Chapter 20

"To Vic's..."

This command was given by Judy, but I only shook my head.

"Let's turn in the body first."

Immediately, I contacted Regina.

"David, did you do everything?"

"Yes, I can give you a still living body..."

"For now?"

"His shotgun went off, shrapnel hit his chest. I injected him with an injector, of course, and since he's still alive, his heart and other important organs are intact, but he'd better see a medic."

"I got it. where would you prefer to deliver the body?"

I wondered.

"There is a street in little china called Ti-hu-tan, it's not very busy, can we there.

"Got it, my man will be there in ten minutes."

"We have a little longer drive..."

"He'll wait anyway."

I nodded my head and cut the connection while telling Panam, who pursed her lips in displeasure, where we should go.

"Lucy, what's going on with the accounts?"

"A lot... a lot. why don't Maine and I work like this?"

Lucy looked at Becca and handed me the money. Which made me whistle. Ten mil! I didn't get greedy and divided it the same way as the amount of the main reward, only if the biggest part was mine, the biggest part went to our netrunners, who got us this salary supplement.

"Fuck. I can buy a new gun!"

Becca was literally sprawled across the backseat.

"Isn't that a mistake?"

"No..."

I shook my head and explained to Lucy the division of my team.

"But..."

That's when Lucy got elbowed by Becky.

"Quiet! You want him to demand the money back?! And I was only going to spend all this wealth on myself, my stupid brother doesn't know about this money, so he can't get into debt that I have to pay out of my own pocket. You see, he's used to paying for chrome on my dime."

"Yeah. this is a familiar situation."

Panam commented on Becky's words.

"What, you got a dumbass brother, too?"

"I'm not alone. I'm a nomad, we're all like family, but there's a lot of ugly in the family. They do something wrong, and we're all responsible."

"And what, they get away with it?"

"Up to a point. we usually treat the dumb ones a little more leniently, but if they start messing up big time, we can kick them out of the clan. Or how do you think the Steelers were formed? They're clan splinters."

Becca whistled.

"I didn't know..."

"Now know this..."

The car jerked sideways, then again, and we finally overtook all the turtles that were on our way to the almost free road, where Panam pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

"Panam don't talk like that, I'm not dying..."

"You're hurt and you need to see Vic..."

"We should..."

I nodded my head.

"And we'll go to him, but it's better if we don't have an accident. So slow down a little bit."

"Grrr... David, don't make me angry."

"No, I'm serious, I'm sitting here, I'm fine, my arm's a mess, but Vic's gonna fix me up, I'm gonna be better than I was, but there's no way that's gonna happen if we accidentally get in an accident. You know this crazy town. No matter how hard you drive, no one will pay attention to us, at least not until we cause an accident. But we're not the only ones who take advantage of this city..."

"Panam..."

Judy's hand rested on her shoulder.

"...he's right."

"Okay, but we're taking a vacation."

Panam looked at me sternly.

"You hear me, no work. no work at all, I'm taking you out of town to live in my clan. You need to relax a little. And I need to-- Judy, we're taking you out of town, too, to live in the country for a while.

"Uh, uh. okay?"

Judy said it in a very uncertain voice, which was understandable. She had never been offered such a scenario before. And here she was just being put in front of the fact...

"You two. you're welcome to join in, too."

Panam glanced at Becca and Lucy.

"...you guys are funny..."

"Uh..."

"I agree!"

Becca immediately agreed, while Lucy didn't know how to react.

"At least I'll be away from my asshole brother! I'll get some rest! You can shoot there, can't you?"

"Of course, the shooting range we have is equipped, it's certainly not used that often, but..."

"Lucy, you're in, aren't you?"

Becca looked at her friend.

"I don't know. I mean, I've got the money, but what if Maine needs us?"

"This jock will call us if there's anything. But you know he doesn't organize anything more than once a week. He works for Faraday, and Faraday doesn't exactly throw orders around."

"It's natural..."

I cut into the girls' conversation. I have already worked with them and if Panam has decided to invite them for a vacation together, they have left a very good impression on her. And I trust her judgment.

"What do you mean?"

"Faraday the corporate rat ..."

I shrugged.

"Only works with Arasaka and Militech and has been very successful in getting his ass swiped with Vaseline by both the former and the latter."

"Arasaka?"

Lucy caught on as if and demanded that I confirm these words.

"Uh-huh. if you don't believe me, you can buy his information from the fixers. You'll have enough money for that, you won't even notice you're spending it.

I shook the shoulder of my healthy hand.

"So Faraday doesn't get a lot of assignments. We, who work for regular fixers, have the right of choice and a wide range of assignments. All fixers are usually not connected with one gang, Okada is an exception, and as a consequence they get orders for everything. Faraday is forced to work only with those orders that benefit corporations."

"Fucking..."

Becca frowned.

"Yeah... I don't like Arasaka... and I asked Maine if he works for Arasaka and he told me no..."

"And he may not know..."

I shrugged at Lucy's words, and when she looked up at me in surprise, I smiled softly at her when she looked back at me, because there was a rearview mirror in the car and I could see the faces of the people sitting behind me without turning around. I hoped they could see me too.

"Faraday doesn't advertise who he works for... as a rule, the solos connected with him, before his departure to another fixer and don't know that all the assignments they were given were for the benefit of the big shots from the corporations. That at their expense more than a dozen rats have risen through the ranks."

"Mm..."

Lucy loaded heavily, and the further journey we made in silence.

Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the street and I immediately texted Regina, who dropped the geolocation of the car I was to move our cargo into. We stopped exactly trunk to trunk. I got out of the car and calmly walked to our trunk, opened it, checked the condition of the cargo and making sure that the cargo was alive and not going to die, I threw it into the trunk of the car sent by Regina.

The driver also checked the type's vitals.

"What's the splinter?"

"My raner put a demon on her so this one couldn't contact anyone and couldn't be tracked."

The driver nodded and slammed the trunk of his car, while I closed the large trunk of the Tortika and sat quietly in the front seat.

"Now to Vic's..."

As we drove to Victor's clinic, I got a message from Regina, thanking me and urging me to take a month off. I'd made too much noise lately.

Naturally, she paid me the money in full, and even promised me a bonus when the shipment arrived. But it all depends on the customer, who should be satisfied with the condition of the cargo.

In general, I entered Vic's clinic in high spirits...

"God, baby, what happened to you?"

"Ran into a sandi user who was waiting for me and had time to fire his shotgun..."

"Okay, let's get in the chair..."

Vic nodded me to his operating chair, where I sat down, and then glanced at the girls.

"Becca, I thought you were with Mayne..."

"I'm kind of, uh. I'm not sure anymore."

"What?"

Vic looked at her with a chuckle.

"It's not like David is your style..."

"Yeah, but for the money."

I could have sworn I saw money signs instead of pupils, which glistened with Becca's overflowing emotions.

"Yes, and I still had to shoot, though not personally, but as if playing a toy ..."

"And I'm not so sure anymore. Mayne works for Faraday, and according to David, he's connected to Arasaka..."

Lucy shrugged, and Victor checked that I was seated properly, then put on his reaper glove and injected something from the injector into his hand. Then he wiggled his fingers and looked at me with his eyes, nodding contentedly.

"Okay, uh. I need to take a closer look at the hand."

With these words he activated some device that resembled an X-ray machine from my previous life, only obviously more advanced, and checked the data that was displayed on the terminal.

"So...bone can save bone, and muscle too..."

"Vic..."

"What?"

"I've been thinking... a cyborg like Maine or creator heaven forbid Smasher, I don't want to become, but my human body just can't operate in the same mode as my sandi..."

"What do you suggest?"

I was looked at with a very frown.

"Synthetic muscles. They are, if I understand correctly, for the same amount of..."

I pointed a finger at myself.

"...will give you twice the strength and five times the stamina. They don't affect the psyche, and they haven't made people crazy yet. as far as I know."

"You're right, kid. they didn't."

Vic looked at me thoughtfully.

"...and frankly I'm very surprised. It's not a cheap option, regular chrome would definitely be cheaper, but you're talking about synthetic muscles. They are now mostly used by athletes who don't want to train or just want to go beyond the limits available to the average person, but don't want to put a bunch of chromium..."

Vic looked me over thoughtfully, checked the readings on the device, and closed his eyes.

"Any other requests?"

I shook my head thoughtfully.

"I want a lot of things, but we'll take it one step at a time. I don't know yet what exactly I will get from installing synthetic muscles. I will have to try them, and before that, I will have to go through rehabilitation..."

Vic gave a satisfied nod, acknowledging that I was right.

"Unless... a cyberdeck with a little more help..."

"Why do you want it?"

Vic raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Often I let the runners work through me and literally feel somewhat my deck limiting them with its bandwidth."

"Uh..."

"What?"

Staring in surprise at a speechless Vic.

"It's just unusual..."

"That's for sure... as a rule solos try to avoid running a raner through their implants, and this one let me in even though he only knows day one."

"This is about Becca. She trusts you, I trust her, so you deserve a chance."

I shrugged answering Lucy's question.

"Especially since it ended well..."

"Okay, so a deck, and synthetic muscles?"

"Uh-huh...

I nodded and raised an eyebrow questioningly as Vic scratched his cheek in embarrassment and looked away.

"Vic?"

"Well, uh. I don't usually do this sort of thing. but I was offered a pair of used optics, used, obviously from a dead guy, but, uh. I just thought of you, kid."

I blinked.

"About me?"

"Yeah... kiroshi, experimental, obviously generation four plus, and military grade... so I couldn't resist buying it back. Of course, I checked them out, so there's nothing wrong with them."

"Come on!"

I grinned and waved my hand, agreeing to replace the optics. I'd earned a lot of money, so I'd have enough for all my bowlers.