Novels2Search

Chapter 68

Ko left Deckard to his work and headed over to the warehouse. She was using Sevorah’s tiny car to get around and quickly made her way down to the basement.

It took her a few minutes to go through the various NetConnects and right arms. She was primarily looking for the arm that would match Trace’s natural length the best. Once she found the right arm, she checked what options it came with.

It was blank. Whoever the arm had belonged to before must have just barely gotten it. There was space for multiple modifications or addons, and the arm allowed for a certain amount of modularity as well. However, nothing had been done to alter it from its stock state.

She went through the other arms and removed the items she thought they would be able to add to the arm. It was an inch and a half longer than his original fleshware, but that was something he would need to get used to. The other option was something that she didn’t really want to think about at the moment.

As for the NetConnect, its hardware completely outpaced his current one. It had far more storage and universal memory. The processor it was using was also the latest generation and was top-of-the-line. It was a specialized unit, but it would be a ridiculous upgrade over the one he had received only a couple of months ago.

The jump in quality would almost be equal to what he had gone through the first time.

Ko stored all the items in the required containers, closed up the freezer, and took the stairs back up to the main floor. From this point onward, there was a timer, not a significant one granted, but there was one, nonetheless. The containers worked well; however, she would need to remove the items so Deckard could work on them.

They absolutely could not let the nerve connections on these pieces die. It wouldn’t necessarily be too bad on the NetConnect, as there were others that could replace it. All the other arms though, were much longer in length than this one. The inch-and-a-half difference was already pushing it, any more than that, and his mind would begin to struggle too much with its own self-image, and identity issues would begin to emerge.

Deckard was waiting for her when she returned. His avatar was busy going through a series of exercises that were exhausting just to watch.

“Did you bring them?” He asked excitedly.

She showed the containers to him. “Did you manage to do it?”

“I did. Frankly, what your corporations have done with this new programming language of theirs is practically criminal. It’s easy to use, yes, but all they are doing for the NetConnects is overlaying it over the older OS to create a shiny new interface.”

Ko shook her head. “Well, maybe keep that to yourself, otherwise they might fix it. Then we’ll really have problems. Yeah? Anyway, how long it will take to make your changes? We can only keep them out of the containers for a few minutes before they begin to warm too much.”

“I’ve already put together a script with everything that needs to be done. Just plug me in. I’ll get root-level access and then run the script. It shouldn’t take more than two minutes to do everything on the arm. The NetConnect should take even less time.”

She bit her lip, her teeth catching on a section of dead skin as she proceeded to tug it away, accidentally going too far and hitting the fresh part of her lip. With a hiss of pain, she spat away the section of skin and wiped away the blood.

“Fine, that might be pushing it though, so work as quickly as you can.” She turned to her fridge to see if she had anything frozen inside it.

There were a few burritos, but that was it. They were better than nothing. Grabbing them, she set them on the counter next to the longest container. All the rest of the cords were already prepped. All she needed to do was pop the lid, pull it out a little bit, plug in the connector cable that ran to Deckard, and then cover the nerves with the frozen burritos. Hopefully, that last item would give them a little more time in case anything went wrong.

She breathed in and out several times before finally forcing her hands to do their jobs.

The lid came off; the connector went in, and the nerves were covered. Now it was all up to Deckard.

The next two minutes felt as though they took hours. Each second was a minute in her perception as she watched the clock and the slow, interminable procession of time.

Finally, at a minute and forty-five seconds, Deckard completed the process. He used two more seconds to run a second script that ran through double-checking everything. There could be no errors in what they were doing.

Everything marking it as a private product of the Vinna-Kwoi corporation needed to be wiped. All the identifiers had to be modified and all the features that were designed to call home or send out location signals were removed or completely disabled.

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That was all part of what the primary script had done. Now, he was just making sure everything had taken properly, and that the hidden backup partition for the firmware had also successfully been overwritten.

“Okay, you can unplug me and put it back in the container.” He told her as soon as the second script came back positive.

Ko breathed out, as a significant amount of tension suddenly left her body.

“You know, there is no real reason to install this NetConnect in Trace now.” Deckard informed her. “The arm is no longer tied to just their products.”

She hesitated for several seconds before shaking her head. “No, this will still be a significant upgrade for him. It’s not something he would have access to outside of these circumstances, so I think we should still do it.”

Deckard’s avatar shrugged. “You would know better than I in this instance. I simply thought I would mention it.”

“I appreciate it. Please don’t tell anyone else though, outside of Trace, of course.”

***

Sevorah had scanned all the bones and muscle tissue connecting to Trace’s shoulder. She had all the exact measurements and had promptly begun printing out a new set of bones. The order of synth-muscle and synth skin had also been sent in.

They were scheduled to arrive shortly after they should have finished the last cleaning and shaping processes on the bones.

There was something that was bothering her about the scans that she had taken of Trace. There were small amounts of metal everywhere inside his body. That included his muscles and bones.

Monroe had retrieved Trace’s arm from where it had been buried in the wall, just in case they could reattach it. She found herself pulling it out of cold storage and slipping it beneath the scanner, and then the electron microscope.

There was nothing there. The arm was completely clean. Outside of how abnormally dense his bones, and to a lesser extent his muscles were, there were no metal particles to be found in the arm.

Sevorah turned her attention back to Trace’s actual body, only to stop as Ko returned.

“I have the arm and the NetConnect. Both are ready to be installed. You don’t even have to run your usual checks.” Ko’s eyes landed on Trace’s destroyed arm that was on the table instead of in cold storage where it belonged. “Why is that? What are you doing, Sev?”

“I thought I noticed something odd about him and wanted to look into it some more, is all,” Sevorah replied defensively.

“Are you insane?” Ko hissed, looking over her shoulder to make sure Anna was at her desk and outside of earshot. “Trace’s secrets are his to keep, not ours to dig into impulsively. You taught me that! We can’t get in trouble or answer questions about things we never look into. Wasn’t that what you said? Do what you need to and nothing more.”

Her teacher hung her head and slowly nodded. “I did say that, but this is different.”

“How?”

“Because he’s getting involved with you!” Sevorah snapped, holding a hand up to her head, as though warding off an incoming headache. “Devko, in many ways you’re like the daughter I never had or my niece. I worry about you. So, when it involves you, the rules go out the window.”

Ko placed the containers to the side and walked up to Sevorah and gave her a hug. “Thanks for that, let’s maybe avoid comparing you to my mom though. Yeah? Aunty.” She requested with a cheeky wince.

Sevorah snorted and returned the hug. “Yeah, that’s probably fair, sweety.”

“Anyway, in regard to Trace, just know that I know what his secret is. Okay?”

“Hmm,” The older mender eyes her apprentice for several long moments before finally nodding. “Fine, I hope you know what you are doing. Put his arm and the two replacement cyberware pieces in cold storage for later. The first of his new bones should be done printing by now. We need to make sure they match up to specs and then clean and coat them.”

***

Trace slowly returned to consciousness. His eyes felt heavy, and there was a dull ache in the back of his brain. It was as though he had been suffering from an extended migraine and while it had finally begun to lift the bruise it had left on his brain was still there.

He was finally able to blink, and the sudden piercing light made the ache at the back of his head suddenly throb. The gain in his eyes shifted, and he tried again. Apparently, his eyes had been closed for so long that the software in his eyes hadn’t been prepared for him to actually open them right then.

Flicking through the menu on the G.H.O.S.T. System, he brought up the settings and re-enabled all his nanites. He would take some more time later to correctly set them up for medical procedures later with Ko’s help.

Right then, he just didn’t want to keep feeling like someone that had been hit by a car and smashed into a building.

Idly, he flicked through the countless notifications that had made an appearance. Most had stopped appearing after he turned off the nanites however, a few new ones had still appeared. Namely, he now had a new NetConnect, along with a new arm. Apparently, he had missed the activation procedure for both of them. All of his old information had been copied over without an issue to the new NetConnect, and as an added bonus, it was slightly smaller and lighter. This new model shouldn’t cause any more problems with his neck.

Most of those notifications faded away in his vision, save for two.

- Catastrophic damage has been inflicted on all of the right arm

The lines immediately below it listed all the specific ways his arm had been messed up as it was torn from his body. Not exactly a memory he wanted to dwell on, so he ignored those. The second notification he found himself staring at was a little more peculiar, if only because of what it actually said.

- Cyberware arm – Right Side – Model: TuKord001 – No current modules in active slots or other addons detected

It was just a random little model name, and yet unless he was mistaken, it was a combination of his edger name, and then Ko’s and Deckard’s names. It was ridiculous, and yet for some reason, the sight of it made him want to cry.

The ache in his head had slowly been clearing as the nanites cleared all the medicine from his body. It had the side effect of letting him feel all the aches and pains, but at least he felt human again.

Taking it slowly, he gradually turned his head and looked at his shoulder and the rest of his side.

“You’re awake. It’s about time.” Monroe’s voice boomed out, the natural bass it contained making Trace ache everywhere.

He winced and gradually held up the middle finger on his new onyx-colored hand. “Look at this. My arm now matches you.”

The big man laughed. “Nah, I’m not that dark. Good to have you back, man.”

“How long was I out for?”

Sevorah and Ko rushed in, having heard Monroe’s loud voice. “This is the fourth day. We kept you under for a while longer after the surgery, just to ensure everything took without any problems.”