Hello Readers.
Welcome to the first episode of Out There. These will be little shorts of humorous, fun and possibly exciting events happening with and to Chassis our current protagonist.
And for you who are wondering that it means or how to pronounce Chassis:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chassis
The stories overall will not be following an arc for the moment and probably won’t even be in chronological order. I am treating them as a fun world and character building exercise before I get to the main story.
Whenever that happens to be.
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“Well today sucked.” Chassis muttered
The Nu-bot weaved through the other pedestrians, both synthetic and biological, while walking down the dented metal sidewalk. Neon flickered across the dull pitted chrome of it’s body as Chassis passed storefront after storefront.
Chassis’ body was mostly composed of dull silver metal with red composite polymer plates. A few different colored plates and modules were attached in various locations. Adding additional options, but giving it a slightly beat up, cobbled together look. Chassis’ head was a, now dented, blank chrome cylinder. Hydraulic pistons and synthetic muscle fibers propelled it’s arms and legs. Well one of it’s arms any way. The remains of the other was hanging limply at it’s side held in the socket with a piece of orange duck tape. Fat sparks shot out of the damaged joint at random intervals causing other pedestrians give the Nu-bot odd looks, and it give it space.
After all it wasn’t very often that you saw what looked like a cobbled together service bot walking down the street with so much damage. Because, unlike Fem-bots and Mal-bots, Nu-bots were typically not player characters.
“What was that Chassis?” Someone on the group com that Chassis was plugged into piped up.
“I said that today sucked Cyrptonaut. I lost my 4th favorite gun. Joulez lost a level. We couldn’t down the Sector 9T mega boss before the timer ran out. And worst of all, I didn’t get a component drop for the 3rd month in a row on that boss. Which means today was a net loss of fifty thousand kilocreds.”
Various other people replied at the same time over the voice com:
“Three month drought? Ouch!”
“Hey Mr Oxo, looks like Chassis got infected by your bad luck.”
“The level loss isn’t that bad. I kinda deserve for ignoring the macro-phage tower.” – Joulez
“Wooo! Bad luck touch has been passed! Time for me to try to get that pair of gloves I wanted!” – Mr Oxo
“I’ll make you a new gun Chassis.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have said anything.” – Cryptonaut
Even though the others couldn’t see it Chassis waved it’s left arm, the undamaged arm, in denial. “No, don’t apologize. It was just me venting. I needed to…”
Chassis fell silent for a few moments mid-sentence.
“My right hand just fell off and burst into flame.”
The voice com fell silent as everyone digested what they had just heard.
Then laughter erupted.
The laughter continued in spurts as Chassis walked down the sidewalk.
After a few more minutes of walking Chassis came to a storefront with significantly less annoying neon.
There were no windows just a simple sign and a solid looking metal door:
Chassis Custom Creations: Repairs and custom mods.
We buy scrap parts and appliances, few questions asked. Above market price guaranteed.
Ask about our frequent buyer and seller program.
Chassis placed it’s left hand in the center of the door and after a few moments the door beeped quietly once and popped open with a hiss of equalizing air.
The front of the store had bins and containers everywhere. Each one filled to the brim and beyond with cybernetics of hundreds of configurations. Eyes, arms, feet, hip actuators, heads, you name it. If it was a part to a bot or robotic beast chances were you could find it in here. Maybe not in the best condition, but it would be there.
The store was fairly clean. But it was crowded which gave it a slightly dingy appearance.
“Ok crew, I am about to do some major redesigns after that fiasco. So I won’t be paying much attention to what is going on. And if you all know anybody who needs hire me for my advice, please let me know. I am getting close to getting enough kilocreds to get a small ship and a class change.”
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Sounds good Chassis. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Ooh congrats, on being so close. You have been stuck at 100 for a crazy long time.” - Joulez
“I might know of some people. I’ll check.” – Cryptonaut
“Thanks all.” Chassis replied.
As Chassis walked through the front room it gave a small tug and completely pulled the damaged right arm off, fiddled with it a bit and threw it toward an arm pile in a corner. And as a precaution it activated it’s olfactory sensors and gave the air a quick sampling to make sure the arm was off and not sparking ozone after it hit the pile.
Chassis didn’t detect any ozone but it did find an unexpected scent. If a blank chrome cylinder could frown it would have.
The voice com was activated again. “Kroma’s curse. They are back. I don’t know how but they got back in.”
“Who is back? What is happening Chassis?”
“Those freaking NeoNeko broke back into my store and are probably going at it right now in my bed room.”
“The NeoNeko? OH! The cat girls that you were telling me about that always somehow manage to break in and have sex in your bed!” – Mr Oxo
“Yes Oxo, those NeoNeko. I was trying to be less crude that that. But yeah, them.” Chassis digitally sighed.
“How do they keep getting in?” – Joulez
“I don’t know. I keep upgrading my alarm system, using different vendors and even doing it myself. But they still manage to break in. They must be some insanely skilled Techno-paths. It is like a total little game for them.”
“Hey FrikFrak, the NeoNeko broke into Chassis place again.” – Mr Oxo
“Oh man. That is hilarious. What are you going to do about it?” – FrikFrak
“I’m getting revenge. That is what I am doing. Last time this happened I had a little something installed. Everyone turn on Video Channel 3.”
“Umm Chassis, you aren’t going to broadcast them while they are… you know. That violates the game’s terms of service and you can get booted.” – Cryptonaut
“Nope. I’m not going to do that. I am just going to show you guys my revenge and the aftermath.”
Everyone quickly switched to Video Channel 3 they were greeted by an image of the interior of the store. It wasn’t t the clearest. The right side of the image looked distorted and had a black spot that covered about ten percent of the screen.
“Chassis what’s up with the black spot?” – Joulez
“That’s where my head is dented from the side sweeper that somehow hit me.”
“Oof.” - FrikFrak
“OK, here we go.”
The watchers saw a 3 fingered dull chrome and red hand reach for a panel, flip it open and pull a small lever down. Nothing happened for a moment then a loud series of crashes were heard. Moments later a tremendous amount of high pitch feminine yelling erupted.
“Oh god. What is that smell!?” – Voice 1
“It’s this green crap! And it’s sticking to my fur!” – Voice 2
“I’m gonna be sick!” – Voice 1
A pair of mostly naked tiger and leopard patterned cat girls ran out of the back room clutching their clothes to their fronts. Covered in a sickly green ooze that beaded up on their fut. Their tails were standing straight up and puffed out in panic. With barely a glance at the owner of the store and the bed they defiled they fled onto the street as fast as their legs could take them.
Everyone watching the video erupted with laughter.
“Chassis what did you do?” – Cryptonaut
“A Bioticist owed me a favor and I had him whip me up that gunk.”
“It must smell awful. They fled like it was the worst thing they had ever smelled. How are you going to get the stink out of your shop?” – Joulez
“Oh it is terrible. It is like you took 3 day old garbage that was sitting in the sun mixed it with skunk spray. That is the beauty of it. If it hits a non-biological object it will evaporate in about an hour. But if it hits a biological source… Well from what I understand it will probably linger for a week or more. And it will probably stain their fur for quite a bit longer than that.”
“So they will be green skunk cats for at least a week?” – Mr Oxo
“Yep. That should make them be a bit more thoughtful about breaking in here in the future.”
“That’s classy Chassis. Just plain Classy.” – Mr Oxo