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12 Bigger Guns
🕑 Added 2023-11-16 07:26:36 +0000 UTCSlev stared straight at the combat drone, then at the spherical advertisement robot suspiciously close to it, in mounting concern.
But before he had time to truly take stock of the situation, the door at the base of the staircase opened before him. Revealing the true nature of this restaurant. Floor to ceiling tapestries in a rainbow of clashing colors draped down to wide stands. Creating winding hallways of satin and silks. Down the center most, of these draping pathways. He could see two separate turrets looming from the ceiling itself, watching the proceedings below sedately.
What the fuck did he just walk into? As he wandered through the doorway into the amber lighting, he could hear a few cheers and the occasional grumbling somewhere beyond the gently sloping cloth walls. He took a few steps onto a spongy, dark red carpet and looked over at a smooth faced bipedal robot dressed in a pressed blue vest.
The robot bowed fluidly and graciously, his forehead almost touching the carpet. “Welcome to Ambrosias Lament. Madam Ambrosias has extended you an invitation, but all guests are required to check their fire arms at the door.”
Slev looked at the two turrets, both pointedly tracking him now, and carefully began placing weapons into a padded weapons locker slightly inside the door. This did not feel like an 'invitation' to Slev anymore. He had absolutely no idea what high class gangster bullshit this was. But playing along was the “smart” move. He had wandered into someone important's turf, armed, armored, and caused a problem.
All considered, this was one of the more polite ways people had approached him to ask, what the fuck are you doing on my lawn? If he had just grabbed the damn cook, god knows how this would have played out. Especially since he was fifty-fifty on if Reaper was in control of a fucking combat drone right now. He needed to keep things calm and collected.
If Reaper had a single logical excuse to resort to lethal defenses, Slev was going to go to goddamn jail. If he even survived the firefight, AI built for combat and unchained, had brought down several alien empires and were about as illegal as it got. Reaper would gleefully kill EVERYTHING it could remotely deem as a threat. His Guild licensing didn’t mean shit, if he unleashed an armed combat AI in the middle of a fucking shopping mall.
He briefly considered just flipping the AI be good switch, in his vambrace. But if this all went to hell, that psychopath might be his only resort. Oh boy, time to play nice.
"Reaper, you do not. I repeat, YOU DO NOT, have lethal force authorization unless someone shoots me.” Slev harshly whispered while following the polite robot down a circuitous route. Thankfully, Reaper couldn’t break rules of engagement if Slev was specific enough.
There was an uncomfortably long pause. “None shall stand against our unfathomable might. None would dare to touch the bearer, of my very essence!” Reaper responded confidently.
Yep, hes in the military robot now. This is gonna be fun. Slev continued after the concierge robot getting a substantially better look at this place. It was absolutely a gambling den of some kind. Rooms filled with machines covered in spinning numbers, that occasionally shot out credits. Scantily clad servers salaciously offering drink after drink. And oppressively omnipresent security. He had counted five turrets so far. Every room had more of those beautiful gossamer falcons fluttering about, eying the players.
There was a stylized cloth nest in the dead center of this warren of debauchery. It held two more Spider like, mechanical death machines. Peeking out subtly from behind ivory sheets. In front of the stylized nest was the grandest hammock ever imagined. Tracing from a dozen points above, it conjoined into a pattern that evoked flowing water. This throne like hammock, held the obvious proprietor. Massive wings strewn behind a round body,each of which appeared to drape decorative golden chains with every annoyed swish. Multi faceted eyes dominated above a flat, rounded face and a slightly oversized mouth. Slev had utterly no idea what species this was. It was as if the universe had taken a fuzzy, honey colored caterpillar and stuck the most out of place, beautiful butterfly wings it could on the creature. The proprieter was dutifully fluttering lightly to stay in her throne. While presiding over a few tittering businessmen, that seemed to be trying to curry favor. Her gaze shifted as she noticed Slev awkwardly standing in the entrance way, gawking at everything around him.
“Ahh, excuse me, esteemed guests, we have a truly remarkable visitor. The bane of this planet's underworld has deigned to grace us with his presence.” Her voice was stunning and melodic. She gestured at Slev, and the few scattered conversations stilled immediately.
An uncomfortable silence hung over the room as Slev stoically approached the throne. “Madam Ambrosias, my name is Slev, it's an honor to receive such a kind invitation." He really stressed the word kind as he bowed slightly at the hips.
She loomed slightly higher in her chair with a quick flick of her wings. "Now, if you don’t mind elucidating a humble business owner, as to why, exactly the most famous bounty hunter on this little world of ours, came armed and armored to bruncheon?” The tension in the air was palpable, and a small crowd was gathering near the edges of her throne room to watch the commotion.
Slev went with honesty, "Well, Madam, one of your cooks is my bounty, I had no idea there was a....private club down here. Until just a few moments ago. Wasn’t meaning no offense, just doing my job."The crowed was enraptured by the spectacle of a human. The very picture of danger was here respectfully explaining itself to their matron. Slev was sure Ambrosias was loving this, it was going to be the talk of the town for days.
"Well, we obviously can't just hand over one of my family to you, but..." She leaned in conspiratorially. Slev sighed here it came her counteroffer.
“I am a reasonable being. I have some work that your, unique talents would be suited for, and in exchange, I would be more than happy to compensate my cook for the few months he would spend in prison. If he willingly went with you," She settled back into her throne her wings growing still.
Slev paused , she was crafty. Probably figured out why he was here within minutes of his arrival. Then used the time he spent drinking. To pull the cook aside, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The amount of street cred she would gain by having Slev work for her. Especially as publicly as this would be invaluable. A human perceived to be on her payroll would go a long way toward making other gangs or even the smallest corporations pause before moving against her. This wasn’t the easy outcome he was hoping for, but whoever this woman was, she had money and access to some very hard to find technology. Time to make a new friend.
Slev looked up at her, playing along. “Of course, Madam, as new friends, why don’t we discuss specifics?”
Slev and Ambrosias walked to a large side chamber occupied by yet another of the combat drones to sit in some privacy. Ambrosias, for her part, waved a wing past the open silken doorway, and the noises from the gambling den abruptly cut off.
Slev looked up. "That's a nifty privacy bubble I can even see where it's mounted.”
She looked a bit smug as she settled her bulk into a pile of large cushions.“ That's the point, dear, now you are a quick study, you definitely won some points with me playing along out there for the nobodies.”
"Well, you also had a half dozen turrets pointed at me, so it's not like I had much of a choice." Slev grumbled
“Of course I did! Did you know that videos of that scuffle you had at Loradin's scrap yard have been making the rounds? And from what I saw, humans are just as much of a problem as the absurd rumors suggested.” She paused to fish around in the cushions for a moment. Finally, extracting a small white fuzzy lump that was making odd humming noises as she held it.
"You walking into my establishment was either the best thing that happened all day, or the worst thing to happen all week. Thankfully, you were not here to scoop up one of my clientele and now we can have a nice, amicable discussion about what we can do for each other.” she turned on a large screen that was sitting to the side of them both.
"My offer is simple, Conrad, the cargo master over in the eastern dock of this spire. Has been liberating some of my goods, well quite a lot of them, actually. We used to have a very profitable arrangement, he made sure all my crates passed inspection, and I made him the wealthiest dock worker this side of the fallow eves. I don't think this is just a double cross on his part. Conrad is a kind, loyal soul. It's likely someone is forcing him into this. He has a large family that he is dearly fond of and that would be easy to exploit. Dear old Conrad, he won't answer my calls anymore. Find out the who, and the why and put a stop to it definitively. Also, help Conrad if you can.”
Slev mused over this job. Corrupt family man, who suddenly turned on his long time employer. Yeah, probably blackmail, or kidnapping. He turned towards Ambrosias "and say I did this for you. Save your employee, make sure no one dared to steal from you again. Thats worth a lot more than the 14k the cook is worth to me.” Obviously, he needed to avoid any mention of the favor it would build with Cerberus.
“Oh dear, did I forget to mention what my vast fortunes come from? it's not just gambling.”
With a wide flourish of her wing, a panel set into the floor pivoted upwards. Then, with a dramatic hissing sound, it slid open revealing its contents, gleaming rows of weapons. There was everything imaginable on display. From concealable collapsing sniper rifles to an honest to god plasma rifle. Slev had been wanting to try one of those for years now. But getting your hand on one was nearly impossible by legal means.
Slev looked up, a glimmer in his eyes. "I think we can work something out.”
She fluttered in delight. "Wonderful just, wonderful now then how about I take you to where we have the good stuff for sale, hmm?”
Slev smiled. "Wait, this is just the samples? Oh hell yeah, lady, you might be my new favorite alien!”
She chuffed at that. “Please refer to me as Madam, I will have a car meet you in front of the plaza itself this location is far too public to have the larger pieces available.” She paused poignantly. “And this is you agreeing to sort out my little issue in exchange for access to my markets?” She really wanted him to say it.
Slev chuckled. At least she was direct. “Yes Madam” He bowed slightly. “The human gladly offers to un-fuck your smuggling route in exchange, for the right to buy tools of death." This was something Slev had been looking for unsuccessfully for over a year now. An honest to god black market broker, fuck yes, he was in.
"Oh, and do you happen to have an armor smith at your...market? Slev said heading for the door.
Reaper chimed “Yes elevate me to the very arbiter of death! Wise choice sir.”
Ambrosias looked at his sleek armor, appraising its build quality. “We certainly do. I will give him a call and have him meet you over there, his services don’t come cheap.
“If he does custom jobs, I will happily pay top dollar. Alright, Madam pleasure to meet you. I'm going to go browse the candy store.
Ambrosias looked at him as he walked out of the room. She didn't quite understand what he meant by “candy store”. Either way, the human was both what she expected, and not. He oozed the calm confidence of a creature born to cause death. The weapons he had brought with him would literally disarm most species from the recoil alone. Obviously, having been designed for use on combat exosuits, or perhaps vehicle mounted. But his overall reasonableness surprised her. She was going to have to see about recruiting one or two for her personal staff.
The market was not what Slev had expected. There was no out of the way warehouse hidden in a far flung corner of the swamp. No brooding guards that have their eyes out for the cops. And no vague threats, that if you talk, you die. Instead, he got a taste of what it's like to have the ruling corporations on your side. The transport had rolled to a stop slightly outside of a stunning gated community. Just off the main shopping district of the core city spire.
Slev slightly confused, stepped out of the limousine and towards the beautiful wooden gates. An ivory white surveillance drone bobbed next to the gate.
“Uhh hi there,” Slev just waved at it like an idiot.
A rich voice emanated from the drone “Welcome weary traveler, wander on in and browse the bazaar!" It hovered closer “It seems you have the platinum package! Follow me, Mr.Torrent!”
Slev cautiously followed the drone, not really understanding what was happening yet. Inside the gate seemed to be a resort complex of some kind beautiful water sculptures of strange, sharp fish held the center of a courtyard. Pools of different sizes, colors, and shapes. Some steamed, and some were so cold he could see frost forming on the edges. After a short walk, they reached a small outbuilding marked as a private office. The doorman politely double checked his information and waved him in. Slev decided this was not an office after coming to a stop with a military laser grid wall just inside the door.
Another laser grid bloomed into yellow green life behind him, cutting off any potential for escape.
“Please remain calm sir one last detailed scan and this lift will take us down." The Ivory Drone assured him.
Slev had a hand on his sidearm. “Yeah, of course, scan away." The ceiling above opened up, and a hexagonal panel of small emitters began emitting a soft blue light.
“You are all clear Mr.Torrent, no shape shifting, form changing technology, or excessive explosives detected, ah, its your first time here, welcome to The Repository.”
With a soft whine, the entire platform he stood on began sinking. The entire “office” floor descended to the room below. It was a short journey. Slev was perhaps six meters below ground now in a cavernous square room. The elevator stopped a few feet above the floor. A large steel ramp leading down. The room itself had gray stone walls with yellow blocks of corporate branding brazenly painted across them. There were actual small shops and vendor stands crammed together across the rooms span. Slev's breath caught in his throat as he saw a weapon of some kind being tested at a firing range on the far end of the chamber. A testing dummy was hit by what looked like a beam of pure darkness and then simply turned to ash, dramatically dousing everyone in the firing range. Slev smiled like an absolute idiot under his helmet.
Weaving through a throng of businessmen in neat suits, who were currently arguing over whether they needed to spring for incendiary rounds or not, Slev's first stop was a small green wooden building. With a sign shaped out of the legs of an indeterminate number of robots. Crix Armors, it said simply. Slev walked into the cozy building, taking note of the sweet incense smells and abundance of flower pots on the wall. Three sets of fairly standard armor were on wooden mannequins in the center of the floor. The simple, straight wooden bar held a very antique looking register with a simple bell dangling from a rope nearby. Slev skirted past the smallest set of armor and lightly tapped the bell. A soft and melodic song began playing somewhere past the front counter.
A squat round creature about knee high to Slev waddled around the counter, walking on its hands. Slev had to force himself not to jump back as the galaxy showed him yet another alien monstrocity. This one's round body housed a singular massive eye that had a thin mouth stuffed into the smace below it on the torso. And no legs, just four arms with four digits on the ends of each.
Crix shifted on his knuckles to look up at the new customer. “Oh ho, hey there, big feller, What can I help you with, need some repairs? You have a pretty nasty gouge in your chest piece wouldn’t take me more than an arn to get buffed right out.”
Slev took off his helmet and set it on the counter, kneeling down to get closer to eye level with the stout armorer. "Yeah, we can add that to the list. But I am more interested in custom work. You came very highly recommended.”
Crix took a half knuckle step back, his eye widening to almost comical proportions. “By all the butane in ma forge! A Human! Oh, I would dearly enjoy doing some work for ya, a betta suit for yee could be maighty fine!” Crixe's excitement was almost palpable.
Slev smiled. "While I appreciate the enthusiasm, my armor just needs some patching. The custom job I had in mind is a lot more complicated. Have you ever worked with war beasts before?”
Slev left the armor shop confident that Crix was up to the task he had challenged him with. Crix had also done a wonderful job patching up Slev's armor. He had used some kind of proprietary silver composite or another to fill the massive gouge in Slev's chest piece and then gone over and done the same to many of the small dents, dings, and chips the armor had sustained over its storied life. The composite didn’t match the matte black finish. But Slev was okay with it, his armor now had some very dramatic “scars” that he felt added even further to his rugged hunter look.
Slev's next stop was in front of a large metal framed garage. Inside, he saw a number of fully functional exosuits. The front half of a well lit, clean white show room held five, hulking, metallic frames. Meant for alien species to be able to pilot and load cargo with. Massive magnetic pistons powered arms and legs, graspers were formed from sheer slabs of metal into the rough approximation of hands. All of these more consumer level machines were painted in cautionary oranges and yellows. These were priced between 100,000 and 300,000 credits, a truly massive sum of money. Obviously, marked up from true street value since you didn’t need to deal with any of the lengthy licensing and pesky insurance. To get one for your underpaid factory workers here. The back half of the showroom was well guarded and walled off. Slev lined up in the checkpoint queue to see if this was where they hid the good stuff.
A large reptilian figure with a wicked crackling club was the doorman. He eyed Slev as he came to the front of the line. “No touching anything unless the salesperson says to, absolutely no turning anything on. Now how can I direct you to unit sales or parts?"
Slev was a bit surprised at the well practiced speech from the heavily armed Axtorian "Weapons, please.”
The guard tapped something on his wrist comm "Alright, model of the combat exo?”
“Shouldn't matter too much." Slev shrugged. "I was looking to get a feel, see what just felt right”
The axtoriian scratched his cheek with a claw. "Sir, I think you have the wrong shop. We sell mechanized exosuit parts only, no small arms.”
“Oh!” Slev took off his helmet “I know, I want to see what ones I can reasonably carry and shoot. The other guns I saw in the market are just kind of sad...”
The Axtorian looked like someone had shot him. “Ahh...well..uhh..human..ill call the manager...” he quickly tapped a message into his wrist comm.
A moment later, a very stout Charoke in pin-striped overalls wandered up, looking rather angrily at the guard. “Whats the issue? You have the script just send them to the salesperson who has that model for the day!” The Axtorian just pointed at Slev's unhelmeted visage.
Slev waved, and put on a big smile. “I hear you might have guns big enough for me!”
To the Charoke's credit, he recovered from his shocked expression quickly "Absolutely! My name is Vener. I have the dubious honor of being general manager here, and I will be your salesperson today!" Vener had no idea what was happening but he figured he was damn sure going to be getting some commission sales today.
Slev walked into the backroom, it was lit with deep white spotlights that exaggerated the shadows and caused a very dramatic silhouette effect on the three massive forms spread in a rough triangle near the center of the room. Three combat exosuits faced outwards. The largest was a deep crimson form with triangular armor plates encompassing the entire cockpit. It held a minigun as long as Slev's torso mounted from the right arm. Placed into a bladed grasping hand on its left side was the hilt of some sort of bladed energy weapon. And sticking over the right shoulder was a wickedly mean looking cannon that fed from a massive ammunition pack on its back. Slev peeked at how much the towering seven-meter war machine cost and left out a low whistle. 1,200,000 credits.
Vener looked at him as he went to the next machine on display. “That's probably the model that will have weapons the most comparable to your rather unique “Ehm” structure, Let me introduce you to the Archimedes Wraith Bone." He took in a deep breath to start in on the well honed sales pitch.
“Designed and constructed on tansental itself, this marvelous piece of engineering was gifted to us by the brilliant Charoke minds at Archimedes. standing at an imposing three meters tall and weighing roughly 5000 pounds. The Wraith Bone was designed to be the ultimate front line skirmisher. Automatic reactive shield emitters in not just one but three separate arrays. It's main armament is the Icarus Mounted rifle. The Icarus is famous for its sheer variety of munitions and unparalleled stopping power. It also comes equipped with full maneuvering systems for both on ground maneuverability and zero-g dominance. Last but certainly not least the magnetic gauntlet assembly. Only possible because of the sheer mass and stability provided by the wraith. It allows you to do everything from stop a tank in its tracks to even redirect missiles with a competent pilot!” Vener took a few deep breaths.
Slev looked at Vener, then back at the wraith. “I would love to test some of these, namely the gauntlet and that badass rifle. His eyes shifted back over to the form of the hulking red war machine next to the more lithe bipedal form of the wrait. "And could you pry the big guy's sword out of its hand? I would love to see what that can do."
Vener looked a bit taken aback. “Very well sir...there is a target range we could have those parts shuttled to for you.”
Slev paused. Do you folks have a simulator or something here anywhere I could try them in a more...adversarial fashion?”
Vener frowned. "No, sir, I'm sorry. The only combat facility in the Repository is the Remote Mechanized Sport laeuge, engineers build robots out of the remains of combat bots, and they remotely pilot them against each other. It's a bit barbaric but lucrative because of the betting.”
Slev smiled an evil grin “Perfect.”
Vener looked over aghast. “Pardon?”
With much hemming and hawing from Vener and a very large security deposit on Slev's part, Slev finally convinced him to send the weapons to the stoney pit inside the shooting range where the matches took place. Finding a willing participant was not difficult. The league organizer smelled money and had a match set up inside of the hour. Vast bets were placed, and the stage was set for the absolutely insane human to test mechanized weapons against a combat bot armed with Less lethal ammunition. It would still absolutely kill anyone else. But it wasn’t armor piercing so the organizers figured the human probably wouldn’t explode from the first hit.
Things got serious when a 100,000 credit bet wagering the human would win was posted by Ambrosias. She was blatantly using this to send everyone a message that he was there at her behest. That was magnitudes above the other bet's placed and the match was held off for another three hours until someone matched her wager.
Within three hours, Slev was preparing himself in a side room off the stoney arena floor. This had spiraled way out of control. It was not at all what he had meant for it to be. He thought he was going to be fighting some janky spider drone with all the guns pulled off. Instead, he could see a massive green exosuit with an antenna sticking out of its cockpit. Aggressively test firing rounds into the wall, scattering concrete dozens of meters. With a resigned sigh, Slev began a gear check, and unchained Reapers will once again
The Icarus rifle was a technological marvel it was only slightly large for his hands, it looked more like a tightly angled, narrow crossbow, than a normal rifle. Deep red magnetic coils thumped along the width in lue of a string. Able to switch the munitions payload at a whim. It could either fire near silently with the magnets propelling rounds. Or hit much, much harder as the rounds propelled themselves with multistage explosions, allowing them to change trajectory mid-air. Slev was pretty sure he was in love and he hadn't even shot it yet.
Slev packed up the Icarus, grabbed the massive energy hilt, and placed it on his back. Made sure his trusty sidearm was in fact loaded with armor penetrating rounds. This was going to suck something terrible, but it was better than having his first fight with an exo suit be against top of the line Cerberus security forces that would certainly make sure he was dead if he stopped moving.
Slev stepped out of the small doorway and looked around the “arena” The only cover he saw was a half-dozen uneven stone blocks and the remains of a fucking tank. The arena was a forty-meter oval with shield emitters protecting the stands above. The stands had several hundred cheering aliens. A few massive billboard screens zoomed in on his skull helm and flashed text -The HUMAN! THE VOID BEAST! THE CHALLENGER!- Slev chuckled at that and looked towards his opponent.
“Fuck my life,” Slev grumbled, switching Icarus to full power explosives.
“You did this to us, you irresponsible buffoon." Reaper kindly reminded him.
On the other side of the Arena a four meter tall deep green exosuit was priming itself. The jaws of some horrific beast had been crudely painted onto where the pilot would normally sit. It had a slitted short barrel shotgun in one hand, easily a meter and a half in length and half as wide. Its left hand held an awful looking curved axe that revved unevenly, dragging hooked chains across its blade. Three articulating pitons of metal held its body just above the stone, hissing smoke at every slight adjustment. Slev was about to turn around and walk the fuck out when it tested its shoulder weapons. One of them appeared to be a napalm launcher, immersing half the arena in blue flame as the announcer shouted his opponent's name. Slev missed the name he was too busy staring at the last weapon it had.
“We are going to die.” Slev bitterly spat out.
“Correction, you are probably going to die, because you didn’t rearm the suit based weaponry, like I told you to, nineteen times...” Reaper concluded
"Oh, shut the fuck up.” slev tried to rub his brow through his faceplate again.
