Gachapunk 2076 4 (Patreon)

Gachapunk 2076

Chapter 4

-VB-

[Material Swim] opened up a lot of avenues for my future action. 

Including a secret hideout. 

And the drones I set to work did just that. Over the course of a week, the drones dug out a rough three rooms and one corridor connecting it all underneath Megabuilding H. Then the drones sealed up the entrance and smoothed it over. It helped that the entrance used to be the corner of a subfloor parking lot. 

Then I started moving my stuff there little by little with the help of drones. 

And by the time I was done moving, my little underground base was also filled with all of the materials I needed. 

Except for a vent. 

Because of course an underground base without any vent will be a problem, especially when I intended to do a lot of the practicals of engineering like welding, machining, and the like that produces all kinds of smokes, fumes, and debris. 

Which was why I had my drone start digging up a series of tunnels that expanded outward from Megabuilding H. They were made to be as convoluted and miserable as possible to dissuade explorers, and I made more drones to help me expand this unplanned labyrinth I was building underneath Night City -.

Ping.

I paused my soldering and leaned away from the latest drone I was making. 

Because I had Chaos Gacha shoved into my face. 

[Congratulations on killing someone with an unplanned trap!

Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket]

What? 

I killed someone? But how? I didn’t booby trap my former apartment home or tell my spider drones to set up traps in the maze. It’s also only been a week since I started constructing the maze -.

… Oh.

The maze was connected to the outside world, wasn’t it? Whether it was the subway, sewage, storm drains, or something else entirely. Someone must have fallen in - or walked in, which would be weird considering that the maze didn’t have a single light source - got lost and died from dehydration or starvation. 

Either way, it was not a pretty way to go.

Which also meant that I now needed to order my drones to go out and find the dead guy’s body so that I don’t have to smell it. 

Ugh. 

Whatever. 

That’s just how life was sometimes, but I’ll have to cover up however my maze was exposed to the outside world. 

‘Roll the ticket, please.’

The wheel spun inside my head, soul, whatever. 

I listened as the wheel slowed down and … 

Ding! 

[Beastbone Blade Saru]

Common Item

It used to be an injured dog and a certain Sinner’s first friend, but it is still alive. Twisted into this shape by the “artist” Callisto of the Ring, who delights in turning living beings into art. The sword is deadly and sharp, and will easily outcut and outlast mass manufactured military grade knives. But every time you swing this sword, it yelps and whines in pain. 

“... What the fuck? This shit ain’t cool, bro.”

Then the sword dropped into my laps. 

It was a shortsword. It had a wicked hook at both ends of the sword and a pommel guard made out of … puppy ribs. The blade looked like it was made from a fusion of many different small bones, including the spine.

And it was alive. 

It whined.

Someone had turned a puppy into a sword and it was still fucking alive.

There was still pulsating flesh squirming on the handle.

“Nope nope nope nope,” I hissed out before I immediately tossed it into the industrial smelter. 

I heard the still living puppy give out one final whine before all of it was burned to bits. 

I nearly threw up after that. 

Fuck you, gacha.

I grimaced as I realized that I threw a still living puppy into an industrial smelter, but what was I going to be able to do, huh?! That… that thing was just a few steps away from death. It didn’t even have a mouth or whatever to feed it. It was going to die no matter what I did, and even if I did succeed in keeping in alive, it would just be extending its suffering. 

Whoever you are, Callisto… fuck you.

Absolutely fuck you.

-VB-

Rebecca stared at the spider drone.

She’d seen it and others like it a lot lately, and didn’t like how they … scurried about. 

Always in the dark, always looking for bodies and metal. 

They were basically less disgusting Scavs. 

The problem was that they were quick, quiet, and heavily armed. 

“No no no no, stop, I’m sorry -!” 

BAM!

Case in point. 

“The dumb drone just destroyed good ‘ware,” Pilar muttered from her side as they watched side by side from their apartment window as a now dead Scav was dragged away by a pair of spider drones. 

Over the last few weeks, those spiders have been appearing everywhere. Initially alone but now in pairs and even larger groups. They were relentless and quick. At this point, all of the alleys in Santo Domingo were clean of bodies and trash because those drones swept through the alleys. People have tried to get them to try to discover who made and operated them, but no one found out yet. 

“Apparently, the Sixers are trying to find out who set those clankers loose,” Rebecca said out loud. Even if she didn’t have a good relationship with her brother, this was possibly relevant to their future job as mercs. 

“Are the Sixers so fucking poor that they gotta go after some Scav ripperdoc drones?” Pilar snorted as he looked away. The show was over. 

Rebecca watched him leave to work on his cyberware before looking back at the mouth of the alley. The only evidence that someone had died there was a bloody trail. 

She was … very tempted to go looking. But she was a veteran edgerunner! She knew enough about the city to know that if she went after those clankers, she was going to end up dead very quickly. 

So she sighed dejectedly and turned to look at the TV instead because there was nothing else to be done. 

-VB-

I had a very steady flow of cyberwares and materials. Who knew that building an economy required a shit of workers? 

I did. 

I played Starcraft before. 

It took me no more than a month to go from having a handful of drones to having a whole fleet of them. I now had a dedicated computer specifically to keep track of them. And not even all of them were up there on the surface gathering the literal refuse of society to turn into more material.

Because I found out very quickly that human shit was a very profitable source of biofilms.

Ping! 

I blinked and looked again. 

Yeah, there was the Gacha again.

[Achievement: Clean Alleys of Santo Domingo… but the locals know to avoid your “clanker” drones.

Reward: 1 Silver Ticket]

It was clear to me now that the Gacha was “happy” with seeing me “active.” My drones were obviously meeting the named characters up there and those meetings were getting me tickets. So I was going to keep doing this. 

‘Roll, please,’ I thought. 

The wheel spun … and landed on ping.

Hygienic

Common Trait

You are almost always hygienic, no bad breath or germs for you.

And immediately, I felt different. Like someone had shaved a layer off my body. 

I shuddered and went back to making more drones.

Soon, I would have an entire army of spider drones. 

Would that be enough for me to not need to hide?