Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story

Ko abruptly smacked Trace on the arm. “You gave me something that could have turned me into a pile of goo!”

“Hey, it wasn’t like I was supposed to know that?” He protested, rubbing his arm. “I’m sorry, okay? Next time I won’t offer to include you in something potentially life-changing.”

She growled at him and turned away in a huff.

He rolled his eyes and looked at the notifications that had appeared in the corner of his vision.

- G.H.O.S.T. System has been updated from Version 0.1 to Version 0.3

- User Trace Delevey’s account has been elevated to Local Administrator status

- Sub-User Devko Park’s account has been elevated to that of a Regular User. No further updates concerning her account will be provided

…

- Local Admin Trace has experienced a sudden influx of atomites

- Current number of atomites is enough to perform the Overload function twice

Trace read through all the different messages, not understanding most of what had been written. Then he came to the end, and while he understood the words, it took him an uncomfortably long time to figure out where the atomites had actually come from.

“Meredith’s body just now, it wasn’t made up of nan-” He stopped himself at the moment. There was no telling if it was safe to say the word now, simply because one of the personalities knew about them. “The little things. It was made up of the even smaller atom things.”

“That’s what I was thinking, yeah,” She said softly. “Have you looked at the system menu yet?”

“No, why?” He pulled up the system menu and immediately saw the same changes she was seeing.

As a full user, Ko would now have access to the same menu he’d been using from the very beginning. However, as part of the updates to the system, the various selections now also listed the required materials to construct the most useful special nanites for the required job. You could either choose to build an absolutely ridiculous number of them and do the job. Or do it using the right materials and a fifth or less of the special nanites. At the top of the menu was a timer that marked how long they had left before they could use another knowledge update.

The options themselves all looked to remain the same at first glance. Which begged the question, at least in Trace’s mind, what was the purpose of being a local administrator? It was something he would have to dig into later when he was alone.

“What are you going to use your Overloads on?” She asked a while later as they were still waiting for Deckard to finish waking up.

“I’m not entirely sure,” He replied. “I know it will be something brain-related though, for sure. I don’t really want to waste it on upgrading my body when, in all likelihood, I will eventually get more cyberware in the future. No, I’m using it on my brain for sure. The only issue is, we don’t know how broad the selection will be.”

“Ah, I get what you’re saying. Like, can you just upgrade your mental acuity or are you simply doing the entire brain in one go?”

He nodded. “Exactly. Like, I wouldn’t mind increasing my reaction speed, and how fast I think. Some would say those are two different things, others would say they’re the same thing, and then there is the third camp where they’re different but related. So, if I upgrade one, I get some benefits to the other. That way, nothing ever goes too far in one direction.”

“If I was designing the system, the third option would be my choice.”

“Mine as well, but that uses more resources.” He pointed out.

She bobbed her head from side to side. “That’s true, but while we only have two uses each, a whole lot of the stuff entered us. Even accounting for some loss since it was also transferring information, I think there is a safety margin built in to accommodate for number three.”

“Hmm, well, I guess one of us will find out later. Right now we have to deal with this.” He pointed to the braincase and the screen they had needed to straighten after Meredith had pushed it aside earlier.

The screen, which had been dark up till then, was finally showing signs of life.

A sleeping pair of eyes appeared first, taking up much of the screen. After a minute, they began to pull back as a face came into view.

It was a young face that didn’t match what they knew about Deckard in the slightest. He had been over nineteen years old when the attack that put him in the coma happened. Yet, the face on the screen was closer to sixteen, maybe seventeen, if they were pushing it.

This was the spark that Deckard had created when he was ten years old, and he had originally been loathe to update it all. His mother had forced him to, so people weren’t talking to a child in business meetings. He hadn’t updated it again before the attack. None of this was known to Trace or Ko, of course.

The boy’s nose twitched a few times as he rolled over and stretched, before falling into a sitting position facing them. He yawned and rubbed his eyes before looking around the room. The various cameras attached to the case swiveled and spun around as they took everything in.

The young-looking Deckard closed his eyes in concentration for a minute before refocusing on them with renewed focus. “I’ve been in a coma for almost one hundred and thirty years.”

Trace let out a breath, he had only vaguely been aware he was holding. “Yeah, it seems so. How are you feeling?”

“Muddled.” He blinked and looked away. “I’m having a hard time focusing at the moment, and my thoughts keep trying to escape my grasp. What happened? Where is my mother?”

“What happened is you were shot in the head and put in an extremely extended coma,” Ko told him. “Whatever they hit you with back then breached the containment on your braincase. The only reason you’re still alive is because of your nanites. You still suffered damage from it though that they needed to repair. Then, at some point, someone decided it was a good idea to use you as the main CPU for a server. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what having that sort of data constantly pumped through a brain does to a person.”

Deckard’s avatar paled on the screen.

“We weren’t sure if you would even still have any memories of who you were when you woke up,” Trace told him. “You do actually remember who you are, right?”

“I think so. Some things are fragmented, and it’s hard to think right now, but I know my name and I can remember my mother.” The cameras panned around the apartment again. “Where is she? The attack couldn’t have killed her. Where am I?”

“Okay, first off you need to calm down, and second, your mother is still alive. Or at least as alive as she was back when you knew her.” Trace ran a hand through his hair. “She was even here a short while ago, but her mental state suffered a bit when she thought she lost you. It seems like you were what was keeping her grounded and stable, and once she thought you were gone, her mind fragmented.”

He and Ko spent the next while talking to Deckard, running through topics as they came up. The duo found themselves needing to repeat certain things more often as time went on and eventually called a halt to the discussion.

Ko refilled Deckard’s nutrient mix and told him to get some rest. He wasn’t used to being so mentally active anymore, just talking to people would be draining for him until he got used to it again.

“Are you going to stick around or…”

“I wouldn’t mind staying, but Sevorah has been messaging me for the last half-hour already. I should really get going.” She admitted.

“Alright, I’ll give you a ride over to the clinic, then. I need to head over to the junkyard and get some more metal, anyway.”

“And a new door.” She reminded him.

“Yeah, one of those as well.”

***

Trace was looking through the Overload menu as he picked his way through the rubbish at the junkyard. There were a lot of options, many of which he had already decided weren’t for him as they affected different parts of the body. Maybe in the future, if he suddenly had an extreme number of the atomites, he would change his mind. For now though, he was fine with the decision he had made, even if it was currently unrealistic.

What he was finding was that each upgrade cost a different number of the precious atomites. Which, in his opinion, lent more credence to the third option of the upgrade path he had been discussing with Ko before.

Pretty much all of his body upgrades cost one unit at the moment. The two exceptions to that were his neck and eyes, where he had cyberware. Those locations cost one and a half units. There was a message stating that the increased cost was to cover the process of renewing and improving nerve connections between organic and inorganic matter.

Then there was his brain, the area he had been wanting to upgrade. That was pretty much a strict no-go at the moment, as the cheapest upgrade there started at fifteen units, and rapidly climbed into the stratosphere.

Atomites were useful, but it seemed as though they were mainly collectors’ items for now. In the future, when he had the resources to make more, it would be a different matter.

Regardless, Trace decided to use the Overload upgrade on his eyes when he got back to the apartment. He wanted to see what effect having a better nerve connection with them would bring, if any.

As soon as the back of the truck was loaded down with metal, he took off. He had chosen smaller pieces this time around, so he could load them himself. Normally, he didn’t mind helping the others, but he had other things on his mind and didn’t want to spend too much extra time there if he could help it.

When he reached the warehouse, he found that a gang tag had been drawn on the twisted door. The gang was trying to send him a message; that the warehouse, his home, belonged to them. That was going to be a problem, and it could have been a problem that morning when Ko had been left outside for who knows how long.

He would need to confront them at some point, but not that day. He needed to finish getting the warehouse in order first. That included getting the door fixed. He wouldn’t risk Ko’s life by letting her be stuck outside and unable to get in again.

As soon as he parked the truck, he called the fellow who had helped him install the bars across the door.

“Hey, Flash-Fry, you up for some more work?” He was a welder, that moonlit as an edger on occasion.

“Man, I told you last time. Just call me by my name when I’m not on a job. It’s Monroe!” The deep bass of the man’s voice came back. Over the call, it was impressively deep. In person, you could feel his voice in your bones. “I’m just finishing up a job. You ready for me to get started on that roof of yours?”

“Partially, I just picked up some more metal today, but I don’t know how much you actually need. But no, I’m calling to get your help with that door you helped me put that bar on. A gang moved into the area it seems and tried to kick it in. Now I have a metallic pretzel with a gang tag on it that won’t open.”

Monroe whistled. “I’ll be over in just a few. Just make sure there aren’t any gangsters in the area, would you? I don’t feel like getting shot at today.”

Trace snorted. “Will do. I’ll see you in a bit.”

He went inside the apartment to grab his scout rifle and courier bag, taking a second to check on Deckard while he was at it. The young man… -brain?- was still asleep from his earlier exertions.