The Brink and Back - Tinker of Fiction

Dakota looked at me for a long moment, as if she was trying to pull the idea from my brain by glaring at me.

"Considering how much your last idea helped us, the least I could do is listen," She admitted, gesturing for me to continue. "What is your idea?"

"Well, see, I own the whole town and a chunk of the land around it, which is way more than I will need for quite a while," I explained, leaning back in my seat. "My problem is that, at the moment, my group is too small. It makes us easy to pick off, easy to spy on, and easy to see through as a harmless little group of entrepreneurs. Now, I could go crazy and build an army of robots, but… in the end, that would probably have the opposite effect."

"Too much attention," she agreed with a nod. "Always a bigger fish looking for a quick target."

"Right. So, what I need is a group of people to live next to mine. A group I could trust, who I could look to for labor, parts, to sell things to and buy things from," I explained. "I don't want anything to do with gangs, not when I've worked so hard to keep myself separate from them. But groups of nomads, coming in, living on my land where they will have plenty of power, space, protection, and access to cheap parts and tech… That is something I could happily agree to."

"Wait, hold on. You're saying you would let nomads settle on your land?"

"Not settle, though if someone wanted to move in on a more permanent basis, I would be happy to talk to them directly," I explained. "Think of it as a long-term pit stop. According to your own info, the Aldecados were just as at risk as we were this morning. How would they have fared if they had been picked instead?"

"Not well."

"But here, we could build hard points around the whole area, extend my sensor network, increase early warning systems, and put down heavy weapons. They or any agreeable nomad group could move in, stay for a month or so while they make their purchases, do some business, and then move on."

She looked at me for a minute, contemplating the idea. I could almost see the numbers rattling around in her skull as she tried to come up with the value of that kind of protection.

"How much are you going to charge for this?" she asked. "Ideas like this have been tried before, but it never lasts. Nomads are often forced to make trades with services and materials because eddies don't flow well when you move around. Without the need to buy water, it's been easier, but the problem remains. What will you do when you don't need labor or scrap, and we don't have the credits to pay?"

"Who said anything about charging?" I asked, shaking my head. "This is about mutually using each other to our own benefit. Nomads get somewhere they won't get kicked out of, someplace with resources and materials. I get a shield of activity, a mask of normality that will cover up a lot of my craziness. Plus, the mutual protection alone is worth it. Separate we are easy targets, but together, we are a much tougher nut to crack."

"You… Why does it seem like you have an idea for everything?" She asked, shaking her head. "Ostensibly… I do not hate your idea. You make good points, and keeping eddies out of the equation would make the situation more flexible. I do not know how others will react to the idea."

I nodded, understanding that while Dakota might be in charge of her group, she was just a single point in a larger community. She couldn't just make a unilateral decision and tell people to come stay here.

"Well, when you do bring it up, keep in mind that willfully ignoring what I am making is part of the deal," I pointed out. "None of it will be dangerous to them, but if someone asks, I'm just the waypoint's handyman."

"If there is one thing that Nomads are good at, it's lying to corpos and nosey neighbors."

I chuckled at that, and we continued with the impromptu meeting, though it didn't last much longer than that. The men that Dakota had brought were prepared to stay for several days, food included, so all I needed to do was let them do their work and send them on when they weren't needed anymore. When we were shaking hands at the end, the older, weathered woman had one last thing to say.

"I'll encourage the Aldecados leader to come pay a visit in the next few days," She said. "Saul is… an interesting person, but he has a good eye for people. Get on his good side, and your idea will become a lot more likely."

"Sounds like a plan."

I walked the fixer and nomad out of the Shack, waving as she and her bodyguards drove away. As the dust settled from her vehicle driving out of town, I looked around at the on-loan muscle. They had already set up basic positions, sitting in shaded spots by their vehicles, armed and relatively professional-looking. I radioed to Murtaugh, and he agreed to make the rounds and talk to each of them.

As I stood there, surveying the damage that the Wraiths had done, I couldn't help but smirk as a few MRVN units had already started repairing the damage, patching holes in buildings and dragging the cars that were not worth trying to salvage to the mass recycler area. We now had four cars and three trucks, all nomad specs. Some of them had minor damage from the fight, but that could be easily fixed. All of them were one paint job and cleaning away from being perfectly serviceable company vehicles. It also sparked the need for my own vehicle, something custom under the hood but that still fit in on the streets.

I let out a sigh, feeling the troubles that I needed to solve stacking up, and the pressure of my oncoming tech tree beginning to set in. I had a good number of things I needed to do before I could focus on new tech, even more after the attack, so I needed to get my ass in gear. As I started to make my way back to the garage, I pulled out my radio again.

"Frank, are you busy? I want to run an idea or two past you," I explained. "Anyone else who wants to talk about what's next should stop by the garage as well."

I got a handful of confirmations as I stepped inside my workshop. Riggs and Kaytlyn were still there talking through my computer. As she spotted me, Kaytlyn shifted in her seat, preparing to get off as I walked in, but I waved her away.

"Don't worry about it, I don't need my seat right now," I assured her. "Got some thinking to do before I can get to the drawing board."

She nodded and went back to talking with Riggs, while I helped Sam with fixing Riggs' body. A few minutes later, Jackie and Frank both arrived. Once everyone was settled, I claimed a crate as my seat before starting to talk.

"So, I discussed the idea of setting up a sort of Nomad campground with Dakota," I explained, sitting on a crate and leaning against the wall. "We would have access to a workforce and camouflage, while the Nomads get the security of staying on someone's land with their permission, as well as our material resources. Plus, both of us would get some mutual security from each other."

"So you're just going to let a bunch of random people stay so close?" Kaytlyn asked with a frown. "That sounds like a recipe for security leaks, especially if you're going to leave them alone."

"Oh, they won't be alone," I assured her, before turning to Frank. "How difficult would it be for you to fake someone being a borg?"

"Well…How convincing do you want it to be?" He responded, folding his hand behind his back. "I could fool most scanners pretty easily, with the right parts and biological matter."

"How difficult would it be without using a real brain?" I clarified.

"Marginally more difficult," he answered. "What would the purpose be?"

"I recently got the inspiration for an android system that would physically blend in nearly perfectly with a human," I explained, crossing my arms and leaning back. "Now, if it got out that I could create near-perfect human simulacrums, with programming powerful enough to blend in seamlessly, I would either be crucified by Netwatch or handcuffed to a computer by Arasaka. However, if I were to create a new full-body conversion similar to a Gemini suit, people would be interested, but not insanely so. These fake borgs would be visually indistinguishable from humans, but if they were scanned or damaged, they would show up as a borg. They would be permanent residents of the 'campground' working to maintain the space and workshops and town."

"Would these be full AIs?" Samwise asked.

"I plan on making one of them an AI, to be in charge of the people and maintain the 'residents'," I explained. "I refuse to mass produce AI. Some of the early MRVNs are simple, slow-forming AI, and I regret being so impulsive about that. Creating life should not be done en mass or on a whim. Save the one leader, the residents will be extremely convincing virtual intelligence, able to easily blend in with people."

"And if it gets out that we have a whole bunch of full conversions working for us?" Jackie asked. "Those are rare, choom, even in Night City."

"We act skittish about it, and if pushed, we reveal they are victims of some sort of bioware experiment," I explained with a shrug. "It went wrong, and the only way to save them was a full conversion. Maintenance for a full conversion is extremely expensive, so they came here because Riggs or Murtaugh told them I can do maintenance work at a heavy discount if people work for me."

"So you would go through all of that effort to create, what, a couple dozen mindless workers that can also keep an eye on the nomads?" Kaytlyn asked. "That doesn't seem entirely worth it in the long run."

"They will function in the same way that the MRVNs do, though a lot of them would probably be assigned less mechanical tasks like general maintenance and janitorial duties," I explained. "They would be an always present way to keep an eye on anyone staying with us."

"About them," Jackie said with a frown. "Anyone else not exactly impressed by their performance? Don't get me wrong, Genio, they are preem, but…"

"They got mulched," Riggs said from my computer.

"Absolutely obliterated," Kaytlyn added.

"Completely ruined," Jackie finished.

"Yeah, yeah, okay!" I said, shaking my head. "It's not entirely their fault. Without proper infrastructure, they were sitting ducks, and they were going against vehicle-mounted weapons. But yes, I plan on redesigning them. Their original design leans a bit to mass production than it does to each unit being the best it can be… I'll see what I can do."

In all honesty, I was at a bit of a loss as to why the specter units failed so miserably. Their frames were not the most advanced I could make, that would be Mk.6 ALEO frames that Murtaugh and Riggs wore. But even so, their performance should be just barely under a well-trained, veteran soldier. On top of that, they were packing weapons that I knew outmatched what the Wraiths had access to. We even had a good bit of warning before the Wraiths reached us, even if I squandered most of it getting my equipment on.

In the end, I had to chalk it up to a combination of poor defenses and an unlucky match-up, namely my specters versus the armor cars and heavier weapons they wielded. I would design a top-of-the-line improvement, but I had a feeling that the infrastructure that we built up around the town would be just as important, if not more so, than the strength of the defenders themselves.

We spent a while longer discussing the idea of having the nomad campground next door, eventually deciding that as long as the situation was even, as in they depended on us as much as we depended on them, it would probably be fine. Having fake borgs around to keep an eye on everything would only help keep everything under control. Kaytlyn understood my worries about the advanced, perfectly hidden androids, but she still thought my solution was a bit overkill.

I recognized that she wasn't entirely wrong, either, that it was a lot for a few dozen workers. However, she also didn't know the backup plan. While the fake borgs would not have any hint of AI capability, I planned on leaving room inside each one for an AI core. The fake borgs would exist as VI, making memories and gaining real-world experience, and should I desperately need someone to join the team or for anything else, I could simply build a core, fill it with what I needed before inserting the core into the VI, and tadaa! A newly born but already experienced and lifelike AI. It was a hell of a shortcut and not something I would, hopefully, do often, but it would be handy to have in the wings.

As for the design of those fake borgs, once the impromptu meeting was over, Frank and I got to brainstorming. Apparently, the fake brain would be easy, just a mass of biological material he was pretty he had a lead on already, though he asked for some time to do some more testing before revealing the idea.

Integrating the fake brain would be even easier, as we could print out some seemingly functional braincase systems, which were basically the container for a human brain with an artificial spine attached. We could then modify them to throw off the right signals. We could even implant fake cyberware into the fake brain to make it even more realistic, keeping it warm and sending out signals.

By the end of our brainstorming, I was confident the androids would be indistinguishable by most scans, and if one of them was damaged enough to "kill" the robot or reveal the brain matter, we could include a secondary explosive device. This would fit rather well into the experimental bioware story, as a bomb big enough to destroy any evidence of modifications is exactly the kind of thing a big company would force victims to agree to in order to receive treatment.

It did occur to me that, in an attempt to hide the fact that I had access to visually indistinguishable humanoid androids, I had created a way to keep them even more hidden. Now, not only where they visually indistinguishable, but with the fake brains that would be indistinguishable from most scans as well.

It was tempting to simply use the designs from the Become Human tree, maybe work a bit of upscaling in them to get them working up to my standards, but ultimately, I decided the ease of development wasn't worth the later cost of maintenance. The tech from that branch was anywhere from fifty to five hundred years out of date compared to the tech I had access to, and even by the standard of its own time, the androids weren't exactly known for being sturdy.

So, instead, I started from the ground up, designing a completely stand-alone android system. That isn't to say the BH tech tree wouldn't come in handy. They had put considerable time and effort into getting the human body down perfectly, and I benefited from all of that work. Using a combination of servos and artificial muscle, I designed a simple, sturdy, and easy-to-maintain android, with space for the fake spine and braincase, and with the underlayer for the liquid skin system used on Become Human androids.

I spent a good chunk of time debating whether I should use the BH liquid skin or Realskinn to cover the fake borgs. Eventually, after using Samwise as a sounding board, I finally settled on the liquid skin. While Realskinn was a frankly incredibly lifelike product, it lacked the pure flexibility and adaptability of the liquid skin. Where high-quality Realskin could mimic things like blushing or bruising, the Become Human liquid skin could do that as well as act sunburned, scuffed, cut, burned, punctured, and torn. There were dozens of "status effects" that could be portrayed through the fake skin, and it had the best chance of hiding their true, fake borg nature.

It was also, logistically, the easiest to fix since all I would need to do is print out more of the liquid skin in solid form, apply it to the robot, and let the control systems take over and shift it to whatever was necessary. On top of that, I was confident that by extending the internal reservoirs, the android would self-heal any damaged skin.

Overall, the design process only took a few hours, as by this point I was an android pro, and I was intentionally not reinventing the wheel. These would be simple, easy-to-maintain robots with only marginally superior strength and resilience compared to humans. These were not combat models.

I left most of the head and upper neck empty, free, and ready to accept Frank's contribution to the project, the fake borg proportion of the disguise. Once he had finished that, I would combine the two together, and we could start producing the robots.

After I was done with the basic, simple model design, I wanted to make the advanced model. This creation would be an AI, and would be the "leader" of the other fake borg. I had the idea of them being visually identical in terms of overall chassis, but by utilizing superior components and overall design, they would be far superior in ability. I leaned much heavier into the artificial muscles, which, while increasing the overall weight and density of the model, would greatly increase its strength and flexibility. Where the base models were barely passable in a fight, this android would be fully equipped for combat, either in defense of the town or with the team as a new member, should they be so inclined.

In the end, the advanced model was just about twice as strong as a normal human, meaning it would benefit greatly from its own enhancing undersuit. On top of that, since its outer plating was designed to interact with the BH liquid skin, it was only lightly armored, which meant it would need an armor suit like mine, Jackies, or Kaytlyn's. While it was internally armored, with most of its skeleton made from Alien Alloy and plenty of advanced alloys from Titanfall mixed in, its utilitarian-focused outer shell was still vulnerable. It made me wonder if I had made a mistake going with the BH liquid skin, since Realskinn could be layered over concrete and still look relatively real.

Of course, since I was only building one advanced version, the AI that would function as the base for the final version was a no-brainer. An enhanced and improved Connor, with tweaks to add a few extra options and fields of expertise, would make an excellent addition to the team. Designing and programming them was pretty simple, starting with the basic package and removing their restrictions before upscaling and upgrading everything I could. I pulled the original version's focus away from detective work, though they still had most of that skill set. Now, it is more focused on management and social interactions. How they developed would be up to their experiences, of course, but I wanted them to have all the skills they would need to survive.

Their construction wouldn't start until after Frank had a bit more time with whatever he was working on, but after that, we would be ready to start production.