In Our Chaotic Network - Psyborg Corp.
The afternoon grew late on Empress Teta, where Sebastian walked down the side of the street, beneath an underpass. As the sun sunk beneath the skyscrapers, a blanket of indigo took it's place, dotted with the lights Sebastian followed to his favourite workshop. With a rucksack slung over his shoulder, he huddled beneath his jacket, as the air had grown cold following the onset of evening. The tech shop stood on the street corner, just under the pass where craft docked.
Low drones zoomed above the pass, the gentle hum of speeders as they descended into the sky. Looking up, Sebastian saw a few models take off, before he turned around and headed into the shop. The door beeped as he entered, letting the Sam, the slicer who owned the joint, know that a customer had arrived. She brushed back a lock of deep blue hair and chewed the end of a cigarra, her arm resting on her workbench as she greeted Sebastian with a nod of her head.
"Thel, long time, no see, how are things?" Sam said, her voice husky and dry. In her hands, she fumbled with a control panel that she was soldering, the fingers on her gloves having been cut off to give her more use of her hands.
"Oh you know, busting military frequencies, cracking nuke codes, the usual." Sebastian said, almost sarcastically.
With a smirk, Sam went back to work and allowed Sebastian to look around. Making his way over to the hard drives she had in store, he surveyed the different processors, as well as their data capacity, all the while musing between two models which attracted him. Standing behind him was a young woman, who looked about his age, looking through a box of leads. She seemed slightly out of place in the shop and Sebastian wondered quietly about what she might be after.
"Hello." He said, his voice soft and robotic.
Pulling his attention away from one of the hard drives, he turned around to face the woman and looked curiously over at the parts she was going through. Wearing a brown, zip-up jacket over a black T-shirt with an equation on the front, he looked every bit like Sam's usual customers, if not more on the soft side, his glasses contrasting harmlessly with his army pants and combat boots. Placing one foot in front of the other, he reached over and picked up one of the leads.
"Do you like computers?" Sebastian asked, avoiding the woman's gaze. Holding the lead up to his glasses, he saw that the end was badly frayed and would need to be repaired, but that was no problem if she liked fixing things. "I mostly use my holo-com when I'm out, so my desktop has kinda been neglected." Sebastian began, keen to talk about his interests. Throwing the lead back, he looked up to see that he had caught Sam's attention.
"You looking for a new hard drive, Bas?" She asked, her goggles still covering her eyes.
Sebastian nodded, somewhat sheepishly. The slicer girl, gestured with her soldering gun to a particular model mounted against the wall. Saying nothing, Sebastian nodded in response and managed a slight smile, then gave the other woman a smile without opening his mouth. He walked to the wall and peered over at the model Sam had pointed towards, adjusting his glasses to take a closer look.
Some of the circuits were run-down and there was already data stored on the drive, but the processor was powerful, able to run through the mathematical operations Sebastian input in no time. With a slight whistle, he stood back, impressed, although wary about the fact that the model had already been used. He folded his arms and turned around, then looked back at the hard drive, giving it a second chance.
"Do you know anything about who owned this last?" Sebastian asked, concerned about the origins of the model and whether or not the programming would be in need of repair. Even though there was risk involved in buying a hard drive that had not been properly reconfigured, he was very curious to see what was still stored on it.
"There's not much I can tell you, cept that they sold it on the holonet under an anonymous prefix." Sam affirmed, leaning over as she soldered the circuit board. She stopped for a moment to sweep away the little balls of melted wire and leaned on the bench, staring at Bas intently through her goggles.
"Hm..." Bas thought to himself, his chin cupped. "What do you think?" He asked the young woman, who stood idly behind him.
[member="Marriskcal Lati"]
