Chapter 4 The Lightless Lesson
1980 Words
My world was torn in two.
In one reality, this mysterious old man named "Old Doc" had just saved my life, his piercing eyes scrutinizing me. He was my only sanctuary in this steel hell.
In the other reality, the cold system in my mind issued a new death sentence in the cruelest of fonts.
[Assassination Directive Updated]
[Target: Sinking District Cyberdoc, "Old Doc."]
My blood seemed to freeze. Fear—an absurd chill capable of freezing the soul—exploded from the base of my spine.
The system wanted me to kill the man who saved me.
I looked at Old Doc’s wrinkled face as he focused on adjusting his grip on the tweezers. My "Data Vision" still couldn't parse him; he was like a ghost existing outside the code. Yet, that damned system was able to identify him as a target.
Was anyone who tried to help me marked as a threat to be "purged"?
"Give me your arm." Old Doc’s raspy voice interrupted my thoughts.
I stiffly extended my injured arm. The black corruption, like an ugly tattoo, had spread to the middle of my forearm, sending faint pulses of electric numbness through me.
Old Doc gripped my wrist with one hand and used the tweezers to probe precisely into the depths of my wound with the other. I gritted my teeth, but only a sensation of coldness followed.
"Don't move," he whispered.
He extracted a metallic shard shimmering with a dark red light from the wound, smaller than a grain of rice. The moment it left my body, the numbness immediately subsided.
"Security bot shrapnel," he said, dropping the fragment into a metal tray with a sharp *clink*. "Coated with tracking nanoparticles and a data virus. Fatal to a normal person, but for you... it seems it only makes your 'errors' more obvious."
He picked up a tube of ointment and applied it to my wound. A searing sting followed, as if fire were scorching my flesh. I sucked in a sharp breath.
"Suck it up," he said without looking up. "This will neutralize the virus and stop your data from 'corrupting' further. For now."I stared at him, two voices warring frantically in my head. One screamed at me to bash in the back of his skull; the other pleaded, begging me to cling to this lifeline.
In the end, the instinct for survival overrode everything else. I needed him. I needed him to teach me how to survive, and how to kill Brute. As for killing Old Doc... I could only bury that insane directive deep down for now.
Over the next two days, I became a silent shadow in Old Doc’s clinic.
I cleaned the shipping container he’d converted into a workspace, wiped down surgical tools with chemical reagents, and sorted cybernetic parts into categories. Like an apprentice, I watched him repair the crude cybernetics of the Sinking District’s scavengers and gang members.
It was a lesson taught in the dark. Old Doc never went out of his way to teach me, but I soaked up every word he said like a sponge.
"The air in the Sinking District is layered," he told me while repairing a pulmonary filter. "Between five and seven in the morning, the acid mist is at its thickest. Stay indoors, or die outside."
"Don't touch any glowing puddles," he said, tossing a scrapped power core into a bin. "That’s leaked battery fluid. High radiation. It’ll fry your flesh and electronic components alike. You won't find this marked on Athena’s maps; this is knowledge bought with lives."
He taught me how to salvage useful parts from heaps of scrap metal and how to identify weaknesses in cybernetic joints by the sounds they made. He told me that here, information is currency, and violence is the least efficient tool.
"Those high-end bars in Midtown, like 'The Lost,' where you used to hang out," he remarked casually one time, "are prime spots for the Olympus Group to buy informants. Those bastards think a few credits can buy anything in the slums, never realizing the intel they’re getting has already been flipped several times on the black market."
His words struck like a bolt of lightning, jolting my memory. I remembered a regular at The Lost who sat in the corner every Tuesday at midnight, uploading encrypted data. Turns out, he was an Olympus Group informant.
The following afternoon, Old Doc tossed me a bag of rusted parts and a credit chip.
"Go to the black market," he said, jerking his chin toward the gray world outside. "Get rid of this junk and bring back the items on this list. And don't let them see it's your first time."
This was my first mission.The black market in the Sinking District was an even more chaotic and dangerous junkyard. Scavengers spread their salvaged "treasures" across tarps—everything from robotic arms to canned food of unknown origin. Everyone sized each other up with wary, greedy eyes.
Here, my "Data Vision" unexpectedly came back online. I could clearly see data tags flickering over every aug.
[Model: 'Butcher' Type III Power Arm (Modified)]
[Status: Left shoulder joint hydraulic leak (Minor)]
[Weakness: External power cable at the elbow]
Information flooded into my brain like a tide. I suddenly understood Old Doc’s intention. This was my classroom, and my testing ground.
I walked up to a stall. The vendor was a tall, thin man with a cybernetic metal arm. His eyes flickered with greed when he saw the parts in my bag.
"These?" he said, weighing them dismissively. "Junk. Since you're new, fifty credits. Not a credit more."
Two days ago, I might have believed him. But now, in my field of vision, a line of small text hovered next to several circuit boards on his stall: [Source: Municipal Recycling Station (Scrapped)]. Meanwhile, a red warning tag flickered on his own cybernetic arm: [Wrist rotation motor overloaded, performance degraded by 40%].
Channeling Old Doc, I looked at him coldly. "The coils on these servo motors are intact, and the data interfaces are military-grade. One hundred and fifty credits. Any less and I’m going to the next stall."
The tall man froze, seemingly surprised that a girl who looked so green could be so savvy. He sized me up for a few seconds before giving a reluctant grunt. "One hundred and twenty."
"Deal," I said curtly.
The trade went smoothly. Using the money from the scrap, I bought every part on the list with precision, even driving the prices down further by pointing out flaws in the merch. As I prepared to leave with my purchases, a small seed of confidence began to sprout within me. I was learning the rules of this world, and... I was starting to exploit them.
Yet, danger always strikes when you let your guard down.
Just as I turned into an alley on my way back to the clinic, a figure stepped out from behind a pile of trash. It was the tall, thin man, and he had two thugs trailing behind him."Little lady, it’s dangerous to be walking alone at night." He flexed his metal arm, the joints emitting a series of mechanical clicks. A predatory sneer spread across his face. "Hand over that bag and your credits, and maybe we'll let you off easy."
A mugging. The most primitive, direct form of violence.
I instinctively took a step back, finding both ends of the alley blocked. I stared at his cold, gleaming cybernetic arm, and Old Doc’s words—along with the data I had just seen—flashed through my mind.
[Weakness: External power cable at the elbow]
[Wrist rotation motor overloaded; performance decreased by 40%]
Adrenaline surged through my body like fire. The fear was still there, but this time, instead of paralyzing me, it made my senses sharper than they had ever been.
For the first time, I wasn't acting to run away, but to fight back. I actively triggered my "Data Vision."
The lanky man roared and charged at me, his metal arm whistling through the air as it swung toward my head. The moment his movement trajectory was clearly highlighted, I stepped forward, my body twisting at an impossible angle to dodge the blow. In the same motion, I swung the bag of parts like a weapon, slamming it hard against the elbow of his cybernetic arm!
*Bang!*
The heavy metal struck the fragile power cable.
*Zzap!*
A shower of sparks erupted, and the man’s metal arm went limp instantly. He let out a cry of agony, his face twisted in utter disbelief.
I didn't give him a moment to react. While he was still frozen in shock, I drove my foot into the knee of his supporting leg.
*Thud!*
He collapsed like a felled log, falling straight to his knees before me. The other two thugs stood frozen, stunned by the sudden reversal.
I stood there, my heart pounding against my ribs, my chest heaving. I looked at the man kneeling on the ground, at his smoking, wrecked arm, and then at my own unscathed hands.
I did it.
Using the knowledge Old Doc had taught me combined with my own unique ability, I had taken the initiative for the first time and cleanly subdued an enemy. A complex surge of emotion—a mix of fear, excitement, and a strange sense of power—welled up inside me. The feeling... it was both terrifying and intoxicating.The two thugs finally snapped out of it, hauled up their still-wailing companion, and scrambled away in a panic.
I leaned against the cold wall, gasping for breath.
When I returned to the clinic, Old Doc was sitting at the table, wiping a metal cane. He didn't even look up at me, but just asked flatly, "Did you get everything?"
"Yeah." I placed the parts on the table.
He glanced at them and nodded. "Ten minutes faster than I expected. Seems you’ve learned well."
He stood up, pulled a long black coat out of a metal crate in the corner, and tossed it to me.
"This is for you."
I caught it, puzzled. The fabric of the coat was strange; it felt cold and metallic.
"The 'Ghost Coat,'" Old Doc said, a hint of pride in his voice. "I made it. It can absorb and disrupt conventional electronic signals within a one-meter radius. Put it on, and as long as you don't actively use the network, Athena's eyes might as well be blind."
My heart skipped a beat. A piece of gear that could temporarily block Athena's surveillance!
"Why... give me this?" I asked in disbelief.
Old Doc finally looked up, his sharp eyes fixed on me. That gaze felt as if it could pierce right through me to see the crazed, dual assassination orders buried deep within.
"Because," he said slowly, "if you want to kill a cyborg of Brute's caliber, having just enough skill to take down a few thugs in an alley is far from enough."
My breath hitched.
He walked to the window, looking out at the eternally gray sky. "Brute is paranoid; he never stays in one place for long. But he has one habit that is set in stone."
He paused, then dropped a bombshell.
"Every week, he personally goes to the Seventh Avenue docks to receive a shipment of mysterious cargo from the Iron Fist Gang. He never lets anyone else handle it."
My gaze sharpened instantly. This was exactly the breakthrough I needed.
However, just as I was about to press for more details, that damn system in my head seemed to sense something and suddenly popped up a new notification.
It wasn't a mission, nor was it a warning.
Instead, it was a line of text flashing with an eerie red light.
【New Ability Unlocked: Code Injection (Basic)】
- Writer
