While it felt weird to just go back to work while we had a recovering person above the Shack, I still only had a limited amount of time left with the Fallout tech tree. Wasting it felt wrong, even if I was becoming extraordinarily fatigued and burned out, not to mention that I was basically just gambling at this point. I had no idea what piece of ordinary-looking tech would have that nugget of SCIENCE! hidden away inside, so I was forced to choose randomly and hope for the best.

  I made my way to the garage, but once I was sitting behind my computer, I stopped and took a long breath. After a moment of sitting in silence, I pulled out my keyphone and selected Dakota's contact info, pausing before hitting send. We had four body bags in the Bio lab freezer, the corpses of Maine, Dorio, Pilar, and Kiwi. I had no idea how similar or how far this version of Cyberpunk deviated from the "prime" version, but I was pretty sure this was not how it was supposed to go down.

  Of course, I was curious where the difference originated. Was it the seeming lack of a V's character? Or was it something else, keeping certain events from occurring? Was it random, or was someone, perhaps the entities, doing it on purpose? In the end, it didn't quite matter. I planned on changing this world, but worrying about the little differences wasn't worth my time.

  So why had I already pressed send?

  "Jackson, what can I do for you?" Dakota Smith's voice said through my keyphone as I raised it to my ear. "Is everything alright?"

  "Yeah, I just wanted to ask for a favor."

  "Jackson, I already owe you more favors than I can count for what you've done," She pointed out. "And that's not even including your work with the Wraiths. The Night City badlands area is the safest it's been in thirty years thanks to you. What do you need?"

  "I was wondering if you could look up a couple of names for me," I asked. "Nothing major, no deep dives or anything, just a general status and maybe a location if you can manage."

  "What are their names?"

  "A, and a David and Gloria Martinez. Yakovleva is a netrunner who may have been in a bit of trouble recently, and I want to know if she survived," I explained. "Gloria is an EMT in Night City, and David is her son, possibly still a student, somewhere fancy, I think."

  "I can run those names for you," She agreed. "Anything else?"

  "Just one more, and… it's a bit of a strange one," I admitted. "Just chalk it up to me being weird if you want. There is someone who goes by the name V. It might be Valerie, or Vincent, twenty to twenty-five years old. They will probably be somewhere in Night City, maybe living in Megabuilding H10. They… are either an ex-nomad, a Heywood streetkid, or a born and raised Corpo."

  Dakota was silent for a long moment, trying to understand what I had just asked, prompting me to continue.

  "I know it's strange, but I would really like to know what's going on with them, all of them."

  "...I think I can get that done for you," She agreed, pausing for a moment before adding. "I will send someone over with whatever data we can find. Also, our replacement for Saul will be arriving sometime tomorrow. I don't know what he plans on doing, but I do know he will want to meet you soon."

  "That should be fine. Just call ahead to make sure we aren't out," I confirmed. "Thanks for the help, Dakota."

  "You're welcome, Jackson."

  Once our conversation was done, I leaned back in my chair, wondering if I had just made a mistake. I steered clear of looking for Lucy, since I knew she was either still in Arasaka or was running from them, neither of which would be conducive to me looking for her. I didn't want to get me or my people involved with that, at least not until the bunker was done and we had started making some serious moves in Night City.

  I wasn't worried about that with the others. For them, I was worried I would find they wouldn't be able to leave well enough alone. If Rebecca turned out to be a problem I had no issues just dumping her off in the city and washing my hands. She was a mercenary, she would survive, and while she might have a cult following back home, this was not a popularity contest.

  David and Gloria, on the other hand, were a different story. As far as I knew, before Gloria died and David got dragged into the plot, they both fell under the same category as Vik, Misty, and to an extent, Jackie. They were the rarest thing of all in Night City, genuinely good people. A mother who just wanted her son to have the best opportunities and a son who just wanted to protect his mother.

  I don't know if I will be able to resist helping them, which could very much complicate things. Or maybe it wouldn't, and I was just being paranoid. Maybe I would find them and realize that this version of David was actually an idiot, and this version of Gloria liked to kill puppies on the weekend. There was no real way to know.

  I let out a long sigh, tossing my keyphone onto my desk before shaking my head. I could worry about that more when Dakota got back to me, specifically when my break week was going on. Which, at this point, wouldn't be much of a break. I would be so busy integrating everything I had learned these past two weeks into my existing tech that calling it a break would have been a lie.

  That didn't mean I wasn't incredibly excited. I could hardly restrain myself from taking a crack at building my own custom bioware. Not to mention all the stuff I needed to update, streamline, and get running. I was looking forward to a few ideas I had…

  I spent the next few hours working on several bits of miscellaneous tech, including a refrigerator that used a more advanced version of thermoelectric cooling. In this world and in my home world, thermoelectric cooling was used to "cool" rinky-dink, cheap little mini fridges that didn't actually work that well since thermoelectric cooling was super inefficient, usually ineffective and sometimes even flat-out dangerous since it cast out so much heat.

  In the Fallout universe, however, thanks to a few exotic polymers and an interesting heat transference method, they managed to make them actually viable for cooling refrigerators and freezers. It was a gigantic power hog, but being able to snap cool something at the flick of a switch was interesting, and it could boast that it didn't use freon, which was a rather dangerous chemical.

  While I didn't plan on converting the refrigerators around the Ridge or in the Vault, the heat transferring and polymers would be incredibly useful in other places, like computers or energy weapons, to keep them running cool.

  It was honestly baffling how the Fallout universe use tech like that more often, or at all. It was even more confusing how often I ran into little spots like that. Earlier in the week, I stumbled onto an anti-friction coating on the primary motor of a microwave. It was dangerously carcinogenic, but it kept moving surfaces from grinding against each other to a degree that beat out anything I saw in Titanfall. And yet, I hadn't seen it anywhere else, even in places where it would have been safe to use, like on the satellite I built, or internal servos for the robots I had built. It wasn't like the Fallout universe was afraid of a bit of cancer, either.

  "Whatever, doesn't matter," I mumbled to myself as I called for a few MRVNs to take the fridge away for scrap. "Just a few more hours, and I can start to actually make good use of all their tech."

  I continued to work on little things for most of the day before eventually retiring for a late afternoon snack. In all honesty, I was more or less done. I had recovered a ridiculous amount of tech from that branch, and I was pretty confident that I had gotten everything really life-changing from it. I was a little sad I wouldn't get access to the more flexible teleportation tech that the Institute had, but I would have spent an entire week building that facility alone, so it just hadn't been worth the time. Yes, using the back-and-forth option from Big Mountain would likely end up getting complicated, but it would still work.

  And who knows, maybe I will work out how to make it better soon.

  When I finally left the workshop, I dragged my tired, worn-out body to the Shack. I had just enough energy to shove some fruit cubes and some milk into a blender, add some ice, and blend it up. I then left the Shack, dragging a chair out with me, plopping down in front of the building, and sipping my smoothie. I let out a long sigh, closing my eyes for a moment and idly petting Duke while I sat. After a few minutes, I heard some approaching footsteps, cracking my eyes a bit to spot Jackie.

  "Everything alright, Genio?" He asked, looking me over appraisingly. "You look a little… drained."

  "That's because I am," I admitted, taking another sip. "If I have to make another toaster, clock, or other stupid thing within the next week, I am going to go insane. So I decided… no more building today, I don't care what I miss. I'm taking the rest of the day off. And maybe tomorrow, too."

  "You have been working hard, I barely see you out of the garage," He comments. "Wanna go out and get some drinks? The Coyote calls, choom."

  "... I Don't know… leaving the Ridge while that Rebecca girl is upstairs sounds like not the best idea."

  "Genio, she has no arms and is recovering from nearly getting her ass flatined," Jackie pointed out. "If she managed to overpower Riggs, chica deserves free reign of the place."

  "... that's a fair point," I admitted, considering his offer for a moment before nodding. "A quick trip and some drinks, but I'm not eating in Night City. Rather starve after how much you've been spoiling us with actual food."

  "Oh, come on, it's not that bad… I mean, it's better, sure, but Night City cuisine isn't all bad!" He insisted, wearing a wounded expression. "Just cause you have a soft, wimpy palate doesn't mean we all do."

  "My palate is normal," I responded, rolling my eyes. "It's you guys who have burned out your taste buds on worm meat and cricket pizza."

  "Yeah, keep telling yourself that, softie," He ribbed good-naturedly. "Speaking of food, Mama Welles appreciates what I've brought back for her. She knows better than to ask about how we are getting it, but she said to pass on her thanks."

  "You know… you're welcome to invite her out here sometime," I pointed out. "All this is possible because you helped me find my footing, and she has been nothing but kind to me. She is always welcome around here. Just give me some warning so I'm not throwing around anything dangerous."

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  "I appreciate the offer, Jay," he said with a smile and a nod. "I'll think about it."

  "Good. Gimme a minute to finish this," I said, holding up my drink. "Then I need to shower and change. After that, I'm ready to go."

  I finished my drink after a few minutes of chatting with Jackie before heading off to my room, taking a shower, and pulling on some decent clothes. My armored underlayer was on underneath my clothes, and my pistol was strapped to my hip, along with some spare mags.

  Rather than ride all the way back to the city on the back of Jackie's motorcycle, we took one of the spare cars, a Type-66. Jackie claimed the driver's seat, which was fine by me since I could put on my seatbelt.

  "I really gotta make my own car soon," I said with a frown. "We started the design process, but I was too busy the past two weeks.'

  "Why not let Samwise and Kayt take care of it?" Jackie asked, changing lanes a bit too aggressively for my taste. "She seemed to like tinkering with her car."

  "Samwise already has too much work," I explained, shaking my head. "He is working with Noah on the Vault and also keeping up with production here. On top of that, Kayt knows cars, but she does not know fusion reactors or high-end material sciences.

  "Could a MRVN work on a car? They seem pretty handy."

  "They could but not, not to create custom work, fit into place creatively…" I trailed off, considering the idea. "I suppose I could put together a mechanic droid, fill it with an internal data bank, and then let Kaytlyn work out the creative, complicated parts. Right now, we definitely don't need an AI dedicated to vehicles, but eventually, that might change…Actually, including spaceship design, we will definitely need one."

  "Spaceship?" Jackie asked, looking over at me. "Really thinking of going out to space?"

  "I have a teleporter, a whole lot of information about making enclosed, tough, self-sufficient structures," I pointed out. "At this point all I'm waiting for is FTL and we are ready."

  "FTL?"

  "Faster than light travel," I explained," It's a pretty common bit of tech for… different sources of inspiration, so it's only a matter of time before I see it. Just hope I get a good one."

  There was no way I was going into the Warp, no matter how young it was in this reality. In that way lay madness.

  "Woah, choom. That's pretty intense… I knew it was a possibility, I just didn't think it was that close," He admitted. "You gonna start working on designing something?"

  "No, I don't have all the pieces yet," I said with a smile. "Not in the cards immediately, but it's definitely in the deck."

  "Good to know, Genion…"

  The rest of the ride was more casual, cutting through Night City before we eventually arrived at the Coyote. We walked inside, Jackie waving to the bartender, while I went over and claimed the pool table. The place was as busy as it had been the last time I had visited, but we were lucky enough to arrive just as people finished their last game. Not long after I claimed the game table, Jackie returned with two beers and two shots, causing me to scoff and shake my head.

  "And what the hell happened to taking it easy?" I asked, taking one of each drink.

  "We will, we will!" He assured me. "This is a celebratory shot. We survived another one of your weekly inspiration things."

  "Hmm... Fair enough, that is a reason to celebrate," I agreed with a snort, waiting for him to be ready before taking the shot with a flick, cringing at the taste and burn. "Goddamit, I gotta get Frank on making drinks soon."

  "Or maybe make a cooking bot," Jackie suggested. "Frank has been busy, and I could use an assistant."

  "I... Will consider it," I said, tossing him the now empty shot glass. "I could make something dumb with plenty of data saved on it so it can answer your questions, at least."

  I undershot my toss, the small glass not quite making it to the larger man, until a slight zip of his Sandevistan brought him closer, snagging the glass in a split second.

  "Not to be a ball buster, Jackie, but you know you really shouldn't be using that like that," I commented, raising an eyebrow. "At least not until I can fix your strain issue."

  "Yeah yeah, Misty warns me- Wait, what?" Jackie asked, cutting himself off in the process. "What do you mean 'fix the issue?'"

  "Well… I'm pretty sure I know how to lessen the strain on your body," I commented, racking the pool balls and dragging them into place. "A couple of bioware bits plus a few bits of chrome should do the trick."

  I carefully lifted the rack away from the pool balls, nodding when they looked just about perfect. I put the triangle tool down on a nearby table before looking over at Jackie, who was watching me with an exasperated face.

  "Choom, you can't drop that on me like that!" He said, gesturing with his hands, looking like he might take a swing with his pool cure. "What do you mean? What kind of bioware? What sort of chrome?"

  "Well… I've been working on stuff like that for the last week. I think I can help your body handle the stress a bit better," I explained with a shrug. "Not sure by how much, but it should be enough to make it healthier for you to use it more frequently."

  "Just like that?"

  "I never said it would be easy, they aren't small additions," I assured him. "Frank and Vik are going to have to come up with the surgery together, all three of them are doozy, though some of that will be mitigated by… other stuff. You know this isn't the best place to be talking about all of that."

  "Fine, yeah, good point, Genio," He reluctantly agreed, looking around before bending slightly to take his shot. "Sounds like Vik is gonna have to be let in on some of the secrets."

  "Yeah, you're not wrong," I agreed. "I would offer him a contract working with me as a ripper for our guests and for anyone making it out to our facility, but I don't think he would take it."

  "Hell no, Vik has too many people depending on him," Jackie agreed, shaking his head and gesturing for me to go, since he missed his second shot. "Too much charity. But you don't really need a ripper, do you?"

  "I want Frank to work under a real Ripper first before I let him loose on real people," I explained. "Well… I suppose that already came and went with our current guest, but… I still want to make it happen. Frank learned from books, and I'm sure Vik will have all sorts of little nuggets of wisdome to pass on. I'll just hire him to come out and work with Frank when we need something installed. A chunk of cash and a couple containers of free medicine should make the house call worth it for him."

  "Yeah, that definitely would get him," Jackie agreed with a snort, watching as I made my turn.

  We played a few games of pool, and had a few more beers, before eventually making our way back to the Ridge. We were both hungry at that point, and for all his teasing, Jackie was not complaining that we had real food waiting for us back home.

  Unfortunately, we were only a few minutes out when my keyphone rang, and an image of Kaytlyn appeared on the screen.

  "Over under on Rebecca being awake?" I asked, Jackie snorting and shaking his head.

  "No bet."

  A quick conversation with Kaytlyn revealed that our gremlin guest had, in fact, woken up. She then proceeded to panic before Kaytlyn could get to her and calm her down. In the few minutes that took, she had somehow managed to trash a good chunk of equipment, using nothing other than her legs and teeth.

  I told Jackie to step on it, a request he took happily.

  When we arrived, I rushed up to the second floor, where I found Kaytlyn sitting inside the medical suite and Rebecca back up in her bed. Frank must have been through with a few MRVNs because whatever mess she had made was cleared away, and her monitoring setup was back on her body. Kaytlyn spotted me as I looked in, looking down at the small woman and speaking to her, most likely to warn her she was about to have company.

  I walked past Riggs, patting him on the back as I did, before tapping the door controls and stepping into the room. I was preparing to greet her when she cut me off, looking angry.

  "I gotta say, Militech is putting on one hell of a show," Rebecca said, looking at me with a dark glare. "Hiring a friendly face, setting up all this. But I got bad news for you gonks, Maine never told me nuthin! I have no idea who hired us or anything. Not that I would tell you corpo fucks anyway!"

  I stopped just inside the room, snapping my mouth shut as she cut me off. I looked at Kaytlyn, who simply shrugged with a "What can you do?" look on her face. I shook my head and let out a long sigh.

  "Sure, alright. Where do you want to be dropped off?"

  "W-what?" She asked, barely pausing long enough to interpret what I said.

  "Where do you want to be dropped off?" I asked again, this time speaking slower. "We aren't Militech, but you can believe whatever you want, it doesn't really matter to me. I already did my good deed for the week, dragging your ass out of the trash and gluing your insides back into place."

  "Glueing my…" Rebecca started, trailing off and looking at Kaytlyn. "I... how bad was I hurt?"

  "You got shot up pretty good, Rebecca," Kaytlyn explained. "I didn't see it, but Jay here did."

  "Bullshit, I feel fine."

  "We got a good doc," I assured her, before pulling out my keyphone. "Here, take a look for yourself."

  I held out the handheld device, which was open to an image I had gotten from Frank of her original injuries before they had even started treating her. It was not a pleasant sight, and while it was a bit cruel to rub her face in it, I needed her to stop picking at her current good health. It seemed that we had done of a job fixing her, and no one had even considered it until now.

  Her eyes went wide as she looked at the image, not moving even when I pulled my phone back. Eventually, she sagged into the bed, collapsing in on herself.

  "I don't remember anything," she admitted. "I… there's… we got tossed in the dump? And someone carried me into a vehicle… but before that, the last thing I remember is Maine talking about the job."

  "The job went south," I explained, leaning against the wall. "I'm sorry, but as far as we could tell, you were the only survivor."

  "What? No fucking way, your short-circed if you think I believe that," she said, shaking her head, her tattered hair getting tangled. "Not with Maine, he knows his shit, he wouldn't let that happen."

  "... He is why it happened, Rebecca," I said softly. "He had an episode in the middle of the fight and stepped right out of cover. Someone, a big woman with short blonde hair."

  "Dorio," Rebecca said in an empty breath, barely speaking at all.

  "Dorio, dashed to tackle him back into cover," I explained. "She succeeded but took a round to the head. Maine came back to his senses just long enough to realize what had happened, but it seemed to break him. He attacked both Militech and the rest of you."

  "Well… wait, how do you know this?" She asked, once again looking at me suspiciously, trying to sit up. "That's way too fucking specific, gonk! You-"

  "It got caught on security and made the news, Rebecca," Kaytlyn explained, gently pushing her down. "I saw it myself. Maine going cyberpsycho… it's clear as day. He… he hurt you pretty bad."

  For a long moment, the smaller woman stared at Kaytlyn, her shoulders twitching, either from pain or because she instinctively wanted to move her arms despite them no longer being there. Eventually, she looked away, her red and yellow eyes focusing on me. It was actually pretty distracting, as the obvious implants looked unnatural and disconcerting to my sensibilities.

  "I wanna see it," She finally said, still staring at me. "I want to see the security footage. A chip or a computer or something."

  "Rebecca, are you sure? It's a lot to take in and-" Kaytlyn asked, stopping suddenly as Rebecca cut her off.

  "Of course I'm sure! I can fucking handle it, I'm not some weak little civi bitch!" she fired back, glaring at her. "I can handle a trashed gig, not like it's anything new."

  Before Kaytlyn could say anything, I nodded, unclipping my radio and messaging for a tablet to be brought up since I didn't have one on hand and the room was more or less soundproof. A minute later, I was holding out the tablet for her, and the video was already open and playing.

  Despite not being able to see from my angle, I could almost tell what was happening by her face. Watching as the situation suddenly turned, going from smooth to fucked up in seconds. Watching her wince and flinch as Maine, someone who she trusted, manhandled her like a toy before tossing her around and out of sight of the feed. Her widening eyes of horror as she watched the rest of the group get cut down, including Miane kill at least one of the crew with his bare hands.

  When the clip was over, I passed the tablet to Kaytlyn, who accepted it without looking away from Rebecca, who was still staring at the spot where I had been holding the tablet for her. For a long moment, nearly a minute, she was silent, her body limp as she stared, eyes dead. Then, suddenly, she snapped.

  "That… Stupid fucking bastard! Mother fucker! He knew! He knew he was having issues, we all did! We told him to slow down and back off the chrome, but no! Big bad daddio Maine can handle it!" She shouted, becoming more and more agitated. "Fucking bastard got us all killed! The fucking borged out fuckin gonk!”

  By the time she reached the end of her tirade, she was kicking and screaming, spittle flicking from her lips. At, first, we let her get it out of her system until she started to try and kick at us, trying to roll out of the bed, screaming and shouting. While I had no intention of holding her against her will, I wasn't about to let her run off into the badlands freaking out like she was. She might be healed, but she was far from ready to go running around.

  Thankfully, before I could even call in for him, Frank pushed into the room, holding an injection device that I'm pretty sure he designed on his own. He approached Rebecca, and pushed her down flat onto the bed with one hand, before pressing the injectors against her thigh, the small machine letting out a thump and a hiss. He pulled it away, even as the small woman was starting to slow, her flailing and rocking growing more languid and weak.

  Within thirty seconds she was asleep. Frank immediately began checking on her for injuries. Kaytlyn on the other hand glared at me.

  "Told you showing her that was a bad idea."

  "And? Despite her appearance, she is an adult, Kaytlyn," I reminded her. "She has a right to make her own mistakes. Let's just hope some time asleep will help her come to terms with them."