Cyberpunk: I'm Not a Scavenger - Chapter 41: Cyberpunk (Patreon)

What is a world ruled by corporations like?

Rainy nights and neon lights. High tech, low life. Runaway capitalism and ordinary people struggling to survive.

Here, money can buy anything, while individual talent and hard work matter less and less.

Most people can no longer tell right from wrong or truth from lies. All they can do is follow the crowd.

And the corporations are the ones controlling where that crowd goes.

Alec was an ordinary young man who wanted to make something of himself.

He wanted to make a fortune and give his girlfriend a better life.

How was he supposed to do that?

As far as he knew, there was only one way: become a mercenary, put his life on the line, and run with the big names.

For someone at the bottom of the streets, it was one of the few ways to climb the ladder. Alec was determined to seize his chance, whatever the cost.

Too much cyberware. Rejection. Drugs to suppress the symptoms. Addiction. And finally, death in some dark, trash-strewn corner.

Someone would find his body and sell it to the Scavengers. The Scavengers would strip out his cyberware and sell it to ripperdocs.

Those ripperdocs would install it in the next naive street kid dreaming of becoming a legend. And the whole story would begin again.

Corporate monopolies extended far beyond products and technology. They had monopolized people’s futures.

Pantheon stood on the landing platform beside the warehouse, looking out over the sea and idly bouncing one leg.

A commotion came from the warehouse entrance. Regina’s people had arrived.

They worked quickly and efficiently, clearing away evidence and pieces of corpses before packing up the damaged machinery to take with them.

Alec began struggling against the web again, so they gave him a sedative.

Pantheon watched in silence. It was like seeing himself two months earlier.

“Beep, beep, beep!”

“Hello?”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, King! Great work. I’m sure you’ll be getting plenty more gigs!”

Regina sounded relieved on the other end of the call and was generous with her praise.

Pantheon exchanged a few pleasantries with her. After a short silence, he asked,

“Can Alec still be saved?”

Regina fell silent too. She searched for the right words before giving an answer that was hardly an answer at all.

“We’re doing everything we can.”

Pantheon smiled, flicked his cigarette butt to the ground, and stomped it out with his foot.

“That company, Bodyweight Life Preservation Systems. Do you know who’s behind it?”

Regina fell silent again. When she finally spoke, her voice was bitter.

“They’re just a front, a shell company. I haven’t found out who’s really pulling the strings.”

“King, this city is full of things like this. All I can do is try to make a difference where I can.”

Regina had once been an independent reporter at FTF Radio. After it was bought by Militech-backed News 54, she decided to find a better way to make herself heard.

As a fixer, she used contacts in every industry to gather intelligence, keep Watson’s rival factions in check, and deal with cases of cyberpsychosis. Step by step, she became Watson’s leading fixer.

She discouraged the mercenaries working for her from resorting to violence, preferring to keep people alive for the information and opportunities they might provide.

She stayed out of gang wars, claimed no territory, and even helped clean up the aftermath.

That approach had earned her the trust of ordinary residents, gangs, and even the NCPD.

But everything comes at a price.

She could no longer expose corporate scandals as freely as she once had. Sometimes she even had to help corporations bury their mistakes and shift the blame.

But Regina had not changed at heart. She was still a fighter.

She quietly supported honest journalists, helped patients struggling with cyberpsychosis, and used certain gigs to draw attention to the city’s problems.

In her own way, she had been changing Night City all along.

Pantheon did not blame her. He had only wanted information. He nodded and didn’t ask any further questions.

After hanging up, Pantheon returned to his car and jotted down the events of the day.

He planned to ask Kiwi to investigate, preferably tracing Glitter back to its source and finding out who was behind it.

This time, he intended to strike first.

Pantheon hurried from the waterfront warehouse to Vik’s underground clinic, only to be met with a barrage of complaints. He quickly explained what had happened that day.

Vik listened as he examined him. When Pantheon finished, Vik was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed and patted Pantheon on the shoulder.

“I’ve been in Night City for more than ten years. There are more people now, and the buildings keep getting taller. Other than that, not much has changed.”

“I know things shouldn’t be this way, but I don’t have the power to change them. I can only do what I can.”

Vik looked at Pantheon, a faint glimmer in his eyes.

“Kid, I’m not asking you to do anything grand. I just hope you never lose that compassion, that ability to care about other people.”

Vik sighed again and returned to his familiar desk, where his seemingly endless boxing matches were still playing.

Pantheon walked out of the clinic and noticed that the neon lights seemed particularly bright tonight.

Huge airships floating in the sky displayed various advertisements, with thick beams of light streaming down toward the ground.

A half-naked holographic singer gave a string of seductive moans. She was the advertisement.

Across the street, a braindance parlor blazed with light. Scantily clad dolls writhed behind its glass windows.

At the far end of the same street, homeless people huddled around a bonfire, trembling in the cold.

Pantheon felt a little disoriented. Wasn’t today Thanksgiving? He looked up at the skyscrapers in the Corporate Plaza in the distance.

A century earlier, Americans celebrated Thanksgiving to thank Native Americans for helping their ancestors.

In return, they had seized Native American land, plundered their wealth, and destroyed their culture.

A century later, who were the corporations thanking?

The wage slaves still working overtime on a holiday?

The farmers driven from their homes and stripped of their land?

Or the workers breathing toxic fumes, only to be discarded the moment they fell sick?

“Help a veteran. Spare a few coins for a veteran.”

The faint plea came from a homeless man seated near Pantheon’s feet.

His many layers of clothing had long since lost their original colors and turned a uniform gray-black. He held a battered bowl containing a couple of coins.

Pantheon felt around in his pockets but found he didn’t have any loose change at all. Earlier, he’d found quite a bit of loose change on the bodies at the seaside warehouse, but unfortunately, he hadn’t thought to take it.

He rummaged around for a while but could only find a few guns and some ammunition.

He could hardly hand the man a gun and send him off on a shopping spree without paying.

Then again, knowing Night City, who could say what the man might do? Pantheon felt helpless.

Instead, he bought two bowls of stir-fried noodles from a nearby street stall and gave them to the veteran.

Other homeless people immediately began gathering around him, and Pantheon had to beat a hasty retreat.

Back in his car, he received another call from an unfamiliar number.

Jacob Miller? Who the fuck was that?