I talked to Kiwi about helping me move the klepped shards. She hadn’t been overly curious about my falling out with Lucy, thank God, and had been a professional about the matter. She demanded a cut, though; twenty percent. That was steep for a middle man, but I couldn’t exactly go to someone else.

  School the next day was the same as always, that was except for my meeting with the system administrator.

  “Let’s get down to brass tacks,” Nakajima began. “I’m using you. I’m not here to nurture some genius or teaching you for the love of the subject. I want you to help me.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, somehow appreciating that far more than if he really had been doing it from the kindness of his heart. I had no idea how I would even respond to something like that. I’m glad that wasn’t the case. “How can I help you?” I asked.

  “There’s a case competition going on in Arasaka IT. I’m looking for people with talent. Shit looks great on your CV, so really I’m helping you just as much as I’m using you. But you will be pulling your weight, and you’ll do it hard, because this?” He chuckled. “I took a look at your syllabus kid, and that shit’s fucking hilarious. They had you on some C for Dummies shit, and they called that Advanced Placement? Even your university courses are laughable, what the fuck? No. What we’re doing is a matter of tens of millions of eurodollars for the corp. The value we will seek to add is more than you’ll ever touch in your lifetime, provided it’s ever implemented.”

  I blinked. “Wait, why me, then? You said it yourself, my syllabus was shit.”

  “Yeah! And yet you managed to slay a fucking Afreet Demon with pure fundamentals and basics. That’s not normal!”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to destroy the virus?”

  “Of course not! I wanted to see if you were competent enough to maybe be able to do what you did to that first virus you unleashed. But forget that, I’m headhunting you because you’ve got a talent and instinct for code that very few people can boast.”

  And yet Lucy made me look like a fucking chump.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Where do we start?”

  “This won’t be paid, you know,” he said with a look that seemed to expect resistance. And I would have resisted, truly, if I had expected pay in the first place.

  “Why not?” I asked with slight suspicion in my voice. Just because I wouldn’t have resisted at first didn’t mean that it wasn’t smart to.

  “It’s a case competition, not a project. You only get paid if you win.”

  “And if we win,” I said. “You still won’t pay me?”

  He laughed. “Kid, we’re not winning. I’m just doing this to get placed on the map. Just placing in top ten is amazing as fuck. Winning is a pipe-dream.”

  “What’s the prize money for winning?” I asked.

  “A million eurodollars,” he replied. “But it’s not about the money. It’s about the connections you make. You get yourself on the map, your future at Arasaka’s tech division is assured. This is my ticket out of this fucking school.”

  I nodded. I assumed he was more comfortable in this school setting than not, seeing as his irreverence and general lack of fucks to give wouldn’t really bite him in the ass. I couldn’t imagine that Arasaka proper would be more forgiving.

  Not that it mattered to me all that much.

  “Will my name be on the project?” I asked.

  He looked at me as if I’d slapped him in the face. Of course he wouldn’t give me any credit— “What kind of rat-bastard do you take me for? If I used your help and didn’t credit you, I’d be some truly pathetic scum. Forget about honor and all that crap, that shit would just be downright embarrassing.”

  “Uh, sorry,” I said. “Corpo rat-bastardery isn’t exactly the most consistent thing in the world.”

  He scoffed. “We do things differently in cyberspace. Klepping somebody’s work is a quick way to get your brain fried in the future. There’s a story behind that, tradition was that if you helped someone with their code, you’d try to plant a vulnerability so if they fucked you over, you could fuck them over later on. I’d suggest you start doing that from now on if you wanna help your corpo classmates get A’s.”

  I nodded. “And who exactly is in the rest of our team?”

  He grinned widely. “Just you and me, kid, which is why I said winning is a pipe-dream. By my count, it would take somewhere around a thousand man-hours to make a product that could have a decent chance of winning. Between the two of us, that would be five hundred hours of work each. The deadline is April 5th, two months and twenty-five days from now on. If we worked on our product six hours a day from today onward and our work was really good, we could stand a chance. But you’ve got school and I’ve got work, and we both need to sleep. We can manage five hundred man-hours at best between the two of us, and we’d have to work three hours a day still, and that isn’t even counting the hours it would take for you to get up to speed.”

  “That’s insane,” I said. “I-I’ve got shit to do, and school is—” An idea struck me. “You changed my grade already, didn’t you?” I checked my file with my cyberoptics while he confirmed.

  “Yes, I did,” he said.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You can pay me back in giving me A’s on the rest of my computer science courses.”

  “Yes, like no one’s going to notice that,” he chuckled. “How about I just drop you out of those courses and put the case comp on your file?”

  “What does that do?” I asked. “I’m here for grades, man. I really need that NCU scholarship.”

  “Kid, you’ve got enough fucking credits to almost be halfway through your bachelors. And you only really need the humanities classes to pass high school. Sure, you’ll have to do a couple more classes while in uni so you might have to graduate in two years instead of one, but replacing those science courses with an Arasaka fucking Case Comp? And doing well on that shit at that? Get the fuck out of here, man, that’s the sort of shit that’d get you a full ride days after applying.”

  This sounded too extreme. “I don’t know. Maybe I should talk to a career counselor before deciding on all of that. Besides, aren’t there, like, qualifiers or some shit? If it’s such a big deal, how come I get to just jump right into it?”

  “You don’t,” Nakajima replied. “I already qualified. I get to build a team now. You’re riding the coattails of my success. Talk to that counselor or whatever, and then make a decision. In the meantime, you’ll spend some of your freetime learning real coding.”

  “How do I learn ‘real coding’?”

  “Code review, kid,” he said as he handed me a shard. “This contains old military grade ICE—we call it WET in the industry. Doesn’t stand for nothing, but it’s just ICE that’s been so thoroughly decrypted that it’s highly likely you can find a key lying somewhere on the Net for it, especially on the ICEpedia where they keep millions of different keys. Read the code, and also figure out how to break it if you want. ICE-breaking won’t feature much into the competition, but it’s valuable practice nonetheless for understanding the deeper principles of coding and the Net. There’s also robotics code and cyberware OS that is bugged. While reviewing, you need to figure out a way to debug it based on the comments written. Be done by Friday. This won’t get you up to speed by any means, but we’ll learn as you go. This is your first true step into learning coding, kid.”

  I slotted the shard in and there was a lot.

  On the way home, I picksocketed my NCART. Robbing Arasaka suits was more Lucy’s thing, but I didn’t really give a shit. Eddies were eddies.

  By the time I reached home, I had about thirty shards.

  I went straight to the gym to work out until 50% Critical Progress.

  Nanny stopped me at 35% because I was beginning to rack up some serious side-effects; ligaments, heart, endocrine system and my nervous system as well, stuff that couldn’t be healed because of nutritional deficiencies. I loaded up on all the nutrients I was low on, let Sandy rapidly take care of my deficiencies, and headed home, ten pounds of muscle heavier.

  I sent in an order to the school for a bigger uniform, and then shot Maine a call.

  David: Need a gig.

  Maine: Already? Kid, I’m fucking busy-busy..

  David: Oh, sorry. Just wanted to do more work is all.

  Maine: Desperate’s a bad look. You blew all your eddies already?

  David: Of course not. Saving up for tuition. Need more-more eddies.

  Maine: Ain’t got no-no work for you kid, now get off the comms.

  I groaned.

  I decided on Reyes next.

  D: Any big-big money gigs for me?

  El Capitan: You gonk! You didn’t tell me you were running with Maine’s crew! Heard you did a job for Faraday. Big-big money dude, that guy.

  D: Need more. Saving up for something big.

  El Capitan: Let me see… got one that really is too-way too big for just you. Run it by your crew, maybe they’ll like-love it. Klep some modified biker CHOOH2 from some Tyger Claws. Deliver it to a client. I recommend a driver and a netrunner for this job.

  D: What’s the pay?

  El Capitan: Thirty grand.

  There were substantial obstacles preventing me from completing this gig alone. I had to remind myself of that repeatedly before I did something boneheaded like rush into this on my own.

  D: I’ll run it by the crew before saying yes. That alright with you?

  El Capitan: Decide quickly. This ain’t a gig I can shelf for long.

  Reyes sent me the information for the gig, and I sent it to Maine.

  I received a response fairly quickly. Talk to Kiwi and leave me the fuck alone!

  David: What about Dorio?

  Maine: Correction, leave us the fuck alone.

  Jeez.

  I got in touch with Kiwi a second later.

  Kiwi: More shards for me?

  D: Yeah, but I’ve also got a gig lined up. Maine and Dorio don’t seem interested. Gig has to happen quickly. By tonight. We need a runner and a driver.

  I sent her the information.

  Kiwi: Some muscle, too, by the looks of it.

  D: I’m plenty enough

  Kiwi: Cute. I won’t gamble on that. Pilar and Rebecca will be there. I’d invite Lucy, too, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.

  D: Invite her. Let her turn it down if she wants.

  Gosh, what the fuck was I doing? With Pilar and Rebecca, the money would be split six ways if Lucy came and we managed to find a dedicated driver. Five grand was respectable for just one job, and I’d be making good progress to affording the tuition.

  But then I’d have to do a gig with fucking Lucy.

  Kiwi: Not sure what you’re playing at, but I gave her the invite—and she declined. I won’t even ask what’s going on.

  D: Thank you.

  Thank fuck.

  I wanted her invited so nobody could say that I let my personal feelings get in the way of having a professional attitude.

  Kiwi: Alright, kid. We’re meeting at Aldo’s, seven sharp.

  000

  I arrived fifteen minutes to seven in the warehouse bordering the desert only to find that there wasn’t a soul present.

  Kiwi arrived ten minutes to seven. She wore the same red trenchcoat she always did, underneath it a pair of matching red pants.

  “Early,” she said. “Good. Keep this up, kid, and I might start to rely on you.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Also, remember, it’s D while on gigs.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched near the middle, clearly an expression of mocking disdain. “Still on about that, kid? You’re a riot. Out of all the letters in the English alphabet, you had to pick the most clownable one.”

  I shrugged. I thought it was kinda nova. D was a nice letter. Even if could stand for something gonky like dick.

  What about dominion? Death? Destroyer? Dragon?

  People just lacked imagination.

  “Hey, Kiwi, I have a question to ask.”

  “I’m not talking to Lucy,” Kiwi said. “Whatever you did, work that out on your own.”

  “No, not that,” I said with a grimace. “Wouldn’t put you in that spot to begin with. I just wanted to know if you could give me some coding pointers. Lucy’s a fucking menace on a terminal, you taught her, right?”

  Kiwi narrowed her eyes at me. “You into netrunning?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Think it’s the only way to really stay safe from shit, you know? The Net is everything, right? Can’t ever be safe if you’re not safe in the Net.”

  “Hmm,” Kiwi said, arms folded. “And how does that figure for a corpo brat like you? Why are you so scared?”

  I clenched my jaws. “I’m not a fucking corpo brat. I’m here working.”

  “Yes, to become a corpo grownup. By that logic, you are currently a corpo brat.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’m just trying to make money here. Flatlining gangsters ain’t anymore honorable than a nine-to-nine-to-nine at Arasaka Tower. Why should I be getting shit for doing that?”

  Kiwi’s hum bore a tiny hint of a chuckle in it. “Maybe it’s just jealousy. Just don’t go around advertising your advantages, kid. Not many solos would ever wanna work with a corpo at their side. Just the mask alone would tell them you’re not really in this for real.”

  I bit back my retort. There was no solving this through talk. But that was fine. Talk wasn’t necessary. I could just… prove myself.

  “The netrunning tips,” I said. “Would you mind?”

  “Only if you tell me what your angle is,” Kiwi said. “Why exactly are you so determined to become a corpo?”

  I clenched my jaws. “You’ll just make fun of me for it, and I don’t care about—”

  “No mocking,” Kiwi said. “Promise. Just curious is all.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Because I’m going to climb to the top of Arasaka Tower. I’m going to take over that bitch.”

  Kiwi’s eyes widened. They narrowed to normal levels a brief moment later, but there was still some disbelief in them. “You said this to Lucy?”

  I nodded. “How’d you know?”

  “Only thing Lucy hates more than a corpo suit is one that’s riding on Arasaka’s dick. Got personal beef with that corp.”

  I nodded deeply. “I don’t give a shit,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “No, not really,” I said, clenching my jaws. “She came after me for that? If she had any brains left in that skull of hers after all those neural implants, she—”

  “Shut up,” Kiwi said. “I don’t give a shit. Me. God, shut up.”

  “Uh, sorry,” I said. “But about the netrunning thing?” I asked.

  “I’ll do it, if you trade the proceeds for the klepped shards for lessons.”

  “C’mon, Kiwi, I really need that money—”

  “And I really need some me-time that your incessant questions will most assuredly encroach on, so why don’t you make like a good corpo, and make a decision.”

  “...How much? For the lessons?”

  “Once you’ve klepped enough shards, I’ll give you the next lesson.”

  “That’s exploitative,” I said. “You’re not giving me a clear number here.”

  “Not all shards are worth the same,” she said. “But I am looking for a specific number: six thousand eddies.”

  That was disgustingly overpriced.

  “How do I know the lessons are worth it?”

  “My rep is on the line as a netrunner, kid,” Kiwi said.

  I laughed. “Everything boils down to rep in this biz, huh?”

  “It does,” she said. “Especially in the netrunning world. We’re a paranoid bunch. Goodwill and trust is worth more than diamonds. You soil your name, you’re done.”

  Thankfully, I hadn’t fully factored in the proceeds for the shards into my account yet, so I didn’t really consider this six thousand eddies mine. That mental separation made it easier to give this gonk shit a go. “Fine,” I said.

  Kiwi groaned. “I hoped you’d say no. I’ll give you some outdated quickhacks of mine. I’ll leave some comments on what specifically makes them outdated, but that’s all you’re getting from me. Can’t figure it out on your own, then give me a ring, but I’m warning you, you won’t learn shit that way. I’ll be as concise as I can.”

  So six thousand eddies for some outdated code and comments? I had already created two quickhacks on my own; what would make hers so much better than mine?

  Guess I wouldn’t find out until I gave it a look. And if she wasn’t all that she was cracked up to be, then I’d just… tank her rep? How was I supposed to do that anyway? I had no network or rep in the real netrunning community anyway. Only knew some gonks who couldn’t even debug their own shit and probably had to pay for their code in the first place.

  “I need contacts,” I said. “I want to get to know other runners.”

  “Now that’s gonna cost ya.”

  Fucking gonk giving me the runaround.

  “We’ll work this out later,” I said, having already decided to nix that idea. I couldn’t let her spoonfeed me this hard in netrunning. I had to take some initiative at some point, get an actual cyberdeck and then do a dive into the net.

  Had to find a proper Ripper for that first.

  What was on my to-do list again?

  Well, there was finishing Nakajima’s assignments, which counted as netrunning practice. Finding a Ripper. Deciding on what my next piece of chrome would be. Making enough money to stay in school. This was before all of my involvement with Kiwi as well.

  Then there was improving the native ICE in my implants, but there was only so much I could do without a Self-ICE implant. Doing gigs as it was was already quite risky. It would just take one spirited scan to pull up all of my information.

  I still had the luxury of being a particularly obscure figure. No one would care enough to pull up my information right now. The most care I’d receive on the field was deadly intent. Even an enemy netrunner would be more inclined to fry my chrome than doxx me.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  [I think I can prove to be a better alternative to such an implant.]

  I furrowed my eyebrows.

  David: You think so?

  [I have a far larger memory for ICE than any of your implants do, and I can also borrow the computational power of the Sandevistan to further bolster its efficacy.]

  Shit, okay!

  David: You know where my full ICE draft is, right? Can you incorporate it right now?

  [Done. Activate the Sandevistan. I must complete some neural connections.]

  I did.

  Nothing felt any different to me.

  [Now the ICE you have designed is working at full capacity.]

  Huh. Well, that was easy.

  It wouldn’t truly protect me forever, but I would at least be able to sense an intrusion and its origin point, and once that happened, they wouldn’t even be able to blink before I zeroed them.

  A van pulled up right in front of us and I stepped back, readying the Sandevistan just in case. The door slid open and out from it jumped Pilar and Rebecca. I relaxed. “Good to see you guys,” I said.

  Kiwi approached the van. “Back inside,” she said. “We’ll do some briefing on the drive. I trust you’ve read what we’re doing.”

  “Nope!” Rebecca said. “Just tell me what to do, you know I don’t fucking study for gigs.”

  Kiwi groaned as she opened the door to the passenger seat and jumped in. On the driver’s seat was a brown-haired guy with quite the impressive mustache. His outfit evoked such an intense cowboy energy that I couldn’t help but just like him instantly. I got into the van while Pilar grumbled something out.

  Rebecca sat next to me. “Hey,” she said. “D,” and then she laughed again.

  “That’s my name,” I said.

  “Is this kid serious?!” Pilar laughed. “D the masked menace, the matador mercenary, the conqueror of cunts!”

  Rebecca laughed even louder.

  “Really what you go by?” the driver asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “You?”

  “Falco. Howdy, pleasure to meet you.”

  Kiwi groaned. “One more cosplayer in our midst. You happy, Cowboy Falco?”

  “‘Course I am,” Falco replied. “It ain’t no ordinary sun-up when you cross paths with a bona fide luchador, I’ll tell ya that much.”

  Pilar laughed even louder, and Rebecca followed suit.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle as well. It was shitty being the butt of a joke, but I couldn’t help feeling strangely celebrated. Didn’t hate the feeling, to be honest.

  “Knock it off, you two,” Kiwi said. “I did some scoping out on the place we’re headed to. Pay attention and learn your roles.”

  It seemed that Kiwi had taken point on this mission. I didn’t mind at all. I was somewhat paranoid that it was going to be me who would be making the game plan because I was the one to bring the gig, but thankfully Kiwi seemed to have it covered.

  “ICE might take a couple of minutes to break open,” she said. “Upside is, we’ll have a run of the whole area once they do. Twenty goons scattered around the facility. Ten plus Tyger Claw hostiles milling about the payload, too. Can’t quickhack them from outside, so an engagement is inevitable. Preferably, we exterminate the whole bunch so they can’t run back to their oyabun and snitch on us. No outgoing signals once we get started, I’ll make sure of that.”

  I nodded along to her words. Rebecca and Pilar, for their part, had finally stopped laughing.

  “The fixer mentioned something about a bonus too if we could nab some usable data. Nothing specific, and usable is a shitty stipulation if you ask me,” Kiwi said. “So I say we ditch that.”

  “No,” I said. “I think we should do it. Even if it’s for nothing, it’s important to show that we go above and beyond for our fixers. Rep is everything, right?”

  “Ain’t you a goody-two-shoes?” Kiwi said with a clear hint of disdain in her voice.

  Falco whistled. “You sure you’re not Maine’s lovechild or something along those lines? You’re puttin’ the D in prudence right now,” he chuckled, triggering more laughs from the two solos from either side of me.

  Pilar shouted “You’re taking this way too seriously for someone wearing your get-up, choom!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “What’s the game plan anyway?”

  Kiwi NFC’d me the map of the complex. “The Tygers are entrenched inside the main complex next to the chew-two. We need to smoke them out, also because a firefight next to highly combustible chemicals isn’t exactly a genius idea. I’ll trip the fire alarms and they’ll scurry out like rats if they know what’s good for them. We round the corner and open fire on them. Once they take cover, that’s where you guys come in.” I nodded along to her idea. From where we were attacking, we’d be hitting the Tyger Claws posted around the facility as guards. Once we started killing them, the ones securing the payload would probably become even more entrenched. We’d have to figure out a way around that in time. I asked Kiwi for an opinion on that.

  “Once I’m in the vicinity,” she said, “You won’t need to worry about that. Just take care to soften up our target.” I nodded. The outside blared with some alarm or other, which was a constant in Night City.

  “How far out are we?” I asked.

  “We’re here,” Falco said as we pulled into a warehouse whose alarms were blaring loudly. Pilar and Rebecca were cradling their guns. We rounded a corner, to the fire alarm assembly point that the neon-colored Japanese gangoons had gathered up in. Pilar opened the long door of the van and started blasting with Rebecca.

  It was louder than I could have possibly described.

  In seconds, fourteen Tyger Claws were down and out. sixteen more to go.

  Pilar and Rebecca jumped out of the van, and I followed, activating the Sandevistan to get closer to those that hadn’t been hit, all the while careful to avoid the bullets flying around. They weren’t exactly slow, even for me, and I had the feeling that if I tried to race one of them, I’d be outrun eventually.

  I pulled out the knife I had klepped from the scavs, a karambit now that I’d confirmed the name, and started going for throats.

  The resistance I met upon trying to slit the first Tyger Claw’s throat was impressive. Instead of slicing into his throat, my knife bent his throat inwards like it was made of plastic, lodging itself deep into him. What the fuck was that?

  I couldn’t pull the knife with me, either, so I had to find something else to use.

  There were katanas littered on the ground. I picked one up, narrowly dodging a bullet, and used it to slice at the throat of another Tyger Claw. This time, the result was impressive. I barely met any resistance slicing through his entire neck, decapitating him like I was cutting grass. Maybe it was just ganic. I resisted taking a look to see whether it was or not and continued on my mission to mow down as many of the Tygers as I could find while making sure not to get flatlined by Pilar and Rebecca.

  The katana worked well for six more targets until I reached the last one still standing in the assembly point. His neck deformed similarly to the other guy’s, and I ended up having to leave the katana behind.

  I got away from Rebecca and Pilar’s line of fire and deactivated the Sandy.

  My kills finally hit the ground. Even the one I had zeroed with the karambit and the last one I hit with the katana were equally done for—their necks bent at an acute angle, and the place opposite to where I had cut had torn open, gushing out blood.

  Gnarly as fuck. My heart raced. Jimmy Kurosaki could never come close to this real-feel.

  Pilar and Rebecca didn’t stop firing until a while later.

  Once they did, I stepped into view. “Fucking nova, D!” Rebecca shouted. “Was that you?”

  “What in the fast-forward fuck was that?” Pilar shouted. “A second ago you were behind us! The fuck were you doing, dodging our bullets? Kid, you’re insane!”

  Shots fired from inside the building, narrowly missing me. Shit. Could have died just now.

  I reactivated the Sandy and picked up another katana.

  The entrance to the building was narrow, too narrow for me to run in and not get hit by the hail of bullets that the building was spitting out.

  Had to fight fire with fire.

  I picked up a gun and aimed.

  Straight at the Tyger Claw gangoon spraying me with a submachine gun.

  Straight at mom.

  The bullets were coming close. Had to get out of the way. I deactivated the Sandy after getting cover, waiting for him to reload. Once it got quiet, I re-entered Sandy’s overdrive speed and took aim again.

  Again at mom.

  I couldn’t really breathe while the Sandevistan was active. That wasn’t really how it worked—had to figure that out at some point.

  But if I could, I had the feeling I’d be panting for breath. Growling. Trying to force myself to pull the trigger.

  But I couldn’t. Not at mom.

  I threw the useless iron away and just ran in. The goon still hadn’t fired yet, which gave me ample time to cut him down far before he could even pull the trigger.

  I cut into his chest, almost bisecting him as I passed through to find two more of his chooms. I cut another one at his waist—the tall motherfucker’s neck was too high up for me to get to it conveniently—and got through an entire half of it until the fucking katana shattered.

  No matter. It still had enough of an edge that I could lodge it into the throat of the last Tyger Claw in the hallway. His throat bent as well—clearly a sign of chrome.

  I pulled out the katana from his scabbard and turned around to finish up the previous Tyger Claw, slicing into his back far enough that I probably cut into his lung, let alone the spine that I was pretty sure I had severed quite cleanly.

  Best of all, this one didn’t break.

  See? Didn’t need a fucking peashooter anyway when I had my sandy and something sharp. Didn’t need to use that loud and useless hunk of metal when I could do this.

  And some of those gonks were chromed up, even. I doubted regular bullets would have even helped.

  Why did I even bring anyone else with me on this gig? I could have finished this up entirely on my own.

  I kicked open the door at the end of the hallway, only to find more hallway. I read a map conveniently placed on some wall and memorized the route to the warehouse.

  I was close, just one more door at the end of another hallway. I kicked that open, too.

  I immediately honed in on the eight hostiles in the room.

  I broke my katana on the first guy’s neck, but that was alright, because he had one of his own. The next two went by smoothly, only for a third gonk to pull the same shit. Inconsiderate dick.

  He didn’t have a katana either, forcing me to use the broken part on somebody else, who did happen to have one. Very kind of him.

  Eight hostiles turned into one still breathing. I had two katanas in my hands and was about to decisively finish off the last gonk still standing still. From his perspective, he likely had only registered the door getting kicked in.

  I was just ten feet away from him when his head turned towards me and he started moving.

  He pulled out his own katana and parried mine. Taken off-guard, I crossed both swords in a guard, only for him to pull some kind of kendo move that tossed my left hand’s sword like I hadn’t even had it in a good grip.

  Then he stabbed me. In my chest. The stab went through my back entirely and deflected against my chrome spine.

  Immediately kicking me out of overdrive.

  The Tyger Claw grunt grunted. Then he spoke in Japanese. “You think you’re the only person in Night City with a Sandevistan, friend?”

  “No,” I replied. My Japanese reading and writing comprehension was good enough, but my pronunciation was crap, not that I ever really practiced. I only learned the damn language so I could learn how to code better for Arasaka. “But I’m the only one who can do this.”

  I activated the Sandevistan again and stepped back, immediately feeling my body reknitting.

  The Tyger Claw didn’t lag behind on activating his, either.

  Before I could hit him again, he scored another slash on my left pec. It didn’t cut anything but muscle, but that was still disabling enough to render my left arm severely weakened.

  That was fine. It gave me an opening to cut his chest.

  The pain and shock forced me out of overdrive however, but thankfully, the same happened to him.

  We both activated it at the same time again and passed by each other, each intent on slicing the other.

  He landed a clean slice on my stomach. I struck nothing.

  The strike kicked me back into the regular time-stream and before I could react, a sword had stuck itself in my chest again.

  I refused to dwell on that damage, instead slicing his thigh up.

  He backed away, and I reactivated the Sandevistan and prepared to attack—

  [David, deactivate the Sandevistan! Your Critical Progress is at 90%!]

  Fuck.

  Couldn’t do that, or he’d slice me into sashimi.

  I bit the bullet and continued my assault. He did the same.

  I was getting better. He was hitting my sword more often than he was hitting me.

  My Critical Progress kept climbing.

  Ninety-one. Ninety-two.

  He scored a clean hit through my shoulder. Healed from that. Jumped up to Ninety-five.

  Fuck!

  I deactivated the Sandevistan, looking towards the door I came from wondering where my team was.

  Thankfully, the Tyger Claw had done so, too.

  “You’ve got a lot of ‘ganic,” the Tyger Claw said. “To be activating the Sandevistan so often. No more. Let us settle this with swords. No use killing ourselves before we can kill each other.”

  I held my sword up in preparation. He was right. Couldn’t continue risking myself like this.

  Had to play it smart. He could probably keep firing up the Sandevistan a couple more times in response to me doing the same. If we both didn’t, then I wouldn’t be screwing myself any harder. I’d let myself get hit one last time, and while he was gloating, I’d open up his throat.

  He’d never see it coming. He already thought I was half-dead as I was.

  The Tyger Claw’s sword arrived years before I had expected it, breaking mine near the hilt.

  His sword was already en-route towards my neck, poised to separate my head from my body. I wouldn’t be able to activate the Sandevistan in time.

  Just like that, huh?

  Then his brains exploded on my face. He flew to the side and his sword had scored nothing but a nick on the skin of my throat.

  “Fuck yeah!” I heard Rebecca shout from the doorway. “Right on time, too! D, you fucking gonk, why’d you run up ahead like that and almost get yourself zeroed?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I was so close to losing it all.

  What the fuck was I doing?

  “Hello?” Rebecca had already reached me. She waved a hand in front of my face. “Earth to D? Near death shook you up good, huh? That’ll teach you not to shrug off your chooms, won’t it?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I thought I was a flatline.”

  Rebecca laughed. “But you’re not. Anyway, that Sandy of yours is a fucking menace! How many gonks did you cut down?”

  “Can’t remember,” I said.

  The phrase brought an ugly feeling in my stomach. Can’t remember. Not even an ‘I can’t remember’. Just a flippant two-word sentence dismissing the weight of all those, those real people I killed.

  Did it for a reason, but since when had it been so easy?

  Since forever, I guess. JK’s BDs had pretty much trained me since I was sixteen to get used to flatlining. At that time, it was just entertainment, though. The gruesomeness, the spectacle of it all, was like a horror movie. And I never felt guilty, either. After all, I never killed those people. Somebody else did. I was just borrowing their perspective. And hell, it was Doc who got me into them in the first place, a way to make money so mom didn’t have to bust her ass all the time.

  I was blamefree.

  How many have I killed?

  “Eighteen,” I said. Only today.

  I had exterminated two scav dens before that. I remembered their number, but only because I had been paid per kill. It was easier to remember the rewards than the work itself. Could hardly even recall their masked faces.

  Sixteen.

  Thirty-four people overall.

  Eighteen kills in under five minutes counted as a decent cyberpsycho incident death toll as it was.

  A cyberpsycho. That was where I was headed, wasn’t it?

  Cyberpsychosis incidents were usually violent, because those that suffered from it were violent people to begin with.

  All cyberpsychosis did was remove the separation between friend and foe.

  Was I maybe doing things wrong?

  No. I needed the money. Needed to get through the academy. No other way to go about it. Even if I decided to go full Netrunner from now on, Maine’s crew already had two that were way better than me. The only reason I was worth anything to the crew was because of the Sandevistan. And Nanny.

  Couldn’t stop killing. But I couldn’t keep going at it like this, either.

  What to do, then?

  I had to remember. Remember each kill. Remember how I felt, and how bad it is. Don’t let myself make killing such a basic part of my identity that I could just suddenly lose it like that.

  “Eighteen?” Rebecca shouted. “Fucking shit, D! You’re terrifying!”

  “No,” I said. “Was stupid. Got too careless. Too fired up.” Got too fixated on proving that I was good enough without a gun, that I could make up for that deficiency ten-times over by simply using a blade.

  “What happened at the end?” she asked. “Sandevistan got too hot or what?”

  “He had a Sandy,” I explained. “And he knew how to use a sword. I didn’t.” Note to self; learn how to fucking use a sword.

  My to-do list was getting longer and longer. Didn’t have enough hours of the day to deal with everything now. Fuck.

  “Your jacket and shirt is all cut up,” Rebecca noted. With panic, I looked down to see the sliced and tattered remains of my favorite black shirt. Mom’s jacket hadn’t come out of it unscathed, either.

  Fuck!

  Today was not looking up at all.

  “Don’t get all worked up!” she yelled. “That could easily have been you—huh? Are you bleeding?” I looked down again. My clothes were drenched in blood, but from the cuts on my shirt, one could easily see that I was unhurt.

  “Not my blood, I guess,” I said.

  All I knew was that I had a lot to learn before I could even begin to call myself a solo. James Norris would have aired out this entire facility in the literal blink of an eye. Of course, he was chromed up to his gills and didn’t have to worry about getting hit by bullets.

  Still, there would have been a method to his tactics, his pre-cyberpsycho tactics at least. A method more intelligent than simply rushing the whole rat’s nest.

  Kiwi and Pilar arrived in good time. The large shutter doors for the warehouse opened up then.

  “Took care of things? And was that a fucking gunshot I heard?” Kiwi asked, looking around. I nodded, not that she needed the information. “Let’s load up the Chew and get the fuck going before the Tygers arrive in force.”

  “What about the data?” I asked.

  “You so worried about the data, why don’t you crack into it?” she said.

  “Didn’t bring my cyberdeck,” I replied. Kiwi scoffed.

  “As a teacher, you don’t exactly inspire confidence, you know that?” she said. “I’ll open up the interface for you on the terminal, but you’ll crack into it yourself.”

  “Wouldn’t it be faster if you took it?” I asked. “We’re on a time limit here.”

  “That’s why I’m giving you three minutes starting now. You don’t get it in time, we cut and run. Got it?”

  I didn’t waste any time following her as she walked up the stairs to the mezzanine floor of the warehouse where we came upon a door. Kiwi opened it and her eyes flashed with blue as she began to hack into the terminal inside.

  “There you go,” she said. “Get hacking.”

  I took a seat in front of the terminal and got working.

  And there was a whole lot of work to do. Not three minutes worth of work, either.

  I needed the Sandevistan.

  [David, I highly advise against doing this. You should be saving your uses of the Sandevistan up for a situation in which your life is in danger.]

  Nanny was right. This was just extra eddies. Not something worth risking my life over, not when I would already be six thousand eddies richer by the end of this.

  I could crack this in under three minutes. No, two minutes, now that we had taken all this time getting up here.

  I just needed to get creative.

  The ICE walls could be brute-forced through by a simple breach algorithm, but why go for simple when I could get more intuitive? What did the Tygers prioritize in terms of infosec? Getting breached by a Netrunner.

  No shit. Their ICE would be strong if this data was worth something.

  I looked around at the desk and started flipping stuff over. Pulled up drawers, swiped through notebooks.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I heard Kiwi ask dryly.

  Then I found something underneath the fucking mousepad. A slip of paper. A password.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Kiwi said. “Lucky break, huh?”

  This probably made sense to the guy who did this. A Netrunner would have trusted in their abilities more than try to straight up look for a password written down.

  I accessed the terminal and started loading all the data into a shard. It was quick.

  Once it was over, I reslotted the shard and ran outside, Kiwi following behind. Pilar, Rebecca and Falco had finished loading up the last of the barrels into a trailer attached to the back of Falco’s truck, and only needed a minute more to secure the cargo before we delta’d.

  We got into the car and Falco burned rubber as he pulled out from the facility at an impressively reckless speed that almost made me fear for my life. But Falco wasn’t an edgerunning driver for nothing. We were driving on the wrong road in the motorway because it was faster than going with the flow and looking for a U-turn, and even with the trailer, Falco swerved away from oncoming cars like it was nothing.

  I couldn’t even keep up with what the fuck he was doing. This truck was a heavy-ass emperor and yet he handled it like it was a Rayfield supercar.

  Had to be some kinda neural implant, that was for sure. And mods in his ride, too. We finally reached the crossover, and Falco only sped up from there, as impossible as it sounded.

  “Fuck!” Kiwi shouted. “Hostiles on the on-ramp a klick behind! Tyger Claws nabbed our signal. Falco, give them the runaround first before dropping off the payload. Three on motorbike. Flatline them while I hide our tracks!”

  Rebecca piped up. “They won’t live long enough for Falco to need to shake ‘em off! Where the fuck is my Nekomata, big bro?” she asked.

  “Here!” Pilar replied, handing her a gun that was probably even longer than she was tall. She opened up the window and scrambled outside like she didn’t fear death, which she likely didn’t in retrospect. Pilar opened another window and joined her as well, sliding out of the truck through the windows smoothly.

  “W-what if they fire back?!” I asked in shock. “And shouldn’t we not fire at them? What if we hit the Chew?”

  "Rebecca's a sharp shooter, no doubt," Falco drawled. "And even them Tygers ain't foolish enough to blow up the very treasure they're fixin’ to retrieve."

  I was reminded of that samurai Tyger Claw’s head exploding on my face. I’d have to wash so much blood off my clothes once I got home.

  I heard three shots fired from the roof, and then two slaps to the roof.

  “All done with that business,” Falco said. Right after, Pilar and Rebecca slid back into the car each from different windows, sandwiching me once again.

  I looked up to Pilar. “What were you doing up there?”

  “Bracing her!” he replied. “That Nekomata would have thrown her clean off the roof if I hadn’t fixed her to the spot.”

  I nodded.

  Falco pulled out from the motorway and into the city proper.

  “We’re nigh outside of Westbrook now, just ‘bout there,” Falco said. “How goes the trace-hidin’, Kiwi?”

  “Done,” she said. “There shouldn’t be a third encounter. Take us to the client and let’s get our eddies. D, shoot Reyes his data already.”

  I did.

  El Capitan: Always fast with you, kid, muy rapido.

  D: Gracias. What was the bonus anyway? My chooms didn’t think it was fair that you didn’t mention the number.

  El Capitan: Wasn’t expecting to receive it, to be honest. Let me see. Ah. Perfect. Better than perfect. How does fifteen sound?

  My eyes bulged.

  “He’s saying fifteen for the data,” I said out loud.

  “Say twenty-five,” Kiwi replied. “Sweat the guy.”

  D: Twenty-five.

  El Capitan: Arguing with your fixer about pay ain’t good form, kid. Expected better from you.

  D: Not arguing. Sorry. Just negotiating. We did a good job, and we almost didn’t get the data before more Tygers reached us.

  El Capitan: How many were there?

  The sixteen that Rebecca and Pilar flatlined and the eighteen I took care of added up to…

  D: Thirty-four, at least. Actually, thirty-seven. Had a run-in with three more at the highway. Took care of them.

  El Capitan: How many at the site?

  D: Thirty-four.

  The same number of people I had killed overall. That number kept popping up.

  El Capitan: At least four more than the max that the intel suggested. I suppose we could settle for a twenty grand bonus. Don’t push it, kid.

  D: Thank you, El Capitan.

  “Twenty,” I said out loud.

  “Did you agree?” Kiwi asked.

  I nodded. She scoffed. “Could have asked for at least two grand more. You’re too easy, kid.”

  “Still, though!” Pilar said. “Ten grand each for a job ain’t pocket change! I’ll finally be able to afford my new mitts!”

  I almost felt like protesting that; I had done everything to get the data back. I should be getting the bonus, maybe splitting it up with Kiwi a bit. But Maine’s words reminded me that this was the way. Everybody got a fair shake. Quibbling over money was a surefire way to make sure the chooms who had your back would sooner see you flatlined than anything else.

  Couldn’t grumble, couldn’t argue. This was the way.

  Besides, I was making good fucking money as it was. What was the point of being greedy?

  Rebecca piped up as well. “And I’ll finally be able to get Guts upgraded!”

  And now I was just seven grand away from paying off my second-last semester of school. The realization killed my enthusiasm with a vengeance. I didn’t even have enough money to do things that I wanted, and realistically, I’d probably have spent around a grand on supplements before getting the scratch to pay off school.

  No. That was stupid. I had made so much money as it was in such little time. Seven more grand would be one, maybe two jobs away.

  The last Tyger Claw I had killed almost had me dead to rights.

  What if my next gig was my last?

  I shook my head, then slapped my face. No. Fuck that cowardly gonk shit.

  I lost my head. Wouldn’t happen again.

  “Wowza!” Pilar said. “What’s got you fired up, Lucha-D?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Gonk almost got himself flatlined,” Rebecca laughed.

  “Wanna talk about it, kid?” Falco asked.

  “No,” I replied. “Just lost my cool is all.”

  “Quickest route to meetin’ the undertaker, sure is,” Falco said. “Wanna hear an old man’s words or are ya content to stew on it yourself?”

  “I… I don’t mind,” I shrugged.

  "Well then listen close, young buck. When them bullets start whistlin' and the world's fixin' to go up in smoke, remember this: Keep your heart steady as a rock and your mind as cool as a desert breeze. Let the anger and fear roll off you like water off a duck's back. Stay focused on the job at hand, and don't let your passions get the better of you. It's the ones who keep their heads when all hell's breakin' loose that ride out of the fray and live to tell the tale. So, stay cool, stay collected, and you just might make it through to see another sunrise."

  “And how do I do that?” I asked, annoyed. What a dickbag. ‘Lost your cool, young fella? Just stay cool next time’. I knew the importance of keeping cool. Didn’t need a lecture on that.

  "You do that by breathin' slow and deep, son. Take in the dusty air, let it fill your lungs, and then exhale all that tension and noise. Focus on your training, your aim, and your comrades. Picture the task ahead, not the chaos around. And remember, it ain't just about stayin' alive; it's about gettin' the job done and gettin' back to camp. Keep your wits about you, trust your instincts, and trust your crew. That's how you keep cool in the heat of battle."

  I nodded. I’d consider that the next time.

  I had come this far already with no need to ever stay cool because my Sandevistan practically invalidated any conflict. Until it didn’t, at which point I was reduced to just another kid playing at something they really weren’t.

  If I had gone on this gig on my own, I’d have been a flatline.

  I couldn’t keep thinking that I didn’t need a crew.

  “Guys,” I said. “I’m sorry I ran up ahead. Should have trusted you guys more. That’s not how I want to roll, and I promise this time will be the last time I ever pull a gonk move like that.”

  The easy solution would be to only ever move with my crew, and take out my share of enemies while watching the backs of my chooms. That way, I’d probably never be in that much danger due to the power of my Sandevistan and Nanny.

  But that was an easy solution. I couldn’t settle for that if I wanted to get where I wanted to get. Whether it was edgerunning or climbing to the top of Arasaka, I had to be a cut above the rest. That didn’t mean getting the best chrome out there, chipping in more and more metal at the cost of my body and mind.

  It meant really getting that good, and going at it the long and hard way. If I had to replace parts of me with machine every time I felt I wasn’t good enough, then I never would be. There were things only cyberware could do, and things that cyberware simply made easy. I had to know the difference.

  That started with fundamentals. Weapons-training.

  Pilar’s hand slapped me on the back. Just his hand placed horizontally could almost cover my entire back. “Don’t worry about it, kid. You learned your lesson, and I can tell you’re not that much of a gonk to go around ignoring Lady Death’s tutoring session. Her tits are way too big to do that.”

  “Just save some for me next time!” Rebecca said. “It’s not fun just flatlining unsuspecting gonks!” she whined.

  “Okay,” I said. “Uhm, Falco, thanks for the advice.”

  "You're welcome, kid. Just remember, it ain't the advice that'll keep you alive; it's how you use it.”

  “I know,” I said. “Could you drop me off near an NCART station after we make the delivery?”

  “Not staying for the afterparty?” Falco asked.

  “Wait, there’s always an afterparty?”

  “It’s tradition!” Rebecca said. “You’re not going anywhere until we get you nice and boozed up, D!”

  I nodded shakily. “Oh, okay.”