Friday Night Firefight - A Cyberpunk 2077 Isekai

Friday Night Firefight - Chapter 51

"Alright, kid. Follow the light," Vik muttered as he waved a tiny penlight in my face. I was slouched in the exam chair in his basement clinic, feeling like I'd been run over by a tank. He'd just got done poking and prodding me like I was some busted-up machine he was trying to fix. And now he was trying to blind me. Also probably checking for a concussion, but honestly? At this point, I had no idea.

I blinked, trying to focus on the blinding light. Most of the equipment Vik had scattered about his clinic was a mystery to me. One piece of tech looked like a fancy pair of tweezers. He had another that had blinking lights at the end. Everything was all future medicine, and I wasn't a ripperdoc so I didn't know what half the stuff did. But I trusted Vik to patch me up, so I just followed the light with my eyes.

"How you feeling?" asked Vik, stowing the penlight on a rolling bin he brought over next to himself. He shifted his focus to my ribs and carefully pressed his fingers down on them – exactly where Brandon Frost had tried to turn me into mush.

"Well, I feel like shit, doc," I said, grimacing as his fingers found a particularly tender spot. After the fight, once all the adrenaline had worn off, Diego had dropped me and Cyndi at Vik's place to get checked out. My head was pounding, my ribs screamed with every breath, and I swear I could feel the bruises from Frost's headbutts spreading on my body. But hey, I was still breathing.

Vik frowned, his fingers pressing more gently now. "Hmm. Doesn't seem like you've got any internal bleeding. You're lucky," he muttered, grabbing another tool. It buzzed to life and sent slow vibrations through my chest as he ran it over me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Cyndi. She was sprawled out in Vik's chair at his work desk, feet kicked up on the counter, flipping through what looked like a digital catalog of Vik's inventory. Her eyes sparkled as she took in all the new implants and mods he had, like she was a kid in a candy story. No doubt she was already planning all the chrome she'd get once our crew landed our next big job.

Vik's hand moved to my face, tracing along the edge of my jaw, where my face implant rested beneath my skin. "Might've got yourself a concussion," he mumbled. "You said the guy headbutted you? Could've knocked something loose. I wanna check your...uh, cyberdeck."

"Cyberdeck?" I frowned. "Feels like it's running fine to me."

Vik hesitated, his hand pausing for a moment. He shot me a sidelong glance, then looked over at Cyndi who was still engrossed in the tablet, not paying us much attention. And then it clicked. Vik didn't know that Cyndi was in the loop about my face implant. The thing was still experimental, and he knew corps would kill me if they found out about it.

"It's cool, Vik," I said, waving off his concern. "Cyndi already knows."

Cyndi chimed in without even looking up. "Knows? About his creepy face thing? Yea, I know." she said with a smirk, flipping to the next page on the tablet.

Vik let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing as he nodded. "Good. Just didn't wanna spill any secrets."

He turned back to me, more focused now, his hands moving from my face to my neck, then down along my arms and torso, tracing the nodes embedded beneath my skin. I'd almost forgotten how much of the implant was spread across my body. Vik's scanner beeped and whirred as he checked each node carefully, making sure nothing was fried or out of place.

Finally, he stepped back and wiped his hands on his pants. "Well, you're banged up, but nothing too critical. No internal bleeding, ribs are bruised but not broken, and everything's still working. Just—" he gave me a knowing look "—stop picking fights with borged-out psychos, and you'll be fine."

"Now that that's done," Cyndi said, slipping off Vik's chair and moving over to us. "You got any berserk operating systems in stock?"

Vik raised an eyebrow at her, clearly caught off guard. He leaned back in his chair and gave her a quick once-over. "You wanna let your Lynx Paws settle in first before slapping on more chrome. Let your body adjust a bit, unless..." he turned to me. "You need more firepower for something coming up. Are you planning to move in around here? Are we gonna be neighbors soon?"