Future Freaks Me Out 1
Static chewed at the inside of her skull first.
SYSTEM RESTART — COMPLETE
Blue eyes blinked away that static, leaving only light.
NEURAL LINK — ONLINE.
Cyberware never woke up gentle, not the shit she could afford. It came online layer after layer, dragging the meat along for the ride in a sick crawl of hardware waiting on wetware, chunky bits of localized heat and nerve-pinch. Pressure built behind her eyes, second after second, a low electric hum threading through the base of her skull like a migraine trapped in a jar. It took a whole three-count before it happened; that faint familiar click deep in her cortex as her agent spun back up and fed her a wash of translucent diagnostics across her vision.
OPTICAL OVERLAY — STABLE
The text hovered for a beat, burning a harsh red up against her groggy corneas, before it slid off to her peripheral as her eyes finally adjusted to the physical rather than the digital.
Like always, the world came back wrong first.
Bright.
Surgical lamps angled over the chair, bright as hell and half as hot. Too fuckin’ bright.
Her vision was still too sharp in some places, the chrome edges of scattered tools on the metal trays glaring back at her. And at the same damn time, weirdly slow in others; the shadows dragging against the cinderblock walls with each blink showed as much, the usual post-anesthetic soup clouded her brain. Dorio took in a long dragging breath — first through her nose — the taste of aerosolized coolant and industrial-grade bleach strong as expected — and then one out through her mouth.
Then she felt the dead weight resting in her lap.
Chrome stared back at her as she looked down, chin tucked against her collarbone, Gorilla Arms heavy and familiar as they rested against her thick thighs. The weapons she knew like the back of her hand — literally — looked cleaner than she’d ever known them, armored plating sitting tight and flush against actuators.
Hmmm. One hand flexed, impulse running from brain to bicep to synthetic knuckles, and massive metal fingers curled inward, smooth and quiet. Huh.
The last ghosting of her reboot cleared, Dorio blinked one more time and tipped her head back against the backrest of the ripper-chair.
A pair of eyes, more blue than her own but even sharper, stared back down at her with a few strands of short black hair hanging over them. The face they belonged to gave her nothing though, empty of expression as much as it was cyberware.
The same went for the rest of his body.
No jack.
No dermal plating.
No chrome visible anywhere.
That last part was still weird as fuck.
Weird enough that the first time she had seen him at the gym a few months back, she’d thought she was losing it. Hell, she’d looked at him a bit too long even , hoping to catch a hidden port or a sub-dermal weave line.
Because nobody went full ‘ganic in N.C. unless they didn’t have the eddies to afford the chrome or were too religious to touch the stuff. The only other option came from being born high enough above the food chain that staying off-chrome was some kind of power play.
And that…
That made more sense than almost anything else because, no bullshit, Niko did not move like a man running low on eddies. The man was definitely all about his coin but he spoke way too clean for anyone who grew up in the gutter fighting for protein paste. His words weren’t fancy, either, but they came clean in a way that didn’t sound like most other people choking out a life in Night City. No, he sounded like someone who had tutors growing up.
Tutors or nannies.
A former corpo, maybe.
Dorio doubted that, though. More like a corpo kid. Someone who either ran or got shoved out the window and managed to land on his feet.
Not her business, though, long as he kept his shit useful and his scalpels clean.
One broad shoulder rolled back against the chair, testing the synthetic joint rotation, muscles still half-heavy. “All good, Nikky?” The vowels scraped her throat dry coming out, the chemicals not doing a thing to help there. “Or you need me unconscious for longer?”
A short snort left the man above her, Niko still sounding half-bored with just a breath. “All done.”
Dorio let out a slow breath, eyes sliding around as the last of the medical blur burned off. Niko’s place was better than she expected after seeing it from the outside, especially for a small backroom spot tucked deep into Vista Del Rey. Just another rusted shutter in an alley of them, the place was nothing flashy but he still managed to make it as neat and clean as any workshop she’d ever been in.
One gloved hand reached over the tray, a small inhaler shoved her way. “Puff.”
The order came out blunt, that little bit of Russian noticeable in it.
She palmed the canister, massive mechanical thumb dwarfing the plastic mouthpiece as she eyed the label. “You know I got an Input?”
If Niko could go anymore deadpan, she’d be surprised. “Don’t be fucking dumb, Dee.”
The corner of her mouth twitched as Dorio pressed the mouthpiece to her lips and took a long pull. Cool vapor slid down her windpipe, the bitter taste shocking her lungs awake.
By the time she exhaled a thin cloud of white mist and looked back at him, Niko had already stepped back, the crazy gear on his forearm folding out as he looked down at it. The casing slid back with a soft whisper, the thing throwing up an orange holo. Wireframe came to life over her chrome, the bright light mapping everything from the shoulder joints all the way down to the bulky housings around the wrists.
Dorio watched the ripper’s eyes track the scanning data, head drifting for a second as the anesthetic peeled its way out of her system. Can’t believe I let this gonk cut me open.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Two months back.
That’s when the gonk had shown up at the gym, with nothing but gloves and an attitude.
Not even a hint of chrome on him and he didn’t think he needed any.
And that was fuckin’ sketchy as hell.
People stopped hitting the bags, a couple dozen eyes on the gonk that walked into a meathouse thick with chromed brawlers, juiced-up boosters and heavy-armor hardcases ready to pick a fight. Most of ‘em figured he was a day away from getting folded into a bloody suitcase and after someone broke his fragile ganic bones.
Maybe not in his first sparring session, but soon.
He hadn’t.
Niko had hit the heavy bag first. Dorio remembered that clear as day, standing by the water cooler with a towel draped over her neck.
Gloves strapped on, stance set wide and grounded, the leather bag had jumped under his thumps in a violent rhythm that made the half the humid room thin out into silence at the sound of some heavy impact.
Tight hips whipped through the centerline, clean rotation with some real payload behind every punch enough to get a few nods his way. Not that Niko noticed.
No, the gonk was too focused on making sure every single hit landed hard enough to make the ceiling chain groan.
Dorio knew leverage. A childhood spent in Icelandic gyms under the strict discipline of her dad taught her enough, hours and hours of hauling deadweight until her palms bled. She wasn’t gonna pretend she was some wiz with the exact mathematics of moving mass but she could recognize raw force generation when she saw it.
And this gonk could hit like he had some low-end cyberarms.
That same week, he stepped into the ring and showed he wasn’t just a bag-beater.
No martial arts master or untouchable ghost or nothing, but the ganic hit like a motherfucker and knew how to do more than just swing. Hell, Dorio had seen bigger men with some real framework on their bones put less heat through their shoulders when throwing a cross.
He’d stuck around, showing up a couple times and blending into the background. He didn’t say much with his mouth, except to talk shit right back.
Shit he immediately backed up with his fists.
The ripperdoc revelation came later.
Dorio had been working the heavy bag late into the night after Maine had already worked her over in more ways than one and she was already feeling sore, sweat cooling fast on the back of her neck. Lungs burning as she worked through another drill, Dorio hissed loud through gritted teeth as that same fuckin’ feeling hit her right in the middle of a heavy right cross.
The stutter came right before the knuckles met the leather, a fraction of lag between her brain screaming fire and the servos actually firing. Not enough to ruin the punch on a heavy bag, but out on a gig? A delay like that meant a scav with a rusty Budget Arms could hit her with a stray bullet to the liver before her fist could kiss his jaw.
Dorio spat out a curse, reset her stance, and hit the bag again just to get the same fuckin’ ghost in the machine.
“Your signal path’s lagging.”
Dorio stopped the swinging bag with one hand, eyes turned over to the ‘ganic gonk still taping his knuckles in the corner. “My what?”
“Arms.” He looked her way, one eyebrow raised high as he finished up the tape on one hand. his voice taking on that sprawling, conversational mechanic’s tone. “Bad handshake somewhere down the line is fucking your nerves over. Figure it’s a routing deal, not a full fuck-up but still enough to fuck you up, get me?” He took in a breath, his other hand finally wrapped fully in white. “Wiring drift, I guess could be that too. Hard to tell from back here, but something in there’s definitely burnt.”
Blue eyes stayed on him for a long second, sweat dripping all the way down to her chin. “You a ripper, Niko?” She hadn’t known what he did back then, but ripperdoc wouldn’t have been anywhere on the list.
He snorted at that like she’d just made a joke. “More of an all-around techie, Dorio.”
That answer had made her actually pause, forearms against the heavy bag.
Because, again: total ‘ganic.
Not even a hint of a neural port or personal jack or anything rlse that came close to the usual sort of chrome that said I live inside people’s bodies for a living that ripperdocs usually went after.
“Well,” a grunt slipped free as she wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, “say fucking less then.”
He had sent the address right there.
Vista Del Rey.
And because Dorio hated her arms feeling sluggish far more than she distrusted weird ‘corpo ganics, she’d hauled her six-foot-eight frame over to the place.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The orange holo flickered, pulling her right back into the present with the sound of his voice in her ear. “Okay, we’re good.”
She sat upright in his ripper-chair with fresh work woven in by a bastard that hadn’t bluffed her one bit. “We’re good?”
The scanning grid skimmed down the length of her forearms, Niko’s blue eyes following the path of the datastream. “Install’s clean as I could get it.” He tapped a floating prompt with a gloved finger. “Was right about the routing on your setup. Some sloppy work on that thing.”
After a second, the man frowned down at her. “Yeah, nah, sloppy’s putting it light. Whoever did that install wanted to keep you coming in. Either that or they were high and blind all at the same time.”
Dorio flexed the right hand again, moving the fingers slower this time as she went from open to closed and then a full rotation. The joints spun smooth all the way through the movement, no more of that old grinding friction she hadn’t even thought about anymore. “Yeah, well, that ripper’s dead.”
Niko tapped the side of the forearm device, thumb dragging across a small dial. “Deserved.”
She huffed out a loud laugh and pushed herself a little more upright in the chair, vinyl and recycled plastic squeaking against her solid bulk.
She raised her left arm and tested a short, explosive punch through the empty air. Holy fucking shit! Servos whined perfectly as her fist stopped on a dime, exactly where her brain told it to stop. Nothing like drift or lag dragging her back.
Just instant concussive potential and a sharp hiss of compressed air leaving her tungsten knuckles. “Shit.” Dorio’s serious eyes went wide as she took in the plating covering her fist as if it was the first time. “Arms haven’t felt this preem in five fucking years. Got me feelin’ like a chrome virgin, Nikky.”
“I didn’t fucking ask, though. Did I?” With a click of his tongue and a sharp flick of his wrist, the grumpy Russian collapsed the holo strapped to his arm. “Just take it easy with the new reroute.”
Deciding not to answer, she let out a laugh deeper than the last and swung her thick legs entirely off the edge of the chair. In the five or so milliseconds it took her cyberlegs to readjust to movement, her boots struck the concrete and Dorio Gunnarsdóttir stood up to her full towering height, body in perfect alignment.
“I mean it, Dee. No gym tonight. No aggressive sparring.” Niko tlted his chin up to meet her eyes, face missing the grin he wore when he was knuckle deep in someone’s ribcage. “No testing nothing just because you’re in love with my new install.”
Both broad shoulders rolled backward as Dorio straightened her spine, the big woman making two tight fists again just to feel it one more time.
Damn. Talk about preem of the fucking crop. Maine was going to be thrilled she was moving at max again. Even if she was the workhorse of the crew as it was, no reason why she couldn’t be better. She shook her head and smirked back at the ripper. “Think you’re overestimating how sentimental I get over a scalpel-jockey.”
He raised one dark eyebrow, leaning his hip against the metal edge of the surgical tray. “I’m perfectly estimating how stupid you could be with a fresh set of toys.”
Her massive arms crossed over her chest, the open jacket shifting just a bit to show off abs for days and a chest barely held back by a black bra. “You give all your clients that exact same speech?”
“The ones built like a walking door breach?” That little bit of Russian in him came out as hard as his words came fast. “Yeah. I do.”
That got another ragged laugh out of her.
Kid, you might be a ripper. The older woman sighed as her laughter trailed off, looking at the gonk a good twelve years younger than she was. But you just don’t get it.
Chrome was never just decoration. Not for people like her.
And as much as some people tried to pretend like it, chrome wasn’t just a weapon either. Metal wasn’t just vanity or violence, fashion or fighting or anything else like that. This shit is life. Maine got that much and it was part of why she got why he was so big about his upgrades. Chrome decided how you moved, how you fought, how you worked and every-fucking-thing else. You learned to ignore a whole lot of discomfort when some things went slightly wrong beneath the skin.
You pushed through the ghost pains and you just compensated.
Didn’t mean it didn’t take some shit out in taxes though.
Now, that tax was almost completely gone.
Dorio blinked, trigging her neural link and sent the eddies over the local NET. The device strapped to lil Nikky’s ganic arm pinged almost immediately with the transfer.
The other set of blue eyes in the room flicked down to scrolling green numbers. “All there.”
She smirked, turning her heavy boots toward the exit door.
“Try not to spend it all on improving that winning personality, Nikky.”
“Try not to fuck up the servos and make me regret the effort, Dee.”
Heavy arms swinging at her sides, Dorio headed for the reinforced steel door, still well aware her arms felt better than they had in years. As she grabbed the heavy handle, the woman paused and looked back over one massive shoulder.
“Bye, Niko.”
He was already turning his back on her to face the messy counter, fingerless gloves tapping against the metal surface as he started sorting scalpels. “No more small talk unless there’s eddies involved.
Dorio shook her head, another broad bossy grin spreading wide as she stepped out into the smog-choked afternoon air of Night City.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
ROLL: Omni-Tool (0) [Shepard Quest] {laboratory}:
A standard omni-tool, worn on the wrist and capable of communications, scans, translation, small-scale fabrication, general computation, and device interfacing, alongside combat functions such as EWAR, combat fabrication, and energy blasts. It has enough processing power to run a VI assistant at full speed without slowing its other functions, and it automatically upgrades over time to remain on par with the best Paragon Industries omni-tools.
ROLL: Evaluation (200) [Generic Fist Jump] {heros_journey}:
You can instantly and accurately gauge how dangerous a person, opponent, or situation is, both in relation to yourself and in general. Even without prior knowledge, you read threat levels with near-perfect clarity, making it much easier to know when to engage, when to retreat, and what kind of risk you are really dealing with.
ROLL: Great Might (100) [The Legend of Zelda Series] {ocarina}:
Your physical strength is massively enhanced, allowing you to lift roughly three times more than you normally could. Strikes delivered with that strength carry proportionate force and would be enough to leave most ordinary people dead or catastrophically injured.
ROLL: Path to Power (200) [Dragon Ball] {heros_journey}:
You possess the rudiments of spiritual self-empowerment, allowing you to temporarily power yourself up beyond your ordinary physical maximum. This boosts your strength, speed, durability, and even apparent muscle mass, though sustaining it is tiring and can leave you badly winded if overused.
ROLL: ARTIFICER (200) [PREY] {forge}:
You are exceptionally talented at technological improvement and refinement. Any technology whose underlying principles you understand can be upgraded beyond its original specifications, whether by making it easier to build, more durable, more efficient, or more powerful. Weapons, tools, vehicles, turrets, and similar systems all benefit from your enhancements.
ROLL: Jumper Corp Vending Machine (200) [The Outer Worlds] {vault}:
You possess a vending machine modeled after those of Halcyon, capable of selling a wide range of useful goods such as food, alcohol, weapons, armor, medical basics, and other practical items. It accepts effectively any form of currency and can even function in barter-based economies, making it a highly flexible tool for supply, trade, and convenience.
ROLL: Basic Gear (0) [Fallout Series (Imaged)] {pipboy}:
You begin with a basic set of survival equipment suitable for rough conditions: one outfit of simple clothing, a bag for carrying supplies, an N99 10mm pistol, and a small handful of bottle caps.