Manny watched with a certain twinge of defeat as the self-entitled young woman helped herself to the product of his bartering, but he at least had the grace enough not to complain about the loss of something he didn’t want in the first place. Manny was an okay guy like that.<br/><br/>Marcus and Lex, however, bristled as they answered in unison.<br/><br/>“It’s just a heat source.”<br/><br/>“It’s fuck-all.”<br/><br/>Neither of them were<span style="font-style: italic">technically</span>wrong. In its heyday, the object of Marcus’ affection had once been a sleek military speeder. Now it was a retired old pile of scrap that ran on a fossil fuel that he had no way of mining. So instead, he had repurposed it so that - theoretically - it should run primarily on battery power. He hadn’t gotten quite that far yet. For the moment, it still had the fuel tank, a little under a quarter full with what fuel they’d been able to siphon out of other vehicles, but it’d been sitting stagnant for so long that Marcus wasn’t even sure if it was going to start up at all by the time he was finished with it.<br/><br/>In a last-ditch effort to change the subject without continuing to apologize for Lex, Marcus shrugged the question off. “So what about you? What are you doing in a place like Manny’s?” he asked, leaning backwards against the counter as Manny started gathering the bartered parts and wrapping them in old newspaper.<br/><br/>“No offense, Manny,” Lex added quickly. It was ridiculous to hear him apologize for Marcus for a change, but the younger brother just let it slide.