Apr 08 00:52:15 109 PA - Needing a Very Unique Scope

From Chronicles

Apr 08 00:52:15 109 PA.

UNCOMMON MECHANICS

The weather has finally changed from extremely shitty to only mostly shitty. The air still bites you but no longer has that, is my nose still on my face, feel. Uncommon Mechanics seems fairly busy today. A hustle and bustle of mechanics working on what looks like a line of city guard vehicles. If you stop and watch for a bit you can see that they are just getting what seems to be an annual servicing, oil change, tires if needed, grease, etc... Inside Tek is neck deep in paperwork, typing away on a work station. A second and third station have been set up next to him and those screens are scrolling through different screens and data is being entered of it's own accord. The trashcan behind him is overfilled with oily, greasy crumpled up papers. His Land Rover is still in the first bay but seems to be on hold at the moment. The smell of fresh coffee wafts across the bays and out the front door. Elevator music is on in the background though it can only be heard when all the power tools in the shop stop at once.

Gabriel almost decides to enter through one of the bay doors, but in the end changes his route and uses the standard personnel door. He's carrying with him not just his standard waterproof clothing, pistols and jungle hat, but also one very long energy rifle that tapers from being rather wide at the back to a narrower - but still large - opening at the front. There is no E-Clip, but the receiver slot in front of a clearly specialized trigger mechanism is plain to see. He stops to ask someone who comes near if Tek can be disturbed. He also has a steel briefcase with him. A different one than he has been seen with before, but obviously meant to protect things.

The small girl who you ask about Tek is actually fairly cute you would guess if she were not covered in grease. Her oversized work coveralls do not do her frame justice at all but your imagination might be filling in or it might not be who knows. Her small squeaky voice begins, "I... uhh... Let me..." When Tek interrupts without turning around, "Come on over Gabe. I need a break from this paperwork anyway, besides I would love to take a look at the new toy you brought." Turning around for the first time Tek picks up his cup and heads over toward you since you are by the front door and coffee pot.

Having been the father to two dozen girls, many of whom he saw into adulthood before his unfortunate departure, Gabriel likely only notices that the grease-covered girl is cute - not how she fills out her clothes. But he offers her a smile and a polite, "Thank you," before moving to see his mechanic friend. Not mechanical, just mechanic. As he approaches, he offers another greeting, a silent man's greeting of quickly poking his chin in Tek's direction - the international symbol used since the beginning of time by all men to indicate between one another something akin to, "S'up?"

A translucent tendril lifts a sugar canister and moves it over and starts pouring it into Tek's cup, a second tendril then moves over and grabs a second sugar canister and starts pouring it in his coffee as well. After getting both of those started Tek turns to Gabe, "Well met my friend. Can I see it?" His hands then reach out to receive the rifle.

Upon reaching the table, Gabriel deigns to speak. Smiling, "Hi, Tek. Loud in here right now! How's it going? Business must be good." As he then looks around once more, the long weapon is handed over - not placed on the table, just handed over. The briefcase also finds a flat spot, somewhere. Otherwise, he just allows Tek a moment to have a look at the specialized and ridiculously powerful yet easily portable energy rifle.

Tek takes the rifle with a smile, closing his eyes for a moment, "Ahh it really is a nice piece of weaponry." He then begins to give it a quick once over, "So did you just swing in to chat or are you looking to get some work done on this bad bad girl?" He is almost caressing the rifle as he is talking.

Gabriel points to the grip and trigger mechanism. "Already have the weapon itself modified as much as I think I'm able. What I'm really here for is what's in here." He taps the briefcase and then opens it, revealing an array of scopes. UV, passive night vision, a telescopic sight, laser targeting unit and for some reason a set of advanced thermal goggles - the kind that see through walls. "I need a special scope mounting for the rifle, and figured you'd be the best person in the city to have a chance of pulling it off."

Looking into the briefcase Tek smiles, "Ohh yea, not a problem at all. Just fill out the form on that workstation right over there. You are already in the system so it should be easy enough." He then grabs his cup of coffee which has had the sugar added and stirred in while he was looking over the rifle and moves to a mostly empty work station where he sets the rifle on and then takes a sip from his coffee.

The soldier chuckles. "But you haven't even heard what I need you to do yet, Tek! This isn't just a mount, I could do that myself back at the condo. I need a specialized scope to fit a specialized weapon." Gabriel moves a hand over the open briefcase as if revealing a treasure to a game show contestant.

Tek squinches up his eyebrows and seems to not be impressed with this apparent guessing game. He remains silent for now waiting to hear the punchline.

"Okay, look," Gabriel says with a shake of his head. "You can't stack these things. So I need a couple of things done. Goes in three parts, the first two being hard the last being easy." The goggles are removed from their seat in hard foam. "Right now I need a sight more than I need goggles. I'm hoping that you can modify them, take them apart, whatever you need to do to make it function as a gunsight. As for the rest -" he taps the UV, PNV and regular open-eye scope "- they stay the same. But all four need to be mounted on some kind of rotating fixture - or whatever you come up with - so that they are *all* mounted at the same time, and I can quickly run through them interchangeably. The modified goggles go in there as well. Then slap on the mag scope and the laser unit." Crossing his arms comfortably, he offers a light shrug. "That's what I need. Think you can pull it off?" He quickly adds on, "Oh, and I have some little light filters for the front optics, but that's just putting on sunglasses. A five year old could do that."

Tek nods, shrugs and smiles all at the same time, "If it can be done then I can do it. But let me make sure I understand. You are ok with there being more than one scope, just so long as you can quickly and easily rotate between them and that they do not throw off the balance. Right?"

"I'm envisioning it like a Peacekeeper, Tek. But rather than being chambered for bullets, it's chambered for optics. They rotate around a central axis, all mated to the telescopic scope and functional with the laser targeting. So just one total scope. It's just that the 'back end' can quickly spin to access a different type of optic." Gabriel tries to pantomime this with his hands, spinning one finger in the back around another extended finger just like an Old West revolver. He quickly adds, "Obviously, you'll need to take off the Wilk's Integrated Optics."

Tek nods as you explain, "Sure... sure... ok.... yea. Got it. Just make sure to put that in when you fill out the form on the terminal. I am sure I can make you happy. And as always, I will give you a quote before I start any modifications."

Gabriel offers a counter-nod. "And the goggles? You think you can modify them and take them apart like that?"

Tek smiles and shrugs, "You know... I have never done it before. I think so. I will need to take it apart and measure a few things and check a couple others with what I am imagining, if I can I will give you the quote on it if not I will simply give them back."

"Sounds fair. I came into a bit of money recently - not a lot, but some - so if it isn't a wildly expensive bid, I think it'll be viable. Besides," he says with a grin, "I bet this is one of the more interesting jobs you've been asked to do? Maybe?" Gabriel looks hopeful, perhaps only for giving a friend a new challenge.

Tek chuckles and nods, I believe it is. I am curious to see how it turns out."

After writing down in detail what it is that he wants done, complete with a fairly well-drawn diagram, Gabriel seals up the briefcase and passes it across so that the feasibility of his concept can be evaluated. At this point, he moves on to other subjects. "I spent most of the last three days sitting and listening to my radio," he says. "Full military personal field radio, doubt I missed much of anything that wasn't encoded. Sounded like a bad situation down there with the refugees."

Tek nods, "I have gone down to help them the last two nights. The gang has hit them hard. They blew up one of the walls, last night they sent a large group of crazies at them. I am still helping with improving their fortifications. Say do you know anything about military fortifications?"

Gabriel shakes his head. "No, no. I'm not really a stand-behind-walls kind of guy. There were other men in the unit who specialized in that. Still, based on what I heard, I think that I can offer at least a dozen ways to beef up defenses, if anyone will actually listen to me. It's like they have a monkey at the helm. A retarded monkey."

Tek chuckles, "I think Marcel is doing the best he can. He has paid me well so far. I am going back here soon to help them design a better system. You can come along if you like."

"Really?" Gabriel inquires. "Just how much is he paying, if I may ask? For a man who was ex-military from Iron Heart, he's doing a shit job. I heard people getting killed right and left. Did he have any kind of plan apparent?"

Tek shrugs, "The only real major casualties on the refugees side that I saw was when the east wall exploded. And man did it explode. It was like Boom then right after was an even more intense BaBOOM. And then the wall was just gone and everything was on fire. But there really were not any troops to speak of. Pavel and I did more damage to attackers in the past couple days than any of the refugees. Hell most of them are just farmers. Like any farmer they can handle light rifles and were. Then there were two turrets with heavy rifles on the walls I have worked on both, nice guns. But they are both tied into the building's power supply. They really did not seem like they were an army by any means. Hell they definitely were not organized."

The long-time soldier shakes his head. "Eight months ago... maybe more... the refugees had the strength and numbers to invade the 'Dregs, pushing east and smashing an enclave of mages and other evil folk who assaulted them with supernatural beasts and magic direct. I know, I was there to kill their leaders. But they did a decent job at the time." Gabriel drums his fingers on either arm. "I know that they've lost people to the return to Tolkeen, but he still has ten-thousand people in that compound. Plus, he never intended to pay money back. They've been hoarding money and have had plenty of time to spend on equipment, so I know he's not hurting for that. Fuck, give every adult a weapon, and they win by strength of overwhelming numbers alone. The man's just deploying his troops like sheep." He points at the desk for emphasis. "I don't care if he has an official standing army. A man or woman with a rifle defending their home, family and life can fight just as effectively as a cohesive unit as any mercenary group they could reasonably face. I'll be down there in a few days to slap some sense into the man."

Tek holds up his hands, "I did not go down there to fight. I went to help with fixing things for them and helping them improve them for a fee. I was just there during the last two raids, so I helped. As far as military strategy and strengths I am not that guy. But I can fix, pilot and soup up anything that can move. I am damn good with weapons and armor as well. But have you ever heard me brag about my fighting skills?"

With a chuckle, Gabriel admits, "No, but I wasn't slamming *your* skills. I was slamming the apparent skills of a man who claims to be a military type. Please, tell me what you saw, what happened. It'll give me a better idea of what I'm facing, and what I might be able to offer you right here as a supporting non-combatant."

Tek shrugs again, "I did not see no ten thousand people that is for sure. And like I said I was fixing stuff then when the compound was attacked I fought off whoever came towards me. That’s it. But if that wall had not been blown to bits and killed so many I don't think the refugees would have had that many casualties. Everything seems so bad cause of that blast I think."

"They hit it with a cannon or something? Or did they allow someone to sap the wall and blast it from below?" Gabriel asks questions along these lines, clearly flabbergasted that something so obvious as protecting your wall was also out of reach. "They just threw a bunch of Crazies at you and all they had were a couple of guys with rifles and you operating some kind of turret? See, that makes no sense. Marcel should have been prepared for something that simple. If he wants to win, maybe he should go on the offensive. Grab some land to give himself a better perimeter to defend." He clearly has more to say on the subject, by the way his left cheek is subtly twitching, but doesn't bore a mechanic with it.

Tek simply shakes his head, "I have no idea you would have to talk to him. Or Pavel, who was over on the east wall when it happened, I was on a turret on the south wall that night. Then the next night I was on the ground level setting up a turret inside to defend the breach from the night before when the crazies hit the wall. Again Pavel was up on the wall I was at ground level and not manning the turret I had just finished installing when they got over the wall. I shot the ones who came running at me with my zapper gun. I am not all that combat kinda guy kinda thing or anything so what I saw around me would not make sense to you cause it is mostly what machines I felt around me. And there really was nothing out of the ordinary there."

Gabriel nods again, but then grins and points a casual finger across the desk. "So you're not a combat guy, but you managed to shoot the bad guys, right? How many did you get?"

Tek smiles, "Well the first night I am truly not sure, but I was on a turret and shooting at vehicles, Got one completely and several others pretty damn good one of which went down just after leaving my line of fire. Then last night I got one myself with my zapper and helped with a two others. Aya is a really good fighter."

Gabriel responds to the first information with a wide grin. "See? You say you don't know how to fight, but you got one and two assists. Have to figure that most of the refugees are in similar states of readiness for battle. Give them weapons. Organize them into small units with clear orders. Put them in the right places, and *boom* -" he also snaps his fingers "- you win. Might not be pretty like one of my ops, but you'll win." He moves on to the warrior woman. "I figured she was a good fighter. Never had a chance to talk to her terribly much, but I have a few times. Think I was the first guy to really greet her when she got to the city." That is followed by a loud laugh. "She's got balls and fearlessness from being leered at! Took her to the gym and she decided to strip naked for a swim. Jaxain almost drowned when he saw a naked woman."

Tek's eyes go big and he grins, "I would have liked to have seen her naked. I saw Bella naked, she is smoking hot, and I mean explosive. WooHoo." With a smile Tek takes a long swig of his coffee.

Gabriel's brow furrows. "Bella? Smoking hot?" His lips swish side to side. "That is... not an adjective I would ever have used on her. When did you see her bereft of clothing?"

Tek smiles, "She got up on stage at the Ivory Lady."

"Oh, yeah, that. She told me that you blushed like a little boy with a crush," Gabriel winks. "Though she used rather more... colorful language. But, it will be interesting to see what happens with the club. Not sure how important the poles are going to be. Might not have any room for guest dancers."

Tek smiles and shrugs, "Well my friend I have to get back to work, unless there was some more business we need to discuss?"

The older man shakes his head. "No, that's it. Just the custom scope unit. I'll leave you to your work." He sketches a non-salute and heads out.