Chapter 41: New Digs (Patreon)

Praise upon the gremlin for its usual assistance!

Some very slight edits hath been inflicted upon the last chap.

Give me thine most glorious thoughts and opinions, the dopamine gods demand it!

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Michael 'Magos' Sobronov

"Hey, what's this?" 

My packing was interrupted by a curious Rebecca and I looked up to find her tiptoeing next to my work table, staring curiously at a thin titanium chain with a small locket attached to the end of it.

Absently, I also noticed she had gained a good three inches in height.

A complete coincidence, I am sure.

Shaking my head, I finished shuffling the rest of my surgical tools into the box before quickly ducttaping it closed, and stood up.

"Just a souvenir." I said, placing the box atop a large stack "My last job went..."

Her eyes sparkled with excited curiosity.

I exhaled and shrugged "Well. It definitely went."

"Ah, c'mon!" She threw her hands up "Don't blueball me like that."

I projected a thoroughly amused glint through my Optics.

She huffed, ears reddening slightly "You know what I meant, gonk."

"Fine, fine." I rolled my eyes, chuckling "I got into a bit of a scrap."

"Uh huh." She deadpanned.

"And then I got shot in the face." I finished with a deadpan.

"Wait." She blinked, excitement quickly giving way to worry "Shit, for real?" 

"Right through the eye." I nodded with false cheer, my mechadendrite snaking out from behind me to pick the necklace up as I did "But I lived and most of them didn't, so I decided to keep this little thing as a commemoration." And a reminder.

Her eyes followed the extra limb in a mildly dazed manner but I quickly put it out of my mind. 

My work was indeed awe inspiring, enough said.

The locket hanging off the chain looked like a small metal cog surrounding the amber-colored see-through components of my ruined Optic, and proudly kept within it was the crumpled bullet that ruined it, and nearly ruined me.

Crushing the surge of hesitation the memory brought, I shut my eyes and slowly put the necklace on, before letting out a sharp exhale and opening them up again, forcing my back straight.

Seeing me giving any potential trauma the proverbial middle finger, Rebecca simply grinned and shot me a thumbs up "That is nova as fuck."

"Glad you like it." I grinned and got back to packing.

And promptly ignored the desire to sag into the worried hug she gave me a moment later.

Two days had passed since the Militech gig and aside from some worried questions from mom I was left mostly to my own devices. She was too perceptive to not notice that something was going on with me but thankfully didn't press me on it.

Her reaction when I told her I got us a new place to live was even more baffling, as instead of the annoyance and irritation I expected she immediately began telling me how proud she was of me, and preparing things for the move.

Her reaction was exactly what I needed at that moment, even if I never knew it.

For a few brief moments I had simply allowed myself to bask in it, daring to accept that things could in fact still be well despite the constant danger we lived in.

The feeling persisted the following day, even if subdued, and I finally managed to calm myself down somewhat. I could not fix all of my problems at once, and I cautiously accepted that I didn't have to either.

Not that I considered allowing myself to grow complacent again either. I simply had a plan to follow now, leaving my worry and fear redundant, and thus unnecessary.

Jugo had also called, inquiring about my services, and even he was more than happy to delay things by a few days so I could prepare actual facilities. Something about his rich contacts finding a closet-room operation something of a dubious prospect.

People were weird like that.

Yesterday was spent mostly in preparation, and aside from a few calls to check on how my team was doing (They were both perfectly fine and recovering quickly) I took most of the day to finish packing while tapping away at my next personal cyberware project.

Not being able to EMP lace literally everything was an irritating prospect, but unless I wanted to increase both my width and height by half a foot without losing other functionality, I had to make some concessions.

Which is why I decided to ignore the specialized protection idea in its entirety and merely make my power supply ridiculously robust to the point a disruption would simply do nothing but potentially tickle a bit.

Probably should add a redundancy organ of some kind for emergency resets just in case though...

I shook the sudden idea away (after noting it down in my Agent of course) and focused back on the present "You do know you don't have to do that, right?" I side-eyed Rebecca.

She kept lugging a couple of boxes as we walked across the length of my floor of the megabuilding "I said I'd help, didn't I?" She asked.

"I didn't call you over just so you can lug boxes with me." I pointed out, absently nodding at the few passers by who greeted me.

"And I still want to anyway!" She chirped, smirking up at me.

"Alright, alright, fine." I pretend to complain, letting out a dramatic sigh "You can keep trying to impress mom as much as you like."

"Damn right I will." She looked away "That woman is scary."

"Scary?" I blinked.

"Yeah." She nodded a few times "She is just so... intense."

I tilted my head "I suppose..."

"Actually you are too." Rebecca hummed "But it makes you hot so it doesn't count."

She then hummed lightly, eyes narrowing in thought "Actually..."

Pretending I didn't just nearly miss a step I ignored the latter part of that and quickly pointed out "You seemed to be fine with her last time."

"Yeah." She turned back to me with a teasing smirk "I was blissed out of my mind then."

This time I did miss a step.

And she burst out laughing.

Taking a deep breath I gave her a look "You'll regret that later."

She just smirked at me smugly, challengingly.

I accepted my defeat, for now, and changed topics "How is your crew doing anyways?"

Her mood immediately soured "Fine." She shrugged "Could be better but we are keeping it together."

"Need me to break some legs?" I asked.

"Nah, it isn't that bad." She laughed as she waved me off "They are just getting pissed at being couped up. Maine is probably going to get Falco to get him, Dorio and Sasha away to stay with his nomad clan for a while."

"Falco..." I thought aloud "That's your driver, right?"

"Yeah." She nodded "He was out of NC for a while but he is part of the crew too."

"Hm." I hummed noncommittally "What about Pilar?"

"Ugh." Her face scrunched up "The gonk actually likes the fucking cave you got us."

"Hey." I said, fake offended "It is a nice ass cave."

"Not with that gonk stinking it up." She fired back immediately, making me laugh.

"Well he won't be having it for much longer." I pointed out with a chuckle, which mollified her somewhat "Besides, if you don't want to stay with him you can always just crash in my place."

She considerably brightened up at that "Seriously?"

"Yeah." I nodded, not feeling even slightly hesitant about it "Heat from your gig is already dying down anyway so you won't even have to hide that much. What do you think?"

"Fuck yes, I'll come over!" She grinned and quickly added "For a bit anyway."

Ah. To be expected really "Fair enough."

We kept chatting as we passed almost the entire floor on the way to my new apartment.

When we first started moving about, the people of the floor got worried I was 'abandoning' them, but that lasted only a while as they quickly learned we weren't moving away from the floor itself, just to another part of it.

It was almost funny, how reliant my neighbors had become on me for their peace and quiet. Even if I had long since stopped personally ensuring it.

That task was now completely and utterly automated.

Which is exactly why I almost found it funny.

All those issues, solved with such little effort. And yet no one but me ever bothered.

My mood was thankfully not completely ruined by the time we reached my new home, and the train of thought was quickly forgotten as I started feeling giddy all over again.

My new base of operations was positioned in the corner of Floor 16, separated from the central bustling 'street' by a walled walkway that gave a perfect view of all the floors below, up to and including the bottom of the entire tower.

The apartment itself was a massive two story plot previously belonging to some kind of large clothes shop that went bankrupt some two years ago without anyone bothering to replace it after I fried the last minor gang who tried setting up there.

Rumors about a curse of the net hanging about the place quickly made it a less than attractive purchase.

Whoops~

Bigger gangs naturally were not retarded enough to believe that kind of thing (except maybe Maelstrom but they were into that shit, the weirdos) and while the Tyger Claws were eyeing the place for a good while my agreement with Jugo made the entire issue a moot point.

Crazy fucker probably thought I did it all on purpose, which was oddly... flattering.

I think.

Lunatic gangsters aside, the section was about six times as large as my previous home on both floors, and a small balcony on the second floor had a perfect view of the only approach leading up to it.

That we had a balcony which looked outside for once was something my mother found amazing, and I quickly surrendered the room attached to it to her.

We had a lot of space to go around now, with some of it remaining unused even after we prepared an extra room for guests, and I was not particularly picky about it anyways.

And that was the upper floor alone.

It would take some getting used to, having an entire floor dedicated just to my tinkering.

The thought still made me giddy as all hell.

So giddy I barely even noticed as we closed in on the walkway and were greeted by a tiny Chinese woman, who just happened to be Old Chu's wife.

"Are you finally moving in today, dearie?" She asked me, her accent very pronounced.

"Yes, ma'am." I nodded quickly "We'll be sure to invite you over when everything is done."

"Good." The woman nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world "It will be nice to have some actually honest neighbors for once."

My expression turned as wry as I could make it "Definitely, ma'am."

Rebecca failed to hide her snickers.

That whole family was whack.

The old noodle seller was all kinds of happy when he learned we were moving right next to his home, and doubly so when I told him I'd be installing hidden turrets that had a line of fire over the entirety his home. 

Fucker was rubbing his hands like he had won the lottery.

"You two certainly took your time." The moment we entered the new home, we were greeted by Misty's lightly teasing voice "Got everything?"

"Yep!" Rebecca chirped and lifted her stack of boxes "Where do I take these?"

"Upstairs." I said pointing up "To the kitchen. I'll join you in a bit, just need to sort these real quick."

They both nodded, left up the stairs, chatting away as they did.

And I made battle with the temptation to listen in on whatever Misty was teasing Rebecca about, thankfully winning in the end. Spying on one's partner was for the weak willed.

Shaking my head, I made my way into what would become my workspace, already the main Ripperdoc clinic space was filled to the brim with fresh deliveries, a bunch of Tyger Claw mooks more than happy to bring the operation tables and monitors up for the tiniest chance of making a good impression on me.

Because apparently I was now a higher-up in this territory, even if I wasn't part of the gang.

Sometimes, especially in situations like this, I caught myself thinking I am sinking a bit too deep into my alliance with the gang but then the benefits kick in and I forget all about it.

Money made everything better, and if anyone tries to convince you otherwise then they are probably trying to scam you out of yours.

Three other rooms were attached to the main clinic that took up most of the space, one of them being a bathroom to the leftmost corner, and the other two serving more specialized roles.

The first, and smaller one of the two was located in the relative middle of the far wall and was separated from the others by an air-locked doorway, holding a medicine and chemical storage, as well as a fully equipped lab for my future experiments in that field.

I was nowhere near as enthusiastic about these sciences as I was with cybernetics, but I knew that letting them fall on the wayside after investing all that effort would be an insult to both myself and what I could accomplish.

The second room, almost as large as the clinic proper and attached to the rightmost wall was still a mess of loot and scrap and a work in progress, but a freshly redesigned Servo-Arm seat for my self modification, and a trio of 3D printers, alongside ample more manual working spaces, already made it a considerable workshop.

It also served as my armory, holding my heavily damaged but still intact weapons of choice, as well as some memorable pieces of loot.

This one I'd have to lock with a proper blast door when I had the money for it.

I quickly found the shelf meant to hold my surgical tools and unpacked the boxes I was carrying, organizing everything with a near obsessive meticulousness as I already began planning on how to make the most efficient use of the space when the customers started coming in.

"Mikey." The muffled and ever so slightly irritated voice of my mother coming from above quickly informed me I may have... let time get away from me.

"Coming!" I quickly called back, and bolted upstairs.

And there in the dining room/kitchen that was larger than our previous living room, I found the three of them waiting around a dining table, a veritable feast of everything I could think of spread out atop it as my mother tapped her foot in annoyance.

While Misty and Rebecca were trying to hold back their snickers.

I'd have to lose track of time more often.

Mom's eye twitched and Rebecca began laughing her ass off.

"Ah." I blinked "I said that aloud, didn't I?"

Mom simply smiled "Set the table, Michael."

The false cheer in her voice did not in fact make me bolt straight through a chair, and don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

-----

The evening found me seated atop the inner balcony, sipping on a bottle of root beer, and listening to Rebecca's quiet snoring in the room behind me.

My eyes trailed over the loud and dense crowd of returning workers, finally free of their ungodly work shifts and looking to crash or grab a bite at their favorite shitty food place.

"Slaving away just for a scrap of food." I found myself muttering, my mood falling slightly despite the day being one of my better ones "What a miserable existence."

Rebecca's snort quickly informed me that she was in fact not asleep "Monologuing into the distance? Really?"

"Ugh." I kept staring forward in embarrassment "Go back to sleep."

"Nope~" She chirped, getting up from bed and walking over to join me.

Absently, I offered her another beer which she eagerly took as she passed me by, following my gaze and frowning as she no doubt caught on to what I was talking about.

Before she could tease me further though, I was rescued by a sudden call on my Agent.

[Jackie: Yo, choom! You know that crazy cabrona I told you about? From the border?]

I raised a finger to stop Rebecca from interrupting and answered.

[Yeah? What about her?]

The Latino grinned.

[I finally got her to come and hang out. You wanna come?]

Huh, the corpo actually kept her word?