21. ground
‘Mechanic’ Jane put down her toolbox and snorted. I was disturbed by the self-proclaimed best fixer vehicle that returned half-destroyed after ten days of repair.
“Have you ever been to a battlefield?”
Leonard had nothing to say. He put the lollipop in his mouth and sighed.
“How much will it cost?”
“Due to your personality, you won’t be repainting, but if you change the windows, attach the doors, and replace the bumper, wait, are you going to put bulletproof plates in this time too?”
Leonard nodded, looking at the clear bullet marks on the passenger seat. It was cheaper to peel a few steel plates than the implant procedure cost. The mechanic tapped BrainChip’s calculator and said.
“Then it should be roughly 560 credits. know? It’s our regulars, so it’s cheaper.”
There’s no rip-off, if you have to say it, but a conscientious mechanic in Junk Town is just as hard to find as a thrifty businessman in White Town.
“Can it be done in two days?”
“three days. Come by any time in the afternoon.”
Leonard threw the car keys and left the garage. We didn’t greet each other for a long time because we hadn’t seen each other once or twice.
It rained today. It was a gray, heavy rain. The black ash that covered the sky half a century ago was still mixed with the rainwater.
“It’s a good day to rust.”
Even Cyborg, who is resistant to pollution, did not like rain. Rusting and short-circuiting is a joke to scare a kid implanting for the first time. As much as cyborgs wash and drink, waterproofing was basic. Even so, hating rain was the same as mankind in the past. I just hated it because it was embarrassing.
Eleventh Street was empty. In every corner of the alley, there are homeless people, vagrants, and prostitutes who have gathered to avoid the rain, but it is quiet perhaps because of the gloomy weather. An obscene neon sign shone more loudly than usual in the rain puddle. Leonard avoided neither the rain nor the light.
Leonard’s hometown was the underground city of ‘Lenox’. It is said that in the distant past, it was a small platform where trains passed, but I had never seen it since I was born after the Great War. What I remember from my childhood was hundreds of upside-down steel buildings and a complicated monorail tangled like a spider’s web. Show it to young Max or broker Jake and they won’t be able to keep their mouth shut. Just like he did when he first saw the sun and got rained on.
Leonard came to the ground seven years ago to suppress a mob claiming to be the ‘New Human Federation Army’. Resources were not difficult because he had completed higher education and received full-body implants. Deployed to the front lines as The Hexagon, a coalition government special forces unit to subdue the cyborg insurgents. However, the war situation was not as easy as enlistment.
The suppression operation, which was expected to end in three weeks, continued for 11 months. Thousands were killed, and tens of thousands received the dreaded implants. Leonard also changed limbs several times. The blazing sun and the black rain were both cruel. But the cruelty proved to be alive.
On the ground, there was no distinction between humans and cyborgs. There were only the living and the dead. It is not the kind of organic matter that defines man. The implant was as natural as breathing.
The soldiers rejoiced when the Old Human Federation Government acknowledged the independence of the New Human Federation Government and accepted the humiliating proposal. War, majors, honors, and rewards didn’t matter. It was just a primal desire. I was happy to go home. However, Leonard remained on the ground.
“Mr. Leonard?”
A pink umbrella blocked the way. Leonard tossed his damp hair through and washed the rainwater away. Max came out to meet me on the main street of 11-1st Street. It was something I hadn’t experienced in the past 7 years, so I was a bit embarrassed.
“What is that umbrella?”
Max boasted, spinning his umbrella around.
“Sigma said that a real man is a pink umbrella. What did he say? An insignificant man who is conscious of others’ eyes is shy of pink, but isn’t he a real man?”
“You need to be a little conscious of other people’s eyes.”
Leonard took the umbrella and opened it. Even his underwear was wet, so there was no meaning, but he was sincere.
“Did Sigma send you?”
“Leonard has a strange hobby of walking in the rain, so let’s go out.”
“I don’t have any hobbies like that. You want to save on taxi fare. And Ji comes out himself, why does he always send you away?”
“Sigma has wheels on its legs. It is difficult to go up and down the stairs.”
Leonard spit out the remaining candy bar before he knew it. Garbage has been added to Garbage Street. It wasn’t too obvious.
“How about dinner?”
“I ate everything except Leonard.”
“As expected, you are full of loyalty.”
If I rewind time and go back 7 years, I don’t know what choice I would make, but what I can say for sure is that the ground wasn’t too bad.
@
Black rain fell all night.
Unlike its appearance, Leonard’s villa is well soundproofed, so it doesn’t make the sound of pounding rain, but it doesn’t even hide the neon light spreading through the rain. A gloomy day began with Sigma’s meal alarm.
“Do you still get requests on days like this?”
Max asked as he scooped up a spoonful of grain porridge. Leonard took a bite of the energy bar and replied.
“There are requests that only come in on rainy days.”
“Oh yeah?”
It was a request that stimulated the imagination. Rain, alley, cheap cigarette smoke, gunshots, shell casings, flowing blood, silent fixer… he said as if he knew what Leonard was thinking.
“It’s not like that.”
“Ah! Hacking the human brain now?!”
“It’s obvious what you think.”
It was a quest that, if realistically repaired, would involve a flooded house, backflow sewer, missing child, or mutant beast. Max’s eyes widened.
“The last one isn’t realistic, is it?”
“why? Have you ever seen a mutant?”
“I’ve heard of such a thing, but you live in a polluted area outside the city, don’t you?”
I was born and raised in Junk Town, but I didn’t know Junk Town. Leonard explained step by step.
“You know that the place where wastewater is discharged from the city is a polluted area, right?”
“no?”
“…Now you know. Most surface cities send untreated contaminated water to nearby polluted areas.”
“It doesn’t sound like a good thing to know now.”
“It’s hard to say good or bad. In a yard where 87% of the ground is polluted, it doesn’t get any better just by purifying it, and if you think about a tax increase, I’ll start protesting and stop it.”
Since it is in the field of politics and economy, it is possible to hold each other and discuss it, but it was postponed to the next time because there was no opportunity.
“Usually, it flows through the sewage pipe, but when it rains a lot, it sometimes flows back, perhaps because of the water level.”
“aha…?”
“yes. The Pollution Zone mutation you mentioned is entering the city backwards. It’s probably a rat or a cockroach, though.”
“Ugh… I’m eating…”
Max frowned and ate harder. The taste of rice is not good enough, so the burden of food expenses has been very heavy these days.
“Well, there is such a request. It won’t work for a fixer like me. It’s like killing a chicken with a knife to slaughter a cow?”
As soon as Leonard finished speaking, the phone rang. Titi-tit-tit-tit- Sigma and Max stared at each other.
“Are you Jake?”
“There is a 96.6% chance of that. No one is in contact with me at this hour except for Jake.”
Leonard cleared his throat and received it with his brain chip. Anyway, it was a waste of time. Both mechanical and human assistants could not be fooled. A minute passed, and another minute passed, and he said, as gloomy as the weather.
“…Whether it’s a cow or a chicken, a knife that handles well is the best. So, should I call it an all-purpose knife?”
@
To make an excuse for Leonard’s pride, the place where he put in the request was White Town 9-9 Avenue.
There is an outdoor park with green grass between the 4th and 50th floor skyscrapers, and it was a real wealthy neighborhood with public security agents and quadrupedal tactical robots patrolling 24 hours a day.
“It’s raining now, but there’s an automatic turret installed over there.”
“Wow…”
“If it’s not that much, I can’t stop scavengers from snooping.”
Indeed, there were no tramps. The streets were also clean, no rubbish to be seen. It was not considered a city like a junk town. However, this wonderful place was also a place where people lived. There was a sewage facility because it was said that if you ate something, it was cause and effect. The facilities are several times better than those of Junk Town, but they are poorly maintained because no one lives there.
“Who lives in Junk Town?”
“Because homeless people are everywhere.”
For that reason, no one noticed until the rainwater backed up to the ground. I belatedly opened the pipe and drained the water, but there was something that didn’t come out in the end.
“You’re a rat.”
Leonard checked the camera footage and muttered. It was not an ordinary rat, but a giant mutant rat weighing 10 to 20 kg. It was not the kind to be caught with rat poison or mouse traps. The facility manager turned off the monitor and said.
“I called you because you were good at it. Please clean up those filthy things during the day.”
Leonard touched his chin and flicked his tail, pretending not to like it.
“I don’t think it’s an amount that can be cleaned up in one day…”
“I’ll give you 100 credits for every catch. I’ll pay an extra 2,000 credits if you take care of everything today.”
It was also a white town. Basic pay was very good. Leonard laughed in agreement. The facility manager cursed at the scavenger and gave a stern warning.
“There is nothing you can do about using a gun, but be very careful not to damage the facility.”
“Do I have to ask?”
“More than that, for your safety. You don’t want to be caught between bulkheads or caught in a torrent and released into the polluted area, do you?”
It was. Added safety first to fixer rules.