Trace was planning to use the ‘Upgrade’ function of the G.H.O.S.T. System first. Then, once that had been completed, he would use the ‘Overload’ option to upgrade it a second time. Originally, he had planned to work on his NetConnect and eyes. Now, his priorities and needs had changed.

He swallowed marble after marble, feeling his esophagus swell uncomfortably around the larger ones. They sat heavy in his stomach, while the nanites went to work organizing and processing the materials.

It took hours during which he stayed busy with his enhanced teaching modules, but eventually, they were ready.

He opened the G.H.O.S.T. System menu and selected ‘Nanite’. From there, he went to ‘Upgrade’ and selected his arm.

‘Information on related augments has been found in the database. Cost to upgrade this cyberware arm has been increased as available modifications have been found and integrated into the design.’

Trace took in the increased cost and gagged on his spit. The materials that he had been hoping would be enough to do two upgrades were now only enough for one, with a little left over. It was also going to cost him nine units of nanites.

The max he could carry at the moment was ten!

Which is what he was currently at, since he had been wanting to perform two upgrades that night. Apparently, in his naivety, he had really underestimated how greedy these things would be.

Still, it needed to be done, no matter how ridiculously expensive it seemed. He might not have been using the system to its fullest potential, but he would readily admit that what Deckard and his mother had created was miraculous. If it said something was an upgrade, then there was no doubt in his mind that it would be an upgrade.

He agreed to the price and instantly lost all control of the arm.

A silvery sheen could be seen flooding through the inside of the augment. The seams could be seen beginning to pulse as the inside of the arm was cannibalized and rebuilt in real-time.

A progress bar with a percentage indicator had appeared in the upper left corner of his vision. It currently showed one percent, and after five minutes, it finally increased to two percent. At that rate, it was going to take hours for the process to complete.

With a sigh of annoyance, Trace pushed his arm down against his side. He hadn’t expected that the upgrade would take over three hours. If he had known that beforehand, then he would have finished the last of his preparations before doing it.

Using one hand, he gathered up all the different screws and components for the railgun and put them in a small bag. The outer pieces went next, along with some expanding foam. He couldn’t forget anything if he wanted to finish putting the gun back together while they were on the road. They were all put next to the soldering pen and the other supplies he would need to finish its repair.

Doing everything with a single hand certainly made it take longer. It was only an hour later that he managed to finish the last of his preparations.

“Hey, Deckard?” He called out.

The screen with the avatar lit up, showing a man hunched in front of a desk typing madly at a keyboard. “Yeah? What do you need?”

Trace told him about the specifics of the upgrade, and how long it was taking. He would send a message to Ko with all the same information later.

“I would suggest not using the ‘Overload’ function until you return. Not unless you plan on staying up all night, that is. It might take even more time to work, and while you are out on the road, that would be dangerous. Not to mention impossible to hide from Monroe.”

It was disappointing that he would need to wait a while longer. He knew good advice when he heard it, and this particular advice made a lot of sense to him.

They talked for a while longer before he turned off the lights and went to bed.

***

- Cyberarm Upgrade procedure completed

- Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 100%

- Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 68%

- Skeletal System Integration (Percent Completed): 04%

The first thing Trace saw when he opened his eyes the next morning was the usual list of notifications. He was pleased to see that his skeletal system had finally finished being repaired. It had taken a while, but growing up eating literal slop off the street had done him no favors in that regard.

A new process had started as well, something called ‘Skeletal System Integration’. There weren’t any details on what the process was, and when he asked Deckard, he only received a shrug. Apparently, this was a new feature that his mother had added in the update, not something from the original version.

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Well, he would find out eventually, he guessed.

Sitting up, he began his usual arm exercises, only to stop a second later in surprise. Trace inspected the dark black arm while slowly moving each of his fingers and spinning his hand at the wrist. His control, which had been improving as he got used to the difference between a cyberware arm and a fleshware arm, had taken a huge jump. It wasn’t perfect, but if the day before he had been a clumsy three-year-old, then now he was the equivalent of a six- or seven-year-old.

He could actually use his arm, and some fine motor control was now within his grasp. However, the occasional clumsiness or other issues that young children suffered from were still an issue.

Without taking the actual arm apart, he couldn’t tell how much of it had changed on the inside. The outside remained the same visually, outside of a few seams that had tightened up. He was willing to bet that the synth-muscles, motors, and pretty much all the other electronics on the inside had received a significant upgrade.

He wondered if his grip strength might be equal to Monroes now that his arm had been upgraded. It was an idle thought, but imagining the expression it would bring to the large man’s face was funny enough to urge him to finally get out of bed.

Trace set about putting the message for Ko together while he ate breakfast and moved the last of his stuff out onto a table. He wanted to be ready to leave as soon as Monroe arrived.

Deckard had already told him goodbye before vanishing back into one of his projects. He had been running more and more simulations on the server lately. Everything from the best way to construct a new body for himself, to the 3D-printer programs, and more.

If Trace didn’t know better, he would say the braincase-encased man was trying to keep his mind busy. Why he would be doing that though, he had no idea. Acting as a server wasn’t supposed to be particularly traumatizing, at least so far as he understood it. It erased a person’s identity and memories; it didn’t leave the new information behind. Regardless, none of that had happened to him.

By all accounts, Deckard had gotten lucky with his coma. Yet, he was acting as though something was going on. Not that he wanted to talk about it with Trace.

So, it was another item that got mentioned in his message to Ko. He asked her to take some time to talk with him each day when she stopped by. If they were lucky, maybe she would be luckier than he had been.

The warehouse doors opened as Black Betty rolled in, looking completely different from how he had first seen the van over a month before.

He reviewed everything he had written and ended it with a short message telling her to be careful while he was gone. Then he sent it off and gathered up his bags.

A short time later, they were on the long, annoying road that made its way through Denver. Even with multiple levels, there always seemed to be traffic. Half the time it was because of an accident. The other half, was because of the perpetual roadwork that always seemed to be going on at multiple sections of the highway.

Under ideal conditions, they could have crossed the large city in an hour and a half. Those never existed. It took them six hours to drive from the warehouse to the wall on the north side of the city. It was out past an area that had once been called ‘North Westminster’. Now it was simply known as ‘Sector North 3’, at least officially.

After leaving the city, Trace made sure all his guns were close by. The drive from Denver to Fort Collins would have them going through several large ruins and near a couple of scarpo towns.

The condition of the road was supposedly decent for most of the trip, however, there were a couple of areas where it had been completely destroyed. They would need to go off-road during those areas.

The iffy road conditions were the least of their concerns. With such a long space between properly, corpo-controlled space, this was prime raider real-estate. They would be the rulers out here, not corpos, and the scarpo towns who would be struggling to defend themselves.

That was why he had wanted to finish fixing the railgun. The extra power that it would bring to a fight would be exceedingly useful.

A couple of minutes outside the city, the radio fizzled out and Monroe turned it off for the moment. The hum of the motors and the van’s tires were the only background, as they were both lost in their own thoughts.

“I was thinking,” Monroe said suddenly, startling Trace slightly as he jumped in surprise. “Have you tried firing your Colter 700 since getting your, uh, new arm?”

Trace blinked, not sure where that question had come from. “No, there hasn’t been a need to. I know you gave me some more ammo for it, but I’m not just going to waste it taking potshots at things.”

The other man waved his fingers dismissively at him with his elbow propped on the sill of the closed window. “Nah, that wasn’t what I was thinking. It’s just that you’re predominantly righthanded for most things, even though I know you can use both. So, I was just wondering if you had taken the chance to fire it with your cyberware arm yet, is all.”

Trace opened and closed his mouth in surprise, as he began to chuckle. “You know what? That actually is something that I should take the time to do soon. I always had to set my stance, arm, and wrist just right whenever I fired it, otherwise it would hurt like no tomorrow. I remember the first time I shot the thing, I swear I thought I broke my wrist. It was just a sprain, but still. It would be nice to just be able to fire it without having to mentally go through all the other crap beforehand.”

The two relaxed and settled in for the drive, taking things slowly as they crossed the state. They needed to drive around sixty miles to reach Fort Collins. It would be less if they were able to stick to the original roads the entire way, but that wasn’t to be. Neither had been there before, so they had no idea where the city’s influence would start to take effect, either.

All they knew was that it was part of the same Mountain Collective that Denver belonged to. Not surprising, really, since all of Colorado belonged to it.

Trace had been securing the heatsinks to the wireless energy receivers, finishing a job he had started days before when Monroe shouted.

“We have vehicles on the road!”

He quickly put everything away and grabbed his scout rifle, and after a second, the revolver from his bag. Thankfully, Monroe had been driving relatively slow for this exact reason, so he had plenty of time to react to the situation. They had known that they would encounter raiders eventually, and it was better to do so under their terms than their enemies.

With how fat and loaded down Black Betty was at the moment, there was little hope of them outrunning anyone, either. So, playing the turtle and coming in slow was the better option.