The next day Mark greets a refreshed Gloria going to her work shift while the Engineer walks towards his Starter Base. The base has enough production capacity to progress through the Automation (red), Logistics (green), and Military (grey) sciences; however, the problems will arise when Mark needs to advance to Chemical Science.

For now, Mark has a relatively large stockpile of Advanced Circuits, the Red Chips, stocked, but the problem will be extracting sulfur. The Recycler from the Spage Age part of the Factorio System allows him to recover a wide variety of items, but all fluids are lost. The Recycling Facility from the Spage Exploration module, on the other hand, returns a small fraction of heavy oil, however it returns far less materials than the smaller Recycler, most of it coming in the form of Heavy Oil.

“Sadly, most of the good stuff is locked behind Rocket Science, and that’s a problem. Do you have any suggestions, Solvy?”

Solvernia silently stared back, as if what he was asking was obvious.

“Right, I guess I can’t hide from it forever. Eventually I will need to leave Night City for the Badlands.” Mark sighs at the blunt reminder, “before camping outside, I want to buy as many supplies as possible and have my fill of human interaction. Otherwise, I will start seeing people as Biters.” Solvernia wisely remains silent on that issue.

…

Back at the base, Mark frowns at seeing the bodies of gangsters lying on the ground after trying to enter the defended perimeter. Mark used his precious stock of concrete to place warning concrete on the ground and wrote on the walls a message about the dangers of going ahead, yet the Scavs thought Mark was bluffing.

Much like in the Animals assault, Mark places all the bodies on his inventory before sorting the respective loot. In terms of eddies, the haul was small, though he’s not certain on the quality of cybernetics.

“Thankfully, there is no part of a Scav that goes to waste. Much like pirates, right Solvy?”

Mark likes to believe Solvernia returned a smug smile at him.

After fumbling with his Agent for a while, Mark successfully calls the desired number.

“Hello, is this Viktor’s Clinic?” Mark asks, holding the Agent like a cellphone.

“… how did you get this number? Are you holding your agent over your ear?”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t think it did video calls as default.” Mark says with an embarrassed smile. “Hello, my name is Mark Henderson, and I wanted to talk business with a ripperdoc. As for how I got your number, I look it up on the net.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“…excuse me?” The man on the video call asks incredulously, and Mark clarified it for him.

“The ‘Night City Unofficial Business Guide’ rated your clinic ninety points out of a hundred, which is the highest score they give to independent clinics. The ‘Night City Business Association’ lists your clinic as ‘Active; Irregular;’ so I suspect you haven’t paid some taxes?”

“… it’s a monthly bribe to the Night City mayor office, being listed as ‘Irregular’ is an unofficial way to say your business services both law abiding citizens and criminals, but the cops won’t come raiding unless you actively cause trouble.”

“That’s as enlightening as it is horrifying, thank you for the answer. Now, are you willing to hear on m business proposal?”

The man sighs, then look back at the camera screen. “Just come to my clinic so we can talk face-to-face.”

Mark gives a thumbs up and ends the call. Pocketing the Agent, mark looks around the reclaimed items on his stash, hoping that the famous ripperdoc references him to any known Techies.

…

Mark quickly drives to Little China towards a back alley, after making sure to secure the vehicle machine gun with cloth and rope. After parking, he takes a large crate and a trolley to carry towards Viktor’s Clinic, stopping at Misty’s Esoterica first.

“Good morning. I talked with Viktor over the phone, he should be waiting for me. My name is Mark Henderson.”

The woman that answers Mark is, in his opinion, a rare sight in Night City. Her appearance screamed “Goth” to Mark, despite the modest use of the color black in her outfit. It’s the perfect advertisement for her shop, an island of spirituality in the materialistic wasteland of Night City.

“Hello, you’re here to see Vik, right? My name is Misty, and I will show you the way to his clinic.” The young woman says with a smile, beckoning Mark to follow.

“Thank you, Misty.” With some careful maneuvering, Mark finally reaches the Viktor’s Clinic, meeting the man face-to-face.

“Well, Mark, what kind of business you bring me today?”

Mark opens the crate, where a couple of corpses are hidden, surprising the other pair. “The Scavs thought I was a pushover, and I correct their misconception.” Mark states ominously. “I already looted them of valuables, but I think I can get some extra cash by selling their chrome and cashing on any bounty they might have. Same for the Animals, though they’re on a different crate.”

Vik takes a cursory glance at the bodies, then nods. “I can make use of this, and if you also have Animals there’s a ripperdoc that buys their wetware. As for bounties, you should probably either ask a fixer or the NCPD bounty board.”

“Thanks for the advice, Viktor!” Mark opens a smaller box, containing a few Processing Units and Advanced Circuits. “It’s probably not your specialty, but please, take a look.”

Viktor studies the Advanced Circuits first, then looks at the Processing Units.

“You’re right, it’s not my specialty, but I know a few techies that might be interested in this. I can tell they’re high-quality products, though.”

“If they buy it, I will give you a 15% consulting fee for the referrals.”

Viktor looks at Mark, reassessing the Engineer on his mind.

“I think, this is going to be a beautiful relationship, Mark.” The ripperdoc says while extending his hand.

Mark quickly takes it. “The pleasure is all mine, Viktor.”

“Please, call me Vik.”