"Only four hundred bucks!? What are you trying to pull?" A slightly robotic voice yelled in a little hole in the wall scrap shop. It was Jarred, standing next to a pile of scrap roughly as tall as he was.
"It took me five days to gather this crap ya'know, even if it was just the metal alone it's worth more than that!" His hand was on the counter, fingers rapping against the display glass case at the counter. The little store was filled wall to wall with random scrap metal, junk, parts, and the few still functioning cybernetics were in the glass case, though even they were a little worse for wear.
The
very exhausted store owner wiped his face with rolling eyes. "Look, buddy, I gotta run a business 'ere jus' like everyone else, a'right? I'm already payin' ya more than what I want to, and I still gotta cut a profit. Four hundred, or no deal, capiche?" After some incoherent grumbling from Jarred and then an labored sigh Jarred agreed.
"Alright, alright. Ya don't have to preach to me about it." he said even thought he has been haggling for nearly thirty minutes now. He waited on the money, in cash as always to keep everything off the books.
"Okay then, same time next week, Hugo?" Jarred asked in a lighter tone. "Yeah yeah, get on out'a here ya masked nuisance. Now I gotta find a place for all this junk you call scrap." Jarred would smile if he could as he waved with his back turned to him.
"Always a pleasure doin' buisness with ya sir. Oh-" Jarred turned around,
"And if you could tell your son, Miguel, to stop hiding outside the door to try to mug me of the money you just payed me, that would be greeeeaaaat.... chow!" He finished with a lazy two finger salute, his thumb resting on his ring and pinky finger. A very faint whirring sound could be heard as he turned back around and walked out. Shorty after walking out the door, Hugo stood up from the junk pile with a little bit of a worried look on his face. He heard someone start to yell, but it didn't last long.
"Hey, Miguel!" he heard Jarred say. "Give me your money, bi-
UALALULULALALALALALALAAUahhhh!" Miguel shouted right before, and apparently
while he was getting tased. There was a short silence followed by the sound of someone flopping onto the ground.
"Nevermind, Hugo, too late.... I think he knows!" Jarred said as he continued to walk away, making a blowing sound as he brought his two fingers to his face like blowing smoke from a barrel. On his way down the street he saw a familiar bar and thought about his own alcohol stockpile at home.....which was none.
"Hmmmmmm," he hummed as he patted himself over, looking for something.
"AHA!" he pulled out a flask from his pocket and gave it a shake....nothing. He popped the cap and turned it over.....still nothing.
"....well shit...." He guessed it was time to restock, or at least fill up his flask. He started to walk into the bar when the bouncer was busy with another customer, however, it didn't seem like it was the only bouncer. He got stopped by another, a familiar face (even though Jarred couldn't remember his name for the life of him), who had also asked to offload any weapons.
"What? Since when did people start having to do that? Wait...is it because of the mask? It's the mask isn't it? That's not very polite ya'know, but I'll overlook it for now and comply with your asinine request." The bouncer rolled his eyes as Jarred pulled out his sawed off shotgun and placed it in the bouncer's hands.
"There, don't scratch her, she already doesn't like being handled by other men." With a sigh the bouncer continued, "Jarred, c'mon man, I know you have more on you." Damn....this guy really did know him, and Jarred couldn't stand not knowing a name of someone who could remember his. He started offloading his other weapons.
"Greg?" he handed over his pistol. "Nope."
"Uuuuhhhh...Kerry?" as he started pulling out his lever action rifle. "Wrong again."
"Dammit...hmmm...Victor?" as he set it in his hands. "Not even close."
"God bless it, Jason, I know I've told you I'm bad at names!" he said irritatedly, unknowing that he got it right. "There ya go."
"OH!....so I did...," he finished as he pulled his knife out, flipping it in the air and catching it by the blade to hand it to Jason handle first. Jason had to shift around a bit to grab it as well. "Holy shit man, you pack enough heat or what?"
"Not at all, I wish I could carry more. Alright, Jack, let me get a drink to fill my flask and I'll be right back out." The bouncer shook his head as he went over and put the weapons in a safe box for him until he came back.
Jarred went over to the counter and ordered enough whiskey to fill his flask, payed for it and filled it up, leaving the glass for the bartender. "I never understand why you don't just stick around and drink, often as you come by here."
"It's easy, Victor-," he started. "Kerry," the man corrected.
"OOOOH ok, that makes sense now." Jarred remarked about the mix up of names in his head.
"Anyway, yeah, it's easy, I like to drink, just not in public. Cheers." he said as he raised his flask and then stored it. He sat down in the booth and looked around. There was definitely an
odd assortment of people in here today.