Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
The lab Regina had secured for the project was an out of the way thing, located in the basement of a failing cosmetics clinic that was kept in the black by the Fixer herself.
Thankfully, I did not need to interact with the owners or their employees as another entrance was conveniently positioned on the side of the building, well hidden but leading directly into the basement itself.
At least the security measures were considerable, and this time I didn't even need to hack through them as I was for once provided with all the access and control codes in advance.
The space within was sufficiently clean and sanitized but I could immediately note signs of poor organization, with the different chemical and medical supplies being shoved onto the many shelves haphazardly and seemingly without rhyme or reason.
And then there were the obviously salvaged implants and implant components shoved into boxes, and a smell of antiseptic that seemed to have seeped deep into the concrete itself.
The lab proper was slightly underequipped for my tastes, with only a couple of high grade freezers and a duo of ripperdoc chairs that at least seemed to have been cleaned up thoroughly on a regular basis.
And one of those chairs was currently occupied by a snoring, middle aged woman.
She looked to be lacking all but the most basic of modifications, but a quick scan disabused me of that notion as I found that the vast majority of her internals, all of them save the stomach, had been replaced by life support cybernetics.
And not of a particularly high quality either.
'So this is to be my 'assistant' then?' I frowned briefly and shook my head, hefting the subject on my shoulder and placing him on the other chair before securing him to it with the conveniently placed straps.
"Wha-?"
Which is just about when the woman decided to wake up.
She didn't even bother getting up from her seat, merely looking me over and whistling "She wasn't kidding, huh?"
"You seem very at ease." I said as I finished making sure the subject was well positioned and turned to face the woman fully.
"If you aren't the one Jones sent over and still got through the security, I'm fucked either way." She shrugged, and tossed a chewing gum in her mouth "Name's Yelena."
"Magos." I returned "She had you working on this for long?"
She shook her head "Just a few months. The last doc she had on the job decided it was all a waste of time, and the eddies wouldn't convince him so I've just been waiting around for the most part twiddling my thumbs."
"And what can you do, aside from taking care of the subjects and making sure they don't croak before their time?" I asked.
"Subjects, eh?" She tilted her head and snorted "You are one cold chrome fucker."
"Should I humanize the mass murderer instead?" I deadpanned.
To which she raised her arms "Hey, no need to convince me of anything. Used to run with the Scavs for a while before Jones decided I was more useful doing som-"
That was as far as she got before my Mechadendrites unfurled from behind me, positioned like hissing snakes as I glared down at her just barely stopping myself from drawing my handgun on her.
Regina must have had a good ass reason to keep her here despite my history with the gang.
"Why the fuck would you tell me that? Are you asking to die?" I asked despite myself.
Yelena's eyes were darting wildly at the sight of my added appendages but surprisingly she managed to calm herself quickly and answered with only a slight tremor in her voice, hands still kept up placatingly "She said you'd find out sooner or later anyway."
"And she was correct." I nodded coldly "But that still doesn't tell me why I should not gut you on the spot, much less trust you with my work."
"Because I was shit out of luck and trying to survive." She turned paradoxically calmer with each word spoken "And Jones has enough shit on me to bury me alive if I backstab her and make me thank her for the mercy."
"So what? I should tolerate you because you will keep your mouth shut?"
"Don't stand there pretending your hands are clean either, doc." She scoffed "I did what I did to survive. You are about to cut a man open like a fish just to see what makes him tick."
We kept the staredown going for a while, the nurse bafflingly at ease while I warred with the truth of her statement and my instinctual hatred for all things Scav.
The mere idea of cooperating with one of the filth sent me trembling in anger, while at the same time the practical side of me acknowledged she did nothing to me specifically.
Ultimately, practicality won over.
"Fine." I said and it almost physically hurt me to do so "Regina seems to trust you so I'll just rely on that, for now."
"Finally using some of that grey matter between your ear holes, eh youngster?" She chuckled.
I felt my fingers twitch and promptly ignored her fishing for information "Don't push me."
"Or what?"
I closed my eyes briefly, counted to five, and pointed at the storage area "Go and get the hard anesthetics, I need to make sure this gonk's ribs aren't stabbing into his lungs."
Lethal munitions or not, getting a shotgun shell to the chest was never pretty.
-
Half an hour later I was looming over the subject, his Cyberarm splayed open and leaving the vast majority of its components visible for my direct manipulation.
My goal with the first subject was not to cure his cyberpsychosis, as that was both unrealistic and impractical.
Before I made any actual attempts, I would have to understand the affliction in a deeper, more direct level.
Oh there were definitely many 'studies' on the topic posted up all over the net already, and even a few 'official' ones spread by the corporations and governments accessible to the general public.
But they were the most basic of the basic explanations along the lines of exacerbated mental issues and faulty and outdated cyberware (because of course they'd used the genuine medical concern to advertise their new lines of chrome.)
And what did any of that actually mean in practice? Absolutely nothing.
The only 'solution' they had for those affected was to forcefully remove any and all cyberware from their body and shove them into an asylum to live their days out like twitching, drooling piles of meat and play pretend there was a chance at recovery.
There was no reliable way to predict when the affliction would appear either.
Someone with a veritable mountain of chrome like the case of Maine could show absolutely no symptoms after years of overuse and poor maintenance, while someone like the subject could have only the most basic of hardware and end up going insane within a year of installation.
And I couldn't even say it was corpo anti-competition practices at work because both his Optics and Cyberarm came from the same Kang Tao branch which meant the software of both implants was made to play well with one another.
Ultimately it all came down to poor cyberware affinity, and that was definitionally something I couldn't measure.
At least until I went through a downright industrial amount of bodies and narrowed down all indicators to a pedantic level, but that too would be highly impractical.
Not to mention the certainty of ending up on the nasty end of an angry mob of furious killers.
"No point in brute forcing it now." I muttered "Let's try a different approach."
My Artifex began methodically reassembling the Cyberarm as I monitored the signals the reactivating limb sent to the brain and received in return.
"Handy little fuckers, ain't they?" Yelena whistled lightly from across the ripper chair.
"Supremely." I agreed dryly.
The woman had proven to be a passable assistant so far. She gave me everything I needed without me having to call it out first and was always ready to provide assistance with a near unnatural calm and perfectly still hands for a fleshling.
It was like I got access to something I never realized I needed, and I'd probably end up missing while doing my usual work.
I could see why Regina kept her around, despite her distasteful past.
But I sure as hell wasn't hiring her myself anyway. If I ever decided I could use an assistant at home it would have to be someone respectable. Someone whose head I wouldn't be tempted to crush beneath my boot.
The mere idea of bringing a Scav near my mother, reformed or not, sent bile that didn't exist rising up my throat.
While I was rambling within my mind, a picture had started to assemble from my scans both within and without the subject's body.
A mental command had his Neural Link poke his brain in such a way as to move his cybernetic fingers, and I was only partially surprised by the sheer speed of the signal as it transferred from the slightly swelled brain into the cybernetic almost instantly.
Much like it did during his snap.
'Did the psychosis permanently increase his connection to the 'ware? Or was it an overall increase in affinity?' I considered before murmuring "A maladaptation then?"
A good first hypothesis.
Just then the signal coming from the brain seemed to scramble on itself and the subject's Optics snapped open, an incoherent scream of confusion and rage ripping from his throat as his rapidly glitching Optics zeroed in on me.
I knew for a fact he was still completely unconscious, and yet he seemed to be coherent enough to try and grab for me, only stopped in the attempt by the bindings securing him to the chair.
'And just as the swelling implied, the parts of the brain governing the physical subconscious and certain memory centers are being hyperstimulated.' I mused while looking over the struggling man 'A devolution of a sort to preserve the body from a threat it can't quite identify?'
Too early to tell probably.
My curiosity only grew as the subject seemed to begin adapting to his situation, activating other parts of his brain and slowly dragging himself fully awake as he 'realized' he couldn't simply leap at me.
But I also noticed the swelling and heat around the brain starting to increase considerably, rapidly reaching dangerous levels that would leave the subject brain dead within minutes.
I decided to cut the experiment short there, forcefully shutting down each and every piece of cyberware with the gentlest quickhack I had on hand.
For a moment it seemed as if that would be enough but the subject still kept struggling, even if more weakly, and so I injected him with another dose of coma-inducing chemicals and he finally fell back into full unconsciousness.
Next to me, Yelena looked completely unperturbed, merely checking on the binding on her end before asking "Should I be worried he is going to try something like that while you are not here?"
"Probably not." I said "But don't sleep in the same room and lock everything just in case anyway."
Again, she showed no real reaction to something most would consider to belong straight in a horror movie "Sure thing."
I gave the subject another quick look, feeling a flash of relief as I saw the swelling on the brain reduce but not completely disappear. I'd probably have to cut his skull open and really get into his brain to get a real picture of what was going on, but I could still extract a mountain of data from him before I moved to that one off test.
"Monitor the brain specifically and send me daily reports. I'll be back within the week to run another round of tests." I decided "And can you do me a favor?"
"Depends on the favor." She shrugged.
"Can you activate your heart's manual mode and bump it a few times?"
This time she seemed to actually grow concerned "Hey, I ain't participating like that. If you or Jones think I'll take that shit you can fuck right off, dirt or no dirt."
How annoying "Don't worry, I just need to compare something real quick. It will take a literal second and it isn't like I can check on a flesh to chrome interface myself."
She narrowed her eyes "Nah."
"I'll give you a thousand eddies." I barely kept the sigh down.
"Done." She smirked and immediately did as asked.
Even getting confirmation about my hypothesis on the smoothness of the subjects increased connection with his cyberware failed to fully remove my irritation as I wired her the agreed upon sum.
I couldn't even be properly pissed, because that is exactly what I did.
"Just make sure the subject doesn't croak." I finally sighed "And organize the supplies properly if you would, Yelena. The storage room is an embarrassment."
"Sure thing, doc." She mock saluted "I'll give the bosswoman the good news."
"What good news?" I paused, genuinely confused.
She blinked "...Uhh, the fact you seem to have made actual progress and aren't crying how it's impossible?"
'That counted as progress?' I just stared at her for a long moment before deciding it wasn't worth the processing power "....You do that."
Something she was more than happy to get right on as I finally left the lab and made my way to my van.
Instead of immediately going home, I sunk into the driver's chair and turned up the volume of the Radio PEBKAC station while reaching for a cold beer.
The odd music Tinitus made seemed to be a brand of its own, almost exclusively appearing on this specific radio station, and as much as I hated the fact it was mostly just Maelstrom slop, I still couldn't stop myself from listening.
The layered sound design was simply more engaging with senses this sharp.
Maybe I should try mixing the music I actually liked in the same way?
Could prove to be an interesting hobby...
While I mused on just how to make the perfect monstrosity of sound with my preferred melodies, I began scrolling through my non-critical notifications, mostly consisting of messages and reports and my automated system informing me of my next patient accepting today's reschedule for a minor discount.
But then my eyes landed on a particular line of text and I felt a wave of hesitation pass through me before I steeled myself and mentally clicked the hacked Trauma Team report.
And what I saw left me feeling... rather empty.
They did everything they could but they got to Nicholas far too late, and they were unable to fully 'salvage' him from the incident despite technically bringing him back to life.
The corporation still counted it as a successful rescue and resuscitation of a platinum tier client on their reports but his brain was simply left without air for too long and had not yet adapted to the freshly installed cyberdeck in his head, and the fight with my daemons was far too intense, leaving him brain dead after the fact and unable to live without constant care.
A human doll, more dead than alive, and kept that way just long enough for Arasaka to realize he wasn't of any use for their investigation.
I shut the notification off, swallowed the shredded beer bottle, and floored the gas.
A long ride sounded great right about now.
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