Chapter 9 - An outing both damp and dreary

Posted on https://books.clockworkcaracal.com/dragons-heart/old-beginnings/ch9 - if you aren't there, this is a pirated copy!

"I'm going out on a supply run," Cyan said without preamble as he walked out of the back room and into the shop. "If there's anything that needs me specifically, it'll have to wait until I get back."

"So, tomorrow."

"I'll be back before tomorrow," he replied automatically.

"Yeah but not before closing time." Minmax grinned. "Have fun."

Cyan snorted. "Fun. Yes. That's definitely the right word for it."

"Picky, picky. Have a not too miserable time."

"That's more like it." Cyan grinned, stepping out the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sure thing, boss." Minmax waved after him as he left.

Cyan started down the street, heading a bus stop two blocks away. He had a number of different sources for the broken robots he fixed or salvaged - current or former clients trading them in, browsing the local pawn shops - but most of it came through a handful of contacts to up-city stores. When those shops got new shipments or returns, sometimes the devices came in damaged or otherwise non-functional. The higher-end stores would have the defectives returned to the factory to be fixed and refurbished there - but the smaller, cheaper ones? They dealt more in bulk than quality, so they avoided the cost of returning them and just trashed them.

Cyan's contacts at those stores then took the broken robots, drones, and other devices and pawned them off to Cyan himself at a fraction of the list price. Presumably it all went directly into their pockets, but Cyan didn't actually know, nor did he care. So long as he was confident no one was trying to fence stolen goods through him - and that had happened, which had led to an unpleasant, heated argument that had thankfully resolved without any unwanted legal attention - he didn't really care about who was getting paid how much.

The main downside was having to do what he called a "supply run". His contact set up an appointment, and then Cyan had to trek all the way into what was popularly called "the business district" - the part of down-city that up-city was built on top of. The district was a dense labyrinth of megalithic skyscrapers, where the sky was blocked by the twisting upper-level roadways and the ground level choked by the delivery trucks and employees required for the feed and care of the upcity businesses and residences.

It was also several miles away from the shop, and Cyan didn't have a vehicle of his own. Public transportation in was decent enough, running on a mix of government subsidy and community contributes, but no one had any illusions about it being fast. It was often faster than walking, and that was all that could be said for it.

Which is why he was leaving now, even though the appointment wasn't for another two hours.

Cyan stood at the bus stop, waiting for the 416 and looking up at the criss-crossing strips of patchwork sky. It was another nice, if chilly, autumn day, with just enough wind that he thought it might rain later. There had been a small chance of it on the morning forecast - but he hadn't bothered to bring an umbrella. If it rained, he'd have more than enough to worry about with making sure his new inventory stayed dry without having one more thing to carry.

Not for the first time, he wished his skills in magic lay just a bit more with the elements. Then maybe he could weave some sort of water resistance spell....

The bus trundled up, several people jumping off as Cyan and a handful of others squeezed in. Then came the drive down to the transfer point (with multiple stops on the way), getting off, waiting, getting back on the 222... As Cyan settled in for another silent drive, he suddenly remembered his earlier decision - he was supposed to be more social. Meet new people. Ignoring and avoiding conversation on the bus like he usually did wouldn't qualify as either of those at all.

On the other hand, the other passengers didn't look any more inclined to conversation than he felt. After a few minutes of deliberation, he decided it was, in fact, the wrong time and place for trying to be social, and the other passengers would be much happier if he just kept to himself as usual.

By the time he got off at his final stop - the corner of fifteenth and south ave, right by the Mirrotech headquarters - the blue patches of sky had been overtaken by greys and a sense of dampness filled the air. Cyan checked the forecast, saw the forty percent chance of rain had risen to ninety, and sighed in resignation.

The real difficulty with having to get his parts from this part of town wasn't getting there. It was getting himself, and the machines, all the way back. The buses were no help for carting multiple boxes or crates of electronics halfway across the city - he would have to go on foot.

In the rain.

The contact he had an appointment with didn't work at Mirrotech HQ, of course - nobody at a corp headquarters worked at something so public as a store - but stops in the business district were few and far between. The Mirrotech stop was the closest one to nearly all the upcity skyscrapers, so even though he'd never been to the headquarter offices himself, it was the stop he always got off at.

Trying not to think about being at the foot of a major corp building - even for a relatively small one like Mirrotech - he set off down the street, heading for the Quill Center. One of the more accessible shopping centers in upcity, the top levels hosted a handful of major corp chains, while the levels below were a conglomeration of numerous smaller, but popular, offshoots and (relatively) independent chains.

So far as Cyan understood it, at least. He made a point of not trying to understand or be involved in corp business, legally or otherwise, beyond what he needed to know in order to pay his taxes and stay off the corp radar. Any corp radar.

The walk was just as unpleasant as he remembered. Two and a half blocks of badly maintained sidewalks, if largely empty of other pedestrians, and crossing densely crowded streets full of trucks, before he finally arrived at the Quill Center loading bay.

Cyan tapped a code out with his left hand into his other palm and waited a moment as his phone dialed up his contact, resting a fingertip lightly next to his ear to conduct the audio. Some of his contacts and clients were paranoid of people overhearing their conversations, which would make sense, except it always seemed to be the ones involved in legitimate business practices. His lancer clients never bothered with being overheard, because they all talked in jargon and code anyway. Their connections being traced, on the other hand....

"Hey Cyan." His contact picked up the line, interrupting his train of thought. "You're here already?"

"I'm here," Cyan agreed, talking loosely in the direction of the microphone in his hand. (He enjoyed doing the phone-hand gesture at home, but drawing attention to himself with eccentric mannerisms down in corp territory was a universally terrible idea. Even if no one was around to see.)

"Early as usual! I'll be down in half an hour."

Cyan refrained from pointing out that taking the bus didn't leave him a lot of opportunities for being anything besides early or late. "I'll be okay for half an hour," he agreed. "I'll take a walk around the block or something."

"Great. I'll ring you if you're not back yet."

"Sure thing. See you then."

The connection closed and he didn't bother resisting the urge to sigh. It would be so much easier if he could just stay here for the next half hour instead of wandering around, but he'd gotten a warning for loitering once and that was one more time than he was comfortable with.

On the bright side - if you could count it as such - the chances he would run into Fang, probable lancer, out here deep in corp territory were extremely slim.

On the other side, five minutes after Cyan started a casual stroll down the street, the threatening dampness decided to condense into a light drizzle. Biting back a curse, Cyan pulled up his hood and headed back out onto the street.

The next twenty minutes passed in a game of duck-and-run - duck into shelter beneath the feet of the skyscrapers, run to the next one before anyone complained about strange elves hanging around. Not that he'd let it deter him at the time, but the one big problem with having settled on a look involving bright neon-blue hair was being very easily identified. It didn't hurt to be extra careful, either.

When the employee entrance back door of the Quill building finally swung open, Cyan was leaning against the bay wall and trying very hard to think dry thoughts. His hair, damp more than wet, was sticking annoyingly to his forehead and he pushed it aside yet again as he looked over at his contact.

The man, who insisted on being called Mr. Smith in some sad fantasy of clandestine operations (which Cyan humored, despite having once noticed him still wearing a nametag of "Williamson"), was middle-aged, all soft edges, with a pleasant middle-management sort of smile.

"The weather today's pretty lousy, huh?"

Cyan wasn't sure if Mr. Smith was trying to be sympathetic, make conversation, or both, but he wasn't really in the mood for either. "It's not the best," he agreed. "What've you got today?"

"Plenty! It's been a while since you came by; my office was getting pretty full. Good thing I don't spend much time in there, huh?" Mr. Smith laughed.

Cyan chuckled obediently. "Good thing I'm here to do some housekeeping."

"Housekeeping!" Mr. Smith laughed again. "Love it. Okay, I took the dolly down the elevator, let me wheel it out the garage."

"Sure." Cyan nodded, making sure to add a friendly smile. "Take your time."

Mr. Smith disappeared back into the employee entrance, but it was only a matter of moments before the large garage doors that were actually used for unloading the trucks started rolling upwards.

"I've got a pretty mixed bag for you today," Mr. Smith called out as he pushed out a loading trolley, full of neatly stacked boxes and bins.

"That's the way I like it." Cyan grinned. "Looks like a good haul today."

"I checked out the cart for two days, as usual. You sure you can get it back in time?"

"I'm sure," Cyan reassured him. Mr. Smith was always so genuinely concerned with inconveniencing Cyan, it was actually kind of endearing. If the man had any power to actually make it less of an inconvenience, it would even be useful. "I'll have it back here by morning the day after tomorrow."

"Perfect!" Mr. Smith beamed. "I'll see you then."

The worst part, Cyan decided, wasn't the rain. Drizzle. Whatever it was. The worst part was that the sidewalks in the business district were narrow, uneven, and broken up to shit. Walking a loading trolley several miles in the rain was bad enough, but when a good third of the distance was over the safety hazard the corps pretended counted as sidewalks, taking twice as long and five times as much effort - well, it took a lot of reminding himself how much money he was going to make back once these things were fixed up.

All jobs had a shitty part. This was his.

Walking a loaded trolley several miles across down-city in the rain.

"I should've gone into a different line of work," he muttered.

"Like what?"

The unexpected voice behind him made him jump, his slow progress grinding to a halt as he whirled around. Right behind him, in the least expected twist ever, was Fang, looking cheerful as ever and holding an umbrella.

Cyan stared. "Were you following me?"

The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about it, but the expression on Fang's face made him immediately regret it.

"No! No, I was just across the street, and... damn." Fang pinched the bridge of his nose, looking pained. "I really do look like a stalker now."

Cyan blinked, then laughed, sounding only a fraction as awkward as he felt. "Funny, I thought you were the one thinking I was the stalker. When you got all weird in the coffee shop," he added, just to be clear.

"Oh! No, I was... The comment reminded me of something."

Cyan looked sharply at Fang. The taller man was looking down the road, with an introspective, almost gloomy expression that made Cyan suspect he wasn't really seeing anything outside his own head.

It only lasted a moment, though, before Fang glanced back at Cyan and offered a lopsided smile. "I have what you could call a complicated relationship with remembering things."

Cyan's eyebrows rose. "That sounds... complicated." Did it mean that Fang had recognized him? Or that he hadn't? Or was Cyan just overthinking everything again?

"It's definitely that," Fang agreed. "But what are you doing, pushing a bunch of boxes down the street?"

"I'm picking up new stock for the shop." Cyan did not sigh, but it was close.

"...By yourself? In the rain?" Fang looked incredulous.

"Fortunately, the cases are mostly water-resistant." Cyan patted the topmost crate. "And it's not raining that hard."

"It's still pretty miserable."

Which was exactly what Cyan had just been thinking, of course. He shrugged with a grimace. "Yeah, a bit."

Fang studied the loaded trolley for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. "I'll do it."

"...Excuse me?"

"I'll push this for you." He placed a hand on the handle bar, offering the umbrella to Cyan. "I finished my errands down here anyway, so it's no trouble for me."

Cyan felt himself bristling defensively, but forced himself to consider the offer objectively. It would be nice to have a break from getting dripped on, and Fang was definitely larger and more muscular than his admittedly waiflike elfin stature.

And if he was walking with Fang, maybe he could get some answers. Or at least closure.

"Okay then." Cyan took the proffered umbrella, propping it up over his head. "But only under one condition."

Fang paused, looking curious and not at all suspicious. "What's the condition?"

"I'm not paying you." Cyan grinned. "This is free volunteer labor, got it?"

"Darn, there goes my plan for a free lunch." Fang chuckled. "Or is it dinner at this point?"

"Definitely dinner," Cyan agreed. "That's the meal you're not getting. Now get moving."

"Okay, okay." Fang shook his head, still looking amused, and set off down the sidewalk.