After I parked my bike, I received a call from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time.

  Ichinose: Yo, I’ve got work for you! And two new referrals! Five hundred eddies for this job, a debug.

  I stopped and stared at the empty air.

  My lips quirked upwards.

  I chuckled.

  Then I laughed.

  Ichinose: What the fuck, David?

  I kept laughing.

  This man’s existence had completely slipped my mind. The basic bitch netrunner I did jobs for way back when mom and I could barely afford rent.

  Now it was this guy who couldn’t afford me.

  David: Sorry, pal. I’m done with this work.

  Ichinose: Come on, David! Six hundred, okay?!

  David: Put another zero there and we might be talking.

  Ichinose: What the fuck? Who do you think you are? I’m offering you good eddies right here!

  David: You think that’s ‘good eddies’, Ichi, then you must be out of your gonk mind. Either you pay me better or you drop it and lose my contacts.

  Ichinose: You think I won’t fucking doxx you, kid? Do you even know who you’re playing with?

  I spent a moment entertaining the fantasy of doxxing him in turn through our comm line, but I quickly gave that up, not seeing the need to. I knew for a fact that he couldn’t crack my cybersecurity even if he wanted to, and I always made sure never to hand him any identifying information, keeping our correspondence strictly anonymous, except for our first names. He couldn’t touch me with only that. Doing anything against him would imply that I considered him a threat, which I didn’t.

  David: Thanks for the edds, but I’m afraid this is where we part ways. I’m going to block you now.

  Because really, that was enough.

  Ichinose: What?! You think that’s—

  I blocked Ichinose and quickly put him out of my mind. Seriously, six hundred eddies for three jobs. The past me would have jumped at the opportunity, burning an entire weekend tirelessly typing away just to have Ichinose pay me three days later up to a week. His only selling point was that he eventually paid, but he had a godawful attitude.

  Whatever. He didn’t matter. I put him out of my mind and started meditating again, finding my cool. Time to put my corpo on… again.

  A couple of security guards stood before the ramp up to the pleasure barge. They held up a hand to stop me and shot me a scan. After a moment of waiting, he gave me a nod. “Right this way, Mr. Martinez. If you provide us with a key to your vehicle, a valet can get it parked for you.”

  Hmmm.

  My gutter rat id instinct was to tell him to fuck off with that obvious scam, but my corpo superego overrode that impulse. If anyone tried to steal it, I’d find it and take it back. No worries.

  “Here,” I said, sending the man the electronic key. “Not a scratch on it or it’s your ass,” I said, just to be a cunt, and also because I couldn’t contain my gutter rat instinct for much longer. Maybe it was trashy of me to be so attached to something as paltry as a 66 thousand eurodollar motorbike, but what did that matter to me? That bike was still precious to me, if only sentimentally, since I could easily afford several of them at this point.

  I proceeded up the ramp and into the main deck of the ship where loud music played. Bottles of expensive champagne and liquor bandied about as corp students celebrated the generosity of one Jin, last name Ryuzaki, son of Arasaka’s head of finance.

  I spotted Allister and Walter chilling in some corner, surrounded by ‘lesser vassals’. Really fucking depressing, that. I always thought they were all just… friends. That wasn’t the case. The truth was, there were no true friendships in this world. Only rivalries or subordinates.

  Allister gave me a call and I accepted it.

  Allister: Turn around and greet Jin first, you gonk.

  I hissed inwardly and did as I was told. That was uncharacteristically harsh of him, though I knew why that was. He only got so heated when things were dire, and I guess me not acknowledging the top dog first was a sufficient enough breach of decorum to even have him of all people cursing. I sent him a quick thanks and walked up to Jin, who was seated on a raised platform on a table with Katsuo, and Fei-Fei, wrapped around Katsuo all lovey-dovey.

  I tried to suppress a smile at that. “Hello, Jin,” I said. “Katsuo.” And then to Fei-Fei, I tilted my head. “I haven’t had the pleasure of introducing myself to you, yet. What’s your name?”

  “Mei Jing Fei,” she said, and it occurred to me just then that this was the first I’d ever heard of her full name. I guess Fei-Fei was always just a pet name, then. Cute that she had given it to me so early. Proved that she actually sort of liked me. Well, I always knew she did, but I guess this meant we were real chooms.

  “A pleasure, Jing Fei,” I said.

  “David, my man,” Jin said, getting up to greet me. He pulled me into a bro-hug, patting my back and holding my hand. “You been well and all?”

  “I have,” I said. “I hope the answer is likewise.”

  “Can’t complain, can’t complain,” he said. “Been bored as fuuuck, though. I really hope you’ve come with a fix for that.”

  Ah, here it was.

  I stepped back and did a ninety-degree bow, ripping off the corporate apology chapter of the corporate culture textbook almost verbatim—I had read and memorized that section just for this. First rule of breaking bad news to a superior: full honesty and no excuses. You fucked up and they’re going to be mad. Don’t try to downplay it. You shouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place.

  “I was not able to procure any new XBDs off Jimmy Kurosaki’s make as of late. I apologize profusely for my blatant inadequacy.”

  “What the fuck?!” Katsuo roared. “This lazy asshole didn’t even deliver? I heard so many rumors too of another XBD out on the street!”

  Fuck, really?

  Or was he just lying to put me in deeper shit?

  Knowing Katsuo, it could be either or.

  “Eh,” Jin said. “I keep an ear to the ground myself. Haven’t heard of any new Jimmies out. Probably just bullshit. If Davey couldn’t find it, I doubt they existed in the first place.”

  I felt slightly guilty about that. I could have hit up a boostergang bar to find the XBDs, in D attire sure, but I had been sidetracked on getting my own XBD edited, hoping that was enough. Beside, Jimmy didn’t release that often anyway. It had been about three weeks now, and his next upload would probably happen in a week or two.

  In all actuality, this was a genuine fuckup on my part, and one that I really shouldn’t continue making a habit of reproducing, or I could just kiss my dreams of corporate overlordship—as Lucy put it—goodbye.

  “That being said,” I said as I straightened my back. “I have brought with me a Jimmy Kurosaki XBD of the second installment. Something I hope you haven’t sampled yet.”

  Jin’s grin widened. “Oh. You crazy motherfucker, you got the full series?! Why didn’t you fucking say so? Shit, that’s awesome! I’ve still got a huge ass backlog I need to catch up on! Second, you say? Yeah, that’ll do nicely.”

  “I also have another XBD,” I said. “An up-and-coming no-name solo. Not a cyberpsychosis scroll. The guy’s pretty collected and all. It’s more like a ‘day in the life of an edgerunner’ type thing.”

  “Preem,” Jin said, though I could tell he wasn’t super into the idea. “So how much were you thinking?”

  “A hundred per chip?” I said. “That adds up to forty chips, for four thousand.”

  “You’d like that mindblowing amount, wouldn’t you, David?” Katsuo taunted. “Four thousand making your dick hard, isn’t it?”

  I could give it for free considering how little I relied on this stupid income stream for anything else but social capital, and I was ready to make such a statement before stopping myself.

  It was the principle of the matter, wasn’t it?

  Allister could easily afford being an XBD gopher for these assholes because he had enough money to never make that an issue, but the indignation of the matter wasn’t the loss of money: it was being made to do something against your will. Subjugated and employed.

  I couldn’t let myself fall into that trap and lose all rep. Four thousand was chump change, but it was the price to pay, and I wouldn’t budge on that, even if I was going wayyy underneath cost.

  Now, to construct a sentence where I enforced my bottomline without coming off as desperate or insulting.

  I just… ignored Katsuo and refocused on Jin. Sometimes, the best response was no response at all. Besides, how childish would I have to be to try and get in a band-for-band contest with some rich asshole anyway?

  “Yeah, sure, fuck it,” Jin said, thinking absolutely nothing of the transaction as his eyes glowed blue and he sent me the money. That was biz after all: fuck it, pay. Jin was a good customer. I handed him the baggy of chips. “Go chat with your little friends, I’ll call you to test the BDs out when I’m feeling up for it. You good with that?”

  “Always,” I said. “I’m never gonna sell you something I can’t watch myself. But I do gotta warn you, the JK is… well, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being Norris, this one’s a solid nine. Schizo paranoid chrome junkie loses his shit, starts thinking his neurons are pumping poison through his brain, and it’s the government’s fault.”

  “Ah, got it,” Jin said. “Thanks for the warning. Fucking hate to have another vomit clean-up session. Really harshed the vibe last time it happened. Fucking pussies man, can you believe them?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “They can’t tolerate the darkness of the world,” I said with a shrug. “Would rather hide away than embrace it. Would rather fear and be prey than join the dark and be a predator.”

  Jin’s eyes widened. “Exactly! They think it’s all fucking games just because they’re corpos, but this is Night Fucking City, choom! You can’t let your eddies blind you to the truth: we all look the same on the inside. Blood and meat.”

  “Unless you become a chrome monster,” I said. “Then you’re more… right?” Wait, what the hell was I saying?

  Jin was… I was genuinely relating to him now. He actually knew. He understood the world, understood my own obsession with XBDs.

  “Yeah!” he chuckled. “Then you’re more.”

  I gave him a grin. “Pleasure doing biz, Jin. Holler if you need me.”

  “You know it!” He patted both my shoulders, the overly familiar gesture not lost on me. Our little moment of connection was cute and all, but that didn’t mean jack shit considering our places in the hierarchy. The gesture made me feel like a pet: a really fucking good pet, but a pet nonetheless.

  That was the other end of the equation, wasn’t it? Get too good at being a corpo and some asshole would want to pimp you to their own benefits.

  Maybe it was high time I disappointed him at some point. Tactically.

  I finally got to meet Allister and Walter, giving them a chipper greeting. “Hey, guys. Having fun?”

  Walter handed me a drink and gave a grin. “Sure. Depends on whether or not the XBD you brought is gonna trigger another spew fest.”

  I laughed at that. “I have a feeling Jin’s gonna let people sit this one out. I already warned him.”

  Gasps of relief shot through the gathered peanut gallery. Relieved chuckles and smiles aplenty. Even Allister gave a grateful smile. “That’s all we can hope for. Sharing a hobby with the young master is well and good… as long as you have the stomach for it.”

  I felt bad for him. “Well, if it's any consolation, I can help you build up the tolerance.”

  “I’m afraid it’s more of a… fundamental difference in mentality,” Allister said. “Some were made for civilized society. Others were made to maintain it. The latter do so because they know what the alternative is. They can stomach it. Shape order from chaos.”

  I tried not to cringe at his anime-esque speech. “It’s no big deal once you get the hang of it,” I said. I genuinely thought it was more of a skill issue than anything fundamental. I wasn’t born a badass solo who fucked my worst enemy’s girlfriend on the regular and raked in hundreds of thousands on a weekly basis.

  Huh. Putting it all down like that, maybe I was just… constructed alternatively.

  Put together in an unorthodox fashion.

  I downed a measure of my drink, a mojito of all things. Wow, that was thoughtful of them.

  “Don’t talk down to Allister,” one of the peanut gallery said, a cute girl at that. “Do you really think you have the station to speak to him in such a familiar manner?”

  I frowned at the girl. “Sorry, who the fuck are you?”

  “Quiet, Minako,” Allister said. “I will excuse David’s impudence for now, as it has most likely to do with the drink I gave him.”

  Allister called me.

  Allister: Just play along, I’ll owe you.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “My apologies, Allister,” I said, despite how much it churned my guts to do so. “I spoke out of turn.”

  David: That being said, I would like to talk to you about… how I can sort of skip this bullshit. How do I get standing in my position?

  Allister: Have rich parents, or be owned by them.

  David: And?

  Allister: Or prove yourself to be such an asset to Arasaka in your young age that they will be invested in your future. Short of winning a tender with the company, or maybe winning a case competition or something like that, I don’t see you having many opportunities to do so. Just keep your head low for now and smile. I told you before, didn’t I? Be quiet and mysterious. You’ll be less offensive that way.

  He already gave me that advice before and I had already forgotten it. That was dumb of me. I wouldn’t do so again.

  Especially now knowing what it would take for me to gain some real respect up in this bitch.

  The case competition.

  That shit really did matter beyond just winning some scratch and looking good on a CV, didn’t it? If I won that case competition, actually won it, then I wouldn’t just be some promising programmer. I’d be a prodigy. And these kids would be bound to respect me at this point.

  In the end, Allister’s advice to ‘have rich parents, or be owned by them’ still applied, only this time I chose the richest parent of all: Saburo Arasaka himself.

  All of that was quite a bit away for now, but I’d get there sooner rather than later, as long as I didn’t rock the boat too much, or rise too much to Katsuo’s bait.

  That would be easy.

  000

  Eventually, Jin summoned us to his BD auditorium—he even got one built in his ship, what a rich asshole—to have everyone watch me watch the XBDs I had set forth.

  Neither were particularly shocking to me. The first one did get me to jerk violently as I exited it, but my own XBD didn’t do anything to me at all. It just made me feel a little stupid and inexperienced. If that was me right now, I’d have done way better. Had better strategies, better skill.

  Judy had also left in the bit about me apologizing mentally to mom, but all the identifying information was absent, including the fact that I was apologizing to my mother, so I didn’t think much of it. Perhaps she just thought it was too spicy to let go of.

  Also… my thoughts felt really slow, and less… complex. Like I had gone from grandma’s chili to some canned chili you’d find in a SCSM machine. Whatever, maybe that would boost the watcher’s viewing pleasure more. I hoped so. I paid good money for these edits. Having Judy fuck me on this felt like it would go beyond the pale as a prospective business partner, to something totally unforgivable.

  After leaving the Wraith massacre XBD, Jin looked at me expectantly. “You good?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”

  “Alright!” Jin clapped his hands and faced the crowd of partygoers. “Now, attendance is strictly optional. If you can’t stomach this shit, fuck off right now. If you try your hand and start vomiting, you bet your gonk ass I’ll fuck you up.”

  000

  Being born as the son of Ryuzaki Masaru gave Jin an unimaginably difficult legacy to follow.

  The man had been one of the first transfers from Japan to go directly from the main headquarters in Tokyo to Night City after the unification war to make a fortune for himself. Tokyo already had its established dynastic corporate families, and thus Night City was the only option left for an enterprising individual with dreams of upward mobility.

  And Night City delivered on the promise of glory… to anyone with the courage and luck to brave the hellhole.

  And Masaru had that in spades. Backroom deals, assasinations, sabotage and espionage had shot Masaru up from a lowly peon to a director, with naught but his own two hands. Had it cost the family? Yes, the fuck it had.

  Jin was an only child now. And he had traveled to America with five older brothers and three sisters, all of whom were wiped out in the crossfire of Ryuzaki’s reckless and unstoppable rise to the top. Jin was not only just lucky. He had been crafty, taking after his father and clawing for survival, using his mind as well as his guts to make the decisions necessary to keep him alive all throughout puberty.

  Unlike his cousins or his generation, he was a born fighter.

  And he could respect another fighter. Like David-kun for example. Diligent as he was, it didn’t compare to to the sheer grit that he detected in the kid’s eyes. Real recognized real, and Jin could recognize a motherfucker like David.

  But this no-name mercenary in this XBD?

  That was a real fighter right there.

  Contemplative, competent, calm. A professional unlike any other. A killer that kept his cool like no other cyberpsycho Jin had ever seen. And sure, that was to be expected: the solo wasn’t a cyberpsycho after all. But to be so calm and collected, to be so detached from the concept of luck and chance, taking everything in their own hands, even their fate, through nothing but sheer skill and grit? The solo had felt a lot of things while Jin watched him, but he never felt a shred of real, actual fear. No, this motherfucker was…

  He was real.

  Real.

  Gonk saw my face, the man thought as he contemplated on whether to let the last Raffen Shiv live or not. Without even an ounce of actual grief, he dispatched the guy. To this solo, his opponents weren’t even human. They were cockroaches, bugs to be smashed down and eradicated to protect himself.

  The XBD ended and Jin ripped the headset out of his face and stood up. He looked around in his auditorium at the others, these mice who cowered before him like the fucking maggots they were.

  Try something, bitches! Just fucking try something! Yeah!

  They did not, because they knew their fucking place. Even Katsuo, the chickenshit weirdo who had to rely on his father to get his dick wet.

  David, unlike the others in the room, met his eyes, expectantly, waiting for an evaluation.

  Jin decided to scare him a little. “You!” he roared, pointing his finger at him and walking towards him. David’s eyebrow lowered, and he just looked at him flatly. “Got anything to say for yourself?”

  David, for his part, didn’t give a shit. “Did the experience not meet the young master’s expectations?”

  Bastard. Preem bastard, though. His bastard.

  Jin’s expression turned into one of glee. He started laughing. “The fuck it didn’t!” He hugged David bodily. “That shit was nova!”

  He pushed himself off David and shook his head feverishly, getting rid of the goosebumps that formed on his skin. This was insane, unlike any other XBD he had gotten his hands on before. This was gold!

  “You know who scrolled this?” Jin asked.

  “Yes,” David said. “At least from my sources.”

  “I want more,” Jin said, his tone leaving no room for disagreement. Thankfully, David smiled.

  “That can absolutely be arranged. My sources tell me this is only the first among many. At least, before the gonk flatlines. I’ll keep a watch for any new ones to hit the market. You’ll be the first to get your hands on them.”

  Really, now? Kid didn’t look like he was bluffing. He could actually swing this sort of deal. Amazing.

  Jin shot him a call.

  Jin: How much to get you seriously on this case? I need more of these yesterday.

  David: Twenty thousand, monthly.

  Jin furrowed an eyebrow at that.

  David: These weren’t cheap coming across. I’m paying for first access, here. These BDs never hit the streets yet. You’re the first eyes on ‘em.

  Jin: No shit?

  David: I guarantee it.

  They’d figure that fact out in time. But for now.

  Jin sent the kid twenty thou.

  Jin: Keep a fucking eye out. I want new ones fast. And before anyone else.

  David: Bet.

  Anyone else would berate Jin for the frivolous expenditure, but Jin saw it as an investment.

  He could learn from this solo. Not mercenary skills, no. But mercenary mindset. Money above all. Even your safety. And who better could embody this principle than someone who sold their body for violence?

  And not only that, but somebody who did it so fucking well?

  David better fucking deliver, or he’d know what it meant to get on the wrong side of a son of the Arasaka Corporation.

  Katsuo then gave him a call.

  Katsuo: I’m saying this as your cousin that loves you, but you have to stop entertaining this street trash! Can’t you see how much you’re sullying the Arasaka name?

  Jin immediately saw red.

  Jin: Damare, kusoyaro. I’ll beat the fuck out of you if you keep yapping at me. This is the last fucking time you talk about my ‘bad habits’, you fucking worm. I’m not your goddamn son to be spoken to like that.

  Katsuo had the good sense to immediately hang up the call, which was good. The way Jin felt, he would have immediately jumped the lanky fuck right there.

  Fuck, he still might, just from seeing his conflicted, bitch boy expression. Whatever. Probably just the high talking.

  000

  That went… better than expected.

  A little scary, if I was being honest, to have Jin suddenly become such a superfan of my solo stuff, but that was okay. I had a supply that only I could provide, and I would provide so long as it kept the kid pacified.

  Was it, strictly speaking, ethical to supply a child with what amounted to a drug just because they had money and influence?

  As far as my humanities teachings had told me, the answer to that question was ‘mu’. The question’s premises were flawed, making an answer impossible.

  What were ethics? Laws? Hah. What was a child? Jin? Hah. What was a drug?

  All of it was so mired in loaded language that it wasn’t even worth answering. I was just me, like I always was.

  Instead of obsessing over how bad my actions were, I would rather like to think about what they achieved. My XBD sales put food on the table. They made mom happy. They removed pressure off my back and gave me time to do good in school and impress mom. That was the good that it did, and I’d think of nothing else but that.

  And now it had made me twenty-four thousand eurobucks. Nothing else was worth contemplating than that: what my actions did for me and those near to me.

  I had survived the first stage of a Jin party: being the providor of illicit entertainment. The second stage, however? That was yet to come.

  I walked up to the main deck of the ship, and saw that we had already made our way from the coast, surrounded by an inky blackness on all sides. Why do a yacht party at night? Seemed like a waste considering the lack of a view. Well, I could still see with the ‘Roshi’s. Problem was it was all monochrome. No color, cuz of all the dark.

  Fei-Fei sent me a call, and my mood immediately lifted.

  Fei-Fei: Awesome job, choom! Holy shit! I’ve never seen that psychopath so elated before!

  Fuck if that didn’t make me grin ear to ear as I leaned over the railings, looking at the monochrome horizon of the ocean.

  David: Thanks, Fei-Fei. Honestly, I’m a little iffy on being so high up on his list of favorite people. Feel like a pet, you know.

  Fei-Fei: We’re all pets in the end. Better a good pet than a bad one.

  David: Correction, we’re all pets, yes, but we can distinguish ourselves by our owners. And I don’t intend to be owned by Jin.

  Fei-Fei: Why not? He’s… He’s an asshole, but you’re useful as fuck. And smart. You can handle him.

  David: Let a guy dream, won’t you?

  Fei-Fei: It’s not healthy to dream big, you know.

  I laughed.

  David: Don’t I know that? Fei-Fei, do me a favor and stop worrying about me. It makes me feel like scop. Please.

  I hoped for the last word to not come off as pleadingly as I had really meant it, but Fei-Fei’s response reduced my worries immensely.

  Fei-Fei: It scares a girl to know that their choom is shooting as high as you are, you know. But if you want me to believe in you, I will try. Let’s enjoy today, okay?

  David: Thanks, Fei-Fei