My mind felt hazy as I slowly awoke, fog clouding my thoughts. Then all at once, everything cleared. There was an unfamiliar feeling of pressure in my eye. Opening them both, I was disoriented by a strange dissonance in my vision. Half of my view was oddly clear with heightened contrast and where it mixed with the view from my other eye the world felt off balance. The experience induced a bout of vertigo that set the world spinning. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and calmed myself, just focusing on the hum of the aircon.

“Takes some getting used to, huh? Just breathe. No rush.”

Slowly, over the next ten minutes, I accustomed myself to the unfamiliar sensory input well enough to function without hurling. I still felt a bit ill.

Viktor was looking through something on a datapad and looked up when he saw I had recovered enough to talk, “Alright, try standing up and let me know if you notice any tingling or sharp pain from your new leg. Some minor soreness is fine.”

I’d been distracted by the overwhelming sensory feedback I’d completely forgotten about my partial limb replacement. The fact that I hadn’t even noticed the change was probably a good sign. I rolled my pant leg up to mid-thigh so I could see my new appendage.

My knee down had been replaced by shiny chrome plates that vaguely followed natural human proportions. Hard lines following an artistic practicality had replaced natural curves. No longer did I have five toes. Now I had three chunks of metal that fit seamlessly next to each other creating the semblance of a single block. They slid smoothly vertically as I tried flexing them. All I could see of the ankle joint was just a round housing. All the internals for the limb were covered in protective plates. They felt cool and smooth to the touch as I traced out the hard lines with my fingertips. A fleeting feeling of emptiness coiled in my gut as I felt the metal that had replaced my leg, soon dismissed and forgotten. I was far too enthralled.

As I moved to stand, I could tell that the limb was slightly heavier than before. I could feel the cool concrete under my artificial sole when I stood. Holding the chair for balance, I stood on one leg so I could take a look at the footplate. All along the sole were large durable black pads that, when touched with a finger, I could feel with impressive sensitivity. The rest of the limb lacked such sensitivity but still provided feedback that allowed accurate proprioception. It was fascinating.

I wish I could take it apart.

Where my flesh met chrome, there was a tenderness, but nothing unbearable. Someday, I’d learn how Ripperdocs could cut limbs off a person and have them walk out hours later with nothing more than soreness. It was like magic.

I looked over to Viktor and nodded, “It feels preem doc.”

“Good. I expect to see you within a week with the optics you promised. I can give you a checkup then.”

He held out an inhaler, “Take one whiff of this now and another in an hour.”

With a slight flinch back, I looked at him suspiciously.

“It's a mild stim. Nothing too dangerous or addictive. Just helps with the side effects and boosts neurotransmission while the cyberware settles in.”

I still hesitated. Taking a random drug from someone I didn’t know was never a good idea. I still remembered what happened to Chen.

His eyes were always bloodshot now and he was getting thinner with every passing day. He sat on a bare mattress in the corner of the base, head in his hands. One of the older guys, Roy, crouched in front of him whispering. I was able to get close enough to hear, “...can’t keep doing this choom. You’ve got nothing left to sell.”

A muffled snort came from Chen, “I know. I fucking know.”

“Seriously choom, JoyToy pussy ain’t worth this. What’s going on?”

A quiet sob, “It’s not about that… Not anymore.”

With a bit of annoyance, he asked, “Then fuckin what?”

After a long pause, he reluctantly muttered, “Glitter.”

Louder and with some real anger now he hissed, “How the fuck did you get hooked on that scop?! I thought you knew better! What the fuck man?”

Chen looked up from holding his head in his hands and with a bit of heat himself responded, “It was that tricky JoyToy bitch! I didn’t fucking know it was Glitter!… I, I didn’t know.”

After a momentary pause, his face lost its fire and fell back into despair before putting his head back in his hands and continuing, “I was having some trouble, you know… getting it up… and she offered me an inhaler. Said it was her special mix. Just some ‘Dorph and a couple other things. Would get me hard as rock… Fucking bitch… She’d mixed some Glitter in… After I left, all I could think about was getting another hit… I can’t fucking stop.”

Roy paused to think for a moment before speaking with quiet solemnity covering a dangerous coldness, “What’s her name? Where does she work? Jig-Jig street right?”

Chen’s hand snapped out and grabbed his shoulder, “Don’t choom. Just don’t… She works for the Claws.”

With a thinned mouth he responded with, “That just means it will have to be an accident.”

Now pleading, “Come on man, don’t! Choom, please! I fucking need her. I don’t have another dealer!”

Roy smacked Chen’s hand off his shoulder and backhanded him across the face before grabbing him by the collar and dragging him over to a closet. He threw the weakly struggling Chen in and locked the door behind him before striding out of the room, ignoring Chen’s pleading and sobbing.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Chen disappeared into the streets a few weeks later, seeking his next fix. Roy ended up joining the Valentinos a couple of months after Chen disappeared.

With an exasperated sigh, Victor said, “Alright kid, look here. The generic name of the drug is nexafinil, brand name Celerex. You can see them printed on the side of the canister here.”

He pointed at the side of the inhaler.

“And also, I’ve got a rep to maintain here. Why would I do something to mess with it?”

Reluctantly, I nodded and took the inhaler. He made a good point. I looked over the canister and saw the writing he was talking about. Still unwilling to take it without doing my own research, I gestured to his datapad, “Let me use your datapad to look it up on the Net.”

Viktor just looked at me for a moment before sighing again and reaching for his datapad, “Fine. But you have to tell me your name. I don’t want to keep calling you kid.”

Holding the datapad in his hand, he waited. I rolled my eyes, a somewhat disorienting experience with my new eye.

“Niko Valen”

He handed me the datapad. After a few minutes of searching, I found the drug along with an image of what an untampered canister looked like. Counterfeiting was common for almost all products. It looked like everything he said was true. After one last moment of hesitation, I took a hit from the inhaler and handed the datapad back to him.

“Alright, remember the dosage. One more whiff in an hour. No more.”

He paused for a moment before adding, “But, if you start experiencing withdrawal from the ‘Dorph you can take one more tomorrow morning. Exhaustion, depression, weakness. It will help some. Don’t take more than one dose a day after today. Each canister only has four doses, but you should be past the worst of it by the time you run out.”

I nodded in understanding, thankful for the help, “You’re nova doc. I’ll bring the optics.”

Carefully, I put my left shoe back on over my new cybernetic limb, rolled down the pant leg, and picked up my pack. My balance and depth perception were slowly readjusting to the changes. With slow, deliberate steps I made my way out of Viktor’s clinic.

As I walked back through Misty’s Esoterica the young woman saw me—her face lighting up in a bright smile of seemingly genuine happiness.

“Oh, your energy is much healthier! Your aura is still a bit grey and angry, but I can tell you’re doing much better! When you next come though you should sit down for an aura cleansing. Trust me, it's great for your etheric resonance.”

I just nodded slowly at the weird lady and made my way out of her store and onto the street. It was cool out and I pulled my worn oversized jacket tight around me. As the chilly night air breezed over my face and the straps of my pack dug into my shoulders, I marveled at my restored vision and the easy stride I was redeveloping. Before, my pain had consumed me whole whenever the ‘Dorph had faded—an obscured ache always at the edge of my awareness, just waiting to strike. Its absence now, the relief, was almost euphoric in comparison.

The trip home was thankfully uneventful and by the time I made it back, I felt almost comfortable with my new cybernetics. Unfortunately, my good mood didn’t last. Someone had entered the hotel. The back door was open and the rope of cans I’d strung across the door was on the floor.

My heart rate spiked and my palms grew sweaty as I carefully worked my way through the building with my Ticon searching for anyone, but found nothing other than overturned mattresses and things thrown into disarray. They had tried to get into my room but hadn’t managed to make it in. I hadn’t left anything important there other than the packet of fentapam which I’d been scared to handle too much.

Must have been a junkie looking for friends or drugs, but found the place full of dead bodies and made the uncommonly wise choice to leave. I crawled back into the building and reset my crude noise trap from the inside, before going to bed, doing my best to ignore the intrusive festering scents. The dead bodies weren’t helping.

The next day I was definitely feeling some withdrawals and took a dose of Celerex which helped a lot. I spent my morning pulling all of the bodies out of the building and towards a nearby dumpster. Having the new limb made a world of difference.

Being able to walk makes life easier! Who would’ve guessed?

After an afternoon break to steal some RaMMMMen™ from a Kabayan vending machine, I worked on removing the remaining optics from the two dead men. Hopefully, I’d have some money soon so I could stop stealing from vending machines. I really didn’t want a corp to notice me.

As I was taking a break after removing the last optic, I looked down at my new limb and started thinking about how it managed to extend to match my growth while maintaining a decently high structural integrity. The easiest way I could think of was to have a telescoping core frame that would have to be manually adjusted to match growth. Viktor hadn’t said anything about needing to do it manually or seeing him to make adjustments. Perhaps it automatically monitored weight distribution to make changes as needed by itself. But that would be prohibitively expensive. It would have to be constantly recording changes much like a biomonitor. Also, the telescoping design would add some not-insignificant mechanical vulnerabilities.

I decided to find a net access point I could plug my cyberdeck into so I could look further into the specifications now that I wasn’t nearly delirious from pain, exhaustion, and drug use.

I ended up finding one still functioning in the back of what I could only guess was a store room near the back entrance that had been used as a dumping place for trash.

Using my old cyberdeck, I jacked into the small port at the bottom of the blocky gray box. The small screen and entire interface weren’t meant for searching through the net, but I made do. As I found the model my eyes bugged out. 13,500 Eurodollars. That was the market price. I quickly looked up my new optic. 7,000 Eurodollars.

What the fuck?! Why? Why did he chip me with such fancy chrome? Why did he trick me?

I looked further into the specs and compared it with other cyberware meant for children. It was actually at the low end of available cyberware. Not the bottom, but close. The extending was done automatically which wasn’t the case with the lowest-end models. It did however use a telescoping core which was one the easiest and cheapest ways to do it and the structural integrity absolutely did have some issues.

As I thought. If the main bar gets twisted hard, whatever is holding the nested sliding pieces in place could bend or break.

I took a look at the optic. It had an outer casing made of a biocompatible shape-memory polymer that would expand when a small electrical current passed through it. If any space developed as the orbit grew larger a sensor would trigger the electrical current. As soon as no more space to grow was detected the sensor would quit triggering the current.

I was a bit concerned about possible hacking. If someone overrode the limiters and forced the sensor to activate, that could be disastrous. It would crush the optic and break the surrounding bones as the pressure increased. There would probably be other ramifications as well.

I think I might keep my ganic eye for now. When I stop growing I’ll chip some preem optics, but for now… I like knowing I’ll be able to see even if the worst happens.

Now, I needed to think about my debt to Viktor and why he didn’t tell me.

Even the cheapest decent chrome for kids cost way too much for me. From what I’m seeing, there’s stuff that doesn’t grow with you that needs to be replaced monthly. I might’ve been able to get some of that. But he didn’t even offer it. Why? Why didn’t he even tell me that I owed him? If he wanted something from me he’d need to at least tell me. Why? I’m not worth anything. Why trick me? Why give me this? He can’t gain anything from me if he doesn’t tell me… Did he just feel bad for me?… Whatever, scop this. I’ll ask him when I bring the optics… But I’ll keep my iron in hand when we talk.