Robert Meta
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The Brink and Back - Chapter Sixty
🕑 Added 2025-03-26 15:54:07 +0000 UTCVik quickly made his way upstairs with Frank. He asked to meet Rebecca alone at first but eventually invited me up to talk. Apparently, Rebecca's cyberware arms, while pretty brutally removed, had been hacked off south of the connection point. It only took Vik about fifteen minutes to disconnect the remaining useless junk, leaving the pintsized merc with even stumpier arms, but now without the danger of sending bad signals or causing her unneeded pain.
"The connection point is pretty heavy duty, did you have gorilla arms installed?" Vik asked, carefully checking the connection points to confirm they were intact.
"Yeah, gonna have to save up for those again," She responded with a frown. "Don't suppose you got a pair of 'em just lying around, do ya, doc?"
"I might have a pair or two, but nothing in your size."
"My size? What, you think I can't handle the big stuff?" She asked, her lips pulled back in a half snarl, like she was insulted and wanted to smack Vik for it. "Just find something that will let me handle a Carnage and slap around gonks."
"No, I'm sure you can handle the big stuff just fine. But using something not scaled for you would throw off everything from your neck down," Vik responded, shaking his head. "How long did you have these oversized Gorilla arms attached to you?"
"Not long, maybe a couple of months," She responded with a shrug. "Why?"
"Then you probably avoided damaging your spine, but I should get a look at your back anyway," He responded with a frown. "We adjust the size of things like this to keep from straining your body. Even if I replaced your entire skeleton, you'd still be sore, constantly."
"I… oh," Rebecca said, her boisterous bluster fading as she listened. "I guess I was feeling off after I got them..."
"I'm not surprised. I've seen people just a few sizes off demand they are removed after just a few weeks," He said, flashing Rebecca a kind smile. "You must be pretty tough to handle that for so long."
"Oh, you know… it's nothing I can't handle," She responded, looking down at her lap. "Thanks."
"I'll put out some feelers for some replacements your size, but unfortunately, I don't know if it's going to turn up anything you really want. In the meantime, we can find some basic temporary placeholders."
I was so stunned by how well Vik's pure dad energy was slowly wearing Rebecca down to a normal energy level, that I completely missed Frank trying to subtly gesture to me. It took him poking me in the side and repeating the motion for me to shake my head free and chime in.
"We might be able to make something custom for you," I suggested. "Not sure how they will compete against gorilla arms, but we could definitely beat whatever temp models Vik could find, or anything you might find in your size as something long-term."
"What's the catch?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
"No catch, just a business deal," I assured her. "Probably paid in labor or some work in the future."
"... I'll think about it," She responded after a moment.
"I'll send you some info about the connections and tolerances she should be able to withstand," Vik offered. "Should make it easier to make something suited to her frame and body capabilities."
We talked a bit more with Rebecca before heading back downstairs, Kaytlyn passing us by as we did. She was carrying two plates of food, and I gave her a thumbs-up as she went.
Despite his skepticism about custom cyberware, Vik was eager to get to work on the brain interface. At first, I spent about an hour answering a litany of questions, from voltage levels to temperature tolerances and everything in between. I also showed them exactly where each interface pin and connector needed to be, which included nearly a hundred different spots in total. We did this while enjoying a simple lunch, sandwiches with homemade chips, Jackie once again outdoing himself. When Frank and Vik were satisfied with what they had learned, I left to finish designing the router, leaving them to their task.
The router, at least in its first iterations, was basically a machine of redundancies and brute force. While I reduced latency as much as possible, forcing the connection to directly interface with the security VIs was rather drastically slowing down what I had been hoping would be a near-instantaneous connection.
Originally, there would be a half dozen different VIs running per router module, all watching over the incoming data. These programs would have been security-based, anti-hacking, and counter-hacking programs that would have defended the router from intrusions. This would have required large and powerful programs, which would have been inspecting and analyzing incoming data, slowing down the system as a whole.
While making the second iteration, I realized that this was unnecessary and unneeded. So, I created a much more compact and simple VI, which was designed to simply spot anything suspicious.; if it found anything, all it did was cut the affected entangled photon off by ejecting it from the system. No need to counter-hack or block intrusions or even send anything in return, like I had originally thought I would need to do.
The final design, which I finished after about two hours, was fairly modular, letting me increase the connection point by just printing out new modules and hooking them up. I spent another hour getting the VIs ready to install. Technically, VI was the wrong abbreviation, since it just meant a purely digital AI, but somewhere along the way, I had started using them interchangeably with response program. That was just terminology from the XCOM word, which basically referred to Siri and Alexa-style AI, which were basically just dense response databases. Insert input, compare input to output list, output response, repeat.
At every step, the system surprised me with just how easy it would be to secure and maintain. I could only hope it worked just as well in reality as it did in theory.
When I finally finished the response programs, the final step in the design, I headed to the Shack to see what was for dinner and to check on Vik and Frank's progress. Jackie was cooking away at his station, eagerly attempting to make buffalo chicken wings, minus the wings part, while Vik and Frank worked in the medical office.
"How goes it, guys?" I asked, stepping into the side room, spotting the pair easily. "Made any progress?"
The two medical experts were leaning over a model of the human brain and brain stem, which also looked to have removable spine pieces. My implant, or at least the one I printed out, was already wrapped around and connected, minus the bottom control and communication part, which contained the tiny Elerium node and the two slots for photon capsules. As I greeted them, Frank pulled back and nodded, while Vik took a second to pull out of his thoughts.
"Hey Jay," Vik greeted, eventually tearing his eyes off the model. "I think we've made some progress, but I'm not sure you'll like it."
"What do you mean?" I asked, partially sitting on the edge of a counter surface. "You found something wrong?"
"No, everything I've seen says this implant is workable, though I still want to take it home and run it through some tests there," He explained before cutting himself off. "Not the point, though. Frank and I both agree that the best way to install this system is going to be through multiple surgeries, most likely three."
"Alright. That's unfortunate but not crushing. Is that it?"
"No, we think that your best bet is to get built-in access plating, both in the back of your skull, into your vertebrae, and along your neck," Frank explained, using the model to gesture to where they would be. "It will allow us to replace the photon capsule easier, will make getting checkups less invasive, and will allow you access to the main components of the implant. This device is too complicated not to have regular scans and checkups. "
I winced at the concept, holding back from outright shutting down the idea. They were right. I didn't like it, mostly because I didn't want anyone to know that I had such a potent implant installed. On top of that, if someone captured me and popped the access plating open, they would be able to make me see whatever they wanted. They wouldn't be able to access my mind, it wasn't that sort of implant, but they would be able to read what I was actively thinking.
"If I say no… what sort of difficulties are we looking at?"
"Well, at minimum, it will make checkups more difficult," Vik responded. "Replacing your battery and… photon capsules will be much more invasive. They would go from half-hour appointments to hour-long surgeries with recovery time."
"... what about a middle ground?" I asked, purposely ignoring that we had ways to mitigate recovery times almost completely. "Install access points into my skull and vertebrae, but leave the skin to heal over it. Is that possible?"
"With the right parts, absolutely," Vik agreed, nodding in agreement. "Should make things easier while still hiding the access. I'm assuming you want it to be as hard to detect as possible?"
"Considering I spent a good chunk of time making sure the brain interface wouldn't show up on most scans? Yes, I would appreciate that," I agreed, quickly adding. "In fact, if you send the data to Frank, we will print out the part ourselves, using our own materials."
"Of course, that makes sense."
"Not to rush you guys, I want you to take your time. You're installing something into my brain, after all," I pointed out, Vik chuckling a bit. "But what sort of timeline are we looking at?"
"I want to take it back to the shop and run some stress tests," Vik explained, giving me a look. "Frank mentioned that there is no reason to worry about wasting parts? Is that true?"
"It is. I can get a half dozen printed out for you to bring home," I said with a shrug. "Just make sure to keep track of them if you would, and bring everything back, even if it's broken."
"Right, I can do that. Anyway, I want to run them through the whole gamut, but that shouldn't take more than tonight and tomorrow morning since most of it would be running in the background while I sleep and work," He explained. "Then I'll come back, and we can finish off the final installation plan. If we are lucky, we could do the first step as early as tomorrow night. Then, since you have your nano-hive, after a day of recovery, we can do the second part. Assuming all goes well, we could get the third step done by the end of the week."
Internally, I winced, realizing that I would have to show Vik stimpaks if I wanted my implant finished in as little time as possible. While I trusted him not to say or do anything stupid, I was not looking forward to making him carry their existence around. I felt guilty enough not distributing them to the people who needed them, and Vik was much more empathetic and caring than I was. Watching people walk around in pain when he knew of a cure that would save them from suffering would break his heart. He would understand why it needed to be kept quiet for now, but it would still tear him up inside.
I would talk to Jackie and Kaytlyn before I showed them to him. Maybe they would have a better idea than burdening him like that.
"I can live with that," I said with a smile, reaching out to shake Vik's hand. "Thanks for agreeing to work with us. I'll get the spare parts printed out, and you can talk to Frank about what sort of medications you want as payment. He can sort you out."
I left them to their work, sitting down at the table that had quickly become the group's dining table, before sending a message to Samwise to get the spare implant parts going. Jackie and Misty were already there in the gathering area, the former cooking away, clearly enjoying himself. I couldn't help but smile at how Misty watched the big oaf work, clearly in love and loving the fact that he was enjoying himself. I made a quiet promise to myself to keep working on Jackie. He had made some progress in realizing the folly of his idolization of being a Night City legend, no matter the cost, and I was hoping that we could wear him down completely.
Nothing would make me happier than to have him focus on his cooking completely.
We chatted for a while, before Jackie eventually served us dinner, Vik and Kaytlyn joining us for the meal. It was pretty good, though Jackie had certainly made better. The buffalo sauce was well done, and the chicken, while not perfect, was worlds away from even the closest faux meat on the market. It honestly tasted like really high-quality buffalo chicken nuggets, if such a thing could even exist.
When dinner was done, Jackie drove Misty and Vik home, the latter carrying a bag filled with implant parts for him to torture test, as well as a large briefcase of various medically essential drugs.
After seeing them off, I headed back to the garage. Samwise had informed me that he had already requisitioned one of the unclaimed rooms at the vault for my photon router, which they were making in pieces here and bringing over to assemble rather than slowing down the production there.
With Vik and Frank handling the next stage of the implant, and the MRVNs assembling the router and preparing entangled photons by the dozens, I was left with nothing to do for my "current" project. That meant that for the rest of the day and likely far into the following, I was free to work on something else.
Thankfully, I already knew what I wanted to focus on during the gap. Talking to Vik and thinking about the stimpaks reminded me how much I needed to set up the proper infrastructure to have them made in large quantities. However, rather than just cobble together something for our personal use, I wanted to put together a standalone, all-in-one unit, one where I could dump in random junk, and it would get broken down and turned into the proper materials. It would then get worked into different systems and then, finally, be turned into stimpaks. Eventually, someday in the future, I could put one on every corner of the city, the world even, letting people feed the machine their trash and have it get used to make life-saving stimpaks.
It might be a while before that was possible, but the dream was still there, and I was almost positive I had the tech needed to make it happen.
The first process was taking the blood fabricator design, used for synth creation and rejiggering it to only produce mesenchymal stem cells, one of the main ingredients of stimpaks. The original method had the MSC cells harvested directly from donated blood, but it didn't take me long to reconfigure the synth blood fabricator machine to only produce those specific cells. It also negated the need for the catalyst enzyme, one of three ingredients for stimpaks, whose only role was to separate the MSC cells from everything else inside of normal blood. That meant all that was left was the guidance/stabilizer enzyme, which was responsible for allowing the stimpaks longevity and its ability to direct the healing cells directly to injuries. This enzyme was a slightly easier-to-produce chemical compound, which I could automate with a stripped-down and simplified Auto-pharma design.
After simplifying and modernizing the blood fabricator into an MSC fabricator and designing the guidance/stabilizer enzyme synthesizer, I moved on to redesigning the stimpak itself. Not only did it desperately need a redesign, both to make it easier to store and to modernize it, but I also needed to know the final dimensions so I could trim the molly maker down as much as possible to produce the necessary hardware. I was tempted to make something fancy, something that matched the gravity of what was inside. Unfortunately, making something shiny and glowy would draw a lot of unwanted attention to them, which, at the moment, was the last thing that I wanted to do.
In the end, I settled on a sleek design, a simple black tube with one side cut out so you could see the contents of the sapphire glass vial inside. At one end, just below where you activated it, was a tiny capsule of just barely compressed air, hidden from view. To inject the healing liquid, you just twist the cap off of the business end, exposing the needle and pushing it against the injection sight. Then, you depress the activation button with your thumb. That releases the compressed air, which pushes down a plunger, injecting the healing liquid into your body. It had barely any moving parts, it was durable, and it stood out enough to be recognizable but not so much that it would catch someone's eye.
After printing out a test version and playing with it for a moment, I added four inset rings of rubber around the cylinder, trimmed to not block the cutout side. Not only would they make it easier to grip, but the rings were made with a red dye that just faintly glowed in the dark, so it was easier to see in the dark.
With the solid part of the new and improved stimpak finished, I got to work on customizing a molly maker and the liquid material processor it needed to function. By this point, I knew molly maker designs forward and backward, and I quickly whipped up a small model that could print out a single syringe system, before ejecting it out the side.
That just left the power systems and material systems. The power system was simple, a fusion generator that was fueled by the materials converted by the protomatter converter system. The protomatter system was scaled down, even smaller than the vending machine version, but could handle a solid amount of input. To make it easier on the converter, I added a crushing and shredding system to the input shoot, allowing someone to shove literal garbage into the machine, rather than feeding it refined bars of bismuth, or whatever material we ended up going with.
With the individual pieces finished, all that was left was to put it all together. Ultimately, I decided to double up on the MSC fabricators and the molly makers, as they would be the primary point of slowdown.
The final design wasn't the prettiest-looking machine, basically just a seven-foot-tall box about four feet wide and deep, with a hatch on one side for inputting recycled materials and an input slot for whole ingots. Above that was a control panel and an output slot, which had obvious hooks where you could affix a box to catch the new and improved stimpak.
When I finally finished jigsawing all the pieces together and sealed them inside, at least in the design, I showed it to Samwise, asking him to assign a few MRVNs to the project so I could see the results when I woke up the next morning. He agreed, and I headed off to bed, happy to call it a night relatively early.
The next morning, I woke up just a few hours short of noon and leisurely completed my morning ablutions before heading to grab some breakfast. Jackie was back home in the city, as was Kaytlyn, surprisingly enough. She was taking a day off, having been hanging around the town for significantly more than a month straight. It made me realize that I hadn't actually made anything for her in a while, and considering that I was supposed to be paying her with tech, that was a bit of a problem.
"Samwise, remind me to work a proper stealth suit for Kayt," I said, stepping into the garage to see my assistant standing by his workstation. "She's been working here for a while, and all I've given her specifically is her rifle."
"I will, Jackson, though I will point out she has more or less already claimed the cloak tech pack you made several cycles ago," He responded, gesturing to the empty spot where the pack normally would have been hanging. "I'm sure she would appreciate a suit nonetheless."
"The cloak tech is… interesting, but I'm pretty sure the Chinese stealth suit is superior. At least when it comes to personal stealth," I responded. "Actually… the cloak tech might be better adapted to something larger… "
I stopped for a moment to consider the idea before noticing a black crate on the desk by Sam's computer. The ever-observant AI noticed me spotting it immediately, so he slid it closer to me.
"The stimpak production machine worked brilliantly," He explained. "I took the liberty of having two more built. For now, they are in one of the spare rooms in the vault, but they can be shifted around to wherever you might want."
"That's fine for now," I assured him, reaching over to take the box and open it. "I will probably have them spread around a bit once the vault is more complete."
Inside the box were several dozen new and improved stimpaks. I took one and examined it, turning it over in my hands. It was perfect, the sealed healing liquid visible inside the tough vial.
"Did you test these as well? I asked, wiggling one of the injectors.
"We did, not only did they function perfectly, they withstood a good amount of stress testing," Samwise explained. "I also took the liberty of designing this."
The AI reached around his computer and pulled out a cloth and plastic contraption, handing it to me without another word. I quickly realized that it was a five-slot holster for stimpaks, and it clipped to my belt, presumedly on the opposite side of my pistol.
"I would suggest taking more into actual combat," He advised. "But for general injury and emergencies, I believed five would do."
"I would say so. Well done," I said with a smile, quickly strapping it to my belt, carefully filing it with stimpaks before letting my shirt cover most of it. "This is perfect, thank you Samwise."
"Of course, I-"
"Murtaugh to Jackson, repeat Murtaugh to Jackson. You copy?"
I cursed and unclipped my radio, bringing it to my mouth.
"I copy, what's up?"
"We received a call from Dakota saying that she would be sending a messenger over with some information you requested," Murtaugh said. "She said that he would arrive shortly."
It took me a moment for me to realize what sort of information she could have been talking about, before realizing I had asked her to look into the missing characters from the anime and game. Realizing that the rest of the day was likely to be interesting, I let out a groan and stretched.
"Alright, thank you, Murtaugh," I said with a sigh. "Let me know when you spot him."
After he confirmed he would, I clipped the radio back to my hip, leaning back in my chair. Samwise turned to me, studying me for a moment before finally speaking his mind.
"Is something wrong? You do not look especially happy."
"I'm fine, just likely to receive some complicated news," I explained with a shrug. "Not sure how I'm going to deal with it. Ignore me, though I'm sure busy."
Not one to second guess me, Samwise nodded and returned his focus to his workstation while I stood up from my chair and headed outside, looking for fresh air, which we actually had now. The MRVNs had finally finished setting up a network of the macro air cleaning system, and the air outside was substantially cleaner, easily noticeable when you took a deep breath. Now, all I had to do was grow some plants and some grass, and it would actually be pleasant.
As I walked around the exterior of the garage, I spotted one of our company cars pulling into the parking lot across the street, Jackie stepping out a moment later. He waved and grabbed a box from the passenger seat before crossing the street towards me.
"Whatcha got there?" I asked, trying to peak into the box.
"Just some cooking stuff I picked up," he explained with a shrug. "A bigger pot for pasta and some other stuff."
"That's great," I said with a sincere smile. "I'm glad you are enjoying your cooking. You've really been on a roll."
"Thanks, but I wouldn't have had the opportunity without you and Frank," he pointed out. "I'm sure professional corpo chefs would be jealous of what you let me work with.
"Either way, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."
"I'm sure getting to eat delicious food has nothing to do with it," He shot back with a smirk, leading the way into Shack. "What are you up to?"
"Just waiting for a delivery from Dakota. It should be here soon."
I helped Jackie rinse and put away the cooking tools he had purchased, killing time until Murtaugh radioed again, warning me we had an incoming vehicle. Jackie, now curious, followed me out of the Shack to the front parking lot. About a minute later, the courier arrived, driving a simple Sidewinder marked with Aldecaldos artwork, their name painted on one side.
As the courier climbed out, I watched him carefully. He was tall, somewhere between Jackie and myself, and had an upper torso cyberware kit replacing his arms, shoulder, and some of his neck. It looked high quality, though well used, and matched his experienced look. His head was shaved, but his face was covered in a well-trimmed beard. In his off-hand, he carried a cloth tablet case.
"Jackson?" He asked, looking at me before reaching out to hand me the cloth case when I nodded. "This is for you."
"Thanks, I appreciate the delivery," I said, pulling out my keyphone. "Here, let me give you a tip-"
"Jackson, he isn't just a courier," Jackie said, cutting me off. "Look at him, he carries himself like a leader."
I frowned and looked him up and down again, quickly realizing that Jackie was right. Before I could complain about the deception, the man cut in.
"Don't let that stop you, though, I wouldn't say no to the tip," The man said with a chuckle. "He is right, though. I'm not actually a courier. I actually came to check out the place, Dakota said she warned you I might be coming?"
I looked at him for a moment before it clicked in my head. When it did, I reached out to shake his hand.
"That would make you the new leader of the Aldecaldos," I said with a nod. "Welcome to the area."
"Thanks, I appreciate it."
"How about we head inside and share a drink," Jackie suggested, gesturing back at the Shack. "Sounds like we have some stuff to talk about."
"And after that, I can give you the tour," I added. "I'm sure that's a big reason why you are here."
"That's part of it," he admitted. "I would be happy to share a drink. Lead the way."
"Great!" Jackie said enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together. "Tell me, how do you feel about milkshakes?"
Comments
Joel Shutts
This just crossed my mind, but if you need to give Jackson more heavy duty manufacturing capability, have you though of using Factorio as the technology base?
Fortunis
Sweet. Those Stim Packs are going to be a game changer sor everyone. The fact he can literally print them by the box load is hilarious. All for trash. His shits so broken it's ridiculous. I'd bet money when he builds their Power Armor it'll have auto injectors for those too. Now I have to wait to see if David and his mom exist in this universe. It'd be fantastic if they added a dedicated nurse to the team. Get her a Power Armor Suit dedicated to medical shit on sight? Gloria would be ridiculously op. I feel bad for Rebecca though. She just lost everything and now she has serious trust issues. I can't even blame her for it since that dipshit Maine fucked her entire crew. Looking forward to next chapter.
Joyeus
Tftc I’m looking forward to the aldecodos moving in will add some more people Jackson needs to interact with, whether he wants to or not. But with a bunch of basically road warriors around how long do you think it will be before they get in a ‘race through the badlands’ gig.
Rocketman
My only critique is the fact that I have to wait in the entire week for another chapter
Feliprins
There's not much need to simplify the design considering the manufacturing abilities of moly makers, in fact making a more complete product which can ensure all needs like erasing their own imprint on the environment and protecting his technology is still doable for him all the same... It's the machines which make it that one should worry about, unless they explode into a plasma storm anytime someone tried to open them without permission I doubt anyone in Night City would respect them.
Itz black Wolf
Mc makes a food chain across night city?
RegularReplacement
Another point if they're being carried into combat. The Stimpaks need to be able to be destroyed after each use. Follow the logic: a highly valuable, one-time use, disposable item is being brought into combat where upon use they are discarded. A discarded Stimpak can be analyzed and would be found to be manufactured with no seems, containing a chemical compound never before seen, and made with materials not seen before. A Corp is going to go bat-shit crazy even over a discarded one. Recommendations: Change out the compressed air capsule for nitrogen for the longevity/shelf life sake or you could consider changing out the compressed Nitrogen Cell for an Epi-pen spring system for a simpler manufacturing process. Equip each Stimpack with a compound that will destroy the liquid within the vial, something triggered by time delay when it's removed from the holster. Maybe even a Heating coil that super heats the liquid ruining it for analysis. I thought of the above on lunch today as my wife teaches Wilderness EMT/First Responder courses and I assist her. Normally Epi-Pens have more than one dose in the Pen, you just have to crack open the pen to access the second dose, and only when in dire need. Use of an Epi-Pen is an automatic ride to the ER for post exposure/dose care.
gigin CZ
Given how other Robert's stories go, I would say it is a pretty safe bet :D But who knows, maybe he will want to subvert expectations
John
Exciting progress with the Stimpaks. If he's carrying them into combat then he definitely needs to make sure the rest of the crew have them. Which will require him to tell them about them, lol.
Nameless
I can already imagine the milkshakes and ice cream being extremely popular in the camp once the aldecados come in with how hot it is out.
Loghead101
I’m really hoping that Gloria, David and V are alive and kicking. And that they would be able to have a spot in Jackson’s operations.
WanderingEntity
👍
Noob
Tyftc
