Alicia closed the door to Arthur's shop with a click, then it was back to work for her. In reality, everything these days was work for Alicia. If she was awake, she was greasing hands, talking to clients, or driving vans. As it was, her team was parked in the alley with fresh crates of merchandise that needed to find its way to buyers. The Dragons weren't a large gang, but their territory being on the edge of New Hamersville and stretching out some ways outside of the border wall meant it had other means of making money.
She climbed into the driver's seat. Scotty, in the passenger seat, perked up at her return. "Kid take the gun?" he asked. "Took some convincing, but yeah," clicking in the seatbelt, she continued, "he isn't happy about it, but he'll do it." She took the van out of neutral, and the up-armored panel van rolled out of the alleyway with deceptive ease. On the outside, it looked unassuming, but it had the protection and speed to keep it and its merchandise safe. In the back, two others rode along, armed and armored in some of the best the gang could offer. They were displays as much as protection. Between them were crates of guns, body armor, pocket shields, and anything else an enterprising ganger might need to do harm. "Take a right here. The Blue Collars are our next stop. They've been getting pushed by ALF for a while now, and they're burning through a lot more ammunition than they usually do." The balding man sat up, correcting himself. "Actually, swing by the hoard. We might be able to sell more than usual today."
"If we have it. Everyone's getting pushed by ALF these days. Won't be long before we might wanna hold onto this stuff, Scott." The mood darkened a bit at that, and everyone drove in silence for a while until Scotty broke the silence again. "So? That pet project of yours have anything new? Or did you throw all your money at a dud again?" Her mood brightened up a bit. "Actually? I don't think so this time. Arty-er Arthur built a suit." "Arty?" "Shut up, Scott. Anyway, it wasn't anything impressive. Explainable tech, anyone with the training could do it, I think, but…" Scotty raised his head. "But?" Alicia continued, "As far as I know, he doesn't have that training. I've watched him for a while now. He has a couple of vocational degrees, not a master's in robotics." "So what? You think he's coming to a breakthrough? A meta right on our doorstep?"
"Maybe. I don't know. He could have just gone to the internet to figure it out. All I know is, you don't just build a suit for a convention, Scotty. It's why I wanted to get that rifle in his hands. I just hate being the one to do it. The kid's not someone you push too much without problems cropping up." "Yeah? Why's that?" Scotty said. "The guy is awkward, without a lot of confidence. You push him too hard, too fast? People like that are unpredictable. He might do what you want, he might start hating you. Either way, he's gonna be mad at me tomorrow. I might have lost a lot of trust with him." One of the guys in the back chimed in, "We could just make him do what we want. What's he gonna do?" But Scotty added back, "Rule one, kid: don't piss off your suppliers. If he's gonna be building anything for us, we don't want him doing a shit job, or hoarding things. It's not how we work."
The last word in the conversation, things devolved into small talk until they met the familiar chain-link fence of the Hoard. An old train yard, decommissioned after the civil war and subsequent awakening, the place served as HQ for the Dragons' operations. The gate guards let the van roll through, and the group pulled into staging 3, an old train shelter turned stockpile. Similar vans, two others, were parked around a central fenced-off armory, and clerks with clipboards took down crew requests, bringing them into the fence, and usually coming back with a few strong men and boxes of merchandise. Guns, bullets, and everything to keep a fight going traded hands here, but Alicia noted the state of the armory through the fence. Business was still going, but shelves were looking bare. The bean counters responsible for everything were watching proceedings like hawks, weighing boxes on scales, counting bullets down to the last. "C'mon. Let's see if they have any more 5.56. We have enough handgun ammo in the van," Alicia said, walking ahead of the group.
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Arthur didn't go that day. He spent most of it figuring out how most of the components of the rifle worked. It looked like it was broken over a knee, the wires cut, and the focusing array looked like it was bashed with a rock. He doubted it would work as well as it did before whatever happened, but Alicia was depending on him for this. He thought about blowing it off, going to the convention, but halfway through suiting up, he began to second-guess himself. He started to worry about her safety, started thinking about how selfish he was being, and soon enough, he talked himself into helping her. "Just this once."
A portion of his day was spent in the hardware store, finding suitable replacement parts for an illegal and exceptionally powerful weapon. He couldn't think of a better place. Spending $600 on a laser leveling system for contract builders, and another $60 on odd tools and replacement pieces, he knew things were going to be tight this month. By the time he got home, it was getting dark. He looked at his suit with something bordering on contempt. An expensive multi-month-long project, reduced to not much more than a paperweight. "Maybe next year."
After placing the expensive and delicate leveling system on his workbench, he got to work on cracking the casing. Several minutes of chiseling away, he could slip a screwdriver into the frame and used it to zip along the plastic, separating the pressed-together component. Now in two parts, its internals exposed, he could see the mounting for the laser array. Another 30 minutes of pressing, prying, and praying for the component to survive, it was out. With the focusing lens in hand, he replaced the bashed one, and the most important part of the fix was over.
Moving onto the housing, he had to cheap out and bought a 2x4 plank. With two feet of board, he went about making the shape more usable. A bandsaw used for cutting steel was right at home with the wood after replacing the blade for one suited to the purpose. It wasn't his best work, but with the board shaped, he could go about affixing the various components of the rifle to his 'stock.' He had made recessed places for the components to slip into, with epoxy gluing them in place, he installed the array, trigger, battery pack, and cooling system. Now, just a matter of rewiring everything, he first looked at his cannibalized level to figure out how it was done. He could have just looked it up on the net, but he didn't want that on his search history.
Following how it was done in the level, he first ran the battery to the trigger, then the array. The fans to the battery, and then finally the array to the trigger. Now late into the night/early morning, he looked at his work and had to admit it to himself. It looked like shit, but functional. Another few hours of letting the epoxy dry, and it was ready to test by morning. Tiredly, he picked up his work, testing the weight. It was heavy. Bringing it up to his shoulder, he could tell that it was too forward. Still, he decided to test it. It had to work, not work well. "At least you'll be good at something," he said, taking aim at his suit, whether the remark was directed at the steel armor or himself was uncertain.
One thing he didn't account for before firing the weapon was the sudden bloom of light that would accompany it. Pulling the trigger, he was immediately blinded and stumbled to the floor, hissing under his breath. After a bit, sight began to return to him, and he could finally check the damage. He could see, right on the chest of the suit, a small patch of reddish heat, rapidly cooling. "Took it way better than I thought it would," he said to himself. Standing up, he grabbed the rifle after dropping it. Checking for damage, and satisfied that he didn't completely ruin it, he placed it back into the guitar case. Leaving it on his table, he went upstairs to finally sleep.