Judy returned ho late after finishing her shift at Lizzie's. So tired, she didn't even bother to check up on Cypher crashing her couch. She just walked into her apartnt and strolled into her bedroom like muscle mory.
Maiko wasn't ho that night, as she often wasn't. So, Judy just dropped down on the bed and fell asleep. Being so exhausted, the second she opened her eyes again, hours had passed. Sunlight trickled through her window, and the screen near her bed was making noise.
She woke up groggily, rubbing her eyes, wiping away the drool. It was her habit to sleep topless, with just her undies on. So, she got dressed first in her usual attire and went to the bathroom to wipe her face and brush her teeth.
"Ugh… Where's Cypher?" She mumbled as she brushed, noticing how there was no noise from the living area.
Soon, wiping her mouth, she reached the kitchen to grab a bite. Her gaze swept around, not finding Cypher on the couch. But she heard so noise from her workstation and didn't bother.
Let's see.
Starving, she opened the fridge.
Thud!
"What the—"
The refrigerator's door ca out of the hinges and fell apart. Hell, she still had the handle in her hand; the thing just fell apart in bits and pieces. But then her eyes fell on the microwave nearby, and it was similarly torn apart.
Since she hadn't done this, and there was only one other guy who had recently found an awakening as a techie, she knew who to bla. "Cypher! What the hell's this? Why'd you scavved my damn fridge?"
With jingles of the blinds covering her workspace's entry, Cypher appeared, dark circles darker, eyes red like he hadn't slept a minute, but a big grin was plastered on his face.
"Trust , you'll thank later, Jude."
"Thank you? For what?"
"Ah, I didn't explain, sorry about that. Got too excited. I was upgrading the fridge when I had an epiphany and went to work on your rig. I'll fix the fridge later, don't worry."
"My rig?" She scowled and bolted into her workspace to check her most cherished possession that had taken years to build. "Don't tell you trashed it… huh?"
It wasn't ripped out. It looked just as she rembered; everything was working, as all the screens were on. However, she did notice sothing; the hum of the machines had significantly reduced, barely noticeable. And the room no longer felt as hot due to the presence of all the equipnt.
"Ta-da!"
She watched Cypher spread his arms wide, grinning while his mouth rambled non-stop.
"Yeah, I upgraded the mory modules, redid the heatsinks, and poured in so custom coolant I whipped up myself. Way smoother than that dogwater you had in there before. Oh yeah, I also upgraded the processors. Took forever and damn near drove nuts, but it was worth it. Go on, fire up the benchmark. This baby's three tis more powerful now."
Judy stared at Cypher like he was an even bigger gonk than she rembered. Her rig was top of the line; so parts weren't even ethically sourced because they weren't in the market. Her processor was the top-tier stuff. Like hell could a man upgrade that alone in a single night. Corpos spent years developing that.
But she did feel the heat sink and coolant working. So she entertained the guy and ran so stress tests.
Right away, the processing speed raised her eyebrows. Since she worked with BDs, she needed a lot of graphical and data processing power, as the rendering needed to be done in the sa quality as real life.
Usually, even with her beefy rig, she had to work in cycles of five minutes. Work on a five-minute clip, then let it render, and then work on another five minutes. That ensured the best performance without blowing up the rig.
But this…
"No fuckin' way!" Judy swore, staring down smug Cypher. The gonk looked like the sweetest damn angel in her eyes. "I-It works on fifteen-minute clips, that's a whole BD length for most junk we use at the bar. What the fuck, Cyph, how'd you do that?"
"A good chef never reveals his recipe. I cooked, you enjoyed, that's great."
Judy almost begged him to tell her, but she held her words back. If he didn't want to tell, it was best not to push. Not when she could have him help her more. "Choom, can you do the sa to my rig at Lizzie's? That's where I clock most of the ti."
"Yeah, no, that is a hard no. That rig's property of the bar, and I dumped a ton of my own custom tech into this thing. This ain't no charity handout. I'm gonna start up a company and sell patents on these bad boys. Gotta square up my debts first. But I can beef up the data link so you can run this rig remote, even straight from Lizzie's."
Judy nodded; that was satisfactory. She wanted to use this rig for longer BDs, and Lizzie's mainly sold shorter ones.
While Lizzie's Bar was a braindance club, it didn't an they just sold porn there. People watch action scenes, adrenaline-pumping experiences, real food tasting experiences, try different drugs through BDs, and, of course, sex.
Finally, she closed the benchmarking app and turned to look at the gonk that she'd sohow learned to care about. In all senses, they should've never t, or beco friends, let alone let him crash at her place. Hell, he was a guy addicted to porn, BDs, jerking off, and glitter. He was the sort won ran away from, yet sohow, she let him walk into her life.
"How many eddies do I owe ya for this preem upgrade?"
"Owe?"
This brain potato. Don't tell …
"Triple the performance? That's gotta be worth a couple thousand eddies, choom, easy."
"Huh? Why the hell would I take cash from you?"
Guessed as much.
She sighed, shaking her head. The guy was weird, creepy, but sohow still decent in the head and heart. Well, not head, or else he wouldn't think of going after the Wraiths, planning to kill them. That was suicidal.
"You saved my damn life, Jude. You had my back when I was bleeding dry out there. Finding soone who does that in Night City? I lucked out big ti. Not that I spent anything to upgrade your rig. Shit, I'll throw more upgrades on it whenever I get so solid ideas, totally free. I owe you, and it ain't cash, but it's sothing that counts."
Judy chuckled, sighing. She walked up to him, surprised at how at ease she felt around him. Sure, she was into girls still, but this guy felt as close as a guy could ever be with her. And it felt comfortable.
She clapped him on the shoulder. "Guess ditchin' that glitter and those BDs turned you into a real philosopher now, huh?"
"I guess so. Man, I'm beat. I might just crash right here on the floor if I don't bounce soon. I'll fix the fridge later. Hey, mind if I take your bed? This couch is killing my back."
"Yeah, go for it. I'll be out running gigs all day anyway. Got so… stuff to handle." She watched him shuffle off to her bedroom, another thing that really should've weirded her out, but no, it didn't faze her at all.
"Ah, hey." Cypher stopped in the doorway and glanced back at her. "If Lizzie's got any gear that needs fixing, BD stuff, tech, whatever, let Quinn know she can hire . For money, duh."
"You got it, choom."
Judy waited for the bedroom door to slide shut first. Once she was sure Cypher was gone, she ran back to her rig and opened the massive processing unit to check what changes he had made. Braindance was her specialty; she was still a general techie.
Yet, when she looked at the heatsink, it looked almost the sa as the ones she had installed, only modified. As for the processing unit, it didn't even look modified. Heck, it was impossible to modify without a specialized lab with zero dust and tools that could work on a nano-scale.
No way, how'd he preem this thing up like that?
That morning, Judy pondered, maybe she wasn't that great of a techie after all. Even the junkie brain potato was better than her.
Good for him, I guess.
In the end, Judy gave up understanding it and headed to work.
####
This shit is insane.
Lying on Judy's bed, Cypher was hard. But again, he was hard ninety percent of the ti he was awake. No, he was staring at the Sonic Screwdriver, holding it above his face while he lay back.
The thing was nothing less than a magical wand. It allowed him to work on things on an atomic level, which was how he was able to upgrade the processor. His level of tech understanding had surpassed what he felt he should know, all of which happened while building the screwdriver.
Not only that, the screwdriver could scan pretty much anything and give him information regarding it, such as its faults, any issues with the system, or the design. They were bare minimum; the screwdriver wasn't magical. But even those bare minimum things, when fixed, gave greater performance. Like what he'd done with the heatsinks and the coolant.
He'd also tested the screwdriver on other things. It could disable caras, mics, and even snoop on them. It could overload a simple ICE, like the vending machine. It could interface with more or less any low to dium-level electronics.
He hadn't tried it on complex cyberware, however, as those may have military-grade ICE. He could also open pretty much all locks. On top of that, it could assist in dical diagnostics.
Plap!
"Fuck!"
He lost his grip, and the girthy screwdriver fell flat on his face.
"Yeah, better go to sleep."
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