Wearing the was shockingly easy. The control system was nearly seamless, with negligible delay, and with inside the helmet a full-scale screen showing the outside, there was almost no loss in vision. I could probably whip up something even better for myself, using my brain interface, but for now, the standard control systems and sensors were more than adequate.

  As soon as we stepped out of the production room, I took off running, shouting for Jackie to keep up. I could feel and hear the servos and artificial muscles working with each movement, making each step feel powerful, propelling me forward at a startling speed. Jackie shouted after me as I moved, and after a moment, I could hear him chasing me, the standard power armor anything but subtle.

  As I ran, rather than dodge around buildings, I leaped up over them, easily clearing two trailers separately without my jumpkit. Then, with the boost of my jumpkit, I easily cleared the walls next. After a few dozen feet, I turned, skidding to a stop as the large boots of the power armor kicked up dirt and gravel. After a moment, I watched Jackie jump over the wall as well, before running towards me.

  "A poco! How fast can these things go, Jay?" he asked as he approached, his voice coming through my helmet, which I knew was linked through a separate entangled photon router.

  "Let's find out," I said, before giving him a shove, shouting that he was it, before once more taking off.

  It was immediately clear that using the same running method that Jackie taught me, loping around like a gazelle, we could easily clear thirty to forty miles an hour. It was hard to tell with rough terrain, but I was willing to bet we could have pushed significantly faster than that on flat, smooth asphalt.

  We played rough tag, starting with shoving and pushing before eventually turning into full-contact sparring for about an hour, the armors getting scuffed and roughed up considerably. After Jackie delivered a rather savage Judo-style flip, lifting me, armor and all, over his shoulder and slamming me to the ground, we started experimenting with our strength. We lifted up sizeable chunks of rock and hurled them along the ground. The level of enhancement that the armors gave the wearer was astounding, and while dexterity was not perfect, it made the original Fallout power armor look like it was one solid single piece of metal.

  Eventually, as the sun started to sink, Kaytlyn joined us, running fast enough to leave a cloud of dust after she leaped over the exterior wall. For a few minutes, she ran through the same experiments we did, before I messaged Samwise to send out a MRVN unit with a surprise. A few minutes later, one of the AI-enabled robots brought out three mag cannons, modified slightly to fit our larger hands.

  "Jay, these are incredible," Kaytlyn said, holding her own mag cannon, aiming it at an abandoned, junked car we had dragged from the desert.

  After a moment, she pulled the trigger, the massive slug punching through the wrecked car's trunk and out the other side.

  "This is nothing. Tell it to engage Sharpshooter mode," I said, watching as a moment later as both her and Jackie's suits lowered into a solid stance.

  Basically, the armor had frozen their legs and turned down the reactivity of the controls. This allowed you to make the tiniest adjustments to your aim while also stabilizing your shot perfectly, allowing you to adjust and fire with insane accuracy. It was like shooting with a, a table, and a bipod all at once, only better.

  Kaytlyn fired again, and the slug punched through the same hole as before, barely causing sparks as it just skimmed off the side, an almost perfect replica shot.

  "When you're done, just tell it to cancel sharpshooter mode," I explained, watching as both Jackies and Kaytlyns' armor loosened up, letting them both move freely. "See, sharpshooters dream."

  "More like cheating," She responded, sounding insulted even through the communication link. "You took all the skill out of shooting!"

  "Well… yeah, I guess?" I answered, scratching my head, ignoring the fact that the heavy metal glove made grinding noises on my helmet. "I mean, it's not like you'll be able to do that during a fight… at least not one against a group with explosive or firepower. Your skill still counts, this just helps people who can't shoot like you make accurate shots."

  "Still fucking cheating," She muttered, shaking her head.

  The fact that such subtle movements and unconscious body language that we barely even noticed carried so well through the power armor was both fantastic and fascinating. It meant the armor was fluid enough that it wasn't inhibiting our subconscious movement, and it also made us look less like death machines and more… alive, somehow.

  Weirdly, watching Jackie and Kaytlyn talk and shoot reminded me of the Transformers movies. As the Transformers emoted and moved, the casual shrugs, turns, and movements took the CGI metal constructs and turned them into living creatures.

  Eventually, Riggs joined us as well, still wearing his old armor. I would need to make a few modifications to his specific power armor in order for it to work for him and his AI robot body, so for now, it was useless for him. I was glad that he had come out anyway, though, as it gave us a chance to compare the new power armor with his own. It rather quickly became clear that the modified Warden Armor he wore was slightly more flexible and more graceful, but not nearly enough to justify sticking to it over the new stuff, which was superior in just about every other way.

  Despite the fact that there were lights we could have used, and the armor had some serious built-in night vision capabilities, we called it a day when the sun had entirely set beyond the horizon. We made our way back around the town, entering through the main road and dropping off the power armor in front of the garage. Jackie and I led our armor through to the production area, as in our rough housing, we had damaged several armored plates enough that they needed to be repaired. After that, we went our separate ways, everyone heading to their trailers while I headed towards the Shack, so I could talk to Frank before heading to bed. As I was walking across the street, Samwise waved me down.

  "Jackson, I believe you have been avoiding looking at this," he said, handing me the same tablet that Alexander had delivered when we first met.

  The ones containing the fates of David, Gloria, V, and Sasha.

  "Thanks, Sam," I said, taking the tablet from him. "I haven't been avoiding it per se, I just haven't decided if I really want to know what's on it."

  "I believe that you would regret not knowing, Jackson," He pointed out. "Especially if one of the innocent among them were hurt in a way you could prevent."

  "I… yeah, that's fair," I admitted, looking down at the tablet. "I'll take a look. Was that it?"

  "No, I wanted to report that the first living section of the Vault will be completed tomorrow afternoon," He explained. "There is plenty of room for everyone."

  "Fantastic, I can't wait to move in," I said with a smile, patting his shoulder. "Thanks for poking me to read this."

  "Of course, Jackson," He said with a nod, before walking back to the workshop.

  I watched him leave, before turning back and hunting down Frank, who was in the Bio Lab, monitoring the creation of our Bioware. I peered over his shoulder, seeing a pair of lungs, half-formed and barely recognizable for it, floating in a solution with a cellulose framework partially fused to it.

  "How's it going, Frank?" I asked, watching the machine work. "Any issues pop up?"

  "None so far," the AI doctor responded, noting something down on a tablet before turning to face me. "Systems are running at normal levels, and we are ahead of schedule."

  "That's good to hear. Listen, how long would it take you to construct a full courser synth, only without a brain," I asked, leaning against the counter. "Instead of a brain, it would have a link to a control system with a tangled photon inside. And how hard would it be to keep it alive?"

  "It would likely take me… approximately fifteen hours," he responded, after a moment of thought. "However, I would need a vessel large enough to contain the entire bio frame to complete the final steps. As for keeping it alive, we would need to essentially treat it as an invalid. Making sure it was fed, was watered, and had ways to exercise, or it would wither and atrophy."

  "And how difficult would that be?"

  "If you don't mind the synth having automatic functions, very easy," Frank responded confidently. "If you want to be the only source of control for it, then you would have to manually do it."

  "What would the automatic functions be?" I asked as I digested what the AI was saying. "They wouldn't be like, running around the town, would they? That would defeat the purpose of having them in the first place."

  "No, we could set it up somewhere they aren't visible, perhaps a spare room in the Vault," He suggested. "It would need basic exercise equipment, sun lamps, and food. It's programming would wake them up, eat, perform light exercise, and then do nothing besides wait for you to take control."

  "As long as it was ready to use when I needed it, then the automatic process would be fine," I responded, Frank nodding in understanding. "Just make sure it has no intelligence whatsoever. Thats a level of fucked up I don't want to come even close to."

  "Understood. I will get to work immediately."

  "Thanks, Frank, I appreciate your hard work," I said with a smile. "Put the work order in for the tank you need, and tag it as high priority."

  Frank nodded, and we discussed what sort of capabilities the courser version of me would have. The Institute had created various levels of courses, and on top of that, there were a variety of additional bioware mods that could be added. I told him to go for the highest he could manage, but to keep to the basics for additions, we could add more later if I wanted.

  Finally, a little later than I had originally intended, I left the lab behind and made my way to my trailer. With any luck, this would be the last time I would sleep in the old, slightly ramshackle space. Not that it hadn't served me well for the last few weeks, but I was excited to have a real apartment, something I could decorate and customize to my heart's content. I already had plans to create a display wall that I could slowly fill with some of the cooler things I had gained access to. First on it would be my Pip-Boy, probably followed by a T-51B helmet and a from XCOM.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  As I sat down on the edge of my bed, I finally turned my attention to the tablet, activating it after a moment of investigation. It had four files on it, each marked with the names I had asked Dakota to investigate for me. At the top of the list was, whom I had honestly expected to already be dead. Instead, as I read the file, it seemed thatshe had survived her personal mission against Biotechnica, not that they knew that. She had rather effectively faked her own death, and the only reason that Dakota had found that out was that the netrunner had hired a few Nomads to help set up a space for her to lay low. The report also stated that Maine had known she was alive, having helped her disappear and get to the safehouse, but that there was no way of knowing if anyone else did. It was quite possible that, since the Nomad family she had hired had already moved on, and with Maine dead, that no one around here knew her location save Dakota and myself.

  I would have to ask Rebecca if she knew about it, and if she wanted to get in touch with her, since there was also a good chance that Sasha had no idea everyone was dead.

  Next on the list were and. A quick check revealed that they were both alive, living in basically the exact same situation as they had been in before Gloria died and David's life went to shit in the anime.

  While there was no way to prove that this wasn't just a weird alternate version of the world I knew from the games, to me, the fact that these two were alive more or less confirmed that it wasn't natural. Something have fucked with the timeline before I arrived, because too many strange things lined up. Such a weird, unbalanced series of events screamed of purposeful outside interference. Someone, or some, had set a stage, grabbed an actor, slapped me with powers, and dropped me here.

  I took a moment to collect myself from my slight spiral before reading deeper into Gloria's file, since David's file was on the shorter side. He was a student with good grades despite getting into trouble a few times selling less-than-legal XBDs for pocket money.

  Gloria, on the other hand, had a much longer file.

  While for the last twenty years or so of her life, she had been working as an EMT for a few companies, the last of which was, a horrific name that made me question the sanity of anyone who willingly stepped into one. Before that, however, Gloria got her start as a patcher, a sort of mostly self, XBD, or skill shard-taught, gang-funded nurse or field medic. Gloria's patron gang were the Valintinos, and she worked for them for five or six years, before, after saving a high-level member's life, she asked for her debts to the gang to be settled as a reward.

  After that, she took an accelerated accreditation course, funded by the first EMT company she worked for, in order to become a registered nurse.

  There was a bit more information in the document, but most of it was just details I didn't care about. Dakota had obviously gone above and beyond what I asked, and I was glad she did, because now, if I was so inclined, I had a reason to bring Gloria and David in. Gloria obviously had experience in rough combat situations, and a combat medic would absolutely be useful as we pushed forward and started hiring more and more people to augment our robotic forces.

  The alternative was creating a situation in which I somehow met them and then offered my protection, a strange, suspicious, and likely counterproductive idea that would probably see them running the other way.

  The last file was for V, and after clicking on it, I nearly dropped the tablet, because it didn't lead to a file. Instead, it led to a new subfolder.

  With two names.

  According to the information that Dakota uncovered, Valerie and Vincent Nakano were twins. They were Heywood natives born to a Japanese father and a Mexican mother, both of whom died only a few years apart. That led to them growing up on the streets, just like the version I knew, except the V twins had a bit more of a reputation when they moved to Atlanta, as they relied on each other and were therefore more successful. As far as Dakota knew, they were still living in Atlanta, running small-time gigs for small-time fixers.

  "Fucking twins," I muttered, throwing the tablet across the room, to land on the small ratty couch. "Twins… One of them was bad enough, but two? Jesus Christ."

  I sat there for a while, trying to figure out how I should react to this news. I wanted to help Gloria and David, but I wasn't sure I wanted to get them involved. I would leave Sasha's involvement up to Rebecca and the woman herself. She was a merc after all, violence was part of the game.

  As for the twins? I had no doubt that, given the right motivation and introduction, the V twins could be an incredible asset. The only problem was, how exactly could I hire them? If I showed up in Atlanta looking for them, I'd likely get shot at. And just like the Martinez's I wasn't willing to try and set up an elaborate trap to get my hands on them. After chasing my thoughts around for a while, I sent a message to Dakota thanking her for the information and asking if she could keep an eye out for the twins coming back to Night City.

  When I was done and with my mind sufficiently blown for the night, I changed and crawled into bed, eventually falling into a restless sleep, before Duke jumped up onto the bed, letting me pet him until I was out.

  The following morning, I woke up to someone knocking on my door. I quickly threw on some pants and opened it to find Panam standing there, about to knock again.

  "Panam, what's up?" I asked, stepping back and gesturing for her to come in, pulling on a t-shirt. "Can I get you anything?"

  "No, I'm good, thanks," She said, standing in the doorway, doing her best to look around without looking like she was being nosy.

  I could see her look at Duke with wide eyes while I made some coffee for myself, causing me to chuckle.

  "Sorry, Alexander just wanted to let you know that we are all set up and moved in," she explained, turning to look back at me. "He was wondering if there was anything we could help out with."

  "No, I… actually, there might be," I said, stopping myself mid-response. "How familiar are you guys with Night City?"

  "It's a pretty common stop for us, why?"

  "How do you guys feel about helping me map out Maelstrom territory and hot spots?" I asked my question, catching the Nomad off guard. "Nothing too invasive, just driving around Watson, taking notes, trying to build a heat map type thing."

  "Why?" She asked, her surprise turning to confusion.

  "I'm looking to buy land, and I need to know where in Watson I should purchase," I explained.

  "I… that sounds like the kind of thing that needs to go through a fixer…"

  "I figured," I said with a shrug. "You can talk to Alexander and Dakota about it, come up with a price, and we can go through the usual steps. Not trying to take it out of order or anything, the idea just came to me."

  "Dakota probably has access to some of that info already," she pointed out. "You could just pay her directly."

  "Her info is cold, and probably just a bunch of specific buildings they use," I explained. "I want to know what parking lots they like to smoke in, where they go to get high, what alleyways are popular, information like that."

  "Huh… well, I can pass it on to Alexander, he can decide if he wants to bring it to Dakota," She responded.

  "Fair enough," I nodded, watching as she stepped back out of the door. "Thanks for stopping by and keeping me in the loop."

  She nodded and left, shutting my door behind her as she did. Satisfied that I had potentially solved one of my problems, I quickly finished my morning rituals before heading out to the Shack. Jackie had left to visit with Misty and pick up Vik later, leaving me with a whole lot of nothing to do except prepare for the move into the vault. Which was less about me gathering my things and more about finally cracking the emergency bunker portion of the facility.

  Sure, we had teleporters here under the workshop that we could take to safety, but the whole point of the vault was that it was a constant bastion. It wasn't just for the people who hung around town, but also for family, friends, and allies. People who already had lives and weren't going to just uproot themselves, not without some serious issues already starting. It was just human nature, doubly so for people who lived in a place like Night City, where they thought that because their city was rough, they could handle anything that it could throw at them.

  Which meant I needed to come up with an emergency recovery system.

  It wasn't exactly complicated, as I already had all the components I needed, I just needed to do some updating and streamlining. Samwise had already set up the mass teleporting room for the living quarters, a large machine with dozens of slots for entangled photons.

  I settled into my workshop after grabbing some fruit from the Shack, pulling up the designs for the Pip-Boy I built, along with the photon capsules. See, Pip-Boys in general had two different settings. One was normal, where the device functions like a basic scanner and sensor, reading what metrics it could through your skin, like a clunky Fitbit. They also had a more detailed mode in which the device injected a fingernail-sized scanning device into your arm, allowing for significantly more detailed readings about your body's status.

  The little sensor was shockingly sophisticated, and with some updates and additions, would be an incredible way to keep track if someone was injured, bleeding out, under duress, drugged, or even sick enough that it was life-threatening, all in a little package that could be easily injected into someone's wrist.

  That, coupled with a small, wearable computer, just large enough to hold the photon capsule and interpret the data coming from the chip, would allow that person to be monitored and kept track of twenty-four seven. It wouldn't even be that invasive since I could set up a stand-alone response program to keep track of everything, giving users privacy while maintaining constant watch over them.

  Finally, the tangled photon would act as the targeting lock for an emergency teleport, meaning that if they were injured, they could be teleported out to safety. It wasn't a perfect solution, there were still plenty of ways the person could be killed before the system could save them, but other than completely bunkering up right from the get-go, this was about the best I could do.

  Don't get me wrong, if anyone wanted to move out here full-time, I would happily allow them, but until then, this would have to do.

  I quickly cut the Pip-Boy design into pieces, getting a good look at the injection mechanism for the small sensor and getting a good sense of how it worked. When I was sure I understood it well enough, I pulled that apart as well before redesigning it. I didn't change much, basically just taking the unit, shifting it a bit, and putting it into a handheld device, which could be used to inject multiple sensors. After that, I took a look at the sensor itself, quickly coming to the conclusion that, other than shifting a few materials around and replacing some minor circuitry, there really wasn't a whole lot I could do. I managed to squeak out a ten percent reduction in size, but that was all.

  The final step was the computer chip and tangled photon, which I decided to work into a wristwatch-esque device. Since the watch would be worn on the same wrist as the scanning chip, it would let me use simple electronic pulses to communicate between the two. This would drastically reduce the chances of them being picked up by a netrunner or scanner. In fact, they would have to be within a foot or two of the device to even notice it.

  Once basic functions were designed, I quickly added a screen, an Elerium node for power, before whipping up a couple of basic programs. I also included a contact stun gun activated by backhanding someone with the watch, or taking it off and wearing it like a knuckle duster. Most of what went into the watch was programming, something I could do exceedingly fast with the programming software I had built a while ago, combined with the interface that allowed my thoughts to control the computer.

  As I was programming the watch, I realized rather suddenly that they could also serve as our secure communications, with very little in the way of extra additions. I quickly reopened the design and started moving things around, being much more efficient since now I had a reason to be. Since the original entangled photon would be tied up with the mass teleport machine, I set in a second entangled photon, a microphone, two speakers, a small computer chip, all powered by a second power source. The communication system would be completely separate, with no outside connections beyond the photon, sealing it completely from hacking.

  Then, using my knowledge of soundwaves and audio systems I got from the MkII Stealth Suit and a few other creations, I whipped up a program that woudl create a direct sound bubble that would allow someone to hear what was coming from their watch, but that someone standing right beside them wouldn't hear much more than some static or a soft mumbling.

  I managed to pack all of this into a wristwatch slightly larger and thicker than an Apple watch from my home. The strap was also reinforced to prevent people from cutting or pulling it off by force.

  It wasn't foolproof, but for now, it was the best I could offer without forcing people to move and leave their lives behind.

  I sent out a production order for the watches and messaged everyone, informing them of what I had created. Jackie promised to bring his mother and Misty in when he brought Vik and Rebecca back, so that we could show them what we had been working on and explain the emergency teleport system.

  I also sent a message to Sable, telling her I had a gift and that we needed to talk. I was going to show her the vault, explain what the watch was, and finally let her into the big picture. We were literal days away from finally starting our advance into Night City, and I needed her help to make the final steps, though I didn't tell her that exactly.

  Sable messaged back immediately, promising to stop by the following day to accept my gift and talk about my mysterious business. She then told me she wanted to bring me into the city to meet a few people, shake a few hands, and talk to the people she had hired for my company.

  Seeing an opportunity to test my new courser "frame," I happily agreed, before realizing that I would still have to sit through who knows how many handshakes and boring corporate speak, despite not actually being there.

  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that until after I hung up.