Cyberpunk: Night City Shop - Chapter 6: The Scavenger (Patreon)

“How does a rookie who's only just arrived in Night City get the idea of becoming a Fixer?”

El Capitan replied within seconds. Trust a corpo employee to be quick with his messages.

“It's just something I'm considering for now.”

“Don't get your hopes up. Fixers might be little more than doormats for the corporations, but you still need a reputation on the streets to become one.”

His messages continued appearing on John's phone.

“Wakako Okada, the Fixer in Westbrook, has close ties with the Tyger Claws' leadership. Sebastian Ibarra, the Heywood Fixer everyone calls Padre, used to be a big shot in the Valentinos himself. And Dino Dinovic, who operates downtown, is a ruthless operator with friends on both sides of the law. He's connected to several major gangs, including Maelstrom, and can even get through to executives at more than one megacorporation.

“Even Faraday, the guy I mentioned before, works in both Santo Domingo and Pacifica. He's got connections up at Militech and down among the Animals.

“Understand this. A Fixer needs two things above all else: contacts and intelligence. You've been in Night City for one day. You have neither.”

John thought it over, then typed his answer.

“To tell you the truth, I've got a special intelligence network of my own. In that department, I can hold my own against any Fixer. That's why the idea occurred to me in the first place. As for contacts, well, how many people in Santo Domingo know more people than you, El Capitan?”

There was a reason he'd approached this particular man. Unlike most Fixers, the former corporate employee genuinely despised corporations and didn't think much of the Fixer profession either. In Cyberpunk 2077, once V completed all of El Capitan's gigs, the Santo Domingo kingpin even gave up being a Fixer and went back to dealing in used cars.

“A special intelligence network? Even if that's true, you can't just borrow all my contacts.”

El Capitan still sounded unconvinced, although his next message included an address.

“But if you're serious, come see me at two this afternoon. Northern Rancho Coronado.”

“OK.”

John saved the address and put his phone down. Someone else had arrived at the shop.

The customer was a short old man. Wrinkles crowded the corners of his drooping eyes, and a fringe of graying hair circled his balding head. He wore an old dark coat and carried an enormous backpack, nearly as large as he was.

John glanced at the bag. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

The old man stared at him for a few moments before asking hesitantly, “Uh... isn't Dex here?”

“Dex?” John raised an eyebrow. He was certain he didn't recognize the name.

The old man looked around the little shop again. “Dexter. Isn't this his place?”

“Dexter?”

That name brought back some unpleasant memories. “You don't mean a huge Black guy with a gold-plated arm who weighs about 330 pounds, do you?”

“No, he's an old fellow, about my age.” The visitor shook his head. “Always tinkering with strange gadgets. Wears sunglasses all day to look cool. He's had this shop for years.”

“Well, whoever your Dexter is, I don't think I know him.”

For a second, John really had imagined that overweight Fixer with the gold-plated arm was the former owner. Apparently not.

“Looks like he handed the shop over to someone else,” the old man said, visibly disappointed. “Did he leave any way to contact him?”

“I wouldn't know. I only rented this place yesterday. Your friend must have left before that.” El Capitan had handled the entire rental process, and John knew almost nothing about it. “But if you've known him for years, how come you don't have his number?”

The man rubbed one arm with his rough palm. “I did. But I haven't been able to reach him since last week.”

John hated seeing an old man so ill at ease. It reminded him of distant relatives back home, elderly people living alone in the countryside.

“I can ask around, but I can't promise I'll find anything.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” the old man said repeatedly. “I'm Sean, if that helps.”

John nodded and sent Muamar a message.

“El Capitan, any idea where the previous tenant of my shop went? An old man named Sean just came looking for him.”

A reply arrived almost immediately.

“Old Dexter? No idea. He ran that shop for years and was pretty good with his hands. Bought a few things from him myself. Then, a week ago, he suddenly wanted to transfer the lease. Where he went after that, hell if I know.”

“Do you have his contact information?”

“No. The old bastard was acting like he was running from creditors. Once I took over the lease, he sorted out his affairs and vanished within a day.”

There was a note of irritation in the next message.

“Didn't you say you had some fancy intelligence network? What, can't it find him?”

“It can, but it costs money... I'm running a business here. Can't make a loss on every deal, can I? Figured I'd ask the wise and well-connected El Capitan instead XD”

“You really don't treat me like a stranger, do you?”

“Oh, come on. Everybody in Santo Domingo knows El Capitan always looks after his friends.”

A little flattery never cost anyone a cent. John added, “We're all buddies here. No need to be so formal, right?”

He waited, but no answer came. Finally, he looked up and gave Sean an apologetic smile.

“Sorry. The man who arranged my lease doesn't know how to reach Dexter either. He just knows that Dexter transferred the place a week ago and disappeared soon afterward.”

“All right. Thanks anyway, young man.” Sean's disappointment was obvious, but his thanks were sincere.

As the old man turned to leave, John called after him. “Mind if I ask why you were looking for him?”

Sean stopped, the immense backpack swaying on his shoulders.

“Nothing special. Dex liked working on technology, but he never had much money. So he'd pay scavengers like me to hunt for parts in the junkyards outside the city, things that weren't completely broken.”

He pointed a withered finger toward his pack. “I bring him whatever I've collected each month, and he pays me for it.”

“Parts?”

John's eyes widened. Talk about perfect timing. He'd been planning to improve his technical skills by taking apart a water filter and working out how to build a better one. Now someone had walked straight up to his door with a bag of cheap components. They might not compare with new corporate-made parts, but a beginner didn't need premium equipment to practice. This was exactly the sort of material he could use.

“Then sell them to me.”

“Really?” Sean looked up at the shop sign. “You can use this scrap?”

“Absolutely. I've been looking for components and wondering where I could buy some.”

“Well, how much do you want?”

Delighted, Sean lowered his backpack to the ground with a tremendous thud.

John stepped outside to examine its contents. The bag was stuffed with miscellaneous hardware: screws of every size, gears, springs, bearings, plastic tubing, sensors, circuit boards, heat sinks, and plenty of components he couldn't even identify.

They were clearly secondhand, or perhaps fifth- or sixthhand, but he couldn't see anything obviously broken beyond repair. Sean evidently took care with what he collected.

“Hmm... how much would Dexter usually give you for a bag this size?” John asked, rather than naming a quantity.

“Depends on what I find that month.” Sean thought for a moment. “For this much, maybe 190 eurodollars? No, more like 185.”

“Less than two hundred for all of this?”

John reached down with one hand to test the weight, stumbled, and almost fell over. There had to be thirty or forty kilograms in there. How a little old man had carried it all the way from the junkyard was beyond him. Even driving from the junkyard to Arroyo had felt like a long trip in the game.

“It's a good price, really.” Sean smiled awkwardly. “At the scrap station, I'd be lucky to get a hundred. Maybe less, depending on the manager's mood.”

“All right. I'll take the whole bag.”

John heaved it inside with both hands. “Cash or transfer?”

“Transfer, please. Safer that way.” Sean rubbed his palms together, watching hopefully.

John took out his phone and transferred 200 eurodollars. “Leave me your contact details. I'll probably need more of this stuff, so I might give you a call.”

“Of course. Thank you, boss!”

Sean checked the transfer, nodded repeatedly, and thanked him several more times.

“And... um...” He pointed toward the bag. “Do you need the backpack too, boss?”

“Oh!”

John smacked his forehead. He carried the pack into the back kitchen, emptied every last piece into an unused storage bin, and handed the bag back.

...

No one else came into the shop before noon. After Sean left, John cooked himself a heaping plate of fried rice and enjoyed every bite. Then he closed up, put on his filtering mask, and headed out to meet El Capitan.

The Columbus freight van El Capitan had given him really was a good vehicle. It weighed more than four tons and had 210 horsepower, yet it didn't feel cumbersome. As far as handling went, it was much better than his BMW 733i. A hundred years of automotive development certainly made a difference.

He'd driven around Night City countless times in the game. But once he got behind the wheel in the real city, he discovered he had no idea where anything was. He had to follow the navigation system.

For one thing, the actual Night City was vastly bigger than its in-game counterpart. In the game, driving from southern Arroyo to northern Rancho Coronado would have taken five or six minutes at most, even in a slow Columbus. In reality, he spent nearly half an hour on the road, partly because of the city's 50 km/h speed limit.

Then there were the traffic lights, enough to make even an experienced driver like him curse. Not every intersection had conventional signals. On narrower roads, the only indication of who could go was projected onto the pavement, making red lights easy to miss.

Of course, he'd never paid any attention to signals in the game. The fact that he didn't routinely drive onto the sidewalks was about as law-abiding as he'd ever been. Having to follow actual road rules made him feel strangely constrained.

Worse still, Night City was much more crowded than the game suggested, and an alarming number of pedestrians ignored traffic regulations. Even after slowing to thirty kilometers an hour, he nearly had several accidents when people appeared out of nowhere in front of his van.

After a nerve-racking drive, John finally reached El Capitan's meeting place before two in the afternoon. It was a garage he recognized instantly.

“Hey, right on time!”

Muamar greeted him as soon as he got out. He was leaning against a purple Quadra Type-66, but he'd traded his Militech uniform for the familiar shiny leather jacket. Two thick gold chains hung around his neck.

“El Capitan!” John walked over with a grin, took out a cigarette, and offered it to him. “You quit Militech?”

“Yeah. No more being a corpo dog.”

El Capitan accepted the cigarette, smiling. “You know how it goes with a corporation. Either it fucks you, or you fuck it. When you're their dog, it's always the first one. Personally, I've always preferred the second.”

“By the way, who's that?”

John had just taken out his lighter when he noticed a man bent over a car engine inside the garage.

“Look, I needed something to do after I quit, right? Otherwise I'd end up homeless in the slums sooner or later. So I figured I'd start dealing in used cars. You know, finding those poor little cars the owners they truly deserve.”

El Capitan brought the other man over. He was neatly dressed, with a carefully trimmed mustache and bare-metal cybernetic hands, without any artificial skin covering them.

“Meet Falco! Best driver in Santo Domingo. No, the best in all of Night City! My new business is going to depend on this guy!”