Transcripts
Each post will contain 3 stories from Maximum Mike (voiced by Mike Pondsmith)
Is there some hidden truth into them? Some subtle metaphors? It’s your call.
Yorinobu’s clone
- Yo, people!
- I’ve got something to tell you that’s got me rattled.
- Now, I’m sure you’ve seen the news.
- Yorinobu Arasaka’s the new head of Arasaka Corporation.
- Heh, I’m afraid that’s not possible.
- The truth is Yorinobu’s as dead as a runner surfin’ the Blackwall, and he’s been for the past 50 years.
- So, I guess we should start at the beginning, right people? Yorinobu, as a lot of you know, was the youngest son of old man Saburo…
- …but he didn’t take after his father, quite the contrary.
- Now, when Yorinobu learned what his father’s enterprise really stood for, he left.
- Kid ran away from home, formed a biker gang called the Steel Dragons.
- Huh, they weren’t just any street gang mind you, they had a mission.
- Espionage.
- Terrorism.
- Assassinations.
- All aimed at the Arasaka zaibatsu.
- They kept it up for years, too.
- But it all stopped on the day those towers in Corpo Plaza came down, now… that’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?
- The official story is that after the death of his big brother…
- …Yorinobu came home, apologized to big daddy Saburo and was accepted back into the family.
- That’s a straight con, people.
- Yorinobu was in those towers when they got wiped of the map.
- Maybe even helped bring ‘em down.
- And all the evidence is buried under a million tons of debris… we don’t know.
- So who’s this guy, you ask?
- One on TV talking about his dear ol’ dad and the virtues of the Arasaka’s family business?
- Yeah, I’ve got a few guesses.
- It’s no secret Arasaka’s been working on human cloning tech for almost a century now…
- …so, it’s possible this guy is some sort of mind-controlled clone of the original Yorinobu.
- Wouldn’t that be just like ol’ Saburo?
- Your kid doesn’t turn out the way you want, so you just try again.
- Alternately, never figured out what happened to Kei, Yorinobu’s older brother, after the war.
- Maybe he disappeared to a black clinic and he came out looking just like his younger brother, but…
- …without the stain of the 4th Corporation weighing him down with bad PR… what do you think?
Something is missing on Yorinobu...
Trauma Team’s debt
- So, people, let me talk to you about Trauma Team.
- You know ‘em, you love ‘em.
- And if you happen to live in Night City, they’re basically the only game in town for you medical care.
- If you watch their ads or listen to the testimonials, they say they’ll come to your aid in a pinch, patch you up, get you on your feet again.
- If you can pay.
- But that’s a big « if », folks.
- So, what happens if you can’t?
- Hmmm…
- Turns out our friends at Trauma Team might have a unique collection method.
- Missed too many payments?
- You might just find yourself a victim of a debt recovery team.
- It usually goes something like this.
- So, you’ll be minding your own business when a helpful Trauma Team rep will approach you and dose you with a quick-acting sedative.
- After it takes effect, the debt collectors scurry in, load you onto one of their specialized transports.
- No one’s going to stop them, after all they’re Trauma Team.
- You’ll first be scanned for cyberware and natural organs.
- Your body will be compared to a continually updated database listing the prices for after-market parts and organs.
- You owe them 7,000 eddies from the time you fell down the stairs on the way back from the bar, so that’s put up against the expected value of your parts.
- Ha!
- So, is that a new Kiroshi eye you have there?
- Well, that’s selling for about 3,000 Eurodollars and that’s coming out.
- Nice heart you have there.
- Dynalar Cardio-X model.
- Yeah, they’ll take that too.
- Don’t worry though, they’re not going to let you die, they are doctors after all.
- No, they’ll quickly replace it with a cheap knockoff from USSR they pulled out of a guy who was gut shot in a shoot-out last week.
- Eh, it’s probably still good.
- The Dynalar, minus the cost of installing the replacement, well…
- That’s another 3,000 eddies.
- Hey, we’re getting there!
- Your liver looks a little damaged from too much drinking, but they can still get a decent K for it.
- And best part, it’s an original.
- So as long they don’t take the whole thing, it will grow back.
- Livers are great like that.
- You can be like a sheep, constantly shorn, again and again and again.
- So, now with your debt repaid and your account back in the black, you’re free to go.
- You wake up with a hangover and feeling kinda strange, but hey…
- …for your trouble, they give you a voucher worth a six-month upgrade from Silver membership to Gold, and it’s at no additional cost.
- That sounds like a good deal to me, yeah.
- How about you?
AI made of mushrooms
- So, people!
- We’re gonna be talking some good news tonight!
- We’re gonna be talking about one of my favorite places - the Pacific North West.
- Since Biotechnica took over there way back during the Time of the Red, they’ve been making the forest grow.
- The spotted owls are nesting again, and I even heard the Sasquatch is back.
- And if any of you can get me the interview, I’d really like that.
- But it’s not all paradise, folks.
- There’s something else going on.
- Ever hear of Armillaria solidipes?
- Probably not.
- But it used to be the largest living organism in the world, a single fungal growth has stretched beneath miles of the Oregonian wilderness.
- Now it’s just a century ago.
- Unfortunately, bioplagues, acid rain and pollution ended that, and the fungus was declared all but dead by the middle of the century.
- Ha.
- Well, good news for mushroom fanatics everywhere!
- It’s back and better than ever.
- Biotechnica’s made the return of this organism a top priority for the ecological restoration project in the North West, and they’ve got the patent fillings to prove it.
- I checked with the NUSA and EEC patent offices and Biotechnica’s got patents for the solidipes for the purposes of soil improvement.
- Well, that check’s out.
- And biodiversity measurement.
- Yeah, makes sense.
- Hey, but what’s this one: Bioinformatic Neural Stimulation.
- Hell, that sounds interesting.
- I decided this was worth looking into, so I got a friend of mine to get me some satellite images of the area of that fungal restoration.
- And smack dab in the middle of it, there’s Biotechnica black lab.
- That’s not that strange, except that the place is linked up a big way: transmission towers, sat dishes… what looks like even a hardlined data-fortress.
- Why all the comms?
- Well, I think it’s because they’re out there building an AI, an AI made of mushrooms.
- Why not?
- Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but… why not?
- It’s been known for a century that mycorrhizal networks are capable of processing data, similar to our data digital networks.
- And a construction like this would let Biotechnica fly under the NetWatch restrictions on AIs.
- ‘Cause no one wants to end up like EBM.
- But what I still don’t know, listeners, is what that AI would be for.
- Crypto-Analysis?
- Net Weapon?
- Genetic simulation?
- So, if any of you are planning to take a trip up North…
- …do me a favor and flip over a few logs and let me know what you find.
- I’ll be interested.