Deckard had a fresh set of metal piles ready for him when he rolled out of bed the next morning. His muscles twinging uncomfortably. The repairs on his muscular system were still ongoing and had finally reached 80% as of that morning. Which apparently meant it was time to be wracked by some sort of growing pain-esque annoyances.

  Trace ran the 3D printer through its cleaning cycle and talked with Deckard for a while as they waited for it to finish. The man had been busy and was creating an entire online persona for himself in which to hide his activities behind. He had yet to even begin thinking about trying to breach any of the corporations’ systems that contained the information he wanted. Instead, he was still in the preparation stage.

  Deckard was intimately aware of how out of his depth and tricky what he was attempting to do actually was. He was confident that he could learn, however, that didn’t mean that he was going to throw himself into shark-infested waters with no sort of insurance.

  He would do everything he could to learn and prepare before going after his actual targets.

  Trace was busy loading the crate of rebreather masks, and their filters into the back of his truck, when Monroe arrived. He was driving Black Betty with his head hanging out of a rolled-down window, just so he could see. Parking the van, he reached over to the passenger seat and lifted up a laser welding unit. It was larger than current almost handheld models and came in two pieces. A hip attachment and the laser, which was connected through a thick cable.

  Still, if it worked, then he didn’t care. Besides, it might even be more powerful than the newer models.

  “What are you going to use this on, anyway?” Monroe asked, as he handed it over. “You know I would be happy to weld anything you need, right?”

  They finished loading the rest of the items into the back of the truck before Trace answered him. “I know that, but this is something that might become a recurring issue. So, I thought it would be best if I learned how to do some light welding. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Inside the apartment, the railgun was still mostly disassembled on his work desk, allowing him to easily walk Monroe through the changes he had made to it.

  “Hmm, so, you’re going to use the laser welder to attach the fins, and the heat transfer pipes, along with anneal them, now that you’ve already bent them?” The professional asked him.

  Trace nodded slowly. “I hadn’t actually thought about doing the annealing with it, but the other two, yeah.”

  “I’ll anneal the pipes with a torch, but it should work for the other two items, as long as you’re careful when working with the heat transfer pipes. I’d suggest working on a few other things for practice first.”

  “I can do that, and I appreciate you letting me use this.” Trace hefted the deceivingly heavy unit.

  “Eh, it’s been sitting in storage, unused for a while now. If you have a use for it, then as far as I’m concerned, you can have it.” Monroe straightened and cracked his back. “Now, don’t we have somewhere to be?”

  The sale of the rebreather masks went off without a hitch, and a short time later, they were both flush with credits. The crate had contained seventy-five of the masks originally, minus what they had taken, and several extra filters for each. At a store, those same units would cost around thirty-five hundred credits. They weren’t the top model, but they weren’t the bottom-of-the-barrel version either.

  At the black market, someone could buy them for closer to twenty-five hundred credits, perhaps less if they haggled and it would come with an extra filter. They were selling them for a flat fifteen hundred credits and throwing in all the filters for free. It wasn’t actually all that great of a deal for them, however; they needed the money quick, and this had made it happen.

  Monroe and Trace split the money right down the middle and both walked away with fifty-three thousand, two-hundred and fifty credits. The buyer also gave them a tip on someone who might be interested in buying some ingredients.

  After seeing how much they could make selling the stuff they had brought back, both of them were eager to sell the rest. Unfortunately, that would have to wait until later.

  No immediate reply was forthcoming after they messaged the number they had been given, and Sevorah still hadn’t gotten back to them about everything else.

  Back at the warehouse, Monroe took the van to get the glass repaired. After which he would fetch the semi, which was nearing completion. Now, he would be able to pay for all the work his friend’s shop had done to it as well. Trace chipped in a portion of what they had just received to help cover it.

  The semi might belong to Monroe, but they would be using it for work going forward. It made sense that he paid for at least some of the work done to it.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Several more deposits had come in from Stick-Point regarding reaper teams who had used his information. A few of the locations had already been raided, but the bulk of them, up to that point at least, were new information. There was no mention of the data prism, but Trace figured it was only a matter of time if things continued like this.

  He had been practicing with the laser welder for nearly an hour when a new message from the job broker came in. They had been approved for two jobs, and possibly a third, depending on their speed.

  The first job would take them out into the wastelands, near where his third job had been in the Lonetree area. It was a standard rescue mission, for some low-level gonk corpo who had been silly enough to be kidnapped. The corporation didn’t want to pay whoever had taken the idiot. So, they had been hired to rescue him. After which he or she, it didn’t really matter which would undoubtedly be fired with extreme and likely fatal prejudice.

  That was what they got for working for an evil corporation.

  After bringing the gonk back close enough that they could summon a taxi, they would then move on to an area called Newlin Meadows. It was near that destroyed warehouse they had visited during their last job, and right next to the reservoir. A gang had taken up residence out there, even taking the time to clear out a neighborhood of all the old mines and other explosives left from the war.

  All they needed to do was talk to the leader, or someone else of importance and find out what their intentions were toward the scarpo town of Parker.

  Assuming they finished both of those jobs in time, then they would be heading to the northern ruins of Parker, where a pit had opened up beneath the destroyed ruins of what had once been a massive store. Other edgers would be there as well already working the site, so it just depended on how much progress had been made in figuring out what had happened.

  He acknowledged everything and then forwarded the message onto Monroe. They needed to start getting ready.

  Trace moved into the apartment and seated himself in front of the railgun. It was time to finish putting this thing together.

  He dialed the strength of the beam down and carefully did each of the heat transfer pipes first. Then, dialing the intensity back up, he made a few quick tack welds to hold the fins in place before fully seating them.

  The welds weren’t perfect, but the hour of practice most definitely hadn’t been wasted effort either.

  He went over everything one last time, ensuring that the fans and new additions were all working before putting it all back together. There were two final items that needed to be done to it. A quick coat of heat-resistant paint, in matte-black with silver striations. The other item was taking his newly freed-up scope from the scout rifle and attaching it to the top.

  Which would mean tearing off the picatinny rail from another scout rifle and using the laser welder to very carefully attach it in place. Currently, the top of the railgun was completely smooth. Installing the rail would be easy, as long as he could ensure it was completely straight. If it wasn’t, then the scope would be absolutely useless.

  He hung the gun from the ceiling using a couple of wire hooks and painted it. Then, while it was drying, he set about removing the picatinny rail from one of his spare scout rifles. This model was actually very easy to work with, as it was simply screwed in. That meant if it was ever off center, you could adjust it yourself with a simple screwdriver. However, that was not an option for the railgun as Trace was not about to go putting holes in it.

  He did have an idea on how to make sure it was completely centered though. Measuring the width of the top of the railgun, he followed that by doing the same with the rail. Then he subtracted the two numbers and divided it by two. After that, he had Deckard print out four small blocks that could be used to push against the rail with clamps.

  Once everything was in place, he adjusted the rail’s position to where he wanted it and then tacked it into position.

  After that came putting the scope onto it and testing it out. Actually, testing out the gun would have to wait until they were out of the city, but he could take it up to the roof and at least check to make sure it wasn’t grossly off center.

  The scope was still underpowered for something as powerful as the railgun, but it was better than nothing. And it would help in situations where he didn’t want to use the magnification in his eyes, which was most of the time. When you did that, you lost all awareness of your surroundings and your peripheral vision. Someone could be right beside you with a gun to your head and you would never even know it.

  That was why he didn’t like using that particular feature. He had heard too many stories from others who had depended on it and later regretted it.

  Back down in the main section of the warehouse, he had moved the truck and fastback car over by the lift where they would be out of the way. He had cleared off the table he had been using for welding practice earlier and was setting out all his equipment and supplies.

  The duffel bag that he usually kept rolled up for looting purposes was unfurled and sitting on the table with items inside it for a change. It contained the rebreather mask, which he had painted matte black earlier, as well as all his ropes, the hook that went with them, and the climbing suction cups. If they made it to the hole in time, then there would definitely be some climbing involved.

  Off to the side, two first-aid kits, with general healing stims in them, had been placed for emergencies. Though he really didn’t want to use them, just thinking about it made his virtual account balance bleed.

  On the other side of the duffel bag were his typical guns. The Colter 700 Special 4 revolver, scout rifle with its new scope, suppressed shotgun, suppressed assault rifle, and, of course, the rail gun. There were also the two pistols always strapped to his thighs and the two knives he rarely used, but also always had.

  It was a lot, but there was room in the semi. As soon as he got a proper holster for the revolver, then that would probably end up on his left thigh. He liked the Kenyobi pistol, at least in theory. Reality had other things to say about it. The suppressor on the Colter Deen extended the barrel to about the same length and made it just about as accurate as the K-10, which had been its big draw. The fact that it hadn’t originally had a suppressor on it either meant he had never gotten used to using it. Now it did, but it was simply too little, too late. Though he did like the scope on it, he could always bring that over to the CD-10.

  It was better to just set that gun to the side and put his revolver on that thigh.

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