134. lamp
The word fixer has several nuances.
Subcontracted freelancers, violent gangsters, behind-the-scenes detectives, ruthless contractors, vigilantes on behalf of the police, day laborers, thugs who only live today, veterans who have nowhere to go, and so on.
In conclusion, everything was correct. Since it cannot be defined as any of the above jobs, I dared to use the term ‘fixer’. The only thing that was clear was that he would get the job done and get paid accordingly.
“That’s why I usually don’t have personal feelings…”
Leonard drew the revolver cocker and held it close to Brooks’ chin, the scavenger. Mokwooldae wriggled and pushed the muzzle away, but the effect was as weak as store security.
“I think this is going too far. Aren’t you?”
“Oh, oh, no… that’s not it…”
The place I found after searching for Joy Bridge’s information was at a corner of the implant remodeling store on 22-2 Street.
I couldn’t believe that a writer who deals with a terrorist group would openly open a shop in the middle of a downtown area, but I had no choice but to believe it when I forcibly opened two security doors. Even if the public security suppression unit was determined and attacked, various unmanned weapons were plastered in all directions.
“Really, the flamethrower is too much. Do you know what a serious crime arson is?”
Max grumbled as he inspected his melted shoes. I say it jokingly, but it wasn’t a joke. If Leonard hadn’t been the leading hacker in Sodom, if he hadn’t kept in mind the possibility of being a Liberation Front hideout, he would have been killed or seriously injured.
“Damn, darn, are you the one who killed Derek? Are you going to kill me too?”
Derek was the first psycho chip dealer whose brain was melted after he was killed by skinheads, or to be exact, when he used a psychochip to evade skinheads and Elia Gardens. Leonard didn’t bother to explain that he was a different solver. Because there is so much more to say than that.
“Did the nobleman, who knew about it, wait while continuing this business?”
“That’s uh, I can’t help it…”
“Because you can’t give up on these?”
Leonard looked left and right through the storeroom. It was a place that seemed to combine a butcher’s shop from the days when slaughter was practiced in the distant past and a junk shop from the aftermath of the Great War. The difference from those days was that the things hanging from the ceiling were people, not livestock, and the things piled up in the cupboard were implants, not scrap metal.
In fact, there was nothing special about the illegal implant business. It was just a few days ago that he robbed the office of Tiger Claw, which supplies implants for Kabuki. No, even at this hour, there were a lot of scavengers who kidnapped street vagrants and removed their limbs.
“All a psycho chip needs is a single memory, so why are you catching people like this?”
“Because that also counts as a credit…”
“So it’s a normal business?”
Leonard raised the muzzle. Brooks’ chin rose about 15 degrees.
“Psycho chips! Chip sales don’t count! This is force majeure!”
It was similar to the information I heard earlier. I didn’t buy it in bulk because the number of uses was limited, and I didn’t constantly look for it because it was addictive like an electronic drug. A single psycho chip couldn’t sustain a high street store.
“That’s your situation, and it looks like you’re catching and dissecting people instead of buying junk…”
It was clear from the numbers and equipment. The only thing Leonard was asked to do was information about the Liberation Front, but it was hard to pass by seeing this.
“You won’t be doing the work alone, how many people do you have?”
Scavenger Merchant. Not the scavenger merchant, but Brooks, the merchant who sells the scavenger, rolled his eyes. It was a monster hacker who silenced unmanned weapons at once. Even if you shut your mouth and delete the memory, it will dig through your head and extract the information you want. It didn’t seem like the hardware would be left intact in the process.
“If you say that… will you save me?”
Leonard showed white implant teeth.
“I am the fixer.”
As mentioned above, the nuances of the fixers were very diverse. Among them, Brooks pinned his hopes on being an ‘expert who handles requests without personal feelings’.
“Terrorists, the terrorist organization Liberation Front. They send people from there to give them work and monitor them…”
However, the solver Leonard spoke of did not mean that. bang-!
@Leonard opened the revolver cylinder and pulled out a cartridge case. It was hot because it had just been fired. I conveyed my impressions to the temporary profile opponent who popped up in the corner of my sight.
“This has been resolved.”
General quests do not report in real time, but this time was an exception in many ways, so I used brain chip communication diligently. It will be similar over there.
“Good luck then. good See you there.”
Leonard pushed a new bullet into the empty cylinder and ended the call with his client/partner/temporary collaborator.
“What about these?”
Max asked, pointing to the pile of implants. There were various types from fingers to toes to internal organs. What I couldn’t find in this workshop was a single chip that connects to a socket.
“If I bring it in and sell it, it will get some credit. Should I keep it?”
“Evie… It’s kind of fragmented like this…”
Still, I couldn’t just leave it alone, so I decided to pass it on to the twins. Excluding collection cost, processing cost, distribution cost, etc., only a small amount of information fee came out.
If the credits are tight, I’ll bite and stretch to rip off even a little more, but not today. The target of 100,000 credits per pair is at your fingertips.
“Because that’s the main side, they won’t give you the full bounty, right?”
“You should get what you work for.”
Leonard and Max traverse the wreckage and get out of the warehouse. The gang arrived before the public security and was hanging around, as if someone wasn’t a junk town. Leonard made sure it was the gang sent by the twins, then pointed roughly behind him. All unmanned weapons were disabled, so there was nothing dangerous.
Leonard and Max left the gangster bustling shopping district behind and climbed into the Blue Bee parked in an alley. Hearing the gunshots, he waited for a while to avoid the scavengers who came to pick up something to eat.
“If we get the credit this time, let’s split it up properly.”
“When did we not share?”
“Not ours. It’s yours.”
“uh…?”
Leonard honked his horn at the scavenger, who was busy paying for his name, and slowly turned the steering wheel. Then, he looked at Max’s expression. I thought I would jump with joy, but surprisingly it wasn’t good.
“Are you sure you want to retire?”
Dividing it properly means treating it as a proper fixer, so in other words, it was independent and separate.
“You can’t do this for thousands of years.”
“Still, if you can, fill it up for 10 years, right? Until then, unpaid… is a bit like that, and I’ll work for the lowest allowance.”
“What is the lowest allowance?”
A small commotion was heard as if the gang and the scavenger had a conflict. When the gang pulled out their guns and blew the scavenger’s head off, they ran away like rats. It was truly a junk town-like daily life.
The commotion subsided as we came out onto the main road. It was a quiet road, with trucks from corporations and private cars of the top 5% of the rich in junk town passing by occasionally.
“I can’t say I quit completely because I don’t know what the hotel management will be like. Sometimes I might have to run for a part-time job.”
“Also! Is that so too?”
“After all, what else? Do you think the hotel is going to fail?”
“It’s not like that, but now that I think about it, I think it might be.”
Leonard forgot his promise to treat him as a decent solver and hit him once. Adding up all the things I had endured, the intensity was a bit strong. Just-!
@Leonard and Max left the main street of Junk Town and entered the back alley of 13th Street.
As the most popular entertainment district in Sodom, neon signs with obscene designs flashed even in broad daylight. It is a place that is burdensome in many ways for young sprouts to grow, but the biggest burden among them is the owner of the alley.
“This is the Tiger Claw area, right?”
“They hit the back of the head, so why are we scared and avoiding it?”
Even Leonard, who said that, secretly pressed down on his hood. Knowing that it is a bulletproof material, Max said, ‘Iik-!’ He groaned and clung to his back. Before independence, I felt like I needed to get a bulletproof vest fitted at Leisure Boa.
It was early, so I didn’t meet the gang. I only saw a lady who worked all night and came home from work and a few customers who had dark under their eyes because they stayed up all night.
“Here.”
There were also people who stayed up all night but couldn’t get home from work. Such were the skinhead fixers and short-cut style fixers who smoked cheap chemical cigarettes under a burnt-out signboard. Leonard habitually checked his surroundings.
“here is?”
“This shop is run by a friend of mine. It’s a trustworthy place, so come in.”
I rented the entire store as if I was not a regular acquaintance. There won’t be any financial loss due to the end of business hours, but since no business wants to get involved in trouble caused by a fixer, this was great too.
In fact, you could go to Leonard’s office or the broker’s office, but there was a reason why the bar was chosen as the meeting place. Leonard pointed to a middle-aged man trapped in a dark room inside the store.
“Is this an acquaintance?”
“It can’t be.”
He didn’t have the talent to strip away the memory like Leonard, so he caught the whole psycho chip distributor. Restraining the limbs and sealing the sockets to avoid repeating the previous mistake was a bonus. Oops skinheads! Oops! Street kicked the distributor and told him the most important information first.
“The Liberation Front is not here.”
The information Leonard brought was similar. I added a bit of reasoning to it.
“They are wanted throughout the Federation, so we can’t go to other cities.”
Even if the world has improved, logistics distribution between cities took a lot of time and money. Seeing a steady supply of psycho chips, it wasn’t far off.
“It was hiding in Tail Town in the suburbs until recently, but it is said that it was attacked by a fixer and moved.”
“Ahem! Ahem!”
One of the solvers was exceptionally proud.
“Then is it Head Town or Wing Town?”
“Two, two, not both.”
Leonard sent the information he had stolen from Brooks, the scavenger merchant, directly to Skinhead and Eleaia Garden. The workshop information was also transmitted intact, so I frowned slightly. And finally, information was stolen from the third psycho-chip distributor.
“Look at these?”
They do business with the Liberation Front, but they are not affiliated with the Liberation Front. It was most unfortunate that he was not a 100,000 credit bounty, but it was also unfortunate that the information he had was scanty. I had to assemble the pieces of information gathered in pieces by turning them around. Still, it didn’t take long since they were all experts in this field.
“In the first place, there is only one place if it is neither a junk town nor a tail town.”
Turning around, it was White Town again. To be more specific, it was somewhere in the sewerage underground in White Town. Leonard muttered again the proverb of his ancestors who survived in the cyber age of the 21st century.
“After all, it’s not a stand.”