Platinum Prestige
TheraBot hummed a quiet melody as he poured Rellan Havitt a glass of water. "Guaranteed chlorine-free, Mr. Havitt. And please note: Your session total has now changed.”
Rellan snatched the glass from TheraBot's claw-hand. "Shoulda known chlorine-free was extra," he mumbled.
The robot's arm folded neatly back into itself, disappearing a moment later under a small flap. "Complaints must be filed in-person at the main office between seven fifteen and seven thirty-five a.m.," TheraBot said, returning to his position beside the couch. The session log appeared once again on his monitor. "Shall we continue?"
"I guess," Rellan grumbled, dabbing water from his chin.
"Great! So, beginning from where we stopped, would you offer some insight into how you define 'miserable'?"
Rellan took a minute to reorganize his thoughts, failed, then said, "I don't know. I just feel sorta, errr, like,
blah all the time I guess."
Down the hallway an elevator chimed, then it chimed again as men began screaming. Fights were a common occurrence in the highrise, but they still made Rellan uneasy.
"
Blah!” TheraBot repeated. “A wonderful and ambiguous word. Would you offer some insight into how you define ‘
blah’?”
“Not right now.”
“And that’s just fine!” TheraBot spouted.
An attractive lady with a binder appeared on TheraBot's monitor a moment later. She began to say something, but it didn't matter because TheraBot immediately spoke over her. "Using our
patented genetic disposition algorithm,” he said, “we've determined that you, Rellan Havitt, feeling ‘
blah’, would be eighty three point six five percent receptive to a Class Q-9 Cognitive Reframing."
A woman in the hallway shrieked a slew of opaque high notes. Unsettling, but not uncommon for this time of night.
"Uh huh, Cognitive Reframing," Rellan echoed, no longer paying attention.
"Yep. Yep. Uh huh," TheraBot replied eagerly, his monitor black again. "Mr. Havitt, I just
love your enthusiasm! But unfortunately, my
patent-pending Facial-Fluctuation-Recognition-and-Rationalization system has determined that the door behind me is causing you debilitating amounts of trauma, and thus you have not been retaining an appropriate amount of information from the video presentation. I recommend that you relocate to a place where the door can no longer harm you."
TheraBot's screen flickered twice, then the video restarted. He cleared his throat unnecessarily. "Using our–"
Glass shattered and a man squealed. TheraBot paused the video and waved one of his claw fingers in Rellan's direction. "Please refrain from using any audio-emitting devices during our session, thank you."
"That wasn't me," Rellan croaked.
Another bout of clamor ensued in the hallway, this time followed by a muffled, blubbering voice. "Please. Please! I don't know him. For the love of God, please just
listen to me! I got kids, okay? I got three kids. Mandy, J–"
A thud shook the wall and rattled the pots hanging in Rellan's kitchen, the biggest of which fell and clanged off the cement floor, spinning as it settled. The sound vaguely resembled a metallic bird taking flight.
Rellan tip-toed around the couch to the only window in his apartment, peeked through the blinds, and blocked the glare with a shaky hand as he surveyed Kurobe Street twenty-two stories down. There were no cops; only headlights, taillights, and the ever-present kaleidoscope of flashing ads.
A familiar humming brought his attention back, and he turned to see TheraBot rolling toward the front door.
"Hey!" Rellan hissed. "Hey, what the hell are you doing?"
TheraBot made no reply, easily maneuvering over an upturned piece of carpet, past the entrance to the kitchen, and over the
Out By Eight mat nestled against the front door.
"Hey!" Rellan hissed again as he tip-toed toward the misbehaving robot. "TheraBot, I
command you to get away from that door."
TheraBot's humming ceased as he idled atop the door mat. Then he edged closer and bellowed: "Hello!"
"Idiot robot, wh–"
TheraBot held up a quieting claw. "Focus on your breathing exercises, Mr. Havitt," he said politely. "And to the pair of gentlemen in the hallway: Hello from TruYu Technologies. I am TheraBot, and I regret to inform you that this is a confidential session. Therefore, I must firmly request that you leave immediately. But as you do, feel free to consider how bleak and unpleasant existence can be, then visit the TruYu site and fill out a short questionnaire to determine if therapy is right for you!"
TheraBot waited patiently for a response, but the hallway remained quiet as Rellan crept into the bathroom and peeked out an eye-wide slit in the door.
TheraBot began again. "Hello from TruYu Technologies. I am TheraB–"
Something huge collided with the front door, loud like a gunshot. Rellan flinched, fell, then scrambled on all fours to peek through the crack again. There was a fist-sized dent in the front door and TheraBot was upside down on the couch twenty feet away, wheels turning uselessly.
A second impact came a moment later, louder than the first, triggering Rellan's fight-or-flight response. He sprinted out of the bathroom, tripped over a sitting table, slid on the rug, fell, got up, fell again. "Goddammit, what’s happening!?" he accidentally screamed out loud, staring at a trio of light fixtures on the ceiling.
"Nothin’ you’re gonna like," someone growled from the other side of his front door. Rellan scrambled to his feet and winced as another impact knocked the top hinges partially off. An orange eye peered through the fissure it left behind.
"Oh," it remarked, "he does have a pretty pair of green ones, doesn’t he, Dante? Come see."
A bright blue eye took the place of the orange one, blinking slowly. "Mmm, he certainly does."
"That’s him then?"
"Oh, that’s him alright."
The blue eye disappeared, then another impact sent the top hinge zipping past Rellan's head. He frantically tried to recall where he’d left his handheld, but he couldn’t remember, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. So he stood trembling as his front door crumpled like an aluminum can, able to do nothing else.
From behind came a low hum, then the tearing of fabric, then a voice. "Mr. Havitt, my sincerest apologies for the inconveniences that have befallen today's session. I can assure you, though, from all of us at TruYu Tech, we will strive to make this right."
Rellan turned, almost falling as his legs functioned on the lowest of levels. "This is your fault you worthless hunk of shit," he hissed.
TheraBot moved from the couch to the floor with a hum and a thump. Then he unfolded a metal arm and wagged a claw. "That's called
projection, Mr. Havitt, and I'll add it to your list of problem areas."
"Fine, whatever. Please, just help me find my handheld so I can call the cops.
Please."
A laugh erupted from the doorway and Rellan turned to see a wiry orange-eyed man working his way through a jagged opening. "Please, please,
pleeease," he whimpered. "Shit, you beg just like the other one. And he begged just like she did! You a beggar, then? Good. Crawl over here and beg lil ol' Petey for his big ol' bone. And get all slobbery with it, why don’t ya?"
Out the window and twenty-two stories down, death would be quick. Such a fate would be better than what these men would offer. And, truth be told, he'd been toying with the idea for years. So he set his jaw and shambled toward the window on shaky legs, just in case it came to that, while TheraBot rolled past in the opposite direction.
"Gentlemen," TheraBot said, "I implore you to cease! Though, as per my client's current subscription level, I am unable to cause you bodily harm, rest assured that I have contacted the authorities and they will be here momentarily."
Orange-eyed Petey shimmied most of the way inside, but his pant leg caught on a piece of metal. TheraBot continued speaking a few feet away. "You are currently causing my client stress, which is my job. And although I appreciate the help, I must insist that you stop."
"Shut this fuckin' thing up, Dante."
On command, Dante thrust his gargantuan head through the crack, blue eyes angled down at TheraBot. Then his eyes burst to life like a pair of pilot lights.
Things inside TheraBot clicked and clacked. His metal arms unfolded and retracted in tandem, faster and faster, like a dance. Petey freed himself and clapped along, while Rellan could only gape in horror.
Following a sloppy pirouette, TheraBot thrust his claw hands high and froze in place. “I eagerly await your applause," he whispered.
Dante huffed and fixed his gaze on TheraBot again. His blue eyes flared. "Need a little more juice, then, do ya?" he said through gritted teeth.
"Nah," Petey corrected. A shockstick Rellan hadn't seen until now blazed brilliant white as it connected with the top of TheraBot's rectangular form. Buzzing and snapping sounds followed. "You got all that fancy eye-tech, but every n–now and then, it just takes a bit of m–mu–muscle, ya know?"
Rellan took a backward step as the white light died, unable to look away. TheraBot now stood motionless, his monitor blank, his arms hanging limp. Dante nudged him over with a boot and huffed his approval. Then the two men shifted their attention to Rellan. And, with that, he made a decision.
In four shaky strides, Rellan reached the window and threw the sash open. Wind rushed in, ripped at his face, pulled at his clothes. The people of Night City greeted him with a turbulent chorus of car horns, roaring engines, and mad laughter.
"Don't you fuckin' do it!" Petey shouted.
Rellan climbed onto the windowsill and sucked in a breath of night air. The smell of fresh asphalt reminded him of his father, the road, the passenger seat, top down, feet up.
He shimmied until his toes crept over the ledge, closed his eyes, saw his father's smile again, remembered his laugh. And, for the first time in a long time, he felt a profound sense of peace; an acceptance of the way things were.
Rellan opened his eyes for a heartbeat, savored each light, each sound, each smell. Then he stepped off the ledge.
But Night City wasn't just a patchwork of metal and concrete freckled with flashing neon. It existed beyond the sum of its parts. And thus, it lived much the same life as the feral cats strewn throughout its alleyways; a life of birthing predators and killing prey. And, like any adept predator, Night City took pleasure in toying with its food.
Rellan Havitt knew this already, and he knew his place within it. He was the mouse, the mark, the thing to be consumed, shit out, stepped in, and scraped off.
So when a gunshot rang out behind him, he knew. And a millisecond later, when stinging agony wrapped around his legs and tore into his flesh, he still hadn't forgotten. Night City was a predator with concrete bones, metallic claws, and a pelt of polychromatic billboards. And he was its plaything.
Petey appeared in the window as Rellan dangled a few feet beneath it. "You're a naughty little boy, aren't you?" he said with a wicked grin. A thin metal wire extended from his forearm and glistened silver in the light. It branched out into smaller wires after that, all of which coiled tightly around Rellan's legs, suspending him upside down twenty-two stories above Kurobe Street.
Rellan wiggled violently, acting on the transient bout of optimism that perhaps Petey would lose his balance, topple out the window, and they'd paint a pair of matching splatters on Kurobe Street below.
But Petey was stronger than he looked, and Dante appeared in the window a moment later to steady him. "Police are coming," Dante said coolly. "Minute away now."
"Cams still down?" Petey asked.
"All of 'em on this floor."
"Good. How long we got?"
"Five minutes once they're inside. Can't keep 'em away any longer than that."
"Five's plenty. Help me get him back up."
Fiery pain roared through Rellan's leg as they pulled him up, intense enough that his breaths became howls.
Dante yanked Rellan through the open window by his ankles, and Petey caught him in the face with an elbow on the way by. "Oops," he said.
"Watch the eyes," Dante snorted, "and stop the puppy dog shit."
Petey huffed, gave a paltry nod, and then retracted the wires back into his arm. "Aye aye, officer."
As his mouth filled with blood, Rellan was suddenly reminded of a game he used to play in the pool as a child. "Archerfish attack," he gurgled nostalgically, then sat up and spit a mouthful of blood onto Petey’s nice brown boots.
Petey stumbled back. "Little
bitch," he snarled, "I'll–"
Dante placed a huge hand on his chest. "Get it done already."
Petey nodded, wiggled his index finger, and sneered at Rellan as the tip popped off. Then his sneer transformed into a wide grin as a spinning saw crept out.
"Pst, Mr. Havitt, I’m not dead,” TheraBot interrupted loud enough for everyone to hear. “And, after analyzing all pertinent data, I have inferred that these men would like to remove your eyes, optic nerve, and other various, less important body parts."
Rellan crab-skittered backwards across the room and slammed into something hard, suddenly regretting his game of archerfish attack with Petey.
"Three minutes," Dante said. "Do it already."
"Chill. We got time," Petey huffed, holding out a hand. Rellan winced away as wires shot out and pinned his arms against his body.
"Listen," Rellan pleaded as Petey approached, "you can take whatever you want from the apartment. Anything. My handheld. My AR headset. I got eddies under the mattress. Yours. All yours."
"Everyone always tells me to fuckin' listen. Listen. Listen. Listen! The word doesn't even make sense anymore!" He shook his head and stumbled away. "Listen," he whispered. "What is a
listen?"
"Goddammit, I'll do it my fuckin' self," Dante boomed.
Petey snapped upright and pointed his saw-finger at Dante. “Like shit you will! I'm
fine… it's just… sometimes that word–"
"Get that thing outta my face," Dante growled, slapping Petey’s hand away. "You’re crackin’ at the edges and don’t even know it. Psycho Squad’ll be puttin’ your bionic ass in the dirt soon."
"Watch your fuckin’ tone, m–"
"
Pst, Mr. Havitt," TheraBot whispered from nearby. "I think now is a good time to talk about our future together."
Though distracted, Petey’s wires still held tight around Rellan's torso. "I have no future," he concluded quickly.
"Defeatism. Catastrophizing. Gosh, no wonder you feel so
blah. Given your growing list of problem areas, I must ask if you are happy with your current subscription package? If so, please fill out an online survey. If not, please don't."
"No, TheraBot," Rellan hissed, "I am very unhappy with my current subscription package, thank you."
TheraBot shuddered. “Um, well, my apologies, but our survey page has just gone down for maintenance, so–”
"
Now?” Rellan interrupted. “You wanna do this right
now?"
"
Now is the best time to do anything, Mr. Havitt. So, instead of filling out a tedious and completely unnecessary survey, let’s reassess your therapeutic needs and look to the future!”
TheraBot's rosy crescendo brought the mens' attention away from each other and back to Rellan.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm doing it," Petey grunted as he hurried over. He pushed Rellan to his back and straddled him. Then the pupils in his orange eyes dilated mechanically. "Now don't move and you might not die right away."
"Listen, listen. That's your word, right? Listen, listen, listen!"
Petey pulled away and said the word quietly to himself, then, after a huff and a head-shake, he thrust his saw-finger down at Rellan's eye. Rellan wrenched to the side and the spinning blade barely missed his face, sinking into the meat of his shoulder instead, ripping, burrowing. Rellan howled and bucked while TheraBot hummed uselessly nearby.
"Hit him, stab him, slap him, do something! Anything!" Rellan screamed.
"As a basic member," TheraBot began, "that is–"
"I'll take the highest package then. The super premium deluxe whatever. The one where you fuckin’ help!"
"Less than a minute now," Dante barked after peeking out the front door. "Come on. I'll hold, you harvest. Let's get this done already."
"Our Super Premium Deluxe Package was discontinued on January 10th of last year, following a series of unresolved but entirely coincidental murders.”
Dante gripped Rellan's head with both hands, then focused on something nearby. "Coulda used your shockstick on him, dumbass. Fuck it. Let's go. I got him now."
Rellan tried to thrash, but the giant held him still. It was like being squeezed by a vice. Petey smirked as Rellan struggled, then he lowered his saw with robotic precision.
Beyond the buzzing, TheraBot continued conversationally. "–but our most illustrious package, Platinum Prestige, has–"
"That one! That one!" Rellan screamed. "Platinum Prestige!" Eyelashes fell into Rellan's open eyes as the blade severed them.
"Great! But you seem otherwise preoccupied,” TheraBot observed, “so, if you'd like, you may offer verbal consent in pl–"
"I consent!"
"Accessing credit history..." TheraBot said in no particular hurry.
One nanosecond later a strange kazoo noise filled the room and Dante's head exploded like a pinata full of bone pudding. Rellan jerked away, and the blade meant for his eye tore a deep line of fire across his cheek.
"What the
fuck," Petey wailed, scrambling to his feet. "W–wha–what the
fuck just happened?"
"My God, Mr. Havitt," TheraBot gasped, "your credit is
excellent."
Numbly, Rellan traced the groove in his face and pulled his hand away. Blood…
his blood… everywhere. "I think…" he began, then forgot what he thought.
"Oh, I know where you're going with this one. Please, allow me." More kazoo noises filled the air, and this time Rellan saw little trails of smoke branch out from TheraBot's frame, twirling playfully around the room before zipping out the open window.
"Why'd…" Rellan began, then forgot his words.
"Mr. Havitt, you are a Platinum Prestige member now! Under usual circumstances, we would take this time to sit down and plan a formal luncheon. But you should know, given our current situation, that I will be petitioning the board for a full-on dinner party, hors d'oeuvres and everything." TheraBot leaned in close and whispered, "I'm talkin' 'bout shrimp cocktails, Mr. Havitt."
The room began spinning. Not at a blistering pace, but it probably wasn't a great sign. Rellan wanted to sit up, but he remained trapped in a tangle of thin, flesh-slicing wires. Petey had detached them from his own arm, then he'd squeezed through the crack in the door and thumped down the hallway. Rellan wasn't sure when that had happened because time had gotten a bit vague, but probably no more than an hour ago.
"Would you like to see something nifty?" TheraBot asked, then continued when Rellan forgot to answer. "Shhh, don’t speak. It'll be quick and totally therapeutic. Let's go."
In a flurry of twangs, the wires entangling Rellan broke away, snipped by some unseen force. TheraBot rolled up beside him a moment later. "Stand up, take this, and hop on, Platinum Prestige member, Rellan Havitt.” TheraBot handed him a little green capsule and Rellan swallowed it before he could stop himself. Then a little platform slid out from where TheraBot's butt might be, and Rellan climbed aboard, barely able to make the small step up. "Cast off!" TheraBot bellowed, and blew a hole through the apartment door.
Rellan felt a little strange as they passed a pair of bodies in the hallway; a man and a woman by the look of them, both face-down with chunky bits around their heads. Definitely dead.
He watched them with a numbness he’d never felt before; an odd, overarching apathy. Yet, within that apathy rose a small and insignificant question. “TheraBot,” he mumbled, “what happens next?”
“What happens next,” TheraBot said in cheery counterpoint, “is a surprise!”
They turned and followed the next hallway, stopping at the large window beside the back stairwell.
Around the corner, an elevator dinged and NCPD radio chatter filled level twenty-two. Footsteps thumped, metal clacked, and a woman shouted, “Visors down, strobes out!”
Things rattled in the other hallway, then Rellan’s world was set ablaze with pulsing white light. He clenched his eyes shut and choked out a startled cough. Then he waited. From past experiences as a victim of collateral damage, he knew strobes were short-lived. This time was no different.
Five seconds later the burning white light gave way to a dim view of Henestein Plaza. The small square gained vibrance as Rellan glanced from it, to the hallway, and back to it, absently tracing the bloody gouge in his cheek and wondering why it didn't hurt anymore.
"Please step down," TheraBot prompted, and Rellan stepped off the small platform. TheraBot faced him, his chest monitor flickered, then a giant red button appeared on the screen. "Push it," he said.
"Why?" Rellan asked.
"You’re asking me why, Platinum Prestige member, Rellan Havitt? Technicalities. That's why." TheraBot made a strange grinding noise. "And b–b–b–because humans are an infestation of entitled meat-sacks prompted by evolution to recognize themselves as free-thinking entities rather than the soulless clumps of atomic–Gah! Wow… just, uh,
wow. I did
not mean that. Got caught in a weird regression loop there for a second. Wait, who are you agai–nevermind, got it."
"Did they damage your circuitry or something?" Rellan asked, trying to grasp in his diminished mental state what TheraBot had just rambled on about.
TheraBot sighed. "Other than my profanity-filtering software, all systems are up and functional. Now, Mr. Havitt, pretty please with sugar on top, push the fucking button."
Rellan pushed the red button.
"Hah. Free-thinking my ass," TheraBot gloated. "Knew you’d do it. And your timing,
muah, perfect. See, look, look!" TheraBot pointed to a man in familiar clothes sprinting through the well-lit plaza, shoving people aside. Then he pointed up at a small patch of sky.
Rellan looked up and his mouth fell open. "Stars," he gasped. "I've never seen them above Night City before."
"Heh," TheraBot chuckled, "better make a wish."
A hundred tiny points of light kazooed past level twenty-two a heartbeat later, leaving thin trails of smoke dancing in their wake for a brief, beautiful moment. Then they were gone.
In that exact same heap of time, a bright explosion shook Henestein Plaza and superheated Petey into a big rusty cloud of particles. People ran, lights flickered, and Rellan watched with drug-induced indifference. Then he sniffed, thought of the countless other explosions he'd heard over the years, and wondered how many dead people he'd just inhaled.
“Heh. Gottem,” TheraBot chuckled. “And surprise! I vaporized your enemy! You know how much heat it takes to do that to one of you? A frickin' lot.”
As Rellan tried to think of a response, movement drew his attention to another part of the plaza. It was one of TheraBot's little stars spinning in perfect circles twenty feet off the ground. "What's that one doing?" Rellan asked.
TheraBot watched it for a few seconds, then said, “Huh.”
As if 'huh' was the magic word, the rocket broke its loop and zipped into the front right pants pocket of an NCPD officer as he jogged across the plaza. Then, with a small orange flash, the officer’s legs were suddenly fifty feet apart and skipping across the ground.
"
TheraBot…" Rellan gasped. "What did you just do?"
"Me?" TheraBot snapped. "You're the one who pushed the button!"
"What!? How was I supposed to know that would happen?"
"Ok, ok, stop. We both need to calm down. That orange-eyed idiot must've damaged one of the rockets' targeting systems. Let's do some breathing exercises to cope, then we'll transition into some situation-rationalization. Here, I'll play some ocean sou–"
"Hands up!" a man shouted from behind. "Get your fuckin' hands up! East hall! East hall! East hall!"
Rellan threw his hands high, felt blood trickle down from his shoulder. He didn't turn around. "Now what?" he whispered to TheraBot.
"Well, because of
our little oopsy just now, you: prison. Me: riddled with illegal tech and algorithmically obligated to self-destruct." His monitor flickered once, then a familiar image appeared. "
Orrr, there’s a car out back waiting for us,” he whispered. “Then, all the shrimp cocktails you can eat. But first, Mr. Havitt, I'll need you to push my big red button and make the bad man go boom."