💾 Archived View for yujiri.xyz › writing › henrys-quest › chapter3.gmi captured on 2023-03-20 at 18:58:23. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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One of the first thoughts I have when we climb onto the rover is what happens if I just grab the flunky's gun off her waist. I'm pretty sure I could do it right now.
If I have the gun in Xenia, I might be able to trade it for the Cerebrolink Core A3, or if push comes to shove, threaten a vendor into giving it to me. Of course, it would make returning to Duncan problematic, but how else am I going to get the Cerebrolink Core?
I decide to hold onto the thought for now. We have a few hours before we get to Xenia.
"So Henry," Astrid says as we speed across the wasteland, "tell me more about the place you came from. How is it that I've never heard of such a big trade center so nearby?"
"Trade center? When did I say that?"
"You said jitterfruits grow there!"
"A few. And you're the only person I've ever met who thinks they're some priceless delicacy. We don't sell them. In fact, there's basically no traffic in or out to anywhere."
Astrid gasps. "Now what the hell! Huge commercial potential going unexploited." Like they just ignored the first half of what I said.
Roy's flunky doesn't say anything, but I notice her expression like our conversation just gave her an idea. I really want to steer the conversation away from my home now.
"So what about you?" I ask Astrid. "You haven't told me anything about yourself."
"Eh? Well... I dunno where to start."
"How'd you become an electronics expert?"
"How'd I become an electronics expert? Now that's... uh... dang you're taking me really far back... There was a tech school in Xenia I went to. I... am not sure if I first tried to learn electronics there, actually, but I learned programming and ended up helping redesign the government's website. Damn! I miss those days. When we were still using JavaScript, and when the documentation for most of the frameworks was still online..."
I bet Mom would love to geek out with this person.
"I learned electronics a few years later, when there weren't enough programmer jobs left. I know it wasn't my first attempt at learning electronics but I'm not sure if my first attempt was before or after I learned programming. Kinda remember it both ways."
I ask, "Is it true that Xenia's a worse place to live than Duncan?"
"Oof, I mean I ain't lived there in 50 years, but if it's the way I remember, probably. Police interrogating you at random times like you're a criminal until proven innocent, can't do anything without explaining your purpose to them, and their searches are as scary as they are humiliating."
"Yikes," I say.
"Yep. At least there was more stuff to do there. More people to hang out with, more functioning technology, better food, better health care (if you could afford it)..."
"So you've been in Duncan for 50 years? That's longer than Roy, right?"
"Oh yeah. You wanna know how it was before him, eh?"
I nod.
"Well, before the first of his two predecessors, I should say. And you know what?" They suddenly shout. "It was bliss! It might not have been as interesting as Xenia, but it was infinitely friendlier, and you didn't have to worry about money, or taxes! Then some bandits showed up and robbed us blind cause we didn't have any guns! I'm glad they got shot by the next gang, but then that gang robbed us blind too! And then Roy and his gang showed up, shot the leader and started taxing us for the "safe and hospitable environment", which was fucking infuriating because it was safe and hospitable before all these assholes!"
The flunky leans away from Astrid in her seat, like she's afraid of their temper.
"And it also hurts like hell that he's lasting so much longer than the first two! The first two only ruled for a year each! I'm dying for somebody to come in and shoot Roy and all his goons. Or maybe not, cause they'd just be like the first gang!" Astrid downs half a bottle of water to recover from their rant.
When we're about one hour away, my thoughts return to the possibility of trying to take the flunky's gun.
It's gonna be a really serious problem on my return trip. I can't go back to Duncan if Roy's flunky is going to tell him I stole her gun; I assume I'll be shot. I also assume I'll be shot if I go back to Duncan without her, because Roy will assume Astrid and I killed or betrayed her.
On the other hand, I didn't get this far by planning ahead. I got to Duncan without any idea how I'd get to Xenia, and I earned the ride to Xenia without any idea how I'd get the Cerebrolink Core. Better to plan for the very next obtsacle - getting the Core - than to plan for the obstacle after it.
I grab it.
The flunky doesn't move immediately to try to take it back like I expected. She turns her head toward me and laughs, in a tone as if I just fell into her plan, but then her laughter suddenly dies and is replaced with a sigh as she turns back to driving. "So, fine, you got my gun. What are you gonna do with it?"
Astrid is just staring at me with wide eyes.
"I won't tell you," I say.
The flunky nods. "Probably smart. Not gonna lie, at first I thought you were just gonna shoot me."
"You didn't sound very scared of imminent death," I say.
"Fate kills us all eventually. I think if you can laugh at the way it happens to you, you're one of the lucky ones. In this case I just thought it was funny how sudden and easy it was for you, but at the same time stupid and shortsighted, cause if you rolled back into Duncan with me dead, Roy would shoot you too."
Is she implying that I *won't* be shot if I roll back into Duncan with her alive and she tells Roy I did this? It's hard for me to believe a ruthless bandit like him would let someone go who double crossed his crew. Maybe she's just trying to make me think it's safe so I'll go back to Duncan unprepared? Whatever, I play along. "Yeah, I thought that far ahead. I have smarter plans."
Astrid says, "Morse code 'em to me?"
Ooh... do I remember morse code? I scratch my head. I remember at least the common letters, I think... maybe enough to get a message across.
I convey the message by tapping their shoulder, "im planning to sell the gun to get my item" I leave out the part about maybe threatening someone into giving it to me, because I'm not sure if Astrid would approve and I don't want them to become hostile to me yet.
They tap back, "will the border guards let you carry it in"
I didn't think of that. Now that they mention it, I remember some of the news we read at home implying that civilians in Xenia aren't allowed to have weapons. Holy crap, how could I forget? Also, Ginger said being searched for illegal possessions was common.
I'm in trouble.
I tap back to Astrid, "could i dissassemble it before we get there and carry the parts in" I don't know much about how modern guns work, but I assume that it can be dissassembled into fundamental mechanical parts that wouldn't be individually prohibited. If the guards see the parts and know what they make, I'll tell them I'm just going to sell them as scrap metal. Maybe that still won't be allowed, but it should at least stop me from getting in huge trouble for trying to bring in a weapon.
Astrid taps back, "its your best bet"
I find out their prosthetic arm has a screwdriver built in, which they use to help me take the gun apart. I thank them and pocket the pieces.
We roll up to the city wall. There's a gate with two guards wearing big helmets that look like gas masks. It's probably to protect them from the Athena virus, which I've heard is big problem is Xenia from reading the news at home.
One of the guards stays at the gate when we get there while the other beckons us to keep driving into a parking deck, and follows us in until we find an empty spot and turn off the rover. When we've all disembarked, the guard greets us with, "Show your Xenia citizen cards."
I don't know how to handle this situation, so I let the flunky do the talking. "We're visitors from Duncan, here for a shopping trip."
"Expected duration of your stay," the guard says.
"Less than one day."
"List all items you plan to buy and/or sell."
Are they serious? We have to tell what we're going to buy? And does this mean we get in trouble if we buy something we didn't mention?
Astrid lists the electronic parts for fixing Roy's air conditioner, I add a Cerebrolink Core A3, and the flunky lists a few other things and says we're going to sell all the scrap in the back of our rover.
"Follow me," the guard says, and starts leading us to a door.
"Oh wait!" I blurt out, afraid I'm almost too late. "I'm also planning to sell these pieces." I pull out the gun pieces from my pocket.
The guard stops and comes back to inspect them. "These look like pieces of a gun."
"They are," I say. "I'm aware it's not allowed to bring a gun into the city. That's why I dissassembled it before leaving. I'm just here to sell the pieces as scrap metal, if that's okay." Please please please.
The flunky says, "Wait, WHAT?!? Your plan is to sell them?!?"
The guard hushes her. I just nod. I realize why the flunky is freaked out: if I sell the pieces, she'll be going back to Duncan without her gun, and Roy won't be happy that she lost something so valuable.
I wonder, though, what she thought I was going to do if not this.
The guard says to me, "You can sell them, but they must be sold to a licensed store. Furthermore you are aware that it's prohibited to assemble a weapon, and you're prohibited from doing anything with those parts other than selling them."
"Understood." I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Astrid gives me a congratulatory smile.
The flunky looks super stressed, but there's not much she can do. She can't give the guard any evidence that the parts belong to her and not me.
The guard leads us to a door and then closes it behind us. It's a small room with some machinery hanging above us that I can only guess at, and another door on the other side. The guard says, "We have to do a quick scan for the Athena virus. Stay here and give me just a moment." He walks behind a counter with some controls on it and presses a button, and the machine above us starts whirring and shining beams on us from different directions.
It only takes a few seconds. The guard says, "All clear, no virus signs detected. Just a moment."
He prints out 3 plastic tags with numbers on them and hands one to each of us. Mine says 176-328-5.
"Keep these with you, you will need them to exit the city. Now head back to your rover to get your merchandise, and then you can go through that door. Traders like yourselves are common, so there's a mall near this entrance, with transit to other parts of the city."
I walk back with the others to bring an armload of scrap materials, even though I'm only selling the stuff in my pocket, just to avoid looking conspicuous.
On the other side of the door the guard pointed us to is the city.
Like my home and Duncan, most of the buildings are underground, but here they have signs sticking up that say what they are and their address. The city seems to be mostly laid out in a grid, with "streets" running east to west and "avenues" running north to south. But there aren't "blocks"; instead, each building is at least one street or avenue apart, and is identified by a street and an avenue number. The mall is at 4th Street, 310th Avenue.
The interior looks like some pictures I've seen of early 21st-century malls and underground metro stations, but combined, and also featuring areas where individuals are selling things out of carts instead of from a storefront. Near the entrance, there's a pillar with a map on it, and a "you are here" marker. I approach this first, looking for a store that might sell what I'm looking for.
My thoughts are interrupted by the flunky: "Henry, I gotta beg. What can I do to get that gun back from you?"
"Nothing," I say without turning my head toward her.
"Can I buy it off you in return for a whole bunch of the other stuff we brought to sell? Worth more monetarily. Those few parts aren't gonna be enough to buy a Cerebrolink Core A3, you know."
That piques my interest. I was planning to sell the gun, but maybe she's the person I can sell it to? Unlike anyone else here, she's desperate for it, and also is allowed to carry a gun in Duncan, so to her it's a gun, whereas to others here it's just some scrap pieces.
Also, my alternative to selling it - using it to threaten someone - isn't actually available until I get a chance to reassmeble it. Astrid can't do that for me in the open, and asking them to do it would require revealing that I plan to threaten someone, which is something I was hoping not to have to reveal.
"Let me at least find the store so I can see how much money I need," I say. She nods, and once I see "Vincent's Cybernetics" on the map, I take off.
I find the store in a dead end corner of the mall with no other stores around. It has a (working!) animated neon letter sign above the storefront, with green and purple colors and a dark shop interior.
A light turns on when I enter the store, revealing a teenage girl behind the counter. "Welcome to Vincent's Cybernetics, what can I do for you?"
"Do you sell a Cerebrolink Core A3?" I say it in a solemn tone, and in my mind there's an animation of dice rolling while I wait for her response.
"Cerebrolink Core A3? Uh... you know those things are discontinued, right? There's no product support."
"I'm aware, just please tell me if you have one."
"Let me check..." She goes over to a small computer screen and types in the product name. "Yeah, looks like we do have one."
No way. It's right here. I've found the Cerebrolink Core. A huge smile comes over my face as I imagine Dad standing here, watching this development.
"What's the price?"
"12,000 credits."
I don't have a frame of reference for how much that is, but I'm just going to assume it's way more than I can get from dealing with the flunky, and see if I can haggle it down before I go back to them.
"I can't get that much. Not getting it isn't an option for me, though. Since those things were discontinued years ago, I imagine demand for them must be pretty low, and only getting lower. There aren't many opportunities to sell them, right?"
"Hey, I know where you're going with this. I can't decide that on my own though. I'd need Vincent's permisssion."
"Can you get it?"
"Well, how much can you pay?"
"Um... well, I don't know yet but probably a lot less."
"I think it'd be better if you went home and checked how much money you have before I call Vincent. Imagine this conversation: 'hi, boss, a customer wants to buy the Cerebrolink for less than the price.' 'well how much are they offering?' 'i dunno, they won't say.'"
"Okay okay, I'll be right back." I leave the store and sprint back to the square where I left the flunky and Astrid.
"12,000," I say. "That's what I need."
Astrid says, "We've sold half the scrap we wanted to sell and we've got 500."
So, trading with the flunky is useless. It sounds like my only option is to threaten that girl. Which requires Astrid to reassemble the gun for me.
"Astrid," I ask, "can I talk to you in private? Somewhere without onlookers." The shoppers and merchants around can't hear our quiet conversation, but they could see us assembling a gun.
Astrid nods. "I know a good place." They lead me to a public bathroom, which currently has no one else in it.
"Can you reassemble the gun for me?"
"What, are you planning to do an armed robbery?"
"Yes. It's the only way I can save my father. I won't shoot anyone, just threaten to do so." I cross my fingers hoping for their approval.
"Well, can't say I wouldn't be thinking that in your position..."
"Please? You'll save a life."
"But have you figured out your escape yet? Like how you're gonna get back through Duncan safely?"
"I have an idea," I say. "Would it work if I hold the flunky hostage as we get back to Duncan?"
Astrid thinks. "Well, first problem is you can't walk out of the city with the gun. Maybe you can walk out with the parts by telling them you failed to find anyone willing to buy them, but they can't see that you reassembled it inside the city after they told you not to. And then, once outside the city, I'd have to reassemble it again and give it to you instead of the flunky... but then I'm dead when she tells Roy I cooperated with you to take her hostage."
"Okay. What about this? I actually kill her before we get to Duncan. I drive to my home, then let you take the rover back to Duncan by yourself. You tell Roy I kidnapped you and you escaped and took back the rover. You'll be late, but he won't know it's your fault."
I'm aware this plan requires Astrid and Roy to find out the true location of my home, and worse, Roy will know I killed one of his flunkies. That puts the village in much more danger than I want. But if it's the only way to save Dad, and if it would let me keep the gun incase Roy comes for revenge, and it means I won't have scammed Astrid after all...
Astrid grimaces. "That's... an outlandish story to tell Roy. I'll be killed if he doesn't believe me, if he thinks I helped you overpower her. And he'll already be in a bad mood from losing his flunky."
"You'll have the chance to pick up as many jitterfruits as you can carry," I say.
Astrid sweats. "Look, that's a nice offer, but I dunno, risking my life for it when I could already visit there some other time..."
Damn. If only I could tell them I gave them the wrong location.
"Okay, look, maybe neither of those plans is good enough, maybe I'll end up having to find my own ride back, but one way or another I'm going to have to steal that Core. So can you reassemble the gun now just to get that out of the way? So I won't have to involve you again."
Astrid eventually agrees, and reassembles it. I thank them and pocket it and we walk out.
The flunky asks me again, "Any way I can deal with you to get the gun back?"
"Not unless you can magically come up with 12,000 credits."
The flunky groans. I hear her say, "I'm gonna be in so much trouble..." as I walk away.
While I try to think of other ways to handle my return trip, I walk back to Vincent's Cybernetics, thinking I might as well make sure that I can't get it by haggling. I tell the girl, "The most I can get is about 1,000."
"Yeah, there's no way that's gonna fly. Sorry."
"Can you call Vincent just to make sure?"
"Fine, fine, but you're just wasting your own time."
She gets a phone out of her pocket and I hear a dialing sound.
Vincent says through the phone, "Tina? What are you bothering me about?"
"Vincent, there's a customer here who wants the Cerebrolink Core A3, but he's only got 1,000 credits. He wants to know if -"
"1,000, are you kidding me? You thought this needed my attention?"
"Ahem," I say. "Customer here. I need it to save a life. My father is dying because his is broken. I need a replacement to save him. I'll do anything."
"1,000 credits is 'anything' to you?"
"No, I mean I'm willing to deal with you another way. What do you need, other than money, that I can do for you?"
"If you don't have the credits, get lost! Customers these days, who do they think they are?"
"I can't accept that answer. My father dies if I don't get home with this Core in a few days."
"Tina, don't bother me about this again." He hangs up.
Tina says, "Yeaaaah so now you know what kind of person Vincent is."
"Well..." I say, putting my hand on the gun in my pocket. I'm not actually going to do it until I have an escape plan, but holding the gun on the scene will help me imagine what it's going to be like and mentally prepare. My heart races just thinking about it.
"But," she continues, "*I* want to help you. Meet me at 21st Street, 303rd Avenue, at 17:30."
"Huh?"
"After the store closes. We can discuss possibilities there."
I take my hand off the gun. "Okay..." I'm surprised and uncertain, but relieved. If there might be a way to do this that doesn't involve armed robbery then I definitely want to hear it.
I'm not sure if Astrid and the flunky will hang around long enough, but I figure it doesn't matter because I can't go back with them anyway. I'm going to have to find my own ride home.