Treasure Among The Trash

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 27, Post Number 674

-Motor City, Noon-

Wearing her white Steel Matron t-shirt and black skirt with black bike shorts on underneath, Victoria was walking through Motor City on her way to help Dr. Loretta Reid with a project of hers. She was to meet the doctor in the junkyard and help her find a special robot that had supposedly been dumped here by its creator. Dr. Reid wanted to take it to her lab before unscrupulous types came looking for it and took it for their own plans.

It had been about four days since the conclusion of her latest "big" job in Desierto. There she had helped a desert village named Berreb fend off an attack by the Crimson Sashes raider gang, resupplied them with much-needed arms and ammunition taken from the dead raiders, and scored a big haul of scavenged weapons and ammunition from a fight between the Crimson Sashes and The Golden Band, two of the desert country's most infamous outlaw gangs. She and her partner Abigail Windstrider had been sent to find and destroy a Golden Band camp, but when the pair had finally gotten on the trail to their destination they spotted a large Crimson Sashes raiding party one hundred men strong and stayed out of their way.

By the time the two mages had finally reached the Golden Band camp it had been utterly wiped out by the victorious Crimson Sashes, who had killed every defender and had either killed or carried off every horse in the camp. After sweeping the camp to confirm that all the slavers were dead and collecting their dropped weapons and ammunition, Victoria had dragged the loot all the way back to Berreb inside a canvas tent in a sixteen-hour journey fraught with peril. By some miracle she and Abigail made it back to Berreb and successfully delivered the supplies to a village in desperate need of weapons to defend their home from increasingly aggressive raiders. After that successful trip they slept in the chief's guest room for most of a day and went home the day after their intended departure. Thankfully the chief was generous and permitted them to stay longer than intended without complaint.

Once back in Fiore Victoria had spent a day wondering if supplying Berreb with scavenged weapons was the morally right thing to do. Such an act could land her in trouble with Desierto authorities and Sabertooth's top brass, but so far no one had complained or brought charges against the brunette. Besides, Berreb already had the weapons in question, so she did not introduce them to the village so much as she had helped replenish supplies of what they already had. They could always use the ammunition and they could use the weapons themselves to either arm new militiamen or keep them for spare parts with which to repair older weapons.

Then Victoria had concluded that she had done the right thing by resupplying Berreb with munitions scavenged from raider gangs who were already trying to kill them. While handing scavenged weapons off to a desert village might not be the best or most morally upright idea, Victoria could not leave them defenseless in the face of raider gangs who had the means and the will to kill or enslave Berreb's people. As far as she was concerned she had only given them the means to keep defending themselves in a hostile land.

-Inside Motor City Junkyard, twenty-five minutes later-

As she walked through the gates of Motor City Junkyard she was here for a different kind of scavenging mission. She walked down the path leading deeper into the junkyard and looked around her as she went. She saw junked cars piled up to form walls of metal and motorcycles waiting for the compactor to crush them down into an easily transportable form. She also saw rusted cars of all makes and models lining the sides of the path. Dr. Reid had to be somewhere in this place.

Victoria made a beeline to the back and spotted a blonde woman standing next to a trailer truck parked in the path. She wore a white lab coat and had a long blonde ponytail. In her hands was a cup of coffee. It was Dr. Reid all right. She turned and faced Victoria, waving to her as the Sabertooth mage approached.

"Hello Miss Sheridan! I'm glad you came to join me today!" Dr. Reid greeted her. Victoria waved back and walked to Dr. Reid's left side before speaking to her.

"So, what kinda robot are we looking for?" Victoria asked the blonde doctor.

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Dr. Reid looked all around her to make sure that someone other than Victoria was not listening to the conversation before she spoke.

"I'm looking for a special robot that was designed and built by my mentor Dr. DuGalle. He left the robot somewhere in the junkyard after getting frustrated by its imperfection and tossing it out." Dr. Reid explained. Victoria blinked. Who would throw out a perfectly good robot?

"OK. What does it look like?" Victoria asked the blonde. The blonde took a sip of coffee and looked towards the brunette.

"It's twice as tall as a human, it's got round, bulky shoulders with disc-like protrusions, and it's painted red and black." She provided as much identifying information as she could. The brunette took a moment to think that information over and looked around the junkyard for anything that fit that description. She approached a nearby pile of junked cars and carefully walked around it looking for the robot that might be concealed by the pile. She carefully climbed over a nearby pile of scrap metal for a better view of the area and could not see the robot anywhere.

Victoria carefully climbed down from the giant tetanus risk pile and joined the doctor in looking through the entire junkyard. There were piles of scrap metal and junk automobiles everywhere, so they had a lot of ground to cover. They had better get to it.

-Motor City Junkyard, six hours later-

"It... it's not here. We looked everywhere. Everywhere." Dr. Reid gasped in exhaustion. Victoria took a few deep breaths. Her hands were hurting from moving large piles of metal back and forth. They were also hurting because a few of them were unexpectedly hot from baking in the sunlight and neither one of them had brought any gloves.

An older man wearing overalls with a red shirt and brown boots approached. The pair turned to face him and Dr. Reid did the talking.

"What are you ladies looking for?" He asked them politely. Dr. Reid looked at Victoria and her facial expression showed that she was debating something. She then faced the man and spoke.

"We're looking for... um... a robot." Dr. Reid replied as if she did not expect the man to believe her. He looked at her a few moments with a blank facial expression.

"A red and black robot." Victoria quickly added. That helped the man remember because he soon jolted to life.

"Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about now! I found some red-and-black thing almost a year ago next to a junked sports car. It's twice as tall as me and it's got funny circles on its shoulders. It's in my garage." He replied with a smile. Victoria and Dr. Reid immediately focused on the man.

"Please show me!" Dr. Reid pleaded.

"Right this way, ladies." The man said to them with a smile. Victoria and Dr. Reid followed behind him without delay. They wanted to see it before some shady dudes got their hands on it and sold it on the black market or something.

-Motor City Junkyard, the garage-

The man guided them into a two-car garage with a floor dotted with oil stains both old and new. Along the back wall was a metal rack of spare parts that were neatly labeled and two long silver toolchests on wheels sitting along the wall. In the left part of the garage sat a cherry red sports car that was made long before Victoria was born. It had a cherry red body and long fins on the back plus a hard top.

In the right part of the garage stood a red-and-black robot that was twice as tall as a human being. Its shoulders and body were somewhat rusty after having been left in the rain, but it had matched the description of what Dr. Reid was looking for. It was red-and-black, it had the funny discs on the shoulders, and it had a rectangular object in its right hand that was connected to a hose and looked like a vacuum cleaner.

"Oh my." Dr. Reid said simply. Victoria looked at the robot and felt a certain awe. There was something about it that inspired awe and respect.

"Is that what you were looking for, miss?" The man asked her. Dr. Reid walked over to it and began to examine it closely. She looked over the body work, the details, and everything before announcing her verdict.

"This is exactly what we're looking for!" Dr. Reid announced. She turned to the man with one question.

"How much do you want for it?" Dr. Reid asked.

DuGalle's Robot:

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Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 28, Post Number 676

-Dr. Reid's Laboratory, two hours later-

Over two hours after purchasing Dr. DuGalle's robot, Dr. Reid and Victoria had finally reached the former's laboratory and parked the trailer and the truck inside a fortified garage that connected to the laboratory.

Acquiring the robot was the easy part. When asked how much he would take for the robot The junkyard's owner had casually thrown out the figure of 100,000 Jewels. He had figured it would cost that much to buy the parts needed to restore his grandfather's old sports car, which was the cherry red car sitting in the left part of the garage they had seen. Dr. Reid paid the sum without hesitation.

Taking it to the doctor's laboratory had been the hard part. Loading the robot had been quite a feat, but somehow the three of them had pulled it off thanks to some heavy equipment and a lot of patience. Now her mentor's robot was sitting in a trailer inside the garage waiting to be unloaded.

"To think that I've finally found my mentor's robot." Dr. Reid said as she looked at the closed trailer containing her mentor's creation.

"What's this Dr. DuGalle like?" Victoria asked the blonde. Dr. Reid turned to her.

"He's a perfectionist. I remember when I was a student of his that he'd obsessively arrange the books on his shelf until they were perfect. The same went for his desk. Every pencil, every notebook, even every paper, all of them had to be in perfect order." Dr. Reid started talking about her mentor.

"That went double for robotics. Everything he made had to be perfect or he'd throw it out without hesitation. The slightest flaw would send him into a rage... I remember students being afraid to go into his office to ask questions about something because they were afraid he'd hit them with his fists or the nearest available object. And he did on more than one occasion. I remember accidentally crossing a wire on a test robot and he screamed in my ears for five straight minutes before knocking me to the floor with a punch to the face." Dr. Reid continued. Victoria blinked. In her opinion that was taking perfectionism just a bit too far, but Dr. Reid did not seem terribly perturbed by it, so the brunette would let it go and not impose her morals on someone else. It was not like the Sabertooth mage had much claim to the moral high ground after some of the things she had done.

"Is Dr. DuGalle still in academics?" Victoria asked the doctor. The blonde shook her head.

"I'm afraid not, Miss Sheridan. He went too far with a reprimand and punched the son of a major alumnus in the face after the latter had almost caused the test robot to explode due to a major malfunction caused by increasing the power supply way beyond what was necessary to power it, the kind of malfunction that could cause the test robot to explode and hurt people. Dr. DuGalle was in the right because he didn't want flying metal and electronic components hurting or killing his students, but money talked and the doctor was shown the door." Dr. Reid told the short version of how Dr. DuGalle's perfectionism had caused his fall from grace. Victoria frowned when she heard the part about the errant student's parents causing the doctor to get fired.

"Yeah, I know how money talks. It seems like everyone's willing to sell their morals and common sense for cash. Maybe Dr. DuGalle shouldn't have punched the guy, but I know exactly where he's coming from. That student could have killed people and the blame would have fallen on the doctor anyway because Mommy and Daddy's precious little genius couldn't do any wrong." Victoria commiserated and added a cynical observation on how readily people would ignore doing the right thing when cash was involved. Considering the circumstances the school's top brass should have backed Dr. DuGalle, but the right sum of Jewels made them look the other way and fire him instead.

"Yeah. Tell me about it. Anyway, let's move on. My blood's boiling just from thinking about it." Dr. Reid suggested. Victoria took the hint and changed the subject.

"So, how are we gonna move the robot for you to get it to a place you examine it and fix it up?" Victoria asked the doctor.

"I've got some heavy machinery that can move it for us. I'll go get it." Dr. Reid said, setting off for another part of the garage.

"Do you need help?" Victoria asked. The doctor shook her head.

"I've got it, Miss Sheridan. Just keep a watch on the robot and the garage for me. I'm not sure if we've attracted any unwanted attention when we drove the trailer through town. If we did, I'm NOT gonna let them steal my mentor's work." Dr. Reid answered, hinting that she would do whatever it took to keep the robot out of the wrong hands.

"OK, you go get what you need and I'll keep an eye on things." Victoria assured the doctor. Dr. Reid nodded and hurried off to get the heavy machinery needed to move the robot. Victoria turned her attention towards the garage door and watched for people trying to force it open.

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-One hour later, in Dr. Reid's laboratory-

After approximately an hour of hard work Dr. Reid had moved the robot to an enlarged part of her laboratory that had been made specifically to work on large creations. The robot stood upright next to a multi-level metal scaffold that had the walkways adjusted at various levels so that the doctor could access and work on parts of it without the risks that came with with working from a ladder. Victoria walked to within ten meters of it and could not help but to admire Dr. DuGalle's creation.

Even though patches of its shoulders and torso were rusted from the rain and lack of maintenance, it stood proudly upright like it had been born to rule. It just needed repairs to return to its former glory, that was all. It had an appearance that projected power and dominance, which might have been what Dr. DuGalle had intended when it was created. Dr. Reid came into the room clutching a mug of coffee and spoke to Victoria.

"Dr. DuGalle's work is magnificent. I don't know what else to say about it." Dr. Reid said to the Sabertooth mage.

"Me neither." Victoria said laconically. She continued to admire it. Something about it was attractive. Maybe it was the solid construction and powerful appearance. Maybe it was the red-and-black paint job that added to the aura of power.

"I don't know why Dr. DuGalle would throw something like this away, but I bet it has something to do with an imperfection. I'm betting that this thing takes a lot of power to function. I think he might have had a problem with the power supply." Dr. Reid hypothesized based on what she knew about her mentor. That hypothesis prompted Victoria to ask a question.

"Do you think you have the parts and the knowledge to fix it?" Victoria asked the blonde. Dr. Reid sipped from her cup of coffee and spoke.

"I've got the knowledge. I'm not so sure about the parts, though. Dr. DuGalle used only the finest parts and components and I'm not sure if I can fix it with anything less. That man's such a perfectionist that it's gonna give me a headache." Dr. Reid replied before cursing her mentor's obsessive perfectionism. Victoria could tell that the doctor's pocketbook was going to take a major hit once everything was said and done. She then thought about what might happen once the robot was made functional again.

"Also, if you get the robot up and running, it's gonna attract a lot of attention. Do you think he's going to be angry about you fixing up and using one of his creations?" Victoria asked the doctor. Dr. Reid shrugged her shoulders.

"Maybe. It's probably something he doesn't care about anymore because he's moved on to another problem. He'll definitely get angry if the repairs aren't perfect, so I'd better get them right." Dr. Reid said with uncertainty before taking a sip of coffee.

"But he probably won't care too much because he's likely at work building a superior model." Dr. Reid added. Hearing about the possibility of a new model being made prompted the brunette to ask another question.

"If he couldn't fix the power supply problem on this one, what makes him think he's going to fix it on the upgraded model?" Victoria asked the doctor.

"He's likely studied the problem extensively and obsessively. He's likely to have also found a solution and is working nonstop to implement it. That man will stay awake for days on end and go without eating if it means making a creation of his absolutely perfect." Dr. Reid explained how far Dr. DuGalle would go in the pursuit of perfection. If he would go that far for a personal project, the result was bound to be amazing.

"I bet the next model will be just as amazing as the first." Victoria said to the doctor.

"It will be." Dr. Reid assured her. She then took a long sip of coffee that emptied the mug.

"Well, I'd better get going on assessing the state of this robot. If you don't mind, would you stay awhile longer and watch over me, the lab, and the garage?" Dr. Reid asked. Since Victoria had no knowledge of electronics, she would be glad to help by protecting the doctor and her property. She would be glad to work as security for the doctor.

"Sure, Dr. Reid. I'll stay and watch over you." Victoria replied without hesitation. Since she was no electronics or robotics expert, the Sabertooth mage would help out by ensuring that the doctor could focus on her work without fear of someone breaking in and stealing the robot or any of her property.

"Thanks, Miss Sheridan. Now I'd better get to work. It's gonna take awhile, so I'd better get started now." She said before heading off to go get the tools needed to disassemble the robot. Victoria went to the lab's entrance and stood watch over the garage and the garage doors. No one would get through on her watch. If anyone did get into the garage, she would quickly show them the door with as much force as it took to "convince" them to leave.

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