“Chrome Compressor!” Doc screamed at the top of his lungs, “And an Apogee Sandevistan, dead dog!” The Caribbean RipperDoc brought his face so close to the chrome that Maine had put on the table that he was liable to kiss them at this point.

  Why the fuck he still stuck to this degenerate, Maine couldn’t quite answer. Loyalty, maybe. The guy had gotten him started after all. And he was the only one that would continue to work on him because he didn’t have all them ‘ethical concerns’ that all those other hacks kept yapping about.

  "You know what you just bought yourself with the Compressor? A whole new life!" The Doc laughed, “And you want to come back to the edge with the Apogee? Genius, I tell you.”

  “Calm your tits, asshole,” Maine growled, “Can you install it? Yes or no?”

  “Can I install it? You dunno who the fuck I am? Fuck yeah I can install it! Get on that chair so we can start rippin’! Choomba, you hit the fucking lottery! Ain’t a fixer in town with this chrome on hand. It’s bleeding edge, ya get me? Bleeding focking edge! And the Sandy on top of all dat? Which church ya go to? Choom, let me join! You one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?”

  Dorio tapped her foot impatiently, “Are you high right now? Because if you are, Doc, I will break your spine in half.”

  “Philistines, all of you! No idea the kinda miracle you brought into mi shop,” He shook his head in dismissal, still grinning, “Chair, Maine.”

  Maine turned to Dorio, “I want the crew in here around the time he starts wrapping up, babe.” Then he cracked a grin, “I want y’all to be the first to watch when I fire up the Sandy.”

  Maine sat himself on the chair, stomach first, careful not to put his full weight on it immediately. He tried getting comfortable while Doc set him up.

  “You want the sleepy potion for this one or?” Doc asked.

  He’d rather not wait through the entire operation, “Knock me out, Doc.”

  He felt a stab in the circulatory access point in his arm—one that would lead to what little flesh still remained in his body. Moments later, he failed to continue holding his eyes open.

  He awoke with a start, his back sore and aching, and the world was noisy.

  What the fuck is going on? Was the Sandy really this gnarly? No, this—this wasn’t the Sandy. David and them had already worked on it after all, and sure, it would have a little bit of weight to it, but this—

  “Help me—argh!”

  “D, you’re gonna kill him!” Lucy.

  “What the fuck is going on, D!” Rebecca.

  He heard a wet slicing sound and then—

  Something pushed him out from his chair. Maine shook himself awake and stood up, biting through the pain to find—David standing there, glaring daggers at him, mask off. “That scumfuck’s your Ripperdoc, Maine?” David asked quietly.

  The scumfuck in question was behind David, nailed to the wall with a katana by his chrome shoulder.

  Maine didn’t think—he just punched. Something within him seemed to wake up, and it felt like he was ripped from the regular flow of time, his fist descending on David’s head like a meteor, sure to hit and splatter him to pieces.

  Then David’s eyes widened and he—stepped to the side. Maine’s fist flew by him harmlessly.

  The shock of his Sandevistan’s activation drained the anger from him. It worked. It worked.

  He marveled, staring at his fist in awe, ignoring the noise going on around them—Dorio shouting, Pilar laughing, Rebecca pointing her gun at Doc, Lucy was glaring at Maine, eyes glowing blue. None of that mattered. What mattered was that Maine could do this all day.

  That was just one activation, and the sting in his spine hardly compared to the worst that he had gone through in life. Yes, this would do nicely.

  David ripped his sword from the wall—and the shoulder it was attached to—and sheathed it. Doc looked rough. His entire face was bleeding, bruising up. Teeth were scattered on the ground. The Ripperdoc could hardly even breathe through all the damage that had been done to him.

  Maine’s curiosity, intermingled with sheer outrage, finally won over, and he glared at the rookie Solo, “What the fuck is going on—”

  “Your two-bit Ripperdoc did the install on my Sandy too,” he immediately said, “I thought I killed him for it. Guess I never did,” he kicked Doc’s leg contemptuously.

  “Goddammit, D!” Dorio shouted, “He’s the only RipperDoc that’ll work on Maine!”

  “This guy almost scrambled my brain—on purpose,” David retorted, “Then he sent scavs to my house to pick the Sandy off my back. But if I flatline his worthless ass, I’ll be the bad guy!”

  Maine honed in on his words, and then looked at Doc.

  And he remembered David’s concern, the fear in those fearless eyes at the mere idea of chipping in.

  All because this scumfuck tried to screw an honest kid out of a hard-won treasure, after everything he had been through.

  He reached into his pocket for a wad of cash, and tossed it at Doc’s broken form. Then another wad for the medical bills. Scumfucker that he was, he owed his long-time Ripperdoc that much at least.

  Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of annoyance in his heart at having burned this bridge.

  Now where would he find another Ripperdoc?

  000

  Outside Doc’s clinic, the air was thick with the stench of garbage and chems, the buzz of neon signs flickering against the grime-slicked alley walls. The cramped space was alive with the hum of distant engines, the occasional burst of laughter from some gangoons loitering nearby, and the ever-present, low murmur of the city breathing. Pipes jutted out from the walls, leaking steam in bursts that caught the sickly yellow glow of a broken streetlamp up ahead.

  Dorio pulled me away from the main group, just as Falco’s Emperor revved up, its headlights cutting jagged shadows through the alleyway’s filth. Probably about to give me a bunch of lip for screwing with Maine’s biz. Whatever. I’d just—

  “Thank you,” Dorio said, arms folded, voice low but steady.

  I paused mid-thought, blinking up at her. The flickering red light from a nearby noodle stall danced across the EMP threading on her right cheek, making the thin thread of metal look like an exposed pulsating blood vein—until she went on, her tone softer than I expected.

  “Honestly, just ‘thank you’ ain’t enough. Kid, I’m so grateful, I’d fight MaxTac by your side if you asked. And not just for the chrome work you did.” She scoffed, shaking her head. “I’ve wanted to do to Doc what you did for years.”

  I looked down at the cracked pavement, boots scuffing against something sticky. Didn’t want to think about what it was.

  “Appreciate it, Dorio,” I mumbled.

  Dorio lifted my chin up with her huge fist, and I saw her give a comforting grin, one that lied to me, told me that everything was gonna be alright. “And by week’s end next week, we’ll catch that corpo motherfucker and feed him his balls together, alright? Don’t have to do this alone, you know.” She jerked her chin toward the group ahead, the sound of their voices blending with the clatter of the city. “He fucked with you—means he fucked with us. All of us. So I don’t wanna hear any of that nonsense that this is your fight alone. Nova?”

  I snorted, resisting the urge to grin. What the hell was her major malfunction, anyway?

  “Alright, geez, thanks,” I muttered. “Nova. And… my bad for losing my temper. But that guy? He deserved it.”

  Dorio rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth tugging up. “I know, kid. I didn’t fault you for that, did I? Maine would have killed him on the spot if he didn’t owe him so much for the work he did if you ask me. He was pissed. Ain’t no one in the crew mad at you.”

  One edge of my lip curled up slightly, “You peeped how I weaved Maine’s punch?”

  Her grin widened, all teeth and delight, “Fuck yeah I did!” She clapped both my shoulders, “clean form, kid! We’re definitely due for another round of sparring. And don’t leave me hanging, alright?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, grinning slightly, “Alright… I guess. Uh, hey—you guys go on ahead, alright? Got some stuff to do on my own.”

  "Sure! See ya around!" Dorio gave me a wave before walking off to Falco's Emperor. Once they took off, I re-entered Doc's clinic, gun in hand, and watched as he slid on his own blood, trying to get up. He looked up at me, his red eyes bent into terror.

  Then I shot him in the fucking head.

  I spat on his corpse before leaving.

  000

  Maine sat still as the last of the cables detached from his chrome, the soft hiss of disengaging ports filling the tinkering room in Pilar’s house. He flexed his right hand, fingers curling with effortless precision. No lag. No phantom strain. Just seamless, natural movement. His mind mapped the limb’s position with absolute clarity—no drift, no hesitation. For the first time in a long while, it felt like his own. His whole body did.

  Except for that new oversized Neural Link on his back—the one that held his new Sandy. And the back of his skull, where the Chrome Compressor sat. It hardly hurt—Doc’s shit was good when you were willing to pay preem edds for them. Ideally, he’d have asked the bastard for his opinion on David’s work, but since they were now on the outs, he found himself having to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a professional opinion—Pilar’s, apparently.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Guy was cagier than a motherfucker about his days before he joined the crew, and though Maine didn’t give enough of a shit to pry, he had pieced together a few tidbits over the years—that Pilar had been a walking cyberpsycho factory for Maelstrom, his former gang, and that he himself had ridden that edge for quite a while before quitting.

  Pulled down to Earth by his little sister of all people.

  Maine flexed his fingers, grinning wide as he twisted his wrist, then clenched and unclenched his fist like he’d just been given a new body. "Shit, man. This is smooth. Smoother than smooth—this is preem-tier chrome feel. I don’t even gotta think about it anymore. It’s just... there. Like it’s always been mine."

  Dorio smirked from where she leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him like she was making sure he wouldn’t float off in excitement.

  Pilar, meanwhile, sat behind the desk, scrolling through the diagnostic readouts. He let out a low whistle. "Well, fuck me sideways. Didn’t think the kid had it in him. These numbers are tighter than my last joytoy’s—" he caught Dorio’s glare and coughed. "Uh, real tight."

  "Damn right, he had it in him!" Maine barked a laugh and slapped his own thigh. "I don’t even have to fight my own damn chrome anymore. Feels like I just broke outta a full-body cramp I didn’t know I had. Like my whole ass system’s just... synched up. Perfect."

  Pilar snorted, shaking his head. "Yeah, well, don’t start dry-humping your arms just yet, choom. Code’s good. Real good. Cleaner than any gangoon shit I’ve seen."

  Maine’s grin only widened. "So I got a free’n’easy ride to the top."

  Pilar leaned back, picking at his teeth with a stray cable tie. "Calm your tits, sugar baby—I said the code’s good. Doesn’t make shit free’n’easy.”

  Maine frowned, “Huh?”

  Pilar grinned, “The install work’s still for shit—course, the fuck else can you expect when your Ripper’s a fucking brain potato who sprays semen all over his fucking work station?” Pilar laughed. Maine clenched his fists in anger, “The fact that D still managed to pull your ass down from the edge just means he’s a fucking miracle worker.”

  Maine shrugged, “Still feel nova. That’s gotta count for something.”

  “It's impressive work, but it’s not magic. It’s stallin’ your cyberpsychosis, sure—but it ain’t rewinding jack shit. You keep packin’ on chrome like you do, and eventually, your brain’s still gonna say ‘fuck it’ and check out. Even with that shiny new Chome Compressor."

  Who said he needed to chrome up again anyway? He now had a Sandevistan. And hell, even if he did want to chome up again, with the Compressor and everything else on top, he felt like he could at least install a couple more implants before he really needed to stop.

  Maine huffed. "I’ve got time. I ain’t at my limits yet. I’ve still got it."

  Pilar shrugged. "Eh, normally I’d tell you to stop before you go full cyberpsycho and start makin’ modern art outta pedestrians."

  Dorio sighed. "Real poetic, Pilar."

  "Hey, I call it like I see it," he said, tossing the cable tie onto the desk. "But I gotta give it to you straight as a hard dick, Maine—you’re gonna end up borged to hell before you crack. That shit won’t be pretty. End of the day, kid did a hell of a job. If I wasn’t already drowning in my own genius, shit, I’d be fucking jealous.”

  Maine didn’t see the problem, then. And he wasn’t gonna fucking crack. He already had what it took to play the big leagues now. And with Tanaka in the bag in a few days, he’d finally get his recommendation from Faraday. He’d have the rep to take out a big gig with Rogue.

  “Don’t appreciate the fucking doom prophecy, Pil,” Maine growled, “Sounds like you’re betting against me. And I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “On the contrary, choom,” Pilar grinned, “I’m makin’ a sales pitch! You’re on a one-way trip over the edge and fuckin’ everyone’s started to catch onto it—Kiwi did, ‘s why that hot piece of ass decided to leave. David did, and he hooked you up with fuckin’ real-deal pixie dust to pull your ass back. And since I’m really starting to fuckin’ like that kid,” he shrugged, his overly long fingers splayed, “I’m starting to get the feeling I should put my entire dick into the game—no more half-dicking for me.”

  “Get to the fucking point,” Maine growled, growing impatient. This was new for Pilar, that was for sure. To the point that it excited Maine. But it also worried him—what the hell was he planning?

  “Since Doc Cyberpsycho’s no longer accepting his long-time choom and latest victim—that is, your chromy ass—that means you’re in the market for a Ripper—and one you can trust.”

  Maine’s excitement died immediately. “Not you.”

  “I’ve changed!” Pilar pleaded, “I haven’t made a cyberpsycho in years! And I never made one by accident either—so there’s that!”

  Dorio pressed a gun to Pilar’s forehead. The gray-skinned bastard didn’t even flinch, “Huh?” He asked, surprised.

  “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re doing this for Maine’s good, Pilar, and I won’t blow your fucking head off for joking about this.”

  The orange line on Pilar’s tech visor resolved into two orange orbs like eyes, and Pilar’s expression firmed up, “I’m doing this for Maine’s good.”

  “Why?” Dorio asked, “You don’t give a fuck about people like that, to make such an effort—I know you.”

  Pilar smirked, “Just trying out something new.”

  Maine scowled, “You said you were doing this because of the kid. Why?”

  “Ah, that’s easy,” Pilar grinned, “He might not know it yet—or you, or anyone else, really—but someday, maybe soon, he’s going to do something so fuckin’ impressive, it’ll change this city forever. And I wanna be there to fuckin’ see it. And I want him to be alive to see that shit through. And for that to happen, I’ll need to babysit your psycho ass. That work for you?”

  “He’s not getting any new implants,” Dorio said, pulling the gun back, “That’s non-negotiable.”

  “I’ll do re-installs, maintenance, and upgrades only if the specs aren’t that much higher than before—or if the piece is already falling apart—like those shitty Gorilla Arms. Course, that’ll mean David having to do more work on ‘em. But he worked with shit material and turned it into gold—better stuff’ll only keep you sane for longer, in some cases.”

  Maine latched onto that like a lifeline.

  “But I ain’t gettin’ rid of more ‘ganic,” Pilar said, “Ain’t fuckin’ happening.”

  Dorio took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as though relieved. Then she gave him a look—eyes pleading.

  Maine couldn’t argue with that look. “Fine.”

  “Promise,” Dorio urged.

  “Don’t,” Pilar snorted, “Any time you make an addict promise something, you’ll only turn him into a liar down the line. I’ll slow him down, but ain’t nothin’ stopping him from looking for a Ripperdoc crazy enough to up-spec him once he’s tired of the brakes.”

  Maine growled, “I promise, Dorio.”

  Dorio smiled—but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  Nothing big, Maine thought, I came into this game without anybody believing I could do it. Ain’t shit changed since then.

  He had more than enough belief in himself for any of that to matter.

  000

  I spent hours and thousands of eddies at the range, listening to ‘Acid Breather’ by Mastiff on repeat, dumping lead into the same poor bastard of a target until nothing but scorched paper and splintered wood remained. I shot because I had to. Shot to perfect my aim. Shot to feel something. Shot just to shoot.

  Kept going after it got boring.

  Kept going after it got unbearable.

  And when the boredom and the pain blurred into one, I kept going still—even after the urge to turn my iron on the other poor gonks at the range crept in. All I felt was rage, and I still kept going.

  I took a breath. Ejected my mag. Slapped in another. A deep inhale—controlled squeeze—exhale through my teeth. The target took another volley, paper limbs jerking like some poor sod caught in an EMP burst.

  I couldn’t forget my purpose. Couldn’t let my kinder nature dictate my direction.

  For too long, I had been at the mercy of my own sense of mercy, and where had that gotten me? Mom—gone. My home—trashed. Katsuo? Still fucking breathing.

  At least I’d fix that last part. Take care of him forever. And only a few days after finally gaining the means to do so.

  That decisiveness was my one win. My one point in my favor in this entire mess. And yet, I felt like I’d let it stretch out too long. Even a day was too long. A single fucking day where Katsuo could send his goons to my house—to my home—to mom’s home.

  I saw it again. The way they sat there, lounging like they owned the place. Smoking up the air where my mom used to stand, laughing like it was some joke. Like the pile of ashes on the coffee table wasn’t my fucking mother.

  My grip on the gun tightened.

  I emptied my final mag, my roar filling the range, drowning out the ringing in my ears.

  I’ll kill him.

  I’ll kill him and his dad.

  I’ll kill them all.

  Fuck him.

  Fuck him.

  “DIEEEEEEEEE!”

  The gun clicked empty. My body trembled. My mind screamed for more, but I was done here.

  I shoved past the gonks in my way, ignoring their stares, their muttered curses. Didn’t matter. I had work to do.

  My bike roared to life as I peeled out of the parking lot, burning rubber through the streets of Arroyo. I felt all too tempted to take up another gig with El Capitan, but I knew that my stats were lagging after the sleep deprivation—and all it would do was serve as cheap catharsis.

  Taking care of real biz was the way—not letting off steam. Not until after the real job was done.

  So I rode to Lucy’s house, backpack carrying my most important belongings with me. I gave her a text before arriving, and she was at the door just as I made it up the stairs to her house.

  From there, we got to work.

  000

  “My first idea was to use the Blackwall Gateway,” I admitted, as I typed away on my external Cyberdeck, sitting on her couch. Lucy put down a pair of juice bottles on the table. A nice gesture—she’d finally gotten it through her head that I didn’t like carbonation.

  “Gonk idea,” she muttered, “Don’t tell me you used it, like, at all.”

  I didn’t want to get into that, so I continued, “But as fun as the image of Katsuo screaming himself to death is, it’s needlessly traceable. And besides, from all the work we did last night with Maine’s chrome, I already have the tools to come up with something significantly less traceable.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as fun.

  Lucy’s eyes widened, “What—you want to weaponize cyberpsychosis?” Never let it be said that Lucy wasn’t smart as hell.

  I didn’t take my eyes from the cyberdeck, but I did point at her, “Ding ding ding. It’s clean, it’s slow, and it will fuck his entire life up. Probably kill him, too. Especially if I figure out a way to override his nervous system to cause self-harm…” the more I thought about that, the more I was convinced. That was exactly what I was going to do. If I couldn’t even be there to witness him losing his shit and ruining his life, then I might as well twist the knife and make sure he died.

  No way I was going to leave that gonk alive.

  “The Suicide Quickhack?” Lucy asked, sitting on the couch next to me and looking at the deck. “You really want to get your hands on that? It’s not something you can just build from scratch. You’d have to buy it.”

  “Suicide Quickhack?” I muttered. “Didn’t know that was a thing already. Also, what do you mean?”

  Lucy sighed, setting her juice bottle down. “It’s black-market tech, corpo-restricted for a reason. It’s not just a simple system override—it forces a neural impulse so strong it overrides self-preservation. The good versions—the versions of the Quickhack that can’t be traced—can induce subarachnoid hemorrhages, aneurysms, even heart attacks. And the way it works? The backdoor protocol is locked down tight. No one’s been able to crack it, and the only reason it even exists on the black market is because a single Netrunner figured it out and started selling access. They keep the source locked up. If you want it, you buy it. Or you klep it from someone else who bought it from the source. No exceptions.”

  She glanced at me, gauging my reaction. I was still typing away, half-listening.

  “If you’re thinking of making your own version,” she continued, leaning in slightly, “you’d have to tailor it specifically for Katsuo’s cyberware. The black-market Quickhack works on anything because it’s built on a universal exploit—one no one else has been able to recreate. If you go custom, that means finding out exactly what neural architecture he’s running, mapping out vulnerabilities, and designing a signal that his firewalls won’t catch.”

  She leaned back, folding her arms. “And that’s assuming he doesn’t have countermeasures. If he’s packing trauma overrides or even basic counterware, a botched attempt won’t do shit except give him a migraine—and put you on his radar.”

  I exhaled sharply, fingers still tapping at the keys. Inducing a heart attack or aneurysm? Interesting. But no, I had something better in mind.

  “So I either buy the damn thing, go out and klep it, or make it just for Katsuo,” I sighed, “Well, I know the name of his chrome arms, so that’s a start: Strongarms 400,” I connected my optics to the Net and started researching. Then I whistled, “Expensive stuff. Top of the line consumer models from Arasaka. They’re combat-grade, too.” No wonder he punched like a truck despite his slight build.

  Lucy scoffed, “Arasaka ICE walls are a pain, but we’ll figure it out.”

  “Still,” I frowned, “We need to buy the data on these things. From the Net.”

  “Not necessarily,” Lucy muttered, eyes glowing blue. I looked at her questioningly, “We did nab a pretty fucking massive Data Fortress from the Tygers. I’ve still got it saved on my Network—there. Fuck yeah. Strongarms 400 cyberware operating software. We have it. All that’s left is to figure out its vulnerabilities. Shouldn’t take long.”

  I tried to give her a small grin, failed, “Thanks for coming through, Lucy.”

  She lightly shoved me with her elbow, “I’m your senior in this craft, David. Don’t underestimate me,” her grin dropped as she thought for a moment. Then, she said, “Still, countering Katsuo’s counterware’s going to take a lot of work, especially considering we don’t know what he’s running. But if we assume he’s running top of the line exec shit and work accordingly,” she shrugged, “Safe to say I’m not too worried. So, let’s get to work.”

  “Right,” I nodded darkly, already completely resetting my focus to what came next.

  It was time to take everything I’d learned from fixing Maine’s software, every principle of effective mind-body chrome integration, and reverse it all.

  It was time to make a cyber poison.