Calling off Omaeda’s men had been an exercise in patience for Katsuo, who had just assumed that one phone call was all it would take.

  Then the bastard had hounded him about breakage fees and paying blood money for the fact that his idiot gangsters had died on a job they had taken on their own free will. Knowing that his father would quite probably have his head if he gave those degenerates even a single enny, he had ended that conversation quite decisively.

  By invoking the name of Omaeda’s superior. The middle boss had given up pretty quickly afterwards. He’d even given up on his plan to continue to pursue David entirely for free, if only to take his own revenge.

  Omaeda wasn’t the professional type—that was pretty clear. Who gave a shit if his nephew died? Katsuo had called the contract off—that meant the matter should have come to an end. Yet it stubbornly did not. Idiots.

  …Katsuo had entertained, briefly, the idea of letting Omaeda continue on his self-appointed personal crusade without Katsuo’s own involvement. If Martinez could be killed without Katsuo needing to lift a single finger or Eurodollar, that would have been… convenient.

  But that would mean nothing to his father, who had made it very clear he wanted Katsuo to take care of this himself. Any idiot junior employee with enough funds and connections to throw around could hire a fixer or gang boss to take care of a rival—it took a company man of real pedigree to take care of business themselves when the time to shed blood came. That was the quality that his father was searching for in Katsuo.

  But Jing Fei was right about him—father wasn’t on the ground, he didn’t know the situation. Killing Martinez, while satisfying in the short term, would only be a dumb overreaction. Not to mention, it might give him needless baggage that a rival could exploit in the future. Skeletons in the closet at his age, while he hadn’t yet established himself in the company? That was pure folly.

  And father would appreciate Katsuo disobeying him for giving irrational orders. Right?

  But on the other hand—

  “Pray.”

  Katsuo twitched.

  “What’s wrong, boss?” One of Katsuo’s henchmen, Thomas, asked. He, Katsuo and his other lackey, Carl, were in the hallway, heading to first period. His thoughts had distracted him from checking over his shoulder and seeing if David would come to school. That was bad. He needed to stay alert. Should he tell his lackeys to keep an eye out? How could he word that order without sounding embarrassing? His father had long taught him how little difference there was between perceived and actual power—his minions needed to know that he wasn’t afraid, that he was ordering them to keep a lookout just for some other reason.

  Katsuo clenched his fingers, to stop them from fucking trembling.

  Goddammit. These fucking arms.

  “It’s that piece of shit Martinez,” Katsuo growled, “Keep an eye out on him—I want to pay him a visit when I see him.”

  “Got it, boss.” Katsuo ignored it as he continued to reassure Katsuo that he’d do a good job—both of them were on that overly indulgent shpiel. Not important. None of them were. None of them had real intelligence. None of them mattered.

  No, David Martinez wouldn’t come to school today—it was unlikely in the extreme. If he had survived an attempt on his life, that likely meant that he was keeping his head low, running down his allotted absences until he had to come to school or face penalties like suspension or expulsion. That was, if he wasn’t smart enough to look for a way out.

  “Pray.”

  …Katsuo doubted Martinez would be so smart.

  Maybe he’d spend his time away from school working on that cute little project he was doing with the academy’s sys-admin—for an Arasaka IT division case competition, no less.

  Fucking overachieving gonk, who the hell did he think he was to even look at such a contest? Katsuo pulled up the files in his optics and gave them a scan—roughly all of it went above his head.

  Katsuo did classes in advanced physics, computer science, and mathematics. The R&D track, just like David—and yet he was able to do this shit.

  Then again, David was doing advanced university courses—speedrunning a bachelor while still in high school. The fucking prick.

  Even if Nakajima had probably done ninety percent of all this work, and was keeping David around as a glorified data monkey, that still meant that the gonk was earning a first-hand experience with real-deal Arasaka IT. That kind of thing at David’s age was worth its weight in gold to Arasaka’s HR recruiters. Annoying. Maybe Katsuo should do something about that sys-admin? Pull on some connections to get him transferred?

  Katsuo smirked at the idea of how worthless that golden CV of David’s would be worth once he came into power—David wouldn’t be able to move a fucking inch once he was in Arasaka’s executive ranks. Katsuo would ensure it. That motherfucker wouldn’t be allowed to breathe in his vicinity—

  Katsuo felt a cold wind creep up the back of his neck. He shivered. Then he gnashed his teeth, transforming that sudden bout of meaningless panic into anger.

  No. Katsuo clearly hadn’t stepped up his campaign against David. Just sabotaging the project wouldn’t be enough for him—he’d go after Nakajima for daring to help that piece of shit. Transferring him? What kind of pansy shit was that? Katsuo would have him fired. Then he’d buy David’s house from whatever unwashed landlord owned it and crank up the rent tenfold. He’d chase David down to the ends of the earth and destroy him. He’d strangle him with his own—

  David’s place in this equation was to endure the pain. Katsuo’s was to dish out that pain.

  There was only one way such a set-up ended. David would give up in time.

  He and his clique made it to homeroom class and took their seats in their reclining chairs—his two lackeys nattered amongst each other about lesser matters, providing a comfortable backdrop of white noise for Katsuo to lose himself in—they’d alert him if they had anything of real importance to say, but for now, he’d rather rest his mind.

  Everything had suddenly become so… tiresome as of late. The last three days especially had been hectic, a horrible end to an even worse week. Down two hundred thousand eddies, paid out to his worst enemy—and a botched assassination attempt on top of that.

  “Doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Katsuo muttered, clenching his fists. His two lackeys looked away from their conversation to focus on Katsuo.

  “What do you mean, boss?” Carl asked. Thomas just looked on, a look of concern of all things on his face.

  “Was I speaking to you?” Katsuo snapped, glaring at him. Were his own henchmen starting to become a problem? Were they conspiring? Could they rat him out? Maybe he should—

  No. Not yet. He didn’t bother apologizing and focused on those words of his.

  What… did he mean?

  Katsuo felt a strange wave of melancholy pass over him. He sat down, then he remembered. Ah, right.

  All this. None of this made any fucking sense; why father would go so far as to suggest elimination on a classmate—with minimal handholding to boot. Katsuo had taken on the assignment, believing that he had all the tools necessary. Clearly, he did not. And father would not provide guidance—only mete punishment. That was his role.

  He could already hear his father try to make an audacious claim—that he was teaching his son how to learn independently, and act without instruction.

  More like willing and wishing with all his heart that his son could measure up to his infinite expectations without actually putting in any of the work to ensure that was possible. Only expectation.

  Fei-Fei had been right. So right.

  Katsuo felt a stab of guilt at the memory of her—of what happened on Friday. He had apologized profusely, and gone above and beyond on paying for the damages—even including a tidy sum of reparations that would effectively triple her monthly allowance. It had rendered Katsuo completely penniless for the time being—he barely had ten thousand eddies to scrape together—but it was the least he could have done for what he had done.

  No. It was those hands. Those fucking hands.

  He called her, after stilling the trembling in his hands—was it just him, or were they trembling more than usual?

  Thankfully, she picked up. Katsuo had memorized Kang Tao High’s student schedule for the senior year already, in order to make sure that his correspondences didn’t distract her from her studies. Right now, she should be in the same boat as him, waiting for homeroom to begin.

  The academy should hurry up and accept her already—it was early on in the school year, and the more they stalled, the worse her exam results would be. Katsuo couldn’t fathom what the academy board was thinking. Ostensibly, one of them had something of a grudge with father, and was dragging her feet on purpose just as a middle-finger to the executive director of R&D. Short-sighted idiots. Why they had to involve someone completely innocent was beyond him.

  Fei-Fei finally picked up after quite a few rings.

  Fei-Fei: Hey, Katsuo. I’m a little busy.

  Katsuo: Just calling to say hi. And also, thanks for the talk on Friday. And also—I’m sorry. Again. For what happened.

  Fei-Fei: Of course.

  Katsuo: I never got into it on Friday but it’s just-just—my father. I really don’t understand what he expects of me.

  Fei-Fei: I understand, Katsuo, I really do. Can we talk about this more in person?

  Katsuo: Dinner tonight at my house, maybe?

  Fei-Fei: Sure. Also… did that guy come to school today?

  Katsuo felt touched that she was concerned—they really had hit it off as of late. At first, Katsuo hadn’t been too hopeful that Fei-Fei would prove a good wife, but when the chips were down, she left little to be desired.

  And she had taken his side over his father’s—encouraged Katsuo to go at things his way. Katsuo would never forget that encouragement.

  Katsuo: He wouldn’t dare. And I’m not worried. But thank you for asking.

  Fei-Fei: Of course. See you tonight.

  Fei-Fei hung up then—ah, she did say she was busy.

  Having spoken to his fiancee, Katsuo couldn’t deny the lightness in his heart. What was there to worry about in the end?

  Katsuo would always be Katsuo, and David would always—

  “He’s there!” Carl hissed. Katsuo immediately jerked out of his reverie, sitting up from his reclining chair to look at David strolling into the classroom.

  …This can’t be real, Katsuo distantly thought, as David walked into homeroom, casual-as-can-be, not even bothering to look at anyone or anything, certainly not at Katsuo. Martinez just… took a seat in the back corner of class, donned his BD wreath and closed his eyes.

  Katsuo’s heart thundered. If David had been a shell of unexploded weapon-class ordinance, Katsuo couldn’t have stared at him with more—

  Only then did Katsuo realize that he had stood up at some point, and that half of everyone else was now curiously staring at him.

  Blankly, Katsuo sat back down. He stayed still until he felt everyone else’s attention wander away from him. Then he let his head hang. In confusion, terror, bafflement.

  He was… he was here.

  How could he be here? Why would he be here, of all places?

  And why… had David ignored him?

  His hands started vibrating as image after image flashed through his mind—David bringing a gun to school. Having chipped in mantis blades to cut him up. In-built pulse rifle in his arm. Just plain guns packed into his limbs, so many guns that they spilled out from his body in waves, opening hole after hole in Katsuo’s body.

  Katsuo bit his tongue. The pain centered him. He closed his eyes.

  It’s not real. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not—

  Hours passed by, as they moved from one class to the next. And David did nothing at all.

  000

  As I slipped away from lunch, heading for a meeting with a certain sys-admin, I allowed myself a small smirk. Just for a moment, where I knew the cameras and nothing and no one else besides could possibly see.

  Chip planted. Cleanly, efficiently, and above all, untraceably.

  One week. Katsuo was now patient zero of a plague built for him and him alone: my custom Suicide Quickhack. In one week, per my predictions, plus or minus a day depending on the strength of his wetware, he would be out of the picture. My picture. Forever.

  And then, well…

  The sky?

  Mom always said the sky was the limit on the future, right? But… that did feel a little too limiting. Orbital Air had rendered that idiom into a relic of the English language. The sky wasn’t really the limit.

  No matter. Wherever the limit was, I’d get there. Soon. Some day.

  This wasn’t just the garden variety gonk-ass ‘I have a dream’ type of ‘someday, maybe’. No. When I meant it, I meant it. Like steel to iron, gun to bullet. The future. Getting closer, one step at a time.

  It really would fucking be—someday. I’d get there.

  Then I’d break through those limits, because at the end of the fucking day—nobody would put the brakes on me. Not on my fucking watch.

  Katsuo would be the start—the first cornerstone of the foundation of this resolution of mine.

  In a few years, maybe I could even forget about the fact that Tanaka Katsuo had ever existed. Scum like him didn’t deserve to be remembered, not even in my memories.

  Or maybe that was too corpo a way to go about it? Katsuo had ignored me after all—labelled me a non-entity. He had tried to banish me into insubstantiality through prejudice alone. And when that failed, he just…

  Kept. Escalating.

  …

  No.

  Forgetting him would be polite. It would be kind compared to what I had in store for him. Because I could escalate too.

  I’d erect a fucking shrine to his name once he finally kicked it—fuck what the corpos usually did. Katsuo was a special kill, and he deserved commemoration.

  As I walked down the hall, listening to Never Fade Away, I actually found myself whistling a tune. Cheerfully, for the first time in…

  …

  Finally, it was done.

  000

  “What do you want to do with your life?”

  Nakajima’s question caught me flat-footed. I wasn’t sure whether to tell him off or to go full corpo. I defaulted to the latter, for safety’s sake.

  “To serve the corp—”

  Nakajima raised up a hand and frowned at me, “No bullshit. Just—give it to me straight.”

  I clenched my jaw, “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, “I gave a good, hard look at what you came up with last Friday—what you came up with in a matter of a single day no less. I broke it down as much as I could—still haven’t got it all down pat yet, but what I do know is that this work? It’s not ‘project’ tier. It’s way higher.” He gave me a level look. “You’re a fucking prodigy, David—I haven’t made it a secret that I think you’re way too good for your level. But do you have any—and I mean fucking any—idea what you could do? So I’ll fucking ask again, and I just want you to be honest—what do you want to do?”

  “I want to go to the top,” I replied, “Top of Arasaka Tower.”

  He blinked. Sat back. “Huh.”

  “That a problem?”

  “It’s a little problematic,” Nakajima muttered, “A little ill-advised. Also, I feel like you have no fucking idea how to pull that off but for a vague need to do everything as good as you possibly can—right? Am I wrong? Good grades—in high school and university. Winning the case comp—impressing the shit out of your fellow little-leaguers on your first day, and banking on the fact that management is nice enough to recognize merit for what it is, and will reward you accordingly?”

  “It’s my dream,” I said, “And sure—I ain’t got a fucking clue how to keep going after school, but getting good grades definitely doesn’t hurt. Currently, I’m just setting up a foundation.”

  Nakajima grimaced, “Kid—stop it. It’s a nasty fucking ambition, and someone will flatline you if they hear about it. Especially since you’d have an honest-to-god actual shot at getting pretty far. Maybe even to the top if you stepped on enough toes. But you ain’t getting there without stepping on toes.”

  “That’s too bad,” I shrugged, “Guess I’ll just have to step on toes then.”

  Nakajima looked at me for a while, “You know what I wanna do?”

  “Climb up the ranks of Arasaka until you get sent so deep into IT that managers won’t talk to you for months at a time unless some issue pops up?” I muttered dryly. Laid-back gonk like him wouldn’t settle for anything less, I could tell. He didn’t have the temperament to really climb the corpo rankings.

  “IT heaven—yeah, that,” he snorted, “I’m looking for no stress and extra edds. Hard tasks? Fuck yeah. Managerial nattering? Shoot me in the fucking head. So yeah—that’s what I wanna do. This gig right here’s cushy as hell. Do a bit of work, take the occasional bribe to change grades—it’s practically heaven compared to Arasaka proper—but it pays like shit, and it’s fucking boring. Problem is I’m a freak that likes this work, and I want it to mean something. So yeah—IT heaven. That’s what I want out of this.”

  My heart was sinking by the word. I could only tsk internally.

  So… project cancelled. Or maybe downscaled, because this was too ambitious and liable to get him too much attention, attention that might ensure that he never gets to enjoy the obscurity that he so craved.

  “So… what?” I asked, “You wanna dial it back?”

  He shook his head, “No way in hell, kid. We’re doing this—but we’re doing this smart. You sell this to Arasaka as-is and all you get in return is half a mill and your name on every recruiter’s headhunting list in the corp—that prize is colder than ICE, don’t get me wrong. But they’ve essentially paid you half a million for something that could very well make them billions. You hear that, kid? Billions. B.”

  I blinked, “You can’t be serious, it’s not that—”

  “You’re pouring a tub-full of grease down a creaky fucking system of gears, my guy. Work flows are the blood flow of any corp—and this optimization model is going to do some crazy fucking things once the corp’s at full adoption. Over time, those extra edds are gonna add up—and fast, too.”

  I frowned, “So we should dial things back, then. And then sell our new solution for way higher.”

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at me, “You’re pissing in the right direction at least, but not quite. Sandbag the case comp and find a way to profit off of this new build—sure. Those are the broad strokes. But other factors do come into play—who are you going to sell this optimization model to? Why would they buy? If they do buy, how much are they going to profit off this? What do you sell it for?”

  I frowned at the last one—the most important question, really. “We’d sell for a percentage of the profits, right? Like, if we know the product’s going to massively increase Arasaka’s profit margin, why not negotiate that?”

  Nakajima chuckled tonelessly, “You’re pretty shop-happy with your life, I’m not gonna lie.”

  “The hell do you mean?”

  “Arasaka ninjas aren’t going to appreciate you haggling for what you’re worth,” Nakajima said, “Certainly not where you currently are in life. Neither of us would survive walking away from the negotiation table with fair terms. Where the fuck do you think we are, kid—Ancapistan? This is Night City: The NAP won’t protect you here. You need backing, kid. We both do.”

  “Alright,” I shrugged, “Give it to me straight then, genius—what’s your plan to make us rich? And before you answer that—why the fuck would you care to help me out like that?” I leaned over the table, “And try to make it sound convincing.”

  “I fuck you over now and I’ll be sitting pretty on placing well in the case comp. I’ll probably end up going to IT heaven too. But if I do my best to help you, you’re not gonna forget that, are you? Eh, Santo Domingo? I know you people are poor as shit, but you ain’t corpo backstabbers, not at heart. You’ll remember me, won’t you?”

  “If you don’t fuck me over,” I said. “Westbrook.” Did his people even know the meaning of honesty?

  “There it is, then,” he clapped on the table and gestured at me, “assurances.”

  “Only problem is you ain’t the ambitious type,” I sat back on my chair and eyed him carefully, “You’d be happy with gaining whatever you got from screwing me over. So what is it that I can give you that would ensure that you remained loyal?”

  “You know what a redwood tree is?” Nakajima asked.

  “No fucking clue.”

  “It’s a tree that grows fucking tall. And I mean fucking tall. Tall as buildings. That’s what you are—a redwood. A redwood sapling, sure—just a baby tree in the end—but all you’ll need is time to grow. And if I passed up an opportunity to be chooms with somebody with a real shot to getting to the top of Arasaka tower, I’d be a fucking idiot.”

  “Cool story,” I said, “Still doesn’t convince me that you believe in me. Not really.”

  I wish I had the option to threaten his life—the threat of death did work wonders in keeping people honest.

  If only he knew what I had done just hours prior—I’d basically flatlined a corporate rival in broad daylight. In my way to Nakajima’s office, I had used the Sandy to chip a virus into his computer, and thus the entire system. I had been playing the CCTV recording of the crime while talking to Nakajima—reviewing the available evidence against me—and wiping my tracks wherever I made them. They had nothing on me.

  Clean.

  Every breath I took felt pure and unladened by the burden of Katsuo’s continued existence. He could call me, screw me over, do whatever the fuck he wanted, but he wasn’t making it past this week.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Nakajima shrugged, “call me curious, maybe? I wanna see how far you go, I really do. Not enough that I’d ever take risks for you, but that’s not what I’m promising anyway. Point is, every good corpo needs a mentor. And there ain’t exactly a line of ‘em waiting to take you under their wing, is there?” Every time he opened his mouth to explain himself, he swung his words around to include how he would benefit me. He’d rather distract me with bullshit than let me discern him too deeply. It was tiresome, but not nearly distracting enough that it made me lose track of what really mattered—namely, his innate motivations.

  Also, did he have any idea what Katsuo would do to him if he tried to mentor me? I tried not to chuckle—that was a major risk he was taking, for sure. His inattentiveness to my grade’s social games could have screwed him out of a job, if Katsuo would still live at least. But since he wasn’t, it didn’t pay to warn him.

  As a corpo, that was my prime concern—what paid.

  “Sure,” I shrugged, “So what’s the plan?”

  Nakajima raised one finger, “Find a struggling mid-level corp that Arasaka won’t mind swallowing up, just as a matter of course. Weak-shit corp like that’ll promise us pretty much anything. We ask for shares and licensing fees, sell them the optimized workflow, and let them run wild with it. If the model really is as good as I think it is, their numbers are gonna skyrocket—and then, Arasaka steps in. Like they do.”

  I nodded slowly, starting to see where he was going. “And when Arasaka buys them out, they take our work with them.”

  “Exactly.” Nakajima smirked. “And us, too, but with benefits. We make sure our shares and licensing fees are locked in as part of the deal. They get their algo, we get paid, the world keeps spinning. Everybody wins. Literally everybody.”

  I sat back, considering. It was smart. A hell of a lot smarter than just handing it over to Arasaka for a lump sum. Instead of trying to claw my way to the top on their terms, I’d be sidestepping the system, playing them from the outside. Earning a slice of the perpetually growing pie, ensuring that even as an employee, I’d still have the pull to rise to the top. I could end up starting off as a fucking director, or possibly a vice president. I’d be three or four steps beneath Chief Exec right from the jump. The top itself, in pissing distance.

  But there were risks. Big ones.

  “How do we make sure they don’t just steal it?” I asked. “Any corp desperate enough to buy this is desperate enough to fuck us over.”

  Nakajima grinned like he was waiting for that question. “Two ways. First, we make sure our names are baked into the code in a way that’s impossible to remove without wrecking the whole thing. Watermark that shit on a software level. Second, we keep the most critical parts under our control—give ‘em just enough to make it work, but not enough to fully understand it. They fuck us? We flip a switch, and the whole system turns into a brick. Wakarimashita?”

  I exhaled, tapping my fingers against the desk. “Risky.” Definitely how I’d do it, though. And not that risky on my part—if violence was on the table, I’d double my ante no problem.

  In fact, I’d fucking welcome it.

  “No shit,” Nakajima agreed. “But that’s the game. And I think you’re the kinda guy who plays to win.”

  I let the silence stretch for a moment. I wasn’t considering Nakajima’s idea any further—it was sound after all. Instead, I was considering the man before me. He wanted money and comfort. I could respect that.

  If he was telling the truth at least.

  And I still wasn’t fully sure about that. You could predict greed—model it, work around it. Hell, harness it for your own use.

  Satisfaction was a wholly different beast.

  What did this pencil-necked academy sys-admin want?

  “What do you want, Nakajima?” I asked him. “Why are you so eager to reach for more than what you have, risking attention when you’ve already got it made in time?”

  He snorted, “Comfort. Everybody wants that. But I also wanna do something big. One big thing before settling down in heaven on earth—Arasaka’s silicon floor. You make shit too easy, David. I was expecting to struggle more, going from the academy to the corp for a proper job, but you’re giving me pretty much everything I want on a platter. Only problem with that is I still wanna do one crazy thing—” he grinned, “And that’s where you come in.”

  I saw a bit of Jin in him, then. He was doing this for kicks.

  Westbrook guy like him must have grown up in the fanciest part of Night City—corp school since he learned how to read and use a terminal, then NCU to prep for Arasaka. And from what I knew about him, he was only twenty-three years old. Hardly much older than me, really. Two years out of school, racking up experience as a sys-admin.

  He was skilled. Too skilled to have fun. Too in-control of that mind-numbingly predictable trajectory he was headed towards—school to school to work and then better work. He wanted a switch-up from the routine.

  I had pegged him as a liar because my Santo Domingo brain couldn’t understand why a guy so comfortable wanted any part in the muck and grime of high risk plays when he’d received everything since childhood and was clearly above playing corpo games. Unless he secretly wasn’t, of course.

  Just like Jin, he still had a man’s pride, and needed to really feel like the protagonist of a grand story. You couldn’t do that if life was a cakewalk.

  “So it’s about getting your kicks, not greed,” I said, “You want a good high. And you’re too smart to chase one by being greedy.”

  “Hah!” he chuckled. “I’ll take it.”

  Thing is, he wasn’t too smart to be greedy, because no one really was. Overcoming greed took something other than intelligence, and Nakajima might think himself above such a base trap, but I knew better.

  Yes, he would do nicely. I was beginning to wrap my head around him.

  I extended a hand. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

  Nakajima grinned, shaking my hand firmly. “Fucking knew you’d say that.”

  “I guess that still means downscaling,” I muttered, “For now, at least. And since you’ve clearly got an overabundance of time on your hands, and connections that I don’t, I’m guessing you’ll go on scouting duty, looking for corps down on their luck?”

  Nakajima grinned toothily, “Makasete.”

  I looked at the Netrunner’s jolly face with an impassive expression. I tried my best to find the words, but they just wouldn’t translate to anything corpo, or anything that didn’t sound like a threat or promise of bodily violence.

  “I’ll trust you, Nakajima,” I said, “And you have no idea how much I want that trust to last.”

  I spotted a twitch in his grin—and a bulge in his throat that came quicker than expected. His pulse had risen. I smelled fear.

  That didn’t tell me much—but it did let me know that my message was sent, and he was taking that desire of mine seriously.

  Time would tell if I was being naive for this. But I supposed that would be another learning experience.

  And this workflow bullshit, the algorithm and all that it entailed, was an avenue that I felt safe in burning if it came down to it. I was capable of so much more.

  Since it wouldn’t destroy me to put my trust in Nakajima, the risk was fine. I’d handle it.

  000

  Lucy opened the door to her apartment to welcome in its newest tennant—David Martinez, fresh from corp school. The way he looked in that uniform, unassuming despite his build, harmless despite the brief glint of steel in his eyes, was funny. He didn’t fit that silly uniform at all.

  He cracked a small grin as he saw her, and she couldn’t help but mirror it for some reason. Something about this moment felt special, more so than any other they had shared. He had slept over for the last two nights while laying low, working away either on the program to kill his asshole classmate, or working on that ‘Saka project. They had been on work-mode the whole time, their faces buried in their decks or the terminal while churning out code.

  “Good day?” Lucy asked.

  David nodded. Then he pulled his head back to look up and take a deep breath. He exhaled slowly, tension easing out of his frame. The silence hung for a few seconds before he shrugged and looked at her again, “Good day.” His smile was relaxed, eyes calm and comforting.

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  Lucy snorted, “Was starting to wonder if you forgot how to smile. Why don’t you… come in, and tell me all about it?” she asked, backing further into the house.

  His eyes sparkled and he gave a brief, boyish chuckle, “I could do with a drink, too.”

  Now he was speaking her language.

  000

  “I can’t fucking believe you,” Qiang muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Jing Fei who was right next to him to hear. They were walking up the stone path to the Tanaka manor in North Oak, pristine green turf flanking them on each side, and Tanaka servants guiding them up front. “Bio-job for a broken hand, one you got right after calling me and saying everything was alright?”

  It was Qiang that Jing Fei couldn’t fucking believe. How had that idiot been paranoid enough to have someone tailing her after the fashion show? He had no respect for Jing Fei’s autonomy, and he thought he had that right just because he was family and older.

  “That was none of your concern,” Jing Fei bit out, “And I got it handled, didn’t I?”

  “Fuck that,” Qiang shook his head. He was a tall guy, with a purposefully designed stern face, threaded with metal, and with mandibular implants with a mineral finish—a literal stone face. His eyes were perennially hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, and he wore the same type of sharp suit he always loved to wear—black everything, red shirt, and a white tie. Not much better compared to her own get-up—a black one-shoulder dress with a full sleeve, and a one-sided collar where the sleeve was, the inside of the collar red. Then again, this was a dinner with Katsuo and his entire family, including that deranged father of his—she didn’t feel that dressing up in her best was merited in this situation.

  She wouldn’t blame Katsuo for his presence—in a way, they were both victims of his… entire way of being. The more she learned about Gotō Tanaka, the more stellar Katsuo’s usual attitude became in comparison. All things considered, he could have turned out way worse.

  “What are you planning?” Jing Fei asked.

  To his credit, Qi didn’t exclaim something dramatic like ‘his end’, even though a part of Jing Fei would have appreciated hearing that. But a greater and more rational part readily accepted that as being folly.

  “I will take it up with his mother,” Qiang said.

  “No,” Jing Fei immediately said, “Not that.”

  Qiang looked down at her, “Why?”

  “I already took out a favor with that on the line,” Jing Fei said, “It’s life or death.”

  Qiang stopped and looked at her, “Explain.”

  Jing Fei shoved his back hard. That he finally took a step and continued walking was probably entirely for her benefit. A son of a CEO of a high-tier company like QianT didn’t step outside the house without the finest cyberware money could buy, and combat ability.

  “I have a life, you know,” Jing Fei muttered, “And things I’d rather keep private.”

  Finally, the expansive stone path led them to the main entrance of the mansion, where Katsuo’s mother stood, flanked by an army of servants. All of them, even Mrs. Tanaka, wore kimonos. Though Mrs. Tanaka’s was by far the most beautiful.

  She had an old-world charm to her. Pretty, despite the lack of bio-sculpts. The asymmetries on her face could easily be made out by anyone who gave enough of a shit about the subject, but somehow it didn’t look bad to Jing Fei by any means. In fact, every time she saw her, it felt like drinking a fresh glass of mineral water. No sparkles, no flavor, no bullshit.

  She was present, sharp and discerning. Came with the territory of being so tied to corporations after all. But above all, she had warmth where so many others lacked it. The warmth of honesty.

  In Jing Fei’s worst days, she often fantasized about spiriting the older woman away from this entire situation—away from her rotten son, and the rotten husband she was attached to.

  In another life, they’d probably have been good friends.

  Once they finally reached her, the woman spoke.

  “Welcome.” Mrs. Tanaka’s voice was smooth, poised, with just enough warmth to be polite. She inclined her head first to Qiang, then to Jing Fei. “It has been too long.”

  Her gaze lingered on Qiang for a beat longer than necessary. “I must admit, I hadn’t expected you to join us this evening.”

  Qiang smiled, the picture of effortless grace. “A rare opportunity to share a meal with the esteemed Tanaka family? How could I refuse?”

  His tone was pleasant, his manners impeccable—but Jing Fei knew better. This was Qiang at his most controlled, when the ice was thin beneath his feet.

  Mrs. Tanaka held his gaze for a fraction of a second longer than seemed appropriate, then simply nodded. “Of course. Please, come in.”

  As they followed her through the grand entrance, Jing Fei couldn’t shake the feeling that Mrs. Tanaka had caught something in Qiang’s act—some imperfection in his poise, some unspoken motive beneath his courtesy.

  What, exactly, had she perceived? Jing Fei had no idea.

  But the uncertainty made her stomach twist.

  And with him waiting inside, she already had enough to deal with.

  000

  The music was blaring in Lucy’s living room, the lights were low, and already there were over half a dozen used shot glasses on the coffee table.

  While Lucy laid sideways on one of her couches, she watched David pace around the living room, his eyes golden. He had taken off his blazer and tie, and he had unbuttoned his white shirt at the top, revealing a pair of chiseled pecs underneath—but it was his eyes that hers kept straying towards. He grinned widely, probably eagerly reporting the mission’s success to Maine, letting the crew know that they had already breached Tanaka’s network. It was only a matter of time now before they found something. They had bots scanning every file, fishing for anything of importance.

  David’s eyes went from gold to brown. He grinned widely, mouth open as he pumped his fist in the air, “Alright! Fucking nova!”

  Lucy giggled. This seemed so surreal. And in all honesty, it was a relief. Poor gonk had been due some comfort for quite a while now.

  “Get why mercs love to celebrate after each gig now?” Lucy asked.

  David nodded, “Yeah! I feel preem! We should totally go out and celebrate—take the crew out to the Afterlife?”

  Lucy sat up properly, “Hold on there, Luchador, or you’re gonna give the crew heart attacks.”

  He tilted his head, “Heart attacks? Me? Why?”

  “You don’t normally go in for good cheer,” Lucy said, “You kill the vibe more often than not—you’re a total broodfest.”

  “Am not,” David denied hotly, “I just ain’t felt the need to celebrate like right now. And it’s not like I turn down afterparties anyway. I just don’t see the point of doing one after every gig—people don’t go out and party every day after clocking out.”

  “So, what, only afterparty on Friday evenings at hole-in-the-wall bars with other depressed corpos?” Lucy laughed. “Is that your future, David?”

  “Fuck you,” he laughed. Even a bit of ribbing wouldn’t tease out some irritation from him—he was all laughs. “I’m calling Becca and Pilar. Falco, too. Maine’s still on the recovery so—”

  “David,” Lucy interrupted, holding up a hand, “What if… you didn’t?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  Lucy looked down at the carpet, hiding her burning face from him, “What if… it was just us? Tonight at least?”

  000

  Gotō Tanaka, as usual, killed the vibe with admirable thoroughness.

  The short, squat man’s movements were borderline mechanical—like he had installed chipware instructing him on how to most politely partake in the feast before them. He wielded his chopsticks with precise, measured movements, never once glancing down as he picked up each morsel. His face, round and immaculately shaven, remained impassive, framed by hair so sharply styled it looked like it had been cut with a laser. His suit, a muted charcoal with subtle jacquard-style synth-weave patterning shifting under the light, was unmistakably Arasaka—practical, reserved, and absurdly expensive. At least partially carbon nanofiber, no doubt—nothing else could give the styling that sort of blacker than black patterning, like subtle cuts in reality amidst the usual Arasaka black. Plus, it would serve as decent personal protection in its own right.

  The dinner itself was an awkward fusion of Japanese-American and Chinese-American cuisine. Jing Fei eyed the spread with practiced detachment. A shocking lack of authenticity. Not that she particularly cared—authenticity, in the culinary sense, was often more of a nostalgic indulgence than a necessity. Given that Mrs. Tanaka had likely overseen the menu, this wasn’t some statement about cultural dilution but a calculated decision for the younger generation at the table. A comfort spread for those who had spent their entire lives in Night City rather than the homelands their ancestors clung to in memory.

  Still, it was a bit disorienting—seeing xiaolongbao served next to tuna tataki with a side of California rolls. There was even an entire section of the table dedicated to soy-glazed short ribs—her favorite. More than once, that oaf Qiang had prevented her from spinning the lazy Susan with all the food heaped on top her way so she could take more than was strictly polite. If he really couldn’t tell how much more embarrassing that was, then he was a lost cause.

  Though nobody seemed to care—he and Gotō were rambling inanely at each other about market trends and the ecosystem of the business world. They were also very careful not to say even a single thing that could be counted as proprietary knowledge, leaving their talks woefully dry and unstimulating.

  But maybe that was for the best, given their present company.

  Jing Fei risked a glance at Katsuo, who was sandwiched between his father and mother, on the opposite side of the round table to her and Qiang. He was the exact opposite of his father—long and lean where Gotō was compact, effortless where the older man was rigid. His blue tech-hair caught the warm glow of the dining room’s recessed lighting, accentuating sharp cheekbones and the ever-present smirk that Jing Fei had long since learned to ignore. He lounged in his chair with a kind of careless confidence, one hand resting lightly on the table, the other cradling a glass of plum wine he had yet to sip from.

  If Gotō’s presence was suffocating, Katsuo’s was insidious. Less a weight pressing down and more a whisper in the ear, winding its way into the mind.

  It was distracting. Wildly so. He didn’t deserve to have this power over her. The power to psyche her out with only a smirk. Was this trauma? He had injured her. She felt slightly stupid and a tad bit over dramatic at the thought. Trauma was reserved towards more serious issues than hers to be sure.

  That still didn’t make his trespasses any less heavy in her mind. He hadn’t even begun to apologize. Maybe she should let Qiang bring this issue up with his mother.

  If only David’s life didn’t seem to ride on this. Then again, Jing Fei had heavy doubts that Katsuo would change his mind based on his mother’s word alone. He likely wouldn’t. But then, she never thought he could be the type likely to hurt his girlfriend—or fiancee, or whatever the hell they were. She just—couldn’t understand him anymore. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to.

  Katsuo reached for his glass of plum wine to try and pick it up. He held around it, picked it up, and trembled. Immediately, he aborted the action and played it off, looking around the table to see anyone that had caught his lapse. Jing Fei looked away before it was her turn to be inspected.

  This absolute lush. He was using. Even now.

  Or maybe he wasn’t, and that was what was causing these obvious withdrawal symptoms. The shakes? Really? Didn’t he have biomons for that? And didn’t he say he was going to get those arms looked at to begin with?

  Bastard.

  He had broken her hand, and hadn’t even done the one thing he said he would do—aside from paying her back at least.

  “How are you feeling today, Katsuo?” Jing Fei asked, injecting every bit of sympathy she could muster in her words. She spoke in a way that the manly voices of her elder brother and Tanaka wouldn’t be interrupted, but Katsuo had heard her.

  He blinked in surprise, “Me? I’m fine, of course.”

  She nodded, “I’m glad to hear that. It’s just that you seemed to have taken a little ill on Friday. You did get a check-up on your arms, yes?”

  Mrs. Tanaka honed in on that like a hawk and looked her son over, eyes darting about. Jing Fei could even see her pulse rising—a rather dramatic reaction all in all, and one Jing Fei felt guilty in eliciting, even if it had been deliberate.

  “Was something the matter with your arms, darling?” she asked, her voice quite and soft—utterly unable to penetrate the din of conversation, except to transmit its message to its intended recipient, and Jing Fei who had been paying attention.

  “Nothing at all,” Katsuo muttered, chuckling nervously, “Yes, indeed, I did go to a clinic, and I was given a clean bill of health.”

  “And what about Friday?” his mother asked, “What happened then?”

  “It was nothing,” Katsuo chuckled, “Right, Fei-Fei?”

  Hanako Tanaka looked at Jing Fei with eyes that betrayed a categorical lack of patience. Her message was loud and clear.

  Don’t bullshit me.

  “Of course, you’re right,” Jing Fei said to Katsuo, while giving a pointed look to Hanako—one she made sure Katsuo didn’t see. Hanako gave a nod of understanding and slowly turned to her son.

  “And you truly went to a clinic, son?” his mother asked.

  “Yes, mother, I did,” Katsuo said, “they ran a quick diagnostic, and did some maintenance. The doctor did mention that it is not completely unheard of for the Strongarms 400 to go through low-level malfunctions in-between maintenance cycles as tight as ours.” And to hear Katsuo tell it, the entire family went for cyberware check-ups biweekly—upon the matriarch of the family’s request. “But it’s all fixed.”

  Bullshit.

  Clearly, all he had proven with that was that his outburst had nothing to do with faulty cyberware. Nobody skezzed out after biweekly maintenance. This was a wetware issue, far harder to address. It was the meat that was the problem—specifically that pink and likely smooth lump inside his skull, likely drugged to hell and swimming in sweet dreams. Fucking gonk.

  Jing Fei furrowed her eyebrows in feigned confusion, “you’ve barely touched your plum wine.”

  Katsuo looked down at the drink, then at her—real anger creeping into his eyes for only a moment—before his eyes fell on the drink once more.

  Purposefully, he picked it up. His hands were still and stable as they lifted the glass up to his lips. Jing Fei held her breath as she watched him slowly bring it up, tip the contents over into his waiting mouth, and put the glass down.

  That… would have taken a rather dramatic turn, given any other outcome. Jing Fei wondered if she should let the matter rest now, or continue laying it on him.

  He wouldn’t learn a thing if she let him off that easily.

  000

  David drove his Kusanagi through the highway like he owned it, expertly bobbing and weaving through the traffic while Lucy held on tightly to his midsection. Lucy herself was no stranger to extreme riding and driving, she could even embrace the thrillseeking of it in her own right—but David was on some other level entirely. Learning to let go of her fear as he pulled immensely risky maneuvers just to save a fraction of a second was difficult, but the longer these rides went on, the more she was able to… simply get used to it.

  When David rode his bike, it was as though Night City became only the size of a playground. They could go everywhere. From Arroyo to Watson in a blink and back.

  She lost herself in the neon signs whizzing by, their speed turning them into horizontal smears of light. Distantly, she made out the brutalistic Arasaka Tower, a wide and tall monstrosity of dark gray metal that overshadowed all the rest of the city’s skyline, rising almost half a mile into the sky. Around it, holograms of advertisements danced around it like fairies, undercutting the building’s threatening aura. For the first time in… really, for the first time, when she looked at that tower, her soul didn’t darken.

  Not while she held David, whose mere presence seemed to erase all worries.

  All too soon, the ride ended—the open skies of the highway had given way to the dense crush of buildings inside the city, and the bike slowed down due to sheer necessity. No level of temporal perception could let someone ride a bike safely through the crowd of people down at this level, where the roads belonged more to the people than anyone else.

  Soon enough, they were there. A bar in Japantown. David had traveled all over the city only for them to end up right back in her subdistrict. The bar wasn’t any place she had ever gone to, though—an unassumingly named Carlo’s Barcade.

  “Wonder if they have Graph Wars,” Lucy muttered as David finished parking the bike. She let go of him to get off the bike. Immediately once she did, the front of her body and her arms felt cold. Almost uncomfortably so. The discomfort was… new. Her biomonitors would have done a better job to regulate her body temp, and from what she could tell from a simple scan, nothing was wrong with them.

  “Probably not,” he chuckled, “then again, could be. But what it does have are some real classics.”

  “You’ve been before?” Lucy asked.

  “All the time,” David said, looking up at the bar’s facade, hands on his hips, “Used to come here with my chooms way back when school wasn’t so serious—when I still had time to hang. After every score, we’d come down here to spend it all. Course, I always saved every eddie, so all I ever did was watch ‘em play.”

  “What, they wouldn’t spot you?” Lucy chuckled, “so much for street kid solidarity.”

  “Heh,” he shrugged, stepping up to threshold of the open door, “maybe they didn’t like to see another gutter rat actually try to make something of themselves?” He turned back to her, “You coming?”

  Lucy followed him into the bar. The inside was dark, dimly lit, but for the bar area and the rows and rows of arcade machines that took up the lion’s share of the floor. Lucy scanned them, and predictably enough, the machines were only emulating that twentieth century style—those weren’t even real CRT screens, just garden variety LED monitors hooked up to a computer loaded with the games.

  “You wanna get drinks first?” David asked.

  Lucy shook her head—she was more eager to hear about his past. “Why don’t we try a few games first? What did your chooms like to play?”

  He looked up and blinked as though to summon the memory, “Some pirate game. Can’t remember what the fuck it was called.”

  Lucy looked around, and one particular machine caught her eye, and its name was, “Mutiny?”

  His eyes lit up. He looked in the same direction she did and made a beeline towards it, “That’s it. Mutiny. It’s a two-player game between two teams of pirates—the red pirates versus the blue pirates.”

  “Tale as old as time,” Lucy muttered. “I’ll take blue—obviously.”

  David raised an eyebrow at her, “Come to think of it, you are a born player number two.”

  Oh, hell no. “Blue is the default. If anything, red should be player number two.”

  He booted up the game. The main screen showed two cartoonish pirate crews, one wearing blue and another wearing red, locked in battle, mouths open and spittle flying out from it. “See how Red’s on the left side? It’s a marketing trick—put the important elements on the left, because that’s where our eyes are primed to go—if you’re English speaking at least.”

  “Nerd,” Lucy scoffed, “And if we’re going by the main screen on which is player one and which is player two—” David paid the fee to the game and got to the set-up page where they each had to name their crews. And true to David’s prediction, blue was titled ‘player two’ by default. She connected her system to the game and hastily slapped on her nethandle, Luna. “Blue is the better color anyway.”

  “Whatever you say,” he said. She could hear the mirth in his voice. She refused to play along, though—old habits did die hard after all.

  David named his team of red buccaneers ‘the D clan’, prompting her to snort-giggle. What a gonk.

  “Luna pirates, huh?” he said, “They’re blue, so it could work. Alright, let’s play.”

  Now it was time for map selection. David just selected the first one shown—a two-dimensional image of two ships facing a central island that seemed to have two traversable areas—the very top of a hill, and the inside of that same hill, which could be entered from a hole at the top area, and two tunnels at the ground level where the land was closer to the ships on either side.

  It was David’s turn as the screen zoomed in on one of the many sprites on-screen, that of a pixelated red pirate wearing a tricorn—the captain, presumably, starting in the underground area of the island. Did he have some sort of special role in the game? “From what I remember, each turn you pick a character, and you can choose whether to move him, use an attack, or both.”

  He picked the ‘move’ option. A white line poked out of the player sprite, dotted on one end. Then it extended as though a force had been applied on it, stretching seemingly—ah, Lucy understood. The straight part of the line was where the player ‘pulled’, and the dotted section was on the other side of the character, opposite the whole line. That dotted line mapped the trajectory of where David would launch the character.

  He threw his captain into a gap between the island and the ship—straight into the drink. It sunk and—died. The game continued with her turn—seemingly the loss of his pirate captain hadn’t done anything to ease tensions between the Luna and D clan.

  “Amazing,” Lucy said dryly, “I can’t even begin to fathom what you’ve got planned.”

  “Hey, I only watched them play.”

  “And it breaks my heart every time you repeat that story—saddest shit I’ve ever heard,” Lucy grinned as she moved the map around to get a look at her precious crewmates, and the opposition.

  She picked one pirate that was nearest to an enemy pirate—on one of the ships. Hers was atop the mast, on the crow’s nest, while his was on the bottom floor.

  Carefully, she flung her guy down to his level, and then leafed through her weapon menu.

  “The stick of dynamite’s pretty OP,” David said, “I think that was the META. Mostly for the knockback.”

  She shrugged and picked it. She flung the stick directly at his sprite, only for it to phase straight through and land on the ground, a few feet away from the sprite.

  “What the hell, that was a direct hit—” a moment later, the stick exploded, launching David’s sprite away from the ship and into the island, taking off a hefty chunk of HP from it as well.

  “Ain’t about contact,” David said as he cracked his neck, “It’s timed, clearly. But it’s starting to come back to me. Yeah, this won’t take long.”

  He was right.

  Though despite his boasting, he had been on the receiving end of that punishment. He did keep a sunny mood despite the repeated fuck-ups, insisting each time that he was ‘starting to understand it’.

  At some point, she had stopped believing him altogether, only for him to continue with the bit.

  Then came round two.

  Different map this time—an assortment of flying islands tightly bunched together. This made traversing the map far riskier, as falling could very well take you to the abyss at the bottom of the map. Though the islands were clustered tightly enough that even missing one jump wouldn’t kill you, as long as you weren’t low on the map.

  The first few turns, David maneuvered his boys in ways she couldn’t quite understand—all the while, she just continued to rain bombs and dynamite sticks on them, firing off the occasional cannon shot to break away pieces of environment and make the treacherous footing even more treacherous.

  “Hahah! You walked right into it now, you gonk,” David grinned as he fired a stick of dynamite into a cluster of her players, all of whom received knockback.

  All but one of them managed to pinball all the way down to the abyss, bouncing off the walls of the islands below and dying.

  “Dick!” Lucy shouted hotly as she flung her character back up to the top of the map, putting distance between herself and the bottom. Then she fired off a cannon that managed to take out one single player of his.

  David threw the last stick of dynamite he had. This time, her character descended all the way down, and the game ended in his win.

  “Hah! Nova!” He turned to her, “Wanna play something else? Racing game, maybe?”

  “Sure,” she said, “Just don’t let me beat you over and over.”

  “You’re not winning a racing game,” he chuckled, “feels unfair to even suggest it. Alright, you pick the game and I’ll get some drinks.”

  000

  Katsuo had been excusing himself to go to the bathroom rather, uh, often.

  This current return of his marked the third time in only a single hour. He was making it painfully obvious, and painfully awkward.

  Gotō, of course, couldn’t give two shits, still locked in a nonsense yammering contest with her older brother. Hanako kept making furtive attempts to see to her son’s fraying health. Katsuo kept making things obvious that something was wrong.

  Her intent had been to put him on the spot, to make him feel awkward, to make him hurt at least. If only to return a fraction of the pain he had already caused her.

  His hand started vibrating. His mother put her hand over his. He saw that and immediately pulled his hand back, hissing to his mom that he was fine when he obviously wasn’t.

  Jing Fei gave him a call.

  Hanako saw it when his eyes glowed gold, and she turned to Jing Fei with eyes that said ‘I’ll leave this to you.’

  Fei-Fei: you’re acting weird. If you need to leave, I’ll help come up with an excuse

  TonKatsu-Ramen: Excuses? What excuses? Why would I excuse myself? I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.

  His eyes twitched, like they were trying to look at several places at once. Be several places at once.

  Fei-Fei: Yes. You’re fine. But the others seem a little stressed. They might see something that’s not there and hound you for it.

  TonKatsu-Ramen: Like what? What the hell? That sounds paranoid. You need to lighten up. Nobody’s gonna catch on.

  Catch on?

  Fei-Fei: catch on to what?

  “Nothing!” Katsuo hissed, loudly enough to interrupt Gotō’s conversation with Qiang. All eyes were on him now.

  “What do you mean, son?” Gotō intoned gruffly, as though daring him to waste his time.

  Katsuo looked at him with a deep-seated horror in his eyes. “I—I believe, uh, food, yes—” he clenched his jaw, “some food fell down the wrong pipe. But I am fine. It is nothing.”

  Qiang narrowed his eyes at him, “Is something the matter, Katsuo? You seem… ill at ease.”

  Ah, so they just finally noticed?

  Fei-Fei got up— a little decorum-breachy, given she hadn’t asked for permission to be dismissed yet, but emergencies called for drastic action—and rounded the table so that she was by Katsuo, “Come, Katsuo; let’s get you to bed. Clearly, that plum wine was stronger than it let on by its flavor.”

  Katsuo quickly stood up, “No need; I’ll simply go to the bathroom. One moment, please.” He turned around to walk away.

  “You already went,” Hanako said, freezing Katsuo mid-stride, “are you certain you would rather not go to your room?”

  000

  Playing games with David, it seemed, was an exercise in humility. The only times she’d beat him was while he was still in his experimentation stage, learning the controls, and what he could do if he combined certain game elements.

  That was, unless he immediately understood the gist of a game and just trounced her anyway.

  The drinks flowed, and each time they wore a machine out to satisfaction, they’d switch to another game, over and over.

  It was a funky rhythm, Lucy judged. Like all good rhythms, however, it needed a bit of shaking up.

  “More drinks?” David suggested.

  She shook her head—she’d had enough. Besides, if she got too drunk, then the gonk would only default to his gentlemanly nature and refuse to act on any opportunity given. His mother had definitely raised him right, but that was annoying. And hot.

  “Hey,” she grinned mischievously, “wanna ride the NCART?”

  His grin mirrored hers, “fuck yeah.”

  He drove them to the nearest station before sending the bike home via autopilot—a slightly risky thing to do in case any Netrunner with enough skill saw the pair of wheels rolling by unattended. Then again, David’s ICE was solid—she’d seen that firsthand.

  As they waited for the train, David began, “let’s race for chips. I won’t use the Sandy. Sounds good?”

  Lucy’s grin was so sharp that it could cut glass. “Sounds nova.”

  The monorail finally arrived at the station. The two of them entered the car right ahead of them from the doors furthest from each other. Slowly, the doors closed, and the cart sped off.

  Lucy got to work. She first scanned the crowd and then looked for physical tells—which way the necks of her likely marks bent, what cyberware they were sporting, how spatially aware they were—and then got started on an innocuous walk through the crowd.

  Ever so often, she’d swipe something out of the air after passing by an unsuspecting gonk. No one noticed. No one cared.

  She met David in the middle of the cart. He gave her a call.

  Corpo-Cunt: I got twelve.

  Lucy: I got thirteen.

  David scowled.

  Corpo-Cunt: Dammit!

  Lucy chuckled. They passed each other by, both pretending not to know the other, and waiting for the cart to reach its next station. Usually, she’d have waited for the cart to be closer to the next station before beginning her klepping spree—just to give herself the option of escaping at a moment’s notice if something got fucked up.

  But then David would have probably taken advantage of that to rack up points.

  Still, twelve wasn’t bad, given that she had taught him everything he knew. Or at the very least, gotten him started on the basics. And how long ago was that now? A month.

  Considering how far he had come in just a month all at once was… disconcerting. She’d rather shelf that thought for later—or never. Didn’t matter one bit, anyway.

  They were consistently neck in neck for the next few cars. They kept racking up chips for over an hour. Lucy would have welcomed the score if her recent windfall after Tijuana hadn’t simply destroyed all her money worries for the foreseeable future—likely for years if she didn’t spend it like a gonk.

  Now, she was just doing this for the love of the game.

  “PICKSOCKET!”

  They had just reached the next station when one of the marks had suddenly screamed bloody murder. David, who was deep inside the NCART, must surely have heard it.

  She asked just to make sure.

  Lucy: Heard that?

  Corpo-Cunt: yup—moving out-out.

  They both disappeared into the crowd of commuters leaving the train and the station, eventually finding each other in the streets.

  They immediately laughed upon spotting one another.

  “Did you get a look at the mark?” Lucy asked, “Which one of us fucked up?”

  David bit his lower lip and shrugged, “Don’t have a clue.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it wasn’t!”

  “You still have much to learn,” Lucy shook her head, arms folded. He was pouting—pouting! He might have thought that his tough-boy scowl could undercut the sheer cuteness of that expression, but it didn’t. Not one bit. Lucy resisted laughing and continued the bit, “come to think of it, didn’t you put the entire city on high alert last time you tried this shit? Subtle ain’t exactly your thing, is it?”

  He sighed, “Fuck off,” he muttered softly, a grin playing on his lips. “Matter of fact, why don’t you put your eddies where your mouth is then, master?” he pointed up ahead on the sidewalk where a group of pigs had congregated, a pair of cruisers on the streets right next to them. “Klep their shards.”

  Lucy gaped. This fucking gonk!

  She almost backed off then, but stopped herself. Fine, he wanted to challenge her?

  Fuck it.

  “You think I won’t?” Lucy walked up. David immediately grabbed her arm. Lucy ignored the warmth in her stomach as she turned to David, who looked surprised.

  “Not so fast, now,” he said.

  “So you were bullshitting me.”

  “Not quite,” David said, “Look, I’ll distract them, then you do your thing. Nova?”

  Lucy scoffed, hiding her satisfaction, “worried, are you?”

  He let go of her and gave her a shrug, “just a bit.” He walked up ahead, to the cops. Lucy crossed the street and quickly walked up ahead to get on their blindspot once David had their attention.

  And get their attention he did. He took off in a sprint towards them—they immediately pulled out their guns—only for him to face-plant in front of them and roll in agony.

  Lucy didn’t hesitate to get behind them and quickhack them all, ejecting their shards from their neck and taking off before anyone could raise an alarm.

  One cop picked David up by the collar of his jacket and punched him. Lucy froze—

  Corpo-Cunt: Fucking relax. This is nothing.

  Lucy watched it play out as he pleaded his case. Then his eyes glowed blue for a moment—eddie transfer? The cop finally let him go, and he walked past them, catching up to Lucy. “You good?” she asked.

  He blinked at her. “Uh, yeah. Nanobots, remember? Don’t exactly go down easy.”

  “How much did you pay?”

  “Fifteen edds,” he laughed, “First it was five, hence the punch. Then I upped it to ten. Finally, he started buying that I was fucking broke or something. Shit was hilarious.”

  Lucy gaped—then laughed. Holy shit, is this gonk even real?

  “Man, oh man,” he shook his head, still grinning in delight, “never thought I could have that much fun with cops. How many shards you swipe?”

  “Uh, all of them—four,” she said.

  “It’s crazy,” he shook his head. “It wasn’t long ago when… all of this city felt like it would kill me at any moment. Now, it’s,” he chuckled, “I guess it’s finally home now.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “I… I’m starting to feel the same, I think.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, inching closer to her, so their arms touched, “I’m… happy to hear that.”

  “Wanna head home?” Lucy asked.

  000

  “I am certain,” Katsuo half-spasmed, bit out the words through gritted teeth, “I will go to the bathroom. I need to relieve myself, mother.”

  Jing Fei’s heart thundered. She kept a healthy distance from Katsuo—she literally had to. Why was his entire body twitching like that? And why was she—it was like something in her, some deeply buried instinct of womankind had awakened in her bones and was warning her to keep away from him. Jing Fei didn’t understand it—it was like her body couldn’t abide moving even an inch closer to him. She wasn’t sure how much the people in attendance were picking up on, but surely they could no-doubt observe that propriety was being lost.

  Moment by moment, the situation was becoming more and more dire.

  But this is good, isn’t it? If Katsuo exposes himself right now, then Qiang will have witnessed it. And I won’t have to be his fiancée anymore.

  No. Jing Fei didn’t like that plan one bit. Not like this.

  “Please, Katsuo,” Jing Fei murmured, “let me help you.”

  Was it her sympathy towards Katsuo speaking? He was… a product of his environment. And despite his many, many shortcomings, he did at least try.

  It wasn’t right to not help him, not when he was so obviously suffering.

  But why were his eyes moving like that—

  000

  Extinction.

  It’s coming.

  Extinction.

  It’s coming.

  All things died. Katsuo knew that well. After the arms had been forced on him, suicidal ideation had been his constant companion, always denied, always whispering treacherously from the darkest corners of his own psyche, always denied, denied, denied. But now—

  —It was like he had torn through a veil, and was staring at the ineffable immortal truth that lay beyond. Ideation? No, enlightenment. He could DESTROY it ALL AND THEN HIMSELF IN A GLORIOUS SONG OF—

  Was this enlightenment?

  Extinction was enlightenment. Enlightenment was divinity.

  It’s coming. Should I—

  No. I need… to run. But run where? Extinction is—

  Fei-Fei waved her lips, saying something useless, something that couldn’t grace this Tathagata’s ears. “It’s coming,” he said, staring at all of them and none of them.

  —Extinction is the path to the realm of the Tathagata. I see it now.

  The people in attendance continued murmuring, the red dust of the mortal realm suffusing the very meaning of their impure and poisoned words.

  He needed to go.

  Where exactly? The whole room seemed quite aimless. Nothing was there for him. The food? No—he had eaten his fill. The drink?

  He walked up to the table and grabbed the crystal bottle of plum wine, up-ending the contents into his gullet. He let the bottle drop to the floor, and the walking piles of meat in the room all paused.

  Extinction.

  It’s coming.

  The liquid burned as it travelled down his throat, lighting up his vision, providing further depth to his sight, showing him that—

  Warning: Inebriation levels critical—cease further consumptions or else suffer the consequences, you uNwoRThy wORm, you—you make your mother WISH she was dead, KatsuoOOOOO—

  Extinction.

  It’s coming.

  A grip like an iron vice wrapped around his arm, harming this Tathagata’s most venerable body!

  Katsuo struck the head of the offending demon with extreme prejudice, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “EXTINCTION!” He screamed. The hand let go. His head whirled around. “IT’S COMING!”

  All of these peons would be enlightened alongside him.

  In time.

  But for that to happen, he needed to find the holy tools.

  This Tathagata’s father—the archdemon, the greatest enemy of all—kept those holy tools stashed in a safe, didn’t he?

  He walked blindly, letting his feet—and his all-seeing eyes—take him to where he needed to go. A black iron box. He ripped it open. His arms cracked, but he did not care.

  Then he rejoined his flock. They stared at him.

  The Tathagata incarnate stared back, and for perhaps the first time, felt freedom. He honored the menials, apostates, plebs, and demons with a nod of farewell, jealous that they would feel the holy fire before himself. No matter.

  Enlightenment. Finally.

  The holy tools let out roars as he pinched at their private parts. Each squeeze of those parts made the holy tools roar in fury, releasing destruction upon the impure bodies of those in attendance. Bodies hit the floor.

  One impure body tried to strike at this Tathagata. The demon smacked the holy tool from his grip and tried to wrestle him.

  But this Tathagata’s strong arms were four-hundred fold powerful. He screeched his defiance at the archdemon, and the last battle for extinction was met.

  000

  Lucy’s rooftop had an almost-direct view to Orbital Air’s launch pad—the one that shot rockets to Luna. Arasaka apparently had quite a few business interests up there ranging from mining to advanced materials fabrication to pharmaceuticals that could only be made in low-G conditions, so the city’s starport always had plenty of activity. That she lived here, seeing all that, slowly earning the money to buy a ticket of her own—

  It meant that, every day working in the gutters of Night City, she would return here, her dream in view.

  I clenched my jaws as I watched the sight, trying my best not to dwell on how that must have felt for her.

  All this time, just…

  Fuck.

  Both of us sat together on the roof of her apartment block, waiting for this next rocket to take off. I idly wondered if something dramatic would happen by then. Or if something dramatic could even happen.

  Lucy was…

  I didn’t understand her.

  And I guess that added to her charm. She was incomprehensible. Crazy. Out of this fucking world in every sense.

  I didn’t get it. I didn’t see it—not consciously, at least.

  I wrestled for words to say—today was fun. Gonk shit like that. Fuck. None of it would fly.

  How could it? I was approaching this with the thinking that she was normal, and she wasn’t. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  I snuck a glance at her as she sat—just the sight of her was enough for me to feel stuff happening in my chest and in my stomach.

  That suave confidence of hers—the occasional lunacy. Hell, even the anger! I wasn’t a fucking masochist by any means, but no matter how she bent her face, no matter what furious expressions it made, I still couldn’t myself. She was just too fucking hot.

  Too fucking special.

  But.

  She was also a person.

  And as agonizing as it was, I had to be prepared for a rejection—she had been quite consistent in her feelings towards me after all. Moon date aside—she had been quite drunk at the time.

  Sixteen shots of hard liquor would make anyone do anything.

  “Enny for your thoughts?” Lucy asked, her smoky voice gently pulling me out of my reverie to consider her words.

  “A thousand eddies and we’ll talk,” I said.

  Defaulting to a joke. Fucking classic. Goddammit, D. What is wrong with you? Jokes weren’t even my strong suit.

  She snorted. Then she sent me a transfer request for a thousand eddies. She pulled it back as quickly as I saw it. I chuckled.

  “It’s a pretty night,” I said, looking up at the sky. Not a cloud in the air. Not many stars either—but that was par for the course with Night City. But it was a full moon. That must have counted for something.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Nothing else.

  For several seconds.

  FUCK.

  Goddamnit, David, tighten the fuck up.

  [Tell her you like her]

  Motherf—

  D: Are you fucking serious?

  [Yes. Yes, I am. And before you tell me I’m not able to make these judgments because I’m an AI—I don’t care. Get it over with. Now.]

  What the fuck?

  D: We’ll definitely talk about this attitude later.

  [Certainly. But do go on about your business. I can no longer bear to watch you agonize over such a simple solution to your predicament.]

  I was crazy. I was fucking crazy. For even daring to consider this idea—from the advice of an AI no less.

  D: First of all, don’t think I haven’t noticed you disappearing on me ever since I killed those Tyger Claws. We’ll talk about that, too.

  [Certainly.]

  Still, I was slightly relieved to hear her weigh in.

  Goddammit all!

  “Lucy,” I muttered, “I have to keep it real.”

  “What?” she asked with a slight chuckle. Her mirth killed my momentum immediately.

  [Go on.]

  “When I first met you, first talked to you, hung out with you,” I shook my head, “I don’t know. Shit just clicked. It really did.”

  “David—”

  I turned to her, my momentum gathering. I wouldn’t let her interject—not until I had finished my piece at least. I deserved that much at least. “I’m—shit, I don’t know what to say. I’m fucking crazy about you. Have been since I met you. And when I say I’m crazy about you, I mean all of you. All your pieces, all your parts. Physical, emotional, psychological—doesn’t matter. It’s all of it.”

  Yeah… I just… completely fucked it up at the end there. Fuck. Whatever. I was being honest. That was what mattered.

  “Hmm?” Lucy hummed, grinning, looking up at me, as though to mock me. And god-fucking-damnit, that still worked for me. “And what about me do you like?”

  “All of it.”

  “Be specific.”

  I stopped sitting and got up on a crouch, facing her, “your lunacy.”

  She looked away from me.

  Shit.

  SHIT.

  I’d gone too far there, hadn’t I?

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “I’m sor—”

  “Don’t,” she said, pointing her palm at me. “Don’t apologize. You were being honest, weren’t you?”

  Was this a test?

  Was she trying to see how well I could keep my cool?

  While most of me was already convinced that was the case, a small part of me urged me to backtrack and apologize.

  No. There would be no apologizing in this juncture.

  I stood up straight from my crouch and faced the launch pad far ahead, “Despite my better judgment, and despite your best fucking efforts, I’m crazy about you. And I won’t stop being crazy about you. At times, it feels like a curse. Most of the time, it feels like I’m in heaven.”

  I shrugged, still looking up ahead. “I’ve… I’ve never felt this way before. Not really. If I’m being creepy, that’s—”

  “No!”

  “Huh?” I looked down at Lucy, still facing away from me so I couldn’t see her face, “Hey, I’m sor—”

  “I told you not to apologize already, didn’t I?” she replied hotly.

  I closed my mouth and looked away. A few seconds passed in silence, then, “I’m not joking, Lucy.”

  I walked up to the edge of the roof—just to give her space. And to gain space, as well. Needed it.

  I heard a laugh behind me. Lucy was standing, and chuckling, hiding her face under her hand.

  “Fucking gonk,” she muttered.

  Was she making fun of me? Screwing with me?

  Didn’t care.

  “So?” I asked. “What’ll it be?”

  Before she could answer, I activated the Sandevistan, appearing right before her—to her view at least. Whatever cocksure remark she had died in her throat, and she blinked dumbly, looking at me—slightly up at me, to my pride.

  Nanny had definitely come through on the growth.

  She wrapped her arm around my neck, pulled me down, and our lips touched—

  The fucking rocket launched—had she timed this? What a fucking nerd.

  Also…

  This…

  This…

  This was it, huh?

  Our lips touched. Mine melted into hers. My mouth opened—suddenly, my arms were around her waist, and—

  000

  Jing Fei couldn’t breathe. Each attempt at a breath felt like drowning, like her lungs had turned into punctured bags filling with warm liquid. A thin, wet rattle escaped her throat as she coughed, the metallic taste of blood coating her tongue. Every nerve in her body screamed, but the pain was distant—muted by the cold that was seeping into her limbs, making her feel weightless and heavy all at once.

  Her fingers twitched weakly against the marble floor, slick with something warm—her blood, most likely. It should have mattered. It should have terrified her. But all she could do was stare forward, her vision tunneling to the one thing that truly mattered.

  Qiang.

  Her big brother. Her protector. The one person in the world who never wavered. He lay sprawled on the floor, his face turned toward her—but he wasn’t seeing her. His dark eyes, always sharp, always filled with fire, were empty. Glassy. A perfect, crimson-edged hole sat between them.

  Jing Fei's chest clenched, but not from the gunshot wounds.

  No.

  No, no, no—

  Her fingers dragged weakly against the floor, reaching for him, but the distance was unbearable. Her body wouldn’t move the way she willed it to, her strength draining with every slow, wet breath. She wanted to scream, but her throat could barely make a sound.

  This wasn’t real.

  This couldn’t be real.

  The world wasn’t supposed to exist without Qiang in it. Without his voice, his presence, his unshakable certainty. He was the one who always made things right. Who fixed things. But now, there was nothing to fix. Just an empty body. Just blood pooling beneath his head, staining the marble. Just silence.

  A deep, gut-wrenching grief swallowed her whole, heavier than the pain, heavier than the bullets lodged in her body. It was like something inside her was unraveling, fraying apart strand by strand, leaving behind only raw, unbearable loss.

  She had never felt so small.

  So alone.

  Her vision blurred, but whether it was from tears or the creeping darkness at the edges of her sight, she wasn’t sure.

  The last thing she saw before the darkness finished encroaching on her vision was a red cross with a vertical line striking through it.