Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story

It was janky as all get out. Monroe hadn't been able to center the holes properly, so the trailer was constantly wobbling and bouncing about. However, it was moving, just even more slowly than they had originally estimated.

Those twenty-five miles an hour, yeah, not happening. Seven to ten miles an hour, that was the sweet spot. Luckily, they weren't too far away from the next scarpo town, otherwise, they would have been in for a very long night.

They had salvaged everything they could from the raiders and their vehicles. Then, once they realized how iffy the patch job Monro had done with the tires, they grabbed the rest of those as well.

The original hope had been that the town would have replacement tires they could use. After experiencing a few hundred feet of the trailer bouncing about, they had another thought. Even if the town didn't have proper tires, it would still have the equipment needed to work on the tires. Scarpo towns were always self-sufficient like that.

So, while Monroe might have done a poor job of widening the steel wheel hubs in the middle of nowhere with his emergency equipment. In a scarpo town with the proper setup, the result would be much different.

Trace took the spent casings from the revolver and dropped them into his bag. Placing new ammo into the holes took several tries due to the cab jerking about.

He sighed in annoyance when he finished and massaged the back of his neck. "Never again. When we get back, we are getting a full set of replacement tires and sticking them on the roof of the trailer. I'll add some plates to the mudflaps, and to the side. We need to come up with another way for me to get on top of the trailer so I can shoot at pursuers as well."

Monroe ground his teeth and nodded sharply. "Agreed. This constant bouncing is screwing up my suspension and the welds on the trailer. I'm going to have to spend a few days going over everything and fixing the damage after this trip."

At least the job paid well, and that was before they grabbed everything from the raiders. Granted, the profit was going to be less now than before, but everything they had managed to grab was making it hurt a little less.

A little over half an hour later, they rolled into view of their destination. It was a relatively small scarpo town called Kiowa, that had managed to survive due to its out-of-the-way location. The town was slightly different from other scarpo towns in the area as well, in that it had no walls. The boundaries of the town were extremely loosely defined and mainly centered around three streets where all the businesses were.

All the people of Kiowa lived away from each other and were of the belief that if they could see someone else's house from theirs, then their neighbor was too close.

Over the years, the people of the town had worked their way through the ruins of the old town buildings and then deconstructed them all for materials. It was the same thing most scarpo towns did, though this particular town had been more successful than most due to its small size. As a result, when the semi and its trailer rolled over the small bridge and entered the town, only the still active business buildings remained.

"Do you want to go see about getting some new tires or properly modifying the rest we grabbed? I'll work with the people here to unload their portion of the supplies and make sure they pay us the other half of the payment."

Monroe nodded, carefully backing the jostling trailer into position.

"What happened to you guys?" One of the town leaders asked, rushing to help Trace as he jumped out of the cab and began walking along the side of the trailer. "We expected you to arrive over two hours ago."

"Yeah, we ran into raiders," Trace told him, kicking the wonky-looking tire. "We handled them, but they shot out a few of the tires before we got them. Replacing them led to some… issues."

"Looks like it," The man muttered.

"Yeah, Monroe will need to borrow some equipment to get everything fixed, unless you guys have tires that will fit the trailer?"

"We might have a couple in storage, not sure. He'll have to check with one of the others."

"That works," Trace grunted as he opened the door and pointed to some supplies in the middle of the trailer. In front of them were all the items they had taken from the raiders.

***

While Monroe was working on the tires, and the town's batch of supplies were being unloaded, Trace looked at the cable he had unhooked before. The bullet was still stuck inside, but it was no longer sparking. Fixing the cable wouldn't be an issue if they were at his warehouse. Here in the boonies, it was another matter.

It was better to remove the bullet, and then just wrap the break to keep the inside as clean as possible. In that condition, it would be usable, though certainly less so than before. At least it wouldn't be causing issues anymore.

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While he was performing what was an otherwise mindless activity, he was also texting with Deckard, who wanted to begin the money grab.

'The mayor's people just loaded up the account. It's fat and heavy with 15.7 million credits! I've gotten access to a few of their other accounts already, just not their main ones. I still haven't found which accounts this money is originating from.'

Trace yanked out the steel bullet and dropped it at his feet. 'Alright, you know best on this one. Just make sure that your actions can't be traced, nor can the money. I don't want anyone to come after us for this. Split it up and send it through thousands of accounts and crypto-vaults if you have to. Just be safe and secure.'

'You got it. Expect to see some interesting movement on the part of the government when you return. So, make sure everything is above board.' That was the contents of the last message he received from Deckard.

Folding up the utility plyers, he stuck it in his bag and grabbed a roll of black electrical tape. Wiping down the cable, he removed the dust and debris before wrapping it in several layers of tape. Trace plugged the cable back into its panel and twisted it until it locked into position.

With that taken care of, he threw his bag into the truck and went to find Monroe. He was in a shop working on tires with two other men. The small town had only had one tire that would have fit the trailer. They bought it, but it wasn't going to be enough to offset all of what they were missing just yet. The one, combined with the two spares, still left them one shy of what they actually needed, and that was discounting the damage the other eight tires had suffered.

They might not have been shot out during the encounter; however, a lot of pressure had been forced on them during the short time afterward. It was why Monroe had decided to replace them all with the lower-capacity truck tires from the raider vehicles. It wasn't traditional, but since the trailer wasn't fully loaded, it had worked out decently well.

"How's it going?" He asked Monroe as he walked into the building.

"The wheels and tires we took from the trucks are still good, plus there was still a bunch left over in the trailer. All the ones from the cars didn't last nearly as well. We'll still have enough, but if any of these get messed up, we'll have to go back to the original trailer tires."

Trace sighed. "Well, it's a gamble, but at least we have a backup plan in place. Just remember to avoid all the bumps and potholes. The trailer sits a lot lower now with these wheels than the originals. Do you need my help with anything? They've finished unloading everything, and I patched up the cable for the moment."

Monroe waved him away. "Nah, we got this. These guys know what they're doing. You'd just get in the way with this sort of thing. You play with tech, while I play with heavy machinery like these. Nothing wrong with either one of our chosen hobbies." He grinned and winked. "Mine just happens to give me excellent muscles and make me dirty a little more often, is all."

Trace snorted and rolled his eyes again as he left them to their work. That was fine with him. The solitude would give him some time to go over something he had been avoiding for a while now. It was time to do another upgrade, pastime actually, by more than a week. Yet he had been hesitating on making any decisions regarding it.

In his estimation, the knowledge upgrade packs were by far the most useful… However, they also apparently came with the tendency to fry your brain. Normal people handled the download pretty well, but the way his brain had been changed made the download far riskier for him. So, while those were what he wanted, he couldn't choose them. Which is what led to him dithering on the matter.

The funny thing was some of the changes had a single-week cooldown. Meaning while he had been an indecisive little pansy on the matter, he could have already made a decision, been done with the first upgrade, and now be choosing another one. Except that hadn't been what he'd done, because he kept stalling.

Now, right then, he was going to make a decision and execute it. Which meant he needed to select something that would be completed fast. That alone cuts out anything related to cyberware, not that he had been considering that anyway. He hadn't been bulking up the nanite or metal reserves for something of that nature.

No, he was thinking of performing another 'Smooth Nerves'. It wouldn't be on his arm this time, as doing it a second time there would be mostly pointless, he figured. Maybe in the future, if that area ever suffered damage, he would consider it.

Instead, he was thinking about performing the upgrade on the nerves that connected to his eyes. Or, as was more likely the case, his neck and the NetConnect. That particular device handled everything, and his nerves needed to be in top condition. Sevorah hadn't said anything, she might not have even noticed anything. But well, the last time he checked, the brain was connected to the brainstem, which was then connected to the NetConnect.

It was entirely likely, and even probable, that he was making leaps of logic due to missing or incomplete information. However, if helping repair and just generally make the nerves that connected to his spinal cord better helped, then he didn't really see a downside either way. Though, obviously he was hoping that it would also help fix or at the very least alleviate some of the other issues with his brain.

Again, what did he know on the subject? He wasn't a doctor or a mender. He wasn't even a slicer.

Hopping into the truck, Trace pulled up the menu and quickly made his selection. Within moments he felt the nanites rushing through his body, congregating around his neck and the nerves where the NetConnect was specifically attached to his body. The naming system was a little off, but regardless, it still worked as long as you understood that it only upgraded items in relation to cyberware.

It wouldn't just upgrade an entire string of natural nerves. That would cause havoc with his body. Deckard and Meredith had put locks and safeguards in place to prevent something of that nature from ever occurring.

Twenty minutes later, five minutes longer than what it had taken on his arm, the process finished.

The connection that Trace had with his NetConnect had grown distant during the upgrade, suddenly returned in full and then some. His new device had always been snappier and faster than his old one, and yet now, it was like the NetConnect was reading his mind.

Whereas before you had to mentally direct it to open an application or do something with the HUD. Now, it simply did it. There was so little lag between his mental inputs and the device that it was reacting to them almost instantly, and it, in turn, seemed like it was reading his mind.