Chapter 42: Good News and Bad News
I never really considered myself a girly girl. I didn’t do my make-up most days, my nails were never done, and I never really seemed to find enjoyment in the frillier side of being a woman. Right now though, right now I was the girliest girl that was ever a girl.
As soon as I had put on my weapons dealer uniform, as I was going to call the black assassin/badass/knight in shining armor dress that I had created, I started twirling around the clothing room on Deck C until I was dizzy. And even then, I didn’t stop.
The outfit was fantastic; the hood and veil worked even better than I could have imagined, and life was coming up roses.
"Is that fun?" asked Jun Li from where he stood at the door to the lounge. I only chuckled, not giving him a response one way or another. "I’ve had it before where I was spun around in a circle due to a well-placed blast by the Thuzirenes, but neither myself nor the crew at the time thought it was amusing."
"I would think not," I replied with a grin as I looked at the android in front of me. I saw that he was still wearing very ’human’ clothes. "It is one thing to spin around due to happiness, and it is a completely different thing to be doing it in the middle of a fight."
"So, you are happy?" asked Jun Li as he tilted his head to look at me. "Your body indicates that you are happy."
"I am," I said. Take that psychologist that said I couldn’t feel human emotions. "It is the first time that I have ever designed an outfit for myself and I find that I really enjoyed it."
"That is good," replied Jun Li with a nod. "But if you are done, I would like you to come with me to cross-check the weapons requested with the ones on our ship."
"Sounds good," I said with a nod. I took off my helmet, veil, and hood, but the rest of the dress was going to stay on. Hell, I might even sleep in it tonight. "Did you want clothes produced?" I asked, not wanting him to feel left out or not have suitable clothing.
"I have a few designs that I like," admitted Jun Li as he spun around and left the lounge. I followed after, enjoying the sound of my heels clicking on the ship deck.
"I have already inputted them into the system, and they will be completed in a few hours."
"Good," I said, looking up at the android. Because, let’s face it, even with 5-inch heels, I was still shorter than him. "You need nice stuff, too."
"And thanks to you, I have a lot of nice stuff," admitted Jun Li, the smile on his face mirroring my own. Now that the ship had a body, I found that a lot more of his movements and gestures seemed more human, for lack of a better word.
I followed him down the halls and back to the lift. Going back up to Deck A, I walked down the hallway to the bridge.
"Lay it on me," I said as I got comfortable in my chair. "What do you have for me?"
"What does it mean to lay it on you?" asked Jun Li as he quickly started to type into his control console. Given the fact that he always sat in the same chair and the same console, I wondered if the entire ship could be controlled from just that one or if the whole ship was controlled from just that one because of Jun Li. Either way, it worked.
"It just means to tell me what is going on," I answered with a shrug of my shoulders. "You know, you can easily look it up online now that you have access to the internet."
"Well, if you want me to ’lay it on you’, then here," said Jun Li, and all of a sudden, my tablet dinged with an incoming message. Opening up the new window, I saw that it was a list... of something... next to another column of ... something.
I sighed as I looked at the man in front of me. "Are you going to actually explain what all this means, or do I get to guess?"
"The first column is the name or identifier of the customer. The second one is a list of all the weapons they are requesting. The third is the number of each weapon that they wanted, while the fourth column is how much we are going to charge them for said weapon. Finally, the fifth column is the profit that we would be looking at for each sale.
"Huh," I grunted as I looked at each column with new eyes. Mind you, I didn’t know what any of these weapons were, or even who was wanting to buy them. But I also didn’t think that it was any of my business. Out here, the only things that I cared about were me and Jun Li. The rest could go fuck themselves, as far as I was concerned.
And that made business a whole lot easier.
"The good news is that we currently have an excess amount of each of the desired weapons," said Jun Li as he spun around in his chair to look at me. It was much nicer having another ’human’ around than communicating through speakers and microphones.
"And the bad news?" I asked slowly. Because let’s face it, if there was good news, then there was automatically bad news.
"The bad news is that they want to have the exchange on planet W59271," replied Jun Li and his face did not appear to be too happy with that.
"A that is a bad thing because?" I hedged, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Because W59271 is an outlaw planet controlled by the Thuzirenes," continued Jun Li.
I had almost reached the point where I wanted to just grab him and shake the information out of him.
