Chapter 3: The Ripperdoc's Question
POV: Tom
Dawn in Night City arrived with the promise of more questions than answers. Tom left Lizzie's Bar as the first delivery drones began their morning routes, navigating the cramped streets of Watson with an address scrawled on synthetic paper clutched in his chrome-traced fingers. Viktor Vector. The name carried weight in his transplanted memories—a ripperdoc who specialized in the impossible, someone who asked fewer questions than most when it came to unusual chrome configurations.
The weight of his changing body pressed against Tom's consciousness like a persistent headache. Three days since the Tyger Claw encounter, and the chrome had continued its inexorable spread. His arms now carried metallic tracery from fingertips to shoulders, the patterns shifting subtly as he moved. More disturbing was what he felt happening beneath his skin—systems activating, defensive protocols engaging, adaptations forming in response to remembered trauma.
"I need answers," Tom muttered to himself as he navigated the maze of Little China's back alleys. "Before I turn into something that doesn't remember needing them."
Viktor's clinic occupied the basement of a building that had seen better decades. The entrance was marked only by a flickering neon cross and a security camera that tracked Tom's approach with mechanical precision. He descended concrete steps into a space that smelled of antiseptic, machine oil, and the particular ozone tang of active cyberware.
Viktor Vector emerged from behind a surgical partition like a ghost materializing from chrome and shadow. Tall, lean, with augmented eyes that missed nothing and hands that moved with the steady precision of someone who'd spent decades working inside human bodies. His clinic was a maze of medical equipment, ripperdoc tools, and modifications that could transform a baseline human into something unrecognizable.
"Judy sent you," Viktor said without preamble, gesturing toward an examination chair that looked like a cross between medical equipment and torture device. "Said you've got chrome that doesn't make sense. Let's see what we're dealing with."
Tom settled into the chair, trying to suppress the anxiety that made his adaptive systems hum with defensive readiness. "I need to understand what's happening to me. The chrome... it's changing."
"Chrome doesn't change," Viktor replied, powering up diagnostic equipment that cast blue light across the clinical space. "Chrome gets installed, maybe upgraded, eventually replaced. It doesn't evolve." He paused, optical implants focusing on Tom's arms. "But that's what Judy said you've got. Evolving chrome."
The first scan bathed Tom's body in invisible energy that made his cyberware sing with harmonic resonance. Viktor's expression shifted from professional interest to growing confusion as readouts cascaded across multiple screens.
"What the hell..."
Tom watched Viktor's face as the ripperdoc processed impossible data. Power consumption readings that fluctuated beyond any known parameters. Neural integration patterns that shouldn't exist. Chrome signatures that defied every classification system in Viktor's extensive database.
"Who installed this?" Viktor asked, his voice carrying the particular tension of someone discovering their understanding of reality was incomplete. "These patterns... I've never seen anything like them. The integration is perfect, but that's impossible. Nobody's skill is that good."
"I don't remember," Tom said, the lie feeling like ash in his mouth. "I woke up with it."
Viktor's augmented eyes fixed on Tom with uncomfortable intensity. "Kid, I've been cutting chrome for forty years. Seen every modification, every experimental technique, every corpo black project that leaked onto the street. This isn't anything human technology should be capable of."
As if responding to Viktor's skepticism, Tom's nervous system sent a pulse of energy through his augmentations. The chrome beneath his skin glowed softly, patterns shifting like living circuitry. Viktor's equipment registered the energy spike with alarm tones that echoed through the clinic.
"Jesus," Viktor breathed. "It's responding to stress. Adaptive defensive activation." He leaned closer, professional fascination overriding caution. "This is Phase Two at minimum. Maybe Phase Three adaptive integration. That's theoretical technology. Doesn't exist outside corpo labs."
During the examination's third hour, Viktor reached for a tool to adjust the diagnostic array. The scalpel-sharp edge caught Tom's palm as he shifted position, opening a cut that immediately began bleeding real, human blood onto the chrome beneath.
Then the impossible happened.
Tom and Viktor watched in silence as the wound began to close. Not healing—sealing. Chrome flowed like liquid metal across the cut, creating protective plating that hardened into permanent armor. The adaptation took less than three minutes, leaving unmarked skin backed by metallic reinforcement.
Viktor's professional mask cracked completely. "That's not possible. Chrome doesn't adapt like that. Cyberware doesn't learn from damage and build defenses. You're..." He trailed off, staring at Tom with something approaching awe. "Christ, kid, you're something new."
"Something new." The words echoed in Tom's mind like judgment and prophecy combined. Not something human becoming chrome-enhanced. Something else entirely.
"What am I becoming?" Tom asked, though part of him dreaded the answer.
Viktor set down his tools and leaned against his workbench, suddenly looking every one of his augmented years. "I don't know. In forty years of ripperdoc work, I've seen cyberpsychos who lost themselves in chrome, corpo experiments that went wrong, black market mods that killed their users. But I've never seen anyone whose chrome was designed to evolve."
The word 'designed' hung between them like a revelation. Tom's chrome wasn't an accident or a side effect. It was purposeful. Engineered. Which raised the terrifying question of who had engineered it and why.
"Here's what I do know," Viktor continued, his voice taking on the tone of someone delivering a terminal diagnosis. "Corpos would kill to study you. Any of the big names—Arasaka, Militech, Biotechnica—they'd pay fortunes to get their hands on adaptive chrome technology. MaxTac would classify you as a potential cyberpsycho threat and move to neutralize before you could become a problem."
Tom's chrome responded to his spike of fear with defensive activation, plates hardening beneath his skin. "What am I supposed to do? Can't exactly pretend to be normal when my body's turning into experimental technology."
"You keep your head down, stay out of corpo sight, and pray nobody with resources takes interest in you." Viktor moved to a secure cabinet and withdrew a compact communication device. "This is a burner phone. Things go sideways—and I mean really sideways—you call me. I'll do what I can."
"Why?" Tom asked. "Why help me? You don't even know what I am."
Viktor was quiet for a moment, optical implants dimming as he accessed memories. "Had a friend once. Jackie Welles. Good kid, big dreams, chrome that was killing him slow. I tried to help him, but in the end..." He shook his head. "Maybe I can't save everyone who walks through that door. But I can try to keep them human long enough to figure out who they want to be."
The examination revealed more disturbing details. Tom's chrome integration had reached approximately thirty percent of his body mass, but rather than following typical cyberware patterns, it was creating entirely new hybrid systems. Neural pathways that bridged organic and synthetic consciousness. Defensive arrays that could adapt to virtually any threat. Processing power that was beginning to exceed baseline human cognitive capacity.
"The scary thing," Viktor said as he powered down the diagnostic equipment, "is how stable you are. Most people at thirty percent chrome integration are showing psychological stress markers. You're processing the changes like they're natural. Either you've got the strongest psyche I've ever examined, or..."
"Or what?"
"Or your consciousness isn't entirely human to begin with." Viktor met Tom's eyes directly. "Which would explain how you're integrating impossible technology without losing your mind."
The possibility hit Tom like ice water through his veins. What if his transmigration hadn't just transported his consciousness to a different body? What if it had changed his fundamental nature, made him something that could survive the impossible chrome integration?
"I need you to monitor this," Tom said finally. "Weekly checkups. Track the progression. If I start showing signs of cyberpsychosis..."
"I'll put you down myself," Viktor finished matter-of-factly. "Quick and clean. Better than letting you become a monster." He paused, then added with something approaching warmth, "But I don't think that's where this is headed, kid. You're scared of what you're becoming. Psychos don't worry about losing their humanity. The fact that you're fighting to keep it means you probably will."
Tom left Viktor's clinic with more questions than answers, but at least he had an ally who understood the technical aspects of his transformation. The chrome beneath his skin hummed with satisfied energy, as if the medical examination had somehow pleased his adaptive systems.
Walking through Little China's crowded streets, Tom caught his reflection in a shop window and barely recognized himself. The chrome patterns were more visible now, creating geometric designs that seemed almost artistic. His eyes held a slight metallic sheen, and his movements carried the fluid precision of someone whose reflexes had been enhanced beyond human limits.
Still human, he told himself. Still me. Just... different.
But as he headed back toward Lizzie's Bar and whatever passed for safety in Night City, Tom couldn't shake Viktor's final warning. Corpos were always watching for new technology to exploit. Sooner or later, someone with resources would notice him.
When that happened, Tom would have to choose between hiding and fighting. And given what his body was becoming, hiding might not be an option much longer.
The burner phone in his pocket felt like both lifeline and countdown timer, marking time until his impossible existence drew the wrong kind of attention.
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