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"Ah, there's Ghost…"
A big black guy with gold chrome on one of his arms and dark glasses gave a good-natured smirk when his driver opened the door and I sat inside his car.
"I have to say, you weren't in a hurry…"
And while he was doing everything he could to show that my "tardiness" didn't bother him, he still tried to reprimand me for it.
"You should have told me where to go in advance…"
I shrugged.
"…or should I have run all over the parking lot looking for your car? You could have at least sent me the parking floor number through V and told me to wait there…"
"Come on, I wasn't trying to be critical…"
The guy tried to backpedal, but I didn't care about his attempts. Not his attempts to reprimand, and not his attempts to backpedal.
"…it's just that time is money."
I nodded my head.
"And that's exactly why I'm curious why you invited me to this meeting. Wouldn't it have been easier to just get my number from Rogue or Regina and just call?"
"I don't like talking about important matters over the phone. I prefer to meet in person. You can always tell what kind of person your conversation partner is in person…"
A brief silence hung in the air, which I decided to break.
"So?"
"I'd like to offer you a job. A serious job…"
He didn't finish his sentence, but I could practically hear him continuing with: "…not like what you usually do." He was also talking in a slightly condescending tone… It was irritating and completely killed any desire I had to continue the conversation.
"And what if I'm not interested?"
The question wasn't just a random one; I really didn't want to jump into the barrel of shit that was the Cyberpunk canon.
"Well, I guess in that case, V and her friend Jackie would gladly take all the fame for themselves…"
And again, in his unspoken words, I could feel what he wanted to say but didn't. Although this time, it was much harder to read between the lines and get the exact phrase, and I didn't bother with it, since there was nothing pleasant in it anyway.
My mood immediately went down a couple of notches.
"I'm not against that development of the situation…"
I shrugged, which the choom clearly didn't expect from me. It was all because he was too arrogant, so he didn't even have time to react when I reached for the door handle and started to open the car door.
"Wait, wait…"
DeShawn's voice was filled with confusion. He genuinely couldn't understand how anyone could so easily turn down his offer. He was fucking DeShawn! The Black King of Night City!
"Are you just going to turn down the Major Leagues just like that?!"
"A quiet and peaceful life, that's all I care about…"
"One job, and you could be an obscenely rich person!"
"Uh-huh…"
I nodded my head.
"…and you could also make some obscenely influential, obscenely vengeful, obscenely vindictive, and to top it all off, obscenely rich enemies."
"That's the beauty of it all! The job has to be done extremely quietly! In and out! And you're rich!"
I nodded my head, showing with my entire being how skeptical I was of a statement like that.
"Uh-huh, very quiet… and you don't take into account any unforeseen circumstances?"
"We'll plan everything… no unforeseen circumstances, no corpses, no alarms, nothing that could hinder us during the job or cause problems after it's over…"
DeShawn's voice was filled with superiority and arrogant confidence.
"Well, good luck to you, V, and Jackie. They'll be happy to get into the major leagues…"
And if Dexter emphasized the phrase "Major Leagues" in a way that made it clear it was something unavailable to me at the moment, something unimaginable, something alluring… Well, that's how he saw it. He apparently didn't bother to gather much information, otherwise, he would have known that I occasionally worked with Rogue. Or did she herself mislead him?
It didn't matter…
I, on the other hand, said the phrase "major leagues" as if there was nothing special about it at all. As if it was just a regular thing I dealt with every day. And I wasn't lying; I really did deal with jobs like that quite often.
"So, no?"
"You understood me correctly…"
I nodded my head.
"…I'm saying no."
"What about your crew?"
A smirk appeared on DeShawn's lips. He probably thought that was a good move, to remind me that I wasn't alone, that I had a crew, and they might not agree with my decision. To hint that he could contact them and offer them a job, and then…
"What about my crew?"
I shrugged, as if I didn't understand his hints.
"I can reach out to them, too…"
"Well… give it a shot…"
I wanted to curse, to tell him to fuck off, to put a drum in his ass and drumsticks in his urethra, but I held back.
"Huh?"
The afro-choom was in shock at my calm reaction.
"I said, give it a shot, but I doubt you'll get anything out of them…"
"And yet…"
Dexter said that as if he hadn't just tried to pressure me.
"…maybe there's something that could convince you to be brave and agree to the contract?"
I shook my head.
"Honestly, I expected more from you… more inventiveness in your attempts to convince me to do a job… and that's disappointing…"
Hmm, my words got to him. It was perfectly clear, even though he didn't seem to show it. But I did talk to Rogue and Regina often, and they were much more reserved women.
"I won't keep you any longer…"
There was a coldness in DeShawn's voice.
"…just don't regret the decision you made later."
"I won't…"
It's not that I didn't notice the threat in DeShawn's voice, but I chose not to focus on it. Though I did have to remember it and be more careful. But to react to a threat that wasn't even said out loud, but was only implied by his tone…
In short, I thought it was unnecessary, even though my hand was itching to take out my Unity and help DeShawn with opening his third eye.
I got out of the car and, after closing the door, I went back into the residential area of the megabuilding, where I went into the same greasy spoon where Panam was sitting.
"So?"
"Well… not so good."
"He threatened you?"
Panam understood me very well. She could tell by my appearance, my tone, and everything else she could see and analyze that things hadn't gone well. So that question was more than reasonable, but all I could do was shrug.
"So, yeah…"
"He hinted at it… he hinted at a threat… I should warn the girls…"
Saying that, I quickly organized a conference call with the whole crew. And when all of them, including Panam, who was standing right next to me, answered my call, I continued.
"Hey, everyone…"
"Uh-huh…"
The girls greeted me almost in unison. Their avatars were smiling. Of course, I usually turn off their avatars because in a job, an extra millimeter of screen space can be critical, and all their avatars could take up half the screen. But right now, I decided not to.
"I have some information for you… Dexter DeShawn reached out to me through an acquaintance, and he offered me a job…"
"When you say you, do you mean all of us?"
"I don't know. I didn't ask…"
I shrugged at Lucy's question.
"I hope you didn't agree?"
Kiwi reacted to my words right after Lucy.
"What?! Kiwi, have you lost your mind?! He's…"
"Becca, DeShawn gets rid of the solos who work for him too often…"
"Huh?"
Becca was very surprised by her friend's words. The stream of words she was trying to continue when Kiwi started talking stopped.
"Working for him is like playing Russian roulette. But not with one bullet in a six-shooter. It's at least three bullets, or maybe even four…"
"I agree with you, Kiwi. And you can rest assured, I refused DeShawn's job offer."
"Let me guess… he didn't like that…"
Lucy very subtly understood what I was going to say next and beat me to it by a couple of seconds, which drew all our attention to her.
"Uh-huh… he tried to put pressure on me… not directly, of course. He knows perfectly well that he's just a fixer, a good one, sure, but I'm a solo who was in close proximity to him at that moment. He talked about the major leagues, hinted at me being a coward, and then he mentioned you guys… so just be aware that he might try to reach out to you and offer you a job…"
"I'm with you."
Judy was the first to react. Almost immediately after her, Panam reacted, and she said the same thing, just in slightly different words.
"I am definitely not working with DeShawn… I have enough of Faraday in my life. It's a good thing that after you invited me in, I'm no longer in debt to him. I even made a few early payments…"
Kiwi spoke quietly and calmly, but her words were very firm. It was understandable, of course. She was holding back a little, because she had managed to not only make a few early payments, but she had also significantly reduced her monthly payment by making a large partial lump-sum payment.
"Becca? Lucy?"
I focused my gaze on their avatars. Lucy, as always, was calm, but Becca… her emotions were flashing across her face with incredible speed. If I didn't have some experience with her, I would have been a little flustered by the kaleidoscope of emotions.
The girls were silent for a while, building up the tension.
"I can't tell you what to do, but allow me to give you some advice… before you make a decision, buy some intel on DeShawn from a fixer. Study it, see how his actions align with everything else… and only after you've studied all that information…"
"I'm with you."
Lucy interrupted me, and I nodded, accepting her decision. It was so damn nice to have almost all of my partners on my side. Of course, her interrupting me was a little extra, but still…
"Fuck it! I'm not working with him!"
"Becca, I'm not trying to force you. I just want you to make a decision based on facts, not emotions…"
"Shut up already! I'm not an idiot! You're obviously more informed in this situation. I was never interested in any extra information… And Kiwi has heard of DeShawn, which means there are two of you who know about his less-than-perfect side… and I have no reason to not believe you."
"Thank you…"
I was sure that the girls could hear not only gratitude but also warmth and pleasure in my voice. They had all accepted my decision as the right one. They didn't challenge it and refused to work with someone I didn't want to work with.
"One minute…"
Judy's avatar froze, which meant she had switched to another call. Did he already start acting?
He was fast…
I had expected him to start acting at least forty minutes from now. Maybe even the next day. But he…
"That son of a bitch!"
"Is something wrong? DeShawn?"
"Huh? What does that fixer have to do with this? Although… it's partly related to him…"
My curiosity made Judy a little less negative. Of course, there was a small risk that I would get caught in the crossfire, but as they say, the sacrifice was worth it.
"So what happened?"
Becca was also curious.
"He tried to screw me over…"
"What do you mean?"
Panam joined the conversation.
"Parker called me and demanded that I process a recording she made with her optics. She said that since David accepted DeShawn's job, I, as part of his crew, was obligated to process the braindance so the info could help plan the operation."
I closed my eyes…
Was she in a hurry? Or was she just a clueless idiot who decided to do part of the job herself?
"Damn it, that bitch is calling again…"
"Well, just add her to the block list…"
Lucy said that, and the frustration on Judy's face smoothed out with enlightenment. A couple of seconds later, I heard…
"Added her…"
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