Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story

They were close to the restaurant when an emergency message ran across Trace’s vision.

‘A cyberpsycho has been reported in your area. A bounty has been issued for their successful death or apprehension. All edgers and personnel involved will receive part of the payout. Proceed with caution, as they have been deemed extremely dangerous. The individual was last seen at the intersection of-‘

Ko had gripped his arm tightly as she read her own version of the message. She wasn’t an edger, however, as a mender’s apprentice she would be connected to her own emergency network for when things like this happened.

“We need to go and help the people in the area. And you need to do what you can to kill that person.” She told him, firmly.

Trace felt his brows rise in surprise. That wasn’t quite the response he had been expecting from her.

“You’ve never seen what a cyberpsycho is like, or can do, have you?”

He shook his head as he refocused on the road and sped up.

“It’s… terrifying. Even the moderate cases, the ones where they haven’t completely lost themselves to the insanity, are beyond unpleasant. The vast majority of those, after regaining control of their minds, once they realize what they did while in that state, end up taking their own lives. Trust me, there is no coming back for these people. You’ll see when you find…”

She paused to pull up the cyberpsycho’s information. “Biggie Jolt? What a stupid name. It looks like his cyberware was geared toward taser tech and size. Huh, I guess the name fits. Still stupid though.” She shook her head. “It looks like he killed the mender who had just replaced his arm. He did one augment too many. Just be careful. Okay?”

Trace nodded as the truck skidded to a stop at the intersection his message had mentioned. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the courier bag and pulled out the Colter 700 Special 4. The large revolver was already loaded with the four cartridges it could hold. He had his normal CD-10 in its holster on his thigh, like always.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten a holster for the K-10 yet, so that gun would be staying behind this time.

“Do you need or want a gun?” He motioned to the others in the backseat.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I already have one.” She met his questioning eyes when he didn’t see a holster anywhere and tapped the small of her back. “Right here. I never go anywhere without it.”

“Ah, well, be careful out there.” He passed her the first aid kit he had stored in the truck and hopped out.

The path of general blood and destruction made it easy to follow and eventually find the cyberpsycho Biggie Jolt. Three other edgers were already there when he arrived, each looking more than a little green at the scene they were witnessing.

The man had run into an eating area and proceeded to tear apart over twenty people. Everywhere they looked, concrete tables had been broken and lay on their sides. Blood and viscera coated the once-grey surfaces. Pieces of bone had acted like shrapnel and were embedded in the hard surfaces.

Before Trace had arrived, the cyberpsycho had used the prodigious strength provided by his cyberware arms and unstable state to further rip the people apart.

One of the edgers couldn’t contain it any longer and vomited to the side.

While they watched in horrified fascination, the man sat down in a puddle of red, reached across himself, and tore his own cyberware arm off. He carelessly tossed it to the side, forgetting about it immediately as he picked up one of the arms he had torn off the now-dead people.

As they watched, he tried to fit the mutilated appendage into the now-empty metal socket. He grew increasingly frustrated as it refused to fit and became more damaged. With a scream, he tossed it aside and reached for another.

Trace finally understood what Ko had been saying. There was no coming back for these people. Even if they did somehow recover enough to start thinking properly, the memories of what they had done would destroy them.

Raising the revolver, he set his position, steadied his aim, and squeezed the trigger. Using such a large round was probably overkill, but he didn’t want to risk fighting someone who was in that state. It was better to just be done with it in one decisive shot.

The roar of the powerful revolver blasted through the eating space as the top portion of Biggie Jolt's body was obliterated in a bloody mist.

Trace winced. Even with the proper stance and everything else, it had still hurt to fire the gun. Not as much as firing it from around a desk though, nothing compared to that stupidity.

He met the eyes of the other three edgers and then turned to walk away. He had absolutely no desire to be near that scene any longer than he needed to be. Trace might have a hard time forming attachments with people, but what he had just witnessed was a whole other level of screwed up.

Ko was standing there a dozen feet behind them with the first aid kit in hand. Her shirt had streaks of blood on it from where she had found people to help before rushing over to help them.

Silently, she fell in beside him as they began walking back to the truck.

Trace let his head rest against the seat for a moment, his eyes closed while he simply breathed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly not that hungry anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter. We still need to eat. I think a smoothie might be a better choice now though, after seeing something like that. It’ll keep our bodies from reacting badly.” Her voice was soft and completely emotionless. For all her talk about seeing the horrors of cyberpsychos before, it would take more than a couple of times to become inured to that sort of sight.

Sevorah immediately knew something was wrong when they returned in a solemn fashion. She set her slowly warming smoothie to the side and faced them both. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Do I need to get rid of Trace already?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” He said somewhat dully, sitting down with a thump in a nearby chair.

“There was a cyberpsycho emergency while we were out,” Ko told the woman over her shoulder as she headed to the sani-spray sink.

Sevorah’s entire body stilled for a blink before she whirled and sprang to her feet. An instant later, her hands were poking and prodding at Ko, ensuring the young woman was alright.

“I’m fine Sev. I was busy helping the few victims that had been left alive in his wake.” She hung her head, her now clean hands gripping the edge of the sink tight. “This was a bad one. He was so mentally gone that he must have been ignoring the signs for a while. What happened today could have been avoided if he hadn’t been so fracking-”

Sevorah put her arms around Ko and held her tight. “At least a little of the blame belongs on the mender. It’s our responsibility to make sure the patient isn’t exhibiting any of those symptoms. If he was truly that good of a liar, then that is another matter entirely, but we both know how rare that it is. I’ve seen men, women, teens, and even one or two kids, surprisingly enough, all go cyberpsycho. It is never a pleasant experience and outside of the occasions that involved the true rare sudden onset of it, only with the kids and teens did it actually catch me off guard.”

Sevorah looked at the floor in shame. “The other times, I thought I was good enough to help them beat the odds. That they would make it through the operation just fine, and that was the case with a couple of them. But the risk I was taking wasn’t worth it, and trust me, I’m not the only one who has played the odds. Some of those that I saw happen weren’t my own operations. I didn’t learn from their mistakes. Instead, what I saw were areas where I could have done better.”

She shook her head and slowly turned Ko around to face her. “Don’t be like me, or the others. Be better. If they show signs of mental degradation, get them help. Don’t ever operate on them, no matter what. Promise me, Ko.”

“I promise. I don’t ever want to be responsible for what I saw today.”

“I pray to the steel goddess above that you never are either,” Sevorah whispered.

Trace stood, feeling like he was invading on their family time. “I’ll see you tonight, Ko.”

She waved as he left in a rush. The receptionist stepped aside as he jogged past, her arms full of clothes for Ko. She had seen the blood on Ko’s shirt when they came in, along with their expressions, and decided not to say anything at the time.

Trace was halfway back to the warehouse when his share of the money from the bounty hit his account. It was a nice bit of money for the amount of work involved. Hunting cyberpsychos was generally an extremely dangerous business. As a result, the bounties paid well for everyone involved.

They had gotten lucky that time is all.

With his recent windfall, he decided to change his destination. There were a couple of items he wanted to pick up now that he had the money.

First up was a proper bed. Sleeping on the desk and floor was just plain uncomfortable, and it had been part of his original plan when he left the warehouse that morning. Then things had gotten out of hand, and well, life happened.

Trace slapped his hand on the steering wheel. He had forgotten the nutrient shots at the clinic. He prepared and sent off a quick message to Ko.

‘Can you grab the nutrient shots from Sevorah for me? I forgot them at the clinic when I left earlier. I’ll get them from you when we meet up to watch the drop.’

A while later, the back of his truck was weighed down with what was frankly an absurdly long worktable. It hung out the back of the trunk by over ten feet, and he was pretty sure that he had hit at least one car with it when he’d been turning. All that space would be useful for his projects and his tools. Another three tables of equal size would be there at any moment, along with his bed.

The cost to have everything delivered had been annoying, but that was part of living in Denver.

After this, he just needed to have some proper tool chests and start collecting shelves for everything. Then everything would be halfway decent. The roof still needed to be fixed, and the warehouse was still a wreck, but as a workshop, it would be serviceable.

For the moment, he placed the tables in front of the apartment structure, creating a yard of sorts in front of the door. He would worry about placing everything else later when he wasn’t worried about it all getting stolen in the middle of the night.

Fixing the roof and making sure the doors were as secure as possible would be his next big expense.

It was a good thing he had gotten a few different messages about jobs throughout the day that would be able to work on the next day. There weren’t any high-paying jobs for the most part, or ones that required any real preparations. All of these were simple jobs, and the pay reflected.

However, he couldn’t and wouldn’t complain.

Deckard’s braincase, he made sure, was topped up with nutrient mix, and then placed in the stairwell that led down to the basement. The door that led to the stairs was actually inside the closet, leading to it being relatively well hidden against casual inspections.

By the time he had completed everything, he barely had enough time to use the barely working sani-spray shower -which Georgie had gotten reconnected like he said he would- and then rush out to meet Ko.