Chapter 5: Antsy

  Cal walked dowreet away from RIOT still caught in a daze. His tryst turtempted grift in the club had been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows he’d experienced since waking up in Night City. The sudderayal of a lover hit harder than the bullet he caught with his back. Sure, he didn’t know the first thing about her, not even her name, but emotions are a fickle thing and they had shared a moment of passion that eclipsed anything he had experieo date. It was raw, almost primal, and the only time he doubted his as was when he felt that his life could be in genuine danger. She was clearly a runner and any runner with a direct e to his data port could cause a great deal of neurological damage regardless of their skill level. He didn’t have any ICE to protect himself from su attack, and without his teopathy, who knows what would have happened.

  He was still drunk and swayed slightly as he tinued down the sidewalk, but the adrenaliill c through his veins filled him with a maniergy that sent his mind spiraling doath of introspe and self-loathing.

  ‘This was stupid. Colossally stupid.’

  Going to party in Little a alone, dressed to the nines, and with no visible e had made him an easy target. He saw that now. The sub-district wasly known for it’s affluend safety. Quite the opposite, actually. He must have looked like an easy mark to a on the prowl, looking like some defenseless spoiled brat or another corpo rat out slumming it with the street trash for a night of fettable fun. He was sure that if it wasn’t her, someone else would have taken their shot at him. Someoill may.

  He wasn’t sure if it was the residual infatuation or the mix of alcohol and hormones raging through his system, but he didn’t really bme the girl. Everyone has their own circumstances in this city, and he couldn’t really stand on a high horse and cim he wouldn’t have dohe same thing if he was in her shoes. He figured she robably after any data she could pull out of his system to bckmail his ent family or sell to their equally fictitious petitors along with however much she could siphon from his ats, assuming she was skilled enough to do so.

  It wouldn’t have been a big hit if she had succeeded. As a streetkid himself, he didn’t have any promising data and his current at was the most basic of basics. His daily limit for withdrawal and trao nistered vendors was set at €8k. He also had a little over €1k on a cred shard, but with the spending he did earlier that day she would have only been able to fleece him for a bit over €6k all-in-all. Not a bad payout for a night’s work, but hardly worth pissing off the Animals that ran security and risking reprisal from the club’s ma.

  ‘Fuck… my cred shard.’

  Cal reached up reached up behind his ear awo empty slots. He didn’t know when or how, but she had mao klep it at some point during their enter.

  ‘Well, probably cheaper than a hotel room and a Joytoy. Between the cover charge and whatever she paid for drinks, I doubt she made much profit.’ he half sighed and half ughed at the thought.

  He would have paid double what he lost just to see the look on her face when she checked the bance of his shard. The memory of her shocked face when he broke the e during her breach attempt pushed to the front of his mind, deepening his amusement. Those wide blue eyes framed by her short brown hair, set over a pair of pouty red lips…

  ‘Fet about her man. You’ll never see the chick again. Even if you do, what then? You really want to start some shit with someone who tried to roll you? That’s the dumbest thought you’ve had all night.’ Cal shook his head as he reprimand himself.

  It was moments like these where he felt truly alone. Having someoo set him straight or just pyfully ugh at his misfortuo lighten the mood would have been a godsend right now. Hell, if he was with eveher person tonight he probably wouldn’t have gotten himself into this mess in the first pce. Cal realized he desperately wo things right now: His first set of impnts, and a partner in crime (literally and figuratively.)

  He wasn’t ready for any body mods or bat impnts, but getting a cyberded some supp cyberware would help him to mask his teopathy and dissuade people from thinking he was just some helpless sheep. One s and they’d know he had some teeth to bite back with. Finding a friend or two would not only make his life more enjoyable, they could cover his ba these kinds of situations and help him acclimate to the various aspects of life here. He was still o Nd despite his knowledge about many things, there was even more that still felt strange and fn to his sensibilities. The only thing that he knew for sure right now was the same idea that seemed to drive every gear of the mae that called itself Night City: He needed Eddies. He needed a lot of them, and he hem yesterday.

  It wasn’t like he had been dragging his feet. Cal actually felt that he had already been rushing things up to this point. The problem was that NC didn’t care about your feelings, and it cared even less for your well being. If he was going to not just survive, but thrive here, he o step on the gas and take more risks.

  W for Dex was easy money and it wasn’t much more dangerous than walking dowreet on a regur day, but Dex was a sinking ship. Cal khat at some point in the few years the fixer would piss off a lot of the wrong kind of people and end up fleeing the city with his tail between his legs. Staying attached to the man was like pg a loosi on a game you knew was fixed. It was just pin stupid.

  As for his career as a car thief, it was also one of the lower risk crimes he could partake in. As long as he wasn’t spotted and he didn’t steal from a corpo big wig angster with es, he was good. Even if he did happen to steal from the wrong person, he wasn’t stupid enough to get caught on camera during the initial theft and other surveilnce systems were almost exclusively isoted on their own loets. Arying to track his movements as he drove through the city would have to put boots to the ground arieve the footage door-to-door, adding another hurdle to their path. No one was just going to hand over their security footage unless you could hit that sweet spot between pensation and intimidation. If they mao navigate that maze successfully, they’d nd on El Capitán’s doorstep who would then catch the majority of the fk for the heist. Not an ideal oute, but it es with the territory.

  “Hey, watch it kid!”

  Cal ulled out of his ruminations as he bumped into a man walking the other way down the sidewalk.

  “Ah, sorry .”

  “I’m not your fu . Now beat it before I beat you.”

  “Yeah… sure thing.”

  Cal wasn’t about to try to fight the guy. They were both about the same height, but the older man had a solid fifty pounds on him and Cal’s lessons with Coach Fred had made it painfully clear how shit he was at fighting on his best days. Getting into it with the guy in his current state would only lead to a bad oute for Cal, and he had sobered up enough at this point to realize it.

  That wasn’t to say he’d let the guy off scott free. Sure, most people iy could be right ts, but that didn’t mean he just had to swallow his pride and take the disrespect. The guy was a nobody, made clear by the fact that Cal had watched him pull up and park by the curb in a beat up Thorton Galena.

  Looking over his shoulder, Cal saw the man turn and walk down the street at the interse. He then sed the surrounding buildings, looking for cameras. He spotted a few in the area, but they were all c the main or side entrao the surrounding businesses. Any that were pointed his way would only cat angle of the car’s tires and lower panels as it passed by.

  ‘Perfect.’ Cal thought as he casually walked around the car to the drivers side door, slipping in without any fuss. He wasn’t overly worried about getting caught on camera, assuming the guy didn’t have the money or clout to try to pull the footage, but the a had bee part of his routine when stealing cars at this point. His entry and wipe of the system was made easier by the low end security installed and the fact that the car was currently uered and likely already stolen.

  ‘Ironic, really. Stealing from a thief…’

  There were a few people walking by oreets, but his as were natural. There were no indications of anything nefarious taking pce as he turned over the engine and pulled out of the parking spot to tinue on his ast the ignorarians.

  He drove around aimlessly for almost an hour before ing to a decision and calling El Capitán.

  “Heeeey, if it isn’t the wonderboy! How’s it goin kid?”

  “Holy? I’ve had better nights, but I’m not calling about that. Rollin around in a cpped out Galena right now mainly because it’s previous owner pissed me off, but it got me thinking. Klepping mid-high end cars for a solid payday every now and then is nice, but I want to step up my game. What do you think about moving a higher volume of low end cars?”

  “Not worth it, . I gotta do a lot more work on the bad for a smaller payout. Plus, unless we got buyers lined up and ready to go, we gotta store them somewhere which just adds a target for the cops and robbers. Just ain’t worth the risk. Speaking of, ditch that junker when you’re done crusin. I got no use for it right now.”

  “You got a chop shop though, yeah? No market for sed hand parts?”

  “Ehh, yes and no. Plenty of people looking for parts, but they o be the exaes they’re looking for. Corps love their proprietary parts – keeps the eddies rollin in even after they distinue produ. Only nomads got the time and tools to mod or retrofit old kers like you’re thinkin.”

  “Well fuck. I hadn’t really thought about that… thanks for the info, I guess.”

  “What’s eating you, kid? You should still be living the high life with what yht in this week. You loose everything shootin diessing with the wrong gonk?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. Just getting a bit antsy. Got some pns lined up that’ll drain me dry, and then some. Trying to speed things up to scratch the itch.”

  “Calm down . What’s it the old soldiers like to say? ‘Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.’ Your pns wait. They’re never gonna py out if you catch a bullet in the head, you feel me?”

  “Yeah yeah, I get it… thanks for the talk. I’ll hit you up in a day or two with another ride.”

  “Take your time, kid.”

  ‘What a shit night.’ Cal thought as the call disected.

  ---------------------

  “Keep those hands up!” Cal heard before a solid left hook sent him reeling.

  “You’re too distracted. That’s enough sparring for today. Hit the weights.” Coach Fred said with a disapproving frown.

  His head inning from a bination of the pund his pulsing hangover.

  “I told you earlier that I wasn’t in a good dition to spar today…” Cal muttered under his breath.

  “What was that?” Coach half yelled at him, clearly having heard his pint.

  “Nothing Coach.”

  He had to ehe judgmental gres of Coach Fred for the rest of his workout. Even with his back turned, Cal could feel the disapproving gaze burning a hole through the back of his head. The man could be pretty intense, but Cal was already starting to notiinor improvements from his training. The relentless pace Coach had set for him was exhausting and his “motivation teiques” left little to no room for pints, but the results spoke for themselves. If he kept up this pace, Cal would be a new man ihan a year.

  After his workout, Cal returo his room and downed half a of Real Water? before trudging over to his bed and ying down to calm his spinning head. He had tried to find a hangover cure in the vending mae after he woke up that m, but his fuzzy mind couldn’t make heads or tails of the long list of items avaible for purchase and he eventually just gave up, accepting the punishment for his as the previous night. After a brief rest, Cal gathered himself and made his way to City ter to grind through another day of grunt work.

  He made a few deliveries for Dex that afternoon, still not getting any face time with the man. He was a little irked by the casual dismissal showe the regur work he did for the him. Sure, there were probably multiple runners doing the exact same thing as him, but Cal felt that this was more of a bullshit power py. There was no way that the fixer was so busy he couldn’t spare a moment to deal with a part of his actual business, even if it was just a small part of the whole. It was more likely this was Dex’s way of saying “I’m better than you. Know your pce” or some other suonsense.

  He hadn’t cut ties with the duplicitous fixer yet. He still he extra ine. Once he chipped in a cyberdeck, he could transition to a more lucrative kind of running and branch out to take work from other, more reputable fixers. He khat just about anyone he worked with iy would still sell him out for the right price, so he po start using a pseudonym and avoid direct tact at that time. Reclusive runners were a dime a dozen, after all.

  Before he went home, Cal dropped by the Edge shop in the Kabuki Roundabout to put in an order for his future cyberware.

  “This is quite a list” Yoko said with a ft expression.

  “I like to pn ahead. I trust my ripper, but I still don’t want him digging around in my head more than what’s absolutely necessary.”

  “The Ex-Disk and Self-Ice will not be a problem to source. Your cyberde the other hand… they are not widely circuted. Most people assume that the Raven Microcyber was only produced up to Mk. 4 and even those were only made in limited quantity.”

  “So does that mean you ’t get it?”

  “I did not say that. Anything be found. For the right price, of course.”

  Cal sighed as he realized he was about to get squeezed for everything he was worth.

  “So what’s your price?”

  “Fifty two thousand eddies.”

  “Bullshit. I could find a etdriver for almost half the prid that’s something you only get by pulling it out of a dead agent.”

  “True, but as a traband item, they are not as popur and easily found on the bck market for those ied. A Raven Microcyber Mk. 5 is much more rare and difficult to source. You are free to procure it yourself if you believe you find one for a better price.”

  “ugh… 40k.”

  Yoko hummed to herself as a light smile crept it’s way through her lips. “I will sell you all three pieces of cyberware fhty thousand if you pay twenty five today as a down payment.”

  It was more than he wao pay for everything, but he khis was an iment in his future. If he tried to source the de his own, he was likely to get screwed over one way or another.

  “Fine” Cal grumbled as he transferred €25k to the shrewd businesswoman.

  “A pleasure doing business with you. I should have your items ready io two weeks time.”

  “I’m gonna least two te up the rest of the eddies. Probably would have o sell a kidney if you gouged me any deeper…“

  “I look forward to your visit.” She said as her slight smile faded bato an impassive look.

  Cal had wao check the other vendors in the roundabout for better armor, but after the past two days, he didn’t have the capitol to burn on such a luxury. He didn’t really need anythier than his jacket for now. Any situation that would warrant it is something he should avoid for now. So with a heavy heart and a light wallet, Cal started on his way baegabuilding H10 to retire for the evening. He had been screwed every which way over the past twenty four hours and he was ready to crawl into bed and sleep off the rest of his lingering hangover. It was too bad Night City had other pns for him.