Beck

Friday, 29th of January, 198 A.C, 14:03

“This year’s curriculum changes were made in order to better prepare upperclassmen for vocational studies. As the financial viability of college has dropped year by year, it falls on us to ensure that students can enter the workforce straight out of their secondary schooling.” - Spark Department of Education

I looked at my half-finished drawing assignment one last time before sliding it into its cubby. Hopefully I would make much more progress during Tuesday’s studio time than I had during the last two classes. Right now it was a smudgy mess, each part of the portrait taking on a perspective and scale unique to itself.

Once I was done putting my art supplies away, I grabbed my backpack, wished the teacher a good weekend, and slipped out the door into the hallway. I had to say, the construction workers had done a good job with the repair work. You could barely tell that there had been a giant Psychon attack here a few months ago. Although I supposed that was in part because the school hadn’t been in great shape to begin with.

A crisp voice called out ahead of me. “Hey Beck, what’s good?”

I waved the owner of the voice over. “Dakota! Have fun in calc?”

Dakota laughed and bumped me with her shoulder. “Hey, Mr. Schuster keeps it at least *somewhat* interesting.” She was a short and squat girl (though still about a half a head taller than me) with dark skin and kinky, shoulder-length hair, the ends of which she had dyed blue at my suggestion.

I scanned the hallway. “Any idea where Tanner is?”

“Boo!”

I let out a startled “wuaagghh” as someone hugged me from behind.

“Oops! Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I mean, I *did*, but not that bad.” Tanner’s speech had a brittle quality, matching a tall frame that reminded me a little of a stick bug. He had light skin, bordering on pallid, with short brown hair that featured a monster cowlick.

“Jeez Tanner,” I said, squirming out of his grasp, “you’re good at that, aren’t you?”

Tanner grinned. “I do have a bit of a light foot, don’t I? Hey, we’re hanging out this weekend, yeah? I can host if that’s cool.”

“Oh neat!” I said. “Saves me from having to clean up my place. I think we planned on Saturday?”

It was nice to have some actual friends at school, Kai notwithstanding. It had certainly taken me long enough.

Speaking of Kai, we passed by him on the school steps. I gave him a wave and brought my index finger to the corner of my eye. Hopefully he would get the message.

He waved back and made a similar gesture. Still, the traces of a pout had formed on his face.

“Who’s that?” asked Dakota, playfully rubbing her chin.

“I think I’ve mentioned him before? He’s Kai; he was the first person to give me the time of day when I transferred.”

“Ohhhhhhh,” said Dakota. “He seems cool. We should invite him sometime.”

“Exactly my thoughts,” I said distractedly. Sarie had just sent me a Chipper message. She wanted me to turn left when I hit the sidewalk.

I told my friends that I had to break off, and that I was looking forward to seeing them tomorrow. After a few forearm bumps I was strolling down the road, keeping an eye out for my blue-haired squadmate.

Turns out I didn’t have to walk far. Sarie was leaning back against her bike, a blue hoodie under her jacket for reinforcement against the January chill.

She stood up as I approached. “Hey Beck! Guess who’s got two thumbs and has finally been discharged?” She, predictably, pointed to herself. “This gal!”

Sarie let out a “woomph,” as I went in for a hug. “Hey, nice to see you too, but could you take it easy on the ribs? Still got a few weeks on those.”

“*Whoops!* Sorry!” I went to pull away, but Sarie wrapped her arms around me, engaging in the most gingerly executed bear hug of all time.

“Now,” she said, releasing me, “I should really, *really* be catching up on schoolwork right now. And I will! But first, I’ve got something to show you that I think you’ll really love.”

She tossed me a spare helmet and hopped onto her bike, motioning me on.

“Not the Noodler this time?” I asked.

“Nope!” she said, the bike’s motor humming to life. “Though that’s my first stop after this. You’ve been training that belly, right? Not slacking off while I was in the hospital?”

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“I think my dad’s getting concerned about my ramen intake levels, actually.” I fastened the clip on the helmet. “Gonna have to find some other stuff to add in for variety.”

“I highly recommend some ice cream,” she said. “Very good bulking food from all that fat, and it goes down easy.”

“Huh. Never thought I’d be told to add more ice cream to my diet.”

“You’d better believe it. Ramen and ice cream, diet of champions. Anyway, let’s get going!”

***

“Passed Pawns, huh?” I took in the modest storefront. Mechanical doodads were piled up against the shop’s only window. “Is this another one of those businesses where you and the owners are inexplicably chummy?”

Sarie snorted. “Well I don’t know if I’d say we’re chummy, but yes.” A staticky chime played as she held the door open for me. “After you.”

The store’s interior was just as cluttered as the window would indicate. Besides a handful of secondhand cybernetics carefully displayed to the left, Passed Pawn’s wares sat in jumbled up stacks that took up every inch of table space. Interestingly, the floors themselves were spotless, leaving a remarkable amount of breathing room to navigate from heap to heap.

“Sarie,” I said, putting on a performative tone, “I’ll be honest. I am furious right now. Why didn’t you show me this place before!? It was, like, *made* for me!”

Sarie raised her hands. “I was in the hospital, remember?”

“Fine,” I said, “I’ll let it go this once. But I’ve got my eye on you.”

As we were talking, the store’s owner came in from the backroom. They were on the older end of their middle years, with graying hair and well-worn smile lines. Their right arm ended abruptly at the shoulder. They must have been in the middle of some tinkering when we came in, as they stuck a screwdriver into their soot-and-grease-stained apron when they saw us.

They spoke to Sarie. “Ah, I was wondering if you would show up again. And you brought a… kid with you? What’s your play here? I hope you’re not expecting a discount.”

“Oh no, no discount,” Sarie said. “Beck here’s a friend of mine. Thought she would get a lot out of a place like this, so now that I’m out of inpatient care I decided to introduce her to you. Beck: Avery. Avery: Beck.”

Avery dropped their guard a little at the mention of the hospital. “Your recovery went well, then?”

That implied that Avery knew about the injury before. Was this where she had been attacked? I supposed that would explain things. Was that what had happened with the Noodler as well?

“Recovery’s *going* slowly.” Sarie put a hand on her chest. “But I’m good enough to walk off the rest of it now. Thank you for your concern.”

“Well, least I can do is show… Beck, was it? Least I can do is show her around.” He looked to Sarie’s right, where I had been when he first walked in. “Where is she, by the way?”

I was already digging through the stuff on the central table. Once I figured out the method behind the way the gadgets were stacked, I was able to pick out whatever caught my eye without fear of everything tumbling to the ground. It was a pretty clever organizational system, actually, with the shape of a part’s base functioning as–

“Oh, you’re really getting right to town, aren’t you?” That was Avery, looking over my shoulder to see what I had grabbed from the pile. “Got some experience in the field already?”

“Not as such,” I replied, turning over a loose Splinter core in my hand, “but I sure have read about it! How did you even get your hands on all this stuff? It’s a tinkerer’s dream!”

Avery laughed. “Well it *is* a pawn shop after all. Most of this stuff comes from couriers offloading miscellaneous finds or from people selling their busted tech. Usually is that only one or two parts are actually broken and the rest are just begging to be taken apart and used in something else.”

Sarie patted me on the back. “Hey Beck, I’ve gotta get going, but you have fun.”

I nodded, still looking at the core. “Sarie, I hope you know that you have seriously made my day.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Sarie said.

As Sarie turned to leave, Avery gave her a wave. “You take care, ma’am. Don’t go breaking any more ribs, you hear?”

“I’ll do my best.” Sarie opened the door just as someone in a wheelchair was rolling up the ramp that replaced the left side of the store’s steps. She held the door for them, then slipped out onto the street.

The new arrival looked to be in their early twenties, with brown skin and scruffy pink hair that covered their ears. A thin line of freckles traced its way from one of their cheekbones to the other, rising in the middle to run along the bridge of their nose. The yellow eyes were an interesting touch, although I couldn’t quite tell whether they were contacts or not.

“Heya Avery,” they said. They gestured to me. “Who’s this?”

Avery’s expression brightened in the presence of this other individual. “Ah, Kelly! Excellent timing. This here is Beck. She’s looking to learn how to do some tinkering of her own.”

I put down the Splinter core and shook Kelly’s hand enthusiastically. “Nice to meet you! I assume you work with Avery?”

Kelly smirked. “Not so much work with as vulture up their inventory and use their workshop for free.”

“Now that’s not entirely fair,” said Avery. “I make a good profit off of some of the stuff you make.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said, wheeling over to one of the tables and picking through some scrap, “but you don’t expect me to actually *give* you any of that stuff.” They looked over at Avery and beamed. “I just do it cuz I’m nice.”

“That’s true, but…” Avery trailed off, remembering that I was still there. “I’m sorry, the short story is that we’ve known each other for a while and neither of us were really keen on the whole private property thing to begin with. So, Passed Pawns has become something of a maker space for us.”

“Yeah,” said Kelly, “We go way back. Just a couple of disabled, nonbinary tinkering pals.” They tossed the motor they were holding back on the pile, apparently dissatisfied with it. “So! You want to learn how to make stuff?”

“Very much so, yes.”

Kelly leaned in, studying my face with extreme scrutiny. Suddenly, they drew back, grinned, and gave me a thumbs up. “Well, you seem pretty cool! We can get started today, Avery willing.”

“Wha-” My brain short circuited for a second. After it rebooted, I said, “Really? Just like that?”

“Just like that. It’ll be good to have some more company. And hey, maybe Avery will get a new business partner out of it, right? After a few years, of course.”

Avery nodded. “Let’s take things one step at a time. For now, why don’t we head to the workshop? You’re gonna like this, Beck.”