Matustos

  I walked in on an iing versation.

  "I only have a limited time to get back. So this is goodbye Misty, ahat old dog, Vik to y off the boxing. He's getting too long iooth to keep trying to fix everyoeique." A silver haired dy dressed in almost medieval style leather pants and a tunic was waving goodbye to another woman who reminded me of a character, in a movie I saw, a long time ago. Poofed out blonde hair, and rog a nearly Goth look. Nice.

  "Bye Ciri, we'll miss you around here. Be safe." They shared a brief hug. I could somehow tell they had been through a lot together. It must be a wonderful thing to have friends.

  That's when the silver haired dy, Ciri turned around and saw me. The world ged. Let's just say both our eyes went wide. There ark nition. The twisting of fate. She was radiating a potent form of mana, different from anything I had felt before. It seemed darker somehow, almost broken. I knew she could feel my mana flow through me. It seemed to fill her with sorrow.

  She stalked over to me. I barely breathed not wahe moment to end. She patted my shoulder and said, "Good Luck." Before sashaying out the door. She avoided the Probe, I noticed. I started turo follow her and find out more. But mao stop myself, one problem at a time.

  "She has that effe people. Hi, I'm Misty." I turned back toward the blonde dy. She herself was emanating a little bit of mana. What were the odds? This city didn't seem hospitable to anyone who could ect with magic.

  "Hello Misty, I'm Ryan. I came to see about getting a sult with Dr. Vektor. But now that I'm here, I'm a little more ied in your shop." My eyes traveled to a brass multi armed statue behind her, for a start. It gave off something simir to the Psi energy of Khai Pylons. As I tio s the shop I noticed a dozen other things, easily mistaken for simple kniacks. I wondered how any of these things mao make in to this shop. Maybe Ciri how something to do with it?

  "That's nova! I offer Chakra sings and Tarot readings." It was o see her smile. She seemed like a truly det person. Wholesome, almost too good for this world.

  A moment of whimsy overtook me. "I've never had my Chakras sed, so let's do that." What the hell was a Chakra?

  She had me sit in a reing chair, it felt like I was sinking into a cloud. I listeo her voice, and then my mi silent for a while. A deep stillness enfolded my thoughts. It was a very weled state after all I'd been through to get to this moment. To be ho, I don't know she had done anything to my Chakras. However, I did feel a lot more rexed, especially after resting in that cushy chair. So it was all good.

  I found the use of crystals a little odd though, and the inse was a bit pu. But hey, nothing's perfect. I paid her with 100 a her keep the ge. She told me I could see the Doc. She guided me to the door and said, "Out the bad dowairs."

  The alley held another surprise. It was a cat, aian Hairless. Was it called a Sphinx or was that a different breed? What did it matter it was a cat. We stared at each other food mi seemed just as shocked to see me, as I was to see it. It meowed at me and almost as if in a trance, I sat down and it crawled in my p. I proceeded to give it scritches. Its gentle purring was a fort in this dark nd. Then my mind kicked ba, and I realized what I was holding.

  "Hey Misty! I thought there weren't anymore cats?" I called out gently. She stuck her head out, and saw me with the kitty. Her resulting grin was an odd thing, equal parts joy and pain.

  "There aren't, that's not a cat." That just didn't pute. I was holding it. I felt its warmth, and the rumble of its purr. I could feel it's life with my mana sense.

  "What is it?" It meowed like a cat. It purred like a cat. What else could it possibly be?

  "If you figure it out let me know. I just know it's not a cat." She ducked bato her shop. Her tone suggested she didn't want to deal with the cat, or whatever it really was.

  "You seem like a good kitty to me." As I petted the cat more, it gave me a happy cat stare. Not to be fused with an indifferent cat stare, though I wouldn't bme you, if you did. I only stayed like that for another minute, before I got up and tinued dowairs. Things might really be staring to look up.

  The way into the Doc's pce was blocked by a slidial wired gate. Through it I could see a man watg a monitor, on the s was what seemed to be a boxing match.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, e on in." He kind of reminded me of my Gramps, though in a much different way than Meadran had. Meadran was like the gentler parts of Gramps, he brought out memories of the quiet times. This man reminded me of Gramps when he was telling war stories, or about his travels after the war. He very much had the same kind of been there dohat attitude. It wasn't desding, it was was more a sense of tiredness. The fact that the Doc was build like a boxer, rugged looking, and the lines on his face gave the impression he'd been through quite a few fight in his time, just he point home.

  Yeah, I liked him on sight. I could tell he was a genuinely good person. It made me more ined to show some courtesy, I closed the gate behind me, after I went in.

  He chuckled. "Manners. That's a sight." His voice was gruff and worn, telling a tale of its own without ara words.

  "Dr Vektor, I o get a sult oing Chipped with at least the basics." I still wasn't vihis was the best idea, but I khat if I didn't fit in, I'd stick out. If I stuck out, I'd get hammered one way or another.

  He started to say something, but then shook his head. His eyes fshed as he sed me. "100% Ganic. That'll be tough. You'll want a e with a neural port, and a chip socket. At least oo fully i with architecture, but I'd reend doing both or it'll really throw of your bance."

  My eyes? My eyes. That seemed insane. My eyes were perfectly good. I had twenty/twenty vision. Was I really going to give up my eyes? My gut boiled with both rese and sheer fug rage.

  They didn't think anything of doing this? It was just normal? It was normal. Heavehese poor fucked up people. Heavens help me for what I was going to do.

  "If you'll hop up on the chair, we'll take a full s. Then I'll be able to make suggestions as to what would work best with your meat." On autopilot, I sat in the surgeon's chair. It was a massive affair with all manner of odd looking equipment around it. Several monitors hung down from the ceiling, even with it's own readout of information that made no seo me.

  As the s started, I wondered again if I was really going to gh with this.

  While I was being sed, my BTC was squeezing my arm. I thought it might be hiding itself. Holy, I kept fetting it was there until it did something. Was that on purpose? Why was it reag this time? It didn't put up any kind of s. Was it just responding to my nervousness?

  An amusing side note, I kept getting glimpses of Scuff puttering about doing its own s of equipment in Vik's ic. Would those ss be useful? Should I have have beeing my Robo-Buddies to do that more?

  "Hmm, do you have biomods, or any type of geing?" He sounded puzzled, and I got the feeling he didn't find too many puzzles these days. He scratched his head and I noticed he had some kind of exoframe on his arm, it seemed to be outfitted with an array of gadgets I didn't reize.

  "Not that I know of?" Who knows what the pany had doo me? That could have impnted me with all kinds of messed up things and I'd have had no clue.

  "Now that's a drum." He seemed pensive. " Yenes are showing no degradation from radiation. Your blood tains no traanites from from any of the usual sources, even the hostile microbial tent t is almost ent." All that seemed like a good thing to me. Though now, I felt that I had even more things to worry about.

  "Huh? Those are normal? Sounds terrible, how do folk live with all that?" Why weren't people less healthy? Maybe some of that cyberware I disdained made the difference.

  "How do you not?" The Doc shook his head. Then he flicked something over to one of the ss in front of me. I uood none of it. "You ter most of the problems with meds and other nanites. Most folks get a puff of a Max Doc or Vita Stim to keep going for a while. Knocks the majority of diseases right out, for a time anyway. Truth be told, I've never seen ah su undamaged genomic structure. Do you mind if I take sample, just for me to study?"

  "Not at all, Doc." The exoframe on his left arm did something just out of my peripheral vision, but I didn't feel anything. I just heard it moving.

  Then the ser beeped, and he spent a few moments reading the results.

  "Good hough kid, with your unspoiled geics, almost anything be chipped in. That gives you a broad spectrum of options." He gave me options alright, way too many. It thly an hour for me to sort through the seemingly endless lists. The cheapest fully funal set was 3000, really "bare bones" as he put it. Really basiivity, paratively slow and vulnerable to external exploitation. I didn't like the sound of that. The eyes wouldn't be funally better than my current ones, I'd just be able to visualize some architecture and call ss. Oher end of the spectrum, the most expensive package he had avaible, was 20,000. It had a lot of bells and whistles. Embedded security features, seamless iion of neural trols. Intuitive adaption to my thoughts. Eyes with high resolution vision, zoom funs, low light options, and fre prote. Best of all bzing fast loET ectivity.

  "Not the best out there right now, but not far from it. Outside of Corpo bs anyway." I could appreciate that he didn't try to push me to the more expensive package. He let me decide what I could afford.

  Do I get the basic teow and upgrade ter, or do I go out and find a way to scrape together 20k? I really didn't want to get into the endless cycle of buy now and fix it ter. No, I wahe best I could get. My gut felt that the less time I spent being... tinkered with, the better.

  Without this "e" I wouldn't be ready to meet the Fa. I'd always have to be looking over my shoulder for the cops. Judging by the little bit and pieces Sinnamin had dropped, I didn't want to get on those guys bad side.

  "I'll have to e back. It'll take me a bit to get some Eddies together for the 'preem e'." His demeanor seemed to shift to something less professional, but more ed.

  "Ya know kid, if you weren't so friendly and rexed, I'd think you were a Corpo spy. We have to get ya use to the streets and quick. Or you might not make it." He knew all too well, how I'd likely end up gather the funds. This was his attempt at warnihe gangs would spot me ing. I just didn't fit in oreets, I'd be an easy mark.

  "Sure Doc, I'm w on it. Unless you know someone who move some lumber, I'm going to have to do this the hard way." I'd hop on a deal for wht now if the Doc could set something up, it would be better than what I nning to do.

  "Lumber? From actual trees? Where in the world would ya get that?" That was genuine shht there. ood products must be really rare. Rarer than I'd first suspected. Which means Greg got me good. Damn.

  "Dr. Vektor, you know how it is. I know a guy, who knows a guy, who knoce." I chuckled and he snorted.

  "Sure, I know people who'd do it, but they wouldn't trust ya without a rep." He seemed frustrated. Like he'd run into this problem before, and more than once. He really was one of the good guys.

  "No Worries Doc, I'll figure it out. We all have to do what we ." I wasn't ready to show Vik what I could do yet. Not ready to show anyone really. Though when I was, he and Misty would be some of the first folks in this city that would get to see some real magic.

  I left, said goodbye to the kitty and Misty. I wao linger and py with the cat, or maybe spend some more time with Misty, but I khe more I pyed around the harder it would be to get the ball rolling.

  Scuff got ba the car, and then we headed north in the Galena. That was where I'd find the first element in my pn.

  It was somewhere around 1 AM at that point. I was getting tired. It'd been a long time since I had st slept, but I had work to do.

  Sinnamin had mentioned you could sell loot iain pces. Kabuki for one. Most shopkeeps there would buy goods uhe table. No questions asked. If it wasn't too rare or too big, this was a great option. You'd never get a good deal, but you would get something.

  That lead me to my idea. Sinnamin had told me about the Maelstrom. They were a Boang, tered around chippin' in e aing more of it, leaving their humanity behind. Real scumbags. Trading drugs, kidnapping, torture and snuff XBDs (I still didn't know what those were), and so much more.

  Best part, they were really easy to find, and no one would miss them. The problem with my pn being they were often "Bed Out" or basically mostly e. Ser, faster, meaner. Also, very probably insane by any standard metric.

  Did I have a viable strategy? Other than having my Probes sneak up behind them and zap the fuck out of them? No. We'd try to find a small group or two, then see what we'd get from "ftlining" them. Repeat if needed.

  If and or when I had enough moo afford Vik's top shelf e, I'd head south to anang's territory. Find a cheap hotel and sleep. Let whatever heat we'd built up die down a bit, before cheg in with the Doc again.

  I'd be the first to admit it wasn't much of a pn. Stupid. Moally stupid.

  Part of me wao go back to the Valley and grab an army of Probes and y waste to everything. My instincts told me it wasn't the time for such drastic measures.

  So much to do, and there was never enough time.