ushernet Chapter 130
Chapter 130
Chapter 130The subway train lay on its side, tipped over from when it derailed and slammed through the subway’s wall. It was a bit tricky to get in, slightly reminding me of the mutant ghoul nest Mira and I found back when we were
Its tail was far more interesting though, at least to me. It had an almost metallic feeling in my gloves, feeling more artificial than natural. I was more mechanically than biologically minded though, so I only gave it a quick look over before shifting my attention away.
I hauled myself back up the line of microwire, pulling myself into the subway car to get a closer look at the corpses. Based on their attire, they were probably all mercs, though high-end ones. Were they trying to drive the train down here?
That was kinda… . How about instead of a super secret stash, I had a super secret subway train that I could drive around everywhere? Of course, that was without thinking about the plethora of downsides… such as derailing and ramming through a wall. And subways were one of the main methods of travel down here, so little chance of keeping the subway hidden without some serious investment.
One of the skeletons had signs of being seriously chromed out, and the other two weren’t far behind it. One looked like it- he based on the occipital protuberance, shape of the cheek and jaw bones, and formation of his hip bone- looked to be a bruiser of some kind. He was the furthest buried, leaving his chrome dented beyond any hopes of salvaging anything from it besides maybe the metal. Plenty of parts looked as though they had been swiped since his death, leaving gaps in his corpse.
The other, one I couldn’t tell for sure who or what they were since their bones were splintered to near nothing, had a bunch of old speed-enhancing chrome, though since it was more lightweight the chrome was in an even worse state than the bruiser. Someone had already picked through and taken all the good stuff.
The only one in relatively good condition had thin lines of chords and metal where their nervous system would’ve been and several data jacks. I recognized the lines as a Neural Link, which was an easy sign of wealth… or at least it should be. They were expensive enough that most normies and even low to mid-level mercenaries wouldn’t have one. Not that they were super useful unless you had money.
I should know. My Neural Link came from my Grandfather back when I was much younger, a Cold Moon NL 3.0, boasting adaptability to grow as its host did, something more often seen in KairoTech Global’s products. Unlike KairoTech stuff though, mine was purely mechanical. It was one of a couple hundred made and by far the most expensive thing I had. Maybe even everything combined wouldn’t match the price.
Too bad everything went south before I could get a good Neural System Interface. Instead, I was saddled with a cheap knockoff. If I had one back when I first got the Advent Ghost, glitching would’ve never been a problem. What did it matter if I had massively increased chrome connectivity if the NSI, the translation from computer to brain side of things, was garbage? It was like running an extremely high-spec computer with a CPU a century old. It just wouldn’t work out very well… and it didn’t.
Then again, it probably wouldn’t have helped... Maybe? Nael seemed to think my reaction was similar to how Magi and Adepts reacted to chrome, so maybe it wouldn’t have done anything even if I had a good NSI. I was practically charged with the Aether by the eidolons themselves…
Usually, I was against taking chrome from corpses, half because it was a disgusting process to hack off bloodied limbs, and half because it was highly impractical thanks to the lockdown and anti-tampering features most modern chrome had. Oh, and it was a bit disrespectful to the corpse. This time, though, I snagged the neural link. It wasn’t in amazing shape, with several dents littered across its surface, but it was in good enough shape I could probably salvage some components to use on other things on the off chance the anti-tampering bit was in the destroyed sections. Then again, it was heavily damaged, so maybe not. There was a reason previous scavengers left it behind.
Other than that, I scrounged around the train finding nothing else. I did find some shifted rubble suggesting that at one point there had been several boxes scattered about, but nothing was left except for the corpses of whoever originally looted the place. Probably took away most of the good chrome too, leaving only the broken and shattered stuff.
There was nothing left here for me. I gathered up everything once more and set off for my second location.