"Hey dude, c'mon."
A boy was hiding behind the shop counter, terrified for his life.
"Mate, I don't got all day, get up here."
The boy still trembled.
"Bro, choom, c'mon, just pass me a bag, the key to the restroom, and the bill. I ain't gonna murder you."
A shaky hand grabbed a bag from under the counter and handed it over.
Bruce rolled his eyes, "Fine, I'm coming round the counter to scan these items in myself."
He hopped the counter, shoved the minimum wage employee aside and scanned his items.
One pack of socks, two pairs of new boots, two pairs of new pants, one jacket(Bruce's wasn't ruined), one tank top (requested by Leia), and a t-shirt.
The total came out to 72 eurodollars.
"Leia!"
He called to the outside of the shop.
She was just standing there. Blood soaked and unbothered by anything.
At his call she brightened up. "Yes!"
Like a duckling she appeared before Bruce.
"Clean the blood off, then put this stuff on. And don't forget to put the bloodied clothes in the bag, I'll clean them when we get back."
He waited at the cash register, checking the time.
9:14
Tss*
"Hey Martin! Choom! You'll never gue-OH MY CIRCUITS"
Bruce put a finger to his lips.
"Too loud, it's only nine in the morning."
The guy was already running away.
Bruce looked back over the counter.
"You could call your buddy, tell him you're fine."
The minimum wage employee was trembling a lot less than before.
Bruce continued.
"Or, you could just finish your shift and scare the shit out of him. That'll teach him to bail on you won't it?"
Still barely a response.
"Just imagine his face Martin, how high will he jump?"
Bruce looked around the counter.
"If you're not gonna respond I'm gonna take this ZIPPO lighter yeah? Been looking for one for ages."
The cashier raised his head.
"U-u-uh t-that's not for sale."
Bruce turned his head.
"So you do speak. Why ain't it for sale?"
Martin shook his head.
"Because it's, it's just not. It's been in this store for decades. Heck when the most recent store owner came in it was already there. It's just not for sale."
Bruce inspected the lighter. 'coconut.jpg?'
"Anyone check up on this thing? This, not for sale lighter?"
Martin shook his head again.
"W-well, no but, it's like a thing we-"
Bruce handed over some cash.
"Fifty eddies to you, for this lighter."
As if he had a sandevistan Martin snatched up the cash.
"R-right! OK! Lighter sold! No refunds! Did I mention we have a no refund policy?"
Bruce chuckled. Money was truly the greatest power in human hands.
"Excellent."
*Tss!
Leia left the restroom, now without blood staining her person.
She handed a bag over, Bruce's turn.
He nodded to her.
"See you in a bit."
9:40
Kabuki market, second floor.
Outside the specified shop.
EdgeNet
Bruce looked at the neon sign above him, Leia leaned on the railing.
"What're you waiting for Bruce? The sooner we finish this the sooner you and I can go shopping."
Bruce looked up from his lighter tricks. The ZIPPO lighter provided many fun elements for him to explore in terms of artistic value.
"It's not like there's anything we could get at good quality around here. This lighter is the exception."
The lighter smoothly spun around in his hand. Its flame creating wonderful trails behind its movement.
!snap
"Though you are right Leia. It's not productive to just stand outside the store."
He shut his lighter, placing it into one inner pocket of his jacket.
"How is the tank top treating you Bruce?"
*Tsss!
"It's weird as hell."
They entered the store.
It was a cozy little netrunning shop.
Two runner chairs in the back, a camera between them.
A small counter to the right, no doubt for receiving customers.
"Welcome! Did you come in to get your cyberdeck fixed today?"
A lady stood behind the counter, asian, round glasses, entirely average in appearances.
Bruce shook his head, handing over a prepared credchip.
"I'm Nous."
That got an eyebrow raise.
"You don't look like Nous-sama."
Bruce sighed.
It seemed like this lady was suspicious of his lack of cyberware.
"I look like everyone."
He shrugged.
The clerk nodded.
"Your avatar does do that, I have your package around here."
She fumbled around the counter for a moment before handing a small thin box to Bruce.
"The shard is in there, plug it into your cyberdeck and tell me if it works."
She brought out a mini robot and picked up the credchip.
"Should be easy to test on this choom here, try out the hack."
The robot activated, dancing on the counter in its tiny glory.
Bruce picked up the shard and slotted it into his deck.
"What a strange deck."
"Hmm."
Bruce quickly installed the new quickhack. An executable file that simply asked for an input signature when opened.
Bruce looked at the tiny bot before him, its net signature written somewhere in the swathe of signatures provided by his ping.
He stepped off to the side, it would take a little time to find just the one signature.
Leia looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the signatures.
She remembered some tidbits of coding, but she didn't force herself to enter the field like Bruce did.
"Couldn't you just add an ignore block where if it's a common appliance its signature isn't shown?"
Bruce froze, why hadn't he done that?
He looked at the screen before him, even though it looked random, there were certainly some identifiers for each signature right?
Just like those scavenger masks and their animated attachments.
Filtering it all would certainly take time, but if he's going to save on a ping quickhack then it's a fine way to use that time.
"I'll add that kind of thing later."
For now he just needed to temporarily stop the tiny robot from dancing.
Leia looked at the screen's list of objects with wireless connectivity.
"Which one is the one you're looking for?"
Bruce discarded a set of signatures from the display.
"It's gotta be connected, else she'd have had to make the thing from scratch or by custom order. It shouldn't have anything based on the time of day, as far as I can see it's just a tiny dancing bot."
Another set of signatures disappeared.
"Then it's gotta be in a sense 'infected differently' by adware, since it isn't part of the target audience."
Another few bit the dust.
Leia posed a question. "What does that leave you with?"
Bruce stopped deleting signatures.
"Leaves me with the lights, the computers, the doors, the windows, the arcade machines."
He gestured towards the arcade machines.
He made a mental note to ask about them later.
"The airconditioning, the power tools, the neon signs including the fire escape signs, the laundry machines downstairs, cooking appliances from the restaurants downstairs."
Leia stopped him there.
"Power tools?"
Bruce nodded.
"Yeah, we've got adware bombs in em, plus they track usage rates and help with curated ads, somehow."
Leia blinked, flabbergasted, "Ok, what other shit is there?"
Bruce counted on his fingers, "Well, there's still those turrets from the gunstore downstairs, yes they've got adbombs in them too, everything does. That's about it, I gotta comb through all this to see which sig belongs to the bot."
He nodded to the bot, its breakdance wonderfully circular.
The clerk looked at him judgingly.
"If you happen to find any 'adbombs' in my shop you're welcome to remove them."
Bruce looked up from his deck for a moment, feeling a little antagonized.
"Hey I wasn't the one who put them in there!"
The clerk raised a brow.
"You work with the corps that do, don't you? I'll give you a ping daemon if you clear my shop now and forever of your work."
The sound of cash entered Bruce's mind.
"Deal, do you want me to do it or an anti adware program miss?"
She tossed him two shard containers.
"Yoko, put the daemon on the shard, source or program whichever you want."
Bruce nodded, "I'll be right to it."
The breakdancing bot suddenly stopped moving, its lights indicating that it was still fully operational.
Yoko grinned, her eyes were hidden by her round sunglasses.
"Looks like you finally found it."
Bruce nodded his head as he combed through his files for his ad-blocker.
He copied its source code and inserted one of the two shards Yoko just gave him.
A nice empty shard.
In just moments the shard was now a proud new member of the ad free net browsing club.
The shard was ejected and placed back into its container before Bruce tossed it back to Yoko.
"The ping quickhack comes with the source code?"
Yoko grinned, catching the adblocker shard.
"If you can crack it."
Bruce grinned as well, plugging in the new ping quickhack.
New signatures popped up on his device, now with translated names.
The attachments were named too.
Leia looked over Bruce's shoulder again.
"Looks like someone is watching porn right now."
Bruce took the quickhack shards out of his deck and placed them back in their containers.
He pocketed them with a sigh.
"That's Night City."
As he left the shop he waved goodbye to Yoko.
"See you next time, miss."
She nodded her head with a polite smile.
"Of course Nous-sama."
*Ssst!
The door closed behind them, leaving them outside once more.
"Huh, I forgot to ask about the arcade machines."
"You can ask next time."
10:11
"What are we even looking for?"
Leia pulled Bruce along in the Kabuki market.
"Fashion? Tech bits? Infoshards?"
She looked at the various clothing articles on display.
"There's no way they have a shop here that just sells infoshards."
Leia rifled through a few jackets, checking their price tags.
"Remember what you used to say? The chances are always non-zero."
Bruce looked at the rack of jackets in front of them.
"What do you think Bruce? Cropped bomber? Pozer jacket? Crystaljock bomber? Regular jacket? A vest maybe?[1]"
She picked out jackets one by one.
"Lot of bomber jackets."
Leia nodded, grabbing an orange edgerunner jacket.
"What does bomber even mean?"[2]
Leia shook her head.
"I don't know, just read it on the labels. How does this one look?"
Bruce looked at the jacket.
"Why is it so short?"
Leia tilted her head.
"What do you mean?"
Bruce gestured with his hand.
"The sleeves don't reach past half your forearm and the cutoff on its body just barely reaches past your ribcage. The only thing right is the thickness, if it weren't for that I'd assume it's a kids jacket or something."
Leia blinked and looked at it.
"Well, we do live in this world don't we?"
She wrapped it around herself, not zipping it up.
It wrapped snugly around her.
"Does it look good?"
Bruce held Leia's jacket as she tried on the edgerunner.
"Looks alright, a bit bright."
Leia gave him a look.
Bruce continued.
"I guess, it is a little fashionable? It doesn't keep all of you warm and it's not particularly stretchy, so then it leans more towards fashion than function I think."
Leia shook her head and took the edgerunner off.
"Just give me my jacket back."
She put the edgerunner back on the rack.
They walked on, checking out the other shops.
"Gun store?"
Bruce shook his head.
"Overture and Burya's aren't in my price range, I'll stick with the Nue. You?"
Leia thought for a moment.
"I could go for a replacement for the nova, any suggestions?"
Bruce glanced at Leia's gun, holstered by the belt.
"So, Overture?"
Leia nodded.
"Think they do trade ins?"
Bruce answered instantly.
"Yes."
They entered the store.
"Uhhh, hey. How's it going?"[3]
Bruce and Leia were slightly surprised to see a relatively normal looking cashier.
Leia stepped forward.
"I want to trade this nova in and buy an Overture."
The man behind the counter inspected the nova, emptied its cylinder and moved it around.
He carefully scrutinized the gun's barrel.
"How much?"
Leia asked him.
He put the gun down.
"I can take the bullets, five each."
Leia nodded, they were free from the scav she took them from.
"As for the gun,"
He looked again at the gun's parts.
Bruce was staring at an M2038 shotgun on the wall, his arms crossed.
The clerk shook his head.
"Best I could do is six hundred."
Bruce glanced at the counter.
"Thousand five hundred."
The man at the counter frowned.
"No, that's market price for a brand new one, I'm already taking this at a loss."
Bruce shook his head.
"Leia, what do you see behind the counter?"
She cheerfully responded.
"A box of gun parts, mostly DR5 Nova parts."
Bruce nodded.
"What else?"
She looked at the terminal the clerk tried to hide.
"Gun recycling gig. They sell shitty guns as modified and new, twenty five hundred for novas."
The clerk shouted.
"Get the hell out of my store!"
Bruce declined him right away.
"I'm sure someone would like to hear about this business, aren't you?"
He stepped up to the counter, the clerk stepping back.
"W-what do you want?"
Bruce slid the nova back to the clerk.
"Box of rounds, Overture, a grand for the nova."
The clerk took the empty nova and the bullets on the counter.
"A-and you won't tell anyone? Badges? The claws?"
Bruce smiled.
"Depends on you."
He flashed his Nue.
"Alright! Alright! Just never come back to this store again and you've got it!"
Bruce shook his head.
"We're just customers, you're the one trying to make easy money off us."
The clerk nodded.
He handed over a box of ammo and an overture, failing to wire money.
His eyes widened.
Bruce just shook his head.
"We're still paying for the Overture"
Leia handed over a credchip.
"Pleasure doing business with you."
Bruce stepped back from the counter with Leia grabbing the gun and the ammo.
The clerk ducked behind the counter to grab something.
He got back up with an igla ready to fire only to see the empty store.
"Fuck! Shit! I got played by some gonk 'ganic shits!"
He grabbed the nearby terminal, exited the messages and accessed the camera.
Muttering under his breath.
"If I give the footage to the badges maybe I can-"
To his bewilderment as he tried to download the files he got an error. File not found.
He punched the screen, shattering it and breaking his knuckles.
"FUCK!"
Leia nudged Bruce as they walked.
"You had fun didn't you? Scaring him?"
Bruce flicked his lighter around.
"Yeah, it felt alright"
!clink !clak
The lighter danced atop his fingers.
"How do you like your new gun?"
Leia checked her belt.
"I think I can go through subdermal now."
A smile appeared.
"That's good."
Leia slapped his shoulder lightly.
"Anything else catch your eye?"
Bruce looked around.
"You mentioned infoshards, we can look around a little more. See if we get lucky."
They walked to the extended market, the one connected by an underground alley on floor -1.
The smell of food filled the air, synthetic and heavy with the scent of chemicals.
The stall owners heckled and hollered at passerbys, advertising their foods.
"Sushi here! Come eat some sushi!"
"Skewers!"
"Real meat!"
Bruce knew the last one was a lie, slaughter house products are at their best 70% real meat.
He looked around the stalls searching for anything that wasn't food.
There was a single stall decorated with fine china and small statues.
Not his target but, one of those maneki-neko[4] would be a fun addition to his apartment view.
"How much for this?"
He grabbed one.
The man at the stall spoke.
"Oh no, I'm just having some fries choom, these things have been out for months. Some old Japanese dude was moving out a while ago, left this stall behind."
He ate another fry.
"I'm pretty sure the guy died a few weeks ago actually. You can probably just take one."
Bruce glanced at the items.
"Cheers, I guess."
He took one maneki-neko figurine.
They left the stall.
"Hey Bruce there's a ripperdoc over there."
Leia pointed at one of the open doors in the surrounding buildings.
"I don't remember there being one every other time."
Bruce side eyed her. 'I am now a hundred percent sure she thinks all of this is just another run through of the game, or a dream.'
Following Leia's direction they entered the shop.
"Welcome, are you here for the food or for an appointment?"
Leia nodded, "Just looking."
The man behind the counter was mostly organic, standard ripperdoc attachments worn on his left hand.
"Just tell me if you need anything then."
They looked around the waiting area, the slaught'omatic vending machine taking up nearly a quarter of its square footage.
Bruce approached the counter.
"You got any infoshards on how to become a ripperdoc? The medicine and the mechanical stuff?"
The ripper shook his head.
"Pawned those off a long time ago, I don't have the stuff to give to you."
Bruce shook his head.
"No med shards I can copy? Nothing on mechanics?"
The ripper shook his head.
"I have my notes, if those will help you. If you want I can toss in some cyberware installation manuals. Just don't come back to me complaining if you mess something up."
Bruce nodded along.
"I'll take those, how much?"
The man looked around the counter a little bit.
"Two hundred good for you?"
Bruce paid in cash.
"That'll do."
He took out a few shards.
"It'll take me a moment to copy everything onto one shard, you good with that?"
Bruce nodded and sat down on the waiting room sofa with Leia.
"Yeah, I can wait on that."
They waited three minutes for the man to finish his work.
"Right here you are, you kids stay safe out there."
Bruce and Leia walked out of the store with one new shard.
"You too."
They were back among the food stalls of the market, the smell of synthetic foods and fuels suffocating the air.
"Traffic's probably two or three, let's go to yours and eat?"
Leia spoke, wary of the meat substitutes in the area.
"Yeah."
He put his hand around her shoulder.
"Let's go back."
—Some time in the day—
"Martin where the fuck is the lighter?"
[1] Though not word for word, these are all ingame clothing items.
[2] A bomber jacket by current definition is a short jacket similar to a flight jacket, but with a thick lining typically of sheepskin.
[3] This is a voice line I nabbed from the weapon vendor in game.
[4] Those lucky cat figurines. With the moving arm.