Eric looked at the equipment on his workbench dully. 
"Let me guess its jamming?"
He deftly disassembled the stock of the rifle, his flying robot 'bugs' swinging in tools and parts as if a giant hive mind was at work. 
"People never seem to grease these right, there is a small locking mechanism right where the stock meets the assembly and people never think to oil it..."

Eric took a pair of very thin needle nose pliers and popped out what looked to others as a small block. In the meantime small bugs hovered around to Chastity and started poking her hand. She eventually got the picture and outstretched her hand and the small bot scanned it before going over to some machine in this maze of a shop, stopping to pick up her rifle stock form the workbench on the way.

"You see the lock has nothing to do with firing, but if you have ever built anything above a standard C class rifle you know there is a hollow cavity in there where grit and debris from a gummy lock can get into the nooks and crannies of the barrel slide. Compound that with kinetic shock, such has a heavy amount of firing or I don't know, something as crude as hitting someone with it..."

Eric paused and looked down his nose at her before snickering.

"Really its quite ridiculous that you would every pay someone to do such an mediocre job. I'm positive you would have been able to clean and oil the barrel to the same standard. No it takes at modicum of knowledge to know the real problem and fix it. But I suppose that is why you came to me!"

Eric spoke rapidly has he worked not pausing to take a breath. A bug had returned with the small metallic box that they now understood to be some sort of locking mechanism. Eric reinserted it and set the half disassembled weapon aside and looked down at the mercury.

"I took the liberty of cleaning and then carbon plating the lock, it is not the best solution but we slummers don't exactly get the best resources down here. It will not jam due to that particular issue unless you subject it to a rather astonishing amount of heat or manage to survive these streets and keep that weapon for another 10 years... Which makes me think..."

Eric looked at her obviously measuring her up...

"Why are you useful? We are all tools, you see, some are hammers and some are nails."

He examined her curved and slim clothing bugs instantly swarming her, little red globes of 'eyes' scanning her, pulling lightly on her hair and shining light into her eyes. Despite the obvious destination of his stare it was a cool calculating look in his eyes, as if he was running through a lists of purposes and seeing where she fit in the equation. Or if she was a rusted wrench that needed to be disposed of. 

"No..." He glanced back to his workbench the bugs instantly dispersing. "you are much more subtle then that..."

"Oh! A mercury! I love these little guys, I have a few of my bugs based of this little model. Yes he is getting a little old but there are few that match his charm" 

ZAP!

A bug had at one time hovered over to Ryan and zapped his hand holding the briefcase. 
Eric kept working, apparently oblivious to the situation. 

"Poor guy has just been tweaked a little, nothing he can't recover from. You really should take better care of your tools Ms." 

Eric was bending tiny rods with a strange pair of pliers that had some sort of spring mechanism in the handle. 

"Oh I always wanted to see how well an infrared imprint would register on an optic array! Perfect timing!" 

Eric turned abruptly to a small workstation and started typing furiously, "Yes! This should go well." A small beeped registered from the console and was immediately repeated by a rather round bug that flew strait at Chastity's eye while another flew up to hold her hair out of the way. 

"Stay Still!!!" Eric shouted grinning wildly.

A quick blast of freezing air into her eye and then a rather unsettling red flash accompanied by a burning sensation in her eye socket that she didn't quite feel but senses. 

"I wouldn't try to play with that particular toy for at least an hour." 

ZAP!!!

This time Eric turned to face Ryan, "Name?" 

A dangerous smile flashed across his face.
"Yes, well you should probably give up that case, he will get rather incessant shortly. I haven't had the pleasure of working on a Gauss rifle in years."

"Now for you..." Eric said giving Bo his full attention, "I have a rather special creation you might enjoy..." A series of flying robot swarmed the stocky man tracing his arms, legs, and chest at varying distances. "It will take some minor tweaking but I think you will find it more to your taste." Eric said, looking significantly at the man's axe. 

"Now Ms. what is your name, and are you in?" Eric said to Chastity simply.