Cyberpunk 2077 Fan Fiction: Hollow Boy

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I started playing the original Cyberpunk game all the way back when it was a box and three handbooks, and I've loved it ever since. When I first stepped into the Night City of Cyberpunk 2077, it felt like coming home. This short story, Hollow Boy, is my first fanfic set in the Night City of the CDPR game. I want to tell the story in stages, and will be adding to it every couple of days. I hope that those who read it, enjoy it!

Hollow Boy

Chapter One

“Kei,” came the voice, along with an insistent shove. “Kei.”

That couldn’t be Gata, thought Kei muzzily. She knows better.

“Get lost,” muttered Kei. She pushed her head deeper into the foam pillow.

“Kei, you need to wake up right now. It’s about Lil Ton,” said Gata.

“What the hell.” Kei pushed herself up and half out of her sleeping bag, running a hand over her face. Her mouth tasted like an ashtray, and she didn’t want to know what her hair looked like. Kei yawned, and scratched her armpit.

“Smokes,” she said. Gata, perched near her like some kind of anxious forest simian, pulled a pack of New Yuans and a lighter from Kei’s jacket, handed them to Kei.

Spark. Drag. Breathe. Kei blinked, rubbed her eyes “So what about Lil Ton?” she demanded.

“He got got, Kei. Sometime last night.” Gata’s face seemed to bounce along her eyeline.

“Ah, Jesus.” Kei took another drag, ran her hand over her face again. “What the hell, G. Who did for him?”

“Nobody seems to know. But that’s not the worst part,” said Gata.

“How can Lil Ton being dead not be the worst part?”

“It’s messed up, Kei. You need to see.”

The sounds of the day were beginning to come through the walls of the boathouse where Kei flopped. “I can’t leave now, Gata,” said Kei. “There’s working stiffs out there, doing their, y’know, jobs and whatever. Might not be too happy about me living here, and this is the best squat I’ve had in six months. That’s why I lay low during the day, only come out at night.” A thought struck her. “G, when did you come in here?”

Gata looked down. “Like, ten minutes ago.”

Damn!” Kei swore. “Well, that’s goodbye to this place, then.”

“Nobody saw me come in,” said Gata defensively.

“Trust me,” said Kei, rolling up her sleeping bag and looking for her boots, “Somebody saw.” She pulled on her camo pants and began lacing her boots. “Gimme five minutes to grab my gear,” said Kei, “then we’ll go see Lil Ton.”

* * *



“No,” said Kei, “that’s just messed up.”

She stood with Gata in front of the open cargo can. The taggers had already been making their comments on the scene with spray paint. Not all their words were kind.

Lil Ton, or what was left of him, was spreadeagled on the floor of the can. It looked like a nail gun had been used on his palms on his bare feet to anchor him to the metal. That wasn’t the worst part.

His abdominal and chest cavities had been scraped hollow, like some kind of horrible dugout canoe. That was the worst part.

No blood anywhere in the can. Flecks of red meat inside the massive open cavity where Lil Ton’s insides used to be, but no blood in the can itself.

Against her will, Kei’s eyes were drawn to look at Lil Ton’s expression, and that was when she had to turn away and puke.

Afterwards, Kei sat on a concrete barrier overlooking the water, and she couldn’t stop her shoulders and arms from shaking. In a reversal of their usual roles, it was Gata rubbing her back and muttering reassuring words.

“Sorry I gave you a tough time, G,” managed Kei. “You were right to come find me straight off. Even in Northside, the cops can’t leave him there for long. And if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Who the hell would do that to somebody, Kei?” asked Gata. “Scavs? Some new Maelstrom initiation?”

Kei shook her head, looking out at the water and trying to flush the memory of Lil Ton’s expression from her mind. “Scavs would have taken his eyes, knee joints, would never just waste the hands and feet. Maelstrom…I don’t see it. Gonna ask Barkbite, though, just to make sure.”

“You’re gonna ask around about this?” exclaimed Gata, her eyes wide. “Something like this, sounds like time to get gone.”

Kei turned and stroked a hand affectionately along Gata’s olive-skinned cheek. “Goddam, G. We’re dock rats in Northside. Where the hell else is there to go?”

* * *

Kei walked through the dockside flea market, eyes darting back and forth. The sight of Lil Ton’s body had dialled her normal caution up past eleven. Some kind of full-on freak haunting the docks? she wondered. Somebody I know who snapped and went max twitch? Suddenly, the faces of people she had seen every day for years seemed like dangerous strangers.

With a nervous glance behind her, Kei hopped onto the rusted back stairs of PieZ. Jimmy Trip, the kid who ran the place for his doped-out folks, had always had a bit of crush on Kei. Not enough to let her eat for free – biz was biz – but enough to save leftovers for her, and throw in the occasional Nicola that “fell out of the machine.”

Kei gave the back screen door her usual double-tap and waited. It wasn’t long before Jimmy scoped her and gave the door a push. “You’re up early,” he said as she slipped in. “Keep to the corner, outta camera range. The franchise sees you here, they give me crap, maybe pull my license.”

“I know the drill, Jimmy,” drawled Kei, trying to sound more casual than she felt. “How’s biz?”

“Quiet,” said the teen, not looking up from the premade food he was loading from boxes on the floor into the fridge. “Nobody wants a pie for breakfast, not even the calzones. Past the morning synth-caf rush, so now it’s just prep and inventory.” He straightened. “I heard about Lil Ton. I’m real sorry, Kei.”

“Same here, Jimmy. What are people saying?” Kei perched on the stool Jimmy kept in the camera’s blind spot and tried to ignore the hunger pangs she was feeling as she looked at all the food in the pantry.

“This one’s real messed up. Nobody’s sure. Doesn’t stop ‘em guessing, though.” He glanced over at Kei. “Got some overstock from yesterday’s order. I’d just have to throw it out anyway. You want it?”

Kei gave a little smile, careful not to look too grateful or worse, desperate. “You’re a prince, Jimmy Trip.”

The teen tried to hide his blush and gave a little shrug. “Doin’ me a favour. Saves me on garbage fees. Ten minutes, okay?”

“Thanks.” Kei stood up and opened the door, standing half in, half out. “So what are they guessing, Jimmy?”

The teen paused, not meeting Kei’s eyes. “That Lil Ton was turning tricks, got picked up by a freak.”

“If that was a john,” said Kei grimly, “the pros of Northside are in even more trouble than usual.”

* * *

Jimmy might have called it overstock, but to Kei, the food tasted pretty damn fresh. She felt rather than saw the skinny girl appear behind her.

“Plenty for both of us, Gata,” said Kei, pushing a pie across the patio table. It wasn’t technically true, but looking out for your chooms was an unwritten code of the street. Gata pulled out a rusty chair and dug in enthusiastically. People might refer to Kei as slender, but nobody called Gata anything but skinny. Sometimes it looked like the only thing holding flesh and bone together was a kind of perverse optimism. That, and a doglike devotion to Kei.

“So did Jimmy know anything about…y’know, Lil Ton?” asked Gata, in between bites.

“Nah,” replied Kei. “Word on the water says it might have been a twitchy john, but that doesn’t scan to me. Do you know if Lil Ton was turning tricks?”

“Not that I heard,” said Gata, gulping down jellied fruit and dough. “Any turning pro without Riker’s say-so is gonna get a red smile, and Riker has no time for anybody that hangs with you. If you guys are still beefing, that is.”

“Huh,” said Kei dismissively. “That loser still thinks he owns a piece of my ass.”

Gata looked at her friend, wide eyed. “You better watch it, Kei. People take Riker seriously now. He hears you talking about him like that, maybe he pays you a visit.”

“We’ll see. I got that boy’s number, don’t you worry. But what the hell are we gonna do about Lil Ton?”

Gata swallowed, frowned. “What do you mean? Do?”

“He was a choom, Gata. He was one of us. And our boy got messed up.”

The skinny girl looked down at the gooey mess in front of her, tracing her finger in the pie filling. “What can we do, Kei? Street ate him up. He’s gone.”

“No way,” said Kei firmly. “If some john did go twitch on him, we’d light him up. Some Maelstroms did some kinda job on him, maybe one or two go missing. Some Pacifica boys pulled some freaky voodoo shit, we drop a bumboclaat. We don’t just hang our heads and thank plastic Jesus that it was him and not us, like we’re goddam victims or garbage like that.”

Gata looked up at her friend, uncertain. “For real?”

“For real,” answered Kei. “You telling me if some jerk clips me tomorrow, it’s just so long? Loved ya, now you’re gone? Or do you say, ‘That was my friend, and she mattered.’ Lil Ton matter to you?”

Gata looked down, sucked jelly off her finger, looked up. “Yeah. For sure. He mattered to me.”

“Then we have to make sure somebody knows he mattered. That he had people,” said Kei fiercely. The more she talked about it, the more she could feel the anger boiling inside her. She wasn’t sure if it was for her friend, who sure as hell didn’t deserve to go out like that, or at the thought of Kei herself getting zeroed, and the world not even noticing.

Kei stood up. The hell with this. They were gonna make sure that people knew; that people knew you couldn’t just do…whatever the hell they had done to Lil Ton, and then go on like it didn’t matter.

“We’re gonna find out, G,” she said. Gata stood up nervously. “We’re gonna start asking around for real. That means it’s time to tool up. Go strap on whatever you have. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”
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If things got bad, real bad, then Kei always knew there were two things she could do. The first was go to her stash, which was for emergencies only. Inside a battered backpack was a Unity 9mm pistol, two clips of ammo, a battered old external cell phone, and all of Kei’s savings.

The second thing she could do is power up the battered cell phone and dial the one number in its primitive memory.

She looked at the phone for a long time, weighing the heft of it in her hand. Finally she sighed, and slipped the phone into the front pocket of her camo pants. The pistol went into her belt, right in the small of her back. Her puffy jacket would hide it. The old K-Bar knife, that went with Kei everywhere, was tucked into her right boot. The backpack and the eddies returned to her stash spot.

Kei walked along the docks with a casual swagger that she did not feel. She knew, like any dock rat knew, that half of avoiding becoming somebody’s victim was making sure not to walk like a victim. Still, sometimes that was easier said than done. She couldn’t shake the mental picture of Lil Ton, nailed to a cargo can, looking like something in a meat processing plant.

Who does that to somebody?

Kei had seen a lot of things, living on the streets. It tended to rob you of illusions about what people could do to other people. It was why she made damn sure she had a safe place to sleep at night.

Dammit. Kei remembered that Gata had ruined the safety of her flop, and that she had no safe place to sleep tonight.

Just another thing on my goddam list, she thought. She’d have to find a safe place to stow her sleeping gear, see about maybe arranged shared watches with Gata wherever she was squatting.

The rest of Northside seemed to be settling into its rhythms. Robotrucks pulled away from warehouses in a steady stream, carrying cargo cans to wherever their ultimate destinations might be, Night City just one stop on the long journey of microchips or stuffed animals or vibrators from production to retail. Kei had been witness to enough cans “getting lost” in the stacks (and then opened up) to know that their products were almost infinite in variety.

The few dockworkers who still had jobs sat far above the action in their enormous gantries, surveying the constant processes of loading and unloading by robotic cranes and delivery systems moving like worker ants from container ship to warehouse and back. Human involvement was only required in the event of certain kinds of accident, like a can slipping out of a crane’s grip and plummeting into the water or smashing spectacularly onto the concrete.

Although it was rare, it still happened. Some dock rats waited patiently for these events, scuttling from their hidey holes to scavenge whatever spilled out of a fallen can. Sometimes a second can would fall, set off by the first, and leave a red stain where the scavengers had been.

Risks of the game.

I guess maybe that’s what’s bothering me, realized Kei as she walked back to the flea market. Everybody knows that the game has risks. You get got, that’s your hard luck. But what happened to Lil Ton, that’s not part of any game I recognize.

“Hey, Lorelei,” she said, walking up the stall of the women who sold factory-reject clothing. Some cargo inspectors liked to check the stuff right out of the can, and substandard clothing, with missing zippers or a misspelled brand name or whatever, was sold on the megacheap to people like Lorelei. The inspectors wrote the stuff off as rejects and pocketed the profit.

“Hey Kei,” smiled the woman. She was a part of what Kei thought of as old school Northside; Lorelei had been selling clothes at her stall for as long as Kei could remember. She was visibly older now, her dreads more grey than blonde, but retirement plans weren’t a thing for people like Lorelei. “Just got some new ziptops yesterday. You like?”

The elderly clothes seller held up a pretty sweet looking jacket, all reds and blacks. Above the familiar swoosh was written, “Nuke – Just Do It.”

Kei laughed. “Yeah, can’t see the bosses wanting that in their flagship stores. Appreciate the sentiment, though.”

“Twenty eddies for you, sweetie.”

“Sorry, Lorelei,” answered Kei, shaking her head. “Other priorities right now. You hear about Lil Ton?”

Lorelei’s face fell. “Oh, sweetie. Yeah, I heard. How awful. That poor boy.”

“You hear any talk about likely suspects?” asked Kei, trying to sound casual.

The clothes seller wasn’t fooled, however. “Kei, you be careful. The kind of person who’s going to do something like that is very serious, sweetie. Not the kind of person you want to find.”

“So you don’t think it was gangers?” persisted Kei.

Lorelei shook her head. “If it was Maelstrom, they’d have their tags all over it. And if it was another gang doing that in Maelstrom territory, they’d be tooling up right now.”

“Maybe they are.”

“Trust Lorelei, sweetie. They’re not.” The old woman smiled briefly, then looked directly at Kei, her expression serious. “Trust Lorelei on this too, sweetie. Don’t go looking for who did this. I know Lil Ton was a choom for you, but you should let it go.”

“Would you? If he was your choom?” asked Kei, and walked off.

First Gata, now Lorelei. People telling her to back off. The hell with that. Your friends were supposed to have your back, to look out for you, to step up if you got dropped; otherwise, what was the damn point?

The thought of just disappearing, sinking into the water without even a ripple to show where you’d been, make Kei shudder. She pulled out the battered cell phone from her pants pocket, examined it. She held the ‘on’ button, just checking to see if the battery still works, she told herself. The phone powered up with a cheery tone, the screen lighting up.

Kei stared at it for a long time.

“Hey, Kei,” came Gata’s shy voice from behind her. Kei quickly pocketed the phone and turned to face her friend.

“Hey, G. You tooled up?” Kei regarded her friend critically. If she was carrying, it didn’t show.

Gata blushed. “Kinda. No iron, but a shockrod strapped to my arm inside my sleeve.” She lifted her left arm.

Kei sighed. “That’ll have to do. Just don’t jolt yourself readjusting your ponytail or anything.”

Gata nodded unenthusiastically, as if that possibility had not occurred to her. Her hand automatically went up to check her ponytail, but she stopped herself. “Where we going first?” she asked.

“Let’s see if we can find Barkbite.”
 
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Technically, everything up to the docks was Maelstrom territory, but at this hour of the day you were never going to find any gangers north of Pershing Street. Kei knew that Barkbite liked to hang out with his metalhead friends around an old garage off Martin, where they had a few old standalone arcade games powered up and restored.

Kei had known Barkbite since he had been called Trevor; before he chromed up and got jumped in by Maelstrom. They had kind of hung out together in their early teens, sort-of-but-not-really dating. Then Kei had been roped in by Riker’s smooth talk, and Trevor had gotten sick of getting stomped by guys bigger than him. So Trevor had become a ganger, and Kei had become one of Riker’s girls, until she had wised up to what Riker was all about.

Kei turned on to Martin Street, Gata trailing behind her, and it wasn’t long before she spotted the garage. They couldn’t just walk up to the garage and talk with the gangers – that was a good way to get stomped – so instead, Kei sat down on a concrete barrier with eye range of the garage, and lit up a smoke. In a generous mood, she even gave one to Gata as well.

After about twenty minutes or so, Barkbite came sauntering out of the garage, and headed over to their corner. “Hey, Kei,” he rasped. The synth-box on his throat made him sound much older than he actually was. He ignored Gata.

“Barkbite.” Kei nodded to him. “How’s life in chrome?”

“Nova.” The ganger extended an augmented arm, twisted it to show a digital readout on the inside of his forearm. On the readout was a series of numbers, counting down.

“What’s that?” asked Kei.

“Countdown,” said Barkbite. He gave a laugh, which the synth-box made high-pitched. “How much time I have left on this world, before I punch out.”

“You gonna off yourself when the count hits zero?” asked Kei in disbelief.

“Nah,” said Barkbite with another high-pitched giggle. “I’ll just reset it.”

Kai decided to get to the point. “You hear about Lil Ton?”

“Your choom? Yeah, I heard. Somebody decided to do some interior redecoration.”

Kei kept her face neutral. “Was that Maelstrom work?”

“Us? Nah. We take something out, we put something chrome back in.” Another giggle.

“Any word on who did it, then?” Kei persisted.

Barkbite shrugged. “Probably some crazy.”

“Okay,” said Kei. “You hear anything, maybe you let me know?”

“Preem,” replied Barkbite. He eyed Gata, ocular implants scanning her up and down. “You change inputs, maybe you let me know.” He gave a final laugh as he slouched back to the garage.

“Wow,” said Gata. “I can’t believe you used to see that guy.”

“He sounds tougher than he actually is,” said Kei, feeling a little wistful before coming back to herself. “Why do you think they called him Barkbite?” She got up from the concrete barrier. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Kei was feeling deflated. She had gone to Lorelei to see if there was any gossip among the old-school Northsiders, and had come up empty. She may not have trusted Barkbite to know (or share) the inner workings of Maelstrom, but he had seemed certain, and besides, her own instincts were telling her that what happened to Lil Ton what outside of the gang’s M.O.

So where did that leave her?

“Hey. Streetslut.” A woman’s voice, nasty. Behind them.

Ah. This is where it left her.

Kei spun around, whipping out her pistol and marching up to confront the woman who had called her out. Short, hollow-eyed, sneering, teetering on plastic heels. One of Riker’s “girls.”

The woman went wide-eyed as Kei stepped up to her and ground the pistol into her cheek.

“Calling me streetslut is real funny, coming from you,” Kei snarled. “You got anything else to say to me?”

“Easy,” whined the woman, putting her hands out. “Easy! Riker wants to see you, is all.”

Kei held the pistol pressed against the woman’s cheek for a moment longer. “Then he knows where to find me. Or he can ask nicely. Now it’s time for you to delta, bitch.”

Kei watched the woman scramble off around the corner before tucking the pistol back into her camos.

“Um,” ventured Gata, “you want to get like, a synth-caf or something?”

“Yeah,” said Kei, still looking where the woman had gone, “yeah, that might be a good idea.”

* * *

Kei bought two synth-cafs from Jimmy and sat down at with Gata at one of his rusted metal patio tables. The table wobbled, and Jimmy came out with some folded napkins to put beneath a leg.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” said Kei, sipping at her synth-caf. A thought occurred to her.

“Gata, can I flop with you tonight? I can’t go back to the boathouse.”

Gata blushed.

“As friends, G. Nothing else.”

“I know.” Gata took a cautious sip. “Sure you can, Kei. As long as you don’t mind coming late and leaving early.”

“You still at the shelter?” asked Kei.

“Yeah. They’ll let you and me share a bunk for a couple of days. After that, they might get a little bent about it.”

Kei raised an eyebrow. “Share a bunk?”

“I heard you the first time, Kei. There’s no extra beds at the shelter, so we have to share,” Gata snapped. “Take it or leave it.”

“Sorry.” Kei knew she had pushed her friend too far. “Thanks, Gata.”

“Yeah, whatever. It’s my fault for ruining your squat at the boathouse.”

“Nah,” replied Kei. “I can’t blame you for that. You did the right thing, coming to tell me what had happened. When was the last time you saw him, anyway?”

Gata didn’t need to ask who him was. “Maybe around seven or eight last night? Here in the market.”

“What was he doing?” asked Kei.

“Going to Iron and Lead.”

Kei’s eyes narrowed. “Shopping for a piece?”

Gata shrugged. “Dunno.”

“We should find out,” said Kei.

“Let’s finish our synth-caf first,” pleaded Gata. “They taste like crap when they’re cold.”
 
“Heya, Sil,” said Kei, walking up to the counter of the gun shop.

“That’s Mister Mapusua to you, young lady,” said the owner, but he was smiling.

Kei smiled back. Silesi Mapusua, the owner of Iron and Lead, was known throughout Northside as a decent guy. He’d never loan you a gun on credit, of course, but he’d never sell you cheap ammo either. He was a straight shooter – literally, if the awards on his back shelf were real.

“So what can I do for you? Looking to start a reign of terror? Bathe the streets of Night City in fire and blood?” he asked, polishing the parts of an Overture revolver he had laid out on a cloth on the counter.

“Needed to ask you something,” said Kei, leaning on the counter.

“Don’t smudge the glass, young lady. So, ask away,” said Silesi.

“Lil Ton was in here last night.”

Silesi frowned. “That’s not a question.”

“C’mon, Sil.”

The owner shook his head. “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry, Kei. I know he was your friend. But I want no part in spreading rumours.”

“Neither do I, Sil. I want to find answers,” pressed Kei.

“Answers huh? And if you find answers, what will you do? Call the NCPD? Go for some ‘street justice?’” he demanded, making air quotes with his fingers. “Your friend is dead, Kei. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Kei felt like a dog, worrying at a bone. “Sil,” she ventured, “we know each other.”

“You don’t know me, young lady.”

“I know that you wouldn’t be this edgy if you didn’t feel guilty about something,” she said, suddenly knowing it was true.

Silesi’s shoulders dropped. He stared at Kei. “Hold on,” he said finally. He emerged from behind the counter, closed the front door and locked it. Then he went into the back for a moment, before emerging with a brushed steel gun case. Silesi laid the case on the counter facing Kei and Gata, then popped open the clasps.

Inside was a heavy Colt .45, its barrel and action burnished chrome. It was the handgrip that drew the eye, however. It was a flat white, almost like ivory, with a pattern of black that looked as if ink had been spilled on it.

“It’s beautiful,” breathed Kei. Gata leaned in for a closer look.

“That’s real ivory on the handgrip,” said Silesi. “The black is called obsidian. This pistol is one of only twenty designed by a weaponsmith named Christian Onyx. Died years back.”

“It must be worth a fortune,” breathed Gata.

Silesi snapped the case shut. “Lil Ton came into my shop last night with this gun, wanting to know how much he could get for it. I’m not a cheat. I told him it was worth a lot, said I would shop around among my contacts, see what kind of price I could get. Minus my commission, of course. But Lil Ton didn’t want to wait. He wanted to know how much I could give him right there and then.”

Silesi gave Kei a sad look. “I don’t know if this boy is trying to cheat me or not. But the gun looks legit, and it’s worth a lot to the right buyer! So I give him five large, and off he goes. Now, now I think that boy got killed over this gun.”

Gata looked at the case lying on the counter like it was a venomous snake. “So Lil Ton walked outta here flush last night,” she said.

“No more than usual. At least recently,” said Silesi.

Kei’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

“Lil Ton’s been flashing eddies for the last week. Bought a Chao off of me a few days ago, with a nice ankle holster,” he replied.

Kei and Gata looked at each other.

“Maybe you didn’t know your friend as well as you thought,” said Silesi.

* * *

Kei flicked her cigarette butt into the oil-slicked water of the Bay, lit another one. She knew she was going through smokes way too fast, but oh well.

“What the hell was Lil Ton up to?” she said out loud.

“Maybe Jimmy was right,” Gata ventured. “Maybe he was turning tricks. How else would he get that flush with eddies?”

“Okay, hold on,” said Kei, handing Gata a cigarette. “Let’s walk this through. So let’s say Lil Ton gets himself a nice fat sugar daddy. Suddenly, he’s getting paid. He keeps it real close, but he buys a decent pistol for protection.”

“It’s what I’d do,” Gata shrugged.

“Agreed. But then, Lil Ton walks into Iron and Lead with something real expensive, something worth a lot of eddies. Gets himself a big payday, but only a fraction of what he could have made if he had been willing to wait for like, a week or so. He wants to get paid on the spot,” said Kei.

“A quick score like that means you’re fiending and need a fix, or you’re looking to get out of town,” offered Gata.

Kei looked at her friend. “When’d you get so smart?”

Gata blushed, and Kei punched her shoulder affectionately. “You’re right,” Kei admitted. “So unless Lil Ton blew his roll on drugs, he was looking to get the hell out.”

“So where did he get the gun?” asked Gata.

“Klepped it from his sugar daddy, I guess.” Kei took a drag, breathed the smoke out through her nose.

“So the sugar daddy’s our suspect?”

“What are you, NCPD Blue?” snorted Kei. “Our suspect. Yeah, detective. He’s our guy.”

“You got a better idea?” challenged Gata.

“No,” admitted Kei. “No, I don’t.”

“So Sil said that only twenty of these guns were made,” said Gata. “Maybe we go on the Net to look up who owns one in Night City.”

Kei’s eyebrows shot up. “Damn, girl.”

“C’mon,” said Gata, pulling her friend towards a ubiquitous DataTerm. “What did Sil say the name of the designer was?”

“Uhh…Christian Onyx,” said Kei.

“Right,” said Gata, punching away at the touchscreen. “Let’s have a look.”

“When did you become like, a crimesolver?” asked Kei. She was a little fascinated, and if she was honest, even a little turned on. This was a side of Gata that she’d never seen before.

“Mysteries are kinda my jam,” said Gata absently, scrolling through results. “Damn, Kei.” She let out a low whistle. “Check it out.”

“The Christian Onyx Ebony and Ivory Limited Edition,” read Kei. “Retail value…one hundred and fifty thousand eurodollars?”

Kei and Gata looked at each other.

“He had no idea,” said Kei.

“No. Not a clue,” replied Gata. “He was never gonna get away with that.”

Kei closed her eyes, rubbing them. “Oh, Ton.”

“That was him,” said Gata. “A wild child with no goddam clue.” She wiped at her eyes. “Sweet guy, but just no idea. He wants to run, of course he kleps the most expensive thing he sees.”

Kei looked at her friend, wondering for the first time if Gata had been holding a crush for Lil Ton as well as her. Not the time to ask, choom.

Did that make her feel a little jealous?

“So,” said Kei, shaking her head, “we got an address for this sugar-daddy?”

Gata resumed typing at the keypad. “Hold on…twenty guns originally made…ten still survive…yeah, one here in NC!” Her face fell. “Crap. It just says Private Collection, owner in Charter Hill. No name, no address.”

Kei put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Worth a shot, choom. We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” said Gata, discouraged.

The two of them walked slowly, disconsolately back to their perch looking over the water. Kei felt the synth-caf churn in her stomach as the first hunger pangs of the day kicked in. They’d need to run some kind of score soon, if they wanted to eat. Either that, or dip into Kei’s savings that she’d pulled out of her stash.

Idly, Kei found herself wondering what it would be like to have a hundred and fifty thousand eddies. Her own place, that’s what she’d start with. Put down a deposit and have an apartment, a real apartment with a shower. Then some new clothes. Maybe even a haircut. Then maybe go down to Iron and Lead, get something better than the clunky Unity sitting in the small of her back right now, get a real shiny don’t mess with me pistol that let people know she meant business…

“Hold up,” Kei said, sitting up straight.

“What?”

“Sil must have known who this gun came from.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gata.

“In less than five minutes on the Net, you found out all this stuff about the gun. Sil’s like, an expert. This is what he does. So this preem gun lands on his counter, Sil knows exactly where it came from,” said Kei.

“What are you saying, Kei?” said Gata slowly. “Are you saying Sil snitched out Lil Ton?”

“I dunno,” said Kei, lifting her hands helplessly. “Maybe? How the hell should I know? Sil’s one of the nicest guys in Northside. But the minute he sees that gun, what’s he gonna be thinking?”

Gata squinted as she look at the water and thought. “Okay. Sil’s gonna be thinking one of two things, right? Either he sells the gun on the downlow or he contacts the owner and says, ‘hey, I got your gun, come get it and bring me a nice little finder’s fee.’”

“If Sil picked option B, that’s Lil Ton done,” said Kei. “Cuz when Sugar Daddy gets that call from Sil, Sugar Daddy knows Lil Ton ripped him off.”

“But if that happened, no way Sil shows us the gun,” replied Gata. “He just shuts up about the whole thing and moves on.”

Kei’s head hurt. The hunger pains were coming in steady, she hadn’t had enough sleep, and she’d been going on cigarettes and synth-caf. All of these ifs and maybes were starting to swirl around and blur.

“Come on,” she said, standing up. “Let’s get burgers. I’m buying.”

“For real?”

* * *

The smell of the burgers on the burner made both of their stomachs growl. Kei had decided the hell with it and sprung for a burger, a side of fries, and a NiCola for each of them. She watched as Gata took her box of fries and drowned them in ketchup.

They munched on fries as they stood and waited for the burgers to be finished.

“Thanks, Kei. What made you decide to shell out for all this?” Hot as they were, fries were disappearing with astonishing speed into Gata’s mouth.

“Cuz life’s too short, G.” Kei stared at their burgers as the cook put the patties onto buns, adding fakin bacon, onion chips, and dried seaweed. He served them up in paper wrappers, and Kei and Gata took their treasures to a booth.

“What’s that mean? ‘Life’s too short.’” Gata sucked the ketchup off her fingers and took a huge bite of her burger. “God, that’s good.”

“Whaddya mean, what’s that mean?” said Kei around a mouthful of fries. “It means what it says. Life is too short to be worrying all the time.”

“Oh. Ok. Gotcha. Like YOLO.”

“Yeah,” said Kei, “like YOLO.” She suddenly felt very old. “Listen, Gata, I need you to do me a favour. To promise me something.”

“For sure,” said Gata. She took a sip of her NiCola. “What’s up?”

“I got this phone.” She slid the old cell phone out of her pants pocket, put it on the table. “Something happens to me, you call the number on this phone.”

“Uh…” Gata eyed the phone like Kei had put a dead rat on the table. “That sounds like death talk, Kei. You were the one who always told me, you start talking like that, you’re just asking for it.”

“I know I did, Gata. I know. But I’m still saying this to you, right now. So will you do this for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” replied Gata nervously. “You want me to, uh, take the phone off you or what?”

Kei powered the phone up, showed her friend the contact list with its one number. “Just write it down, G. And call it if something happens to me.”

“If something happens to you, Kei, then it’ll happen to me too, because we’ll be together, right?” said Gata, trying not to sound too emotional, and failing.

“I know,” said Kei. “But just in case.”

“Holy shit, you spring for a burger and fries, you act like it’s the end of the goddam world,” said Gata.

Kei snorted. “Gonna make me inhale NiCola,” she said. “Now be a pal, and get me more ketchup.”

“Be a pal,” mimicked Gata. “What are you, fifty?”
 
The sounds of people getting up and getting ready for the day eventually broke through the skin of Wyatt’s dreams, and he reluctantly opened his eyes.

“Haul ass, bro, or you’ll miss breakfast,” said Mason, his bunkmate.

“Not like that would be a tragedy,” muttered Wyatt, but nevertheless he swung himself out of bed and began his morning routine. Ten minutes later he was filing out of the prefab barracks pod and taking his place in the chow line, then sitting down at a table in the mess hall.

“Mmm-mm,” said Mason sarcastically, forking his way through a portion of scrambled Redi-Eggs. “Militech does take care of its troopers, don’t they?”

“Think they’re gonna move today?” asked a trooper further down the table. Nobody really wanted to think about the quality of the food.

“They’re not gonna move,” scoffed another trooper. “They’re hunkered down all happy, even set up their algae farms last night.”

“Huh,” said the first trooper. “What do you think, old-timer? You’ve been on nomad duty longer than any of us, I figure.”

The men at the table turned to look at Wyatt. He sipped at his Synth-Caf. “They’ll move today,” he said quietly.

“What makes you say that?” asked Mason.

“Jodes don’t like to be watched, any more than any kinds of Nomad like to be watched,” replied Wyatt. “They’ll know our contract is with the state government, and that we’ll stop dogging their tracks when they cross the state line. The camp will move today, and get us off their asses.”

“Then why did they set up their algae farms?” demanded the second trooper belligerently.

“To mess with us,” said Wyatt calmly. “Those are dummy tanks, to catch us wrong-footed and unprepared. They really don’t like us, you know; they only do that to make us look stupid. When you said they’d set up their farms, that’s how I knew they were planning to move.”

The trooper muttered something that Wyatt couldn’t hear. He ignored it.

They were just in the process of returning their trays when the on-duty sergeant barreled into the mess hall and shouted, “Everybody to their stations! The Jodes are on the move!”

Mason grinned at Wyatt as everyone began to scramble.

* * *

Wyatt popped the canopy on the Basilisk and used his binoculars to focus on the retreating caravan. The techies in the nomad camp loved to snow electronic sensors with what they called “digital chaff;” there was no way the sensor suite on an old Basilisk was going to break through. Instead, Wyatt relied on the Mk I eyeball to follow the movement of the Jodes caravan. He grinned to himself as he homed in on the ragged squadron of ATVs playing rearguard for the caravan. As one, just as they crossed the state line, the ATV drivers stood up on their four-wheelers, turned, and gave the one-finger salute to their Militech pursuers.

Wyatt smiled quietly, returning their salute. “Now you’re Nebraska’s problem,” he muttered. “Happy trails, nomads.” He slid back down into the compartment of the armored vehicle and sealed the canopy. “Return to base, amigo,” he said to Mason. “They’re over the line.”

“Another day, another dollar,” said Mason happily, as he swung the heavy vehicle around on its air cushion. “End of mission bonus today, buddy? I think so.”

“Base to Chuck Wagon,” came the broadcast into their coms.

“This is Chuck Wagon, go ahead,” Wyatt replied.

“Wyatt, you know how you asked me to keep an eye on that extra coms line? A call just came in. You’ve got a message on your encrypted cell.”

Mason glanced over at Wyatt, who had turned as stiff as a statue. “Roger that, Base,” Wyatt finally managed. “Thanks, Wayne. I owe you one.”

“Over and out.”

“Wyatt, is that your – ” Mason began, but Wyatt cut him off.

“Just get us back to base, Mason. Thanks.”

Wyatt kept himself under iron control as the Basilisk flew inches over the broken terrain.

Kei. It had to be.

He’d waited years, hoping.

When Mitsuko had finally left, taking their baby in tow, Wyatt really hadn’t had the heart to blame her. He had been a mess when he was home between tours in the Cent-Am wars, present enough to put a baby in Mitsuko’s belly, but absent in every way that mattered.

“I know you’re never gonna want to call me,” he’d said, and it was true. He’d been a shit husband, in every single way. “But the kid, the kid might want to know her old man at some point.” He’d given Mitsuko an old-school Finnish cell phone, blue and grey. “These things last forever,” he’d said to her. “She ever wants to, she can call me on this number. Trust me, I’ll get the call. Tell her that, Mitsuko, once she’s old enough to understand.”

Mitsuko had said nothing, just nodded, but she’d taken the phone. Wyatt knew she would be as good as her word. His wife would never talk to him again, but she would give their daughter the phone, and his promise.

Now, seventeen years later, somebody had called the number.

Gear down, old-timer, he said to himself. You don’t know who’s called. Somebody could’ve found the phone in an alley. That message could be anything.

It’s Kei. It has to be.


“Goddamit,” he muttered between clenched teeth. Mason looked at him anxiously, but said nothing.

His friend had barely brought the Basilisk to a halt before Wyatt had popped the canopy and jumped down, giving the vehicle a slap by way of thanks to his friend before running to the barracks pod and tearing open his rucksack.

There it was, the phone that matched the one he had given to Mitsuko all those years ago. Its screen said, You have (1) new message.

Wyatt forced himself to pause, to breathe, to count to ten. Then he listened to the message.

“Uh..hi. Look, Kei told me to call this number if she was in trouble, and…well, she’s in trouble. If you can, whoever you are, come to Night City and find me at the Saint Scholastica Women’s Shelter in Northside. My name’s Gata. Uh…bye, I guess. Look, if you’re coming, come quick.”

Wyatt looked at the phone. For a moment, his mind was completely blank, and refused to process anything of what was going on. Panic seized his muscles, froze his bones. A surge of adrenaline washed through his body.

He closed his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them. Wordlessly, Wyatt walked out of the barracks pod and into his c.o.’s office.

* * *

“The contract isn’t technically up until we demobilize, Karnecki.” The colonel was leaning back from his desk on his console chair, stretching his legs. He fiddled with a stylus.

“Understood, sir.” Wyatt stood at ease, his eyes focused on the distance.

“That means you lose your bonus, and you pay a penalty for breaking your contract.”

“Yes, sir.” What a piece of work. The job’s done, and we both know it. Guess I know whose pocket my bonus will drop into.

“Well, if you’re sure, Karnecki. We hate to lose you.” The colonel sighed.

“Thank you, sir.” You’ll be glad to see the back of me. We both know I could do your job better than you, and it makes you nervous around me.

The colonel pressed a key on his console, then handed Wyatt a tablet. “Thumbprint here to acknowledge termination of contract.”

Wyatt pressed his thumb on the appropriate place. There was a little beep.

“Alright, Karnecki, that’s it. Grab your gear and be off base by 0600 tomorrow.”

“Roger that, sir,” Wyatt replied.

“We’re in the ass end of nowhere, Karnecki. How are you getting out?” asked the colonel curiously.

“I’ll figure something out, sir.” Wyatt pivoted on his heel, and marched out of the office.

There was really only one person he wanted to say goodbye to. Wyatt found his co-pilot in the mess hall, sipping a Synth-Caf.

“Hey! Everything ok?” called Mason. Wyatt strolled over and took a seat next to him.

“Not really, Mace. Personal stuff. I’m out. Wanted to say goodbye before I left.”

“I’ll bet Colonel Winters did you out of your bonus,” said Mason sympathetically.

Wyatt just smiled.

“Okay, good buddy. You take care. And have some sympathy for me; you know this means Carmello takes your place on Black Betty.”

Wyatt slapped his friend on the shoulder and stood up. “You’ll manage, Mace. See ya. It was nice working with you.”

“You too,” said Mason, watching the rangy man stride put of the mess hall. He shook his head. “Crazy old coot.”

* * *

Wyatt had been around military bureaucracies long enough to know that someone was always going somewhere, and for a few eddies or a favour they’d take you with them. From the Militech base camp he became part of a supply run to a major Militech supply depot, and from there he talked his way onto a jump seat for a sub-orbital shuttle to Night City.

He walked out of the terminal in the pre-dawn hours. There was no point trying to track down this Gata character – who had sounded all of about fifteen – until the morning. He needed a shower and a shave, and maybe even a couple of hours of sleep. Wyatt walked up to a Delamain that was sitting at the curb, and slid in the back.

“Good evening, sir, or perhaps I should say morning. What is your destination?” asked the face on the screen.

“Somewhere cheap where I can sleep but not worry about getting robbed,” said Wyatt, rubbing his face.

“May I suggest the No-Tell Motel in Kabuki,” offered the Delamain AI.

“Sounds about my speed,” muttered Wyatt. “Let’s roll.”

Wyatt had been out in the Prairie badlands for weeks, and the contrast with the streets of Night City was jarring. Even at this late hour, the billboards and signs were flashing their news, their ads, their endless streams of information and offers that melted and blurred into a digital slurry of light and noise.

“Maybe the Jodes have it right,” murmured Wyatt.

“Excuse me, sir?” came the voice from the screen.

“You’re good,” said Wyatt. “Keep driving. How much longer?”

“Under current traffic conditions, twenty minutes.”

When he had been younger, Wyatt Karnecki hadn’t really noticed the sheer levels of biz that Night City pumped out, twenty four seven. And this is at three o’clock on the morning on a fucking Tuesday, he thought to himself. Midnight Friday night must be unreal.

He rubbed his face again. You’re getting old, Wyatt, he thought. You never thought you’d live this long, did you? Motoring through the jungle in Cent-Am, stupid “Born to Die” tat on your bicep, smart-chipped and ready to rock-n-roll on a dime. Nobody thought we’d hit twenty-five, let alone thirty. Now look at you. Almost forty, trying to find your teenage kid in who the hell knows where? Northside? Isn’t that the damn dock district?

“Jesus,” he said out loud.

“Sorry, sir?”

“Nothing,” said Wyatt. “Stop listening, dammit.”

The cab rolled silently through the streets of Night City.

Wyatt felt himself falling asleep. The sub-orbital shuttles really pounded your bones when you were sitting on a jump seat rather than the g-shock cushioned chairs of the passenger section. Christ, don’t fall asleep here, he thought to himself. You’ll wake up in a scav ice bath, if you wake up at all. He activated the biomonitor implant on the inside of his left forearm and gave himself an adrenaline shot. The crash would be rough, but by then he’d be in his own room, hopefully.

“We have arrived at our destination, sir. The No-Tell Motel,” the screen announced.

Wyatt watched the eddies leave his account as he stepped out of the taxi. He wasn’t really worried about it – he really hadn’t spent his money on much since Mitsuko had left him – but he’d made a habit out of what they used to call penny pinching, whatever the hell that meant.

The motel was about what Wyatt had expected. He didn’t really care; he’d slept in all kinds of shittier places. As long as there was a lock on the door and running water available, he was good. After checking in, he stumbled up the stairs, down the hall and into his room just as his adrenaline shot was wearing off and the crash was coming. Without bothering to pull back the covers, he racked out on the bed, closed his eyes, and was gone.
 
Gata went through her morning routine at the shelter – shower, dress, a modest breakfast provided courtesy of the St. Scholastica Foundation - and made her way down to the front desk. Shelter policy was to be out of the building by 8 am.

“Someone came looking for you,” said Lucy, the front desk worker, eyeing Gata with a hint of disapproval. A man. I told him he wasn’t allowed to disturb our residents. I think he’s waiting outside."

“Ok, thanks,” said Gata, slinging her purse over her shoulder.

“It’s shelter policy, Miss Negrita,” Lucy called after her. “No visitors, ahem.”

“Got it, Lucy,” the teen called back tiredly.

She walked out of the Shelter casually, but inside she was nervous. After what had happened to Kei, she was on alert, even as she waited hopefully for some sign of the person Kei had made her promise to call. Some guy waiting for her? Could be good, could be bad. Either way, she had to find out.

Gata squinted as the morning sunlight hit her eyes. Across the street from the hostel was a man smoking a cigarette and leaning against a wall. Tallish dude, kinda rangy looking. Plaid workshirt and jeans, what looked like an army gearbag slung over a shoulder. Seeing Gata looking at him, he gave a nod and started crossing the street towards her.

He was wearing a big pair of aviators, but she could see that his face was kinda tan and drawn, almost like rawhide. He had an easy stride.

“Hey,” he said. “You Gata?”

“Who’s asking?”

The man took off his aviators, and Gata was struck by how kind the man’s eyes were, for all that he looked like he could use a week’s sleep.

“My name’s Wyatt, Gata,” he replied. “I’m Kei’s dad.”

* * *

The two of them sat across from each other at a booth in a nearby diner. Wyatt sipped on a coffee – a real coffee – and regarded the girl sitting across from him. He figured Gata for maybe fifteen or sixteen, rail thin, black hair in two long braids. She looked like she could use a lot of square meals.

“I didn’t even know that Kei had a dad,” said the girl, sucking on a milkshake. “I mean, obviously she had a dad – everybody has a dad, right? – but not like, still in the picture.”

“I haven’t been in the picture. Not for a long time,” said Wyatt.

“Oh yeah, right. But I mean, she still knew how to get a hold of you.”

“Why don’t you finish that food,” said Wyatt, “and tell me what happened.”

Instead, Gata tried to do both at the same time. “Okay, so Kei had this phone, right? This thing looked about a hundred years old. She gives to me, and says, something happens to me, you call this number, so I, uh, so I…” tears began running down Gata’s cheeks, and she swallowed her food with difficulty.

“You did the right thing, kid,” said Wyatt awkwardly. “You did the right thing. Where’s Kei now?”

Gata wiped her eyes. “The Free Clinic in Kabuki.”

“She’s alive?” Wyatt held his breath.

Gata nodded. “Yeah. They have her, uh, under sedation, they called it.”

Wyatt slowly let his breath out. “Okay. We’re gonna go there soon, Gata. Together. But first, do you think you can tell me what happened?”

“That’s kind of hard, actually,” replied the girl. “You see, I’m really not sure.”

“What do you mean?”

Gata took a breath. “Well, I guess it all started when our friend Lil Ton got killed,” she began.



* * *

They rode together in silence in the back of a Delamain cab. This keeps going, I’m gonna have to buy a bike or something, thought Wyatt. Can’t just cab it all over town, and I don’t think NC knows what a bus looks like.

Gata was chewing gum and tapping her foot against the floor. Wyatt couldn’t tell if she was nervous, bored, or both.

Jesus. What the hell do I know about teenagers? Worse, teenage girls? I guess I’d better figure it out fast, he thought to himself, because I’ve got one of my own, and I’m seeing her real soon.

“We have arrived at our destination,” announced the screen.

“Thanks, Del,” replied Wyatt, not sure why he felt the urge to reply to a screen. He held the door open as Gata slid out.

“I don’t think I’ve ever ridden in a cab before,” she said, popping her gum.

“It gets old real fast,” Wyatt assured her, closing the door.

“Sure beats walking.”

The sign over the door simply said, “Free Clinic.” The exterior of the building could have used more than a fresh coat of paint; it could have been sandblasted and roach-bombed and still looked like hell.

Gata hung back. “You uh, you go on in. I’ll join you in a sec. You got a smoke I can bum off you?”

“Sure.” He slipped her two, feeling weirdly like he was contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The kid’s probably been smoking since she was twelve, you moron. “See you in there.” He walked through the sliding front doors.

The waiting area smelled strongly like a layer of disinfectant had been laid over the deeper aromas of human fluids. None of the odors had won out; instead they all wove together into a miasma of human sickness and misery.

Wyatt tried to shut this out as he walked to the registration desk. A tired looking nurse didn’t look up from the keyboard in front of her, but simply said, “Fill out the paperwork on the clipboard in front of you. Do you have a licensed health care provider?”

“I’m not sick,” replied Wyatt. “I’m looking for Kei Karnecki.”

The nurse looked up. “Are you a family member?”

“I’m her father.”

The nurse typed at her screen, and frowned. “Her admission form says no living family.”

“Here’s my ID,” he said, sliding a hard plastic card across the counter. The nurse picked it up and stared at it, still frowning.

“And do you have a licensed health care provider, Mr. Karnecki?”

“Can I please see my daughter? I just want to know she’s okay. I promise we can take care of the financial stuff after.”

The nurse gave him a look, as if she had heard the same line many times over, but she relented and tapped an entry on her keyboard.

“I’ll buzz you in,” she said. “Trauma Room Six.”

“Thanks,” said Wyatt, pushing the door to her right as soon as it buzzed. The smell on the other side of the door was a little better, and the corridor seemed clean. It appeared the Free Clinic tried to keep as much misery at bay in the waiting room as possible.

Wyatt strode down the hallway, counting the rooms until he found Trauma Room Six. He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, counted to ten. Then he pushed the door open, and walked in.

His daughter lay in a hospital bed, tubes stuck in her. Her eyes were closed, and her chest was steadily rising and falling. Wyatt was stunned at how much she looked like Mitsuko. He couldn’t see anything of himself in her. It actually felt like a bit of a relief.

“Hello, Kei,” he said softly, moving to the side of the bed. “I’m your father.”

Wyatt stood there silently, looking down at his daughter, absorbing the simple fact of her existence. He had always understood that he was a father in the abstract, but now it seemed real in a visceral way he had never felt before. Wyatt hadn’t been there for her birth, or for any of her birthdays, for that matter.

But he was here now. It wasn’t much, but it was all Wyatt had to offer.

There was a soft double knock at the door, and Wyatt turned as a woman in scrubs slipped into the room.

“Mr. Karnecki? I’m Dr. Moreau,” she said. She was wearing gloves and a surgical mask, which she slipped down from her mouth. Wyatt could see flecks of blood on her scrubs.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Wyatt, finally voicing the question he had been wondering for days.

“We’re not totally sure,” answered the doctor. She looked tired. “We know that it’s some kind of toxin, but what don’t know what it is precisely.”

“Can you fix it? What happened?”

“The toxin was delivered into her bloodstream via her left foot,” replied Dr. Moreau. “We think that might have made the difference. If it had entered a major artery, it would have overwhelmed her system immediately. We were able to slow down her system and minimise the damage.”

“Minimise the damage,” Wyatt repeated. “What kind of damage are we talking about here, doc?”

Dr. Moreau frowned. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. The toxin inflamed the pain transmitters in her nerves. The sheer shock of the overwhelming pain would have killed her if we hadn’t sedated her completely. I don’t know how to stop her nerves from sending out constant pain signals. We flushed the toxin out of her system, but we can’t reverse the neural damage that has already been done.”

“So if you woke her right now…” Wyatt began, his stomach clenched in a tight knot.

“The shock of the overwhelming pain would kill her almost immediately,” finished Dr. Moreau.

* * *

In a kind of daze, Wyatt walked slowly out of the Free Clinic. The rest of Dr. Moreau’s words had retreated in his mind, into a sort of fog. He knew she had told him something about the health effects of long-term sedation, and something about heavy neuro-blockers causing paralysis, and all sorts of information that he should probably process, but couldn’t just right now.

Somebody had hurt his daughter. Badly. So badly that she had to be kept asleep, because the pain would kill her if she woke up.

He felt someone touch his arm. “Uh…Mr. Karnecki?” The combination of bubble gum and cigarettes had to be Gata.

“Wyatt,” he muttered numbly. “Call me Wyatt.”

“Uh, okay, Wyatt,” said Gata, leading him over to a bench. “Why don’t you just siddown for a minute. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

Wyatt allowed himself to be led, and sat down. Everything felt grey, and it felt like there was a roaring in his ears.

“Jesus. Is she that bad?”

He looked up. “Have you seen her since you brought her in?”

“No,” said Gata, nervously pulling on a braid. “It’s like I told you. I found her in the alley, and Kei was just curled up, whimpering. She stank of booze. She was mumbling a mile a minute, but the only thing I could work out was that she needed to get to the clinic, and fast. So I got some help as quick as I could, somebody with a ride, and we put her in the van and got her to the clinic.”

The fog and the roaring in Wyatt’s head were beginning to recede. “You saved her life,” he managed. “Thank you.”

Gata blushed and looked down. “Good,” she said in a small voice. Then she asked, “So what happened to her?”

Wyatt pulled out a cigarette, slipped one to Gata without thinking, then lit them both. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, as he exhaled.

“I dunno, kid,” he finally managed. “Somebody messed her up. Badly. Injected her with a toxin that set her pain receptors on fire, but started with her foot, so it wouldn’t kill her right away.”

Gata paled. “Jesus Christ,” she managed, her fingers trembling as she sucked on her cigarette.

“Yeah.” Wyatt just sat and stared, trying to process his thoughts. That was his daughter in there. His kid. She was in trouble. Kei needed him.

“Is she…” Gata’s voice shook, then she tried again. “Is she going to be okay?”

Wyatt turned and looked at her. Really looked at her, taking her in as a person for the first time. Skinny teenage kid, lotta nervous energy, but probably pretty tough if she had made it to her age living on the street. Loyal, and she had guts. The kid hadn’t spooked and bolted when Kei was in serious trouble. Gata was his daughter’s friend, and obviously a true friend. Life didn’t give anyone too many of those.

“Yeah, Gata,” he said, infusing as much certainty into his voice as he could. “We’re gonna make sure she’s okay.”

“Alright,” replied the girl, nodding her head, “good.”

The two sat there for a moment, before Gata pulled at a braid nervously and said, “Uh…how?”
 
Wyatt really didn’t have any appetite, but Tom’s Diner served real coffee, gave them a comfortable place to sit, and it seemed like Gata’s capacity for food was much larger than her narrow frame implied. As good an ops room as any, thought Wyatt, as he explained his thoughts to Gata.

It was nice, actually. Working through his thoughts out loud, with another person listening, kept everything at a bit of a distance and helped him avoid losing it.

“Okay, kid,” he said, as Gata worked industriously at a bowl of ramen, “so here’s the deal. I’ve got some resources – like, money to get a room at a decent place, buy a junker of a car to get around in. What I don’t have is the kind of money necessary to get Kei out of the Free Clinic and to doctors that can fix whatever was done to her.”

Gata paused in her noodle slurping to nod. “Gotcha.”

“Jesus, kid,” muttered Wyatt, sliding a napkin across the table. “Leave some in the bowl.” Gata blushed.

“So,” he continued, “that gives me the resources to start digging around, figure out who did this and where to find them.”

“Us,” slurped Gata.

“Huh?”

“Us,” repeated Gata, wiping her mouth. “No way you’re doing this on your own. She’s my choom, got it?”

Wyatt put up his hand and starting to say something, but Gata kept going. Her face was red, but she looked determined. “Uh-uh. You’re here because I called you, you’re in my city, my neighbourhood, and Kei is my friend. So that means we do this together. Got it?”

Once, when he was out hunting by the river as a teen, Wyatt had accidentally walked too near a hidden duck’s nest. A furious mother duck had emerged to drive the startled young man away, and a flustered Wyatt had fallen into the river.

The experience was very similar to what he was facing now.

Wyatt looked at her for a moment and said, “Got it,” extending his fist across the table. “Partners?”

She looked at him, then bumped his fist. Wyatt noted the scars across her knuckles. “Alright,” she said warily. “So go on.”

He could have said something sarcastic, but Wyatt really did need her help, and besides, the plain and simple truth was that Gata had been there when Wyatt had not. So he simply nodded.

“Okay,” resumed Wyatt, “so I’m thinking the fancy high-priced gun is the key. Lil Ton kleps the gun to fence it for a ticket outta here, he gets done, you and Kei start sniffing around after it, Kei gets lifted and ends up in an alleyway.”

“I’ve been thinking about that part,” said Gata, finishing her noodles. “I don’t get it.”

“Tell me what you don’t get,” prompted Wyatt.

“Like, the whole thing. Whoever did for Lil Ton, they messed him up. Like, took their time over it. Then left him like that, for everybody in Northside to see. A message.”

“Okay.”

“Kei was curled up in a ball in the alley, still breathing. Whoever gave her that hotshot, it had only just started to do its thing. Somebody was planning to go to work on Kei, but they never got a chance to finish.”

Wyatt leaned back in the booth. “Huh.” He tried to block out the images of his daughter, helpless in the hands of some sadistic prick. Keep the distance. Solve the problem. That’s what this kid is doing; so can you.

“Alright,” he said, “I can see that.”

“You ok?” asked Gata. “You look kinda pale.”

“Yeah,” said Wyatt heavily, “I think so. It’s just…”

“Wyatt,” said Gata, locking eyes with him, “this is life, here. This is my life, this is your daughter’s life. You think Northside street rats go home to pink bedrooms with fluffy pillows and stuffed animals? When they do that, it’s because some john is paying extra for a kiddie kink.”

Wyatt looked down at his hands, closed his eyes, breathed, counted to ten. Then he opened his eyes again, and breathed out.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “you are tough to talk to sometimes.”

“Yeah, that’s what my mama always said,” replied Gata, “only she didn’t say it so nicely.”

“I need to get out of here,” said Wyatt, getting up. “Let’s buy a car.”

“Damn, okay,” said the teen. “I know a guy.”

* * *

“This is actually alright,” said Wyatt, testing the van on a few corners as they rode around Northside. It was a Villefort Columbus, made for city freight hauling, and there was still some life in the suspension. “Nice work, Gata.”

“Just don’t blame me if it blows out in a week,” she laughed. “You coulda talked him down at least a hundred eddies.”

“That’s fine,” he replied, feathering the accelerator experimentally, testing the sluggish response, “I’m not looking for a hovertank.”

“A what now? You got any more smokes?”

“You know, a panzer. Like a Basilisk or a Manticore. That’s what I drove for Militech. You maybe think you might smoke too much?”

“That’s what you do? You’re a merc?” asked Gata, surprised. “And I’ll quit when you quit, old man.”

Wyatt sighed, and handed her the pack. “Yeah, I’m a merc. Why does that surprise you?”

“You don’t strike me as a hardass,” said Gata, lighting up.

“That’s because you’re not in my way.”

The girl gave him an appraising look, then nodded. “Ok, ok. I can see that. So how long you been a merc, mister tough guy?”

Wyatt was usually pretty reserved; he could work with guys for weeks and say less than he had in the one day he had known Gata. But for whatever reason, he kept talking. Maybe it was to keep his mind off of Kei, and the roiling mass of guilt and fear that came with thoughts of her. Maybe it was because, in some way Wyatt didn’t fully understand, it was just the right time to start talking about things.

“I went military when I was young,” said Wyatt, “like, almost as young as you. How old are you, anyway? Fifteen?”

Gata popped her gum. “Eighteen, choombatta.”

Wyatt laughed. “Get lost.”

“I got ID that says eighteen,” said Gata defensively.

“I can get ID that says I’m a chimpanzee at the Bronx Zoo, that don’t make it true,” replied Wyatt, smiling behind his sunglasses. “Seriously, though.”

“Honestly? I don’t know. My mama never told me. So it’s anybody’s guess. Me, I say eighteen.” Gata popped open the glove compartment and started rooting through it. She paused and looked at Wyatt. “Hey, we were talking about you! Sneaky old man. So when did you go merc?”

“Soon as I could,” sighed Wyatt. “Lots of reasons to get away. Maybe even similar to yours, I dunno. Joined an outfit called Lazarus Group. They’re not around anymore. Joined Militech on a contract by contract basis later on.”

“Ever see any action?” Gata mimed shooting an assault rifle.

“Kid,” said Wyatt heavily, “more than enough for anybody.”

“You ever kill anybody?” Gata went back to rummaging in the glove compartment.

“Have you?” retorted Wyatt.

“Me? No,” answered Gata, surprised.

“Let’s try and keep it that way. You don’t want that on you, alright?”

“Mistah bad man and his killin ways,” sang Gata to herself as she pulled out papers from the glove compartment, examined them briefly, then tossed them out the window.

Wyatt eyed her as he drove. “I think I liked it better when you were shy and awkward,” he said drily. “Is this how you are when you got three square meals inside you?”

“Whatever.”

They parked the van within walking distance of the flea market. Wyatt had insisted on making sure that the van had a disabler, and he activated it once they got out. “I’d like it to still be here when we get back,” he said.

“It will be, as long as we don’t leave it alone overnight,” said Gata. “C’mon, the market’s this way.”

It was mid afternoon, and there was little foot traffic in the industrial area. Concrete and steel structures for the loading, unloading, and storage of massive amounts of cargo dominated the view, like some kind of primitive jungle gym for the children of giants. They turned a corner, passing a massive warehouse complex, and Wyatt stopped.

“There it is,” he said. “The Pacific ocean.”

The water was filled with the detritus of shipping, of course, and covered with the slick of various industrial lubricants; but still, there was something powerful in the murk of the waters that rolled out all the way to Japan and beyond.

“Yeah,” said Gata, “so what? The market’s just down here.” She paused, not understanding exactly why the man seemed briefly rooted to the spot.

“Got it,” said Wyatt, seeming to come out of his reverie, and resuming their journey. “Just haven’t seen it in a long time.”

“Huh,” replied Gata, not sure of what to say. “Kei likes to come down here, too.” She wondered if that was the wrong thing to say, but the man just nodded and said, “Good to know.”

“So this is it!” said Gata, as they approached the open area beneath the massive highway overpass. “Northside Flea Market.”

Wyatt took in the collection of shops, tables, tents and awnings that sprawled across the concrete. Clothes, crafts, and general junk seemed reserved for the outside booths. There were some actual storefronts – some takeaway restaurants, a bootleg electronics place, and the gun store that Gata had mentioned.

He glanced sideways. Gata was looking at him, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction.

“Uh...it’s nice,” he ventured.

She popped her gum and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. But it’s home, kinda.”

“So that’s Iron and Lead, right?” asked Wyatt, pointing at a storefront. “The gun store you were talking about?”

“That’s it. You wanna go in?” asked Gata, a bit nervously.

“Sure. Introduce me to the owner.”

Gata looked at Wyatt for a second, then shrugged and led him into the gun shop. Silesi stood behind the counter, and as usual, he had a firearm disassembled on a cloth on the counter in front of him.

“Hey Sil,” chimed Gata as they walked in.

“That’s Mister Mapusua to you, young lady,” answered the man, smiling, but his smile faded when he saw that Gata was not alone.

“You bring a friend today?” the owner asked rhetorically, straightening. “Silesi Mapusua, owner and proprietor of Iron and Lead.”

“Nice to meet you. Name’s Wyatt.” The mercenary took in the shop, slowly circling around. “Nice place you got here.”

“Thanks,” replied Sil cautiously. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Gata here was telling me about a Christian Onyx .45 cal, Ebony and Ivory Limited Edition.”

“Sorry, friend,” said Sil. “Hot item. Had it for barely a day; already gone.”

“Damn,” said Wyatt, smiling amiably. “Well, it was worth following up. Had that on my wish list for a long time. Okay, kid,” he said, turning to Gata, “you were right, there was one here. Guess I owe you a finder’s fee. C’mon, I’ll get you something to eat. Thanks anyway,” he said, waving a hand at the gun shop owner.

“Yeah, no problem,” answered Sil. He watched them leave, then activated his phone.
 
“So what was all that about?” asked Gata, as they walked through the market.

“In the military biz, we call that recon,” replied Wyatt. He turned toward the bootleg electronics store, and Gata followed.

“Okay, recon. So what were you looking for?”

Wyatt ignored her as he asked the woman at the electronics store some very technical questions that went over Gata’s head; something about a frequency modulator and compatible i/o bus. Whatever language he was speaking, the woman spoke it too, and he soon had a small bag of electronic parts. He thanked the woman, and they left.

“Hellooo. Old man. You tuning me out now?” demanded Gata.

He smiled at her. “Sorry, kid. Got caught up in the tech details there. C’mon, let’s find a table where I can spread this stuff out a bit. I’ll explain while I’m working.”

Gata led them to a rusted metal table and chairs behind PieZ. Wyatt worked through his gear bag and spread a piece of cloth on the table, then set down the car disabler he had bought with the van, the electronics he had just purchased, and a small precision toolset.

“Yo Wyatt, I’m totally lost at what you’re doing right now,” said Gata, a hint of impatience and frustration in her voice.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m kinda used to doing this on my own. Okay, let me explain. Silesi Mapusua is lying his ass off. I need to find out what exactly he’s lying about, and why. I wanna do that without killing him, and definitely without him killing me. So I need to knock out his security setup.”

As he talked, Wyatt carefully disassembled the car disabler, laying the parts on the cloth he’d spread. Gata watched as he worked methodically. There was something a little mesmerizing about his process.

The mercenary began to lay out the parts he had purchased from the bootleg electronics store. As Gata watched, he began to reassemble the car disabler, only as he did so, he was leaving some parts out, and adding new ones.

“I asked you to take me in there so I could get a look at the security Silesi has in the store. I found out what I needed to know – it’s a stock antitheft system. So I’m building a workaround to deal with it.”

Gata was impressed. “Where the hell did you learn to do that?

“Knock around the military corps long enough, you learn some things.” Wyatt examined the rebuilt disabler. “Hope it’s still gonna open the van. Be a pain in the ass if it doesn’t.” He put the excess parts into the bag from the electronics store, folded up the cloth and put everything into his gear bag. He pulled out a matte black Unity pistol, slid in a clip, and checked the action.

“Uh, okay, so this is where we are right now, huh?” said Gata nervously.

“Yeah,” said Wyatt, checking the safety before putting the gun in his jacket. “This is where we are. Time to talk to Sil. You can wait here, or come with.”

“You’re saying Sil might have had something to do with Kei getting jumped?”

“Might’ve. Lil Ton almost definitely,” answered Wyatt.

“Then I’m in,” said Gata, swallowing.

“Good,” said Wyatt, getting up. “You can carry my gear bag.”

“Oh come on!”

* * *

Afternoon was turning to evening as Wyatt and Gata walked into Iron and Lead for the second time that day.

Sil looked up as they walked in, then frowned as he saw who it was. “Something else I can help you guys with?” he asked, one hand sliding beneath the counter.

“Time to come clean, Sil,” said Wyatt, striding towards the counter. “One chance to do this easy. Hands up and in clear sight.”

Sil’s face transformed into a snarl as he pressed a button by the till, then registered shock as nothing happened.

“Wrong choice,” said Wyatt, his left hand snaking across the counter and seizing a fistful of Silesi’s shirt, then snapping back to haul the shop owner over the counter and tumbling onto the floor.

Gata looked at Wyatt in shock. She hadn’t even suspected that the man’s arm was packing chrome.

The mercenary drew his pistol and aimed squarely at Sil’s head. “Hands away from your body, Sil. Not messing around. Gata, close and lock the door.”

“Got it,” said Gata, snapping out of her surprise and quickly securing the door.

“Alright,” said Wyatt, his voice calm. “Now, Sil, you’re gonna tell me what kind of weapons you have on you, and where they are. Don’t point at anything, just describe it for me.”

“No guns,” said Sil, “but I got a shock baton in the left outside pocket of my pants.”

“Okay, you’re gonna pull that out, nice and slow, and set it on the floor. Gata, take the baton, check the power stud to make sure it’s off, then put it in your pocket. Very good.”

“Can I sit up?” asked the shop owner.

“Not right now, Sil. First I’m going to ask you some questions. Make the right decisions here, and everybody gets to walk away. Nod your head if you understand.”

“I got it.”

“That’s good, Sil. Very good. I want everybody coming out of this alive. But first you need to answer some questions for. Can you do that?”

“Yeah.”

Gata watched in fascination. This was a side to Wyatt that she had not seen: absolutely focused, and deadly serious. He pulled Sil over that counter like the man weighed nothing. In her head, she had regarded Wyatt as a little sad, a little sarcastic, mostly harmless. She was being forced to re-evaluate those impressions.

“Okay, Sil,” said Wyatt calmly, “so Lil Ton walks in here, looking to sell that gun. Did you recognize it right away?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know who it belonged to?”

“Yes. I know all the local collectors.”

“So what did you do?” asked Wyatt.

“I called him. Let him know I had his gun, and that I was out five large for what I paid the kid.”

“You piece of shit –

“Hold up, Gata. So who is him, Sil?”

Silence.

“C’mon, Sil. We’re doing great so far,” said Wyatt evenly.

Silesi exhaled. “Skorzeny. Walter Skorzeny. Collector in Charter Hill. A mean prick.”

“Good work, Sil. Let’s keep it going. Who came to collect the gun?”

“Skorzeny’s huscle. Paid me the five large, plus finder’s fee, took the gun and disappeared.”

“You got that on vid? Camera footage?”

“Yeah,” said Silesi, “in the back. Can I sit up now? This floor is hell on my back – ”

“We’re getting there, Sil,” replied Wyatt. “We’re getting there. So, did you tell Skorzeny’s huscle about Kei and Gata, snooping around and asking questions?”

“What?” shouted Sil, trying to sit up before the barrel of Wyatt’s gun directed him back down to the floor. “They’re just kids! I would never – ”

Wyatt lifted his hand, and Silesi shut his mouth. Wyatt sighed. “Gata,” he said, “why don’t you hop the counter, go to the back, and check out Sil’s computer. I want you to try and find footage of the huscle who collected the gun. And leave that shock baton with me.”

“Choom, no! I swear, I would never, ever…” sputtered Sil.

“Go on, Gata,” said Wyatt. “And if you’ve got any music, you might want to put in some headphones and up the volume.”

* * *

It was some time before Wyatt came to the back and joined Gata in the back office.

“Hey,” he said. “Did you find the guy?”

Gata popped her gum. “Not a guy,” she said, pointing to a freeze-frame on the monitor, “a chica. What the hell did you do to Sil?”

“Hmm,” said Wyatt, leaning in close to the monitor. On screen was a compactly built woman, perhaps five foot five or six, dressed in black leggings and combat boots, with a puffy black jacket. Black hair, pulled back sharply into the kind of cornrows that professional fighters used.

“Good job,” he said. “You got any footage of her on the move?”

“Wyatt, I asked you, what the hell did you do to Sil?”

“He’s gone,” said Wyatt simply. “If you’ve got footage, can you roll it? I want to see how she moves, see if we can get a better angle of her face.”

“Gone? What the hell, Wyatt? Did you – ”

Wyatt put a hand on her shoulder. It was not menacing or threatening; in some way, Gata felt, it was almost calming. She fell quiet.

“Gata, I am not going to lie to you. I interrogated Silesi and then I killed him. It was not a nice thing to do. But you should know that Sil ratted you out to Skorzeny, told him that you guys were asking around about Lil Ton’s murder. That’s why Kei got lifted, and why she’s under sedation in a hospital, right now. Silesi didn’t have to rat you guys out. But he did it anyway, for two reasons. He felt nervous that he’d messed up by showing off the gun to you two, and he was promised an extra payoff by Skorzeny. He sold you out.”

“Jesus,” muttered Gata, shaking. Even though you knew you couldn’t trust anybody on the street, sometimes it happened anyway. Sil always had a friendly smile and a joke for them. Well…live and learn, Gata, she told herself. Prick.

“Okay, so here’s the video feed,” said Gata, clicking over. “There’s not much to see. She walks in, takes the gun, gives him the eddies, walks out.”

“Good. Thanks,” said Wyatt, watching the footage carefully. “There are a few things we can learn from this. She moves on the balls of her feet, like a gymnast or a dancer. She’s probably a boxer, or a martial artist. Carries a gun rig under her jacket, holster on her right side, so it’s likely she’s left handed.”

“Damn. Are we even watching the same tape?” said Gata.

Wyatt gave the ghost of a smile. “Just different eyes, kid. I’m used to looking for certain things. Okay,” he said, straightening up, “I’ll definitely know her when I see her again. Memorize that face, Gata. You see her on the street, you tell me right away. And if for some reason I’m not with you, you damn well book it.”

“Ima call her Jane,” decided Gata.

“What?”

“Gonna call her Jane, like Jane Doe,” she replied. “So if I see her on the street, it’s like, ‘Yo, that’s Jane,’ instead of, ‘Look out, it’s the lady we saw in the video.’ Easier, you see?”

Wyatt snorted. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” said Gata, “somebody’s gotta be the brains of this here operation.”

“We better get you some more food,” said Wyatt. “When you get hungry, you start talking crazy.”

“Shouldn’t we, uh, clean up the whatever…” asked Gata, pointing a thumb towards the open area of the store.

“Already done what was needed,” replied the mercenary. “Made it look like a random heist. Disabler killed the video feed. Let’s go out through the back. You don’t wanna go out there.”

“Old man keeps talking like I’ve never seen a body before,” muttered Gata, loud enough for Wyatt to hear. He chose to ignore her.

“Come on,” he said, pushing open the metal access door at the back of the store, “let’s go to a real restaurant. I wouldn’t mind a little change from street food.”

“How can you not like street food?” demanded Gata.

Wyatt cursed. “The disabler. It’s still on the counter.” He let go of the door. “I gotta – ”

As the metal door swung back, it gave a sound like the ringing of a church bell, and a bump appeared at head height.

“Wha – ” Gata started to say, but Wyatt had already grabbed her and pulled her to the floor.

“Sniper!” he hissed. He checked to make sure the door was completely shut, scanned the back area for windows or other vulnerable points, then sat up.

“Damn,” he said. “That was close.”

“What the hell?” cried Gata.

Wyatt shook his head. “Silesi must have tipped off Skorzeny’s huscle that we were snooping around,” he said. “Probably right after we came in here the first time. Guess I underestimated his paranoia.”

“Wyatt, what do we do? We can’t just stay here.”

“Any other ways outta this place?” he asked.

“Damned if I know. The front door.”

“Well, that’s no good. Let’s look around.” Wyatt started pacing the back area. “Outside walls, those are no good. What’s on the other side of this wall?” he asked.

Gata thought. “That’s the sushi place, she said.

“Can you kinda sketch out what it looks like?” he asked. “Entances, exits, whatever. I’ll be right back; gonna get the disabler. Forgetting once turned out to be goddam lucky, maybe not so much a second time.”

Wyatt was back in a moment, shoving the disabler in his pocket. Gata was amazed at how calm he seemed. Somewhere outside, someone was waiting to kill them, but he was acting as if it was just another day.

Maybe it was, for him.

“Okay,” said Wyatt, looking at her outline. “Alright, that’s good. Okay, Gata, we’re going to go through here, and come out here. Then it’s a beeline across the street, under the roof of that warehouse, and use that cover to get to the van. I just this damn thing still works for the van,” he said, glancing at the disabler. “If I go down, you just book it to whatever hidey hole you’ve got, lay up, and then get the hell outta town.” He handed Gata a roll of bills. “Use this to get out of town and get set up somewhere away from here.”

Gata stared at the roll of eddies in her hand for a moment, then swallowed, nodded, and shoved it in her pocket. “But how do we even get into the sushi place?” she asked.

Wyatt gave a feral grin. The years seemed to have dropped from him. “Thanks to a little old-school Sov-era tech.” He reached inside the collar of his shirt, and seemed to be fiddling with his left shoulder. Gata heard a click, and what sounded like a pneumatic hiss.

Wyatt faced the wall, and squared up, feet shoulder width apart. “Stand back, kid,” he said, took a deep breath, and punched the wall with his left hand, five times in quick succession.

It was like someone had taken a jackhammer to the wall. A huge section exploded outward, leaving a gaping hole in the wall separating the gun shop from the sushi restaurant.

“Follow me, now!” shouted Wyatt, and began to run. Gata followed right on his heels. They burst into the kitchen of the restaurant, past the astonished cooks who were prepping for the dinner rush.

“Move right!” said Wyatt, as they burst through the simple blue cotton curtain separating the kitchen from the dining area. Now or never, thought Wyatt, and they burst through the front door.

It had been perhaps five seconds since Wyatt had demolished the connecting wall. He hoped they had been fast enough.

They sprinted to get under the cover of the big warehouse that loomed across the street. It only took moments, but it felt like forever. Once they reached it, Wyatt gave Gata a quick eyeball to see that she was okay, then they ran as fast as they could to the van, keeping under the overhanging roof of the warehouse as cover.

Here goes nothing, Wyatt said to himself, as they got to within ten metres of the van, and clicked the disabler. He heard the pop of the doors unlocking.

“Go go go!” shouted Wyatt, trying to exhort one last burst of speed from Gata. Then they were in, he had hit the ignition, and they were peeling out.

“Jesus,” said Gata, looking back.

Wyatt stole a look in the rearview. There in the rapidly receding distance was Jane. She had reached the spot where the van was, only moments behind them. She stood and watched the van as it drove away.

I’ll see you later, promised Wyatt.
 
Wyatt just kept driving for a while, letting the adrenaline rush subside. It had been a while since he had been that close to dying. The aftermath was a wash of chemical overflow through his body.

“Here’s uh, your eddies back,” said Gata, pulling the roll from her jacket and offering it to Wyatt. He shook his head.

“Keep it. Something happens to me, that’s your ticket. Okay?”

“Pffh. Where the hell would I even go?”

He glanced at her. “Go to the nomads, kid. Aldecaldos, or Jodes. Use the eddies as a stake, work hard with them for a season, they’ll probably invite you in. There are worse lives.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll just leave with these as soon as your back is turned?” she asked, looking at him.

“Absolutely not. Kei’s your choom. You’re too good a friend to just walk away.”

Gata blushed, in a particular way that allowed Wyatt to suddenly understand something he hadn’t noticed before.

“Oh. Maybe more than a friend? Is that it? Are you guys together?”

The skinny teen was silent for a moment, then shook her head. “Nah.”

“Okay.” Wyatt kept driving.

“Where are we going?” asked Gata.

“Well, up til now, I haven’t really been driving to as much as driving from,” he said. “But you’re right. I wanted a meal in a real restaurant, and I still do. Then we gotta find a place to lay low until we figure out how to get to Skorzeny.”

“Uh…we?”

“You can’t go back to the shelter, Gata. That’ll be the first place Jane Doe will look.”

“Just as long as you don’t get any ideas, old man,” said Gata.

“Jesus Christ, kid.”

“Alright, just sayin.”

* * *

The pair got a few looks, but Wyatt and Gata managed to get a table at Pepper and Spice. The girl looked a little uncertain at the layout of dishes and utensils, but watched the older man and did her best to follow along.

“Goddam,” said Wyatt, happily munching, “been too long since I had something that actually tastes like food.”

Gata was taking a sip of water with every bite. “Doesn’t this seem like, really strong to you?”

“You’re just not used to real flavours, kid.”

“Huh. You can keep ‘em. So where are we gonna lay low, mister merc?”

“Been scrolling through places. We want low profile, but not roach ranch. Some place where we can both get our heads down. I’m thinking the Sleep-Eez. Know anything about it?”

The teen shrugged. “Outside of my neighbourhood. Good as any, I guess. So what’s the plan?”

Wyatt rolled a forkful of pasta and ate as he considered the question. “We want to find Skorzeny before Jane Doe finds us. That means we can’t sit around for too long; if we want any kind of initiative, we gotta be moving by tomorrow morning. An op without recon is death wish territory, though. So that means checking out Skorzeny’s place.”

Gata nodded and sipped some water. “K. Well, I’m done. Any time you wanna get outta here, I’m ready.”

“You’re not gonna finish your food?” asked Wyatt in surprise.

“Old man, I have had more than enough. My mouth already feels like garlic central. Like, self defense level.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Alright, let’s delta.”

Eddies on the counter got them a room at the Sleep-Eez without having to provide ID, and Wyatt pronounced it reasonable once they had a look at it. From Gata’s perspective, it was probably the nicest place she had ever slept. She wondered what it would be like to have a place like this to come back to every night.

“I’m showering now, and you should probably shower after,” announced Wyatt. “We’ll be gone way the hell early in the morning, with no time to do it then. I’ll take the bed by the window, if you’ve got no objections.”

“Knock yourself out,” said Gata. She stretched out on the bed while Wyatt closed the door to the bathroom. She heard the sound of the shower go on a minute later.

“He uses up all the hot water, we’re gonna have words,” she muttered to herself, trying to cover her general sense of unease. Kei’s dad or not, it felt weird to be in a motel room with a guy. Not that she expected him to hit on her or anything like that. Gata didn’t have a lot of illusions about men, but such a thing really didn’t appear to be in his character. So it wasn’t that she felt unsafe. It was more that she was used to being alone.

“Goddam, comfy bed though,” she muttered, and let her head sink into the pillow.

The next thing she felt was her shoulder being shaken. She sat bolt upright, and there was Wyatt, towelling his short hair dry.

“You nodded off. Your turn for the shower.”

“Shit,” said Gata. “I don’t have any clean clothes. My bag’s at the shelter.”

“Sorry, kid. We can’t go back there. Maybe we can pick you up something tomorrow,” offered Wyatt.

“Yeah, whatever. You better not have killed the hot water,” she said, sliding off the bed.

Wyatt snorted and turned to sorting out his gear bag. He made sure he left some energy bars near the top, likely the only breakfast they’d have tomorrow morning. He set an alarm for 4 AM. They’d need to be scouting Skorzeny’s place before dawn.

The kid’s gonna hate that, he thought to himself with a grin. Still, all in all, Gata was alright. She had an edge that gave him a laugh, and made him treat her with a little more respect. She had been a good friend to his daughter, and that mattered. Still, it felt odd to be sharing space with a female after all these years.

“Strange days, Wyatt Karnecki,” he muttered to himself. He slid into bed, fully clothed. It would help in getting up quickly, and right now it made him feel a little less weird.

By the time Gata left the bathroom, the mercenary was soundly asleep. He looked smaller somehow, as a lump under a blanket.

“Well, good night to you too, old man,” she murmured, letting herself ease into the comfiest bed she could remember.

* * *

The light in the room was switched on way earlier than Gata felt any light had a right to be switched on.

“You gotta be kidding me,” she moaned.

“Nope,” said Wyatt, fully dressed and shaven. “Time to get moving, kid. Day won’t start itself.”

“Christ, my hair. Hold on, Wyatt. I gotta do something with this.”

“Can’t you put it into a ponytail or something?” demanded Wyatt impatiently.

“I’ve gotta braid it. Chill, it’ll just take me like five minutes.”

Well, thought Wyatt, this is new. He had worked with female mercs before, of course, at Militech and other places, but had never shared a barracks with any.

He passed the time by running another check of his gear bag, making sure that everything was where he wanted it and close to hand. He carefully avoided looking at the time. After what felt like much longer than five minutes, Gata emerged from the bathroom, her hair in a tight braid.

“All good?” asked Wyatt, trying to get the impatience out of his voice.

“Ya,” said Gata. “We getting breakfast?”

Wyatt was already out of the room, heading down the corridor at a brisk pace. Gata closed the door behind them and jogged down the carpeted hallway to catch up.

“Sheesh, old man, what’s the hurry? So are we getting breakfast or what?” she pressed.

“The hurry is getting into place before first light. And breakfast is in the gear bag. We can have some protein bars once we’re squared away,” replied the mercenary.

“Oh, good. As long as there’s something to look forward to,” said Gata sarcastically.
 
First light saw the pair nestled into the concrete and steel of the thirtieth floor of a construction site in Charter Hill, which, according to the advertising, would be luxury living for lucky owners in no less than a year. Right now, however, it was a skeletal structure that gave them an optimal vantage point from which to surveil Cameron Towers, where Walter Skorzeny had his residence: a condo on the twenty-first floor, with an extensive balcony that wrapped around the corner and out of their sight.

“Damn,” said Gata, taking a turn with the teleoptics. “All that just for one dude?”

“That’s part of what we’re trying to figure out,” replied Wyatt, chewing on a protein bar. “We wanna know as much as we can about who’s in there, what the security setup is, whether he keeps a bodyguard on site. We’ll probably have to make a move tonight, and I’d sure like to know if Jane Doe bunks down on a couch in that place.”

“Somebody’s coming out,” announced Gata. “That’s Walter Skorzeny? Dude looks young!”

“Lemme see,” said Wyatt, gently taking the teleoptics from the teen. “Huh.”

On the balcony was a well-muscled man in his early twenties, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. He walked over to a lounge chair and stretched out to take advantage of the morning sun. Wyatt focused the optics on the young man’s face.

“That’s not Walter,” he said, frowning. “But there is a definite resemblance. Does Walter have a son?”

“Hold on,” said Gata, scrolling. “Yeah, here we go. One son, named Alton Skorzeny. Twenty-three. Heir to Skorzeny’s fortune. Shit, check this out. Aggravated assault – charges dropped. Forcible confinement – witness refused to testify. Sexual assault – accuser disappeared.”

“Looks like daddy has been cleaning up after Alton for a while now,” murmured Wyatt.

“Yeah, no kidding. Not a bad looking guy, I guess,” said Gata, “but a real piece of human scop.”

“I guess Jane Doe is the resident cleaner,” muttered Wyatt. “You there, Jane?”

The morning rolled on, and the pair stayed where they were, taking turns with the optics, keeping a steady eye on Skorzeny’s apartment. Alton Skorzeny occupied the lounge chair for a good part of the morning, alternating between talking on the phone and scrolling through a small tablet he kept near him. Occasionally he would pad inside and emerge with a drink.

“Doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else there,” Wyatt finally decided.

“How can you be sure? We can’t see a lot of the inside,” observed Gata.

“Kid like that, you see him getting his own drinks if there’s anyone else to get them for him?”

“Fair,” said Gata. “Speaking of drinks and stuff…”

“You need to piss, just find yourself a place far enough away that we won’t smell it,” replied Wyatt. “Don’t leave this floor.”

Gata rolled her eyes, but walked away.

As the morning turned into afternoon, Wyatt made a decision. “Okay, kid. I think we’ve learned enough.”

“Thank God. I never knew spying would be this fucking boring,” said Gata, relieved.

Wyatt chuckled. “If I had my druthers, I’d be perched up here for a week before I made a move,” he said. “But time is not on our side. As soon as Jane Doe gives up on tracking us down, she’s gonna go to the one place she knows we’ll come back to.”

Gata frowned as she thought for a moment, then her jaw dropped in dismay. “The clinic,” she gasped. “Kei!”

“That’s right,” Wyatt nodded. “We take too long, she’ll use Kei to flush us out. But we’re not waiting around to let that happen. So we go tonight.”

“Uh…okay,” said Gata nervously.

Wyatt eyed her. “You don’t have to come along for this part,” he said, in a tone he hoped didn’t sound condescending.

“Yeah well, you don’t have to rotate on my finger, so I guess that makes us even,” snapped Gata.

The mercenary looked away to hide his grin. The kid was fierce when pushed, and he respected that.

“Point taken, kid. C’mon, let’s delta. Get a decent meal, maybe even rack out for a few hours. Not gonna get much sleep tonight.”

* * *

As darkness fell, Wyatt and Gata sat in the van, about a block away from Cameron Towers. The residence didn’t have a doorman, but there were two small camera turrets above the security doors.

“Hmm,” mused Wyatt.

“What?”

“We can use face scramblers, and jam the cameras’ facial recognition program, but that might trip alarms right away. Tryna decide if going bare-faced is worth the risk. Everything’s a tradeoff.”

“Uh…that might not be an issue,” said Gata.

“What do you mean?”

“Cuz that’s Alton Skorzeny, walking out of the building,” said Gata, pointing.

“Well, shit.” Wyatt pressed the ignition, and watched as the neatly dressed young man stepped into a Delamain cab. “I guess we’re playing follow that car.”

Wyatt kept back several car lengths, trailing the cab as it weaved through traffic, heading through North Oak.

“Is he going to Northside?” frowned Wyatt.

“Could be,” said Gata. “He’s going the right way for it.”

“What’s the play, Alton?” muttered Wyatt. Up to some mischief, you little creep?

Traffic began to thin out as they drove into the industrial sections of Northside, forcing Wyatt to hang back further. Finally, the Delamain pulled to the curb, and Wyatt did the same, a little more than a block behind.

“Grab the teleoptics outta my bag, will you?” asked Wyatt, keeping his eye on Alton Skorzeny.

“Got it.” Gata rummaged through his gear bag, and handed him the viewer.

“He’s using a keycard to get into that building – some kinda warehouse?” muttered Wyatt.

“Is that an ambulance pulling around?” frowned Gata. The emergency vehicle was backing into the alley next to the warehouse. Wyatt trained his viewer on the vehicle.

“Shit,” said Wyatt. “Jane Doe’s driving that ambulance.” He put the teleoptics back in the gear bag. “I’ve got a bad feeling, kid.”

“What?” asked Gata nervously.

“I think I know who’s in the back of that ambulance. We’ve gotta hurry.” Wyatt grabbed his gear bag, and crawled past the seats to the back of the van.

“Time to gear up,” he said, pulling out an HJSH-18 Masamune, and checking the clip. He passed Gata a Unity pistol. “You know how to use this, right?”

“Right,” said Gata, trying to sound a lot more certain than she felt.

“Good,” said Wyatt, holstering a shockrod. He had heard the quaver in her voice, but knew that she would either step up, or she wouldn’t. Either way, he was going into that building, and he was getting his daughter. Somebody was going to die tonight.

“Okay, kid,” he said, popping the back door and sliding out of the van, “let’s go. Follow right behind me.”

Gata nodded, gripping the pistol tightly. Wyatt glanced down. “Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to actually shoot, okay? I think Kei’s in there, so let’s be real careful what we shoot at.”

Gata nodded again. Wyatt softly closed the doors and activated the disabler. If they needed a fast exit, the last thing he wanted was to come out to a missing van.

Go time. He jogged across the street, focused on the alley where the ambulance had gone. As he reached the corner of the alley, he popped his head out quickly. The ambulance was about ten metres down the alley, its back doors open. He could detect movement, but didn’t have time for anything more precise.

“Keep real low, kid,” he whispered to Gata. “Like, glue your ass to the ground low.” Wyatt crouched, and turned the corner, scuttling down the alley towards the ambulance, his rifle up.

Wyatt made no noise, and he was impressed to note that neither did Gata. The thought flashed through his head: I guess being a dock rat is its own kind of training.

He moved to the rear of the ambulance, and spun to cover the interior.

Nothing.

Must have already gone inside, thought Wyatt.

“Anything?” hissed Gata, a few metres back.

Dammit! He jerked his head back around to tell the girl to shut up, and the movement saved his life.

The round punched a hole in the wall inches from Wyatt’s head. He heard Jane Doe curse from the shadows where she had been waiting, but he was already rolling, bringing the Masamune to bear, spraying rounds so that she would have to take cover and not take a second, deadly shot.

Wyatt had spent a part of the day going over their previous encounter, and concluded that Jane Doe preferred to kill from a distance. He had decided that the next time he saw her, he wasn’t going to allow her to have her preference.

The burst from the Masamune had forced her head down behind a parking barrier, and Wyatt was moving to eliminate the distance between them. He heard a distinctive clicking and whirring noise, one that you never forgot.

Mantis blades.

Wyatt was pretty sure he only had one shot. Nobody got those hideous mods without being damn good at using them. Jane Doe would make mincemeat out of him if he gave her the chance.

So, instead of backing away, he charged, powering up the hydraulic rams in his old Sov-tech cyberarm.

One blade came down in a slashing arc, and Wyatt felt his own blood, hot and wet, across his face, blinding him in one eye. But it didn’t matter. He had taken the strike in order to get his one shot in, and he had.

His cyberarm punched into Jane Doe’s head like Thor’s hammer, crushing whatever neural tech she might have had, along with her skull. She crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Gata vomited, then quickly straightened. Wyatt was slowing his breathing down, trying to avoid shock as he felt the blood pumping out of his face.

Gata looked at him and choked back a scream. Wyatt’s face was a mask of blood.

“It’s ok,” he said, in defiance of all appearances. “Head wounds bleed like crazy, look a lot worse than what they are. If she’d hit an artery, I’d be dead already. C’mon, kid. Let’s get the bleeding under control and keep going. We’ve gotta save Kei.”

“Jesus,” said Gata, “I don’t know where to even start.”

“Come on, let’s check the ambulance,” said Wyatt, and thankfully, there were emergency first aid supplies inside. Under Wyatt’s direction, Gata used a quick-action dermal stapler to close up the wound on Wyatt’s face. He went through a pack of sanitary wipes clearing the blood out of his eye and off of his face generally. The disinfectant burned in his cut, but he rode the pain.

“Okay,” Wyatt said grimly, “let’s go.” He trotted over to pick up the Masamune, and gestured toward the loading dock near the ambulance. “This must be the goddam place.”

The steel emergency door was closed, but Wyatt wasn’t feeling subtle. The ceramic alloy fingers of his left hand crinkled the steel as he pulled the door open. Immediately, both Wyatt and Gata heard the strains of classical music playing, and the sound of a male voice, low and crooning.

Wyatt put up his hand in a gesture for Gata to stop. The hallway was dark, and he could see a doorway with a flickering light, like fluorescent tubes dying, about five metres down. The music and voice were coming from the room beyond.

Wyatt went back to a crouch, and signalled for Gata to do the same. They made their way along the hallway, moving closer and closer the to room.

“So, little one, where were we? You left so rudely last time. Who knew you had a kick like a mule, you naughty girl? But I think it’s just about time, oh yes. Time for you to wake up. Poor dear. It’s going to sting.”

Wyatt turned the corner into the room, rising to a standing position, the Masamune up at shoulder height. “You’re gonna want to freeze, right now,” he snarled.

“Oh, my,” said Alton mildly.

Gata followed behind the mercenary, her eyes widening as she looked into the room. There was Kei, strapped to a gurney, still connected to the IV that kept her under chemical sedation. The room itself looked like something out of a nightmare. Shackles hung from one wall. There was a steel examination table with restraints at the far side of the room. Various industrial tools hung neatly along another wall.

The music played eerily into the silence, the strains of a haunting cello dipping low.

“Gata,” said Wyatt, his eyes never leaving Alton Skorzeny, “turn that goddam music off.”

“Got it,” replied Gata, who really didn’t want to touch anything, but she managed to power off the speakers. She looked at her friend. Kei looked exactly as Gata had seen her in the Clinic; asleep, peaceful, breathing.

Suddenly, rage and fear and relief boiled over in Gata’s skinny body. She clenched her fists and shouted at the man, “Why? Why would you do this to my friends, you freak?”

Alton Skorzeny looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean, why?”

“Easy, Gata,” said Wyatt in a soothing voice. “Alton, I’m going to need you to tell me how we repair the nerve damage you did to this girl.”

The young man frowned. “Why would I tell you that? I like the way she is now.”

“Because if you don’t,” said Wyatt, his voice even, “I’m going to strap you to that examination table and do to you what you did to Lil Ton. Slowly.”

Alton Skorzeny pursed his lips and nodded, as if he was considering a business offer. “Makes sense. That’s probably what I’d do. Such a shame about that boy. He was a fun play partner, until he stole from me of course. Showed how superficial he was, how hollow. So I showed him. Seemed fair.”

The young man narrowed his eyes and looked carefully at Wyatt. “But I did that to punish him. Just like I punished this one, for being a nosy little busybody. Why would you want to punish me?

“Because the girl on the gurney is my daughter,” gritted Wyatt.

Understanding dawned on Alton’s face. “Ah! That makes sense. Well then, you definitely won’t like this.” He popped a scalpel blade out from one cybernetic finger and brought it slashing down in a cruel arc towards Kei’s wrist.

Gata screamed. Wyatt sent a round into Alton’s hand, blowing part of it off, then another round into his shoulder. As Alton stared at him in shock, Wyatt put a round into his right knee. The young man crumpled.

“Move the gurney out of the way,” Wyatt told Gata, as he approached Alton Skorzeny, who was lying on the floor, gasping like a fish out of water.

“Hurts,” managed Alton.

“It does,” agreed Wyatt. “It could get a lot worse. Do you want it to?”

The young man gave a deathly grin. “Sure.” Wyatt put his finger to the trigger, and Alton lifted his uninjured hand. “No no no! I was,” he managed, “joking. Heh. What do you want? You must want something, or I’d be dead. You’re not like me. You don’t like to play with people.”

“No,” agreed Wyatt, “I don’t. Maybe with you, I could learn, though.”

The grin returned to Alton’s face. “There’s a good fellow.”

“You’re going to tell me how to repair my daughter’s nerve damage. Then you’re gonna transfer me the money I need to pay doctors to do it,” said Wyatt.

“And you’ll let me, you’ll let me live?” breathed Alton.

“You have my word. The word of someone who isn’t like you.”

“Wyatt…” said Gata.

“I won’t break my word, kid.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” said Gata bitterly.

“The drugs you’ll need are in the fridge over there,” said Alton. “Take them all. They’re worth a fortune. That’ll give you the money you need to pay for your daughter’s treatment as well. Everything you need.”

“Good to know,” said Wyatt, putting his finger on the trigger.

“Wait, wait!” said Alton desperately. “You gave me your word! Said you wouldn’t break it!”

“I’m always disappointing people,” said Wyatt, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Alton Skorzeny had told the truth: the drugs in the fridge of his torture room were, in fact, worth a fortune. Fortunately, Dr. Sophia Moreau at the Free Clinic knew which ones to keep and which ones to sell, and had shared that knowledge (in exchange for a donation to the Clinic). She also promised that Kei was on her way to a full recovery, and that the staff would be able to take her off sedation in a matter of days.

“Don’t do it,” said Gata, scooping away at a noodle bowl at a nearby diner.

“What?” asked Wyatt, surprised.

“Don’t you dare leave.”

Wyatt set his fork down. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re talking about, kid.”

“Like you don’t know,” scoffed Gata. She sighed and hugged herself, suddenly looking very small and very tired. “You solved the problem, Wyatt. You gave Kei what she needed; hell, you saved her. And if you leave now, you’re thinking, you’ll be the mysterious hero who came out of nowhere to rescue his daughter, and then rode off into the sunset. You don’t have to be here when she wakes up, you don’t have to answer her questions about why you were gone for so long, you don’t have to risk her not wanting you around. You’ll be free, you’re thinking.”

Wyatt stared at Gata. She held his gaze. He was the one who looked down first.

“Dammit,” he said, “Being a soldier, I know how to do. Been doing it my whole life.” He looked at the table. “This stuff? I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never done it before.”

There was no pity in Gata’s eyes. “Then learn. She deserves better than to wake up and find you gone.”

Wyatt brought his gaze back up. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “yeah, I reckon she does.” Something seemed to resolve itself within him. “So do you, kid.”

Gata flushed a deep red. “You’re not my dad,” she said, but it came out halfway between a statement and a question.

“That’s true,” said Wyatt, nodding, “but I’m getting a place in Watson with three bedrooms, and I figure Kei’s gonna get sick of talking to me all the time, so you’d be doing me a favour, really.”

Like Gata’s, his words were half statement and half question.

* * *

The first thing Kei registered were the steady beeps. They kept time, in a way that felt reassuring. As long as those beeps were still happening, it somehow meant that everything else was ok.

Her body was so sore. It felt like a hydraulic press had crushed her onto a mattress, a full body ache. She groaned.

“Welcome back, kid,” said a calm, masculine voice.

“Wha…where am I? Who the hell are you?” managed Kei.

“You’re in the Free Clinic, and you’re gonna be okay,” said the voice. Kei opened her eyes to look at a man who sat next to her bed, holding her hand, who had eyes that were incredibly kind and somehow very familiar. “And as for who I am, well, Kei…”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I’m your dad.”



THE END
 
“Heya, Sil,” said Kei, walking up to the counter of the gun shop.

“That’s Mister Mapusua to you, young lady,” said the owner, but he was smiling.

Kei smiled back. Silesi Mapusua, the owner of Iron and Lead, was known throughout Northside as a decent guy. He’d never loan you a gun on credit, of course, but he’d never sell you cheap ammo either. He was a straight shooter – literally, if the awards on his back shelf were real.

“So what can I do for you? Looking to start a reign of terror? Bathe the streets of Night City in fire and blood?” he asked, polishing the parts of an Overture revolver he had laid out on a cloth on the counter.

“Needed to ask you something,” said Kei, leaning on the counter.

“Don’t smudge the glass, young lady. So, ask away,” said Silesi.

“Lil Ton was in here last night.”

Silesi frowned. “That’s not a question.”

“C’mon, Sil.”

The owner shook his head. “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry, Kei. I know he was your friend. But I want no part in spreading rumours.”

“Neither do I, Sil. I want to find answers,” pressed Kei.

“Answers huh? And if you find answers, what will you do? Call the NCPD? Go for some ‘street justice?’” he demanded, making air quotes with his fingers. “Your friend is dead, Kei. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Kei felt like a dog, worrying at a bone. “Sil,” she ventured, “we know each other.”

“You don’t know me, young lady.”

“I know that you wouldn’t be this edgy if you didn’t feel guilty about something,” she said, suddenly knowing it was true.

Silesi’s shoulders dropped. He stared at Kei. “Hold on,” he said finally. He emerged from behind the counter, closed the front door and locked it. Then he went into the back for a moment, before emerging with a brushed steel gun case. Silesi laid the case on the counter facing Kei and Gata, then popped open the clasps.

Inside was a heavy Colt .45, its barrel and action burnished chrome. It was the handgrip that drew the eye, however. It was a flat white, almost like ivory, with a pattern of black that looked as if ink had been spilled on it.

“It’s beautiful,” breathed Kei. Gata leaned in for a closer look.

“That’s real ivory on the handgrip,” said Silesi. “The black is called obsidian. This pistol is one of only twenty designed by a weaponsmith named Christian Onyx. Died years back.”

“It must be worth a fortune,” breathed Gata.

Silesi snapped the case shut. “Lil Ton came into my shop last night with this gun, wanting to know how much he could get for it. I’m not a cheat. I told him it was worth a lot, said I would shop around among my contacts, see what kind of price I could get. Minus my commission, of course. But Lil Ton didn’t want to wait. He wanted to know how much I could give him right there and then.”

Silesi gave Kei a sad look. “I don’t know if this boy is trying to cheat me or not. But the gun looks legit, and it’s worth a lot to the right buyer! So I give him five large, and off he goes. Now, now I think that boy got killed over this gun.”

Gata looked at the case lying on the counter like it was a venomous snake. “So Lil Ton walked outta here flush last night,” she said.

“No more than usual. At least recently,” said Silesi.

Kei’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

“Lil Ton’s been flashing eddies for the last week. Bought a Chao off of me a few days ago, with a nice ankle holster,” he replied.

Kei and Gata looked at each other.

“Maybe you didn’t know your friend as well as you thought,” said Silesi.

* * *

Kei flicked her cigarette butt into the oil-slicked water of the Bay, lit another one. She knew she was going through smokes way too fast, but oh well.

“What the hell was Lil Ton up to?” she said out loud.

“Maybe Jimmy was right,” Gata ventured. “Maybe he was turning tricks. How else would he get that flush with eddies?”

“Okay, hold on,” said Kei, handing Gata a cigarette. “Let’s walk this through. So let’s say Lil Ton gets himself a nice fat sugar daddy. Suddenly, he’s getting paid. He keeps it real close, but he buys a decent pistol for protection.”

“It’s what I’d do,” Gata shrugged.

“Agreed. But then, Lil Ton walks into Iron and Lead with something real expensive, something worth a lot of eddies. Gets himself a big payday, but only a fraction of what he could have made if he had been willing to wait for like, a week or so. He wants to get paid on the spot,” said Kei.

“A quick score like that means you’re fiending and need a fix, or you’re looking to get out of town,” offered Gata.

Kei looked at her friend. “When’d you get so smart?”

Gata blushed, and Kei punched her shoulder affectionately. “You’re right,” Kei admitted. “So unless Lil Ton blew his roll on drugs, he was looking to get the hell out.”

“So where did he get the gun?” asked Gata.

“Klepped it from his sugar daddy, I guess.” Kei took a drag, breathed the smoke out through her nose.

“So the sugar daddy’s our suspect?”

“What are you, NCPD Blue?” snorted Kei. “Our suspect. Yeah, detective. He’s our guy.”

“You got a better idea?” challenged Gata.

“No,” admitted Kei. “No, I don’t.”

“So Sil said that only twenty of these guns were made,” said Gata. “Maybe we go on the Net to look up who owns one in Night City.”

Kei’s eyebrows shot up. “Damn, girl.”

“C’mon,” said Gata, pulling her friend towards a ubiquitous DataTerm. “What did Sil say the name of the designer was?”

“Uhh…Christian Onyx,” said Kei.

“Right,” said Gata, punching away at the touchscreen. “Let’s have a look.”

“When did you become like, a crimesolver?” asked Kei. She was a little fascinated, and if she was honest, even a little turned on. This was a side of Gata that she’d never seen before.

“Mysteries are kinda my jam,” said Gata absently, scrolling through results. “Damn, Kei.” She let out a low whistle. “Check it out.”

“The Christian Onyx Ebony and Ivory Limited Edition,” read Kei. “Retail value…one hundred and fifty thousand eurodollars?”

Kei and Gata looked at each other.

“He had no idea,” said Kei.

“No. Not a clue,” replied Gata. “He was never gonna get away with that.”

Kei closed her eyes, rubbing them. “Oh, Ton.”

“That was him,” said Gata. “A wild child with no goddam clue.” She wiped at her eyes. “Sweet guy, but just no idea. He wants to run, of course he kleps the most expensive thing he sees.”

Kei looked at her friend, wondering for the first time if Gata had been holding a crush for Lil Ton as well as her. Not the time to ask, choom.

Did that make her feel a little jealous?

“So,” said Kei, shaking her head, “we got an address for this sugar-daddy?”

Gata resumed typing at the keypad. “Hold on…twenty guns originally made…ten still survive…yeah, one here in NC!” Her face fell. “Crap. It just says Private Collection, owner in Charter Hill. No name, no address.”

Kei put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Worth a shot, choom. We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” said Gata, discouraged.

The two of them walked slowly, disconsolately back to their perch looking over the water. Kei felt the synth-caf churn in her stomach as the first hunger pangs of the day kicked in. They’d need to run some kind of score soon, if they wanted to eat. Either that, or dip into Kei’s savings that she’d pulled out of her stash.

Idly, Kei found herself wondering what it would be like to have a hundred and fifty thousand eddies. Her own place, that’s what she’d start with. Put down a deposit and have an apartment, a real apartment with a shower. Then some new clothes. Maybe even a haircut. Then maybe go down to Iron and Lead, get something better than the clunky Unity sitting in the small of her back right now, get a real shiny don’t mess with me pistol that let people know she meant business…

“Hold up,” Kei said, sitting up straight.

“What?”

“Sil must have known who this gun came from.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gata.

“In less than five minutes on the Net, you found out all this stuff about the gun. Sil’s like, an expert. This is what he does. So this preem gun lands on his counter, Sil knows exactly where it came from,” said Kei.

“What are you saying, Kei?” said Gata slowly. “Are you saying Sil snitched out Lil Ton?”

“I dunno,” said Kei, lifting her hands helplessly. “Maybe? How the hell should I know? Sil’s one of the nicest guys in Northside. But the minute he sees that gun, what’s he gonna be thinking?”

Gata squinted as she look at the water and thought. “Okay. Sil’s gonna be thinking one of two things, right? Either he sells the gun on the downlow or he contacts the owner and says, ‘hey, I got your gun, come get it and bring me a nice little finder’s fee.’”

“If Sil picked option B, that’s Lil Ton done,” said Kei. “Cuz when Sugar Daddy gets that call from Sil, Sugar Daddy knows Lil Ton ripped him off.”

“But if that happened, no way Sil shows us the gun,” replied Gata. “He just shuts up about the whole thing and moves on.”

Kei’s head hurt. The hunger pains were coming in steady, she hadn’t had enough sleep, and she’d been going on cigarettes and synth-caf. All of these ifs and maybes were starting to swirl around and blur.

“Come on,” she said, standing up. “Let’s get burgers. I’m buying.”

“For real?”

* * *

The smell of the burgers on the burner made both of their stomachs growl. Kei had decided the hell with it and sprung for a burger, a side of fries, and a NiCola for each of them. She watched as Gata took her box of fries and drowned them in ketchup.

They munched on fries as they stood and waited for the burgers to be finished.

“Thanks, Kei. What made you decide to shell out for all this?” Hot as they were, fries were disappearing with astonishing speed into Gata’s mouth.

“Cuz life’s too short, G.” Kei stared at their burgers as the cook put the patties onto buns, adding fakin bacon, onion chips, and dried seaweed. He served them up in paper wrappers, and Kei and Gata took their treasures to a booth.

“What’s that mean? ‘Life’s too short.’” Gata sucked the ketchup off her fingers and took a huge bite of her burger. “God, that’s good.”

“Whaddya mean, what’s that mean?” said Kei around a mouthful of fries. “It means what it says. Life is too short to be worrying all the time.”

“Oh. Ok. Gotcha. Like YOLO.”

“Yeah,” said Kei, “like YOLO.” She suddenly felt very old. “Listen, Gata, I need you to do me a favour. To promise me something.”

“For sure,” said Gata. She took a sip of her NiCola. “What’s up?”

“I got this phone.” She slid the old cell phone out of her pants pocket, put it on the table. “Something happens to me, you call the number on this phone.”

“Uh…” Gata eyed the phone like Kei had put a dead rat on the table. “That sounds like death talk, Kei. You were the one who always told me, you start talking like that, you’re just asking for it.”

“I know I did, Gata. I know. But I’m still saying this to you, right now. So will you do this for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” replied Gata nervously. “You want me to, uh, take the phone off you or what?”

Kei powered the phone up, showed her friend the contact list with its one number. “Just write it down, G. And call it if something happens to me.”

“If something happens to you, Kei, then it’ll happen to me too, because we’ll be together, right?” said Gata, trying not to sound too emotional, and failing.

“I know,” said Kei. “But just in case.”

“Holy shit, you spring for a burger and fries, you act like it’s the end of the goddam world,” said Gata.

Kei snorted. “Gonna make me inhale NiCola,” she said. “Now be a pal, and get me more ketchup.”

“Be a pal,” mimicked Gata. “What are you, fifty?”
Loved reading this. So much personality in your characters and setting. Learning to write fiction also and it's tough. I will be reading more of your work.
 
If you have an AO3 profile we need to link up. I'd love to see what else you can come up with and I'd adore a chance to collab with you.
 
I started playing the original Cyberpunk game all the way back when it was a box and three handbooks, and I've loved it ever since. When I first stepped into the Night City of Cyberpunk 2077, it felt like coming home. This short story, Hollow Boy, is my first fanfic set in the Night City of the CDPR game. I want to tell the story in stages, and will be adding to it every couple of days. I hope that those who read it, enjoy it!

Hollow Boy

Chapter One

“Kei,” came the voice, along with an insistent shove. “Kei.”

That couldn’t be Gata, thought Kei muzzily. She knows better.

“Get lost,” muttered Kei. She pushed her head deeper into the foam pillow.

“Kei, you need to wake up right now. It’s about Lil Ton,” said Gata.

“What the hell.” Kei pushed herself up and half out of her sleeping bag, running a hand over her face. Her mouth tasted like an ashtray, and she didn’t want to know what her hair looked like. Kei yawned, and scratched her armpit.

“Smokes,” she said. Gata, perched near her like some kind of anxious forest simian, pulled a pack of New Yuans and a lighter from Kei’s jacket, handed them to Kei.

Spark. Drag. Breathe. Kei blinked, rubbed her eyes “So what about Lil Ton?” she demanded.

“He got got, Kei. Sometime last night.” Gata’s face seemed to bounce along her eyeline.

“Ah, Jesus.” Kei took another drag, ran her hand over her face again. “What the hell, G. Who did for him?”

“Nobody seems to know. But that’s not the worst part,” said Gata.

“How can Lil Ton being dead not be the worst part?”

“It’s messed up, Kei. You need to see.”

The sounds of the day were beginning to come through the walls of the boathouse where Kei flopped. “I can’t leave now, Gata,” said Kei. “There’s working stiffs out there, doing their, y’know, jobs and whatever. Might not be too happy about me living here, and this is the best squat I’ve had in six months. That’s why I lay low during the day, only come out at night.” A thought struck her. “G, when did you come in here?”

Gata looked down. “Like, ten minutes ago.”

Damn!” Kei swore. “Well, that’s goodbye to this place, then.”

“Nobody saw me come in,” said Gata defensively.

“Trust me,” said Kei, rolling up her sleeping bag and looking for her boots, “Somebody saw.” She pulled on her camo pants and began lacing her boots. “Gimme five minutes to grab my gear,” said Kei, “then we’ll go see Lil Ton.”

* * *



“No,” said Kei, “that’s just messed up.”

She stood with Gata in front of the open cargo can. The taggers had already been making their comments on the scene with spray paint. Not all their words were kind.

Lil Ton, or what was left of him, was spreadeagled on the floor of the can. It looked like a nail gun had been used on his palms on his bare feet to anchor him to the metal. That wasn’t the worst part.

His abdominal and chest cavities had been scraped hollow, like some kind of horrible dugout canoe. That was the worst part.

No blood anywhere in the can. Flecks of red meat inside the massive open cavity where Lil Ton’s insides used to be, but no blood in the can itself.

Against her will, Kei’s eyes were drawn to look at Lil Ton’s expression, and that was when she had to turn away and puke.

Afterwards, Kei sat on a concrete barrier overlooking the water, and she couldn’t stop her shoulders and arms from shaking. In a reversal of their usual roles, it was Gata rubbing her back and muttering reassuring words.

“Sorry I gave you a tough time, G,” managed Kei. “You were right to come find me straight off. Even in Northside, the cops can’t leave him there for long. And if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Who the hell would do that to somebody, Kei?” asked Gata. “Scavs? Some new Maelstrom initiation?”

Kei shook her head, looking out at the water and trying to flush the memory of Lil Ton’s expression from her mind. “Scavs would have taken his eyes, knee joints, would never just waste the hands and feet. Maelstrom…I don’t see it. Gonna ask Barkbite, though, just to make sure.”

“You’re gonna ask around about this?” exclaimed Gata, her eyes wide. “Something like this, sounds like time to get gone.”

Kei turned and stroked a hand affectionately along Gata’s olive-skinned cheek. “Goddam, G. We’re dock rats in Northside. Where the hell else is there to go?”

* * *

Kei walked through the dockside flea market, eyes darting back and forth. The sight of Lil Ton’s body had dialled her normal caution up past eleven. Some kind of full-on freak haunting the docks? she wondered. Somebody I know who snapped and went max twitch? Suddenly, the faces of people she had seen every day for years seemed like dangerous strangers.

With a nervous glance behind her, Kei hopped onto the rusted back stairs of PieZ. Jimmy Trip, the kid who ran the place for his doped-out folks, had always had a bit of crush on Kei. Not enough to let her eat for free – biz was biz – but enough to save leftovers for her, and throw in the occasional Nicola that “fell out of the machine.”

Kei gave the back screen door her usual double-tap and waited. It wasn’t long before Jimmy scoped her and gave the door a push. “You’re up early,” he said as she slipped in. “Keep to the corner, outta camera range. The franchise sees you here, they give me crap, maybe pull my license.”

“I know the drill, Jimmy,” drawled Kei, trying to sound more casual than she felt. “How’s biz?”

“Quiet,” said the teen, not looking up from the premade food he was loading from boxes on the floor into the fridge. “Nobody wants a pie for breakfast, not even the calzones. Past the morning synth-caf rush, so now it’s just prep and inventory.” He straightened. “I heard about Lil Ton. I’m real sorry, Kei.”

“Same here, Jimmy. What are people saying?” Kei perched on the stool Jimmy kept in the camera’s blind spot and tried to ignore the hunger pangs she was feeling as she looked at all the food in the pantry.

“This one’s real messed up. Nobody’s sure. Doesn’t stop ‘em guessing, though.” He glanced over at Kei. “Got some overstock from yesterday’s order. I’d just have to throw it out anyway. You want it?”

Kei gave a little smile, careful not to look too grateful or worse, desperate. “You’re a prince, Jimmy Trip.”

The teen tried to hide his blush and gave a little shrug. “Doin’ me a favour. Saves me on garbage fees. Ten minutes, okay?”

“Thanks.” Kei stood up and opened the door, standing half in, half out. “So what are they guessing, Jimmy?”

The teen paused, not meeting Kei’s eyes. “That Lil Ton was turning tricks, got picked up by a freak.”

“If that was a john,” said Kei grimly, “the pros of Northside are in even more trouble than usual.”

* * *

Jimmy might have called it overstock, but to Kei, the food tasted pretty damn fresh. She felt rather than saw the skinny girl appear behind her.

“Plenty for both of us, Gata,” said Kei, pushing a pie across the patio table. It wasn’t technically true, but looking out for your chooms was an unwritten code of the street. Gata pulled out a rusty chair and dug in enthusiastically. People might refer to Kei as slender, but nobody called Gata anything but skinny. Sometimes it looked like the only thing holding flesh and bone together was a kind of perverse optimism. That, and a doglike devotion to Kei.

“So did Jimmy know anything about…y’know, Lil Ton?” asked Gata, in between bites.

“Nah,” replied Kei. “Word on the water says it might have been a twitchy john, but that doesn’t scan to me. Do you know if Lil Ton was turning tricks?”

“Not that I heard,” said Gata, gulping down jellied fruit and dough. “Any turning pro without Riker’s say-so is gonna get a red smile, and Riker has no time for anybody that hangs with you. If you guys are still beefing, that is.”

“Huh,” said Kei dismissively. “That loser still thinks he owns a piece of my ass.”

Gata looked at her friend, wide eyed. “You better watch it, Kei. People take Riker seriously now. He hears you talking about him like that, maybe he pays you a visit.”

“We’ll see. I got that boy’s number, don’t you worry. But what the hell are we gonna do about Lil Ton?”

Gata swallowed, frowned. “What do you mean? Do?”

“He was a choom, Gata. He was one of us. And our boy got messed up.”

The skinny girl looked down at the gooey mess in front of her, tracing her finger in the pie filling. “What can we do, Kei? Street ate him up. He’s gone.”

“No way,” said Kei firmly. “If some john did go twitch on him, we’d light him up. Some Maelstroms did some kinda job on him, maybe one or two go missing. Some Pacifica boys pulled some freaky voodoo shit, we drop a bumboclaat. We don’t just hang our heads and thank plastic Jesus that it was him and not us, like we’re goddam victims or garbage like that.”

Gata looked up at her friend, uncertain. “For real?”

“For real,” answered Kei. “You telling me if some jerk clips me tomorrow, it’s just so long? Loved ya, now you’re gone? Or do you say, ‘That was my friend, and she mattered.’ Lil Ton matter to you?”

Gata looked down, sucked jelly off her finger, looked up. “Yeah. For sure. He mattered to me.”

“Then we have to make sure somebody knows he mattered. That he had people,” said Kei fiercely. The more she talked about it, the more she could feel the anger boiling inside her. She wasn’t sure if it was for her friend, who sure as hell didn’t deserve to go out like that, or at the thought of Kei herself getting zeroed, and the world not even noticing.

Kei stood up. The hell with this. They were gonna make sure that people knew; that people knew you couldn’t just do…whatever the hell they had done to Lil Ton, and then go on like it didn’t matter.

“We’re gonna find out, G,” she said. Gata stood up nervously. “We’re gonna start asking around for real. That means it’s time to tool up. Go strap on whatever you have. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”
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If things got bad, real bad, then Kei always knew there were two things she could do. The first was go to her stash, which was for emergencies only. Inside a battered backpack was a Unity 9mm pistol, two clips of ammo, a battered old external cell phone, and all of Kei’s savings.

The second thing she could do is power up the battered cell phone and dial the one number in its primitive memory.

She looked at the phone for a long time, weighing the heft of it in her hand. Finally she sighed, and slipped the phone into the front pocket of her camo pants. The pistol went into her belt, right in the small of her back. Her puffy jacket would hide it. The old K-Bar knife, that went with Kei everywhere, was tucked into her right boot. The backpack and the eddies returned to her stash spot.

Kei walked along the docks with a casual swagger that she did not feel. She knew, like any dock rat knew, that half of avoiding becoming somebody’s victim was making sure not to walk like a victim. Still, sometimes that was easier said than done. She couldn’t shake the mental picture of Lil Ton, nailed to a cargo can, looking like something in a meat processing plant.

Who does that to somebody?

Kei had seen a lot of things, living on the streets. It tended to rob you of illusions about what people could do to other people. It was why she made damn sure she had a safe place to sleep at night.

Dammit. Kei remembered that Gata had ruined the safety of her flop, and that she had no safe place to sleep tonight.

Just another thing on my goddam list, she thought. She’d have to find a safe place to stow her sleeping gear, see about maybe arranged shared watches with Gata wherever she was squatting.

The rest of Northside seemed to be settling into its rhythms. Robotrucks pulled away from warehouses in a steady stream, carrying cargo cans to wherever their ultimate destinations might be, Night City just one stop on the long journey of microchips or stuffed animals or vibrators from production to retail. Kei had been witness to enough cans “getting lost” in the stacks (and then opened up) to know that their products were almost infinite in variety.

The few dockworkers who still had jobs sat far above the action in their enormous gantries, surveying the constant processes of loading and unloading by robotic cranes and delivery systems moving like worker ants from container ship to warehouse and back. Human involvement was only required in the event of certain kinds of accident, like a can slipping out of a crane’s grip and plummeting into the water or smashing spectacularly onto the concrete.

Although it was rare, it still happened. Some dock rats waited patiently for these events, scuttling from their hidey holes to scavenge whatever spilled out of a fallen can. Sometimes a second can would fall, set off by the first, and leave a red stain where the scavengers had been.

Risks of the game.

I guess maybe that’s what’s bothering me, realized Kei as she walked back to the flea market. Everybody knows that the game has risks. You get got, that’s your hard luck. But what happened to Lil Ton, that’s not part of any game I recognize.

“Hey, Lorelei,” she said, walking up the stall of the women who sold factory-reject clothing. Some cargo inspectors liked to check the stuff right out of the can, and substandard clothing, with missing zippers or a misspelled brand name or whatever, was sold on the megacheap to people like Lorelei. The inspectors wrote the stuff off as rejects and pocketed the profit.

“Hey Kei,” smiled the woman. She was a part of what Kei thought of as old school Northside; Lorelei had been selling clothes at her stall for as long as Kei could remember. She was visibly older now, her dreads more grey than blonde, but retirement plans weren’t a thing for people like Lorelei. “Just got some new ziptops yesterday. You like?”

The elderly clothes seller held up a pretty sweet looking jacket, all reds and blacks. Above the familiar swoosh was written, “Nuke – Just Do It.”

Kei laughed. “Yeah, can’t see the bosses wanting that in their flagship stores. Appreciate the sentiment, though.”

“Twenty eddies for you, sweetie.”

“Sorry, Lorelei,” answered Kei, shaking her head. “Other priorities right now. You hear about Lil Ton?”

Lorelei’s face fell. “Oh, sweetie. Yeah, I heard. How awful. That poor boy.”

“You hear any talk about likely suspects?” asked Kei, trying to sound casual.

The clothes seller wasn’t fooled, however. “Kei, you be careful. The kind of person who’s going to do something like that is very serious, sweetie. Not the kind of person you want to find.”

“So you don’t think it was gangers?” persisted Kei.

Lorelei shook her head. “If it was Maelstrom, they’d have their tags all over it. And if it was another gang doing that in Maelstrom territory, they’d be tooling up right now.”

“Maybe they are.”

“Trust Lorelei, sweetie. They’re not.” The old woman smiled briefly, then looked directly at Kei, her expression serious. “Trust Lorelei on this too, sweetie. Don’t go looking for who did this. I know Lil Ton was a choom for you, but you should let it go.”

“Would you? If he was your choom?” asked Kei, and walked off.

First Gata, now Lorelei. People telling her to back off. The hell with that. Your friends were supposed to have your back, to look out for you, to step up if you got dropped; otherwise, what was the damn point?

The thought of just disappearing, sinking into the water without even a ripple to show where you’d been, make Kei shudder. She pulled out the battered cell phone from her pants pocket, examined it. She held the ‘on’ button, just checking to see if the battery still works, she told herself. The phone powered up with a cheery tone, the screen lighting up.

Kei stared at it for a long time.

“Hey, Kei,” came Gata’s shy voice from behind her. Kei quickly pocketed the phone and turned to face her friend.

“Hey, G. You tooled up?” Kei regarded her friend critically. If she was carrying, it didn’t show.

Gata blushed. “Kinda. No iron, but a shockrod strapped to my arm inside my sleeve.” She lifted her left arm.

Kei sighed. “That’ll have to do. Just don’t jolt yourself readjusting your ponytail or anything.”

Gata nodded unenthusiastically, as if that possibility had not occurred to her. Her hand automatically went up to check her ponytail, but she stopped herself. “Where we going first?” she asked.

“Let’s see if we can find Barkbite.”
Love this
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