Chapter Twenty-Nine

The ride to the chop-shop was easy enough, most of it spent on the call to Julius. He wasn’t happy about us not doing any missions today, but he was also swamped arranging missions here there and everywhere, and apparently liked the idea of dangling my team out as a possible solution to a few problem areas for tomorrow.

He also understood both that we took missions as a team and when as mercs, and that he’d better not fuck with us too much, as we could very easily go to a competitor.

That we needed time to integrate the new mods and upgrades? That was something he could sell to the clients as a bonus, rather than an apology.

The rest of the flight was calm and relaxed as Todds and I chatted about his past and family life, before touching down outside the shop.

My first impression as I clambered out of the cab was that we’d made a mistake, the area was abandoned, and my instincts went into overdrive, fully expecting that we were too late and that Lion had already sold us out…

But on getting down into the actual chop-shop?

Nope.

We walked in on three gangers apparently trying to negotiate with him for ‘protection’.

That the dumb fucks had chased everyone away, and were now all gathered around him, explaining that either they got their mods done free in exchange for their ‘protection’ from now on, or he lost the ability to do any mods? Along with his hands?

“Yeah, that’s not going to work for us lads,” I said bluntly walking into the middle of the room, and drawing the plasma sword.

They spun, guns coming up, and I rolled my wrist, sending the crackling blade into a wide arc.

Two of the three guns fell to the floor, carved through, the third? Well, the wielder had been threatening Lion personally, the other two were stood back closer to the door, and when he spun around, he found my revolver already leveled between his eyes.

That froze him in place. What ended his interest in anything else though? It was when Lion grabbed his nano-scalpel, and snarled about ‘teaching them a lesson’.

Eight minutes later, and the three of them were helping each other to stagger out of the chop-shop, each of them having to help the others, as their missing mods—shite though lion assured me they were—were now floating in sterilization fluid baths.

Their little attempt at a protection racket had literally cost them an arm and a leg, although in this case, there were two eyes and a hand to add to the tally.

“So…” Lion said, once he was done, drying his hands with a cloth as he looked over the bag I had with me. “Thanks for your help there, and I assume that’s our little special project?”

“It is,” I agreed. “Time to get it installed, and to start doing test runs.”

“And have you thought any more about the future?” he asked carefully, as he gestured to the table nearby.

“We have.” I outlined the conversation we’d had about the harvesting tool, not the rest of the things I’d shared with the team though.

“You’re serious?” he asked after a few seconds thought. “Equal shares, for each of us?”

“I am,” I said. “Within the confines of this deal, and I’ll be in control of it. We keep this under wraps until we’re damn sure that we’ve got it working, and that we can prove it, we make use of it for a few months, make sure that it doesn’t burn out, nor fail. We get our use out of the system first, line our pockets in case they fuck us over somehow.”

“But…”

“But we do sell it, and I’m thinking within six months.” I finished, seeing the relief on his face.

“Oh thank fuck, I thought you were going to say like five years or something,” he said. “Look, I’m fine with six months, I can wait that long, probably, it’s just…”

“Just what?” I asked.

“Since you killed Lucky? I’m getting assholes like these every few days,” he admitted. “They scare my other customers away, and to be honest? I was borderline anyway before this shit started. I need protection, I just can’t get it from these assholes…”

“And you want it from us?” I asked, surprised.

“We already have a deal on me giving you all discounts, so yeah, basically, I need you guys to hold up your end of the bargain.” He sighed, making me snort.

“There was never a promise of protection.” I pointed out, but seeing the look on his face I relented. “I’ll think about it. So… how about you check these fuckers over?” I pulled the arm, and the spinal mod out of the bag, laying them on the top, before stepping back.

Lion’s eyes lit up, literally, a steady bright blue radiance as the optics went fully powered, and Todds and I waited. I’d tried using my system to identify the mods already, and I’d gotten precisely dick for it.

The arm was still showing as the same model that he’d ordered for us to build the system into, and the spinal tap?

Well that just showed as ‘Classified: Experimental’ when I looked at it.

Lion though, clearly saw a fuck load more.

“S5 to S1 are configured for storage, possibly military?” he muttered, moving his hands in the air as he apparently tried to manipulate the image in different ways. “L1 to L5 are all standard, but high interface, maybe a dual sheath? No that can’t be right, there’s sections here for integration between the neurons, and a spider path of symbiosis…”

“That sounds great…” I interrupted him. “But for the rest of us?”

He flicked his fingers towards me and Todds and I received a knock, followed by the data for the mod, and I realized why the hell he was working through the individual parts instead.

There was basically fuck all in the way of information about this mod anywhere.

[Redacted]

Tier : Four

The [Redacted] Spinal Tap Mod is [Redacted] and provides [Redacted].

This model integrates through [Redacted].

Note : Unconfirmed reports of up to 97mps have been recorded, although this carries with it the risk of [Redacted].

Warranty : [Redacted]

Toughness : 12

Dexterity : 12

Durability : 97/100

Slot Cost : 8

Availability : Classified

Credit Cost : N/A

The last two sections though, that it granted a boost to both Dexterity AND Toughness of twelve? That was insane. That would basically mean after a decent time acclimatizing to the mod? I could integrate more fucking mods down the line!

I wasn’t one of those nutters that wanted to go all cyber and into the machine, no, but seriously? Knowing I had the option, if I was to lose my other arm, or my leg or something to replace it? It was a massive relief.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

This though? I didn’t know for sure what it did, and I still wanted it. I’d wanted it as soon as I saw how many connective sections it had.

This was kit that was designed to fully integrate you into your suit, most likely? It wasn’t intended for APS operators. Being realistic, even as I knew that officially we were the cutting edge of tech, the most lethal weapon out there…

I also knew that as soon as a design was finalized and began production, even with the amazingly efficient production methods we had today, it was still obsolete.

This was designed for the next, next gen suit I was betting. The APS systems had sections that could be replaced. They had sections built in for expansion, and areas where we were told frankly that we didn’t need to know what they were for.

The spinal tap section was like that. We used two main insertion nodes, two connectors, that slid into the back of our spinal tap systems, and then connected from there. The actual connective sections in us were spread out over a lot more space, but they compressed down to a single pair of plugs that extended into the ports in our back, and connected us up.

If this was what I thought it was, then this could accept at least five ports, looking at the relevant sections.

If I could install two more plugs into my suit?

This was dangerous territory, seriously so, but hey, Lion was a carver, and Todds a mechanic, with my knowledge of the systems, and the background? If we could do that?

The biggest limiting factor on the speed of an APS wasn’t the motor, the power core or even the weight. It was inbuilt into the operators ability to use the suit.

Some were naturally faster, able to overcome the natural limits that our bodies enforced. Most though? We were all around the same level. The guy I’d known who could practically blur past us all, and that I now seriously suspected the major had stolen for his black ops team?

He'd had a better spinal tap than the rest of us.

This was the next step down that line.

If this was able to sync me up with the suit even more than I could already? If it could spread the distribution of commands from my brain, across four insertion nodes instead?

The lag that was the limit was caused in part by the bunching up of signals, or that was the theory. We’d always wondered why full on assault mechs got six ports in their back and we got two, while flyboys got another number?

We’d been told it was just how it was, and not to question it, but when the current gen suits, like mine, were delivered, and we spotted the expansion slots ready to use more nodes? We’d wondered.

Now?

If we could use the nodes, it might be a game changer.

“So…” I started, and Lion turned to me, seeing my wide eyes, and presumably the hunger on my face.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “I don’t know what it does, I don’t know why it has so many connective sections, I don’t know if this system is better for you or worse than the one we were already considering. You’re trained to use the nodes in your back, sure, but think about when you first started using the suits, how hard was it to learn to walk?”

“It was a fucking nightmare,” I admitted.

“Well, this would be like that all over again. Sure you’re sending the same signals, so it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but different nodes picking up different things? It could break you. You could be literally crippled by this, also, it had fresh blood on it. Dwarf blood, specifically.”

“Right?”

“It might be designed only for a dwarf to use, their neural connective tissues are thicker than a humans. This might burn you out, it might interface with you without a single issue and turn you into a fucking specter in a week, or a second. You might be able to fart flames and piss glitter. I. DON’T. KNOW.” That last section was said with a finality that made his feelings clear.

“Okay, so it’s a fucking risk,” I said slowly.

“It’s a hell of a risk,” he agreed. “This is a risk that frankly, I don’t know if you need to take. I can get the other mod, and we can install that, if there’s problems? Hell we can call in their support team and sure, it’ll cost, but they’ll tweak the package until it works. This? we don’t know who made it, we don’t know if anyone’s looking for it, and we don’t know what it’ll do to you. Hell, this is designed to access spinal vertebrae that you don’t have! I’d have to install spacers to make it line up with a human system…”

He paused, then sighed.

“You’re going to do this anyway aren’t you?” he said and I grinned at him, then nodded to the arm. “Oh for fucks… you mean to do them both? Today?”

“No time like the present.”

“You know this takes you to your limit, or near enough right? And that modding at that level isn’t guaranteed? The limit isn’t a hard thing, it’s a combination of dozens of factors, you might go under for the op, and wake up a fucking specter, you know that, right?”

“I do,” I said. “Be realistic, is it going to make any real difference if I wait a few days before installing the spinal? And is it definitely clean?”

“Clean of infection?” He dumped it into a tube of gently bubbling blue liquid. “It will be in thirty seconds,” he assured me. “As to clean of specter infections? No fucking idea.”

“No…” I started to ask, shocked.

“This is a mod I barely understand,” he said sternly. “Can I link it all up? Yes, though it’ll take most of the day, and it’s not going to be cheap…”

“But you don’t know if its infected.”

“No I don’t,” he said. “You remember those old school jets that we all learned about in classes? The ones before the nanites bonded us into tech and that had like a bajillion lines of codes in them, that people didn’t really understand and they just added more onto until things worked?”

“Yeah?”

“This is like that. there’s code here that I can understand and parse out, no worries, I had to learn the very basics with this kinda shit to be able to do brain and spinal mods anyway. But the rest? There’s shit here that might be viruses on top of viruses, it might turn your entire spine into a fucking broadcast point for a walking specter maker, I. Don’t. Know.”

“So what do you recommend?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Weigh up the pros and the cons,” he said. “You got it from a fucking banshee. It got what it wanted out of the deal, presumably, but what does it gain by fucking you over further?”

“Nothing really.” I admitted. “I told it I’d trade more with it if it needed shit, I can’t see it being able to make many deals like that, so…”

“So it’s unlikely to waste that possible bonus, to make one more specter,” he said, nodding. “That’s great, but remember, it’s a specter at heart, even if it’s more or less sane. It won’t think the way we do.”

“So… your advice is to weigh up the pros and cons on something that might not think the way we do?”

“Just… look. Why do you need this experimental mod over another? This is clearly a test system, you could sell this to a corporation for a decent wedge, and you know that they’d not ask any questions. Add this to the arm and…”

“Install it,” I said shaking my head. “Just, trust me. I need them both.”

“I…” He hesitated, watching me, then sighed and nodded. “Alright, it’s your funeral. It’s a hundred thousand credits though.” He saw the way I looked at him and he went on. “It’s not just for the work, there’s going to be a fuck load of that, and yeah it’s not something that most carvers would fucking do. This is seriously skilled shit, and it’s only thanks to all the work I’ve done on reattaching living organs that I’d consider this. the real cost is to cover the risk. I think you’re mad, and I’m going to be ready to shoot you in the fucking face after this, so be ready for that.”

“Just do it,” I said, psyching myself up for it. Yes it was a risk, a hell of a one, and yeah, I might be fucked by all this, or I might never be able to get the connected nodes working in the damn suit either.

If I could though? This would give us a hell of an edge, and frankly we needed it.

The best case scenario with the black ops team, had them attacking me in a location I chose, with Richie and Sync in APS, and the rest of the team on foot, against not corpo security putzes, but against fellow APS operators. Ones that would have been given additional training, the best upgrades and no doubt kept hungry for the fight.

They were unlikely to simply rock up and fight us one on one, and even if they did, Scott used to frequently kick my fucking arse in the dojo.

I wasn’t the best fighter. I was good, but I was a team lead. I saw the battlefield and manipulated it, guiding my team to beat the other fuckers. That meant I needed to know the strengths and weaknesses of my operatives. I needed something to really even the odds, or we were boned.

The chair was fucking cold, sod’s law, as I stripped and lay down on it, face poking through the cut out section so that I could stare at the filthy floor under the operating chair, as Lion prepped me.

Feeling the fucker pouring cold gel onto my back, rubbing it into the skin all the way across, and the subtle differences between the synth-skin and my own in the sensation, before he laid something against the back of my neck.

“You sure about this?” he asked me, one last time, and I nodded as best I could, restrained there.

“Do it,” I ordered him, confirming the hundred thousand transfer.

“Well, here goes. Sharp scratch incoming in three… two… one…”The fucker lied.

They always do, it’s not a fucking ‘sharp scratch’, its bastard stabbing me with a needle and then injecting fuck knew what cocktail of drugs to wipe me out, but as the world vanished, I knew that Todds was there, watching over Lion.

The last thought before the world slid sideways, was that maybe, just maybe, I’d never wake up again, and I should have said something to Reign, beyond ordering specialty ammo for my damn weapons.

Chance missed there.

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