Cyberpunk: I'm Not a Scavenger - Chapter 15: Three Lungs, Two Hearts (Patreon)

"May fortune favor you in battle, Mr. Pantheon."

Smith bowed politely, then returned to the AV with his security detail and flew off.

Beside Pantheon, Vik had watched the entire performance in silence.

He hadn't interfered with the decision, but once Smith was gone, he offered a quiet warning.

"Always watch yourself around corpos. They'll eat you alive without spilling a drop of blood. Be careful, kid. Very, very careful."

“Don't worry, Vik. I know how to look after myself.”

Pantheon recognized the concern behind the warning and grinned.

"As long as you know what you're doing. Come on. No sense standing around in the street."

Back in the clinic, Vik had already prepared the operating table. He took the case, entered the code, and opened its temperature-controlled lid.

Inside lay two pieces of pale pink biological tissue, both seeming to pulse ever so slightly.

"Man, those are ugly," Pantheon blurted out.

Vik laughed in exasperation. "That's five hundred thousand eddies' worth of equipment. I've never worked with anything quite like it. Aren't you worried I'll make a mistake?"

"If you can't handle it, I can't think of anyone else in Night City who could."

Pantheon laughed without a care. He seemed to have more faith in Vik than Vik had in himself.

The doctor shook his head and pointed out the two custom implants.

"As you requested, both were cultivated entirely from biological tissue. There's no electronic hardware or neural interface in either one. A netrunner won't be able to touch them."

"I've run the tests and couldn't find any corporate backdoors. Of course, it's always possible I missed something."

Vik gave a self-deprecating smile. The responsibility was clearly weighing on him.

"The three lung lobes will exchange oxygen at several times the normal human rate. Their artificial alveoli make ordinary poisonous gases ineffective, and they'll let you adapt to different atmospheric pressures."

He paused. Vik didn't know why Pantheon imagined he'd need to fight under different atmospheric pressures, but he respected the choice.

"The Second Heart is even more unusual. A standard Second Heart is just a backup. It starts working when your original heart stops."

"Yours is different. It can work alongside your natural heart under ordinary conditions, pumping blood through both at once and delivering several times as much energy to your muscles and nerves."

"And it still has the usual emergency function. If you wind up on the brink of death, it can pull you back."

Pantheon's eyes practically shone as he listened. He couldn't wait to reach his final form.

"All right, lie back. This operation's going to take a while."

The anesthetic entered his bloodstream, and his consciousness gradually slipped away.

...

Pantheon had no idea how long he'd been unconscious when the pounding of a powerful heartbeat woke him.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

He took a deep breath. The three lobes in his chest worked like highly efficient bellows, pouring oxygen into his blood, while his two hearts beat together in a strange rhythm and drove oxygen-rich blood through his entire body.

His mind felt like a laptop that had finally been plugged into a charger. The world looked as though someone had peeled a layer of frosted glass away from his eyes, revealing details he'd never noticed before.

Every muscle and nerve seemed to hum with excitement. Power was waking up inside him.

Three lungs, two hearts! An Astartes! For the Emperor!

Pantheon shivered and hurriedly shook his head, banishing certain dangerous thoughts.

He opened his status panel. His attributes had changed dramatically.

[Name: Pantheon]

[Attributes]

Body: 14 (+8)

Reflexes: 10 (+5)

Intelligence: 6

Cool: 7

Technical Ability: 5

[Essence: 51]

[Items: [Magnetically Contained Plasma Energy Shield] (Blue)]

[Abilities: [Stronger with Every Battle] (Blue), [Dead Eye] (Red)]

[Traits: [Workhorse] (White), [Quick Start] (Green), [Battlefield Instinct] (Blue), [Built Different] (Green), [Cyberware Capacity Upgrade] (Blue), [Scientific Superpower] (Blue)]

"God, that feels good!"

An indescribable lightness filled Pantheon's body, as if a huge weight had finally lifted from his shoulders.

"All right, enough celebrating. Get some rest, and don't put yourself through what you did last time."

Exhausted, Vik sank into his chair and took off his glasses to clean them. Even then, he couldn't resist another warning at the sight of Pantheon's excitement.

"Heh, don't worry, Vik. Definitely won't happen again."

Pantheon smiled awkwardly. As he glanced at the organs removed during surgery, a peculiar question occurred to him.

"Vik, when you replace someone's cyberware, what happens to the old implants?"

"The old ones go into... Hm?"

Vik stared at him, baffled by the question.

"They're disposed of safely, of course. What, did you think I'd sell them secondhand? I'm not a Scavenger."

"Oh. So that's what you do."

Pantheon looked strangely disappointed. Who knew what he'd been hoping to hear?

He'd barely finished getting dressed when a call came through.

It was Jackie.

"Hey, chico! Where you at? Get over to El Coyote Cojo! I've got good news!"

Jackie's booming voice almost made Pantheon's ears ring. He sounded even happier than usual.

"Just finished an operation at Vik's. What's going on? Mama Welles made another fresh batch of fries?"

"Better than that! I'll tell you when you get here!"

Vik had heard the whole conversation. He held his head in despair.

Pantheon spread his hands with an innocent expression, as if none of this had anything to do with him.

"Oh, go on, then. You kids." Vik waved him off with a tired smile. "And take care of yourself!"

"Sure!" Pantheon hadn't actually caught what the doctor said.

All he could think about was getting something to eat and finding a place to properly test his new implants.

...

Twenty minutes later, at El Coyote Cojo.

The bar was as quiet as ever. Not surprising, really. What normal person came drinking in the middle of the afternoon?

"Hey! Over here!"

Jackie waved him over. He'd already ordered a couple of beers and, naturally, Pantheon's beloved fries.

"All right, what's this good news?"

Pantheon sat down and immediately started shoveling fries into his mouth. After that operation, he felt hungry enough to eat a whole cow.

Jackie leaned closer, lowering his voice as excitement lit up his eyes.

"Padre got in touch. Says he's got a gig. Not too big, not too small, just right for the two of us. Wants to know if we're interested."

Pantheon washed down his food with a mouthful of beer.

"Sounds like he wants to see what we're made of. Whether we've got what it takes to handle bigger jobs."

Padre, whose real name was Sebastian Ibarra, was the most influential fixer in Heywood. For years, he'd worked to preserve the delicate balance among the district's competing factions.

According to street rumors, he'd once been a priest among the Valentinos. After witnessing a bloody tragedy, he had decided to become a fixer instead.

His background made relations with 6th Street difficult, but he still maintained a neutral position and refused to openly support any one faction, all in the interest of preserving Heywood's balance of power.

Someone that experienced and calculating wasn't about to entrust a major gig to two untested newcomers.

"Exactly!" Jackie slapped his thigh. "Padre says this one's just the beginning. If we prove ourselves, there'll be plenty of bigger gigs later."

"Think about it, choom! We start small, build our names, and work our way up. Maybe one day the Queen of the Afterlife herself will invite us into the Afterlife!"

"Hahaha! Enough daydreaming, Jackie. Tell me what the gig actually is."