Mach and Shrike materialized a good distance away from the Navi Shop, but only a dozen or so feet from the ground. Since landing was a bit precarious now, he decided to touch down in the relatively open link transfer area. However, he soon realized it might not be as "safe" as he expected. His "view" rapidly became filled with a latticework of icons so overlapped they were near impossible to decipher; each program that lay ahead within his detection range popped up on his "scope." The movement of dozens of programs made their names blur into illegible messes of text as they passed "through" one another.
Mach froze as his ruined eye blinked multiple times in a vain, muscle memory-induced attempt focus itself and try to make sense of the blurred mess ahead. Though blind, he was getting sensor overload from his replacement "eyes." Mach groaned aloud, dazzled and getting increasingly frustrated. While he could just turn the thing off, wandering around completely blind wasn't a good option, and Shrike wasn't designed to be a seeing-eye SP. He needed another option.
A thought flashed in his mind: his vision essentially became a radar scope. Normally, it's displayed from a top-down perspective, not from the user's first-person point of view. His engines didn't get the chance to fully spool back down before he kicked his throttles back up to get airborne once again. As soon as he got enough lift, he threw the SP and himself into a rapid climb. It seemed to work; the amorphous mess of signal returns started to fragment and spread out. As he climbed, he could finally get a sense of depth and the names above each "hit" became distinct enough to be legible. He leveled off and hanged in the air for a while so his mind could get a brief rest from the sensory overload. It was certainly a relief...
About a minute later, he picked up speed to head towards the Navi Shop. As he did, he spoke up to Mazer. "Found an issue." Mazer, who was quietly watching with a look of concentration on his face, responded. "From that rapid climb... wait, you didn't have depth perception; that's the issue, right?" Mach was spared the need to explain, which was a small relief. "Exactly. I need to be able to adjust my detection range, or filter out extraneous data," the Navi exclaimed as the NaviShop became ever closer. "Okay, I'll see what I can do. Another option would be to add another sensor to give you binocular vision, or something else to at least replicate depth perception," Mazer suggested just prior to Mach's descent towards the shop below.
Thankfully the walls of the shop would act as a buffer between him and the other returns from outside, but it was still a bit difficult to navigate due to the excess clutter. After finding his footing, he made his way to the first program that had the name "TempoMan" that appeared to be behind a counter and not near another program. He moved slowly and deliberately, not wanting to accidentally run into a display and/or other programs on the way.
Upon reaching the counter and who he assumed was one of the TempoMen that ran the shop, he produced a zenny datapacket. "I'd like two NC expansions with a Megafolder +2 program, and one Process Upgrade please," Mach requested in a conversational and polite, yet cold tone.
((Upgrades owned: PU 49, NC 17, HP 7 (combined 24)))
NC 18, 19: 14250
Megafolder +2: 7000
PU 50: 5000
Total: 26250
