Drones! Drones were the answer. They were a lot easier to build than power armor, since they don't have to wrap around and adjust to an organic shape. Even better, you don't have to mess about with hatches or seams— always the weakest point in any armor system. I popped open AutoCad and started sketching, again. A rectangular, coffin-sized body would hold the power and ammunition supply, as well as all the electric engines. Four sets of treads, to allow for redundancy in case some were disabled. A low, sloping turret with a low-power railgun inside. It would fire low-velocity paintballs, or normal-velocity bullets, should the situation call for it.
I was frowning over the ammunition feeding system when I was interrupted by Mr. Lesterton standing up. "Welp, it's time to go do some haggling. You feel like coming out? I suppose you could take notes."
I nodded and set down my computer, following Mr. Lesterton out the door. We both got into his shiny new BMW and roared off to visit the scrapyard. On the ride over, Mr. Lesterton explained.
"This particular yard isn't one of our main suppliers, so when we buy from them we negotiate a short contract instead of long-term commitments. When supply drops from the usual yards, we come here to shore up the drop so that production doesn't fall. But if there's a good year, a lot of scrap tends to pile up here. The guy in charge is what I guess you'd call an odd bird. I'm pretty sure he only contracts with us when he runs out of money, and the rest of the time it all just seems to…sit there."
I nodded.
"Anyway, so this fellow just kind of sits on the outskirts of town with a giant field full of rusty crap. He's useful, but he can also be a bit stubborn. We'll see if he's in the mood to be reasonable when we get there."
I nodded again.
Mr. Lesterton made a valiant attempt to keep the conversation alive for the rest of the drive, but when only one member of the conversation is capable of speech, this is a difficult feat. After a while, we lapsed into silence, and finished the drive in that state.
The scrapyard was more or less what everyone expects of the word. It was a wide, open field surrounded by a fence of rusty barbed wire. Within, piles of cars and small appliances loomed beneath wide plastic sheets to protect them from rain. The yard was surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence, topped with curls of barbed wire. The fence poles were rusty, but it was clear a good deal of effort had gone into preserving the entire facility, even if the contents themselves were just piles of rusty junk. The same could be said of the small guard shack that squatted at one corner of the only visible gap in the fence, a ten-foot wide gate spanned by a simple wooden beam.
Mr. Lesterton's car rumbled to a halt on the expanse of damp gravel thats served as a parking lot. Mr. Lesterton and I emerged, and were greeted by a yell from inside the guard shack.
"Who's there? I'm armed, you know!"
"Real friendly guy, huh?" Lesterton drawled.
I snorted. The door of the guard shack opened, and the barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun emerged. It tracked over to our direction, and then lowered as the man himself came into view. I placed him at around sixty-five going on seventy, with white, thinning hair and deep set eyes. He held the gun with steady hands, and even relaxed I saw that it could have been brought up at a moment's noticed.
"Phil. You bought a guest!" the old guy exclaimed, giving no indication that he'd been about four seconds away from shooting at us.
"That I did." Mr. Lesterton agreed. "This is my intern— I'll tell him not to mention that little trick with the shotgun, don't you worry."
"Well, call me Bill." The old guy said. "What's your name, Mr. Intern?"
"He's mute." Mr. Lesterton stepped in when I didn't answer. "Come on, Bill. We've got to discuss this statement you sent to my office."
Bill ignored him, and to my surprise signed what's your name? in flawless ASL.
"D-A-V-E" I spelled out.
"Well howdy then, Dave!" Bill grabbed my hand and shook it hard. "Let's go see what your boss has his panties in a twist over."
Mr. Lesterton had already let himself into the guard shack, and was looking over the papers strewn on the big desk that occupied the wall to the left of the door. The whole edifice looked like someone had mashed together an office, a living room, and a guard shack into a single confused whole. The controls for the gate itself were next to the door, with a small window looking out onto the property. Across from the desk, a thick sofa sat before a coffee table, with a book-stuffed shelf leaning next to it. The rear wall formed a small kitchenette, dishes filling the small drying rack next to the coffee maker.
"Take a seat." Bill invited Mr. Lesterton and I, shooing the former with polite but firm motions away from the desk and into the sofa. I sat down next to him as Bill went past us and started up the battered plastic coffee machine in the kitchenette.
"So about this new shipment of aluminum you're selling," Mr. Lesterton tried to continue, "We're willing to pay between five thousand and twenty thousand, depending on impurity levels and shipping costs. I'd like to run a few quick analysis of the metal in question to confirm—"
"Of course." Bill agreed, turning around with three mugs giving of a thin veil of steam. "But first, coffee."
He thumped down the three mugs onto the coffee table. "Phil, you take yours black, right?"
"You've got a good memory." Mr. Lesterton agreed. "Now, with bulk metals—"
How do you like your coffee? Bill signed.
Two sugars, no milk. I answered. Mr. Lesterton just watched the exchange, looking a little confused. Bill added the requested ingredients, then set about dumping six sugars and half the pitcher of cream into his own mug. He lifted it and took a deep inhale of the aroma. "I find that coffee makes talking business much more bearable, wouldn't you agree?" he said to Mr. Lesterton.
"Of course." Mr. Lesterton agreed. "Now, as I was saying…"
After another hour in the guard shack listening to Bill Hallowell and Phil Lesterton argue about pricing and shipping of scrap aluminum, we headed out into the damp of the late morning to inspect the scrap itself. Bill also insisted on a tour around the entire facility, which I found interesting but Mr. Lesterton seemed to have seen it several times already. It was about four hours before we arrived back at the office, where Mr. Lesterton flopped into his desk chair and put an arm over his eyes.
"I swear to Christ that old bastard just wants to torment me," he moaned. "It's the same damn song and dance every time I go there. 'Here, let's have some coffee. Are you sure you're leaving so soon?'" he continued in a mocking tone. "Blah, blah blah. That man has no concept of time other than his own, and he just lives to make other people dance to his schedule. God, I hate that." He sighed, opened up his computer and started tapping away at a furious rate. "And now I'm three hours behind on all my work, as usual. Be a champ and grab me another coffee, hey? Four sugars and two things of cream. Hallowell always pretends it's something else."
I arrived in my new home at around five thirty, somehow exhausted despite doing nothing more strenuous than serve as Lesterton's errand boy all day. The apartment was barren and cramped, looking a lot like a prison cell. I opened up the few boxes of stuff I'd brought- mostly tools and a few of the smaller, more valuable trinkets I'd built. I'd need something a lot more impressive if I wanted the Protectorate to take me in, but at least I had a start. The drone-based combat idea that had occurred to me in the morning would be a good starting point, but it would be materials-intensive, a problem that was made worse by my new location. There wouldn't be a lot of abandoned farm machinery around here.
After locking the apartment back up, I decided my next best move would be to start scouring the city for new suppliers of parts. And I had a pretty good idea of where to start. A brisk half-hour drive saw me pulling in to the gravel parking lot of Bill Hallowell's scrapyard.
"Who's there? I'm armed, you know!" he bellowed as I stepped out of the car. The 12-gauge shotgun emerged, with Bill following it. His eyebrows went up in surprise as he saw me standing in front of my car.
Dave, what brings you here? he signed.
I'm just looking for now, I answered, cautious. I'm working on —I paused to look up the symbol in my pocket dictionary— a project of my own.
"A project, eh? When you're not taking notes?" Bill laughed. I hadn't actually even had a piece of paper to write on during the last visit. I joined in the laughter, a little uncomfortable. "Really though, what's the situation?" Bill asked me, his voice kinder now. He seemed to understand I was still getting used to ASL and spoke when it would be hard to communicate the ideas by sign.
It took a bit of time, but I explained the deal with the internship— getting hired for a statistic on their brochures to make the company look better, and how it meant my job consisted of little more than waiting in an office to be instructed to do menial tasks.
"That's rough, kiddo." Bill sympathized. "But why're you coming here? Shouldn't you go shoot the breeze with all the other young people?"
Like I said, I'm doing a project I answered. I was hoping to buy some supplies from you.
"And what sort of supplies would those be?"
I paused to show him the list I'd assembled.
"What the hell do you need a thousand five-by-twenty steel plates for?" Bill demanded as he read through the list. "Seven heavy-duty electric motors? Five tons of sheet steel? What the hell kind of project is this?"
I need to… I paused. Give some proof that I'm worth having. I finished. I'd let him interpret that with what information he had.
Bill thought about it for a while, rubbing his chin. "Alright." He said. "I'll give you a discount, if you like. And I've got a decent machining shop, though I'll have to charge you for time, too."
We haggled —it was slow-paced, because of ASL— but we managed to agree on a price that wouldn't leave me eating out of Dumpsters, but enough to keep Bill satisfied he wasn't giving things away for free to random kids off the street. It was agreed that any damage I did to the equipment would also be paid out of my own pocket. At last we shook hands once more, and Bill brought me in to the guard shack for some more coffee. He remembered the way I liked mine, and I sipped it as he gathered up the hands that worked around the property to haul together the materials on the list.
The steel would be first. I had never used a blowtorch before, but my tinker abilities made it no big deal I snapped the heavy mask on over my face, put in my earbuds, and queued up a Led Zeppelin playlist, starting with the only obvious choice for this situation: Immigrant Song. To the sound of Robert Plant screaming about Valhalla, cold steel met white-hot flame.