Chapter 3 — You finally took this path
Susan stood, the motion abrupt enough to silence a few nearby conversations. "You guys keep talking. I have to check on Judy's shift." She left the circle with a curt nod toward Korna, then shot a cold look at Adrian on her way out.
Adrian met her glare with one of his own and held it for the length of a blinking neon sign. He liked to pretend he didn't care, but he felt it—Susan's displeasure prickling at the edges of the bar like static. Korna laughed softly and reached over to pat his shoulder, all warmth and old debts.
"Alright, Adrian—don't let her get to you." Korna's voice was honeyed but firm. "You guys are family, that's all."
"Family," Adrian echoed, a sour smile tugging at his mouth. The word had weight here. Family meant protection, but it also meant owing favors you could never really pay back.
Korna rubbed her hands together and cleared her throat. "Let's get to business." She turned to Mann and lowered her voice. "I'm only responsible for introducing Adrian. The rest of it—well, that's up to you two to sort."
Mann flashed a quick OK sign, then sat upright like a machine that had been wound up. He filled a glass, handed it to Adrian with a grin that said he was testing the waters. "Drink up, kid. Apologies for earlier. Don't take it personal—my crew's blunt."
Adrian accepted the glass out of reflex more than thirst and took a slow sip. The liquor burned, the heat landing somewhere under his ribs that had nothing to do with alcohol. "So what do you want from me?" he asked.
Mann's grin softened into something sharp and businesslike. "We need your skills. Low profile, high impact. We're taking data from Biotech."
The word landed like a live wire. Adrian's fingers tightened on the glass. Biotech—the corporate titan with a hundred subsidiaries and a private army. Stealing from them was not a stunt; it was suicide if done wrong.
"You want to steal from Biotech?" Adrian's voice came out flat. He wasn't new to merc work. He'd learned, fast, that some jobs were worth sleep and some were worth careful planning. Biotech jobs were the latter—and the latter always paid in blood.
Mann shrugged as if shrugging could erase the hazard. "You act like it's the first time someone's bitten the hand that feeds the city. Fortune favors the bold—fortune favors the prepared. We've watched this target for weeks. It's ripe."
Korna sat back like the world had stopped being interesting for a moment, nursing her drink with delicate hands. She'd saved Adrian once. He still remembered that—how she'd taken a lost kid on the brink of being harvested and given him a cot, a job, and a place to breathe. That debt lingered in his chest.
Mann leaned forward and looked at the corner where the hacker sat—small, lithe, fingers never quite still. Sasha—her handle on the nets—had a reputation that matched the smoke from the vents in her cheeks. She was the kind of ghost everyone paid lip service to: impossible to read, essential to hire.
"You saw her?" Mann said. "Sasha's the ghost in this caper. She can slip through Biotech's defenses like a shadow through a torn wall."
Adrian glanced at Sasha. She looked up from the laptop and tipped a hand in greeting. Her eyes were bright, lashes too perfect against her pink eyelids. She was both delicate and dangerous; the contradiction fit her.
Adrian's mind flicked sideways. Edgewalker—Edgerunners—his old trashflix memories surfed up. Characters he'd binged in long nights before the real war started. It was ridiculous to be starstruck by someone who'd been a show in a different life, but in Night City, myth and reality bled together until you couldn't tell which was which.
"Let's talk pay first," Adrian said. He was practical; he'd learned that in five years. Ideals were nice until the bills needed paying and your chip payments were overdue.
Mann didn't bother pretending to be coy. "Two-fifty K eddies. Split four ways: me, Sasha, you, and a tech guy who brings hardware and extra gear. He's out tonight—drinking with a sister or whatever—but he's part of the package."
Adrian felt the weight of the offer. Two hundred fifty thousand eddies—enough to fold his life into a brief, different shape. Korna had already pressed one hundred twenty thousand eddies into his hands once, the gang's version of a parachute. The math of Mann's offer was ruinous and radiant.
"We're not a charity," Mann added. "But I'll front you seventy K up front. Consider it deposit."
Seventy thousand eddies—adrenaline and calculation knifed through Adrian at the same time. He thought about Susan's chip on the table in the backroom—tough love in metallic currency. He thought about Shanna, about Rita, about nights where a bottle of water was a miracle. He thought about the Mox's motto turned business model: help our own and keep the peace where we can.
"You're being generous," Adrian said dryly. "And why me? I'm not a seasoned infiltrator."
Mann's laugh was a bark. "You have a profile—low, flexible, and with enough grit to surprise people. Pila's been asking about you. He spends time at Liz, watching, and he asked. You're not the usual hire, but that might be the point."
Pila. The name brought an image—a tech that preferred the night and loose alliances. People like Pila were the kinds of shadow brokers you didn't notice until they were already in your system.
Korna watched him with that maternal patience she reserved for the people she considered hers. "We need someone who can run and hide and fight when it counts," she said. "You may not be polished, but you're reliable. And Adrian—family sometimes means walking a path you didn't choose yourself."
Adrian's throat tightened. He'd been doing that walking for years now. He'd shuffled along paths that felt less like choices and more like inevitabilities. Tonight felt the same and different. Mann's offer was a door opening to something larger than looting slums, and the cost might be higher than money.
"Alright," Adrian said after a breath. He extended his hand without theatrics. "I'll take it."
Mann took it like a bet that had just been won. "Fantastic. We'll go over the blueprint—entry vectors, guard rotations, patch windows. Sasha will show you the holes in their systems; Pila will outfit you. We need someone who can be quiet when required and loud when threatened."
They sat and planned, the talk shifting into professional cadence: times, code words, staging zones, fallback points. Mann described routes with surgical detail; Sasha drew invisible maps across her screen and narrated breaches. Korna and Susan listened, the tricks of trade settling like dust in their eyes, part worry, part curiosity.
Susan, who had grabbed her coat when she said she'd check on Judy, had lingered at the doorway. When Adrian finally stepped out into the stale, trash-scented alley later that night, she was waiting, a silhouette against the neon gutterlight.
"How long?" she asked, blunt as ever.
"Not sure," Adrian said. "Depends on prep. Depends on the team." He thumbed the brim of his hat. Susan shifted closer and pressed a small e-cigarette into his hand. Pink glass, like her signature—temptation and tenderness in one package.
"I don't smoke," he started.
"It's not smoke," she cut him off. "It's peach. It's light. And you're not replacing anything; it's just… something to calm your head. Take it."
Adrian remembered the first time Rita had pulled the same trick, a cheap laugh and a harsher aftertaste. His prosthetic lungs had rebelled at the synthetic bile he'd inhaled once before—two puffs and a dizzy fog that felt like drowning. He'd sworn off it.
"I'm fine," he said, but he didn't refuse. He tucked it into his pocket instead.
Rita appeared at his side before he could finger the taste, pink jacket catching the alley light like a blood flare. She exhaled a sleeve of white vapor like she owned the air.
"You finally chose," she said quietly.
It wasn't a question. It wasn't a reprimand. It was an observation filled with the weight of friends who'd watched him flinch away from bigger fights and finally step forward.
Adrian let his shoulders drop as if shedding a burden. He knew what this meant—longer nights, riskier jobs, a life folded tighter into the city's lowest crevices. He also knew the other truth: the job paid enough to buy breathing room for months.
"Yeah," he answered. The word was small, but it landed in the alley like a verdict.
Rita bumped his shoulder with hers. "Don't get yourself killed, kid. And don't bring the Claws on our doorstep. If they come hunting, we'll put them down. Family, remember?"
"Family," he echoed, tasting the word again. The syllables felt different now—less of a chain and more of a pact.
He walked back inside to finish his shift, to stand behind counters and pull orders and watch the city live and lie in the neon throng. The plan with Mann's crew had been set in motion, a thread pulled across Night City's tapestry. Stealing from Biotech was a promise of danger and payment both, and Adrian had signed without flair.
The Mox—scars and all—would hold down the corner while he moved into the larger arena. It felt reckless. It felt necessary.
In the back of his head, alongside the static of the bar and the hum of the city, Adrian's HUD flickered once more, a private little confirmation: mission accepted. The street outside kept its own rhythm—siren wails, a distant shout, someone laughing through their teeth. The city didn't stop to celebrate choices. It swallowed them and moved on.
He checked his reflection in a chipped mirror, adjusted his collar, and stepped back into the hum. Tonight he guarded Lizzie's. Tomorrow he trained. The day after, he met Pila. And somewhere down the line, he'd stand in the shadow of a corporate tower, reach into the mouth of the tiger, and pull out whatever prize waited on the other side.
He'd taken the path. There was no turning back now.