“Great, I’ll head on over. Just leave me a note on the grid or something when the pay for the job is ready and we can sort it out. For now I need to rest and heal. Thanks for taking in my mother, Mrs. Marchand, I know that you knew you didn’t need to offer that before the job to get me on the hook.” I said.
“I might have many grandchildren Mal, but I care for all of them as much as I can afford to invest in each of them. You are worth that risk right now, just don’t you go getting lazy on me and recover quickly. Cyberware needs to be installed and settled into, then you’ll need training, then it’s back to work. Your new career path as it were.” She said, clasping her hands together on her lap.
Right. The netrunning stuff. That’d be a new thing for me. I hadn’t even owned a deck before now.
“I’ll be on my feet soon enough, I’m ten years old. I got a few years of bouncing back fast still.” I said, tapping my chest for emphasis.
“You young folk and your enviable vitality, if that energy was able to be extracted I wouldn’t have a single grandchild of mine outside my grasp. Instead all of you run around scraping your knees and worrying me, wasting your wonderful energy and health on drinking as much soda you can and stealing cars.” Marchand said, a bit of genuine grumpiness fading into her voice.
I left Marchand’s home quickly into the hallway before she decided to somehow steal my youth or something. I supposed this was my hallway now too, which was weird to think about.
Limping over to apartment two and knocking on the door I heard a muffled voice from within and then the door opened. Mom stood there for a moment in shock and then grabbed me into a big hug, after a few seconds of hugging she started to cry which when combined with the pain of the hug made me want to cry.
I held out for appearances sake though, mom was the one who was worried for me. She deserved to be the one to cry right now after putting her through worry like that.
“I’m alright mom, everything is still attached you know. Arms and legs all here. Just some aches and bruises, but the job got done and we’re all squared away now. Everything is safe. We’re safe.” I said soothingly into mom’s hair.
She stopped crying after another few seconds and snuffled a bit before pulling me out to arms length and then dragging me into the new apartment and closing the front door.
“I was so scared that you weren’t coming home you know? I’ve been making this new place as homely as I can but all the while I’ve just been worrying and crying. I’ve almost walked over to
Marchand and demanded answers about five times now. I’m so glad you’re back.” She said while still snuffling a bit and leading me into the little living room we had.
The place was bigger than our old apartment, not drastically but definitely a bigger layout. There were five rooms off the living room as well, all the doors were open so I could see what was in some of them.
There was a small bathroom, simple. Two bigger rooms and two smaller rooms. Mom had claimed a bigger room which was fine, she liked a bigger bed. I’d likely claim the other… Wait no. I’d have one of the small rooms to sleep and use the bigger room as my storage, get a good lock and door on it, get my gears and weapons in there. Netrunning machines and computers could go in there too if I ever got any, I’ve heard you can get entire hangars worth of machines and stuff for milspec netrunning three guys so even a simple set up for my level might take up some space.
“I’ll take the small room across from your room mom, but is it okay if I make the big room into secure storage? I’ll need somewhere to stash gear, tools and guns and so on.” I said, I knew as soon as I said it that I’d made a mistake.
“You’re carrying guns around now? Is that what that thing hanging out under your arm is? You told me you don’t carry guns because it gets you killed and now you’re carrying them with no concern?” She asked while folding her arms at me.
“Actually, this is a little shotgun that I found on the job. I didn’t buy this one. I’ve got a pistol from a guy from the job too. But the gun that is actually mine is this one here that I got off Noe before I went on the job. I wanted a back up plan.” I said showing mom my signet pistol.
“So you’ve gone from “no guns, guns escalate the danger” to three guns at once? Is this Marchand’s influence?” Mom asked angrily.
“I’m not going to wander around with guns all the time mom, I’m going to put these away for when I need them. Well, maybe not these ones. I’ll likely give them to Noe to play with, but my signet pistol will be in storage generally. I’ll only be taking it when I think I may actually need it. My own rules haven’t changed.” I said while unhitching my storage rig and letting the less dangerous items slide off the straps onto the floor.
Then I took off the shotgun and gathered up the mess I’d made and bundled it all up in my arms. Standing there with all my stuff, mom just huffed and walked away leaving me to take it into the big room. I just pit it on the floor in a pile by the wall and walked out.
Walking out and across to my little room I saw that mom had either found a new bed or there was one already here because this was not the steel bed I had salvaged. It was a small single bed mostly made of steel pipes and plastic parts with a little plastic shelf thing under the bed with rolling drawers. It occurred to me then I didn’t tell mom where I had stashed the salvaged bed. Never mind.
The bed had a mattress and a double blanket with a load of mixed sized pillows all covered with some fabric that looked pretty good quality. Maybe the bed really was from before we moved in. I’d have to ask. Too tired to think much further through this whole situation I just rolled my pained body onto the bed and just about had enough strength in me to kick off my boots before I fell asleep still dressed.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
-
My body still hurt when I woke up. This is unfair, I’m ten I should be bombproof. I opened my profile.
Name: Malcolm Beckett
Age: 10
Health:
Widespread negligible dermal damage
Micro-tears across multiple ligaments
Micro-fractures throughout skeletal structure
Cyberload: Trace
Endurance: 0
Reflexes: 0
Perception: 0
Insight: 0
Presence: -1
Skills:
Combat, Blades: Level 2
Combat, Pistols: Level 1
Engineering, Electrical: Level 3
Engineering, Mechanical: Level 2
Language, English: Level 4
Language, French: Level 1
Language, Russian: Level 1
Negotiation: Level 1
Stealth: Level 5
Subterfuge: Level 2
Tracking: Level 1
Tracing: Level 0
Abilities:
Kinetic Dispersion (KD)
Amygdala Adrenal Bypass (AAB)
Oh hey, the tiny muscle problems are gone. So it’s just all the rest of the pain to go. Hey Sanctum can you collapse the languages and engineering and so on into single skills to show? If I ask about something specific you can who it then.
Skills:
Combat, Various: Avg. Level 1
Engineering, Various: Avg. Level 2
Language, Various: Avg. Level 2
Negotiation: Level 1
Stealth: Level 5
Subterfuge: Level 2
Tracking: Level 1
Tracing: Level 0
[Is this layout acceptable?]
It’s got it’s issues with usability I guess but I need to sacrifice it for readability, that list is getting long and I can only see it getting longer as I pick up stuff. Also you round down, you’re mean.
[Almost all Sanctum’s displayed numbers are rounded down to preserve exceptional statistical values and drive enthusiasm for full point values among Users. Most of the User’s Profile statistics are tracked to eight decimal points and can be displayed however the User wishes.]
Don’t go changing the numbers on my count Sanctum, if you think it’s best we’ll just go with that. I was mostly joking anyway. It might be worth dropping some of the health tracking as well, maybe just list the top two most important or critical “You are now dying.” Stuff.
Health:
Micro-fractures throughout skeletal structure
Two other minor injuries
[Is this layout acceptable?]
Yeah, that’s great Sanctum, really cuts down on the clutter for day to day stuff. I might want the full readout at some point though so hold onto everything you feel you can. I gotta get up and move around a bit.
Getting out of bed I walked out into the living room to find mom was cleaning the furniture.
“Why are you wiping down the underside of a sofa? No one can even see it from underneath.” I asked as I walked across to the bathroom.
“When we moved in a lot of the stuff I had brought over needed a good wipe down and general clean. And now we’ve got some new furniture already here mixed in I thought it would be good to give that a total clean as well so it all looks just as clean.” She said while blowing her hair off her face.
“I’m gonna take a quick shower, then I’m going to go swing by Marchand’s place and see if any of the payment is ready.” I said, taking off my shirt. I threw it into the plastic washing box nearby.
The bathroom was just a shower and a toilet but at least the shower has a water supply and wasn’t just a spray model. Those just sprayed you with a lot of anti-bacteria and anti-mold spray and you just had to wipe yourself down as best you could. This one had hot water which was a nice bit of minor luxury.
I dumped the rest of my clothes off me onto the floor and then stepped into the shower. I remembered to stay out of the way of the spray until it warmed up at least, you’d think heat would be mastered by now but I guess such wizardry wasn’t in the budget for this place.
The warm water was so good I was considering just living in the shower unit from now on. It soothed my back and my ragged bones all the way down to my toes, eventually I just sat dross legged on the shower floor and let it pour on me. A little cramped but I was small so it was fine.
I cleaned up after a while and stepped out to grab a towel and dry off. I put on my pants from yesterday and walked out into the living room again. Mom then threw me a bag that I just about caught while already carrying my shirt.
“There’s some more shirts and pants in there for you along with underwear, there’s also some scrubber gel in there I didn’t put in the bathroom yet.” Mom said while turning away to the little kitchen area of the living room. She then started scrubbing the back of the microwave food heater, pure insanity.
I shuffled off to my room and got changed into a dark long sleeve shirt with a load of cross-hatched strips of fabric all over at over a normal shirt, kind of like a net. It was scratchy but fine enough. The pants were black denim stuff with purple plastic thread woven into it, a little stiff for my liking but it had lots of pockets so I chose it.
The thing I did like was a set of plastic covered steel shin guards I could wear over my boots. The thing I didn’t like about armor generally was the maintenance, most armor can only take a single hit before it’s compromised. Sure, that hit might save your life and that’s perfect and what it’s there to do. But then you need to get it fixed or swapped out.
Never had the mind for that, too expensive.
But now I had a friendly mechanic of sorts on my street, Noe could take care of my armor between jobs. She’d still charge me but it’d likely be quick and knowing her detail focus it’d likely be done well. Her gun work had worked great after the field testing.
Speaking of Noe, I should go over and give her some money after I check in with Marchand. Or else she’ll find out I got back and didn’t visit her to let her know I’m alive and change that situation to me not being alive anymore in revenge.
I grabbed my rig and the rest of the pile of gear and headed out.
There wasn’t an angry huge guy when I arrived at Marchand’s gate this time which was nice and when I’d gone through the rituals and got to sit down in front of Marchand I did slightly wonder what she got up to outside of meet the odd operator. Did Marchand have hobbies? Did she knit or something?
“So, you’ve come across the hall awfully quickly. I imagine you’re here to shake down the local elderly for their meager wealth, correct?” She asked as I sat in the chair. No butler types today.
“I suppose you’d be right there Mrs. Marchand, I am here to receive my payment, or whatever is available from it. Alongside this I’d like to know how much splash the last job has caused and whether any ripples will find me, sort of thing.” I answered in response, sometimes the old lady facade lent the conversation a nice rhythm to relax into, maybe that’s why she did it all the time.
My interface received a connection request and I accepted, then my banking app pinged and I accepted that. Then, a very nice two thousand aura appeared in my account.
“I’ll want you ready to be fitted for your new tools by lunch time, one o’clock sharp at the apartment below this one. The doctor is an old friend of sorts and does a lot of work for those I keep company with.” Marchand said with a small smile at the large smile on my face.
“Do I get to know what I’m receiving before I turn up to get sliced open?” I asked. It then occurred to me that I’d agreed to go under the knife when I had a rogue nanite thing in me. I tried not to show it on my face but I’m sure Marchand caught a sliver of it.
“No need to be nervous Mal, I know you always play it safe but I promise the rewarded parts are all safe and secure and really better as a surprise once you wake up. I think you’ll be quite happy with the synergy of the netrunning set.” She said with careful expression. She must have taken my realization of exposure risk as worry.
“Alright I’ll get myself ready for that then, thanks for sorting out the money Mrs. Marchand and the rest of it.” I said, getting up from my chair.
“No problem dear, I’ll check in with you later when you’re in recovery.” She said.