Cyberpunk: Night City Shop - Chapter 16: A Chance Encounter with David (Patreon)

After saying goodbye to Mr. Zhou at the food stall, John Lee did some more shopping at the market. Points on his phone were worth far more to him than eurodollars, so whenever he could buy something in Night City with ordinary money, that was what he intended to do.

First came two sets of plastic tables and chairs for 60 eurodollars. His little store mainly sold food, and hot meals served on plates at that. Making customers eat while standing up hardly seemed appropriate.

He also picked up two outfits suited to Night City. One was a working-class Entropism look: a dark gray coat with a rust-red lining, dark cargo pants, and heavy black high-top boots. The other was a Neo-Militarist outfit for business meetings, consisting of a tailored black suit, a burgundy tie, and impeccably polished leather boots.

Ten minutes of patient haggling brought the total for both outfits down to 260 eurodollars. The first cost 55 and the second 205. Apparently, a small crew had acquired the suit somewhere in Charter Hill. As for exactly how they'd acquired it, the seller strongly recommended that John not ask.

He spent another 36 eurodollars on spare magazines for his Unity pistol. El Capitan had left him only the magazine already in the gun, and John preferred having extra ammunition on hand to wishing for it later.

Finally, he bought two types of pneumatic injectors made by Trauma Team, MaxDoc and Bounce Back. By using compressed gas to deliver medication straight into the body, these portable devices could relieve pain and treat emergencies ranging from gunshot wounds and organ injuries to hemorrhagic shock. They couldn't fully heal a serious wound, but they could keep someone alive long enough to receive treatment. In a life-or-death situation, either one might make all the difference.

That was also why they were so expensive. One of each cost John 300 eurodollars, his largest single expense that afternoon.

He had just loaded his purchases into his truck and was preparing to drive back to the megabuilding when a familiar figure caught his eye on the street.

The young man wore Arasaka Academy's red-and-black uniform, his hands buried in his pockets and his mohawk-topped head hanging low. He wandered along at an unhurried pace, idly kicking a pebble ahead of him. It was none other than John’s next-door neighbor, David Martinez.

Whatever was on David's mind, it had distracted him so thoroughly that he didn't notice the streetlight he was about to walk into.

John hurried over and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Yo, David!”

“Huh?”

David jerked his head up as though someone had woken him from a dream. “Wait... John?”

“What's got you so deep in thought, kid? You nearly walked right into that pole.” John grinned. “Just getting back from school?”

“Uh... more or less.”

Once David realized who had stopped him, he turned his face away and answered distractedly.

That movement was exactly what drew John's attention to the reddish mark on the cheek David seemed to be hiding. “What happened to your face? Get into a fight with some classmates?”

“No. Nothing like that. I just fell.”

David's eyes darted away, refusing to meet his gaze.

John could make a pretty good guess about what had happened. Like him, David lived in a megabuilding in Santo Domingo. That alone suggested his family wasn't well off, certainly nowhere near the middle class.

Arasaka Academy, on the other hand, was difficult to get into even for children from ordinary middle-class families. Most of its students came from wealthy households connected to Arasaka, including employees and executives, while plenty of others had parents in Night City's government. A poor kid like David was bound to face discrimination in a place filled with the privileged. Bullying would hardly be surprising.

John understood that kind of situation all too well. Teenagers loved comparing themselves with one another. Back in middle school and high school, a few thugs in his classes had tormented him over his family's finances. College students, by contrast, tended to brag about who could get the best stuff for the least money.

Those teenage years were also when people were particularly sensitive to what others thought of them. Bullying at that age could leave scars for a lifetime. John had been fortunate enough to meet an excellent teacher who helped him through it, but he was certain no such teacher would be waiting for David at Arasaka Academy.

With that in mind, John threw an arm around David's shoulders. “I just came back from Heywood with a load of merchandise, and here I am running into you. Funny how we keep crossing paths, huh? Come on, hop in. I'll give you a ride home.”

“Huh? You really don't have to...”

John didn't give him time to finish refusing. He ushered David into his Columbus cargo van, then set off toward the megabuilding.

Keeping his foot light on the accelerator, John drove slowly and made casual conversation. “You're in high school now, right? Ever thought about which college you want to go to?”

“College? Dunno.” David stared out the passenger-side window at the passing streets. “Might just start working after graduation.”

“Why? Your grades not that good?”

“That's not it. My grades are actually pretty good.” He sank back against the seat, resting his chin on one hand. “But even if I get accepted somewhere, I probably won't be able to afford tuition. Besides, I don't really want to go. Schools just aren't my kind of place.”

“Then we've got something in common. I used to think exactly the same thing in high school.”

At an intersection, John braked for a red light. “My grades were good, but my family didn't have much money. A few rich kids in my class decided that made me the perfect punching bag. They used their parents' money as an excuse to push me around, and they even got other classmates to shut me out.”

David stopped gazing out the window. For the first time since getting into the van, he turned to look directly at John, who had one hand on the steering wheel.

“Back then, I was the kind of kid who took every insult and every punch without fighting back. For a while, I even believed what they believed. I was poor and weak. They were rich and strong. So, naturally, they had every right to bully me, and they didn't need a reason.”

John smiled faintly before continuing. “Then I met a different sort of teacher. He told me they weren't picking on me because they were stronger than I was. It was the exact opposite. They singled me out because I was stronger than them.”

“Huh?”

David looked bewildered, but he was listening more intently than ever.

“Sounds like the kind of thing you tell yourself just to feel better, doesn't it?” John turned the wheel and took a right. “But think about it. You don't get to choose the family you're born into. You do get to choose what you make of your life. Those rich classmates of mine had every advantage growing up, yet they never bothered studying and always finished near the bottom of the class. Meanwhile, a poor kid like me worked hard enough to rank near the top. That bruised the sense of superiority they'd been raised with, so they tried to put me down in other ways.

“It's like a wolf pack. The leader does whatever it can to protect its position. People who think of themselves as the leaders of a group will go to almost any length to keep everyone else beneath them. And I was the one threatening their position, simply by working harder than they did.”

The van rolled slowly into the megabuilding's parking garage.

“But none of that changed the fact that, on my own merits, I was stronger than they were. Just like you're stronger than the classmates who are picking on you.”

“But what good does that do me?” David still sounded uncertain. “Even if you're right and I'm stronger than them, I still can't fight back. I think leaving school would suit me better.”

“You're missing the point. Staying in school and continuing to study is already a way of fighting back.” John shook his head and explained patiently. “Why do you think they bully you? Because a poor kid is getting better grades than they are. It hurts their pride and threatens their place in the pecking order. If you were doing worse than them, they'd probably be generous enough to let you stay. Having a poor, failing student around would give them a constant reminder of how superior they supposedly are. They'd feel wonderfully vindicated in their belief that poor people are naturally beneath the rich.

“But that's not what you are. Your family has less money, yet you've surpassed them through your own ability. That's why they want to drive you away. Just being there challenges something they desperately want to believe.”

John parked the van and turned to face David. The boy's eyes had begun to brighten.

“If you drop out, you give them exactly what they want. But if you stick it out and keep beating them academically, that's the biggest insult you could possibly deliver. All those nasty things they say are no different from a little kid screaming because someone took away their favorite toy.

“Remember, words are just wind. They work so hard to humiliate you with insults precisely because they can't beat you fair and square.”

“But what if they don't stop at words?” David asked, unconsciously touching his injured cheek.

“I'm not going to tell you to hit back. You probably couldn't beat them in a fight anyway. But violence isn't something you can resist in only one way.”

John reached over and ruffled his hair, leaving the mohawk a little messier than before. “Let me guess. The parents of those kids are either Arasaka executives or high-ranking people in the Night City government, right? Whether we're talking about a corporation or the government, their internal power struggles are far fiercer than you'd imagine. Sometimes they're even nastier than the fights they have with outsiders.

“So what happens if those parents discover that their kids have been violently bullying another student at school, and that someone recorded it? What if that recording ends up in the hands of their rivals inside the company or government?

“You might think something so small couldn't possibly affect a corporation or the government. And sure, everybody in Night City knows the rich are treated better than the poor. It's an unwritten rule everybody lives by. But it's unwritten for a reason. Nobody wants it spelled out in public.”

John went on. “Even Night City's mayor, Lucius Rhyne, that power-abusing corporate bootlicker, has to pretend to be a decent man in front of the cameras and talk about equality for everyone. It doesn't matter what those executives or officials actually believe. What matters is the possibility that evidence like that could damage their positions. Even if the risk is tiny, their careers mean a hell of a lot more to them than some disappointing kid.”

“I get it!” David nodded emphatically. Then his expression faltered. “But how am I supposed to get that evidence? I don't know any of their parents' enemies, either.”

“Getting evidence is easy. At school, just make sure you stay where the security cameras can see you.”

John climbed out and led him to the back of the van. Together, they moved John's purchases into the elevator. “Leave everything else to me. Even if the school deletes the footage, a netrunner can recover it.”

David's eyebrows rose. “Leave it to you? But, John, aren't you running a store here?”

“That's my main business. I've got a side gig as a fixer, too. Didn't see that coming, did you?” John laughed and clapped him on the back. “Hiring a netrunner to preserve the recordings, identifying those big shots' rivals, and making sure the evidence gets into the right hands so we can put pressure on them? All part of my line of work.”

“A fixer? Seriously?!” David stared at him in disbelief. “But even if that's true, I can't afford to pay you.”

“No problem. We're neighbors, aren't we?” John teased as they stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor. “All right, the real reason is that having evidence I can use against someone inside a corporation or the government could be pretty useful for my business.”

“So all I have to do is stay in view of the cameras?” David asked one last time.

“That's right. And one more thing, probably the most important. Don't hit back. The moment you fight back, it stops looking like one-sided bullying and starts looking like a mutual brawl. I doubt a bunch of brats will dare go too far, though. If they actually hit you, treat it as practice taking a punch, then tell me exactly where it happened.”

John led David to his shop, rolled up the shutter, and gestured toward a stool. “Man, I'm starving. Sit tight while I make some fried rice. You can finally see what I can do in the kitchen. Don't worry, this one's on me.”