--Thandbar
***
--There’s other ways to pay for the car.
--I checked Manuel’s media feeds, and he’s constantly complaining about the limits of what the big hovercar manufacturers will tell people about how it works. He thinks they’re holding back info to prevent competition. The reality is that even the big manufacturers don’t understand why many of the parts work, so they can’t explain it.
I knew that already; Mannie complained loudly and often about the hoarding of knowledge by megacorporations.
--Your Encyclopedia Galactica catalog has the perfect course for him. It covers the science and decision-making behind the hovercar design. It will be priceless for making modifications to existing designs.
--That was when you thought you could pay for it with the insurance money. But you can’t. And doing it this way will still be cheaper than straight-up buying the car.
--It’s a lot narrower in scope than your physiology module, so one hundred and fifty points. At 20,000 per point, which is today’s conversion rate, that’s the equivalent of 3 million credits.
Corie had me convinced. I’d rather spend credits, if I could, but right now, I just didn’t have them, and I did have points. At least it had the added bonus of investing in a local business and helping out a friend.
“You’re right, I’m going to struggle to pay for that right now. But I have a counterproposal. You bitch a lot about the big car manufacturers hoarding information. How much would a chance to pull back the curtain be worth?”
He scoffed. “Like that would ever happen. What did you do, turn into a super hacker overnight? People have been trying to find that out for ages.”
It took a couple seconds of fumbling with my hind-brain before I realized that sending a document worked the same as on my tablet. “It will take some months for you to absorb the info, but I think you’ll be the world’s expert on hovercars when you are done.”
He froze, his eyes dancing back and forth while he read. “Is this real? That’s…No one’s ever hinted that you could change the Sterin coils, that would… Oh, and the drag brakes too.” He stood up and started to pace in his excitement. “How did you get this? Where did you get this? This is some deep Samurai-level tech.”
Suddenly, he turned to me, his eyes growing wide as the quality of my visor registered for the first time. “Oh fuck! You’re a Samurai, aren’t you?” I could see his hands shaking as he slowly backed away.
I stood up and held out my hands, palm up, in Threat Dynamic’s sign that I was safe to approach and no harm.
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He continued to back away until he bumped into a wall behind him. “Don’t give me that ‘I’m harmless’ crap. Just being near you is dangerous. My cousin’s house got smashed by a Samurai three blocks away when one of his shots missed. It blasted through two other houses before it hit hers.”
My frustration boiled over, and grabbed my mouth before I could think. “Not you too, Mannie! I’ve been getting that ‘Ohh! Samurai’ crap all day.” I let him have the full brunt of it, unhindered by any self-control.
“I’m still the same person I was yesterday and the day before. The one that trained you. Who took a gangsta wannabe, too cool to keep his finger off the trigger, and turned him into a trusted member of the club? Have you ever seen me let a round cross lanes? What’s the top priority in shooting?”
He blinked, having been caught out by the rapid-fire questions before answering the last one. “Accuracy. Can’t hurt what you can’t hit.”
“And what’s my mantra?” I asked.
“The right force in the right place at the right time.”
I’d said it so often that everyone who spent time on the range with me knew it by heart. “That’s right. And if it flows over, you used too much.
“If I need to take out an alien, you can be damn sure that the only one that will feel the pain is the beast!” I settled back into my chair, forcing myself to relax and calm down.
He started walking back to me, his expression skeptical. Mannie grew up in the rough parts of town where a person’s actions carried more weight than his words. I needed something more to convince him I was still “Mr. Safety,” as he called me. Fortunately, a perfect object lesson came walking by at just the right time.
Without turning, I spoke louder, steel in my voice. “Thomas, I’ve warned you before not to do that here. And the company register shows two other instructors have done the same. You’re on two weeks' suspension for unsafe handling. You can practice that shit in your own home. Not here.”
I could feel the man, who had been twirling his pistols recklessly, quickly holster his weapons and turn towards me. Turning my head to catch his guilty look, I cut him off before he could protest. My voice was hard and cold, with no hint of compromise. “That starts now. See you in two weeks.” I didn’t even have to walk him out. All the ranges used computer-controlled badge access. Since he was in one of the in-between areas and suspended, the only doors he could pass led out of the building.
I turned back to Mannie, who had sat down again. His hands still shook a little, but he started reassembling his pistols. “Sorry about that. I didn’t survive all those Anti’s yesterday only for a fool thinking he’s some movie star to shoot me in the back.”
Mannie laughed nervously. “So how would this work? I get you the car, you get me the info?”
--We can provide hardware that links up with his Mesh gear to do a speed learning program. It’s pretty cheap, and he can share the info with anyone he wants.
--No, the hardware is included. If this was for you, it could be directly synced to the Trickle Trainer and reduce the cost slightly. For that matter, once you’ve purchased this, you will always have access to the info, and you can share it with others for just the cost of the delivery hardware.
“Here’s what I’m thinking. For that car you quoted me, you get exclusive access to this info for five years unless some other Samurai starts selling it. That’s unlikely since the catalog is not one that most will want. After five years, though, you make it open source. And if you don’t, I will.”
“I don’t know, man. That’s a lot up front for only five years. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make up that much in that time.”
“Mannie, it’s a steal, and you know it. Just on points alone, if I sell it on the open market, that would be worth millions of credits. Who knows what I’d get in an auction? Triple that? More? But all that’s going to do is get it locked up by some corporation and leave the little guy like you back where we started. As it is, you’re getting a head start on the competition. And if you can’t make a profit in that time, you aren’t half as good as you claim.”
“Okay, you caught me on my own arguments. Don’t let anyone call me a hypocrite. You’ve got a deal. It’ll take me a couple days, maybe a week, to get the rig set up. Do you want to pay up when you get it?”
“I’ll trust you. Corie, if you would make with the fancy stuff, please?”
A palm-sized box appeared on the table between us. He reached for the box but stopped short. “Is this the part where you go all scary Samurai and threaten bodily harm if I don’t get you the car?”
I laughed. “I trust you. Besides, if I wanted to hurt you, all I’d have to do is make that data dump open source.”
“Now, that’s a scary thought,” he said.