Thread:Argali1/@comment-26084195-20160520061823/@comment-26084195-20160520184823

White. That’s all he could see. White everywhere. He tried to move, and found that he couldn’t. Odd, but not very concerning. He was perfectly content to lie there and watch as the men in white outfits prepared white machines.

Behind a two-way mirror, an Elf in a lab coat stood next to an immense golden dragon. Anybody who is anybody knows the golden dragon: his name is Lofwyr, and he is the CEO of the largest corporation in the world, Saeder-Krupp. The Elf is Dr. Steven Kalroon, the best cyberdoc in all Saeder-Krupp.

“Behold Subject 13-J.” Dr. Kalroon said, looking at the muscular man strapped to the table in the operating room. “Our next attempt to create a being capable of undergoing more cybernetic modification than anyone else. The perfect vessel. We have all of the cyberware ready for implantation, and the cybermancy team is on standby to perform the cyberzombie transformation.”

“Run me through the cyberware we’re installing once more.” Lofwyr said, his eyes never leaving Subject 13-J. “It is all of the highest quality, yes?”

The doctor pressed a button and a 3D image appeared before both of them, detailing what the subject will undergo. “Of course, sir. All betaware. And as you know, we grew him specially in a vat with the optimum configuration to give him exceptional acceptance for cybernetic modification. I’ll run through the modifications in order of severity and invasiveness. The very greatest modification was, of course, our own special Move By Wire system. This exceptional device sends his body into a constant state of seizure, and catapults him into an entirely new world of perception. To him, we are all moving at exceptionally slow speeds, allowing him amazing reaction times. Furthermore, it will allow him exceptional speed and fluidity of movement, and amazing gymnastic capabilities. It also allows him to program systems into himself, allowing him to accomplish tasks he has no prior knowledge about like a veteran. Next, we will interlace his bones with titanium, allowing for increased resilience and greater power behind his unarmed attacks. Then of course, we have his cybernetic limbs. These will be his most notable feature. All of his legs and arms will be completely replaced by machines, as well as the pelvic area. The head, neck, and torso will have cybernetics replace their skin, more like a powerful mechanical shell. Each limb will be given capabilities equivalent to 50% greater than the natural human maximum for physical abilities. Each will also be covered in armour plating of strength equivalent to a police riot shield. Of particular note are the legs, which contain powerful hydraulic jacks which allow him to jump great distances, and the arms, which contain an advanced gyroscope system which greatly aids in controlling weapon recoil. Now, for the fleshy bits left in the body we’ll do the following: first, part of his spinal column will have an advanced superconducting system latched to it to increase his reaction speed even more. A biomoniter will be installed to him that he can wirelessly accessed at all times. One of his lungs will be replaced by an advanced oxygen storing system that will allow him to hold his breath for up to an hour. We will also implant a simrig system to allow him to record and sell simsense tapes if he ever needs to. We’ve also installed a system in his stomach which will not only allow him to eat less than would normally be necessary, but also completely eliminates nausea and vertigo. A skinlink will allow him to acquire and record intricate tactile information simply by touching something. An auto-injector will carry easily refilled doses of combat drugs and anti-psychotic medications. A Blood Circuit Control System will help to automatically seal off breached areas and also aid greatly in fighting illness. And finally, we installed a system to boost the skillwires of his move-by-wire system. Then, we have all of the stuff we jammed in his head. First you’ve got a set of advanced cybereyes, lacking in eyelids and quite obviously synthetic. We gave them a nice red glow. They each provide 20/20 vision, a visual recording and playback unit, low-light vision, thermographic vision, flare compensation, visual magnification systems, a powerful vision enhancement system, retinal duplicators for bypassing retinal scans, a protective cover to shield them from damage, and a smartlink system that allows him to link with his weaponry and provides an advanced tactical HUD. Then we gave him a set of cyberears with excellent hearing and an audio recording and playback device, as well as a system that allows him to select up to 6 specific noises and record them without listening to anything else, an advanced audio enhancement system, sound dampers to protect from noise-based weaponry, a spatial recognizer, and a balance controller. We’ll also install a very high-quality commlink right in his head for all of his communication and online needs, and we’ve also installed a sim module so that he can immerse himself in virtual reality. We have, of course, modified it for hot sim and BTL chips, despite the legal ramifications.”

“Doctor, most of what we’re doing here is illegal. Continue, please.”

“Right. Then we’ll install a powerful radar sensor in his brain that will allow him to create a 3D visual map in cases where he’s totally blind, and even allow a limited ability to see through walls. Then, for cases where somebody may be jamming his radar sensor, we’ll also install an ultrasound sensor which will also create a 3D visual map, though a shorter ranged one. Then we’ll install a very powerful olfactory sensor which will allow him to smell explosives, identify many of the ingredients of food, sniff out targets, and even smell fear and other physical reactions, even smell when somebody is lying. We’ll also give him a similarly powerful cybertongue which will allow him to identify the components of something he tastes, including poisons, even the most subtle of poisons. We’ll also install a voice modulator to increase and decrease the pitch and volume of his voice, and even make him sound like someone else. We’ll give him an orientation system which will allow him to pull up maps of the area and boost his navigation skills. We started running out of ideas of what to put in his brain, so we decided that we’ll jam a Math Subprocessing Unit into his cranium to help solve equations. If he ever needs to do that. Then, for our near-final act, we’ll install a Datajack, a cable he can pull out of his head to download data straight into his brain. He can also have a conversation with somebody with another datajack by plugging the jacks into each other.”

“Now that’s what I like to hear. And what about the final component? The IMS?”

“The Invoked Memory Stimulator. The process he’s about to undergo will rip his psyche to pieces, and he’ll slowly use his sense of identity. So this machine will occasionally send him powerful memory flashes, things that will remind him of who he is and keep him stable.”

“But he was ‘born’ only a few months ago. He has no memories.”

“We’ve created artificial memories for him. Mostly memories of intense and bloody combat against hated foes, a few of cruel torment.”

“Excellent. They are nearly ready to begin.” Lofwyr watched with his large orange eyes as a new man walked into the room. “What is Doctor Brunnhilde doing here? He is not part of this process.”

“Well, we discovered something pretty fascinating that should give Subject 13 an edge over the previous 12 failures. We discovered that the more people or objects important to the subject that are destroyed in the process, the easier it is to recover the spirit and trap it back in his ruined body. Given that he has only been alive for a few months, the good doctor, the man who has trained, taught, and raised him is the only man with whom the subject is close. So we will destroy him during the ritual.”

“A shame, really. He was a competent weapons researcher.”

“Indeed.” Doctor Kalroon pressed the intercom button and said to the team of mages and cyberdoctors “Alright, it’s time to begin this procedure. Let’s have this one survive, alright?”

Subject 13-J looked around as all of the men in white and the men in odd outfits started to crowd around him. He noticed Doctor Brunnhilde in the corner, looking sad and worried. So he gave the doctor an encouraging grin. Whatever the doctor was worried, about, he had complete faith in these men. He was sure that everybody would be absolutely fine. He kept that silly grin on his face as the drugs kicked in and knocked him to sleep. A sleep during which he would have so much machinery jammed into him that his soul could no longer stand it and left his body, then yanked back into his dead form and bound to it.

“Well?”

“The subject is fine. Completely alive. We’ve done it. The most cyberware ever put into a single being. And there are so many amazing side effects! He’s become dual natured, a magical being! He can see spirits, even fight them with his bare hands! He’s developed some sort of resistance to mortal weapons! And he has such an incredible unnatural vigor--”

“But what else?”

“Ah. I see. Well, for starters, he has gained some form of astral hazing. In an area of six feet around him, the dark sorcery we used to bind his soul to his body corrupts the astral realm, and magic is substantially impeded. It will also expand if he stays in one place for too long.”

“And what else?”

“Well… see, his mind and soul have undergone some serious crap. It’s affected his mind, and he’s gone rather nuts. We’ve prepared a specialized cocktail of anti-psychotics that will be anonymously delivered to him each month, and we’ve gotten his IMS fully programmed. But even so he’s developed a few permanent mental issues we just can’t deal with. For starters, he’s developed some kind of an emotion leak. People can tell from a gut feeling automatically if he’s happy, sad, angry, frightened, even lying. He’s also got something called assensing rejection. His mind can’t comprehend the astral realm and he can’t perceive the astral plane. He can roughly identify spirits and such, but he’ll never be able to explain why he can see them, not even to himself. And finally, perhaps most severely of all, he has developed a mental disorder called Chronic Dissociation Disorder. He’s become detached, he simply doesn’t care anymore. This one could be cured through extensive therapy, but that’s something that we simply do not have the time for.”

“I see. I suppose it cannot be helped. In fact, this may even be beneficial. Are the tests over?”

“Yes sir, he has passed them all.”

“Excellent. One last thing. The recall code.”

“Ah, yes. It can only be used successfully by one of us, but otherwise it will return him to default mode and he will do whatever we tell him. The code is as follows: Subject 13-J, initiate compliancy subroutines. Authorization code: Lofwyr.”

“Good. Unleash him.”

Somewhere in Seattle…

All around him, people were staring at him. Some were backing away. But they were all afraid. They smelled afraid.

Why… why are you all looking at me like that?

Nearby, a woman in a blue suit pulled out a handgun and crouched behind her motorcycle. More people were backing away. Somebody screamed.

No. Stop that! Don’t look at me like that! I’m not going to hurt you!

Determined to prove it, he moved toward a Dwarf couple with their child, to see if they needed help. The woman screamed, and the man stepped out in front of her.

“Ich sagte, ich mich nicht so aussehen!” He yelled at them. Then he felt a bullet collide with his skull.

Suddenly, he was somewhere else. A jungle camp. There was a heavy pistol in his hand. And enemies all around were firing automatics at him.

He felt different, too. He felt angry. He felt murderous! He wanted to sink hot lead into the skulls of every last one of them! He wanted to watch their worthless bodies leak blood into the jungle floor…

So he roared at the top of his lungs and opened fire with his pistol. Some part of him knew that the roar was terrifying and inhuman, but the rest of him didn’t care. He wanted to blow their brains out!

He only stopped when the clip was empty, along with the skulls of all of his jungle-fighter adversaries. It felt good, to kill them all. It felt really really good.

And then suddenly he was back on the streets of Seattle. The police woman in blue from earlier lay dead at his feet, a signpost driven through her head. In his hands was her gun, still smoking, and every civilian within eyeline lay dead, shot through the skull.

He would have felt sick, if all of the machinery in him didn’t prevent that. He felt like he should drop the gun and all of the spare ammo he picked up, but he couldn’t. Instead he ran. He ran through the civilized areas, through the less civilized areas, and into the very worst areas of the Redmond Barrens, the Z-Zones of Seattle.

Ah, the Z-Zones. The one place in Seattle no cop is stupid enough to go. These are the worst areas possible on Earth, the most dangerous of barrens, the vicious slums of a feral city, the lawless spread of destroyed and uninhabitable tenements or urban blight. Your neighbors are the homeless and desperate, society’s outcasts, such as chipheads, ghouls, and numerous vermin (metahuman or otherwise). There is no security here, beyond what you can provide with your own strength. Fortunately, the cybernetic monster that wandered into the ruined shell of a building had more than enough of that.

The rain poured hard from the black sky. Rain in the sprawl is often “hard rain”, rain full of various harmful chemicals. The worse the area, the worse the rain. Fortunately, the nigh-acidic rain didn’t affect this hulking chrome figure.

He looked around the ruined building. His low light vision allowed him to see perfectly well. The first thing he noticed was the hideous giant rat: a Devil Rat. It jumped at him bearing yellow disease ridden teeth. He grabbed it out of the air and squeezed it so hard it’s spine shattered, and he tossed it aside like an old rag.

He looked around the tiny section of the ruined building that remained waterproof. It looked to him like someone was living there.

He heard footsteps approaching. His hearing is so good, however, it took a minute or two for this person to arrive. It was a very tough looking troll.

He waved to the troll, hoping that it would be friendly. It backed up against the wall, a look of terror in its eyes. “Dear god, what the hell are you?”

No, no!

He stomped over to the troll and lifted it up by the neck. “Sie mich nicht so aussehen!” The troll didn’t say anything. Not that he could if he wanted to.

“I SAID DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!” He hit the troll’s head into the wall, again and again and again, until both of them shattered.

He stepped back and looked down at the corpse. “I’m not a monster! Stop staring at me! Stop being afraid of me!”

He turned to run away again, but he saw his own reflection in a puddle before he could.

He didn’t move for a long while.

As the morning came around, the sun rose to illuminate the chrome-plated creature lying in the fetal position in the dead troll’s makeshift home. Images, memories, and sensations had been invading him for the past week he had been huddled in the building. When he wasn’t dealing with those images, he was surfing the matrix inside of his head, trying to learn all he could about the people in it.

Anger.

Rage.

Blood lust.

These images, these memories, that’s me. That’s who I am.

He heard people walking toward the building and talking from a ways away. “He was in a panic. Says some metal monster ripped Frank in two.”

“Shame. Frank was a decent guy.”

“Yeah. If it’s true, we’ll give whoever did it just what’s coming to ‘im.”

He stepped out from the building and fired his handgun. The first dropped like a sack of flower. The second was more resilient, and raised an assault rifle and fired in burst fire mode at him.

The bullets bounced right off of him, not having any effect whatsoever. He fired again and again, but the man’s armour absorbed the shots.

He crouched and aimed carefully with the handgun, amidst a steady barrage of bullets. He released a single shot into the neck of the man, who also collapsed.

He stood and walked calmly back into his refuge. But when he arrived, he was surprised to see a few new elements. A suit of powerful looking armour stood in the middle of the covered area, a suit which prevented anybody from being able to see his face. Or any of him, for that matter. In one hand was clenched a large, well-crafted combat axe. In the other, a note.

He climbed into the back of the armour suit, which sealed behind him. It fit incredibly well. He immediately found the functions for opening various hatches, such as a small one by the mouth for eating and one on the side of his head for his datajack. He opened his hand to look at the note.

It read “Gute Arbeit, Mörder.” and beneath that was an address.

As he left, he cast a gaze at his reflection in the puddle. Good. Nobody can see me, not even me. They can never see me again. Never.

A few months later…

The armoured man, now christened with the street name of Jaeger, stared at the truly finely crafted weapon in front of him. An Ultimax Heavy Gatling Gun equipped with a smartgun system, a personalized grip, an advanced gas venting system, a hip pad bracing system, an advanced safety system that will not only prevent others from using the gun but also punish those who try, and an extensively customized appearance to best compliment his armour and quiet, deadly nature.

The Ork black market arms dealer was watching him stare and whisper at the minigun. “You, uh, you really love that gun, don’t you?”

Jaeger nodded.

“Do you ever talk to anybody else?”

He shook his head.

The Ork closed his eyes. He was sure he’d end up regretting this. “I can install one last modification on that gun.”

Not an hour later, Jaeger walked out with the HGG in his hands. “I will call you Schlachten.” He said to it.

“That sounds good. I like that name.” The gun responded.

“Jaeger!” A woman’s voice called. He looked to see a woman walking toward him. No ordinary woman, though. Her face was elongated and took the appearance of a lizard, with a jaw containing multiple pointy teeth. She also had a lizard-like tail and was covered in scales. Her leg muscles were thick and ropy, and her arms were a bit long and also quite well built. There were a few odd protrusions that Jaeger’s advanced optics helped him recognize as cybernetic modifications. She also wore a tough armour jacket with a hood to help disguise her freakish Changeling form. She was the one everybody called Saura, and she did not like Jaeger at all. “Playtime is over, metal-head. Stop playing with your black market toys, it’s time to get to work.” Four curved blades extended from the knuckles of her closed fists. “Let’s do this.”

Nearly a year later…

Saura walked into the apartment above doc Iboto’s practice. “Hey Jaeger. I got dinner.”

Jaeger was sitting in the middle of the couch, with Schlachten to his right. She sat to his left and handed him a soynoodle cup. She grabbed a remote and flicked through the trid channels. “So, Jaeger. Be honest with me. When was the last time you were on hot sim?”

There was a pause. “Two weeks ago.”

“When I caught you?”

He nodded.

“Never since then?”

He shook his head.

She could tell he was being honest. “Good. How many new kills did you get today?”

“Two.”

The two of them sat in silence, idly waiting for the next call to action.