An AR pop-up notified Moto that Valkyrie had deposited the funds for the job in his account. As she got into the Ferrari, Moto bowed deeply and spoke with respect heavy in his voice. "Arigatou gozaimasu, Valkyrie-sama. A pleasure doing business with you, as always."
Watching two of the other riders roll Valkyrie's gigantic Harley-Davidson into his shop, Moto shook his head as the troll completely ignored his warnings and peeled out of the garage, tires spinning up a cloud of smoke. He heard the vehicle screech to a halt just down the block before it came flying back at full throttle in reverse on the empty side street, engine revving several times after it had settled to a stop again. Being an import with the steering wheel on the right, he watched as Valkyrie pulled the mirrored driver-side window down and grinned at him like a kid in a candy shop.
"This thing is a beast, omae; you're the man! Guys, let's go already!"
She revved the engine a few more times to make a point, and Moto watched the trio mount up on their bikes again and then head out with Valkyrie in the lead, burning rubber as she went. "Well, she can afford it, I guess", he thought, making a mental note to place a few orders with the Renraku-owned tire company down the road.
He closed the garage doors and locked them with a thought, and checked the chronograph on his wrist, an antiquated mechanical time piece handed down to him by his father. "10 hours until the meet; I'll have plenty of time to tune the Harley-Davidson and finish up the engine mods on the Thundercloud, do some research on the place, and get the gear ready and be out of here by 2000 hours local. Good." He nodded to himself, and got to work.
The dwarf cleaned his hands once again while he placed an express order for a micro trid projector from the nearby Hardware Etc, with instructions to drop off the package by the rear entrance, then turned the music back on and recalled the Roto-Drone from the sky and had it land in the back of the Ares Roadmaster that was parked in the back of the shop. He then started the process of tuning the valve on Valkyrie's bike, and in just under an hour he had it purring like a kitten again, so he moved on to the ATV. As he jacked into the vehicle to run some diagnostics, he opened up his Browse program and set the filters to public and private information before keying in his search term; "Banshee bar, Redmond Barrens". While he worked on calibrating the engine, he kept an eye on the search program as it did it's thing, churning through millions upon millions of data files in order to eventually return some results.
After around 3 hours of work the powerplant on the ATV was done; the extra power output he'd squeezed from the electric motors on each wheel would help offset the weight of the armor that was going on next, and then he just had to finish installing the gyro-link for the top turret. He made a mental note to clear any of his usual fingerprints off of this thing, because if the owners got caught on the Tir or Salish border with this thing they would be looking at some serious jail time, not even taking into account what they'd be smuggling at the time. An AR window alerted him of the delivery van from Hardware Etc approaching, and Moto watched as the delivery man dropped off the package as instructed. Retrieving the contents of the parcel, he set to work on his non-operative Fly-Spy.
Carefully placing the insect-like drone on it's back, he powered it down and examined the delicate electronics. He fished out several tools from his hardware kit, and began isolating a power source for the trid projector. With steady hands and slow, relaxed breaths, he managed to install the device in just over half an hour. He powered the drone back on, had it run some diagnostics while he put his tools away, and then took it for a spin; flying it up to ceiling height, he turned on the projector as he programmed it to display his Matrix avatar. He watched with pride as a full trid replica of a large, bipedal drone appeared, looking like a combat version of the Renraku Manservant-3 carrying some sort of futuristic looking assault weapon; it wouldn't fool anyone given the blue nimbus of light that surrounded it, but it'd do for his purpose. He powered off the projector, knowing the tiny drone wouldn't be able to keep it sustained indefinitely.
Reviewing the results his Browse program had returned, Moto shook his head as he picked up a few pieces of gear not already loaded on the Roadmaster. "What kind of desperate Mr. Johnson sets a meet in the Barrens of all places. All right, so it's Touristville, but still..."
He made sure the Roto-Drones were locked and loaded, then recalled the Fly-Spy from the sky and double-checked that all four drones were secure in their charging stations in the back of the vehicle. The dwarf looked through the tool kits, the survival kit, and the med kit in the back of the large truck, and ensured that he had everything he needed in case of an emergency. He ran through the iconography of all of his wirelessly enabled equipment with his Wrapper program to make sure nothing looked out of place, before he put on his respirator, powered up the simrig and RCC, and then slipped into the rigger cocoon located underneath the driver seat, the comfort of cold-sim VR enveloping him before he jumped into the vehicle. As the familiar feeling of the car becoming an extension of himself washed over him, Moto grinned as he coughed and the engine roared to life. The doors closed as if he'd flexed his fingers, and he could feel the concrete under the wheels as if he was standing barefoot on the floor. Slaving his drones to the RCC, he then proceeded out into the crisp Seattle night.
With over two hours left before the meet Moto took his time on the journey from the relative comfort of the nice Tacoma area his shop was located in, stopping before he hit the Renton/Redmond border to scrub his vehicles Access ID and spoof his license plates. Up ahead loomed the urban wilderness that was the Barrens, and he sent a Fly-Spy up 200 meters up into the air to provide overwatch of his immediate surroundings before proceeding in. He made sure not to run over any vagrants and to avoid the worst of the filth, and parked the vehicle across the street from the Banshee, which had definitely seen better days. Overlaying the video from the Fly-Spy in the sky over the sensor input from his Roadmaster, he launched the Fly-Spy he'd worked on earlier, nicknamed Romeo-2, and jumped into it. Piloting the tiny drone always felt odd, the miniscule size making him feel cramped in is own skin, but the freedom of flight was also exhilarating.
Hovering the tiny insect-like drone at an altitude of 2 meters, Moto engaged the trid projector he'd installed and again watched with some measure of satisfaction when the Manservant-3 look-alike came to life before his very eyes (or sensors, as it were, seeing with the vehicle sensors as he did). He divided his attention between editing the trid projection and piloting his drone, and walked the illusionary bipedal drone to the corner of the street where he stopped and looked around.
He watched as denizens of the Barrens went about their business, seeing a street beggar with an ARO marker asking for donations while chatting with a reed-thin Elf. Keeping an eye on the street and his Fly-Spy, he began looking for signs of other runners and a potential Mr Johnson.
