Chapter 5: A friendly gathering.

I sighed as I swiped away the new feature of the system. With another sigh, I simply shrugged my shoulders helplessly and thought, 'Fuck it. This doesn't change anything in the end. Now, how the fuck do I use all the chrome installed in my hosts…'

Pushing the matter aside to be forgotten about, I wandered over to the large couch and sat down. Giving the headless corpse a simple glance one last time, I then turned inward to try and get a handle on how to use the chrome my hosts will have installed.

Thankfully it only took a few minutes to figure out how to use the eye implants at a basic level of understanding. It was mostly with subtle eye movements and mental commands. Considering the era I died in, all this new technology was almost literally mind-blowing. That you can have such an intimate connection between metal and organic was amazing!

While I was messing with my eye optics, I managed to stumble on a "ping system for changes" system command. Being curious, I naturally pushed the proverbial shiny red button. Moments later a full read-out of all my hosts' chrome was listed. It even had a helpful 3-D diagram!

I looked down at my host's arms in surprise, as it seemed she had a snazzy set of mantis blades installed! They even had a poison modification for the blades; a rather nasty poison from the looks of things too…

She had other augmentations done to her as well, but most were in line with her occupation as a Netrunner. Speaking of, I couldn't help the smile on my face as I scanned her cyberdeck and all the quickhacks she had loaded. It was an extraordinarily high-quality cyberdeck, but I didn't recognise the model. I could only assume it was a custom deck for Arasaka's Netrunners.

She had an obscene amount of RAM available as well, a total of 50 units. And the read-out said she regenerates a massive 30 units a minute! As I kept going over the rest of her cyberdeck-related stuff I thought, 'Damn! Leave it to a super high-level Arasaka Netrunner I guess? Damn, this is some PREEM-level shit. Cutting edge level even!'

And while she had several quickhacks installed, a few of them stood out. Few such hacks were naturally "Suicide" and "Cyberpsychosis." "Ping" was naturally there, as well as "Synapse Burnout" and "Short Circuit." All said hacks were naturally of legendary quality it seemed as well, being top of the line in quality.

But she had one quickhack I've never seen in the game before. Since I couldn't get any information from her system I tried to use my inspect on it. Much to my glee, it worked!

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Saka-Nuke: An experimental, in-house quickhack developed and deployed by Arasaka to their absolute top-level Netrunners. Functions semi-similar to the overheat quickhack. The key difference though is this quickhack is centralised into any cyberware in the head, and overheats everything to the point most implants either explode or melt the surrounding tissue. Typical results from this hack are either an exploding head or liquified brain matter.

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My eyes widened at the description of the very nasty and fatal quickhack. While I was surprised by the quickhack itself, I wasn't surprised Arasaka had created something like it. This was the company that created "Soul Killer" after all.

Before I could continue with my inspection of my host's systems, the doorway to her apartment suddenly exploded with great force sending me over the back of the couch I was sitting on. With a startled cry, I yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

While my ears were ringing, I could still hear the stomping of several boots rushing into the apartment followed by someone talking, "Secure the perimeter! Confirmed the death of employee 843-ASA-455-NTR-443 Nikki Lanners. Find the other one, now!"

It wasn't long before a very well-equipped Arasaka soldier was standing over my downed form saying, "Sir! Located Tanny Klenz!"

The soldier then helped me to my feet while keeping a solid grip on my shoulder after I was up. I shook my head, trying to clear the ringing from the explosion and to think of a way out of this situation.

Sadly for me, I wasn't given long to do much of anything before their unit C.O. grabbed me by the chin rather harshly and forced my unfocused gaze on him. As he turned my head every which way for several moments he then spoke up, "Employee 849-ASA-345-NTR-444 Tanny Klenz. Snap out of it girl! You initiated a containment breach procedure! Is this breach related to Blacklight? Where is it?"

My eyes instantly focused at the mention of Blacklight and I could only swear in my head as I thought, 'Oh, you clever bitch of a woman! Must have used some kind of code when she called that dude. Shit, she could have even sent a text message! I don't know how to detect such things, let alone stop them yet. FUCK!'

With my mind running miles a minute, I quickly came up with a plan. I could only hope something so half-assed would work since they don't know much about my nature yet.

I weakly pointed my hand to the enclosed bathroom and said, "Beware... ICE…" I then promptly used the ping quickhack on the officer in front of me before "fainting."

As my head fell, I was able to see the entire layout of their whole squad. A staggering thirty people had shown up, with eight in the room and the rest in the halls and surrounding area.

I watched with anticipation as several of the men crept slowly to the empty bathroom, with their guns raised ready to shoot down the "threat" behind the closed door. However, just as one of the men was reaching for the handle of the door, I released my hold on my host and went back to the Digital Plane.

As I calmly walked up to the all-but-frozen soldier, I suddenly had an idea. Summoning my dagger I went and stabbed it into the man's head. Sadly, it just harmlessly passed through him much to my disappointment. With a sigh, I mumbled to myself, "Naturally, that would be way too overpowered if I could interact like that. I'd be The Flash at that point. Oh well. Back to plan A."

I reached out with my ringed hand, touched his face and used [Possession]. The familiar flash of darkness passed as I blinked a few times after taking over the man's body. I sent a silent prayer to Lady Lilith that every person here was in full uniform that included a full mask, as I couldn't keep the sneer off my face.

I started to scream in "pain" as I clutched my head and yelled out, "Netrunner! Protect your– !"

I then continued to scream incoherently as I raised the weapon I recognized as an Arasaka Masamune towards one of the men that was standing near me. As I unleashed my first burst into the man's face, the other people in the room reacted nearly instantly to the new threat.

As I ignored the bullets ripping through my new host's body I thought, 'Glad to know I don't experience any of the host's pain, or this would REALLY suck. My health isn't lowering either, which is a nice thing to note. Honestly, I feel like I can control this body till it naturally can't move…'

My theory was quickly proven right the very next second as the head of my host suddenly exploded from the bullet shot from the CO's revolver. Finding myself back on the Digi Plane, I could only smile at the carnage I was about to bring upon these humans.

Walking away from the slowly expanding brain matter of my previous host, I decided to go for the CO. That revolver in his hands looks like it would be mighty fun to use after all. Taking note of the positions of everyone still left in the room, I used [Possession].

Quickly blinking away the feeling of transition I was rapidly becoming used to, I turned my host's currently outstretched arm towards one of the soldiers hiding behind the couch with me. His body jolted a bit as he raised his weapon while yelling, "CO is-!"

The poor man never got to finish his warning before I blew off his entire head. I was stunned a little at the power of this handgun before a wicked smile formed on my lips as I thought, 'Oh, I am keeping this thing if I can help it…'

I made a mental note to inspect the thing later as I stood up and took aim at the next victim. He barely managed to scream "Oh fuck" before the bullet ripped off his head. Those were the only two free shots I got off before the rest of the squad trained their weapons on their CO and lit me (him) up. I managed to get two more kills before my host was ripped to ribbons of meat and I was forced back onto the Digi Plane.

I had managed to kill everyone in the room, but some fucker was using a goddamn Nekomata and blew off my host's head through the damn floor! With an annoyed sigh, I took stock of what was around my immediate area. I could see the fucker that shot me through the floor and several others in the hallway. Most of them were hiding behind an absolute tank of a man with what I assumed were gorilla arms.

A wide smile was on my face as I walked over to the man, and I couldn't help the small giggle that escaped as I was thinking about going "Hulk mode" on the remainder of the people. As I reached out to possess him, he suddenly started to move MUCH faster than all the others. My eyes widened as I realised he was using a Sandevistan!

While he was still hardly moving at all from my perspective, he was going at insane speeds for everyone else. I marvelled at this technology as I watched him slowly raise a foot to, what I assumed, rush into the room and secure it.

I didn't even try to suppress the mad cackle that was escaping my lips as I reached for the man's face to possess him. Moments later, and blinking away the transition effect I quickly looked around to confirm the host was still using the Sandevistan. As I noticed that I was indeed still using the cyberware, I quickly threw a punch at the head of the man directly behind me.

I once again marvelled at the level of this world's cyber technology as I physically felt my fist cause the man's head to pop like a watermelon. I laughed hard in my host's deep, rough voice as I tore the rest of the squad apart with ease.

I hummed a little tune as I continued to leisurely wreck the absolute shit out of this Arasaka team. It wasn't long, figuratively and literally, as I stood in front of the lone survivor of my rampage. As I looked at the sniper who was just now starting to lower his weapon from the shot he took, I couldn't decide on how I wanted to kill him.

As I was mulling over my options, I suddenly found myself back in the Digi Plane. Looking around confused for a few seconds, I turned my attention to my former host and the sniper. While the sniper looked normal, that is to say, a bunch of data shaped like a human, the tank of a man now looked like a grey outline of a human body. Indicating he was dead if all the other bodies of the same colour were a hint.

With a raised eyebrow I thought, 'Huh. Makes sense I guess. Normal people can't keep up the Sandevistan effect for very long at all. Mostly short bursts if I remember correctly.'

With a soft hum, I shrug my shoulders and said to myself, "Oh well. Not like I knew how to turn it off anyway. Easy come easy go~."

I walked over to the sniper and used [Possession]. With a grunt after the transition was done, I was about to just toss the sniper in my hands away when I suddenly had a grand idea. With a smirk I put my sudden plan into motion, looting all of the weapons!

After spending several long minutes getting all my shiny new prizes, I made my way back to the apartment that all started in. I was mildly surprised that the NCPD did not get involved, but considering this was an Arasaka-owned building, I shouldn't have been.

After I reentered the apartment and looted everything that was of value I walked over to the still unconscious Tanny. Shaking my head I thought, 'Either they drugged her ass, or hit her really really hard heh. Well, we'll see which one it is in a moment.'

I grunted as I lifted her from the floor and moved her to the couch. I did my "best" to make sure she was in a seated position, more or less anyway. I then took out my new favourite gun from my inventory; the CO's revolver. Since I now had the time, I inspected it.

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Name: Malorian Overture

Type: Revolver / Power

Mods: None

Rarity: Legendary

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Nodding my head I thought, 'No wonder this thing fucks shit up. Well, it's mine now~.'

Smiling in satisfaction at my new toy, I leaned over and started to slap Tanny's cheek with the side of the gun. A few moments later she started to groan and came to. Releasing another painful groan, she started to rapidly collect herself and then suddenly her head snapped upright while looking around wildly at all the carnage.

When her eyes finally settled back on me I, with a rather monotone and unimpressed voice said, "You failed."

I then raised my host's arm and pointed the overture at my head and pulled the trigger, sending me back to the Digi Plane. Stretching a bit, even if it was useless, I thought, 'Well, time to move on I guess. As much as I want to keep her, she will most likely be able to be tracked by Arasaka easily. So I should just use her to get around for now, and then ditch her corpse somewhere.'

As I slowly reached for her face that was ever so slowly morphing into a horrified form I had another thought, 'I should go to a Ripper Doc first to remove her Cyberdeck. That shit is too good to leave behind carelessly…'

[author]Surprise~. A bonus chapter as I try to put off dealing with real life.[/author]