"What do you think they are?" I asked, showing Amber what I had discovered less than half an hour ago.

She scrolled through the list of files with furrowed brows, "This… Hmmm… I'm not too sure… Since this happened after you merged the folders together… It must mean that there's others out there that would open more of the files. We just need to find them."

Lea was also looking at it from her side and pointed at the screen, "Don't they form a picture, Captain?"

I turned to her, "A picture?"

She nodded and moved to point at two of the files, This one's edges line up with this one, Captain. Could we pull them both up on the screen, please?"

I did as she requested and both files were opened to be displayed on the screen, allowing Lea to manipulate the images such that they were laid side by side.

Sure enough, if we looked at it, the two files seemed to form into one picture when arranged like that.

We still could not tell what it was actually depicting since it was so pixelated but the fact that we now know what were the nature of these files was already a rather big step forward in my opinion.

"Are there any other files that could also be linked together? Could you do the same as what you did here, Lea?" I asked.

Lea nodded, "Allow me to try, Captain."

She then started sifting through each of the files, opening them up to lay them out on the screen in front of her.

I watched as she quickly scanned through each of them before she started moving them around almost immediately.

In less than five minutes, she had linked up all the pictures that were matched with each other. Most of them were only matched by pairs though there were a few that had three or four of them that matched together while the remaining had no matching pair.

She then laid them out to be projected into the air and I quickly realised what I was looking at.

"Isn't this a map of the galaxy?" I blurted out.

Even though it was very pixelated and not at all clear, I could at least see the 'arms' of the galaxy in some of the pictures.

And sure enough, when I arranged the images in the pattern that I remembered on how the galaxy looked like, the pieces that we currently have actually match up with the shape of the galaxy.

The other two seemed to realise this as well and Amber let out a gasp, "Does this mean we are looking at a map?"

"You think this might be a treasure map?" I asked, trying to contain my excitement.

"It could be a possibility. Unless someone decided to just make a map of the galaxy and for some reason decided to split it into different parts?"

Lea turned to her, "It could also be an invasion plan of sorts that someone is hiding though?

"You mean like some other civilisation making plans to attack humanity or something?"

She gave me a serious look, "It has happened before, Captain. Even before the AI Rebellion war too."

I suppose she has a point…

I went back to inspecting the pieces of the map that we have obtained but unfortunately, the current few pieces that we had only showed the outer rims so far and there wasn't anything special about it.

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We don't even have anything to show whether it was a treasure map like Amber had suggested, a potential plan for an invasion or even just someone thinking that it would be a good idea to have a picture of the galaxy be separated into multiple parts?

Well… I guess we'll just have to find somewhere that we could read the contents of the new Data Chip that I got and probably see if they were related.

Oh wait, what am I talking about? I probably should just make sure that the Merc we rescued didn't die and interroga-- I mean… Question him on where and when did he get this chip.

"How's our guest, by the way?" I asked, remembering him.

Lea answered, "We did our best to help him but there wasn't much we could actually do with what we have on the ship, Captain. For now, he's pretty stabilised but unless he gets medical treatment, I do not think he would be able to escape having lasting injuries."

Well honestly, as long as he was able to talk afterwards would be enough for me.

I turned back to look at my console, "Seems like we would need another half an hour to reach there, would he be able to hold out that long?"

Amber waved her hand dismissively, "He'll definitely live for sure. It's just whether or not he would get to keep his fingers and whether the doctor we find for him is actually good~"

I raised an eyebrow, "If the doctor is 'actually good'?"

"Yeah, like whether the doctor isn't one of those that chops up their patients and sells their body parts away for money. You know, the usual stuff."

I thought she was joking but Lea was nodding along with her so it seems like they were actually being serious.

Erm… Ok? I guess we'll just have to see if his luck holds out long enough.

*

The guy was still unconscious even as we landed our ship on the station

Amber had managed to find a doctor through the station's net and arranged to have the Merc transported away to their clinic the moment we reached the hangar bay,

Honestly, I didn't really care about whether the doctor was legit or not and was content with just leaving him in their hands.

But when Amber mentioned that the doctor was also a Cyware doctor, I got curious and wanted to go check them out.

Maybe I might even shop for some Cyware while I was at it.

Like maybe have my arm transform into a grenade launcher like that Merc guy or have a hidden wrist blade like that thug.

That'd be pretty cool I think.

Amber carried the Merc and the three of us started making our way towards the mentioned clinic which was located in a part of the station that we've never been to before.

If I had to say, this part seemed to be the slums by the looks of it.

Before this, I've already noticed that the people in this station in particular looked more rough and overall more depressed and destitute as compared to the people in the other stations I've visited.

But in this part of the station, that feeling was bumped up at least five times with the people around here.

The people here seemed to stay in these small holes that were barely big enough for a bed to fit inside and some of them even had corpses stuffed in them and no one cared.

And those that could actually call those holes home seem to be the fortunate ones here since most of them were just laying down or crouching outside on the street.

Also… There's way more dead people that were just left by the side of the street and… Holy shit… Are those guys eating that corpse?

I turned to Amber, "You sure this guy's legit?"

Amber tilted her head, "Hmmm? From what I've seen, he's pretty good at least."

"And he lives and works in a place like this?"

"Yep."

I shouldn't comment then…

Lea had no such qualms though, "Forgive me for my impudence but… Could a dump like this house anyone decent?"

Amber shrugged, "I dunno, but he's what I've found to be at least trustworthy enough to leave this guy in his hands."

"Would you leave Captain in his hands?"

"Fuck no."

…

So Amber literally is just dumping this Merc there because he's a stranger and he doesn't care if he lives or dies either, doesn't she?

Oh whatever, we'll be there to watch anyway so if things go to shit, at least we'll be able to deal with it at that moment instead of finding out later that the doctor 'accidentally' cut off his head or something.

We reached his clinic which looked like it was basically a shipping container that had its insides renovated into a clinic and a hole cut out at the side to place a door.

I pulled open the door for Amber and we stepped inside, which I was actually surprised to see that it actually looked like a proper clinic with clean furnishings and actual high tech equipment.

But that wasn't the thing I was most surprised about.

"Shut up and give me the money you stupid freak!" A thug shouted, pointing his gun at what appeared to be a robot.

"Sir, I must insist that you calm down before you hurt yourself."

"You fucking piece of--"

"I shall now engage self defence protocols."

There was a wet shlick sound before the thug in front of the robot was sliced into two vertically, his two halves dropping on either side.

…

What kind of doctor did you find us, Amber?