Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG Chapter 167

“Zuku! Got another one for ya’!” A woman’s voice called out to , a hint of nerves evident through the shake in her voice, yet the shake was so suppressed it could easily be missed. Triss, one of the other Squad leaders. Red-Two, I think.

My eyes slowly eased open as I stared up at the fabric of my tent. A tired hand sprung up to my face, covering my mouth as a yawn eased out. “I’m coming…”

I heard the soft crunching of footsteps on sand recede as Triss left alone. For once. It’d been a week since we first arrived on the outskirts of New Tress City, and I had yet to even leave camp. Apparently, we were supposed to imdiately get into the city and head for the opera house as soon as we arrived.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, we set up camp just on the fringes of the city. There was a nice rocky hill that jutted out sharply against the surrounding dunes with jagged cliffs on three of its sides. That was our base camp. One of the Company’s Adepts even used a spell to shape the terrain so we practically had castle walls built of sandstone, which was nova. Or at least it had been till I realized I was basically trapped in here for the ti being. They also blocked a lot of the view, which was annoying. First ti I’d ever seen so many plants and I couldn’t look all I wanted.

As for why we were out here instead of in there klepping shit? No clue. Or rather, I had a clue, though nobody actually told what was going on. A side effect of my ‘protection’ squad imdiately being sent without into the city. I’m not mad- well, I’m not that mad at being left behind. That, and Captain Roger has been way too busy to make ti for , not that I could bla him.

The clues were pretty evident that sothing was going on in the city. And not a good sothing. Take, for instance, now. I was once more dragged out at—I pulled my phone off its charging port in my pack and checked the ti—the crack of dawn to go fix another vehicle. Or sothing. It was always sothing. Last ti it’d been a portable solar panel. I barely managed to scrape by and get that all fixed, though it was entirely out of my comfort zone.

I suppressed a sigh as I gulped down far too much XtraEnergy Quantum from the canteen. After a quick change for it to start making water again, I forced myself up and out of the tent. I pulled off my poncho which I’d been using as a heated blanket and threw it back on. In the distance, the sun peeked over sandstone walls, flash-banging at .

My eyes closed of their own free will, and for several long monts, I couldn’t help but wonder why exactly I had co out here with this ragtag rc Company. Or were they PMCs? At what point does a company stop being a rcenary company and beco Private Military Contractors? When they join a company? Now that I think about it, the Crimson Company were PMCs, right? I’d been misnaming them this entire ti-

“You good, Zuku?” Triss asked .

I kept my eyes closed for a few seconds longer as the sun burned past my eyelids. I heard sand softly crunching as the woman shifted from foot to foot. And then I finally felt the caffeine start kicking in as a soft jittery feeling flowed through my limbs.

Triss stood not too far, tall amongst the surrounding tents. Her long, flowing red hair was kept back in a tight ponytail and a cap gently pressed down on her head. She wore the sa desert camo uniform and vest that the rest of the Crimson Company wore, marked with the red cross on her shoulder.

From what I’d heard from Jerad, the guy running the dical tent, it’d been a real problem having desert camo in a city filled with green. Go figure. Poor guy had it rough. Magic kept backfiring in the city too, so he constantly had a train of people coming and going. Especially the Magi and Adepts. Maybe that Drake Deseran guy was right. It really was looking like a cursed city.

Anyway, at a glance, the woman looked more bio-sculpted than human. Her skin had an unnatural sheen to it, and I knew for a fact her pores spilled so type of coolant rather than natural sweat. It just had a bit of a sheen to it that normal sweat didn’t. Her features were, of course, perfectly designed and she had a smooth, chiseled jaw. She would look like a model if it weren’t for the slightly pulsing red hair and the sharpened teeth filling her mouth. Then again, it was out there just enough it’d probably make her more appealing as a model.

“Chek.” I held another yawn as I cast a glance around the camp, rubbing at my arms. It was as quiet as usual. Over half the PMCs were out on various missions, including Red-Six. The rest were mostly passed out in their tents to catch up on sleep or playing card gas around the few fires we had set up. Only good ole’ Jerad and I were the ones stuck here- wait, no- he was called out too on occasion. That made it just who hadn’t ventured into the city yet.

I had… mixed feelings about that. On one hand, yeah, it was for my safety and all that. And there was no arguing I was safer here than out there based on what I’d seen and heard. At the sa ti, I couldn’t help but feel quite a dose of wanderlust. Especially since the people I thought I’d be with this whole ti just abandoned here.

My eyes snapped back to Triss as I held back a shiver. Crazy how cold the desert got at night. It was still freezing out here. “What is it this ti?”

”Uh-“ She shifted nervously from foot to foot. Still not sure if it was true nerves or just an act to look more human. Hard to tell when she had such extensive modifications. Especially since it was all bio-sculpting. Not too clear on that side of things compared to good old chro. “Robert’s arm is locked up. Caught a few stray bullets. Other than that, the fuel lines of our Prowler are leaking once more…”

I tilted my head, pondering for a few monts before making a decision. “Kay. Let’s take care of Robert first. Any clue what’s wrong with him?”

Triss turned to lead , her stride perfect even as her hands looked to twitch with nerves. It was things like this that made feel unsettled. She just had far too many Cues leaning toward faking and being real at the sa ti. It could be explained by her just being a good actor, or training enough to get through her nerves. Either way, she had good training. “Negative. That’s what you’re for, no?”

Technically, I was here to break into a locked-down Opera House, not play techie for a bunch of careless PMCs… that was a bit harsh. They probably weren’t careless. Then again, so of the stuff I had to fix was just downright bizarre. Especially that ti I had to fix a built-in thigh holster that was jamd… I thought it would just be vehicles at first, but then I exposed myself as capable of fixing chro and it's been downhill ever since. Good practice at the least.

Triss led to one of the few permanent structures built out of sandstone. Besides the dical building and the bait command center, this building was the only other one. Everything else was done in tents. Suckers. I had my very own workshop. Sure, it was a little- a lot underequipped and lacked the full functions that an actual workshop would have, but at least I was safe to work during a sandstorm! Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing…

A prowler was parked in the small workshop, alongside two n playing cards on my sandstone work table. Tools were scattered all around it, most a little rusty or beat up and about forty years behind modern tech. I’d needed much more gear than I originally thought, though thankfully the Crimson Company was full of rather skilled scavengers.

The one closest to , a rather tall guy with a limp, jolted upright as we approached. For a second, I thought it was because of us. Then he spoke, “Haha! All in! You’ll owe beer for a week when we get back!”

The other man’s face twitched sharply. “You’re just lucky-“ He froze and bolted upright as we approached. “Zuku! I’m so glad to see you! Please! Help!” He waved his arms around, ‘accidentally’ knocking over the stack of cards and jumbling it all over the place. Of course, such a brave rc would never intentionally ruin a ga he was losing. Right?

“Dick.” the other man muttered before glancing back toward us. “I’ll see you later, man. Triss. Zuku.” He gave us a nod before heading back out of my workshop. That just left the almost loser standing at my table and Triss.

“I need to report to the Captain.” Triss quickly followed the other man and left.

I moved to the recently vacated seat, taking it as I shoved the cards off the table in an impromptu ga of fifty-two card pickup. The man’s smile dropped slightly, though I pretended not to notice. That’s what he gets for playing cards on my work table. It was practically a violation!

”Gim your arm.” I tapped the table. He followed my command, giving the first real look at the issue. Like Triss said, it was all locked up. He had one of those Sentinel models with a built-in gun. The barrels of the gun usually hid in the wrist before popping out to fire, though in this case it was jamd about halfway open. The jam caused his wrist to be locked facing down at an uncomfortable angle. It didn’t help that his elbow was also ssed up, forcing his arm in an angle that would be downright torture as it squeezed the synthetic nerves running through it.

”I got shot mid deploy of my gun. It- uh- it itches real bad too.” The man’s face twitched. “That might just be all the pain ds docs got on.”

Ah… well, first things first, I need to get the gun opened up. The chanisms to deploy it probably got hit by the bullet, causing it to jam. It might’ve also hit one of the control circuits, which ssed up the elbow. Should be easy enough to fix.

I tapped on his arm, sending a pulse of ethereal energy through the limb thanks to Technical Expertise. The pulse went through his entire arm before bouncing back, creating a ntal three-dinsional image of the limb. It was almost like a hologram I could perfectly see with my mind's eye.

As I suspected, one of the internal servos was ssed up. The bullet must’ve directly impacted it based on the markings. The servo’s head was shattered, with pieces of it blocking jamd into a few other chanisms and a couple pieces sliced deeply through the thin circuitry running the whole limb.

I got to work, accessing the maintenance port right below the armpit. It took a bit of work to get the thing opened. Especially since he kept twitching around, muttering ‘ticklish’ over and over. From there, I carefully disconnected the power supply. Imdiately, the entire tal limb went slack.

“Um- I don’t an to tell you how to do your job- but that doesn't feel right,” Robert said as his shoulder flexed, uselessly flopping around the limp chro.

I shot him a glare. I didn’t even want to be doing this in the first place. It was technically the job of a dech, so Jared should’ve been the one taking care of everything. Too bad the Crimson Company’s doc was only good with biological stuff. Gonk. “You want to fix it yourself?”

“Nope.” He shut up, looking up to the roof as if he suddenly found it interesting.

Without power, the limb was much easier to manipulate. I managed to get the gun pried up, and then out of the arm, exposing the internals. I had to disassemble the hand and take it off, which was a pain since none of my screwdrivers would quite fit into the gun port to loosen it. With the hand taken off, it was much easier to manipulate the internals as I carefully took out the servo and set it aside.

From there, I grabbed so of the scrap materials that I’d been brought over the past week and carefully fixed the circuitry. It wasn’t exactly a pretty fix, though thankfully the circuit that was ssed up wasn’t all that complex. Then I popped in a new servo. The new servo was about forty years old, so it was a jury-rigged fix at best. He’d have to go see an actual dech that had parts on hand to get it fixed fully. Or bring so better parts.

I popped the hand and gun back into place, then re-enabled the power. As if surprised by the sudden return of control, the arm slamd upward as it righted itself back to how it should’ve been. It nearly clocked over the head, though I managed to dodge thanks to a warning from Insight in the nick of ti. Robert wasn’t so lucky. He slamd himself over the head, knocking him off his seat.

”I think- I think you fixed it.” He groggily got back up to his feet. He rubbed at a rather large lump slowly forming on his head. Shoulda worn a helt.

”Try deploying your gun.”

A panel slid pack, and the barrel rose from below it. At a snail’s pace. And it was a bit loud, causing a screeching noise. It still worked, though the servo I used to fix it showed its age. It’d probably take double if not triple the ti to deploy now. Not that I could do anything about it. I simply didn’t have the stuff on hand to fix chro perfectly. I did pour in so grease though, which stopped most of the screeches.

“Thank you!” Robert happily left.

That just left and the Prowler. It was a simple fix and a common one I'd had lots of practice with over the past week. I had to replace fuel lines almost every ti they ca back. Sothing about the city reacted weirdly with AE3, causing it to turn slightly acidic. The vehicles were practically running on tape and hope at this point.

Once more a sigh escaped as I went to fetch the parts. When will I finally be able to go do sothing? Anything?