The Brink and Back - Tinker of Fiction

I woke up a little later than normal the next day, quickly heading outside to find that the garage was a bustle of activity. Sometime during the night, the addition had finally been completed, and Noah, Samwise, and the MRVN units had started moving in the molly makers and hooking them up. I made my way inside to find that there were already a dozen small makers along the wall closest to my workspace, and they were all already working to create more parts for more machines. Further into the addition, a dozen more molly makers were being put together, specifically the medium and up sizes. I worked my way to Samwise, who was watching over the construction of the largest maker we would have in the building.

"Damn, Samwise, how many makers did you have ready to go?"

"Quite a few, Jackson," He responded, passing me a tablet filled with more detailed information. "We have been printing the parts whenever the makers are free and storing them in several of the less livable trailer homes. After stripping them of furniture and making a few quick repairs, they made excellent temporary storage."

"Well… good work," I said, watching as a MRVN unit pushed in a cart of more parts. "This is much faster than I thought we would be going."

"Sir, I expect we will be finished transporting the parts in the next hour or so. After that, four concrete trucks are scheduled to arrive and pour the foundations for the first twenty-four hardpoints," Noah explained. "By the time the concrete has solidified, these facilities will be complete, meaning we can immediately begin fabricating the defensive structures."

"Sounds like a solid plan," I said with a nod. "I spotted a few MRVN units working last night, I assume they were digging the foundations?"

"Correct."

"Excellent work, guys," I said with a smile, patting them both on the shoulder. "I knew I could trust the both of you, and you're still outdoing my expectations. Thank you for all your hard work."

We chatted a bit more, discussing what the final defensive hard points would look like, as well as their current demand for MRVNs, before I went into my section of the workshop. There, weighting for me was the finished gadgets I had designed the day before, the equipment we would use to clear the large gap between the Tyger building and the nearest civilian building in our current mission. I spent a few minutes going over one of them, checking to make sure that everything was functional and together, before putting on my full uniform, including my jump kit.

I was climbing up to the sniper's nest on top of the temporary security building when Kaytlyn spotted me.

"What are you doing?" She asked, standing at the base of the ladder as I looked down. "What's that you got with you?"

"It's the key to jumping the gap!" I explained before running and leaping off the roof of the tall building.

My jump kit fired off just as my feet were leaving the roof, carrying me forward a significant distance, before my forward momentum started to fade. Just before the downward momentum really started to affect my forward movement, I held my glider up above my head, and the winged device activated. It looked depressingly like a Fortnight glider, with the wings and base replaced by three large GREMLIN thrust paddles. They fired hard, using a row of lightweight capacitors to output considerably more thrust than normal, enough so that I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck being dragged around by the moving air.

Once the internal gyroscope stabilized from my movements, the wings tilted back slightly, and what had been a slow forward-moving descent was now a much quicker forward descent. I traveled further and further down the road, past the garage and past the first parking lot. When I finally touched down, I was all the way down at the first row of trailers along the paved road.

I skidded a bit, but when I stabilized I couldn't help but jump, pumping my fist and shouting.

"That's what I'm fucking talking about!" I shouted, watching as Kaytlyn cheered from about halfway back to the security building, rushing toward me.

"Choom, that was fucking Nova!" She shouted, slapping my side. "I assumed you were gonna make some sort of grappling gun or something!"

"Nope, this is the solution," I explained, a big old smile on my face. "It's a bit overkill, but nothing wrong with that."

"Overkill? Jay, you glided like twice the distance we needed, easy!" She said, shaking her head. "Maybe more!"

"Gotta make sure," I responded with a shrug. "So, I guess you like it?"

"I'm pissed that I don't get to use one during the mission," She said with a frown, though that quickly washed away when she reached out and snagged it from me. "But I can use it now!"

"Hey, be careful!" I called out after her as she rushed back to the temporary security building. "You need to put on your armor first, if you fall without your jump kit you're gonna break something!"

The overeager woman skidded to a stop, and passed the glider to Jackie, who had just stepped out from beside the garage, Misty right beside him. He looked confused as to what he was holding, and why Kaytlyn had run past him like a bat out of hell.

"What's going on, Genio? We heard you cheering," Jackie asked, looking over the glider. "What did you build this time?"

"That's what's going to get us between buildings for our gig," I explained, accepting the equipment as he passed it to me. "Just watch."

I quickly climbed up the bird's nest again, once again leaping off with a boost from my jump kit. I could hear Misty gasp as I did, before once again activating the glider. Rather than aiming down the road, this time, I aimed for the garage, landing smoothly on the much closer target.

Jackie blurred up the stairs, literally, activating his Sandy and damn near appearing beside me. He looked just as excited, if not more so, than Kaytlyn.

"Holy hell, Genio! You got some serious air time!" He said,l moving around, trying to get a better view of the glider. "That thing going to hold me and Riggs?"

"Yeah, should do fine with either of you," I assured him, pulling it back when he reached out to touch it. "Go get your gear on if you want to try it."

I chuckled as he nodded and ran, heading back down to the trailer he had claimed as his own. I made my way down a bit slower, stopping by Misty.

"Are you sure that thing is safe?" She asked, chewing a bit on her cheek. "It's not gonna run out of batteries or anything, right?"

"It's as safe as I can make it," I assured her. "And even if it does fail, that's what these are for."

I reached back and tapped my jump kit, directing Misty's attention to it.

"This is a jump kit, and it's what gave me that initial boost of forward momentum," I explained. "It would automatically stabilize and engage to prevent any injury from falling, and it works from pretty high up. Not terminal velocity or anything, but certainly a dozen stories or so."

That seemed to mollify her slightly, though she still didn't look ecstatic about it. Unsurprisingly, Kaytlyn returned first, snagging the glider and running across the street to the gunner's nest. She was wearing all her armor and her jump kit, using it to boost halfway up the ladder before scurrying up the rest. With no hesitation whatsoever, she leaped off the building, her kit launching her forward. Because she liked to show off, she did a flip mid-air before activating the glider and slowly gliding to the ground.

Jackie showed up, followed by a groggy but interested-looking Vik. Jackie was about to run after Kaytlyn, but I stopped him.

"There are more in the garage. Just make sure you turn it on," I warned. "It's the big green button on the end of the handlebar."

Jackie's first leap was a bit more hesitant than Kaytlyn's, but he let out a whoop of excitement as he slowly glided to the ground. Vik watched with wide eyes as his good friends floated through the sky, eventually angling down and skidding to a stop along the asphalt.

"Well… That's not what I expected to wake up to," He admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Is that safe?"

"Yup, as safe as I can make it," I repeated. "I'd offer for you guys to try it, but you don't have the right armor."

"Yeah, thanks, but hell no," Vik said, sounding horrified by the idea. "I'm feeling nauseous just watching them. There's a reason I work in the ground."

"Phobia of heights?"

"It's only a phobia if it's unreasonable."

I chuckled and nodded, using my hand to block the rising sun from my eyes, watching Kaytlyn jump again. The two of them jumped several more times, eventually trying to compete on who could get the furthest. Even Riggs tried it twice, wanting to get a feel for the activity before we actually had to do it under pressure.

Eventually, while trying to improve on her earlier flip, Kaytlyn finally pushed too far, and the glider's gyroscope lost its bearings. She spiraled for a moment, the glider almost recovering before her jump kit kicked in, boosting at full to cushion her landing. Misty gasped, and Vik almost threw up, but she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off.

"I'm okay!" She called out, wobbling for a second before shaking it off completely. "Wooo, that was a bit of a trip."

"Your welcome, would have sucked falling from the sky without the armor, wouldn't it?" I pointed out, the woman waving away my words.

"Yeah, yeah, I never said putting on safety gear was wrong, Gonk," She responded. Before I could react, Jackie spoke up.

"Hey, Jay… how hard would it be to fly with this?" Jackie asked, looking down at his glider, having made his way over when Kaytlyn fell. "I mean… the jump kits put out some thrust, right? Couldn't they like... boost us up or something?"

For a moment, I stared at him before quickly doing some math in my head. By design, the jump kits put out a considerable amount of thrust for short bursts. That said, they could be modified to fire less powerfully but for a more prolonged period…

"It's not impossible, but I would have to modify the programming of your jump kit," I answered, running my hand through my hair as I considered the idea. "It would also be a mess to fly, it's really not designed for that. I could make something else that was… More stable. Even then, it would probably be a bit clunky, and you would be a pretty easy target."

"Easy target?! Bendejo, who cares about getting shot, I just wanna fly around!" He said, waving around the town. "Do you have any idea how much fun that would be?"

"This is crazy enough, Jackie," I said, shaking my head. "We start flying around all day, and someone is going to see and come find out how we are doing it. Someday though, someday I'll make you something that you can fly around in, promise."

"Fucking corpo bastards, ruining all our fun," he said, though he nodded in understanding. "I get it, choom, sucks though."

"It really does," I agreed, shaking my head. "I wish I didn't have to worry about it. I would be releasing all sorts of shit by now. Unfortunately, we can't. At least not yet."

The mood turned down a bit after that conversation, though we ended up having a relatively enjoyable breakfast with everyone. Once we were done, Jackie drove everyone into town while I, as usual, headed to the garage. The plan was to attack our target the following night under the cover of darkness, and I needed to prepare two things.

First, I needed to put the final touches on our gliders. The design was finished, and as they were, they worked perfectly, but for this specific mission, they needed to be altered slightly. It only took about an hour to finish, but once it was done, I had them put to the side, with a specter watching over them to keep anyone from using them again. I had a MRVN unit print and assemble another one for people to use if they wanted.

With the gliders finished, I had something else to design. As a rescue mission, our main priority was, unsurprisingly, to rescue our target. It didn't matter how tough or clever we were. If Akiko was hurt during our rescue attempt, we failed. One would think that the Tyger Claws would hold their fire so as to not hurt the woman they had gone through so much effort to drag back to Night City, but I did not trust them to be that smart. While our plan was designed to avoid as much combat as possible, it still meant we would be dragging around an unarmored, squishy civilian through what was probably going to be our most intense firefight yet.

Not that I had a particularly long list at this point.

Rather than just buy a kevlar vest and cross my fingers, I had a better idea. I designed a loose, kevlar, and Alien Alloy suit, one that anyone smaller than Jackie would be swimming in. Then, I laced it with my advanced artificial muscles. When activated, that would pull the suit tight, scrunching up all the access material into areas that wouldn't get in the way. The result was a one-size-fits-all suit that could be put on as easily as stepping into a pair of particularly loose sweatpants. These would then immediately tighten up to normal pants level, making them more reasonable to wear while moving around.

This full-body suit wouldn't be particularly athletic, nor would it offer any sort of physical enhancement other than durability. Primarily, this was because I didn't want the user to get overconfident because they could bench press a small MaiMai, and suddenly decide they could help. On top of that, while I was being paid to rescue her, I didn't know much about Akiko, nor would I necessarily know much about anyone I ended up using this on. It was designed for rapid deployment and protection, but I wasn't about to hand over some sort of uber-strength-enhancing armor just because someone paid me to help them.

For the same reason, the suit could also tense up, locking the wearer up completely. This would prevent them from doing something stupid should they get any dumb ideas like wanting revenge before we left. It would also allow Riggs to pick them up like a sack of potatoes and carry them, just in case Carlos was wrong and this hadn't been a kidnapping, or, again, any future clients could be kept out of trouble for their own good.

I was putting the finishing touches on the design, handing off the printing process to a MRVN unit, when the first of the concrete trucks arrived. It wasn't really necessary for me to be around for the pouring, Riggs played Borg well enough to cover in-person stuff, but I took a break and headed out to the perimeter anyway. The concrete truck was already prepared to pour out into a foundation framework along one side of the asphalt road. Riggs was standing close by, talking to someone wearing a hard hat and an orange vest. The AI noticed me, directing the man he was talking to to me.

After a quick conversation, confirming that all foundations were dug and ready, as well as a quick walk around the perimeter to show them all to him, the man hopped back into the truck and began to pour. Soon, the vehicle was driving along the perimeter, filling frames and running over bush and occasional cacti. Not long after the first truck showed up, two more arrived, eventually followed by a fourth. With permission and an explanation already given, the three other trucks and their operators immediately got to work, and within three hours, they were done.

After a quick check to make sure everything was correctly filled, and a quick test to confirm they had used good-quality concrete. When we were done, I shook hands with the man in the hard hat, who thanked me for the job as the other three trucks rolled away.

"Sir, this concrete should be ready to work on by tomorrow night and fully cured for the following afternoon," Noah explained as the last truck pulled away. "With your permission, I would like to set up half of the completed molly makers preparing parts."

"...that sounds reasonable," I agreed with a nod. "When the makers are complete, use the new and freed-up machines to make five more MRVNs and ten more specters, arming each of them with a rifle and a pistol. I want them in one of the empty trailers, ready and waiting for us to need them."

"Understood, sir. I will get everything started."

Noah walked away, and for a moment, I stood there, looking out into the wastes. I could see Night City in the distance, and part of me wondered just what kind of threat would meet us out here first. I knew for a fact that the other shoe would drop eventually, it was just a matter of time. I needed to reach out to some people and figure out who was willing and able to help by being our cover. My first instinct was to reach out to Dakota, because, depending on who was around, a nomad family would be the perfect fit for what I needed.

In canon, the Aldecados should be around, but who knew if that was true or not.

With the foundations for our first defenses poured, I went back to the garage to start putting together the suit. It was basically printed in batches that I just fused together and finished off with a control unit that ran along the user's back. It looked like the same nervous system readers that functioned as the brain of our suits, but was really just a power and control unit, taking commands from a remote that anyone on the team could be carrying.

Call me paranoid, but I was not about to have the rescue mission go wrong because Akiko was confused and did something stupid. I would rather drag her along screaming and trying to break free of the locked-up suit, than try and coral her as she, or any other future target, ran around panicking or otherwise causing problems.

I was testing the rescue suit, having Kaytlyn put it on and try to break free, and testing the range of motion and things like that when Jackie returned. He had spent some time with Misty, then visited Carlos to tell him when to show up here to pick up his wife. Finally, he had gone to the Coyote to say hello to his mother.

When he arrived to see Kaytlyn jumping into the rescue suit, he unsurprisingly had questions. When I explained the creation, he nodded in understanding.

"Not a bad idea, wouldn't be the first civilian to get themselves in trouble 'cause they panicked," He admitted, his experience shining through. "Though I don't think Akiko quite counts as a real villain, not if she grew up a Claw."

After confirming that the suit worked, we all went about our ways to prepare. I went over everyone's weapons, checking for any issues and even tinkering a bit to update them, though nothing massive.

Jackie spent a while practicing and training with his Sandy, learning how to shoot and dodge while moving as a blur. By and large, we were basically just killing time until our mission was on. We all went to bed early, knowing that we would be up late for the following night.

Unfortunately, while I was hoping to get some extra sleep, going to bed early, for me at least, just meant waking up early the next day. Now I had a whole day to kill, the sun barely rising as I walked to the garage, Duke running around me. Samwise greeted me, assembling a mag rifle at his workstation with his small arms while typing on the computer with his normal ones.

"Jackson, we completed the installation of molly makers last night," He explained. "Current projects are now specter and weapons production, as well as the armor plating and heavy weapons for the hardpoints."

After having a brief discussion with Noah and Murtaugh, we concluded that using Alien Alloy to reinforce the armored hard points was not worth the effort. My Alien Alloy production hadn't really changed that much, mostly because it wasn't all that necessary anymore. I liked using it as armor because it was light and very strong, but I had gained a lot of material science knowledge from Titanfall, so I had several alloys that were actually comparable to the strange material. It was still unbeatable in terms of strength-to-weight ratio, but for an emplacement that wasn't going to be moving, what was the point of making it lighter?

Still, I should probably bump up the production rates for the impressive metal. I would hate to run into a project that AA would genuinely work well in, only to realize I couldn't produce it nearly as fast as I wanted to. Worse, I would have to engage with the building process directly since it was a black-boxed material, meaning only I could make it.

Either way, the production of the armored hard points was going to include mainly, if not wholly, mundane materials, though mixed and matched to create some impressive alloys and combinations. Luckily, the polymer cubes that we were producing by the thousands would finally be used as filler for the armored barriers.

The material had other uses, of course, namely in several advanced polymers that were used in Titanfall tech, but only in small amounts. We produced a staggering amount of them from the mass recycler, and after some intense processing, they would be the perfect barricade filler.

"Alright, buddy. Just keep me updated on how that's going. I can't wait to see what you guys have come up with."

Sam nodded and focused on his work while I sat down in my chair and spun around. I had a few hours, several in fact, to kill before it was time to start gearing up. So, rather than solve the problem that I just described, namely the AA rate of production, I started working on a design that had been sitting in the back of my head.

Now that I had Duke and Kaytlyn had her cat, I was starting to wonder, what if I made an animal for everyone? One for Jackie, each of the AIs, and even something simple and generic for the specters and the MRVNs. In fact, the MRVNs could really use something to carry tools and materials, and the specter's largest flaw, by far, was how useless they were in a melee. A robot that could compensate for either of those issues would massively increase their effectiveness…

With a smirk, I leaned over my computer and opened up my design software. First, I would make something for Jackie, since I knew my AI could be more patient than him. At first, I considered making him some sort of bird or something small, but eventually, I realized something. He was not a gentle person to fight beside, he tended to walk right into the thick of it. That meant that whatever animal I built for him, it needed to be something that could hit hard and get hit hard, all while still kicking ass.

An hour of brainstorming later, and I settled on building him a big old fuck off ram. With the right bit of flair and detail, I was sure I could make something that could bash down doors and would still fit Jackie as a companion.

I was mostly through the design process and was starting to tinker with the coding, using Duke's basic programming as a base, when I realized that it was late afternoon and it was time to start getting ready. All of us put our armor on, tested our weapons, and loaded up on ammo. Each of us took another try with a newly made glider, not one of the mission ones, of course, just to make sure we could handle it while we were all loaded up.

When we were finally ready, we all piled into the Emperor. It was a bit of a tight fit, especially with all our gear, but it wasn't the time to complain about having no legroom.

We left the Rocky Ridge at five o'clock, and by six, we had backed the Emperor into a long alleyway close to the row of buildings across the street from our target. Carefully and quietly, we unloaded, the sky getting darker and darker by the minute. With our weapons strapped to our backs and our gliders over them, we slowly began to climb a ladder, with Riggs in the lead. Once we were all on the rooftop, we began the process of making our way from one to the other, keeping low and quiet as we jumped, boosted, and climbed our way across the skyline.

Finally, after ten minutes, we reached the last building, the corner from which we would have to leap across to get to the Tyger Claw compound roof. Once we were settled, I carefully made my way to the furthest edge of the building.

Taking cover beside an air condition unit, I peered around and down slightly. We had the perfect angle to see the roof of our target. Currently, there were five people, all dressed and tattooed like Claws, all heavily armed and significantly chipped. Unsurprisingly, they were armed with sniper rifles, ranging from smaller calibers meant to mop up, to larger rifles meant to put heavy targets down.

After confirming we were in the right location, I slid back into cover behind a large vent and gave Jackie a thumbs-up. He nodded, sitting down out of sight as well. We were finally in position, and all we had to do was wait for the sun to set, and for Kaytlyn, who slid in beside me and was peeking over the lip of our building, to confirm that Akiko was, in fact, where she was supposed to be, namely safe in her apartment room.

Time passed, and eventually, as the city slowly got darker, sunlight fading as streetlights and more came on, Kaytlyn pulled back.

"The target is in her room, under guard but safe," Kayt said, pulling back from the edge, and sitting behind cover. "We are ready to go whenever."

"Right… Well, settle in, everyone. Another hour or so, and then we move." Jackie said, the rest of us nodding in confirmation.