“The Zenne-Volkan “Sylphswhisper” sensory suite. The current price we can get it for is two six. That’s a very good price for a sensory suite with the listed specifications. If we add that to your faceplate, or half faceplate, you’re likely looking at thee one or three two once you factor in all the synthskin.” Dr. Nguyen said, tallying it up in his head.
“Damn. That’s most of my savings. I’ll have to get back to work right away. That’s fine though. How soon do you think you can get that ordered in?” I asked.
“Oh, I can get that in tomorrow morning or even late tonight. The network we use doesn’t do slow deliveries. I can get it even faster if you’re willing to pay a little, maybe get it here in an hour or two?” Nguyen said.
“No. Tomorrow is fine if you can fit in the installation then? I’d like to get it done soon. Get used to the face plate sort of things as well.”
“Yeah, we can fit you in then at the moment. You’ll be first in at eight. It’ll be a bit of a long surgery because we’ll be doing a lot of external and internal work along with fixing what we’ve already done. Then there’s the software to get sorted before you wake up. At least it handles set up automatically so we won’t need to monitor you in recovery like before. As for your faceplate, you want a half plate split vertically?”
“Yeah. Vertical half split to replace the broken skin all over there.”
“So…” He started as he took my head in his hands and started touching different parts. “Left cheekbone, left ear, left temple. Left scalp?”
“Yeah, left scalp, left chin, left lips both, left eye socket. The whole face and the whole side of the head.”
“Alright. That’s a bit more than the damaged portion but if that’s what you want. What kind of design and finish do you want?”
“Just make it matte black, synthskin included on the flexible parts. Don’t worry about synthhair or optical hair or whatever. Just leave me half bald. I don’t do much with it anyway.”
“Just all black, black black. Alright. How about a pleather texture at least? People who go for matte on their face plates sometimes get a bit weirded out by the plasticness of it. If you go for a more textured finish, something living like pleather or even micro-scales, you’ll be less likely to have a bad reaction.”
“Nah. I’ll just take the matte finish. Make it combat grade and at least nine millimeter bullet proof.”
“Hm. We’ll need to put in some under layers for that. More digging into what’s left of your skull. Might be worth just swapping out your skull entirely at this point.”
“If that’s better for the surgery then go for it. Whatever material you use has to be combat grade at least though. I don’t want to have my face exploded because I didn’t fork out for a stronger nose bone.”
“We’ll likely use something similar to your braincase but with less ballistic layering, probably print out some polymer ceramic stuff.”
“Not steel?”
“We could but then it’d need to be sheathed heavily, not easy to do on the face where you don’t have a lot of room and bone to work with. Better off with some fancy ceramic based material.”
“Alright. Well I’ll be back tomorrow for my new head then. Thanks for the time Doc and thanks for finding me some preem cyberware.” I said as I got up and grabbed Nguyen’s hand as he stood up with me. We shook hands.
“No problem Mal, good to see your back on your feet so fast after that craziness. We’ll get you your new face and I’ll put in an order for your new suite too. By dinner time tomorrow you’ll have most of a new face, a strong skull and a whole new cyberware to play with that’ll keep you safer on the job.” Dr. Nguyen said, giving me a wide smile.
“Looking forward to it all. See you then.” I said and turned to leave, giving Dr. Wood a wave goodbye as she worked on the bald guy’s arm. She waved back.
I left the clinic and made my way down the street to the crossroads. Marchand’s street was a dead end between two drone plants so it was boxed in heavily with only one entrance. I pulled up my map and checked the drop off point that Allie had given me and checked my pathing app to see how long it would take me to get there. Five hours of travel by subway, bus and foot. The longest part being the walk across the industrial yards and landing spots past the wall to the inside edge of the firing zone.
The megacity of Auranyx had two exterior walls, one of them was a flood wall for the rainy season that surrounded the whole city. The next was a thicker defensive wall that was covered with turrets and artillery of hundreds of kinds. Cities didn’t use their defenses often but when they did they lit the entire horizon up with tracers and explosions but that was only when they were at war with a neighbor state and that didn’t happen often.
Beyond the walls was a few miles of industrial zone mostly used for testing and storage and then a blank area of exposed, toxic soil that continued until the firing zone which was where a lot of the automatic defenses would fire on anything larger than a suitcase that moved around out there. There were a few dozen safe routes through that area but if you traveled through out of those then you’d soon be under a hail of antipersonnel artillery fire that landed a kinetic shell nearby that then spat out hundreds of smart rounds to home in on nearby targets. Then the shell would explode.
A bit extreme for a random refugee but maybe that was what you needed to take out a borged out infiltrator?
Allie’s drop point was located just beyond the industrial zone where a pre-war farm ruin had a small, mostly exposed and largely damaged subterranean bunker. In there was a steel filing cabinet that I had to leave her data shard for her friend. Simple enough.
I traveled through the streets, finding them still on edge and with literal patrols of gangers walking around in big groups through their streets with obvious overwatch gangers in the balconies above looking down. It felt like the streets were waiting for some war to break out, there hadn’t been a proper gang war since I was a baby and I was hoping it would just end in a small scale scuffle like it usually had in the past.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
But today wasn’t the day to look into this and mom was safe in Marchand’s street anyway so overall a gang war didn’t effect me outside of disturbing my commutes. This commute would take a while so instead of buying food on the way I just pushed on through the nervous crowds.
The subway staircase and the subway station itself were oddly empty all the way to the platform. I was sat there alone on the platform benches with even the vending machine wall seeming a little quieter. It didn’t feel like my familiar streets.
Traveling by subway was nice because it let me zone out for extended periods or even nap while still getting stuff done in the form of traveling. It made me kind of wish I had a car, they’d drive themselves as long as you were in the city limits. I could go to all sorts of places directly instead of just nearby by subway.
As I was lost in dreams of driving an armored street racer and shooting at ninjas attacking from the top of the car the train arrived at the platform I needed to swap over. To a different line, this one going up to the surface and then an above street line all the way to the other side of the city.
I stepped onto the much busier platform than the one I had left from and walked through an adjoining corridor to the platform I needed. I stopped for a moment and grabbed a fizzy drink from the vending machine, it said tropical crunch but it just tasted like melon and industrial lubricant.
As I walked away from the machine and took a few sips I was stopped by a tall guy in the little corridor and he had an offer for me. Not a good offer though. Adult white guy, heavy set but loose like he’d lost weight. He was wearing silver chains and a sport vest to show off his muscles but he didn’t have any muscles to show off.
“Wire your aura and we won’t have any problems.” He said as he pulled out a quite good knife, a little heavy but a nice shape to it. Good for stabbing. I got a pop up on my interface for an IR connection.
Also, what the hell is going on? Mugged twice in a week? I’m not even in the water district now. Haven’t had luck like this in months.
“Back off choom. It doesn’t have to be anything here.” I said defensively. I placed my hand onto my signet that was just visible under my jacket.
“Not scared by your toy, rag face. Wire the aura or you’re going in an ice bath. See how much those eyes go for.” He said, squaring up and looming a little closer.
I paused for a moment at that. Not many people around who had the stomach to pull parts off people, you had to make them accept the part removal and that often meant sitting them down for some quality time. Quality time usually meaning torture and then a trip to the ice bath until you either gave up or died at which point they’d just salvage whatever flesh organs you had.
This guy was dead, but I didn’t want to shoot him in this enclosed space. This wasn’t the water district, it’d likely attract cops. Also I’d deafen my one good ear with the echoes and who knew if he had chooms about.
I accepted the IR connection and immediately a blank account transfer request popped up. Gonk really thought it was going to happen.
[Launched program Trncn1.to]
The hostile’s body twitched as my hack hit him, but all that program did was stall out whatever cyberware he had on him for a moment. It wasn’t meant for real world targets after all and cyberware would quickly restart any localized system crashes.
But that twitch and surprise was all I needed as I rushed at him and punched him cleanly in the chin. I’d have liked to hit his nose but I was already a bit low down for a good punch to his chin up there. Stupid shortness.
The guy recoiled like he got hit with a piece of rebar and clutched at his chin, either he had something wrong with his chin before this or he had never been hit in his life. I pulled my arm straight down on his knife wielding hand and felt the thumb snap cleanly causing the hostile to shout in pain and anger as the knife dropped to the floor with a thud.
“You filthy brat!” He shouted and swung at me with his off hand. Time slowed. A wild left swing that came in with good speed but I had KD give me a good way to absorb the blow and all it took was a little arm movement and my left hand around his fist to cause me to move with the punch and lightly bounce myself off the wall to my right.
He seemed oddly tired after that punch but still murderous so I stepped into his guard causing him to try to step back while also trying to grab me. I couldn’t let that happen so I crouched right where I was.
His vague grab found nothing above me and I quickly grabbed his dropped knife, as the gonk in front of me tried to raise his leg to kick me away from him I just plunged the blade into his crotch. People talk about low blows being unfair all the time but they don’t say they aren’t effective.
The hostile recoiled in horror as I tore the blade down and out from the shallow wound I had made. Only about three or four centimeters it felt like. Not enough to do more than cause a funny walk if it was his thigh but I’m pretty sure his junk was going to need some serious reconstruction.
Blood was now pumping freely from his undercarriage as he screamed and tried to hold his crotch while flailing wildly at me with his other arm. I took a step back out of reach and then stepped in and stabbed him in his shoulder and gave it a good twist to stop his flailing.
Time sped up around me as the guy had stopped attacking even noncommittally after this and fell to the ground against the vending machine wall. He was panicking and trying to cover himself with his arms.
“I’m… Argh… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. Let me go. Let… Urgh… Let me live, please.” He said as tears filled his eyes.
I did take a second to contemplate this. I didn’t live around here and wouldn’t see this gonk again and I couldn’t check his records to see if he was actually a part thief or anything. I just had what he said and the fact that he tried to mug me. What Sanctum said about me being psychopathic was still buzzing around in the back of my thoughts as well. I didn’t think I was, would zeroing this guy prove that I was?
Standing there looking at the blubbering and bleeding guy in front if me, I kind of figured there would be a lot of people that’d just let him live. Maybe he’d change or I’d scarred him mentally and he’d disappear into incarnations and never harm anyone again. Or just overdose somewhere. There were a few believable scenarios where this gonk didn’t just try again with a different kid.
I bent down in front of him holding his knife at my side.
“Are you going to try this again with another kid at some point? Do you really have an ice bath?” I asked, hoping to get something from his eyes. Some sign from him.
“No!… Argh… No. Never again. I’ll go back to the scrappers. I’ll work in the pits again, whatever it takes so I don’t do this no more.” He said, he seemed to be getting a bit woozy. Lots of arterial blood around.
Then I tried gazing into his expression real hard, my eyes were better than they were before and I was pretty good at reading people generally. But I couldn’t tell if he was lying. Maybe he didn’t even know?
I pulled up the knife and buried it into his temple before he even registered the movement, the thick blade sinking in cleanly and without the slightest resistance thanks to it’s weight. I turned the blade and pulled it out in two quick motions and then slipped the blade into one of the spare knife sheathes that Noe’s mom had put on my rig. It just about fit with the size of the blade.
The guy on the floor was just twitching a little as he finished bleeding out. I felt a little weird about it but brushed it off. I rolled up my right sleeve to my elbow to hide the blood there and washed off the blood on my hand with what was left in the can of soda I’d dropped cleanly to the floor earlier and continued walking to the next platform.