Chapter 20 –
It was one thing to hear on the news that the badges were mobilizing in full force to find me, find my tech. It was another to see it firsthand driving to Becca's home deep into Watson Northside.
There were patrols, drones, checkpoints, fucking minotaur mechs functionally everywhere. There wasn't a single street that was not being searched or looked into by the police. But despite all of that, avoiding them had been pretty easy thanks to Becca guiding me through Watson to her apartment.
Honestly, the thing that was really getting my nerves on edge was the fact that I could just tell that Becca wanted to start asking me hundreds upon hundreds of questions, but she was holding herself back till we were both a bit more comfortable inside her home.
Becca's apartment was on the far end of Watson Industrial Northside, on the very edge of the district. The badges being in force, even all the way out here showed exactly how serious they were, how much they were expending in their search for me and my tech.
"Holy shit, Zain! I didn't think it was even possible to get that much excitement out of driving around Watson, god damn!" She breathed as we stepped inside, closing the door behind us "That has got to be the highest number of the pigs out and about in quite some time. It's only just short of MaxTac being let loose far as I can remember."
I nodded in acknowledgement, shifting the crate in my arms. MaxTac being not involved was a blessing I hadn't thought I would be afforded after everything that's happened. Especially after seeing the way the media was spinning the shootout with the scavs on that rooftop.
I hope that working on the Cyberware for Vik's patients would be enough of a distraction for the night to keep my head away from the insanity of all that. I had brought the Cyberware that I needed to fix up to her apartment with us.
I wanted to at least start working on them tonight how much ever I can, to have them fixed by morning. I didn't have time to waste so I was hoping to take care of the rest of my priorities throughout the night after talking to Becca and getting her on board to help me with my plans for the Mox, my business and to have all this attention off me in some reliable way.
Becca was, after all, the only person I know that I can somewhat trust who has worked in this kind of mercenary, edgerunner lifestyle amongst gangsters, fixers, corps etc.
"It's a good thing you know your way around the district so well." I said catching my breath from having to climb three flights of stairs with all the weight. The elevator in this building was out of commission. "When we left the motel, I thought it was going to get dicey getting to your place without coming across some of the badges or Arasaka security."
"You can thank Falco for that, my crew's driver." Becca grinned in pride, "The old man loves to spend his time racing around the city. Spend enough time with him, and you'll know every last route through the city like the back of your hand."
Becca's apartment was a mess. Clothes and junk were strewn over everywhere, laundry piled on chairs, scattered across the floor. A half-eaten locust pizza sat on the kitchenette counter. Her underwear was hanging off the wooden partition that divided the large unit into two.
This was close to the state some of the dorm rooms some of my friends had a year into university back home.
… Apart from the tech that she had sporting around the place.
There was a BD feeder unit beside the TV, which hung above a pair of worn-down couches, displaying holo-ads. Near the bed, a low workbench was stacked with old repair tools and underneath the table was a box of unused old faulty Cyberware; arms, hands, even a pair optical eyeballs, and other such implants buried under layers of dust.
Those could be useful… I had planned to slip into my warehouse during the night to get some resources, but this saved me the hassle and the time it would take to look for shit in there.
I want to come clean with Becca about a lot of things tonight, but I can't tell her about the forge quite yet. Honestly, after everything that happened with Archie tonight I am a little apprehensive of ever coming clean about it to anybody in any capacity. But that would counter productive to my long term goal of being a positive force in this time and place.
Honesty, at least with people on whom I want to rely on, should come first with that kind of a mindset.
I set the crate on the coffee table and nodded toward the pile. "I didn't know you like to tinker with tech yourself. The tools look high-spec. Think I can borrow them? I want to start working on the implants for Vik's at some point tonight"
Becca peeled off her jacket with a wince, her damaged arm giving her discomfort leaving her in her sports bra and briefs. She tossed the jacket on the partition with the rest of her hanging clothes and started unloading the weapons from under it on her kitchen counter.
She set down her two pistols, the cryo shotgun, and a handful of knives and grenades next to the pizza box, then glanced over at me.
"Yeah, go for it," she said, taking a bite from the cold slice of locust pizza. "The entire set were Pilar's. He got flatlined so I don't think he's going to mind."
I do not feel proud that I couldn't stop myself from chuckling at the morbid joke.
Becca grinned up at me, having caught me chuckling with a face full of her bite of pizza, as she walked over to the pile near the bed after a moment, and started digging, searching through the mess for something while mumbling something I couldn't understand with her full mouth.
"Need help? What are you looking for?" I offered.
She shook her head, gulping down her bite "No, I got this! It's… there!", she stumbled back, falling on her ass pulling out a pair of silver-colored titanium forearm.
They looked very sleek and I could sense that they were functional, lightweight, capable of precision motion of fingers for delicate work, likely surgical-grade. The high intensity laser that I could sense in the middle fingers certainly were capable of such work.
She stared at it, turning it over in her hand for a second, then pouted, faux-dejected.
"God, I hoped I'd never need to do this. This sort of thing was his territory..."
Sitting on the edge of the couch placing the implant beside her, she leaned forward, reaching awkwardly across her chest to unhook the micro-connectors at her elbow. The Gorilla arm didn't want to come off clean. The force of impact from the bullet had damaged the joint at the elbow.
She hissed through her teeth, fingers fumbling with the locking mechanism. The busted hydraulics in the arm gave a jolt, then locked up as lubricant, mixed with some blood, poured out of the massive hole through the metallic arm.
"Shit," she muttered, shaking it out. "The jack's fucking bent. Warped from the shots I took to the thing."
She braced the limb with her foot, gripping tight, and pulled hard. It was messy, and I could sense she wasn't doing it properly, she was practically trying to rip the damn thing off!
Just as I was about to step in, Becca let out a sharp grunt and finally wrenched the Gorilla arm free with a harsh twist. The locking joint gave out with a metallic pop, and she dropped the arm to the floor with a heavy thud.
"Finally," she muttered, exhaling hard, ignoring the fresh blood now trickling from the elbow jack. "Saves me a trip to Chiyo, at least."
"Holy shit, Becca! You shouldn't mess around with your implants like that! I am right here, I could have done that for you!" I rushed to help her.
Becca waved me off like it was nothing. "Pfft. I'll huff a MaxDox after a shower and it'll be fine."
She was downplaying it. I could see the way her skin around the jack was bruising, the faint twitch in her wrist even now. She wasn't fine.
Without saying anything, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a small clear bottle, swirling with a thick pale-yellow fluid.
"No, you're bleeding!" I held it out to her. "Here. I've got something better."
She eyed the container suspiciously, then looked back at me. "Oh hell, this is going to be yet another miracle that's going to blow my mind isn't it..."
"Maybe….?" I said, sheepishly forcing the bottle into her hand. "It's an Experimental regenerative compound. Look, trust me, it'll work better than any fast-acting nanite cocktail you'll get from a huffer."
Becca stared at me, really stared, like she was trying to figure out if I was fucking with her.
Then, without a word, she snatched the vial from my hand, popped the cap, sniffed it once and then shrugged and downed it in one go.
The reaction was instant.
The bleeding stopped in seconds. The raw edges around her elbow jack closed over, knitting together cleanly like they'd never been torn. The bruising faded. Her skin even gained a healthier tone under the grime.
Becca's optics glowed a bright blue for a second, likely her biomon reflecting the new data. She blinked once, twice, then looked at me in open disbelief.
"Holy shit," she breathed. "My biomon readings have never been this clean. And I'm still missing a goddamn arm!"
I smirked slightly. "Told you."
Becca looked down at her elbow, flexed her arm, stared back at me, wide-eyed.
Then finally, after holding back all the million questions bubbling in her head, she could not hold back any longer.
"Okay, no! I've got sooo many questions by now, it's insane!" She paced the room frantically, shoving past me.
"How did you survive a fucking 50 cal round?" She looked at my jacket, and clothes.
"What the fuck is this fucking miracle drug you've now pulled out of your ass?" She shook the bottle in her hand.
"I-" I tried to reply but she bulldozed on.
"Did you really cook up that cryogenic tech all by yourself, or is what everyone thinking right and you stole it from your old man's corp or something?" She clutched a chunk of her hair and rounded on me yet again.
"How many other things do you have in your bag of tricks? Are you actually cybernetically enhanced and I just can't sense that on you? Holy shit, you are! Aren't you?! You've been fucking with us all with that ganic bullshit! Tell me!"
I stood up and caught her gently by the shoulders.
"Becca," I said firmly, looking her straight in the eye. "I know you have questions. I get it. I would too if I were in your position. That's why I wanted to sit down and talk with you tonight, I … I want to tell you everything I possibly can. I … just, wait and hear me out and hopefully you will understand what I am trying to deal with here."
She froze at the touch, eyes locked with mine, breathing a little too hard, but she wasn't pulling away.
Slowly, like a valve being released, I felt her tension bleed out of her.
I gave her a small nod. "You've gone out of your way to help me, and I am neck deep in shit with everything out there. And it's not even the half of it, and I promise… I will try my best to answer every question you have."
Her eyes searched mine for a long second. She didn't say anything.
Seeing that she was thinking clearly again, I turned grabbing the heat seal from the table and tossing it toward her. "Here, you're going to want to get your arm locked in before this."
She caught it without missing a beat, shaking her head calming down and picking up the long titanium implant from beside her, and secured it into her elbow jack.
"Alright, fine! This sounds like it's gonna be a long talk," she said. "Let me get cleaned up first."
A small burst of electricity crackled out as she heat-sealed it into place, twisting the collar ring until the connections locked and the arm came to life.
She flexed the fingers once, then frowned, holding the arm up against herself.
"Damn thing's too long," she said, rotating the elbow again. "Figures he didn't have anything my size. It will do for now."
It was fascinating to see someone replace an arm in front of me. I could have done it myself, if I had tried. It was fairly simple in theory, like slotting in a modular component into a computer, but it was very interesting to observe regardless.
Becca then reached over, detached the other Gorilla arm with less struggle, and grabbed the other titanium forearm and popped it into place just like the first and flexed both arms in front of her.
"Alright," she said, standing and giving both new limbs a quick test. "I can work with these till I get a better pair of Gorillas for myself"
She still wanted to get Gorilla arms for herself?
Becca turned and tossed both her heavy Gorilla arms onto the pile of junk implants under the table with a clank.
"I'm gonna take a shower, I need to think …. this is all just so crazy…" she said, turning toward me "There's food in the fridge if you want it. Might even be a couple of Brosephs left if you're lucky. Help yourself to my fridge."
"There's probably something fun on TV if you want to relax" She said turning on the TV as she made her way to her shower "They're probably running reruns of Watson Whore on WNS. Lemme see…"
It was very thoughtful of her, maybe I can figure out a way to make a pair of Gorilla arms for her using all that she has here?
It could even be a great way to see if I can learn more about Cyberpsychosis on top of already repairing and analyzing the implants I have brought up with me here for the people over at Vik's.
"Last week on Watson Whore! Our favorite whore became the official face of Jack It Off! A sextech startup with their promo campaign... by letting every member of their dev team beta-test a new haptic feedback suit on his body. They mapped his prostate to a neural feed and live-coded his moans for sensory response speed. BD available now at Jack It Off Netpage in all major subnets. Squirt sensation BD sold seperately."
Becca glanced back, saw I wasn't listening, and grinned.
"Ooor," she said, stretching the word out, "if you want... you could join me, get out of the clothes yourself and wash up… give me something else to think about, clear both our minds…."
I looked up just as she unhooked her bra and tossed it on my face.
"What the hell was that for?" I fumbled to get it off my face.
She laughed, not missing a beat. "The hag's right. It is fun teasing you. You make the cutest faces."
"Oh, ha-ha! Very funny!" I rolled my eyes and tossed the bra back at her.
She dodged walking into the bathroom, laughing as the door slid shut behind her.
Shaking my head, still smiling faintly, I turned back toward the crate on the table.
I took a seat, cleared some space, and cracked the lid open.
I pulled the first implant set out, the two pairs of cross connected optics.
Both units were obviously designed to function independently… but they weren't. I could sense the hardwired microwave transmitter lodged just behind the pseudo corneas of each set, the subtly paired between the micro-co-processors. Without my sixth sense, I would bet it would practically impossible to pin point that it was even there.
The scavs had hardwired a shared vision protocol into them, which now that I am giving more focus to, could be used over much longer distances to share visuals between people. Perfect gear for spying, or streaming, or whatever else.
The problem was in the kind of signal being used to transmit the damn feed between each set.
Ignoring the fact that it was a bloody microwave emitter inside their eyeballs, there was no buffer between the waves and their corneas. The dumbasses had taken a miniature microwave transmitter and receiver and retrofitted to work for this. That meant if the wearers moved too far apart, even by a few feet, the sync would collapse. One eye's feed would drop milliseconds behind the other… and that's where the feedback would start.
Pain of the kind that hit the back of the skull like a hammer because their fucking corneas were burning out. If they pulled apart fast, both users would feel like their vision was being torn out of their heads.
I started dismantling the first pair immediately,
Thanks to my micromanipulator gloves, and their inherent ability to work at the microscopic level the work was pretty straight forward.
The housing was very easily dismantled, and I laid out the inner components. The lens housing, the optic nerve cable and the micro-co-processing matrix to which the offending microwave transceivers were attached.
Once again, thanks to the micromanipulators, and a few of Becca's tools it was pretty straightforward removing the practically microscopic chip from micro-co-processors and et voila the eyeballs were functioning again.
The only reason this would have been practically impossible to spot for most people here was the size and location of the thing. Unless they were specifically looking for it, I doubt it would have been noticed by anybody else…. Save maybe trauma team.
Either way with both sets of optics done, I set them aside and pulled the feline leg implants out next.
The legs certainly looked impressive, which I suppose was the entire point for the scavs.
Bioware like this looked very impressive and certainly provided to be …. aesthetically pleasing. I mean the things were Thicc in all the right ways.
And their purpose functionally was impressive too. It was meant to launch silently, and with vicious speed. Far faster than the speeds to which Archie, Ethan or even Becca could get up to now with their level of augmentation, and Archie and Ethan had micro-rotors in their knees specifically to get increased speed and reflexes.
But the construction was trash. The graft points were mismatched between the muscle and the mechanical sockets attached to the carbon fiber bones. The paws were poorly aligned in the ball socket. Whoever put these together didn't know what the hell they were doing. The woman's bones would cleave through the musculature at the first attempt of a jump, run, hop or whatever else that didn't count as a walk.
That wasn't even the worst part.
Buried in the neural interface layer, I found a secondary co-processor buried beneath the faux skin. A sensation loop meant to heighten all sensations from anything done to or done by the legs in any way.
Every correct movement triggered a pleasure spike. Not exactly completely euphoric, but noticeable, positive feedback drilled right into the link.
I couldn't help but frown.
Maybe this is me projecting and overanalyzing this but, I can't help but think that such augmented sensations, implanted extra sensory feedbacks, and enhanced artificial neural inputs would be maddening if they're over stimulated, or in some ways used to generate feedback loops that stress the brain.
Of course, I can't conclusively say anything about Cyberpsychosis from just this, but I can't shake the feeling that this is how it might start.
You wire someone to feel good just for moving a certain way, just for using a piece of chrome, and then what happens when they stop? Or worse, when it's taken away? What does that do to a person's sense of control, of self?
It's not like a drug, not exactly. It's more like… shaping a habit deep in the nervous system. Encouraging the body to chase that microsecond reward again and again. Maybe it feels harmless at first. Maybe it even helps. But if you're under enough stress, if you've already been through enough shit…
It wouldn't take much for something like this to twist the wiring upstairs.
Not just from the tech. From the strain. From never knowing if the feelings coming through your nerves are real, or just another programmed response from some buried feedback coil.
I don't know.
But I'd bet good money this kind of loop has sent people over the edge before.
Of course, again this is speculation. Likely one of hundreds of ways something like that could occur. A vaguely described mental illness like Cyberpsychosis probably won't be analyzed all this simply, but I can already see how the small ways people with implants would have added stressors in life that could contribute minutely to their deteriorating mental health.
"Did you figure out what's wrong with those yet?" I was jolted out of my thoughts by Becca's voice behind me that I almost dropped the leg.
Turning around, I froze stunned.
She was standing right behind me, hair damp, skin glistening, wrapped in nothing but a towel slung low across her chest. It clung to her like it was nothing more than another layer of syn skin that she had decided to put on. She didn't seem to care. If anything, she looked amused at catching me off guard.
She glanced at the implants on the table and cocked an eyebrow.
"You really think you'll fix all that by morning?" she asked, drying her hair with one hand. "Making promises to that ripper was a little gonked, not gonna lie. You need rest too, y'know."
I blinked, dragged my eyes back to the gear in front of me, and tried to shake the haze off.
"I'm just about done," I said, voice steadier than I expected. "The optics are good to go. Legs'll take a couple more hours."
Becca let out a low whistle, then turned to her closet. "Huh. Color me impressed."
She dropped the towel without a care in the world, letting it fall as she bent forward, leisurely sorting through a pile of clean clothes.
…. She was mimicking Yoko, wasn't she.
Well, I was not going to complain.
She knew what she was doing, because she glanced over her shoulder at me and smirked as she said, "So I can safely add 'pretty damn quick with biz' to the growing list of things you're secretly good at."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "If by 'biz' you mean my work with tech… then yes. Certainly."
She laughed and slipped into a pair of dark boxers and a snug sports bra and grinned at me as she caught me looking at her.
She sauntered over to her fridge like she had all the time in the world, yanked the door open, and leaned into it as she rummaged through the clutter giving me another long look.
After a second, she pulled out two bottles of Broseph, popped one open on the edge of the counter with a practiced flick, and took a long swig.
She padded back over to the couch and sprawled onto it like she owned every square inch of the apartment… which, to be fair, she did.
She took another sip, then nodded toward the TV, where the Watson Whore rerun was still on going. I had forgotten that the TV was still turned on.
"C'mon," she said, nudging the empty cushion beside her with her foot. "Sit your ass down, have a beer. Let's see exactly what kind of scopshit you're dealing with out here once and for all."
I dropped onto the couch beside her, sinking deep into the worn cushions with a sigh. My head was still spinning, trying to piece together exactly how I was going to lay this all out.
But if there was ever someone I should talk openly with, it was Becca. After all she had done, she deserved that.
I watched her for a moment, as she lazily kept her attention on the TV.
It was an act of course; I had broken her mind one too many times tonight for her to even think of the show.
"If there's anybody who needs a dose of your miracle juice, it's him." Becca joked lightly nodding to the guy getting fucked in the ass by robots on TV. "Hell, I think he'd do with some of your clothes too. Not every day a guy shrugs off fifty-cal rounds and has miracle juice stashed in his jacket."
I chuckled quietly "Yeah, well... maybe my med compound, I don't think anything else'd do much for his show's TRP ratings though. From what I can see, it's the sadism that sells it for him."
She nodded faintly, taking another sip and settling back into the couch like she had all night. "Figured as much. Still, think he could do well with whatever else you got in your little bag of tricks…."
I nodded, watching the bottle of Broseph on her coffee table.
For a moment, I watched the condensation bead up along the bottle in my hand, letting myself think.
"Alright," I said slowly. "First things first. No, I don't have any corporate affiliation. Never did. Everything I've shown you, the tech, the medicine… it's all mine. All of it, every piece of my gear, the cryo tech, even that healing compound you just took… none of it came from any corp. I didn't steal it, buy it, or inherit it. I don't have some rich corporate family I stole everything from."
Becca finally gave me her full attention, dropping the façade of watching the TV, as she nodded slowly.
"You took a fifty-cal round to the head from that meat-tank like it was nothing, Zain," she said seriously, sitting up and leaning toward me. "I've seen corpos in full-grade combat armor flattened by less. Hell, Archie shot you in the back with your own cryo rounds!"
She was in complete disbelief "The same rounds that shredded every gonk scav back there, and you shrugged it off. Like, how is any of that even possible? And now…"
She pointed to the joint at her elbow that no longer had any sign of the old, faded scarring from implantation of her chrome that were the just a few moments ago "…this miracle juice of yours? You realize this could change everything?"
I gave her a grim, deep nod. "Yeah. I know. And it wasn't nothing, Becca. I was hurting bad. Ribs were cracked, nerves were screaming, back was numb to my bones. The reason I'm still breathing's the gear. The jacket I am wearing isn't off-the-shelf from some clothing store. I made it. Carbon fiber reinforced with boron, layered through a ceramic matrix weave. I engineered it to be supremely bullet proof and weather thermal extremes way beyond what my rounds are capable of."
Becca blinked at me incredulously and stared for another beat. "So, this isn't something you're ran away from a corp for? Every single insane new tech you're pulling out… that's all you?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "And that's just the tip of it. Trust me, I'm very aware of how this looks. I can do a lot more than that. Clean water. Better food… Becca, I could get people off scop and insect paste and onto real, organic, nutritious food at prices far cheaper than anything else on the market. I have resources. A lot of them. And I wanna use them in the best ways possible."
Hell, I have more than just that… I have access to fucking magical potions. If I put my mind to it, eventually the Badlands will be lush green again. I could do better than fucking BioTechnica in raising forests, if I put my goddamn potions to work efficiently…. and on a much larger scale than what I was used to.
But I can't tell her that…. yet.
Even trusting her with what I was is a big risk, but I need to take this. Despite having known me for a very short time, she's stuck her neck out for me just because she thought I was some gonk in need of help.
Her optics flickered thoughtfully as she processed everything. "Okay, choom, let's say I believe that you're a super genius …. how'd you manage to make all of it then? You've said that you woke up one day in your apartment, taken from your home. Did the chooms who kidnapped you also for some reason decide to fund your inventions too?"
…. In a way, I suppose the eldritch entity is doing exactly that.
I let out a breath, steadying myself. "That's the one thing I really can't tell you, Becca."
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why…? Did you sign a deal with the devil or something."
… sometimes it feels like I have.
But I shook my head and quickly clarified, meeting her intense gaze head-on. "Look I trust you, Becca, I do. With my life. But this is something I will not take a chance with. Your implants, your optics…. your memories themselves, they're not safe. After what Yoko did to Peter Upmann… If someone got their hands on you even for a moment, everything you know could be ripped out of your head. You've seen it happen."
She bristled immediately, her voice tight. "You think I can't protect myself? I've been running with edgerunners since before you even got here… If you think-!"
"I don't think that," I interrupted firmly. "I've seen you handle yourself. You're good, Becca, and you know I know that. But this isn't scavs or a random group of mercs we're talking about. This is the kind of shit that makes Arasaka, Militech, or any other fucking Megacorp out there consider moving armies. If someone like that grabs you, even for a second…. It's not a risk I'm willing to take."
I don't really know if any Megacorp would actually do that…. but they have the capabilities and the power. People in power do not like it when the status quo is threatened. They tend to act aggressively, and with impunity when they feel the slightest change in the winds.
And what I want to do would eventually launch a fucking gale storm to the status quo that they enjoy at the moment.
She glared at me for a long, tense moment, clearly fighting the urge to argue. Then she slowly exhaled, the fight draining from her shoulders.
"Fuck," she muttered softly, glancing away. "You're not kidding at all, are you? You really mean every word you're saying."
I offered a faint, apologetic smile. "I am. It's not just my life on the line anymore. I have already been stupid with the way I have gotten my cryo tech out by selling it to all my friends and garnering all this attention on me."
Becca was quiet for a long moment, just staring into my eyes.
Then she snorted softly and leaned back. "Well, fuck. I guess asking for more of your gear for my crew is out?"
I chuckled, the tension easing just a little. "Hey, I've got no issues making them some of my armored clothes. Hell, I was already gonna offer to work on your jacket and… and yeah, your jacket."
She raised an eyebrow and smirked. "What, not my bras, and boxers and briefs too?"
I met her smirk with one of my own. "If you want. I'll gladly work on those too."
She rolled her eyes and took a long swig of her broseph bottle sighing heavily.
"Okay. Fuck it, fine. I still don't like it, but I get it." She paused, then turned sharply back to me, optics intense again. "So then, what do you need from me, Zain? How can I help with all this? If you want me to watch your back, zero some gonk who's trouble… you don't need to ask. I like you… I like this, I'll do it just for this."
I stared at her for a beat. All the shit we'd been through, all the ways she'd had my back without needing a reason. I liked this too…
Something twisted in my chest for a beat, but I shook it off quickly.
"I need help setting a front. A legit business with Mox covering for me, somewhere to safely distribute all this. Meds, protective gear, better food, clean water, and a lot more... Everything that could actually help people without corpos getting their claws in it."
Becca leaned back and nodded slowly. "So, you need my help dealing with the Mox for this."
I gave a small nod. "Yeah. You know how they operate. I don't. I don't want them figuring out that I don't have any corporation at my back, while still making sure they play ball with me."
Her eyes narrowed. "And we need to figure out how to make sure your cryo shit isn't the centerpiece of this whole deal."
I looked over at her and nodded again. "I won't mind putting out a few pieces of iron fitted with the cryo tech to keep up appearances. But I don't want that being the hook for everything I do. I'm not looking to be just another guy selling weapons in this city. There's already a thousand of those. The cryo guns… they were just something I cooked up because I needed to survive this city."
Becca was quiet for a long beat.
"What about the people who took you? The ones who grabbed you from your home and handed you all these resources on a fucking platter…. aren't they gonna have something to say about all this?" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Because it sure as hell sounds like corpo play to me."
"They won't," I said firmly, meeting her questioning gaze without blinking. "Believe me, they won't. They aren't a corp, and I can promise you that they're never going to interfere."
Becca didn't say anything at first. Just looked at me, like she was scanning every inch of my face for something.
Then, finally, she sighed and leaned forward, elbows on her knees.
"…You really believe that," she muttered. "Whatever the hell they are, you're that sure they won't come after you. Or us."
"I am," I said, quiet but firm.
She shook her head slowly. "That's either the dumbest thing I've ever heard… or the most honest."
Then she turned, meeting my eyes again.
"Either way. Fine. I won't press. Just don't make me regret it."
"I won't," I promised.
She sat quietly, running a titanium finger over her knee, clearly thinking hard. Then, after a pause, she looked back at me carefully.
"Honestly, the only way I can see this working, really working, is if Regina's on board." Then she nodded once firmly as her optics flickered gold. "Alright. I'll text Regina. And Susie. Set something up for tomorrow."
I tilted my head. "Regina's… a fixer, right? The one you called for the people we pulled out of the container yard?"
"Yeah." She said as she texted the fixer. "She's sharp. Ruthless too, but she gives a shit… more than most. If we're doing this, let's do it right."
Why is it that getting any think done properly in this city, almost always means getting some kind of a fixer involved?
I have done some research into fixers, in wanting to figure out how to deal with Wakako. They're essentially people who know the right folk to get most jobs done for the right price. Wakako is one such example, and she's a Yakuza boss.
Would this Regina be someone like Wakako? No, Becca believes Regina's somebody who gives a shit about people in this district.
"I know," I said quietly. "But by the time they figure it out, I'll have already done what I set out to do."
Becca stared at me, long and hard, her head tilting ever so slightly. Her gaze was unreadable, searching for something in my eyes, but after a second, the tension in her shoulders softened.
Her optics flickered, fading from gold to their usual bright pink-green hue.
"Well, you got what you wanted," she said, lips twitching into a half-smile. "Regina's agreed to meet. Lizzie's tomorrow. She had a lot to say about you too."
She leaned back, folding one leg over the other. "Guess our little rooftop performance left a mark. She's media, so... y'know, watch your ass. You can bet she's done her homework."
I blinked, surprised. That was quicker than I had expected, but that works very well for me.
She gave me a look like it was no big deal, then stretched with a long groan. "Yeah, yeah. Don't go getting all soft on me now. I don't know about you, but all this serious talk's got me fucking starving. I'm gonna heat up that slice of pizza... you want some?"
I shook my head. "I'm gonna get back to work on the Cyberware for Vik's. Want it done before the meeting tomorrow."
Becca frowned, just for a second but shook her head and sprung off the couch to her feet.
"Well… more for me then," she shrugged, spinning on her heel toward the kitchen. "Your loss."
I sighed, rubbed the back of my neck, and moved back to the table.
I took my seat and reached for the next piece of gear when I felt a familiar pressure behind my eyes.
A gravity unfolded in my minds eyes. A vibrant constellation of stars burst into view, and a single beautiful constellation spun toward the core of my soul. One star broke from the cluster and drifted closer.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
And then it burst bright pouring warm light directly into me.
I blinked, and suddenly I knew how to splice a respiratory bypass gene into a body that had never needed to breathe. I could redesign a circulatory system from scratch if I had to. Hell, I could probably build a nervous system tailored to an entirely different chemical base if someone handed me the right raw stock.
Biology made sense now. Genetics especially. The kind of sense that doesn't come from reading textbooks became natural instinct for me.
Urban biology. Agrarian systems. Predation chains. Population management across climates I've never stepped foot in. It was all there.
And now my dreams of restoring the flora and fauna of the badlands were no longer hypotheticals solely dependent on potions.
I could bring back extinct species back to life in a matter of weeks if I wanted to. The only limitations I had for making my own Cyberware was also finally gone. There was no aspect of medical science that I did not or could not understand any longer.
And I couldn't help but smile.
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(A/N)
Hey! I am back!
I got lazy while writing this, because I kept rewriting after my friend kept pointing out things I was overlooking one after another lol.
There's still things he's not happy with here. Things we're both disagreeing about, but well…
Rolls for this chapter:
Domain: Crafting: Biotech
The Very Model of a Scientist Salarian (Mass Effect) (400CP)
You've studied species turian, asari and batarian (and more). You're quite good at genetics (as a subset of biology) because you are an expert (which you know is a tautology). Your xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian, you are the very model of a scientist salarian. Can sing a little. Little you cannot give insight into due to your vast range of knowledge. Little that you have a hard time getting into due to your vast starting base. You could brute-force the vast majority of 'impossible' scientific endeavors in this world with your relentless application of logic.
Zain opened the chapter with 100 points, earned 300 throughout the chapter, used up all and closed with 400.