An Engineer In Night City - ch 9.2 (Patreon)

Production is out of this world! (2)

In the production graph, the lines showing the various intermediary products and the Modules steadily rise as new machines, smelters, and miners come up online.

Still giddy, Mark looks at the numbers going up, recalling what made him play Factorio and games like clickers, idle, and certain forum games under the quest format, especially the gamer quests. Some players get tired of the excessive math, but Mark plays those games because of the math and the numbers going up.

With the item going to its place, a notification set up previously appears on the system screen.

Mark enters the nearby car and goes straight ahead, wondering why he didn’t think of setting relay vehicles when playing the game by setting dedicated lines for his cars as internal forms of transport within the megabase. It is more expensive at first, but ultimately safer than trying to drive the buggy at top speeds manually.

At the storage area, the Engineer sees several higher quality items and personal equipment: several full combat drones, power armor, the RTG modules, weapons, energy shields, batteries, powered exoskeletons, and even the chrome he will give to Maine’s crew.

The Apogee's model Sandevistan finished reverse engineering and received an upgrade. This type of technology would eventually allow for infinite chrome augmentation research after unlocking Criogenics research, however, each upgrade only works for the next "generation" of chrome, unlike the productivity technology that upgrades automatically across all machines. Additionally, each new generation is treated differently for quality.

Thankfully for Maine's Crew, most of their chrome can be replaced using the quick swap ports, while the few internal chrome will require a brief period of rehabilitation.

Mark smiles when he looks at the new toys he built for Kiwi and Lucy, and he hopes that Lucy will trust him enough to allow him to scan her special Netrunning OS to reverse-engineer a new version.

Back on Earth, Faraday called a reunion with his new dedicated crew of Edgerunners. Among them, there is a former NUSA spect ops soldier, loyal to his country who came to Night City to aid Faraday in his mission, two local Solos with a history of successful missions, one techie who is good with drones, weapons modifications, and field tools, one combat Netrunner with experience in the field, and finally an ex-Malestron ganger that replaced her extreme chrome for something more palatable to hide her previous affiliation, with Kiwi as overall support.

“You will be part of an operation of extreme importance to Mlitech. As such I expect you all to do your best. It’s not just your lives on the line, but mine as well! If you think I will stifle you, let me tell you that your success will be my success, and your failure will be my death. We’re all in this together.”

Kiwi is caught by surprise at Faraday's speech, never expecting the men to risk his neck, though outwardly she remained stoic thanks to her new chrome configuration. The Netrunner doesn't know what kind of creature is currently wearing Faraday skin, but she suspects that the man is abusing a new acting skill chip. In Kiwi's opinion, he should ask for a refund.

Faraday continues with his speech. “Kiwi will give you the necessary details for this operation to work. Now Kiwi, tell them what they need to know.”

With unnatural calm, Kiwi steps up. "Alright, listen up, there isn't much information that can't be gathered by direct observation, but this will cut on your time. I am sending you a document with Wube Inc.'s truck driver schedule. I wouldn't bother involving them in your schemes since they drive in a convoy, have armed security together, and the drivers are both armored and armed. If you try something stupid like blowing up one of his vehicles, like a certain band booster gang, the Engineer will personally hunt you down. All vehicles have also undergone upgrades and received special Wube Armaments armor plating, so attacking them became even harder."

"Next is the schedule of people going in and out of the Factory. As you can see, most of the people of interest live inside the property limits, and we all know what happens when you try to sneak inside. The few people that don't live inside can defend themselves."

"The most important piece of information I have is regarding David Martinez's schedule. He is at his most vulnerable when he leaves Arasaka Academy, as he travels to Arasaka Tower alone by taking advantage of his relative anonymity from your average ganger and his cheap-looking appearance."

One of the two solos raises her question. "How can that corpo brat look cheap? I heard that he's cute."

Kiwi glares at the woman. "He arrives at the Arasaka tower wearing his uniform, and differently from most corpo brats he doesn't have any expensive accessories or visible chrome on him. To attend meetings he changes his clothes inside the Tower for a designer suit."

The Netrunning regains her composure and continues. "The file also lists other detes that might be useful to your task, study them at your leisure."

Faraday takes the focus of the conversation once more. “Thank you Kiwi, you acted incredibly well. I will make sure my superiors know how you helped us.”

"If that's all, I will leave."

As the Netrunner leaves the building, Faraday motions Edgeruners to follow Kiwi. The NUSA ex-soldier follows after her until they are both walking on a glass corridor overlooking the streets below.

Kiwi hears a particular noise coming from behind her, and when she turns around she's surprised that the Solo crosses the distance separating them in an instant. She tries to dodge the attack in vain, but takes his punch directly in the face, breaking the window and flying over to the ground.

The Solo looks down on the fallen body of the woman and calls his superior on the radio. "Target down, you can send the clean-up crew to take care of her."

A few minutes later, the clean-up team doesn't find anything beyond a poll of blood. "Shit, she's gone. The Scavs probably found her first."

"Are you going to tell the boss?"

"And tell him we fucked it up? Hell no!"

…

In Mercury, Mark watches the RGB ships being loaded into the newest building he extracted from the Space Exploration Module, the Cargo Rocket.

The new Rocket is a massive mammoth of a ship, it can load far more cargo than the normal rocket, with both an increased physical space and weight limit. The Cargo Rockets will individually load with the Green, Red, and Blue Chips, while other Rockts will also send precious items, such as Steel, Low-Density Structures, Heat Shielding plates, and certain Rare Metal plates and ingots, with a final conventional ship set to send Mark back to Earth.

The Cargo rockets will take twice as long to arrive, but it is still more cost-effective to use them than to depend on spaceships for the delivery of goods. With them, Wube Inc. will meet the increasing demand of the corporations, and allow the company to export to other regions making Wube Inc.'s products available to more people. Supplying the retail market is still not possible, but the rest of North California, the Free States, and Texas can now have access to the miraculous items.

Mark believes that the more the Free States become powerful, the stronger the buffer they become against NUSA for Night City and Wube Inc.

While Mark travels back to Earth, the special chrome is successfully delivered to Maine’s Crew, the special package being picked up by them at the BN2 Complex.

In their joy, both Rebecca and Maine reacted strongly, embarrassing themselves in front of the team. After making fools of themselves, they found the extra items gifted by Mark.

Back in Night City at Vik's Clinic, Maine receives another surprise. "You're going to accept his sponsorship too, Dorio?"

"Yeah, it was starting to get harder to keep up with you and Becca, so I thought, 'Why not?' Besides, I can't have you two get a big head, someone needs to drag you back to reality sometimes."

"Well, it's a good thing that choose to make the conversion now instead of earlier. Mark sent several upgrades to his older chrome, and there are a few drugs and nanomachine treatments that will help you acclimate yourself better with the chrome. Thankfully, both Maine and Rebecca can swap to the new version with little issue."

Maine nods to the ripperdoc. "Thanks, doc. What about the outdated chrome?"

"Mark already paid to buy it back instead of letting me have them, and I'm glad for that. All of your chrome was personalized so it would likely cause issues if someone else put it on."

The Solo leader nods once more before opening a private chat channel with the doctor. "Good. Can you also do that thing I talked about?"

Vik stares at Maine and then steals a glance at one of his future patients, before replying to the Edgerunner. "Are you sure it won't cause any issues?"

"Affirmative."

Vik sighs, "Very well. It will add only an extra week of rehabilitation."

The first to undergo the newly rebranded "Spartan-II Conversion," due to being the second generation of the enhancements. He first received the biotech-derived treatments and his Chrome Compressor OS, and because of the new drugs and advanced medical kits supplied by the Engineer, Maine finished the full conversion process in a single session. He stays sedated for the next day to recover from the extensive surgery, but Vik estimates the Solo won't require extensive rehabilitation.

Next is Rebecca, who receives the new treatments and installs the new chrome, including the reverse-engineered Apogee, rebranded the "Raiden" Speedware. The new Raiden enhances the cohesiveness of her other reflex and perception-boosting chrome while in passive mode, and when activated she enters "Blade Mode", allowing her to slow down her perception of time by 90% while increasing her speed by a comparable value, and the chrome can stay active for 6 consecutive real-life seconds, up to a total of ten minutes per day, with a cooldown between each activation being a proportion of thirty seconds depending on how many real life seconds she kept it active. Together with her other enhancements, Rebecca now is a force to be reckoned with, even outside the Wube Inc. next-generation power armor.

Finally, Dorio undergoes the same "Spartan-II Conversion," receiving the genetic treatment, installing the Chrome Compressor, and also installing the quick change ports for her cyber limbs.

However, when Dorio wakes up she feels a strange sensation below her waist outside the expected chrome. "What?"

Her previously partially ruined lower body is now reconstructed with cloned tissue, and her previously destroyed lower half is back to full functionality once more.

Surprised, she turns to a grinning Maine. "What, Maine, what's going on?"

"I told you I would fix you up, Dorio."

Maine gets to his knee and brings up a box with a golden ring for her, a bonus courtesy of Mark when he extracted the rare metals on Mercury. "Dorio, we have been together for a long time, and while I once saved your life, you also saved mine in ways that I couldn't repay. The thought of losing you while on the job is almost crushing to me, despite that I wish to create a new connection with you. Will you marry me, Dorio Gunnarsdóttir?"

Moved by the proposal, Dorio can only nod in response, before grabbing him by the neck and planting a deep kiss on her fiance.

The crew waiting for Dorio to wake up burst into the room, clapping at the pair and teasing them mercilessly for Dorio crying like a six-foot-tall little girl.

…

Back in the Factory, a report displays that the Pacfica Scrapyard had lowered to its last 25%, releasing a lot of living space that was previously occupied by junk. The production of the day paused for a while until the construction bots overhauled the layout of the Factory, with new Garages being built, belts being rerouted, and new living space being built. The old packaging sections received the notice that soon they will move to a different area of the Factory once the Pacifica Scrapyard exhausts itself when Pacifica Factory will change its focus from production to distribution, as the old workers on packaging will instead handle higher quality products sold at a premium for the megacorps, while the previous chips will sell directly to retail.

With the new activity on the Factory, both Jackie and V find the time to reconnect and talk about their new life.

“How are things going with Wube, Jackie?” V asks her friend, and he answers with professional pride.

“It’s going well enough, thanks. The guard work is often boring, but I make a lot more money now compared with Edgerunning, and it is consistent. The only downside is that I can’t get into Afterlife anymore unless I’m accompanying Miguel when he visits together with Mark.”

The Arasaka corpo gives her friend a rare smile. “I'm glad that you like things here, Jackie. You always seemed lost in your life before, and now our situation has inverted.”

Surprised, the Wube guard asks. “What do you mean?”

Feeling tired, V explains her situation to her friend. “My superiors at Arasaka want to get rid of me."

Jackie appears indignant at the casual confession, trying to interject in favor of his friend.

V waves him off. "Oh, they’re not being overt about it, but I can tell the signs well enough. Even this post was a way to get rid of me, since at first they didn’t believe the whole deal would work, and now they want to get rid of me since I exceeded their expectations.”

Jackie hums for a while before advising his friend. “Do you want to try your hand at being an Edgerunner? You’re the best Netrunner I know, and you can probably do well as a mercenary with your expertise. Maybe test yourself first with some new chrome, hunt down some Scavs, and then apply to be formally hired by Wube Inc. if Arasaka plans to throw you out. Since Yorinobu and Mark are close, they might think it's not worth the effort of going after you.”

V is glad for her friend's attempt at cheering her up, but she knows that it isn't so simple when Megacorps are involved. She still answers him positively. “Hmm, that's certainly an idea. I might try it if it becomes necessary.”

“If you ever do, call me. I will introduce you to the best ripperdoc in the city, Viktor Vector who runs the Vik's Clinic.”

V raises a delicate eyebrow. “Is he the same Viktor that has his clinic on your output's property?”

Jackie's expression turns awkward. “Output? Nah, we’re just friends. I tried to ask her out in the past but got cold feet, and when she heard that I almost blew my head for DeShawn she stopped talking with me. I think I lost a dear friend.”

V's lips twitch upwards as she whispers to herself. “So does that mean I still have a chance?”

Jackie sounds surprised. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

…

Eventually, Mark returns to Earth orbit, but he stays on the moon for some adjustments on the local factory, though he uses his robots to rebuild the Landfill into a new configuration. Now the entire area is covered and defended, though a few areas are missing turrets, leaving a small gap that's undefended. He sent the update to Kiwi before her disappearance, and now it is the perfect time for an Edgerunner crew to infiltrate the place.

Faraday is elated that his plan is coming together. Maine is on a different assignment that will keep his attention, and the Night City Landfill, one of Wube Inc.'s main sources of income, is now more vulnerable than ever.

Faraday sends the vulnerability news to the underworld, hoping to entice the nearby gangs into action, creating the perfect distraction for his heist.

The security forces are held up defending the precious cargo of Wube Inc. while David Martinez is attending classes as usual.

Faraday's Crew watches David from afar, studying his movements per the information given by their former plant.

"The target is leaving the Academy," the leader tells his companions, "we will intercept the target in fifty-five seconds."

David appears bored to the crew, walking carelessly on the streets and making himself vulnerable.

The Netrunner of the crew chuckles at how clueless the teenager looks, believing that he only survived so long due to being broke, and then by pretending to be broke, using his anonymity as a shield. 'We will teach the boy a harsh lesson on reality.'

When David reaches the intersection, a black unarmed van swerves in front of him, putting a bag over his head and heading off, successfully kidnapping the teenager.

A few seconds later, David's message reaches Mark. "They took the bait. Also, I want a raise."

Mark contacts Miguel, Maine's Crew, Lucy, and Kiwi, to start phase two of his plan.

Post Chapter Notes

I just realized that my plan backfired, as the editing process took WAY too long. It also beefed up the chapter a bit by almost half. I still have the second chapter of Nier Revengeance to edit, but I will start writing AEINC 9.3 and 9.4 today to keep them on schedule before returning to the weekly poll. I will also post the new Weekly Poll later.

Again, please enjoy the story!