I left the place after a confusing trip through the arcology. I did manage to find the mechanic store, so I fixed my bike up the best I could and headed back home. The Thermoelectric semiconductor cost a hundred and thirty Rayn, setting me back to just over sixteen hundred. Barely enough to pay for a month’s rent. Good thing, I would have time to save up some more before then.

As I settled on my bed, the interface popped into my view.

「Tracking - 5>6」

「Criminology - 5>6」

Unexpected gains were good gains, at least… Criminology was a bit confusing still. Working with the Blue Crusade seemed to fast-track its progress at least, so it was an easy Skill to level. And it had some good Perks, such as Cues.

Nothing much to do with the interface at the moment. I took the mask from its hiding place amongst my clothes and looked it over in more detail. After a quick check for any kind of bug or tracker, I thoroughly cleaned it out and tossed it into my backpack. It would be another piece of valuable gear for me, one I would greatly appreciate if I ever had to go out closer to the Eternal Sandstorm.

The ornate dagger also got a look over. It was made from some kind of jade and had a wickedly sharp edge. It also faintly glowed with an ethereal presence, which made me iffy about actually using the thing. Best I kept it for now and had someone look it over… maybe Carone would know someone?

I shot him a text that I'd be bringing it over in a couple of days and asked him for an identification price point. He replied with, 'Fifty Rayn.'

It was a bit expensive, but, well, the dagger looked badass, to be frank. If it actually had something useful as its enchantment, I wouldn't mind keeping the dagger. And! And it was an external item, so it shouldn't mess with my chrome at all.

I took a shower and went to sleep, brainstorming internally with things I needed to do while I had some downtime.

---

I awoke bright and early. After a quick meal of Jack’s Sun Kicker, I set the canteen to that weird liquid from yesterday, and I settled down at my tech table absolutely covered in bits and pieces I had been collecting. I had a goal in mind- to create some useful gear. As it stands, the only bit of tech I had helping me out was the Tapper. If I wanted to get into higher-end heists, that wouldn’t do.

What was the point of getting Tech to a high level if I never used it? An argument could be made that I never had the right stuff, knowledge, or space to build something helpful, but now? I had everything I would need to create some fun things.

For now, I had a couple of ideas. I started simply drawing out a simple blueprint to the best of my abilities. The basic idea was a portable camera I could bring around with me. Using some of the knowledge from the Advent Phantom’s blueprint, I designed the optical parts of the camera.

Unfortunately, I doubted my skills and tools' capability to make something small, so I designed it with a different focus. The camera would basically sit inside of a dark, one-way ball of glass. It would sit on a gyro stabilizer mount, and I would be able to toss the camera for a quick look around the impact area.

In the future, I could turn it into a full-on drone or a microcam, but for now, this would do. And, since I was building it myself, I wouldn’t have to worry about it having built-in trackers or backdoors.

Once the blueprint was all finished, I started to print out the parts. The one-way glass would be an issue to get, especially considering how I wanted it and the durability, so I replaced it with see-through plastic. It took quite a bit of finagling with my printer, but I eventually got it just right.

The plastic ball was the easiest part, and it came out as two black half spheres with small mounts on the inside. The idea was to put everything inside, then be able to click it closed and basically make a ball about the size of a baseball.

The gyrostabilizer was a hassle to build. Mainly because I didn’t actually know how to build one. After searching the Net for several hours, I managed to cobble together an old-world design. It wasn’t the best, and there would inevitably be some shaking on my camera thanks to that fact, but it was something I could build.

I salvaged some servos from the robotic parts I klept from the ASCorp Supermarket Robotics Garage, and 3-D printed the parts to fill in what I would need. It was quite a bit, including the rings that the servos would interact with.

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While I waited for the 3-D printer to start up, I began production on the camera itself. There were a few optics amongst the robotic parts, which I broke down and slowly started to build an optic closer aligned to Advent’s design. Sure, the robot’s optics were fine, but they were designed for utility robots, and as such weren’t of the greatest quality.

It was a tedious process, especially since the tools I had weren’t designed with the micro applications I tried to use them for. After a long while, I finally managed to get the precision I wanted and boot the camera up. For now, it would barely have a lifespan of thirty minutes till I could get a better battery that could fit inside of the camera. The robots had internal power systems that were simply too big for what I wanted.

By the time I finished setting up the camera, the 3-D printer finished up. I took all the parts and finally put together the gyrostabilizer. From there, I made a small mount for the camera, hooked everything up, and bolted it into the mounts of the ball.

I closed everything up and proudly looked at my newest creation… it needed a name to really be complete. How about… Scouter? It fits the naming scheme with Tapper… yeah, I like that. I proudly looked at the scouter, pleased with how it turned out.

I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone, turning on the camera feed… nothing. I frowned and popped the ball back open- and I forgot to set up the transmitter. Stupid Shiro.

That started a long process of edits and rebuilds, in which I also added a small power button I could click with my thumb. Unfortunately, all of that took up too much space, so I had to go back and rework the gyro, which took even longer. All in all, it was past noon by the time I finished up all of my edits.

Just before I could test it, a text message from Mira popped into my HUD. ‘Hey! Want to go with me tomorrow to do something? We don’t have much time left in the city…’

‘Course! Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.’ I sent back. She replied a minute later with the address. Plugging it into the Mapp™, I found it was a holo fight arena, which was… intriguing?

I’ve never heard of one. Granted, Mira always seemed to pull out the randomest stuff, so this really wasn’t all that surprising. And she was a battle nut, so a fight arena was right up her alley. The arena itself seemed interesting. It looked like it attempted to merge holograms and video games into physical activity, in this case, a fighting arena.

While I was distracted, I took the time to stop and check out that haze liquid I snatched from the secret stash. I poured a bit out, the liquid flowing like honey as it cleanly poured out a bit onto my table. Almost immediately, the pink liquid started to emit that haze, though the cloud was incomparable to the one that had been around the plant. It also felt less effective, as if the flower had been boosting the capabilities of the liquid.

Still, it was a better effect than not having anything, and already some fun ideas were starting to form in my head.

Back to my cute little scouter. I clicked on the power button with my thumb, pressing it into the machine. A faint buzz of machinery twirled against my fingers as the gyrostabilizer kicked into gear. I checked my phone, pleased to see a rather clean feed. It was a bit dark, the tinted plastic shading its view, but that was an acceptable issue.

Now! For the moment of truth! I lightly tossed the ball into my bedroom, excited to see if my plan would work. I looked down at the camera feed on my phone as the gyrostabilizer kicked into gear, keeping the camera steady as it sailed through the air. It flew gracefully, lightly tapping the ground-

And the gyrostabilizer broke, causing the camera to descend into a nauseating mess of visuals. I put the phone down and dropped my head into my hands. Looks like it still needed some work…

By midnight, I was sure I got every kink and issue ironed out of the device. I added small shock absorbers to the mounts of the ball, keeping the gyro safe from impact against objects. Then, because the camera sat statically, I also added some manual overrides to the stabilizer so I could tilt and turn the camera however I wanted. Its rotation speed was incredibly low, but it worked.

Finally, I added a small channel inside of the thing where I could pour in some of the mysterious haze liquid to give the Scouter an additional level of obscurement. I’m not sure how effective it’ll be, but any additional level of stealth was better than nothing.

I tested it several more times, happy with the results. It wasn’t the best-made device ever, and it definitely still had some issues, but it was mine. Entirely mine. Sure, I took some parts and pieces from other tech. The end result, however, was entirely designed and set up by me. There was a sense of indescribable happiness deep inside of my heart as I looked over my finished Scouter.

I cracked my neck and checked the time, setting the printer to make the parts for two more as I settled back and thought about what else I could do. My mind inevitably drifted to the blueprints ‘I’ stole from Sentinel. The ones still buried out in the desert.

The weapons were my focus as they pulled up in my memory thanks to Eidetic Schematic. Now that I knew a bit more about Tech, I could discern the overall purpose of most of them, but still not the intricate details.

Last time I could only recognize the cartridgeless gun, but now I could figure out the majority of them. Everything from highly experimental Gauss rifles to arc cannons and everything in between. They were so overly engineered and complicated that even other engineers wouldn’t be able to figure out how they worked, let alone me.

Still, they were entertaining to think of. And it was damn impressive that they were actually being made by Sentinel. Scary, because they would undoubtedly cause some mayhem, but damn impressive. It was easy to see why they wanted it back.

Based on the fact the copies were paper and the corporation was willing to pay twenty mil for them, it was pretty safe to say that I might be holding the only copy of their research. It wouldn't be too outlandish for the paranoid corpos to only keep paper copies of their precious research.

Not yet, but maybe I should sit down and go back over the schematics and try to make something from some of them. The arc cannon looked promising for some kind of non-lethal option, and things like their plasma rifle seemed as if it would have some incredible utility for burning through some stuff.

Maybe after I earned some more money… back to my original goals then; earn money and steal some shit. But that could wait till after my day with Mira tomorrow. I left the table, printer running, and headed for bed.