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

Ko worked with Anna on Trace's chest while Sevorah finished patching up Monroe. They had been forced to remove some of his damaged lung, due to how long it had been. It could have been worse, but the big man was going to be running low on oxygen for a while until he adjusted. Even then, he would never be one hundred percent again. He might eventually get close, but that was it.

Eventually, he would need to either get a DNA-matched cloned lung, which was really expensive. Or get a cyberware replacement, which was still expensive but less so. However, it came with the risk that all cyberware did, which cloned replacements inherently didn't suffer from.

Any piece of cyberware that went inside the body was going to be more expensive than other parts. They were built to a different standard, as they couldn't be easily repaired if something malfunctioned. As a result, they generally weren't cutting edge but made up of parts from the last generation. Pieces that had been tested to the extreme and were known to work.

All of that went, and the need to harden them against EMP went into their pricing. They also only accepted hard-wired connections if their settings needed to be updated. So, they weren't susceptible to wireless hacking or the usual methods system ghosts used to mess with someone.

Regardless, none of that mattered at the moment, as Monroe had no money. His debts -even with the chunk he had paid off- were still too high for something like that.

"You both got incredibly lucky. I hope you know that," Sevorah told him, pulling up the scan of their injuries on a nearby screen. "If that bullet had been just a little higher, it would have hit your rib and turned it into shrapnel. Then you wouldn't have been able to move at all because of the pain. You would have been lucky to get to your first aid kit, let alone drag yourself to the vehicle. Driving would have been out of the question and saving Monroe an impossibility. That's just one scenario. I have more if you want to hear them?"

"No, that's alright," Trace told her quickly.

He wasn't entirely sure that she was correct, but he wasn't going to tell her that. She didn't know anything about how his bones were slowing turning into metal. That was a new development since the last time she had run a full suite of tests on him.

"By the way, I have a couple of items for you. I was originally going to give them to Ko, but since you are here." She rifled through a nearby drawer and put a couple of glass bottles in a small box, lastly, she withdrew a jet injector and without even paying attention injected something into his arm.

He yelped in surprise and rubbed the circular spot. "Hey, what was that for?"

"Something to help with your brain issue," She tapped her head. "Your friend and I have been working on a few different iterations. He seems to have some process of testing each variation we have come up with rather quickly. It has made the process far faster than anything I would have been able to do on my own."

Trace had actually forgotten that Deckard was helping Sevorah with that. He also didn't know that he had been using the virtual environments for testing medical serums, though there was no actual reason that he needed to know that. They were Deckard's to design, create, and destroy as he willed. Entirely there for his purposes.

Someday, Trace might ask him to simulate a couple of things, but as far as he was concerned, they belonged entirely to Deckard.

"Oh, is it going to fix the issue, or be another Band-Aid?"

"I don't know if there is a fix for your particular problem. The best we can hope to do is manage the symptoms and control the severity of everything. Since the underlying cause is your entire brain and not a specific area, it limits what I can do. Remember, this only mimics epilepsy in how it appears, that's it. There doesn't appear to be any relation between the two beyond a superficial one. But it's all we have to work on at the moment."

It had been a few days since his last episode, and it had been fairly minor compared to the last few before it. So, everything they were doing was working. Still, if he could be rid of them entirely, again, he would be happy.

They had been gone for years until all of this started making them act up again.

"Alright, and the bottles?"

"Just more of the nutrition and vitamin supplements you've been taking. These have been modified somewhat to include more of what you need along with extras targeted at your brain. You should start taking them tonight before going to bed. Give the rest of your other supplements to Ko. She'll dispose of them for you."

He nodded and ran a hand down his face. It came away gritty. He was still covered in concrete chips, dust, and blood. "Uh, hey Ko, do you have time after this?"

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Her brows furrowed, and she turned to Sevorah, who shrugged. "It's up to you. I have Anna in training now, and the day hasn't been too busy."

"It depends," She replied, biting her lip. "I had planned on helping with Anna's training. I don't want to ditch if it's only for a date. Sorry," She finished with a slight wince.

Trace chuckled and shook his head. "No worries, it's not like that. I was hoping to get some help in retrieving a few items, is all. When this happened, Monroe and I were investigating a bunker we had found. Unfortunately, we had to leave all the items we had found there. Normally, I wouldn't care too much except it was canned food and seeds along with some grow lights." He licked his lips. "There may also be a few really nice corpo SUVs that are currently up for grabs as well. I remembered you needed a vehicle, and well, I wouldn't mind one as well."

She snorted. "Your just collecting vehicles at this point, aren't you? It sounds like you need more than just one person if there are multiple SUVs."

Trace nodded. "There are three of them." He hesitated before continuing. "I can message Kenshin or some other edgers that I know. It's not a problem."

It kind of was, but she didn't need to concern herself with that. He wasn't close enough with any of them for it to be done on a favor basis. They would want some of the loot. Not too much, since all they were doing was acting as transport, but he was loathe to risk parting with some of those seeds. The cans of food were precious, but the seeds and grow lights were the real treasure, in his opinion.

"How were you going to bring the other two SUVs back with just me?"

"I was going to take the semi and its trailer. It's wide and long enough that it should fit them both without a problem. We transported Monroe's van in it on the way back from the badlands." He would just need to make sure they brought the ramps this time.

Ko stamped her foot in irritation, while a busy Anna nibbled at her lip, wondering what her friend would choose to do. "Ooh, this isn't fair Trace!" She huffed in annoyance. "I want to, I do, but I promised to help here."

Trace chuckled and shook his head. "It's fine, really. It's my fault for asking out of the blue like this. I know you're working at the moment, and I should have respected that. It's not like I was calling you for help to patch someone up. I get it."

"Still, it makes me happy that I was the first person you thought to ask for help," She bobbled her head. "Even if proximity might have had something to do with it at the time."

His brows furrowed thoughtfully as he considered what she'd said. "Actually, even if I'd been somewhere else, I still probably would have you called first. Well," He corrected himself. "First behind Monroe."

Despite how much his life had changed over the last few months, he still had a limited number of people he could call for help. His relationship with Stick-Point was complicated in many ways. They were close, and he trusted him, more so than he even did Ko. However, as a job broker council member, he couldn't be seen showing favoritism toward any edgers, especially one under his purview. It had actually been a little easier on them before Trace became a proper edger. That didn't prevent Stick-Point from pushing against the boundaries, but every time he did, there were consequences.

As it was, the other council members had asked several times for him to hand Trace over to another job broker. So far, he had refused to do it, as he wanted to maintain control and oversight. However, there was a reason that more and more of Trace's jobs had been coming from other brokers.

He was slow to trust people, though his faith could be lost in moments. As such, while he was slowly coming to trust Kenshin and the other five from the two teams he and Monroe had worked with during that job into the pit, he needed more time. They had only collaborated on a couple of jobs since then, though they had remained in contact.

First, there was the job with the Blood-Dogs, and then they had been dealing with Edgewater together. Though, lately progress with that community had come to a standstill. They were waiting for news from Pushman before they could begin making more progress there.

Shaking his head, Trace brushed a finger over the patch of disposable synthetic-skin they had applied to the wound. It would help his actual skin heal faster and inhibit the growth of needless scar tissue. It worked great on smaller wounds, though larger injuries would still result in scars unless the synth-skin patches were exchanged several times as the wound healed.

Anna closed up the panel on the wrist of his cyberware arm and carefully replaced the synth skin on top of the area. "There, all cleaned and adjusted. The impact you took was minor for this arm's specs. This thing was built to handle a building falling on top of it."

Trace nodded to her, thinking that probably had more to do with the upgrades the G.H.O.S.T. System had performed instead of its initial design specifications.

Before she could change her mind, Ko bounced forward, gently pushing her friend out of the way, and kissed him. Pressing her forehead to his for several seconds afterward. "Thanks. I know how much that admission means. Now get out of here and get me my new car." She told him with a playful wink. "We'll keep an eye on Monroe while you're gone."

Trace rolled his eyes and headed for the door, already bringing up his contacts. "Oh, and I'll call his girlfriend Sabrina, and let her know what happened as well. So, if someone shows up in a mobile fortress, that's her."

"I know who Sabrina is," Sevorah told him with a shooing motion. "By the time an edger has reached specialist tier, they have typically had work done by a dozen menders. I am one of those who has done work on her in the past."

He nodded and made the call, turning to walk down the hall. "Hey Sabrina, we got back from our trip a little bit ago and ran into a bit of trouble. Before you say anything, just know that we're both alive, but were injured. Monroe is getting some work done at Sevorah's. His right lung took a beating along with his bicep."

Before she could begin to panic, he explained that Monroe was for certain going to be alright. It wasn't until he reached his truck outside that he realized she had hung-up on him, and he was talking to himself.

With an annoyed grumble, he composed a quick text message with the appropriate information and sent it off to her. Then, getting in his truck, he called Kenshin. He wanted to head back to the bunker and get everything before others had a chance to take everything.