Never Fade Away: Whose Ready for Tomorrow (ch. 31) (Patreon)

"Arasaka Tower got a big o' hole put in the upper floors, courtesy of L! Streets are sweltering, folks, so don't go out unless you're packing some heat of your own! And despite the dangers, rumor is that one of the Arasaka's has decided to brave our fair city! So, when he gets zeroed, I'll try to get the first to let you know! Now, here's Wait in the Truck by Hardy and Lainey Wilson!"

…

"L, please tell me that I don't need to tell you how stupid of an idea that this is?" Becca questioned, sending me a dull stare while I took a hit off of an inhaler. My lungs cleared up and I could breathe a little easier. I ignored her stare in favor of glancing at my reflection -- my skin had taken a darker hue now that I was underneath the sun more often than not, which made the pale white scars stand out more. It didn't help hide the dark bags under my eyes either.

I needed to start focusing on medical tech, I realized. I had ignored it for two months because I needed to fight the megacorporations, and I figured replacing my organs would take care of it. It hadn't. They were already breaking down for the same reason my previous set did.

Element Zero poisoning. My last workday had left me a gift -- residual radiation in my nervous system and brainstem. Not a lot. Nothing compared to the various other side effects that were slowly killing me, but enough to make it all worse.

"I know it's a bad idea," I confirmed, looking at her. Becca had changed the least over the past few months. Slowly, she had been chipping in the implants I printed off for her, but she didn't dare go for the dangerous ones. The necessary ones. Jack, who stood behind her, was a different story entirely. Her arms were both prosthetics now -- mantis blades. She wore a crop-top and a half jacket, her hair long and shaved on the sides to reveal tattoos. The same concern shone in her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. "He's probably going to betray me. That's fine. It means that they think they have something that can take me down -- I destroy or kill whatever it is, and I do some more damage to Arasaka."

Simple. Nothing flashy, nothing outrageous -- just a simple case of turning a trap against them.

"It also means that they feel like they can take you, gonk for brains," Jack pointed out. "We've been kicking ass and taking names nonstop for months, and now they feel confident? Doesn't that ring any alarm bells for you?" Jack questioned, and she was never the cautious one.

"That's why I'm telling you. In case they do have a reason to be confident," I pointed out, which I saw didn't exactly earn me any points. I was curious as to what they thought could get me. Their elites were barely more than normal soldiers to me, and their normal soldiers might as well not be there for all the good that they did. Two months wasn't a lot of time for normal tech development -- hardly any, really. I was an extreme outlier in that regard.

Adam Smasher hadn't surfaced since I blew him up. He was their deadliest weapon, and I think it said a lot that he was being kept away from me.

"Why would Yorinobu reach out to you? Why not through a proxy?" Jack stressed, her lips tugging into a frown.

I shrugged. "Maybe he has no one he can trust? Or he thought it would be more believable that it came from him? I don't know. Or care, really. It's an opportunity and I'm going to take it," I told them, offering a more apologetic shrug. I felt a charge lurking in the back of my mind as I turned away from the two to wash my face, trying to shock my system.

I needed to look into medical tech. But I also need to start building up how we were going to get to space. The charges were an invaluable resource to me. Because I could use them to fight Arasaka too.

When I looked back, I saw neither of them were happy. However, it was Becca that let out a huge sigh, dragging a hand down her face, "How can anyone be this stubborn?" She asked before pinning me with a look, "Fine. We'll back you up. What's the gig?" She asked and I smiled faintly. Becca would tell you exactly how stupid of an idea something was, but no matter what, she wouldn't let you be stupid alone.

"Yorinobu is at Konpeki Plaza with one of the Relics. An engram is on it -- he didn't say who. Just that it would prove that Arasaka is full of shit, and it'll piss off the people that want to keep them around," I explained. I was curious who exactly the engram was -- I had seen the commercials, it was nearly impossible not to. Arasaka was selling immortality to the one percent, and a lot of people were buying in. It was of passing interest to me, admittedly, but Yorinobu had been pretty quick to call it enslavement and I knew better than to trust Arasaka's promises. "I get in, take it from him, then get out."

"And when it turns out to be a trap?" Jack asked, sounding faintly annoyed with me.

"I kill whoever they're trying to trap me with. Depending on the scale, I'll have you, Becca, Kaiden, and Falco with the Javelin to take some of the heat off until they run out of bodies to throw at us," I offered. The Javelin was another tank that had been printed off since I had to blow up the last one, and it had a number of improvements. Chiefly because unlike its predecessor, it wasn't a rush job. Falco was the driver, and with the targeting system I had added, he could also use the dozen weapons built into the tank, to great effect.

"That sounds pretty par for course when it comes to your plans, but simple is good," Becca admitted. She preferred simple plans. Less chance something went wrong with them.

Jack was less than convinced. "What about the brats?" She asked, and though 'brats' was a term that she applied to everyone that was so much as a day younger than her, I knew exactly who she was talking about. "They're ready to start throwing down. Some of 'em won't bother waiting for your permission, you know. The only reason they bother holding back is because they think you'll start taking them with you when you do dumb shit." The kids that she spoke of were the ones with the Aldecaldos.

I had kept a close eye on them. Things hadn't exactly been smooth sailing, but it was no more difficult than any of us expected. The older teens settled in well enough, and the Aldecaldos welcomed them despite some initial hesitation. Now both were doing great -- the energy and recycling tech had the Aldecaldos in better shape than they ever had been before, and the kids were getting first hand experience dealing with people and the world. Things that they couldn't learn in BDs or simulations.

Some settled better than others -- Nora had her radio show that had become a labor of love. Others found trouble by starting to street race. Some found quiet little lives, fading into the background with the Aldecaldos. The rest? They were ready to start fighting. To get revenge. To help me.

It wasn't fair. I didn't have the right to tell them no. They had their freedom, and it should be up to them to decide what to do with it, but…

I didn't want them anywhere near this mess. Near me. I was too big of a target as it was, and being near me put Jack, Becca, Kaiden, Falco, and the others in too much danger that I'd rather they not be in. I'd rather that the risk be mine and mine alone, even if it meant being all alone.

"... If they want to help, they can use drones," I told her, and that earned a cocked eyebrow that told me her thoughts. And the thoughts of the kids -- 'That's not good enough.' "To run interference only, if we do end up running," I continued, putting my foot down.

"One day, they're not going to ask for permission," Jack warned me and I knew that she was right. All the same, I shook my head.

"It won't be today," I said, unyielding.

"Might have a little compromise for that," Becca remarked, her hands cupping the back of her head as she watched me and Jack go back and forth. "The Mox was wanting a meet -- the Tyger Claws are trying to take back their old territory. They're tiptoeing around Little China, mostly because the other gangs are trying to give them the boot. Stick the kids there." The gangs. Another problem I had to deal with.

They weren't reforming despite my threat. They didn't seem to realize that the only reason I didn't kill them all was simply because I was focusing on Arasaka. That, and I knew it would be a pointless endeavor -- the megacorporations were funding the various gangs and outfitting them with preem weapons and implants. Even if I wiped the slate clean, in a week there would be a dozen new gangs to take their place.

"Have they moved in yet?" I questioned, and Becca wiggled a hand back and forth. I scratched at my cheek, "It's not a bad idea," I admitted. I just needed to do the heavy lifting first, so they wouldn't need to see any action. And I did need to keep my promise. If they thought they could get away with it, then they wouldn't obey any threat that I gave. "Let's go discuss the details of it with Susan."

Becca looked faintly amused, "Face to face?" She asked, and I nodded, not seeing what the issue was. Or why she let out a bark of laughter. "Let's go then. I wanna see this first hand!" Becca decided, laughing to herself as she left my workshop. Jack and I shared a look and Jack offered a shrug, saying that she didn't know either. Following her out, I looked out upon the base and saw how it had changed over our brief stay.

We had set up in an abandoned gas station outside of the city. Everything was hooked up to the GN Drive at the center of the room, which was shrunk to the size of a soda can. The recyclers and the fabricators replaced the shelves while turrets marked every corner. Complete with a bubbleshield projector.

I had a number of projects on the table at the moment, but chief among them was the GN particles. It was one of my first pieces of technology, but I was coming to realize it was my least understood one. More so than even my PYM Particles. I had stumbled onto their gravity manipulation aspect, which was useful but not what I was focusing on.

GN particles had disruptive effects on technology -- particularly wireless communications. I had only discovered that when I created my hoverboard and found that my enemies couldn't communicate with each other. That was an aspect I was attempting to cultivate and fine tune -- not only would it be a powerful tool to deny my enemies, but in theory, I could use it as a weapon. I could use the particles to force a connection since Arasaka and the others had long since learned to close their open connections to any net.

With the… NetCracker, in theory, I could access any net. Regardless if it was closed or not. My Skeleton Key could be used to its fullest effects, the GN particles should prevent counter hacking on my end, and I imagine it would have disruptive effects for AIs, which means that I could, in theory, finally take a crack at the Arasaka data fortresses that were guarded by dozens upon dozens of AI and Black ICE.

In theory. A theory that I hadn't been able to test on account that I couldn't get the particles to do what I want and I wasn't entirely certain why yet. I was reluctant to invest more into the technology simply because the charges were already in such high demand, and I had no idea how many charges it would take to solve the issue. My advancements had managed to get rid of the toxic effect of the red particles, which turned them orange, but…

It was becoming increasingly clear that my GN Drive could be taken further. It was just a matter of investment. And perhaps it would be worth the cost, but it was a question of priority.

Becca got behind the wheel of a car that had been left in the garage and before she drove out, she engaged the stealth field. It would stop any satellite from getting a look at us from above. I was in the passenger seat, watching Night City pass by through the window. The city really did seem more beat down than it ever did. According to the daily death poll, more than fifty people had died today alone. And those were just the bodies that had been found.

All the same, we drove by, heading up to the Mox club. Getting out of the car, Becca was greeted quite warmly by the bouncer -- a woman with dark purple hair, prosthetics, and a baseball bat. Rita Wheeler, I knew, mostly through Becca. And I didn't fail to notice how she had a closed system. It wasn't the norm yet, but it was rapidly becoming so, much to my frustration. "Becca! And L," I was greeted with a lot less warmth, but still friendly.

"We got something to run by Susan," I told her, and Rita cocked an eyebrow at our approach.

"You might as well skip straight to Judy," Rita remarked with an uncaring shrug, making me blink in confusion. "Susan doesn't hold the reins anymore. You played kingmaker."

What? "Sorry?" How did I play kingmaker? What did I say? I just said that I liked the Mox because they were friends with Becca and Jack? If a offhand mention like that was enough to restructure a gang, then why hadn't the others heeded my warning?

"Don't be. Punchin' Judy gives a shit, for better or worse. Head on in," Rita said, the doors opening for us and letting thumping music reach us. I glanced at Becca, who just shrugged, and I stepped inside. The club was rather full at the moment -- people were told to stay indoors, and most people preferred to do so in clubs.

Weirdly enough, as we made our way down to Judy, I saw a lot of people that were dressed like me. And looked like me. It was… more than a little unnerving, honestly. From what I knew, the poser gang made in my image had a pretty close relationship with the Mox. Because they heard that I liked them, as far as I could tell.

Weird. Very weird. More weird when some of them raised drinks in my direction, and one even complimented my dedication to looking like myself.

In all, it was a really weird and unwelcome experience and I was glad to make it downstairs to the basement. The music started to fade as we descended, and a final door sliding open revealed Judy. She was seated behind her desk, her feet kicked up -- she glanced over, unsurprised to see us. Meaning someone shot her a message. However, she wasn't alone. A woman was with her that I didn't recognize -- short blue hair, pretty in a way that was impossible without implants, and titanium tipped claws for fingernails. I didn't know her.

The man laid out on the chair in the center of the room, however, I did know. Large with thick arms, his dark hair pulled back into a topknot while his cheekbones were marked with golden cyberlines. "Mierda, a little heads up would have been nice," he remarked to the other two while his eyes were on me.

Judy just chuckled, "Then I'd miss out on that reaction, Jackie." The blue haired woman didn't seem particularly happy to see us, at least in comparison to Judy, who shot over a grin. "Becca, Jack, L- I'd ask how things are, but I think I heard enough on the news. What's up?"

"I, erm, think I should beat feet. Seems like a private conversation," Jackie said, glancing at the blue haired woman. I got the impression that we interrupted a bit of biz. "It's nice meeting you again. I'm not sure-" Jackie began, his tone awkward as he scratched at the back of his neck.

"I remember. You were with Misty," I recalled. I didn't know much about him, but I saw Misty a couple of times during my visits with Vik. He seemed surprised, and a bit pleased, that I remembered him. "Sorry for interrupting. We can wait if it's important," I offered, thinking it was a little weird that we just got let in while she already had guests.

"It's fine, we were finishing up anyway," the blue haired woman said, shooting Judy a look when she scowled. They said nothing more before she and Jackie left the basement, but Judy let out a quiet sigh when the door slid close behind them.

"Trouble tends to follow you wherever you go, L. Even more than it does Becca," Judy started, ignoring Becca sticking her tongue out at her, "So, what's important enough that you're coming here in the flesh?" Judy sounded tired, I decided. I think that might be my fault, somehow.

I scratched at my cheek for a moment before I decided to shrug, "I'm here to follow up on the promise I made. The Tyger Claws are trying to move back into your territory?" I ventured and she blinked at that.

"I figured that'd you be neck deep in 'saka ninjas and too busy to handle a couple of gonks toeing the line," Judy admitted, seemingly regarding me with more respect. I nodded, not surprised she felt that way. "I… don't think you need to go so far as to flatline all of them though. It's just a couple of idiots trying to puff out their chests. Nothing more than that. Your poser gang gives us some numbers, but they don't do anything more out of fear of you. And they won't do anything more." She sounded pretty certain of it, but that didn't really matter.

I told everyone that I'd kill them all if they put one toe over the line, and they did. So, I had to follow through. But, that was for later. First I needed to take care of the kids.

"I'm about to do a job that's going to have a pretty big splash, and there are a bunch of kids that are looking to get involved. I need them to feel like they're being useful, and Becca suggested that I could send them your way. To scare off the Tyger Claws. They're military trained with military grade implants -- so, you don't have to worry about them. Just keep them out of the way." I told her, making Judy glance at Becca, who offered two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Judy leaned back into her chair, narrowing her eyes at me. I'm not sure why she was hesitant. She got a hundred soldiers under her command, however briefly. "This job. What is it, exactly? I want to be prepared for the next splash you make."

I considered the question for a moment before shrugging, "I'm probably going to end up killing Yorinobu Arasaka and stealing a Relic. Why?"

Judy's face became serene before she closed her eyes.

"Fuck."