[Greetings. I am VOLCAN.] The voice said, straight into Dante's head.
It shouldn't have been that big of a deal; Neural Interface and Optic Augntation Modules have existed for decades now. Such cyberware allows for higher levels of privacy by directly streaming audio and visual feeds directly into one's mind, though one could argue that they can do the exact opposite as well.
Dante was from a generation that had adopted this technology from a very young age so he wasn't too surprised to hear soone speak directly into his head. The problem was that sothing like that required his permission, and since he hadn't activated his OAM, let alone accepted any calls, it would an that his modules were hacked, which was very difficult to do even for the most experienced hackers.
Of course, there was always the chance that he was just possessed.
'You... what are you?'
[I believe I answered that question, though I assu you found that answer insufficient.] The voice said. [I will once again introduce myself, this ti with more detail. My na is Versatile Omni-Lethal Combat Adaptive Nexus. VOLCAN for short. I am a hyper-adaptive tactical defense system created by the... my apologies, it seems that parts of my data bank had been permanently erased. I am incapable of retrieving information relating to my origin and purpose.]
'... Seriously?'
[Indeed.]
Still confused, Dante went silent for a few seconds, not that he had said a word out loud since he woke up. The voice threw a lot of words at him at once, and though he had no idea what they ant as a whole, they gave him the impression that the thing was a weapon of so kind.
A piercing headache struck Dante out of nowhere. As he held his head in pain, he began to recall how he survived that encounter with Aegis.
'I... killed him...?'
No sooner had he thought those words than the curtain was drawn to the side.
"Oh, you're awake."
A lanky tall man looked down at him, eyes wide with surprise. The white lab coat he wore over his blue scrubs hinted at his profession as a doctor, though going by his extrely thin built, the bags under his eyes and his unkempt hair, it was easy to tell he didn't pay much attention to his own health.
"Larry..."
Having already guessed his whereabouts, Dante was expecting him to show up soon enough. The man was Larry Swanson, an unlicensed doctor who runs an underground shop many refer to simply as The Clinic. The two had beco acquaintances thanks to Dante's frequent visits, though Dante still couldn't rember when he made this one.
"What the hell happened to you, kid?" Larry's brows ca together in a frown. "First you drop at my door half dead then pass out for a whole week. I know you rcs like to dive headfirst in so serious shit, but... c'mon!"
"Wait... did you say I was out of it for a whole week?"
"Why don't you check the date and tell ?" Sighing, Larry grabbed a nearby chair and sat down. Pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket, he put one in his mouth. "Just to be clear, I'm charging you double this ti."
"What!!?"
A lighter clicked and a trail of white smoke rose to the ceiling a second later.
"You heard ." Said the doctor. "It's the least you can do after how much stress you caused ."
Larry's services might not be as expensive as those of a legitimate doctor from a legitimate hospital, but they still cost a pretty penny. Having to pay double was a one-way ticket to broke town.
"Hey man, you know don't have that kind of money."
Dante activated his OAM and with a thought opened his digital wallet. His balance had a total of 240035G, which should be more than enough to cover the bill. Still, those were his entire savings. He was planning to get so subdermal armor once he had saved so more, but from the looks of it that would have to wait for quite so ti.
"Well, take your ti paying." Larry took a puff and exhaled. "For now, how about you answer my question?"
The two stared at each other in silence. Dante was hesitant to say anything. Truthfully, he didn't know what to say at all. Even he found the events that led him here difficult to believe, and he had witnessed them with his own eyes.
After much contemplation, he decided that there was no harm in telling a part of the truth.
"A gig went wrong." He said. "Next thing knew, I woke up here."
Though everything was still blurry, the last thing he could rember was seeing Aegis' head rolling to his feet. He had no idea how he got to The Clinic.
[Type 5-6 still had 15 seconds of active ti once the Level 5 threat had been eliminated.] The voice in his head said. [After assessing your physical condition, I concluded that you were in dire need of healing. Your logs showed that this place provides that kind of service so I chose to bring us here.]
'That's...'
As if having a strange voice in his head wasn't weird enough, now he learned that it could move him around without his notice. Things couldn't get more complicated than that.
"You aren't telling anything I didn't know, kid." Larry's words snapped him out of his thoughts. "A couple nights ago so rats ca snooping for info on Gaspard's crew." He pinned him with a sharp stare, clearly suspicious. "I tried asking around a little but couldn't find anything on the ones who hired them. You know what that ans, right?"
As an underground doctor, Larry knew a lot of nas. If even he was incapable of tracing the strings back to their source, it ans the ones pulling them weren't to be ssed with.
Dante understood that the lanky doctor wasn't asking those questions so he could find out what happened. They were ant as a warning to not get him involved in whatever ss Gaspard and his crew had created. Though he had helped patch him up this ti, if the problem wasn't resolved soon enough there might not be a next ti.
"I will be careful," Dante said. "Thanks for covering for ."
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