The Dimensional Workshop - Chapter 8

The Dimensional Workshop - Chapter 8

There was an inherent issue with cybernetics. 

Mechanics were all based around motors, servos, hydraulics, each with a specific amount of power per piece. Clamping force, horsepower, thrust, all limited quantities. A flat increase. Doubly so for power armor. 

Power armor was as good an augment as the person inside it was weak. It was the equivalent of adding a flat damage number to a low-level RPG character, Great when the level is low, but non-scaling, only to be outdone by gear that actually scales off stats.

Or in this case, with enough strength, the power suit would end up becoming a cage. Your muscles would create more energy than the suit, ending in its destruction or horrific injury.

It was food for thought as I held a vial that contained Senator Armstrong’s specific nanomachines. Simple machines that hardened on contact and released the stored energy on expansion. Defense enough to shatter high frequency blades on contact, offense enough to throw tons of rock at a cyborg ninja. 

Yet, something utterly useless when compared to the sheer power that humanity was capable of showcasing in half the worlds I’d connected to.

What would I do with a cyborg ninja suit in a world where people could use nuclear-level attacks like in the shinobi world? What could some basic nanomachines do in a world where people flung around the power of dragons like in Magnolia?

No. over time, my body would need to catch up. Especially if I kept connecting to worlds higher up on the power spectrum. 

There was also the fact that I couldn’t actually make the nanomachines much better. Self replication and healing were what nanomachines were supposed to excel at. The technology did exist in the world that my body modifications originally came from, but such knowledge was considered taboo, because there were few things scarier than malevolent nanomachines that could self-replicate endlessly.

I could get more abilities from the constellation, but nanomachines and miniaturisation were costly nodes. There were at least half a dozen, and while nanomachines were useful, my body had to be better. Nanomachines could heal, they could strengthen, but they were more useful when it came to deploying technologies faster, the larger the scale the better.

I sighed as I keyed in more instructions into my STC. This was all food for thought, but all of it was for future consideration. 

This world was simple. The world of Cyberpunk was one of disarray, but it was the weakest world I’d connected to, and even with my augmentations, I could easily brave it.

With my new technology? I could tame it. Yet, that was not my intent. What I needed to do was send a message.

I wasn’t forging a new faction. I wasn’t out to destabilise the big corporations. My business was small but profitable, targeting a niche that was already starved. Yet they’d made an attempt on the lives of those that worked with me. 

I had been raised on simple values. Be kind to the weak, because they already have it hard. Be loving to those who show you loyalty, because they will be with you when the world is against you.

And to never forgive those who raised a hand against me and mine.

I was brought out of my ruminations by the grumbling noise of Sasha waking up. The bullets had done real damage to her, not something that even my potions could heal, at least not these basic potions. I could give her an elixir, but I wanted to test something.

I wanted to see just how effectively I could augment others.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked without turning around. I knew that physically she wouldn’t look all that different from before. The augmentations I’d given her were simpler. If my upgrade package was a Rolls Royce, hers was a Miata. No real physical augments, only durability. Certain organs like the liver had to be replaced outright, and the rest were upgraded to be more durable, yet still be fundamentally human.

I could add redundancies, contingencies, but Cyberpunk was a world where it was normal to augment flesh with metal. It would take one pre-operation checkup to figure out that her body wasn’t anything remotely close to normal. Still, even with these augments, she’d live longer, and it would definitely take more than a few pistol shots to kill her.

Priceless gifts for anyone from her universe, two hours of fabrication and application in effort for me. 

“I… where the fuck am I?” She asked, looking around at my workshop. I could see the wonder in her eyes, and the confusion too, considering none of the machines in my workshop interfaced with her cyberware. 

Taking a netrunner away from the intranet was like taking a fish out of water, after all.

“My workshop. Sorry, I had to bring you here to save your little ass.” I spoke, slipping on the cybernetic armsleeves I’d fabricated. She continued to watch my STC hum, working on the weapon I’d chosen for this outing.

“I’m disconnected from the net.” She spoke. “Completely disconnected. That’s never happened before.”

“That’s because you’re dead.” I calmly explained, “These are the pearly gates.”

“Stop bullshitting, choom.” Sasha shot back, scowling, but looking at the impossible, liminal space in front of her definitely took the wind out of her sails. It was only the constant hum of my machines that allowed her to empirically prove that she was not - in fact - dead.

Truly, Sasha really did wear her feelings on her face.

“Fair. You aren’t dead, even though you should be.” I breathed out, feeling the carbon nanotube faux-muscles tense up. I could feel them like my own muscles. The fact that I’d managed neural controls without requiring a direct connection was a minor miracle in itself. I didn’t want to use a system that involved physical connections to nerve endings.

A slight loss in reflexes was bearable. Sockets drilled into my body? Not so much.

“It was my fault. All of it.” She murmured, sitting up, staring at her knees. The guilt on her face was easy to see, and that was all the confirmation I needed to be sure of my theory.

“You looked into Biotechnica’s files, didn’t you?” I started slipping on my breastplate. Well, it was more like a compression tee with how it fit over me snugly, the most aesthetically pleasing arrangement of faux-muscle fibers I could manage. Colored in the distinct grey of pure carbonite, it went well with the color-scheme I was planning. Paints were unnecessary, especially considering none of my machines could really do painting.

I didn’t want to spend hours painting every piece, considering time was of the essence.

“Am I really that easy to read?” She asked. She tried to force a smile on her face, but it never reached her eyes. The look of guilt was far too overwhelming for any other emotion to come through. 

“Yes, you are.” I replied, walking over to the STC to retrieve the last part of my new set of weapons. I had so many to choose from, all the way from Sundowner’s machetes to whatever the fuck Mistral used, but I’d decided on something simpler, something that suited Night City just as much as it suited Metal Gear.

High Frequency blades were always a fun concept. Holding one in my hands? It felt magical. 

“But honestly? It was a matter of simple elimination. The business is too small, both in value and scope to really make Biotechnica worry. So if they sent a whole hit squad against us, then the motive must have been stronger.” I spoke, walking over to her. 

“Ordering it via their subsidiary, using the Maelstrom to pull it off, trying to make it look like a hit on new business rivals. Classic way to bury something bigger.” I finished. 

“You know all this, but you don’t sound… disappointed?” She asked. It was a half-question, trying to gauge whether I was good at hiding my emotions or whether I was simply unflapped by her actions.

In reality, it was neither. 

“I already knew you’d go after them.” I answered with a sigh. “In my brief time knowing you, I’ve come to understand that mere words are not enough to stop you. I’d hoped that when you did get into trouble, it wouldn’t be this serious. Guess I underestimated you.”

“Honestly, I dug too deep.” Sasha commented, pulling her knees closer. “There… there was just so much. That drug was just the tip of the iceberg. I would have made it out clean too, but they had a fucking web daemon protecting their most heinous records.”

“And you completely missed it until it was too late, I assume?” I asked, and got a hesitant nod in return. 

There was silence between us two for a moment as I returned to the STC. There was one piece of this armor left, the one that tied everything together. The main neural cortex, the helm, was by far the most complicated of the set. Keying in the details and setting the STC in motion also gave me time to process what next to say to her.

“Did you at least get a copy of all the data?’ I asked.

“Enough to ruin them ten times over.” Sasha replied, pulling a data shard out of the port on her neck. “And that’s without some of the more heinous shit that I saw in there before the Daemon attacked.”

I nodded and took the shard from her, not missing the way her fingers lingered over my gloved hand a little longer than they should have. Guilt wasn’t the only thing in her gaze. It seemed the fact that I’d saved her had also finally set in.

At least her expression was not one of hero worship. I didn’t do well when working under the expectations of others. 

“I have a plan.” I spoke. “A plan to get back at them for so much as daring to hurt one of my people.”

“It’s going to involve force, which you probably guessed from my outfit and this thing right here.” I spoke, pointing at the HF sword sheathed at my waist. “But the fear that comes from violence doesn’t last forever. I needed a smoking gun, something that would make them think twice about ever crossing me again.”

“And while your actions were ill-advised at best, and suicidal at worst.” I continued, giving her a stern glare, “You have provided me with that smoking gun.”

“You want Biotechnica to pay, don’t you?” I asked, and watched as her expression shifted from that weird combination of guilt and affection to something far easier to read.

Hatred.

“More than anything, for my mom, for the families they’ve ruined.” She growled, her fists clenching till her knuckles were white.

“Then sit back and watch as I introduce Night City to its latest legend.”

LB

Maine actually worked up the courage to confront me.

“I don’t care what you’re smoking, choom. You’re not gonna go in alone.” he spoke, standing in front of me, arms crossed. I was truly touched by the fact that despite his stature, despite his booming voice, he looked nervous. The only reason he stood in front of me was because he cared.

And so did the rest of them. I could read it on the faces, clear as day. Concern, anxiety, the thought that I was getting into something that I shouldn’t be getting into. 

They were underestimating me, not because they forgot who I was, but because weeks of doing business with me had made them see me as their own, in their own tribal way. 

“I already told you, I have a job for you all.” I responded, my power suit thrumming with power, my helmet held in my right hand. “You’re as much a part of this plan as I am.”

“Goin’ around talkin’ to corpos ain’t much of a contribution, is it?” He grumbled.

“I’m asking you to do the things that I cannot.” I continued, pushing past him and entering the makeshift circle his gang had created in the cafe part of my shop. I glanced at their faces, noting a myriad of disapproving gazes. I had to hold back the urge to chuckle.

“You, Dorio, and Gloria are our negotiations unit.” I stated, moving over closer to Gloria and putting a hand on her shoulder. The woman looked worried, even a bit shocked. Which was rare considering she used to be an EMT. Trying to work on bodies while being shot at used to be her bread and butter, so she wasn’t worried about herself.

She was worried for me, she cared, and I found that incredibly heartening.

“I’ve already underlined what you have to do and why you have to do it.” I continued. “You are our CEO, Gloria, and unlike me, you aren’t exactly intimidating.”

“Neither are you, choom.” Dorio chimed in, “You look like the nice gonk next door who’s gonna flatline in some random gang fight within the next week.”

I chuckled at that. “True, but I can wipe the floor with everyone in this room, then heal you all, then do it all over again without breaking a sweat.”

“Bold words.” Dorio narrowed her eyes as I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly.

“This outfit isn’t just for show, you know?” I shot back with a nervous giggle, moving on to Kiwi. She was fussing over Sasha the way only she could, which boiled down to her running continuous monitoring scans on Sasha. It was cute to see. I also hoped I’d done enough to keep her from defecting.

Maybe I could convince her to let me fix her jaw at some point too.

“Wouldn’t know, couldn’t tell. I can’t exactly scan it, just like all your other tech.” She chimed in. “I can hear it working, I know there’s some sort of automation in there, but I can’t hack it, it doesn't even show up on my sensors.”

“That’s kind of the point.” I smiled at her. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. Plus, I need all three of you too, considering I have absolutely no netwalking skills.”

“I’ll need one of you two as central intelligence. I’ll need constant communication, locations of Maelstrom outposts. You all said it’s a splinter group. They’re the ones I’ll hit first.” I explained. “One of you will need to be my eyes on the ground. I’m immune to hacking, but that means I cannot hack back either. I need to know where to go, where my targets are, and if I’m walking into any traps.”

“And Sasha? You already know what to do.” I spoke, handing her the data shard she’d given me. I saw her eyes widen in surprise as I did so.

“No! I started all this. I’m gonna go with you!” She complained, trying to hand the datashard back. I refused to take it, a gentle smile on my face. 

Sure, with her enhancements, she’d be the best person to take with me, but this was her lifelong vendetta, the great coup she’d grown up planning, revising, and almost giving her life for. 

“This is your life’s work, Sasha.” I spoke, pushing her hand back. “Don’t let it slip just because you think you owe me. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

She hesitated before backing off, and as she did, I saw approval on Kiwi’s face. Lucy was unreadable as ever, but there was clear interest in her eyes.

“I’ll be the central intelligence, then.” Kiwi commented with a sigh. “As much as I’d love to join you on the ground, I have certain… limitations.” 

Of course, Kiwi could only operate at her best from her cryo pool. Again, I’d have to ask her to let me fix that. 

“Guess that leaves me to be your on-ground support.” Lucy spoke, walking over to me. She barely came up to my shoulder, but the way she sized me up, especially my suit, spoke to her misgivings, her absolutely deserved paranoia.

“Try not to get us killed.” She finished, tapping me on my shoulder and walking back to join her netrunner buddies.

“What about us? Don’t leave us out of the action, choom!” Rebecca piped up, making me laugh. 

“Actually, I do have a very important job for you and Pilar.” I smiled. “While I’m going to be dealing with the Maelstrom, someone has to clear out the realfoods HQ.” 

“Hell, I even made you two nice weapons.” I said, “Better than anything you’ll find on the market for the next few decades. And yes, I took your personal preferences into account.”

“All of that’s great and all.” Gloria spoke up. Every word I’d spoken had just made her concern deepen. The gaze she gave me was almost pleading in nature. “But this still means you’re going to be walking into a Maelstrom hideout with no one except Lucy for backup.”

I replied with a smile, nonverbally placing my helmet on my head. The collar sealed with a pneumatic hiss as a wave of red light flowed down from my head down to my toes. My faux-muscles began to thrum, drawing power from the nanomachines in my body. 

The extra power afforded to me was intoxicating, beyond anything I’d ever felt before. The only thing that grounded me was that compared to some of the people I’d met recently, this was nothing.

“Don’t worry about me.” I spoke, my voice distorted to the point where it was unrecognisable by the modulator in my helmet. The realistic white skull on my helm did not move as I spoke, but the eyes burned a deep red as my optics came on line.

“This will be nothing more than a field test for the Bladekisser Mk.1” I replied, only to get silence as my reply.

“Choom… that’s name’s really fucking corny.” Rebecca commented, stunned.

“Something tells me that it’s not really going to matter.” I shot back.

LB

Lucy POV

Ryan Willis was an enigma.

I’d moved to Night City because I was - for all intents and purposes - a fugitive. I wasn’t a priority, that much I knew for sure. There was no way a megacorporation like Arasaka would drop everything just to find a failed experiment as replaceable me.

But my mother would, my father would. The fact that they were high ranking members of Arasaka meant nowhere on earth was truly safe for me. Stability was never an option as long as I stayed on this planet, but joining Kiwi and Maine’s crew had given me a glimpse of how things could be.

I’d been part of other crews before, never staying long because Europe was dangerous territory. I’d seen groups fall apart because as plentiful as work was, there was still never enough, and the work that smaller groups got was always the kind one didn’t make it back in one piece from.

Maine’s group was… different. For one, they had an exclusivity contract, something that only the best of the best ever got. Secondly, it wasn’t through a fixer. They interacted with their boss directly, selling fresh that actually lived up to the title.

I’d know. I’d eaten some of the fruit he sent over. I didn’t even care much about food before I had it, just eating enough to keep me going. Now? With a fridge full of fresh specifically sent over for us? I’d actually started cooking meals. 

That, and the pay was amazing. This was the closest to stability I’d ever had in my life, and a few more years of doing this work would not only get me to the moon, but also give me enough of a buffer fund to never need to work again in my life.

The chain of command was always simple. Gloria, the woman with the kind eyes, was our go-between as well as our de-facto ‘boss’. Orders came down from her, and so did supply. She was the mouthpiece as well as the heart of the operation. 

I never got to meet the boss. I knew his name, Ryan Willis, but just as Kiwi and Sasha had told me, there was nothing about him on the net, not even the tiniest piece of information to prove that he existed.

They simply assumed that he was the scion of some big megacorp businessman, but I knew better. In this world, there truly was no way to avoid identification. Everything worked on the net. Transactions, provenance, activity, all of it could be tracked if one knew where to look, and I did, by god I did. Yet, I found nothing.

Ryan Willis did not exist. There was no way he could. He was definitely operating under an alias, or so I believed till I actually met the guy.

He looked peaceful. Not harmless, considering even Maine was cowed by his presence. He had authority, but didn’t use it, instead maintaining the friendly demeanour of a simple shopkeeper. Easy on the eyes, kind, well-spoken, and possessing a face that matched no visual database I could crack into.

I put it aside because the money kept rolling in. The business was doing good, we were getting repeat clients, rich ones at that. I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, at least until Sasha and Gloria got waylaid by the Maelstrom, and I got to see what kind of man Ryan Willis really was.

And he didn’t disappoint.

“Three men, heavy cybernetics, alert.” I spoke into the mouthpiece he’d provided me. It was tiny, barely the size of a patch, a miracle of engineering even by the lofty standards of the megacorps.

I’d already taken over every camera in the warehouse of this branch of the Maelstrom. While Endrick’s group of the Maelstrom were small, they made up for it with the sheer amount of augmentations they possessed. Elite units, each and every one of them. Even with my hacking prowess, I wouldn’t like my chances against any of them.

People with that much gear were already halfway crazy. Cyberpsychosis could set in at any point. I wanted nothing to do with it. 

To Ryan? They barely mattered.

I saw him move into the room, my eyes barely able to follow his movement. The chromeheads in the room fared even worse. That sword of his was a marvel, the way it sliced the first of the three into two without even the slightest of resistance.

The second tried to raise his weapon, but Ryan seemed to blur, appearing in front of him so fast that even I couldn’t track him. Two slashes, one to bisect his weapon, and the second to remove his head from his shoulders.

The third one actually got a shot off, only for Ryan to spin his blade once, deflecting it. I could barely react to the sheer insanity of what he’d done before he disappeared again, appearing on the other side of the borg, whose body hit the ground in three pieces.

All of this, in less than a second and a half. 

I drew in a deep breath. Yeah, he was definitely not overhyping his armor. The Bladekisser, which was still a stupid name, was leagues ahead of the best implants the market had to offer, and it wasn’t even close.

“Targets down.” His modulated voice was cold and measured, nothing at all like the kind voice of the pretty boy in the shop. He was dissociating, a form of self-defense I was more than experienced with.

It continued like this for five minutes. Me, giving him headcounts and details. Him, going room-to-room and removing any opposition. Not a single shot was fired as he carved his bloody path through the base.

It wasn’t even a struggle. I wasn’t even sure if someone like Morgan Blackhand or Adam Smasher could do something like this. 

What the fuck was Ryan?

“Two targets remain. Endrick and his right hand man. Both are borgs, extremely enhanced.” I spoke, my voice low. 

“Acknowledged.” Ryan replied, before cutting off comms again. I took a deep breath as I watched him walk into the room. He didn’t ambush them like the rest of the gonks, instead, he spoke to them.

I couldn’t hear what he said, neither did I need to. Their reaction was clear. Endrick rose from his seat, pulling out an SMG, while the borg went low, mantis blades popping from his arms.

Ryan didn’t even need his sword. He intercepted the borg with a hook, the force of which was enough to completely flatline the gonk. He then pushed a hand through the borg’s metal chest, whirling around and using his body as a makeshift shield against the SMG fire.

Endrick’s magazine clicked empty, and before he could even reach down to his belt to reload, Ryan threw the Borg;s body at him. Hundreds of pounds worth of mass flew at Endrick, sending him flying and embedding him into the wall. Down, but not dead.

Just as we needed him to be.

I sighed as I got out of the car. Ryan had delivered, now it was my time to get to work. Time to get into that borg’s head and get the information needed.

Just another simple workday in Night City.

LB

Next chapter in a day or two to wrap this bit up.