“How much for the installation?!” I yelled in shock.

  Doc had extricated himself from his dicksucking machine, looking at me like I was the annoying little gonk for bothering him with this.

  “Ten k,” he repeated. “Don’t have it, don’t come in,” he continued. “I’m not running no charity, Davey-boy. Either ya come with the scratch or ya fuck off, thems the rules.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Then how much for the Sandevistan?”

  “Sandy’s hot off the streets,” he said. “I told ya already. Gonk who last used it was none other than Norris. Is what gave him that bullet time ting. Ain’t a badge or fixer in town who’s not looking for that beaut. I’ll take it for six thousand, but I’m putting myself at risk too, you know that?”

  “Fuck that noise,” I said. “I want it this in my back, but not for ten fucking thousand. What do you think I am, some kinda gonk?”

  “You want mil-spec chrome as your first big piece, fuck yes you are!”

  “You’re a fucking crook,” I shouted. “After all the XBD pushing I did for you, you’re gonna fuck me over like this?”

  “Calm down, Davey, no need for the disrespect,” his tone took on an edge. Then he sighed. “Fine… I’ll do it.” He grinned as he sat up. Chrome arms dangled above him from what looked like a circular curtain rod, but I knew it to be a mobile installation unit. “On one condition,” he said as he held the rod with both hands. “Once you come back,” he pulled hard on the rod until both forearms detached. “Begging me to rip this thing off your back,” the curtain rod spun so another set of techie mitts dangled above him. “Cuz it’s poaching your brain,” he stabbed the inlet nodes from his elbow stumps into the new forearms and experimentally flexed his new fingers. “I’m gettin’ it for free. How does that sound?”

  “…Why would I do that?” I asked.

  “Cyberpsychosis, ya fucking gonk. You think a scrawny runt like you could last ten minutes with the Sandy, even without firin’ her up? I’ll put it on you, and then you’ll feel the burden of an Edgerunner, and let me tell you, Davey-boy, it ain’t no joke.”

  I glared at him. “You put it on right, you hear me? I’m just about done letting gonks dick me over. You don’t wanna give me a reason to do something crazy.”

  Doc scoffed. “Come out of it, boy. Sit down on the chair and let’s get ripping.”

  I sat down on the chair stomach-first, my head on a hole that had a worn-out bar in front of my mouth.

  Metal wrapped around my feet, hands, and back. “What the—“

  “Still, boy, or I’ll fuck up. You don’t want that, not when I’m dealing with your spinal column. And bite the bar. It helps.”

  “The fuck?!” I shouted. “Doc, you’re not doing this to me! Put me out, you fuck!”

  “Part of the deal, Davey,” Doc chuckled. “Ain’t no freebies down here. I’m not losing out on any anesthesia just because you wanted to make a bet with me. I’ll inject you with anti-shock serum so you don’t die, but that’s it. Hold still now.”

  The scalpel dug into my back, cutting through skin and muscle, and I bit as hard as I could.

  000

  The procedure was over

  My eyes flashed.

  [Warning: improper installation]

  [Cyberware: QianT "Dragon Spine" Sandevistan Mk6]

  “Show’s over, Davie. Get off my chair.”

  I groaned as I got up. “Wrong,” I muttered. Where was my mom’s jacket? Over there on that wall. I stumbled over there.

  “How you feelin’, boy? Ready to throw in the towel?”

  Not yet. Had to… mom’s jacket.

  The warning flashed before my eyes again.

  [Time until proper integration: 62:23:45:12:565]

  [Progress: 0%]

  “You put it wrong,” I muttered.

  Mom’s jacket was in my hands.

  Things were right again.

  “What did you say, Davey? Speak up, boy.”

  I wore the jacket, and summoned my anger. It wasn’t hard.

  I told him not to dick me over.

  “You put it on wrong, you gonk fuck.”

  Doc clicked his tongue. “Come now, Davey. You know I don’t fuck around with my work.”

  I chuckled. “You’re gonna tell me that after you put my fucking spine on wrong?! You put it on wrong, you motherfucker! The error message is right there!”

  His hands clawed for an item at his desk. “Davey, don’t go around wagging that tong—”

  How did Norris do it again?

  Right. Like that.

  Suddenly I felt it. A click in my back, and the world went still.

  I ran towards Doc far before he could even reach whatever it was he was reaching for. Then I planted my fist into his face.

  He flew through his wall and hit the one on the other side.

  There, he slid down the wall, face first, leaving a bloody trail.

  But I wasn’t done with him.

  I ran up to him and stomped him. Then again, and again. “Enny pinching…” I stomped. “BD-holic.” I felt his shins crack beneath my feet. “Wanna take me for a,” I stomped again, punctuating “Gonk!”

  This motherfucker deserved to die for what he had done. Wanna violate my fucking body?

  I brought a chair and started smashing.

  He curled into a ball, whimpering, but I didn’t let up, not until he stopped moving, not until I was sure he was probably dead.

  “Fuck!” I screamed.

  I had to delta. Quickly.

  I zipped up mom’s jacket and headed home.

  Lesson learned: don’t just give any random motherfucker full access to my body.

  Or ever again. If this was what I was risking from chipping chrome in, some gonk-brained dickhead who didn’t know his asshole from his mouthhole botching the whole job and making me feel like one of Vlad the Impaler’s victims, then I’d rather go full ‘ganic from now on.

  I shed my bloodied clothes and went into the shower to clean the rest of it off.

  A new message popped into my vision

  [Recalibrating time until proper integration: 32:22:52:12:221]

  [Progress: 1%]

  Doc was a fucking idiot for thinking he’d get that past me when the Sandy itself seemed to be in the habit of telling the host about faulty installation by pairing with my corneal cyberoptics and throwing up a warning on my HUD. That was mighty convenient, but also bewildering that he had even tried getting that past me.

  Or maybe he was just that bad at his job, and mil-spec chrome was out of his league?

  That changed nada. He must have known that if he really was, and yet he went ahead with the procedure. That bet was designed to fuck me over.

  I was an idiot for even taking him up on it. He was the one with the vested interest in seeing me fall, and I trusted him not to accelerate that process.

  Gosh, I’d make a terrible corpo.

  But at least I’d learn from this. Never give your rivals an opening to your back. I had learned that in school, sure, but experiencing it was a whole other ballpark.

  So.

  Now I had a Sandevistan.

  I could become a solo and pay my way through the Academy.

  I just had to figure out how to get an in to the industry, though.

  Hit up the Net and find a good solo spot, and then I could maybe ask the old chromeheads around for tips and pointers.

  To my surprise as I exited the bathroom and put on my clothes, not only had my bleeding stopped, but my eyes told me that barely any time had passed since I decided to visit Doc and now. Only an hour.

  That gave me more than enough time to search for any good solo spots.

  000

  Bleeding and broken, but not dead, Dominic “Doc” Brown, the sleaziest backalley ripperdoc in Arroyo, took a deep, shuddering breath. Then his eyes flashed gold.

  He scrolled through his contact list and came upon the one he wanted: Dmitry, his scav contact.

  He sent him a message. “Interested in getting your hands on the Sandy on the news? Klep this kid. Megabuilding H4, apartment 156b.” He sent a picture of David as well

  Then, he sent a message to another number entirely; an independent ambulance taxi service that could get him out of his clinic and to another one, to see to his injuries.

  And then he’d wash his hands of this mess.

  Last time he ever tries to help out some Santo Domingo gutter rat.

  000

  The Afterlife seemed to be the one place around town where the mythos of the solo seemed to concentrate. According to some online forums, they had unique cocktails named after legendary edgerunners that had died glorious deaths. The whole thing felt kind of like a death cult to me, but hell, I wasn’t going to argue. I needed the money, and this was one of the few death cults that wouldn’t force me to swear fealty to an ideal that wasn’t just money, and also wasn’t deplorable enough that it trumped the fact that I might have to take a life at some point.

  As if I hadn’t already done that to Doc.

  Fuck.

  No. No regrets, David. He fucked me almost as bad as Biotechnica did.

  I couldn’t believe that I was stupid enough to let somebody else screw me over like that, after all that I had been through as well.

  [Recalibrating time until proper integration: 21:54:21:34:591]

  [Progress: 2%]

  From sixty days to twenty-one. That was good. I was glad that the Sandy was cooperating. One good thing to come out of this whole mess.

  Common sense dictated that I at least wait out the remaining three weeks until full integration could be achieved, but then I’d be three weeks further behind. I had avoided paying out for an installation which would have set me back even harder, but if I didn’t find a way to recoup for the losses incurred when I paid rent, I’d be fucked.

  I couldn’t afford to wait. After mom’s jacket finished its washing and drying sequences, I dressed up and decided to hit the city.

  And then my door was kicked in. Men with weapons, wearing holographic masks with pixelated backgrounds and drawn-on faces, rushed in.

  Something hit me in the neck.

  A bullet? Was I dead?

  I was inside the BD space in my head, the endless white expanse greeting me, with my nanite AI there as well. “What happened?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

  “You’ve been injected with a paralytic,” it replied. “And a bevy of other drugs meant to keep you down and unconscious. Fortunately, the effects could not fully reach your brain. You are cut off from your body for as long as it takes for me to help metabolize the toxins.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “If I pause the integration of your QianT "Dragon Spine" Sandevistan Mark Six, this process will take me thirty minutes.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “You are the one helping me integrate the Sandevistan?”

  “I am hurrying along your body’s natural healing process and the Sandevistan unit’s nanite integration process, which is taking to your system remarkably well. You have a great affinity for cyberware, which is why you are still alive despite the improperly installed implant.”

  I only wish I could kill Doc a second time.

  Wait… pixelated face masks.

  Scavs! Why were scavs after me? Could Katsuo really have fallen so low? No, not even he would be that depraved.

  …Doc.

  I hadn’t killed him after all. Or maybe that was his last hail mary before the chair took care of him.

  I’d have to make damn sure next time.

  I woke up to so much pain. Both my hands and feet had been stabbed through by knives, and I was nailed to a plastic board.

  I screamed.

  I heard Russian behind me. Whispers of intrigue and surprise. Laughs, too.

  I turned my head to get a better look at them. They had all manner of bladed implements: bonesaws, scalpels, knives, one guy even had a machete.

  “There you are, Sandy,” one spoke in English, probably for my benefit. “You’re an interesting piece, but more interesting is the meat you are attached to.”

  One fucker stabbed the back of my calf and I shouted. They dragged the scalpel down, cutting through muscle on its way, opening up my calf.

  I gasped for breath.

  Fuck this.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Fuck this!

  I activated the Sandevistan to try and pull myself out from my binds, but realized quickly that doing so would mean ripping myself out from them entirely. Even if I didn’t sacrifice my digits as I cut a channel through my hands to get them free, they’d be entirely useless afterwards.

  My calf stopped hurting.

  “Enhanced regeneration? What kind of freak are you?” the scav asked, more curious than scared. “No matter. Once I rip the Sandy out from your back, I’ll sell you to Biotechnica. Maybe you’re one of their lost subjects or something.”

  My eyes shot open.

  I could lose fingers. I could lose my feet.

  All that mattered was that I still remained free.

  So I pulled my hands out from the knives holding them fast, pushing into the bladed edge, and did the same to my feet. None of my fingers or toes got cut off, but that mattered little in the face of the damage I had done: tendons had been cut through, bones separated, ligaments sectioned. For all intents and purposes, I was a quadruple amputee.

  But I could still crawl.

  And crawl I did, towards the bastard scav who had spoken, the one with the scalpel. I grabbed the thing out from his hand with my mouth and used my wrists to pounce on top of him, ripping his throat out with the scalpel.

  Sandy kicked me out of the speed state. That didn’t matter. I just had to fire it up again. It hurt, sure, but only for a little while. Right now, I needed to survive.

  I didn’t need to fire the Sandy up for every time I killed one of these gonks. I just had to get through them all in one pass.

  I got to my half-functioning feet and hobbled over to stab the bonesaw-wielding asshole in his eye. I then pushed the scalpel into his eye with the base of my hand, the part undamaged by my quick and dirty escape.

  Suddenly, I could feel the fingers on my right hand, just in time for me to get the bonesaw out from his hand and make a feeble pass through his throat. It turns out that my weak grip didn’t matter in the face of the speed I was travelling.

  I ducked under the wild swing of a machete-wielding scav and cut through his throat as well, this time with a more solid grip. My feet weren’t killing me anymore.

  I grabbed a knife with my left hand and began the dirty work, aiming for throats all the while.

  These motherfuckers had tried to violate my body.

  I’d been fooled twice already. A third time wasn’t going to fucking happen.

  The Sandy booted me out. Five scavs were down, one was pulling on something on his waistband. A gun—BANG.

  BANG. BANG.

  I popped the Sandevistan again, this time feeling the strain as an immense pressure on my skull. Had to get over that right now.

  I ran around the plate I had been attached to in order to reach the last scav, whose skull I buried a knife in.

  I ran out from the room and into a living room where three more scavs, this time with guns, were ready to investigate all that noise.

  I cut through all three of their throats with the bonesaw before they could even notice I was there.

  I threw up a mouthful of blood, vomit and something hard.

  Bullets. Three.

  I looked down at shirt and found three bullet holes in my gut area, but not in my actual gut. Just holes in the shirt.

  Hadn’t I just been shot?

  What the fuck was I?

  I stumbled to a sofa to get a place to sit while I beheld my injuries, or the categorical lack of them. Either the nanites had just suddenly become way better at healing me than the AI let on, or the Sandevistan was playing a part somehow.

  Either way, I didn’t like it one bit.

  Everything hurt, even if I was uninjured. My head was killing me, too.

  Couldn’t think well. Didn’t wanna fire it up more than necessary, either.

  What to do?

  I looked down at the scav corpses.

  Scavs had bounties, didn’t they?

  I raised the NCPD about the bounties. They asked for pics, and I took some with my eyes before sending them. Then, I waited for my eddies while I searched around in the scav apartment.

  Dead bodies. Lots of them.

  I spotted a weapon belonging to a dead scav lying around on the floor, a long gun. Couldn’t take that. Wouldn’t be very easy to smuggle that out of the scene once the cops came.

  I went back to the room where I woke up to get the pistol that one of them used to fire at me. I shoved it carefully into my waistband.

  I was barechested.

  Right. Clothes.

  Mom’s jacket!

  I ran around like a headless chicken, looking everywhere for it until I found it shoved unceremoniously into a trash can.

  But it was whole, thank God.

  I pulled it up and wore it. Didn’t smell like mom anymore, more like vomit.

  Fuck. Fuck!

  I heard footsteps outside the apartment and decided to lift one last thing from the scavs, the machete. Whatever the case was, I’d been impressive with the Sandevistan and a bladed weapon. And blades didn’t need more ammo and didn’t make as much noise either.

  It was a sensible choice.

  The NCPD kicked open the door and pointed their gun at me. “On your knees now!”

  “I called you over!” I shouted.

  “On the ground, or we shoot!”

  Gonk-brained motherfuckers. I went on my knees as the police went around me and grabbed both my wrists and slammed me down to the ground.

  Boots hit the floor as they scoured the apartment looking for whatever they were looking for. Probably just scavs and not just any survivors they might have.

  [Sandevistan-aided regeneration temporarily disabled]

  [Warning: Reaching critical levels of imperfect cell replication]

  That didn’t sound good at all.

  Par for the course, though. No such thing as a free lunch. Fucking nova.

  Now I understood that these messages weren’t generated by the Sandy, but by the nanite AI. I’d have to give the thing a name at some point. Nanny? That sounded lame. Ah, who gave a shit.

  “He called it in alright,” one cop said, and the roided out jackass on top of me finally let me go, even if I could have sworn that he was trying to break my wrists or something. What kind of an asshole was he anyway? The cop who had spoken looked me up and down. “You said it was you who took care of the scavs.”

  “That’s because I did,” I said.

  The cop rolled his eyes. “Not my job to tell if you’re lying or not. There’s nine bodies, all Bratva. Those go for a thousand a pop. You wanna claim the bounties, be aware that PD ICE walls are shit, and if the Bratva wanted to get to the bottom of who flatlined their chooms, they could do that very quickly.”

  On the one hand, I’d be a target for the fucking Russian mafia. On the other, I’d be nine thousand eddies richer.

  “Let them come,” I said. Hell, I wasn’t even scared. These gonks hadn’t been shit even when I was crippled.

  The cop sighed. “Your funeral. Here.” His eyes flashed gold, and I waited for a moment until I received the chunk of eddies from the NCPD Bounty Station, eight thousand one hundred eddies.

  “You’re short, choom,” I said.

  “Tax,” the cop said. “Now get out.”

  “Where am I anyway?” I asked.

  “Megabuilding H4.”

  I froze.

  These motherfuckers were stationed in my building?

  000

  According to my internal clock, I really hadn’t been out for that long. I took the stairs down to my floor and walked over to my apartment only to find a group of street kids looking into my house.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  They didn’t run away, like I’d expected.

  “What, gonk?” one asked me. “This your house?”

  I tried to walk past him, only for him to shove me away.

  Didn’t have time for this.

  I pulled out my gun. He instantly froze. I smacked him across his face with it and finally got past him to the other shell-shocked street kids and entered my house.

  Where a bunch of gonks were using my PC.

  With the gun pointed at the roof, I screamed. “HEY!”

  That instantly got their attention.

  I linked my eyes with the PC and saw that they were on my bank tab. Motherfuckers. None of the funds had been touched yet, but that was only a very quick transfer away. I shut the machine down remotely..

  That done, I searched around for mom’s urn and found it in the hands of one gonk who had uncorked it. There was a cigarette on his lip and a lighter only inches away from it, but he was frozen like everyone else.

  I walked up to him and pulled mom’s urn from his feeble gasp before I shoved my gun into his mouth. “You wanna die, you piece of shit? Get your gonk brain splattered all over my couch? Just say the fucking word you son of a bitch, say it!”

  “Please, please, please, I didn’t—”

  I pulled him out from the sofa, sending him sprawling across the ground where I punted him on his stomach.

  Fucking gonks, all of them.

  I looked up to the assholes still sitting around my PC. “Drag the motherfucker out already!”

  While they did that, I went up to my door to see what could be done about it.

  I carried it up and set it against the doorway, for all the good that would do. It needed repairs.

  Fuck, where would I get the eddies for that?

  From the scav bounty.

  I hit up the landlord.

  David: I need a door repaired fast.

  Karacic: Fast is gonna cost ya. Only question is are you good for it?

  David: I wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t you fucking gonk, now get me in touch with whoever fixes this shit before I kick in your door, you fucking prick.

  Karacic: You wanna die, you punk?

  David: Fucking come and say that shit to my face. I’ll be waiting. You know exactly where I live.

  Karacic: Huh. You think just because you’ve got a gun or something, you can just threaten me?

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I sent him the stills I had taken of the scav corpses.

  David: This was in the building. I took care of it. I am not to be fucked with. You wanna keep testing me, whatever happens is entirely on you. Now, you gonk-brained piece of shit, how about you get somebody to fix my door before I fix a hole in you? I swear to God, Karacic, I’m not playing with you anymore. I’m gonna make you learn to fucking miss my mom.

  Silence reigned for several seconds until finally, Karacic replied.

  Karacic: I’ll send a guy to fix it. Discuss prices with him.

  Then he hung up.

  Damn. That felt pretty preem actually.

  000

  I waited for Karacic’s handyman to finally come. He repaired the door under my watchful gaze. The damage was just on the hinges, and also the locking mechanism, but the electronic interface wasn’t harmed.

  That was one way to break through security ICE.

  “A thousand eddies, kid,” he said. “Fork it over.”

  I pulled my gun out. “Or how about I shoot one of your nuts off? You think I was born yesterday?”

  He swallowed, backing up to the door he had repaired. “It-it-it’s just haggling man, come on! Let’s be reasonable.”

  “You spent fifteen minutes on the door, didn’t even use different parts, just reshaped the old ones so they’d work. I’m giving you a hundred. For wasting my time with that haggling bullshit too.”

  “C’mon, kid, two hundred! I’ve got people to feed!”

  I looked at the hinges. He played pretty fast and loose with the whole metal reshaping thing he did. “That work worth two hundred? I’m not playing games here, and I’m not a fucking kid. Do it right and I’ll consider paying you that.”

  This time, he worked for half an hour more, and he looked far more serious about his work.

  In the end, the door didn’t even look like it had been kicked open by its hinges anymore.

  I sent over a hundred only. “For wasting my time. Get the fuck out.”

  He didn’t argue as he ran out from the house.

  Needed a stronger door. Good ICE walls meant shit when any gonk with leg implants could just kick the door open, and it’s not like anyone in this building gave a shit either.

  The walls around the apartment were load-bearing, and it being a megabuilding and all, that meant strong material. The only point of weakness was the door. Had to find someone who could reinforce it somehow.

  So much to do. Still had to go to the Afterlife up in Watson and ask around for an in on the solo business.

  That wasn’t as pressing as figuring out what was going on with Nanny, though. Imperfect cell replication sounded to me like either accelerated aging as the best case scenario, or unchecked cancerous growths.

  Wish there was a way to get in touch with Nanny without actually having to sleep.

  [You wish to communicate, David Martinez?]

  The message popped up in my vision non-intrusively and I also heard it in my ears. “The, uh, cell replication thing. That taken care of?”

  [Steady progress: 50%. I have gained valuable data from these trials. I have integrated more advanced algorithms. Future attempts will not be as disastrous.]

  “I have high-speed regen now?” I asked. “Will there be limits?”

  [Yes. You have lost a lot of blood and you should ingest food rich in protein to recover this.]

  Come to think of it, I was working up quite the hunger.

  [Other than that, future attempts at high-speed regeneration will have to be slower in order to prevent imperfect cell replication. This limit may increase over time as I gain more sophistication and ability to address imperfect cell replication.]

  “Nova!” I said. “What about the Sandy? Can you use it to integrate faster?”

  [Integration is not the same as healing from damage. It is almost the opposite: in order to correct the improper installation, the QianT “Dragon Spine” Sandevistan Mark 6 must slowly cut through your flesh in order to achieve optimal cable placement and neural connection. This process cannot occur quickly without external assistance, and if I moved the Sandevistan into place in a quick and sudden manner, it may not be able to activate and cause high speed regeneration in order to recover from the damage, which will be fatal in magnitude.]

  Huh. And the only way to take care of the integration quickly was to get the whole thing reinstalled.

  That said, there was no one I could trust to do that without just klepping it and flatlining me. Didn’t have the rep or the backing to take care of that.

  Was on my own.

  “What if I fired up the Sandy again?” I asked. “Any danger with that?”

  “You have used the Sandevistan a total of five times today. Most of the damage to your body is in the form of imperfect cell replication. The activation of your Sandevistan will not impact this issue, and neither will the issue impact your ability to use the Sandevistan.]

  Then all that remained was to hit up the Afterlife, then.

  000

  After taking a shower and cleaning all the scav blood off me, I took the NCART as far as it would take me and continued the rest of the walk on foot. It was nearing night time by now, which was when Night City truly came alive.

  The place looked like an old dive bar on the surface, though that was probably the point. It was too polished and neokitschy to be anything else but a nostalgia-thing.

  And there was a line, too. A long one. In front of me were large men and women who weren’t even bothering to conceal their iron. I could see seams across their bodies betraying the existence of cyberware. Some didn’t even bother with RealSkinn at all, letting the shiny chrome metal out for the world to see.

  Eventually, it was finally my turn to see the bouncer.

  “Wait,” the bouncer outside, a big beefy gonk with silver mandible implants, looked me up and down. “Who the fuck are you.” That was a statement just as much as it was a question. I could already tell I’d get nowhere with him, but I’d still try.

  “I’m just here to get the lowdown on the Solo life,” I replied. “Not here to bother anyone.”

  The bouncer just chuckled. “Fuck off, kid.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You think any fucking beginner can just walk into the Afterlife? Have some goddamn respect.”

  Damn, okay. “Listen, man, I came all the way from Santo Domingo, just give me five minutes?”

  He pounded his fist into his hand. “You wanna do this the hard way, then?”

  I rolled my eyes and turned to delta.

  Had an inkling this might happen. Time for plan B.

  Once I was a block away, I went into an alleyway where nobody could see me. There, I kicked up the Sandy and ran past the gonk bouncer and into the Afterlife.

  I didn’t deactivate it until I reached a secluded corner that nobody was watching. When I finally felt like I was safe, I re-entered the normal timestream and looked around, taking in the huge gathering of chrome junkies who looked like they could kill me with both hands tied behind their backs.

  Okay, I was in. Had to make it count, now.

  I went up to the bar to order a drink. The woman tending it looked slightly old, in her forties almost, but dressed in a style that was appropriate for someone at least half her age. “Hey, can I have a… tequila?” I asked.

  The woman looked at me for a short while. “Single or double?”

  “Single, please,” I said.

  She pulled out a bottle from the shelf and poured the drink, still eyeing me like I was a particularly strange creature. “While you’re at it, I was wondering if I could get some tips on the whole solo biz.”

  “Mhm,” she said. “You done many jobs?”

  “Cleared out a scav den just a few hours ago,” I said. “Got some eddies out of that when I went to the cops.”

  “Bad idea,” she said. “Now the Bratva know who you are.”

  “Is that really as bad as it sounds?” I asked.

  “Depends. How many did you take down?”

  “Nine,” I said. Her eyes flashed.

  “Hm, so you did.”

  I narrowed my eyes. She could just… check that?

  “Nine’s impressive for a newbie-noob, but they’re baby numbers for the Organitskaya. They lose about twenty to thirty of their number every week or so to any given thing; in-fighting, gang-wars, solo subjugation. If they sought revenge after every gonk who flatlined them, they’d never stop fighting. Just gotta hope you didn’t zero someone a higher-up was fond of.”

  “How would I know if I did that?” I asked.

  “...you might want to invest in better personal security. Stronger doors.”

  “Was planning to,” I said. “My door ICE is solid—they didn’t even try to fuck with that. They just kicked my door in, that’s how they got me.”

  The bartender raised an eyebrow. “What’d you do to piss off the scavs like that? They eye some of your chrome?”

  I clenched my jaw, still getting angry at what Doc had done to me. “My Ripper did a faulty install. Hurt like a bitch. Made a bet with him, he told me if I could handle the chrome, he’d waive the install fee. If I couldn’t, he’d take it for free once I asked him to. Maybe he was just shit or maybe he botched it on purpose, but it didn’t matter to me.” I looked the bartender in the eye as I said the last part. “So I tried to kill him.”

  “Ah,” the bartender said, finally understanding. “And then he sent his scav friends after you for payback.”

  “Didn’t even know he had scav friends,” I admitted. “I’d been dealing with him for a while before that; not chrome-related, but other biz. One of the few people who gave me the time of day, too, so I paid that respect back by doing jobs for him. And then I ask for one thing, and he gets ready to have me flatlined.”

  It wasn’t fair or right, but that was life, wasn’t it?

  “Now you know not to trust backalley ripperdocs,” she said. “Lots of people don’t ever learn that until it’s too late. Your body is the worst thing you should ever skimp on.”

  “Amen,” I said.

  “So why a solo?” she asked.

  “I need the eddies,” I continued. “Like, really bad. Just wanna know how a newbie solo can get started.”

  “So you came here,” the woman said dryly. I took the shot and drank it in one go. Tasted weird, not my thing, but still miles easier to drink than anything fizzy.

  “The Net said this was the place for solos to be,” I said. “Didn’t have much else to go on than that.”

  The lady guffawed. “You’re funny, kid. Where are you from?”

  “Santo Domingo,” I said. “Arroyo.”

  “You wanna get in touch with a fixer, Arroyo-kid,” she said. “Fixers get solos the gigs they need to make a living. Thankfully for you, there’s a fixer in Rancho Coronado of no small repute called El Capitan. Know him?”

  I shook my head.

  “His name is Muamar Reyes. Hangs out in an outlook near the dam. Used to be a corpo before he decided to become a fixer. You wanna make a name for yourself in your home-district, go to him.”

  I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “But… what if I don’t want to make a name for myself?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I just want to be a solo so I can put myself through school. Is there anything in the solo handbook that says I can’t just, I don’t know, use a fake name?”

  She chuckled mirthlessly. “Not many Solos enter this line of work as a secondary income stream. Most who do don’t think it’s worth it.”

  The Norris BD popped into my head. “I… like the work,” I said.

  She laughed. “Alright, kid. Yeah, you can put on a disguise and make a fake name. Just make sure it stays consistent. That’s the biz; it’s all about rep here.”

  I nodded. “You know any fixers in here?”

  “I’d advise not to bug any of them, no-name.”

  I chuckled. “Alright. Thanks for the help. Uhm, what’s your name?”

  “Rogue.”

  “Thank you, Rogue.” I paid for the shot and added a hundred percent tip on top just because she’d been so helpful. I’d have balked at such frivolous spending at any other time, but I really was grateful for her. She gave me respect completely unearned. To a Santo Domingo street kid, that was worth more than eddies.

  “What’s yours, no-name?”

  “You can call me D,” I said.

  “Hope to hear more from you soon, D,” she said in a tone that told me that she was just indulging me. I didn’t care. I’d show her someday. “And kid, don’t come back here until you’ve made a name for yourself.” Something about her tone told me she was more than just encouraging me. It almost felt like a threat. That was fine; I had gotten what I wanted from here. I’d return to the Afterlife after becoming a big name, maybe even cut her in on my first big score. “Stay safe, kid.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I walked away.

  000

  Rogue Amendiares, owner of the Afterlife and top fixer in Night City, watched the kid stalk off with an amused grin. Kid had nerves of steel to walk around like that around seasoned killers while still mostly ‘ganic. That, or he was just stupid.

  But then again, what kind of idiot would risk their life to put themselves through school?

  The David Martinez kind. Arasaka Academy senior, top grades. No father. No mother. She died yesterday.

  He didn’t waste any time picking up the slack when it came to breadwinning. Good kid, Night City practically gushed through his veins.

  Just for that alone, she’d put in a good word with Reyes, at least get his foot into the game so he could show his stuff a little. Sneaking into the Afterlife, eluding everyone, even her somewhat distracted netrunner, but her—that had impressed Rogue. She had only even noticed that Sandevistan speed because she had looked at that particular corner entirely randomly when it happened. Nerves of steel was right, too—With that cyberware he was sporting, he was bound to either become a rising star or just another Night City tragedy.

  He might just die a particularly impressive death, too.

  What would the David Martinez cocktail contain? Something fizzy and sweet for sure.