for worldbuidling wednesday instead of requesting general asks, i'd like to talk about my gay dirt boy ayers!
he's a scavenger who was giving the power delivery research and development team a lot of trouble but now he provides them with scrap he's scavenged to recycle, and tesla doesn't ask too many questions about where he got it from (because of the influence of early ridgeback settlements i think in the "modern" day shifting expanse there are "don't ask don't tell" laws or practices on the providence of some materials). he is a huge asshole and has been a loner for a long time. he lost his leg after trying to scavenge a huge ass spire on his own and getting trapped under it during a cold night while trying to get it to his base. when he was found, llueve had to amputate it. his scars act up when it'll rain.
he's very close with the android beta.v2, since on discovering the extremely sad living wildclaw automaton being forced to guard the source (thanks to some minor meddling from auggie), he stole him away and took him to tesla's workshop, which alerted her to the fact that her employers plagiarised her work and used it in the one circumstance she explicitly told them not to. it's an open secret where the stolen automaton is, but if they acknowledge its existence they'll admit to having kept it against its will and stolen tesla's work, so they leave it alone. anyway, beta and ayers are really really close, and ayers doesn't like to admit how close he is to beta or how much he like spending time with him, and beta has very little context for what any of this means. but ayers makes him feel like how his roses do. and beta makes ayers look back on his life of being alone and think he looked lonely.
so yeah! that's ayers :]
