Mercer had Panam park the car right at the clinic entrance, a somewhat dim alley.
The buildings on either side of the alley had a dated feel. After getting out of the car, Mercer couldn't help but glance around with a sense of nostalgia.
To the left of the alley was the building housing Misty's esoterica shop, the girlfriend of Jackie from the game.
In the game, the protagonist V and Jackie would usually get off the car on the street by the esoteric shop, pass through it, cross the alley, and arrive at Vik's clinic.
But now, Mercer had brought a car full of valuable goods, so it wasn't convenient for him to carry everything conspicuously through that route.
He had no choice but to squeeze the car into the alley with some effort and park right at the entrance.
To his right, a set of steps led down to a semi-underground building, Viktor's clinic.
Mercer first sent a message to Vik.
[Mercer: Vik, open up. I've got a lot of stuff, gonna take a few trips to move it all.]
[Viktor: Okay.]
Viktor replied quickly, likely having been waiting for him for a while, and didn't mention anything about him being late.
Panam, while helping Mercer carry the refrigerated container storing the cyberware, looked around and muttered, "This is the place? Doesn't look like much."
"ripperdocs are always tucked away in these out-of-the-way corners... But his skills are definitely up to par."
Mercer was also straining to carry a large box, carefully making his way down the steps to the door when it slid open automatically.
Before him stood a sturdy middle-aged man wearing sunglasses, exactly the person Mercer had come to see, Viktor Vektor.
Viktor looked down and saw a young boy, barely reaching his shoulders, struggling to carry a large box.
The sight made him instinctively reach out:
"Kid, just hand it to me..."
Where's that Mercer? Sending a child to move all this?
Frowning, Viktor set the box down on the floor inside the clinic and turned to look, only to see a woman also carrying items as she walked in.
Mercer smiled somewhat helplessly at Viktor and said, "I am Mercer."
"...Hah..."
Viktor could only let out a sigh-like sound, part exasperation, part amazement, as he looked at Mercer.
Then he simply stepped out to lend a hand, helping move the items while asking, "So, is this batch for your sister to install?"
"She's a friend of mine, and today's driver, from the Aldecaldos. The cyberware is for me."
As he spoke, Mercer sized up Viktor.
He didn't look much different from how he appeared in the game.
Viktor's features weren't particularly striking, but he looked clean and well-kept.
His black hair was tied back, his arms well-muscled and seemingly almost entirely free of cyberware modifications, though a faint glimmer shone from behind his sunglasses.
He was the picture of a reliable man.
"Hmm... I won't ask where you got these from. Doesn't look like you're a local, anyway."
Vik kept moving the items while studying Mercer.
This child, who looked no older than fourteen or fifteen and was quite slender, carried an oddly mature air about him, both in expression and speech.
Cybereye, monowire, neural link, cyberdeck, and even an interface on the back of his head for a large server unit... All Arasaka cyberware.
Moreover, even the refrigeration units currently being moved, containing the cyberware, were all high-end models emblazoned with the Arasaka logo.
"But this batch of yours is way too pure. All Arasaka stuff.
Stolen? Or snatched?
Either way, I wouldn't recommend installing them yourself."
Viktor spoke frankly: "You're too young. Installing too much cyberware can affect your development, and these implants are usually designed for adult physiques."
"No worries, let's just see how much we can install for now." Mercer seemed completely unconcerned.
Viktor sighed inwardly, but since they weren't that close, he didn't press further.
Once everything was moved in, Panam crossed her arms and took a seat in an empty spot in the clinic. In Night City's back-alley clinics, if you're getting cyberware surgery, you better make sure someone's with you.
Otherwise, if you go alone to a black-market clinic for implants, there's a good chance the surgery will mysteriously fail by the end.
Then you become a corpse, and eventually, your parts, along with the cyberware you meant to install, will end up on the shelf.
"Don't mind me, just pretend I'm not here."
Panam played the role of bodyguard with professional ease, but Mercer chuckled:
"It's fine, Panam. You haven't eaten yet this morning, right? Go grab something in Little China out back.
Right across the alley is Misty's Esoteric Shop; she's the part-time receptionist at Vik's clinic, but the esoteric shop is her main gig. Her fortune-telling is supposedly pretty accurate; you could give it a try.
No telling how long this will take, and it'd be pretty boring for you to just sit here staring."
"You sure?" Panam eyed Viktor warningly. "Getting surgery here alone?"
"Ha, don't underestimate Vik."
Mercer pointed to the wall lined with trophies and certificates:
"If you'd come a few years earlier, Viktor was still boxing professionally. Back then, they called him 'Viktor the Unarmored', the most badass boxer in all of Night City at the time.
The likes of you and me, he could knock us out with one punch each.
Don't let his lack of cyberware fool you; in his retirement match, he went a full twelve rounds against some corpo-junked-up monster!
Both scored a knockdown, but sadly, he lost on points in the end.
But that was a real boxer going up against a cyber-enhanced superman, now you see Dr. Viktor's skills, right?"
"You even know about that?" Viktor couldn't help but smile. "I thought nobody remembered."
He truly loved boxing but had to leave the ring because the sport had become a showcase for cyberware.
Deep down, he'd always rather hear praise for his boxing skills than his medical expertise.
But still... this kid had really dug up everything about him! What kind of little monster was he?
"Wait... seriously?"
Panam, however, found Viktor even less convincing. A boxer trading gloves for medical books? Could he even have learned it properly?
"Don't worry, Vik is one of the few reliable good guys in Night City. Go on, take care of your stuff. If you finish and have nothing to do, come back, have a beer, watch some TV. Once I'm done here, I'll take you somewhere fun." Mercer repeated himself, and Panam didn't press further. She sighed:
"You're a complicated guy sometimes, but other times you seem so simple. Alright, I'll go grab some breakfast. What about you?"
"Has Vik eaten yet?" Mercer asked Viktor with familiar ease.
"Uh, yeah, I have. But you should get something. First, let me see what all this stuff is?"
Vik casually opened one of the boxes and immediately wrinkled his whole face. Inside were a beat-up Sandevistan, Mantis Blades with faint dark red bloodstains, and some other miscellaneous junk.
"Oh, that's stuff I plan to fix up and sell. Wondering if you could lend a hand. What I want installed is these."
Mercer pointed to the other items. Vik frowned as he opened them, then raised an eyebrow. "New models?"
"Lab-grade prototypes. Goodies from Arasaka's cyberware R&D center in Canada."
Mercer stood beside Vik with a grin, saying:
"I sent you a file with relevant data I pulled from Arasaka's servers.
I've already looked through it. Aside from the cyberdeck needing some study, the rest should be straightforward to install."
"Straightforward isn't the issue," Vik turned to give Mercer a serious look. "But do you have any idea how much neural load this cyberware puts on the human brain?
No exaggeration, this might not look like much, but even those cyberware-crazed Maelstrom maniacs wouldn't last three months before breaking down if they installed this stuff!
Even the heat dissipation is wired into the neural system. Whoever designed this set never considered the strain it would put on the user!"
Panam, who hadn't left yet, looked worried and earnestly patted Mercer's shoulder. "I know you want to do big things, but you've got to know your limits. Don't forget, there are people counting on you. Think about Lucy."
"Alright, go eat, sis."
Mercer rolled his eyes, and Panam shot him an exasperated look. "Ungrateful much."
With that, she turned and left. "Just be smart about this. Listen to the doc. What do you want to eat?"
"I want baozi, youtiao, doufunao, roujiamo, jianbing, jiaozi, or maybe potstickers..."
Before he could finish, Panam let out an amused scoff. "Well then, keep waiting. I'll have to go to China to get that for you."
She stormed off in a huff.
—--
Viktor shook his head and motioned for Mercer to sit on the operating chair.
"Some of what you mentioned I've never even heard of... Roujiamo, is it like a hamburger? Meat sandwiching the bread?"
"No, it's bread sandwiching the meat. None of that extra veggie nonsense. I like it pure meat. The filling is stewed for hours until it falls apart at a touch, with the meat aroma and sauce blending into the flatbread."
Mercer started salivating just talking about it; it had been so long since he'd had a proper meal.
In this world, meat was all synthetic bug protein. Real animal meat? The price would make your heart stop just looking at it.
"Hmm, sounds pretty good... Are you part Chinese?"
After getting Mercer to lie down, Vik pulled up a chair and sat beside him, using his right hand equipped with a special glove-like external cyberware to tap on the screen. He spoke softly to Mercer while checking the data, "Kid, I need to run some tests first to see how your body's doing."
"I get it, go ahead. Not sure about mixed heritage Arasaka's files didn't have info on my birth parents, but I was probably Chinese in my past life."
Mercer cooperated as Vik inserted the neural link cables, sneakily hacking into the system to glance at the instrument's data along the way.
It had almost become second nature to him; the moment his head connected to any device, his first instinct was to scrutinize every line of the program's code.
"Stop fiddling the data's fluctuating. If you're curious, you can study it later."
Vik could keenly detect the instrument's lag, indicating some program was secretly siphoning its processing power in the background.
"My bad, force of habit. Arasaka's always stuffing things into people's heads can't help feeling uneasy until I know exactly what's in there."
Mercer didn't hide it, smiling as he added, "Call it occupational hazard."
"Hmm, sounds like you've had a rough past."
Viktor looked at him with pity and sighed. "How old were you when Arasaka took you in?"
"Eight? They trained me for a few years, then used me as expendable labor."
As Mercer spoke, Vik attached various instruments to his body, examining and scanning him from all angles. Within minutes, the basic data collection was complete.
Then, Vik suddenly froze in place, staring blankly at the numbers on the screen.
Is this data correct?
It can't be, right?
Is it really accurate?
No, no, no...
Is the machine broken? Probably not.
So it's correct? But are these numbers really right?
Viktor fell into a long, deep contemplation... what the hell!
--------
Bonus chapter @300 power stones.