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"To Vik's…"
That command came from Judy, but I just shook my head.
"First, we deliver the body."
I immediately contacted Regina.
"David, did you get it all done?"
"Yeah, I can hand over the still-living body…"
"Still-living?"
"His shotgun exploded, and a fragment hit his chest. I gave him an injector, of course, and since he hasn't flatlined yet, his heart and other vital organs aren't damaged, but he should probably see a ripperdoc."
"Got it… where's the best place for you to hand over the body?"
I thought about it.
"There's a street in Little China called Tíhútán; it's not very busy. We can do it there."
"Understood. My guy will be there in ten minutes."
"It'll take us a little longer to get there…"
"He'll wait."
I nodded and cut the connection, telling Panam, who was pouting, where we needed to go.
"Lucy, what about the accounts?"
"A lot… a lot… why don't we work like this with Maine?"
Lucy looked at Becca and, at the same time, transferred money to me. I whistled. Ten million! I didn't get greedy and split it up just like the main reward. The biggest share went to our netrunners, who had gotten us this bonus.
"Shit… I can buy a new piece, choom!"
Becca literally melted into the back seat.
"That's not a mistake, is it?"
"No…"
I shook my head and explained to Lucy how my crew splits the loot.
"But…"
Then Lucy got an elbow from Becca.
"Quiet! Do you want him to ask for the money back?! Besides, I was planning on spending all this wealth on myself. My meathead brother doesn't know about this money, which means he won't get into any debts I'd have to pay out of my own pocket. You know, he's used to paying for chrome with my eddies."
"Yeah… a familiar situation…"
Panam commented on Becca's words.
"What, you have a dumbass brother, too?"
"And not just one… I'm a nomad. We're all like family, but every family has its fuck-ups. They mess up, and everyone has to answer for it."
"And they get away with it?"
"For a while… We're usually a little lenient with the dumb ones, but if they start fucking up in a big way, we might kick them out of the clan. You think that's how the Wraiths were formed? They're just clan castoffs."
Becca whistled.
"I didn't know that…"
"Well, now you do…"
The car swerved to the side, then again, and we finally passed all the slowpokes in our way and sped onto a mostly empty road, where Panam floored the gas pedal.
"Panam, don't drive so fast. I'm not dying…"
"You're hurt, and you need to get to Vik's…"
"I do…"
I nodded my head.
"And we will go to him, but it's better if we don't get into a crash. So slow down a little."
Grrrr… "Don't make me mad, David…"
"No, I'm serious. I'm sitting here, and I'm fine. Yeah, my arm is in pieces, but Vik will fix me up. I'll be better than I was, but none of that can happen if we crash by accident. You know this crazy city. No one will pay attention to us no matter how fast you drive, at least not until we cause a crash. But we're not the only ones who take advantage of that city trait…"
"Panam…"
Judy's hand came to rest on her shoulder.
"…He's right."
"Alright, but we're taking a vacation."
Panam looked at me sternly.
"You hear me? No work… at all. I'm taking you out of the city; we'll live in my clan for a bit. You need to relax a little. And so do I… Judy, we're taking you, too. You can spend some time in nature."
"Um… okay?"
Judy said that in a very uncertain voice, which was understandable. No one had ever offered her a choice like that before. And now she was just being presented with a done deal…
"You two… you can join us, too…"
Panam glanced at Becca and Lucy.
"…you guys are cool…"
"Um…"
"I'm in!"
Becca immediately agreed, while Lucy didn't know how to react.
"At least I'll get to live far away from my moron brother! I'll get to relax a little! And I can shoot guns there, right?"
"Of course. We have a firing range. We don't use it that often, but…"
"Lucy, you're coming with us, right?"
Becca looked at her friend.
"I don't know… I have money, of course, but… what if Maine needs us…"
"That meathead will call us if he needs us. But you know, he rarely organizes anything more than once a week. Often even less. He works for Faraday, and he doesn't exactly have a ton of jobs to give out."
"That makes sense…"
I jumped into the girls' conversation. We had just finished a job with them, and the fact that Panam was inviting them on a vacation meant they had made a very good impression on her. And I trust her opinion.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Faraday is a corporate rat…"
I shrugged.
"He only works with Arasaka and Militech, and he very successfully bends over and takes it from both of them."
"Arasaka?"
Lucy latched onto that and demanded that I confirm those words.
"Uh-huh… if you don't believe me, you can buy some intel on him from a fixer. You have enough money for it; you won't even notice the dent in your wallet."
I shrugged with my good arm.
"So Faraday doesn't get a lot of jobs. It's us, the ones who work for regular fixers, who have a choice and a wide range of jobs. Fixers aren't usually tied to one gang—Okada is an exception—so they get jobs for everything. But Faraday is forced to work only with jobs that benefit the corporate bigwigs."
"Damn it all…"
Becca frowned.
"Yeah… I hate Arasaka… and I asked Maine if he worked for Arasaka, and he told me no…"
"And he might not even know…"
I shrugged at Lucy's words, and when she looked up at me in surprise—I had a rear-view mirror in the car, so I could see the faces of the girls in the back without turning around—I smiled softly at her. I hoped they could see me too.
"Faraday doesn't advertise who he works for… as a rule, the solos who work for him don't know that all the jobs they were given were for the benefit of corporate big shots, and that dozens of rats climbed the career ladder on their backs until they move on to another fixer."
"Man…"
Lucy was visibly distressed, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
About twenty minutes later, we drove onto a street, and I immediately messaged Regina, who had sent me the geolocation of the car I was supposed to transfer our cargo to. We stopped trunk to trunk. I got out of the car and calmly walked to our trunk, opened it, checked the condition of the cargo, and after making sure it was alive and not about to flatline, I transferred it to the trunk of the car Regina had sent.
The driver also checked the guy's vital signs.
"What's this shard?"
"My netrunner put a daemon on it so he couldn't contact anyone and they couldn't track him."
The driver nodded and closed the trunk of his car. I closed the Tortik's massive trunk and calmly got into the front seat.
"To Vik's now…"
Just as we were pulling up to Viktor's clinic, I got a message from Regina. She thanked me and strongly advised me to take a month-long break. I had made too much noise recently.
Naturally, she paid me in full and even promised a bonus once the cargo was delivered. But that all depended on the client being satisfied with the cargo's condition.
In short, I walked into Vik's clinic in high spirits…
"My God, kid, what happened to you?"
"I ran into a Sandevistan user who was waiting for me and managed to shoot me with a shotgun…"
"Alright, get in the chair…"
Vik nodded to his operating chair. I sat down in it and then glanced at the girls.
"Becca, I thought you were with Maine…"
"Yeah, well… I'm not so sure anymore…"
"What?"
Vik looked at her with a smirk.
"David doesn't work in your style, does he…"
"That's true, but he makes money…"
I could swear I saw dollar signs in her eyes instead of pupils, sparkling with the emotions that were overwhelming Becca.
"And I still got to shoot something, even if it wasn't me personally, but like I was playing a game…"
"And I'm not so sure anymore either… Maine works for Faraday, and according to David, he's tied to Arasaka…"
Lucy shuddered. Meanwhile, Viktor checked that I was sitting correctly, put on his ripper glove, and injected something into his arm from an injector. Then he wiggled his fingers and, nodding with satisfaction, looked at me with his eyes.
"Alright… I need to take a closer look at that arm…"
With those words, he activated a device that looked like an X-ray machine from my past life, only much more advanced, and he checked the data that came up on the terminal.
"Alright… I can save the bone, and the muscles too…"
"Vik…"
"What?"
"I was thinking… I don't want to become a cyber-psycho like Maine, or God forbid, Smasher, but my human body just can't work at the same speed as my Sandevistan…"
"And what are you suggesting?"
He looked at me with a very grim expression.
"Synthetic muscles. They, if I understand correctly, with the same size…"
I pointed at myself with my finger.
"…will give me a two-fold increase in strength and a five-fold increase in stamina. And they don't affect your psyche, and no one has ever gone crazy from them… as far as I know."
"You're right, kid… no one has…"
Vik looked at me thoughtfully.
"…and honestly, I'm very surprised. It's not a cheap option; regular chrome would definitely be cheaper. But you're talking about synthetic muscles. They're mainly used by athletes now, who don't want to train or just want to go beyond what's available to a normal person, but they don't want to get a bunch of chrome installed…"
Vik looked me over thoughtfully, checked the readings from the device, and closed his eyes.
"Any other requests?"
I shook my head thoughtfully.
"I want a lot, but we'll take it one step at a time. I don't know what exactly installing synthetic muscles will give me yet. I'll have to try them out, and before that, I'll have to go through rehab…"
Vik nodded in satisfaction, acknowledging that I was right.
"Unless… you have a more powerful cyberdeck…"
"What do you need that for?"
Vik raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"I often let netrunners work through me, and I can literally feel how much my deck is limiting them with its bandwidth."
"Um…"
"What?"
I looked at the speechless Vik in surprise.
"It's just… it's unusual…"
"It sure is… usually, solos try to avoid letting a netrunner work through their implants, and this guy let me, even though he's only known me for one day."
"It's because of Becca. She trusts you, and I trust her, so you deserve a chance too."
I shrugged, answering Lucy's question.
"Especially since everything ended well…"
"Alright, so a deck and synthetic muscles?"
"Uh-huh…"
I nodded my head and raised an eyebrow in question when Vik scratched his cheek in embarrassment and looked away.
"Vik?"
"Well… I don't usually do this… but I was offered some optics, used, of course, clearly taken off a corpse, but… I immediately thought of you, kid."
I blinked.
"Of me?"
"Yeah… Kiroshi, experimental, clearly a generation four plus, and military grade, too… In short, I couldn't help myself and bought them. Of course, I checked them, so there are no nasty surprises."
"Then let's do it!"
I smirked and waved my hand, agreeing to replace the optics. I had made a very decent amount of money, so I had enough for everything I wanted.
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