Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System

In a different room, Dante sat in front of an old monitor. The footage it displayed was something only found in the darkest corners of the internet, showing things that tore from one's sanity, leaving behind scars that will never heal.

From time to time, he would find himself glad that there was no sound to accompany the spectacle. It would have grown too annoying otherwise, and he would have tuned out before long. After all, even if he was desensitized to all kinds of cruelty, he was still a man himself. Though he knew the pudgy gangster deserved every bit of the pain and humiliation he was being put through, it was impossible not to feel a little bad for him.

Fortunately, the disturbing scenes soon came to an end, and at the same time, the chatbox in the corner of his vision moved, and the texts that arrived were no longer just begging. They still felt incoherent. Some were names, others were times and dates. There were a few addresses as well, and some told entire stories.

Each of those was the answer to questions Rose asked, but without hearing what she said, it was difficult to make any sense of it. After a while, Rose seemed to have asked all the questions she wanted to ask. Dante thought it was over, but turns out the purple-haired woman was just getting started.

She stood over the workbench with all the tools she was using, and after a while, she picked another toy, this one with a clearly ridiculous size.

"Alright, that's enough." Saying that, Megan reached out and turned the monitor off.

When Dante gave her a questioning look, she returned a frown.

"Don't tell me you get off to this shit."

"No," He shook his head and pushed himself up. "She's done with the questions, so there is no point in putting up with that."

There was no point in watching the whole thing to begin with. Still, Dante didn't avert his gaze. He witnessed everything from the start, and he was going to witness it all. It wasn't that he felt any obligations to do so. He just wanted to see where all of this was going, and it went exactly where he was expecting.

"Kinda hungry." He said. "Ima go grab something."

"You feel like eating?" Megan looked even more disturbed. "After all of that?"

"I vomited my breakfast." He replied. "Anyway, tell her we will finish the rest tomorrow. I need to get some rest."

He could have just sent her a message, but he didn't want to disrupt her work. He was sure she wouldn't want to see him by the time she was done, so he decided to do them both a favor.

~[ ]~

[That was a very interesting experience.]

Just as he sat down on the train bench, Dante was hit with that statement. He was worried what his resident AI meant by it, but he was afraid to ask.

'Let's forget all about it.' He said. 'We got what we wanted, and that's what matters.'

They might have to do it a few more times to confirm the information they have, but that was a problem for another time.

Discussing torture with an AI only made things worse, so Dante put an end to it before it could start. His hangover had calmed down a little, and he had worked up an appetite, so he planned on dropping by the Bowl of Fortune before going home to get some much-needed rest.

As the drowsiness started to get to him, he recalled needing to contact Finn. The boy was likely deep into another study session with Suzuka. Last time, he had spent an entire night raving about how brilliant Nobara's granddaughter was, going into all the scientific detail about the things she taught him. All of it went over Dante's head, of course, but he was glad things worked out the way he imagined.

[Dante: Hey.

Did you look at the list like I told you?

]

The reply came not too long after.

[Finn: Yeah.

I already picked one of them.

Go with #13

Dante: Alright.

]

Dante closed the messenger app and opened a certain file. Scrolling past several profiles, he stopped at the one numbered 13.

'Nate Grimes, huh…'

He stared at the photo of a twenty-something-year-old for a couple of minutes then went down to read his profile. Turns out he works as a bouncer at one of the nightclubs owned by the Daggers. Married with a seven-year-old daughter. His wife is still in the picture.

'A father at 18, huh…' Dante thought. 'Must really love his daughter.'

The train arrived at its destination soon enough, and Dante went to warm himself with a bowl of spicy noodles. As he approached the noodle shop, he noticed a red dot on the miniature map in the corner of his eye. Guessing it was another one of Riot's goons, he decided to just ignore it and went about his business.

Perceptive as always, Nobara noticed almost immediately that he had hooked up with someone and berated him for not going after her granddaughter instead. As a punishment, she made the used hot sauce instead of water when making the broth for his noodles, then went and added more afterward, saying he might as well get a new stomach since he had replaced his kidneys.

The ultra spicy noodles were delicious, though toilet visits were going to be hellish for a while. Back in his apartment, Dante swapped outfits through the Equip screen, putting on something comfortable before plopping down in his bed. He didn't set any alarms and just allowed his mind to drift, subconsciously thinking about the things he needed to do later on.

'I need to check on Lev.' He thought. 'And Larry… I wonder if he has one of those…'

Knowing he would forget once he woke up, he sent the underground doctor a message asking if he could help him find what he was looking for. Worst-case scenario, he might have to hunt some corpo cyborg just to get it.

'I need to work on the hideout… too…'