It's About Saving Yourself Ch 21

Good evening, and sorry for the late post. Work last week was...boy howdy, it was rough.

So I worked my butt off for the last...uhh...since Friday evening to pump out this seven thousand word chapter.

It's actually a bit over seven thousand words, but...dunno, I feel like it has more impact to say 'seven thousand words' instead of 'a little over seven thousand words.'

I digress.

This chapter contains the scene that inspired this whole story. It's a scene I'm outright terrified of showing, because I have a feeling it's one of those that's going to be contentious. I will say, this was the plan from the very start, I did not add it on a whim, or for shock value. This contains the scene that literally inspired this whole story. There was gonna be a bit of flavor happening, where certain lines would be transparent and you'd have to think about highlighting the text to see that there was anything there, which would change the whole scene on a re-read, but uhh...if Patreon/Subscribestar has a way to change the color of text, I frankly do not know it, and was utterly unable to figure it out.

Guess you guys get the premium service of getting the whole story the first time without having to spend the brainpower to see through my crafty deceptions! 8D

No, it's not at all because I'm incompetent.

...

Just let me have this. ;_;

Also, fair warning, there is a bit on this chapter that's written in Japanese. Trust me, it makes sense. If you happen to be able to read Japanese, drop me a comment and let me know how well the guy that translated that bit for me did. For everyone else, I will have the translation for that bit at the end of the chapter, so you don't have to tab out and go to google translate.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Do please drop me a comment, let me know what you think.

=][=

Today of all days Vik took the day off.

God shits in my dinner once again.

I paced outside the stairs leading down to the basement clinic.

I had the key code. I could just waltz in and hang out, but without Vik there, what was the fucking point?

I sighed and stepped back into the one place I always just sped through, Misty’s Esoterica. The woman herself standing, arms open for a hug, before a four-armed statue holding two pink lamps in the shape of spheres in its outstretched arms, its second set of arms clasped loosely but enigmatically in its front.

The shop had wind chimes, incense, Buddhist sutras printed on screamsheets, paraphernalia from at least seven different religions, two electric massage chairs with dream catchers, and overall, everything you need to sell spiritualism like a true charlatan.

She was a lovely human being who rented out the basement to Vik at a reasonable price, and before I came along, routinely acted as a nurse at no charge for the Ripperdoc. She was Jackie’s input and the guy had never been happier.

But I could not respect what she peddled, and it showed, which is why I avoided her whenever it was humanly possible. A bit hypocritical of me, what with my personal circumstances, but remembering a (technically) better world had, if anything, made me more hostile to spiritualism, not less.

It was difficult to believe in a benevolent higher power when your reward for dutiful toiling for the good of others…is being sent to a hellhole where you’ll have to do more of the same with even less reward.

“Your Aura is aaaaaall out of whack.” Misty said suddenly, without having opened her eyes. “It’s still speaks of being steady, solid and dependable, but something’s happened to erode it, something has widened the cracks in your being and seeded them with creepers.”

I did not scoff, but it was a near thing. Still, I had nothing I’d rather be doing, so choosing to indulge the charlatan I turned a gimlet eye to the Goth Girl Next Door and said. “And what does one do about cracky Aura?”

She hummed and brought her arms forward, clasping them over her belly in an exact replica of the statue she stood before. “You were doing it instinctively; Seeking the council of those who are wiser. Unburdening yourself to one in whom you can trust, a burden shared is a burden halved after all, and one with the wisdom brought by experience can propose a solution you would not have considered.”

Or, translating; ‘buncha bullshit that makes me sound mystical and shit.’

She’s lucky she’s a landlord.

And hot.

“I see.” I said, mostly succeeding not to sound like I think she’s full of shit.

She opened one green eye and regarded me silently, the wind chimes chimed, the incense polluted the air, and I wondered exactly how long I had to wait before I could leave and not cause issues for Vik with his landlord.

Fuck it, in for a penny and I had nothing better to do. “So, what do you think I should do?”

She hummed again. “Well, you seem to have things mostly under control. My Jackie is green with envy that you got to the big leagues so fast, so you’re doing something right.”

I grimaced as I remembered the one job I went on with Jackie and how badly it went.

“Still, something is clearly eating at you. Do you trust me enough to talk about it?” She continued.

“No disrespect meant, but no.” I answered.

“I didn’t think so. You are not one to trust easily, that is a boon in your profession, trust is a currency with which you are miserly by necessity. I could try cleansing your Aura, and the color green will be important in your future. But other than that, I could try reading the Tarot for you?”

Cleansing my Aura sounded like a euphemism for sex, and I had all I wanted with Lucy. And green wasn’t my favorite color, maybe she meant I should get a potted plant?

That’d be difficult, though I could raid a Biotechnica lab for a cloned shrub or something, that could probably fetch a tidy sum.

“Eh, what the hell, read my Tarot please.” I said with a shrug.

Then I could tip her and find something actually semi-productive to do with my time.

Misty unclasped her hands and moved over to her counter and gestured to the stool on the other side. “Please take a seat.”

I sat.

She pulled out a tarot deck and began shuffling it, before putting it on the counter in front of me. “Cut it twice.”

I grabbed the stack and split it into three stacks. She picked it up and put it together, then shuffled some more. “I think we’ll stick to the Major Arcana for this one, the question is, do you want advice for your day-to-day life, or something grand?”

Well, it’s all bullshit anyways so. “Meh, gimme something grand.”

“Very well, focus on your recent past and what you expect in the future.” Misty said, then drew a card, and showed it to me, it had the silhouette of a man standing with his back to me, a sword clasped in his right hand, looking over his shoulder, his ‘eye’ were two cybernetic optics, one a dull yellow, the other a malevolent red, its back was a cybernetic spine connected to its head by a number of wires and tubes, hanging from its shoulder joints were a pair of skulls that served as the pans on a scale, his spine and shoulders forming a set of scales.

Huh, the Tarot cards were metal-as-fuck. I approved.

“Justice, the card of conflict resolution. It proclaims the need for order, to see through lies and deceit, and a return to the natural state of affairs. Justice implies a just sentence, but also due process.” Misty said, holding the card in front of me, before turning it upside down. “Reversed it can signify a lack of accountability, unfairness, and a lack of responsibility.”

She gave me a long look, and set it down sideways, neither upright, nor reversed.

She pulled out a second card, a left-facing cybernetic man with a skull-shaped metallic head with spikes atop it, one eye glowed yellow, the other red. Out of the back of the skull cables, wires, and tubes extended out of frame like a ponytail. The metal skull had its jaw hanging open, and a snake-like tongue extended out to lick the blade of a short, crude sword held upright in its right hand.

“Death, the card of becoming. It signifies an imminent and difficult transition, the conclusion of one phase of life, and the beginning of another. It is inevitable that something gets lost during the transformation, but something else will rise and take its place.” She turned the card upside down. “Reversed it signifies the attempt to resist change, for better or worse. The attempt to purge yourself of something.”

She looked me in the eye. “Endings and change are inevitable, just like death.” She set it down reversed, next to the Justice card. “Humans will always resist change, but that resistance can and will only last so long. Learn to adapt, to ride the change, or it will overwhelm you.”

She drew a third card. A man in a suit lay dead on the floor, he glowed green, making the eight bleeding bullet holes stand out all the more, his throat was slit and blood fountained from his mouth, a briefcase lay broken open on his lap, what looked like credit cards spilling out of it. On the wall behind him was inscribed the iconic Wheel of Fortune.

“The Wheel of Fortune, it symbolizes that change is coming. A turning point in your life that could prove both a boon or a curse, which it is will depend on your actions. The only thing it promises is that before you will be new possibilities. The Wheel is there to remind us that nobody remains at the top forever, but also that not every situation is hopeless.” She turned it upside down. “Reversed it signifies the coming of bad luck and missed opportunities, a turning point for the worse.”

She set it down sideways. “Your actions will decide whether the coming opportunity will turn out for the better, or for the worse.” She tilted her head. “Knowing what I know of you though, I have a feeling it’ll turn out for the better.” She smiled and turned the card upright.

…

What a crock of shit.

“Think you can put that in a way my smooth brain can computate?” I said sarcastically.

She tapped the ‘Justice’ card and ‘The Wheel of Fortune,’ then turned ‘Justice’ so it was upright. “Try and let yourself be who you are. Otherwise, you might miss out on a significant opportunity.”

“Right, thanks uhh.” I looked at her services. Buncha bullshit with crystals and aura and all the usual crap and transferred her sixty eddies. Twice the cost of her most expensive service with a ten ebuck tip on top of that. “I’ll be going now.”

“Hey wait!” She called out as I stepped outside. “I don’t charge for reading the Tarot!”

Blegh. Let myself be who I am? The fuck is that even supposed to mean? Buncha mystical bullshit.

I walked past Gary as he yelled something about werewolves.

That was a wonderful waste of ten minutes of my life I’ll never be getting back. Now how to waste the rest of the day so I don’t have to go home?

A ringtone rang in my ears as my HUD informed me Falco was calling me.

I answered, and didn’t bother subvocalizing, “Hey Mustache, watcha need?”

[Hey boss, wanted to ask you for a favor.] He said without preamble, good old Falco, no beating around the bush with him. [Dakota Smith, the Mad Coyote of the Badlands is looking around for a merc willing to do a retrieval.]

“Alright,” I said as I climbed into my car. “What’s the detes?”

I hummed. “And this is where the favor comes in?”

Falco sighed. [The kid was the son of a friend of mine. But the Clan isn’t willing to assault a Scav base just to retrieve him. It’s too dangerous. And he’s had a run of bad luck, so he can’t offer much of a reward, six thousand eddies. I’ll understand if you say no, but I’d appreciate it if you could take a crack at it.]

Not much of a reward was putting it lightly. I’d be paid a fifth of what I was for talking to the crazy braindance editor! For magnitudes greater risk to boot!

Not to mention, while the rain had let up, at any moment it looked like the wannabe monsoon would resume.

I opened my mouth to tell a white lie and decline.

And remembered I still owed Falco a favor for driving for me, back when I rescued Taylor for the Mox.

Shit…

Dammit…

“Fuckin’…fine, whatever, give me the coordinates, I’ll see what I can do.”

I looked up the coordinates he sent me. “Nah, I feel like a drive but…There is something you can do for me; run recon while I’m doing the job, let me know when other groups are approaching once the shooting’s done, I’ll bring a different car, loot what I can off the base, offset some of the cost for this. Anyways, I’ll text you when I’m in the area.”

[Aw-righty.] Falco said and cut off the call.

I drove to the Northside drive-in motel apartment complex. Its layout said it was meant to be a motel, but whoever owned it probably decided it was more profitable to make them apartments and charge a comparative exorbitant price for the privilege.

I wouldn’t know, I’d asked Apex to hack the apartment’s main computer and register the apartment to me. The whole thing was automated, so modifying the programming so it neither charged me nor found my having the place ‘legitimately’ without paying for it unusual had been literal child’s play for my digital daughter.

I parked next to the Thorton Mackinaw parked in front of my apartment and transferred my quad shotgun to the pickup, then headed into my apartment for a NiCola and my M251s Ajax, then hopped on my beat-up pickup and calmly drove the metal brick out of the ‘apartment complex.’

The vehicle had been quite cheap, bought it for twelve thousand Eurodollars at an NCPD auction. Apparently, the fact that an ex-Ripper doc serial killer had used it to store the bits and pieces of those he killed as he was working on ‘making the perfect wife,’ had made those who attended uncomfortable.

To my knowledge, he had been three quarters of the way done as far as crafting a human being from scratch out of the constituent parts of one and a half dozen people. Hadn’t done too bad of a job either. With the right cyber-ware and medical suite, he might even have managed to kickstart biological processes.

Still, at twelve thousand Eurodollars it had been a steal. I’d paid the usual chop-shop to go over it, clean it thoroughly, remove even the stubborn blood stains, and repaint it from ‘free candy for all kids’ to dark orange with blue highlights.

I tried calling Rebecca, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t wanna ruin Lucy’s and Apex’s day, so that left me with Kiwi.

She answered on the second ring, the video feed showed her reclining on her ice tub at her apartment, her tits out and proudly displaying the spiderweb tattoo that ran across her whole body. [Hey Al, what’s up?]

I took a moment to appreciate her tits. I may be taken, but that shouldn’t stop a man from appreciating art. “Hey Kiwi, doing a favor for Falco, going to be attacking a Scav den out in the Badlands, retrieving the body of a friend of his. I could use the support.”

“No, sorry, Lucy’s busy and Rebecca didn’t answer.”

“I was thinking we’ll try our standard approach, I’ll sneak in, patch into their Net, incapacitate as many of them as possible via combat hacks, switch to pew pews as needed.”

She hummed as she thought about it, then asked. [What’s the pay look like?]

“Bleak.” I said without preamble. “The guy making the request can’t spare much. I’m bringing my pickup to loot what I can off the Scav base.”

She thought about it for a good long while, then nodded. [60/40 split of the loot; I keep the 40. And you’ve got a deal.]

“Gotcha, need a pickup?”

[Yeah.] She said, levering herself off her ice bath and giving me a very good look at her whole body, in particular the curve of her ass and the dripping lips of her shaved pussy. On the one hand, fuckin’ awesome, on the other, discover some nudity taboos woman! [See you when you get here.]

“Yeah, be there in a few.” I said and cut the call.

I tried calling Rebecca again on the way over, but either she was busy or she was still in a huff, because she didn’t answer. At least this time she couldn’t claim I didn’t try to include her. Though I had a strong suspicion I’d still get yelled at, one way or another.

Arriving at her apartment building, I sent Kiwi a text, and a little while later the pink trenchcoated woman sauntered out and made a beeline for my truck. She got in, and I drove in the direction of the Badlands.

“I got hold of ‘Becca.” Kiwi said. “Turns out she’s not throwing a fit, she took a bodyguard gig. She’s stuck shadowing some Corpo rat around.” She shrugged. “So, I kept what we’re doing a secret, it’d be bad for our Rep if she drops the gig midway through to come shoot Scavs with us.”

“You’re not wrong.” I muttered, scratching the side of my head. “Though now she’ll be mad at both you and me.”

Kiwi’s facemask made a screeching noise, her version of a snort.

Difficult to snort without a nose.

“Becca only has the mental bandwidth to be angry at one person at a time. If anything, her being mad at me will be for the best.”

I grunted in agreement. “Well, I don’t really listen to much music, so the radio’s yours if you want it.” I said and settled more comfortably to drive.

To my extremely pleased surprise, she set it to Morrow Rock, if she set it to Body Heat I would probably have had to suffer something or another by Us Cracks.

Hopefully the drive would be uneventful. My pickup wasn’t armored to the same extent my Mizutani was.

Murphy showed I should not have any hopes and dreams as, when I came to a stop at a red light, there was a lot of rumbling as five Tyger Claws in motorcycles came to a stop around my pickup.

I stared at the one directly to my left, he had a pink oni mask, a neon green mohawk, and a necklace of human phalanges. His eyes widened as his eyes met mine, just in case I started breaking through his and his buddies’ ICE, what I could see of his face paled as my eye lit up red while I worked.

“やばいぞ、あいつはレッドアイ（Redeye）だ。”

“ショウボをヤッタやつか？”

“ああ。”

“あいつを見たらヤルことになってるよな？”

“お前死にてーのか？そんなのは御免だぜ。”

“どうする？あいつ、こっち見てるぜ。”

“お前をか？俺はどうだ！？あいつの睨んでる目と目が合っちまった。俺が狙われるのか？どうする？”

“下手に動くなよ。あいつの目は動きに反応するらしいからな。”

As the Tygers chattered at each other in rapid fire Japanese and I didn’t get subtitles of their conversation, I made a note to update my translation software, I’d definitely missed a patch or three.

We collectively sat there in an awkward and tense semi-silence as I held my daemons ready to make them vomit, have heat stroke, electrocute themselves, go deaf and blind, forcibly take a nap, disable their cyber-ware, and burn their nervous system. Not necessarily in that order.

The light turned green, and I sedately took off, the Tyger Claws driving slowly behind me for a while, before turning into a different street and finally roaring away like I had been expecting them to.

Kiwi and I sat in silence for a while before she said. “That…that was weird.”

“Oh thank fuck, I thought I was the only one. Did you catch anything they said?”

She shook her head. “They talked fast enough that my translation software couldn’t get all of it. Something about someone getting killed and seeing movement.”

“Well, at least nothing came of it.” I said and drove onwards towards the coordinates Falco had indicated.

Once I was most of the way there, I texted Falco to let him know when I’d arrive, then opened a call with Kiwi and gave her access to my cyber-ware so she could see through my eye and use me as a relay for hacking.

She sighed. “You are too trusting.”

I snorted. “No I’m not, the number of people I trust can be counted on the fingers of two hands, with fingers left over.”

She shook her head. “Never trust a soul in Night City, Alex.”

I took off my mask and put a hand on her shoulder. Smiling I said. “But I’m not trusting a soul in Night City. I’m trusting Kiwi, my crewmate and comrade in arms.” I squeezed her shoulder gently. “You saved my life, Kiwi. Not to mention, you didn’t have to stay with me after Maine died, with your skills, any number of Edgerunner crews would have happily taken you in. Yet you backed up the gonk kid whose arm got blown off.”

She looked away, no longer meeting my eye. “If I didn’t stick around, I wouldn’t be able to collect on that favor you owe me. Don’t see things that aren’t there.”

I barked a laugh and gave her shoulder a gentle, playful shove. “Whatever you say, Kiwi.”

I grabbed my gear, exited the car and made my way to the Scav den, or was this a group of Raffen Shiv? Same shit different toilet as far as I was concerned, but some people would get upset if I didn’t get the specific group of murderous sociopaths right.

Sneaking up on the Scav den was easy enough, it looked to have at some point, been a motel. Though a crude wall and barricade made of junk, spiky bits, and derelict cars had been added to it. Tall enough that I’d need to climb it or have leg cyber-ware to jump over it.

Climbing it was, though I’d need to search for a place where I could do it quietly.

[Hold on a sec.] Kiwi said and highlighted several cameras in my HUD. [Closed circuit. I can’t hack them.]

“Leave it to me.” I subvocalized and, timing my movements to be out of sight of the camera as I approached, crept ever closer. I dove behind a rock as one of the Scavs ‘patrolled,’ and was forced to listen to him piss off the side of the barricade while muttering drunkenly. He did not wash or otherwise disinfect his hands when he was done.

Gross.

After he moved on, I made my way to the barricade and started climbing. It was ramshackle, but it served the purpose well enough, and if these idiots had anything resembling discipline, I would not have been able to reach the top of the barricade and subsequently jump down the other side without being found out.

Once inside, it wasn’t too difficult to make my way to one of the cameras and jack into it with the connector I extruded from my cyber-ware pinky finger.

[One moment…connection established. You can jack out.] Kiwi informed me.

I did and snuck back to a location where I had a good chokepoint as red silhouettes appeared in my AR display, and used the chemical grenades, incendiary grenades, and one of the frag grenades I was carrying to make a few improvised traps.

[You are getting absolutely swindled.] Kiwi said as more than three dozen Scavengers populated the place, some of them in an underground room. [That’s a hell of a lot of work for far too little pay.]

I checked my Ajax had a round in the chamber and palpated the magazines I had in my mag carrier and ammo bag. “It’s a favor for a friend, Kiwi.”

It wasn’t long before the Scavs started screaming in alarm as Kiwi began to systematically take them down. Judging by the time it took them to run a trace on my location, whoever they had running Net security was almost a third of the way to adequate.

The Scavs formed up and rushed my location in a mob, and five or six of them died to the chemical grenades, on fire, or the two unlucky idiots who tripped over the frag grenade.

Unfortunately, that seemed to have made them lose their nerve, so I was forced to emerge from my nice little kill-box and fill them full of holes while combat hacking them to death.

Their coordination was bad enough that some of them shot each other. Between their poor teamwork, my shooting and hacking, and Kiwi killing their netrunner and giving them conflicting information on their comms, it wasn’t long before I was down six magazines and they were all dead, or incapacitated and then dead as I put two rounds through their heads.

The rest was just hunting down the ones who were smart enough to hide, they at least didn’t die tired. With the place secure, it didn’t take long to find the body storage, these animals hadn’t even set up a proper cold storage. I found the body we were here for, carried it out and set it down outside, signaling Falco for a pickup.

Kiwi drove my truck in while I raided the cyber-ware the Scavs had been tearing out of unlucky people, I also piled the best-looking guns in the truck’s bed. The few laptops I saw, and the entire ice-box full of medical supplies.

Falco arrived while I was still filling up the pickup. He put the dead body inside a box that sealed shut which…honestly not a bad call, the body of the kid was rather rank.

“Hey Al.”

I heaved the machinegun I tore out of a turret onto the truck and gave Kiwi my full attention. “What’s up?”

She pointed over her shoulder at Falco with her thumb. “I’ll head back with Falco, he’ll drop me off at home.”

I blinked. “Oh, okay. Thanks for the help.”

She shook her head. “You probably could have done this on your own.”

“Pish posh!” I spat, grabbed her shoulder with my organic hand, and pushed her gently back and forth. “What ever would I have done without my second-favorite Netrunner!?”

“Who the hell even says ‘pish posh’?” She asked, not reacting to the (gentle) manhandling.

“We do, Kiwi.” I said gravely. “We do.”

“No, we don’t.” She said, shrugging out of my grip. “How much longer do you think you’ll need?”

“Eeeh.” I said with a shrug. “If you and Falco could be lookouts for fifteen more minutes, I think I’ll be good.”

“Alright. See you later, Al.”

“Be safe!” I said with a wave and went back for the other MK. 31 heavy machinegun.

Seven pieces of cyber-ware, nine shotguns, three submachineguns, a boatload of pistols and several surprisingly intact optics later, I hopped on my pickup and drove out, Falco and I going different directions.

Still not wanting to return home, I drove out into the Badlands until I found a good viewing spot. Once I did, I stopped the car and looked at the neon lights of Night City.

Night City, the City of Dreams.

Fucking nightmare shithole.

I was moderately successful. Mom, David, and my Crew had a certain degree of safety thanks to the reputation we’d built up. Even the job I just did, something which would have been supremely dangerous when I started my ‘career’ now was a milk run. I hadn’t even needed to use the Sandi, which was good, fuck this thing.

I had it good, not great, not amazing, but good. I had reached a point where I didn’t have to go to bed wondering whether or not I’d have the money to pay for rent at the end of the week, I could spend a day of leisure without worrying about putting food on the table.

I had, objectively, reached a level of luxury few in Night City ever achieved.

So why did it feel like my carefully stacked tower of cards was about ready to come tumbling down my head?

What I’d said to Lucy remained as true today as it did months ago. The time when everything went wrong was approaching, I could feel it in my bones. Another one of the filters that Edgerunners ran into was approaching, and just like when Maine went Cyberpsycho, not all of us would make it past it.

But I didn’t see a way out other than through. I didn’t have the wealth to retire from Edgerunning, I’d need money enough for a new identity, and some way to set up an income, passive or otherwise. Even then, Rogue and Wakako could find me at any time and ask for ‘one more job’ as a ‘favor.’

Joining a Clan of Nomads was merely exchanging the devil I knew for the devil I didn’t. But enough Nomad Clans had been ground up into powder by the Corps to convince me that that life wasn’t a surety of either safety or stability, two things I had to a certain extent.

No, Night City would eat me up and shit me out, just like it did anyone else, the only difference being my ability at pattern recognition forced me to go into that fate with both eyes open.

If only I had a way out.

I smacked the back of my head against my seat’s headrest.

Okay, I didn’t have one, I had to make one. The ‘Apex’ project was a failure. The most wonderful failure it possibly could have been, but a failure nonetheless. I could try again, but not only would I need a better Clone Vat to get a more consistent success. If Apex was any indication, I’d just be creating another digital daughter/son. Not a mindless soldier or puppet I could point at my enemies and have them deleted.

My Spinal/Neural rig was a resounding success by all accounts, but I didn’t have the money or influence to get it patented, manufactured, and sold while having a largely illegal form of income.

Modifying Soulkiller into what I had wanted Apex to be was not feasible. It took me a lot of trial and error to modify the program to the point where it could create Apex, I simply did not have the talent and, frankly, genius of its original creator.

I remembered Jimmy Kurosaki and his extremely expensive clothes and fashion-ware.

I could try something with that, learn braindance editing, take scrolls of the jobs I did Edgerunning and turn them into a production. The market clearly existed, what with all the action BDs that were produced weekly. Though I’d have to work extra hard to scrub any evidence that could lead back to my crew and I.

Fat drops of water began pitter pattering down. I hastily got out and covered the flatbed with a tarp to keep my spoils dry. It was already going to be a pain in the ass cleaning all those guns, no need to add rust to the list of things I was going to have to clean.

With my task done, I stood next to the back of my truck, letting the water run off my jacket and soak into my pants and boots as the rain grew steadily heavier.

On impulse, I removed my gasmask and opened my mouth to the rainwater.

The water was acrid and tart, bitter, with an aftertaste of burnt plastic and acetone.

I tried to remember the taste of clean rainwater, the smell of clean petrichor. And I couldn’t. The only taste of water I could recall was water filtered a thousand times with a faint aftertaste of chlorine.

Anger rose from my stomach, up my gullet, an acid churning that made me sick.

I felt trapped, like Sisyphus holding his boulder so close to the top of the hill, knowing that in one or two more steps I would lose my hold, and it would roll to the bottom yet again, and cursed myself for being too weak and stupid to think of a way out or through. And it was as I was busy doing that, that I noticed the sky was wrong a little way away.

Blinking, I squinted and tried to bring the problem area into focus, but while my right eye saw only strange artifacting, my left saw the clouds churning and boiling some two hundred feet away.

I knew the smart thing would be to get in the pickup and drive away at its extremely unimpressive top speed. But I found myself inexorably drawn in the direction of the churning clouds. In no time at all I was underneath the strange phenomenon. My right eye captured only the black clouds shifting angrily, my left saw nine vortexes churning chaotically inside a square inside a spinning circle, the vortexes moved madly at dizzying speed but never once touched each other.

“What…the fuck?” I asked.

The square inside the spinning circle blinked at me, the nine vortexes coming together into a single luminescent pupil and it was looking at me.

I stepped back, surprised to feel that my shotgun was held tightly in my grip, trying and failing to look away from the strange manifestation in the sky.

The world was bleached of color, the dark day faded away until there was only the Eye. It studied me, as I studied it, but it studied itself through me. I wasn’t seeing it, I was seeing myself seeing it.

I opened my eyes, not remembering having closed them, and once again beheld two strange sights superimposed over each other. My inorganic eye saw a flickering golden cube, artifacting around its edges as it jumped madly back and forth, arcane numbers appearing and disappearing, explaining nothing yet I knew in my marrow that they held monumental significance. The numbers all disappeared, until only one remained.

0.007297352525694

My left eye saw a humanoid silhouette, it shone with the uncaring power of a star, I could feel my flesh crisping by standing on its vicinity, and when it began to regard me, I felt an immense pressure trying to push me to my knees. So, I followed the only logical course of action available to me.

I locked my knees and gave it a quadruple serving of triple-ought buckshot.

YOU ARE LUCKY I FOUND THAT CUTE.

The force pushing down on me increased, my shotgun fell from nerveless fingers to hang from its strap as my back bowed under the weight of the regard of whatever this was. I grit my teeth and refused to kneel, my cybernetic arm hung uselessly, so I pawed for my pistol with my off hand, glaring daggers at the featureless ‘face’ of whatever this creature was.

An all too human mouth appeared where its face should be. But it was too large, its teeth too massive, its lower lip overlapping its chin. The mouth took up space from one ear to the other, its philtrum climbing up to its forehead. It spread its lips in a smile that was all teeth, each tooth bigger than two of my proximal phalanges set side by side.

Its mouth moved, and I could see that behind the first row of teeth, was another, and behind that row another, and behind that one another, and behind that one another, each set identical to the one in front and the one behind in every respect. Its teeth stretched deeper than the dimensions of its head should allow for, seemingly to infinity.

CHUTZPAH, I CAN RESPECT THAT IF NOTHING ELSE.

My pistol was in my hand, trembling as I fought with all my being to raise it, determined not to let this thing win without fighting back. I tried to activate the Sandevistan, but it refused my demand.

SO, YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THE DISCREPANCY. STRANGE THAT I DID NOT PERCEIVE YOU. UNLUCKY THAT YOU CAME TO THE ONE PLACE I WOULD BE ABLE TO EASILY FIND YOU.

I nearly fell, one of my knees almost buckling as the weight on me seemed to grow exponentially. But I refused to kneel and, with the greatest effort of will, I aligned the iron sights of my pistol against the creature’s navel and squeezed the trigger.

STRANGE. YOU DID NOT EXPECT THAT TO WORK. BUT IT’S NOT ABOUT THE RESULT FOR YOU, IS IT?

The first shot had nearly torn the pistol out of my grip. I settled the sights on the thing once again.

LOOKING CLOSER, I SEE HOW MUCH YOU HAVE CHANGED. FRANKLY, IT WOULD BE A LOT MORE WORK TO SET THINGS RIGHT THAN IT WOULD BE TO ALLOW THIS DEVIATION TO RUN ITS COURSE AS AN EXPERIMENT.

This time I aimed for its neck and squeezed the trigger.

I WAS GOING TO DENY THIS. BUT SEEING AS TO THIS ENTIRE BRANCH IS POINTLESSLY RUINED, I GUESS THERE IS NO HARM IN ALLOWING IT.

The weight increased yet again. My legs collapsed, I slammed my hand down on the ground, my posture rigid even as I nearly fell face-first to the ground, anything necessary not to kneel to whatever this thing was.

ADORABLE.

The being vanished, an explosion of green light and energy slammed into me, lifting me off my feet and throwing my body about like a ragdoll before slamming me face first against the ground in the same place it picked me up from. There was a sound, it was quiet shrieking, soft thunder, bass squeaking. Before the inverse of that same sound slammed through me, I felt myself picked up and flung about, somehow knowing that it was the perfect inverse of the first time.

Only this time I landed on my head, I felt something give with a loud crunch, my diagnostics program shrieking about a catastrophic fracture.

WHOOPS, WE CANNOT HAVE THAT, CAN WE? NOT AFTER I DECIDED TO RUN MY LITTLE EXPERIMENT.

I stared at the cloudy sky groggily as my diagnostic program beeped and informed me I was dehydrated. I levered myself upright, my neck painfully stiff. I blinked and turned my head, my neck eliciting several loud snaps, crackles, and pops as it realigned.

I tried to recall the last few…since I exited my pickup to secure my loot against the rain, and found I couldn’t. I felt ice shoot up my spine at the same time as a feeling like warm water flowing down from the top of my head slammed me awake, the Sandevistan activated with a vicious roar as I felt at my kidneys and liver, then at the rest of my body, and found that, to all appearances, all of my organs remained where they were supposed to be.

I took advantage of the world of stopped time to take in my surroundings, and saw that I wasn’t alone, two people were lying on the dirt nearby, a man and a woman. They looked unconscious, but that didn’t stop me slamming open the breach of my shotgun, four spent shells crawling slowly out of the barrels. I batted them aside and slid in four new shells, then spotted my pistol lying forty feet away.

I levered myself up on trembling legs, and the world of stopped time ended just as I finished that herculean task. My back snapping and crackling much like my neck as I nearly fell the moment I was able to get all the way upright.

The two people were stirring, levering themselves up on shaky arms and legs, the man muttering in something that sounded Russian but not.

The man was dressed in a gray and red ensemble of rough fabrics that said he was stepping off the stage of a medieval fantasy movie, he had gray hair and light blue eyes, and was of a height with me, maybe an inch shorter. He had a severe face with sharp cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and a pointed chin. He rolled his head as he stood, and I saw he had pointed ears.

The second was a tall girl, five foot eight or nine, wearing tight leather pants and what looked to be a homespun white linen shirt. Her ashen-grey hair fell below her shoulders and she had emerald green eyes so bright they seemed to glow. A wicked, vivid scar marred her beautiful face, running just below her left eye, down her cheek, then parallel to her jaw. She answered whatever the man said in that same language, Russian but not.

I instinctively brought up my hacking interface but…they had no cyber-ware. Not even a neuroport.

That’s when the two of them realized they weren’t alone. Both of them came on guard, the man stepping back into a modified stance for a bayonet, the girl drawing a thin-bladed longsword and settling into a fighting stance. The girl said something which my translation software utterly failed to translate.

The two of them were completely organic.

I began to tremble from head to foot. Because, impossible as the sight before me was, nonetheless, I knew who this was.

And Misty’s words came back to me, running through me like a strike of lightning.

And I knew, this was it, this was that opportunity.

Misty wasn’t a charlatan; she was an Oracle. Forever doomed to have her prophecies ignored, her warnings disregarded, her reading of portents unheeded.

Misty, forevermore, had herself a convert. I would heed her wisdom. Worship at her altar. Whatever advice she had, I would heed.

Because, as both my cybernetic and organic eyes could attest. She was the real deal.

The woman tilted her head and said something else, questioningly.

I let my shotgun fall from nerveless fingers and hang from its strap. I tried to introduce myself, to welcome her, to offer my services in any way she might require, so long as she would let me beg but one boon in return.

But all the things I wanted to say got stuck in my throat, with only one managing to force its way through the tangle. I asked, not daring to hope but wishing with all my heart this was real.

“Ciri?”

 =][=

Tyger Claw conversation translation:

“Holy shit, it's Redeye.”

“The guy that killed Shobo?”

“Yeah.”

“Aren't we supposed to gut him if we see him?”

“You wanna fuckin’ die? Leave me the hell out of it.”

“What do we do? He's looking at us.”

“You? What about me!? I met his evil eye! Will I be cursed? What do I do!?”

“Just don't move, I heard his vision is based on movement.”