BL4CKRAIDERS - The Aftermath of Panam and V Exodus from NC

[R4DZ]

Hey choom. I fell in love with the Aldecaldos and the whole nomad way of life. Honestly, I feel like there weren’t enough quests or jobs focused on the Nomads in Cyberpunk 2077. Their story had so much heart and depth, especially with the Star ending.

So I figured, why not write a fan-fiction story about what happened after Panam and V left Night City?

If you enjoy it, feel free to support the project so I can keep dropping chapters here on the forum one by one. Here’s Chapter One below.

______________________________________

The desert stretched endlessly beneath a burning copper sky, jagged canyons cutting through the land like ancient scars. Heat waves shimmered across the dunes, distorting the horizon into trembling mirages. Rusted wrecks of abandoned vehicles half-buried in sand littered the wasteland, remnants of forgotten convoys swallowed by time. The wind carried dust across the barren landscape with a low haunting whistle.

Yet hidden deep between the cliffs was life.

An oasis.

A valley of impossible green buried within the dead desert. Trees swayed gently beside streams of crystal-clear water. Thick moss crawled across wet stone while vines wrapped around canyon walls. At the center stood a towering waterfall crashing down from the cliffs above, sending cool mist into the scorching air like silver smoke.

"Hmmmm..." Wvigo sighed in relief as he walked through the oasis, feeling the cool breeze brush against his skin after the brutal desert heat. For a moment, the world felt peaceful.

Then he noticed someone standing beneath the waterfall.

A man.

Motionless.

His back faced Wvigo as water pounded against his body. At first he looked like a statue beneath the roaring cascade.

Then Wvigo saw the blood.

Dark crimson dripped from the man's arms into the clear pool below. His body was covered in wounds. Torn flesh. Burn marks. Deep cuts carved across his skin. His red jacket hung in blackened tatters as if it had been scorched by fire itself.

Wvigo's eyes widened.

"Hey!"

He broke into a run.

Water splashed beneath his boots as he rushed toward the stranger. The closer he got, the worse the injuries looked. Blood mixed into the water around the man's feet.

Suddenly—

The man collapsed face-first into the pool.

"No!"

Wvigo lunged forward, reaching for him—

—but the moment his hand touched the water, the surface swallowed him whole.

Everything vanished.

Darkness consumed him instantly.

Freezing water wrapped around his body as he was dragged violently downward into an endless abyss beneath the oasis. Wvigo thrashed wildly, kicking and clawing upward, but something below kept pulling him deeper. The water no longer felt natural. It felt alive.

His lungs burned.

He gasped for air but icy water flooded into his mouth.

The faint light above him became smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely.

Wvigo shut his eyes.

SCREEEEEEEEEECHHHHHHH—

An ear-piercing metallic scream shattered the darkness.

Wvigo jolted awake.

A freight train roared past him violently, shaking the entire metal platform beneath his body. Sparks flew nearby while giant pistons hammered rhythmically deep within the station walls. Thick steam hissed from pipes overhead.

He was back.

A massive cargo rail station stood in the middle of the desert wasteland, built entirely from rusted steel, flickering neon signs, and industrial scaffolding. Freight workers moved like exhausted ants beneath the scorching heat while giant Militech cargo trains thundered across elevated tracks carrying supplies through the badlands.

"What the hell are you doing?" a harsh voice barked. "Sleeping on the job? You want deductions from your pay?"

Wvigo looked up groggily.

Standing over him was a stout man in his forties wearing a pristine corporate suit despite the grime around them. A glowing datapad rested in his thick hands, blue light reflecting off his irritated face.

Jack.

Rail Operations Manager.

"Get back to work!" Jack snapped. "Break time is over!"

Wvigo rubbed his eyes slowly.

"But I need to rest. I've been working straight for three weeks with barely any sleep. Surely you can cut me some slack?"

Jack stepped closer until his shadow covered him.

"If you don't get back to work right now," he growled, "I'll take five hundred eddies off your pay."

Wvigo stayed silent.

Jack smirked.

"So what now, boy?... Hmm?" He stared at him for a moment before nodding. "Great. Now get back to work."

Jack walked away tapping aggressively on his datapad.

"Pssssttt..."

A head suddenly popped out from one of the steel beams above him.

"I got an amazing BD for you," the voice whispered excitedly. "Super addicting."

Wvigo nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Jared! Stop scaring me like that!"

A lanky young man crawled further into view with a crooked grin on his face.

"Ehehehe... my apologies, partner," Jared chuckled. "Just trying to lighten up the mood."

He leaned closer.

"By the way... I holo'd Jenna this morning. She said she's coming with me to the Fireside Disco this Saturday night." He nudged Wvigo with his elbow. "So you finally coming or what?"

Wvigo opened his mouth to answer—

"Ohhhh here we go again," Jared interrupted dramatically. "You're gonna say no because you wanna do overtime again. Choom... we're not getting any younger. We gotta live a little. It's not always work work work. We gotta relax sometimes. Chill. Maybe we meet our bonita and weeeeeewww—"

"C'mon man," Wvigo sighed. "You know it's not that easy."

His tone lowered slightly.

"My mom's condition isn't getting any better... and my brother studies at some expensive university in Night City. Hundreds of miles from here. I gotta pay the tuition somehow."

Jared raised both hands.

"Alright alright, enough with the tearjerker conversation." He smirked. "Just holo me if you change your mind. Aight?"

"Sure man," Wvigo replied. "I'll holo you."

Jared disappeared back into the maze of steel beams while Wvigo returned to work.

He grabbed massive metal pipes with an industrial loader arm and dragged them toward the rail lines where sparks erupted from his welding torch. Sweat rolled down his forehead beneath the brutal desert heat while freight trains rumbled endlessly around the station.

Minutes later—

A deep metallic rumble echoed across the tracks.

Another train.

Wvigo climbed back onto the platform and watched as a colossal Militech freight train slowly rolled into the station. The armored cargo cars were matte black, lined with military markings and heavy plating.

The train hissed loudly before stopping directly in front of him.

The doors slid open.

Armed guards stepped out first, rifles raised cautiously. Then came two men in expensive corpo suits. One of them carried a sleek metallic case chained to his wrist.

Heavy security.

Whatever was inside that box was valuable.

The men quickly disappeared into the main station building under armed escort.

Wvigo barely paid attention.

"Corpo bastards..." he muttered.

He walked toward a massive pumping generator belching steam into the air. Wiping sweat from his forehead, he adjusted the calibration controls before glancing at the monitor.

"Sweet."

Then—

A low growl echoed through the desert.

Motorcycles.

Wvigo looked toward the horizon.

Far in the distance, beyond the dunes, a massive trail of dust cut across the wasteland.

Fast.

Very fast.

Suddenly the station erupted into chaos.

The guards immediately raised their weapons.

"Code Red, we have an imminent—"

BWOOOOOOMMM.

A powerful EMP wave blasted through the station.

Lights flickered violently.

Machines shut down instantly.

Several guards collapsed to one knee while others stumbled around disoriented.

Then the shooting started.

CRACK.

One guard's head exploded.

CRACK.

Another dropped instantly.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Bodies hit the ground one after another as bullets came flying from seemingly nowhere. The attackers were still too far away to see clearly.

Wvigo immediately dove behind a stack of cargo crates.

The sound of motorcycles grew louder.

Closer.

Additional guards rushed out from the train firing wildly into the desert.

More bullets answered them.

Every shot hit cleanly.

Headshots.

One guard grabbed a rocket launcher—

—but suddenly his cyberware sparked violently before his entire body burst into flames.

Hacked.

The screaming lasted only seconds.

Then the motorcycles arrived.

Dust exploded across the station as several heavily modified bikes skidded to a stop.

Wvigo shut his eyes tightly, pretending to be dead.

Boots crunched against sand and steel as figures walked past him.

Five men.

Nomads.

Wearing jackets he recognized immediately.

"Aldecaldos..." he whispered.

The raiders stormed into the station building. Gunfire erupted inside. Shouting. Screams. More gunshots.

Then silence.

A bald muscular man carrying a massive shotgun slowly stepped outside, scanning the area carefully.

He stopped.

His eyes narrowed.

BOOM.

He fired directly into a cargo box nearby.

The explosion sent debris flying everywhere.

"OUCCCHHHHH!!!"

Jared burst out screaming from behind the wreckage and ran frantically across the station.

The bald man grinned sadistically and aimed his shotgun—

—but Wvigo suddenly sprang up.

BAM.

His punch slammed into the raider's jaw so hard the man flew several meters backward across the sand.

The raider groaned, disoriented, trying to stand—

—but Wvigo charged again, summoning every ounce of strength he had.

He swung another devastating punch.

SHHHHKKK.

The raider's cybernetic arms instantly expanded into a high-tech energy shield.

BOOOOM.

The impact shook the ground beneath them.

The shield cracked violently as electricity fizzled across its surface.

The bald man countered immediately with a brutal kick straight into Wvigo's chest.

THUD.

Wvigo flew backward and crashed hard against the metal floor.

Pain exploded through his ribs.

The raider raised his shotgun toward Wvigo's head—

"Stop, Rocky."

A woman's voice.

Cold.

Calm.

Wvigo looked up weakly, his vision flickering as his biomonitor flashed warnings across his optics.

A woman stepped forward from the dust.

Long wavy hair flowed behind her while a sniper rifle rested across her shoulder. One of her eyes glowed brightly with advanced optical implants.

Behind her, the other Aldecaldos emerged from the building carrying the metallic case.

"We got the cargo, Pevee!"

The woman smiled faintly.

"I think it's time to go."

Rocky frowned.

"But wait... we're letting this one live?" He pointed at Wvigo. "No witnesses."

Pevee stared silently at Wvigo for a moment.

Then she smirked slightly.

"Nah... leave him be."

And just like that, they mounted their bikes and disappeared into the desert as the setting sun burned orange across the horizon.

"Boy... oh boy..." Jared said while approaching Wvigo excitedly. "I've NEVER seen you fight like that! That was amazing, man! You're a hustler!"

He helped Wvigo back onto his feet.

Wvigo winced from the pain in his chest.

"Shut up, Jared. I could've died. These Aldecaldos are savage raiders. They don't leave enemies standing."

Jared laughed.

"Well... maybe that pink chick has a crush on you, choom! She let you live!" He grinned widely. "You got some serious cojones!"

Wvigo laughed despite himself.

"Hahaha... shut up."

In the distance, the sound of approaching police sirens echoed across the desert.

Workers slowly emerged from hiding, including Jack, who ran frantically toward the arriving patrol units.

"Help! Help! We got raided!" Jack screamed. "Militech cargo stolen by Aldecaldo raiders!"

Wvigo barely heard him.

He stood silently beneath the burning sunset, staring toward the distant desert horizon where the nomads vanished.

One thought echoed endlessly in his mind.

Why did she let me live?

 

[R4DZ]

Here's Part Two. (I wrote this in Wattpad so I figured moving it here and continue writing from here.


_____________________________________


The roar of motorcycle engines tore across the desert like thunder rolling through an empty world. Dust spiraled high into the crimson evening sky as a pack of raiders carved their way through the endless badlands, their bikes leaving burning trails over cracked earth and forgotten highways. Rusted power pylons leaned like dead giants in the distance while the skeletal remains of abandoned towns stood half-swallowed by sand.


At the front of the formation rode Pevee, her black ARCH Nazaré cutting through the wasteland with predatory speed. Neon strips along the body flickered against the dust storm haze. Beside her rode Rockie, hunched slightly over his handlebars.


“You alright, Rock?” Pevee’s voice crackled through the comms.


Rockie let out a grunt. “Uggh… I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”


Earlier that day, inside the maglev station near the edge of Night City, Rockie had taken a brutal punch from a stranger. Not some ordinary street thug either. Whoever that man was, he hit like military chrome wrapped in flesh.


Pevee narrowed her eyes behind her visor. “Hey, I’m still talking to you. You better see Slim when we get home, alright? That hit looked nasty.”


“Yeah… yeah… yeah…” Rockie muttered with a smirk before twisting the accelerator harder and pushing deeper into the formation.


The gang sped onward through the wasteland.


Ahead of them, massive rock formations rose from the desert floor like the jaws of some ancient beast. Hidden between them stood the Aldecaldo stronghold. The outer wall was a chaotic fortress built from scavenged metal plating, cargo containers, old solar panels, mud bricks, and reinforced scrap. Automated turrets tracked movement from elevated nests while drones hovered overhead, scanning the perimeter with glowing red optics.


One of the guards recognized the incoming riders immediately.


“Pevee!” he shouted, waving from the barricade tower.


Pevee raised two fingers in greeting as the gates slowly groaned open.


Inside the camp, life moved with warmth rarely found outside the nomad world.


Generators hummed beneath hanging lanterns. Music echoed from somewhere in the distance. Groups of nomads sat around fire barrels drinking beer, playing cards, tuning guitars, or arguing over machine parts. Others repaired engines beneath tarps lit by neon work lamps. Children sprinted through the dusty pathways laughing and spraying recycled water at each other despite repeated warnings from exhausted parents.


One small kid suddenly ran toward Pevee’s bike.


“Peveee! Peveee!!”


Pevee laughed as she slowed down carefully.


“Hey! Keep your distance from the bike before you lose a leg.”


The child pointed excitedly at her motorcycle. “When I grow up, I’m gonna drive like you! I’m gonna be a Blackraider!”


Pevee smirked. “Of course you will. But first you gotta survive your mom yelling at you.”


The kid burst into laughter before running off again.


Pevee continued deeper into camp until she reached one of the more advanced structures near the center. Unlike the surrounding tents and scrap housing, this place was reinforced with military-grade plating, communication antennas, solar arrays, and humming generators. Cargo drones sat docked outside while armed guards monitored scanners.


She jumped off her bike and pushed through the entrance.


“Mother! Mother!”


A woman in her fifties slid out from beneath a massive rugged transport truck. Her dark hair was streaked with silver now, but there was still something dangerous in her eyes. Strong. Hardened. The kind of woman who looked like she could still snap bones with her bare hands.


Panam Palmer wiped grease from her hands and smiled.


“Good. You made it back.” Her eyes shifted immediately toward the metallic cargo case strapped to Pevee’s bike. “How’d the run go?”


Pevee grinned proudly. “Smooth. We got the cargo and flattened the convoy before they even knew what hit them.”


Panam chuckled softly.


“I knew I could count on you.”


Pevee handed over the heavy metal container. Panam inspected the locks carefully before nodding.


“And don’t wander too far tonight,” Panam warned. “Storm systems are building near the eastern ridge. Bad ones. I don’t want you stranded out there.”


“Yeah… yeah… yeah…”


Panam pulled her daughter into a quick hug.


“You’re older now. Wiser too.” She smirked faintly. “Still stubborn like your father.”


Pevee groaned dramatically. “Oh, c’mon, Mom. I haven’t even met him.”


For just a moment, something changed in Panam’s expression. A flicker. Regret maybe. Or pain.


“Of course… you didn’t…”


Silence hung heavily between them.


Then Panam straightened herself again.


“Look, I gotta lock this cargo down and prep it for delivery Saturday. Go check on Mitch. He’s been asking about you.”


Pevee nodded. “Sure, Mom.”


She stepped back outside into the warm desert air.


As she walked through camp, people greeted her everywhere she went.


“Pevee! Sit with us!”


A group lounging on old salvaged couches waved bottles at her from beside a fire pit.


“Maybe later!” she called back with a smile.


She continued past rows of tents glowing beneath hanging neon lanterns. Some nomads meditated quietly beside incense burners. Others laughed around portable holo-projectors streaming old pre-war cartoons.


Pevee smiled to herself.


This was the nomad life.


Not corporate towers.


Not chrome prisons.


Not Night City.


Family. Freedom. Loyalty.


She turned a corner and approached an old military tent parked beside a weathered truck covered in faded Aldecaldo markings. An elderly man emerged from inside carrying a rifle.


“Well look who finally remembered old Mitch exists.”


Pevee laughed and ran forward, hugging him tightly.


“I’m sorry, Mitch. Been busy.”


Mitch Anderson waved her off and motioned toward a camping chair.


“Sit down before you wear me out.”


Pevee sat beside him while the desert wind howled softly through the camp.


“Look,” Mitch sighed, “I appreciate your concern, kid. But don’t worry about me. I’m just an old man waiting for the clock to run out.”


Pevee frowned immediately.


“Don’t say that. You trained me. Without you, I’d probably still be crashing bikes into walls.”


Mitch barked out a laugh.


“You? Nah. You were born for this life.” He pointed at her proudly. “One of the best raiders the Aldecaldos have now.”


Then he smirked.


“Still second place though.”


Pevee rolled her eyes instantly.


“To Mom?”


“To your mom.”


Mitch leaned back in his chair, staring out toward the darkening desert.


“Your parents were legends, kid. Craziest job I ever saw was when they stole a damn tank together.”


Pevee nearly jumped out of her chair.


“A tank?!”


“Oh yeah.” Mitch laughed. “Whole operation was insane.”


Then Pevee’s smile slowly faded.


“Dad…”


The word lingered quietly.


Mitch’s expression softened immediately.


“Sorry.”


Pevee stared toward the sand beyond camp.


“Do you think he’s still alive?”


Mitch stayed silent for a long moment.


“I don’t know.”


The answer hit harder than she expected.


“But what matters,” Mitch continued carefully, “is that you’re here. With family. The Aldecaldos… we built this life together.”


Pevee’s eyes began watering despite herself.


“It’s been twenty years, Mitch.” Her voice cracked slightly. “Mom won’t tell me where he went. Nobody will even tell me who he really was.”


Mitch looked away.


“I know, kid.”


Then suddenly Pevee leaned closer.


“You knew him.” Her voice sharpened. “And I trust you. So help me find him.”


Mitch groaned loudly.


“Ah hell… here we go again.”


“Please.”


He rubbed his face tiredly before finally sighing in defeat.


“Fine. But you do exactly what I say.”


Pevee’s face instantly brightened.


“Yes!”


“And don’t do anything stupid.”


“No promises.”


“Exactly what your mother would say,” Mitch muttered.


He leaned closer and lowered his voice.


“There’s a man named Russell. Nomad fixer. Operates out near the Buffalo Plains.” Mitch paused. “Place called the Fireside Disco.”


Pevee blinked. “That old Snake Nation territory?”


Mitch nodded grimly.


“Yeah. And we’re not exactly drinking buddies with them these days.”


He pointed a finger at her sternly.


“You take Rockie and Johnny with you. You stay low. You don’t start fights. And if anything smells wrong, you leave immediately.”


Pevee stood up smiling.


“Understood.”


Then she hugged Mitch again.


“Thanks.”


Mitch watched her carefully as she walked away into the glowing lights of camp.


Far above them, thunder rolled across the badlands.


And somewhere deep beyond the desert horizon, buried beneath twenty years of silence, ghosts were beginning to move again

 

[R4DZ]

Here's Part 3 - Ramen Memories

____________________________________

Wvigo packed what little he owned with the careful exhaustion of a man who had learned that in the Badlands, anything left behind belonged to someone else.

A cracked tool pouch. A few loose shards. A folded rag blackened by engine grease. One half-empty canteen. His jacket.

He picked up the jacket last and shook the dust from it. The leather was old, sun-cooked, and scarred by years of work under open skies. He slapped the sleeves clean, dragged his hand over the shoulder, and tried to laugh at himself.

“Phew,” he whispered. “That was the most interesting thing in my boring life.”

The laugh came out weak.

Outside, the Badlands stretched wide and brutal beneath the sinking sun. No city glow. No comforting grid of order. Just open dust, broken stone, rusted fencing, distant power pylons, old fuel drums, sheriff rigs, and the dry wind dragging sand across the ground like a warning.

The air tasted like grit, burnt fuel, sweat, and old blood.

Behind him, the building looked dead. A squat structure of patched metal and cracked concrete sitting alone in the dryland like something the corporations had used, stripped, and abandoned. Patrol drones hovered low above the ground, their tiny red status lights blinking through drifting dust. Vehicle headlights cut thin beams through the haze, catching the shapes of shell casings, boot tracks, and bodies covered with thermal sheets.

Wvigo lowered his head and started walking.

He did not get far.

Two cops stepped into his path.

The first was younger, nervous, his hand too close to his sidearm. The second was Sheriff Sheldon.

Everybody around that stretch of the Badlands knew Sheldon.

A stern old man with a face like sun-baked stone and a stare sharp enough to cut rope. One eye was still human, pale and cold. The other was chrome, an old MaxTac-grade ocular implant that clicked softly whenever it focused. Back in Night City, Sheldon had once hunted cyberpsychos through corporate towers and military-grade kill zones. Out here, he hunted Raffens, nomad raiders, scav crews, and anyone desperate enough to spill blood across his territory.

He had the posture of a man who had survived too much violence to be impressed by any of it.

“Hey, you,” Sheldon called. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Wvigo stopped.

His shoulders tightened before he even turned around.

“Yes, sir?”

Sheldon did not answer right away. His chrome eye clicked once, then adjusted, scanning Wvigo’s face, clothes, hands, boots, and jacket. He was not looking at him like a survivor. He was looking at him like evidence.

“You lived,” Sheldon said.

Wvigo blinked. “Yeah. I noticed.”

Sheldon stepped closer. The dust crunched beneath his boots.

“Why?”

Wvigo stared at him. “Why?”

“That crew hit hard. Knew who to shoot. Knew where to move. Knew when to leave.” Sheldon’s voice was low and dry. “People like that don’t leave witnesses by accident.”

The young deputy shifted behind him, silent.

Wvigo felt the weight of Sheldon’s suspicion settle over him like heat.

“I don’t know,” Wvigo said. “Why? Isn’t that a good thing for me? I’m not dead.”

Sheldon moved even closer.

His face was inches from Wvigo’s now. Too close. His breath smelled faintly of black coffee and synth-tobacco. The chrome eye clicked again.

“They purposely let you live?” Sheldon asked. “How so?”

Wvigo swallowed. “I don’t know those guys.”

“Are you trying to be a punk?”

“No, sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me like that makes you clean.”

Wvigo froze.

Sheldon’s voice hardened.

“Don’t you ever try to do something stupid. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. If I find out you helped set up that raid, if I find one dirty little thread tying you to those bodies back there, I will end your sorry miserable existence myself.”

Wvigo’s metallic fist twitched at his side.

Not from anger.

Not yet.

From fear.

He had faced men with knives. He had faced machines that sparked and screamed. He had worked under collapsing towers of steel in the maglev yards. But Sheldon was different. Sheldon had the calm of a man who had killed before, legally and illegally, and had long ago stopped losing sleep over the difference.

“Er…” Wvigo said, trying to force his voice to behave. “Well… I’ll be happy to say that you’ll soon find I’m not involved in any way. I really don’t know those guys.”

For a long moment, Sheldon only stared at him.

Then he turned his back.

“I’ll keep a close eye on you,” the sheriff said. “So don’t do anything stupid.”

He walked away with the deputy beside him, both figures disappearing into the dust and harsh glare of vehicle beams.

Wvigo stood still until he remembered how to breathe.

“Phew,” he muttered, wiping sweat from his upper lip. “I know I’m innocent, but damn… that man is truly intimidating.”

He found his bike half-buried in dust beside a rusted fuel drum. The old machine leaned crookedly on its kickstand, patched together from scavenged panels, exposed wires, and stubborn prayer. It was ugly, loud, unreliable, and somehow still the most valuable thing Wvigo owned.

He climbed on, kicked the engine alive, and rode out toward the encampment near the Buffalo Plains.

The Badlands opened before him.

No buildings worth naming. No roads worth trusting. Just cracked earth, dry scrub, tire tracks, old mining scars, and massive rocks glowing red under the dying sun. Far in the distance, maglev rails cut across the horizon in clean corporate lines, raised high above the dust. They carried people with money over the heads of people without it.

Wvigo rode beneath them.

As usual.

A poor hustler in a land that ate poor hustlers.

For a few minutes, the world gave him silence.

The kind of silence only the Badlands had. Big. Empty. Almost sacred. Wind moved across the plain, dragging sand against stone. Somewhere far away, a coyote howled, or maybe it was some scavenged alarm system dying in the dust.

Then the silence broke.

Two bikes burst from behind a ridge.

Engines screaming.

Wvigo saw the muzzle flashes before he heard the shots.

“Shit!”

He ducked hard.

Bullets snapped over his head, one close enough to cut the air beside his ear. He twisted the throttle. His bike lurched forward, engine whining in protest.

The two riders came after him fast.

Raffens.

Had to be.

Their bikes were stripped down and ugly, built from stolen parts and bad decisions. One had bones tied to the frame with red wire. The other carried black metal plating scratched with gang markings. Both riders wore scavenged armor, cracked helmets, and the swagger of men who thought the desert belonged to them because they were willing to kill for scraps.

They fired again.

This time, a round punched into Wvigo’s rear panel.

The bike sparked.

Smoke coughed out from the engine casing.

“Oh, come on!” Wvigo shouted.

He swerved hard toward a massive sandstone formation rising from the plain like a broken tooth. Its base was already cracked by years of heat, wind, and erosion. Wvigo saw it in one quick glance. A weak point. A chance.

The Raffens followed, hungry and careless, engines howling.

Wvigo cut the throttle at the last second.

His bike slid behind the rock in a spray of dust.

The first Raffen overshot him.

Wvigo launched himself sideways and slammed his metallic fist into the rider’s chest.

The impact cracked armor plating.

The man flew off his bike with a strangled grunt, and Wvigo went down with him. They hit the dirt hard, rolling through sand, grit, and loose stones. The Raffen groaned once, then stopped moving.

Wvigo pushed himself up.

Dust clung to his lips. His ribs burned. Blood dripped from the knuckles of his chrome fist, bright red against dull metal.

“Bad day,” he breathed.

The second bike circled back.

Wvigo heard the engine before he saw the gun.

The remaining Raffen lifted a pistol and opened fire.

Wvigo ran.

Bullets chewed into the sandstone beside him. Chips of rock spat into his face. He ducked around the huge formation, boots skidding in loose sand, lungs burning.

The rider followed.

Wvigo reached the far side of the sandstone formation, planted his boots into the dirt, and drove his metallic fist straight into the rock’s cracked base.

The impact thundered through the Badlands.

Stone split.

Dust burst outward.

A deep fracture crawled up the side of the formation like black lightning. Pain jolted through Wvigo’s shoulder where flesh met chrome, but he gritted his teeth and punched again.

Boom.

The second strike sank deeper.

The rock groaned.

For one breath, the whole sandstone slab stood still, trembling against the burning sky.

Then it began to tilt.

The pursuing Raffen came around the bend too fast. His eyes widened behind his cracked visor as the massive rock groaned loose from the earth.

“Oh, shit—”

The rider threw himself off his bike just in time.

The sandstone came crashing down with a violent boom, crushing the machine flat beneath it. Fuel ignited. The bike exploded in a dirty orange bloom, throwing heat, shrapnel, and dust into the twilight air.

Wvigo stumbled back, coughing hard, his metallic fist smoking faintly from the impact.

For a moment, there was nothing but ringing silence.

Then he stepped through the dust cloud, eyes locked on the surviving Raffen.

The man had lost his gun.

But he was not scared.

His arm unfolded with a wet mechanical snap. Chrome and black steel extended from his forearm, shifting into a curved bladed scythe. The edge hummed with a low electric whine, sharp enough to slice meat, bone, and cheap armor like paper.

“You either give me your eddies,” the Raffen growled, “or I chop you to pieces.”

Wvigo stared at him.

“Brother, you picked the wrong broke guy.”

The Raffen charged.

He double-jumped, leg boosters flaring blue-white beneath him, and came down like a falling blade. Wvigo barely raised his metallic arm in time.

The scythe struck.

Metal screamed against metal.

Sparks exploded between them.

The force drove Wvigo back several steps. Pain shot up through his shoulder, not from the arm itself, but from where meat met machinery. His teeth clenched hard enough to hurt.

The Raffen cartwheeled backward and landed low.

Then he dashed again.

Too fast.

Augmented legs. Reflex boosters. Maybe some cheap Sandevistan knockoff ripped from a corpse. Maybe worse.

He slashed for Wvigo’s chest.

Wvigo blocked again.

The impact rang through his body.

More sparks flew.

The Raffen jumped back, laughing.

“You’re very stubborn, aren’t you?”

Wvigo flexed his chrome fingers. The joints clicked.

“I’m going to give you one chance to leave me alone,” he said. His voice came out calmer than he felt. Inside, his heart was beating like a machine gun. “I am not a runner. I am not a merc. I don’t have eddies. I’m just a regular poor hustler. You ain’t getting anything from me.”

The Raffen smiled behind his cracked mask.

“But I can get your bike. And I can only get it if you’re dead.”

He lowered himself for another attack.

The scythe gleamed in the last light of the sun. The blade looked hungry, catching the red twilight like fresh blood.

Then he moved.

A double dash.

Fast.

Direct.

Deadly.

This time, Wvigo did not block.

He dropped.

The blade sliced through the air above him, close enough to cut loose strands of his hair. Wvigo drove upward with everything he had, his metallic fist smashing into the Raffen’s jaw in a brutal uppercut.

The man lifted off the ground.

For one strange second, he hung against the burning sky like a broken puppet.

Then he dropped with a heavy bang and did not get back up.

Wvigo stood over him, breathing hard.

Dust moved around his boots.

The Badlands went quiet again.

“If your day wasn’t bad enough,” he muttered, then gave a tired smirk.

He checked both Raffens. Took what they had. A few eddies. A half-charged power cell. One ugly knife. Some loose ammo. Nothing worth dying for. Nothing worth killing for either, but that was the Badlands. Men killed for less than dinner money and called it survival.

“Eddies from bad guys?” Wvigo said, pocketing the shards. “No problem. Not gonna cover the repair cost, but hey… compensation for the trouble.”

He limped back to his bike.

The thing was still alive, barely.

Smoke curled from the rear casing. The engine coughed and rattled like an old man with bad lungs. Wvigo patted the handlebar.

“Come on. Don’t die on me too.”

He climbed on and rode toward home.

The sun was setting now, bleeding red across the horizon. Twilight burned over the Buffalo Plains, turning every rock and dry ridge into a dark shape against the fire-colored sky. Soon the desert would belong to headlights, campfires, generator lamps, and stars.

Wvigo rode slowly.

His damaged bike dragged itself through dust toward a small encampment inside Snake Nation territory.

It was not much to look at.

A loose settlement of tents, trailers, shipping containers, scavenged metal walls, solar tarps, and half-buried vehicles arranged inside a wide natural depression. Huge rock formations surrounded the place like old guardians, forming a crude barrier against raiders and sandstorms. There were only a few ways in and out, and each entrance had armed guards, floodlamps, and enough suspicion to start a war.

Most people living there were hustlers, laborers, tech-rats, failed dreamers, and survivors who had crawled out of Night City or corporate work camps with empty pockets and broken faith. Some worked electric lines. Some broke their backs in mines. Some repaired maglev infrastructure they would never afford to ride. Some were mercs. Some said they were not mercs. In the Badlands, that distinction usually depended on who was asking.

The Snake Nation was not like the Aldecaldos.

Not really family. Not really disciplined. Not clean.

Just a loose bunch of people doing whatever they had to do to survive one more week.

As Wvigo approached one of the entry paths, a guard post made of sheet metal, old tires, and rusted vehicle doors came into view. A floodlamp mounted above it clicked and flickered, powered by a coughing generator somewhere behind the rocks.

An armed man stepped out.

“Stop! You!”

Wvigo sighed and rolled the bike to a halt.

The guard looked at him first, then at the smoking bike.

“You haven’t paid your tax, choom.”

Wvigo closed his eyes for a second.

Of course.

Of course the day still had room to get worse.

“You people need to pay us,” the guard continued, resting his rifle against his shoulder, “so we can keep this encampment secure and all.”

“Please,” Wvigo said. His voice was tired now, scraped raw by the day. “I’m going to pay when my pay comes. Right now, I’m broke as hell, and my day has not been good. So please, just let me through.”

The guard stepped forward and grabbed Wvigo by the shirt.

“Who the fuck are you?” he shouted. “I’m asking you to pay us, or you die.”

Wvigo’s jaw clenched.

His metallic fist closed slowly.

Something hot and clean rose in his chest. Rage, but not just rage. Exhaustion. Humiliation. The memory of Sheldon breathing threats into his face. The Raffens shooting holes in his bike. The day taking from him again and again and again.

This guard’s hand on his shirt felt like one insult too many.

He could break him.

He knew he could.

He could crush the man’s wrist, slam his face into the dirt, and make the others think twice before touching him again.

Then a voice came from behind the guard.

“Dear gentlemen, please leave my son alone.”

The guard turned.

So did Wvigo.

Megumi stood in the dust.

Small. Old. Calm.

She was a Japanese woman with silver hair tied neatly behind her head, her back slightly bent from years of work, worry, and desert life. Her clothes were plain and patched. Her hands were thin. But her eyes were steady, and in that moment, she seemed braver than anyone carrying a gun.

“Mother?” Wvigo said, his anger breaking apart. “Why? How are you outside?”

Megumi bowed deeply to the armed men.

“Gomen nasai,” she said softly. “I will pay for his dues. If nothing is paid, I am happy for you to take some of my things at home as payment. Please do not hurt my Wvigo.”

The guard looked at her with disgust first.

Then amusement.

“Oh, look what we have here,” he sneered. “How touching.”

Wvigo’s fist trembled.

The guard released his shirt.

“Fine. I’ll let him through. But you will pay if he fails to send the payment.”

Megumi bowed again.

“Yes. I promise.”

The armed men walked off, laughing among themselves, their shadows stretching long beneath the floodlamp.

Wvigo waited until they were far enough away, then rushed to her.

“Mother, you don’t have to do that,” he said. “I can fight them. I can break them.”

Megumi’s face hardened.

“Not all battles are worth fighting for.”

Wvigo stopped.

Her voice was quiet, but it cut deeper than the guard’s threats.

“You have to choose your battles,” she said. “And this is not the battle for you. There is no peace in struggle. There is no peace in violence. Only more violence.”

Wvigo looked away.

The anger inside him lost its shape.

It became shame.

Then exhaustion.

He had wanted to protect her. Instead, she had protected him. Again.

“My wise mother,” he said, forcing a small smile. “Saved me with another sermon.”

Megumi’s sternness softened.

“You need many sermons.”

“I need ramen.”

“That too.” She turned toward the heart of the encampment. “Come now. Let us go home. Someone awaits you.”

Wvigo frowned.

“Someone?”

Megumi only smiled.

He dragged his damaged bike through the encampment beside her. The ground was uneven, packed dirt and scattered gravel. Around them, families sat near cook fires. Mechanics worked under hanging battery lamps. A child chased a half-broken drone through the dust. Somewhere, an old radio played static-laced Samurai, the music fighting against the rumble of generators.

Wvigo glanced at the bullet holes peppering his bike and shook his head.

“What an interesting day indeed.”

Their home was humble.

A reinforced tent patched with tarp, sheet metal, old insulation, and stubborn love. A small solar-battery lantern hung near the entrance, casting a warm yellow glow over the fabric. Outside, a low cook fire smoked beside a stack of water containers. Inside, the smell of ramen drifted through the air, rich with broth, garlic, cheap synth-pork, and something close to peace.

Wvigo stepped in.

A man came out of nowhere and hugged him hard.

“Brother!”

Wvigo froze.

The voice hit him before the face did.

No.

Impossible.

He pulled back slowly.

“Yahiko?”

The young man grinned, eyes bright despite the tiredness beneath them.

“Yes, brother. It’s me. Yahiko.”

For a second, Wvigo could not speak.

Then he grabbed Yahiko and hugged him back.

The years between them collapsed.

The dust. The hunger. The late shifts. The bruises. The nights Wvigo spent working until his muscles shook just so Yahiko could stay in school one more month. He remembered Yahiko as a little boy running barefoot through the camp, laughing with a stolen wrench in his hand. He remembered sending him away to Night City with everything they had saved, pretending not to cry because older brothers did not cry.

Now Yahiko was here.

Thin.

Older.

Still smiling.

Wvigo held him tighter.

“How’s your school?” Wvigo asked, pulling back to look at him. “How’s Night City life? How are you keeping together?”

Yahiko’s smile weakened.

“Brother,” he said quietly. “I got kicked out of my dorm.”

The warmth drained from Wvigo’s face.

“What?”

“I couldn’t pay the rent anymore. I tried to ask the landlord for extensions, but he wouldn’t give me more time. The university also asked for more payments for our special lab training. I couldn’t pay that either.”

Wvigo stared at him.

Yahiko lowered his eyes.

“To be frank with you, I think it’s best that I live here with you and Mother. I can help out with whatever I can.”

For a moment, the only sound was the soft bubbling of the ramen pot.

Wvigo said nothing.

His mouth opened once, then closed.

The silence hurt more than shouting.

Then his voice came out low.

“Yahiko… I bust my nuts making sure you have the best education possible, and this is how you return the favor?”

Yahiko flinched.

Wvigo hated himself for it immediately.

But the words kept coming.

Not because he wanted to hurt Yahiko.

Because he was afraid.

“I want you to have a great education. Get into the big leagues. Be a high-class Arasaka executive. Militech engineer. Biotechnica researcher. I don’t care, just something above this.”

He gestured around them. The patched tent. The dusty floor. The old table. The damaged bike outside. The life he had accepted for himself but never for Yahiko.

“I don’t want you to be like me,” Wvigo said. “A bottom feeder scraping whatever eddies I can find off these dusty hell lands.”

“Brother…”

“You’re a smart kid, Yahiko. Smarter than me. I’m just tough. Strong. That’s all I have.” Wvigo tapped Yahiko’s forehead gently, though his own eyes were burning. “But you have brains. You can get out.”

Yahiko took a breath.

His voice shook, but he did not back down.

“Brother, I appreciate everything you do. I really do. And I know whatever you do is hard. I know you hurt yourself for me. But you really don’t have to keep doing it.”

Wvigo’s face tightened.

“I have seen Night City,” Yahiko continued. “I have seen the darkness there. The corpo towers. The schools. The labs. The promises. All of it. They tell you it is the city of dreams, but most people are just being fed into the machine.”

He looked at Wvigo with quiet desperation.

“I just want to live outside the corpo world and be free.”

Wvigo’s anger snapped back because the alternative was fear.

“I don’t want to talk about this conversation.”

“Brother—”

“No.” Wvigo pointed toward the entrance. “You need to go back to Night City and take the maglev first thing tomorrow. I don’t want you wasting your time here. Night City is the city of dreams. You’ll make it big there.”

Yahiko’s eyes hardened with hurt.

“Dreams for who?”

Before Wvigo could answer, Megumi called from the dining table.

“Ermmm… are we going to have dinner, or are you two going to spoil the reunion with petty argument?”

Both brothers turned.

Megumi stood beside the table with three bowls already prepared. Steam curled upward in fragrant ribbons, carrying warmth through the tent. She gave them the kind of look only a mother could give, gentle and dangerous at the same time.

Wvigo and Yahiko exchanged glances.

The fight did not end.

It only stepped back into the shadows, waiting.

Wvigo sighed and placed a hand on Yahiko’s shoulder.

“I’m really happy to see you, brother,” he said, softer now. “Let’s continue this conversation later in the evening.”

Yahiko nodded.

“Yeah. Later.”

They walked toward the table together.

The smell of ramen filled the tent, warm and impossible, cutting through the dust, blood, fear, and shame of the day. For one fragile moment, the Badlands seemed far away. The guards. The Raffens. The ruined bike. Sheriff Sheldon’s chrome eye. All of it waited outside, beyond the thin walls and lantern light.

Wvigo sat.

Yahiko sat beside him.

They looked at the bowls and smiled like children.

“Love this,” they both said at the same time.

Megumi watched them with quiet satisfaction.

She had raised two fine men in the dusty Badlands.

Not perfect men.

Not safe men.

But good men, somehow, despite the world doing everything it could to make them hard, cruel, and empty.

Whatever her reasons were, whatever secrets she still carried, she kept them behind a soft smile.

Some truths were best left buried.

For now, there was ramen.

For now, her sons were home.

 

[R4DZ]

Here's Part 4 - Lucy

____________________________________

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The alarm pulsed through the walls like a dying heartbeat.

A cold mechanical chime echoed across the orbital station, followed by the calm, emotionless voice of the public announcement system.

“Cradle Two, please report to Cradle One. Life-support infusions for today have been completed. Bio-specialists are required to report to the station immediately. Repeat: bio-specialists are required to report immediately.”

The camera pulled away from the narrow sleeping quarters, past the reinforced glass of the station window, and out into the black silence of space.

Below the station, Earth turned slowly.

Beautiful. Blue. Alive.

Clouds curled over oceans. City lights glittered faintly along the night side like veins of gold under skin. From up here, the planet did not look violent. It did not look polluted, broken, bought, or ruled by corporations. It looked peaceful. It looked free.

Inside the station, Megumi Sato opened her eyes.

She did not gasp. She did not panic. She did not even sigh.

She woke like a machine responding to code.

The alarm had been part of her life for years. Every shift began the same way. Every day was measured by infusions, scans, neural readings, specimen growth, genetic adjustments, containment briefings, and progress reports to men powerful enough to erase entire cities from a spreadsheet.

Megumi sat up in her narrow bed.

The room was clean, white, and sterile. No clutter. No pictures. No real memories. Only a desk, a drawer, a shower unit, a sealed wardrobe, and one window facing the Earth.

She stood, crossed the room, and stepped into the shower. The water came down in a precise, recycled mist. Warm for exactly two minutes and thirty seconds. Long enough to clean. Not long enough to enjoy.

When she finished, she dressed quickly.

White inner suit. Black compression layer. White lab robe.

On the left breast of the robe was the red Arasaka emblem.

She paused for a moment and touched it.

That symbol meant power. Protection. Access. Advancement. It meant she was not ordinary. It meant her life had direction. It meant everything she had sacrificed would one day matter.

At least, that was what she told herself.

She picked up her case, secured her access card, and moved toward the door.

Before she reached it, a voice sounded from the wall.

“Dr. Megumi Sato. Kindly accept this shard. It contains your technical update regarding the current progress of Project D.”

A soft beep followed.

Then came the electric whirring of hidden machinery. A small rectangular receptacle opened in the wall. A data shard slid forward from the slot, glowing faintly along its edges.

Megumi took it.

For a second, she looked at the shard in her palm. It was small. Almost harmless. But inside it were years of classified work, genetic models, failed embryos, cyber-neural compatibility matrices, proprietary Arasaka bioengineering records, and the latest changes to the most ambitious project the corporation had ever hidden from the world.

Project D.

She inserted the shard into the neural port behind her ear.

Her eyes flickered.

Lines of data flooded her vision.

Growth curves. Neural stability charts. Mitochondrial correction logs. Cyberware tolerance predictions. Embryonic viability indexes. Immune suppression calibration. Behavioral conditioning projections. Offspring survival probability.

Then the final message flashed across her sight.

UPDATE SUCCESSFUL.

Megumi removed the shard and placed it inside the locked drawer under her desk. She smoothed her robe, gathered herself, and walked out.

The corridor outside was already moving with life.

Researchers in white coats passed by in disciplined silence. Some carried tablets. Others spoke softly into comms. A pair of med-techs pushed a sealed cryogenic cart down the hall. Beyond them, armed Arasaka security stood at every intersection, helmets black, rifles lowered but ready.

No one here was truly free.

Everyone had clearance. Everyone had a purpose. Everyone was watched.

“Megumi-san.”

A young doctor bowed slightly as he passed.

“Megumi-san. Good morning.”

Another greeted her with a respectful nod.

Megumi smiled politely.

She was respected here. Admired, even. She was one of the lead researchers in Arasaka’s most classified genetics program. Not merely a scientist. Not merely another corpo servant. She was close to something historic.

The facility itself was not just a station.

The orbital platform was only the visible shell.

The true research center was hidden beneath the surface of the Moon, buried under layers of regolith, steel, signal-jamming fields, thermal masking, automated defenses, and corporate lies. No rival corporation knew it existed. No government had proof. No independent netrunner had ever breached its deeper systems and lived long enough to speak of it.

Arasaka had built a secret cradle in the dead dust of the Moon.

And Megumi had been chosen to help bring life into it.

If Project D succeeded, she would no longer be merely Dr. Sato.

She would become a name inside Arasaka history.

A board-level asset.

A respected architect of the next stage of human evolution.

Maybe even someone Yorinobu Arasaka himself would remember.

That thought warmed her more than the station ever could.

“Megumi-san!”

The voice came from behind her.

She stopped near the elevator and turned.

Yamato was running toward her.

For one brief second, the entire station disappeared.

The alarms, the security cameras, the pressure doors, the Arasaka emblem on her chest, the impossible weight of Project D. All of it blurred into the background.

Yamato smiled.

He looked tired. Older than the last time she had seen him. There were shadows under his eyes, and his hair was slightly unkempt, as if he had rushed through half the station just to catch her before she vanished again into another classified shift.

He reached her and pulled her into his arms.

“I missed you, Megumi.”

The words were simple.

They broke something inside her.

She stood stiffly at first, startled by the warmth of him, by the scent of him, by the memory of a life she had been trying very hard not to remember. Then slowly, her body softened. Her hands rose and gripped the back of his uniform.

For months, she had not seen him properly. Yamato had been buried in Arasaka’s cybernetics division, working on an AI-interface project so sensitive even she had not been cleared to read the full reports. She had told herself distance was necessary. That both of them were busy. That ambition required discipline.

But now, held against him, she realized how starved she had been for something human.

“Yamato,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You don’t know how much I needed this.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her.

“We can have this forever,” he said. “You and me.”

Megumi stared at him.

His eyes were full of something dangerous.

Hope.

He lowered his voice.

“We can quit. Leave this station. Leave all of this behind. We can go back to Earth. Live a quiet life in Night City. Raise children. Be ordinary people.”

A small laugh escaped him, soft and wounded.

“We can start that ramen shop we always talked about. I miss your ramen, Megumi. I miss it more than I miss real sunlight.”

Megumi did not answer.

The idea struck her harder than she expected.

Night City. Rain on dirty streets. Steam rising from bowls of broth. Yamato laughing behind a counter. A child running between tables. A life without access codes. Without classified research. Without armed guards standing ten meters away pretending not to listen.

It sounded impossible.

It sounded beautiful.

Yamato stepped back, searching her face.

“Megumi-san,” he said carefully. “Don’t tell me you changed your mind.”

She looked down.

“I thought we agreed,” he continued. “I thought we were leaving soon. I thought we were done selling our lives to them.”

His voice tightened.

“I want to be with you. I want to grow old with you. I want to wake up beside you without wondering which department owns my next breath. I love you, Megumi. Please. Let’s go away.”

Megumi’s throat tightened.

She loved him.

Yamato was not just a lover. He was the one person who still remembered her before Arasaka shaped her into a corporate instrument. He remembered the young woman who cooked noodles in a tiny apartment and dreamed of publishing research that would help people. He remembered the version of her that still believed science could be clean.

But Project D was not just a job.

It was the project.

The breakthrough.

The thing that could put her in the highest circles of Arasaka power. The thing that could make every sacrifice worth it. She wanted recognition. She wanted status. She wanted to sit in the same rooms as people who shaped the world. She wanted to be untouchable.

If she left now, she would lose everything.

If she stayed, she might lose Yamato.

She opened her mouth.

“Y-Yamato… I want t—”

Her holo interface flashed.

A call request appeared in red and gold.

YORINOBU ARASAKA.

Megumi froze.

Yamato saw the name and his expression changed.

“Wait,” Megumi whispered. “I have to take this.”

The holo opened.

Yorinobu’s image appeared before her, sharp and immaculate. Even through projection, his presence filled the corridor. He looked calm, composed, and terrifyingly aware of his own power.

“Yorinobu-sama,” Megumi said, bowing her head.

“My beloved Megumi,” Yorinobu said smoothly. “I wanted to personally contact you.”

Her spine straightened.

“I selected you for this multi-billion-euro initiative myself. I hope my confidence was not misplaced.”

“No, Yorinobu-sama,” Megumi replied quickly. “Of course not.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“I am expecting visible progress in Project D. No more delays. No more excuses. The board has been patient because I told them to be patient.”

Megumi swallowed.

“O-of course, Yorinobu-sama.”

“If this project succeeds,” Yorinobu continued, “it will be a glorious victory for Arasaka. Not just in medicine. Not just in genetics. In the future ownership of life itself.”

His voice lowered.

“And you will have your place beside me on the board. Understood?”

Something hardened inside Megumi.

Fear turned into hunger.

“Yes, Yorinobu-sama,” she said. “I will make sure Project D moves forward without a hitch.”

“Good.”

He gave a thin smile.

“I look forward to your success.”

The holo vanished.

The corridor seemed colder after he was gone.

Yamato turned away from her and walked toward the massive glass observation panel. Beyond it, Earth floated in the darkness.

Home.

Freedom.

A world neither of them had touched in years.

“Megumi,” Yamato said quietly, without looking back. “I will wait for you.”

She stepped toward him.

“I will always be here,” he continued. “Until you change your mind. I will never get tired of loving you.”

Megumi wrapped her arms around him from behind.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

“Please know that I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much, Yamato. I promise I will think about your offer.”

He closed his eyes.

But before he could answer, hurried footsteps echoed from the corridor.

A young woman in an Arasaka lab robe rushed toward them, breathless.

“Megumi-san!”

Megumi released Yamato and turned.

“What is it?”

The assistant’s eyes were wide.

“Cradle Five has succeeded. We have viable offspring.”

Megumi stared at her.

The words entered her slowly.

Viable offspring.

Not cellular clusters. Not unstable organ prototypes. Not neural failures. Not another row of malformed tissue collapsing under cyberware tolerance stress.

Viable offspring.

Human offspring.

Her breath caught.

Without thinking, she turned back to Yamato.

“Let’s talk later,” she said quickly. “Please. I have to go.”

Yamato looked at her.

There was no anger in his face.

Only sadness.

He nodded.

Megumi hurried away.

She followed the assistant down a flight of stairs and into a secure elevator. The doors sealed behind them with a heavy metallic hiss.

She pressed BIOGENETICS LAB.

A red scanner swept over both of them.

“Dr. Megumi Sato. Dr. Ashkin. Authorized.”

The elevator began to descend.

Megumi turned to her assistant.

“Dr. Ashkin. Tell me everything.”

Dr. Ashkin clutched her tablet to her chest.

“We have nine offspring. The care team has transferred them to primary incubators. All vitals are stable. No abnormal neural patterning. No catastrophic organ rejection. No seizure loops. No degenerative collapse.”

Megumi’s eyes widened.

“Compared to previous batches?”

Dr. Ashkin hesitated.

“Nothing like the last four hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred sixty-three test specimens.”

The number hung in the elevator.

487,563.

Failures. Losses. Data points. Bodies.

Megumi had trained herself not to think of them as children.

That was how science survived inside Arasaka.

But today, for the first time, the number seemed to accuse her.

Then the elevator stopped.

The doors opened.

Cradle Five spread before them like a cathedral built by a machine that had learned to imitate God.

Four suspended bridges stretched across the chamber, meeting at a central elevator platform. Around them, hundreds of glass domes glowed in pale blues, greens, and violets. Inside most of them, biomass floated in nutrient fluid, pulsing gently under layers of tubes, wires, and bio-monitoring sensors.

But nine domes were different.

Nine domes glowed green.

Inside them, the biomass had shaped itself into human embryos.

Tiny. Fragile. Alive.

Megumi walked forward slowly at first.

Then faster.

Then she was almost running.

She reached the central console and began scanning through the logs. Vital signs. Cellular stability. Neural activity. Immune response. Organ formation. Cyber-neural receptivity. Growth acceleration windows.

Every number was better than expected.

Every reading was clean.

“This is incredible,” she whispered.

She looked up at the nine glowing domes.

Nine human lives floated before her, each one connected to Arasaka machines by delicate wires.

For the first time in years, Megumi felt something like wonder.

Not ambition.

Not fear.

Wonder.

But the feeling did not last.

Because behind the wonder came another thought.

Yorinobu will see this.

The board will see this.

Project D is no longer theory.

Project D is alive.

Time moved strangely after that.

Days disappeared into lab reports. Weeks dissolved into growth cycles. Megumi barely slept. She ate standing up. She answered messages from senior directors, reviewed genetic stabilization data, signed off on neurodevelopmental conditioning protocols, and personally monitored each of the nine specimens.

Yamato called.

She ignored it.

He called again.

She ignored it again.

At first, she told herself she would respond after the next milestone.

After the next scan.

After the next report.

After the next board update.

After the next crisis.

Then one day became ten. Ten became thirty. Thirty became a season.

The nine fetuses became infants.

Five boys. Four girls.

Arasaka built them a nursery.

They called it the Rainbow Room.

It was the only place in the lunar facility that did not look like a prison. The walls were painted in soft colors. Artificial sunlight glowed from ceiling panels. Gentle music played through hidden speakers. Caretakers in white uniforms changed diapers, warmed milk, recorded reflex responses, and whispered soothing words into ears that were already being studied for profit.

Megumi stood behind the observation glass, reviewing their biomonitoring logs.

Stable neural activity.

Above-average synaptic density.

High cyberware compatibility potential.

Accelerated learning response.

Reduced rejection markers.

Promising emotional bonding capacity.

She crossed her arms and smiled faintly.

“I really hope this batch works,” she whispered to herself. “Then we can finally take this product to market.”

She stopped.

Product.

The word tasted wrong.

She looked through the glass.

One of the infants yawned.

Another curled his hand around a caretaker’s finger.

Megumi looked away.

Her holo interface flashed.

YAMATO CALLING.

She stared at it.

The call rang for several seconds.

She did not answer.

Then came the voice recording.

“Hey, Megumi. I hope you’re doing well. It’s been weeks since I last saw you. I hope we can meet again. I can’t wait to see you.”

His voice softened.

“Please know that I’m always here. No matter the time. I’m always here for you. I will always love you, Megumi.”

The recording ended.

Megumi’s finger hovered over CALL BACK.

For a moment, she almost pressed it.

Her heart pulled one way.

Her mind pulled another.

Then she closed the holo.

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks turned into years.

Project D grew.

So did the children.

They learned to walk inside the Rainbow Room. Then to run. Then to speak. They chased one another between padded walls and brightly colored learning stations. Caretakers followed them anxiously, stopping them from pressing buttons, climbing equipment, or pulling out cables from machines worth more than entire neighborhoods in Night City.

Megumi visited often.

At first, she told herself it was for research.

Then she told herself it was for quality control.

Eventually, she stopped lying.

The children made her happy.

They were no longer just specimens to her. They laughed when they saw her. They tugged on her robe. They asked simple questions with bright eyes. They fought over toys. They drew terrible pictures and gave them to her like sacred offerings.

One day, a little boy walked up to her holding a crumpled sheet of paper.

He was smaller than the others, with dark hair and large, searching eyes.

Megumi knelt.

“Hello,” she said, smiling. “How are you today?”

He handed her the drawing.

She unfolded it carefully.

It was a house.

Beside the house were three figures. A mother. A father. A child.

Above the smallest figure, he had written one word in uneven letters.

ME.

Megumi felt something twist inside her chest.

She looked at the boy.

He stared back at her, waiting.

She smiled and lifted him into her arms.

“You’re so cute,” she whispered.

The boy touched her cheek.

“Mama.”

Megumi froze.

Then she laughed softly, almost nervously, and kissed his forehead.

But her eyes burned.

A man in a white lab robe approached from the entrance.

“Megumi-san. Excuse me. Someone is asking for you outside.”

Megumi set the child down.

“Stay here,” she told him gently.

The door slid open.

Yamato stood on the other side.

For a moment, she did not recognize him.

He looked thinner. Exhausted. His eyes were red, his jaw tight. Three years had carved themselves into his face.

“Megumi,” he said.

His voice was raw.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be here. But I waited. I called you every day for three years. Every single day. You never answered.”

Megumi’s lips parted, but no words came.

“Please,” he said. “Can we have time together? Just once. Just talk to me.”

Before she could respond, Arasaka guards turned the corner.

“You!” one of them shouted. “This area is restricted. Your access level does not permit entry. Return to your station immediately.”

Yamato grabbed Megumi’s hand.

“Come with me.”

“Yamato, wait—”

He pulled her down the corridor.

“Yamato!”

They ran past a service stairwell and into a maintenance passage. Red utility lights bathed the narrow space. Pipes lined the walls. Old tools and sealed equipment crates filled the corners. The door shut behind them with a heavy click.

For the first time in years, they were alone.

Yamato turned to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Then he kissed her.

Not politely. Not carefully. Not like someone asking permission from the world.

He kissed her like a man trying to recover three stolen years.

Megumi resisted for only a heartbeat. Then all the walls she had built inside herself collapsed. She clung to him. Anger, guilt, love, grief, desire, and regret surged between them all at once. They kissed as if the station itself might tear them apart if they stopped.

In that red-lit maintenance room, surrounded by steel and machinery, they found the one place Arasaka did not own.

For a brief moment, they were not researchers. Not corporate assets. Not prisoners with clearance badges.

They were only Megumi and Yamato.

Later, they lay wrapped in each other beneath the dim red emergency lights, looking through the small reinforced window at Earth hanging far away in the black.

Yamato traced his fingers gently along her shoulder.

“Earth is beautiful,” he whispered. “Our only home. Billions of people down there, waking up, eating, fighting, laughing, loving, wasting time like time belongs to them.”

Megumi said nothing.

“Imagine it,” he continued. “We leave this station. We go down there. We start over. You and me. A small place in Night City. A ramen shop. Maybe a child. Maybe two.”

He gave a quiet laugh.

“I know Night City is rotten. I know it’s dangerous. But at least the sky is real. At least rain is real. At least when someone locks a door, you can still dream of breaking it.”

His voice grew heavier.

“These corporations keep us hostage, Megumi. They don’t need chains because they use ambition. They use fear. They give us clean rooms, good titles, expensive food, and little windows facing Earth. Then they call it freedom.”

He looked at her.

“Do you want to be free?”

Megumi closed her eyes.

She wanted to say yes.

She wanted to say no.

She wanted to tell him that he was right, that every brilliant scientist in this facility was a prisoner because every rival corporation would kill to steal them, and Arasaka would rather bury them in lunar dust than let them walk away.

She wanted to tell him she was scared.

She wanted to tell him she had chosen power because freedom felt too fragile.

Instead, she opened her eyes and looked at his face.

For the first time in years, she felt peace.

Then the door opened.

Armed Arasaka agents stormed inside.

Rifles rose.

“Don’t move!”

Megumi screamed.

“Wait!”

A dart fired.

It struck Yamato in the side of the neck.

He arched violently.

“Arrrgh!”

His body seized and collapsed against the floor.

“No!” Megumi shouted. “Don’t hurt him!”

Two staff members rushed in, wrapping a blanket around her and pulling her back. She fought them, screaming, reaching for Yamato as the guards dragged him across the metal floor.

He was still conscious.

Barely.

One guard struck him with an electric baton.

Sparks snapped across his body.

Yamato cried out.

Another baton hit him.

Then another.

“Stop shouting or you’re dead,” one guard barked.

They kicked him until his voice broke into gasps.

“Stop!” Megumi screamed. “Please! Stop!”

They dragged Yamato toward the elevator.

His eyes found hers for one final second before the doors closed.

Then he was gone.

Megumi thrashed against the staff holding her.

“Yamato!”

They dragged her back to her quarters and shoved her inside.

The door sealed.

Megumi collapsed onto the floor.

For a long time, she could not breathe properly.

Then the sobs came.

“Yamato,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

She cried until her throat hurt.

Then the room went silent.

Exhaustion took her.

She fell asleep on the floor.

“Attention. Systems failure in Sector Nine.”

Megumi woke suddenly.

Red lights flashed across her room.

“Attention. Systems failure in Sector Nine.”

The alarm was different this time.

Not scheduled.

Not controlled.

Something was wrong.

She pushed herself up, disoriented.

The lights flickered.

“Attention. Systems failure in Sector Six. All employees must proceed to assigned evacuation positions.”

A deep explosion shook the station.

BAM.

The room trembled.

Megumi stumbled against the wall.

Then the lights went out.

For one second, everything was black.

Then red emergency lighting returned.

Far away, automatic gunfire erupted.

RA-TA-TA-TA-TA.

Megumi ran to the door and pressed the interface.

Nothing.

Only garbled red text flickered across the panel.

ACCESS ERROR.

She tried again.

The panel sparked.

She slammed her fist against the door.

“Open!”

Nothing.

She grabbed her flashlight and swept the beam around the room, searching for another exit.

The ceiling vent.

She dragged a chair beneath it, climbed up, and forced her fingers under the metal grate. It would not move.

Another explosion thundered somewhere below.

The walls shook.

Megumi pulled harder.

Her nails bent.

Pain shot through her fingers.

The grate finally came loose.

She stacked another chair on top of the first, climbed carefully, and pulled herself into the vent.

The metal was cold against her palms and knees.

She crawled through darkness as gunfire echoed through the shafts.

The facility had been breached.

Or hacked.

Or both.

Impossible, she thought.

This base is impossible to breach.

Then another explosion answered her.

Nothing was impossible anymore.

She crawled until she saw an opening below. She kicked at the vent cover until it fell, then dropped through.

She landed badly.

Pain shot through her knee.

“Arrgh…”

She bit down on a cry and forced herself to stand.

The corridor outside was chaos.

Researchers ran past her in panic. Some were bleeding. Some were screaming into dead comms. Some did not look at her at all.

Then an Arasaka security drone descended from the ceiling.

Its targeting lights swept over the fleeing staff.

The machine opened fire.

Bodies dropped.

Megumi threw herself behind a metal cabinet as bullets tore through the corridor. The drone hovered past, scanning for movement, its sensors clicking softly.

She held her breath.

When it moved on, she ran.

Limping, terrified, she made her way toward Cradle Five.

Toward the Rainbow Room.

Toward the children.

She reached the stairs and descended as alarms screamed above her.

At the bottom, she stopped.

The Rainbow Room was ahead.

She thought of the boy.

The drawing.

Mama.

For one second, she hesitated.

Then she ran.

Two drones spotted her.

Gunfire tore through the hallway.

Megumi dove behind a cabinet, then sprinted to the next corner. Bullets sparked against the walls. She moved from cover to cover, driven by fear and something stronger than fear.

She reached the Rainbow Room and slammed the security panel.

The door opened.

She rushed inside and locked it behind her.

The drones fired against the reinforced glass, but the room held.

Inside, the nursery was unnaturally calm.

The nine children lay in separate beds, connected to bio-monitoring systems. Their eyes flickered beneath closed lids as calming braindances kept them asleep through the chaos.

Megumi moved quickly.

Where is he?

Her eyes swept the beds.

There.

The boy.

The one who had called her Mama.

She disconnected the cables carefully but fast. He stirred in his sleep. She lifted him into her arms and pressed his face against her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m getting you out.”

She went through the rear door just as another explosion shook the facility.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

The floor trembled beneath her feet.

She ran down the service corridor, clutching the child tightly.

Ahead, voices crackled through a radio.

“Alpha Team, we have secured Zone Twenty-Six. Repeat, Zone Twenty-Six secured.”

Megumi froze behind a corner.

Arasaka agents moved near the Rainbow Room entrance.

Another voice came over comms.

“Check the specimens. Terminate all remaining assets.”

Megumi’s blood turned cold.

“Affirmative.”

The guards entered the Rainbow Room.

Then came the shots.

One by one.

Megumi pressed her hand against her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Those children were not specimens.

They were hers.

She had raised them. Watched them grow. Heard them laugh. Taken their drawings. Let them call her Mama because some part of her wanted it to be true.

Arasaka did not care.

They wanted the data.

The data was enough to grow more.

More children. More bodies. More cyberware-compatible organ farms. More beautiful lives engineered for profit, sacrifice, and control.

The boy in her arms woke at the gunshots.

He started crying.

Megumi covered his mouth gently but firmly.

“Shhh. Please. Please, don’t cry. We will die.”

The guards heard.

Footsteps rushed out.

“One bed is empty,” a guard shouted. “Someone took one of the specimens. They can’t be far.”

Megumi pressed herself into the shadows.

The child trembled in her arms.

A guard approached.

Five steps.

Four.

Three.

Two.

Megumi closed her eyes.

I’m dead.

BAM.

The guard dropped.

BAM. BAM.

Two more guards fell.

The remaining agents turned, but the shooter moved faster. Precise shots. Controlled bursts. One guard reached for his radio and took a bullet through the wrist. Another fell backward against the wall.

Then silence.

Megumi opened her eyes.

A man stepped through the smoke.

Yamato.

“Megumi!”

She almost collapsed.

He ran to her and pulled her close.

For a second, she could only touch his face, unable to believe he was real.

“You’re alive,” she whispered.

He nodded, breathing hard.

“Barely.”

She clutched the boy tighter.

Yamato looked down.

“Who’s this?”

Megumi swallowed.

“Mine,” she said. “It’s a long story.”

Yamato stared at her.

Then, despite everything, he gave a faint, broken smile.

“Of course it is.”

Megumi looked around at the destruction.

“Did you do all this?”

“Partly,” Yamato said. “But most of it was someone else.”

“Who?”

“A netrunner from Earth. Very talented. Maybe insane. She came all the way to the Moon to burn this place down.”

Megumi frowned.

“How did she know?”

“She found Project D. She said it had to be destroyed before Arasaka used it to manufacture life like spare parts.”

He glanced toward the shaking walls.

“She said she was here to destroy what was left of Arasaka, even if it cost her life.”

Yamato’s voice softened.

“Whoever she is, she must have loved someone very much to go this far.”

Megumi looked at him.

Then she kissed him.

Not with passion this time.

With grief.

With apology.

With a promise.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Let’s go home to Earth.”

They ran.

The child clung to Megumi’s neck, crying softly.

They reached an elevator. Yamato slammed the control panel and selected DOCKING STATION C.

The doors closed.

The elevator dropped.

For a moment, the chaos faded into the hum of machinery.

Megumi turned to Yamato.

“I promise,” she said, breathless. “When we get out of here, I’ll make the best ramen you’ve ever tasted.”

Yamato laughed softly, one hand pressed against his side.

“Use the finest ingredients.”

“I will.”

“No station-grown imitation pork.”

“Never.”

“No synthetic broth.”

“Real broth.”

He smiled.

“I can’t wait to be home with you.”

They kissed.

Then the boy tugged at Megumi’s robe.

“Mama. Mama.”

Yamato looked down at him.

“Cute boy,” he whispered. “You get your own ramen too, big guy.”

The elevator lights flickered.

Then the doors opened.

A barrage of bullets tore into the elevator.

Yamato shoved Megumi and the child down.

He returned fire instantly.

An Arasaka Type-90 combat robot stood across the docking platform, flanked by drones. Yamato fired, moved, fired again. Bullets struck the elevator walls around him.

Then one hit him in the stomach.

“Yamato!”

He grunted but stayed upright.

“I’m okay!”

He was not okay.

He lifted a compact grenade launcher and fired.

The Type-90 exploded in a burst of metal and flame.

“Move!” Yamato shouted.

They ran across the platform.

Megumi carried the child while Yamato covered them. Drones poured into the docking bay, their rotors screaming. Yamato shot one down, then another. He ducked behind cargo crates, reloaded with shaking hands, and fired until his weapon clicked empty.

“I’m running out of ammo,” he said. “We need to get you on a ship now.”

They reached the nearest shuttle.

The hatch was open.

“Get in!” Yamato shouted.

Megumi climbed inside with the boy.

Yamato strapped them both into the seats.

“Yamato, come on!”

He looked back.

More drones entered the bay.

Too many.

They opened fire.

Bullets hammered the shuttle hull.

Yamato stood at the hatch.

For one terrible second, Megumi understood.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no. Yamato, get in.”

He smiled at her.

The saddest smile she had ever seen.

“Megumi,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Know that I love you until the very end.”

“Yamato!”

“I’m always here.”

He touched the glass beside her.

“Enjoy the ramen in memory of me.”

Then he closed the hatch.

Megumi screamed.

“No! Yamato!”

Yamato hit the autopilot launch control.

The shuttle engines ignited.

The docking clamps released.

As the ship blasted away from the lunar facility, Megumi threw herself against the restraints, sobbing, screaming his name.

Through the small window, she saw Yamato standing alone on the platform.

Drones surrounded him from all sides.

Bullets struck his chest.

His legs.

His shoulder.

He staggered but did not fall.

Instead, he reached into his bag and pulled out a compact nuclear charge.

He looked toward the vanishing shuttle.

Then he smiled.

“Johnny Silverhand,” he whispered. “It’s my time to shine.”

He activated the device.

A white light consumed the docking bay.

Then the entire facility disappeared beneath a rising bloom of fire.

The Moon flashed behind them.

Megumi watched helplessly as the shuttle sped through space, Earth growing larger ahead while the lunar base shrank into a burning wound behind her.

The boy cried in her arms.

Megumi held him close.

Her tears floated in the zero gravity, small silver drops catching the light of the distant blue planet.

“Y-Yamato…”

Her voice broke.

Then exhaustion, grief, and darkness took her.

And the shuttle continued toward Earth.

 

[R4DZ]

PART 5 - The Plan

_______________________________


Megumi’s thoughts stopped wandering the moment the knock came.

It was sharp.

Metal against metal.

Three hard strikes against the sliding door, each one cutting through the low hum of the generator outside and the soft clink of chopsticks against ceramic bowls. The small room, warm only moments ago with the smell of ramen, oil, and boiled meat, suddenly felt smaller. Colder. The yellow light above them flickered once, casting long shadows across the rust-stained floor.

Wvigo stood up immediately.

His chair scraped against the metal flooring.

Yahiko looked toward the door, his eyes narrowing with concern.

"Who's that?"

No one answered.

Outside, the Badlands wind dragged dust against the walls like fingernails. Their home was little more than welded scrap, patched panels, old cargo plating, and family stubbornness. It had survived sandstorms, heat waves, and stray bullets.

But that knock carried something worse than weather.

Wvigo steadied his arm as he walked toward the door.

His fingers twitched close to his side, ready to reach for anything. A wrench. A blade. A hidden pistol. Anything that could buy even one second of survival.

Megumi’s face changed.

The mother vanished.

Something older, harder, and more dangerous appeared behind her eyes.

"Careful, Wvigo."

She moved quickly toward one of the steel cabinets against the wall. At first glance, it looked ordinary. Old. Dented. Painted over too many times. But Megumi’s fingers knew exactly where to touch. She stood beside it, shoulders angled, body tense, as if ready to pull open a hidden compartment and bring out a secret weapon.

Yahiko saw her.

Wvigo saw her.

Neither of them asked.

The silence between them said enough.

Wvigo took a deep breath and opened the door.

"SWOOSH."

The door slid open.

The night outside was full of guns.

A group of Snake Nation mercenaries stood under the dim wash of generator lamps and vehicle headlights. Dust swirled around their boots. Their armor was a cruel mixture of stolen corporate plating, snake-painted leather, and Badlands scrap. Rifles hung from their shoulders. Pistols rested at their hips. One had a machete strapped across his back. Another had glowing optics, red as cigarette embers in the dark.

And in the center stood Billy.

Snake Nation squadron leader.

Smiling like a man who had already won.

"Ey, partner. Care to let me in?"

Wvigo did not move.

He remembered every scuffle. Every time Snake Nation came demanding tax payments for staying in the camp. Every shove. Every threat. Every reminder that, in this place, even breathing had a price if men like Billy decided to charge for it.

Billy sensed the hesitation.

He stepped forward and patted Wvigo on the shoulder.

The gesture looked friendly.

It was not.

"We came in peace, partner. Can we talk?"

Wvigo stared at him. Then at the mercenaries behind him. Then back at Billy.

He knew refusal was not really an option.

Slowly, he lowered his guard and motioned for Billy to come inside.

Billy entered like the house belonged to him.

His men stayed outside, but the open doorway framed them clearly enough. Their silhouettes waited in the dusty dark, weapons ready, eyes watching. The message was simple: this conversation had an audience, and that audience could become an execution squad at any moment.

Megumi quietly closed the hidden compartment in the steel cabinet.

Whatever she had been hiding, no one saw.

Not yet.

"Greetings, and welcome to our humble home," Megumi said.

Her voice was polite, but her hand remained close to the cabinet.

Billy smiled at her.

"It’s nice to see you, Megumi. It’s been a long time since we last saw each other. We have quite a memory, don’t we?"

The words hung in the air.

Wvigo looked at his mother.

Yahiko looked at her too.

Megumi’s expression tightened for half a second. A memory passed through her face like a shadow crossing the moon. Fear. Gratitude. Shame. Something buried.

"Uhhh... of course. I can never forget your kindness."

Billy pulled out a chair and sat down without asking.

The chair creaked under him.

His eyes wandered lazily around the room. The bowls of ramen. The patched blankets. Yahiko’s nervous hands. Wvigo’s clenched jaw. Megumi’s controlled breathing.

He saw everything.

Men like Billy survived by seeing weakness before anyone else did.

"No worries," Billy said, leaning back. "I came here to talk to your son. Wvigo, I know you’re of age now. I know you work the maglev rails for some corp. And I understand that your mother never wanted you taking merc jobs, criminal jobs, or any of those downright dangerous jobs. She wants you to be an upstanding citizen of these god-forsaken hell lands. Fine. Fine. I understand."

He glanced at Megumi, then back to Wvigo.

"But hear me out, Megumi. The Aldecaldos are threatening to take these parts by force. As of the moment, they have the numbers, and more importantly, they have the hardware to obliterate our hold in this territory. So, in short, we can’t fight them toe-to-toe. A strategy must be called to order."

The name Aldecaldos changed the room.

Even Yahiko understood that much.

The Aldecaldos were not just another gang rolling through the dust. They had convoys. Fighters. Nomad discipline. Worse, they had hardware that could turn Snake Nation camps into burning scrap in minutes.

Megumi stepped closer to Wvigo.

"My son is not a mercenary. He knows nothing about fighting, killing, or doing illegal things. I don’t want my son to be part of any of this."

Billy’s smile disappeared.

Not fully.

Just enough to reveal the rot beneath it.

"Your son, unfortunately, became linked to this after the raid at the rail station, where he was the only witness who saw the Aldecaldo raiders take that piece of Militech tech. Surprisingly, they never killed him, even though he saw their faces. And even more interesting, he may have attempted to fight them off."

Billy tilted his head, amused by Megumi’s horror.

"So your son is more than capable of taking care of himself. He is no weakling, as you claim he is."

Megumi looked at Wvigo.

Her eyes were wide now.

Yahiko slowly turned toward his brother.

Wvigo felt their questions before they spoke them. He had hidden too much. The raid. The gunfire. The stolen Militech tech. The Aldecaldos. The girl who spared him.

He said nothing.

His silence betrayed him.

Billy leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"So my proposition is simple. We take their most powerful weapon so we can fight them on equal terms and dissuade them from further weakening our hold in these parts."

He let the next words fall slowly.

"We will kidnap Pevee Palmer. The princess and head of the Aldecaldo raiders. We will demand the surrender of the Basilisk tank in exchange for Panam’s daughter’s life. This will strengthen our hand immensely. Nobody gets hurt."

The air seemed to drain out of the room.

Pevee Palmer.

The Aldecaldo sniper.

Panam’s daughter.

The girl on the rail station ridge.

Wvigo remembered the red flash of her scope. The dust storm behind her. The shotgun smoke near his hands. The moment she could have pulled the trigger and ended him.

But she had not.

He looked at Billy.

"And what if Panam refuses to surrender the Basilisk?"

Billy smiled again.

Slow.

Sly.

Evil.

"I’m sincerely hoping we don’t get to that. But if we do, then we will have no choice but to kill her daughter."

Yahiko swallowed hard.

Megumi’s jaw tightened.

Wvigo’s anger rose hot and immediate.

"I don’t like it. I am not going to hurt, kill, or kidnap someone for you."

Billy laughed.

It was not loud.

That made it worse.

It was the laugh of a man who had expected resistance and had already prepared the knife.

"I’m not even asking you, Wvigo. I’m ordering you. If you refuse, your mother and brother will be killed. You have nowhere to hide. The sheriff already suspects you had a part in that heist. The Aldecaldos may dispose of you once they find out you’re a loose end. You have no choice but to help."

The threat entered the room like poison gas.

Wvigo glanced at Yahiko.

His younger brother was trying to look brave, but his hands had curled into fists under the table.

Megumi did not flinch.

But Wvigo knew her too well. He saw the small movement in her throat. The controlled breath. The calculation behind her eyes.

Billy paused.

Then that sly smile returned.

"And one last thing. I will forgive all your tax payment delinquencies for this year. Save your eddies for something else. Maybe use them to send your brother back to Night City so he can study in Corp Uni."

He let the offer sit beside the threat.

A discount beside a death sentence.

"So..."

He tapped his fingers on the table.

"Think about it, Wvigo. Holo me once you’re ready. My crew will do some recon and let you know the most appropriate time to pounce."

Then Billy noticed the unfinished bowl of ramen.

The steam was almost gone now.

He reached for it.

"Smells so good, Megumi."

Without asking, he took the bowl and lifted it to his mouth.

"Slurpp..."

"Ahhhhh."

He drank it slowly, his eyes never fully leaving Wvigo.

"Delicious."

It was not hunger.

It was domination.

Then Billy stood up and looked Wvigo in the eye.

"Let me know as soon as possible. Or else."

He walked out.

His men followed him back into the dust and generator light.

The door slid shut.

The room fell into abrupt silence.

Not peaceful silence.

Wounded silence.

The kind that follows a home invasion.

Yahiko was the first to speak.

"Brother. I want to help you."

Wvigo snapped back.

"Yahiko, you have to go back to Night City. This is not the life for you. I need you back in Night City by Monday. I scraped together some eddies for your special project. I can’t compromise your future, Yahiko."

Yahiko’s face twisted.

The fear vanished.

Anger replaced it.

"What future? I don’t want to be a corpo slave. I want to be free. I want to be here with you. With Mother. I want to be here, in this dusty outback, living the nomad dream. Away from the stench, chaos, and darkness of Night City."

His voice trembled, but he pushed through it.

"I’ve seen it, Brother. I’ve seen it all. I want to stay here."

He stood up and walked straight to his room.

His footsteps struck the floor hard.

Then his door shut.

Wvigo stared after him.

"Yahi-ko..."

Megumi approached Wvigo and gently patted his back.

"Don’t despair. Your brother will eventually have to choose his destiny. And you should choose yours wisely as well."

Wvigo turned sharply.

His voice came out harder than he intended.

"Mother, I can’t allow Yahiko to trash his life. Fine, I can be an outlaw. I can run sketchy jobs. But I can’t let Yahiko become a good-for-nothing merc. His talent and genius deserve more."

Megumi did not answer immediately.

The generator outside coughed. The lights dimmed, then returned.

On the table, Billy’s stolen bowl sat empty.

Megumi stared at it as though it were an omen.

Then she said:

"You know, there are choices I regret. Choices that should have led to a different outcome. I regret them every single time. I keep asking myself what could have turned out differently. But you see... life will always find a way. There is a reason for everything."

Wvigo frowned.

"But, Mother—"

Megumi interrupted him.

"What matters now is that you pray joining Billy’s crew will not result in killing your hostage. He has changed a lot since the last time we met."

Wvigo’s eyes sharpened.

"About that... you knew him?"

Megumi smiled, but there was no joy in it.

Only distance.

"Yes. He was completely different before. He saved me. He protected me. When he found me walking around the desert with you, he was just a lowly Snake Nation footman at the time."

She looked toward the door Billy had just walked through.

"Power changes people."

Wvigo stared at her.

"Ohh... you didn’t tell me this. I thought you were with Father when you came here."

Megumi looked away.

For a moment, she seemed much older.

"Someday, you will understand, Wvigo. The truth of your past."

The words sank deep.

The truth of your past.

Wvigo wanted to demand answers. He wanted to force the hidden thing into the open. But the night had already given him too many problems and not enough breath.

Megumi looked back at him.

"So focus on working out the plan for the job with Billy. He said this girl spared your life, no?"

Wvigo hesitated.

"Er... yeah. She did."

Megumi’s expression softened.

"As I have said, son, there is a reason for everything. It is a quantum infinity of possibilities. The beauty of life. Remember, you owe her your life. If this girl truly spared you with good intentions, then promise me you will not hurt her."

Wvigo lowered his gaze.

His fingers curled.

"But Billy says he will hurt you and Yahiko if I refuse to follow his orders. What if the job goes bad and I end up having to kill her?"

Megumi stepped closer.

She touched her son’s face.

Her hand was rough from years of work, sun, dust, and survival. But the touch was gentle.

"You will know when it happens. Sometimes we don’t know the answer yet."

Then she walked away.

Wvigo remained standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by everything he was trying to protect.

His mother.

His brother.

Their home.

Their fragile peace.

And now all of it had been placed against the life of a girl who had spared him.

He went outside.

The door slid open.

The Badlands night opened before him like a vast black wound.

The moon was high, silver and merciless. It washed the desert in pale light, turning rocks into bones and abandoned vehicle shells into dead beasts half-buried in sand. A few campfires burned in the distance. Generator lamps flickered around scattered tents and metal homes. Farther out, vehicle headlights moved slowly across the flats like predators searching for prey.

Dust moved around Wvigo’s boots.

The wind smelled of oil, dry earth, hot metal, and old blood.

He remembered Pevee.

The Aldecaldo sniper.

The Princess of the Aldecaldos.

He remembered the rail station. The screech of metal. The stolen Militech tech. The bark of gunfire echoing between cargo structures. The brawler with the shotgun. The moment Wvigo charged. The impossible second when Pevee had him in her sights.

She could have killed him.

She should have killed him.

But she spared him.

Why?

Did she spare him because there was still mercy left in the Aldecaldos?

Did she spare him because she saw something in him?

Or did she spare him because he was useful alive? A witness. A scapegoat. A loose end left dangling until the right moment?

He did not know.

But he knew what Billy would do if he refused.

He saw Yahiko dead.

He saw Megumi bleeding on the floor.

He saw their home burned open under Snake Nation headlights.

His fear turned into anger.

His anger turned into resolve.

He looked up at the moon.

"Ugghhh... I don't know what to do..."

An hour passed...

Then his holo lit up.

Blue light flashed across his face.

It was Billy.