CyberGene: Anyone need a Cyberhand?

Chapter 6: Birth of Monsters

Holopedia Page on Implants [SurfaceNet Access]:

Implants are retrieved from the corpses of the MAL-Swarm, where the type of Implant depends on the physiology of the MAL it was retrieved from.

Mechanical MALs, otherwise known as MALware, spawn B.U.Gs (Biomachinery Utilization Gene-Editors). Whereas Organic MALs, known as MAlformed, spawn S.I.Ms (Symbiotic Integrators of Mutagen).

Alternatively, MALignants possess the mechanical and organic characteristics found in both variants, and as such will spawn both types of Implants.

Implants tend to appear similar to invertebrates in appearance, however, genome analysis shows no sign of relation. Infact, while they do possess a genetic structure similar to that of organisms on Earth, the exact molecules used are different and vary depending on Implant Grade [Iron, Bronze (Copper), Silver, Gold, Titanium, Platinum], showing a higher reliance on Warp-modified transition metals in their genetic structure rather than phosphorus, carbon and oxygen.

B.U.Gs fuse with the Nervous system, causing nerve signals to use electrons rather than chemical neurotransmitters. This greatly increases the brain’s processing speed and also allows B.U.G Adapters to interface with technology directly.

S.I.Ms, however, fuse with the entire body. First spreading through the circulatory system as dissolved chunks of genetic material that are absorbed into cells. Interestingly, the S.I.M’s genetic information, also known as Mutagen, fuses perfectly into the existing genome of an Adapter and typically causes no genetic disabilities under normal conditions. Rather, they tend to correct any damage and provide general improvements to the User’s physiology even without specific Mutagen.

There are currently 6 known Tiers of Implant Development. Each requires significant time and investment in order to advance to the next stage. However, research seems to hint that there is no limit to the growth of these Implants other than the resources available to the Adapter. The concept of the Warp Energy used by these Implants, sometimes referred to as Aether by religious groups, is a currently researched field of science carried out by the Corporate Nations and The Free Cities.

The most prominent theory is that Warp Energy is a tangible source of pseudo-matter that can exist in a flux state between energy and matter simultaneously, one that can directly be influenced by a ‘greater conscience’ to warp reality.

1:55 AM June 2nd

Ripley

Darkness, dust, despair. None of it mattered right now.

Nothing mattered right now, not in the face of death. I felt a bottomless pit dragging my consciousness down, a sweet release from the agony that would be reality. But beside it was a voice, a conflicting scream begging me to stand up.

And if I couldn’t stand, to crawl.

And if I couldn’t crawl, to bite.

A primal force of life itself, some deeper meaning I had never given a thought to was begging for me to live. But when I remembered Selene, my father, my mother… everything hurt. The pain was so loud, and the void would be so quiet. So peaceful. Yes, that little device I had in the back of my nape was modified for this…

Right, I also had a Per-

“Ripley. Don’t die on me, Ripley!” My body was shaken against my will, it was so rough I just wanted it to stop. That void of nothingness was becoming sweeter by the second. Just one step and…

One step at a time.

I stepped into the-

A slap across my face opened my eyes, and numbness crawled over me. Emergency lights flashed red from the lights in the floor above, we had fallen ironically enough into the level where my workshop was located.

I felt a cold sting on my leg, a white web-like substance plastered over the bone sticking out. My tibia, the bigger of the two bones in your shin. It was enough to stop the bleeding, but I stared matter-of-factly at the ninety-degree bend.

“Well. Looks like I’m going to need a leg amputation now.” I laughed before I devolved into a cackling. “Thanks for the med-spray by the way.”

Then I started crying, an ugly sob revolting from my soul in the face of this Sisyphean hurdle. What the hell was happening? How was I even awake? Probably the Ad-Stim. Standard Grades were enough to keep me running for a day or two, but an Iron-Grade? I was using a week’s worth of adrenaline in a few hours.

“It’s not dead, Ripley…” Diana put a shaking hand on my shoulder, tears began to spill down her eyes but she kept the rest of her face as solid as a wall. “It’s here… with us. Do you think we can kill it?”

“Nope.” I giggled, of course this was my luck. But I pulled one of my spare grenades out anyway, maybe I’d rather die by this than electrocution.

Diana snatched it away, I know I looked crazy. “Ripley! I- let’s try anyway! Come on, you’re a smart guy! An unplanted Shard Op’ reconfiguring Neuroframes? There has to be something you could do? Look at this gun-”

She passed me Shaun’s rifle, a Phoenix-60, her entire form shaking in desperation. The weapon, it was so far above my paygrade that just holding it made me feel like a filthy scrapper. I didn’t even know the first thing about Plasma-based weaponry.

Okay maybe I knew a few things but they were mostly theoretical.

“There’s nothing I can do with this-“ I paused. There was one thing.

I reached into my pocket, pulling out a vial… or more precisely a cylinder that I had taken from the Pandora. The inbuilt explosive, and a small dash on the side showed a gold marking.

A Gold-Grade explosive.

“The grenade you took…” My voice grew monotone, focused entirely on the hint of gold I saw. “Give it to me.”

I sent a commanding thought to my metal arm, and it changed in an instant. Somewhere deep within me, where that void used to be was now replaced by a singular node of brilliance. I felt a hundred electric shocks cascade up my arm, a glow encompassing it that I’d never seen before.

A Silver glow, but my arm was Iron-Grade? I didn’t question it, I didn’t have the time to. The ground rumbled, and a wire tore out just a few feet away from us, then more wires joined it. Wires of flesh and metal alike.

Blood and Steel. The constituents of a MALignant.

I had no choice, I had to render the grenade neutral in order to open it. Twisting both halves of the metal open and exposing the Silver-banded cylinder within. As Diana popped in a new a cartridge into the rifle, I raced with my hands; the claw working quicker than it ever had to precisely fragment all the mechanisms keeping the vial planted there, until it popped out.

My metal claw blurred from the speed at which it replaced the next vial, but I found that brilliance in me spluttering. The decades of knowledge closed their books, and I found myself blind mid-way through the process. I couldn’t figure out a way to arm the grenade in time. “It won’t blow up, I- fuck, I broke the fuse in order to put it in and now it won’t-“

“Throw it. As hard as you can.” Diana said, her voice trembling. The MALignant had unearthed itself, it was the size of a child and there was no electricity within it to recover. But if it drained even a lightbulb, we would be in danger.

She aimed the rifle, her breath forced steady. And charged it.

The MALignant sensed something, it sensed us, it sensed the electricity within the rifle. It howled as I threw the grenade, the arc was clumsy and it was nowhere close to the MALignant.

But it felt the Gold, and it flung itself towards it.

Diana let go of her hard-earned breath, and the charged bolt of plasma shot through the air, a piercing lance of red locked onto the grenade.

Everything went silent, this wasn’t a normal explosion that blasted everything away. Instead, light expanded in a sphere and where it touched, it erased. A crater of several meters was all that remained, and a feeble lump of flesh and golden metal no larger than a fist.

Diana prepared to shoot again, but instead, she waited before the gun slipped from her hands as all of her energy diverted to glare at the two remaining specks of the MALignant’s life.

No… no way. I stared too, at the two buzzing lights floating out of the lump of dissolving flesh. Twin fairies of golden light moved closer towards us, each an exact replica of the other in all except material.

Two butterflies, one of golden metal and the other of golden flesh. Each so beautiful that I would believe they were angels in the form of an insect.

I reached out as though the beings were salvation materialized, there was no way.

Maybe this was all worth it after all.

The metal butterfly fluttered closer and landed on my arm, staring at me almost warily, its wings folded back and it crawled up towards my shoulder then up my neck. I couldn’t breathe, the tiny needles it used to crawl wasn’t what gave me goosebumps.

This was a Gold B.U.G.

A Biomachinery Utilization Gene-editor.

I felt a bite on my nape, but I didn’t feel the pain. All I knew was excitement, this was something I could never even dream for.

To my side, I saw Diana stare in awe as the golden S.I.M — a Symbiotic Integrator of Mutagen — dug into her arm, pieces of it breaking off into her bloodstream.

Gold. They were worth millions. Tens of millions. Hundreds.

This was happening?

Then my brain felt like it was on fire. That was the last thing I remembered.

Diana

No… no way. I felt my blood grow hot, the pain a small thing in comparison to what was happening. My entire body was bubbling in a furnace, but I didn’t care in the slightest. Ripley to my side had passed out, makes sense… a B.U.G directly pierced into your brainstem.

But a S.I.M? It was becoming a part of my entire body, becoming me… My lenses ached, I would have to get them replaced and even change out my Neuroframe once this was over. S.I.M Adapters… Mutants and Espers couldn't use Graded Shardware directly or most cybernetics other than a few minimally invasive implants.

That was the least of my worries, I just needed to get the hell out of here and somehow take Ripley with me. I tried to stand, but my muscles literally felt like they had melted. Golden light pierced through my blood vessels all around me, this wasn’t fake.

I screamed. Loudly. The need to release had overwhelmed me. In just one day, everything had changed. I don’t know how long I sat there burning inside, unable to move, but all I knew was that I wasn’t the least bit scared.

But it was enough time that someone broke through the stone and heavy, demanding footsteps shook me. Turning my neck hurt, and you know what, maybe I could feel fear.

Inquisitor Tusk stared at me with soulless eyes, completely white, yet even I could sense the rage held in those orbs. “Where’s the MALignant!”

“D-dead.” I squeezed out of my voice.

He grumbled, reaching into his cargo pants and retrieving a flashlight-looking device with a screen on top. It’s green light scanned the room, focusing on the lump of dead flesh and golden Shards where the MALignant had died.

Rage then seethed into his voice. “Then where’s it’s Implants!”

I held my composure, taking a nervous look at the very unconscious Ripley beside me. I could sell him out… but there were two Implants, a MALignant always spawned one of both variants.

So instead, I played my card. “Universal Law is that whoever kills a MAL has the right to it’s Implants. We killed it so-“

Tusk grabbed me by the hair, lifting me up effortlessly until I floated several feet in the air — eye-level to him. Fine mist dug out of his nostrils, ivory tusks right beneath them. “You think I’m going to leave with nothing?! That fucker sent me flying through four buildings! I already have to deal with collateral deaths, so I don’t give a shit about universal law! I’ll pry that Implant out of your corpse!”

He pressed both his hands against either side of my head, and I didn’t have a second to digest the shame of my next action. I screamed out my wildcard. “My father’s the former NeoCore Counter-intelligence Vice-Director! Brian Ulrich! He’s the Corporate Advisor to New California’s Police!”

His pale eyes grew larger, more skin pulling off them in surprise. “You’re Ulrich’s bastard?”

Then the skin squeezed tight in delight. “Then he’ll be glad I got rid of you.”

I felt my head tighten under his grip, and then I knew he was toying with me. His strength could have crushed me as easily as crumpling tissue paper, but no, he was delighting in watching my head slowly deform as I’m helpless to it.

I thrashed my arms, a stray spark of electricity flinging off it and slapping harmlessly off his ivory armor. Any second now, I knew I would hear a crack coming from within my skull, and I could do nothing but glare into those pale eyes.

“Tusk… you fucking rookie. Drop the girl and treat her with some basic respect.” A female voice called out, and Tusk’s pale vision grew wide with recognition. Then with rage.

He dropped me, and I felt the pressure release with a thin dribble of blood from my nose. My breath came out in jagged sputters, like a failing car engine, and it took several seconds to even process that I was alive.

“Emizren…” Tusk growled, his feet making the ground twist with each movement. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“I go by ‘Missy’ now, Emizren died a long time ago. And no you shouldn’t kill me, because I’m the only lead you guys will have to the source of that MALignant.” I stared at the source of the voice, Emizren… or Missy? Hoaqin had mentioned the name while I was eavesdropping and I’d noted it down, she was the one who gave the Snake Fangs the box.

She was tall and powerful with hefty mechanical limbs of beauty and power alike, similar in build to one of those Amazonians I’d seen in old-world media. Blonde hair cropped short on a form easily surpassing six-feet tall. Her body reflected years of physical training, and her mind was also honed as she stared up at the nine-foot behemoth of an inquisitor without a droplet of fear.

Tusk’s voice grew louder. “I don’t give a damn what you are now, you’re wanted by NeoCore! I’ll take the Implants and you! Dead or alive.”

She sighed, leaning on a fallen rock. “Your boss wouldn’t like that. Ruby’s not the type to waste valuable resources, and I know you’ve got as many black dots on your sheet as you have stars. Settle down, Gabriel. I’m not your enemy, we can help each other.”

“According to NeoCore, you are my enemy.” His arm festered with outgrowths of curving ivory.

“What would NeoCore like more, huh? Someone who’s already destined to die, or the source of illegal MAL farming? Even a rookie like you can tell.” Missy spun a knife in her fingers, and only now did I notice that her mechanical arms were huge like a gorilla’s yet had the nimble fortitude of an octopus, all the while not even glancing at the overwhelming man.

“Like I’d believe you…” Tusk gripped the stone she sat on, and she remained still even when it crumbled to pieces by simply falling into the gravel.

She continued spinning the knife, not giving a care to face the Inquisitor directly. “You don’t need to, only Ruby does. And in fact, she should have received my message right now and- oop, looks like she’s calling me. Here, I’ll put her on public.” Missy flashed her gigantic metallic palm, and the face of a woman I didn’t immediately recognize appeared in a hologram. She had crimson hair in between streaks of white, and one of her eyes was concealed by a dome of gold while the other shined like a ruby.

Wait… no, that can’t be… Ruby? The… Ruby? As in, a hero of the fourth swarm Ruby? A Platinum-Grade?

Missy flashed a gleeful smile. “Cmon Rubes… tell old Gabriel here what you’ve decided.”

The projection of Ruby looked tired, but annoyed might have been more correct. She squeezed her hands in front of her face and spoke in a hushed tone. “You haven’t contacted me in years, Emizren… now this? Fucking hell, you’ve never changed!… But Gabriel, she’s right. MAL-Seed shipments are rare, but they do happen. Never with a gold, though. Whoever sourced this, it’s not something we have records of. And this needs to stay covert for now, Michelle is already dealing with enough for the upcoming swarm.”

Michelle? The- the Founder of NeoCore herself? Just what had I gotten involved with?

“You trust her?! Did you forget what she did to NeoCore, to you?!” Tusk leaned, for the first time, to meet someone at eye-level.

“I trust her skills… that’s never failed me. As for the Implants, they’re small in the grand scheme of this, for all we know they could have many more Gold MALignants being sent to random clubs in the city. And that… you know how that can disrupt the balance.” Ruby’s final words had a venom to them.

“So what… we leave the Implants here? With these two nobodies?” Tusk pointed a curved ivory claw at me, still hunched to look at Ruby.

“Emizren… Missy will take care of them. I know one thing; no matter the years since we’ve last spoken, she doesn’t care about Gold. It has no value to her.”

Missy only smiled, which left me even more confused, just who was she to be able to contact a war hero so easily? And disregard Gold just like that? Missy spun Ruby’s face towards her, and for the first time I could see her smile relax into a thinner line and her eyebrows furrowing with a… yearning?

“I guess that’s all Ruby. Thank you… I- I do miss you more than you know.” That voice was definitely drenched in sorrow, but I didn’t know the slightest context behind it.

Ruby’s projection covered her only eye with her hand. “Fuck… you can’t just say that! Not after all this time! Let us help you Emi! Let me help you! How much longer do you ha-“

The image disappeared into nothingness.

In the quietness, Tusk stood up and wordlessly walked across the chasm, briefly throwing aside rubble until he lifted up Archangel. Not her corpse, I saw a faint breath pierce Archangel’s mouth, the slow rise and fall of her chest.

Then he jumped, a cloud of dust chasing him but he was too far gone by then, he had left.

“NeoCore armor’s tough.” Missy walked up to me, but her gaze was on Ripley. “Can read any wound in your body, compresses itself to stop bleeding and can even pull your bones back into place. Heard newer models transmit nerve signals… it’ll do Archangel good since her spine got pierced.”

“You’ve been watching us?” I muttered without thinking.

Missy shrugged, passing me without a thought. “The kid’s named Ripley, right? And you’re 1st Officer Diana Jones… or should I say, Diana Ulrich.”

Hearing that name… my true name, sent a wave of anger through my aching muscles. “I- I’d rather you call me Jones. Missy.”

“Uh huh… well, take care Jones.” Missy grabbed Ripley in her giant arms, cradling him over her shoulder.

I took a step back in surprise. “You’re letting me go?”

“Ruby’ll contact you when she wants to, you’re with the cops, plus your father is unwanted attention so it’d only inconvenience me if I were to kill you or keep you in my care. Anyhow, take care! Vultures’ll be swarming here any minute as soon as the blockade’s removed so hurry on!” Missy was already walking away without a care, but then she stopped. Her arm steamed and a compartment in it flung open, she grabbed a steel package from it and tossed it backwards towards me.

Missy turned her head and finally spoke to me directly. “Gene-Limiters. Anyone picks up something strange with you, pop one in your mouth. Noone will be able to tell you have Gold in you for about a month, till you’re 50% through Converging, but after that… some can tell. And they’ll all be trying to take it off your dead body. Even friends. Also, keep my name hush from your police pals, I don’t want a bloodbath. The Lieutenant’s death is untimely to say the least, it’s going to shake this city up.”

I stood in silence, this was all so strange and happening so quickly. Just what on Earth really happened here tonight? If a NeoCore Herald really was getting involved then this entire city would be upended in days, and on top of that…

Ruby was going to contact me?