Chapter 22: Rebecca's Plea
Dusk, several days later. The blood-red sun stained the endless desert a sickly, oily yellow. The manufactorum's automated defense network sent an early warning—a familiar thermal signature was approaching at high velocity, a trail of dust pluming behind the much-abused Goodwood.
It was Rebecca. But she was alone.
A micro-vibration in Joric's brow-optic indicated a deviation from the norm. Based on all prior behavioral analyses, the two siblings were a single operational unit. A solo arrival, at a velocity far exceeding safe parameters, suggested an anomaly... a high probability of a critical incident.
The Goodwood roared, skidding in a violent drift, its momentum carrying it until it nearly slammed into the garage barricade. The door was kicked open, and Rebecca's small form tumbled out, scrambling toward the entrance before the dust had even begun to settle.
She was in a terrible state. Her normally vibrant, pale-green hair was matted in clumps with sweat and grime. Her eyes, usually so sharp, were red and swollen. Her pretty features were twisted in a mask of pure anxiety and terror, her lip trembling uncontrollably. Her iconic jacket was smeared with black grease and... dark, flaking stains of dried blood, carrying the sharp, metallic tang of gunfire and promethium.
"Boss! Boss, open up! Please! Open the damn door!" She had completely forgotten the coded signal, and was instead hammering on the heavy, reinforced metal plate with her small, bruised fists. Her hoarse voice was thick with sobs and the ragged edge of absolute desperation.
Joric signaled the hovering servo-skull to stand down the alert and personally cycled the internal mechanism. With a low groan of metal on metal, the heavy barricade slid open.
The door was barely ajar before Rebecca burst through the gap, stumbling from her own momentum. She looked up, and the sight of Joric's tall, crimson-robed form seemed to be the only lighthouse in her storm. Her cyber-eyes, the same ones he had so carefully upgraded, were now overflowing with a panic and helplessness he had not previously cataloged. Tears streamed from them, cutting clean paths through the grime on her cheeks.
"Boss... save Pilar... please, I'm begging you..." she was incoherent, her voice shattering. "He's... he's dying... The gonk-brained ripperdocs in the city... they either want a fortune... or... or they just shake their heads and tell us to... to make arrangements..."
Joric's optical lenses ran a swift, cold scan over her.
++Bio-scan: Subject Rebecca. No critical open wounds. Vitals indicate extreme stress, adrenaline saturation, and severe fatigue. Dermal-stains confirmed as human blood. Hemoglobin profile does not match subject's genetic file.++
"Calm, Rebecca." His synthesized voice remained flat, but he actively modulated the frequency, intentionally stripping away some of the cold, metallic edge and infusing it with a subtle, algorithmic attempt at placation—a remnant of a communication skill from his long-lost human life. "Report slowly. What has befallen Pilar? Specify the injuries."
His inhuman calm acted as an anchor, momentarily halting her spiral. She took several ragged gasps, fighting to control her trembling, and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of a filthy glove.
"It... it was the last gig... the one Maine took..." she stammered, her voice still breaking. "It went sideways... we ran right into them... They were ready for us, preem-geared, their firepower... Pilar... that idiot... he was covering Dorio's retreat... and a... a smart weapon locked onto him... an armor-piercing round...
"It went right through his stomach... hit his spinal nerve-plexus... and... and it set off his old, junk-shop chrome... a chain-overload..."
She was choked by a sob, every word tearing out of her. "The ripperdoc... the one that bastard fixer Faraday set us up with... he wanted fifty-thousand eddies! Just to start! Where are we gonna get that?! The back-alley clinics... they... they looked at the wound and just... just waved us off. Said the nerve-damage was too extensive... his organs are failing... unless he gets a full, mil-spec internal rebuild... he's..."
She couldn't say it. She just stared at Joric, her gaze a raw, burning, almost religious hope.
"Boss... you... you fixed my eye, you fixed Pilar's trash shoulder... you can do something... right? Please... save him... he's my only family... he's all I have..."
Joric processed the data. Abdominal perforation. Severe spinal trauma. Progressive multi-organ failure. A cybernetic cascade-reaction. This was, indeed, far beyond the capabilities of any street-level ripperdoc. Even in the 41st Millennium, such wounds would require the intervention of a Magos-Biologis.
He instantly recalled the detailed physiological scans and interface-data he had logged when repairing Pilar's shoulder. He began constructing a preliminary trauma-simulation, generating multiple treatment-litanies. It would be complex. It would be time-consuming. It would consume a significant portion of his reserved, precious bio-active materials and specific nano-repair agents.
But... from a purely technical standpoint, it was not an irreversible state.
His brief, processing silence, however, sent Rebecca's heart into a cold freefall. The terror almost snapped her. "B-Boss...?"
Joric's head lifted, his crimson optics focusing on her with steady, unwavering light. "His injuries are severe. The required ritual of repair will consume specific biological matter and energy from my reserves. These resources were allocated for other critical projects."
Rebecca's face went white. She stopped breathing.
"However," Joric's voice cut through her despair, "his condition is not irrecoverable."
Hope flared in her cyber-eyes like an overloaded light.
"I can treat Pilar," Joric stated, his tone returning to its usual, matter-of-fact flatness. "But, as an equal exchange, I require payment for the 'medical-service'."
"How much? Whatever it is, I'll get it! I'll steal it, I'll kill for it, just name it!" she yelled, lurching forward, almost throwing herself at him.
"I do not require currency." Joric shook his head. "I require research materials. More diverse, well-preserved... neural processors, bio-chips, and any cybernetic components that carry new, or unique, design-sigils. I require unknown alloy-compositions and items with anomalous energy-signatures. The quality must be far superior to the 'scrap' you brought me last time."
His demand was for "more" and "better" material. It was a high-risk demand, as such items could only be "acquired" from high-level gangers, corporate labs, or black-market prototypes, but it was not an impossible one. It was a fair, if hard, trade based on a risk-assessment, not opportunistic extortion.
Rebecca was stunned for a second, then the logic hit her. She nodded so fast her head bobbed. "Done! Absolutely! You save Pilar, we'll get you anything! Maine, Dorio... the whole crew will help! I swear! I swear on my life!"
"The agreement is struck," Joric inclined his head. "Where is the patient? Time is a critical factor. Pre-treatment must begin immediately."