37. Thief
It has been 47 years since the ground was polluted.
Humans are also animals, so they are not free from pollution. There were mutant mice and mutant lizards, so of course there were mutant humans. The reason why they are usually invisible is because they hide deformities with implants and hide in unpopulated places.
“Fixer Leonard Walker.”
Leonard hid his embarrassment by clearing his throat. I didn’t know that the twins’ meaningful laughter would be like this.
“This is King Schultz. The twins have been contacted.”
I was worried that he couldn’t speak due to prejudice, but he was more fluent than the idiot scavenger. The accent was chosen and the sentences were polite. It’s more than ‘Oh, is it you?’ or ‘Yo~ Wassup Man~’.
Once communication was established, I felt relieved. It wasn’t just Leonard, but a sigh came from behind.
“Come this way.”
Leonard zoomed in and took a closer look at King Schultz. First of all, the physique was great. Leonard is also 7-8 cm taller than the average body, so he had to keep his head up high. It seemed to be bigger than the super-heavy cyborg Ryan Bourne.
Another strong feature was the dense hair. It wasn’t a normal hairy level. Except for the tip of the nose and lips, the entire body was covered with short hair. There were only a few strands sticking out around the nose, and they were about a hand’s length long.
The eyes were large, but the pupils were also large, so the whites of the eyes were barely visible. The arms were short and thin, but the legs were long and thick. My joints were bizarrely bent, so I was fine walking on the ball. The killing point was that three toenails pierced through the shoe.
“Mr. Leonard, that man…”
Max lowered his shotgun and whispered softly.
“Isn’t it like a rat?”
King Shultz, the mouse, perked his ears. His hair was short, so it showed off well.
“Ugh! What if a hairy mutant living in the sewers of Amman is a rat?”
“…Mr. Leonard is the most rude?”
I think I heard something about the mouse anyway, so I tried to figure out his personality to protect Max. If it was a dangerous mutant, it was better to deal with it before going to a dangerous place. And it actually reminded me of rodents.
King Schultz said nothing. He would run away if attacked and apologize if he protested, but his stance was awkward as he pretended not to hear.
“This is it. Please come in.”
After going around the sewer like an anthill, I entered a small room. It appears to be a break room used by the facility manager, but the new owner has done a lot of renovations. There were beds and chairs suitable for the size of the mutants, old computers used before the Great War, wires that were not legally visible, and leftovers were piled up.
“Wow-!”
The assistant at the age who would like something like a secret base was excited. King Schultz was puzzled by the insufficient number of chairs and suggested a place to sit, but the solver, who was full of sense of reality, did not sit down. I didn’t want to appear defenseless to an opponent who couldn’t be hacked. Arms crossed at the doorway. He was in a position to pull out a revolver and shoot.
“There may be something to look for. I heard that that might help…”
“You can find most of them abandoned on 25th Street, but I’m not sure about anywhere else.”
That alone was great. There was no possibility of recovering it if it had been abandoned in the suburbs in the first place. Leonard showed the picture on his phone. I did a good job saving it to an external device.
“An implant body that looks like this. It’s good to recover it intact, and even if it’s disassembled, I want to secure as many parts as possible.”
King carefully examined the small cell phone. I doubted that I might break it because my hands were savage like a gorilla, but I quickly returned it.
“Ask my friends.”
“friend?”
“But I just can’t do it.”
I admit that nothing is free in this world. We prepared for negotiations to cut the price as much as possible. However, King’s request was outrageous.
“Please prepare something a child can eat. It doesn’t matter what kind, but as long as there is a lot of it.”
The eyes of the fixer party narrowed.
‘Are you a parenting mutant?’
‘A person like that has a partner, so why is Leonard…’
Leonard felt bad for nothing.
@
Leonard gave the bullet to the idiot scavenger. I didn’t mean to be idiomatic, I really gave.
“A .45 caliber tungsten bullet. The gun shop sells them for 3 credits each, so don’t use them carelessly.”
The scavenger’s expression brightened. A total of 12 credits were received including the advance payment. I was able to buy six hot dog-flavored energy bars.
“Buy potatoes from Azdek. One box for starters, and I’ll give you two more boxes when I find them.”
King Schultz’s mustache went up. Since each box is 15kg, it was 300 credits in total. Considering the help of the 9,000 credits quest, it was on the cheap side. In fact, the bullets and potatoes were received freely from the previous quest, so the actual expenditure was 0 credits. It’s a good feeling, but why was it bland?
“The 22nd century is right around the corner, and everyone is bartering, what is the world going to be like…”
In the scavenger’s lair, where credits were not used, there was nothing like the real thing. Mutant King Shultz was especially so. Max seemed to understand.
“Three boxes of potatoes will last you two months, right?”
King Schultz shook his head.
“One box a day.”
When Max blinked, he muttered, ‘Not some kind of pig…’. It certainly wasn’t a pig. King Schultz poured potatoes down the sewer and called his friends. Leonard was able to understand why King Schultz is King and how he collects the treasures of the dump. King was truly the scavenger king.
take-
The first to appear was a rat. Leonard and Max recalled the 9th-9th Avenue mutant rat, grabbed their guns, and let go. It was an ordinary mouse smaller than a fist. But before taking a deep breath, he grabbed the gun again. squeak- squeak- squeak-
Red eyes appeared all over the sewer. It wasn’t just one or two. In an instant, double digits gathered and increased to three digits. It wasn’t just rats. There were mice with long tails and nutria the size of puppies. All the beasts that live in the sewer came here.
“Ahh…”
Max lifted and released the shotgun, at a loss for what to do. It wasn’t a threat, but physiological aversion took the lead. Leonard pressed the muzzle down.
“wait. Let’s see some more.”
King Schultz waited for his friends to finish their meal. Since four digits were gathered, a box of potatoes was an instant. They even ate the paper. But the strange thing was from now on.
“There is something I want you to find.”
After the meal, the mice looked at the king. Thousands of pairs of eyeballs glowing in the dark were terrifying. It was like a scene from an old horror movie. However, King smiled warmly. A short silence followed. I’ve seen something like this often. It was like this when the cyborg exchanged data with the brain chip.
‘Is that possible?’
As an implant hacker, I assure you, this wasn’t science. The rapport between rat humans and rats is over.
“Then start right away.”
At the king’s command, the rats scattered all at once. It seemed to be a clogged sewer, but there were invisible holes everywhere. It disappeared in all directions as if rainwater had seeped in. King Shultz looked back at the humans with a tired face.
“Now you just have to wait. There will be news soon.”
Compared to that mutant, the 70% implant cyborg was fully human.
@
Leonard and Max spend the night in King Schultz’s sewer house.
It smelled and the air was damp, but there was nowhere else to go. Above all, there was not a single phone that the author called King could communicate with.
“Why not implant?”
Leonard leaned against the wall and asked. Unlike Max, who fell asleep with his neck hanging over the back of the chair, he did not let go of his guard.
“Isn’t being a cyborg better than living as a mutant?”
King glanced over. As I continued to look at that face, I fell in love. I was able to adjust my mood now.
“Shouldn’t a chip be placed in the brain for implantation?”
“A brain chip would cost very little, right?”
Even the scavenger, who was worried about his meal, had a brain chip. Without it, the implant body could not be controlled.
“The twins said. If you get a chip, you won’t be able to communicate with your friends.”
“You mean you don’t use implants just to get rid of rats?”
“They are my friends.”
Leonard laughed. King spoke again, feeling offended.
“This is Eun-gong, who saved me from being abandoned in the sewer.”
‘How about making real friends, not rodents?’ I’m glad you didn’t say that.
“I may be pathetic when you look at it, but I am still happy.”
I had nothing to say because I was happy. Leonard changed the subject after chasing the bug.
“You speak very old-fashioned. Who taught you?”
King smiled. It seems to have been taken as a compliment. The conversation between Cyborg and Mutant ended here. A rat came down through a pipe with a hole in the ceiling. It would be frightening if it was a female house, but it was a mutant house, so I was calm.
King reached out and took the rat. It was as docile as a well-trained pet.
“yes. okay. Good job.”
The conversation between the unhackable beasts was cramped. King lifted the rat up the pipe and rested his chin on it. Looking at it this way, it wasn’t just a ‘merely’ rat. His ability to gather information was better than Leonard’s.
“I found what I was looking for.”
Leonard kicked the chair Max was sleeping on.
“That’s great!”
“But the location is difficult.”
King Schultz’s mustache drooped down. I guess it was an apologetic expression. They had information, but no problem-solving skills. As always, a fixer had to step in.
@
He is a scavenger who picks up garbage from all over Junk Town, but there was a place he didn’t go sober. It was a corporate property, a gangster hideout, and a dirty suburb. It was a place where there was more to lose than to gain.
“Does the scavenger have anything to lose?”
“life.”
Shining Star’s old implants were found in a scrap plant owned by a corporation. It was the worst of the three places that scavengers avoid.
“I’m glad though. If I had only believed in the Twins and waited, the 9,000 credits would have been disassembled into nuts and bolts.”
“It wouldn’t have been dangerous.”
Where the scavenger was dangerous, the solver was also dangerous. In other words, the factory located between 25-8th Avenue and 9th Avenue was dangerous.
There were two automatic turrets at the front and back gates, seven guards armed with Rykov company rifles were patrolling, and an alarm device to summon corporate public security was always on standby. There was no need to mention the CCTV installed in every corner.
“What’s so great about doing that?”
“Because it’s a nod to scavengers. Even if there is a little gap, I will pull out even the pillars.”
Leonard turned off the thermal mode and climbed off the roof of the pickup truck. When I put together the information King gave me and the information I found out with the Hexagon Eyeball, I got a sense of what to do. Max asked hopelessly.
“Isn’t that the way to politely ask for and get your understanding?”
“Can that be?”
It was a god-forsaken city, so there was no need to be allowed to become a righteous thief.