How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

18. compliment

The most commonly used gun by gangsters and scavengers was a homemade gun called a pipe gun or a slam gun.

It was an illegal weapon made by collecting and assembling gun parts discarded in a garbage dump, and filling the missing parts with steel pipes or plastics. Neither power nor safety could be guaranteed. Accidents ranged from guns that exploded after a few shots to bullets that ricocheted sideways. Still, the pipe gun, constantly being produced and recycled, remained a Junktown resident’s best friend.

“Because it’s cheap.”

said Leonard as he assembled the pipe gun.

“I can only get one for 30 credits.”

“30 credits? Is it that cheap?”

“What, have you never seen one before?”

Twelfth Street, where Max grew up, was not a safe place either. There should have been a chance to get a pipe gun, but I was strangely ignorant. Max muttered embarrassedly.

“Because when I got credit, I bought something to eat.”

“Well, food that living humans can eat is precious.”

It was like that from the grain porridge he was eating now. It was a high-quality diet with 20% real grains. Max paused apologetically while playing with the spoon.

“I’m going to get an implant someday…”

“It’s strange to change a perfectly fine body just to save money on food.”

Usually, before reaching that age, a bodily abnormality comes and dies or implants, but it was a peculiar constitution.

Leonard wasn’t condescending, but no, he wasn’t condescending, which made Max uncomfortable. As the number of people increased, the cost of living increased several times. It wasn’t just food, water, and electricity. I spent a lot of money buying clothes, furniture, and guns. It was because of that that I had been working non-stop lately.

“I, Mr. Leonard, is there anything I can do?”

“Not multiplication tables?”

“…not multiplication table.”

Leonard threw the assembled pipe gun. Even though I had never used it, I was horrified to know that it was a gun with many problems. In fact, this pipe gun had no safety device.

“I didn’t put the bullet in.”

“Uh… ugh…”

Leonard put up a display of 22LR, 32ACP, 380ACP, and 45ACP bullets and said.

“For you who don’t have implants, it’s best to shoot first and hit first. So, you should get used to shooting first.”

“Are you training to shoot today?”

Leonard swept the bullet and drew his gun. In practice, familiar guns are best, but it was good to use several guns in training. Max displayed a playfulness between gratitude and sorry.

“Isn’t this an excuse to meet Layla?”

Leonard was a mature adult. It was not the age to play around with the stupidity of an adolescent kid.

“There are things I picked up that didn’t even have blood on my head…”

“So no?”

“…It’s best to know someone.”

Sigma laughed out loud. Leonard, like a mature adult, increased his work by putting on sofa cushions and turning over blankets. But today wasn’t the day. As I put on my coat and carried the gun bag, there was a loud knock. If Sigma hadn’t checked the door camera, he would have judged it to be a surprise attack by a scavenger with a vengeance.

“Solver brother! Solver brother! I’m downstairs! Open the door!”

Residents of the 8th floor were ‘juggling jaws’. Leonard winked at Max to back off and unlocked the front door. Even an average implant would be a chain that would tear it like paper, but the gap at the moment of tearing it off was helpful enough. It also served as a criterion for judging whether a visit was friendly or hostile.

“As expected, there was!”

The chin chin stuck out through the crack in the door. With a very burdened face, he took a step back. By not taking out the revolver, the neighbor’s duty was exhausted.

“What’s going on from this puppet dawn?”

“Is your watch broken? It’s time for lunch, but it’s dawn?”

The time now is 9:30 AM. Both of them seem to have broken brain chips. The protruding chin said, ‘Ah, that’s done!’ shouted.

“There’s something going on outside right now, so come out and see! I need help, Mr. Fixer!”

“I’m busy right now…”

“It’s not like that with the neighbours. We have to help each other and live.”

When Leonard didn’t even snort, Jaws explained calmly.

“That damn elevator has had an accident again.”

@

After the 11-1st Villa was built, the elevator that broke down more than the time it was running caught people. No, I haven’t caught it yet, but it looks like I will soon.

“It’s Ching or Jing, a nobleman who moved in a while ago, but it looks like he went into the machine room to fix the elevator.”

“The machine room here is outside the building?”

“That’s why I didn’t come looking for the fixer man.”

Leonard’s beloved villa had a mechanical room on the roof, unlike a building these days. And, like a building these days, there were no stairs to go up to the roof.

There were no naive old people talking about the Fire Act or a disaster situation. There is no such system itself, and even if there is, it has long been corroded by pollutants mixed with rain and wind. There are external lifts that operate hydraulically on the 1st and 7th floors, but that broke down a long time ago, so we had to fix it first before we could fix the elevator.

“How did you get up there?”

Leonard muttered when he saw his friend Ching shouting from the twelfth floor rooftop.

“It looks like he went up the drain pipe in the 7th floor lift.”

“Then why don’t we come down there again?”

“It seems to have broken when going up. You didn’t think about your weight.”

“This one… He’s a man with more hands than Max…”

Max’s cheek was swollen after being hit. A bigger problem with Junk Town is that there is no public agency to turn to for help. At worst, you could starve to death on the roof. It was never a joke.

“It is fortunate that we have good neighbors like us. Come on, let’s do something good.”

Leonard wasn’t interested in being a good neighbor.

“A good job like this should be done by the landlord, not the fixer. Please contact me so that we can fix the broken elevator.”

“I must have known that I would contact you at this point, so I went diving.”

There was nothing to talk about aiding and abetting murder or failure to fulfill responsibility. The common sense of Junk Town was not the common sense of the Underground City.

“I’m not a mechanic, and there’s nothing I can do…”

“Can’t a former nobleman named Hexagon solve this? Aren’t you a good hacker?”

“You can hack that idiot named Ching and make him jump.”

“Um… let’s do that as a last resort.”

Max quietly raised his hand as Leonard and Jaws Jaws agonized.

“There is a drone over there. Can’t we send drones?”

It seems that the hacking of the drone that he used to save Liam Fault last time impressed him. It wasn’t something Leonard hadn’t thought of either.

“The cargo drone has a maximum altitude of 25 meters and a maximum payload of 60 kg. Cowardly rich people who are afraid of terrorists designed it that way.”

Leonard’s villa had 12 floors and was well over 30 meters tall. Max, who had taken off the multiplication table not long ago, calculated quickly.

“Then, why don’t we send people to the 10th floor and throw a rope?”

“You said the loading weight was 60 kg. I, who have a lightweight body, weigh over 100kg, but who uses a drone…”

Max pointed at himself with twinkling eyes. He was short and had no metal parts, so he was as light as his personality.

“…Is it dangerous?”

“That’s the job of a fixer!”

@

Leonard picked and picked and lowered the lightly loaded cargo drone to the ground.

“Are you really going to do it? I won’t make fun of you for being cowardly, so think again.”

I made a plan once, but I didn’t feel like it. Flying 25 meters in a cargo drone was not a sane thing to do.

“I tied a rope here too, so it’s safer than breaking into a gangster den.”

Max said ‘Hee hee hee!’ He smiled and pointed to the safety line tied to the cargo drone. It was clear that he was insane.

A crowd of 11-1st Street residents gathered to watch the dangerous rescue operation. It wasn’t good. From the point of view of corporate public security, it will not end with fines.

“Let’s finish this quickly.”

Leonard’s hexagonal pupils widened. The cargo drone ramped up its power and rose slowly. Max said, ‘Hoo-hee-ya-!’ I flinched at the grotesque scream, but when I listened to it, it was not a scream but an exclamation. Cargo drone surfing (?) seems to suit his aptitude.

Leonard sped up a little. It was right up to the highest altitude. In the black water stains, the camera saw Ching shaking off her jacket.

“It’s a meeting of idiots that requires a lot of hands.”

When it reached the height of the 10th floor, it did not go up any further. Due to limitations in the design itself, even the Hexagon hacking module could not solve it. Now the rest is in Max’s hands.

Max cautiously got up and talked to Ching. The simple explanation was to throw a rope and tie it to a strong place. However, throwing was not an easy task. I had to fly three to four meters high on top of a cargo drone with poor footing. Failed several times and rewinded and rewinded again.

“Can’t you?”

Leonard gave up early and decided to take down the cargo drone. In fact, there was a way without doing such a dangerous thing. You could call in a technician to fix the lift or rent a helicopter with no altitude restrictions. I don’t know who will do it because it takes a lot of credit…

“Wait! You can make it!”

Max shouted into the cargo drone speakers. He seemed to be confused with the location of the microphone, but communication was made.

“Just a little more! I can do it!”

Cargo drone camera raised 180 degrees. Max’s face was visible through the black stain.

“When the public security agents come, it’s a headache.”

“You haven’t come yet! I will do it until you come!”

Leonard did as he wanted after a short thought. Aside from Max’s safety issues, flying a drone was easy.

“Try until you get tired of it.”

Max smiled broadly and tried until he got tired of it. Leonard added ‘persistence’ to the evaluation of ‘a fearless and thick kid’. It was not fortunate that he survived with a body that was not a machine.

“Five! Success! You succeeded, Mr. Fixer!”

How to succeed even by accident if you try countless times. Ching’s coiled nylon rope was held in Ching’s hand. The jagged jaw was delighted as if it were his own work. Leonard murmured with a tired face.

“I’m going to pay for the meal now.”

Ching still had to climb down the rope to the 7th floor, but she wasn’t interested in it because it was someone else’s business. Leonard slowly lowered the cargo drone. Today, I decided not to hold back my praise.