Chapter 26: Chapter 26 Chop Shop
"Looks like we have a few nobodies, who don't know they don't belong down here," sneered the closest person. He was obviously a cyborg with one arm and the opposite leg having been replaced with robotic limbs.
The other three guys chuckled, or at least Olivia thought they did, she wasn't familiar with their species. One looked like a blue fish out of water, with so many implants, you almost couldn't see his scales. Another looked like a giant ogre with tusks poking out from his lower lip. He had what looked like a cerebral implant in his left temple, that kind of looked infected with pus leaking out. The last guy had a robot body with a head in a jar. His chuckle was the one she was the least sure of, as it came out more like static from the speaker on his right shoulder.
"Look, Olivia! There's a chop shop!" exclaimed Granny, excitedly, pointing down the street to a tiny shop front that could be barely seen over a pile of rubble that looked like two taxis had collided and fell from the sky, then left to burn out on their own. She was completely ignoring the four guys in front of them, and it didn't seem to impress them much.
"Want to go check it out?" asked Olivia, also ignoring the group.
"You b*tch! How dare you ignore me!" barked the first guy, swinging to hit Olivia with his robotic arm.
She ducked under the blow and roundhouse kicked him in the face. He fell hard, and didn't get up.
The other three paused to look at him, before the ogre went to grab at Granny. She caught his arm and snapped it like a twig. As he fell to the ground, screaming in pain, the other two ran off, cursing at them.
"Have you been to a chop shop, before?" asked Granny, stepping past the guy holding his arm.
"Not that I remember," said Olivia, stepping over the unconscious body.
"I love going into them, just to see what all they have available. They usually have all sorts of neat electronics and implants."
Olivia glanced over at Granny. She sounded far younger than she actually was, and Olivia wished she could see her actual face for a moment.
Pushing through the door, the shop wasn't very large. Above the very first set of shelves, hung a half-dismantled robot, with a sign hung around its neck that said, "Shoplifter's will be dismantled."
"Looking for anything in particular?" came a voice from the back of the shop, and they turned to see a human man inside a glass booth looking at them with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His black hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and his shirt was cut to accentuate the implants he had on his chest.
"Nope, just looking," chirped Granny, dragging Olivia over to a shelf where several mechanical arms were laid out for easy viewing.
Olivia was impressed with how well lit the shop was, and knew that there were tons of tiny cameras all over the place. There were mechanical replacements for every limb you could think of, as well as an assortment of different implants and tiny robots. A sign hung over the implants stated the varying prices of inserting and hooking them up.
A closed case in the very back, next to the shopkeeper, caught her eye, and she left Granny ogling a three fingered hand. The case lit up as she approached it, and she found herself looking at a variety of guns.
"These can not be legal," she said, glancing at the shopkeeper.
"Missy, if you're down here, nothing's legal. You must not be from around here."
She could almost see a guarded look come over his face, and she waved him aside, turning to the guns to drool over the specs listed beside each one.
"Hey!" cried the shopkeeper, causing her to turn her head quickly.
The nanobots in Granny's suit had swarmed over the hand she was looking at, and had started taking it apart.
"Granny!" cried Olivia, exasperated, turning to head over to her.
The man slammed his hand down on a button, and a grill covered the door as an alarm started to ring.
"Oh, shit!" swore Granny, scrambling to the door.
Olivia was still trying to get to her, when the nanobots swarmed out from the suit and dismantled the door grill. Granny grabbed her hand, and jerked her out of the store, before a group of half machine aliens rushed around a corner, and charged towards them.
They turned and rushed away, ducking into an alley, that was little more than a crack between two buildings. They only managed to get about four feet in, when the ground under their feet gave way, dumping them deep underground.
XxxxX
Dustin wiped the sweat from his eyes, with a tentacle from his back. The heat in the room was going up, despite his efforts. He was afraid the engine was about to self-destruct, but didn't have a spare moment to check on it. He was almost done with a program that would send roughly half a thousand worms and little viruses at the AI, every minute.
The screen he was typing on suddenly went dark, and when he turned to look at the other monitor, he realized the AI had cut itself off from this entire sector of the galaxy.
Merging himself back into one personality, into his crystal lizard form, he sighed in relief as the pain in his head faded. Turning to the only monitor that was still functioning, he started to investigate the ship.
The vents for the engine were closed, causing the heat to build up. It would only take a few more minutes before the heat would build to such a level, it would kill the people onboard.
After the complex task of fighting the AI, fixing the ship was a breeze. Dustin opened the vents, restored power to the cafeteria and life support, and soon had rudimentary power restored to the ship.
The first thing he did was check on the people in the four ship floating dead around this one. When they arrived, on orders from the AI, to investigate this ship, he attacked them, causing them to go dead as this one had. There were still survivors on all of them, so he gathered them all on this ship, not bothering to explain anything to them.
Then, sitting in the pilot's chair, he turned the nose of the ship towards the nearest trade station. The AI may have run from this battle, but there was still a war going on.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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Chapter 27: Chapter 27 Everything Has a Price
"Unknown ship, announce yourself, and the reason for your visit," said the voice through the speakers, after Dustin finally got the wires back together.
He had been floating here for half an hour, outside the space station, trying to get the communications to work after he had shredded the wires.
"Sorry, we have suffered damage, and I have just gotten our communications working well enough to respond," said Dustin into the tiny microphone he held in his hand.
"Please announce yourself, for our information, then you will be escorted to our repair docking bay, unless you need to be towed?"
"No, I believe I can steer it in without a tow. I am Dustin from the Uz'En Kingdom. I seek repairs to my ship, supplies for the survivors I picked up from a damaged ship, and access to the galactic network for news."
"I am not familiar with the Uz'En Kingdom? Is it known among the Galactic Empire?"
"No, we are a new kingdom. We have not yet been officially recognized."
"Alright. I will put your information down, for our records, but you will not be allowed any credit. All purchases and services must be paid with recognized currency. There will not be a charge to dock in our bay, but you will not be allowed access to any repairs until all issues with payment are dealt with."
"That is fine. Thank you."
Dustin disconnected the two wires he had been holding together. They wouldn't reach for him to quick fix. Sitting back into the seat, he watched as a small one-person vessel zoomed in front of his ship, before guiding him around to a service bay. As he settled the ship into the lock, he sighed in relief and stood to go meet the person they no doubt had waiting to speak with him about payment.
Pausing in the cafeteria, he saw that everyone was still alive, only resting and waiting for orders. He went over to the wall dispenser, that would spit out what food was requested, and thought carefully about what he wanted.
The last time he had been at a station, he had a small quantity of a material that the person he dealt with, had been ecstatic about. He wanted to recreate that material, and looked over the options the food dispenser had to offer. Punching in a few buttons, he waited patiently as it spit out a black chunk of something unrecognizable.
Holding it in his hands, he focused on what was necessary to change it into the material from before. Dustin didn't know how to do it, himself, but his body did. It was so used to doing exactly what he wanted, immediately, from the PED forcing it to do it, that it didn't question when he wanted it to change the entire makeup of the material in his hands.
When he opened his hands a few moments later, he looked over the crystal in his hands. It had a variety of colors running through it, rather then just one whole color. That would probably lower the value, but he hoped it would be enough to pay for the repairs.
Ignoring the curious looks of those around him, he took the crystal and left for the air lock. They had attached a locking mechanism to the outside of his ship, to allow him an atmosphere to open his air lock into.
Before opening the door, for them to see him, he changed his look back to that of a human-like look. Just under his skin, he had the crystal plates, to prevent any damage, if someone wanted to attack him. He wasn't sure who might have recognized the name of his people.
The two individuals waiting for him, just outside his air lock, were looking very interested to meet him, as he stepped out, and then closed the door back behind him. It auto-locked behind him, not allowing anyone else onto the ship, or off of it, without a special code he had programmed into the ship's main computer. What little computer, the ship had, was sufficient to manage that.
"Greetings, we are here to speak with Dustin, of the Uz'En Kingdom?" said the smaller of the two before him. Their skin was a dark orange, almost a red, and they smiled far too much, for his taste.
"I am Dustin. I was told you needed payment, before I could buy anything?" He held out the crystal for them to see it.
"Ah, please bring that back with us, to the scanner. It looks beautiful, but until we know its worth, we are unable to place a price to it."
"I understand," he said, lowering his hand and following them as they turned back towards the station proper.
The room that opened up on the other side of the tunnel wasn't very large, but it was very secure. The taller of the two pulled out a small device that was attached to the wall, and motioned for him to place the crystal in the small port that opened on its side.
It slid shut to scan the crystal after he inserted it, and they waited the few seconds while it scanned, in silence. With a beep, it announced when it was done placing a value to it.
Dustin waited, trying not to grin, as the two started whispering to each other frantically.
"Please excuse us, but I do not think we can accept this. Its value is such that we could never sell it."
Dustin frowned. He hadn't considered that. Taking the crystal back, he looked at it for a moment, then with a shrug, crushed it into smaller pieces. There was a small cry from both of them as they watched in horror.
"How about a piece this size?" he asked, holding up a fragment that was half the size of a pea.
It took the two several minutes to get over their horror in order to be able to answer him.
Finally, the younger one, managed to motion towards the port, for it to be rescanned. Dustin slid it in, and then pocketed the rest in his shirt pocket. He could feel the eyes of the two on his shirt pocket, as if they couldn't believe he would carry something so valuable, so carelessly.
When the machine beeped, they pried their eyes away from his shirt, and checked on the resulting worth together. They whispered to each other again, and finally, turned to him, and said, "This we could sell, but its worth is still incredible. We would never be able to give you any change, if you failed to spend this much during your visit."
"That's alright. I need my ship fixed, some supplies to restock with, and access to the network so I can see the news. I've been floating in space for what feels like weeks, trying to deal with things."
They nodded in agreement, unable to believe their luck, and the taller of the two carefully took out the crystal and left the room very quickly.
Dustin knew exactly what he needed on the ship, having taken stock of what foods the people ate, and what supplies he would need to make his repairs. It would take him a couple days, but the remaining guy assured him he could take his time, and that everything would be available within three hours. It was nice to have people waiting on him again. He hadn't realized how much he missed that, from when he had been king.
It wasn't enough to make him want to go back, but it was still nice.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
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More on what's going on with Olivia in the next chapter.
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