Nerd for Hire

“Right, because you only make rational and safe decisions,” he remarked, cradling his hand against his body. Admittedly it was a stupid move, but it was more the principle that she was correcting him, off all people.

“That advice isn’t really helping now, but thanks I’ll tuck it away for later.”

“Let me worry about if it’s interesting or not. Shoot.” Gaige pursed her lips and propped her chin up in her hands. She was honestly more interested in the know-hows and putting new shit together than actually getting paid, but the cash did make it all a bit sweeter. “And who says I can’t help you work on both? Multitasking is my forte.”

“It’s more programming than engineering. Not my idea, but Maliwan knows who their best people are for the job. It’s AI development. The way the company sees it, one way to sell more guns to more people is to reduce or eliminate user error so that shooting a gun is literally as easy as pointing and pulling the trigger. Again, not my idea.” Carson had his own skepticism about the project, but it had been assigned to him and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to produce results.

“I can delete those in your head as well, if I were in a worse mood,” Moe teased, grabbing the hand that tapped the side of his head and gently twisting at the wrist. Definitely not enough to hurt, but just as a playful gesture since they were apparently “assaulting” each other today. “I cannot hold that against you. It’s how you operate in your work life, it’s to be expected you’d carry that home too.”

“Right, because you only make rational and safe decisions,” he remarked, cradling his hand against his body. Admittedly it was a stupid move, but it was more the principle that she was correcting him, off all people.

“That advice isn’t really helping now, but thanks I’ll tuck it away for later.”

“Says the guy with the burned hand.” Gaige rolled her eyes and leaned against the nearest counter. It was a wonder he even called on her if he didn’t trust her. … which was a fair assessment, but he could at least say that he trusted her smarts and intuition when it came to making weapons. “Alright, what’s the molehill you got stuck on this time? How can li’l ol’ Gaige fix it… and how much am I getting paid?”

“Okay, well--” She had him there, he couldn’t preach much about safety in his current circumstance. But it was about what he said, not what he did. “Me getting hurt is different, I don’t really care what happens to me.

“We’re not really working with an element, it’s more of aaaaaaan astrophysical phenomenon? The trouble we’re running into is getting the everything to work without blowing up the gun or the shooter’s hand. I can’t give you a number, but it pays well. And if we’re able to get everything working with your help it’ll look good; I’ve worked on a lot of projects and I make a lot of money. 

“...Fine. I don’t need it, it’s all up here anyway.” He tapped the side of his head, winking at her.

“Why would I kill you when you’re Troy’s favourite punching bag? And there’s nothing that looks right about this.” Tyreen picked up the latest whatever-he’d-been-working-on and tossed it into his lap. “Care to explain?”

“Explain? Explain what? This is your people’s shitty rendition of what a gun is supposed to look like.” There was shortness and sarcasm in his voice that he didn’t bother trying to hide. He wasn’t going to take the blame for bad engineering, siren or no siren.