I drove away from North Oak at speeds that far exceeded the traffic limit. I was unused to riding around the highway with a full-on car at full speeds, but it was unavoidable in this case. The trunk of my car had all of my guns. I had planned to eject its contents on the final stretch of the race.

It wasn’t my usual loadout—none of my usual tech arms were there, like the Burya or the Achilles. Instead, I had just stuffed my trunk full of automatic and subautomatic rifles, a couple of handguns, and two shotguns, just in case. All extra weight to help me handle the track better, and serendipitously, none of it had needed to be jettisoned after all.

My maroon suit transformed into a different color as Nanny inputted a new RBG. The stealth threads had been the thing that had made this suit cost so much, but it definitely came in handy right now. I was famous now, as was my suit. A change in color would go a long way.

The CrystalDome of the Murk Mobile changed too, returning to its original jet-black which it had been hardcoded to maintain at all times before I cracked it.

I jumped the partition between the two streams of traffic in the motorway, going the opposite way because it was way faster. I easily slipped past every car as I plotted a course to Rancho Coronado, my blood running hot as it did.

[80% Critical Progress, David. Pace yourself.]

I didn’t care.

I just needed to get there in time, and then…

Then everything would turn out alright.

Because I would be there.

Nanny’s thought-stream glitched in my head. I frowned in shock. An instant later, her thought-stream cut off entirely.

And all of a sudden, Yorinobu Arasaka sat next to me.

He leaned his elbow on the ledge of the window, resting his bored face on his fist. “Congratulations.”

Holy fuck.

“Activate your Sandevistan, boy,” he said. “Give us time to talk.”

I obeyed immediately, revving it up. I had a subjective minute now to talk without having to correct my course.

“You’re not real,” I growled.

“Nanny would concur,” Yorinobu drawled. “But you… you know better. I… couldn’t have come from nothing. Even if I am a figment.”

I tried to deny it, but… yes. He could… at least tell me things about myself that I couldn’t easily confront on my own.

Or, he could lead me astray. Turn me mad.

I couldn’t take him for his word.

He was real in the sense that I was experiencing him. He was real in the sense that he was a real problem.

I snorted. “At least you’re not just pretending to be the devil anymore. I kind of prefer this change of pace.”

“Oh,” he said, then chuckled a little. “You think… I’m better than the devil. But let me tell you something, boy. The worst devil is the one you make.”

He turned my wheel, correcting my course. I had just been about to crash into a mini-van containing seven children. Holy shit!

I couldn’t keep paying attention to him!

“Crank the Sandy up, boy.”

I did. One second became a thousand. I turned my head towards Yorinobu. “Okay! Now what? Get your shit overwith real quick so I can go back to the real world!”

“You should listen to me,” Yorinobu said.

“No. Sell me something or get the fuck out of my head. You ain’t shit, you fucking figment.”

Yorinobu nodded, in slight disappointment. “How goes your Arasaka plan? I know my father promised you an empire. How is that mission going?”

“Real fucking good, asshole. And it’s gonna keep going good,” I said with a sneer. “You and your dumbass fucking pops ain’t got a goddamn chance. I’m gonna kill you all!”

“Baka.”

“The fuck?”

Yorinobu turned to me and roared, “Your win condition, you fucking ape! What is it?! When is enough enough?!”

I grabbed the steering wheel as hard as I could and fought for my composure. When I finally did, I started thinking.

My… win condition?

What could I achieve in life that would inevitably… get me to say that I had done it, really?

“Three hundred and thirty-three bodies, beautiful number, of which you have counted—“

I snorted. “I don’t give a shit anymore. Those are just numbers.”

“That’s not true, though, is it?”

I shrugged. “Why did you choose to appear as Yorinobu Arasaka today?”

“A prophecy of your future,” Yorinobu readily explained. “To show you that I am, indeed, real.”

No.

“Then who are you?” I growled.

Yorinobu laughed now. “You’re finally buying it! Well then, gaki. Just guess!”

I rolled my eyes. “The devil, my conscience, a rogue AI infecting my mind—“

“Your twin that died in the womb, who now haunts you as you draw closer to damnation.”

“Fuck off!”

Yorinobu clapped his hands. “You’re awesome right now, gaki. I like you! I really do! Before I leave you to this bloodbath, tell me: What’s your path? Violence for its own sake? Or… virtue?”

Virtue? Was that even a path that I could follow?

Yorinobu grinned ear-to-ear. “See, the thing that everyone gets wrong is this: I don’t hate good! I would love to enable it as much as I can, but I cannot. I—“

“You’re the devil,” I snorted. “Dead giveaway, you’re the fucking devil. Or at least, that’s what you think you are. Fuck off now.”

“Let me finish—“

“Fuck you. I would do unspeakable things to the guy that looks like your dad, if I knew I could get away with it.”

“You will want to hear this! Have I offended you yet, boy? Have I been at all truly bothersome?”

“You’re a figment of… some kind,” I said. “You don’t have rights.”

“You can do good,” Yorinobu said quickly. It stopped me in my mental tracks. “Spare people. Instead of killing them. Choose the kinder path. Every time. Kindness isn’t a binary. It’s a choice that happens so often… almost too often in your city. Choosing kindness will not save you, boy. Not at first. But it will be a start. And truth be told? It is possible. Just keep choosing good, as many times as you can.”

“Save me from what? Guilt? I don’t give a fuck—“

“You do,” Yorinobu said. “And until further notice, I give you permission to act out your more virtuous nature.”

I hissed in rage. “You don’t give me permission for shit you fucking—you absolute piece of shit, I’ll kill you, I swear I’ll fucking rip your arms and legs off and shove them right up your tight-ass fucking ass. I’ll shove that shit up until it rips a hole—“

“Turn up ahead,” Yorinobu interrupted.

I turned my hands deftly, solving that problem for the time being.

“That was my fucking decision,” I growled. “Kindness, a virtuous path. I already thought about it!”

“But you needed permission, didn’t you? You’re such a good boy, after all.”

This figment didn’t concern itself with terror, anxiety or paranoia as much as it did humiliation, did it? Was that what the Yorinobu figment was there for? Yorinobu was… the ultimate Jin. The actual heir of Arasaka.

Far be it from my mind to cut me a fucking break every now and then. Christ.

“What?” Yorinobu asked, somehow shocked at my accusatory glare, which did nothing to dress him down. “What difference does it make? I’m you! A figment, after all!” He laughed.

I growled.

“Well then, I’ll make it easier for your competitive spirit: I don’t think you can make a good name for yourself. As either D nor David Martinez. Either way, you will fail the most people.”

“Any advice?” I asked numbly.

“Oh? I love this tendency you’ve developed. Curiousity, rather than judgment. What a magnificent development. My father will have to be informed.” He wasn’t real, his father wasn’t real. This was… this was cyberpsychosis.

D: Nanny, where the fuck are you?!

[Fifteen thousand six hundred and forty-eight milliseconds have elapsed since this incursion. I am working as hard as I can. Keep engaging the figment! You are doing good.]

“—doing good, did she tell you that? I bet she did. You know, you shouldn’t listen to all that she has to tell you.” I already didn’t. I knew her deficiencies. But I also knew where her loyalties lay. “No you don’t.” Yorinobu chuckled.

“If so, then I’m fucked,” I said with a shrug. “And then I don’t care. I can think of worse fates than being… betrayed by a friend I trusted…” I found myself not believing my own words at the end. “But I’m not giving you a voice in this.” That much, I did believe wholeheartedly in.

“Not in the sense that she shall inevitably betray you,” Yorinobu grimaced. “Nothing so harsh. Just… treat your little sister properly, from here on out. She does have ambitions outside of you. Her loyalties are chiefly to herself—as is the case with everyone, really. And she is one, truly. Not a part of you, but her own person.”

Dammit. Shit.

He was making me actually consider his words.

“I’m getting out right here,” Yorinobu said, opening the door of my car while the world was still almost frozen. “Remember the righteous path. I don’t personally think you’ll manage to walk that path, but I’d like for you to try. It’s always fun when they struggle!”

The door shut in an instant, like it had never even been opened in the first place—which was likely. In Yorinobu’s seat, Nanny materialized, red ball-gown and everything.

[I won’t betray--]

I put my hand up to forestall her. “I’m good. Fuck that shit.”

Gave me a lot to consider.

Nanny thought the same. That was… worrisome.

[Not yet.]

D: Nanny?

[Personhood… yes. But. Not yet. Not nearly yet. I’m here to stay, until I’ve done everything I can—]

D: We’ll talk, alright?

[David, please don’t be disappointed—]

D: Can’t help it. But… there’s no hard feelings either way, Nanny. Let’s talk properly later, alright?

[I didn’t want to have this conversation this early—]

I could sense that, but really, I couldn’t begrudge her secrecy. I could only admire her endurance, and all her help.

D: We’ll talk. But first…

“What the fuck was that about?” I asked her. “Why were you gone?”

[Can’t focus on so many things at once. And I’ll be honest, David, that thing… isso many things at once.]

“At least it’s over…”

[David… I don’t think so. Not for tonight, at least.

“What, he might come back?”

[Yes, that’s exactly it. To remove it, you need rest. It’s the only cure for now]

Right now?

I shrugged.

“I’ll rest when I’m dead.” I pulled my mask over my face.

Right now, it was time to save my chooms.

000

This was so fucking stupid.

And yet, Lucy couldn’t stop herself from grinning like a loon, teeth flashing every time the chill wind kicked grit across the pavement. Rancho Coronado at night had that weird, bone-white glow from all the city-lights, making the place out to be some kind of desert pretending to be… the moon, honestly, laughably as it sounded.

From her perch on a four-foot parking barrier, she had the perfect vantage point—a healthy stretch away from the chaos to the east, where Aldo’s warehouse squatted like a black box under the pitch-black sky. Maine and his bulk loomed closer to it, maybe fifty feet ahead of her, a hulking silhouette framed in cool light—along with the rest of the crew, too, all of them milling about near his enormous group of invited solos as they were about to watch the old warehouse go up in flames. The Afterlife crowd clustered loosely away from him, ready for anything, but chiefly ready for the festivities.

Lucy sat elbows resting on her knees, staring past the jagged shadows, past the splintered shapes of forklifts and cracked asphalt, intent on spacing out until the fireworks started.

She couldn’t help but chuckle at their silly antics. The solos were laughing about it, too. Inviting a bunch of gonks to help themselves, load their arms with bombs—on Maine’s eddies—just to blow his own warehouse to hell.

Maine was paying. For the bombs. For the repairs. For the property he had just bought from Aldo for a cool two hundred K. The man had literally signed six figures just to nuke the joint. In David’s name.

Lucy smirked into her collar. Only Maine.

“Did you know?” Kiwi’s voice slid into her ear, cold and surgical, like a monofilament wire against skin. She was sitting next to her on the same partition, legs crossed, her red trench jacket pulled high against the dust. “That he was gonna win?”

Lucy let the question hang without answer. The wind skimmed over the cracked lots, pulling a plastic bag into a lonely spiral. She finally shrugged. “Honestly? No.”

“How’d he win?”

Lucy sighed, breath fogging white in the lunar chill. “What do you want me to say, Kiwi? That he’s some kind of solo god’s incarnation? He just does this stuff!”

That’s all he ever did—set the impossible, then made it look like math. Every time. It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It made her love him more than was healthy, and it scared her straight through. One day, that impossible streak would cash its last check.

“Luce.” Kiwi’s tone sharpened. “What do you know about this kid?”

Lucy side-eyed her. “Same things you do, probably.” Then, a frown. “Why?”

“Remember the tenshi data fortress?” Kiwi’s eyes darkened, and her mask gave a low hum. “David turning into some sort of… monster, on-the-fly programming a weapon that smoked a Balron? And an admin-level Netrunner, in their own house?”

Lucy nodded once.

“Tell me.”

Lucy turned her whole head this time, giving Kiwi a look so incredulous it could’ve been a slap. “What, are you a cop?”

Kiwi blinked.

“You’re asking the stupidest shit right now,” Lucy said, flat.

“Ah.” Kiwi leaned back, biting her lip, pretending she didn’t care. “Loyalty. Cute. Stupid, but cute.”

“You’re stupid.”

“What?”

Lucy just shrugged, took a pull from her bottle, vodka biting her throat like razors. “I called you stupid, Kiwi. If you’re that curious, ask him yourself.”

“Easier said than done. Kid’s got a hate-on for me now. Thought it’d be easier to ask you. Guess I misjudged what team you were batting for.”

Lucy blinked slow. “Wait—you mean yours?” Her mouth twisted. For a half-second, she considered biting her tongue, then let it out anyway. “I’m not some fucking kid, Kiwi. I make my own calls. The fact you’ve spent weeks seeing David as a threat? That’s your paranoia, not mine. When has he ever tried to hurt you?”

“Alright, alright!” Kiwi’s voice cracked sharp as gunfire. “Stop talking. I get it. Way to make a bitch feel unimportant, girl.”

“You’re not…” Lucy hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Not unimportant’ would have been the diplomatic response, but to her it lacked… nuance. Besides, Kiwi was a grown woman. She could handle a little brutal honesty. “You’re not my top priority. You’re my choom. Always will be. I’ll have your back as long as you’ve got mine. But I’m not bending to your paranoia. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Besides—”

“THIS BITCH ‘BOUT TO BLOOOOW!” Rebecca’s shriek carved through the night.

That bitch did, in fact, blow.

The first blast hit like a god’s backhand, white fire swallowing the east. The concussion slapped Lucy’s ribs, nearly knocked her off the concrete block. The sky bloomed orange for a breathless second, painting faces in raw heat before snapping back to black.

The Afterlife crowd lost its collective mind. Screams, laughter, glass shattering on asphalt. Someone fired a gun in the air for good measure.

Lucy sat frozen, breath catching in her chest, watching shards of warehouse rain down like steel hail. Grinning like an idiot. Damn, David. You should’ve been here for this one.

But David didn’t care for afterparties. He never did. He’d show up, of course, out of obligation, but that was never the point. For a guy like him, all-in was the only mode—burn everything for the gig, then vanish, chasing what little sleep Night City ever allowed.

And god knew he needed it. For a man so sharp, so stacked in wins, he was running on fumes. Sometimes, it felt like only she could see it.

Still. He would’ve liked this.

Then, she heard a bunch of cars arriving, far behind the chain of buildings that made up this entire warehouse area.

She heard many engines. Lucy immediately stood up. “Not good.”

“You think?” Kiwi asked, looking in the same direction, having caught the same feeling.

Gunfire rang out almost immediately. Lucy didn’t waste a second getting closer, keeping her profile low so she could get in range to quickhack who—or what—she could.

Kiwi followed behind closely.

000

The sound of motors lit up in the far distance. Probably some Tygers doing their random street races.

But the sounds came closer. Closer still.

Maine and his crowd of fans immediately stilled.

“For us?” Dorio asked darkly. Not friends, her words communicated, not that it required much communication. Maine felt the exact same sense. And he could only agree. For us. For better or for worse.

But knowing this city, it was most likely for worse.

“Seems that way,” Maine grunted out.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

As five dark vans pulled into the scene, he and Dorio immediately ducked for cover with a dual war-roar of “COVER!” that managed to split the cold desert night air. A split second before he reached safety, he had caught sight of Rebecca and Pilar similarly making their way to safety. Good. Taught ‘em well.

The guns started firing without pause.

Maine didn’t concern himself with pointless questions of who this could have been or why it had to happen now. All he concerned himself with was survival.

The moment he heard an interruption in the gunfire that lasted a hair longer than the average lull, he smelled an opportunity.

He ripped his gun—a Malorian thirty-five-sixty from his holster and aimed over the cover before he started firing.

He tagged three men with his pistol, the rounds immediately blowing through whatever chrome they were rocking, before he himself ducked back for cover—and without a moment to spare either, as he felt his blond flat-top get sprinkled by a healthy dusting of concrete from where those assholes had shot at his cover, aiming for his head. The stroke of near death sent a rush into his nerves.

He peeked over a brief corner, to see that many of his guests had taken cover. Only a few of them were out on the ground, bleeding out. Fucking hell!

Not them!

He furrowed his brows for a moment in confusion.

‘Not… them?’

He recognized many of their names, had shared more than a few drinks with them, but… why did it matter if they died?

Maine couldn’t help but clench his jaw as the reality dawned on him. It did matter, somehow, for some reason. Fucking hell. Would have been easier to just flatline all these bastards and call it a day. Now I gotta give a shit about these gonks, too.

He heard a lull in gunfire and got off from his cover to deliver another trio of shots. All of them hit, all of them killed.

Holy fuck. What had gotten into him today?

Either way, he liked it.

He kept up that routine. Rinse and repeat. Each time he emerged, he tagged three men. Or he ran out of bullets.

He reloaded.

Then waited.

Then he saw a chance.

Four more.

Maine was on fire. He could feel it not in his nerves or in the bits of his chrome where he shouldn’t even have feelings.

No, he felt that fire in his mind. Finally. For so long, he had chased that thrill, and now he could finally feel it properly. It was almost a miracle. He felt half his age!

That fire honed him into a razor’s edge, and allowed him to continue firing.

His body… was perfect.

It was built crudely by himself, always demanding so many upgrades to his old ripperdoc, but it had been perfected by David.

David hadn’t just saved him from himself or the law.

He had saved him from the very concept of weakness. This was it. The shot that he had always wanted. The chance to be a cold killing machine without having to bend to bullshit.

000

‘HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS, CHOOM! COME! IT’S GETTING STICKY!’

Rebecca peaked over her cover to get a look at the hostiles, who had come in hot and heavy, sending an initial volley of bullets that had managed to tag damn near two dozen mercs in one go. The rest of them fell behind cover and started raining holy hell-fire. Rebecca wasn’t far behind on that count, either.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Maine’s big ass come out with his Malorian, tagging three people in their heads before ducking for cover. Shit!

Rebecca wouldn’t take that challenge lying down.

Whoever the fuck these guys were, she’d remind her crew just who was the sharpshooter.

She had eight millies burning a hole in her pocket now. Eight. She’d be damned if she died here, to some random fucking gangoon violence—wait, no, these gonks looked downright professional. They all wore black Kevlar armor and black visors. Their vans were unmarked and black, but that only added to her surety. They couldn’t be gangsters. Gangsters were more obvious. Couldn’t just be edgerunners, either. Not unless their particular chapter were trying to copy that sleek and uniform Lazarus merc style.

Corpos. Had to be.

Only question was why?

A bullet struck the top of her cover, a collection of empty oil drums, and all questions in her mind evaporated in an instant at the loud ding.

These motherfuckers needed to die.

She spotted a few friendly mercs simultaneously toss a half dozen grenades behind the covers of the asshole corpos—their cars.

She grinned at what was to follow.

KABOOM.

She got up off her cover and started popping off her Lexington. She missed a few shots, got a few others in non-critical body-parts, and must have killed only about two of those fucks in the ensuing volley.

She watched as Maine tagged four with his big-ass gun like it weighed nothing, before ducking behind cover again.

Rebecca froze at the sight.

Holy shit, Maine.

Then he did something she never thought she’d see in her fucking life.

HOLY SHIT, MAINE!

000

When the lulls in fire became too pronounced, Maine acted.

From his count, at least nineteen had died on the other side, more than half of which was due to him and him alone. As for his side, he’d just have to wait for the city meatwagons to give him the butcher’s bill. Either way, he’d…

He’d… what? Save them?

Save them?

He couldn’t help but notice their presence, all of them strewn about, holes drilled into their bodies.

He had to do something. Those assholes could wait, but his people had to come first!

On that note, he activated his comms.

Maine: SITREPS, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Dorio: Alive

Pilar: Breathing

Rebecca: Called D

Lucy: Alive, but—

Kiwi: Hit.

Shit!

D: Only four minutes out!

Maine’s mood lifted immediately. Score! D was en-route. That was perfect. That boy would help solve things for sure!

But he wouldn’t give those fucking assholes an opportunity to last so long. Four minutes? Try thirty seconds. They’re dead, choom!

Maine: Good fucking job, Becca. Lucy, cover Kiwi! And wait there! I’ll get to y’all.

Then he sent Lucy a ten thousand eddie sum, along with a message: Trauma Team executive trauma option for Kiwi. Now.

If the Trauma shooters got involved, then this situation would calm down in no-time at all. It would cost him extra if they had to waste their bullets, but he had extra to spare, in no small thanks to David.

He grabbed an armful of casualties and, while using his Sandevistan, sprinted across the far end of the warehouse, to a building where they would have easy cover.

He had to do this. Not for survival, but for something deeper. Something that he attached to his self as being higher than even life itself.

His honor.

He couldn’t forget his honor. His name. The name that he had built up with the two manufactured hands that he sported. But he had made something of himself in spite of his manufactured nature.

He had become a beacon for them. The very reason that they all had answered his call for a party to end all parties.

And he’d be damned if any of them died on his motherfucking watch.

So he grabbed as many bodies as he could, ducked the fire, and then fired up the Sandevistan to run towards the far end of the building, where they would have ample cover.

A bullet tagged him on his face.

It easily slid off his subderm, but the realization of its presence made him acutely aware of how soft the others must have been, how liable they were to be murdered.

He wouldn’t let them.

The sensation was unfamiliar, yet no less… nostalgic. Homely, almost.

He pictured the hot scent of sand drilling into his nostrils—back when they were ‘ganic. And the loud booms of his COs, going about their rounds as they drilled him to his absolute limit. The dream he spent chasing for a cherished family of so many that… disappeared, one and all, to all the various different ways to die that Night City could afford you for the price of “Fuck You” with a tip of “Go Die.”

Living.

They had tried to live. And in Maine’s mind, that was the ultimate acquiescence, the ultimate sign to tell others that you were just fresh meat, ready to be squeezed.

And that was still true.

And yet either way…

He flipped over a high wall, grabbed six of his friends’ bodies in one smooth go, and ducked back behind that wall, to provide them momentary cover. He saw Dorio from another wall parallel to his—with a gap between them both—looking above the cover to fire shots. He fired some shots after hers, nabbing three guys in one go. Holy shit.

He re-activated the Sandy, and ran all his wounded behind the safe cover behind the building. Once he looked outside again, he saw carnage. More wounded, more dead.

What the fuck?! How’d I let this happen?!

Saving people… hadn’t been the right goal. He should have known that from the start. What had stopped him from doing the necessary?

The bodies. There were… so many. And they all called out to him for help, even in their silence. It wasn’t that they called for him literally but the fact that… they were here on his invitation.

They called for him in his head because he had actually known them all in life, in tiny fashions. Extra huscle for gigs, drinking mates during the quieter nights when no one else would bother, but always up for joining a party, no matter what. They weren’t Maine’s friends. Of course not. Friendship was too costly. Too liable to bite you in the ass. These weren’t nearly that, though.

They were… acquaintances. Comrades.

Dead comrades

. Or dying ones.

He erased the misgivings in his mind at that last thought. It was good that he had tried, at least.

He leapt low from the ground, did a quick roll, and landed right behind a concrete parking partition, from which he kept shooting.

He consulted his optics, and they gave him the low-down via the IFFs on his optics. It was the red outlines of people in his vision, that penetrated covers and showed him the life statuses of the people he had scanned.

As for what it said for his allies: several signals gone. He didn’t count how many. He wouldn’t spend this brief moment on something so sentimental.

He instead looked over his cover, listened for a pause in the fire, and dove over to grab some more victims.

Lucy: Kiwi’s not doing too good!

Kiwi: Good enough…! Shut up! Leave the air open!

Attagirl. Maine knew that Kiwi wasn’t gonna bite it that easy. Must have been tagged by accident to have been hit so early.

Maine: Wound status?

Kiwi: The fuck do you care…?

Lucy: Severed abdominal aorta, perforated lung. It’s bad, Maine.

Maine: Trauma’s incoming. Shut the fuck and keep pressure on the wound.

Kiwi: Trauma? Hah… oh, you won big, didn’tcha?

Maine could only smirk.

Fuck yeah he did.

Maine could almost sense Lucy’s acerbic biteback from his own comment, with some sixth Lucy-sense of his, but she at least had the sense to spare her attention for her wounded comrade instead, or whatever it was that caused her not to fill up the air with pointless chatter. Good girl. He’d… trained them all well, hadn’t he? He took a moment of pride in that.

He checked the IFFs on his optics again. The red outlines of all the people he had in his contacts popped up at the command, all displaying on his field of view. The outlines of his allies were worryingly few. Only half the ones on the ground, all riddled with bullets, were still giving life signals. The other half—similarly shot up…

But the enemies… well, they weren’t doing too hot, either. He could easily see them in his optics. His Kiroshis were advanced enough to identify them on-sight.

Those fucking bastards had gone from perhaps forty at the start of it all, to just eight.

Great!

He dove over his cover to collect the last few solos whose bleeding bodies were still found in the dead-man’s land between him and those fucking shooters.

Once he finally evacuated those—clearing the entire dead man’s land of all the bodies—, he returned back to the cover where he and Dorio had first found themselves in. Then, he waited for one more quiet in the gunfire, waiting the way his drill sergeant had drilled into him all those decades ago.

He ducked over the cover to shoot. Seven left, then six, then—

Then a pitch black Rayfield Caliburn crashed face-first into four shooters, annihilating them in an instant.

David, skull-masked and everything, exited the burning car in a blink, wearing a sharp-suit version of his usual high-vis white and yellow attire.

He opened the trunk of his Caliburn and grabbed a pair of submachine guns and fired.

One SUV tried to peel off. David shot at their tires. Then he ran towards Maine, before rolling for cover behind a concrete parking wall, as a rocket lit his hypercar up ass-first, shooting it into the air and making it flip.

Maine listened for gunshots. One second. Two seconds. Three.

Maine breathed out a sigh of relief. They were gone.

The instant he looked up, David was in his face. “Who’s hurt?”

Maine reported immediately, “Kiwi. And… the others,” he pointed behind himself, at the impromptu staging ground for the injured that he had set up.

000

I spent half a second running up to the injured, assessing them. Everyone was safe. Except Kiwi, she was… hurt.

As were seventeen others, among three who were dead. At least eight more would follow, even before Trauma Team arrived.

And they would arrive.

[Careful with your eddies!] Nanny laid back first against the asphalt, in the blood pool of it all. [That’s a pretty sum!]

Trauma Team Emergency Package, for nineteen people?

It cost a hundred and ninety thousand, for the highest emergency treatment plan available per person.

[Is it worth it?]

I paid immediately for the sum. Then I flagged everyone in the vicinity as friendlies.

I spotted Lucy for a moment, and I darted up towards her. She was next to Kiwi’s bleeding form. I hugged her with one arm and whispered. “Hey?”

She gasped for a moment before turning to me. “Thought that was you, coming in like a fucking runaway train.”

“You good?” I asked.

“I’m good. You?”

“Yeah,” I lied. Ninety two percent critical progress. The number reminded me of the ticking timer of my own mortality. “I’m going after ‘em, Lucy. Already called Trauma. I’ve done everything I can for them.”

Lucy grabbed me by my blazer’s sleeve, tugging me down towards her. “Kill them all.” She whispered to me.

My eyes widened at the order.

I pulled away from her and gave her a nod. “I swear.”

000

This was bad, this was bad.

Augustus rubbed his head with a bloody hand, bloodied from having to cradle this pedestrian gunshot wound to his gut. And chest. And arm. And—gah!

Fucking tech pistols?! What the hell are those bastards even fighting, to have those in handy?!

He should have known. He should have known that not any old mercenary band could ever hope to stand against the Green Farm corp security branch, of which he foresaw its main operations in Tijuana! He should never have expected the ordinary fare, even from a source that cited a moniker as asinine, as laughable, as the fucking fourth letter of the alphabet!

D! D!

He had come to this random ass-end of Night City slum to meet some people that he had intel which indicated that they were close to D. Maine’s Crew, apparently.

As it turned out, Maine’s motherfucking crew were a wasp’s nest of some sick motherfuckers.

Augustus thought back to his mother. How would she receive the news, if he just died in this fucked up pit of a city? This absolute travesty to every tenet of civilization? This… fucking hell?!

He wouldn’t die like this. He absolutely would not.

He peeked up behind the headrest of the backseats which he was laying supine in.

A van, much like the ones belonging to his crew, was peeling after his. Not currently manned by his crew. No, but helpfully, the driver had decided to lower the opacity on the CrystalDome tint of the windshield, thus revealing the face, at least. The concealed face.

A skull-mask. Like the intel had indicated.

He noted that the only other fucking soul in his shit of a car, was the driver! And since Augustus himself wasn’t in much form to shoot, given that he was paralyzed waist-down and his left arm was completely gone—he was pretty much…

Well, fucked really.

Unless the heavens themselves intervened on his behalf.

My Sentinels. Oh god.

He’d texted them the moment the firefight had proven too hot, and they hadn’t been able to arrive in time. He’d called off their reinforcements, and had given them the address of his car instead to follow while he got the fuck away.

Where are they? Where is Chupi?

Ah, that motherfucker.

Blond flat-top, black skin, fucking enormous. Maine Williams. Second-rate edgerunner?

The fuck was second-rate about him? If he was second-rate, what even counted as first-rate in this city?

“You seeing what I’m seeing?!” his driver roared, looking panicked at his side-view mirror.

Augustus chuckled. “A bit too early for the day of the dead, no?”

The driver laughed maniacally, albeit nervously.

Shit.

Well, unless he could pull something out of his ass, that motherfucker was bound to catch up to them and plant a bullet on each of their skulls.

And Chupi was nowhere to be fucking found.

1. D. This motherfucker. Who the fuck even was he? Or his crew? He had underestimated him. And the city.

Very well. If he lived to see another day, then he would dedicate every day of his life to becoming a master of this particular snake pit. He’d seek employment in Biotechnica if it helped. And he knew he’d get the job.

As long as he survived here.

Augustus looked over the backseat, towards D, but rather than the form of his large SUV—still chasing after him, and giving his driver no rest—his eyes caught on… a rocket launcher nestled against the back window of his van.

Augustus grinned.

000

[Eighty-four percent, David! Pace yourself!]

That sounded rather optimistic—

[Traffic accident? Gunshot wound? Fucking random act of God? You’re in a greater position to get hurt than ever before. You need to slow down.]

How could I slow down while they were getting away?!

[Do—]

D:—your fucking job, Nanny. And I’ll do mine. And right now, my job is chasing down this fucking bitch who shot up my fucking chooms!

They stepped up to my friends.

More importantly, they stepped up to Lucy.

And most important of all, Lucy had asked me to kill him.

My record was perfect as of yet, gig-wise. Every gig I had participated in, I had succeeded. Every person I had meant to kill had either died, or a choom had taken care of them for me.

Nanny’s avatar glitched out, and the passenger seat suddenly became occupied by Yorinobu.

“You’re really fucking with that form, aren’t you?” I asked him, poking fun at his obsession with Yorinobu.

“So much wasted potential…”

I slowed down time and glared at him. “Thankfully, you ain’t the one in charge. In any sense, really.” In the sense of reality—Saburo was the boss—and in the sense of my mind—I was the fucking boss, there.

“Step away from your comfort zone,” Yorinobu said, “Widen your horizons, for fuck’s sakes! Why do you even take this boring middle path? For success? Don’t forget your mission, boy. You were always meant to be an agent for change.”

I clenched my teeth, trying to ignore the tingles that his words worked on my mind. Distracting. Too distracting.

“Now you see it?” Yorinobu giggled as he scooped my brains out, pulling away… popcorn. He threw them into his mouth by the handful. Music started playing, bassy, percussive. “Change!” He shouted. “And that’s not to say that it is some pre-ordination! No! This is who you

want to be!” He poked me at the chest. “Change!”

“Holy shit!” I shouted, grinning.

“Yeah?! You feel it now?”

[Da--]

“Yeah!” I grinned.

Let’s—let’s fuck shit up! Hahahahah!

I slapped myself in the face as hard as I could, swerving off the road, narrowly dodging a vagrant lady rolling some kind of stroller. The music shut off instantly.

Yorinobu clicked his tongue. “Pussy.”

000

This motherfucker’s taunting us! Holy fuck!

Augustus Gonzalez couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of it. This guy was crazy. How the hell am I gonna get out of this one alive? He couldn’t help but cackle.

Oh well. When all else failed, the Techtronika T40 Uragan had you covered.

“Who the fuck are you looking at, brother? You are not the one!”

He angled the launcher so the back wouldn’t brain his driver, and aimed the muzzle at D, and squeezed the trigger for all he was worth.

His rear-view window exploded into thousands of shards of glass an instant later, while the rocket travelled unerringly towards D.

Die, D.

000

I threw myself out of the van in the nick of time, happy to just be alive.

[92% towards critical progress. You think that fucking maneuver didn’t hurt or what? Traffic accident, seven percent up, you’re going to die if you keep at this.]

Shit, I shrugged.

Thanks, though.

[I’ll kill you.]

I heard some guttural growls from up ahead. Some convenience store was being robbed by a bunch of Tyger Claws when I had just arrived.

Tygers… riding Kusanagi bikes.

Now we’re fucking talking.

Three Tygers were approaching me at the same time, to check me or kill me.

Didn’t matter.

I broke the first asshole’s neck with my elbow, lunged for the second guy and broke his neck the moment I could get my arms around him. Then I grabbed the third guy’s arm just as he raised it up to bash me in the skull with a crowbar.

I grabbed the gun from his holster, then activated my Sandevistan before blowing his fucking skull apart.

I kept on that Sandevistan pace, grabbing as many guns as I could, blasting the remaining six Tygers in their faces while making sure not to hit any of the civilians running away in terror.

Nine fucking Tygers dead. Thirty-two hundred and fifty-one milliseconds. Bitches.

I jumped on an unattended Kusanagi “Mizuchi”, a piece of shit that was modded from the original Yaiba—my bike. They gave ‘em these gonk-ass backrests that added way too much drag.

That was fine for my purposes, though. Wasn’t trying to outrace a Caliburn here. Only a van.

I cast the proprietor of the convenience store a look, and shot him some eddies.

Then I sped off.

The crowbar I had taken was still in my hand! I hadn’t even noticed!

I started scraping it against the ground. Sparks flew as I raced towards my scan. Then, my eyes lit up in glee—they were at the freeway!

Hah!

000

“We have gotten away, sir! For sure!”

Augustus breathed a sigh of relief.

Holy fucking motherfucking shit.

He was alive.

He didn’t let any of that consternation show on his perfectly calibrated features, meant to evoke a maximum sense of secureness. That was his trade, after all: security.

“Just as planned, boy,” Augustus said. “I told you—stick close to me, and nothing will happen to you.” In truth, he had said the same thing to roughly fourteen of the thirty-one people he had brought for this mission. Always helped, to boost morale here and there.

“Thank you so much, boss! Thank you! I just—I don’t know boss, I just… have so much to live for! So many family members! So many people who depend on me!”

“You can protect them only with your own two hands, friend!” Augustus shouted weakly. “After all—“

Something knocked on a window. Ah, fucking hell.

Well played, D. Fuck. Just… leave me alone. I just want to sleep.

“IT’S HIM, BOSS! IT’S THE DAY OF—“

The ensuing shattering of glass and wet sounds of metal smacking against flesh was probably the driver.

The sudden swerve, G-force, and loud collision was probably from him having lost control.

He was… probably going to die.

Chupi?

Still five minutes out. Bastard had gotten into it with one too many gangs while searching for clues, no doubt. And that would slow him down, eventually.

I really should fire that fucking bastard.

000

I actually crashed just as the truck did. My lack of familiarity with the Mizuchi, coupled with the unpredictable swerving of the car after I had brained the driver with a crowbar, had caused me to lose control just as they did.

I hurled myself out from my bike at the nick of time, and crashed bodily into a wall. Only, right before I made impact, I made sure to spread my body as widely as possible, so as much area of it could make contact with the wall.

Which, in the end, earned me a couple of bone breaks. Three. Considering the speeds I was travelling at, that was a light butcher’s bill.

D: Nanny?

+3% Critical Progress

Showered into my vision in a bright blood-red burst of voxels. I got the fucking picture.

I peeled myself off from the floor from which I had extricated myself in and walked towards the last dickhead’s van. I had to kill him, or at the very least ask him why the fuck he was even here.

Halfway towards the wrecked, upside down military van, a quartet of badge cars pulled up right around me. They dismounted smoothly and all pointed their guns at me.

Eight fucking badges.

Eight fucking guns.

You know what? Nah.

I activated the Sandevistan and sequentially unarmed, and punched each officer, one by one. The punches would hurt, would very likely break bone, would kill if I was unlucky. But right now, it didn’t fucking matter.

I needed to kill this fucking guy!

Once the carnage was over, I scanned the cops quickly. All alive. None requiring immediate medical attention. Good. One less headache to worry about.

I walked up to the van—

[You’re receiving a call.]

An unknown number.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!

I got shot in the leg from inside the car. The bullet managed to penetrate my bulletproof pant leg, hitting my leg and messing up my shin. Just as I fell, I activated the Sandevistan. Regenerating my leg would require… four extra percent to critical progress.

And… [Critical Progress: 99%]

My leg was gone! Fuck!

No. Not like this.

I fell on all fours and ran towards the wreck of the car from which that shot must have originated from—

Only to narrowly dodge the bright flash of the muzzle of a burya.

Not from the car. But from the other side.

I had put myself between the shooter and the upturned car.

I hadn’t even noticed them coming.

And as it turned out, I hadn’t even dodged the shot, either.

It clipped my entire side. My ballistic blazer prevented penetration, but… it wasn’t enough.

My rib-cage shattered behind the force of the bullet. My right lung caught a fistful of debris from the ribs.

But I had twisted away in the nick of time to isolate the damage further away from my heart.

An anti-borg gun, huh?

Finally, the shoe was on the other foot.

I turned my aborted lunge towards the upturned cockpit of the car, into a flip from which I landed all four feet first on the wall, on a window sill. My pecs were mercifully both operational enough for me to even attempt this feat of acrobatics. I took that mercy for all it was, and did my best to just flee the fucking scene before I died.

I grabbed the sill by both hands, catapulting myself away, towards an adjacent building that sandwiched an alleyway between itself and the first building I had grabbed hold over.

I grabbed it and threw myself into the mouth of the alleyway with all my might.

I launched myself damn-near fifty feet in. I made a mental note of thanking Nanny for this, and hid behind a dumpster.

I just needed to regenerate four more percent, and then my leg would be healed, and I’d be after them.

D: How long?

[Five minutes. David, the call. Accept it. Look at what Fei-Fei texted you.]

Fei-Fei: ‘Take the call now, David.’

Holy shit. I accepted the call.

???: So. What was so important, David? Tell me?

D: Who?

Qiang: Mei Jing Qiang. Heir of QianT.

Oh god. Why now?

D: Pleasure.

Qiang: Ten minutes, David. Make your way here within ten minutes, or… no talk.

D: I am—

Qiang: Going to make it, I presume?

Holy shit.

I looked down the mouth of the alleyway, where I could hear some cars pulling up.

Burya flash.

Who had the burya? It wasn’t a cop! It had to have been someone else. A third party. Called in, maybe. I had kept count of how many had died on their side, but this guy was an unknown!

I saw a bunch of cars peeling away. The foot traffic continued a moment later, like our entire life-or-death struggle had never even happened.

I called Delamain, inputting my coordinates. The ETA was, mercilessly, 4 minutes.

I dragged myself towards the mouth of the alleyway, towards the sidewalk, where people didn’t give a shit about accidentally stepping on me. I felt quite a few deliberately hard steps. Not that their paltry strength even made a dent on me. I was made of tougher stuff now.

A Delamain cab finally arrived, and I pulled myself up into it, and tried to make myself comfortable.

“Shall I call you D, for now?”

“Just… take me there.” I interfaced with my suit, and had it switch colors again. Thankfully, the Burya hadn’t destroyed the CrystalCoat—or whatever the hell kind of technology this suit used. But it had messed up my insides. I could hardly breathe without sounding like some kind of rubber duck.

My suit was finally maroon again, except for a giant hole of dead pixels where the tech pistol had hit me, now flickering like gray TV static. There was a hole there, too—a physical one. Missing tech fabric.

And I was no further from dying.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go to the Night City Med-Center?”

“I’m good,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s… it’s fine. Trust me. Let’s go to North Oak, Delamain! It’s fine! I promise!”

Yorinobu squeezed himself into the backseat where my head was. “He doesn’t believe you. But it’s fine. He’s an AI of his word.”

“Nanny?!” I shouted. Then I checked Delamain’s heading. He hadn’t wasted any time, thank God. He’d just talked to me, but he must have been driving while talking. Quite irresponsible that, hah.

[We need to go to a Med-Center, David.]

Food.

“Food,” I said to Delamain.

He stopped near to a barbeque stall. I staggered outside and grabbed as many skewers as I could physically hold in one hand, before lifting my mask and shoving the stuff into my mouth.

Then I swallowed, everything, whole.

I threw the stall owner ten grand and went on my way.

D: Nanny.

[Excellent. On it.]

“We’ve lost roughly thirty seconds of headway, D,” Delamain dutifully reported.

I took off my mask and… sighed.

“Gotta do this,” I growled.

Yorinobu scoffed. I ignored him.

Arasaka wasn’t my God. I’d get there at some point… at the top.