Cyberpunk: I'm Not a Scavenger - Chapter 32: Kiwi (Patreon)

With the business discussion over, the atmosphere between the two groups eased considerably.

Jackie went over to Maine and Dorio and enthusiastically invited them to have a drink and trade tips about boxing and working out. Pilar, meanwhile, had disappeared ages ago, led off by the demands of his little head. Nobody knew where he'd gone.

Lucy pulled Sasha aside to talk about netrunning, making sure she had no chance to get near Pantheon.

Rebecca glanced around and realized she was the only one left without anything to do. Her eyes darted about, then she leaped onto the couch beside Pantheon.

“Hey, weird old man! How's my kitty doing?”

“What do you mean, your kitty?” Pantheon's mouth twitched. Rebecca was getting a laugh out of him.

“It is mine! You just stole it!”

Rebecca bared her teeth as though she might jump on him and bite him at any moment.

While Pantheon and Rebecca were having a great time bickering, Lucy found nothing to smile about.

That damn pervert! He wouldn't even leave a girl that young alone. Was she even an adult?

Lucy ground her teeth, furious, although she had to maintain an air of complete indifference.

Sasha smiled at Lucy as if she'd just discovered an amusing new toy. She wasn't interested in Pantheon that way at all. Lucy had simply jumped to conclusions. Now the tables had turned, and Sasha was the one keeping Lucy close, refusing to let her leave. She looked rather like a cat playing with its prey.

In the middle of his banter with Rebecca, Pantheon remembered something and called over to the two netrunners.

“Maelstrom designs and builds its own netrunning pods. They're no amateurs on the Net, and I'm worried you and Sasha won't be able to suppress them completely on your own. If either of you knows another netrunner we can trust, I'd like a recommendation.”

Lucy could be perfectly serious when the job demanded it. She immediately thought of the woman who'd served as her mentor after she arrived in Night City. After hesitating for a second or two, she said her name.

“Kiwi?”

Pantheon perked up, making a show of being unfamiliar with the name but interested.

“She was my mentor when I first came to Night City,” Lucy explained, taking a deep breath as memories crossed her face. “She taught me quite a lot. She's self-taught, but she's a very good netrunner. She doesn't have a permanent crew either. She just takes freelance jobs.”

Pantheon nodded slowly. “Sounds promising.”

Sasha added her own opinion.

“I've heard of Kiwi. She's definitely skilled. Trouble is, she's famous for caring more about the money than the people paying it.”

“Money isn't a problem.” Pantheon waved a hand with extravagant confidence. “Lucy, get in touch with her and see what she thinks.”

Lucy nodded. Blue light flickered in her cybernetic eyes, and a reply arrived not long afterward. She looked at Pantheon uncertainly, as though she didn't quite know how to tell him.

“Kiwi says she's nearby. She wants to meet you before she decides whether to join us.”

Pantheon kept one hand planted on Rebecca's head to stop her from causing more trouble and readily agreed.

When Kiwi arrived at the Afterlife, this was the first thing she saw.

“You cheating bastard! How do you keep winning?!”

Rebecca stood in front of an arcade machine, gripping Pantheon's clothes with both hands. Her eyes were so bloodshot they looked ready to bleed.

Pantheon stared down at her with open disdain, as though she were a clown.

“If you suck, practice more. If you can't stand losing, don't play.”

Rebecca's pale green skin flushed bright red. She trembled all over.

“Seriously, I could take my shoes off and play against you with my feet, and you'd still lose.”

Pantheon stood, straightened his clothes with deliberate calm, and ignored her.

“You little shit... Ow! What the hell?!”

Rebecca had seized the moment when he wasn't paying attention to stomp hard on his feet twice. Then she scampered away on her short little legs.

“Bleh! Stupid old man! All you do is bully little girls!”

She stuck out her tongue and pulled a face, making sure to get in one last taunt as she fled.

Pantheon was just about to chase the little brat down and teach her a lesson when he turned and spotted Kiwi standing nearby.

“Ahem.”

He lowered his head and coughed twice, trying to recover some dignity.

“Just fooling around with a kid.”

Kiwi stood with a cold expression and a cigarette stuck in her mouth. Stuck was the right word. Her entire lower face had been replaced by a kind of breathing mask, and the cigarette was lodged in one of its openings.

She gave a cool nod without saying anything, then went over to the couch and sat down.

“This is our leader, King, and this is Sasha, the netrunner from Maine's crew.” Lucy handled the introductions.

Sasha suppressed a laugh and perched on the back of Pantheon's couch, her long, slender legs swinging beside him like a pair of chopsticks.

Lucy's expression stiffened. She shot Pantheon another glare and sat down on his other side.

Caught between them, Pantheon felt as though he were trapped between fire and ice.

All right, he admitted he was interested in Sasha, but he hadn't actually done anything yet. And Lucy was the one who'd provoked her. Could anyone blame Sasha for getting a little revenge?

Let the storm rage. He could take it.

Across from them, Kiwi watched the exchange with interest. A rare smile appeared on her face.

At the very least, there would be no shortage of entertainment around this bunch.

That was Kiwi's conclusion.

She'd originally asked to meet them because she was curious about the man who'd managed to win over Lucy, that famously icy beauty. Having met him, she decided he was an interesting fellow.

From the way they interacted, she could also tell King's team wasn't likely to be as greedy and petty as the mercenary crews she'd known before.

Maybe joining them was worth a try.

As Kiwi studied Pantheon, he was looking her over too.

Kiwi's childhood had been miserable. Her parents sold her to a factory when she was still very young. A foreman there took a liking to her, but she rejected him. Furious, he sold her to a so-called entertainment establishment, where she was forced to work as a sex doll.

One of her clients had torn off her jaw.

Desperate to escape, she taught herself netrunning, caused short circuits that burned down both the establishment and the factory, then fled all the way to Night City.

Life in Night City hadn't treated her much better. The temporary crews she joined often fell out over money, sometimes even coming to blows. She'd been forced to move from one group to another.

Plenty of viewers had even considered Kiwi's final betrayal in Edgerunners understandable. A traitor dying from a betrayal in turn. Perhaps that was simply Night City's fate.

Pantheon ran through everything he knew about Kiwi and stole another glance at her.

Ahem. Who wouldn't be curious about what Kiwi looked like under those clothes? Surely he couldn't be the only one.

Kiwi appeared to notice his look. She shifted in her seat and crossed her legs.

“So the job is just to help those two maintain electronic suppression, then wait for the counterattack?”

Her voice was utterly flat, as emotionless as a machine.

“Exactly. We're taking on one of Night City's most dangerous gangs, so I think a little extra caution is in order.”

Kiwi considered the proposal briefly and agreed. The risk was low and the pay was generous. She had no reason to turn it down.

Besides, the gig would give her a chance to observe King's team's skills and the way they worked together at close range.