The Houston Garrison garage was, to put it mildly, a mess. Racks for power armour under repairs lined one wall, but the shelves for parts near them were held together with duct tape, wooden spanners, and hope. The parts themselves were mostly plates for armour itself, and ceramics were hard to come by, so the shop made do with modified steel and precious titanium. Scrap wires dangled from every available protrusion. Workbenches for both guns and energy weapons were spread about haphazardly, as were the bins and jars of the supplies needed for them. In one corner stood an old style anvil with a vacuum pump forge, meant for reworking scrap into usable plates for the armour they Garrison went through. But Mac wasn't here today working on armour, as no orders had been placed. She was here for her special project, which stood on the hydraulic lift she had gotten working only last week.<br/><br/>She had found, after many months of fiddling and screaming at inanimate objects to cooperate, that with careful modifications she might be able to get an old rust bucket of a civilian transport vehicle from before the war working again. The frame had been stripped of almost everything, and now sat five feet above the concrete floor of the shop, surrounded by scrap metal, the defunct reactor, and tools of every imaginable variety, including a couple that even the young mechanic was not familiar with but had deemed possibly useful. The garage officer had agreed that she could work on it here, half because she was an invaluable asset to the guard some times and half because he owed her a few favours anyway. So she was currently under the monstrosity of what she had learned used to be called a Land Yacht, attempting to pry off a few remaining bars of structural reinforcement from the engine compartment. It was not going well.<br/><br/>The flares of her welding torch sputtered out and a stream of unintelligible words sounded from the cramped space. The blonde scooted out on her butt and flipped her goggles back onto her forehead while she glared at the acetylene tank the tool was attached to. One of the problems was that she had no idea how to make the stuff, nor how to store it, so she was stuck with whatever tanks the scroungers brought to her, and this last one had just run out. "Fine, you lazy, rotten, no-good piece of junk," she hissed at the offending object. The officer looked up from his desk. "Ain't gettin' a new one for a while, Mac. Suppliers are still on the way."<br/><br/>Mac stood up, dusting her denim-and-leather padded overalls off, and grinned. "S'fine, Bob. I was already fixin' ta head out today, anyhow. I gotta make a run for parts and see to that generator at one of the farms." Bob waved her off idly, a dismissive gesture that might have offended anyone else. Mac, however, had also already stopped paying attention to him, crouching down and gathering her tools into her green canvas duffel. Having accomplished that, she let her hair out of the tiny ponytail she kept it in while working, letting the outgrown bob cut free to be restrained only by her goggles. Her work boots clomped heavily as she frog-marched herself out of the main door and into the fetid Houston heat, aiming a kick at the spent fuel tank as she passed it.<br/><br/>Twenty minutes for lunch, another twenty for resupplying her travel bag, holstering her sidearm, and saying hello to her neighbours, and she was heading for the gates. She patted her front pocket to make sure her residency papers were still on her. The trip out to the farms was not particularly exciting, but would bring her close enough to the small town of Gecko Plains that she could excuse to herself heading there to check for new and interesting items for sale. And she even had caps to spend this time! If the generator didn't need a major repair she might even be home by tomorrow night, in time to catch the scavvies as they filtered in from the weekly hunt in the ruins of Houston proper. While Mac was aware of her own inability to survive the dangers of the ruins, full as they were of ghouls, mutants, and various other lethal conundrums, she still dreamed of heading out one day to try and find the fabled USSA facilities, somewhere on the southern end in the flooded areas.<br/><br/>After all, the spectrum of lifestyle in Houston was spectacular in its scope, even if a bit unfair. Those who had carved out the section of the city for livable area had profited considerably, along with the folks with the necessary knowledge to utilise the vast amount of surviving technology. The amount of power armour and robotic armaments the Garrison wielded were proof of that. And while Mac might, in some instances, be counted among those elites, she was not a scientist, but a grease-monkey, more support than advancement as it were. And so she was relegated to what mimicked the pre-War "middle class": well off enough, with steady work, but not powerful or influential even had she wanted to be. Below her own social spectrum was the various scrappers and salvagers, traders and resident merchants, who brought in valuable supplies. Farmers and ranchers fell somewhere in between the two. Then came the gunmen and mercs, then the workers and labourers, and finally those who just lived here on the edges. It worked, and Mac had no complaints. She was not of a mind to care, as it had almost nothing to do with her beloved trade, and no one bothered her about anything like what they apparently bothered her Dad with. Not that she would understand anyway.<br/><br/>The guards waved her through the gates without a second glance, and she stepped out onto the dry grasslands. Within about a quarter mile of the walls you were covered by snipers, and the Garrison could move pretty quick(though only when they wanted to). Outside of that range, though, all bets were off, as you could find yourself in a nasty situation right quick. Thankfully, the farm she was headed to was in a well patrolled area, and GP wasn't exactly unguarded either. Adjusting the weight of her pack, Mac headed north along the road, keeping an eye out for both danger and any overlooked scrap she could make use of.