Chapter 5: The First Manufactorum
The heavy, grease-stained, rust-covered metal workbench had been ritually scoured, revealing the stark, cold steel beneath. The pile of worthless scrap upon it—the metallic remains and discarded components salvaged from the ruins—was now undergoing a sacred transmutation.
Under Joric's deft manipulations, the laser cutter emitted a high-frequency hum, its focused beam of light precisely etching and separating the metal. Several mechadendrites extended from the auxiliary harness on his back, moving like sentient metallic vines to synergistically clamp, calibrate, and weld.
This base matter was reshaped, tempered, and polished, ultimately reborn as a set of practical, well-suited tools: an assortment of wrenches, pliers, hammers, and a set of clearly calibrated measuring instruments. Their appearance was crude, but the center of gravity, grip, and structural integrity of each tool had been rigorously optimized to perfectly match the litanies of his use.
On the other side of the workshop, several shattered display screens, salvaged from derelict billboards and old terminals, underwent a complex rebirth. He carefully cleansed each glass substrate, scraping away layers of grime and scorch marks, before piecing them together in a mosaic to form an irregular, multi-screen display array.
Working microchips, capacitors, and circuit boards scavenged from every corner of the dead town were ingeniously connected and integrated, then housed within a crude chassis riveted from sheet metal.
When the last data-link was connected, he initiated the power-up sequence. After a flicker of static, the screens lit up one by one, presenting a segmented but cohesive interface. A grotesque, yet fully functional, ad-hoc terminal had been born into the world. The whir of its fans and the hiss of the current became its breath of life.
He took a deep breath and took the data-jack in his hand. The other end of the cable was connected to a hardline that snaked out from the wall, leading deep underground to what might be a surviving network node. His movements were precise and cautious. The jack slid into its port with a satisfying click.
"Alright," he murmured to himself. "Let's see what this mad world is so busy with." His fingertips danced across the keys, inputting a self-authored access cantrip. ++[Establishing stable connection… Signal strength is minimal, but protocol is identifiable… Commencing data stream reception and parsing…]++
Information trickled onto the screens, a slow stream often interrupted by lag and packet loss. The displays would occasionally burst into snow and garbled code. But this was no longer the chaotic electronic shriek from before; this was structured, parsable information, however fragmented.
He greedily absorbed it all.
Broken headlines and news fragments scrolled by: ...ARASAKA DISPUTES MILITECH'S NEW WEAPON TEST DATA... ...GOVERNMENT CONTRACT REVIEW AT A STALEMATE...
Flickering, blurry security footage appeared: on a neon-drenched street, members of the cyber-fanatic 'Maelstrom' gang exchanged fire with 'Tyger Claws' gangers adorned with Ukiyo-e style tattoos. Beams from energy weapons and the muzzle flash of projectile firearms tore through the night sky.
The screen was then flooded with pop-up holographic ads for cyberware—'Kerenzikov' neural accelerators, 'Gorilla Arms', 'Smart Links'... The advertisements were garish and cheap, reeking of over-promised fanaticism.
Corporations, gangs, cybernetics… these familiar yet alien concepts, fed by piecemeal but genuine data, began to form the shape of this world in his mind. It was a world with a tech-tree both brilliant and warped, ruled by a corporate oligarchy, where street violence was a daily ritual, and the modification of the human form was hailed as the path to evolution. A world of insane, pathological vitality.
"Intriguing… truly intriguing," Joric breathed, his optical sensors adjusting their focus, the lenses reflecting the flowing data-points.
The technology of this world, especially in bio-mechanical interfaces, direct neural linking, and cybernetic miniaturization, demonstrated a uniquely bold philosophy. Some solutions were brutally effective, others were astonishingly elegant. It was a path utterly divergent from the holy doctrines of the Omnissiah and the technological traditions of Mars, yet it achieved results. This novelty was an inspiration even to him, a Tech-Priest. It was like opening a sacred technical manual written in an unknown tongue, but filled with exquisite illustrations.
His first manufactorum, though crude—with its coarse concrete walls, exposed wiring, and air thick with oil and ozone—was now operational. Power flowed steadily through the conduits, driving his tools and the terminal. Wastewater slowly dripped through the filtration system, becoming clear. And most importantly, data was trickling onto the screen, feeding his hungry cognitive architecture with the nutrient of this new world.
He stood before the workbench and surveyed it all—the tools cobbled from refuse that were entirely his own, the self-repaired and self-powered systems, the sanctified space—and a long-forgotten sense of a creator's satisfaction and control washed over him, diluting the last vestiges of unease.
This place was awful, chaotic, dangerous, and resource-poor. But as he had suspected, it was indeed a place where one could begin anew. A place to truly apply one's craft.
He gently patted the cold metal brow of the servo-skull. Its sensor flickered in response.
"You see, old friend? What did I tell you?" he said with a hint of humor. "This place may be a chaotic mess, but at least most of its 'problems' can be solved with technology, logic, and a good wrench." He hefted the wrench he had just forged; its weight was perfect. "Compared to dealing with the whispers of a Chaos God or the choppa of a Greenskin… I would rather face a hundred of this world's malfunctioning cleaning drones."
The brief moment of satisfaction passed as the urgency of his reality returned. Now, he needed a plan. The immediate priority was to find a source of high-quality energy in the wastelands surrounding this "Night City." The insatiable archeotech relic and his own micro-fusion reactor were both, quite literally, energy sinks. Scavenging could sustain him, but to truly establish himself, he required a far greater power source.
His gaze fell upon the terminal screen, calling up map data and information on the power grid. Perhaps he should start with abandoned power nodes, old transmission lines, or… the rumored "dangerous creatures" that roamed the wastes, said to carry high-yield power cells?
His mind processed at high speed, attempting to sketch out the route for his first resource hunt.
For now, in this forgotten corner of the world, accompanied by the low hum of the terminal and the drip of the water filter, he allowed himself to savor the feeling of forging order from chaos just a moment longer.
Night fell through the broken window. From the wasteland outside came the distant, indistinct sounds of threats unknown. But this small workshop, shielded by technology and will, had become a solid fulcrum in a world of chaos.
He activated a micro-laser calibrator, sending a thin red beam across the joints of a manipulator arm, making nano-scale adjustments. His gaze, however, had already moved to the next project waiting on his workbench—what would perhaps become the first true weapon he would forge in this new world.