System Overclocked 2 -CH6- (Patreon)

Grunting, Wrench leaned on his name-sake. After a few seconds he gave up.

“Okay, I totally under-estimated how much strength it takes to be a Fixer,” growled Seventh. Stepping up next to him she put her foot down on the wrench and then tried to stand on it.

It slipped off the bolt and clattered to the ground.

“Eh, it definitely takes strength but in the same breath, it takes more brains,” countered Wrench. Sighing, he stood up and then went over to his tool-bag. He got out a pipe-wrench and then went over to the side of the Skybridge.

He wrapped a knuckle against the round bar. It gave him bag a hollow ring rather than a thunk.

Moving to the connection point he used the pipe-wrench to quickly disconnect it. Moving to the other side he did the same there. It clanged to the ground with a rather loud clatter.

“Any reason you’re destroying the railing?” Seventh asked.

“Leverage,” he answered, looking into the railing. It was hollow and the walls of the pipe, because that’s what it was, were quite thick. “Perfect.”

Walking over to his wrench he jammed the pipe over the back of it, angled it high up, then practically jumped on the end of it.

With a pop the self-sealing bolt settled into place. The barricade was now fully built. The center was built on massive hinges. The pins in those hinges, more like dowels, could be popped out and the barricade separated into two parts.

For now, the plan was to unlock the hinge and close up the large barrier at night. He’d taken the time to create anchor points into the Skybridge itself as well as a massive roller system. Everything could be opened, locked down, closed, and unlocked, by a single person.

When in position, it would take a lot of force to try and break the whole thing down. Given that it was twenty feet in height, it’d take some work to try and get over it as well.

“It’s formidable,” Seventh said, looking up at the folded barricade. “I think this will be a true wall to keep others out. But… but if you put it down at night, it’s just inviting them to come damage it.

“Or to come up during the night and not leave. It’s… brandishing a weapon, then foolishly putting it back away. You need to leave this up. Leave it up permanently and let the Admini handle it’s running.”

Sighing, Wrench stared at the barrier, then Seventh, then back to the barrier. He couldn’t really argue with her. Couldn’t deny her point or what she was saying.

It was an escalation and trying to pretend it was anything else was just asking for problems.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re not wrong, alright. I’ll just lock it down and give it over to the Admini. Tell them to keep it up and never put it down,” he muttered while staring at the temporary anchor next to his boot.

“Yeah. They can just have some of those Brawlers they pay to watch it over night,” Seventh suggested while putting her hands on her hips. “Remove the rollers. Permanently lock the hinges.

“Add some defensive points that they can shoot out of. Let’s just call this for what it is. It’s two countries separated by a bridge. The raids will continue.

“And if the Tongsta even notices, it’s not like they’ll understand. You said it yourself, the Tongsta who manages this doesn’t even show up except to deliver things, or to curtail the Lower Parts full on incursions.”

Clicking his tongue, Wrench once again couldn’t argue with her.

Looking around, he saw Joy not far off. She was currently building the frame of a small building. Bird had come back early this morning with a request from the Admini to put down a small shack for the Admini to use for themselves.

The overly attractive woman had rolled up the sleeves of her dress, pulled up the hem to tie it down, and was currently hammering in nails into two-by-fours.

Joy was far smarter than anyone likely suspected. More so than she even likely suspected herself. She wasn’t a Fixer, but she was as intelligent as anyone he’d met.

Then she tilted her head to the side and threw a side-glance toward Wrench. As if she were trying to sneak a peek without him noticing.

Only to find him staring at her.

Her head snapped up and she met his eyes directly.

Once again he found himself looking into the determined face of Pain. Though without the soul-breaking despair behind sunken eyes and hollowed out cheeks.

“She’s got a real big thing for you,” Seventh muttered even as Wrench waved a hand at her then started heading her way. “Given how you saved her, no surprise. I think I’d be the same way.”

“I’ll be right back. We’ll lock this down permanently. Find Bird,” Wrenched asked, looking over his shoulder at Seventh.

Joy stood up, brushed her hands against her thighs, looked down in surprise, then did it again against her dress.

Then one of her hands fluttered up to her hair and pulled up a lock of it and started toying with the end.

Yeah. Definitely showing a number of obvious signs if you’re looking. She’s rather honest with herself here. The differences between her and Pain are so stark sometimes, and non-existent in others.

“Hey, Joy. Do you have any self-sealing bolts left-over? I used the box I brought completely. The extras I had, I ended up using because there were a few bad ones,” Wrench asked.

“Yes! I do,” Joy said excitedly. “I brought an extra box beyond the suggested numbers you gave me. I thought I’d make some mistakes but so far I’ve done very well!”

Turning around she bent over and ended up giving him a view of her posterior and the backs of her thighs.

Joy was much fuller than Pain was and it lent itself to a great deal of appeal for him. She’d always a bit too thin for him.

Then again, it’s no surprise. Freckles and… and… Beckie… were both School. School tends to be fuller.

I wonder where Beckie is. I haven’t thought about her in forever. In fact, I feel like I’ve been deliberately not thinking about her.

Chewing at his thoughts, Wrench decided to strangle them. Forcing them back down into the dark depths of his past life that he didn’t want to revisit.

It was bad enough being forced to constantly confront it with Joy in front of him. It’d be worse if he actually thought about Beckie.

His one time wife.

“Here you are,” Joy said, standing back up and holding a box out to him. It was indeed a full box of self sealing bolts. “How… how am I doing? Is this good?”

She asked the last while gesturing at the frame going up around her. He’d given her a diagram to follow but even then he’d expected her to ask questions.

“It’s honestly impressive. Amazing, even. I wouldn’t believe you were a School if I walked up on you building this,” honestly said Wrench, looking up at the framework. It wouldn’t take much more for her to finish. Then they could hang the drywall on it , then throw on a flat roof on it.

Since there was no rain systems in this Hab, flat roofs were fine.

“I-thank you, Wrench. I’m quite pleased to hear you say that,” Joy said, her tongue pausing between her lips before she licked them. “When I finish I’ll start on the next step if you tell me what to do.”

Wrench nodded at that.

“Sure, not a problem. Alright, keep it up,” he said and turned away from her. Heading back to the barrier, he saw Seventh heading his way with Stripe and Bird.

Moving to the anchor, he got down next to it and opened the box of bolts.

Picking one up, he wedged it into the anchor’s hole. It was wedged in rather well. Self sealing bolts worked in a way that Wrench didn’t understand.

What he did understand was you could make them go off accidentally with the right technique. They’d discharge their sealant even if it wasn’t the right place to do so.

Reaching over, he picked up a hammer and a basic wrench. Fitting the wrench to the bolt head he picked up the hammer.

Then he slammed it into the side of the wrench.

The bolt head whined loudly but didn’t go off. To which Wrench responded by hitting it again.

This time the head of the bolt sheared off.

Expecting this, and wanting this outcome, Wrench had been putting force behind the wrench. So that the bolt head fell into the anchor hole.

No sooner than it’d happened, than the sealant in the bolt was let loose.

For whatever reason, if you broke one like this the sealant fouled and spread out. It was still just as strong, but it wouldn’t cover the same surface area.

Which for an anchor hole, this was fine.

The sealant filled the hole rapidly and began bubbling out. It rolled down the anchor pin and onto the floorboards of the Hab. It hissed, frothed, and angrily burbled away.

“What’d… why’d you do that?” Bird asked.

“Filling the hole,” Wrench said and ripped the top of the box of self sealing bolts off. He folded it once and then began patting at the sealant. Pushing it down more firmly into the hole while scooping the sealant back in as well. “Won’t be going anywhere easily. Anyways… Bird, that’s for coming.

“We’re going to put this up as a permanent thing. Then turn it over to you and the Admini. You should probably hire Brawlers to watch over it at night. Daytime will likely have less likely issues but still should have Brawlers on the payroll.”

“Oh. Yes-that, yes. We’ll do that,” Bird agreed.

“How do you pay Brawlers?” Stripe asked, glancing to Wrench and giving him a smile. She hadn’t changed at all today despite the fact that he and Seventh had been at each other last night. “Is it with those tokens? How are those distributed?”

Loudly.

For hours.

“Ah, yes. Tokens. We pay with tokens. There’s only a set number of tokens in the whole Shelter,” Bird said while watching Wrench. He was currently moving to the next anchor point and was pulling out another bolt. “Each token is worth a meal in the cafeteria. You just give a token to the Admini at the supply depot and get your food. That’s… that’s it.”

Wrench nodded his head.

The Shelters were mostly like this from what he’d seen. Traveling from Shelter to Shelter had mostly been done by getting caught after modifying his implant. Many Tongsta just followed whatever instructions were put into it, which meant he could be shipped along to anywhere really.

It was a broken system with too many flows and an inability to prevent kings or king makers. People would take power either through tokens or from them.

He’d even seen a shelter where the Admini had been turned into slaves to a group of Fixers who used the Ducts as a fortress.

Then again, that’s kinda where I got the idea of what I’m doing now anyways. Isn’t it?

Chuckling to himself, Wrench broke the head off another bolt and filled the Anchor.

“Gambling and prostitution in the Lower Pats then? Tokens buy and sell everything?” Wrench commented. “Slaves?”

“No-no slaves. Though there’s definitely a protection racket,” answered Bird. “Definitely the other two. A number of the people up here go and gamble during the day and then return. Though they-they have to have enough power to make it down and back up.”

In other words, Brawlers.

That means the Brawlers themselves who are paid up here could be an issue. Some of them might even be working for the opposite side.

Well… that sounds awful.

Not my problem either.

“We keep a close eye on the Brawlers,” added Bird, clearly following the same train of thought he did. “Any Brawler that goes down to gamble isn’t kept on the payroll either.

“We… we ah… we have spies… in the Lower Parts. We pay them to give us information.”

Yeah… two countries separated by a Skybridge indeed.

Tamping down the sealant Wrench gave his head a small shake.

The door to the barrier shook under a heavy fist knocking on it.

“Hey, what the fuck is this shit?!” shouted a voice from the other side.

“My turn,” Seventh stated excitedly, looking to the door. Pulling the short sword from her hip they’d fabricated for her she moved quickly.

Flipping the bolt and then withdrawing the bar, she took a step back and pointed the blade toward whoever was on the other side.

“What is it?” she asked in a low voice. There was a promise of violence that would be given out freely.

“You bitch. How dare you fucking—”

Seventh shifted her right foot forward, her arm folding as she did so. The blade didn’t move even as her body went forward. Then her arm struck out lightning fast.

“Gunh,” came a voice as the weapon fully extended. Followed by a scream.

“Oh shut up. I only stabbed your arm,” demanded Seventh, taking a step back. The front inch of the blade was covered in blood “If you’re not going to speak politely to me, there’s no reason for me to be polite with you. What do you want?”

“You bitch! I swear I’ll fucking kill you and—”

Seventh took two steps forward, her arm moving beyond the view of the door. Her upper body leaned forward and he got the impression she swung the sword horizontally.

There was another scream that followed.

“You whine a great deal for Brawlers,” Seventh complained loudly. “I barely hit your forearm with the flat of the blade.”

Stepping back behind the barrier Seventh lifted the sword up again in front of herself. There was no new blood on it that he could tell.

“Now, what do you want? We don’t have any time for nonsense. We’re still in the middle of building the Supply Depot for you,” Seventh stated clearly. “If there’s nothing important I’m closing and locking the door. We’ll have this set up in less than an hour. You can resume whatever business you had with the Supply Depot then.”

“The Barracks wants to talk,” someone said from beyond the barrier.

“Great. I’ll let someone know. That it?” Seventh asked.

“Yeah, you fucking bitch. Next time I see you I’ll use that body of yours for myself and—”

Seventh darted forward and through the door completely. Wrench could hear the sound of people running away. Running away and screaming all the while as if their lives depended on it.

Which to be fair, they probably were.

Seventh was a Brawler, but also a woman. Such threats hit her in a way that provoked her in a greater way than it likely normally would.

“Barracks?” Wrench asked, looking to Bird. That was a name he hadn’t heard before from anyone.

Even Shanista hadn’t mentioned it when Wrench had been asking about the Lower Parts leadership.

“I… don’t know,” Bird confessed with a frown. She shook her head and looked to Wrench. “I’ve never heard the name. Not in passing, not as a person, a thing, nothing. We should go speak to my grandfather about it.”

“Grandfather? Shinista?” Wrench asked, his brows pressing down. He hadn’t thought that Bird was related to Shinista. He’d in fact been under the impression that Shanista had been in the Shelter a really long time.

“Yeah,” Bird said with a strange smile and nod of her head.

If he’d indeed been here for a long time and Bird was his granddaughter, that changed things. That made things feel a bit more strange, in fact.

A Shelter was somewhere that the vast majority of the Hume rotated through. Adopted out, rehumed, or simply being euthanised.

For Shinista to be here that long meant something was different or wrong.

“— been here for a while. I was born here,” Bird said with an awkward laugh. “My mother was born here, too. Grandpa said she-she was killed by a Brawler, though.”

The last had been said with a dark under-tone that Wrench didn’t miss. One that left many questions that were screaming to be answered.

Questions he’d have to ponder and get back to at some point.

That or get the hell out of here. He didn’t want to remain here in the Shelter any longer than he had to.

“Well, let’s go talk to your grandpa then,” Wrench muttered and knocked the head off the next bolt. It rapidly filled the anchor point. The barricade was now firmly in place and wouldn’t be moving ever again. This was where it lived and that was the end of it.

I wonder if I should start working on Duct extensions. Right now it opens out into that area near the Upper Field, one over near Peaches, and the other down into the sub-flooring.

Though… last one is pointless. The whole bottom has collapsed in more than a few places. It’s why we have a Skybridge and both the Upper and Lower Parts are so high off the ground.

Rather than fix it, the Tongsta just added risers to everything.

Fucking Tongsta.

I miss Goodie.

Sighing, Wrench reached up and ran a hand through his hair. Not for the first time he lamented the fact that his implant wasn’t working.

He imagined the day it turned back on, was the day Goodie would come get him. Get him and take him out of here.

“Bastards ran as fast as they could,” hissed Seventh, coming back in through the barrier. She slammed the door, locked it, and dropped the bar in place. Then she rammed the sword into the sheathe and looked to him.

“I mean, you’re rather intimidating, Seventh,” Wrench murmured and looked to the security window they’d installed. It looked like the seals on it were dry and ready to be used. He turned his gaze back to Seventh and smiled at her. “I’d run too if I were them. No sense in losing my life to such a strong and intimidating Brawler.”

To anyone else it’d be an odd compliment. To her, it’d probably hit just right.

Seventh suddenly grinned at that, her whole face lighting up. She was showing off her teeth with it and her face slowly colored red.

“Really?” she asked, obviously quite happy as he’d predicted with his words.

“Oh yeah,” Wrench said and then sighed loudly. Seventh had come over to stand over him. “Can you stay here and make sure nothing funny happens? We’re going to go talk to Shinista.”

“Of course,” replied Seventh with a laugh. Her left hand came out and grabbed Wrench by the forearm and pulled him up to a standing position. She gazed up at him with a look he’d come to recognize.

“Ask him for another pillow or two,” confirming his thoughts that she was thinking about the bedroom. Or more accurately what they did to each other the night previous.