Swift Mechanical Service

[Pharlen]

Swift Mechanical Service, commonly known as “Unka Bubbas”

The building is an old steel Quonset hut stretching the length of the lot. Alongside it is the second finest junk yard in all the docks. ‘Swift Mechanical Service’ is painted over the barn style doors, but most people refer to it as Unka Bubba’s place. A small showroom displays a few high end components, most are actually just models, and all of them are out of date. Posters and charts cover the rusty corrugated steel walls.

Five service bays are visible down the building’s interior, each fitted with various tool sets. Service robots are poised along a series of overhead tracks, and move along seamlessly bay to bay. Machines sit alongside the wall, some mobile, others fixed in place, awaiting use.

A counter at the front of the building is where Bubba Swift can be found, usually reading the newspaper for the stock reports. He is a black man of indeterminate years, bald, kind faced, and heavy set. There is a small office behind him where he rarely goes, but it seems to be filled with old work orders and catalogs from the beginning of time spilling out from old steel file cabinets and a military surplus desk.

About a dozen spider-like robots the size of volley balls scurry through the shop and junkyard alike, communicating via the flash of their green LED light eyes. They are on a closed system and can’t be hacked, though plenty of people have tried. The spiderbots are Bubba’s hands and eyes, they fetch parts, fabricate small items, and get into tight places where hands can’t reach.

Unka Bubba also owns an African pouched rat, about four pounds and grey and brown, named Phoebe. She runs cables through otherwise impassible conduits.

Though he looks to be a bucolic and peaceful soul, Bubba is one of the leading engineers in the reality. He can fix damn near anything. He can get his hands on damn near anything. (You offer the right amount, and hell yes, there is a flux capacitor behind the counter, or a diatium power cell, a dilithium crystal…)

Bubba is married to Barbara ‘Babs’ Swift, and she raises the orphans Bubba collects around the docks. They are Buddist, and both are devas. It’s a terrifically bad idea to try and do anything bad to them.