A virus had been going 'round the circuits, the cybers called it " Mama Mabel's Curse". So far they were the only ones even remotely effected by it, 'bots and norms got left out entirely. So what my department was guessing was that somebody doesn't approve of cyborgs and wants them wiped out by their own hands but doesn't, or can't do it themselves.
The one thing all infected cybers have in common so far is that they've all been to the same nightclub in the Arcade Alley which is more of a slowly expanding neighbourhood where tech junkies and cybers thrive, swapping body-parts like regular Frankenstein's only well within the law. We've tried to regulate it, god knows how we've tried but not even Mama Mabel can put a stop to their endless modding and re-modding.
When they're first infected we often mistake them for Tweakers freshly woken up after a long crash and itching for their daily fix. So now we stop any cyber, no matter the age and we run the software test to check if they're "cursed", as the street term is. Honestly for all we know old Mama Mabel's hiding out in our scanners and jumping from victim to victim and at this point we're too busy to figure out anything more than where to put the bodies.
After the Tweak stage comes the blank stage where they just stare endlessly at bright light sources, damaging their eyes and/or optic systems beyond repair. They can never explain why, hell most of them don;t even realise they're doing it or deny they are. One girl managed to describe me perfectly while balancing on a chair and trying to press her face into the overhead light. When we managed to pull her down to sit and face us we saw her optics were totally shot, not just fuzzed out but shattered and shredding her eyelids with every slow blink.
From the blank stage comes the worst and often final stage, one we don't name specifically for this reason. It'd be disrespectful to give a joking nickname to someone's dying moments, you know. A few guys in the breakroom call it "Mice on the motherboard" which is how a great deal of the cases we've interviewed describe it.
You're not meant to feel sensations within the cybernetic parts, aside from the expected human ones of touch and taste but only on the outer parts. When they're not infected they don't even feel if they've been stabbed, believe me I've seen it often enough and in some gangs it's a sign of how high up they are. Nothing says "back off" like some guy walking toward you with a chest full of knives.
When they're cursed they feel every inch of their implants and, apparently, they feel everything everyone who's ever had the implant is feeling. Drives them nuts in a matter of hours, most cases end up shredding themselves trying to chase the feelings away. Some even go so far as to methodically take themselves apart until they're left as just bundles of meat and metal and even then with their dying breaths they'll ask you to keep going and categorise them to nothing.
The one thing all infected cybers have in common so far is that they've all been to the same nightclub in the Arcade Alley which is more of a slowly expanding neighbourhood where tech junkies and cybers thrive, swapping body-parts like regular Frankenstein's only well within the law. We've tried to regulate it, god knows how we've tried but not even Mama Mabel can put a stop to their endless modding and re-modding.
When they're first infected we often mistake them for Tweakers freshly woken up after a long crash and itching for their daily fix. So now we stop any cyber, no matter the age and we run the software test to check if they're "cursed", as the street term is. Honestly for all we know old Mama Mabel's hiding out in our scanners and jumping from victim to victim and at this point we're too busy to figure out anything more than where to put the bodies.
After the Tweak stage comes the blank stage where they just stare endlessly at bright light sources, damaging their eyes and/or optic systems beyond repair. They can never explain why, hell most of them don;t even realise they're doing it or deny they are. One girl managed to describe me perfectly while balancing on a chair and trying to press her face into the overhead light. When we managed to pull her down to sit and face us we saw her optics were totally shot, not just fuzzed out but shattered and shredding her eyelids with every slow blink.
From the blank stage comes the worst and often final stage, one we don't name specifically for this reason. It'd be disrespectful to give a joking nickname to someone's dying moments, you know. A few guys in the breakroom call it "Mice on the motherboard" which is how a great deal of the cases we've interviewed describe it.
You're not meant to feel sensations within the cybernetic parts, aside from the expected human ones of touch and taste but only on the outer parts. When they're not infected they don't even feel if they've been stabbed, believe me I've seen it often enough and in some gangs it's a sign of how high up they are. Nothing says "back off" like some guy walking toward you with a chest full of knives.
When they're cursed they feel every inch of their implants and, apparently, they feel everything everyone who's ever had the implant is feeling. Drives them nuts in a matter of hours, most cases end up shredding themselves trying to chase the feelings away. Some even go so far as to methodically take themselves apart until they're left as just bundles of meat and metal and even then with their dying breaths they'll ask you to keep going and categorise them to nothing.
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