Chapter 90 Punishment Party Final Part

I passively followed the motions as Hiroto and his massive personality crashed into the party at mach speeds, interrupting the live music of Us Cracks in order to give an announcement. The three women were ecstatic to see him and they cracked jokes on stage for at least five minutes before he eventually got down to brass tacks about the race and his demand for a rematch.

Jin, predictably, had no qualms about this and was more than happy to see a rehash of last Saturday in micro-scale.

I coped by dividing every moment into digestible chunks of action and execution. Walk there. Say this. Placate the girlfriend—and then, subsequently come clean to her about the latest shitstorm on the horizon. Trade words with Fei-Fei. Trade hammy insults with Hiroto.

I spent the moments of downtime in between every action writing code with Nannie. My attention pinballed between all these disparate nodes all the way to the parking garage tower in south Watson, very near to the City Centre district.

At some point, I had bitten the bullet and given him a chip with my encryption software in it. I didn’t trust Hiroto enough to call him an ally yet, so if this went belly-up, I’d have to work on a new software and give those out to my friends yet again.

This way, I’d be guaranteed some degree of protection during this ‘job interview’ for a lack of better terms.

Some degree was better than none. For now, at least.

Finally, it was time to race.

In my passenger’s seat was the Blue member of Us Cracks. Hiroto took the other two, as a handicap. One was seated on the other’s lap in their Caliburn. Hiroto was so confident that he could beat me in a game of pure drift racing that it genuinely didn’t matter to him how much weight he was putting on his car, or how asymmetrical that weight was.

David: Ready?

Hiroto: Why don’t you start the race, and I’ll just make sure to catch up?

David: You really that sure you’ll win?

Hiroto: It should scare you, shouldn’t it?

This fucking guy.

I took him up on his offer.

000

Rebecca waited in a dark alleyway in Watson to be picked up. The night was slow now that no one was really around Night City anymore. Things were quiet. Almost too quiet.

David had the entire city running scared now, and it was a sight to see. She could never have imagined that they would get this far, that she would get this far. She had all the money she could ever need, and a clear way out of Night City. She and her brother were living their father’s wildest dreams, and she still wanted more.

There was a time when Edgerunners were serious about hitting the corpos back. Those days had been far, far behind NC, almost abandoned after the Night City holocaust that took out much of the central district, and kicked Arasaka clean out of the city fifty years ago. But Rebecca hadn’t forgotten the stories.

She needed to chip in something that was really fucking preem. Thanks to their recent windfall, she had a free pick of all the cyberware she could possibly need. Arms, reflex boosters, subderm. With David’s Net wizardry, she could probably go complete borg without even losing it. That was her aim.

She wasn’t sure why he was still almost totally ganic. It wasn’t like bioware could really stand up to cyberware. Was he just an old-school meat-lover or something? She remembered his granny’s house having all those Jesus and Mary statues lying around. Maybe he was just super Christian?

A van quickly drove into the alleyway and stopped in front of her. A door to the back opened, and in sat a bunch of gonks wearing high vis jackets.

“You Rebecca?” one of them asked. They were all wearing skull masks as well. She was wearing her own, too.

In lieu of answering, she jumped in. “Yeah! Let’s delta!”

The inside of the van was chock-filled with weapons. Bargain-bin SCOP that would work against most ganic targets, but not much else. They had the classics.

She had brought a Satara, however. And an Arasaka tech pistol. Tech was where it was at. Light, and yet it packed a massive punch, and they were meat-friendly.

“Oh, this is rich,” Rebecca giggled, kicking her feet. “D’s gonna love you guys.”

“So you know D,” asked a dark-skinned man who wore a red high-vis jacket that made him look like a road construction worker. He was gently caressing a shotgun as he spoke, leaning back against the wall of the van and tilting his head upwards.

“Yep. We’re best chooms,” Rebecca said.

The van was quiet.

The one with the green jacket, Steven, spoke up. “She’s telling the truth, Don. She showed me pictures, and she’s crazy with a gun.”

The fact that they didn’t believe her despite her having several years on D in the Edgerunning biz was annoying.

Funny, but also annoying.

“So, who are we hitting?” Rebecca asked.

Steven chuckled. “Take a wild guess.”

Don spoke again. “If we asked you to take us to D, could you?”

“D’s laying low for the moment,” Rebecca said. “Don’t even think about looking for him. Just tell me who you’re hitting.”

“You really don’t know?” Don asked. “Who do you think we’d hit?”

This was a stupid game. “Yeah, I don’t know what passes for good ideas when it comes to Edgerunner groupies, so why don’t you throw me a bone?”

Steven chuckled. “David Martinez, choom! Who else?!”

“What?!” Rebecca startled.

Oh, shit.

Ohhhh, shit!

“You scared?” Don asked. “I knew we shouldn’t have invited her. She’s even more of a groupie than we are.”

Rebecca resisted pointing her Kenshin at him for the greater good.

She tried to call D.

No signal.

Holy fuck.

There was a jammer somewhere in the car.

Alright. She had to play this carefully, then. “What’s the data on Martinez?”

“He’s at a party,” Steven said. “But he’s going racing now, apparently. In South Watson. We’re gonna go in and shoot everyone up, and kill Martinez. Then you are gonna put in a good word for us, right?”

Rebecca took a deep breath, and nodded. “D doesn’t want that.”

“Huh?” Steven asked, leaning forward. “The fuck do you mean by that?”

“Turn the jammer off. Let me call him.”

They pointed their guns at her. “Fucking rat!” The black guy shouted.

“If D wanted Martinez dead, he’d do it himself, you fucking gonks,” Rebecca shook her head, refusing to react to their guns. “You wanna fuck with his biz and get on the main man’s bad side, that’s your fucking funeral. But if you turn off the jammer, I’ll take you guys to D myself. If the badges come, you can shoot me, no big deal, so what are you so afraid of?”

The one with the blue high-vis jacket growled. “You try anything and you’re dead, you know. Sam?”

The one driving, Sam, sighed. “I’ll patch into your call, Rebecca, if that’s fine with you.”

With the encryption soft scrambling their words, it was.

Then, he reached for his dashboard, rummaged around, and he said, “give the call.”

Rebecca: The groupies are gonna hit you.

D: The fuck?! Call it off!

Rebecca: I’m trying. But they wanna meet you. I’m kind of in a bind here.

D: You think I’m fucking not? This fucking racer bastard knows who I am! If I don’t win this race, I’m fucked!

Rebecca: What the fuck?

D: You know what? Fuck it. Fuck. It.

“Hey, what the fuck is this conversation?! I can’t understand a thing!” Sam, the driver shouted.

“You bitch!” The red-jacketed guy grabbed her and pressed his gun to her forehead.

D: Let them come! Hit Hiroto. Grab him, bag him, and fucking ship him off into the desert. Make sure he’s alive. I’m fucking done with this nonsense. But don’t hit anyone else.

Rebecca: Preem! I gotta—

The jammer turned on again.

“What did you say, you bitch?!” Don shouted.

“We can hit them!” Rebecca shouted. “I just got the green-light! Get the fuck off me!” She pushed off Don. They were all still pointing their guns at her. “We can hit them, but there’s fucking caveats, alright? For starters, D doesn’t want Martinez dead. Sure. Mow him down if he gets in the way,” she was reasonably sure that they couldn’t, even if they gave it their very best try. “But the real target isn’t David. It’s... Hiroto Nakamura.”

“The racer?!” Don shouted.

“No, the fucking joytoy! Yes, the racer!” Rebecca roared. “We bag him and ship him off into the desert. But we don’t hit anyone else.”

“Why not Martinez? Huh?!” Don roared.

“That’s for D to know, so do as you’re told, you fucking groupie, or he’ll flatline all of us! Do you have any idea how much fucking shit you’re in? Do you? Because D doesn’t play around. He will murder your family!”

“What the fuck was that encryption?” Sam shouted from the driver’s seat. “That ICE was fucking massive!”

“D made it, you fucking amateur,” Rebecca hissed. “What, you thought we were fucking around? He’s gonna burn the corpos to the ground. You really think your bargain-bin Netrunning chrome could make a dent on that ICE?”

“She might be corpo!” Sam said.

“Wait!” the blue-jacket guy in the back yelled. “Let’s all calm the fuck down before we do something we can’t take back.”

“Steven, you fucked up!” Don shouted at Steven. “Why the fuck did you think you could trust her?”

She could ask herself the same damn question.

Wasn’t it suicide to underestimate the stupidity of the average Night City bottom-feeder?

She could just flatline all of them. She gave it even odds that she’d survive the attempt. Those odds were too low, though.

“Calm. The fuck! Down!” She roared again. “It’s a quick in-and-out, you fucking pussies. Go in, grab the racer, then get the fuck out. If you can’t do this much, then you’ll never join D’s crew.”

A copied version appears here without the author's approval; the page where the story is published is the place that supports their work.

“The fuck do we do?” Steven asked. He didn’t ask Rebecca, but the others.

The one with the blue jacket shook his head. “I say we do it.”

Slowly, but surely, the others came around to it.

“Fine,” Don growled. “We’ll do it. But you’re not leaving our sight until we’re done.”

She was fine with that. For now.

But eventually, they would regret ever fucking with her.

000

Hiroto: What was that?

He was referring to my putting him on hold.

David: Nothing, just biz. Anyway, you were saying?

It was all I could do to pay attention and also race.

Hiroto: Man… the walls are closing in on me. You think I have no reason to join your crew, but I do. And it’s not about the money. It’s about… my mom.

We were having this conversation at 5x speed. Hiroto was doing it naturally, because his Kerenzikov made him a permanent booster-head. I had to occasionally keep up by cranking the Sandevistan, but it was far from unmanageable. I wasn’t going full throttle, and now that I’d had that conversation with Rebecca, I wouldn’t for the rest of this race, even if Hiroto was steadily pulling ahead of me.

Hiroto: My mom’s dying, and there’s no amount of money in the world that can fix it. I’m fucked, dude. I’m just… so fucked.

David: I’m sorry, man.

Hiroto: Don’t be. Not your fault. Not anyone’s fault. I don’t know. Biotechnica’s offering me an experimental treatment plan. They said I could get it if I beat you, but they’re still offering it to me. With major strings attached. They’ve been hounding me for years. Them and Arasaka and Militech and every other fucking corpo with ‘Tech’ in their name. But every time I say no, I feel the walls closing in. They wanna kill me. They wanna enslave me. Drug me and make me dependent on them. I can feel it. I can feel it.

So… he was scared?

Hiroto: I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid. When you have so much time to think about things, you tend to get paranoid about shit. It’s probably the autism. Or the ADHD. And chrome doesn’t fix that, oh no, sir, heheh. But I’m not going cyberpsycho. Just normal psycho.

David: So why are you fucking with me?

Hiroto: Just cause.

David: You’re not making any fucking sense.

Hiroto: Is this a world that is supposed to make sense, David? People kill and die for money that they’ll never spend. We’ve killed the world for cheap thrills that won’t ever replace what we had. Family. Can you chip in family?

David: But I’m not your fucking enemy, am I?

Hiroto: Maybe you are. Maybe you deserve to be punished for climbing as high as you did? Wouldn’t you do the same to someone else in your position?

David: Is this just an elaborate suicide, then? You want me to put you out of your misery? Or, you’re obsessed with me because I beat you at your favorite game?

Hiroto: How am I doing so far? In the job interview, that is.

David: I have no reason to trust you, so not very well.

We finally reached the top of the parking tower. It was his win.

Hiroto: I’m not gonna expose you.

David: How do I know you’re telling the truth?

Hiroto: I just wanted us out, racing again. Now that we’re here, I have no reason to bait you anymore. I’m just gonna say my piece, and you can make a decision. I want to join you because I hate not being free to do what I want, when I want. I hate that my passion comes with so many strings, and so many people hounding me and trying to manipulate me. Maybe you think that’s not enough to make a guy wanna pick up a gun and start blasting, but for me, it’s more than enough. I want to join you because I’m tired of running away. I want to run in, for once. Straight into the gonks that keep putting numbers on my value, and fantasize about strapping me into a chair and downloading some enslavement software into my Neural Link. What, you think I’m a spy? If I was a spy, I’d just serve your ass up on a platter and be done with it. No one would just let you continue on this game of yours. It doesn’t make sense, does it?

It didn’t. I was reasonably certain that he wasn’t a spy. Spies were sent in to infiltrate established organizations that couldn’t easily be destroyed from a frontal assault. I hadn’t given the corps any indication that I was that beefy. My strongest suit was stealth and speed, not durability.

After a brief pause at the top of the parking tower, we raced downwards again.

Hiroto: I’m the best damn driver you’ll ever find, David. You’re the king, but a king needs a horse. But I’m not a horse. I’m a fucking dragon. You say you can’t normally race as fast as you did to beat me? I believe you. Whatever power you borrowed must have come at an insane cost for you to say that, and yet I almost fucking beat you. You think you don’t need me?

David: I don’t need someone who would compromise me.

Hiroto: I’m quitting racing.

David: Oh yeah?

Hiroto: Nowadays, all I’m doing is time trials and racing my own ghost. My biggest rival is myself, and it’s fucking boring. You realize how boring it is, being at the top of your game with no one who could challenge you? You still have challenges ahead of you. But I don’t. I won, dude. I won my game. Now, I’m ready to enter yours.

I tapped into the surveillance feeds around the city to track the cavalry: Rebecca and her gang of fucking gonks. They were only thirty seconds away, and we were just about to get to the bottom of the parking garage tower.

David: Once we’re down, get out of your car, try not to get hit anywhere vital, and don’t fuss about it. You asked for this.

Hiroto: You mean with guns? What? The fuck do you mean?!

David: Don’t let the girls try and protect you.

Hiroto: Fuck! Uh, okay! I’ve got pain editors, so I guess I could try.

We reached the bottom of the parking tower. Hiroto drifted all the way to the exit of the tower, and into the street, in one long drift, getting clear out of the way.

I drifted only to the exit. The bulk of the party-goers were inside the parking garage, so leaving the building entirely was wise of him. I plugged the exit with my own car, and got out. “Shit!” I shouted.

Blue Moon exited the car with me. “Daijobu! You’ll get him next time, David-kun!”

Hiroto stepped out of the car with a swagger, while Purple Force and Red Menace jumped out together, celebrating and pumping their fists.

Then, a black van swung into the street. Out from an open door, peaked a small woman with a skull mask on. She shot Hiroto on both shoulders, and as he was falling, two larger men, also wearing skull masks, pulled him into the van. Then, they drove off.

Red Menace and Purple Force were absolutely stunned by the sight.

Lucy, Fei-Fei and Jin ran out of the parking tower, standing next to me.

“What, the, fuck?!” Jin hissed.

I looked at Jin gravely. “I’m guessing this marks an end to the party?”

“What happened?!” Fei-Fei shouted.

“The badges are on the way,” Lucy said. “Tell everybody to go home, David.”

As regrettable as this gamble had been, Rebecca had played her part perfectly. No one had gotten hurt, and the party could finally end.

It was almost enough to put a smile on my face.

000

“I told you, already! If you turn off the jammer again, then I can call D and we can finish up with this gig!”

Gonks! They were just enormous gonks with almost zero redeeming qualities, except for the fact that the Netrunner/driver was actually a halfway-decent getaway driver.

Using his skills, they had managed to skip town entirely, and were deep in the Badlands, with no badges in sight.

They were in the middle of the desert. Hiroto was bleeding inside the van, giggling dumbly. He hadn’t said a word to anyone. The guy with the blue jacket, Jake, was watching him. Meanwhile, she was outside with Steven—the guy she had initially met at a gun range not seven hours ago, Sam the driver, and Don the loud-mouth.

“And what if this bitch has Trauma Team?!” Don roared. “What then?”

“Then we’ll move positions!” Rebecca argued.

“In the desert?” Sam scoffed. He looked around, and then back at Rebecca. “If TT gets a bead on us out here, it’s fucking curtains. There’s nowhere to hide for miles!”

Jake poked his head out of the van. “He says he doesn’t have Trauma Team.”

“Tape his fucking mouth shut!” Don shouted. “And punch him again!”

“Aye aye!”

He retreated back into the van, and Rebecca could hear wet thuds, and the rip of duct tape being pulled.

Idiots. He didn’t even do it in the right order.

Rebecca put a hand on her forehead. “You know what, guys?” she said quietly. “Putting everything aside—and you guys have done a lot of shit—I still kind of like you gonks. It’s not totally over for you, yet, but we’re getting there if you don’t do what I fucking say!”

“And why did D even want this guy?!” Don shouted.

Holy fuck. “And why do you think you’re so tight with D that you ought to know a damn thing?” Rebecca shot back. “Don’t fucking think. This was a job interview, and you fuckers fucked it.”

“Not quite.”

The voice came from the top of the van.

D.

His jacket was open, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath. And by the looks of it, he wasn’t even carrying any guns.

“Shit!” Steven said, pointing his gun, and then lowering it uncertainly. “You’re… D?”

“Steven Smith, Donald Fries, Jake Wood, Samal Sheikh,” D listed of their names one after the other. “I ran interference on the badges. They won’t find you. You’re welcome.”

“Shit D, I’m so fucking sorry,” Rebecca shouted. “These guys were being assholes!”

D jumped off the roof of the van and approached the gonks. “You guys wanna join me? Cool. Go home and stand by. Here’s some money. And here’s a warning: move again without my direct say-so, and I won’t protect you again.”

Steven fell on one knee. “Your majesty!”

“Don’t. Do that,” D sighed. “Did Becca not tell you that I was laying low?”

Don raised his gun. “How do I know you’re actually D and not some fucking poser?”

“Shoot me and see.”

Don pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He looked at his gun, and in a blink, it disappeared from his grasp, and D was holding it. It didn’t look like he had moved an inch. “Hackable guns are stupid. If your gun connects to a network, it’s not your fucking gun.”

Then, the boys shouted, and fell on their knees—except Steven, who was already on one knee.

“And look at that, now I have your Neural Links,” D said airily. He disappeared. Suddenly, Jake flew out of the van, and rolled on the dirt.

D reappeared before them. “Becca. Take the car and go to Mexico.”

He then called her.

D: And thanks. Kinda.

Becca: I know I fucked up.

D: Yeah, but I kinda like how things shook out in the end. But don’t ever try this shit again just because you’re bored.

Becca: Sure.

How the fuck was she supposed to know that these gonks were that stupid? She thought they were just angling for some regular old Night City mayhem, not hitting a corpo superstar.

She vowed to do better, anyhow.

Only now did it dawn on her what exactly was at stake, and how little room for fuck-ups there were. Folding in randoms just wouldn’t cut it.

“I’ll leave these dickwads to you, then. FYI, they pointed their guns at me, so don’t go easy on them.”

“Wait!” Steven shouted, but Rebecca wasn’t listening. She jogged up to the van, got in the driver’s seat, and started driving, on her way to granny Martinez.

000

“Sit down with me.”

The gonks were sitting in a circle next to me. They were on their knees while I was sitting cross-legged.

“I appreciate that you’re fans,” I said to them gently. “And right now, that’s all I need you guys to be. You went far for my sake, so I’m not just going to forget you guys. I have no need for you right now, but when I do, I’ll call on you. And when I call on you, I expect you to drop your entire lives for me.”

“Heh,” the one wearing the green jacket, Steven Smith, chuckled. “We’d do anything for you, boss!”

“Anything,” Don said.

“Anything at all!” Sam said as well.

“Anything and even more!” Jake said.

“Even if you ask me to chip in and become a cyberpsycho!” Steven said.

“Me too!” Don shouted.

I held up a hand to stop them. “Appreciate it. Honestly. I need fighters who can get shit done for me while I’m busy. But I don’t know if I can trust you guys right now.” I dug into my pocket and retrieved four chips. “Slot these in. If you do, I’ll trust you.”

They did it without questioning it. Even the Netrunner, Samal.

“If you take ‘em off, I’ll mark you as traitors and hunt you down,” I said simply.

“We’d never think of it!”

I nodded, satisfied. “They’re trackers, but they’ll also record your conversations, both spoken and transmitted. So if I tell you to shut up, but you go around blabbing that you met me, then I’ll also know, and then I can cut you off before you become liabilities. I don’t need eager kids dragging me down. Either you’re of help, or you’re not. I won’t forgive incompetence.”

I hoped that Rebecca could learn from hers. I was loath to cut her off on account of our history. But I knew I could trust her. This was kind of a freak event.

But freak events would get likelier and likelier as I got closer to my goal. No matter what, we had to be prepared.

I handed them some other chips. “Something big is coming. Until then, I want you to use these to get stronger. I don’t know your histories, but you’re young and hungry. I need you to put that hunger to mastering these training courses every fucking day until I call on you. Even if it takes years to hear a word from me. Just lay low, continue your lives, and wait. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes!” they all shouted at the same time, each taking their turns to collect their chips.

“Good,” I said, nodding. “And keep this extra secret. It’s a code-word. If someone tries to claim that they’re me, ask them this: ‘is Nannie a bitch?’ If the person claiming to be me doesn’t answer ‘do Nomads fuck snakes?’, then they’re not me.”

Nannie: Holy fuck, David. Do you want to die?

I heard words of assent from everyone, and some practiced the line, and the response.

“But until I call on you, no more D’s crew bullshit. If you see some people acting like they’re with me, ignore them. If you see more fans, ignore them. Don’t try and recruit them, even if you like them. Don’t tell them shit about meeting me.”

“We won’t!” they shouted at the same time. It likely made them feel special, being singled out by me like this. That would help keep them on track.

If not, the chip would inform me, and I could kill them by releasing a stored virus that would corrupt their cyberware.

I stood up. “That’s it from me. Make your own way back to NC. Ditch the costumes.”

And then I was gone.

000

The elevator opened to my apartment, and I walked in. The cleaning crew had already scoured every corner of the apartment, and things were finally back to normal. The new normal, at least. It was still tough getting used to the fact that this place was mine.

In light of the recent violation to my own space, it didn’t quite feel like mine.

Lucy was sitting on the couch, mask off, still wearing her beautiful purple dress, and watching the big screen, playing an N-54 broadcast of what had happened at the parking garage tower. Hiroto Nakamura had been kidnapped. The corpo world was in shambles. D was to blame. Same old, same old.

I foresaw my corpo contacts trying to foist private security on me, in the near future. I could already foretell Qiang or V nagging at me to always walk around with a bodyguard.

And the fucking copy-cats that would come out of the woodwork to try and pull something else against David Martinez, now enemy of the people.

This was bullshit.

Actions had consequences.

On the bright side, I had at least insulated myself further from suspicion.

I fell down besides Lucy, draping my arm over her shoulder. She hugged me back.

She then giggled.

I giggled as well. Soon, we began to laugh and laugh, slowly bleeding away the stress of today.

“That was stupid,” Lucy said. “How’s Hiroto doing?”

“On his way to getting patched up by Pilar,” I said.

“Tijuana?”

“He offered to join up. I’m not gonna say no,” I said. “He’s got balls, and he’s good behind a wheel. Falco’s gone, so we need someone to pick up the slack for group gigs, and I can’t be everywhere.”

Now more than ever.

I looked over my messages. Fei-Fei was trying to console me, while Jin was asking me about what the Task Force was saying about the issue.

The Task Force was trying to oust me for being a weak link. Biotechnica and Militech were discussing cutting Arasaka off altogether because they suspected we were behind the hiring of literal terrorists, and now one of their golden boys were dragging the aggro.

More chaos was always good, but now I had to figure out a way to convince the others that my staying in the Task Force was worthwhile, even if the terrorist known as D was gunning for me.

“You sure you can trust him?”

“To not betray me? I think I can,” I said. The Task Force would never have been this quiet about it if he was actually an asset all along. I could say for certain that he wasn’t. If he was… I had already slotted him in with a chip to take care of that problem if it ever arose.

But I’d give him a proper reason to put his life down for me, soon enough.

“I’m just glad to be done with D shit for the time being,” I said. “I’m a corpo rat now. A corpo janitor, cleaning out the muck in QianT.”

“Fun!”

“For sure.”

The good thing about QianT was that I could just work from the Net when it came to all that stuff. Meat action was unnecessary when you had all the money in the world to have others do your bidding for you.

I just needed a week to take care of QianT, and then I could finally see some returns on my investment.

For now, NC could rest.