"Steven Knott, a veteran of the Fourth Corporate War. After the war ended, he volunteered for the Cleanup Crew to do the dirty work.
After retiring, he became president of the Atlanta Veterans Association, handling disputes the NUSA couldn't conveniently intervene in and occasionally making some money on the side.
Implanted cyberware: 'Peregrine Falcon' Sandevistan, an old model; thermal Mantis Blades, Fortified Tendons, subdermal armor...
Like most people in the Association, he had a record of losing control. He had an episode at a dance and killed his wife and all his friends.
The previous president happened to run into trouble, so the NUSA stepped in to protect him, adjusted his Sandevistan's output, and kept him working for the government.
Arrogant, impulsive, easy to control..."
Several hours later, Militech personnel arrived to investigate the conflict.
In fact, a second Militech squad had arrived before them. Unfortunately, they had run straight into the approaching Kang Tao squad.
A fierce firefight broke out. Militech ultimately drove Kang Tao's people back and began investigating the scene.
All kinds of wreckage littered the area. Reconstructing the original scene seemed all but impossible, and there were plenty of unanswered questions.
Nott had been the first to catch up with the thieves. Who had killed him?
According to their information, the opposition consisted of nobodies. How had they taken down an elite like him?
And on top of that...
After Nott, a sixty-four-man Militech squad had arrived, but they seemed to have all gone offline at the same time!
"Strange. Really strange-the field survey report has been uploaded. We need technical support.
Thanks to that moron Nott getting himself killed over some side income, we can't even investigate properly now."
The upload bar in the investigator's field of vision filled, and a line of text appeared.
"Upload complete. Recipient: Songbird."
The field data and survey results were transmitted to a senior netrunning agent far away in Washington for technical analysis.
A response came back shortly afterward.
"Clearly, Nott ran into an ambush after catching up. He reached the scene almost simultaneously with the squad.
A Kang Tao Hacker Team was lying in wait here. They launched a network attack as the squad crossed the subnet boundary, and the ICE failed to defend against it properly.
The timing was precise. This was likely planned well in advance. I recommend raising the security level in response."
No one thought anything was wrong with that explanation. After all, who could imagine one person hacking over fifty people's networks in an instant?
But the senior agent named Songbird concealed some additional information she had spotted.
Among the wreckage of their ruined software, she had found something familiar...
The signatures of those data fragments...
They came from the Blackwall she had crossed countless times.
Was it a Beyond-the-Blackwall AI?
After casually erasing the traces of the Blackwall at the scene to keep NetWatch from finding them, Songbird disconnected.
She would investigate this herself.
[Spacetime fluctuation. Implanted cyberware detected. Mandatory expenditure of tech points to bind implanted cyberware.] [Implanted cyberware: Militech "Chapter" Mk. 6 prototype core (unfinished)] [Description: A device not intended for human use. Prototype technology designed to house an AI.] [Weight: 2.622 kg] [Implanted cyberware: Brain-Computer Interface] [Description: A Shard can be inserted at the neck. Neural links have been established with multiple regions of the cerebral cortex.] [Weight: 240 g] [Implanted cyberware: Kiroshi Optics Mk. 2 Cyber-Eye] [Description: Can render data passing through the Brain-Computer Interface as visual images in the Cyber-Eye, improving brain-computer interaction. Manufactured from high-end components. Its accelerated scanning algorithm speeds up image capture and recognition. Supports 8x magnification.] [Weight: 24 g] [Implanted cyberware binding complete. Tech points -2,886] [Current tech points: 510]
Looking back on his actions over there, Lier had actually suspected the vehicle held more than smart weapons the moment he saw the project name, "Reality Distortion."
That was because the Kiroshi Sandevistan Mk. 5 in the game was called "Reality Distortion."
In the game's early versions, that Sandevistan had been the best, outclassing Militech's Sandevistan. In the newer version, however, it had become the worst of the lot.
It could only slow time by twenty percent-not even as much as a Kerenzikov. That also showed how much more technologically demanding active neural enhancement was than passive enhancement. It wasn't easy to achieve.
Apparently, his interference had pushed the development of Kiroshi's Sandevistan straight into the game's version 2.0...
The first thing Lier did when he opened his eyes was check the time.
It looked like he had been gone for almost twenty hours. It was now six in the evening.
By that reckoning, his efficiency in the cyberpunk world was extraordinary. His hourly earnings had reached twenty-five thousand eddies.
Unfortunately, the money couldn't be used in both worlds.
He was still holding an old smartphone, which was painfully laggy to use.
Although he had set up instructions through the system to study, he hadn't actually learned much of anything.
The news he had found, however, did confirm that this was the Marvel Universe.
His apartment was in Hell's Kitchen, an area full of poor immigrants, and he was only renting it.
Its layout somewhat resembled the rundown apartment in Spider-Man 3, but it was smaller, had lower ceilings, was damper, and had even noisier floorboards.
Also, his mother had been out all day without resting at all. Clearly, paying for his treatment had made life hard for her.
He still had to work hard to get by, whether here or over there.
Lier still had plenty to do, starting with connecting all his offline cyberware to this world's network.
Although it was ostensibly the same cyberware, it was effectively something entirely different in these two separate spacetimes.
Lier needed to modify a lot of components to make them compatible with this world's internet.
Then there was...
"So when converting physical objects, one tech point equals one gram of mass. That's... precise."
Lier tried to stand, and this time the sensation was distinctly unpleasant. In the other world, his cyberware had been surgically implanted.
Here, it was more like the thing had appeared out of thin air. Without the pain of having his body and bones cut open, he could feel its first activation much more clearly.
This piece of cyberware extended from the cervical curve to just above the thoracic curve. After that entire section of spine was removed, it would be inserted through the back of the neck, completely replacing those bones.
The biological neural connectors and spinal reinforcement mechanisms inside it would deploy automatically once it was connected to the spine.
The spinal reinforcement mechanisms would extend from the implant to fill the gaps between the bones. Then artificial nerve fibers would emerge, reaching into the bone marrow and gray matter to link with the appropriate parts of the nervous system-
Ultimately affecting every motor and sensory nerve in the human body, either directly or indirectly.
As though he had been shocked, Lier sprang off the bed.
Now he could move normally and didn't have to worry about paralysis. He would just die young.
"First, I'll set an output limiter. Otherwise, I might look like a fireball when it runs at full speed."
When the Sandevistan activated, the human body generated heat like a computer running at high speed.
The cyberware itself contained very little metal and was mostly made from composite materials, so a metal detector was unlikely to pick it up.
But at full speed, the sharp rise in body temperature would be noticeable even without instruments. In fact, even at normal output, Lier's temperature would run about 0.1 degrees Celsius higher than his usual baseline.
The cyberware had no built-in safety program, but Lier could add one himself.
Just as Lier was absorbed in understanding these technological marvels from the cyberpunk world now inside his body, a commotion suddenly erupted outside his door.
Lier frowned.
"Haha! Look at this huge dick I drew! This place is Dick House now!"
"Hahahaha!"
They were obviously punks. Lier was puzzled. Sure, it was a rundown apartment building, but why had they come upstairs?
From the sound of it, they had started messing around outside. Soon, another voice joined in.
"Get out of here, you little bastards!"
The voice was forceful but sounded somewhat old. Lier searched his memory. Was that... the landlord?
The commotion immediately escalated, and the punks' voices turned cold and furious.
"Fuck you, old man! You're fucking asking for a beating!"
Lier couldn't listen to any more. From what he remembered, the landlord wasn't a bad person. He had to go take a look.
Bang!
As soon as Lier opened the door, he saw two punks about to hit someone, but their hands had stopped mid-motion.
The landlord and the two punks were all looking toward the apartment building's entrance downstairs, where a man stood with a gentle smile.
He wore round sunglasses and a suit, with a white cane in one hand and a document envelope in the other.
"If you lay a hand on him, I can guarantee you'll spend some time in the Slammer. You'll also have to pay out... everything you've earned during that period."
"Fuck, it's this asshole again. Let's go."
The two punks slunk away as though they had met their nemesis. The lawyer even politely stepped aside to let them pass.
"Oh, Lier, you're awake? I'm sure your mother will be very happy to see that.
Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Matt Murdock, and I'm here to help you."
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