54 Young, Stupid, One of Us. Part 1.

Young, Stupid, One of Us. Part 1.

I decided to add more training concentrating on close-quarters combat, for too often my team found itself in situations where, instead of firefights, we had to swing our fists. Even though we always win, it wasn't often that winning was easy, regardless of the expensive equipment and implants. However, training as well as sparring cannot replace real combat experience, so we had to improvise. Fighting Sasquatch and her sidekicks was the answer.

This over-pumped mistake of evolution didn't immediately agree to obey the TT, which caused her to be given to us to, heh, re-educate her. For a whole week my boys and I did nothing but fight with her in the ring, because it was a good opportunity to gain experience, to improve our skills, and just to relax, swinging our fists. According to the superiors, the constant beating of the alpha and her subordinates were a good way to break their spirits.

I won't lie, at first we weren't always the winners. All animals specialize in close-quarters combat, and my team was more versatile. So knockouts, losses, mistakes and loss of victory points were frequent with us for quite a long time. But every fight made us stronger: we accumulated experience, studied their style, tried to develop our combat intuition in order to get a feel for the fight and not to be limited by the level of perception.

And only when we were winning the traditional fights we switched to using implants. Of course, we could have started fights using our chrome, but first we had to practice and sharpen our fighting skills. This is where the big difference between us and the Animals, or to be more precise, our implants, became apparent.

Considering that we had already learned a lot from the Animals, and were used to their style of combat, it was not surprising that with the help of our Cyberimplants we crushed our opponents without leaving them a chance. You can't imagine the rush of happiness I felt when I was able to kick Sasquatch right in the face at the beginning of the round. Blood, knocked out teeth, and eyes full of confusion. But that didn't stop me: I just kept blowing off steam by beating Sasquatch. After me it was Private's turn, and then everyone else's. The non-stop beating resulted in Sasquatch withdrawing due to excessive injuries, but we wanted to continue having fun, so the next strongest opponent took her place, and after him came another one, and another, and another. And so the bout-beating went on, until we finally broke her stubborn nature, and she agreed to obey.

Only such a speedy parting was not in our plans, so we were able to bargain for a few more days and began group fights. Unfortunately, after one of the fights, half of the Animals ended up in a hospital bed due to our extreme brutality. Ugh, Ron and Jeremiah yelled at me back then for being too careless with the TT property in which they put Sasquatch and her people. Had to find new " sports equipment," heh. The way out was pretty quick: a guy who saw me passing near his hospital room gave me a good hint. I was coming back upset after listening to Ron and Jeremiah lecture me, and the guy then thought I must have been going to him, begged for mercy, offering to give a couple of people he knew instead of getting another beating session. Taking him with me, I went back to my supervisor's office at the same time I called in the TT's analytics and search specialists.

In Ron's office, I asked to invite Jeremiah to an online meeting as well, so I could then propose an idea to them: using the captive Animals to get the information we needed to capture new captives, pre-screening the Sasquatch loyalists from our future punching bags.

After discussing all the nuances, we allocated a couple of units to capture, and at the same time purchased grenades with neuroparalytic gas, in order to capture prisoners without risking too much. The venture was a success: using the data from the interrogations of our prisoners, we were able to lure several packs of "Animals" into traps and capture them all with the lulling hiss of the gas grenades.

And now I'm practicing my knife fighting skills on one of the prisoners dressed in a special training suit. I dodge a machete swing, and immediately hit him with my free hand on the side, in the stomach area. The "animal," not expecting the blow, is lost for a few seconds, giving me the opportunity to stab at the cervical artery. That's enough time for the suit to deem the wound fatal and knock the enemy out with an electric shock. Nice suit, though it's expensive, but not for a TT. If it hadn't been so narrowly specialized for hand-to-hand combat, it might have been more popular among the general public.

I finished my training session and went to take a shower while technicians took away the knocked out prisoner. I enjoyed the relaxing feeling in the shower, standing under the hot stream of water falling on top of me. But soon I had to get out of my meditation, for I got a call from Mayne.

"Yes? Listening."

"Hey, Marcus, it's me. Wait... Where did you find the rain? There's not even a cloud up in the sky."

"Hello to you too, Maine. Nah, it's not raining, just showering. Taking it after my workout. You could use one too, by the way."

"'Shower?"

" Nope. I mean the workout. You're getting pretty fat in there."

"Hey! Don't bullshit me! I'm not fat, I have muscles!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure you do. Tell me that after having a look at yourself in the mirror. Dorio showed me a picture of you when you were young. You were a fit and handsome athlete back then, and now you're what?"

"Well, I'm handsome now! I may not be as fit as I used to be, but I'm still handsome!"

"Well, well, whatever you say, fat-athlete. Okay, what are you calling for? Have your pokemons done something wrong again, or are you feeling blue and need a drink?"

"Eh... If you only knew how I wish it was always the latter. By the way, stop calling them pokemons. I've misspoke a couple of times myself: Rebecca and Pilar poured a verbal pile of shit on me. Don't feel like repeating it."

"When Rebecca gets older and Pilar stops shoving shiny chrome everywhere he can and stopping looking like a parrot, then maybe I'll think of another name for them. Now tell me what happened."

Turning off the water, I grabbed a towel and walked toward the bench, getting ready to listen to Maine's request.

"You do realize how hard it can sometimes be to find good chrome for a reasonable price, don't you?"

"Pfft, sure. Sometimes the price is fabulously high, not so much because of the implant itself, but because of the difficulty of getting it. Especially if you're solo."

"So... I found a way out of this situation by contacting one of the paramedics who often deal with corpses, which makes it no problem for them to get good, albeit used, chrome. That's what allowed me to buy the chrome I needed at a reasonable price."

"Yeah, I guess it's too late to lecture you on the dangers of using chrome extracted from a corpse, huh? The problem is not only that chrome can be corrupted or infected, but that it is configured and calibrated for a totally different user. Because of that you have to spend as much time with it, if not more, as with the new one, adjusting it to you, and you'll have to spend a lot of money too."

"I have no choice: I'll take what I have. Let's get back to the subject of the paramedic, before you start brainwashing me again about the dangers of chrome taken off a corpse. There was a firefight a couple of days ago, involving a heavily stuffed cyberpsycho. He had a Sandevistan, which my paramedic was able to steal without being noticed. So medic offered it to me."

"Fuck... Saw the footage of him getting busted... Crazy guy caused a bloodbath there before Max-Tac took him down. He had a Sandi, maybe even military grade. Even for me it would cost a lot of money to get one."

"Yeah... Except you're wrong, it wasn't just a military-grade Sandi, it was the kind issued only to special forces and the army's elite. It's fucking expensive, and it's almost impossible to get. And here was an opportunity. Without thinking, I immediately sent the paramedic the money and waited for it to finally fall into my hands. But..."

"But what? Were you sold a Sandy that doesn't work? Or it works on a case-by-case basis?"

"My paramedic ended up getting shot on the highway while driving her son from school. And you were there, too, by the way, TT was fighting the Animals at the time."

"Woman... Hmm... I think there was a bright yellow paramedic jacket. Yeah, that's right. Can't remember the name, sorry, but the last name, if I'm not mistaken, was Martinez. She's your paramedic supplier?"

"Yes, her name is Gloria Martinez."

"I'll tell you right off the bat, we didn't shoot her. On the contrary, we patched her up a little bit."

"I'm not accusing you of anything. It's just that it was a very unusual situation: she survived and was able to get medical attention, but her wounds were very severe and the treatment was expensive. She had no money and was likely to die a slow death. Her son survived, too, and already after the hospital began looking for money to pay for treatment. Gloria spent all the money she got from me for Sandi on her son's education in Arasaka."

"Hmm, that sucks. It's not going to be easy to get the money back, assuming it's even possible."

"Uh-huh... The guy was in a panic when he turned the whole house upside down looking for the money. While searching, he found Gloria's jacket, in which my Sandy was hidden. He was too surprised to find it, he didn't even think it belonged to anybody, so he took it to a ripper doc he knew and tried to sell it for as much as he could. But apparently the prick offered a price that was too low, so the guy told him to fuck off."

"I even wonder how much he offered for such an exclusive."

"Too little. Wouldn't even be enough to cover half the cost of the treatment. But the guy found a dude who makes braindances, a Jimmy Kurosaki, and offered to sell to him ."

"What? Is he a complete idiot? Why would he buy something like that?"

"'Well, listen to this... Jimmy Kurosaki, happens to have made a braindance based on the memory of the cyberpsycho from whom Sandy was taken. Jimmy knew right then that there would be a buyer for this exclusive."

"Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if there was one. It's like buying some sexy superstar's worn underwear. Nasty, but somebody's still buying."

"Yeah...Jimmy paid him a large sum of money, enough to pay for medical treatment and hospital bed bills. The guy managed to transfer the money before I found him."

""To sum it up, you didn't get your Sandy and you can't even get your money back?"

"Yeah... That's a fucked up summary, if you ask me. The guy doesn't have a dime, so he can't get even payback me."

" So, how does all this lead up to you calling me? You want to sell him for organs? And you need an middleman like me?"

"No! Are you out of your mind?"

"What was I supposed to think? You lost a lot of money and now you're looking for a way out of this situation."

"Yeah. It might look very strange from the side, but I was wondering if maybe you could take him to work for you."

"And how do you imagine that? Taking some kid off the street and giving him a job with a contract right away? Then let him go solo, damn it."

"Marcus, I just don't know what to do myself. I'm trying to find a way out, and somehow it makes me feel bad for Gloria. She always kept her word and was a good person. I don't want her to die and her son to die on the street somewhere for a few pennies to buy medicine for her."

"So you don't give a shit about Sandy and lost money?"

"Not really, but I guess you could say that. And if he does get a job, he can pay for Gloria's treatment while paying off my debt, albeit slowly, even in small amounts. It's just... If he goes solo, he won't last a week... What's a week, a couple of days, then he's dead."

"Damn you, Maine. All right, I'll see what I can do. Send me all the data on him, and anything else that might come in handy. And don't forget to invite him to chat."

"He's asleep now after the painkillers. I'll send you what I could dig up while I was looking for him."

"Wait, did you beat him up when you found out about Sandy and the money?"

"No, no, he got beaten up by Tiger Claws when he tried to... Ahem... Sell himself on Jig-Jig steet. I, on the other hand, saved his ass."

"Seems guy was really desperate... All right, send me what you've got. I won't guarantee anything, but I'll do what I can."

"Thanks, Marcus. I owe you one."

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead and train your pokemons, and I'll go cheer up Human Resources and my superiors."

Dropping the call, I exhaled noisily. So much for the aftermath of a good deed... Okay, it's worth a try, Mayne was talking about Arasaka School and good grades. Maybe something good would come out of it.

Another chapter that I have translated looooooong time ago. So enjoy. And keep commenting. Medical wards are quite boring so some sort of communication is good. Enjoy.