The Repairman
By The Shadower
Rating: PG-13 for language in later chapters, this chapter a PG for violence mentioned in conversation, no language.
Feedback: If I get enough feedback, I can write something else tomorrow night. If I don't, the possibility of my writing tomorrow is extremely diminished.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, characters are the property of Cameron, Eglee, and Wilson.
AN: Please just try this. It's crossed over with a book series called "Repairman Jack" and I know probably no one reading this fic has ever heard of "Repairman Jack," so I've made sure to make it easily accessible to everyone. You WILL be able to understand and enjoy what's going on, just try it. I'll try to make it somewhat ML and, special treat here, I have no plans to kill off Logan or to pit him against Max in an angst ridden moral battle! So please just try it. And please review.
Just in case I don't adequately explain something, below are some character profiles on possible crossover characters from Repairman Jack. I got them from www.repairmanjack.com, and I didn't write them myself. I know this sounds complicated now but I think you'll enjoy it if you have the good grace to read the first chapter.
A note for those who know the books, I haven't decided on the chronology of this yet, except it's after The Tomb. Slightly AU only in that it's set in 2019, and maybe some other very slight modifications. For instance, it may be after some of the events in Hosts but Jack will still be using his Semmerling-LM4. Nothing major though.
Character Profiles:
Repairman Jack
Jack is a denizen of Manhattan who dwells in the interstices of modern society. He has no official identity, no social security number, pays no taxes. When you lose faith in the system, or the system lets you down, you go to a guy who's outside the system. That's Repairman Jack. But he's no Equalizer, no knight in shining armor. Jack is strictly fee for service, and he may be a few bricks shy of a full load himself, but at least he's under control...most of the time. The name: Abe dubbed him Repairman Jack during the start-up years of Jack's fix-it business. Jack used it awhile as a sort of gag, but it stuck. Now, like it or not, he's known as Repairman Jack.
Jack facts:
Jack hires out for cash to "fix" situations that have no legal remedy. He considers himself a small businessman and tries not to get emotionally involved He almost always gets emotionally involved He has a violent streak that he's always trying to control. He's a firm believer in Murphy's Law and always likes to plan things out, with a second escape route, a back-up plan, etc. But things rarely go as planned, and that makes him irritable and jumpy. He's low tech. Not a Luddite, but he believes technology is especially vulnerable to Murphy's Law. He's only recently got into computers and the web. He believes that men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and government is from Uranus.
Gia and Vicky
The two women in Jack's life. Gia DiLauro is a commercial artist, a striking blonde in her early thirties. Vicky is her grammar-school age daughter.
Abe
Your basic friendly neighborhood gunrunner. Despite being twenty years older (and almost a hundred pounds heavier) Abe Grossman is Jack's oldest and best friend. He runs the Isher Sports Shop as a front for the armory in the cellar.
Julio
Another of Jack's old friends. He runs the workingman's bar where Jack meets many of his customers. Julio is trying to maintain his tavern's original character against the Upper West Side's tide of gentrification. To keep too many yuppies from crowding out his regulars, he stocks only the sourest chardonnay, the bitterest merlot, and decorates the windows with dead hanging plants.
Jack checked his watch again. He sat at a back table at Julio's, a bar he frequented. Julio was an old friend, and let Jack use the back table as a sort of office, a place for Jack to meet his clients. The watch read three-fifty six, four minutes before Jack's client was due.
There. The guy just coming in the front door. Fierce blue eyes and close-cut white-blond hair. Wearing black leather but there was something military about his eyes, about the way he carried himself, about the way his eyes scanned the bar. He noticed Jack in the back, but didn't look long. Good, Jack thought. He went to quite an effort to fade in with the crowd, to look like your average joe, nothing more. Not seeing anyone who looked like they might be the "situation repairman" he'd hired, the man gestured Julio over and asked for Jack.
Julio was extremely friendly to the man, patting him on the back and laughing. Jack smiled to himself. Julio was very good at screening his customers, frisking them without them ever suspecting. He was also a spookily good judge of character. It was almost as if Julio had a sixth sense.
Jack had ticked off a lot of people over the years, and some of those people were just the type to send professional killers after him. Not that they'd know who he was, or how to find him, that was an easy feat to pull off when you weren't in any computer system anywhere, but they might hear a rumor of a "repairman" meeting clients at Julio's bar, and link it to him. He needed his clients scanned for would-be hit men looking to take a shot at him.
Julio came over to Jack's table to report on the man's character.
"Nothing."
Jack was surprised. Julio almost always had something.
"Nothing at all?"
"Guy's a blank slate. Clean though, no weapon."
Jack frowned. The last client Julio had failed to read was, well, that hadn't turned out very well. He didn't want a repeat of what happened with Kusum Bahkti. But he tried to see everyone as innocent until proven guilty. He nodded to Julio and Julio led the client over. The man sat down, facing Jack with a confrontational stare. Jack spoke to the man.
"You said in your e-mail you needed help finding some kids. You know I'm not a detective."
"This is a very special situation. The kids ran away ten years ago. The reason I'm hiring you and not a conventional detective is that these kids DO NOT WANT TO BE FOUND. But I need to find them. I need to speak to them one last time. Just give me that, please."
Jack frowned again. He didn't usually bring in people who didn't want to be brought in. But the pleading in the man's eyes was real. As Jack considered, the television at the end of the bar crackled and then the picture disappeared entirely. In its place was a close-up of a man's eyes.
"This is an Eyes Only streaming freedom video bulletin. The cable hack will last exactly sixty seconds. It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in the city. Councilman Kreatars was a fine, upstanding member of his community. He also paid for the import of children from Mexico through vans that packed ten-twenty children per van. These children, were, instead of being used as cheep labor, put to a far more horrible purpose. They were sold to pedophiles, used as sex slave by child molesters. This was done with the knowledge, consent, and support of government officials, councilman Kreatars in particular. That is, until a courageous but anonymous citizen broke both his arms, both his legs, and his face, then left him tied up in the woods for two days until he was found by campers."
Jack smiled briefly at that. "Courageous but anonymous citizen" indeed. He'd simply been doing a job for a client. Nice to know Eyes Only was legit, though.
He looked at his prospective client and came to a decision. This case promised to be interesting, at least.
"All right, I'll help you find your kids, for the agreed upon fees. Do you have any clue where any of them are?"
Donald Lydecker smiled.
"At least one's in Seattle. Her name's Max."
AN:Please review! Max and Logan next chapter, I promise! That is, if I get reviews/fuel to push me to write more. For anyone interested in the Repairman Jack novels, they're by F. Paul Wilson and the first one is called The Tomb. They contain frequent usage of the F-word, violence, some gore sometimes, and sex that is mostly implied. They're very well written, also.
By The Shadower
Rating: PG-13 for language in later chapters, this chapter a PG for violence mentioned in conversation, no language.
Feedback: If I get enough feedback, I can write something else tomorrow night. If I don't, the possibility of my writing tomorrow is extremely diminished.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, characters are the property of Cameron, Eglee, and Wilson.
AN: Please just try this. It's crossed over with a book series called "Repairman Jack" and I know probably no one reading this fic has ever heard of "Repairman Jack," so I've made sure to make it easily accessible to everyone. You WILL be able to understand and enjoy what's going on, just try it. I'll try to make it somewhat ML and, special treat here, I have no plans to kill off Logan or to pit him against Max in an angst ridden moral battle! So please just try it. And please review.
Just in case I don't adequately explain something, below are some character profiles on possible crossover characters from Repairman Jack. I got them from www.repairmanjack.com, and I didn't write them myself. I know this sounds complicated now but I think you'll enjoy it if you have the good grace to read the first chapter.
A note for those who know the books, I haven't decided on the chronology of this yet, except it's after The Tomb. Slightly AU only in that it's set in 2019, and maybe some other very slight modifications. For instance, it may be after some of the events in Hosts but Jack will still be using his Semmerling-LM4. Nothing major though.
Character Profiles:
Repairman Jack
Jack is a denizen of Manhattan who dwells in the interstices of modern society. He has no official identity, no social security number, pays no taxes. When you lose faith in the system, or the system lets you down, you go to a guy who's outside the system. That's Repairman Jack. But he's no Equalizer, no knight in shining armor. Jack is strictly fee for service, and he may be a few bricks shy of a full load himself, but at least he's under control...most of the time. The name: Abe dubbed him Repairman Jack during the start-up years of Jack's fix-it business. Jack used it awhile as a sort of gag, but it stuck. Now, like it or not, he's known as Repairman Jack.
Jack facts:
Jack hires out for cash to "fix" situations that have no legal remedy. He considers himself a small businessman and tries not to get emotionally involved He almost always gets emotionally involved He has a violent streak that he's always trying to control. He's a firm believer in Murphy's Law and always likes to plan things out, with a second escape route, a back-up plan, etc. But things rarely go as planned, and that makes him irritable and jumpy. He's low tech. Not a Luddite, but he believes technology is especially vulnerable to Murphy's Law. He's only recently got into computers and the web. He believes that men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and government is from Uranus.
Gia and Vicky
The two women in Jack's life. Gia DiLauro is a commercial artist, a striking blonde in her early thirties. Vicky is her grammar-school age daughter.
Abe
Your basic friendly neighborhood gunrunner. Despite being twenty years older (and almost a hundred pounds heavier) Abe Grossman is Jack's oldest and best friend. He runs the Isher Sports Shop as a front for the armory in the cellar.
Julio
Another of Jack's old friends. He runs the workingman's bar where Jack meets many of his customers. Julio is trying to maintain his tavern's original character against the Upper West Side's tide of gentrification. To keep too many yuppies from crowding out his regulars, he stocks only the sourest chardonnay, the bitterest merlot, and decorates the windows with dead hanging plants.
Jack checked his watch again. He sat at a back table at Julio's, a bar he frequented. Julio was an old friend, and let Jack use the back table as a sort of office, a place for Jack to meet his clients. The watch read three-fifty six, four minutes before Jack's client was due.
There. The guy just coming in the front door. Fierce blue eyes and close-cut white-blond hair. Wearing black leather but there was something military about his eyes, about the way he carried himself, about the way his eyes scanned the bar. He noticed Jack in the back, but didn't look long. Good, Jack thought. He went to quite an effort to fade in with the crowd, to look like your average joe, nothing more. Not seeing anyone who looked like they might be the "situation repairman" he'd hired, the man gestured Julio over and asked for Jack.
Julio was extremely friendly to the man, patting him on the back and laughing. Jack smiled to himself. Julio was very good at screening his customers, frisking them without them ever suspecting. He was also a spookily good judge of character. It was almost as if Julio had a sixth sense.
Jack had ticked off a lot of people over the years, and some of those people were just the type to send professional killers after him. Not that they'd know who he was, or how to find him, that was an easy feat to pull off when you weren't in any computer system anywhere, but they might hear a rumor of a "repairman" meeting clients at Julio's bar, and link it to him. He needed his clients scanned for would-be hit men looking to take a shot at him.
Julio came over to Jack's table to report on the man's character.
"Nothing."
Jack was surprised. Julio almost always had something.
"Nothing at all?"
"Guy's a blank slate. Clean though, no weapon."
Jack frowned. The last client Julio had failed to read was, well, that hadn't turned out very well. He didn't want a repeat of what happened with Kusum Bahkti. But he tried to see everyone as innocent until proven guilty. He nodded to Julio and Julio led the client over. The man sat down, facing Jack with a confrontational stare. Jack spoke to the man.
"You said in your e-mail you needed help finding some kids. You know I'm not a detective."
"This is a very special situation. The kids ran away ten years ago. The reason I'm hiring you and not a conventional detective is that these kids DO NOT WANT TO BE FOUND. But I need to find them. I need to speak to them one last time. Just give me that, please."
Jack frowned again. He didn't usually bring in people who didn't want to be brought in. But the pleading in the man's eyes was real. As Jack considered, the television at the end of the bar crackled and then the picture disappeared entirely. In its place was a close-up of a man's eyes.
"This is an Eyes Only streaming freedom video bulletin. The cable hack will last exactly sixty seconds. It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in the city. Councilman Kreatars was a fine, upstanding member of his community. He also paid for the import of children from Mexico through vans that packed ten-twenty children per van. These children, were, instead of being used as cheep labor, put to a far more horrible purpose. They were sold to pedophiles, used as sex slave by child molesters. This was done with the knowledge, consent, and support of government officials, councilman Kreatars in particular. That is, until a courageous but anonymous citizen broke both his arms, both his legs, and his face, then left him tied up in the woods for two days until he was found by campers."
Jack smiled briefly at that. "Courageous but anonymous citizen" indeed. He'd simply been doing a job for a client. Nice to know Eyes Only was legit, though.
He looked at his prospective client and came to a decision. This case promised to be interesting, at least.
"All right, I'll help you find your kids, for the agreed upon fees. Do you have any clue where any of them are?"
Donald Lydecker smiled.
"At least one's in Seattle. Her name's Max."
AN:Please review! Max and Logan next chapter, I promise! That is, if I get reviews/fuel to push me to write more. For anyone interested in the Repairman Jack novels, they're by F. Paul Wilson and the first one is called The Tomb. They contain frequent usage of the F-word, violence, some gore sometimes, and sex that is mostly implied. They're very well written, also.