Despite the crowds still going strong, I made it to Vik's clinic without incident.

With everything I's just seen, I was feeling terrified. How would installing this tech change me? Would I someday become like the Maelstrom, addicted to the next upgrade. Or would my soul bleed away until I was capable of the same horrors as the Scavs?

A grinning Misty waved me through, and I flashed her a nervous smile. I spent a brief moment petting the cat on the way to the clinic. I needed the distraction to calm my jitters.

The Doc greeted me with a grunt. I halfheartedly returned it.

"You ready to get Chipped?" He took in my appearance and frowned.

"A bit of 'biz' first. I just raided a Scav base, and I picked up a few things you might want. I'll bring it around to the back door." The idea of how to dispose of all the klepped chrome, came to me on the drive over.

The Doc's eyebrows crawled up his face, then understanding danced in his eyes. Soon the knowing look became one of concern.

"Okay, let's see whatcha got." A few minutes later he was looking through the crates. He whistled. "Ryan, I can't afford all this. A few pieces sure, but that'd only be half of one of these boxes." He was frowning, troubled. "Some of this is really high end."

"No!" That word came out more forcefully than I intended. I stopped myself, then took a deep breath and plunged ahead. My hands started moving on their own. The wild gestures emphasizing each word. "Sorry Doc I can't take money for these, not after what I saw. These are yours, sell the best of it to some rich gonks, give big discounts to the people who need some help. I don't know what's best here, but yeah I can't take your money for this." I was shaking my head like a crazy person. I couldn't quite bring myself to say that there was too much blood shed over these bits of chrome.

"I see. Yeah, I can do some good with these." Doc nodded, his doubts resolved. It appeared he got it. He gripped my shoulder, "The Scav haunt really got to you, huh? They do that. Too many newly chipped kids think of them as easy marks, they come out scarred in more ways than one."

"I don't understand how people can do that, become that twisted." I growled, "No, I can see it, but I'd like to think I wouldn't sink that low." I snarled a bit there. I looked over at the operating chair. Trying to refocus. "I know it's part of life here. I know people think of chrome as normal. But I'm not there yet. I might never be." I punched my left hand with my right, trying to keep tears from building in my eyes. "They treated peoples' flesh as less important than the chrome. As if that was the only part of folks that mattered. That hit me hard."

I ground my teeth. Pulling back the reins a bit. I sigh, attempting to expel all the fucked up baggage I'd picked up.

Doc nodded, "It's a hard world out there. Chrome helps folks feel safe, let's them feel like they matter. It gives them a chance to be more." He went through it slow. He gave my shoulder a pat.

"More what?" I was actually curious how he'd respond.

"That's the question, isn't it?" He chuckled. After a second to process, I snorted and gave a chuckle of my own.

"Maybe too heavy for a second meeting, huh?" Feeling a bit foolish. Splitting my guts out to a total stranger was the height of stupidity.

"Sure, but you needed to vent and I got an ear." He grinned pointing to his left ear, "It's a chrome one though." That got a laugh out of me. I shut the metal gate and we walked over to the chair.

"So how's this work, Doc?" I was feeling far more optimistic about this. I realized that the Doc was actually trustworthy.

"Normally it's a quick procedure, and you'd be awake so we can do some tweaks as needed." Then he waved his hand back and forth, "However, you being Ganic and all, I'm going to have to put you out. Then it will take an hour or so for the auto-surgeon to set up the neural interface. The chip ports and the optic sockets will go much quicker. We then bring you back awake to test connections. I'll run you through the software setup and then you'll be good to go."

"Sounds dope." Still excited about all this.

"Huh?" The Doc sounded lost. It took me a second to realize why.

"Oh, sounds, ah... preem." I hopped up into the chair while handing the $20000 in bills over. "Let's do this." Before I could change my mind.

His exo-frame surgeon's arm made some really interesting clacking noises. A few seconds after that, I felt a pinch as I heard him say, "Light's Out."

I came to. A beeping noise kept repeating next to me, so I glanced over to see a monitor. Couldn't make heads or tails out of what it was showing though. My head was groggy, like a night of too much whiskey. Without the headache though. Laying there gathering my thoughts, I wondered if everything went okay. I didn't sense any differences, yet. I reached up and gently rubbed my slightly gritty feeling eyes. Ah, they felt much firmer. My fingers crawled around to the sides of my head, there were three rectangular holes behind my left ear. A set of three concentric metallic rings behind my right ear. Soo, I'm "chipped" now. I hoped it was worth it. I spent a few more seconds tracing the chip ports and then staring at my hands to see if I saw in more detail now. Yeah, a little bit. Nothing too amazing.

The curtain surrounding the bed I was resting in was abruptly pulled back and the blazing white light stabbed into my eyes.

"Sorry, bet that stung." Doc rumbled. "The surgery went well, though it took an extra hour to map your brain. It's an odd one. You have some dense clusters of nerves in your frontal cortex I've never seen before. A few other strange quirks as well. The implantation went great and everything seems to be smooth sailing. How are your optics doing? Any blurriness, or photosensitivity?"

"Nah, Doc. Everything looks great." I tried sitting up. I only wobbled a bit. I rolled my shoulders, eager to start moving again.

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"Alright, let's go through the setup and settings for everything... "

It only took twenty minutes to get everything sorted out. Now that they were off safe mode, my new eyes were a marvel. They could zoom in, both for distance and scale. They supposedly had other features like explosive detection, flare protection and more, but there wasn't a good way to test them here. My simplified interface allowed me to connect to the electronics around the room, which I fiddled with maybe a bit too much. Turning on and off the lights and the radio. It was extremely intuitive, I was more than a little shocked that it was so easy.

My new chip ports came with a currently empty encrypted cred chip. Making it less likely some random netrunner could just siphon my electronic funds willy-nilly. Best of all, these systems all worked together to give me an active readout of personal data straight to my eyes. That was so cool. Maybe game-like feature weren't so bad.

The Doc had thrown in a few bits of software as thanks, a NCPD Scanner to see who was a ne'er do well, a security suite with some currently up to date and potent ICE, and even the advanced version of a targeting system, to aid in aiming. Most of target system's features needed the additional chrome on the hands, like a ballistics coprocessor to really shine, but the targeting reticule that it rocked was already awesome.

He gave me a inhaler, and I took a hit now. It cause a few odd sensations, like the tingling in my lungs and a moment of my blood heating up. He told me I'd need a few more hourly puffs over the next five hours. What it contained was a mass of antibiotics and antirejection drugs to help my body adapt.

I thanked him for everything. Then left, making sure to say good-bye to Misty on the way to my van.

I called the Galena to me, and left the van in a parking lot near Misty's. It'd be as safe there as anywhere else right now.

The Probes were a little more cheery. They scanned my new cyberware with what I took to be amusement. Beep, beep, "Executor has new parts." Scuff said to Fix, who responded, "He feels better now, we can see his thoughts more clearly." They wobbled and danced around me. "Hey!" Mildly annoyed by their antics. But it didn't last, I couldn't be upset with my Robo-Buddies. They both gave out a rapid series of beeps that I figured for laughter.

After a another visit at Lizzie's to get another "Information Special" from Sinnamin, I had the detes of the Faceman she knew. Carver, yeah just Carver.

While I was there, I also got Sinn's story. Found out why she was so different from the other Moxes. She had been inducted to the Animals when she was young, so young in fact I had to take a few calming breaths because righteous anger nearly overwhelmed me. She described their casual brutality, and the "Dominance Plays" that were a common part of their gang behavior.

Sigh. I really was starting to hate ALL the gangs. Her pack, as she called it, was raiding a Corpo shipment. She didn't even remember whose convoy it was. Probably didn't care at the time, to her it was just another chance to fight. To prove her worth. To carver out her place in the pack.

In that fight, she got dropped. Then after taking a few more losses, her pack scattered. She faded out, sure she was flatlining. She came to later while being splayed out on a Scav's table. They were already elbows deep into her guts. Trying to pull her biomodded glands out.

Then Rita, and some of the other Moxes, came through while searching for some of their own missing girls. Sinn felt she owed them and then joined the Mox. Still, she really hated dancing, and wanted to be out smashing skulls. I choked back laughter at the awkward look on her face and wished her luck with that.

Everybody's got a story. I was starting to understand that everyone's story mattered. Every tale folks told was a new opportunity to learn.

I setup a meeting with Carver for the next day. A simple get together at a place called Tom's Diner.

After spending the a few hours sleeping back at the El Gato que Ríe, I arrived at the dinner early. I took the time to have a very mediocre burger. Mostly that same off flavor that all the meat here seemed to possess. The fries were okay though. Doubtful they were real potatoes, but starch was starch, right? My waiting bought me nothing, I got stiffed. I waited around a couple of hours. I even ordered a disappointing milkshake adjacent thing, to not just take up space. Realizing that it didn't matter, I left.

I got a call almost immediately. "Alright, now that we've had a look at you, what kind of work are you looking for?" The voice was empty soulless. Likely artificial, also it was different from the voice that had arranged the meetup.

"Mostly wetwork for right now. I have some drones I'm testing." I didn't really want to kill folks, but I figure that they mostly need gangers removed.

"A Techie, okay." I had to hold back a snort. "I've got a good starting job for you, a group of gang wannabes bothering a peaceful neighborhood. Put them down, and send a message. Detes attached." The line closed.

The info I was given was for a relatively new development to the north west of the Northside Industrial District. It was called New Town, or the Three Corp Zone.

I spent a little time doing some research of my own. The local Net data said the zone was a joint venture by three of the mid-tier Corps. Ganthrope, Hallsback, and Riener. The handled Educational Materials, Software Development for NET architecture, and Robotics Research, respectively. The district was centered on their new headquarter buildings. Three tall skyscrapers twisting around each other, forming a bizarre helix. While smaller than the buildings of the City Center area, they were still quite impressive. However, looking at the pictures on the NET, I was sure that there was no way that could actually work. Then again, the Megabuildings I'd already seen defied my understanding of physics, so why not these?

While the current construction on these crazy towers was still being completed. The housing and business zones had long since been finished, and were already occupied and functioning as intended.

Now the supposed gangers were trying to hustle in on the local folks. My job was simple, find the gonks and zero them. There didn't seem to be that many of them and they mostly hung out at one house, that they had, "liberated".

I slid into the Galena and headed that way. I played with the radio a bit and found a station playing something called Mixed Genre Hardcore. Heavy deep rolling beats, that was good enough for me. The music helped clear my head and get me psyched up at the same time.

I left the North Industrial District and was surprised by what I found out. In the distance New Town looked almost nice, even by my old world's standards. It had the feel of a college town. There was a vibrant energy in the air.

The road I was on merged into a broad six lane highway leading into New Town. First I found myself in the business section. Shops, Restaurants, so on and so forth. Everything was so clean and new, it served as a vision of what Night City might have looked like, once upon a time. I saw NCPD patrolling, and order seemed to be well maintained.

Hmm. How did a Gang, especially some simple wannabes get into this zone? Why hadn't the cops dealt with them?

The whole time I'm headed down that main thoroughfare the almost finished central Skyscrapers loomed over everything. I hadn't noticed it at first but not one other building was over five stories. This shifted the whole feeling of the place into more of a vanity project for those Corpos' Board members.

Once I had passed around the TriCorp Plaza, I hit the residential areas. They were for the most part, very snazzy apartments. Though the occasional walled and gated Mansion could be seen, here and there. I found my turn off and zipped through the narrower road of the neighborhoods until I got to the address listed as the gang's hangout.

Ah, that was why the cops hadn't charged in. The assholes had taken over a Mansion. A Mansion, guarded by turrets, bots and drones. Not many, but enough to be a problem.

Whew, this was maybe too much for one guy. Then I shrugged it off, I had the Probes. We'd do it slow and steady.

I parked up the street by an empty lot, and we had a few hours till dark. So we'd settle in and observed who went in and out of the place.

Fuck, I hated waiting.