Chapter Twenty - Unsub

“Everything today is based on a subscription system, why not air?”

--AirCo, Premium Air Services, 2038

***

Peter was a weird guy. He was... too nice, if that made even a lick of sense.

At the moment he was in a dress shirt and slacks, a corpo outfit by any measure, only it was clearly about half a decade out of fashion, his topmost button was undone, and it looked like his shirt had been pressed by someone unfamiliar with an iron.

Somehow it all came together to make him look like someone who was professional, but not corporate, trustworthy but not infallible.

If he was doing it on purpose, then Peter was way ahead of everyone else. If he wasn’t, then he either had a damned good secretary or whatever dressing him, or his instincts were on point.

“Sorry for the delay,” he said as he racked his fingers through his hair. “Just had to take care of a few things.” He smiled at me, then glanced at the cyborg next to him. “Ah, I take it Laura’s introduced herself?”

“As See-Three,” I said. “What’s up with that name anyway?”

Laura shrugged, then gestured to her face. “Three eye-sensors. The name just kind of stuck. Its gotten to the point that I’m a little worried about switching out to something different.” Her eyes were pretty weird. Three short tubes poking out of a plate buried into her face. I noticed that Laura didn’t have a nose, instead there was a small filter tab off to one side of her face with a tube running back to where her nose should have been. It was a bit of a fucky look.

“Makes sense,” I said. I didn’t have rocks to throw from my glass house. Stray Cat was a lot harder to explain as far as names went. Hell, I had a house. I wasn’t a stray. I’d even go so far as to say that I was properly house-trained. I shook my head and refocused. “Anyway. I’m here for the thing we talked about a while ago.”

“You had prosthetics to donate,” Peter said. “I remember, it’s why I had See-Three come over. She’s the best when it comes to this kind of thing.”

“I’m hardly the best,” See-Three said.

“You’re certainly better than I am,” Peter shot back. “The only thing I’ve got going for me are my augs and some body sculpting. Oh, and a pancreas.”

“Your pancreas?” I asked.

I think my confusion came through because he chuckled at that, then waved dismissively. “Family history of diabetes,” he said. “I got some biomods for my pancreas... about ten years ago? Trust me, I couldn’t stand being in this place if I couldn’t handle some sugar.”

I nodded and glanced around the bakery. Some of the stuff being sold here was probably not great when it came to that kind of stuff. Or something. I’d never really been keen on looking at nutritional labels. “Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“So, what kind of stuff are we dealing with?” See-Three asked.

“I’ve got a catalogue of basic prosthetics,” I said. “Arms, legs, the usual bits.”

“Knees?” she asked.

“I... think those would be included in legs?”

She shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t. Knees, hips, shoulders, they’re tricky as hell. It’s easier to get a femur-down replacement than it is to get a new knee. Knees are complicated. Making an entire leg is less complicated.”

“That seems counterintuitive,” I said.

She shrugged. “That’s just how it is. We’ve had good knees for a while, but they’re still disproportionately more expensive.”

I didn’t quite get it, but it didn’t sound entirely implausible. “I think I can manage knees and the like too.”

“Where are you getting these?” See-Three asked. She looked between me and Peter. “Or is this one of those things where I’m better off not knowing?”

Did she not know that I was a samurai? “I have a machine that can print them,” I said. “We’ve got some other things in the queue as well, but as long as we have raw materials, we should be able to pump out about a dozen limbs a day.”

“Like with a 3d printer?” See-Three asked.

“Something like that,” I said. “Did you have a place in mind, Peter?”

He nodded. “In this building, actually. It’s why I wanted to meet here. I don’t know if this is too far from your place to be convenient?”

“It’s a ten minute drive, then another five to get to this floor,” I said. “Not too bad, all in all. Probably significantly longer for someone that has to follow road laws. But yeah, I guess it isn’t too bad. What about safety?”

Peter nodded, then gestured to the door. “Follow me, please?” he asked before leading us out. “This bakery is something we set up about nine months back. We buy surplus, nearly-expired goods from a couple of places, then resell them here and in two other locations for as low as we can. It keeps people fed. When we were picking out locations this one felt pretty natural. This isn’t one of the best or worst residential buildings, it’s well connected to a few others, and the gangs that run this floor are pretty... amenable.”

“You had to negotiate with them?” I asked.

“Did it myself. I won’t say that they’re good people, they push drugs and prostitution and have a record that’s longer than my arm, but most of them also live here. Cheaper food means a lot to them too.”

I nodded along, then glanced around the open space. There was a decent amount of foot traffic here. A few families, some people on their own, a few people pushing carts and even a bit of mobility scooter traffic. It was a passing spot. I noticed the gangsters too. Just younger guys and girls, hanging out together on the street corners, watching people go by.

A lot of them were watching me. I figured they could keep watching as long as that was all they did.

“When we took the lease, the corporation that owns these shops insisted that we take two lots,” Peter said. “They wouldn’t even negotiate otherwise. So we ended up with the bakery and this shop location over here.”

Peter moved across the square to a second shop with boarded up windows. He stared at the door for a while, then there was a hard clunk as it unlocked.

Tugging the door open, he gestured us in.

It was dark, but I had enough sensors and shit in my helmet to make it seem as bright as if the entire place was lit up. I imagined it was the same for See-Three because she stepped in without a worry.

“Ah, let me... right, the lights breaker is down,” Peter said. He slipped past and towards the back.

The shop might have been used for something else before, but it was hard to tell what. There were three booths to one side, without any chairs or anything within, but with mirrors on the walls, then a counter at the back. The only furniture left were some plastic chairs to the left. It was clear that at some point there had been dozens of ads or signs of some sort on the walls, but they’d been removed, leaving discoloured squares behind.

“What was this place?” I asked.

“A Stop and Chop hair salon,” Peter said from the back. It looked like there was a small maintenance room back there, maybe with some storage or something. He was rummaging around with a little flashlight. “Found the lights!”

The lights came on with a click and a hum, bathing the space in bright neon white. It had looked nicer when it was dark. In the full light, the stains on the ceiling became more obvious, and the broken linoleum seemed far worse.

“It’s... not the worst place,” I said.

“I’m hoping that we can turn it around,” Peter said with a winsome smile and his hands on his hips. “We haven’t negotiated a price for the prosthetics, but... well, I felt like you were trying to be charitable, so I imagine that we’ll be getting a fair price. I think that the cost of the prosthetic accounts for most of the cost with this kind of thing, right?”

“About two-thirds,” See-Three said. “Maybe less, actually. When you get a new mod a good chunk of the cost is the mod itself, then the rest is the installation and whatever initial fee there is for your software subscriptions.”

“Subscriptions?” I asked.

She nodded, then wiggled her hands. “For software updates for your limbs and bits. Cheaper models cost more per month, higher-end gear is cheaper. Depending on how long you have something for, going better can save you a lot in the long run.”

“Well, we won’t have subscriptions,” I said. “And the prosthetics will be cheap. If you can make the price reflect all of that, then I think we might have a good thing going.”

***