Outrun - Chapter 463 - Preparations (Patreon)

I twirled, and the maid outfit I was given spun around me and fanned out widely. “How do I look?”

”Like you’re having way too much fun?” Luna looked up from her deck. She sat just beside where I’d been working, and was curled up in one of my rolly chairs. It was the nicest of the bunch with a built-in footrest.

“Well… maybe a little bit.” I smoothed down the hem of my dress over my legs. I had fishnets on for once. They felt a little weird compared to my normal style, though they kinda looked good? “I was asking about the armor, though. Can you see it?”

“No.” Luna turned a critical eye on me. A moment later, Vox popped off the charger and waltzed over to us.

“That’s cheating.” I glared at the girl.

”It’s practical.” Luna just snorted and shook her head. Vox’s eyes glowed blue, and her sensors swept across my body. “How’d you hide it?”

”With way too much effort.” I tapped on my stomach, and my knuckles rapped against metal. I should probably add a layer of padding in case someone tried to touch me? Then again, how likely was I to get groped without cutting the person’s hand off first?

I rebuilt the maid outfit from the ground up to block all sorts of sensors. Underneath the frilly dress, I had on my Nightshade chestplate. The rest of my armor—gauntlets, arm and leg guards, boots, and helmet—would have to be smuggled in by Ronin. I already had all of them in a duffel bag and ready to go.

Panther’s Fang was thankfully an interface weapon. Naturally, that meant it was always by my side with just a thought, like the canteen. “Are you ready, too?”

”I’ll just throw on a sloppy button up shirt and slacks.” Luna shrugged. “Best I don’t overdress, actually. Netrunners aren’t known to care about material appearances."

”Fair.” The Hound’s assistant had managed to get her an ID to sneak in with too. Luna would be going as a Mystech R&D Netrunner. AKA, a DarkNet diver. The quickest way to get advanced tech was still to just steal it. If someone could survive the DarkNet, the AI that’d been left there had nothing to do but innovate tech. After a dive gone bad, she was put on the party boat to relax.

“Are we going to finally talk about it?” Luna snapped her deck shut, and set it down on a messy worktable to her side.

”Talk about what?” I not so subtly tried to dodge her question, and started to take the maid getup off. I didn’t want to dirty it before tomorrow.

”If you don’t want to, that’s fine.” She reached for her deck once more.

”Fine, fine… I’ll talk. Really forced it out of me, didn’t you?” I laughed lightly to hide my nerves, and swapped into something much more comfortable. “Where do I start?”

”How do you speak bird?”

“That… actually, I don’t have a totally clear answer on that myself.” Not like I had a Perk or Trait that let me understand Corvid. It wasn’t just Corvid either. I could understand all sprites for the most part… maybe it was Cues? “I’m not a Magi, and definitely not an Adept.”

”You even a Kinetic?” She asked.

”Chek.” Lightning sparked out of my hands, and flowed into a small fox. It was a little choppy, but I controlled it to dance around in a circle. How much should I even tell her? How much did I want to tell her? “Hmm… what I’m about to tell you can’t be shared, okay? I’ll be hunted down by everyone and their dog.”

“My lips are sealed.” She zipped her mouth shut, and tossed away the key. She then immediately broke open the seal. “We’re too mixed up anyway. I’d just bring trouble to myself.”

”It all started about a year ago. Just before I met Iris, actually.” I carefully gave Luna a pruned version of how I got the interface and everything I could do with it. I didn’t give her the exact details, though. Nobody needed to know that it could only be acquired by flatlining the previous Scion. That kind of information was just trouble.

Instead, I changed it to more of a chosen one type story. I, Shiro Tsukuyomi, was lucky to be chosen as this generation’s Scion. ‘Course, with that out of the way, I had to tell her about the rest of the interface and what I could do.

By the time I finished, the workshop was entirely silent. Err—that wasn’t quite right. Luna was silent. The rest of the workshop was still as noisy as ever. I had my machines mass producing parts for a full body Gravitite Barrier prototype I was working on.

”So… you can just do anything?” She asked quietly after a moment.

”Kinda? But not really.” Net was still way outside my comfort zone. There were definitely Skills I hadn’t even gotten yet. “The way I see it, it speeds up what I could’ve already done and gives a little help here and there.”

She slowly nodded her head, and ran a frail hand through her pale hair. “I can see why you didn’t say anything. That’s a more dangerous secret than me being a technomancer. Can you give these Perks to other people?”

“I don’t think so.” Though that would be a cool addition. Hint, hint, cough, cough, eidolons. I would’ve loved to give Mira some Perks or something if I could. “Technically I could buy stuff for you from the shop, though?”

”Pass…”

I idly scratched at a splotch of paint on one of my worktables. ”You, uh, you don’t look super surprised?”

“Well, I figured there was something. You always seem to whip out one new thing after another… and then asking the sprites to talk to Eidolons was a dead giveaway.” Luna looked at me like I was a weirdo. “You’re probably the only person in the world that treats them so casually.”

”It’d be hard not to if you’d seen what I’d seen.” I coughed lightly. The eidolons… in some ways, they were truly incredibly magical patrons. In other ways, well, a bit simple? Animalistic? I wasn’t sure what to say, really.

I’d also only personally met a very small selection of the more friendly ones. I had no doubt that didn’t go for all of them. Panther, in particular, seemed like a psychopath obsessed with bloodshed. I only knew of, what, a dozen or so of them? There were probably some deeply alien ones warped by their exposure to the Aether.

”So when we’ve worked on code, and you just seemed to know exactly where there was an issue—“

”That was Badger’s Code Scan.” I shrugged. “I also just got a Perk called Weakness Wrangler that’ll point out the weakest link in the code.”

”That’s helpful.” She twirled a strand of white hair around her finger. “What about Flora’s Daughter? You don’t have any plants around here.”

I winced, and shook my head. ”There’s a few upstairs.”

“Why—?” Understanding dawned on her face. “Ah, right. She Who Grows, right? Are you… scared of greenery?”

“What?! No! Totally not!” I shouted, and then slumped back into my chair. “M-maybe a bit… my counselor says I need to work on that, but I’m just so busy, you know?”

”You’re never too busy to self improve.” She said that like she was quoting from a self-help book. “What are you going to do when we head to Lathvin?”

”What do you mean?” What did Lathvin have to do with anything?

She grabbed one of my holo-pucks, and tossed it out to project a list of plants. ”The FSA is a pretty dead desert, but the rest of the world isn’t. There’s going to be plants all over that place. Especially outside the city.”

”I…” I hadn’t thought of that. Was it too late to back out? Wait, no… I wasn’t terrified of plants. I just—I just didn’t like them. I strongly didn’t like them.

“You should probably work on that before we leave…” Luna turned off the puck, and a self-deprecating smile wormed its way onto her lips. “I”m probably the last person who should be saying something about it.”

”No, no… you have a point.” I’d been letting the memory of what happened control me for too long. More importantly, I wouldn’t have the choice of avoidance down in Lathvin. “After this… chek, after this I’ll work on it.”

I wouldn’t go visit the Aythryn Exclusion Zone and the world tree at its center. I wasn’t stupid enough to do that. I could, however, go back to the Helix garden or something. That wasn't too bad of an idea. I enjoyed it the last time I was there with Sean. Or I could just say I was going to do it, and then kick the issue down the line to Future Shiro. I liked that plan a lot, actually!

I checked the time, and stood up. We were almost running late. “Let’s get going.”

”Already?” Luna sighed, and slowly crawled out of her comfy position in the rolly chair.

— — —

-

Nael: Albert’s a good friend with a pretty good street rep. We’ve done a few charity events together, though he usually treats joytoys while I take on families. Could do a lot worse.

-

I flicked the message off my HUD. Since I was about to have an unknown medek operate on me, ‘course I checked with Nael first about the whole thing. If Nael okayed him, then he couldn’t be too bad.

“Ugh, can you hurry up?” Luna complained from her spot just behind me on the Roughrider. We were at a high hover just above the city.

”Almost done.” I dabbed a bit more stuff onto my face, and pulled away. Even though I had Master of Disguise, I still decided to cover my bases. My scar was covered up, and I looked a little older.

I swirled around a bottle of rigid collodion, a quick-drying liquid that contracted as it dried. It was used to make fake scars, and it did a damn fine job at that. Who would’ve thought, but Shen Kang’s makeup products were surprisingly good. Especially considering their price.

I had a new scar running in a very noticeable x-pattern across my other eye. Something so noticeable would be easy to remember, which was really important. All my efforts to learn makeup back at SPS were actually paying off for once. “How do I look?”

”Fine, I guess.” Luna curled around me on the bike to look at my face. “You sure that stuff will be work?.”

”I should hope so. It was their most expensive product.” I had it drone delivered a couple days ago in preparation for this moment. Unless I used the remover that I had to order separately—greedy bastards—it wouldn’t come off.

“Can we go now?” Luna whined behind me.

“When’d you turn so whiny?” I muttered under my breath, and stashed away all my gear in a saddle bag. Just as I’d been doing quite frequently recently, I didn’t have on my normal clothes. Instead, I was dressed like a corpo that just got off from her job.

”When’d you turn into such a pretty princess?” She shot back at me.

”Whatever.” I dropped our altitude abruptly, and she lunged forward to hang onto me. The Roughrider zoomed low through the city and parked at a flyer bay at the top of a parking garage.

“Remember the cover story?” I asked. We were going to get the adversarial patterns from the Hound’s associate, which was why I was so prepared.

”Shiro, no one’s going to ask our full life story.” She hopped off the Roughrider with a roll of her eyes. “When did you even find time to write out a ten-page document documenting my childhood to now?”

”While I was bored waiting for the drone delivery.” It… might have been a little excessive, to be honest. No, that was the voices talking. It was perfectly reasonable.

The two of us moved down through the parking garage. We were in Little Yukoto on the edge of Portside, and headed to a Medek clinic I’d never been to. Granted, I’d never let anyone but Nael work on me. That’d have to change this time around, though. It was also why I asked Luna to come with and watch over me while the Hound’s associate did his thing.

We walked through a deserted shopping mall, and down a dingy back alley. A green cross flickered on and off halfway down the alley. It was almost entirely abandoned—except for one man. Tex, ‘cause ‘course we just happened to come at the same time, leaned against the entrance of the clinic with smoke swirling in the air around him.

Luna tugged on my hand to slow me. She whispered to me, “he’s already got the adversarial patterns.”

”Chek.” I turned away and muttered randomly to her like we were having an argument. After a moment, I convinced her to keep moving down the alley toward him.

“A-are you sure we should do this, Liza?” Luna tugged on my hand once more. So she did read the document! Page 8 was all about me, Bethany’s best friend forever, Liza.

Liza, at complete odds with my actual wonderful self, was an innocent and peppy girl with extremely rich parents. My thirty page document gave me a complete and total backstory that no one but myself would probably be interested in.

“Yeah, Bethy. It’ll totes be fine!” Ugh, cringe. Someone kill me. The performance was needed though. I’d felt Tex’s eyes on me since I entered the place

We approached even closer. Tex took a drag of his cigarette, and flicked the smoldering bud out into the alleyway. It hissed where it met the wet pavement. He shook his head like he just talked himself out of something only to look back at me. His eyes traced the scar over my eye.

“Mister, mister, are you a pervert?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest, and slunk back away from the man like a timid school girl. I fell back into a doe-eyed stare with Honest Face. “Why do you keep looking at me?”

”What?” Tex snapped out of his speculative daze, and he shook his head. He pushed off the wall, causing the spurs on his boots to ring slightly. “Sorry, miss. You just reminded me of someone.”

”That’s what they all say.” I wouldn’t just left him back off now, though. I needed to know if he knew something. “Do I need to call my big brothers in the Jade Fang to come fuck you up?”

”Definitely not.” Tex let out a miffed laugh, and scratched at the back of his head. “Damn, you really are like my sister.”

He watched me for a moment longer, the observant bastard. The moment passed, and he seemed to lose interest. He took a wide berth of us, and walked down the alley back the way we came. His spurs rang with every step.

“Liza, maybe we should go somewhere else?” Luna spoke my name slightly louder as if the emphasize her voice. Girl, we really need to work on your acting lessons.

“No chance bestie! This guy’s the best in the city.” I opened up the door. “Don’t let some middle-aged creep in cowboy cosplay scare you off. I bet that guy couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn!”

Tex staggered and clutched at his chest like I’d just shot him. A vindictive sneer appeared on my face for a split second before I went back to my doe-eyed peppy girl look.

Thankfully, all my preparations paid off and he didn’t recognize us. We pushed into Al’s Clinic, and a buzzer went off in the back. Unlike Nael’s place, this one actually had a front reception area. One manned by an old model android. It looked kinda human shaped, though its skin was see through to all the mechanics below.

The robot spoke up. “Wel-come. What can we do for you?”

”I have an appointment.” I moved up to the counter, and leaned onto it like I was bored. “Doctor Albert should be expecting me?”

”A-firm-a-tive.” The android rotated at the hip, and operated a terminal set off to the side. “Name?”

I thought back to the code Talia sent me through Moonfall. ”Um, Midnight is the best time.”

The android turned toward me slowly, and its sensors narrowed on my face. “I pre-fer dawn.”

The next part of the code was… “There’s too much shade then.”

“A-firm-a-tive.” The android pressed tapped on the mouse, and a door off to the back slid open. “The doc-tor is wait-ing.”

”C’mon.” Luna and I entered the back of the clinic. It was a pure white room with plastic wrap lining a central medek surgical chair. A back wall was totally covered in display pieces of chrome.

“I was only expecting one person.” A man called from inside the plastic wrapped section. He was right in the middle of sterilizing his equipment using a UV light.

The man looked… kinda plain? I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting, to be honest. He had a totally emotionless face, with cold eyes that didn’t seem to care much about anything. Should I say as expected of the Hound’s associates?

”I brought a little insurance…” I stepped in front of Luna as she froze. “You know how it is.”

“Indeed… Nightshade, I presume?” He waved me over to the chair, and moved over to a terminal bank. “You’re younger than I expected.”

”They don’t call me Facechanger Nightshade for no reason.” I laughed it off cooly. No one called me that… but they might at some point! If I showed up with a different face every single time I had to take off my armor, no one would know who I really was. Right, next time I should try to show up as a hot guy.

The man just nodded his head like my nickname was common knowledge. Or he didn’t care. Probably the latter, actually. “The tattoo will last three days once you get it.”

”That’s fine—“

Luna stopped me from moving forward and whispered to me, “that guy’s an AI.”

”An AI?” I repeated stupidly. No way? He looked totally human. Not to mention AI’s needed, like, a whole server bank to function, didn’t they?

At the sound of my voice, everything in the room froze. Doctor Albert slowly moved away from the terminal bank, and let out a broken laugh. “That’s not something to joke about. I’m as human as you are.”

Luna’s eyes flashed a cold shade of blue. “There’s no point in lying to me.”

”… so it seems.” Albert stopped moving, and just watched the two of us. “What gave me away?”

”You can’t hide it from some people.” Luna nodded to the robot pretending to be human. She seemed totally cool about her discovery.

”I won’t tell if you won’t?” Albert shrugged, and waved to the chair. Aside from his stone face, his mannerisms were surprisingly human. “The Hound wouldn’t like it if one of his associates disappeared.”

So what? We were just supposed to pretend we didn’t know what he really was? And why the hell did it feel like I was the only one that had a problem with this situation.

”I’ve been running this clinic for over a decade already.” Albert watched me carefully. His eyes were filled with cold calculation. “You lot aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last. If we can continue?”

Why the hell was he so chill? AI were supposed to be monsters that relished in the slaughter of humans… I saw enough of that once Luna crashed the DNBR Node and they rushed in like hungry demons. “I…”

“Or, if you’d rather I didn’t work on you, I understand.” He nodded to the door. “Though I’d of course prefer if you didn’t go announcing my identity to the world.”

”… just make it quick.” I didn’t like it. I really, really didn’t like it. Every part of me wanted to go sprinting out the door before a BosSpace god rod came crashing through the roof. Then again, it’d wipe out a chunk of the city alongside it so they’d probably just send a death squad of some kind.

Nael called him a good friend… did he know? No, probably not. I came to a decision as I sat down on the surgical chair. Even if he was an AI hiding as a human, I wouldn’t turn him in. A friend of Nael’s… well, I wouldn’t call him a friend of mine. I wouldn’t get the bot killed, though. Nael’s text made it seem like Albert was a good guy, which was the main sway in my decision.

”Hold still.” With the jig up, Albert didn’t even pretend to use the terminal. He directly interfaced with the scanners and checked on me. Everytime he touched a part of my body, a Technical Expertise pulse went up through his synth-skin and revealed just how inhuman he really was.

”I’ll delete us from his records once we’re done. He won’t remember us.” Luna whispered through the Packheart Rings as one final assurance. Unfortunately, though, I’d still remember him.

— — —

Two things. First off, I removed Calming, the First-Aid Perk. I used it a total of three times throughout the chapters, and it just didn’t quite fit. In the rewrite, I changed it to Universal Donor, the child Skill of Perfect Donor. It’ll play into more of the medical scenes before she gets Perfect Donor once I get to rewriting them, and be a prerequisite for Perfect Donor. 

It just made more sense in my mind to make the change. Universal Donor was already a choice back in the original list, and I realized after making Perfect Donor that it should’ve been the prerequisite like Fox’s Paw and Cold-Blooded were for Illusive. I think Calming was the only change I made to her build.

Secondly, the Helix garden she mentioned going to was part of the rewritten school arc. If you don’t remember it, that’s why.