"-says when he wakes up, he'll have short-term memory loss at worst so that's good. Doc also said that a few more minutes and it would've been muchmuchworst… so thanks choom, we owe you."
"Don't worry about it, I helped out because you needed it not 'cause I wanted something from you," I say through my agent and roll out from under the engine to throw the wrench back in its bag.
"Well, I feel like I owe you so it doesn't matter what you think," she responds with a huff.
Chuckling, I wipe my hands off the grime picked up from the undercarriage as I try to move on, not really wanting to fight her on that, "How about the cost? Can't imagine fixing anything up in his noggin is cheap," I ask a bit more seriously as I slide inside.
"The company sent a corpo by to talk about it, apparently he wasn't sent to the corps ripperdoc 'cause his manager has been skimming off the equipment budget and was worried someone would find something from the investigation. Would've gotten away with it before Leon decided to get brain damage and make the problem worse," she says wryly.
"Huh, that's weirdly nice for a corp."
"Yeah well, they put a pretty penny into Leon's cyberware so he's worth more than a manager they can promote anyone to fill. They covered the bill along with a nice little bonus to, y'know, keep this on the down low… and never try to sue 'em for it."
"Really? Well where's my corpo then? I want my hush money," I whine at her as I hit the ignition.
My baby whines for a second before sputtering once, twice annnnd, "Sonuava," I mutter under my breath when it dies out again.
"Get a job you deadbeat," she deadpans but giggles right after, "though I don't think it's your speed anymore, keep up what you're doing then you'll be raking it in soon enough."
I hum in agreement and decide to ignore the little engine problem for a bit to absently scroll through the laptop hooked up to my ride and double-check that the ECU is properly registering the new bit of oomph I added to level the playing field a bit while fixing her up. The hit to my account hurt but the scraps from the winnings and the beefy bets Marv's been making have helped evened it out, but it still digs deep. It'll be worth the eddies… itbetterbe worth it.
"I'll let you go now, thanks for letting me talk your ear off, I needed a bit of a distraction after all of this."
"Nah it's fine, what're chooms for."
Saying goodbye, I drop the call and bring up the tuning program to finish up the installation but my agent rings again before I can get into it.
Raising an eyebrow at the private number, I swipe to answer and can't get a word in before the person on the other end speaks up.
"Young'in! Barely a month later and what do I hear from my boys? Top three in only two races!" Lorenzo, because who else could it be, whistles over the line.
"Thanks, put a lot of effort into getting there, you giving me a chance really helped me out," I nervously laugh.
"Yeah yeah you're welcome, now stop kissing my ass and listen. I got something going on that you might wanna get in on seeing as how well you've been doing."
"Oh?" I say with some interest and set my laptop to the side.
"Got a race coming up, mid-level nothing too big but I need entertainment for some choomsthat're visiting, and what better way to spend a night than to watch some shmucks get wrecked eh? Well, maybe some time with a joytoy or two. Hmm… never mind, watching dumbasses crash sounds like a way better night."
"I hope you're not saying I'm one of those shmucks?" I ask with some hope.
"Depends on whether you're planning on flaking like you've been doing so far," he says blandly, but his words are enough to make my nerves spike.
"Ah- um, no- no sorry sir, just… didn't want to step on any toes so soon."
"Uh uh," he hums flippantly, "Well you did a shit job at that, should've just won done deal and you wouldn't have had to deal with those shits cockblocking you like they tried last race. And drop that sir shit, you ain't on my shitlist just yet."
"Yes sir- I mean Lorenzo. Wait, if you know about those four then why do you let them team up like they do? Doesn't that fix the races?"
"I don't give two shits about that, they know when to spice the races up and only go for the kiddy winnings, not touching the betting scene as they should,not like my boys would let them," I hear him mumble the end bit, "Anyone that gets cucked by them don't deserve to move up. You really should've won in the first race when they were testing you, now you just look like a kid that's gonna be stuck down with them for a while, not good enough to move on but enough to cut into their winnings."
I wince at the explanation he gives, which looking at it from their point of view, I can see why they would try to screw me over and get me out of their scene. They also can't risk letting me win without a fight to make me move on because without proving my skills, that'll just get Lorenzo's men on their case. I screwed up, something I readily say.
"Eh, try from now on and you'll be good, or you'll crash and burn but that's up to you. Now forget about all that, I'll be picking four of you from the amateurs that I think are good to join in, the rest are coming around from my regulars along with a nomad or two that'll get wind of it, those you'll find won't be weak noodles compared to everyone else."
"Now there's also going to be a very special guest coming along, one of my chooms who wants to play around on the street after a while. No spoilers but if you end up racing you better have something up your sleeve if you want to stand a chance to him," I can already feel butterflies in my stomach from the competition he spelled out to me. But at the same time?
My grin hurts.
"Don't worry," confidence springs up from somewhere deep in my gut, "I'll win."
"Heh, just put on a good damn show young'in," he ends off before dropping the call with a beep.
Ping
Lowering my agent to see the text, my brows shoot up as I see the prizes for the top three, jaw-dropping once I see the massive list of high-end chrome that you get to choose from on top of the eddies. Scrolling through it, I end up needing to search for half the stuff I've never even heard of and make a list of those that seem useful, at least until my thumb lands on the one that speaks out to me, aDynalar Tinker Titan Mk. IVcyberdeck.
Two generations behind yet still highly sought after by corps, mechanics and engineers everywhere due to its powerful computational capabilities, leading it to havethebest simulation program on the market. Able to design, test, tune and measure anything and everything on the spot in highly realistic environments, in reason of course it's still a deck at the end of the day.
That's not all though, the best part, in my opinion, is that it's able to scan anything mechanical, if you have good enough eyes that is, and have exact blueprints made for it with even suggestions to make it better!
Though with so many features, they heavily specialized in what they made it for and so cut a lot of corners. For one you can doveryminimal netrunning, only able to run basic ping quickhacks or unlocking doors, anything else and you'd start cooking. I don't know why even though it's able to run realistic simulations no problem but I'm not going to argue against the few 'runners that tried and lived to tell the tale. I don't think I'd ever be able to do the magic that they can do so I'm completely fine with what the deck can offer.
Ignoring the subscription fees for the simulation and scanning programs for the sake of my mind, I scroll through the forum to see what others think about it and see a lot.
Mainly moaning about how they can't afford something that good, or showing off that they were able to grab one even further back than theMk. IVto the envy of everyone else, which what the hell? Why is Lorenzo putting something this in-demand for a race like this, I thought it was supposed to be mid-level!
I lean back with a sigh as my mind runs through everything that happened in such a small amount of time, and what this race is going to mean for my future. With the prizes being so generous, I know that Lorenzo was understating the difficulty of the race, especially the mystery guest that's going to be racing.
I'll need every advantage I can get in the next few weeks to stand a chance. Standing with a grunt, I go back into the guts of my ride, motivated to make the most of this chance.