The corporate contact known to Cali only as 'Robert' didn't seem inclined to stick around long after he felt business was concluded. Payment rendered, he pocketed his PDA and dusted at his suit with an aire of finality. "Well, gentlemen, ladies... if you'll excuse me, I have some other things to attend to. Good work today, keep in touch, alright?" And he stepped out of the shop with his prize, disappearing into the damp, neon night of Seattle. Ito settled down again, letting Dr. Lam work, while Anya loitered with her arms crossed, leaving Cali to his thoughts.
"Glad you get paid, chrome-boy," says Dr. Lam. "Sound like it was just enough to cover your patching, and put a down payment on your new hardware, eh?" Ito looks a bit put out, then sighs. "Well, at least it's an upgrade."
Cali thumbed his new credit card, flipping it over in his hand time and time again. He watched the doctor work on Ito, wincing now and again at the more painful-looking of Lam's adjustments. Would a doctor like her be able to fit him with an arm like that, if something should happen to his? Would one even know what to do if he got the flu? He bites his lip, and after a few silent minutes, manages to work up the nerve to speak. "Hey, Anya...?" He slips the card into his back pocket, resting both arms at his sides. "Have you ever heard of a company called Apex Unlimited?"
The woman pauses in tapping at the datapad she was holding, glancing up. "Hm? Doesn't ring a bell. Why, you think you wanna do some work for them? I've never heard of that corp, so it's probably not big, or it's a subsidiary and their contracting goes out from the parent firm."
The cheetah opens his mouth, then forces himself to pause. Revealing what little he knows of his own history might not be the best tactic. If the company that raised him was so eager send him away against his will, he can't imagine the rest of the world will be any more understanding. "I just... I knew some folks who worked there, a while back. I don't think I ever found out what they actually did." He smoothes down the sides of his pants. "You think it'd be a good idea if I tried to get more work like this? It seems dangerous. I mean, no offense, but look at Ito."
Ito, if anything, seems to take a kind of black-humor amusement from it, laughing easily. "Yeah, look at me," he says. Anya obliges with something akin to a glower at him, then relaxes. "Sure it's dangerous, genie. Lots of runners for the corps don't live through their first year, especially the combat ones." She turns to look at Cali, as if sizing him up. "But you tell me if it's worth it. You don't seem like you're owned, so you don't have a corp to fall back on. You got any skills? Think you're gonna get a job at the 7-11? For me and Ito, this is what we've got the skills for, and if we do it right we get paid."
Cali quirks his ears at the two mercenaries' half-humorous exchange. He shifts his weight nervously as Anya looks him over, his tail slipping out from behind him to curl around his legs. "You'll have to forgive me if my resume isn't quite up to date, I haven't had a chance to add 'running for my life' to my skillset yet." He chuckles, somewhat forcedly. "You said you lost someone, tonight? A hacker?"
The wiry woman sighs, and puts her hands on her hips. "Yeah. Grant was our security guy. Ito and me can get around in the wires and circuit boards a bit if we have to, but Grant did the diving and crackwork. He handled any serious tech. People like that are valuable. Any dumb shit can fire a gun, I'll be the first to admit it, but dealing with countermeasures, maglocks, ICE, all that... that's specialized stuff. Grant wasn't light on his feet or handy in a fight, but those skills meant bringing him along was vital anyway."
At first, Cali simply sympathizes with the woman at the loss of her partner, but his expression shifts as she delves into his role on the 'team'. "I'm not about to pretend I know the first thing about breaking into a real building, but I've broken ICE before back at -..." He swallows. "Back when I was younger. My father used to have me run simulations. Grant had a datajack, right?"
Oddly, Anya seems less broken up about it than annoyed or resigned, but in the limited time Cali has known her she hasn't shown herself to be one to open up much. Her look is equal parts appraising and mistrustful now, glances exchanged with Ito. "...Yeah? So? Your 'father', huh?" Ito himself sits up a little and is promptly scolded by Dr. Lam. He settles back down, but speaks up. "You seemed to handle yourself pretty good for a junker... quicker than Grant was. If you're telling us the truth, and you really know your way around security protocols, I bet we could find some work for you. Mind, we're not talking ancient crap you'd find buried in a junkyard. You'd need to be able to punk encrypted keycard readers, tap and break number locks, that kind of stuff."
Cali crosses his arms over his chest, both ears pinning back at Anya's jeering reference to Dr. Zheng. "Genestructs have families too, you know." He quiets for Ito, his expression softening somewhat. "You needed Grant for-... Yeah, I think I could handle that. I mean, I'll need a few things, and I could definitely use some pratice before I jump in head-first, but..." He can't remember the last time he had to crack a single-pass encryption. It's a little like trying to remember how to do long division when you're already in Calculus. "Did Grant have a practice terminal, or a PDA?"
Dr. Lam finishes some connection she'd been making, and taps a few keys at the computer sitting on a wheelcart nearby, various cords socketted into Ito's shoulder. The cybernetic arm straightens out somewhat awkwardly given the position Ito is sitting in, and then contracts until the hand is up near the shoulder. It levels out again, and the hand closes into a fist, opens again, and each finger curls one by one, clicking. The wrist rotates in either direction several times, then returns to true. The cyborg himself doesn't even seem to pay attention, answering Cali's questions instead. "I know he had a PDA, he carried it with him when were on assignment. What he had for himself, though, I'm not sure. We don't have a clubhouse or anything, we each live on our own, and he always kept to himself... kind of a conspiracy guy, y'know? I don't even know where he lived, we just had contact info for him. We do have some secure storage, though, he might've had some redundant stuff there. I'll tell you what, Cali.
I'll make you a deal."
Distracted by the movement's of Ito's new arm, the cheetah takes a few steps closer to the chair, staying well enough out of the doctor's reach so as not to get in the way. He twitches at some of the stranger clicks and whirrs, both ears swiveling away to soften the noises' impact. He's eventually shaken out of staring at Ito's arm by the sound of his voice. "A deal?"
The big man nods, then shifts in his seat when the computer next to him dings. Sing Lam thumps him on the shoulder with a bony fist, and says, "Diagnostic checks out, Ito. This model's newer, was lighter than your old one. I had to re-weight it to match your left, you should get that replaced when you can afford it. Move it around to get it calibrated. Don't need to stay hooked up, firmware gonna update itself." The cyborg sits up a bit, shifting the arm and looking satisfied, even a little pleased. He looks up from it at Cali. "Right. I'll let you borrow some stuff from storage if you think you can use it, and we'll put you on a little test run, an easy job so we can get an idea of what you can do. I'll consider it an investment. If you can pull it off, we can get you some serious work, and you can keep the gear and pay it off with us. How's that sound?" He extends the robotic arm, still unskinned, the mechanical hand offered to Cali.
Cali marvels at the man's new arm. It's at first a little unsettling to see the mechanical workings of the replacement limb exposed and unprotected, but his trepidation soon gives way to outright curiosity. "That sounds more than fair to me, Ito. I'll do my best." He reaches forward and grasps the cold hand firmly, giving it a few solid shakes and smiling excitedly. He turns to glance at Anya, realizing she's been quiet for a while. "Are you okay with this, too?"
The hand seems dexterous, closing firmly but not squeezing hard... simply a handshake that's a bit heavier than one might expect. The fingerplates are smooth and rounded metal, feeling more natural than one might expect from a wholly mechanical limb. "Good, good." There's misgiving on Anya's face for her part, the woman holding her elbows so that her arms are crossed over her stomach. "Whatever, I guess," she mutters. "We're just two people now, so I'm pretty sure by now that you're not with a corp meaning to screw us. Just don't think you're going to be able to make off with any of our gear if you wash out. We stand on our own and we look out for ourselves.. that means I've got my eye on you."
Cali knows full well he's not about to get a more amiable response from the woman. He finishes the handshake and turns to Anya, his tail loosened from its place around his legs so that it can sway to and fro behind him. "Believe me, if I have trouble cracking a simple card reader, I'll be the first to throw myself out. I guess I should ask, though... Can either of you think of a place for me to say? I'd rather not get Ruddy and Kat involved in all this."
Both mercs seem a little thrown off by this, not having considered this detail. "Er.." says Ito, glancing over helplessly at Anya. The woman sets her jaw for a moment, then rolls her eyes and grunts. "Ugh... well... okay, I know some options. I know you've got enough money to rent a flat for quite a while if it's not an expensive one, and I think I know some people who would take cash and not ask questions. If you're not comfortable with that, you could pre-pay for a hotel room... some places'll take money from genies if you put down a deposit. I dunno if you could pass yourself off as a skin job."
Cali reaches up to scratch at the backs of his ears. "A skin job? You mean, a person who wanted to look like a genestruct?" Both ears flick confusedly. "I can't imagine why." He reaches into his pocket to make sure his new card is still there, gently thumbing the edge. "Let's see if your friends have any places for rent before I go trying to pass myself off as anything. Are they here in Chinatown, or...?"
"It's 'fashionable' in some circles," says Anya, rather contemptuously. She reaches out to poke at Cali where fur is exposed. "The reason I say I don't think you'd pass is because you'd look like a million dollar skin job. No seams or scars, no stiff broom bristle whiskers or pathetic miscolored implants. Nobody with that kind of money sleeps in Motel 6." She pushes herself off the counter, walking around the office to the door. "Nah, they're in Sea-Tac. Low rent. Think you can sleep with planes going overhead?"
Cali doesn't seem to 'get' the idea, but he does blush a little at Anya's poking; she did just say he looks like a million bucks, after all. "Something tells me no one like that would stay in Sea-Tac, either, but maybe your friends won't ask so many questions." He stretches in place, a catlike maneuver that has him in tiptoe and reaching up toward the ceiling before shaking himself out bodily. "I can't -stand- the sound of planes going by, but I'll learn to manage, or I'll buy earmuffs. I've got the money, right?"
It's Ito who answers. "Right. I'd say use some of it to get a no-contract cheapie phone so you can get in contact. I'll give you my number. Just remember, we don't talk business over these. Never know who's listening. Anya, why don't you get his buddy to give you a lift back back to your bike? You can come back and pick me up in my truck later, Doc Lam's still got to work on my leg."
Anya purses her lips, but just nods.
Cali glances at the door, zipping up the front of his jacket in preparation for the cold outside, fighting back a shiver. "I'm glad to hear both of you have rides, at least; I was worried Ruddy would be stuck as our designated driver for too much longer." Cali fishes his PDA out of his pocket, having nearly forgotten he'd picked it up. He opens up a new note to take down Ito's number into. "Hit me. Don't worry, this thing's not even networked yet, and if -I'm- going to get hacked then we're all in trouble."
It's the second number added to Cali's phone list, right after Ruddy Louis'. Ito says, "Yeah, it's actually not far from your scrapyard. Extract got screwy, so we couldn't make it back to them. Anya, you can take him to this new place, right?" The woman reluctantly says, "I guess."
Cali dials it in and slips the device back into his coat pocket. "I figured something had to have gone wrong. If every job ended like tonight's, I'd think you guys would be out of business by now." He makes his way toward the door, his movements a little stiff. "So I'll be seeing you soon, right, Ito?"
The cyborg grins. "You bet!" Anya's already gone outside, and the man lowers his voice. "And... don't let Anya get to you, okay? She's really not that bad."
The cheetah flashes Ito a cheeky smile, complete with pointed teeth, which he'd taken great care in hiding from Anya lest he receive another one of her brooding glares. "All of this was practically her idea, so she can't hate me -that- much. Let me know when your leg's all fixed up, okay? Maybe you can show me how it works."
"Stay safe!"