By the time the factory's machinery finally overloaded, screamed, and caught fire—noticed only when other Maelstrom members smelled smoke and panic—James and Lucy were already long gone.
Night City always worked like that. Violence was fast. Consequences were slow. And if you were smart, you made sure you were already sipping a drink somewhere else when the consequences finally showed up.
James glanced at his account balance while Lucy drove. Numbers climbed like they were mocking the city.
"Two hundred thousand received. Easy." He sounded almost casual, but his eyes shone anyway.
That amount was already enough for Lucy to start picking apartments. Downtown places weren't impossible to buy. Plenty of veteran mercs could afford them.
They just didn't.
Most people in Night City treated money like fuel—burn it fast, turn it into chrome, buy more combat implants, become harder to kill. Comfort was for people who believed in tomorrow. And most folks here didn't.
But James wasn't most folks.
At his current income rate, a few more Wakako commissions would make buying a decent apartment—a real hundred-square-meter place—feel almost normal.
A message popped up. Wakako's name. Wakako's calm tone.
(BT, your work is truly impeccable. The sake here tastes great. You should come try it sometime.)
It was friendlier than their first call, which told James everything he needed to know.
Fixers and edgerunners weren't "boss and employee." They were symbiotic. Fixers needed capable mercs to keep their influence strong. Mercs needed fixers to feed them jobs, intel, and cover.
And now Wakako was clearly thinking long-term.
James had no problem with that. He worked Westbrook most of the time. And in Westbrook, nobody carried more weight than Wakako.
James replied instantly, because he had priorities.
(Do you have Wagyu beef?)
The last "welcome gift" had been eaten by Maelstrom idiots, and James hadn't forgotten. Not even a little.
Wakako replied with the calm confidence of someone who could buy anything.
(Of course.)
Perfect.
Lucy didn't come with James to Japantown's Sakura Market. She had errands: return the rental car, and swing by a downtown mall.
Apparently there were new braindance devices on sale—two-player models that allowed simultaneous viewing, synced sensations, shared experiences.
Lucy was excited in that quiet, dangerous way she got when she found a new obsession. She wanted to buy one so she could "explore the moon" with James that evening…
And, judging by the look in her eyes, probably explore something else too.
She didn't obsess over reaching the moon anymore, not like before. But she still loved the lunar scenery. The calm. The distance. The idea of a sky where Arasaka couldn't touch her.
"Also," James added, as she slid into the driver's seat, "help me buy some of the latest educational braindances."
In Night City, knowledge was sold openly. Anything you wanted to learn, you could learn through braindance—fast, efficient, almost scary. Skills, languages, weapon drills, tech work.
Lucy raised an eyebrow.
Then she leaned out slightly and stared at him with a look that could freeze steel.
"Come back early," she said. "And don't go to Jig-Jig Street."
James coughed, suddenly very interested in the sky.
"Why would I go there? I'm a respectable person."
Lucy didn't blink.
"You promise?"
James hesitated for half a second—just long enough to convict himself.
"That's not necessary…"
Lucy's eyes narrowed.
"Alright, alright," James sighed. "I promise."
Only then did Lucy soften, switching from "bite" mode to "kiss" mode. She kissed him quick, leaving a faint lipstick mark on his face, then rolled up the window and drove away.
James watched the tail lights vanish, then turned toward Sakura Market.
---
Wakako's office was hidden inside the market, like a spider sitting in the center of its web.
Sakura Market was the most lively slice of Japantown—paper lanterns, neon signage, food stalls, noisy crowds, and plenty of illegal deals happening right in the open.
Cyberware shops. Weapon sellers. Backroom clinics.
And strangely, no NCPD.
Because the real owners of this place weren't cops.
They were Tyger Claws.
James passed multiple Tyger Claws patrols—katana handles visible, tattoos glowing under the skin, eyes sharp. They didn't bother him.
As long as you weren't a rival gang, you were mostly safe. In a twisted way, the Tyger Claws kept order here. Not because they were kind, but because chaos was bad for business.
James followed the Japanese-style street and approached the entrance Wakako used.
That's when a wall of flesh stepped into his path.
A massive man dressed like a sumo wrestler, wearing a black silk robe, hair tied in a traditional topknot. He was nearly two and a half meters tall and looked like he weighed as much as a small car.
But his belly wasn't fat.
It was armor.
Subdermal plating thick enough to take a shotgun blast and keep moving.
The bodyguard looked down at James like James was an insect.
"Wrong place, kid," he said, sneering. "This isn't where you should be. If you're looking for Jig-Jig Street, go the other way."
James took two steps back so he didn't have to tilt his neck into pain just to make eye contact.
"I'm here to see Wakako."
The sumo bodyguard's lips twitched.
"Everyone here is here to see Wakako."
He'd seen plenty of hopeful rookies. People with dreams but no combat chrome. People who thought being an edgerunner meant looking cool and making easy money. Most of them died before their second job.
James didn't argue.
"I'm BT," he said calmly. "Wakako is expecting me."
The bodyguard froze.
"BT?"
His eyes sharpened as he scanned James properly this time. The frame. The posture. The quiet confidence. It matched the rumors. And Wakako had mentioned BT's arrival.
The bodyguard was about to verify further—
When another edgerunner drifted in from the side like a shark smelling blood.
"You're BT?" the man asked.
James glanced at him.
Veteran build. Heavy chrome. And the most obvious feature: two Mantis Blade arms, exposed and uncovered, the metal surface catching light. No skin cover. No attempt to look normal. Just straight intimidation.
His body was swollen with implants—reinforced tendons, metal bones, hardened joints. His head looked almost too small for the rest of him, giving him a warped, uneven silhouette.
And James noticed something else.
A Kerenzikov nervous system implant—older model—its lines visible along the man's spine.
The work was sloppy. The implant ports looked rough. The integration didn't match. Whoever installed this had the skill of a butcher.
James didn't say all that out loud, but his eyes read it instantly.
He'd been studying cyberware implantation lately—not to become a ripperdoc, but to understand opponents. Weak points. Limits. Symptoms.
And this guy?
This guy was pushing past his limit.
The sumo bodyguard stiffened, fear leaking into his voice.
"Mark, don't start. This is Mrs. Wakako's guest."
So the chrome demon had a name.
Mark.
The nearby edgerunners also reacted—subtle steps back, shoulders tense, the kind of body language people show around a bomb with a lit fuse.
Mark grinned like he loved that fear.
"How do you know he's BT?" he said. "Let me verify it for Mrs. Wakako."
He craned his neck weirdly, head and body not quite aligned. His eyes struggled to focus. His hands trembled, just slightly.
James didn't need a diagnosis tool.
He could see it.
Mark was on the edge of cyberpsychosis.
The abyss was already looking back at him.
"If you go to a hospital right now and get your implants removed," James said bluntly, "you might still have a chance."
Mark's grin twitched.
Then his expression twisted into something ugly.
"Heh… heh heh… You afraid of me, aren't you?"
His emotions spiked. His breathing changed. His body tensed like an animal.
James sighed quietly.
Lucy had told him not to go to Jig-Jig Street. He'd promised. He'd come here instead. And this was what he got.
If he'd broken the promise and gone the other way, he probably wouldn't be standing in front of a walking disaster named Mark.
"What a mess," James muttered.
Mark's voice jumped into a shriek.
"Let's see what skills you've got to snatch my jobs!"
Then Mark charged.
The Kerenzikov kicked in—his movement blurred, faster than it should be. Both Mantis Blades snapped out with a metallic scream, turning his arms into twin scythes.
In that moment, Mark didn't look like an edgerunner.
He looked like what people in Night City secretly feared.
A demon made of chrome and broken nerves.
James didn't panic.
He didn't backpedal like prey.
He moved like someone who had already survived worse.
He triggered his rocket pack—just a short burst—shifting his body sideways in a sharp, unnatural dodge. Mark's blades sliced air where James's torso had been.
The crowd gasped.
The sumo guard stepped in front of the doorway instinctively, as if protecting Wakako's office from the chaos.
Mark didn't stop. He twisted mid-charge, blades swinging again.
James raised his hands—not empty, not helpless.
He had his pistol.
But he didn't fire into the crowd.
Instead, he stepped in close—dangerously close—and smashed the side of Mark's elbow joint with the reinforced edge of his tactical glove, targeting the weak mechanical alignment.
Mark's swing stuttered.
James used that half-second to burst upward—rocket pack firing—jumping just enough to avoid the next slash and land behind Mark.
Mark spun like a machine stuck in rage mode.
James finally spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
"If Wakako wanted me dead, she'd have sent someone smarter."
Mark screamed and lunged again.
This time, James fired—two shots, clean and controlled—into Mark's lower leg joint, right where the cheap installation left exposed stress points.
Metal sparked.
Mark stumbled.
Not down—just off-balance.
But for someone relying on speed, "off-balance" was death.
James followed with a third shot into Mark's shoulder mount, forcing the Mantis Blade arm to lock for a fraction of a second.
Mark's eyes went wide.
He tried to force the arm to move anyway.
His nervous system screamed.
His implant lines flashed.
He was burning his own brain to win.
James sighed again, like he didn't want to do what came next.
Then—with one final burst of rocket thrust—James drove forward and put the muzzle against Mark's skull plating.
The crowd held its breath.
Bang.
Mark's body froze.
Then collapsed.
Silence snapped into place like a locked door.
The sumo bodyguard stared at James with a new expression.
Not contempt.
Not dismissal.
Respect… mixed with relief.
From deeper inside, a door slid open.
And a calm voice—old, smooth, unbothered—spoke from the shadows.
"BT… come in."
Wakako was watching.
She always was.
And James understood something in that moment:
This wasn't just a job interview.
This was the city deciding whether to accept him as real.
He stepped forward, past the fallen chrome demon, into Wakako's web—already thinking about two things:
money, and getting home to Lucy before she decided his "promise" needed punishment.
------------------------------
Extra chapters available on patreon ⚡💥
patreon.com/Samurai492