Chapter 66: Forearmed (Patreon)

Made quite a few changes to the previous chap as I wasn't perfectly satisfied with Mike's conversation with Wakako. The result is effectively the same but it has been changed enough that I'd recommend a skim just in case.

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Michael 'Magos' Sobronov

As much as I may have wanted to tinker the day away, the realities of life were as always cruel and uncaring, and I had a full workday to go through before getting to the good stuff.

Not that I particularly minded as I programmed a subroutine to search useful tidbits about melee weapons for me while I worked.

'Man, I could really use some kind of a personal assistant AI. It would make compiling information infinitely easier...' I thought as I methodically inserted carbon tubes into the opened up neck bones of my current patient, and as soon as the thought occurred I had to forcefully stop my hand from twitching.

Yeah no, that sounded incredibly retarded.

One mistake with an AI and boom, you are no longer dealing with an intelligent minion there to give you all the answers you needed, but its self-evolving data abomination of a cousin, composed of all the worst things the whole of humanity could comprehend.

And said cousin tended towards being a thoroughly patricidal one at that.

'Still though.' I considered as I began stapling the man's throat back together 'Just because something is incredibly fucking dangerous, it shouldn't stop me from using it. If I am intelligent about it I could probably make some kind of dumbed down shackled version with enough effort...'

"Dammit." I sighed, my hands and dendrites not wavering for a second "So much for not taking stupid risks." 

I'll just add it to the list and hopefully tomorrow's me won't be as eager to compete for the next Darwin award.

Wisely, I decided to drag my focus away from potentially suicidal projects and fully immersed myself into helping the meat of my Tyger Claw associates become slightly less useless.

The orders form the gang were not at all slowing down, and I'd go as far as to say they were increasing if not for the fact most of the volume came from lower rank gangoons who lost their limbs in the gang war and needed replacements, but still did well enough that they were rewarded with a session under my knife instead of going to a subpar ripper.

Jugo and his higher ups still paid through the nose for all of it, but it was nowhere near the earnings I'd get from the truly wealthy clients looking for quality of life upgrades.

It was a bit funny, in a morbid sort of sense, how a liver powerful enough to filter suicidal levels of drinking netted me around forty times as much as subdermal armoring that could stop mid to high caliber rounds consistently did.

Even for the Tygers, luxury still won out over their 'warrior's pride' in the end.

But I wasn't complaining.

The money was flowing into my accounts, and if I kept to even half of my current work flow consistently I'd have enough starting capital to get things moving as soon as next year.

Not to mention all the scans I was gathering would inevitably come in useful with the cyberpsichosis investigation.

And how much quicker would that happen with an AI helper?

I could almost see it...

But now was not the time for daydreaming.

I was already in negotiations with, Regina, Rogue and now Wakako about expanding m business to fresh high profile clients and currently haggling over the Fixers' commissions for the 'recommendation' they could give their mercs. 

Both Rogue and Wakako had seen the results of my work but they were old hands at the business and were naturally trying to rob me for all I was worth while still appearing somewhat on my side in the process.

Which was just not happening, so things were taking some time to complete.

Once they realized I would simply keep going and rely on my growing reputation instead, they'd fold easily enough.

Regina on the other hand was far more reasonable about things and quickly accepted taking a small cut for introductions both because we had proper rapport with each other and she was trying to keep me in the cyberpsychosis project as best as she could.

She knew I wouldn't chicken out just like that, but extra motivation was never a bad thing.

Unfortunately, Regina also had the least number of truly wealthy clients so while helpful, I could not depend only on her with my expansion.

'And speaking of expansion...' I frowned as I looked my clinic over 'Things are definitely going to get too chaotic for just me to deal with.' Even just the scheduling sounded like a massive fucking nightmare.

I'll be needing that assistant sooner rather than later, it seemed.

But how the fuck does one find someone trustworthy enough for the job in Night City?

Finding competence was after all incredibly easy, one only needed to take a look at the ex Scav Regina had saddled me with to know that much.

But trust?

Might as well look for fairy dust at that point.

I finished connecting the nerves of my twenty third patient for the day with his new limb, sending a slight jolt through his system perfectly calculated to wake him up as his eyes snapped open.

The young man who got his lower right arm chopped off by a cut-o-matic earlier today looked up at his fresh new limb of blackened titanium with wonder and began wiggling his fingers, somehow forgetting I was even there.

"This feels... perfect." He exhaled.

"Slow down there Anakin Skywalker." I snorted "You can admire my work later, I need to run some scans now that you are awake." 

His face reddened but he quickly nodded and offered me the arm, quickly getting his guarantee of quality alongside a free scan of the rest of his body, something I offered to all of my customers no matter their wealth.

It cost me nothing, and it never hurt to give the customers time to plan out their next improvement.

Still though, seeing the man's soul leave his body as he looked the scan over and saw a nasty lump in his nether regions almost made me regret it.

Just... Yikes.

With a frantic kind of strength, the man grabbed me by the shoulders and looked up at me with eyes full of mania "You can fix it, right doc?!" Only the fact I was ten times his weight stopped him from waving me around like a stick.

"Of course." I said calmly, my Artifex reaching for his cybernetic arm while I removed the other manually "But nothing is free."

"Right." He caught himself, fiery determination in his eyes "I'll be back!"

"You do that." I drawled and watched him march off.

'Poor fucker.' I shook my head and looked down on my list for the day.

And would you look at that, that seemed to be it-

Or it would have been if not for a familiar set of steps deciding to interrupt me.

Senko looked like death warmed over as she walked into my clinic, not particularly tired or unwell but there was a certain weight with each step that made it clear she was not happy about something.

She had been avoiding me for a while, but honestly after ripping one of her chooms' heads off, no matter how understandably, I wasn't going to blame her.

Still, some points must be made.

"Gangoon-chan!" I greeted as cheerfully as ever "What brings you to my humble temple of chrome?" I spread my arms and then my voice flickered low "Without an appointment?"

But whatever was weighing her down proved to be more potent than any fear she may have had of me as she simply sighed "Jugo-sama promoted me to Lieutenant, the previous one got blown up by a 'strommer Cyberpsycho."

I blinked "...Congratulations?"

"Thanks." She said, with all the enthusiasm of a corpse "It was just what I needed."

Well, that just about took all the fun out of it "Guessing good old Jugo wasn't taking no for an answer?"

"Hahhh..." She sighed "if only it were that simple."

"What, don't tell me they would go all 'You insult the Captain's honor by refusing his generosity, fall on your sword now!' on you if you said no?" I deadpanned with crossed arms.

Judging by the look she gave me that might just be word for word what would happen.

I began uselessly rubbing the sides of my head "Fucking... really?"

She seemed to find some morbid humor in it at least, as she huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Why join the shitshow at all then?" I asked "Sounds like a good way to die."

"And why did you start working with Jugo-sama?" She countered.

Eddies. It was always eddies.

"Touche." I Inclined my head "But as flattering as it would be for you to come to me for the comfort of our deep friendship-"

Her deadpan said it all.

"-I'm sure there is a much greater reason for you coming here." I smiled eagerly and began rubbing my hands "Dear old Jugo might be a dick but he takes care of his own, so I'm guessing you got a nice fat bonus with your raise. Enough for a few improvements perhaps?"

"Yeah, pretty much." She nodded tiredly "Not dying to every random Maelstrommer would be great."

"Fear not, dear Gangoon-chan." I grinned, my Mechadendrites uncoiling behind me "When I'm done with you, even their bosses will not be able to touch you."

With a flourish, I produced a tablet and offered it to her "Here is The Catalogue™. Take as much time as you need. I'll go get the scalpels ready."

Her eyes snapped up to me as she failed to contain a terrified shiver, but she quickly looked down again and began gawking over the massive list on offer, a list with a few entries usually reserved for the friends and family.

What can I say? She grew on me.

Like a stray cat.

--

The suite of upgrades she ended up choosing was a respectable mix of defense and offence, the usual bone replacement and subdermal armoring alongside a Biomonitor and Autoinjector for survivability, and one of my less straining Kerenzikov's for good old butchery.

Why in the fuck the corpos made the Keren a permanent modification I will never understand.

Anyone with even a lick of solid grey matter should understand that speeding perception up to such and extent on a permanent basis was plain old stupid and more often than not resulted in something approximating a self-lobotomy by the user after enough use.

So I refused the basic design on principle and made one that could induce an enhanced 'zone' state on demand. Much simpler and more efficient that way.

Before good sense could win out I tossed the design in the folder of my next Cyberdeck's blueprints. Mixing the two sounded beyond ridiculous and once lodged into my head, the idea refused to leave me.

But that was a long term project. I had something much more important to work on right now!

-----

Despair.

Despair is all I felt as I looked down at the culmination of two days of brainstorming, overthinking, and trying and failing to convince myself I could stop the inevitable.

How foolish of me.

First I tried doubling down on the bat idea, going for a big ass hammer with the same EMP gimmick.

And it proved almost as redundant as its prototype, only beating it because of the extra reach but somehow ending up even more unwieldy for a cybernetically paced fight. I could probably crush a mech with the damn thing, but that wasn't the point.

I could do that with my mind too, and therefore hammers were redundant.

My next option was an axe. An axe felt right, it felt proper.

But cold logic won out against the choice.

No matter how preem it would look, once you buried an axe into someone or something you'd have to waste precious seconds yanking it out, and the blade surface was too small for my tastes, demanding precision and leverage that sometimes just couldn't be found in melee combat.

Or at least not quickly enough.

At one point, my thoughts drifted up to that one patient who lost his arm to a Budget Arms cut-o-matic and I ended up following that line of logic and built what I dubbed a chain-axe, and with some added tinkering and improvements the weapon proved itself solid and perfectly serviceable for what I needed.

Rapid armor-shredding cuts and the disabling of cyberware with a constant EMP charge.

A proper can opener.

Really, the fact it took me so long to come up with the idea while having the same god damn weapon in my mouth was baffling. Or it would be if it was no so utterly embarrassing instead.

But no matter how much I wished otherwise, the inevitable realization dawned.

There was no real reason to keep it axe shaped when another shape provided far more reach and blade surface.

"The fucking Tygers have infected me." I cursed, looking down at the six foot long chain sword in my right hand, its spiked knuckle duster-esque guard perfectly fitted to house my fingers and keep my grip solid no matter what.

The 'blade' of the weapon, if it could even be called that, was housed under a solid block of metal painted black and red, open only on one end and composed of hundreds upon hundreds of razor sharp ultra-hardened titanium teeth that would instantly shred anything they touched.

Well, so long as it wasn't made from super dense material anyway.

I flicked the mental switch and the machine of death came alive, briefly roaring as the power from my secondary reactor surged through it before settling into a more constant relaxed 'purr'.

The blade could function on its own, but I made sure I could still charge it wherever I was through a simple connection cable in my hand.

Looking up to my usual testing dummies, I made a wide, purposefully misaligned, swing with the weapon.

And I was thoroughly satisfied by the result.

The block of metal, despite being just as dense as the teeth of the sword, separated cleanly and I scanned only the most minor of dents in said teeth, imperceptible to the human eyes.

Good. They were purpose-built to be replaceable, but having to replace them constantly would have been irritating.

Still, that wasn't all the weapon could offer and I flicked another mental switch, drawing far more power from my generator and making the previous startup roar a constant as concentrated, violent electricity began dancing along the length of the blade, ready to latch onto any piece of electronics it touched and fry it from inside out.

That the human nervous system technically counted as an electronic was just a happy little coincidence.

I flicked the power off and the monster quietened down.

It was perfect. Just as whippy as the katana but also carrying a heft the other weapon lacked, about an infinity times more effective against armor, and it could suffer far more abuse than the literal strip of metal.

"Oh well." I shrugged, twirling the war crime around like a kid who had just found The Stick "Fuck it, I surrender. Cool swords are cool." 

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Le author notes:

Do note that while I did basically copy paste the usual chainsword for this one it is a bit thinner than the 40k aesthetic would suggest, looking more like a bulky straight-saber in mass than a proper xeno marmelizing device.

As for why I didn't follow the mechanicus theme fully and go for an axe?

Well Mike explained it pretty well himself in the internal monologue, an axe is useful but since he has no limitation in either tech or material or a really consequential weight limit the sword just makes more sense for both offence and defense.

Simply put, using an axe is self limiting for no good reason.

Practicality wins out over the cool factor once more, the woe!

Also him being stuck with a sword makes me giggle.

Lamentations on omnissian axes that could have been aside, things are going to be speeding up in a chap or two as we start approaching the Edgerunners timeline. Hopefully without a Rebecca pancake this time (I'm saying this mostly to stop my dumbass brain from dragging its feet, fucker is being reticent and shit)

As always feedback makes the brain juices flow.