Grey awoke slowly, groggy and numb to everything. A clean room greeted him, nothing for decoration, just clean steel and a cloth curtain around his bed keeping him separated from the rest of the room.
Why am I…
Memories of the intrepid nest came back in fragments. Going in. Ters leaving him alone. Running for his life. Falling to what he had assumed was his death.
He would feel elated that he wasn't, but he couldn't feel a thing right now.
Grey tried to lift an arm and found it barely reacted to his commands.
He wasn't going anywhere just yet, best to use his time to think.
Hed clearly survived the fall, but how?
How did he get here? Was it Ters?
He heard the soft chime of an auto door, followed by footsteps before the curtain around his bed was pulled open to reveal a nurse. A set of unnaturally colored, crystalline eyes the only giveaway that he modified himself
"Ah, I thought you might be awake, brain activity spiked." He had a soft voice coupled with a gentle smile. It would be enough to send Grey's heart racing but he found himself oddly calm. Strange.
The nurse stepped over to Grey's side, checking the panel by the bed which displayed his vitals. "Everything looks good. There were no signs of permanent damage, thankfully, though you might be sore for a few days more." The nurse turned his emerald eyes on him and Grey could swear he was looking right through him.
"Though I must ask, where did you get that heart implant?" He reached out and tapped Grey's chest lightly. "We had to go in and reconnect a few things and it's unlike anything I've seen."
Heart…implant?
That couldn't be right, Grey had never gotten an implant, he was flesh and blood all the way through. He tried asking what he was talking about, but found his body still wouldn't obey.
The nurse seemed to realize this as well, "Oh! My bad, looks like we still have you immobilized. Let me just unplug you."
He reached just behind Grey's left ear and yanked out a cable. Grey's sense of feeling returned immediately.
"I was…plugged?" Grey mumbled in disbelief. He had a neuraljack now? Just what the hell happened to him?
"Yes, we tend to do this for some patients. In your case it was to keep you down while you healed, you were banged up pretty bad when you came in last week."
Grey felt like he had taken a third punch to the face. He'd been out for a week AND somehow been chipped.
His vision began to spin as his stomach churned. He felt like he had lost control entirely and had no idea what to do next.
Grey fixed things. That's what he was good at. Give him a job and he got it done. Give him a puzzle and he solved it.
But this? He didn't even know where to begin and new pieces of this puzzle just kept appearing. He tried his best to push down the nausea and center himself.
Alright. So I've been chipped. I can live with that. But someone is going to pay for taking that choice from me.
He wasn't happy about the cards he was being dealt. Yet you could win a hand even with bad cards, but only if you kept your composure and played it right. Thankfully for Grey, he had a damn good poker face.
"Not sure I can say, it was a gift from a friend." His lie came smoothly, with a smile just as charming as the nurse's as he came in.
The nurse chuckled, "Alright, then. Keep your secrets."
Two short beeps drew the nurse's attention and his eyes dimmed for a moment.
"I'm being called for another patient, but another nurse should be in before long and get you released." He slipped a torn corner of paper to Grey, "But maybe when you're feeling better, you could give me a call?"
He hustled off without another word, returning to the endless working world of healthcare.
An hour later found Grey exiting the hospital on his feet. The early morning air was sharp in his lungs, but soothing on his aches.
"I wish he hadn't been right about being so sore, fuckin hell."
Grey had given himself a once over in a restroom before being discharged. The cuts he'd gotten were closed, covered up by a layer of synth-skin. There was a line of synth-skin along his chest as well, right over his heart.
He moved on to the jack behind his ear, the skin there was sore like the rest of his body, but felt perfectly bonded with his flesh.
He continued to evaluate every inch of his body. His hair was still dark. He peered deep into his eyes, searching the brown for anything out of place. Nothing. No discoloration on his skin, no other pieces of technology present.
He still couldn't figure out why this would be done to him. No consent, no notes left behind, no demands. Just two new implants and an astronomical medical bill.
"Two hundred thousand credits?!"
Grey would be working that off for Archons know how long. He'd made a cool two thousand with the Intrepids job, he'd have to pick that up from Ters soon, maybe take the man's head as a bonus.
None of this would have happened if he hadn't dragged Grey into this.
Grey took a deep breath.
No. None of this would have happened if he hadn't accepted the job. Killing Ters wouldn't undo everything that had happened.
But it would sure as hell make him feel better.
Putting thoughts of cathartic murder aside, Grey dug out his communicator from the bag the hospital put his belonging in and groaned.
"Of course it's been smashed. I can't get a fuckin break."
With nothing left to say about it he began his slow walk to the roadside. He could try to hail a cab by hand, old-school. But that was the same as saying he couldn't pay for the ride. Anyone who couldn't afford a communicator to call a cab likely couldn't afford the lift either.
He wasn't a hundred meters from the hospital when the obvious hit him.
He had a neuraljack now. Communications should be built right in.
If only he knew how to use it.
"...Comms, open? Call Taxi. Hey, Comms!" Grey tried several more vocal keywords before the looks he got from passerby shamed him into silence.
Maybe something non-vocal, then.
Deciding to put off the testing until he got home this time, he decided he'd try the railway, four blocks north. It would be a long trek at his pace but aside from asking a stranger for help, a move more likely to get him hit with a stun than a cab called, it was the best option he had.
He spent the next hour walking, murmuring about giant bugs, tearing off Ters' head and implants being forced on him, all things no one wanted to hear from the man walking next to them. Looking crazy wasn't his goal, but it did get him to the station without anyone bothering him. A silver lining.
Finally arriving at the station he found a kiosk, bought a ticket, and just barely managed to catch the train before it left.
Among the constantly on screens broadcasting advertisements and news, Grey found a chance to rest. The trains were heavily monitored, half a dozen cameras to each car by his last count, with two automatic turrets hidden at each end.
No one would dare cause him trouble here. Not like he had much to steal anyways. But there was always the risk someone would try to scrap him for parts, organic or mechanical. Scrappers weren't picky, as there was always a market for either side.
He'd have to sit through three stops to come around near his apartment and another long walk awaited him there so it was best that he rested up as best he could.
But he still kept an eye open, watching the other passengers. Most were corporate slaves making their way to their skyscraper jail cells for a pittance pay.
A handful were from the local gang, likely only on for a couple exits until the train left their turf. He wasn't in hot water with the local gang, he worked freelance for more gangs than just Cos Techa, the gang Ters, Vic and Error were from, so most members gave him space. Though there was the rare few who didn't like that he worked with other gangs at all, it didn't look like this group even recognized him.
As he made his assessment of potential threats, two words wormed their way into his head from the news screen that he normally tuned out.
Intrepid Nest.
He quickly shifted his attention to the screen.
"We are getting the final report on a collapsed mountain in the wilderness west of Harpis city. Early reports of an Intrepid nest have been confirmed, with the insect's digging causing the instability and then collapsed of most of the mountain side. Next up, are your kids having sex at the mall? Tune is with expert Mike B…"
Grey's focus on the screen faded.
They made no mention of a survivor, or the gang. So it wasn't the authorities that found him. That only left Ters tracking him down and bringing him back to the city. If that was the case, he'd have to rethink his beheading plans.
Maybe he'd use a sharp blade to do it, rather than a dull one.
Grey was thankful he didn't just leave him for dead, but getting him into that mess had nearly cost him his life in the first place.
It might have even been Ters who put this tech in him. Maybe he was trying to force him into the gang with a debt? That wasn't Cos Techa's style, but plenty of other gangs did it. Maybe Ters didn't want to lose his favorite mercenary, others tended to charge more than he did.
In any case, he'd find out soon enough
An hour and a half later Grey left the train, too soon for his pains to recede fully but long enough for the morning chill to fade into spring warmth.
Another hour passed before his apartment came into view. A building of dozens of floors, mostly paneled steel and covered with mega screens for advertising.
It wasn't much, but it was…well, it wasn't much. He couldn't, and wouldn't, waste more money on something more expensive.
Making his way through the lobby, which was hardly more than a single desk and a terminal along the wall, he checked for any packages and made his way to the freight elevator that served as the main method of changing floors in the building. Its rarely oiled doors shuttered open and Grey was thankful it was empty.
It was loud and large enough to hold a few dozen people. Nothing in this building was made for comfort in mind, only cost and high traffic.
Absentmindedly pressing the button for the fourteenth floor, he closed his mind to his surroundings and relaxed. Just a few more minutes and he'd be tucked away at home, behind a locked door with a weapon in hand.
The elevator rumbled to a rough stop, throwing Grey against the door. He managed to right himself before it lifted open and pushed through the crowd that tried to flood into it.
His floor was as bare as the rest of the building, just solid concrete floors stained by years of use and neglect topped off with eye-stinging fluorescent lights.
A right, a left, a right, and four doors down Grey punched in his key code and the door slid to the side, allowing Grey entry into his tiny, somewhat messy, home. Laundry littered the floor and the air tasted the kind of stale that even the air scrubbers couldn't remove.
He shuffled over to his bed, threw himself down to rest his battered body and recapped the day.
Somehow survived the fall from the mountain. Unknown implants put in my body without consent. Need to pick up pay from Ters. And then…
He wasn't sure what would come after that. But that was a problem for later, as for now…
Grey shifted his position, doing his best to make himself comfortable on the bed. He'd paid quite the cred to get it. Nothing was a better investment than the place you slept in.
He figured the only thing he could accomplish now was getting the neuraljack to work.
He rooted around his brain, pushing it to work. After mere moments he felt like the world around him took a step away as he activated the implant.
[Greetings, pilot.]