Liberty and Death, Chapter 54
Jonah made it an odd 13 of the incoming Adrenobytes to add the Nano-Fibril Interstice to his workload for the day. Cora thought it was weird, that she wasn’t more nervous in the waiting room as Trish and Berg popped in and out for their Receiver Arrays. While technically, her last experience in the backroom had gone well, it had still been undeniably terrifying. The mess of wires, the inhuman doctor, fading into the walls as machines descended from all sides.
The stuff of nightmares, to be sure, but Cora was no more nervous than she would have been for a flu shot.
Is there some kind of, like, mind control going on here? Or am I just numb as hell?
OH NO, DEFINITELY MIND CONTROL, ALL THE TECHGRAFT OFFICES HAVE AN ANXIETY DAMPENING FIELD BUILT IN, AND JONAH USES SOME RELAXATION PHEROMONES ON TOP OF THAT. HONESTLY, I WAS SHOCKED AT HOW FREAKED OUT HAWK MANAGED TO GET LAST TIME. YOU SHOULD MAKE FUN OF HER.
I’m not going to make fun of her.
An hour later, Berg walked out, rubbing at her new implant, and Jonah beckoned Cora inside.
This time, she didn’t even remember the walk down the corridor, just woke up on Hawk’s lap, latched onto her like Tania kept doing to Cora in the morning.
“Wha-, oh, uh, shit! Sorry!” Cora said, scrambling to get off, only for Hawk’s grip to latch like steel around her waist.
“Don’t mind at all, Miss Mistress,” Hawk grinned, fangs just barely peeking out beneath her lips. “C’mon, why don’t you test how strong your new chrome made you?”
Cora scowled, but put one of her hands on each of Hawk’s shoulders and began to push.
Slowly, gradually, Hawk’s fingers began to bend.
Sure, it was only one of her hands, but pre-implant Cora would have had no more luck breaking her grip than she would an actual steel beam. When her hand finally snapped open, Cora was pretty sure that without boosted [End], she’d have cracked a rib from sheer pressure.
“Not baaad!” Hawk praised, a little patronization in her voice, “might be able to take the kid gloves off, next time we… spar.”
Cora blushed bright red, though between waking up in Hawk’s lap and the effort of getting out of it, her shameless innuendo only managed to make a cherry one shade redder.
Cora pulled up the display on her new cybernetics to distract herself.
[Nano-Fibril Interstice (II): By crosslinking, reinforcing, and enhancing the natural musculature of your upper body, this implant affords a +20 boost to [Str] and [Dex]]
And just like that, she was twice as strong and quick as she’d been, and she would’ve already been superhuman back home. And then some big bad bitch had to remind her how much bigger and stronger they came by nearly holding her back with one hand.
Still, with this, they certainly hadn’t run into anything that wouldn’t at least feel it when Cora hit them, especially with [Rib Cutter]. She had a long way to go before she became the avenging angel this world would probably need, but she was taking steps, strides even, each day. Slowing down maybe, going from level 5 to 6 had seemed like it took just as much combat as 1-5, but maybe that was what happened when you kept picking on people weaker than you.
She went about the process of getting Berg and Trish hooked up with her array while Fern went in to get the Party Array implanted. That was a long term strategy thing, and wouldn’t pay off until Cora had a few more badasses on her side, but shit, as long as they had it right?
Seeing as that one took far longer than everything else, they left Fern to her surgery, and headed out towards the Depot. Unlike last time, there were no nasty men waiting outside the door. Cora wasn’t sure what it said about her that she was distinctly disappointed.
“Damn, kinda hoped they’d try’n jump us again,” Hawk rumbled, echoing Cora’s thoughts.
“Same, be easier if they kept bringing stock straight to us, huh?” she agreed, Hawk laughed, and ruffled her hair a bit as they merged into the press of humanity in the street.
Cora felt panic rise in her again, hating herself for it. She’d never been afraid of crowds back home, why the fuck was it happening now!?
A strong hand grabbed her wrist, pulling her in close. Last time, that had made it worse. This time, Hawk guided Cora’s hand to a strap on her plate carrier, patting it into place.
“Don’t like crowds, huh? You just stay right there, let Hawk do the walkin’,” the giantess said, shooting a grin back over her shoulder that made Cora feel very small. But not in a bad way. Like she was something fragile, to be cherished and protected.
That was absolutely not how she identified, but fuck if it wasn’t nice to feel like a treasured porcelain doll sometimes.
Hawk guided the group to the Depot, people once more giving her, and by extension those in her wake, as wide a berth as possible. The bestial changes in her appearace as she leveled had done absolutely nothing to make her look less intimidating. Instead of just being 7 feet tall and jacked, she was now 7 feet tall, more jacked, and had eyes that screamed ‘Predator!’ to instincts buried so deep in a person that you forgot they existed until something like Hawk was looking right at you.
They broke out into the open wagon-wheel hub, and made their way to a service station.
“Anyone have any idea how these guys keep track of all this shit?” Cora asked while they waited in line. Logistics wasn’t something she particularly gave a shit about, but it seemed weird to her that Jonah had known their stuff had arrived, even though this all appeared to be pen and paper.
“Oh aye,” Iain volunteered, “this whole place were set up by a group o’ retired army logisticians, generations ago. One ‘a the bastards were sneaky enough ter smuggle out a System terminal when whatever war they were doin’ at the time winded down. Installed it right there in the middle o’ the square. Whole place is staffed by retired Veterans and family, ‘s why t’aint been completely taken over by such as teh Chains yet.”
That right?
MORE OR LESS. ITS A HACKED SHOP HUB, ONLY FUNCTIONS THAT WORK ARE BASIC INVENTORY AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS, BUT BASIC FOR ME IS SPACE AGE FOR THESE IDIOTS. IT'S WHY THE FOOD IN THE DEPOT NEVER GOES BAD.
“What happens if the Chains get a hold of that?” Cora asked.
“Nuthin’ good, o’ course,” Iain answered, “though I can’t say as to how much they could change. Place is absolutely necessary to life in Light’s Fall, and it’s not like the folks runnin’ it now frown on Slavin’.”
“Right,” Cora remembered, bristling. Her eyes shot to the auctioneer's dias, mercifully empty now.
“Ayup,” Iain said, as though he were talking about the weather rather than commercialized injustice.
“New question, how do we take this place over?” Cora aked, and Iain burst into laughter.
“Oh, lass, ye got big goals don’t ye?” He gasped as he finished. “Like I said, place is run by Veterans. Most of em ain’t as tough as me, but some are, some far tougher, and there’ll be a lot of em. Most not [Integrated], I’ll grant, but there’ll be a few who were favored enough to earn that during service, and they’ll all have tech.”
His eyes had gotten harder after they’d met Cora’s, and realized she hadn’t been joking.
“And then, if ye could handle them, and ye can’t, ye’d have to deal with Ingrid and that Legate armor of hers. ‘N that alone is a Battalion prospect.”
His eyes flicked to Hawk as he spoke though, clearly wondering the same thing Cora was. Just how big and strong would one person have to be to fistfight a mecha?
“Point being, its a pipe dream, ‘till yer far more prepared than ye are now, Lass,” he finished as they reached the service counter, and Cora let the matter drop. There was business drudgery to take care of.
To be fair, Cora really didn’t need to do much. As soon as it was abundantly clear she had the business acumen of a shellfish, Iain and Berg took over with gusto. All Cora had to do was sign some documents allowing Berg to act as a vested mercantile representative of House Light. A hundred Trish to a few day laborers wandering about, and soon they were porting their goods back to the shop.
Hawk looked hilarious, as at some point Iain realized her strength far outstripped her surface area, so she now looked like a cartoon husband after his wife's shopping spree. Just replace all the clothing bags and giftboxes with lizard parts.
Even then, she moved more easily than the rest of them, Cora having to message her in party chat a few times to slow down, since she effectively neither see nor hear in her mountain of monster bits.
While Cora had half a mind to put a stop to what was effectively bullying, there were three reasons she didn’t.
- Hawk could use a little bullying.
- Hawk legitimately seemed to be enjoying the chance to show off how absolutely fucking Hench she was.
- Hawk was drawing quite the crowd, plenty of who followed them to Berg’s shop.
Cora had a little spring in her step on the walk back home, confident that she’d begun her first successful business venture. Notably not her first business venture, but really, she should have known Jane Thick branded dress socks weren’t going to be a money maker.