Rain Harlow

Chapter 103

Added 2025-11-13 16:00:12 +0000 UTC

Chapter 103: A New Brand of Jack

Jack tapped his pen on the clipboard with the little form detailing all the biomods Stitcher offered. He was most interested in snagging all the basics, plus three ‘20 minute’ mods, though he was having trouble with which he wanted more. The vision mod for ‘enhanced acuity, focus, etc.’ would be very useful for his powers. Base telescopic vision might be cool, but he could technically get the bulk of the advantage simply with zoom on the typical faceplate. The acuity mod would probably synergize with that to some degree, too.

The two healing boosts for ‘tissue batteries’ and ‘external blood loss mitigation,’ the general endurance packet for ‘various neural mods and others,’ and the ‘improved shock tolerance’ mod from the toughness upgrade, were his leading candidates. After deliberating, he dismissed the endurance packet. Though nice, he was already manageable on fatigue, and the truth was that it couldn’t compare to ‘staying alive’ in the field.

It looked like Bo would need to dump everything into the two endurance mods. Then again, she might blow off the minor improvement for the staggering 40-minute addition, desiring some of the other cool stuff. Which was tempting in the realms of functionality and style.

This is the world’s finest bodysculptor, after all. I mean, look at that… 10 minutes added to change your face and body, if you wanted. Could a bit of height be squeezed in? Finer features? Squarer jaw? Bigger bust? More pronounced abs? Heh. Tough shit to pass up.

Personally, Jack considered it a waste of Stitcher’s time, so he wouldn’t, not if he could trade it for functionality. He really couldn’t say, in Bo’s case. It would be interesting to find out, though.

After the dismissal of the endurance boost, the remaining choice was significantly harder. He went with tissue batteries as his first set selection. Internal injuries were clearly the biggest concern for survival abroad.

After consideration, he chose the other healing boost, too, for the blood loss mitigation. It had an immediate impact on certain dangerous injuries as well as controlling resource loss. Shock tolerance, in comparison, dealt with non-immediate injury. A broken leg suddenly not being broken could be life-saving, but if there was anything his default systems were good at surviving, it was wide-scale blunt trauma.

It was difficult, though. It did sound really handy and awesome to better deal with shattering impacts. He could also appreciate that the mod wasn’t just another ‘bone hardener.’ Obviously, there were limits to the effectiveness of not breaking, to the overall body. Something had to absorb the force, after all. This mod deliberately absorbed it, then released it slowly enough for the less tough rest of the body to safely absorb. ‘Modified rebound’ or something like that.

In any case, he made his selections and finished the rest of the paperwork, then turned it all in. The assistant took it, flipped through it rapidly, nodded repeatedly, then flashed her eyes back at him. “Alright, everything lines up and is in order, here, and Doctor Stitcher has been notified. You can come around, sir. Let’s get you ready for surgery.”

The closed, heavy door nearby made a click and popped open.

Jack nodded as he looked over and back, smiling awkwardly. “New and improved, soon, eh?”

The assistant smiled politely and reassuringly. “You bet, sir. You’re certainly in good hands. No need to worry — she’s done this thousands of times.”

Jack nodded some more and took a deep breath. Here we go.

🌑 🌒 🌓 🌔 🌕

The assistant was not quite what he was used to — after he was through that door, she was all about speed over comfort, no doubt to please the mistress of the demesne. Or maybe she just wanted to get a late night over with? Either way, in short order, Jack was hustled and bustled along to be disrobed, disinfected, re-clad in a surgery gown, and brought to a starkly clean and sanitized surgery room.

Snazzy and terrifying.

It had an adjustable table in the center, draped on the sides with what Jack deliberately and ‘affectionately’ dubbed ‘terrifying surgery doodads’ in his head. They were quite extensive. He tried not to look at them — or the obvious ‘drain gates’ built into the floor, or the dozens of mysterious, color-coded tanks — as he sat down and the assistant did her thing. She was getting the table and him ready. Hooked up. There was no option for remaining conscious. He was going to be put under anesthesia.

The doctor was not long in arriving, clad fully in enclosing surgery gear, with mask and cap. Newly clean hands were held out in front of her as she approached him, coming close and meeting his eyes. It was like coming under a new aura. The ‘bedside compatible’ one. “We are doing well, Mr. Laker?”

Jack nodded and tried a smile. “Yes, Doctor. Peachy.”

“Good, good. All is well and all will be well, I assure you. Did you come to your selections easily, or was it a nailbiter, then?”

“Nailbiter. I found the shock tolerance one exceedingly hard to give up.”

“Oooooh. A popular mod, yes. What was your thinking?”

“Objectively, the more dangerous stuff is piercing wounds and lacerations. Both of those mods keep me alive. It’s as simple as that.”

“I see. And what appealed about the other?”

Jack huffed a brief laugh. “I just liked it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s clearly strong in a practical sense. But I also like the sheer concept.”

“How so?”

“Well, bones break for a reason, right? We don’t necessarily want fully unbreakable bones with our comparatively soft ass bodies. I see the subtlety of the solution in absorbing and slowing down the resonance of the shock. Bones can still break, but not if the body can take it. The reverb, or whatever. I kinda wonder what it would feel like… a longer vibration? A strange series of pulses?”

“Ahhh!” The doctor’s eyes showed she was smiling in appreciation. “You understand, and just from that little bit of hasty description! Hmm, hmm, hmm…”

The assistant, now over by Jack’s head on the opposite side, interrupted the convo insistently. “He’s ready for anesthesia, Doctor.” She was brandishing the ‘mask’ in one hand, which invariably drew Jack’s eyes like it was a knife at his throat.

Stitcher seemed to hesitate. “Hold a moment, Mrs. Woodwork.” She looked down at Jack. “Would you mind if I did an additional diagnostic while you’re conscious, for a moment?” She wriggled one of her held-up hands.

Jack blinked. “Uh, sure. Go ahead.”

Stitcher nodded and reached a hand down to his neck, touching it with two fingers. Immediately, he felt her power surge through her into him, and the briefest sensation of electricity shot through his nerves. It mostly made him shiver and break out in goosebumps in waves as her handshake had, just a bit more intensely, as the process was longer.

She finally lifted her hand and nodded with her eyes doing a slow blink, eyes unfocused. “Yes… Your particular subject will be conducive to a timely session. Truthfully, the timeframes should’ve been updated for many years now, but I leave them, just in case of more stubborn sessions…” Her eyes refocused on his. “I can squeeze in your extra mod, then. But let’s get started, hmm? Efficiency is divine.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Oh! Awesome! Thanks, I-”

The firm-eyed assistant brought the mask down, and he cut himself off, clearing his throat and nodding awkwardly as he sat back and cooperated.

The mask was enclosed around his face and strapped around, as the assistant said calmly but with pointed satisfaction, “Just relax, sir. Deep, even breaths… close your eyes, let your muscles go slack… breathe…”

Jack did so, as he began breathing in the gas, soon feeling lightheaded. Briefly, he suppressed a panic as he identified the transition to a state of ‘no control.’ He managed it, though. Trust the doctor, trust the doctor, trust the doctor…

“Yes,” Stitcher said supportively, “just drift off, Mr. Laker. It’s alright. All is well outside and within, hmm? Soon, even more so… you’ll feel like a brand new man. Won’t that be nice?”

🌑 🌒 🌓 🌔 🌕

Jack’s eyes fluttered open, and he felt exceptionally disoriented. He was in his bed, wearing clothes. His own clothes. He did not recall how exactly he got there. Last he remembered, he was on the surgery table.

Oh right. That. Ow.

He shifted under the covers, which quickly let him know he was very sore. Muscles, joints, ribs, bones, eyes, ears, possibly his heart, even… was that his spleen? Everything, basically. And he was exceptionally thirsty and hungry, which was likely why he awoke at all.

His vision was too sharp and had high contrast. As he moved his eyes, he saw in what seemed a higher resolution, and despite minimal light filtering from ‘outside,’ everything was exceptionally clear. His eyes naturally wanted to focus and soak up details. He could see the dust floating in the room.

Welp. That’s gonna be annoying.

Just the tiny movements he was making scraped weirdly at his ears. It made him twitch. His fan wasn’t on right then, thankfully.

Despite the discomfort, he sat up slowly, groaning and wincing. Remarkably, there was no ‘excess’ coating his skin. It was pristine, with a healthy glow. His body was… tighter. Harder and stronger; new and improved. It was a mixed bag in terms of feeling like it, so far.

It was late in the morning. He had various notices dormant in his head, from Mini.

Fitness has improved to Superior!
G.P.E. has improved to 31%!
Evasion has improved to 3.8!
Super Sapien Resilience: Toughness has improved to 1.7!
Inner Energy has improved to 1.4!
Secondary Mutation: Stitcher Mods added!
Took the liberty to check GIFT and SOFT. They’re now at 64% and 87%, respectively. Very high, likely due to your unique physiology. Maximum safe output requires testing. Projections for maximum after attaining Peak Fitness are now at 73% and 92%.
Doctor Stitcher left a message: ‘The operation was a sterling success, Mr. Laker. Efficient, as well. Two minutes over two hours. All should be functioning well. You’ll remain sore today, but functionality will see progressive gains up to the late afternoon. Eat and rest throughout this period for the best results. Slowly, slowly, move more and more. Get a feel for things more strongly in the afternoon. We’ll spar in the evening! See you then.’
You are generically weakened, despite technically being fully healed. Currently estimating a 27% reduction in performance across the board.

Jack blinked at the air in front of his face, the data washing over him. He ran a hand over his face. “Uuuuuugh…”

The utterance meant something like ‘food’ in the zombie language.

Jack got up slowly with a continuous groan, with odd popping sounds from his joints, and shuffled first to the bathroom…

He took a long, long piss of ‘remarkable’ color, then sucked down a bunch of water scooped from the sink. The sounds made him cringe. They were so different… louder, more defined. He didn’t think it would normally hurt, but he was extra sensitive at the moment. The sounds made extra thrumming pulsing through his brain.

Trippy.

His eyes were different. A wider iris as a whole, and the details within were not quite the same. More complex. Cleaner and more vibrant, perhaps. Eyes 2.0, for sure.

He also couldn’t resist checking himself out in the mirror, pulling his shirt off with a series of grunts and a bit of sweating for the effort…

Daaaamn.

Chiseled musculature. Rock hard, pronounced abs. Impressive aesthetics, even distribution, still not hyper buff. In all honesty, likely his ideal look, from a personal standpoint.

Heeeeell yeah. Cheating by letting genius old ladies poke around in your genome is where it’s at, baby.

Grinning, he patted his abs like his new, prized pot o’ gold, then shuffled his way into the kitchen, wincing with every movement. He loosened up at least a little bit as he moved.

When he flicked the lights on, he felt suddenly overwhelmed by the color and detail changes. The edges, the shadows, the surfaces, the dust layers, the patterns on the counters, the ceiling, the floor, the cabinets, the bits of dirt, and that piece of a chip thinking it was camouflaged on the floor, the fluttering wings of that little fruit fly — so much information! He got an immediate headache and flipped it back off.

He raided the refrigerator and cabinets for an assortment of foods, eating in the kitchen for a few minutes before collecting a bunch of stuff and taking it to the couch to sit down with a satisfied sigh. He tried to ignore the annoying sounds of the fruit fly flying around, making his ears itch.

Still eating, he checked out the ‘Stitcher Mods’ entry on his stat bio.

Stitcher Mods
Includes Night Vision, Acute Vision (+Increased Visual Acuity/Speed/Focus), Improved Hearing, Directional Hearing, Hearing Protection, Improved Healing (+Tissue Batteries; +Rapid Clotting/Bleeding Mitigation), Endurance Upgrades, and Toughness Upgrade (+Improved Shock Tolerance).
Night Vision: Roughly equivalent to a raccoon. Indoor lighting is close to like sunlight. Twilight still gives excellent detail, though with less color subtlety. Gradual loss of high-acuity detail compared to daylight. Can still see by moonlight, or even starlight, with more limits. Due to visual protection protocols, bright light doesn’t blind you easily, and you adapt quickly from night to daytime vision.
Acute Vision: All around boosts to absorbed detail and usable information at range, particularly with the benefit of good lighting. Much better identification of distant objects. Better motion tracking and camouflage differentiation.
+Increased Visual Acuity/Speed/Focus: Better spatial sampling, extra high acuity yet small focal zone (similar to birds of prey), reduced blur, improved neural discrimination of fine detail, sharper edges and contrast, minor zooming, compensation for ‘tunnel vision’ and improved field-of-view, additional process smoothing and integration of all features.
Improved Hearing, Directional Hearing, Hearing Protection: Higher sensitivity to faint sounds, improved tonal discrimination, improved tracking and localization (particularly with multiple sounds/positioning changes), rapid inner ear mechanical muting for damage mitigation (but not prevention).
Improved Healing: Faster recovery from traumatic injury, especially minor wounds; less scarring.
+Tissue Batteries: Failsafe ‘plugs’ or patches against potentially debilitating or fatal internal injuries and bleeding, even to organs. Rapid deployment through the bloodstream in a layered scaffolding release for local expansion; rapid but not instant, depending on location. Only mitigates, can be exhausted or overwhelmed, and doesn’t assist greatly with pain or potential consciousness loss.
+Rapid Clotting/Bleeding Mitigation: Halts bleeding faster, including from significant veins or even most secondary arteries. Includes mechanisms of strict local regulation to trivialize the chances of ensuing systemic thrombosis and embolism. Highly rarefied resources and regulation limits prevent full application beyond perhaps 2-3 significant bleeding sites. Feels very ‘uncomfortable’ due to a flooding bloodstream cocktail.
+Synergy: Tissue Batteries and RC/BM together can potentially prevent death due to damage and bleeding of the heart, aorta, or carotid arteries. Any significant damage will highly drain RC/BM, and if it has already been used, there may not be enough left to complete the repair.
Endurance Upgrades: Greater aerobic capacity, slower onset and quicker recovery of fatigue, more sustainable continuous energy use, and more resistance to hypoxia. Reflected primarily in boosted Inner Energy current value, as well as a higher maximum value attainable.
Toughness Upgrade: Improves Toughness as if four levels higher. Will fade gradually at higher levels, but re-tuning is feasible.
+Improved Shock Tolerance: In combination with exploited Toughness functions, this mitigates about 25% of wide-scale impact injury over a second. Anything falling within x1.25 of Toughness grade expectations will barely be felt except as evenly distributed vibration. Additional impacts stacking within the window are reduced by a much smaller fraction.

Ooh, synergy. I can get shot in the heart, and it’s not too late? Sweet. And I can see for miles and miles. Man. This shit is a lot. But I guess it all makes sense, I’ve just got to- gaaah! Damn this frag ass bug — I’ve had it!

He paused in his eating and perusing of abilities, to form a little metal ‘trap’ and hunt down the fruit fly. After catching it and satisfyingly squishing it inside a thimble-sized trap in midair, he sat back down.

Silence. Beautiful.

Unfortunately, his eyes were aching terribly, and he didn’t… want to look at anything, in the same way his ears didn’t want to hear. How did he not notice how many annoying reflective surfaces existed in the room? Everywhere. Glowing. Mesmerizing.

He closed his eyes and did some meditation. Before long, he stretched out on the couch and napped.

When he woke a bit later, his headache was gone, and he felt antsy. He stretched, and it felt good, so he kept doing it. He started walking around, his body sore but getting more responsive. He tried the lights again, winced, and left them off.

He quickly noted the trick was to force himself not to ‘look,’ to keep his eyes in the ‘middle distance,’ and sight was then not so bad. By switching to this, it was like a kind of dulled focus on everything together. His peripheral vision was fully capable of navigating him, too. He didn’t need to flash his eyes as corners to avoid them, or even look at his hands to accurately manipulate things.

He tried out using a knife on some pickles, and grinned as he did it while ‘looking’ straight ahead. Odd as it was, it felt entirely natural. And it was probably a bit necessary to reduce eye strain, now, with the eagle eye shit…

He did a bit of cardio exercise but tired quickly, so he sat down and summoned his memorite. Unlike when he killed the fruit fly, which was quick, instinctual stuff, he took his time and used his vision with the material, moving it close and then outward, noticing his ability to see the finer details even many meters away. He could pick out the cloud of particulates even better than he could the dust in the air.

He turned a little speck on the table into a tiny figurine walking across it. He was certain this would not even be visible to him before. It hurt his eyes to do it, but he figured that was the rub for his training for a while.

It wasn’t even mostly about ‘zooming in,’ it was his ability to pick out the shape and differentiate it from the background. Perceive the edges. Process and compare the information.

There was a lot of re-acquainting with his measurements of distances, but when he focused on accurate ‘dart games’ to practice his coordination, he got significantly more accurate very quickly. It was something like the ability to toss or finger-roll a marble into a cup that was adjacent to you, suddenly extended to your accuracy meters away. Visual perception helped govern the reading of distances and the capture of the ‘frames’ of movement. If he moved his hand in front of his face, he saw it without a blur, even keeping his eyes forward. He tracked it. He saw where it was at each point.

When he used Throw inside his peripheral field of view, he could re-measure even mid-launch and adjust. Trial and error made the ‘right launch angle’ more obvious. Perhaps like a hawk taking the right dive angle? He was definitely twisting his head around more…