“Sevorah?” He asked as he opened the driver’s doors and let one foot dangle out. At this point, he wasn’t going to get out until she confirmed her identity. His body was really starting to hurt again, and the constant abuse he had been putting it through had loosened several of the PlugDocs.

The blood coagulants were mostly doing their job, but there were still a few spots where he had started to bleed again. Not heavily, thankfully, but little trickles of blood around the edges of the PlugDocs could still be seen.

The woman nodded, and a call came through to his NetConnect from the same number he had called earlier. “It's me,” The voice said when he answered the call. “Now hurry up. You aren’t looking so good at the moment.”

The call disconnected as he climbed out of the van. “I’m not looking so good, because I’m not feeling so good.” He pointed to one of the dozen holes he had patched up with the PlugDocs. “As you can see, I seem to have sprung a few leaks.” A giggle burst from his lips as he stumbled forward. It was suddenly incredibly difficult for him to tell which way was up, and what gravity even was, as it felt like his body was about to float away.

Distantly, he heard Sevorah curse. “Quick, get him inside. His temperature is spiking. While I’m taking care of him, bring his merchandise inside and make sure everything is cataloged. I want to see how much help he can actually afford before I go throwing something expensive his way.”

***

Trace’s mouth felt drier than the badlands of Old-Wyoming when he woke sometime later. His entire body was aching, and despite how dry his mouth was, he could tell his breath had turned rancid like something spoiled in there, come back to life only to eat something else that had already spoiled and die again. It was terrible, and the smell of his own mouth was making his eyes water.

“You’re lucky to be alive, you know that, right?” The mender Sevorah told him from where she had been sitting in front of her desk. His moving around had quickly caught her attention.

He grunted weakly, his mouth not having enough moisture in it to form words.

The mender brought him over a bottle of soda for him to drink and sat beside the edge of the bed.

“We went through the contents of both crates and cataloged everything inside. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to learn that the scavs had the best cyberware among everything you brought in. Though I do use that term lightly. Even their augments were mostly garbage, and several decades old. There was only one standout among them. I’m sure you know which one I’m talking about.”

He nodded, swishing the mildly cold soda around his mouth, just letting the liquid soak into everything that was dry.

“The brute’s eyes would be a very nice upgrade for you, and I already dug out the latest model NetConnect amongst the group. It’s a generic no-name model, but the specs are decent, and blow your current models away. The difference between the two is similar to that of a newborn trying to fight an auged-out scav without being properly armed.”

Trace winced. “I didn’t exactly plan on fighting any of them in the first place when I took the job. They were never supposed to come back to the apartment while I was there. The job broker’s information was bad.” He finished petulantly. “Tell me how bad the damage is. How much did you fixing me up cost me? Do I even have enough to get the eyes and NetConnect installed?”

She ran a hand through her graying hair and sat back in exasperation. “And that brings me back to what I said earlier. You are very lucky to be alive. Do you have any idea of the sort of contaminants you were covered in?”

He shook his head.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, you don’t, otherwise you would have been taking industrial strength cleaner to your skin.”

Glancing down, Trace noticed for the first time that he was no longer dressed in his own clothes but in a medical gown. From what little he could see, his body appeared to have been scrubbed clean. The skin on his arms and lower legs was a healthy pink and felt slightly raw.

“I take it you did that anyway?”

Sevorah snorted and nodded. “You had so much blood and other gunk on you, I wasn’t going to touch you without cleaning you first. It’s a good thing I did too. If you had gotten any of that inside you…” She waved a hand. “Well, let’s just say the remainder of your days would have been short and incredibly painful.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure, I did get some inside me while I was there?”

“Which is where your being lucky to be alive part comes into play. It seems as though none of it actually entered your system. You had enough holes in you at the time that everything was immediately washed back out. It took a lot of your blood to accomplish the task, but by the time you used the PlugDocs, the areas had been washed clean. You got supremely lucky on this one. That’s all I can really say on the matter. I tested your blood three times just to make sure there were no infections or other blood-borne diseases. There was nothing.”

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

She stopped and then corrected herself. “Well, I should say there was nothing new. You did have a few infections from before this job, and you had a nice little fever, of course. I ran you through the full course of antibiotics just to be safe, but you getting shot really did save your life in this instance.”

He snorted at the irony of that statement. That wasn’t generally how getting shot worked.

“Now, back to your original question. After scrubbing the IDs on all of the pieces you brought in, there is more than enough to fix you up and perform both installs. You’ll even have a couple thousand credits left over. If there is a third item you want installed from the lot, I can probably do it and still call everything square.”

Trace thought for a minute over everything that he had seen in the crates, before shaking his head. “I’m not interested in swapping out my arms and legs at the moment. All the internal replacement parts looked fairly old, or low-grade. I wouldn’t say no to some sub-dermal synthweave though, if you have any?”

She let out a bark of laughter at the request and shook her head. “A thousand credits will only get you a little over a square inch of the low-grade sub-dermal synthweave. With what you have, I could maybe cover a portion of your heart. Trust me though, the low-grade stuff is not what you want when it comes to sub-dermal protection. If you do get hit, it tends to only cause more problems.”

Trace let that sink in. After everything he had gone through, all the holes he had had suffered, this was still all he could afford. Two measly upgrades that he had brought in himself. He closed his eyes and let himself wallow in misery for a few seconds. That was all he allowed himself though. Unless he wanted to die, he needed to keep moving forward. Besides, he had always known new augments were expensive; it had just never been made so clear as in that moment is all.

“Can you add any sort of sensor suite to the eyes?” He asked after a moment. “I want to be a wraith, not a reaper. At least that is the dream.” He told her shyly.

“A wraith, huh,” Sevorah looked him up and down before nodding. “I suppose I can see that. Some might consider you too tall, but really at the peak of average, which is best, in my opinion. It will open a lot of doors for you in time… If you can make it work for you.” She tapped a razor-sharp fingernail against the edge of the chair in thought. “I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m not going to install the eyes you brought me. We’ll sell those as well. Instead, I’ll be putting in a pair I have in stock.”

She held up a hand to stop Trace from saying anything when she saw his brows furrow and his mouth opening.

“Consider it a favor to Stick-Point. Despite how he acts, the old man is fond of you, and well, I’m fond of him. I’ll be taking the rest of your credits in partial payment, of course, and you’ll still owe me the remaining balance, but I’m fine with doing something like this for him.” Her cheeks had taken on a distinctive rosy hue by the time she finished speaking.

It took an insane amount of self-control not to say something potentially stupid to her right then. The urge to poke fun of Stick-Point’s bachelor status was real. However, while he might know the job broker well enough to do that, he didn’t know her that well.

“Thank you,” Was what he settled on instead. “What kind of eyes are they, and what sort of remaining balance are we talking about here?”

“They are old mil-spec eyes, a few generations old at this point. That said, they will have a sensor suite, and some night-vision, infrared, and thermal capabilities, among other things. In other words, their specs are just higher than what you would have been getting otherwise. As for your remaining balance…” She winced and then sighed. “I’ll give you a discount on them. Let’s call it an even forty-five thousand credits.”

Trace gagged on his tongue and began to cough. “I’m sorry. I thought you said forty-five thousand credits for a second there!”

“I did.”

“How much are these things normally?”

“Without the discount, they cost sixty thousand credits. Trust me, I’m giving you a good deal here. I’m doing the install for free, and everything.”

He felt his poor wallet scream at him. That was more money than he had ever had at one time. It was likely more than he had ever possessed in total. Just when he was getting used to the idea of having a few thousand credits as a nice buffer when this was all over, they had up and vanished on him. All he was left with were the credits he had taken from the scavs, and what he would get paid when he turned in the job.

It was still more money than he was used to, and by a lot, thanks to the scavs’ generous donations, not the job. It just felt lacking suddenly.

Still, if he wanted to move forward, and he did, then he needed that sensor suite.

Trace gave her a firm nod. “Do it, please. Upgrade my NetConnect to that model you mentioned before and then replace my eyes with these mil-spec ones.”

He didn’t mention anything about his future jobs or the repayment plan. There was no reason to scare her off now. If she knew that Stick-Point had never let him take any of the more dangerous or lucrative jobs, she might just cancel the upgrade. He hoped the old man would let him start taking a few of them now that he would have some better cyberware.

Not to mention, he also had all the guns he had collected back at his apartment. He would need to go through those later and see which ones he could sell. If he was really lucky, then maybe he could even afford some regular body armor.

Either way, with these two upgrades, and all those weapons, his days of struggling for every scrap he could get were over.

The tides that governed his luck had finally begun to sway in a different direction for once.

Sevorah prepped both of the replacement cyberware pieces while he watched. Sending them both through the disinfectant bath for a quick cleaning. She then hooked them up to her computer for a last round of updates and checks. Nothing would be put into his body until she was sure there were no viruses or other malicious code attached to it in any way.

Once all of that was done, she spun on her chair and nodded once. “Alright, let’s put you under and get these installed. See you on the other side.”