Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

Chapter 167

Chapter 167

“Zuku! Got another one for ya’!” A woman’s voice called out to me, a hint of nerves evident through the shake in her voice, yet the shake was so suppressed it could easily be missed. Triss, one of the other Squad leaders. Red-Two, I think.

My eyes slowly eased open as I stared up at the fabric of my tent. A tired hand sprung up to my face, covering my mouth as a yawn eased out. “I’m coming…”

I heard the soft crunching of footsteps on sand recede as Triss left me alone. For once. It’d been a week since we first arrived on the outskirts of New Tress City, and I had yet to even leave camp. Apparently, we were supposed to immediately get into the city and head for the opera house as soon as we arrived.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, we set up camp just on the fringes of the city. There was a nice rocky hill that jutted out sharply against the surrounding dunes with jagged cliffs on three of its sides. That was our base camp. One of the Company’s Adepts even used a spell to shape the terrain so we practically had castle walls built of sandstone, which was nova. Or at least it had been till I realized I was basically trapped in here for the time being. They also blocked a lot of the view, which was annoying. First time I’d ever seen so many plants and I couldn’t look all I wanted.

As for why we were out here instead of in there klepping shit? No clue. Or rather, I had a clue, though nobody actually told me what was going on. A side effect of my ‘protection’ squad immediately being sent without me into the city. I’m not mad- well, I’m not that mad at being left behind. That, and Captain Roger has been way too busy to make time for me, not that I could blame him. 

The clues were pretty evident that something was going on in the city. And not a good something. Take, for instance, now. I was once more dragged out at—I pulled my phone off its charging port in my pack and checked the time—the crack of dawn to go fix another vehicle. Or something. It was always something. Last time it’d been a portable solar panel. I barely managed to scrape by and get that all fixed, though it was entirely out of my comfort zone.

I suppressed a sigh as I gulped down far too much XtraEnergy Quantum from the canteen. After a quick change for it to start making water again, I forced myself up and out of the tent. I pulled off my poncho which I’d been using as a heated blanket and threw it back on. In the distance, the sun peeked over sandstone walls, flash-banging at me.

My eyes closed of their own free will, and for several long moments, I couldn’t help but wonder why exactly I had come out here with this ragtag merc Company. Or were they PMCs? At what point does a company stop being a mercenary company and become Private Military Contractors? When they join a company? Now that I think about it, the Crimson Company were PMCs, right? I’d been misnaming them this entire time-

“You good, Zuku?” Triss asked me.

I kept my eyes closed for a few seconds longer as the sun burned past my eyelids. I heard sand softly crunching as the woman shifted from foot to foot. And then I finally felt the caffeine start kicking in as a soft jittery feeling flowed through my limbs. 

Triss stood not too far, tall amongst the surrounding tents. Her long, flowing red hair was kept back in a tight ponytail and a cap gently pressed down on her head. She wore the same desert camo uniform and vest that the rest of the Crimson Company wore, marked with the red cross on her shoulder. 

From what I’d heard from Jerad, the guy running the medical tent, it’d been a real problem having desert camo in a city filled with green. Go figure. Poor guy had it rough. Magic kept backfiring in the city too, so he constantly had a train of people coming and going. Especially the Magi and Adepts. Maybe that Drake Deseran guy was right. It really was looking like a cursed city.

Anyway, at a glance, the woman looked more bio-sculpted than human. Her skin had an unnatural sheen to it, and I knew for a fact her pores spilled some type of coolant rather than natural sweat. It just had a bit of a sheen to it that normal sweat didn’t. Her features were, of course, perfectly designed and she had a smooth, chiseled jaw. She would look like a model if it weren’t for the slightly pulsing red hair and the sharpened teeth filling her mouth. Then again, it was out there just enough it’d probably make her more appealing as a model.

“Chek.” I held another yawn as I cast a glance around the camp, rubbing at my arms. It was as quiet as usual. Over half the PMCs were out on various missions, including Red-Six. The rest were mostly passed out in their tents to catch up on sleep or playing card games around the few fires we had set up. Only good ole’ Jerad and I were the ones stuck here- wait, no- he was called out too on occasion. That made it just me who hadn’t ventured into the city yet. 

I had… mixed feelings about that. On one hand, yeah, it was for my safety and all that. And there was no arguing I was safer here than out there based on what I’d seen and heard. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel quite a dose of wanderlust. Especially since the people I thought I’d be with this whole time just abandoned me here.

My eyes snapped back to Triss as I held back a shiver. Crazy how cold the desert got at night. It was still freezing out here. “What is it this time?”

”Uh-“ She shifted nervously from foot to foot. Still not sure if it was true nerves or just an act to look more human. Hard to tell when she had such extensive modifications. Especially since it was all bio-sculpting. Not too clear on that side of things compared to good old chrome. “Robert’s arm is locked up. Caught a few stray bullets. Other than that, the fuel lines of our Prowler are leaking once more…”

I tilted my head, pondering for a few moments before making a decision. “Kay. Let’s take care of Robert first. Any clue what’s wrong with him?”

Triss turned to lead me, her stride perfect even as her hands looked to twitch with nerves. It was things like this that made me feel unsettled. She just had far too many Cues leaning toward faking and being real at the same time. It could be explained by her just being a good actor, or training enough to get through her nerves. Either way, she had good training. “Negative. That’s what you’re for, no?”

Technically, I was here to break into a locked-down Opera House, not play techie for a bunch of careless PMCs… that was a bit harsh. They probably weren’t careless. Then again, some of the stuff I had to fix was just downright bizarre. Especially that time I had to fix a built-in thigh holster that was jammed… I thought it would just be vehicles at first, but then I exposed myself as capable of fixing chrome and it's been downhill ever since. Good practice at the least.

Triss led me to one of the few permanent structures built out of sandstone. Besides the medical building and the bait command center, this building was the only other one. Everything else was done in tents. Suckers. I had my very own workshop. Sure, it was a little- a lot underequipped and lacked the full functions that an actual workshop would have, but at least I was safe to work during a sandstorm! Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing…

A prowler was parked in the small workshop, alongside two men playing cards on my sandstone work table. Tools were scattered all around it, most a little rusty or beat up and about forty years behind modern tech. I’d needed much more gear than I originally thought, though thankfully the Crimson Company was full of rather skilled scavengers. 

The one closest to me, a rather tall guy with a limp, jolted upright as we approached. For a second, I thought it was because of us. Then he spoke, “Haha! All in! You’ll owe me beer for a week when we get back!”

The other man’s face twitched sharply. “You’re just lucky-“ He froze and bolted upright as we approached. “Zuku! I’m so glad to see you! Please! Help!” He waved his arms around, ‘accidentally’ knocking over the stack of cards and jumbling it all over the place. Of course, such a brave merc would never intentionally ruin a game he was losing. Right?

“Dick.” the other man muttered before glancing back toward us. “I’ll see you later, man. Triss. Zuku.” He gave us a nod before heading back out of my workshop. That just left the almost loser standing at my table and Triss.

“I need to report to the Captain.” Triss quickly followed the other man and left.

I moved to the recently vacated seat, taking it as I shoved the cards off the table in an impromptu game of fifty-two card pickup. The man’s smile dropped slightly, though I pretended not to notice. That’s what he gets for playing cards on my work table. It was practically a violation!

”Gimme your arm.” I tapped the table. He followed my command, giving me the first real look at the issue. Like Triss said, it was all locked up. He had one of those Sentinel models with a built-in gun. The barrels of the gun usually hid in the wrist before popping out to fire, though in this case it was jammed about halfway open. The jam caused his wrist to be locked facing down at an uncomfortable angle. It didn’t help that his elbow was also messed up, forcing his arm in an angle that would be downright torture as it squeezed the synthetic nerves running through it.

”I got shot mid deploy of my gun. It- uh- it itches real bad too.” The man’s face twitched. “That might just be all the pain meds docs got me on.”

Ah… well, first things first, I need to get the gun opened up. The mechanisms to deploy it probably got hit by the bullet, causing it to jam. It might’ve also hit one of the control circuits, which messed up the elbow. Should be easy enough to fix. 

I tapped on his arm, sending a pulse of ethereal energy through the limb thanks to Technical Expertise. The pulse went through his entire arm before bouncing back, creating a mental three-dimensional image of the limb. It was almost like a hologram I could perfectly see with my mind's eye.

As I suspected, one of the internal servos was messed up. The bullet must’ve directly impacted it based on the markings. The servo’s head was shattered, with pieces of it blocking jammed into a few other mechanisms and a couple pieces sliced deeply through the thin circuitry running the whole limb.

I got to work, accessing the maintenance port right below the armpit. It took a bit of work to get the thing opened. Especially since he kept twitching around, muttering ‘ticklish’ over and over. From there, I carefully disconnected the power supply. Immediately, the entire metal limb went slack. 

“Um- I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job- but that doesn't feel right,” Robert said as his shoulder flexed, uselessly flopping around the limp chrome.

I shot him a glare. I didn’t even want to be doing this in the first place. It was technically the job of a Medech, so Jared should’ve been the one taking care of everything. Too bad the Crimson Company’s doc was only good with biological stuff. Gonk. “You want to fix it yourself?”

“Nope.” He shut up, looking up to the roof as if he suddenly found it interesting.

Without power, the limb was much easier to manipulate. I managed to get the gun pried up, and then out of the arm, exposing the internals. I had to disassemble the hand and take it off, which was a pain since none of my screwdrivers would quite fit into the gun port to loosen it. With the hand taken off, it was much easier to manipulate the internals as I carefully took out the servo and set it aside. 

From there, I grabbed some of the scrap materials that I’d been brought over the past week and carefully fixed the circuitry. It wasn’t exactly a pretty fix, though thankfully the circuit that was messed up wasn’t all that complex. Then I popped in a new servo. The new servo was about forty years old, so it was a jury-rigged fix at best. He’d have to go see an actual Medech that had parts on hand to get it fixed fully. Or bring me some better parts.

I popped the hand and gun back into place, then re-enabled the power. As if surprised by the sudden return of control, the arm slammed upward as it righted itself back to how it should’ve been. It nearly clocked me over the head, though I managed to dodge thanks to a warning from Insight in the nick of time. Robert wasn’t so lucky. He slammed himself over the head, knocking him off his seat.

”I think- I think you fixed it.” He groggily got back up to his feet. He rubbed at a rather large lump slowly forming on his head. Shoulda worn a helmet.

”Try deploying your gun.” 

A panel slid pack, and the barrel rose from below it. At a snail’s pace. And it was a bit loud, causing a screeching noise. It still worked, though the servo I used to fix it showed its age. It’d probably take double if not triple the time to deploy now. Not that I could do anything about it. I simply didn’t have the stuff on hand to fix chrome perfectly. I did pour in some grease though, which stopped most of the screeches.

“Thank you!” Robert happily left. 

That just left me and the Prowler. It was a simple fix and a common one I'd had lots of practice with over the past week. I had to replace fuel lines almost every time they came back. Something about the city reacted weirdly with AE3, causing it to turn slightly acidic. The vehicles were practically running on tape and hope at this point.

Once more a sigh escaped me as I went to fetch the parts. When will I finally be able to go do something? Anything?