Spectra: The Eternity Vault

2 | Days Gone

"Alright, what's next on the to-do list?"

"Not much left. We've got a pauldron repair order for an L. Quennus, and then we need to sort through the haul of batteries we recovered last week and determine what we want to keep and recycle. That shouldn't take more than half an hour or so."

"Hmm. Give me the pauldron."

Obliging Val's request, Note grabbed the armor pauldron that the client had provided them and brought it over to him. Setting it on his workbench, she watched as he gave her a nod of thanks and went to work, the plasma-torch on his bench sputtering to life as he flicked it on and set to patching the bolt-hole in the pauldron's side. She walked back behind the counter of their dingy store, then planted her elbows on its surface and leaned forward to let her head rest in her hands.

It was funny. Over a year had passed since they'd opened the shop, but it felt like they'd just been running in place all that time. Every day was harder than the last to stay on top of their bills, not that it had ever been particularly easy when they were stuck in a district like Dolgot. People living just a step above poverty generally didn't make for big-spending customers.

"Hey, Note?" The sound of Val's torch died down as he called out to her. He pulled his welding-goggles up, revealing a clean mask around his eyes from the smudged grime on the rest of his face.

"Yeah?"

"Any messages come in today?"

A pang of apprehension coursed through her at his question, but she didn't voice it. He couldn't help but ask, and she wasn't about to deny him his request, no matter how much she knew it was going to hurt him to hear her answer. Grabbing the personal gaunt they shared, she pulled it over her forearm and tapped on its screen a few times to bring up their inbox—empty, as usual.

She shook her head. "Sorry, Val."

He shrugged, pulled down his goggles, and went back to working on the pauldron. But she could see in the slight sag of his shoulders, the tiredness in his eyes as he looked back down at the workbench. The news stung, just as it did every day she told him.

Note took a look around at their crappy shop and gave a synthetic sigh of disappointment. Wasn't much in it; there was the workbench in the center, the business counter over here against the left-side wall, the back-wall stocked with whatever usable salvage she and Val managed to pull out of the garbage every week, and then there was the large, wide opening at the front which made this look more like a glorified garage than a store.

She scoffed internally. It was more of a glorified garage than a store. She hated it here, and she knew Val did too. But this job was pretty much the only thing paying their bills, so they were stuck with it.

With that thought in mind, she accessed the gaunt again and pulled up their earnings for the day. This morning's rush had put them on track with their budgetary goals, so that was one major worry out of the way. If tomorrow followed suit, they might actually have enough extra credits to take a few days off.

She checked the gaunt's clock function. In another hour or so, they'd hit the evening rush from all the customers just getting off work. She wished she had more things to do to kill the time between then and now. Honestly, she'd rather be the one fixing the pauldron than just standing behind the counter doing nothing—

"Are you open?"

Both her and Val's heads whipped towards the sudden voice that called out to them from the front of the store. A medium-sized figure stood in the open entrance of their shop, and Note hurriedly nodded her head. "Yes, yes we are!"

The person approached, and Note was greeted by two large wing-shaped eyes that stared back at her with bright yellow irises. Their body was covered in short, ruffled fur which looked soft to the touch. Two felid-like ears adorned the top of their head, long tufts of that same fur trailing off their ends as well as the sides and top of their face like feathers. Their upper jaw was covered in keratin, giving it the appearance of a boxy, tri-fanged beak which slightly protruded as though elegantly sculpted onto their face. They clicked it against their bottom teeth in a skittish manner.