Sewers
February 22th
2069
Sophie stood in the center of her living space, preparing for her daily training. Unlocking and improving the passive skills she’d identified, Flexibility, Ambidextrous and Parkour, felt like important milestones for her growth. Each of them would open up new possibilities, specifically in combat, which was important considering how slowly her class skills were leveling. In fact, she’d only gotten a level in Basic Gun Combat the previous night after she fired two shots that hit the same spot, even though they didn’t kill her target.
The first part of her training focused on flexibility. Considering it was the only passive skill she’d unlocked, not counting Iron Resolve, it was the most important thing to work on. It helped that it was easy. She’d snagged a level everyday since she unlocked it, which she attributed to her female physique and possibly her own talent.
She began with basic stretches. Sophie reached down, touched her toes and held the position until her hamstrings burned. She moved into a side stretch, bending as much as she could and extending her arm overhead, feeling the pull in her side.
She transitioned into a seated position on the floor, she worked on her splits. Her legs spread apart, inch by inch, as she focused on relaxing her muscles rather than tensing them.
While holding the stretch, her mind wandered. Where do I get a sledgehammer from? I really need one. Maybe Rita? I could try and ask Ricky, but I’m not sure I trust him. Yeah, I think I’ll have to ask Rita about it.
After finishing her stretches, Sophie stood and grabbed her tanto. A message appeared as she did so.
Flexibility Proficiency +1
Flexibility [7/100]
Sophie did find it quite baffling that her current limits only equated to 7/100. She was expecting something to change after she reached a milestone, though she wasn’t entirely sure what it would be. Regardless, she didn’t want to worry about it for a while. Instead, she needed to work on her ambidexterity.
She sat down in a comfortable position with her tanto in her right hand. She twirled it once, testing her grip before attempting the maneuver again, this time with her left hand. The blade spun awkwardly, slipping from her fingers and clattering to the ground. She hissed, inspecting the shallow cut on her thumb where the blade had nicked her.
“Thank god for subdermal,” she muttered, shaking her hand in a vain attempt at getting rid of the sting.
Despite the setback, Sophie picked up the blade again, gripping it tighter this time. She wasn’t about to let a few cuts stop her. Carefully, she tried again. Her first rotation was sluggish but the blade completed the arc before she caught it awkwardly.
“Okay, that felt better,” she said.
For the next hour, Sophie practiced the motion repeatedly. She started with her dominant hand, spinning the blade in clean, fluid rotations. Then she switched to her left hand, where the motion was far more rough and slow. More often than not, the tanto slipped from her grip or bit into her skin, leaving a series of shallow cuts along her fingers.
“I’m getting there, I can tell,” she whispered.
By the end of the session, her hands were covered in small red lines and trembling. Her left-hand spins were still clumsy, not at all helped by the thin coating of blood from the cuts. Sophie had taken the extra difficulty as a challenge though. She wrapped her fingers in small bandaids to insure she didn’t leak everywhere.
Satisfied with her progress, Sophie slid the tanto back into its sheath and grabbed her gun. It was time to head out and practise her parkour skills. The Parkour passive was a skill she desperately wanted, because it would open up a massive amount of options when she went hunting.
She left her hideout, her boots splashing through shallow puddles as she emerged from the underground. The evening air was cool and heavy with the scent of rain. Westbrook was, as always, alive.
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Sophie moved through the district, her sharp eyes scanning for an abandoned building or an area she could use to practice climbing and parkour. After wandering for nearly an hour, she found what she was looking for: a derelict multi-story building tucked into a quieter part of the district. The structure was skeletal, seemingly burnt, with crumbling walls and shattered windows. A rusted and damaged fire escape clung to its side, reaching up toward the roof like an open invitation.
“This’ll do,” Sophie muttered.
She started with the fire escape, testing the rusted metal rungs carefully to confirm she wouldn’t fall before committing her weight to them. The first few climbs were slow and deliberate, on account of the ominous creaks in the ladder. At the top of the building, she swung her legs over the railing and jumped down to the roof.
Seems safe enough. I’ll do it again a couple of times before I do it faster. Half an hour later, she was feeling confident enough to increase her speed and the complexity of her movements.
Sophie began experimenting with more daring moves. She leapt from one platform to the next, still maintaining a semblance of care. She climbed higher, scaling the fire escape until she reached the roof. From there, she scoped out the nearby structures, her mind working through potential routes.
She spotted a narrow alley below with a series of ledges and pipes running along its walls. It was perfect for testing herself. Sophie climbed down carefully, dropping into the alley with a soft thud. She traced a route in her mind: a quick leap to the first ledge, a grab for the pipe above, and then a swing to the opposite wall.
Her first attempt was a total fail. Her overconfidence, stemming from her ability to climb a rusty ladder, was her downfall. She mistimed the jump, missing the ledge entirely and landing hard on the ground below. The impact jarred her knees, and she grimaced, shaking off the pain.
“Really? Why did I think I could do that so easily?” She brushed herself off and got ready to try again.
Her fingers caught the edge of the ledge, and she hauled herself up. She balanced precariously before reaching for the pipe above. The swing was unsteady, her grip slipping slightly as she transitioned to the opposite wall. She didn’t make it. Her arms flailed around, desperately trying to catch something before she hit the ground with a thud, drawing a groan from the girl. She lay on the ground for a few moments before sitting up and trying again.
By the time the moon was high overhead, Sophie had run the course dozens of times. Her jumps were cleaner and her transitions were smoother, though her arms and legs burned. However, she had managed one full, successful run. It wasn’t the cleanest movement but it was tangible progress.
After that, she sat on the edge of the original building’s roof, gazing out over Westbrook as she caught her breath. “That was fun. Painful, but fun.” She mentally replayed her actions, which almost caused her to miss a notification.
Passive Skill: Parkour has been unlocked!
Parkour [1/100]
Immediately, Sophie could feel more changes in her body, like when she unlocked the Flexibility skill. Except, they didn’t stop there. Her brain felt like it suddenly caught fire as new neural pathways were carved into it. Once the process finished, she immediately noticed the difference. It was a sense of what was ‘possible’. For her current self, at least.
Sliding down the fire escape one last time, Sophie could vaguely tell where to put her hands and feet for a more efficient descent. Oh yeah. This skill is fantastic.
-----------------------
Upon her return to the sewers, Sophie got ready for bed. As she did so however, her eyes caught on the mysterious box she’d taken from the hands of the skeleton, when she moved in. She’d completely forgotten about it, considering all of the stuff she had to work on.
“Better late than never. Let’s have a look at what's inside.”
She retrieved the case and set it on her lap. There was a small, finger sized indent and nothing else. No seams, no handles, no identifiers. Nothing. With the indent as her only clue, she pressed it. There was a hiss and a rush of cold air escaped the box. Along the top, small lines revealed themselves before detaching, opening the lid. Inside was a soft blue light and a stack of papers.
Carefully, Sophie removed the topmost layer and ran her eyes over it.
Possible Cybernetic Arm (Right) Design V.66
Dr. T Morrow
22nd of April, 2004
There were a bunch of seemingly important scientific terms below those sentences but Sophie didn’t understand, nor care too much. She was holding a box with an ancient, pre-DataKrash paper. One that held, from the title, a design for a cyberarm. The name was unfamiliar though. Was there a Dr Morrow in the game? I don’t think so…
She put the paper she was holding into her inventory, not wanting to get it dirty with her hideout’s floor before reaching into the box and pulling out more pages.
She was immediately disappointed because she couldn’t understand any of the scientific jargon and terms that were being thrown around. What she could understand was that the doctor had to have been a genius. In fact, the man himself practically confirmed it. ‘Insufficient technology available. More robust materials and further research into cyberware required. Construction of these designs will likely remain impossible for decades.’
“Holy shit…If this guy thought it would be impossible to create this stuff back then, it’s probably even harder nowadays. So much knowledge was lost in the DataKrash after all.” Just from looking at the illustrations, Sophie could see it was supposed to be an arm with a large number of modular components. Things could be swapped in and out of it by the user themselves. “If the megacorps had the tech to do this already, they would. The fact it’s not a thing must mean they either haven’t thought of it, which is hard to believe, or they simply don’t have the ability to do it.”
Sophie’s thoughts suddenly turned to her system. There were skills in it that would possibly bring her up to Dr. Morrow’s level, along with hundreds of fictional materials, all far superior to the ones in Cyberpunk.
“Even if it’s going to take me years to get there, figuring out and building this design could provide me with a piece of cyberware far beyond what the corps have.” She realised something. “Wait, it says that this design is just for the right arm…So are there more designs like this? Hmm, I don’t really have the capacity to go searching for them, do I? And I have a suspicion those blueprints will be with the megacorps. I guess I’ll have to wait and just keep my eyes peeled for any opportunity to find or grab these designs.”
Sophie quickly packed all of the papers back into the box and sealed it shut. Then she put it in her inventory. It was the safest place she had. There was no way she’d leave it out, for anyone that stumbled upon her hideout to take.
She lay down on her mattress, thoughts racing. The implications that Dr. Morrow’s designs raised were both frightening and exciting. Then she sighed. “Still, I can’t do anything without power.” Her desire to grow stronger was stoked and soon afterwards, she quickly drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the day she’d have the ability to live however she wanted.