Chapter 9: Easy Money

  “All right, looks like everything finished up smoothly. The cyberware iioo have gone as well as I tell with this equipment. You should be good to go once we finish the boot up sequence.” Vic said from behind a monitor

  Cal was still feeling a little groggy, but that could be a result of the swarm of butterflies in his stomach as easily as the inactive impnts that were now fully installed in his head.

  “This is gonna feel pretty weird… Try not to bite your tongue. You should see the progress as everything starts to activate.”

  Just after Viished what he was saying, Cal began to see prompts fsh by as his cyberdeck was the first thing to e online. Vic was right, it felt incredibly weird. The groggy cloud he had been wading through since yesterday snapped away a him feeling sharp and refreshed. Cal almost felt like he was on some kind of stimunt as his mind quickly parsed the crity and speed of his current thoughts. His Ex-Disk had e online almost immediately after the cyberded now he was watg the progress bar fill up as his Self-ICE booted up.

  He didn't feel any profound ge with it’s activation, but it did give him a small measure of reassuranowing that he now had another yer of passive prote, even if he didn’t necessarily . He wasn’t sure how well his teopathy would stack up against a skilled runner, but he wasn’t eager to find out.

  “Wow… I don’t know if it’s my deck or the Ex-Disk, but I definitely feel the itive enha now that everything is running. It’s like I just recovered from a virus I’ve had since I was born. Everything just feels so… clear now.”

  “e rush. Some of that is real and some of it is psyatic. Don’t get addicted to it kid. Not everything you chip in will make you feel like a new man, but that feeling is the dragon most people chase right over the edge.”

  “The edge of what?”

  “Sanity. Humanity. Who knows? Most of them end up dead or crazy. Just look at Maelstrom.”

  “Gross. No thanks.”

  Vic just chuckled at that as he kept looking at readouts on the monitor.

  “No problems here. Everything looks to be running just fine. Better than fine, actually.”

  “You say that like you were expeg some plications.”

  “That’s because I was. It’s not unon to have tram another round of nanobots to fix or finish this kind of install, kid. On top of that, all your e sync’d up without me having to give it muput. This just went too smoothly. If I hadn’t already ied the cyberware yht in, I'd have a lot of questiht about now…”

  “Sooo… nothing to worry about? Everything good to go?”

  Vic just sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, kid. You’re all set. I should have some more work for you ter this week. We’ll do another check up then, just to make sure. Happy running. Watch out for Bck ICE.”

  “Will do. Thanks again Vic.”

  “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

  Cal had wao talk to Vic about upgrading his optid cyberaudio suite, but after the spiel about e rush, Cal thought it was best to give it some time. It’s not like he had the eddies to buy the e right now anyways, so a little patience wouldn’t hurt. Plus, he had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

  To say Cal was excited to test out his new cyberdeck would be an uatement. He felt like a giddy child about to py with a braoy. He had mao finish re-writing the Ping, Cyberware Malfun, a Optics quickhacks the previous night, so he immediately slotted the shard he had them loaded on and installed eae on his deck.

  The Ping quickhack was retively easy to re-write. It just sent out a small packet of information into a work and queried any devices ected for a response. Cyberware malfun oher hand was much more plex. Even so, pleting the program didn’t pose much of a challeo Cal. He now had a good deal of experien regards to the various oints found in most er grade cyberware. He wasn’t sure how effective his version of the quickhack would be on high end or military grade impnts, but it was the best he could do for now. After that, Reboot Optics was basically just a targeted version of Cyberware Malfun, so he was able to finish it in short order.

  Cal was eager to test out his new cyberdeck, but he couldn’t just start throwing quickhacks at random pedestrians. Still, he felt an it the back of his mind begging him to test out his new cyberware. Sing the street in front of him, Cal soon found a camera overlooking the entrao a nondescript building. He quickly uploaded a Ping to it’s system and was fairly surprised by the process a. It reminded him of the feeli when using his teopathy to reach through some of the systems he had explored, only he didn’t have as much trol over this process. It was more like... well, a program exeg it’s funs. The more Cal thought about it the more ideas started t up in his mind.

  He didn’t have to navigate any menus or select Ping to upload it to the camera. He intuitively knerograms were loaded on his ded could send out the quickhack with a mere thought after log his target. The information that returned was almost like a map of the camera’s work, including some basiformation about eaode’s retive location and their designation. He couldn’t physically see any of the devices or people ected to the work, and he only had a basic idea of what was what, but he was still able to determine most of their roles and locations during that brief moment as the Ping quickhack returned information to him.

  The entire process was fasating. Cal felt that with more experimentation, this could potentially help him to develop his teopathy to work at a distand lead him to better uand and navigate rger systems aworks. He just had to determine how to apply his teopathy in the same way his quickhacks and cyberdeck executed their funs. A tall order, sidering he didn’t have any kind of biological transmitter to establish the e, but it was still an avenue worth expl.

  Currently, as long as he was in tact with an enemy he could use his teopathy to bypass or disable any ICE or security measures a foe could have in pd wreak havo their cyberware. If he could do that same thiely, he would undoubtedly be one of (if not the) best bat runners iy. For the current Cal, getting that close to someone loaded up with bat cyberware was a dangerous prospect. He would likely be shredded to ribbons before he had the opportunity to attack or disable any suemy in that manner.

  Cal had chosen the Raven Microcyber Mk 5 due to it’s strength infiltratiworks and spreading programs through them. He khat some of the other specializations offered by different cyberdecks could have helped him shore up some of his weaknesses, but he had a feeling that the Microcyber would synergize best with his teopathy. It’s ram and buffer size was parable to any of the h end decks and, as it turned out, he had correctly assumed that it would be the o suited to help him mask and develop his eopathy. He didn’t eveo try other decks to firm that.

  Based on his memories and some of the things he read about the quickhack, Ping wasn’t supposed to operate like this. The duration was supposed to be much shorter, and while he could at the extra running time to his cyberdeck or some of the ges he made to his version, the apanying information it returned was more than what he was expeg from the basic quickhack. With that information he could easily tap into the work and manipute most of the aking trol of turrets and cameras or using it to upload other quickhacks directly into a target’s system.

  He had already discovered that, unlike in the game he had pyed, these systems were better protected and any attempt to remotely disable them or take trol would be met with much more resistahat one Ping had already reaffirmed his decision to choose the Microcyber. He khat he would not have been able to achieve the same results with any other deck.

  He sent another Ping into the work, only this time he utilized another fun of his cyberdeck to cause periodic “echos” in the system, boung the quickhack off devices and maintaining his map of the work. He used that map and quickly found a tral hat he surmised was either the security ter that trolled the work, or possibly a server that everything ran off. Caught up in the moment, Cal was about to try to gain deeper access to whatever was oher side of that e wheumbled as he felt someone shove him from behind.

  “Get off the sidewalk if you’re just gonna stand around and stare into the void you fug junkie!”

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there, but after hearing the man’s reprimand Cal looked around slightly fused and saw more than a few people scowling at him in irritation or disgust.

  “…right, sorry.”

  “God damreet rats” the man grumbled as he walked past Cal, shouldering him in the process.

  He was a bit embarrassed, but it robably a good thing the man had run into him and brought him back to reality. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself right now, and he had been so caught up iing out his new deck he lost sight of his surroundings. He didn’t even know who’s system he had been infiltrating or what security measures they had ihe ramifications for being discovered could be potentially disastrous.

  Cal was a little ed at how easily he had been distracted just from using Ping, and quickly decided he o find a safer pce to practice his newfound capabilities. Still a bit distracted, he tinued making his way back to his apartment as ideas raced through his mind.

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  Cal did a little experimenting whe home and discovered he no longer o use his ptop to finish rewriting the remaining quickhacks and ICE. He had figured out how to directly write a programs using a bination of his cyberded his teopathy. Most runners could do something simir, but without fully diving into the was a plicated and arduous task. When Cal focused, he could bash out code as fast as it came to mind adding another powerful and flexible tool to his arsenal.

  He would still use the ptop to evaluate any suspect shards rams before loading them into his system, but using the puter now felt slow and out-dated. It was like using a meical type writer when you had a puter with a word processing program open right in front of you. It was just ineffit. Writing the remaining code had now bee expoially faster and easier, and he was able to plete the rest of his programs in short order.

  He didn’t just re-write each of them. Cal was able to improve the basic quickhacks, redug their size and plexity to make uploads faster and harder to detect. He even mae all three ICE programs into a single algorithm that maintained eae’s funality, freeing up more spa his Self-ICE for future additions.

  Feeling motivated to tinue and wanting to test his new g prowess, Cal started w on something that could potentially help him avoid being exposed while stealing cars. He had gotten the idea after he sed a few middle end cars that he knew tained self driving systems. He realized that with his new deck, he could take trol of the basic drive systems to stop or disable them without any plicated scripts. After that discovery, he figured that with his current uanding of the various systems in each vehicle he could write a program that would disable the security system and override the self driving system to deliver the vehicle to a predetermined location.

  The only problem he was running into with this pn was the navigation system. It was usually closely tied to the security system and re-enabling it to navigate the car through the city would also make it pretty easy for the owner or manufacturer to track the car if they noticed the theft. He mao work around that by using vehicle’s cameras and sensors to execute a basic set of instrus that would navigate the car away from it’s current location for Cal to then pick up at a less secure point near by. It wasn’t perfect, but it cut down a lot of the risk involved, which was better than nothing.

  Satisfied with his work, Cal decided to rex for the rest of the afternoon. He felt the urge to tinue experimenting with his deck to try to develop his teopathy, but the g session had taken a slight toll on him and he had developed a bit of a headache. He had already experienced how easy it was to get lost expl his abilities and he didn’t want to push himself too hard after having just recovered from literal brain surgery. He already had pns to go out ter a his new program, so he felt it was best to rest up just in case he ran into any unforeseen problems.

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  Later that night Cal found himself strolling around Downtown in his nice clothes, blending in with the corporate drohat were still out and about drowning their stress and sorrows in the many bars that dotted the area. It had been a few weeks since his ill-fated rendezvous at RIOT, and he hadn’t spent much time just enjoying life sihen. The memories of his enter with the sultry runner were bittersweet causing him to withdraw socially and focus on his goals.

  He wasn’t short on time to plete most of his pns. In fact, he’d have to wait a few years to get started on more than a few of them. It wasn’t even just that night that had him rushing to improve himself. His botched stealth mission for Wakako weighed on him just as heavily. Now that he finally had his first real pieces of cyberware installed, he felt a small measure of relief from that self imposed pressure.

  He didn’t let it go to his head though. Cal khat he was still as squishy and vulnerable as ever. Only, now he had one more tool to help him fight back even in the most dire situations. The fact that this tool was not only multi-purpose, but a physical part of him helped add to the small sense of fort he now felt. He wouldn’t be caught with his pants down again.

  ow had a few clear paths ahead of him to help him advan power, both physically and financially. His training was going well, and if his test tonight was successful then he wouldn’t o worry about eddies as long as El Capitán needed cars. Still, he didn’t want to just rely on that and stagnate as a car thief.

  He khat he o dive deeper into the maations of Night City, even if it would put him in the crosshairs of powerful groups and individuals. The problem with remaining a small time car thief was that he was still likely to run afoul of those same people. As long as you stayed in NC, you were always at risk of getting drawn into some kind of corporate intrigue or criminal plot. It was as inescapable as the ads that assaulted you at every turn.

  No, Cal wao seize trol of his life. To do so he o dive into the deep end. He already had pns on how to ehe merc world and make a name for himself, but now that he felt less pressure urging him forward he decided to take a step bad prepare a bit more for that eventuality.

  As he was walking dowreet, Cal spotted his target for tonight’s test. It was a baby blue Quadra Turbo-R 740 with white rag stripes that was currently parking in a small lot o some kind of members only club. He sed the driver as he exited the car and didn’t find any immediate red fgs. His cyberware was a generic Zetatech loadout, g any bat cyberware. The man was a drohrough and through, and it looked to Cal like he preferred to waste his paychecks on luxury items and services.

  Cal made a few edits and uploaded his newly dubbed “Valet” program into the Quadra a a dey of 25 minutes before it would execute. Without breaking his stride, Cal tinued dowreet before making a few turns taking him away from the se. After putting some distaween himself and the club and stoppio the car’s programmed destination, he leaned up against a nearby building and started flipping though messages on his internal agent s through the plethora of spam.

  Around 15 mier, He couldn’t help but smile as the baby blue Quadra pulled out from the alley o him, right on time. It swiftly ope’s door weling him inside, practically begging him to take it away from here. Holy, his new program had made this too easy.