1 Hell of a Hangover

Fuck, my head's killing me.

Reaching up he tried to grab his phone from the nightstand, not finding it he decided he must've lost it the night before.

Stumbling up he grunted, something felt different but he couldn't place it. Stumbling into the bathroom he almost crashed into the door but he caught himself, not noticing what all was going on at first as he tried to find the sink, finding it. It took a bit of time but he soon got it on.

As he began to fill his hands with water and splash his face. As his eyes cleared up he looked up, freezing as he saw the mirror.

''What the fuck?''

He had some sort of metal across his chest, they were just rivets but they were very noticeable.

''Wait, why am I surprised about my aug's?.... Aug's? Fuck!''

His head began to hurt much worse, gripping at his head he fell to the floor, leaning back across the floor as he roared out in pain. Memories not his own, but definitely his own assaulted his mind as he writhed on the floor.

It took a few minutes but slowly the pain began to lessen, laying still on the warmed floor as he took in deep breaths of air.

Slowly as he took in deep breaths he released a sigh as he lay there. Staring up to the ceiling.

''So I... What was it? Transmigrated was it? Far into the future, cyborgs or Augments are normal now...Reminds me of Deus Ex, but not quite, I'm not Adam Jenson, I'm Adam Jackson, a small difference but there are similar things throughout the entire memories, my aug's were forced on me as I did work for Serif and it was to save my life, but after doing a few more odd jobs I retired, and my 'Hidden' Augmentations were already unlocked. Same as before activating too many will cause my systems to overload... Inventory is none existent, no storing hundreds of liquors on me.''

Suddenly his shades slid on, and he was greeted by a far different look, information sliding down the side just out of his view but still able to see if he just looked a bit over. Reading the information he raised a brow.

It was information on the news, telling him about the weather, the likelihood of rain, and a few other things. But what caught his eyes the most was in the center of his vision, a window with 'Aug System in effect.'

He raised a brow, along with his memories he understood how his augs work, it was by thought, certain synapses in his brain would fire off and it would just work. The window was 'Clicked' before another screen appeared.

It looked similar to the in-game menu, showing his augmentations, inventory, a journal with no 'Main quest' or 'Sub Quest' just a screen that said 'Tasks' 'Info' 'Point of Interest.'

Along with an 'Index' where a ton of information was stored, like indexing of all the information, he came across. Psuedo perfect recall?

Focusing on the index he could even 'Edit' information, like note-taking, and put in his own thoughts on the situation.

Focusing on his Augmentations, he only had the basic augmentations on, except 3 that he had unlocked, one being the lungs, which allowed him to filter out harmful gases, a smaller window appeared saying that it also made the likely hood of him ever getting lung cancer nonexistent. It even had an effect that it allowed him to breathe easier, and deeper. Along with 'Rebreathers' in his lungs the cycled air, allowed him to hold his breath for an insane amount of time.

The second was the map, he had sound, a field of view, and expanded so he could see further around him.

(I hated this upgrade in the game originally because it made the map harder to see, but it's user-friendly in this.)

This made no sense as to how it worked until he was told that it was created by several things, small bots that constantly followed him, impossible to hear or see that used information of their surroundings to update the map. Of course, the more he explored the more the map would be accurate. It also took all of his combined senses to an insane degree and filtered other information for him. His senses themselves were still the same, however.

He could even scroll the map out further to see the world map and see locations he's previously visited, just in gray. The map upgrade just made it so the area around him was large, meaning more bots, but even the original Adam had never seen.

The third and final upgrade was remote hacking, the thing is instead of him needing to shut down his augmentations to keep his systems stabled, he just had to get upgrades equipment to help the load. It was expensive of course, but a retired Adam Jackson could afford it.

Though, the fact he spent near a hundred thousand credits on a universal remote was hilarious, and exactly like something he would do.

Looking at the inventory he found it had a 'Storage' screen as well. However unlike the game's way of getting you items you purchased, this one was just a secondary inventory, it could hold near an unlimited amount of items, but it took much longer to retrieve.

There was a lot of science mumbo jumbo that came with it, but apparently, it broke down, shrunk, and stored the information in nanobots. The inventory could be accessed near-instantly, but the storage took upwards of days to retrieve stuff. No dust off his shoulder, even if it took the time it still meant he could store a ton of shit.

In his inventory it showed his credit balance which was currently somewhere around 45 thousand, which was a lot, even when compared to the game however in this world there was a lot of smaller things as well, such as food, the price of his fancy apartment, his favorite cigarettes, and misc things for his hygiene, subscription for his favorite streaming services and shows, and a few other things. Adam had money in circulation, along with his retirement which constantly deposited money in his account, which would cover everything, but it took time for his money to build up for him to buy something new and fancy. Like if he wanted to buy a motorcycle? It took a few months just to save up the credits.

Adam didn't need to worry about that now, he was going to put his many skills to good use as a merc, which was still in high demand. He had a great background for it, and he had more than enough shine to him to interest people.

He saw he already had things in his inventory, a pocket secretary, what looked to be praxis kits, a silenced pistol with a laser sight and halo sight. Along with what looked to be a card of some sort.

Pulling the pocket secretary out, to Adam it seemed to 'Appear' like it was assembling, just really fast in his hand.

Looking at it, he knew how these worked, they were just future pagers. Adam had a phone built into his head and shades, allowing him to respond to texts, and calls with his mind without moving his lips so he could remain 'Stealthy.'

Opening the Secretary there was only one message and it was simple.

''For your inconvenience, we've given you a few things to make use of.''

The higher being? Maybe he got shot with a random bolt of lightning after a god came in a deer somewhere. Whatever the case before in his previous life, he wasn't one to dwell on things he couldn't control. It's not like he had anyone in his past life to care about his passing, or for him to care about missing.

He was in a new body, that was still his, in a new world, and he planned to enjoy it, bump a few clankies even.

The pocket secretary then deleted the message and it was left blank. He wasn't sure why he would need this if people could just text him, but he kept it. Sending it back into his inventory as he tried to pull out the praxis kits, they appeared only to disappear, with a window alerting him that they went to his available praxis

Before he looked at it, he pulled out the card. Looking at it just said 'Aug Mercenary.' When he held the card a task was updated along with some index information, pulling up the task it was simple. ''Become a mercenary.''

Along with the index going more in-depth, telling him that in this world it was easy to become a registered mercenary, there was a whole building for it. Along with a few tests to determine if he was capable of being a merc. It also gave the address and some minor other information of the nearest branch.

Pulling up his Aug's he found he had eight praxis, without a second thought he just dumped all of the kits into hacking. Bringing up his hacking to 3, went straight for robot domination, and upgraded his stealth.

He looked closer at his stealth, instead of it just giving a percentage down of being spotted, along with the upgrades the first one simply said. ''Reduces the time to get into systems without being spotted.''

Unlike the game, there was no little minigame for this, only slightly disappointing. He enjoyed the minigame, but due to his wish to look into everyone's private life, he spent a lot of the game just looking at that screen.

He could hack his bathroom mirror, for now, he understood what remote hacking was.

He just had to look at what he wished to hack, and information would appear about how he could do it. His hand was used to 'Grab' the weaknesses in the code and pull them out, but it went even further from that. Using that he could actually control what he did with the object. For his mirror, it was just simply 'Off and On' which made it so he needed to twitch his index or middle finger depending on the result he wanted.

Standing from the floor finally, he came near the mirror, putting his hand near it he placed it on the mirror and he saw a window appear in his eyes. The bathroom mirror had no security, but he learned how it all worked.

He could spend as long as he wanted to breach a system, the higher his stealth skill the faster it would be to breach lower securities, even at max it would take a bit to hack into higher levels of security.

His fortification basically made it so that he could stay in a system longer to extract as much information as he wanted.

He learned that he could also hack higher levels than what his level in hacking allowed, it just took way longer. It also made the levels below it much easier.

Basically, hacking was a lot more broken in a world dominated by technology.

This hacking meant that if he so wanted to, he could hack into the richest companies and get all the dirt, the only downside is that he needed the time to do it, a location he wouldn't get spotted so bluntly hacking, and a location closest to the main servers, or where the most information was running.

He could hack smaller things to make it easier for him to take the main systems but it was very little. Like pulling down seconds from the time he needed, if he needed 15 minutes to hack into the server.

Taking over computers, panels, and other things would take just seconds off at a time, which granted was good. Since it meant he could be in and out quicker of a location possibly heavily guarded. Seconds could mean life or death after all.

He still had 2 praxis points left, for now, he put those in his legs so he could jump higher, it would always be good to get to higher ground, due to how people built everything. Climbing buildings wouldn't actually be that hard.

[Adam Jackson]