“Alright well there’s a whole bunch of milspec suppliers out tonight so you’ll find yourself a combat grade lung or two, no issue. Intestines is a bit of work, you’ll find a better supply of the cyberguts that soldiers get fitted that swap out everything down there. You’d have to buy a whole chunk of cyberware but you’d likely get more for your money than a length of synthetic intestine.”

“I figured it would be something like that. Depending on the costs it might be worth going for the same with my lungs and heart. Go full on chrome internals. I’d have to leave the liver and kidneys for later but they didn’t get damaged in the fight so that’s fine.”

“We’ll have to see what the deals are looking like tonight. I’d kind of suggest leaving the cyberlung as is. Just buy the cyberlung and then look at something new for your kit. You ever seen someone use a personal gyrostab?”

“A what now?”

“They’ve got a few names. They let you rotate your body around the center of the gyrostabilizer mass without any motion on your part. Good for making yourself fall on the floor when you quickly turn yourself sideways. Even better for pulling off slight adjustments in tilt and momentum without moving your legs and arms from their current tasks. I’ve got three with the center being around my navel, they aren’t strong enough to totally turn my whole chromed out mass around on a dime but they can adjust my rotation in free fall and lend me some extra movement in combat. Not a lot, but enough to catch someone out by a few inches and that’s more than enough sometimes.”

“Sounds like a cool gadget. Not sure if it’s a good choice for me right now.”

“It’d have more effect while your small, and they tend to be good effect for their cost which is why I recommended it. Other lower cost, high impact options could be some nerveware, a burst of reaction at the right moment can turn a fight.” Allie offered as she held her chin in thought.

“I’ve already got something like that, haven’t got money for redundancies just yet.”

“Huh. Alright maybe… We could look into getting your little swimmer factories moved somewhere less dangerous. Not like we can harvest any for cloning yet seeing as your too young to make any but we could move them out of the exterior and into your torso with a cooling unit and some armor. A lot of soldiers go for that.”

“Wait… You mean… my…?”

“Yes. Mal. Your balls. They are awfully exposed where they are and borgs need to think long term. One of the most common soldier surgeries is harvesting some sex cells for cloning, even post mortem cloning by the family if need be. The other method is simply moving the things inside your torso and placing them into a dedicated cooling, monitoring and defensive cyberware that’ll keep them alive and healthy. You won’t be left with nothing down there, they’ll slip in some teflon orbs or whatever they use these days. I assume you do want the option of children one day? I know it’s a bit odd to ask a ten year old but this is where to ask.”

“Uh… Yeah I guess. At least the option.”

“Right. Well, I’ll keep an eye out for something relevant with the milspec suppliers. Shouldn’t need any special considerations for puberty but I’ll ask as well. I know it’s a bit odd to the average person Mal but this kind of stuff needs to be considered at least a little. I once knew a borg that had his own swimmer factories, his heart and lung cyberware and his brain all in a central unit in his chest surrounded by spacer grade armor plating. He even had a little water and nutrient supply in there. Could stay alive for months as a lump of metal the size of a small suitcase even after getting totally blown apart.”

“I don’t know if I’d want to be trapped like that, sounds quite scary.”

“Oh he typically had orders out to different mercenary groups that if he even didn’t check in for too long then it would activate a contract with them to come and rescue him. If they turn up and he was fine then they’d just get paid and go home, if they turned up and he was in a workshop as people tried and failed to weld him open they were to rescue him. He was quite a nice guy in an intense, energetic sort of way.”

“You must have know a lot of people.” I answered

“Oh yes, but you only remember the stand outs eventually. Even the ones you were close to start to blur together with similar others. I can’t really remember a lot of my early companions as they just seem to shift into each other when I think back on them, different roles or stand out features or personalities. If they share them with another then they stick together in my mind. I remember a number of stoic mercenary type men, different beards or cyberware but their names escape me, or when I knew them exactly or even what they said to me. Just that I knew someone like them. Same with my lovers, my children, their children. Just common features to me now with vague outlines in the past.”

“That’s really sad Allie, is that a side effect of the anti-aging treatment?”

“Hah. No, that’s specifically one of the things the anti-aging treatment fixes. They spend a lot of time untangling memories, it’s actually the longest part of the process. But nothing is perfect and over the years I’ve lost a lot of details. First exact dates, then exact places, then exact people. I’ve had to look at my records to remember my first born’s name before.”

“I suppose it isn’t odd for a neighbor lady to have kids, I guess I never really thought of you having kids before. Do they visit much? I imagine they must be wealthy having you as a mother.”

“I have some great grand children around the place, none of them in this city. They don’t know me really outside of some casual mentions of my name or a story or two. I don’t see them, they have their own lives and a relic of the past shouldn’t come wading into their business and causing them problems.”

“If I had a great grandmother around, I’d like it if she visited me.”

“We currently have three cars following us closely, six others in the area and a host of small tracking drones somewhere overhead. A lot of information brokers and interested parties are keeping a vague eye on my goings on. If I visited a family members then they’d become involved in that, they don’t deserve that. I do somewhat hope that one of my descendants grow into some sort of power on their own, such they could handle the trouble a visit would bring but so far none of them have and that’s fine. They are living their lives as well as anyone else out there. I keep vague tabs on them in case someone attempts to harm them to hurt me.”

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“What if they need help?” I asked, a little concerned at the coldness.

“If their trouble is nothing to do with me then I do them the mercy of not getting involved. There are worse ways to die then of starvation as a slave on board a interplanetary hauler, as grim as that is. My rescuing them would be opening them up to far worse ways to go and I’ve already tried locking my family safe away before, it didn’t go well. Most borgs try it once or twice as they get older.” Allie responded sadly.

“Don’t a lot of corpo families have family stations and compounds and things. Couldn’t you do that?”

“I have the money to establish something like that, but then I’d need to the power to hold it. I’ve got enough to keep myself and my operation safes but I lack the power to do something like keep a fixed location of valuable hostages safe longterm. Better for them to just live out unconnected to me.”

“Still very sad.”

“I can still take little cheats if I start to feel broody. I can take little boys out with my shopping and pretend he’s my grandson a little while, for instance. Especially if he’s already a foot into the real operator world and has the active protection of another old hand.” She said, leaning her head around to look at me.

“Ha. Well, you do get two grandmothers generally. I didn’t have any before. Now I suppose I have two in an odd way, strings attached or not, even if it’s just for a little while.” I answered with a smile.

Her expression was odd, smiling but with the details going everywhere. I was getting better with people lately thanks to Sanctum but her face was shifting in expression at every point I looked. As a whole I took a look of happiness but there was something in her eyes, her smile… Maybe it was the cyberware throwing me off?

“That’s very nice to say Mal, we’re almost to the market now. We’re just turning into the district and we’re approaching from the closest entrance. Do we have an ETA Kaiser?” Allie asked as she turned away from me and sat upright in her chair to talk to Kaiser. There was something there, some social meaning was tickling at my brain that I’d come to just accept as Sanctum’s skills reaching out.

Didn’t know what to do with it though. The combat and technical ones were so much simpler than the social ones. I’d just have a yes or no feeling and then try to do what it felt like it was telling me. The social skills just gave me prompts to do something and no details.

I sat there for a moment and thought through what we’d talked about, Allie would likely be sad because she was talking about her past and you get a lot more sad than happy memories normally. That’s just normal. Plus we were talking about not seeing family, that’s sad. I’d said I was her grandson as a sort of “Hey, I’m here, don’t worry.” Thing but maybe that wasn’t right? Or did she need cheering up? Or should I lean into the thing and make sure she knows I wasn’t just saying that for no reason, I did genuinely care for Allie, she’d helped my mum a lot and protected our old apartment and we’d talked a lot over the years. That felt right. I’m was going to risk some backlash.

I leaned over a little to Allie, I would have placed my hand on hers or maybe her shoulder but I kind of didn’t have any hands so I just leaned over and nudged her knee with mine a little.

“You know I’m not lying right Allie? I know I’m not really your grandson, you’ve got or had grandchildren. But I consider you important to me in the same way I’d consider a grandmother all the same. You’ve been there a lot over the years for my mother and me, it might not be the biggest relationship for you but it’s a big one for me, you know?” I offered with a small smile.

She seemed to freeze for a moment at that response, maybe expecting the conversation to be over. She turned to me a little with an odd expression I didn’t know of before smiling and turning to me fully.

“Aw Mal. You’re going to make me cry. That’s very sweet that you mean that, I do consider you important as well. That’s why I’ve kept tabs on you after you left the street, I wasn’t going to let Marchand spool you up in her webs without her knowing that it had better be on the straight and narrow. And now you’re here getting new arms. Maybe you’ll live as long as I have when you’re all chromed up and we’ll be seeing each other around for a long time, I’d like that.” She said as she patted my head. She turned back to the front, she had dry and clear eyes but as she turned back to the front I saw a tear roll out of her right eye down her cheek that she seemed to be turning away to hide. I didn’t think what I said was that emotional, surely?

“We will arrive in approximately seven minutes mistress Allison.” Answered Kaiser after waiting the extra moment for us to finish talking. I’d be no good at his job, talking over people is a problem for me.

We both sat there in relative silence as the care finished making it’s way through the last few smaller streets. The area wasn’t as nice as the previous district but it wasn’t too bad with a good bit of foot traffic around even as the sun was finishing setting. The last of street lights had started to flicker on through the journey but with all the light from elsewhere on the street they weren’t as needed as the ones down in the water district.

The car pulled into a wide alley and started driving down without slowing, we passed a variety of dumpsters, crushed trash cubes and garage doors. Most of the alley was free to drive through without issue fortunately so the care didn’t have to do any tricky navigation. Eventually we pulled out of the alley into a wider crossroads that was lined with garages and old furniture. The stand out feature was the few parked cars in the middle of the square, they were all very expensive supercars or street combat vehicles. Very rich cars for this neighborhood.

Kaiser turned the car smoothly into line with the other cars and stopped. Allie unlocked her door and jerked her head towards the door with a smile, telling me it was time to go before stepping out. Kaiser pressed something up front and my seatbelt unclipped and pulled away before the door opened itself wide slowly. I used my shoulder and levered myself out of the car without too much trouble although I did see Allie coming around the back to likely offer me some help if I was stuck in there.

As I stood upright I looked around properly and was that one of the alleyways off to the side was blocked off with some sort of constructed wall with a door built into it, made up of a industrial door and a load of wire fencing and metal plates.

There was also a pair of guards in full combat gear and holding assault rifles on the sides with a IR cluster on a podium. Quite a simple setup but this wasn’t supposed to be a battle after all.

We walked up to the gate, just me and Allie with Kaiser staying by the vehicle with his arms folded. As we approached I got a connection request from the cluster next to the door which I quickly accepted. I’d be using the door after all.

[Connection Accepted.]

[Welcome to the thirty third Marade night market visitor! You have been listed as a sponsored guest of one of our previously reputed customers in good standing. As such you have now been given basic membership with the market with what detail we have of you and can access all future Marade night market events and services in the future without application.]

[Please accept the charge of twenty thousand aura to your account to gain entry to the current night market event. There will be a summary five thousand charge upon leaving. If the visitor is unable to pay the leaving fee they may seek council with the support staff.]

A small banking app pop up appeared requesting the transfer, which I accepted. Watching as my huge funds dwindled a little even before I had anything to show for it.

Without slowing, both me and Allie stepped past the guards and through the automatically opening door into the market itself.