[KABUKI ROUNDABOUT – Iron Fist Gym]

  Saturday| 26 JUN 2077 | 05:35

  [NCPD THREAT LEVEL: SAFE]

  Roh’s gym was nearly empty this early in the morning. Aside from Roh himself, who was shadowboxing in the corner, Will had the place to himself. Yesterday had been resistance training, and he had been careful not to push too hard after the bioware procedure, but he had left the gym feeling almost the same as he did when he walked in. His whole body was still sore and achy from the nanoids, and yet there had been no problem for him knocking out a dozen reps with sixty-pound dumbbells. He'd done full upper and lower body, rows, squats, curls, and presses, and had barely worked up a sweat. Even at his peak during the Academy days, he would have had trouble keeping up with the new version of himself.

  Today was cardio-focused. Will made the decision to push himself this time. He would have to put in a bit of effort, what with his lungs seemingly never running out of air. He'd already sprinted up the rope, hands only, about twenty times. Will moved to the treadmill next. He set it to 12 mph and started running. After fifteen minutes, he had knocked out three miles and wasn’t even out of breath.

  Then, he climbed into the boxing ring. He was amazed at his progress. It was one thing to promise massive physical improvements and another thing altogether to actually experience them. It was time for footwork, so he started in with lateral shuffles around the ring perimeter, keeping low. Soft, silent steps. He worked backwards, frontwards, and at forty-five degree angles until the movements were programmed into his brain.

  Afterwards, he joined Roh in the corner. Roh offered a few tips and form corrections, but stayed quiet mostly. Will hadn't trained in years. His last ten months on the NCPD payroll had been a story of steady decline and accelerated entropy. Booze, a terrible diet, and zero exercise were a terrible trio for his health. Who would have thought?

  Five minutes til 6 AM, Will finished his workout on the speedbag, then decided to head back to his apartment for a shower and breakfast. On his way out, Roh called out to him.

  “No story, huh?”

  “Not yet,” Will replied. That earned him a chuckle.

  As Will passed the Gun-o-rama on the way back to his apartment, he caught a glimpse of Shooter working at his table. They exchanged waves, then Will moved on through the sparsely populated lanes of the Roundabout. Tomorrow, he planned to visit Shooter to replace his shredded NCPD ballistic vest, but right now all he wanted was a shower, half a pound of ‘chicken flavored’ scop, and a protein log. The nanoids inside him were still working diligently, which explained the lingering pain. His body now required close to six thousand calories a day and over three-hundred grams of protein to keep up with all the cellular damage. Additionally, there was a small pouch that Doc Kowalski had asked him to take every night. It was full of nutrients that the nanoids were using as raw building materials. It tasted terrible.

  Another two thousand calories down. Three thousand to go. It was 6:30 AM when he’d finished breakfast, and now he was standing in front of his tiny closet, realizing he was running out of clothes. Will’s wardrobe had never been extensive, but he was losing clothing at an extraordinary rate these days. He pulled his last clean t-shirt and khaki pants, and the black polyvinyl chloride raincoat off their hangers. It wasn’t supposed to rain today, but who cared? People wore all sorts of weird stuff in Night City. A black raincoat on a hot, sunny day was a low-key fashion statement.

  Will rolled into the clinic at 6:50 AM and plopped himself down at the front desk to check the security feeds and complete any administrative tasks for the clinic. One of the new medtechs was parking his bike in the garage, Derek Williams. One of the two they had poached from REO, a master of the meatwagon. All the new hires were solid from what Will had seen so far. The donation from Elias Voss had been large enough to scale up the operation ahead of schedule. Now the clinic was open 7 AM to 3 AM every day of the week. Now, instead of endless ten-hour shifts with no days off, they worked seven days straight with a three-day break. Compared to some of the corporate schedules, this was cake.

  “Will, how’s the body holding up?”

  Kowalski had a knack for quietly sneaking up behind people in the clinic. It was one of the reasons Will was looking for the next round of bioware treatments. Enhanced hearing would come in handy when you worked for a highly trained ex-Trauma Team doctor. Will swiveled his chair around to face him, “Good morning, Doc. Everything hurts all the time, but I’m moving better than I’ve ever moved before.”

  “Is unusual,” Kowalski muttered. “You’re ahead of schedule, ch?opiec. We finish with easy stuff tomorrow.”

  Despite the nightmarish first dance with the nanoids, Will was eager to get the rest done. Subdermal skin weave would be painful, but the foundation had been laid a week prior, and he’d be on his feet within eight hours and on light-duty for just a day after. The full integration, though, could take time, possibly six to eight weeks. which was why Will had hit the gym as soon as he could walk upright. He had started a routine, one he intended to stick to, waking up every morning at 5 AM, hitting the gym, then hygiene and diet before work. It didn’t feel complete yet, but he had to give himself some grace. He wasn’t going to get everything figured out in one week. The Universe had already lifted him, kicking and screaming, far enough above the rockbottom that he could see sunlight. The 6th of June, 2077, felt like a lifetime ago to him.

  Derek walked into the front office in scrubs and nodded a greeting to Will before asking Doc Kowalski if the new neuroport slot replacement kits had arrived. Will had just opened the tracking for the package a few minutes before, so he butted in, “Check loading bay one. RCS confirmed delivery around three this morning.”

  “Awesome, thanks, Will.”

  The rest of the day was almost unremarkable. Will assisted with a few cyberware installations, making a small commission, and took vitals and did basic diagnostic tests on twelve walk-ins. By the time 5 PM rolled around, the night shift crew was already in their scrubs. It was a smooth handoff to Naomi, even though he was tempted to ask about the whole ‘Doc Mittens’ thing.

  “Hey Will, glad to see you’re adjusting well,” she told him as they switched places.

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  “Seriously, though, are you sure you’re ready for round two?”

  “I don’t think I was ‘ready’ for round one, to be honest with you. Doc’s right, though. I need an edge, or I’m toast. Even if I continue doing the same kinds of small jobs I’ve been doing for Regina, asset retrieval, detective work, eventually, I’m going to run out of luck.”

  “You know, you have a choice not to. Right? You can just be Will Scrap, Assistant-Medtech.”

  “Of course, that is who I am. Have a good shift, Doc.”

  [KABUKI MARKET – MOTEL KABUKU Room 303]

  Sunday| 27 JUN 2077 | 08:35

  [MAYOR PERALEZ WINS CONTESTED ELECTION]

  Will wasn’t shopping per se, more like browsing wares on the Straight Shooter Forum while lying on his couch. There were some impressive finds, gear that would have been useful if he had known it existed when he was still a rookie cop. Some of it was expensive, some suspiciously cheap. Either way, it was a short walk, and it was a chance to pick up some fresh clothes before the bioware procedure in the afternoon.

  It would have been a morning procedure, but now that the clinic had coverage throughout the week, Doc Kowalski took the opportunity to attend morning mass at the Holy Angels Church. While he was praying and observing the practices of his faith, Will was comparing the Arasaka Lotus Armorjack Survival Suit to the Militech Recon Suit in desert camo. Will shook his head. He needed an expert’s opinion to put something together for him that would keep him alive and preferably unseen. So he decided to make his way to the Gun-o-rama and see Shooter in person. He was out the door and down the stairs in seconds. He emerged into the bustling Kabuki market with all its loud vendors, loitering joytoys, and underage pickpockets. He’d take it over a megablock anyday.

  As Will was making his way through the crowd, he stopped and bought a carton of noodles off a vendor who lived below him on the second floor. She was an older woman, Korean, and as far as Will could tell, she used real garlic, onions, and ginger in her noodles. Sure, the ‘chicken’ was synthetic, but it was a higher grade of scop than the stuff he had packed his fridge with. He paid the ten eddies and ate as he walked.

  The carton was empty by the time he made it to the store. Shooter made eye contact like he was expecting him. He knew. Will realized that he probably monitored the users on his forum and knew what they were looking at.

  “Hey, Will, what can I do you for?”

  “I think you already have an idea,” Will said.

  “Ah, gear then. Anything in mind?”

  “I don’t know yet, that’s why I wanted to talk with you.”

  Shooter just nodded, walked out from behind the shielded counters through a little door to Will’s left. “Consult fee is four hundred eddies, but you get a five percent discount on anything you buy.”

  They went down some steps and across from the basement shooting range into a private backroom where a single table stood. Shooter took a seat. Will sat across from him. He stared at Will for about half a minute. It felt more like an evaluation than a consultation. Finally, Shooter spoke.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Have you been working out?” he asked.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “You look good, man. Where at? Iron Fist?”

  “Thanks. Yeah, just a little ways around the circle from here.”

  Shooter changed gear abruptly.

  “Okay, enough jerkin’ around. You’ve been all over the place on the forum. You going for stealth or light-combat?”

  Will didn’t hesitate, “I want to go in quietly, unseen, but be able to survive if I get caught. Work I’m doing is mostly private investigation, asset retrieval, stuff I’m good at, but I want to have a chance of getting out alive if a pro shows up.”

  “Well, there’s different levels of pros, choom. Some chromed up ganger badass could zero you as fast as an Afterlife merc hopped up on black lace, if you’re not careful. Run into a borg, an F.B.C., and you’re screwed most likely. Hmmm, but you’re talking about ninja stuff, you’re not trying to go toe-to-toe, are you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Shooter closed his eyes and nodded. His lips moved slightly as if he was talking to himself. Then he slammed his hand down flat on the table, his expression was that of someone who’d just solved world hunger. “So Gibson Battlegear produced some good stuff back in the day. Had a line of stealth suits in the 2020s, then came out with tactical ‘smart armor’ around 2045. It was a little heavy for stealth, but good quality. For the most part, they haven’t produced a lot since.”

  Will wasn’t interested in a corporate history lesson on body armor, but he could tell Shooter was in his element right then, so he didn’t interrupt. Shooter, pulled out a data tablet and showed Will a picture of a dark black suit that looked like skin-tight workout material. “Gibson is basically a Boutique shop nowadays, had to layoff thousands of employees, but they still have small shops making custom gear all around the Free States. Look here. Now this is the updated ‘sneak suit’, it’s part of the Gibson Battle Phantom package. The old version was made of photocarbon and had an ultra-light trifilament weave that protected against small caliber fire, extremely popular among the corpo ninjas, but this one comes in “perfect black” carbon nanotube coating that makes you practically invisible in the dark.”

  Shooter tapped the screen, and an aramid light-armor tactical vest and full-face angular smart visor appeared over the base suit. Will had to admit it looked cool.

  “S’like something out of a movie,” he said.

  “The smart helmet connects to your neuroport via a slot, and the visor acts like a cybereye, only without having to get your eye cut on. Lags behind a Kiroshi about ten milliseconds.”

  Will looked it over a moment, “How much?”

  “With the consulting discount, I can give it to you for five thousand and seven hundred eddies.”

  Out of reflex, Will assumed he couldn't afford it. Then he remembered his personal balance was over twenty thousand and he had plenty in the Eclipse Freight Solutions account. It was sobering to have so much after living off so little. He could afford the gear, now he just had some questions.

  “Is it custom fit? How long is this going to take?” he asked.

  Shooter nodded, “Already scanned your measurements. Adjustment should take 72 hours. We gotta deal?”

  Will shook on it, “I'm gonna need some street clothes before then. Light armor jacket. Got any in my size?”

  Shooter tapped the data tablet a few times, scanning his inventory. “Got a Kang Tao Street Operator Jacket, carbon nanotube material, armor plate inserts are extra, but it'll stop a small caliber round or a knife without the plates. Eight hundred eddies. Wanna try it on?”

  “Sure.”

  “Preem, Be back in a jiff,” Shooter said as he stood up and left to fetch the item.

  Will could hear gunfire from the range in the brief interval the door was open. His hand drifted to the Lexington in its holster. He couldn't remember the last time he'd practiced. It would be hilarious if, after all the work and money they'd invested into keeping him alive, he got zeroed because he was a terrible shot.

  Since the 8th of June, he'd only had to discharge his weapon on one occasion. He stopped himself before he could think too hard about that one. There'd already been enough late-night hours spent going over the Butcher's massacre.

  When Shooter got back with the Kang Tao jacket, Will had already decided to squeeze in some time at the range. Shooter pulled it off the hanger and handed it over for Will to try it on. It fit perfectly, so Will splurged on light armor plates and, while he waited, swapped the raincoat for the Kang Tao.

  Shooter put the armor plates in a bag and handed it over. “You’re becoming my favorite customer, choom, and yes I do say that to everyone.” Will just chuckled and headed over to the shooting range and grabbed 50 rounds of cheap standard full metal jacket 9mm from the vending machine. Then, he found an empty booth at the end of the row. The Gun-o-rama franchise had several different tests programmed into its ranges. After looking down the menu, Will found the NCPD Advanced Marksmanship test and paid fifteen eddies to start.

  The first phase was three six-second rounds to draw your pistol, fire as many shots into the target at two yards, six yards, and ten yards. Missed shots didn’t count, and the minimum requirement for cops in the NCPD was 2 successful shots in six seconds. The second phase gave you an extra second and changed the distance to fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five yards, respectively. The last time Will had taken this test, he’d been drinking heavily and barely passed. His record was five shots in six seconds and seven shots in seven seconds. Above average, but he was no wizard.

  The Lexington was set to semi-automatic, which meant a single squeeze of the trigger would launch one round. Will tapped the screen, and the countdown from five started. He found his shooter’s footing and counted down with it. Four. Three. Two. One. Draw. The Lexington found her target, and Will squeezed off three shots center mass before the buzzer sounded. Slower than he preferred, but the countdown for the second round had already started. Three. Two. One. Draw. Will's hands were steady as he threw high-velocity metal slugs toward the target at six yards. Four shots, all in or around the target's center mass, before the buzzer sounded again. The next round’s countdown began. Two. One. Draw. Four shots were fired, one missed the target. Will cursed under his breath. It wasn’t terrible, but he had kind of expected better from himself, despite allowing his skills to degrade.

  Will ejected the magazine from the pistol and slapped two clips of five rounds into it. Then he fished a loose round from the box and loaded it in, bringing the magazine back up to twenty rounds. He tapped the button on the screen, and phase two started. Five-second countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. Will activated his Sandevistan. One. Draw. Time slowed. The Dynalar Sandevistan wasn’t magic; it increased the brain’s neural processing to perceive one’s surroundings at a higher rate, while also accelerating motor functions in equal measure. Activating it meant the world seemed to move at half speed, while his own speed increased by half.

  The target was already stationary, but as Will squeezed the trigger and the round fired, he was able to compensate for the recoil of the gun almost instantly. He squeezed again and again until he had fired ten shots in a tight center at fifteen yards. The buzzer sounded distorted for a brief moment before the Sandevistan disengaged, leaving him with a slight sense of dizziness.

  There was no point in continuing. Will tapped the cancel button, left the cheap 9mm rounds at the booth, and walked out of the range. He made one last stop at the front counter and purchased a dry-fire training system for about five hundred eddies. Shooter shot him a look of respect as he left the Gun-o-rama.

  [NORTH KABUKI – Kowalski’s Clinic]

  Sunday| 27 JUN 2077 | 14:00

  [NCPD VOWS TO FIND PERSONS RESPONSIBLE FOR TAINTED WATER BOTTLES]

  Naomi Alexis had been working in combat medicine since before Will Scrap was even born. It would have been incredibly stupid to ask her about the whole ‘Doc Mittens’ thing while she strapped him down onto the ripperdoc chair and prepped him for another painful bioware procedure. So, of course, that’s what Will Scrap did.

  “What’s the story about the old alias? I need to know. Can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Oh lord, you saw my résumé, huh?”

  “You gotta tell me, doc. I might die during the procedure, and I don’t think I can bear the idea of dying without knowing.”

  “You’re not going to die, ch?opiec,” came the familiar voice.

  Will half-turned in the chair, the restraints mostly in place. Doc Kowalski was carrying a cooler in from the hallway elevator. He set it down next to the ripperdoc chair where Will had almost died two weeks prior. “You really shouldn’t ask pesky questions to the doctor right before surgery.”

  Was it Will’s imagination, or was Doc Kowalski’s English getting better every day?

  Naomi just laughed at the whole situation, then turned to Kowalski and said, “I’ll tell him when he’s older. He’s not ready for the story yet.”

  Soon, the mask was in place, and Will was floating again. He imagined Naomi wearing cat ears and faux-paws as the duo slid large needles beneath the skin of his forehead, forearms, chest, thighs, and back. It was painful, but after the muscle and bone lace procedure it was almost quaint. The rest of the procedure was just IV bags of this and that, Will couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. Eventually, after the 5th airhypo injection to the neck, Will nodded off.

  It was almost 9 PM when he came to again. His skin felt tight and rubbery. An army of nanoids was building a mesh of carbon-nanotubes across his body subdermally. The top layer of skin still felt the same, could even be cut, and bleed. However, a weak jab with a knife wouldn’t penetrate past the epidermis. So, basically, he could still cut himself shaving, but it was now a hundred times harder to kill while taking a shower.

  Doc Kowalski walked Will home himself. They talked about work at the clinic and the interesting patients who had recently passed through. Only when they reached door 303 at the Motel Kabuki did the doc say something that wasn’t just idle chit-chat.

  “For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”

  Will just blinked.

  “Rest now, see you Tuesday.”

  Hope you're ready for the weekend. A very cool person I met has a fun story that I started reading. As you know, I am an old man, and am new to the genres that you young whippersnappers have concocted. This one looks like great fun and I started just a few moments ago.

  Hope you enjoy it, chooms!

  -Bob