Chapter 388: I Charged Extra for the Owner’s Panic

The departure frame moved slowly enough to tempt us into thinking we had time, which was how heavy machinery persuaded idiots to become part of the road surface.

Lukas ran along the protected side of the gantry toward the fixed emergency station. I went the other way, keeping the transport frame between Rex and the service box that held its drive relay.

Old Mate opened a separate objective before I reached it: twenty-five thousand EXP and seventy-five IP for disabling the departing transport through its drive controls and securing it in the yard.

[System: Take the important little bit, mate, not the entire bloody truck. You’re a kleptomaniac with wings, not a warehouse with customer parking.]

I was pleased you had noticed the wings, because the merchandise department hadn’t.

The frame’s side rose above my head, but the open service box sat within reach of a short hover. I could see the removable relay clearly, its center less than three meters away once I slid beside the lower access step.

I made room against my length on the platform before using Mine Now. The relay appeared there with its ordinary weight, pulling the attached plug free rather than bringing half the engine along for the ride.

The drive motors cut out. The frame kept rolling because stopping power didn’t remove momentum, and I shouted for Lukas while holding the relay clear of the moving wheel assembly.

He pulled the emergency control at the fixed station. A line of brake shoes closed against the transport wheels, slowing them with an ugly squeal that made the nearest workers scatter from the lane.

The frame stopped short of the departure gate. Lukas held the brake while two crew members pushed wheel blocks into place, then checked the locked indicator against the drawing on the control housing.

Old Mate waited until the workers stepped clear and the frame stayed still before paying the objective. My total reached one hundred fifteen thousand EXP and eight hundred twenty-five IP, and the machinery finally stopped trying to become a disaster at a different address.

Rex struck the service box before I could enjoy that. The door slammed against my shoulder, knocking me off the access step and sending the stolen relay skidding across the deck.

I twisted beneath the frame’s support rail. A short burst of hover carried me past the next wheel, and Rex’s hand closed on empty air where my head had been.

My portal cooldown had finished while we fought over the controls, but I kept it ready. Spending it to move a few meters would leave me without an answer when the next problem arrived, and this yard seemed committed to supplying those in bulk.

Lukas called from the brake station, pointing toward a camera arm above the loading platform. Its lens still followed Rex, streaming the yard’s performance feed to the public preview monitors and the remaining audience.

The route station had a local camera selector. We had passed its smaller control pad beside the fixed brake, and Lukas now used that pad to keep the nearest camera on Rex instead of the immobilized cargo.

He didn’t invent a new broadcast network. He redirected the one the bastard had already paid to point at himself.

Rex noticed the camera turn and ordered the operator to cut the feed. The worker at the remote controls hesitated, with two injured crew members beside him and the public monitor showing his employer’s face.

"Shut it down or get under that frame and release the brakes yourself," Rex said, loud enough for the camera microphone to catch every word.

The worker stayed where he was. I lifted my head beside the support rail and gave the lens my most helpful expression.

"If anyone was still considering a career here, I would ask whether being run over came out of your lunch break."

Lukas tried not to laugh while keeping his hand on the brake control. The public monitor displayed me beneath Rex’s own company logo, and I finally felt we were using his production budget responsibly.

[System: Get your invoice in, mate. He’s had your face, your time and half your bloody skin, and the least he could do was cover lunch.]

"Also, Rex, we still needed to discuss my appearance fee. I was willing to accept the white car, the remaining fuel and a written apology to whoever designed my wings."

A reply appeared on the public monitor asking whether the toy would receive updated wings. I wanted to know which viewer had developed priorities that matched mine, but Rex’s expression suggested we were about to lose our question-and-answer session.

Rex hit the camera arm with the metal bar he had recovered from the lane. The picture lurched sideways, but the microphone kept working while the arm hung from its damaged mount.

He ordered the workers away from the brake station. Nobody moved toward Lukas. Several moved farther away from Rex, which was the more useful kind of response.

For a moment, I thought he might leave. His transport was stopped, his helpful public image was falling apart, and the arriving watch would have more evidence than he could explain with a smile.

Then he looked at the cage, and I understood that he still believed destruction was something he could edit afterward.

I warned the nearest crew to clear the loading lane. Lukas kept the frame braked while I moved toward the cage’s forward corner, searching for a view of the creature’s eyes through the armored slats.

Its grafted limbs pressed against the wall. I could see the seams, the metal braces and the unnatural joins where someone had built extra violence into an already dangerous body.

I couldn’t see an eye. The narrow viewing slit faced the far side of the platform, exactly where Rex was heading.

He reached the manual release before I could cross the lane. His hand closed around the red lever, and his smile returned as the cage’s front wall began lifting above the workers’ escape route.