.
“What’s going on there Noe? You moving out?” I asked jokingly.
“No you gonk. Mom said I can use this big box to store my important pieces, so I’m making sure they are secure and safe instead of just hanging on a shelf in a workshop where they could be damaged. These are memories for the future.” Noe said, looking up from the floor as she carved at some black foam stuff with a saw edged knife.
Noe’s mom got the size right on the fourth attempt and I pulled the thing on, both me and her clipping the clasps and running the belts through the buckles until the whole thing wall pulled tight to me and secure in place with anchored points around my shoulders, waist and even two tighter bands around the top of my legs so that the lower parts of the rig didn’t roll around the belt area.
I pulled on different parts, especially around the waist where it’d be most likely to lose it’s shape as I moved around, climbed or slid. When I was sure it wouldn’t loosen I looked at my wide, flat storage bags that I’d kept under my arms near the back where they wouldn’t get in the way too much.
“So you’ll need a pistol holster, got that here. You’ll need a holster for your smg, I’ve got a thigh holster that’ll fit yours here and we’ll put it below the pistol so you’re pulling from the same side. You use that truncheon much? You bringing it along?” Noe’s mom asked as the piles of tactical gear spread around her as she looked for different parts from the crates.
“I haven’t used it yet, but I’m hoping to get used to it and make it my primary close combat defensive weapon. I’ve used a knife a lot of in the past but as my jobs get bigger I need to be able to not kill someone in the field but still take them down and my little arms haven’t had the best track record for actual take downs.” I said, gesturing my arms about.
“Well if you’re going to bring it along then you’ll want this multi-fit holster, it’ll go nicely on the back of your waist. Easy to pull out but also not in the way. That only leave your knife, where do you usually wear it? Waist? Chest? Hip?”
“I wear my knife under my arm usually, out of sight and close to grab even if I don’t have a lot of room to maneuver.”
“You should start packing more than one knife, as long as you can keep track of them and away from your hostiles reach you should try to keep at least three on you. You’ll find a lot of places and people that demand you give up your knife, some will even demand your backup knife. Having a third is unexpected generally unless you get a full scan.”
“Wise words from the veteran operator. Thanks Miss. Gibson, I’ll get some more knives.”
“Urgh, don’t make me sound old. I’m only just thirty.”
“You’re thirty one mom.” Said Noe from across the room.
“Noe! Stop attacking your mother’s youth!” Noe’s mom said as she recoiled in place.
“Should I wear a vest? My head generally covered but if I take a round to the chest I won’t get too far.” I asked among the noise.
“Depends on the vest, I only have cheap ones because I don’t get shot at much and generally don’t do much running or climbing. If you’re planning on running or climbing in a bulletproof vest then you’ll want a more expensive one that has better mobility and less weight. If getting out of trouble means scurrying that little body of yours into little holes and over rooftops or whatever then a vest will literally get you killed when it slows you down.” Noe’s mom said.
“Maybe not then, I do a lot of scurrying generally. I try to take on problems head on when I know they are there but when it comes to an emergency situation or mess ups I usually just try to get out of there as fast as possible rather than digging in my heels.” I said.
“Good. Gonk operators who stand their ground are more useful to their fixers and sometimes their allies, but do you know what you don’t often see? Gonk operators who stand their ground. They’re a perishable good, not long for the world. Better to just cut your losses and run, you can often fix a job that has fallen apart in a couple of hours but not so much a blown off head.” Noe’s mom said.
“What do you mean fix a job?” I asked, curious.
“Jobs can go wrong, like my last one, but unlike my last one some of them can be re-approached after it cools down. Sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days. It’s not often a job has a strict, last chance window of opportunity.” She said, fitting different holsters, bags and loops to my fitted rig. “If you mess up a smash and grab for instance they’ll likely move the target to a new, more secure location but if you keep a close eye on that location they’ll quickly lose their razor edge of caution, they’ll think the dangers have passed now the job was foiled. Then you hit the new location. You’ll have less intelligence on the location, less preparation time and less resources. You’ll also have more security and likely more actual guard presence, but crucially you’ll also have a huge opportunity for the element of surprise.”
“But if they’ve put the thing on major lock down there’s no way to get it out even if you manage to get to it though, surprise or no, right?” I asked.
“It’s not always the primary storage location that people move an item to when an alarm is triggered. More often it’s sent to a safehouse location stuffed with guards. The owner wants to gain some control over the variables. The problem is once you control all the variables it gets boring and the guards will lose focus. You can exploit that to slip into this otherwise secure location and reach your target, just be sure that you can do it because getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar there will be much worse for you.”
“Yeah, you’re likely to lose that hand.” I said, raising my arms so she could sort out the area at my ribs.
“At the very least. It’s just an example anyway. Just know it’s better to leave and return from a really bad situation than to go out in a blaze of glory for the sake of Marchand’s or whoever’s bottom line.” She said, looking up at me squarely.