Reina paced around her new room on the second floor of a rickety building located deeper in Glokham. She was on the other side of the city from the Copper Crosses HQ and decided that going to the lower levels was better than staying in the middle ones. Thode would look on floors four through six first and Reina had needed time to prepare her materials before integrating her new Gear. Only after that would she be able to handle him when he found her.
She wasn’t under any illusions that he and Zeb would eventually track her down. However, when they finally did, Reina planned on giving them a full-fledged Gearmeister on the cusp of being a Gearlady.
This was a faster advancement than she or her mother would have ever planned for her, but Reina couldn’t wait.
If that invasion taught her anything, it was that she was too weak to face the world by herself. No more House Gunnslow. No House retainers to do things for her. No Dedrick to stand in her shadow.
She was alone. And weak.
Reina couldn’t do anything about being alone. She couldn’t bring people back from the dead like Otyx, the Noxdennite god of endings.
However, she could do something about being weak. And the stolen Gear arm was the perfect solution.
All the materials she needed for this operation were on the table in her spare closet of a room. It was cheap and dingy with barely lukewarm water for baths, but it was good enough for what she needed to do.
At the moment, she found herself surprisingly grateful that her mother had been so meticulous in instructing Reina on the intimate procedure for grafting a new adaptive Gear piece to her own body.
The memories of salvaging her mechanical right arm from that poor vexer who tried to kidnap her were still fresh in her mind. So was the memory after that of integrating the arm onto herself.
For this operation, she needed to be both wide awake while simultaneously unable to feel any pain whatsoever. That was the only way to perform such a delicate procedure on herself.
To that effect, she had three injectable vials of potions of euphoric surge. This batch was high-grade and plenty strong to get the job done.
She just needed to psyche herself up.
That’s what the bottle of smash whiskey was for — liquid courage.
She dragged the table and its contents over to the standing mirror in the corner. Its dark iron frame was rusted in spots and its surface was chipped, but it would have to do. Plopping herself down onto the only chair in her small rented room, she couldn’t help but stare at herself in the mirror.
Her dark steel mask was still dented in places while her trench coat was still frayed and singed at the edges with holes in places where she took heavy Fluxfire during her escape from the Gearmonger invasion. She chuckled, the state of her garments was the last thing on her mind since coming to Glokham.
For the last month, she’d been obsessed with fighting Gearmongers. It was why she’d had to bribe Thode and Zeb to take her on union contracts. She needed experience and people who were easily swayed by CCs.
At first, she was satisfied with their tutelage. However, in the last week or so, Reina felt increasingly frustrated. She should have been able to fight every basic model of sentry there was, yet she just couldn’t find her rhythm.
Worse yet, Thode and Zeb didn’t seem concerned in teaching her more than they already had. They simply seemed content to sponge off of her bank account, while taking on easy contracts. That’s why Reina had to take it into her own feathered hands.
If they were satisfied with remaining complacent, then they no longer served Reina’s purpose.
With a firm nod to herself in the mirror, she unstoppered the smash whiskey and drained half of it in one long gulp. Warm, fuzzy certainty flooded her veins, giving her the boost that she needed. Then, she grabbed each potion of euphoric surge and injected them into herself one by one.
First, into the meat of her left shoulder to numb the joint directly.
Next, into her left chest to spread the anesthetic into her midsection.
And finally, into her left neck to deaden the nerve roots that were responsible for her entire left side.
With that last injection, she felt the left side of her face droop as half her beak suddenly went numb. Despite her quickly spreading paralysis, her mind remained as sharp as a blade’s edge. The potion was working perfectly.
Eying her half drooping body in the mirror once more, Reina transformed her right Gear arm into its fiery saber mode. Then, before she could second guess herself…
SCHLIKT!
She sliced off her left arm.
----------------------------------------
The Coalition Reserve bank apparently had physical branches in pretty much every city. In Arcwatch, there used to be three of them, one in each district. Thode had only ever been to the one in the Crumbles.
As he strode into the branch for Glokham, he was reminded why.
The bank building itself was far and away the nicest place on the ground level of the city. It was an eight story spire that added to the skyline of Glokham, which was owned and operated solely by the Coalition Reserve. Sleek dark steel plates as thick as tank armor with a low cobalt infrastructure easily made the entire building the most expensive structure in the whole city. And as a security measure, everyone had to walk in through the single main entrance, no matter what part of Glokham they lived in.
But the building’s looming grandeur wasn't what made Thode so leery. No, it was the sheer amount of blasted guns pointed at his face everywhere he looked.
There were automated rotating turrets equipped with gatling guns and heavy automatic machine guns on every pace of the wall inside and out. Each turret was coupled with a camera to act as the weapon’s guidance system.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
If that wasn’t bad enough, armored guards of every race stood watch at key intervals. They weren’t wearing any ol’ high-end, reinforced leather goods either. Each of the blasted vexers were decked out in full fraggin’ plate armor made of alloyed dark steel.
Who still wore plate armor? Even when augmented with gyros and pistons, the armor itself was incredibly bulky and heavy. Each guard was like a walking tank.
How could anyone feel comfortable under the scrutiny of so much security?
Fortunately, Thode was just a distraction. Zeb was the one doing all the hard work. Thode just had to smile for the camera.
The line for deposits was long enough that it coiled in on itself like a winding snake. It didn’t help that there were only four tellers in the entire ground floor, which seemed ludicrous to Thode, but then again, so did actually having to make a deposit.
Physical CCs were so…archaic.
Only folks who used them were folks who didn’t want to leave a digital trail and Thode never really got into anything that dodgy.
Now, the people in line who had collected enough physical currency to warrant a deposit? Those were people he didn’t wanna mess with. He eyed the guards and guns lining the walls and suddenly, it made sense why the bank had such security.
They knew their clientele.
What does that say about me that I’m in here too?
He promptly skipped the line for deposits and went to one of the many automatic coin dispensers near the entrance. No need to stand in line when he had no money to give.
Walking up to the dispenser, it was just a simple kiosk that could sync to the display in his Gear eyes. As he stood before it, Thode surreptitiously opened up his jacket flap and let Zeb out.
His companion was already cloaked, barely able to be seen save for a slight shimmer in the air. Thode wasn’t worried though, if Gearmongers couldn’t detect the rustbucket, then these turrets weren’t going to be able to either.
“Do your thing, old man. I’ll see you on the outside,” he whispered under his breath. Then, he withdrew a handful of CCs and hurriedly walked out of the bank as inconspicuously as he could manage.
By the time Thode made it back to the street, his nerves finally gave way as jittery energy pounded in his veins. Now, it was up to Zeb to use its wires to crack into the banks’ database and follow Reina’s digital trail.
That was the plan. Reina had access to House Gunnslow’s entire account. If she was still in the city, then they would find some trace of her. Zeb just needed to spend the time to sift through the data. And the only way for the rustbucket to do that was through a direct interface.
Thode just had to wait.
----------------------------------------
Why wait out on the street? he thought as he took a swig of a local cocktail called an electric seven. It was dry and fizzy with some sweet notes on the back end and was absolutely dynamo.
He’d found a hole in the wall tavern on the ground floor of a building about a block away from the bank named the Rusted Wrench. This time of the evening, the barroom was slowly filling up as people trickled in before nightfall. To be honest, Thode wasn’t quite sure how the people of Glokham could tell that it was nearing the end of the day when the Coal clouds above the city blotted out the sun day and night.
But, like clockwork, worn faces and slouched shoulders began to take up seats. Luckily, he’d commandeered a small table and a single chair in the corner all for himself. Zeb would be able to find him easily enough. The old man knew what he liked to do.
Although…Thode had learned some valuable lessons about his drinking since his escape from Arcwatch.
So when the female Cinderran server used one of her many hair tentacles to plop his next round onto his table, he used the Tincture Tracer built into his right Gear eye to inspect the contents of the alcohol.
Did he actually take up an entire upgrade slot in his Beholder’s Audioscopes just so he could feel safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t about to be poisoned or drugged?
You’re blasted right he did.
Once his Gear eye gave him the all-clear, he promptly partook of his next beverage with a satisfying sigh, letting the nervousness of the day settle down into a buzzed numbness. Now, he felt confident in getting glitched at any time.
A couple of drinks later, Zeb found him puffing contentedly on a pipe of tobac. The gyroscopic automaton abruptly materialized in one of his smoke rings and feigned a cough, “Ahem, haven’t you learned your lesson yet?”
Thode just smiled, his face pleasantly warm from the intoxicating mixture of tobac and booze, “Aye, old man, I definitely learned my lesson.” Then, he gave his companion a cheeky wink and asked with a wee bit of a slur, “So, what’d’you find out, Zeb?”
The rustbucket rolled its single golden eye and sighed in defeat, “I found the last few places the vexing featherhead shopped at after she stole the arm. She visited an apothecary, a bar and a machinist, then she made a withdrawal from the bank for a couple hundred CCs. That means she’s holin’ up somewhere and doesn’t want us to follow.”
Thode growled, a bit of his buzz now ruined. “How are we supposed to find that fraggin’ brat now?”
Zeb shook side to side just a hand’s breadth from the tabletop, “That ain’t the bad news, lad. You’re thinkin’ too small. You’ve gotta add up what I just told you. She’s been complainin’ for weeks about that hook-hand of hers. Now, she’s stolen one of your Gear pieces, then gone and visited all the shops she needs to get the materials to integrate the blasted thing. And…that ain’t even the real problem, boyo…
The heiress has already got three Gears — a Lignite-level heart and spine and a Bituminite-level right arm. If she adds that low cobalt arm, that would rank her somewhere between a Gearmeister and a Gearlady. Even if she’s absolute scrap at fightin’ Gearmongers, she’ll still end up bein’ more than you can handle.”
Thode slammed his fist on the table, earning him some suspicious glares from nearby patrons. “I’ve got two Bituminite-level Gears and a boatload of ultra high-end Gadgets, Zeb! That’s gotta be worth something.”
“It’s not as simple as that, lad,” Zeb claimed, shaking its body again, “The more Gears your body assimilates, the more it changes. With just one or two low quality Gears, the differences are barely noticeable. But each newly integrated Gear piece after that adds a qualitative change to your body.
Your flesh will toughen, amplifying your physical strength and speed. Your bones will harden and your organs will be reinforced, granting your body greater resilience and endurance. That’s why High Tinkers live so blasted long. And if you can achieve high enough integration rates, then your individual Gears begin to synergize in a way that makes them greater than the sum of their parts.”
Zeb sighed, slumping onto the tabletop before continuing, “That’s what makes High Tinkers so dangerous. They’re fundamentally more powerful than the lower ranks. As you advance to Gearmeister, lord and king…you continue to surpass the limits of your flesh, until you break them completely. There’s a reason why Gearkings and queens are so rare and so feared.”
“Confound it, Zeb!” Thode hissed through clenched teeth, his inebriation completely gone now. “What’re you sayin’? That we just roll over and let her take what’s rightfully ours? She didn’t risk her life to delve those blasted ruins! We did. We can’t just let her get away with this!”
Zeb bashed him in the cheek, catching Thode off guard, “Quit your whinin’, boyo! I’ve got a plan! It’s absolutely mental, but you are my great, great, great, great-grandson. You’ve got my genes in ya. If anyone can live through it, then you can.”
Thode narrowed his eyes in suspicion, “By the Hanged Gods, old man. What do you have brewin’ in that wee metal noggin’ of yours?”
Cackling like a mad machine, Zeb answered, “We can’t just wait for the vexin’ lass to show up. We gotta be proactive and get ready for when she finally does reveal herself.”
“Oh ya? And how are we gonna do that, ya rustbucket?” Thode asked skeptically.
Zeb just chuckled maniacally, “Don’t you worry, lad. Don’t you worry. You’ll see…