"Aden, get in here!" Pete barked as soon as I stepped into the operating room. "We have a cyberarm in half an hour. Prep the room."
"That is why I am here early, I saw the appointment already." I grumbled quietly to myself. But I suppose I can't blame him too much; I was blackmailing him. At least he was no longer actively hostile. I had no idea how he behaved with Billy, who he thought was in on it. I made a point to never come in those days to avoid him.
Going into the back room, I grabbed everything we would need. First were the injections, nanites and anaesthetics, as while Pete was scum, he at least gave everyone general anaesthetics or a numbing agent, rather than leaving them awake for the whole operation.
Unlike some truly bottom-feeder ripperdocs.
Next were the tools, from bone saws and scalpels to screwdrivers and metal grinders. Some of the small ones Pete already had in his cyberarm, like the screwdriver, but I liked to have some spare just in case.
Checking the appointment, I grimaced at the cyberarm model. A PCE, an overpriced and unreliable hunk of garbage. But annoyingly popular due to the boatloads of bells and whistles it supposedly offered, with catchy, clever-sounding names in its advertisement. All of which meant nothing. The add-ons were not useful and the arm ran well below even its other competitors, completely ignoring the beasts in the industry like Arasaka and Miltec.
The room all set up, I made my way down to the waiting room to go and grab our client. The waiting room already had a few people, a few walk-ins and our—no really… "Adrian? What are you doing here?"
He looked up, surprised, before understanding blossomed on his face. "So this is where you vanish off to when we all go on gigs. I thought you went to the Forge those days. I am here for a cyberarm."
Groaning to myself, I sat in the empty seat next to him, "Please tell me you aren't getting the PCE 'Everyman Arms'?" Seeing him nod, I couldn't help but be disappointed. I thought he was more observant than that. "Why they're shit?"
"But they're recommended? Have great reviews, everything I might need and loads of things the others don’t have like nanite sync stabilisers."
I sighed. Another one bought into the hype. "No, the reason the others don’t have them in their advertising is that they are in every cyberlimb. It doesn't work without that tech. So no one else puts it in. And all the other catchy phrases are the same." I almost left it and let him get the shit arm, but he had been doing right by us. "Do you trust me enough to change?"
"Hmmm… what would you recommend instead then?" Adrian said noncommittally.
I pinged the arm to his agent. "Get this model. It's an older model of the 'Everyman Arms' called 'Haulers'. I know it's not as preem sounding and a bit more expensive. But the older model was made trying to compete with the other giants of industry, so it was their best model. We have a few in stock. They are reliable and function similarly or better than most available arms on the market. The main draw of this particular model though, is its energy efficiency. It never needs charging as it will charge by myoelectric power."
Which was rare among the cheaper arms. Most had an internal power supply which you need to charge regularly or risk the arm dying on you at borked moments. Especially if you had lots of extras. It was why you were supposed to have regular checkups, so it could be safely recharged.
Although some of the better-made ones could be recharged from the mains like you would an agent.
Adrian laughed, waving his hands at me. "Yo, yo, a'rigth. A'right. You've convinced me. I'll get it if I won't need to upgrade for a while. But do you mean by myoelectric?"
I smiled, in ordinarily pleased that he accepted my suggestion. "Good. It is the term for the electric properties of muscles. So it will be recharged by your muscles moving." I said, leading him to the operating room. Once I had him settled in the chair, I quickly went out and changed the arm. I also updated the appointment to show the changes in cyberarm request.
A few minutes later Pete bustled in. "All set?" he asked, glancing at me. Seeing my nod, he continued. "Good, Aden, start to administer the injections."
Doing as I was told, I grabbed them off the side where I had carefully lined them up and started to load them into the injector attached to the rig. Guiding Adrian's arm, I strapped it into a circular machine, which would hold the arm steady while it was operated on. It did the same for the cyberarm when we attached it. It had the added benefit of stopping the shoulder from moving to make sure everything was in alignment.
The injectors administered the drugs, their internal buffers quickly emptying. I made sure to keep an eye on the biomonitors linked to the chair, making sure there were no complications. This was one of the common points where complications could occur.
The injections were just a general anaesthetic to put Adrian asleep and a mix of cocktails to slow his heart right down and some blood clotters. Next was a silvery liquid, which was the huge number of nanites we would need throughout the op. Once the arm was attached, they would activate and bond with it, finishing the final stages, like forming connections with nerves.
We were using substandard nanites, but high-quality ones were hard to come by, not to mention expensive. Unfortunately, there was a difference, not a huge one, but a noticeable one.
When Adrian slumped and his stats were stable, Pete got himself settled and pulled the rack of tools to his side. "Let's get this done."
It was grisly work; going in and clamping the arteries, cutting the arm off with the bone saws, tidying up with scalpels. Measuring to make sure we had taken enough off for the cyberarms, trimming a bit more, making sure a nub of bone was left sticking out to make it easy to attach the cyberarm. Then cap that bone with metal, making sure it had a good bond. After that, we fitted the arm, fusing it to the bone and metal cap, connected the nervous system, and finally sealing the flesh onto the cyberarms with a special glue. That done, we tinkered with the arm, running diagnostics to make sure all was working as well as final calibrations.
When everything was in place, a pulse was sent through Adrian, activating the one-time use nanites already in his blood, getting them to start to work, finishing off the last bits. They only completed what we had started, so if we did a shit job, so did they. That was especially true with the crappy nanites we were using.
Finally, I administered a few more injections, like antibiotics to stop infection and then we were done.
A full-on 2-hour operation.
I was struggling by the end of it. Having to focus for that length of time was a mission. I'm pretty sure the only way Pete could get through it was the puffs I saw him take from a small canister from his pocket.
The arm we cut off Pete would try and sell, probably wouldn't get much, but every little helped, and there were always people buying.
Adrian would be out of it for several hours while the nanites finished their job and the anaesthetics wore off, so I pressed a button on the rig, disconnecting the chair from the rest of the machines and wheeled him out into a backroom to keep him out of the way.
Happy he was stable and the biomonitors were synced up, I left him to sleep. On the way back, I grabbed the spare chair and attached it back into the rig before doing some cleaning.
Nowhere near as much as I wanted to, but then I had professional pride, something Pete lacked.
When I first started I was horrified by how dirty everything was. I'd expected a clean environment for operations which wasn’t the case here. Hell, I saw cockroaches wandering around. It still horrified me to some extent. But the lights illuminating the rig in the centre of the room were not just lamps but specialised kit that killed off bacteria and viruses. It was these that stopped our patients from getting infections while we operated on them.
It also kept everything sterilised. How that didn’t fuck us up, I didn’t know. I hadn't gotten that far yet in my modules. But I had checked, and it wasn’t going to give me cancer. Helena had assured me I wouldn’t, but I was still suspicious. When I could, I would be learning more about them, that I could guarantee.
Even after helping Pete several times with these operations, I still felt rung out by the end of it. Even simple ones like we had just done. But we still had the rest of the day ahead.
A very busy day. But tomorrow would be good… hopefully, I lied to myself as I got to work, bringing in the next patients.
----
We were all chattering away, following the bustling crowd as the nomad market came into view. The armed guards patrolling had flashing cyberfasion, proudly displaying their gang tats. Huh, looks like it was the Mafia's turn to help guard the market. We made a beeline to Lilly's family's stalls, not needing anything else today.
Greeting her parents briefly, as it was peak time and this was their first day here, so they were incredibly busy, we collected Lilly and made our way to her home. By this point, we only got a glance from the guards at the perimeter. We'd been here enough times for them to know us and we were on their guest lists.
As the caravan came into sight, Lilly grabbed Nat's arm and started pulling her after her as she rushed off. "Come on, come on, I have this preem gun you just have to see!"
Laughing, the rest of us sped up to keep pace with the 2 of them because as soon as Lilly mentioned a new gun, she was almost being dragged along by Nat rather than the other way round. I grabbed some water when we arrived. I had been there enough times that it almost felt like a second home, a weird thought that had only just occurred to me.
In fact, if pressed, I might say this was more of a home than our place at the gang. Maybe that was just recent shit getting in the way.
I caught up to the others, looking over their shoulders to get a good look.
"See! It's a 30mm HiVel Auto-GL, it’s a beast. Look at the ammo it fires." She said, pulling out a round the size of her head. It was massive. Taking one, I turned it over in my hands. It was weighty as might be expected, but it wasn’t as heavy as I was expecting. It was mostly the size of the thing that got me. I could close both hands around it and still not cover the round.
"How does someone even use that?" I asked since the gun itself looked like any other gun someone might hold. Well, if you ignored the massive barrel and magazine size.
"It’s a Borg weapon." Lilly explained. "Super rare and only a full borg can control the recoil. Otherwise, it needs to be attached or deployed to things to be able to use it. Isn't it ace? Daddy got it for the campervan. With all the problems on the road, he wanted some more firepower."
We spent a happy afternoon hanging with Lilly, playing with some of the new stuff they had picked up on their travels. I was always excited to retreat to a side room for a bit of peace and quiet—a rare bit of me time. I had access to some of the data shards with my ripperdoc material, so I pulled it up and curled up on the comfy sofas and started to read. It had become a habit by now, so much so that Jeff had recommended me some books, like 1984 by George Orwell.
I loved it. He had it in paperback! That was a novelty that had yet to wear off, and I tried to read as many books as I could. Somehow, it was just nicer to read than from my agent, no matter how much more efficient it was.
The book itself had been fascinating and slightly horrifying. It was depressing to read what others might see as the worst-case scenario for a dystopian future, only to realise you were living in it and a worse version as well.
Another time I tired the Lords of the Rings. I finished it, but my god was it a slog. The language was just so hard to read, at least at first. Once I got my eye in it was okay, but even so—not my favourite. The films were still better in my opinion.
Lilly had demanded we watch them, the whole trilogy, when she learned Nat had never seen them. It had been a fun day, stuffing ourselves with popcorn during the movie marathon. Another first for us.
Other times, I worked on stuff like programming, but now I wasn't doing so much of that in the gang, that had slowed down slightly. I still enjoyed reading and learning about it, but had fewer chances to test it.
It was pretty late when I heard a clattering outside. Getting up, I made my way out. "Good day?" I asked, seeing both Steele parents slumped in the chairs outside.
Jeff gave me a tired smile. "Frantic actually. Our stock, which was meant to last the week, is almost finished. Where are the others?"
"Last I saw them, they were watching some animated thing. I could barely struggle through 10 minutes, but they seem to like it."
"Ha, that would be the Adventures of Danger Gal. I agree its grating, but Lilly loves it. She quotes it all the time. Okay, food time. Should all be ready, just need to get it out."
Seeing them start to move, I waved them back down. "Naa stay, we can lay the table." Once inside, I called to the girls to come and help.
I got the knives and forks from the freshly organised drawer. Jeff had to have major OCD as everything had to be in the correct place with him, something I was pretty sure Lilly inherited from him. Judging by the way she bit my hand off when we did not follow the exact process and put the tools back exactly as they should be when I helped her do some work.
With the food laid out, we fell into a comfortable mood, talking as we ate. It was almost a holiday for us at this point. One we did every month without fail. Sometimes more if they were around.
Lilly was slumped in her chair, in the first stages of a food coma. "Mum, can they stay the night this time?"
Helena slowly finished her mouthful. "I'm not sure about that, honey."
That had Lilly perk up in her seat, pouting. "But you promised when they could not stay last time because of that stupid gig."
She threw me a hopeless shrug, "Can you stay the night, or do you need to be off?"
Thinking for a moment, I only planned to do some programming tomorrow which I could easily do here. There was nothing else going on that I knew of. The gang was quiet, and by this point, we barely interacted with the gang, so I was not sure it mattered much anyway. We paid our dues to stay, which normally came out of our cut from the gigs we went on. With us going on less, we had to contribute with eddies.
I glanced at the girls, but they all looked keen. Except Kate, who was zonked out, having I think eaten her weight in cake. "No, we can stay."
The girls cheer, even Kate stirring enough to celebrate before having another slice. It really did make me happy seeing Kate open up. I’d been worried for the first few months she wouldn’t. She'd only really interacted with Jess in any meaningful way. She was always very helpful, don’t get me wrong, but she was as quiet as a mouse.
It wasn’t a bad thing; it gave Jess someone to focus on, which I think she needed more than I realised. Still, it was ace seeing her loudly cheering with the others, something she would never have done in the past.
Hell, it was great seeing all of them so happy.
With dinner done, they shot off back inside, leaving me chatting to Helena as Jeff had a few bits he needed to do.
We moved from the table to sit in front of a fire. It was contained in a barrel and gave off enough light to see by as well as a nice warm, warding off the evening chill. Helena curled up in the chair opposite me, glass of wine in hand. In a hushed voice, she asked, "How are things in the gang now?"
Stretching, I slumped down in my chair. "Not great. I don’t think there is a risk of us getting kicked out. Jess and Nat are too important. We are also paying our dues, so yeah, I think we are there to stay. At least in the short term."
That was more care of Adrian than Billy. They were protecting Calum, so he had a vested interest in keeping them around. They were better than any of the other mooks that might guard him.
Helena nodded. "What about the ripperdoc stuff. Have you finished the most recent shard I gave you?"
Grinning, I sat up a little straighter. "Nearly. I want to review some of it again. I borked some of the practice tests you gave me, so I want to check them again. But yeah, nearly done. I think I will be leading an op soon. Pete has been passing more and more stuff over to me." I trailed off, staring into the dancing flames before remembering I had some questions for her.
"Actually, that reminds me. I noticed a lot of differences between the processes in the books you gave me and what Pete is showing me. Not small ones either. Is that normal? Like, are the book ones just guides and everyone changes them to suit their needs or what?"
Helena scratched her head in thought. "Hmmm. Not normally… but without seeing him, I wouldn't be able to tell you."
Hesitating as I didn’t want to ask anymore from them, they had helped us so much already. "Would you be willing to show me some tips and tricks on the rig you have here. Maybe I can help as a nurse or something if you have any jobs?"
"Probably not as a nurse, or at least not until you have shown me you have the level of competence I would expect of my staff. But yes, I think so. With most of our stock gone, we will have a light day tomorrow so we can set up the rig and I can take you through some stuff. I might even have a job in a few days that you could sit in, as long as they are okay with that."
Breaking out in a bright smile. "Thank you. That would be ace!"
---
Multiple small giggling missiles landed on me, wrenching me from my very pleasant dreams the next morning. The dawn light barely peeking through the windows reinforced my point. It was far too early for their levels of enthusiasm.
I gasped, trying to draw breath in, the attack having winded me and twisted to protect my most vulnerable body part. I’d taken the sofa, wanting no part of what amounted to a slumber party. The others had all bunked in Lilly's room, and judging by the noise, I'd made the right call not to sleep in with them. By the amount of giggling I’d heard coming from them, they got very little sleep.
Still trying to get my breath back and them off of me, I decided to flip the board and rolled us all off onto the floor in a tangle of giggling limbs.
After breakfast Helena took me out to the trailer. With a bit of wrestling, we got the white marquee set it up over the trailer and ripperdoc chair.
Once done, Helena showed me around. "It's not as good as I'd like, but this way we don’t need to drive another vehicle around to house it all. I can always rent a room if I have a more serious operation. I just need to know in advance what I would need anyway to get supplies."
With the marquee set up, we hauled the crates inside before finally manoeuvring the trailer into the centre of the area. I say we, but it was actually Jeff, as neither Helena nor I could shift it. Seeing him move it with such ease once again reminded me not to underestimate anyone, as Jeff was... well, Jeff. He did not look like he was packing serious cyberware and yet he was moving crates that had to weigh up to half a ton with ease.
Locking it in place, the sides of the trailer dropped down and pegged to the floor, making a slope to a 4m by 3m flat platform in the middle. Her ripperdoc rig looked similar to Pete's, just cleaner and better maintained. They had all the same monitors and machines around it, ready for use.
She did have some extras, a few I recognised and others I didn’t.
"Right, first Jeff has nicely agreed to be our guinea pig. I want you to run a full diagnostic on him. I made some changes this morning, so there are some false flags for you to find."
I zoomed through my normal process, paying extra attention to not miss anything.
It was unnerving having Helena hovering behind me. Her face was carefully blank throughout, so I had no idea how I was doing, but when I couldn’t think of anything else to check, I stepped back.
As I did, she broke into a pleased, and I could be imagining it, impressed smile. "Good, I think you got them all bar one." My smile swiftly turned into a frown, my satisfaction vanishing. "Don’t make that face. I was not expecting you to get this one." She said, highlighting something on the monitor. "You need to know the brand SPS really well to catch it. They are notorious for doing overcompensation and slowly desyncing. Not an issue if you know about it and keep it maintained."
She then proceeded to school me. Any thought of me being competent was quickly crushed.
Still, I wouldn’t change it for the world… well, I would, but it would take a lot for me to change it.
The day of practice ripperdocing was incredible. I think I learned more in the several hours I spent with her than I did in the last few months of trial and error.
Even better, it became a regular part of her visits, not every time. Some gonks wanted privacy or she just didn’t have any ops lined up. But when she did, I made sure to watch or help with as many of them as possible. It helped so much that I actually looked for other ways to see her more in action.
Which was where Jeff reminded us of DBs. I already had the rig, so it was ace. She could record herself (with the patient's permission) and then send them to me. It wasn’t fast, taking days sometimes to reach me. But with her talking over the top of it, explaining what and why she was doing what, it was preem.
I even swapped out my optics to send her mine as well. I didn’t normally send them and we just reviewed them when she arrived in London. It was expensive to send messages out of London.
A steady stream of small gigs from Darrel kept us afloat. Not building up a nest egg, but we didn’t dig into Eli's funds, which was good enough for now. He hinted that we might start to get larger gigs if we kept it up, but for now, I was content with the smaller ones. It allowed us to build our rep and learn. The gigs might be the same in name as those we did with the firm, but they still had their differences. Mainly, the level of skill expected of us.
No longer would a sloppy job be excused as Boxy might.
Regardless, the gigs were ace. Turn up, hack them and then get out again. An easy payday.
One thing this led to that I didn’t like was the girls taking day trips while I was at Pete's. I wasn't 100% sold on it, but could see its importance. We needed to find a new home. Now more than ever. We'd not found anything we would want just yet, at least not that was affordable to us or one I would risk.
The few that might have been okay were controlled by the gangs or corporations. And don’t even get me started on council flats. I think there would have been friendly or more pleasant places in hell.
The one time we looked, we quickly learned it wasn’t for us. It might have been the drugs, or the smell of them seeping through the walls. Or maybe the bullet holes in the walls, lack of hot water or flimsy door. Yeah, I had no idea why we didn’t like it.
"Aden!" Pete shouted from the operation room. Heading to see what he wanted as I was sorting out inventory. "The next 2 operations are yours. Both peace of piss. A techy wants his cyberhand changed for a more useful one for his job and a family wants to upgrade an arm. Both routine. Well hop to it, the techy will arrive in a few minutes."
Taking calming breaths as I bustled about setting up the room ready for my first operation. Once set up, I went and grabbed the guy, a lanky man of 40ish from the waiting room. Getting him settled, I went to work.
All cyberlimbs had a locking mechanism, normally fully isolated, so it was inaccessible unless you had the specialised tools. With them, you could change parts, either to replace, repair or to change out an attachment.
This particular model was very old, so it was just some mechanical lock which I used a magnet to flip and then removed some panelling, screws and welds. Off it popped, and everything below the wrist came away with a hiss. Checking the stump for any issues, I set to work doing everything in reverse to attach the new hand. Once it was fully locked it I ran a few checks to make sure it was synced up to the rest of the hand.
Turning the sensation back on in his arm now that I had finished, "Okay give it a move, everything feel good?"
The guy flexed and stretched his hand to make sure it moved and responded as he wanted it, before confirming he was happy and hurried off. As he left the room, Pete grunted. "Good. You didn’t screw it up. A few more of those and you're on your own. Should be within your limited skill." He said, before lumbering off, the floor shaking under his feet. He had only grown fatter since I'd known him.
Fucking prick. I couldn’t wait for the time I could croak him.
Even with Pete's dismissal, the smile didn’t leave my face. Another clearly done op. Easy and hassle-free, I knew what to do at all times. Even catching a few issues that could have cropped up in a few months. That good feeling faded when I remembered the much bigger surgery that afternoon.
It was my biggest op to date.
I tried to lose myself in work for the rest of the day, but it sat there niggling me. I powered through and by the time I finished cleaning some tools, time had flown past. Perhaps too well, as it was much later than I wanted.
Shit. I should have already started to prep the room ages ago, I thought as I checked my agent.
Moving all the tools I would need, I found Pete already sitting out the way with a clear view of what I would be doing. Everything set up, I brought the girl and her family in. The parents hovered off to one side while the little girl hopped up onto the chair.
Doing a few last-minute checks, I went to work. First, putting her to sleep and then started to remove the arm. I first clamped the artillery and then desynced the nerve system from the old arm. That done, I used a special chemical to debond the nanites of the cyberarm from the bone so it could come off easier. I still needed to cut away some of the skin that had grown attached to the arm, but otherwise it came off like a dream.
I ground the bone a bit. I'd flinched when I first used it. It made a terrible squealing noise and the smell… like cooked human flesh, which, depressingly, I did know what that smelled like. All too well in fact.
The parents looked a bit green by this point, not that I blamed them. I had told them they wouldn’t want to watch, but they insisted. Completely understandable. I wouldn’t leave Pete alone with someone I cared about either.
Setting the arm aside, I cleaned the wound, then set about putting on the new one. This one was an adult version, rather than the child-size one she had before, so it did require some chopping to make sure the arm fit properly, but after what felt like years but was only 1 hour and 34 minutes according to my agent, I was done.
As normal, I ran a few checks and then decoupled the chair from the rest of the rig and moved it into the recovery room. "She will be out of it for another 30 minutes to an hour. Once she comes round, I will run some tests, then she will be good to go." I told her still hovering parents.
Stepping back into the room, Pete stomped away. Over his shoulder, he shouted. "Tidy up, I will put you down for these sorts of ops going forward." Before slamming the door leading to the stairs up to his private residence on the floor above, already pulling up his goggles as he went.
Shaking my head, yeah, he's not happy, not that I cared. A few more years of this (if that) and I would have learned everything I needed and he could have his accident. I set about cleaning and attaching the spare chair to the rig. 32 minutes later I got an alert from the biomonitors in the other chair.
The girl's vitals changed as she woke up. Heading over, I brought them back in and put her through a battery of tests. More than I probably needed to. But it was my first one, and I wanted to make sure it was done properly. I didn’t want to half-arse it and have them back in, in a few weeks.
"Finally, can you touch your pinkie to your other finger on both sides, like this." I said, demonstrating.
She copied me with ease. Good, none of the wires were crossed. "Well done. Any pain?"
The little girl rapidly shook her head. "No just a small ache."
"Good, that’s all the test done, you are free to go." Turning to the parents, I passed over 2 inhalers. "This red one give her every 2 hours until it runs out. It will help numb the pain. This other one needs to be given to her every morning until it too runs out. That should be about a week. It's to make sure there is no rejection of the new limb." They had a few other questions which I answered with ease, but damn was it nice to meet some people who cared and had some critical thinking.
Once they were happy, I sent them on their way.
As soon as they were gone I slumped down into a chair, exhausted but with a gigawatt smile on my face.
I had done it! My first full op. Damn, was I ace. They went so well. I kept the smile all evening.
I actually hesitated before sending Helena the recording. I didn’t want her to burst my bubble with the gazillions of mistakes I was sure to have made. But I wouldn’t learn that way.
I encrypted the recording and put it aside, ready for when they were back. It was tempting to send it to her, even knowing the cost. But we didn’t know which city they were currently in, so it would have to wait.
---
Hello, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Sorry this didn't come out yesterday, no good excuse just plain forgot.