Watson, Little China.
On the third-floor balcony of Misty's Esoterica, a black luxury AV slowly descended, four blue jets of flame spraying from beneath it as it came in to land.
The wing-like doors on both sides lifted upward, neon light gliding over the metallic bodywork.
Jack was the first to jump out. He rolled his shoulders, then turned back and called to Maine inside the vehicle.
"Choom, we're here. Get down here already."
Maine first glanced at Kai and saw him still seated on the leather chair, politely making a gentlemanly gesture for him to go ahead.
Maine gave a slight nod in response, then stepped out carrying the briefcase. He joined Jack outside, and the two of them waited for Kai.
The three had talked quite a bit during the ride, so they were already more familiar with each other. Jack and Maine in particular got along well.
One was from Heywood, the other from Watson.
They came from completely different backgrounds, but their open and easygoing personalities clicked right away.
After getting out of the AV, the three of them headed downstairs together.
Jack took the lead and said as he went down the steps, "Didn't even get properly warmed up today before everything was already over."
"That just proves the lucky card Misty gave me really works!"
When they reached the fortune-telling shop, Jack quickly strode up to the counter.
Misty was standing there, carefully arranging a set of tarot cards in her hands, apparently focused on studying something.
Jack leaned in, visibly excited, and greeted her.
"Misty, for a professional fortune-teller, you're seriously amazing!"
"I'm telling you, with that lucky card you gave me, everything went ridiculously smooth today!"
Misty looked up and saw Jack had returned. Then she noticed Kai behind him, along with a large unfamiliar man who seemed to have a few injuries. Her tone stayed as gentle as ever.
"Looks like things went well for you. Viktor's still downstairs. You're here to see him, right?"
Jack smoothly picked up the conversation.
"Yep. Kai and Maine need Vik for something. I don't need to see him. I mainly came over here to learn a bit more about that lucky card from you."
Then he waved at Kai and said, "Brother, I'm gonna ask Misty a few things. You guys go see Vik first."
Kai naturally understood Jack's real intention, so he did not say anything more. He simply led Maine toward the back and headed downstairs through the stairwell to find Vik.
"The woman back there was Misty. She's Jack's fiancée. They've known each other since they were kids."
Maine could not help sounding a little impressed. "I think Jack and Misty are a perfect match. Are they already engaged?"
Kai answered with complete confidence, "Not yet, but I've already settled the marriage for them. Remember to come to the wedding when the time comes. Jack really likes you."
Maine paused for a moment, then silently nodded and followed Kai into Vik's ripperdoc clinic.
Kai pulled open the iron security gate and saw that Vik was the same as always, wearing his blue short-sleeved work shirt and sitting at the workbench, adjusting an exoskeleton-assisted arm implant while a boxing match played on the nearby screen.
"Vik, we're back."
Vik looked up briefly, then lowered his head again and kept tuning the exoskeleton-assisted arm implant, as if he had already guessed business was coming his way.
"Mm. Looks like things went pretty smoothly today. Even brought a friend with you."
Kai stepped forward and introduced Maine.
"Maine. Merc from Watson. He needs an implant procedure done. Wants to install a Sandevistan."
Maine took a step forward and placed the briefcase on the workbench. He entered the code and opened it, revealing the military-grade Sandevistan lying inside, completely intact.
After finishing with the exoskeleton-assisted arm implant, Vik picked up the military-grade Sandevistan and activated a scan.
"You don't see something like this on the market. Militech prototype, right? Has it ever gone through live-body performance testing?"
Before anyone could answer, Vik suddenly connected the dots and made a guess.
"This cyberware... it came off that cyberpsycho who got taken down in Corpo Plaza a few days ago, didn't it?"
Vik had been a ripperdoc for years. He knew the cyberware market inside and out, and of course he had heard the news about the cyberpsycho James.
Now a military-grade implant had suddenly appeared in front of him, with an unknown origin, an advanced model, and serious firepower.
Vik immediately sensed there was something behind it.
Kai did not bother beating around the bush.
"That's right, Vik. So there's one more thing I need your help with. Pull the live-body performance data out of this implant so I can take it back to the company and close the job."
Vik studied the fine structural details of the military-grade implant and said, "Getting the runtime data out is easy. The problem is, this thing has Militech countermeasures hidden inside it. If you want to install it and keep it completely off the radar, I'll have to modify part of the operating program and some of the electronic components."
The moment he heard that, Maine's expression tightened. He quickly asked, "How long will that take?"
Vik set the implant down and looked at the anxious Maine.
"I can extract the data right now for you to take away. As for the implantation, come back in a week."
"But before that, I'd better run a full compatibility check on you. If your body can't handle it, this surgery is going to be very risky."
Maine looked troubled.
More than anyone else, he understood the state his body was in. Installing this implant really was forcing it.
But if he refused the compatibility check now, there was no way he would convince Kai and Vik to go through with the surgery.
Viktor stood up from the rolling stool and led Maine over to the surgical chair.
"Sit down first. Don't be nervous. Hook up the neural data line."
Maine leaned back in the chair, took the connector handed to him, and plugged it into his neural interface port.
With a stethoscope hanging around his neck, Vik sat down at the console and began the examination.
"While I'm scanning you, you'll get a look at what's going on inside."
Kai stood nearby, watching Maine's test results.
Very soon, the screen began scanning and reading the biological and implant data from Maine's entire body.
As he checked the results, Vik spoke in a grave tone.
"Do you get splitting headaches a lot? Dry mouth, nausea, the urge to vomit? Do your hands shake so badly you can't stop them?"
"Do your implants sometimes stop responding properly? Lock up, jam, or move sluggishly?"
Maine gave a low response, basically admitting it.
He knew Vik had hit almost every symptom dead on. After hesitating for a moment, he added, "I take immunoblockers regularly. Those symptoms aren't serious. They only show up once in a while."
Kai had once installed a huge amount of cyberware in his own body, so when he saw the test results on the screen, he knew the real situation was much worse than Maine was making it sound.
Maine's biggest problem was the sheer number of implants inside him, plus the fact that the models were mismatched, outdated, and completely unstandardized.
Even the software they were running on was cracked, full of vulnerabilities, with terrible compatibility. It was nothing like the full high-end loadout Kai had once been carrying.
You could put it this way.
Any halfway capable netrunner could fry Maine's brain like sizzling brains on a grill.
And because his cyberware had not been replaced for so long, metal contamination had seriously eroded his body. That was what caused all the symptoms Vik had just listed.
Those symptoms would not kill him outright, but they tormented him like a chronic illness, keeping him in pain every hour of every day, like countless fine needles being shoved into his fingernails.
Put simply, Maine's body was running in a constant state of overload.
It had already been ground down to the brink of exhaustion.
And yet he had never told anyone about any of this. He had endured all of it through sheer willpower alone.
Vik could see it too. Maine was a tough bastard, and the only reason his body had ended up like this was because he had been forced into it. So while working the screen, Vik said,
"I'm going to upgrade your internal systems first and patch them up. It'll make your cyberware run a lot smoother."
"At the very least, it should ease your chronic pain quite a bit."
(End of Chapter)
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