For Goodness Sake: For Pete's Sake
04 Dec 2024Maul Montresor
Most of the week had resulted in nothing more than junk food binging while consistently failing to work out the issues with Odin. Maul had concluded on the second day or the 6th burrito, whichever came first, that the stubborn droid was likely impossible to fix without potentially losing what made the thing "Odin" in the first place; something he promised Willow he'd not do. Maul being a hardhead, was nearly just as stubborn."Right, that should do it." Maul said as he pulled his hands off the keyboard and stretched his arms over his head with a rumbling grunt. His shoulder was feeling much better now with a bit of time between the scrap with one of Vodan's men and now. Though, his face was still lightly bruised from the FIA encounter.
"Odin, designation recognition."
The droids head was still laying on the table. It's eye came to life and swirled around to look at Maul. The innards chirped and clicked as it worked up an answer.
"Unit designation Oden acknowledged. My current task is stock management, and manual labour for Willow Thorn."
Maul nodded and rolled his eyes. He'd heard this part a million times at this point.
"Yeah, yeah, status update on custom OS integration." He chose not to watch the lines of code as they flashed across the screen this time. Hoping that by some twisted divine humor that it'd help.
"My apologies sir, today's activities have been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances."
Maul closed his eyes and sighed heavily as he dropped his face into his hands, sitting in silence for a moment. His hands rubbed against his still tender eyes and downwards causing the skin and bags under his eyes to stretch. After staring at Odin's one eye and considering smashing the keyboard over his own head, he quickly stood and began unplugging all the cables being used to monitor Odin.
"Ya know what, Odin? You're perfect as is. Was silly of me to even poke around in ya noggin."
This wasn't the first stubborn old AI he'd worked on. Lambast's assistant "Holly" was just as aggravating and too deeply integrated into it's old parts to even attempt to upgrade or alter in anyway whatsoever but with Holly, Lambast seemed fine with it's quirks. Maul tried not to think of the hellish nightmare it'd be to iron out the kinks in that one.
After cleaning up the cable management a bit and placing Odin's head back onto it's body, Maul kicked his feet up on the workbench and checked his notifications on the small screen that was mounted and slightly wrapped around his forearm. A notification from Naomi, the bartender who worked at Pilfer's and his favorite pre-job hangout dive back in Beldarkri. He'd sent her a message a few days ago and had been awaiting a response so promptly opened her message.
"So the rumors are true? The Ghoul lives. Well then, I suppose he wouldn't mind finally paying off that massive tab he racked up then would he?"
That sounded about right but Maul had little to no recollection of how much he owed her. The perks of being blasted out your own mind. What he did remember was Naomi being a good friend to him in a time where he had very few.
"Of course I'm alive Nay! You think I'd go out without first declaring my undying love for you?"
Almost immediately after sending the message, Maul's Insight hub rumbled notifying him of a comms call from Naomi. He answered without hesitation.
"Yello."
The line was silent for a second before Naomi responded.
"Holy shit, it's really you. I thought this was a fucking scam or something. Where the fuck have you been?"
"Ah, you know, just travelling. Finding inner peace and all that." He said sarcastically.
"Pfff, right, shoot me the directions when you get a sec, yeah? Me and Angela could do with a bit of that."
Angela was Naomi's "nagging" wife. Always going on about moving to a better system and starting a new life away from all the chaos of an Anarchy ran system. In the past, Naomi would listen to Maul's inebriated ramblings and bullshit stories and he'd listen to her complaints about Angela. As good a friend as he could ask for back then.
"Ya know Nay, maybe Angela was on to something back then. Y'all are good people who deserve to be happy, you know?"
"...You sure this is you? The Ghoulie I knew wasn't such a friggin pansy. Nah, you and I both know this is where I belong."
"Used to think the same thing. Now that I've been out a bit. I'm not so sure anymore."
Naomi didn't respond initially, choosing to sit quietly instead. Perhaps pondering on what exactly had brought her old friend and her back together in this moment.
"Well, whatever. I know you aren't just reaching out to check on me. What do you want exactly?"
She was right and Maul knew it. He was terrible at keeping in touch with people, even the ones he actually cared about.
"Pilfer, is he and his crew still around?"
Naomi laughed.
"That shit stain? Yeah he's around. Only guy on the station that owes me more than you do. Why?"
"I need his contact info. Got a job and I need his help."
"Wow."
"What?"
"Nothing. Just that I watched you two drag each other into this bar like 15 times, blaming each other for fucking up a job, Derrik usually ended up throwing you guys out for fighting."
It was Maul's turn for a round of silence.
"Whatever Nay, do you have his info or no?"
"I mean seriously, you two would beat the absolute shit of each oth—"
"NAY! Please?"
He may not have been able to see her but he could feel the smirk crawl across her face.
"Sure I got it. But how about you pay off your tab first?"
"Done." Maul said as he began transferring the creds. "Tossing in a bit extra. Use it to take Angela out someplace nice."
Static and rustling could be heard from Naomi's end of the call.
"Ghoul, what the fuck dude? This is—"
"Consider it a thank you, Nay, for everything. Now Pilfer please."
A holo message projected out from the Insight device that displayed Pilfer's contact info along with his real name in front of his face.
"Peter McAllister"