The air smelled of sterilizers and oil as I sat in Vik's ripper chair as he probes and prods the crazy metal prism Alex had sent me. Can't say i'm an expert at reading faces but the expressions the old man was making at the screen showing the readings were making me nervous. He sighed and rubbed his eyes before looking at me.
"Be honest with me kid, is this supposed merchant friend of yours a corp researcher?" he asked seriously.
"Definitely not." I said honestly.
What a joke, chooms a bona fide wizard for chromes sake! Can't even imagine someone like him slaving away for some corps interest when they'd sooner stab him in the back.
"Then I have no damned clue how he got something like this thing. Kid as far I can tell this shit shouldn't even exist. We aren't talking fresh from the lab level tech here but stuff so advanced it's decades, maybe even centuries, ahead of everything else. Forget you, the corps would probably kill everyone in night city for this thing three times over." He said wiping sweat from his brow.
"Is it really THAT big a deal?" I asked shocked.
"I don't even know what the hell this thing can do all the way, too advanced and that encryption might as well be in another language. What I do know though is that at the very least this thing is a neural interface the likes of which make even your sandy look like a party toy. Don't even get me started on the readings this thing gives off, at least three alloys I can't identify and some kind of miniaturized energy core that's putting off an unknown form of radiation." he said seriously.
"Is it safe?" I asked worriedly.
"As far as I can tell but I really recommend tossing the thing and forgetting it ever existed rather than chipping it in." he said sternly.
I shook my head "I trust my choom, hasn't let me down yet." I said determined.
He sighed "Alright but let me know immediately if things start going wrong." he said disapproving but not trying to talk me out of it.
He stabbed an injector in my arm at my wrist and typed in some stuff in the panel before stabbing an injector into his forearm that was pock marked with many needle holes from doing that often.-
His ripper glove that was a series of wired tools on his fingertips danced across my wrist as the skin was peeled off and the muscles and nerves expertly moved and set aside as he placed the prism in place and began to connect my flesh to the chrome and my neural port pathway to it as well. The moment he did everything changed as code and strange symbols scrolled across my feed and the prism lit up with a faint white glow at the center of it.-
"Uh, is this normal?" I asked nervously.
"What is it kid? What are you seeing?" he asked seriously as he looked over my plugged in neural link data.
"There's all this code and weird symbols moving across my optics." I said honestly.
He looked at the data on the panel for a bit before answering.
"It looks like the thing is recalibrating your chrome in real time to suit itself. I've never seen anything like it. Your neural load is dropping rapidly though so it looks like it's for your benefit at least." he said with an amazed expression.
[Specimen implant# 19932 recalibration and reboot complete]
[Admin connection severed.... authorization passed to host party.... specimen implant full access mode ALPHA granted- all functions available.]
These words appeared in my optics in that strange glowing blue text and the strange bit in my arm started transforming under both of our astonished gazes. The metal that seemed to have no seams split and shifted like a flower blooming as the light coming from it turned a bright red. Immediately I also sort of just knew how to use the things functions and even what they were.-
A space bound to my ability to carry things, a series of innate "stats" that I could raise by "leveling up", an empty list of blueprints that I could instinctively craft if I had the materials and chrome control with a thought. Even for the list of empty blueprints there was an option to access the local network to download all viable options. I couldn't help myself and thought about doing exactly that. The lights flickered in the clinic as the thing on my arm took control of my neural link cables flow of data and started pulling information back to it.-
"Kid talk to me! What's happening!?" Vick demanded in a panic.
"The implant, it's downloading blueprints." I said unsure.
"What blueprints!?" he demanded staring at the flashing screen.
"All of them." I said in awe.
"That's... impossible." his voice a whisper of denial but the proof was staring us dead in the face.
It only took a few moments but when the thing now part of me was finished I confirmed it. Miles of blueprints of every type. Weapons, vehicles, buildings, chrome, armor, medicine, workbenches, tools, EVERYTHING. I had the entirety of humanities collective creative knowledge that was on the net right there plain as day.-
"Dear god. This, this changes everything. I thought I'd seen everything but that." he pointed at the thing in my wrist "That thing is something else. Keep it safe kid. That thing is a ticket to the top of the world, maybe further. Just remember me when you get there alright?" he said with the most serious look he's ever given me.