~ Chapter 5: Connections and Contracts ~
[Cody’s point of view]
My little shopping spree cost me no more than $8,520. It hurt to see the sum vanishing from my account like that, but I was happy. I was certain I had not wasted my money; on the contrary, I was investing it in my future as well as a newly established connection with the woman named Tina, who was exactly what I was looking for! She was a treasure trove in the form of a mountain of broken devices and abandoned tech, which I could acquire at a fraction of their production cost. Each of them was like a gift of knowledge that not even the top universities on this planet could offer me.
The moment I stepped into Al’s Broken Busted Wares, I knew I was going to become its number one client. Walking among the shelves of broken tech and piles of discarded devices made me feel like a starved wolf walking through a butcher’s shop; it took a lot of self-control for me not to buy everything in sight. The only things that stopped me were my limited funds and the space where I could store them. The workshop was still tiny by comparison.
I was eager to try my hand at dismantling all that tech and to begin exploring and experimenting with it. If I could start fixing all the stuff I saw in Tina’s shop, I would probably end up maxing out my skills.
She also had robots... and I liked robots. I could not pass on the chance to try my hand at tinkering with an actual working piece of technology like that!
As soon as I got back to the workshop, I got to work.
I put on my suit and goggles. I grabbed my toolbox and spare parts. I grabbed the first device I found in my bag of goodies and began to work on it.
[Military Thermal Scanner: 57% Repair Knowledge. 74% Dismantling Knowledge. 25% Fabrication Knowledge.]
My hands worked fast. I took off the screws, unglued the parts, bent the clamps, pulled the pins, heated the plastic and deformed it to remove it. The parts were gathered at my side one by one; then, when I was done, I reassembled it.
It was like a game where I simply had to put in the matching piece in the holographic shape; it was easy and intuitive. The more I built, the more I understood how the device worked.
After a while, I began to ignore all of the messages that popped up from the system. I just tossed them all to the side.
The part that I did not touch was the programming, the coding of the device. The reason was simple: I still did not have the tools to handle that process, and I had a feeling the AI Assistant was supposed to help me out with this part, but I had yet to find the time to play around with it. The installed app was still there, unopened since day one.
No matter how much of a genius I was in this life thanks to the system, I still had no idea how to program from scratch or which programming languages were best for which types of applications.
So, I stuck to the hardware.
The first piece, a Military Thermal Scanner, was done in less than half an hour. The next one, a Tellurite Projector, was a piece of alien tech that looked like a sphere. Then I fixed a Wald Scanner, which looked like a flashlight and was used to analyze the biological composition of whatever it was pointed at. There were also pieces of tech that were part of bigger things, like an actuator, an electric motor, a holographic screen, a sensor, a camera, a tablet of some sort, and even three drones.
Once I was done with these... it was already 2 AM in the morning.
I was tired, but I was so happy!
I felt amazing after working so much on all those things. Seeing them brought back to life, to full functionality from a state of disrepair or even what looked like complete destruction, was... incredible. It gave me a rush like I had never felt before! Forget drugs, achieving something like this was a billion times better!
Sitting in my chair, leaned back and looking at the ceiling, I had a big goofy smile on my lips.
“This is great! I feel alive!” I shouted as I struck my fists up in the air.
The following day, at university, while my teacher was busy explaining some marketing strategy that was first developed in the Middle Ages, I was searching the internet for a place where I could sell my new fixed products. There were a lot of technology pawn shops, but few that I felt could be trusted.
The stuff I fixed looked almost brand-new, so questions were no doubt going to pop up all over the place.
Selling them back to Tina was an idea, but as far as I could see there was no FIXED section in her shop. There was only scrap and more scrap there. Did I mention that she sold scrap? Nah? Well, Tina sold only scrap.
Well, if she’s not the one buying, maybe she has a friend I could sell this stuff to? I thought as I wrote down a quick message to her.
The reply came right away: Got a friend called Sparks. Her shop’s in Hell’s Kitchen. Here’s the address [location_link]. She can have a look at your stuff and set the prices for them. Honest deals. Guaranteed by Tina!
Sounds trustworthy enough for my poor self! Worst-case scenario I would just rush out using the portal... I really hoped it was safe.
So, after class, I went to the workshop and got a bag filled with the stuff I fixed, just to test out the joint.
I took a cab since I had the extra money, and I did not feel like my skinny body could handle carrying all that weight if I went by bus or train. I may be a new super, but I was definitely not someone at Mercya’s level to just stand there and yawn while being showered with bullets. Although... inside my workshop, if I wore my suit and goggles, I could theoretically be nearly invincible. I had the feeling they were more of a necessity to stop tech from killing me when it went boom.
Stepping out of the car, I took a deep breath and approached the shop. A worn-out sign was hanging above a simple wooden door, metal bars for protection above it, some sort of force field generators on the side, and bulletproof glass for the windows.
“Hello?” I called out as I entered the shop.
The smell of oil and plastic hit me like a brick.
Unlike Tina’s place, this one was located right in the heart of The City, in the glorious place of Hell’s Kitchen known at one point for being a den of villains of all kinds! Well, both in my past life and this one, the neighborhood was eventually cleaned up. However, that was only on the news... I never actually came here on my own. Never had the guts for that and there was never a need or desire to do so... Why would I? I was not looking for trouble. As a normal human being, a single slap from a superhuman was enough to send me to the hospital if not to the afterlife.
Yeah, both in this life and my previous one, I was scared of this place... its reputation, everything, was no joke.
Now, it was the same. I was shivering in my boots. Only difference was that I had a shortcut back home, and this gave me some peace of mind.
Then again, my own workshop was located in Hell’s Kitchen as well, but it was not like I walked there when I left for home… It was different, felt different and behaved differently. My workshop did not count toward my inner fear of this place.
The outside of the shop... well, a truck was being pulled out by construction workers from the side of a building on the sixth floor. Two gangs were in the middle of a staring contest from across the street. One was wearing light blue and red colors and the other yellow and brown. The road here was cracked in the middle, but the drivers were just ignoring it for the most part. They were used to this stuff. There was no day that went by when something did not explode in NYC.
If you wanted to survive out here, you had to know when to keep your head down and when to accept the nature of the borough.
“Hello?” I called out again as I approached the cashier.
“Ah! Yes! I’m here in the back! Just wait a second!” a woman called out.
I stopped and looked around. The shelves were filled with all sorts of gadgets.
I picked up a random one and used my skill on it.
[Scanning...]
[Scan Completed. Repair Knowledge Acquired. Dismantling Knowledge Acquired. Fabrication Knowledge Acquired. Progress for complete understanding: 12%]
A tyros shooter. You can use it like a grappling hook, but it will shoot a tyros instead of a rope. Tyros is... a fancy alien word for carbon fiber... I thought as I placed it back on the shelf and picked up something else.
[Scanning...]
[Scan Completed. Repair Knowledge Acquired. Dismantling Knowledge Acquired. Fabrication Knowledge Acquired. Progress for complete understanding: 24%]
A holographic projector, modified... Doesn’t work that well without a cartridge that holds the settings... I thought.
To make tech to less likely to be used by villains, a lot of stuff became over-complicated. For example, this holographic projector could be fitted with a Bluetooth transmitter and receiver. It was programmed to receive information from an app on the phone; however, others could hack it as well from a distance or by hijacking the connection itself, so in order to prevent this, a physical cartridge with preloaded settings was needed. This way, the device could not be interfered with from outside and worked as you intended it to.
On the one hand, it was a hassle, on the other, it worked.
[Scanning...]
[Scan Completed. Repair Knowledge Acquired. Dismantling Knowledge Acquired. Fabrication Knowledge Acquired. Progress for complete understanding: 32%]
A spaceship remote control... lacks batteries. Why would a spaceship remote control work with AAA batteries? I began to question my existence with this one.
“I’m here! Oh! Hello there! I’m Sparks, how may I help you?” the one who called out to me was a woman in her late twenties with purple hair and silver highlights.
Her deep purple eyes were mesmerizing, and for a moment, I lost myself in them.
“Ah... hello!” I shook my head and snapped out of it. “Miss Tina told me about this place; I’ve come to sell some tech.” I told her as I took off my backpack.
“Oh? Tina did? Well, your stuff should be good then. Show it to me. Here. On the counter.” she tapped it with her palm.
“This is a military-grade scanner for biological anomalies.” I placed the small tablet on the table. “The scanner itself is on the back. Works perfectly.”
“Military grade?” she raised an eyebrow as she took it and began to analyze it. “Looks almost brand new... where did you get it?” her eyes shot back at me.
“I bought it from Miss Tina’s place and fixed it.” I replied.
“If you fixed this... then you’re skilled. What else you got?” she asked.
“This is a Military Thermal Scanner, a Tellurite Projector, a Wald Scanner. I also have a Myrconian Communicator, a Zero-Point Field Battery, a bunch of Nano-Plasma actuators for Ionic Phase-Transition Armor, an Inertial Shear Gauntlet, a Thermal Equalizer Cloak, Flex-Track Modular Roadway Holographic Layer.” I said as I completed my list.
“That’s... a lot...” she blinked at the pile. “And all of it works?” she furrowed her brow.
“Perfectly!” I nodded and smiled.
“You serious?”
“Yeah?” I blinked uncertain of why she was looking at me like that.
“You bought junk... JUNK from Tina and turned it into... this?” she pointed at the Myrconian Communicator.
“Some of it was partially working.” I shrugged. “The Inertial Shear Gauntlet, for example, I only had to fix the pico-flywheel ring and replace the graphene torsion shaft, but the gravitonic lens crystal was still perfectly functional. I found the system a bit redundant as that thing can be very fragile, however I had no plans to improve it or modify it.” I shrugged again.
“Modify it? You can upgrade this stuff?” she asked, blinking in surprise.
“Yeah. Is... Is that bad?” I asked.
“Huh? No! Definitely not!” she shook her head and waved her hands “I was just... surprised, that’s all... Junk... from Tina’s place... turned into this... I mean... this is a first...” she looked at the pile of tech.
“So, can I sell it here or not?” I questioned.
“Oh, definitely! But some of this... I can’t sell right away; I can give it to an underground auction house. The civilian tech, we can sell that through the normal auction houses... And everything else, what’s left... can be sold at my place. So, what I can do is make a contract. I pay you for the stuff I can sell myself and the rest I promise to sell for you in exchange for a small fee from the final value, after taxes.” she explained with a smile.
“Sounds good.” I nodded.
“Oh, and... do you take repair orders?”
“Yes?”
“Awesome! I have a client who was looking for someone to fix their thingamajig!” she smirked.
“Sure. My shop is not far from here... intersection of the 9th Ave and W 46th St, Hell’s Kitchen... for now... hopefully.” I replied.
“Oh? You don’t like our quirky part of the neighborhood? Did any supers get you in trouble?” she asked with a laugh.
“Just the usual getting swiped in the sky and dropped from the stratosphere...” I showed a wry smile.
“Oh, dang! OK. You survived though?” she looked up and down at me “Intact too.”
“Yeah, Mercya helped.” I nodded.
“An encounter with the Queen of Heroes herself! Now that’s a tale!” she laughed.
“So, yeah... for now I’m here in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“Alright, I’ll have a look at your place when I get the chance. So... does this mean that you don’t take orders from potential... vigilantes and villains?” she asked narrowing her eyes at me.
“Hm? Y...” I stopped and remembered the fact that my workshop seemed to have two window shops, one for Heroes and one for Villains. “No, I don’t care who comes. For heroes is at the front; for villains, at the back, ground-level window... so essentially, a basement workshop.”
“Mhm~ Well, I won’t judge, a dollar is a dollar no matter what hand it goes through... Just, you do know that some of these gadgets could end up in the hands of villains if they go through an auction. Aren’t you worried about them using them for, you know, bad stuff?” she asked as she tapped on the Inertial Shear Gauntlet.
That device could store tangential momentum in counter-rotating flywheels, then lens-focused it into the wearer’s palm as a millisecond shear pulse able to punch through steel doors. The tech behind it far surpassed what was available in my past life, especially the gravitonic lens crystal. Over there, we haven’t even figured out what the gravi part of gravitonic was, let alone how to make or use a gravitonic lens crystal.
Sometimes, I felt like the junk tech the people of this world disregarded as common was leaps and bounds beyond what was achieved in my past life. Leaving aside the villainy and heroism it could be used for, a lot of it could definitely help normal civilians by a lot and even greatly influence their way of life. Yet, here it was, probably some of the most advanced tech I had ever seen, lying on the counter of a tech shop in Hell’s Kitchen, treated as repaired junk, not a treasure trove of knowledge.
“No, I’m not worried... If these things were treated as junk, then the government’s heroes definitely have far more advanced tech to counter it... For me, they are tools, they don’t define the way they are used. That gauntlet, for example, could be used either by a crook to break into shops or by a firefighter to go inside a burning building and save the people there. As for the Thermal Equalizer Cloak, it could be used by firefighters to protect the victims, researchers in the Arctic for better protection, or for special cases in the hospitals. If adapted properly, the tech could help alien species with uncommon thermal needs to adapt better to Earth’s temperatures... So many applications... yet, it was used by a zero with pyromaniac tendencies to protect himself from his own flames...” as I said these things, I realized that I did not regret repairing them. I was fascinated with their technological secrets and not even once did I worry about their future use. It was as if this problem was not mine to worry about... Maybe it wasn’t?
“Well, that’s deep... I honestly didn’t wonder much about how tech should be used or not.” she scratched her head “For me, tech means money.” she shrugged “Whoever wants to use it is their own responsibility. Guess we’re alike in that department.” she smiled “But...” she looked down at it “I can promise you, if you want, that the tech doesn’t end up in bad hands. However, their price might go down because of that... Good guys are stingy with money.” she pointed out.
Blinking twice, I was taken by surprise by this kind offer.
“Sure... I’d like that.” I nodded.
“That’s settled! Then, I’ll buy the parts, Military Thermal Scanner and the Tellurite Projector, which seem to be in perfect condition, for $6,850. The scanner’s a bit of an older model, but I know someone who was looking for one. The rest I’ll sell at auction. I expect at least 13k for everything.” she patted the gauntlet.
“Alright. If this transaction goes well, I’ll bring you some more goods.” I told her.
“Looking forward to it! And you’ll get a client from me, sometime tomorrow.” she nodded.
“Sure thing.”
The money was transferred right away, and I received a receipt from the transaction. My balance was now resting at a charming $67,360.44. I was pondering about whether or not to upgrade the rest of my stuff; however, I had no idea how much money I would end up making from the stuff sold at the auction, so I decided to spend just $35,000 to upgrade my workbench.
Thus, with a single click in my status window, my balance became $32,360.44.
I walked into a nearby alley and opened a portal to my workshop.
Inside, the brand-new station was waiting for me, clearly larger, with an upper rack for suspended tools, a slot for a 3D printer, and with more space to work. Doing this also unlocked more tools for me to purchase in the shop as well as a new slot called: Experimental. This came with its own set of tools and even a special testing bench, where I could use whatever parts and scraps I found to build and patent new tech.
“Guess I should first prioritize getting as many parts and tech junk as possible to start fixing them and improving my skills, afterward, it’s all about turning all that into solid cash. Hm, if this experimental thing is what I think it is... then I will need to register a tech company in my name or a hero’s name...” I wondered as I tapped with my finger on my brand-new workbench.