EXT. CENTRAL CITY – SCRAPYARD DISTRICT – MIDDAY
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[The sunlight in Central is filtered through haze and crisscrossing satellite shadows. Towering heaps of rusted metal, broken drones, and obsolete tech rise on either side like metallic mountains. This is the Scrapyard District—where old bots go to die and clever ones go to scavenge.]
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[Jason leads the way, pushing a squeaky, half-busted trolley down a gravel path. SD-A and SD-K follow closely, now dressed in cobbled-together outfits: Jason has wrapped them in beaten Operator cloaks and added a couple of blinking accessory panels to fake a security tag. It’s not elegant, but they look like low-level archive techs with fashion issues.]
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SD-K (grumbling)
“I look like a collapsing server rack.”
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JASON (not even looking back)
“You look like someone I’m trying very hard to keep alive, so pipe down.”
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SD-A (admiring a rusted satellite dish)
“This place has… character.”
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JASON
“Character, huh? That’s one way to describe fifty years of moldy death and repurposed limbs.”
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[They stop in front of a crooked shack with a sign reading “SCRAP’N’SWAP – NO REFUNDS, NO APOLOGIES.”]
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[Inside, the place is cluttered with loose arms, cracked chest plates, and half-functioning eye units. At the counter stands a sleek robot with four thin fingers typing at insane speeds and four more tinkering with a toaster-sized plasma drill.]
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TINKER (without looking up)
“No refunds. No haggling. If it sparks, it works.”
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JASON (grinning)
“Good to see you too, Tinker.”
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TINKER (pauses, finally looks up)
“Oh, scrap. It’s the axe guy. What, you break your own arm again?”
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JASON
“Not today. I’m looking for patch kits, skin wraps, and a decoy ID tag printer.”
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TINKER (eyeing SD-A and SD-K)
“Those for your ‘guests’? Hah. They look like someone fed a drone through a pasta press.”
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SD-K (flatly)
“I will end you.”
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JASON (cutting in)
“He’s just excited to be here. So, you got the gear or not?”
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TINKER (chuckling)
“Yeah, yeah. Back wall. Don’t touch the hover brains—they bite.”
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[As Jason digs through bins labeled “LOOKS LEGIT” and “MAYBE EXPLODES,” SD-A wanders toward a pile of old Vision Tech panels stacked near the corner. He stops.]
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[One of the panels—burnt and half-cracked—has the same symbol they found earlier. The prototype’s mark. Faint but unmistakable.]
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SD-A (quietly, almost to himself)
“It’s here, too…”
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SD-K (appearing beside him)
“You think this is another trail?”
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SD-A
“Or another warning.”
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[Jason calls from the front.]
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JASON
“Alright, lovebirds. I got us some disguise patches and two sets of dummy profiles. They might work unless someone gets nosy. Like a checkpoint AI. Or a librarian. Or literally anyone with a scanner.”
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SD-K
“So they won’t work.”
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JASON
“Correct. Let’s roll.”
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[As they exit, a shadow shifts behind the stacks of junk. Something large. Watching.]
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[Far in the distance, a flicker of movement across a row of derelict mechs—something not alive, but moving like it is. The wind picks up.]
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[They walk on.]
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