The Joy of Discovery
One hour later…
Megabuilding H10, 7th Floor.
The games didn't do the megabuildings justice.
Sure, they managed to capture the feel of an enclosed, self-contained settlement slightly. I however found out, pretty quickly, that being inside the real thing was a whole different beast.
There were much, much more people for one. You couldn't walk three steps without bumping into or having to give way to someone. It made me wonder just how many people lived in this place.
By my estimate, there had to be thousands. With the number of floors and the number of crammed together apartments I'd come across, the actual number might be in the tens of thousands… and that was excluding the homeless people.
There was also more trash. Heap after heap of torn, leaky, plastic bags and cardboard had been piled up in multiple makeshift spots and corners. Just like the rest of the city, trash was allergic to dumpsters in this building.
Now, that was all bad and bad, but it still couldn't top the pollution of vending machines and advertisements. No matter where I stood or directed my gaze, the omnipresent bastards were always in sight. They were quite literally inescapable.
The sheer density—of the synthetic food and firearm dispensers in particular—made me think of Japan and subsequently Arasaka. All manner of theories and hypotheses sprung to mind like monkeys rushing to a lonesome crate of bananas.
Each was eager to get a piece of my attention, but I brushed them off and focused. This was still my first day. Let me at least learn how to shoot before I start to think of ways I can fuck over behemoth establishments.
Clanking and straining sounds were transmitted to my ears as I cut through a gym to my destination. I scanned it in passing and noted the punching bags, the weights, the trainers, and the arena with the weirdly shaped training bot.
Now that I had a place close by, this would probably be my gym from now onwards. I first had to speak to whoever was in charge if there was any and get the lay of the land. But that was again, something for another time.
I clutched my bag tighter and sped up, the bright red neon of the 2nd Amendment shop's sign washing over me as I stepped into its confines, the discordant symphony of gunshots and potent gunpowder order welcoming and embracing me.
My steps carried me to the right, where my gaze settled on a mustached, heavyset man in a plated jacket behind a counter. I stopped right in front of him and greeted before asking about access to his gun range.
After taking about 3 Mississipis to return my greeting, he answered my inquiry with multiple of his own.
He asked about firearms in general, bullet sizes, grains and holsters. Most of my answers were "I don't know," and that irked him so much he nicely asked me to get out of his shop in a loud voice.
Surprised at being kicked out but unbothered by his attitude (I expected it) I ignored his words and slapped a credchip on the counter. I slid it forward but kept my fingers on it and asked him to teach me everything he thinks an aspiring gun nut like me should know.
You should've seen the look on his face. The man couldn't understand why I requested his services after he called me a "clueless fucking gonk." What he did understand though was that there was money to be made.
He softened up like a piece of bread in water and waved at me to wait for him near the range's entrance after letting out a huff.
That's how I found myself in an enclosed stall examining the guns I'd chosen to speedrun the assimilations of the Handgun and Assault skillchips.
They were a Liberty, a DR5 Nova, a Copperhead, a DS1 Pulsar, and a Militech Crusher. A pistol, a revolver, a submachine gun, and a shotgun. One of each type of firearm compatible with the chips.
By the time I was done here today, my aim and gun handling would be at a whole new level. My knowledge on the tools of destruction would also hopefully improve with Wilson's guidance.
Speaking of the man, his heavy footfalls drew closer until they came to a stop beside me. He peered at my gun spread and harrumphed, extending his hand to me, a silver shard in his grip.
Unbothered by his attitude, I grabbed and slotted it in, Spider-Sense giving me the all clear. I looked into empty air, my eyes widening slightly after my agent processed and accessed the shard. Taking advantage of my brief distraction, Wilson explained things.
"It's a memory chip. Contains just about everything a gonk like you needs to know about iron. Manufacturer, parts, mode of assembly, firing mechanism, and whatnot. Go on. Pick up the Liberty and try it."
Heeding his words, I set my gaze on the rectangular barreled pistol and focused, information flowing into me like a raging but coherent torrent.
It enlightened me on just about everything concerning the Constitutional Arms Liberty, from its history down to the possible attachments and modifications that could be applied to it.
With a smile befitting an idiot, I grabbed the gun from the counter, weighed it a few times, and started the process of dismantling it.
The Handgun chip guided my hands and the memory one my mind, both of them working in tandem to help me handle, identify, and describe the function of the Liberty's distinct parts.
After placing down the last component and giving them all a once over, I turned to Wilson. The man kept his arms crossed and met my gaze, a hint of "told you so" and pride in his gaze.
"Thanks," I said with a nod, one he returned with a slight smile like a proud but stern teacher.
Matching his smile, I brought my gaze back to the station and grabbed the barrel and slide of the Liberty. Faster than I dismantled it, I reassembled the pistol, my hands a blur as I put everything where it was supposed to be.
Soon, all that remained was the final piece of the puzzle; the magazine.
Before I picked it up and inserted it though, I racked the slide a few times and pulled the trigger. When no problems made themselves known, I grabbed the bullet holder, slotted it in and gripped the loaded gun with both hands.
I raised it and bent my knees a little, sliding my right foot backwards and bending my upper body forward at a barely noticeable angle. With my stance corrected, I racked the slide to chamber a bullet and then extended both arms forward.
This not being my first time pulling a trigger, I had no issue with that part of discharging a firearm.
A series of successive bangs echoed with every squeeze of my trigger finger, my ears and arms staying pain and damage free despite the pistol's surprisingly high recoil and intense decibels.
On the 14th shot, the muzzle jumped in my sight one last time and the slide slid back, letting me know I was out of ammunition. I placed the gun flat against the counter and moved my gaze to its friends, a huge, anticipatory smile on my face.
The time in my interface read 12:25 PM. It would take roughly 6 hours to finish assimilating both firearm chips. I could be done by evening, leaving me with enough time to go to the Kabuki market for my shopping spree. I needed that badass trenchcoat and leather jacket asap.
Nodding to that simple plan, I picked up the Liberty once more and turned to Wilson.
"I hope you have enough bullets."
...…
Five hours later...
Turns out, I– or rather, the skillchips, had broadly overestimated how much time the assimilation was going to take..
Who could have foreseen that the significant amount of overlap between the Handgun and Assault skills would cause them to synergize, hastening the process of imbibing both? I certainly didn't.
Thanks to this unexpected development, I managed to end the training session after a little over four hours, two hours less than I originally intended. Though I don't think I'd have been able to train for that long anyway.
While I didn't burn through Wilson's ammo reserves, I came pretty close to leaving just ashes. The man himself told me when he made arrangements to refill the stock I expended.
Anyways, with the extra time I had to spare, I conversed with him at length about his profession and firearm modification. He was pretty enthusiastic about the latter, describing to me how he spent most of his free time tampering and tinkering.
He tried to sell me some of his creations but I declined most of them, settling for a suppressor, a modified Omaha pistol with an extended magazine, some holographic sights, and much needed ammunition.
You'd think with the way people killed each other in this city, bullets grew on trees.
Well, they didn't. Vendors like Wilson sold them all over at 1 eddie per round for regular bullets and 10 eddies per round for armor piercing ones. This scaled up according to the type of gun since for instance, rifle rounds differed from pistol ones.
Except for the trashy DS1 Pulsar and Dr5 Nova, I bought 50 AP rounds for each of my guns, both old and new. As for the 100 eddie per round explosive ammunition, Wilson didn't have any. He recommended I find someone with the right connections or the black markets in Kabuki or Dogtown.
Sadly, that is where our business ended. I bid the man goodbye and went straight to the Kabuki roundabout, the shopping/sightseeing trip moved up my schedule by an hour.
There were some specific items like bedsheets and utensils I needed to buy. I however didn't rush to cross them off my list and instead took my sweet time exploring the various stalls and shops. Having never owned a house or lived on my own before, I was certain there were items I must've missed.
Browsing through the stock and catalog of the vendors I came across would let me find these items. Plus, exposing myself to various sellers and wares this way would lead me to find things that tickled my fancy.
My decision proved the right one as on the household items front, I bought a washing machine/dryer hybrid, a vacuum cleaner, a clothing iron, and other things, paying for them all to be delivered to the house.
All this while my focus had been on obtaining more clothes, completely forgetting I'd need to clean said clothes after I wore them. Thankfully, window shopping in a small mart brought this to my attention and saved me from future embarrassment.
On the items I fancied front, I managed to find the two most high priority ones: a badass leather jacket and a cool-looking long coat. I wore the coat right after I purchased it, its titanium inserts adding another layer of safety to the measures I already had in place.
It wasn't the only change to my appearance. I now had multiple pairs of sunglasses, one of which currently obscured my eyes and sat on my nose, a simple chain and crucifix—both silver—hanging around my neck, and a pair of fingerless gloves on my hands.
Anything too big to be carried around, I made arrangements to be delivered. Everything else capable of fitting onto my body or inside my bag went to their respective locations.
In this manner I kept moving about, exploring and buying all manner of knick knacks till a particular neon sign stopped me in my tracks.
Edge Net.
If my memory serves me right, that shop was a place to buy netrunning resources. Any aspiring or experienced netrunner could obtain whatever they needed, be it cyberdecks, daemons, or information from there provided they had eddies or something of equal value.
Now this was all well and good, but that isn't what made me stop in the middle of the small street. Earlier today I found out today's date: 1st May, 2075.
I saw it on Vik's computer when I first used it, but I shoved it to the back of my mind for contemplation at a later time since it was my first time playing with the Net.
When I saw the sign just now and remembered how crucial netrunning was to patching up the gaping, cyberware-sized hole in my security, a date came to mind. 10th April 2075.
In the lore, a certain "popular" person's corpse was dumped at the city's municipal landfill after the rent on his container had ran out.
To those in the know and a vast majority of the world, this person was considered one of the best if not the best netrunner to ever exist. If I could obtain his body and subsequently his brain, I could use the system to bridge the impossible gap of acquiring his memories and skills.
I could obtain even more if I took my time and did it right.
A smile I tried and failed to stop took over my face, my excitement through the roof. Were it not the tight self control afforded by the serum enhancement, I'd probably be shaking from giddiness.
Hastily making my way to the netrunner shop, I examined the map in my interface using my crisp, clear memories to pin down the body's location. By the time I arrived at the door, I already had a waypoint set.
Eager to get this done and start the journey to that place, I let myself into the dark interior of the shop and went straight to the counter. A petite asian woman with round sunglasses stepped forward to meet me, a tablet held close to her chest.
"Hello. Welcome to Edge Net. How can I help you today?"
"I need a cyberdeck. I'll take your most expensive one," I said and slapped down a credchip and drummed my fingers on it. "Money's not a problem."
Perhaps to take a better look at me, the woman tilted her head up slightly at my words, whatever emotions her eyes conveyed hidden by her shades.
She assessed me, I assumed, to see if I was being serious or if I checked off more than one criteria on her suspicious and/or crazy person list. I wasn't crazy, but I could see how my actions would arouse suspicion in someone like her.
Netrunners were a jumpy and mistrustful sort.
For all she knew, this could be a robbery attempt or a half-assed way to quickly burn stolen money. No matter the case or scenario going through her head, showing her that I was serious would help speed things up.
"We can verify my ability to pay if that's a problem…"
She moved her gaze from my face down to the chip, fixed her glasses and gestured at the device situated at the center of the counter. "Please..."
Glad that things were moving along, I stuck the credchip in the right slot and looked at her with an "are we good expression." She kept her eyes on me for three good seconds before nodding, once to herself and another to me.
"Thank you. Please, wait a moment."
She then left for a back room and I stood there by my lonesome, tapping my foot and my fingers and swinging my head to scan the shop.
There were arcade games arranged in a row behind the counter to the left, none of them engaged. Further left was a space with three netrunner stations, only one of them occupied.
The second I began to contemplate trying my hand at one of the games, Yoko, the shop owner, returned with a small box. She set it down on the counter and slid it forward.
"That will be 10,000 eddies."
Right after she said that, a modal asking for payment authorisation popped up on the screen on the device I stuck my credchip in. With a series of simple taps, the balance on the credchip reduced and I retrieved it.
I then grabbed the box and opened it, finding a sky blue chip the length and width of a snickers bar and the breath of a circuit board. Satisfied and convinced I wasn't being ripped off, I shut the box with an audible clamp and stuffed it in my bag.
With a mock salute, I gave Yoko a nod and made for the exit.
"Thank you for your business. Please, do well to return."
I looked back at her and said, "Will do," before stepping out.
Like someone had set my ass on fire, I didn't stop moving when I exited. I brisk-walked to the parking garage where I left my car and stored the duffle bag filled with items in the car's copious back space.
With the blue map and gold waypoint in my sights, I got in the driver's seat and started the vehicle.