The market itself was relatively busy, not as packed as most markets with swarms of people rushing through the gap between stalls but there was still a good crowd around and a lot of them seemed to be clusters. Quite a few of them seemed to be individual looking at stuff with obvious security agents around them as they looked.
The stalls themselves were far more than ramshackle fruit stalls though. Many of them seemed to be some form of prefab steel construct with powered lights and packed to the brim with different weapons, cyberware, tools, equipment and electronics. There were even some smaller drones of various types around. As I looked further I saw a stall that didn’t have much on it but instead was covered in vid screens showing vehicles from different angles, likely selling vehicles that weren’t actually here which was good because there were even some smaller spacecraft from what I could tell of the images from far away.
As I looked around the stalls as me and Allie slowly walked through the closest lane with a lot of curiosity but I still had questions.
“Hey Allie, don’t you keep security around you like these guys?” I asked as I looked around.
“No need, I can protect myself quite adequately for something like a night market. Perhaps these people have sizable bounties or active warrants with local corporations. As it is the rooftops around here are likely bristling with everyones overwatch, comms specialists and rapid response teams. If you want up and had a look you’d likely find the closest ones were probably standing room only, ha.” Allie responded as she cast her eyes around some of the more varied displays.
“What about the market guards? I don’t see any around apart from the doormen.” I said as I avoided walking into the large cyberarm of a security agent trying and failing to not take up the walkway.
“Oh, they are around. No doubt they’d fill the entire area in moments if something happened. They don’t like to get in the way usually. People of power tend to complain if they are surrounded too closely with other people’s security forces as you can imagine.” She answered after lifting and then returning an odd metal ball with a load of wiring coming off it. I didn’t recognize the part.
“Are you selling anything tonight?” I asked out of curiosity as I looked over a set of boxes holding laser crystals of different types and grades. I wished I had the money to spare to buy stuff for netrunning.
“Yes, a few spares I found while I was going through my storage as part of my reactivation. The modification on them should interest a few people who can make use of them or at least the designs. Do you want to go for a little wander while I go find a buyer? I shouldn’t be too long, twenty minutes at most. Or you can come with.” She offered.
“Nah, this is my first night market. May as well see what’s what. There’s a lot to see here, even if I can’t buy a lot of it.” I answered with a shrug, not much of a motion without shouldered but it carried across the meaning.
“Okay then, stay out of trouble obviously and we’ll grab some food and drink when I come back. Keep an eye out for ware but just log them on your interface, don’t try to buy them until I come back.” She said as she pulled her handbag around and checked it quickly before letting it sit back at her side.
“Alright, not like I can put them in my bag at the moment anyway. Be a bit sad to ask the seller to pack it for me.” I said with a smile.
She nodded with her own smile and walked off into the crowd, quickly fading from view as she went around a corner.
I turned back to the crystal boxes and added notes to my interface about things to consider in the future. There were also some printer fabricators and a box of bolts, nuts and other fixtures cast from other metals than steel which I thought was odd. Maybe for specific builds? Looking around there were some cool field tools like a bolt hammer for fixing stuff to concrete quickly without needing a load of wires or tools. Kind of like my old welding pen but much higher spec and for a different job.
Walking along I saw there was some cyberware ranges that I couldn’t recognize until I realized they were exotic designed. Nonhuman stuff like tentacles instead of arms for extra movement vectors in exchange for sturdiness, or digitigrade legs for faster, more agile movement but less carrying strength and vertical jump height. There were more cosmetic stuff as well like ears and tails or eyes that looked of questionable value seeing as they were all in piles instead of cleanly laid out. Maybe operators bought them for gifts?
A bit further on there were some ever present vending machines which by now I was sure there was some sort of supernatural entity in charge of, if there weren’t any vending machines in an area then the entity would put some there. As all things should contain vending machines. And then the vending machines would magically refill when no one was around. There were also chairs and small tables that were mostly filled with people taking a smoke.
I passed that by and looked over to a large gun stall that had enough firearms to capture the entire water district on display. There were assault rifles spilling over each other. I’d never even held a proper assault rifle. There were handguns ranging from pocket stoppers all the way up to things that looked like they were designed to destroy small moons and had no business having a grip and trigger sized for human hands while still keeping a pistol design. Noe would love something like that. I added a few more notes.
Some of the more interesting stuff on the stall for me, other than the stuff I likely couldn’t afford, was there accessories and ammo gear. There were ammo pouches, specialized clips for autoloading cyberware that I didn’t have, undermounted weapon galore for everything from bayonets to axeheads to grenade launchers to shotguns. What was interesting to me was a small range of handgun blades that fixed to the body and the grip so that you’d be able to strike downward quite well for a cutting wound. There were a few designed for stabbing like that but they looked fragile and single hit, the best ones looked like simple arc blades running from the barrel to the grip in a simple curve around the hand.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
I added a couple of them to my list, maybe Noe could make something like that. I’d need to pay her again with something soon anyway.
Onwards through the market I saw a couple of interesting drone designs, dogs and copter designs mostly although I did see a lightweight spider design which was preem. Likely cost a fortune though. Drones didn’t seem to be common here tonight, maybe they were a more specialist thing? Allie did say they sometimes had auctions, maybe they were saved for those.
Next up was a row of clothing and gear, lots of tactical gear and armor but also oddly a lot of blending gear. Stuff that looked like civilian clothing but was actually bullet proof or at least armored. That kind of stuff was super interesting to me. I didn’t like to walk around looking like a weapons platform going to war, I liked to blend into the city when I could.
I added some notes for different options that seemed common like armored jackets and scarf things that were apparently bullet resistant and came in a lot of lengths so you could have however much coverage you thought you could get away with and look natural. There were also some jeans and pants that had full light ballistic plating under them and what looked like sneakers but had steel plates and toe caps which was cool.
When I was done looking through the piles and racks to make notes on what to look for in the future, or maybe ask Marchand about ordering, I started making my way around the smaller lanes looking at the cyberware on display but it was mostly smaller pieces or weaponized limbs and few at that. I looked from some sort of specialist stall but they were all smaller generalists if they had cyberware at all.
[User. Sanctum has a request.]
Oh wow, Sanctum. I thought you’d be busy with the whole integration thing still for a while. You’ve not requested a whole lot before so it must be important. Sure, what do you need?
[Sanctum requires currently unobtainable materials to allow for optimal function based on existing parameters and planned future parameters. Securing these materials would aid in Sanctum’s function.]
What do you need? You’ve said you get a lot of what you need from my food and stuff so if there’s something you need outside of that it must be fairly exotic. Do you need heavy metal or something?
[Sanctum acquires the needed heavy metals from the User’s diet, breath and immediate surroundings in it’s required trace quantities alongside other elements. The required elements are too rare in these intake vectors for Sanctum to secure and must be acquired by the User.]
Rare elements.. Alright, what kind of rarity are we talking?
[Sanctum requires only a few grams of each for suitable function although excess would aid in redundancy and emergency functioning. Sanctum requires four grams of tantalum one eight one, three grams of promethium one four seven, two grams of grailium three twenty one, two grams of entumium three six two, one gram of elusium three nine nine.]
Not heard of any of them, I’ll ask I guess. No worries Sanctum.
A bit later I was looking closely at a netrunning cyberware selection that had a bunch of heat dumping gear that literally shot metal slabs filled with some sort of gel that could hold a lot of heat that was pulled from the tubes attached. It would pull the heat from the other netrunning gear and the cerebral implant into the metal gel slabs and then shoot them out of the housing on the front of the chest around the collar bone onto the floor. Good for emergencies but they couldn’t be reused for some reason, probably the gel was messed up by the heat by some chemical thing.
As I was adding the cyberware tom my list of future options I looked to some motion a bit closer to me than the rest of the crowd to see Allie approaching me.
“Hey Mal, you find anything down here?” She asked as she arrived next me.
“Oh hey Allie, nothing arm wise unfortunately. I did find a bunch of stuff for buying in the future though. How did your sale go?” I asked as I straightened up away from the stall. The seller looked a little annoyed I wasn’t buying anything after hanging around for a few minutes but whatever.
“Smooth as I could ask for. There was some unhappiness over one model but I expected that and pivoted well enough. The sales went through at the asking price and that’s about it. You hungry?” She asked as she fixed her hair under he cap.
“Yeah I could do with a drink, maybe some food. They do stall food around here or just vending machines?” I asked as we walked away from the stall.
“Yeah, up by the bigger stalls theres a food area with seats. I’ll help you eat, no need to ask.” She said as she poked my rib while we walked.
“Thanks. Hey, I was looking for some metals as well for a project. Has to be some specific stuff apparently, got Noe working on some of it so I’m just following scope sort of thing. Not sure on the details outside the requirements she gave me. Do you think we can find a little bit of some more rare metals here?” I asked, trying to seem natural despite the weirdness of the premise I’d just came up with. Gonk brain strikes again.
“Hm? Sure, operators use more than guns so such. There’s bound to be some specialist merchants with some rare materials. How rare are we talking?” She asked as we walked around a cluster of people arguing at a stall.
“List says tantalum, promethium, grailium, entumium, elusium along with some numbers I think are isotopes. I’ve not heard of any of them but I only need a few grams of each apparently.” I said.
“Mal. The first two are a little out there but fine enough. The others are island elements, they cost a pretty penny anywhere, especially on Earth. If you only need a tiny amount you might find them around here but they won’t be cheap for what you get. Outside a night market you’d have to find a specialist merchant and they don’t really sell that kind of stuff to random people outside of setting like this where people are already vetted.” Allie answered, I could see her frowning from the corner of my eye.
“Well, if I can get my hands on the little bit I need here then fine. If not I’ll just put it on the back burner for a little while until I get the opportunity. No trouble.” I said as I avoided a borg that was walking with purpose, ignoring the people he was disturbing in the crowd.
“I’ll see what I can do, I’ll ask around while we’re eating. I don’t know anyone here really but I know their bosses for the most part so a little poking to get some market info shouldn’t be too annoying for them.” She said as we entered into an open area full of steel park bench tables things.
There were lots of people sitting around eating and drinking but more were just sitting down working on their interfaces or actively arguing with someone across the table. I walked over to the closest table and went to sit down but Allie shook her head and pointed further in with her chin. I didn’t know what that was about but I turned around and kept walking until we were somewhere in the middle where Allie sat down and patted the table for me to sit opposite.
“Why here? What was wrong with the outside table?” I asked, a little confused.
“Because being near the walkways is louder and more annoying, nothing serious. Anyway what do you want to eat? There’s some off world stuff here if you’re interested?” She asked with a smile.
“Ha. Alright sure, I’ll take something new, off world. Whatever you think is interesting.” I said as I looked at the surrounding stalls filled with various foods and styles. The smells washing around the area in a crazy mixture of spice and flavor, even if you only counted the sauces of the string burger stall there were twelve distinct colors. Something off world would likely be pretty crazy to warrant importing for a market like this even if it had big shots here.