Damien stared in astonishment at the new screen that had popped up before his eyes. It was littered with information, but one thing in particular quickly caught his attention: a 3D model of a young man with a name written underneath. Damien Scriven. The figure had short black hair and wore the same gray shirt and black pants as he wore.

That’s me, Damien thought in disbelief.

Beside the 3D model, a flat diagram of six body portions had been split up from one another: Head, Torso, Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg. Each one had a bar associated with it, and they all read 100%. Beside that, three separate bars stood alone. The first was labeled Health, the second Stamina, and the third Focus. All three bars were full.

Confusion swelled up within Damien as he pored over the information. How could he be seeing a model of his body and its current status within his own mind?

“Well,” Kat said as she swerved around a slow-moving transport truck and sped up to overtake it. “Did you find anything?”

Damien nodded. “Yeah, I got… something. I can somehow see the condition of my body.”

“What do you mean?”

It felt strange to put it into words. “You know, it shows how damaged my body parts are. I can also see myself, at least how I look from the outside.” That last sentence must’ve sounded especially dumb.

Sure enough, Kat looked at him like he wasn’t making any sense. “Cyberware like that doesn’t exist as far as I know. TrillTech really messed with you, didn’t they?”

If Kat and Roger didn’t know about this, then surely it had to be the T-Deck. With his curiosity exploding, Damien brought his attention back to the interface and noticed four tabs along the top. The first one, which was currently open, read Status. The one beside it read Equipment, and when he held his gaze on it for a brief moment, the tab switched over.

On this new page, all the clothing that he was currently wearing was displayed neatly over their appropriate body parts. A small Bonuses window appeared beside each item, but the contents within were empty. To the right of his gear, a list titled Augments showed the cyberware that Kat and Roger had previously mentioned.

Optical Scanner (I) Scan items linked to local or public networks to download and display relevant information

Sub-dermal Armor (I) Metal armor implanted under the user's skin to bolster toughness. +5 Durability.

Damien opened the next tab, which was titled Stats & Skills, and eagerly poured over the wealth of information on display.

Stats

Level: 1

Reputation: Nobody

Health: 100

Stamina: 100

Focus: 100

Strength: 10

Agility: 15

Durability: 13

Technical: 9

Blades: 14

Firearms: 6

He stared at the page in astonishment. Was the T-Deck quantifying his abilities into hard numbers?

Based on the distribution of my stats, I have the characteristics of an agile melee fighter, Damien mused. Sounds like a fun set of abilities to have. Can’t say I feel great about being a nobody with zero reputation, though. I guess that’s the least of my worries at this point.

Four lists at the bottom completed the rest of the information on the current screen.

Skills Mastery Level Effect - - - Talents Mastery Level Effect S.S Core

Rookie ??? Titles - Traits S.S Core

Oh, great. More insults. Looks like I don’t have any Skills, Titles, or Traits. But I do have a Talent. I wonder what it does…

Damien kept his focus on the question marks, hoping it would reveal something new, but the screen remained unchanged.

“Hey, Kat,” he said. “Any chance you know what an S.S. Core is?”

“Nope. Never heard of it,” Kat said as she took an exit ramp back down into the heart of the city.

Damien mentally switched to the final tab, which was titled Quest Log. Only one quest was available, the one that had previously popped up and slid out of his view.

Active Quest: Repay Your Debt

Roger spent his time and resources removing malicious TrillTech cyberware from your body. Repay him with 8,000 funds.

It was nice to learn that it hadn’t disappeared for good, but there were still far more questions than answers. Why was he even getting quests in the first place?

“We’re here,” Kat said as the car slowed to a crawl.

Damien scanned the screen and noticed an ‘x’ in the far corner. He looked at it with intent, and the entire interface closed, leaving nothing to impede his vision.

“See that auto repair shop across the street?” Kat said as she pointed to the driver-side window. “That’s a Skull hideout.”

The car inched forward slowly, and Damien hunched over to get a better view. It was a large building with an entrance that had been impeded by parked cars. Beyond the stationary cars and inside the building, he could see a small wall of broken vehicles stacked up two car-heights high.

“We’ll park up ahead,” Kat said, and the vehicle picked up speed once again.

Damien surveyed the surroundings as Kat drove through the barren streets. The area was filled with run-down buildings which looked like they hadn’t been looked after for years. Most of them were surely abandoned, and the lack of people walking around added to the desolate atmosphere. It was a far cry from the bustling city he’d seen outside of Roger’s office.

Two blocks away from the auto-shop, Kat pulled the car over and turned it off. She opened her door and nodded toward the front. “Come on out. I gotta give you something before we head in.”

Damien stepped out of the vehicle and walked to the front, where Kat had opened the trunk. Mounted along the sides of the interior were a series of weapons: two handguns, one submachine gun, a sword, and a metal baseball bat.

“You’ll need a weapon to defend yourself if things get hairy,” Kat said. “They’re fairly basic weapons, but they should be enough for the job. Go ahead and take your pick.”

Damien’s attention immediately jumped to the sword, and when he concentrated on it, a small overlay popped up.

Kimura Basic-Grade Katana

Damage: 25

Condition: Good

With my low Firearms stat, there’s no point using a gun, Damien thought. And my Blades skill is higher than my Strength skill, which would suggest that I’m better with a sword than a blunt weapon. Also, it’s a freaking katana. Of course I’m choosing it!

He leaned over and picked the sword up by the hilt.

“I’d let you take a gun with you, too,” Kat said. “but let’s be honest, it’ll be useless in your hands. You sure as shit aren’t a marksman. Wouldn’t trust you to hit a barn door from five feet away.”

Damien thought about giving her a smart-ass reply, but he was too busy admiring his new weapon. The hilt fit wonderfully in his hand, and the sunlight glistened off the silver blade with a satisfying shine.

Kat slammed the trunk door and turned to face him. “That twinkle in your eye tells me you have a real appreciation for swords. Doc said your combat capabilities should be high, so you might have been a full-fledged street samurai before the whole TrillTech situation.”

“A street samurai, huh? I wish I could say. With my personal memories wiped out, I have no idea what I was. But I do like the sound of that. Still, you trust me enough to give me a weapon? I could run without paying my debt.”

Kat gave him a disappointed look. “Don’t try anything dumb. It may not seem like it, but I’m doing you a favor by dragging you out here. I’ll be doing most of the heavy lifting. You just provide support on this job and you’ll get a cut of the pay. If you have any ways of making your own funds and guaranteeing that you’ll pay Doc back, I’ll be happy to let you go. It’s not like I wanna babysit you.”

“Fair enough,” Damien said, his gut once again telling him that she could be trusted.

He swung the katana through the air to test it out. The motions flew out from him with a natural ease, and the blade moved effortlessly in tandem with his body. It was as if he’d practiced the motions thousands of times before.

“Not bad,” Kat said in a pleasantly surprised tone. “You actually look like you know what you’re doing.”

“Feels like it, too. Try not to hold me back this time,” Damien said cheekily.

Kat rolled her eyes. “Alright, jokes aside, let’s get to the task at hand. In 10 minutes, there’s gonna be a deal that goes down in that auto shop. An important deal with an important item.”

“Let me guess,” Damien said. “We need to stop that deal from happening, right?”

“More than that,” Kat said, a hint of a smile forming on her face. “We’re gonna steal the item for ourselves.”