Story 1: The Life & Tragedies of DJ

Chapter 3


It is now nighttime over at Clairmont as Joshua and the rest of Sanguina's crew return home. Joshua declared that he is joining the gang and is willing to become a Punker. Once Sanguina has heard the word, he is taken over to doc's clinic and introduced him to the doctor.

"Hello!" the doc greets with a handshake.

"Hello." Joshua gives the man a handshake. "My name is Joshua."

"I know, I know. Sanguina told me and I know about your situation. I actually do have a request on what mod I would like you to have."

Sanguina sighs while leaning on the wall with her arms cross.

Doc looks at Sanguina, "You didn't tell him?"

"It's his choice."

Joshua is confused as he looks at the two back and forth. "What? What is going on?"

"Follow me." the doc says.

The three head down stairs and enter the surgery room where doc shows his pride and joy that he has been holding and already showed to Sanguina. Joshua has no idea what it is but is interested in it.

"Is that some sort of spinal cybernetic?" he asks.

Sanguina asks him, "You mean you don't know a sandevistan?"

When that word was uttered, Joshua's eyes are widen in shock.

He points at the device, "That's a sandevistan?!" he is surprised.

Doc says with excitement in his voice, "Not just any sandevistan. This is a more advanced experimental model that I found in a ruin in Fresno. A military experiment prototype that not just slowdown time, but stops it entirely!"

"Whoa..." Joshua's mind is blown by the new device.

"You want it?"

Joshua looks at doc, "I have been through the worst day of my life, losing my father and everything I had is now gone." He sounds more serious, "I have spent six hours to get to Oakland and another six hours back here with a lot to think about. So yes; I would like to have it."

Doc claps and rub his hands together in satisfaction, "Alright! Let's get this bad boy in your meat!"

Sanguina says to doc with a serious tone, "And please don't end-up killing him like the last guy."

Joshua looks back at Sanguina, "Wait, what?"

Doc pulls out a needle and immediately injects it into Joshua.

"Ow!" he felt a pinch on his right shoulder. "What was that...for..." Joshua starts to feel drowzy from the drug the doc just inject him with. "Fuuu-uuuuccckkk..." And then he collapse onto the floor.

Doc then picks up the unconscious Joshua and place him on the operating table.

Sanguina shakes her head, "Can't wait, huh? You decided to just skip over the consent form signing and skip right over to the operation."

The doc hooks up a heart-monitor while also clamping him down with the belt. "Yeah, well, consent forms are overrated anyway." He then hooks up a blood bag, "Besides, I've been waiting to implant this into someone for a while. Sadly, this thing cost too much and wanting to get rid of it for a while."

"Did you check what are the other implants he wants at least?"

Doc pulls up his smartphone, "Yep! Cydina sent me the list of what this guy wants! Syn-lungs, synaptic signal optimizer, and a whole bunch of stuff for the torso only! All legendary! But he will be wanting other types of mods and is willing to pay for them." He put his phone away and pulls out a buzzsaw. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an operation to do. So, would you kindly leave?"

"Is it because of when I smell blood, I'll go berserk?" Sanguina smirks.

"Yes, that, and your smell would cause an infection."

Sanguina shifts her left eyebrow before smelling herself. Once she sniffs, she smelled something foul and proceeds to leave out of embarrassment.

"I really need to stop pouring animal blood all over myself after getting drunk." and she exits.

Once she exited, the red ER light lights up and the door locks up automatically. The sound of a buzzsaw can be barely heard followed by the muffled sound of flesh and bone being cut up.


A whole night passed after Joshua's operation. He slowly starts to wake-up but cannot see a thing. The reason being is that he is wearing bandages over his eyes as they have also been implanted with a different pair of eyes. He even have bandages on his torso area along with a cast on his head where his Neuralink was but now removed.

"Fuck me..." he says in a weak tone and in pain.

"Sorry!" the doc pops in and takes a seat. "Ran out of morphine."

"Ow..." He turn his head towards the direction of the doctor, "Don't do that again with the needle."

"Yeah, well, never like the consent forms anyway." the doc sounds a bit too chippy. "Anyway, you need some time for your body to heal up, take time to get adjusted to the implants and then we can move on to trying to adapt and train to those implants."

"Then I get my new look?"

"Bio-sculpting? Sure. Just need you to draw me on what you want to look like and..." The doc realizes something, "Oh wait. We can use the newer implant in your skull."

"Wait, what?" Joshua is shocked and confused.

"Yeah. I had to replace the Neuralink implant in your head with an unmarked one so no one can track you. You can still use it to make VR, but you need some time to recover first before your implant can be fully integrated into your meat."

Joshua turns his head back and lets out a small grunting noise.

"Wanna talk?"

"Sure." he says in a less enthusiastic tone.

Doc claps his hands, "Okay!" A moment of silence later, "But what to talk about?"

Joshua thinks about what to talk about. He thinks about it until he remembers one certain word that has been crossing his mind. A word he has heard again and again for the nearly 48 hours he has known Sanguina and her gang. The word, 'Them'.

"Who is this, Them, everyone is talking about?" Joshua asks.

"The others didn't tell you on the way over and back?" Doc is baffled that Joshua doesn't know yet. "For fuck's sake! I can't believe they didn't fully tell you about the secret societies that have been governing our world from behind the scenes!"

"I tried to ask, but we keep on getting sidetracked."

The doctor facepalms at this before saying, "Alright, alright." He switches to serious mode, "If you haven't heard about any conspiracies, or some damn video game that has them in it, the Illuminati."

"Aren't they just an urban myth?"

"Ah hell naw!" the doc went, "They're real! But they ain't the only secret society that we're fighting against. The Islam Order of Assassins, the Templars, the Blue Shirt Society, the Yellow Sand Society, and many others. Secretly controlling the world from behind the scenes in order to control us. Take 1950, corporations paid 45% of taxes. They had to pay 5% before the collapse and don't let the internet tell you otherwise. In the 1900's, 90% of the American citizens were self-employed. It went down to 10.1% in 2023 yet now it is up to 49% since the corporations have replaced much of their labor force with robots. Including restaurants, car assembly lines, construction work. Even traffic repair with a shortage of workers during the 2020 pandemic. Corporations manage to get a huge monopoly of smaller businesses over the years to the point that the main corporation is so big that you don't know who you are actually working for. That's there is terror. Terror built in the system. Plutocrats and corpos have manipulated the voting process through lobbyism in order to weaken the individual. And you think the Templars and Order of Assassins are gone, think again. The reason for the 9/11 attack in 2001 is that the Stock Exchange is controlled by the Templars and was targeted by the Assassins. You think that it is to stop American Imperialism, but it goes deeper than that. In truth, the Constitution Party we had back then was controlled by the Templars to establish a Christo-fascist regime on US soil."

"Jesus." Joshua is trying to take it all in.

"You think that is bad, wait until you hear about China. In China, there are two secret societies. One is the Blue Shirt Society that is actually controlling the Republic of China based in Taiwan and now have a great deal of power. The Neo-Ming Kingdom, on the other hand, are under the control of the Yellow Sand Society. All the secret societies want to completely remove democracy and remove individual freedoms to establish their own form of dominance. That is why Punkers like us exist. That is why The Collapse happen. Weaken the big wigs and give guys like us a chance to save people from them."

"So the reason why my father died-"

"Is because your father's competition is a puppet for the Illuminati or Bildeburg Group."

Joshua tightens his fists. "So that's it." he processed what is going on, "They're trying to rebuild their power here in the UCA."

"And you can bet they have a lot of people backing them up. Whatever big corporation you name, they're with them. Apple, Musk, Amazon. But those are just the corpos here in the UCA. If you are familiar with the Trilateral Commission, that is just one branch of the Illuminati. The secret societies are using the United Nations as a front for their one world government and NATO is their military."

"Once I get out of here," he speaks with subtle hostility to his voice, "and get the upgrades I need, I'm gonna tear them down and burn all they care about to ashes."

Doc clap his hands, "That's the spirit!" he joyfully says, "Welcome to the fight!"

"Yeah. But I am gonna pay you for further mods. Biopunk mods, magic punk mods, and all sorts of mods I will need to take them down!"

"Whoa!" doc's attitude changed from happy to worry, "Did Sanguina warned you about modpsychosis after that video she sent you? Modpsychosis is nothing you can just scoff at! The more mods you put into your body, the greater chance you will become a psychotic killing machine with only two weeks to live and then turn into a protein goop."

"I can handle it." Joshua speaks with confidence. Or perhaps, overconfidence.

Doc groans before complaining, "Does anyone ever watch Cyberpunk: Edgerunners!? Fucking seriously! That show did warn about cyberpsychosis and should use it as a warning to modpsychosis." Doc then tries to calm down and think it through. "Okay, just four types. You already have one in your system, so three more and that is it."

"Fair enough." Joshua agrees as he lays his head down.

Doc changes the subject, "Anyway, what will be your Punker name?"

"DJ." he replies.

"DJ? Kinda basic."

"It can have a lot of meanings. David Joshua, David Junior. You're pick."

"Ah. Having your father's name, eh? Alright, from now on, you will be, DJ."

Joshua does a faint smirk as he embraces his new name and his new life.


3 Weeks of Recovery Later...

Joshua then went through some bio-sculpting to have his hair turn into a permanent green right down to the roots. However, his mohawk is made out of large bullets that look like 50 caliber but bigger that goes from his hairline in the front all the way to the back. He is wearing purple-colored ski goggles yet are given ear pieces that make them look like large sunglasses. He wears a sleeveless, brown leather jacket with the back having an American flag on it with a sad yellow face where the stars should be with stylized words under the flag in red, white and blue scratch fonts that says, 'FUCK THE SYSTEM'. He wears a light green t-shirt underneath with a sideways skull with a robotic mohawk that is a darker green and realistic. He wears fingerless black gloves on his hands with metal studs on the knuckles with spike wristbands. For pants, he wears a dark blue denim jeans with some tears on it yet have lighter blue patches on it as he wears black, steel-toed boots with buckles instead of laces. From here on, Joshua is now gone. DJ is now a new Punker on the block.

Doc asks, "Ready for your training?"


DJ is in a white room with blue lights that form a grid from top to bottom, wall to wall. He cracks his knuckles and gets ready for the tests. Doc and Sanguina are behind a window with a protective glass that does have a few small cracks on them.

"Like the new look." Sanguina says to doc.

"You already said that after going through his bio-sculpting." Doc says in annoyance.

Sanguina smiles a little, "What? That is the most punk thing I have ever seen in my life. More than I can say for some of the other Punkers that won't go overboard."

"Speak for yourself." Doc then press the speaker button.

{Okay, DJ! This is the last test!}

DJ does some leg stretches, "Bring it on!" he sounds enthusiastic.

{You got it! First, you gotta take away all the guns the bad guys have while using your sandevistan. Then, use those weapons against them. Ready... GO!}

Holograms of soldiers wearing digital, pine forest camo while wearing masks with nods on them. Fifteen appear while armed with M41 rifles and are ready to fire. The fire a few rounds but everything stop with the bullets halfway towards DJ. DJ runs up to the soldiers and takes their guns one by one. Then he use one to fire the enemy bullets to deflect them before shooting at the soldiers' nuts and then their heads. For what seem like two minutes for DJ actually stopped in real time. The holograms of the soldiers disappear in that spam of time.

Doc looks at the screens on the control consoles and see the results. Sanguina looks over his shoulder and see that he completed the test in 0.0005 seconds.

{Alright. Let's see how you handle someone with a fully upgraded sandevistan. But this time, it will be harder.}

Doc press the button and a hologram of Smasher Adam from Cyberpunk 2077 appears and uses his sandevistan. DJ uses his, too. However, Smasher Adam is moving a lot slower when DJ activated his cyberware. He moves circles around the Adam Smasher hologram and fires all the rifles he took right in the cyborg's face. Due to the cyberware Adam Smasher is packing, it is very difficult to take him down. He stops using his sandevistan as Adam took a huge barrage of bullets to his head. It did some damage but not a lot. Adam then uses his retractable arm cannon and fire at DJ. DJ uses his sandevistan again to avoid getting hit. He runs around and finds eight EMP grenades. DJ snatches them up, take out the pins, and toss them all at Adam Smasher.

He stops using his sandevistan and the grenades explode. Weakening Adam and forcing him to kneel. Adam tries to use his Mk. 31 Militech HMG, but realizes it is gone. DJ has it and fires all the bullets the weapon has. All of them are aimed at Adam's head and managed to get through the chrome dome. DJ uses his sandevistan again to get close to Adam Smasher and star beating him up with the weapon until Adam's head is split in two. Once finished, the holograms disappear.

"Damn!" Sanguina is surprised, "Talk about ruthless."

"Considering he is on a path of vengeance, it is not that surprising."

"How many times has he used the sandevistan without any side-effects?"

"Including today's training: 19. Usually, people collapse after ten."

"That's almost doubled."

Doc uses the intercom, {Okay, that should be it for the day. Time for lunch.}

As DJ heads over to the other two, his legs start to feel a little wobbly to the point where he collapse.

{Hang on, I'll get your meds.}


Three Days Later...

It is the middle of the night in Los Angeles as DJ is on his first assignment with Sanguina as she drives the black van. DJ is holding a small cage with an orange tabby kitten. DJ sticks his fingers in the cage as the kitten rubs itself on his fingers. The kitten purs while doing so before DJ scratches its chin.

Sanguina glances at the cute moment and smiles, "Don't get too attached. That little kitten is part of the deal."

DJ stops and looks at Sanguina, "How come no one want to deal with Bug Punkers?"

Sanguina shrugs as she pulls into an alleyway, "I don't know. No one ever told me." She stops the van, "But they do have some of the supplies our community need that other Punkers don't have."

"Like what?"

"You'll see one day."

Sanguina uses her nightvision to make sure there isn't any CCTV cameras, passing by civilians, or people that are watching them. They wait for three minutes until another van comes into the alleyway backwards. The van is actually an exterminator truck with a large cockroach model on the top. It stops and turned off its engine before the driver and passenger come out. The driver has a head of a cockroach while wearing a dark tank top that shows some of the brown exoskeleton while also wearing shorts and flip-flops. The passenger is more of a humanoid grasshopper with a human-like face yet has mandibles and eyes of a grasshopper with his entire exoskeleton being green in color and not wearing any clothes.

"That's them."

Sanguina and DJ exit out of the van with the kitten in tow. The kitten hisses at the Bug Punkers as it tries to make itself look big. The little guy senses something off with them and doesn't like it.

"You're a little late." Sanguina says.

"I do apologize." the grasshopper man speaks in a sophisticated and gentlemanly like manner yet has a subtle cold tone in his voice. "We had a bit of a problem with a few police officers that keep on stopping us. You know how it is." He looks at the kitten, "Ah. You got the goods."

His voice is a bit unsettling as DJ gulps while having a bad feeling himself.

"Do you?"

"Of course."

The driver opens the doors to reveal neatly stacked cardboard boxes. Sanguina is given one of the heavy boxes by the driver along with a small knife to undo the tape. She cuts it open and peeks inside to make sure everything is there.

"This box checks out, but what about the others?"

"Being thorough, eh? the grasshopper man sounds amused. "Got some street wise on you. You may check all the boxes if you like since we Bug Punkers aren't seen as trustworthy folk."

Sanguina checks every box and loads them into the van. While doing so, the grasshopper man continues to look at the kitten and is salivating. DJ is getting creeped out by the Bug Punker as the kitten tries to claw and bite out of the cage in order to attack the man.

"Okay, everything checks out." Sanguina finishes. "Give the Bug Punker the kitten."

"Sure?" DJ is a bit unsure about it but does it anyway.

The grasshopper man takes the cage as the kitten furiously tries to attack him. What happens next is that the Bug Punker grabs the kitten out of the cage and starts gobbling it down as the kitten screams out one last meow before being swallowed. Both Sanguina and DJ are terrified for what they just saw.

"Mmm..." the grasshopper man is satisfied, "Quite delicious. Our deal is done."

Sanguina and DJ are in a state of shock as they just get back in the van.

Sanguina says while still in shock, "Now I see why people don't want to deal with Bug Punkers."

"But do you want to know the irony is?" DJ says.

"What?"

"I was gonna name the little guy, Cheeto."

Sanguina then slams her head on the steering wheel.


Not long after in the afternoon of the next day, Sanguina and DJ are in the back patio of the house as they sit on the lounge chairs with drinks on the patio table with the umbrella open. DJ is enjoying a can of soda while Sanguina is enjoying a cup of blood with ice cubes in it.

"So what is with the deal with Lupis?" DJ asks, "He didn't seem to like me when I showed up."

"Ah. You see, Lupis doesn't like anyone that was involved with politics or anyone related to the ticks." Sanguina takes a few sips before continuing. "Lupis and his old gang were part of a PMC group that did a lot of dirty work for them back when he was in the Rust Belt Commonwealth in Detroit."

"What happened?"

"He doesn't like to talk about it, but I'll tell ya. Just don't tell him what I said or mention it ever again, mon. They were doing some anti-mob jobs that involve killing any remnant of the old mob families still there. When some of his unit questioned some of the order about killing kids of those families, they were never seen again. The mayor of Detroit at the time had a tight grip of the PMC he worked at. The mayor wanted to seize control of all finances the mobs had in order to pay for various projects. But when Lupis and his unit got suspicious about why it was taking so long to complete some of the projects. Turns out that greedy tick wanted all that money for himself and had to get rid of any remaining obstacles in his way. Lupis and his gang found out and tried to flee, but they didn't make it. Except for him, obviously."

"What happened to them?"

"He...never talked about it. Not before long, he became a Punker and likes to be the wolfman he is. The reason why is because his unit was called, Bloodmoon Wolves. And that is that." Sanguina gives DJ a serious look, "So don't mention this shit again when Lupis is around. He still isn't over what had come over him."

"Got it." DJ drinks his soda. He then asks, "What about Cydina and Holo? I did get some idea about what they went through, but that was all I got."

"Did you ask?"

"...No, now that I think about it."

Sanguina chuckles a little, "You should really ask more." Sanguina takes a few more before talking. "Holo and Cydina are siblings that were also children of would-be-politicians. All the way back in New York City. Their father was gonna become a senator, but got skilled by an armed robbery gone wrong."

"That is the official story, but now the truth."

"Now you're getting it, mon. In truth, their parents were assassinated and their place looked like it was ransacked before completely removing everything they had. Just like what happened in your home."

DJ almost crush his soda can.

"When I was visiting New York City, I can across them along with Lupis and Kaede and took them in. Lupis was against it of course. You know, being children of ticks and all."

"But what about Kaede? What's her story?"

"Don't know." Sanguina leans back. "She never told us anything about her past when Lupis and I met her. Kaede just stayed quiet about it whenever the subject was brought up. So, we just dropped it and moved on. But if you really want to know, you should ask her yourself when the time is right." She gets off her chair, "Right now, it's time for your training montage."

"A training montage?"

"You know. 80's movie stuff about super tough guys getting stronger when they are training. For tonight, you and that Soulpunker are gonna work on your cardio before the next job."


At night, outside of Clairmont, Kaede is wearing a red track suit with cherry-blossom (sakura) petals on it with a huge mass of them on her right hip.

DJ shows up, "I'm here."

"Good." Kaede than takes a sprinter's position, "Get ready because I am not gonna go easy on you, so take your position. And no sandevistan."

"Oh, uh, right." DJ takes position next to her.

"Ready! ...GO!"

The two of them start running.