Nanny prepared some graphics actually, to show exactly how lessened I was.
-4.5% reaction speed. -12% energy efficiency, tying into a -4% reduction in physical coordination. I could neither move exactly as I wanted, and the movements that I did make were superfluous and overly strenuous. I had lost finesse. Most problematic was a -15% duration of concentration.
A one-hour nap during lunch could solve things, but then that would mean that I had to track down a place to sleep. After having pissed off Katsuo. No thanks, I’d rather keep my head on a swivel.
I’d just have to accept this debuff for now.
I could call in sick to school. It wasn’t like I had a perfect attendance record as it was. My grades were my selling point. I’d have to fill in some bullshit form and endure a reaming from the administration, which was customary. They only wanted to make me feel like shit, but they had no intention of stopping me from taking a leave if I really needed it. All students had a right to a certain number of days off school. Fourteen days to be exact.
This year, I had used exactly one of those days. It was the day after mom died.
Although the lack of sleep had started me off on this train of thought, what continued it was imagining what I could do from skipping a single day of school. I had no assignments or exams due today, classwork was the same as always and I could catch up given literally half a second.
I checked my to-do list, a highly neglected document despite the fact that its very existence was precisely to remind me of neglected tasks. I thought that having the app be in my eyes would make things easier for me to keep track of, but that proved to be a fucking lie. Maybe I should literally just have Nanny tell me these things?
Tasks
- Decompile the OS and get to the bottom of what the fuck Sandy even does.
- Buy cheap Daemons for inspiration
- Decide on next chrome (review necessity steps below)
- Will I be incapable of doing without it?
- Am I currently incapable of something such that only more chrome can help me?
- How will this chrome help me take over Arasaka or stay alive?
Top of the list was reading and optimizing the Sandy.
Damn. I had been sitting on this for weeks.
First thing first, if I wasn’t going to school, then I might as well sleep an extra hour and get rid of the debuffs.
Before that, I used mom’s terminal to quickly fill out and send in a form of absence citing health reasons. I would not be submitting a doctor’s note, which would make my absence count for three days of how many days off I had left, because that made total sense. But I had the days in spare and I might as well use them rather than lose them.
That done, I took an extra hour of sleep, woke up exactly ninety minutes later courtesy of Nanny, who had also let me fall asleep in an instant.
Finally, I felt fully well-rested.
I looked for a personal link cable around the house. I found one under a drawer. I disinfected it before reaching to my back where there was an inlet. From there, I connected the link to the Sandy. I put the other end inside an inlet in my PC tower. From then, I started accessing the code, having to breach it as I did. My own ICE wasn’t holding my access back, but the native security protocols within the cyberware did.
Or cyberwares as it were. My Sandevistan, a chip in truth, was attached to the enormous neural link that was now my metallic spine. They were a package deal, the neural link having been manufactured by the same people who made the Sandy, hence its ‘Dragon Spine’ appellation. Doc had apparently gotten rid of my old Arasaka neural link to make room for the Dragon Spine. Nanny confirmed as much when I asked. That was interesting, and it made sense. The Dragon Spine did cover the spot at the very peak of my vertebrae where my ‘Saka neural link used to stay.
I let out a breath through my nose, slightly annoyed that I had let this surprise wait for so long. Nothing had stopped me from getting to the bottom of something as important as my own chrome, except for the fact that I was just inherently shitty at managing tasks. I either went all in on something, or I did not give a single fuck. No in betweens.
Eh, whatever. Being hard on myself like this was equally time-wasting and wouldn’t achieve anything. Might as well spend that energy figuring out strategies to master myself. And I could do that later as well.
“Nanny, remind me to figure out ways to master time management later,” I said.
Wait, this was it though, wasn’t it? Use Nanny for this shit.
“Scratch that,” I said. “Just remind me to ask you to remind me whenever I come up with a task that I need to do. Especially if there’s multiple. Do you understand?”
[I do] Nanny said, entirely without judgment. I appreciated that, honestly. Anyone else would have called me a massive gonk.
Back to the Sandy.
Beyond the surface level crap, I got down to the basic functions, how the spine functioned as a spine, and not just a foundation for whatever the fuck the Sandy was.
And it was efficient. Really efficient.
Good, too. I really liked reading this code. It was understandable, yet still complex enough to give me pause and require a moment to parse it.
And… it was familiar.
[I ran an update on all of your chrome after the incident at T3nshi’s data fortress] Nanny said, and my eyebrows shot up. [I neglected to mention this.]
“You think I’ll be able to make any of my own touches then?” I asked. “As far as I understand it, we’re pretty much tied for coding skill.”
[You may, though the improvements will not be very substantial. Unless inspiration strikes. In any case, I gathered vast amounts of data on your nervous system in order to provide a better framework for which your Sandevistan neural link can work for you. I have some… ideas regarding further improvements we can make. Though they will not be improvements, but simple applications of what your chrome is already capable of doing.]
“I’m all ears,” I said.
[Your reaction speed is almost perfect. Your body is strong and fast enough to keep up. But the signals that your body receives in order to react are far slower than the speed at which your mind acquires and calculates new data. The Dragon Spine may allow us to program your body to react to certain stimuli without conscious effort. For example, you may be able to draw your gun and shoot it the moment you register a credible threat to your life, such as seeing the metallic glint of a pistol as it is about to be drawn. This will help you lower uses of the Sandevistan as well, and make you not as reliant on it.]
I pondered her words, and considered the possible consequences to this.
It was dicey, I’d admit.
The ‘draw gun’ code—for that was what it was—would have to be perfect, or I’d blow people’s brains out at the drop of a hat. I needed an ironclad trigger.
[We need additional data, of course] Nanny said. [And a lengthy experimentation phase to prevent any undue incidents. However, there is one thing that we can do given my current stores of data.] Nanny then described to me exactly what she was talking about, and I couldn’t help but agree. It was harmless to everyone, and mostly harmless to myself, and would pretty much get me out of any pickle.
We got started on programming the solution, and by the end of it, I was pretty happy with my gains. I used the Sandy to get as much done as I could, and then continued reading through the code, reaching the Sandy chip itself.
That was… difficult.
“You didn’t update the Sandevistan itself?” I asked.
[The Sandevistan operates on a level beyond my current understanding of associated academic fields.]
I took her meaning as I read through it.
This whole thing was just… bullshit.
Physics equations with the wrong signs, theorems I had never heard of yet, and other random crap that did not make sense at all littered the code. Some sections cut off into nowhere, and some looped back together, painting a questionable picture of the programmer’s conception of time itself. It was as non-linear as code could even be, and quite frankly I was shocked that any of this crap even worked.
I didn’t know how. I didn’t know enough to even wager if this was poorly done or a masterwork of coding.
I smiled and chuckled at myself, in arrogant irritation and amusement.
I wasn’t the best after all.
Whoever wrote this? Yeah, they were either insane or just downright godly.
It did make me anxious, though.
I needed more research. More math. That was always going to be good for my ICE building. I needed to read up on the latest in mathematics, maybe break into a corp data center or two to klep some info on cryptography, because I knew that no mere library would have the bleeding edge of that field just lying around.
Physics, too, because this crap touched on some really freaky stuff, and I did have a hole in my knowledge when it came to bleeding-edge physics, when it didn’t pertain to quantum computing at least.
I could leave that kind of research for another day. Maybe Friday evening or the weekend, but right now there were still other things to do.
New cyberware.
I had no candidates in mind.
And that didn’t matter as much as Maine chipping in.
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I called Kiwi and Lucy.
They both picked up pretty fast.
Lunacy: Thought you’d be in school right now.
Kiwi: I think our bad boy ditched school today
D: What’s the data on Maine chipping in?
Kiwi: We talked this morning. He was gung ho. Then Dorio and I teamed up on him and got him to chill. I explained to him the thing about cyberware software and he chilled after that. He’s given us like seven days to come up with better code for his softwares. I’ll give you both chip copies so we can get this done quick. There’s pay in it, too. Twenty-five each.
I wouldn’t say no to that.
Kiwi: There’s a lot to get through, though. He’s chipped in eighteen times so far, and that’s not counting his upgrades. That means eighteen different softwares we gotta get fixed before he loses his patience and proceeds to chip in.
I groaned.
D: At least he finally took us seriously.
Lunacy: Big of the big guy.
Kiwi: Come see me as soon as you can.
D: Got it. Thanks for stepping up, Kiwi. Appreciate it.
Kiwi: You’re not exactly a script-kiddie you know. After what happened that day, I figure I owe you more courtesy than I would any gonk off the streets.
Lunacy: Real sappy, Kiwi. Grew a soft spot for him already?
D: You’re one to talk.
Kiwi: Oh? Do tell.
Lunacy: Don’t believe a word this dipshit says.
D: She let me review her code.
Kiwi: Daaamn. Okay. Might as well have showed him your ass, Luce
Lunacy: Fuck off, it’s not like that. He was begging me for help on some project—
D: See, that’s actually bullshit, though. Lucy just doesn’t wanna admit she thinks I’m the better programmer.
Lunacy: Do you have a death wish?
Kiwi: I’m gonna give you two a room.
Kiwi disconnected from the call.
Lunacy: What the fuck was that about?
D: Relax. It’s whatever.
Lunacy: No, it’s not whatever. Don’t just go around saying that shit, you know how that makes me look?
D: Like you don’t hate my guts?
Lunacy: You know that’s not it.
D: I wanna hear you say it, though.
Lunacy: You know what? I do fucking despise you.
I chuckled.
D: I know you don’t.
Lunacy: Aren’t you supposed to be in school, anyway?
D: I ditched, cuz I’m a trashy delinquent, and I needed to get some shit done anyway. Feels good getting to sleep in, though.
Lunacy: It’s eight in the morning.
D: Guess you gotta get on my level to understand.
Lunacy: Self-aggrandizement is a bad look. You know what that word means, prep-boy?
D: Thoroughly
Lunacy: So what’re you doing today?
D: I have no fucking idea. Went through my to-do list. Found some fucked up shit in my chrome. Can’t deal with that until I do more research, but yeah. Thinking I should maybe have come to school after all.
Lunacy: The Sandy?
D: Not something I wanna talk about in open comms.
What was I going to do today? I felt that there definitely was something I wanted done. Or something someone told me to get done.
By today?
Hmmm. Dammit, I could have sworn there was something ticking down on me.
[Three days ago, the Tijuana Cartel gave you three days to complete a gig free of charge, or else they promised retribution.]
Oh…
Okay.
Yeah, that made sense.
I knew there was something. I knew it. I just couldn’t bring it up.
What the fuck good was perfect memory if I forgot to remember shit?
Ah, whatever. “Thanks Nanny,” I said.
D: Yeah, I just remembered something. I’m going to Tijuana.
I chuckled as I said something I didn’t think she was going to take seriously at all.
D: Wanna come?
Lunacy: What the fuck for?
D: It’s… a long story.
Lunacy: Ahhh. Fuck it. Sure, why not? Wanna meet somewhere near yours for once?
I was shocked that she’d even offer.
D: Sure, there’s a place we can grab some coffee near me. We can head off from there.
Lunacy: See ya.
Lunacy disconnected. Her sudden bout of friendliness was another point to the name I saved her as.
I didn’t hate this, though.
I’d appreciate her as a friend.
I’d greatly appreciate her seeing me as a friend, too.
I had… no reason to. At all. She had been beyond nasty to me. It hurt my pride that I couldn’t muster more anger.
Mom would be proud of me for letting go of anger, though. She was always so concerned about that.
I’d do it for her, then.
000
I waited on the main street in front of H4 for my bike to roll by. I kept an eye on the streets as always. Things had changed after I got money. I always did use to be wary about my surroundings, back when I had nothing and was only a step above a rat. Now that they were pretty much extinct in Night City, I had practically been a rat at the time. Just another streetkid, but way out of their element.
Now that I had money and power, I did continue to keep my vigil. No sense of losing that instinct, especially when it had served me so well in the past. I had never had a run-in with real gangoons before, because I knew pattern recognition. I could read people pretty well, too. I was always the first to delta and last to join up on whatever crazy adventure the neighborhood kids tried to drag me into.
My Yaiba finally rolled up in front of me. I jumped on it and took off, at normal speeds however. The mods were starting to wear and tear, and I needed to get stuff fixed before I even dared to go full throttle.
The cafe was anyway just a couple of blocks away. I parked my car by the sidewalk, locked it electronically, and would have proceeded into the cafe if it wasn’t for a voice that stopped me.
“David? Is that you?”
I recognized the voice. I turned around and saw Andrés approach me with a wide grin. He was thin, but slightly taller than me still, and had long black hair tied in a ponytail. He was a streetkid. Street man now, I guess. “Andrés,” I said. “Long time.”
“Damn, you got big,” he said. Then he switched to Spanish and said “And you got yourself a preem ride, too! How the fuck are ya?!”
“Fine,” I said with an awkward shrug as he encompassed my form with a wide hug.
He took a step from me and grinned. “Still doing Arasaka school or they kick you out yet?” He looked at me, and his eyes lingered on my sword with a brief frown.
“Still at it,” I smiled politely.
“Good, good,” he said. “What’s the katana for, though?”
“I practice,” I shrugged. “Hey, it was preem catching up to you and all, but I’m—”
“Nonsense, nonsense,” he said. “I’ll buy you some coffee, nova?”
Oh god. Before I could even answer, he had already walked into the cafe. I followed. He was already at the counter, ordering loudly (and rudely) two Americanos.
“And make it fast too, comprende?” Andrés asked. The middle-aged manager with the horseshoe mustache nodded with a frown and started making the drinks.
“It’s really not—” I said, but he interrupted me again, the fucking gonk.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, I’ll spot you,” he said.
What the fuck was going on?
“Andrés, I’m meeting someone.”
He grinned. Behind him, the manager arrived with our order. “You got a date coming or what?” he turned back to the counter and accepted the two plastic cups of coffee. Then he walked me up to a table and had a seat in a booth next to the wall adjacent to the windows overlooking the sidewalk. He rushed up to his seat before I could even sit myself. I decided to sit across from him, facing into the cafe. “Why don’t you tell me about her?” he asked me.
I got an alert from my bike. Someone was trying to breach it. The progress was really fucking slow, though.
Oh god.
Yeah, it explained why the dickhead rushed up to his seat. To try and make me face away from the sidewalk outside.
“What the fuck, man?” I asked him.
Andrés frowned. “Don’t be so annoyed, choom. I miss you—”
“We haven’t talked in over a year. And you took it pretty shittily when I said I was gonna split from your gang permanently, remember that?”
“Yeah, but, you know, that’s how it goes. I never did anything though, did I?”
Because I had done my best to avoid him. But I had seen his hunting dogs. I had seen him try to find me.
“Andrés, I’m not gonna flatline you,” I said. Andrés’ expression froze. “Due to my respect for the work you got me, back when I needed it. You gave me a lot of shit. I was grateful, too. I paid you as much as I could to say sorry for splitting, almost as much as you gave me, in fact. Which, by the way, proved that being with you was entirely unprofitable. I honestly wish I’d never met you. I get that you gave me good work, but I split anyway because that’s what my mother wanted.”
“Ah, yeah, Gloria. How is she?”
I stared at him flatly. “She died almost four weeks ago.”
“Oh,” he frowned. “Shit man, that’s a tough break.”
My bike’s ICE was around… ten percent breached. Guess we had more time to talk.
“But here’s the thing, Andrés,” I continued. “I had time to grow over the year since we last met, and I know you for exactly what you fucking are.” Andrés’ expression shifted to cold neutrality. “A sociopathic fucking bastard that would let children die to make a eurobuck. So why don’t you fuck off, and tell the guy you’ve got trying to boost my bike to stop it before he loses his hands?”
Andrés snarled. “You think I can’t flatline you right now, you stupid bitch?”
“You’re joking,” I said. “Are you really—”
Andrés grinned devilishly. “You sit right the fuck here, don’t say a word, and after I take your bike, I’ll consider us—”
I grabbed him by his hair and bashed his face into the table. Again, and again, and again. And then again. Usually, I’d have stopped at three. A fairer number than four. But the fourth was because I really didn’t like his face.
He backed into his booth, hands covering his face. He looked utterly dazed. Goddammit. Why was he making me do him like this? “I’ve got a friend coming, and you being here really cracks my fucking chrome. You get me, choom? I said I wasn’t gonna flatline you, but you keep trying me—”
He reached into his pants and I grabbed his hair and bashed his face down on the table three more times.
God, what a fuckup he was.
Whatever.
I stood up and looked at him wheeze breaths through his destroyed nose, his face bloody and ruined. I didn’t make him stand up. I just dragged him by his hair behind me. He was entirely ragdolled, practically unconscious.
I walked out of the cafe with him in tow, opened the door and threw his ass out onto the streets while his streetkid friends trying to boost my bike with shitty cyberdecks watched me.
They didn’t say another word as they scattered, leaving my bike unmolested.
“Friends of yours?” I turned around and saw Lucy look at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I said. “Old friends. He didn’t drink his coffee,” I pointed at Andrés. “You like Americano?”
“No,” she said with disgust.
“Yeah, me neither,” I said.
The manager of the cafe kicked the door open and walked into the sidewalk, pump-action shotgun in hand as he glared daggers at me, his expression so acutely wrathful that it looked like he was ready to splatter me across the sidewalk.
I sent him a transfer request of a thousand eurodollars before he could open his mouth. His eyes flashed blue as he accepted it and then walked back into the cafe without another word.
“Let’s find another place,” Lucy suggested. “Or just move on, I guess. Not really feeling coffee.” I shrugged. I jogged up to my bike and hopped on top of it, turned it on and drove closer to Lucy so she could get on as well.
“What the hell did he say, by the way?” Lucy asked. “He looks pretty beat up,” she looked at the road where he laid, on a parking spot at that.
“He just tried to distract me,” I said. “From the kids trying to klep my ride. But then he made me remember how he did me a year ago. After I split off from his crew, this gonk piece of shit made me go to ground and hide like a rat for months. He’s the kind of gangster that only uses streetkids. Ain’t afraid to get them killed to make a buck either. Lost some of my childhood friends running with him, years ago.” I shook my head to forget. Just another list of bullshit that I had dealt with all my life. The Night City upbringing.
“Oh, he’s scum,” Lucy said as I pulled off and started driving.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “I don’t really give a fuck, honestly. So about Tijuana, I just remembered that I owe the cartel a free gig. Hence the whole surprise trip.”
“What the fuck, you’re connected with the cartel?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “And my bike’s slower so I guess I’ll have the time to tell it to you by the time we get there.”
I told her the story while I rode towards the motorway, afterwhich I put on my mask and increased my speed.
I told Lucy all about my family back in Tijuana, how they got shafted by the cartel, and how I took revenge on the gang that killed them. Now the cartel thought I owed them for the flesh I took.
“So you’re just gonna fold?” Lucy asked. “D, these people know nothing about you. They wouldn’t try to bait you out if they did.”
“Of course,” I said. “And I bet the gig involves compromising my identity in some way too. They’re mostly operating based on the idea that I’m scared or something.”
“Are you?”
“Shivering in my boots,” I replied sardonically. “No, my goal is to learn how the cartel operates, so I can fuck ‘em over harder. They screwed with my family, and now they want me for the revenge that I committed. You think I’m gonna say sorry?”
“I don’t know what goes through your fucking head, D,” Lucy said. “But yeah, I guess not. I don’t see how this won’t just escalate things.”
“I’m going after the rat bastard himself,” I said. “Lorenzo. And after that, whoever is in charge. I get that an organization like that has no true head or heart, but I can still scare the heads and hearts there shitless enough to never try and fuck with me again. They would never suspect that I would jump all the way to the top of the hierarchy to make my move, forgetting that in the end, they’re still made of meat.”
“I feel like you’re underestimating them,” Lucy said.
“Of course. I have no frame of reference to how strong they are, besides the one gang that I took out, all hilariously fucking weak,” I shrugged. “I trust that the higher-ups are stronger. And I guess I’ll find out eventually.”
“Why am I here?” Lucy asked.
I shrugged. “Iunno. I offered sort of as a joke, and you accepted. I was gonna go alone to be honest. I’m glad you’re coming along, though. Mexico trips always get kinda… isolating. New city and all.”
“Glorious Security Solutions,” Lucy muttered. “I guess that explains that. You continue to surprise me, Martinez.”
The toll booth out of Night City was ahead.
“It’s good you brought me along,” she said. “You were definitely gonna get your gonk ass flatlined trying something like sinking an entire cartel.”
I rolled my eyes. “No I wasn’t.”
“Not anymore. There better be eddies at the end of this.”
I chuckled. “You don’t know me at all.”