I reluctantly woke to orange rays of light passing through gaps in the shuttered window. They highlighted floating particles sluggishly carried by nearly still air. Damp, musty, and painfully heavy, the fetid odors infested every breath of the choked atmosphere.

From the concrete forest surrounding this oasis of stiflingly silent stillness, trickled the familiar symphony of Night City. Roaring CHOOH2 engines aggressively revved as car speakers rumbled and blared — it was the mating calls of every young gonk with a bit of money showing off his fresh new ride. Occasional gunshots initiated minutes-long shootouts — signaling the start of yet another fight for territory between the Tiger Claws and Maelstrom.

And of course, it was impossible to miss the omnipresent sweet words of overlapping ads, ever seeking to separate you from your eddies. Corporate interests always reigned supreme in the war for auditory supremacy; just as they did with everything else.

A fly buzzed with erratic purpose through the room, eventually deciding to land on the crusty mess of dried blood on my face. I swatted it away, grimacing as I fully awoke to the tortuous reality that had patiently awaited my return to consciousness.

With my return, came the blinding agony radiating from my eye and ankle as they forcefully asserted their dominant presence. My ankle was hugely swollen and hot to the touch. Every time I tried to move it, sharp shooting pain erupted from the damaged joint. All the walking and fighting had definitely made it worse.

There was one bright note in the panoply of painful injuries. With the constant use of MaxDoc healing and the lack of further major damage, my ribs were feeling much better. Thankfully, the fall yesterday during the fight had been on the uninjured side.

Unfortunately, that small bit of progress didn’t help to make me feel all that optimistic. My face, still covered in dried blood from when it was smashed with the gun last night, grimaced as I thought of what was to come. A painful, difficult day lay ahead of me.

With a heavy sigh, I took a hit of ‘Dorph. The inhaler wheezed out an anemic puff of the drug — just barely enough to get the job done. I gave it an experimental shake. Empty.

Fuck. Well, I’ll probably find some more in here. And hopefully, I’ll also find enough eddies to get my eye taken care of. Then I won’t need to keep taking it. I just hope my ankle will heal up enough to be usable if I simply stay off it for a while.

I took another dose from the MaxDoc before I got up and started my search. The building had acquired a new aroma; fresh gore added a nicely nauseating note to the existing satanic stench. Yesterday, I’d been too focused on clearing the place of people to do a detailed inspection. As I went through the place, digging through pockets and excavating dark, hidden spaces, I found a decent pile of drugs, some liquor, a few guns, but very little money.

Mostly, I found stims, hallucinogens, and unidentifiable powders in colorful bags. But in my search, I did come across some more interesting finds. I found a Black Lace inhaler in the pocket of the guy with knock-off mantis arms from last night. It had a single hit left. That, I would save for an emergency. Even more interesting, hidden under a long dead, rotting body, I discovered something very strange — a small baggie of straight medical Fentapam.

It has a fucking Biotechnica logo on the bag! Why is this here?!

That was some seriously dangerous stuff — even cut with a bunch of filler, it was so potent that taking just slightly too much would kill you outright. Normally, when a dealer got some, they just cut a tiny bit into something else to give it an extra deadly kick. I had no idea how much this was worth, but there was no way it belonged in a place like this.

Carefully, I put that aside. It could be absorbed through the skin and I really didn’t feel like dying today. I did end up finding two partially full ‘Dorph inhalers, but they weren’t as common as the other stuff. ‘Dorph was a bit too useful and expensive for the people who’d lived here. Stims, hallucinogens, and random experimental designer drugs were just plain cheap.

During my earlier search, I found a room with a unique feature on the bottom floor and decided to use it as my hideout. The room had a small hole in the wall, made by who knows what, that led all the way outside through the drywall and exterior concrete. It was just barely big enough for me to fit through — exactly what I’d been looking for — an easily hidden entrance that adults wouldn’t be able to enter.

I gathered everything there and looked down at the pile of stuff I’d collected: 53 eddies, which, added to what I already had, left me at a bit over 100. A large number of empty cans and bottles to use for noise traps. Two radios. One damaged Braindance rig. Four Slaught-O-Matics, which were basically worthless and only useful as a last resort. One Nue that was clearly still functional. One rusted DR-5 Nova revolver. One dented Carnage shotgun. Several knives, a couple of which were actually still sharp. A few sodas. A couple of bottles of alcohol. And finally, lots of drugs.

If I sell the guns that should get me enough for my eye. Not enough to buy some optics to replace it though. Or for someone to take a look at my ankle.

I’ve got a good amount of drugs. Can I sell them? Ehh… I don’t think so. Too weak. Someone will just take them from me. Also, I don’t feel like being killed by one of the gangs for dealing on their turf.

Alright, how about just trading the drugs right to a Ripperdoc for the work? No middle step. There are a couple that might agree to that, especially with the Fentapam. Fingers or Doc would do it I think.

God, I really don’t want either of them to work on me. I’d get the work done, but who knows how I’d feel in six months. Also, getting to them would be a pain. They’re pretty far and I’m not going to get on the maglev unless I have to. Too dangerous for someone who looks as weak and low class as me.

What else do I have? A building no one wants, trash, some dead bodies… not much else. Hmm…

That one guy did have some shitty mantis arms and a couple of them had optics. Maybe I could try stealing their cyberware? I’ll probably break some since I don’t know what I’m doing though. Also, selling the cyberware might be a little tricky. I don’t want people thinking I’m a scav.

Well, I don’t have to sell it. I can just chip it… Yeah. Okay. Alright, I’m going to see what I can get, but I’m not going to try to sell it right now. The main goal is to try to get one of those optics without breaking it.

But first, before I work on that, I need to set up some sound traps to let me know if anyone gets in the building.

I gathered several of the empty liquor bottles and soda cans and wrapped them up in my jacket. Then, I cut up a stained, nasty-smelling sheet into strips with one of the knives and placed that in my jacket as well. With all that in hand, I limped my way over to the front doors. The front doors swung inward and opened into a small front reception. They didn’t spring for sliding doors here. On either side of the doors, stood drywall covered in badly peeling wallpaper and several bullet holes.

After setting everything down, I pulled out the strips of cloth and tied them all together, end to end. Then, I carefully poked holes through each of the cans and threaded the cloth rope through them. Once done threading them, I took one end of the rope and pinned it to the drywall using one of the duller knives. To do so, I first removed the six rounds from the revolver and drove in the knife using the butt as a hammer. Then, I did the same thing to the other end of the rope. The cloth was old and threadbare. It would rip off the knives if pulled on with just a bit of force.

Now that it was strung across in front of the doors, anyone who tried to enter would cause the entire thing to fall and clatter loudly to the floor. There was also no good way to remove it without making a bunch of noise even if you knew it was there.

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I took the empty liquor bottles and smashed them all over the ground right in front of the door. It may have been a simple trap, but it was nearly impossible to silently walk over broken glass shattered on concrete. Unless, of course, you had special cyberware like Lynx Paws.

Done with the front door, I went back to my room and gathered more cans and bottles from my collection. I took it all to the back door that I’d originally entered through. Since I didn’t have another sheet, I decided to make strips out of a pair of blood-stained pants and use that for the rope. Then, I repeated the same process I used for the front door — a rope of cans across the door and broken glass scattered in front of it.

I had an idea to make a motion sensor using the radios and what was left of the BD rig, but this was good enough for now and I had other things to get done today; including, hopefully getting my eye replaced. With that in mind and some basic noise traps set up, I set about trying to get myself an optic.

I grabbed the sharpest knife from my collection and went to one of the bodies that had optics chipped. Three of the corpses had optics, so I had six chances. After the first attempt, I knew that trying to dig it out from the socket directly wasn’t going to work. Sticking the knife in the side to leverage it out bent the metal of the cyberware and ripping it out without properly disconnecting whatever it was attached to destroyed the delicate machine’s casing and internals.

I grabbed the revolver to use as a hammer again. It was relatively small and pretty heavy. With it, I bashed in the side of the eye socket, covering the handle with sticky coagulated blood. The crack of bone echoed out through the empty room, adding to the muffled sounds coming from outside.

I ignored all of that and continued. Unfortunately, this new attempt still damaged the cyberware. Looking over what I managed to retrieve, I saw that the optic had a semi-detached outer casing that was somehow attached to the inside of the socket. After further studying the damage, I guessed the casing held the implant in place, allowing the internal portion to move freely, so the user could shift their gaze.

On the next attempt using this method, I tried cutting off all the skin, muscle, and fat cushioning the area first, so I could hit less hard and hopefully be more precise. It covered the blade and much of my hands in gore, but I got it done. To my relief, that seemed to work. Without all that in the way, I managed to hit just hard enough to break the bone without damaging the optic beneath it.

With care, I removed the bloody shards of bone and tried not to cut myself on the jagged broken pieces. Who knew what sort of diseases this person had. It took a while as I ended up needing to break some more of the bones in the face and socket to get at it. Eventually, I came away with an optic that I believed should be fully functional. But, since I wasn’t sure, I removed one more just in case. That left two optics unscavenged. If it turned out that the method I was using was irreparably damaging the implants I would have two more chances.

Using some clear alcohol I’d found, I cleaned off the optics, wrapped them in a spare shirt, and tucked them inside my pack. I was absolutely covered in blood, dirt, and grime. Unfortunately, there was little I could do about it at the moment since I was without a source of running water. With a sigh, I continued getting everything together. The revolver was a pretty small gun and I could actually hide it in the inside pocket of my jacket. All the other valuable guns, I loaded into my pack. The Ticon and Nue went in with no problem. The Carnage however was way too long to fit. So, I wrapped it in some ripped-up shirts and shoved it in barrel first, leaving half of it poking out the top. Since it was wrapped up, it wasn’t immediately obvious what it was.

I gave the pack a test lift. It was quite heavy, but I thought I could probably still carry it. I looked down at my ankle though. It was massively swollen, stiff, and mostly unresponsive when I attempted to move it. Every time I took a step I could feel something grinding. I couldn’t feel the pain though.

This trip is going to make my ankle so much worse. I’m going to need to chip something to replace it at some point, won’t I?

Fuck.

Well, let's see if I can’t rig up a crutch or something. I don’t have the eddies to deal with both my ankle and my eye.

Thinking back to my search earlier, I went to the room filled with trash near where I first entered the building. Inside, found a broom with a hollow metal handle bent near the tip and a head missing about half its bristles. I pulled it out and carried it back over to my room.

After roughly measuring how long I needed it to be, I decided to just shoot it with the Nova revolver to remove the part I didn’t need. I loaded a single round and gave it a try. It worked.

Now I had a jagged metal end that I was going to be pressing into concrete as I walked. That was going to be loud, which was a problem since I didn’t want to attract attention. Also, it would probably slip pretty easily. So, I used the revolver as a hammer again to smash metal shards flat and bend them in. The dense plastic of the handle, already dented, had earned some new gouges. Next, I grabbed a flip-flop that was falling apart off of one of the dead bodies and stripped off the flexible rubber sole.

Now I needed a way to attach it. I didn’t have any tape, but I did have shoe laces. I tried just tying it on as is, but it made the tip heavy and it moved around quite a bit. It felt like it could slip off at any moment. So, I untied it and started cutting off bits of rubber trying to shape it into something more suitable. I carved it into the shape of a lowercase “t” with the horizontal line vertically centered and vertically widened. When I tried tying it on again, it went much better. The wider portion of the “t” covered the tip and a bit up the sides of the handle. The rest, which was roughly the same width as the diameter of the handle, went further up and was much easier to firmly tie on.

Looking at the laces, I had another idea. If I wanted to make extra sure that it wouldn’t slip off I could make holes in the handle and the rubber, then thread shoelaces through them. Normally, this wouldn’t work since having regular laces rub against roughly punched metal holes would quickly wear them down to nothing and cut them apart. However, among the laces I’d found, there was a set that had been attached to some industrial work boots. They were made of Duraweave, a synthetic, malleable plastic weave that was resistant to nearly all wear and tear. With those, I could make it work.

After removing everything, I tied a single lace around the handle near the tip and used it as a guide to make deep scratches on either side, marking where to make the holes. Then, I tied the sole onto the handle, estimating the placement using the same lace as a guide. After untying the sole, I slid the lace up and repeated the process. These would be the only holes since I didn’t want to weaken the structure to the point where it would break or bend under my weight.

Now I needed to make the holes in both the sole and handle. I grabbed a dull knife with a relatively narrow blade and a thin unbroken tip. After carefully placing the tip against the handle, I raised my trusty DR-5 Nova “hammer” and made a timid strike, worried that I might seriously damage the handle.

The blade bent the hollow tube a bit but failed to penetrate — sliding off the handle and into the concrete floor, making a painful screech. Thankfully, the point of the blade didn’t break. I then remembered I had a portion of the handle I’d shot off earlier that I could use to practice. So, I grabbed that and went to work. I did have to get a different blade after the tip of the first one eventually broke. Thankfully, I eventually got the process down and could reliably make holes that were just about the right size. I then proceeded to do exactly that for the actual crutch.

Once that was done, I used one of the few sharp knives to carve small holes into the rubber. It wasn’t too difficult since the sole was so worn down. Now it was time to put it all together. The holes in the rubber didn’t line up perfectly with those in the handle, but with a bit more carving, I made it work. Then, I threaded the Duraweave laces through and tied it all tightly together, wrapping multiple laces around it numerous times. The laces wrapped around it so completely that only slivers of the rubber were visible above the tip.

I gave it a test. The tip worked pretty much as well as I could have hoped for. The head of the broom wasn’t great, but I thought I could improve it without too much work. I just pulled some of the cleanest clothes off the least disgusting dead bodies and wrapped them around the middle of the head, holding the remaining bristles separated and adding some padding.

After giving it another test, I decided it worked well enough. Now that I was done, I realized how tired, sweaty, thirsty, and hungry I was. I had once again gotten so absorbed working on a project that I had completely lost track of time. Since I had closed all the windows on the bottom floor I went to an open window on the second floor and I looked out at the sun. I had spent well over half the day working on my crutch and it was already midafternoon.

Fuck.

The 'Dorph had kept the pain at bay while I worked, but now that I wasn’t so focused, I could already feel the insistent sensations creeping back in. I limped to my room using the newly made crutch and grabbed one of the ‘Dorph inhalers. I took another hit, banishing the pain back into its drug-fueled cage. From the small pile of sodas, I pulled out a NiCola Blue and cracked it open. The cloying artificial taste, so saccharine sweet it was almost painful, flooded my mouth, tingling with carbonation as it made its way down my throat, completing its journey to sate my thirst.

I carried my drink up to the window and looked out at the dirty concrete and smog-filled sky. As I drank, I tried to take advantage of the brief opportunity to relax. Unfortunately, my brain didn’t let me.

I get distracted so god damn easy. It's already so late. I really need to get those guns sold and one of those optics chipped. The pain from my eye is just way too much to deal with without ‘Dorph. Fuck, I really don’t want to get hooked and I really really don’t want to become like the people who lived here.

With a sigh, I chugged down the last of the soda and tossed the can out the window.

Well, I better start moving.