October 14th

7:27 AM

Diana

Ripley was still in a foul mood about losing his Arachnodyne, and I was… begging for rest. I'd gotten permission from Maiden to call Dryder over to pick me up, as long as he stayed far away from anything here. She'd… heard about him from Diamante.

This day had been going on for way too long, I was itching to finally get some proper shut-eye on a bed.

"So," Maiden had a pile of Shards collected on her side as Ripley grumbled to himself, "I ain't one for discountin' your hard work, but as it stands I lost a lot of functional equipment… and so have you."

Ripley only tiredly nodded, his eyes seeming detached as they flicked around on what had to be a digital field only he could see.

Maiden jabbed between his eyebrows to force his gaze on her. "Now, this is a complicated process and we still need to have the Dreamframes properly excised, I can sell the parts for a good profit, but the issue is finding a buyer who won't use it for something like this again. Now, you two did good. I'll fix up your Shardware and you can pick it up tomorrow nig-"

"No.," Ripley drawled, "I'll fix it myself. No reputable Shard Op' let's another touch their work."

A hint of a smile drew upon Maiden, this was fascinating for me to witness. I always knew Shard Operators had their own little culture going. "Well, I can restore plenty of what was lost. You know that's a specialty for me, so truth is I don't need all these Shards… I'm willin' to part with two of the four Silver Shards."

"Nah," Ripley's eyes suddenly sharpened. "I want the Implant. Keep the Shards, that Implant is what I need."

Maiden rasped air from her lungs, before nodding and turning to me. "As for you?"

"You're a Shard Operator… what's your clientele?"

"Fine young gals like yourself with enough Shardyne to spend." She smiled.

"Good enough for me, might make a visit." I said, before my eyes fell on greedy, little Donovick. "Unless… you've got a better deal, Ripley?"

His eyes met mine… and then he smirked. "Come with me."

Surprised, I stood up and followed as he walked out into the exit of the cargo depot. The morning light was peering through, and there was a certain… brilliance in the way it reflected across his eyes. Out here, he met my gaze confidently before speaking. "I'll do whatever modifications you need, if I get access to your body."

Lightning sparked in my fists.

Ripley

Oh fuck, I had to rephrase myself quickly. Before she could pound my head in, I reverbalized. "What I mean is that I want access to your… body parts. Remember that whole skin, blood thing? I- uh… may or not have a way to incorporate them into Shardware."

I was talking about, of course, the Goliath Nanites which could turn organic matter into inorganic. And had a particular reaction to mutated flesh.

She stopped, but I sensed she was a single twitch away from tearing my replacement limbs apart. "Elucidate."

"Okay, fine!" I groaned, before deciding to reveal it. We were already deep in shit together. "Remember how you broke me out of prison?"

"How I escorted an unfairly accused citizen out, yes." She corrected.

"Well, truth is, I was hiding. From the R0N1N." I explained, "I may or may not have accidentally contained military tech from Yuzhou that is a super-secret potential weapon of mass destruction. The very reason we broke into that place, so I assumed he had plenty of reason to want to… take it back from me, but that whole debacle is solved now — point of the fact is… it's still in me."

"And you didn't think to use it while we were being assaulted by a damn MAL?" She folded her arms and her gaze turned so easily scrutinizing and judgemental.

"I can't… exactly, because I don't know how to. Or… haven't gone down that path yet. Nanites, I have nanites in me."

"Like the ones in MedSprays?"

"Not exactly, they're much tinier. So tiny they can even fit into my red blood cells, but the reason why they're so dangerous is that… they kinda turn organic matter into inorganic components for them to use."

Diana looked at me, not understanding.

"Well… look. I have a certain… additional power to be very good at incorporating Warp Materials into Shardware. Effectively, I can turn your cells into a Gold-Grade Warp Material that I will begrudgingly let you name, and utilize for your own means… if I get to do the same."

She stared at me with her jaw opening slightly, lightning fraying within her terrifying eyes that bore through me. "You know what… fine. But I need you to-"

"Good, because I might have already collected a lot of blood and flesh that the MAL tore off." I sighed from relief.

A punch came my way.

Diana

I stopped my punch at the last second, a gritted breath releasing instead. "That's the last time you do that."

Ripley took a nervous step back. "Yup, yup… sorry about that. Uh… you were saying?"

I reached into my pocket, pulling out the BUG with the Titanium Mutagen inside of it. I tossed it over to him. "You study Implants, right?"

He looked at the Iron BUG, confused. I explained. "That, Donovick, is a BUG with Soul Killer's Mutagen… I don't know the process behind it, but he uses it to infect dead bodies. Turns them into-"

"Fractured MALware." He… guessed. "And… how is this Mutagen administered?"

"By a red vial containing-"

"Red flowers?" He guessed… again?

"Red spider lilies." I expanded. "How do you know that?"

"Because it's how Dogwhistler and Skeleton are turning homeless people into MALware as well. All along I thought it was a Warpcode mechanism, but now I know that it's a… Mutagenic mechanism." He gulped. "So, then, Soul Killer knows a lot about Implants."

"Far as I know, they're a fanatic about them."

"BUGs too?"

"I… I don't know about that, but Soul Killer… I wouldn't put it past them." I tossed out. "If you have some way to study the Implant and I guess… make progress with it, then can you send it to me?"

"Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Guess I become a geneticist after today."

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"Thanks… and… if you become anything even shy of a genius then…" I stayed silent, unable to voice my thoughts. Can you help me with Anthony? Anything?

"I'm already a genius." He chuckled. "You'll get your anti-Soul Killer weapons. Just give me time to figure this out."

His eyes then held that mischievous light of wanting more. It was sort of… endearing, the way he absorbed everything that came his way. "Maybe… even some of their notes or whatever."

I smiled. If there was anything I wanted Soul Killer to suffer, it was turning their work against them, "I'll keep that in mind."

Soon, I got a message from Dryder.

[I'm turning into the parking… I think I see you.]

"Well, looks like my rides here." I sighed, almost feeling like it had come too soon before Ripley took a sudden step towards me. And… hugged me with his singular metal arm?

It was a fairly gentle and chaste hug, one that felt cooling to me.

"Stay safe." He patted my shoulder, already turning around before I could say anything.

———

Ripley

Hypermind Alpha was on it's dying breaths, and I knew Diana had some strange sensitivity to Warp Energy. So I made skin contact with her, enough that in that one moment she'd be confused by the sudden movement and lost under my Water Tendency… so I could prick her ever so lightly with a needle that bypassed every nerve of her forearm.

Not to draw blood, but to inject a singular nano-machine. She was like me, possessing a Fragment from the Source-Shard of Change. And now that I knew that Mutagen could be used to alter BUGs, hers was the best bet at being compatible with my own manipulation.

"Stay safe." I patted her shoulder, quickly turning around as I reached for a Module.

Insight Module Selected: [2B] Analyze/Network

The Network aspect of it kept me tethered to the nanomachine, as it coursed through her body and I gave it commands through the Database Protocol: Nanomachine Reprogramming.

Hide in a blood cell, repopulate your count as needed, and congregate near her subdermal Frame… connect to it.

It would be a matter of luck and timing for the machine to do its work, but the next time we met… I'd have plenty of data about her Mutations, as well as a portal to her Frame's working. A portal to the SIO.

Information like that was worth gold.

———

Diana

Dryder was just the same the last time I saw him, messy hair and a long trench coat with enough gunk on his stubble that it overshadowed the dull smell of the usual alcohol smell. "Were you drinking and driving?"

"No." He said unconvincingly. "I was drinking and waiting for you… so I could be a drunk passenger princess."

"Oh, you asshole." I sighed, my hair turning black and my skin graying as I sat inside. "I've had the shittiest day of my life and-"

"So you admit you can have shittier days than when Soul Killer—"

"Shut your fuckin' mouth." I revved the car. "At least tell me you managed to find something worthwhile on Soul Killer while I was in New Houston."

"As a matter of fact…" He took a deep swig of his bottle before continuing. "All the leads we've been focusing on, I found the common thread. A SynTec meat lab."

"Meat lab?" I reversed out of parking. "What does a meat lab have anything to do with Soul Killer?"

"Get this, remember that farm-thing you were kept under? Some of the cattle there regularly had their flesh torn out and sent over to this lab for cloning. Meat's spliced and grown into slabs of bulky nutritious food only the rich get… but you know what else they sent?"

"MALflesh?"

"Bingo." He chuckled, drinking some more. "So… I looked around a bit more, pulled some favors and wouldn't you know it? One of the big guys straight up contacts me and sends a whole load of juicy secrets out, this lab gets a whole lot of meat from a whole lot of animals… and turns out they're testing out using MAL-derived mutagen into their food to make it more… well consumable."

I braked the car so hard that it skidded. "Are you… telling me… that Soul Killer has been putting their Mutagen into the public's food?"

"Not yet." Dryder grinned. "Not if we stop them… "

"But… going after a fucking corporation, I didn't think Soul Killer was that crazy."

"This is the thing… SynTec knows about Soul Killer's plans."

"They're working with him?!"

"I don't know for sure. That's what we need to figure out. Strange thing about this job, tho… we have to do it on a specific day. 25th of the month."

"A specific day? Why?"

"Guy who gave me the info told me as much. Said… we break in before — SynTec kills us. Break in after, we find nothing. Break in right then — SynTec will let us walk right through. Only thing he wanted in exchange for the info is the Meat Lab Nexus' dead body."

"The Nexus'… dead body?" I didn't like the sound of that. "Who is this guy anyway? The one sending you all this."

Dryder finished his bottle, tossing it out the window before grunting. "Mr. Skeleton."

"Skeleton?" I was really losing a hold of driving. "But aren't they both part of The Uncaged?"

"That's what I thought too." Dryder put his legs on the dashboard. "'parently, they ain't as close as I thought they were."

I took a deep breath. This wasn't making sense. "Shit, we're really doing a job for Mr. Skeleton?!"

"Pick your poison." Dryder pulled out a second bottle from his car door.

"I know… I know… I just-" An idea came into my mind. "Hey, this is a pretty big job. What would you say if I called in a few friends?"

"I would say: 'When did you make friends?'" He snapped a cork off.

"Jackass, I'm just saying… some friends who have experience breaking into a Corporate institute." I trailed on.

"Stop speakin' in riddles." He gulped half the bottle in one go. "Or else I'll fall asleep."

"Dreadwire and Mirage." I looked at him intently, and he let out a thin grin.

———

Ripley

Sitting alone, I looked at Elsa's Avatar, who was a little worse for wear. "So, you trust Starlight now?"

"No," Elsa answered, but at least she was honest. "And it makes sense now...why she could destroy a MAL so easily."

"Why?"

"Because she's made from the Firewall Ripley, your Datashield is just a slice of it. Made to destroy MALs." Elsa paced in the air.

"Then why did she get hurt so easily?"

"Because the Firewall isn't a damn Emulect, it doesn't think like a human. It doesn't make mistakes that aren't programmed into it, Starlight's vulnerable and unstable. At Tier I even you got an arm hurt from Irons, Starlight's the same. Except in her case, the MAL absorbs a part of her and becomes so much more powerful because of what she's made from."

"Gold?"

"Himiko." Elsa corrected. "Amaterasu. The very reason why Twilight needed to be reset, don't forget that. Somewhere deep inside Starlight is coding so complex that even if I spent ten years looking at, I wouldn't make heads or tails of it. But to her, it's instinctual to modify it. Not to mention, how you fed her bits of yourself, that's like putting a gun into your enemy's hand and aiming it at your forehead!"

"Hey… hey… calm down." I reached out to touch her, my hand only fazed through her digital body. "I get it. You have some really bad memories about the Firewall. Let's take a step back and work through this together. Starlight needs a teacher, and you could-"

"No, Ripley." She shook her head. "I love you, but… something like that isn't safe. I can't do that to you. I can… I can… safely isolate her from you. Maybe even leave enough that she can return in a different form, but Starlight is just… a problem."

"She's not a problem. She's my- she's important to me… to my plans. To my mother, I made her while thinking about someone who could be there for me and my mother. We don't need to make her into some badass Datadelving powerhouse. I'd be fine just having an… assistant of sorts." I tried to rationalize it.

"Ripley… I-" She paused. "This is the kind of thing that's-"

Incoming Message from Diana:

[Hey, I know we just said goodbye… but uh, you want to run a job on the 25th?]

Elsa flicked her eyes at the message. "You're running missions together now?"

"Nothing like that. We just made a mutually exclusive deal to help one another out." I scrolled as I read through the message… oh fuck. Another Corporate Raid on a meat lab? Against Soul Killer and… from Skeleton?

[So… you willing to help or do I need to sweeten the deal?]

"Oh, the audacity of this bitch!" Elsa shouted.

[250,000 Shardyne good?]

I froze… while not R0N1N levels of payout, that was certainly a good deal.

[Also, yeah… might need your girlfriend too? That fine?]

"Like I'd let go with you without me!" Elsa strangled the message. "You are not having a fucking work wife, Ripley! You already work with me!"

I smirked. "You jealous?"

"Yes!" She barked, but I reached out and let out a faint pressure of Warpcode I knew she'd be able to feel to pull her close to me.

"I know things have changed a lot, but you're still the girl I love."

She eased in my arms, sighing. "I expect a lot of cuddles to make up for this."

"You'll get them." I promised… before stretching my limbs up and turning open the Scarpyard as Shardware components pulsed to life in the air around me. 11 days… that wasn't a whole lot, but I bet I could make some decent progress. A new Arachnodyne, repairs to my limbs, my mask…

Dreadwire basically had to be remade from the ground up. I shrugged. It was a loss of Shardyne, but it was also a chance to better mold the mercenary to my vision. I'd been making subtle changes and repairs over time, but maybe an overhaul was what I needed — especially if I wanted to make ample use of Shardweave.

What else? Honestly, I think I had some permanent ear damage from that monkey, there was a slight ringing noise and my sense of balance was a bit off. Then, I had to take my Frame into account. Starlight was running on less than half of her total output, and now I wagered I needed to be able to have both her and one of Elsa's Personas in my head at the same time.

A better Neuroframe… my eyes caught the large wires Maiden and I had pried from brain folds. Dreamframes.

It was possible to compact them… but the question was, should I?

Missy was going to pick me up later today, and I had the day off from Anderson at the cost of a deduction of today's salary. So, I had some time to kill before I could get back home. Elsa stared as I reached for my goggles and popped them over my eyes to trigger Alter-Ego.

My hair shed from black into snow-white as it grew messy, I pulled a lab coat over my shoulders, and the skin of my face turned to black cloth that wrapped tightly over my skull.

The Ripper

Now, it was time to bring about excellence to Dreadwire.

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