Chapter Text
Six TVs in the window of a corner shop flickered with static for a moment, then sprung back to life. They showed the final two frames of an over-the-top ad for Bonk! Atomic Punch, then suddenly switched to a man standing in front of some kind of wheat farm. He was a stout little man with a round head and a face full of dark brown hair -- beard, mustache and sideburns in abundance -- but not a single follicle on his head. He wore a brown vest with a utility belt of some kind over a semi-formal red shirt, yellow kneepads over a pair of comfortable looking pants, and a pair of goggles with lenses that glowed bright red.
“Howdy, y’all!” the man announced through the tinny speakers outside the shop. “My name’s Alan Cornwell! Does your life ever feel like this?” The screen cut to a long, static shot of the a large, empty wheat field, intercut with the sounds of chirping birds and the quick, deep moo of a dairy cow. “Sounds dull, right?” Alan laughed, leaping back out in front of the camera. “Hey! It’s 2068, Stretch! You gotta start livin’ like a city mouse!”
A large, expansive cityscape suddenly slammed down behind Alan, drawing quite a bit of undue attention to his cheap and terrible greenscreen effects. “You should come on down to Cornwell Electronics!” proclaimed Mr. Cornwell, as the latter two words swirled into existence over his head. “We’ve got everything you need to start livin’ the modern life you deserve! We got TVs, computers, cables of all shapes an’ sizes...”
As the commercial rambled on, showing the man wandering down the aisle of a decidedly homey-looking store, a lone man strode purposefully down the street towards the windows in question. He struck a distinctive figure to anyone who may have been looking. Dark, possibly dyed hair encircled his face -- messy and unkempt at the top, but immaculately styled to a point near his chin. A pair of red-rimmed glasses was stretched across his face, but it did little to hide the large scar over his right eye. He was clad in some kind of white trenchcoat with oversized lapels, accompanied by a bright red tie. And perhaps most disconcertingly, he also wore bright red rubber gloves that stretched halfway to his elbows. The man looked for all the world as if he’d stepped out of some corporate research lab. He approached the store, glanced up at the gleaming neon signage, and stared at the TVs for a moment.
“...an’ best of all,” Alan was saying, “Cornwell Electronics is a proud subsidiary of absolutely no one!” Two large pieces of clipart superimposed onto a black background to either side of Alan -- a bomb and a wrench -- spontaneously burst into flames. “That’s right, folks -- we are independently owned, just like the old days! I’m just as sick of the corporate perpetual money-makin’ machine as you are, so you come to Alan, and your money won’t come within a fifty-mile radius of their bank accounts!” The camera abruptly cut to a side shot of Alan, framing the man in front of a simple suburban home. He jerked his head to the side, grinned, and gave a powerful thumbs-up with a gloved hand. “I guarantee it!” he proclaimed, his declaration supported by bold, over-the-top subtitles.
“So get yourself to Cornwell Electronics!” Alan finished, dancing in front of the camera to a jaunty violin tune. “We’re on the corner of Casbah and Crossover in the Badlands District! We got everything you need at a price you can afford, or my name ain’t Alan Cornwell! C’moooon doooown!”
The man in the trenchcoat smirked and walked up to the door. It slid open swiftly as he approached it, signalling a soft chime to ring throughout the building. The store was pleasantly lit with a charming cabin-in-the-woods aesthetic, and the faint sounds of acoustic guitar music piped through the store’s loudspeakers. It seemed to be a rather homey place, much more so than one would even think possible from the Badlands District. There was even a little electric fireplace over in the corner of the store that displayed the home entertainment center, which was a very nice touch.
There was a circle of counters in the center of the building, one of which bore a cash register. Behind that particular counter, there stood a short, stout man -- the same short, stout man that had been shown in the commercial, right down to his mode of dress. The only difference was that his goggles weren’t glowing red -- a metal shutter was dropped in front of them, rendering him completely invisible.
“...Uh huh,” Alan was saying, smiling a faint half-smile. He chuckled softly and rubbed the back of his head with his gloved hand. “Whooh... Yeah, I don’t doubt it. Uh, but... couldja hold that thought? I got... a customer jus’ walked in, I think...” The man in the trenchcoat smiled and silently stalked up to the counter. “Yeah, no, I’d love to. Jus’ not right now. You wait until I get home, an’ then we can pick up where we left off, alright?” He let out a soft chuckle, tinged with... something, and nodded. “Yeah. Five minutes, then I’ll be on my way. ...Alrighty then. See ya at home, Smokey.” He reached up and tapped the side of his goggles with one finger, the shades snapped up -- and he snapped back. “Whoa! Who the...”
The man in the trenchcoat chuckled. “Sorry... did I startle you?” he asked, his voice choked by a thick German accent.
“...Maybe a little,” Alan replied, placing his gloved hand gently on his chest. “Tweren’t no trouble. I just... don’t react well to people sneakin’ up on me. Welcome to Cornwell Electronics, sir. How can I help you?”
The man in the trenchcoat smirked. “Oh, a great many ways, I’m sure,” he said confidently. “You see, I’m hoping to break into the field of cybernetics.”
Alan arched an eyebrow at his customer, and the shutter on one half of his goggles raised up slightly. “...Cybernetics?” he repeated. “...Well, if you really got your heart set on buildin’ a cybernetic augmentation in your garage, I guess that’s your prerogative. But I don’t think I stock most of the parts you’re gonna need...”
The man in the trenchcoat tilted his head down slightly so that he could look Alan right in the eyes. “You misunderstand. It’s not the parts I’m looking for.”
Alan hesitated a moment, then plastered a smile across his face. “Well, what are you lookin’ for, then?” he asked.
“I’m looking for someone with the expertise to make sure my little project is completed successfully.” The man in the trenchcoat smirked. “And I believe you’re just the man I’m looking for, Dr. Conagher.”
There was silence. The only sounds in the room came from the faint, muted sounds of sound systems on display and the tinny sounds of something resembling country music. Alan glanced over his shoulder, then then other, then reached behind his head and slid his finger across the band of his goggles. In an instant, the shades retreated fully into their hidey-holes, showing two empty, expressionless red circles where Alan’s eyes should have been. “You still talkin’ to me, sir?” he asked.
“You’re the only one here,” the trenchcoated man replied. “Ah, but I haven’t introduced myself. How rude of me. My name is Dr. Gustav Heinrich, and I’ve spent a great deal of money trying to find you.”
“...And by find me,” Alan replied, crossing his arms, “you mean find Dr. Conagher.” Dr. Heinrich just nodded. “...Well, since you had to go lookin’, I assume you mean Dell Conagher?”
“Of course,” Heinrich replied, smiling in a way that was a little more sinister than he intended. “There’s no need to be shy, Herr Doktor. I know it’s you. Besides, we’re both men of science. You can let your guard down around me.”
“...Uh...” Alan sighed and slowly shook his head. “I hate to rain on your parade here, sir, but I’m not Dell Conagher. I do get told we look alike sometimes, but... you do know that Dell Conagher is dead, right?”
“I’m well aware of that, yes.” Heinrich nodded. “He died five years ago in an unfortunate industrial accident, according to Conagher Machinery and Cybernetics’s official press release. And of course, following his death, his slot as the corporation’s CEO passed to his second-in-command, a famously shy man named... what was his name again?”
“Smith,” Alan answered, uncrossing his arms and placing his hands on the counter in front of him. “Blackthorne Smith.”
“Ah, of course. Thank you. At any rate, that is the official story,” Heinrich continued. “But it’s not as though a multinational corporation that regularly does billion-dollar deals would have any reason to lie...”
Alan sighed heavily and glanced down at his hands. “Okay... look,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, but I’m really not who you say I am. I mean, Dell Conagher was a cyborg, wasn’t he? I ain’t exactly--”
Before he could finish that sentence, Dr. Heinrich raised his fist into the air and slammed it down onto Alan’s gloved hand -- and sure enough, the sound of bones snapping rang out over the store. His eyebrows suddenly shot up and he yanked his hand back, gripping wrapping his other palm around the point of impact. “Ooh! Aah ha ha!” He grinned a cringing grin and took a couple of steps back. “...Case in point, Doctor! I think I just broke a metacarpal!”
Alan’s eyes went wide, not that Heinrich could tell, and he hesitated a moment. He blinked, glanced down at his own, decidedly not broken hand, and sighed heavily. “...That was just plain rude,” he muttered.
“Rude, maybe. But effective. You are a cyborg, sir. There’s no point in denying that now.” Heinrich cringed and shook his hand out. “...Mmnh. That really hurt more than I was expecting it to.”
“Are you okay?” Alan asked.
“Give me a moment...” Heinrich held his hand up, gripped his broken pinkie finger in one hand, and suddenly snapped it back into position. “Oof... Mm. Yes, I’m fine. My bloodstream is saturated with self-replicating nanosutures, courtesy of Speyrer Medical. It was cheaper than giving me health insurance. Of course, it’s not likely to help me if I actually, you know, get sick... but I’ll take it.” He let out a jovial chuckle at his own joke, then cringed and placed his injured hand on the table. “Anyway, I’ll be perfectly fine in a few moments.”
“Alrighty then.” Alan crossed his arms again. “Well, while we wait for those to kick in, I’m gonna give y’all the benefit of the doubt. If I was really Dell Conagher -- and I ain’t sayin’ I am, but if I was -- do you really think I’d be runnin’ a rinky-dink consumer electronics store in the Badlands District, of all places?”
“Well, that’s no one’s fault but yours,” Heinrich shot back. “Personally, if I was going to feign my own death, I’d have set myself up in a better city than Neo Teufort. I’d head for The Well, I think, but that’s just me.”
“Yeah, The Well would be a nice place to go,” Alan agreed. “They’re a lot closer to the Pipeline than Teufort... but, y’know, I don’t really think I can afford real estate down there. Not on my earnings.”
“Hm. I know what you mean,” Heinrich agreed. “Of course, if you were a CEO, you could buy land just about anywhere...”
Alan tilted his head back and let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, look. If I just hear you out, let you say whatever you wanna say to Dell, will you get out of my store?”
“Of course. Danke schön,” Heinrich replied. He cleared his throat, straightened his spine and placed his fist over his heart. “Now then... what do you know about Speyrer Medical?”
“...Well, they’re a biomedical research firm,” Alan answered, cocking his head to the side. “They keep most of America in stock on medicine, and they’ve got hundreds of research labs from here to Neo Las Vegas. And they let you take a sip from their Fountain of Youth, so apparently you work for ‘em.”
“Ah... close,” Heinrich chuckled. “Up until very recently, I was working for them. I was a valued employee at one of their facilities in the Thunder Mountains. I was, and for the record I still am, a brilliant scientist. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of making several suggestions that Speyrer couldn’t figure out how to market. That, coupled with a particularly... poorly thought-out experiment of mine...” He took a deep breath, then continued. “...ultimately led the company to the decision that I wasn’t being productive enough to justify the cost of my employment.”
“Huh. Sorry to hear that.” Alan didn’t sound sorry at all. “So what, you wanna get your old job back or something?”
“Hardly.” Heinrich scoffed. “Speyrer is an outright toxic working environment. I thought I’d enjoy my time there, but no. I gave five years of my life to that company, and all I have to show for it is some wrinkles, a scar and a suspended medical license. I don’t even have my blueprints any more. Some of my best ideas are locked up in Speyrer’s copyright vault.”
“That’s not how intellectual property works,” Alan pointed out. “You can’t slap a copyright on an idea and say ‘That’s mine. Nobody else think of something like this.’ That’s against the law.”
“So is hiring private armies to wage a guerilla war in the streets in order to forcibly seize control of public utilities or outright destroy those controlled by your enemy and extend your organization’s influence over key sections of northern New Mexico,” scoffed Heinrich, “but I think we both know the corporations’ status on that.”
Alan blinked and rubbed the back of his head. “Fair point... but Speyrer Medical doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the Gravel Wars. That’s a logical fallacy right there. Shouldn’t you bring up something bad that Speyrer Medical did?”
“Oh-ho-ho, do you really want to know about the bad things Speyrer Medical did?” Heinrich chuckled. “Seriously, don’t get me started. I have seen some shit. I can’t prove any of it, of course, but about, say... sixty, maybe seventy-five percent of the rumors you hear on the street are true. It’s a good thing clones don’t have even the most basic human rights.”
“...On second thought, I don’t think I really wanna know about the bad things Speyrer Medical did,” Alan murmured.
“You’re just as smart as they say, Doctor.” Heinrich chuckled. “Speaking of which, I should get back to the point. You see, most of my ideas are property of Speyrer Medical now... but not all of them. I kept one for myself -- my finest work. The one thing that I knew Speyrer Medical would be interested in, I kept for myself. And now I’m going to build it... and I need your help.”
Alan hesitated a moment, then closed his mouth. “...What is this idea?” he asked.
“Something wondrous,” Heinrich shot back. “Something powerful. A cybernetic implant that could change the way we look at war forever. Trust me -- the corporations are going to be falling over one another to get their hands on this machine. I build it, and I’ll be set for life. But since I don’t have an entire research-and-development team to fall back on any more... I need the support of a fiercely intelligent cybernetic specialist. Someone who’s spent his entire life studying engineering, and has eleven hard science degrees to show for it. Someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish his goal, whatever that goal may be. And crucially, someone who doesn’t report to a corporate overlord who’ll poison my champagne and steal my ideas the second they’re completed. And that, Dr. Conagher, is where you come in.”
Alan didn’t say anything for a few long moments, then sighed. “...Well, you sure know how to spin a yarn, Doc,” he eventually said.
“Thank you. I try.” Heinrich reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out a cell phone with a white plastic case. “Tell you what -- I’ll give you my number. If you decide you’re interested in this, give me a call.” Alan hesitated a moment, then sighed, reached into a small pouch on his belt and retrieved his own cell phone. Heinrich smiled and tapped his phone against Alan’s, causing a soft chime to ring out from each of them. “Thank you. That’ll be all, then.” Heinrich turned towards the door and pocketed his phone again, suppressing the urge to laugh. “I hope to speak to you soon, Doctor Conagher.”