The Local BuckStar's Coffee Shop: Durem...
It had been a full week since she staggered into the Recruitment Center, battered, bruised, and riddled with bullet-holes both thick and thin alike. It had taken a full night to scrape all of the bullets out with a bent fork; it'd hurt like hell, but it was far better than overriding her nano-machines to break down the rounds on an atomic level and absorb them into her composition. And it was a hell of a lot better than simply leaving the shrapnel in turn infected. She was a tough girl though – a former soldier – who grit her teeth and accepted the pain with a grunt and a whimper as each jagged bullet popped from the greasy red holes in her, shoulders, abdomen, hips, and thighs. For over an hour, the only sound within the dusty quarters she'd been given was that of a slow, dull thunk as each round spilled unceremoniously to the floor and began piling around the rabbit woman's feet. Sitting in the little outdoor enclosure for customers to escape the ho-hum elevator music inside, Fortune Victoria Gear sipped her latte and vividly cast back the images of that horrid night where she escaped the company she created—Gear Labs, one of the world's leading independent weapons manufacturers.
It hurt, like a knife struck deep into the bone, bypassing muscle defenses and the like. She'd left her life behind, casting away everything she had worked so diligently for over the past six years. And the more she thought about it, the deeper that insidious dirk twisted deeper in, carving its place dominantly within her soul. Had she been a fool to believe that her weapons would be used defensively, to benefit mankind? Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Now, after escaping the company and being black-listed as a rogue employee designated for 'contractual termination', such a question was no longer valid. What ifs, what could have beens, and the reality she now faced were entirely separate entities. She would have to accept her life as Fortune Gear, part-time soldier-for-hire and freelance weapons designer. And as long as this Shingi-yummy Group, or whatever it was called, would supply her a paycheck to continue funding her nano-tech research, she'd eagerly enlist her services and products to their cause.
It didn't mean she'd have to like it. In essence, they were no different from the corrupt company she deserted, despite their ethics seeming slightly nobler. But ethics were simply ethics; right or wrong, they were still using her talents for destruction over protection. For now, it was simply another pill she'd swallow by the end of the night, washed back with a chilled glass of Paul Masson: Grande Amber. Idly, she found herself puzzling over the little device left in her room upon arrival. From what she'd heard, it was called a PAD, or something. She'd debated taking it apart to figure out its explicit inner workings, then to mod it to her heart's content, but eventually decided not to tamper with company tools, lest the higher-ups become cross with her. Come to think of it, she actually hadn't been introduced to anyone here at the 'shiny-tummy', or whatever it was called. Yawning, she rested her cheek against her palm, propping head up against the table to lazily watch people pass through Durem without a care in the world. She'd have given an arm or a leg to have been blessed with a normal life, one free of being part-rabbit, mostly cybernetic, or chased down by rabid employees of the company she'd built herself. When thinking about her life, it made the idiocy of the small PAD device seem somehow less asinine.
"Stupid thang look's like one'a them ol' Tamagotchis from back in th' day..."
