[Rise of a Fallout Star] 2 – First Contract

It took a wholenother month, a tiresome month, to get a patient for the cyberlimbs and to bribe my way into getting a medical license, and with my inherited skills, I already had the skill of a doctor and a Ripperdoc, so it wouldn't be hard to keep my license, so long as no one went digging very far into said license. As for my first patient, I found him by sheer luck, stumbling upon him in a grocery store when I went out to get some food.

Though it had been a month since I first dreamed of stars...I had another dream a week after I finished my prototype cyberlimb and reached out for the stars once more.

[-4 Charges, Tier 3 Cyberpunk: Cybernetic Augementation]

[-1 Charge, Tier 1 Cyberpunk: Drones]

As like my first experience, the knowledge that flooded my mind sent me to my knees, and I found myself with decades of experience as a Ripperdoc and a Engineer who spent his life deisning, modifying, and making cyberwar while I gained even more memories on the Drones utilized by the residents of Night City.

If it was a monthly phenomenon...Then I could expect another dream of stars in a week from now.

Hearing the sound of the door swinging open, I turned away from my workbench and was met with a rather lithe man with a few scars and missing most of his forearm, entering my little workshop.

"Hey, John, how are you doing?" I asked the Veteran whom I have gotten to know over the course of a week.

"I'm good, Arthur...still feeling some phantom pains," John greeted me, before wincing as he gave a slight glance to what remained of his right arm.

"That's normal, don't worry, it should go away after we install the cyberlimb," I assured John, before beckoning him closer to look at what I was working on.

Coming up around me, he looked upon the rather realistic artificial limb I was tweaking.

"That's it?" He asked, sounding a bit surprised.

"It sure is, I had to modify it a bit so that it would look like your other arm instead of like a normal prosthetic, and the synthskin shouldn't feel too different from your natural skin," I started explaining as I pulled out a small scapel and opened a hidden panel under the synth skin.

"This here is where you can tweak the sensitivity of the fingers, making them more or less sensitive to how fast you want them to move, while this small button here is where you need to press to disconnect the arm, understand?" I asked, showing him the internals of his soon-to-be new hand and forearm.

"And you said this is just the prototype?" He asked, slight awe in his voice at seeing such a realistic artificial limb that looked eerily similar to his other and more intact arm.

"Yeah, I have plans on adding haptic feedback to let the wearer feel through the limb, though I will need time to get to the point where it's completely accurate," I informed him, not trying to raise his hopes too much.

"Even then...what you're doing here..." He started.

"I know. There exist countless people across the states that are disabled or unable to live everyday lives because either they can't afford it, or more simply, the technology or medicine doesn't exist yet," I interrupted, frowning, thinking about what I had seen every day in this new life of mine.

People here wore masks to hide themselves, disguise themselves, and distance themselves from those around them. Most people seemed...fake to me. They did everything to make it appear that their lives were extraordinary and that they faced no struggles, like the US of A was a Utopia, that there was nothing wrong with it.

Sure, racism may not seem to exist here like it did in my old world, but there was a great sense of distrust in those from foreign countries that led to many confrontations through my early life in the States. Not that I was surprised, as the Cold War seemed to only escalate in this world compared to mine. Despite being a US citizen for a little over a decade now, I've still had to deal with the occasional remark or insult, though luckily I was of European descent, and not asian. They had it far worse, after all.

Despite the appearance of a supposed Utopia, the US was far from it. Sure, it may have advanced technologies such as Fission and Fusion Reactors, Nuclear-powered Cars, Laser, Plasma, and Pulse weaponry with Power Armor, but the resource wars hit the US hard. Gas alone is worth nearly a thousand dollars per gallon alone. This markup in price was evident in other things, too, with many raw resources becoming rather expensive as well. 

This prototype arm before me, I could have made for around $300 in my last life, but in this one? The cost to make this relatively simple prosthetic was about $800, to get the metal, electronics, and copper. Yet, the average wage was not rising with the cost of essential goods and services.

On the street, I could see many men who spent day by day toiling away to earn enough money to feed their family scraps of food, workplace injuries were common here in Texas, I saw many who were scarred, burned, or disabled, and I saw an equal number of beggers, hobbos, and even children left on the streets to starve.

I wanted to do something, but I also knew that whatever I did could very well be proved useless by the Great War to come. That is...if I didn't use the abilities I've been given to change the fate of the world and the wasteland of the future. There were plenty of technologies that I remembered from my past life that could change the fate of this world for the better. The problem was, did I have enough time?

I had less than seven years, seven years to prepare for what was to come.