The premise to this story, which I probably will only write one chapter a week to, is it is an AU version of Worm. In this AU, Riley (Bonesaw) triggered with the QA bug controlling power while her parents were being tortured. She managed to kill Jack Slash with a few thousand angry wasps that nested nearby (there isn't a lot of fancy footwork the Broadcast shard can do when several thousand wasps swarm you while you're inside a building.)
Other than that, Taylor's life proceeds as normal and she triggered in the locker starting to get Bonesaw's original power, however at the same time she swapped places with a version of Taylor Hebert who was living, somehow, in the CP2077 universe, circa 2062. The CP2077 universe isn't one of the alternate Earth's the Entity's have access to or are imperiling, so the Shard wasn't completely transferred along with Taylor to CP2077. She ended up with mostly a Thinker power with encyclopedic knowledge of medicine, but it included some Tinker elements, but since the power level of the Shard is not quite there in this new universe, it cannot perform the usual Tinker-tech miracles. It can do some implausible things, but mostly anything she creates will have to be at least sort of possible.
I'm also bad at naming things, so the name of the story might be subject to change.
The premise to this story, which I probably will only write one chapter a week to, is it is an AU version of Worm. In this AU, Riley (Bonesaw) triggered with the QA bug controlling power while her parents were being tortured. She managed to kill Jack Slash with a few thousand angry wasps that nested nearby (there isn't a lot of fancy footwork the Broadcast shard can do when several thousand wasps swarm you while you're inside a building.)
Other than that, Taylor's life proceeds as normal and she triggered in the locker starting to get Bonesaw's original power, however at the same time she swapped places with a version of Taylor Hebert who was living, somehow, in the CP2077 universe, circa 2062. The CP2077 universe isn't one of the alternate Earth's the Entity's have access to or are imperiling, so the Shard wasn't completely transferred along with Taylor to CP2077. She ended up with mostly a Thinker power with encyclopedic knowledge of medicine, but it included some Tinker elements, but since the power level of the Shard is not quite there in this new universe, it cannot perform the usual Tinker-tech miracles. It can do some implausible things, but mostly anything she creates will have to be at least sort of possible.
I'm not great at writing first person stories, nor am I the greatest at writing perspectives that seem genuine when the POV is someone else's characters, which is why my POV characters are almost always OCs. So apologies if this seems weird/wrong.
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I thought I would die inside that locker, and I thought for a while that I did, but that couldn't have been what happened. I had been trapped in there for hours, screaming myself hoarse... school had already let out, and I was just hoping a janitor might find me. It was a futile hope after none of my fellow students, and I was pretty sure even teachers ever helped me, but I wasn't going to give the Trio the satisfaction of murdering me without even trying to save myself. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, my mom would have quoted.
Did you know that Winslow turned off all the heat as soon as school was out? I mean, when it was working at all. I lost consciousness shivering, wondering whether it was the hypothermia or toxic shock that would kill me first.
I regained consciousness thumping onto the floor as if I had rolled off the top bunk of a bunk bed. I hit with considerable force, and though I groaned in pain, the wind having been knocked out of me, I had already diagnosed my shoulder, which I mostly landed on with nothing more than a contusion.
I thought someone had opened up the locker, and I must have spilt out onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, but opening my eyes and glancing up, I appeared to be in a small, efficiency apartment. I could see the small kitchenette directly in front of me, and it looked like they hadn't even finished unpacking because the ground was littered with brown cardboard boxes with the name "MILITECH" stencilled on the side.
Great, I was kidnapped by a gang that was... doing a... guns deal? Gun trade? What the hell? That doesn't make any sense. It made more sense that I died, except...
If I died, I wouldn't still be covered with the blood and filth that was in the locker, surely. And the afterlife wouldn't be a shitty apartment full of cardboard boxes. And there wasn't any trail of such filth coming from the door, so there was no way I walked or was dragged in here.
Wait...
Wait one second!
I teleported! I must be a cape! I gained powers in the locker, somehow! Specifically, a teleportation Mover power? But please, why did I end up in the middle of some stash house full of whatever is inside these Militech boxes? It had to be some kind of weapons in there even if they looked more like moving boxes; I mean... the name!
I always wanted to be a hero, but I sure wasn't ready right now! Power, I like your moxie in trying to break up a gun deal first thing, but we have to get ready first! You're moving almost as fast as Ladybug did when she killed Jack Slash as soon as she triggered over half a decade ago.
Since his death, it had been theorised that the famous serial killer had some type of Thinker precognition power that was especially useful against other capes, which allowed him to get away from so many heroes that attempted to bring him down so often, but when a six-year-old girl Triggered with bug-controlling powers while you were torturing her parents, who thankfully hadn't gotten around to calling the exterminator to remove the giant wasp hive in the backyard, well... there is only so much fancy footwork can do against thousands of wasps, all controlled with a singular purpose-- to murder you.
Power, we don't even have a mask! I stood up and squinched my eyes. Power! Go back to Winslow, for now!
...
Power? ... Go back... to my room at home!
Uh, go... anywhere else but here? Wait, anywhere safe but here! I don't want to be in a volcano, next to Oni Lee or at the bottom of the ocean!
I stood there with my hands balled into my fists, eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed and face scrunched up. It suddenly dawned on me how ridiculous I looked. I looked like Carrie after she was drenched in pig's blood trying to hold a fart in.
The thought of the blood and my cut fingers, damaged fingernails and numerous scratches on my body had a number of possible bacterial infections and toxic shock syndrome coming to my head. In fact, I was already infected with a number of harmful bacteria, which might proceed to sepsis in as little as twelve hours if left untreated. I was sure of it. Prompt treatment was important at this stage, and I started moving without realising what I was doing. There was no phone visible to call emergency services, and leaving this apartment was fraught with peril, so I would have to treat myself, which was not a big deal at all...
---xxxxxx---
I came back to my senses in the shower, just letting the hot water run all over my body. It felt heavenly after being stuck in that locker for hours. Not only was it disgusting, but I was a tall girl, and my shoulders and neck were crinked from being in there so long... or at least they were. Rolling my neck, it felt a lot better after having the hot water run on them for so long.
I sort of remembered what I had been doing as if my body had been on autopilot for a while. I stepped out of the shower, giving the bloody remnants of my clothes a wide berth. I didn't care if this was Lung's personal stash house; there was no way I would ever wear those clothes again. I'd rather run through the Docks in nothing but this towel!
I glanced at a mug that read "World's Number One Dad" that was half-filled with an off-white powder. I had already taken about twenty milligrams of the powder. It was a shame that there were no gel capsules around, and the time necessary for me to fabricate an actual pill press would have caused my treatment to be delayed unacceptably.
This drug was an extremely effective broad-spectrum antibiotic. Only one treatment was necessary to eradicate everything from syphilis to MRSA and everything in between. Honestly, there was really only one negative side effect to it...
I immediately threw my towel off my body and rushed to the toilet. Thankfully in such a small bathroom, it was only two steps away.
"Oh, shit..." I said aloud as I felt my stomach rumbling dangerously.
And shit, I did.
---xxxxxx---
I realised I was a Tinker about halfway through the twenty minutes I spent on the toilet. I would have learned immediately, but for the first ten minutes, there was no real conscious thought at all. Just groaning and pain.
The antibiotic had literally destroyed every micro-organism in my body, which actually would have been a really bad thing as humans had evolved to depend on their microfauna biome. Except it wasn't the only thing, I made when I was in a fugue.
There were no amounts of courtesy flushing that would forgive the sin I committed against this commode, so I just flushed it for what must have been the twelfth time once, grabbed the mug full of super antibiotics and walked out of the bathroom.
I had made four drugs at the kitchenette, which I found incredibly impressive. It wasn't even a proper kitchen; it was the kind that you might find in a hotel that you rented by the week or crappy apartments... like the crappy apartment, I was currently in.
I had memories of already taking two of the drugs, the other one I needed to take immediately, and the last was made as a contingency.
The second drug I had taken in my fugue made me frown deeply, and I started to get pissed off. It was an anti-depressant, and it was as good as the antibiotic was. It was guaranteed to normalise neurotransmitter levels within six to twelve hours of administration and only needed to be taken once a week.
Did my power think I was depressed?! ... well... I mean... It still didn't have the right to take the decision out of my hands itself!
Wait, why was I talking about my power like it was another person? The Agent theory of Parahuman powers was widely denigrated, and only crazy crackpots on PHO actually subscribed to it. I just wasn't used to going into a fugue as I had done.
At the back of my mind rested a deep field of absolute knowledge, like I had a hundred different encyclopedias hooked into my brain. The knowledge was mostly about medicine, biology, anatomy, organic chemistry and genetics. I had also been trying hard not to think about the vast trove of psychiatric data I had access to.
According to the same part of my brain that diagnosed the exact strains of staph bacteria I had been exposed to, I was at a mental health crisis point; just one bad day would have been all that it took to push me over the edge into some permanent solutions. It felt that gaining powers was only postponing the inevitable and that I would likely do something foolish and get myself killed in a classic example of self-destructive behaviour if I didn't take things in hand. It felt that my mental state was a bigger danger than the bacteria. It could be treated pharmacologically, but that wasn't really a cure.
I did... not like being confronted with this. But, my possible mental breakdown and a psychological break could wait. I was really at some risk if I didn't take this third drug very soon.
I had made it out of a can of yoghurt and some miscellaneous kitchen chemicals, the latter of which was the same thing I made the other three drugs out of, which didn't make me feel that much better about them, except that I knew that they would work and be fine.
Sighing, I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and ate the entire can of yoghurt. Mmm, it was strawberry flavour. This would replace all the beneficial microbiomes in my digestive system after the earlier antibiotic wrecked it.
After finishing the yoghurt, I glanced at the last drug I had made, which I hadn't thought much about. I made it as a contingency, as a tool to escape. I was already exhausted, but if I was in the middle of a dangerous area like the docks or deep in Empire or ABB territory, I might not have enough time to stay in this stash house. There was no telling when someone might arrive. It might be months or minutes!
So I made a very potent dopamine reuptake inhibitor; it was a very strong and long-lasting neural stimulant. One dose, and I could stay awake for at least forty-eight hours with no real side effects.
My hand rushed to cover my own mouth in shock. Aghast, I said, "Oh, no..."
Had I just Broken Bad and created super-meth? Already? Oh god. No, no, no! I will not be Skidmark's second girlfriend! What will they call me? Hollar, to go with Squealer?! I felt ill.
I shook my head rapidly to clear it and stared at the over six hundred grams of powder in an empty old margarine tub as if I had just made some mashed potatoes or something. Oh god! A single dose was only twenty-five milligrams by oral administration! The PRT would get me for distribution! If the gangs didn't catch me first!
It was all over!
I started panting, acutely aware that I was hyperventilating and having an anxiety attack but ignoring the corner of my brain that was brimming full of medical advice. I sat down, slumped on a couch on the other side of the room, which was surrounded by boxes full of guns and stared out into space for a time.
---xxxxxx---
I wasn't sure if it was because the super-antidepressants were starting to work, but I only let myself have a panic attack for about five or ten minutes at the most. After that, I started calming down a little bit, even if I was still kind of hyperventilating. I realised I wasn't thinking straight. Nobody knew what I had done. I could flush the incriminating evidence, and it would be fine.
I started to get up to go do just that, but something caught my eye on the coffee table in front of me. It was one of only two tables in the apartment, the other being a small table next to the kitchenette that was stacked full of cardboard boxes. This table, however, only had what looked like a smartphone on it. It was either a small tablet or a large phone, and I considered the latter to be more likely. Smartphones were still quite expensive, and this one looked even swankier than the DragonTech phones that were all the rage if you were rich.
That made me become very, very scared. Nobody would leave their expensive phone here if they were not going to come back and get it, and soon. I had to call the BBPD or the PRT right away, or I was going to be dead meat! I didn't think that the PRT would care about saving me at all, but they would be at least interested in all of these boxes, and I might get saved as a result, but I had to move fast. I had already spent at least two hours in a fugue making those drugs!
I was pretty sure you could still make an emergency call even if you didn't have the PIN number to unlock a phone, so I grabbed the phone off the table, the screen coming to life as soon as she picked it up.
What I saw caused me to drop the phone in shock, it slipping through my limp-with-shock fingers and tumbling onto the floor with a clatter.
Dad was death on cell phones, even flip phones, so I had never had one, but I was pretty sure what I saw was called the lock screen. You could select a picture that would be displayed while the phone was locked.
So, why, then, was a picture of me and my mom the lock screen photo of this phone that presumably belonged to gun runners?!
Everyone said that powers were bullcrap and you shouldn't try to understand them with normal logic, but there was a point when things got too crazy to explain away with that simple platitude.
I reached down and grabbed the phone from the floor, the screen lighting up again. I didn't recognise this photo of my mom or me, and I was confident it was never taken. They were on the roof of a building, and the background was a cityscape that would look more in place in Tokyo than in Brockton Bay. I was absolutely sure I had never been there!
I tried to move the photo around with my thumb, but as soon as I touched the screen, a green padlock icon appeared along with the text, "BIOMETRIC MATCH." Then the phone unlocked, and I was looking at a totally unfamiliar screen full of odd icons and glyphs.
Wait... what?! Did this phone just unlock to my fingerprint?! I did a lot of research on fingerprints back when I still thought the teachers and school officials would still do anything about the Trio. How stupid I was back then. How could this phone unlock to my fingerprint? Maybe any fingerprint unlocked it? That didn't seem to sit right with the words biometric match, though. This was starting to get weirder and weirder, and I was half-expecting some kind of SAW situation from that disgusting Earth Aleph horror movie.
I looked at the unfamiliar glyphs on the screen, but there was one that looked like an old-time telephone, so I pressed it. For the moment, I was ignoring the fact that the Home Screen picture was my dad and me with my dad wearing some kind of military uniform. I find the dialer and enter 9-1-1 and CALL, putting the phone up to my head.
The phone answers immediately, and the voice is slick but slightly computer generated, "Night City Emergency Services, Miss Taylor Hebert, I see your location as the twenty-ninth floor of Megabuilding H8 in Westbrook. Please be advised present response times to your position exceed ONE ONE ZERO minutes. Do you wish to continue?"
What?
I stammer out, "No, thank you," and get another computer-generated response, "Very well, you have been charged ten eurodollars for this service. Have a good day."
I glance at the phone's screen in shock, in time to see a red alert at the top of the screen indicating that ten eurodollars, whatever those are, have been deducted from my account. I have been thinking about this for a while, but I need to say it out loud, "Toto, I don't think I am in Kansas anymore."
I stare at the picture on the home screen, perplexed. Dad looks pretty good in a military uniform, but I can't even determine which military he is in. I set the phone down and do some breathing exercises that the information in the back of my head is telling me will be helpful for stress, as I have been hyperventilating for over fifteen minutes, and my hands were starting to cramp into useless claws.
My... what is this, even? A medical-based Thinker power? But I diagnosed myself immediately with a carpopedal spasm caused by hyperventilation due to localised hypocalcemia. Treatment was getting my breathing under conscious control, so I started breathing in a slow pattern that was clinically proven to provide anxiolytic benefits.
After a few minutes of just sitting there and relaxing, I grab the phone again, and this time I try unlocking it with my left pinky finger, only to get a stern red icon. Sighing, I use my right thumb, and it unlocks. I was very good with computers, and ultimately this was just an unfamiliar computer interface. But it was one that was clearly designed for ease of use, as the icons made sense and were straightforward.
I navigate through a number of pending notifications and find what seems to be the text messaging app, seeing a lot of texts to this phone that was more or less similar in nature, in that they were all offering condolences or saying that they would miss ... me? They were clearly texting a Taylor Hebert.
There was a different app for e-mails, and there were a couple of pending notifications in that app too, which I pulled up. The first e-mail answered a lot of questions but gave me a lot more besides.
Dear Miss Hebert,
First, let me offer our condolences for the recent loss of your father, MAJOR DANIEL HEBERT, who was killed in the line of duty at [REDACTED] on [REDACTED]. All of Militech owes you a great debt.
However, while Major Hebert was eligible for the Enhanced Combat Survivor's Benefit, it has been determined that the [REDACTED] at [REDACTED] is to be considered a POLICE ACTION, and while Major Hebert was killed in the line of duty, deaths resultant from POLICE ACTIONS are not considered combat deaths, so you are eligible for only the basic survivorship package.
While we understand this isn't the decision you may have hoped for, we hope you understand that only through careful stewardship of the finances entrusted to us can we remain a strong Militech family.
Additionally, as you are the only next of kin and are a minor child, there are some important decisions you must make before SEPTEMBER 1, 2062; otherwise, we are legally obligated to forward your file to the Night City government for foster placement. I am not qualified to advise you on this matter. However, attached to this e-mail is a small 472-page guide about your options. It is recommended that you retain an attorney...
...
...
There were about three more pages of finely worded legalese, but I started hyperventilating again when I read foster placement. I wasn't even from this universe; of that, I was absolutely certain now. Could they really put me in foster care? Oh, and my universe-dad was dead, I guess. Honestly, that wasn't that different from what I was used to. My actual dad was basically just walking dead already, merely acting out the memories of what life once was like a revenant.
That made me think about him. Practically the only emotion he actually felt was worry, and he was going to be out of his mind with it, worried that I never came home from school, and I was worried that I might never see him again. Travel between universes was difficult enough between Aleph and Bet, and it was illegal, in fact, except in highly supervised cases.
But this... this was something very different. There weren't alternate versions of you in Earth Aleph. That wasn't how this worked! I had read about the theorised point of divergence between the two universes, and the accumulated differences over time were enough butterflies to ensure that there was no, for example, Taylor Hebert on Earth Aleph. And there certainly was no Taylor Hebert in 2062.
This wasn't Earth Gimel; this was something very different.
This meant that I probably would never see my dad again and that he would have to deal with a missing daughter on top of losing his wife just a couple of years ago. Oh god, he was barely hanging on as it was!
Unless... hopefully, I just swapped places with this Alternate Taylor? If so, I want to apologise if you find yourself inside a disgusting locker. Although, since it sent me to about five feet above the ground, it probably wasn't going to be one hundred per cent accurate when swapping Alt-Taylor? Hopefully, she'd fall in front of the locker.
Maybe that... would be for the best? Judging from all the text messages, this girl had she had friends, people who seemed to care enough about her to at least offer words of platitude, even if they were only being polite. Her contact list was full of names, and she had been texting to and from people her own age. Some even said that they would miss her since apparently she couldn't stay enrolled at the Militech school after her father passed away. By any metric, I could see she was vastly superior in all respects to me.
I didn't want to inflict my life on my worst enemy, except maybe Sophia, and especially not on an alternate version of myself from a different universe, but surely this Alt-Taylor was smart enough that she could figure out how to get out of my predicament that I had been suffering through since I entered high school. She was, from all appearances, smart both intellectually and socially, unlike me.
The part of my brain full of psychiatry information was warning me that I was approaching seriously unhealthy levels of self-loathing, 'I wish that would just shut up! I'm not asking for advice!'
I stewed there on the couch, which I could see was a fold-out bed as well and built into the side of the wall and tried to use the phone to find out anything I could about where I was.
---xxxxxx---
On the plus side, all these cardboard boxes didn't have guns or grenades in them. Well, most of them didn't. I found several pistols in boxes with the rest of Alt-Dad's effects. I carefully set them aside, not knowing the first thing about either safely handling them or even making sure that they were safe, so I figured the safest thing to do was just not to touch them at all.
The boxes were full of all the stuff Alt-Taylor and Alt-Dad had in their apartment. Apparently, the company evicted you pretty rapidly in the event you left their service, even if it was in case of death. However, they packed everything well, and according to that lady's e-mail, part of the "basic survivorship package" included three months of paid rent at accommodations of their choice that were rated at least GREEN for safety, whatever that meant.
I had figured out how to turn on the television that was integrated into one of the walls, but after it started playing "America's Most Violent Home Videos" and seeing some gang member accidentally blow himself up with a grenade to a laugh track, I turned it off immediately. I thought life was cheap in Brockton Bay, but this goes far beyond what I'm used to. Although, that sort of thing might have been played on Über and Leet's private channel, and it wasn't actually that far off from what I would expect one of the Merchant's to do.
However, at least I managed to find the boxes that contained Alt-Taylor's clothes, so I put on some of her pyjamas so I wouldn't be stuck in a towel for the foreseeable future.
After making sure that the door outside was well and truly locked, I decided the best thing I could do was just cry myself to sleep on the roll-out futon.
---xxxxxx---
My dreams seemed to last years; I dreamt of Alt-Taylor's life. It wasn't as though I relived her entire life, not even close. Nor did I have her full memories at my beck and call when I woke up, but when I woke up, I was a lot less confused about my location and situation.
Alt-Taylor had been expecting the company to screw her over in more or less the manner that they ended up doing. Even if she didn't precisely know how they would fuck her, she knew it was coming. However, instead of my own impression that everyone was out to screw me over, Alt-Taylor's impression was that the corp screwed everyone. The nuance was totally different, there was no personal animus behind it, and Alt-Taylor didn't even seem that upset about it. Alt-Taylor and her dad had even made contingency planning for this exact scenario, as he was apparently under no illusions about how dangerous his job was.
I was more sure that we had swapped places now because the impressions I got from my dreams were of two boats passing in the night, going to opposite places. Or two streams of energy passing through each other as we coiled around a massively giant crystalline entity, which was why I had gotten a few of her memories.
I held my hands up in prayer, devotedly apologising for inflicting my life on the much more well-adjusted girl. Was this a punishment for me? Because I had not managed to help my Dad that I was being tossed into a universe where I had already lost him?
No, that didn't make sense.
I blinked. Normally, I would not have contradicted my self-denigrations like that. I glanced over at the tub of anti-depressant powder that was still on the kitchenette sink. Well, they were supposed to work very fast.
The thing about normalising my neurotransmitters was it wasn't a cure for anything, really. However, if your brain chemistry was so out of wack, your sense of depression and self-loathing would tend to make you avoid or sabotage any kind of treatment, my medical sense told me.
I still had all the same predilections; however, at least my brain wasn't firmly reinforcing my self-loathing anymore. The fact that I could make such a self-diagnosis without angrily denying it seemed to be proof of their effectiveness.
Sighing, I walked over to the couch again. I had all the contingency files on Alt-Taylor's phone. Alt-Dad had set up a complicated flowchart that he assured would give me the maximum out of the Corp.
Glancing at the pistol on the coffee table, I grabbed it, thumbed the magazine release and pulled the pistol's slide out of battery slightly to check to make sure there was no round in the chamber. There wasn't. I sat the empty gun and full magazine back down on the coffee table. While I didn't get anywhere near all of Alt-Taylor's memories, there were a surprising number of memories of Alt-Dad teaching his daughter about firearms and firearms safety.
Well, I suppose that could be useful, even if my first impression of guns was still of deep antipathy. Dad kept a shotgun at home, but Mom was always against anyone having guns, which was a lot different than Alt-Taylor's mom, who also worked for Militech. I suppose it was hard to be Pro Gun Control laws when you lived in a world where the government hardly exists and you work for an arms company.
Sighing, I brought up the private files on Alt-Taylor... no, it's my phone now. It wasn't good to keep such things compartmentalised mentally. Perhaps I could find a way back to my own universe in the future, but if I keep acting mentally like Alt-Taylor and I were two different girls, then I may slip up when interacting with people from this universe. That would lead to either mental institutionalisation or vivisection, depending on if they believed that I was actually from another universe or not. Alt-Taylor had no illusions at all about what those truly in power would do if they thought I might lead them to new, unknown Earths. Complete destructive testing of every molecule in my body if I was lucky.
I brought up my private files and found the contingency document my Dad had made. It was actually a small program that gave me prompts. It confirmed my date of birth and the current date and then asked me about my current grades at school, with a number of drop-down options.
I hummed and managed to find the transcript that was e-mailed to me when I withdrew from the corporate school last week. Wow, that was another thing I would have to apologise to Alt-Taylor for. She had straight A's. If she was waking up in my life, she had a lot of work to do as I was barely passing any of my classes due to not being generally able to turn any homework in.
The flow chart was kind of complicated, and it took me another fifteen minutes to work through all the questions it was asking me. That made me feel kind of warm inside; if he did this much planning for his daughter, then Alt-Dad surely loved her.
The suggestions made my eyebrows raise. They were all explained, too, in ways to get the most out of the Corp without completely antagonising them.
As she was a minor, the Corp was essentially her guardian. So, it was going to be on the hook to pay for foster care, public school, and some amount of maintenance until she turned 18. They would basically be paying off Night Corp, which ran the city.
It was spelt out for her that the only thing a Corp hated to do more than paying out to a person was paying out to another Corp, especially Night Corp, which tended to pretend it was some kind of government as it ran all the organs of Night City governance, like the police and courts.
The flowchart and associated plans recommended that she send an e-mail to the HR drone, a template being provided, offering to apply for emancipation in exchange for some additional benefits. Not only would Militech be on the hook for less than they would have to pay to Night Corp, but they would be paying the daughter of a fallen hero instead. The file made it clear that it wasn't that the corporate workers wanted to screw her over, specifically. It was just that they did not have any discretion and had to attempt to screw over everybody. They almost considered it an IQ test, as a kind of social Darwinism which I found repugnant. However, if given a plausible option where they could award me additional benefits and save the Corp money at the same time, they would definitely go for it.
Was this all just a fever dream as I lay dying inside that locker? 'No,' replied my medical sense. My brain was full of ways to test reality or myself for delusions, and I hadn't failed them when I did many of them this morning.
Sighing, I copied over the e-mail template and filled out the relevant portions before sending it to that Alice Newman lady.
Unlike Fallout and Eclipse Phase, I don't actually know the setting for this one all that well (Cyberpunk 2077, that is.) I'll give this one a watch though, first chapter was interesting. Still looking forward to more of Lily's transhuman/spider antics primarily though.
Watched, wonderful to see that no matter the reality, to Taylor is to suffer. All so the image of Taylor making drugs in a kitchen sink is pretty amusing
I love this concept. I cant wait to see where this goes. Side note. The universe of cyberpunk 2077 has been around since like the late 80s. Dont be afraid to pull stuff from the tabletop and such. There is a LOT of lore and you could have a lot of fun running taylor through a bunch of it. Seeing her react to the many gangs and other such could be pretty awesome. Same with her seeing exotics for the firsy time. I really cant wait for an author to bust those out honestly lol
Wow what a benevolent entity doing that switch. Everyone gets something they want! Punk Taylor gets her dad back even if it's a different version, Escalator Supreme gets a new life in a world that desperately needs a hero and I get a new cyberpunk story with a future ripperdoc taylor. I assume she's going to be kitting herself out with some tinker worthy cyberware?
Wow what a benevolent entity doing that switch. Everyone gets something they want! Punk Taylor gets her dad back even if it's a different version, Escalator Supreme gets a new life in a world that desperately needs a hero and I get a new cyberpunk story with a future ripperdoc taylor. I assume she's going to be kitting herself out with some tinker worthy cyberware?
She's in a totally different multiverse, so Bonesaw's shard attempted to bud to follow her, but the new bud ended up kind of both slightly broken and cut off from the Entity network in this new reality. As such, it doesn't have the same power levels to allow truly miraculous tinker devices. For example, Bonesaw could create a vial that destroyed literally every disease imaginable, but Taylor can make really, really good antibiotics. That's the distinction between tinker bullshit and just implausible bullshit. She can only do implausible in this new setting.
She will definitely develop and use novel cyberware, but it will likely be mostly based on existing CP2077 technology, just improved. But on the plus side, she isn't as constrained by needing to constantly "maintain" everything she builds like a traditional Worm Tinker.
I love this concept. I cant wait to see where this goes. Side note. The universe of cyberpunk 2077 has been around since like the late 80s. Dont be afraid to pull stuff from the tabletop and such. There is a LOT of lore and you could have a lot of fun running taylor through a bunch of it. Seeing her react to the many gangs and other such could be pretty awesome. Same with her seeing exotics for the firsy time. I really cant wait for an author to bust those out honestly lol
Yeah, I used to play both CP2020 (that was unusual because I usually just played WoD games like Vampire and Changeling) and a number of online text-based Cyberpunk roleplaying games years and years ago. (I think it was called Cybersphere.) So I definitely won't be confining my take away from just CP2077 and the anime.
the thought of parents making their kids freaking interactive spread sheets for when they die is an amusing and extremely grim thing but totally in line for a the setting and something i think would totally be a industry in universe.
This is an interesting start, although I think it would be more interesting to follow the other Taylor. Presumably, she has at least some cyberwear and she has all the training and attitude that somebody would get growing up in NC. If she got some power as well then that sounds like a more interesting story.
As far as this chapter, there are a bunch of places where you jump between past and present tense. You should watch out for them - they are pretty obvious. You also sometimes switch from first to third person and then back again.
Why is this mentioned in this story? Unless Taylor meets ex-Bonesaw then this is an irrelevant anecdote and a rather strange thing to think about at that moment.
This is an interesting start, although I think it would be more interesting to follow the other Taylor. Presumably, she has at least some cyberwear and she has all the training and attitude that somebody would get growing up in NC. If she got some power as well then that sounds like a more interesting story.
The first half of the next chapter will follow her perspective, but I am not really interested in writing that more than perhaps here and there.
As far as this chapter, there are a bunch of places where you jump between past and present tense. You should watch out for them - they are pretty obvious. You also sometimes switch from first to third person and then back again.
Yes, I will edit those. Writing in first person really screws me up. There were tons more, but I mostly edited them out already. I'll re-read it again and find the rest.
Why is this mentioned in this story? Unless Taylor meets ex-Bonesaw then this is an irrelevant anecdote and a rather strange thing to think about at that moment.
Only to emphasize that it is an AU, not really for any other reason. It probably could be deleted and you wouldn't lose anything, which generally is a sign that it should be deleted, but for some reason I don't want to, and I like it.
Really? I'm not sure I've read any of them. Are there any good ones you'd recommend? Normally, I do like things like that but I'm not really interested in writing something like that. Perhaps I may show a few scenes from her perspective but they will be very few and far between, almost like omakes.
Really? I'm not sure I've read any of them. Are there any good ones you'd recommend? Normally, I do like things like that but I'm not really interested in writing something like that. Perhaps I may show a few scenes from her perspective but they will be very few and far between, almost like omakes.
I would love it. Might be awkward to read after a trip through google translate. But might be worth it.
forums.spacebattles.com
This one is kinda recent. I really can't remember them all I've come across. I'd read the summary and move on when I wasn't interested in the idea. I think there was a warframe one. I know there was a rwby fic where rwby grew up as a spartan, and seeing as worm is more popular I'm certain fics of this type are more common.
I don't read them myself because I just don't have an interest in an alternate taylor.
Fixed, and she was saying 'This isn't Earth Gimel, as in this isn't the third universe we haven't yet discovered, this is something different from the Aleph/Bet/Gimel/Dalet/etc system.' She's trying to reinforce that it is a completely different multiverse, not just a seperate universe in the same Worm multiverse.
Ooh, glad it's finally done. Interesting start and hook. Looking forward to the weekly update.
That said, ugh, Taylor. I wish there were less Taylor fics because I like Taylor. Most people who write her don't even really want to, nor are they very scrupulous in getting her voice right.
For a very simple example, in this fic she says,
"I teleported! I must be a cape! I triggered with a teleportation Mover power..."
Early Worm Taylor canonically thinks of her experience as just 'gaining powers'. She doesn't use the term 'trigger', nor think of it as 'triggering powers' because she doesn't understand trigger events, or know that they're called 'trigger events' until Lisa explains it to her in a very awkward conversation during Arc 4.
The first time Taylor refers to 'trigger events' is seven whole arcs into the story. That's about 200,000 words in.
Also I think she's too depressed at this point to actually feel excited, powers or not.
Beyond just the voice though, people have done Taylor in every possible way and position. I really wish that authors who don't have anything interesting to say about the real Taylor would just write OCs instead.
As much as I'm looking forward to the next chapter, I can't help but mourn what could have been. Literally anybody else would have been my preference. Even like, Brutus, the dog.
Here's my eulogy, I guess.
Hébert tried to run, but our illustrious leader Sophia worked like a negre to bodycheck her into zhe lockers before she escaped.
Yes! Get zhe little bitch!
She fell to zhe ground wizh a pazhetic 'ooft' and I 'ad to restrain myself from pouncing.
"If she's so desperate to leave school, why does she keep coming?" Julia asked, stepping carefully around zhe skinny creature like one might around les vidanges.
Madison stood on zhe ozher side, towering over Hébert like a very short titan.
"Even the teachers don't want her to come," Madison said sweetly. "Nobody does."
While Sophia stood zhreateningly to zhe side, Emma seemed content to watch on as we competed to get a rise out of Hébert.
My turn, zhen.
"Well of course. She is zhe only one zhat will spread 'er legs for Grotty Greg, after all. Hébert, it is time you run home back to Paris, non? Zhat is where little French tarts like you belong," I said wizh a smile.
Zhe little bitch looked like she 'ad finally snapped, because she glared daggers at me.
"I know you are, but what am I?"
...What?
'ow... 'ow dare she...! I was a proud Québécois of... of...
I made to reply but oddly zhe vision of my eyes was turning, how you say, darker zhan zhe inside of Samuel L. Jackson's trou d' cul.
...
Are zhose... whale tadpoles...?
I woke in an alleyway, which was strange because I was not Taylor Hébert. It was absolutely filzhy too.
I 'ad to stifle a gasp. No... Was I in zhe New York?!
I stumbled out of zhe alley and grabbed zhe first person I saw by zhe collars.
"Where am I?! Where is zhis place?!"
Normally I would be reluctant to touch a person who wore socks wizh sandals, but zhis was an emergency.
"What's your malfunction, choom?! Fuck, this is Night City!"
"T'es din patates, man! I am not asking for zhe name of zhe night club over zhere. Where in America am I?!"
"Jesus, you're in California, all right?! Let go of me!"
I did so, if only because I was horrified. Everybody knew zhere was only one zhing worse zhan a New Yorker, and zhat was a Californian.
Would I survive zhese uncultured brutes until I could contact my parents?
Sorry for the spot of negativity at the start. I really am super looking forward to seeing where you take this. Especially interested to see you write NC natives.
Ooh, glad it's finally done. Interesting start and hook. Looking forward to the weekly update.
That said, ugh, Taylor. I wish there were less Taylor fics because I like Taylor. Most people who write her don't even really want to, nor are they very scrupulous in getting her voice right.
For a very simple example, in this fic she says,
"I teleported! I must be a cape! I triggered with a teleportation Mover power..."
Early Worm Taylor canonically thinks of her experience as just 'gaining powers'. She doesn't use the term 'trigger', nor think of it as 'triggering powers' because she doesn't understand trigger events, or know that they're called 'trigger events' until Lisa explains it to her in a very awkward conversation during Arc 4.
The first time Taylor refers to 'trigger events' is seven whole arcs into the story. That's about 200,000 words in.
Also I think she's too depressed at this point to actually feel excited, powers or not.
Beyond just the voice though, people have done Taylor in every possible way and position. I really wish that authors who don't have anything interesting to say about the real Taylor would just write OCs instead.
As much as I'm looking forward to the next chapter, I can't help but mourn what could have been. Literally anybody else would have been my preference. Even like, Brutus, the dog.
Here's my eulogy, I guess.
Hébert tried to run, but our illustrious leader Sophia worked like a negre to bodycheck her into the lockers before she escaped.
Yes! Get zhe little bitch!
She fell to zhe ground wizh a pathetic 'ooft' and I 'ad to restrain myself from pouncing.
"If she's so desperate to leave school, why does she keep coming?" Julia asked, stepping carefully around zhe skinny creature like one might around les vidanges.
Madison stood on the ozher side, towering over Hébert like a very short titan.
"Even the teachers don't want her to come," Madison said sweetly. "Nobody does."
While Sophia stood threateningly to zhe side, Emma seemed content to watch on as we competed to get a rise out of Hébert.
My turn, zhen.
"Well of course. She is zhe only one zhat will spread 'er legs for Grotty Greg, after all. Hébert, it is time you run home back to Paris, non? Zhat is where little French tarts like you belong," I said with a smile.
Zhe little bitch looked like she 'ad finally snapped, because she glared daggers at me.
"I know you are, but what am I?"
...What?
'ow dare she..! I was a proud Québécois of... of...
I made to reply but oddly zhe vision of my eyes was turning, how you say, darker zhan zhe inside of Samuel L. Jackson's trou d' cul.
...
Are zhose... whale tadpoles...?
I woke in an alleyway, which was strange because I was not Taylor Hébert. It was absolutely filzhy too.
I 'ad to stifle a gasp. No... Was I in zhe New York?!
I stumbled out of zhe alley and grabbed zhe first person I saw by zhe collars.
"Where am I?! Where is zhis place?!"
Normally I would be reluctant to touch a person who wore socks with sandals, but zhis was an emergency.
"What's your malfunction, choom?! Fuck, this is Night City!"
"T'es din patates, man! I am not asking for the name of zhe night club over zhere. Where in America am I?!"
"Jesus, you're in California, all right?! Let go of me!"
I did so, if only because I was horrified. Everybody knew zhere was only one zhing worse than a New Yorker, and zhat was a Californian.
Would I survive zhese uncultured brutes until I could contact my parents?
Sorry for the spot of negativity at the start. I really am super looking forward to seeing where you take this. Especially interested to see you write NC natives.
It's not negativity, I appreciate the criticism and it's quite valid! It's one reason I don't usually write POV characters that are the main/POV character in another fiction.
It's really quite hard! It's one reason when I do I often cheat by having the character gain a bunch of extraneous information and memories somehow -- it is mainly to shield myself as a poor writer and give me some fig leaf to hide behind in explaining why my depiction is different from canon, when it is actually just because I am not great at writing other people's main characters. Sadly that fig leaf hadn't yet been deployed by the time of your valid criticism here.
I know I said I only intended to write one chapter a week, but I got caught up writing this chapter after I finished the previous chapter of my other Fallout story. Interestingly enough, writing two stories at once increases my output as it serves as kind of a break or change of pace. After finishing this chapter I feel like going back to write the other story, you see!
---
Taylor didn't realise it, but the fact that she was sleeping when the swap took place meant she got a much more significant chunk of her alternate's memories than the other girl had. She was also unaware of the fact that a giant crystalline computer was inspecting the process of transfer very carefully, which ensured that it settled upon her brain, much as it began to do to her doppelganger before they were transposed.
She fell onto the flat linoleum floor in front of her alternate's locker with a thud. A crappy way to wake up. She had been wallowing in her own despair in her little apartment, wondering what she was going to do and missing her dad, even though he had a tendency to be gone for weeks at a time on missions. Being gone for a little while was a lot different from being gone. It had only been three days since she came to the Corp-provided temporary housing in the Megablock in Japantown.
Why the hell they put a fifteen-year-old girl, a Militech Corpo brat, in the middle of a Megabuilding run lock stock and barrel by the Tyger Claws Yakuza gang, which had ties to Arasaka, was anyone's guess. Although Arasaka was officially banned from North America following the Corporate War, everyone knew that they had covert operations on the continent. Although you didn't hear about it all the time, it wasn't uncommon to hear about a researcher kidnapped in the USA and later showing up in Japan "working" for Arasaka. Everybody did these types of renditions, and everyone claimed they were rescuing the workers, and sometimes that was probably the case. But who did Arasaka's dirty work in Night City? In the past, it was the Tyger Claws. Could they still be responsible for it, a secret conduit to this day? Her dad thought so. Either someone had a grudge against her dad, or more likely, it was probably at least two eddies cheaper than the Megablock downtown.
She didn't think too much about how her alternate had been handling herself, her life or her depression, but then again, she had been starting to circle the drain herself, so she wouldn't throw stones just because her alternate had been doing it longer.
The way she arrived in this world left a lot to be desired, too. Luckily, she didn't sleep in the buff, but she still found herself flat on the floor of a dark school familiar only to memories that weren't hers.
Welp, what did Dad always say? Take stock, plan, adapt and then overcome. Take stock came first. She sat up. She had one Kerry Eurodyne branded duvet-style comforter, one pair of Militech-branded panties, worn, one bra, worn, two socks worn, one Miltech Paraline cyberdeck and operating system, one pair of Kiroshi Mk3 cybernetic eyes, one superpower that seemed to give her ideas about how to enhance her body to be resistant to the cold, and finally one Militech M-37AF compact variable-velocity SmartPistol.
Her dad purchased this pistol for her last year. She had been holding it under her pillow more as a remembrance of him than as a form of self-defence. She doubted she would have been invaded in the Megablock she was in -- it really was pretty safe, Tyger Claws or no Tyger Claws, but if anyone came through her locked door, it would be those selfsame Tyger Claws, and one pistol wouldn't have saved her from them. It was Militech's top-of-the-line in concealable personal defence pistols; although Taylor did have a set of Kiroshi optics, her dad finally allowed her some 'ware, but she didn't have the Smart-Link cyberware that would allow her to designate targets for the homing flechettes to take full advantage of its features. That said, it was still a very nice pistol that she had already switched to three-round burst mode. Her dad always told her that ammo was cheap, but being sure the other fucker was dead was priceless.
She momentarily ejected the cassette to ensure all of the ammunition was there. Yep, sixty rounds of 2mm caseless gyrojet-seeking flechettes. Cheap as though ammo was, she somehow doubted she could go to a vending machine down the street and get more of the specialised 2mm flechettes, so her pistol was of purely limited utility. Plus, the ammunition was distinctive, and even her memories indicated that the BBPD would be able to link any deaths to the single weapon, which would be linked to her if she was ever discovered with it. Unless she surgically removed every single flechette from anyone she had to shoot, which her power was aching to do.
The ammo itself, though? The sense of her "superpower" gave her was that she could build a lot of things, but replacement ammo for a high-tech gun was not one of them unless it was ammo made out of bone shards produced by a specialised organ in her body. Hmm.
Perhaps she could save a few of the flechettes for when she had the resources to hire someone to reverse-engineer and duplicate them, but most likely, she would either discard the gun entirely or keep it as only a memento the first time she had to use it, but first things first.
She stood up and glanced around. It was past twenty-three hundred according to the clock on the wall. Her dad must be worried sick. Honestly, she didn't think much about her alternate's dad's behavior, either. He hadn't handled mom's death as well as she remembered, but perhaps it was just that her actual dad just shoved everything into his work. Or, growing up in Night City, they had both internalised the possibility of not living to ripe old age? Although there were some weird superpowers in play, Brockton Bay seemed très tame compared to Night City. Well, no matter. She would fix him, one way or another. She wasn't about to lose two fathers.
Taylor paused and considered her appearance and compared it with her alternate. She looked... mostly the same. She considered the differences. She didn't use glasses as her alternate had to do, as she had a pair of top-of-the-line Kiroshi cybernetic eyes, and of course, she made a few minor changes in her appearance as well.
She suspected she would have looked identical, but body sculpt clinics were so cheap in Night City, and it only cost a few hundred eddies to increase her bust a little, narrow her waist and adjust her hips and slightly adjust the symmetry in her face. And it wasn't like they checked her ID or required her to be 18 to do it, either. It wasn't like she did anything major. Otherwise, her Dad would totally have noticed, but she did it the last time he was deployed about six months ago and just claimed she had a growth spurt when he got back.
It should be fine; her memories indicate her alternate Dad barely noticed anything, anyway.
She needed to either call him soon or decide to make her way back home on her own. She wasn't sure which was the better decision, tactically. She was leaning towards the latter, as she wanted a clean break with this place and didn't want any phone records tying her father to an outbound call from this location in the middle of the night. However, first, there was something she needed to do.
She searched her memories and couldn't find any hint of surveillance cameras or drones at this school, so she started walking with purpose to the maintenance room, where she knew the janitor had kept some tools. It was locked, and she considered shooting the hinges off but realised the door was installed improperly and managed to just kick it open without too much trouble or even damage to the door itself. The door opened inwards, and the latch was barely keeping the door closed, locked or not.
Nodding, she grabbed a stout prybar and then visited the locker room by the gym. She pried open about a dozen lockers before she found clean clothes that fit her, even if they were gym clothes. Then, thinking about it, she grabbed the rest of the clothes that were either dirty or didn't fit her, along with everything else the girls had in those lockers and threw them in a trash can down the hall. Except for thirty eddies... err dollars, she pocketed that. Waste not, want not, after all.
She didn't want to give anyone a clue that she precisely wanted a clean set of clothes to fit a tall, lanky girl -- that would point directly back to her. She knew many of the fucks at this school were well aware of what happened to her alternate today.
Sighing, she found the janitor's room again and got a lot of cleaning supplies. This part she wasn't looking forward to doing. Nevertheless, she put on plastic gloves and a full-mask respirator and spent two hours cleaning her disgusting locker, bagging all the biohazard waste and everything that was in it.
She didn't want any record of this incident, and there surely would be one if she didn't do this herself. Hell, with the way this school administration tried to cover for those three bitches it was possible they might accuse her of doing it... for some reason.
She had to stop herself from using the cleaning supplies to concoct an odourless contact poison to put on each of the girl's lockers. That would be very obvious, and she'd likely be under PRT investigation within days. Even if she wasn't, eventually, her power would become known, and it would look very suspicious if her three bullies died of a tinkertech poison the day after they put her alternate in that locker.
No, if she was going to take her alternate's dad, then at least she would take revenge on her behalf too, but it had to be smart. Not least because she experienced much of that same locker experience herself in her dream, let them think they have won, and let them think they had driven poor Taylor completely out of school.
She was definitely never returning to this place. Six months when nobody remembered her, and the psychopath Sophia was making some other girl's life hell, well... that girl is the one who the cops will investigate when Sophia Hess, track star, is sniped from a klick and a half away when coming to school. That or the Empire 88. Growing up in a society where almost every part of your body could be malleable and changed, Taylor certainly didn't understand the concept of hate-based purely on skin tone. You could have that changed for two hundred eddies at any biosculpt clinic.
In any case, any hypothetical future death of Sophia Hess wouldn't have anything to do with Taylor Hebert, GED graduate and secret bio-tinker, that's for sure. Even once they figure out that she is a Tinker, what bio-tinker snipes someone, anyway?
Sighing, she carefully peeled off her gloves and threw them with the other biohazard waste, which she would triple bag and toss in the dumpster. Not exactly how you're supposed to deal with biological waste, but what could she do?
Her locker reeked of bleach and other chemicals but was quite clean. She left the janitor's room exactly how she found it, if down a number of supplies. She doubted they would notice.
Now, she just had to go steal some glassware from the chemistry lab and someone's backpack to carry them in. They'd probably think some Merchants broke in and stole it to cook meth, but she needed to make her dad some antidepressants, which she would give to him surreptitiously in some lasagna tomorrow. In fact, she'd probably need some too. As for the lasagna? She'd have to do something to make up for the fact that she had been keeping such bullying a secret from him. If there was one thing her actual dad had made sure she knew, it was you didn't keep secrets from family.
Only if all the facts were known could a proper strategy be devised. She was already going to keep one secret from him, that she wasn't actually his daughter (oh and that she was going to drug him secretly), so she had to tell him everything else. He was going to be upset, but at least he would be alive.
Then she had a number of exciting possibilities to explore with her own body or, instead, modifications to it. She would have to study a little to pass the GED as, no doubt, the curriculum in Shittown, USA circa dinosaur times was different than a Militech school in 2062, but that wouldn't be a problem. It especially wouldn't be a problem when she gave herself a photographic memory and deleted her biological or psychological need to sleep through some judicious auto-brain surgery.
She didn't think cyberpsychosis was a thing here, and even if it was just the throwaway antidepressant that she was about to make for her and her dad was enough to chill out even a full-body Borg, the way it balanced your brain's neurotransmitters. They might still kill you, but it wouldn't be because they were 'zerking.
She could have made a fortune selling it if she was back in Night City, so long as one of the Pharmcorps didn't zero her for inventing it or steal it from her and then zero her on general principles. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. The shit she could make was preem.
She felt bad for the poor girl who took her place. Well, maybe her alternate got the same power she had? If so, she might be able to make a life for herself. She didn't know how any of this was supposed to work; only that even with giant Kaiju and other monsters slowly destroying the world one city at a time a couple of times a year, this place seemed a lot better than Night City.
She wished her alternate the best. She quickly apologised for eating all of the food in the fridge, as she was afraid to go out back then due to the Tyger Claws. Do better than me in Night City, other self! As for herself? She would adapt and overcome.
---xxxxxx---
It was rare for Colin to be impressed with another tinker's miniaturisation efforts, but he had to admit that the six autonomously steerable flechette munitions that were sent to him for examination by the BBPD were impressive.
They featured an altogether unusual microprocessor architecture that he could tell was manufactured with a completely novel photolithographic method. It gave him a lot of ideas about how he could improve the size of the over hundred and eight individual microprocessors that his armour required. Moreover, they didn't actually appear to be tinkertech themselves, as he could completely understand their operating principles.
He immediately discounted it as being preexisting arms technology that he was just unfamiliar with. Although there were some similarities between the devices and existing precision-guided artillery munitions that the military used, the only similarity was that they were all guided munitions. There were just a limited number of ways for a guided munition fired out of a gun to work, and articulating guide fins was the simplest in all cases.
That meant that a Tinker had to be responsible. A Tinker that could produce reproducible technology? Or, perhaps the tinker tech was in the machine that built the ammunition? That wasn't unheard of, but it was pretty rare.
They could be a new Toybox product, but if so, why was their first use killing two no-name gang members in the Docks? Such things were clearly assassin's tools; why waste them on a couple of junkies?
The city coroner had dug them out of two deceased members of the Archer's Bridge merchants several days ago and immediately recognised that the tungsten flechettes were not your regular 9mm rounds and forwarded them to the PRT for examination. Such things, if they were actually unusual, invariably ended up at his desk.
He was on a conference call with Dragon, who had been watching him disassemble them. Already, he had shipped via overnight express three of the devices to Canada for her own examination, "What do you think?" he asked carefully.
Her voice came back, seemingly happy and very interested, "Quite amazing! The actual mechanics of the gyrojet guidance is pretty simple; we could build things like that already. But I'm sure you're asking about the microprocessors, right? These are from a sub-1nm manufacturing process. If these processors got any smaller, electrons would jump from transistor to transistor through quantum tunnelling effects! This might be the smallest, most highly transistor-dense that traditional computing can get."
He nodded. She always knew what he meant, and she picked up on the important points right away. It was why he so enjoyed collaborating with her, "Precisely. It is a bit intimidating seeing the absolute apogee of traditional computing technology staring you in the face, but I had the same opinion. Perhaps we will exceed these using quantum computers or some other hitherto-fore unknown computing technology... but as far as transistors are concerned? This is it. It's amazing, exactly as you said."
"It might be a little difficult to infer the manufacturing technique, and that is really what we want, but I think I know precisely how these were built. What we need to do is..." Dragon continued.
---xxxxxx---
I felt bad for the girl who took my place and hoped that she would help my dad where I had failed him, and perhaps we could be reunited some day in the future. The world I found myself in might be a dystopian future, but at least there weren't giant monsters wrecking the world on a predictable schedule.
I wasn't sure how I was so positive that it had been a swap between the two of us, but it was just something I felt deeply sure about.
I was a bit nervous being in the building I was in. A combination of a few memories from my alternate about the Yakuza and research on my phone revealed that most of Japantown, and especially this Megabuilding was run by a gang called the Tyger Claws. They were a mostly Japanese gang, and my alternate memories were especially concerned about Japanese gangs.
That caused me to come up short. Was... my alternate racist? It didn't seem like it, and there seemed to be some actual legitimate reason that she had been concerned about Japanese gangs. I would have to do a lot more research about Militech, as that seemed to be caught up in that feeling as well. Something in the back of my head told me I definitely shouldn't traipse around the neighbourhood alone wearing any of my Militech-branded swag that filled a lot of these cardboard boxes. Was that it? Did the Japanese gangs dislike the ultra-American corporation? I didn't know.
The Tyger Claws were pretty easy to learn about online, and everything I learned made me a bit nervous too. They were kind of like what the Azn Bad Boys might be like if they were run by competent, not just ruthless, people. They were much bigger, too. Not only were they involved in the same organised crime activities that I would have recognised, such as drugs, protection rackets and prostitution, including a high-class "dollhouse", whatever that meant only a couple dozen floors beneath my feet.
However, they had a lot of darker businesses, too, including organ and cybernetics harvesting of people who nobody would miss. Kind of like a girl with no next of kin living by herself in a small apartment, perhaps. It was why if I ever interacted with any of them, and I would end up doing so just walking to and from my apartment that I would give them the idea that she had a huge family nearby.
Plus, I found online that everyone living in this Megabuilding was expected to pay for their protection, and there was even a guide on how to do so politely, so I would have to go see one of their local middle managers in this building as soon as possible. Today. I wondered why my alternate self had never accomplished it, but perhaps dealing with gangs wasn't what they were taught in corporate school. It wasn't what I was taught either, and it rankled me to have to do it, but the sites I had read were pretty clear on the possible consequences of not doing so.
In fact, it was one of the first things that popped up when I searched for "Things I need to know to live in Japantown."
As gangs went, the Tyger Claws were a medium threat in Night City, according to the guides online. A medium threat in Night City would get Brockton Bay turned into a quarantine zone, I thought, but it wasn't like the police or corps played around, either.
Theoretically, they had something that they called honour and principles, and what I found online indicated that some of the top leaders of the gang might even believe that and act that way, so long as it was convenient. The problem was the bottom tier of the gang, the ones I would likely meet, did not have almost any bottom line.
Moreover, if you defended yourself from the bottom tier, the entire gang would turn on you like a school of piranhas, even if they were doing something "dishonourable" to you against gang rules. It didn't make any sense at all to me, except when I realised that they were just scum and talking about honour was just empty platitudes. A lot of supervillains in her old world were that way too. They talked a good game but then were involved in the worst of activities.
It was like watching pro wrestlers. All an act, performative.
It definitely sounded like Night City could use a hero, but I didn't have powers that were strong like Eidolon or Alexandria. I couldn't tank a nuke, or even a gun. I had a lot of knowledge about medicine and might be able to tinker some useful drugs or maybe even novel cybernetics, but my knowledge of cybernetics left a lot to be desired compared to what was available in this world.
I had the feeling that I would learn very quickly if I studied cybernetics here and had a strong, strong urge to do so, but all that together didn't make a hero that would last more than a couple of days before being killed or worse.
Maybe I couldn't be a hero. Not like Alexandria. At least, not at first and perhaps not ever. But I could still help people. Be a good person.
That caused me to glance down at my phone. The lady from Militech's HR department had gotten back to me really quickly, today on a Sunday, no less.
The woman was very pleased with the proposal. With my alt's grades and the classes she had taken, I already qualified for early graduation from a public school. So, if I applied for emancipation and early graduation, they wouldn't be on the hook for anything.
They were willing to pay me in a lump sum, essentially half of what they would have ended up paying to Night City for my foster care, food and upkeep. They would also be willing to pay and arrange admission for me in a number of either post-high school or vocational school options.
But only up to two-year programs, the same as I would have gotten if I went to public school. So I could get the equivalent of an associate's degree, which might open the door to a crappy entry-level supervisory position very far down the corporate ladder, or I could choose a number of vocational training options, many of which weren't available for your average person on the street.
Based on my supposed educational background and noted interests in school, of course, the corp would track that; she was even polite enough to hilite what her computer suggested I would be the most successful in, namely a two-year Netrunner/Systems Admin course.
That did sound interesting, but it wouldn't mesh well with my ridiculous level of medical knowledge. I was almost certain I was one of the better doctors in the entire world if you only counted pure medicine. For some reason, my power didn't know about this world's cybernetics, perhaps because my power came from my old world.
Another problem with the Sysadmin course was that I didn't have any cybernetics at all. I had the entirety of Alt-Taylor's medical records on my phone, and it listed she had a basic operating system and cyberdeck from Militech, the Paraline, as well as a set of high-end Kiroshi cybernetic eyes.
She also visited a biosculpt clinic and got a few things adjusted. She was a B-cup, whereas I was still languishing in the barely-A realm. Did she hide this from her Dad, I wondered?
It would be important for me to, over the next week, get at least the exact same amount of cybernetics and... other treatments just so that we have identical medical records! Just in case, you know! Not because I agreed with her decision to make any changes to my appearance, but because the choice was taken out of my hands!
That meant I would have to visit a different clinic from where Taylor went in the past, but that wasn't a big deal because she went to an internal Militech cyber clinic that I no longer had access to in the first place.
Just the name "Ripperdoc" didn't inspire a lot of confidence in me at all, but there were a number of well-thought-of cybernetics clinics in the Corpo sector of town, either Downtown or in Corpo Plaza, which wasn't too far from where I lived. I would end up paying probably double what I would pay at one of the local "clinics" on Jig-Jig street, but I would also survive the experience with all of my organs intact.
I nodded, the Sysadmin course sounded very interesting, but I was just learning about computers here. Attending it would make a fool out of myself; I didn't have the years of experience using a cyberdeck that Alt-Taylor did. I had a couple of ideas for making some drugs that would increase my neural plasticity and learning speed, but it wouldn't be enough.
However... I glanced near the bottom of the list of offered courses. A six-month accelerated paramedics course. It was designed for people leaving the Army or who already had a basic EMT rating. It would be an absolute cakewalk for me.
I replied to the woman, selecting that course. She replied in real-time, asking if I was sure, as it was intended for people who already had some medical training and that they would pay for it, but I would only get one shot at it. It was clear that she didn't really care one way or another and was just being polite. I told her I was sure, and she replied in the affirmative.
A few minutes later, a large packet of over three hundred pages of thick legalese that I was expected to sign arrived as an e-mail attachment. I did not sign it.
There were a number of legal firms that did business primarily online. I had all of dad's money from his bank account, so I wasn't poor even before receiving any settlement from the Corp, even a basic one. I might be able to live nine to ten months, even on nothing but his bank account. So I spent a little bit extra to hire one of the better thought firms and spent about fifteen minutes discussing the matter with one of their lawyers on the phone.
Judging from the number of pages, he judged it was a simple matter, and I'd be billed for about four hours of work, which I thought was very reasonable and paid them on the spot, forwarding the document to him. They would even handle Militech themselves, so I never had to interact with that HR lady again.
I got myself dressed, as I had to go out of the safe apartment to get some food -- someone was a bitch and ate all the food in the fridge, in fact, that yoghurt that I used to make drugs was the last thing in there. I had been foraging off chips and crackers for the past day, and that wouldn't do.
I also had to visit the Tyger Claws community office on the tenth floor to make my payment to them for living in their building. It was weird; they had office hours and everything.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked very neutral. Not quite like a corporate brat, but not like trash either. I was wearing clothes that were fashionable two or three seasons ago, judging from my online searches, so I hoped I looked comfortably middle-class. Someone that would be missed if I disappeared and who the police department would investigate if I disappeared.
I almost left the gun on the coffee table, but everything I took away from Alt-Taylor's memories was that I absolutely should not leave home unarmed, so it took me a bit longer to scrounge up a concealed holster for it.
Sighing, I patted myself down and unlocked the door and stepped out.
Quite amazing! The actual mechanics of the gyrojet guidance is pretty simple; we could build things like that already. But I'm sure you're asking about the microprocessors, right?
Actually, the propellant or fuel would also be very interesting. Real gyrojet projectiles have a distinct problem - unlike regular bullets, they accelerate very slowly. They barely have any armor penetration when the target is close to the barrel of the gun, and take some time/distance to get up to really useful speed. There are YouTube videos of people testing the few gyrojet guns that were produced in the 60's.
Actually, the propellant or fuel would also be very interesting. Real gyrojet projectiles have a distinct problem - unlike regular bullets, they accelerate very slowly. They barely have any armor penetration when the target is close to the barrel of the gun, and take some time/distance to get up to really useful speed. There are YouTube videos of people testing the few gyrojet guns that were produced in the 60's.
SmartPistols work this way in CP2077: It's a dual propellant system. It has a regular propellant charge and computer-controlled vents on the gun. When you select a target and pull the trigger, the computer in the gun knows both the distance and the "flight path" programmed for the flechette. It uses the computer-controlled vents to sacrifice enough of the 1st stage normal propellant to slow the projectile enough so its flight characteristics can hit the target. Then the gyrojet starts as soon as it leaves the barrel and "flies" to the target. So it's just a normal gyrojet, but it has a first stage to get it up to speed inside the barrel. The gyrojet part is just for manoeuvring to target.
So if you shoot it in a straight line (you have good aim) it will travel very fast. But if it needs to make a large turn, the SmartPistol has to sacrifice a lot of the first stage propellant to slow the projectile enough that the gyrojet can steer it towards the target so those shots would likely be significantly subsonic.
That said, you're probably right because they would have immediately noticed the damage done (from the coroner's report) far exceeded what a normal gyrojet round could do.
