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A few days of work flew by… fast and productive. Judy, Lucy, and Kiwi started working a couple of orders of magnitude more efficiently and faster. That immediately affected the overall speed of completing jobs, and now we could take on four jobs a day instead of two.
Was it hard?
Yes.
But on the whole, it was more than manageable, and the earnings immediately went up. However…
I looked at the unknown number and, raising my hand, showed that I was stepping out of the conversation with the girls. Then I answered the call.
"I'm listening."
"Ghost? This is Faraday. I would like to offer you a job…"
"Uh-huh…"
I tried to convey my displeasure with my voice, but I didn't hang up or immediately say that I was busy. My displeasure was caused not only by the fact that he didn't even bother to ask when I would be free… but also by his tone…
"When?"
"Tomorrow…"
"I'm busy."
"…The day after tomorrow?"
"Also."
"You seem to have misunderstood. I am Faraday. Working for me is extremely profitable. Didn't Kiwi tell you about it?"
"She did…"
Faraday's image smiled.
"…but what does that change? Faraday, do you know how much I work? No? I'll tell you. I work five days on, two days off. Five days a week, I work like a dog. I don't have a single minute of free time during those five days."
"But then…"
"And because of that, I'm not giving my two days off to anyone."
"I can be very generous…"
"Uh-huh, and can you give me my youth back, too? So that later, if I live to be old, I don't regret that I only worked and didn't take any time for myself…"
"Are you sure about your decision?"
"What decision?"
I smirked.
"The decision not to work for you? Yeah, I'm sure. I don't like working for people I don't know without a recommendation."
"But…"
"Yeah, Kiwi asked me to talk to you, but you didn't even mention it…"
I shook my head.
"Are you mocking me?"
"Ah…"
My image nodded.
"…you figured it out? How do you think I should feel about a person who tries to manipulate me through a member of my crew? How should I feel about a person like that?"
"Are you sure you should be talking to me like this?"
Faraday's voice changed, and I could hear a threat in it.
"I am."
"You know… I'll be waiting for you to come crawling to me…"
I didn't answer him. I just hung up. Of course, I could have had a more civilized conversation with him, but… after Kiwi's story, after all the data I bought from Regina and Rogue on other fixers… in short, I didn't feel like talking to him while playing the role of a polite mercenary. It was a good thing I just mocked him and didn't tell him to fuck off…
Man… "What a conversation…"
"Hmm?"
Panam glanced at me. We were in the Thorton, driving back from a job, heading for the apartment where we were planning to indulge in some fun. And this time, we were planning on having a threesome, while Kiwi, Lucy, and Becca wanted to watch a movie… thankfully, our apartment had good soundproofing and enough space…
"Yeah… I lost my temper a little… Faraday called me… his tone was arrogant and overconfident. I could hear his superiority in it. So I lost my temper a little and mocked him…"
"That's… not good…"
"Yeah, I'm sorry, Kiwi… I really wanted to have a normal conversation with him. But when his first offer was a job… and in that tone…"
Man… "And I even warned him…"
Kiwi shook her head.
"In short, what should we expect? Because his last words were: 'I'll be waiting for you to come crawling to me.'"
"Well, in general… he's definitely going to start causing problems… but he won't go against Rogue, but Regina…"
"Should I warn her?"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt… so she's ready for problems on our jobs. Unexpected problems. After all, Faraday isn't DeShawn, who just disappears all the time and is confident in his excellent reputation. Faraday works like a dog. He has a ton of debtors, informants, and mercenaries…"
Man…
"Well, at least we've already started upgrading… only you are left, but you're the strongest anyway, so I think we'll get through the first few traps easily. We might even make a profit…"
Kiwi closed her eyes and put on her mask, which she had taken off in the car. It was a kind of gesture that meant she had switched to work mode.
I, in turn, frowned.
"Maybe we should just…"
I ran my thumb across my throat, and Kiwi sighed and shook her head.
"No… that's not an option… I would love to, of course, but he has too good of a cover, and you yourself didn't want to get involved in corporate messes…"
"Yeah, yeah…"
I nodded my head.
And saying that, I called Regina.
"Ghost?"
"Hey… so Faraday contacted me, and I kind of… lost my temper and mocked him. In short, he might start throwing a wrench in the works."
"Uh-huh… problems, problems, problems…"
Regina sighed.
"Listen, I don't believe in things like this, but you're like a sign from above… I have a cop I know… can you help him out?"
"Regina?"
My image raised an eyebrow in a questioning way.
"Have you heard of Peter Pan?"
"Um… to be honest, no…"
"You don't watch TV?"
"TV? I don't have time for that…"
"Got it… in short, until recently, there was a kidnapper and murderer who was nicknamed Peter Pan. He would kidnap teenagers, lure them in, and… that's it… nothing else is known… He was caught by accident. They found a dead body in his car, and the cops shot him during the arrest…"
I frowned.
"And?"
No, I remembered the canon, and there was some kind of Peter Pan in it… but the details… I couldn't remember that. It was a side quest with a cop. And I had too busy a life now to remember such small details.
"The problem is that he was shot, but he didn't die…"
"We have to finish him off?"
"No… if that was the case, my friend could have handled it himself. The thing is, we need a braindance master who can pull information from a damaged brain in a coma…"
"One second, I'll put Judy on…"
"Go on…"
A couple of seconds passed, and Judy answered the call.
"Is something wrong?"
"Regina, fill her in, and she'll tell us if she can do it or not."
"Alright… in short, here's the gist. There's a guy in a coma. He's a criminal, but he was shot in the head during his arrest… But we need his memories. We need something we can latch onto to find out where he's keeping the teenagers who haven't flatlined yet…"
"Um…"
Judy was very flustered.
"…well, in theory, it's possible. But in practice, you have to see how badly the brain is damaged and also find something from real life that can make his brain work in the right direction. But that's only if the brain is relatively intact… it's a complicated technology. I've read about it. You can access dreams. And then you can process those dreams into a braindance…"
"So, it's possible?"
"Well… yeah… but as I said, you have to see what the brain looks like…"
"David, can you guys come now?"
I sighed… it looked like our threesome was postponed. But when Regina asks me specifically… no, I could, of course, say no, but… I had too much respect for this fixer. So saying no wasn't an option.
"Where to?"
"Night City Police Lab, in Glen, Heywood. I'll send you the contact info of my friend. His name is River Ward. He's a cop, but he's a good cop. He's probably one of the few cops in Night City who doesn't take bribes. You can call him when you get there…"
"Alright…"
I sighed.
"Send me the details in an email…"
"Okay… and David… thank you."
"Regina, don't… just know that you can count on me."
"Uh-huh…"
The connection was cut, and I opened my eyes.
"Panam, change of plans. We're heading to the Night City Police Lab in Heywood."
"Um… are you serious?"
"Yeah, Regina asked for our help… we need to meet a friend of hers. He's a cop, and he has some kind of problem with Peter Pan…"
"Um… I think I've heard about that…"
Becca joined the conversation.
"You mean that kidnapper the cops shot?"
Kiwi also joined the conversation.
"Yeah… they didn't exactly shoot him; they just put him in a coma. And Judy's help will be needed to create a braindance, if possible. So we have a job that will probably be unpaid, but it will improve our relationship with the fixer."
"Got it…"
The girls sighed. Panam, in turn, sharply changed the direction of the Thorton.
"Alright, do we have the details?"
"Just a second…"
I opened the email from Regina and read it. Then I started to tell the girls what our main employer had sent me.
"…alright, our contact is an honest cop…"
The girls snorted at that phrase.
"…no, really. I doubt Regina would have given him a description like that for no reason."
"Well…"
The girls thought about it, because Regina really didn't seem like a person who would give a description like that for no reason.
"…you're right about that."
I nodded and decided to continue.
"Alright, an honest cop, and he has a problem. It seems Peter Pan has kidnapped his nephew. And now Peter Pan is in a coma, but what happened to the nephew, where he is, and if he's even alive, all of those questions need answers."
"Man… well, we'll help the honest cop!"
Becca raised her fist in a warlike gesture.
On the whole, the conversation could have ended there, but the topic of honest cops unexpectedly continued.
"What do you guys think? Are there a lot of honest cops in Night City?"
I snorted.
"More than there should be, but less than we would like."
"This…"
Becca wanted to say something, but she was interrupted by Kiwi, who had a more pragmatic view of life.
"So, more than zero, but less than, say, ten?"
"Well, there you go. As always, Kiwi ruined the magic of the moment when we could have fantasized that there are actually a lot of honest cops. It's just that we've had bad luck in life, and we mostly ran into assholes…"
Judy said that with a smirk.
"It's just the city… Night City isn't a place where honest people survive easily…"
Kiwi wasn't going to give up on her own point of view.
"Well, David and we survived, didn't we?"
Panam smirked.
"Well…"
I decided to join the conversation again.
"…we're a good illustration of the saying: 'Good has to have fists.' That's why we survived…"
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