How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

5. Psycho

A-044 City, where Leonard lives, was a relatively recently established pioneer city, as can be seen from the numbers.

Even recently, it was the early 80s, so it’s been about 20 years, and the exterior has just shrunk to pieces of scavengers who hate clean streets and gangsters who shoot every day.

“Did the rent go up again?”

Still, it belongs to the ‘relatively’ good side among ground cities, but it was a headache to show off that goodness with the price of houses, land, and daily necessities. The rent for Leonard’s House on the 9th floor of 11-1 Street was the same.

“1,355 credits? If I save this for 10 years, I will buy a house!”

“Are you homeless for 10 years?”

“No, I need to find a cheaper place…”

11th Street was a good place, located between White Town, where entrepreneurs live, and Junk Town, the main street. Looking out of the window, I could see a glitzy high-rise villa with sparkling neon signs and a messy back alley where electronic drugs were rolling around at the same time. It was a very good position to be a solver.

“How much is the monthly rent for a single-digit street?”

“The minimum price is ten thousand units.”

To a petit bourgeois earning 1,000 credits by sweating his feet, renting 10,000 credits was like a dream.

“What about the 20th Division?”

“It’s 10,000 credits there too.”

“It’s a gutter, but why is it more expensive?”

“It’s a downtown area.”

So, there was nowhere cheaper. If you go outside the planned city, there are free facilities, but it was not a place to live even empty words.

Leonard didn’t believe in Android Sigma, so he searched for it himself and got rid of it. As if showing the gap between the rich and the poor on earth, the expensive places were overly expensive and the cheap places were too beggarly. Sigma said in his usual dry voice.

“If you need financial help, I can advise you to cut 22% of your expenses.”

“If I get rid of you, I’ll be able to reduce it by 30%?”

Even a half-deprecated Android was expensive to maintain. Even now, it was sucking blood-like electricity from the charger.

“Life is a series of consumption. Please bear with it.”

“Are you not alive?”

Sigma made a shocked expression. Even so, it was awkward because it was a second-generation Android.

“Well, it’s ambiguous to say that I’m alive too.”

70% of the body and half of the vital organs were implants, so it was close to a machine in proportion. It was a bonus that maintenance costs were high. It was the same even with the living skin peeled off by punching in the detention center. Sigma returned his expression and asked.

“Do you have a reason to stick with living skin?”

Covering the skin looked good, but it was not practical. Unless you’re rich enough to have enough credit, you don’t have to use living skin. Special occupations such as prostitutes also used cheap synthetic rubber skin.

“Ah… it’s like a habit…”

Leonard averted his gaze at ‘unnecessary extravagance’. If you talk about the trauma of Lenox, an underground city where 92% of the residents are ordinary people, you will probably be laughed at.

Even the extravagant Leonard didn’t get new implants because his finger bones were slightly exposed. Wearing driving gloves that showed his fingers, he clenched and opened his fists. It wasn’t uncomfortable because I used it often.

“This month’s profit is 5,277 credits, but after taking out rent, food, implant maintenance, gas, bullets, etc., there are only 1,990 credits left.”

If it wasn’t for the 1,000 credits that the Liberation Front or the Thawing Front threw as if it were a good match, it would have been hard until next month.

“It can’t be like this either.”

Sigma was a good android. I didn’t ask what to do if this doesn’t work. Leonard grabbed his overcoat and got up.

“Credit likes people who jump on their feet. I’ll go out for a while.”

Sigma analyzed the owner’s behavior based on 3 years and 6 months of data.

“Have fun gambling. good luck.”

@

Leonard’s house, Villa 11-1, has two elevators, and both have been out of order for three months. Since they didn’t even pretend to repair it, they should have paid for the expensive monthly rent and how to use it, but they couldn’t because of laziness and timidity. And looking at the residents, it seemed that it would not last long even if it was fixed.

“Hey, 9th floor fixer man.”

The lower house with a metal implant for the lower jaw, ‘Squat Jaw’ said. For some reason, he asked me to call him Popeye, but the residents of Sodom City, who never did anything good for others, called him ‘Jug-jaw’.

“Are you going for a drink?”

“What are you drinking in broad daylight?”

Proper alcohol cost hundreds of credits to thousands of credits per glass, so most of them were cheap alcoholic beverages made by refining industrial ethanol. Even a literal ‘steel’ cyborg wouldn’t die if he kept drinking it.

“Then you’re going to grab a round.”

The jagged jaw giggled and sent off.

Gambling, drugs, murder, and prostitution were inseparable from life. There were gambling dens, drug dealers, and brothels on the second floor of the villa without going to the alley. However, it was not open today.

Leonard felt ominous first at the roaring crowd, second at the familiar smell of blood.

“What’s happening?”

The connecting corridor to the villa next door, to be precise, the black market disguised as a connecting corridor was a mess. Shops made of corrugated cardboard were broken, burst, and torn, and people dripping with blood and people with grease groaned.

“Who threw a homemade bomb?”

If the bomb had exploded, there was no way he wouldn’t have felt it upstairs. Pretending to take care of the wounded, he checked the wounds and found that they were bruises, not gunshot wounds or lacerations. It was as if a high-powered cyborg had hit it with a club.

“Oh, thank you…”

“With something like this.”

Leonard took stock of the situation and threw the wounded away. The tearful, grateful gambler fainted with a quack. The pain was reduced, so the thank you was enough.

“As expected, you are a psycho cyborg.”

“yes. that’s right.”

Psycho Cyborg. It refers to a cyborg who has lost his mind due to a brain chip failure or a cyborg who has gone mad due to electronic drugs. Either way it was very risky.

“I’m glad it’s not a gun.”

Leonard turned around and said. Jack Turner, the manager of the 11-1 Street gambling house, disagreed.

“Fixer, do you accept requests?”

Leonard was kind of a regular-hogu-so I had a close relationship with him. Especially at times like this, it was necessary to pretend to be friendly.

“You want me to catch a psycho?”

“no. kill it.”

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Jack Turner was the gang boss of 11-1 Street. It’s not a huge organization like Stonehead, Wild Kid, or Twins, but it still uses violence and fear as a tool to earn a living. Retaliation was not an option, it was a necessity.

“Report to FAP?”

“Cops? Are you kidding? Do you think they care about illegal gambling dens like this?”

“So, pay some taxes and do business.”

Caretaker Jack snorted and kicked the fallen gang member. The slot machine is broken and the tokens have been leaked, so it will not be open for a while. Still, I had to do my job.

“I’ll give you two thousand credits. Is it easy?”

“I don’t accept contracts to kill.”

“Then grab it. I will do the killing.”

“Then it doesn’t matter…”

It’s a joke, but it really didn’t matter. At least in A-044 City, they didn’t ask for responsibility for bringing the person. Jack, the caretaker, said disgruntledly as Leonard hesitated.

“If you catch it by midnight today, I’ll add five hundred more.”

“With credits?”

“By credit.”

There were no contracts or intermediaries, but I believed that I would not pretend to be a troubleshooter living next door.

“As expected, Credit likes people who jump on their feet.”

@

Leonard immediately followed the Psycho Cyborg trail. It wasn’t that difficult. I spilled a lot of things, as crazy people usually do.

‘Wait, if I go out on the main road, the police won’t let me go?’

Corporate public security was literally a group operated by corporations for public safety. In principle, it is responsible for the security of the entire city, but in reality, the safety of corporate assets is the top priority. In the back alley, I didn’t care whether the scavenger shot, knifed, or harassed me, but when a company car started a riot on the road, it was dispatched within 10 minutes and turned it into a beehive. Psycho Cyborg was particularly bad.

‘That’s different in many ways…’

It can be said that it is good that the company takes care of it for them, but it was not so from the perspective of the gang boss who had to set an example to the industry or Leonard who had to receive a foreign loan. Leonard sped up his pursuit.

I didn’t know that I was a psycho, and I walked through a gang of bullies with folded spines, and passed an alley house built with scrap materials and returned to waste materials, and a fork came out. It was a gloomy brothel alley with overpasses thronged by luxury cars and neon signs flickering and dying. Fortunately, the place where the machine fragments led was a brothel. It was as fortunate as 2,500 credits.

‘It looks like it’s big, but I wonder if I can grab it and drag it away.’

Leonard went into the brothel, thinking it might be a good idea to bring a pickup truck. It was quiet because it was a neighborhood where day and night were opposite. Maybe that’s why, I was unprofessional and complacent. Being an unarmed psycho, it was also due to being careless. The alley wall exploded and Psycho Cyborg attacked Leonard.

“Such a pair…!”

Leonard’s body was expensive but lightweight. Even including bones and muscles, it was not 100kg. The weight of the implant alone was close to 150kg, and there was no ability to withstand the physical bullet attack of the heavy cyborg. It bounced like a rubber ball and flew into the alley on the other side.

Kook-! bang-!

It meant light weight for a cyborg, but not light in absolute terms. He broke through the cement wall and was driven inside the building. Junk was spilled in all directions. Torn screams erupted from upstairs, but downstairs was silent. It’s really fortunate that it’s a town where daytime and night change.

“Kill… kill… thief… kill…”

There was no need to listen to the words of the brain-damaged psycho cyborg. It’s because you pick up any words like a drunk person. However, a third party could misunderstand, so I had to refute it.

“You crazy mulberry!”

I folded my legs and jumped up with the recoil. The Psycho Cyborg charged again, but he had no intention of getting hurt twice. Both eyes changed into hexagons and scanned the surrounding electronic devices at once.

There is also a high-end implant with a whole body set, but a human who puts cheap electronic drugs into a brain chip without a filter would not be able to use such a high-end body. As expected, the arms, legs, and operating system were all different.

‘At times like this, it’s the legs first!’

I blocked the nerve sensor that led to the prosthetic limb. If the security program is good, it takes several minutes to hours to upload the hacking program, but it took less than 3 seconds because it was a junk town implant. Psycho Cyborg couldn’t take six steps and his legs stiffened and he rolled on the floor.

Leonard stood on his right foot and bound the limbs one by one. There was no need for clumsy handcuffs or ropes. There is a body without implants, but the body that has been relying on machines is so weak that it could not withstand the mechanical Leonard’s power. It took 22 seconds for the Psycho Cyborg, synonymous with fear, to be completely incapacitated.

“I’m messing around with nothing.”

Leonard exclaimed triumphantly. However, Jack’s request was not over. Moving hundreds of kilograms was more of a headache. Seeing the wriggling mass toppled over by the wreckage, it was suddenly pitch black.

“…Didn’t you just say you would kill me?”

The collapsed wall also bothered me. ‘I caught a dangerous psycho cyborg, but if you have a conscience, wouldn’t you ask me to pay for the repair?’ However, this was A-044 Sodom without laws, ethics, and conscience.