Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG
Chapter 259

“… told you no.” I overheard Nael’s conversation as I slunk into Absolom Clinic. I guess it was a true sign of growth that he didn’t even notice me, nor did the man talking to him.

The man he spoke to was the same doc from last time. Dr. Carcinogen or something like that. This time, he had two corporate goons in Medtech’s shock trooper armor flanking him. Pretty sure this wasn’t supposed to be how the shock troopers were used.

”Look, Medtech doesn’t like that their business is being infringed on… I tried to buy you more time, but the bigwigs want this taken care of. Now.” The man sighed, his four eyes drooping. Still looked wild with the additional two eyes above his brow.

Nael didn’t look threatened in the slightest. He crossed his arms and shook his head. ”So what, Carcinaten? Come here to trash my clinic?”

“No… don’t mind them. They’re here for my protection, right, guys?” Neither one of them spoke up in affirmation, leaving the doctor standing there in awkward silence.

”That’s reassuring.”

“Haah… look, they’re giving you a month to sign the contract and become a subsidiary of Medtech.” Dr. Carcinaten pulled out a thick bundle of papers and tried to pass it over. Nael didn't take it, so he just set it down on the chair.

Nael shot a glare at the contract. “Is it just Absolom Clinic? Or is Medtech making a big move?” 

“I’m not supposed to say.” Dr. Carcinaten's eyes seemed to flash with emotion before he buried it. “But yeah. They’re making a move. Every clinic this side of the Corporate Quarter is getting hit with this.”

“How… unfortunate.” Nael grabbed the contract, glancing at it briefly before tossing it onto a table. He looked unbearably fatigued.

“It’s not all bad, Nael. You’ll get resources to better help people-“

“By jacking up my prices. I was there long enough to know how Medtech works, Carcinaten.” Nael shook his head. “Then when business drops, they’ll say some shit and kill off Absolom Clinic just like they have to thousands of others already.”

Carcinaten went silent, rubbing his arms. His face spoke volumes, though. His expression twisted into one of guilt. I’m surprised a corpo could even feel guilt, to be honest. Guess they were people too, heh.

I shifted by the door as my Kinetic ability overcharged, a spark leaking out of my toe and into the ground. Nael’s eyes snapped up to me. I didn’t have my perks active, so it was no surprise he finally took notice.

Carcinaten followed Nael’s gaze to me. His demeanor shifted slightly, becoming way more professional. “Just promise me you’ll think about it, doctor? I don’t want to do this either, but I’d rather not lose an old friend.”

Nael ignored him, waving to me. “I have an actual patient, so…”

Carcinaten nodded to the two shock troopers. ”Right, right. C’mon guys. Let’s go to the next one.”

I watched them go, brushing up against one of the shock troopers in passing. A combination of Hidden Hands and selective use of Illusive kept my motions hidden. I sent several pulses of Technical Expertise through his armor, creating a full mental blueprint.

Honestly? Shock trooper armor wasn’t all that impressive. It was good, but it relied on heavy ceramite plates with little tech outside of sensors and a cooling system. Hmm… maybe if I paired it with an exoskeleton? The armor was way to heavy duty for my usual MO, unfortunately.

After they left, Nael called out to me. “Shiro! Good to see you. Been a while since you came by.”

”Sorry.” I moved further into the clinic as he took a seat.

”Nah, don’t be, kid. It’s for the best if I don't see you for a long time, all things considered.” He chuckled lightly, the earlier fatigue on his face completely gone.

“Chek.” I laughed alongside him for a moment. “Need any help with-“

“Don’t mention it, kid. I’ll get it taken care of. One way or another.” He shrugged. “More corps then just Medtech want this place. What’d you come in for, though?”

I sighed, shaking my head. I figured he wouldn't ask for help. Always the one helping, never the one receiving… I should look into this hostile takeover when I got the chance. See if I couldn’t do something. Even something as simple as the big wig behind everything disappearing might fix things, or at least slow them down.

For now, though, I needed some medical attention. “Look, I- um- I have a new condition… I need all of my chrome removed because of it.”

He patted the chair, his eyes twisting in confusion. “All?”

I took a seat, clapping my hands together. Sparks emitted from my hands and my charge dropped back down to a low level. I decided on the way over to just be mostly honest with the man. He deserved at least that level of trust for all he’s done for me. “Chek, all.”

”I see…” He pulled over a bunch of scanners to look over me. “Evolution of your Kinetic ability?”

”Something like that.” I shifted on the chair, careful not to touch anything expensive-looking. Would seriously suck to break his tech.

Nael went silent and looked at his terminal. “All of them are fried, which you probably already knew… I see you went with a clone-flesh eye. Something happened to your old one?”

”Netrunner.” 

He nodded simply, not asking any more questions. “I can take it all out. I’d have to run some tests, but I don’t think anything on the market can keep up. Your bioelectricity levels are off the charts compared to a normal organism. You’ll either have to get something custom-built or swap to bio mods. Of course, we could just patch you up and return to baseline.”

Biomods. I didn’t think of those. ”You have any biomods?” 

“A few. You’d probably be better off going to a different clinic that specializes in them, though.” Nael shrugged lightly as he continued to tap around on his terminal. “Mystech is still the largest player, though KairoTech has some high-end ones as of late.”

Maybe in another life, I would’ve gone for biomods, but custom-building my chrome was probably for the best. “I’ll work on getting some chrome over the next week. Could you- uh- test it for me before chipping it?”

”No problem…” Nael sighed and rubbed a hand against his chin. “Make sure you go to a reputable shop to get it custom-built, though. Street tech has a far higher Glitch rate. There’s a reason people keep to the big corps.”

”I will…” More accurately, I’d be building my own. I had more than enough knowledge, and my skill level had vastly improved since the days I struggled to build a throwaway camera. Not to mention I finally got through all of the documents from Cold Moon Solutions over my break, including all of their chrome blueprints. Shouldn’t be too hard.

It’d have to be after I spent my Tech point, of course. Maybe even after I spent my free Perk Point, too, if there were multiple Perks I really wanted. No point making something now when I could make something way better with a bit of patience.

”Then I’ll rip it all out for now. You’ll be out most of the day. It’ll be a full-body surgery to get your Neural Link and jacks all out.” Nael stopped his typing to look up at me. “You ready?”

”Whenever you are… Be careful. I can’t exactly control this.” I snapped my fingers, a spark emitting from them.

”I’ll ground you, so it should be fine.” Nael offered me a mask hooked up to whatever knockout chemicals he used. 

I took it, and in moments I was off to dreamland. It was the quickest I managed to go to sleep in weeks.

— — —

I awoke some time later, my entire body feeling as light as air. And, of course, everything had a dull throbbing to it. My head in particular hurt as if someone had ripped and plucked my nerves… which I guess Nael had been doing, technically.

“Take it easy, kid.” Nael put a hand on my shoulder, pushing me back down into the chair as I tried to get up.

I groaned, throwing an arm over my face to block out the light. I misjudged my much lighter weight, though, slapping myself upside the head. “Gah! I f-feel like I was hit by a truck.” 

I glanced through the gap of my arm to see Nael barely suppressing a laugh. “That’d be all the drugs. It should wear off soon.” 

“Ugh…” Remind me to never take drugs again. If medical grade stuff was this bad, I couldn’t even imagine all the wild shit they sold on the streets. Designer combat drugs were said to have the worst aftereffects. How could those guys even move afterward?

True to his word, it did start wearing off before too long. Or, at least, calm down. We talked a bit more, though our conversation was cut short by a new patient coming in.

I left the clinic, still feeling slightly woozy, and headed back to my temporary apartment at the BC Gym. I’d been planning on stopping by the clinic Shinobu’s gal worked at today, but that plan got axed when I saw how late it was. Nael wasn’t kidding about the surgery taking all day.

I collapsed in my bed, still feeling off. Thankfully, the scent of burning synthetic wood was gone. I’d made a call on the way to the clinic. Someone had come up and replaced all the floorboards and everything else that was scorched by my rampant Kinetic ability.

I blinked a few times before summoning up the interface and mentally tapping on the Knowledge Token.

 「What would you like to know?」

Could it be anything? Hmm… “The Interface. Oh! Or the eidolons! Everything about them.”

「Error: Restricted」

Yeah, shoulda seen that coming. Oh well, guess it was back to my original idea. “Aether Jumping? Everything about it.” 

「Processing…」

「Information Gathered」

「Enter the Nest?」

“Sure-“ 

My vision went black. I blinked my eyes several times, finding myself transported to a massive library in a similar way to when I was pulled into the Perk space. A sudden sense of vertigo surged through me, confusing all of my senses.

I rubbed my head lightly, looking around the massive library. The entire place smelled of musty old books and old ink. Owls flew over the top of gargantuan shelves, carrying books around this way and that. 

If Crow lived in a graveyard full of jun- scavenged goodies, then Owl made himself at home in this behemoth library. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I didn’t see any sign of the eidolon himself. Probably busy with research or something. He didn’t seem like the kind to just mess around like Crow and Fox.

A table was set up in the middle of the area, absolutely loaded with books. A large owl stood not too far off, watching me. It motioned lightly to the books and then flew off to who knows where.

I hesitated for a moment before making my way over to the table covered in books. Every single one of them was on Aether Jumping. Everything from ‘A Treatise On Cross-Dimensional Transportation’ to ‘Jumping: The Future?’. A lot were written by Owl himself, though about a third of them were by other authors. Most of them were human, with a few eidolons even having books. 

I didn’t know what I was expecting from the Knowledge Token, but I had kinda hoped everything would be downloaded into my brain automatically. Shoulda known better. I pulled out a chair, making myself as comfortable as I could, and reached for the first book, ‘Owl’s Hitchhiking Guide to the Aether’.

— — — 

I jolted back into my apartment, my mind reeling with a dizzying amount of information. A momentary lapse of focus saw an arc of electricity singe my blanket. Again. Ugh- this seriously sucked. Maybe Kinetic wasn’t such a good idea…

Anyway, I thought Aether Jumping would be easy. I was half right. With the correct know-how, getting into the Aether was very easy. The real issues came with getting back out, creating a personal space, and setting up Anchors. 

I had so much to do… and resources I needed to gather if I ever wanted to actually set up a subspace to store stuff. The good news was that it wouldn’t be all that hard. There was a book called ‘Aether Jumping Facilities’, written by Viper. There were dozens of spots in Aythryn City alone. I could just go steal what I needed from them. 

That was for another time, though. I needed to plan that particular heist later down the line. For now, I pulled up the interface and entered it once more.

This time, I was pulled before a sprawling set of shelves with a different aesthetic. A flickering flame above Tech’s shelf illuminated the scrolls spread across it. I stretched out lightly and then got to work sorting through the mess for something I would want.

「Transmutation」

「Nanotech」

「Aether Tech」

「Quantum Automation」

Those four stood out to me the most. Transmutation, in particular, was interesting. It was, well, the kind of transmutation old-world alchemists dreamed of. It had a major emphasis on balancing worth, though. I’d need enough lead to equal the worth of gold if I wanted to transmute lead to gold… but at that point, why not just buy gold? Hmm… it did have niche uses, though.

Nanotech dove into, surprise, Nanotech. It was a full breakdown on nanotechnologies, the various uses of them, and how to make them. It looked really good, but even at a glance I didn’t have the kind of gear I’d need to start making nanotechnology. It’d be a while before I had them, too. At that point, I could probably figure it all out myself.

Aether Tech was interesting and very misleading. It seemed to be a breakdown on tech related to the Aether, not Aether-infused tech. Front and foremost of which was all the Aether Jumping stuff. It would be really good… if I hadn’t just gotten a major breakdown on all of that from the Knowledge Token. After a bit more thought, I eliminated it from the running.

Quantum Automation stoked my interest the most. It dealt with creating automation processes for building on as small of a scale as possible without giving up on quality or quantity. If I ever wanted to set up a factory? I wouldn’t have to worry about a thing tech wise.

More importantly, it would give a full breakdown on coding and programming automata. I kept away from most robots and anything of the like purely thanks to my lack of skill and knowledge in coding/programming. If I had that kind of knowledge? I had some really good ideas. Not only for combat, but for every facet of life. I’d have to spend a lot on proper ICE, though.

Hmm… if I got Transmutation, I wouldn’t have to worry about resources ever again. Especially restricted resources that were impossible to get hold of. It’d be costly, but some stuff I wouldn’t be able to snag even with all the money in the world. And, well, lead to gold was a common fantasy, right?

Quantum Automation, though, could open the door for me to get into some stuff I was super interested in. It had overlaps with Nanotech, too, so it might even be a two-for-one deal. Not to mention, I could set up a production line and start making some Rayn. Maybe even buy out what was left of Cold Moon Solutions and start operating under the corp? It’d make my grandfather proud to make the corporation he bled over great once more.

Decisions, decisions… hell, why not both? I had that free Perk Point, after all. After a moment of hesitation, I grabbed the scroll for Transmutation and backed up the easel, slapping it on. 

The scroll unrolled to reveal an ornate balance scale. It glowed faintly, the intricate golden links connecting the scale’s pans seeming to sway with an invisible wind. 

The Perk space faded away as I found myself back in my apartment. I waited for a moment, expecting a surge of pain or something similar. Nothing. Maybe an active ability, then? Been a while since I got one of these.

With a thought, I activated my new Tech skill. The Aether seemed to surge, condensing into an exact replica of the balance scale that was shown on the scroll.

I toyed with it for a moment. Hmm… the description said it balanced worth, but did that mean it could transmute anything? I’d have to test it out later to figure out all the scale could do. 

Since it was an ability-type Perk, I was still feeling rather good. I immediately dove back into the interface and spent the Free Perk Point on Quantum Automation. As I expected, it pulled me into a dark learning space full of books, workshops, and factories.

I sighed and got a move on, heading to the first objective given by the interface. Hopefully, this wouldn’t take too long.