[[before any of you start lol, yes I know im making more books then i promised. also sorry for taking so long was playing resident evil, monster hunter stories 3 and am excited for this new season of marvel rivals. this is the continue more or less for the old cyberpunk storie, id use the dice much less. so I hope you all like it.]]
I woke up with the feeling of somebody's head on my chest. For a second, I stayed still and stared at the ceiling, not because I was comfortable, but because my brain hadn't caught up yet. I swear, all these rooms look the same in a mega tower. Right, I had spent the night with some random woman.
The room smelled like smoke, perfume, old booze, and that faint smell of sex. The blanket was twisted around my legs. One of my arms was numb from where she was resting on it. I could hear traffic somewhere outside, muffled through the walls and the narrow window. Not loud yet, it was early, so it wasn't as loud as it normally was.
The woman on me shifted a little but didn't wake. Older, If had to guess around twice my age, not that it even mattered. Her black hair falling over my chest and shoulder. Old tattoo work down her arm and part of her back. A chipped black nail on the hand resting over my stomach. She had that rocker kind of look to her.
I looked down at her hand for a second, then over to the other side of the room. My bag was still there by the metal door. That was the most important thing. I let out a slow breath and looked back up at the ceiling. I didn't feel proud. Didn't feel bad either. Just tired, mostly annoyed at being awake. But that was pretty normal for someone like me. The woman made a small sound and shifted higher against me. Her voice came out rough when she finally spoke, all scratch and sleep.
"You awake, School boy?"
"Unfortunately." That got a breath of a laugh out of her. It sounded a little wrecked, since last night had worn her voice raw. She didn't lift her head right away. Just stayed there, cheek warm against my chest, like she had all the time in the world. "I was hopin' you'd sleep longer," she murmured. "I got school." That made her tilt her head up enough to look at me. "Right." One brow lifted. "You still doing that? I took you for more of the skipping type."
"I get that a lot."
"Mm." She smirked. "Cocky little shit."
"Not really." I moved my arm carefully, and she let me. Just a lazy shift off me so I could sit up. The blanket slid with her, pooling around her waist. But I didn't really look, I mentally turned off one of my emplants and started searching for my clothes instead. Shirt on the floor. Jeans hanging half off a chair. Boots near the door. Jacket over the back of the couch, and my underwear near the bed.
I swung my legs off the bed and reached for my underwear and jeans. Behind me, she cleared her throat and winced a little. "You're pretty good at fucking for someone your age," she muttered.
"So I've been told."
"My voice was gonna be shot for a few days, I bet."
I pulled my jeans on. "That sounds like a you problem." She laughed again, then coughed.
I found my shirt and dragged it over my head. The fabric smelled like smoke now, too. Great. My jacket helped cover it a little, so I grabbed that next. My boots came after that. Same routine every time, I ended up staying somewhere that wasn't home. Get dressed. Check your pockets, check your bag, and move. No point in hanging around, let's not make things weird. And no need to act like anything meant more than it did. I checked my jacket pocket. Shard. Some eddies. Burner stick. All there. "Relax," she said, watching me from the bed. "I didn't rob you."
"Would've noticed."
"You say sweet things to all the girls?"
"Only the ones with husbands." That got her attention. She leaned back on one arm, grin slow and sharp. "Oh, so you noticed."
"Hard not to." I motioned to the picture hanging on the wall. "Good thing too." She nodded toward the window. "He'll be back in a few." I zipped my bag and slung it over my shoulder.
"Then my leaving helps us both."
"Yeah," she said. "Probably." I looked at her properly. Smudged makeup, which im sure anyone else would have felt pride at seeing the person they were with like that. She looked like someone who'd seen enough to stop pretending people were complicated when most of them weren't.
"You got a name?" she asked.
"Not one you need."
She clicked her tongue. "Rude."
"You'll live." I stepped closer to the bed just long enough to grab the silver chain I'd left on the nightstand. She caught my wrist before I pulled back. Not tight. Just enough to stop me.
"If you're looking for a good time again," she said, voice still rough, "call." Her eyes flashed as my phone was sent a number. I glanced down at her hand, then at her face. "You give that number out a lot?"
"Only to the pretty ones." I pulled my wrist free, not rough. "Dangerous line when you have a husband." She smiled. "Night City's full of just like me, come now, you didnt seem to care last night." I hooked the chain around my neck. "Yeah," I said. "I didnt."
Then I turned and headed for the door. The apartment door slid sideways with a low metal hiss when I palmed it. Walkway lights washed over me. Somewhere down the hall, a radio was playing too loudly. Somewhere else, somebody was yelling. Normal morning music. "Hey," she called after me, and I looked back. She had gotten out of bed, walking around naked with her hair a mess. "Hope you didnt regret it," she said. I snorted. "Didn't plan on it."
Then I stepped out, and the door shut behind me. I looked out to the open zone in the middle of the mega towers and started to walk. Passing dented doors, a kid in a school jacket brushed past me on his way to the elevator, and gave me one look as they rushed past. I walked to the elevator with one hand in my jacket pocket and my bag hanging off one shoulder. My body felt like I'd slept for 3 hours at most. My eyes felt dry, but I could run on bad sleep better than most people. The elevator took a bit longer than I had expected, but I wasn't in any rush.
I stood there listening to people around me wake up or head home. Voices through thin walls. The hum of old wiring under the panel. I checked the time in my optics, 5:40 am. Still early, and plenty of time before school. That was why I was planning on taking the train. If I was running late, I'd grab a faster ride, but with an hour to burn, the air train would work. Cheaper too. That mattered more. The elevator finally arrived with a tired whine. The doors slid sideways and I stepped in. I hit the lobby and leaned back while the elevator dropped.
I looked at my reflection in the steel. Black hair all over the place. The silver lines of my facial chrome on the right side catching the light. One eye blue, one green, both looked tired. The shirt under the jacket was wrinkled enough that if a teacher looked too close they'd say something. I should probably take a shower at school, then switch to my uniform. The elevator opened to the lobby, and I stepped out while letting out a sigh.
Voices. Shoes on concrete. A cart rolling over a bad crack in the floor, somebody laughing too loudly. Somebody arguing with a vending machine and security at the front desk already looking dead behind the eyes. And over all of it, a radio.
"Good Morning, Night City!" I turned my head toward the sound without slowing. Stan loud as ever with that crazy energy. "Yesterday's body count lottery rounded out to a solid 'n' sturdy thirty! Ten outta Heywood, thanks to the unabated gang wars! One officer down, so I guess you are all screwed—'cause the NCPD will not let that go! Got another blackout in Santo Domingo. Netrunners are at it again, pokin' holes in the power grid! While over in Westbrook, Trauma Team's scrapin' cyberpsycho victims off the pavement! And in Pacifica…" He let the beat hang just long enough. "Well… Pacifica is still Pacifica!"
A couple people in the lobby barely reacted. One guy laughed, while Stan rolled right on.
"And if you crawled outta bed late enough to miss the late-night mess over in Charter Hill, the rumor mill is still chewing on Biotechnica's little security problem. Network feeds are fighting over names, leaks, and one dead runner. Some boards are already linking it to the so-called Bloody mess and the city's favorite masked headache. You know the one. Me? I say when corpos start sweating on live holo, somebody somewhere had a very bad night."
The radio kicked into music as I finally reached the steps down to the city itself, and I turned and kept walking. I already knew who the feeds meant. Everyone who spent enough time lurking in the right corners knew. Comment wars. clip threads. fake witnesses. People posting old footage like it proved something new when it was clear it wasn't even her. Still, my optics flicked open a couple private tabs as I walked. Three new posts in one Blood Cat board and nine in another. One thread already tagged with Sasha's name and thirty-two replies under it. I closed all of them because if I opened them now, I'd be standing there in the street with a thousand idiots shouting theories into my eyes, and I'd end up late to first class because some gonk with a pirate avatar decided he was an expert on dead women and vigilantes.
The street outside still had that washed-out look Night City got before the sun fully committed to being up. The sky above the towers was a dirty blue-gray. Rain had passed not long ago. Pavement was still wet. Light from signs and ads reflected off everything. Cars hissed by on the lower roads. A bus wheezed around a bend. Somewhere up above, an air train groaned over the track and kept going. That was my cue, I headed for the station.
Vendors were already setting up carts. A woman in a butcher apron smoked outside a food stall while arguing over holo with somebody she clearly hated. Two guys in work jackets were loading crates into the back of a truck. A joytoy in last night's makeup stood under an awning and watched traffic, not caring that her tits were out. Two kids in uniforms nearly ran into me because one was too busy staring at her feed.
I kept moving; I wasn't in the mood to deal with people right now. Ahead of me, the road opened toward the station access. Above street level, the train lines cut between buildings at about mid-height. Higher than some roads. Better view of the city from there. I crossed at the light with a group of people who all looked half awake and underpaid. My optics lit up again with a school reminder. Attendance notice. First period. Some assignment I'd ignored last night and was still ignoring now.
I killed the prompt. A text bubble sat under it from an unknown number. Had fun. Call me when you need to release some stress. I stared at it for half a second, then archived it. I doubt that would be something she would send me if she knew I was going to sell the bd I made with her last night.
The street toward the station climbed in levels, stairs and ramps and walkways webbed between older buildings. A rail support column cut through the middle, covered in tags and old flyer glue. Somebody had spray painted a gang sign over a missing person poster.
That felt about right for the city. A noodle stand under the access ramp had just opened. Steam rolled up from the pots and hit me with synth garlic, oil, and fake meat. My stomach growled loud enough that I checked my eddies. Enough for breakfast if I wanted, but I also had to keep saving right now. So I kept walking. I'd eat something at lunch from the school itself. A pair of office drones brushed by me on the way down the stairs, talking too fast about schedules and somebody named Hargrove. One glanced at me and then away. A maintenance bot rolled around a puddle and nearly clipped my boot. I nudged it aside. Better to not kick it and have to pay some shit bill.
By the time I hit the first station stairs, my body was more awake. I took them two at a time at first, then slowed near the top; there was no point burning more energy. The metal rail was damp under my hand. Wind moved harder up there, carrying the smell of rain, exhaust, fried food, and hot circuitry from the rail lines. At the top, the platform opened around me. Glass side panels streaked with old rain marks. Steel beams overhead. Holo ads about some sex drug. A bench with one broken end and spikes that would pop up if you didnt pay to sit on it. The Platform lights were still on, and the tracks hummed underfoot. There were already a bunch of people there. Students in uniforms, Workers in coveralls, A woman with three shopping bags, and the kind of expression that warned everyone not to test her.
A guy in a suit staring at nothing. Two kids laughing over some clip one of them had pulled up. I moved to the farther side near the glass and stayed standing. From up there, you could see traffic beginning to get worse. Delivery drones sliding between lanes in the air. Signs flickering out of night mode and into day ads. Steam rising from vents. People moving along walkways, bridges, stairs, doors, platforms, all of them already going somewhere they probably didn't want to be, it wouldn't surprise me, that's for sure.
I rested one shoulder against the glass and opened my feed again. Couldn't help it this time as the train would be a bit. I went to one of the quieter boards. Not the big public garbage piles. One of the ones where people at least pretended to use their brains.
Top post:
BIOTECHNICA RUNNER POSSIBLY ID'D - SASHA Y. - THREAD LOCK IF I SEE ANY CORPOS
Under it was the usual mess anyway.
fake insider claims
people reposting old clips
people blaming Blood Cat for everything from blackouts to dead pets
people arguing if the leak mattered more than the body
a couple comments already sexualizing the whole thing
Don't get me wrong, I kinda get it. Something about a woman that could kill you made it exciting, I guess. I read twelve comments before I got irritated enough to shut it.
Same every time, somebody dies, people turn it into content, and it wasn't even the good kind, just some half-assed shit. The platform speaker crackled overhead. My train was two minutes out. A group of students down the way got louder. I recognized one of them from school, some rich kid who acted like everybody knew him. Same one I knocked out cause he picked a fight with me, not my fault, his girlfriend found me better looking. He saw me, said nothing, and turned back to his group. Smart. Nobody had enough energy for stupid shit this early.
I checked the time again. Still had room before the first period, I could use the gym's shower and get this smell of sex off me. Then head to grab something to eat. Wind pushed over the platform again. I rolled my shoulders and watched the track bend off between two midrise buildings. That was when I noticed a girl near the ticket machine staring at me. I knew the look. Maybe she knew me from school. Maybe from rumors. Maybe she'd heard the usual garbage from other girls. Hot. Trouble. Asshole. All of the above. Didn't matter. She looked away, blushing when I met her eyes.
A train slid by on the far line with that long metal rush, windows lit, faces flashing by behind the glass. Office workers, security, and two kids asleep against each other. Somebody in a nurse's jacket. Somebody crying quietly. The speaker buzzed again and my train came into view around the bend. It slowed into the station with a heavy whine. People moved before it fully stopped. I waited, let the pushier ones go first while the ones trying to get out dealt with them.
After a while, I stepped in with the rest and found a place by the window, standing this time. The seats were already mostly taken, and I didn't feel like ending up shoulder to shoulder with some suit before sunrise. I hooked one hand around the rail and let my bag rest against my leg. The doors hissed shut, and the train pulled out.
The rail lines cut through buildings. People on balconies smoking into the morning. Neon signs dimming as daylight pushed harder. A rooftop party where people were passed out. Laundry hanging off a rusted line three floors above a gun shop. One AV far off to the west, moving fast enough to mean somebody's day had already gotten much worse.
I watched it all slide by. Across from me, a kid in a cleaner school uniform than mine kept glancing over. To my left, some old guy smelled like machine oil and coffee. A woman at the end of the car was already on a call, talking low and angry to somebody about money. The train's internal ad panel flicked through nonsense above us.
MILITECH SECURITY SOLUTIONS
NEW FACEWARE FINANCING
BREAKFAST WRAPS 2 FOR 1
REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY
The train took a turn between two buildings so close I could've sworn we were going to scrape glass. Morning light hit the car for half a second, then vanished behind another stack of concrete and signage. I could see into apartments from this height. Not that peeping was what I wanted to do, but this was night city.
A mother trying to get a kid dressed. A guy asleep face down on a couch with the holo still on. Two women arguing in a kitchen. An old man pissing off the balcony. Then it was gone.
That was the thing about the air train. It gave you too sometimes. My feed pinged again.
This time it was David.
[u alive?]
I stared at the message before typing back.
[Sadly.]
A few seconds.
[damn. was hoping i'd get your bd cut]
I snorted and looked out the window. Then another pause.
[You see the news?]
[Yeah?]
[Forum's already full of experts.]
[still coming in?]
I looked at the station marker flashing above the door. Yeah, as much as I'd like to skip, I don't want to end up on the streets faster than I was already heading.
[Don't get jumped before second period. i got plans.]
I stared at that line for a second, then locked my feed, Plans, that usually meant trouble, eddies, or both. Probably both. At the next stop, more students got on. One teacher too, from another floor at school. I recognized him before he recognized me. Just my luck. He looked over and saw me. He started toward me. I looked back out the window, hoping he would get the hint and leave me be.
"Storm." There it was. Why couldn't I catch a break? I turned my head just enough. "Yeah?"
He adjusted his bag strap and gave me a long look. "You look tired."
"Crazy."
"Late night?" I held his gaze. "Do you really want the answer to that?" His mouth thinned.
"Be in class on time and don't go falling asleep, Or ill inform your grandparents."
"Always with the same threats," I said, annoyed, and looked away. He looked like he regretted speaking to me already. "Just be there." Then he moved on. I watched him go, then looked back at the glass. The kid beside me tried not to laugh. I ignored him. Outside, the city opened up again. More roads. More stacked concrete. More signs. Somewhere off in the distance, a holo billboard flashed with a news still from the Biotechnica mess. Security lights. Smoke. A blurred frame from too far away to mean anything. But that didn't stop them from running it. I watched until it disappeared behind another tower, Finally the train slowed for my stop.
People shifted around me. Bags adjusted and moving to get off. I stepped aside before he could clip me, and he muttered something under his breath. I stepped out onto the platform and the morning hit me again. A little brighter now. School was a few blocks from here. Close enough to walk, far enough to smoke if I had any. Had to cut the habit to save eddies.
I started toward the station exit with the rest of the crowd.
I got off the train, cut through the station crowd, and headed for the academy. Morning traffic had picked up since I left the megabuilding. Corpo cars slid by below. Drones floated between towers carrying breakfast, paperwork, meds, probably ammo too. In Night City, all of it moved in the same lanes.
Arasaka Academy sat inside the part of the city that was above the rest of it. Glass. steel. polished walkways, guards who looked bored and expensive at the same time. Even from outside, the place had that same feeling all corpo buildings had. I went in through the student entrance with the rest of the early crowd.
Security scanned me on the way in. One sweep over the face then over the bag. While one had a wire connected to my implant registry. The guard barely looked at me after the system cleared. I took the hall toward the gym instead of class. A few guys from first period were already in there changing to work out before class started. I ignored them and headed straight for the showers. I needed the smell off me. I found an empty stall, dropped my bag and stripped my clothes and placed them on the bench outside it, then stepped under the water. It took a second to heat up, coughing out cold first then it warmed up. I stood there and let it run over my face. Everything from last night washed down the drain in layers.
I scrubbed hard and fast, ran a hand through my hair, then leaned one shoulder to the tile and shut my eyes for a few seconds. I had enough time for a shower, a change, and maybe breakfast if I played it right. The academy cafeteria sold decent stuff if you had the eddies to burn. I didn't feel like burning mine when there were easier options walking around in a skirt and blazer with rich parents.
I shut the water off, dried fast, and changed. The academy uniform always looked wrong on me no matter what I did with it. Too clean a design for somebody like me even if I was corpo somewhat. I checked myself in the mirror over the sinks. Hair still slightly wet, I pushed it back with one hand. Fringe already trying to fall left again. Face looked a little better.
One of the guys by the sinks looked over. "Storm." I glanced at him. He was one of those academy boys who worked out too much. Rich haircut. nice watch. smile I already disliked.
"You smell less like a bar today," he said. "Oh didnt know you cared so much. But find yourself another guy cause im not interested" That annoyed him. I grabbed my bag and left. The cafeteria sat one level below the main classroom wing. I came in through the side and did a quick sweep.
Students at tables, vending wall, a hot line where packaged breakfast was. More than enough food in the room. I just needed the path of least resistance. I found it near the windows. Mina. Third-year. Good family. expensive optics. one of those girls who liked pretending she wasn't looking at me before she looked again. She was with two friends and a tray that had way too much food on it for one person. Fruit cup, protein roll, synth-egg wrap, coffee.
Preem. I changed direction and walked over. One of her friends noticed first and elbow her in the ribs and quietly whispered causing Mina to looked up. Her mouth curved a little. "Wow. You actually know where the cafeteria is."
"Shocking, I know."
"You here to eat or just ruin my morning?" I stopped by the table. "Depends. You finishing that?" I nodded at the wrap. Her friend laughed. Mina leaned back in her chair. "TLooking for hand outs storm?"
"Just a question." Her friends were already enjoying themselves. Mina picked up the wrap, looked at it, then looked at me. "You trying to charm me out of breakfast?"
"No. I'm trying to see if you're gonna eat all that." She smiled wider at that. "And if I say yes?"
"Then I'll be devastated." One of the friends snorted into her coffee. Mina tore the wrap in half and held part of it up. "Half."
I took it. "Kind of you."
"Come on do it properly." I looked at her. She tapped her lips, And I leaned down and planted a tender kiss on them, That got a laugh out of all three. I ate the half that was given to me while leaning against the end of their table. She offered the fruit cup too. I took that as well because pride didn't fill stomachs. By the time the first warning tone chimed through the cafeteria, I'd gotten half a wrap, some fruit, and a coffee I didn't pay for because one of the friends shoved it toward me after deciding she liked how i kissed her friend.
"See?" Mina said as I straightened. "You can be pleasant."
"Don't spread that around."
"Would ruin your image?"
"Yeah cant have that." She shook her head at me, still smiling. "You know if you need more eddies we wouldnt mind helping you, if your willing to put on a show for us." I slid the empty cup onto the tray. "I'll think about it." I left before she could throw something. First period was on the nineteenth floor in one of the adaptive learning rooms. The hall outside was pretty silent, one of the few things I liked about this place.
EXCELLENCE IS EXPECTED
DISCIPLINE CREATES OPPORTUNITY
LEADERS ARE FORGED, NOT FOUND
I took my seat near the back. Each station had a desk, a recessed screen, port access, and a clean academy-issued wreath hanging from a hook beside it, that you had to buy. The teacher walked in right on time. Ms. Hara. "Wreaths on," she said and the room obeyed. I slotted the wreath on and the world dimmed for a second before the lesson environment loaded.
Clean white interface first, academy crest, student ID. Then the room dissolved and rebuilt itself into a simulated market forecasting chamber, all floating numbers, interactive projections, and branching scenario windows. That was how the academy taught most things. It fed you a problem, watched how you handled it, then tuned the next one around your mistakes. If you did well, it got harder. If you did badly, you keet at it until you either learned it or well lets just say one way or another you will learn. Today's module was supply routing, risk projections, and management response. Corpo training. Prompts slid open in front of me. A shipping route across Santo Domingo with Power instability risks and labor slowdowns. A gang threat in Heywood and projected profit loss if one warehouse got hit. These werent normal classes, but more for kids with rich parents.
Select response tree, the AI voice talked low in my ear, smooth and neutral. I moved through the first scenario fast. Reroute one line, Don't overcommit on security to a district already bleeding money. Flag the outage data as possible netrunner interference instead of random infrastructure failure. That was the thing teachers hated about me. When I bothered, I could do the work. The AI registered my response time and shifted me into a more advanced branch without asking. Charts got denser, Decisions time got shorter. One branch ran into legal exposure, another into PR fallout.
I handled most of it on instinct and low patience. At some point Ms. Hara's avatar stepped into the sim beside my station, hands folded behind her back."Interesting choice," she said. "It worked." I replied.
Her expression didn't change. "You are treating a leadership module like a boring game." I looked at the floating loss projection. "Maybe because it is."
"Refine the final branch," she said. "You're leaving too many variables unmanaged."
"Can't manage all of them." I said dryly.
"A good executive can." Even in sim, I knew better than to push farther. So I didn't. I just reworked the last branch, redistributed risk, cut a vendor, and pushed the loss into a quarter that didn't matter as much for the parent board. By the time the lesson ended, my score sat near the top in the room. Not first. Never first when I didn't care enough to be go for the spot.
The sim dissolved. Classroom came back. Half the students looked dazed from the mental load. A couple were already checking private feeds. Ms. Hara stood at the front with the session summary hanging behind her. "Most of you confuse aggression with decisiveness," she said. "You waste resources. Stop doing that." A few people shifted uncomthable.
Her eyes moved over the room and stopped on me for half a second too long. "Some of you also underperform on purpose. That habit won't save you." I rested back in the chair. She let the silence hang, then dismissed us. The break between periods was short. Long enough to move, piss, trade gossip, get in a fight if you were stupid. I used it to cut through a service corridor near the east stairwell where cameras always bugged out. That was where David usually lingered.
Sure enough, he was there, leaning against the wall with his bag at his feet and that same tired look he always had. He saw me and pushed off the wall.
"You shower at school again?"
"Yeah."
He grinned. "Bad night?"
"Productive one." That got a knowing look from him. Annoying choom. I stopped in front of him. "You got it?"
"Straight to business. Nice." He reached into his jacket and passed me a folded credit chit. "Your cut." I took it and checked the amount. Not terrible but also not enough either. "Light."
David shrugged. "Client wanted a discount. Said the visual glitches dropped resale." "Then your client's cheap ass."
"No argument there." I slid the chit into my pocket as I unzipped my bag and pulled out a slim data shard wrapped in black film. I held it between two fingers until his expression shifted from joking to interested.
"New one?" he asked.
"Made last night."
He took it carefully. "Any good?"
"Depends how much some lonely corpo wants to feel alive by fucking someones wife."
"That good, huh?"
"Didn't say that. But you know theres always a market for this kind of stuff." He turned the shard once in his hand, then tucked it away. "You're a bad influence."
"Look at you blaming the talent." He smirked. "Pretty sure I'm the one moving your stuff."
"Pretty sure I could find another mover."
"You could." He pushed off the wall. "But we both know they would sell you out." I sighed and that made him grin wider. That was the thing with David. Most people got the shorter version of me. He got the one with a bit more energy. Just not as shut off. I looked him over once. He looked more tired than usual. "What's the plan for next week?" I asked. His expression changed, just a little. "For what?" I stared at him.
He sighed. "The upgrade."
"Yeah. That."
He looked down the corridor to make sure no one was spying on us. "Still figuring it out."
"You can't afford it."
"Appreciate the reminder." I leaned one shoulder to the wall beside him. "So what, your mom covering it?" He didn't answer right away. I looked at him. "No?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "She's trying."
"You know if i could Id help."
"Yeah, I know."
"So what's the move?" I asked. He gave me a sideways look. "You asking because you care, or because you want to say 'told you so' when it blows up?"
"Little of both." I shrugged and smiled. He laughed under his breath. "Honest. Weird for you."
"Don't get used to it." He went quiet a second, then said, "Might work something. Side thing." I looked at him harder. "What side thing?"
"Nothing major."
"That always means something major with you david." He shrugged. I let the silence sit, with most people, that made them nervous. With David, it usually gave him time to think something up. "There's this guy," he said. "Doc knows him. BD editor. Small jobs."
"Illegal?"
David looked at me. I rolled my eyes. "Stupid question." considering he was moving my things. "Just said small jobs."
"Yeah, and gonk teenagers always say 'small jobs' right before a trauma team ad starts appearing." He pushed my shoulder lightly. "Relax, Damian." I looked at his hand, then at him. He pulled it back with a grin. "See? You do care."
"Don't start." He laughed again. Bell tone hit and i sighed, Second period. Students started moving faster at the far end of the hall. "You gonna do something dumb?" I asked. David slung his bag up. "Probably, why, You worried about me, Damian?"
I straightened off the wall. "No. I just hate losing income."
"Cold." He started backing down the hall. "You're still coming after class, right?"
"Depends."
"On?"
"How annoying you are by lunch." He pointed at me. "That's not how friendship works." I snorted. "Who said anything were friends?" That got a grin out of him, but something else too. "Yeah," he said. "Thought so." Then he turned and headed for class. I watched him go for a second longer than I meant to.
I adjusted my bag, checked the credit chit still in my pocket, and headed the other direction for second period while the academy swallowed us both back. Around me, the rich kids moved like their futures had already been planned out. Ads glowed on wall panels between classroom doors. Somewhere above us, another lesson block started. Another room full of kids jacked into virtual problems meant to shape them into good little corporate predators.