Shouting, chattering and the unmistakable robotic voice of Earl, an OG of the Armstrongs, woke us.
We scrambled up and poked our heads out to see what was happening.
A large crowd milled by the entrance. New bloods.
Occasionally the Armstrong gang had a large influx of orphans with no place to put them. So they passed them off to any yogang under them. We happened to be one such gang. The largest and most successful in fact.
Rarely this number though. I counted around 22.
By the time we made our way a bit closer, most of newens had dispersed, pulled in by other already established factions to bulk up their numbers and vanished into the sea of tents and tarps.
Having an extra pair of hands might help them get a bigger cut of the eddies. Which might get them closer to Billy, the decision-making, glory and therefore rep.
The few that had not been were the youngest and smallest of the group. In the past they would have been swept up by Eli to find them a home. Now they just looked lost, until Adrian hurried over, looking harried.
One of the remaining immediately caught my eye. She clearly did not belong. The child was a tiny girl, maybe 6 years old, blond hair and big blue eyes that just shone with confusion, fear and innocence. Not the eyes of a street kid. Nor were her clothes, which were all high quality and not the current style.
Maybe that was why no one had guided her to a room? So she just stood there, off to one side, clutching a bedraggled teddy to her chest.
My heart squeezed in sympathy, but I didn’t want another person to look after. Two were enough. Movement in my peripheral vision, turning, I saw Jess bouncing her way over, slowing down as she got closer.
Maybe I wouldn’t have a choice.
"Hi." Jess said softly.
Even that was enough to make the girl start, scurrying back a few steps.
Keeping an eye on them, I made my way over to Earl. "What's with the numbers? And the girl?" I said, nodding at the small girl.
"The Sons of Fire are fighting to gain more turf; they’ve got a new OG coming in, and he needs to make his mark. So expect many more comin'. As for the girl, she's an odd one. Found her wandering the tunnels, so just brought her with us when we couldn't get anything out of her."
"Well, I don't think she will be a problem going forward." I sighed as I saw Jess marching over to me, the small girl clutched to her chest much like the teddy in the young girl's arms.
"Can we keep her!" She demanded as soon as she was close enough. Glancing at Nat who just shrugged, so she didn’t care.
Looking at the girl, "How about you, sweetheart? Are you okay coming to live with us for a bit?"
Seeing her hesitantly nod, I turned to Nat, "Can you go and get her food rations? Thanks. Okay why don’t Jess and I show you our home?"
I led us back across the room, pulling the fabric covering our den to let Jess through, still carrying the girl.
Taking her from Jess's arms I sat her on our swivel chair. "So sweetie, what is your name?"
Seeing her hesitate, Jess crouched in front of her, allowing me a perfect view down her loose top and her lack of bra. I would need to see where to buy some. Both girls were coming to the age where they would need some. I foresaw another uncomfortable conversation incoming. Shaking my head, I refocused back to the conversation, "… Go on, just like you told me."
"Kate." She barely whispered.
"Well Kate, it's nice to meet you." I said, smiling gently. "Now, why don’t you let Jess show you around?" I stepped back and then Jess was there, grabbed her hand and enthusiastically showed the small girl around our room.
Haphazardly at that. "And this is my lucky jacket. See the hole in it. That was where a gonk tried to stab me. But we showed him." Jess said, miming stabbing the guy.
I still shuddered about that day. It was not nearly as cool as she said. It had been a near thing for one. If not for Nat’s fast reflexes Jess might have been properly stabbed and I am not sure we could have saved her at the time. The bastard was very dead by the time Nat and I were done with him.
I still hold shoving one of his grenades into his mouth completely justified.
Rubbing my arms, I forced my mind to happier things. Like the pure joy Jess was having showing off her things. I would need to get the full story from Kate in time. But for now, I left it. We would also need to see if she stayed with us.
A while later Nat stepped in holding another bag of food as well as some clothes her size. "That took longer than I was expecting?"
Scowling, she leant against the desk. "Yeah, Billy was being his helpful self. Didn’t want to give us anything extra. Adrian finally had to step in." Leaning in, she whispered, "I'm really think Billy might try to kick us out."
Reaching out, I squeezed her hand. "Me too, but we will get some bioware, which should help and we can start to look for a new place. I'm also concerned about Adrian. I’m not sure what his game is."
Nodding, she joined me in watching Kate get shown where everything was.
As Jess was finishing up, I said, "Okay so we will need to have a change of plans today. Jess, can you stay here with Kate and get a jacket ready for her? We should have some leftover armour to inlay it with." Seeing her nod and start to quietly explain what I meant to Kate, who was again adorably confused.
That girl was unnaturally cute.
I turned to Nat. "Meanwhile we will get her kitted up. We should have our old outgrown things for most stuff, but for a few, we will need to grab extra. I think we should go to Adrian about them for now, as he seems to be helpful at the moment." Seeing the nods all round, "Great, then let's have some grub and get started."
We grabbed our rations, Jess getting extra to share with Kate, before we all sat down and scarfed the kibble. Think dry dog food and you would not be far off. And don’t ask what's in it, that only makes it worse. Trust me, I did some research about it and genuinely regretted it.
Gagging noises came from my left.
Ahh should have thought of that. Clearly, Kate had not had them before or was not used to them. Which brought up even more questions. I was about to help, but Nat swooped in to comfort her, with Jess hovering around them.
I watched them contemplatively. I had never seen Jess this protective and motherly. Well, of anyone except us. And certainly not friendly with them so quickly. She was bubbly, so happily chatted away to anyone that would listen, but if you knew what to look out for she was always on guard.
Not so with Kate.
I would need to check on her to make sure everything was alright. Or more likely, check in with Nat, who would know the answer.
---
We greeted Avery and Daneil who were on the far side of the entrance and made our way over.
"You ready to get started?" Daniel almost demanded.
"I think there will need to be a slight change of plans. As you can see, we have a new member of our group." I said, pointing to Kate who was now hiding behind Jess, poking her head slightly out from behind her so she could see. "I know the plan was to use the private gym, but could we do the next few weeks in the main one. So we can watch Kate as she starts to learn?"
She would be going into the beginner classes that Avery ran for larger groups.
Grunting, Daniel thought for a moment, "Hmm yeah, that could work. We can focus on bringing your skills up to snuff. That I don’t mind people seeing. But then in a few weeks from now, we will need to move to the private one for the rest I want to teach you."
"Perfect thanks."
As we made our way to the main gym room, with Jess leading the way, I fell into step with Avery at the back.
"What do you want for her. The same as you had?"
"Not exactly the same I don’t think. She is much softer, so just getting her cardio up should be a priority. And gun handling. We have a small pistol for her, one of Nat's old ones. But I don’t dare give it to her until I know she can use it correctly."
"Okay so a small modification, but that should be fine. I can weave in some martial arts as we go."
A ping from my agent interrupted what I was about to ask. Huh, that’s a good point, it was a reminder about the bioware. "Say Avery, can we have some of yours and Daniel's time this afternoon. We have some upgrades we want a second opinion on."
Glancing over to me with an incredible raised eyebrow that I was definitely not jealous of. No sir. "I thought you were against cyberware?"
"Yeah, nothing like a brush with death will put things into perspective." Answering the unasked question I filled him in on what had been happening.
"Yeah, that's rough, never gets easier, particularly if you could have stopped it. The only constellation, small tho it may be, it really wasn't your fault."
"Yeah, I know… but… well, you know."
Clapping me on the shoulder, "That I do, if you want to talk about it, just let me know and we can grab a beer and talk it out. But aye, I am more than happy to look over the list and I'm sure Daniel will want to."
Nodding gratefully, I moved to catch up with the others.
It was not a hard session that day; it was lots of sparing and keeping an eye on Kate. After a few hours, she had settled as long as she could see Jess and was starting to have fun.
The hours flew past and before I knew it, we were all piling into Avery’s office. As soon as we were in Daniel started demanding the list. It was clear he was not pleased we were getting upgrades, even if he could understand it.
"Well. Come on, give us the list and make sure you have the list of items you want as well. I want to see what you thought was important."
"Both lists are on your agents, just sent them."
"Good... these are bioware?" Daneil said, glancing up at me.
"Yesss? Is that a problem?"
Daniel shook his head slowly, his eyes flicking from side to side as he ready through the list. "You said getting upgrades. I assumed you meant cyberware. Bioware can still lead to problems. I've seen it. But they are far better than most cyberware, especially in the EEC. You trust the source? Bioware can be hard to get a hold of."
I shifted to get more comfortable in the chair, nodding as I did. "Yeah, or as much as can be. This will be a sort of test for him. We've not had much contact with him yet, but all the deets I have on him put him on the up and up."
Grunting, Daniel and Avery looked through the list in silence. Finally, first Avery, then Daniel leaned back looking thoughtful.
Avery went first. "I think what you want is pretty good. The only thing I would highly recommend which I you haven't highlighted is some of the healing options. Even if it is just for one of you. Likely Jess, as she is more in the front."
"Agreed." Daniel cut in. "I am glad you have gene editing in your list. Most people skip that."
I chewed my lip in thought before looking up, nodding to Daniel. "We almost did, but it seems too good to pass up. For the healing options, we felt they were too expensive for what they gave us." I said to Avery.
"You need to do a bit more research on them then." Avery said, in his typical bluntness. "They are too useful to pass up. Any serious merc or soldier should have something. Med-gel will only get you so far. On gene editing, yeah, most people don’t read the fine print where the corpos explain it better. Deliberately too, don’t want the rabble using it. They get harder and less effective as you age. All corpo brats get some form of it, normally at birth."
We carried on discussing our options for the next 30 minutes, going through our picks and getting feedback on what they would suggest and why before heading home.
Once there we quickly got ready for bed (Kate would be sleeping between Nat and Jess for now), and I went over our list one last time before I would send it off to Darrel.
"Okay girls, one last time. We all get the lightweight skinweave for low-calibre bullets and knives. Then Dornier Bauer Neutral bridge to make us ambidextrous. Then Nat will get the muscle and bone lace and the nano surgeons, with Jess next, when we can afford it. That is obviously long term. Finally the rest will go to getting the best DNA mapping and gene editing we can get. Yes, that includes Kate, Jess." I said, sending her a pointed look. At least she looked sheepish about asking for the 300th time.
I was initially against spending a huge amount of eddies on her, but Jess was adamant and I eventually caved. I could never truly say no to them. I was justified it to myself by, it was better to know now if she would betray us rather than later.
"Any last-minute things before I send this off? No? Okay, sent." I sighed, settling back into bed.
Overall I was happy with our choices. I would have liked a few others, like the NEO lungs, but for now that was all we could afford.
Nat was getting the most, since she was our heavy front-line fighter and the most likely to get hurt. We decided that would be more important than Jess in the short term. The extra strength also suited her fighting style the most, so it was a no-brainer to help her first.
Then it would be Jess. Making her more agile for the same reasons. We would be getting her the healing mods as soon as we could afford it. We still needed to scope out Eli's stash. I didn’t know if Billy was aware of it or not, so I would give it a few weeks and then scope it out.
If it were still there I would happily take it. I didn’t know how much was there, which I was kind of glad of. If Billy did take it, I wouldn’t know how much I was missing out on.
As for my upgrades, they would come last for obvious reasons. First, it would affect me the least and I was hopefully the least likely to be hurt. My gene modding would be focused on mind enhancements. Daniel had put me straight in that. It wouldn’t make me smarter per se. Like it didn’t actually raise my IQ, increase my creativity or anything like that. But it would help processing information faster, notice patterns sooner, that sort of thing.
I was just closing my eyes when I got a ping. I so nearly ignored it, but grumbling, I opened it. Well, you can't say he wasn’t fast. Darrel had us a slot at the nearest hospital to get the pre-work done.
This was not something ripperdocs would offer. Nor would I actually trust them for that matter. So it was to the professionals we went. They shouldn’t care as long as we had the eddies.
We would need to get the mapping done first, so we would do that tomorrow; they just need to take some samples to run in the lab. That done, which would take a few weeks working with some specialists to choose what we wanted to look like and then we could proceed. The sky was more or less the limit for changes. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; there were limits.
We were just lucky it was mostly skill-based, handled by people. While AI were a big thing a few years ago, they had never been truly able to create art. Sure, they could copy others but never create something wholly original. So it wasn’t lost in the krask like a lot of other things were. While the location wasn’t in the Armstrongs territory unfortunately, it was in the next big gang over, so shouldn’t be too bad getting there. And there was no conflict between them so that made it all the better.
Feeling a bit happier about our chances I drifted off to sleep, pulling Nat in a bit tighter.
---
The next few weeks flew past. One thing became very clear very early on: Kate was here to stay. She meshed well with all of us, but was, unsurprisingly, particularly close to Jess. They were so joined at the hip that I checked to make sure Nat was okay and not concerned about losing her sister. I needn't have worried; they had talked and they were both happy.
I finally got the full story from Kate, as limited as it was.
There wasn’t much to tell. She only remembers her mum and her home. A white, sterilised environment which, just from her descriptions, was obviously a lab of sorts. She never went outside or saw anyone that weren’t her mum and her other uncles. Aka scientists.
What they were researching, I had no idea, but you could bet I would investigate one day. For now all I needed to know was there shouldn't be anyone after her.
Apparently, her mum snuck her out of her home late at night and then drove away. They didn’t get far before they were attacked with the car wrecked. With her mums helps she escaped into the tunnels. Kate said her mum told her to stay away and not to come looking for her.
Which Kate was adamant about doing. I, on the other hand, expected her mum, if she was even that, to be dead. Not that I said that of course.
I would look into it regardless. But not in the short term. That seemed like it would be poking a wasp's nest. Never a clever idea, as we could attest to, having seen one gonk do just that.
We got to meet Lilly again and I enjoyed the conversations I had with Helena and Jeff. They were incredibly personable and easy to talk to. When I found out how close we were to meeting them, I made more of an effort to go through the material I had been given.
There was a lot.
I was nowhere near through it but had been making good progress. There was lots of jumping around as each section tied into another which was in turn tied into another. It would likely be years to get through it all, but I suppose that made sense.
Even as clever as I was, and big-headed as it was, I knew I was smart, I couldn’t just breeze through the advanced material. It was meant to take a decade to finish after all.
There was the stuff I was expecting, even though there was a lot: Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Microbiology, Pathology, Ophthalmology, Preventive & Social Medicine, Internal Medicine and Surgery. However, there were also stuff I was not expecting, although in hindsight I should have, like Electrical Engineering, Material Engineering and how they link to the body, to name a few.
There was even coding, which was more of a problem than I had been expecting.
When I thought about it, it wasn’t surprising. Each brand, and sometimes even each model had a different operating system. It might or might not be the same language, but even if it was, they were still incompatible with each other. Deliberately or if by accident, I didn’t know. These clashes caused a whole host of issues.
It even mentioned the increased Cyberpsychosis rate by name and that book was over 30 years old. Of course, that was no longer in the curriculum these days. I found that out after several hours of searching for some information in the newer books. By the end, I thought I was going mad until I remembered to check the older one.
Maybe it had been proved not to be the case but come on… no one was that naive.
The engineering sections focused on how to maintain the different models or debug them. It was actually mind-boggling how much there was, and to think there used to be so much more before the krash, as well as a recognised certificate for them. I found a section on the different qualifications, and they were extensive.
From cyberware maintenance and repairs to their software and installation.
They were all fascinating. I loved how they each slotted together to build a complete picture, each a fragment in the mosaic. It challenged me which was rare to say, it certainly didn’t come naturally to me like coding did. And I wouldn't have made nearly as good progress if Helena hadn’t put up with me peppering her with questions, which had quickly become a regular monthly part of our lives.
Nat was still religiously messaging Lilly every day, which I was so glad for.
Whilst all this was going well, the gang side was not. Billy maintained indifference to us, sometimes slipping into passive aggressiveness. Annoying, but something easily handled. I didn’t give a shit what he thought at the end of the day.
We still went on big jobs, but where before I was a central part of the planning and execution, now I wasn’t involved in the decision-making at all. That wasn’t all bad, it gave me more time for the things I wanted to do and if they were well planned I wouldn’t have a problem.
But they weren't. More worrying was the trend we were seeing about the gigs we were doing. Gone were the days of data collecting or small raids. Now we were hitting big targets with assaulting through the front door, the only strategy Billy considered.
That led to the obvious conclusion. We were taking heavy casualties. But the glitchmooks saw that as a point of pride. Each showing off their war wound, crowing about how close they were to the edge.
Twats.
Nat told me off for dismissing them, but she was always better at understanding others. To me, it looked like suicide by another name and something I wanted no part of.
Luckily, we were still kept far away from the fighting. My netrunning the perfect excuse to let others go forward. It helped that no one complained about the different treatment. They actually saw it as a bonus with me and the girls not competing with them, if you could believe it.
Again… twats.
Kate was still working her and while she enjoyed the training (she was now comfortable enough to train even with us not in the room), it quickly became apparent that she had two left feet.
It would have been a few months from when she joined us that Avery approached me at the end of a session.
"Aden, you got a mo?"
"Sure. Nat, Jess. I will catch up to you at the main entrance." They vanished around the corner and I turned back to Avery "So what's up?"
"It's Kate. While she trains her heart out, she has no talent with any of this. Her stamina is getting better and we will continue to improve but she doesn’t have the spark that Nat or Jess have."
I nodded, trusting his judgment. "Okay…?"
“So just don’t expect her to be like them, is all. It will get her flatlined stat if you do. I will get her competent, be sure of that. But she'll never be able to keep up with you or the girls. Just something to keep in mind and maybe find something new for her to do. But as I said, that will be an issue years away."
I didn’t reply at first, turning it over in my head. Then nodded. "Hmm, got it. Thanks."
I would have to have a think and see what she wanted to do or what role she would fill. She would still come on gigs with us, so keeping her out of the line of fire was out of the question. Besides, this was London. Shit could go down just walking along the street.
For now, she was enjoying it and improving, so that was enough for me.
Our bioware was also helping. For the DNA mapping, the doc needed all of a few minutes. All it required was some samples and then we were out. As Darrel had explained, the tricky bit was the back end. It took them almost a week and a half to get it all ready. But when they did, it was just as quick as the samples. A few shots and that was it. That and a lot of long, long, looooong meetings. And not with who I was expecting. I thought we would talk with some corpo scientist, but no, we met with artists.
It threw me off. We were led into a sterile room by a corpse in a suit with a white lab coat. Then inside was a woman in loud, baggy clothes. It was hard to explain how much she didn’t fit in. She had a bright pink and purple mohawk for fuck sake.
She clicked with Jess immediately. Something about an anime character, but they were talking too fast for me to understand. So I did the sensible thing and backed away slowly to let them calm down. I had long ago learned to leave Jess to her anime.
The gonk.
It still hadn't made sense why we were seeing an artist until lab coat explained, which made me feel stupid afterwards. We were creating our future looks, so a specialised artist was needed.
It was actually a lot of fun. We looked over each other's designs and I was blown away by the girls. If they were even half as good-looking as the images, they would all be stunning. Even I would look good if I did say so myself. I was happy to see that Jess and Nat had made sure they were still identical twins, just with different body types. Jess had stayed slight and lean, whereas Nat's was larger and stockier. She had gone full-on Amazon warrior without losing her curves.
It was safe to say they would both be amazing in the future. I just had to make sure we all got there.
It was a little freaky that we could create what we were going to look like. We didn’t have complete freedom, which was why there were specialised artists, but it was pretty close.
It came to an eye-watering amount in the end. Well worth it, but it blew through the last of our savings. Even the ones I had been putting to the side in case we needed to move suddenly. Avery offered for us to crash with him for a few days, which took some of the pressure off.
The largest saving grace was Kate. She didn’t need the gene modding, otherwise I don’t think, no, I knew we wouldn’t have been able to afford everything we wanted.
Somehow, she already had the best available and by a large margin. If it had been a ripperdoc and not one we trusted, I would have been tempted to blap the doctors who told me.
I could see the greed and questions in their eyes.
Apparently, the modding was the best they had ever seen and they were curious about where it came from.
The skinweave was also a breeze. It was all done by nanites and virus cultures. Able to sweep through the body, making changes, so it actually required no surgery. It was just expensive and you had to know the right people, which we now did.
I putoff looking in Eli's stash and procrastinated far longer than I should have. But Nat eventually put her foot down and we went looking for it. I was so glad we did. The rush of discovering it still there was amazing. Needless to say we took it, although we had been close to leaving it.
There was far more than we expected. So much more. So far, I'd heard nothing about missing eddies, so I don’t think anyone else was aware of it. It was the sort of amount someone would notice if it went missing.
§45,000. How the fuck Eli saved up so much I would never know. I mean he was at the top of the gang for years and never spent anything. From what we could put together, he had been skimming off the top. Instead of sending the Armstrongs their cut, he had pocketed some. Which was a fucking dangerous thing to do and not something I would have guessed Eli had in him. But then, maybe that was the point.
Either way, it blew us away. It was more eddies than we had ever held. It did make us paranoid as fuck for a while.
---
[Adrian]
Adrian had another look around the room, waiting for the quartet to arrive. He'd asked Aden to meet him and where one went, the rest followed. Glancing to his left, he checked on the nervously fidgeting Calum. His 9-year-old kid brother. Small, mousy brown hair and a slight build. None of his charm and quick speaking, but he was smart, liked technology and kept his head down.
And he was his brother, so he loved him for all his faults.
With Billy going off the deep end and who knew how long he would last, Adrian wanted to make sure Calum had a skill that kept him far off the front line. It would be only a matter of time before he got flatlined if he stayed there with Billy's aggression. Even with all the training Natalie had given him over the years.
Billy had been controllable, but with Eli gone, a small stab of sadness ran through him at the thought; he wasn't sure he could do that anymore.
Adrian didn’t like the chances for the gang.
Now it was falling to him to organise he had started to realise quite how much Eli had done behind the scenes.
Hopefully just Billy would die, and Adrian was planning to keep manoeuvring him to charge at the front, so he could take over and go back to what they were doing before. Intel gathering. Safer, easier and fewer deaths. All in all, just better. And with his contacts, he knew he could make a good life for himself and those around him.
Hell, he was already connecting people on the side.
Seeing movement in the distance, Adrian glanced up and watched them arrive. There was just something different about them. While Billy was loud and stacked with powerful chrome. There was an air of confidence about them. Like the OGs he had met in the past.
They spread out, moving as a unit, flowing around each other in sync. He would never admit it, but it was an intimidating sight. Especially having seen them in action, they were preem.
Turning his attention to the scariest one of them all, Aden. At first glance, he shouldn't be. A brief look at the group would show Jess—loud, happy, but also loved cutting people to pieces. Kate, the new girl. He had not formed an opinion on her yet. Nat, the quiet, solid one, always packing heavy heat.
He still remembered one of their first big raids to go wrong. He and a few others were caught in the wrong place and pinned down. One of the scariest times of his life. He hadn't been able to see a way to save Calum or himself. And it was a feeling he never wanted repeated. Part of the reason he joined the Forge the quartet went to.
He always avoided them as he got the distinct impression they did not like him. But after that day, pinned down asking for help on the channel and Nat's cool, controlled voice coming though telling them she was on her way.
At first, he had scoffed. What could she do? There were several gangers all heavily armed.
How wrong he was. He got a firsthand view of Nat marching through, tearing them all to shreds, her heavy rifle hitting them in pinpoint accuracy. Moving like the ace soldiers he had seen on the recruitments adds for the military.
Now he'd been going for a few months, and paying for some trusted subordinates as well, he realised how sloppy he had been. What he thought was preem and clever, was in fact a good way to get killed.
It also let him appreciate the skills their little quartet had.
Then there was Aden. Quiet watchful. More than anything, there was an intensity to him. When you had his full attention, it was like he was looking into your soul. Also, Adrian was almost 100% sure that all the defences of the gang had been subverted by him, part of the reason he was sitting here out of line of the turrets.
Forcing himself to relax as Aden sat in front of him, his cold cybereyes staring at him.
"So what's this about?" Aden asked. His piercing eyes sweeping over them. He could feel Calum freezing next to him.
Clearing his throat, Adrian forced himself to stay calm and show none of the unease he felt, keeping his small smirk in place. Never let the world see you sweat. "This is Calum. Billy wants you to teach him netrunning. He's got a deck and implants, with a small amount of experience. But Calum needs to be trained up."
Hair stood up on the back of his neck as Aden refocused on him cocking his head slightly. He could almost see Aden ticking it over in his head.
"What would I get for training him, or for putting me out of a job?"
Ignoring the word Billy wanted him to say, 'because I said so,' that wouldn't work. He was pretty sure they would just leave, part of the reason Adrian had made an effort to make sure they were still okay. He knew the biggest asset their gang had was them.
That might change. He was getting more eddies now and if Calum could fill Aden's role, even in a small way…
It took a lot of dancing back and forth, but finally Aden agreed.
"Okay sure, but I want that info within the next few weeks. Calum was it? Go and get your deck and whatever other equipment you have, we will go over it and your ICE and go from there."
Calum glanced at him only moving when Adrian gave a small smile and nod to go.
They carried on making small talk or at least he tried to, but it was like trying to talking to a wall. In fact, a wall might have given him more conversation than he was getting now. But finally a clanking noise saw Calumn return carrying all his stuff.
Aden leaned forward with interest. "Okay put it on the table and let's see what we are working with."
Spread out on the table, it did not look like much, just a cyberdeck, a laptop, shards with programs installed and a braindancer wreath.
Aden shifted closer to the table, picking up and turning over pieces, nodding as he did. "Huh, a PCT Dazig."
Adrian couldn't help but lean forward, worried he had bought the wrong thing. All the research he had done pointed to it being a good starter. "Is that a bad deck? It was the only one I could find that was not a heap of shit or from an irreputable seller."
"Hmmm." Adan hummed thoughtfully, having picked it and was carefully looking it over. "Oh no, it's cheap, not great and has no add-ons, but it’s a good deck to start with. It will allow Calum to get his feet under him and see what sort of runner he wants to be. But you will need an upgrade; it has a terrible datawall. But I can show you where to start for that."
"Sort of runner?" Calum asked hesitantly.
Grunting Aden leaned back, shifting to get comfortable. "How much do you know about running?"
"Not much." Adrian and Calum admitted.
"No matter, so to be brief. There are lots of styles to hacking. Are you going to be sneaky or loud? Are you going to use a few very powerful ICE or many weaker ones, and so on? It also depends on what your target is. If your hittin a corpo HQ it will be vastly different to a small dorph lab."
He carefully placed the deck back onto the table and leaned back, fully focusing on Calum.
"All these are questions that need to be explored. Depending on what the answer is, depends on the best deck to get. However, that is not really relevant for now. I'm still on my starter deck. It's customised as any good deck should be. But still the same deck. Now let's see the ICE." Aden said, leaning forward once more and flicked through them, his face revealing nothing.
A few minutes of him muttering to himself and he tossed them back onto the table. "Same story for your ICE. Meh, but a good spread. The main problem with them is they're old."
"Is that a problem? Should I look for any others?" Calum asked tentatively.
"For now, no. At our level it shouldn’t be an issue. We are unlikely to run into any serious Black ICE. It really only comes into play if you are fighting another runner and to be honest, if that ever happens, you are better off ghosting out. Regardless, these will do for now. We can sit down and look at or make some others that might be helpful going forward."
Good, Adrian thought, that was what he had been told, so it was nice he wasn’t screwed out of money. They cost an arm and a leg already, blowing through almost all his eddies to get them.
"Right then, what are your experiences so far?"
Calum's face lit up in excitement, shuffling forward to the edge of his seat, he exclaimed, "Not much so far. Adrian wouldn't let me, you'no what I mean." Turning, he stuck his tongue out at him. "But I am so excited to learn with you. Adrian says you're sick."
Why did he have to say that?
"Did he now?" Aden said with a slight smirk. "Anyway now that I have seen what equipment you have, you can go put it away. I don’t have time to do any more today, but we can meet here tomorrow fully kitted and we can go from there—"
----
"You bring us to the nicest places." Nat said sarcastically as we stood out in front of Billy’s ripperdoc. It was on the surface, and not too far from the Forge. Which made it convenient, but it was as seedy and grotty as all hell.
The entire area was. Most windows were boarded up or smashed in, with the few working shops covered in razor wire. The ripperdoc was the one exception, but that probably had something to do with the hired goons outside.
"Okay wait here. I will be back soon." I said as I made my way in. My agent was ready to send an SOS and the girls would come running.
Pushing open the door, I grimaced in distaste.
The inside was not much better than the outside. The small Victorian semi had been converted… well, kind of. The front rooms were waiting rooms with the ripperdoc clinic upstairs. The floors were clear of rubbish, but that was about all I could say for them. They weren't clean, with a suspicious-looking stain in the corner.
And that was a rat. Lovely.
I'd made myself an appointment when I hacked his systems searching for information the other day, so I was let in without trouble. The uninterested receptionist pointed to the stairs, barely looking up from her phone and joint. She stank of cat urine. She could be a cat lady; she looked weird enough to be one. I mean who would want a cat? Dogs were clearly the better pets. Not that I had any reference for either, but the animosity with cats was mutual. I swear any cat, cared for or feral (although feral was more common), always gave me an evil look whenever they saw me. Still, it was far more likely she was smoking crack.
Not surprising, the muscle on the door were smoking the same. They probably supplied it, or at least their gang did.
Upstairs was not much better, but the doc fit in nicely though. A large fat man, stained wife beater, piggy eyes and a cyberarm. You could not find a more fitting man for the current environment, although I was surprised by the golden arm.
Pretentious mook.
By his black teeth, he partook in the drugs as well. Probably why he did what he did. Or he was just scum. Either was possible.
"Well kid, what do you want done?"
Smiling, I made my way closer, keeping my hand near my gun "Oh no I don’t need any work done. I am here for a job."
Surprise flashed across his features before settling into a scowl. "Then fuck off! I don’t like my time wasted."
"Now now, just wait, I think you should see this." I passed the data chip Adrian and I had acquired. "Proof of your biz with scavs, even doing some of the chop shop work yourself. Not a good look. It also clearly shows you overcharged Billy and that you are working with the Salvator Boys and the Deptford Reapers. Their largest rivals. Not to mention the Armstrongs. This is still their territory right?" I could almost see the thought flash through his head. "Don’t worry, that isn't the only copy." I stopped the far side of the ripperdoc chair, well out of reach and kept an eye on his hands.
"Billy is willing to let the money go if you take me on. If not, he will go to the clan and pass all the information to them." I said with a nasty smile. I had no sympathy for him. I had seen some of the stuff he was doing and he was a dead man walking. He just did not know it yet. Once his usefulness was over, he would have a fatal accident, of that I was sure.
I was also bluffing about Billy. He had no idea he was being overcharged, and I had no intention of ever telling him, but he was a nice beat stick.
The ripperdoc's face went an ugly, putrid colour, his fist clenched by his side, and an almost metallic sound of the grinding of his teeth filled the room. But the longer I went on, the more the rage turned to fear and by the time I was finished he'd crumpled in on himself. Not surprising because if word ever got out his life would get very difficult. Or more likely, violently short.
"O-Okay. How would this work?"
"I will be coming in several times a week to help you and learn the ropes. Using your equipment, different surgeries, all of it."
Still pale, he nodded. "A pimp is bringing in his whore tomorrow for their check-ups. So come early and you can learn diagnostics."
"Good, I will see you tomorrow then." I said, after a bit more talking and making sure the ground rules were clear, I left feeling like I needed a shower. What a scummy place. But no decent ripper would take on a newbie with no qualifications or rep. If they did, it would just be as a nurse helping them out, which was not what I wanted. I wanted to actually have experience as a ripperdoc. I had the dataslides from Helena and she promised to give me more when I had finished the current set.
So this would be the practical work I needed.
When Adrian approached me about Calum, I thought about rejecting him. After all, it was clear they were trying to replace me. But in the end I decided to go with it. If they were asking it was only a matter of time. Happily, Adrian could get me some of the information I needed, leading to this.
The next morning I turned up bright and early, passing through different goons without issue and made my way up. The girls would be hanging around for a few hours to make sure it was all on the level, then would carry on to the Forge. Picking me up on the way home tonight.
There was already a crowd when I entered. Men and women of all shapes and sizes. Most in very little clothing. The local hookers, and a gold-coated guy watching over them. The pimp, one would assume.
He looked like a mean fucker. Then he would need to be. Violence against joytoys was all too common.
Ignoring them, I met up with the doc, Pete.
"Right. You’re here. If you could sit there?" Pete grunted, or tried to. It came put more like a squeak. He pointing to a stall near the monitor attached to the ripperdoc chair in the centre of the room.
Sitting down on the small stool, which I made sure to wipe down first and looked over his shoulder at the display. I didn’t get too close, not because I was scared Pete might lash out, although that was a part of it. It was the stink. I don’t think he had washed in the last month. He certainly hadn't changed his clothes.
His fat fingers tapped on the screen of the terminal attached to the ripperdoc rig. "Watch what I do for the first few, yeah? All we will be doing today is diagnostics. The system does most of the work. We run the program and keep an eye on it. Looking for any red flags since the programme ain't perfect."
So started my first day as a ripperdoc. As Pete said, it was pretty mundane. The joytoys would come in, get plugged into the rig. I would start the diagnostic programmes and keep an eye out for any anomalies he told me to look out for, then move on to the next. For such a simple thing, I was surprised how different his process was from what I had read in my books. I didn’t know if that was the norm or if Pete was just cutting corners.
I was pretty sure it was the latter.
After the first few days, I quickly became the one exclusively doing the diagnostics, while Pete fucked off somewhere. I was pretty sure he was a potato brain as well as a meth skezz. He always seemed to have a set of braindance goggles around his neck. Why else do that unless he was an addict?
But it suited me just fine. In between breaks I accessed my diagnostic book which I had downloaded to my agent, and flicked through them. I tried to incorporate some of the steps and things to look out for in my next patients.
Clearly it worked, as in the next patient I found a few things I would have missed. Not terrible stuff this time, but it was good that I could improve. That only encouraged me to read other books on the subject, adding to my process as I went. I also downloaded a copy of the diagnostic program to take home to see if I could improve it in any way.
When a patient was plugged in, their data would appear on the screen that was attached to the operating chair. It had all the normal stuff, heartbeat, blood pressure and records if they were a regular patient. But also other stuff, amount of cyberware and bioware, nerve load, etc.
Assuming they had a history anyway. Some people went to great trouble to not have any.
Over the weeks Pete slowly stopped walking on egg shells around me and settled into a grumpy dower man. One good thing about this was, he was quick to give me responsibility. Not out of trust I'm sure, but laziness. Once I could do a job, he left it with me. At least for the days I worked, which were most mornings.
He normally hung about while I was doing larger surgeries, but how useful he would have been while off his face I didn’t know. I luckily never had to find out.
Here the fact it was a chop shop actually helped me. I could have avoided it and I almost did. But it was just too useful to practice. The stakes were much lower if I borked the operation if the patient was already a corpse. It still left a nasty taste in my mouth, but it served its purpose.
What I found more fun was working with the cyberware afterwards. Both preforming maintenance and repairs on them. I couldn't do much at the start but as time went on I pushed myself to learn more.
The best practice was pretending it was a surgery or hard procedures. It was gory work but that was all it was.
Things quickly fell into a routine, teaching Calum about net running a few days a week. Practice at the Gym and work in the clinic. I quickly synced my agent to his appointment books so on days when there was little to no work I didn’t go in. Instead, teaching Calum those days or going to the Forge, depending on circumstances.
This will be the only chapter for this, although it is a hefty one. I should have probably separated it out but there you are. Unfortunately I wont have time to finish editing the other chapters to release more. But I will start to get them added for the advanced users next week.
As ever thank you for all the support.