Some Text Illustrations from StarCluster 4: Dark Orbital

The Free Clinics:

Gendy brought the bloody boy in to the Tors Clinic. “I found him.” she said. “I found him in my alley. Like this.” she gestured, “Well, whaddya want,” growled the clinician. “A fucking prize?” “No, duh! You gotta fix him up!” The clinician looked down at the boy. “I dunno, he looks like a lotta work.” He pushed the boy with his toe. “Covered in blood he is.” “Yeah, well...” Gendy hesitated. “He had this on him...” She handed the clinician a bag with a few tokens in it. The clinician looked in the bag and looked at Gendy, frowning. “And I was saving this, for a special occasion, y’know? But you can have it.” She handed him a bottle of scotch. “It’s the real deal. Still sealed.” The clinician cracked the seal, sniffed, and sipped. “Alright, deal.” Gendy looked sadly at the bottle. “He’s gonna owe me big!”

Getting Prosthetics at a Chop Shop:

“Uh oh! Shit!...” said the doc, Jasmine “Rocky” Raccoon. “Uh oh what?” cried Mungo, the patient. “This new IR eye is too big!” said Rocky. “I had to order it from my cousin Joey... I mean the Tinker! A month ago so it would be ready today!” “Gaddamn it! You already took my eye out!” complained Mungo. “We’ll just have to make it fit!” reassured Rocky, revving up the grinder. “You gonna grind down the eye case?” querried Mungo. “Hell no! That’s too delicate! I’ll grind out your eye socket!"

Maintenance:

Ulmet Striper waddled down the alley. There it was, L18-U46-5224J. He measured - a definite wobble! Pretty good shape otherwise! Not that anyone would detect it - his instruments were much more discriminating than human senses, and technically all grav plates wobbled a little - but he could confidently say it was faulty, and bypass the lie detectors. He whistled as he assigned the plate to scrap. He set up work barriers, and pulled the plate up from the street grid and replaced it, logging the number into the grid. All fixed! He headed back to Maintenance HQ. Of course. in Hellmouth Alley, he met his buddy Frank, and set the plate aside while he chatted. He very carefully did not see the plates switched. He said goodby to Frank, and headed to Scrap to hand in this sadly worn and dinged up plate, which was, as far as he knew, L18-U46-5224J. He whistled happily. It was good to be a conscientious worker!