CyberGene: Anyone need a Cyberhand?

Chapter 15: Mr. Puncher’s unfortunate accident

Post from the surface-level netsite Haivenn, a forum-based social media for numerous topics.

H/Fict_Implants

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Post: Possible Implants from the MALignant that attacked The Toxin Club in Westbrook? U/Nyxmemories

Hey, so if you haven’t seen it, a Gold MALignant sprung up at New California day-before-yesterday. It took out their police Lieutenant and was even able to send Archangel into intensive care. It took Inquisitor Tusk to kill it. Videos show it had really powerful electricity-based abilities so I’m thinking it’s B.U.G would probably have the Energized Feature. Maybe the S.I.M would have some neat electricity genes too?

Comments:

U/Holditthere: Look at this video, shows the MAL breaking apart the grenade. Gonna bet the B.U.Gs got Technician.

U/Jaymaygray: I’ll bet you otherwise, Integration. LOL, Technician MALs don’t try to absorb tech into themselves. Try and look a bit more closely next time.

U/Holditthere: Technician a thousand percent. Rendered the grenade useless in seconds. How about you fucking open your eyes next time.

U/Jaymaygray: You blind? No way it learned to break apart that grenade so quickly. Probably got Jailbreaker in it.

U/Holditthere: So now it’s got both Integration and Jailbreaker? Much simpler if it’s just Technician imo.

U/Nyxmemories: Integration and Jailbreaker is a killer sync. Fuck whoever got that Gold Bug.

U/Yuknowme43: Bro that’s like the most boring one. Besides it was pretty obvious it could absorb tech.

U/Thimberl8: Must have got some badass regeneration genes, probably a bunch of flesh tendrils involved too. I like them freaky mutations…

U/Holditthere: Mix up an electricity conduction Mut, and u got badass whips coming out of your body

U/Nyxmemories: Electricity MGs are rare as fuck bro, recent articles from NeoCore said that they’re really sketchy, manipulating molecular charges messes up your body mad.

U/Thimber18: Yeah but they still exist. Most electric users just work in the city grids for good cash, rumor has it that the Warp Energy needed to direct enough current to be deadly would have to be Gold minimum.

U/Yuknowme43: Ugh, just imagining that gets me off. Reminds me of my thunder incubus build in the new update to Final Fantasia XXX…

U/Jitterbug: I thought that spin-off was taken off the net? Shit man, I’ve been trying to log in for months!

U/Yuknowme43: The surface-net, yeah… but Abyss-net, fuck no. Dive in again, their newest update added cyberslaves.

U/Jitterbug: Fuck, that’s hot.

U/Graysonrickroll: You guys really theory-crafting about a MAL that killed over forty people? Fucking sickos.

U/Iknowyou34: Uh huh, says the guy that jacks off to genefreaks.

U/Graysonrickroll: How about you suck my dick? I’ll show you a real sicko.

U/Iknowyou34: Here’s his address. Treat him well.

U/Graysonrickroll: What the fuck?! I’m reporting this!

U/DW: You can’t run Rick. Your mind will shatter in agony, flesh twisted beyond recognition. Your soul, killed.

1:23 AM

June 5th

Diana

I scanned the room, honing in on the buzzing around me. A tense swarm of energy ruffled through my fingers as I tried to push the stored charge within me beyond the boundary of flesh. Like an elastic band, it snapped back in, exploding through my body as a wave of nausea and pain.

Guess I couldn’t wield electricity externally yet, my Compatibility ended within my body for now. But that brief release wasn’t worthless, a small part of that charge spun through the room trying to search for me, and returned to me like scattered embers of prickling heat that brought back sensations of… shivering?

Closing my eyes, that same ‘tingle’ in my fingers now seemed to be everywhere around me, some areas of my apartment more prominent than the others. Electrical currents was the obvious guess to my non-science oriented brain. I wandered around with my eyes closed, a strange knowing tickling my brain as I had an instinctive idea of the various appliances around my apartment.

Taking in a deep breath, I felt the contours of my living room and it’s entertainment system and had a rough shape in mind for the kitchenette installed to it. Beyond both was a hallway leading to my bedroom, and the thick tower that served as my computer when I delved into cases while off-duty… which is what I went for now. I tried to get there with my eyes closed, but I struggled and nearly tripped over a carpet. That little mistake sent a circular drone after me, the vaccuum for whatever reason mistaking me as something to clean.

Maybe I’d drink it’s electricity as punishment.

Once I was seated around screens, I filtered through various net-articles. Without a certified GeneDeck tied to my Neuroframe, it was looking unlikely for me to get proper guidance about my abilities. Having one made for a Gold would both inform the world I had it, and sink my funds deeper than that sunken club in Little Requiem unless it was specifically jailbroken. A skill I lacked, along with any contacts who could do it for me. A BUG Adapter with either the titular Jailbreak Feature or Dataweaving.

Maybe Ripley? I tossed that thought aside, while he might be in a similar situation to me, the last thing I wanted to give him was access to my Frame which would have sensitive police information on it. Could I bribe a genetecist? Could I even trust one of them to keep it a secret?

I returned to experimenting with powers as I changed my tactics. Rather than a sudden burst of power like before, I would try to release small mini-ignitions across my entire body. Scaling small, I focused on my hands, imagining that they were wood being lit with flame that I was spreading onto them.

As they mentally heated up, I cranked up my supply so that the first spark of the Golden flame breached my body. A small but constant spout of it. It was as though I sent out tiny wisps of that heat twirling across my apartment, hunting me down and recounting their experiences as they returned. It was a strange, almost intuitive feeling to the electromagnetic waves around me.

It probably had to do with how a magnet’s north pole sent waves that returned to their south pole, I just didn’t know which end I was. Practicing my focus, I could feel the disturbance of other sources of that radiation around me. The brief falterings of my wisps told me that the floor and roof were brimming with electrical current that delved within their wires.

Not just that, I could feel where those currents were heading. Their switch of flow, from one direction to another in what I’d learned was alternating currents from my juvenile education and further research. A quick beating motion not dissimilar to a heartbeat. I tracked them down to the living room’s temperature control, to my lights and to my plugged in appliances.

The laptop had lost charge by now, and my fiddling probably caused some part of it to be fried. I knew that, but I couldn’t stop myself — the warmth was almost addictive and any valuable data was stored on my Frame anyway. Needing a different source of current, I reached one of the lamps near my living-room table.

A quick twist disconnected the bulb and I promptly, but carefully, smashed it against the table. Glass shards fell to the ground and before they could even rattle a high pitched beep echoed from the other side of the room.

“Broken glass detected, please stand back and take care.” That same circular plate of metal zoomed across the floor and shone intense beams of light onto the glass, its pieces dissolving into a powder the robot sucked up. It took less than five seconds before it soared back into its depositing dock where the inorganic material would be sent for recycling.

Maybe I could connect to the drone charger? But for now, I tried to use the broken lightbulb. I connected it’s remnants — a metallic screw and a bundled up set of shiny Shard-Based filaments — back into place and turned it’s switch on, immediately sensing a blurry, half-formed blur of shapes as though I was squinting my eyes even though they were wide open.

Synesthesia, I think it was called. Where your senses blurred together, seeing smell or touching color… only with electricity in this case.

This lamp was pretty powerful since it also doubled as a projector for all sorts of fancy displays that the smart glass could filter through the light. Yvette had practically begged me to buy it, and she used it more than I did to watch holo-movies and turn my modest apartment into a rave. The thin knots of metal used Warp Energy turned electricity directly into light, the conversion rate was pretty crappy since it was just Iron-Grade, but it had cost half a month’s salary when I first joined.

Then for every hour I had used it, my electricity bills had scraped up higher until I banned Yvette from accessing the projector without permission. She’d be pissed now that I broke it, but I’m sure an electrical zap from me would change her mind as to which was cooler.

I brought my finger just a couple inches closer to it, the act of sliding my internal Energy comfortable and easier than I expected it to be. Barely a drop of difficulty, which I could only presume was the result of me having a 99% compatibility to my Implant. Once I poured enough Energy into my finger until it felt like it had been warmed on a frying pan, a line of blue latched to my finger that tickled with an ever growing intensity by the second.

It hopped across five fingers, then to whichever one was closest before I began playing with the thin zaps by motioning my hand like I was using a piano, I was having way too much fun with this. Only when the dancing fireflies began to reach the threshold of an irritating burn did I remove my fingers, grasping the sense of flaming coals burning within my hand.

That heat submerged itself within me, spreading equally through my whole body with a sense of a euphoric high. My vision sharpened, sound became crisper, my body more in control of my arms than ever. And my heart beat assuredly, strong and steady like an Olympic athletes. This must have been the effect of the Pacemaker Mutation. To grow stronger by absorbing electricity.

“Nelson! Come out, you stupid dummy!” I yelled to an obelisk in the back of the living room, it lit up in shades of purple and white.

“Of course, Ms. Jones. Would you like to face me at Standard-Grade or Iron-Grade?”

“Iron!” My body was itching for action. In the past, punching that thing in its Iron-Grade setting was comparable to punching a concrete wall, I’d already gotten a hairline fracture from it once. A compartment in the obelisk opened, separating to reveal a large sphere half of my length that rolled out and unraveled as it did.

Legs, then a torso and arms complete with tough leather gauntlets before a multi-eyed head popped out. A Syntec Mr. Puncher could be programmed to follow thirty different old martial arts and even teach them to you (once you paid for that martial focus’ specific subscription), but I mainly used it for drilling and sparring.

“Spar Setting — Mixed Martial Arts. Maximum Difficulty.”

The robot shone red. “Maximum difficulty removes the lethality limiter, are you sure you want to confirm? This is a reminder that SynTec holds no accountability over any damage occurred to your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or sexual health caused by the Mr. Puncher Training Bot.”

“Confirme-”

“-d.” I swear it didn’t even let me finish before a steel-armed hook threw itself at me. But I’d reacted just a flash quicker than I usually would, it struck my shoulder but I rolled with the strike and gauged the distance with a raised arm.

It pounced on me with the ferocity of a starving tiger, a jab led into a straight that twisted into an elbow strike that spurned its waist around to a deathly, whipping kick. I took the strikes as they came, my previous sense of confidence vanishing as the foot of solid metal cracked into the side of my ribs.

I staggered to the ground, feeling red-hot, knowing that I’d barely scratched a difference with my previous record. The electricity within me surged, begging to flow to its whims and I let it as the robot calmly circled me.

“And you think you’re a fighter?! You’re just another weakling who’s in over their head!” I forgot that its mockery setting was also activated by default at Maximum difficulty.

It worked, a sudden rush of potential exploded within me as the electricity swarmed in the middle of my back. I vividly remembered the rush of that Iron-Grade AdStim as a pulse of action drove me, how it sent my mind tumbling into the edge between chaos and performance.

This was twice the performance for half the chaos, before a glitching screen manifested into my sights.

Meta-Mutation has occurred within the Mutation: Pacemaker [9%]; Electricity can be used to stimulate adrenal secretion.

A Meta-Mutation? I didn’t quite understand what that was, but the effect was immediately noticeable. Fight or flight instincts pounded in my head, a quick roll saving my head from a deathly stomp that crushed through the digital display.

The panic of flight overexerted me, a simple shove off the ground tumbled me against my table as the burning power within me was now a fleeting flicker, artificial strength replaced by an equally hot organic one. The robot came again, leather gauntlets aiming for me when I hadn’t yet come to understand my newfound strength.

But I could… feel it.

Very roughly, I could feel the circuitry surging to life and that gave me the edge to just about weave between the next few strikes as I gradually adjusted to the expanded force generating through my limbs. It was incredible. Liberating. I felt light as I came to grip the tingling electricity within me and manifest it into movement. The world hadn’t quite slowed down, but it had grown sharper. A sixth sense spoke secrets to me alone and I subdued each of the robot’s programmed punches with intuitive buckling of my limbs as my head and torso twisted around each blow.

Despite this newfound expression of power, I was still not used to it. Especially how quickly it was leaving me, you could call this feeling exhaustion, but that wasn’t quite right. It was more like being robbed of your strength, I felt like I was sinking into the quicksand of powerlessness as sparks began failing to communicate with my muscles. So when I witnessed an opening vulnerability, I weaned every advantage of my Compatibility and Gold Warp Energy into my right arm and retaliated with a forceful blow.

The limb exploded with pain as it connected. Not because of the impact, I hardly felt that, instead it was as though I’d exerted every fiber of muscle within my arm to their maximum capability and shredded them in a single attack. The leather padding over the metallic frame of the drone buckled under my blow, but my knuckles pushed deeper like it was made out of clay, and the robot launched backwards into my wall. A thick crack stretching from the impact.

Lights within the robot’s head flickered, and the voice came out distorted in a way it never had before, as though I’d knocked the wind out of it’s steel chest. “Yoouuh haave exer-ted lethal force. Congratulations; performance grade: 62%. Once you reach 85% you will be eligible to con-tact SynTec for a 10% dis-counted upgra-de to a Bronze Grade Mr. P-uncher.”

That… that was it? I cradled my right arm and winced, it felt like a crocodile had ripped it apart in its jaws. I’d always struggled to last even a minute against it at that level but with a single punch I’d-

-fractured my hand. Only once I set my sights on the bleeding and horribly misaligned fingers did I feel the weight of the pain as adrenaline sank away. I limped over to the lightbulb, gripping its metallic wirings directly as a surge of sparks invaded my Adrenal glands to refuel them once more.

“Oh fuck!” I couldn’t help but scream, the rushing adrenaline sent my quivering legs crashing to the floor. The remaining energy instinctively flowing back to my injured arm and soothing it like a calm whisper from a nurse.

What the hell was this? One second it sent me into a raging fury and the next it catapulted into a lullaby? I really did not understand Mutagen, but I was sure it never acted like this. Was this because I was Gold? Or my ridiculous compatibility?

As I sank deeper into the possibilities, a beep from my Neuroframe indicated an update.

Meta-Mutation has occurred in Mutation: Unstable Biology [8%]; Increased rates of gene expression for cellular proliferation of Mutated cells, promoting quicker development of Mutation Development during regeneration.

Another one? And my Development had increased relatively considering that I had only just received access to these genes less than seven hours ago.

And so far, they had increased by at least one percent every hour. Was that normal?

Gene Overview:-

Implant Tier: Convergence [5%]

Tier 0:

[G] Electrical Conduction [11%]: Allows your skin to conduct electricity under the influence of Warp Energy.

[G] Pacemaker [10%]: Electricity can be directed to specific parts of your body, stimulating them. [Meta-Mutations: 1]

[G] Unstable Biology [8%]: Increases the rate of Mutagenic alteration and adaptation, as well as the probability of Meta-Mutations.

[G] Electromagnetic Sense [9%]: Increases your skin’s sensitivity to electromagnetic fields and radiation.

Yeah, this was too quick, a part of me was tempted to call up Ripley. To know if he was going through something similar, but I felt my gut toil at the thought of talking to him. He didn’t know about Selene and the weight of the truth was crushing me.

Sooner than later, I would tell him.

For now, it was time for me to get some well deserved rest. Plus some pain-killers. Then I’d need to find some deeper resources into my capabilities as an Adapter. That type of information didn’t come cheap, and the Megacorps held a Platinum grasp on the real secrets of Implants.

I drifted onto my bed, lead had replaced my bones and I didn’t even need my blanket to feel a drowsy weight massage me to sleep. Soon, I’d figure out what was going on. I’d set things right.

I was gifted with Gold... and that made me one of the few people in this city who could change things. That wasn't just a wish, but a responsibility.