"No need to worry about me, Sasha-chan. Take care of yourself. I might need to lay low outside Night City for a few days. Until I'm back, steer clear of Biotech—they're probably super pissed right now."
Riku shot a quick message to Sasha, figuring Night City wasn't a safe place for him at the moment. With his wanted status still flashing like a neon sign, those keisatsu stars weren't fading anytime soon.
"Oji-san Vic, I'm fine, just need some cyberware patched up. Got time?"
After replying to Sasha, Riku messaged Old Vic, the only rigaku ishi (cyberware doc) in Night City he could trust.
"Come to this spot."
Old Vic didn't hesitate, sending over an address—pretty out-of-the-way, too.
"You sure you're okay with the heat this might bring?"
Riku was touched. Honestly, if Old Vic had turned him down, he'd have understood completely.
"Brat, don't act all grateful when you're already getting a deal. Shake off any tails before you show up."
Old Vic's reply made Riku reassess the trouble he was in. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought?
Sticking to the shadows, Riku avoided main roads, weaving through pitch-black alleys as he headed toward Old Vic's location, moving like a ninja in a mecha anime.
Three eyes forward, one scanning behind—he kept all four on high alert, watching for anything suspicious.
He'd already yanked out the hacked Kiroshi cyber-eyes. Now, his eye sockets held a pair he'd flesh-crafted from earlier trophies.
Having learned his lesson from being tracked once, Riku wasn't taking chances. He couldn't be sure those Kiroshi eyes were compromised, but better safe than sorry, right? Yudan sezu ni ikō!
His body was a walking arsenal of flesh-crafted cyber-eyes, all spoils from past battles, tucked away inside him. No shortage of spares there.
Still, he'd need Old Vic to swap in a fresh pair for daytime—normal eyes were a must under the sun.
After a maze of twists and turns, Riku finally reached the spot Old Vic sent. It was an old, rundown house in Watson's grimy district, so unassuming he almost missed it.
Pushing open the door, Riku caught Old Vic's scent immediately. His nose for people was getting sharper—maybe a hidden talent like a shonen protagonist?
"Oji-san, this your secret kichi (base)?"
Riku scanned the place. It looked like a training dojo—maybe for kenpō or something. A boxing gym vibe, straight out of a gritty sports anime.
"Something like that. Been abandoned for ages," Old Vic said, wiping dust off some training gear with a wistful look. The stuff clearly hadn't been touched in years.
"Let's get to it. Subdermal armor needs fixing, right?"
After a moment of nostalgia, Old Vic waved Riku toward a small room next door.
It was a med bay, but not exactly cutting-edge. The equipment was ancient, like something from a retro sci-fi anime.
"Don't worry, these old relics still work," Old Vic said with a grin, sitting at a console with a flickering screen.
"It's pretty banged up this time," Riku admitted, lying on the exam table and letting Old Vic do his thing.
"…"
After a quick scan, Old Vic went quiet. This wasn't just "pretty banged up."
Even ignoring the katana-like gash splitting Riku from head to waist, the other wounds were enough to kill a normal person several times over!
"How's it looking? Can you fix it?"
Riku's voice carried a hint of nerves. Old Vic's silence wasn't reassuring, and he'd already had a bad feeling during the fight.
"Upper body's gotta be replaced. No point patching it up," Old Vic sighed, eyeing the subdermal armor's wounds. He could tell escaping Trauma Team's clutches was no small feat.
Riku looked fine on the outside, but Old Vic's years of experience let him piece together the carnage: not a single unscathed spot, wounds deep enough to expose bone, organs spilling out, and a body split from head to waist.
"Tch."
Even a tough guy like Old Vic shivered. He'd seen worse corpses, but someone surviving this? That was a first.
"No wonder Biotech's so obsessed with you," he muttered, grabbing his bag and pulling out prepped gear.
"Huh?"
Riku blinked, confused. Where'd that come from? Biotech wasn't even after him at first, were they?
"It's all over the news. Wanna hear?"
Before starting the surgery, Old Vic asked. When Riku nodded, he fiddled with an old radio nearby.
A rigaku ishi was half-doctor, half-engineer. Old Vic was as handy with a scalpel as he was with a wrench or screwdriver, like a mecha tinkerer in an isekai.
Beep beep~~~
The radio crackled to life, and the host's voice blared, brimming with excitement.
"Daivo Collins? Fake identity! That 'poor kid from Heywood' story? Total bakemono! This guy's a demon cooked up by Biotech!"
As Old Vic began the surgery, the radio kept going, the host practically bouncing off the walls.
"If you've seen the NCPD's bodycam footage, you know why I'm saying this. That Devil isn't human!
Listen up, folks—this guy's gotta be a bioweapon from Biotech's labs on those Northwest Pacific islands. They've got results!
Everyone knows Biotech owns most of Night City's southern turf, right up to the border. Those protein labs? Probably a front for experiments like this guy.
And now, their lab rat's loose, craving blood. Bet silver bullets are gonna sell out soon—whether this Devil is a werewolf, vampire, or akuma, silver's bound to do something.
Mark my words, listeners: carry silver bullets. That monster, Daivo Collins, is still running wild in Night City!"
The broadcast moved on to other topics. They'd clearly caught the tail end of the host's rant.
"Talk about riding the hype train," Riku quipped, though he had to admit, the guy's theory sounded plausible.
"They've got noses like Inuyasha for sniffing out what's hot," Old Vic chuckled, swapping out Riku's subdermal armor with steady hands.
It'd been a while since anyone made Trauma Team look like fools. Once the story broke, Night City lit up like a festival.
"What's Biotech saying about all this?"
Riku was curious. Getting blamed for this mess out of nowhere—Biotech had to have some response, right?
"They've denied it publicly, but no one's buying it. Afternoon's news already showed you slipping out from under their noses," Old Vic said, installing a new pair of cyber-eyes.
Even without the Biotech angle, people would've pointed fingers at them. And since this did start with them, well…
"That's just…"
Riku burst out laughing. He could imagine Biotech's execs sweating buckets. Others might not know the truth, but they sure did.
And they weren't wrong. At that moment, Biotech's Night City branch was holding an emergency meeting, with all the top brass dragged in.
"What the hell is up with this Daivo Collins? Can someone explain?"
At the head of the table, Valentini rubbed his temples, his gaze sweeping over the execs—or rather, the mad scientists—lined up on either side.
Biotech was less a corporation and more a research institute in a corporate skin. Thanks to their alternative fuel, CHOOH2, they'd been living cushy lives off patents since their days as a one-room startup.
As long as they held CHOOH2's patent, money was never an issue. So, the management was mostly researchers, spending their days on experiments. Research results were the only currency that mattered here.
When Valentini first heard about Daivo Collins, he didn't doubt for a second that this was some scientist's pet project.
But the silence in the meeting room gave him a bad feeling.
"So… this guy's actually from another company?"
Valentini's face was a mix of disbelief and shock as he stared at the silent scientists. One thought screamed in his mind:
"No way!!!"
If even Biotech, the top dogs in bioengineering, couldn't pull this off, what company could?!
"Could he be an experiment from the Northwest Pacific? They're researching Armillaria ostoyae or something, right? Maybe he's some kind of fungal hybrid?" one scientist suggested. The way his body split and re-fused—it was like mycelium stitching itself back together.
"You're saying an experiment crossed the entire Pacific to show up in Night City?"
Valentini's mouth twitched. He knew these mad scientists had wild imaginations, but this was too far-fetched!
(End of Chapter)