“You really have a mouth on you,” Trace said after Ko was finally able to retrieve her freed finger. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard half of those curses before, and I grew up on the streets.”

“That wasn’t funny, Trace! What just happened?” She was examining her finger and the rapidly diminishing ring of nanites that had been forcefully injected beneath her skin.

“You need to give it a few minutes, and then you’ll feel it crawling up your neck and beginning to connect to your NetConnect and then up into your eyes.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what that was!” She growled. “Is this why you wanted to keep the braincase?”

“A large part of it, yeah. But I was serious when I mentioned what the scavs had been doing with it. Whether or not they want it back… I don’t know. All their information was on the data prisms I have, not inside the CPU component. That said, a braincase acting as a server is probably worth a lot more than a normal computer.”

Her eyes were wide as she looked at him and slowly shook her head in amazement. “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Saying a braincase as a CPU is worth a lot more is a severe understatement. This thing right here, to the scavs, is probably worth between five hundred thousand and a million credits. They are rare, illegal to use that way, and there are no secondhand parts. Braincases can’t be made, only bought through official channels. Which means everyone they get their hands on they treat like a prize.” She snorted. “Frack, I probably underestimated the worth to them by a couple of million credits.”

Trace felt the blood drain from his face at the enormity of the numbers she had just given him. They were too high. That was the sort of money normal people would be plenty willing to kill for. The scavs would be preparing to go to war at this point.

“At least they aren’t sure I have it,” He squeaked out weakly.

“Yeah, we’ll see if that even matters.” She reached up and began to scratch lightly at her neck. “I think it’s starting. I feel a pressure crawling up my neck reaching for my NetConnect.”

“Well, don’t try to fight it or anything silly like that. It’s a little unpleasant, I know, but trust me, you’ll like what is to come.”

Her eyes narrowed at that promise. “I’m not sure we know each other well enough for you to make that sort of guarantee.”

He shrugged. “I could make that promise to someone I have never met before, and it would be just as valid.”

A minute later, she began to blink furiously, as the nanites connected to her eyes.

In the corner of Trace’s vision, a notification appeared.

- Connection to the individual known as Devko Park has been established

- Devko Park has been registered as a sub-user, with all appropriate permissions

- Construction of nanite production facility required

- Titanium material is requested through the stomach distribution port

- Integration of G.H.O.S.T. System has begun

Right below that message, there was a loading bar that ever so slowly ticked its way up to completion. Through his own connection, he was able to keep track of her progress. Apparently, she had been made a sub-user, compared to his own regular user status. Whatever that actually meant though, he had no idea.

“Trace,” Ko whispered dangerously. “Why is there something in the corner of my vision talking about nanites?”

He jumped forward and clapped his hand over her mouth. “Are you stupid or something? Why would you ever say that word out loud? You know the restrictions the steel goddess put on anything even remotely close to them.”

She kneed him in the chest and pushed him away. “Fine! But get talking! What is going on?”

He gasped for breath and waved her away. “Wait until the system has been fully integrated. Then you can ask it questions yourself.”

For the next half-hour, she glared at him in silence, waiting for the system to finish integrating. As soon as she received the message that it had finished, the first question out of her mouth was similar to what his had been. Though far more colorful.

“Well, that answers absolutely nothing, even if it does sound sort of cool.” She admitted after reading the name, finally having cooled down some.

- Bringing sub-user Devko Park’s G.H.O.S.T. System online now

Trace was shown a snapshot image of what her menu was shown like, obviously all in red, and immediately noted a number of differences. The NetConnection selection was now missing entirely from the menu tree, while each of the other selections had been trimmed down to fit her specific needs. The nanites had known that Ko was a trainee-mender, and the remaining options were all geared toward helping her become a better one.

His menu allowed him to become anything if he wanted to spend the time and effort. Hers was oriented toward helping her become better in the field she had already chosen. The mental options for dealing with any problems that arose from cyberware, of course, remained.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He had a feeling that this was how it was meant to be distributed to people.

The G.H.O.S.T. System was meant to help people become better in their careers and to help them heal. It wasn’t meant for them to become these all-powerful beings that could do everything. Knowing that, or rather guessing that, but feeling secure in his guess, made a knot that had existed in his chest since he got it, loosen and start to unravel.

Ko spent a few wordless minutes going through the different options. Spending far more time than he had inspecting each of them and what they might mean for her.

“I think that saying I’ll like this or that it’ll be useful is a severe understatement,” She said at last. “This system could change everything, for everyone! Why wasn’t it ever released? And why is everything in red?”

“Everything is in red because you can’t access those functions just yet. It needs to build the production facility first, and then it needs to create more of them. Both of which require materials.” Trace held up a piece of titanium. “Guess what their favorite food is? As for your first question, it was never released because it was never finished. One of its developers was killed before that could happen.”

“Who could possibly have the knowledge and ability to create something like this?” She asked in an awed whisper.

“No one these days, that’s for sure. This thing is over a hundred years old.” Her head snapped up to look at him. “It was created by Meredith Koarden, and her son, Deckard Koarden.” As he said Deckard’s name, Trace pointedly tapped on the braincase.

“Wait, you don’t mean? Is that?”

He nodded.

Her face paled as she glanced upward, as though her eyes could pierce through the layers of concrete and allow her to see the satellites far above them.

“I told you there would be strings attached, one of which is helping to ensure that he wakes up from his coma safely.”

“That’s not a string! That’s a fracking noose!” She hissed angrily. “If- No, when she finds out he is still alive and down here, she is going to do everything she can to retrieve him.”

“I know. That’s why we need to keep him safe. Can you imagine what would happen if someone captured him and tried to leverage him against her?”

Ko started pacing around the room, her mind a confused mess. This was a lot for anyone to simply have dumped on them, and he understood that better than most.

It took her nearly twenty-minutes to calm down, and even then, it wasn’t by much. Her eyes promised nothing but pain to him.

“Would you quit glaring at me like that!” He finally snapped at her. “You’re the one who agreed to stick her finger in the braincase. I didn’t force you to do it. I even told you there would be strings attached if you followed through with it. So, don’t go acting like I’m the villain here. It was your choice to do it, and if you would quit acting like such a self-entitled brat, you would realize just how great of an opportunity this really is.”

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t go over well with her, and she stormed out of the apartment a moment later.

Whatever, he wasn’t going to worry about it. She knew the stakes involved and wasn’t stupid. Ko wouldn’t go blabbing to everyone. It might take a while for her to calm down, but once she did, she would begin to experiment with the system just like he was. When that happened, she would be back.

With that matter settled, Trace popped out the latest teaching module the system had absorbed and enhanced for his use. Unfortunately, it was also the last one he could fit inside the limited space of the NetConnect partition it had created. He would need to get more storage and universal memory before he could add more.

Either that or simply delete one of them.

The only one that was really an option for that was his enhanced intermediate programming. He hadn’t even finished the basic programming course, though he was a little over halfway through it. The rest of the modules he had loaded were related to fighting and not dying. Something that he was generally quite excited on learning how to do better, in both regards.

After he put the module away, he took a couple of minutes to create several more titanium marbles. They were easy enough to slip down his throat that he almost didn’t mind how odd the action itself was.

He still needed food and soda, of course, to fully wash them down, but his body was craving the nutrients anyway.

It might be time for him to start looking into getting some nutrient gels or vitamin shots. He’d have to ask Sevorah or Ko the next time he saw one of them.

For the moment, he had a job he needed to concentrate on.

Which meant eating some more and then hopping back into the training module. Before he did that though, he noticed that the other options in his own G.H.O.S.T. System menu had finally been unlocked. It seemed that running the ‘Build More’ three times in a row was the magic minimum number.

There were still plenty of options in the further menu trees that were in red, but the base selections were now selectable at least.

There were a few that he was tempted to select, yet he found himself holding back. There was no manual that came with this system, and while some of the names were somewhat self-explanatory, not all of them were. What if he selected ‘Enhance’ under ‘Body’, and it did nothing since he had no cyberware throughout the rest of his body. Would he get the nanites back, or would it even let him select the option? There was only one way to find out, and he found himself leery to try it.

He didn’t think it would enhance his fleshware though. There was already an option for that under ‘Nanite’. However, it was entirely possible that they simply worked on different parts of the body. Again, he had no idea, and it was infuriating to him.

The nanites also weren’t giving him any hints at the moment, no matter how many times he asked them. It had worked the first time around; it was only now that they were choosing not to answer him. Well, maybe not choosing to not answer him, as he didn’t think they had that much ability. It was more that they were ignoring him for some reason.

He had no idea what was going on with them. So, he put the decision on hold for the moment by instead choosing to build more of the special nanites.

With that order now in progress, his mind vanished into the teaching module for guns. He ran through the entire program just to be sure he knew the information before entering the virtual gun range. What was being taught was the basic information. Knowledge that pertained to most guns. The program didn’t teach him how to field strip and care for anything exotic or outside the base specs.

What it did do was drill those base specs into him. The module had him clean, strip, repair, fire, and modify each of the base guns in its arsenal. There were a lot of basic guns, and they ran the gamut in size and utility. Handgun, rifle, sniper rifle. It had it all. At some point in the last fifty years, there had been a basic version of nearly every gun that eventually went on to become an exotic modification.

The exotic guns in this case were those that were purely railguns or laser-based. The dangerous, but slow-to-fire type of guns.