The Protagonist System

Panam Palmer gently woke up on a comfortable bed unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was like sleeping on a firm cloud and she knew she could have the best sleep of her life if she could just stay there and kept her eyes closed until she fell asleep again.

“Wakey wakey.” A female voice said and Panam sighed at being interrupted, which made the female voice laugh. “The bio-bed readings told me you're awake, Miss Palmer. There's no need to fake being asleep.”

Damn. Panam thought and opened her eyes. The face of the pretty nurse from her dreams was there and she needed a moment to process that. “Wait a minute, that wasn't a dream?”

Chappel smiled at her and patted her shoulder. “You really did crash into one of the hazards accidentally created when Atlas removed the evidence that Rocky Ridge existed. He just overlooked the fact when you remove all building materials from a site that it leaves huge holes behind.”

Panam gasped and sat up. “My Warhorse is wrecked!”

Chappel placed a hand on her shoulder and stopped her from leaping from the bed. “Relax, Miss Panam. Both you and your vehicle have been brought here to the Atlas Incorporated main facility and all superficial damage done to you and your rig have been taken care of by Atlas.”

Panam gave her a blank stare for several moments. She had been quite hurt after the accident and she remembered the entire front of her truck had been crushed inwards about a foot. That was more than enough to damage the kick-ass engine she had heavily modified and it probably shattered the axle and ruined the front hydraulic suspension she had paid a lot of eddies for.

“How did he do that?” Panam asked as she felt dread starting to build about someone that wasn't her was touching her things and discovering her modifications.

“He's an old hand at fixing things.” Chappel reassured her and took the hand from her shoulder to hold it out to be shaked. “I'm Chappel, by the way.”

“Panam.” Panam said and shook her hand. “But, I guess you already knew that.”

“Knowing your name and meeting you are two different things.” Chappel teased and let her hand go. She used the medical tricorder on her and nodded. “Everything seems to be working at optimal efficiency and there's no rejection of your cybernetic implants. I'm releasing you on your own recognizance and no following checkups are needed.”

Panam nodded and turned to the side and slid off of the bio-bed and stood up. It took her a moment to realize she didn't feel any of the normal aches and pains she usually felt after laying down for a while. That started her moving her hands to check on the various injuries she had and her fingertips brushed over certain areas that had obvious scar tissue, only to catch her breath when she didn't find anything.

“Huh. I lost the bet.” Chappel said and Panam ignored her as she shifted her clothing around a bit to check the knife wound she had just below her waist on her hip bone. “You're not going to find anything.”

Panam stopped her fingers before she could unbutton her pants to look for the thigh gash she had gained as a teenager while racing souped up motorcycles across the barren white salt flats in Utah.

“I didn't realize what he was doing until after he was already done. I would have had him ask you first before he removed them all.” Chappel told her.

“I need a mirror.” Panam said, her voice flat.

“In the bathroom.” Chappel said and pointed.

Panam rushed by her and entered, then gasped. She noticed the difference immediately. Her rough skin was smooth and not weather-worn like it had been. Her tan was even and not blotchy, with the left side getting more sun than the right, not to mention what her goggles and sunglasses had mitigated and made the areas around her eyes much lighter than the rest of her.

She leaned in to stare at the wrinkles she had around the edges of her eyes and on her forehead, only to see nothing. At all. Not even the oddly-spaced freckles she hated were scattered over her nose or bits on her temples. She lifted her chin to look at her neck and it was as smooth as her face, even thought she knew for a fact it was supposed to be thinner and used to show off the tendons and muscles in stark contrast, again because of her usually uneven tan.

“Why?” Panam asked as her fingertips caressed the now supple skin of her neck.

“He always tries to do what he can to help people.” Chappel said from the bathroom's doorway. “He easily tweaked things and made you look like the best version of yourself without changing how you actually look.”

Panam nodded. She didn't feel like the woman looking out from the mirror at her wasn't her. It was her and she looked gorgeous. That was what was bothering her about it. She no longer looked like she had spent her whole life travelling through the badlands and living a hard but rewarding life. So far, anyway.

“He erased my body's history?” Panam asked.

Chappel gave her an odd look for a second and then smiled widely. “Yes, that's exactly what he did. If you had grown up as a normal person in a normal world, that is what you would have looked like without any outside influence. The best you with the best circumstances.”

“But...” Panam paused and stopped caressing her neck. “...it's a lie.”

“Is it?” Chappel asked and stepped inside to stand beside her.

Panam couldn't help but look at their contrasts to compare them. Dark hair to light hair. Tanned skin to white skin. Threadbare and rough clothing to a nurse's uniform. A bright pretty face and... her thoughts derailed because she just noticed her dirty and roughed up clothes were pristine and didn't have any of the well-worn damage she knew it was supposed to have.

Her hands started inspecting everything, just like she had when she noticed she didn't have any pains and looked for scars on her skin.

Chappel chuckled. “You're not going to find anything wrong there, either.”

Panam turned partway to look at her back in the mirror and didn't see the short sewn cut in her favorite top from when she had rolled her first car. She froze for a moment as she realized something. It was something very important to her and her life literally depended on it. She tore her eyes away from the mirror and looked right at Chappel with a narrowed glare.

“Where is my Warhorse?” Panam asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Chappel wasn't threatened in the least and tapped the gold emblem on her chest. “Chappel to Atlas.”

“Atlas here, go ahead.” A deep male voice responded and Panam barely stopped herself from shivering with pleasure when she remembered what that sexy voice was attached to.

“Panam's awake and ran through the entire gambit. Disbelief, checked her skin, checked her clothing, and now she wants to check on her truck.” Chappel said.

Atlas chuckled. “All right, I'll be right there to escort her. Atlas out.”

Chappel tapped her comm badge and stepped aside. “He's on his way to bring you to your precious baby.”

“Good.” Panam said and tried her best to keep the glare on her face as she thought about what her truck might look like if he had done to it what he had done to her. Would it look significantly different with all of the repairs done and with the evidence of its history being erased from its chassis?

The two women stepped out of the bathroom and neither of them sat down to wait, not that they had to wait long. The door to the room opened and Atlas strode in wearing a form-fitted corpo suit that made him look like he was both rich and down-to-earth.

How the hell did he manage that? Panam asked herself and stared at him. Atlas was even more impressive up close, now that she wasn't laying down and looking up at him with an odd perspective.

“Coffee?” Atlas asked and handed her an already opened thermos filled with a rich-smelling aroma.

Panam didn't stop her shiver of pleasure this time and accepted the silver tube and took a sip. She let out a soft moan at the actual coffee taste and not gagging on the chemically treated water. She almost hugged the thing as she took another sip and she didn't want to give it back.

Atlas let out a soft chuckle and handed her the top to close it and the cup that snapped on top of it. “I have more, so enjoy.”

“Thank you.” Panam said and actually did hug it, both for its warmth and to keep it safe.

“Thanks for looking after her, Chappel.” Atlas said and Chappel waved. “Come on, I'll take you to your truck.”

Panam nodded and followed him out of the room and into the hallway. There were about 50 people there waiting and they looked at her in shock, as if they knew she shouldn't be there with them. She ignored them to keep enjoying the great coffee and stepped into the elevator with Atlas. The ride was over after a moment and she felt surprise, then the doors opened and she gasped.

“Yeah, I react like that sometimes, too.” Atlas admitted and led her across the huge garage that had large AVs, personal AVs, and many police cars that had Atlas Incorporated logos instead of NCPD on them. A bunch of personal vehicles were parked off to the other side, well away from the corpo vehicles.

There were work crews checking over everything, both the personal vehicles and the corpo ones, and Panam tried to not stare at them as she fought off feeling envy about all of the wonderful tools and equipment they were using to do so. She could do so much for the Aldecaldos if she had a workshop even half as equipped as this giant one was.

The pair walked on until they reached the far side of the very large space where a walled off section was. Panam wondered why this part was sectioned off and Atlas brought her through the secured door. She stopped dead when she saw her truck. It practically gleamed in the overhead lighting and her eyes immediately started noticing all the little details that had been slightly altered from what she remembered.

Panam fought off the dread she felt, because it was evidence that he had done to her truck what he had done to her and her clothing. He had made it the best version of what it could have been in a perfect world. The problem was, she had several custom made parts, especially the mods to the engine, and there was no way he could have fixed them if they were damaged.

“What else did you change?” Panam asked with a low voice as she secured the top of the thermos and snapped the cup to the top of it. She almost slapped it against his chest when she handed it back to him.

“Not changed. Fixed.” Atlas said and set the rejected thermos down on a tool bench. “It took a while, too. The crash wrenched a few things out of alignment, especially the undercarriage, and warped the frame slightly to the right.”

“N-no.” Panam whispered. Her eyes darted around and she saw what she needed. She ran over to the wall and grabbed a mechanic's sled with little wheels on it, tossed it down to the reinforced concrete floor, and plopped down onto her back on it and used her feet to kick herself along the floor and slid right underneath her truck.

Atlas put one down as well and laid down on it, then slid in underneath the truck beside her. “It was right along there.” He said and pointed to the right side. “The scans show your approach, so when you hit the torn out basement, your left front hit a split-second before the right did.”

“Which twisted the frame.” Panam said and ran her fingers along the metal. “How did you fix that?”

“Can I claim it's a family secret?” Atlas asked and she turned her head to glare at him. “It's a family secret.”

Panam let out a growl and reached for his collar. She pulled him close and their faces were almost nose to nose. “How. Did. You. Fix. It?”

Atlas was tempted to kiss her for being so cute, then decided that now was not the time. “Atlas Incorporated has proprietary technology that allows a beam of attractive force to be applied to specific areas. If used in the opposing areas that the original damage was done, with equal or slightly greater force, to a specific tolerance...”

“...you can easily bend the frame back to its original shape without losing too much integrity.” Panam finished.

“Of course, it all had to be materially checked afterwards, the welds and attachments adjusted back from their slightly altered positions, and then everything was re-secured to ensure no loss of functionality.”

Panam let his collar go with a small huff and then pulled herself along as she did exactly what he said he already did. Physically check each and every weld and attached bolt, screw, and part that had been affected by the crash and then realigned after it was fixed.

They spent a good two hours doing that and Panam was impressed that Atlas didn't lose patience with her over her need to check everything herself. She was also impressed that he hadn't taken off his corpo suit to dig into the work with her and didn't complain once about it.

She had lost both relationships and friendships over her obsessive need to make sure what she had built was going to be safe to use, mostly because it took so long to do so and they didn't want to wait around every time she drove them anywhere and she had to check the vehicle afterwards.

Panam had kept her mouth shut about the changes Atlas had done to her baby, even though he explained the reasons why he had to do it and they made perfect sense. She kept her silence until she slid out from underneath the truck and stood up and waited for Atlas to stand, then she slapped his face and glared at him.

“You modded my rig without my permission.” Panam said and stopped herself from clenching and unclenching her hand, because his face had been a lot harder than it looked and she had hurt her hand more than she had hurt him. “There's no way it had the software or the capability to be upgraded like you said, unless you changed it.”

Atlas opened his mouth to defend himself, then sighed. Instead of saying anything, he reached for the truck's hood and popped the release latch. He lifted it up and Panam sucked in a sharp breath at the highly advanced engine it contained.

“The modded pieces you build were being wasted on an outdated engine, so after I patterned your designs and repaired the damage to them, I had to fix and update the engine to let them work properly.” Atlas said. “I wasn't going to do that at first; but, it seemed like such a waste to not have your ultra-efficient parts actually do the jobs you wanted them to.”

Panam reached out and caressed the rebuilt carburetor she had painstakingly modified to give her the optimum fuel efficiency with the most power. Her truck had quickly become one of the cheapest vehicles to keep running and she was very proud of it.

“Show me.” Panam said without looking at him.

Atlas handed her a datapad and Panam barely noticed it as she started devouring the information it showed. He stood there and watched her go through everything, especially the details where it was her parts he had rebuilt the engine around. She checked it all and then she glanced over at the racks of tools.

“I'm not busy until someone calls from the office, which hasn't happened yet, since it doesn't open for another few hours.” Atlas said and walked over to the tools, grabbed a handful of the right tools they would need to start disassembling things, and placed them on a rolling trolley and walked back over to her with it.

Panam gave him a disbelieving look for a moment, then she grabbed one of the smaller socket wrenches and dove right in. Atlas stayed there and assisted her as she pretty much tore apart the entire engine to see what he had done and to familiarize herself with the things he had obviously improved.

As she worked, her anger at him fixing her baby started to fade away. It wasn't until she pulled out one of the piston cylinders and saw the actual drive shaft she had painstakingly milled on an old metal lathe, that he had been telling the truth. He had fixed her parts and hadn't replace them like she had feared. It was all still her own work, only it had been prettied up and made that much better.

Panam had the feeling that even if he didn't have access to the best tools and materials on the market, he still would have done what he did to fix her rig to get it working again, just so she wouldn't have to see it as the wreck it had been.

After several more hours to put everything back and reassembling it all into perfect working order, Panam felt reassured that Atlas wasn't being arrogant about passing her inspection and wasn't looking down on her for her need to actually check with her own eyes what he had shown her digitally. She closed the hood of the truck and took a deep breath, let it out, and took his hand.

Atlas looked surprised as she led him to the truck's door and was dragged inside. He wasn't sure what she was going to do, then she pulled out her cyberware attachment cord and plugged herself into the vehicle's access port. She gasped as she was flooded with information, then she turned to stare at him with adoration and affection in her gaze.

A moment later, she kissed him and then they were naked and Panam was having the best time of her life as she explored both his body and his superior programming that made her friend's efforts seem like stumbling around in the dark.