Scrap Lot

The scrap dealer wanted four hundred for it and I talked him down to two-eighty by pointing out the left hand twitched. He said the twitch was cosmetic. Maybe it was. I run deliveries in Tharsis Under, the dome district, and the night routes were killing me, six hours of pushing a cart through tunnels that all look the same, and the math on a courier android worked out even at four hundred. So two-eighty felt like a win. It powered up fine in the lot. Said its model designation, said it was ready for tasking, all the right words in the right flat voice. I named it Boll because the dealer's lot had a sign that said BOLL & SONS SALVAGE and I am not a creative man. Boll carried the test crate the length of the lot and back without dropping it. Good enough. I did not find out until the third night that Boll had a problem, and the problem was not the hand.