Jericho the Drifter's Story

Jericho had been lurking around the Jarrako Downs for a while. Other people had started to take notice of him, rumors floating of the masked guy in the gray cape. Jarrod was just waiting for someone to approach him with work of some kind, though that frequently caused him to stand in the corner of a bar somewhere for a long time.

On this day Jericho was intrigued to find a new shop. He slipped close to what appeared to be some sort of collectible/arms dealer, an android of some kind, and a lady clad in dark clothing. While the merchant peddled his wares to the lady, Jericho pulled up close enough to the others to hear them and stared through his mask at the interaction, almost creepily.

Something about the lady drew his attention, but that was broken when the merchant, Russian apparently, claimed to be the best mercenary around. This drew an audible chuckle from the Drifter, most likely drawing more attention to him then he had previously.

Rayia smirked at Russian's boast " I have heard many say such things only to find them dead in a gutter the next day....I would need to see these mechs in action before I would even think of buying one..."

Rayia then turned to the droid girl "you can keep your scans to yourself miss...Though I am intrigued by you I have never seen a droid like you what are you exactly?"

Rayia said nothing to the newcomer seemingly ignoring him.

Sukarma's hair jockeyed for position as the tentacle hair busied itself with pointing flashlight tips at the stone. The strands weren't particularly bright in any sense being passive-mounted logic but the stone was lit quite uniform. Her eyes were locked on trying to take a detailed 3d scan of the object with basic lidar. Some of the light grey sclera were circular IR emitters rather than lead bioplastic shielding. She ended up with just having to take a passive outline interpolation when the lasers wouldn't reflect right. She was too occupied with the first two people to notice the chuckling newcomer now that her detection envelope was smaller.

The activity ceased with the stone's rotation as she looked at Rayia, "It's mounted to my passive systems it's just a density scanner for volume scanning. I need an eye in the back of my head in this place. I'm not, like, picking on you in particular. And I'm not an android! Like I told Russian, Mom grew me and built the hardware I didn't get programmed in a factory."

"And Mister Russian I'd like to inspect this mech with the swarm AI and melee weapons. I think it should be most compatible.", She offered to Russian while messaging him the list identifier.

She points at her own head turning a little red on black in momentary, "And My avatar has about a liter and a half of the salty grey human brain matter just like humans! Though half of it is microscale synthetic neurons I guess. I have two dozen liters more grey stuff to me. More if I hadn't gotten damaged getting here! I'm parked outside 'cause I didn't fit in the hangar."

She sighed turning back to a relaxed white on tan, "At least it grows back eventually. I have to monitor it carefully though."

Her datapad bleeped as a passive system in her mind alerted her to a problem. At least a problem as far as she could understand it. There was something trying to infest her processing nodes again. Who knows where it came from but it wouldn't stay gone!

She looked over a statistical readout of purge rates and lamented in frustration carrying the very human habit of thinking out loud, "Argh. Stupid itty bitty bacteria! Stop trying to infect my processing nodes! How are you still alive I purged everything down to the nutrient tanks and regrew all my hearts!"

She poked at the display repeatedly more as a physical manifestation at the urgent distributed command at her passive systems than any actual requirement to poke a new efficiency delta, "No, No, No... stop integrating them! What are they even doing? I don't know what they do don't staple them into my backhaul processing even if they're efficient about it! Argh, node 12 is at 5500 per unit and rising."

Russian seemed to laugh when she mentioned most mercenaries ended up in a ditch. "Oh I love it when people bring that up. I have a library of my exploits. Pretty old videos I say so myself. Still on CD too." He laughed as he reached under the desk and brought out a stack of videos that were dated back in the early 2,000's. "Dates don't lie, I been around since earth could not even think of colonizing mars. I certainly don't lie when I say, I am a great Merc if not the best mercanary to survive up to this point alive." Russian laughed.

"Oh yeah, I also have mech videos that you can browse for free. All types of mechs, even my best mechs...granted I do not sell them but it gives you a taste of what my genius can create. Hell...I even got this..." Russian started as he pulled out a grenade. "Not any ordinary grenade my good customer. A real, fully operational black hole grenade complete with its own event horizon. I made sure that it does not actually absorb a whole planet when used. It is like a timed black hole which unleashed a violent explosion depending how much it absorbed. I would show you but...I rather not lose my one way to actually earn money." The merc chuckled as he casually stored such a device in his pocket before turning to Sukarma.

"The mech is indeed available, just give me a second..." Russian muttered as he dug into his high tech crate and pulled out the miniaturized version of the mech she asked for. "Feel free to inspect it, and no need to fear, despite how light and small it is it can still withstand its usual damage as if it were full sized." He then handed her the mech.

Of course after dealing with the two, he turned to the man that had chuckled. "Like I told her earlier, early 2,000's pal. Plenty of video evidence, and helped with the space program to get past the moon. Killed Deamons, Nations, entities, and even a God. By myself keep in mind. So I suggest you question before you laugh." Russian grinned at him. "Unless, you care to try out a miniaturized black hole for yourself. I'll be fine, you...I don't think so."

Rayia took the tapes " I'll have a look at these...If I'm impressed we will talk again but for now I have business off station."
Rayia didn't wait for an answer turned and headed towards her shuttle.