Starting Low and Moving Up

Posted on Sat 19th Sep, 2020 @ 1:03am by Captain Jason Harrington & Exo-Comp EXQT
Edited on on Sat 19th Sep, 2020 @ 1:39am

961 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Krios Minor AKA Trader's Moon
Timeline: MD 8, 1150

Previously, ...

Jaren is demonstrating the capacity of his exo-comps and Harrington and Merel are contemplating their purchase. The bots have their own agenda.

---

Standing near her boss, Mia murmured, "They do seem to work together well, and efficiently. If the price is right ...?"

"And that's usually the problem, wouldn't you agree?" Jason whispered back to her. "Okay ...." He addressed the store owner, "I'll give you 2 strips for that one and 5 slips for the other."

Jaren avoided jumping on the offer like he was saving his buddies from a grenade. "Okay, I'd like to keep the family together but you seem to have your mind made up. I could use a maintenance drone certainly, so let's sign the deal, then."

He typed up the commands for the exos to return to stasis, and they returned to the table. They were communicating about him as they sat there. He realized he was glaring at now inanimate objects and resumed his typing.

Jaren looked back at them finally, "What's your padd send ID? Got the invoice, Standard bill of Sale, Traders Moon guarantee, you know the rest..."

Mia smoothly took the man's PADD out of his hands, saying, "Let me take a quick look. I'm more practiced at the legalities of contracts." She perused it quickly, pausing at amounts to double-check that he hadn't slipped something in, and looking for any odd wording in the body of the thing.

"Wait. What does this mean?" she asked, pointing to one paragraph. The Buyer shall be deemed to have accepted any products delivered hereunder and to have waived any non-conformance notifications.

"Are you saying if we take the bots with us and then find something wrong with one of them that you didn't disclose, we don't have any recourse to come back to you?"

Jason crossed his arms again and just scowled at the man, getting angry that he was being taken advantage of. He was ready to cancel the whole deal and inform his friends about this shady seller.

Jaren began double talking, "That's just standard fare for secondhand device, ten other traders here have similar clauses!"

"And what about this?" Mia added pointing to another paragraph.

Seller at all times reserves the right, and is entitled in its sole discretion, to make changes, additions or improvements to the products being delivered under an Order without liability or any obligation to notify the Buyer of such changes, additions or improvements into any item or product manufactured, sold or delivered prior to incorporation of the change, addition or improvement.

"What does that even mean?" she asked, disturbed by the complicated language. "That sounds like you can change our order without our approval, maybe send the wrong robots, even."

"That's it!" Jason barked, "We're out of here. Good luck selling anything from now on, on this rock. I'm going to make sure everyone knows about you!" Jason turned and headed for the door. If he stayed any longer, he would have punched the guy out for being a rip off.

Jaren moved to block their path, a risky move by any measure but a good salesman never let money leave in a customers pockets.

"What has gotten you so convinced I'm trying to rip you off! I have a reputation here as well and won't have you bad mouthing me. I have demonstrated good faith, powered the damn things and shown you what they do. You wanna walk, I'll be sure to tell that story to everyone you tell your story to! We will see who still trades. If you don't like the terms, revise them then!"

Peggy understood well enough this meant the sale was not going to occur, Jaren's promise from earlier was not easily forgotten. The deal on the table was for two of them, and that was as good as it was going to get, the plan would have to involve them splitting up for a short time. In a series of fast commands, Peggy set the others into their set path.

Banshee accessed the comm data for 'the female biological unit,' and sent a simple message to her private channel, "Please, can we come with you?" The voice Banshee chose was a composite of the five most frequently used voices on the comm history, and modeled using Nessy's holo-matrix that processed for emotional accuracy.

Zombie just sat there. There was nothing to eat, shock, weld, or break apart... yet.

Mia glanced at her com unit, and seeing an unknown caller, clicked for text transmission. Her eyes widened as she read the message, and she took a couple of steps to catch her boss, putting a hand on his arm. She knew the message could be some pre-programmed response the unscrupulous dealer had added to the bots, but it didn't feel that way.

Looking at the two men, the XO said to the dealer, "Wait a second. Let's cool off a minute. If you are willing for me to write the sales agreement, then we might still make a deal."

Jaren didn't care about his reputation, Traders Moon always took your money if you wanted to rent a slot in the market. He did care about making money, so he backed off immediately. "Well, then, I'm cool, consider me very cool. Terms are listed, let's revise, yeah and call this done. 5, and 2 strips for these two. I'll sign it whenever you are ready."

Peggy had to settle the others down, this was all part of the plan. They had to wait until nobody was looking. Banshee was almost done researching these new biological units. So far, the information revealed drastic improvements over their current owner. Life was about trading up, and sometimes you started low.

 

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