We got an emergency call from none other than Regina Jones at 6AM. Something happening in our area, and with Watson in lockdown, we were it. I cracked my neck and retrieved my sword, waking Jackie and collecting him on the way to the job site – what greeted us, however, wasn’t at all what we bargained for.
This wasn’t the scene of an average lone-wolf. Regina was right – this was a full-blown cyberpsycho. No wonder we’d been called in. I knelt down beside one of the dozen bodies lying out in the open air, the man apparently having crawled out of the alleyway within. “Interesting,” I muttered to myself as Jackie and I peered over his corpse. Militech retrieval team, looked to be highly-trained. “Hm. Deep lacerations to the neck and groin. She knew what she was doing here.” The target, one Lieutenant Mower, was said to be a high-ranking warrior in Militech’s inner-circle, until she went AWOL for reasons unknown and somehow ended up here, inside of this random cluster of flooded apartments. A shard detailed the downed soldier’s assignment – medical evaluation proved that the woman was beyond saving. Their job was subduing and likely either killing or returning her to Militech as an experiment; either way, she lost.
“Come on, V,” Jackie whispered, “Betcha she’s just inside.”
“More than likely,” I nodded.
“Think she’s armed?”
“No bullet casings or penetration wounds… no, this was done with a knife or a fork or something. Too shallow to be a sword.”
“Hm.”
“Alright, back me up. I get the feeling this won’t be easy.”
“Want me to take the lead?” he asked, sounding concerned.
“Feel up to it?”
“Fuck it,” he grinned, pulling out his handguns.
“Wait,” I pulled him back down, “Regina said not to kill her. No firearms.”
“Shit, okay, just gonna use these guns instead,” he pumped his biceps and took the initiative, with me following closely behind over his left shoulder.
“BLOOD AND CHROME!” Lieutenant Mower shouted in a blinding rage, twitching and fidgeting as we slowly approached her.
“Ey, listen,” Jackie started, “I-”
“I’ll rip out your spine!” she suddenly screamed, dashing at full-speed straight towards him.
“Oh fuck-OOF!” he raised his fists up just in time to block her opening haymaker, launching him backwards about one whole meter. “Okay, this chick means biz!”
“Jackie-!”
–
“Nah, V,” he interrupted, “I got this.” He briefly distracted himself, looking back at V just long enough for the enemy to charge back forward through the ankle-deep water and take him by surprise yet again. “Fucking-” he exclaimed as she slammed him with another shot, this time creating a less substantial recoil. He sensed that she was beginning to feel the pain – even someone that borged out of her mind can’t go forever.
Fucking hell, know you’re gonna help me with this one, Padre, he thought to himself, casting his mind back to the relentless abuse he suffered growing up. While the mental scars of defending his mother from his near-cyberpsychotic father were all too painful, the physical wounds healed quite nicely. More to the point, they taught him how to take a punch or two that’d floor most normal people. V backed off, knowing full-well the dishonor it’d be to Jackie to go against his wishes and interrupt the fight. Unless this cyberpsycho threatened his life, this was all him.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Jackie expertly dodged several more of her attacks while taking a few cheap shots to his ribs. It was a tactic he was all-too-familiar with; build up their confidence just enough that they give way more than they’re able to, then they throw themselves into exhaustion. He bided his time, ducking and weaving while feigning weakness by half-heartedly throwing punches of his own. Chick’s from Heywood, judgin’ by how she boxes, he thought to himself as she switched to a more savage, violent approach akin to a street fighter, exactly where Jackie was most at-home.
He swiftly retaliated after her next whiffed haymaker landed on the bulk of his sternum, his chest easily absorbing the blow thanks to his own “subdermal padding,” as he called it, though Misty called it his “beef.” Fuck, gonna be feelin’ this in the morning, he groaned and reeled back, his body bruised from the ongoing fight but nevertheless unrelenting like a great, immovable rock. “Come on, that all ya got?!” he taunted as Lieutenant Mower breathed heavily for just a split-second, though it was long enough for Jackie to get in a solid returning left hook and force her on the back-foot.
Mower shot back in anger and frustration, activating what appeared to be optical camouflage and rendering her invisible to the naked eye. Only the disturbed water briefly revealed her location, with Jackie impulsively looking around and trying to figure out which ripples were created by his own movement. “ジャック、大丈夫 [Jackie, are you okay]?!” V called out from the sidelines. Jackie nodded, though she could see plain as day that he was getting a hell of a pounding, starting to breathe heavy, himself. “I got this,” he reassured her yet again, freezing perfectly still in the water and focusing on the sounds around him. He may not look like it, but he still worked with V for many years and picked up a thing or two; time to cash in some of those chips.
Jackie instinctively shot out his elbow and capped Mower right in the face, disrupting her cyberdeck and firing out arcs of electricity which shocked them both – yet she didn’t seem phased whatsoever. “ジャック[Jackie]!!” V shouted, nearly stepping in at this point but freezing herself upon seeing that Jackie had no intention of quitting. Though he was bloodied and bruised, Jackie raised his fists again and leveled them to his head, closing his eyes and listening intently to his surroundings. He felt a flurry of punches strike him from the back and fired a jab behind him which hit nothing but air. Then again from the opposite side, and again from the left – she likes to switch it up, huh? he thought as he tried his best to memorize the timing of each strike.
Finally, though, his persistence paid off. She slipped-up – he heard her heavy breathing, and fired a tremendous sucker-punch straight at her face, connecting with a thunderous clap and sending her tumbling to the floor.
–
“F-oooh, fucking puta,” Jackie panted as Mower went down for the last time, “What a fight.”
“You okay, Jack?” I asked him, coming up behind him to inspect the damage, “Broken ribs, anything?”
“I’ll know in the morning-ughh…” he sighed deeply, “Fuck man, I’m hungry.”
“Hah, I bet,” I slapped his shoulder, “What about her?”
“She’s alright. Still conscious, at least,” Jackie nodded. I knelt down to check and make sure that she had enough room to breathe, still surrounded by water. Didn’t want to risk moving her before Regina got here in case that last punch fucked her up too badly. Looked like her head snapped back really hard. “Hey, you okay?” I whispered to her, “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”
She simply grunted in reply, not fully-acknowledging our presence as she groaned in pain. I found a shard on her person that detailed her calling her company psychiatrist, who then deferred her case straight to corpo agents. Fucking hell, this poor woman. I found it deeply horrific that she actually went out of her way to ask for help, and that help was met with a fucking tactical team. Though I guess I shouldn’t expect anything more from corporations by now.
I called Regina and informed her of the task’s completion; apparently she has this radical new therapy she wants to try to help get these people back on their feet. Still, I admit that few thoughts scare me more than cyberpsychosis. Some people say it’s a physically-grounded phenomenon, caused by implants themselves and their psychological effect on a person’s humanity. I think it’s far more likely to be a mental issue, though. Some sort of dissociative disorder caused by the way the world treats people, and by extension how people treat themselves.
I’ve known many people with extensive implants throughout my time at Arasaka and even prior. My mother, for example, was given genetic anti-aging therapy for decades. My father has cybereyes and all four limbs replaced. Yet I would count neither as cyberpsychos because, being honest with myself, this world – or at least Japan, treats nobility as if it was divine. Though I suppose that came with its own detriments as well, but not nearly as awful as being on the other end of the status ladder was. When isolation, poverty, and the inability to get help coalesces, that’s what causes cyberpsychosis. Excessive implants, to me, are merely a sign of desperation, that something deeper is at play. A hatred of the flesh, sure, but more so a hatred of one’s life.
I’ve taken down several of these people by now, and most of them have had perfectly understandable, albeit not justifiable, reasons for going insane. There was one guy whose business he built from the ground up was bought out without his knowledge by Militech. One person who was a construction worker, lost both his legs in an accident, and was just never compensated or anything, bolted in an exoskeleton, and told to get back to work. The gall to refer to them as psychotic. Or this woman, whose only crime was asking for help and expecting Militech of all companies to actually go out of their way to provide it. Fucking sad.
