Chapter 6: And a Plan Forms. (Patreon)

Author's note: It will work the same as AMD back then, one chapter goes here, and public will be updated when I post here the second one, until I get five. So, like, in ten chaps? I don't even remember that well and my brain is still fried.I think next update will be either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on uni's schedule.Hope the ones that like this story enjoy it and all that!

The Shards of Freedom.

Chapter 6: And a Plan Forms.

Chris, Vanguard.

Night city, 2074

The door to the clinic slammed open with a bang, making me almost jump from my seat. I glanced up from the array of tools spread before me, half-expecting to see another idiot who would cause trouble.

Watson. A district that was divided between Maelstrom and the Tyger Claws.

It reminded me of back home, as sad as that was.

Thankfully, he didn’t look like any of them. Viktor was a popular fixer. But after working with him for a week, I realized why.

He was damn good, and more importantly, he didn’t ask for an organ as collateral or some shit like that. I had seen some advertisements a few times when we walked outside, and they were vile.

He wasn’t cheap, I wouldn’t say that, considering the significant debt Missy and I had with him for saving our lives, but it was a fair price.

Vik was also honest. And from what little I had seen of this city, that alone made him stand out.

Night City was as much of a shithole as Brockton Bay, maybe even worse. I didn’t need to be Gallant to know the kind of place we found ourselves in.

Viktor himself stood hunched over an operating table, his hands firm despite working on the very nerves of the cybernetic arm.

“Name?” I asked the man waiting outside. At least he had enough decency not to bother Vik while he worked. I couldn’t say it was the norm here.

“Marco,” the Latino said curiously, his eyes focusing on Vik’s back, “I had an appointment.”

Looking at the terminal on my right, I nodded, then checked the time and sighed.

“You are early,” I deadpanned, “Half an hour.”

“I was too excited,” he responded sheepishly, “finally managed to save enough eddies for the Mantis blades I dreamed of.”

Biting back another sigh, I motioned towards an empty chair, “Go sit down and stay silent, kid. Wait for your turn.”

“Sure thing, choom,” he nodded, following my instructions.

At least he was being civil.

Vik hadn’t turned around at all, so I took the chance to look down once more at the tools.

The tech in this world was so advanced that I honestly had a little trouble keeping up with all the ideas it was giving me. I loved that as much as I hated it.

I watched the kid out of the corner of my eyes, my fingers itching to dive back into my own projects.

But no, I had to keep it under wraps for now. Couldn't risk letting on what I was truly capable of, especially with what they would do to us if they learned of it.

Almost ninety-nine percent of the people in this damn city had enhanced optics, and all of them could be hacked into and even record what people were seeing if you were good enough. It was a nightmare for someone hiding something as dangerous as Missy’s and my powers.

As much as I could get by tinkering on some project, it wasn’t worth the very real manhunt that would happen after. If it were just me, I might have gone with it, but I had Missy to take care of, and things weren’t as simple.

The connection on the back of my head showed me how irritated she was, and her location, inside Misty’s store.

She wasn’t happy with what we were doing, even though she knew that we had no other option at the moment.

The connection was a surprise, but not an unwelcomed one.

At least it let me know when she started spiraling so that I could help calm her down before it got too ugly.

"Alright, that should do it," Vik grunted, setting down his pliers and stepping back to admire his work.

The patient blinked up at him, then slowly flexed his new arm.

"How's the feel?"

"It burns," the man replied through gritted teeth. "But it works. I can feel everything."

Vik nodded, as he had already expected the answer. "Good. You're all set then. Pay Chris on your way out, and don't forget to come back in two weeks. Ask the man for the immunosuppressant."

The patient swung his legs over the side of the table and stood shakily, his eyes looking at his new arm in wonder. I wasn’t acting any differently; my mind was swimming in ideas just by watching it.

Tech here was so fucking awesome.

He approached my table, and his left eye lit up. I got a notification that the payment was being processed after two seconds. Once I got the machine's go-ahead, I pulled two bottles and threw them his way, forcing him to use his new arm to catch them.

He looked down at it, then at me.

“Had to make sure they worked as intended,” I grinned, “All’s good, remember doing what Vik said, choom. And as a personal opinion, try to avoid lifting too much weight for at least a week.”

The fact that something so obvious needed to be said was worrying.

“Thanks, Chris,” he nodded, “I’ll be careful this time.”

I barely avoided rolling my eyes, “Sure you will, Jet, sure you will.”

Jet let out a laugh, leaving the clinic with a pep in his step. It was the second time he had come since I started helping Vik with his work to earn a pittance, and I already knew he was troubled.

He didn’t listen last time, and Vik didn’t care enough to try to change his mind about overusing his new pieces.

I did, but I also knew that no matter what I said, he wouldn’t change his mind.

"Another satisfied customer," I quipped as Vik moved on to his next patient, the excited kid from before that jumped out of his seat before Jet even finished paying.

Vik just grunted in response, reading the info I sent to his data port. Mantis blades for a kid that didn’t look beyond seventeen. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jackie sent him here, considering that most Latinos who wanted these kinds of cyberware were part of the Valentinos.

But business was business, and Vik soon put the kid to sleep.

I busied myself with my own work, reading the specifications of the tools Vik used the most to know when he would need something specific. It had a lot of numbers, which honestly made it a bit more complicated than it should have been. I still wasn’t that good with them.

It wasn’t as bad as before; I learned to deal with that after high school, but some things still took longer than they should have.

I wanted to be useful to Vik. Yes, the pay sucked, barely enough to cover our food expenses, and by God, that the food here sucked, but he was doing it from the goodness of his heart, same as Misty with Vista. She was paying her even less, since she barely got any customers, but it was more than they could have done.

And we owed them. Giving us a place to sleep, as bad as it was, paying for our food with enough to save a couple of eddies a day to pay our debt.

It also helped me to keep my brain busy. I knew I shouldn’t build anything here, at least when Vik was present, but the cravings were growing each day, and planning helped me staying functional.

The last thing I wanted was to enter a fugue with Vik present, or, worse, to work on one of his patients like a madman. They had so much tech in their bodies that I could be considered a Wet tinker in here.

For now, all we could do was float in this cesspit. The same as most residents in Night City.

Heh.

After finishing reading this batch, I closed the terminal and set it to charge. It wasn’t as efficient as having them all inside my skull, but I was still a bit skittish about allowing that kind of procedure in me.

That wasn’t even mentioning how Vista would react if she ever saw me with a new pair of optics. She would probably rip me a new asshole just for thinking about it.

As soon as I finished that line of thought, I felt Vista’s irritation spark brighter, letting me know she had an idea of what I was thinking even from a distance.

Ugh, as much as I liked having this connection, I couldn’t deny that it came with some flaws.

Viktor called out to me from the center of the clinic, not looking up from the incisions he was making, “Kid, you got a minute?”

"What's up?" I asked as I made my way over to him, “And you know I am older than Misty, right?”

“You’re all kids to me,” Vik snorted amusedly, sending a teasing glance my way.

“What do you think of this?” He asked curiously, “I see you’re interested in cyberware and wanted to know what you think.”

I looked. And honestly… it disgusted me for a moment. It was oh so similar to what Bonesaw did back home, and in the back of my mind, I cursed myself for being so damn interested in it.

The skin was peeled back and pinned with pliers. Thankfully, it wasn’t completely removed, but it was pushed aside to ease work on the structure inside.

Vik had shaved down the bone and fitted it with some kinds of brackets, too. Then the muscles were removed, and the blade was anchored into what remained of the bone, the ulna, if I remembered correctly. Then, a bunch of artificial nerves that would have fascinated Amy before she went to the deep end connected to the natural nerves that remained inside.

It was invasive. It was horrible. It was fucking interesting.

The forearm wasn’t an arm anymore. It couldn’t be called that. It was a mount for a weapon.

The patient’s fingers jerked when Vik adjusted something near the nerve junction.

“That’s…” I exhaled once. “Quite brutal.”

Vik’s mouth twitched in amusement as he let out a sigh.

“Yeah,” he said calmly, adjusting the anchor to the bone and filling the remains with synth muscle. “But for everyone, it’s life.”

“Isn’t it… inefficient?” I tilted my head.

“What do you mean?” his fingers stopped moving, and he turned to me.

I nodded at the bone before he finished covering it up, “A shaved bone is not structurally strong enough to maintain the use of the blades for more than a year or two, depending on the use. The servos will probably fail before that, so the poor sod won’t even notice. Their deployment speed is impressive, but so is the damn heat it generates. There are so many damn problems with the design.”

I could have continued, but Vik’s open mouth made me clamp my mouth shut. I needed to fucking tinker before I got even worse.

“Not many people notice that, and it’s not something a ganic should pick apart that fast,” he noted cautiously, then sighed. “But it’s not my problem if you don’t want to explain.”

I smiled guiltily, and he nodded firmly.

“As for what you said… It’s true. But it was what the kid paid for; the corpos never put that much effort into their basic designs, and the flaws are known. They just don’t care.”

“Sounds like them,” I sighed, already having read about the history of this world, and how fucked it truly was.

Vik finished patching up the kid and administered the medicine to wake him up from his induced coma, standing up and stretching his limbs as he took out a cigarette.

"So," he said after a long moment of silence, "how are you and the lass holding up? Misty hasn’t said much, but that scowl on the kid speaks volumes."

Glancing up at him, I didn’t bother to hide my amusement. “Don’t take it to heart. Vista likes action more than waiting, and she thinks we should go out and get money from people who use it for bad shit.”

“A fierce one,” Vik’s lip quirked.

“You have no idea,” I sighed, “We’re fine, we’ve survived worse. And no doubt, we’ll bounce back like before. I just need to decide if that’s truly the best move for us.”

“And you think she’ll listen to you? Wait until you decide?” He asked curiously, “She has a fire in here, Chris. And everyone can see how thin her patience is.”

A part of me was sure that something like that wouldn’t happen, Vista wouldn’t leave me to play hero since our situation was fucked, but another part of me whispered that maybe she couldn’t control it as much, just like my need to tinker.

It was something that we couldn’t control, and I had to be careful with that.

As much as she hated to admit it, I felt responsible for her. I was in command, but that didn’t mean I could waste my time deciding.

“Chris?” Vik asked softly, “You got lost for a bit.”

“Sorry,” I shook my head slowly, looking at the ripperdoc, “You’re right, I believe it’s time I decide our next move. We can’t keep depending on you and Misty.”

Vik let out a puff of smoke, “Your help is appreciated, kid, and if you need more time, I’m willing to keep helping, and I don’t doubt Misty feels the same way.”

“Thank you, Vik,” I nodded, taking a seat and looking at the ceiling, “It’s… a lot, what we need, I mean.”

He stayed silent, and I continued listing all the damn problems we had.

“We owe you thirty thousand eddies, we need like twenty thousand to get Padre’s help with our identities, then we need our own place,” I chuckled darkly, “And if we continue as we are, it will take us months, if not years.”

Vik put his hand on my shoulder, “Take your time, kid, as I said. I would rather you pay me slowly than for you to die in a ditch and still owe me.”

That brought a snort out of me.

“I know, I know,” I nodded, “But maybe Vista is not wrong… As long as we plan as we used to.”

Then my eyes widened, and I grinned at Vik.

“Hey, didn’t you mention a junk yard in the city? What can I expect from there?”

Vik went pale. That should’ve been a warning sign, but I was already getting excited.

And Vista’s excitement grew with mine, knowing I had already decided on our path.

I couldn’t call myself a tinker if I didn’t scavenge for parts, no?