"I say, are young people nowadays all so open-minded?" Viktor, sitting in his chair, saw V and Berry in this state and turned down the volume of the boxing channel. "They don't even care that I, an outsider, am present."
Viktor's voice made Berry feel as if she had suddenly been reminded of how embarrassing her current posture was, so she quickly pushed V away and turned her head.
"Sorry, Berry, I swear I'll never bring up installing cyberware again." V clearly hadn't expected Berry to take the cyberware matter so seriously. Now, she deeply regretted making a joke of it and quickly apologized, hoping to gain Berry's forgiveness.
"Who cares about you? You decide your own business!" Berry reached out and blocked V, who was trying to hug her again.
Berry was clearly angry; even a fool could see it. V scratched the bridge of her nose, momentarily caught between a rock and a hard place due to the trouble she had caused.
"Not installing new cyberware, but disinfecting and updating old cyberware won't do much harm to the body, right? You agree, don't you, Berry?"
Finally, it was Viktor who stepped in to mediate for the two sulking individuals.
"Is that okay, Berry?" V looked at Berry with an inquiring gaze.
"Go, go, you'd best ask Viktor to clear out all the dirty thoughts in your brain too." Berry ultimately let V off the hook.
Berry then remembered that V still had a virus in her brain. While they could joke around, they couldn't delay important matters. V was already strange enough; she didn't want V to become even stranger because of the brain virus.
"Alright then, V, sit in the chair. Don't be nervous, relax." Viktor pushed off the floor with his feet, drifting over to the operating chair adorned with mechanical arms and spotlights.
V lay on the chair like she was at the dentist, with bright spotlights shining on her face. Since her eyeballs had long been replaced with cybernetic eyes, an upgrade now wouldn't violate her agreement with Berry.
"I'll give you some good stuff, Kiroshi Optics." Doctor Viktor put on an auxiliary mechanical arm, injected a sedative into his own arm, and began to prepare.
"Wait, Viktor," Berry called out to Viktor.
"Use my stored goods for V, the best ones." Berry looked at V with a complicated expression, then turned her head, not wanting to speak.
"That's not for new..." Viktor didn't finish his sentence before realizing he had overstepped. "Alright, V, it seems today you have a big boss, Berry, paying for you."
"What do you mean?" V, lying on the chair, asked in confusion, but Viktor had already gotten up to rummage for something in the warehouse, and Berry stood by, clearly not wanting to talk. V's confusion went unanswered.
"This is it." Viktor came over carrying a long aluminum can emitting cold air. "This is hard-to-find stuff in the city, only I have it."
"What is this?" V looked at Viktor's mysterious demeanor, feeling puzzled. What could it be that made Viktor so secretive?
"Still from Kiroshi Corporation." Twisting open the can, Viktor's auxiliary mechanical hand clamped an eyeball with artificial neural links. "But it's the top-tier, Kiroshi Optics Mark 3, specially prepared for picky customers."
"Lie still, don't move." V still wanted to ask why he was taking out such expensive items, but Viktor had already given her an anesthetic injection, and V's eyes immediately became hazy.
Berry turned her head away, unable to bear watching. For her, watching such a gruesome scene would prevent her from properly appreciating V's beauty ever again.
"Hmm, these can integrate with Kiroshi technology." Viktor operated on a nearby smart terminal for a bit, then stood up and used the auxiliary mechanical hand to remove V's fake cybernetic eye, replacing it with the new Kiroshi Optics.
"Let's witness a miracle. I'll connect you now." Under Viktor's guidance, V was booting up and debugging her cybernetic eyes.
"You might feel a bit uncomfortable at first. Blurred vision, difficulty distinguishing colors, frame skipping..."
After some time, V stepped down from the operating chair.
"Damn, I can see things so much clearer!"
V took a few steps, incredulous. Everything before her had become so clear, she could even discern the most subtle changes in Berry's facial expressions.
As for the virus in her brain, Viktor had also cleaned it out completely. Although Berry looked at V's "lecherous" gaze, which was due to not yet adapting to the new eye's focus, she felt that the virus had already taken root in V's brain and couldn't be removed.
"Viktor, I remember V, didn't she owe you a lot of money?"
"Yes, quite a bit. Small bumps and scrapes, saved her many times. All together, let me think, it's about twenty thousand and change."
"Then I'll pay it off for her." Berry pulled out her smartphone and transferred money to Viktor.
Viktor's eyes glowed yellow for a moment, clearly indicating the funds had arrived.
"Berry, where did you get the money?!"
Still reeling from the excitement of her new eyes, V was shocked by Berry's extravagant gesture.
Recalling that Berry had also funded the top-tier cybernetic eyes for her just now, V was even more puzzled. Where did Berry get so much money?
It wasn't that V looked down on people, but Berry spent money like water, blowing all her own money and V's money clean. Now, the debt she owed Viktor plus the cost of these high-grade cybernetic eyes amounted to at least twenty to thirty thousand eurodollars. For Berry to pull that out so easily, more effortlessly than pulling a bottle of Clumsy Monkey from her backpack, how could V not be shocked?
"Berry, haven't you told V about that matter yet?" Viktor also looked at V in confusion, wondering why Berry hadn't told V about such a big thing.
"Berry?!" Seeing Viktor's expression, V grew even more curious, her eyes fixed on Berry, full of inquiry.
"This blockhead doesn't need to know." Berry greatly enjoyed V's anxious look.
This time, she finally got her revenge. V, you like to be the dominant one, don't you? Why can't you put on that act now? Curious, aren't you? Puzzled? Well, I'm just not telling you.
From borrowing money from V to make ends meet, to casually pulling out twenty to thirty thousand eurodollars now, there's a story behind Berry's transformation.
It must be said that this was earned through Berry and Viktor's cooperation.
Viktor had channels for importing and exporting cyberware, while Berry had extraordinary manufacturing technology from her system. With Viktor providing blueprints and samples, Berry could replicate cyberware at a relatively low cost. In simple terms, she manufactured knock-offs.
Due to the need to keep costs down, the manufactured cyberware only had seventy to eighty percent of the original's efficacy, but the advantage was the low cost. Using some scrapped junk and electronic components, Berry could produce knock-off cyberware with seventy to eighty percent efficacy at three to four tenths of the cost. This huge profit margin made many customers very willing to buy, especially since these knock-offs, without the viruses carried by second-hand cyberware or various malfunctions, became hot commodities for customers on a tight budget.
Relying on this, Berry made a huge fortune.
And this was only part of it; another part of the money came from her creation, the combat chassis Arno.
Over the past two or three months, she hadn't let Arno idle. Relying on Arno's powerful combat capabilities, he completed many commissions from intermediaries and earned a considerable amount of money.
As a black-hearted capitalist, Berry naturally pocketed all of Arno's remuneration, not leaving a single cent.
And with a super high mission completion rate, the name "terminator" Arno also made a name for itself on the streets.
Everyone on the street knew that a "terminator" named Arno had appeared in Watson, cold-blooded, ruthless, and efficient. If there were difficult, big orders, intermediaries were happy to find him.
This, of course, was all part of Berry's plan.
She planned to use the Arno chassis to infiltrate the Mercenary circle and gather more intelligence on large corporations.
Because, although Berry's craftsmanship was excellent, she couldn't create things out of thin air, nor could she produce powerful gadgets without samples and design drawings.
She only had strong manufacturing capabilities; she couldn't just speak things into existence. She had to build everything line by line, component by component, which couldn't be accomplished through mere imagination.
Coincidentally, high-tech weapons, robots, and electronic components are all things major corporations possess.
Therefore, whenever a company commissioned a task that involved controlling Arno, Berry would eagerly accept and put her full effort into it, hoping to acquire some good items.
She was like the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout, desperately seeking unknown technological achievements.
Thanks to this accumulation, Berry was able to add many new technologies to her two new cyberware bodies.
Once they were officially activated, they would undoubtedly bring about a revolutionary change in Berry's combat power.
How did that saying go? A small skyscraper maintenance room can shake the entire Night City.