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It was early in the morning when Daniel and others finally reached the outskirts of Bismark, a small town on the southern coast. The walk had been uneventful, Jen and the others talked amongst themselves for a times until their stomachs began to growl, then things became silent for the rest of the day save for the occasional grumble of a stomach, or about the lack of food. Daniel, Kalista, and Snake on the other hand felt fine, never becoming tired, hungry, or thirsty. Currently the little group was standing outside of town trying to decide on a plan of action to acquire food, money, and a place to stay, in the order of money, food, then housing.
"What are we going to do?" Morgan asked, "We have no money, no food, no place to stay, and almost nothing of value save for our weapons, and I really don't feel all that comfortable about parting with them unless I absolutely have to."
"And what about the hole in my abdomen? I'd really like to get it fixed somehow even if it just involves welding a sheet of metal over it," Snake said.
"For the time being it looks like we're going to have to make camp here and find jobs. We're in no position to be raiding Neo Arc transports, and we really don't have any other options. As it's been pointed out we have no money, food, or place to stay." Daniel said.
"Do you have any job skills?" Jen asked looking at Daniel.
"Pick something," Daniel said.
"How do we know we won't be recognized and turned in here?" Morgan asked.
"Because, Bismark is so far south and so small Neo Arcadia doesn't consider it worth the time or resources to annex, it one of the last independent towns. Besides, word has it Bismark and Neo ain't on the best of terms so I doubt they'll be going out of their way to help them." Valery said.
"Okay, is there anything of value we could sell for some quick cash? I'm starving," Jen said.
"Hey Morgan, doesn't Bismark have a reploid bay?" Valery asked.
"Yeah, why?" Morgan asked.
"Follow me, I have an idea, possibly a very profitable idea that'll kill two birds with one stone." Valery said.
Daniel was about to ask what the point of killing birds with stone was but kept his mouth shut instead. With Valery leading the party they all made their way towards Bismark, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, despite the massive hole in Snake's abdomen, they walked through the streets of the city passing various stores, establishments, and homes. There were a number of people watching them as they passed and at first Daniel thought they'd be looking at Snake until he realized they were in fact looking at him, and almost all of the people who seemed to take more than a passing interest in him were women. He found this to be quite unsettling, especially when a trio of young girls giggled as he walked by. "Jen, why is everyone looking me, is there something wrong with me?" Daniel asked. Jen looked over at him and smirked a little, "You seriously have no idea?" It was starting to annoy him slightly having to reinforce that fact he didn't know something, "If I knew I wouldn't ask," Daniel said. "Well let's see, a handsome young, blond hair, blue eyed man comes walking through town without a shirt on, yeah, it's gonna draw some attention." Jen said.
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Having never really thought much about the fact Geros had blown the top half of his clothing to shreds he looked down at himself for a moment, in fact he'd never given any consideration to how other people saw him in regards to something like physical attraction. Glancing back to Jen he asked, "They think I'm attractive?" The expression on Jen's face seemed to be a combination of surprise and disbelief, "Uh, yeah."
"Do you think I'm attractive?" Daniel asked.
At this Jen smiled mischievously and moved closer to Daniel, sliding her arm around his waist she whispered into his ear, "Ask me again when we're alone." Inexperienced in human behavior or not it didn't take a reploid scientist for Daniel to put two and two together about what that entailed. He quickly looked straight ahead again and felt his face suddenly begin to heat up for some reason. As they walked Jen kept her arm around Daniel's waist which he didn't seem to pay much attention to, then Valery stopped in front of a building with two garage style doors standing wide open. It looked like a hover car garage save for the fact all of the machinery inside was designed to cater to reploid needs. It also looked like a garage in that the floor was covered with stains from dried fluids and the three men working inside looked like they'd waded through a pool of grease. When Valery walked in with everyone else in tow one man, who was attaching a reploid forearm to an upper arm looked over his shoulder, "Hey boss, ya got customers," he said. The man who responded was a large, well muscled and defined individual despite a full beard, mustache, and head full of matching gray hair that was pulled into a ponytail. He was seated at a work bench dressed in a ripped and strained short sleeved red shirt and blue overalls, wearing a pair of welding goggles he had been working on what appeared to be a delicate component with a miniature plasma welder when everyone walked in.
Setting his tools down he hopped off the stool he was sitting on and pushed the goggles onto his forehead with one hand, "Afternoon folks, name's Almon Portsmith what can I... do for you." he said, the gap in his sentence came when he looked at Snake. Valery glanced over at Snake as well then smiled to Almon, "Think you might be interested in him, or the chassis to be more precise?" Everyone, including Snake looked surprised at that, less so when Almon shook his head, "No."
"Do you know who you're standing in the presence of?" Valery asked.
"A reploid with a huge hole in his abdomen at a guess," Almon said.
"That not just any reploid, that's Snakeman, the Snakeman, he fought Mega Man himself during the third Wily War," Valery said.
When Snakeman realized what Valery was up to he stood up straighter and puffed his chest out trying to look as imposing as possible given the circumstances. Almon's only response was a small chuckle, "Sweetheart, I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night. Wily War tech is as rare as owl's teeth, or for that matter owls these days." Valery was looking a little flustered for a moment, then held up a finger, walking over to Snake she reached for the small hatch in the side of his head, "Excuse me," she said. Opening the hatch she held out a hand, "How that for proof? Pre-X ICMP tech, you don't find that laying around just anywhere." Almon walked over to Snake and looked inside the hatch, scratching his chin for a moment he seemed to be interested, then shook his head a little, "Tech can be faked, how do I know you didn't just whip up some fancy duplicate you're trying to offload?" Valery was about to say something, very possibly in an impolite manner, when Snake held his hand up, "Mr. Portsmith, even in my day it was possible to tell if memory engrams in reploids had been falsified, altered, or otherwise tampered with, considering the type of business you run I imagine you have the diagnostic equipment for such?"
"I do," Almon said.
Snake motioned to the garage and Almon walked inside with the party following close behind, they were lead to a steel gray work station with a wide array of controls and a built in monitor. Once there Almon picked up a cable that had one end hook into the console and handed it to Snake who reached back plugging it into the hatch in his head he'd never bothered to close. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then the monitor flipped through a few different screens until an image of the room they found Snakeman in appeared. Unlike the ruined condition they found everything in it not only looked brand new, but there was a column in the center of the room which had somehow disappeared in the three centuries that had passed. The scene suddenly lunged forward and Daniel realized they were watching things through Snakeman's eyes. He jumped up onto the column in the center of the room, then a few moments later the gate in front of him opened and none other than Mega Man himself walked in.
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No words were exchanged, the two just stood there looking at one another for a moment before Mega Man opened fire. In the fight that ensued the room they were in sustained almost as much damage as the two combatants, the exchanged fire hitting one another repeatedly, dashing around the room, leaping, rolling, about every trick in the book was used. The display eventually began to flicker and become distorted as Snake took more and more damage until he let out a loud yell leaping at Mega Man, then there was a large blast from his arm canon and the screen cut to static.
After disconnecting the line from his hatch in his head and closing it Snake turned away from the group self-consciously letting the memories be tested to see if they were authentic. Quickly typing away at the console Almon's eyes widened considerably and he started looking between Snake and the screen in front of him. "Believe me now?" Valery asked. Still looking between Snake and the monitor in front on him Almon pointed to him, "He's a maverick, why ain't he tryin' to blow stuff up?" Almon asked. "WAS a maverick!" Snake snapped, it was obvious to see replaying the memories had bothered him a great deal, "I was forced into servitude by maverick coding... which these people deleted from my CPU before reactivating me." There was a long moment of silence before Almon looked back to Valery, "Sweetheart that chassis is waaay out of my price range, even with the hole in the abdomen you could easily get two, maybe three million credits from the Neo Arcadian Historical Society just for walking through the front door."
"Yeah, but we're not at N.A.H.S., we here, we're broke," before she could finish her sentence Valery's stomach let out a loud rumble, "and hungry, let's cut a deal."
With a stiff business expression on his face Almon leaned on the side of the diagnostic station rubbing his chin as he looked at Valery, "What kind of deal?"
"Well for starters considering what we're giving you I think our friend here deserves a new top of the line, custom built chassis, and say... twenty-five thousand credits?" Valery asked.
At this the reploid mechanic's scratched his chin again and let out a small hiss, "I don't have that kind of cash, although... if I showed everything here to the bank I don't doubt I could get a loan against his chassis."
"How long would that take?" Valery asked.
"I don't know, an hour, maybe two, I'd need him to come with me though." Almon said.
"No problem, we'll met you there," Valery said wrapping her arm around Snake's, "in the meantime could you spare enough credits for us to get something to eat, we're starving."
"Sure," Almon said, reaching into his pocket he pulled out a handful of small denomination credit chips and handed everyone enough to get something to eat, save for Snake and Kalista. Even though Daniel didn't need anything to eat he wasn't one to turn down money when things were as tight as they were now, so he pocketed the chips for later. "Cooked sausages here I come," Morgan said. The group wasted no time making their way for the nearest diner, though Daniel stopped then in front of a clothing store on the way, going inside for a moment he walked back out pulling a plain black, short sleeved t-shirt over his head. "You spent your money on a shirt," Jen asked, "what are you going to eat with now?" Adjusting the shirt slightly Daniel looked over at her, "Have you heard my stomach growl? I don't need food."
"The more I hear about you, the stranger you get," Snake said.
"I get that a lot," Daniel said.
With that little errand out of the way they continued on to the diner with all due haste, though Daniel noticed a lot of young girls and women were still looking at him and several of them smiled when their eyes met. They came to a small glass front building with a sign above them that read 'Hal's Diner' and booths lining the whole of the outer wall inside the restaurant, there was a counter against the opposite wall through which Daniel could see a large man with beard stubble all over his face cooking food and placing dishing in the window dividing the counter from the kitchen. There were several posters on the wall proclaiming the quality and low price of the food as well as several booths that were filled by various people either waiting on or enjoying their meals. "Oh wow, an old fashioned diner, look, they're actually cooking the food," Jen said. That was strange to Daniel, even back at the rebel base they'd used a hydration oven to turn cubes into ready to eat food. The group made their way inside and took a seat with Snake and Daniel pulling up chairs to sit at the side of the table. It only took a moment for a young blond haired woman in a knee length blue dress and white apron to walk up to them with a small data pad in her hand.
"Good afternoon and welcome to Hal's Diner, my name is Tammy," she pointed to her name tag, "can I take your drink orders while you decide what you'd like?"
Everyone quickly decided on what they wanted to drink with Daniel ordering a water, then the waitress smiled and walked off while the humans decided what they wanted. "Kalista, you've been pretty silent the whole time," Daniel said. She looked over at him and smiled, "What would you like me to say sir?" Kalista asked.
"Is it just me or does she seem a little retarded for a reploid?" Daniel said thumbing in Kalista's direction.
"What do you mean?" Morgan asked.
Looking over at Kalista Daniel leaned forward in his chair, "Kalista, you're a pathetic idiot, a moron, an insult to the reploid race." In response she tilted her head to the side a little, "I'm sorry sir, I'll try to do better."
"You see what I mean," Daniel said looking to Snake, "what would you've done if I'd said that to you."
"Break my metal foot off in your butt," Snake said.
"Exactly, it's like there's nobody home upstairs, for crying out loud we're talking about her in front of her and she's just staring at us, nobody's noticed this before?" Daniel asked.
"Back at... our last location, I was so busy I never really paid her much attention, Jen, Morgan?" Valery said. The other two just shook their heads a little. "Well I'm going to have Almon take a look at her when we get back to the shop, something's gotta be wrong with her." Tammy returned a moment later balancing a tray full of drinks on her hand, then carefully set them all down in front of everyone. Jen had orange juice, Morgan had ordered milk, and Valery was drinking some dark colored beverage with bubbles rising to the top. With that out of the way they all ordered their meals while Daniel sat there contemplating the situation. Why was he even still with them, the rebellion was effectively dead, they were just wandering from place to place, and he wanted to continue investigating the circumstances of his birth... creation... whatever. Perhaps it was to repay them for the kindness they had shown by taking him in when he had nowhere else to go because honestly he didn't need any of them. He was perfectly capable of fending for and taking care of himself, in fact he had actually considered striking out on his own once he knew Jen and the others would be reasonably safe considering their wanted status. When Tammy brought the food Daniel did notice that everyone began to eat considerably faster than normal and seemed to forgo the use of table manners, not that he particularly cared. Sipping on his water he looked around casually watching the other people.
*So what do you think of this whole situation?* Snake asked.
Snake's voice actually sounded in Daniel's mind over his internal communicator causing him to look over at him and blink a few times in surprise, *How'd you know?*
*Considering the fact you said you don't need to eat, I haven't seen you sleep, or ever get tired, it's not that had to figure out that you're a reploid,* Snake said.
*I'm not a reploid,* Daniel said.
*Cyborg?* Snake asked.
*It's complicated and I really don't want to talk about it,* Daniel said.
*Fair enough, so what do you think of this whole situation?* Snake asked.
*You already asked me that,* Daniel said.
*You never game me an answer,* Snake said.
*I'm still mulling things over, I'll let you know when I figure anything out,* Daniel said.
They two of them sat in silence while the others finished their meal which didn't take very long, then when they were done everyone paid their portion of the meal before leaving. "Let's head over to the bank now, Almon should be waiting for us," Jen said.
"Where's the bank?" Morgan asked.
"Two blocks ahead, take a left, it's about half a mile down the road on the right, only bank in town," Daniel said.
Once again everyone, except for Snake and Kalista turned and looked at Daniel, "What, I memorized a map," he said.
Following his directions the group walked two blocks down and took a left, then began walking the half mile to the bank. While they were moving down the road Daniel looked at the various shops lining either side of the street, most of them were made of wood which he found to be curious. While there were trees surrounding the town there weren't that many, wood seemed to be a rare commodity which made him curious why they would waste it on buildings when almost every other structure he'd seen in person, or picture, was either stone or metal. Almon eventually came into view in the distance, he was standing outside the bank wearing a simple light brown shirt with blue slacks and had taken the time to clean up and make himself presentable, when he saw the group he waved. Upon their approach he exchanged a few small pleasantries with Valery and Snake, then they walked into the bank while the others waited outside. With time to kill Daniel decided to satisfy a curiosity of his, crossing the street to where a considerably overweight young woman with black hair, a chubby face, and a solid green dress was working with a data pad he stopped in front of her waiting for her to look up. She didn't seem to see him for a moment, then when she did look up he smiled, "Good afternoon," Daniel said.
"Hiiiii," she said smiling broadly.
"Would you mind if I asked you something?" Daniel asked.
"Ask me anything you want," she said.
"With wood being in such short supply why are most of the buildings made out of wood?" Daniel asked motioning to the buildings.
The young woman looked at him oddly, obviously not the question she was excepting, "Most of the buildings are hundreds of years old, there used to be a lot more trees back then."
"Well that makes sense I suppose," Daniel said, "they must be well maintained, they don't look hundreds of years old."
"My name's Danica, what's yours?" Danica asked.
"Daniel," he said, still looking around.
When he looked back to Danica he noticed that she kept looking at him but every time their eyes met she'd look away. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on so he quickly cycled through his human behavior files, fidgeting, not making direct eye contact, she was nervous, but why? Next he tried cross-referencing nervousness with interaction between opposite sexes. The response he got was that the nervous party is often attracted to the other and desires further interaction, but is fearful of rejection. On a whim he blurted out, "Wanna go out on a date?" Danica just froze in place looking at him like a deer caught in the headlights of a hover car, "Yes?" he managed to say weakly.
"Okay, what time's good for you?" Daniel asked.
"Six o'clock tonight?" Danica asked.
"Sure, I'm not busy, what's say we meet here outside the bank?" Daniel asked.
Danica didn't even say anything, she just grinned from ear to ear and nodded, then quickly walked off down the street, she seemed quite happy to Daniel. The decision to ask Danica out on a date had been a spur of the moment thing, considering he had a lot of time on his hands he wanted to further explore human interactions. When he walked back over to the other he noticed Morgan was looking at him strangely. "What?" he asked. Looking in the direction Danica had left in he turned his attention back to Daniel, "Why did you ask 'her' out?"
"Why not?" Daniel asked.
"Dude, she's fat," Morgan said. At that point Jen slugged him in the shoulder causing him to look at her and rub the area she had struck, "Morgan, that's mean!"
"It's true," Morgan said.
Paying them little mind Daniel leaned against the wall outside the bank just watching the people go about their daily business. It was almost a half-hour later when Valery and Snake came walking out followed by Almon who held up a small leather bag and smiled to everyone. The main thing on Daniel's mind at the moment was actually having Almon look at Kalista and see if he could figure out what was wrong with her, from his point of view it wasn't a matter of if, even Snake who was over three-hundred years old was more lively than she was. The walk back to the shop was relatively quiet, when they arrived Almon walked into an office in the back and knelt down for a moment, Daniel heard the sound of buttons being pressed, then a door opening and closing, before he walked back out with a small black bag in hand. While the other two mechanics were hard at work he talked with the everyone, "Okay, here's how we'll do this. I'll give you five-hundred credits to hold you over for the time being, once the new chassis is built and Snake's CPU is transferred over we'll swap, twenty-four thousand, five hundreds credits for the old chassis. Sound fair?" Taking the bag Valery smiled and nodded, "Thank you, you've been a life saver."
"Snakeman," Almon said motioning to one of the machines, "if you like you can step over here and help design your new chassis."
"Oh, cool," Snake said.
While Snake and Almon stood in front of the console discussing chassis designs Daniel and the others walked outside and began speaking in low tones to avoid being overheard. "So what do we do now Jen, the money from this exchange will help but it'll only go so far. The five of us can't do this alone." Valery whispered.
"Valery's right, if we're going to rebuild we'll need weapons, resources, manpower, a base of operations, it's going to take a lot to get going again." Morgan whispered.
"For the time being we should find a place to stay, get jobs, and keep a low profile. Things are too hot right now, we can use the down time to scout the locals, see who's really pissed off at Neo, look for a new base, and find a way to secure resources." Jen whispered.
Daniel was so uninterested in what they were talking about he took Kalista by the arm and walked back into Almon's shop with her. He was still looking over chassis designs with Snake, bringing up different templates he would point at the screen discussing their various aspects and capabilities. He noticed Daniel out of the corner of his eye when he looked over at Snake and turned to face him, "What can I do for you young man?" Pushing Kalista forward a little he pointed at her, "How much would you charge me to have her looked at, I think there's something wrong her neural net."
"For what you're about to hand me, consider it a freebie," Almon said.
"You're being awfully trusting of us, how do you know we won't get a bunch of stuff from you and just run off?" Daniel asked. Almon actually chuckled at that a little, "Son I've been in this game longer than you've been around, I know when someone's trying to put the sucker play on me. Besides I've got the rest of the money and five hundred credits won't get you very far. Craig over there can take care of you," he said pointing to the man who was still working on the reploid arm. Taking Kalista by the arm again he lead her over to where Craig was working as he smirked to himself, been around longer than Daniel indeed. Dressed in a light blue jumpsuit, sunglasses, and a black scarf on his head Craig had a gauge of some sort in his hand with wires connected to a mechanical arm. Each time he pressed one of the buttons on the gauge a finger on the reploid would flex briefly, but what caught Daniel's attention was the fact that Craig had some sort of design on his skin, it looked like a series of curved, interconnecting black lines of various length and width that disappeared under the collar of his jumpsuit. He also had, what Daniel identified as a cigarette, in his mouth and Craig's attention was caught by Daniel coughing when he exhaled a cloud of smoke that drifted behind him.
"Hey bro, sup?" Craig said.
Waving his hand to disperse the smoke he pointed to Kalista, "Almon said you could help me with my friend here." Craig twisted in his seat to get a better look at Kalista, then turned back to Daniel, "Whatcha need done, or undone."
"I think there's something wrong with her neural net," Daniel said.
"Can ya be a little more specific?" Craig asked.
"Kalista, you're an absolute retard, it was a mistake on the part of your creator having ever built you, you worthless scrap heap," Daniel said.
"I'm sorry sir, I'll try to do better," Kalista said.
Without even saying anything Daniel pointed at her with an expression as if to say 'see'. Craig even seemed to take notice of the odd response, scrunching his eyebrows a little he spoke out of the corner of his mouth that didn't have the cigarette in it, "Well that ain't normal, I was half expecting her ta knock your block off for that."
"Which she should have, but didn't." Daniel said.
Rising from his seat Craig motioned to Kalista, "Have a seat sweety." As instructed Kalista sat on the chair, while she waited Craig ran his hands through her hair for a moment then seemed to find what he was looking for, pressing down with a finger he opened a port on the side of her head, "Well that ain't good," he said. Leaning over to see what he's talking about Daniel looked into the port as well not sure what 'ain't good', "What?" he asked.
"Well for starters she's only got a ten-terraquad memory chip, that's not even enough to run her entire neural net," Craig said.
"Why would she install a memory chip too small to run her neural net?" Daniel asked.
For a moment Craig looked Kalista over, "I don't think she did, hold on, let me check something." Snuffing the cigarette in an ashtray next to the arm he walked over to a large stand-up tool chest and pulled out several drawers rummaging around before finally locating what he was looking for. The device he took out looked like a thin gray box with a screen, a series of button below it, and a single wire running out of the top and bottom. Walking back over he plugged the device into a wall socket, then slid the tip of the wire into a port on Kalista's head. The device powered up and Craig pressed several buttons, then started shaking his head, pressing a few more buttons he nodded slightly, "Kalista, stand up," he said. As ordered Kalista stood up, when she did Craig slid a finger down the front of her pants and pulled them forward looking inside, Daniel was about to backhand him when he let go, "Droid job."
"What?" Daniel asked.
"She's been given a droid job, unfortunately I can't say this is the first time I've seen something like this," Craig said.
"What's a droid job?" Daniel asked.
"Well for starters it's highly illegal, but basically the yank out the memory chips, hack the neural net and shut it all down save for the sub-routines need to run the body and give basic responses," Craig said.
"Why would someone do that to her?" Daniel asked.
"Take a good look bro, why do you think she got 'upgraded' with boobs and.. other stuff," Craig said, nodding to her crotch.
It took Daniel a moment to realize what he was talking about, when he did he just lofted a brow as he often did, "That's disgusting."
"Tell me about it, how sad yo little life got to be to not get you some real," Craig said.
"Can you fix her?" Daniel asked.
"The hack job and the memory chips yeah, but without recovering her original chips her old memories are gone man, personality template's still there though, stored in virtual memory," Craig said.
"How long will it take?" Daniel asked.
"Oh, 'bout two minutes," Craig said.
The rather grungy looking technician walked back to the tool box again pulled out a small drawer first, removing several memory chips he held them up to the light until deciding on two, then put them into the breast pocket of his jumpsuit. After that he pulled what looked like a small, flat, black box out of another drawer, walking back over he disconnected the line from the first device connecting it to the box as he set it on the table. He plugged both of the memory chips into Kalista's head with a small click before removing the first, then lifted the top of the black box revealing it to be a small computer, why he kept a computer in a tool box Daniel had no idea. His fingers flew across the keyboard with considerable speed and he only stopped a few times to curse at the computer before continuing. Another few minutes of typing and Kalista gasped audibly arching her back, for the first time since he had met her Daniel saw signs of intelligence in her eyes. She looked around the room, at Daniel, Craig, then stood up looking at herself as well.
"Where's my armor?" Kalista asked, then she looked at her chest hefting her breasts, then grabbed herself between the legs exclaiming, "WHAT THE HELL?"
