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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 4, 2011 21:59:49 GMT -5
Screech's Roadmaster shook onwards, bouncing down the road, the trailer swinging behind as best as Screech could keep it in line, even as he laid on the accelerator. Sluggishly, the truck responded as Screech poured on the speed.
Ahead, coming out of the rainy night, Screech made out three bikes and a technical truck, riders helmeted, face masked, respiratored, spiked, and mean. Each of the vehicles looked more akin to a dune buggy or go-kart or something straight out of an episode of Desert Wars than anything you could pick up at a used car lot. Strapped to any flat, load bearing surface, was some kind of weapon. Every strut, every joint was reinforced and gave the appearance of a tank.
Straining to steady his optics and sensors, Screech does his best to scan his lag pursuit, but can only identify two of the vehicles as 'not bikes', due to shear size.
Gritting his teeth, Screech kept the Roadmaster hauling ass and in a mostly straight line until the two groups merged in a thunderous cacophony of snarling engines.
Apparently not expecting such rapid closure, one of the bikes lines up to play chicken but, at the last moment, realizes the enormity of the Roadmaster and equal girth of Screech's resolve and swerves off, zooming past and head on into the lag pursuit vehicles.
The others, with more sober intent, swing their vehicles around as the Roadmaster nears and, by the time Screech is merging with them, have matched speed well enough to be neck and neck.
Though his meat eyes are dead to the world, the van's cameras can pick up the raucous crew - leathers, spikes, various melee implements. Several large machineguns. The back of the truck mounts a tripod and heavy weapon manned by a heavily armored troll...
The night was lit up by gunfire.
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Post by ScornMandark on Apr 5, 2011 10:52:28 GMT -5
Gritting his teeth, he almost smirks as the one bike swerves. He had honestly been looking forward to running that sucker down. 'Ah well. That technical needs taking care of first.' Wincing at the feeling he was getting from the hitch in the back, Screech makes a calculated move to cut off the truck with the HMG. No sense trying to shoot it down, the bikes'll shred easily enough. If he can just keep his distance, he may be able to outrun these guys.
With a look in the rearward camera, he sighs. Or maybe not.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 6, 2011 12:15:41 GMT -5
Swerving hard to the right, Screech cuts a swath through the road with his large armored van and trailer. The bikers swarming around him dodge nimbly out of the way. Damn it all!, he thinks to himself. As his van continues it's fish tailing, the trailer flapping wildly, Screech does his level best to control the van and keep the trailer on the road as it bounces along, now on one wheel, now on two.
One of the trucks, a modified Tata GAZ with a machine gun mounted on the bed, comes barrelling up, an ork wearing a gas mask in the back lining up a shot while the driver tries to get as close as possible. The ork opens up, firing high and wide, and fights to bring his machinegun onto target. Finally wrestling the gun, the ork brings a few rounds into the back of the van, pinging and pocking off the armored shell.
Feeling more than hearing the impacts, Screech cuts wildly to avoid the fire and, as he does so, sends the trailer into the front end of the oncoming truck. A slight nudge is all it takes in the midst of the rain and debris, and the truck starts to fish tail slightly, and then, as if hitting a land mine, turns sideways and flips spectacularly through the air, the ork gunner flying off into night, bouncing down the road like a rag doll. The truck disintegrates in a shower of sparks and scrap metal, threatening the vehicles further down the road. Watching with baited breath. Screech is disappointed to see the other vehicles swerve out of the way of the truck-cum-projectile.
His reverie does not last long, as Screech notes the two bikers, having gotten clear of his swerving van, have produced Ingram Smart guns and, leveling them at his tires, let out long burrrruurrrups of automatic fire. Swerving this way and that, Screech takes most of the weapons fire on the thick armored hide of his van, other rounds being lost into the pavement or out into the night.
Checking this rear-facing camera again, Screech lets out a hoot of triumph when one of the pursuit motorcycles tries to dodge around the oncoming truck hulk and loses control, spinning off into falling down strip malls lining the decrepit highway.
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Post by ScornMandark on Apr 7, 2011 11:14:20 GMT -5
With heavier ammo than his own tearing up around him, Screech twitches a bit at the attack. The flip and crash of the technical was deeply satisfying, even if it didn't exactly go as he had hoped. Still, to take out 2 of 'em at once was better than he had been hoping. While swerving again to avoid more of the heavy machine gunning from behind, he nearly gets clipped by one of the bikes again.
"Ok, enough of you!" He shouts as the LMG swivels and tracks one of the bikers for a moment before exploding in a lead hail. The computer tracks the bike while helpfully pointing out the structural weak points in this particular design.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 7, 2011 16:47:05 GMT -5
When the cross hairs float over the bike, Screech depresses the trigger, hoping his turret's movement and aiming compensator will keep him on target. His first burst goes wide, causing the targeted bike's driver to duck and evasively fishtail. The Ares MP-LMG's ex-ex rounds tear into the concrete and pavement, leaving fist sized pockmarks stitching down the road. It is a few seconds before he can line up another shot.
When again the cross hairs and target mix, Screech fires, a long burst tearing through his target. Rounds smash into the left side of the bike's body, slicing through the driver's leg, nearly severing it at the thigh as the bike begins to spin. Within moments, the bike is leaning back and laying down, pulling the right side of the rider into the stream of bullets. The front wheel comes off, part of the handlebars, an arm flies clear and the bike, rider included, is hammered to scrap and sent sliding along the road in a streak of gore and sparks.
Checking his sensors, Screech notes that he is pulling away from his opponents, though a technical is working forward, vaulting over the smashed bike like it were only a crack in the pavement, it's huge lift kit and off-road suspension bouncing merrily. Then, Screech notes the heavy machinegun on the back...
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Post by ScornMandark on Apr 7, 2011 17:12:40 GMT -5
"Ah, you want some too, huh? Alright, here ya go!" The LMG swings hungrily at the technical, taking a moment to settle in on it as Screech swerves hard around another crater in the road. The glitter of blood streaked chrome energizes him in a grotesque fashion, the sparks raining down with what was left of the meta. As he lets the computer track the target momentarily while he dodges yet another axle-snapping hole, 'I shoulda picked up that hovertruck I talked to Joe about. Lord this is a mess.' There is a soft ding as the autonav begins to lose track of the technical, so he takes full control again, leads a degree or so, then unleashes his stinger again.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 20, 2011 13:54:20 GMT -5
The chase continues barreling down the decrepit roads of Hell's Kitchen, Screech's autonav ticking down the kilometers and meters until his next steer point.
Laying into the oncoming technical, Screech can see through his sensors and cameras the front hood buckle and dent, deform and rent as his Ex-Ex rounds shred through the armored metal and tear into components within. The truck wavers and fishtails as the driver tries to find his way out of the stream of lead, eventually swinging hard right, jumping a drainage ditch and continuing the chase on the sidewalks and parking lots of the burned out sprawl.
Toggling his nitrous injection, Screech feels the rush of power through his limbs, the light heady feeling of speed and thrill. The Roadmaster leaps forward, pulling father and farther away from chasing vehicles, only a single bike closing the gap.
Ignoring the bike, contemptuous of the rider's small arms, Screech keeps tracking the technical he'd riddled earlier, watching the modified Hotspur dodge in and out of sight behind cratered strip malls, burned out fueling stations, leaping curbs and parking blocks, tearing holes in fences. Finally, Screech gets a shot and takes it, only to see the Hotspur swerve behind an overturned 18-wheeler, the bottom of which turns to a fury of sparks and scrap under the hail of weapons fire.
As Screech searches for another shot, the Hotspur never emerges back into sight. Checking his sensors and cameras, he sees all of the vehicles falling back. The nearest bike peels to a hard, power-sliding stop in the middle of the ruined road, doff's his helmet-respirator, casts a glance over his shoulder, onward on Screech's route. Pumping his fist in the air, he lays on the throttle and lays down a wide band of rubber, letting the rear end of his bike swirl around in a semi-circle of smoke, and popping a wheelie, cuts out back the way his comrades came, leaving Screech suddenly alone.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 20, 2011 14:48:52 GMT -5
Speeding away from the fleeing gangers, Screech checks his sensors, not sure what to expect. Finding a clean read, he presses on.
Scanning around, feeling far from safe, Screech notes a thin dust rising out of the fields south and east of his van. Squinting, zooming, he searches for a vehicle and, finding none, is perplexed.
The dust cloud grows nearer, and the ground begins to tremor visibly - probably the cause for the dust in the first place - and then split. The cracks form a widening gap, the ground tearing open, a huge worm rising out of the ground with a thunderous roar.
Easily two meters thick, the head of the creature is shaped like an almond bulb, chitinous plates surrounding a five jointed mouth that leers and splits into a terrible shriek to reveal a seemingly endless series of toothy rings, each pointing deeper into the creature's gullet.
Rising high into the air, the creature slams head first into the ground, cracking the earth, its segmented body furrowing into the hole made by the head. With horror, Screech realizes that the creature is likely ten or twenty meters long... He really is not sure. The monstrosity disappears from sight, slithering back into the earth. The tremors are dead set for a collision course with Screech further down the road.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 23, 2011 10:17:16 GMT -5
[13 March, 2069. 22:15, The Wastes, Hell's Kitchen, Puyallup]
Screech barrels down the road, swerving to avoid pot holes and debris, keeping one eye locked on the furrow racing through the fields and asphalt parking lots off to his right. A god damned hell worm... Can't let that thing under the van. Can't let that thing under the van. Can't let it under the van...
As the furrow grows nearer, Screech can feel his van becoming slippy, missing the smart-tires as his run-flats are unable to actively respond to tremors and the loss of traction. Once near, Screech loses track of the worm, as the ground goes quiet ahead of his path.
Suddenly, the ground explodes in a torrent of dust and debris, chunks of road showering the Roadmaster as the huge worm writhes rampant out of the earth. Standing at least seven meters out of the earth, the huge creature creates something of a roadblock, having utterly destroyed much of the road. A sonorous howl fills the air as the giant maw parts. The huge worm points the five jointed mouth at the van and Screech gets a long hard look at the eternity of teeth and bowels within. Screech can see segments of its girth contracting in series towards the head and, at the last moment realizes that something terrible is happening.
The huge worm's roar grows shrill a moment as the spasms near the head, and a massive flow of milky gray liquid issues forth towards the van, a long streak of steam following it through the acid rain.
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Post by ScornMandark on Apr 24, 2011 0:33:40 GMT -5
Eyes going bug wide, Screech feels a moment of horror at the monstrosity in front of him. The spitting doesn't exactly help. He swerves as the hissing liquid sprays, dodging craters and sinkholes in the road almost as much as the acid, almost getting out of the way in time.
Almost.
Screech can feel his skin start itching, almost burning as the acid sprays down the driver's side of the van. His whole left side feels as though he has a mild sunburn, at the peeling phase. Not something he'd like to repeat. "Gero gero da yo..."
As he swerves back into the road from the latest pothole, he paints a target in the center of the worm's mouth and lets fly again with his LMG. His ammo counter is steadily letting know precisely how much he's shot off so far, something he honestly could have done without. As his gun bucks and smokes, his thoughts are racing to find a way around this giant worm. His autonav also reminds him how much further to the dropoff. He's not looking forward to getting back out again tonight.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 25, 2011 16:09:06 GMT -5
The worm rears up, gathering itself for another stream of acid spit. Screech's targetting system locks onto the creature's head and, as the mouth opens, he fires. The LMG's clatter fills Screech's ears and, through his cameras, he can see the effects his machine gun has on the beast.
Ex-ex rounds hammer into the open maw, tearing off one of the five mouth flaps, sending it spinning into the night. Dark ichor explodes out from the wound, hissing and sizzling. Pressing his crosshairs down and into the beast's tubular body, Screech unzips the worm a full meter down from the mouth, his machinegun splitting the chitinous plates and shredding the thing's insides. Seeing it waver, Screech re-acquires the wound and pours more fire into the rent in the creature's hide. With a loud wail trailing off into a bass heavy thrum, the massive worm writhes a few times and then falls to the earth like a felled tree.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Screech leans back into his command console. It is then that he sees a wall of dust clouds on the horizon, bearing down on him. Checking his auto-nav, Screech realizes that, if he presses on, he'll probably make it to the drop off before the beasts are upon him. Probably.
Blinking a moment, Screech is brought back to the present, having to dodge the fallen corpse of the worm and regain the road...
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Post by ScornMandark on Apr 26, 2011 8:29:16 GMT -5
Screech is vaguely reminded of some of the horror trids that Joe kept making him suffer through. "Revenge of the Tremor King," "The Cerberus Gambit," "Beetlejuice 13: I ain't done yet!" and others that all seemed to feature this nearly exact scenario. He begins to wonder about cameras in the area, but decides to just keep an eye out for new flicks coming out in the next few months.
As he keeps his speed up, he twitches the wheel to the left and then back, dodging around the smoking carcass of the hell worm that seemed to be oozing acid into the street. The trailer skids on one side of its wheels as he careens down the pocked road, jarring back down with a clatter designed to set Screech's teeth on edge. He keeps a camera trained on the dust plumes as he tears down the deserted street to his drop off point.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on Apr 27, 2011 13:37:25 GMT -5
[13 March, 2069. 23:30, The Drop-Off, Hell's Kitchen, Puyallup]
Hauling down the cratered roads of Hell's Kitchen, Screech pulls off at last onto the long stretch of single road towards his drop off, the large factory or mill's cooling towers and holding tanks looming in the hazy distance. The internal temperature of the Roadmaster has climbed steadily as the acid produced waste heat, eating through whatever it touched.
The last few minutes of the ride are tense, Screech's autonav changing its prediction for time of arrival vs. time of intercept fluidly as the oncoming worms changed in their speed, and as Screech struggled to keep the Roadmaster and trailer moving quickly down the dirt road. At last, the heavily armored vehicle pushes past the outer walls of the compound, and Screech breathes a long sigh of relief.
Armored, enviro-sealed guards quickly flank his vehicle and Screech is advised to stay inside his vehicle, for health reasons due to the acid rain. A few guards confer, and soon the Roadmaster is sprayed down from a fire hose attached to a nearby building.
In no longer than an hour, the vehicle is offloaded and comm traffic instructs Screech that his services are no longer needed. Several armed guards direct his van back towards the main gate, automatically shutting it behind him.
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Post by ScornMandark on Apr 27, 2011 15:40:14 GMT -5
Screech waves thanks at the spray hose operator. The Roadmaster wasn't designed with optimal creature comforts in mind, and the cooling system took a backseat to environmental sealing considerations. As the last container is finally unloaded, Screech breathes another sigh of relief, happy to be done with the unpleasant part. None of the containers were breached, no blown tires, and the trailer made it all the way in.
Now, of course, was the trick of getting all the way back out.
The hour of respite was very welcome, for as soon as the gate shuts behind him again, he goes back on high alert. All he has to do is get the trailer back, then he's taking a few days off again.
Scanning around for anything even remotely threatening, Screech floors it, aiming to put the Barrens behind him again for a while.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on May 3, 2011 14:20:33 GMT -5
Upon leaving the gate, Screech red lines the Roadmaster just to hear it, to feel it. When the tires bite into the ground and the vehicle leaps forward, pressing him into the seat, Screech cracks a grin. 'Here I come, hell worms. Try and catch me.'
Barreling down the dirt road, Screech's scans indicate a great deal of moment no more than a kilometer off. Swiveling a camera, Screech can see the tell tale dust swarms bubbling over the cracked earth, headed his way. One of the furrows is nearly thrice the size of the others. Did I kill her baby?, Screech asks himself.
Power sliding out onto the main road, the Roadmaster tips onto two wheels before slamming back flat on all fours and pouncing down the road like a big game cat. Feeling more than seeing the Worms get closer, Screech starts to panic. Scanning about, he notes an utter lack of tremors and dust. Confused, wary and curious, he drives on. Suddenly, out of the road bed a few meters ahead, one of the worms comes exploding into the air, mouth agape in a horrid snarl, crooning the song of its kind. Swerving to avoid the beast, Screech cuts left, the tail of his trailer wildly bouncing along, screeching in complaint against the hitch. Further down the road, another worm blows through the earth in the middle of a strip mall parking lot, writhing about before settling its mouth in the direction of the van. Dodging the incoming stream of acid, Screech grits his teeth.
'Alright, you want to play rough? Let's see how well you blind bastards hunt what you can't hear.'
Aiming his Roadmaster at the front of a MondoMart, a 2040s competitor to Stuffer Shack, Screech smashes into the corner of the building. The dull, ringing pain of a punch to the head echoes through Screech's ears and he can feel a myriad of scratches and cuts all over his skin as the Roadmaster grinds through support beams, dry wall, and old aluminium goods racks. Crushing brick, disloding pipes, and turning whatever is less hefty than the Roadmaster into powder, Screech's vehicle struggles through the front wall of the MondoMart. Deeper within the bowels of the store, a few humanoids crowded around a burning fire barrel scatter like rats.
Clearing the last of the store, the Roadmaster exits the building, leaping onto the concrete outside and bouncing towards the main road. Screech blinks a few times, shakes his head, thinks of crossing himself, and then ploughs onward toward the growing brightness of the Seattle Sprawl.
Within a kilometer of the LoneStar cut-off, Screech checks his cameras again, for the umpteenth time. Finding them clear at last, he slows down, thinks better of it, and floors it again. Far behind him, he can hear the echoing call of the worms reverberating off of the concrete husks of the abandoned sprawl.
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Post by ScornMandark on May 4, 2011 8:33:08 GMT -5
As he flies down the road to (relative) safety, Screech can feel the sweat trickling down his meat back even as he feels a cracking on his nose and face from plowing face first into a building. Commanding the gun to stow even a few hundred meters from the cut-off makes him a bit nervous, but he'd rather get a speeding ticket than arrested for highly illegal weaponry.
As the fading calls of the worms finally stop echoing, Screech lets out a gusty sigh, even as he crosses into "civilization." Cutting his speed to somewhat legal levels, he cuts the RADAR and Ultra-Wideband sensors to minimal (i.e. - normal vehicle sensor levels, not his very high powered suite) and runs on mainly cameras. The AR graffiti starts picking up again as he moves out of the Barrens, oddly comforting in it's normalcy. The rain continues to beat down on him, streaking the windows and pooling in odd spots on the nose due to the buckling of the frame in spots.
[14 March, 2069. 00:13, Trailer Drop Off]
<<#ScreechTag>>
<<Thanks.>>
Screech tripped the vehicle tag eraser as he secured the trailer back in the spot he left it, waiting for a minute as the EMP blasted through the Roadmaster. He didn't feel the need for a longer note to the owner of the trailer, which served him pretty well, all things considered. He also fired off a note to the Yak.
<<Screech @ Hideo>>
<<All delivered, the containers are 100% intact.>>
After the telltale hum of the eraser dies down, Screech climbs back into the Roadmaster and jacks in. No longer hampered by the swinging weight in the back, he cracks his neck and stretches, trying to work around the discomfort in his face and neck. That damage didn't floor him personally, but he is intensely aware of the hit.
Forward Frame max deflection 27° off nominal.
Main Radiator sustained impact, max effect unknown, overall system cooling reduced by 23%.
Forward alignment affected, upwards of 8° toe-out.
Forward Armor plating assumed damaged, unable to verify.
He sighed as he fired up the engine and started back for home. Without a specific meet up picked out, he wasn't sure if the Yak would wire the funds or expect a meeting for a secure transfer. Screech already could see that 2300 cred dropping out of sight, with his tire fixes and the damage to the truck itself.
Driving into the night, the injured beast rumbled past metas huddled under bus stops, cheap respirators trying to keep up with the acid spray from the rain.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on May 7, 2011 11:33:54 GMT -5
[14 March, 2069. 02:30 - Higashi's Chop Shop, Tacoma]
Screech is winding down break-down work on the Roadmaster, having bid Joe a late good night earlier when the chime in the front room sounds. 'We're closed,' Screech calls out. The chime rings a few more times, leaving Screech with no choice but to head to the front room.
There he finds the be-suited Japanese looking calm as ever, a slow smile crossing his lips when Screech enters. 'My associates tell me that you managed not one but two deliveries, in spite of the less than idea conditions. They expressed a measure of displeasure at their goods being exposed to such danger, mitigated, of course, by their pleasure at a timely and successful delivery.' Glancing down at his commlink, Hideo then produces a certified cred stick and extends it towards Screech. 'Your payment.'
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Post by ScornMandark on May 7, 2011 13:35:32 GMT -5
Screech raises his eyebrows at the man. "Less than ideal conditions indeed. The costs I incurred during the deliveries nearly will outstrip the payment." Screech bows slightly at Hideo and takes the cred stick. "I am glad that your associates have found the deliveries acceptable. To be quite honest, I wasn't sure I was going to survive the second trip." He gently bounces the cred stick in his hand. "Is there any room to discuss a hazardous duty surcharge?"
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on May 7, 2011 15:15:16 GMT -5
Hideo raises an eyebrow. 'You will find that your payment has been increased by twenty percent to cover damages. Having reviewed video of your vehicle, I will allow for another ten percent.' Reaching into his suit jacket, Hideo produces another credstick and passes it to Screech. 'Consider this a retainer of sorts. It would be bad business to hire a driver and then let his vehicle become wrecked. No more driver. No more business. Bad business.'
Nodding, Hideo indicates that he is leaving. 'I will be in touch if I come across more work suited to your talents.'
Hideo strides out into the night.
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Post by ScornMandark on May 7, 2011 16:17:56 GMT -5
Screech bows deeply as the Yakuza leaves the shop. He waits what seems to be an appropriate length of time and then straightens. He whistled through his teeth as he slots the cred stick. 'Hazardous duty indeed...'
He finishes closing down the shop for the night, then heads back to his apartment to crash. He barely remembers the ride home, let alone hitting his bed.
[14 March, 2069. 09:23, Higashi's Chop Shop]
Screech strolls into the 'Shop, feeling better than he has in weeks. Sure, he went through half a belt of ammo, blew out two smart tires and smashed up the front end of the Roadmaster, but that payout was enough to keep him grinning for a while. He sends a message on his way in from the apartment.
<<Screech @ Keller>>
<<Please pass on my thanks again to your contact for the trailer. I trust he found it in satisfactory condition at the drop-off location?>>
Walking into the shop, it's still early enough that there are no real customers yet, just Joe sipping some soycaf and reading the news. "Oi, Joe!" He looks up and waves his 'caf cup in Screech's general direction before going back to the news.
Shaking his head, Screech takes another look at the Roadmaster in the daylight. Yeesh, but she was a bit of a mess this morning. Glancing back at the workbench, he decides to start in on his other tire for now so he can give the runflats back to Joe. As the first customers begin rolling in, Screech is engrossed in his tire repair. Kicking himself for not recording an AR overlay from the first tire repair, he engages his eye recorders and quietly narrates as he goes.
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Post by ScornMandark on May 7, 2011 18:55:48 GMT -5
[14 March, 2069. 13:34, Higashi's Chop Shop]
Screech cracks his neck and shuts off his eye recorders as he finally finishes putting his second tire back together. 'At least it's cheaper than new ones...' Eyeballing the pile of tags and wrappings of parts now littering the floor around the workbench, he grabbed a broom and swept up before letting his comm fast forward back through the recording and tally the total parts used on the tire. Between this and the last one, he's coming out around 1k. 'Easy come....'
He spent a few minutes changing out the tires back to his smart tires. The run-flats he stacked back in the corner with an AR note to Joe. He could almost feel the Roadmaster settling back down on its haunches as the smarts weigh it down. Silly, considering the tires don't really load the frame and all, but still.
Walking back into the main area of the shop, he slots the Yak's cred stick, transfers 1100 cred and pops it back out. He leaves it on Joe's desk by his data entry terminal with another AR sticky note.
Turning back around, Screech looks for his friend and boss. Technically he's put in his 20 already this week, but to be quite honest, he's not looking forward to rebending and rebuilding the Roadmaster's front end. "Oi, Joe - want me to grab some lunch?"
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Post by ScornMandark on May 8, 2011 23:48:14 GMT -5
[14 March, 2069. 14:02, Higashi's Chop Shop]
Screech walked back into the shop having hit up Bill's Burrito Barn down the street. Why his boss was so enamored with the 98% soy burritos was beyond him, although the slogan "Made with real meat! Honest!" was technically not incorrect. He shook his head and dropped the pile on Joe's desk. He choked down a mushy tortilla wrapped... something... and chugged a soda. Glancing over the work chart for the rest of the day, there was at least an interesting repair down with an S next to it. 'I wonder if Joe expected me to come in and work more this week or if it's just not that much of a rush.'
Intrigued, Screech wandered into the shop, stepping past Joe's feet as he worked on what was apparently a stubborn oil plug. "Grub on the desk." As he headed toward the incoming area, he heard a muffled thanks come from under the Commodore.
And there it was. Thundercloud Contrail, basically stock, customer wanted a tune up "and then some." Screech had a few ideas already, and he was lost to the world for a while just looking over the bike.
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Post by ScornMandark on May 9, 2011 14:28:00 GMT -5
[14 March, 2069. 14:11, Higashi's Chop Shop]
"Not too shabby, eh?" Screech jumped a little as Joe dropped a hand on his shoulder. Talking around a mouthful of burrito, he continued. "Hot shot kid wants some zing in his ride."
Screech nodded. He had suspected as much, but the thought of a less... obvious ride than the Roadmaster had occurred to him more than once. "Not a bad frame, got a lot to work with."
Joe nodded. "I figured you'd be back in at some point, either to work on your ride or shop stuff out of boredom. What? It's not like you do much else..."
Screech's glare turned to a rueful grin. "True." He turned back to the bike. "I've got a few things in mind, what's this kid's price range? Materials wise, I'm thinking 800, 3000, or 8000 cred options with related time to actually do all of it. What's the order of magnitude we're talking here?"
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on May 11, 2011 10:49:06 GMT -5
Joe gives a slight chuckle. 'Probably the top end of that cost scale - kid's dad is some kind of corp big dick.' Sighing, Joe runs his hand over the clean, aggressive line of the bike. 'I was thinking of doing the usual: making it sound like a really pissed off alley cat, change the gears a little bit so he can shred the rear tire if he wants, put some nice looking after market parts on so the ride has the right high-cred visuals. Leave it from being too big of a beast so that Johnny Go-Fast doesn't kill himself and can come back for a tune up.'
Smiling broadly, Joe starts laughing. 'Does that make me scum?' Without waiting for an answer, Joe glances to Screech. 'You got something in mind, boy-wonder? Whats that empty-egg-head of yours got cooking in it?'
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Post by ScornMandark on May 11, 2011 12:12:16 GMT -5
Screech laughs at that. "Top end, huh? Here's what I'm seeing."
He wanders his eyes over the bike, spelling it out with his words as he sees it in his mind.
"He wants fancy and fast, right? So give it to him. If he's got Big Daddy Corp Man funding his hobby, port-n-polish seems like aiming low. Upgrade the dog-brain in this ride to handle a set of smart tires. Maybe a gyro stabilizer - keep the kid from wiping his nose on the pavement. Bad for business. Then throw in a set of nitros so he can show off for all his friends. We'll even get the LEDs for the pressure vents."
The bike rotating in his head like a CAD model, he keeps going. "Kid wants to throw down serious cash, then we bore out the cylinders and replace the drive springs, make the thing go from alley cat to Serengeti. Maybe we save that for the next time he comes in."
Looking it over, Screech pauses. "Maybe we'll leave off the smarts and just put a nice set of Pirellis or Dunlops. Near the same thing, slow him down less."
He looks back at Joe with a grin. "Then throw on the chrome and AR bits and let him tear it up."
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Post by ScornMandark on May 13, 2011 14:36:12 GMT -5
Joe raises an eyebrow. "Let's talk it over later. Sounds like a bit much - convince me."
Screech shrugs. "You wanted to know what was cooking."
[14 March, 2069. 21:13, Higashi's Chop Shop]
Screech is plugged into Joe's terminal, printing out a few drawings he's come up with over the last few hours. Contrary to his initial visualization, all the mods he started spouting off were, while not incompatible, going to take a little work to shoehorn into the Contrail. Fortunately the frame was built modularly so part swaps and upgrades were more straightforward than one might expect. The gyro stabilization was going to be an... interesting implementation. He ended up carving out some space in the instrumentation pod between the handlebars for the 3-axis gyro and accelerometer. The Contrail forum even had suggestions on brands. The dog brain had a few additional I/O ports open so that was no big deal. Not the smartest bike on the block, but he figures if the kid wanted smarts, he could ask for 'em.Since there was a bit of room in the underbody, the auto-adjusting weights and solenoid controlled suspension adjustments were a good, if snug, fit.
The nitrous was a somewhat more involved design. Favoring simplicity in the mechanical design, Screech overlays a transparent outline of the pipework system over the image of the Contrail. He had rejected a multi-stage nitrous early on, favoring a pulsed progressive single tank design. More gradual application of the nitrous meant a smoother power band and overall better performance out of a single nitrous tank. Even considering the Contrail's mod-ability, minimizing the frame space used was still important.
'Hell, the kid's got room for a single or two stage turbo if he really wants.'
He sits at a table in the shop, looking over the designs for a while, deciding where to route all the piping. The injector site was pretty standard, but routing the gas line somewhere other than directly through the seat area was probably a good idea. The night progressed around him, the last customer having left the shop a while ago.
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Post by NoOnesShowMonkey on May 13, 2011 20:38:01 GMT -5
Screech feels Joe's hand on his back, breaking him from the reverie. Looking up from his data-terminal, Screech realizes that hours and hours have passed. His mouth directly next to Screech's ear, Joe peers over Screech's shoulder into the data terminal. Whistling in disbelief, he addresses his friend.
'Where in gods name did you learn how to do any of this stuff, omae. You just CADed up and then optimized parts that would have taken a team of engineers a few days to work through. You work customs long enough, you gotta turn things by hand, and you, my boy, have an artists eye.'
Clapping him on the shoulder, Joe stands up and pushes a beer over Screech's other shoulder. 'Take a break, omae, your work ethic is making me look bad.'
Leaning against the desk, Joe takes a swig from his bottle. 'Ahhhh, shit. What a day.' Grinning down at Screech, Joe tinks bottles with his friend. 'Your braincase shaking loose any dust mites? Remembering anything? Maybe some MIT classes or whatever?'
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Post by ScornMandark on May 14, 2011 10:57:01 GMT -5
Joe's hand on his back jerks him out of his near trance - it almost felt like getting dumpshocked. Grinning a little sheepishly, Screech gratefully takes the beer and pops the cable out of his jack. "Thanks." He cracks his neck and takes a long pull on the bottle. "Mmm." He leans back and kicks his feet up on the corner of the table.
He looks over the drawings he's worked up over the last few... no, make that several hours. "I dunno, Joe. Sometimes, like when I was deciding on the optimal location of the nitrous injectors, I almost get a flash of something, kinda like a serious deja vú. Nothing seems to stick, though. I tried to think about what I was doing, and there was... I dunno, something that kept telling me to leave well enough alone. To just let it slide and not worry about it."
Screech flicks through a few rejected layouts in his head, then trashes most of them. "I mean, I probably revised the layout on this thing 3 or 5 times before I settled on a good location. But, why is it a good location? Why do I know that? I think it must be more than just classes - that's all theoretical. It's like a gut feeling of 'rightness' or something, like there's a host of reasons that this variant is too stressful on other systems or that layout is gonna choke in high humidity... I just can't tell you why I'd know it." He grins. "Then there's the bizarre stuff. Might have been the burritos, but I even came up with an anthroform conversion. Intriguing, but what the hell, ya know?"
Sighing, he takes another drink. "Do you remember much from the night you picked me up outta the street? Anything that might be... I don't know, seemingly unimportant but still different? A piece of 'ware or an unfamiliar car or... or.... something? I haven't had a flashback in a while, but even those I do never seem to have anything important in 'em."
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Post by ScornMandark on May 23, 2011 9:11:13 GMT -5
Screech took another long drink from his beer. Even talking about his flashbacks was something he was uncomfortable with. It might have something to do with the horrifying imagery that it contained, or it might be something else. He hated them, especially since it seemed that nothing came of them. But, they might hold a clue to... something.
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