Once they got in range, I sent out a ping and activated the Sandevistan to give myself time to think. The feedback it gave me, even to my newly-enhanced reaction time, was instant, so quick that it almost made me jump. Who knew what else it could do now.

  The plan was simple; these motherfuckers were going to die. But that wasn’t why I needed time to think.

  I also wanted my conversation with the devil to fully sink in, for my path to fully crystallize in my head. What were my plans going forward? For starters, I needed to get back in with Maine. Edgerunning was once again back on the table.

  But that didn’t mean as much as how I could use this current event as an opportunity to further my ends in the other half of my life. I hadn’t focused very much on checking if any new JKs hit the street, and I only had until tomorrow evening to get that fucking brat Jin some more XBDs for his hangers-on to traumatize themselves with.

  I guess I would have to suffice, then.

  But I needed to make sure of a couple of things first, because selling BDs of my edgerunning would give people an idea of what I could do, and I couldn’t let that idea be overly broad. Thus, I needed to set up some ground rules for myself.

  Rule number one: no rapid-heals. Even if people would explain the lack of pain after getting hit with pain editor implants, I didn’t want to be reliant on that stuff in the first place. Too cheap. Legends didn’t get hit in the first place, and I’d rather not be known as a cockroach that can’t be put down. Wasn’t much dignity in that.

  Rule number two: limit my Sandevistan usage to the amount that a normal person could tolerate. Maybe five to ten. And even then, I had to make sure I didn’t push the duration either. Five to ten uses, with ten seconds in overdrive time each. Fifty to a hundred subjective seconds of Sandevistan usage. Let’s just make it one minute exactly.

  David: Nanny, can you keep count on that?

  [Yes, very easily. Rest assured, I can do it.]

  I chuckled at that. Strange. Nanny was just getting weirder and weirder, but I could tell it wasn’t a bad sort of weird. From what I recalled from her point of view, the Brainwipe had merged us somewhat, and although she split us up once again, that was more of a manual effort than anything else. Right now, we could almost be considered two sides of the same organism, rather than entirely separate, if we ever were to begin with. But this was an emotional fusion more than anything else.

  I didn’t hate it; she had more skin in the game now. That meant I could trust her.

  No extreme Sandy uses. And… that’s pretty much it. My Kiroshis, and the Sandy for that matter, came with built-in Braindance scrollers. Between the two of them, I would be achieving a resolution on-par with anything JK could dish out.

  All that was left was to get into character.

  I deactivated the Sandevistan and walked up ahead towards the nomads rushing up towards me.

  I had to level with myself. Killing; did it bother me? Did it really bother me?

  I couldn’t say it did either way, regardless if it was for revenge or for money. None of them mattered a fucking bit to me.

  A hundred and eighty-three.

  That number wasn’t a weight to me.

  I chuckled. I laughed. What the fuck was that number to me anyway?

  It was pride.

  It was one-hundred and eighty-three gonkbrained motherfucking bastards down on the ground while I wasn’t. It was an ocean of opps laying flat on the floor, while I was standing.

  It was an accomplishment, that was what the fuck it was.

  The ping came back positive with all the entities I were dealing with. Thirty. Ten cars, Thirty people, some in fours, some in threes, and a few in twos. What would that be on the final tally then? Two hundred and thirteen bodies.

  Enough with that, though. The bodies weren’t the point anyway. They were an accomplishment, but the glory it gave me was secondary to what I would achieve in the future. Best not get sidetracked by pointless flights of bloodthirst. That wasn’t really me anyway. And not in a good or evil way either. It just didn’t make logical sense to care so much about it. Death wouldn’t give me nutrients.

  The thirty entities were crawling towards me, and I contemplated who to hack and what to use. Overheat and Breach Protocol, of course. I could breach a car and make it crash into another. That would be more cost-effective than Overheating individuals.

  I could theoretically use Overheat on the cars, but what it would overheat didn’t compare to the damage it would do to cyberware and human bodies. I could target the computer parts and brick the cars, but that wouldn’t really kill anyone, just stop them short far away.

  Still valid. I had exactly two Breaches until my ‘deck cooled down, and then I would have two Overheats for the second CPU. I’d have to make that shit count.

  Also, weren’t thoughts also recorded in BDs? I was doing a lot of self-centered introspection. Maybe leave those thoughts out in the final edit.

  I breached two cars at the same time. At Sandevistan speeds, breaching the ICE wasn’t a matter of skill—and I doubt it even would have been without such speed. I had a clear idea of how to breach the ICE quickly and brutally. It would just take some time. My breach already worked at computer speeds, but this was a lot of computer, so the speed would naturally suffer.

  They were almost fifty meters away when I finally managed to breach the two cars that contained four people and had the biggest guns. I made them crash into a car each, deactivating the Sandy because I really didn’t need it.

  [Five seconds of Sandevistan use] Nanny reported. That was five subjective seconds? Wow. I fit a lot of thought into such a short timeframe. Maybe I should just think normally instead of relying on the Sandy for time. Nanny hadn’t exaggerated when she mentioned how my brain had changed for the better.

  The two cars crashed into two others—one of them went as far as crashing into a third one, and they tumbled ass over teakettle. One ended up flipping on its back, but the others all landed on their wheels, ready to continue driving. Not how I expected that to go. Where were the explosions?

  My ‘deck fed me more information from the breach, however. Weapons systems. I activated them all and set the targetting systems to the vehicles around.

  Rockets and bullets began to fly from the breached cars.

  The surviving cars, now shaved down to the four that had dodged the massive pile-up and bullet hail, continued onward towards me, and I could hear them shout from their cars. I Overheat two of them, bricking the computer parts and setting fire to their dashboards. The back of my skull and my neck was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm.

  The remaining two cars rode the rest of the distance.

  And I ran towards the one set on a collision course towards me.

  This would probably hurt.

  Just had to hope that their windshields were not enforced.

  I activated the Sandevistan, ran up to the hood of the speeding car, jumped, and flew feet-first towards their windshield.

  It didn’t shatter.

  It didn’t even break.

  Instead, the entire windshield ripped free from its frame with my momentum. I could see the confused faces of the Wraiths that attacked me. That confusion lasted only a moment before it morphed into the beginnings of pure fear and terror.

  [Both your ankles have been broken]

  Fuck. Well, that was to be expected.

  The pain hadn’t even finished crawling up to my brain by the time I felt it healing.

  And the windshield had finally made its inexorable march towards the two Wraiths in the car, squeezing them into their chairs. I expected their skulls to sort of pop from the pressure of the windshield, but instead they just sort of broke and started leaking.

  The passenger and driver seats backed up from the weight of my attack. I deactivated my Sandevistan and my back fell on the dashboard and hood of the car. I scanned the interior for weapons, and found a combat knife, and a pistol.

  It would be hard to reach with the windshield in the way, so I rolled off the hood, got my feet on the sand and opened the door, ransacking the corpses for gear.

  Then I heard gunshots. Gear gotten, I jumped over the car’s hood for cover as the second car to make its way was raining bullets on me, heedless about hitting their fellow Wraith. I’d heard rumors that these bastards were no better than the Scavs in the city, and I guess it wasn’t just anti-Nomad sentiment that informed that view.

  I sent out a Ping, feeling the warmth in my skull increasing as I received feedback of the two assailants making their way towards me. There was a momentary lull in bullet-fire, and I decided to put those knife-throwing BDs to use. I stood up, and already my arms moved to the tune of that BD before I had even gotten a look at my attacker. The moment I saw him, dressed in a blue T-shirt and a black kevlar covering his chest, with blue goggles on his face, I locked on the middle of his forehead, threw the knife and ducked down.

  I heard the wet thunk of the projectile landing way after I got down for cover again. From the yelp I heard, and the sound of a body dropping, I knew I had hit the bastard’s skull. I grinned. I capitalized on the momentary shock and stood up, jumping over the car, falling in a roll and rushing up to the wraith who had been looking at his dead comrade with a punch that would have sent him off his feet if he hadn’t raised his assault rifle to block. Instead, I hit his wrists, and his gun flew away, as well as his guard. I adapted immediately, far faster than he did, and turned my punch into an elbow as I stepped closer to him, reaching his temple with the strike. He staggered backwards, and would have probably tripped over himself if I hadn’t borrowed a page out of Katsuo’s kung-fu chipware book. I adjusted the grip on the gun I held so I could grab the motherfucker by his collar, pulling him back so I could continue the assault.

  But this wasn’t a million lovetaps, the peak of what that wretched brat could muster. This was three decisive punches, each one harder than the last, deforming cartilage, breaking past bone softer than my knuckles, and rendering the man’s face unrecognizable. With each hit, I felt the flow of my own movements as my fist travelled to my opponent’s face, noticed minor imperfections in my form, and smoothed them over so I could deliver the strongest hit that I could. He fell on his knees in front of me, and I remembered the gun in my hand.

  Gunshots sounded in the distance, and I knew I had to end things.

  I raised the gun, staring into the brutalized face of the Wraith who thought he was hitting an easy mark.

  ‘Sorry, mom.’

  I felt the devil’s warm hands helping me squeeze my trigger finger.

  The bullet fired, blowing a wide hole in the man’s forehead.

  I focused on the distance now. They were firing at me. Thankfully, I had just cleared out a perfectly good cover-spot, one of the Wraiths’ quadras. This one hadn’t been fried or anything, either.

  I ran into it and tried to start it, pressing a red button. A window popped up in my eyes, a prompt for a security key.

  Thankfully I had cooled down enough for another breach. It took a couple of seconds, and during it, one of the Wraiths had pinged a bullet on my new ride’s side windows, although it hadn’t managed to break through them. Sturdy shit. Hell, maybe I could keep it. Didn’t Maine own a Quadra? His was a little fancier, like a working-class Aerondight, the shit Faraday was driving but cheaper.

  This was a solo ride, though. I wouldn’t feel ashamed pulling up to a gig driving this. A school function? Probably. I’d have to save up for a Caliburn if I wanted to impress on such an occasion.

  Fuck it. Klep.

  The breach finished and I stepped on the gas. The good thing about the chips I had read so I could understand traffic laws was also that it covered the basics of how to drive a car. It was a rough start, but nothing catastrophic. That was pretty much impossible with my reaction speed. Maybe I’d become an even better driver than Falco if I gave this little baby a whirl for a couple of hours.

  I did a quick reverse U turn and immediately drove forward, right at a row of gunmen. A hail of bullets struck the windshield—none cracking the reinforced glass just yet—while I ducked and kept half an eye on the road, accelerating the car to its max. The Quadra’s acceleration pushed me back into my seat, almost forcing my upper body in full view of the windshield and the bullets. The gunmen dove out of the way, and I ended up only clipping one of them. While the Quadra continued driving, I dove out from the car, landing on a perfect roll and getting my gun up in time to assess my surroundings. Just for good measure, I dipped back into the Sandevistan.

  I counted six wraiths. My last Ping, not counting the people I had just flatlined, counted fifteen survivors. My quickhacking had killed almost half of them in one go, leaving only a few survivors crawling away from the wreckage or making their way to my position to avenge their chooms.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  I shrugged. All the same to me.

  I took aim just like Rebecca had shown me and sent a bullet into the nearest Wraith who was just getting up from the timem he had thrown himself out of the way of my Quadra.

  One down. Didn’t quite hit him where I had intended. Instead of a shot to the low part of his forehead, I had almost missed his head entirely, taking out the top part of his skull.

  I readjusted my aim to another target and became more mindful of my aim. Had to think about how to go about the next one.

  The answer was just like Rebecca had emphasized before; gun posture. I had ‘heeled’. The gun was pointing subtly upwards because of the way I held it. Easy fix to that; readjust my wrist.

  The next hit, aimed at the next target’s forehead, blew his throat wide open. Shit. Still a kill, but that just wouldn’t cut it.

  My next target had been too slow to raise his gun before I had entered Sandy speed, so now he was stuck looking at me with sheer terror. I’d take care of that for him.

  The next bullet blew his mind. Apart. And just where I wanted it to as well.

  That was the form, then.

  Was it reproducible?

  Three perfect headshots later proved that yes, it was.

  I deactivated the Sandy. [Eight seconds] Nanny reported. Action took longer than thought. Sure, that was always true, but the discrepancy was really something to behold now that my mind had become practically unshackled.

  I looked around the floor for a long-distance rifle I could use to take out the assholes running at me. They were five. I sent out a Ping. Five people still in or around the pileup, some moving slowly away from it all. Three were running like mad towards me.

  I didn’t find a precision rifle, but I did find one of the guns Rebecca had me play with—a Copperhead. According to her, it was a power-type weapon, one that used conventional gunpowder for bullet propulsion instead of railgun technology or smart homing propulsion. Was it the most accurate in long distances? According to Rebecca, that depended only on the shooter.

  I picked up the gun and held it in the grip that she taught me, took aim and braced my left arm for the incoming recoil. I squeezed the trigger and let the gun spray. Like before, the recoil wasn’t what I had expected, and was in fact incredibly manageable, way more than I had seen in action flicks. Usually the newbie would pull the trigger and lose control of the spray of lead immediately. Even on my first try with Rebecca, that hadn’t happened.

  But accuracy was a bitch. I did short squeezes, constantly correcting my aim. The good thing was that the rapid-fire nature of the gun gave me several shots at once to get my hits in before the aim was ruined. I was probably better off using this in long distances than a nekomata or some other type of sniper rifle. At least I didn’t have to rely on a long rechambering process.

  It took only three attempts with the copperhead before a cluster of bullets finally found my opponent.

  It stopped the other two dead in their tracks, but all I could focus on was remembering and internalizing the feeling of doing it right. Thanks to my sharpened memory, I could immediately go back into that feeling.

  I tested it out on the second last idiot Wraith. The spray struck him in his mid-section, cutting him down. The remaining Wraith booked it.

  I let him.

  He’d make for a smaller target. That meant better target practice.

  Once he was to a point where I started losing confidence in hitting him. I sent a spray after him. IT missed. Fuck, why? Okay, I knew why. Too high. I did something. Let’s not do that something again.

  Second attempt, too low. I overcorrected. Let’s goldilocks this shit.

  Third spray was just right.

  I snorted. I turned around to take in the sounds and smells of war.

  I blinked slowly.

  That’s it?

  No. What the hell. I couldn’t show this to any of my classmates. Jin would flip his shit.

  Shit. I went back into the car that I had made an emergency exit from and drove up to the wreckage zone where another ping confirmed only four living people left. Wow, what a shitshow. Sucks they had to get done like this, by a high schooler no less.

  Did any of the people I killed ever have the wildest idea who had done it? I had almost four weeks of combat training under my belt, most of it self-taught. Then again, it wasn’t really the combat training that made me such a menace.

  The Sandy’s weight on my back was reassuring now, and while I dreaded the idea of opening my body up to more weakpoints and vulnerabilities, I couldn’t deny my desire to chrome the fuck up. And now that I was getting back into the solo game, that desire had only magnified.

  I walked up to the wreck and saw some people peeking out from their cars, crushed and trying to get out. I eased their pain one by one, finally getting to a guy that had crawled away almost ten meters, only to flip around and see me.

  He smiled. Tears trickled down from his eyes, hitting his ears and pooling there. “Please.”

  I pursed my lips and shrugged. Couldn’t help him with that. Gonk saw my face. “Sorry, choom.” I pulled the trigger. His skull immediately became a mess of flesh and bone. There. All done.

  Done, but not done.

  Jin wouldn’t let it end here. I knew that fucking psycho needed more. It was already bad enough that I wasn’t a cyberpsycho, and I wasn’t as fired up as you’d expect from a guy who had just killed thirty people. Something about my brain made these high-action situations feel different. Slower.

  I could process more of it. I was in control.

  And that probably made for shitty cinema.

  Shit.

  I walked back to my car and browsed its hard drive. The nav data would tell me where these gonks came from, and I’d finish up from there. Probably make a cut in the BD between now and the Wraith stronghold.

  Had to get back for my bike as well. Hopefully their hack didn’t fuck up the hardware, but my bike was some new shit. I had given its security protocol a lookover already, and short of some really good hack, anything done to it would be resolved with a quick reboot.

  I drove to the bike and on the way, gave it a prod with my deck. It spun on its own and came to drive towards me, meeting me halfway.

  I got off the Quadra, on the bike, and rode off.

  000

  The Wraith camp, a little abandoned warehouse that they had squatted in, return roughly four people in my Ping.

  Fuck. It was over.

  I didn’t even bother to do shit with it. I didn’t care. This was seriously disappointing.

  Fuck it. I’d have to scrounge up some really early JK shit. That should be enough to sate them. His early work wasn’t nearly as popular as the 20th installment and up. JK had popped off at the point when he managed to get his hands on a virtu of a cyberpsycho that made news not only in Night City, but internationally, for having ripped apart a close relative of a Eurozone megacorp CEO.

  People liked cyberpsycho BDs, but they loved to be in the moment when history had been made. I couldn’t count on both hands how many times I had stopped by the area of a cyberpsycho rampage, remembering exactly how it felt to be inside that rampaging monster.

  You felt connected to the darkness of it all. And when you were one with the darkness, it couldn’t hurt you anymore.

  I drove off to my stolen Quadra once again and called Reyes.

  El Capitan: What’s up, kid?

  D: Took a few Quadras off the hands of some Wraiths who won’t be needing them anymore. You got that Autofixer shit going, right? You need any?

  El Capitan: Fuck no, hahahah. They’re modded to hell to survive the badlands to the point that that’s where they belong pretty much. Restoring them would be like building another car. And I don’t need that kind of smoke from those unwashed bastardos. And it’s not like anyone but them will buy it.

  Shit. What the fuck, man?

  D: Shit, okay. Anything you might need from a bunch of dead Wraiths?

  El Capitan: You got the coords on any camp I might not be aware of?

  D: I mean, I don’t think you’ll even really want it since I basically aired it out for the most part. But listen, I can pay you back money-wise for the loan. When are you free?

  El Capitan: You can pop by tomorrow afternoon if it works for you. You need any gig-gigs?

  D: I think I’ll take it slow for now.

  El Capitan: Hah! Who the fuck are you and what did you do to that crazy solo named D?

  D: Talk to you later, Capitan.

  El Capitan: Later. And kid, I suggest you ditch that car where you found it. Quadra Type-66 Reavers are fucking shit in normal roads, at least compared to the Type-66s optimized for regular street performance. And if you want something that can keep up with your merc work, just give me a ring. If you got your heart set on a Quadra, I can fix that, too. The Javelina is a solid option; even its base form has the sturdiness of a Wraith Type-66, and plays well with city roads. And it’s got space and bulk enough to shove as many guns and turret systems as you want. Give me a call whenever you’re ready.

  D: Thanks, I’ll remember that. Peace.

  El Capitan: Peace.

  Well, that was a bust.

  Whatever.

  Right now, I just wanted to sleep—

  Dorio was calling me. I accepted it.

  Dorio: Wanna talk?

  I wouldn’t say no to this. I did need to get in touch with Maine and them. But first—

  D: I was dealing with a lot of shit last I talked to Maine, but I didn’t mean to get… angry, I guess-guess. Yeah. We can talk. Just wanted to say sorry.

  Dorio: Say it to his face. I don’t care. Just wanted to chat. Come here.

  She sent me the coords for a… gym? A boxing gym, in fact.

  Okay, so we were doing this then.

  000

  The boxing gym wasn’t a particularly busy one. Not many people walking around, but the few that did were lumbering titans of flesh and steel, monsters that looked on the verge of doing some really drastic shit. They looked gross. Why would they let themselves get to this point.

  Dorio was sparring with a lesser monster in one boxing ring, and I approached it from the sidelines to give them a look.

  Clearly, this was an Animal gym. And not just the run-of-the-mill Animal gangoons walking around the streets, but the ones that made appearances in TV to paint the gang as being more dangerous than it actually was.

  Had Dorio maybe been an Animal before joining up with Maine? I didn’t want to think about that very much.

  Dorio’s opponent didn’t have an ounce of body fat, instead just muscle and sinew. Chrome replaced most of his joints and probably also his tendons, a natural consequence to having muscles stronger than your body could handle. Soon, I’d have to get those as well just to keep up with my desire to be stronger.

  But I wouldn’t let myself look so monstrous.

  Dorio knocked her opponent out—the man went sailing over the ring fence, rolling on the ground and coming to a dead stop.

  Then she noticed me. She smiled and raised her fist in the air. “Fuck yeah! Come on up, kid!”

  She was kidding. I sighed and removed my blazer. This would probably fuck up my uniform more than it had already been fucked up.

  I climbed up on the ring. “I thought you wanted to talk. Are we doing this instead?”

  “We can do both!”

  “I can’t box,” I said.

  She instantly deflated. “You forreal? Fuck. Get down then. I’ll show you the forms on a sandbag. Why the hell did you even get up if you can’t fight?” she grumbled as she hopped off the ring and towards a sandbag. I was about to go and pick up my blazer, but before I could, some asshole Animal picked it up off the floor and used it to wipe his forehead.

  Guess I’ll buy a new one.

  Motherfucker.

  It was my fault for leaving it on the floor, though.

  I walked up next to Dorio, and she launched into an explanation about footing, and position. While she did, I just observed her body. I told her to continuously repeat her movements while I tried to capture all of it with my eyes and the Sandevistan.

  I got the picture after a minute or two, and tried to emulate what she called a right cross, which was meant to be the strongest punch in boxing. I could see why. The maneuver borrowed power from the rotation of the hip and the entire torso—the entire upper body was party to the punch’s strength. Even your feet, actually. The entire body worked towards this punch.

  I sent the punch flying into the sandbag. It blew back with a satisfying thunk.

  “Good!” Dorio said.

  Not really. I hadn’t timed my feet right.

  The second attempt, I almost did, but not quite. The third, I was almost there. The fourth, I managed, just about.

  But that revealed another point of weakness; my hip flexibility. I got down to do some agonizing stretches, trying to free up a greater range of motion. After some snaps and tearing, I healed up and fired off another punch with all the force that my hips could muster.

  The sandbag reached half the height that it did when Dorio punched it.

  Okay, that was good. I looked up to Dorio. “What’s next? A jab, right?”

  “Yeah,” Dorio said with narrowed eyes. “You chipped in or something? Or is it chipware? Didn’t Pilar tell you those aren’t worth shit?”

  “It’s chrome,” I revealed. “But it’s a little complicated. Just safe to say: I learn fast, okay? It’s… kind of my thing.”

  “Brain implant? Whatever,” she said with a shrug, and then a wide smile. “Let’s see how good we can make you in an hour!”

  During that hour, we didn’t do much ‘talking’ that didn’t involve drilling forms. Learning was… ridiculously simple. Not even just mentally, but also physically. Movements that I had only spent a few dozen repetitions drilling became engraved into the core of my being, like I could do them asleep. It was almost as if the martial art itself had some magical properties that made them stick to me that much harder than anything else, except maybe shooting or swordplay.

  By the time I had finished mastering all the fundamental attacks, guards and rules, we sparred. She helped me put on my fist bandages and then my gloves, and then she did the same to herself in a fraction of the time before clambering up to the ring like an excited monkey.

  “No Sandevistan,” Dorio said. “We’re doing this raw.”

  “Correction,” I said. “I’m doing this raw. You’re doing it with chrome arms.”

  “I’ll go slow, I promise,” she said. She came up to me with a punch that was, indeed, slow.

  I turned my body away from the punch subtly, stepped in and sent a punch to Dorio’s face so aggressive that it threw her off her feet. She landed flat on the floor.

  She got up immediately, no worse for wear, glaring at me. “I don’t tolerate cheaters, kid.”

  Fuck. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t touch the Sandy, I swear. My reflexes are just… like this.”

  She tilted her head. “You’re serious? I heard Becca say something about that, but I figured she was exaggerating.”

  “Nah, that’s… just my nervous system now,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ll be able to beat me if you continue going slow.”

  She chortled. “Yeah, well if I don’t go slow, I’ll fucking kill you the next time I land a hit. I’ll go medium, how about that?”

  She instantly went on the attack, and while she was still slow to my eyes, my body wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the momentary opening without Sandy speed to nudge me.

  So I stepped aside and away from the next barrage of punches, searching intently for an opening. Finding one, I stepped in and knicked her cheek with my glove right before ducking under an oncoming punch and then getting a more solid hit on her face.

  Or it would have been solid if it wasn’t for the train that crashed into my chest, lifting me off my feet and paralyzing my entire body—what the actual fuck was that.

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t…

  I finally could after a moment, and I used the power that that singular breath gave me to stand up and raise my guard.

  I forced more air into my lungs by sheer force of will, disregarding the paralysis of my diaphragm. I should have seen this coming. Dorio had been clever, and I had been naive. But that attack implied a whole host of other attacks and situations in which I could be vulnerable. And the more I thought, the more such vulnerable situations multiplied in my mind. General situations could contain several more specific situations, all with their own differentiating factors.

  Boxing was like chess, really. And now that I knew Dorio’s toolset, I just needed to find an opportunity to win.

  She rained a hail of blows down upon me, none of them even touching me. Several opportunities flashed before my eyes, but they were all false. And I wanted her to think that I had learned just that from my last mistake. One opportunity flashed before me, this one also false, and I made to capitalize on it, only for it to be a feint. Dorio bit, putting a little too much of herself into a counter-attack that was entirely too ill-timed, revealing an opportunity that was likely true.

  And I threw caution to the wind and put everything of myself into this window, driving a right cross into her face, punching as if I was trying to hit the spot behind her. Her face sailed back with a spray of blood from her nose and her eyes widened.

  Her entire body flashed, her fist now in front of my face, and on her glove was death.

  I activated the Sandevistan and got out of the way.

  My back was against the ropes and I panted, both from the exertion of the fight, and the close brush with death.

  “Shit,” Dorio said, then she chuckled. “I almost killed you there. Good instincts, kid. It’s why I think it’ll be a waste for you to leave the biz, you know.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said. “I figured my shit out.” I stood straight and my breathing normalized. “Just needed time to process things, get my brain on right.”

  “You were scared?”

  I laughed. Scared didn’t even begin to cover it. “Well, to tell you the truth, I literally went to hell where I saw my dead mom apologize for having failed me, then I went to church to get absolved of my sins and after that didn’t work, I went to the desert where I saw the devil himself telling me to chase my dreams. I wasn’t scared. I was out of my damn mind. And now I’m better.”

  Dorio’s eyes were wide. “Holy fuck, kid. Wow. I always thought it’d be cool to be a Netrunner. Glad I never chased that dream. Shit. You really okay, though?”

  “The devil gives a good peptalk,” I said and she just laughed. “I’m fine. Tell the others I’m back.”

  “That’s well and good,” she said. “But it ain’t exactly good enough. You’ve always just had one foot in this world, and you displayed that by trying to leave things behind. And that shit doesn’t build trust. I want to know whether we can depend on you or not. You’re no more important to the crew than anyone else, so if you think you can just walk away whenever it damn well pleases you—”

  “I could have been a lot of things after mom died,” I said. “Done a lot of shit to make the scratch needed to live out a quiet and easy life, but instead I chose to pick up a sword and kill a bunch of gonks. If you think I’ll walk away for some ass-backward reason again barring extreme circumstances, like let’s say, getting your forebrain almost burned to a crisp by a giant fire daemon, then you have way more faith in my sanity than I do.”

  I was fucked up, and I was okay with that. I took a deep breath and relaxed. Yeah. Feeling okay. Two-thirteen notches to my growing graveyard in hell and it didn’t bother me any.

  Dorio looked at me for a moment, and I returned her look without flinching. She sighed. “Fair enough, kid. You make a good point. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you ain’t dead.”

  I chuckled. “Thanks, I guess.”