After I expressed interest in going to the Gene Splice Clinic, she brought me down to a set of stairs that led to the lower levels of the station.

At first, I thought the bar area we had been to was considered the slums. But when I stepped foot onto the lower levels, I realised this was the real slums.

There were literally people beating each other up at the side not a few steps from some bum sleeping on the ground, the bum in question not even waking up despite the noise.

Amber barely gave the scene a second glance and continued leading me past them.

We passed by several similar scenes and I was a little worried that we might be accosted or jumped but most of them simply scurried away the moment they saw us.

“Why are they avoiding us?” I asked.

Amber turned to me, “Who?”

I nodded at the vagrants who ducked into the shadows upon seeing us.

Amber rolled her eyes, “That’s because they are doing or did something illegal, of course. They're afraid we're Mercs here to hunt for bounties.”

“Illegal like?”

Amber gestured to the group of people fighting in the corner, “Do you really need to ask?”

I shrugged.

We continued onward, moving through several narrow paths and even more lowlifes until she stopped at a door that looked like the entrance to a supply closet.

Bolted on the door was a small metal plate with the name ‘Zack's Body Mods’ engraved on it.

“Err… Are you sure this is safe?” I asked, already having second thoughts.

Amber smirked at me, “Definitely not.”

She pushed open the door even before I could respond to that, revealing an interior that looked more like a mortuary than a clinic.

There was a single medical chair surrounded by several flood lights around it at the side of the room; several tables full of medical equipment were also arranged nearby.

A woman was seated with her legs up on the table, tapping away on her personal terminal.

She looked up and narrowed her eyes when she saw us, “What’s this? I’m pretty sure I paid up my rent this week?”

Amber rolled her eyes, “If I was here to collect your debt, Zack, I wouldn’t be knocking on your door.”

“Oh really? You did not knock on my door, Amber.”

“And neither did I bust it down, did I?”

“Ha! Alright, alright. What mods are you looking for today?” She asked, lowering her legs down from the table and switching on the lights.

Amber gestured to me, “Not me. I have a friend looking for some mods. Or rather, a very specific one.”

Zack raised an eyebrow at me, “What's this? I never expected you to take in an apprentice?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Amber scoffed, “She’s a new Merc here and we’ve partnered up.”

“That still doesn’t change my question.”

“She has her own ship. We're partners, as I said.”

“Ah. Well nice to meet you, I’m Zack. If you’re looking for some cheap mods, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for legit ones, I’m afraid you’re all out of luck.”

“Ah… Hello, I’m Tera. Do you have a catalogue or something that I can view?”

She picked up her personal terminal again and gave it a few taps.

A moment later, a beep came from my Codex indicating I had a new message.

Opening up the notification, it displayed a list of mods and their prices beside said mod.

There were tons of it, including changing the colour of your hair, the shape of your ears, giving yourself a tail or even adding some alien parts to your body.

To change your eye colour, the mod was only five hundred Credits. To grow a lizard tail, it would set you back a thousand Credits. To be able to freely change the colour of your skin according to your wants, that would cost fifty thousand Credits.

And then… I found it.

“To grow myself a dick… Would it really only cost eight hundred Credits?” I asked.

She gave me a look, “So that’s what you’re after? Well… Hmm… Just because you’re good friends with Amber… I will tell you that it does give you one, but the size of it is smaller than a finger.”

I stared at her silently.

Zack shrugged, “You’ll probably need to take the same mod multiple times before it grows larger and then it’s a coin toss on whether you get the desired size or not. Maybe it’ll be too small but taking another one pushes it to become too big.”

I frowned, “So… On average how many does one need to take to get it to a respectable size?”

“First time modder eh? Well, that’s the thing with Gene Splice, you never know since everyone’s biology is different. Some might only need one to get to a certain size while another person might need six. And depending on your family genetics, some mods might not even work on you or even work too well on you. If you ain't picky about being organic, there's a Cyware Clinic just down the road.”

It seems like this was more complicated than I thought…

“So what’s the difference between yours and the million Credit mod in the legal Clinics for growing a dick?”

“Well, I don’t ask you about your mod history for one. And neither do I do a scan of you to look for mod compatibility either. What you end up with is what you get, I hold no responsibility in getting your desired results.”

“What if I wanted to add reduced refractory periods and other stuff too?”

She pointed at my Codex, “There's a mod for that as well. Same restriction applies.”

Ah… I think I roughly get it…

Doing a Gene Splice is like preparing a meal. If you were to go to a legal one, you can give them an order of mashed potatoes and they will prepare the meal for you, perfectly cooked to your specifications.

But for a place like this, they would give you the raw potato and you have to mash and cook it yourself. The potato you get might not even be fresh and you might not even cook it well either.

So that's one of the things you have to sacrifice if you were to choose the cheaper option…

Zack leaned against the medical chair, “So what are you looking for? Just a dick? I can also do a customised mod for you but obviously that's gonna cost you. If you don't mind taking some risks then you can just buy the mods individually.”

“Err… Could I know how well these mods work?” I asked.

She suddenly stood up and pulled down her own pants, revealing that she possessed something additional dangling in between her legs.

Zack smirked without a hint of embarassment, “Works really well if you ask me. Could get someone pregnant if I want to.”

I cleared my throat, “Right… Umm… Thanks for that live demonstration.”

She snapped her pants back into place, “Can't expect a Gene Splicer like myself not to use my own mods, can you?”

Well… I wouldn't know…

She then gestured to the chair, “Why don't you sit down here? We can go through what you want slowly. It's not like I have a ton of people waiting to see me anyway.”

Amber spoke up right then, “Yeah, gonna stop you there, she's currently broke. So don't expect her to be paying you today.”

Zack scowled at her, “I hope you didn't expect me to give away mods for free. Even I need credits to live here.”

I interjected, “I don't have the money now but I have ways of earning it later. I'm just exploring my options for now.”

“Hmm… Through Merc work? I suppose if Amber's vouching for you… But then again, unless getting a dick somehow helps you earn more credits, I'm not going to do it for you until you have the credits to pay for it. Unless you're just here to know how much you need to get one?”

I nodded.

“I see…” She mused, shutting off the lights around the medical chair. “So… Are you looking for a custom mod?”

“What can I customise?”

“Pretty much everything, really. Length, size, colour, taste--”

“Taste?”

She reached behind her and opened up a drawer before she started taking out several syringes.

“Yeah, if you want to, I can change the taste of your cum or even what your balls produce. I have vanilla, strawberry, honey, chocolate, peppermint and a few others. I personally made myself cum vanilla, wanna taste?”

“Err… No thanks… I don't know what I can mod you see… So this is all new to me.”

Zack tapped on her personal terminal, “I can send you a catalogue for it and you can customise your new cock however you want. It will also give you the estimated price of it too.”

My Codex beeped and sure enough, a screen popped up like those character customization screens except this was specifically for a dick.

Aside from all the parameters she mentioned, I could also customise the shape, texture, racial characteristics and even how big its flaccid state is. There were even options to increase libido levels and change refractory periods at the side as extra features.

It was pretty comprehensive.

Just by fiddling with some options, I was watching the price go from a thousand credits to a hundred thousand very quickly. Even though it did not reach a million credits, it was still a substantial amount of money.

The final price I arrived at was eight hundred thousand Credits for the dick that I wanted.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me then…