A Lazy Mage Quests (Un)EZ Creds Ch. 08

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tisoz
tisoz
44 Followers

Not a word was spoken, no fist bumps or high fives were exchanged as they moved toward Knuckles. Knuckles didn't wait for them to join him but moved on ahead. They lost sight of Knuckles for a bit after he rounded a corner toward where Rev had parked. Skid and Rev got in the rollback and as Rev glanced back for oncoming traffic and Skid pulled away from the curb, he caught a glimpse of Knuckles on the far side of the street he had turned down, still covering their exit. Rev mentioned it to Skid.

"I told you he seemed like a good find. That or he thinks you're going to stiff him," Mark said with a laugh. A few seconds later, Skid's vehicle left the curb and followed them. Skid asked Rev, "You know how to drive one of these?"

"I guess so. I'm not claiming to have any idea how to operate all the equipment, but I could probably steer it down the road."

"Maybe," Skid said, "it's slightly harder than it looks. They rounded the block and stopped to pick up Knuckles. "You want to give it a try?"

"No, thanks," Spector said, "I'm still not convinced to keep it, and if it is kept, I have no intention of being the poor slob out in the rain working and picking up stranded vehicles."

While stopped for Knuckles to get in, Skid handed the certified cred cards to Rev and at the same time landed the drone on the rollback bed, then got out to reposition the drone a little so that it was able to clamp itself to the winch cable running over the back of the bed and hooked into a slot near the tail end of the truck. As Skid was getting back into the cab, Rev was asking Knuckles how he liked the BMW.

"Sweet ride," Knuckles said.

"I have another I'll let you have in lieu of cred you've earned so far if you want to tag along while we mess with a few more vehicles," Spector said, making the pitch.

Knuckles asked, "'Bout how much longer will it take and where we going?"

"Out to Sea-Tac airport, then to the Nakitomi Arcology," Spector said, "and about as long as it takes to disable any tracking on 6 vehicles - if they are still where I left them."

"And I get a fully operable BMW bike?" Knuckles questioned.

"Yes, the bike is a bonus, not something I'm trying to pawn off on you to short you. If you want the cred instead, you can take the cred. I'm trying to give you something better than the cred as a bonus. You've stepped up and helped in several ways and I heard you avoided a problem."

After checking his memory for a moment, Knuckles said, "Yeah, those guys don't always think things through. I figured you had a spirit keeping tabs on us, so no one was getting away with anything. I just pointed out the obvious to them."

As they drove to the airport in the light pre-noon traffic, they discussed the possible outcomes of the Joey/buyer deal, the threat of the chop shop gang coming after them, the possibility of some unknown backer of the chop shop and their buyer coming after them, and what looked like worse scenarios.

I need to put a stop to this doom and gloom Skid thought or this guy is never going to agree to keep using their vehicle to start a business. "Why don't we change the subject. Otherwise, we may as well stop here and part ways. Who is to say whoever used to have these vehicles, or who they may have been stolen from before being lost isn't going to raise hell to get them back?" Silence was his answer.

The rest of the trip was pretty quiet. As they came in sight of long term parking, Skid considered putting the drone up on overwatch duty, then decided this close to the airport and restricted airspace, it would cause more problems than it might solve. They dropped Knuckles off near where the Porche was parked just as a shuttle pulled away from bench and awning, and Knuckles took a seat as though waiting for the next shuttle.

Clicking the key fob, the Porche greeted them with a quick toot of the horn and flash of lights. Skid Mark parked behind it and talked as he worked. "This's got some nice mods on it. I'm betting it didn't belong to just any John Q. Public," Skid said. "Look, I know after the way the talk was going that you are less than thrilled about keeping the truck and any ties. But nothing has changed. If we keep it, it gets repainted, and a new VIN and papers. I know those chop shop guys, and I've never heard of some secret backer. Frag if there was, I sure as drek wouldn't want to be on Mr. Spooky's drek list. So with that said, the only way they trace any of this to you is through Knuckles's bunch, then maybe through Teflon Joey which isn't likely to happen. If they happened to see this truck and actually recognized it, then what's the worst that happens? They take it back."

Before Skid Mark could continue, Spector stopped him. "What is the possibility you sell this vehicle, with new paint , VIN and papers and buy another for close to the same price?" Spector asked. "That reduces one risk and muddies the trail. You know vehicles, you could probably wind up trading up by fixing this up a bit; there's a tendency to defer maintenance on stuff and those guys didn't seem like the pride of ownership type, more like the run it until it stops and go steal another one type. Then you find another truck with a problem you know how to fix and we buy it and make a little on the swap or at least wind up with something a little better. Maybe sell this over the matrix and the buyer is in another country and you can even make some more cred delivering it." Skid's expression changed, indicating he was liking these ideas and the way Rev was getting into the spirit of things. As far as running the business, I'm not involved in any of the day to day. I get paid back the value I'm putting up right from the start of operations from any profit. You cover overhead until I get paid back; that will serve as "interest" payment on the debt. No later than six months from now, we take a look at where we stand and decide whether to continue or end this deal."

"How are we going to figure out what the value is you are putting in?" Skid asked.

Rev said, "Simple. The cost of the new paint, VIN and papers minus what it sells for, plus what the replacement costs."

"What about that part of me fixing this up to bring a better price or finding another that needs work that I buy cheap?"

"What is a simple and fair way to handle that?" Rev asked. "We split the cost of repair parts?"

"There's my time and labor," Skid said.

"And you're investing it in this business that you want," Rev said, "If you want to have equity, then you need to put something into the deal. I'm risking what I can get from this today, plus at least another 5k out of my pocket plus paint, plus half the cost of parts, for a headache I don't need. If you aren't willing to invest your labor than you don't value the ownership position. If you want paid for every bit of work you do you are an employee because you aren't willing to accept the risk to your investment. I hate to say it, but that is what really gets me about some of these so called anarchists; they see the cred the owner is raking in while they and their fellow employees do all the work and think they are entitled to a bigger share of the profit. They probably overlook some of the expenses, so overestimate the profit and underestimate what the owner puts into it. If it was simple to run the same business and they think they are getting shortchanged, then they should start the same business on their own and see how that goes."

"But they probably can't afford to start their own business," Skid said.

"Can you?" Rev asked. "If so, just pay me for the damn thing and I'll be happy. You came to me. I don't even know you, but I'm willing to give it a shot because you seem to know what you are doing around vehicles. But I'm not crazy about the idea and I'm not going to keep making concessions like you are already as fully invested as I am going to be. When I've got my cred back out of the deal, then we can renegotiate what your time and labor is worth if you don't want to be an owner who doesn't stay out of the day to day operations. We can see what it would cost to hire a manager. If you want to do the manager's job, we pay you what we would have paid him. Same idea for any job you do: driver, janitor, bookkeeper."

"Okay, okay," Skid said. "I appreciate what you're doing. Can you help it if a guy tries to make a better deal? I thought this sort of fell in your lap and you might not be feeling so greedy."

"How am I being greedy? I thought I was being pretty generous so far with letting you take drones for the jobs I hired you to do for me. How about we go back to Teflon Joey's and you sell the drones I'm using to pay you and you put the cred from that to pay for the VINs and papers and paint? Or I sell the rollback to him and then we go buy a rollback with clean papers that isn't traced back to us in any way. That sounds more fair to me and then neither of us need question the others greed. I sort of like that idea, then we can see how much we each are putting up and divide the partnership proportionately."

"Okay, you got me," Skid said, "you are a generous partner and a great guy for agreeing to go into business with me. And we are done here. It is off to the arcology, then on to Joey's and the start of a beautiful friendship."

They decided it was more trouble than it was worth loading the Porche on the rollback and maybe getting out of paying for a bit of parking or just so they could ride together. With the tracking disabled it would take some more work to get the autonav working again and it was better done after getting new VINs and papers so it all synched up and looked legitimate. So Rev drove the Porche and Knuckles rode with him, maybe just to keep track of him until he was paid. Skid followed as Rev led them to where he had parked the van full of bikes. Skid suggested they go find a quiet parking lot and do the required work there, so Knuckles drove the van and the little convoy followed Skid to a spot of his choosing.

Remembering he was carrying a small fortune, Damon, Rev, Spector took some precautions by calling up his spirits and assigning contingency orders. When they got to the lot of Skid's choosing, Skid parked and motioned for Knuckles to park in a secluded shaded spot, then got to work. Knuckles got out and he and Rev opened up the rear van doors and began unloading the bikes so Knuckles could get a better look at them and Skid could work on them more easily. When the two spirits manifested at his side, Knuckles flinched in surprise then quickly recovered his composure as they assisted with the unloading. Rev thought a reminder that he wasn't quite alone couldn't hurt and the extra help made short work of the task.

Having chosen the BMW in lieu of the cred, Rev told Knuckles about the quote from Teflon Joey to change VINs and procure credible paperwork for it. Knuckles declined the offer and was intending to leave when Skid asked him if he'd be interested in a somewhat normal job running the rollback a few days a week. After a moment and a time check, Knuckles said he'd talk to Skid about it back at the bar soon enough and departed.

Spector considered the logistics of the vehicle situation and was cursing himself for not going ahead and loading the Porche on the rollback previously at the airport. Figuring it was quicker and safer towing the Porche with the rollback instead of reconnecting things to get the autonav working, they extended the wheel lift under the rear of the Porche, secured it, and lifted its tires far enough off the ground to safely tow. With the help of the two spirits, they reloaded the remaining motorcycles in the van and Rev driving the van and Skid driving the rollback, headed for Teflon Joey. As they neared Joey's, Skid launched the drone clamped to the rollback and set it to overwatch patrol and record.

Once again, Skid Mark mediated the deal with Teflon Joey. Joey accepted the van and three motorcycles in exchange for VINs and papers for the rollback and Porche, paint on the rollback, and 10k in certified cred. Since Joey's guys were used to working fast, Joey said the vehicles would be ready sometime tomorrow after 1500.

Skid and Spector headed around the corner to their waiting vehicles, Skid handed over the latest cred cards from Joey and they departed with a promise to get in touch and return in two days.

Sitting in his car, Spector programmed the autonav for a route to Donovan's clinic. Soon after the car got underway, Spector recalled an errand and asked the autonav to list banks on the way. As Spector studied the list, the car came to a hard braking halt. Spector looked up to see why and was confronted by a trio of masked men in front of the car brandishing guns. The driver's side window burst in a hail of safety glass spraying Spector with crystalline nuggets and drawing little nicks of blood. Spector shook his head trying to clear the glass in his hair and stuck to his face. He looked to the direction the attack came from with a squinting sideways glance, anticipating a blow. His attacker was drawing back a hatchet for a potential killing blow and Spector waited for the movie of his life to start playing.

tisoz
tisoz
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nthusiasticnthusiasticover 5 years ago
Mystery

I certainly can agree with you about much of the drivel that is posted here. I am often mystified at the high ratings of the most commonplace writings while creative work goes unrecognized. As the King of Siam said, "Tiz a puzzlement!"

tisoztisozover 5 years agoAuthor
Does anyone really want more?

It doesn't seem like too many people are even looking at this even though all but 1 chapter is "Hot" (and it is close.) Couple that with very few people prodding me for more and you might understand why I am not rushing to post more, whether it is more chapters or longer chapters or both.

It is disheartening to see others with 100s of 1000s looks and fanatical readers voting top scores to drivel (or so some of it seems, in my opinion.) When I started this I saw a fellow author with a linked Patreon account bringing in about $1500/chapter. I read over 35 chapters, because it was highly ranked and his fanatics admitted the first chapters were not his best and it got better in the mid 20s chapters. Like I said, I read 10 past where it was supposed to get better and although I did see some improvement, it still seemed pretty fanfic.

I hoped I might build a following and MAYBE, optimistically, build a patronage of $1000/mo.. But the numbers of looks keeps dwindling. After posting the previous chapter, I checked the author who inspired me to give it a try and he was topping $2000/chapter, so decided it just wasn't in the cards for me. I got 0 patrons for $0 and the account was suspended due to it.

I had this already written and decided to post it. I did check my inspiring author ( because his rating hurts my rating on another site we both post on. His fanatics seem to auto vote him a 10 while mine range from 7-10 but get watered down in comparison to a 6.7 rating, weird rating system.) He is now getting 0ver $3K a chapter and has more than 100 chapters posted and is grouping together some chapters and releasing on Amazon for some more $$$. Meanwhile, I am unemployed and on the unemployment diet. Luckily a friend loaned me a few dollars so I do not literally starve while looking for a job (job hunting pretty much coinciding with the time I posted chapter 7.)

So I am being especially snarky. Thank you to those of you who have enjoyed what I wrote. Those who gave it less than a five, you should comment why or it will never get any better.

tisoztisozover 5 years agoAuthor
Since you like snark...

I most certainly can end right where I did. In fact, DID end right where I did. You did catch on he is waiting to watch his life pass before his eyes... FREE movie!

nthusiasticnthusiasticover 5 years ago
Hey! No Fair!

You can't stop on a cliff like that! I just got into this series & you've got me hooked. I really like the snark. I'm hoping that the next chapter comes out soon & they start getting longer. One or two pages is just not satisfying.

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