Chapter 8: Decked Out

  “I was starting to wonder if I’d have to find a new buyer for all this e” Yoko said, examining Cal from behind her dark tinted gsses.

  Cal wondered for a moment how she was able to work in the dimly lit parlor while wearing sungsses, but the answer inly obvious: cyberware.

  “Maybe if you’d given me a better deal I wouldn’t have had such a hard time ing up with the rest of your eddies...” Cal said as he transferred 55k to the shrewd woman.

  Yoko just smiled slyly before responding “This is a business, you know. I’m here to make money, not cut bad deals with every fresh faced punk that rolls in off the streets. t yourself lucky you came here to source your deck. Most others would be far less restrained with their prig.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I have my gear now?”

  “But of course.” Yoko said before retrieving three sealed anti static bags from underh the ter.

  “How ve… If I didn’t know aer, I would think you already knew I was going to e by today.”

  Yoko just maintained her smile as she passed a shard tainer across the ter to Cal.

  “A sotion and a gift, from one ruo the . Call it a starter pack for your new deck.”

  “Thanks…”

  “See you soon, Mr. Hobbs.”

  With those parting words, Cal put his new possessions into his backpad exited Edge . Dealing with the shop’s owner felt a lot like dealing with Wakako, and not just because they were both Asian dies. She was one of the many people iy that he could tell knew more tha on. Cal wouldn’t be surprised if Yoko had dug up his entire life story at this point, but iy what she could find was only a small piece of the puzzle that made up the current Calvin Hobbs.

  He didn’t o try hard to push his misgivings regarding their iions out of his mind, since Cal was brimming with excitement from the much more important matter at hand. He finally had his first pieces of cyberware. The urge was strong to sprint towards Vic’s id have him immediately install the impnts. He khat would be a mistake though, so he tempered the impulse and aired on the side of cautioill made his way over to Vic’s, but he had a little work to do before he could get everything chipp’d in.

  ---------------------------

  “Back already? I don’t have any more work for you yet, kid.” Vic said, surprised by Cal’s sudden unannounced visit.

  “Thanks, but I brought my own stuff to work on this time.”

  Cal made his way straight to the work bend started pulling out his newly acquired cyberware, carefully arranging each pie the work surface. Vic just raised an eyebrow showing mild i as he approached to look over Cal’s shoulder. Usually, this kind of thing would irk Cal. He didn’t really like people looming over him and evaluating his every a while he tried to work. His current exhiration and the growing respect he had for the old ripper tamped down any disfort he might have had from Vic’s observation as he tinued with focus aermination.

  Vic had called him in twice over the past two and a half weeks to make good on their deal to refurbish some used cyberware, and Cal had progressed a lot with the man’s help. What he had learned wasn’t anything especially unique roundbreaking. Vic just gave a tip here and a nudge in the right dire there to keep him on the right track whearted to stumble or run into issues. He would have likely learned everything Vic taught him over time due to his teopathy and high aptitude for this kind of work. Still, the guidance had sped up his learning process to no small degree and Cal had grown to enjoy his advid pany during the brief repair sessions.

  “That’s some pretty serious hardware you’re w with.” Vic said as he examihe bag taining Cal’s Raven Microcyber Mk. 5.

  “Yeah, I had to shell out a pretty penny to get my hands ohing, but this setup should st me for quite a while with how things are going. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Vic, but I really don’t want you digging around in my head too often.”

  Cal had let Viow that he was w oing a few pieces of cyberware for running and he would want the ripper to install them for him, but he had left out the specifics of what he had ordered just saying “It’s a surprise.”

  Cal already had the Ex-Disk out and hooked up to the terminal to run some diagnostics. Everything came back green and he tinued examining the circuitry, probing it here and there as he reached into it with his teopathy.

  It was a clever bit of tech. The impnt interfaced directly with various parts of the brain to optimize the user’s memory and stre’s e to a cyberdeck. It was basically just a way to increase your iion with a deck, causing it to act as more of aension of one’s brain instead of a peripheral device. This resulted in a near photographic memory for users. They could also navigate and utilize their cyberdeck faster and more effitly while redug the tency when interfag with remote devices and systems. While this made it’s users system more vulnerable to attacks from demons and Bck ICE, it also made those same attacks harder to pull off unnoticed. The increased iio users could deploy quickhacks and termeasures faster, giving them an edge against hostile runners.

  It didn’t take long for Cal to determihat there weren’t any faults or backdoors hidden in the impnt, so he moved on to the Self-Iit. It retty uninspired, all things sidered. It was basically just a firewall that interfaced directly with a cyberdeck. It could be programmed to adepely to thwart any breaches or attempts to trace the user that were detected and respond with an appropriate level of termeasures. It could be programmed to utilize any Demons and quickhacks the user had stored on their deck or any of the ICE loaded in it’s memory that could range from mundane defensive measures to the more malicious Bck ICE. The stro aspect of the impnt was it’s ability to automatically use an enemy runner’s e as a vector for a direct attack. The impnt wasn’t that plicated or special, but what you loaded on it definitely could be.

  Cal was gd he didn’t find any issues with either piece of cyberware. He went to Yoko for the impnts for that very reason and she had lived up to her reputation thus far. Both impnts were factory new and free from any damage or tampering. The cyberdeck was what he was most ed about though, and with good reason. During his iion, he found backdoors in both the hardware and software that could be utilized to shut down the deck or incapacitate the user. These were not faults that were installed by just ahey were clearly ied directly into the ded it’s kernel by the manufacturer. Cal had holy expected this, but he was still a bit disappointed he would have to modify his expensive new cyberdeck.

  “Hey, Vic… Take a look at this. I found a backdoor in the OS that shouldn’t be too hard to fix, but I’m not sure I remove or bypass this one in the hardware.” Cal said as he rolled his stool to the side and poio a small chip on the cyberdeck’s circuit board.

  Vic pulled over a nearby seat and started examining the chip and it’s surrounding circuitry.

  “Hmm… her are very surprising. Pretty standard for manufacturers to include these kinds of “security features” actually. I don’t have any software that’s beeed on this deck, so yonna have to re-write and optimize it yourself. There’s a debugging tool oerminal that should help you fg all the bad code in the kernel, but the rest is up to you. As for this little devil…” Vic moved his left hand over the cyberded started maniputing the chip with his exoglove before removing it from the board and making a few new es “There. Should be good to go.”

  The chip was a small disguised receiver who’s only fun was to accept ands from an encrypted signal and cut power to crucial pos, disabling the cyberdeck. It retty basic kill switch. With the receiver removed, all Vic had to do was plete the power circuits to prevent any faults and re-seal the board. His skilled hands made the task look effortless, but Cal knew he would have likely bricked the whole board if he attempted the same thing.

  “Damn. Pretty smooth Vic.”

  “I’ve been doing this for a long time kid. Could have solved that little issue a lot faster if you just handed over the dee to i first.”

  “Yeah, and what would I have learned from that?”

  “Nothing. That’s why I still let you flounder on things like this. Though, you’re improving pretty quickly.”

  “Oh my! Was that a pliment, you salty dog?”

  “Don’t push it kid. You’ve still got a long way to go.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Now scooch. I’ve got some code to fix.”

  Vic just grumbled at that a back to watg his boxing matches.

  The debugging tool Vic had on his terminal was clearly something the man had developed himself, at least partially. Cal could tell the thing timized to find fws and fg malware, so it quickly identified the same issues Cal had previously noted along with a few others he had missed. Most of the code was rock solid, but the backdoor was ied into many of the core processes of the operating system causing the whole thing to bee unstable when he removed it. It was a good thing that Cal arrived here a little after noon, because this was not going to be an easy fix.

  It took Cal the rest of the day and most of the o pile a able kernel for his cyberdeck. He had Vic look it over and based on his input, ended up making a few extra tweaks for better security. Before he k Cal was ying down on the ripper’s chair, his foot boung away as he anxiously awaited his new impnts.

  “Rex kid. It’ll be over before you know it” Vic said as he pressed a jet iainst Cal’s arm administering a sedative.

  “Just start ting backwards from 10”

  He didn’t even make it to 6 before his vision faded and his mind clouded pulling him into a dreamless abyss.

  ------------------------

  “M, kid. How you feelin?” Cal heard as he slowly came back to sciousness.

  “Like someone just shoved a half pound of junk in my head…”

  “Heh, you’re not too far off there. Take your time and don’t move around too quickly. The nanobots are still pleting the fine es that require active neurons. They should finish up over the 10 hours, but you’ll o stay scious and lucid. Expee nausea and migraines for the rest of the day.”

  “Well that sounds… miserable. Thanks anyways Vic.”

  “Don’t mention it. Just take it easy for the rest of the day. Brain impnts are pretty rough to get acclimated to. You head home when you get your feet under you, but e baorrow for your final ched I’ll activate all that new e if everything looks good. Also, here. Take this before you go to bed.”

  Vided Cal an ihat he exami for a moment before haphazardly throwing it into his bag.

  “What is it? Immunosupressants?”

  “Hell no! I’m no hack. Kid, if you need immunosuppressants, you’ve got some serious problems. Got it? That shit is just a stop gap to keep people with failing or mismatched e from going full cyberpsycho. If your body is rejeg an impnt, you o get it removed or repced, full stop. That inhaler is just a basic mix of antibiotid some mild painkillers. Should help you sleep and ward off any possible iions. Just don’t take it before 10pm.”

  “Well shit. Good to know, I guess.”

  Cal was still a little wobbly, but he could walk straight enough to make it back to his apartment.

  “See you tomorrow, Vic.”

  “Yeah, take care kid…”

  It was just after 10am as Cal climbed the stairs out of Vic’s ic. The sunlight in the alley was i, but it still stung his eyes and made his head pound. He quickly made his way over to the back door of Misty’s Esoterid ehe dark shop to escape the torturous m light.

  “Not lookin to hot there Cal.” he heard from his right as he ing the brow of his nose and dealing with the first wave of migraines.

  “I know. It’s almost like I just had brain surgery…“

  “Why don’t you sit down for a moment. Clear your head.”

  “Thanks Misty.” Cal said as he made his way over to the near by chair.

  There was something soothing about this space. Cal couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the shop seemed to have a calming atmosphere that was helping him past the pain of his throbbing head. Cal sat in silence as he covered his eyes and ehe gentle smell of the dles that filled the room. It didn’t take long before he recovered enough to re-engage in some light versation.

  “Hey Misty, where do you get these dles from?”

  “There’s a vendor in Charter Hill that sells them. They’re not cheap, but I’ve got a special deal so I buy in bulk. Why? Ied in buying some?”

  “Yeah. I noticed the smell the first time I came through and I’d like my apartment to not reek like the rest of the city, even if it’s only occasionally.”

  “You should be used to it by now Cal. Avoid it or try to mask it, but the stink will always creep bato your life as long as you stay in NC.”

  “We’re still talking about the smell, right? It’s hard to tell when with you sometimes…” Cal ribbed as he stood back up. His head was already starting to feel a bit better, but the threat of aential discussion with Misty was threatening to undo his mild recovery. Misty just smiled befrabbing an unlit dle off of the shelf o her and handing it to him.

  “Here. First one is on the house.” She said with a smirk and a wink.

  “Thanks Misty. It’s been iing as always.” Cal responded as he turo leave, adding the dle to his backpack.

  The rest of his journey home was sloainful, but Cal eventually made it back to his apartment. He tossed his bag aside and stripped, walking into the bathroom to bask in the relief of a cold shower. As the shower automatically shut off, once again notifying him that he had used up his allotted water for the day, Cal wished that he lived in a better apartment.

  His current living situation erfectly acceptable, but that’s all it was. He didn’t miss having a kit, since he couldn’t actually afford raw ingredients to cook with his current ine, but just having a refrigerator and the ability to take a long shower would be an expoial improvement to his quality of life.

  Cal dried off and put on his most fortable clothes before sinking into his coud grabbing the ptop that retly came into his possession. He had kept a few things he found in the various vehicles he’d stolehe past few weeks, but this ptop was by far the best of the bunch. It wasn’t particurly advanced or powerful, but it was a stand alone puter that he could isote from aworks or external systems.

  The terminal in his room was owned by the megabuilding’s ma pany and ran off a server located in the basement. Modifying the terminal or usiain programs was against his lease agreement and would result in any number of fines depending on the severity of the infri. Not only that, but all of his activity oerminal otentially recorded and monitored, so it’s use was highly limited.

  After booting up the ptop, Cal retrieved Yoko’s “gift” and slotted the shard into a reader on the side of the puter. He khat she had been kind by Night City standards during their transa, but that didn’t mean he was just going to blindly trust a random shard from someone he knew was a skilled runner.

  As he looked through the tents of the shard, Cal leasantly surprised. It tained a number of basic quickhacks and a few different kinds of ICE. There wasn’t any Bck ICE, unsurprisingly, but the shard looked like a beginner pack for any new runner.

  ‘Ping, Short Circuit, Overheat, Cyberware Malfun, a Optiot bad for some basic quickhacks.’

  , Cal looked at the text file describing the ICE he was given. The first one could scramble his signal ID, f a hostile ruo re-locate him before they could attempt a new breach. The one would act as a monitor to discover any attempts to trace or breach his system, logging and attempting to back tray unauthorized es before breaking them. The final one would flood any forced e that couldn’t be terminated with random junk data to try and disrupt any attempt to retrieve information from his system and potentially slow down the ining e by filing up bandwidth on the el.

  Cal was mildly impressed by the small haul rams that Yoko just gave him. Nothing was especially powerful or difficult to find, but it would have cost him a good bit of time and moo gather all this on his own. He khere had to be a catewhere. No one in this city would just give something like this away.

  After opening one of the quickhacks in a script editor, Cal immediately found the problem. The thing was barely funal. It was horribly ineffit and full of spaghetti code. Not only that, he found various kinds of basic malware in almost every program on the shard. Most of them were just trag subscripts, but there were also oo steal data and one particur ohat would allow his system to be used as a rey for others to mask their es or utilize in any number of ways. In their current state, everything on the shard was pletely unusable.

  ‘Well… It’s not like I have anythier to do today.’

  Slightly dejected but not at all surprised, Cal settled in and got fortable as he worked on s through all the garbage code.