During this process, one key figure played an important role—Gloria Martinez.
Gloria was an Emergency Medical Technician at Night City Medical Center.
She was approximately thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, face bearing haggardness left by long-term overnight work. Dark circles under eyes remained difficult fully concealing even with makeup.
Her hands—from frequent washing and wearing medical gloves—appeared somewhat dry and pale.
Gloria stood about 165 centimeters tall, leaner build, yet displayed strength mismatched to actual body size when moving medical equipment and casualties.
She typically wore somewhat-faded blue medical scrubs, outside wearing a multi-functional vest stuffed full of first-aid supplies and personal items.
She single-handedly raised her middle-school son David.
To provide better living conditions for her son, she worked over twelve hours daily. Shift rotations made her schedules extremely irregular.
Gloria lived in a mid-to-low-tier apartment building in Heywood—relatively cheap rent but mediocre security conditions.
Her greatest wish was sending her son to Arasaka Academy, escaping quagmire-like bottom-level existence—requiring massive tuition fees.
To raise this money, Gloria utilized work conveniences engaging in a gray profession—body recovery.
Unlike those completely unprincipled Scavengers who'd even target living people for cyberware, Gloria's targets were limited to already-confirmed-deceased patients or corpses.
Before standard medical procedures or NCPD scene processing, she'd utilize skills and opportunities carefully removing still-intact, valuable cyberware from the deceased.
This work equally walked legal and moral edges, filled with risks.
She needed avoiding colleagues' and law enforcers' attention, facing bloody scenes, plus dealing with black market buyers.
But she had no choice. This "side income" was important sources supporting her son and raising tuition.
Maine's crew established contacts with her through past cooperation relationships.
Six months ago, Gloria—during a nighttime call—encountered thugs attempting robbery.
Maine's squad executing missions nearby intervened, helping her escape predicaments.
Afterward, they valued her ability stably obtaining "first-hand" cyberware channels, while she valued Maine's crew's fair pricing plus being relatively "rule-abiding"—not easily screwing over her goods.
As Maine crew's demands increased, Gloria also worked harder.
She risked greater dangers, utilizing information advantages at medical centers, following every incident or violent conflict possibly producing "high-value goods."
Like vultures, she'd rush to scenes immediately or obtain advance knowledge of corpse transfer routes through internal channels.
"Got another one—'Qiant Mk.4' Sandevistan. Though showing some burn marks, core units should be intact." During a secret handoff at city stronghold, Gloria handed Maine a sealed cooling case. Her tone carried exhaustion plus traces of transaction-completion relief. "Pulled off an unlucky Animals gang lieutenant. He caught a stray round in the neck during a shootout with Moxes at the docks."
Maine opened cases inspecting. Inside—neural drive devices soaked in bio-preservation fluids, structure precise. Even somewhat damaged, still exuded expensive technological creation auras.
He nodded, handing Gloria an envelope stuffed with non-sequential eddies: "Thanks, Gloria. Price per last discussion—ten percent markup. This stuff's in high demand lately."
Gloria quickly counted bills, carefully securing them. Face showing rare, genuine smiles: "Thanks, Maine! David's next semester tuition... scraped together another portion." She paused, supplementing: "I heard Charter Hill's been restless lately. Some NetWatch official got found at home. If you're interested in 'goods' from there, I can try looking."
"Contact anytime you've got leads. Same drill—encrypted channels." Maine didn't ask more, only emphasizing: "Safety first. If something feels off, stop immediately."
Gloria nodded, tucking envelopes into inner pockets, carefully zipping up.
She'd repeated this motion countless times. Every time receiving money, she'd immediately plan usage—how much depositing into tuition accounts, how much for this month's rent and utilities, how much keeping for David's supplementary tutoring fees.
She rarely bought new things for herself. That jacket she wore had been three years. Shoe soles also badly worn.
But every time seeing David's report cards, seeing her son grown taller, she felt everything was worthwhile.
On routes returning to medical centers, Gloria habitually checked her equipment.
She carried a small-caliber pistol hidden at medical bag bottoms—self-defense measures she'd reluctantly adopted after several dangerous experiences.
As an EMT, she understood life's fragility better than anyone. But as a mother, she must live strongly until watching David successfully complete his education.
——
Carrying newly-obtained cyberware, Maine's crew returned to wastelands.
They delivered these items—plus various weapon modules, cyberdeck plugins, enhanced tendons collected from other channels—together to Cairo's workshop entrances.
They typically only placed items in designated receiving areas, then silently departing—not daring easily disturbing that existence's contemplation and research deep within workshops.
They could sense Cairo acknowledged these "tributes."
Occasionally, Cairo transmitted brief directives through servo-skulls—like needing certain specific cyberware types or showing extra interest in certain delivered samples.
At those times, Maine's crew—like receiving imperial edicts—would fully search and satisfy requests.
This collection work wasn't without costs. They inevitably entangled in more street disputes and underground transactions.
Once, Pilar and Rebecca—when taking possession of "Gorilla Arms" flowing from black markets—were ambushed by another unidentified merc crew. Opponents obviously also eyed this enhanced cyberware.
Both sides erupted in intense firefights at an abandoned Badlands gas station. Ultimately relying on Rebecca's plasma pistol deterrence plus Falco's precise driving skills, they broke through carrying goods plus minor injuries.
This incident made Maine more vigilant.
"We're being watched." He summarized afterward. "Not just corps—other city factions too. They probably guessed we're mass-collecting high-performance cyberware. Either wanting pieces of action or figuring out our backgrounds."
Despite this, they didn't stop.
Desires for customized modifications plus awe toward Cairo's power drove them continuing risks.
Every time delivering precious cyberware into workshops, their hearts carried expectations—perhaps next time, the boss would deem accumulated "contributions" sufficient, summoning them, beginning long-promised transformative modifications.
Wasteland strongholds grew increasingly solid, gradually taking "home" outlines.
But they knew genuine security didn't stem from these thick walls and defense systems but from that silent figure deep within workshops plus the powerful technological forces transcending this era he represented.
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