Chapter 8:
The Black Plains
THE NEXT MORNING, A-Ka began working his temporary job. Shahuang’s store provided repair services to the mercenaries in the old city district. He also resold guns on the side, a large portion of which were illegal firearms from unknown sources. A-Ka’s job was to retrofit them and make some adjustments before putting them out for sale. Utilizing his skills from the City of Steel, A-Ka modified a selection of the electromagnetic weapons, which made Shahuang very pleased.
When the three of them sat down together to eat breakfast, Shahuang was wearing a dirty white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he had made three portions of tomato soup. He also set down a large basket of bread. Percy and A-Ka, who were absolutely starved, began to wolf down the food.
“Based on your appearance, I didn’t expect you to be able to repair firearms,” Shahuang said.
“I learned a little of those skills in Father’s nation,” A-Ka said, “but unless it was necessary, I rarely touched them.”
“You didn’t steal one away from the City of Steel for self-defense?”
A-Ka shook his head. The weapons from that city had left a strong impression on him. The mechanical life-forms used the weapons that humans had created to massacre them, which had always made him feel a natural aversion toward firearms. But he had to do this work to stay in Shahuang’s store. Plus, this was nothing more than a job, and he had to do his job well, otherwise he and Percy would have no food to eat.
After that night on the boat, A-Ka found, to his surprise, that his ability to sense the outside world had undergone an evolution. Before, when he was working single-mindedly, his focus had been concentrated solely on the mechanical parts in his hand. Now, as soon as he entered that state of flow where he lost sight of everything else, his sensing capabilities seemed to expand outward.
It was a difficult feeling to describe. The machine gun in his hands would disassemble itself in an orderly fashion in his mind: The sight, the grip, the chamber, and other spare parts laid themselves out clearly. This was just like how those lightning strikes had laid bare the principles of the world to him that night on the dark sea. Every basic building block making up a more complicated structure revealed itself to him.
In a daze, A-Ka reassembled the gun and put it on the counter.
“That’s it?” that mercenary said. “This Desert Eagle is something that even the precision instruments store couldn’t fix!”
A-Ka nodded. “It’s fixed. There was a problem with the positioning mechanism on the trigger…”
“Did you check the blueprints?” the mercenary asked.
“I didn’t,” A-Ka said, getting impatient. “Didn’t you want your gun fixed? It’s done. What more do you want?”
The mercenary tested it out and found that it really was good as new. All it lacked were bullets. He turned to Shahuang and said, astonished, “Hey, bro, this little brat…”
“A Desert Eagle?” Shahuang, who was sitting to one side, rose and came over. He took the gun and inspected it. “Huh, the manufacturer closed down, right? How did you fix it?”
“I…” A-Ka hesitated, feeling nervous, and he kept his eyes on Shahuang as he said, “It was the internal structure. As long as you can find the problem, it’s easy to fix.”
“This young one’s very smart.” Shahuang began to smile as he handed the gun back to the mercenary, patting A-Ka’s shoulder a few times.
The mercenary couldn’t believe it. This gun had lain disused for many years. Since there was no way to either fix it or return it to the factory, he had originally intended to treat it as scrap. He’d been hoping to turn it in for some money and possibly sneak it by Shahuang’s new repair apprentice for a better deal. He hadn’t expected that said apprentice would be able to fix it in just a few tries.
“Twenty-five gold pieces,” A-Ka said.
The mercenary hurriedly pulled out the money and paid up.
A-Ka glanced over at Shahuang sitting in the corner, but he only smiled to himself.
Had Shahuang noticed A-Ka’s potential? Whether he had or not, A-Ka felt that he shouldn’t explain his methods in depth. There was also Percy’s dream to worry about—A-Ka had tried to talk about it with Percy several times, but Percy never gave him a clear answer, so he could only let it be for now.
Time went on, and A-Ka and Percy had worked in Shahuang’s store for almost a week. In the beginning, the customers who entered the shop were all mercenaries with lean faces and grim expressions, and when they saw A-Ka and Percy they seemed a little surprised. Their attitudes toward A-Ka were rotten, but they were extremely polite to Percy, and before they left, they would often give Percy a tip.
A-Ka kept the money, and Shahuang would give A-Ka some additional pay each day, depending on business volume. Then, A-Ka handed it all to Percy to take care of.
The two of them had basically nowhere to spend this money. While repairing firearms for Shahuang, A-Ka couldn’t help thinking of his original treasure, his lost robot, K. Back then, he had worked so hard to save a few scrap parts, but in the end, he’d lost them all at once.
This reminded A-Ka of the day he and Heishi were escaping from the City of Steel, when K had shockingly appeared in front of them. Who had been controlling it? A-Ka mused over it while he worked on the machine gun in his hands. A few fixes later, he found himself thinking about Heishi, the other person who had escaped with them. How was Heishi now? Was he in any danger?
That night, he resolved to ask Percy to contact Feiluo so he could question him about Heishi.