Chapter 35 - Project Reset

  Lucy was drunk. It was the only way she could explain her overpowering urge to explore every inch of the body she was holding for dear life, a want almost strong enough to make her forget the need to keep herself anchored to the insanely fast, insanely driven motorbike underneath her.

  The desert-parched countryside shot by blur, and her arms were wrapped around his broad frame. Even through his jacket she could feel his solidity, his muscles, of which he had plenty. Not so many to make him grotesque, but enough to give him a reassuring rigidity. Not too rigid, either. There was a give to him that she liked—that she hoped would stay there forever, unmarred by subdermal implants or titanium bones or synth muscles.

  She knew there was only so much time before he took the plunge and ruined himself, walking down the same path as Maine. She knew she wouldn’t have many other opportunities with him.

  Despite herself, her hands kept wandering as the world around her kept on blurring by in a rush of wind and color, and more importantly, she avoided thinking about tomorrow, when they would have to return to… whatever they were to each other.

  “You’re home,” David said, and only then did she notice that they had parked outside of her apartment building.

  She got off from the bike and stared at the building for a moment, knowing what awaited her should she go in now. The regret of never asking, of never taking a chance.

  She had no idea when it was that she had changed her mind like this, and to such a level of intensity.

  She turned around and gave David her best inquisitive look, while also trying not to smile, “You’re not gonna walk me to the door?”

  David snorted, “What, you too drunk to take the stairs?”

  “Screw off,” she muttered, somehow unable to meet his eyes, “You too proud to be a gentleman?”

  David frowned and rubbed the back of his head, “Sure. But… I really can’t stay for long. I’ve got a big day tomorrow. Can’t miss school again.” He got off from his bike, though, and they walked together in silence, up the stairs, and then to her door. She opened it, and walked through the doorway.

  This was it. This was her chance.

  “Got beers in the fridge,” she said. He grimaced—right, he didn’t like beers, “Tequila, too, on the shelf.”

  “Thanks, Lucy,” he said in a way that was clearly a rejection of the offer, “But I really need to get going.” Fuck. She needed to say something, anything—

  “Today was a close call, you know,” she blurted out quickly, “We almost died. Would have died if it wasn’t for the quickhack we found.”

  He nodded, “I know. Trust me, I… I shouldn’t have dragged you into that.”

  “Then you would have died,” she said, finally giving him a firm look. “How’s that supposed to make me feel better?”

  He frowned at the ground, “We won’t take gigs like that again. This was for family—I had to do it.”

  “At least it paid off,” she snorted. She had more money now than she even knew what to do with. Money she was almost too scared to spend. What would she even spend it on? She had already made enough to go to the moon months ago, and all she was waiting for now was… the right time. A sign, maybe.

  “What are you gonna do with that money?” David asked.

  “Who knows?” Lucy shrugged.

  David looked… stricken. “You’re not going to the moon, are you?” Then his eyes widened, “Not that there’s any problem, you’ve got more than enough to set yourself up real nice. It’ll be preem for sure—”

  “I don’t know,” she lied, “Maybe,” she grinned, “Maybe we’ll never see each other again after today?”

  David’s eyes widened. He leaned forward in urgency, “Are you serious, Lucy?”

  “I might finally escape this prison,” she said, feeling anticipation well up in her heart. What would he do about that? How would he react? “I might just take the money and cash out, like I’ve always wanted—”

  The hurt in his eyes made her regret saying any of that. Just like that, she might get what she was angling for—out of desperation if nothing else.

  But that was life in Night City, wasn’t it? Every action informed by desperation and terror, every life nothing but a chain of reactions to a society that saw them all as nothing but meat, chrome, and bags of eurodollars. Nobody ever bothered thinking past today. And David was no exception to that, despite all that he had going for him. And neither was Lucy.

  And that was unfair. All of it was. And that unfairness sparked a fire in her chest—anger warring with fear of the unknown, fear of what David would get himself into next time.

  “—Before getting myself killed,” Lucy continued, twisting the knife. “Because that’s what happens when you’re a Night City legend. You get yourself killed—and others for that matter.” And Lucy had to mull over the question of whether or not she could accept that as the cost of doing business, as it were.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy,” David said, “Can… can I come in? Let’s talk.” Lucy didn’t budge an inch from the doorway to give David space. Instead, she stared at him, and she wondered what it was about him that made her want to risk it all for him, how much she was screwing herself over.

  She was on the downswing of her inebriation, she could feel it. All that remained in her heart was dullness and dissatisfaction, a hunger that just wouldn’t go away—and a burning desire to wash down a shot of vodka, or maybe an entire damn bottle. The elixir that would allow her to ignore the cons of her path.

  It would be all too easy to step to the side, let the idiot come in, then lean up and kiss him and—and they could do something they would regret in eight hours, but for now, it would mean everything.

  But was ‘now’ enough?

  No. She wanted a future. Death didn’t have to be the inevitability that she—and everyone in this accursed city—saw it as.

  “No,” she said to him, “You belong to this city. I’ve only ever seen it as a prison.”

  “I’ll come to the moon with you.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. What a sweet, beautiful… lie. Or maybe it wasn’t? No. She refused to let herself believe that. She refused to put all of that on David. He deserved better than that. Better than having to follow her crazy self to the ends of the earth. She let out a shaky breath. “Good night, David.”

  She made to close the door. His foot stopped it. Then he pried it open with his hand—and she was powerless to resist it.

  “I know you don’t believe in me,” he said quickly, “And that’s fine. No one really does. I don’t need anyone’s belief anyway. But I want you to know, Lucy, that this city you hate so badly? I’ll fix it. I’ll fix everything.”

  Lucy bared her teeth, snarling at him, “This is exactly the sort of talk that’ll get you killed, David!” Why would he put such an impossible fight on himself? Did he not understand how much misery he’d be setting himself up for? And for what? For just her? No. She refused to be the cause of his self-destruction.

  “I’ll show you,” he said. His expression was stony, his posture solid as a skyscraper, and Lucy noted absently how tall he had gotten in such a short amount of time. He barely resembled the him of four weeks ago. “I can do it.”

  Then he turned around and walked one step away before stopping. His eyes started glowing gold as he consulted the Net. He didn’t turn his head as he spoke one last time, “There won’t be another launch to the moon for three days. We have time to talk about this. But we will talk,” David continued, “When you’re sober. Okay?”

  “Don’t bother,” she slammed her door shut at his face.

  She still stood there. Heard as he spent only a few more seconds staring at the door before walking away with slow steps.

  She felt all too tempted to open the door and to shout after him to come back. But he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. She had probably well and truly scared him off by now. She wouldn’t blame him for steering clear after their history.

  000

  Things had gone too smoothly today, so really, what else was I expecting but another hiccup? Considering Lucy was involved, I really was a gonk to expect anything different.

  But oh well.

  I was aiming for the impossible. It made sense that nobody would believe in me. Least of all Lucy, who obviously had quite the experience around ‘Night City legends’, like Maine for example.

  It was clear from the way she talked about him that she was confident Maine wouldn’t make it for very long. I had no intention of letting that future come to pass. We had already accomplished more than enough by telling Maine to slow down and giving us a chance to rewrite his cyberware’s codebase. All that was left was proving our worth as Netrunners, and I knew my worth at this point.

  As for everything else that followed—I’d find a way.

  No. Not just me. Nanny and I would find a way. We were a team, and I had my doubts that I would have made it very far without her.

  With the cartel no longer a threat, I was better able to focus on the homefront: fixing Maine, doing gigs, training, completing the case competition, and generally making a name for myself. I didn’t see myself returning to Mexico anytime soon unless Abuela specifically invited me over.

  Though, there were some things about my last trip there that felt slightly weird. The well-stocked netrunners, the sophisticated data fortress, and the cyborg guards all sporting Sandevistans—even if theirs were likely inferior versions, and they only managed to bridge our speed gap by leaning on their other chrome. They couldn’t be Militech models—Green Farm was a competitor to Militech, and that server cluster had been theirs. And Arasaka generally didn’t stray outside of the confines of Night City—even their high-end products tended to stay within the city’s borders. Who did that leave? QianT? Did anyone else even make Sandevistans? What was the deal with Green Farm anyway? Why had so many high-class assets of theirs been so close to the US ‘border’ and Arasaka territory?

  I shrugged: who the fuck knew anyway. And I wasn’t nearly bored enough to play detective and get to the bottom of the case. It didn’t concern me anymore.

  I drove my bike to Reyes’ autofixer shop, paid for repairs and maintenance on the mods and took a Delamain cab home.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  By the time I made it back home, it was eleven o’ clock. I wasted no time getting undressed and hitting the bed. Nanny knocked me out the moment the pillow touched my head.

  I woke up seven hours later feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. I christened this Friday by wearing a newly purchased uniform set, one that better fit my recently expanded body and didn’t make me look like a roid-head. As I thumbed through my clothes, I idly wondered if I should ditch the black shirt in my edgerunner attire as well, since I had more than enough muscle to pull off a bare-chested look under my jacket. It was about time I expanded my wardrobe.

  …Maybe I should get a Kill Display installed on my left pec, too, while I was at it? It would be at two-hundred and seventeen… for now, at leas—

  On second thought, nah, that idea was dumb as shit. The first one though, that had possibilities. But I didn’t know shit about shopping for clothes, fashion, any of it. Was there anyone I could ask?

  I took a cab straight to school, not minding the extravagant spending one bit. I still needed to pick up my bike, but I wasn’t going to just recall it from the shop once Reyes’ guys were done working on it—I still needed to check it for bugs in-person. Not that I expected him to have planted any, but I’d be stupid to not give it a thorough check at least. I had given the M179 a sweep as well, disabling a security protocol on it that would have transmitted its location in a few hours. After a bit of coding on the way home from the party—most of it Nanny’s work, really—the tech rifle—(which had turned out to be an actual Militech Achilles-class gausscarbine) had finally been made mine. I couldn’t wait to take it out for a spin later with Rebecca.

  The first few lessons of the day were mercifully quiet. Teachers never gave me a second look, and more importantly, Katsuo never called me to talk shit. I appreciated the peace for giving me the space to put my ducks in a row regarding the case competition.

  And when lunch rolled up, I had everything sorted in a neat and tidy presentation for Nakajima to peruse.

  I slid my shard across the table in his office. Nakajima snatched it up without a word, slotting it into his neural port with a sharp click. His fingers drummed a rapid beat on the desk—impatience, nerves, maybe both.

  “Alright,” he muttered. “Show me what we’re working with.”

  “It’s abstract,” I exhaled, putting on my game face. “Low-level microeconomic efficiency optimization, scaling up into the macro scope of things—or getting borderline, at least. Logistics chains, basically, but on a bigger scale than what you’re thinking of. Arasaka’s got the tech, but their algos aren’t running at peak performance. Too many inefficiencies, redundancies—automated systems stepping on each other’s toes. We know this. The corpos know this. But no one’s built a solution that actually works at scale.”

  The holo-projector flickered to life between us, casting shifting diagrams into the air—heatmaps, workflow models, breakdowns of Arasaka’s logistics from the limited scraps of public data I’d been able to scrounge up. Nakajima’s eyes flitted over them, fingers twitching through slides with quick, precise movements.

  “Ideas are nice,” he said, his tone neutral. “Execution’s another thing.”

  I nodded. “I don’t have the execution. Not yet.” I tapped the first slide. “What I have is a framework. A predictive model that doesn’t just analyze inefficiencies—it dynamically adapts to them.”

  I brought up the core concept: an interconnected system that monitored manufacturing, transportation, labor allocation, and maintenance as a single, self-correcting entity.

  “The problem right now is segmentation,” I explained. “Everything’s optimized in silos. Manufacturing’s optimized for manufacturing, logistics for logistics, but no one’s looking at the bigger picture. My proposal is an adaptive framework—one that analyzes the entire workflow in real-time and restructures processes on the fly. Think of it like an Arasaka-wide Sandevistan for logistics. Real-time reflexes. Instantaneous organization-wide course correction. No lag.”

  Nakajima frowned, flicking through the math, his lips moving as he ran calculations in his head. Then his eyes widened.

  “This…” His voice went tight. “This isn’t standard AI modeling.”

  “Nope,” I explained, finally grinning a little. “Because standard AI modeling is outdated. Arasaka’s algorithms are built to control, not evolve. This system would do the opposite. It wouldn’t just analyze patterns—it would adapt, iterate, and rewrite itself based on efficiency trends. It’s an emergent intelligence. The longer it runs, the better it gets.”

  “And you think this is viable?” He still wasn’t looking at me, just focusing on the presentation.

  I hesitated. “I think it might be.”

  That got a snort out of him. “Might?”

  I leaned forward. “I don’t have the data. The math works, but without feeding real-world training data into the algo, it’s all just theory. That’s where you come in.”

  Nakajima’s fingers stilled. I could see the gears turning in his head, the weight of risk-versus-reward playing out in real time. He might’ve just been a sysadmin for the Academy’s network, but he had access—just enough to pull internal logistics data without tripping alarms.

  “This isn’t something we can just test in a vacuum,” I explained. “We need real inputs, real systems. I don’t need much—just enough data to refine the model, train it against real-world patterns.”

  “…That might be a problem—but, workable,” Nakajima let out a slow breath, rubbing his temple. “I know a shop or two that sells some algo training sets cheap.” Then he refocused on me. “More importantly. You’re sure about the math?”

  “As sure as I can be,” I admitted. “But if there’s a flaw, I’d rather find it now than after we pitch it.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, scrolling through the projection, muttering to himself in rapid bursts of Japanese. Finally, he exhaled, shaking his head.

  “This is crazy,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s also better than anything else we’ve got.”

  I nodded. “So…?”

  Nakajima groaned, rubbing his face. “I’ll see what I can pull.”

  Relief flooded through me.

  He shot me a look. “But if this crashes and burns, I’m throwing you under the bus first.”

  I smirked despite myself. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “And hey,” he said. His eyes were serious as he spoke, “good job. I was convinced that this whole project was a flatline, but this right here… this has potential.”

  “Just make sure you don’t leave it in the school’s systems and we’re good,” I reminded him.

  He snorted, “That one was on me—you had an enemy willing to infect the Academy’s own systems with you as the viral vector. And I knew about it. Him. I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a class act like that scumbag.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter at this point. All we have to do is adapt.”

  He narrowed his eyes and looked at me for a moment, “You’re not thinking of hitting him back, are you?”

  I rolled my eyes. As if Katsuo was worth the bother. “No, not really. Besides, I already got mine for what he pulled. He used the case comp as leverage to bait me into a game that he had rigged, expecting me to lose. Since I didn’t, I ended up earning a pretty penny.” I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly, “Since you were also affected by this, I guess it would be fair to give you half of what I made.”

  He snorted and held up his hand, “Keep your ennies, kid. Use it to buy fashionware or whatever.”

  “When corpo kids make bets, it’s not with ennies,” I smirked. “You sure you still wanna turn me down?”

  A part of me wanted him to say yes, but a more pragmatic and mature part wanted him to accept the money instead. It would build loyalty, and would prevent him from running off to someone else with my work. Or maybe it would teach him to see me as a credible threat? You didn’t give away a hundred grand all casual-like without having quite a bit to spare. Him learning about that would inevitably lead him to taking me more seriously.

  He rolled his eyes and shrugged, “Fuck it.”

  I sent him the transfer request. His eyes immediately boggled at the amount. Then he frowned, “You added three extra zeroes.”

  “A hundred grand,” I said, “Take it.”

  He looked at me for a long while, “You didn’t always have this kind of money.” He was definitely referring to the money I already had that allowed me to so easily part with the money I was offering him. “What’s the story on that?”

  “Family drama,” I said, “My family runs a corp in Mexico. After my mother… passed away… they suddenly started footing my bills and caring for me.” I tried not to feel guilty at painting those folks in a bad light. Someday, this lie would get easier to tell.

  “Sounds brutal,” he said as he accepted the money, “If I knew you were loaded, I’d have asked for cash way sooner. This would easily cover the cost of hiring some dummies to do the scutwork while we get on top of more important things. That’s not even mentioning all the training data we could legitimately procure.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that, considering his words deeply.

  I was utterly confident in my skill—that was one asset that I felt set us apart from our competition. What did they have? Resources. Machines. High-speed computers, proprietary digital methods, chrome. But all that was just money in the end.

  And I had money. Lots of it.

  For the first time since beginning this project, I entertained the possibility of us winning the case comp for our specific category of workflow optimization and logistics. A million dollars. But most importantly, my name on the map.

  “Does the one-hundred cover all of that?” I asked.

  Nakajima leaned back, tapping his fingers against the table in thought. “It’ll cover enough to get us started. Hiring a few temps to do the grunt work, sure. Getting access to solid training data, yeah, we can make that happen. But if we want to go all in—get the kind of compute power and processing speed that Arasaka’s tech division plays with—then we might need to throw around a little more.”

  I crossed my arms, letting that settle. Money wasn’t the problem. I had it. The real question was how far I was willing to go. A hundred grand was a test. If Nakajima played his part right, if the plan held, I could double down. I could outspend the competition in ways they wouldn’t expect—from under the table, in places they’d never look.

  Nakajima smirked, as if reading my thoughts. “So, you’re serious about winning this.”

  I exhaled, my grip tightening on the edge of the table. “I’m done playing for second place.”

  His smirk widened. “Then let’s get to work.”

  000

  Katsuo kept staying out of my way for the rest of the day. Even his chooms wouldn’t even cast me so much as an angry glance.

  That was weird.

  Clearly, he was up to something. And whatever that something was, he needed my guard to be lowered as much as possible for it to work. So what was it, then?

  Dammit, I didn’t have time for this. I needed to find a place to change out of my ‘saka uniform and into a semblance of my D attire—only the sugar skull mask though, since I hadn’t brought mom’s jacket with me all the way to school. My bike was still in Reyes’ shop, and I’d rather fetch it than go home and then go there only to go back home again to work on the case comp.

  I considered how my day would look like from there—Kiwi had already asked me to come over and grab the shard containing the data on Maine’s cyberware before getting to work together. Assuming she’d let me get a glimpse at her workflow, or would be open to a proper collaboration for this project, aside from simple division of labor. Hopefully, Lucy would have gotten over her little episode from yesterday.

  I had no idea she carried around all that… worry.

  It bothered me. Especially the fact that it was well-founded.

  Then again, what was I supposed to do aside from follow my dream? Hers wasn’t any better, yet she held onto it so stubbornly.

  I shook those thoughts away and instead ordered a sentient cab, changing inside it as it drove me to Reyes’ shop. All the while, I considered the futility of keeping a secret identity when the AI in the cab knew exactly who I was. Then again, there were plenty execs and Mr. Whos out there that trusted Delamain with their lives.

  But all it would take was one netrunner spirited and skilled enough to hack the AI and mine it for all the data it had on every client that had ever used it.

  I gave the white-skinned, bald avatar resembling a human on the screen in front of me a narrow-eyed glance through my mask. “Do you know who I am?”

  “David Martinez,” Delamain responded. “You’re a student at Arasaka Academy.”

  “Do you know about anyone running around with a mask like this?” I asked, pointing at it.

  “An up-and-coming mercenary by the name of D,” Delamain responded, “Which is you.”

  I sighed. “How secure is your memory?”

  “If my subsystems judge any breach to be imminent, my memory experiences a total wipe of client data. Delamain Corp has maintained a perfect track record of protecting this data, so rest assured and enjoy a safe, convenient and confidential journey.”

  I really needed to stop playing around with my secret identity.

  Soon enough, Delamain dropped me off near the autofixer shop, and after a few minutes of surreptitiously scanning my bike for bugs and browsing the mods offered by the business, I took the bike and rode it home. Halfway there, I took off my mask as well. Didn’t want to stick around in my merc persona for too long without any reason.

  I was already working on the logistics project on my Kiroshis on the elevator ride up to my apartment, hard at work digging the foundation for the AI system when I saw my door in the middle of the hallway, ripped from its hinges.

  For fuck’s sakes.

  I disabled the hallway security cameras and stomped over to my apartment, skipping over the door when a thick smell of cigarette smoke met me the moment I stepped inside.

  Barechested gangoons covered in ink, neon red and green hair, overwrought chrome all over the place.

  They were twelve in number. Tyger Claws. Infesting my fucking apartment.

  The bulk of them sat on our circular couch around the coffee table, smoking cigarettes and ashing them on top of a huge pile of ash right in the middle of the table. My eyes widened in shock when I spotted that.

  I looked around the floor and found it—mom’s urn, lying on its side, opened, empty, the lid nowhere to be seen.

  My ears rung.

  I stopped breathing.

  The world shrank to a pinpoint, the edges of my vision darkening like a camera lens closing.

  Then, just as fast, it snapped back. My heart kicked against my ribs. My fingers twitched. My mind screamed for me to do something, to say something, but all that came out was a long, shuddering exhale.

  One of the gangoons—tall, chrome arms, too many tattoos to make sense of—looked up from the table, lazily blowing smoke into my ceiling. He grinned, a wolfish, too-wide thing. “Took your sweet time coming home, prep-boy.” He stretched his leg towards the urn and, with his foot, rolled it back towards him. Then he kept rolling it back and forth, with his foot. It was all I could focus on—his ugly, tacky boot made to look like a samurai sandal, pressing down on my mother’s urn.

  I imagined all the ways I would torment this guy before finding it in my pragmatism to end his life—gonk had seen my face after all.

  But there were too many present for me to have some extended fun. I needed to be quick with this.

  The Tyger kicked the urn at me. I caught it with a single hand and refocused on his eyes. His ugly grin fell and he began looking neutral, “Tanaka Katsuo sends his regards,” he said in Japanese, standing up. His crew followed.