Life’s Not a Fairy Tale (No Matter How Much I Want It To Be) Ch.9 (Patreon)

The past few days had been a wild ride for Becca. And considering how much trouble she usually got up to, that was saying something. The Militech gig she’d planned was easily the most nova shit she’d ever done. And then the gonk she did the gig with went and one-upped himself by fucking her until her brain was leaking out of her ears.

Becca was riding high and there wasn’t anything in the world that could change that at the moment. Sure, her entire perception of reality had been turned upside down by certain things Romeo had revealed, but those were things for Future Becca to deal with. Interdimensional Megacorp? Eternal ‘slavery’? Fairy bullshit? Whatever, choom, Becca had a new mainline input who stole a tank for her. All that other shit could shove off. Becca would just focus on more important things like how nova natty dick was and causing as much chaos as she could before they left this world.

Honestly, Romeo was so cute with how much he worried about the future. Becca didn’t think ahead as well as he did. She was much more of an ‘in the moment’ type of girl. It was nice to have someone who could plan on her side though. And thanks to the story he told her of his life, she understood why he was the way he was. Losing everything in a single instant and having your life spiral into despair and depression had a way of making people paranoid.

More than anything though, Romeo’s story had endeared him to Becca even more. She couldn’t help that she had a thing for powerful, broken men. Romeo ticked both of those boxes, though he still didn’t seem to fully realize how powerful he was. Seriously, with only his hammerspace ability, Romeo was already the best thief in the city. Factor in his other augments and Romeo could probably give the Smasher a run for his money.

Becca couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down her spine at the thought of Night City’s boogeyman. According to Romeo, she would die beneath the full borg’s foot in another timeline. That wouldn’t be happening anymore, but it definitely wasn’t a pretty mental picture. She’d have to give Romeo some really sloppy top for changing her fate, even if she didn’t realize it until he told her.

Romeo’s reward would have to wait for another time though. After Becca’s confession and Romeo’s reveals, the two of them had gone for three more rounds. By the end of all the sex, Becca was completely fucked out and essentially unconscious. Becca may have been a virgin before Romeo — something she would never admit to him — but she was pretty sure sex literally couldn’t get any better than what Romeo did to her.

She spent nearly an hour recovering enough that she could feel her legs. She knew it would be even longer until she could walk again so she demanded Romeo carry her. It was the least he could do to take responsibility. And if the princess-carry he picked her up in was comfy and made her heart flutter, well no one would know if she didn’t tell them.

She sent a quick text to her bro, telling him to get everyone together and meet them at the usual spot. Giggles escaped her lips as she thought about the crew’s reactions to everything they’d stolen. Lucy would probably blow a gasket and the inevitable proud hugs from Maine and Dorio would be insane!

They left the apartment and Becca made sure to lock it behind them. Romeo carried her the entire way to Aldo’s old warehouse. She let them in without leaving Romeo’s arms. Everyone was already there when they walked into the back room. Seeing the way Becca was being carried, Kiwi and Maine shot her smug knowing looks. She stuck her tongue out at them, fighting down the urge to blush. At least Dorio gave her a happy thumbs up.

“Good job?” Dorio smiled at her and Romeo. “C’mon, girl, give us the detes.”

“Yeah, how’d this gonk handle himself?” Maine asked.

Becca practically vibrated in her mainline’s arms, “Oh my god, it was sooooo nova, choom! Go on, Romeo! Show ‘em everything we got!”

Romeo gave her an unsure look, “You sure that’s a good idea?”

She scoffed, “Yeah, choom. I trust all of them. They won’t rat us out, especially if we give them a cut.”

Romeo sighed, “Fine… I’m gonna need a bit more space though.”

She directed him into the main room of the warehouse. The rest of the crew humored them, following Becca and Romeo. Romeo shifted her slightly so he was carrying her in just one arm and Becca had to do her best to not blush for the second time in a minute. He held out one hand and released the proverbial flood.

Crates upon crates of illegally-gotten goodies manifested from Romeo’s palm. Most of the crew raised eyebrows in surprise at the first couple of crates. They’d seen Romeo’s ‘magic trick’ when they first met, but they had no way of knowing the full extent of his hammerspace ability. As the crates kept pouring out, the looks of surprise transformed into disbelief and amusement.

And then came the crown jewel of their heist: the tank. It thumped down on the warehouse floor with a great thud, seeming to gleam in the low light of the space. It painted an impressive background to the small mountain of crates they had stolen. Becca watched jaws drop with unrestrained glee.

Lucy spoke slowly after the tide of stolen goodies ceased, “Becca?… I think I speak for all of us when I say this… What… the actual… fuck…”

“-And no matter what, mijo, always remember I love you.”

David’s sigh was somewhere between content and exasperated, “I love you too, mom. I’m… I’m glad we talked about this.”

He had spent basically all night talking about his situation at school with his mom. It was… hard to say the least. Even if David was sure Gloria would listen and accept him, opening up like this still wasn’t easy for him. But Romeo was right. If he couldn’t open up to his mother, who could he open up to?

So David told his mom about the bullying, both physical and social. He told her how difficult he thought it would be to be accepted or successful in the corpo field. Gloria opened up as well. She told him about the long hours she worked and about how upward mobility in her job was all but impossible. They laughed bitterly and commiserated with each other over their positions in life and how nothing ever seemed to change. How they’d always be from the bottom of the barrel and all they could do was accept that.

When they were done comforting each other, the topic turned to the future. Questions were asked that made David stop and think for the first time. Where would he go if he dropped out? What would he do? What could he do? Plans were made and discarded. Ideas came and went.

David’s desire to just jump into the deep end of life was curbed slightly by his mother’s common sense. She said she’d only let him drop out if he had a plan. A plan that wouldn’t see him dead by the end of the year. A plan that they came up with together.

“You don’t have to take on the whole world by yourself, mijo,” Gloria had said.

Her words were reassuring to David, but he still didn’t even know where to start. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life yet. All he was sure about was that his fate didn’t involve that school anymore. Other than that, he was just kind of… lost.

So Gloria suggested a temporary solution. He could take a short hiatus from school while he felt out all of his options. It would only be for a semester, but that was a sliver of freedom that David desperately needed right now. They could worry about what came after later. Gloria also suggested a place he could start.

She wanted to ask Romeo to take David under his wing. To have him shadow the slightly older boy and get a feel for the real world and its possibilities. David wasn’t against that idea, but he was worried that they were asking a bit much from Romeo. Ultimately though it would be up to Romeo to accept or refuse so David agreed to the idea.

David soon learned he was underestimating how much Romeo was willing to help them. About an hour later, Romeo returned to their apartment with someone new in tow and instantly agreed to take David under his wing. The stranger was introduced as Becca and spent most of the visit clinging to Romeo’s arm. She was pretty enough that David had to admit he was a bit jealous. He wanted a cute edgerunner girlfriend as well!

Romeo sent him a smirk and a wink when he noticed David pouting slightly off to the side. David was left wondering what that meant as they left the apartment. It felt more like Romeo knew something David didn’t than it was Romeo teasing him.

“Alright, kid. Ready to get your first chrome?” Romeo asked, wrapping his arm around Becca as they walked.

David winced, “I don’t think that’s what my mom meant when she asked you to look out for me.”

Romeo shrugged, “Probably not. But I think it’ll be good for you. And I recently came into some top-of-the-line shit so I might as well share it with you.”

“Yeah, it’s some real preem chrome, choom!” Becca interjected. “You don’t wanna miss out on this shit!”

“It’s your decision though, man. You should only do this if it’s something you want. Body modification isn’t something to play around with on a whim,” Romeo reassured after seeing that David was still slightly on the fence.

David thought about it in silence for a while, “… Okay… Yeah, I’m in. What am I getting?”

Becca grinned like a lunatic when David agreed, but Romeo just smiled at him softly, “I figured we would start you with something simple but high quality. So I got my hands on a Militech Maneuvering System that I think you’ll like.”

“What’s it do?”

“You ever heard of a double jump? Yeah… that and a bit more.”

That description made David perk up quite a bit, “Hell yeah! What are we waiting for?! I’m sure Doc will squeeze in an appointment for me. He better after all the BDs I sold for him at that school…”

Romeo barked a laugh, “Oh, fuck no. There is absolutely no way I’m letting you get cyberware installed by that bourgie-ass ripperdoc. No, we’re going somewhere a bit more… classy.”

That somewhere classy turned out to be a little hole-in-the-wall shop in Little China called Misty’s Esoterica. It was across the street from a strip club of all places and looked about as unassuming as a store could be. Nothing pointed to it being the place of business for a high-class ripperdoc. David sent Romeo a confused look that the older boy ignored as they walked inside.

The inside of the shop didn’t look much better than the outside. It was filled with a bunch of new-age junk that David never really saw the point of. Two people were already inside when David, Romeo, and Becca walked in. The first was a woman who stood behind the store’s counter. She looked exactly like David had been expecting for someone who ran a shop like this. The other person didn’t look like he belonged there. He was a big, imposing Latino dude with the look and feel of a solo merc. The way he holstered a pistol as they walked in certainly didn’t make him any less intimidating.

“You sure this is the right place, choom?” David muttered.

“It is,” Romeo calmly reassured before addressing the other two people in the room. “Yo, I’m here to see Vik. I called ahead. He should be expecting us.”

The big guy looked them up and down for a second before the woman glanced at him and spoke, “Jackie? Mind running down to check that claim?”

The big guy, Jackie, nodded, “Sure, Mi Amor. Won’t take a second. I’ll be right back.”

David bristled at what he thought was a dismissal, “Hey, what gives?”

“Relax, David,” Romeo said. “They’re just being careful. Why don’t you get your fortune read by the nice lady while we wait?”

The woman was already taking out a deck of tarot cards before Romeo finished speaking. David grumbled a bit but didn’t see anything better to do while they waited. He walked up to the counter and introduced himself.

“I’m David.”

“Misty,” the woman greeted him back. “The big lug who just left is my boyfriend, Jackie. Tell me, David… Do you believe in fate?”

David shrugged, “Not really. I’ve never been very superstitious.”

Misty nodded, “Very well. We’ll do this a bit differently from how I usually do then. I’m going to shuffle the deck and ask you to pick only one card from it.”

“Only one? What, no past, present, and future junk?”

“Tarot cards do not tell the future. They tell us what could be and it is up to us to heed or ignore them. Since you don’t believe in fate, I won’t bother trying to convince you with this reading. The card you draw will just be a form of advice. Listen or ignore, the choice is yours. Now, pick a card…”

For some reason, the way Misty spoke about Tarot cards gave David chills. He hesitantly reached out and plucked the top card off the deck. He almost didn’t want to look but forced himself to turn the card around. The front of the card revealed a silver crescent moon on a black background of stars. Unsure of what to make of it, David just stared at the card for a few seconds. Romeo peeked over his shoulder at the card and started to chuckle and David couldn’t figure out why.

“The Moon,” Misty explained. “The card of dreams, trances, and everything on the other side of the veil. Since this is an advice reading, it can be considered to mean you should trust your instincts. Believe in yourself and you will walk your own path without straying. Let the tides of life sweep you away to a better future.”

“It might also have a more literal meaning,” Romeo added. “Maybe the Moon is in your future? Or maybe… a certain someone who dreams of the Moon?~”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” David asked, ignoring the sudden interest that Misty was looking at Romeo with.

Romeo’s eyes practically sparkled with amusement, “No spoilers~”

Jackie came back before David could ask anything else, “Yeah, Vik’s expecting someone. You must be Romeo. Follow me.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Romeo said as Jackie led the way out the back of the shop and down a flight of stairs. “And this is Becca. The kid’s name is David. He’s today’s lucky patient.”

“First chrome?” Jackie grunted at David.

“U-Uh, yeah… So… this guy any good?”

“Who, Vik?” Jackie snorted. “Yeah, he’s pretty good. Don’t tell him I said this but the old guy’s a living legend. One of the best boxers Night City has ever seen.”

“Huh… What’s he doing as a ripperdoc then?”

Jackie shrugged, “Hell if I know. That’s his business, kid. Ask him yourself.”

“Oh… Alright…”

Silence fell over the four of them as they stepped into Vik’s clinic. The basement clinic had a vibe that spoke to David. The lights were kept low and the slight darkness was only broken by neon dotted around the room. It was nowhere near as dirty as Doc’s clinic and just generally felt more professional. An older man sat in a rolling chair watching a boxing match on a screen on the wall. He turned to them as they entered but didn’t stand to greet them.

“Romeo?” the man asked.

Romeo stepped up and offered a hand for the man to shake, “That’s me. Nice to meet you, Viktor. My friend here is looking to get his first implant.”

“Yeah? What’s he want? I’ll see what I have in stock.”

Romeo smirked, “That won’t be necessary. We brought our own.”

When Romeo produced the Maneuvering System from seemingly thin air, Vik raised an eyebrow, “Do I want to know where you got corpo-grade chrome?”

“Probably not.”

“I won’t ask then,” Vik sighed. “C’mon, kid, hop up on the chair, and let’s get this show moving.”

“That’s it?” David asked.

“Yeah. Were you expecting something special?”

“I don’t know… Maybe? I just thought there’d be something more to all of this…”

“I can give you a beer with your anesthesia, but I’m not gonna break out the confetti or some shit. Take it or leave it, kid.”

“We can celebrate properly afterward,” Romeo promised.

David took a breath to fortify his will, “… Okay. Let’s do this.”

Lucy Kushinada sighed, blowing out a cloud of smoke as she waited for Becca and her new boy toy to arrive. The nicotine from her cigarette tingled on her lips. She hadn’t been doing anything today so when the gremlin called her about a job, she had agreed. She might as well make a couple of Eddies after all. And doing a job with friends always beat running solo, even if they had to split the payout between them.

She finished her first cigarette and was halfway through her second when Becca finally arrived. A hulking SUV pulled up and skidded to a stop in front of her. The passenger window rolled down to reveal Becca’s usual manic grin. Lucy pushed herself off the pole she was leaning on and walked up to the car.

Romeo waved to her from behind Becca, “Hey, Lucy.”

“Hey, choom!” Becca greeted enthusiastically. “Get in!”

Lucy nodded to them both and slid into the back of the vehicle. The interior was spacious enough that she could stretch her arms above her head if she leaned forward a bit. When she was done stretching, she noticed someone else sitting in the back with her. She looked him up and down out of the corner of her eye.

Something about him piqued her interest. He was cute enough appearance-wise, with youthful and symmetric, vaguely Latino features and a slender frame. He looked too nervous for a typical Edgerunner so he was most likely a newbie. But what really grabbed her attention was the vibe he had about him and the glances he kept shooting her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He had this air of unrealized potential and steely determination hidden beneath a nervous surface that made Lucy practically salivate to get her fingers onto him. He felt like a piece of clay that she could mold however she wished and that idea tickled her curiosity more than she would like to admit. Plus his little glances were undeniably adorable.

“New wheels?” Lucy asked to distract herself from the tempting ‘piece of clay’ next to her.

“Mhmm,” Romeo hummed. “We need it for today’s job.”

“And what is this job? Becca wasn’t very forthcoming over the phone. I assume it’s something simple since you brought this newbie along.”

“Yep. This is David by the way. He’s Gloria’s boy and he’ll be running with me while he tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life. David, this is Lucy. She’s a netrunner who works with Maine and the crew.”

Lucy was impressed that David didn’t stutter at all when he greeted her, “Hi… Nice to meet you.”

She tried to play it cool and mysterious, “Mmm… So, Romeo, what’s the gig?”

“Ishin Obata. He’s a ranking Tyger Claw member with connections in Arasaka. He’s also an avid street racer. There’s a race today and we’re going to use it as a distraction. Becca and I will show him a good time in the race while you and David clear out his accounts and jack a list of his contacts.”

“So I’m just here to do all the NET action? What’s David’s role?”

“Backup and security mostly. I want him to get a taste of the Edge a little bit at a time. And I know you two will keep each other safe.”

“I will,” David said with that hidden determination and sincerity showing in his voice. “You’ll be safe with me, Lucy. I swear.”

Lucy tried her best to ignore the way her heart skipped a beat, “Whatever… Just don’t slow me down.”

Becca began to babble about something or other. Lucy wasn’t really listening. She spent the rest of the car ride fighting down her flush. David was just so pure and adorable. It was a level of sincerity that Lucy thought was extinct in Night City. She wanted to meet David’s mother and thank her profusely for bringing such innocence into the world. Half of her wanted to be the one to corrupt him and the other half wanted to hold him to her bosom and shelter him from the cruelness of the real world.

Becca’s rambling acted as a familiar background noise to help Lucy get her desires under control. When they finally pulled up at the race, her cool mask was fully back in place. She and David were kicked out of the car so they could perform their part of the gig. Romeo and Becca lined up at the starting line with the rest of the racers.

They stood off on the sidelines of the gathering of racers. David kept his head on a constant swivel while Lucy scanned the crowd for their target. Her eyes gravitated towards the fanciest car there. A short, stocky Yakuza-type leaned against it, acting like he owned the world. Lucy was 90 percent sure that was their target and any doubts she had were dispelled when Romeo rolled down his window and shouted some kind of challenge at the man.

“I’ve got him,” Lucy muttered mostly to herself.

David perked up like a puppy, “Nice! Should I be doing something to help?”

“Just shut up, keep your eyes open, and keep looking pretty,” Lucy grunted absently.

Her cyberdeck kicked in and Lucy didn’t have a chance to enjoy David’s reaction. She locked onto the target’s digital signature and dove into the net. She sent a discrete ghost into his system just in time for the race to start. All of the racers peeled away and Lucy got to do what she did best.

For someone with apparent corpo ties, Ishin Obata had shit ICE. Seriously, it was like a baby’s first attempt at digital defense. He should have been exposed and publicly humiliated for this level of incompetence. Lucy sliced into his system with the same ease she walked into an unlocked room. From there, she busied herself with draining his financial assets dry.

The only part of the hack that took any real time was copying a list of the target’s contacts. And that was only because he kept shit records. By the time she was finished tracking down the relevant data in the mess Ishin called a system, the racers were approaching the starting line again to finish the race. Ishin Obata and Romeo were battling side by side for first place. Lucy was sure that Becca would have an interesting story about race but that could wait until the job was done.

Lucy made her way back out of the net, barely bothering to hide her tracks. There was no chance in her mind that Ishin would notice the evidence and be able to do anything with it. But then she fully exited his system and… something tripped. In an instant, realization and understanding flashed through her mind. Ishin Obata was bait from Arasaka.

She’d been flagged the moment she entered his system. And judging by the way the response was just a small ping of alarm leading out of the system and a tracking program that followed her out, the real response was going to be much more physical. Childhood trauma ran through her body at the prospect of Arasaka having a way to track and find her. She ripped the program to shreds in a frantic fit of panic and turned to David as she exited the net.

“We’ve got to go!”

David, the adorable himbo gonk, just cocked his head and looked cute and confused, “What? Why? Something happened?”

“Yes!” Lucy grabbed his shoulders and shook him, trying to get across the irrational urgency she was feeling. “I-I fucked up! Arasaka’s gonna be here any second! I-I can’t go back! I can’t…”

Thankfully, her visible trauma and hysteric panic made David sober up real quick, “Okay. Hold on.”

He scooped her up into his arms and took off toward the still-active racetrack. Lucy still had enough awareness to let out a choked scream as he jumped into the path of the two cars in front of the race. David’s jump arc took them right in front of Ishin’s windshield. Time seemed to freeze. And then the impossible happened and David jumped again off of thin air.

David’s knees didn’t even buckle as they landed on top of Romeo’s car. Lucy was left with nothing else to do but clutch herself to his chest, with adrenaline rushing through her veins. She could have sworn she heard the thrum of AV jets but it also could have been her blood beating a mile a minute in her ears. David’s balance on top of the moving vehicle was as solid as a rock and Lucy couldn’t help but stare up at the cool determined expression set on his face.

He stomped on the roof once and the sunroof opened up like Romeo was expecting them. David slid through the opening and settled them both into the back seat. Now that they were less exposed, Lucy noticed that he didn’t let her go for a second. The physical contact… helped. Her panic attack slowly started to calm down.

“Step on it,” David said. “Shit went tits up apparently and I don’t want to be here when the other shoe drops.”

Becca turned in her seat to face them, “Tits up? You still got the Eddies and data though, right?”

Lucy cleared her throat, “I-I did. I just… tripped on some ICE on the way out…”

“Don’t worry, Lucy. We’ll be out of here in a second. And… good job on seeing it through. You too, David. Being cool under pressure and quick thinking like that will take you far in life,” Romeo said as he stepped on the gas and they soared past the race’s finish line.

They disappeared into the traffic of the city surprisingly well for a car as big as this one. No one said a word during their rushed extraction, not even Becca. They had all picked up on how rattled Lucy was by the close call. She was thankful for the understanding and lack of questions, especially from David. She wasn’t ready to talk about it and wouldn’t be anytime soon. But as she relaxed into David’s chest, she figured it was only fair to show the cute newbie her gratitude.

‘Maybe I’ll even take him to the Moon…’ Lucy thought.

Arthur Jenkins ranted at a full conference room, “Who the fuck is this guy?! Why can’t we find anything on him!? Competent edgerunners don’t just grow on trees and pop out of nowhere!”

Some idiot actually had the dumb courage to speak as if their boss was expecting an answer, “Uh… They kinda do, boss.”

Being surrounded by stupidity certainly made it easy to rise through the ranks at Arasaka, but God was it annoying. V pointedly didn’t do anything to stop her gonk coworker from putting his foot in his mouth. She just sighed and ignored the world as her boss chewed out everyone else in the room with vitriol and rage.

Arasaka’s Counter Intelligence Division had a problem. A problem that only made itself known to them throughout the past couple of weeks. A problem that manifested itself as one person — two if you actually read the reports, a whole crew if you did your own research like V. Some brand new edgerunner had come out of nowhere and was currently carving their name into Night City. At least they would be… if anyone could find out their name or any actual background information on them.

It was as if this edgerunner had literally come out of thin air. No one could find anything on this dude. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. They knew about his mainline/partner — a young woman named Rebecca who also had disturbingly little information to be found about her. But at least they could find something there. They knew about the crew he was associated with — a group of solos led by a soldier-turned-merc named Maine.

The real person of interest though? He was a ghost. The first records anyone had of him were when he hit a Militech supply depot. And from the scraps of data Arasaka had been able to uncover from Militech through corporate espionage, that had been his first run. From what V had seen from that data, the run was both impressively professional and dangerously amateur. The guy had slipped through corpo-grade ICE without a sound and then gotten caught because he made couldn’t help but play with the guns he was stealing and was heard by a patrolling guard.

And then he still managed to fight his way out of that situation even after reinforcements arrived! A random Bennie and one other person fought off multiple Militech security squads and won! It was madness! V knew Militech didn’t train most of their PMC companies up to Arasaka standards, but they still should have been able to overwhelm two people through raw numbers. (AN: V is working off partial data and doesn’t know about the stolen tank.)

After the Militech job, the edgerunner went on a ‘shopping’ spree. He tended to avoid gangs and other people who couldn’t recoup their losses, but when it came to Megacorps? No one was safe. Nothing was off limits for this mystery edgerunner. He hit Biotechnica, Kendachi, Kang Tao, Kiroshi, Microtech, Network News 54, and even Orbital Air and Arasaka. If a Megacorp had a seat in Night City, this guy hit them.

And it wasn’t all brute force like the Militech job. He proved he could be subtle as well. He hadn’t hit Arasaka directly so far, instead striking at them by proxy when he pillaged one of the Megacorp’s affiliated Tyger Claw members of their funds and contacts. The edgerunner was smart and he picked up the game quickly. Whoever this guy was, he was quickly making a name for himself — ‘heh, ironic,’ V thought — and putting himself in the running for Night City Legend.

Arthur Jenkins’ shout brought V back to reality, “V!”

“Yes, boss?”

“You’ve got connections on the street, right? I’m putting you on this guy. I want results. Put your nose to the ground and don’t stop until you find something!”

“Yes, boss…”

‘Fuck,’ V sighed. ‘There goes all of my free time…’