Let's begin by straightening one thing out: It's cyberware.
Not cyberwear. Cyberwear is stuff you can
remove. You're just wearing it, chombatta. You're a
tourist. You're not yet committed to the Edge.
Cyberware is the various types of "hardware" you
actually have implanted in or replacing parts of your
body. It's the stuff that you live with. You see it as part
of your body in a way your favorite jacket will never
be. It's like your heart, or your hands, or your gonads.
When you get it installed, you're making a major commitment.
You're replacing or enhancing something you
were born with. That's staying on the Edge.
Got it? Okay then...
First, forget everything you ever thought about
cyborgs. Everything. This is the Dark Future—the Time
of the Red. Even if the supply lines are down, the
stores have been looted, and you have to buy it in
the Night Markets, today's cyborg is still committed to
being stylish. Cybernetic design focuses on a streamlined,
high-mover lifestyle. Whether equipped with
implanted memory chips in your nervous system to
enhance a street fight, or bio-engineered mini-weapons
for your personal protection, the cyborg of the
Time of the Red is always on the cutting edge of hightech
living.
Style over Function
But they aren't necessarily a walking tank either.
Cyberware should be smoother than that—less
obvious. You'll have to integrate your new-tech
gadgets into a slick, seamless whole. You're either
predator or prey in the City, and the faster you learn
to blur the line between the two categories, the longer
you'll survive.
And that's the point: survival.
The Cyber Lifestyle
It's "hip and aware" to have high-tech grafted into
your body somewhere. If you can afford it, you probably
have at least a couple of "enhancements": a few
chips installed in your nervous system to interface with
your computer, remember your appointments, and improve your cyberball reflexes. If you're cybered up,
you probably have interface plugs to operate computers
and vehicles mentally. Maybe your eyes are
cyberoptics with a recording function and the latest
iris tint (polychrome is in this year), or you've boosted
your hearing to better hear the gossip in the Executive
Lounge. Though this type of Cyberware is rarer in the
Time of the Red.
If your job involves some type of security or combat
function (and most occupations in this time have at
least some type of combat aspect), you probably have
two or three types of combat chipware, as well as
plugs for a smartgun. As a Solo, you may have had an
arm or a leg replaced with a cyberlimb, allowing you
to hide a variety of tools and weapons in your body,
as well as giving you an edge in speed and strength.
And even if your job technically doesn't involve
violence, it's a safe bet that you're not going to be
wandering The Street without some kind of nastiness
implanted in your body. "Better cyber than sorry," is
what The Street says about that.
So as a Cyberpunk, you're going to want to get your
hands on the best of this exciting and expensive tech.
And "expensive" is the word. The average enhanced
Character with, say, two cybereyes (targeting scope
and IR enhancement), peedware, one super-chromed
arm with a .25 cal submachine gun, interface plugs,
and chipware for Brawling, Driving, and First Aid is an
investment of thousands of eurobucks. If you can even
find all that hardware. There was a War choomba,
and some of the best stuff's been hoarded or just plain
torn apart in the corporate battlefields of the urban
zones.
Of course, the ambitious punk already knows at
least twenty-five ways (most of them illegal) to raise
that sort of paltry sum; and they have the connections
to get them in the Night Markets.
But before you start loading up, there's a catch.
