Arasaka Tower had mostly already recovered structurally, the exterior armor-glass already having been replaced and much of the underground sealed against potential radiation. That potential radiation was the biggest consequence of the nuke going off in the bay. Kagekaze had prevented it from damaging the city itself for the most part, and the airborne radiation had been mostly blown or carried away by the storm.
However, the radiation in the water, and that had been carried downwards by the rain, hit the underground of Night City. Namely the sewers, underground railways, and water table. Until that could be cleared out, that meant no plumbing repair, no underground mass transit, and no water unless filtered through rad scrubbers. The eco-planners were apparently going to prioritize the sewers for cleanup, not wanting the city to get any filthier than it was already. The water table was a lost cause for years to come, so next would be the railways.
There was a meeting about this that he had to attend, it was mostly a waste of his time. He could have been killing meatbags or something.
The radiation had mostly sunk to the bottom of the bay, pushed down by the constant rolling tide and seeping into the mud below. That meant that the surface-level sea-water treatment plants in his territory still functioned fine. He bought a rad-scrubber to add to the end of each facility regardless, poisoning his workers was a good way to have no workers, only an idiot would do that. That ended up eating into his personal fund…
Or it would have if he hadn't submitted the purchase as an ecological safety expense and gotten those tree-huggers to pay for them. The wonders of modern bureaucracy and his ability to exploit it, and by he, he meant Uriel because he wasn't about to deal with fucking paperwork.
He stopped and glared at the meatbag that was in front of the door to Arasaka Tower. The meatbag gulped before waving a radiation scanner up and down in front of him, probably a bit too quickly for it to work at maximum efficacy. The scanner beeped green, and the meatbag all but threw himself out of his way.
Today was a semi-eventful day. He was getting his new frame in, Arasaka and Militech were going to announce the reformation of IEC and advertise the LEASH, he was going to have to attend the announcement of the new Zenith, and finally the gangers were going to fight to death in his arena.
He was convinced to act as the referee of this fight by the female Armstrong. By convinced, he meant that she showed him that she could hold her breath for thirty minutes. He grinned maliciously at the memory, and then frowned at the thought of having to potentially break up a good murder over some technicality.
He frowned deeper when he recalled that he would have to do it for the tournament afterwards as well, which was even more irritating. They're street-fighters, just kill them if they break the rules, it wasn't that hard. But no, that would be 'unsportsmanlike' and 'potentially seen as bias'. He hadn't told the boy that he was going to be fighting in it yet, he was saving it for afterwards.
Not to win some ganger title, no. It was a collection of some of the best fighters in NC, the boy could use the experience in punching fuckers to death. The boy was loaded with chrome and bioware at this point, and there was a trauma team squad on hand for the event, he wasn't in any real danger.
There wasn't any reason not to, Adam was stuck in Pacifica anyways for the tournament, the boy would get some practice in, and he could get the other brats up to par when it came to tactics by having them analyze the fights. He'd be testing them on it all, see if they learned anything about fighting. He really needed more time in the day to teach all of them up to his standards, but he couldn't be in two places at…
…once…
'Uriel.' Adam thought suddenly.
'Adam.' Uriel replied flatly, knowing exactly what he was thinking due to their shared brain.
'Are we dumbasses?'
'We might be.'
They gave themselves a moment to glare at nothing at not realizing this sooner, before moving into the elevator heading down. The techie was supposed to be holding onto the updated frame for him, after they shipped it over. Standard procedure to run some diagnostics to make sure everything was hooked up right. It probably was, but he wasn't about to let himself get fucked over from a new part not working in the middle of a fight again.
That happened once back in his Samson days, his wolvers failed to fully retract or extend once. They uselessly added bulk to his silhouette for that fight, he had to beat the target to death with the back of their own gun instead. Satisfying still, but how he got to the point was embarrassing. He made sure to kill the techie who told him to go ahead without the implant checks afterwards.
The elevator was filled with meatbags, the Tower was rather active recently. This was annoying, but he stepped into the decently sized chamber and stood in the center with his arms crossed regardless. The employees inside pressed up against the walls in an effort not to touch him. Probably afraid that he'd rip them in half if they breathed wrong, which was probably true. Some meatbags breathed in the most obnoxious way possible, never failing to piss him off, the quickest way to fix that was to make them stop breathing.
That was the problem with meatbags, they always came up with excuses to not solve their problems. The quickest way to solve a problem was to kill it.
The elevator finally reached the underground floor he wanted to be on. He stepped off and the gap he left in the small crowd of people on the elevator was promptly filled as he moved through the halls. The techie's office was at the end of it, so it would be another minute or so of walking. He wasn't in any particular hurry today, there were no pressing or urgent matters to attend to immediately, just a whole lot of meetings and other bullshit.
Things that he couldn't wait to push off onto Uriel as he busied himself with making music. He decided to dip his toe into the waters of making something himself instead of Uriel doing it. He needed the extra funding, and this was a half-decent distraction while all these meetings were taking place.
He was going through his blackbox, taking the sounds of meatbags dying, guns firing, and explosions going off, and editing those together to the tune of one of the songs Uriel knew. He was having more fun than he thought he would, and going through his old works and paying attention to the sounds was a new way to appreciate them.
He opened the door leading into the Techie's room. Inside was his frame laying on the 'operating' table, the Techie looking at a tablet next to it that was hooked into the neck, and a metal crate that it came in off to the side.
…He narrowed his optics, that crate was too big to just be his frame.
The techie looked up as he walked in, and grinned at him. "Ah, Smasher-san, ready for your new frame?" He nodded at the box questioningly. The techie was astute enough to understand his unspoken question. "Ah, they sent some spare parts and weapons with the new frame, just in case you get into a big scrap in the meantime."
He grunted in understanding, before walking over to his frame and starting up the process of transferring over. Uriel slipped into the frame as Adam locked his joints and opened up his skull, revealing his biopod.
A two cubic-foot life support casing designed to hold his brain and critical organs, and to interface with whatever body that was designed to work with one. It was a great investment, and there really was no reason to ever not have one as a borg. It made everything far more convenient overall.
Uriel grabbed the biopod, pulled it from his old casing, and inserted it into the open head of the new frame. Adam turned on the sensors and went through the new frame boot-up process as Uriel let the old frame slowly slip to the floor. Adam furrowed his brow as he looked through the readout projected into his vision, he was never the best at technical stuff, but live for seventy years as a cyborg and you learn some things.
"...how'd you do that?" The techie's voice pulled him out of looking over the readout. He opened his optics to look over at the stunned crossdresser. His datapad had slipped out of his hands to land in his lap, and his mouth was slightly agape.
Adam grunted. Uriel, you take care of this. Uriel decided that the best way to answer was to give no answer at all.
"It's not that hard, meatbag."
The techie just stared at him for a moment. "...The frame is mostly wired, and the only wireless connection inside is the onboard computer's modem. It's behind ten Datawalls and all the best Black ICE that Arasaka has. It doesn't have a password connection, because it's designed to reject all commands that don't come from the hardpoint neural interface of your biopod, and only while your biopod is actually installed."
"You glanced at it and got moving precisely enough to extract your biopod, thus cutting off your own connection to the net, and then installing it into the new body. Even with the best AI in the world you can fit into a carrier-cyberdeck, that should have been impossible."
Adam stared blankly at the techie. Uriel spoke, "Try to keep up techie."
He then tuned the techie out as he went through the steps of making sure everything was in working order on his frame. The redesign was a bit heavier than the Oni v1, apparently they had a new type of armor and slightly different myomer layout to increase overall durability at the cost of slightly increased weight. The wiring that originally went down to the sub-arm mounting instead was increased in length by about fifty percent, and wired down to his arms instead. This would increase his overall delay in controlling the ACPA submodules by a miniscule fraction of a second.
Not noticeable except during sandevistan time then, that was acceptable for getting some heavier weapons back.
Two-hundred and seventy-five kilograms, eight feet tall, maximally reinforced frame, thickened myomer, and weapon mountings on the forearms. All in all, it was probably the best generalist frame for direct combat in the world right now, sans those that incorporated ACPA like the DaiOni. His ACPA wouldn't be done for a while, so this was the best he was going to get.
Theoretically sub-arm mountings could be added in addition to the forearm weapon mounts, but that would add another… thirty-five kilograms? Something around there. He was already a hair heavier than a Dragoon frame, any more weight would make it even more difficult to maneuver on weaker terrain.
He grunted. Fucking mud, this was why concrete was better.
Eventually the techie got over themselves and got to work doing his half of the job in making sure everything was working right. A quarter-hour later of running the diagnostics, and techie gave a cheery 'all green!'.
He stood up, and tossed his Gemini over his shoulders, and walked over to see what was in the crate.
He stopped when he got next to it, looking over the edge down to the bottom. Inside was a number of smaller boxes, a few spare arms…
And a woman with oversized black-armored limbs curled up in the fetal position and staring up at him. He stared down at her before narrowing his optics and glancing up to the corner of his vision.
Ninety-six percent. A borg?
The woman took this as her cue to speak.
"Kosho-class Tsukumogami, I ask of you, are you my master?"
He glared at her for a moment before calling out behind him.
"Techie, Explain."
"Hmm? Oh, they sent a data-chip with it, apparently a message from Arasaka-sama about it. It's on the right-side interior of the crate."
He looked to the right side, finding the slot for the data-chip. Pulling it out and inserting it, he looked over the data inside.
He grunted after a moment. Apparently the old man had noticed he had a habit of losing limbs in the middle of a fight against actual threats. He had commissioned a sister-model to the Jorogumo series to act as a carrier unit for him. Four quick-change limbs with his own backups installed so he could simply take one off if he needed it, and a decent lift capacity to carry around ammo and guns for him.
…He could see the usefulness of this. It wasn't a meatbag, so he didn't have to worry about it fucking up pointlessly, and while he wasn't on jobs he could have it do other jobs around the house, like readying his belt-feeds and running gun maintenace…
It was useful. He sent a message to the old man thanking him for the bonus. It is always good to be polite to your employer, and if they give you something that makes your job easier you thank them. They'd be less inclined to get rid of you randomly if they like you.
He turned to the fembot in the crate, who was waiting for his response. He nodded and her eyes glowed. She spoke again. "Requesting three-stage verification."
So the old man put that in too, probably a good idea overall. He pulled out his interface plug and extended it to her, she reached out with one of his spare hands, and plugged the offered cord into one of her own. Hardline established, he forwarded the IFF, Locator Beactor code, and Satellite uplink code over the line. It was generally a bad idea to do this wirelessly unless he absolutely had to. Three stages of redundancy to ensure that Arasaka assets knew that he was friendly, where he was at all times, and what his condition was at all times.
There were many layers of redundancy to prevent his capture. Arasaka response teams were usually too slow to prevent destruction, but they could make sure any team that tried to klept him didn't live longer than about ten minutes. That was if they could capture him at all, which to date only happened once in his career.
Militech spec ops were fucking good at their jobs for half-meats, but they had only ever gotten one over on him once. He was reclaimed by an emergency dispatch team before they could do anything to his systems, but it was a close one. That was back in the twenty-thirties, and they haven't tried again since. They were Militech, he would have absolutely noticed if they had tried again. They weren't amateurs when it came to a brawl.
After the codes went through, the girlbot slowly disconnected the plugs. He let it retract into his neck again as she stood up.
She'd be tall for a meatbag, but still much shorter than him, and most of that height came from his own legs, which were disproportionately large for her torso and head. Both of which were currently armored under the same style of pitch-black paneling that he himself used, but scaled down and curved for her female frame. She had the same kind of faulds hanging from her waist that he did, but lengthened a bit more proportionally.
Her pale-blonde hair was relatively short, with two longer bangs on the sides hanging down. Looking closer, it might have been tied up in the back. It wasn't visible under her helmet and visor, which was currently folded back. It looked like it would fold over her upper face, contrasting to his coming over his lower face. All in all, the womanbot looked like the result of him having a daughter with a 15th century knight-woman. So at least the aesthetics wouldn't clash.
He stepped back once and gestured for her to get out, and she stepped out of the crate. She was maybe up to his shoulders? That was about seven feet tall, then.
He ignored the robot for a moment and looked into the crate. An additional set of spare limbs, a few smaller boxes of various gadgets from Arasaka that he would have to sort through later, a few guns, and a new arm-mounting for the Tsunami-Helix. All in all, not bad, the backup frame was probably still in storage.
He pulled the case over the top of the crate again, and set down the Gemini frame for Uriel to operate. It'd be a hassle to move this without him, the bulk was a bit large even if it didn't weigh more than about a thousand pounds.
Uriel paused before moving, and stared at something over his shoulder. Adam turned to see the new bot staring at him.
The bot glanced between the crate and his two frames.
Ah, that's right, the bot was programmed to carry his shit around, wasn't it? He grunted before opening the crate again, Uriel climbed in and sat down before Adam closed the lid and got to the other side to lift half of it.
The bot's optics brightened, although her face didn't change at all, and she walked over to the other end to lift that half. Picking it all up, he noticed that she was probably about as strong as his Dragoon was, even if the limbs were his CCPL. Good, that would let her carry more of his spares…
He spoke suddenly as they moved the crate through the door.
"Your name is Spares now."
Her optics glowed.
"Designation updated."
Uriel waved at the Mikoshi-AI as they left the building. It didn't wave, it just stared at Spares.