Strong Enough 1.6 (Patreon)

Solo Finale

The next day after classes, Taylor gets a call, but not from the person she expects.

“Heeyyyy, Taylor, it’s your bestie, Emma.”

Taylor stares at the text box beneath Emma’s perfect caller ID. The Academy doesn’t allow students to block each other as part of their ‘open communications policy’, which Taylor solved previously by the simple expedient of having her phone kick out any number that’s not in her address book.

Waiting on a ping from Maine means some hate mail slips through the cracks, go figure. 

Emma’s voicemail continues on blithely. “It’s just, like, so sad your mom died, and like, less than two years after your dad? OMG I’m just so sorry to hear about it. Like, seriously, so, so sorry! I bet you cried yourself to sleep for a week.”

Taylor has the sudden urge to throw something through a window, maybe herself. The only thing stopping her is the competing desire, greater yet and still growing, to pin Emma down and wrap her hands around the girl’s soft, slim neck and squeeze—

“So, like, anyway I’m just calling because I know you’re like, non-affluent, and Daddy was offering you a place to live. You know, with me. I would love to live with you, every day would be just like going to classes together! Wouldn’t that just be the best?

Anyway, call me if that sounds fun. Kthxbai!!!”

The call ends. Silence.

Taylor shatters it with a scream. Her hand snags up something heavy and throws it at the far wall. “Fuck you, Emma!” 

The glass shatters on the far wall, pens within scattering. 

“Fuck you! Fuck you!”

Taylor flips the ottoman. It crashes into an end table.

“I hope you die in a fire! I’m fucking done! Whatever!”

She grabs a drawer from the desk and flings it across the room. An old holo-frame bounces off the carpet and slides to a stop next to her foot. She sees Emma, and pulls back her foot to punt it across the room.

Then her eyes catch the rest of the holo. Her mom’s smiling face.

Taylor sinks to the ground, strings cut. Hiccuping sobs batter at her throat, but not tears, no more tears. 

Never more tears.

Unbidden, her hands pick up the holo. It’s of her and Emma. Taylor’s mom stands behind them, a hand around each girl’s shoulder. Taylor is hugging Emma, and Emma is latched onto Taylor’s middle like a limpet. Her head is tucked into Taylor’s neck, Taylor’s nuzzled into fiery crimson hair.

They took this picture after Zoe Barnes eloped, only a few short months after Danny’s death, when it felt like they only had each other to turn to.

A week later everything went to shit.

“I don’t know what to do, mom,” she whispers. “I just…”

She presses her forehead to the frame, back shuddering in choppy and uneven breaths. Annette always had a way forward, no matter how difficult life became. She desperately needs it now.

Deep breaths, little owl, her mother used to say. Take deep breaths and think, the answers will come.

So, Taylor sits back on her heels, and thinks.

This is not Emma’s usual brand of cruelty, and it’s certainly not Alan’s.

Emma is performative, breaking Taylor down for the crowd, in order to enhance her own social status. And Alan wasn’t a bad man. He hasn’t spoken to Taylor in months, and he certainly doesn’t have the spite to mock Taylor like this less than a week after Annette’s death. 

Alan is addicted to work. It was why he and Danny got along so well, despite being worlds apart. But Alan tries. Emma’s fancy new car is a testament to how he tries, substituting material gifts for time and affection. Vaguely, she remembers how Alan helped Annette get her contractor job, but couldn’t find the time to speak with them once since.

He probably doesn’t know about Emma and Taylor.

Taylor rewinds Emma’s message, playing it again at 1.5x speed. She didn’t notice the first time, because the words are so perfectly calculated to hurt and to harm, cutting right through Taylor’s thin veneer of ‘I kill people you can’t touch me’, but Emma’s tone of voice is…

It’s warm. It’s conciliatory. It’s exactly how they used to talk to each other. Oh the words are catty and vicious, but just twisted enough that an absentee father who doesn’t talk to his kids might not notice the difference.

Like Emma is hiding something.

From that, Taylor pieces together a rough hypothesis.

Alan doesn’t know that Taylor and Emma have fully completed the transition from best friends to mortal enemies. It would be so like Emma to play pretend about their friendship at home. She’s always been good at lying, and Alan is gone so often he would never notice the little inconsistencies surrounding that lie.

So, when Alan asks Emma about her day, Emma lets slip that Taylor hasn’t been attending classes for a week, because her mom died. Alan isn’t a bad man, so he would have immediately offered to take Taylor in. It’s what any good friend would do. As a mid level manager in Arasaka’s gargantuan legal division, he’ll even get a discount rate on adoption papers, and how often did Taylor and Emma joke about being ‘real’ sisters?

Taylor smiles so wide she feels like her face is ripping open at the sheer absurdity of it. Not an ounce of joy exists within her, but a joke so flawless deserves a smile.

And it gets even better.

Taylor can see it now. Emma, painted into a corner, offers to call Taylor instead.

She knows Taylor doesn’t check her messages. Taylor even remembers her being extra vitriolic today, to make doubly sure Taylor would ignore Emma’s message when she calls. Then, when Alan asks, Emma’s tracks are covered. She can point to her message and make some noise about how Taylor didn’t respond, she’s fine, she just needs space. It doesn’t need to be a perfect excuse, just one that will last long enough for Alan to go back to work, and push off checking on Taylor indefinitely under the assurance that Emma is still ‘checking up’ on her at school.

All wrapped up in a diabolical little bow.

Just Emma’s luck that Taylor was waiting on a call from Maine with her phone unlocked. Just her luck that Taylor was so shocked that she let the whole message play instead of deleting it halfway through in disgust.

Just luck, most of it bad.

Taylor pushes herself to her feet. Part of her is very tempted to delete the message anyway, because there is no world in which Taylor will ever look at Emma like a sister, and the thought of living with that bitch makes Taylor want to hurl, but…

But.

If Taylor deletes the message, Emma gets what she wants.

As a creature animated entirely by hatred and spite, Taylor sees no incentive to let someone she hates so much have the last word. She puts the holo frame down on her desk before pulling out her new revolver and flicking it open. Two chambers empty, four full. Two of her mother’s killers taken care of, but only three to go. She snaps it shut, clicking the cylinder twice. 

Click.

Click.

Maybe she’s found a use for the last bullet after all.

She levels the revolver at Emma’s face in the holo. Why should Emma get to walk away without so much as a consequence? Some vengeance is in order.

“Bang.”

She lets out a strangled laugh, lowering her gun as common sense reasserts itself. “Am I really gonna do this just to fuck with Emma? Fuck, I really want to fuck with Emma.” She looks around her apartment, the one she can only afford for one more month. “Solves my money problem also. And Alan is never home, so it’s not like he can stop me from leaving on gigs. Fuck, fuck!”

She kicks the overturned ottoman. All thoughts of vengeance aside, she hates it, she hates it so, so much. But Taylor’s been doing a lot of things she hates in the name of settling scores; what’s one more?

She pulls herself upright, brushing her hands over her uniform shirt and blazer. Alan’s contact is one of the few still stored in her phone, and she calls him before she can chicken out.

He picks up on the second ring. “Taylor! Thank goodness you called” His voice is exactly how Taylor remembers: affable and a bit winded. She wouldn’t call Alan Barnes fat, but if he chipped in some fake abs like Dorio and Maine, they’d have to be round. “Emma talked to you at school?”

Taylor holds back a snort through sheer force of will. If Emma hasn’t told him the truth of their relationship, far be it from Taylor to lift the veil from his eyes. “Yeah! She did.” She thinks back to Sasha’s upbeat attitude, letting that color her tone, tempered by a tinge of grief from the bottomless well in her chest. “Thanks—thanks so much, Mr. Barnes. I was starting to worry about… ending up on the street.”

“Don’t worry. I know that this is a hard time, it is for me as well—”

Taylor clenches her fist knuckle white against her revolver.

“—but I would never let the daughter of my closest friends become homeless.”

“...Thanks.” She manages to force the biting anger into a choked off sob, and takes a few breaths to ‘steady’ herself. “How… how do I…?”

“Don’t worry about a thing, Taylor. I’ll handle it.  The movers can be there as early as tomorrow to pack up everything you need. The house is fully furnished, but if there’s anything you want to keep, just let me know.”

Taylor looks around the apartment. The bed is set into the wall, and most of the furniture is just so much stuff, but, “Can I… can I keep Mom’s desk and workbench, please?”

She hates how weak her voice sounds. It’s becoming a theme.

“Of course. I’ll inform the movers. Would you like to spend another night there? I can’t get out to Heywood until after midnight, but…”

Taylor takes a moment, and a wicked idea comes to her. She lets fire pour down her spine, giving her plenty of time to think about the perfect way to phrase her request. Vengeance starts now. “Can… can you ask Emma to drive me back to my—to this apartment after classes tomorrow? It’ll give me time to pack my clothes… say goodbye.”

“Not an issue. You want me to call her?” 

She shuffles her feet. “It’ll be embarrassing to mention it at school.”

“I’ll handle it. Now, I have a meeting in five, but is there anything, anything else I can do for you?”

Taylor gives a watery laugh; it’s only a little fake. Five minutes but anything you need? It’s the exact blend of overprotective but never present parenting Alan has always shown. Emma used to complain about it, back when they spoke without insults.

“You—you’ve already done so much for me, I don’t want to ask but…” She swallows audibly. “Tuition?”

He sighs. “I’m sorry, Taylor. I would if I could, believe me, but there’s an absolute mess of non-compete and self-sufficiency agreements surrounding Arasaka Academy to stop employees from forcing other families out, or sponsoring kids under contract to work for their division after graduation.

“I was digging into case law surrounding Arasaka v. Parents United, and there are opinions, cited and upheld opinions, longer than my arm on why no employee of Arasaka may pay tuition of a non-blood related individual. I’m doing my best to find a workaround, but…”

“No!” Taylor shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. That’s already more than enough. I just, you have a meeting, and I need to pack.”

“Right.” He clears his throat. “Right. I’ll talk to Emma when I get home tonight.”

“Thank you.”

He hangs up.

Taylor lets out a massive breath, sagging against the desk. “I just did that. I can’t believe I just did that.” She shakes her head. “I just did that.”

She doesn’t have much time to process, because a minute later, her phone rings again. She screws up her focus and picks up. “Hey, Maine.”

“Girl.” He pauses. “You alright? Sound like you’ve been short circ’d something bad.”

Taylor rubs her face. “Just… had another call. Don’t worry about it.”

“Not my biz.” She can hear the shrug in his voice. “Listen up: Sasha and Beccs vouch for you, so I’m lining up a gig to see if you're a good fit for my crew.”

“Sounds good.” She feels herself slipping into runner mode, and lets it happen. As a runner, she’s surprised at Sasha’s vouch, but she’ll take anything she can get at this point. “Got deets?”

“Forward ‘em as soon as I do,” Maine says. “Gig won’t be until later this week, so you have time to prep. Sash said your ICE is outmoded trash. Get some new spec from her before the job, understand?”

Taylor raises an eyebrow. “Does Dorio know you’re so interested in my ports?”

“Laugh it up, gonk. Nobody does jobs with my team ‘less their chrome is up to snuff.”

“That a hard line?” Taylor asks.

“The hardest.” He blows out a breath. “Listen, girl, you can buy some third party ICE, but Sasha’ll get you somethin’ better than you can buy without a helluva lot more cred.”

“So you’ve looked me up.” Taylor runs a hand down her face. “Fine. I’ll give her a call; share her deets?”

“Done. Also, sending some eddies. This plus your cut from last night should be enough scratch for a decent wrist augment. Can’t have you blowing your hands off on a job.”

Taylor’s eyes widen as a thousand eddies filter into her account. She’d turned auto pay on, but didn’t expect to need it before her next job.

“That’s a lot of eddies.”

“I take care of my crew,” Maine says.

She swallows. “And if I run off with it?”

“Then one large is a small price to pay to learn you were a fuckin’ flake.” She hears the massive grin in his voice. “And if I ever see you on the street, I’ll take it outta your hide.”

“You’re all heart. I’ll get something chipped in before the job.”

“Good. I’ll message you the deets. Call Sasha.”

“Will do,” Taylor says. “Catchya.”

Maine grunts. “Good talk.” 

The call clicks off.

Taylor glances around the apartment. She suddenly has a lot to do. “I’ll pack later,” she says. Instead, she throws on her ‘runner’ outfit and heads for the NCART. She needs space, needs to walk and move and be anywhere else in Night City.

The sun is starting to set when she makes it to the station, but she has a gun on each hip, so she just hops on the line to Japan Town and doesn’t worry about it. She has much bigger concerns on her mind.

The entire world feels like it’s been upended again in the last two days, but once she slows down to think about it, Taylor can see that the problems are the same, the solutions have just shifted.

She still needs money, it’s just gone from an impossible number of eddies to an amount of scratch she might conceivably be able to acquire before the end of next semester. 

She still needs to be an edgerunner in order to hunt down her mother’s killers, it’s just gone from a solo act to having a crew that’s shown a willingness to invest in her. A crew means more jobs, more jobs means more money and cred that she can leverage into tracking down the three remaining men.

And lastly, she’s going to make Emma’s life a living hell. That’s not a problem, it’s the solution.

By the time Taylor arrives at Kikiyo’s clinic, her thoughts click along in their normal paths. She brushes into the shop with a determined expression on her face. Satoru, the receptionist, takes one look at her before turning his head to the side.

His eyes light up as he calls someone. “Hey boss,” he says aloud. “That girl you mentioned is here… Uh-huh.” He jerks his head. “Go right in, girl.”

Taylor raises an eyebrow, but walks over to the surgery and keys the door open. She gives Satoru one last glance before entering. 

Kikiyo sits at the desk, polishing her mechanical fingers. She doesn’t look up as Taylor enters the room.

Taylor takes a deep breath. “Hey, Kikiyo.”

The woman turns. She looks exactly the same. Same wrinkles, same mismatched optics, same graying hair pulled back in a bun. It’s only been a week. Taylor can barely believe it.

“When you left, I wondered if you would survive.” She sets down her cloth. “When days passed and you did not return, I ceased to wonder. Now you appear as if a ghost.”

Taylor takes a half step back, before firming her posture. “I was busy. Why are you acting like I should be dead?”

“Did you acquire neuro-suppressors from another source?”

“No?” Taylor frowns. “I haven’t had any problems with integrating my new ‘ware.” She’s paid extra attention to every lesson and resource on neuro-supressors and ‘implant sickness’ because of her dad, and she’s tracked her complete lack of symptoms carefully.

She can’t go over the edge until all her debts are paid.

Kikiyo says nothing, then points, ripper tools on her arm brace clicking. “In the chair, now.”

Taylor raises an eyebrow, but obeys.

Kikiyo plugs her in without a word, pulling up diagnostics that Taylor can’t begin to read. The woman digs into them silently, flying through dozens of readouts in less than a minute.

After nearly five minutes filled with furious typing, Kikiyo sits back in her chair.

Taylor spreads her arms in a silent question.

“That implant, on your back, is not one designed to integrate well. I barely understand it, but I do understand that it is a raw and brutal piece of metal. When you did not return, I feared that you had fallen prey to it.” She folds her hands in her lap. “Many others would have.”

Taylor blinks in surprise, letting her head fall back in her chair. “I—it feels like I’ve had it all my life. I thought… I thought it was meant to be that way.”

Kikiyo snorts. “Such compatibility is the stuff of myth and legend. You are neither.”

“I’m not lying.” Taylor glares. “You’ve looked at the data. I’ve been using it constantly since it was chipped in.”

“And no symptoms? No headaches, nausea, or bleeding?”

Taylor holds back her instinctive response going back over the last week. “At first I felt a strain, so I practiced with the Sandevistan once or twice a day, while I was running down leads.” She shrugs, trying to feel where her skin meets the implant replacing her spine, but it all feels natural as breathing. “Twice became three or four activations after a few days. The first night I went out, I must have used it half a dozen times in less than ten minutes. I passed out on the bathroom floor and woke up leaking blood from my nose, but I didn’t die.”

“Did not go to a hospital either.”

Taylor laughs, eyes scrunching shut. “I can’t visit a real doc again for the next two months, and my fucking plan expires before then.”

Kikiyo leans back, folding her arms across her middle. “Why did you come, then?”

Taylor raises an eyebrow.

“You are alive, despite all expectations,” Kikiyo says. “Your… Sandevistan shows no errors or appreciable wear. You do not need neuro-suppressors.”

Taylor sighs, slumping back in the chair. “I need an implant so I don’t break my wrists again when firing high-caliber rounds.”

“You’ve tracked down some of the killers, then?”

“Yeah.” Taylor’s hand drifts down to her revolver. Click, click goes the cylinder. “Two so far. I’ve got a crew as well. They’re fronting the eddies for the implants. Something small, please. I… I don’t want to lose my arms yet.”

“Not looking for cyberarms with mantis blades?” Kikiyo raises her eyebrow.

“I think,” Taylor says, “that I should learn to master this ‘raw and brutal piece’ of metal welded into my back first.”

“Hmm.” Kikiyo pulls up a tablet, and hands Taylor her catalogue. “Perhaps you will survive after all. Now pick.”

“Aren’t I the customer here?” Taylor asks.

“It is late. After I install, we must go visit Annette.” For the first time all visit, a smile ghosts over Kikiyo’s features. “I could not bear to face her spirit, thinking I sent you to your death.”

Taylor swallows. “I’m… still moving.”

“Sometimes,” Kikiyo replies, “that is enough.”