Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System

Chapter 625 625: 90% Alloy.

The minutes ticked by, but the world remained still, as if time had stopped. The city noise seeping through the walls lost its presence, leaving only an eerie silence to envelop the place.

Sitting behind his desk, his eyes closed, Dante turned his focus inward. His training session with Oliver and Riot had already ended for the day, so he was back to practicing alone. He forwent the typical meditation positions, and because of that, anyone looking would think he was just taking a nap after a long day of work.

Unlike his training sessions, Dante felt a lot less strained. One could even say he looked relaxed. As his attempts at sensing his soul kept failing, he realized that getting frustrated about it was pointless, and so he was able to tackle the matter with a much calmer approach. Unfortunately, a change in mentality didn't make that much of a difference.

Cut off from all his senses, he floated in an endless dark space. Subconsciously, he recognized it to be his mind. The emptiness around him reflected his focused state. Not a single thought approached him, making the search for his path just a little bit easier.

Time lost all meaning in the dark space, but Dante wasn't in a rush. Well, he was indeed in a rush, but he tried not to let it affect him.

'What a waste of time…'

Despite his attempts, some thoughts still voiced themselves. Cutting them off, he went back to his attempts at understanding the dark space.

'Don't you have a hero to kill?'

'He was injured the last time you met.'

'What a waste.'

'You won't get a chance like that again.'

Before long, the simple act of severing his thoughts became a distraction, and that added to the frustration brought upon by the lack of progression. Opening his eyes, Dante heaved a sigh.

'What a pain…'

Sitting in the silence, he let his thoughts wander for a couple of minutes, then gave a command. A blood red mask manifested around his head, the horn at its front like knives pointing at the sky. A blue glow lit the dark depths of its eyes, and a second later, the office became empty, the only person sitting in it now gone.

~[ ]~

Suzuka stared at her reflection in the clear glass. Seconds before, her focus had been on the mechanical arms moving under it. The sharp needles at their ends reached for a small, bluish crystal, but the tips seemed to halt only a short distance away from the surface.

The human eye was incapable of discerning the thin rays of light piercing the crystal's glass-like surface, nor could it see the complex patterns engraved into its depths. Closing her eyes, Suzuka heaved a sigh. A crack silently spread through the crystal just then, and a moment later, it shattered into a thousand pieces.

"Another failure?"

The question caused her eyebrows to jump up, and another sigh escaped her.

"I should never have allowed you to clone my lab."

Turning around, Suzuka found herself face-to-face with a red-haired youth.

"Pretty sure you don't want the BEO to know about this place." He said.

"The BEO, huh? Thanks to you, they already have their eyes on me." Grabbing the mug sitting on a nearby workbench, she walked past the youth, heading for the coffee machine in the corner. "So, are you finally done feeling sorry for yourself?"

"You sure don't know how to hold your punches, do you?" Dante said. "I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me."

"You haven't stopped by the Bowl of Fortune, though."

"Don't push it."

She heard his slow footsteps and knew the direction he walked in. Despite the urge to turn around, she went about filling her cup, dropping a few blocks of sugar into the dark brew. Finally looking back, she found him leaning over the capsule in the corner. Inside, a beautiful, green-haired young girl lay dormant, her pure body exposed under the glass.

"She sure looks human. If I didn't have my senses, I would never have guessed she was a clanker."

"Says the guy with a 90% alloy body." Said Suzuka. "Do you mind not ogling her?"

"What about the other one?"

"Are you that tired of living?"

She gave a mental command, and the glass of both pods lost its transparency. Though it might be nothing more than an android, it was still an exact copy of her body. She wouldn't want a man to see it, no matter who they are.

"Alright," She said. "Let's get this over with."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it already."

Walking over to a different corner, Dante climbed inside one of the machines. Threads of light manifested from his chest, quickly encasing his body. Suzuka studied the patterns they wove with her eyes, hoping to glean an insight into their inner workings. Unfortunately, just like the records she had captured before, sight alone provided her with very little.

The dark blue armor manifested from the threads was the same one Suzuka had worked on the last time. She had to expand the scanner to fit it inside, and as the rings detached from the base and floated up, she found herself worrying that it might not have been enough.

[It has been… what? Fifty hours?] Dante asked. [Are you still not done with this one?]

"Well, it can be a lot easier if I could take it apart." She replied.

[I already told you, it's not meant to be opened.]

The alloy shell encasing the armor blocked almost all attempts to scan its interior, and the only path forward was a slow one. It didn't help that the complexity of the armor's internals made most human-created machines look like they still ran on coal and steam. Even as she got closer to creating a virtual replica of the armor, Suzuka was still far from understanding it completely.

Silence returned to the underground lab as the scan progressed. Suzuka directed her focus to her attempts at uncovering the secrets of the armor when Dante's voice came from it once more.

[So, when are we heading to the Federation?]