I received a transaction request not a moment too soon and accepted it without moving. The Arasaka crew were cheering and celebrating, popping champagne bottles and drinking to ‘their’ success.

  Allister handed me a glass of sparkling champagne and I stared at it before just putting it on the table.

  The noise was starting to get a little much for me. And I needed water.

  I shot Allister a message asking for water.

  Allister: Check the fridge.

  And go back into the same mansion that Katsuo was inside?

  Dammit.

  I felt tempted to use the Sandevistan once I was out of sight, but I doubted a megacorp exec brat’s house wouldn’t have cameras or sensors to detect that kind of stuff.

  Guess I just had to go in and hope for the best. I was starting to get a serious headache and Nanny couldn’t do anything without more water. Plus I really needed to pee, too.

  After a trip to the bathroom in the labyrinthine mansion, I headed for the kitchen and opened the fridge to find it stocked to the brim with alcohol; beers, bottles of hard liquor, and wine, both red and white. Mercifully, there was a shelf with bottles of premium RealWater. I took two of those and downed one of them on the spot.

  “You’re hard to get a hold of.”

  The voice was feminine. I turned around to find a girl wearing a red cheongsam—a sleeveless, long dress with a slit at the legs—and a head of wavy blue-green hair. The dress had a heart-shaped window around her cleavage, revealing breasts with horizontal golden panels in a stripe pattern, studded with diamonds. I was grateful for my shades not for the first time today as I couldn’t help but stare at that, not really sure what to make of such a thing. It would have been sexy if it wasn’t also a little gross.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “Can you?” she asked, stepping towards me. Was she Kang Tao?

  Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

  She stepped into my personal space and began to caress my chest. “I saw what you did back there. Very impressive.”

  “It was nothing,” I said, hoping to sound humble.

  000

  “It was nothing,” he bragged shamelessly, straight-faced and with an even intonation. He really styled himself as some kind of a star, it seemed. The high vis and neon outfit clearly wasn’t attention-grabbing enough for him; even his speech had to corroborate his greatness.

  Then again, for someone wearing his getup, he was remarkably humble. Quiet, sticking closely by the side of his friends and even gaining the favor of Jin.

  Fei-Fei had been watching David since he arrived, from when he provided Jin with those XBDs to when he finished viewing it himself all the way to his HoloShip game where he crushed his opponents even after imbibing a serious amount of booze. Maybe that metal that glinted on his back was some kind of neuralware? Even if it was, it wasn’t like the Militech boys didn’t have their own Netrunner-geared hackers. That couldn’t replace natural skill, of which David seemed to have plenty.

  He had plenty of cool, too. Fei-Fei had seen people come out of the Norris BD crying and puking, rendering the media room uninhabitable for the time being. She even viewed the BD herself to see what the fuss was.

  That David had barely made a sound coming out of it was impressive.

  He was impressive. And that did things to her.

  “That so?” she asked. He didn’t give anything away, the absolute tease. Maybe she could make him chase her?

  She stepped back. He didn’t move forward at all. Tough customer. “Why haven’t I seen you in one of these events before?”

  “I’m inclined towards more practical pursuits,” he replied. “Corporate mind games are beneath me.”

  “Maybe that’s just because you’re a bad player,” she smirked.

  “I don’t play stupid games,” he said. “I leave the flailing to the children.”

  “I never gave you my name, did I?”

  “Naturally. I never asked.”

  She snorted. Was he going to neg her now? That was a bold strategy.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I’m keeping my friends waiting.”

  She shoved him to the kitchen island, stepped in and kissed him.

  He didn’t push her away. Good. He wanted her.

  She took a step back to breathe. “Why don’t we go someplace more private?”

  000

  Katsuo sat next to his younger cousin Jin in the poolside while the boy’s cleaning crew—who had been sleeping in the basement—had been woken up to clean up the vomit that was all over the BD chairs and the floor of his media room.

  He hadn’t gotten to sample the Norris BD yet, and he was grateful for it. Having seen how others had reacted, he was shocked by how tame David’s reaction had been. No screaming or crying.

  Even Jin had screamed, his terror somehow morphing into elation mid-howl.

  Katsuo really was the last sane person in the mansion, huh?

  He grumbled. “You really shouldn’t be so accepting of whatever that gutter trash gives you.”

  “He ain’t that bad,” Jin responded in his usual carefree tone. “Plus the BD was fun! You should try it sometime!”

  “You don’t understand,” Katsuo growled. “David Martinez isn’t the sort you should associate with. He’s not one of us!”

  “Man, you sure hate him!” Jin laughed.

  “No,” Katsuo denied instantly. “I can’t bring myself to care so much for a useless piece of shit like him. Hatred would be giving him way too much credit.”

  “Oh, we have a tsundere on our hands!” Jin laughed. “Is that it? You have the hots for him?”

  “How dare you suggest such a thing?!” Katsuo yelled. “David Martinez is—!” Katsuo’s tirade died in his throat as Jin’s expression morphed from gleeful exuberance to an impassive expression, his eyes half-lidded.

  “Damare, Katsuo-kun,” he said, his voice deeper than usual. “Who do you think you’re speaking to?”

  Jin was the son of the head of finance, sure, but that didn’t make Katsuo one of his little cronies. That said, he didn’t exactly push the issue.

  “You go too far, cousin,” Katsuo said, but nothing else.

  Jin chuckled, his innocent facade back in full swing. “Whoopsie! Really ruffled your feathers there, didn’t I? My bad, choomba, sorry. That said, I think you should let the whole David matter lie for now.”

  “What?” Katsuo asked.

  “I like him,” Jin said. “He managed to get me the XBDs I wanted, and what’s more, I dig his vibe. He has my favor.”

  “He’s nothing!”

  “I wouldn’t exactly go as far as to call him a friend,” Jin conceded. “But he certainly is more than nothing. So for now I’ll ask you to let the matter rest so I can continue getting what I want. And in return for leaving David alone, you can have more time to let off some steam with that hot fiancée of yours! Everybody wins!”

  Katsuo scoffed. Yes, leave it to that spoiled brat Jin to force everything to his own whims. But father had been clear that this was his role when it came to his younger cousin. He had to give the boy some concessions to not get on his bad side.

  But Katsuo also knew that he had to prevent himself from falling into servitude as well. And that meant strategizing, and picking his battles.

  Jin wanted David so much? He could have him. Katsuo would just continue to consolidate power in other ways, keep the brat more or less happy, and be free to live his own life and pursue his own interests in the company.

  000

  I panted next to the girl whose name I still didn’t know, naked under the bed sheets.

  Fuck happened?

  Fuck happened.

  She rolled over to face me with a satisfied smile on her face. “You’re more than just a good hacker, aren’t you? That was… nice.”

  For her, maybe.

  This was my first time. And I got so busy figuring out how to implement all the things I’d seen on porn BDs, taking an excruciatingly long time with foreplay before diving into it, making sure that my first time didn’t lead to someone else’s disappointment, that I almost forgot to actually take pleasure in it.

  I timed it to exactly fifteen minutes before I let myself get in the sway of things and ‘finish’, but it was… stressful.

  I wanted to do it again.

  “And you’re all ganic down there, too! That’s rare. Takes a real man to know that size doesn’t matter.”

  The fuck was that supposed to mean? Was she roasting me now?

  “What is your name?” I asked her.

  She giggled. “Isn’t it more exciting for you to not know?”

  “Whatever you say,” I said. That was a relief for me, too, actually. It meant that this would be a one-off thing and I didn’t have to worry about leading on some corpo girl who I really wasn’t interested in getting into a relationship with. Her attachment to Kang Tao was certainly a factor as well. Nothing good could come of that in the long-term, for either of us.

  “Fei-Fei,” she said. “My name is Fei-Fei. And you’re David.”

  “My reputation precedes me,” I said, a corny line that I immediately regretted saying. Who the fuck did I think I was, James Bond?

  “You made quite the splash today, David,” she said. “And you won your friend quite the praise with the rest of the party for destroying Militech.”

  “Good for him,” I said.

  “What is your relationship with him anyway? Are you his mercenary? Or his vassal?”

  I furrowed my eyebrows at that. Allister wasn’t the only person that used this stupid terminology? “Why do you want to know?”

  “I want to know where to slot you mentally.”

  I snorted. “I’m his business partner. And friend.”

  “A mercenary, then,” she rolled on her stomach and rested her head on both her hands as she smiled at me. “How much to hire your services then, big bad solo?” I chuckled. She had me pegged better than she could possibly imagine.

  “Consider a transfer to Arasaka and we’ll talk,” I said.

  Fei-Fei’s smile fell. “That may be more likely than you expect.”

  I frowned. “You’re not Kang Tao?” Wait, was that maybe racist to assume?

  “Not for long,” she said. “My family is marrying me off to Arasaka. A business deal, but I know what it actually is; an apology. My country’s dowry customs mean that along with me, my family will have to pay out my groom’s family in large sums of money and other gifts, which we now owe to Arasaka due to a mess that was made a few months ago. My company lost a product that was destined for Arasaka, and now I’m paying the price.”

  That didn’t sound too nice. “Condolences,” I said.

  She smiled sadly. “I didn’t expect sympathy from you. Not really sure why I even said what I said. But thank you for responding that way.”

  “So… who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Katsuo Tanaka.”

  I bluescreened mentally.

  I looked at her, really looked at her, to try and figure out if she was lying. Her expression told me no. She was deadly serious.

  I got up and dressed up immediately.

  “Oh?” Fei-Fei asked. “The big bad merc is scared of pissing off his boss?”

  I hated that she was putting it that way. “Could you at least dress up too?”

  She got up and turned away from me, giving me a good view of her ass, also striped with gold and studded with diamonds. Almost cut myself on those a couple of times. What a stupid set of implants.

  She put on her underwear—no bra—and wore the dress smoothly, and I remembered to finally dress up myself.

  “Katsuo won’t know,” Fei-Fei said. “And… sorry. For putting you at risk.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Her tone was forlorn, and I couldn’t stay angry at her knowing her circumstances, even if she almost put me in Katsuo’s crosshairs in the worst way possible.

  “You should run away,” I said. “If you don’t want to marry him.”

  She laughed. “Then what? Live as some street kid? Get work at a brothel maybe, flaunting the body that my family’s money paid for?”

  Eddies didn’t buy happiness, but I’d rather cry in a Rayfield.

  “Or you can fuck unsuspecting guys while Katsuo jerks off to his own mirror image,” I said, hoping that my joking tone came through.

  She burst out laughing. Success. “Yeah. That’s the plan.”

  I stared at her for a long time.

  “So?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we leave?”

  The revelation that she was Katsuo’s fiancée had scared me at first, but something about that activated some primal part of my brain as well. I was fucking Katsuo’s girl.

  “What would you say to a second round?”

  “Yes.”

  000

  This felt so much better.

  000

  It was approaching midnight and Allister and his friends were now well and truly drunk. I had split off from Fei-Fei and rejoined the group. Jin and his buddies had joined the poolside as well where I could see Katsuo having a private chat with Fei-Fei on a table far away.

  I smirked.

  It was probably very immature and somewhat patriarchal of me to take pleasure in what I did, but I didn’t care. I could still feel good about it, even if I shouldn’t. We both consented, so what should it matter anyway?

  Also, what was that crap Allister said about ‘social defense’ again? If getting drunk wasn’t the play, then he sure could have fooled me with his act.

  He sure was a loudmouth when he got drunk, too.

  When the conversation hit a lull, I bumped him gently with my elbow. “I wanna delta.”

  “What?!” Allister asked. “It’s only twelve! Why leave so early?”

  Well, if all that was left to do here was to get drunk, then I had pretty much accomplished everything worth accomplishing here.

  “I’m not feeling it anymore,” I said.

  “Take my car,” he said, tossing me the keys sloppily. I almost didn’t catch it with how far i had to reach to grab it. “Take it to the toll-booth out of North Oak and then hail a cab.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Have a good, good night, David! You really came in clutch, today!”

  “David is leaving?!”

  “Aww, can’t he stay for longer?”

  I walked away from the crowd, not looking back as I headed to the parking lot with Allister’s Rayfield.

  I opened it and got in. I selected the self-driving option and picked a point on the map for it to go. It pulled out at a pretty fast clip, way faster than I expected, jerking me around the car. I was terrified that the Rayfield would nick the other cars in the lot as it maneuvered around them with machine precision before flying out of the drive. I found the option to slow the car down and got it down to a reasonable pace by the time it hit the normal road.

  Holy fuck.

  Was the default start-up speed ‘bat out of hell’? Why would it do that? Maybe it was a Night City special option. Never knew when you needed to cut and run, especially if you were a rich corpo heir.

  The car took me to the toll and I walked through unbothered and hailed a taxi. One came pretty quickly, a high class car that was a cut above the normal Delamain models, and one that I knew would cost me a hefty chunk of eddies. I told it to drive a block away from my megabuilding and waited in the car.

  Then I got a call from Maine, a face call.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  On the other side was Maine downing a broseph. “You done with your biz?” he asked and then he looked at me. “You’re missing out—wait, kid, what the hell are you wearing?”

  My neokitsch corpo-brat get-up. Fuck.

  I sighed. “Corpo party,” I said. “Fucking hectic.”

  “This what you used your edds on?” Maine asked in shock. “Fucking threads?”

  “Had to,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

  He just laughed. “Head to Turbo’s.”

  “What about the Afterlife?”

  “Some bigshot fixer meet happened,” Maine said. “We vacated out of respect. Now we’re at Turbo’s.”

  “Let me get changed.”

  “Kid, if you ain’t dressed like that when you come here, I’m sending your ass home.” Maine said with a serious expression.

  I groaned. “Come on, Maine. Seriously! You just want to make fun of me!”

  “You’re a corpo brat who edgeruns as a sidehustle, heck yeah I will!” he laughed. “Seriously, guys! Come here, get a load of David’s get-up!”

  I turned off my camera.

  While being made fun of would suck at the moment, I really needed to wash down the bad taste of hanging out with corpos for so long.

  I was starting to think like them, and that scared me more than anything else.

  I also had twenty five grand to blow on random crap, might as well celebrate having paid off my semester fees.

  I edited the route for the cab and it made a U turn at its earliest convenience.

  000

  The luxury cab’s door opened upwards and I stepped out in front of Maine and Dorio, both seated on the hood of a purple quadra—his, if I wasn’t mistaken.

  The music turned off and the party-goers stared at me, transfixed.

  Maine burst out laughing. Dorio joined in.

  The cab drove off after I paid my eddies. “D!” Pilar shouted, seated on the hood of a distant car, Lucy next to her. “Is that really fucking you?!” The music began to play pretty shortly.

  Lucy glared at me.

  If only she knew the half of it.

  “D, my man!” Rebecca skipped over with a beer in each hand. “Come to think of it, I’ve never really seen you without the mask before. You look cyyy-ute!”

  I sighed. “Hi, Rebecca,” She offered me a bottle and I took it, having already learned long ago that saying no to her was impossible.

  “How much did all of that run you?” Maine asked.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “The gold and stones real?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, because admitting to wearing expensive jewelry while not in a corpo neighborhood wasn’t exactly my idea of wisdom.

  Dorio’s eyes flashed blue and she gasped. “They are! Eighteen karat gold and some big stones! That outfit must have cost at least twenty thousand.” She was scarily accurate. Then again, Katsuo had been right on the money, literally. How he managed to get so close, I still didn’t know. Probably some sort of apps.

  “Wait! You have those spectrometer apps, too?! Why?!”

  Maine guffawed. “Baby’s got a taste for money when she ain’t working. But for real, you keep nagging me about gigs and then it turns out that this is where the edds go. Honestly I’m more amused than mad.”

  “I paid off my semester fees,” I said. “Took out another gig with El Capitan to afford the outfit.” It was actually the opposite. I bought the outfit, then took out a gig for the semester fees, a boneheaded move but it all worked out. Life was good when you were a solo merc with as many advantages as I had.

  “I like the jacket, kid,” Dorio said. I nodded appreciatively.

  “I’m still torn on this style to be honest,” I said. “Feels disrespectful, but I can’t deny it looks good.”

  My eyes buzzed with a call.

  Lunacy: You really are a piece of shit, huh?

  David: Get your money up before you talk to me.

  That felt wrong and slightly gross to say, but I knew it would piss her off, which was why I did it.

  Lunacy: Can’t now that you burned my main source of income, can I?

  The temptation to send her five thousand eddies passed me came as fast as it went; I didn’t want to die, and neither did I want to be five thousand eurobucks shorter.

  David: That’s tough, but not my problem.

  She sent a quickhack that crashed against my ICE, burning through it at an impressive speed. But it fell short. Once the quickhack lost its efficacy, my ICE reformed automatically.

  But that was a short circ! She tried to short circ my fucking spine!

  David: Point taken.

  “Now,” Maine said. “As funny as that clown outfit is, you did promise a talk with me.”

  Dorio got up and stalked off. I took a seat next to Maine where she had sat. “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think it should be as easy as it is for me… flatlining, that is.”

  “How is it easy?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t exactly hesitate. Nor do I really feel all that bad after the fact. Feels more like an accomplishment, you know?”

  Maine nodded. “I understand that. I’ve seen people like that. And all I’ll tell you is this: there’s no right way to react to zeroing. No wrong way either. You just react. It’s how you treat your chooms that really matters, what you feel about them. Any faceless gangoon gonk ain’t worth getting the waterworks started over. That’s a fact. You just know that better than others do.”

  “Does that make me… a psychopath or something?”

  “You ain’t hearin’ me, kid,” he said. “Focus on your chooms. Not the enemies. Would you shoot Lucy?”

  “No!” I replied, shocked at the statement. “I mean—I wouldn’t shoot any of you guys.”

  “Yeah? Then you ain’t a psychopath. A psychopath wouldn’t care. Or they’d ask ‘for how much’. They’d weigh the benefits, and human lives are light for them, regardless of who it is. That means their own parents, siblings or children. You may be a monster with that Sandy, kid, but you ain’t that kind of monster.”

  “Oh… okay,” I said. Truth was, I expected him to call me a psychopath. Not really sure why, when even Lucy hadn’t questioned my sanity. She called me all sorts of names, but she never really called me a monster. Or maybe she would at some point. Not like I cared. She had her own stuff to worry about. No use getting so caught up in my business.

  I took an unconscious swig of my beer and winced at the harsh sensation of carbonation. Maybe I should get a chrome tongue or something for my next piece.

  “But kid,” Maine said with a serious tone. “I know you just chipped the Sandy in so you should definitely chill for a while on the chrome, but do try to save a little on some next gen shit. Look into getting some good chrome with that money you keep tossin’ around on threads. It ain’t fashion that’ll save your hide in this business, and that Sandevistan ain’t gonna save ya every time. Almost didn’t with that gig the other day, right?”

  My stomach sank at that

  No.

  Not chrome.

  Not more chrome.

  “Maine,” I said. “Are you mixing chrome brands?”

  “What?” He asked, shocked. “Yeah, of course. Everyone does.”

  “You shouldn’t,” I said. “You should only stick to one brand whenever you can.”

  “What’re you talking about, kid? You wanna sell me on Arasaka or some shit?”

  “I’m telling you,” I said to him. “Different chrome brands don’t play nice with your brain. I’ve seen it. They program it so that if you chip in rival chrome, it adds to your neural strain. It’s a factor that leads to cyberpsychosis. The corps do it to enforce brand loyalty.”

  He huffed. “Sounds like some conspiracy theory shit. And it ain’t practical anyways. Some brands don’t have the best legware or armware, and then what do ya do? Half-ass on the legs to get good arms? I say you get the best of the best every time.”

  He wasn’t taking me seriously at all.

  “Fine,” I said. “Any rippers out there offer services to build custom OS?”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “Maine, your body is half machine, how do you not care about this stuff?”

  He chuckled. “Man, you sound like a paranoid Netrunner.”

  “Maybe the Netrunners are paranoid because they know how much the corpos are out to get us!” I yelled. He just laughed in response.

  No, just… relax. This wasn’t the way to do things.

  “Hey, Maine,” I began. “You said it ain’t wasted edds if it makes you stronger. Well, this won’t waste you any edds. What if I rewrote some of your chrome’s code so it would reduce the load on your brain, free of charge?”

  Maine snorted. “You want to screw around with my body?”

  “Maine, you already let the corps do it,” I said. “Why do you trust them more than you trust me?”

  Maine looked at me like I was insane. “Because you’re a kid not even out of high school!”

  I had no rebuttal to that.

  “Alright,” I said. “Forget it. Sorry I asked.”

  “Kid, you’re crazy,” he huffed. “Just stick to soloing, staying in school, and minding your own damn business.”

  “Alright,” I muttered, thoroughly chastised.

  His hands began to shake. He rifled through his jacket pocket and retrieved a syringe which he then stabbed into a patch of skin, the few zones of real flesh left in his body. He sighed with relief.

  All I could do was dread his future.

  Running on the edge. It was an apt name.

  000

  It was just hours before sunup and most everyone had already been tuckered out, having left Turbo’s to go home and catch some Zs.

  Dorio had fallen asleep already on his passenger’s seat, leaving Maine to cruise around Night City in silence. The lights calmed him down, relaxed his nerves, and the rarity of cars on the road did the same. Night City at this time of day truly felt like the wonderland that it had always tried to become and not the nightmare that it really was.

  Thoughts of leaving this place never really seemed to stick, either. He already gave up on the notion of ever fathering a child a long time ago—it had been years since he tossed away the vial that contained the last sample of his frozen swimmers—but he couldn’t imagine ever doing so in Night City. No, this city wasn’t for life. It was for death—both dealing it and experiencing it.

  A place for legends.

  And even among the stories of legends out there, few ever risked taking on the megacorps either. And here Maine was planning on klepping intel straight from a ‘Saka exec. Maine was already on the map, but a gig like that would probably take him even higher. He could end up in Rogue’s payroll, get in contact with dealers that sold smuggled mil-spec gear; better guns, better chrome, who knows what Maine would achieve once his ramshackle arms that kept jamming stopped holding him back? Maybe he could install mantis blades on his legs—get that finally squared away—and then get his hands on the same Sandy that David used?

  If Maine had gotten his hands on that Sandy first, then he would have already taken over the solo underworld by now.

  A shame, but it wasn’t a total loss. David was a good kid with a good head on his shoulders. He had an ego, sure, but what kid who could do what he could do didn’t? The important part was that he was open to learn. He didn’t let the ego steer him, didn’t let it dig his heels down on his foolishness—then again, an NDE was sure to do that to even the most gonk-brained streetkid out there.

  He’d been a solo for only a week, though. He’d get better in time. Hell, with the interest he had shown in Netrunning, he’d probably join Maine at the top someday too, as an equal. Together they could rival the likes of Adam Smasher or Morgan Blackhand’s legacy.

  The empty freeway and the Night City lights always awakened this part of him, gave him the ability to dream while staying awake, and he let himself disappear into this world where glory rained from above and Night City was forced to bow to Maine and his crew.

  That was a good fucking party. Put him in a good fucking mood.

  But he couldn’t let himself lose himself too thoroughly. Had to keep touch with reality, keep making those dreams a reality. Towards that end, he dialed Kiwi.

  Maine: You awake?

  Kiwi: You know I always am.

  Maine didn’t know if it was some sort of neural implant or she was just a really fucking good napper or something. It was uncanny, actually, just how on-call Kiwi always was.

  Maine: You missed a good night.

  Kiwi: A shame

  She affected a tone of sarcasm in her words, but Maine knew that this facade was all it was—a facade. She cared to hang out, and only ever didn’t when she was too caught up with one of her little programming projects. According to her, she had to seize a moment of inspiration and act on it before it went away.

  Maine: You’ve been giving the kid lessons on Netrunning, right? As a student, how is he?

  Kiwi: D? I don’t know. Just gave him some code to look through. He says he’s halfway done, but I haven’t seen his work or anything.

  Maine: You think he’s good? Like Lucy?

  Having both Kiwi and Lucy in his crew was already an enormous boon for Maine. Very few solo crews could boast having even one Netrunner on their roster. Maine had two.

  And with David, that could potentially be three.

  Kiwi: Please. No one’s like Lucy, nobody. Kid’s shown an interest, and he made his own picksocket quickhack, but that’s baby stuff, child’s play. I think he should focus on shooting and killing, flatlining, but as long as he’s paying me the big bucks, who am I to give a shitty shit?

  Maine snorted. That was par for the course. If anyone could become a Netrunner, then more people would.

  Maine: I think your lessons went into his head or something. Kid was feedin’ me bull about how the corps make it so that mixing chrome brands fuck you up faster. Somethin’ about enforcin’ brand loyalty or some shit.

  Kiwi: Was he joking or something?

  Maine furrowed his eyebrows. Kiwi sounded almost urgent in her tone. Nah, he was just imagining things.

  Maine: Kid was serious, deadly serious. Had a look in his eyes—looked almost scared. Maybe hanging around with corpo brats all day fried his brains or something.

  Kiwi: I gotta go.

  Maine: What, you think he’s being for real?

  Incredible. Netrunners truly were insane.

  Kiwi: All I know is I wouldn’t put shit past the megacorps, and that includes ritually sacrificing babies in boardrooms. And Maine, don’t go around talking about this stuff on an unsecured line.

  Maine gripped his steering wheel harder, snarling at no one.

  Maine: You guys are all hexed. Goodbye.

  Maine pulled out from the freeway and headed home, ready to get some real rest.

  000

  Rogue wasn’t in attendance. Mu predicted that. This was just a bimonthly get-together, and that was obviously beneath the Queen of the Afterlife, especially if there wasn’t anything that had really rocked the boat yet.

  And while D was impressive as a motherfucker, he hadn’t exactly rocked the boat as of yet. He’d done the biker chew gig with his crew, and most people felt content to write off his achievement of killing off Kaze Oni with the fact that his chooms had probably done the heavy-lifting. After all, why expect so much from a greenhorn?

  Due to that, no one had bitten on his bid to auction off D, and no one would for a time. But he’d be in a position to know when D’s stock price went up, and when that happened, he would have already raised his price.

  As always, it was the same old stuff about corpo movements and speculations on any major R&D projects going on. Faraday left after the Arasaka discussion finished, and more started stalking off, even the newbies, leaving behind two new people, one of them a genial and portly middle-aged man who had nothing but smiles and honeyed words for his seniors in the craft.

  Ergo, he was an asshole. A real fucking asshole. Anybody that kissed up so hard to people above them were sure to extract the same amount of grief from those beneath them. He walked off from the table and sent the man, Spring Roberts, an invite to his table, a promise of a welcome gift to the newest member of the fixer community.

  Little would he know that it was actually a gift.

  And that served Mu perfectly.

  The portly man sat opposite to him, smiling thickly. “You mentioned a gift?” guy had a thick Texan accent, but didn’t really lean hard into colloquialisms, which was good for Mu. He could understand Japanese, but southern accents tended to get pretty wild, even for him. “And can I say how honored I am that you would think of me in this situation? I’m flattered, truly flattered.” Poor guy just wanted the hazing to be overwith.

  “I’ve got a merc for you,” Mu said. “Lil kid’s a real go-getter. He’s sure to impress you.”

  “Ah, the, uh, little kid is a good solo,” he said. Both his tone and his placid expression reeked of sarcasm.

  “Yes, yes he is,” Mu said with a wide grin. “Best rookie I’ve ever dealt with. He’s fast and smart and I’m sure he can help you get started. He’s efficient and goes above and beyond for his fixers. Was thinking of selling his info and recommendations to other fixers for a cool ten thousand, but I’ll throw him your way for free. How does that sound?” It was important that Mu actually had nothing but good words to say about D. It would have been way easier to just tell Roberts to eat a dick and send D his way, but that could be easily traced back to him by D if things went belly-up.

  At least this way, he had plausible deniability. Spring Roberts was sure to fuck the poor kid over just because he felt he could—that couldn’t come back to Mu or his relationship with the kid would be in trouble.

  “How gracious of you,” Roberts smiled in a grandfatherly way. “Truly gracious. Thank you kindly, Reyes. I will remember to pay you back someday when I can. Thank you for investing in me.”

  It was so easy. So fucking easy.

  If D survived dealing with a cranky fixer, things would look up. If he didn’t, oh well. Shit happened in this line of work.