The drop off wasn't at the monolithic Verdant Tower that pierced the center of the district. Vane was too cautious for that; a CEO doesn't meet a blood-splattered merc in his own lobby. Instead, the coordinates led Teo to a sterile, high end "Medical Research Annex" on the jagged edge of Charter Hill.
It was a sleek monolith of white glass and chrome, tucked away from the grime and neon-rot of the street.
Teo pulled his Kusanagi CT-3X up to the curb, the engine ticking as it cooled. The Militech blood on the Aegis arm had dried into a dark, crusty rust color, clashing violently with the pristine, hospital white of the sidewalk.
'Fucker, run a perimeter scan. I don't like how clean and fucking quiet this place is,' Teo thought, his eyes scanning the tinted glass for snipers.
'Way ahead of you, pendejo. The building's ICE is... cold. Professional. No active alarms, but the automated turrets in the lobby are tracking our heartbeats. Just walk in like you own the place.'
Teo paused. Something felt... off. Fucker's voice was different, higher, more feminine, and disturbingly real. The usual digital gravel was gone.
'Weird,' Teo thought.
'What's weird?' Fucker questioned, the voice instantly snapping back to its usual snarky, distorted tone.
"Nothing," Teo muttered aloud.
He adjusted the satchel on his hip, feeling the heavy, rhythmic thrum of the Ceres Core. He walked through the sliding glass doors. The lobby was empty, save for a receptionist who looked more like a combat-model android than a human.
"Mateo. Fourth floor. Lab 4 C," she said, her voice a perfect, synthesized monotone. She didn't even look up from her terminal.
Teo didn't bother correcting her on the name or asking how she knew he was coming. He took the elevator up. When the doors opened, he was met by a woman in a lab coat that looked like it was made of liquid silver.
She had short, cropped white hair and optics that were flat, soulless gray discs. Behind her, two Verdant security guards in tactical gear stood like statues. Their kit was clean, terrifyingly high end, definitely better than standard military grade.
Whatever Vane was cooking in this annex, it was the crown jewels.
"The Core," she said, holding out a specialized, foam lined containment case.
"Yeah, yeah," Teo said, strutting forward. For a split second, a dark shadow seemed to loom in the corner of the lab behind the guards, a flickering silhouette that didn't belong. But as soon as he focused, it dissipated into the sterile light.
'Tf...' Teo reached into his satchel and pulled out the glowing red orb.
As he handed it over, the Aegis arm gave a sudden, violent twitch. The green carbon fiber pulsed with a blinding light, sending a jagged wave of white hot pain straight into Teo's skull. He clamped down on his cigarette, biting the filter clean in half as his vision doubled.
"Mmf, fuck!" Teo winced.
His fingers clamped down on the orb for a split second longer than intended, the gold metal of the arm grinding with a sharp, mechanical screech that echoed in the quiet lab.
The woman's gray eyes flickered down to the limb. "The calibration is already drifting? Unsurprising. Your neural density is insufficient for a sustained Tier 5 link."
Teo pulled his hand back, his organic meat hand starting to tremble in a sympathetic rhythm to the arm's feedback. "I just ripped a Militech truck in half, lady. Give it a rest."
"Physical feats are easy," she countered, sliding the Core into the case and sealing it with a hiss of pressurized gas. "It is the digital load that will kill you. Julian is waiting for the data logs."
She handed Teo a small, pressurized injector, a Neural Stab. "Use this if the 'Visions' start. It will buy you another six hours of clarity. But do not mistake it for a cure. You are a candle burning from both ends, Mateo."
"Visions? What the fuck does that mean?"
She didn't look back as she handed the case to a guard. Her focus remained fixed on the gold plated limb, her optics scanning the micro fluctuations in the circuitry.
"You're shaking," she remarked, devoid of empathy.
Teo flexed his left hand, trying to hide the tremor traveling up his arm and into his neck. "Just a rush. Adrenaline hasn't bottomed out yet."
"It isn't adrenaline. It's neural blowback," she corrected, stepping inches away from the Aegis. "The Aegis wasn't built for a standard human frame. It's a parasitic unit. It demands more bandwidth than your central nervous system can provide. Right now, it's eating your motor functions to keep its own processors cool."
She reached out, her fingers hovering over the pulsing emerald bicep.
"Julian likes his toys to last, Mateo. But you? You're an overclocked engine in a plastic chassis. To support the sheer power of this arm, you're going to need a Neural Manifold Implant, a specialized bridge to act as a heat sink for your brain."
"And let me guess," Teo spat, the metallic taste of pain dampeners coating his tongue. "Vane is the only one who has the 'Manifold' in stock? Fucker played me."
"Currently? Yes. It's a prototype designed specifically for the Aegis. Without it, the 'shaking' will turn into seizures. Then a total system fry. You'll be a vegetable with a very expensive gold arm. He left out that info to ensure he got enough work out of you before you broke."
She looked toward the Neural jab. "That is a patch, not a fix. It'll stop the visions for a few hours. Tell Julian you're ready for the surgery soon, or don't bother showing up for Job Number Three. We don't have use for a runner who can't keep his eyes focused."
Teo stared at the glowing blue fluid. He felt the cold, massive weight of the Aegis on his right and the pathetic, trembling weakness of his organic left. The doc turned back to her terminal, her silver coat shimmering.
"You're telling me this why?" Teo asked, lighting a fresh cigarette.
She shrugged. "Vane never told me to keep it secret. He needs you, Teo, told me as much. But he left out the cost on purpose, didn't want you running with the arm. Read the fine print next time. Power like this always rips the seams."
Teo turned toward the elevator, his boots heavy on the sterile floor. He was a patchwork of corporate genius and street-tier biology, and the seams were definitely starting to rip.
'Teo...' Fucker's voice was uncharacteristically soft, almost frightened. 'She's right. My code is getting too big for your head. We either get that Manifold, or I'm going to end up screaming into an empty room.'
"I know, Fucker," Teo muttered as the elevator doors hissed shut. "I know."
The ride down the elevator felt ten times longer than the ride up. The silence of the lift was suffocating, broken only by the hum of the Aegis arm, a sound that now felt less like power and more like a ticking clock.
Teo's jaw was set so tight it ached. He didn't wait to reach his bike. He pulled up his internal HUD and slammed a thumb against the dial icon for the encrypted number Vane had given him.
The line rang. Once. Twice. The third ring felt like a challenge.
"Vane speaking," the voice hummed, smooth and untouchable.
"Putomadre!" Teo growled, his voice vibrating with a raw, jagged edge.
"Ah, Mateo. Breathe. You sound tense,"
"You fucking... Why?" Teo cut him off, his organic shoulder shaking so hard he had to lean against the elevator wall. "Luring me in with the deal, acting like you're different from the other suits, just to bury a kill switch in my nervous system? Why the hidden motives?"
"I had to ensure the stability of my investment," Vane replied, his tone shifting from casual to the cold, clinical precision of a CEO. "I couldn't risk you taking a million eurodollars of prototype hardware and deltaing the moment you felt the weight of it. I needed to know you were committed."
Teo's fist slammed into the padded wall of the lift. "So what? I'm a slave to the chrome now? This implant... this Manifold. Is that the leash?"
The elevator doors hissed open. T
eo rushed out into the lobby, his boots echoing like gunshots on the marble floor. As he stepped through the glass main doors, the sky finally broke. A torrential downpour slammed into the earth, the heavy, acidic rain of Night City dousing his cigarette instantly.
He didn't care. He stood there, letting the water soak his white beater, the gold of the Aegis arm slick and gleaming under the streetlights.
"Teo, look at the reality," Vane's voice crackled through the comm. "This was the only way to make sure you wouldn't just vanish. I can have the Manifold installed in a few hours. But I need your word first. You don't jet. You complete the contracts. You stay in the fold."
"Was this all just a test? The parking lot, the 'gift'... a fucking test?" Teo asked, his voice nearly breaking under the roar of the rain. He swung a leg over the Kusanagi, the leather of the seat squealing under his weight.
"In a way, yes. But it's also a necessity. You won't survive the week with that arm unless you agree to what I've just said. Your brain is a fuse, Teo. And the Aegis is the lightning."
Teo gripped the handlebars, his meat hand trembling, his gold hand locked tight. He looked at the reflection of his glowing green optics in the bike's rain-streaked mirror.
He was trapped. If he walked away, he'd seize up and die in an alley. If he stayed, he belonged to the Architect.
'It's the only play, Teo,' Fucker's voice drifted in, uncharacteristically somber. 'Either we get that chrome bridge, or I'm going to keep expanding until I burst through your skull like a xenomorph. I don't want to be the thing that kills you, choom.'
Teo let out a ragged, watery sigh that was lost to the storm. "Alright. When can I get this done?"
"Right now," Julian said, the satisfaction evident in his voice. "Head to Verdant Tower. Use the private hangar entrance. You'll be led directly to my office. We'll perform the procedure there."
"I'll be there in twenty," Teo snapped, cutting the line before Vane could say another word.
"FUCK!" he screamed, the sound tearing from his throat as he kicked the bike to life.
He twisted the throttle to the stop. The back tire spun for a fraction of a second on the slick asphalt before catching, launching him forward like a kinetic slug.
Night City became a wet, neon blur.
He roared past the sprawl of Japantown, the massive holographic koi fish swimming through the rain heavy air above him, their scales flickering in pink and blue light that reflected off his wet gold arm.
He hit the bridge to Corpo Plaza, the bike's tires screaming over the metal expansion joints. To his left, the dark, toxic waters of the bay churned under the wind, to his right, the massive red and black monolith of Arasaka Tower loomed.
But his eyes were fixed on the center of Heywood across the bridge. The Verdant Core HQ. It sat there like a shard of obsidian, its green structural lights pulsing in the exact same rhythm as the Aegis arm.
Every time he blinked, he saw flashes of shadow and code. The "Visions" the doctor mentioned were starting brief, jagged glimpses of the city's data skeleton.
Felt like the time Fucker was in his head at the beginning.
He saw the power lines humming beneath the street, he saw the encrypted signals flying between the corporate AVs overhead. His brain was beginning to perceive the world as a series of hacks waiting to happen, and the pressure behind his eyes was becoming unbearable.
He road the bridge into Heywood and sped into the heart of the district.
The bike skidded into the private hangar of Verdant Tower, the bikes tires smoking as he drifted to a halt on the dry, polished concrete. He stepped off the bike, dripping wet, his chest heaving. He looked up at the security cameras.
"I'm here," he growled. "Open the fucking door."