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

Kenshin was more than willing to help, and since all he was going to be doing was acting as a helper, he wouldn't even be charging that much. Trace still made sure to treat him right though and gave him a couple of cans of good food along with all the swollen bad ones. He didn't want to eat them, but they could still be sold to the right buyers.

Honestly, Trace was surprised that everything was still in the bunker when they arrived. Well, almost everything. The bodies of the corpo agents had been taken, along with the crumpled, tattered remains of the papers they had left on the top of the desk, but that was it. Nothing else had been touched, not even the SUVs that he had moved.

All the seeds, dirt, weapons, armor, and more were exactly where he had last seen them. Which subsequently meant they were prime for retrieving.

It was odd, to say the least, but for the moment at least, he wasn't going to question their good luck. As for the SUVs, there was nothing he could do about any trackers they might have for the moment. The control modules he had brought would have been nearly useless, if not for how much time he had spent working on them. Even then, he had made little progress recreating what program the raiders originally used.

However, he -with Deckard's help- had come up with another solution. For the moment, it only worked in situations where he had access to two vehicles of the same make. But he did have an idea for the creation of an adapter box that would allow the control module to function and accept the new code even without being in the same type of vehicle.

A data cable would be run from the original control module to the raider's model, at which point all the needed settings and basic information would be copied over. He hadn't realized it originally, due to how the raiders had it setup with their software, but the raider's control module was hardcoded to allow things to be modified. That meant that once the original information was copied over, he would still be able to change who owned it without a problem.

That said, by doing it this way, he would lose access to all the extensive modifications that the raiders had inside their version. His was simpler, while theirs were far more robust in nature. Maybe someday he would get his hands on that version or be able to remake it. For now though, this is what he had, and besides, he would still be able to change a few things, just not to the same extent.

With Kenshin's help, he linked two of the SUVs together and swapped out the control module on one of them. After that, it was the work of minutes to copy the needed information over. Then Trace swapped control modules out and repeated the process again two more times.

After changing the owner's information, they moved two of them into the back of the trailer.

Kenshin would be responsible for driving the last one back.

The entire trip took a few hours, and the sky was dark and the air cold by the time the city came back into view.

***

Trace yawned early the next morning; he was beyond tired. After returning, he had stayed up late, going over the three vehicles, trying to find every tracker. Then, for good measure, he had stayed up a little longer and finally done the same thing on the personnel carrier.

He thought he had gotten all of the external ones, but really, it was hard to say without taking them completely apart. He had just been looking for anything that released any sort of signal. But there could and would be more tied to certain functions of the system. There was also the real possibility of gyro or trackers that only activated on movement.

He would need to dig deep into the SUVs before he offered one of them to Ko. Otherwise, he would just be giving her something that brought her endless trouble, and that was something he wouldn't do.

Deckard wasn't responding to his yells, but he did have a message from the man waiting for him.

'Everything on the list has been ordered and paid for. There was enough money left over to buy a couple of learning modules. Look forward to them. I'll be concentrating on tracking down information on my parents for the next… well, however long it takes. Please, install all the new server hardware as soon as it comes in. I'll need the extra bandwidth.'

He had read the message when he first woke up, but wasn't sure how out of touch Deckard would be until right then. It would be somewhat lonely, but he had plenty of projects that he needed to work on. He could always take on a personal job without Monroe, but he wanted to get the stealth suit up and working again before he did that.

As for Monroe, well, he would be out of action for the next couple of days while he recovered. The initial process wouldn't take too long, but afterward, he would still need to readjust to the new lesser capacity of his body.

So, for the foreseeable future at least, Trace was back to being a solo operator instead of part of a team.

It was odd… for so long he had considered himself a loner, and now that he had experienced the benefits that came with being part of a team, he couldn't really say that any longer. If you could trust your team members to watch your back, then everything became so much easier and far less dangerous. Of course, you became more limited on which jobs you could do, but the opposite was also true.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Once he got the stealth suit back up and working, or even better, the improved model, he would be able to take on some true sneaking jobs. They would give him a chance to practice skills that he was lacking at the moment. It was far too easy to simply fall back to the desire to simply shoot everything whenever something went wrong. It helped that his aim and ability to shoot had finally improved to the point where that was a viable option.

However, he needed to get to the point where things didn't go wrong in the first place!

He wanted to become a wraith, a shadow, and yet the path toward becoming one was even harder than he imagined. Without any sort of mentor, the path was slow going and filled with nothing but mistakes and tiny steps forward. Still, that didn't mean he was going to give up, only that it was frustrating.

Trace sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the exhaustion. He knew he needed to focus on the tasks at hand, but his mind kept wandering back to the bunker and the missing corpo agents. Something about only them being missing nagged at him. It was an oddity that continued to flutter about his mind like a loose thread he couldn't quite grasp.

He pushed the thought aside for now and turned his attention to the stealth suit. Much of the surface-level damage had already been repaired and patched. Now, it was just a matter of replacing the armor plates with new, better ones that were at that moment being printed out in sections by their current 3D printer. The new 3D printers and CNC machines Deckard had ordered would make the process of constructing armor like this even faster. Not to mention those printers would be capable of constructing truly custom armor. The current pieces were little more than heavy chunks of shaped metal.

As Trace lost himself in the delicate work of the suit, his hands moving with practiced efficiency, he found himself grateful for the sudden solitude. It might not have been what he thought he needed, but it was. Having some time to himself and his thoughts working with the intricacies of technology, something that he enjoyed, was exactly what he needed to distract himself from everything that had been going on recently.

Hours slipped by as Trace worked, only occasionally pausing to stretch or grab a drink of cold, deliciously scum-free water. The quiet of the workshop was broken only by the clatter of his tools, the alarm going off when packages arrived in the afternoon.

The first of the items that Deckard had ordered for them had arrived.

Glancing at the cameras he had placed at the doors, Trace frowned. "Well, it was a good distraction while it lasted."

He had modified the stealth suit to accept the new armor plates and rerun any cables that had made their presences known after he wore the suit a few times. Sometimes, you thought a spot would be out of the way and comfortable, only to later find that after an hour, it started to compress and dig into your spine, or something more delicate.

Grabbing a rag, he wiped his hands down and went upstairs, locking the basement doors behind him as he went. Trace grabbed his revolver from the shelf near the door of his apartment, along with the gun that he had swiped from the agents to replace his broken CD-10, holstering them both. This particular pistol lacked an extended magazine, which it could really use in his opinion. The size of the cartridges was each larger than they had been in his old gun due to this model using .357 Magnum ammunition.

This particular gun model was called a Deen 2100. The model itself was outdated, and other companies had updated the design and arguably even improved on it. However, this was the original and remained popular for a reason. It was an excellent base for nearly any sort of mod you could think of on a pistol platform… within reason. That was nice for Trace, as it meant he would be able to swap over the mods he had been using on the CD-10. More importantly, it was compatible with a suppressor, and it would have the power his previous gun had been lacking.

It was a worthwhile upgrade, for sure.

His fingers itched toward the railgun, but he decided not to bring it. He didn't want to be too obvious, no matter what they did or didn't know. Maintaining appearances was important.

Walking toward the door of the warehouse, he switched off the alarm and approached the microphone that had been installed with the cameras. Downstairs, they were set to show up on the screens for ease of viewing and to help get his attention if he was particularly engrossed in a project. In reality though, they could also be accessed through his HUD. The security system was run through the server and their private network that Deckard controlled.

He didn't want to test it, but he doubted that even a system ghost could take control of or even access anything on their network without touching the server physically.

"You have the look of a bunch of corpo-suits," He ground out in annoyance. "Why are you standing outside my door holding my packages?"

Really, he didn't care that corpo slot-wipes were standing outside his door, they tended to do that. But it bugged him that they were touching his packages. Each one would need to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb and thoroughly disinfected before he used them. Who knew what sort of weird corpo-herpes these people were carrying… or you know what they might have done to the items inside the packages? But nasty scuzzy-corpo germs were a real thing. At least he thought they were. He'd have to ask Ko about it later.

"Mister Delevey?" The man outside asked for what Trace felt was probably the third or fourth time.

He really was tired; he didn't usually get lost in his own thoughts like that. "I'm here. What were you saying?"

"I said, my name is Hobin-Jin, and I believe that you and I have a few matters to discuss together. Perhaps having that discussion inside, somewhere private, would be better. My people would be happy to bring your items inside to help facilitate the rapidity of our conversation."

Trace took a step back from the door. He recognized that name. He knew he did, but from where? Oh, why did he have to be so tired? His brain just wasn't working right at the moment. It was in relation to someone… He remembered that much.

Grinding his teeth in annoyance, Trace sent off messages to Stick-Point, Ko, Sevorah, and Pushman. He was certain the name had nothing to do with Monroe, but that was it.

Approaching the microphone again, he hesitated and then asked the next question. "Fine, assuming I believe that load of dross. What do all the rest of the people surrounding the building and roof have to do with it?"

A flicker of confusion flashed across the man's face before he dove for the nearest cover.