บท 12: Charity-Case
[Calling Christy D'Clert...]
[...Calling Christy D'Clert...]
*Beep*
"... Ori?" Christy asks as her face appears over the holophone. Her expression was tense, maybe even worried.
"Yeah, it's me..." he says with a faux smile.
"You look awful... Listen, I heard what happened and if there's anything I can do for you, anything at all, please let me know. It makes me sick to my stomach that something like that would happen to you and your family..."
"You know, that really means a lot..." Ori mutters with a small choke. It was strange, he'd been hearing similar platitudes ever since it'd happened, but she was the only one he felt truly meant it. He was getting emotional, and he was only barely holding it together to prevent himself from grossly sobbing in front of her.
"L-listen, you remember my sister? Cat?" he quietly asks.
She nods, "Yeah, didn't seem to like me at all... I-is she alright?"
He shakes his head, "No, she's missing and I don't know how to find her... I know you don't owe us anything, but if you knew any way of finding someone-"
"Of course! I don't know if it'll help but I'll ask around, someone's bound to know something... Is that all? We're friends and I'd be a terrible person if I left you alone in a time like this."
He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, "Y-eah... I hate to ask you this but, me and Bats are missing a couple thousand Eddie for some equipment that might help in finding her," he sighs, "I feel dirty for even asking but, could you loan us some? I'll pay you back with interest, I swear!"
Christy quickly nods as her eyes flash with light,
[+5000§] the notification appears in the corner of hi vision indicating a transfer, causing his eyes to widen. (AN: This is the symbol for Euro Dollars/Eddies)
"That enough? I can give more-" she starts but he cuts her off.
"No! That's more than enough... Really, I can't thank you enough for this!" he hurriedly thanked her.
She smiles sweetly at him, "Don't mind it Ori, you need anything and you come to me, after all, what are friends for?"
"Yeah. Friends. I need to go... Bye." he smiles back and ends the call before sitting on the bed to steady his rapidly beating heart... That was harder than he thought it'd be. It felt like he'd just run a mile in a minute...
"Whatever, time's wastin'... BATS! WE GOT THE EDDIES, LET'S GO!"
-------------------------
The duo ventured through the Kabuki, the spiralling alleyways that were either completely destitute or filled to the brim with criminals. The only real light around these parts were the blinding neon signs pointing unwary travellers to their respective stores, along with the occasional Chinese lantern.
The biggest industry by far was the Chinese-inspired food stalls, most promoting themselves as fresh and genuine, despite the fact that Ori was certain most were serving rat meat on skewers. The other significant part of Kabuki was the unlicensed and untrustworthy Ripperdocs and body modders that were more likely to strip you clean and sell you to Scav's than to actually do their jobs.
Thankfully, Ori wouldn't have to subject himself to their mercy, since Bats was there to operate things. After much walking they slip through another alleyway and end up standing before a rundown abandoned building with 'Weilu Ripperdoc and Salon' spray painted across it.
...
"This really the place?" Ori mutters while resting a hand on the pistol at his side, sceptical.
Bats shrugs, "This was the cheapest place I could find with the equipment we need. Don't worry, I've already checked if their shit works, and I'll scrub it of viruses and daemons that might be hidin'."
"If your sure, think this'll work?"
He shakes his head unsurely, "Not a hundred, but it's better than anything else I could think of."
"Better than nothin'-"
"Mā de! Lǔ! Nàxiē liúmáng láile!" someone exclaims from the building, drawing their attention.
"Yāoqǐng tāmen jìnlái! Tāmen yǐjīng fùle liǎng gè xiǎoshí!" a man's voice loudly responds from another part of the building.
...
Ori glances at Bats, "Any idea what they're saying?"
"Huh-, oh? You don't have the translation programs...? You're probably gonna need it if-"
The door opens and a Chinese woman sticks her head out and begins waving at them, "Why you waiting for sum'ting!? Why waste time? You come in now!"
...
The duo look at each other, shrug, and follow the lady inside. She leads them through the half-broken-down furniture-less rooms and down to the basement where a Chinese man was waiting for them at the door.
"Ah, you are 'Bats', I assume?"
He nods, "Yeah, Lu, right?"
"It is this, you have two hour, no longer or we charge you more." he states before walking off.
"Y'know, I think I prefer the chinks over the other guys we have to deal with, quick and to the point." Bats remarks, trying to make small-talk as he steps through the door, only to pause when he sees the room.
It was an utter mess, the tech and equipment were fine and in working order, but almost the entire place was covered with blood and oil... It looked like someone had filmed or performed the chainsaw massacre or something.
Ori sends a dull stare his way, "You were saying?"
"The hell...? Those fucks ripped us off!"
Ori picks up a scalpel covered in old, coagulated blood before tossing it to the side, "You only asked for the equipment, never said anything about the state of the place, did you?"
Bats irritatedly ruffles his hair with his hand, "Fuck sake... We can make this work... Just sit-," he glares at the dyed crimson operating chair with a scowl, "Just deal with the filth for now, we've got a lot to do with the time given."
Ori does as he's told and sits in the chair after giving it a brief wipe with some nearby discarded clothes, the thing still giving a 'squelch' regardless. "I'll jack in once you've checked for viruses..."
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Niggross
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บท 13: Hello World!
It takes a while for Bats to activate and calibrate everything to his specifications, the fact that most of it was in Chinese and needed to be translated first only elongated the process. Not to mention defaulting the entire system to remove previous Ripperdocs addons... There was a reason no 'qualified' Ripperdoc would even let someone else touch their setup, the Eddies weren't worth the time it'd take to put everything back into place.
Once the virus scans were completed Ori finally jacked in, inserting the chair's provided connector into the interface plug behind his ear.
"Alright, you ready?" Bats questions while pulling up his laptop and accessing all the equipment, causing the room to release a low buzz.
"Yeah. How's this gonna go?"
"To be honest Ori, I have no idea. I'll be running a scan up through your already-installed Interface at your brainstem, then integrate with your occipital lobe-, er, the 'sight' part of your brain." he taps near his eyes for emphasis. "The nanites already appear to be present there, which should allow you to see the same thing as 'them'... This is all theoretical on my part though, whether or not this works or the bots are even sentient is something else all together..."
He lets out a sigh and wets his lips, "We'll manually connect Wernicke's area of your brain which is responsible for speech comprehension which should, 'hopefully', give you the ability to speak with the bots."
...
"Yeah, I have no idea what any of that means. Look, does any of this have a chance of working? Or am I gonna turn into a vegetable at the end of this?" Ori tensely questions.
"Giving a chance percentage isn't really valid here, it either works or doesn't. I doubt anyone's ever done anything similar to this before either... People don't generally get infected by rogue sentient nanites, not without literally melting into a puddle of base protein and bone matter..." Bats looks up from his explanation and cringes, "Sorry..."
Ori shakes his head, "Whatever, just do it."
"Aight. See you on the other side, kid... Good luck." Bats softly says as he activates the thing, instantly causing Ori's vision to crackle and buzz with static. His body shakes and shudders, the ill-maintained machinery allowing wisps of energy through to other parts of his body, as if he were in an electric chair.
Unfortunately, the procedure couldn't be stopped now, the programme Bats had hastily written didn't allow for a safety switch, nor did he account for an unseen equipment failure during his rush to get everything done.
Regardless, Ori's eyes rolled to the backs of their sockets as the room seemed to get farther and farther away from him, eventually becoming a pinprick in the centre of his vision before disappearing entirely.
--------------------------
[Arasaka Prototype NMN System (Version 0.26-1)]
[H:\Host\SystemsBMST>Intrusion Detected]
[Error]
[Initiate Programme 258-CMW]
[Error]
[Initiate Programme 258-CMW]
[Error]
[Catastrophic System Failure Detected]
[Cascading System Failures Detected]
[Intiate Backup Routines KGH-2362]
[Error]
[Initiate Force Seizure]
[Error]
[System Anomallll-l-l-lly-y-y-y-y-deeee-teaje$")%*]
...
...
[01010111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101]
[Hello World]
-------------------------
Ori's brain restarts as he 'regains' his consciousness, his eyes were closed yet he could see everything around him... Except, everything around him was either completely black, or strange blue letters written in code that combined to make up the scenery.
He wasn't sure where it was supposed to represent, but he was currently inside some sort of room... The code jumped slightly and the familiarity hit him all that once, it was an almost exact copy of his family's house... The one that'd burnt to the ground.
"What is this supposed to be..." he mutters, moving his digitally generated body through the place. He picks up a rectangular-shaped object sitting on what was presumably supposed to be a table, the code comprising everything making it difficult to tell things apart from one another.
He knew its placement however, it should've been a photo of his parents holding him as a baby... The code flashed and superimposed the image atop it, causing him to throw it to the ground as a pinch of pain struck at the centre of his skull... Or whatever his 'skull' was.
Ignoring the shattered remnants of code, he steps through the doors and into the kitchen, his mouth going dry when he spots a digital facsimile of his sister, standing there in front of the oven...
"This is fucked... Really fucked..." he mutters to himself as his voice trails off into a growl, "I know you're fuckin' in here! You rat bot bastards! You dare fuckin' show me this after everything you did!? SHOW YOURSELF!"
...
His sister turns around, revealing her completely distorted and blank facial features, it looked as if someone had taken a picture of her, shredded it into a thousand pieces, and then tried to piece it back together with their feet.
"This a show of your intentions then?" he angrily asks, "Taunting me by puppeting my sister's body?"
The thing's form blurs and grows in size, now simulating his dad's form... It opens its mouth to speak but all that comes out is the sound of chittering, billions of tiny individuals chittering at once.
"We meet you." a modulated, artificially generated voice responds after some silence.
...
Holds by his instinctual reaction of just cursing the thing out, pausing as he stares at it. "We?"
"We. The collective. We greet host."
"Yeah, well, the 'host' has a name. As long as you're in my body, I'm the master here."
"We acknowledge."
...
"What's your name?" he asks now that he was certain the thing was sentient, to a degree at least.
"Design specifications... Arasaka NMN Prototype, previously Version 0.26-1, Not Applicable."
...
So it was some Arasaka tech, which makes that old crazy bastard an Arasaka scientist... No wonder he could afford all three gangs...
"What does 'NMN' stand for?"
"Neural Management Nanites."
...
Ori didn't really like how that sounded... To him it was like a polite way of saying 'Mind control device'...
"What were you designed for?"
"Integration and Sublimation of Individual Consciousness-Error, Programm Not Found..."
"...Like brainwashing?" he tentatively asks, getting goosebumps at the idea of having brainwashing robots literally inside his head.
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Niggross
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