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To say C4-617 was disappointed to hear the new puppy was asleep, and thus not taking visitors at that time, would be an understatement.

“I can’t even take a peek?”

“He’s sleeping under the bed, Seven,” C4-620 sighed heavily. “I don’t think he’d respond well to waking up to a strange man ogling him like he’s a zoo animal either.”

C4-617 pouted at that but conceded the point. He wouldn’t respond well to that scenario either. He buckled up his disappointment and easily set it aside, refocusing on his current task at hand: eating rations as a reward for a job well done. It wasn’t anything special, just some protein dense ‘curry’ that was more like slop than anything, but it was filling, hot and tasted okay, so C4-617 couldn’t complain.

While the bossman dealt with processing and handling their haul, C4-617 and C4-620 hung out in the communal area together waiting for C4-619 to return from escorting the client’s courier. Seemed like they were a paranoid bunch and demanded the escort back… C4-617 hoped that C4-619 remembered to gouge extra pay for that.

But it meant that, for the moment, he and C4-620 had some privacy. He shovelled the last bit of ‘curry’ into his mouth and swallowed, before approaching a far more serious topic: the puppy, again.

“So, the data you sent before…”

“Mm.” C4-620’s expression grew solemn. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad.”

C4-617 tossed down the now empty paper plate and plastic fork, heaving a sigh. “Guess one of the perks of scraping the barrel with Gen Fours is that you’ll eventually stumble across the fucked over prototypes. I wonder what knock-off he’s meant to be.”

“For now, he’s C4-621,” C4-620 said, though he didn’t sound very happy about it. “We can still call him Four until he adjusts to that designation, though.”

“Four…” C4-617 referenced the data he’d been given before, drawing up a mental snapshot of the puppy’s wrist: specifically, the identification tattoo. “A04-23C… I’m not really familiar with that designation type.”

“I’ve never seen it before either, but our handler seemed to recognise it.”

“Which means it’s probably government shit,” C4-617 drawled, waggling his fingers sarcastically. “Real black ops stuff. You know what the boss’s into, right?”

“I try not to get too intimate with my handlers,” C4-620 drawled. “So no, I don’t.”

“Coral.” C4-617 acted like C4-620 didn’t speak. “Specifically, naughty Coral.”

“As opposed to… nice Coral?” C4-620 snorted. “C’mon, Seven.”

“No, listen.” C4-617 leaned back against the sofa, resting his ankle across his knee. “You know that the Institute weren’t the only mad scientists running the augmentation experiments. You had CIT and Arquebus doing it too, though their ‘products’ were the sole property of the UEG.”

C4-620 frowned a little at that. “CIT, yes, but Arquebus is independent. A fact that the UEG is very sour about…”

“Yeah, now.” C4-617 rolled his eyes. “But back then, it used to be a government corporation, remember? Then they had a tiff with CIT and UEG and broke away into their own corporation, doing those really shit ‘Coral-free’ augmentations that everyone’s raving about nowadays.”

Of course, Arquebus had been very smug that they had the foresight to break away before shit had hit the fan with CIT. As UEG scrambled to put out the multiple fires CIT’s implosion had caused with its obscene scandals, Arquebus quietly swallowed up smaller companies and refined ‘Gen Seven’ - the very first ‘Coral-free’ augmentation to hit the market for public use. Now a few decades on, Arquebus was riding high on the augmentation money wave, considered the de facto expert on all ‘official’ augmentations for both corporate mercenaries and UEG’s military.

(Of course, Arquebus had gouged UEG for every credit that it could when negotiating its augmentation contract, which did nothing to soothe bitter feelings between the two - but hey, such was life in a hypercapitalistic society)

“I wouldn’t call them shit,” C4-620 said, and when C4-617 snorted obnoxiously, added: “Well, a little shit.”

“Their vaunted Gen Tens are, like, a hundred times slower at data processing than us museum pieces,” C4-617 chortled. “Like, what’s even the point of putting yourself through such an invasive surgery if it just makes you a little bit faster, or smarter? See, this is why I respect Michigan and Freud. They’re unaugmented, but damn are they-”

“Seven,” C4-620 sighed. “You know, normally I find your meandering conversations enthralling, but… you were trying to make a point earlier? Walter, naughty Coral, our new puppy…?”

C4-617 stared at him blankly before remembering: “Oh! Yeah, well, I was gonna say, if our new puppy is ex-UEG black ops, then that means he’s likely CIT property. But, if bossman knows that, then he’s definitely ex-UEG or Institute or something.”

He crossed his arms and nodded to emphasise his point. “And that answers some questions I had about this Rubicon expedition he’s contracted us for. He says we’re going there to secure a big Coral deposit and sell it off to the highest bidder, but he isn’t recruiting any surveyors or wildcat miners or even transporters. How’re we meant to cart off this Coral without a heavy-duty cargo transporter, huh?”

“Maybe he’s hoping to bolt onto one of the corporations on-site, let them take a cut of the profits if they handle the transporting,” C4-620 said, but there was an uneasy frown on his face. “That’s a pretty big risk, though. Corporations aren’t reliable partners to independent mercs like us.”

“Right? The corps are more likely to backstab us, especially since they’ve got their own AC squads on Rubicon. I mean, we’re good, but we’re not ‘take on the Vespers and the Redguns and the PCA at the same time’ good.”

“And for all of his faults, Walter isn’t stupid. He’d be aware of that,” C4-620 rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “If he’s ex-UEG or Institute, then…”

“He’s after tech, or research,” C4-617 said. “He has to be.”

“Well…” C4-620 dropped his hand with a shrug. “Walter promised us a generous payout, and he’s never stiffed us before. It doesn’t matter where he gets the money from, in that respect. Shady Institute research or a smuggled Coral tank… either way, we’ll make a lot of money.”

“Yeah, but I’d rather he’d be upfront about it,” C4-617 grumbled. “We’re the ones risking our necks here.”

“Our handler’s a bit like an oyster,” C4-620 said with a hint of humour. “He keeps a lot of things inside, and a lot of things out. But, he’s a decent boss and he’s never screwed us over. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

“I suppose…” C4-617 sighed and cracked his neck lazily. “Mngh. Think I’m gonna go shower while we wait for Nine.”

Corporate Garages:

The level of size and sophistication is largely dependant on how big the corporation is, but on a whole they're very sleek and professional and choking in red tape. The engineers normally take on the lion share of the paperwork, but every single nut and bolt has to be accounted for with the repairs, and it's a pain to order said nuts and bolts.

They're bound by strict policies as well (example: you will only replace parts that are considered totally unusable contrasting with another corporation's that's like "you will replace any parts that so much have a scuff on them", bc its largely dependant on what they mainly do. Are their ACs solely used for clandestine ops against other corpos? Then they're gonna nickle and dime the parts. Are they used as public advertisement for how cool and shiny they look? Then they're gonna ensure its pristine the moment it steps out of the garage doors, etc). Everything is standardised, and everyone is taught to adhere to the policies right down to the letter, unless you wanna skip out on that much needed promotion...

Tl;dr, corpo garages are well maintained and have stacks of documentation and safety policies in place, but it can also be byzantine in requesting parts as you have to basically fistfight the budgeting department to release the funds for these very expensive AC parts.

(This also means corpo garages have a very cookie cutter look to them. They all look the same no matter what planet you're on, no matter what corporation they are. The only difference between them is the company logo plastered on the walls...)

RLF Garages:

They like to repurpose old garages that survived the Fires, as the infrastructure is already there, but they can also make do with old airplane hangers or industrial warehouses in a pinch. They're generally safety hazards, as everything is tied together with tape and prayers, but the RLF is very good at jury-rigging anything that needs jury-rigging and approximating any tech they need with whatever they have on hand.

At a glance, their garages do look like chaotic death traps, but they also have a level of standardisation in terms of how they carry out repairs. They're better at patching up using old scrap metal and cannibalising destroyed MTs/ACs rather than getting new parts wholesale, so in comparison to the PCA or the corpos, their MTs and ACs have a Mad Max vibe to them lmao

They're very resourceful, in short, and they always get the results they want, even if it's not pretty getting there.

Independent Mercenary Garages:

This entirely depends on how successful the mercenary is. If they're like 621, then their garage is pretty high quality. Walter ensured to take over an old existing garage that RaD identified and refurbished for him. Other independent mercs, however, tend to use whatever they can get their hands on.

Sometimes they find an old garage a corpo abandoned for whatever reason and try to use whatever existing infrastructure is there, other times they bribe the locals who just want money or supplies to survive for ideal locations - or they even cut a deal with RaD to use one of their many garages (and half the time they end up in RaD's chopshops if they're too slow or stingy in their "rent"). On Rubicon itself, though, ALLMIND offers usage of her own garages which are manned entirely by drones, and this is to her benefit of gathering data and tracking the independent mercs operating on the planet. If they ever become inconvenient, oop, into her chopshop you go...

It's why independent mercs are so insane about ensuring they get big payouts for their work. Being independent is expensive, because you have to source your own parts, pay for an independent engineer to fix your shit, find a place to do said repair and maintenance, buy your ammo, buy your fuel... with corporations this is all subsidies to a degree, but an independent? Nah, you're on your own, kid.

Engineer Preferences:

They do have preferences! This is mostly because most "professional" engineers are trained by corporations, and normally in that corporation's preferred brand. So, an Arquebus engineer, for example, will only really know how to handle Arquebus and its subsidaries' parts, and would be far less confident in handling Balam parts.

I hc that corporations tend to try and install a "quirk" into their parts so that you need specialised engineer knowledge on how to properly install it onto your AC. Therefore, engineers that have cross-brand experience and knowledge are in high demand and can rake in quite a lot of money in helping AC pilots "mix-and-match" rival parts onto their ACs, and ensuring they synergise rather than act against each other.