"Well if that's true then let's start off with introductions, I'm the Net Witch, but you can just call me Miss Ann. So what's your name?" Ann asked as she held her face with her dainty hands.
"If we're going with our pretentious names then I'm Amon, but you can just call me Ben!" With Ben having been dead for over a decade, any connections to his previous life have been null and void, thus making it hard for any nosy bastard to look into him.
Miss Ann raised her brow in surprise. "Amon? As in the demon of life and reproduction? What are you some kind of sex maniac?"
Ben gaped at how uncultured she was and corrected her swiftly, "No! Not the demon Amon! The God of Mischief, Amon!"
"I don't think there are any mischief gods from old world mythology named Amon though...." Ben sighed at the disaster of not knowing such a masterpiece.
"Whatever, let's get back to business. The ST-00 chip's info, send it over and you'll get Jimmy's pay. Though I don't rightly know what you're gonna be able to do with it, with you being a sentient A.I. and all...."
"Don't worry! Us tin cans have looooots of things money is good for! definitely! Also, have you got any work for me?" Miss Ann was still busy with the miniscule amount of info Ben sent over when Ben asked for work, causing her to put the info on hold.
"Need to build up your cred for me first, and you're just in luck since I just got a request to send someone to rescue a kidnapped surgeon from a Flying Dragons hideout. So are you in? Its the same amount as the last job." She 'asked' nicely, though the reality of situation was that she had Ben by the balls, with her knowing his true identity and all, he just did not give a flying fuck.
"If you throw in an extra two thousand!"
"If you do even better than I hope then I'll get you even more. I would wait as the client tried sending in their own people to try saving the target, causing the site to get hot, it is best if you let them cool for a few days and in the meantime prepare."
"Thanks for the heads up, I'll be going, I have got places to be and things to inevitably buy!" Ben stated as he got up and zoomed out of the joint ready to go on a shopping spree with his meagre income of five thousand.
When he left, Miss Ann got back to going through the data when her phone rang. What appeared was Ben's obnoxiously loud message.
[Here is my number for the future! Good doing business with you!]
Her brow twitched at the blatant hacking Ben did to get her number. Just as she was about to get back to work her phone rang again.
[P.S. - Just wondering, but if I get enough money, can I buy that hat?]
Miss Ann, irritated, muted her phone to not have to deal with Ben's obnoxiousness. Then her phone buzzed, leaving her miffed to say the least.
[Annabel, any leads on the ST-00 chip so far? Warrick is starting to get restless and we can't keep redirecting him. You know what will happen if he gets his hands on it.]
Seeing who it was from, Miss Ann, or more aptly Annabel, smiled brightly before answering back.
[Don't worry your majesty, I got the chip and some more information on it, I'll meet back up with you soon!]
After that she got back to work looking over the info, more invigorated than before...
…..
"Hmm, this hideout is loaded, good god! Four armed vehicles, three net divers, at least there are not a lot cybernetics with top of the line cyberware. Does she want me to die on my first gig? This is like a level one noob fighting the last boss...." Ben gaped at the amount of shit that these so called Flying Dragons had in this hideout, what were they doing supplying a small army?!
On the more optimistic side of things, Ben had a couple of days to prepare for the job, with the heat from the failure of the last crew.
"Hmmm...Carol Othello, age thirty seven. Top of her class....renowned surgeon. Lasker winner and cyberware inventor, damn this woman is stacked!"
With the targets information and the hideouts population and armaments, Ben got to work by first heading to an implanter.
"Goon #1's phone points to here but....is this really an implanters shop?" What he found was a dilapidated shack that screamed the opposite of 'high tech surgeon'.
Then as Ben was hesitating whether or not to find someone else, the 'door' to the shack flew off into the distance and with it a bloodied cybernetic and an aged voice. "Find someone else if you can't deal with the pain, greenhorn!"
Then an old man appeared from the doorway. He looked like he was a more scrawny version of Santa Claus or rather Krampus, in this case. "Well, what do we have here? A customer perhaps? Don't mind that shit on the doorstep, come on in!"
Ben sighed and walked right into the shack.
"So, what can I help you with? Some leg cyberware that allows you to double jump? I also have a pile driver arm fresh out of the box!" The off brand Krampus went straight away to marketing his products.
"First I'm gonna need a name." Ben stated calmly, completely different with his attitude from his conversation with Annabel.
"You can call me Doc, only people who know me really well get to use my real name...." Ben nodded in understanding.
"Okay then, Doc, I'm looking for a potential energy joint converter, just one, and you don't have to do the implantation surgery. Oh, and if you have a pair of extendable blades that'll do just fine."
Doc looked at Ben with a raised brow. "And you have the money to pay for all that? I only do business with wealthy individuals."
Ben merely laughed. "Wealthy? Like I'm gonna believe that horse shit when your, 'business', is in a dilapidated shack that belongs in Fallout."
"Fine but I only have a pair of stinger blades, will those do?" Doc grumbled, annoyed about the shack comment. He went out back into a freezer like container, once he appeared before Ben again he had two small metal boxes.
But Ben wanted to make sure this bastard wasn't going to scam him dirty. "Open it. I need to see what I'm buying."
Doc grumbled before showing Ben. When he opened the boxes, vapor bled into the room ceaselessly. What showed were to metal prosthetics, one with an elbow joint that looked strangely like a battery. The other box had a pair of blades that were akin to insect stingers.
"Yes, those will do just fine, how much will it all be?"
"Twenty thousand." Doc stated plainly.
"How about four thousand and I don't mention to anyone else that you just tried to scam me with decade old cyberware ,deal?"
"What do you mean, decade old cyberware?! My prosthetics are top of the line products-"
Doc stopped as multiple alerts and loading icons flashed across his eyes, petrifying him. "I'm sorry did I hear you incorrectly, Doc?" Doc was baffled. Didn't he have ICE installed and updated monthly? Where the hell was it then?!
Ben seemed to grow back to his original height as he leaned down almost touching Doc, letting Doc realize what was underneath the hologram.
Doc stood frozen as a menacing red eye watched him. "Y-y-y-yo-you're a sentinel! I can alert England's NDF and you will be d-d-deleted!"
At the talk of deletion the amount of alerts seemed to increase and Doc started to feel a little heated from all of the programs. "If you kill me, no other implanter in London will ever do business with you again!"
Ben merely pulled his head back and scanned the room and stated. "Doc, there's a reason I showed you this. Back in Camelot, a woman by the name of Miss Ann easily saw through my disguise with but a glance. But you know what? I don't care, because unlike her, even though I will be in constant contact with her for the foreseeable future, I know she is trustworthy thanks to her profession."
Ben stopped and stared back at Doc stoically. "But you....you are not trustworthy in the slightest, and that shit you pulled with the cyberware just further irons it in. So you're gonna sell me those implants for four thousand and get to keep walking around on god's grey Earth or you can feel what it's like to overheat your circuitry. Your choice, mate.
Doc nodded rapidly, scared at the thought of death. "Four thousand is good, very good-"
"Do you have another operating room with the right tools?" Doc choked at the request.
"Y-y-you're gonna work here? In my place?"
"Got a problem with that?"
"Nope! None at all! Let me show you the way!" When Doc was done he closed the doors behind him to let Ben work in peace. When he got back to the office, an alert popped up on his screen.
Scared that it was another lethal program, Doc put his entire focus on it, only to be struck by the fact that four thousand had been added to his account. "He really paid me....and now he has my wallet....shit."
Ben's programs had been burrowing into every orifice of Doc's system, leading him to find the code for Doc's electronic wallet. With technology being as it is, people carry all of their money inside of their own internal computer systems. Of course that can still be stolen, but better being able to know immediately than finding out later. Of course Ben still had morals, he would only take the money when he took the life.
…..
Ben dismantled the cyberware and melded a stinger and the potential energy joint converter together for his left arm, making one singular piece of cyberware and got to work on the other one. "The joint already implanted in my right arm can be rerouted to the stinger, increasing the blades performance. Only problem is how am I supposed to fit the railgun and stinger in one arm while keeping the two separate so I don't melt the stinger with shots fired off by the railgun..."
The problem for Ben is not the charging of the railgun, he diverts a certain percentage of battery to the railgun, stockpiling watts needed for ammunition. The problem was dealing with the overheating from said railgun.
[Oi, Doc, do you have any coolant cyberware on hand, that is cheap?]
[Define cheap.]
[Couple hundred.]
[Then yes, I got a couple.]
[Great, go get it for me.]
[Can I get my payment first at least?]
[Here.]
[Ok, coming with the coolant.]
After that Ben unplugged the railgun and got to work combining the three cyberware.
When he was done, the arm actually shrank! When he raised his fist, he triggered his blades, causing them to punch out weakly. "Damn, looks like if I want fast and forceful impacts, I'm gonna need to build momentum in the converter...."
"You build some pretty nasty cyberware, you know that?" When Ben turned he found Doc behind him inspecting his creation.
"Nasty? This damn thing will flatten if I have it go up against any heavy duty defense bots unless I aim specifically for the joints, which are the hardest part to hit. It'll be practically useless then."
"Still useful against humans, no? Anyway, are you done? I need my lab back."
"Sure, Just let me get dressed. By the way, how much time has passed since I started?" Ben asked.
"You've been in here for the last twelve hours." That meant Ben had about a day before job time.
Ben didn't have anything else planned since his wallet wasn't very full at the moment so he just planned to charge his battery for the next twenty or so hours.
"Ok I'm set. See you later, old man, remember I am always watching." Then Ben left, and continued on his way down into the maze-like alleyways of London.
"It would be best if he never came back....stupid net-divers, fucking hate 'em."
…..
"Sigh....Eight hundred left. I'm practically broke, and I still need bullets for the hand cannon and a rifle, screw it I'll just have to make do with what I got. Dammit it's only been one day." Ben was trying to come with a plan when the loading process from the ST-00 chip alerted him.
[Loading complete, deactivating self defense protocol program]
"Well at least I won't be controlled by the chip anymore, like how I was back when I resurrected." Ben wouldn't be controlled by the chip, mortal danger arrives allowing him to think his way out instead of having to deal with the hostiles before he gains consciousness again.
Right in the middle of Ben's moment his phone went off.
RING! RING! RING! RING!-
[What do you need Miss Ann?]
[Do you have everything you need, Ben?] Annabel's voice shook as she asked Ben.
[Well not everything, why? I just need to get a few extra hours worth of battery life and then I'll get the job done, why?]
[…..Nothing, just be on the look out in case some unknown variable barges in on the mission.] After that she hung up, leaving Ben with a dreary feeling.
"Great, way to ruin my moment. Just fucking wonderful..." Ben grumbled as he made his way to the roof of a nearby building to get some sweet old solar power.
…..
"Sir Nolan, we have news of another attack by the Royals, this time it was in Wales. How do you want us to retaliate?" In a dark room with only a desk light for lighting up the room, stood two men.
One man staring out into the endless night sky and the other sweating buckets of being in the presence of the former.
"....Do you have news on the ST-00 chip?" The man seemed to have no care for an attack on his soldiers and only asked about something else.
"No sir, the last lead we had was a dead end as well...." The man did not finish as the room felt heavier than it was before.
".....Elena, you are being a real pain in the ass, you wench.... Get Arthur to be on the lookout for the Royals for the next few days. Tell him that he is to bring all the potential hostiles back here alive, understood?" The subordinate nodded swiftly and left hurriedly to issue out his master's orders.
The man turned back to the night sky, lost in the beauty of the full moon blanketed by the stars.