Chapter Sixty – How To Skin A Cat

Chapter Sixty – How To Skin A Cat

“Hair-loss is such a 2010s problem. Beautiful, full, healthy hair! Hair so strong you can strangle a man with it. Hair in such a wide array of colours and styles that you’ll want to replace it every week, just so that you can try something new and dazzle your friends with how incredibly unique you are!

–Because We’re Worth It campaign, 2035

***

As much as I would have loved to sleep in as much as I wanted, I had shit to do, and time was pressing ever onwards.

Myalis woke me up with increasingly hard nudges at around five in the morning.

I stumbled out of bed and to the shower. Fortunately, the water did help to wake me up some, which… was more than necessary. With only a few hours of sleep in me, I wouldn’t be very useful.

Some was better than none, but it didn’t feel like it just then.

“Alright,” I said as I stepped out and smacked my cheeks before the mirror. I let out a sigh, then looked at my reflection.

I had some bags under my eyes. Nothing too alarming, but it wasn’t pretty. My hair was matted down, and I could only barely make out the once-vibrant blue of one of my bangs. Still hadn’t gotten around to fixing that.

Are you well?

“I’m fine,” I said. “What’s my point-total looking like?”

Current Points: 34,771

Not bad. I’d spent a few here and there, not just on consumables, but on crap that I probably didn’t need, but last night… this morning’s run, had buffed things back up a little. “I’ve been putting a few things off,” I said.

Are you preparing yourself mentally for some upgrades?

“You don’t need to spell it out like that,” I said. “But, yeah, pretty much. I think I’m starting to get to the point where I should be a lot better than I am. I don’t wanna go full-borg though.”

Your current augmentations include one self-healing system in your chest, a pair of prosthetic ears, a cybernetic eye, and your arm. You have spent relatively little on improving your physicality. At the same time, you have access to two relevant blueprints. One for the Feline Cat Reflex Augmentation suite, and one for some prosthetic ear implants.

“The blueprints are mostly if I want to make that shit myself, no?” I asked.

Yes, and if you had the time and surgical systems to install them, then that would be the less expensive option, though obviously time isn’t something you have in great supply at the moment.

“Right,” I agreed. Then I placed a hand on the counter. “Okay, this is what I want, mostly, I need to move faster. I don’t just mean like, physically, I mean… my reflexes, I want to act quicker and have more time to react to shit. It’ll make up for me not being able to think as quick.”

Something could be arranged.

“And I need to be a little tougher. Like I said, I don’t wanna be a borg, but I don’t think it would hurt if I was harder to kill.” I pinched the skin on my arm a little with my cybernetic arm. It was squishy. I had been wearing my undersuit, and then some armour on top of that. I had a decent suit of power armour waiting for me in the bedroom. The Tiger’s Mane. It was damned tough and pretty stealthy and had cost me a little chunk of change.

I didn’t need to replace that just yet. Plus for any big engagements, I’d be in my mech.

So that was… several layers of safety. The mech, the power armour, the undersuit. But past that? All flesh and bone.

Understood. Here are my suggestions: First, for the reflex adjustments, you’ll likely want to avoid anything too sudden. I would advise three items, totalling nine hundred points.

That was on the steep side, but I was also a point-pincher, and it was something that would help in the long run. “Go on.”

The first is a set of nerve replacements. The second is a system to actually introduce these to your body. The last is a mental-reflex enhancement system. The nerve replacements would change out your current nervous system for a bio-electrical system that runs via minute electrical discharges. The main sheath would run through your spine and out across your body.

“That’s more or less what I was imagining, for the nervous bit, how are we, uh, getting that installed? Am I gonna be flensed alive?”