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

Trace climbed to the roof of the warehouse and found a spot where he was mostly hidden from any prying eyes. Laying down up there, he had a fairly decent view of the road and the surroundings. He should have gone up there and looked around a while ago.

It was certainly easier to spot the various gang tags from up there than it was from down below.

Regardless, he brought the stock of the scout rifle up to his shoulder and looked through the scope. There were a few people on the street. No one nearby that looked like they were going to cause any problems though.

He shifted his attention to the roofs closest to his warehouse. Now they were talking. Two of them had gangsters stationed on them. They were probably supposed to be patrolling the roof they were on. Instead,both groups had brought up large parasols for shade and were mindlessly watching something on a screen he couldn’t see.

Decisions, decisions. Did he eliminate the idiots now, or later? They were obviously meant to be watching him, and as long as he was quick about it, the suppressor on the scout rifle would keep him from getting noticed.

Then again, the next group they sent would be more attentive. Which was the better choice, causing harm to them now, while it was easy, or waiting for when they inevitably attacked the warehouse again?

Trace shrugged, framed like that. It actually made the choice rather easy to make. He wasn’t going to risk letting them hurt Monroe, and he was all for easy.

He zeroed in on the farthest roof. There were two of them relaxing on that particular roof. Both of them appeared to be drinking something. Unfortunately, the scope wasn’t quite good enough for him to make out the label.

Trace adjusted his aim for the slight distance and pulled the trigger. As soon as the rifle finished ejecting the spent round, he squeezed the trigger a second time, his aim already adjusted for the next man. The first round punched through the mask the gangster had left dangling around his throat. The second round took the other man square in the upper chest, knocking him back out of his chair.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance. It wasn’t a killing shot. The man had been wearing armor. It had ruined his shirt that displayed the gang’s colors, which was almost as good. He fired again, finishing the job this time.

The people on the next roof were none the wiser and remained completely oblivious to what he had just done.

A minute later, the second roof had been cleared as well.

Trace massaged the back of his neck. Ever since he had gotten his new NetConnect installed, his neck had been giving him problems. The new model was just a little heavier and larger than the other one he’d carried around for so long. It was a constant source of irritation in the back of his mind. One that had slowly started to grow more annoying, even as the stiffness of his neck ebbed and flowed with the day.

He knew what it was a sign of, and yet, he refused to believe he was that weak! This was nothing more than some momentary anger issues as he adjusted to the new hardware. Nothing more. He was not going to lose his mind because he had swapped out his NetConnect.

That was almost as lame as going psycho because you had your kidney replaced.

He just needed to have Sevorah crack his neck for him again, and then he would be fine. Next time he saw her, he’d ask her to do exactly that, in fact.

Trace maintained his position on the roof until Monroe arrived with his work van. It had been some ancient piece of junk the man had brought back to life. It had more room than most trucks, and since it was all enclosed in thick metal, his tools were safe to be kept inside. It was practically a mobile fortress that ate electricity just to move, but the man seemed to love it.

He whistled down to him and waved as he took one last look around and hurried to climb down.

“You weren’t joking about the door,” Monroe said in way of greeting when he slipped out of the now-open warehouse doors. “I can either heat it up and bash it back into shape, and put some reinforcing metal on it, along with more bars. Or we can just replace it, and still do more bars on the doorframe.”

Trace pointed his thumb into the warehouse. “Well, I did manage to find a door at the junkyard, but its condition is a bit suspect. If you want to take a look at it, I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

Monroe edged past him, his towering height blocking out the light for a second. The man was a block of solid chocolate muscle that stood at six foot nine inches tall. His thighs were as large as Trace’s head, and the muscles on his remaining fleshware arm weren’t much smaller. He had lost the other one in an accident when he was younger. Monroe didn’t go into more details than that, and Trace didn’t pry. His cyberware arm was a beefy thing that he had seen crush metal before.

With one hand, he ripped the solid metal door from the back of Trace’s truck and let it fall to the ground with a clang.

They both coughed and waved away the resulting mixed cloud of dust and rust particles.

The large man bent over and began inspecting the door Trace had found at the junkyard.

“I’m going to be honest with you. As bent as the other one is, I think it’s still in better shape than this one.” He rumbled.

Trace chuckled, running his hand through his hair a few times to dislodge everything. “Yeah, I had a feeling that would be the case. Come on, I’ll help you haul some of the metal I got over to the door.”

It took a couple of minutes for Monroe to muscle the door off its frame and onto the ground. Being able to access it from both sides really helped in that regard. Once it was off the frame though, he was free to begin heating sections of it up and pounding it back into shape. After that was completed, and the door was lying flat once more, he began welding strips of thick metal to reinforce it.

He did it that way for two reasons. Strips meant he was able to get a better overall bond to the door, versus what he would have gotten with one large piece. It also meant better heat dissipation, again it probably wouldn’t have been an issue with the larger piece, but the strips were a better structural choice. If he didn’t give the heat a chance to dissipate, then the door would end up warping.

The entire process took a little longer than two and a half hours.

When he was done, they were able to put it back in the frame -he did most of the lifting; it was extremely heavy by that point- and then two more locking bars were added to it. One closer to the top, and one nearer to the floor. There would be no bending this door.

Monroe even took a moment to strengthen the hinges, ensuring that those wouldn’t be the next weak point.

Once the door was completed, they moved his van inside the warehouse and closed the doors behind them.

“Hey, do you think you could weld the light bar back onto the top of my truck for me?” Trace asked the man, as they were removing the last pieces of metal. Monroe had decided it was too heavy for the roof, but he was willing to take it off Trace’s hands as part of his payment.

He climbed into the truck bed and looked down at the top of the cab with a raised brow. “What’d you hit?”

“The roof of the parking structure,” He said quietly.

“I’m sorry. What was that?” Monroe asked, holding his hand up to his ear. “It sounded like you said the roof of a parking structure.”

“I did, okay! Have you seen how tall this thing is? I almost ran over someone’s grandma earlier. I need to get a modular lift kit installed soon.” Trace complained.

The man chuckled as he hopped down. “It doesn’t really seem like your style.”

“It’s pre-owned,” Trace told him with a grin. “So, can you fix it?”

“Pre-owned?” It took a second for him to understand and he began roaring with laughter anew. “You gotta be careful with something like this in case the oinker force ever stops you. They always need the tax money for something, fragging shizz if I know what for though. It never seems to do us any good.” He shook his head, suddenly tired. “Yeah, I can fix it, and I know a guy who can help you get the lift kit sorted out as well. You’re on your own for the papers.”

“I got that covered already. This is mine, as far as anybody is concerned.”

Monroe took in Trace with renewed interest. “Huh. Is that, um, something you might be able to accomplish again?”

“Maybe, if I had the right items. It wouldn’t be cheap though.”

“How expensive are we talking?” Monroe refused to look him in the eye as he lightly scratched at his chin.

“What’s going on, big guy? You have your eye set on someone else’s rig or what?”

Monroe sat on the end of the truck bed and sighed. “You know I love Black Betty over there, but a while back, I got a tip about a new vehicle I could grab. This one is some sort of extra-extended cab semi. It’s like a home on wheels that could also haul a trailer full of equipment.”

“Sounds like a full-on bomb of a ride. What’s the problem?”

“Until I can claim it, I haven’t dared approach it. Otherwise, it’ll just get stolen as soon as I enter the city, and there is no way I’d risk fixing it, only to leave it somewhere nearby. If you can fix the matter of ownership for me though…” He let the sentence dangle, knowing what he was asking the other man to do for him.

Trace thought it over. He and Monroe didn’t know each other that well. They had only met the other week, in fact, but Revlock had vouched for the man. That spoke well of him in his opinion. There was another matter to consider, the one Ko had brought up to him. He needed help, a partner of some kind, and if said person happened to be able to lift extremely heavy objects and drive something that could haul a trailer, then so much the better, in his opinion.

Now he just needed to ask him, preferably in a way that wouldn’t scare him off.

“I have a proposition for you,” Trace began slowly. “But before I get to that. Where exactly is this truck and what happened to the original owner?”

“Hehe, yeah, about that. Have you ever been to the badlands?”

“The badlands? This thing is somewhere in Wyoming? Are you out of your fracking MIND?” Trace shouted at him. “Do you know what sort of people travel through the badlands? Suicidal morons, people with extremely bad acne, and raiders! Even the gypsies avoid the place.”

There was something about the constant threat of sandy sixty-mile-an-hour winds, with gusts of up to one hundred and forty that turned people away. At those sorts of speeds, even the regular wind was enough to strip the paint from a vehicle. If you stepped outside at the wrong time, your flesh was going to be saying goodbye to your bones.

It was a terrifying place for anyone with some sense.

“It’s not too far inside the badlands, just a dozen miles or so.”

A dozen miles of potentially flesh-stripping winds, just to reach a vehicle that they would then need to fix.

“Oof,” Trace sank to the ground. “I don’t know, man. That’s a lot to ask. I’ll need to think about it. All my life I’ve heard stories about that place, and I’ve never had the desire to visit it.” He shook his head. “I’ll think about it and let you know, but wow, you really had to choose a doozy of a place.”