Winding Roads: Rude Awakening 1.2 (ch. 2) (Patreon)

Well, I’d been wondering how I was gonna find out where all those eddies came from, but this really wasn’t how I hoped to find out. Whoever it was on the other side of the door was incessant. I half expected them to start prying it open. I'm guessing he’d had someone watching my door to report my return, be a pretty big coincidence if he just chose now to come collect otherwise. 

My hand went to my gun, feeling its weight in my palm before I made the split-second decision to tuck it in my waistband. If it came to a gun fight I’d be slow on the draw, but opening the door with iron in hand would put a swift end to any possibility of ending this peacefully. Rolling my shoulders, I approached the door and instructed it to open with a thought. 

Out of everyone in the history of the profession, he was the most loan shark looking guy who had ever loan sharked. Tall, but with a strong man kind of heft to him. Gold chain dangling from his neck, a blazer over a tank top, while his arms had rings embedded into the prosthetics. For a split second, he looked down at me like he was genuinely surprised that I answered. But he didn't waste a second barreling through the door in case I rethought the decision.

He took a big step into my personal space, his face an angry shade of red. “Where is my money, Roc? Ten thousand eddies. You were supposed to deliver it yesterday-” 

Only ten thousand? Did that mean I owed someone else five thousand? A concern for another time. 

“The gig had a complication.” As soon as the words left my lips, his face peeled back into a snarl. Before he could snap, I continued quickly.

“My problem, I know,” I said, undercutting what he was about to say. “I'm in the middle of fixing it- here, proof of intent,” I said, flicking him over two thousand eddies. Leaving me with less than three hundred. Another problem I would have to deal with. I wouldn't have enough to pay my rent, and it was due next week. I had a feeling the megabuilding wouldn't be very understanding, and Night City didn't seem like a great place to be homeless. “I'll get you the rest. Maybe later today.” 

The money took the edge off of his anger, but he was still plenty pissed. “What happened to making it big, you gonk ass loser?” His hands twitched, expecting a reaction that wasn't coming. I'm guessing it was a sore spot for Rocinante. 

“Like I said, the gig had a couple of hiccups. I'm working on it. Point is, you'll be made whole, big guy,” I let the insult wash over my back. “If you don't believe me? Toss me some work, then.” 

Big guy narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, visibly reevaluating me in that moment. “Saying that after you fucked your shot? As if,” he dismissed the idea out of hand. Which was good. I didn't exactly want to work for the guy. “That two thousand? It bought you a day. One day. I expect the rest by tomorrow, or I'm going to take it out of you with my bare fucking hands.” 

Not what I wanted to hear, but about what I expected. 

“Tomorrow then,” I agreed, already churning over how I would do it. 

Big guy scoffed, turning around. “And take me off your block list. When I call, you fucking answer.” Feeling like his point had been made and mollified by the cash, he stomped out of my apartment. As soon as the door closed, I let out a small annoyed breath, knowing that it had gone about as well as it could have. Taking a moment, I brought up the blocked list on my agent and found it was a third longer than the contact list. 

At the very top was an influx of threats and demands for money by a… Tony Montana. Scarface? 

“Well then,” I muttered, turning my gaze over to the shard case by the computer. I needed to come up with about fifteen thousand eddies. Eight by tomorrow, two and a half thousand by the end of the week, and the remaining five for when I ran into whoever I owed the extra five to. “I inherited a real mess from you, Rocinante. You would still be alive if you made better life choices.” 

Sliding in the chair, I grabbed a shard at random. I really didn't fancy shoving in random shit I found on a Scav in my head. So I shoved it into the computer's port instead. The worst-case scenario, I got kicked out of the megabuilding for uploading whatever a Scav would have on a shard. And the best case- 

“Oh! Money,” I observed, realizing it was a cash shard. Functionally a prepaid card to avoid phishing scams. It was only thirty eddies, but money was still money. There were three more shards in the case, netting me a grand total of a hundred and sixty eddies. Leaving behind three shards that I didn't know what they did. Picking one of them at random, I slotted it into the port. 

It was an inventory list. Chrome and meat that had been harvested from people like me, each attached with a number value. 

Arms

Gang Jazzler: 1.25k

Monowire: 25k (Reserved)

Cyberpillow: 250

Modular Finger Enthusiast Cyberhand: 1k

Optics

Bug Eye: 800

Implants

Reflex Tuner: 5k(Reserved)

Shock Absorber: 1.75k

Deep-Field Visual Interface: 30k (Hold)

Legs 

Fortified Ankles: 2.5k

Internalware 

Biotic lungs (set): 8k

Anti-tox Liver: 6k

Chips

Militech Basic Training Sim: 2k

Skill Shard (Parkour): 1k

Skill Shard (Guitar): 500

Total: 26,650€$ (76,650€$)

Picking up the burrito, finding that it was still warm, I took a bite as my gaze lingered on the sum. It seemed to be everything I could ask for, and more, but I knew it wouldn’t be that simple. Those prices reflected the market rates, if I had to guess, but I didn’t have the connections the Scavs did. I would have to find my own. Which was possible, given Night City was infamous for its questionably sourced cyberware. I could think of a few rippers that would probably take it off the top of my head. 

My gaze lingered on the anti-tox liver and the lungs. Those had come out of me. And they went for fourteen thousand. 

“Why does stealing a car need new lungs and an poison-proof liver?” I wondered, taking another bite. The taste was growing on me a bit. It was another question that lingered in the back of my mind, but I did have more immediate problems. Like the loan shark outside my door, probably counting the seconds. 

I could just not pay him. Use the window that I had to dip. Or I could kill him. That was an option too. Either case came with its risks. I had no idea who Tony worked with, or if anyone would care if he flatlined. There wasn't much point in replacing a problem with another, probably bigger problem. 

Taking out the shard and setting it aside, I put in the other. My eyes narrowed a bit when I saw what it was. An access token. One that would allow me onto the Scav net without any passwords necessary. “Who did I kill?” I muttered, feeling like I had accidently bumped someone high on the food chain. 

An access token wouldn’t carry me all the way, but it would get my foot in the door. Quite literally, since it would open up doors I had neither the strength to open or the know-how to hack. 

I stared at the screen for a long few seconds, weighing my options. I could still run. Buy a bus ticket, ride it somewhere, go in blind to everything I would face beyond Night City. I could kill Tony -- if he was shaking me down himself, I doubted he had much in the way of muscle. Drop a few bodies, and I could be in the clear. 

Or, I could become a mercenary. A real one. Go to the Scav den, kill everyone I find there, loot them down to the floorboards, and find a buyer for what I found. Something easy in a game, but in real life? One stray bullet would be all it took. I could prepare and plan, but it wouldn’t mean a damn thing if some random asshole had a Sandevistan. It wasn’t like I had any military training or anything. 

A slow breath escaped me, “Determination, huh?” It seemed like madness to entrust my life to Misty’s tarot… “Fuck it. Why not?”

…

Let it be known, I didn’t dive into danger without any precautions. I brought two guns. One Unity pistol and a DA8 Umbra, an assault rifle I found in the closet. Both were old reliables in combat, according to the reviews. But those could just be bots. 

I also purchased Morgan Blackhand’s book about solo mercenary work. It was an interesting read, feeling like high-level information dumbed down for those at a fifth-grade reading level. I had to speed-read it a bit and skim unrelated sections on the metrorail ride over, but it was a book I intended to know by heart by the time I was done. 

It felt wild that I was standing before a building I had run from a little over an hour ago. Less than two. Rolling my shoulders, the flack jacket I had on would hopefully do its job, and before I could rethink the idea, I stepped forward. The lobby was exactly as I remembered it, as was the elevator. 

Riding it up, I found the same filthy hallway. Despite how little time had passed, it felt like it should be different. Or, maybe it was just how different I felt walking down the hall this time. 

In Cyberpunk 2077, I was a netrunning nerd. Nothing but quickhacks, riding cameras and frying people's brains while they had no idea where I was. It was by far my preferred method of playing the game. No such luck in real life, however. I didn’t have a cyberdeck. Outside of the arm and optic, the only other piece of cyberware I had was my neuralport and its accompanying jack. 

So, it felt like very unfamiliar territory when I approached the door, the access token in my port. There weren’t any cameras to be concerned with, letting me hug the doorframe with my rifle braced against my shoulder. My heart beat steadily in my chest, and I found that I felt calmer than I expected. 

With a thought, I opened the door before leaning into the frame, seeing the same dilapidated apartment. Only this time, there were more people. Three men gathered around a chair that I now recognized as a ripperdoc chair. All three of them had the same holographic masks, but only one of them was facing my direction. 

“Merc-” My rifle bucked against my shoulder hard enough to bruise, but the prosthetic kept it steady. His head snapped back, blood spraying out from the hole that opened in his forehead. The remaining two immediately took action, diving for cover. 

I stormed the apartment, bullets flying with the Scavs blindly firing at the door. I got an angle on one of them, pulling the trigger once more. Sparks flew off the Scav in addition to blood, revealing subdermal armor when flesh was peeled off.

My biotic arm couldn’t feel panic. Not in the same way that a flesh-and-blood one could. With pinpoint accuracy, I adjusted my aim -- according to Blackhand, the neck was the best part to shoot when an enemy had subdermal armor. Most didn’t layer it there because it restricted head movement. The alternative was to sheath the arteries, but that was expensive. 

With another burst of fire, Blackhand’s wisdom proved to be correct. Blood spurted from the Scav’s neck, his head half blown off with a burst of high-powered bullets. Two down, one to go. 

Hitting the same hallway that I escaped from, I dropped the magazine, even though it had another eight bullets left. More Blackhand wisdom. In the middle of a firefight, having a full mag was more important than using every bullet. 

“You’re fucking dead! Do you know who you’re fucking with, choom?! Huh?! Deadmuse is going to skull fuck your corpse!” The last remaining Scav shouted out while I crouched down. We couldn’t see each other from the angle, but he had a clear shot to the door.

Scavs were just that. Scavengers. They weren’t a gang, at least not officially. They were a collection of people who scammed, cheated, and murdered their way to a profit margin by harvesting the corpses of their victims. While they could fight… it wasn’t their first, second, or third instinct. 

When he saw the opportunity, he took it. He blind fired in my direction, running for the door, but I was lower than he thought. With full auto, I pulled the trigger, aiming for center mass. Bullets streaked through the distance, slamming into his chest, neck, face, and shoulders. Aiming for the supposed soft targets available to me. 

There were more sparks, but that seemed to be from cyberware with the Scav going down from twenty bullets tearing through him. His momentum carried him forward, but he collapsed on the lazy boy before rolling off of it. My heart continued to hammer in my chest for a moment longer, but I slowly stood up. Going wide, with my optic I did a scan of the one by the door. He was dead. 

I checked the one I got in the neck. Pretty obvious that he was dead, but I scanned him all the same. The one I got with a headshot was also dead-

“Oh fuck, oh shit, oh fucking shit fuck-” A man wept on the operating table. His arm was gone, his legs were bolted down, and through his holographic mask, I saw that his eyes were wide with terror. Tear streaks marked his face; he was trying to scoot away from me, but he was locked in place. My stomach clenched at the sight, and then it flipped when I realized who it was. 

Raul. The Scav I let be the fall guy to cover my escape. 

This was always going to happen, I knew. I didn’t set this in motion. Not really. The guy I flatlined had already made the decision because of Raul’s glitter addiction and unreliability. Still, it was hard to not feel a little guilty looking at the half-disassembled man. 

But then I saw the fully disassembled man -- the very first man I had ever killed, with the scraps of him shoved off the table and stuffed in a trash bag. That helped me remember. That Scavs weren’t people. They willfully traded their humanity for money. They tormented people, hunted and harvested them like animals, and they did so without mercy or remorse for their actions. 

“W-Wait…  y-you?!” Raul blurted, his fear giving way to pure astonishment and confusion. Though, once that faded slightly, I think he was even more afraid. 

“Me,” I agreed, scoping out the room. The pile of cyberware had grown a touch, parts taken from Raul and the first Scav I killed. However, I didn’t see the massive payday that the records had promised me. Pieces of it, like my lungs and liver, but not the whole package. “Raul, right?”

Raul flinched more at me knowing his name than he did at the gunfire. “H-”

“You want to live, Raul?” I asked him, looking down at the man. He wasn’t dying. I’m not sure if that was a mercy or not. His friends had been taking him apart slowly. Probably as punishment for the assumption he had killed Whatshisface in self-defense, then tried to lie about it. “Because there is exactly one way that you get to live.”

A sob nearly escaped Raul, “I-I-I w-wanna live, c-choom.” He managed to say, his voice thick with emotion. Mostly fear. “Wh-What do I haveta’ do?”

“I want you to be honest with me,” I replied, approaching the man. He shied away from me, looking up at me with wide eyes, half-frenzied with fear. “First, where did you find my corpse?” It was lucky. 

“Jig-Jig Street! Y-y-it was in a back alley! N-Near the car lot!” Raul answered, and that was a lead I sorely needed. So, Japantown? It was something, at least. 

“Second,” I continued, “When did you find me?”’

“F-Fuck! Uh, like… three hours ago? Y-you were still fresh when we g-grabbed you!” So, I had died roughly three hours ago. Then why had Tony said I was late by a day? Had Rocinante already planned to stiff him?

“Thank you. Now, how would you like to earn some money for yourself?” I asked him, and his expression twisted into one of absolute bafflement. “I don’t fancy a gang of Scavs on my tail, and you seem to be on the outs. So, tell me where your hideout is, and who's left in it. We’ll swing by, and you’ll get a portion of the loot. Might be enough to unfuck your life, or bring it to a short end with glitter in your veins.”

I grew up around addicts. My dad. My mom. My brother and sister. Each had their poison of choice, but they were addicts all the same. So, I knew that look an addict gets all too well, even if my stomach churned using it against them. Raul, half hacked apart, looked up at me not with fear or confusion… he looked at me like I was his next score. The golden ticket to his next fix. 

If he resisted at all, then it didn’t show. “I can do that! No problem, choom!” Raul agreed readily. “There a-are just two of us left b-back at the hideout. It’s in a storage lot in Kabuki! I can take you there!” 

I had absolutely no doubt what he would use his portion of the loot on. No doubt at all. It felt dirty using his addiction like that, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel too guilty about it. “One last question.” Raul went still, fearing a rug pull. 

“Do you have a ride?”

Raul didn’t, but one of his ex-Scav buddies did. It took a moment to gather up all the guns, ammo, and everything else of value in the chopshop. Long enough that it was increasingly clear that not only did the cops not give a shit, but neither did the neighbors. Raul wasn’t in the best shape, but he wasn’t actively dying. 

I found about half of the list and loaded it up into a busted-to-shit Thorton. No monowire amongst the cyberwear, but I did find the Militech Basic Training Sim chip. Possibly the very same one that would have ended up in Jackie’s hands in the future. I didn’t have the time to test it out, sadly. But as soon as this mess was over with, I fully intended to learn everything it had to teach. 

The Thorton, thankfully, had autodrive, so I didn’t need to drive on the madhouse Night City called streets. When it wasn’t bumper-to-bumper traffic, it was people driving on the damn sidewalks and swerving in and out of traffic. The drive to Kabuki was relatively calm, though I just about jumped out of my skin when I heard sirens in the distance. 

Whoever they were chasing, it wasn’t me because I never even saw the cop car. 

“That’s it,” Raul said, pointing at a garage door. It was large enough to park a car inside of, completely nondescript with a faded gang tag painted on the front. “The token will open the door for you. Butch and Silo will be there- just… pop ‘em. Real fast. And we should be good.” 

“I have a better plan,” I said, taking advantage of the fact that the windows were tinted. Meaning that they wouldn’t be able to see my face until it was too late. “Any cyberware I should be aware of?” 

“N-Nah. They’re techies. S-Silo is mostly ‘ganic.” Raul said it like a slur, which told me what I needed to know. Still, netrunners were a concern. I didn’t have much chrome, but I really didn’t like the thought that someone could upload a quickhack and make my arm act of its own will, take out a gun, then shoot me in the head. To that end, I took out my Unity and kept it in my organic hand.

Boldness. Determination. I had come this far, and there was no point in slamming on the brakes. 

I drove up to the garage, triggering the door to slide up, revealing their hideout. The wall had been busted out, vastly enlarging the garage beyond what it should be by encroaching on its neighbor's space. My gaze snapped to the two figures inside the garage, one of them laid out on a couch while the other was on a netrunning chair. 

The one on the couch glanced in our direction, his expression of vague interest. Raising the unity, I pulled the trigger, and a bullet punched into his chest while the window shattered. Throwing the door open, I shot him once more, making sure he was dead before I took aim-

[System Breach. Malfunction]

My ICE seemed to have the structural integrity of a wet paper bag, because my arm immediately began to spaz out. The pain didn’t feel like pain. It was more the sensation of hitting your funny bone, so pure static that the brain couldn’t compute tore through my body starting at my arm, making a cry spill from my lips before I grit my teeth. Pulling the trigger a few times, I missed three shots before I caught either Butch or Silo in the neck. Another two bullets in his side killed him according to my optic, when it stopped being full of static. 

“Okay... I need new ICE,” I already decided, feeling my arm come back online after a quick auto-debug. Another expense, but a necessary one. With a thought, I closed the garage door to prevent prying eyes. A quick glance at Raul told me he didn’t give a damn about the two I just killed and was already going to the stash. 

It was there that I found the rest of the list. The Monowire, Visual Interface, and Reflex Tuner. The Skill Shards too. Eagerly, I loaded up the Thorton once more, before I passed half cash shards to Raul, even if it was only two to my three. He barely gave them a glance, his one arm carrying a backpack. Inside it was nothing but glitter, which explained why he was so willing to hit the stash house. 

“I can’t imagine that you’d actually listen to me,” I started, passing him the shards. “But if you don’t kill yourself with drugs in an hour from now -- get yourself checked out, man.” 

Raul looked down at the offered shards, taking them but he almost didn’t seem to know what to do with them. “... Why?”

“Because I said I would.” A man was only as good as his word, and that was especially true in this world. It would have rubbed me wrong to send him out with nothing, even if I did need whatever was on the shards. The guy was a wreck. Half disassembled alive by his partners in crime, missing an arm and an eye like I was when I woke up, clutching a bag full of mega-heroin… I genuinely couldn’t see him making it an hour before he OD’d. 

It was stupid. It was a waste. For all he suffered, he was still a Scav. I didn’t have any pity for him. Honestly, I was half hoping he would try to betray me so I could shoot him. But it was less about him and more about me -- who I was. What I did. And that meant following through on what I said I was going to do. 

His gaze lingered on me, clearly not quite getting it, but he didn’t want to linger in case I changed my mind. The garage door opened up, and he beat feet out of it, sparing me a glance over his shoulder before he picked up the pace. I watched him go for a moment before climbing into the Thorton once more after brushing glass shards off the seat. 

Behind the wheel, I took in a slow breath, sparing the two I had just killed one more glance. My gaze lingered, and for some reason, it bothered me I had no idea which one was which. Setting it aside, I put the car in reverse and gave it a destination. Leaving me free to make a call. 

“Viktor Vector speaking,” Vik greeted me. 

“It’s Rocinante, the gonk you put back together an hour ago?” I greeted him. “Long story short, I found those Scavs that got their hands on me. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one by a long mile. I have a pile of cyberware they were sitting on, and I have no idea what to do with it. Figured I’d call an expert.”

“... Kid, it’s been an hour,” Vik replied, sounding more confused than anything. 

“I was motivated,” I replied, watching the city go by at a decent pace. Nothing compared to the metrorail, but it was decent. Missed the window though.

“That’s one word for it. Got a list?” Vik asked, and I forwarded it to him. “Huh. Word to the wise -- looks like they harvested a merc. Think about that before you go charging off again. But… yeah, I’ll be willing to take them off your hands. After an inspection to make sure they aren’t scrapware.”

“I’m wanting to keep the Monowire and Reflex Tuner for myself.” It was tempting to add them to the sell pile for the cash. Not just to pay my debts and rent, or to buy solid ICE. I would also need some money to finance a gig. But, I didn’t know how easy it would be to get another monowire, and I also didn’t trust myself not to cut something important off without a the reflex tuner. 

On the other end, there was a chuckle, “No surprise there. Makes sense. Though, as your ripper, I can’t recommend chipping in that much chrome in one go. Best to do them one at a time,” He warned, and I gave an affirmative. The validity of cyberpsychosis was up in the air, but the fact remained I had enough problems already. 

All the same, if I were going to be a mercenary, then I needed the gear. I didn’t intend to go full borg, but some cyberware could give me the edge I needed to stay alive in this city. 

“On my way,” I said, ending the call. According to the GPS, I had about twenty minutes. Just enough time to get some more reading done. 

I was two and a half chapters deep when I arrived. Loading everything up in a duffle bag, I ditched the Thorton. It would be a bit of a pain to lug everything over to Vik's, but it was better than leading Scavs right to his doorstep. Deadmuse might have some things to say about me robbing his people. 

That being said, having a prosthetic was a major help because thanks to it I carried about eight pounds worth of hardware with relative ease. This time, I took the back alley into Viks and when I descended into the basement, I saw he wasn't alone. 

“I'm not interrupting anything, am I?” I asked, meeting the gaze of a familiar face. Jackie Welles. His hairstyle was different from what it would be in 2077, but it was unmistakably him. 

“Ah, no -- this meathead swung by to shoot the shit,” Vik answered. “Jackie, this is the kid I was telling you about.” 

“The cabrón named after mi madre’s favorite horse?” Jackie asked with a lopsided grin, offering a hand that I shook. “Jackie Welles. Merc for hire.” 

“Rocinante Donquixote, but everyone calls me Roc,” I replied, shaking his oversized paw. Jackie was a big guy. I wasn’t exactly short, but he had a few inches on me and he was built wide. 

That earned a laugh from him. “The knight too?” 

“It's what happens when you're the kid of someone who got to pick their name,” I fibbed. My name was almost certainly an assumed one, but I hadn’t found any traces that Rocinante had changed his name, so I’m guessing it was my parents. “And we're in the same line of work. Speaking of which,” I said, presenting the dufflebag to Vik. 

He took it and started to inspect the pieces. Jackie eyed the bag, “Scav trouble, eh?” 

“Something like that. Gig went sideways, they found me, and figured they'd harvest me for all I'm worth. Thought I'd repay the favor,” I replied with a shrug. Jackie's eyebrows rose, all the more so when he saw the projectile launcher that had been a part of Raul all of an hour ago. 

When Vik gave me a look that said, ‘That wasn't on the list.’ I replied with a shrug. 

“That you did, choom. Been in the biz long?” Jackie asked, and I worked in sales long enough to know when someone was fishing for information. I wanted to trust Jackie off the cuff. He had been in over his head before the Heist, but he was a reliable and trustworthy guy. What I didn't know was if I could trust him yet. 

“Just over a year,” I answered. That was based on the messages from Kirk and Amy. “Mostly low-level stuff. Worked with Kirk and-” 

Jackie snorted before he could stop himself, “Kirk? Kirk was your fixer?” He blurted, letting out a laugh. “Ah, sorry- it's just…” he trailed off, offering a vaguely apologetic shrug. 

So it was the same Kirk? The one from the Coyote? 

“Yeah, well… better to work with the fixers you know than the ones you don't,” I replied with a shrug. “That’s a lesson I learned the hard way. Tried to go without a fixer, and wound up in a Scav den.” 

“See?” Vik perked up in the middle of doing a diagnostic. “Learn from his example, Jack.” 

Jackie had something to say about that, but he swallowed it down. Probably because it would have been at my expense. “Ah, well… lesson learned,” he admitted. “Been a solo for a few years now, mostly working with Padre and Wakako. Aiming for the big leagues, but it feels like a winding fucking road to get there.” He admitted with a rueful chuckle. 

I understood it now. He thought I was way better than I was. It was why he laughed when he found out that Rocinante worked with Kirk, the lowest possible rung in terms of fixers.

Which made me consider something that hadn't occurred to me until now. 

Did Rocinante… suck at being a mercenary? 

I was literally just some random goober armed with a gun and a few chapters of Blackhand’s book, and I'd managed to hit a Scav den. I didn't want to disparage the dead, but why didn't he just do that instead of taking out loans? I would have thought steamrolling gangsters and Scavs for loot to fund V’s crippling addiction to a dozen apartments and every car on the face of the planet was pure gameplay, but evidently not. 

Maybe it was something I was missing?

“That’s the lot,” Vik informed, leaning back from the assortment of cyberware. “Most of it is solid, but the projectile launcher needs some repairs before I would be willing to chip it into anyone. So, I’ll need to pass it off to a techie friend of mine, and that’ll knock the price down a bit.” 

Understandable, even if I would have preferred it differently. “And the grand total?”

“Counting the projectile launcher? Fifty thousand eddies,” Vik answered, making Jackie let out a low whistle. I let the number wash over me. It was exactly what I needed. More than I needed, even. It not only got me out of the hole Rocinate put me in, but I came out ahead. 

“Call it forty-five, and you have a deal,” I said, making Vik raise an eyebrow. 

“Not sure you know how this haggling stuff works, kid,” Vik pointed out. 

All I had was a shrug, “Good Samaritan discount. And maybe when you come across some top-shelf cyberware, you keep me in mind.” That earned a chuckle from Vik with Jackie watching the byplay. There was a flicker of something in his eyes that looked suspiciously like an idea. 

“I’ll do that,” Vik said, flicking me the eddies. Couldn’t lie, I really liked seeing that number go up. From a paltry few hundred dollars to just shy of fifty thousand. “Let me know when you want to slot in that monowire. It’s a fine piece of cyberware.” 

“That’s the plan,” I said, before turning my gaze to Jackie. “You’ve been a mercenary for a bit, yeah? Any chance you could flick me Wakako’s number? I have a gig for a netrunner.”

“No problema, choom,” Jackie didn’t seem to think anything of it, sending me the number. “What do you need a runner for?”

“Need to know who I’m getting revenge on for my ending up in a Scav den,” I answered. Jackie held my gaze a moment before inclining his head.

“Netrunning isn’t my thing,” he admitted, “but you seem like decent people. Give me a call if you need a second gun or someone to watch your six.” He offered, flicking me his number right after Wakako’s. 

An honest smile found its way on my face, “I appreciate it. Hopefully, I won’t be calling you for three rounds with Arasaka.” Jackie laughed at that. He stopped laughing when he realized I was serious. 

Offering a wave over my shoulder, I picked up the much emptier duffel bag. Now there were just guns, the shards, and the cyberware I would keep for myself. It was tempting to slot them in now, but it felt like a good idea to spend a day or two getting used to the prosthetic first. The bag would be dropped off at my apartment, but first, I had some business to take care of. 

First was flicking Tony his eight thousand eddies. It brought me physical pain to see my bank account decreasing just after it climbed so high. That settled my business with him. 

Making my way to Jig-Jig Street took me back across the river into Japantown. Even if I didn’t know it from the game, it would have been pretty self-evident -- there was kanji everywhere, while the buildings themselves took a slightly different style. I’d like to say it was cleaner, but it was almost the exact opposite. Not only was the filth and trash gathering in every back alley or corner, but now it was on full display with sex shops. 

Why so many people needed dildos in the shape of a fist, I didn’t want to know. 

The car lot Raul mentioned was found just outside of the main road. It wasn’t much. A small parking lot with an entrance and an exit. Nothing of interest-

There was dried blood on the asphalt. Zooming in on it with my optic, I quickly confirmed it was my blood. That’s where Rocinate had died. Scanning the area for any traces of the culprit, I found a whole lot of nothing. What the blood stain did give me, however, was a timestamp. Almost exactly three hours ago. 

With a thought, I called the number Jackie gave me. It rang twice before an elderly woman’s voice greeted me, “Wakako speaking.”

“I’m in need of a netrunner,” I began without any preamble. “Someone who can identify a truck capable of storing a vehicle six by thirteen feet, leaving the carpark outside of Jig-Jig Street around three o’clock.” It was a guesstimation on my part. A car like a V-Tech would attract far too much attention on the streets. What's more, whoever had me steal it wouldn’t be able to openly flaunt their possession. At least for a time. Maybe after a year or two, they could drive it openly, claiming they bought it on the black market or from a collector. 

The simplest solution? Use a U-Haul style truck to transport the car discreetly. 

“I see. How urgent is this request?” Wakako asked, politely interested. 

“The sooner the better. I’m willing to pay the premium,” I replied. “Doubly so if the runner can identify who the driver is and where they went.” 

Wakako made a noise of acknowledgment. “I do appreciate a client who knows what he wants. More so when they have eddies to burn. Very well, I can arrange this gig. Five thousand for the location of this vehicle. Ten thousand for the identity of the driver and their destination to be paid upon completion. With a thousand eddie deposit.” A bit pricier than I hoped, but I prepared myself for it. 

Flicking her the eddies, Wakako let out a quiet hum. “I will have my best people on it. Though perhaps you would indulge me in a question?”

“Shoot,” I answered, my gaze lingering on the bloodstain a moment longer before I got walking. 

“It is not often a mercenary contacts me for a gig on their behalf, Donquixote-san,” Wakako said, dropping my name. I had to wonder what she saw in those files she had on me. She probably knew more about my new life than I did at this point. “Most are too… proud.”

“The net isn’t my playground,” I admitted. “Don’t know a runner that could get the job done as fast as I need it. Pride doesn’t even enter the equation.”

“How interesting,” Wakako said, and I genuinely couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not. “I will be in touch, Donquixote-san.” 

I could breathe a bit easier now that the gig was underway. I had no clue who would get the job done. There wasn’t a shortage of runners in Night City. It could be T-Bug, Kiwi, or even Lucy, to say nothing of the various netrunners that were name-dropped in Cyberpunk 2077 but never seen. In any case, I hoped Wakako really did put her best on the job for how much she charged me. 

The day started to catch up with me a bit while I once more hopped on the metrorail to head home. I think the shock of it all was really starting to wear off by the time I stumbled back into my apartment in the Megabuilding, tossing my duffel bag onto the floor and falling face-first into the bed. 

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. All the same, I found myself waking up when I got a call from Wakako at three in the morning. 

“The driver is named Tagashi Mokoto,” she began without any preamble. “The bodyguard of a Katsuo Tanaka, son of Sato Tanaka. A high-ranking Arasaka executive within Night City. I’m giving you the last sighting now.” She continued, and an image of a U-Haul truck pulling into a gated garage in Charter Hill appeared on my optic. 

Misty was right on the mark, huh?

“Sending the eddies your way,” I replied, paying out the ten thousand eddies as promised. Wakako thanked me before ending the call, leaving me alone in the darkness with my thoughts. 

Rolling onto my back, I stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, hearing the distant sound of gunshots from somewhere in the building. Lifting my prosthetic arm up, the dull iron surface catching the dim light that streamed through the window, I opened and closed my hand. 

“So, it wasn’t a dream?” I muttered, letting the metallic hand drop onto my face. It was cool to the touch. It all felt very real at that moment -- the men I killed, waking up naked in a bathtub with a corpse…

Rolling over, I went back to sleep, half hoping that when I woke up again, I would be back in my old life.