Chapter 33 - Chapter Thirty Three

Maine and the crew sat crowded around a table in one of the smaller food courts on the edge of Heywood, their plates piled with meat, vegetables, and fresh bread, all real, none of it synthetic, none of it Corpo-issued meal paste, just honest food, the kind that dripped juices when you cut into it and filled the air with smells most of them hadn't grown up knowing, and the whole crew ate like wolves because after their latest gig—a convoy job pulled clean with no heavy losses—they had enough eddies to splurge, and splurging now didn't mean running to a chrome vendor or hitting a bar for cheap synthetic booze, it meant eating something alive once, something that came out of the new forests instead of a lab, and the difference was night and day; Rebecca tore into a rabbit leg with grease running down her chin, Pilar waved his fork like he was giving a speech about how this was "the way people were supposed to eat," Dorio leaned back grinning, and even Kiwi, usually half detached, was finishing a plate of roasted fish with a look that said she might actually want seconds, while Maine sat there watching them, chewing slowly on a piece of steak, and felt the kind of pride that had nothing to do with eddies or chrome—just keeping his people alive and giving them something better than Corpo scraps. The change wasn't just at their table either, because the food courts were filling with people who used to spend what little they had on nutrient bars or vending machine slop, now buying real cuts of meat and baskets of vegetables, kitchens becoming a market boom because half the apartments in Night City didn't even have a stove anymore, just a slot for vending, so new businesses were rising up overnight—kitchen installers, cookware dealers, even little farmer's stalls with goods hauled in from the edge of the Badlands—and the corps, for once, were behind the curve, their packaged meals ignored by people who could walk to a stand and get something that smelled and tasted like food was supposed to. Conversations around them buzzed with talk about recipes, about family meals, about neighbors pooling together to buy pots and pans, about restaurants sprouting that didn't just reheat Corpo boxes but cooked, really cooked, and the crew listened while they ate, soaking in the strange normalcy, Lucy watching the others with her usual quiet smile and David laughing more freely than he had in months; even he had gone for seconds, a plate of vegetables and fresh bread, because he said it reminded him of something his mother used to cook before their lives went downhill, and with her awake again but still recovering he wanted to bring some of it back to her as soon as he could, which made the whole crew nod because they all understood what that meant. Maine leaned back finally, tossing a few extra eddies on the counter and telling the vendor to keep the change, and as they walked out into the streets, bellies full and laughter still hanging in the air, the difference in the city was obvious—people smiling with shopping bags of fruit, kids chasing stray dogs and cats that were no longer rare sights, the smell of roasting meat on corners instead of just fried kibble oil, and ads for Corpo food ignored or laughed at because once people had the real thing in their mouths they didn't want to go back to imitation. For a rare moment in Night City, things actually felt alive, and Maine told himself that if this was the future, then maybe, just maybe, they had a fighting chance to carve out something good before it all burned down again.