"Alright, take a right down here and we'll be there, and watch out for that ditch," I direct Marvin as we travel between two hills of plastic and metal.

"I know how to drive gonk, stick with being a passenger princess," he bites out, twitching a bit when he notices my grin.

Taking a break from annoying him, like I've been doing the whole trip out to the dump, I lean back in my seat and peer out the window to the decades old trash surrounding us. The area of the city dump we're at is pretty far from the main dumping site, but it also puts us far away from anyone diving for anything worth an eddie and out of anyone else's hair.

"Ok see that corner there? Take it and I'm pretty sure that's where the stuff is."

"Pretty sure? Drake I don't know about you but I'd rather not get lost around here."

I wave off his concern, "Don't worry about it, I know this place like the back of my hand. Just don't remember exactly where the stuff we want is."

He huffs before taking the corner and I hold onto the dash as the car rumbles precariously over the terrain, the stubborn wheel somehow still moving forward though I'm not sure for how much longer.

"So you haven't said exactly it is what we're looking for. I'm assuming its parts to fix the car but wouldn't anything useful have been picked clean a while ago? Or just completely useless from how old it'll be?" He asks a good question.

"Well see for yourself," I point around us as we pull into a clearing, surrounding us on all sides are rusted cars, ranging anywhere from a decade ago to as far back as 2020.

Marv whistles as he pulls us to a stop in the center.

Thunk

I grunt as the car drops, the wheel finally popping out though at least it chose a good time to do so. We share a glance and laugh at our luck.

Awkwardly stepping out the car, I turn to look at Marv who's taking in the view.

"How'd you find this place?" He asks as he walks up to an old motorcycle, though it's too broken down for me to be sure, but I think it might be an old Harley.

"My grandma, she brought my dad around here when it was part of the main dumping grounds for some extra eddies," I answer as he kicks the frame, the metal breaking off easy from rust, "He did the same with me a couple times when I was little but stopped after getting his job at the field. I never came back cause what's left now is not worth lugging all the way back to the city to sell, and those parts are what we're here for."

I pop open the trunk and grab both toolboxes I was able to fill up from the market yesterday, for surprisingly cheap because people don't really care to try and repair their tools when they stop working. Thankfully most of them were simple problems wire or gear replacements.

I guess with no self-repair vids on the net, corps have very large legal teams on standby for anyone that posts, they just eat the cost.

Although I do admit I may have irreparably broken two tools and made the hand welder catch on fire though I hold my point that it's meant to do that. Fixing up the tools gave me some good experience and saved me a ton of eddies to put towards getting some extra stuff so plus sides all around.

I plop the boxes down and pull on some thick gloves I sneaked into a deal without the vendor noticing, "Alright, time for the fun part Marv, time to gut this thing."

"How much of it?" He asks and I laugh at the dread in his voice as he puts on the second pair.

"Unfortunately for you, everything but the stuff I need to drive this thing. So we're taking out the back seats, any unneeded covering, electronics and cosmetics. Basically, everything," I ignore his groan as I open the door up and start us off.

It takes us two hours to take what we need out, pushing us to about one in the afternoon and the only reason it took that long was because of how oddly everything was built on the car… though I guess that's the whole point so you can't do anything without an auto shop.

I pass a can of soda to Marv as I sit down beside him on the backseats we just threw out and lower my bandana to take a swig, there was a lot of dust and other things flying in the air that we didn't want to risk breathing in.

"What now?" Marv huffs between gulps.

"We go look for some new wheels and whatever else we can find. We won't be getting outta here with only three wheels, and the other ones are pretty bare as well."

Saying that though, we decide to take a break for a bit more before heading out. We split up to head down the different paths that branch off from the main clearing but stay on call on our agents in case we find something and need help.

The first path I go down I don't see any of the carcasses of cars in good condition, the same holding when I open a few hoods and see the engine block either completely missing or badly damaged.

"Got nothing over here, you?" I ask, a little disheartened.

I hear him grunt and take a second to answer, "Got something good, found the body of another 240 and its hood is in better shape than ours."

"Oh that's a good find, need some help over there?"

"Nah I'm good, it'll take me a minute to take it off but I can drag it over so you can keep searching."

Mood a little better from at least one of us finding something good, I head down another path extending from my own. Again, nothing good but my eyes lock onto an Archer Hella, one looking like it decided to hug a pole with its front, but the rest of the body looks in good condition and I get an idea as I look at the extended wheel covers on the sides. Cutting the pieces off with my welder, I lug them back to the car before heading down a new path and I immediately know I hit the jackpot.

I see two economy vehicles of different makes with all their wheels intact, but a closer look convinces me to take only three, the rest flat from holes, though it's still a great find and I giddly roll them back just in time to see Marv struggling to drag a dented sheet of metal?

I ask the question in my mind to Marv who grins back at me, "Found a Thrax that apparently didn't do its job in protecting the guys inside. But its hood was intact and since it's armored, I had an idea. Why don't we cut off the part of the cabin that goes over the trunk and fit this on instead? It'll take a little work but will protect you real good, shave some weight off and with a cheap camera or two you'll still be able to look backwards."

"So, a bootleg Crystal Dome? I'm a hundred percent for that, good idea Marv," I grin as his turns into a proud smile.

With there still being some time until sunset, we decide to head down one more path together for a quick look before working on the car and what a choice it was as I walk around the burnt husk of an Alvarado.

"Drake, this doesn't look as old as the rest of this place like you said it is," Marv warily says as he slowly approaches the car from behind me.

I go up to the front and peer into the empty cabin, all the plastic and electronics looking melted, and the seats charred to a crisp, nothing useful for us.

"Yeah well it looks like its been out here for a couple years," I go around to the back door and a quick tug lets me know its unlocked but jammed so I put more force into the next one, "so we shouldn't have any trouble- oh hell!" I back up as a black skull rolls to my feet.

Peering inside with some trepidation, I blanch as I see at least three other skeletons inside with bones on the ground and the seats, but I think it's more because I don't think that many bones can come from just three people.

"What is this choom," Marv whispers as he looks over my shoulder.

I tear my gaze away from a skull partially fused with the seat to the rest of the cabin, seeing nothing else other than more bones, I slowly shut the door again.

"What- what should we do? Call the Rangers?" I turn to look at Marv, noticing that he's looking kind of pale, but I shake my head at him.

"No we shouldn't, not much of a point. Like I said this has been here for a few years now and the fire probably burnt anything useful to ashes long ago."

"But… these people were murdered Drake, you know how the Rangers are about it," he says weakly, and I know it's more to convince himself than me.

"Yeah and we both know what they'll think. They'll see two kids in a place they shouldn't be who found a car with skeletons, and when they eventually come up with no leads? All they have is us. It'll be fifty-fifty whether they pin this on us to close the case or let us go with a fine neither of us can afford to pay, and that's not all. You see any cyberware in there?" I question.

I continue when he gives a shake of his head, "Well me neither, means this was probably scav work and those guys are connected, enough to notice a case open about their work and with our names in it as the ones that found it? They'll know it was us. I'd rather not get attention from any of those guys, so let's not worry about these guys, sucks but we can't do anything for them."

I can see that he's still uneasy about this but accepts my reasoning. To be fair I get where he's coming from, we both did our best to stay out of these situations over the years but the few places I've worked at forced me into them, but Marv? He has quite an intuition of bad situations and gets out long before something bad happens so it's probably worse for him as it's his first time possibly needing to deal with Rangers.

I leave him where he is looking through the cracked glass and head to the front of the car. I get out my welder and switch it to cutting and start working on the spots of the hood that fused with the body, taking a few minutes before the hood's disconnected and I lift it up.

Unfortunately, the fire was strong enough to reach all the way inside and made the battery explode, ruining essentially the whole engine. With a sigh of disappointment, I drop the hood but looking around I don't see Marv anywhere and call out to him.

"I'm down under!"

Going back to where he was, I see his feet sticking out from under the car with a small power jack lifting the car up.

I squat beside his feet as I hear him tinkering with something inside before grunting and shuffling himself out, "Anything good?"

"Think so. The catalytic converter looks good, don't think the heat reached all the way under but I can't get it out, loosened the bolts but there's something else keeping it in place," he says with a grimace as he stands and dusts his clothes.

"Let me try," he waves me on, and I grunt as I lay back where he was and shuffle myself under.

I can see why he thinks it looks promising; the thing somehow looks near brand-new bar some dust and rust somehow. It takes a few seconds to figure out the problem, a set of bolts hidden behind a protective shield which I think was meant to make it harder to steal but given I just pull it off with my fingers, I think it's just a marketing thing for 'improved' theft prevention.

We head back as fast we can to the car after I take it out, both of us working together to replace the wheel that fell off along with the two that look the worst off. It looks pretty weird with there being three different rims on the car but I'm just thankful they were all the size we needed.

With there still being time before dark I decide to look on the forum I've been using as a textbook for studying up on cars and mods I can do.

It's essentially the most active car modification forum on the net, needing an invite from someone already in it, something Lorenzo sent along earlier. The corps seem to be fine with it, which I think is because racing is what gives them the best marketing, at least in Texas. Everyone wants what the winner drives.

So, although they dislike so much information on their proprietary cars on the net for anyone to look at, as long as it stays between a select group, their willing to overlook it for a better showing, and ideas for improvements they can use for their next generation. Though I think there's certain things I should keep to myself, just so y'know, I don't get put on a mega-corp's hitlist for spreading too much to other corp's.

It takes less than five minutes for me to find information on catalytic converters and how to modify them along with quite an interesting bit of information. Catalytic converters aren't actually needed anymore, it's something that corps use to justify adding an extra thousand or more to a car's price which is why laws on it haven't been changed. Hell, they barely put as much platinum inside for it to be worth how much they charge for it.

CHOOH2 burns clean enough that using a catalytic converter has minimal improvement on emissions, enough that everyone on that thread recommended just dropping it and using a straight piped exhaust which significantly improves performance, something which I like the sound of.

"You think Pietro is open to buying this off us?" I ask Marv, him being the one that talks to the old Balkan the most.

"Yeah he probably will, he doesn't really care where parts come from as long as they work."

"Perfect, tomorrow morning we'll head over and start on our car, now help me load everything up, my sense of smell is coming back and it's trying to kill me so I don't want to come back to this dump until I have to."