Chapter 26 Chop Shop

"Looks like we have a few nobodies, who don't know they don't belong down here," sneered the closest person. He was obviously a cyborg with one arm and the opposite leg having been replaced with robotic limbs.

The other three guys chuckled, or at least Olivia thought they did, she wasn't familiar with their species. One looked like a blue fish out of water, with so many implants, you almost couldn't see his scales. Another looked like a giant ogre with tusks poking out from his lower lip. He had what looked like a cerebral implant in his left temple, that kind of looked infected with pus leaking out. The last guy had a robot body with a head in a jar. His chuckle was the one she was the least sure of, as it came out more like static from the speaker on his right shoulder.

"Look, Olivia! There's a chop shop!" exclaimed Granny, excitedly, pointing down the street to a tiny shop front that could be barely seen over a pile of rubble that looked like two taxis had collided and fell from the sky, then left to burn out on their own. She was completely ignoring the four guys in front of them, and it didn't seem to impress them much.

"Want to go check it out?" asked Olivia, also ignoring the group.

"You b*tch! How dare you ignore me!" barked the first guy, swinging to hit Olivia with his robotic arm.

She ducked under the blow and roundhouse kicked him in the face. He fell hard, and didn't get up.

The other three paused to look at him, before the ogre went to grab at Granny. She caught his arm and snapped it like a twig. As he fell to the ground, screaming in pain, the other two ran off, cursing at them.

"Have you been to a chop shop, before?" asked Granny, stepping past the guy holding his arm.

"Not that I remember," said Olivia, stepping over the unconscious body.

"I love going into them, just to see what all they have available. They usually have all sorts of neat electronics and implants."

Olivia glanced over at Granny. She sounded far younger than she actually was, and Olivia wished she could see her actual face for a moment.

Pushing through the door, the shop wasn't very large. Above the very first set of shelves, hung a half-dismantled robot, with a sign hung around its neck that said, "Shoplifter's will be dismantled."

"Looking for anything in particular?" came a voice from the back of the shop, and they turned to see a human man inside a glass booth looking at them with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His black hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and his shirt was cut to accentuate the implants he had on his chest.

"Nope, just looking," chirped Granny, dragging Olivia over to a shelf where several mechanical arms were laid out for easy viewing.

Olivia was impressed with how well lit the shop was, and knew that there were tons of tiny cameras all over the place. There were mechanical replacements for every limb you could think of, as well as an assortment of different implants and tiny robots. A sign hung over the implants stated the varying prices of inserting and hooking them up.

A closed case in the very back, next to the shopkeeper, caught her eye, and she left Granny ogling a three fingered hand. The case lit up as she approached it, and she found herself looking at a variety of guns.

"These can not be legal," she said, glancing at the shopkeeper.

"Missy, if you're down here, nothing's legal. You must not be from around here."

She could almost see a guarded look come over his face, and she waved him aside, turning to the guns to drool over the specs listed beside each one.

"Hey!" cried the shopkeeper, causing her to turn her head quickly.

The nanobots in Granny's suit had swarmed over the hand she was looking at, and had started taking it apart.

"Granny!" cried Olivia, exasperated, turning to head over to her.

The man slammed his hand down on a button, and a grill covered the door as an alarm started to ring.

"Oh, shit!" swore Granny, scrambling to the door.

Olivia was still trying to get to her, when the nanobots swarmed out from the suit and dismantled the door grill. Granny grabbed her hand, and jerked her out of the store, before a group of half machine aliens rushed around a corner, and charged towards them.

They turned and rushed away, ducking into an alley, that was little more than a crack between two buildings. They only managed to get about four feet in, when the ground under their feet gave way, dumping them deep underground.

XxxxX

Dustin wiped the sweat from his eyes, with a tentacle from his back. The heat in the room was going up, despite his efforts. He was afraid the engine was about to self-destruct, but didn't have a spare moment to check on it. He was almost done with a program that would send roughly half a thousand worms and little viruses at the AI, every minute.

The screen he was typing on suddenly went dark, and when he turned to look at the other monitor, he realized the AI had cut itself off from this entire sector of the galaxy.

Merging himself back into one personality, into his crystal lizard form, he sighed in relief as the pain in his head faded. Turning to the only monitor that was still functioning, he started to investigate the ship.

The vents for the engine were closed, causing the heat to build up. It would only take a few more minutes before the heat would build to such a level, it would kill the people onboard.

After the complex task of fighting the AI, fixing the ship was a breeze. Dustin opened the vents, restored power to the cafeteria and life support, and soon had rudimentary power restored to the ship.

The first thing he did was check on the people in the four ship floating dead around this one. When they arrived, on orders from the AI, to investigate this ship, he attacked them, causing them to go dead as this one had. There were still survivors on all of them, so he gathered them all on this ship, not bothering to explain anything to them.

Then, sitting in the pilot's chair, he turned the nose of the ship towards the nearest trade station. The AI may have run from this battle, but there was still a war going on.