The House of the Reaper welcomes Operative Ghost00. We also welcome the following Novices to our ranks: Shammah Lucky, Melchi, and Raul Bataclan. Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.
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"There is no coming to consciousness without pain."
- Carl Jung
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"Catch you around, Santi," Jackie said, giving me a genial nod. He threw his massive, leather-clad shoulders back, the hydraulic servos in his new Gorilla Arms whining faintly with the movement. "And Vik, you're a miracle worker, doc. I'll catch you on the flip side."
"Yeah, yeah. Stay out of trouble, Jackie," Vik called back, though his tone suggested he knew it was a lost cause.
We watched the Valentino lumber off into the neon-lit drizzle of the Kabuki alleyway, his heavy footsteps splashing through the puddles until he disappeared around the corner. The tension that had spiked my adrenaline slowly bled out of the damp air, leaving only the steady hum of the city behind.
Vik turned to me, the weariness back in his eyes, though the grim line of his mouth had softened.
"Alright, kid," he said, gesturing toward the stairwell with a nod of his head. "Your turn. Let's go chip you in."
I followed Vik back down the concrete steps, the door sealing shut behind us with a resonant thud. The clinic still smelled of ozone and synthetic blood, but Vik moved quickly, pulling the bloodied paper sheets off the operational chair and wiping down the leather with a harsh chemical sterilizer. He tossed the soiled materials into a biohazard incinerator chute and washed his hands thoroughly in the stainless-steel sink before turning back to me.
"Hop on up," Vik instructed, grabbing a fresh tray of surgical tools and a sealed case bearing the faded logo of Militech.
I climbed onto the chair, leaning back against the cold leather and felt as my heart thumped a frantic rhythm against my ribs. However, my mind was crystal clear. I was finally doing it. I was chipping in.
"I'm going to put you under for the physical integration," Vik explained, his voice taking on a calm authority as he pulled a multi-pronged auto-injector from the tray. "The Paraline Mk.1 is a bulky piece of hardware, even for a deck, and splicing the Fixer-grade Agent directly into your Neural Link requires precision. I also can't have you flinching when I'm threading the localized Self-ICE daemons into your frontal cortex. You're going to feel a sharp pinch, a rush of cold, and then you'll wake up a brand new man."
"So what are you waiting for?" I asked, not hesitating for a fraction of a second.
Vik nodded and pressed the cold metal tip of the auto-injector against the thick vein in my neck. I felt an instantaneous cold shoot through my circulatory system like liquid nitrogen, hitting my brain in a matter of seconds. The white lights of the clinic began to blur, fracturing into geometric halos, and the ambient silence of the room rushed up to swallow me whole.
[SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED]
[BIOS: MILITECH PARALINE MK.1 v.7.4.2]
[NEURAL HANDSHAKE: ESTABLISHED]
[SELF-ICE DAEMON: ACTIVE]
[INTERNAL COMMS AGENT: SYNCED]
The darkness in my mind shattered, replaced by a blinding surge of internal data.
I gasped, my eyes flying open. I was still lying in the surgical chair, but my entire perception of the physical world had shifted. Without me even commanding it, a sleek, minimalist Heads-Up Display overlaid directly onto my natural vision. The ambient temperature of the room, the encrypted Wi-Fi signals bouncing off Vik's medical consoles, the localized cellular towers pinging in Kabuki, I could feel them, I could feel all of them. The data was like an invisible, humming ocean that I was suddenly submerged in.
Deep in the back of my skull, I felt a cold solidity, and in a matter of a few seconds, I knew that it was the Self-ICE. It felt like a glacier had been installed around my frontal cortex, a massive, impenetrable wall of defensive algorithms ready to instantly freeze out any hostile intrusion.
"Take it easy, Santi. Deep breaths," Vik's voice cut through the sensory overload. He was leaning over me, shining a small penlight into my pupils. "Pupillary response is nominal, and there are no signs of neural rejection. How is the internal temperature? Do you feel any burning or itching along the brainstem?"
"No," I whispered, blinking rapidly as I acclimated to the new UI. "It feels... cold. But clear. Like, really fucking crystal clear."
"That's the Paraline cycling its internal heat-sinks," Vik explained, stepping back and pulling off his bloody surgical gloves. "It'll run a little hot when you're executing quickhacks that are too demanding, but the bioconductors I wired into the casing will vent the excess heat into your bloodstream. Just make sure you stay hydrated."
Vik turned back to his main medical console, tapping rapidly on the keyboard as a complex series of data streams began to cascade across the primary monitor. I watched, fascinated, as a new, highly detailed diagnostic of my neurological status and the Paraline's performance materialized in the holographic overlay of my vision.
"Alright, hold still. Running a final integration diagnostic," Vik muttered, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the data. He hit several keys, and the console emitted a soft confirmation chime. "Holy shit."
I raised an eyebrow, my internal UI flaring. "Something wrong?"
Vik shook his head, looking from the monitor to me, a profound, almost uneasy look of awe washing over his weathered face. "No. No, quite the opposite. Santi, look at these numbers. Your unique biology... the ridiculously high sync rate, and that adaptive processing power your brain is putting out... It's having a massive effect on the hardware's output."
He pointed to a specific data point on the screen
MILITECH PARALINE MK.1 - OVERCLOCK POTENTIAL: 98.4%.
"That is a Paraline Mk.1," Vik explained, his voice thick with disbelief. "And in a standard person, it would perform exactly within those parameters. Now, physical storage space is hardware-locked. You're still only going to be able to actively slot about four to eight quickhacks at any given time, depending on their complexity, since it's not like your brain will be able to magically expand a piece of silicon."
"Right," I said, following his logic. "So what's the big deal?"
"The big deal is your raw processing power," Vik said, tapping the glass of the monitor for emphasis. "The diagnostic is clocking your central computing capacity at 15 terabytes. Because your brain's neuroplasticity is seamlessly bridging the gaps in the deck's architecture, you are pushing data with zero latency. It means that while you only have the storage capacity of a Mark One, the sheer speed and brute-force processing power you can throw behind those hacks gives this deck the possibility of behaving like a Mk.3. It's not fully at that level yet since the base hardware still creates a physical bottleneck, but the potential is there."
"Well, I like the sound of that," I said, a grin touching my face. "I'll go ahead and get overclocked before I even walk out the door."
"Yeah, well, don't get too ahead of yourself," Vik warned gently. "Just remember what I said about control, kid. Don't go painting that target so soon. You're still fourteen and earning a good paycheck. Wait until you're older and have better protection before you go dragging runners after you."
I sat up slowly, rolling my neck. The phantom ache of the surgical incision throbbed behind my right ear, but it was nothing compared to the intoxicating rush of power coursing through my mind. I focused my intent for a fraction of a millisecond, and my internal Agent seamlessly pinged the encrypted local network, establishing a secure, untraceable connection.
"I can see that my Agent is online," I noted, a smile breaking across my face.
"Yeah, top of the line. Triple-encrypted routing. NetWatch themselves would pop an aneurysm trying to trace a call from that thing," Vik said, leaning against his desk. "Now listen to me. I don't care how 'evolved' your brain is, there will be no heavy Netrunning for the next week. Let your brain heal around the new splices before you go doing anything. I already saved my contact on your agent under Vik, and will be sending you a prescription for mild immunosuppressants just in case, but I think you should be fine without them."
"Understood," I said, hopping off the chair. As soon as my boots hit the floor, I felt lighter, faster, and my mind felt sharper in ways I couldn't even begin to describe. I triggered a silent command through my Neural Link and executed the transaction we had agreed upon.
Vik's terminal chimed cheerfully as twenty-five thousand eddies were deposited directly into his account.
"Thanks, Vik," I said, pulling my dark grey hoodie back over my head. "For everything."
Vik offered a tired, genuine smile. "Stay alive out there, kid. I'll let you know when the rest of the chrome comes in."
I left the clinic, ascending the stairs and stepping back out into the Night City rain. I didn't stick around Watson to test out my new Chrome. I pulled my hood up, walked to the nearest NCART station, and rode the magnetic rails back down into the smog-choked basin of Santo Domingo.
By the time I navigated the cracked, decaying sidewalks of Rancho Coronado and reached my front porch, it was well past dinner time. The transition from the high-tech, neon-drenched underworld of Kabuki to the rotting, forgotten tract homes of my neighborhood was always jarring, but tonight, with a military-grade cyberdeck literally humming inside my skull, the contrast felt wild. I was on cloud 9, like a god walking amongst mortals.
I unlocked the deadbolt, pushed the front door open, and was instantly greeted by the mouth-watering aroma of actual, organic food. It wasn't the chemical stench of microwaved synthetic protein or the salty cardboard flavor of cheap kibble. It smelled like real garlic, sizzling onions, and seared chicken, all of which I had paid a pretty penny for from some 6th Street ganger who had a connect. I first thought I was getting ripped off, but after seeing it was the real thing, I ended up ordering a bit more, which is why I didn't have the scratch to fully pay Vik the 70 grand I had suggested if he had done the whole procedure with all the chrome I wanted today. Making money as a merc was easy as hell, keeping it, on the other hand, was an almost impossible task.
"Santi? Is that you?" my mother called out from the small kitchen.
"Yeah, Ma, it's me," I replied, kicking off my wet combat boots and shrugging off my damp hoodie.
I walked into the kitchen and stopped, a genuine, profound warmth blooming in my chest that had absolutely nothing to do with chrome or eddies. Mom was standing by the stove, stirring a simmering pot. For the first time in four years, she didn't look like she was standing on the absolute precipice of collapse. The deep, purple bags under her eyes had faded significantly. The exhaustion that usually weighed her shoulders down had lifted. Quitting that second job had breathed life back into her lungs, and seeing her smile as she turned around to face me made every single risk, every dangerous jump, and every corporate ICE-wall I had slipped through entirely worth it.
"Sit down, mijo," she said, gesturing to the small, scratched wooden table with a wooden spoon. "Dinner is just about ready. I don't know how you did it, but we're finally tasting real chicken once again. Not that soy-paste garbage."
"Smells incredible, Ma," I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
She turned off the burner, grabbed a pair of plates, and began portioning out the food. She set a steaming plate down in front of me, taking the seat across the table. I picked up my fork, my stomach growling violently in response to the stress my body had just endured.
But before I could take a bite, mom paused. She narrowed her dark eyes, leaning forward slightly, that damn maternal instinct suddenly locking onto me.
"You look different," she said, her voice carrying a soft, suspicious edge. Her eyes scanned my face, noting the lingering pallor from the anesthesia and the slight tension in my jaw. "Santiago... what have you been doing today?"
I looked at her, the fork hovering halfway to my mouth, and a slow, mischievous smile crept across my face, but I didn't say a word. Instead, I accessed my Agent, and with a mere thought, traveling at the speed of a digital impulse, I routed an encrypted call directly to her personal Agent sitting on the kitchen counter.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
Mom jumped slightly, startled by the sudden vibration. She frowned, turning away from me to look at the glowing screen of her device.
"Unknown number?" she muttered, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she reached out and picked it up. She tapped the screen to accept the call, bringing the device up to her ear. "Hello?"
I kept my physical mouth completely shut, just smiling at her, utilizing my internal comms link to broadcast my voice directly through the cellular connection.
"Hey, Ma," my voice echoed perfectly out of the small speaker pressed against her ear, sounding crisp and entirely clear. "Just got a few upgrades."
Mom froze. Her eyes went wide, darting from the glowing Agent in her hand to my closed, smiling mouth sitting directly across the table from her as realization hit her. Her old, yet expensive Agent, slipped from her trembling fingers, clattering loudly against the linoleum floor.
She stared at me, the maternal suspicion instantly morphing into terrified certainty. She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles turning white.
"Santiago Andrés Reyes," she breathed out, her voice trembling with a mixture of awe and absolute dread. "What did you do?"
She used my full name.... fuck.
Three seconds later, and my mother hadn't just lost her temper, she had completely lost her grasp on the immediate reality. The sheer panic radiating from her was palpable, flooding the small kitchen like a damn gas leak.
"You let someone cut into your head?!" she shrieked, her voice cracking as she took a frantic step toward me, grabbing my face with both hands, tilting my head to inspect the side of my skull. Her fingers brushed against the fresh surgical glue behind my ear, and she gasped like she had been burned. "Santiago, you are fourteen years old! Fourteen! You can't just... You can't go to a ripperdoc! They'll fry your brain! You'll go cyberpsycho! What were you thinking?!"
"Ma, listen to me, I'm fine," I tried to say, keeping my voice low and soothing, but she was already hyperventilating.
"You're not fine! You don't know what you're doing!" She pulled away from me, pacing the short length of the kitchen. "Your father... your father thought he knew what he was doing, and look where it got him! Militech put him in the ground, Santi! They put him in an urn! And now you're chipping in? Where did you even go? Who did this to you?"
"Vik did it," I said simply.
Mom stopped dead in her tracks and spun around, her dark eyes wide. "Vik? As in Viktor Vektor?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "Down in Kabuki."
She let out a shaky breath, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes. The mention of Vik seemed to deflate the immediate, blinding hysteria, replacing it with a tangled web of old memories. She lowered her hands and looked down at the floor.
Her Agent lay shattered on the linoleum. The impact had completely cracked the internal casing, and a pool of dark, synthetic LCD fluid was slowly bleeding out from the crushed display. There was no other way of saying this.... it was bricked.
"I broke my Agent," she whispered, the mundane realization acting as a bizarre anchor in the middle of her panic attack.
"Hey, don't worry about it," I said, standing up and wrapping my arms around her trembling shoulders. "It's just a piece of plastic. I'll get you a new one. A better one. From what I've heard, Agents are supposed to come integrated with Neural Links now. So tomorrow, we'll go see Vik together. That way, you can take advantage of things and have him explain everything. I promise, Ma, I am completely safe."
It took hours to calm her down. I had to physically pull connect to my handheld deck and run a diagnostic overlay, projecting it onto the cracked screen of my deck just to prove to her that my vitals were stable and my neurological pathways weren't deteriorating. Even then, I don't think she got a wink of sleep.
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1 stone, 2 stone, 3 stone... I want 'em all!
The infamous P@treon exists for those of you who want to read ahead.
patreon .com/Crimson_Reapr (Don't be a gonk, remove the space)
They get around 3 long-form weekly chapters (4.5-6k words each).