Chapter Twenty Six Sy

On his way back up to his office, Sy notices Marek squatted down on his heels in the lobby. He’s on the phone and his hand is in his hair, looking pretty upset. He waits quietly and listens to him, not wanting to pass by him as if not caring. He can’t quire hear what he’s saying, but it doesn’t sound good. When Marek hangs up, he sits there for a moment, but then somehow senses that he’s there.

“Something happen Marek?”

“Migo, our contact, he’s dead. They broke his neck.”

“Who did it?”

“They said it was Gerald. They said they spotted Cris picking him up after he did it. He dressed up like one of us and infiltrated a leadership meeting. He killed… all of em.”

“Good god. How’re they already in town?”

Marek stands up and slides his phone back into his pocket. “No. This was back before they even left. No one’s been able to find em yet. I told them where to look now, and how much reward money we’re putting up. That lit a fire under their asses for sure.”

“Were you and Migo close?”

“Yeah, we were. He was the kind of person you could trust, you know. I don’t know how I’m gonna tell Alexis. They were the best of friends since she was little. He’s the one that got her into trading.”

“I suppose there’s only one thing that’ll make her feel better then.”

Marek looks around to see if anyone’s listening. “I don’t want her anywhere near these guys Sy. I just want them dead. I can’t have them getting ahold of her.”

“Don’t you worry about that. She’s already done her part. I don’t plan on letting anyone else risk their lives over this anyway. It’s gonna get done, but we’re gonna do it the easiest way we can. The safest way.”

He knows it’d be stupid for him to go outside right now, but if Neither Cris nor Gerald have been spotted by anyone yet, they’re probably not in Welan City. He and Marek should be safe for now. They need to go and pass the cash off for the watchlist, and it’d be nice of him to take Marek to that chop shop. He could use some cheering up.

“Hey, why don’t you go and get ready. We can run that cash into town and do some errands, huh? I’ll meet you in the main hanger in, say, another fifteen minutes?”

“Alright. I’ll grab my old cloak.”

The first thing he does up in his office is reload his pistol and both spare mags with the last of the potassium rounds he still has left. From out of the wall-safe, he grabs a couple big fat stacks of bills and lines the inside pockets of his suit jacket with them. He looks at himself in the mirror again, noticing his age. He wonders if he’ll ever call it quits one day and retire. He needs to find someone as spiteful as himself to take over SSS. That’s the only way he’d be able to walk away.

When Marek finds Sy in the hanger, he’s perplexed to see him waiting for in the old wrecker of all things. It’s actually kind of ingenious. The two of them would be able to go absolutely anywhere in a tow truck like that and not look out of place. Plus, they can grab the runner with it pretty easily. He has a feeling that’s what Sy’s up to. The possibility of it does liven him up a bit. Hearing about Migo was a big downer.

It feels weird being back in his old heavy duster again. The thick oilcloth weighs a ton. It’s strange finding how much better the clothing he made himself when he was homeless is than the cheap crap normal people wear. It actually feels good to be in it, like he has control of his life again.

Before hopping up into the passenger seat, he has to grab the two loaded rifles off the seat and stand them up between him and Sy on the floor. He grabs the two huge rifles off of the bench seat and stands them up between himself and Sy. He knows it’s not because they’ll be heading into homeless territory. It’s protocol to be armed to the teeth.

While Sy drives, he calls up his new contact, Doug, for the arrangement. Like he was hoping for, Sy has him go ahead and call the chop shop too, to let them know they’ll be out to pick up the runner. He has so many cool ideas he wants to do with it.

“Hey Sy, thanks for doing this for me. I’ve never really owned anything nice before. Just what I could pack around you know. I’m really excited about this thing.”

“No problem bud. I’ve been thinking about it, and havin some kind of huge robot guard dogs hangin around might not be a bad idea. Besides, there’s no reason you can’t have nice things of your own. I’m your boss, sure, but I’m not your dad. You don’t need my permission for these kinds of things. Just don’t do anything stupid, and we’ll be fine. That goes the same for anyone.”

He’s been really concerned about Alexis, but he doesn’t want to sound like either of them is second guessing the job. “Did Alexis do alright? I heard she got shot like three times.” He can’t tell him how scared and worried he’s been since he heard. It’s been awful.

Sy looks at him for a moment. He knows exactly what it’s like to have someone close have a brush with death like that. “All three of them got shot a couple times, but none of them got hurt. We’re serious about our gear.” He lets out a breath and looks out his mirror as he turns left around the next block. “Look, I know you and Alexis didn’t come here willingly, or knowing what you were getting into either. Most everyone here did. It wasn’t really fair for her to have been thrown into the grinder like that, but from what I understand, she’s not foreign to it either.”

“No, she’s not. I suppose I’m not either. I mean, I’ve never killed anyone, but I’ve definitely had to fight for my life a couple times. Oh, wait. I guess I forgot about the riot. I guess I got a couple guys with an axe, but that was split second crazy shit.”

“Mikel was there too, and he’s about to have a baby. He didn’t get any special treatment either. Clarice had to sit there and watch everything unfold over the com links. She had the same look as you do, but she held it together. And then Vaun, he’s basically my brother. I could’ve lost him too.”

“Why do you guys do it then? How do you keep it together through all of it?”

There’s a stretch of silence between them for a moment. Sy looks in his mirrors again while someone passes him. He pauses when he catches a glimpse of his own face in the rear view mirror. It’s been a while since he’s seen himself in the daylight like this.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if any of us know what we’re doing. It’s getting harder though. I’m not tough in here like I used to be anymore.” He pokes himself in his chest. “Some days you feel like you’re unstoppable, and then some days you just want out.”

“What keeps you doing it?”

Sy almost laughs. “Shit. It’s all any of us know. I’m more afraid of standing behind a cash register with a line of ten shoppers in front of me than behind a rifle up against a line of ten killers.”

That gets him to chuckle. “I suppose that’s something like what Alexis would say. She can’t go a week without folding someone up.” It gets both of them to smile. “I’m awful proud of her. I just wish she could be as proud of me.”

“She is man. Clarice told me. You’re the only man she has, or ever will, trust with her heart… ever. That’s what she said.”

It’s all he can do to not break down in tears. He holds his breath and nods while looking out his side window. His heart starts to sink when the areas around them gradually begin to look more and more rundown. Having been away for so long, seeing the place he used to live, is discouraging. He imagines what it would be like if Sy dropped him off and sped away, to ditch him there. The farther they drive into the poorest side of town, the more anxious he gets. He even starts fidgeting, which isn’t even something he’s ever done before.

When they roll up to Doug on the sidewalk, the man drops the cloak on his hood and waits in silence for them. Sy hefts the bag of cash out the window to him and cranes his neck to get a good look at the man. Out of his peripheral vision, he can see multiple others watching Doug’s back. This kind of money can bring out some serious desperation in people.

“I don’t suppose I need to tell you guys to be careful with these two guys.”

Doug looks at him like its pretty dang obvious. “Yeah. We’ll figure out where they’re at real quick. You’ll be the first to know.”

“Hey, if you guys have a chance to take em out, don’t bother calling me first, just do it.”

Doug shakes the bag, to feel the weight of it, but his eyes never leave Sy’s. “Any souvenirs?”

Both he and Sy grimace. “Uh, nope, that’s fine. Just do your thing.” They don’t dilly dally for even another second before driving off.

He glances at Sy again, wondering if he shouldn’t say it, but he does anyway, just to make conversation. “You know, I kinda feel bad for the investigators. After all, they did save all our asses from the rioters. We absolutely would’ve been killed if they hadn’t been there. It wasn’t fair that they were gonna be thrown to the wolves by their own brotherhood.” He sighs. “Then we go out and smoke forty of their guys.” He shakes his head. “And now we are gonna kill em because they’re raw about it. It’s just one big rotten circle.”

“Yeah, I know. But the coyote doesn’t feel bad about murdering rabbits every single night. Babies, old ones, pregnant ones. It doesn’t matter. We warned these guys. We told them to back off and go home or we would kill all of them. It was as simple as that. It’s not like it was some shocking travesty.”

“I know. I just think about those small stupid choices we make sometimes. The everyday ones that can fuck us for life, you know. If we only had a clue.”

Sy has a funny smirk on his face. “I blame videogames myself. Everybody wants to be that guy, and they think they’re gonna get a do-over if they fuck up. Nope. No respawn, no restart, no saves. In our world, you make a single mistake, you and your whole team pay the cost.”

When he and Marek arrive at the chop shop, both of them become a little edgy about the deal. The place is a heavy gage steel quonset hut with a rather tall chain-link fence around it. The Constantine wire all the way around the top is a good indicator of the local night life in the area too. When they pull the truck in through the open gate, there are piles and piles of robot parts heaped up everywhere inside the dusty yard. Most things are sorted out by either metal type, or as cores of one variety or another. All the identification stamps on everything have been welded over.

A couple beady eyed guys come from outside the building when they back in and stop, blocking the way back out. They’re both in oily stained coveralls and have their arms folded in front of themselves. As soon as he rolls the windows down, he can smell the uriny tinge of iron oxide dust on them. Sy looks at him a little unimpressed with the color of the place.

“You know this things gonna have been stolen right?”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s gonna be all illegally modded anyway.”

As Sy gets out of the truck, one of the guys walks over looking all tough, but then stops when he sees what he’s packing under his suit jacket. “Well look at that. I’ve only ever seen a picture of one of those old beauties.” He looks him and Sy over, and then checks out the wrecker they came in. “What c’n we do for ya fine folks? We don’t do cars here, if that’s what yer thing is.”

He looks at the guy curiously. “Oh, no no, we’re they guys that called about the runner you’ve got, the old tiger model.”

The grubby man looks to be a little relieved and only grunts before leading them through to the back of the shop. Amazingly, when they find the think heaped up in the corner, it is in much better shape than the pictures showed. It’s all covered in dust from being there for so long, but it miraculously very straight. When he looks around at all the other stuff they have lying around, he becomes intrigued.

He hunches down and wipes some of the dust off the machine’s control panel door and opens it. With a raised eyebrow, he look aback up at one of the men. “Any chance you guys got any good controllers? Like off a newer Werker machine or something?” It gets them to reconsider whether Sy is a possible cop or not. When they look at him, Sy’s face doesn’t change one bit from that grumpy look of his though.

The other guy gets in their small forklift and shoves a heavy scrap bin across the floor with it. It makes a god-awful screeching sound across the concrete floor. Underneath where it was parked, is the narrow entrance to a stairwell under the foundation. When he goes down, alone, to check it out, he’s pleasantly surprised. Not only is there a generous selection of good systems available, but there are other things like control pendants and command card writers. Aaron would shit his pants if he brought one back.

He chuckles when he sees a WTC logo still on the chest plate of a completely intact machine standing in the corner. He remembers Aaron mentioning that it was the company he used to work for. He grabs the severed head of a fairly new model machine from off the shelf and holds it in the light of the stairwell. “How much for this lil fella?”

“You know how much that thing’s worth for real right?”

He isn’t about to have his pants pulled down over it. “Uh, not a damn thing, cause it’s stolen, and probably bricked too.”

The man isn’t impressed with his smartass answer, but he knows it’s the truth. “I’ll give it to you for the same price as that hunk of shit upstairs. And that’s a steal kid.”

He squeezes his shoulders up through the entrance, getting dust all over himself, and stands with them for a moment. “Alright, but it’d better not be fried.” He shakes the man’s hand and tries to not let his grinshow.

After they winch the runner up on the back of the wrecker outside, and leave, he can hardly contain his excitement on their way back. He cradles the ugly Werker robot’s head in his lap the whole time, and damn near talks Sy’s ears off all the way back.

Sy isn’t too familiar with the runners himself, but he’s heard they’re pretty smart. “So these things will do whatever you tell them huh? Aren’t they made so you can’t do that? Isn’t that what a command card is for, to limit them to a specific context, or something like that?”

“Yeah, sure, but Aaron knows how to edit and write his own command cards. Just the other day, when Alexis and I were in town, we told Monster to tear the door off this guy’s car, and it did.”

Sy’s eyes snap to Marek. “Come again?” He isn’t happy to hear this is what they went out and did after giving them a vacation day.

He didn’t mean to let the cat out of the bag like that. “Well, the guy blocked us in traffic and caller Alexis a tranny whore right to our faces, among a bunch of other shit. Trust me, we stayed cool for a long damn time, but he would not stop. He got off way easy.”

Sy lets it go, but not without a cautionary glare at him. “Alright, so they’ll do whatever we tell them to, and they can understand most things like that?”

“Yeah, you have to explain somethings to them, but a Werker controller like this is pretty dang smart. It remembers you, and all that. It’s not like talking to a blank duck every time.”

When they get back to base, he and Sy unload the scrap runner off onto the elevator platform and drop it down to the next lower floor. He’s just about bouncing off the walls now, so Sy takes the first chance he can get to head back to the office for some peace and quiet. As he’s picking up the runner with the small shop forklift, he gets a call on his battle com. Alexis and the others are back, and she’s looking for him. He can’t wait to see her, love her, hear all about her mission, and show her his new runner.