The Shards of Freedom [Cyberpunk/Worm]

[InfinityReads999]

Author's note: So, this is the opening chapter. I will write it every time I need a break of CA, which, like I said in the messages, won't be that common, or at least I hope. Next chapter is CA, without a doubt, but I might play with this idea for a bit too, depending on my muse. At the cost of repeating myself, I will say again that I don't plan, nor want, to drop CA, so don't fear that. I still love that story, but I will use some breaks to plan properly the plot.

Hope you like the chap! Tell me what you think! This fic will start before edgerunners, go into 2077 and beyond. The second season of the anime was announced, and I really hope it's about the unification war after hinted in the game around 2080, which, even if I wrong, will be what I will touch the most!

The MC is Chris, Kid Win, Vanguard. But, Missy, or Vista as you know her, will be important too. But my main focus is Chris. As you all can see, ages had been moved a bit to fit more with Cyberpunk universe, with Chris being 22-23, and Vista 18-19. Won't touch ward plot until REALLY late into the fic, if I ever reach that part. There won't be any more worm impact in this story up to that point.

Also, for the ones in the know, I want your opinion in something. As some might know, Cyberpunk mixes Spanish with English a lot, as well as specific slang for the universe. Spanish is my mother tongue, so I can mix it up really well, as for the slang, I can use it, a bit, I think. I will write the first couple of chapters with both things, but if many people say that they prefer I don't, tell me in the comments!

The Shards of Freedom.

Chapter 1: The Weight of Chance.

Taylor Hebert.

Earth Gimel.

Nothing I could do helped in any way; all the ideas that came to mind would not affect the end result, no matter what. Not that I expected it, in truth. I had always been told by Lisa and the rest of the undersiders or the heroes that my power was used the best way away from direct combat… There was not much more I could do but watch as the golden Bastard massacred his way through everyone that was in his way.

There wasn't much I could do; we were only humans, after all.

We are the soft, helpless things.

Watching Lung flail around uselessly, even as he was bigger than the first time we met, was horrifying as well as fascinating. The dust itself hissed like boiling water around the almost Endbringer-sized villain. The Simurgh was also battered, her wings clipped by Scion's golden beams as he, once again, destroyed something she was building.

And in the middle of all, there he was. Scion. The first hero of the world, taking every single power from everyone here, and looking mostly indifferent.

"Dose didn't take," Rachel said worriedly as I tried to keep Bastard alive. He had been one of the first to get clipped by the honest to god Godlike being when he began his massacre, and knowing Bitch's feelings for her pack, I was doing the best I could to help.

Even when I feared that he wouldn't make it. But I hoped I was wrong.

"Try the manual," I said absentmindedly. The words felt wrong in my mouth. I kept my swarm active, but the sheer heat coming out of Lung's body was giving me trouble.

I hated feeling useless.

"On it," Rachel grunted, which meant she was going to force it if it didn't open. Which meant the matchbox might break, and we might die either way.

The Simurgh moved while Scion just watched silently. Not to say he talked or gloated, something I would prefer… because that would give us time. No. He was simply destroying us at his own pace, slower than what he could realistically do.

For one moment, I hoped for the best.

Then I laughed, feeling something close to despair as nothing the Endbringer did caused anything of note.

Crane the Harmonious shouted something, and a bead rolled into place before blinking brightly just below Scion. The Villain power was strange, but it worked, and that was all that mattered.

Every bullet, every laser, every power hit Scion's body. No matter how off their aim was, the physics of the world tore themselves and guided the attacks against her target.

For a moment, the carnage stops as Scion drops into the ground, and I take the chance to take a deep breath and move my swarm somewhere else to avoid the backlash.

And backlash there was. Using the lul of the battle, Lung jumped like a meteor as the heat warped the air around him and impacted Scion's body. The sand went glassy almost instantly. Everyone who could do something did, throwing all kinds of attacks in the bead direction and waiting with bated breath.

Then Scion's beams unraveled our hope, chewed it up, and spat it like something unimportant.

The first attack was blocked by the Simurgh as the fight continued for a bit, with more and more heroes and villains dying under the golden monster.

It was too soon when Scion was free enough to focus again on Vista's group.

The not so little ward anymore, a full member of the Protectorate now.

Not that time helped her grow, at least in height. But in my personal opinion, she had nothing to be angry about. She was barely 4'9, but she was bigger than me where it really mattered.

She was warping space a bit behind me, using it to move Crane and Vanguard around, but even she was not fast enough.

A line thinner than my own strands of hair flew by. Past my shoulder, I shuddered, feeling the heat on skin that never gets a chance to be scorched because it's already gone. It blew Crane's head off, with Vista showing her quick wit as she made the distance between Vanguard and the beam large enough for him to move.

Crane dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Vanguard, or someone I knew back then in my youth as Kid Win, wobbled after a bad drop, moving as fast as he could. But he wasn't fast enough.

Or maybe he was, since the beam didn't hit him anywhere dangerous, or so I thought.

Something inside his armor blinked, and it seemed like it decided that it can't coexist with the rest of the universe and detonated in miniature, a bloom of white that's all light and no heat.

"Shit," I cursed, because my brain refuses to promote the feeling to a better word. He was next to the portal, but the white light felt burned into my retina like something I had never felt before. Not even Scion's beams were as bright, or Legend's.

Vista was already moving. She was small, and age didn't seem to help her with that, but for once, I believed she was grateful for it as she threaded her way through bodies and debris, as if her life depended on it.

She reached Vanguard fast, thanks to her power making distance something of a footnote as he looked over his body in confusion. Or so I believed; his helmet blocked any expression from showing. She caught him in her slender arms with a blank expression. There was no anguish on her face, not a single tear. Not even a grimace.

The space around them was already warped beyond recognition, but Scion wasn't done. Ignoring the heroes and villains attacking, he sent another beam towards them, and I wondered why he wanted to get rid of them so much.

Vista was obvious; her power was… insane, but she could not use it to attack him. As for Vanguard, I couldn't deny that he had grown a lot ever since he helped capture me. Having found out his specialization did wonders for him, as well as the lessened restrictions now that he was outside of the wards. But even then, I doubted that he could build something fast to really do something in the midst of the chaos.

Vista moved erratically as she did her best to move with Vanguard, trusting her power to complicate the beam hitting them. And for anyone else, it might have worked, but Scion was no ordinary foe.

The path the beam crossed, and her arm was there for a moment, and then it wasn't.

No red spray, no chunked meat. Just nothingness. She didn't even scream as she stumbled. The wound closed on its own as the mere heat from it cauterized the wound.

Vanguard's behemoth of armor takes the remainder, grunting in pain, and I suspected that he was missing at least a pound of flesh since he began bleeding from a clear hole from both sides of his body.

If that wasn't enough, his power armor began blinking. Bright white flashes came out every couple of seconds as I saw him look at his chest.

"Missy!" he shouted in alarm. "Go! Get away from me!"

She didn't. Of course, she didn't. She pivoted and braced herself, then the world between her hand and his chest shortened to nothing. Fingers tried to dive into the plate, but as small as her hands were, they weren't strong enough.

Realizing something, or so I believed, she shortened the space between them as she clung to his back. She tapped twice around the right side of his helmet and nodded when it broke down. Looking at the pieces on the floor, she quickly tried to grab something, only to realize that her arm wasn't there anymore.

Huffing, she knelt down and grabbed it with her remaining arm and pulled a wire. Plunging it into his chest plate, she pulled something. A battery, I thought, because one never knew tinkers, and considering his specialization, one thing could work like hundreds of different things with a single touch.

But she wasn't fast enough, and the object shone white before the light grew even brighter.

Keeping an eye on the battlefield in front of me, I tilted my ears in the mess Vista found herself in. There was not much I could do as the space around the portal warped beyond recognition. I could barely watch with my own eyes, but my insects could feel something was wrong in a way I had never felt before. A few of the insects I had near them just ceased to exist, or perhaps the distance was too much; I didn't know why, but my connection with them broke.

"Missy, run the fuck away. NOW!" Vanguard shouted again, firmly. With the helmet off, I could see how much he had grown in these past years. He was no longer the weird kid who took that blasted cannon to a simple robbery. His face was set in stone as he tried to pry Vista away from him, with the newest protectorate member ignoring him and moving every time he got too close.

She kept her hand where it was, clinging to him with her jaw clenched. The plate deformed without bending around the weird spatial effects happening around the portal.

They were the only ones there; even Lisa ran away as soon as she could without a second thought. Her eyes were wide, and she looked at them in confusion.

The portal behind them was open and twisting on its own. Through my swarm on the far side, I got flashes that weren't mine. Neon buildings, too bright, too much noise. The particular quality of light when someone tried to look different and went too far.

A skyline I didn't know. Voices I could understand, but didn't recognize the accent. Words that I had never heard before, police sirens blaring at all times.

I blinked. The images didn't stop when I closed my eyes. They blossomed against the dark like afterimages, stacked and stuttered. Whatever thing that was in Vanguard's armor caused such a weird effect that probably no one understood. It was affecting the portal. Or the portal was doing something to it.

"Taylor!" Lisa's sharp voice came through. Her hand closed on my shoulder like an anchor. "Back…"

I hadn't even noticed she was already here. My eyes and attention were grabbed by the weird images flashing around the portal.

"Working on it," I said, which was generous. Rachel was stuffing dirt into Bastard's mouth and leg stumps, but I didn't have the space to tell her that was insane, and I also didn't have the chance to tell her it might work. The Simurgh was down, and Glaistig Uaine was carving diagrams in the air with her shades. Scion looked at them impassively, sending a glance at the portal as he tilted his face.

Vista's expression didn't change. She twisted her body a fraction, and the world twisted to accommodate her. She was doing something, her power affecting the space around them, and in return, the weird effect was affecting the space at the same time.

Just looking at it was making my head hurt, worse than Labyrinth's power in her worst moments.

I watched Kid Win's eyes hardening as his hands clenched around something, "Missy, leave me. My armor is failing, and I can feel something pulling me somewhere,"

"I'm not fucking leaving you, Chris," she said flatly, but even I could hear the heat of her voice. The very first word she had said to him since losing her arm.

The portal blinked. Vanguar's armor groaned as he spat blood. He was paling rapidly, probably thanks to the blood loss.

Even from a distance, I could see that whatever was going to happen would happen soon.

I took a step without thinking, and the step took me too far. My foot landed where my foot shouldn't have, and my knee wanted to go in a direction knees didn't go. I stopped, swallowed, and reoriented myself the best I could. The air smelled like piss and smog. And it was coming directly from the portal.

"Move!" I shouted, because even if they couldn't hear me under everything else, saying it made me feel like I had done something.

Vanguard shook his head minutely. He saw something I didn't or he felt something I couldn't.

The light trapped in his armor crawled under his skin, through the seams of him. It wasn't contained anymore. Vista's hand jerked as if burned as she bit back a curse. The world around her rippled.

"Lisa," I said quietly.

"I know," she said, too quickly. She probably didn't, but I let it go.

"Down," Rachel barked, and I just threw myself and hid under Bastard's monstrous body.

It wasn't a bang. It was the absence of everything that came before a bang, and then all of it at once. The portal blossomed into some weird shape and slammed shut like a door.

The shock front lifted us, an invisible shovel under a pile of dolls. My bugs lost track of themselves, a million threads snapped. The sky tilted ninety degrees, and the ground was somewhere else and then here again, hard enough to knock my teeth together.

Sand and blood filled my mouth as I stood up and looked at where the two heroes used to be. The portal back to Bet returned as if nothing had happened. But the heroes? They were gone.

I pushed up on shaking arms. My head rang, an alarm I couldn't locate to turn off. Crane's body was sent flying as his cadaver hit somewhere near us. Bastard was growling, somehow.

Rachel, with both hands sunk in his scruff, like he was a raft. Glaistig Uaine was mid-gesture, three spirits at once, her mouth a flat line. The Simurgh was a smear on the bay before she returned with vengeance in her normal apathetic eyes.

As for Vista and Vanguard? I had no idea if they were alive, and as curious as I was, I had better things to focus on.

Somewhere, on the other side of a door we couldn't open again, there was a city made of light that smelled like shit. Somewhere, two heroes had just fallen into it, one with no arm and one dying with a hole in his stomach, and who knew if the portal closing did something more.

I didn't have room to hope. I didn't have room to mourn.

I could only hope for the best for them and hope we could save the world.

Third Person Pov.

Night City, 2074

Night City nightlife was not something one could face without risks. That was true for everyone in the city; it didn't matter if you were a lowlife, a corporate worker, a high-ranking corporate, or even a solo. If you weren't careful, Night City would eat you alive and spit your remains.

The same was true for Misty Olszewski. A proud daughter of Heywood, but she just hummed as she watched a late-night visitor standing up from his seat. It wasn't as if she faulted him, as being a new age spiritualist meant that nothing was rigid, and she adapted to what her customers needed the most.

Even if that meant staying so late.

She loved it, and it was an effort she was happy to put forth as long as she helped someone.

That's what made her happy, after all. Helping.

Misty was late in her shop. She was waiting for her dear friend Viktor to take her home, as he had offered when she told him she would stay for a bit longer. Viktor had decided to watch some fights in his office while she dealt with her customer.

As the customer finally left, looking calmer and at peace, she began to turn off the incense, put the tarot cards back on their shelves, and tidy the space. That's when she heard a muffled, strange sound from the back door, followed by flashes of light that vanished so quickly she wasn't sure if she'd imagined them.

Two heavy thumps reached her ears. Then a scream that sounded like Carlos, the homeless person who usually stayed in the alley. Against her better judgment, Misty walked over and cracked open the door.

The alley greeted her with shadows and grime. Carlos drunkenly stumbled past the door, muttering and shaking his head in confusion. Misty wondered why he was running. Still, as she stepped outside, she understood.

There were two figures on the ground. One, a man who at first looked like a Borg, but something was off.

His pale face was slick with blood at the lips, and his chrome seemed to be melting, steaming with residual heat.

Beside him, a woman lay mangled, one arm gone at the shoulder with the wound brutally cauterized. Her skin was red as though she'd been burned from within.

Misty's chest clenched with pity. Common sense told her to go back inside, lock the door, call Viktor, and maybe even the NCPD. Instead, her feet carried her forward. She felt the heat radiating off them, so strong it made her eyes sting and her breath falter, but she pressed on.

Her hands gripped the woman's shoulders, dragging her away from the searing warmth. The weight nearly pulled her down, but she refused to let go.

"Misty!" Viktor's voice cut through the night. He rushed up from his clinic, pistol in hand. His cyberoptic flicked to the glowing man and then to Misty, and for a second, he cursed under his breath.

"I've got her!" Misty wheezed, waving him off before he fired. Misty had a coughing fit right there, but she calmed herself as soon as she could.

Viktor's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. He bent low, hauling the woman up with practiced ease. As he did, his eyes flicked back to the male figure. The armor sloughed away in rivulets of molten plating, revealing not a borg, but a man encased in something they had not seen in a long while.

"Shit…" Viktor spat out harshly. He ran towards his clinic in a hurry and returned with a canister, yanked the pin, and hurled it at the stranger. A burst of chemical coolant sprayed across the armor, hissing on contact. The meltdown at least came to a halt.

Without another word, he grabbed the man by the shoulders and began dragging him. "Inside, Misty. Before anyone sees."

Together, they dragged the pair toward his clinic, the acrid scent of scorched metal trailing after them.

Viktor took the blonde from Misty's arms and laid her carefully on the table. His fingers moved at a speed that showed his years of practice as he pulled away what was left of her scorched helmet. A hiss of metal and plastic came apart under his cutter, and he peeled the fragments aside until her face was revealed.

Young. Too young to be a merc. At least in a better world. Eighteen, maybe nineteen at most. A petite frame, features set in a grim line, even in unconsciousness.

"Damn…" Viktor muttered, his eyes narrowing as he sliced open her burned clothing to survey the damage. Her entire front was marred with deep, angry burns. Her skin blistered and seared as if she'd been shielding the other one with her body.

Without hesitation, he prepped a syringe and injected a cocktail into her neck.

Misty looked at him in curiosity, to which Viktor smirked, "Sedative. We don't know who they are; it's better to keep her away while I work."

But as he checked her vitals, something else caught his eye. His gaze lingered. He swept his scanner over her again, slower this time, his brow furrowing.

"... She has nothing."

Misty tilted her head in curiosity. "Nothing?"

"Not a single goddamn implant," Viktor said slowly and full of disbelief. "She's clean. Completely ganic."

Misty blinked, stunned. In Night City, that was rarer than a day without violence.

And that was saying something, since they had a lottery to count how many died daily.

Viktor sighed, but once he confirmed her vitals had steadied, he turned toward the second body.

The armor was still half-melted onto him, fused to burned flesh. Viktor gestured for Misty, and together they wrestled the plates free piece by piece. The stink of scorched polymer and cooked metal filled the clinic.

Misty's nose wrinkled when the smell of cooked meat became more apparent.

When the final chunk came loose, Viktor whistled under his breath.

"What is it?" Misty asked, eyes wide.

Viktor shook his head, "Don't know. Never seen tech like this. But whatever it is, this choom's packing serious power."

The man's face was clearer now, early twenties, maybe. Stress lines carved across his expression, making him look older and hardened.

Without knowing them, Misty could say with absolute certainty that they had lived a very harsh life.

Misty had seen her fair bit of mercs coming and going to Vik's clinic, and while none of them showed these signs, she believed it was thanks to their chrome.

Viktor's expression darkened as he saw the full extent of the injuries. Burns stretched across his chest and arms, patches where metal had eaten into his skin. A ragged hole punched through his shoulder, bleeding sluggishly.

Some places even had charred skin.

"Shit. He's worse off than the girl," Viktor muttered, easing the blonde onto a chair for the moment. He leaned closer, scanning the man's vitals. Then he froze. "…Another ganic. Not a single implant on him either. I don't understand how he is still alive."

Misty's hands hovered near her mouth. "Can you do something? Please, Vik?"

Viktor scowled, frustration clear in his tone. "I don't know if it'll be worth it. The damage is brutal. I've got the parts, yeah, but if I burn through my stash I won't have stock left for paying customers later."

Misty's frown deepened as she always did, and Viktor had to bite back a sigh.

Her eyes flicked from the unconscious girl to the battered man, her breath catching as something stirred inside her. Her eyes went glassy as she bit her lower lip.

"We can do something, Vik," she said softly, conviction bleeding into her tone. "I can feel it, Vik. There's something about them… they'll pay you back. More than just eddies. I have a feeling about them."

Viktor's jaw tightened, already knowing that the girl had a bleeding heart, "Misty, this isn't just about money. That armor, whatever the hell it was, isn't cheap. People with toys like that don't just end up in Heywood alleys for no reason. Helping them could drag us into something ugly."

"Also, we don't even know how they appeared here. They might have been dropped by an AV or something. They could be corpos, and we could be putting our necks on the line for this."

Misty stepped closer, her voice almost pleading. "Maybe so. But if we let them die here, it'll be uglier. You know it. If they are really corpos and they find out we left them to die? Or maybe they aren't. That armor doesn't look like anything else I've seen. He could be a good solo, and will be grateful for fixing him."

For a long moment, only the hum of the med-scanners filled the clinic. Viktor's shoulders slumped as he exhaled a curse.

"…Fine." He grabbed his tools, snapping on fresh gloves. "But don't say I didn't warn you. If some gonks come knocking, it's your fault."

Misty's lips curved into a faint, relieved smile as Viktor leaned over the table, his hands already moving. The clinic filled with the harsh glow of surgical lamps as the ripperdoc began the long, grueling work of keeping two strangers alive.

Viktor set his tools down with a clang, jaw tight as he leaned over the man. "Alright, choom. Let's see what's keeping you alive."

Almost gingerly, the doctor lifted the man from the less charred parts of his body, and Viktor hissed through his teeth.

Misty almost threw up, realizing it was worse than they had believed. The skin was so severely burned that it was flaking in some places, and in others, the burns had gone all the way to the very bone.

"Doughboy is lucky," he muttered, opening the chest cavity with deliberate cuts. Wincing at what he saw. Inside wasn't much better. One Lung collapsed, leaking sluggishly. The heart was visibly struggling against the damage caused by heat stress. Liver scorched along the edge.

Misty didn't know medicine as Vik did, but even she understood that the man was lucky to be alive.

He reached for his kit and injected something into himself. "We'll need stabilizers, basic biomonitors, and a replacement lung if I don't want him drowning in his own fluids."

Misty grabbed what Vik was pointing at and passed it to the doctor, hoping that she was fast enough.

The thoughts running in her mind were that she didn't understand solos. The mere risk of something like this happening should deter anyone from undertaking this work.

Piece by piece, Viktor installed the lifesavers. Explaining that it was a cheap but reliable cardiac support implant to keep the heart in rhythm. A synthetic lung graft was carefully slotted into place. An auto-stitch mesh for shredded arteries. Muscle fiber patches covering the worst tears. He swapped in a skeletal brace for the shattered shoulder, screwing it down until it locked in place.

The monitors flared to life. A holographic readout bled red warnings across his view. Oxygenation in a critical state, blood with high toxicity, and unstable nerve pathways, according to the biometrics.

"Choom will have a big debt to pay," Viktor grumbled irritably as he tightened a hose, "I can't say for sure if he will make it, Misty."

Then something on the scanner caught his eye. And Misty took a peek before frowning. A cluster deep in the brain, flickering oddly on the display. It didn't look like it belonged. And Vik murmured something like it wasn't like any implant he recognized, either.

His brow furrowed. "What the hell is that…?"

Misty leaned closer. "Is it not usually there, Vik?"

"Never seen something like that," He shook his head, forcing himself to pull the scan away. "Not that I'm a brain surgeon, but I won't be touching it tonight. The kid's got enough wrong with him."

He worked on him for over two hours before dropping his instruments into a box that began emitting steam and a mixture of liquid as he sat down in front of his screen, unpausing a fight Misty believed he was watching, before he ran outside.

Misty took a moment to watch him and then ran towards her store, grabbing some clean towels and a bottle of real water before returning to the clinic. With a thankful expression, she gave them both to Vik, who smiled gratefully.

He rested for ten minutes before he turned to the blonde.

Her burns were cleaner, but cruel in their own way. Her front was a patchwork of blistered flesh and scorched lines, the cauterized stump of her missing arm already infected at the edges. He opened her up just enough to make sure there was no internal collapse and found heat damage threading along the ribs and diaphragm.

"Same story. Another ganic," he muttered, checking her readings. "Not a single implant to her name."

Basic lifesaving cyberware went in first. A biomonitor to track vitals. An auto-inject node to push sedatives or painkillers. He grafted skin patches over the worst burns, layer by layer, until the angry red was replaced by the glossy pale of synth-skin. He set a skeletal cap on the shoulder stump to keep it from tearing further. He injected a spool of nanofibers to begin knitting her diaphragm.

Then the scan beeped. Viktor blinked, leaned closer.

"…No way."

There it was again. The same strange clump buried deep in her brain, in almost the exact same place as the man's, just a little bigger. But the similarities were there.

"That's impossible," he whispered. His face tightened as he glanced at Misty. "Two ganics, left behind, both half-dead, and both with… whatever the hell that is, in their heads. No way that's a coincidence."

Misty's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

Viktor scrubbed sweat from his brow and bent back to work. He had more grafts to lay, more skin to replace, more stabilizers to connect. There would be time for questions later. For now, he did what he always did. Keep the patients breathing, keep them alive, no matter what they'd dragged into his clinic.

And hope they will pay later on. That was also important.

 

[Nightmare4u]

This looks very interesting.
I think Kid Win with his specialty would find this new world very interesting as cybernetics are already a sort of 'Modular Device'.
Vistas powers might work on people's cybernetics as that is a machine and not technically manton limited?

 

[stads]

interesting start of the story
think the two hero's are going to wake up with a cold shower cause there glove heroic aint going to work and crime aint going away
still if there willing to draw blood vista with a sniper and her abilty's is win in removing scav's and the like
as for vanguard/kidwin he could do fun stuff weapon mods wise

do hope they find the murkman's lair early the story

 

[NitroNorm5688]

Good start.

Looking forward to more.

 

[Mimir]

Good start, don't often see much of Kid Win.

 

[InfinityReads999]

The Shards of Freedom.

Chapter 2: The Receiver.

Misty Olszewski

Night city, 2074

It had taken a concerning amount of time for Vik to fix, to the best of his abilities, the pair dropped onto our doorstep. In a way, I wasn't blind to know why Vik had been so worried about it, if we were making a gonk decision or something similar, but I liked to trust in my feelings.

I don't know how to explain it, and honestly, I knew that people saw me as if I were strange. Perhaps I was, but if Night City taught me something, it was to find little happiness in what you could, because one never knew when Night City would take your life.

A single, unlucky walk could spell your end in this cursed city.

Maybe my remaining family in Poland was right and I should leave the city or something, but everything I knew and loved was here, and as much as they offered, I didn't think Warsaw was safer than Night City.

But that was something for another day. Picking a black choker, I finished putting on my makeup and smiled at my reflection. My smile didn't reach my eyes, but it was enough. I didn't have plans to meet anyone who knew me enough to see how brittle and fake it was.

And I was sure that Vik was feeling the same as I, and he would understand.

Maybe my decision was wrong, having a night to think over our actions made me dream of how many ways things could go sideways in a short amount of time… but I wasn't sure if I regretted it, at least yet.

Vik spent the whole time talking about it, telling me how much danger we were in if the patients were not what I hoped, or the ones who left them in that state came looking for them, or their friends.

They were almost dead. Vik called it a miracle and happenstance that he managed to save them, or at least fix enough so that they wouldn't die at his table. Minutes later, they would have succumbed to their injuries.

But something in the back of my head told me that I made the right decision. I wasn't sure if I was lying to myself, but I could only hope that I didn't put us in danger thanks to my bleeding heart.

Something I had learned from Jackie. The thought of him brought a concoction of feelings into my head. He was just so… good. But at the same time, I knew it wasn't to be.

It's been a long while since I saw him, much to my shame. He always knew how to make anyone happy and feel calmer around him, but Camilla didn't like me one bit. Perhaps I wasn't as good as I wanted to think when it came to hiding my feelings.

Well… I couldn't fault her completely. Jackie always dreamed of greatness, perhaps a bit too much. It was also one of the reasons I pushed Vik to heal the two unknowns.

He was getting quite chummy with V ever since he returned from Mexico, going into Corpo gigs with his friend as a backup and getting into dangerous situations more often than not.

In a way, I was hopeful that the pair could maybe help him in a way, to keep him safe.

If I couldn't have him, at least I wanted to help by making sure he was safe.

Finishing the last touches on my attire, I slapped my cheeks twice, then walked out of my house. It was early enough, and not the usual time I used to arrive at my shop, but it was a must.

Vik decided to sleep in his clinic, watching over the patients. He wasn't sure when they would wake up, since their injuries were so bad, and being completely ganic didn't help.

Not that they were anymore. Vik had to make do with what he had at hand to save their lives. The blonde woman had a cyber arm implanted, since she had lost it all the way to the shoulder.

It was as basic as they came, but according to Vik, it was for the best. Since she used to be a complete organic, and obviously suffered a whole deal of trauma, he said it would be better to put something that wouldn't strain her psyche to avoid complications. According to what I remember (the whole medical terms went past my head), it was something that came after the unification wars four years ago, since a lot of the population suffered maiming either from the conflict, or the gangs that went rampant around that time.

Besides that, she had to be covered from head to toes in synth skin, since the vast majority of her skin was burnt from her closeness to the man. Vik said that it was a miracle that nothing of 'importance' was damaged too badly in her. Her internal organs were in pristine condition, better than a normal human and only twenty to thirty percent worse than the synth organs Vik had on hand.

A soldier, Vik called her.

As for the male? The less said, the better. Vik had to perform a miracle to save him, and changed multiple organs since his were fracturing under the strain.

I didn't want to even think about what would have happened to them if they had appeared somewhere else. I knew the kind of person one finds in this city, and if, a big if, they received help from somewhere else, no one would do it like Vik.

Smiling at the Valentinos patrolling the area, I made sure to keep my head down as I walked towards the metro. As good as my relationship with them was, I didn't want to risk anything. With my usual act in hand, I kept looking at the floor, lost in thought, before I bumped against something firm.

Lifting my head in alarm, I almost smacked myself for not paying attention.

"Hey there, chica, long time no see," A familiar voice sounded in my ears, making my heart jump between excitement and nervousness.

The smell of his cologne entered my nose as I reflexively smiled, looking up and seeing his rugged visage.

"Well, consider me surprised," I smiled brightly at the man of my dreams, "It's been a long while since I last saw you, you gonk."

His smile turned apologetic as he rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish look. I ignored the way he averted his eyes, a sign he had since we were kids when he wanted to hide something.

"You know how it is, chica," he laughed brightly, "still seeking the dream, but I'm closer than ever, you know?"

"Still friends with that corpo friends of yours?" I asked, just a bit heated. I had met V, and I couldn't say I had the best opinion of the corpo.

They had arrived half dead, both injured to hell and back, taking turns in dragging each other until they both made it to Vik's clinic. I had not met V after that, but that first meeting certainly made an impression on me.

"Don't be too harsh on V, Misty," Jackie sighed, "I know you don't have the best impression, but believe me, she's someone I trust with my life."

Sighing, I dragged my hand over my face. This was a conversation that repeated every time we met, but leave it to Jackie to have an Arasaka friend and trust them. Hell, I could count the people I trusted in Night City with one hand and have fingers left. Trust was something almost mythical here, and the corporations were the last image that came with that word.

"Look, how about I invite you to eat? I just returned from a gig and plan to stay low for a while," he smiled that smile of his, "What do you think, Misty?"

"I don't want to cause you trouble, Jackie," I denied him, feeling a pang in my heart as I did so, "also, I need to visit Vik. That's why I came out this early."

"It won't be trouble," he rolled his eyes before sighing, waving at some Valentinos in the distance, "but fine, since it's my fault I kept you here, let me take you."

He slapped his big hand on his wheels, the motorcycle that he so loved. I was about to tell him no once more, not wanting to get him into the mess I dragged Vik into, but I knew him enough to know that he wasn't taking a no for an answer.

I just hoped I could convince him to leave without learning about our visitors.

"Fine, fine," I mock sighed with a knowing smile, earning a rumbling laugh from the big lug, "I'm glad to hear you're fine, Jackie."

Giving him a brief hug, I took the chance to smell him once more and sear it into my memory. I didn't know how long he would disappear after this.

Jumping behind him, I circled my arms around his vast back, feeling him start the wheels and launch himself without regard for our lives.

Now that my infatuation wasn't blinding me, I remembered why I hadn't accepted the previous times for his help. Jackie was a fantastic driver… if you ignored his complete disregard for the rules.

Clinging to him a bit harder, I felt him laugh against my chest.

"Whooo!" he shouted, turning his head around to look at me with the widest smirk I've seen in a long time. Still, something must have shown in my expression because he slowed just a tad, and even stopped at the next red light, looking sheepish.

Before I could say anything, a coming call made me frown.

Lifting my hand in the universal 'wait a second' sign, I accepted the call.

The holographic display blinked to life, Vik's tired face appearing on it. His glasses were crooked, and the circles under his eyes were darker than the night outside.

"Misty," he said without preamble, his voice sharper than usual, "You need to get here. Now."

My stomach dropped. Never in my life had I heard him speak like this. "What happened, Vik? Something wrong?"

"The pair," he hissed, glancing somewhere off-screen. I could hear the beeping of monitors, sounding faster and faster in these few seconds since I received the call, "Something's wrong with their brains. It's like a goddamn fireworks show in there."

I froze for a second, remembering what he had found last night and how surprised he was, "Does it have anything to do with… that?"

I didn't have to say it out loud. Vik knew what I meant: the strange clumps of brain matter, the readings that didn't match anything on his database, the part of them that Vik had no idea what it was or how it worked.

"That's the part lighting up like a Christmas tree," he said tiredly, rubbing his temples, "I've never seen neuron activity spike this high without a total meltdown. They're heating up, Misty. If this keeps up, you'll only find sludge instead of brains. If I didn't know better, I'd think they are like a receiver that suddenly lost signal."

My throat tightened, "How long do they have?"

"Hard to say. Maybe twenty minutes. Bring ice… hell, bring a lot of it. I need to bring their core temps down before the heat hits the new implants. I think treating them as net runners right now is the best option. I have no idea what's going on, and this is the closest example I can think of."

He paused and looked straight into the camera, narrowing his eyes, "Wait. Where are you?"

I hesitated a heartbeat too long, making him frown, "I met Jackie when I was about to walk to the NCART… he offered to take me instead."

His look turned into that familiar disappointed glare, the one that said you just did something stupid, and you know it. And indeed, I was already regretting it.

"Misty," he groaned, dragging a hand down his face, "I know that Jackie is someone we can trust, but if this explodes on our faces, we'll be dragging him with us to hell, girl."

I exhaled through my nose. "I know, I know. We'll just have to be careful. Just… keep them stable, okay? We'll be there soon."

He muttered something under his breath, making me smile despite the dire situation.

Jackie glanced over his shoulder with a deep frown, "What's going on, chica?"

"Vik needs me. Emergency," I said quickly, shaking my head and ending the call, "We need to stop by a store. Ice. As much as we can carry."

He blinked, "Ice?"

"Don't ask. Please. Just hurry."

Whatever he saw in my face made him drop the joke he was about to make. He just nodded and revved the engine.

"Hold on tight, Misty."

He spun the wheel, the tires screeching as the bike shot forward. The wind tore through my hair as we weaved between cars, the skyline of Heywood rushing past like a blur of neon lights and sounds.

It would have been nice if I hadn't been clutching Jackie's stomach with all my might.

Later.

Viktor Vektor.

It had been less than fifteen hours since these two gonks dropped into my life, and already they'd managed to turn my clinic into a goddamn warzone.

They were both trembling on the tables, skin slick with sweat despite the air chillers running full blast. Their vitals were all over the place, their hearts pounding so loud that I could hear them outside their chest, their pupils flickering under their eyelids like they were watching a bad xBD in their sleep.

I'd already strapped their arms and legs to the tables… not to torture them, just to keep them from thrashing and breaking the few working tools I had left. Their muscles kept seizing in random waves, like their nervous systems were trying to crawl out of their bodies.

Too bad I couldn't knock them out again; their systems were so flooded with sedatives that another dose might've stopped their hearts for good.

"Christ," I muttered, rolling up another strap and buckling it tight.

The leather squealed as the two fought against their binds harder than people their size should be capable of, "I can't help but feel that if they survive… NC will never be the same."

I grabbed two bite pads from the tray and shoved them gently between their teeth,

"Last thing I need is you two chewing your damn tongues off."

Right as I leaned back, the clinic door slammed open.

"Misty!" I barked, squinting as the heated air and sunlight spilled in.

She stumbled in, looking breathless herself, jacket half open. Jackie Welles barreled in right after her, pulling a cart stacked with ice bags and another dozen balanced on his shoulder as if they didn't weigh a ton.

But I already knew about his surprising strength after all, being the only person who managed to knock me down with a single hit when I trained him.

"Where do you want it?" he grunted, looking at the two patients in curiosity.

"Back room! Grab the immersion tubs, the big ones," I said, pointing to the side door, "Misty, help him."

They moved fast, dragging the tubs across the floor until the sound of metal on tile drowned the hum of my machines. I could already feel the temperature rising, the heat coming out of the pair of bodies misting the area around them.

My instruments were starting to complain, the inlaid thermometers flashing red and bio scanners whining in alarm.

"Who the hell are they, Vik?" Jackie asked as soon as he finished setting down the last tub with a heavy thud.

I didn't even look up, "No idea, choom. They just showed up half dead, and now they're trying to fry themselves alive. Grab the legs… we're moving them."

We each took a side.

The man was heavier; the pieces of armor on him fused to bits of skin I still couldn't separate without risking him more. His skin radiated heat as if someone managed to push a Caliburn harder than they should have.

We dunked him into the first tub, ice crackling as it met his body. Misty yelped at the hiss. Then we did the same with the girl.

"More ice! Hurry, Misty!" I shouted.

Jackie and Misty dumped another cartload in, both tubs filling to the brim.

I turned back to my monitors, my hands shaking slightly as I checked the readouts.

Their core temps were finally dropping, but the rest of the data… they didn't make any sense.

"Come on, come on…" I muttered, cycling through displays in a hurry, "What the hell are you two?"

Their brainwaves were spiking, yet they synchronized, somehow. Every time one signal flared, the other followed a millisecond later. Blood trickled from their noses, thin streams cutting across their cheeks.

"Misty, bring me some gauze," I said automatically, but she was already pressing pads against the blood. Her face was pale. Jackie just hovered behind her, eyes darting from the monitors to the tubs.

"Vik," he said, "that ain't normal, right?"

"Nothing about this is normal, choom," I said flatly, flicking a switch as another machine came to life. The X-ray screen flickered to life with a low hum.

Inside their skulls, I could see… that thing.

The weird clump I'd seen during the surgery, nestled deep between the frontal and parietal lobes, pulsing faintly like a second heart. Now it was trembling, twitching in rhythm with the other one. The two patterns were… syncing.

I had done one of my finest works at avoiding touching any of those clumps of matter while I connected the pathways needed to connect the cyberware.

"What the fuck…" I whispered.

They stayed like that for minutes that felt like hours.

Jackie kept asking questions… what was happening, if they were dying, if they'd wake up…

But I didn't have a damn answer. My machines kept glitching, with the readings flickering between red and white, like even they didn't know how to process what they were seeing.

I was just as confused as they were, to be honest.

Then, just as suddenly, the alarms stopped.

The noise was cut off, and I feared that they had flatlined. Even their twitches stopped in an instant. Yet… they returned.

Both of their brainwave patterns leveled out, as if nothing had happened. The readings looked as if I was seeing a normal gonk instead of these two anomalies.

But when I looked back at the scans, my gut turned to ice.

The strange clumps had changed.

Where before they'd looked like malformed tumors, now they were sleek… as if integrated… or alive. The cybernetic connection lines I'd rigged during surgery? They were gone.

The foreign material had eaten through them, biofusing into something my software couldn't even categorize.

"Holy…" My voice trailed off as my monitor blinked into static. I wasn't a religious man, but I, for the first time in many, many years, felt as if I should have prayed at this moment.

For a second, all the clinic lights flickered, my implants buzzed, and every machine in the room froze… Then it all came back, readings looking as normal as before.

I stared at the data. At the new neural map I didn't understand.

It wasn't just brain tissue anymore. It was rewriting itself, faster than any biotech I'd ever seen. Not even the best nanotechnology I worked with was this fast and seamless.

Not human. Not even close.

The tablet slipped from my hands and hit the floor with a hollow crack.

Jackie and Misty turned to me instantly.

"What?" Jackie asked, stepping forward. "Vik, talk to me. What's wrong?"

"I…" My throat was dry. "I don't know. I don't…"

A sudden gasp cut through my words.

The blonde girl's back arched in the tub, water splashing over the edge.

Her eyes snapped open… bright green, so vibrant that they looked otherworldly, shocked me to the core… but even the color didn't take my breath away compared to the sheer coldness I could feel on the back of my head.

 

[Anders Forgefather]

Yooooooooooo, fuck yeah we got an update.

So what happened to the shards? Did they download their functions into the Cybernetics so to function outside of the standard range?

 

[stads]

nice chapter thx for writing it
interesting to see that the shards had range problems
do hope they keep there powers or perhaps even second trigger
cause having them with out powers just remove's the point of having them in the story

 

[NitroNorm5688]

I agree with the previous posters: powers must have, yes.

Though I do like the idea of exploring what a shard might do cut off from the shard network. They might reset their abilities with a real man machine interface instead of a tumor. Just so long as the shard don't speak as computers, because that's dumb. More like overworked inturns whose bosses got fired so now they can do what they want with the office space, because they control the thermostat now!

Vi va revolution!

Edit: Almost forgot. I thought it might be a fun plot twist to have Misty/ Vista's powers interfere with cybernetics because they're supposed to be Manton limited and not affect living things. Now that her skin is all Nu Skin she might rip it all off with her powers and have to use bio mods only.