The Corpo
For the first time in recent memory, she felt herself come awake not to a blaring mental alarm, but with a comfortable and deliberate slowness.
Unfortunately, such feelings were utterly unnatural for her, making her ingrained reflexes kick in as she suddenly sat up, her eyes snapping open as she took the clearest breath she had in years.
She was still in the clinic, she realized, and not alone.
A few feet away from her, Magos stood hunched over another ripper table, talking to another patient "Try moving the hand now." He instructed "The glitches should be completely gone."
There was a whirring sound as the patient did as instructed before an accented voice responded with wonder "It is so smooth... Thank you, Magos-san."
The cyborg merely hummed in mild approval "Your boss has already covered your bill, so you are free to go."
"She did?" The man briefly gawked before catching himself "Ah, I mean that's great!"
"It is?" The cyborg asked with mild sarcasm.
"Probably." The man muttered before getting up from the table "Thank you again, doc. I'll get out of your hair."
Magos escorted his patient out, and returned with his gaze focused fully on her "You're finally awake. How do you feel?"
"What do you mean finally?" Valerie immediately asked "How long was I out?"
"Twelve hours." The borg shrugged, his unnerving multi-pupiled eye clicking and whirring as he ran scans while he talked "It is already morning outside."
She felt a flash of panic.
"You did take a day off like I instructed, right?" The borg gave her a pointed look.
"Yeah..." She nodded, allowing herself to relax.
"Ah, it seems our Japanese overlords have you well trained." He chuckled.
To which she wisely just flipped him off.
"Everything seems to be in order." He said, completely ignoring the gesture "You will need to eat a bit more to get yourself back in balance but your health should be fine, at least until you inevitably fuck it up again." He finished with an annoyed mutter and waved her up "You can get up now."
And she did, and nearly stumbled at the lack of discomfort in her everything "What did you do?"
"Exactly what you asked." Was the simple answer "I'll not clue you in on the details for obvious reasons but let's just say my work was... comprehensive, and leave it at that, hm? You will enjoy the results in any case."
She was annoyed, but not anymore than when she went under the knife for any other ripper, and she could admit in the privacy of her own mind that everything seemed to be working as advertised so far.
That is when her biomon decided to be noisy again, and the comprehensive string of notifications made her miss a step.
Which is when she absently looked down and just now realized she was wearing a hospital gown instead of her own clothes.
Her eyes snapped up instantly.
And were met with reproachful gold "Kindly skip the scandalized princess act, V. I am a doctor."
Her gaze narrowed, but she knew he was right, and wasn't particularly shy to begin with "Yeah, fine." She said with a huff "Do you even have a license to call yourself that?"
"V." He said patronizingly "We live in a city where the law is a suggestion at best, and the only way for a man to get even a chance at official recognition is to sell his soul and kidneys to the closest corporation and slave away for literal decades."
He made a pause "So yes, of course I have a fucking license."
The deadpan delivery made her chuckle despite herself "Yeah, that sounds about right."
Magos rolled his eyes "Those Tygers are useful for something at least."
"Not a big fan of our mutual friends?" She quirked an eyebrow.
"Complaining is my God given right." He said "And I will use it as much as I like."
What a perfect non answer.
"Your clothes are on that table there." He pointed behind her "Get dressed and go home and get some actual rest. I know my work chair is very comfortable but it isn't up for rent."
"How sad." She said dryly and went to do as he asked.
Less than a minute later, she was walking out of the clinic feeling like a million eddies, but paused just as she reached the exit, turning back to the cyborg she called "Hey, M."
"Hm?" He looked up from the laptop he had moved on to already.
"Good luck."
He blinked at her, and then simply inclined his head.
Satisfied, she stepped out of the clinic and into the bustling megabuilding floor, taking deep breaths of the (relatively) clean air and marveling at the lack of resistance.
She had not expected the change to be this dramatic, or even anywhere near it if she was being honest.
And it only reinforced her certainty of her decisions.
But she could worry about that later. It has been a while since she simply relaxed.
A memory flashed in her mind and she perked up, allowing herself a small smile "I could go for some noodles."
---
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
Chuckling at the corpo's words, I stopped paying attention to the security feed and returned to my data scrolling.
Though I allowed my focus to loosen slightly, as my thoughts trailed back to my work yesterday night.
Getting a string of data that annotated the situation as unfavorable was one thing, looking at the absolute abused mess that V's body was another entirely.
The escalating situation made her push herself beyond all reason, and multiple organs had suffered heavy damage slowly approaching the catastrophic.
The cynic in me wouldn't be surprised if that was just another way for the corps to control their workers.
By making them have no choice but to buy in on their 'affordable' cyberware packages, cyberware that just so happened to have backdoors that have backdoors, they would have literal control over their lives, a gun permanently pointed at the backs of their heads.
But I should not let myself get distracted by conspiracy theories, probable as they are.
Solving V's problem ended up being both simple and irritating.
Simple because nanomachines were utter cheats when it came to medicine, and all it took was just injecting a bunch of them and then manually extracting any toxins and fixing the damage, took me less than an hour.
And deeply irritating because I found myself having to cheat in the first place.
Fixing her without weeks of chemical therapy would have been impossible otherwise, and I needed to keep her awed and at least passably loyal (or at least the closest equivalent a corpo had for the concept) And stretching things out was just not as impactful.
It stung my professional pride for reasons that would no doubt be found insultingly stupid under even the most minor scrutiny, but I was a hormonal teenager and so I got to be stupid every once in a while.
I had more important fish to fry in any case.
A gala was to be held in the Arasaka tower in two days, and my target was known to always leave before the unofficial 'afterparty' got started, preferring to keep to himself whenever he could get away with it in his position.
And he had already made it known he would be spending his night in his Charter Hill mansion afterwards.
This made me suspicious at first, but a quick call to V confirmed it was just good corporate practice to leave yourself open for visits and 'gifts' as it made the customary backroom deals that practically ran the corporations far less tedious.
The very idea was so utterly mundane and shallow it had completely slipped my mind, but I supposed the corpos did like their efficiency.
And it wasn't like they were announcing it on open channels for everyone to see.
The data came directly from Arasaka's own internal servers, and that would simply have to be enough.
I had what I wanted, and I already come up with a plan of approach that should see us drawing the least amount of attention possible and allow us to slip out just as silently, if everything went well.
Inevitably, the planning session had my thoughts drifting back to V. This would be the perfect opportunity for her to sell me out to Arasaka, what with the opening being time limited and the property isolated enough for a smash and grab.
But I was ultimately secure enough in the knowledge she wasn't shortsighted enough to go for it when she could keep a hidden card for herself against her 'colleagues'. And perhaps naively I believed there to be a shred of decency in her, despite her corpo rat status.
Naturally, I still contacted Rogue and made some preparations just in case.
The other end of my research proved to be less immediately useful.
Shobo's data was a wealth of information, but only small parts of it related to Werner and even then they usually detailed their business dealings with a few potential meeting points and not anything that could help me with my goal.
There was a scan recording of Werner noting that the man employed a razor Monowire for self defense alongside a standard high ranking Arasaka rat cyberware suite, but that was barely even worth mentioning.
Still, there was no reason not to profit from all the other information, and many of the businesses and stashes listed had yet to be recovered by the wider Tyger Claws.
Briefly, I considered just leaving it as is. Dragging people under the Tygers' proverbial yoke seemed like not the most gentlemanly of moves, but they had worked with Shobo and that was enough guilt by association for me.
Though I did make sure to mark all the 'dollhouses' and hire Jones to have mercs sent there to free everyone and send them on their way with some pocket money.
The fat paycheck I got from the downright giddy Jugo more than made up for it. The sudden opportunity for consolidation was a godsend after the loss of morale the gang suffered in their war with Maelstrom and he took it with his usual lack of hesitation.
Maybe I should hire a few distraction crews as well? Or would that be drawing more attention instead of diverting it...
"That's enough overthinking it for now." I muttered and stepped away from the laptop, needlessly stretching my back as I did.
'Only one step left.' I looked over to my workshop and through the wall to find that the printing process I started hours ago was still not finished, which meant I had some time left to kill.
Hoping against hope for a miracle, I walked upstairs only to find that mom and our guest were missing from the living room, and after a quick (and I will admit mildly worried) scan I found the two of them in one of our unused rooms in the back.
And what I found inside made me pause, though mostly out of mild bafflement.
Mom and Misty were standing across from each other, and the latter was currently trying to imitate the former's fighting stance and doing... Well, she was enthusiastic and that had to count for something at least.
"Mikey." Mom immediately noticed me and greeted me with a smile, though it disappeared as soon as it came "Is your Arasaka friend gone yet?"
She was not all that happy to learn I was working with one of them.
And what a fucking understatement that was...
"Yes, she left about an hour back." I said, leaning back against the wall "With every motivation to stay on my good side too."
"For how long?" Mom asked tersely "Until it is more profitable for her to sell you out?"
"You know what I can do." I shrugged "What is profit when compared to another chance at life itself?"
She made a pinched face but didn't press me further.
We both knew that having a contact in one of the world's most powerful corporations was a must if we wanted to avoid a lot of potential trouble, but that didn't mean either of us had to like the fact.
"Hi Misty." I turned to my other guest "Sorry about not saying hello earlier, I had some patients to take care of."
"Its fine, Mike." She smiled, absently wiping her neck with a towel "I know how hectic running a ripperdoc clinic can get."
"Vik probably has tenth of the trouble I have." I complained for the heck of it.
But she just shook her head and chuckled "You underestimate how often we have to deal with angry customers."
"Ah." I voiced in realization "Yeah, I can see how people would turn stupid without the unspoken threat of ultraviolence." A threat I made by merely existing.
Both of them laughed.
"So." I said deciding to shift the topic "What made you decide to learn to throw hands all of a sudden?"
While my mouth said one thing, my eyes said another 'Did you manage to convince her?'
It wasn't mom that called Misty over, but myself, in the vein, foolish hope her friend could do what her son could not and convince her not to be a gonk and stay home while I dealt with everything.
Evidently, it failed completely, as mom flashed me an amused glance.
Misty made a minute shake of her head, earning her own amused look from my mother "An unfortunate young man tried mugging me, but I got away from him in time."
"And you decided to learn only now?" I couldn't help but ask, feeling a flash of resignation deep inside "You do realize you live in Night City, right?"
"It just never seemed like the right time." She smiled as she delivered every procrastinator's excuse ever.
"Well at least you are trying now." I shrugged and looked to mom "Think you can get her in shape before the fifth corpo war?"
"If she doesn't give up." She smiled, and it made her friend shiver "I give her even odds."
Misty's expression turned briefly strained before she smirked back and raised her hands with... enthusiastic poise "Oh I'll show you 'Lana."
Watching the poor woman get repeatedly folded under the excuse of instruction quickly stopped being entertaining and instead just a bit sad, which is why I wisely left before I was invited into the beatdown.
---
I stood in my workshop, slowly wriggling the freshly modified fingers of my left hand.
They were longer now, their tips slightly more clawlike than before and their joints lined with tiny exhaust ports, and their metal shell seemed to reflect light slightly better than the rest of my baseline titanium.
The idea came to me suddenly, but once I understood the simple elegance of it, it refused to leave me.
Back when I had my eureka moment about the abilities of the human mind, I carved lines through my titanium table merely with my overexcitedly vibrating grip.
Combine that with the fact I needed a subtler way to get through physical obstacles than just running through them, the idea pretty much came together on its own.
Obviously I didn't content myself with just making my fingers more resilient or prone to vibration but went the full mile and added thermal projectors to each digit of both my hands, alongside an enhanced grip at the cost of some precise mechanical manipulation.
I had my Mechadendrites for that now anyway.
My Cor Fulgur provided all the power the modification would need, and the platinum-titanium alloy I cooked up would ensure my fingers would not melt off without considerable abuse.
Now all that remained was to see the prototype in action.
I turned away from my work table and to an eight inch thick sheet of the same titanium I used for repairs standing at around my height.
Wasting no time, I calculated my posture before flicking the mental switch, activating the thermal projectors and throwing a violent swing at the test dummy.
There was a flash of orange as my fingers immediately heated up to the point of glowing and it was followed by a downright ear bursting screech of metal on metal.
I pushed through with the strike, feeling the sheet give way only a split second later and retracting my hand with a mental deactivation command.
The steam soon cleared from the improvised test dummy and I felt myself pause at what I saw.
The 'claw' had managed to completely and cleanly rip through the entire thing, despite the fact my fingers were simply not long for that to happen.
One quick look at the back of the sheet confirmed my suspicion as I found that the rest of the metal simply melted away with the heat.
Satisfied, I rose my new [Corvus Mk1] and found it almost completely unblemished save for the steam wafting off from the exhausts "You will do."
-------
You too will do.
stone mining that is.
Get back to work!
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