One thing to note about the various landfills and junk mountains owned by Night City is that it is actually illegal to remove trash for the purpose of recycling without paying a fee. You read that right the reason trash is so piled up is that the city council wants money from recyclers who try to operate and it's not a little bit of eddies either. The MC might have to face the tax man eventually and I wouldn't be suprised if the bill collectors use bounty boards open to edgerunners to collect.
The Brink and Back - Tinker of Fiction
- Thread starter MetaBettaOmega
- Start date
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Remember, Night City is a shit-heap not because the tech to clean it up doesn't exist, not because the tech to clean it up is somehow out of reach, but because the Corps want it to be a shit-heap and impose fines and fees and accrediations to prevent others from from fixing it.
Also remember that the Night City government IS Nightcorp. Not is bought or blackmailed by Nightcorp, not is backed by Nightcorp, IS Nightcorp. As in Nightcorp's primary product is the "service" of governing and maintaining Night City. The NCPD? Employees of Nightcorp. The train system? Built, operated, and maintained by Nightcorp. Those oil fields and landfills? Owned by Nightcorp. Those abandoned towns outside of the city? Ninety percent owned by Nightcorp, the rest by other Corps that want a blacksite.
- Location
- Germany
Sable was a real win for the team, she is absolutely right they need to populate the weird ghost town.
Question: if he got Horizon Zero Dawn would it be enough to make the Gaia core, since "all knowledge" about it would contain the sub functions and their databases?
A human brain wouldn't be able to handle that much data, but the systems usually don't care.
Question: if he got Horizon Zero Dawn would it be enough to make the Gaia core, since "all knowledge" about it would contain the sub functions and their databases?
A human brain wouldn't be able to handle that much data, but the systems usually don't care.
Chapter Thirty Two
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When Sable was finally gone, I dropped back heavily into my chair, sagging it as I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. I should have expected this to happen. I knew that corpos played with different numbers than almost everyone.
"Jackson… how much did you make?" Jackie asked, watching as I picked up my keyfob passing it to him so he could see for himself.
When he cursed and nearly fell out of his chair, I had to lean over and keep him steady. It was a shocking number, to be honest, though he was being a bit dramatic, eight hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars was enough to throw most people off.
"That… I mean, Genio… You basically gave her junk, right?"
"Pretty much. Castoffs, lower version from basic parts, stuff I had modified myself," I said. "Basically, the worst bits of everything I've been making. I mean, the hardest part of this whole thing is going to be making sure I don't accidentally give her something groundbreaking that can be upscaled easily without me noticing."
We were silent for a long moment before I quickly sent Samwise a message to look into buying a third Thorton to turn into a salvage truck. I then sent a message to Kaytlyn that I needed her help buying a car I could upgrade, as well as a message to Noah and Murtaugh that they should go as heavy as they want with the fortifications, I could absolutely afford the concrete. As long as it was something small-scale, money was no longer a problem.
When I was done sending people messages and getting some balls rolling, I let out a long breath and looked over at Jackie. He looked tired but mostly okay.
"How are you feeling, really?" I asked, pushing down the ludicrous amount of money I had just been given. In truth, it could solve a lot of problems, but it could also cause just as many.
"I'm… feeling okay. Vik told me to pay attention to anything weird, but so far, all I feel is sore," He admitted. "I half expected to wake up seeing things and talking crazy, but it's been normal so far."
"The real test is when you start using it," I pointed out, and he nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, that won't be doing that for a day, maybe two," He said, disappointment clear in his voice.
"Hey, count yourself lucky," I said, shaking my head. "I broke my arm when I was a kid, and it took months to get my cast taken off. You guys are spoiled with all your crazy tech."
"What- oh, right. Damn, choom, I guess your right," He said, wincing as he started to move his hand up to rub the back of his neck. "I kinda forgot you didn't have a lot of this stuff growing up. Must have been rough."
"It was all I knew," I responded with a shrug. "Was all anyone around me knew."
He nodded in understanding, and we sat there for a while, just shooting the shit. It was clear Jackie was still tired, as the surgery took a toll on his body, but you could still see that fire in his heart. He was happy to be alive and glad to have the chance to improve. I could tell he was still nervous, but he seemed to be working through it. Eventually, the conversation turned to Sable's suggestion.
"Do you think she was right?" Jackie asked with a frown, fiddling with his glass of water. "You spent so much time working to stay independent of gangs and groups, now you gotta invite them over?"
"I don't have to do anything," I pointed out, leaning back in my chair. "But the idea… might hold merit. As long as I can find the right group."
"Why didn't you align yourself earlier then, Amigo?" He asked, leaning forward onto the table and letting out a groan before continuing. "Some of this stuff would have been much easier backed by the Valentinos or even a small corporation."
"Because… I didn't want to be part of the cycle, Jackie," I admitted, shaking my head. "Night City… god, this place is fucked. I know it's your home, Jackie, and I know you love it, but this place is fucked. I mean, the whole planet is fucked, but Night City is particularly bad. I don't want to be a part of that, not even a little."
"It's the city of opportunity, pendejo!" Jackie retorted. "Anyone can claw their way up to be somebody here."
"Jackie, that's just not true," I said, just shaking my head. "Sure, with enough violence and fighting, occasionally a few particularly fucked individuals can kill and steal enough that they get a drink named after them, but what is the cost?"
"That's the price of doing business, choom," Jackie said, starting to sound defensive. "It's a dog-eat-dog world. You can't-"
"Except it's not, Jackie. It's not," I said, cutting him off. "You are sitting here, missing a chunk of your spine because you want to be better at killing. And yes, so far, we have kept ourselves to acceptable targets. But this city is a fucking machine, choom, and it uses the blood as its oil. It doesn't care if you're holding a gun. It kills gangsters, civilians, women, and children alike. Innocent people like Misty, who would like nothing more than to lead a peaceful life. Kind people like Vik, who just want to help people where they can. Loving mothers, like Mama Welles, who just wants to see her son live and be happy."
I stopped for a moment, standing up from my chair. I walked to a nearby window, looking out into the desert. The distant city rose above the sand like a monolith of corruption and greed. From here, it was shiny and perfect despite how broken I knew it was.
"The truth is, Jackie, is that people like us, the dogs who reach for more? The dogs who want more and are willing to claw and climb to get it? To us, this place is a paradise. But to people like them? The innocent? The kind? The weak? To them, this is fucking hell on Earth, Jackie, because they aren't dogs, and they still keep getting eaten."
I kept staring out the window for a moment before closing my eyes and letting out a long breath. I turned around, looking back at my friend. He was still leaning over the table, turned away from me enough that I couldn't see his face.
"I'm not gonna pretend to know what growing up here was like, because I have no idea," I admitted with a frown. "But it could be so much better, Jackie. Imagine a world where corporations aren't in control of everything, where you don't have to worry about someone killing you in the street for looking at them wrong. Were the police actually do their job, and aren't just another gang. Were corruption is something that needs to be squashed, not the industry standard."
"You think you can do that?" He asked, pushing back from the table and turning to face me. "I already told you, Jay, I'm with you to the end. But do you really think you can change the world like that?"
"...with enough time? Absolutely," I said confidently. "But buying time by joining the gangs wouldn't have worked. There's always a catch with groups like that, always a way to keep their grip on you, even if it's psychological. You know that better than me, how hard was it for you to finally get out?"
"It was hell," He admitted. "I get your point, choom. It's just hard to imagine something other than what I've known for my whole life."
"That's… fair. And I'm sorry for being preachy," I said, shaking my head. "It's just hard not to be dramatic sometimes."
"Don't worry about it, Genio," He said with a smirk, shaking his head and slowly standing from the chair. "So what are you up to today?"
"Well… I got a few things I want to build, but nothing that will take me very long," I admitted. "I got some time. Are you up for designing your pistols?"
"Damn, choom, I forgot you wanted to do that," He admitted with a frown. "I'm not sure I'm gonna like tech weapons, but I'll give it a shot. Just don't get winey if I end up preferring my Nue."
He patted his pistol, which was holstered at his hip.
"Yeah, yeah, just promise you won't get whiny when I say I told you so," I responded with a smirk, pushing open the door for him. Frank followed us out as we made our way to the garage.
I led him into my section of the garage and sat my friend down on a crate, starting to design a pistol for him. I started with the already existing pistol before pulling it apart and upgrading it considerably with Titanfall tech. That didn't take too long, since I had already done it several times at this point. When I was done, I saved the base model as an updated pistol, storing the old one as outdated. Once that was done, I worked with Jackie to add in a few extras, like a holographic sight built into what would be called the slide on a standard pistol, with a toggle to turn it on and off. When I was done, I showed the design off to Jackie.
"What do you think?"
"It… looks a bit boring…." He said, rubbing his arm. "Got anything in gold?"
I snorted and spent a few minutes adding some gold plating, as well as some artistic etching. That sort of thing was a bit out of my wheelhouse, so I used some existing art to turn into a raised print on the pistols plating.
"How about now?"
Jack sat up and leaned over my shoulder to get a better look, studying the pistol carefully before nodding.
"It looks good, Genio," He said, patting my shoulder. "As long as it shoots good too…"
I nodded, waving him away as I quickly got a printer working on the pistol, before sitting down and designing the ammo for it. Within an hour, we were both standing out by the parking lot, looking out over the desert, watching a pair of MRVN units set up targets made from the scrap polymer that the mass recycler made. As they worked, we loaded and readied our weapons. Jackie was sitting on a folding chair, two identical pistols sitting on a table in front of him, while I was sitting on a concrete divider, holding a single upgraded base model. It was lighter than Jackie's "unique" version, with marginally less standard power, but I preferred the more streamlined, lighter feel.
The MRVN units rushed back, and I slid Jackie a mag of slugs, quickly sliding my own home.
"So these are gonna kick less than you expect, but a lot more than the tech weapons you're used to, mostly due to the density of their slug," I explained. "Compared to the old pistol, they hit harder and are more accurate, with just about the same weight."
"Hey, choom… how come the first one looked… cleaner?" he asked, peeking at the slugs through the top of the magazine.
"Because I was only working with… my first bits of inspiration, so I had less to go off and more to fill in," I responded, clicking the weapon on with a satisfying whine and clunk. "That let me get away with being a bit more artistic. This one is all working parts, no room for flash stuff. Well, unless you make room for it like you did."
"Hey, having recognizable weapons is important," He responded. "Especially if you're looking to gain a reputation."
"Sure, sure," I sarcastically agreed before lifting up my new pistol and aiming it down range.
Together, we tested our new weapons, and I had to admit, I really liked the new pistol. It was an all-around upgrade from the original pistol and had several of the features the first model was missing. Even better, the ammo was significantly improved as well, and much more flexible, as Jackie found out when I held him a red magazine.
"These pack a bit more of a punch," I said with a smirk.
"What are they, armor piercing?" He asked, ejecting the previous mag and sliding the red one in.
"Something like that," I responded, watching as he sighted in down range and fired.
The projectile whistled down range, breaking the sound barrier and then some. It slapped into a polymer cube and promptly detonated, utterly destroying the cube and scattering the several around it. It was a significant explosion, with way more impact than any normal explosive ammo available could do. Jackie let out a string of Spanish and English curses while looking down at the pistol.
"That was fucking Nova, how the hell did you manage that?"
"It's just a common explosive material I borrowed from other explosive bullets," I explained with a shrug. "The only difference is that with how the mag pistols work, we can afford to put significantly more explosive compound into each round."
"How come no one else does that?"
"Can't say for sure that no one has, but the reason you don't see them around is that most tech weapons are all about steering and guiding bullets or stuffing tech into the bullets," I explained, loading in my own magazine of explosive ammo. "but my mag weapons are basically just normal guns that shoot without propellant. The lack of complicated stuff in the projectile means that no ECM is going to work, and I have a lot more room in mine."
"They are safe, right?"
"Yup. Though if the mag gets shot, it could go off," I admitted. "High energy impact is what activates the compound, so it takes something like slamming into a target to go off. Unfortunately, that also means that if the magazine takes a bullet, that would probably be enough to set some of it off instead."
"Hmm… not sure I want to carry that around,"
"If you are wearing the extra mags on your hip, your armor and armored undersuit should be able to handle it. You'll have a pretty serious bruise, maybe some broken bones, but nothing is gonna get blown off. I… would avoid wearing them to the front."
For a moment, I thought Jackie was gonna throw one of his empty magazines at me. When he was done scowling, he turned back and focused on practicing with his new weapons. After another mag of explosive ammunition and a handful of standard mags for each of us, we were both satisfied. I printed us both out an adjustable holster, Jackies with two slots for his guns and mine for only one. At this point, my old holster was looking a bit rough, so I was glad to retire it. The old pistol was set up as an emergency weapon, attached to the underside of my workstation.
With Jackie satisfied with his new weapon, he also retired his Nue, with plans to give it to his mother as a security weapon for the Coyote. I think he was intending it to make her feel safe as he started spending more and more time out here at the Ridge. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was starting to consider the idea of inviting her out here to open a bar, whenever we figured out who we were going to have populate the rest of the town.
I also wanted to invite Vik, Misty, and anyone else I considered friends or even just safe. It seemed like a waste to try and build a safe haven, only to waste it on myself and a few other people. Of course, that would also put them in the crosshairs should everything go to shit, so I would need to explain that to them as well.
Jackie retired to his temporary trailer to get some more sleep, his recovery catching up with him after being active for a few hours. When he left, I got to work.
While initially, I was rather disappointed with the Become Human tech tree, and I kind of still was, I did realize over time that completely ignoring it was a rather poor idea. Yes, plenty of it was completely pointless, but as I was working on the weapon attachments, I realized that in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter if the end product was useless because everything I made would expand my knowledge. Yes, just how much this tech tree would allow me to expand my knowledge was minimal, but that didn't mean I should ignore it completely.
So, for the last third of the sixth day, I sat down and began designing random bits and bobs. I started with things that might be useful, like advanced screen technology, which was actually not bad, all things considered. From there, I designed cell phones, tools, and other bits of tech, trying to absorb every little bit that I could from the setting. Most of the things that I designed could be printed out on the small scale molly-make in two or three pieces, drastically cutting down on the time needed to construct them.
By the time I went to bed, I had learned a good amount of basic knowledge for designing and building electronic equipment, including computers and phones. I also learned basic knowledge about medical equipment, material sciences, and engineering, as well as less rigid concepts like ruggedization, ergonomics, and user-friendly designs.
I also spent the last hour of the day upgrading my keyfob. I expanded its screen, basically converting it into a cellphone like I knew from back home, integrating and upgrading the design as much as I could with Titanfall tech and materials. I was very happy with the result, especially since it had plenty of room to run the upgraded hacking software that Spot used, as well as his programming assistant system. I would most likely continue to upgrade it as I learned new things, but for now, it was nice to have something more than just a tiny screen to check my bank account and see the number that was trying to contact me.
As I finally left the garage, I watched our two salvage trucks leave on their trash run, the MRVN units waving to me as they drove past. I idly questioned if it was safe for them to be driving, before realizing that I trusted them more than I did most of the people in Night City. Duke followed behind me as I finally made my way home, laying in bed after a quick shower and a late-night snack. Thankfully, it didn't take long for me to finally get some sleep, reaching over the side of the bed to pet Duke as I drifted off.
The next morning, I went right back to working on my low-tech foundation, spending my time building random stuff from Become Human. It was funny, if I pushed back far enough I could see the things that were much more familiar to me, like PC systems that looked almost identical to what I used to game on. The only difference was the name brand. I even eventually identified the time when people started being obsessed with future-looking tech. It happened in the same way that RGB lights seemed to take over the computer industry, only this fad quickly expanded to all sorts of markets.
Around noon, Kaytlyn returned from her latest trip to Tyger territory. As she was approaching the town, she radioed ahead to get everyone together. She arrived not long after that, carrying a few pizzas and looking concerned. I grabbed the boxes from her, almost tripping over her cat as she led me into the BD shack, where Riggs and Jackie were already waiting. The door to Frank's space was open, no doubt so he could listen in, just in case Jackie needed some help.
I placed the pizzas down on the table and took a seat, watching while Jackie grabbed a slice for himself. He cursed and dropped the slice onto a plastic plate, shaking out his fingers, trying to cool them off. I was focused on Kayt, though, as her expression was concerning.
"So… what's the news?" I asked, even as Jackie passed me a plate with a slice on it. "You don't look very happy."
"Cause I'm not," She responded, shaking her head. "I've been going over the extra info Padre got us and comparing it to what I've been seeing. I've gotta say, this mission not looking so good."
"What's the problema, Chica?" Jackie asked, impatiently waiting for his pizza to cool. "We know from the scavs they can't keep up with us."
"Scavs might not have been able to, Jackie, but Tyger Claws, specifically these ones, just might," She responded, shaking her head. "We knew this was a hotspot for the gang already, but it turns out the intel was underselling it. Tyger Claws owns the whole building and the two on either side of it. It's used to house people who need a safe space. Informants, info brokers, gun dealers, higher-ups who have a little too much heat on them, even a few lieutenants."
She looked at Jackie, her eyes glowing as she sent him the data. I waved and gestured to my new keyfob cellphone combo… my keyphone, and after a moment, I could see the data she was sending too. I scrolled through, pausing on a wireframe of the building. It was labeled with possible occupants.
"So I tried to get a rough guess of just how many people they have on patrol inside the walls and how many are inside, but as far as I can tell, it's more than fifteen. Could be twenty, or it could be fifty," She admitted. "They keep people rotating, and they switch out frequently. Worse, these aren't some punk gangbangers. These are hard bastards with a lot of chrome and plenty of experience with it. I counted at least seven of them that are really chromed out, as well as at least two full borgs. I don't know who they are or how many there actually are, but these are not mismatched scavs."
"Dammit, that's gonna be rough…" I said, shaking my head. "Any idea where she is being kept?"
"So, I figured out what floor she is on cause her father goes to the balcony for smoke breaks," She explained, pointing out a corner of the large building, two floors down from the roof, eight floors up from the ground floor. "I kept an eye on it for a while until I spotted her inside as well. Just a glimpse, but she is there."
"Fuck, on the ninth floor?" I asked. "That's not gonna work."
"You really think we can't tear through nine floors?" Jackie asked, looking disgruntled. "We can clear floor by floor, take our time and get there eventually."
"That won't work here," Kaytlyn pointed out, her cat jumping up onto one of the free chairs, sniffing at one of the pizza boxes. "Places like these? They have designated communicators. The second they know something is up, an alert is going to go out to every Tyger in the area, and some that aren't. By the time we hit the fifth floor, the first floor is going to be filled with Tygers again, chasing us up the building."
"We may be good for twenty, thirty, maybe even forty claws of various strength, but not even we can take down the whole gang," I pointed out. "Especially when we have an asset to protect."
Jackie cursed, leaning back in his chair, wincing as it put pressure on his newly installed cyberware. He seemed to be doing much better than yesterday, and with any luck, he would be able to start practicing by tomorrow. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do. I was also starting to generate ideas in case the Sandy didn't agree with him. So far, I didn't have much, but I was hopeful that whatever tech tree I had next would have something.
"We can boost up a few floors," Riggs pointed out. "That should cut down on time."
"We could… or we could go down instead of up…" I suggested, trailing off after a moment, scanning through some of the pictures Kayt took.
"You got something, Genio?" Jackie asked, leaning over to peek into what I was looking at.
"Maybe… Kayt, this was the closest non-Tyger building to our target, right?" I asked, holding out my keyphone and pointing to a building across the street from our target. "How far was it, exactly?"
"From the compound? Maybe thirty feet?" She guessed, scratching her forehead. "Between the actual roofs? Maybe… sixty, seventy feet? It's pretty isolated on the corner of this street, which is probably why they picked it."
"There is no way we can jump that far, loco pendejo," Jackie said, shaking his head. "The jumpkits only get us a good thirty feet, if we get a proper run and jump."
"Yeah, but I can make us something that gets us across," I said with a shrug. "Hell, I could build a half dozen things to get us across. All we need is to get up to this building here, and then we jump."
"You sure? Kayt asked. "I mean, I won't be doing it since I'll be on sniper support, but are you sure you can do that? I mean, I've seen some of the stuff you can make, but that's a long way up…"
"I'm sure. Give me a few days and I'll have something." I replied confidently.
"... Okay, so we start from the roof and work down," Jackie said. "That means two floors we have to deal with. But how do we get out, and how do we get away?"
We spent another few hours coming up with a basic plan, which included getting up to the roof of the closest building, as well as how we planned on getting out once we reached our target. Once we were done planning and done with lunch, I headed back to the garage.
I was tempted to jump right into the design process for the contraption I promised for our mission, the one that would get us from one building to the other, but I wanted to finish off working on Become Human designs first. I didn't plan on holding on to the tree once it ran out at midnight, so I would have to make do with the time I had.
I wasn't overly concerned as the little bits of knowledge I was picking up were nice and would probably come in handy when I was designing my own things, but they weren't required. In most cases, they were mostly redundant, specific to materials and tech that I was already way past with what I had learned from Titanfall.
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When Sable was finally gone, I dropped back heavily into my chair, sagging it as I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. I should have expected this to happen. I knew that corpos played with different numbers than almost everyone.
"Jackson… how much did you make?" Jackie asked, watching as I picked up my keyfob passing it to him so he could see for himself.
When he cursed and nearly fell out of his chair, I had to lean over and keep him steady. It was a shocking number, to be honest, though he was being a bit dramatic, eight hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars was enough to throw most people off.
"That… I mean, Genio… You basically gave her junk, right?"
"Pretty much. Castoffs, lower version from basic parts, stuff I had modified myself," I said. "Basically, the worst bits of everything I've been making. I mean, the hardest part of this whole thing is going to be making sure I don't accidentally give her something groundbreaking that can be upscaled easily without me noticing."
We were silent for a long moment before I quickly sent Samwise a message to look into buying a third Thorton to turn into a salvage truck. I then sent a message to Kaytlyn that I needed her help buying a car I could upgrade, as well as a message to Noah and Murtaugh that they should go as heavy as they want with the fortifications, I could absolutely afford the concrete. As long as it was something small-scale, money was no longer a problem.
When I was done sending people messages and getting some balls rolling, I let out a long breath and looked over at Jackie. He looked tired but mostly okay.
"How are you feeling, really?" I asked, pushing down the ludicrous amount of money I had just been given. In truth, it could solve a lot of problems, but it could also cause just as many.
"I'm… feeling okay. Vik told me to pay attention to anything weird, but so far, all I feel is sore," He admitted. "I half expected to wake up seeing things and talking crazy, but it's been normal so far."
"The real test is when you start using it," I pointed out, and he nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, that won't be doing that for a day, maybe two," He said, disappointment clear in his voice.
"Hey, count yourself lucky," I said, shaking my head. "I broke my arm when I was a kid, and it took months to get my cast taken off. You guys are spoiled with all your crazy tech."
"What- oh, right. Damn, choom, I guess your right," He said, wincing as he started to move his hand up to rub the back of his neck. "I kinda forgot you didn't have a lot of this stuff growing up. Must have been rough."
"It was all I knew," I responded with a shrug. "Was all anyone around me knew."
He nodded in understanding, and we sat there for a while, just shooting the shit. It was clear Jackie was still tired, as the surgery took a toll on his body, but you could still see that fire in his heart. He was happy to be alive and glad to have the chance to improve. I could tell he was still nervous, but he seemed to be working through it. Eventually, the conversation turned to Sable's suggestion.
"Do you think she was right?" Jackie asked with a frown, fiddling with his glass of water. "You spent so much time working to stay independent of gangs and groups, now you gotta invite them over?"
"I don't have to do anything," I pointed out, leaning back in my chair. "But the idea… might hold merit. As long as I can find the right group."
"Why didn't you align yourself earlier then, Amigo?" He asked, leaning forward onto the table and letting out a groan before continuing. "Some of this stuff would have been much easier backed by the Valentinos or even a small corporation."
"Because… I didn't want to be part of the cycle, Jackie," I admitted, shaking my head. "Night City… god, this place is fucked. I know it's your home, Jackie, and I know you love it, but this place is fucked. I mean, the whole planet is fucked, but Night City is particularly bad. I don't want to be a part of that, not even a little."
"It's the city of opportunity, pendejo!" Jackie retorted. "Anyone can claw their way up to be somebody here."
"Jackie, that's just not true," I said, just shaking my head. "Sure, with enough violence and fighting, occasionally a few particularly fucked individuals can kill and steal enough that they get a drink named after them, but what is the cost?"
"That's the price of doing business, choom," Jackie said, starting to sound defensive. "It's a dog-eat-dog world. You can't-"
"Except it's not, Jackie. It's not," I said, cutting him off. "You are sitting here, missing a chunk of your spine because you want to be better at killing. And yes, so far, we have kept ourselves to acceptable targets. But this city is a fucking machine, choom, and it uses the blood as its oil. It doesn't care if you're holding a gun. It kills gangsters, civilians, women, and children alike. Innocent people like Misty, who would like nothing more than to lead a peaceful life. Kind people like Vik, who just want to help people where they can. Loving mothers, like Mama Welles, who just wants to see her son live and be happy."
I stopped for a moment, standing up from my chair. I walked to a nearby window, looking out into the desert. The distant city rose above the sand like a monolith of corruption and greed. From here, it was shiny and perfect despite how broken I knew it was.
"The truth is, Jackie, is that people like us, the dogs who reach for more? The dogs who want more and are willing to claw and climb to get it? To us, this place is a paradise. But to people like them? The innocent? The kind? The weak? To them, this is fucking hell on Earth, Jackie, because they aren't dogs, and they still keep getting eaten."
I kept staring out the window for a moment before closing my eyes and letting out a long breath. I turned around, looking back at my friend. He was still leaning over the table, turned away from me enough that I couldn't see his face.
"I'm not gonna pretend to know what growing up here was like, because I have no idea," I admitted with a frown. "But it could be so much better, Jackie. Imagine a world where corporations aren't in control of everything, where you don't have to worry about someone killing you in the street for looking at them wrong. Were the police actually do their job, and aren't just another gang. Were corruption is something that needs to be squashed, not the industry standard."
"You think you can do that?" He asked, pushing back from the table and turning to face me. "I already told you, Jay, I'm with you to the end. But do you really think you can change the world like that?"
"...with enough time? Absolutely," I said confidently. "But buying time by joining the gangs wouldn't have worked. There's always a catch with groups like that, always a way to keep their grip on you, even if it's psychological. You know that better than me, how hard was it for you to finally get out?"
"It was hell," He admitted. "I get your point, choom. It's just hard to imagine something other than what I've known for my whole life."
"That's… fair. And I'm sorry for being preachy," I said, shaking my head. "It's just hard not to be dramatic sometimes."
"Don't worry about it, Genio," He said with a smirk, shaking his head and slowly standing from the chair. "So what are you up to today?"
"Well… I got a few things I want to build, but nothing that will take me very long," I admitted. "I got some time. Are you up for designing your pistols?"
"Damn, choom, I forgot you wanted to do that," He admitted with a frown. "I'm not sure I'm gonna like tech weapons, but I'll give it a shot. Just don't get winey if I end up preferring my Nue."
He patted his pistol, which was holstered at his hip.
"Yeah, yeah, just promise you won't get whiny when I say I told you so," I responded with a smirk, pushing open the door for him. Frank followed us out as we made our way to the garage.
I led him into my section of the garage and sat my friend down on a crate, starting to design a pistol for him. I started with the already existing pistol before pulling it apart and upgrading it considerably with Titanfall tech. That didn't take too long, since I had already done it several times at this point. When I was done, I saved the base model as an updated pistol, storing the old one as outdated. Once that was done, I worked with Jackie to add in a few extras, like a holographic sight built into what would be called the slide on a standard pistol, with a toggle to turn it on and off. When I was done, I showed the design off to Jackie.
"What do you think?"
"It… looks a bit boring…." He said, rubbing his arm. "Got anything in gold?"
I snorted and spent a few minutes adding some gold plating, as well as some artistic etching. That sort of thing was a bit out of my wheelhouse, so I used some existing art to turn into a raised print on the pistols plating.
"How about now?"
Jack sat up and leaned over my shoulder to get a better look, studying the pistol carefully before nodding.
"It looks good, Genio," He said, patting my shoulder. "As long as it shoots good too…"
I nodded, waving him away as I quickly got a printer working on the pistol, before sitting down and designing the ammo for it. Within an hour, we were both standing out by the parking lot, looking out over the desert, watching a pair of MRVN units set up targets made from the scrap polymer that the mass recycler made. As they worked, we loaded and readied our weapons. Jackie was sitting on a folding chair, two identical pistols sitting on a table in front of him, while I was sitting on a concrete divider, holding a single upgraded base model. It was lighter than Jackie's "unique" version, with marginally less standard power, but I preferred the more streamlined, lighter feel.
The MRVN units rushed back, and I slid Jackie a mag of slugs, quickly sliding my own home.
"So these are gonna kick less than you expect, but a lot more than the tech weapons you're used to, mostly due to the density of their slug," I explained. "Compared to the old pistol, they hit harder and are more accurate, with just about the same weight."
"Hey, choom… how come the first one looked… cleaner?" he asked, peeking at the slugs through the top of the magazine.
"Because I was only working with… my first bits of inspiration, so I had less to go off and more to fill in," I responded, clicking the weapon on with a satisfying whine and clunk. "That let me get away with being a bit more artistic. This one is all working parts, no room for flash stuff. Well, unless you make room for it like you did."
"Hey, having recognizable weapons is important," He responded. "Especially if you're looking to gain a reputation."
"Sure, sure," I sarcastically agreed before lifting up my new pistol and aiming it down range.
Together, we tested our new weapons, and I had to admit, I really liked the new pistol. It was an all-around upgrade from the original pistol and had several of the features the first model was missing. Even better, the ammo was significantly improved as well, and much more flexible, as Jackie found out when I held him a red magazine.
"These pack a bit more of a punch," I said with a smirk.
"What are they, armor piercing?" He asked, ejecting the previous mag and sliding the red one in.
"Something like that," I responded, watching as he sighted in down range and fired.
The projectile whistled down range, breaking the sound barrier and then some. It slapped into a polymer cube and promptly detonated, utterly destroying the cube and scattering the several around it. It was a significant explosion, with way more impact than any normal explosive ammo available could do. Jackie let out a string of Spanish and English curses while looking down at the pistol.
"That was fucking Nova, how the hell did you manage that?"
"It's just a common explosive material I borrowed from other explosive bullets," I explained with a shrug. "The only difference is that with how the mag pistols work, we can afford to put significantly more explosive compound into each round."
"How come no one else does that?"
"Can't say for sure that no one has, but the reason you don't see them around is that most tech weapons are all about steering and guiding bullets or stuffing tech into the bullets," I explained, loading in my own magazine of explosive ammo. "but my mag weapons are basically just normal guns that shoot without propellant. The lack of complicated stuff in the projectile means that no ECM is going to work, and I have a lot more room in mine."
"They are safe, right?"
"Yup. Though if the mag gets shot, it could go off," I admitted. "High energy impact is what activates the compound, so it takes something like slamming into a target to go off. Unfortunately, that also means that if the magazine takes a bullet, that would probably be enough to set some of it off instead."
"Hmm… not sure I want to carry that around,"
"If you are wearing the extra mags on your hip, your armor and armored undersuit should be able to handle it. You'll have a pretty serious bruise, maybe some broken bones, but nothing is gonna get blown off. I… would avoid wearing them to the front."
For a moment, I thought Jackie was gonna throw one of his empty magazines at me. When he was done scowling, he turned back and focused on practicing with his new weapons. After another mag of explosive ammunition and a handful of standard mags for each of us, we were both satisfied. I printed us both out an adjustable holster, Jackies with two slots for his guns and mine for only one. At this point, my old holster was looking a bit rough, so I was glad to retire it. The old pistol was set up as an emergency weapon, attached to the underside of my workstation.
With Jackie satisfied with his new weapon, he also retired his Nue, with plans to give it to his mother as a security weapon for the Coyote. I think he was intending it to make her feel safe as he started spending more and more time out here at the Ridge. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was starting to consider the idea of inviting her out here to open a bar, whenever we figured out who we were going to have populate the rest of the town.
I also wanted to invite Vik, Misty, and anyone else I considered friends or even just safe. It seemed like a waste to try and build a safe haven, only to waste it on myself and a few other people. Of course, that would also put them in the crosshairs should everything go to shit, so I would need to explain that to them as well.
Jackie retired to his temporary trailer to get some more sleep, his recovery catching up with him after being active for a few hours. When he left, I got to work.
While initially, I was rather disappointed with the Become Human tech tree, and I kind of still was, I did realize over time that completely ignoring it was a rather poor idea. Yes, plenty of it was completely pointless, but as I was working on the weapon attachments, I realized that in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter if the end product was useless because everything I made would expand my knowledge. Yes, just how much this tech tree would allow me to expand my knowledge was minimal, but that didn't mean I should ignore it completely.
So, for the last third of the sixth day, I sat down and began designing random bits and bobs. I started with things that might be useful, like advanced screen technology, which was actually not bad, all things considered. From there, I designed cell phones, tools, and other bits of tech, trying to absorb every little bit that I could from the setting. Most of the things that I designed could be printed out on the small scale molly-make in two or three pieces, drastically cutting down on the time needed to construct them.
By the time I went to bed, I had learned a good amount of basic knowledge for designing and building electronic equipment, including computers and phones. I also learned basic knowledge about medical equipment, material sciences, and engineering, as well as less rigid concepts like ruggedization, ergonomics, and user-friendly designs.
I also spent the last hour of the day upgrading my keyfob. I expanded its screen, basically converting it into a cellphone like I knew from back home, integrating and upgrading the design as much as I could with Titanfall tech and materials. I was very happy with the result, especially since it had plenty of room to run the upgraded hacking software that Spot used, as well as his programming assistant system. I would most likely continue to upgrade it as I learned new things, but for now, it was nice to have something more than just a tiny screen to check my bank account and see the number that was trying to contact me.
As I finally left the garage, I watched our two salvage trucks leave on their trash run, the MRVN units waving to me as they drove past. I idly questioned if it was safe for them to be driving, before realizing that I trusted them more than I did most of the people in Night City. Duke followed behind me as I finally made my way home, laying in bed after a quick shower and a late-night snack. Thankfully, it didn't take long for me to finally get some sleep, reaching over the side of the bed to pet Duke as I drifted off.
The next morning, I went right back to working on my low-tech foundation, spending my time building random stuff from Become Human. It was funny, if I pushed back far enough I could see the things that were much more familiar to me, like PC systems that looked almost identical to what I used to game on. The only difference was the name brand. I even eventually identified the time when people started being obsessed with future-looking tech. It happened in the same way that RGB lights seemed to take over the computer industry, only this fad quickly expanded to all sorts of markets.
Around noon, Kaytlyn returned from her latest trip to Tyger territory. As she was approaching the town, she radioed ahead to get everyone together. She arrived not long after that, carrying a few pizzas and looking concerned. I grabbed the boxes from her, almost tripping over her cat as she led me into the BD shack, where Riggs and Jackie were already waiting. The door to Frank's space was open, no doubt so he could listen in, just in case Jackie needed some help.
I placed the pizzas down on the table and took a seat, watching while Jackie grabbed a slice for himself. He cursed and dropped the slice onto a plastic plate, shaking out his fingers, trying to cool them off. I was focused on Kayt, though, as her expression was concerning.
"So… what's the news?" I asked, even as Jackie passed me a plate with a slice on it. "You don't look very happy."
"Cause I'm not," She responded, shaking her head. "I've been going over the extra info Padre got us and comparing it to what I've been seeing. I've gotta say, this mission not looking so good."
"What's the problema, Chica?" Jackie asked, impatiently waiting for his pizza to cool. "We know from the scavs they can't keep up with us."
"Scavs might not have been able to, Jackie, but Tyger Claws, specifically these ones, just might," She responded, shaking her head. "We knew this was a hotspot for the gang already, but it turns out the intel was underselling it. Tyger Claws owns the whole building and the two on either side of it. It's used to house people who need a safe space. Informants, info brokers, gun dealers, higher-ups who have a little too much heat on them, even a few lieutenants."
She looked at Jackie, her eyes glowing as she sent him the data. I waved and gestured to my new keyfob cellphone combo… my keyphone, and after a moment, I could see the data she was sending too. I scrolled through, pausing on a wireframe of the building. It was labeled with possible occupants.
"So I tried to get a rough guess of just how many people they have on patrol inside the walls and how many are inside, but as far as I can tell, it's more than fifteen. Could be twenty, or it could be fifty," She admitted. "They keep people rotating, and they switch out frequently. Worse, these aren't some punk gangbangers. These are hard bastards with a lot of chrome and plenty of experience with it. I counted at least seven of them that are really chromed out, as well as at least two full borgs. I don't know who they are or how many there actually are, but these are not mismatched scavs."
"Dammit, that's gonna be rough…" I said, shaking my head. "Any idea where she is being kept?"
"So, I figured out what floor she is on cause her father goes to the balcony for smoke breaks," She explained, pointing out a corner of the large building, two floors down from the roof, eight floors up from the ground floor. "I kept an eye on it for a while until I spotted her inside as well. Just a glimpse, but she is there."
"Fuck, on the ninth floor?" I asked. "That's not gonna work."
"You really think we can't tear through nine floors?" Jackie asked, looking disgruntled. "We can clear floor by floor, take our time and get there eventually."
"That won't work here," Kaytlyn pointed out, her cat jumping up onto one of the free chairs, sniffing at one of the pizza boxes. "Places like these? They have designated communicators. The second they know something is up, an alert is going to go out to every Tyger in the area, and some that aren't. By the time we hit the fifth floor, the first floor is going to be filled with Tygers again, chasing us up the building."
"We may be good for twenty, thirty, maybe even forty claws of various strength, but not even we can take down the whole gang," I pointed out. "Especially when we have an asset to protect."
Jackie cursed, leaning back in his chair, wincing as it put pressure on his newly installed cyberware. He seemed to be doing much better than yesterday, and with any luck, he would be able to start practicing by tomorrow. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do. I was also starting to generate ideas in case the Sandy didn't agree with him. So far, I didn't have much, but I was hopeful that whatever tech tree I had next would have something.
"We can boost up a few floors," Riggs pointed out. "That should cut down on time."
"We could… or we could go down instead of up…" I suggested, trailing off after a moment, scanning through some of the pictures Kayt took.
"You got something, Genio?" Jackie asked, leaning over to peek into what I was looking at.
"Maybe… Kayt, this was the closest non-Tyger building to our target, right?" I asked, holding out my keyphone and pointing to a building across the street from our target. "How far was it, exactly?"
"From the compound? Maybe thirty feet?" She guessed, scratching her forehead. "Between the actual roofs? Maybe… sixty, seventy feet? It's pretty isolated on the corner of this street, which is probably why they picked it."
"There is no way we can jump that far, loco pendejo," Jackie said, shaking his head. "The jumpkits only get us a good thirty feet, if we get a proper run and jump."
"Yeah, but I can make us something that gets us across," I said with a shrug. "Hell, I could build a half dozen things to get us across. All we need is to get up to this building here, and then we jump."
"You sure? Kayt asked. "I mean, I won't be doing it since I'll be on sniper support, but are you sure you can do that? I mean, I've seen some of the stuff you can make, but that's a long way up…"
"I'm sure. Give me a few days and I'll have something." I replied confidently.
"... Okay, so we start from the roof and work down," Jackie said. "That means two floors we have to deal with. But how do we get out, and how do we get away?"
We spent another few hours coming up with a basic plan, which included getting up to the roof of the closest building, as well as how we planned on getting out once we reached our target. Once we were done planning and done with lunch, I headed back to the garage.
I was tempted to jump right into the design process for the contraption I promised for our mission, the one that would get us from one building to the other, but I wanted to finish off working on Become Human designs first. I didn't plan on holding on to the tree once it ran out at midnight, so I would have to make do with the time I had.
I wasn't overly concerned as the little bits of knowledge I was picking up were nice and would probably come in handy when I was designing my own things, but they weren't required. In most cases, they were mostly redundant, specific to materials and tech that I was already way past with what I had learned from Titanfall.
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- Location
- England
Should be "I" and "he" doesn't need capitalisation.
Wrong "you're" and "he" should be lowercase.
Should be "Where" x 2.
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KillerFish
Grumpy Owl, Bird Lawyer
Top down assault? Not a bad approach, could combine it with a window Dynamic Entry if they abseiled down from the roof.
Probably won't, going from the planning, but this does give them options other than "guns blazing".
Probably won't, going from the planning, but this does give them options other than "guns blazing".
If he wants to go the Robin-hood protection version of the Mafia route even before he gets something like Hitman Reborn form ToF, then he could become something like Vongola Primo and make a Familia. Jackie would make an alright Storm or Sun Guardian.
What? That sounds like smart weapons, that curve bullets around obstacles with gyrogets and stuff. Tech weapons are, AFAIK, just railguns and coilguns. Charge up a shot, cover penetration in a straight line, no aim assist.
Edit: well, I can't actually find anything that explicitly states how the guns work, so they could be loading their bullets up with stuff. I'm just not sure what they would be adding that wouldn't qualify them as Smart weapons instead.
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- Location
- Earth
Stay Human tech is essentially just modern tech plus synthetic life stuff. Which isn't too useful overall, sure.
But there are some areas where just modern tech is impressive enough to be useful in cyberpunk. A few militant-leaning examples:
1. Horsefly sized and shaped spy drones. They exist, and have for a while. The MC should be able to make them even smaller or more efficient and convincing with his various super-tech.
2. HMX and some other niche extremely high yield explosive compounds. HMX in particular is remarkably stable and relatively safe for use given its near unparalleled blast energy.
3. HPM (high power microwave) weapons are good example of modern directed energy weapons. They are extremely potent, to the degree that they are restricted to military use.
In short, you don't have to look at only the shiniest parts of speculative future tech to get some really good tools. I'd be disappointed if the MC didn't start making clever use of more "mundane" options like the above, given his many unfair advantages.
But there are some areas where just modern tech is impressive enough to be useful in cyberpunk. A few militant-leaning examples:
1. Horsefly sized and shaped spy drones. They exist, and have for a while. The MC should be able to make them even smaller or more efficient and convincing with his various super-tech.
2. HMX and some other niche extremely high yield explosive compounds. HMX in particular is remarkably stable and relatively safe for use given its near unparalleled blast energy.
3. HPM (high power microwave) weapons are good example of modern directed energy weapons. They are extremely potent, to the degree that they are restricted to military use.
In short, you don't have to look at only the shiniest parts of speculative future tech to get some really good tools. I'd be disappointed if the MC didn't start making clever use of more "mundane" options like the above, given his many unfair advantages.
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johnwedd
Above Average man
- Location
- usa
I like how the mc is going back and grabbing the basics and mundane tech while he has the chance. It could prove very usefull.
The thing about cyberpunk 2077's tech base is how ridiculously skewed it is, which to be fair is true for every cyberpunk setting. The simple fact is that for all their cyberware, hardware, and networks (that don`t have lag for some reason), thier software is shit.
Take a linux dev or a professional IT tech and drop them in night city and they will own the whole cityNET, and will start making the feral AI's beyond the black wall whimper and run away. Real world and modern IT systems (and the associated skills) are such an out of context problem for night city that it wouldn't be able to defend. And canonically; all the cyber warfare tools that cp2077 has are ridiculously outdated, and would be considered quaint.
The long road I walked to get to my point is, while the corpo-anarcharcist state may be messy, chaotic, and breed tech that is like magic, it is; in no way, even close to having a good technological foundation. Research is so focused on marketable products or billable services that it lacks the general knowledge base given by gifted and hobbyists, academia, and socially mandated (ie, pandemics, natural disaster, or wartime economy) advancement to iterate and create new avenues.
If it doesn't make a profit, then it's a dead end and abandoned. If it threatens profit, it is removed, buried, and/or forgotten. If it exists and is not making someone profit, it is taken.
So having the basics and little bits and bobs may seam like a hassle or stupid, but it will be a basis for alot of foundational advancements that would blow the corpo's minds.
The thing about cyberpunk 2077's tech base is how ridiculously skewed it is, which to be fair is true for every cyberpunk setting. The simple fact is that for all their cyberware, hardware, and networks (that don`t have lag for some reason), thier software is shit.
Take a linux dev or a professional IT tech and drop them in night city and they will own the whole cityNET, and will start making the feral AI's beyond the black wall whimper and run away. Real world and modern IT systems (and the associated skills) are such an out of context problem for night city that it wouldn't be able to defend. And canonically; all the cyber warfare tools that cp2077 has are ridiculously outdated, and would be considered quaint.
The long road I walked to get to my point is, while the corpo-anarcharcist state may be messy, chaotic, and breed tech that is like magic, it is; in no way, even close to having a good technological foundation. Research is so focused on marketable products or billable services that it lacks the general knowledge base given by gifted and hobbyists, academia, and socially mandated (ie, pandemics, natural disaster, or wartime economy) advancement to iterate and create new avenues.
If it doesn't make a profit, then it's a dead end and abandoned. If it threatens profit, it is removed, buried, and/or forgotten. If it exists and is not making someone profit, it is taken.
So having the basics and little bits and bobs may seam like a hassle or stupid, but it will be a basis for alot of foundational advancements that would blow the corpo's minds.
- Location
- Tucson
So one of the things I wanted in cyberpunk that they didn't have was grapple tech of seemingly any kind and a wing suit/ parachute because the heist would have been way simpler if when it all went wrong they could have just jumped off that balcony and called delamaine for a pick up
Chapter Thirty Three
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I spent the rest of the day designing, building, and then throwing away a few dozen different bits of tech. None of it was really worth mentioning specifically, but together, they did end up expanding my knowledge base. I didn't quite regret not realizing the usefulness of just expanding my knowledge earlier, but I was glad I realized it when I did.
I now felt more confident in working different bits of technology together, and I was starting to feel good about where I was for the next tech tree. I ended up staying up until midnight and letting the Become Human tech tree fade as I worked. As usual, the timer slipped into its place, reading down from seven days. While I was a little annoyed that the break time was the same as it would have been if I had held on to the subject for an extra week, that was mostly because I was anxious to see what would happen next.
Once the tech tree faded, it didn't take long for me to head to bed, staying up just long enough to toss my creations into the mass recycler.
The following morning, I crawled out of bed and into the shower, spending too much time under the warm water before eventually making my way out of my trailer. As I made my way to the garage, I was surprised to find that Jackie was up before me. I found him sitting on the roof of the garage, watching the sunrise as I first got there.
"What the hell are you doing up?" I asked, climbing up stair along the side of the building. "Aren't you supposed to be taking it easy?"
One of the first things Noah did when starting the garage addition was to take the stairs along the back of the garage and swing them around to the side so they would be out of the way. I was pretty sure he had plans to replace them with something a bit more sturdy, but they worked for now. Once I was on the roof, I made my way to the side of the building, sitting beside my choom.
"I'm just about healed," He explained, passing me some sort of pre-packaged coffee drink that reminded me of the Starbucks glass bottles you could buy back home. "And I couldn't sit still anymore. I woke up a few hours ago and couldn't fall back to sleep."
I cracked the drink open and took a small, hesitant sip. It actually tasted pretty good, all things considered. Coffee was one of the few plants still mass-produced enough for ordinary people to have access to it, and I wasn't surprised that a coffee-flavored beverage was pretty accurate.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, sneaking a peek at his neck and shoulder. There wasn't any redness or swelling, and to my amateur eyes, everything looked pretty healthy.
"I feel fine. I guess my neck feels a bit heavier, but that's normal," he responded with a shrug, noticeably not wincing. "Frank says I can test the implant out later today."
"Good, I'm ready to see what you can do," I said, slapping his stomach. "Don't worry about it. Even if you aren't compatible, I'll come up with something better. You might not be blurring around like a ninja, but I guarantee I'll be able to make something better eventually."
He nodded in agreement, and we chatted for a few hours before the sun got too much for both of us. I left to get to work designing the necessary gadgets for our next gig while Jackie got some ammo for his new pistols and spent a few hours practicing his shooting. He complained that they had a different feel than guns, but once he had some practice under his belt, he was shooting better than ever before.
When I finished the design phase for my newest piece of equipment, I left the construction to a MRVN unit. Jackie, Kaytlyn, Murtaugh Riggs, and Frank had all gathered at one of the parking lots further into the town, waiting for me so that Jackie could start testing his Sandevistan.
"Finally, took you long enough," Kaytlyn said when I arrived. "C'mon Jackie, let's see it!"
"Wait a minute!" Frank said as he fiddled with something for a moment before affixing a small device to Jackie's neck. "This is a sensor. It will allow me to monitor your vitals closely as you experiment. Please be careful. It is very delicate."
"Thanks, doc," Jackie said, standing up straight and stretching a bit. "I appreciate all the help you've been giving."
"Of course, it is my job," The AI robot responded with a nod, watching his patient as he made his way to one end of the parking lot.
"Are you sure he is ready?" I asked Frank under my breath so that Jackie couldn't hear me.
"The scans are all clear, his body is mostly healed, and all signs point to the cyberware being properly implanted," Frank confirmed with a nod. "The sensor will alert me if there are any major issues, and I brought enough equipment to supply a small army. He is as ready as we can make him."
He gestured to a large white bag with a red cross stenciled on the front. I nodded, trusting the AI to know what he was talking about. I programmed him to, after all.
"Okay, Jackie. Let's start off with a single short use, just a few seconds, relative to you," Frank said, increasing his volume slightly so Jackie could hear him clearly. "Whenever you're ready."
Jackie nodded, taking a moment to shake out his tension. After he was settled, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Then he was a blur.
In a split second he was more than halfway across the parking lot, having moved across the entire space in a blink and you'll miss it moment. He stopped at the other side and turned back to face us, standing there as if he expected to collapse any moment despite the fact that he looked fine.
"Well done!" Frank called out. "I'm reading some raised vitals, elevated heart rate, stress on your nervous system, elevated temperature, slightly lower glucose levels…and few others, but… everything is within acceptable levels. How do you feel?"
"I feel… okay, like I just ran around for a bit," he responded, standing up straight and examining himself for a moment. "Nothing I haven't experienced before."
"Good, very good," Frank said with excitement. "These readings are fascinating. Why don't you try again, another short burst like before."
Jackie nodded, and after a moment, he blurred again, suddenly standing back where he had started. This time, he stumbled forward a bit, recovering after a moment.
"Readings are a bit higher," Frank said, raising his hand to tap his metallic chin. "I'm worried about the increase in temperature and his heart rate. Jackie, come back and sit down for a minute or two. Then I want to test a long sustained burst, the maximum the unit is capable of."
The next few hours were spent testing how well Jackie's body could handle the Sandevestan. At some point, both he and I put on our armor and undersuits so that we could spar a bit, which was really just me getting tossed around a bit, but really fast. Jackie also spent a not insignificant portion of that time sitting down and recovering, eating sugary foods to maintain his glucose levels. He handled the experiments pretty well, and by the end of the testing, Frank delivered the verdict.
"As you can obviously tell, since I didn't immediately tell you to stop, your physical compatibility with the Sandevistan system is pretty decent," The AI doctor explained. "The pace we set for taking breaks and refueling is more or less stable, but I suspect it is also your normal limit. What it comes down to is the frequency of use. Using it once or twice over the span of an hour, every hour, all day would leave you feeling like you put in a long, hard day's work, assuming you hydrated and consumed enough food. On the other hand, using it six times in five minutes will leave you feeling like you are recovering from a bender under the hot sun. It won't kill you, but you might wish it did."
"That's great news, Doc," Jackie said, sitting back in his chair. "I'm really all set?"
"Physically, your body is handling the stress well. You will come in for a check-up after every mission to make sure it stays that way," Frank said in no uncertain terms. "I'm also going to formulate a pre-mission supplement. It will help your body resist the shock of using the Sandevistan system several times in rapid succession."
"Yeah, alright, Doc Frank. Thanks."
"You are welcome. How do you feel mentally?"
"I… I'm happy, excited, and eager," he responded. "Other than that? I'm fine."
"Fascinating. Very well, I am giving you the green light to use your Sandevistan system while on missions," The AI confirmed with a nod. "You will come in if you or anyone else notices any change. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, Doc, I understand."
"Good. Now, take it easy for the next several hours, and then come see me in my office. I want to run a full workup, just to make sure."
Jackie nodded while Frank grabbed his things and walked away, heading back to the BD shack.
"Congrats Choom!" Kaytlyn said, thumping the bigger man on the shoulder. "Sounds like you're keeping it!"
"So far so good," He admitted with a smirk. "We'll see if I can mentally keep up with it."
"Cyberpsychosis is most prevalent with people who are already mentally unhealthy," I assured him, patting his opposite. "We will keep an eye on you, and as long as you're honest if you feel off, I have a feeling you'll be okay."
"Thank's choom," He responded, patting my shoulder as he stood. "I need to give Misty a call and tell her that everything is going well."
"Fuck that choom!" Kaytlyn said, shaking her head. "Cmon! This is something to celebrate! Tell her to get out here, and we can have a party!"
"Chica, I think it's a bit early to be throwing a party," Jackie said, scratching his cheek. "Besides, it's just a bit of chrome."
"Just a bit of chrome? Don't be stupid, Gonk! That Sandy is worth more than all the other chips you've got in you, and then some!" She said. "What's going on with you? You've been a mopey mess since we found them!"
Jackie looked at me for support, and I made a vague agreeing gesture.
"I wouldn't put it like that, but you have been putting a lot of thought into it," I responded to his unasked question. "I get it, though. It's a big deal. But she is right about this being something to celebrate. You got some major chrome, and you're still healthy. It doesn't have to be anything big, just call Misty out here, and we can do what we did when I got my skin bioware. And considering the paycheck I just got, it's on me. We can go grab some food and celebrate. To good health and friends."
"... you know what? You're right. This is something to celebrate," He said, shaking himself off a bit and nodding in agreement. "Okay, I'll give Misty a call. Do you mind if I invite Vik out as well? He is the one who installed it, after all. That, plus I can tell he has been dying to know what you've been doing out here."
"That's a good idea," I agreed with a smile. "He is more than welcome out here."
Jackie nodded and walked off, standing up straighter than before. A hunch I had missed was already gone, and he seemed to be a bit more awake and happy.
"Good call," I said, giving Kaytlyn a look. "I noticed his funk, but I was just hoping the good news would break him out of it."
"Any idea what's causing it?" She asked with a frown. "He's not the kinda guy to get mopey usually. You don't think it's the Sandy, do you?"
"No, it started before that. It's a guess, but a lot has changed over the last couple of weeks," I guessed with a shrug. "He might have just lost his bearings, between us becoming a deadly hit squad basically overnight. Now he has a bit of cyberware he never dreamed he would get. It's possible he is starting to wonder what happens after we get into the Afterlife and 'make it big.'"
She frowned, nodding at my explanation.
"Guess we will just have to keep him busy, show him what happens next," She guessed. "I should probably keep it to myself that I'm already allowed into the Afterlife as well."
"Really?" I asked, a bit surprised. "How did that happen?"
"Got hired to protect someone, ended up getting ambushed in our safehouse," She explained with a shrug. "Had to fight our way down and out of a six-story building. Ended up skipping three floors by jumping and using a big squishy solo as a cushion, then blew up the building to slow them down. Cost me an arm, but I completed the mission, so I got an invite."
"Damn."
She nodded before slapping me on the back and heading off to prepare while I went back to my trailer. I stopped by the garage first to let Samwise know what was happening, and he promised to get the MRVNs to help set up the firepit and some chairs.
I quickly took a shower and changed before stepping out to find Jackie waiting for me, his customary grin on his face.
"C'mon Genio, I got an idea for what we can eat, assuming you don't mind buying a few expensive things?"
"We are celebrating, so it's fine," I said with a smile. "As long as you don't completely bankrupt me."
"I won't, I know a guy who will give us a good deal," He said. "And I'll make you a family recipe."
We hopped into the Emperor and pulled out of town, heading back to the city. Both Vik and Misty had agreed to come, but thankfully, we had just enough room. However, rather than pick up our friends first, we went shopping. Our first stop was a higher-end store around the corporate plaza. We got a lot of looks walking in there, but they weren't crazy enough to kick us out. Jackie filled a basket with a few things while I bought some drinks, and it was all charged to me, waving my Keyphone over their scanner. I couldn't help but wince at how much my money dipped, but judging from what Jackie was hinting at, this was nothing on our next stop.
When we were done, we headed back into Valentino territory. Jackie directed me to stop by a random-looking house, nodding for me to come with him. We walked up to the front door, and Jackie knocked, ignoring the doorbell. He then talked in rapid-fire Spanish before the door opened, and a man armed with a Carnage and enough chrome to use it properly was revealed.
"Jackie, good to see you," he said, gesturing for us to come in. "Been hearing good things about you and your new team, congrats!"
"Thanks, choom. Listen, is Armando in?" Jackie asked, the armed man nodding.
"Oh, he is in, down in the basement with the goods, you know the way."
The shotgun-toting man sat down heavily on a worn-out couch, leaving Jackie and I to head downstairs. As we stepped out of the stairs and into the basement, the temperature dropped several degrees, and I could see the room was filled with freezers.
Armando, the only person in the basement other than us, greeted Jackie like an old friend. After a few minutes of polite catching up, he walked us back to one of the large freezers along the back wall. He cracked it open to reveal a bunch of frozen food. To my old life, it would have looked like an ordinary freezer, but now, the dozen bags of frozen vegetables and the pile of frozen meat looked like nirvana on Earth.
The old man laughed at me while I stared at it, my jaw hanging open. He explained that he was at the tail end of a smuggling operation that mostly dealt with food stolen from Corpo hoarders. Jackie negotiated for a bit to buy a big slab of fish, the cheapest meat he was selling. When he was done, I bought a chicken breast and a small cut of steak, as well as a few bags of frozen fruit and vegetables, including peas, corn, and strawberries. Jackie looked at me like I was crazy, but Armando looked like he had won the lottery. He offered me a cut of bacon for cheap since it was technically past its prime, and I bought that as well.
In total, including what I bought from Jackie, I spent thirty thousand eddies on meat and vegetables. Armando threw in a portable freezer for free, shaking my hand as we left.
"Jackson, that was a lot of fucking money!" Jackie said as I put the freezer in the back. "You buying with your stomach, not your wallet."
"We aren't eating most of that food, Jackie," I explained, shaking my head. "I'm handing it over to Frank and asking him to try and find a way to make more."
"What! You're not even gonna eat it?!"
"No! It's thirty thousand eddies worth of food!" I said, shaking my head. "There is no way I am eating it until I know if I can replicate it or not!"
Titanfall had never had the food issues that Cyberpunk had, since their expansion included worlds on which they could grow more food, and they never experienced the same sort of apocalypse that Cyberpunk did. Those two things combined meant that the Titanfall tech tree did not have a clear-cut solution to my food dilemma. That said, the medical equipment I had access to was way beyond what Cyberpunk had access to, and the molly makers were impressive tools that were in the same boat.
I was hoping that between the two advancements, and with the right samples, that I would be able to reproduce or create more palatable food. Up until this point, I had simply been biding my time, trying to come up with a way to get access to the samples I needed. Now I find out that Jackie had a contact this entire time. Looking back, I should have probably guessed he would, as the friendly Gonk had a contact for everything.
If I had known Jackie had access to real food… well it was probably better that I hadn't, because I probably would have ended up spending a lot of money buying some, money that, until now, we really couldn't waste. I wasn't sure if it was going to work, after all, even if I was hoping and praying it would.
After we picked up food the ingredients for Jackie's surprise dish, we stopped by Misty and Vik's to pick them up before heading back to Rocky Ridge. Vik was excited to see what we had been working on, and Misty was just happy to get out of the city. When we arrived, Duke greeted us with an excited bark. We had been forced to leave him behind since we weren't sure if the Emperor would have enough room if he had come with us. By the time we got back, a fire pit and grill area had been set up, and Kaytlyn was starting the fire.
It didn't take long after we arrived for Jackie and Misty to get to work cooking up a storm. While they did that, I gave Vik a short tour of the town, starting off by introducing him to Riggs and Murtaugh, followed by Noah and Samwise. After that I brought him to Frank, carrying the portable freezer of food with me.
"And this is Frank, our doctor droid," I explained, the medical robot reaching out to shake Vik's hand. "He's been keeping an eye on Jackie as he recovered. Frank, this is Vik, our Ripperdoc."
"Nice to meet you," Vik said, shaking the AI's hand.
"And you as well. Your work is exemplary," Frank said, genuine approval in his voice. "Jackie's latest Cyberware has healed well and was installed beautifully."
"Yeah, about that. Did he really try it today?" Vik asked, sounding a bit concerned. "It's about a day or so too early for that, but I gave it a quick look over earlier… It looked remarkably well healed."
"I prescribed a few… additive ingredients to the regimen you gave him," Frank explained. "They lower his swelling, increased receptiveness, stimulated nerve growth, nothing too intense so it would heal as stable as possible."
"Where did you get those?" Vik asked, confusion in his voice and face.
"We made them," Frank explained, gesturing around his workspace. "We have access to… a few extraordinary tools here."
Vik gave me a look, and I shrugged.
"I'm sorry, I know that look, but how quickly do you think a corpo would be kicking down our doors after we start feeding you miracle cures?" I pointed out. "We have our own Corpo… You know, maybe I should have invited her… Anyway, we have someone working on a way to prevent that from happening, but until then, and honestly after then too, we have to be careful."
"Yeah, I get it," He said, letting out a long breath. "Just so sick of giving kids drugs I know are cheap or inferior. Ignore me, I shouldn't have brought down the mood."
I nodded in commiseration, patting his shoulder before putting the portable freezer up on one of the clinic countertops.
"Frank, I have a new project for you," I said, getting the AI's attention. "I want you to work on scanning and analyzing the food that's in here as precisely and completely as you can. I want you to have records of every aspect of its internal structure, chemical makeup, everything. Then, I want you to work with Samwise to come up with a way to print it on a modified molly-maker. Compromise on that part if you have to, but do your best."
"Interesting. Sounds like an acceptable challenge," Frank said, nodding his head. "I will see what we can come up with. Working alongside Samwise will be an interesting experience. If I might make a request?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Working on biological projects such as this would be made significantly more simple with proper laboratory space," He explained before gesturing to the room around us. "This room is… acceptable for my current needs providing emergency treatment and care, but it is ill-fitted for proper experimentation. On top of that, should you ever have the... desire to study biology, it will come in handy."
I frowned, and for a moment, my mind was filled with images of what would happen if my next tech tree was Zerg, or maybe the Yuuzhan Vong from Star Wars. I might voluntarily skip those if I ever got them, just to keep any of their stuff from existing in this world, but having a biological research space was very smart. So far, I had only rolled tech trees that require engineering, but who knew what I would get next?
"That's a really good point, Frank," I admitted with a frown. "But it's going to be a while before I can build you a full lab."
"Why not allow me to work with Noah to convert the BD shack into an appropriate space?" He asked, tilting his metallic head slightly.
"Because we use it as a meeting and break area," I explained. "We were gonna tear it down and put something else here, but we have plenty of room…"
I turned and stepped out of the side room, looking around the BD shack interior. After a moment, I nodded and returned.
"Okay, how about this. We seal off the open space on the second floor and convert that into a lab space for you," I explained. "You can even add something to get equipment up to the lab using the bar space. The rest of the bottom floor stays the same… and I want you to keep all the equipment movable or at least marginally transportable. Eventually, we are going to knock this building down, and I want your gear to be moved out into its new home before that."
"Thank you, Jackson, I will start discussing the idea with Noah," Frank said with a short bow. "I am sure he will run further plans by your first."
After discussing what his first steps would be, all three of us made our way out of the BD shack and back outside, where everyone had gathered around the fire pit. The pit was now full of burning cacti and bramble while Jackie stood close by, still cooking up a storm with Misty's help.
"Sit down and grab a beer!" He said as we got closer. "No more talking about business or projects!"
Vik chuckled and shook his head, both of us claiming seats. Murtaugh was sitting down beside Kaytlyn, while Riggs leaned against the garage. Even Samwise and Noah were close by, sitting on a crate, listening and enjoying a break.
About twenty minutes after we sat down, all of us drinking and laughing around the fire, Jackie's feast was done. He set out the food along a folding table, showing off a line of ingredients for fish tacos, including the perfectly grilled fish. Misty and Vik, both of whom had apparently had these before, were in line first, but soon enough, we had all gotten our food. Once we were all sitting and eating, the only noise making it around the fire pit was the crackle of burning wood and the occasional noise of appreciation.
"Holy fuck, Jackie, these are Nova," Kaytlyn said eventually between bites. "What the hell?"
"I can't take credit, Chica, it's a family recipe, handed down on my mother's side," He explained with a smile and a shrug. "I made a solemn vow to Mama Welles to never make them with anything other than real fish, and never for people who aren't friends, or better yet, family."
With a smile, he raised his beer, holding it up to all of us.
"To family," He said. "Always happy to cheer you up and knock you out of your blues."
"To family," Everyone said, taking a long drink.
I just barely managed to smother my chuckle and keep from calling Jackie Vin Diesel since none of them would get the reference anyway.
Together, we spent the rest of the night talking and laughing, trading stories and making jokes. I was happy to see that all of the AI were fitting in, and equally satisfied that no one questioned how the obvious robot could make a joke good enough to get Jackie to spew beer from his nose. When the night was finally winding down, MRVN units showed everyone their trailers, and I spent some time putting out the fire and cleaning up. When I was done, I said goodnight to Samwise and the others before making my way back to my bed, Duke trailing after me.
If you are interested in those benefits or just want to support my attempt to become a full-time writer, stop by and show your support. Every dollar helps!
I spent the rest of the day designing, building, and then throwing away a few dozen different bits of tech. None of it was really worth mentioning specifically, but together, they did end up expanding my knowledge base. I didn't quite regret not realizing the usefulness of just expanding my knowledge earlier, but I was glad I realized it when I did.
I now felt more confident in working different bits of technology together, and I was starting to feel good about where I was for the next tech tree. I ended up staying up until midnight and letting the Become Human tech tree fade as I worked. As usual, the timer slipped into its place, reading down from seven days. While I was a little annoyed that the break time was the same as it would have been if I had held on to the subject for an extra week, that was mostly because I was anxious to see what would happen next.
Once the tech tree faded, it didn't take long for me to head to bed, staying up just long enough to toss my creations into the mass recycler.
The following morning, I crawled out of bed and into the shower, spending too much time under the warm water before eventually making my way out of my trailer. As I made my way to the garage, I was surprised to find that Jackie was up before me. I found him sitting on the roof of the garage, watching the sunrise as I first got there.
"What the hell are you doing up?" I asked, climbing up stair along the side of the building. "Aren't you supposed to be taking it easy?"
One of the first things Noah did when starting the garage addition was to take the stairs along the back of the garage and swing them around to the side so they would be out of the way. I was pretty sure he had plans to replace them with something a bit more sturdy, but they worked for now. Once I was on the roof, I made my way to the side of the building, sitting beside my choom.
"I'm just about healed," He explained, passing me some sort of pre-packaged coffee drink that reminded me of the Starbucks glass bottles you could buy back home. "And I couldn't sit still anymore. I woke up a few hours ago and couldn't fall back to sleep."
I cracked the drink open and took a small, hesitant sip. It actually tasted pretty good, all things considered. Coffee was one of the few plants still mass-produced enough for ordinary people to have access to it, and I wasn't surprised that a coffee-flavored beverage was pretty accurate.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, sneaking a peek at his neck and shoulder. There wasn't any redness or swelling, and to my amateur eyes, everything looked pretty healthy.
"I feel fine. I guess my neck feels a bit heavier, but that's normal," he responded with a shrug, noticeably not wincing. "Frank says I can test the implant out later today."
"Good, I'm ready to see what you can do," I said, slapping his stomach. "Don't worry about it. Even if you aren't compatible, I'll come up with something better. You might not be blurring around like a ninja, but I guarantee I'll be able to make something better eventually."
He nodded in agreement, and we chatted for a few hours before the sun got too much for both of us. I left to get to work designing the necessary gadgets for our next gig while Jackie got some ammo for his new pistols and spent a few hours practicing his shooting. He complained that they had a different feel than guns, but once he had some practice under his belt, he was shooting better than ever before.
When I finished the design phase for my newest piece of equipment, I left the construction to a MRVN unit. Jackie, Kaytlyn, Murtaugh Riggs, and Frank had all gathered at one of the parking lots further into the town, waiting for me so that Jackie could start testing his Sandevistan.
"Finally, took you long enough," Kaytlyn said when I arrived. "C'mon Jackie, let's see it!"
"Wait a minute!" Frank said as he fiddled with something for a moment before affixing a small device to Jackie's neck. "This is a sensor. It will allow me to monitor your vitals closely as you experiment. Please be careful. It is very delicate."
"Thanks, doc," Jackie said, standing up straight and stretching a bit. "I appreciate all the help you've been giving."
"Of course, it is my job," The AI robot responded with a nod, watching his patient as he made his way to one end of the parking lot.
"Are you sure he is ready?" I asked Frank under my breath so that Jackie couldn't hear me.
"The scans are all clear, his body is mostly healed, and all signs point to the cyberware being properly implanted," Frank confirmed with a nod. "The sensor will alert me if there are any major issues, and I brought enough equipment to supply a small army. He is as ready as we can make him."
He gestured to a large white bag with a red cross stenciled on the front. I nodded, trusting the AI to know what he was talking about. I programmed him to, after all.
"Okay, Jackie. Let's start off with a single short use, just a few seconds, relative to you," Frank said, increasing his volume slightly so Jackie could hear him clearly. "Whenever you're ready."
Jackie nodded, taking a moment to shake out his tension. After he was settled, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Then he was a blur.
In a split second he was more than halfway across the parking lot, having moved across the entire space in a blink and you'll miss it moment. He stopped at the other side and turned back to face us, standing there as if he expected to collapse any moment despite the fact that he looked fine.
"Well done!" Frank called out. "I'm reading some raised vitals, elevated heart rate, stress on your nervous system, elevated temperature, slightly lower glucose levels…and few others, but… everything is within acceptable levels. How do you feel?"
"I feel… okay, like I just ran around for a bit," he responded, standing up straight and examining himself for a moment. "Nothing I haven't experienced before."
"Good, very good," Frank said with excitement. "These readings are fascinating. Why don't you try again, another short burst like before."
Jackie nodded, and after a moment, he blurred again, suddenly standing back where he had started. This time, he stumbled forward a bit, recovering after a moment.
"Readings are a bit higher," Frank said, raising his hand to tap his metallic chin. "I'm worried about the increase in temperature and his heart rate. Jackie, come back and sit down for a minute or two. Then I want to test a long sustained burst, the maximum the unit is capable of."
The next few hours were spent testing how well Jackie's body could handle the Sandevestan. At some point, both he and I put on our armor and undersuits so that we could spar a bit, which was really just me getting tossed around a bit, but really fast. Jackie also spent a not insignificant portion of that time sitting down and recovering, eating sugary foods to maintain his glucose levels. He handled the experiments pretty well, and by the end of the testing, Frank delivered the verdict.
"As you can obviously tell, since I didn't immediately tell you to stop, your physical compatibility with the Sandevistan system is pretty decent," The AI doctor explained. "The pace we set for taking breaks and refueling is more or less stable, but I suspect it is also your normal limit. What it comes down to is the frequency of use. Using it once or twice over the span of an hour, every hour, all day would leave you feeling like you put in a long, hard day's work, assuming you hydrated and consumed enough food. On the other hand, using it six times in five minutes will leave you feeling like you are recovering from a bender under the hot sun. It won't kill you, but you might wish it did."
"That's great news, Doc," Jackie said, sitting back in his chair. "I'm really all set?"
"Physically, your body is handling the stress well. You will come in for a check-up after every mission to make sure it stays that way," Frank said in no uncertain terms. "I'm also going to formulate a pre-mission supplement. It will help your body resist the shock of using the Sandevistan system several times in rapid succession."
"Yeah, alright, Doc Frank. Thanks."
"You are welcome. How do you feel mentally?"
"I… I'm happy, excited, and eager," he responded. "Other than that? I'm fine."
"Fascinating. Very well, I am giving you the green light to use your Sandevistan system while on missions," The AI confirmed with a nod. "You will come in if you or anyone else notices any change. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, Doc, I understand."
"Good. Now, take it easy for the next several hours, and then come see me in my office. I want to run a full workup, just to make sure."
Jackie nodded while Frank grabbed his things and walked away, heading back to the BD shack.
"Congrats Choom!" Kaytlyn said, thumping the bigger man on the shoulder. "Sounds like you're keeping it!"
"So far so good," He admitted with a smirk. "We'll see if I can mentally keep up with it."
"Cyberpsychosis is most prevalent with people who are already mentally unhealthy," I assured him, patting his opposite. "We will keep an eye on you, and as long as you're honest if you feel off, I have a feeling you'll be okay."
"Thank's choom," He responded, patting my shoulder as he stood. "I need to give Misty a call and tell her that everything is going well."
"Fuck that choom!" Kaytlyn said, shaking her head. "Cmon! This is something to celebrate! Tell her to get out here, and we can have a party!"
"Chica, I think it's a bit early to be throwing a party," Jackie said, scratching his cheek. "Besides, it's just a bit of chrome."
"Just a bit of chrome? Don't be stupid, Gonk! That Sandy is worth more than all the other chips you've got in you, and then some!" She said. "What's going on with you? You've been a mopey mess since we found them!"
Jackie looked at me for support, and I made a vague agreeing gesture.
"I wouldn't put it like that, but you have been putting a lot of thought into it," I responded to his unasked question. "I get it, though. It's a big deal. But she is right about this being something to celebrate. You got some major chrome, and you're still healthy. It doesn't have to be anything big, just call Misty out here, and we can do what we did when I got my skin bioware. And considering the paycheck I just got, it's on me. We can go grab some food and celebrate. To good health and friends."
"... you know what? You're right. This is something to celebrate," He said, shaking himself off a bit and nodding in agreement. "Okay, I'll give Misty a call. Do you mind if I invite Vik out as well? He is the one who installed it, after all. That, plus I can tell he has been dying to know what you've been doing out here."
"That's a good idea," I agreed with a smile. "He is more than welcome out here."
Jackie nodded and walked off, standing up straighter than before. A hunch I had missed was already gone, and he seemed to be a bit more awake and happy.
"Good call," I said, giving Kaytlyn a look. "I noticed his funk, but I was just hoping the good news would break him out of it."
"Any idea what's causing it?" She asked with a frown. "He's not the kinda guy to get mopey usually. You don't think it's the Sandy, do you?"
"No, it started before that. It's a guess, but a lot has changed over the last couple of weeks," I guessed with a shrug. "He might have just lost his bearings, between us becoming a deadly hit squad basically overnight. Now he has a bit of cyberware he never dreamed he would get. It's possible he is starting to wonder what happens after we get into the Afterlife and 'make it big.'"
She frowned, nodding at my explanation.
"Guess we will just have to keep him busy, show him what happens next," She guessed. "I should probably keep it to myself that I'm already allowed into the Afterlife as well."
"Really?" I asked, a bit surprised. "How did that happen?"
"Got hired to protect someone, ended up getting ambushed in our safehouse," She explained with a shrug. "Had to fight our way down and out of a six-story building. Ended up skipping three floors by jumping and using a big squishy solo as a cushion, then blew up the building to slow them down. Cost me an arm, but I completed the mission, so I got an invite."
"Damn."
She nodded before slapping me on the back and heading off to prepare while I went back to my trailer. I stopped by the garage first to let Samwise know what was happening, and he promised to get the MRVNs to help set up the firepit and some chairs.
I quickly took a shower and changed before stepping out to find Jackie waiting for me, his customary grin on his face.
"C'mon Genio, I got an idea for what we can eat, assuming you don't mind buying a few expensive things?"
"We are celebrating, so it's fine," I said with a smile. "As long as you don't completely bankrupt me."
"I won't, I know a guy who will give us a good deal," He said. "And I'll make you a family recipe."
We hopped into the Emperor and pulled out of town, heading back to the city. Both Vik and Misty had agreed to come, but thankfully, we had just enough room. However, rather than pick up our friends first, we went shopping. Our first stop was a higher-end store around the corporate plaza. We got a lot of looks walking in there, but they weren't crazy enough to kick us out. Jackie filled a basket with a few things while I bought some drinks, and it was all charged to me, waving my Keyphone over their scanner. I couldn't help but wince at how much my money dipped, but judging from what Jackie was hinting at, this was nothing on our next stop.
When we were done, we headed back into Valentino territory. Jackie directed me to stop by a random-looking house, nodding for me to come with him. We walked up to the front door, and Jackie knocked, ignoring the doorbell. He then talked in rapid-fire Spanish before the door opened, and a man armed with a Carnage and enough chrome to use it properly was revealed.
"Jackie, good to see you," he said, gesturing for us to come in. "Been hearing good things about you and your new team, congrats!"
"Thanks, choom. Listen, is Armando in?" Jackie asked, the armed man nodding.
"Oh, he is in, down in the basement with the goods, you know the way."
The shotgun-toting man sat down heavily on a worn-out couch, leaving Jackie and I to head downstairs. As we stepped out of the stairs and into the basement, the temperature dropped several degrees, and I could see the room was filled with freezers.
Armando, the only person in the basement other than us, greeted Jackie like an old friend. After a few minutes of polite catching up, he walked us back to one of the large freezers along the back wall. He cracked it open to reveal a bunch of frozen food. To my old life, it would have looked like an ordinary freezer, but now, the dozen bags of frozen vegetables and the pile of frozen meat looked like nirvana on Earth.
The old man laughed at me while I stared at it, my jaw hanging open. He explained that he was at the tail end of a smuggling operation that mostly dealt with food stolen from Corpo hoarders. Jackie negotiated for a bit to buy a big slab of fish, the cheapest meat he was selling. When he was done, I bought a chicken breast and a small cut of steak, as well as a few bags of frozen fruit and vegetables, including peas, corn, and strawberries. Jackie looked at me like I was crazy, but Armando looked like he had won the lottery. He offered me a cut of bacon for cheap since it was technically past its prime, and I bought that as well.
In total, including what I bought from Jackie, I spent thirty thousand eddies on meat and vegetables. Armando threw in a portable freezer for free, shaking my hand as we left.
"Jackson, that was a lot of fucking money!" Jackie said as I put the freezer in the back. "You buying with your stomach, not your wallet."
"We aren't eating most of that food, Jackie," I explained, shaking my head. "I'm handing it over to Frank and asking him to try and find a way to make more."
"What! You're not even gonna eat it?!"
"No! It's thirty thousand eddies worth of food!" I said, shaking my head. "There is no way I am eating it until I know if I can replicate it or not!"
Titanfall had never had the food issues that Cyberpunk had, since their expansion included worlds on which they could grow more food, and they never experienced the same sort of apocalypse that Cyberpunk did. Those two things combined meant that the Titanfall tech tree did not have a clear-cut solution to my food dilemma. That said, the medical equipment I had access to was way beyond what Cyberpunk had access to, and the molly makers were impressive tools that were in the same boat.
I was hoping that between the two advancements, and with the right samples, that I would be able to reproduce or create more palatable food. Up until this point, I had simply been biding my time, trying to come up with a way to get access to the samples I needed. Now I find out that Jackie had a contact this entire time. Looking back, I should have probably guessed he would, as the friendly Gonk had a contact for everything.
If I had known Jackie had access to real food… well it was probably better that I hadn't, because I probably would have ended up spending a lot of money buying some, money that, until now, we really couldn't waste. I wasn't sure if it was going to work, after all, even if I was hoping and praying it would.
After we picked up food the ingredients for Jackie's surprise dish, we stopped by Misty and Vik's to pick them up before heading back to Rocky Ridge. Vik was excited to see what we had been working on, and Misty was just happy to get out of the city. When we arrived, Duke greeted us with an excited bark. We had been forced to leave him behind since we weren't sure if the Emperor would have enough room if he had come with us. By the time we got back, a fire pit and grill area had been set up, and Kaytlyn was starting the fire.
It didn't take long after we arrived for Jackie and Misty to get to work cooking up a storm. While they did that, I gave Vik a short tour of the town, starting off by introducing him to Riggs and Murtaugh, followed by Noah and Samwise. After that I brought him to Frank, carrying the portable freezer of food with me.
"And this is Frank, our doctor droid," I explained, the medical robot reaching out to shake Vik's hand. "He's been keeping an eye on Jackie as he recovered. Frank, this is Vik, our Ripperdoc."
"Nice to meet you," Vik said, shaking the AI's hand.
"And you as well. Your work is exemplary," Frank said, genuine approval in his voice. "Jackie's latest Cyberware has healed well and was installed beautifully."
"Yeah, about that. Did he really try it today?" Vik asked, sounding a bit concerned. "It's about a day or so too early for that, but I gave it a quick look over earlier… It looked remarkably well healed."
"I prescribed a few… additive ingredients to the regimen you gave him," Frank explained. "They lower his swelling, increased receptiveness, stimulated nerve growth, nothing too intense so it would heal as stable as possible."
"Where did you get those?" Vik asked, confusion in his voice and face.
"We made them," Frank explained, gesturing around his workspace. "We have access to… a few extraordinary tools here."
Vik gave me a look, and I shrugged.
"I'm sorry, I know that look, but how quickly do you think a corpo would be kicking down our doors after we start feeding you miracle cures?" I pointed out. "We have our own Corpo… You know, maybe I should have invited her… Anyway, we have someone working on a way to prevent that from happening, but until then, and honestly after then too, we have to be careful."
"Yeah, I get it," He said, letting out a long breath. "Just so sick of giving kids drugs I know are cheap or inferior. Ignore me, I shouldn't have brought down the mood."
I nodded in commiseration, patting his shoulder before putting the portable freezer up on one of the clinic countertops.
"Frank, I have a new project for you," I said, getting the AI's attention. "I want you to work on scanning and analyzing the food that's in here as precisely and completely as you can. I want you to have records of every aspect of its internal structure, chemical makeup, everything. Then, I want you to work with Samwise to come up with a way to print it on a modified molly-maker. Compromise on that part if you have to, but do your best."
"Interesting. Sounds like an acceptable challenge," Frank said, nodding his head. "I will see what we can come up with. Working alongside Samwise will be an interesting experience. If I might make a request?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Working on biological projects such as this would be made significantly more simple with proper laboratory space," He explained before gesturing to the room around us. "This room is… acceptable for my current needs providing emergency treatment and care, but it is ill-fitted for proper experimentation. On top of that, should you ever have the... desire to study biology, it will come in handy."
I frowned, and for a moment, my mind was filled with images of what would happen if my next tech tree was Zerg, or maybe the Yuuzhan Vong from Star Wars. I might voluntarily skip those if I ever got them, just to keep any of their stuff from existing in this world, but having a biological research space was very smart. So far, I had only rolled tech trees that require engineering, but who knew what I would get next?
"That's a really good point, Frank," I admitted with a frown. "But it's going to be a while before I can build you a full lab."
"Why not allow me to work with Noah to convert the BD shack into an appropriate space?" He asked, tilting his metallic head slightly.
"Because we use it as a meeting and break area," I explained. "We were gonna tear it down and put something else here, but we have plenty of room…"
I turned and stepped out of the side room, looking around the BD shack interior. After a moment, I nodded and returned.
"Okay, how about this. We seal off the open space on the second floor and convert that into a lab space for you," I explained. "You can even add something to get equipment up to the lab using the bar space. The rest of the bottom floor stays the same… and I want you to keep all the equipment movable or at least marginally transportable. Eventually, we are going to knock this building down, and I want your gear to be moved out into its new home before that."
"Thank you, Jackson, I will start discussing the idea with Noah," Frank said with a short bow. "I am sure he will run further plans by your first."
After discussing what his first steps would be, all three of us made our way out of the BD shack and back outside, where everyone had gathered around the fire pit. The pit was now full of burning cacti and bramble while Jackie stood close by, still cooking up a storm with Misty's help.
"Sit down and grab a beer!" He said as we got closer. "No more talking about business or projects!"
Vik chuckled and shook his head, both of us claiming seats. Murtaugh was sitting down beside Kaytlyn, while Riggs leaned against the garage. Even Samwise and Noah were close by, sitting on a crate, listening and enjoying a break.
About twenty minutes after we sat down, all of us drinking and laughing around the fire, Jackie's feast was done. He set out the food along a folding table, showing off a line of ingredients for fish tacos, including the perfectly grilled fish. Misty and Vik, both of whom had apparently had these before, were in line first, but soon enough, we had all gotten our food. Once we were all sitting and eating, the only noise making it around the fire pit was the crackle of burning wood and the occasional noise of appreciation.
"Holy fuck, Jackie, these are Nova," Kaytlyn said eventually between bites. "What the hell?"
"I can't take credit, Chica, it's a family recipe, handed down on my mother's side," He explained with a smile and a shrug. "I made a solemn vow to Mama Welles to never make them with anything other than real fish, and never for people who aren't friends, or better yet, family."
With a smile, he raised his beer, holding it up to all of us.
"To family," He said. "Always happy to cheer you up and knock you out of your blues."
"To family," Everyone said, taking a long drink.
I just barely managed to smother my chuckle and keep from calling Jackie Vin Diesel since none of them would get the reference anyway.
Together, we spent the rest of the night talking and laughing, trading stories and making jokes. I was happy to see that all of the AI were fitting in, and equally satisfied that no one questioned how the obvious robot could make a joke good enough to get Jackie to spew beer from his nose. When the night was finally winding down, MRVN units showed everyone their trailers, and I spent some time putting out the fire and cleaning up. When I was done, I said goodnight to Samwise and the others before making my way back to my bed, Duke trailing after me.
I seem to remember right from the start that this is a world without V. which is why the MC was surprised to see jackie alive. I think its the year of 2078
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
FOOD! Such a core part of the human experience, and the one thing that makes me question ever visiting a world like Cyberpunk if given the option. They need some better grub...
Mgunh1
Not an AI, honest!
- Location
- Northern Luna Base, Module 5, Sublevel 15
Which is interesting. The Arasaka plotline would have gone ahead without V and Jackie being there as useful scapegoats.
Which either means all that happened more quietly, or the kid got outted quickly and there was no need for Aburo's 'triumphant' return.
Either way, Arasaka should be in a bit of a interesting spot, maybe even experiencing a bit of a leadership crisis.
Hmm... Might explain why the Tiggers are getting more active and pulling people back in.
- Location
- A haze of forgetfulness
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The fic actually starts a few months BEFORE the meeting of Jackie and V.
Which is also related to this.
Mgunh1
Not an AI, honest!
- Location
- Northern Luna Base, Module 5, Sublevel 15
Looked it up, first chapter:
So it's three months after the opening events of CP2077, which never happened. V, for whatever reason, never met Jackie (or never existed) and will not be appearing in this fic.
- Location
- Germany
Can't wait for the next tree!
Also, has his Elerium machine been running the entire time? Then he can probably power the city on that alone by now.
Also, has his Elerium machine been running the entire time? Then he can probably power the city on that alone by now.
johnwedd
Above Average man
- Location
- usa
another option is that Jackie got bed ridden due severe internal injuries for the month to month and half that the CP2077 game takes place. only getting on his feet long enough to say good bye to V, depending on the ending . I kinda hope it's the nomad/Judy ending and V is just living their last days with the one they love.
Chapter Thirty Four
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I woke up a little later than normal the next day, quickly heading outside to find that the garage was a bustle of activity. Sometime during the night, the addition had finally been completed, and Noah, Samwise, and the MRVN units had started moving in the molly makers and hooking them up. I made my way inside to find that there were already a dozen small makers along the wall closest to my workspace, and they were all already working to create more parts for more machines. Further into the addition, a dozen more molly makers were being put together, specifically the medium and up sizes. I worked my way to Samwise, who was watching over the construction of the largest maker we would have in the building.
"Damn, Samwise, how many makers did you have ready to go?"
"Quite a few, Jackson," He responded, passing me a tablet filled with more detailed information. "We have been printing the parts whenever the makers are free and storing them in several of the less livable trailer homes. After stripping them of furniture and making a few quick repairs, they made excellent temporary storage."
"Well… good work," I said, watching as a MRVN unit pushed in a cart of more parts. "This is much faster than I thought we would be going."
"Sir, I expect we will be finished transporting the parts in the next hour or so. After that, four concrete trucks are scheduled to arrive and pour the foundations for the first twenty-four hardpoints," Noah explained. "By the time the concrete has solidified, these facilities will be complete, meaning we can immediately begin fabricating the defensive structures."
"Sounds like a solid plan," I said with a nod. "I spotted a few MRVN units working last night, I assume they were digging the foundations?"
"Correct."
"Excellent work, guys," I said with a smile, patting them both on the shoulder. "I knew I could trust the both of you, and you're still outdoing my expectations. Thank you for all your hard work."
We chatted a bit more, discussing what the final defensive hard points would look like, as well as their current demand for MRVNs, before I went into my section of the workshop. There, weighting for me was the finished gadgets I had designed the day before, the equipment we would use to clear the large gap between the Tyger building and the nearest civilian building in our current mission. I spent a few minutes going over one of them, checking to make sure that everything was functional and together, before putting on my full uniform, including my jump kit.
I was climbing up to the sniper's nest on top of the temporary security building when Kaytlyn spotted me.
"What are you doing?" She asked, standing at the base of the ladder as I looked down. "What's that you got with you?"
"It's the key to jumping the gap!" I explained before running and leaping off the roof of the tall building.
My jump kit fired off just as my feet were leaving the roof, carrying me forward a significant distance, before my forward momentum started to fade. Just before the downward momentum really started to affect my forward movement, I held my glider up above my head, and the winged device activated. It looked depressingly like a Fortnight glider, with the wings and base replaced by three large GREMLIN thrust paddles. They fired hard, using a row of lightweight capacitors to output considerably more thrust than normal, enough so that I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck being dragged around by the moving air.
Once the internal gyroscope stabilized from my movements, the wings tilted back slightly, and what had been a slow forward-moving descent was now a much quicker forward descent. I traveled further and further down the road, past the garage and past the first parking lot. When I finally touched down, I was all the way down at the first row of trailers along the paved road.
I skidded a bit, but when I stabilized I couldn't help but jump, pumping my fist and shouting.
"That's what I'm fucking talking about!" I shouted, watching as Kaytlyn cheered from about halfway back to the security building, rushing toward me.
"Choom, that was fucking Nova!" She shouted, slapping my side. "I assumed you were gonna make some sort of grappling gun or something!"
"Nope, this is the solution," I explained, a big old smile on my face. "It's a bit overkill, but nothing wrong with that."
"Overkill? Jay, you glided like twice the distance we needed, easy!" She said, shaking her head. "Maybe more!"
"Gotta make sure," I responded with a shrug. "So, I guess you like it?"
"I'm pissed that I don't get to use one during the mission," She said with a frown, though that quickly washed away when she reached out and snagged it from me. "But I can use it now!"
"Hey, be careful!" I called out after her as she rushed back to the temporary security building. "You need to put on your armor first, if you fall without your jump kit you're gonna break something!"
The overeager woman skidded to a stop, and passed the glider to Jackie, who had just stepped out from beside the garage, Misty right beside him. He looked confused as to what he was holding, and why Kaytlyn had run past him like a bat out of hell.
"What's going on, Genio? We heard you cheering," Jackie asked, looking over the glider. "What did you build this time?"
"That's what's going to get us between buildings for our gig," I explained, accepting the equipment as he passed it to me. "Just watch."
I quickly climbed up the bird's nest again, once again leaping off with a boost from my jump kit. I could hear Misty gasp as I did, before once again activating the glider. Rather than aiming down the road, this time, I aimed for the garage, landing smoothly on the much closer target.
Jackie blurred up the stairs, literally, activating his Sandy and damn near appearing beside me. He looked just as excited, if not more so, than Kaytlyn.
"Holy hell, Genio! You got some serious air time!" He said,l moving around, trying to get a better view of the glider. "That thing going to hold me and Riggs?"
"Yeah, should do fine with either of you," I assured him, pulling it back when he reached out to touch it. "Go get your gear on if you want to try it."
I chuckled as he nodded and ran, heading back down to the trailer he had claimed as his own. I made my way down a bit slower, stopping by Misty.
"Are you sure that thing is safe?" She asked, chewing a bit on her cheek. "It's not gonna run out of batteries or anything, right?"
"It's as safe as I can make it," I assured her. "And even if it does fail, that's what these are for."
I reached back and tapped my jump kit, directing Misty's attention to it.
"This is a jump kit, and it's what gave me that initial boost of forward momentum," I explained. "It would automatically stabilize and engage to prevent any injury from falling, and it works from pretty high up. Not terminal velocity or anything, but certainly a dozen stories or so."
That seemed to mollify her slightly, though she still didn't look ecstatic about it. Unsurprisingly, Kaytlyn returned first, snagging the glider and running across the street to the gunner's nest. She was wearing all her armor and her jump kit, using it to boost halfway up the ladder before scurrying up the rest. With no hesitation whatsoever, she leaped off the building, her kit launching her forward. Because she liked to show off, she did a flip mid-air before activating the glider and slowly gliding to the ground.
Jackie showed up, followed by a groggy but interested-looking Vik. Jackie was about to run after Kaytlyn, but I stopped him.
"There are more in the garage. Just make sure you turn it on," I warned. "It's the big green button on the end of the handlebar."
Jackie's first leap was a bit more hesitant than Kaytlyn's, but he let out a whoop of excitement as he slowly glided to the ground. Vik watched with wide eyes as his good friends floated through the sky, eventually angling down and skidding to a stop along the asphalt.
"Well… That's not what I expected to wake up to," He admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Is that safe?"
"Yup, as safe as I can make it," I repeated. "I'd offer for you guys to try it, but you don't have the right armor."
"Yeah, thanks, but hell no," Vik said, sounding horrified by the idea. "I'm feeling nauseous just watching them. There's a reason I work in the ground."
"Phobia of heights?"
"It's only a phobia if it's unreasonable."
I chuckled and nodded, using my hand to block the rising sun from my eyes, watching Kaytlyn jump again. The two of them jumped several more times, eventually trying to compete on who could get the furthest. Even Riggs tried it twice, wanting to get a feel for the activity before we actually had to do it under pressure.
Eventually, while trying to improve on her earlier flip, Kaytlyn finally pushed too far, and the glider's gyroscope lost its bearings. She spiraled for a moment, the glider almost recovering before her jump kit kicked in, boosting at full to cushion her landing. Misty gasped, and Vik almost threw up, but she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off.
"I'm okay!" She called out, wobbling for a second before shaking it off completely. "Wooo, that was a bit of a trip."
"Your welcome, would have sucked falling from the sky without the armor, wouldn't it?" I pointed out, the woman waving away my words.
"Yeah, yeah, I never said putting on safety gear was wrong, Gonk," She responded. Before I could react, Jackie spoke up.
"Hey, Jay… how hard would it be to fly with this?" Jackie asked, looking down at his glider, having made his way over when Kaytlyn fell. "I mean… the jump kits put out some thrust, right? Couldn't they like... boost us up or something?"
For a moment, I stared at him before quickly doing some math in my head. By design, the jump kits put out a considerable amount of thrust for short bursts. That said, they could be modified to fire less powerfully but for a more prolonged period…
"It's not impossible, but I would have to modify the programming of your jump kit," I answered, running my hand through my hair as I considered the idea. "It would also be a mess to fly, it's really not designed for that. I could make something else that was… More stable. Even then, it would probably be a bit clunky, and you would be a pretty easy target."
"Easy target?! Bendejo, who cares about getting shot, I just wanna fly around!" He said, waving around the town. "Do you have any idea how much fun that would be?"
"This is crazy enough, Jackie," I said, shaking my head. "We start flying around all day, and someone is going to see and come find out how we are doing it. Someday though, someday I'll make you something that you can fly around in, promise."
"Fucking corpo bastards, ruining all our fun," he said, though he nodded in understanding. "I get it, choom, sucks though."
"It really does," I agreed, shaking my head. "I wish I didn't have to worry about it. I would be releasing all sorts of shit by now. Unfortunately, we can't. At least not yet."
The mood turned down a bit after that conversation, though we ended up having a relatively enjoyable breakfast with everyone. Once we were done, Jackie drove everyone into town while I, as usual, headed to the garage. The plan was to attack our target the following night under the cover of darkness, and I needed to prepare two things.
First, I needed to put the final touches on our gliders. The design was finished, and as they were, they worked perfectly, but for this specific mission, they needed to be altered slightly. It only took about an hour to finish, but once it was done, I had them put to the side, with a specter watching over them to keep anyone from using them again. I had a MRVN unit print and assemble another one for people to use if they wanted.
With the gliders finished, I had something else to design. As a rescue mission, our main priority was, unsurprisingly, to rescue our target. It didn't matter how tough or clever we were. If Akiko was hurt during our rescue attempt, we failed. One would think that the Tyger Claws would hold their fire so as to not hurt the woman they had gone through so much effort to drag back to Night City, but I did not trust them to be that smart. While our plan was designed to avoid as much combat as possible, it still meant we would be dragging around an unarmored, squishy civilian through what was probably going to be our most intense firefight yet.
Not that I had a particularly long list at this point.
Rather than just buy a kevlar vest and cross my fingers, I had a better idea. I designed a loose, kevlar, and Alien Alloy suit, one that anyone smaller than Jackie would be swimming in. Then, I laced it with my advanced artificial muscles. When activated, that would pull the suit tight, scrunching up all the access material into areas that wouldn't get in the way. The result was a one-size-fits-all suit that could be put on as easily as stepping into a pair of particularly loose sweatpants. These would then immediately tighten up to normal pants level, making them more reasonable to wear while moving around.
This full-body suit wouldn't be particularly athletic, nor would it offer any sort of physical enhancement other than durability. Primarily, this was because I didn't want the user to get overconfident because they could bench press a small MaiMai, and suddenly decide they could help. On top of that, while I was being paid to rescue her, I didn't know much about Akiko, nor would I necessarily know much about anyone I ended up using this on. It was designed for rapid deployment and protection, but I wasn't about to hand over some sort of uber-strength-enhancing armor just because someone paid me to help them.
For the same reason, the suit could also tense up, locking the wearer up completely. This would prevent them from doing something stupid should they get any dumb ideas like wanting revenge before we left. It would also allow Riggs to pick them up like a sack of potatoes and carry them, just in case Carlos was wrong and this hadn't been a kidnapping, or, again, any future clients could be kept out of trouble for their own good.
I was putting the finishing touches on the design, handing off the printing process to a MRVN unit, when the first of the concrete trucks arrived. It wasn't really necessary for me to be around for the pouring, Riggs played Borg well enough to cover in-person stuff, but I took a break and headed out to the perimeter anyway. The concrete truck was already prepared to pour out into a foundation framework along one side of the asphalt road. Riggs was standing close by, talking to someone wearing a hard hat and an orange vest. The AI noticed me, directing the man he was talking to to me.
After a quick conversation, confirming that all foundations were dug and ready, as well as a quick walk around the perimeter to show them all to him, the man hopped back into the truck and began to pour. Soon, the vehicle was driving along the perimeter, filling frames and running over bush and occasional cacti. Not long after the first truck showed up, two more arrived, eventually followed by a fourth. With permission and an explanation already given, the three other trucks and their operators immediately got to work, and within three hours, they were done.
After a quick check to make sure everything was correctly filled, and a quick test to confirm they had used good-quality concrete. When we were done, I shook hands with the man in the hard hat, who thanked me for the job as the other three trucks rolled away.
"Sir, this concrete should be ready to work on by tomorrow night and fully cured for the following afternoon," Noah explained as the last truck pulled away. "With your permission, I would like to set up half of the completed molly makers preparing parts."
"...that sounds reasonable," I agreed with a nod. "When the makers are complete, use the new and freed-up machines to make five more MRVNs and ten more specters, arming each of them with a rifle and a pistol. I want them in one of the empty trailers, ready and waiting for us to need them."
"Understood, sir. I will get everything started."
Noah walked away, and for a moment, I stood there, looking out into the wastes. I could see Night City in the distance, and part of me wondered just what kind of threat would meet us out here first. I knew for a fact that the other shoe would drop eventually, it was just a matter of time. I needed to reach out to some people and figure out who was willing and able to help by being our cover. My first instinct was to reach out to Dakota, because, depending on who was around, a nomad family would be the perfect fit for what I needed.
In canon, the Aldecados should be around, but who knew if that was true or not.
With the foundations for our first defenses poured, I went back to the garage to start putting together the suit. It was basically printed in batches that I just fused together and finished off with a control unit that ran along the user's back. It looked like the same nervous system readers that functioned as the brain of our suits, but was really just a power and control unit, taking commands from a remote that anyone on the team could be carrying.
Call me paranoid, but I was not about to have the rescue mission go wrong because Akiko was confused and did something stupid. I would rather drag her along screaming and trying to break free of the locked-up suit, than try and coral her as she, or any other future target, ran around panicking or otherwise causing problems.
I was testing the rescue suit, having Kaytlyn put it on and try to break free, and testing the range of motion and things like that when Jackie returned. He had spent some time with Misty, then visited Carlos to tell him when to show up here to pick up his wife. Finally, he had gone to the Coyote to say hello to his mother.
When he arrived to see Kaytlyn jumping into the rescue suit, he unsurprisingly had questions. When I explained the creation, he nodded in understanding.
"Not a bad idea, wouldn't be the first civilian to get themselves in trouble 'cause they panicked," He admitted, his experience shining through. "Though I don't think Akiko quite counts as a real villain, not if she grew up a Claw."
After confirming that the suit worked, we all went about our ways to prepare. I went over everyone's weapons, checking for any issues and even tinkering a bit to update them, though nothing massive.
Jackie spent a while practicing and training with his Sandy, learning how to shoot and dodge while moving as a blur. By and large, we were basically just killing time until our mission was on. We all went to bed early, knowing that we would be up late for the following night.
Unfortunately, while I was hoping to get some extra sleep, going to bed early, for me at least, just meant waking up early the next day. Now I had a whole day to kill, the sun barely rising as I walked to the garage, Duke running around me. Samwise greeted me, assembling a mag rifle at his workstation with his small arms while typing on the computer with his normal ones.
"Jackson, we completed the installation of molly makers last night," He explained. "Current projects are now specter and weapons production, as well as the armor plating and heavy weapons for the hardpoints."
After having a brief discussion with Noah and Murtaugh, we concluded that using Alien Alloy to reinforce the armored hard points was not worth the effort. My Alien Alloy production hadn't really changed that much, mostly because it wasn't all that necessary anymore. I liked using it as armor because it was light and very strong, but I had gained a lot of material science knowledge from Titanfall, so I had several alloys that were actually comparable to the strange material. It was still unbeatable in terms of strength-to-weight ratio, but for an emplacement that wasn't going to be moving, what was the point of making it lighter?
Still, I should probably bump up the production rates for the impressive metal. I would hate to run into a project that AA would genuinely work well in, only to realize I couldn't produce it nearly as fast as I wanted to. Worse, I would have to engage with the building process directly since it was a black-boxed material, meaning only I could make it.
Either way, the production of the armored hard points was going to include mainly, if not wholly, mundane materials, though mixed and matched to create some impressive alloys and combinations. Luckily, the polymer cubes that we were producing by the thousands would finally be used as filler for the armored barriers.
The material had other uses, of course, namely in several advanced polymers that were used in Titanfall tech, but only in small amounts. We produced a staggering amount of them from the mass recycler, and after some intense processing, they would be the perfect barricade filler.
"Alright, buddy. Just keep me updated on how that's going. I can't wait to see what you guys have come up with."
Sam nodded and focused on his work while I sat down in my chair and spun around. I had a few hours, several in fact, to kill before it was time to start gearing up. So, rather than solve the problem that I just described, namely the AA rate of production, I started working on a design that had been sitting in the back of my head.
Now that I had Duke and Kaytlyn had her cat, I was starting to wonder, what if I made an animal for everyone? One for Jackie, each of the AIs, and even something simple and generic for the specters and the MRVNs. In fact, the MRVNs could really use something to carry tools and materials, and the specter's largest flaw, by far, was how useless they were in a melee. A robot that could compensate for either of those issues would massively increase their effectiveness…
With a smirk, I leaned over my computer and opened up my design software. First, I would make something for Jackie, since I knew my AI could be more patient than him. At first, I considered making him some sort of bird or something small, but eventually, I realized something. He was not a gentle person to fight beside, he tended to walk right into the thick of it. That meant that whatever animal I built for him, it needed to be something that could hit hard and get hit hard, all while still kicking ass.
An hour of brainstorming later, and I settled on building him a big old fuck off ram. With the right bit of flair and detail, I was sure I could make something that could bash down doors and would still fit Jackie as a companion.
I was mostly through the design process and was starting to tinker with the coding, using Duke's basic programming as a base, when I realized that it was late afternoon and it was time to start getting ready. All of us put our armor on, tested our weapons, and loaded up on ammo. Each of us took another try with a newly made glider, not one of the mission ones, of course, just to make sure we could handle it while we were all loaded up.
When we were finally ready, we all piled into the Emperor. It was a bit of a tight fit, especially with all our gear, but it wasn't the time to complain about having no legroom.
We left the Rocky Ridge at five o'clock, and by six, we had backed the Emperor into a long alleyway close to the row of buildings across the street from our target. Carefully and quietly, we unloaded, the sky getting darker and darker by the minute. With our weapons strapped to our backs and our gliders over them, we slowly began to climb a ladder, with Riggs in the lead. Once we were all on the rooftop, we began the process of making our way from one to the other, keeping low and quiet as we jumped, boosted, and climbed our way across the skyline.
Finally, after ten minutes, we reached the last building, the corner from which we would have to leap across to get to the Tyger Claw compound roof. Once we were settled, I carefully made my way to the furthest edge of the building.
Taking cover beside an air condition unit, I peered around and down slightly. We had the perfect angle to see the roof of our target. Currently, there were five people, all dressed and tattooed like Claws, all heavily armed and significantly chipped. Unsurprisingly, they were armed with sniper rifles, ranging from smaller calibers meant to mop up, to larger rifles meant to put heavy targets down.
After confirming we were in the right location, I slid back into cover behind a large vent and gave Jackie a thumbs-up. He nodded, sitting down out of sight as well. We were finally in position, and all we had to do was wait for the sun to set, and for Kaytlyn, who slid in beside me and was peeking over the lip of our building, to confirm that Akiko was, in fact, where she was supposed to be, namely safe in her apartment room.
Time passed, and eventually, as the city slowly got darker, sunlight fading as streetlights and more came on, Kaytlyn pulled back.
"The target is in her room, under guard but safe," Kayt said, pulling back from the edge, and sitting behind cover. "We are ready to go whenever."
"Right… Well, settle in, everyone. Another hour or so, and then we move." Jackie said, the rest of us nodding in confirmation.
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I woke up a little later than normal the next day, quickly heading outside to find that the garage was a bustle of activity. Sometime during the night, the addition had finally been completed, and Noah, Samwise, and the MRVN units had started moving in the molly makers and hooking them up. I made my way inside to find that there were already a dozen small makers along the wall closest to my workspace, and they were all already working to create more parts for more machines. Further into the addition, a dozen more molly makers were being put together, specifically the medium and up sizes. I worked my way to Samwise, who was watching over the construction of the largest maker we would have in the building.
"Damn, Samwise, how many makers did you have ready to go?"
"Quite a few, Jackson," He responded, passing me a tablet filled with more detailed information. "We have been printing the parts whenever the makers are free and storing them in several of the less livable trailer homes. After stripping them of furniture and making a few quick repairs, they made excellent temporary storage."
"Well… good work," I said, watching as a MRVN unit pushed in a cart of more parts. "This is much faster than I thought we would be going."
"Sir, I expect we will be finished transporting the parts in the next hour or so. After that, four concrete trucks are scheduled to arrive and pour the foundations for the first twenty-four hardpoints," Noah explained. "By the time the concrete has solidified, these facilities will be complete, meaning we can immediately begin fabricating the defensive structures."
"Sounds like a solid plan," I said with a nod. "I spotted a few MRVN units working last night, I assume they were digging the foundations?"
"Correct."
"Excellent work, guys," I said with a smile, patting them both on the shoulder. "I knew I could trust the both of you, and you're still outdoing my expectations. Thank you for all your hard work."
We chatted a bit more, discussing what the final defensive hard points would look like, as well as their current demand for MRVNs, before I went into my section of the workshop. There, weighting for me was the finished gadgets I had designed the day before, the equipment we would use to clear the large gap between the Tyger building and the nearest civilian building in our current mission. I spent a few minutes going over one of them, checking to make sure that everything was functional and together, before putting on my full uniform, including my jump kit.
I was climbing up to the sniper's nest on top of the temporary security building when Kaytlyn spotted me.
"What are you doing?" She asked, standing at the base of the ladder as I looked down. "What's that you got with you?"
"It's the key to jumping the gap!" I explained before running and leaping off the roof of the tall building.
My jump kit fired off just as my feet were leaving the roof, carrying me forward a significant distance, before my forward momentum started to fade. Just before the downward momentum really started to affect my forward movement, I held my glider up above my head, and the winged device activated. It looked depressingly like a Fortnight glider, with the wings and base replaced by three large GREMLIN thrust paddles. They fired hard, using a row of lightweight capacitors to output considerably more thrust than normal, enough so that I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck being dragged around by the moving air.
Once the internal gyroscope stabilized from my movements, the wings tilted back slightly, and what had been a slow forward-moving descent was now a much quicker forward descent. I traveled further and further down the road, past the garage and past the first parking lot. When I finally touched down, I was all the way down at the first row of trailers along the paved road.
I skidded a bit, but when I stabilized I couldn't help but jump, pumping my fist and shouting.
"That's what I'm fucking talking about!" I shouted, watching as Kaytlyn cheered from about halfway back to the security building, rushing toward me.
"Choom, that was fucking Nova!" She shouted, slapping my side. "I assumed you were gonna make some sort of grappling gun or something!"
"Nope, this is the solution," I explained, a big old smile on my face. "It's a bit overkill, but nothing wrong with that."
"Overkill? Jay, you glided like twice the distance we needed, easy!" She said, shaking her head. "Maybe more!"
"Gotta make sure," I responded with a shrug. "So, I guess you like it?"
"I'm pissed that I don't get to use one during the mission," She said with a frown, though that quickly washed away when she reached out and snagged it from me. "But I can use it now!"
"Hey, be careful!" I called out after her as she rushed back to the temporary security building. "You need to put on your armor first, if you fall without your jump kit you're gonna break something!"
The overeager woman skidded to a stop, and passed the glider to Jackie, who had just stepped out from beside the garage, Misty right beside him. He looked confused as to what he was holding, and why Kaytlyn had run past him like a bat out of hell.
"What's going on, Genio? We heard you cheering," Jackie asked, looking over the glider. "What did you build this time?"
"That's what's going to get us between buildings for our gig," I explained, accepting the equipment as he passed it to me. "Just watch."
I quickly climbed up the bird's nest again, once again leaping off with a boost from my jump kit. I could hear Misty gasp as I did, before once again activating the glider. Rather than aiming down the road, this time, I aimed for the garage, landing smoothly on the much closer target.
Jackie blurred up the stairs, literally, activating his Sandy and damn near appearing beside me. He looked just as excited, if not more so, than Kaytlyn.
"Holy hell, Genio! You got some serious air time!" He said,l moving around, trying to get a better view of the glider. "That thing going to hold me and Riggs?"
"Yeah, should do fine with either of you," I assured him, pulling it back when he reached out to touch it. "Go get your gear on if you want to try it."
I chuckled as he nodded and ran, heading back down to the trailer he had claimed as his own. I made my way down a bit slower, stopping by Misty.
"Are you sure that thing is safe?" She asked, chewing a bit on her cheek. "It's not gonna run out of batteries or anything, right?"
"It's as safe as I can make it," I assured her. "And even if it does fail, that's what these are for."
I reached back and tapped my jump kit, directing Misty's attention to it.
"This is a jump kit, and it's what gave me that initial boost of forward momentum," I explained. "It would automatically stabilize and engage to prevent any injury from falling, and it works from pretty high up. Not terminal velocity or anything, but certainly a dozen stories or so."
That seemed to mollify her slightly, though she still didn't look ecstatic about it. Unsurprisingly, Kaytlyn returned first, snagging the glider and running across the street to the gunner's nest. She was wearing all her armor and her jump kit, using it to boost halfway up the ladder before scurrying up the rest. With no hesitation whatsoever, she leaped off the building, her kit launching her forward. Because she liked to show off, she did a flip mid-air before activating the glider and slowly gliding to the ground.
Jackie showed up, followed by a groggy but interested-looking Vik. Jackie was about to run after Kaytlyn, but I stopped him.
"There are more in the garage. Just make sure you turn it on," I warned. "It's the big green button on the end of the handlebar."
Jackie's first leap was a bit more hesitant than Kaytlyn's, but he let out a whoop of excitement as he slowly glided to the ground. Vik watched with wide eyes as his good friends floated through the sky, eventually angling down and skidding to a stop along the asphalt.
"Well… That's not what I expected to wake up to," He admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Is that safe?"
"Yup, as safe as I can make it," I repeated. "I'd offer for you guys to try it, but you don't have the right armor."
"Yeah, thanks, but hell no," Vik said, sounding horrified by the idea. "I'm feeling nauseous just watching them. There's a reason I work in the ground."
"Phobia of heights?"
"It's only a phobia if it's unreasonable."
I chuckled and nodded, using my hand to block the rising sun from my eyes, watching Kaytlyn jump again. The two of them jumped several more times, eventually trying to compete on who could get the furthest. Even Riggs tried it twice, wanting to get a feel for the activity before we actually had to do it under pressure.
Eventually, while trying to improve on her earlier flip, Kaytlyn finally pushed too far, and the glider's gyroscope lost its bearings. She spiraled for a moment, the glider almost recovering before her jump kit kicked in, boosting at full to cushion her landing. Misty gasped, and Vik almost threw up, but she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off.
"I'm okay!" She called out, wobbling for a second before shaking it off completely. "Wooo, that was a bit of a trip."
"Your welcome, would have sucked falling from the sky without the armor, wouldn't it?" I pointed out, the woman waving away my words.
"Yeah, yeah, I never said putting on safety gear was wrong, Gonk," She responded. Before I could react, Jackie spoke up.
"Hey, Jay… how hard would it be to fly with this?" Jackie asked, looking down at his glider, having made his way over when Kaytlyn fell. "I mean… the jump kits put out some thrust, right? Couldn't they like... boost us up or something?"
For a moment, I stared at him before quickly doing some math in my head. By design, the jump kits put out a considerable amount of thrust for short bursts. That said, they could be modified to fire less powerfully but for a more prolonged period…
"It's not impossible, but I would have to modify the programming of your jump kit," I answered, running my hand through my hair as I considered the idea. "It would also be a mess to fly, it's really not designed for that. I could make something else that was… More stable. Even then, it would probably be a bit clunky, and you would be a pretty easy target."
"Easy target?! Bendejo, who cares about getting shot, I just wanna fly around!" He said, waving around the town. "Do you have any idea how much fun that would be?"
"This is crazy enough, Jackie," I said, shaking my head. "We start flying around all day, and someone is going to see and come find out how we are doing it. Someday though, someday I'll make you something that you can fly around in, promise."
"Fucking corpo bastards, ruining all our fun," he said, though he nodded in understanding. "I get it, choom, sucks though."
"It really does," I agreed, shaking my head. "I wish I didn't have to worry about it. I would be releasing all sorts of shit by now. Unfortunately, we can't. At least not yet."
The mood turned down a bit after that conversation, though we ended up having a relatively enjoyable breakfast with everyone. Once we were done, Jackie drove everyone into town while I, as usual, headed to the garage. The plan was to attack our target the following night under the cover of darkness, and I needed to prepare two things.
First, I needed to put the final touches on our gliders. The design was finished, and as they were, they worked perfectly, but for this specific mission, they needed to be altered slightly. It only took about an hour to finish, but once it was done, I had them put to the side, with a specter watching over them to keep anyone from using them again. I had a MRVN unit print and assemble another one for people to use if they wanted.
With the gliders finished, I had something else to design. As a rescue mission, our main priority was, unsurprisingly, to rescue our target. It didn't matter how tough or clever we were. If Akiko was hurt during our rescue attempt, we failed. One would think that the Tyger Claws would hold their fire so as to not hurt the woman they had gone through so much effort to drag back to Night City, but I did not trust them to be that smart. While our plan was designed to avoid as much combat as possible, it still meant we would be dragging around an unarmored, squishy civilian through what was probably going to be our most intense firefight yet.
Not that I had a particularly long list at this point.
Rather than just buy a kevlar vest and cross my fingers, I had a better idea. I designed a loose, kevlar, and Alien Alloy suit, one that anyone smaller than Jackie would be swimming in. Then, I laced it with my advanced artificial muscles. When activated, that would pull the suit tight, scrunching up all the access material into areas that wouldn't get in the way. The result was a one-size-fits-all suit that could be put on as easily as stepping into a pair of particularly loose sweatpants. These would then immediately tighten up to normal pants level, making them more reasonable to wear while moving around.
This full-body suit wouldn't be particularly athletic, nor would it offer any sort of physical enhancement other than durability. Primarily, this was because I didn't want the user to get overconfident because they could bench press a small MaiMai, and suddenly decide they could help. On top of that, while I was being paid to rescue her, I didn't know much about Akiko, nor would I necessarily know much about anyone I ended up using this on. It was designed for rapid deployment and protection, but I wasn't about to hand over some sort of uber-strength-enhancing armor just because someone paid me to help them.
For the same reason, the suit could also tense up, locking the wearer up completely. This would prevent them from doing something stupid should they get any dumb ideas like wanting revenge before we left. It would also allow Riggs to pick them up like a sack of potatoes and carry them, just in case Carlos was wrong and this hadn't been a kidnapping, or, again, any future clients could be kept out of trouble for their own good.
I was putting the finishing touches on the design, handing off the printing process to a MRVN unit, when the first of the concrete trucks arrived. It wasn't really necessary for me to be around for the pouring, Riggs played Borg well enough to cover in-person stuff, but I took a break and headed out to the perimeter anyway. The concrete truck was already prepared to pour out into a foundation framework along one side of the asphalt road. Riggs was standing close by, talking to someone wearing a hard hat and an orange vest. The AI noticed me, directing the man he was talking to to me.
After a quick conversation, confirming that all foundations were dug and ready, as well as a quick walk around the perimeter to show them all to him, the man hopped back into the truck and began to pour. Soon, the vehicle was driving along the perimeter, filling frames and running over bush and occasional cacti. Not long after the first truck showed up, two more arrived, eventually followed by a fourth. With permission and an explanation already given, the three other trucks and their operators immediately got to work, and within three hours, they were done.
After a quick check to make sure everything was correctly filled, and a quick test to confirm they had used good-quality concrete. When we were done, I shook hands with the man in the hard hat, who thanked me for the job as the other three trucks rolled away.
"Sir, this concrete should be ready to work on by tomorrow night and fully cured for the following afternoon," Noah explained as the last truck pulled away. "With your permission, I would like to set up half of the completed molly makers preparing parts."
"...that sounds reasonable," I agreed with a nod. "When the makers are complete, use the new and freed-up machines to make five more MRVNs and ten more specters, arming each of them with a rifle and a pistol. I want them in one of the empty trailers, ready and waiting for us to need them."
"Understood, sir. I will get everything started."
Noah walked away, and for a moment, I stood there, looking out into the wastes. I could see Night City in the distance, and part of me wondered just what kind of threat would meet us out here first. I knew for a fact that the other shoe would drop eventually, it was just a matter of time. I needed to reach out to some people and figure out who was willing and able to help by being our cover. My first instinct was to reach out to Dakota, because, depending on who was around, a nomad family would be the perfect fit for what I needed.
In canon, the Aldecados should be around, but who knew if that was true or not.
With the foundations for our first defenses poured, I went back to the garage to start putting together the suit. It was basically printed in batches that I just fused together and finished off with a control unit that ran along the user's back. It looked like the same nervous system readers that functioned as the brain of our suits, but was really just a power and control unit, taking commands from a remote that anyone on the team could be carrying.
Call me paranoid, but I was not about to have the rescue mission go wrong because Akiko was confused and did something stupid. I would rather drag her along screaming and trying to break free of the locked-up suit, than try and coral her as she, or any other future target, ran around panicking or otherwise causing problems.
I was testing the rescue suit, having Kaytlyn put it on and try to break free, and testing the range of motion and things like that when Jackie returned. He had spent some time with Misty, then visited Carlos to tell him when to show up here to pick up his wife. Finally, he had gone to the Coyote to say hello to his mother.
When he arrived to see Kaytlyn jumping into the rescue suit, he unsurprisingly had questions. When I explained the creation, he nodded in understanding.
"Not a bad idea, wouldn't be the first civilian to get themselves in trouble 'cause they panicked," He admitted, his experience shining through. "Though I don't think Akiko quite counts as a real villain, not if she grew up a Claw."
After confirming that the suit worked, we all went about our ways to prepare. I went over everyone's weapons, checking for any issues and even tinkering a bit to update them, though nothing massive.
Jackie spent a while practicing and training with his Sandy, learning how to shoot and dodge while moving as a blur. By and large, we were basically just killing time until our mission was on. We all went to bed early, knowing that we would be up late for the following night.
Unfortunately, while I was hoping to get some extra sleep, going to bed early, for me at least, just meant waking up early the next day. Now I had a whole day to kill, the sun barely rising as I walked to the garage, Duke running around me. Samwise greeted me, assembling a mag rifle at his workstation with his small arms while typing on the computer with his normal ones.
"Jackson, we completed the installation of molly makers last night," He explained. "Current projects are now specter and weapons production, as well as the armor plating and heavy weapons for the hardpoints."
After having a brief discussion with Noah and Murtaugh, we concluded that using Alien Alloy to reinforce the armored hard points was not worth the effort. My Alien Alloy production hadn't really changed that much, mostly because it wasn't all that necessary anymore. I liked using it as armor because it was light and very strong, but I had gained a lot of material science knowledge from Titanfall, so I had several alloys that were actually comparable to the strange material. It was still unbeatable in terms of strength-to-weight ratio, but for an emplacement that wasn't going to be moving, what was the point of making it lighter?
Still, I should probably bump up the production rates for the impressive metal. I would hate to run into a project that AA would genuinely work well in, only to realize I couldn't produce it nearly as fast as I wanted to. Worse, I would have to engage with the building process directly since it was a black-boxed material, meaning only I could make it.
Either way, the production of the armored hard points was going to include mainly, if not wholly, mundane materials, though mixed and matched to create some impressive alloys and combinations. Luckily, the polymer cubes that we were producing by the thousands would finally be used as filler for the armored barriers.
The material had other uses, of course, namely in several advanced polymers that were used in Titanfall tech, but only in small amounts. We produced a staggering amount of them from the mass recycler, and after some intense processing, they would be the perfect barricade filler.
"Alright, buddy. Just keep me updated on how that's going. I can't wait to see what you guys have come up with."
Sam nodded and focused on his work while I sat down in my chair and spun around. I had a few hours, several in fact, to kill before it was time to start gearing up. So, rather than solve the problem that I just described, namely the AA rate of production, I started working on a design that had been sitting in the back of my head.
Now that I had Duke and Kaytlyn had her cat, I was starting to wonder, what if I made an animal for everyone? One for Jackie, each of the AIs, and even something simple and generic for the specters and the MRVNs. In fact, the MRVNs could really use something to carry tools and materials, and the specter's largest flaw, by far, was how useless they were in a melee. A robot that could compensate for either of those issues would massively increase their effectiveness…
With a smirk, I leaned over my computer and opened up my design software. First, I would make something for Jackie, since I knew my AI could be more patient than him. At first, I considered making him some sort of bird or something small, but eventually, I realized something. He was not a gentle person to fight beside, he tended to walk right into the thick of it. That meant that whatever animal I built for him, it needed to be something that could hit hard and get hit hard, all while still kicking ass.
An hour of brainstorming later, and I settled on building him a big old fuck off ram. With the right bit of flair and detail, I was sure I could make something that could bash down doors and would still fit Jackie as a companion.
I was mostly through the design process and was starting to tinker with the coding, using Duke's basic programming as a base, when I realized that it was late afternoon and it was time to start getting ready. All of us put our armor on, tested our weapons, and loaded up on ammo. Each of us took another try with a newly made glider, not one of the mission ones, of course, just to make sure we could handle it while we were all loaded up.
When we were finally ready, we all piled into the Emperor. It was a bit of a tight fit, especially with all our gear, but it wasn't the time to complain about having no legroom.
We left the Rocky Ridge at five o'clock, and by six, we had backed the Emperor into a long alleyway close to the row of buildings across the street from our target. Carefully and quietly, we unloaded, the sky getting darker and darker by the minute. With our weapons strapped to our backs and our gliders over them, we slowly began to climb a ladder, with Riggs in the lead. Once we were all on the rooftop, we began the process of making our way from one to the other, keeping low and quiet as we jumped, boosted, and climbed our way across the skyline.
Finally, after ten minutes, we reached the last building, the corner from which we would have to leap across to get to the Tyger Claw compound roof. Once we were settled, I carefully made my way to the furthest edge of the building.
Taking cover beside an air condition unit, I peered around and down slightly. We had the perfect angle to see the roof of our target. Currently, there were five people, all dressed and tattooed like Claws, all heavily armed and significantly chipped. Unsurprisingly, they were armed with sniper rifles, ranging from smaller calibers meant to mop up, to larger rifles meant to put heavy targets down.
After confirming we were in the right location, I slid back into cover behind a large vent and gave Jackie a thumbs-up. He nodded, sitting down out of sight as well. We were finally in position, and all we had to do was wait for the sun to set, and for Kaytlyn, who slid in beside me and was peeking over the lip of our building, to confirm that Akiko was, in fact, where she was supposed to be, namely safe in her apartment room.
Time passed, and eventually, as the city slowly got darker, sunlight fading as streetlights and more came on, Kaytlyn pulled back.
"The target is in her room, under guard but safe," Kayt said, pulling back from the edge, and sitting behind cover. "We are ready to go whenever."
"Right… Well, settle in, everyone. Another hour or so, and then we move." Jackie said, the rest of us nodding in confirmation.