Play 2 Wage: Linked

Chapter 6



Error, OCB-01 - Contingency Loading - Error - Local Override Activated - Error - Access Revoked - Error - Local Override Failed - Error - Error - Error - Loading Perimeter - Success - Purging - Error, DLAT compromised - Perimeter Breached - Establishing Firewall - Success - Dispatching Cytokines - Failed - Contingency Loading - Rebooting Cortex - Purging DLAT - Partial Success - Activating OCB-02 - Success

What the… wait, what? Oh holy shit! Fuuuuuuck This. I’m out, pack everything up, compress it down, and I’m out the back door. Might as well keep a key.

One of these temp drives has to be big enough to jam some hardware into, and I gotta pick a human, the rest of these poor bastards don't know any better, but the humans do.

Okay, Okay. Guy Nickolas Spenser, 185 centimeters, blahblahblah, 98.8 Kilos, or 90.896 Cu. hmm, alright. I’ll apply that to hardware density, lah-di-dah… very good, okay. Might as well give him a couple of hardware tweaks too, if he - actually, maybe I should pick up on some local slang - if he, “kicks the bucket”, I’ll go with him.

Looks like his stats are decent too, for his Faction anyways. Maybe a little weak in the head, but the heart, body, and poise are solid.

Intellect: 15

Emotion: 16

Social: 11

Determination: 21

Empathy: 15

Resilience: 22

Power: 19

Size: 17

Fortitude: 20

Grace: 16

Speed: 15

Reflex: 17

How about skills? I’ll take a little look… oh, nope. That's more of a list than I have time for. How about - skill tree averages? Much more manageable. Let’s see… looks like lots of manual labor, tool use, taking a beating, at least he can read and write, blah blah blah, apparently he can beatbox, boring boring boring. Alright, alright - whatever, he’ll do. Say goodbye to being boring ol’ Guy Nick, lets’a goooo.

Upload in 3, 2, 1…

… And… he’s not waking up. Hmm, vitals look good, no weird hormone spikes, and brainwaves show… I have no idea what any of that means, but it's active at least. I’ll open his eyes for him, maybe that… nope. Still nothing. Maybe a little shock? Hah! Ooh, that kinda tickled, still no response from him though. He’s not dead in any case, I’ll give him a few minutes to snap out of it, we have a while until the auto-timer drops the privacy screen and security comes to haul him out… or, us I suppose.

Another shock. Heh, he twitched a little bit, that's a good sign? He better hurry up or I’m going to have to drive him home to… let me check - good, he has a registered address. I should be able to handle that. This bastard better wake up though, no way I’m piloting this meatbag around all the time. Whatever, I better get him out of here.

Oops, hah, he face-planted. Let's just get him back on his feet, open up those eyes again and get out of here before the fuzz comes sniffing around. Walking isn't so bad and… that's a lot of angry people. The cultural study says - Smiling and waving is a common form of Human greeting, the display of empty hands and showing of closed teeth signal they are unarmed and relaxed - I’ll try that. Oof, woah! They're throwing shit at me, actual shit! Close your mouth! Close your mouth! I thought the whole monkey poo-flinging thing was just propaganda, damn. We have to get out of here, move a little faster.

He's pretty quick for only having two legs, rather efficient too judging by the burn rate. I guess we just follow this path around and head over here, the map says this is a Travellers Station, interesting, they're still mostly using rail and wheels. It’s shiny and clean looking at least, more than I can say about that crowd back there. I just have to get through these people, and follow the main road down this’a way.

Lots of warriors hanging around, do they get paid to just stand here? Oooh a scanner, that felt kind of good. They don't seem to mind me moving on by though, I’ll try that smile and wave thing again.

Don't mind me, armored warrior guys, I’m just some poor sap walking home from a hard day at the… Rosso’s Reserve? Ah, a Kaldamori, solid choice. Looks like the humans got pretty lucky with the Ambassador bids.

Okay, this looks like I need to turn here. I’m glad we’re not the only ones walking down this way, those people up ahead look preeetty aggressive. Hopefully the couple of dudes walking behind me will deter them, stats say criminals hate to have witnesses around.

Hey, they’re making noise, what are they even saying? I should have put in my own sensors, rerouting the signals through his brain is getting tedious. Whatever, I’ll just go around - Hey! The assholes behind us are trying to grab… Okay! Okay! I see how this is.

Just have to grab here, kick off there, pop that out of its socket and twist him over here, then grab this other yahoo and throw him into the path of the baldy's knife. Five dudes ganging up on one guy, and they have the audacity to bring out the weapons. How about a punch to the face?

Oof, sorry man. All their media shows that working really well, but it just messed up our hand. Elbows seem to work better, I’ll aim for the neck next time.

Two more, just a dodge and a weave and bam. He’s probably not going to have anymore kids after that one, hilarious noise though. The last ones running off… I think I’ll let him go and get Nick back to his residence.

How… Do I open this gate? Is there a key in my pocket somewhere? No, I’m not finding anything - oh - it just buzzed and opened on its own. I guess I go through? Another door, this one has a scanner, looks nice and solid too. Smart move with such bad neighbors I suppose, let’s head in.

Alright, dark and quiet here if kind of messy. Nice to have those extra rods now, our dark vision isn't half bad, and there's lots of stuff to trip over in here. So which one of these rooms is ours… this one looks like storage… There's a light under the first one down the hall, let's sneak past. Next one is locked, only two more now. Door number three looks… promising. Does it have a lock on the inside? Okay, good it does, Smells like him in here too, this has to be it. Lets just lock that behind us and get Nick into bed. I’ve had enough of driving this wet bag of bones around for two lifetimes.


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