The neighborhood was painfully low-income, so much so that grandma’s little occult shop didn’t even have a street address: it had coordinates.

  People watched as I drove my bike through the narrow streets, giving way but gazing at me questioningly, until I stopped in front of La Casa Rubí de los Espíritus. It had a ruby icon on the facade, a blinking neon sign with the name underneath the ruby, which was square-shaped.

  People were watching, but from afar. Some locked their doors and boarded their windows shut.

  The door to the house opened, and out stepped a barechested one-legged man who walked with a cane. He glared at me. “The fuck do you want? We already paid this month.”

  “I’m not here for money,” I replied. “My name is David Martinez. I’m here to see my, uh… grandmother.”

  The door opened wider, and out stepped an old woman who wore her hair in a bun, wearing a colorful red, green and yellow dress. “You’re David?”

  I stepped off my bike. “Yeah,” I gave a small smile. “Hi, grandma.”

  She rushed up to me and hugged my mid-section—she was so short. I hugged her back. Then she pulled back and looked at me with wide eyes and an uncertain expression. “And Gloria?”

  I bit my lower lip and looked down. “My mother is no longer with us, grandma. I’m so sorry.”

  “I knew,” she said softly, completely against my expectations. She smiled sadly, and a tear spilled out from her eye. “I knew. Thank you for confirming it. Come inside.” I looked over my shoulder, to my bike. “No one will take it,” she assured me. “No one would dare.”

  I followed her inside. It was cozy, clean. Esoteric effects sat everywhere—little statuettes and other trinkets on every shelf— and bead curtains separating rooms. She walked me through the back bead curtain, revealing what was clearly a living area, a living room whose walls were lined with sofas, and a TV on a far wall, past there a kitchen. There were people inside, too, sitting on the sofas, seven in number. Probably my cousins, uncles and aunts. The two men that were there all seemed to miss… parts. Just like the man who had cursed me out at my arrival.

  And they all regarded me with frowns and scowls. I didn’t want to interrogate that.

  “So you’re a solo, David?” grandma asked.

  I sighed. “Yeah. I am.”

  “That makes sense,” she said. She took me to a table and yelled for one of the women. “Darla! Go prepare us some tea!”

  I sat down. “I really don’t want to impose.”

  “Is it the looks?” she looked around, speaking loudly. “They’re being idiots, dear. Pay them no heed.”

  The one-legged man from outside spoke up. “What is he doing here? He’s supposed to be in Night City, away from all this!”

  I frowned, but didn’t say anything.

  “But he’s here, now, and he’s family,” grandma rebutted. Then she looked at me. “That’s your uncle. Your mother’s younger brother. He is Tio Alex.” Tio Alex had sharp cheekbones, a pronounced chin and oversized ears. His beard was unkempt and thin, and his hair was long but shaggy. In Night City, he’d be considered grotesque. No matter how poor you were, if you were considered ugly, you’d save up all the eddies you could to get a biosculpt job done to smooth out your features. Being honest, he just looked normal for his environment. Default.

  I nodded my head at him and stood up to face him. “Nice to meet you, Tio Alex. I’m sorry for your loss, and about me being—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said angrily. “Just go away. There is nothing for you here.”

  “Alex!” Grandma yelled. “Don’t you dare speak to your older sister’s only son that way! He is family!”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t I be here? And what was that about money? Are you paying protection money to a gang?”

  Grandma closed her eyes in defeat, but gave a nod. “Yes. The fucking dogs,” she said. “That’s their name, by the way: Pinche Perros.”

  I frowned. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, boy,” she said. “I felt that gun in your pocket, and I can see the sword you carry, but it won’t be enough to take care of our problems. And I won’t ask you to do anything, either. While Tio Alex is being stupid, he is right about one thing: there is nothing for you here. If you wish to keep in contact, only call us. Night City is rough, but Tijuana is rougher. Please leave as soon as you can, my boy.”

  I clawed my hands. This… this fucking sucked.

  And was I supposed to do fuckall or something?

  “How many are they?” I asked. “I have friends, grandma.”

  “Put that out of your mind right this instant,” she said. “I won’t have you dying for us, not when your mother and father sacrificed so much to get you out of here in the first place.”

  “Father…?” I asked. “Mom never talked about my father. What did he do?”

  “He died for you,” grandma said. “He was like what you are now: a solo. He made his money living violently, and gave you and your mother the opportunity to flee and start afresh in Night City. He is the reason you were first able to afford going to that corporate school. But your mother never approved of his methods. They didn’t love each other anymore, but they loved you, and your father was happy to stay out of your life so that you wouldn’t follow in his footsteps,” she smiled crookedly. “For all the good that it did you.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I don’t understand. My father was a solo? A-and,” I looked around. “What happened to the men here? Did that have something to do with him?”

  She sighed. “The truth is that I fully endorsed Gloria’s escape from this life. I wanted nothing more than to make sure that a child of mine remained untainted by the life we lead. I never wanted you to come back here, and neither did your mother. But here you are. I will warn you before going on: you can still go back. You needn’t do anything for me. I am a stranger to you and my presence in your life will jeopardize what you have built for yourself and will put you in more danger. Enemies of the family would see you scarred for the sins of your grandfather, and these are not people that you can resist.”

  I tapped my foot on the ground.

  “I don’t give a shit,” I said. “Tell me everything. Now.”

  “Your grandfather, Ricardo Martinez, was an officer of the Tijuana cartel. The people in this house, the family, worked under him. He was stabbed in the back by a trusted comrade of his, and his holdings were cannibalized by that petty fucking dog gang. And to send a message, to make sure that the Martinez family never rose back up to prominence, he killed half our boys, mutilated the other half, and raped almost all our girls.”

  Shock couldn’t begin to describe what I felt. I couldn’t decide if it was shock at the sheer awfulness of those actions, or how true this rang in my head.

  I gave Allister a story like this, didn’t I? Not a very accurate account, but somehow the broad strokes were right: my family were being oppressed by the cartel.

  Then again, that was a common story in Mexico, and maybe what I had overheard from mom’s talks with grandma had filled in more blanks.

  I just never would have imagined how close we were to that part of the criminal underworld.

  “Your mom hid you away during the worst of it, and this was when it was decided that if nothing else, you should leave with Gloria and remain unharmed. Your father stayed behind to support what remained of the Martinez family, but he, too, soon met his demise at the hands of the fucking dogs.”

  I nodded. “Loyal till the end. Would have liked to speak with the man.”

  “He was a great man, but he was lacking as a father. Cold, harsh and violent. He felt he could give you everything you needed from a distance.”

  That was cowardly of him.

  “Grandma, thank you for telling me this.” I probably never would have come to meet her if I wasn’t in Tijuana for other business, but I did the right thing by doing so.

  And now that I was this involved, there was no way in hell I was going to leave so easily.

  “I need names, grandma.”

  “Don’t be stupid, David—”

  “I don’t care,” I said with a chuckle. “I’ll find names soon enough. I’m only asking you so that I can finish up and go to bed quicker. Tomorrow is a school night.”

  She looked at me in shock. “What are you—?”

  “I’m a solo, grandma. It’s what I do. And I’ll do this one on the house. So give me names, a location, anything, and by daybreak, on my life and my name, every fucking dog in this city will be dead.”

  “They are over a hundred,” she said. “Some of them are borgs. They have smart weapons. Turrets.”

  “I have a sword.” I stood up. “Grandma, I don’t remember anything from my time in Tijuana. I only remember one thing: the taste of the chili with meat you used to make. Can you put it on for me when I come back? One full pot just for me. I will probably need it.”

  I walked out of the house, ignoring her yells as I donned my mask and became D. I jumped on my bike. I pinged and breached every localnet I could, looking for clues of where those fucking dogs were.

  I chuckled ruefully to myself. They would regret having fucked with my family.

  000

  Abuela Donna Martinez was chopping synthetic chili peppers to the shock of the entire family.

  “Grandma, what are you doing?!” Darla asked.

  “Making chili with meat,” was her simple reply. “A Martinez man is on a mission, and he wants his chili when he gets back. And I know he will,” she smiled. “Just like his father. No… much stronger.”

  Night City had done something to Gloria’s boy. Night City had given them back a blessing.

  000

  There was a concept in online video games called ‘smurfing’.

  For a game that demanded skill and experience from the user rather than the rewards garnered by grinding, where the only progression element was the name of your rank, there existed a subset of advanced players called smurfs.

  Picture this: a level one-hundred hikikomori sweat with over five thousand hours in the game decided to hop onto a fresh user account and go into matchmaking. They’d get matched up with freshies as well, people who had just started off on the game.

  Then the bloodbath would commence. The advanced user would decimate the newbies without even breaking a sweat, reveling in their superiority.

  I found the Pinche Perros homebase from hacking into localnets, breaking through all the ICE like it didn’t even exist. Tijuana’s cybersecurity standards were bottom-rung. I arrived about a block away from the building, a debt collections agency, and poked at their ICE.

  It gave with minimal effort.

  I got to Breaching, making sure to do it gently enough that nothing else in the system broke. No alarms rang out from that. Instead, I followed the connection to the camera system and got access to that quickly as well. I had eyes on the entire facility, now. One by one, I disabled their drones, turrets and automated defenses—I could have turned them against the fucking psychos, but that would be too fucking easy. I already had them by the balls—might as well have some fun with it. I counted the number of belligerents and came up to one-hundred and fifteen.

  I picked out the most Borged out motherfucker, a seven-foot tall asshole, and through my connection with the system, sent out my new and polished Overheat.

  Fire exploded from the man. He immediately started screaming, rolling around on the floor. The people around him watched in shock as he burned to death in front of them, unable to help.

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  I opened the toll-gate with my access, driving my bike inside. Two security guards ran up to me.

  I hopped off the bike, opened every door that had an electronic lock, and opened up both bellies of the men running towards me.

  Seventy.

  And then I activated the Sandevistan.

  The building was abuzz with activity despite it being night-time, probably because debt collectors never slept. That worked perfectly for me. I locked in on the places that had the most amount of people: training studios, the courtyard where people were on break, and that crowd gathering around the burning pyre of a cyborg at the lobby.

  And I decided to do something immensely reckless, but I didn’t care. Not fucking now.

  Once I reached a training studio, I turned off the Sandevistan.

  So I could savor this.

  There were fifteen large men inside the studio, either sitting, or working out in various different ways. “You fucking gonks!” I shouted. “You wanna fuck with my family? Kill and rape my fucking family?”

  One guy ran at me, not requiring any more information to determine that I was clearly here to kill. I cut his fucking head off.

  A couple of them ran to the far side of the room to pick up some guns. Before the headless pinche bastardo could fall, I held him up by the scruff of his shirt, one-handed, and with the other hand, rushed in to cut down as many of these people as I could.

  I needed to see them run, to see them cower and scream.

  Once they started firing at the corpse, I activated the Sandevistan to get behind them, deactivated it, and continued the slaughter. I took out the people with guns first, and then continued with the rest. One of them ended up running away.

  But I was alone in the room now, the floor overflowing with blood.

  Wait, how many was that again?

  Well, one of them ran away, but I’d count again just in case it was more than one.

  Hmmm. Fifteen? Wait, no. That bisected body was just one person. Fourteen it was.

  Eighty-four. No. Eighty-five. The Borg I Overheated had finally stopped moving.

  I used the Sandevistan to cut the runner away, and rushed up to the next population center that I could find. I learned by cutting them off from their weapon stashes before I got to reaping.

  Ninety-nine.

  Bogeys incoming.

  I cut the shit and entered Sandy mode for keeps. Couldn’t give these gonks so much fucking time to prepare against me. That way, I’d really die.

  Masamune was pulling her weight. The yellow and white handle held sturdy in my grip, and the high-vis white blade didn’t so much as nick on every person I sliced up. Fuck. I was pretty sure I had already cut through a ton of subdermal by now, but she played nice regardless. What a queen.

  The vast majority of the grunts, I took care of with the sword, and only left the obviously borged out people for last while I took care of as many of the non-borgs as I could, just so I wouldn’t have a broken blade and an ocean of enemies to worry about.

  A hundred and seventy-five.

  I deactivated the Sandevistan and walked purposefully to one of the borgs I had spared, gun in hand. This was it. I was going to finally kill someone with a gun. Had to.

  The borg was right down the hallway, staring at his dead comrades in shock, and I walked closer to him to get a better aim, all the while focusing on his head.

  This motherfucker probably raped my aunts and cousins. Killed and crippled my uncles and cousins.

  This motherfucker needed to die.

  I pointed a gun at my mother.

  That wasn’t real. That wasn’t fucking real!

  It was a borged out cartel motherfucker, a pinche puta. I spat down on the ground, catching the borg’s attention. He fell on his knees. “Mercy, please!”

  I was already so near to him that I could press my gun at his forehead. “Say your last prayer, you fucking cunt.”

  He did. Contrary to all my expectation, he fucking did.

  “To you, o lorde, we commend—”

  I chuckled. “Did you give my family the same courtesy when you slaughtered them?”

  He didn’t respond, still praying.

  I let him finish.

  Because I wasn’t like him. I was better.

  Once he was done and started repeating himself, I crouched in front of him. “God won’t save you, you know. Let me give you a taste of your final destination.” His prayer turned into screams as he immediately caught fire.

  A hundred and seventy-six.

  The gun was useless. Didn’t need it. I threw it next to the burning borg that was rolling on the floor and walked past him.

  I pushed my Cyberdeck as I Overheated every borg left, not willing to break Masamune on them so quickly.

  One hundred and eighty-three.

  It was over. There wasn’t a soul left breathing in the entire collections agency, not a single pinche perro left.

  I breached into the data fortress with no one to stop me—I was pretty sure I had killed a Netrunner or two on my rampage—and beheld my bounty. Eight-hundred and ninety eurodollars worth of money just here, and maybe twice that in assets.

  I entertained the idea of taking it all and taking the family to Night City, but I doubted the wider cartel beyond just the Fucking Dogs—because this was for sure not just their money—would let petty matters like jurisdiction get in the way of getting back what was theirs.

  I’d be putting myself at needless risk. Pointless. Dumb.

  Thankfully, the data cache contained contact information.

  I took the one that was labeled ‘emergencies only’ under cartel contacts, and dialed it.

  D: The fucking dogs are dead.

  I said that in English, because I wanted to express myself more easily, without the constraints of a half-understood language to stop me.

  ???: All of them?

  I could clearly hear the tone of false dramaticism.

  D: All the ones I could find at least. All the ones that matter, probably. But it’s the same story. The money is still here for you, though.

  ???: But the service won’t be, will it? This puts a little snag on my operations, you know.

  D: I’m sure it does.

  I chuckled.

  D: Don’t try to press me, I know what I did, and I don’t give a flying fuck. But I’m not a complete fucking dumbass, you see, so how about we make sure that this doesn’t come back to bite your income stream? I know that’s all that matters to you.

  ???: Correctamundo! So how do you intend to make matters right?

  D: We can meet. I’m free between the hours of six in the evening and eleven at night on weekdays, and I’m very flexible on weekends. And how much do I owe you from the coffers right now?

  ???: Three-hundred and ninety-four. Half of that is the transfer of ownership fee, the due you gotta pay to take over this biz.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  D: Are you one of those soft and gentle finance types that are the face of the cartel? Gotta say, this conversation has been really civil so far.

  ???: Yes, I’m only here to make sure that the money moneys, if you catch my drift. The Pinche Perros are just a gang, and they were not particularly good at what they did, so that is why I can say that your little enterprise has a better shot of receiving the green light.

  D: Thanks. Anything you need from me right now before I set up?

  ???: No. We will be in touch. Your name?

  D: You can call me D.

  ???: I’m Lorenzo. Ideally, I want the transfer done by the end of the week, which will give you enough time to pick up the slack and provide minimal disruption to our income stream.

  I removed the cartel contact card from my pocket and gave it a look: Lorenzo Ladron. This was probably the same guy. Small world, or maybe this guy was a bigshot. I saved the name of the mystery cartel man.

  D: Nova. But there is a chance that nothing comes of this. I’ll leave the cash behind for you to pick up in that case.

  Lorenzo: Don’t fuck around. Someone has to replace those fucking dogs, and if you want that to be us, then you’ll be costing the cartel money and you don’t want that.

  I felt an intrusion through our comm link. He was trying to scan me. It didn’t get very far.

  D: Keep yapping, but I’m the one that holds the cards. Be grateful I was only here for blood. Push me, Lorenzo, and I swear you’ll be the one to regret it.

  I hung up. Just for that, I’d take half of what they had in cash, a hundred thousand eurodollars. Then, I scrambled the cameras and the recording files beyond comprehension, and used the Sandevistan to get to my bike. Then I rode home to Grandma’s.

  000

  My footprints were bloody as I got off from the bike and walked up to the entrance of the store. I made sure to drag my feet in front of the house to get rid of the worst of it before stepping inside, through the store’s facade and to the back, where grandma was actually making the chili. She stopped when she saw me and walked up to me gingerly.

  “Are you okay?” she looked at me up and down, and I did the same. Wow. That was a lot of blood on me.

  “I’m unhurt. The job is done,” I said. “The fucking dogs won’t bother you anymore. But we can’t rest right now. I floated an idea with the cartel; that maybe you guys could take over for whatever function the dogs had. Nothing is set in stone yet, and nothing will come back to you guys either.”

  Grandma’s concerned expression redoubled as she looked at the ground. “This is… a lot to take in. What did you do? Are they really all dead?”

  “I took out a hundred and fifteen of them at the site,” I said. “I don’t know how many others are there, but I’m sure they will probably scatter at this point.”

  I looked up to an old-school TV that was off, and my eyes flashed as I turned it on and transferred all the stills of the dead bodies I had taken.

  Grandma looked at the images in shock. “It’s true. They’re all dead. So… fast. Who did you do this with?”

  “I was alone,” I said. “Didn’t need to bring my friends for just this. But that’s not important. What matters now is making a decision. I’ll respect whatever decision you make.”

  She looked at me for several seconds, saying nothing. Then… “Alfredo Gonzalez. He is the man that stabbed your grandfather in the back. The Fucking Dogs were just his tool. But regardless of whatever windfall we receive, our days with the cartel are over. As long as his family lives, we will have no place within them, nor do we want to. The organization turned its back on us. I would rather gouge out my own eyes with a rusted spoon than crawl back to those treacherous motherfuckers!”

  “I can kill him too,” I said. “Gonzalez.”

  “Gonzalez is already dead,” she said. “Old age. We might not have the man’s focused animosity, meaning his family won’t go after us, but they would not tolerate our presence in the cartel. Our history is much too muddied for that. Killing the Fucking Dogs will invite reprisal from them if we decided to rejoin. And believe me when I say the Dogs are nothing compared to what the cartel are capable of. Would you dare to challenge one of your Night City gangs alone?”

  I hesitated. “Then… what will you do now?”

  “The same thing we have always done—survive. New dogs will come soon. The targeted harassment will end, but things will stay the same.”

  “They… don’t have to,” I said. “I came to Tijuana for business. I set up a corporation in order to explain my mercenary money. I want you to take care of it. You don’t have to turn it into something profitable, and you can have some of the money I run through it.”

  “No,” she immediately said. “Your money is yours. I won’t touch it. And as for this company…”

  Tio Alex stepped up. Behind him, another man who had lost his legs at the middle of his thighs, sitting on a wheelchair, and someone that didn’t have any arms. “Mom, a corporation would be good for us. And the money.”

  “You need the money,” I said to grandma. “I won’t hear anything else but you taking it.”

  Tio Alex turned to me. “How much can you give, nephew?”

  “A hundred thousand,” I said.

  Alex nodded. “That should be enough to get a few of us medical-grade implants.”

  I frowned. “Medical grade shouldn’t be that expensive. How many of you are there?”

  “We’ve got fifteen boys like this,” he said. “Including me.”

  I frowned. “I can provide more money in time. But for now, this is it,” I handed him the plastic bag I was carrying. He opened it up, looked inside, and his eyes nearly bulged out.

  “Eduardos?!”

  Grandma snatched the bag. “Where did you get this? You know what, it doesn’t matter. Girls!” she shouted, and a group of five girls lined up in front of her. “Watch the Net, make sure to keep me informed about the chatter. And book appointments from at least ten ripperdoctors. You,” she looked at me. “Change the charter to your corporation and reach out to Militech as soon as you can.”

  “For what?”

  “Did you hear that corporations have to pay a ten percent tax to the cartel in order to remain in business? Militech also takes a similar amount of tax for corporations that are large enough, but both of these taxes can be avoided for corporations that partner with Militech in the capacity of mercenary work.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” The presence of lots of money seemed to have emboldened the old lady. Some of the girls retrieved cords from the back of the sofa and jacked in through some ports on the back of their heads. Were they Netrunners? Only two of them did that, the other three’s eyes glowed gold as they probably worked on reaching as many Ripperdocs as they could.

  I just told a generative AI to change the charter to one that reflected the business operations of a private security provider. I made sure to inform it that we could offer Netrunner solutions as well.

  “Grandma,” I said. “Does this mean that… you will all become mercenaries?”

  “It’s our only path,” she smiled wryly. “God put us Martinezes in this world for one reason alone.” she caressed my cheek. “You naturally gravitated towards mercenary work yourself, and this was after your mother did everything to change your destiny. Do not fret; it was always where you belonged.” I clenched my jaws. She was wrong. Edgerunning was just for the money. As soon as I had enough of it, I would conquer the corporate world and achieve a victory that actually mattered, not chip in until I was on the verge of cyberpsychosis. “Thank you for helping the old family out. You kicked a hornet’s nest while you did so, but it is fine. You gave us a fighting chance, and we will honor that chance with everything we have. And the money you put in that corporation? We will never touch what is yours, and we will return this investment in time.”

  “This wasn’t an investment,” I said. Maybe I was being a bad corpo by stating that. “And you needn’t worry about ever paying me back. We are family. And family is everything.” I took the hand that held my cheek and squeezed it gently. Then I kissed it.

  “Know that you are loved, dear,” she said. “But for now, it is time for you to go home. I will give you a call if there is anything that we need from you.”

  I nodded.

  “Come back for that chili some other day,” she said with a pained smile. “Granny will be a little busy for the time being.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll hold you to that. Goodbye, granny.”

  I walked out of the house and walked towards my bike. Some street kids probably half my age who had congregated around it immediately scattered. I got on it and rode out, all the while using my optics to leaf through some documents that went into partnering with Militech on a mercenary basis.

  Evidently, there were three levels of partnership. In actuality, there were four; an internship stage that could last anywhere from a week to several months. It didn’t pay very well, if at all, and didn’t provide any of the protections that would help grandma and the family out.

  But it could be skipped entirely by having skilled Netrunners on the payroll. That way, you could get to level one. On this level, Militech were entitled to a twenty percent discount when hiring the corp (also making it clear that all prices would be subject to negotiation and had to be reasonable and aligned with market prices), and it demanded a customary ten percent operating tax independent of the tax the corp already paid to the authorities (that were also Militech). They probably counted on corps avoiding taxes to begin with.

  They also made it very clear that by partnering with Militech, the corp had to formally acknowledge Militech as the true regional authority, and that all other authorities had false claim, and in return, Militech would protect the corp from reprisal should they not support other ‘false authorities’ monetarily, meaning a partnership would protect us from Cartel taxes.

  Level two required a year of experience working for the corp, and even went as far as to reduce the partnership discount to fifteen percent and reduced the operating tax to five percent, and provided other benefits like priority for missions, access to bleeding edge cyberware available for purchase and all sorts of weapons and tech that weren’t available on the consumer market.

  The third level had a three year minimum, the discount went down to ten percent, the operating tax was waived entirely, and all the above benefits were magnified even further, alongside a chance to test out experimental tech in the human testing phase, which sounded like insanity to me, but the stipulations said nothing about such corps being forced to do so. Examples of corps that were partnered at the third level were Blackfire Incorporated, Trident Security Solutions, and fucking Lazarus, the biggest merc megacorp in the world.

  You probably had to count as a megacorp to even qualify for a level three partnership besides just waiting three years.

  The application form was pretty straightforward, though, and didn’t require much information that I wasn’t already aware of. Before sending it in, I took a moment to think about the name.

  Globbal Sollutions wouldn’t cut it for a real corp. A corp’s identity was sacred—it was a legal entity, after all, a living and breathing object with hopes and dreams to grow and grow until it reached the stars. A dream to reach the top. Mom’s dream.

  Gloriosas Soluciones de Securidad Incorporadas.

  Hmm… that could be the internal name, but it needed an international face when dealing with Militech.

  Glorious Security Solutions. GSS.

  I sent the application after changing the name of the company.

  And then, I headed home, back to Night City.