Warhammer: The Time Traveler

Chapter 22 Rebecca's Plea for Help
A few days later, one evening, the blood-red setting sun bathed the boundless desert in a hazy, yellowish hue, like an oil painting. The workshop's automated defense network sent back an early warning—a familiar heat source signal was approaching at an alarming speed. Driving that Goodwood that had undergone countless repairs, it left a trail of dust in the desert.

It was Rebecca. But she was all alone.

Chen Yu's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. Based on their past behavior, the siblings were always inseparable. Their appearance alone, and their speed far exceeding safe limits, exuded an unusual urgency… it was highly likely that something had happened.

Goodwood let out a piercing roar, and with a violent drift, it slammed into the garage door, kicking up a cloud of dust. The door was kicked open, and Rebecca's petite figure jumped out impatiently, stumbling and rushing towards the workshop entrance before the dust had even settled.

She looked terrible. Her once pretty light green hair was matted and tangled with sweat and dust, sticking haphazardly to her forehead and cheeks; her usually bright eyes were now red and swollen, her beautiful features distorted by extreme anxiety and fear, and her lips trembled uncontrollably. Her signature coat was covered in black grease and… dark, blackened bloodstains, emitting a pungent smell of rust and gunpowder.

"Boss! Boss! Open the door! Please! Open the door now!" She completely forgot about the agreed-upon concealed signal and instead frantically pounded on the door reinforced with thick metal plates with her battered fists, her hoarse voice filled with heavy sobs and utter despair.

Chen Yu signaled the suspended servo skull to de-escalate its alert level and personally operated the internal mechanisms. A heavy panel slid open slowly, accompanied by a dull groan.

The door opened a crack, and Rebecca burst in like a bullet, stumbling and nearly falling from the force of her charge. She looked up sharply and saw Chen Yu's tall, dark red figure standing before her, like a solitary lighthouse on a dark sea. Her newly upgraded emerald green prosthetic eyes were now filled with unprecedented panic and helplessness, and tears welled up uncontrollably, leaving wet streaks.

"Boss... save Pira... please..." she stammered, her voice trembling uncontrollably, "He... he's dying... those damned prosthetic doctors in town... they're either ridiculously expensive, or... or they just shake their heads and say there's no hope, and tell us to prepare for the worst..."

Chen Yu's optical lens swept across her entire body swiftly and calmly. There were no serious open wounds on her skin, but vital signs monitoring showed she was highly stressed, extremely fatigued, and her adrenaline levels were soaring. The dark red spots were confirmed by spectral analysis to be human blood, but the hemoglobin spectrum did not match her genetic records.

“Calm down, Rebecca.” His synthesized voice remained steady, but he deliberately adjusted the audio frequency, reducing the cold, metallic quality and injecting a very subtle, reassuring tone—a sliver of communication skill he had retained from the distant human era, though it still sounded somewhat stiff when used. “State slowly. What happened to Pira? What are the specifics of her injuries?”

His unusual calmness, like a steadfast rock, slightly restrained Rebecca's teetering emotions. She gasped for breath, struggling to suppress her trembling, and roughly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She began to speak haltingly, her voice still broken:
"It's...it's that damn batch of goods from last time...Boss Mann took on a tough job, and ended up running right into the target...They came prepared, their firepower was too intense...Pila, that idiot Pila, to cover Dorio's retreat, got...got locked onto by their smart weapon...It was an armor-piercing round...It went straight through his abdomen, damaging his spinal plexus and several vital organs...And...it also detonated those old prosthetics inside him, causing a chain reaction of overload..."

Her voice was cut short by another sob, each word sounding like it was laced with blood and tears: "That son of a bitch Faraday agent introduced the prosthetic doctor... and he asked for a fucking 50,000 euros! Where are we going to rob that much cash in a short time! Going to those underground clinics... they... they looked at the wound and waved their hands, saying the nerve burns were too extensive and the organs were beginning to fail on a large scale, unless we immediately replaced a whole set of military-grade internal organs and nerve stents, otherwise... otherwise..."

She couldn't say anything more, only staring intently at Chen Yu with her expensive prosthetic eyes, completely blurred by tears, her gaze burning with the last glimmer of almost pious hope: "Boss...you...you even repaired my eyes and Pira's broken shoulder so well...you must have a way, right? Please...save him...he's my only family...he's all I have..."

Chen Yu listened silently. A penetrating abdominal wound, severe spinal nerve damage, progressive multiple organ failure, a chain reaction of prosthetic overload… this was indeed far beyond the capabilities of a street-side prosthetic medic. Even in the war-torn world he remembered, such injuries required the intervention of a technical priest or geneticist. He quickly retrieved the detailed physiological data and prosthetic interface information recorded during the previous shoulder repair of Pira, constructing a preliminary injury simulation model within the treatment core and generating several treatment plans. It was complex, extremely time-consuming, and required a considerable amount of precious bioactive materials and specific nano-repair agents from his reserves, but… technically speaking, it was not impossible.

His brief silence sent a chill down Rebecca's spine, a wave of fear threatening to tear her delicate nerves apart. "Boss... Boss?..."

Chen Yu looked up, the crimson optical lens steadily focusing on her: "His injuries are very serious. The treatment process will consume specific biomass materials and energy that I have stored. These resources were originally planned for other important projects."

Rebecca's face turned deathly pale instantly, and her breathing stopped abruptly.

“However,” Chen Yu’s tone suddenly changed, “it is not irreversible.”

A ray of hope, like an overloaded light bulb, suddenly shone brightly in Rebecca's tear-filled eyes.

“I can treat Pira,” Chen Yu continued, maintaining his usual calm and matter-of-fact tone, “but in exchange, I need to charge a ‘medical fee’.”

"How much? I'll get it for you no matter the cost! I'll even rob it for you!" Rebecca shouted desperately, leaning forward with excitement, almost throwing herself at him.

“I don’t need money.” Chen Yu shook his head, his optical lens flickering slightly. “What I need are research materials. More diverse, well-preserved neural processors, biochips, and any prosthetic components containing unknown alloy compositions or anomalous energy signal characteristics, with new models or special markings. The quality must be far superior to the ‘scrap’ you brought last time.”

His demands were for "more" and "higher quality" research materials, clearly defined and not exceeding the limits of Rebecca and her team's risk-taking capabilities. While these materials were certainly difficult to obtain, requiring risky acquisition through specific channels (such as discarded corporate lab equipment, advanced implants from specific gang leaders, or unregistered prototypes circulating on the black market), they were not unattainable. This was more like a fair trade based on risk assessment than opportunistic exploitation.

Rebecca paused for a moment, then immediately reacted, nodding her head vigorously: "No problem! Absolutely no problem! As long as you can save Pira, we'll get you anything you need! Boss Mann and Dorio will definitely help us in any way they can! I swear! I swear on everything!"

"The agreement is established." Chen Yu nodded slightly. "Where is the injured person now? Time is of the essence; we must begin pre-treatment immediately."

(End of this chapter)