P
Perilous Siege
>New Belfast Streets
"So I guess we better find you a clinic." Arccos' voice droned slightly, as she worked her way between mounds of accumulated snow and ice.
New Belfast was probably quite unlike anything Jason had seen in his brief life in whatever basement he got brought up in. Busy, noisy, filthy. People scrambling this way or that with heavy coats and faces masked with scarves to keep out the vicious chill of the planet's icy winds. Heavy fog on the streets still meant that one would spend most of their time navigating towards distant neon glows in the haze while dodging the shapes of those on the streets which were only visible up close.
For the most part, the heat generated by his pilot suit did it's job keeping the freezing temperature at bay, having been built with the far colder vacuum of space in mind, but his gauze-wrapped stubs had the problem of bleeding heat away. In the moment he had settled for nestling his left hand tight between his arm and right flank, occasionally shivering or muttering curses while they made their way down the street. "Give me a second, I'm going to see if I can find a map. I swear if this place doesn't even have the internep..." As his mindware attempted to hook up to whatever local, public network might be on the planet Jason's eyes darted between every rising structure or blaring flash of light that rose out of the fog, seeing a sight he had only experienced in simulations for the first time in his brief life. "I just want to say if it turns out this place is using leeches like the 'doctors' i've seen at one eight eight I'm shooting you."
"I been shot before, didn't really bother me. Doesn't intimidate me either..." Arccos shrugged as she drove her foot through the crust of ice on a puddle on the street, and forged on "You should be able to get satellite interNEP access anywhere in the city. You want the city hospital, or something boutique? There's a place called the Cyberzone, which may or may not be a strip club, but I recall Rip saying some good things about some of the chains..."
"Chance the state of publicly funded healthcare in a libertarian state or potentially get augmented by someone named after a brand of champagne. Tough choice." Inputting the name Cyberzone into a search app, Jason attempted to send his companion a copy of the directions well. "But my spite tells me to go with whatever option costs you more money, so Cyberzone it is."
Arccos in turn was not bothered in the slightest by the money. Seemed that the planet's income must have been pretty good, considering that the algae export was doing well. Edible protein and fresh water trade to a Freespacer station was literally selling drinkable water to the thirsty... Arccos didn't correct that there was far more expensive chains of cybernetics, however.
"Alright, trudge along this way." the towering 'spacer picked up the pace, forging a path down one particular street... A few more turns, and a fairly miserable walk later, and the two found themselves before a squat establishment built out of an old pre-fab compound that had been part of the first wave of colonization. Neon lights in the windows read 'Cybernetics! Cosmetic Body Mods! Open All Night!'
"So, given what Aashi's said I take your the sheriff. Like, the head of the whole...well, I'd guess you'd call it a country." It seems there was only so much passive aggression Jason could pack into a single conversation before he took a break. "Gotta ask, do you usually put out hits on people or was this a special occasion?" He asked as he stepped through the door, not quite bothering to think about the wisdom of carrying on this conversation in public. "Not to say the guy probably didn't deserve it. I'm pretty sure by the time he was arguing with me about the merits of self medication while Rubi was pointing a automatic rifle at us any mishaps would probably fall under natural selection."
"I usually put 'hits' on criminals. And if I wanted to I could have hung the guy a few weeks ago for trying to force himself on me." Arccos said, speaking quite clearly. Apparently this sort of talk wasn't out of place in Nepleslia. Private security forces were usually more effective than the real police, particularly here in New Belfast. "He's just worth too much money for us at the moment."
The cybernetics boutique didn't actually prove to be a strip club. But it certainly wasn't the most family friendly of places. Many of the mods it was advertising were cosmetic in nature, in very particular ways. The room itself was almost sterile, white walls, white tiled floor, all polished and gleaming... It was mainly the pictures projected along the walls that gave it a less than seemly appearance. A young woman dressed in scrubs, with a shock of bright neon blue hair sat at the counter and simply tapped a sign which read 'make all selections before seeking help'. She probably wrote it herself.
Arrcos didn't waste anytime, smashing the electronic projector and bringing up the catalog.
Neither did the short, wounded figure standing right beside her. He scrolled through the pages at a breakneck pace, apparently having no trouble filtering through pages worth of information at a glance...or a rather cavalier attitude towards the whole endeavor. "Ah, the universal rule." A hint of amusement has returned to his voice.
"Make yourself useful enough, and you can get away with almost anything. Still, the tazing oughta count for a nice consolation prize. Just try not to get me caught in the crossfire next time."
Occasionally he would stop to apply a option, seemingly doing his level best to apply as many enhancements to the replacements as possible...which admittedly wasn't much considering the appendages he was getting. A durable frame of metamaterials. Microsensors hooked up to nerve clusters that gave it a normal sense of touch. A tighter grip for what it's worth, and a faster speed on the trigger of a gun. Hell, he even checked the box labeled vibrator, all though without skimming the somewhat suggestive description.
"So, what's your pin number?"
Just as Jason asked that a message was coincidentally received by his Mindware from his favourite male Neko. "Hey man, you should totally ask Arccos to decide what your new fingers should look like. I bet she'll suggest something sick. And if you say you'll leave the choices entirely up to her I bet whatever you get will turn out extra awesome."
Visibly rolling his eyes at the message, he followed up. "And if you feel like it, mind helping me figure out what sort of finish to give them?"
"I'm not going to share my banking details with anyone, especially with anyone who has given away their active mindware thus has probably got perfect memory." Arccos said blandly, sweeping a thumb over her datapad as she waited for Jason to finish his ordeal. "And it's your body, you should decide what it looks like, not anyone else... Finish up, then I'll pay..."
"Ah, was a worth a shot, at least." They replied, returning their attention to the data slate and choosing a synthetic, lifelike facsimile. "All right, go ahead."
Arccos strode across the room, extracting a metallic card from her pocket and slipping it on to the counter. Pre-paid DA card, seemed she didn't even want to use a bank period. A few taps on a datapad from the blue haired woman in scrubs, and everything was paid for.
"The patient should follow me, please." The blue haired woman said, "It's a minor procedure, so we can do it on the fast installer under local."
The Freespacer footing the bill just stood there, doing whatever it was she was doing on her datapad. Waiting...
Of all the indignities he had been forced to suffer through in the past few hours, he could at least be thankful that spending the next few days explaining an injury to everyone new he meets and having to use his right hand for everything wasn't going to be one of them.
“Let's get this over with, then.” They followed after the rather colorful nurse, not bothing to look back as they produced a short wave to Arrcos while he left.
Arccos gave a little nod in return, as Jason was led into the back room and instructed to sit on a rather soft chair. Equally blindingly white like the rest of the place. The blue haired woman wheeling over a couple of machines. One lowered next to the patient, with a cylindrical frame which could easily fit an entire human arm. The other, a mysterious machine that just seemed to go ping every once in a while.
"You'll need to remove any arm coverings, and slide the limb of choice into the quick installer..." The nurse(?!) said, almost boredly.
The young man wasted very little time in beginning to remove his pilot suit, starting with the helmet that had obscured his face ever since they stumbled upon the Pumpkin Eater. He took a moment to run a hand through his blonde look, a grimace plastered on their boyish face. "Gotta admire someone with enthuisasm for what they do..." He said with a noticiable sarcasm before unzipping the upper part of the suit, and removing the black Aethersperm T-shirt that they had wore underneath before following the nurses instructions. "Then again if this was the highlight of my work i'd probably have gone crazy and shot up the office by now."
"Consider it the mark of a professional who has done this so many times it's become routine." She said, the machine behind her going ping as she pressed a few more buttons. Following the instructions, Jason was made to slide his arm in to the machine. His palm being strapped down flat to keep it still as some sort of cold mist was sprayed around his bicep. The hypo-spray soon doing its work, causing his whole arm to numb and go limp in the machine... A mechanical whining came from inside, and a little 'shunk'. The nurse donned a glove and put her hand in to retrieve the severed stumps of Jason's fingers, now cut to surgical standard.
"Alright... These are standard fittings, so they're not going to be exactly the same in length." The nurse said, unpackaging a pair of cybernetic fingers that had already been in the back. "But they're never more than a few millimeters off. Your fingers might tingle for a few days, but that'll be about the worst of it."
The familiar sensation of being forced to strip half naked and had surgery done on him by a complete stranger while they numbed whole limbs and the effect of reminding him of home. Considering his home was the secret base of what was quite possibly the worst concocted and carried out military grade enhancement program that had been carried out by humankind since the fall of the Black Claw Empire, this little bit of nostalgia just managed to elicit a grimace. "Huh. For some reason I thought that this would be a bit more of an ordeal."
For not the first time in his life, he found himself wishing that basic knowledge of modern medical technology and practices had been a part of the SSI regimen. Maybe they could have made room by throwing out how to make a garrote out piano wire. Glancing at his, soon to be new digits, the boy gave a low whistle. "Sounds about right, let's just get the installation over with."
"This place exists to serve the demand for midnight drunken antics. About half the people coming in are after something stupid they've thought up after a night on the sauce." The nurse said. "It's not an ordeal so long as you keep still..."
The machine started to buzz. The fingers being fed in to it lined up, while tiny surgical implements darted in and out. Wiring was connected to nerve endings, the metallic brace fitted against the skeletal structure of Jason's hand. All in all it took about half an hour, the duration of which the Nurse obligingly turned on a holo-projector and handed Jason a remote to browse NEPflix as she operated the machinery. Overall painless as the procedure was, it seemed that the worst part of all of this? Boredom.
"Your arm will be sort of floppy for the next hour or so, but we've treated the skin so it'll heal fast. Just keep in mind not to do any heavy lifting for a few days after this." The nurse said distractedly as she neared the end of the procedure.
Admittedly, perhaps it didn't take working at the Cyberzone for the monotony of it to start slowly driving someone mad. You'd think that perhaps having the greater part of a entire interstellar societies cinematic history laid out before him might have been a bit of a dream for someone who's most stimulating access to media were combat simulations, but alas it was not to be so. Maybe it was a artifact of a life spent always active, forcing him to find whatever pleasure he could in his work...or maybe he was a bit of a snob when it came to this stuff. Either way, after flipping through a dozens of different programs in the span of several minutes, he finally settled on hatewatching some action flick centered around the first deployment of a m-series frame against a Black Spiral splinter group, mentally complaining over every technical accuracy he could. Before the blue haired woman current performing surgery on him had spoken up, the pilot had almost forgotten she was here, having contented himself with the beginnings of writing some hate filled "review" on holoflick database comment section using the mindware connection. "I'll be sure to pawn off anything strenous to rest of my team while we're here, thanks."
A few moments and a few tweaks, with a final spraying noise as liquid skin was sprayed to graft the joint: Jason was released. The blue haired woman removing all his straps and moving the machine that goes ping away. Whatever it actually did remained a total mystery.
"We're done here, you'll be fine so long as you don't get in any barfights or something." The nurse said, "If you do get in a barfight, come right back here so we can patch it again for an extra fee."
They puller their hand back into the open air, attempting to wiggle the two appendages just to be sure hadn't just been gyped. In the process both of them began to vibrate, starting to buss before he quickly turn it off. "Oh for...I forgot I bought that attachment." Quickly redressing himself, he paused for a moment after streching and donning the suit and it's helmet. "Thanks for the advice. If I win, i'll be sure to go extra far in maiming them before I send them to you. Think of it as my version of a tip."
"I'd prefer a real tip."
"....Listen, does it look like I keep money in this thing?" He spread his arms out wide to show off the near skin-tight nature of the suit. Wondering for a moment if he should just ignore her or try to bum some money off of Arccos, he sighed before...she explained that it was fine.
"I get paid on commission and you just gave me a big pay bump for primo product sold." She said, opening the door to the front room, "Don't worry about it."
"Thanks, I'll make sure to buy something else unnessecarily costly from you with her money the next time she gets me shot." She might have seen him flash a smile, probably for the first time since he had entered the building, if his face wasn't obscured. With little pause he sauntered out the door, he scanned the room in order to check if Arrcos had decided to leave him here.
While the front room was empty now, Arccos hadn't left. Instead she was waiting outside, smoking one of her foul little cigarillos... The blue haired nurse just took up her seat at the counter again, and resumed looking up pictures of fluffy puppies on the interNEP.
If Jason knew a little bit more about the taller woman whose money he had just wasted, he might have asked her what she was doing smoking given the current body, but for the moment he just saddled up to her said. "I don't know why'd you come out here just to smoke, it's fucking freezing and last time I checked you weren't wearing a space suit. Thanks for not ditching me here though, not exactly carrying a wallet on me" THey formed their left hand into the shape of a finger gun with the new mods, pretending to fire a shot. "Then again I guess that NSP would have gone for at least a thousand at a pawn shop."
Arccos smirked a little, plucking her smoke from her lips with a mechanical hand. It was true, she wasn't well insulated, and seemed to have the majority of her outfit consist of jeans and a rather light coat, topped with her sheriff's hat. In actuality she was just heated by her internal generator.
"You're in the Nepleslian colonial body. You should just use it to mug someone if you're out to keep yourself in money..." She ashed on to the ground, replacing the cigarillo "Selling's a one-time payout, but you can shake down a few dozen people before needing to recharge that thing."
“Well as long as you don't mind me making some noise while we're out here, I might take you up on that offer later. I could use a new wardrobe that doesn't just consist of a advertisements for bands I've never listened too. You ever heard of one called Aethersperm?"
"Most famous band in the Kikyo sector? Yes. I prefer DJ ENtropic, though..." Arccos said, starting to walk, "I also admire that your reasoning isn't that everyone can basically see just... All of your intimate neccesities in your tighties there... Want to swing by some place with clothing?"
"Hey, if you're offering...I just figured that it'd be a shame to hide a body this perfect to the world. I'm really doing my civic duty, wearing this." He followed on after her, using his mindware to pirate a beat while he followed after her. "Besides, this is the only thing I have with any body armor, believe it or not, and i'd feel naked going out on a mission without something to stop a bullet."
"Pretty sure we came here to go ship shopping. Or at least the others did. Not a combat mission." Arccos dropped her smoke, stamping it down into the gravelled and salted ice.
"Hey, every mission could turn into a combat mission." His arm swept out in front of him. "Look at all this mist, who knows who could be stalking us out here. Or pirates. Maybe we get attacked on the way back by pirates. Speaking of, if anyone back home asks, I got this wound singlehandedly fighting off a boarding party and not because some native with a assualt rifle missed Akemi."
"Well, considering that the very first mission of what is now the Usotzan army was to clean up this city's streets of crime? It's a bit unlikely that we'd be facing random criminals around here." Arccos said over her shoulder, looking back to watch his gestures, "But sure. Might want to make it more believable and shoot Akemi so it doesn't look like you were the only one who got hurt."
"Just as much reason to be fearful for your life. Maybe some grieving relatives are still out their, craving revenge for the sudden loss of their flawed but ultimately deserving of life loved ones? Wanting to end these cruel people before they export their ruthless brand of justice to some other poor world." He replied, tounge firmly planted in his cheek. " Not entirely sure it makes much sense shoot him and not Rubi. Pretty sure he's a neko, they'd just regenerate by the time we got back. All though if your giving me permission to shoot him next time I see him anyway, I might take you up on the offer. Promise not to hit any innocent bystanders this time."
Arccos just shook her head a little at the concept of someone deserving life. Something pretty counter to what she thought, at the very least.
"Permission granted." She said grimly, "I'll even reward you if you make it particularly painful, or humiliating for him."
"Consider it on my to do list then. I can probably steal his wallet while I'm at it and skip out on the the other reccomended muggins. You did say he was loaded."
"Anyway, any idea where we're going to get some threads? Don't exactly know my way around here yet."
"Don't know. I usually go for thrift stores..." Arccos said idly, "What sort of clothes you after?"
"I don't know, I liked that...kind of urban look Uso had when she bought me. Baggy pants, hoodie. I could rock that shit."
"Bought you?" Arccos asked, tone a little harsher. A sudden urge to kill Uso rising deep within the hermetically sealed braincase somewhere about her mechanical body.
"Hmmm?" Arccos obviously couldn't see that he had a raised a eyebrow, but she could probably hear the confusion in his voice that signalled he must have thought it was one of the more innocous things he said all day. "Yeah, you know, like...Wanted to buy a ace pilot I guess, found the guys who made me, and picked me outta the crowd to take cuz...you know, I'm fucking awesome."
"She paying you for your work as an ace pilot?" Arccos continued her march through the snow, trying to work this one out as she went.
"Not that I know of." The fact that he was seemingly being forced to fight on behalf of some warlord without any financial recompense didn't seem to weigh very heavily on him, considering the boy's body language and tone. "I get a place to sleep and stuff to fight with. Does that count?"
"She got some way of making you do stuff against your will?" Arccos paused, holding her datapad out and tapping in a few commands. Looking for directions for anything open this time... Then again, it was Nepleslia. Nothing ever slept in the imperium...
"Following my owners instrustions is basically hardwired into my mindware, as far as I know. Don't have to sweat me turning on you if that's what your scared of." The young man adopted a concillatory tone, doing the same with his internal hardware as she was with her datapad. "Not that i'd do it anyway. Friendly fire aside, I kind of like this gig. Lot better then what I got up to in the SSI."
"Well, remind me to dig out whatever obedience protocols they have in your skull, then you can point whatever big guns on the thing you pilot at Uso and request a living wage." Arccos said bitterly, "If she can pay weenieboy Alex, she can pay whatever hyper ace pilot she purchased..."
"I-uh...wait, what?" The boy let out a laugh in a blatant attempt to deflect from his surprise, but couldn't manage to hide the nervousness in it. "I mean I don't know...I mean you're not seriousness, right? I mean, I don't really want to do anything that I could be sent back for...you're kidding, right?"
"Why wouldn't I be serious?" Arccos stopped in the street, turning to look this mystery pilot in the visor. "Slavery is illegal, pretty much everywhere."
"...Isn't she your boss?" The impending realization that he might actually have agency in his decisions for the first time in his life was one that was taking a bit of time to digest. "I don't really get why you care. If people aren't coming after you guys for taking over a planet, they're not going to come after you for buying me. I mean if this about making up for the shooting I appreciate the though but...fuck."
"She's the boss, and she pays me. If she gets shot, I can find another job." Arccos shrugged, "At least that's how I'm explaining it right now for the sake of argument. I can give you other explanations about preventing humanitarian intervention, or keeping a motivated workforce on the planet. Why I care doesn't matter. I'm presenting you with an opportunity for getting paid for doing the same work. What's there to be nervous about?"
"I I think they'res a non-zero chance of me getting shot..." He stilled sounded as if he was in shock, but after a moment of silence the young man just shook his head, letting out a wistful sigh. "Shit, I guess i've risked my life for less. Yeah, sure, it's a deal." He looked away from her, deep in thought. "I'm really going to have beat the shit out of Akemi to pay you back for this."
"Good man. Now let's get you some pants."
"So I guess we better find you a clinic." Arccos' voice droned slightly, as she worked her way between mounds of accumulated snow and ice.
New Belfast was probably quite unlike anything Jason had seen in his brief life in whatever basement he got brought up in. Busy, noisy, filthy. People scrambling this way or that with heavy coats and faces masked with scarves to keep out the vicious chill of the planet's icy winds. Heavy fog on the streets still meant that one would spend most of their time navigating towards distant neon glows in the haze while dodging the shapes of those on the streets which were only visible up close.
For the most part, the heat generated by his pilot suit did it's job keeping the freezing temperature at bay, having been built with the far colder vacuum of space in mind, but his gauze-wrapped stubs had the problem of bleeding heat away. In the moment he had settled for nestling his left hand tight between his arm and right flank, occasionally shivering or muttering curses while they made their way down the street. "Give me a second, I'm going to see if I can find a map. I swear if this place doesn't even have the internep..." As his mindware attempted to hook up to whatever local, public network might be on the planet Jason's eyes darted between every rising structure or blaring flash of light that rose out of the fog, seeing a sight he had only experienced in simulations for the first time in his brief life. "I just want to say if it turns out this place is using leeches like the 'doctors' i've seen at one eight eight I'm shooting you."
"I been shot before, didn't really bother me. Doesn't intimidate me either..." Arccos shrugged as she drove her foot through the crust of ice on a puddle on the street, and forged on "You should be able to get satellite interNEP access anywhere in the city. You want the city hospital, or something boutique? There's a place called the Cyberzone, which may or may not be a strip club, but I recall Rip saying some good things about some of the chains..."
"Chance the state of publicly funded healthcare in a libertarian state or potentially get augmented by someone named after a brand of champagne. Tough choice." Inputting the name Cyberzone into a search app, Jason attempted to send his companion a copy of the directions well. "But my spite tells me to go with whatever option costs you more money, so Cyberzone it is."
Arccos in turn was not bothered in the slightest by the money. Seemed that the planet's income must have been pretty good, considering that the algae export was doing well. Edible protein and fresh water trade to a Freespacer station was literally selling drinkable water to the thirsty... Arccos didn't correct that there was far more expensive chains of cybernetics, however.
"Alright, trudge along this way." the towering 'spacer picked up the pace, forging a path down one particular street... A few more turns, and a fairly miserable walk later, and the two found themselves before a squat establishment built out of an old pre-fab compound that had been part of the first wave of colonization. Neon lights in the windows read 'Cybernetics! Cosmetic Body Mods! Open All Night!'
"So, given what Aashi's said I take your the sheriff. Like, the head of the whole...well, I'd guess you'd call it a country." It seems there was only so much passive aggression Jason could pack into a single conversation before he took a break. "Gotta ask, do you usually put out hits on people or was this a special occasion?" He asked as he stepped through the door, not quite bothering to think about the wisdom of carrying on this conversation in public. "Not to say the guy probably didn't deserve it. I'm pretty sure by the time he was arguing with me about the merits of self medication while Rubi was pointing a automatic rifle at us any mishaps would probably fall under natural selection."
"I usually put 'hits' on criminals. And if I wanted to I could have hung the guy a few weeks ago for trying to force himself on me." Arccos said, speaking quite clearly. Apparently this sort of talk wasn't out of place in Nepleslia. Private security forces were usually more effective than the real police, particularly here in New Belfast. "He's just worth too much money for us at the moment."
The cybernetics boutique didn't actually prove to be a strip club. But it certainly wasn't the most family friendly of places. Many of the mods it was advertising were cosmetic in nature, in very particular ways. The room itself was almost sterile, white walls, white tiled floor, all polished and gleaming... It was mainly the pictures projected along the walls that gave it a less than seemly appearance. A young woman dressed in scrubs, with a shock of bright neon blue hair sat at the counter and simply tapped a sign which read 'make all selections before seeking help'. She probably wrote it herself.
Arrcos didn't waste anytime, smashing the electronic projector and bringing up the catalog.
Neither did the short, wounded figure standing right beside her. He scrolled through the pages at a breakneck pace, apparently having no trouble filtering through pages worth of information at a glance...or a rather cavalier attitude towards the whole endeavor. "Ah, the universal rule." A hint of amusement has returned to his voice.
"Make yourself useful enough, and you can get away with almost anything. Still, the tazing oughta count for a nice consolation prize. Just try not to get me caught in the crossfire next time."
Occasionally he would stop to apply a option, seemingly doing his level best to apply as many enhancements to the replacements as possible...which admittedly wasn't much considering the appendages he was getting. A durable frame of metamaterials. Microsensors hooked up to nerve clusters that gave it a normal sense of touch. A tighter grip for what it's worth, and a faster speed on the trigger of a gun. Hell, he even checked the box labeled vibrator, all though without skimming the somewhat suggestive description.
"So, what's your pin number?"
Just as Jason asked that a message was coincidentally received by his Mindware from his favourite male Neko. "Hey man, you should totally ask Arccos to decide what your new fingers should look like. I bet she'll suggest something sick. And if you say you'll leave the choices entirely up to her I bet whatever you get will turn out extra awesome."
Visibly rolling his eyes at the message, he followed up. "And if you feel like it, mind helping me figure out what sort of finish to give them?"
"I'm not going to share my banking details with anyone, especially with anyone who has given away their active mindware thus has probably got perfect memory." Arccos said blandly, sweeping a thumb over her datapad as she waited for Jason to finish his ordeal. "And it's your body, you should decide what it looks like, not anyone else... Finish up, then I'll pay..."
"Ah, was a worth a shot, at least." They replied, returning their attention to the data slate and choosing a synthetic, lifelike facsimile. "All right, go ahead."
Arccos strode across the room, extracting a metallic card from her pocket and slipping it on to the counter. Pre-paid DA card, seemed she didn't even want to use a bank period. A few taps on a datapad from the blue haired woman in scrubs, and everything was paid for.
"The patient should follow me, please." The blue haired woman said, "It's a minor procedure, so we can do it on the fast installer under local."
The Freespacer footing the bill just stood there, doing whatever it was she was doing on her datapad. Waiting...
Of all the indignities he had been forced to suffer through in the past few hours, he could at least be thankful that spending the next few days explaining an injury to everyone new he meets and having to use his right hand for everything wasn't going to be one of them.
“Let's get this over with, then.” They followed after the rather colorful nurse, not bothing to look back as they produced a short wave to Arrcos while he left.
Arccos gave a little nod in return, as Jason was led into the back room and instructed to sit on a rather soft chair. Equally blindingly white like the rest of the place. The blue haired woman wheeling over a couple of machines. One lowered next to the patient, with a cylindrical frame which could easily fit an entire human arm. The other, a mysterious machine that just seemed to go ping every once in a while.
"You'll need to remove any arm coverings, and slide the limb of choice into the quick installer..." The nurse(?!) said, almost boredly.
The young man wasted very little time in beginning to remove his pilot suit, starting with the helmet that had obscured his face ever since they stumbled upon the Pumpkin Eater. He took a moment to run a hand through his blonde look, a grimace plastered on their boyish face. "Gotta admire someone with enthuisasm for what they do..." He said with a noticiable sarcasm before unzipping the upper part of the suit, and removing the black Aethersperm T-shirt that they had wore underneath before following the nurses instructions. "Then again if this was the highlight of my work i'd probably have gone crazy and shot up the office by now."
"Consider it the mark of a professional who has done this so many times it's become routine." She said, the machine behind her going ping as she pressed a few more buttons. Following the instructions, Jason was made to slide his arm in to the machine. His palm being strapped down flat to keep it still as some sort of cold mist was sprayed around his bicep. The hypo-spray soon doing its work, causing his whole arm to numb and go limp in the machine... A mechanical whining came from inside, and a little 'shunk'. The nurse donned a glove and put her hand in to retrieve the severed stumps of Jason's fingers, now cut to surgical standard.
"Alright... These are standard fittings, so they're not going to be exactly the same in length." The nurse said, unpackaging a pair of cybernetic fingers that had already been in the back. "But they're never more than a few millimeters off. Your fingers might tingle for a few days, but that'll be about the worst of it."
The familiar sensation of being forced to strip half naked and had surgery done on him by a complete stranger while they numbed whole limbs and the effect of reminding him of home. Considering his home was the secret base of what was quite possibly the worst concocted and carried out military grade enhancement program that had been carried out by humankind since the fall of the Black Claw Empire, this little bit of nostalgia just managed to elicit a grimace. "Huh. For some reason I thought that this would be a bit more of an ordeal."
For not the first time in his life, he found himself wishing that basic knowledge of modern medical technology and practices had been a part of the SSI regimen. Maybe they could have made room by throwing out how to make a garrote out piano wire. Glancing at his, soon to be new digits, the boy gave a low whistle. "Sounds about right, let's just get the installation over with."
"This place exists to serve the demand for midnight drunken antics. About half the people coming in are after something stupid they've thought up after a night on the sauce." The nurse said. "It's not an ordeal so long as you keep still..."
The machine started to buzz. The fingers being fed in to it lined up, while tiny surgical implements darted in and out. Wiring was connected to nerve endings, the metallic brace fitted against the skeletal structure of Jason's hand. All in all it took about half an hour, the duration of which the Nurse obligingly turned on a holo-projector and handed Jason a remote to browse NEPflix as she operated the machinery. Overall painless as the procedure was, it seemed that the worst part of all of this? Boredom.
"Your arm will be sort of floppy for the next hour or so, but we've treated the skin so it'll heal fast. Just keep in mind not to do any heavy lifting for a few days after this." The nurse said distractedly as she neared the end of the procedure.
Admittedly, perhaps it didn't take working at the Cyberzone for the monotony of it to start slowly driving someone mad. You'd think that perhaps having the greater part of a entire interstellar societies cinematic history laid out before him might have been a bit of a dream for someone who's most stimulating access to media were combat simulations, but alas it was not to be so. Maybe it was a artifact of a life spent always active, forcing him to find whatever pleasure he could in his work...or maybe he was a bit of a snob when it came to this stuff. Either way, after flipping through a dozens of different programs in the span of several minutes, he finally settled on hatewatching some action flick centered around the first deployment of a m-series frame against a Black Spiral splinter group, mentally complaining over every technical accuracy he could. Before the blue haired woman current performing surgery on him had spoken up, the pilot had almost forgotten she was here, having contented himself with the beginnings of writing some hate filled "review" on holoflick database comment section using the mindware connection. "I'll be sure to pawn off anything strenous to rest of my team while we're here, thanks."
A few moments and a few tweaks, with a final spraying noise as liquid skin was sprayed to graft the joint: Jason was released. The blue haired woman removing all his straps and moving the machine that goes ping away. Whatever it actually did remained a total mystery.
"We're done here, you'll be fine so long as you don't get in any barfights or something." The nurse said, "If you do get in a barfight, come right back here so we can patch it again for an extra fee."
They puller their hand back into the open air, attempting to wiggle the two appendages just to be sure hadn't just been gyped. In the process both of them began to vibrate, starting to buss before he quickly turn it off. "Oh for...I forgot I bought that attachment." Quickly redressing himself, he paused for a moment after streching and donning the suit and it's helmet. "Thanks for the advice. If I win, i'll be sure to go extra far in maiming them before I send them to you. Think of it as my version of a tip."
"I'd prefer a real tip."
"....Listen, does it look like I keep money in this thing?" He spread his arms out wide to show off the near skin-tight nature of the suit. Wondering for a moment if he should just ignore her or try to bum some money off of Arccos, he sighed before...she explained that it was fine.
"I get paid on commission and you just gave me a big pay bump for primo product sold." She said, opening the door to the front room, "Don't worry about it."
"Thanks, I'll make sure to buy something else unnessecarily costly from you with her money the next time she gets me shot." She might have seen him flash a smile, probably for the first time since he had entered the building, if his face wasn't obscured. With little pause he sauntered out the door, he scanned the room in order to check if Arrcos had decided to leave him here.
While the front room was empty now, Arccos hadn't left. Instead she was waiting outside, smoking one of her foul little cigarillos... The blue haired nurse just took up her seat at the counter again, and resumed looking up pictures of fluffy puppies on the interNEP.
If Jason knew a little bit more about the taller woman whose money he had just wasted, he might have asked her what she was doing smoking given the current body, but for the moment he just saddled up to her said. "I don't know why'd you come out here just to smoke, it's fucking freezing and last time I checked you weren't wearing a space suit. Thanks for not ditching me here though, not exactly carrying a wallet on me" THey formed their left hand into the shape of a finger gun with the new mods, pretending to fire a shot. "Then again I guess that NSP would have gone for at least a thousand at a pawn shop."
Arccos smirked a little, plucking her smoke from her lips with a mechanical hand. It was true, she wasn't well insulated, and seemed to have the majority of her outfit consist of jeans and a rather light coat, topped with her sheriff's hat. In actuality she was just heated by her internal generator.
"You're in the Nepleslian colonial body. You should just use it to mug someone if you're out to keep yourself in money..." She ashed on to the ground, replacing the cigarillo "Selling's a one-time payout, but you can shake down a few dozen people before needing to recharge that thing."
“Well as long as you don't mind me making some noise while we're out here, I might take you up on that offer later. I could use a new wardrobe that doesn't just consist of a advertisements for bands I've never listened too. You ever heard of one called Aethersperm?"
"Most famous band in the Kikyo sector? Yes. I prefer DJ ENtropic, though..." Arccos said, starting to walk, "I also admire that your reasoning isn't that everyone can basically see just... All of your intimate neccesities in your tighties there... Want to swing by some place with clothing?"
"Hey, if you're offering...I just figured that it'd be a shame to hide a body this perfect to the world. I'm really doing my civic duty, wearing this." He followed on after her, using his mindware to pirate a beat while he followed after her. "Besides, this is the only thing I have with any body armor, believe it or not, and i'd feel naked going out on a mission without something to stop a bullet."
"Pretty sure we came here to go ship shopping. Or at least the others did. Not a combat mission." Arccos dropped her smoke, stamping it down into the gravelled and salted ice.
"Hey, every mission could turn into a combat mission." His arm swept out in front of him. "Look at all this mist, who knows who could be stalking us out here. Or pirates. Maybe we get attacked on the way back by pirates. Speaking of, if anyone back home asks, I got this wound singlehandedly fighting off a boarding party and not because some native with a assualt rifle missed Akemi."
"Well, considering that the very first mission of what is now the Usotzan army was to clean up this city's streets of crime? It's a bit unlikely that we'd be facing random criminals around here." Arccos said over her shoulder, looking back to watch his gestures, "But sure. Might want to make it more believable and shoot Akemi so it doesn't look like you were the only one who got hurt."
"Just as much reason to be fearful for your life. Maybe some grieving relatives are still out their, craving revenge for the sudden loss of their flawed but ultimately deserving of life loved ones? Wanting to end these cruel people before they export their ruthless brand of justice to some other poor world." He replied, tounge firmly planted in his cheek. " Not entirely sure it makes much sense shoot him and not Rubi. Pretty sure he's a neko, they'd just regenerate by the time we got back. All though if your giving me permission to shoot him next time I see him anyway, I might take you up on the offer. Promise not to hit any innocent bystanders this time."
Arccos just shook her head a little at the concept of someone deserving life. Something pretty counter to what she thought, at the very least.
"Permission granted." She said grimly, "I'll even reward you if you make it particularly painful, or humiliating for him."
"Consider it on my to do list then. I can probably steal his wallet while I'm at it and skip out on the the other reccomended muggins. You did say he was loaded."
"Anyway, any idea where we're going to get some threads? Don't exactly know my way around here yet."
"Don't know. I usually go for thrift stores..." Arccos said idly, "What sort of clothes you after?"
"I don't know, I liked that...kind of urban look Uso had when she bought me. Baggy pants, hoodie. I could rock that shit."
"Bought you?" Arccos asked, tone a little harsher. A sudden urge to kill Uso rising deep within the hermetically sealed braincase somewhere about her mechanical body.
"Hmmm?" Arccos obviously couldn't see that he had a raised a eyebrow, but she could probably hear the confusion in his voice that signalled he must have thought it was one of the more innocous things he said all day. "Yeah, you know, like...Wanted to buy a ace pilot I guess, found the guys who made me, and picked me outta the crowd to take cuz...you know, I'm fucking awesome."
"She paying you for your work as an ace pilot?" Arccos continued her march through the snow, trying to work this one out as she went.
"Not that I know of." The fact that he was seemingly being forced to fight on behalf of some warlord without any financial recompense didn't seem to weigh very heavily on him, considering the boy's body language and tone. "I get a place to sleep and stuff to fight with. Does that count?"
"She got some way of making you do stuff against your will?" Arccos paused, holding her datapad out and tapping in a few commands. Looking for directions for anything open this time... Then again, it was Nepleslia. Nothing ever slept in the imperium...
"Following my owners instrustions is basically hardwired into my mindware, as far as I know. Don't have to sweat me turning on you if that's what your scared of." The young man adopted a concillatory tone, doing the same with his internal hardware as she was with her datapad. "Not that i'd do it anyway. Friendly fire aside, I kind of like this gig. Lot better then what I got up to in the SSI."
"Well, remind me to dig out whatever obedience protocols they have in your skull, then you can point whatever big guns on the thing you pilot at Uso and request a living wage." Arccos said bitterly, "If she can pay weenieboy Alex, she can pay whatever hyper ace pilot she purchased..."
"I-uh...wait, what?" The boy let out a laugh in a blatant attempt to deflect from his surprise, but couldn't manage to hide the nervousness in it. "I mean I don't know...I mean you're not seriousness, right? I mean, I don't really want to do anything that I could be sent back for...you're kidding, right?"
"Why wouldn't I be serious?" Arccos stopped in the street, turning to look this mystery pilot in the visor. "Slavery is illegal, pretty much everywhere."
"...Isn't she your boss?" The impending realization that he might actually have agency in his decisions for the first time in his life was one that was taking a bit of time to digest. "I don't really get why you care. If people aren't coming after you guys for taking over a planet, they're not going to come after you for buying me. I mean if this about making up for the shooting I appreciate the though but...fuck."
"She's the boss, and she pays me. If she gets shot, I can find another job." Arccos shrugged, "At least that's how I'm explaining it right now for the sake of argument. I can give you other explanations about preventing humanitarian intervention, or keeping a motivated workforce on the planet. Why I care doesn't matter. I'm presenting you with an opportunity for getting paid for doing the same work. What's there to be nervous about?"
"I I think they'res a non-zero chance of me getting shot..." He stilled sounded as if he was in shock, but after a moment of silence the young man just shook his head, letting out a wistful sigh. "Shit, I guess i've risked my life for less. Yeah, sure, it's a deal." He looked away from her, deep in thought. "I'm really going to have beat the shit out of Akemi to pay you back for this."
"Good man. Now let's get you some pants."
