Mac opened tired eyes to dim light shining in through his bedroom windows blinds. His fingers instinctively grasped for the comforting grip of his Overture poking out underneath the pillow next to him, but found nothing. His eyes went wide as he jumped out of bed, quickly looking to his nightstand. His M-10AF Lexington wasn’t where it should be either.

Grabbing up the kukri somewhat hidden between the bed and the nightstand he crept to his bedroom door, heart pounding and thoughts racing. As quickly and quietly as he could he made his way through the hallway and down the stairs, clearing rooms as he went. Finally reaching the living room, he laid eyes on Ash reassembling the components of his Overture.

She, apparently sensing his presence, looked up at him. Shock much the same as he’d felt a minute earlier crossed her face. She glanced downwards at his torso, and then even lower, eyes going wider than even before for a second before the pistol dropped onto the table and she leaned back deep into the chair and convulsed with fits of laughter. Mac, unamused, looked down at his nakedness, face going a shade or two more scarlet as realisation hit him. He placed the kukri down on the table and picked up a sofa cushion, covering what he could.

“I… I guess you could call that a pistol.” Ash managed to blurt out through persistent laughter. “A Derringer, perhaps?” She continued, holding her stomach.

“You took my guns!” Mac spoke indignantly, his brow furrowing.

Ash through some sheer force of will managed to get her laughter under control. She sat up straight, giving her an unusually regal look and quickly cleared her throat.

“I did… But as you can see, I was cleaning them. I’m truly… truly sorry for the panic.”

“Well, uhm… thanks. I’m sorry for my reaction. Don’t much like being without my guns, ya know how it is.”

Her lips seemed almost pursed and her eyes were still shining with humour, but she nodded quickly to show her understanding. Slowly, she picked up the heavy revolver she’d dropped and rotated it in her hand, looking at it curiously.

“What?”

“Nothin’. Nothin’... Just. Overcompensating much?” She said the words rapidly, barely managing to get them out before she burst to laughing again.

Mac sighed heavily, lobbing the pillow at her and retreating back upstairs.

—

An hour later Mac was back, fully clothed this time and relaxing on the sofa. Ash’s legs were stretched out across his lap as she filed her fingernails, looking at them in the same way she’d looked at his revolver earlier, only a lot less mocking.

Mac’s phone buzzed on the coffee table, startling them both with its loud reverberations. Holding Ash’s legs so as not to rudely toss them off himself, he leaned forward and picked it up, silently reading the message that came through.

“Huh. A beautiful woman gave me her real number… That’s a first.” He smirked. “Got a meeting tonight at Afterlife.”

Ash simply raised an eyebrow, her expression otherwise unreadable. “It really is the city of dreams.”

“Thanks for cleaning my guns, annwyl. Judging from how we met, I’ll probably need them if I work for this lady.”

“In this city, you’d want them clean if you were going to do laundry.” Ash smiled as Mac chuckled.

“True enough.”

—

Later that night Mac was driving through the city, well on his way to Afterlife. It struck him that for him it was simply a club, at least tonight. Many others wouldn’t see another morning in this city however, their destination a far more literal interpretation of the word. An intrusive thought claimed that they were the lucky ones.

He hated driving through the city. The towering buildings and innumerable vehicles were suffocating. He felt closed in. There weren’t nearly enough places to escape to with assholes and psychopaths looking for a victim in most of the holes you actually could run down. If that wasn’t enough it felt like you were always being watched or listened to, not to mention the trash lining the sides of the more impoverished streets, which was a majority of them. Fuckin’ repulsive place.

Finally he reached the club, pulling his truck up not too far from a dumpster outside. Checking his weapons one more time, he stepped out of his vehicle and headed for the club's stairs. A descent. Fitting, he thought.

He wasn’t thirty seconds into the building when a bloke a head taller and considerably wider than him blocked his path.

“Hello. I’m Mac Kieran Iceni, here to-”

“I know. You don’t have an inconspicuous face or accent… Head down to the crypt, if Eddie ain’t there, she will be soon.”

Mac nodded politely as the man moved aside, walking briskly past him. He smiled at the cute bartender, but not wanting to ruin his intent to arrive early, didn’t stop. The place was as he’d heard. An old morgue. Filled to the brim with folk that looked considerably like him, only most of them dressed themselves with far more style.

Plenty of gang tattoos on display too, unsurprisingly. Banger to merc was probably one of the most common job switch ups in the city. He found his way easy enough, soon descending yet another set of stairs and heading through what he hoped was the final door. He wasn’t disappointed.

He’d seen enough makeshift command centres in his subservience to the British government to immediately recognise what he was looking at. Not a bad setup at all. Plenty of space and even the autopsy tables had been repurposed for better use. Leaning against one, he waited.

Smirking, he took out his phone and messaged “Arrived safe. <3” to Ash, stifling a chuckle as he imagined her baffled and hopefully exasperated face as she read it.

Collab with @Ruby

The Afterlife

She hadn’t supposed it was too common to pregame for the Afterlife. Even though the music pounded as it would any other rock club and drunken bodies swung about to the crashing rhythm, it was a place of business. Its inhabitants had slaughtered their way to a right to be present, or at the least, fucked one of those who had.

Shimada had owed Kelly a night out, however. Too many weeks of blowing her off for the less than honest pursuits of her work hadn’t been fair on one of the few normal and stable aspects of her life since the deaths of her family. Kelly didn’t know anything about what her life had been, but she was bright enough to know what her current life was even if she’d taken much effort to hide it from her. When she’d offhand mentioned she had business at the famous Merc club that evening, the young American blonde had made it something of a mission to attend as well. Not that she had any reason beyond the cool factor of a night at the bar, but it was also a general excuse for them to spend some time together and catch up.

The cultural classes she had attended for years in Japan had attempted to invest in her a condescending dislike for the Western practice of relying on locations where the music was too loud to hear yourself think, as a place of social gathering. Her upbringing in Night City had done its best to prevent that particular lesson sinking in. She’d danced and drunk with Kelly through a series of bars and clubs, not one they’d waited to paid to get into. Shimada didn’t like wearing black, it reminder her too much of the Arasaka uniform she’d donned many times before. Her bodyglove for work was an unfortunate exception, it wasn’t much like she could find a replacement in a new shade right off the street. So, despite all warnings about spilt drinks and general city grime, she’d worn white. Black was, of course, slimming, and white did the opposite, the halter top bodycon dress highlighting the flaring of her hips in a way that was certainly appreciated by the door staff of the city. Not that her friend was a hindrance in the charm department.

Time passed, as it had want to do, and the appointed hour had drawn near. Despite Kelly’s assertions she would ‘be good’ and just wanted a look around the famous bar, Shimada packed her off into a taxi. She’d slowed down her own drinking some time before, and the stimms flooding her system were already most of the way to sobering her up, and she didn’t much feel like keeping one eye on the bar while also meeting with a new contact. She didn’t change outfit, just threw on her leather Tyger Claw branded jacket over the top of her dress as she walked the remaining distance to the bar. One underappreciated advantage of her augmented palms and soles was a complete lack of pain from extended time in high heels. Another little hack of life.

She hadn’t spent much time in the Afterlife, but she was a striking enough figure from her few brief visits that Bronson greeted her with only the tepid hostility offered to those expected to get in, as opposed to the outright dismissive contempt for those on their first try. She gave him a flick of a demure smile, not showing her teeth as she had been taught, in thanks. He hardly reacted, but it never hurt to keep on the good side of a walking slab of muscle. As she moved towards the bar, the sway of her gait entirely deliberate as opposed to the influence of the now fully countered night of drinking, she pondered the question of whether she could ‘take’ the infamous Animal gang member. She was still undecided as she perched on the first free barstool.

“A Jackie Welles, please.” A pretty generic choice she was sure in recent months, but it wasn’t her fault that the recently deceased had made a good choice of a drink. The first sip hit her with just enough kick of both vodka and ginger to send a shiver through her. If she ever shut off the rather fancy set of biological augments her old life had bought her she was something of a lightweight. She didn’t mind that, made each drink worth it. Just the one, to steady the nerves she pretended not to feel. The drink didn't last long, before her eyes flickered back up to the bartender.

"One more, thanks." She took the drink in hand before standing. Shimada had already located the Fixer she was after, caught in her periphery, Wakako had informed her enough. A Fixer looking for a crew for a job that aligned with what she wanted, and would need the information she had. Wakako had also added some descriptives about being mad enough to try, but then the kind of change Shimada was after wasn't the kind the entirely sane ever achieved.

She encountered the hired muscle before the Fixer herself, that was to be expected, even those who tended to operate from the main floor still needed something to keep their boothes private. Shimada took a long sip of her new drink as she simply looked up into the meat's eyes for the duration of the gulp, sparkling hazel eyes meeting the grim, impatient visage without pause. Another brief smile, before she spoke 'around' the man.

"Hi there Eddie, Wakako sent me." It wasn't exactly the most badass of greetings, but as she took another sip from her drink, her other hand in the bubblegum turquoise of her tyger claw jacket, it was about as much as she could think to offer without screaming "Hello there, let's burn down a megacorp together."

"It's okay, Squama, this is the one who wants to burn down a megacorporation with us."

Eddie wasn't even looking up from the datapad that had her attention when she rose her voice to tell Crispin to let the woman through, and the humor in her words was left to the imagination as her tone remained dry, the humor deadpan. Only when the woman sat and settled did Eddie hand off the datapad across the table to Crispin, "Yeah, this will work. Get the equipment delivered and I'll see about essentials; bedding, provisions, the like. I'll bug Nix about local network security and the special server I'll have to move and setup myself. Thank you, sir."

There was a little 'twang' at the end of her words, a little verbal twist on the word 'sir' that Crispin didn't seem to notice, or care about. The large man just nodded and left the booth, understanding what Eddie meant when she thanked him so formally: You can go, I got this.

"Let's be inclusive, Ms. Masako, call that friend of yours over. I promise to be gentle with her."

Eddie's grin was reflective of the same deadpan humor as her indication of who Shimada was to the solo and bodyguard, Crispin, even if it was an impossibility to tell if Eddie was actually even slightly kidding about any of it, all of it, or absolutely none of it.

Shimada smiled politely once again to the muscle as she was allowed through, never quite showing her teeth. She paused before sitting, however, at the request to bring Kelly over, who was currently pestering the bar staff for any fun stories. As was her nature, that was for their own fun stories, she didn’t much care for the big ego mercs everyone else drooled over.

“I’m sure she can manage either way,” She didn’t need to add that her roommate was a Night City native, the kind to watch five people eat chrome on the way to work and call it a quiet day. She flicked her phone to her ear as she moved to sit, sparing the effort to yell across the bar. “Hey Kells, come grab a drink, lady’s buying.” It hadn’t taken long for her to unlearn the formulaic speech, even in English, her education in Japan had provided her. It was a matter of survival really, even the most diehard faker from Japantown would struggle to maintain the formality that had been second nature to her. Of course, she could turn it back on at a pinch, but there was rarely a need for that.

The American blonde arrived in but a moment, a little more sway to her walk than Shimada’s had been thanks to lacking her biomods, but she was still put together enough, offering a hand out to Eddie with a bright smile, “Hey, nice to meet you.”

Eddie took the hand gently between her forefingers and thumb of her right hand, holding it as the woman leaned across the table, Eddie scooting forward in the booth's seating and leaning towards her, the monowire sharp smile on her unpainted and unglossed lips, the black of her jacket and top and pants and boots making the smile stand out all the more, and not always in the best of ways, her tone kind but the sound of her voice coming close to sharp. Eddie got close to make sure the woman heard her, and her blues eyes stared deep into the very soul of the girl's eyes so that there was no mistaking Eddie's intent, "You need to be very careful in this bar, Ms. Kelly. There are people in this bar who could end every life on a city block before anyone could do anything to stop them, and I mean like that," 'that', the word heavy with emphasis as her left hand appeared out of the nowhere of shadow and snapped loudly alongside the word just an inch from Kelly's face.

Eddie let go, and motioned to the girl to sit. Claire stared from the opening of the booth, the gravity of the moment not lost on Claire; this was the inner circle of Hell, and Claire had gained and lost more than she would like to admit to the demons that inhabited it. If anything, it was hard for Claire to hide the shadow of a smirk that inhabited her lips as she waited for Eddie's attention.

"Tequila, Reyes liquor, firewater, agave nectar, a squeeze of lemon juice, shaken over ice and double strained. Tajín Clásic garnish, topped with cerveza and mixed."

The Mexican-Spanish flair came easily to Eddie's decidedly not Mexican-Spanish voice, like an old friend she just hadn't spoken to in a while. Claire nodded, with a small chuckle, "Am I naming this one after you one day?"

Eddie let the smile be her real answer, even as she allowed another, "No, I'm a simple beer kind of girl." Kelly was unlikely to have had an old Cartel classic cocktail common in the tejano haunts of Texas, to say nothing of Shimada, from a country where such a cocktail was, as Eddie well knew, all but unheard of even if they went chasing something truly tejano or Texas, let alone Mexican. Claire disappeared, and Eddie was left to sink back into her seat, and give Shimada a look that was either apologetic, or completely lacking in apology, depending on point of view.

"Since we'll be working together for a time, might as well start off one step below Blue Glass, as I've already had my fill of that for the week." It was a miracle Conrad wasn't still sunk into a booth somewhere, lost in memory and lights and illusionary spectacle. "I'm told the code was secured, I've got a BD artiste modifying the BD, we'll check to make sure it would pass corpo eyes but...I've got faith. You'll be helping more in the background, closer to working more directly with me than the team. In fact, to be honest, I'd prefer the team never know you're involved at all. More security for you, and less potential for something to go wrong, if something were to go wrong."

“Something will go wrong.” When the words slipped from her lips they were without needless dread or a sense of correction. She had no illusions as to the nature of the task set before them, and those to whom they would shortly be directly set against. One could plan for every eventuality, and still never account for the whims of fate. “I don’t need, or want, to be present at every stage, but I will be involved when the blade drops, those are my terms, if we are to work together.” She was well aware that Eddie had already received most of what she already needed, but that wasn’t to say matters would be more complicated without her. Fixers tended to hate complication, especially when it didn’t even result in a bigger payout. “If they find out who I am, then it will function as enough of a smokescreen anyway.” As far as she was aware, no one beyond the old woman knew who she had been, but she hadn’t altered her face, recognition was always possible. Shimada allowed herself a sip of the drink, savouring the unusual taste, definitely speaking more to the strands of her taste buds that favoured her upbringing in Night City over her adolescence and genealogy in Japan. Kelly wasn’t as reserved, taking a more direct, more American, gulp of the cocktail, offering a celebratory clink of glasses to both other women present.

“Who have you brought together?” Shimada carried on speaking once the second sip was down her, one leg crossed over the other, not leaning back, as she spoke. Some lessons of proprietary didn’t quite slip without concerted effort, and she didn’t mind the contrast between herself and the two true-American women, not for the moment anyway.

Eddie smiled at the ‘cheers’, despite herself, and hoped the girl wouldn’t be dead by the turn of the new year. It was too early to celebrate, and for no one was that truer than herself. It was an unusual balance to the grim seriousness that was her companion of the hour. “No battle plan withstands getting punched in the mouth,” Eddie echoed an old friend from College Station, from a past life, in agreement with the general sentiment. She had quite a lot of experience at contingencies, it gave her a soothed over, quiet, confidence at such a fact.

“Nix has the bios. Tell him I sent you, he’ll let you see them.” The unmistakable sound of the base of an empty glass hitting a table sounded as Eddie finished her cocktail with a thirst, “I’ll be in touch, there’s more than enough work to do. Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

The sheer fire of the cocktail sending heat through her body and her brain let the smirk slip at the comment, given her history, it wasn’t a terribly limiting farewell.

"Heads up." was the first words that John heard over the the phone as he picked it up after having left the money, and a small tip, at the place where he had been enjoying his afternoon. Though he himself wasn't sure if what he felt was enjoyment, more like just a simple respect for the quiet before the inevitable shit storm that seemingly permeated every aspect of this godless hellscape called 'The City of Dreams'. Clancy was the one on the phone as John had been told her had a job. He described that it would be worked out in afterlife, and that his employers would prefer he come sooner rather than latter. "Its a well paying job. One that will set you, and I up for awhile as the one picking the jobs for you Agent Brown. I do have some reservations about it though." Clancy warned his very steely calm voice ever ready to inform his clients of how he felt about the matter. A true professional Clancy Ryan oversaw the people in this city who preferred a bit more up front agency. Having grown accustomed to this he was a bit intrigued why he would be getting called for a job that the man had reservations about.

"The info on the job itself is scarce. The sort of job that is on the hush, and hush. You're being pulled to it for your willingness to get your hands dirty. Directly asked for by the person who called me. I have a feeling that you may be wrangled up in a mess both of us weren't expecting." Ryan informs him as if the fact changed anything. "Then why agree to patch me into this job Clancy? If the risk is dirty enough to worry men like us then why are we even having this conversation?" questions his handler as if this should even be a thing. It seemed ridiculous that they were even having this talk.

"Because as it stands I'd rather be at ground zero of whatever this may be than in the blast radius. Find out, and get it done. I trust you're more than capable of handling it. Ryan out." his handler hung up and Brown put away his phone. He didn't like being ordered like that but he supposed this all could be an overreaction by Ryan who was not getting the information he usually did. Meticulous to a fault his handler typically preferred to have all the cards out so that they could measure and execute the objective quickly, and cleanly. This just meant that either the persons, or person in charge of this was playing things close to the chest. Was probably against Medtech, or Arishoka. Didn't matter if the job was reasonable he'd hear it out. Not like he had much better to do other than shoot random thugs on the street for the police bounties on repeat offenders. May as well save a trip to the doctor.

After arriving via taxi at Afterlife Brown couldn't help but feel a deep sense of loathing for the night club. It didn't matter who was running it, it was typically a den of people who looked up to wretches like Johnny Silverhand, the drunk violent ex-military grunt who fucked his way to an early grave, or sought to poorly emulate other 'night city legends'. It didn't matter who that legend was they wanted to make a name for themselves. Typically it was done poorly. He heard of a number of attempts by would be netrunners to try and claim their spoilers from a corpo, or executive of some sort. Never ended well. A casualty of poor choice making, none were missed for their lunatic tendencies. After entering the bar he was stopped giving his name he was promptly told where to go, and without much else in the way of word adjusted his suit, tie, and sunglasses before making his was there.

......
........
..........

[:: Heywood Apartment | Meeting Day ::]

The meeting details came in that morning, and her heart jumped for a split second at the notion of possibly having to leave the confines of her Heywood apartment for the filth and wretchedness of the Night City’s more questionable areas. Especially bringing her into the heart of Watson’s Little China, where Afterlife resided, and plenty of other undesirables. It wasn’t that Qiara hated Night City, per se. No way. It had more life and color teeming within even the smallest of its veins. But rather, she saw -much like her father Lucian- a better Night City that was taking too long to surface. And one that wasn’t living under the polished designer heels of corporations, but rather had a real say in where it was headed. The people were the ones who needed a voice.

But the city was her home nevertheless, housing both a playground within the Net, and a Heywood flat that had become a part of her as much as she was a part of it. Imagine having to leave a safe haven, one you’ve spent countless hours molding and fashioning to be the perfect sanctuary for both realspace needs and those within the Net itself.

The Heywood datafortress was built from the ground up, ironclad one could say, and mostly thanks to Qiara herself. Of course no one would know this. Not her neighbors, or the elderly community who mostly resided within the string of apartments and condominiums that lined a few blocks, or the corpos with their multiple flats and overpriced clutter safely tucked away in lock boxes and walk-in closets. Nah, no one would know except for her and one other…but she was no longer on the material plane, and most likely floating in some wonderful outer dimension. Or in a dream, perhaps.

T-Bug was so many things. She could have been so much more.

---

“So why are you going through with this again, Q?”

The young woman stared into the bathroom mirror with tired eyes, as the reflection of someone she did not always recognize returned the gaze with an expression of bewilderment. Talking to herself as always. Through the anxiety. Through the confusion. The halogen light directly above her head had a low buzzing that bothered her. Something she had been meaning to ask building maintenance to take care of. But did it matter today? Not really. What mattered was that she simply had to push forward. This was a new line of work. New possibilities. And hopefully the information she needed to pinpoint the location of her grandmother’s digital consciousness in the Net. As fragmented and scattered as it might be.

A few moments later, dressed in nothing but a black lace bra and low-cut panties, Q stood at the end of the hallway which led from her bedroom into the expanse of the brightly lit living room and kitchen area, turning her nose up slightly at the mess. And by “mess”, there was nothing more than a few items displaced on the couch, coffee table, and even slung over one of the bar stools near the kitchen counter, in an otherwise minimalistically decorated living space. She was, for the most part, a neat freak, never allowing things to be out of place for long as it seemed to only drive the obsessive compulsiveness further. Before she knew it, the girl would be wiping down glass side tables, running the vacuum across glossy tiled floors, and sanitizing the kitchen counters because she felt things were just not clean enough. But, mostly it was just nice to use her legs while doing all these tasks, even if it was for a short while. The anti-rejection serum helped the pain tremendously each day to cope with her cyberware, and manage to function normally. But she was always reminded by sharp pain in her joints of the small of her back, that she would never be normal again.

---

“Ah-huh, and what is this bit of info going to cost me?”

“You know a kiss wouldn’t hurt, choom”

Qiara sighed audibly enough that her contact on the other end of the call could hear the obnoxiousness targeted directly at him. “Be glad we aren’t swimming in netspace right now, because I swear I’d kick your ass to the point that you’d be forcefully jacked out for an eternity.”

“One day, I’ll get that kiss” The other chuckled in a low gravelly voice that added a whole new level to cringe.

“I hate you.”

“I know.” The man was silent for a moment. “Anyway, I couldn’t really find jack on this Fixer you told me about. More like whispers, but nothing really confirmed. Not even sure the lady is new to Night City.”

“Yeah I don’t know.” Q rubbed both sides of her forehead. “Thanks for trying. I’ll catch ya later.”

And before the other could chime in with a last ditch effort of some awful flirtatious comment or snide remark, the communication was cut and the Netrunner sat her head back against the chair cushion to collect her thoughts. She knew little-to-nothing about this person, other than she went by the name “Eddie”, which probably held its own brand of irony. But, regardless of what really brought them together, Qiara was determined to go through with the job, and hopefully the meeting would clue her in enough to know just how far into the deep she’ll need to dive.

The time rapidly approached for the meet, which was to take place within the bowels of Afterlife, a place Q had never been inside, at least not in physical form. Safety was her number one concern, and the young woman had more protocols setup than most in her line of work. Anything to keep her distanced enough from danger but close enough to the action as it were. Holographic projections weren't anything unusual for business exchanges in Night City, and yet while most were direct-line connections to the host machines, Qiara took it a few steps further by layering firewalls and breaking up her own datastreams into billions of encrypted packets that anyone attempting to locate, interrupted, or otherwise hijack the connection would be in for a shit ton of work. By then, the Netrunner would be long offline. Of course, while it might be a lot of skill involved, there’s also an immense amount of luck that comes into play.

“Ah, I see you picked an old favorite.” Nix commented on the incoming transmission from Q, and confirmed that all was secured on their end, giving the green light to proceed with the projection.

Several optic lenses scattered throughout a small area lit up with beams of colored light near the workstation Nix sat at, going from one spectrum to another, as data was exchanged and the form of a figure materialized. A hooded character, the upper part of her pale face obscured by shadow, and dressed in a dark gray and white bodysuit, which had been the avatar indicative of a character named Kasumi Goto, who was from a popular video game of the 20th Century.

“You know me, Nix, always a fan of the old school.” Her avatar allowed a slight smirk across its lips, as a few glitches smoothed out in the projection and it was virtually impossible to tell the form wasn’t real. As far as all present at the meeting were concerned, it was about as good as they were going to get of the Netrunner in the flesh for the time being.

She gave Nix an appreciative nod, before turning her attention to the others who had shown up.

“I-uh, hope this is acceptable.” Qiara mumbled mostly to herself, folding her hands in front of her and trying to keep a steady enough composure while standing in a room full of mostly strangers. But, she was still far enough away, as this was her realm and it was easy enough to fake it from behind a wall of endless code.

---

Little China still irritated her. Since her days stalking Night City for Danger Girl, there had never been something quite 'right' about this stretch of city. It wasn't meant to be like this. Sora could have blamed the Triads, but there wasn't much left of the Triads--she had largely seen to that, herself. Walking the strip of Little China that should have been something closer to City Center than it was to slums left a metallic, harsh taste in her mouth as the tip of her tounge rolled across back of her top, perfect, white teeth as she ignored the looks and stares from the excuses for life that inhabited the back alleys of Little China. He had dropped her off at the end of the alley, next to the same sex club that had existed before, just different names and different owners...a common theme in this rejection of a normal, functioning, city.

Tokyo this was not.

Sora's movement down the alley became listless, her head tilting this way and that, her black lashes fluttering as eyelids opened and closed with no apparent rhyme or reason. Her nostrils flared, her mind racing through the sensory overload, black gloved hand just barely tracing the edge of every wall and door she came across on this side of the alley. Her lips formed the words she didn't say, her head tilting back as she tasted it: it was written in blood. All or nothing, dressed in black, unable to look back for longer than a moment just long enough to see the memory of her face. By the time her eyes opened, she had wandered off the main alley, pushing past a small, flimsy, metal gate.

The woman occupied her sigh, black eyes opening to the stairwell. A cat hissed, arching in defense, sensing the arrival of a predator. "Oh, shut up."

Her gaze flashed from the back door of the storefront that was closed, smelling the incense and hearing the heartbeat beyond. The placid surface of the killer betrayed the sudden, inexplicable, white hot rage that erupted under the skin. Sora could almost taste the Mercs. Sora knew the truth of it; she would always, no matter what, now, be a broken girl. There was no going back. There would be no savior, even if she found the woman. Nothing could be the same, nothing could be pure again. Arasaka had taken it's pound of flesh, corrupted her life before it even started, ruined the dreams of a little girl and turned her mean. And they thought they could get away with what they did?

Sora audibly snorted as she restrained the impulse to go crashing through the back of the store front and impale the child, then and there. She nearly gasped as the ease of the door sliding open, or pouted at it. It shouldn't have been so easy. He shouldn't have been so easy. Prey should put up more of a fight. Sora had no respect for cowards, and when there was nothing but her, the victim, and the blade between them...that's when people showed who they really were. That's when Sora saw people no one close to them ever could; that's how Sora knew, truly, who was a coward and who was not. What would Vik Vektor be today?

Very little illuminated the garage turned clinic but a Kiroshi neon sign, and data screens, except for the vid feed of the boxing match. He sat there, hunched on his stool, sunglasses on like it was mid-sunny day, entranced by the violence. There was no sound, only a black shadow creeping at the edges. It was hard to say just how long she stood there, staring at him. Somewhere in the void beside her mind, Sora started to blink in and out as her eyes shuttered again and her anger started to boil through. When her eyes opened again her forehead was brushing the closed, but unlocked, security cage of the entrance at the bottom of the stairs in which she haunted as shadow.

The sound he noticed, the image he realized was no shadow. She heard his heartbeat, she felt his intense gaze, it made her feel as close to orgasm as anything had in months. She wasn't a bad person; she was just overwhelmed, that little voice of that little ghost repeated in the back vaults of her brain. By herself, by choice, chance, or strange reward, she ignored what he said to her then. Ignored it, or just wasn't present enough in the now to hear it. She tried to whisper to him, but he didn't figure it out, he didn't hear it.

Sora was cold.

"I don't have any drugs," he said, as uncertain and on edge as he was irritated, like she were just another junkie to roll into his clinic to beg.

Sora giggled like a school girl as she threw open the gate with a sudden, dramatic, motion. "You do. You are a purveyor of the only drug that seems to sate me these days, Vik Vektor." The giggle was gone, leaving behind only the ghostly grin on haunted lips and the menacing black eyed gaze of the predator. In that very beat of his heart, she saw it, smelled it, TASTED it: fear. A sharp, deep, inhale, and Sora smiled, "There it is. There's my drug, Vik Vektor...you loved them, didn't you? Did you think the love was free?" She stared, somehow looking more confused than he felt and hid. "Did you think there would be no price to pay?"

"Arasaka," it was only a word, spoken in a tone that he might as well had spat. The devil's grin that enveloped her face as she felt the fires of hell warm her back. He moved for the weapon. That's all it took. He might as well had moved in molasses as she moved in bullet-time. He was so fucking slow she wanted to scream at him, she wanted to complain and condemn his bad form. His surgically repaired and enhanced Ripperdoc's left hand crunched as she held it between her index finger and thumb, and SQUEEZED. He howled in pain, Sora howled in heat, dismissing his body like a little sack of meat and bone as she flew across the clinic and landed at the foot of his surgical chair.

The whisper was delicate and soft, sad and torn in regret, the tone of heart-wrenched apology, her black gloved hand gentle at his chest as it held him down, "Someone must get hurt." She had come too far to make it easy, the tedious dances of quiet meltdowns and consented abuse had driven the madness and boiling rage to a hushed moment of sheer desperation and tragic realization; the Ripperdoc was analyzing her. Guessing at what had turned her to demon.

"...what the fuck are you..."

Her free hand curled and coiled, making pain wrench across his face as it grabbed the back of his head by his thinning hair and started to press with the hand on his chest with the kind of force that would be snapping bone and popping organs in but a few, short, minutes. "Pay attention, because it's all over; this is the price you weren't willing to pay." She gripped tight at the back of his head, the hand at his chest pulling his upper body up by his dirty shirt. Sora had to give him credit; he never betrayed the woman. He never looked in that direction. Nothing on his face even hinted at her presence.

Didn't matter. Sora knew. The shot of gunfire rang out hideously loud and violent in the confined space of the clinic, as Misty Olszewski pulled the trigger. The spiritualist had enough skill to not murder Vik Vektor. The woman tracked the blur enough that the bullet only ripped across Vik Vektor's right shoulder in a grazing blow, leaving to man to cry out and put his near limp left surgeon's hand over the searing pain. Panic hit Misty Olszewski as her target was there, then just wasn't there, leaving Vik to take the round that grazed and ricocheted off the surgical chair behind, sparking as it hit a wall off to the left.

"Misty!" He yelled, his eyes unclinching from pain just in time to see the dark shadow behind the spiritualist. They moved so slowly, children to the unreal enhanced speed of the Arasaka Ninja. The gun was gone, crushed and discarded, Misty's body tensed and struggling as Sora took the girl from behind. The heat of the spiritualist, the flesh pressed against Sora tight. She felt her eyes closed as she felt Misty's heart as much as she heard it now, one hand around the girl's throat, the other still around the wrist that had held the gun, beginning to slowly, carefully, apply the kind of pressure that would crush it in less than a minute's time.

Sora didn't hear the girl's cries. Eyes closed, mind torn, all Sora felt and heard and saw was Etta Autry. All she knew in that haunted heartbeat was love and misery and pain. The desperate, erotic, whisper hitting the girl's right ear. "...I want to fucking tear you apart."

The gurgled cry didn't sound right. The scent wasn't right. The body against her wasn't right.........Sora saw vision ascend as her black eyes opened, her face frowning as she saw Misty Olszewski and not Etta Autry. Her vision focused on the bleeding man on the ground, moving, screaming in a growl about...something. In her haze it took Sora another beat to realize he was yelling about the girl.

"STOP IT! SHE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! LET HER GO!"

The girl was discarded like the gun had been, just tossed to the side there in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs. Sora moved again, more concerned with the Ripperdoc than the spiritualist. The sound that came out of the old man was ear piercing as the katana blade came out and pierced flesh in the kind of quickness that left the human mind reeling to catch up. It took him a moment to do more than be in shock and silence; but when the sound came it was blood curdling, it was anguished and it was enough to make the girl on the ground behind them scream in horror: the sight of the katana sticking shoved into the concrete floor, through Vik Vektor's right thigh.

"...stay." The color had drained from Vik Vektor. His heart was near explosion, his heartbeat in full shock and panic, his system beginning real overload from the mind-breaking amount of pain and distress, sweat beading at his receding hairline, his body twitching and shaking. Sora didn't even care now that the girl scrambled and darted up the stairs of the entrance, screaming into the Night City night like a raving lunatic for help. Sora's tone never changed; automatic, chromed, with a muted volume. "Etta Autry. Where is she?"

His voice quivered and shook as violently as the rest of his body as his eyes dazed and blanked behind the sunglasses from the shock of the trauma. "...wh...who? I...don't..."

Sora growled like a beast, eyes clinching shut and head tilting as she let her heartbeat remind her mind to calm. "I hope your 'children' were worth it. May you serve as a warning to any others who would strike against us."

She stood, her right hand slowly curling and gripping the black handle of the black bladed katana that ran through the thick of his thigh. One pull, one swing, all in one motion, and his head would fall from his body. Before that, she looked down at him, and sighed, taking a last measure of Vik Vektor. "How I wish you would have known where she was..."

Dusty had been up the street, a smoke in an alley keeping an eye on some Maelstorm punks trying to give a few working girls a hard time. He gave a whistle and flashed iron, NCPD were just a block over and they never hassle a Nomad for street cleaning. They were close to Misty and Vik’s place, but he didn’t have any ripper work to be done and tarot cards just weren’t his thing. He liked to think Nomad’s made their own luck not fated to go down a certain way, the Clydesdale was parked in an alley hidden from view to avoid someone trying to boost it.

The Maelstrom punks had just been leaving when he heard a faint scream, one that no cop would answer. The gun shot he’d heard but assumed it was the police mopping up someone, he bottled towards Misty’s place, that voice was one he remembered from nights spent drinking and partying with Jackie Welles. He rushed through the beads sliding over the counter and out the back door before jumping the railing landing, barely on the stairs. A short jog past the security gate hand over his holster, well it was until he saw his new boss was standing over Vik with a glare that could have killed if Arasaka had the tech yet.

“What in sam hell do you think you are doing!” He spoke, he didn’t pull iron, knowing it sure as shit wouldn’t help. Moving in slowly hands up looking at Vik. “Vik and Misty? They never hurt nobody, well... Vik used to punch people and Misty’s got a biting tongue but... that ain’t never been a reason to go lopping off heads?” He spoke hands up moving towards the woman carefully.

“Even if they done did wronged ya it was a small slight or blunder on their part, Vik... Misty, somebody explain why the fuck a Saka ninja wants you two dead?” He spoke slow and calm like, trying to be rational and understanding, namely the side of friends against his boss. A fine line to walk when a razor sharp sword is involved but he was good at keeping balance came from a life in the saddle.

“Listen whatever’s going on before ya going stabbing folks like it's a Japanese Samurai revenge flick or your righteous Silverhand himself, prick he was. Maybe think about it, how could these folks ever damage you or them Saka goons again?” He added confused as he removed his hat trying to be honest and open here.

Her head turned at the sound of the man. At the sight, her black eyes narrowed. Hand gripping the blade's handle, now, in anger. It came and went like a Night City breeze; gone as fast as it appeared, if it was ever there at all. The blade was removed with the force and precision of an assassin, leaving nothing but a sudden surge of blood in the wake of it's removal, save for the dripping of Vik Vektor's blood as Sora walked across the clinic, katana in hand, staring a burning glare through the eyes of the Nomad as she simply walked out and climbed the stairs.

Indignance was the appearance of the Arasaka Ninja as she passed a bum in the back alley, ripped the shirt off his body, letting him run away to leave her to use his rag to wipe Vik Vektor's blood from her katana. If Sora were more vocal a presence, she would have been muttering about the damnable fool Nomad. She was prepared to skewer him through the chest and pin him to his damned car; she'd fucking walk back to Arasaka Tower.

It was utter annoyance when she realized the Nomad was staying in the clinic to call a fellow Ripperdoc friend of Vik's for help, and to assist Misty in applying emergency first aid to Vektor. There was even dulling gall in her that Vektor had enough presence of mind to walk the two through his own first aid. Sora jerked her head in the direction of the once more hissing cat at the top of the stairs that had led down to the clinic. "Are you fucking happy, now?"

Disgusted, Sora simply sheathed the blade back on her back and straightened her suit jacket, wandering off to find the Nomad's car, lighting a cigarette as she walked to calm her temper and nerves. Nomads were never far from their cars.

The Clyesdale was sitting pretty parked about two blocks down, the trail of all terrain tire marks and his unique blend of tobacco would lead her right on to it. The car wasn't covered in stickers and markers, instead the Jodes family emblem was on the hood. Thick armor of the vehicle was shined and blue, along its side painted strikes along it as it cut marks or decals. Each one a deep black with a red outline as if a beast had gored them in. It was bigger, an extended cab and trunk meant he’d probably tuned the engine to keep the power able to move all this weight. It was a one of a kind car, the kind of thing most nomads dreamed of rather than owned.

Dusty for his part, had moved Doc into his own patient's chair doing his best to listen and apply first aid. He’d learned some on the farms up north when guys got gored by horns or work equipment. But this was sure as shit new level he was dealing with for stab wounds, so breathing deep with a phone in one hand applying tourniquet to the wound as he breathed out. He focused, Misty cried off to one side while assisting as he finished up blood still on his hands. “You got him till doc Ryder gets here?” He spoke hugging Misty tight before taking a breath heading back for his car, probably a lose of real fucking easy payday.

But he could live with that... He couldn’t live with himself if he’d let Misty and Vik just get... Fuck. Great, he was starting to remember he didn’t usually take big high paying gigs, always fucking something about them! So exiting out through the alley behind the place he tossed his smoke while walking back towards the car, as he started to leave a couple of Maelstorm goons were eyeing him no doubt pissed about earlier. This had to be something to do with Jackies death, even from the Afterlife he was still managing to rope Duston in on bad ideas.

So with Maelstorm’s spider eyes on him not worried about it he walked to his car, to his boss to have what was probably going to be a very heated chat. He just prayed that if she killed him wouldn’t ruin his car... His sister would take care of his baby at least, he’d spent more on that care than some Mercs do on Apartments, guns, sex, and liquor combined.

She stood facing the car, on the passenger side, staring a hole through the Nomad with dark, dark, brown eyes. Her voice much as it ever was, so calm it sounded bored, "Did you know Jackie Welles and V?" He had, obviously to her, known Vik Vektor and Misty Olszewski. It was no great leap of logic or deductive reasoning to think he might have.

“I did know Jackie, T-Bug too. Been out of the city awhile, wasn’t here to meet this V. Merc’s are a tight clique, Jackie wanted to go big time but... I can’t, I got people to think about. Family, Clan, and more of what I earn goes back home to help them if harvests get bad.” He paused, drumming his fingers on the hood as he stood by the driver side door. “What I can tell you is this. Misty does her best to help people and try to guide them down a good path... Vik, well he gives away as much as he makes in that little back alley. They didn’t mean to rock the boat, they ain’t mercs and Edgerunners. They just live in a shit city where the only people who ever mean anything are those who are gonna die going against the system. If you don’t... You become part of it, till the corps or the city kill you.” He answered looking back the way he head come more Maelstorm goons now loitering watching the pair eyeing the car.

Sora's head bowed, as an audible, deep, sigh escaped her lips the moment before she brought her cigarette up to the same lips for another drag. The smoke made her voice just that much deeper than normal. "...I warned you not to interfere. Is it that you don't understand what I am? Is it that you don't get the zero-sum game Arasaka plays? Explain this to me, Nomad." The word, she exaggerated both syllables of, as one might a heavy handed curse. Dark brown eyes now staring up at him through bangs of black hair, and inner rage that came and went like a ghost in the system.

“I get that but... That, that shit was personal beef. Not Saka corpo cleanup detail, you were doing this for them heads would have been off and you’d have been in the car before they spoke.” He answered bluntly, looking right back into her eyes without fail, soft hazel eyes meeting her own. “...I ain’t gonna make you spill but maybe we'll trade little details... Because whoever you really want it ain’t some people who don’t know anything about living.” He breathed slowly as he shut his eyes. “Cause vengeance we can do. But if you want it, we get the bastard who did you wrong. Not those with cut strings left laying on the floor.” He spoke, casting a glance at the Maelstorm mercs. “Let’s ride, you can give the lecture as we go, I’d rather not shoot my through fucking borgs.”

Sora flicked her cigarette, removed the sheathed blade from her back, and got into the car's passenger side, letting the katana rest between her legs. "El Coyote Bar. It wasn't personal to me, I don't care if they live or die, but you don't get to hurt Arasaka and have no one pay some price. Welles paid with his life, fine, but V did not. Well...they're probably dead or dying, but not by our hand, and in not in a way that serves public notice that you do not FUCK with Arasaka in Night City."

She didn't look his direction, but the opposite. She enjoyed looking out windows, she enjoyed watching the world blur by. It reminded her of trains, and home.

“Then find V or people who helped them, hell I’ll help if it keeps you from stabbing civvies.” Dusty spoke climbing behind the wheel of the car, flipping the Maelstorm boys the bird as they shut the armored door and the screens projecting the view outside. “And you don’t fuck with Nomad clans but killing everyone who knows a person is a bit much.” He added as they crawled out into the clamoring traffic of night city heading for the highways.

“Mama Welles has lost all of them, she’s working dead end in a bar... You thinking killing her will send a message? Only message it sends is really more people living there to stand up to Japanese interests, Saka isn’t getting anything from a dead old lady, a Mystic, and a doctor. Way I hear it, V has created a movement, more Mercs than ever. More Fixers, more high risk jobs and shit tons of brave new souls.” He shook his head as he stopped at a light.

“But, you wanna make things right with Saka? You wanna put fear in the Night City Edge Runners. You gotta hit them back... Killing a handful of people who knew a person won’t change nothing, gotta kill the idea that now is an age where the many take from the few.” He spoke as they finally started up onto the highway, the engine humming as his hand moved each gear up manually.

“I never said I was going to hurt ‘Mama’ Welles. Or that I gave a fuck about making things ‘right’ for Arasaka. They’ll be content with brutalization and ‘he probably died.’ That’s fine with me.”

"Lady, sometimes I wonder if your speaking in riddles just to fuck with my head." He answered as they got to speed, moving through the traffic. "I just... Trying to understand ya, you ain't the usual corpo type and you ain't just another hired gun." He added heading down the ramp towards the bar as they slowed down once again.

When the Nomad looked again, he’d find Sora staring at him, instead of outside the passenger ‘window.’ And smiling. “I have my own agenda in this city, this time. Vic Vektor and Jackie Welles’ beloved were agenda items for Arasaka, not for myself, personally. We’ve tried finding V; they’re gone. Either dead, or my guess, off world. If off world, that’s someone else’s job to track…I’ve had my off world time. I’d rather not, again. If dead, nothing we can do. Mr. Welles has no grave, but I’ve heard El Coyote has the closest thing to it. So I want to see it. I want to…pay my respects, such as it were. If that confuses you…I suppose I don’t blame you at all. I’ll leave the katana in the car, if it makes you feel better.”

To say nothing of showing up at El Coyote was expected of her by those at Arasaka watching the streets. She could say anything she wanted about what happened once she was inside, but she would, at the very least, have to make a show of going in.

“Well good, still got a color to bring... And to pay my respects too... If you like, I could... Tell you about’em? Jackie used to drink with me, I met the guy years ago. Right after he got out of the gangs and I was still sleeping in my back seat with a shotgun.” He chuckled a bit as he gave the ninja a smile. “I met T-Bug shortly after I got my first invite to the Afterlife... She was the runner on that job, wasn’t she?” He asked quietly, as they neared the parking lot. “I’d... I’d like to pay respects to her too, they were both friends. Pour one out as we do, say a few words maybe... For whatever god will have my friends' souls up above.” He added taking a breath as they slipped into a space next to a few Valentino’s bikers as he reached down towards the center console where a bottle of Firewater sat next to his smokes.

“Sora... Seems like you and I are gonna be an interesting pair, ain’t we?” Spoke the younger nomad, giving her a somewhat cheeky smile as he tipped his hat back.

A B B Y + C U P I D
A B B Y + C U P I D

Abby used to gamble in here. She used to shop, braindance, chat with friends - but she'd withdrawn from all of that in her paranoia. It contented her enough to wander through the digital streets in her most perfect and complete form. Bereft of pain, bodily function and ageing. Ripped from mortality yet tethered to the meat and cybernetics by a plastic umbilical. She'd begrudgingly accepted that Transcendence wasn't ready for her yet and the technology hadn't advanced far enough to keep her here but even a little while each day to skirt around in paradise was enough - for now. For the time being. Oftentimes in her reflection of what life was like, she considered severing the cord. Plunging off the edge and getting stretched into binary. The thoughts haunted her still, the eternal question; if she could choose where and when to die, shouldn't it be in here? She could pretend to have transcended. There was always a glimmer of hope that she would, if she were only brave enough to make the leap. Dead in the Data Pool. The only place she felt at peace.

Her five minute warning alarm went off.

Abby grimaced. She rarely, if ever, wanted to leave at the right time. She didn't like the re-entry into her corpse. She thought of other methods too, things like loosening her headrest so that body would slip under the ice water (would it hurt, to drown in the Data Pool? Would it scare her? Would she even notice - would she even know she died?) but her parole officer and guardian angel wouldn't allow it. Unspoken agreement. He started checking her apparatus diligently each time she bought bags of ice. In the same way that she wouldn't let him slip out of her nasty metal fingers, Abby owed it to Valentine to try and keep herself in the real world for a while longer. Even if it hurt and it was exhausting.

She sat down in some small alcove and brought up a text document titled 'GoBackReasons.txt'. She had the same list on paper in her book. Valentine's name was at the top but she needed more than obligation to drag her out of the aether this time. Her fingers slipped between lines of cold, plucking the threads of data until she found the feed she wanted and flickered on the security footage for their apartment.

Valentine - for once - seemed sober. He was standing in the living room, looking at some nonsense on their holo TV setup, and occasionally checking his watch. The man who she’d entered a reverse-suicide-pact with was in a grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans - so normal, so bland, so utterly and reprehensibly generic that it actually made him stand out. Like a signature, but written in Calibri, using white ink - only on a world of colour. He was a smudge on a broken mirror in an art gallery - something grey, worn, unintentional, but in that very same way unique too.

He glanced towards the bathroom, then up at the camera. There was no way he’d know she was watching him - but he tapped his watch all the same.

420Cupid>//: I’m gonna order from the fucking noodle place, i forget the name idk where it is, you can only have some of my weed if you’re out on time

420Cupid>//: and you know the munchies make those dumplings worth it

Abby chuffed amusedly. She didn't need to type, the words flitted down the little box in her periphery unfettered by human effort.

DefaultUser>//: You look like a bracket

DefaultUser>//: You look like you're tryin to audition for the caucasian man in a couch commercial

DefaultUser>//: Want some royalty free music to leisurely put your feet up on the cushions too?

DefaultUser>//: Are you cosplaying whoever u think John is

DefaultUser>//: Is that what this is

DefaultUser>//: This is your whitesona

DefaultUser>//: Low key scared I'm gonna come out n you're gonna lift your hand up and smile at me

Valentine scowled up at the camera.

420Cupid>>//: Fuck you I'm comfy

420Cupid>>//: If you want dumplings you gotta be out on time today, and you always make me get you dumplings so I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's worth it for you

Abby checked her list. 'Noodles with the big dumplings' was written fairly high up. With one last, wistful look across the pixelated horizon, the netrunner began to log off from the Data Pool.

Sensation came back in increments. As soon as she disconnected from the digital realm, Abby was flooded with the cold of her ice bath - one wet shuddering gasp followed by multiple loud sloshes. An electrical impulse rattled down her left arm, sparked through the circuitry and pulled the silicone fibres taut. Numb, artificial fingers dragged at the plugs and tore out the wires. Pistons in her legs pulled at metal cables and pushed the body upward, rightward and out of the tub. She landed on the dusty, hair speckled bathmat with a wet thump.

There weren't enough muscles in Abby to shiver anymore so she had to get herself warm and dry as quickly as possible. Cyber was cold; all plastic and pieces with very little in the way of heating elements. Even after she'd wiped off the water with a deliberately placed bath towel on top of the toilet seat, peeled off the swimming costume and wrapped herself in a luridly coloured bath robe she still felt the deep, boneshaking chill in her chest and her stomach. Familiar wretched thoughts about how there was no cold in the Data Pool reared their ugly heads. Abby was quick to stifle them. Being cold was just as human of an experience as hunger and sweating and having indigestion. It all needed to be honoured as such.

She strolled into the living room and curled up in front of an old space heater, turning it on. She had a particular habit of lying face first, as the weight and protrusion of the Pifner surpassed the tip of her surgically altered nose. The lights from the television lit up her exposed cyber in eerie, uncertain patterns. Even with her camera flush against the floorboards she could still see a series of different feeds from different angles; she was still watching Valentine without looking. She smiled wearily.

"It's still pretty hard. Getting out's…still pretty hard," Abby acknowledged.

“Yeah, I know it is.” Valentine reached down to offer her a hot chocolate - or the synthetic, thrice reprocessed, artificially constituted version of a hot chocolate, at least. Abby made the effort. She scraped her metal face to the side, grabbing the mug, sitting upright to take careful sips. It wasn't the flavour she craved, but the warmth; and had she been more endowed with cybernetics she would have burnt her gums, tongue and throat to guzzle the entire mug.

“But, you know, I’ve been in a bit of a sentimental mood all day, and I think that’s why it occurred to me that… if… well, if I were still a doctor, and you were one of my patients, I think I would be so…” He paused, turning the volume down on the television as he sat on the sofa next-to-and-above Abby, and gently flopped the blanket she’d left for him down onto her. She bent slightly on impact, then dragged it over her shoulders.

“... I would tell all the nurses about how well you were doing. I’d make remarks on it every day, I really would. In the doctors’ mess, getting the free mess coffee - free-ish at least, still need to pay twenty quid a month for membership believe it or not - I’d tell my mates all about the next big step you’d taken, in as much as I could and still keep confidentiality. Every time you get out of the bath at all I’m proud.”

He took a sip of his coffee - not the real stuff, but for his purposes close enough.

“Every time. I know it just sounds like platitudes, but I’m not even exaggerating. I really am proud of you.”

"For you. Every time." Abby set the mug aside, sat leaning against the sofa. "Well-not just you. But if you weren't there, then I'd…dumplings alone does not a good reason make," she skirted around the truth because it didn't need to be said, there was no need to manifest it by speaking it out loud. They both knew.

Again loosely masking her words in light-hearted humour, Abby leant back against the sofa cushions. "You've tricked me again into believing something I'm not sure is real, which makes me the fool here…but I've always been a sucker for a happy fantasy." She tilted her head towards him. It's a sheer metal brick stuck to her skull, and it's only when she's tired that he could almost feel the weight of it dragging down on her neck. The headaches.

"Sobriety's one hell of a drug, huh? I'm glad you're…here. Fully. It's even harder when you're not."

Valentine swallowed, and nodded.

"Me too. I think I'm gonna… sort of, keep my head on a bit straighter for a bit. You're right, it's a good night to be sober."

Abby pulled the blanket around her, focusing in particular with her legs. Machinery took a while to heat up, so retaining as much of that heat as she could was essential to re-equilibrate her body temperature. "Did you order the food?" She asked after some silence.

Valentine smiled and nodded, flicking the channel on the holo idly, moving from scene to scene.

Abby felt it - if she hadn't been in the Pool she probably would've even felt it before he did himself.

The restlessness.

But he knew that she knew.

"One of them died, I'm afraid." He said at last, still flicking through. "Our mates from the chop shop job - the small guy. When we handed them over they were still cold, so I figure he was probably just colder than she was, and then developed a fatal arrhythmia when we weren't around to fix it."

Valentine closed his eyes, and sighed.

"The way I hear it they had someone watching them - like we told them to - and were giving CPR within a minute. Defib and everything."

A pause. Abby ruminated on a cold so fierce it can cause the heart to shiver.

"Quite proud of them actually. It's just that it didn't matter. He just died."

"He was alive when we handed them in. That's on them, not you." Abby pulled the blankets tighter, wrapped herself up in them and rested some under her head like a cushion. "They wouldn't have even had a chance if we weren't there, and the lady still survived - hell, that other lady survived too. Went out of your way to ensure that. What else were you meant to do? Preheated the van and everything…You said it yourself, he just died. Believe it this time." She didn't look his way because she didn't have to, and the hot air against her Pifner was keeping the brainfreeze at bay. Instead she frowned and replayed the last few seconds of audio again, listening carefully this time.

"Yeah, I know. I don't blame us whatsoever. It's just…"

He grimaced.

"It's a shame. Life is fragile."

"I have a pacemaker in my heart. Any wobble and it goes zzzZZAP. Back in business." She rolled onto her back with a clunk and a grin. "I've got those…subdermal injectors…I've got emergency fuel supplies, I've got my own technically not trauma team doc. I've probably got some other shit in there too. Woe upon whoever tries to put me in the ground for good."

Valentine grinned down at her.

"You're goddamn right. Fucking invincible, we are. More you than me."

He shrugged, standing to get the food as the doorbell rang.

"The whole thing just has me in a sentimental sort of mood, I think. Nothing ever goes properly, not a single day without some sort of hitch or complication."

Valentine smiled wistfully, pausing at the door.

"Which is, of course, what I like about it."

"Acquired taste," Abby ruefully retorted. "Where my dumplings at?"

After getting the takeout microwaved until it was blisteringly hot Abby ate her way through the noodles at speed, primarily to get at the greasy broth and limp, soggy vegetables stuck in the bottom of the carton. She ate her dumplings in two bites each. She practically wolfed down the meal, barely taking any time to appreciate it in her desire to warm up. They watched television for a while in silence because Valentine was still working his way through his own order. It didn't take long for the fatigue, full stomach, space heater and blanket to get to her and her breathing steadied into a gentle snore before Valentine could finish up his pack of pork gyozas. There was a faint but familiar click as the light on the Pifner switched off, turning to standby mode.

As she fell asleep, Valentine let out a sigh of relief. If she slept, she was alright - that's how it always was with her.

His mind wandered. He found himself remembering the skinny young man they'd pulled out of the ice - how Abby had neglected the looting entirely, in the interest of saving the pair they'd been sent for.

He sighed again, not quite in relief, and his mind wandered further. He remembered his studies, the constant strive to learn it all and the equally constant failure to do so - he remembered finally learning that such a failure was natural, that nobody could be expected to know so much all at once. He saw images in his mind's eye - books, papers, essays, interspersed with memorising Surahs that were long, long lost to him now.

More and more often as he grew older, Valentine remembered what it had been like to be young.

After another moment lost in reverie, Valentine put his hands on his knees and hefted himself up from the couch, taking another place at the sleeping form on the floor below him, setting his dumplings down on the ground next to her - knowing full well that they'd likely be eaten before she was even fully awake - and he made a move for his bedroom.

Yahyā Al-Hakim had been careful when choosing a place to live. He wanted somewhere he could at least pretend was spacious enough for two, he wanted somewhere where the hot water and the internet worked properly, and most importantly he had wanted a bedroom without a carpet.

Without even humming to himself, he picked up the broom he always kept behind his bedroom door, and he started sweeping. A vacuum would wake Abby, which wasn't fair, but on a smooth floor the brush would work well enough.

Diligently he cleaned. Dust, a few loose hairs, loose dross from his habits - but never very much.

Yahyā understood that this was not a requirement for him. He knew it was something he was - at least in the words of the others, the majority - considered 'exempt' from, even if that was a disingenuous way to put it, but it wouldn't feel right if he didn't do it at least occasionally.

After sweeping, Yahyā took a good look at the floor - checking for spillages or stains that would require mopping.

He smiled and was satisfied that there were none.

Unrolling his mat and kneeling down on it, he remembered when his mother had taught him how to pray, out on the courtyard square in the middle of summer, just after his tenth birthday.

"Yahyā, remember, nobody can force you to do this. There is no obligation in our faith, no compulsion - we do it because it feels right. We do it because we feel we need to, because we want to, to be closer with our creator - not because a man or a woman made us do it."

He leaned down and held his face to the floor, bowing before a creator he didn't always think was listening, and didn't always even believe in. He opened his mouth and began to speak the words he had clung to in his heart the day he'd lost his arm. He said, in a whisper so loud that it echoed so every star in the sky could hear it, the names of his mother and father, the names of his wife and his son, and the word he had been taught meant God.

He made a measured, delicate plea - a statement of his hope.

He said the name of the young man who had succumbed to his injuries and his hypothermia not so long ago - and he asked his creator to look after him, to be merciful and kind to him.

He did all of this under his breath.

Quietly, he began to pray.

It took a little while, but not very long, and when he was done he rolled up his prayer mat and put it back in its usual spot in the corner.

In the living room he heard his phone go off.

A text from Eddie.

Valentine re-entered the living room to answer it, taking one more dumpling from the tray he'd left for Abby as he typed out his reply.

420Cupid>//: Always a pleasure, Eddie. We'll be there. Looking forward to it.

"Hey." He said out loud, nudging the sleeping woman with his foot. "Look alive, there's work going. Eddie wants us to meet her in the crypt."




Poised, bedecked in a padded bodysuit complete with a motorcycle helmet and utterly silent. Abby was a different beast entirely when she needed to resurface into Night City, and it had everything to do with her paranoia. She let Valentine order the drinks but wouldn't touch her own. The loud music drowned out conversation but she wasn't in the mood for talking. After a few minutes she pinged Valentine's phone with a notification.

It was a gaudy screenshot of one of those cheap mobile app games. Abby had taken a picture of her latest high score. In her mind's eye, the UI of the Pifner, she was watching the little tower defense sprites play out the feverish commands she input. They were frantically trying to pop balloons. Abby's been playing this game for months, trying to get the best score online and failing to even get close because she wouldn't hack it.

Valentine sighed, loudly, and turned back towards the petulant hacker with a bottle of beer for her. He was dressed up too - but with a decidedly different aesthetic, sporting a thick grey cotton overshirt and white tee combo, paired up with a pair of near-black chinos and the one pair of boots he actually bothered to polish. Somewhere under there a trained eye could spot a concealed vest - the sort of insurance that those in the know knew intimately.

“You haven’t even beat me yet.” He frowned, taking a sip of his own drink - a gin and tonic with a dash of lime cordial.

"Not everything can be perfect in the real world," Abby's voice crackled through the microphone in her helmet. "At least I'm doing it the hard way. When are they expecting us?"

“Very shortly, should probably make our way through in fact.”

Claire - the bartender - nodded conspicuously as he said it, and gestured in the direction of the crypt itself.

“Right. Cheers Claire.” Valentine replied nonchalantly, turning to head towards it. “What do you reckon we’re really here for, anyway? Eddie asked for both of us - which, far as I know, she doesn’t always do.”

"Maybe it'll have something to do with…popping balloons-fuckdamnit," Abby hissed as she failed the level. "Either way. We're going to find out, so finish your drink and let's get on with it."

“Fuck sake. I was trying to make it last.”

There it was. Just like Clancy said. The burning bullet that would probably trace back to when he was an agent out hunting for traitors. Seemed this time that he would be going in the opposite direction. Brown's face was steely cold, and his face blank without any emotion outside of his well-trained habit of calmness. He was never one to fret over a job but this one made him wonder if this was some sort of bizarre fall man plot? Seemed to be organized...but they're paying out to this many people, hoping no one rats, and if they do its probably game. Granted everyone here was on that list now even if they refused. Militech didn't take being slapped in the face lightly. "High end equipment, codes, faking an enemy hit like its a gang war. Trying to stir the preverbal pot until its something you're ready to eat up? How up to date are the codes? I imagine if you've gone this far you're good but if we get there and the codes are bad things won't go so well. Multiple different options of 'getting out of dodge' would be preferrable. Not required of course but things can change if things go south. With that said I would hope that out of all of us here I'm not the only one who speaks CORPO. Hard to false flag when all they speak is Night Citian. Street trash around here tend to get riled easily, don't fancy manners...respect. Hard to fake. I lived, and breathed that myself. Takes certain mannerisms, and niceties to rich kids with old money." John speaks up his calm business like voice speaking with an icy chill as takes a breath. He had a brief thought back to his days of bowing to head executives, and politely telling bosses of his 'trash cleaning' adventures. Way behind him now. No point in considering the figurative knife in his back.

"Variables, and the constants are important that much I don't expect I need to say but I will. I can handle but a convincing operation on this scale comes down to its bones. Otherwise you may just...water down your alcohol so to speak. Some people won't care, but the people who do will notice. Stealing is one thing, posing another, but it takes skill, and talent to do both at the same time. I apologize if I have spoken out of term. But a man such as myself tends to believe that if a job is big, its worth doing right." John finishes as he makes no attempt to move, or gesture he speaks more like a business man purposing a new tax break than he does a man easily breaking down attempted theft, and blame shifting of one major corpo faction against another.

......
........
..........

The Netrunner scanned the room. First through the lens of the virtual construct which materialized in the form of the science fiction character, Kasumi. And then, through a series of screenings, pinging internal networks as she perused brief packets of data on each of the members present for the meeting. She really didn’t know much about any of them going in and wanted to be prepared for any surprises, and yet from the intel gathered within just a few seconds, she wondered if this was really the best group to pull off such a mission. Would the integrity hold? The list of cyberware on a couple of the mercs was astounding, only posing the question of whether their gear would be a liability if not kept in check.

But why did this matter to Qiara? She wasn’t running the show, nor would she ever want to. A responsibility like this is not in her wheelhouse. She supposed her real concern was more about trust of course. Trust in her teammates. Trust in the fixer. As well as her own interests in this new gig. The euros gained could definitely help her in upgrading some personal netgear, stuff that NightCorp never bothered to assist with as it wasn’t in alignment with the plans for their top netrunner and cyberguru.

Qiara’s relatively abrupt “leave of absence” from the Corpo world had been a surprise, but also she felt some liberation as the heel of the industry slowly lifted from her neck. Perhaps there were bigger things in her future?

Then Eddie entered the room, and Qiara felt her heart jump a bit. Things were starting up and perhaps she wasn’t as mentally prepared to dive into a new chapter of her life as she thought. Of course, as the beautiful Fixer began the run-down in her opening statement to the group, the Netrunner suddenly had doubts of whether or not she made the right choice in accepting the offer. She had never been in a situation like the one she found herself in now, and that alone frightened her.

She had a bad feeling about the whole situation.

Or maybe it was just the breakfast granola and fruit smoothie churning in her gut.

---

Duston had been greeted in the parking lot by a few Valentinos who recognized the ride, they usually hung around the bar. El Coyote Cojo was a dump to many, to Dusty it felt like the little town bar he stopped at traveling across the country. Of course it wasn't the same but he liked it, Pepe was behind the bar as usual when he came in.

However with a shout Mama Welles emerged from the back, hugging him as he brought two clay jugs of firmwares and a cooler in. "I brought you and Jackie that treat we talked about... Wish he could have shared it with us." He spoke quietly, hugging the woman back like some aunt hadn't seen in years. "You said you had an old recipe for them? Well I'd like to try it."

The Nomad let her take the cooler as the older woman smiled sadly at it. "Jackie's memorial... Is over in the corner if you wish to say goodbye." Dusty nodded quietly, he never knew what to say when people lost like this. He remembered how she had been when Jackie's brother had passed. So he patted her shoulder letting her move to open the cooler on the bar counter. As Pepe too the bottles of fire water he shook his head.

"You picked a bad time too..." A moment later trailing the arrival of the merc the figure of the woman he'd brought with him hung in the doorway. "Yeah, it seems like everything has trouble these days. Me included." Duston turned, looking at Sora the bar itself seemed to suit the cowboy Nomad as he hovered next to a mass muscle who looked as exhausted as he could be. Next to him the thin grief wracked frame of Mama Welles who had just looked at the pair she was just putting away Dusty's gifts to them.

"Sora, come on over, let's make some introductions." Duston spoke, flicking his lighter really wanting to smoke right now.

Sora stopped just inside the door. Her mind went into gear; the structure and set-up of the establishment was noted and projections began on where the most likely weapon was, where the best exit was should things go south, the sight lines of the second level down to the first level, every person was noticed and analyzed as to what walk of life they were from and what faction of Night City they likely belonged to, who could potentially be bought, who could potentially be bullied, and who would be more difficult to deal with.

By the time she heard Dusty's voice pierce the veil of her mental analysis, her eyes were already stuck in place: the ofrenda. It wasn't Sora's first time seeing one; she had been in Mexico for Día de Muertos before. Dusty's call towards her had led other eyes to her; most notably, Mama Welles. Sora's gaze snapped away from the family altar to the proprietress of the El Coyote. Something was said to her under the breath of the old woman, something that Sora thought she heard, but wasn't entirely sure...

When she was at the bar, she said, flatly, "Hello."

"Soda?" Pepe asked, drawing Sora's eyes from Mama Welles.

"...what? No, thank you."

Pepe scratched the back of his neck, a touch of nervous energy, "Oh, no, I meant...your name? Soda?"

Sora's flat stare moved to Dusty, "I have to retrieve something from your car. I'll be right ba--"

"--haha, she's funny," Dusty touched her. TOUCHED her, taking her by the shoulder and keeping her right there for the moment.

Sora didn't feel funny, but the little look she gave the Merc in the moment didn't exactly disagree with the idea that she was joking. Mostly, anyway. "Sora," she corrected Pepe, her head following her eyes as she turned to Mama Welles once more. "What is it you said?" It was potentially rude, and possibly an assumption, but Sora's hearing was that good, and she was all but certain in what she had heard the woman mutter under her breath.

True to everything she had heard about the woman, Mama Welles didn't budge an inch in her stare down of the Japanese woman. She didn't look surprised to be called out, she didn't even bother hesitating or trying to lie, her tone was blunt and her head held high, unafraid, "Santa Muerte. I looked at you, and I saw Death walk into my bar, so I called you Santa Muerte...Saint Death."

"Pepe, why don't you get us a couple of whiskeys neat?" Dusty spoke, trying to help the guy avoid dying his wife would break down if she lost him. Deciding to try and defuse tension a little he spoke up.

"Mama Welles, this is Sora, my boss. She's contracted me as her driver... She wanted to see the place and I figured you wouldn't mind the business." He smiled trying to be sweet and show he cared as he looked between the two women. Really helping Sora didn't head for his car again. He wasn't sure the reinforced doors could stop her for long.

"Oh? And who do you work for, Sora?"

The hard-edge and tension of Mama Welles eyes and voiced never changed, but Sora accepted the whiskey when presented to her and made sure to adjust her internal settings so the alcohol could take some purchase of her body; adjust her internal system settings to allow the drink to slightly poison her, as alcohol was supposed to. "I'm..." It wasn't the easiest thing to explain, her position within the company, "I'm the operative in charge of security evaluation for the Night City situation for Arasaka Corp."

Welles' eyes widened, even if just a touch, at the ready admission of the woman, "Arasaka? Your people killed my boy."

"It was a drone that shot him, although technically the fall killed him, according to the initial forensic investigation of the scene," casually said, as Sora took a sip of the drink, "if he hadn't we would have hunted him down just the same. I would have, matter of fact."

Welles seemed halfway between angered by it, and amused by it, "And V?"

"V we believe is off-world, others are after them."

"You won't catch V," spoken with absolute, unwavering, belief.

The kind that just made Sora grin, and raise her glass in the air a foot, "To V and Jackie Welles, then."

“To Jackie, best friend I ever made in Night City... Even if he found more trouble than a fat cow in a Coyote pen.” The Nomad adde raising a toast to Jackie. “Mama Welles, I didn’t come here to start trouble but how about a couple of those steaks... A bit of fire water too, I’ll regale Sora here with some tales about Welles.” He offered to try to distract from their problems at the moment and get the topic somewhere else. He was nervous someone would take offense if he didn’t get things moving in the right direction.

Gesturing towards an empty booth he sighed. “How about a little heart to heart Sora since we’ve both clearly got some knowledge about something else the other is interested in.”

The Arasaka ninja chuckled. "I just like you assume I still have a heart. Lead the way."

“Even if they put in a chrome one you still feel. So I know it’s there even if you hide it.” He spoke leading her into the booth and taking a seat as Pepe dropped off a bottle of the fire water he’d brought in. Powerful moonshine the Nomads could use to run vehicles, generators, or get wasted also damn good stuff.

“So let’s start with me. I’m a part time merc, I’m only here a few months out of the year, mostly till harvest. I leave my problems outside at the border and pick up the ones I left here when I come in. But how is it you just happened to be going after all the little circles of the mid tier mercs like myself are in on?” He reached into his jacket for a smoke as he offered the pack to her as well.

“You’re pissed but clearly you don’t catch much for Saka. You are here for something personal in the Merc world, now normally I’d be against turning on other mercs for a corpo but... I know revenge when I see it, and I chase that path myself from time to time. So, here’s what I’ll offer. My intel and connections into the Merc world and helping you dig around for whoever it is you're looking for. Cause it’s not anymore connected to V that has you pissed, you got a name that needs crossing.”

Saint Death returned to Sora's face as Dusty spoke. He had trespassed on ground equal parts cursed and sacred. Gone was the chuckle, gone was any light or life in her features. The obsession was back, the focus that kept her awake every night, the memories and the thoughts that were hoarded and cherished every hour of every day, without fail. Sora leaned back in the worn cushion of the El Coyote booth seat, her long black hair unmoving as she was all but perfectly still, staring into the Merc's eyes. "Have you ever been in love?"

“Yes. I won’t go into details but she’s gone now and my brother was at fault.” He spoke, hardening his face, flicking open a lighting up his cigarette as he leaned back into the cushion. He drew a deep breath taking in the smoke as he exhaled hard as he shut his eyes a moment. “Like I said. I understand revenge.” He spoke, pouring them both a round of fire water.

"You misunderstand." Sora's eyes flicked to the bar, above to the second level, there, back again to the Merc. "I've loved two people. Two people have loved me. My mother, and a woman named Etta Autry. My mother was crushed under the dishonor and cowardice of my father, until I could help her be free. Etta Autry..." Sora trailed to silence. How to explain? Was there a way to truly convey it all? "I was working in Europe. She had managed to arrange a clerk, assistant job for a member of Arasaka Counter-Intel in the same office I was based in. She wasn't there for me. She wasn't spying on me. She was there to gather information for a job, a long term con, and the only way to get the kind of background, detailed, information for their heist. European Mercs...are a higher class of Merc than you and yours, Dusty. They're truly professional, part corpo in their own right. Most are former military or corporate. I believe she was both. One night I have a particularly nasty armed conflict with a group of mercs. Talented group, to leave me that bloody. She heard me come into the office. She noticed the blood. She patched me, she spent the night watching over me. It was...the start of something beautiful, the only time I've ever experienced that kind of thing."

Her voice wavered in the pain of the memory. The sigh was deep, her near black eyes trailing the surface of the table, her vision going past the table, into the past. "When I found out, I found out because I caught up to her merc group. I chased them across Europe. It had nothing to do with her, it had nothing to do with the fact she was married to one of the other mercs in that group. They were hitting Arasaka, I wanted to catch them. It's what I am, it's what I do. They were good...they were the best I've ever seen." Her eyes came up to his, her head giving the barest of nods to reaffirm just how much she meant that. "On the moon I caught up to them, during their big heist. I killed three of them that day. It took a heavy toll, I was near death when I collapsed. I don't remember...all of it. Chasing them allowed them to set a trap for me. I didn't see it coming. When I woke up...she was kneeling beside me, once again, caring for me. She said she loved me, she said she was sorry. She gave me a hypo so I didn't die...later that day I caught up to them again."

Sora's eyes hadn't moved from his eyes, but somehow, now, they weren't on him...they just stared through him, a thousand yard stare into the infinity of past and pain. "They escaped using a stolen craft. I followed. I hit them before reentry. Her husband died. By the time I woke up I was floating in the ocean, lucky Arasaka found me. She was gone. What they stole went with her. We recovered her husband's body."

Her gaze fell to the fire water, her hand reaching out, a thirst upon her as she winced at the burn of the shot she downed. "I will find her. I will tear this city apart to find her. I will do Arasaka's business, but nothing will get in my way this time. I will catch her. She's a ghost, usually, hidden behind rival corporate firewalls and governments that I believe just erased her records. But I know she's here. I know I will find her. If you hear anything, if you see anything...yes, Dusty, tell me. I will ensure you never have to work another merc job for the rest of your life if you don't want to."

”Money’s nice and all... But Sora, what I’d what? A promise that no goon will come knocking on my door to shoot me cause I helped you. Maybe some cash or favors for the family... But shit... I mean it’s heavy I...” He knocked back his drink pausing before putting a hand on her shoulder leaning forward. “I can kinda get where you’re coming from.”

“I’ve got a big family... Half are adopted but it doesn't make a difference we all grew up together. Seven of us. Two boys, five girls, my pop, and my ma. My brother... He’s younger and always wanted to get famous... We're related to Malachi, the man who set up our Nation. He's my grandpapi, of course we ain’t the only ones. But my brother... Jorge was always set on running the clan, then the whole nation one day. Course to do that he needed to get famous...” He took another long drag watching the smoke curl past his hat for a bit then sighed.

“We were working with the Meta’s. I fancied a girl from Meta Corp, sky jockey herself who had wanted to learn how a real racer handled the roads. We were young and having a blast tearing up dirt and tumbles in hay where no one would catch us.” He sighed, pressing the cigarette out on the ashtray before looking into her eyes. “Last time I saw her we were talking about requesting permission from both our families to marry and discuss where we’d move too. A little while later I’m doing a scouting run, when I hear her AV under fire... Her cursing and yelling for help.” He spoke, shutting his eyes as took off his hat to run a hand through his auburn hair.

“My car was miles back and I was just on a bike... I turned on the distress beacon and I tore ass towards her signal. It was the biggest horde of Shiv I ever saw with stolen Militech gear, this fat AV loaded with food, medicine, tech, and more from heading over to the Metacorp as part of a trade deal. It slams into the ground with the most cursed thud I’ve ever heard... So I do the most damn fool thing I can think of, put the bike in gear and charge down.” He spoke staring back into Sora’s eyes.

“I made it to the AV’s only to find the cockpit on fire. I managed to break the glass, thinking I’d saved her... She’d been dead from smoke inhalation for minutes before.” He shook his head. “So I took cover, her body next to me and I kept shooting and shooting, eventually all the others turned up and the Shiv ran not worth dying for steak.” He added pouring a shot then knocking it back.

“After all that, my family is saying they are so impressed. There is talk about how brave I was or how I really take after Malachi.” He looked at that bottle. “My brother must have felt something real dark... Cause that night as I was out in the barn unable to sleep looking at a couple of old photos and drinking. He comes in, Mom’s pistol in his right hand pointing it at me.” He took a deep breath before finishing.

“He tells me that was his moment, that he had orchestrated the damn thing. That the Shiv were bribed into hitting that AV with salvage sites he’d found we could have used. That AV had to go down because half the food was missing since he’d given it to them in exchange for helping him stage a big fight he could be the hero of, win his fame and get the title he deserves. I ruined his life, I wasn’t fit to be his brother... A lot of things were said... But when he uttered her name and told how he made sure she’d die so I’d hurt. I lost it.” He turned his head looking around the bar a moment finishing the tale.

“I threw my bottle in his face and yanked my iron and put one in his leg... Dragged him out... And told them all what he did... I wanted to hang’em. I wanted to blow his limbs off.” He spoke slowly, thinking back on that anger. “Then... I saw my mother crying... I couldn't because he was still her baby I... I said we should exile him. He’s Shiv now... It’s why I hate Shiv, because they are all like him or worse. But I stopped. I don't chase him, I don’t let it consume me... Shouldn’t love me like she did if I became that man so I stay better for her love.”

Her eyes never flinched during the tale, and in the end, her voice remained it’s usual detached voice of death self: “Should have killed him. I would have killed him.” Then again, she wanted to say, I let my father beat me for years. “No one’s coming after your people because you help me; even if I find her, even if I kill her, she has no one left to avenge her. She’s completely alone in the world, now…like me.”

“If you are that alone... If you did love her... Try and find a way to forgive... Because you might be happier finding and being with her than alone.” He spoke as he paused for a moment. “If you can’t and you just wanna go... I can get you set up with the Technomancers if you just wanna leave Saka and everything behind. They can get your chrome and software cleaned up if you wanna vanish when it’s over.” He added looking out at the upper level of the bar a moment, Mama Welles bringing out two of the steaks seasoned and finished just right.

“Whatever happens Sora, you broke bread with me. You listened to me. You trusted me. Nomads pay back kindness with kindness, always us Jodes? Well we have also fancied ourselves the first Nomads, I can’t set a bad example.” He chuckled as started to cut into his steak.

Sora regarded his ideas with dead eyes. “Eat, Nomad,” never once pondering the prospect of forgiveness, or escape, in that moment, “we have a busy evening ahead of us.”