rcer had Panam park the car right at the clinic entrance, a sowhat dim alley.
The buildings on either side of the alley had a dated feel. After getting out of the car, rcer couldn’t help but glance around with a sense of nostalgia.
To the left of the alley was the building housing Misty’s esoterica shop, the girlfriend of Jackie from the ga.
In the ga, the protagonist V and Jackie would usually get off the car on the street by the esoteric shop, pass through it, cross the alley, and arrive at Vik’s clinic.
But now, rcer had brought a car full of valuable goods, so it wasn’t convenient for him to carry everything conspicuously through that route.
He had no choice but to squeeze the car into the alley with so effort and park right at the entrance.
To his right, a set of steps led down to a semi-underground building, Viktor’s clinic.
rcer first sent a ssage to Vik.
[rcer: Vik, open up. I’ve got a lot of stuff, gonna take a few trips to move it all.]
[Viktor: Okay.]
Viktor replied quickly, likely having been waiting for him for a while, and didn’t ntion anything about him being late.
Panam, while helping rcer carry the refrigerated container storing the cyberware, looked around and muttered, "This is the place? Doesn’t look like much."
"ripperdocs are always tucked away in these out-of-the-way corners... But his skills are definitely up to par."
rcer was also straining to carry a large box, carefully making his way down the steps to the door when it slid open automatically.
Before him stood a sturdy middle-aged man wearing sunglasses, exactly the person rcer had co to see, Viktor Vektor.
Viktor looked down and saw a young boy, barely reaching his shoulders, struggling to carry a large box.
The sight made him instinctively reach out:
"Kid, just hand it to ..."
Where’s that rcer? Sending a child to move all this?
Frowning, Viktor set the box down on the floor inside the clinic and turned to look, only to see a woman also carrying items as she walked in.
rcer smiled sowhat helplessly at Viktor and said, "I am rcer."
"...Hah..."
Viktor could only let out a sigh-like sound, part exasperation, part amazent, as he looked at rcer.
Then he simply stepped out to lend a hand, helping move the items while asking, "So, is this batch for your sister to install?"
"She’s a friend of mine, and today’s driver, from the Aldecaldos. The cyberware is for ."
As he spoke, rcer sized up Viktor.
He didn’t look much different from how he appeared in the ga.
Viktor’s features weren’t particularly striking, but he looked clean and well-kept.
His black hair was tied back, his arms well-muscled and seemingly almost entirely free of cyberware modifications, though a faint glimr shone from behind his sunglasses.
He was the picture of a reliable man.
"Hmm... I won’t ask where you got these from. Doesn’t look like you’re a local, anyway."
Vik kept moving the items while studying rcer.
This child, who looked no older than fourteen or fifteen and was quite slender, carried an oddly mature air about him, both in expression and speech.
Cybereye, monowire, neural link, cyberdeck, and even an interface on the back of his head for a large server unit... All Arasaka cyberware.
Moreover, even the refrigeration units currently being moved, containing the cyberware, were all high-end models emblazoned with the Arasaka logo.
"But this batch of yours is way too pure. All Arasaka stuff.
Stolen? Or snatched?
Either way, I wouldn’t recomnd installing them yourself."
Viktor spoke frankly: "You’re too young. Installing too much cyberware can affect your developnt, and these implants are usually designed for adult physiques."
"No worries, let’s just see how much we can install for now." rcer seed completely unconcerned.
Viktor sighed inwardly, but since they weren’t that close, he didn’t press further.
Once everything was moved in, Panam crossed her arms and took a seat in an empty spot in the clinic. In Night City’s back-alley clinics, if you’re getting cyberware surgery, you better make sure soone’s with you.
Otherwise, if you go alone to a black-market clinic for implants, there’s a good chance the surgery will mysteriously fail by the end.
Then you beco a corpse, and eventually, your parts, along with the cyberware you ant to install, will end up on the shelf.
"Don’t mind , just pretend I’m not here."
Panam played the role of bodyguard with professional ease, but rcer chuckled:
"It’s fine, Panam. You haven’t eaten yet this morning, right? Go grab sothing in Little China out back.
Right across the alley is Misty’s Esoteric Shop; she’s the part-ti receptionist at Vik’s clinic, but the esoteric shop is her main gig. Her fortune-telling is supposedly pretty accurate; you could give it a try.
No telling how long this will take, and it’d be pretty boring for you to just sit here staring."
"You sure?" Panam eyed Viktor warningly. "Getting surgery here alone?"
"Ha, don’t underestimate Vik."
rcer pointed to the wall lined with trophies and certificates:
"If you’d co a few years earlier, Viktor was still boxing professionally. Back then, they called him ’Viktor the Unarmored’, the most badass boxer in all of Night City at the ti.
The likes of you and , he could knock us out with one punch each.
Don’t let his lack of cyberware fool you; in his retirent match, he went a full twelve rounds against so corpo-junked-up monster!
Both scored a knockdown, but sadly, he lost on points in the end.
But that was a real boxer going up against a cyber-enhanced superman, now you see Dr. Viktor’s skills, right?"
"You even know about that?" Viktor couldn’t help but smile. "I thought nobody rembered."
He truly loved boxing but had to leave the ring because the sport had beco a showcase for cyberware.
Deep down, he’d always rather hear praise for his boxing skills than his dical expertise.
But still... this kid had really dug up everything about him! What kind of little monster was he?
"Wait... seriously?"
Panam, however, found Viktor even less convincing. A boxer trading gloves for dical books? Could he even have learned it properly?
"Don’t worry, Vik is one of the few reliable good guys in Night City. Go on, take care of your stuff. If you finish and have nothing to do, co back, have a beer, watch so TV. Once I’m done here, I’ll take you sowhere fun." rcer repeated himself, and Panam didn’t press further. She sighed:
"You’re a complicated guy sotis, but other tis you seem so simple. Alright, I’ll go grab so breakfast. What about you?"
"Has Vik eaten yet?" rcer asked Viktor with familiar ease.
"Uh, yeah, I have. But you should get sothing. First, let see what all this stuff is?"
Vik casually opened one of the boxes and imdiately wrinkled his whole face. Inside were a beat-up Sandevistan, Mantis Blades with faint dark red bloodstains, and so other miscellaneous junk.
"Oh, that’s stuff I plan to fix up and sell. Wondering if you could lend a hand. What I want installed is these."
rcer pointed to the other items. Vik frowned as he opened them, then raised an eyebrow. "New models?"
"Lab-grade prototypes. Goodies from Arasaka’s cyberware R&D center in Canada."
rcer stood beside Vik with a grin, saying:
"I sent you a file with relevant data I pulled from Arasaka’s servers.
I’ve already looked through it. Aside from the cyberdeck needing so study, the rest should be straightforward to install."
"Straightforward isn’t the issue," Vik turned to give rcer a serious look. "But do you have any idea how much neural load this cyberware puts on the human brain?
No exaggeration, this might not look like much, but even those cyberware-crazed Maelstrom maniacs wouldn’t last three months before breaking down if they installed this stuff!
Even the heat dissipation is wired into the neural system. Whoever designed this set never considered the strain it would put on the user!"
Panam, who hadn’t left yet, looked worried and earnestly patted rcer’s shoulder. "I know you want to do big things, but you’ve got to know your limits. Don’t forget, there are people counting on you. Think about Lucy."
"Alright, go eat, sis."
rcer rolled his eyes, and Panam shot him an exasperated look. "Ungrateful much."
With that, she turned and left. "Just be smart about this. Listen to the doc. What do you want to eat?"
"I want baozi, youtiao, doufunao, roujiamo, jianbing, jiaozi, or maybe potstickers..."
Before he could finish, Panam let out an amused scoff. "Well then, keep waiting. I’ll have to go to China to get that for you."
She stord off in a huff.
—--
Viktor shook his head and motioned for rcer to sit on the operating chair.
"So of what you ntioned I’ve never even heard of... Roujiamo, is it like a hamburger? at sandwiching the bread?"
"No, it’s bread sandwiching the at. None of that extra veggie nonsense. I like it pure at. The filling is stewed for hours until it falls apart at a touch, with the at aroma and sauce blending into the flatbread."
rcer started salivating just talking about it; it had been so long since he’d had a proper al.
In this world, at was all synthetic bug protein. Real animal at? The price would make your heart stop just looking at it.
"Hmm, sounds pretty good... Are you part Chinese?"
After getting rcer to lie down, Vik pulled up a chair and sat beside him, using his right hand equipped with a special glove-like external cyberware to tap on the screen. He spoke softly to rcer while checking the data, "Kid, I need to run so tests first to see how your body’s doing."
"I get it, go ahead. Not sure about mixed heritage Arasaka’s files didn’t have info on my birth parents, but I was probably Chinese in my past life."
rcer cooperated as Vik inserted the neural link cables, sneakily hacking into the system to glance at the instrunt’s data along the way.
It had almost beco second nature to him; the mont his head connected to any device, his first instinct was to scrutinize every line of the program’s code.
"Stop fiddling the data’s fluctuating. If you’re curious, you can study it later."
Vik could keenly detect the instrunt’s lag, indicating so program was secretly siphoning its processing power in the background.
"My bad, force of habit. Arasaka’s always stuffing things into people’s heads can’t help feeling uneasy until I know exactly what’s in there."
rcer didn’t hide it, smiling as he added, "Call it occupational hazard."
"Hmm, sounds like you’ve had a rough past."
Viktor looked at him with pity and sighed. "How old were you when Arasaka took you in?"
"Eight? They trained for a few years, then used as expendable labor."
As rcer spoke, Vik attached various instrunts to his body, examining and scanning him from all angles. Within minutes, the basic data collection was complete.
Then, Vik suddenly froze in place, staring blankly at the numbers on the screen.
Is this data correct?
It can’t be, right?
Is it really accurate?
No, no, no...
Is the machine broken? Probably not.
So it’s correct? But are these numbers really right?
Viktor fell into a long, deep contemplation... what the hell!
--------
Bonus Chapter @300 power stones.
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