| Amidst the Junk | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary: 'Costa Rasht' stumbles across a tech-savvy individual in the Scrapyard while looking for upgrades.  |
Mabase Scrapyard Connected along the southern side of the Plowse Bridge is a shoddy elevator which descends to a drifting chunk of Twisted far lower than the rest of Mabase City. From here one can see the exposed rock trailing off like stalactites into the darkness. Because it isn't level enough there's no humoring the idea of a proper sky here, artificial or otherwise. To give illumination dozens of bright lamps have been arranged to light what has become Mabase's Scrapyard. Here the unrestored and forgotten random chunks of buildings, vehicles, or whatever have been unceremoniously dumped. For the most part things are pretty organized with cars in one pile, building pieces in another, chunks of city streets piled like a wall along the jagged edges of the scrapyard, but mostly things are still in disarray. Currently no one works here full time and the organization is mostly due to necessity as people have plundered bits and pieces. The previously mention elevator comes to a halt just outside the remains of an old service station which has been repurposed as small workshop. Luckily the building already had a two bay garage making it easier to drag machinery inside to work on it. There are two automotive lifts inside the bays with toolboxes shoved full of whatever tools could be found. Once the lifts stop working that's it, so hopefully there's a mechanic around that might know how to fix them. The awful squeal makes it seem like it won't be long. The junkyard is visited by something new: A 12-foot-tall humanoid machine covered in red-painted armor plates, mostly a 'torso' with stumpy limbs and no head, a tiny window in the middle of the chest. It walks somewhat ploddingly, finally coming to a stop next to a pile of junk. The front opens, revealing a cramped cockpit with a catgirl sitting inside -- she releases her seat belt and slips out of the machine with a grunt, surveying the pile for likely-looking spare parts. The noisiness of the massive lift to and from the scrapyard keeps any activity less-than-secret. Still, people do come and go often enough. These are usually those that specialize in scavenging to resell in order to make a living more than casual individuals. Heavy machinery noises are also pretty normal to hear. Not everybody has the strength to move pieces of junk around that weigh hundreds of pounds with ease...sort of like what that large raccoon wearing a yellow hoodie is doing with a piece of metal and plastic larger than he is. Disappearing behind a small pile of sorted miscellany, the sounds of a loud think are only followed by the illumination and sound from a cutting torch. The main engineering station seems a little dead at the moment near the entrance, but that doesn't seem to stop activity within the massive junk and scrap storage zone. The catgirl swiftly notices that 1. there's an organization to the junk here, and 2. there's someone else here presumably doing their own salvage work. She approaches Rocket after pulling her goggles over her eyes and adjusting the straps. "Hey, uh--" she pauses for only a second or two to take in his appearance before continuing, "do you know where I might find some... hmm, well, first, I need a cart or something to move parts, and second, seeing the condition of the stuff here... do you think there's any chance I might find one of those newfangled LCD monitors in working condition? Technology has come such a long way in the future..." It would seem that the fuzzy ringtail has own goggles on, as well, although using such a powerful plasma arc cutting torch around even marginally exposed fur seems a dangerous prospect to those with some sense. The animal continues to cut a slow trail in the metal for a few seconds more, almost as if he didn't quite hear what was being asked, until he finally pauses. Without looking up from his work, the raccoon talks -- because talking raccoons are apparently a thing in some realities -- and explains a few things, "Not everyfing is sorted, so you may 'ave t'sift frough some o'va fings until you find what you want." Cockney? "Use whatevuh you find a'use around 'ere. Lot o'va sorting is volunteer work, innit, so if you 'ave a'take somefing like a cart or what-'ave-you off to wherevuh, just bring it back." The raccoon guy begins cutting again. "If you'uh trying a'retrofit somefing, make sure you 'ave a proper measure of your voltage and amperage," he half-yells as the noise gets louder from it all. "TRANS!" he yells before cursing, stopping his cutting angle, shifting, and starting again. "You need a transformuh and a measure of power inversion, offset your charge with capacitors, but it entirely depends. LCDs are incredibly 'eat and shock sensitif! Va's a'bump and tumble kinda shock, innit. Not electrical!" She nods at the explanation of borrowing the cart. "Well... honestly, if this setup here is for public use," she rubs the back of her neck, "I might just use this." At the caution to measure voltage and amperage she rolls her eyes. "Pff, I'm not an idiot." As he shouts something about a TRANS her ears perk up and she looks startled, then relaxes. "Ah. Much of the system is DC anyway, so no transformer or inverter needed. Well... I'll need to compare it to what I got, anyway." She rubs the back of her head. "Ah, they are? Damn, so probably *not* suitable for a combat machine, then. Nuts, it seemed like a shoe-in for an easy obvious upgrade. So those fancy-shmancy tablet computers and phones I see people with, do they just break if they slip out of your hand? Seems expensive to replace..." she hmms, stroking her chin. "Wot?" asks the talking animal before cutting off the torch once more to put it aside. He turns and look at this other person from the legs up. A hand reaches up to push the goggles upward to reveal his eyes, although the thick lenses and rubber do little hide a furrowed brow. "Vere are options to insulate and protect your LCD equipment from shock damage, but if you'uh going a'take vat route you might as well push into organic electroluminescent diodes instead. You'll get beh'uh resolution from va image and in'egrating touch controls should be a snap, except for vat 'ole DC system fing." "Retrofits can be a bit tricky, but you gotta work wif wot you've got, right? Name's Rocket. You new 'ere or somefing?" Organic... what? She is from the past. She goes from excitedly discussing technical details to a blank look at something she hasn't had a chance to research yet. "Uhh... I'll have to look into that technology, yeah." She smiles. "Well... perhaps it's time to design something new from the ground up, if there have been enough technological changes... I just figured better displays would be a big QOL improvement for relatively little investment, given how common such technology seems to be now." Um..." The catgirl looks away awkwardly. "Yeah, kinda. I... I'm from like, 2005? NeoTokyo? I have... I have some knowledge about things later, bits and pieces, but... I found myself in the Usual yesterday." She looks at Rocket, then away. "Umm... I'm... Scott... or maybe Sarah... it's kind of a long story..." She walks up to him and crouches down, holding out a hand to shake and smiling. "Nice to meet you, Rocket!" "Uh..." intones the ringtail as he listens to this response regarding time and space and tech upgrades. "OLED is pretty common in most Earfen modernities vese days." One eye squints regarding NeoTokyo. "Flark, you, too, huh? Pretty certain va temporal cascade is deteriora'ing our filament quickuh van I 'ad fought it might." Once approached, the lack of confidence over a name makes the fuzzball suspicious. Still, he shakes hands and it considerably stronger than he might look, if the carrying such weight around earlier wasn't clue enough. "Pleasure, m'sure. Well, wotevuh you want to call yourself is fine, alvough you should be aware vat uhvuhs from NeoTokyo were shunted into vis pocket realm. To most o'vus it's been many years since, now. We're still trying to figure it all out. Maybe you 'ave somefing important to do 'ere in va future. Maybe you 'ave some connection wif va past. Wotevuh va case, vis place 'as decided it likes you. Don't be too tizzied ovuh winding up 'ere again if you leave. If you still can." The catgirl's eyes light up. "There's more people? Has anyone seen Sabin? Jiro? Kiro Kinshi? Cecil? Jack Karrde? Quantum Blaze? Sun? Her boyfriend?" she frowns, briefly, his name is on the tip of her tongue... she continues listing, "Munin? The Utonium girls? Skeeve? ...Erica?" She hopes ANY of those names will be recognized... "I think... I think I just get to have a life, now. I get the sense that... I missed an important chance, before." The Rocket fellow takes a half step back while lifting his hands. "Oi, bugguh all. Slow down a krutacking minute, Costa Rasht." Was that a name? "I'm not a flarking travel agent. I spend a lot o' me time building weapons, eivuh by meself or wif Pukebreaf -- 'e's around 'ere somewhere." Pukebreath is also a name? "Big badass corrosive skag. Nuffing worrying, innit." The raccoon waves those hands a bit before turning away to direct his attention to his belongings. He digs through a pile before pulling out something that looks like a crude...gun? "Point being, I'm not va one a'talk to about finding friends. I'm va one a'talk to about saving friends." Screw the plasma arc torch; a massive discharge of green light goes ZORCH! and sheers off a section of the metal. It reveals electromechanical insides. "Oh, look!" The gun is dropped the ringtail scrambles to pluck a single processor chip out of the slag. "Score. Uh... All right. Flark it all." He pockets the chip. "I'll 'elp you look for some displays if you tell me va sizes you need, Costa, and we'll 'ave a chat." Building weapons? "Oooh." the catgirl makes an interested noise. She takes 'Costa Rasht' to be an interjection, and watches the weapon with interest. She pulls a laser pistol out of her bag and zaps the ground for a demonstration. "Mmm. Well, maybe you should just come take a look at where they'll go, then you'll have a better idea. Dang, if I were *your* size I could fit more in there, it's pretty cramped..." Wait, did he say Costa again? "Costa?" "Eh, fine, but watch va discharge o' shite around me, yeah? I'll krutacking murderize you out a'reaction. Flark... Alla vose names and you don't bloody well know 'oo Rocket o'va Guardians o'va Galaxy is," he mumbles, though not entirely to himself. Sure, he just used some kind of energy weapon as a can opener without warning. Such double standards! "Wot?" asks the raccoon person. "You don't like Costa Rasht? Figured it's a good name. Kinda preh'y. Fought you might like it more 'an Crash Toast or Oats Starch. Chaos Start isn't really a name so much as a command for turning on supuh powuhs." He shrugs. Strange. All of those word pairs have the same letters in them. "So, where are vem fings you wanna replace? I don't work for free if you need me 'elp; just saying. But I am va best option for 'elp." "Rocket of a Guardians of a Galaxy?" She scratches her head, then puts her hands on her hips. "Well... I had a lot of friends, too, and you haven't heard of me, either!" He keeps suggesting names. "Oh, it was a name? But why...? ...Oh, those all have the letters of both of them... you're really good at anagrams, huh." She motions for him to follow her back to the mech. The cockpit is still open. Cramped for her, he can fit inside easily, and see what she's got: The tiny window as backup, and some kind of monochrome LCD flat screens that might've seemed futuristic decades ago but now feel like something from the late 90's, albeit sturdier for their thinness than one would expect. "Payment... hmm... is there something I could help you with? ...Do you need a friend? Are you working all alone here?" Rocket scrunches his face for a moment. "We'll figure it out latuh; can just say you owe me one for now." | |
Enable comment auto-refresher