[DH] Motherboard, Part 1, Scenes 3 and 4

THE NIGHT LAND

Part One: Salvation

Scenes Three and Four

The salvage market occupied the lower levels of an old commercial structure.

Its upper floors had collapsed decades ago. What remained of them leaned inward over the street, enormous slabs of concrete and rusted reinforcement forming a broken roof through which the daylight entered in narrow shafts. Rainwater collected in the hollows. Cable bundles hung from the ceiling like dead vines.

The market itself had survived below.

It smelled of hot metal, old oil, damp concrete and the faint chemical bitterness of soldering flux.

Theris led the way.

She moved with the steady economy of someone accustomed to working in spaces where a careless step could cost a hand. Her dark hair was tied back. Her clothes were practical and worn, reinforced at the knees and shoulders. Plates of scavenged metal had been incorporated into her protective gear over time, each repair preserving the one beneath it.

Nothing on her was decorative.

Even the scars in her equipment had become functional.

Behind her came Elorin.

The long coat he wore had once belonged to someone who worked in a laboratory rather than a salvage yard. It had been modified since then. Pockets had been added. The cuffs were reinforced. Several stains had become permanent features of the fabric.

His blond hair was tied back loosely, though several strands had escaped.

He carried tools.

More tools than any reasonable person needed.

Yosef followed with his tablet held against his side. His dark hair was kept neat despite the conditions, and his wire-rimmed glasses caught the weak light whenever he turned his head. His coat was charcoal, cut in the severe style of old academic or military clothing. It gave him an orderly appearance that the market did not deserve.

Shinjo brought up the rear.

Lean, red-haired, and quiet, he moved without the weight that seemed to follow the others. His leather armor was scarred but carefully maintained. His battlestaff rested against one shoulder.

He looked at machinery as they passed.

Not the good machinery.

The dead stuff.

A stripped motor.

A broken terminal.

A cracked interface housing.

Things other people walked past.

The market ended at a narrow shop with no sign.

Joey was inside.

She was an elf, blonde-haired and composed, dressed more like a merchant than a scavenger. Her coat was clean. Her boots were maintained. A thin chain rested at her throat, and a small ring of keys hung from her belt.

She looked up when Theris entered.

"You're late."

Theris stopped.

"We're three minutes early."

Joey glanced at the clock.

"It runs slow."

Theris stared at her.

Joey returned the stare.

Neither moved.

Elorin looked between them.

Shinjo quietly examined a rack of old interface components.

Yosef said, "Your clock is inaccurate."

Joey looked at him.

"I know."

Theris shook her head.

"Show me what you have."

Joey closed her ledger.

"That's why you're here."

Theris placed a small case on the counter.

Joey opened it.

Inside lay three regulators, two intact couplings, a bundle of stripped copper and a sealed component wrapped in insulating cloth.

Joey picked up one regulator.

"Scratched."

"Still works," Theris said.

"That wasn't the question."

"It was the useful part of the question."

Joey turned it over.

"Buyer in Argent won't take it."

"Why?"

"Too old."

Elorin stepped closer.

"That's ridiculous."

Joey looked at him.

"Why?"

"Age isn't a defect."

"It is when the buyer has three newer units."

"Newer isn't better."

"Tell the buyer."

Elorin opened his mouth.

Theris put one hand against his chest.

"No."

He stopped.

Joey continued examining the salvage.

"These two will move."

She tapped the couplings.

"The copper will move."

She picked up the wrapped component.

"This won't."

Elorin's attention sharpened.

"Why?"

"Nobody knows what it is."

"That doesn't mean it has no value."

"It means nobody wants to buy it."

He took a breath.

Joey added, "Not yet."

Elorin stopped.

Theris noticed.

She always noticed when he did that.

"What changed?"

Joey put the component down.

"People have started asking for old interface assemblies."

Elorin's expression hardened.

"Who?"

"Buyers."

"Which buyers?"

"Buyers with money."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

Yosef watched Joey.

She wasn't hiding anything.

That was different from telling them everything.

He filed the distinction away.

Shinjo had stopped examining the shelves.

He was looking at an old terminal behind Joey's counter.

The screen was dead.

Its casing had been split and repaired.

A length of wire disappeared through a hole in the rear panel.

Shinjo stared at it.

Joey noticed.

"That one doesn't work."

Shinjo shook his head.

"I know."

"Then?"

"It remembers."

Joey looked at him for a moment.

She had learned not to ask what he meant.

Theris had learned that too.

Elorin had not.

"Machines don't remember."

Shinjo looked at him.

"Some do."

Elorin's eyes narrowed.

"That isn't technically—"

Theris interrupted.

"Not here."

Elorin closed his mouth.

Yosef looked at Shinjo.

The red-haired scavenger had already turned away.

There was no drama in it.

No explanation.

Just another fact Shinjo carried that the others did not.

Joey returned to the ledger.

"I've got three jobs worth discussing."

Theris leaned against the counter.

"Go."

"The first is a search."

"What kind?"

"Missing scout."

Theris straightened.

Joey continued.

"Salvage operative went out toward an old transit route. Didn't come back."

"How long?"

"Long enough that the client is paying recovery money."

"Alive?"

"That's the preference."

"And the site?"

"Ancient transit infrastructure."

Elorin glanced at Shinjo.

Shinjo was listening.

Not to Joey.

To something else.

Theris noticed.

"What else?"

Joey turned the page.

"The second is a recovery."

"Recovery of what?"

"An Ancient relic."

"Stolen?"

"Yes."

"From who?"

"Local archive."

Joey's mouth tightened slightly.

"Someone took it. They want it back."

Elorin leaned over the counter.

"Description?"

"Poor."

"Meaning?"

"Whoever posted the commission didn't provide one."

"That's useful."

"No."

Theris looked at the third entry.

"And the last?"

Joey closed the ledger.

"Cash."

"Doing what?"

"Don't know."

"Where?"

"Scrapyard."

"When?"

"Just after sunrise."

Theris stared at her.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Yosef finally spoke.

"Who is the client?"

Joey looked at him.

"Unknown."

"Who posted it?"

"Unknown."

"Payment?"

"Cash."

"Amount?"

Joey named the figure.

Nobody spoke for several seconds.

That was a serious amount.

Even in Salvation.

Theris looked at the ledger.

Then at Joey.

"Expect danger?"

Joey nodded.

"Those are the exact words."

Elorin rubbed his thumb against the edge of his glove.

"Why would anyone pay that much without saying what they want?"

Joey shrugged.

"Because they don't want questions."

Theris looked at her.

"Would you take it?"

"No."

That answered more than anything else had.

Shinjo glanced toward the dead terminal.

Its screen remained black.

"What would you take?"

Joey looked at him.

"The relic job."

"Why?"

"Because stolen goods have owners."

She closed the ledger.

"Owners pay twice."

Theris considered that.

Joey tapped the first entry.

"The scout job pays because somebody wants their person back."

Then the second.

"The relic pays because somebody wants their property back."

Then the third.

"The cash pays because somebody doesn't want to tell you why."

Yosef nodded.

"Three different risk profiles."

"Exactly."

Theris pushed away from the counter.

"Good."

Joey raised an eyebrow.

"Good?"

"We know what we're looking at."

"No," Joey said. "You know what I'm telling you."

Theris smiled faintly.

"Same thing."

"No."

There was no humor in Joey's answer.

Only business.

That was why Theris trusted her.

Joey did not pretend to know things she did not know.

In Salvation, that was almost a form of wealth.

---

They left the market through the same narrow passage.

Outside, the settlement continued its work.

A welding arc flashed behind a sheet-metal screen.

A compressor hammered somewhere beneath the street.

A cart loaded with stripped machine housings passed them, its wheels complaining against the broken pavement.

Theris walked in silence.

Elorin came beside her.

"She was withholding something."

"Probably."

"You don't care?"

"I care."

"You don't sound like it."

"I care about whether we can make money."

Elorin frowned.

"That's not the same thing."

"It is when we're short on food."

He had no answer to that.

Yosef walked behind them.

"The scout job is the cleanest."

Theris looked back.

"Explain."

"Objective is defined. Locate the missing person. Return them. Risk is environmental and unknown."

"And the relic?"

"Objective is defined. Information is incomplete."

Elorin nodded.

"That one's technical."

Yosef glanced at him.

"That is not necessarily an advantage."

"It is to me."

"Exactly."

Shinjo had been quiet.

Theris looked at him.

"What do you think?"

He took a moment.

"The transit route."

"Why?"

"I know where it is."

Elorin turned.

"You've been there?"

"No."

"Then how?"

Shinjo looked at him.

"I heard it."

Elorin stopped walking.

Theris did not.

Yosef kept moving.

Shinjo caught up.

Elorin followed after a moment.

He looked irritated.

Not with Shinjo.

With the fact that he could not interrogate an answer out of him.

That was one of the things between them.

Elorin needed mechanisms.

Shinjo sometimes provided conclusions.

The distance between those two things annoyed Elorin.

It also fascinated him.

Shinjo knew this.

He did not exploit it.

That was part of why they worked.

They reached the crew's workshop.

The generator was still running.

Theris opened the door.

Inside, their equipment waited where they had left it.

The repaired machine hummed.

Elorin walked directly toward it.

He checked the regulator.

Then the coil.

Then the power line.

Everything held.

"Good," he said.

Theris removed her gloves.

"You said that earlier."

"It is still good."

Yosef placed the commission information on the workbench.

Three entries.

Three possible directions.

Three different reasons to leave the safety of Salvation.

Theris looked at them.

She did not make the decision.

Not yet.

That was not how the crew worked.

She was the one who carried the final responsibility when a decision had to be made, but the others were not passengers.

They had each earned their place.

Elorin understood the machines.

He could dismantle an Ancient device without destroying what mattered, most of the time. He understood power systems, chemistry, old mechanisms and the practical side of artificing. He could turn a damaged thing into a useful thing, provided nobody asked him to stop before he understood it.

Shinjo found things.

He sensed machine presence where there should have been only dead metal. He noticed signals buried beneath interference. Sometimes he knew a system was active before anyone else had evidence.

Theris had stopped asking how.

She asked where.

Yosef understood the rest.

People.

Routes.

Positions.

Threats.

Patterns.

He could look at an unfamiliar site and begin reducing it to decisions.

Cover.

Exposure.

Approach.

Withdrawal.

What the enemy could see.

What they could not.

What they would protect.

What they would sacrifice.

He did not need to be the strongest person in a fight.

He needed to know where everyone should stand before the fight began.

That was his usefulness.

And he was careful with it.

He did not order the others around.

He gave them information.

They decided what to do.

Theris looked at him now.

"You've ranked them."

Yosef nodded.

"Not decided."

"Rank them."

"The scout is lowest uncertainty."

Elorin nodded.

"The relic has the greatest technical unknown."

Shinjo said, "The cash job has the least information."

"Which means the greatest uncertainty," Yosef said.

Theris looked at him.

"You're concerned."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Yosef adjusted his glasses.

"Because people who pay well for silence usually know something we don't."

The workshop fell quiet.

A relay clicked inside the repaired machine.

Once.

Then again.

Normal.

Ordinary.

The kind of sound nobody in Salvation bothered listening to.

Shinjo looked toward it.

Then away.

Theris gathered the three commission notices.

"Nobody goes anywhere until we decide."

Elorin nodded.

Shinjo leaned his staff against the wall.

Yosef opened his tablet.

They had work to discuss.

That was all.

For the moment, the Wastes could wait beyond the settlement perimeter, beneath the dead sky and the long ranks of abandoned machinery.

Salvation had food to buy.

Equipment to repair.

Bills to settle.

And three jobs waiting for someone willing to take them.

Nothing had changed.

Not yet.