<div></div><br> <br>Outside the generator shed in New Dawn, Alex, a male lynx made entirely of rubber and latex is busy shouting at a human, garbed in an RSX uniform. "What do you mean more? That is how much twenty five gallons cost last time!" To which the human simply replies, "Diesel is getting slim, friend, it is going to be anohter 500,000 freecred for the lot." Alex holds his head a moment as it swims, "Another 500,000!? You have to be insane! You are just trying to bleed us dry!" The human shakes his head, "If you can't pay, that isn't our problem, but what little electroncis you prommies use will quickly shut down without that generator of yours." Alex looks over to the shed and gives a growl, but has no other answer.<br> <br>A phoenix strides by, gaze averted and to the ground, tapping her beak in thought. Rorne is, though, jarred from this as she turns to see the lynx and human arguing about the price of diesel. She steps back a bit and to the side, staying out of the way, and also avoiding getting involved without having more information, a better idea as to what is going on. She has no idea if the price is justified, but it definitely doesn't seem so. In any case, she keeps her gaze on the two of them, thinking and observing in silence. Maybe someone else will know better what to do than her, and she could assist in some way.<br> <br>Steady.....steady, this was definitly not the smartest way to cart around a box full of books. But, what can you do when the box decides to break? Angus muttered as he carried the teetering tower in his arms, hoping that none would decide to dive off of the pile and hit any passerbys. His focus was fully on his work, before of course the Lynx starts to yell about the price of diesel, now thats definitly a distraction. The coyote stopped in his track, frowning as he eyed the exchange with curiosity, before he turned to regard Rorne. "Hey Rorne.....mind telling me what pinky and squeaky are arguing about?"<br> <br>The squeaky skunk carefully counted her footsteps, one right after the other as she follows around the edge of the building, measuring it out. "Sixty seven, sixty eight..." She pauses at the corner, looking up at the Phoenix and the Coyote. Scuffing a mark on the ground and scribbling a number in next to it, she hikes up her makeshift dress, straightening it around her belly. "You heard that too?" She hops over to the duo, peering out on one foot to see if she can make out where the commotion is coming from. "Seems, uh... Well. I don't know the current prices, but five hundred thousand more..?"<br> <br>Mordici casuall on a wander, he brings up his smoke taking another drag as he continues to walk.. His eyes close for a moment, the sound of arguments was something a bit.. different then the normal, though fighting is all the same in this day and age.  The crazy cart driver was something of attetion grabbing. Shrugging a bit, he wanders towards the gathering "so what is going on?" he asked curiously<br> <br>Slumping slighly Alex looks to the human, "We wouldn't even need this crap if..." and he growls again, "But.." that is when Rorne, Angus, Cardison and Mordici arrive, and he looks around, "Now.. where did?" he starts, but shakes his head, "No the price is outragious! Who could afford that!?" To which the human replies, "The mall rats and Z had no problems with the price hike." Rather non-chaluntly. This makes Alex growl some more. "We need this fuel! Or else we can't run the machines for our farms, nor for the nanite devices!" He calls out, but the human seems unimpressed, "Then you'd best pay right?" Sighing softly Alex picks up a comm device with a screen, checking the funds reserve. "I.... is there some way we could negotiate another price?" He asks, and would be sweeting if he could.<br> <br>With a quick sigh, Rorne looks to everyone that had gathered. She then looks to Alex and the human, still thinking pretty hard. She mutters to herself, "That's a pretty big price hike." She looks back to Angus, giving him a quick nod. "Hey, Angus. Here's the quick version: This rubber lynx," she gestures to Alex, "needs gas for the generator to run things here in New Dawn, but this human," she gestures to the human, "I think from RSX, doubled the price. They're having problems with paying, which, as the lynx said, is going to be bad." She looks to the human, tilts her head, and then asks, gently, "As the lynx asked, is there a way a different price could be negotiated?"<br> <br>"Ah, I see." The coyote quickly commented back, already moving to set his books on the ground, already cringing as he probably will ruin a few of their covers. "Surely there must be somthing else that can be traded for, I'm betting that New dawn has some surplus supplies that RSX needs?" Angus was a prommie himself, so the thought of the price being a little unfair did annoy him slightly.<br> <br>Cardison scratches her head, fingers squeaking across the multicolored surface. "People told me this was how RSX operated, but I hadn't seen it for myself," she murmurs. Looking around the facilities, she hums softly. Little numbers appear in front of her face as she surveys, notes of previously mesasured buildings, what she found, who was there. "I could always run down to the Mall Rats and Z and see if that's actually the price you charged them, if honesty is an issue here."<br> <br>Mordici looks towards the RSX Operator and then towards Alex.. "If you really want to pay that price, go ahead however I suggest you tell this guy to take the fuel and shove it up his own ass. I know that it will cost him more to transport this stuff out of fairhaven then to sell it to you here and now. And for fuel? You are in no fear of lack of alternatives.. The Zephyr have a Cafeteria so you know they have Friers, and the Mall Rats have friers in the mall's food court, you should offer to remove the used, dirty, unusable cooking oil from there and use that to produce your own Bio-fuels. I am sure one of the books in the Library has information about how to do it - or perhaps one of the Zephyr scientists or one of the Other Prommies.." he gives a slow shrug "Price increase that was said isn't something that is easily ignored, and if the price cannot be paid then it is best to spend what you normally make in creating an alternative... You do have some fuel in reserve that you can use temporarily correct?"<br> <br>Looking over the funds that he has avilible to him, Alex holds his head, "Yes, could.. we offer food? Or... some other supplies?" He says, and the RSX human just shakes his head, "Freecred or nothing." He says back. Alex seems very distraught for a moment, that is till Mordici suggests alternative fuels, "Old frier greese? That.. might work.." and the human humphs, "If you aren't needing this," and Alex interupts him, "Wait, wait, what options do we really have?" As Alex says this, he thinks, wondering if this trade would be better, or what other options might exist.<br> <br>"Nothing about lowering the price, of course," Rorne states flatly, closing her eyes. She sighs in a minor bit of frustration, but then takes a deep breath, opens them again, and looks to the human once more. If anything, she'd help the Prometheans pay, should it come to that, but she'd prefer against it for now: She has her own expenses to worry about. "Look, it's obvious they're going to have problems paying, and, as the dragon pointed out, it's going to be expensive transporting it back. Is there any way a lower price can be negotiated at all? I'm quite sure it would be better to sell it for less instead of not at all."<br> <br>Angus rolls his eyes. Figures, Freecreds or a no show. "Well, you have Solar power. Which will help a little but not solve the problem. You also have wind, geothermal, Bio fuel, the list goes on and on friend." The coyote finally starts to smile as he regards the two unfamilar faces that seem the be trying to help as well, before he turns back to the situation. "But then again, the phrase time is money comes to mind. And some profit is better then no profit."<br> <br>Cardison keeps her gaze elsewhere, not letting her "threat" get compromised by showing weakness. She snaps her fingers at Mord's mention, pointing. "Yeah! I remember that! It was starting to get big right before P-Day. They said it everything smell like french fries, but the cars converted to it ran fine. Didn't take much to convert over, if I remember right. You might have to go up to Washington for stuff on that - Big green movement up there, so there's more chance of finding stuff unless you want to risk a trip into Oregon." Turning around, she offers the Lynx an apologetic smile. "Really, if you think he's scamming you, we could find out for certain. Ask the Rats if he's charging Z the same price, and if they got a lower price, well..." She gives the agent a look. "Then there'd be some explaining to do."<br> <br>Mordici slowly nods his head.. "You actually have different ways to use the oil, one way you process the oil to make it usable as diseal and the other you somehow heat the oil to make it usuable - while starting the engine with normal diseal.. not really sure how this works." he then gives a slow shrug "Or.. we can make an offer." he looks to the human "how would you like to be able to store barrels here? In return, you give then a reduced price and aid in the research of alternative fuel sources?"<br> <br>Listening to all the alternative, Alex seems to brighten up, "Wind, Bio Fuel, well, seems we have options then!" The human seems to scoff a bit, "Of course we charge the same price all around, but if you aren't interested.." he jumps back into his truck, and starts it up. "Well, not at this time, but we'll see." Says Alex, then he turns to everyone, "So.. how do we go about starting this up?" he asks as the human drives off toward the gates. "I mean, it was work getting that generator up and running in the first place? HOw could we harvest wind? What other fuels could we use? Are there other options?" He seems very excited as his tail coils over and over again, scratching his squeeky chin.<br> <br>As the human drives away, Rorne sighs once more, shaking her head. "Well, hope this is worth it," she mutters. She then takes a look up, looking above everyone, still thinking to herself. "Solar panels to collect solar energy could work. I can tell you how they'd work, for the most part, but getting them to work would be someone elses job. My apologies there. In any case, if that is a decided upon solution, I'll gladly assist there." She looks back at everyone, giving a quick nod. "As for harnessing the other energies... I'd have to think for a bit about those. Especially geothermal."<br> <br>Angus coughs as the human drives away, waving his hand in front of his face thanks to the exhaust. "Sheesh, that one must really love his job." Tapping his chin he tried to recall what he knew about Geothermal or any of the other alternate sources of energy.....and his mind totaly blanked. "well Um.....I know that geothermal uses hot water from inside the earth....but at the moment I can't seem to recall anything....The library is definitly the place to go." He nodded, feeling like a complete idiot as he stands there.<br> <br>Cardison frowns at the truck as it leaves, coughing as well, though mostly for effect. "Well, he was a jerk." Sighing as she turns back to face the similarly latexified Promethean, she offers him a nervous smile. "You could also try to improve the way you use any backup power you currently have. Older batteries had a lot of issues if you were drawing and charging at the same time. If you could set up a system to reduce doing both from a single battery at any given time, your batteries would last longer and hold a better charge over time. That might help in the long run?"<br> <br>Mordici wanders to the generator and devices connected to it.. thinking of a way that the alternative fuel source could actually work.. which his mind is busy with the current task and not much goes through as for the fuel idea - he notices that some parts of the batteries are not .. well.. are not there.. he points this out to Alex that they would need to be fixed and repaired in the way stated to make it work it's optimum way.<br> <br>Looking around at everyone, then the generator set up, Alex thinks long and hard, "Solar power... wind... hey, we could use the river too! Ok, I'll have to set things up with Nichole, but, wow, thank you all! I'll get on this, I figured out how to rig this up, I'll think of something. Just leave some notes please, for me to use." He gets to work looking over the batteries, "Oh, I know, but I had to use what I had." He says, and gets out a notebook and a pin from his pockets. "Now, how exactly do you think it should work? maybe like this?" he says as he starts drawing up designs and ideas based on what is already said. It will be a lot of work, but New Dawn will soon be free of the use of such old style fuels!