It's About Saving Yourself Ch 5 (Patreon)

Here is Ch 5. Where Alex goes on his first official job. And proves that his first outing just might not have been beginner's luck.

As usual, please leave me a comment with your thoughts.

=][=

I listened to Maine outline the plan for stealing the nav data off a fancy car.

It was complex, unfortunately by necessity.

We had to get the nav data from an Arasaka big shot’s car. To do that we were going to trick his driver and bodyguard, Maxim Kuze-something-or-other to drown his sorrows on a bar. With Kiwi’s help I’d use the Sandevistan to picksocket the fucker, get his carkey shard to Dorio who would copy the whole thing, which included all of the nav data for the last few months.

Everything went exactly according to plan, until, of course, it didn’t. Maxim got a call from his boss, he sighed and stood up, and shit would get crazy if he got to the car.

[Shit, kid, take the shard and take it to Lucy, she’ll have to get the info out of the car’s computer.] Maine ordered over the private channel we set up for the job.

[Nah, I got this, just be ready to hand me back the shard.] I subvocalized and triggered the program I’d dropped into Maxim’s deck the moment I'd gotten eyes on him.

[Kid! We don't have time f-!] He went quiet when Maxim stumbled, looking around blindly and swearing.

I left Dorio’s side, the buff woman looking at me with narrowed eyes, and made my way to the stumbling Maxim. “Oi, choom, you alright?” I stepped back from the blind swing and poured as much genuine offense as I could into my words. “Woah, woah! Shit, if you're gonna be an ass then you can fuck off and stay fucked off!”

Maxim seemed to finally register that I wasn’t attacking him. His eyes glared balefully at a spot a little to my right. “Wha? Who’re you?” he asked with a noticeable accent I couldn't place, sounded vaguely Slavic.

“Just someone what was drinking, then saw you nearly faceplant. Hell’s up with you, choom?”

He relaxed slightly and shook his head. “Can't see, eyes hurt.”

I took in a deep, hissing breath. “Shieeeet, lemme guess, eyes flickering on and off, image tearing, lag, off key sense of balance, back of the eye burning?”

He once more looked in my general direction suspiciously and demanded. “How’d you know?”

“I intern with a ripper, been seeing a lot of cases like yours. Lemme guess, EyeShines™ 2.9.2s?”

He furrowed his brows. “Yes.”

I shrugged. “Well, there's your problem. The NC Center of Cyberware Control issued a recall on those. Some update or other causes glitches and malfunctions till the OpSys gets overwhelmed and, well, you know what happens. Bright side, you should be good in an hour, though I’d suggest swapping those EyeShines out for some Owlbears, much more reliable and still cheaper than Kiroshi.”

Maxim definitely looked like he’d checked out a third of the way through my explanation, then he blinked and visibly went over what I said. “An hour! I don't have that time! Fuck, I'll lose my job!”

I could see Dorio tensing as Maxim’s shoulders bunched up.

I turned to her and, not daring to subvocalize, sent her a chat message. [Oi, how much longer on the download?]

[12 minutes.]

I turned back to Maxim. “Uhh…well, I am a Ripper in training? I could look into that for you? I can probably clear it up in like, twenty minutes, give or take.”

“Fuck! Okay, it is cutting it close, but yes, that’d…yes please.”

I nodded, even if he couldn’t see me, it was important to keep up appearances for anyone else that might be watching. “Alright, well, it’d be bad to do this standing, so Imma lead you to the bar, after that I need to jack into your port, okay?”

Once I had his consent, I took him by the elbow and gently pulled him to the bar, where I extended the interface cable on my wrist and plugged it into the socket at his neck.

I made idle conversation, bitching about work, commiserating about shit bosses. I lied about trying different things and giving him back his vision with catastrophic glitches and lags. Once, for shits and giggles, I returned his vision but reversed his eyes, his brain to cyberware interface giving him his left eye input in his left half of the brain, and the right eye input in his right half of the brain.

I felt bad, he almost threw up, that was needlessly cruel, and I should not have found it nearly as funny as I did.

Dorio handed me the carkey shard on her way to the bathroom, and I faffed about. I apologized and told him I was going to slot in a shard with generic vision drivers, remove the existing ones and leave him with something that, while not as good, would at least let him see until he could get a proper update with a ripper.

He agreed, I slotted in an empty shard along with his carkey shard, continued to faff about for a few minutes, then deleted his vision drivers and installed generic ones I had on my deck. “Okay, you should be good, your eyes will restart in a bit and that should tide you over, but remember, go see your Ripper first chance you get, switch those out.”

“Yeah, right.” He said as I ejected the empty shard and unplugged my interface port. I grabbed my beer and took a sip, trying not to grimace at the oily brew.

Maxim’s eyes came into focus and he looked around.

I drank another mouthful and asked. “How is it? Any artefacting? Lag? Vision overlaps?”

He blinked and looked at me and grinned. “No, thanks kid, you’re a lifesaver.” He made a fingergun at me, wiring me a few eddies. “Thanks for the help.”

Maxim ran off, going past Maine who very pointedly didn't look at him beyond a wary glance that was entirely expected in Night City. A moment later I heard a monster engine turn on and roar away.

I looked down at my drink. “Fifteen eddies for saving his job? What a cheap gonk.” I shot back my drink, paid my tab and walked out.

[Meet you guys at the rendezvous?] I subvocalized as I stepped out. Not waiting for an answer as I made my way to the nearest bus stop and called mom to let her know that the job was over, I was fine, and was gonna debrief and celebrate with Maine’s crew.

=][=

“Gotta say, with what you'd been doing to the Animals, I didn’t think you knew how to be discreet.” Maine said as I stared at Pilar balancing plates on his freakishly long arms.

Apparently, Maine’s crew made a habit of drinking after a successful job. I took a swig of my beer, Tres Equis Lager, because of course my favorite beer had transmigrated realities and referenced fucking pornography instead of the turn of the twentieth century, seriously fuck this world. At least it was mostly the same, with only a dash of gasoline taste.

“Know plenty about discretion,” I said, looking up at the giant Borg of a man. “Just didn’t bother with the Animals. Finesse is literally wasted on them.”

Maine joined me in watching Pilar make a fool of himself. “What you did today.” He began, and I cut him off.

“I know, I was out of line, but if I’d asked for permission the window of opportunity would have closed. I only went against your orders because I had a solid chance of achieving the objective while incurring minimal risk, to me, the crew, and the job.” I turned and looked him dead in the eye. “I don't intend to make a habit of it, by the same token, if I see a golden opportunity with minimal to nonexistent risk and a lack of time to explain myself and clear it with you, don't expect me to let it pass by.” I took a swig of my beer. “It may sound pretentious coming from someone my age, but I take pride in my work, always have. If I do something, I aim to do it right. If an opportunity comes with a big risk, I won't be taking it without clearing it with you first.”

Maine regarded me for a long while before nodding. He cracked a smile. “You sure you're a kid? I've never run into a kid that doesn't have his head up his ass.”

I grinned back. “What can I say? I'm an old soul.”

Maine nodded and made a finger gun at me and transferred twenty thousand Eurodollars to my account. “Everyone gets an even share, you good on your meds?”

I nodded, trying to keep the relief out of my face, with that I’d have enough to make the first payment to Vik and our expenses for a few months. “I’m a part time intern for a Ripperdoc, I get what I need pretty much at cost.”

He blinked and smiled. “Think you can hook a guy up? Getting my meds has been getting expensive.”

I shrugged. “Pass me a list and I'll see what I can do. It’s not something I can abuse. Don’t shit where you eat and all that.”

Maine nodded and stood. “Alright, I'll leave you to it, you'll get a call from me next time there's a job.”

“Looking forward to it.” I said, then surveyed the rest of Maine’s crew, Kiwi was drinking her beer through a straw. Dorio was nodding her head to the beat of reguetón blasting out of the speakers, and Pilar had thrown one of his orangutan arms around the Edgerunner girl I caught picksocketing whose name I still didn't know. Though if she was part of the crew, she might be the Lucy that Maine mentioned.

Thinking of which, I should talk to her, I’d really be rather miffed if she picked my brother’s socket.

“Yo!” said the short, sluttily dressed, pale-blue skinned girl with obnoxiously neon green hair and green eyes with red sclera that had been keeping a polite distance while I talked with Maine. She had pink Mox tattoos, the word ‘DICK!’ in all caps tattooed on her thigh, and judging by the bulges on her jacket, a pair of Unitys in her pockets.

“You’re the chick what was sitting at the corner in the bar.” I said matter-of-factly and took a sip of my beer. “I take it you were Maine’s distraction for the job at the bar?”

“Yup!” she answered with a cocky smirk, then pouted at me. “And you stole my thunder! Plugged into the guy before I had a chance to make my move!”

“Sorry not sorry.” I said and smirked back at her. “I have a thing for making people go cross-eyed when I plug into them.”

She grinned wider. We shot the shit for a while with increasingly blatant double entendre until eventually she stretched. “Well, just wanted to say, nova job with that Max asshole. I wanted to give you some shit but turns out you’re pretty preem. Name’s Rebecca, call me Becca.”

“Thanks,” I said with a nod, “Name’s Alexander, I go by Alex. Know any fixers looking for a dependable solo? I got bills.”

She barked a laugh and tossed her contact information at me. “Yer alright choom. If I get anything I’ll letcha know, see ya.”

“Stay safe.” I called out and chugged the rest of my beer. Looking around, I saw the white/rainbow haired chick throw Pillar’s arm off her and head off. I tossed my bottle in the trash and jogged to catch up.

By the sudden tension in her shoulders, I summarized she saw me coming and came to a stop. “Yo, Lucy, right?”

She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes cold. “Yeah?”

I raised my hands, palms forward. “Name’s Alexander Martinez, I go by Alex. Saw that you frequent the Metro ‘round Corpo Plaza picksocketing ‘saka assholes. Wanted to ask you to please not picksocket my gonk of a brother. We’re short on eddies and are gonna have trouble making rent as-is and I don’t wanna deal with his bitchin’ cause he never bothered to listen to me about being observant.”

She blinked, her face softening for a moment before she scowled. “That’s it?”

I nodded firmly. “That’s it, glad to be on the team, yadda yadda. If ever you have a job and need a bit of extra muscle or an extra iron, give me a call. Exchange deets?”

She studied my face for a long time. “That’s it, really?”

“Yup. Can I bring my hands down now?”

She narrowed her eyes at me but seemingly relaxed. I still waited for the ceramic plate covering the monowire on her wrist to close.

“Why is a ‘saka rich kid Running the Edge?” Lucy asked, leaning against the wall.

I shrugged. “Not rich, I intern with a ripperdoc in Watson, at the intersection of Broadbury & Buran and into Urmland street. Mom’s a meatwagon tech. She’s working herself to death trying to get my brother and I through ‘saka school so we can get a job there and join the rat race.” I looked around and spotted a drink SCSM. “You want a soda? My treat.”

Her eyes flickered to the SCSM. “Sure, why not.”

I looked both ways on the street before crossing. No point getting isekaied again, I’ve too many goddamn bills to pay. I went to the machine, pulled out my interface port and plugged in. A few seconds later I’d hacked the machine, wiped the security footage and turned off the camera for the next several minutes, and got us both a Nicola Peach. They tasted nothing like peaches. I took a slurp of the cough syrup tasting drink with a faint apple aftertaste.

“Anyways.” I continued and gave her the rundown of my story. Her eyes widening and her face softening as I explained my situation. “So now I’m kinda desperate to pull a buncha jobs. I need to build up a rep as a reliable Runner if I wanna have a hope of getting the eddies to pay Vik back, give my ma a chance to heal, and keep my brother in school.”

She lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. “Sounds like you got a full plate.” She took a chug of the soda and a deep drag of her cigarette. A moment later I got a ping with her contact info. “Well, if I have any job that I could use backup from Redeye I’ll give you a call. Though I mostly run with Maine.”

I chugged the last half of my soda and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. “That’s cool. You got cyberlungs?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s it to you?”

I pointed at her cigarette while I secured my gasmask over my face. “Cool Dark™ was found to have a mutagen in their synthbacco a couple years back. The NC Health Office had a whole stink about it, but TTT-INC paid the fines, and nothing came of it. It reacts badly with the bacterial cultures in bioplastic alveoli, so they start producing adrenocorticotropin. At first it just causes high blood pressure, but continued buildup can lead to random spikes of adrenaline, and later psychedelic or psychotic episodes. People were hollering that it caused cyberpsychosis but it really just causes cyberlungs to randomly cause a fight or flight response, anxiety and panic attacks, and increased aggression, by the time it gets to hallucinations it usually becomes terminal via cops. Either way, if you have cyberlungs or smoke close to someone who has cyberlungs, it’ll eventually fuck them up and they’ll have to get a new implant, unless they have a model advanced enough that it filters the smoke automatically in the esophagus before it reaches the bronchioles and alveolar sacs.”

She merely stared at me while I’d talked, her eyes growing a little wider the farther along the explanation I got. She stared at her cigarette for a few seconds before tossing it to the ground and stamping it out. She muttered a curse before turning to me. “You know of any brands that don’t cause issues with cyberware?”

I shook my head. “I severely dislike cigarette smoke. But if you send me a list of the brands you frequent, I’ll look into their side effects, including the ones not listed on the health page.”

Lucy nodded, still staring at the smoking remains of her cigarette. “You know, you’re alright. I was holding a bit of a grudge from when you stopped my fun in the Metro, but you’re alright for a ‘saka brat.”

I snorted. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t pick my socket. Needed the money to pay our water bill.”

Lucy snorted and gave me the first genuine smile I’d seen on her face. It took her from pretty to beautiful, her features softened, her eyes crinkled slightly, and her cheeks blushed a bit. “Yeah, pretty alright. See you later Alex.”

“Stay safe, Lucy.”

I wired the first ten thousand Eddies to Vik along with a message of thanks and made my way home. I’d have to pick up some food on the way, something light that wouldn’t upset mom’s new stomach, it was still calibrating.