It's About Saving Yourself Ch 8

Chapter 8. Where we see some fallout, as well as glimpses of things that have been going on in the background.

And war crimes. Can't forget the war crimes.

Please do leave a comment!
=][=
He was tired.

No, he was exhausted.

But he pushed himself to run one extra mile, the desert air and the unfinished highway called to him. He had to keep running, otherwise what was it all for?

He barely felt the recoil as the shotgun roared, the screaming woman in front of him came apart in a welter of macerated organs and blood. 

He saw a vaguely blue shadow to his left, his Reflex Tuner sent an impulse through channels both ancient and recently carved, his left arm was up and the projectile system hurled a round at the threat, the action automatic, bypassing the hurtle of his conscious mind.

It was only after the shadow was turned into meat paste that he saw it had been an unarmed boy wearing a blue shirt.

A small impact rocked his head slightly to the side. He turned and pumped three rounds of eight-gauge shells into the threat.

The first set of five pellets tore the arm of the screaming, crying man firing a Lexington off at the shoulder. The next two sets tore him into nine separate pieces. It should take him a further two minutes to flatline, but the threat was neutralized. He changed out the magazine and looked for the next threat.

Three more shadows died screaming before he felt more than saw the threat. He drove his fist at the movement, a huge, muscular blonde woman dodged the attack by the slightest margin. She stabbed a hypo toward him and he discharged his micro-generator. The electric shock locked her body for the split second he needed to backhand her so hard her skull crumpled like paper beneath his fist. Her head deforming as one of her kiroshis popped out of her face along with a fountain of blood and brain matter.

He felt the telltale hammer blows of bullet impacts ricocheting off his dermal plates. He turned and saw a small blue girl firing two Unitys at him. He snapped the Crusher up at her.

At the last instant, a tall, thin man with long thin arms threw her out of the way, and was cut in half for his troubles, steaming intestines falling out of both his top and bottom halves.

He aimed to finish off the screaming girl who was still shooting at him when she disappeared in a grey blur.

His Self-ICE burned, the heat giving him an instant headache as his implant protected him from a surge that would overload his Chrome. Following the prompt in his HUD, he saw a pale girl with colorful hair peeking out of a wall to glare at him, highlighted by his Self-ICE as the one that was trying to hack him.

He shot her, but like with the blue girl before, a grey blur took the threat away before he could pull the trigger.

A skull-faced enemy in black and grey armor and coat appeared directly at his side, an instant later there was a titanic impact that nearly sent him sprawling.

His HUD informed him that his anterior left lateral subdermal plate was shattered. The skull-faced attacker blurred around his fists as he tried to swat the bastard like a fly. The threat releasing another quadruple barrel of slugs into him at point blank in between his own swings, piercing his armored jacket and boring through most of his subdermals. At the same time, his Self-ICE blocked another attempt to hack him, this time from the Grey One, the implant giving him a warning as its heatsink began to bleed heat into his brain.

The barrage of low caliber fire returned. Maine snapped off a shot at its origin point, the action causing the blur to retreat momentarily.

Now knowing how to deal with this threat, he concentrated on destroying the ones who weren’t the Grey One, the Grey One was the biggest threat and he would kill it before it could harm the others. It would slip eventually, and when it did, it would die.

His Self-ICE burned, warning him that the heatsink was overtaxed.

He shot his projectile system at the red outline in his HUD, catching the barest hint of a pink trenchcoat as the outline threw itself out of the way, not taking the blast directly as the wall it had been hiding behind shattered.

He snapped a shot with his Crusher, there was a Grey blur, a welter of blood and meat, and an arm in a black sleeve fell to the ground.

He was uncontested, the Grey One neutralized, he had to find the next threat, the others would not be safe until he made them safe.

The Grey One stepped out from behind cover, his right arm was gone and his side was covered in blood, a belt tied tightly on the stump.

His Self-ICE shorted and bricked. And he felt his limbs seize up. The Grey One glared as he walked forward, a single Red Eye shining from the depths of its skull face.

He brought his Crusher up and pulled the trigger, but the weapon refused to fire. He tried to charge forward, but his legs refused to move.

His heart hammered against his chest, he tried to move away, to buy time, but all he managed was to fall down. He couldn’t figure out how to crawl. The monstrous Red Eye got ever closer, the sand and grit of the highway crunching under its boots.

It reached him, pulling a small pistol out and shoved it in his mouth, tilting it up. He heard and felt the whine of the rail powering up.

He forced himself to flop his arm up, he didn’t need to get center mass, he just needed to incapacitate the threat.

He triggered the projectile system, and the barrel got stuck as the slide plate refused to slide.

No, it can’t end like this. He had to keep running, he had to keep everyone safe.

“I’m sorry.” The Red Eyed Grey One said, his voice husky and tight with pain.

Then the pistol discharged and the world descended to static.

David sat up with a strangled gasp, his heart hammering, he pawed at his head to make sure his skull was still in one piece, his tongue questing over the roof of his mouth in an instinctive search of the flechettes that killed him.

He looked down at his BD Wreath with disgust.

That had been Alex.

He’d upgraded his gear again, went and took down some Cyberpsycho in downtown.

It wasn’t fair.

David had always been second best. He was smart, but not as smart as Alex. He got good grades, but not as good as Alex. He made money to help Mom with bills, but not as much as Alex.

Now Alex was doing what he’d always wanted to do, getting what David had always wanted to get. Jobs, prestige, and adventure.

He’d taken David and Mom to meet an old lady at the Afterlife club. The bouncer had known him by the name ‘Redeye,’ the old lady they’d gone to meet was none other than Rogue Fuckmothering Amendiares!

They were taken to a private booth in the back, the Queen of Night City Fixers then legit proceeded to talk about being a mom and exchanged baby pictures with Gloria!

It was a surreal experience.

But the most infuriating thing was, Alex still shat on Edgerunning at every goddamn opportunity!

Now he was going to get an awesome new Cyber-Arm and he was probably going to bitch about that too!

It should have been David.

David didn’t get to escape from Arasaka Academy.

David was still the one getting shat on.

David was the one who wanted to be a Cyberpunk.

Maybe he should go to Doc? He could get chipped in with something nova, be his own Solo. Have his own adventure. Make his own money.

Yeah, like that was going to happen.

[Yo David, why so quiet choom?] Doc said on their call. [You just got the best hot off the shelf genuine JK special! You should be talking about how awesome this shit is.]

David blinked. He almost asked. “Yeah, sorry, this is preem shit doc. Who was that guy at the end?”

[That’s Redeye, up and coming Solo that’s makin’ waves mon! Word is he seduced Rogue Amendiares, the preemest GILF in Night City! Ain’t nobody mess with a guy that got balls that big and game that raw.]

‘No,’ David thought. ‘He actually just got Rogue to talk about Mom stuff and gush over baby pictures.’

He almost asked. He almost said it.

Chip me in, I need Chrome and an Iron. Take charge of my own destiny. Build up my own rep.

But, of course, he didn’t.

David didn’t want to be second best in this as well.

=][=

“Yeah, sorry Mom,” Alex said as he spoke next to her, his glowing eye indicating he was on a call, “yeah, yeah…sorry, but it really is for the best that I’m not seen near home while the heat dies down. Yeah, yeah, I love you too.”

He sank into her couch like a puppet with its strings cut, his new chrome arm whirring and clicking, the black plates of its carapace reflecting little light.

“Thanks for lending me the couch, Kiwi.” He said without opening his eyes.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, taking a drag of her cigarette, it wasn’t her usual brand, turned out her usual brand would have eventually made her go Cyberpsycho.

Kinda like Maine.

She couldn’t help remembering the barrel, it looked enormous as she stared right down its length. When she had been covered in hot, sticky blood, she figured she’d died.

Turns out she had been covered in Alex, and not in the fun way she wouldn’t mind too much.

The ki—no, Alex lost his arm saving her life, she couldn’t trust him fully, but she was willing to put him up for a bit, maybe pawn him off on Lucy in a few days.

Besides, if he tried anything, her ceiling turret would take care of the problem.

Never trust a soul in Night City.

Still, he did lose an arm for her, one should always pay her debts.

“Hey Kiwi?”

She turned to look, and saw him staring at his newly installed, shiny chrome arm. Well, not really shiny, but still. “Yeah?”

He opened and closed the reinforced hand. The arm was something he’d salvaged from the landfill, but the hand had been Pillar’s, donated by Becca once Alex’s Ripper told them he didn’t have a hand that would slot into the arm.

Thank god he’d replaced that gaudy gold-plated covering, and modified it to have the regular number of bends in the digits.

“Thanks for earlier. For saving my life, I mean.” Alex finally said.

She snorted. “Don’t mention it, it was just a belt.”

“No.” She turned to meet his eyes at the declaration. His stare was intense, enough to make her reflexively prepare her hacking interface. “You saved my life, when I went to kill Maine. You jammed his projectile system.”

She tried to look away, but found she couldn’t, the sheer intensity of his gaze holding hers hostage. Kiwi took another drag of her cigarette. “Noticed that, did you?”

“Yes,” he said, then reached out with his flesh and blood hand and took hold of hers. “I owe you a lot more than my life, Kiwi. If you hadn’t stepped in, I would have been done for. My mom would have learned of my death on the news, I would have died leaving my family to rot.

“I pay back my debts, Kiwi. If ever you need help, no matter what it is, ask. I will be there.” His hand squeezed hers to the point that it hurt a little. “Do you understand?”

Kiwi felt bile rise up in her throat. Something churned in her stomach, she pushed it down ruthlessly, whatever it was.

Never. Trust a soul. In Night City.

“Anything I need? What if I tell you to kill someone?”

“Name them. They’re a dead man walking.”

She broke eye contact. Never trust…

“So if I need rescue from a megacorp?”

“Even if I have to go Johnny Silverhand on them, I will make sure to get you out.” Alex stated with utter conviction.

She wanted to tell him he was an idiot. That nobody would ever do something like that. That only an idiot would risk their life for someone else without a big, fat paycheck at the end.

“Anything I need, huh?”

The barrel of the gun had looked huge. The hot blood seared her skin where it touched it. She fingered the scratch on her faceplate where one of the bones in Alex’s arm had ricocheted off it.

She couldn’t trust him. Not fully.

But Kiwi understood debt.

She found herself squeezing his hand back. “Thank you, Alex. I will not waste it on something frivolous.”

=][=

Faraday set the video to play again.

The firefight was not long. As far as Cyberpsycho rampages went, it was a short one. It had the second least number of casualties of all rampages across the Americas in the last three months.

Hell, there was a chrome junkie with one fifth the chrome that had gotten six times as many kills before MaxTac arrived.

He set the video to play again. Watching as Maine killed six civilians before he pulped the head of the muscle woman he called his input. Then killed the second most experienced Runner on his crew.

Then the Rookie stepped in, fighting like a veteran, he dismantled Maine in seconds, his only weakness being sentimentality. Foregoing openings to end the fight to protect the lives of those of the crew that yet lived.

Maine’s crew was burned, they’d lost their three most experienced Runners, and while Kiwi was as experienced as Dorio or Pillar, her talents made her unsuited for the base violence needed to get a job done.

No, he’d have to move the Tanaka job to others, which was a shame, Maine’s had been the best Faraday had access to for that little money.

He watched as the rookie dismantled Maine and, even missing his dominant arm, executed him.

Perhaps the crew still had potential.

He indulged himself and watched the video one final time before getting back to work.

=][=

Tanaka snapped out of the XBD with a gasp. His nerves on fire and his brain tingling with the feeling of flechettes boring through it.

He mastered himself quickly. Jimmy Kurosaki did excellent work as always.

Still, that Edgerunner, the one with the red eye…that had potential.

He was chipped with something tuned up to illegal levels, a Sandevistan if Tanaka were to make a guess.

There was the project that had been put on hold since the Lieutenant Colonel got himself killed.

He composed an email to his secretary, ordering her to get with the Arasaka Intel division to find out who the red eyed mercenary was.

With his duty done, he lay back and restarted the BD, perfectly tuned BDs could not be properly appreciated in only one watch.

=][=

Lucy welcomed Alex into her apartment.

Truth be told she was a little nervous, the boy was inscrutable. He didn’t make sense.

He was a corpo wannabe rat, but he was the terror of the Animals in Night City. He was just a smarmy punk who, as far as she could tell, had never been in a relationship in his life, yet the Queen of Night City Fixers was seemingly sweet on the guy after he walked up to her and chatted with her for hours, when she wouldn’t give a Cyberpunk with years of experience the time of day. He was a ruthless killer, one who kidnapped gangsters and tortured them to death while testing custom made Black ICE, but he’d risk his life and sacrifice a limb for the safety of the crew.

He'd saved her life during the fight, when she’d driven him to Vik, she noticed a huge dent on his helmet.

Taking into consideration that he’d literally carried her away from danger, that shotgun pellet had been meant for Lucy. He’d almost lost his head getting her to safety.

“That’s a pretty neat poster.” Alex said, snapping her out of her thoughts.

He was staring at her Lunar Trip poster. “You think so?”

He nodded. “Though a bit stiff pricewise. Half a million eddies just to get there and back? Ugh. And don’t get me started on immigration.” He sipped his NiCola. “But space, the final frontier? Seeking strange new words and blowing up Eldritch monstrosities? To go where no man has gone before? It’d be pretty nova to be a space garbage man that occasionally dabbles in monster slaying.”

Lucy stared for a few moments before snorting. “I don’t think space works like that.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.” Alex said with a grin. He turned back to the poster, then looked out her apartment window as a rocket was being prepped for takeoff. “I take it you want to go to the moon sometime?”

Lucy felt her hackles rise but managed to keep a level tone. “Yeah, what of it?”

He shrugged. “Seems pretty neat, wish I had the money to toss away…not sure I’d want to live there, but it would be pretty fuckin’ nova to faff about and throw space rocks.” He turned back to her with a sly grin on his face. “Maybe see if I can toss one hard enough to achieve escape velocity.”

Lucy found herself smiling back. Her mind going to the numerous times Alex had helped her. A not insignificant number of said times, it was to stop Pillar from getting handsy with her.

As unflattering as the thought was, Lucy did not feel much besides relief at the techie’s death. She felt for Becca’s loss, but truth be told, before Alex had begun to intervene, Pillar’s constant and ever escalating advances had made her worry that she’d need to choose between staying on the crew, or doing something drastic enough that Pillar would finally get the memo.

Sure, now there wasn’t a crew. Two hackers, a driver, a Solo, and a crazy midget with a chip on her shoulder did not a crew make. But that didn’t invalidate that Alex’s involvement had been a net positive for Lucy.

At first, she’d worried that his game was the same as Pillar’s, just longer term and more competently implemented. But Lucy was forced to admit, Alex may well just be a good guy.

Losing an arm for the sake of saving the life of Kiwi, was pretty strong evidence.

While she’d been lost in thought, Alex had sprawled on her couch, staring at the ceiling.

She went to her window to look at a rocket taking off. She considered lighting up, but Alex had been pretty open about his dislike of cigarette smoke. 

“Hey Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“What comes after you go to the moon?”

Lucy blinked, opening her mouth to speak, but she had nothing.

He said it so matter-of-factly. Like her going to the moon was a given.

But…what did come after going to the moon? “I’m…not sure. Its just been my dream for the longest time, I honestly don’t know what comes after.”

He hummed a non-answer and stared at his metal arm.

She suppressed the urge to fidget and said the first thing that came to mind.

“So, what’s your dream?”

Alex didn’t answer at first, a twitch of his lip the only indication he’d heard her.

He stood slowly, glaring at his chrome arm, and made a fist.

“I want to be powerful.” He said. “I want to be so powerful that even Saburo Arasaka will be terrified of me. I want to be so goddamned horrifying that the very idea of hurting those I care about, will make everyone involved wet their pants.”

He turned to her, and she had to force herself not to react. His eyes were cold, flinty. They were missing something, something subtle but vital, like first generation cybereyes.

He continued talking, his voice still far too calm and lacking inflection for what he was saying. “I want those I care about, to be safe and happy. To have a guarantee of safety, purely because anyone who might harm them, would know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my wrath would be ruinous in retaliation.”

He turned back to his arm, now that he wasn’t looking at her, Lucy felt an invisible pressure vanish, allowing her to once again breathe deeply.

She huffed out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

She turned back to the window, at the rocket taking off from the launchpad. Heading to the moon.

‘But what comes after?’ asked a wriggling doubt in her mind.

She didn’t have an answer. And she didn’t like that fact at all.

“Hey Alex, wanna scroll this BD with me?” She asked on impulse.

=][=

Viktor made his way to the back of his clinic, where he kept the flash clone vats.

Alex stood there, surrounded by six emptied out vats, the smell of saltwater and blood heavy in the air as he muttered something at the seventh.

Viktor did his best not to look at the misshapen lumps in the tray marked for incineration. There was a good reason why only pieces of a person were cloned at any one time. 

“Alex?” He asked as his protégé began the decanting procedure on the seventh and final vat.

“Oh, hey Vik.” He answered with a tired smile. “Sorry about the mess, I’ll clean up in a bit, okay?”

“Right.” Viktor said as he watched Alex gingerly take up the misshapen organic lump out of the vat, and made his way to a table ready for cerebral cyberware implantation. “What…what are you doing kid?”

Alex smiled softly at the tortured, gurgling…thing on his arms. “I’m ushering forth the future. Our future.” He set the thing down on the table and readied the tools.

“Right…you uh…you do that.” Viktor said and walked away.

The poor kid must have been hit harder by the death of his crew than Viktor had initially thought. He’d seemed to bounce back, diving right back into the thick of things and seemingly picking up right where Maine had left off. But grief had a way of hitting everyone differently.

At least he wasn’t hurting anyone with his way of coping with the loss.

Viktor looked at the misshapen lumps of organic refuse.

For the most part.