Birdie was stressing over the creations he had to press out for client already. Deep in the lab that was on board the Arakhne, he hadn't been outside that room for nearly a whole day. A few of his grunts were present with him sweating and busting their ass with him. Along with them was Verde who was making due in a corner of the lab. He was working on a rather interesting gun model, something he called a Gatling Gun. Birdie had handled the logistics behind the mechanism and told him exactly how it should work, while Verde himself was the smith that new how to make the metal bend just right and all that other stuff Birdie himself wasn't too handy with. "This fucking idiot asking for something as complex as this in a day. I oughta kill him with this piece of shit." Birdie grumbled tossing a few things over his shoulder to the other side of the room as he was done with it. His hair was a mess and his shirt was darkened with pools of sweat. As he tossed the items some of the standing by grunts retrieved them and put them back on the work table for Birdie to access. Should they not be there when he needed although he threw them, he'd truly lose his shit and probably end up killing someone.

"Why didn't you just umm . . . Tell him to wait longer?" Verde was hammering away at the contraption, nearly finished with the oversized gun. It had wheels and everything, he was truly getting good at this blacksmithing thing, but Birdie didn't care enough to acknowledge that right now. "Because this business is about making people owe you one. Should he get this when he asked for it despite the fact it's something his little marine brain can't grasp, he'll be in debt to me whether he likes it or not." Verde scratched his head with the handle end of the hammer skeptically. "What if he disregards that and just takes what you give him without caring?" Birdie paused and released an exasperated sigh before lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out aggressively. "Ok, never mind forget I asked." When Verde said that Birdie really got set off and tossed more tools across the room. "Then he's fucking dead in the black market. Everyone already knows how this shit runs, anyone who doesn't ends up found swollen with seawater." That meaning their dead body turning up in the ocean, albeit it would be puffed up from soaking up some of the water. Verde set his hammer down and grabbed a cloth and began to polish off his product.

"I guess . . . so you'd try to kill him?" Birdie closed his eyes in thought juggling his work and Verde's ceaseless bombardment of questions at the same time. "No . . . no I wouldn't. He has more value that just his money. I'd just keep it as a mental note, so when his time comes I fuck him over even worse." Verde scrunched his mouth to the side in a discontent manner though Birdie couldn't see it. He wasn't sure why Birdie was always looking to screw all his clients over and why he never had any long lasting partners whom he didn't backstab. "Will my time ever come?" Verde turned and looked at Birdie who had stopped working for a second when it was said, though he resumed quickly, the initial shock from the question subsiding. "You're different. You're someone who's in my collective, I have no interest in fucking you over as long as you work for me." Verde nodded then slowly turned to go back to polishing the Gatling Gun. "Fuck where's my wrench?!" Birdie yelled to the grunts who were searching the lab for the wrench that was tossed by Birdie just moments ago.

"I finished the Gatling Gun Birdie." Verde wiped his sweaty forehead with the dirty cloth he was using to wipe down the Gatling Gun only realizing the filthy act he was committing after it was too late. Sparks flying off of Birdie's table as he was using a wire to generate an electric current and weld something together, he turned only after he finished this task. "Hmm . . . kinda big ain't it? We'll have to work on making a more compact model, looks good though." It didn't sound like much, but that actually meant Verde did well to Birdie's standards which was hard to do.

Just as Birdie finished talking the door to the lab was being knocked on much to Birdie's annoyance. "Fuuuuuck, what now? Come in!" He turned back to his table to work as he said this and the door to the lab swung open, sunlight of the fresh morning sun pouring inside illuminating the cave and searing eyes. It would close soon after and one person would enter with a piece of paper in his hand. Approaching Birdie he held the paper out for him, it was an unopened letter. "It came in from Alabasta, transported it here ASAP given it has a seal from a Noble on it." This peeked Birdie's interest and caused him to stop working and grab the letter after removing a pair of brown gloves his had on for protection. Examining the seal first and taking a mental picture, he carefully opened the envelope and read the letter.

Dear Birdie,
I heard many tales of your vast knowledge, and equipment. So much that I am curious to know the type of gadgets you have, and prices these things cost. I'm looking to increase my military strength using unique equipment such as gadgets that you may own. If your deceives are crack up to what was rumored you will have great investor in you future."

Sincerely, Emperor Star of Little Wano.

"What the hell." Birdie wasn't confused about what it said, but he just found it as odd. "What is it?" Verde approached with a raised brow. "Apparently some Emperor of Little Wano, I think that's in the East Blue, wants to do business with me . . ." It was a lot to think about. A big opportunity, but also a potential scam or someone looking to wipe him out. He'd have to be careful about how he went about it. "Send a response letter out of Alabasta telling this guy about our more casual wares." The one who delivered the letter nodded and Birdie looked at the message once more before folding it up and putting it in his inner jacket pocket. "Verde take this envelope and put it in our archives. Make sure that seal stays in tact, we're gonna need to do some research." Verde nodded and carefully took the envelop before following the rest of Birdie's orders.

"Including a list of our casual wares at the end . . ." Birdie put his gloves back on and got back to work. "It should say-"

Dear Emperor Star,

I'm surprised to have someone of your stature contact me about such matters, but rest be assured I'm interested in satisfying your needs. I take my business serious however and you should know to do business with me once is to do business with me twice. I do not do one time deals and am only searching for those interested in sustaining a long term business relationship. Should you still be interested feel free to give me a call with the Den Den Mushi information provided below concerning our terms and the wares that are available to you found below.

• Deadman's Tether
  
• Firebomb
  
• Eye Scope
  

Best Regards, Birdie

Birdie's grunt writing all of that down would go back to Alabasta and send it from Birdie's false address where the grunt had actually come from. It was important to have one as an arms dealer to ensure you couldn't be located by people you didn't want locating you.

Birdie himself would get back to work, finishing the order that his oh-so important client had asked of him. "Where's my wrench?! This is the second time!" The grunts were still searching the room for it before Birdie just gave up on it and pulled a spare out of his jacket. It was a much smaller model, but it would manage to achieve what he needed. "Make a note that we need to buy a new wrench." He shook his head side to side exhaling cigarette smoke before setting down his wrench and grabbing his screwdriver. Screwing the contraption closed, he now had three fully operable slave collars. "Finished with hours to spare . . . one of you case this stuff up for the transaction later today, then three of y'all move that Gatling Gun to the deck of the ship." The grunts got to it and Birdie himself went to hit the showers then get a wink of sleep.

 

Days had passed and the stresses from his work had subsided, though he was still the husk of instability he always was. In his private quarters he analyzing the blueprints for a new invention. He'd been working on this one for a while and hoped he'd be able to finish it in its entirety prior to meeting with the Marine he had previously encountered. Though it'd be a risky move to pull off, it could have tremendous benefits. What it was that he was working on was a small device that he called a bug. Much like how human's got sick, this thing he was designing was something that would make Cyborgs susceptible to certain statuses too. This model in particular was crafted to just cause the Cyborg to shut down when a certain frequency from a device he had yet to make was created.

Additionally this device came with a feature that would allow for Birdie to track things tapped with this device. It would be in the form of a small chip, that could covertly integrated into any piece of technology and that's what made it versatile indeed. Beyond just Cyborgs, all electronics were susceptible to this bug.

A knock at his door, he took in a breath before speaking. "Come in." Looking at who entered into his quarters, he rolled up his blueprints hiding them from sight. Not that they were any big secret, just that he didn't like his unfinished work being exposed and shown to others though the chances of them understanding the glyphs and scribble scrabble he jotted down were very low. It was one of his men from Alabasta, a messenger. "Is it from that Emperor?" The messenger nodded and handed Birdie the envelope. "Go find Verde and tell him to come here." The messenger nodded and left Birdie in his quarters on his own leaving him to read the message.

Dear Birdie,

I am but a simple man in other words I'm an small fry compared to the grand scheme of things. But I have taken an interested in your items you have presented me. I am most impression in what you have to offer thus far. I am glad to hear that you take your business serious that means everything goes smoothly without a hitch. I pride myself on my time because it is important to me, and my citizens if there any need to set up shop contact me. As for my order it is the following:
____________
*(1)Deadman's Tether
*(2)Eye Scope
*(1) Fire Bomb

Sincerely Emperor Star
P.S. You have a friend in me.

Just as he finished Verde entered the room. "What's going on?" Birdie didn't answer him and just handed him the carefully opened envelope, the seal still in tact. "Archive this one with the first one. I want to keep all these seals in my possession, they may come in handy in the future." Verde nodded and grabbed the envelope. "Anything else?" Birdie shook his head side to side as he read the letter for a third time, then jotted down the order. "Actually . . . do we have these items in stock?" Birdie showed Verde what he had jotted down and Verde looked up with his eyes in thought for a moment. "Yeah, pretty sure we do. Need to ship them out?" Birdie thought for a second. "Yeah, get a team together and have them sent to our Alabasta location and prepared for shipping, but they won't need to be sent until we negotiate a price." Verde nodded and extended a hand for the handwritten order Birdie had made. Handing it to Verde, he let his assistant go carry out the task as he wrote a reply to the Emperor.

Dear Emperor Star,

I'm glad to hear from you again. I have your order prepared for shipping all that's left is to decide a price for these goods. They'd normally go for a higher price, but I'll have them sent to you at a first time buyers discount. This bringing your total down to 5,000,000 Beli. However there will be a shipping fee of 1,000,000 Beli. This could of course be avoided by picking up the goods yourself or by sending an associate of yours to do so.

Best Regards, Birdie

With that he sealed his letter in an envelope and his messenger was off. Back to work, he started to tamper with the little chip he had designed. Its effectiveness couldn't be tested until the hub was made. This hub allowing Birdie to track the chip and activate it, but until then he just put the chip he made in his drawer. From there he made two replicas of the chip, hopefully it wouldn't be a waste of time since he was making step by step duplicates. Meaning if the first one was faulty, these would be as well, but he trusted his capabilities as a Scientist and felt he had created a successfully operating product.

 

Back to work, it had been awhile, but finally Birdie had found time out of his busy schedule to finish these chips. The whole thing had come to him in a dream or perhaps a day dream, he wasn't sure. With his sleeping schedule so unpredictable and spur of the moment, when he tried to recollect on things he felt came to him in his fantasy land he was never sure which one it had come from. Nonetheless he was in his laboratory onboard the Arakhne working on these chips. Birdie had big plans for these. Coupled with his talents, his ever growing pool of clientele, and the growing demand and interest in technology, he'd already have the one up on those who ran into the market without taking precaution. Given it'd be the glittery eyed souls he'd be taking advantage of perhaps his earnings wouldn't be so great, but then again who knew. Even now he was working with Navy personnel who was requesting his services for a piece of technology,s o even then these disabler chips were useful. They were only stepping stones for what he had plans to do in the future, however. Not yet having the resources to turn these bugs into something truly groundbreaking, they could still function as tracking devices.

Having burned down sands from the beaches on Jaya Birdie had come large volumes of the material he based these chips off of, silicon. Not as easy as it sounds as he's been working on mastering the conjuration of this material for a long time now and feels he just now got it right. Having had his grunts insure his lab was deep cleaned and spotless, he also had it covered in a sheet of plastic to avoid contamination from even dust. Implanting another layer of silicon, specially modified to be non-conductive as opposed to the base layer for this chip, he carefully welded it together with a precise administration of heat. Now dusting the chip with a specially concocted mixture that made the chip receptive to certain wavelengths for the tracking, he'd prepare to encrypt the bug. Two thin rubber coated wire with the copper strands on the ends exposed, he gave them a test by pressing their ends together, this action generating electricity in the form of sparks flying and a bit of smoke trailing for the heat and bits of copper wire being burned. Putting on of his Eye-Scopes on his eye, he closed the other and zoomed in on the first chip he'd encrypt. Being able to operate with precision and on the most minute scale of things was crucial and was what he'd do. Carefully with surgeon like selectiveness with his movements he worked the wires together against the body of the conductive areas of the chip and engraved and encrypted it with the bug. When met with the wavelength he'd channel with his tracking device, it'd cause a surge of electricity to cause a shortage to whatever the chip was integrated into. It would only be momentary of course. As would his term of focus on his chips, but alas he was done anyways.

"Come in, leave your shoes outside." Was Birdie's response to the knocking at the door. It was his messenger from Alabasta, presumably with a letter from Emperor Star. Taking off his gloves and removing himself from the work area, he read the letter.

Dear Birdie,

I would like to apologize Birdie for the long wait for my reply I have though long, and hard about your asking price. Even though my resources is limited I have decide to accepted the offer you made me. I'm currently gathering the Beli of you asking price. A week or so from this letter your Beli will be send to you. I hope this transaction will be go smoothly until next time.

Sincerely Emperor Star

Birdie rubbed his chin at what made the Emperor take so long to respond. Had he found another prospective seller? Birdie couldn't be too sure, but he did know he had a sale right now. "Alright, you should already have the items for him correct?" The messenger nodded. "No need for a letter in reply, ship him his things and notify me when the Beli gets here. And give this to Verde on your way off." Birdie handed the messenger the envelop with the seal on it and dismissed him. Things were going fairly well for Birdie now. He hoped this would be the first seal of many between the Emperor and him.

[Exit