Trace ground down the edges of his laser welds, leaving the surfaces smooth as he progressed from one weld to another. After that, he laid down the impact gel along the spinal column and each of the ribs. Carefully, he measured each one again before making any cuts and then gluing them into place.

  Each rib would be tightened in front by a twisting ratchet-style clamp. It wasn’t the best system, but it would work; at least he hoped it would.

  Before going to bed the night before, he had repainted the suit with the special color-changing paint. There were probably a few more areas that could be worked on even more, but as a whole, the suit was nearly completed.

  At this point, he just needed to install the back brace and the various armor plates everywhere. Then it would be fully mission-worthy. Without the armor plates, it was a glorified piece of clothing.

  Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he hastily pulled the impact gel from the spinal column before the glue could set and cleaned the metal off. He still had to weld the brace into place inside the suit, and he didn’t want to do that while the impact gel was attached to the metal.

  The actual metal inside the stealth suit was relatively minimal, as it wasn’t a rigid suit, or at least it hadn’t been. To make effective use of the brace, he had to add some material in the back and neck area in which to attach it. There were already some metal and hard surfaces, thanks to how the suit had been designed, which made it possible in the first place.

  It just hadn’t been a large part of its construction, and it still wasn’t, though it was now a larger amount, is all.

  He cleaned up each of the welds on the inside before even thinking about securing the brace. Only once everything on the inside was perfectly smooth and clean did he begin to meticulously align the brace.

  Trace focused on the task at hand, as he double-checked his measurements before securing anything permanently. Experience had taught him the hard way that mistakes in this line of work were often unforgiving.

  A few minutes passed as he welded the brace into place, and then the sounds of grinding metal filled the basement. The sound quickly became a constant backdrop to his thoughts. He envisioned the completed suit, a testament to his skills and determination. It would be a formidable tool, just as it had been before, one which would allow him to navigate the treacherous world he lived in.

  An hour later, after countless minor adjustments and re-welds, the final section was finished and in place. Exhaustion tugged at him, but a sense of accomplishment washed over him. He had done it.

  Trace had managed to repair his stealth suit and improve it at the same time. That hadn’t been the original goal, and the improvements weren’t much, but they were still there.

  The very last item he needed to do was carefully place the impact gel onto the exposed metal of the spine. Once that was done, it truly would be completed. After he took a nap, he would be able to take it for a ride.

  “Alright, I’m heading up to the apartment for a short nap, and to eat. I’ll be back down once I wake up to give this thing a test drive.” Trace said tiredly, waving to the screen Deckard’s avatar was currently occupying.

  “Hmm, I’ll see you back down here in a while. I’ve already got most of the items you should need for the last repairs of my body setup. A few can be printed on the second 3D printer, and the CNC machine, but the rest will need the DMSL. Everything else should have been part of what I ordered the other day.”

  Trace nodded tiredly, his exhausted mind not comprehending anything that had just been said. Healing took a lot out of the body, having the nanites didn’t change that. If anything, his little session earlier had made it worse. It didn’t matter how many regular stimulants or healing-stims you pumped into your body either; eventually, it simply reached its limits. There were, of course, special cases, but those were generally limited to extremely specialized stims and people with a ton of cyberware mods. The really borged out people who barely had anything left to exhaust during the healing process.

  ***

  It was getting a little late in the afternoon when Trace woke from his nap. He was feeling better, but still felt abnormally wrung out. Everything he did felt lethargic and overly stiff. He had really pushed himself earlier in order to finish the suit.

  He had only been confined to the chair for a few days, and he was already desperate to be mobile again. Without all the localized healing stims Ko had given him right after the surgery, he wouldn’t even have been able to move as much as he could. She had completely replaced part of his nerve, after all. Even he knew that it took time for those connections to reconnect and grow back together.

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  Being able to move his legs even a couple of days after the surgery would have been ridiculous otherwise. It had been specially made for the purpose of accelerating the healing of any surgery performed on nerves. Since doctors and menders were always needing to work on them when they did any sort of initial cyberware replacement or correct a prior problem.

  The corporations had poured a lot of money into creating something that would heal the initial connection. No one wanted to wait days or even months before they could use their new arm or set of eyes, after all. That was why they needed to keep going back to the mender for the next few months afterward. So, they could adjust the sensitivity of the nerve blocker as everything normalized.

  It worked great for cyberware, but not so much when everything remained fleshware. There was nothing there to monitor and adjust the inflamed nerves, and since this had been his spine, neither Ko nor Sevorah had felt comfortable putting a nerve blocker in place.

  That meant he had no choice but to grit his teeth, swallow stims like they were going out of style, and bear with it.

  Pulling himself onto his chair with a groan, he grabbed a sandwich and a couple bottles of water from the fridge. He was dying of thirst and quickly downed the entire first bottle.

  Trace went out to the lift and went down to the basement, eager to get inside the stealth suit. The first floor of the warehouse was COLD! Down in the basement, it was warmer by several degrees thanks to all the equipment down there. It was still chilly but not freezing at least.

  When he had first begun using the stealth suit, he had been forced to add a cooling unit to prevent the wireless energy receiver among other components from overheating during hard use. Now, that same heat would help keep him nice and warm.

  Carefully, Trace slipped the suit on, adjusted the braces around his ribcage, and connected the front clips to the circular ratchets. It certainly took longer than before to put on, but it was also more comfortable. The impact gel provided a subtle yet reassuring cushioning against his back and sides. With one last twist, he finished tightening the last brace in place and finished putting the suit on.

  Flexing his arms, he tested the range of motion, ensuring everything was as it should be. Then, being as careful as he possibly could be, he stood and began taking small steps and testing out his legs.

  It was perfect.

  The back brace was working out exactly the way he had hoped it would and was holding everything firmly in place.

  Without the impact gel, it would have been extremely uncomfortable due to how tight he had needed to cinch the ratchets. Really, the amount of pressure he was putting on his chest was making it hard to breathe. That said, he could walk and move around now.

  It would make getting work done in the future much easier.

  Continuing to take small steps, Trace walked toward the DMSL Printer, intending to equip the hoppers and load them with powder. If he could get that done, then Deckard would be able to run the machine even while he was asleep.

  Lifting each of the large metal hoppers was… well, not as easy as he had hoped, but it was doable. He still needed to be careful not to strain anything and keep his back straight, but it worked out. He would need to make sure that the next version of the stealth suit had synthetic-muscles woven throughout the arms and legs.

  It wasn’t something he was capable of doing at the moment, but he had a learning module that would teach him what he needed to know.

  That was for later. At the moment, all he needed to worry about was getting these hoppers in place. Preferably without hurting himself further.

  Once they were each secured, he moved onto the bags of powdered metal, filling each hopper in turn.

  As he was doing each of these things, he was reviewing the specs of the machine and going through the manual. He wanted to make sure that nothing was forgotten or screwed up, just as they were so close to finishing the setup of the equipment.

  What he was learning was interesting… The DMSL Printer was extraordinary, far more so than he had initially believed. This printer with some modifications could print items on the nanometer scale. Not extremely well, it was only down to fifty-nanometers. Still, for the price they had paid, it was unbelievable. The modifications that needed to be made to the unit to achieve that scale would drive the overall cost of the printer through the roof.

  Its default specifications were good, but with enough money, you could make it truly awesome. That was something to do later though. Right now, they hadn’t bought any of those items.

  He finished loading the last hopper and stopped in place, taking a moment to feel out the depths of his body and ascertain its condition.

  After a few moments, he decided that everything was still in order. The back brace was working well, despite that he had still managed to strain his back at least a little. The brace only held everything in place, nothing more. His own muscles needed to make up for the other deficits and that was where the strain had come from.

  He had pushed himself more than he had intended, and now he needed to take it easy before it became worse.

  Well, actually, there was one more thing he needed to do before he could sit down again.

  Taking each step carefully, and ensuring his back was straight, he walked over to the CNC Machine and retrieved the parts Deckard had made earlier. There was one more piece that needed to be made, but with these, he would be able to finish fixing the last of the problems he had caused when he shot it full of holes.

  It was something that he had been working on for a while, slowly repairing everything that had been broken. The pieces that had just been shaped in the CNC Machine, along with the parts that had been ordered, were exactly what he needed to finish the body.

  As for the last item that still needed to be created? It was a custom head for the android’s body. The current one had been designed to work as a wireless control unit, nothing more. The replacement, on the other hand, needed to be able to handle and properly integrate Deckard’s braincase as its control unit.

  It wasn’t something that Trace had figured out how to construct just yet. Thankfully, Deckard had thought ahead and gotten him that learning module. There was little doubt that whatever he came up with would be awkward and oversized, but it would be better than nothing.

  Still, it would take some time to actually finish it. However, in the meantime, he could repair the original head and attach it for Deckard’s use as a temporary stopgap of sorts.

  Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to rate the story and to my latest Patrons! I have other stories up on my Patreon, including my current WIPs. Which are now Created G.H.O.S.T. System(My Cyberpunk story), WetWorks2, plus The Restaurateur and His Daughter and DungeonFall. :)

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