A Familiar Feeling, Dangerous Modification
Arthur Sterling sat in the passenger seat of the roaring yellow Camaro, quite pleased with Old Parker's lavish flattery. He knew the older mechanic wasn't just blowing smoke; what Old Parker said was the absolute truth in this adrenaline-fueled city.
Dominic Toretto and his tightly knit crew's high-performance cars were all heavily modified right there at Old Parker's repair shop. For every major structural modification—take Dom's legendary 1970 Dodge Charger as the prime example—the math was staggering.
That old-fashioned piece of American muscle only cost a few tens of thousands of dollars back in its prime. But from the quiet invoices and shop whispers Arthur had gathered during his time turning wrenches, the sheer volume of illicit modification costs Dom had sunk into that single Dodge Charger over the years had already wildly exceeded two million dollars!
In the hidden back bays of the repair shop, Dom had as many as four entirely different sets of mechanical configurations prepared just for that monstrous Charger.
There were highly tuned setups specifically for maximizing raw, straight-line horsepower, finely balanced setups for enhancing overall handling and cornering performance, and various heavy, welded protective reinforcement modifications for surviving brutal impacts.
Dom had even prepared military-standard towing equipment and heavy-duty winches for that car.
Not to mention the vast array of rotating, fake license plates and multi-colored, peel-away paint jobs designed to instantly confuse highway patrol helicopters.
Obviously, some of these intricate setups were strictly prepared for Dom to dominate and participate in the fiercely competitive underground street racing competitions. Others, however, were explicitly designed for carrying out highly coordinated, high-speed highway robberies.
Therefore, before every single illicit operation, Dom would meticulously perform a targeted, mission-specific modification.
And right there at the repair shop, every single heavy modification required skilled, trusted hands to help. Old Parker would participate personally, plunging his own calloused hands into the engine bays, and he would also bring along a few of his oldest, most trusted buddies from the circuit.
The quiet hush money they could reliably get for each dangerous modification they participated in was substantial.
Although Arthur didn't know the exact, specific dollar amount, judging entirely from the few lucrative side jobs he had already taken, it absolutely shouldn't be too little.
Well, that impressive sum was only a massive fortune when compared to the meager earnings of ordinary, law-abiding workers.
Arthur Sterling was a man armed with an impossible proficiency system. This relatively small amount of dirty money was absolutely not his ultimate, final pursuit. So, not wanting to get lost in dreams of future wealth, he quickly changed the subject, his voice cutting through the rumble of the Camaro's V8 engine.
"Parker, you still haven't said what the actual job is today!"
Old Parker, who was casually driving with one hand on the wheel, blinked in surprise. He genuinely didn't expect Arthur to be completely unmoved by the promise of becoming the city's richest, most famous mechanic. Seeing the young man's cold focus, Parker was clearly choked up, his grand, painted vision of the future abruptly cut short.
It took the older man a long moment to recover his rhythm, and he replied somewhat sullenly, his eyes fixed on the darkening road. "It's a modification job, Arthur. But it's a big one."
"The other party needs several vehicles modified simultaneously, and the combat performance requirements are extremely high," Parker explained, his tone shifting into strict business. "Among all my guys at the shop, only Vincent and you actually have the delicate technical skills for it."
"But Vincent's wife is pregnant right now. He has some serious reservations about the heat this might bring, and he wisely doesn't plan to take this specific job."
This was said very subtly, but Arthur's enhanced [Intelligence] instantly understood the heavy implication. He reckoned that this particular modification probably wasn't that simple or clean. It likely wasn't like the relatively safe jobs he had taken in the past, where he was just helping to tweak and tune race cars for some local underground competitions.
It was very, very possible that this time, the shadowy other party was exactly like Dom and his crew—a highly organized syndicate planning to actively engage in some violent, 'cost-free' business on the streets.
Arthur understood the severe criminal implications perfectly in his heart, but although he got the dangerous message loud and clear, he genuinely didn't care.
He was a man navigating a combined cinematic universe; he didn't care whether the sprawling city of Los Angeles burned in chaos or not.
Right now, his absolute most urgent pursuit was that he needed to get massive amounts of money quickly to relentlessly level up his skills, obtain more crucial free attribute points, and exponentially increase the dimensional size of his hidden private space.
Old Parker drove him around the winding, darkening streets for quite a while, intentionally taking a convoluted route to shake any potential tails, before they finally arrived at a heavily weathered, neon-lit bar.
Arthur glanced at the somewhat remote, rundown bar, its flickering signs buzzing in the smoggy night air, and wondered if such a secluded, forgotten place would actually have any legitimate business.
After the two of them pushed through the heavy wooden doors and went inside, sure enough, even though it was already prime drinking hours in the night, business in the dark bar wasn't great at all.
At a quick glance, there were only seven or eight rough-looking people sitting at the scarred wooden tables, quietly drinking. They sat together in tight, hushed groups of two or three. However, the overall atmosphere was surprisingly nice and calm; everyone was just talking quietly among themselves, fiercely guarding their own privacy without disturbing each other.
Arthur just took a quick, highly observant sweep of the dim bar; everyone present was a hardened white male, without even a single black guy or Asian in sight. The racial tension in these hidden pockets of the city could be unpredictable, but Arthur had a fully loaded Colt M1911 resting comfortably in his dimensional private space, so he wasn't overly worried about any extreme, violent racists trying to start trouble with him.
In Los Angeles, while those kinds of aggressively prejudiced people weren't nearly as common or bold as they were in places like the deep south of Texas, they weren't exactly a rare breed either. It was always far better to be safe and heavily armed than sorry!
"Boer, two whiskies on the rocks," Old Parker called out smoothly, clearly a frequent, trusted regular here. He sat down heavily at the polished mahogany bar and ordered the drinks.
The middle-aged white man behind the counter, who was either the dedicated bartender or the owner of the establishment, offered a silent, respectful nod to Old Parker. As he reached for the glasses, his sharp, calculating gaze lingered on Arthur for a long moment, appearing somewhat deeply scrutinizing.
Looking into the man's weathered face, Arthur thought the bartender looked incredibly familiar, as if he belonged on a movie poster, but with his rapidly expanding memories crossing wires, he couldn't quite recall exactly where he had seen him for the moment.
Seeing that the bartender quickly looked away, turning his broad back to get the expensive drinks from the glowing liquor cabinet behind him, Arthur also calmly withdrew his intense gaze.
Soon, two heavy crystal glasses of amber liquor were placed sharply in front of Old Parker and Arthur. The ice clinked softly against the glass. Along with the drinks, the bartender smoothly and silently slid a tightly folded, unmarked note and a heavy brass key across the sticky wood.
Old Parker expertly took the brass key, slipping it into his grease-stained pocket. He opened and briefly looked at the note, his eyes scanning the brief coordinates, and then casually lit it with his Zippo lighter, dropping the burning paper into a nearby metal ashtray until it was nothing but ash.
Arthur was more than a bit curious about what was precisely written on the paper. However, Old Parker said absolutely nothing about it, sitting in comfortable silence until they both finished their strong drinks.
"Let's go!" Parker commanded, wiping his mouth.
As soon as the two glasses of whiskey were drained, Old Parker tossed a crumpled bill onto the bar to pay the tab. Then he motioned to Arthur, and they left the establishment together, stepping back out into the cool ocean breeze.
California state law also has incredibly strict regulations against drunk driving. However, limited entirely by stretched police resources and the unfortunate cultural fact that many Americans have a stubborn, ingrained habit of driving immediately after drinking... they are rarely caught unless they are incredibly unlucky enough to run into a random sobriety checkpoint or get into a violent accident.
Combined with a naturally casual and wildly loose attitude towards the law, Americans who continue to casually drive after having a few heavy drinks are practically everywhere on the road. It wasn't a good or safe habit at all, but Arthur couldn't control the actions of others, so he simply strapped himself securely into the passenger seat.
After another long, winding round of driving through the industrial district, they finally arrived at a massive, isolated warehouse sitting near the shipping docks.
Arthur got out of the idling car, the smell of salt and diesel heavy in the air, and Old Parker parked the Camaro casually in the shadows.
"We're here!"
Old Parker used the heavy brass key he had just covertly gotten in the bar to unlock the thick steel warehouse door. The hinges groaned loudly in the quiet night.
He stepped inside and fumbled for the main breaker switch. A row of harsh, industrial lights flickered on, illuminating the massive space. Arthur immediately saw three completely stock, unmodified cars parked perfectly in the center of the nearly three-hundred-square-meter warehouse.
One of them was a pristine Buick GL8, a highly spacious, mid-to-large-size MPV designed for comfortably moving a team of people.
Another was an imposing, jet-black Chevrolet Suburban, a massively heavy, armored-looking large SUV often seen being driven by ruthless government agents in Hollywood blockbuster movies. Arthur had a profound, real liking for this specific, aggressive model; he absolutely loved massive, intimidating large SUVs like this. Whether in his mundane previous life or this dangerous, cinematic new one, the heavy Chevrolet Suburban was secretly his absolute top choice for a personal first car.
As for the final car sitting in the lineup, it was a sleek, unassuming Volkswagen Passat, which was widely considered one of the most reliable, best-selling German models currently on the US market.
Arthur's analytical gaze only lingered briefly on the common Volkswagen Passat before smoothly moving on. After slowly circling the three silent vehicles a few times, letting his [Repair] instincts map their chassis structures...
Arthur stopped, looked directly at Old Parker, and asked, "Parker, do all three of these cars need to be heavily modified?"
"Yeah," the older man nodded grimly.
"How exactly?"
Old Parker leaned against the heavy fender of the Suburban. "I'm just bringing you here today to get you fully familiar with the hidden workspace. The unknown client has quite a few strict, non-negotiable requirements for these builds: massively powerful horsepower, thick, heavy steel armor specifically designed for crashing and ramming, and absolutely, under no circumstances, any stalling or failing to start at critical moments!"
"I'll have all the specific, high-end modification parts and heavy armor plating secretly delivered here within the next three days," Parker continued. "You won't have much time at all for this run, and it's just you working entirely alone to minimize the risk of a leak."
"So you don't need to show up to the main repair shop for the next few days. I'm giving you exactly one week to finish all the complex modifications, and someone very dangerous will come here to inspect the final work personally then."
Arthur thought to himself that this was indeed an incredibly dangerous, high-stakes modification job. Hearing these brutal, combat-oriented requirements, he had some highly accurate, dark guesses about the exact purpose of these reinforced vehicles.
It's probably for moving heavy smuggling weight, fighting in violent, armed gang conflicts, or acting as an indestructible, quick getaway convoy after a massive bank robbery, he mused silently.
But since it absolutely wasn't his business who lived or died in these steel cages, he didn't care to say anything more. He simply nodded his head and confidently asked the one question he actually cared about most: "What about my payment?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars in untraceable cash," Old Parker stated firmly. "Five thousand flat per car."
This was indeed a massive, life-changing lot of money for an eighteen-year-old mechanic, almost equivalent to half a year's legitimate salary for his struggling predecessor. Although Arthur's sharp mind knew Old Parker must be secretly making much, much more off the top as the broker.
But since Arthur currently didn't have those deep underworld connections and vast criminal networks himself, he didn't hesitate for a single second.
He agreed to the violent job quite straightforwardly.