I never slept that much after coming to Night City. A few hours was all I needed. But now I was tired enough to fall over right on the street.
I had enough in me to get on public transport and get back to the shop, but it was light out for me the moment I placed my body on the mattress.
Usually I have no dreams, but I remember a vague one of me at my job, attending a coworker's birthday celebration in a break room. I ate cake. My boss was my college friend, for some reason. It was really confusing.
I woke up from screams outside. The alarm should have been active for hours. It doesn't work like a regular alarm, but rather sends a signal to your neurons to nudge you awake. Shit doesn't work.
I dressed and walked out of my room.
Sprocket was talking with a client. Some fat fuck dressed in a cheap suit.
"My car broke because it was 'fixed' here!"
"You stupid shit. It was five months ago!"
"No other way around it!"
"How the fuck would that work? Timed breakdown?"
"You tell me, you fucking scammers!"
"Are you fucking stupid?"
"Pay me back and fix it!"
"Do you see a woman and assume I'm a pushover? Get out, NOW!"
"Bitch, you think you are ordering me?!"
I walked past and looked inside the car outside the garage. Customer service was not her strong point. I had my gun ready, just in case.
Trash filled the interior to the windows: empty fast food containers and other trash. He was wrong even if he was right at this point. Disgusting fucker.
"Break his fucking windows!" Sprocket yelled in my direction.
"What?" asked the man, and he turned to me standing next to his car.
She punched this man straight in the face, causing him to stumble backward and fall on his ass as his nose began to bleed. He began to roll on the ground, writhing in pain.
"AAAARH! BITCH!"
"Do I need to break the windows? Or was it just a distraction?" I asked, befuddled.
Sprocket angrily kicked the man in the back as she replied with a resounding "YES!"
I lazily picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the windshield. Cracks formed, but it did not shatter. Good enough, I guess.
"Is this good?" I yelled.
Sprocket kicked the man once again and spat on him.
"Yeah, sure. Now get this fucker out."
I walked toward him as he sobbed incomprehensibly.
I grabbed the man's leg and dragged him back toward his car across concrete.
He quickly crawled inside, hitting his head with the door, and drove away, screaming. He almost hit a corner.
I turned to Sprocket.
"Was that really needed?"
"Standard practice. Sometimes people think that if we are not Auto Fixer, then we are an easy target. Happens every few months."
"He is not going to come back?"
"He is a wimp. Maybe NCPD will come down here in a few weeks, ask a question or two, and leave. Been there, done that. I'm gonna go delete the camera recordings. Gonna say they are corrupted or something."
Huh. That did feel right in a way.
"What's on for today then?"
Sprocket turned around.
"You can clean up. We are good on orders for now. Seems like a slow day for once."
I looked around the shop and found it relatively clean. Maybe sort the tools, but that would take nothing more than a few minutes.
I'll do it later then. Maybe some more neuro-scripting?
I walked back to my room, connected the Spiker, and linked into the BBS. The simulation unfolded around me, crowded this time. Shapes filled the space: humanoids, glitching insects, floating cubes that pulsed like heartbeats. None of them were audible. Their lips moved, or their geometry shifted in patterns, but no sound carried. I figured you had to ask permission to tap into their streams.
I sent myself toward the bar. Yoko's avatar was there again. At first it froze like a statue, then jolted awake, contours sliding like wet oil paint.
"What do you need?" she asked flatly.
"Looking to buy a cyberdeck. You got recommendations?"
"Budget?"
"Intermediate. Around five thousand."
Her avatar flickered, data spilling behind her like scrolling code. "Not much at that range. Intended use?"
"Stealth. Something reliable."
"Then five won't cut it. Closest option is Seacho Electronics Mk.1. Entry-tier corporate deck. Solid thermal regulation, stable I/O, runs clean. Not flashy. Really popular."
"How much?"
"Seventy-five hundred."
Damn.
She leaned in, like she could smell my hesitation. "Run some nodes if you don't have enough. Or take jobs. That's how it works. Nobody buys in without hustling."
"Any jobs doable with just a Spiker?"
Pause. Her model glitched as data fed into her. "Scrap digs. Old databanks. Same thing Sasha handed you. Pays pocket change, but better than nothing."
"How much per crack?"
"Like 20 a pop, if you're lucky with the data within. Most kids treat it like snack money."
"Anything else?"
"One client is looking for help setting up a security grid. Needs protocols written, keys issued. Remote job, simple. Pay's low, and you'd probably botch it."
"Fair enough."
Her voice dropped to a dead monotone. "Cry me a river." Then she turned her avatar away like I was done.
"Thanks," I said, disconnecting.
I walked out and found Sprocket polishing her Quadra.
"Can I leave for today?" I asked.
"Sure."
"That easy?"
She shrugged. "Means I keep all the cut. Go on."
Yeah, that checked out.
I shot Vik a text.
"Morning, Vik. Got any cyberdecks in stock? Can I come by?"
He answered a few minutes later.
"Sure, but give me a few hours. Just checked inventory, mostly civ-grade paralines. I do have two higher-end pieces: Stephenson Tech Mk.3k, and the Raven Microcyber Mk.2 you dragged in. Hard to sell that one. Doesn't feel right mentioning it came off a corpse."
"Stephenson and Raven, huh? How do they compare?"
"Well, Stephenson'll run you twenty-five thousand. That's corpo-tier, optimized for heavy throughput, advanced encryption matrices, and combat-oriented quickhack execution. The Raven's in a different category entirely. I tested it: eight gigaflop RAM banks wired in parallel, buffer good for seven concurrent threads. Has a hardware spreader that disguises outgoing quickhacks as regular system calls, seems pretty good. Not perfect, but good. 9250, with port installation included."
That was everything I had. Just enough left for soy bars and bitter caf for a week. But to make money, you spend money.
"Sounds good. I'll come later today. Any word from your guy about my mutations?"
"I called in a favor. He's backlogged. It'll be ready when it's ready. But come by, Caelen. I got a story for you you'll love."
"Alright. Later."
"Later."
If I will do serious netrunning I will need at least an ice bath. And the garage is no place for things like that. I would prefer a bunker with a blast door, but money...
I checked my map. A construction site nearby had two active nodes. Problem was the site was busy. Workers, cranes, steel clanging. I'd have to slip in, blend, and upload without notice.
The chain-link fence was wide open. Nobody cared who came or went. I walked straight to the container office, snagged a neon vest and helmet from a locker, and pulled them on. Blended well enough.
Until the door opened against my hand. A thick-bearded guy, eyes narrowing.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Supervisor? Where do we unload the tubing?"
"Ask John," I snapped, moving past him.
"John who?"
Shit. I shuffled the papers on the desk, caught a name. Foreman: George Hall.
"I meant George. You know George, right?" I snapped.
"Ugh. Fine. Where is he?"
"It's my break. I don't know. Figure it out."
I left before he could argue.
Nobody paid me much mind as I walked deeper into the skeleton of steel and concrete. I found the first node bolted to an unfinished wall, jacked in, and uploaded Yoko's program. Quick, easy. Too easy.
The second node wasn't. As soon as I started the upload, the system hiccupped. Error codes scrolled. Connection froze halfway. I cursed under my breath and yanked the cable. If the node flagged that, ICE would notice.
I forced a manual reboot, fingers sticky with sweat. The machine's fan whined, power cycled. It took four minutes to come back online, each second stretched tight, workers milling nearby. One even glanced at me, but the vest bought silence.
The node finally rebooted. Upload succeeded, barely. I cut the line fast and walked out like I belonged, dumped the vest and helmet in an alley.
A message pinged my holo a moment later. 220 eurodollars transferred to my account.
Nice. Barely worth the nerves, but work was work. I'd prefer the remote kind.
I walked out of the site and into the alley, where I dumped the vest and the helmet.
The next node nearby was inside a diner. Since it was so early, I saw the waitress and the clerk chatting with no customers at all. Maybe later. Also, public nodes like these usually contain cyber aids, so I'll need serious protection before jacking in.
By then my stomach screamed. I detoured to a noodle stand near Vik's clinic. The broth was too salty, noodles limp, but it filled the hole. A pair of goons across the counter stared at me until they got bored. I slurped slow and methodical until I finished my second bowl and it was time to go.
I went through Misty Esoterica.
As I stepped through the door, Misty was staring at me from the counter.
"What's up?"
"Good to see you. How's the incense and the meditations?"
"Funny that you should ask that. Lost them all not after I left last time."
"Really?" she asked, surprised.
"Yeah, sorry. I'll get some more later. Money is a bit tight."
"Hey, listen. You don't have to buy stuff if you feel pity or something."
"No no, I really mean it."
"Hmm, okay. Vik came back already, go ahead." Misty gestured toward the back exit.
Vik's clinic was as usual; the door opened as I approached. Vik looked up from a tray of implants, goggles still on his forehead.
"Caelen," he said flatly. "Sit. We'll run a deep scan before I open you up."
"Scan?" I asked.
"Just making sure you didn't fry your nerves or pick up some digital clap while you were doing your thing. You'd be surprised what people bring me."
"I'm fine, maybe a little tired but fine."
"Listen, buddy, every time you've come here it's been only trouble."
"Night City does its things..."
I sat. Wires stuck to my temples, a hum filled my head, and continued for a few minutes.
He sat in the chair next to me.
"Remember V?"
"Yeah?"
"He came over with a friend a few days back, and I told them about the stunts you been pulling. And oh boy did they have a laugh."
"About what?"
Vik smiled faintly.
"At first I thought you are some kind of corpo kid from a puritan family, with ties to Arasaka and V somehow."
"Not even close."
"Yeah, I know now. But V just lost it, telling me that you are really a guy that made him laugh."
"And you thought I was some bigshot?"
"Something like that... Only reason why I bought scavved chrome from you, and now I'm stuck with it. Even refused some clients when you were in the chair."
"Shit, sorry. I'll pay you back when I can. Guy was a real piece of shit I tell you that much."
"It's fine. It will be useful as an emergency reserve. But it's not like brain mesh lattices are emergency, not the point."
"Any questions about where I'm from while we are at it?"
"I'm good on secrets in my life. Patient is a patient."
"You are some great doctor, Vik."
He nodded with a hint of acknowledgment.
"Clean," Vik said after a moment. "Good for us both. Now, let's see about that deck."
He pulled the Raven from a case below the desk, blue slab with hex pattern on it. "Not top-shelf, but solid. Good stealth architecture. You'll like it."
"What about the cooling? Do I need to buy a suit?"
"Your lymphatic system and circulatory system will do most of it. The human body is efficient at temperature control. But for good measure, a good ripper also installs some nanobots in there to carry the heat."
"Got it."
"Okay, take off your shirt and lie on your stomach."
I turned and lay there comfortably.
"Okay, now relax," said Vik and injected my upper spine with a drug.
I slowly drifted to sleep.
When I woke up I found myself in the same chair. System time showed that only five hours had passed. Gosh, darn quick for brain surgery. Logs showed that Raven already booted and updated all the drivers.
Vik's voice cut me off from even moving.
"Now then. Don't move around. Scars are not yet healed fully."
"Vik, is the feeling of pressure normal?"
"Yes it is. Now for a quick rundown. No pressure to the skull and neck area. No full-thread hacks, no stress testing the buffers. Let the ports settle. Take your meds, finish the course. If you feel burning in your spine or migraines behind the eyes, you come back immediately. Got it?"
"For how long?"
"A few days will do, but the meds will need to be taken for a week."
He gave the bottle to me.
"How much for these?"
"Included in the price. Any strange dreams again by any chance?"
"Lights off, lights on."
Vik placed the datapad back as he stood up.
"While I was at it, I did install you a special service. Hope it helps you stay out of trouble."
"Hmm?"
"Connected your eye scanner to an NCPD database, so if you see someone with a bounty, do avoid them. And your face will be distorted in the cameras, eye you have is a older Kiroshi, but it does the job."
"I don't know what to say..."
Fucking finally.
"Make sure you don't go out like an idiot."
I stood up slowly and paid Vik, who was already back at watching boxing and tinkering with his glove.
I shot a message to Sprocket.
"Need help?"
"No."
But I did have one idea. If my body is accelerated at a cellular level, doesn't it also mean that I can grow muscle faster than anybody natural? Will working out turn me into a bodybuilder? How much protein do I need? Gym memberships are also a financial burden...
Why am I even asking these questions? Vik is right there.
"Vik?"
"What's the problem?"
"Can you give me a boxing lesson? I think it would be fun. I will go easy on you."
Vik turned around in his chair, smiling.
"You want to beat up an old man? Let's see you try."
He collected his gear and we went out to a place. Since outside was no good, toxic rain began pouring in.
The half-rotted basement smelled like mold. Concrete floor, half the lights dead. But in the middle of it all was a ring—ropes frayed, canvas stained, but solid. Looked like it had been here longer than either of us.
"Place used to belong to a buddy," Vik said, setting his gloves on the ropes. "He's dead. I still got the keys."
I climbed in. The floor gave just enough bounce. Felt strange—like standing on a thin layer of tension.
"Hands up," Vik barked, slipping on his gloves. "You're not here to look pretty. Protect your head, protect your liver. Forget the action movies."
I raised my arms.
"Good stance. Now, footwork. Everything,s feet first. You don't move them, you're already dead."
He circled me. I shuffled sideways, then tripped over my own stance slightly. He tapped my cheek with his glove, not even a punch.
"See? Boom."
"Let me warm up, man."
"That wasn't a punch."
I gritted my teeth, adjusted. Tried again. Step, slide, keep balanced. It felt unnatural, but slowly I found a beat. My breathing synced.
"Better," Vik muttered. Then he jabbed. Quick, light, aimed at my chest. I flinched back, almost lost my footing. But I managed to bounce back in a moment.
He showed me how to jab, straight, sharp, no wasted movement. I copied, hitting air like a drunk. He corrected me, forcing my elbows in, shoulders tight. Sweat started dripping down my temple. My ribs burned from twisting.
We went on like that—jab, guard, shuffle, repeat. Every time I slipped up, Vik punished me with a soft body shot that still hurt like hell. Old man still packed weight.
"Fucking hell, hurts worse than bullets," I wheezed.
"Get more tired, you punk."he said while leaning on the ropes.
Time blurred. My arms felt slightly heavy, lungs ragged. But something clicked. My feet weren't tripping anymore. My fists were moving faster, tighter. I even managed to punch Vik's ribs once, though he stepped back before it properly landed.
"Not bad," he said, smiling under his wrinkles. "You'll get it soon enough."
I stripped the gloves off, hands trembling from the strain of keeping a fist. "Guess I'll come by again."
"You better," Vik said, tossing a towel my way. "And next time, I will get you an opponent instead of me."
I wiped off the sweat.
Once I get back to the garage I have to wash down using a water hose. Again.