The truck kept moving. I stayed leaned against the side wall, holding pressure on my left arm like I was barely hanging on. Truth was, I'd stopped bleeding a while ago, but the pain persisted. I just didn't want anyone asking questions, so I acted barely conscious.
But when I was briefly unconscious, someone took my gun and took off my jacket, allowing me to see how bloody my arm and body had gotten, staining the only set of clothes I had.
Asking for my gun back suddenly would not be smart, but I would be sure to remind them.
Falco was locked in. Focused on the driving. Strangely enough, he was exactly how I saw him in the animated show, but realistic. Same with Vik and Misty. That makes me question why V was looking so different, after all.
Sasha sat across from me, silent. She put on a bulky netrunning visor, plugged into a port, and began doing something, staring off into space. And Yoko was doing something in the front seat beside me, so I couldn't see clearly besides a few glimpses through the reflections.
I traced my location with GPS the whole time, and we were approaching a ripper, not far from Kabuki, a place called Dr. Chrome. But it seems we took a huge way around, possibly shaking off any possible trail we might have, taking us through Watson.
Then the truck slowed down and stopped on the side of the road for no reason, seeing as there was a shitty industrial district all around us, with no signs of a clinic.
"Is this the place?" I asked in confusion.
"What's the holdup?" Yoko also asked.
"Call a taxi or a buddy to pick you up. You have to get out now."
Falco tapped the dash as he looked at us.
Sasha didn't look surprised as she took off her headset. "Great," she muttered. "So much for warmup."
"Change of plans, fellas. Maine contacted us. We got a job from Wakako to clear out the place where the Maelstrom came from while it's undefended. And we cannot afford to lose time, not on a gig from Wakako, I'm afraid."
"That fucking checks out. See ya."
Yoko hopped off without hesitation, slamming the door behind her.
Wakako is influential. It makes sense that you really want to fulfill her every request, hoping to get on her good side.
Sasha stood up and took out my gun, giving it back to me. Then she also tossed me a MaxDoc.
"Here you go."
I slowly stood up, not to cause more damage than there already was.
"Thank you. Fuck Maelstrom."
"Hurry up!" shouted Falco, who was visibly in a rush.
I opened the truck door with my healthy arm and hopped off, closing the door behind me.
Then their armored truck sped up into the distance and vanished on a turn.
As I walked over next to Yoko on the dirty street, I asked her,
"So, you already called someone?"
"I did. No place for you though," replied Yoko while side-eyeing me.
"Yoko, what the fuck?"
She turned to me and said, deadpan,
"No, I still don't like you, but my ride will be a bike, and there is really no fucking third seat."
"Oh, got it."
I began trying to call Sprocket, but I didn't have her contact. Considering that I wanted to add her later today.
Robot taxi it is. Time to dip further into my finances. Expensive, but I will bleed out on a bus. And who the fuck will drive me if not a semi-reliable Delamain?
As we waited a few minutes, I took out the handheld cyberdeck to check on it, just to make sure it had not cracked.
"Do you fucking think you broke it by sitting on it with your ass? Don't flash it," Yoko suddenly asked, annoyed.
"Who knows? Also, there is literally nobody around."
I waved my hand with the cyberdeck around to show off precisely zero people.
The cyberdeck was in perfect condition, but is it really considered flashy to look over a gray slab of plastic?
"It can take a few bullets, unlike you. It will be fine. I don't sell utter shit."
I placed it back behind my back. As I looked, I saw that a Tyger Claw bike was approaching rapidly.
Then the bike stopped smoothly before her. The driver was a masked Tyger Claw, no doubt, even sporting a huge katana on his back. Not many people use katanas.
"That's my ride. See ya, leech," said Yoko plainly.
She hopped on the back of the bike, and they crossed a double parallel line and turned back to Kabuki. I wondered if they would get a ticket in the mail later.
It was already getting dark outside, and Delamain was almost here.
Overall it was a productive day, if you really ignore the near-death experience. I lost a bag of incense I bought from Misty, though. Manageable. But I really did feel the urge to upgrade the shit out of my body to give me a second, a third, and a fourth chance to survive if random violence strikes again.
I took the pills Vik gave me and swallowed them. Because of that, my stomach began to sing the hymn of the hungry, making me remember that I had not eaten all day. Maybe I'd postpone getting to Vik and go straight to eating?
As I tried stretching, my ribs began to ache like crazy, reminding me that a body vest is not a guarantee of stopping everything.
A Delamain taxi pulled up and stopped, opening its door for me to enter.
"Hello, sir. Please enter the vehicle."
I sat down slowly, and the door closed behind me. It was really, really comfortable and smelled decent. Preem shit.
"Please insert the personal link to confirm your identity," said the screen before me with a pale AI face.
It was lagging, periodically disappearing, and causing issues on the screen. It was a blue face, so that was not the rogue shard of Delamain, which would be a potential issue for a while.
I did, and it loaded up my information, which was basically my name and nothing else, but the AI did not care, satisfied with my internal unique encryption codes.
"Dear customer. My scans show that you are injured. Would you like to redirect the path to the nearest hospital?"
"No, thank you."
"Please enjoy the ride."
We took off at a decent pace, but it really was acting dumb, making the journey seem endless. Taking too much caution with every turn and letting every car pass.
"Delamain?"
"Yes?"
"Could you go faster maybe?"
"That would require a different package. Do you wish to upgrade?"
"...No."
I had already spent a shitton; fuck no.
"Very well. I can provide some music for you free of charge if you so desire."
"Put some energetic music on."
I had no clue how much blood I had left in me, but I did feel lightheaded, and falling asleep could mean death.
"Of course," said Delamain, and an EDM song started playing.
The EDM kept looping the same track, like Delamain had a playlist of three songs and didn't care. Too loud in the cabin, but I let it run. Better than silence. My eyelids felt heavy, head sliding back against the seat.
For a minute I almost felt comfortable, the kind of relaxation you only get when you know someone else is driving and you don't have to. The leather was soft, and the temperature was controlled. Almost like I wasn't bleeding out all over the upholstery.
Then I shifted my weight and felt the wet stick against my side. Looked down. Dark stains spreading under me, dripping into the seams of the cushion. Not just sweat. Blood. More than I'd realized.
"Delamain, upgrade me! Speed the fuck up!"
Delamain's face popped up and said,
"Of course, please insert your personal link."
As I tried lifting my left arm, it felt limp and ached, but eventually I did connect to the port. 250 more fucking eurodollars were transferred to a damned clanker.
The car suddenly sped up and began to drive aggressively, pushing me back into my seat.
I pulled out the MaxDoc Sasha shoved in my pocket and inhaled it. A cold surge under the skin, pressure spreading through my chest and arm, then the pain backed off a notch. The bleeding slowed. Not perfect, but enough to keep me upright. Insanely quick effect. I then applied as much pressure as I could manage.
The cab cut through all the traffic until we were almost at Jig Jig Street.
I checked the news, and it said that a huge gang war broke out in Kabuki; people were reporting that Maelstrom was pouring in nonstop since we left. 22 dead civilians already. A random warehouse burned, suggesting that gang wars surged again.
By the time we stopped outside Vik's, my body felt light. Not weightless, more like hollow.
"Thank you for using Delamain taxi services. Would you like to leave a tip?"
"...fuck off."
I got out slow. Arm limp, ribs aching. Jacket soaked through, shirt clinging, sticky against the skin. I walked down the few steps into Vik's place through the back door.
The shop lights were blinding as I walked through, making me dizzy. The feeling of bleeding out was way too familiar. I made sure that the door closed behind me.
"Sit," a voice cut through. Steady. No panic, just command.
Vik.
I staggered two steps in before my knees gave out. He caught me under the arm and began to walk with me.
"On the chair," he said, guiding me into the padded rig. "Don't argue."
I didn't. My ass barely touched the seat before Vik injected me with something in my arm.
Vik leaned close, "Gunshot. Upper arm, through and through. Chest bruising. Possible fracture. You walked here like that?"
My mouth opened, but only a grunt came out.
He adjusted a monitor beside me. "Save the story. Later."
Something hissed near my neck. Cool air. He'd slid an injector in without asking. My breathing slowed, steadying whether I wanted it to or not.
"Good," he muttered, already pulling a tray of tools. "You're lucky it didn't nick an artery. Pain's trickier than blood loss. People pass out faster from shock than bleeding."
My head sagged sideways. I fought to keep it up, vision blurring. "Didn't… feel lucky."
Vik gave the smallest smirk, but didn't break stride. "Nobody does when they're leaking on my floor."
A screen swung down in front of my face, stats flickering across it. My vitals, spiking and dropping, numbers I didn't fully understand. Vik did. He tapped three commands, and the lines stabilized.
"You're gonna sleep," he said, already prepping another line into my arm. "That's normal. Let me do the rest."
The harness adjusted, pulling my arm out at an angle, clamps locking the limb still. Metal arms descended, buzzing faintly.
I tried to fight the weight in my eyelids. "Don't… knock me out. Just fix it."
Vik's hand pressed to my shoulder, firm but not harsh. "Trust me, you're no good conscious for this. Close your eyes. When you wake, you'll still have both arms."
The edges of my vision closed in. His voice carried steady through the static in my skull.
"Easy. You're in the chair. You're not the first. You won't be the last."
…
Dark. Then light again, softer, yellow.
Plaster. Cracked in one corner where the landlord never bothered fixing the leak. Good old flat.
Familiar sheets under me.
Her hair was the first thing I noticed. Messy, warm against my arm. She shifted when I breathed too deep, still half-asleep, and muttered something into my shoulder.
"…you're moving too much. Go back to sleep."
I froze. My throat was tight.
"Sorry, why should I?"
She huffed like I'd just asked the dumbest thing in the world. "It's Saturday, sleep in…"
I turned my head. Her face. Clear. Exactly how I remembered it. Eyes still shut, lips pulled into the tiniest smile.
"It can't be…" I said it before I could stop myself. My voice cracked, too dry.
"Then what is it? Tuesday?" she mumbled. "You always lose track when you're up late."
I sat up halfway, scanning the room. The old dresser against the wall. The crooked blinds. My jacket hanging off the chair where I left it… years ago.
My chest tightened. "No, this… this isn't right."
She groaned and pulled the blanket over her head. "I won't fall for it again... Just… come back to bed."
I stared at the clock on the nightstand. Red digits: blinked faster, 7:15 becoming 7:16 and then 7:17 in moments.
I rubbed my eyes, but the numbers didn't stop flickering.
"Babe?" she asked from under the blanket, softer this time. Almost worried. "Why are you acting like that?"
"I…" I swallowed. My mouth was dry. "I don't know."
She lifted the blanket just enough for her eyes to peek through. Clear, brown, familiar. They held on to me like nothing was wrong at all.
"Then stop worrying," she whispered. "You're here. With me. That's enough, isn't it?"
I wanted to say yes. Wanted to believe it. My lips even parted—
Then the sound came. A low rumble outside the window, growing louder, vibrating through the walls.
Her face flickered at the edges, just for a blink. I shook my head.
"What the fuck is happening…"
Suddenly the light behind the blinders turned bright white, but she was ignoring it.
She frowned, pushing herself up onto an elbow.
" "ٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴ-ه̒ͨ҈҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉҉ٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴٴ, you're scaring me."
Her face suddenly changed into someone I didn't recognize, not even distinctly a woman or a man.
I pressed both hands to my head. "This is not real!!"
"Of course it is," it said. "What is wrong?"
Suddenly I woke up thrashing. Feeling disoriented, I tried standing up but found myself lying half-naked in Vik's clinic chair.
The whole place was empty with no Vik in sight.
"The fuck?"
My eyes adjusted too slow. The clinic hummed, sterile and still, and for a second I thought I'd been left behind. Just me in the padded chair, wires and tubes trailing off my arm, bandages wrapped clean.
Overall there was no pain but only confusion.
I thought of standing up, but I literally had no idea if it was safe to even move. So I called Vik through the Holocall.
"Hello?"
"Be with you in a sec, picking up a delivery. Anything feeling wrong?"
I considered telling him about the weird dream, but it could wait until he was here, since it's hard to explain without giving details. Maybe just a side effect of the drugs I was administered.
"A bit sore, that's all."
"Just stay still. Watch some TV while you're at it. I got some great boxing matches downloaded."
"Thank you."
Seeing as I had nothing to do, I considered exploring netrunning and learning a little. It was nearing 2 am by a quick glance at my system clock.
The data Sasha gave me contained many useful things, but one thing I absolutely had to do was learn a neo-language, particularly a lightweight language called META-LINGUA (or META). It wasn't really reliant on learning functions, arguments, and so on. It was fully driven by AI and your neural inputs, the term being neuro-scripting. Meaning it adapted to you over time, reducing response times and the effort you had to produce just by using it.
Of course it relied on two things. Talent and tech. Some people are just built to process information at high speeds, while others could only use quickhacks. And having good tech is obvious, but it really was never enough to just have the best, having the whole world progress at an incredible pace, making the difference between the good and the great.
The next level would be a deep dive, making your neurological system interpret code as visible structures, but that was far ahead of me.
META was really an industry standard just because it did what it was supposed to without much throttle when it really synched to you.
Then there was the question of if Sasha was a trustworthy individual to unpack files from. But her involvement with Maine's gang only meant that she was somewhat trustworthy, the only exception being Kiwi, but even she was not a complete evil bitch. She did hack me, but I think it was a display of power more than anything. On top of that, I kind of saved her life?
Even if I were hacked, there was nothing really to lose besides reinstalling my chrome if it got fried. My eurodollar encryption keys are bonded to my neurological patterns. And Vik's clinic is the safest place in Night City to do that. The good outweighed the bad.
As I unpacked META onto my system, it flashed numbers and symbols across my eye. Maybe in time I would learn to interpret them on the fly using it.
While it was unpacking its massive file with an AI, I had time to customize my entire system, which I had no time to do.
God forgive me if I ever said that Windows is the worst bloatware ever. I see that the commercial version is packed with basically everything anybody would need, but nothing useful or practical. Terabytes of shit like a real-time step counter that actually used rudimentary AI to scan what you saw and count every step. Why?
I took my time deleting abysmal dogshit and customizing the colors, window sizes, and placements. Luckily the neural even in the basic model I have connected to my spinal cord is amazing at detecting exactly what you want to do.
Even having only the space of one eye to adjust it, it went great. I even created a focus mode, turning off stupid UI like showing me the time of day or my inbox folder, which had a letter from Delamain thanking me for using his service. Fuck him.
The color I went for was a pleasant bright blue so that it was visible against anything I might look at. I tested it myself against darker areas of the clinic.
Thinking about that, where was Vik? It had been a good thirty minutes. Probably doing some important shit. He isn't the type to leave a patient on a whim.
Finally META downloaded on my system and started booting, making me realize that it was basically running in demo mode since it had no cyberdeck to connect to for processing power.
It was working just enough for an equivalent of "hello world." Which took me around half a second to write, compile, and execute. But the interface was still atrocious, having everything appear in the command line along with other useless visual information. Having a look at the code, it looked like it went straight to using assembly, as it was the lowest processing power required.
Settings allowed for a transfer to many other known languages, such as C, Java, C++, and a couple more.
I decided to take a look at what else was in the files Sasha provided to me. The most interesting one by far was the simulation, actually allowing me to try using META for a problem in a simulated environment.
As I booted it up, my left eye was transferred to a dimly lit space, which felt like an insane VR game with full dive technology, as I was actually able to perceive depth. I had to close my right eye to fully immerse. Braindances have to be insane if that's what a simulation looks like.
Before me appeared a mock locked database, which was my task to hack into. Opening up the details on it revealed what type of security it had when it was developed. Lockbox 2060, quite old then.
I used META to create a program similar to SQL injection, but my program didn't compile over and over. Eventually I received a message that my system was overheating and it would need time to cool down.
It was located at the base of my lower spine, so it made sense that it was heating up, being lodged between my butt and the chair.
I took to the NET to find a specific vulnerability in the meantime, but there really was no link I would go to, being sure I wouldn't get NET AIDS. The only thing I found were news articles that referenced it being breached in 2064 and data ransomed for Mr. Studd's sales and customer data.
While I was deep in my search, the door opened and Vik walked in carrying a huge box in his hands that clanked with every step he took.
"Hello there."
"Just… give me a second," Vik said and began to put the box down further back into the storage.
"No problem."
"Whew, my back is really not what it used to be." Vik exhaled and began to walk towards me.
He looked over the screen with my vitals next to me and sat down on his chair beside me.
"So, Caelen, was it? How are you feeling? Tried moving your arm already?"
I flexed it and tried moving it, but tight bandages restricted my range of motion.
"Feels good as new."
"Great to hear. But you got really lucky, so whatever you tried tonight, I advise you don't try it again."
He said it as a disappointed father would, having his eyebrows furrowed.
"Complete accident. Good thing I know a good ripper."
He stood up and began to put on his ripper glove again.
"Do you know how much new synth blood I poured into you? Lots. Had to tweak it a little so it would fit your blood."
"I'm more worried about the drugs you gave me. A weird-ass dream I had. Never had anything like it."
Vik raised his eyebrow in confusion. He walked back to me and pulled the screen closer, beginning to roll back the data to the point where I should have been asleep.
"Let me check. Hmmm. That's weird."
"What?"
"You didn't pull anything off you and put it back on?"
"No."
Vik sighed.
"You have some weird problems. Usually when people have bad dreams, their brain is quite active, since it actually has to dream. But you went almost brain dead for a few minutes between 11:30 and 11:37 PM."
"Huh?"
I sat up on the chair gently.
"And I sure didn't give you a painkiller that would procure a reaction even this close."
"I'm sorry Vik. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this information?"
"It's for me to worry about. I'll figure it out. Maybe it was just a malfunction of the scanner. If you are feeling fine you can leave any time you want."
I considered and decided to leave, assigning strange shit to the pile of strange shit and deciding to head back to Sprocket's Garage, who I had left clueless about where I went, technically missing.
Vik paid no mind as he was immersed in the medical data.
I gathered my things, but I couldn't find my jacket anywhere.
"Vik?"
"Yeah?"
"Where's my jacket?"
"Threw it out, sorry. Had to cut it up when you came in."
"Shit, okay. How much do I owe you?"
"300 will do."
Fuck me.
"Sent it. Thank you Vik, you're the best."
"Yeah yeah."
I took public transit back to Sprocket & Wires. On the bus crazy people were fighting again. Thankfully they ignored me. I took the time to try that database simulation again, but the overheating message blared again and again, making me itch to use my cyberdeck once I got back.
It has been long after midnight at this point, and the shop closed down, so I resorted to the unbeatable hidden key under a rock and made my way inside, closing the door behind me. I turned on the lights and looked over the shop.
No new cars, no signs of work being done at all. Unusual, but Sprocket could get a mental health day once in a while.
Then I made it inside my room.
DR11 was still at its place luckily. Maybe it's even an option to try to sell it through Yoko? It's too early to tell, but I can make sure it's safe out here by building a Faraday cage for it, rendering it invisible to signals in or out, even if the case already does that.
I looked at the now spotless place where Nick was shot. Am I already indifferent to killing? But I didn't kill him, Sprocket did.
Maelstrom goons are more metal than man, making them feel like cartoon villains. But it's people, right?
They didn't exactly bleed actual blood, but now my blood also has synth blood…
Work will push out those thoughts. It always will.