The device I wanted? It was basically a small hinge. There was more to it than that, ‘course, but that’s what it resembled. The idea came to me after looking at the blueprints for Aythyrn City’s power infrastructure and how each building got electricity as well as Node access.
Nodes were… complicated. They were the sophisticated center of a secure grand local area network spanning a city. In layman's terms, they roughly made a large circle. Outside the circle, you can’t access the Net without specialized equipment. Inside, you can. I wasn’t too clear on the specifics, but Nodes were connected to a massive network spanning every city in the world and even those outside our planet as long as they had a Node.
There was ‘course more to it, but I never paid much attention to Nodes and Net blitzed by them. To fully understand how they worked and what made them different, I'd have to dive into history, the K-10 Convention, and the Dawn of DarkNet. That was a rabbit hole of complicated events I didn't care to dissect at the moment.
Simply put, they were essential. Every city that had a Node was protected by the full might of every corp working together. Nodes were the only time every corporation agreed to protect something altogether. ‘Course, it was a mutual benefit, but still.
So, to access the Node, every building is built with an access point, usually in the same spot as the rest of the infrastructure. Here’s where my idea comes into play. I want to get down into that access point, and then mess with specifically Ajay Insurance. Most likely, they’ll call in their IT company to fix their issues. That’s part one of my plan.
The device I worked on started from a hinge. I placed it down, grabbed one of the firing pins from the disassembled SMG, and tack-welded it to the hinge using the multitool and auto-darkening shades from my toolbag. Since the thing emphasized versatility, it made for a terrible arc welder. I would need to buy one in the future if I wanted to make a weld that would last, but it would have to do for now.
I had learned to weld as part of advancing Tech to five, and it had been by far one of the most time-consuming things. Learning every process in several different environments had been a serious pain in the ass. Especially considering I had to repeat it with several different types of machines from top of the line to bottom. I still wasn’t a master, but I was decent enough to get by as long as they weren't stress-tested.
After that, I attached a micro hydraulic cylinder to the thing. The idea was the hinge would move down, causing the firing pin to hit the wire and interfere with Ajay Insurance's connection from a distance. It took a while to disassemble the ADF remote system, but eventually, I managed to get it all into parts. Then I hooked up the receiver to the micro hydraulic cylinder and connected the remote antenna to my deck. With the addition of the antenna to my deck it looked like my ‘tome’ came with a ‘pencil’.
Then came the extraordinarily tiring attempts to program the remote system and get everything to work. After several hours of searching the Net with little progress, I left my apartment for Big Mike’s to take a break, only bringing my ‘essentials’. I had taken to wearing my armor everywhere just in case, as well as my bag with various tools, gear, and my shotgun in it. Course, I had my Sidewinder too.
I klepped some pockets before selling the ill-gotten loot to a nearby pawn shop for enough money to enjoy a nice burger at Big Mikes. It was about an hour after I entered the area that I finally walked into Big Mike’s.
Business seemed quite slow today. There were a group of corpos enjoying lunch off to one side and a man and a woman with cheerful smiles on their faces on the other. The duo, in particular, stood out thanks to their smiles, which was quite a rare sight to see non-drug induced. At least, they didn’t look like they were high. Neither showed the typical ticks I would associate with the common drugs, though the man did occasionally wince and rub at his left chrome arm.
I motioned to Big Mike, who nodded his plump head, and then headed for a table of my own at my usual spot. That put me just behind the duo. While I waited for some food, I got on my phone and shifted through a catalog of public schematics. With Eidetic Schematic, doing such a thing would eventually prove to be invaluable as my knowledge base grew- I hope. At the very least, it was a nice time waster.
Most of the schematics were old-world patents that had gone out as the governing bodies started to fall, so they were typically obsolete. Still, a bunch of them had root ideas and concepts that were the basic building blocks for more modern technology. It also helped me conceptualize how some things worked.
Occasionally, I would come across a more modern blueprint of parts of chrome or weapons, but they were few and far between. They typically belonged to corporations that had gone under and their assets either seized or stolen, so nothing was super advanced. Still, there were some ideas and concepts that I started to put together that appeared in the Sentinel schematics, albeit to a much lesser degree.
Big Mike stopped by my table and set down the platter of mega burger as I transferred him the money I just earned and started to dig into the massive pizza-sized burger. Just as I was halfway through the delicious meal-
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A scream came from behind me as something pounded hard with a resounding thunk. I bolted to my feet, fumbling for my Sidewinder as I tried to figure out what was happening. I glanced around, marking everyone in the room subconsciously as I looked for the attacker, only to see none.
The cheerful man spazzed out in his booth, his chrome arm going haywire as he randomly swung around, knocking against the table. The woman immediately tried to help the man, only to be knocked harshly over the head by the chrome. She collapsed to the side, a stream of blood pouring out of her head.
His entire body locked up as he tumbled out of the booth, hitting the floor hard. His arm swung and swatted everywhere, even hitting himself as his body locked up repeatedly. A moment’s hesitation passed through me before I grabbed my bag from the booth and started digging through it for my tools. Tech had just started getting into more complicated stuff like chrome with the latest level, though my knowledge was basic at best.
While I was looking, I heard one of the corpos laugh hollowly with a whisper. “Wonder if he has insurance?”
Once I found the stuff I was looking for, I moved to the guy who was struggling against himself on the ground. I found the woman trying to move forward in a daze. “Call a Medevac?”
“W-we can’t afford one-” She was cut off as the man started screaming in agony once more. His entire face was turning red with the exertion from his arm.
“Just- just help me hold him down then,” I told her.
With an objective to focus on, she started to move a bit more motivated. She left her daze behind and climbed onto the man, trying to leverage her body weight to keep his arm down and stop him from rolling around.
It wasn’t working till I jumped onto him too, and together we held his arm mostly stable. I moved quickly, looking over the chrome arm. It was a cheap civilian model that looked like a knockoff of a knockoff. It was scrapped together with multiple other pieces as evidenced by the several different corporate marks across it. Shen Kang Keiji and ASCorp were amongst the markings, though there were a couple of other ones I didn’t recognize.
After searching the arm for a moment, I found the access port on the bottom side of the upper arm, located just shy of the guy's armpit. I tore off his bright green shirt to get better access before getting to work. It was difficult getting the panel open with his constant flailing, especially considering they were typically designed to only be opened by a Medech, but I managed with quite a bit of effort.
The panel popped open, allowing me access to the arms hardware underneath the protective casing. Circuit boards and wires were everywhere in a half-assed mess with chords just hanging about without being properly secured. Components sat half embedded in their typical slots, not fully fitting since they came from other bits of chrome.
Not only did I have access to the hardware, but I also had quite a bit of room to see where the arm connected to the flesh, which was a little sickening to look at as blood poured into the circuitry. Unfortunately, it was too dark inside to get a perfect view without the help of a light.
I wasted no time comparing the insides to the dozens of other pieces of chrome I had seen on the public schematics and the view ones in the learning space for Tech. Surprisingly, Net also helped thanks to its detailed rundown on components. The insides of the chrome looked a little similar to the hardware of a deck. My knowledge could be defined as shoddy at best, but after a minute I narrowed down my options and started to mess with some of the cords.
After a couple of moments, I disabled the right one as the arm entirely locked up, ceasing all attempts to twitch and move about. The man instantly went slack, though the trouble wasn’t over yet. The inside of his chrome still had blood pouring into it in droves.
I rifled through my bag looking for medical supplies, but unfortunately, I had left all of it in the bag back at my apartment. I made a mental note to pack some the next time before looking back up to the woman. “Take him to a hospital.”
A look of deep shame crossed her face, only twinged by desperation. “W-we can’t. I-it’ll just throw us deeper into debt.”
A sigh left me as I glanced down at the man’s face, still twisted in pain. I could understand her concerns. These days being in debt wasn’t as simple as trying to pay it back. Depending on who they owed money to, they could legally be forced into something akin to slave labor.
Heck, even most hospitals would repo any chrome they had to make back some of their money, and hospitals were damn expensive. There’s a reason I always went to Nael instead of one. Even just that wrist surgery that Nael did for me would’ve broken my bank at a hospital, and probably with half the skill.
I started to relock up the panel. “Look. Take him to the Absolom Clinic. It's in a bit of a shady place, but the Medech there will help you out. He's good people.”
“Okay.” A bit of fire entered the woman’s eyes, driving off the desperation. “I d-don’t know how to thank you.”
I waved it off and returned to my booth. “Just go.”
The woman picked up the man and started to cart him out of the door. I looked down at my hands, blood from the man staining them. I tried to wipe it off as best I could, but it just wouldn’t come off. I felt a sick feeling in my gut as I looked down at the towel slowly being stained with blood as I wiped at my hands, having a brief flash of blood splattering across my face-
I shook myself free and stood up, abandoning my half-eaten burger as I grabbed my bag. My appetite had fled me. I sent a look around as I walked towards the door, noticing the completely apathetic looks of the corporate drones as they just continued with their meals. I couldn’t exactly blame them; that was just how life was in the big city.
Big Mike walked out from behind the counter with cleaning supplies as he headed for the blood. He stopped me with a bulky hand. “Next time, on house.”
I gave a small nod to the man and walked out onto the neon streets of Aythryn City.