CyberGene: Anyone need a Cyberhand?

Chapter 18: A Promise of More

Witness report to the police on the Gold-Grade Mercenary known as ‘Dreadwire’.

Reported March 2498.

I really don’t know what I saw… he just swooped down from above like a spider. Four metallic arms hovering around him that sprung from his back… he was quick — the goons troubling me all dead in seconds. I still remember that gun pointed at me, I blinked and I had blood spilling onto my face. I thought he’d done it to save me, but his eyes said otherwise.

They were cold.

Pupils so small I thought he had nothing but rust infecting his eyes and a mask covering his lower face. Soon as they were dead, he began dissecting them while I could barely move an inch. I don’t know how long I watched, but the way he moved… each crunch as he severed a limb or tore out an eye with all of those limbs slithering through their organs? It felt like ages. I was watching a predator feast on his prey, and when he was done he took the smallest look at me with those same eyes. Cold and hungry. I thought I was next.

Then he leapt up, some golden wire launching from the arms of his spider legs that slinged him higher until he vanished. I don’t think I moved until you all found me next to seven dead bodies.

1:42 PM

June 5th 2497

Ripley

I had thought that Twilight spoke a lot, but at least with her it felt like intellectual company rather than annoyance. The once pleasant light of Daylight had long since become an annoying beam as she pointed out a ladybug fluttering too far for me to see.

“OOOOH! It’s so cute. Can you take a picture of it for me?” Daylight was busy chasing the damned thing, at the ridiculous expense of giving me a headache as her Avatar became too much to handle.

“Don’t you already record everything you see?” I whispered with seething breath, aware of the stares upon me as I talked to myself.

“Yeah but you need to have it in your own memories! It’s so beautiful and I think it would do your gloomy face some good!” She grabbed my shoulders, but my body phased through the hologram, I pretended like I couldn’t hear her. I had too much on my mind, and the first thing there was dread.

I was so fucked.

I had 11 missed calls from my mother. I’d gotten so wrapped up with remaining untraceable as I dived into Little Requiem that I never reactivated my Sigil’s communication functions until- wait I hadn’t even been the one to activate them! Mirage sent a contact request over to me despite my closed-off network? Did she reactivate it?

I bit my tongue as I ran, as I had been doing since I got out of the autotaxi that had brought me to my Megabuilding, the sounds of my colliding stomps and the ruffling of my bag attracting the attention of everyone around me. I noticed a Scrapper or two shift, eying me with most definite ill intent.

They always backed off my ass because of The Snake Fangs, but now that vessel of protection was gone.

My Preservation Matrix activated in a blur of thought, everything shifted at once like it had been pulled out of a dream-like state and into a new reality. Memories burned out, even without the Database Feature, like a surge of water into my brain to direct it with a furious river of thought.

Scrappers were bad business, while not affiliated with any gang they technically were a brotherhood of ill-fated cyber junkies who had a dependance on one drug or the other and sold steel to make up for it. They needed the cash to fuel their addiction, my mother always spared them a sympathetic look, but my own mind didn’t heed such an emotion.

Carrying a heavy bag and very much in a rush, I was attracting attention, it was the same glare I’d seen just the day prior from the three who attacked me. I twisted, some thin veil of memory peeling away as I knew this corridor would lead to a maintenance shaft. Another strand of my thoughts weaned off from the ever-revolving maelstrom running through my head, decoding it to reveal that there was an exit to my floor.

Was this the Preservation Matrix?

An unconscious flick of my peripheral vision revealed one Scrapper broke out from his group, pushing through the bustling crowds of the populace with a clear sight on me. I disappeared around the corner, lunging for a button to open up the shaft that called up an elevator.

It wouldn’t reach in time, my mind calculated thirty seconds based on the countless memories of waiting for similar carriers. Then my ears perked, listening for footsteps as sound droned out of my mind until only a steady ‘thump’ pushed closer to me.

The Scrapper appeared, his intent locked on me like a wolf’s on a rabbit. “Tch, where you running off to with that bag?” He was missing a third of his upper face to eroded steel, one eye missing and the other tweaking slightly each second.

I didn’t even realize my hands were behind my back, and the weight of a titanium bone extended from my hand. When had I taken that out of my bag? This was certainly one way to preserve myself.

“Want me to take over?” Daylight offered. “I told you that running would be a bad idea.”

“Well once I noticed they had taken notice, what was I supposed to do? Stop?” I mentally hissed at her, 18 seconds left until the elevator came. With a steady breath, I began to speak with a nervous jitter that was falsified under the eerie calmness my body now possessed. “I- um- I was just getting groceries for my mom. She’s sick so-“

“Groceries that sound like metal?” The Scrapper neared, a permanent droop on one side allowing a sliver of saliva to fall through his mouth. “I’ll be deciding that.”

He pushed me against the wall, a tough shove that bloomed pain across my ribs and sternum like a hammer had whacked them. Almost jittery, he unzipped the bag slowly with an eye that might as well have had a seizure at the sight of the surplus within.

6 seconds.

“What the hell? Where’d a kid like you get th-“

Whack!

Blood sprayed down the alley as the man collapsed with a dent in his skull, the predisposed pedestrians who noticed only hastening to get to their next location. I sucked in a deep breath, quickly cleaning the blood off the titanium femur against the man’s equally filthy clothes.

A ding was all I needed to heave myself and the bag into the shaft, barely losing footing at the unsteady compartment. Not even looking at the buttons, I knew I’d clicked my floor as the titanium bone was stuffed into the bag.

Then the Preservation Matrix disabled. It was like all the anguish I should have been feeling in my head burst through all at once, a steel crown with studs weighed by lead chains dragging inwards on my skull despite the laws of physics.

Daylight’s avatar curved over me, her clothes flowing like solar wind in the dusty confinement. “Oh, that was badass Ripley! You whacked him so hard he’ll be feeling that for weeks! Uh, you okay?!”

“Head…” Was all I managed to huff, and at once she leaned into me and cradled my aching skull into her embrace. Then she whispered in my ears… “Let me in.”

I couldn’t have resisted her even if I wanted to, with a jerking nod she took the chance with one of her avatar arms sinking into my brain.

Daylight Protocol Activated…

A soothing warmth burnt my pain away into cool droplets of sweat, adding a second layer of existence to the sensations my skin and hair could feel. She kept her bright body in that embrace for a few seconds… and only once I noticed a protruding mound of her chest too close to my face did I jerk back.

“Ah- uh… thank you. I feel like I say that to you and your… sisters? I say it alot.”

“Well I’m certainly appreciative of the thanks you’ve given to all of us.” Daylight offered a warm smile that tugged at my heart.

Daylight Protocol Deactivated…

A small portion of the stinging had returned, but it was hardly bad enough for me to get distracted as the door opened. Hesitation dulled me, what if they were waiting outside? But my more logical half was well aware that Scrappers could barely organize the few belongings they did have, creating an ambush at this pace was beyond them.

Tugging the heavy bag across the walkway that might as well have been identical to the streets above — if you ignored the roof dripping with trash and significant deterioration of materials — all the way back to my apartment in a half-hog, half-limp.

Then I pressed my palm against the door, and it flew open.

My mother was burning me with eyes that I could imagine were shooting lasers at me from the couch. “Where have you been?”

“Little Requiem.” I answered honestly, not daring to lie to her after the shit day I’d gone through.

Any anger she had felt before vanished like a puff of smoke, her scowl turned wide and every bit of tension born from anger raised up into concern. “Excuse me?!”

Maybe there was a little bit of anger left. Considering that in a movement I could barely react to, she dragged my arm and threw me to the couch with her one arm, then just as quickly she was patting me all over as though bits of me would have been stolen away by the inhabitants there.

Which wasn’t entirely false.

“Your neck… your cheek?” She held her hand to the patch of metal that had replaced my skin, even though it felt like the real thing. “What… did they do to y-“

“Nothing. I handled myself well enough there… just… bits of my skin were mutated by MAL-serum from the club, so I needed to get them removed since it was… a liability?” I squeezed through my mouth as quickly as possible.

“What do you mean?” Her voice was a weak shudder, and I felt my heart grow weak at the fear she must have felt. Fuck, I had fucked up.

“I-“ A thought came to me, and Daylight’s face giggled with a child-like joy as she realized all the same. “Let me show you.”

A quick display of my glowing nipple had raised more questions, and a lot of laughter from the Persona’s Avatar beside me. Finally, mental strain had caught up just in time as she vanished into a cloud of pixels.

I was careful with what I revealed. I told her about my contact with one of Missy’s allies and how she’d led me to Little Requiem and lended me protection. The part I did hide was the fact that said ally had only been a digital one for a majority of my expedition. Which naturally meant that I didn’t inform her about the true nature of my fight with the scrappers from yesterday.

“You- they attacked you?” My mother was as pale as a ghost.

“Because of the glowing skin, yes. That’s why I needed to get it removed.” I nodded.

“I- Ripley, get me some water.” She let go of my hand and I hadn’t realized just how tightly she’d been gripping me, as though scared she’d never get the chance to do so again. It was a fear that I’d also known, I didn’t even recognize that my leg had been shivering since I’d sat down.

One glass of water and a thoughtful moment of silence later, she spoke with a voice thick with emotion — every emotion. “Little Requiem, Ripley. What is wrong with you?! I don’t understand where you got the confidence to go there!”

“I needed to get materials, mom.”

“The stores here would have been fine...” She quietly rasped.

“The stores here wouldn’t have anything fit for a Gold.” I replied with a sharp bite, feeling guilt at the resolute nature of my voice.

I’d expected her to bite back, to shout or to scream or something. But instead, she sank deeper into the couch, fiddling with the glass cup as she stared into space. “Little Requiem… I didn’t raise an idiot, Rip.”

“I know. It was stupid of me.” Exceedingly so, but in the caught-up adrenaline of my own potential I’d taken a risk that put me in danger, that put blood on my hands… hands that wouldn’t stop shaking as I felt the gun peer at me through the bag it was hidden in.

“The Ripley I knew wouldn’t take one step into Pleasure Lanes without Hoaqin or S-////… and yet you gladly braved the streets of that forsaken place. But you came back… I- God, I don’t know what to think!” The glass shook in her hand with how tight she gripped it.

I cupped my own flesh hand over hers, letting emotion drain through me. “That your son is alive… that he did well. And I’m never going there without an escort, I promise you that… and that you’ll know next time.”

“Next time?” She strained my hand with her weak grip. “No. No-no-no! You’re not going back there again… period! Not- not to, fucking hell… Little Requiem?!”

I wanted to retaliate, to tell her that I was an adult and could delve into wherever I wanted to go. But even Hoaqin would shiver at the thought of setting foot in that place, more than half of the City’s daily homicides could be traced to that area. I had to be realistic and let out the remorse that was truly aching along my bones. “I understand… I’m sorry.”

“You better be.” She wiped a tear with her sleeve. “Forgive me, but my boy comes back missing pieces of his skin from a place where they regularly harvest organs like they’re grown on trees. ‘Sorry’ is the first thing in a long list of emotions you should be feeling.”

It was, genuinely so, but the thoughts of my emotions ate me. Silently, I prodded at my Neuroframe. At the Personality Matrix. Many of my self-conflicting emotions were concentrated there, they had sunk deep into the forgotten -- like pebbles in a calm sea. No ripples of regret, no fear, no sadness. No empathy.

“Ripley?”

My mother noticed, there must have been some physiological change that I couldn’t perceive without a mirror. Or maybe she knew me just that well… I let the emotions resurface and the calm sea toiled into a stirring storm of regret. “I- Psyche, it’s… making it easier for me to forget my fears. To waltz into danger, I should be careful, I know but-“

She hugged me, a tight embrace that had Daylight ‘awwing’ in my head. A close, familiar feeling I’d embraced with home and safety returned at once, something I hadn’t felt since I’d left for the club the day of the attack. Melting was the simplest way to describe how my physical and mental selves reacted.

I exploded into a cloud of tarnished guilt, sadness, anger and fear that my Matrix couldn’t erase so easily. A choking wheeze and shiver breaking out of me to make her own body tremble, tears falling from us both.

“I’m safe. I’m safe… I’m home now.” I hoped my whispers would caress a calmness into her.

“You are… you are, my sweet, idiot, boy.” She ran her fingers through my hair, holding me close. Letting my worries melt into her.

Minutes of weeping stemmed with relief from the both of us, holding the silence close to us which spoke more than any words of comfort could. Only after I was sure her already tightened and aching body was starting to drain her did I let go, wiping her tears with my shirt.

Which she finally noticed hadn’t been the one I’d left with. “Where'd you get that from and- it smells floral… did- did you spend the night at a girl’s house?”

I froze, utterly unsure as Daylight cooed a ‘You’re in trooouble…’ to which only flustered me more and all but confirmed my mom’s suspicions.

She sighed, a sad look on her face. “I… don’t know how to feel about that, Founders, I still remember how you and S-//// used to be inseparable when you were kids.”

Gold flashed in my head at the name she mentioned, and I quickly rolled it into an activation of my Preservation Matrix. Instantly, dots collided, combined and connected according to an algorithm that had analyzed every memory of my mother when it came to talks regarding the opposite sex… or even the same sex sometimes. Then they vanished, choosing to focus on the present rather than the past.

“Yeah, I stayed over at a girl’s house, she was the one who escorted me through Little Requiem. Elsa. I… yeah, the attack in LR hadn’t been the cleanest. As you can see, I’m fine but they weren’t. With how late it was, it was decided that we’d be better off recovering at a secure place like her apartment.”

My mother nodded, as though she only half believed what I’d said, but a more pressing matter urged itself into her head at once. The one I’d angled it into rather than having her question me spending the night at a lady’s place. “What do you mean the attack hadn’t been clean- did… did someone di-“

“Two of the three died. Yes. And I confess, I’m only able to handle it right now because of my Feature. Believe me, I’ve vomited enough already.” All of that was true, with some meager redaction.

My mother paused, unsure, but not surprised… but also not pleased. There were deaths on the operating table, we were both victims of flatlined monitors in our dazed peripheral — I couldn’t count how many Snake Fangs came to me with bleeding wounds, my mother probably had twice that count in her head. In the end, if I could summarize her look it would be the image of tiredness. “This fucking city… You sure you’re okay? I— I know you saw a lot of death in the attack and during procedures, but this is different. I— god Ripley, I’m scared… I’ve been so caught up with the power of the Gold Implant you got that I never acknowledged just how… much trouble it could bring you.”

That came as a surprise to me, but before I could further press she elucidated on her own. “Yes, I know you’re wondering… How on earth could I have ever prioritized your success over your wellbeing. Well for a brief moment, I saw my own life changing. I’m dying Rip… and I knew that the Gold in your head could change that. I’d been glad to know you got police protection to an unofficial degree but by The Founders, you’re involved with Metal Heavens! As a Shard Op’, I should have known first what that means.”

“Actually, turns out Missy’s not a part of them… just rented from them.”

A momentary wash of relief fell over her, but it turned too quickly into a frown. “I thought the rewards would outweigh the risks. I told you to keep it in your head, knowing how valuable it was, believing you could do so much with it. Now I’m doubting if it's worth sending you down this path. I was just as curious as you were about finding out where your Implant came from, but now? Now I’m scared, Ripley. Horrified. I’ve lived my entire life around these machines, living and breathing with them in an attempt to understand a fraction of their myriad nature. But there are things we shouldn’t look too deeply into.”

“You want me to stop? Stop looking into Dogwhistler?” I felt a reluctance, a chain of desire towards the unknown egging me to not listen, but I had to reassess what mattered most. That was my mother. “I guess I’m sorta fine with that, I don’t need to get involved in conspiracies.”

“I— I don’t know. Because everything in me knows your Implant is special even among Golds… that it’s the sort of thing I’d have killed to get. And I know if I were in your position, not even a Megacorp could stop me from solving its mysteries. But I’m not, instead, my life is… dangling by a string. Tied to yours. With three years at best... and finding an Implant that could reverse the damage done to me won’t be easy. It’d have to be like yours to a certain degree, practically born from my flesh if I want the compatibility to be positive.”

Her hand fluttered to the path of cloth covering her right eye, trembling as it pressed on an empty socket. “I’m sorry Ripley… sorry I can’t be the selfless parent every child deserves. I’m sorry I couldn’t ever give you the life you deserved… that I didn’t make the right sacrifices.”

I held myself tight, afraid that if I slipped for a second that I’d crumble. But if there was one thing I’d inherited from my mother, it was our tendency to self-blame that for… everything. She’d ruined her own body to keep me clothed, fed and educated. I could’ve been a Scrapper if she chose the easy way out and abandoned me like so many other parents would.

Restrained sobs lined every word that shuddered out of me as I leaned weight onto her shoulders. “Mom. You made the sacrifices that turned me into the man I am, one who is very proud to have you as my mother. I know I can be… a scrap-brained idiot, but I love you. I- I want to save you so damn bad like how you saved me. When- when dad died… and I’d- I’d felt like I’d been at fault for it. You didn’t hold a grudge, you just held me… told me we would get through it together one step at a time… and I’ve never forgotten that. We will get through it. We will survive. You need a Silver, and I’m going to get it for you. I promise that I’m going to save you.”

My steel claw clenched tight. “If it means going to Little Requiem or even the big one. I’ll do that. If it means I take a bullet or shoot one, it’ll happen without a thought. For so long, you’ve been focusing on what I deserve… I want you to live for what you deserve. You’ve told me about your dreams, to study Implants and how dad was helping you get your degree. You can still achieve that; I want you to achieve that. You said that a person dies when their dreams die, don’t they? You knowingly wore a poison over your arm because it gave you the edge to support me. I know about the Pseudo-Silver mom. And I’ve only just realized why you kept on wearing it… there’s more to our funds isn’t there?”

It wasn’t some big gotcha moment, I knew for a long time that my mom was making multiple times what I’d been making under Shaun. I couldn’t hold a candle to her even now with her Implant removed, she was an artisan in the forms of Shardware. Clients had begun to come to our house once she couldn’t manage more than a five-minute walk, and those sheds clearly went somewhere.

To a fund I’d only receive once she passed. An inheritance.

Kept away from me because we both knew that I’d sooner spend all that money on treatment for her before touching a dime for myself. I didn’t know just how big it would be, or if it was anything close to the amount I’d gotten from my mutated skin. But I’d seen the signs, even with low funds my account always had enough that I could sleep with a full stomach, the house was rarely in disrepair, and I’d regularly be able to afford Datacubes to expand my learning.

We weren’t devastatingly broke, I’ve been aware of that for a while, but my mother was too ashamed to look me in the eye. “You’re too smart for your own good, Rip. But I can’t give it to you… I’ve accepted my fate for a while now, let me make peace with the life I’ve lived and pass on, you'll get what's yours once I know you won't throw it away for a woman like me-“

“I haven’t accepted it!” An agony-drenched whisper ripped from me. “You seem to think that I’d be better without you… but I won’t. I need you alive just as much as you need me. I'd break without you. You said it yourself, that when I got the Gold you had started hoping to live. Continue! Please! I have enough money to support myself right now, hell, I’ve already put in a request for suitable Silver-Implant matches!”

Her eyes shot wide. “That’s pushing more than three million Shardyne, Ripley!”

Perhaps it was the spur of the moment, but I said something I didn't wholly believe. “Then I’ll just sell the Gold in my head! We can both live as Silvers!”

“No, you can’t remove it! You deserve it!” Her shout paradoxically relieved me, yet I couldn't help but feel pissed about how she seemingly cared more about my Implant than her own life.

“For you, I would remove it.” I silenced the room with my words. “Just… let me help you. Please. I- I couldn’t save… I- I-“

I couldn’t save S////, but I can save you. Why was it so hard to say those words, to accept them?

I didn’t know when the tears and snot had rained over Mirage’s hoodie, but they were drenched at this point. Once again, she held me, but this time there was a genuine resolve in her grip, one that she’d surrendered away over the last year. “You’re serious? You would throw away everything for a dying woman?”

“I’d throw it all away for you, mom. I don’t have anyone else.” I held her with equal resolve.

She sunk into me, sniffles sneaking into my ear to betray her steadiness. “I’m not worth it.” She hushed over and over again, more to convince herself than me.

“You are,” I never let go, never would, “and what's the worst that could happen but another few decades with your asshole of a son.”

She laughed, and I don’t remember when the last time was that she let herself laugh like that. A burst of joy that was willing to accept a future with more laughs, decades of them.

“There’s... more than just the inheritance I left for you.” She still held me close.

I’d remembered Mr. Skeleton’s words. “Is it to do with grandfather?”

“You’re too fucking clever. Yes. Yes it is… he was a smart man, and in all my life I’d never managed to crack what he’d left in there. But you could, you with your big fancy Gold. It was meant for Silver but… you could.”

“Just who was he?” Alberich Gravas, a man I thought dead had more secrets than I ever imagined.

“Someone who I’m trying not to be.” Came the sad reply. “I never spoke of him much because… I knew he worked in illegal Shard Operations to make ends meet when I was younger. My earliest years were strange visitors down in our living room and exchanges of briefcases.”

“He’s alive.” I revealed.

“I figured.” Her hold on me tightened, she’d felt a certain way at that. “You went to Little Requiem, so you met that guy, then. Skeleton’s always had an interest in my old man, apparently he used to be a hotshot within the sphere of illegal operators.”

I pulled away slowly, she knew about Mr. Skeleton? And it seemed like she’d also figured that I’d bought from him judging by her next few words. “Only one Shard Operator in all of Little Requiem who would be so desperate to work with a rookie. I don’t know why, but he’s always admired my dad’s work.”

“Do you know him… personally?” I shifted nervously; breath held tight.

“No. He just left me a message days after your father died. Saying that if I gave him the contents of what I’m about to let you access, then he’d provide me with… comfort. Working at the club, I used to hear rumors about how he practically owns Little Requiem — last thing I wanted was to be dragged into that hellhole, even if his offer was worth a Silver Implant.”

“So, you didn’t give him what he wanted?” There could only be one reason why.

“No.” Her eyes deflected away from mine. “Because it’s worth so, so, so much more.”

———

My foot tapped against the rumbling floor of the metro car, staring at the location of the storage unit my grandfather owned. Thoughts ran in circles, then looped around in knots, squeezing so tight I thought my brain would explode. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

Despite how much the past few days had sucked, I’d never felt as driven in my life as now. Here was my chance to twist fate, but to do so required funds. And so, I was calculating.

A compatible Silver-Grade BUG Implant with the features Sustain; Technician; and Energized. Considering my mom was an Adapter of two previous Implants, her case of Warp Withdrawal and Poisoning was severe, she’d be needing Genesplicers to artificially boost her compatibility according to whatever Silver was most suited for her. The introduction of that therapy would increase the cost by roughly 800,000 Shardyne for Silver.

According to Fictional Implant Calculators, that was valued at more than 3 million Shardyne. Thankfully, Sustain didn’t typically pair well with either of the two remaining Features in Technician or Energized, so I’d been fortunate enough to not be pushed into the 4 million mark.

But in order to make that sort of money, I needed to get a job. If I worked independently, I’d need to find clients. And as an unlicensed Shard Op’ my clientele would largely be in the underground. Criminals, dirty cops, or corpos who wanted something more covert. I could charge extra for that compared to a licensed one, but I would have to build trust and reputation that was hard to gain so quickly.

And I’d have to factor in my own expenses, I had researched plenty since I was a kid. Buying Shardware, modifying it, and the tools to surgically implant it were all sizable expenses… oftentimes Shard Ops spent as much as they earned. Which meant I needed to definitely lean in on the more experimental side if I was going it alone. Developing things no one had seen before.

Alternatively, I could work under an established unlicensed or a shady licensed group. Maybe join up with a different gang, but this time make real profit… not those borderline slavery terms that I’d gotten with Shaun. Still, that may net me only 20,000 unused Shardyne at earliest in a year.

Which left a third option. Shaun had been offered 5 million for the MAL deal while Missy and Diamante had been paid twice as much. If they were being paid for operations like that and I got even 1%, that was one-hundred thousand Shardyne. Merc work was risky, but its pay was unlike anything.

I just didn’t even know where to start with that, likely Missy or Diamante could get me work, but only if I proved myself over this month.

Of course, I could sell my Implant, or even whatever mystical tech my grandfather had left me over to Mr. Skeleton. Doing so may be the smart thing to do, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted both my Implant and my grandfather’s legacy, they were each my right, one from birth and the other from whatever forces guided the universe.

I would have to improve my own Shardware for all of those options. With luck, my grandfather would have left me something to lessen that upfront cost, but the requirements to work on the Bronze or Silver Shardware needed to push my payout to the goal I needed could only work with a Neuroframe and Claw of equal grade. Even that might amount to a few million…

Taking in everything: 6 Million; 30 months, give or take.

Two-hundred thousand Shardyne a month. 50 thousand Shardyne or 10 Bronze Shards every week for two-and-a-half years. An impossible goal from where I stood, but it had been impossible for Gold to fall into the hands of someone like me in the first place. If I had to, I would grab the fortune or miracle that had gifted me this Implant and shake it by the balls till it puked the funds I needed.

And it all started from one place. My Gold BUG, I needed to prove myself beyond just capable in a month.

I needed to prove that I was powerful, that I was competent. That I was someone who could make changes in this City.

I needed to persevere, against all the odds.

Implant Overview:-

Tier 0: Convergence [16%]

Compatibility: 99%

Integrity: NA

Energy: NA

Capacity: NA

Grade: Gold I

Tendency: ???

Features:

[Gold] Psyche v.1.0 [Preservation Matrix]

???

???

???

Linked Shardware (Showing Grade and Feature Links):-

[Iron I] Mazhyr Metronome Neuroframe: Neural Matrix [Psyche]

[Iron VIII] (Pseudo-Silver)] Right Shard-Op Claw (Alberich Gravas designed): Procedure Repetition [Database]; Warp Strands [Energized]; Breakdown [Technician]

[Standard] SynTec Oculus: Cyclops 2 Lens

[Standard] Haithama RetroLeg