**[This world is rotting from the inside out, drowning in digital neon.]**
**[Illegal cyberware. Black market chips. Bio-weapon viruses. Bionic abominations stitched together from god knows what. If you can imagine some terrifying piece of code, it's here.]**
**[Rule one: never leave home without a signal jammer.]**
**[Rule two: don't wander too far from the firewall.]**
**[You step ten meters outside the electromagnetic field, and the electronic ghosts will fry your brainstem before you hit the ground.]**
**[Keep your heart rate at exactly 60, no matter what shows up—a psycho, an android, a cyber-zombie. Doesn't matter.]**
**[Heart beats too fast? Congrats. You just got marked as an organ pack ready for harvest.]**
Lower District, Level -99. The air down here永远 smells like cheap lubricant, acid rain, and something rotting. Jacks sat hunched over a busted control console, his right hand's rusted mechanical finger dragging slowly across a flickering holographic screen. The cold blue light lit up his pale, dead-eyed face.
He was recording the survival rules he'd pieced together over two years since falling into this hell. Not a diary. This was his map—the only thing keeping him alive in this "high tech, low life" nightmare.
"Jacks! Sync time. Fire up the magnetic field and open for business!"
The voice came from the repair bay behind him—scrap metal screeching through a busted synthesizer. His boss. Back alley cyber-surgeon "Iron Saw Rex." A war vet with over 90% of his body swapped out for metal. Two years ago, Rex dragged Jacks out of a scrap heap, barely breathing, memory chip completely wiped. Rex taught him how to solder dead nerves, how to crack corporate copyright locks, how to strip illegal implants without killing the client. Price tag? Jacks became his apprentice. Which really meant unpaid, disposable lab rat.
"Coming, boss." Jacks's voice came out flat. Dead. No emotion left to spare.
**[System Alert: Mentor "Iron Saw Rex" has issued a protocol: Activate Clinic Defense Matrix.]**
**[Completion Reward: Credits x10, Basic Surgery Experience x5, Purified Nutrient Solution x100 ml.]**
The alert buzzed cold and digital somewhere deep in Jacks's skull. This thing—the "Algorithm System"—had been rooted in his nervous system since he woke up two years ago. It was like a ruthless foreman, turning every real-world interaction into a mission. A reward. A leash.
He stood. His knees screamed—old hydraulic bearings grinding metal on metal. Jacks pushed open the rust-caked hatch and headed for the front hall. Passing the corridor, he saw Rex.
That walking tank of a man was dragging a half-dismantled combat vehicle. He'd torn the cockpit open with his bare hands. Bluish-purple coolant mixed with the pilot's blood, leaving a thick, glowing smear across the stained metal floor. Every step Rex took, his industrial-grade hydraulic legs made the floor groan.
*Zzz— Zzz—*
The industrial cutter started shrieking from the operating room. Underneath it, something dying let out a faint, synth-processed wail.
"After you open up, haul out all the defective chips we scrapped last night. Toss 'em to the Hungry Host out back. Move your ass—don't let that thing overheat and logic-fail on us." Rex roared the orders while waving a oil-caked welding torch.
**[System Prompt: Protocol Issued — Clear Scrapped Hardware and Feed the "Hungry Host (Little Darling)". Reward: Credits x10, Host Pacification +10, Housekeeping Proficiency +1.]**
Jacks didn't answer. Didn't need to. He walked to the front hall and cranked up the signal amplifier, which cast an eerie blood-red cold light. Down here, they called it a "Soul Lamp." Its high-frequency interference could temporarily scatter the aggressive AI consciousness streams—electronic ghosts—drifting outside the local net.
He pulled open the clinic's heavy blast door.
Outside: acid rain, thick as a wall. Neon signs of every color flickered and twisted in the mist like a million hungry eyes watching.
Jacks hung the amplifier on the door frame. The red light lit up the busted holographic sign above: **[Iron Saw Black Market Cybernetics Clinic].**
He turned to head back in. Then a blinding spark flashed in the mist.
"Kid... morning. Got any... scrap you don't need? This old lady's got credits. Hehehe..."
A figure unfolded from a dark data dead zone. Electronic Scavenger. She wore a tattered optical cloak, her half-transparent body flickering in and out of existence in the acid rain. She dragged a humming anti-grav cart piled high with rusted parts and cables crusted with dried blood. Worst part? In her hand, she held a scooped-out mechanical heart, still faintly twitching. She was using it as a flashlight.
**[System Prompt: Optional agreement detected — Provide "Industrial Waste" to Scavengers. Reward: Scavenger Favorability +10, Credits +20, Random Scavenger Plugin x1.]**
Jacks kept his voice flat as dead water: "Wait."
He turned back inside, hauled out two heavy anti-static bags from the corner. They smelled like burnt plastic and rotten blood. Inside, scrapped cybernetics twitched occasionally from residual static. Last night's "surgery" leftovers.
Jacks tossed the bags into the old woman's cart. Steady. No hesitation.
"Thanks, kid. Your firewall's looking real solid. Makes me wanna take a bite."
The old woman's laugh crackled like a short circuit. Her cheap sensor eyes flashed sharp red. Then her withered hand dug straight into her own cybernetic eye socket. Ripped out two bloody micro-cameras. Held them out to Jacks.
"Take 'em, kid. Old granny's paying up."
**[System Prompt: Reward obtained — Advanced Sensors x2 (Source: Tailor Shop and Pork Butcher Shop owners).]**
Jacks took the sensors. Still hot. Still smoking with machine oil. He knew the tailor and the butcher across town were probably real confused this morning about where their "spare parts" went. Down in the Underzone, there's only one rule:
**[Never try to hack the data nodes wandering in the night.]**
He stashed the parts. Watched the old woman dissolve back into the neon mist. His heart didn't even flicker.
In this world, "people" are just parts waiting to be collected.