Chapter 11 - Chapter Eleven

A week of shard runs with Lucy felt like a blur that carried its own rhythm, the city moving fast and him moving faster, and on the roof of a half-burned office building with neon bleeding across the sky from a block away she finally asked the question that had been hanging in her eyes for days, "Where'd you get that Sandevistan, David, it's not one I've seen before," and he froze a second because she wasn't wrong, no ripper on any corner had ever shown him anything like it, and he could tell from the way she said it she'd already been asking around, so lying would only make him look stupid, and he exhaled and said, "One day I was just looking around the apartment, you know, bored, and I found a black duffel bag in the corner I didn't remember seeing before, opened it up and there it was, a Sandevistan, just sitting there, and at first I thought about installing it myself but I knew that was suicide, so I thought maybe I could sell it, and since I was already working with Vault-Tec delivery I asked Vera, the driver, what she thought, and she told me I should take it to Aperture Science, see what their techs said, because she figured they'd pay and keep me out of trouble, so that's what I did," and Lucy listened with her chin down and her eyes locked like she was reading between every word, and he kept going, "The guy there, one of the scientists, looked it over and said it was military grade, the kind people would kill me for if they knew I had it, and he was right, I felt sick just thinking about leaving it in the apartment, so I sold it to them, got a decent stack of eddies, but I wanted one for myself, so we worked out a deal where they'd give me their own version once they reverse engineered it, less money in my pocket but I'd get something safer, cleaner, and they even covered the surgery, free of charge, like a thank you, so now this is what I have, not that bag model, this one, the Aperture version," and he tugged his collar just enough to let the glow under his skin catch the light. Lucy didn't say anything right away, she just sat there with her legs dangling off the edge of the roof, looking like she was weighing something, and inside her head she was connecting dots she didn't say out loud, dots about the deal Maine had been waiting on, about the mysterious dealer who never showed, about the whispers of a package that went missing when the city chewed someone up in a crossfire, and now hearing David's story it wasn't a guess anymore, it was just math, Gloria Hernandez had been the one Maine was supposed to meet, Gloria had ended up in a coma from a gang shootout, and her kid had found the bag and sold the contents to Aperture Science before Maine even got the call back, which meant all the frustration, all the wasted time, all the bad luck Maine had cursed was sitting right in front of her wearing a jacket with a clinic patch. But she didn't say it, not here, not now, because telling him would put weight on him he didn't need yet, so she just asked, "And you trust them, Aperture?" and David said, "Yeah, I do, they didn't screw me, didn't cut corners, and I feel better with this one than I ever would've with the other, I mean look at me, I'm walking, I'm breathing, I can run a full shift and still show up here at night," and Lucy smirked like she believed him but also like she knew better, because in Night City trusting anyone was a gamble you only won until the dice turned. They left the roof and walked the blocks like usual, catching shards, feeding drones, splitting payout, but the whole time Lucy kept glancing at him like she was seeing the bigger picture, and when she got home she didn't sleep, she pulled her slate and patched into Maine's feed, pinging him with a simple line, "Got info on the missing Sandevistan," and when he called back with Dorio and Rebecca in the frame she told them what she'd pieced together, "The dealer you were waiting on, Gloria Hernandez, she's in a coma, car wreck during a crossfire, but I found her son, he's got a Sandevistan, not hers, he sold that one to Aperture, they gave him their version, clean install, no street chop job, he's running it right now." Maine sat back and rubbed his face, muttering, "What the fuck kind of luck is that," and Rebecca laughed loud, "So the kid pawned off the prize and got a toy instead, ha, can't even blame him," and Dorio just shook her head, saying, "He's still alive, which is more than most kids in this city get." Maine grumbled, "Yeah, but it means the trail's cold, we can't exactly walk into Aperture and ask for it back," and Lucy tilted her head and said, "Not unless we send him, they trust him," and Maine's eyes narrowed at the idea but he didn't throw it out, just leaned back and stared at the ceiling like he was trying to decide what god he pissed off to deserve this kind of twist. Meanwhile David went home lighter than he had in weeks because saying it out loud to someone else, even in pieces, had felt like dropping a weight, and when he sat by his mother's bed he told her about small things again, about the soda stand with the honey pine flavor, about the rabbit Rebecca had picked up and kept, about the way the air smelled cleaner, and Gloria squeezed his hand weakly and mouthed something he didn't quite catch but he smiled anyway, telling her he was doing fine, because what else was he supposed to say.