The Brink and Back - Tinker of Fiction

When Sable was finally gone, I dropped back heavily into my chair, sagging it as I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. I should have expected this to happen. I knew that corpos played with different numbers than almost everyone.

"Jackson… how much did you make?" Jackie asked, watching as I picked up my keyfob passing it to him so he could see for himself.

When he cursed and nearly fell out of his chair, I had to lean over and keep him steady. It was a shocking number, to be honest, though he was being a bit dramatic, eight hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars was enough to throw most people off.

"That… I mean, Genio… You basically gave her junk, right?"

"Pretty much. Castoffs, lower version from basic parts, stuff I had modified myself," I said. "Basically, the worst bits of everything I've been making. I mean, the hardest part of this whole thing is going to be making sure I don't accidentally give her something groundbreaking that can be upscaled easily without me noticing."

We were silent for a long moment before I quickly sent Samwise a message to look into buying a third Thorton to turn into a salvage truck. I then sent a message to Kaytlyn that I needed her help buying a car I could upgrade, as well as a message to Noah and Murtaugh that they should go as heavy as they want with the fortifications, I could absolutely afford the concrete. As long as it was something small-scale, money was no longer a problem.

When I was done sending people messages and getting some balls rolling, I let out a long breath and looked over at Jackie. He looked tired but mostly okay.

"How are you feeling, really?" I asked, pushing down the ludicrous amount of money I had just been given. In truth, it could solve a lot of problems, but it could also cause just as many.

"I'm… feeling okay. Vik told me to pay attention to anything weird, but so far, all I feel is sore," He admitted. "I half expected to wake up seeing things and talking crazy, but it's been normal so far."

"The real test is when you start using it," I pointed out, and he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, that won't be doing that for a day, maybe two," He said, disappointment clear in his voice.

"Hey, count yourself lucky," I said, shaking my head. "I broke my arm when I was a kid, and it took months to get my cast taken off. You guys are spoiled with all your crazy tech."

"What- oh, right. Damn, choom, I guess your right," He said, wincing as he started to move his hand up to rub the back of his neck. "I kinda forgot you didn't have a lot of this stuff growing up. Must have been rough."

"It was all I knew," I responded with a shrug. "Was all anyone around me knew."

He nodded in understanding, and we sat there for a while, just shooting the shit. It was clear Jackie was still tired, as the surgery took a toll on his body, but you could still see that fire in his heart. He was happy to be alive and glad to have the chance to improve. I could tell he was still nervous, but he seemed to be working through it. Eventually, the conversation turned to Sable's suggestion.

"Do you think she was right?" Jackie asked with a frown, fiddling with his glass of water. "You spent so much time working to stay independent of gangs and groups, now you gotta invite them over?"

"I don't have to do anything," I pointed out, leaning back in my chair. "But the idea… might hold merit. As long as I can find the right group."

"Why didn't you align yourself earlier then, Amigo?" He asked, leaning forward onto the table and letting out a groan before continuing. "Some of this stuff would have been much easier backed by the Valentinos or even a small corporation."

"Because… I didn't want to be part of the cycle, Jackie," I admitted, shaking my head. "Night City… god, this place is fucked. I know it's your home, Jackie, and I know you love it, but this place is fucked. I mean, the whole planet is fucked, but Night City is particularly bad. I don't want to be a part of that, not even a little."

"It's the city of opportunity, pendejo!" Jackie retorted. "Anyone can claw their way up to be somebody here."

"Jackie, that's just not true," I said, just shaking my head. "Sure, with enough violence and fighting, occasionally a few particularly fucked individuals can kill and steal enough that they get a drink named after them, but what is the cost?"

"That's the price of doing business, choom," Jackie said, starting to sound defensive. "It's a dog-eat-dog world. You can't-"

"Except it's not, Jackie. It's not," I said, cutting him off. "You are sitting here, missing a chunk of your spine because you want to be better at killing. And yes, so far, we have kept ourselves to acceptable targets. But this city is a fucking machine, choom, and it uses the blood as its oil. It doesn't care if you're holding a gun. It kills gangsters, civilians, women, and children alike. Innocent people like Misty, who would like nothing more than to lead a peaceful life. Kind people like Vik, who just want to help people where they can. Loving mothers, like Mama Welles, who just wants to see her son live and be happy."

I stopped for a moment, standing up from my chair. I walked to a nearby window, looking out into the desert. The distant city rose above the sand like a monolith of corruption and greed. From here, it was shiny and perfect despite how broken I knew it was.

"The truth is, Jackie, is that people like us, the dogs who reach for more? The dogs who want more and are willing to claw and climb to get it? To us, this place is a paradise. But to people like them? The innocent? The kind? The weak? To them, this is fucking hell on Earth, Jackie, because they aren't dogs, and they still keep getting eaten."

I kept staring out the window for a moment before closing my eyes and letting out a long breath. I turned around, looking back at my friend. He was still leaning over the table, turned away from me enough that I couldn't see his face.

"I'm not gonna pretend to know what growing up here was like, because I have no idea," I admitted with a frown. "But it could be so much better, Jackie. Imagine a world where corporations aren't in control of everything, where you don't have to worry about someone killing you in the street for looking at them wrong. Were the police actually do their job, and aren't just another gang. Were corruption is something that needs to be squashed, not the industry standard."

"You think you can do that?" He asked, pushing back from the table and turning to face me. "I already told you, Jay, I'm with you to the end. But do you really think you can change the world like that?"

"...with enough time? Absolutely," I said confidently. "But buying time by joining the gangs wouldn't have worked. There's always a catch with groups like that, always a way to keep their grip on you, even if it's psychological. You know that better than me, how hard was it for you to finally get out?"

"It was hell," He admitted. "I get your point, choom. It's just hard to imagine something other than what I've known for my whole life."

"That's… fair. And I'm sorry for being preachy," I said, shaking my head. "It's just hard not to be dramatic sometimes."

"Don't worry about it, Genio," He said with a smirk, shaking his head and slowly standing from the chair. "So what are you up to today?"

"Well… I got a few things I want to build, but nothing that will take me very long," I admitted. "I got some time. Are you up for designing your pistols?"

"Damn, choom, I forgot you wanted to do that," He admitted with a frown. "I'm not sure I'm gonna like tech weapons, but I'll give it a shot. Just don't get winey if I end up preferring my Nue."

He patted his pistol, which was holstered at his hip.

"Yeah, yeah, just promise you won't get whiny when I say I told you so," I responded with a smirk, pushing open the door for him. Frank followed us out as we made our way to the garage.

I led him into my section of the garage and sat my friend down on a crate, starting to design a pistol for him. I started with the already existing pistol before pulling it apart and upgrading it considerably with Titanfall tech. That didn't take too long, since I had already done it several times at this point. When I was done, I saved the base model as an updated pistol, storing the old one as outdated. Once that was done, I worked with Jackie to add in a few extras, like a holographic sight built into what would be called the slide on a standard pistol, with a toggle to turn it on and off. When I was done, I showed the design off to Jackie.

"What do you think?"

"It… looks a bit boring…." He said, rubbing his arm. "Got anything in gold?"

I snorted and spent a few minutes adding some gold plating, as well as some artistic etching. That sort of thing was a bit out of my wheelhouse, so I used some existing art to turn into a raised print on the pistols plating.

"How about now?"

Jack sat up and leaned over my shoulder to get a better look, studying the pistol carefully before nodding.

"It looks good, Genio," He said, patting my shoulder. "As long as it shoots good too…"

I nodded, waving him away as I quickly got a printer working on the pistol, before sitting down and designing the ammo for it. Within an hour, we were both standing out by the parking lot, looking out over the desert, watching a pair of MRVN units set up targets made from the scrap polymer that the mass recycler made. As they worked, we loaded and readied our weapons. Jackie was sitting on a folding chair, two identical pistols sitting on a table in front of him, while I was sitting on a concrete divider, holding a single upgraded base model. It was lighter than Jackie's "unique" version, with marginally less standard power, but I preferred the more streamlined, lighter feel.

The MRVN units rushed back, and I slid Jackie a mag of slugs, quickly sliding my own home.

"So these are gonna kick less than you expect, but a lot more than the tech weapons you're used to, mostly due to the density of their slug," I explained. "Compared to the old pistol, they hit harder and are more accurate, with just about the same weight."

"Hey, choom… how come the first one looked… cleaner?" he asked, peeking at the slugs through the top of the magazine.

"Because I was only working with… my first bits of inspiration, so I had less to go off and more to fill in," I responded, clicking the weapon on with a satisfying whine and clunk. "That let me get away with being a bit more artistic. This one is all working parts, no room for flash stuff. Well, unless you make room for it like you did."

"Hey, having recognizable weapons is important," He responded. "Especially if you're looking to gain a reputation."

"Sure, sure," I sarcastically agreed before lifting up my new pistol and aiming it down range.

Together, we tested our new weapons, and I had to admit, I really liked the new pistol. It was an all-around upgrade from the original pistol and had several of the features the first model was missing. Even better, the ammo was significantly improved as well, and much more flexible, as Jackie found out when I held him a red magazine.

"These pack a bit more of a punch," I said with a smirk.

"What are they, armor piercing?" He asked, ejecting the previous mag and sliding the red one in.

"Something like that," I responded, watching as he sighted in down range and fired.

The projectile whistled down range, breaking the sound barrier and then some. It slapped into a polymer cube and promptly detonated, utterly destroying the cube and scattering the several around it. It was a significant explosion, with way more impact than any normal explosive ammo available could do. Jackie let out a string of Spanish and English curses while looking down at the pistol.

"That was fucking Nova, how the hell did you manage that?"

"It's just a common explosive material I borrowed from other explosive bullets," I explained with a shrug. "The only difference is that with how the mag pistols work, we can afford to put significantly more explosive compound into each round."

"How come no one else does that?"

"Can't say for sure that no one has, but the reason you don't see them around is that most tech weapons are all about steering and guiding bullets or stuffing tech into the bullets," I explained, loading in my own magazine of explosive ammo. "but my mag weapons are basically just normal guns that shoot without propellant. The lack of complicated stuff in the projectile means that no ECM is going to work, and I have a lot more room in mine."

"They are safe, right?"

"Yup. Though if the mag gets shot, it could go off," I admitted. "High energy impact is what activates the compound, so it takes something like slamming into a target to go off. Unfortunately, that also means that if the magazine takes a bullet, that would probably be enough to set some of it off instead."

"Hmm… not sure I want to carry that around,"

"If you are wearing the extra mags on your hip, your armor and armored undersuit should be able to handle it. You'll have a pretty serious bruise, maybe some broken bones, but nothing is gonna get blown off. I… would avoid wearing them to the front."

For a moment, I thought Jackie was gonna throw one of his empty magazines at me. When he was done scowling, he turned back and focused on practicing with his new weapons. After another mag of explosive ammunition and a handful of standard mags for each of us, we were both satisfied. I printed us both out an adjustable holster, Jackies with two slots for his guns and mine for only one. At this point, my old holster was looking a bit rough, so I was glad to retire it. The old pistol was set up as an emergency weapon, attached to the underside of my workstation.

With Jackie satisfied with his new weapon, he also retired his Nue, with plans to give it to his mother as a security weapon for the Coyote. I think he was intending it to make her feel safe as he started spending more and more time out here at the Ridge. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was starting to consider the idea of inviting her out here to open a bar, whenever we figured out who we were going to have populate the rest of the town.

I also wanted to invite Vik, Misty, and anyone else I considered friends or even just safe. It seemed like a waste to try and build a safe haven, only to waste it on myself and a few other people. Of course, that would also put them in the crosshairs should everything go to shit, so I would need to explain that to them as well.

Jackie retired to his temporary trailer to get some more sleep, his recovery catching up with him after being active for a few hours. When he left, I got to work.

While initially, I was rather disappointed with the Become Human tech tree, and I kind of still was, I did realize over time that completely ignoring it was a rather poor idea. Yes, plenty of it was completely pointless, but as I was working on the weapon attachments, I realized that in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter if the end product was useless because everything I made would expand my knowledge. Yes, just how much this tech tree would allow me to expand my knowledge was minimal, but that didn't mean I should ignore it completely.

So, for the last third of the sixth day, I sat down and began designing random bits and bobs. I started with things that might be useful, like advanced screen technology, which was actually not bad, all things considered. From there, I designed cell phones, tools, and other bits of tech, trying to absorb every little bit that I could from the setting. Most of the things that I designed could be printed out on the small scale molly-make in two or three pieces, drastically cutting down on the time needed to construct them.

By the time I went to bed, I had learned a good amount of basic knowledge for designing and building electronic equipment, including computers and phones. I also learned basic knowledge about medical equipment, material sciences, and engineering, as well as less rigid concepts like ruggedization, ergonomics, and user-friendly designs.

I also spent the last hour of the day upgrading my keyfob. I expanded its screen, basically converting it into a cellphone like I knew from back home, integrating and upgrading the design as much as I could with Titanfall tech and materials. I was very happy with the result, especially since it had plenty of room to run the upgraded hacking software that Spot used, as well as his programming assistant system. I would most likely continue to upgrade it as I learned new things, but for now, it was nice to have something more than just a tiny screen to check my bank account and see the number that was trying to contact me.

As I finally left the garage, I watched our two salvage trucks leave on their trash run, the MRVN units waving to me as they drove past. I idly questioned if it was safe for them to be driving, before realizing that I trusted them more than I did most of the people in Night City. Duke followed behind me as I finally made my way home, laying in bed after a quick shower and a late-night snack. Thankfully, it didn't take long for me to finally get some sleep, reaching over the side of the bed to pet Duke as I drifted off.

The next morning, I went right back to working on my low-tech foundation, spending my time building random stuff from Become Human. It was funny, if I pushed back far enough I could see the things that were much more familiar to me, like PC systems that looked almost identical to what I used to game on. The only difference was the name brand. I even eventually identified the time when people started being obsessed with future-looking tech. It happened in the same way that RGB lights seemed to take over the computer industry, only this fad quickly expanded to all sorts of markets.

Around noon, Kaytlyn returned from her latest trip to Tyger territory. As she was approaching the town, she radioed ahead to get everyone together. She arrived not long after that, carrying a few pizzas and looking concerned. I grabbed the boxes from her, almost tripping over her cat as she led me into the BD shack, where Riggs and Jackie were already waiting. The door to Frank's space was open, no doubt so he could listen in, just in case Jackie needed some help.

I placed the pizzas down on the table and took a seat, watching while Jackie grabbed a slice for himself. He cursed and dropped the slice onto a plastic plate, shaking out his fingers, trying to cool them off. I was focused on Kayt, though, as her expression was concerning.

"So… what's the news?" I asked, even as Jackie passed me a plate with a slice on it. "You don't look very happy."

"Cause I'm not," She responded, shaking her head. "I've been going over the extra info Padre got us and comparing it to what I've been seeing. I've gotta say, this mission not looking so good."

"What's the problema, Chica?" Jackie asked, impatiently waiting for his pizza to cool. "We know from the scavs they can't keep up with us."

"Scavs might not have been able to, Jackie, but Tyger Claws, specifically these ones, just might," She responded, shaking her head. "We knew this was a hotspot for the gang already, but it turns out the intel was underselling it. Tyger Claws owns the whole building and the two on either side of it. It's used to house people who need a safe space. Informants, info brokers, gun dealers, higher-ups who have a little too much heat on them, even a few lieutenants."

She looked at Jackie, her eyes glowing as she sent him the data. I waved and gestured to my new keyfob cellphone combo… my keyphone, and after a moment, I could see the data she was sending too. I scrolled through, pausing on a wireframe of the building. It was labeled with possible occupants.

"So I tried to get a rough guess of just how many people they have on patrol inside the walls and how many are inside, but as far as I can tell, it's more than fifteen. Could be twenty, or it could be fifty," She admitted. "They keep people rotating, and they switch out frequently. Worse, these aren't some punk gangbangers. These are hard bastards with a lot of chrome and plenty of experience with it. I counted at least seven of them that are really chromed out, as well as at least two full borgs. I don't know who they are or how many there actually are, but these are not mismatched scavs."

"Dammit, that's gonna be rough…" I said, shaking my head. "Any idea where she is being kept?"

"So, I figured out what floor she is on cause her father goes to the balcony for smoke breaks," She explained, pointing out a corner of the large building, two floors down from the roof, eight floors up from the ground floor. "I kept an eye on it for a while until I spotted her inside as well. Just a glimpse, but she is there."

"Fuck, on the ninth floor?" I asked. "That's not gonna work."

"You really think we can't tear through nine floors?" Jackie asked, looking disgruntled. "We can clear floor by floor, take our time and get there eventually."

"That won't work here," Kaytlyn pointed out, her cat jumping up onto one of the free chairs, sniffing at one of the pizza boxes. "Places like these? They have designated communicators. The second they know something is up, an alert is going to go out to every Tyger in the area, and some that aren't. By the time we hit the fifth floor, the first floor is going to be filled with Tygers again, chasing us up the building."

"We may be good for twenty, thirty, maybe even forty claws of various strength, but not even we can take down the whole gang," I pointed out. "Especially when we have an asset to protect."

Jackie cursed, leaning back in his chair, wincing as it put pressure on his newly installed cyberware. He seemed to be doing much better than yesterday, and with any luck, he would be able to start practicing by tomorrow. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do. I was also starting to generate ideas in case the Sandy didn't agree with him. So far, I didn't have much, but I was hopeful that whatever tech tree I had next would have something.

"We can boost up a few floors," Riggs pointed out. "That should cut down on time."

"We could… or we could go down instead of up…" I suggested, trailing off after a moment, scanning through some of the pictures Kayt took.

"You got something, Genio?" Jackie asked, leaning over to peek into what I was looking at.

"Maybe… Kayt, this was the closest non-Tyger building to our target, right?" I asked, holding out my keyphone and pointing to a building across the street from our target. "How far was it, exactly?"

"From the compound? Maybe thirty feet?" She guessed, scratching her forehead. "Between the actual roofs? Maybe… sixty, seventy feet? It's pretty isolated on the corner of this street, which is probably why they picked it."

"There is no way we can jump that far, loco pendejo," Jackie said, shaking his head. "The jumpkits only get us a good thirty feet, if we get a proper run and jump."

"Yeah, but I can make us something that gets us across," I said with a shrug. "Hell, I could build a half dozen things to get us across. All we need is to get up to this building here, and then we jump."

"You sure? Kayt asked. "I mean, I won't be doing it since I'll be on sniper support, but are you sure you can do that? I mean, I've seen some of the stuff you can make, but that's a long way up…"

"I'm sure. Give me a few days and I'll have something." I replied confidently.

"... Okay, so we start from the roof and work down," Jackie said. "That means two floors we have to deal with. But how do we get out, and how do we get away?"

We spent another few hours coming up with a basic plan, which included getting up to the roof of the closest building, as well as how we planned on getting out once we reached our target. Once we were done planning and done with lunch, I headed back to the garage.

I was tempted to jump right into the design process for the contraption I promised for our mission, the one that would get us from one building to the other, but I wanted to finish off working on Become Human designs first. I didn't plan on holding on to the tree once it ran out at midnight, so I would have to make do with the time I had.

I wasn't overly concerned as the little bits of knowledge I was picking up were nice and would probably come in handy when I was designing my own things, but they weren't required. In most cases, they were mostly redundant, specific to materials and tech that I was already way past with what I had learned from Titanfall.