Lucy decided it was best to engage with the boy as little as possible—otherwise one day he really might annoy her to death. He was polite and fair as a boss, always kept his word… yet in casual talk he'd toss out a jab that left you choking for a reply.
"What else did you stuff in this bag?"
She took a breath to steady herself. Be the adult. Don't bicker with a brat.
"Hacker gear, some weapons, a few emergency meds, energy snacks and candies—basically anything that might help. We're on a high-risk job; better over-prepared than not," Lin Mo fussed.
Lucy sighed and nodded—fine, fair enough. He'd packed it for their safety. She was the newbie, after all; a little extra burden was normal.
And then he added the line that made her want to scream.
"Not like I'm carrying it. I throw in whatever I think of. You're an adult; by Night City law I'm still a minor, which gives me a few perks. As the grown-up, looking after a minor once in a while is only reasonable, right?"
He grinned.
Sixteen in body, invincible gremlin in spirit.
Lucy's fingers curled; for a flash she wanted to smack the back of his head. He never chooses the right words, does he? And when, exactly, do you ever act like a minor?
She gave herself a quick internal pep talk and opted for silence. Otherwise she'd only wind herself up. You don't mouth off to the person who pays you. At most you toss a barbed quip or two.
"Really not going to try a candy? It's made with real honey—most people never get that. Sweetness kicks your dopamine. Pop one or two and the nerves go quiet."
As he spoke, he seemed to conjure a wrapped candy from nowhere, peeled it, and popped it in his mouth.
Lucy frowned down at her satchel. At some point the zipper had been opened, revealing the jumble inside—and a few elegantly wrapped sweets on top.
How had he gotten into it without her noticing? If he hadn't shown the candy, she wouldn't have realized he'd unzipped her bag at all.
"Thanks, I guess. You do know I'm in a foul mood?"
"Heh. Better you be annoyed at me than drowning in the past," Lin Mo said, smiling faintly.
Lucy faltered mid-step, as if jolted from a dream.
So he needles me to pull me out of it?
"Honestly—adult that you are—you're seeing things less clearly than this so-called minor. Big sis, where'd the netrunner cool go?" he added.
Right. And if he were that considerate, pigs would fly. Aside from paying on time, the brat was absolutely asking for a lesson.
She shook her head, quietly stewing.
Odd—the veteran netrunner in her had weathered plenty of ugly years before drifting to Night City. In this city of lies, a freelance netrunner survives on calm and poise. Yet here she was, getting riled up by him, all that training gone to the dogs.
She searched for an answer and found none—right up until they reached the cyberpsycho holding area.
The heavy door slid open—credit to the backline hackers for cracking part of the basement's security.
For all Lin Mo's nonstop chatter, Sasha's voice still threaded through their inner comms. Neural comms don't need moving lips; once you learn the flow, you can walk a street in silence with your eyes just barely aglow—and that's proof enough you're in a call.
So Lin Mo bantered with Lucy while coordinating with Sasha in his head—no conflict at all.
Honestly, having a netrunner girl along smoothed the dull parts of the approach. He tailored his tone to the person. With Lucy, they were familiar and not—rocky start, now finding a rhythm. Not many people earned this level of teasing anymore. David, maybe.
They ran into a dozen patrolling drones; under the boy's flashing blade they became scrap. At his current level, these standard security bots barely counted.
Guided by Sasha, they stepped into a control room.
Consoles lined one wall, and a bank of monitors filled the other—pure prison surveillance aesthetics. Every screen showed a cell: a bed, a sleeper who wouldn't wake.
Almost all bore obvious chrome: warped, mismatched limb work and plating—like a menagerie of beasts caged for display.
Men and women both. Whoever ran this place hadn't expected visitors; each subject's file lay out in the open.
Six test subjects total, neatly sorted by age brackets: a boy–girl around sixteen or seventeen, a pair in their twenties or thirties, another in their forties or fifties.
Lin Mo hadn't done this kind of work before, but it wasn't hard to guess: six couldn't be the whole sample. This was the tip of an iceberg. Who knew how many others had been shut away here—consumables, used up and discarded in silence.
"Looks like the staff doped them before they left," Lin Mo said, eyes steady on the screens.
Lucy's face went colder. Her gaze drifted over the captives with a glint of pity.
So familiar. Too familiar. Once upon a time, she'd been used like a tool too.
She'd had the fight to claw back. These poor souls, for all their chrome, had none. Not even a baseline of self—just beasts in human frames stuffed full of metal.
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