Chapter 1
Chapter Text
"Hailey, the client asked you not to kill anyone…"
Thick, raised, purple boots stomped over wet pavement as a voice buzzed inside a head. Warm, murky air wafted down the alleyway in-between two massively tall monolithic structures as the blue sky above bled color down through the cracks in the urban carpet laid over the foundation of what was once recognizable as a city.
"You got the credchip, though…" The voice grew soft for just a second, and then came back rougher, "and all her son's shards." He sighed. "Guess that balances out."
"Can't expect me to klep from Arasaka without barbecuing a few of them." Another voice bit back venomously as her boots continued to carry her out from around the back of a building. "I've got a grudge, Dino. You know that."
"I remember." Dino Donovic answered shortly, his stout face moving into a nod in a window on the far left side of the woman's field of view. "That's why the client wanted you; figured you'd sympathize with her situation." He then met her eyes even through the sunglasses he wore over his face. "I think she just anticipated you to use a little more restraint…"
"'Saka f*ckers ruining a kid's dream?" Hailey scoffed and rolled her black eyes in their metallic sockets, circled darkly in black makeup. "Poor kid can't stand letting his mom down, swallows a bottle of meds and doesn't wake up in the morning?" She seemed offended, in some way, at the notion that the situation of her job's client could have possibly been anything like her own in any ways other than Arasaka being the bad guy in it all. "Sorry I'm not some Corpo sympathizer, thinking I owe those motherf*ckers anything; mercy, eddies or my f*cking time."
"Look, I don’t really give a sh*t." Dino snapped at the woman on the other end of the phone call as she rudely set herself apart from their client. "Remember who decides your cut of the scratch when the job's all said and done next time you wanna go off at me, huh?" He shook his head at Hailey before waving her off. "Maybe the client can finally grieve for her son now, and you get a pay day. Contract f*cking closed."
The window containing Dino's face in the corner of her vision disappeared with a click just as Hailey approached a curved sidewalk from within the alley she'd been casually strolling down. Her pink lips were pressed down in their corners as she thought over the details of the job she'd been hired to complete; and how much it pained her to simply do it as if it was just another gig in her career of being a Merc.
The spec- the paragraph of information Dino had sent along with the contract- was f*cking heartbreaking to read.
“Nothing more heartwarming than the relationship between a mother and her son,” Dino had begun in the opening lines after specifying the job type as thievery above, “but everyone knows Arasaka doesn’t have a heart to warm. Or one to break.” Hailey sighed as she continued reading the spec over again and walking out from the long, all-consuming shadow of Arasaka Tower. “Our client’s an ex-Arasaka suit, with a dead kid and a missing credchip worth about a million eddies.” Taking a left straight onto the busy, multi-lane roundabout wrapping around the center of Corpo Plaza, Hailey’s eyes glowed an ominous green as she glared at an approaching vehicle. Its tires screamed and the engine clunked as it stopped like a timid animal might before its master; cowering under her commanding gaze for long enough for her to cut in front of it and cross the paved bend. She read the remaining bits of the message as she approached a purple-and-white Arch Nazaré, and the stopped vehicle was allowed to continue on its way even as its driver muttered obscenities out the window. “She worked her ass off to get her baby boy into Arasaka Academy with that scratch saved up over a miserable decade of Corpo work. Now, the kid’s sixteen and he’s enrolling in the fanciest school in all of NC, until on the third day of class, he sees something he wasn’t supposed to.” Hailey cringed at the thought as her motorcycle’s engine started and she once again recklessly cut into traffic even past the protests of a half-dozen horns. “Now, I don’t know the deets- that’s not the job- but a few teachers were huffing not-so-legal substances while watching less-than-professional BDs in a break room that wasn’t locked. Kid’s expelled the next day for ‘trespassing’ and ‘non-constructive use of time’ that’s ‘not up to Arasaka standards’.” She ran through a red traffic light after cutting across three lanes of the roundabout. “Whatever, bullsh*t Corp-talk. They kicked the kid out to save their asses, and fired his mom for even being connected to the scandal. Kid makes the worst mistake of his life that night; eats a bottle of immuno-blockers and leaves his mom all alone.” f*ck, she wanted to cry. And nuke Arasaka Tower. Again. Where was Johnny Silverhand when Night City needed him most? “All the client wants is her life’s savings- dirty pocket change not even worth keeping for Arasaka- from the dumpster around back. And, if you can find ‘em, the datashards Arasaka confiscated from the kid to hide evidence of his suicide. She doesn’t want anyone else dead, either, so… do it quiet, okay?”
Yep, that was all a song way too familiar to her.
Hailey remembered the chillingly clinical way Arasaka operated. She remembered classmates disappearing, and her parents’ traumatizing lack of a reaction to it all. She was another life ruined by Arasaka, too, and she was all alone because of it; just like her client was. Her poor f*cking kid didn’t deserve any of that, and his mom didn’t deserve to be both broke and grieving. She hoped, after placing the items of interest into a drop-point around a corner, that maybe something she did could have eased that pain for the mother.
Heaven f*cking knew nothing could for herself.
Straddling her motorcycle again as it sat idly in a parking spot under a massive, neon billboard shimmering pinks and yellows onto the cleanly-paved street to her right, Hailey reached into the inside of her purple-and-black Pozer jacket to fish out a metallic case. The case popped open, and over a dozen little, white sticks were stacked neatly inside in an alternating pattern to fit snugly inside the small, hard case. She plucked a cigarette out and pushed it tightly betwixt two of her slender, cinnamon-colored fingers as the case was snapped shut and a lighter followed the butt of the small, white stick up to her lips.
It ignited with a crackle as the lighter’s flame died out, and both it and the case of cigarettes were slid back into the left, inner-breast pocket of her jacket as Hailey immediately breathed a long, deep drag of the hot, smoking insides of the cigarette.
The full, bitter taste rolled over her tongue and down the back of her throat like a miasma, coating her insides in what she knew to be complete and utter toxin that filled her synthetic lungs to the point of popping before she blew it out from her nose in a cloud of gray fog. It rolled up and past her eyes to disperse into the air, and her dark eyelids fluttered closed as her head fell back in response to the feeling washing through her mostly-organic body.
A tingle shot from her brain, giving her an almost instant fix of the synthetic tobacco and nicotine wrapped up in the paper tube. She huffed another, and again pushed it out as she allowed for the harmful chemicals to take some of the weight from off of her slender shoulders. It gave her a nice respite, listening to the bustling noise of Corpo Plaza in the mid-day traffic rush while taking a third breath of soiled air into her syn-lungs to center herself in the midst of what should have been just another day.
The drop box to her right emitted a beep as somebody else after her approached to use it, and her eyes reopened to stare down the long, busy road she sat off to the side of with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Tightening her pink lips around it, she took another drag and reveled in the toxic waste that pumped her full of so many artificial chemicals.
She was always told as a child- raised in an Arasaka home- that being of sublime body and mind was of utmost pertinence. The corporation deserved employees at their best; a lean body-mass index, and rigid expectations for mental aptitude. Flying through Netrunning proficiency tests became so easy that her mother and father stopped caring to know what her scores even were after a certain point, but she still had their voices in her head discouraging her from eating anything that might disappoint their beloved corporation, or from drinking… or smoking. Her father despised it, and made it a point to teach Hailey about what it could do to a body and a mind as ‘innately superior’ as her own. Anything she did other than what was allowed would mean immense losses for Arasaka, and that included having even the slightest amount of autonomy.
“This one’s for you, dad.” She muttered to herself as she sucked yet another drag down her throat and tasted it with her full presence. It gave her only superficial feelings of calm- she knew this- but the idea that she could just breathe in whatever the little sticks had to offer her and control her perception of reality on a whim; it drew her in like curving bullets directed by her Smart Link. It wasn’t healthy, but it was a choice she got to control.
That was all that mattered to her, as she breathed in more of her artificial happy.
Flicking ash onto the ground after taking the cigarette out of her mouth for the first time in over two minutes, Hailey glanced around at her surroundings with her black eyes and their white circuits cut slightly from the top by her heavily makeup-coated eyelids.
She'd gone out of her way to hack into the lower-level security systems in Arasaka Tower and kill a number of the suit-wearing criminals, even after the client asked her not to. Why? Why did she feel a need- this insatiable urge- to kill them, even while she was able to make a clean getaway? No one would have known she was there, yet she still watched with a smirk through the cameras as gore painted the walls around them and they took turns violently ending themselves right in front of her.
Like her cigarettes, that feeling was poisonous. But… it made her feel good. She liked to know that in some way, she could bite back- not just at Arasaka but all of the Corps- for all they'd done. But even past that, on a fundamental level, she—
"Hailey Bello?"
A voice like crunching gravel from behind her crumbled the brown-skinned woman's introspective thoughts as though they were a cardboard sign dampened by rain. Her attention had been piqued at the uttering of not only her first, but her last name as well. Who did she know that even knew that name, let alone that it was her name in the first place?
Her parents? That voice wasn't her father's. Her boyfriend? The voice definitely wasn't Spencer's, either.
Using her core muscles, Hailey kicked her right leg over her motorcycle’s handlebars as she spun around, allowing both of her black skinsuit-covered legs to sit next to one another on the ground off the left hand side of her Arch. Her lean, gray Sidewinder Smart Assault Rifle disappeared behind her as her back turned to the stranger, and her frizzy, magenta ball of hair turned to reveal her sharp, slender, cinnamon-colored face. Magenta eyebrows shifted over her blackened eyes, and a green shimmer radiated out from the white Cyberware visible inside them.
"Who the f*ck are you?" Hailey asked brashly, flicking the butt of her still-burning cigarette with her thumb to knock a growing head of ash off of its tip. Breathing a drag from the shrinking stick of synthesized leaves and chemicals, Hailey's gaze drifted off to the side of the man who had approached as she ran her eyes over a digital identification card to the right of her field of vision.
"My name is Doyalah Dekharr." The man's deep, scratchy voice came back cooly, seeming to be middle-eastern in accent as blinding, platinum Cyberware glittered against his darkly stained cheekbones. "Though," Doyalah continued as he brought his hands out from inside the pockets of the dark, turquoise dress-pants he wore, "with Kiroshi implants as expensive as yours seem to be, I anticipate you knew that as soon as you saw me."
"Biotechnica?" Hailey tilted her frizzy, magenta head slightly to her right as her brows furrowed and her black-painted eyelids went narrow, her cybernetic eye implants giving her a window into this man's history. His public record reflected a long, gruesome list of murders, though his standing with the police remained just about the cleanest thing someone could hope to find in Night City. That seemed to be thanks to the Corporate Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics systems- ICE- calcified around his digital person, protecting him from virtually any consequences other than what might befall him for daring to betray Biotechnica. "I don't think I've stolen anything from there, recently." She remarked with an indignant hum, before the green glare around her eyes flickered out. "What do you want?"
"Please don't play coy with me, Hailey." Doyalah answered fast, as though the conversation was playing out in his head like a Braindance before it happened. His turquoise suit, complete with a gray tie and a blue undershirt, was strikingly obvious as Biotechnica's corporate colors. As his mouth opened again, platinum chrome glinted as it ran in lines down the corners of his mouth and under his chin. "You know what it is I'm here for." He said, shortly. "Your license; it's expired. I," Doyalah touched a dark hand to his narrowly-built chest, "am here to collect." He paused briefly. "You owe the Biotechnica Corporation five hundred thousand Eurodollars, for another problem-free five years of business."
"What?" Hailey immediately spat out a laugh that curled into the air as cigarette smoke. She seemed to find that sentiment funny. "The hell makes you think I've got that kind of cash?" She blew the remainder of her most recent drag out from her pink lips. "I don't know what kind of scam you're pushing, choom, but I'm not buying—"
"You're the daughter of Marcus and Ashante Bello, aren't you?" Doyalah questioned, though his lack of waiting for any kind of answer implied that he already knew what Hailey would say. "They have had no difficulty paying the fee since your first birthday, though they informed Biotechnica that you insisted on being independent when you rejected their support three years ago." His green eyes- likely implants, with the color as rich as it was- rolled slightly as if he couldn't believe he needed to explain himself. "Ergo, the debt falls to you; the primary client in the first place. Is that all correct, Ms. Bello?"
"How the f*ck do you know so much about me?" Hailey snapped, likely louder than she should've, as she turned her full attention to Doyalah and set her right hand down- with the cigarette still clasped between her index and middle fingers- on the black skinsuit coating her thigh.
Doyalah reacted to Hailey's change in body language with similar energy, his legs spreading slightly apart as a loud, rumbling Arasaka transport truck rolled by to fill the suddenly-hostile silence. "It is my job to keep detailed files on all Biotechnica clients." He explained, before Hailey threw her cigarette onto the ground and stood off of her motorcycle.
"I'm not your f*cking client." She pointed a stiff finger at Doyalah as she spoke over him like she was somehow raised with no manners at all by a couple of heartless, soulless monsters.
Oh, wait.
"This license, last renewed on your twenty-first birthday, begs to differ." The Biotechnica suit shot words back just like Hailey could; cold and conniving. "Please, the eddies. Renew your license with Biotechnica… or I will be forced to repossess."
"f*ck your license!" Hailey's purple-and-black Exo Jack boot stomped onto the white cigarette butt smoking against the filthy, neatly paved ground as she stood in a wide, aggressive stance herself. "I don't have your eds, choomba, so you can roll that license up nice and tight and stick it right up your f*cking—"
"How unfortunate that we couldn't have come to a more amicable solution." Doyalah interrupted Hailey coldly as his stance grew wider and his face grew harder than stone. He lurched forward, and the seams of his suit's sleeves shredded to ribbons as two long, curved, slickly-shined razors popped up like springs from tracks in his lean, brown forearms.
"sh*t—!" Hailey gasped as green strips of shirt fluttered down like streamers in front of her face and she took a skip backward at the sudden appearance of the Biotechnica representative's sleek, platinum-colored Mantis Blades.
In the backs of her calves, small implants grew excited as they activated with her thoughts and the gravity field in her immediate personal space was distorted very slightly. Weighing less than half of her natural weight for just a moment, Hailey floated up and away from Doyalah's lethal swipe as the haze of green light once again glowed around her eyes.
Giving a grunt, Doyalah stopped short and recoiled as a pop sparked out of the datashard slots on his neck. Smoke followed the pop and bright, hot, blue sparks fluttered to the ground as his green eyes shot a vengeful glare at Hailey; his posture returning to him rather quickly as whatever pain inside his Cyberware was quelled fast.
"Paltry Quickhacks are smashed into little more than bits of binary code against ICE like mine." He grumbled at the floating Netrunner as her purple boots hit the ground and she left herself wide open for attack. Just as the toes inside his expensive, leathery shoes pressed into the ground to push him forward at his opponent, the click of a rifle's firing mechanism sliding into place earned the full attention of his natural reflexes.
Drawing her Sidewinder from its strap hooked around her right shoulder under her purple jacket, Hailey's slender finger wrapped around its trigger and the cybernetic fibers in the palm of her right hand communicated through airwaves with the Smart guidance system of her assault rifle. Depressing the black trigger, a loud, punchy series of clicks rattled from inside the body of her lean Smart Weapon to accompany a stream of golden, metallic casings that ejected from a slot in the rifle's side.
Doyalah cursed, and changed his plan of attack on the fly as his clothes, skin and chrome all turned into an unrecognizable blur. Like a painting with its oil runny, he melted as orange sparks along with metallic clanging shot out from all directions in response to the rapid spray of Smart bullets curving through the air at his head. The sparks bounced as the sounds died, and Hailey seemed to realize that she was just wasting ammunition.
Once he stopped, Doyalah's Mantis Blades smoked and the chromed-over surface of the blades seemed to glow red-hot for just a second as he returned to a normal level of clarity. When he faltered slightly to exhale hot, dense exhaust from his mouth, Hailey began to chuckle.
"Nice Sandy." She commented with an approving nod at what had managed to turn Doyalah into an impressionist painting for just a moment. "Fuyutsuki, yeah? I've got a choom in the Glen who sports one of theirs." The black in her eyes flickered as she moved pieces around an invisible chess board behind her face and above her throat. People screamed and fled down the sidewalks and out into the road at her reckless firearm discharge, but she remained focused on her opponent.
"Are you trying to imply that you're aware of some kind of secret?" Doyalah asked after a deep breath as he clenched his fists and seemed to prepare himself for another lunge. "I assure you, I know all there is to know about this Sandevistan."
"No, nothing like that," Hailey shook her head, "it's just I know they're damn fast." She smirked her glossy lips, then. "I also know they hurt like a bitch to turn off."
"Well worth it if it means I can use that speed to settle the corporation's debts!" Doyalah burst from off the ground, his ankles popping as they compressed and decompressed in a short span to apply a boost of speed to his leap.
Acting seemingly in anticipation, Doyalah's Fortified Ankles allowed him to follow Hailey as her own activated again; the corporate Solo's speed allowing him to cut Hailey's jump off midair.
"f*ck!" She hissed as his slender, brown fingers snaked through the magenta curls of her hair and she was dragged back down to earth with the weight behind Doyalah's powerful leap.
Mantis Blades still extended, Doyalah smashed into the street far ahead of where their battle had originally started. Cracking yellow-painted pavement underfoot, he crashed into a crosswalk with a reckless abandon that only people like himself and Hailey could truly revel in.
Feeling a hot fluid spray over her back as she was slammed into the ground, Hailey watched blood splash from behind her shoulder, and then recalled a particular sound that accompanied the cracking cement when they landed. She'd heard a squeamish tear, like one might while running a knife through synthetic meat before tossing it in a pan to fry.
Lumbering over both Hailey and the innocent bystander cleaved in half by his protruding Mantis Blades, Doyalah ripped his left arm back to his side so he could stand. Covered in crimson, the blade on his left arm joined the right in standing above Hailey, who he'd dropped into a puddle of the shredded civilian's innards.
She didn't even mind.
It wasn't like she was some Corp-slaying superhero, protecting the innocent of Night City with nothing but her Cyberdeck and her Smart gun. She killed people for money, for crying out f*cking loud; if anything, as she picked herself up from out of a spaghettified pile of what might have been intestines, she'd have even said she kind of liked it.
Hailey wasn't about to go Cyberpsycho or anything close to it, and she definitely wasn't anywhere close to flying off the handle and killing just any random asshole on the street, but collateral damage? To her, it was really just extra flavor. Whoever she did want to kill- whoever was trying to kill her or whoever had a price on their head- was the main course, but something in her brain when she mentally went to that place to start fighting got excited at the prospect of adding more to the dish. She wasn't a Cyberpsycho.
She was just a f*cking maniac.
"f*ck—!" Doyalah shouted through gritted teeth as another ping of overcharged electricity sprayed out from not only his neck, but also the tracks of his Mantis Blades. This shocking wave of overload appeared stronger than the last, the blue glow bright enough to cast shadows in the midday sunlight for a split second and causing Doyalah to recoil back and to his right. Jaw still wired closed- very likely due to the overabundance of electricity shooting through it- he hissed again with a venomous look in his eyes at Hailey.
"I told you that your Short Circuit Daemons are of no effect!" He grouched, seeming to grimace at the fact that the attack had given Hailey time to gain distance on him. "What kind of Netrunner are you that you can't tell that by taking one good look at my chrome? The soft that I'm running?"
"I see your ICE, big guy," Hailey exasperatedly groaned as her rifle was loaded with another magazine from the inside of her jacket, "I'm not f*cking blind! Anybody with enough brains to set their own comp password can spot the four-layer corporate datafortress you're carrying on your back."
"Exactly my point!" He sneered, reaching into his suit jacket as his right Mantis Blade retracted to draw a stocky Revolver- a Tech Weapon by no mistake- and aim it at Hailey. "So why do you insist on—" He stopped himself as he processed her words, then. "Apologies. Did— did you say… four? Four-layer datafort?"
"Sure did." Hailey smugly replied as she held her gun up at him to counter his revolver aimed at her.
Chapter 2
Chapter Text
"But my corporate package," Doyalah stuttered, "it comes with eight." Despite his taunting, he could see clear as day that he wasn't dealing with some self-taught Netrunner off the street. The way she threw around hacks… she knew what she was saying, at least as far as encrypted data was concerned.
"Yeah, until I cracked half of it." Hailey scoffed at Doyalah with her eyebrows shifting quizzically. "Come on, I'm Breaching two layers at a time over here; don't let me fall asleep."
"You're bluffing!" Doyalah argued, his finger around his Tech Revolver's grip squeezing and clicking the mechanism inside. A flash left the front, and a hot chunk of lead blasted forth from inside.
Hailey's left shoulder whipped backward as hot, red fluid sprayed out from inside and she stumbled back into the sleek, metallic wall of a skyscraper building behind her. She winced as she- thankfully- managed to affect the paid killer's aim with her proficient Breach Protocol, the missing stacks of ICE inside his chrome clearly making him lose his composure somewhat. Red streaked behind her as she slid down slightly, fighting to hold herself up past the shooting pain in her arm and the feeling of losing blood at the rate that a gunshot bleeds.
"As a representative of the Night City branch of the Biotechnica Corporation, I, Doyalah Dekharr, hereby repossess your genetic material, copyrighted by Biotechnica Incorporated as of October twelfth, 2050." The man called to Hailey, as though he was reading off of a script he'd been given. He began to move as his right Mantis Blade extended once again with a bounce, and Hailey glared harshly at him with green dancing around her black-and-white Kiroshi Optical implants.
Time compressed into a green-tinted jello that only one person on the street could cut through, then, as Doyalah darted at his quarry with the worst of intentions. His Sandevistan activated with a shock to his system and a heaping dose of amphetamines, heating his body and giving him the opportunity to close the distance between himself and Hailey. Still within safe operation limits to his delight, Doyalah spread his arms wide out to either side of him, his gun still held in his right fist as it bent and allowed for his Mantis Blade to stretch as far out as it could. His synthetic muscles in his chest and shoulders twitched, then, as he brought his arms in for the killing sweep that would lob Hailey Bello's pretty, pink head off like it was but a flower under a lawnmower, and then…
"Gotcha." Hailey weakly groaned out loud as a sudden crackle lead to a pop and the oily blur of colors and air that had dashed up at her was forcefully thrown away. The loud burst of blue shock that exploded like a firework knocked the corporate repo man out of his Sandevistan's time dilation and slammed him onto his back where he gave a pained yell and simply sizzled.
Hailey, taking the opening that her successful Quickhack gave her, screamed in pain as the bleeding surface of her bullet wound was torn off of the cool, metal wall. She stood straight and reached into her Pozer jacket once more, digging out a tube bent into an 'L'-shape. Shoving the blue tip of the tube between her lips, Hailey pressed a button on the top with her thumb and huffed before groaning and tossing the used inhaler aside. The deep breath of medication worked almost instantaneously to kill her pain, though she knew it would take a little more than a Trauma Team MaxDoc to fix a bullet to her shoulder.
"f*cking hacking c*nt!" Doyalah fumed as he writhed in his smoking mess on the ground and slowly worked to get his palms underneath himself. Her Short Circuits were getting stronger each time she was able to successfully upload one… That could only have meant… "You… really are breaking through my ICE…!"
"Last two layers." Hailey affirmed him with a heavy, labored breath as he slowly stood and she backed away. Knowing it would do very little to someone as chromed-up as him yet deciding to stall anyway, Hailey drew her Sidewinder and squeezed the trigger to let off a burst of lead that sunk like stones in water into Doyalah's armored flesh.
He grunted as the light, Smart bullets stung his dermis, but he mostly ignored the bleeding as he recovered from the Short Circuit that had crippled his system for longer than just a moment. Panting, Doyalah again put his body to the test as his Sandevistan rang to life and his Mantis Blades extended once more. Out for blood, he danced around Hailey's gunfire and rushed her with his razors at the ready.
A click later, and Doyalah grinned wildly as he sunk his fists into Hailey's flat, coated stomach. The force of his jab lifted her into the air in slow-motion, though as he noticed a distinct lack of blood running down his arms, Doyalah deactivated his Sandevistan and breathed out exhaust while looking in confusion over his forearms.
Hailey cracked into the ground as she was thrown off her feet, and her stomach throbbed after being rocked by the attack, but she laughed as she remained in one piece. Watching him study his closed-up forearms, Hailey slowly rolled around on the sidewalk to push herself up.
"You gonk," She groaned, "I'm jacked in way deeper than the level of ICE you've got on your wrist razors." She coughed, but was glad that it didn't taste like anything but her own saliva. No blood was always a good sign. "Those Mantis Blades are as good as mine, now."
"Petulant 'runner-girl…" Doyalah mumbled in clear frustration as he raised his right arm up with his short, shiny Tech Revolver in-hand. He stood straight then, finally recovering from the last Short Circuit as Hailey struggled herself to get off of her knees. His labored breath and shaking hand both grew still as his cold-blooded nature took over and he sought simply to end the annoyingly arduous battle then and there with a bullet in Hailey's skull. She shouldn't have been this much of a hassle for him.
Hailey glanced to her side, over the purple shoulder of her jacket as her Netrunning suit squeaked. She watched Doyalah compose himself as he set his revolver's glowing, white, holographic sights over her head of pink curls, and her eyes lit up.
At the bang of his handgun discharging, Doyalah sprung a diabolical grin. The loud crack echoed over the cascading buildings on either side of them, and smoke rolled up from a shattered wound in the paved blacktop beneath them. Doyalah's green eyes followed his arm down, then, in confusion; the platinum-colored crevices lining his forearms having been peeled back and his flesh segmenting to let a long stick of chrome poke out.
Before he could shoot her, Hailey's infiltration inside the Biotechnica representative's Cyberware proved itself once again useful; a command leaving her Cyberdeck with a glow around her eyes to eject his right arm's Mantis Blade remotely. Doing so forced the joint of his wrist down to allow the razor's full length to extend, and threw his aim off in a split second that he had no way of preparing to account for.
"God damnit!" Doyalah, losing his temper again, threw his revolver to the ground in a rage. It hit the pavement with a click and then slid its way under a parked car only a few meters from them as Hailey's feet finally were pushed up and underneath her weight. "Arasaka taught you well…" He said as he breathed deeply, hoping to calm himself before the Netrunner took advantage of any anger-induced lapses he may have had in his composure.
"Arasaka taught me a lot more than how to be a good Netrunner." Hailey huffed, her mind growing fatigued from the overuse of her Cyberdeck's memory. She'd been constantly mining into Doyalah's ICE for the ten-or-so minutes they'd been fighting, completing circuit after circuit of code deconstruction. She was mentally wiped, but she had to keep pushing if she didn't want to flatline here.
Arasaka taught her how to be relentless.
Doyalah gave a holler as, once again, an overloaded pulse of electricity shot out from every implant in his body. The electrically charged plasma bounced from between synapse and wire alike, loudly frying up and out from every crease where there was a mechanical implant. He glowed like any of the neon signs high above their heads, and the light crackled as he stumbled forward onto his knees with a secondary blast from deep inside his back. From his eyes and mouth, arms of static lashed out; curling around and peeling the artificial skin stretched over his face away from his bones. His lungs burned and his muscles twitched as a tingling, burning line of electricity ran up and down his spine, and he caught himself on his hands on the sidewalk as his skin sizzled and his forehead dribbled sweat onto the ground. Platinum-colored plates shone under where skin around his left eye, forehead and cheek had once been, and his leftmost optical implant’s green Cyber-flesh had been blackened by light and heat and scorch.
"Just totaled…" She panted after the loudest buzz of the lot, "your datafort…" Hailey proudly proclaimed as she stumbled back and away from Doyalah in a weakened state. "The f*ck are you going to do about it?" She chuckled, eyeing the seared flesh that had been zapped away to reveal his cybernetic skeleton. She was quite pleased with the results of her effort, but she wasn't done. A Daemon was released as an offshoot of her last successful Quickhack, and she slowly recovered her strength as it wormed its way to the most basic, foundational levels of Doyalah's software with no ICE to keep it locked out.
Doyalah hissed shaky breath out from behind his gritted teeth as smoke rolled off of his face, shoulders and back, and his vision was effectively halved. He was losing, and the Netrunner was goading him… as if she wanted him to continue attacking her. Why? Why would she want that, when he was so clearly beaten? No, no. He hadn't been beaten yet. She may have invaded his chrome, but he still had one card left to play. What would she do to upload a hack when he was moving faster than her fleshy gray matter could operate?
The world ground to a halt, then, as his body was driven into high gear. He overclocked every nut, bolt and fiber of his being with the activation of his Sandevistan, and he chuckled as he clenched his bare fists with intent to use them alone if her incessant hacking ensured that nothing else would work. He watched the world bleed green, and then he picked himself up from the ground with a wild smirk as his right leg extended to send him stepping forward at his enemy with incomprehensible speed.
His leg moved.
He moved.
He dashed at Hailey Bello and crunched her head between his fists.
His right leg and foot remained welded to the ground. Even with his thigh muscles thrashing, he couldn't move.
Red boxes and text walls began to sprawl over his visual feed from behind his one working eye, with dozens of overlapping dialogue prompts opening on top of one another in a cascade of errors. A stream of text began to flutter up from the bottom of his field of view, and it was then that he understood what was happening.
She was holding him still, even with his Sandevistan active. Clever.
Deactivating his Sandevistan to save both power and his own—
Deactivating his Sandevistan—
How many seconds had even passed in his time-dilated state? Was she not only inside his optical implants, his leg implants and his arm implants, but also…
It was suddenly very hot, and it became hard to breathe. Time continued to crawl forward, and he was starting to feel quite the nasty headache coming on.
A trickle of scarlet liquid from his wide nostrils ran over his lips and filled his ajar mouth with the rich flavor of iron.
Oh, god.
Hailey's Kiroshi eye implants gave her the benefit of watching a graphic fill up above Doyalah's slender head, indicating her custom-coded Daemon's upload status. The little box filled with red as the vibrating blur of a Sandevistan-influenced Solo stood eerily, unnaturally still. That was just the effect of a regular old Quickhack, though.
Having slipped a multi-layered Daemon program into his Sandevistan's base code, Hailey watched the invisible gears of her plot turn as Doyalah in fast-forward seemed to realize that he simply wasn't able to turn his Sandevistan off once he'd powered it on.
She looked at him, and even as he vibrated violently, he somehow managed to meet her gaze. There was a moment of still throughout the City Center, then, as a devilish smile washed over Hailey's brown face.
After just a few real-time seconds of prolonged use, the vessel housing the Sandevistan could no longer take the pressure. With a sound as indescribable as making up a brand new color, that excess energy made a way for itself to escape the tightly closed system it found itself trapped inside.
Pinks, grays, chromes and reds jumped out in all directions. Arms of the gruesome ball of gore stretched out as blood and brains expanded in a radius around Doyalah. His two eyes were launched in two different directions, and his skull swelled to the point of even the metal needing to crack. His entire head burst like an overfilled pipe, sending organic and cybernetic shrapnel splattering in a star pattern onto the street and sidewalk around him. Teeth blew out as the hinges of his jaw decoupled, muscle ripping as the base of his neck expanded to crush his esophagus against itself.
Falling to his knees in the mess of his own head spraying across the road, Doyalah's turquoise suit splashed in red as it fell chest-down. Once still, a small stream of smoke rolled up from the fibers covering his back, and his suit burst aflame.
His Sandevistan, overworked and underpowered, had grown immensely hot at the time of his death. It raised his body temperature so ludicrously high that his very flesh had spontaneously combusted, and the roaring fire danced over his corpse to bathe Hailey in an orange flicker.
Taking a deep breath to recover her stamina, Hailey gathered herself and then slowly approached the burning body in the street before her. She'd seen too much death as a Merc to be impacted negatively by the violent demise she'd sentenced Doyalah to, and as she smiled at his unfortunate position and stepped over his flaming body, she allowed herself to simply enjoy it. Heat licked up the back of her legs, rolling over the expensive Netrunning suit's rubbery fabric, as she continued past her handiwork.
She wasn't going to pretend that there was some kind of logic behind her homicidal streak. It wasn’t that she only killed when she found it necessary, or that she only killed those who deserved it. She justified it that way occasionally, like when she'd tried to kill the Maelstromer, Armadillo a few weeks prior with a Detonate Grenade Quickhack; but it wasn't some philosophy she held dear or anything stupid.
There were people she didn't glance twice at, and then there were people she wanted to lash out at and tear apart. She didn't know what separated them.
Was affiliation the right word? No, not quite; because she didn't mind at all accidentally killing 'innocents'- as if those even existed in this f*cking city- and she enjoyed the feeling of making a chaotic scene like the one she'd just been involved in, even if it came at the cost of several human lives.
f*ck it.
The truth was that she just f*cking felt like it, sometimes. She liked the feeling that ending a life gave her, and didn't exactly feel sorry about it when it was something she got to consider a job.
Did that make her a bad person?
"f*ck this city…" Hailey shook her head as she turned around to board her motorcycle, which had its front facing the direction down the street that her fight with Doyalah had taken her. Her hands gripped the handlebars ahead of her as the engine started with a roar, and she stared past the road and buildings stretching before her.
In front of her eyes, a big, red square had been lit up. It glowed against her vision like a screen thanks to her Kiroshis, giving her a satellite-like top-down view of Night City's sprawling architecture and winding roads to connect them all. Those eyes, their blacks holding not a pixel of red to an outside observer, scanned over the virtual topographical map until it reached a particular hole in a wall; a small crevice leading to another crevice in a long line of tall, red boxes.
She was hurt, even if she wasn’t in pain. Her shoulder was bleeding and still full of lead, and she needed to make her way somewhere she could be serviced. She didn't trust Trauma Team enough to employ them- as if she made enough money consistently to afford a plan, anyway- and Night City's healthcare otherwise was a joke. That left Ripperdoc clinics as the only place she could get medical attention, as was the case with most outlaw Edgerunners.
Rippers weren't always trustworthy, but one who liked money would always perform well with the promise of payment from a client. It just so happened that Hailey knew just that kind of Ripper; one who had happily taken her money before and provided service without question. That kind of anonymity and no-strings-attached care was invaluable in her line of work, and Hailey was satisfied knowing that she could rely on making use of that Ripperdoc.
Call it something like trust.
Marking the address of Sasha's Scop Shop- what a name- with a white dot on the red map, Hailey sat up on her motorcycle’s white seat. She kicked her stand back, balanced the purple bike's weight between her legs, and then rolled out of the black parking space off to the right side of the street to shoot past the burning corpse of a man who had troubled her.
"Adding another sixty for the syn-skin… oh, just give me 225 and we're nova."
Hailey's cybernetic eyes quivered as they flicked back-and-forth over a blue box full of text displayed over their optical feed. She read over a list- parts and charges- for having visited a Ripper's clinic. Behind the text box, she could still see the woman- her mint-green hair straight as it contoured her pale face all the way down, past her sharp chin- standing patiently for her due. That price… didn't sound quite right.
"Ninety eds for an Airhypo?" Hailey questioned with her pink eyebrows shifting. As she sat on a cushioned, leathery chair in front of her Ripper, she zipped her Arasaka Netrunning suit up to cover the cinnamon skin on her exposed chest, which looked as though it had never been so much as scratched before.
"It was a Mark Five." Sasha shrugged her shoulders under her beige sweater as she leaned back against a desk that sat flush with the red-brick wall. Her black, legging-covered legs were crossed slightly as she sat, comfortably, with her red-and-white target-pattern eyes studying her now-recovered patient.
"And an extra forty for… 'interrupted lunch'? Really?" The Netrunner frowned her lips slightly as she shot her Ripperdoc a glare. She'd forgotten Sasha's little quirk; that the benefit of her liking money went a little bit too far, in some ways.
"M-hm." Sasha affirmed with a nod, unashamedly and without indicating that she might have been joking around. Her thin lips, dusted a light green, pulled unto a smile that conveyed her innocent sincerity.
Hailey sighed and grumbled, but as the dialogue box in front of her shrunk away into nothing and her vision cleared, she activated the bank chip stored in her head to transfer funds to where they were owed. She pulled her jacket up from behind her, slipping her arms inside and straightening the collar around her neck as her black implants flashed blue just before Sasha's followed closely behind.
"Hailey," Sasha suddenly gave a half-chuckle, half-gasp as her strange, loud eye implants went wide, "whoa, I hope that wasn't a typo on your end, choom, 'cause you aren't getting this extra five hundo back." She huffed. "Don't matter what you threaten me with."
"Your security's as thin as they come," Hailey rebutted strongly to what Sasha said, "I could pluck every last eddie straight from the airwaves right now and you'd have no idea until after I was long gone." She waved a hand dismissively, though, as if to denote what she was saying as something not to be concerned about. "But… I meant to throw in the bonus." Her abrasive, defensive voice softened for just a beat as she opened her mouth again. "I, uh… got paid today. Consider it a deposit on whatever Spencer still owes you."
"That how you got shot, then?" Sasha asked in reference to Hailey's apparent pay-day, her tongue moving with impulses from her brain to articulate thoughts sharply. "Don't you think there are easier ways to make money in this city without risking taking some lead in your shoulder?" The Ripper seemed not to be judging, but to be curious from the perspective of somebody who liked scratch, but not danger, so much.
Hailey idled on the chair she sat up on, just after stopping herself from hopping off of it, as she studied Sasha. What the f*ck kind of a question was that? "Not as a Netrunner, there isn't." She remarked, feeling as though she owed that remarkable question an answer of some kind. She never got much of a choice about what became of her when she was growing up, so it wasn't like she could have decided to train as- say- a Ripper, or something.
"Could've joined NetWatch." Sasha suggested casually with a gesture from her pale, thin hand; as though that was a solution so obvious and idiot-proof that Hailey was foolish for not having thought of it. Her green eyebrows raised onto her forehead as she placed her hand back down to join the other on her lap.
"f*ck you." Hailey scoffed. "Nothing else to do with these skills where I don't have to do business with f*cking Corps." Her lips curled and her eyes narrowed as her face turned into something like a grimace. "They've got enough power; don't need my f*cking help to run things."
"Hey," Sasha put her palms up and leaned back at the feeling of being sprayed down by Hailey's venom, "sorry, sorry. Didn't know you had it out like that for the Corps." Her red-and-white eyes shot down at the tile floor of her clinic as she frowned. "Not like you’re the only one in here who isn’t much a fan of suits.” Sasha looked at her hands folded in her lap, and then looked back up at her patient. “I wasn't good enough for Trauma Team after getting out of school, so… I guess I get it." She explained reluctantly, as if opening up to Hailey would allow them to move past the slight misunderstanding they had. "That's how I ended up in Night City. Big dreams of being a Trauma medic, helping people and making bank doing it; squashed because I'm just… not good enough at it." Sasha ran her right hand up and down the sleeve of her sweater on her left arm. "I moved here to avoid going back to admit failure to my dad. He… still thinks I'm working for Trauma Team." She said, standing up and off of her desk to signify the end of her speech. "Figured I could still do some good as a Ripper, but… that was dumb. Nobody chromes up in this city because they need to; all my skills are used for is making Edgerunners and Solos stronger so they can take and take…" She shook her head with a sharp breath inward and a sigh that felt to Hailey almost like relief came out with her words, "and the money's way too good for me to quit now."
Hailey stared down at the leg of Sasha's desk idly as she listened. The Ripperdoc spoke that same story- the same sadness and hopelessness- that Hailey had heard too many times living in Night City. Corporations taking every resource- money, real estate, food, water- but not stopping there, because why would they? They needed to take hopes and dreams and freedoms, too, robbing people who lived under them with the same god damned story; someone who dared to want anything from the world shoved away from their dream by a Corporation so big that their mere existence in a space closed it off to anyone else.
"Sorry." Hailey offered the closest thing to a sincere apology that she could muster past her innate emotional wall as she looked back up at Sasha. Then, she scoffed, thinking back over her day thus far and how much already she'd needed to deal with the same old bullsh*t. "Can't go a day in this f*cking place without some Corp shoving itself where it doesn't need to be, huh?"
"Well, I guess that's how your day's going, then." Sasha commented with a short, quiet chuckle from her nose in reply to Hailey's sudden frustration about Corps. "What, did you get shot by one on a job?"
Hailey grumbled, then, and let her brown hand rub over her face before it plopped back into her lap. "Something like that." She sighed. "Had some… Biotechnica suit start sh*t with me after a gig."
"Was Biotechnica part of the gig?" Sasha inserted her own thoughts, seeming to be asking the obvious question. Hailey couldn't blame her for seeing the first logical reason for some Corpo to attack her and positing it as a potential cause for the assault.
"No," Hailey clarified with a tilt of her head, "and that's the weird thing." She waved a finger then, before crossing her black-suited arms over her black-suited chest. "Said I owed Biotechnica some crazy amount of scratch for some kind of license." She laughed. "I'm a Netrunner. I haven't paid for a license on anything since the sixties."
"Big Corps like Biotechnica don't really make mistakes." Sasha added to Hailey's story, not seeming like she wanted to disagree necessarily, but certainly adding a helpful second perspective. "If they say you owe them…" She trailed off as she made her point, and then hummed. "The suit; they say what this license was for?"
"Something about… repossessing my genetic material, I think." Hailey answered honestly, her brows furrowed as she sunk herself deep in thought, while she recalled her best memory of what Doyalah said about her debt. "Not really sure what the f*ck that means, honestly. Told him to f*ck off and he pulled some wrist razors on me, so I cracked his ICE and zeroed him."
"f*ck, you killed him?" Sasha sucked air into her mouth through her gritted teeth to portray that she didn’t think that was such a good idea for Hailey's safety.
"Hell yes!" Hailey replied defensively. "I had to; f*cker had a Sandy too, and- clearly- an iron to back it all up."
"Right, but now Biotechnica won't stop f*cking with you until they get their eddies." Sasha responded with a gesture, as if that was what she had intended to imply with her words the entire time.
"Don't owe them, not paying them." Hailey shook her head and let her fuzzy afro of magenta curls shake with it.
"Okay, but…" Sasha posited, as if she was apprehensive to continue that thought out loud to the edgy Edgerunner who she- frankly- wasn't positive that she was completely safe around, "what if… you did? Owe them, I mean?"
"I don't." Hailey shortly said, frowning at Sasha with her hands balling into fists on top of her knees.
"Gene manipulation was huge news from Biotechnica in Sweden when I was a kid after they built their first location." Sasha protested, her voice raising an octave and her hands gesturing widely as her green eyebrows popped up onto her forehead. “They opened their first location there a little after I was born, and rolled out gene-editing trials pretty soon after I went into university. I'm not saying you're lying, but… I don't know…" She met Hailey's eyes as she suggested a solution to her patient.
"Yeah," Hailey started, "I knew Biotechnica did gene editing. Still, though," She placed a hand on the rubbery coating that was zipped tightly over her chest, "that doesn't apply. I look enhanced at all to you? All fifty-four kilos of me?" She tried to make a point that she- being rather averagely-sized for a woman her age- couldn’t have possibly been genetically enhanced into some sort of superbeing, lest she be three meters tall and heavier than hell. As she spoke, though, a thought nagged at the back of her brain stem like an animal scratching to be allowed through its master's door. “He did mention a date, though…” She hummed, and observed how intensely interested Sasha seemed to be in her story. “Twelfth of October, 2050…” Her lips pulled tight into a purse as her eyebrows grew lower and thoughts looked to be racing behind her Kiroshis faster than a computer terminal could process binary.
“Okay…?” Sasha goaded as she, too, pondered on that date. “Peace time a little bit before the Unification War happened here in America, right?” She stated, seeming as though she was trying to make up for her lack of understanding by establishing commonly-known fact. “What does it have to do with anything? Does that ring a bell for you, personally?”
“Yeah.” Hailey answered slowly, still thinking. “You know a little about that scop, right? DNA-editing and sh*t?” She asked, already knowing the answer by assuming it through how intently she wanted to be involved in Hailey’s problems. “When… would you say the best time is to go in a kid’s genes and change sh*t around?”
Sasha seemed slightly taken aback at the question. She was no geneticist, but as someone who had once trained to be a medical professional, she had to have learned some things about some things. “Uh, well… For edits to go through with the maximum efficiency- growing and binding to a zygote’s genes as they multiply in development- you wouldn’t want it to be much older than a few weeks.” She explained, and then tilted her head. “Why do you ask?”
“Because,” Hailey started with a newfound assurance to her voice after all the facts checked out and her cybernetically-bolstered brain came to only one logical conclusion, "down to the f*cking day, it’s just shy of nine months before I was born.”
Chapter 3
Chapter Text
"本当か。。。" A woman groaned tiredly, placing a light, sand-colored hand up to her forehead and letting her head fall back expressively so she could place her brown eyes on a colleague beside her. Her dark, black hair fluttered between her shoulder blades as she moved in exaggerated ways, and the other woman beside her cracked a quiet chuckle in reply to what her friend had exasperatedly moaned.
“Seriously, guy,” She pointed a hand- covered in scarlet fishnet up to her elbow with her thin fingers poking through- up slightly from her plane of view to set her index finger like a computer’s pointer over the face of a man standing not four meters away from her, “you’re pretty cute but you ain’t all that smart, huh?” Her voice was high-pitched and airy, as if playing some kind of character. “When the Tyger Claws say something’s gonna happen, it f*ckin’ happens!”
The man laid golden eyes, unmoving and cold, on the speaking woman’s face. He was at least glad that she had the decency to f*ck with him in English so he could understand it, unlike her friend. His squared jawline moved slightly as his teeth ground together and he considered what- precisely- he should even have said to the Tygers. Tell them they’d die for toying with the Valentinos? That would only provoke a shootout, and Smart guns like they had could get really frustrating to need to dance around.
To the side of the conversing parties, a long, stocky vehicle sat parked against yellow pavement; its sheening, golden paint matching it up thematically to the man’s golden Cyber-hand, the golden Cyberware lining his cheekbones, and the golden trim of his long, black, syn-leather trench coat. Gold accents lined his red shoes, too, and his chest was covered loosely by a red tank-top. A caramel-colored hand- fully organic- ran through his dark, red hair, straight and swept backwards loosely, and the hand’s fingernails were painted a golden hue that caught sunlight as it returned to his side.
"名前はスペンサーですかね。" The first woman spoke again, a mechanical dinge to her voice as the end of the sentence curved in an upward tone, indicating it to be a question. Her mouth had been covered by a ventilation mask of some sort, but the bright colors painted over it as well as the rest of her outfit gave it away as little more than a fashion accessory. She eyed the man before her, who stared back with a red eyebrow slowly arching.
He was pretty sure he could make out his own name from what she was saying, and suddenly her question became clear to him even with virtually zero knowledge of the Japanese language bouncing around inside his head.
“Me?” He asked, his golden, cybernetic hand touching down on his covered chest. “Yeah, Spencer, that’s right. Guess you all did your homework.” Spencer posited, not seeming shaken that they knew who he was before agreeing to meet up.
"インプラントはどこですか。" The woman raised her eyebrow quizzically, tapping her index finger on the bony socket just underneath her eye. "あなたは日本語を話しません。なぜですか。" She continued to speak, seeming to be somewhat confused about something or other.
"She wants to know why you don't have translation implants, gonk." The other woman spoke up, mirroring her friend by tapping her eye socket to convey that she was talking about the same thing. "Kind of lame to be doing biz and not be able to communicate in a language we'd be more comfortable in, right?"
Spencer blinked, then, for the first time in a few minutes as he sighed and shook his head. "Enough of this sh*t." He barked as he opened his golden eyes and set them sternly on the two women as well as the two cars parked behind them; neon green doors slightly ajar so the Tyger Claw gangsters sitting in the backs could rest with one leg out. "You take the iron, we take the eddies," He spelled out a very simple transaction for the ladies as another man behind him stifled a laugh, "just like we f*cking agreed. You wanted Tech Weapons and EMP grenades to fight Maelstrom? The Valentinos are happy to supply; just not for free."
"sh*t, Spencer," The man behind Spencer, leaned against the hood of his golden Alvarado, began with a scoff, "we should'a known the f*ckin' Tygers wouldn't take a fair f*ckin' deal." He grumbled, his dark-brown hand pinching the bridge of his wide nose. "Why'd you even set this meet up, huh? You suicidal or something?"
"Chill the f*ck out." Spencer shot a glare over the golden trim on the shoulder of his coat. "If we didn't try for a deal, they would've hit one of our storehouses; probably started a turf war stealing the merch instead of buying it." His words were logically sound, even if a bit naive in-context. The Tyger Claws were notoriously untrustworthy and over-ambitious, and he should have known that from the start. He shouldn't have asked for an arms deal to be set-up, and especially not on the Tygers' home turf, though the docks of Kabuki were the only place they would agree to meet.
"True." The woman in front of them giggled at the description of what she assumed to be her own behavior. She seemed to be getting anxious the longer the large group of gangsters all stood around the abandoned industrial-type construct just on the water along the coastline.
More Valentinos in Spencer's car- two, to be exact- began to grow anxious themselves as their weights shuffled about in the back seat. They watched as the louder Tyger Claw woman flippantly waved her hand over the brightly-colored shoulder of her short-sleeved shirt and laughed.
"Doesn't matter now, anyway." She spread a blue grin over her round, lightly-colored face as her blue eyebrows lowered and her blue hair fluttered in a breeze. She gestured to the woman beside her, then. "My girlfriend just gave the sig to have all four of you stubborn f*cking 'tinos zeroed by our sniper." She referred to the overexaggerated motions of the Tyger Claw when she'd given her groan of impatience and disbelief earlier, leaning back with her hand to her face. "Like it or not, we'll be taking thaaaaaaaa…"
A crunch and splatter beside him drew the greenish tint of Spencer's field of vision to his left, the sound stretching thin as his jacket rustled and his shoes scuffed against the chipped, cracked pavement beneath him. An eyeball had been completely shredded as the glimmering tip of a long, sharp bullet drilled through the side of the head of the young, darker man just beside and behind Spencer, leaned against the hood of his car. Hair ripped from the shredding scalp fluttered up with a wall of red behind it as brains and skull fragments followed ligaments in bursting outward, all as Spencer watched.
"f*ck." He grouched to himself, though he knew nobody would hear him while the world was as molasses-like as his was, currently. No one ever could keep up with him; not without their own Sandevistan, anyway. Though, it seemed not everybody was quite built for the intense demand that an implant like his required, since not too many people seemed to bother getting one installed. All that meant was more speed for him, then, he supposed.
Zipping around the slowly-expanding flower of blood and gray matter, Spencer's form left a blurred after-image in the hot green behind him. He was already down one ally, but with his reflexes as good as they were, he had managed to slow time around him to a crawl in the seconds before any other Valentinos could be wiped out.
He needed to even the odds a little.
Spencer made full use of his remaining three seconds, feeling his body's temperature slowly rising as the golden sole of his red shoe pushed against the pavement beneath him. He dashed toward the two women standing arrogantly before him as his right hand reached down and into the left-hand side of his trench coat's inside, wrapping his wide, flat palm around the cool hardness of a concealed blade's round handle.
As he approached the louder of the two on one long, fast skip-leap, he drew his blade swiftly. The flat, silvery machete drew from its sheath with a hiss, following the arc of that his arm made as it was drawn out; continuing further until it was clear that it had transitioned into more of a fully-fledged swing than just a draw. In one fluid motion, Spencer's machete left its sheath and whipped horizontally in a downward angle, the finely-sharpened edge cleaving straight through the base of the woman's neck. It chopped through her blue hair, as well, strands of the stuff wafting in the air after being accelerated with such force as Spencer immediately spun to his left to face the other woman.
He'd wasted too much time at the start. He was too far away from his targets to make the most of his brief activation window as the built-up energy in his body became overbearing, and he was forced to deactivate his Sandevistan. Though, at least he had managed to make it right in front of the other woman with his weapon drawn, which would still allow him to make the most of it and kill her, too.
Blood sprayed behind the decapitated Tyger as her body crumbled, crimson mist filling the air around her while a denser spurt of the life-fluid splashed to the ground. Her colorfully-dressed corpse pattered in its own blood as her head bounced slightly on the pavement with a thump, and the other of the two women gave a gasp as she quickly thought to draw a Smart Pistol from her hip clad in brown leather.
"ろくでなし！" She cried out through her mask, her eyes growing fierce at the sudden death of the woman next to her. "あなたを死んで—" She had begun to speak as she pointed her weapon at the blur of colors just in front of her, though before her full thought could be expressed, the colors took shape and Spencer swiftly swiped his machete down from over his head.
The woman screamed, then, as a crack rang out through the empty complex, the bladed weapon slicing down through muscle and bone to lob her right hand straight off. The pistol from her hand hit the ground with a metallic clatter as it slid away, and it was struck by a loud, bright clang that threw sparks from off of its neon pink, green and blue surface.
A bullet, meant for Spencer when he was still standing over there, struck the gun. The loud noise covered up the sound of clicking and whirring as the golden creases running up a cybernetic forearm split apart, and the Tyger Claw woman's divided attention was placed back on Spencer as a short, wide-mouthed cannon poked up and out from inside the golden chamber it rested in.
Before she could react with much more than a yelp, the Valentino's left arm's Projectile Launcher glowed a violent orange. It discharged with a deep, reverberating boom, and a cone of highly-kinetic, superheated shrapnel blasted out in a devastating wave that consumed the woman entirely. Hot metal ate away at her clothes and flesh and pulverized bone, leaving little else in its wake as it ended just as soon as it began.
The short explosion left a scorch mark on the asphalt below, and pieces of the Tyger Claw woman rained down from a few meters in the air where they had been tossed from off of their original body by the small warhead. Her torso had fallen backwards with little more attached to it than her left leg and part of her right arm, and the rest of her made its way into the sea or splattered everywhere else in the immediate area.
Then, the rush of his Cyberware caught up with him. He faltered slightly and exhaled, heat like steam rolling up from behind his golden teeth and his eyes darting to his right at his car. The other two Valentinos with him, a woman and another man, had since rushed out of the vehicle and thrown the heavy, golden doors shut behind them so they could search the buildings lining the road behind them for the glare of a sniper.
To his left, the sounds of more car doors shutting caught his attention. The two cars parked around ten meters behind the dead Tyger Claw women opened up to let another four gangsters out. Smart Weapons of all varieties gripped tightly with loud hairstyles and clothes and colors, the three men and one woman glared venomously at Spencer for having slain their allies.
"Go!" His shiny, golden hand waved his backup away, toward where their eyes searched. "Zero that sniper; I'll handle the Tygers!" Spencer ordered, as if the Valentino gangsters behind him were outranked, somehow. He turned his attention away from them as footsteps sounded off and became quieter, the two of them following directions and setting off on-foot to find whoever it was who was pinning them all down.
Spencer turned back to the Tyger Claws all readying their weapons, and he hissed at just how immensely outnumbered he was; though he was probably better off without the lower-level gangsters following him around and making it harder for him to fight. Either they found the sniper and killed them, or they died while distracting the sniper long enough for Spencer to get the drop.
Either possibility worked just fine for him, in all honesty.
"ヴァレンチノごみだ！" One of the Tyger Claw men, brandishing a long, multi-colored assault rifle, called to Spencer with a demeaning tongue as he waved the barrel of his Sidewinder around. He wore a white tank top and had a ring of grenades strapped to his chest, clearly having expected a firefight upon coming here.
His allies, starting with the man on the other side of the car as the one who was yelling, began to open fire the very attosecond that Spencer flinched his cybernetically-bolstered muscles to move. His reflexes and chromed-up muscles bordered on the superhuman, though, allowing him to zip parallel to the spray of countless sharpened, cylindrical hunks of gold-and-silver lead with a push from the bottom of his foot; sinking his right shoulder down slightly to avoid the curve of a Smart Bullet racing at him.
Light, shallow cuts- more like scrapes, really- sliced themselves into the armored skin on Spencer's right forearm as it was lifted up to guard his face from another series of gunshots, the Smart Bullets only able to do so much to swerve midair and catch him as he dashed straight through the hail like a car in the rain. They did not bleed and communicated no pain to his mind, though; as even his most organic-looking parts were in some ways enhanced cybernetically. His skin was hardened just under his dermis, and most of his muscles had been rigged for fast-twitch movement regardless of their intended biological function. Even without his Sandevistan, he was lightning-quick, and his wide arsenal of Cyberware made him quite resilient to incoming damage.
The Tygers didn't stand a chance.
The woman of the group repositioned with a dash as Spencer approached, her right arm lashing out with a Smart Shotgun clasped firmly in her hand. With his momentum and her quick thinking to slip around to his side, he could only grit his golden teeth as he barreled forward and the trigger was pulled to release a storm of a dozen Smart pellets, which all moved in unison with a curve through the air to shred into Spencer’s right arm and shoulder. The small, guided, non-explosive missiles sunk into his synthetic flesh and- being of a higher caliber and fired with more force from more barrels- managed to break the surface of his toughened flesh and draw from inside him a trickle of warm, pure white fluid. Uncolored, viscous fluid ran down the black leather covering his right arm, heavily implying that- at some point- even the essence of his very life running through his veins had been foregone in favor of a synthetic replacement.
Spencer felt very little of what actually plagued him, though; even if he wasn't completely indestructible, his body stuffed full of chrome sure let him feel that way. Continuing through a spray of lead from another Smart Assault Rifle- the small, self-guided drones barely enough to gather his attention- Spencer pounced like an agile predator.
His legs shoved the planet he stood on away as he jumped to avoid the flurry of Smart pellets from the second barrel of the Tyger Claw woman's Palica Smart Shotgun, and his cybernetic implants communicated with his brain to activate two small engines located in his calves, under his black jeans. Those engines, like many of their kind, sent a pulse- short but strong- of anti-gravity underneath Spencer to give him the appearance of taking a second leap while midair.
His double-jump shot him over the tops of the two parked vehicles as he quickly spun himself back around to face his enemies instead of leaving his back to them as he bounced over their heads. More guided rounds of Smart ammunition followed him over the cars, curving up and then down just behind him before he spun around to land and bring his machete around from behind his back.
Sparks flew as his machete’s long, sharpened blade intercepted one bullet at a time, his arm's cybernetic muscles and joints moving quickly to deflect a series of four shots with the wide, flat side of the steely, silver-colored blade. The sparks bounced off of the abandoned pavement below as metallic clanging reverberated through the air, and he was inevitably overwhelmed by the onslaught.
A bullet punched through his stomach after a while, causing him to stumble slightly and drop his machete's guard. His reflexes, though, were as astute as ever; allowing him to push past the feeling of bleeding white down the front of his red tank-top from a bullet hole in his gut- breaking the skin this time not because of a high caliber, but because of the shortened distance now between himself and the muzzle of the assault rifle that shot him- Spencer pushed his golden, cybernetic left fist out in front of him.
"He's fast!" One of the Tygers gasped, stepping back as Spencer’s rapid series of actions played out, aiming his rifle a bit harder as Spencer dutifully ignored him in favor of reaching his hand out.
From inside his forearm again, his Projectile Launcher popped up and out to point straight into the front-passenger window of the car Spencer stood by, and a munition inside its barrel was primed for charging with propulsion fuel. Just a moment later, wasting no time, Spencer's quick action and brutally efficient thinking led to a torrent being expelled from his arm-cannon that shattered all four windows of the small, multi-colored sports car and bent its cheap metal outward with the force of the ensuing blast.
"やばい！" A Tyger Claw man managed to scream before the blast from Spencer's arm tore the roof of the vehicle straight off and then smashed into him, too. The projectile shot from Spencer's arm exploded wide and hot enough to engulf the woman beside him as well, shredding them both apart with heated shrapnel and kinetic pressure that not only ate away at their flesh but also cooked the scraps into dust.
"f*cking Christ—!" One of the remaining Tygers- two men- exclaimed as the simmering bodies of his two allies crumbled to the ground with limbs blown off and flesh seared to a blackened crisp. The roof of the car clattered against the pavement several meters away after having been blown sky-high, and Spencer then placed his left hand against the hot, burned surface of the destroyed car to hoist his legs and hips up and over it in one fluid vaulting motion; his red shoes tapping down into broken glass as he faced the last two gangsters with a cold nothingness in his golden eyes.
Just as his machete was brought back and his legs flexed themselves in preparation to dash at his foes, Spencer's joints locked and the Cyberware lining virtually his every cell froze completely. He made an aghast noise, though his face was unable to react as the other of the Tyger Claw men gave a hooting, self-assured laugh, as though he was somehow responsible for Spencer's predicament. He wore a tight skinsuit, its green fabric and blue contour patches giving it a very distinctively Tyger Claws aesthetic, which was almost repulsive to look at.
"おーっ！" He laughed as a light flicker of sparks shot from the metal in Spencer's left arm, indicating a failure to activate his wrist-rocket. "怖いですね！" His words were presented in a mocking tone, as if whatever he was saying was supposed to be sarcasm. "強いじゃないね、あなたのサンデヴィスタンとラーンチャは無価値な今それは私はアイスを割れた！" The Tyger spat, his words as good as gibberish to Spencer as he grimaced and struggled to move.
"I don't know what the f*ck you're saying!" The restrained Valentino griped from behind his wired-shut jaw, his red eyebrows shifting as he quickly gathered that one of his opponents had been a Netrunner the entire time. Now it made sense why they hadn’t been fighting back very hard, because they had a guy breaching his ICE since he’d arrived to the deal maybe ten minutes previous and didn't want to interrupt that process, lest he be fried by the countermeasures or at the very least be forced to start over and waste all that precious time.
“He’s saying…” The second of the two Tygers let a long tube of metal with rivets and hard, rounded edges slide from under his long, green sleeve and into his right hand with a smooth hiss, “you’re f*cked!” He reared his studded baseball bat back, swiveling his wrist away from Spencer so that the bat could stop just behind the Tyger’s right knee with his right arm flexing to bring his weapon shooting forward. It cut through the space between them with a bassy, airy swoop, and the sound of both gangsters laughing almost deafened Spencer to the sound of the thick, heavy bat smashing into the side of his head.
Spencer felt the studs- metal bumps made to allot more offensive power- indent his cyber-flesh with every square pound of force that a man who was as cybernetically-altered as these Tyger Claws may have been was capable of. The studs ripped away at armored skin as the bat was dragged over his left cheek and the side of his head, drawing a spray of white blood from inside his face and throwing his head to his right as his knees bent for the first time in almost a minute. Though the smack hurt him about as much as any of the other attacks did, the feeling of his legs being forcefully thrown with the rest of his body to his right did manage to catch the attention of his brain and nervous system.
He gave a pained scream as the cybernetic joints and muscles in his legs were stretched and wrenched around, the resistance that the Netrunner’s Quickhack applied to them keeping the chrome inside from moving fluidly like it was supposed to and causing the tearing feeling he had to shoot up his entire body. He fell over onto his front with a heavy thud, groaning and watching sterile, white liquid dribble down from his face and onto the pavement just inches away from him. His arms slowly responded to his brain's input, finally, as they scraped the cracked ground to press their palms down and allow him some leverage to try to stand.
“Don’t you f*cking move!” The Tyger Claw man with the bat who spoke English grunted and stepped overtop of Spencer’s downed body, raising his bat up and above his head with both hands before sending it screaming down to belt into the back of the Valentino’s head with a heavy, grotesque crack; the force of which not only sending blood misting from beneath his dark, red hair, but also smashing his already-damaged face into the filthy, grimey blacktop. The attack was short but effective, seeming to have knocked Spencer’s coordination off as his hands slipped out from under him and he fell back into the ground.
Spencer winced as he was rocked by the hard, heavy swing, and he simply laid there to recover for a moment as he felt the Tyger atop him move off to his right side. With more laughing from both men above him, Spencer felt another heavy smash flail down and across the width of his upper-back. The sound of the metal bat making contact with the metal implant that ran along the length of Spencer’s spine above his skin and under his clothes made a distinct sound that only served to bring more distress to his already-worried mind.
If they managed to damage his Sandevistan, he really was f*cked.
Spencer gritted his teeth as a third swing whooshed down at him, bashing into his ear and the side of his face again, and he felt something inside the cavity of his chest click. His vision dilating for just a second, Spencer felt a rush of energy and the instant numbing of all of his pain as his artificial lungs swelled with life and the bleeding wounds all over him were clotted in a moment’s time. His Blood Pump- buried deep inside his reinforced rib cage next to his heart- activated automatically with the damage he sustained to restore him more or less to top fighting shape with synthetic blood packed full of restorative nanomachines and medicines were injected straight into his circulatory system.
Using this second wind, as it were, Spencer gripped the black handle of his machete and spun it around over the pavement to grab it again, this time in a reverse-hold. His muscles were fully responsive by now and the painkillers rushing through his blood vessels kicked his reflexes back into the overworked, cybernetically-enforced performance mode they were always in; all this giving him the resources necessary to twist his torso around and raise his right arm up and out, above his head which was still largely parallel with the ground. Looking back over his shoulder as he moved suddenly and quickly, he locked eyes with the bat-wielding Tyger Claw as he had begun rearing back again for another bash. Spencer gave him no quarter- growing up Valentino in the Glen made sure he was fantastic at that- and plunged his machete backwards in a fast, powerful dip that sunk the long, barely-serrated blade straight through the Tyger’s slightly-bent kneecap with a squeamish crunch.
Blood sprayed out from both the entry and exit wounds, the crimson life-essence dripping off the end of his blade as the Tyger gave a pained scream. He dropped his baseball bat with a deep, metallic thunk behind him from over his head as his balance faltered and he stared down at the flayed meat and cartilage visible from inside his knee. As he continued to scream, Spencer powered through to fight for his balance once more, pulling his knees inward to get them under himself so he could sit up and on them instead of on his face.
Spencer leaned back, machete still firmly inside the Tyger Claw gangster’s kneecap, and pressed the back of his neck and shoulders up and into the man’s groin. Pushing with the cybernetically-reinforced joints in his legs, Spencer threw the tyger off of his balance and sent him tumbling onto his back with his right leg still in the air, largely under Spencer’s control.
Saying nothing, the Valentino stepped back slightly, taking a stance over the Tyger Claw gangster’s torso as he laid on the ground to push his leg further back, over his body. Spencer reached out with his golden left hand to grip his machete’s handle along with his organic, caramel-colored right, and then gave a grunt.
Yanking his weapon downward with a lunge, Spencer sent the blade slicing down and along the entirety of the man’s right thigh; a torrential cascade of crimson pouring from the torn-open gash coating both his own front and Spencer’s. The machete sunk through the screams, severing an important, life-sustaining artery in the man’s thigh with a shear, before Spencer ripped the long, chrome blade out and flipped it around to hold it properly in his right hand.
Coated in the stuff anyway, Spencer didn’t bother flicking the blood off of his blade as he turned on his heels slowly to shoot a cold glare at the Tyger Claw Netrunner standing behind him with a Smart Pistol drawn and shaking in his small, slender right hand. The sound of his ally's screaming marked the color draining from the Netrunner's face as his green-colored Netrunning suit squeaked against itself and he backed a few steps away from Spencer.
"止める！" The Netrunning Tyger commanded the moment Spencer stepped forward, over the bleeding-out Tyger Claw man with his thigh flayed. Instead of pulling the trigger of his weapon, the whites of his blue eyes glowed a hazy green as they fell over Spencer.
He recognized that glow. It was the one dancing around the blackness of his girlfriend's optical implants every time she opened her Cyberdeck. He could visualize the dignified smirk on Hailey's face as she watched somebody scream and pull desperately away from a priming grenade glued to their hand, plucked from their very own person.
That memory was snatched by the collar and ripped into the present, then, as Spencer felt his body’s temperature readings spike with virtually zero warning; an overbearing heat welling up from within his every implant as the Netrunner’s eyes quit their glowing and he again threw himself backward. Spencer gave a grunt as, with a roar, the fibers in his synthetic flesh burst alight in red-hot flame, his Cyberware running hotter than what was typically safe for operation and searing the sheaths of flesh that had been dug out for cybernetic inhabitants with a stomach-churning sizzle. Flame licked up his sleeves and his pantlegs, curling around his face and stinging his eyes as layers of his synthetic skin began to crack and peel away from layers underneath as he burned and recoiled from his enemy.
Chapter 4
Chapter Text
He groaned as his legs moved, his brain’s inputs moving through his overheated circuits far too slowly and leading him to take but one sad, hobbling step forward before realizing that he couldn’t sprint or dash in his condition. His speed was of no use to him at present, which was quite unfortunate when he considered that it was in all likelihood his strongest attribute, but he was also scrappy. He could find some other way to—
“f*ck!” Spencer hissed as a Smart bullet whizzed up to him and popped him straight in his cheek after a pull of the trigger from the Netrunner. The bullet sent sparks outward as it clashed with the golden Cyberware contouring Spencer’s cheekbone, singeing a portion of the metallic piece on his left cheek black. The fire inside his flesh only grew in intensity as the Daemon uploaded to his system burrowed itself deeper and deeper into his software, and Spencer grew frustrated with how irritating the Overheat Daemon was proving to be the longer he tried to think over the few moments that had passed since it was uploaded.
He was reminded of his early life on the streets. Pinned down by older, stronger, meaner kids- Vanessa, mostly- he’d always had the same thought. He wouldn’t need to put up with it anymore once he grew up, chromed up, and got a grip on his own principals. He’d managed two of those three goals, thus far. He couldn’t be held down- by people or by the system- once he became almost as much machine as he was man, so why was he overthinking this? He was chromed out of his mind, wasn’t he? His inner child was f*cking giddy with all the implants he’d scored them, so why didn’t he just use the resources available to him?
A good question.
With a click, his left forearm’s golden plates slid open to expose a sleek, smooth interior of well-kept wires attached to a golden cylinder that peeked out to stare the remaining Tyger Claw in the eye. The hole in the end of the cylinder began to glow as Spencer’s left fist was aimed point-blank at the Netrunner, and the green-and-blue suited man shouted some kind of expletive that Spencer couldn’t understand either due to the roaring fire in his ears or the fact that he couldn’t understand Japanese. Spencer only gave a gruff chuckle at the man in front of him before his affect returned to a cold disinterest in whether the Netrunner lived or not, and the overcharging of the rocket in his arm finally completed.
With a deafening boom, fire of his own exploded from inside Spencer’s Projectile Launcher, the shrapnel and gas inside the bomb rushing up and out from inside the barrel of the launcher like it had countless times before to take yet another life. Hot scrap ate the man alive in a bright, fiery second, ripping his Netrunning suit to shreds as his skin and bone all were pulverized by a wall of kinetic pressure that shoved what remained of his headless, legless corpse back three meters and into a thin, metal sheet acting as a wall to a shack that collapsed under being shoved in. A bloodied shoe bounced to the ground- foot still inside- just in front of Spencer as the clap was silenced and the fire all over and inside his body was almost instantly extinguished, a sigh leaving his lips as his synthetic blood began to finally do its intended job and lower the temperatures of his implants.
Taking a moment to simply cool down after the sizzling of his synth-skin finally stopped and his injuries began to slowly heal themselves, Spencer grunted and stretched his still-hot muscles in his left arm to reach into his coat. He retrieved an object with a handle and a pump, which ended in a long, sharp, wide needle point, and with very little preparation or forethought, turned the massive, high-grade needle on himself and punched it right into the center of his chest from just above the low collar of his red, sleeveless shirt. It broke his synth-skin with a pop, and his metallic left hand then squeezed the handle of the injection tube to pump a heaping concentration of medications straight into his blood vessels.
A Militech Special Forces, military-grade Airhypo.
They costed him a f*cking fortune, but they were designed to more or less bring a cadaver back to fighting condition on the battlefield. Regular old inhalers stopped being all that effective for fixing up wounds or killing pain a while ago- probably a side-effect of his over-reliance on chemicals to keep himself stable- so he decided to get ahead of the curve and just start shooting himself up with the best damn combat stims money could buy.
He’d like to see anyone build a tolerance to that.
Tossing the emptied canister aside, Spencer turned away from the carnage he’d wrought, the splatter of blood and char beside him flowering out from where the Tyger Claw Netrunner had been standing still just barely in the corner of his vision. The used Airhypo clattered to the ground behind him, then, as his right shoe moved to kick outward and step down onto his heel. In the midst of those two noises was another sound- louder- that cascaded up the field of neon and concrete and metal as far as he could see in front of him. The sound bounced off of walls and windows and billboards lining the upper levels of Kabuki alike as it grew fainter and further away from him, and his overcharged reflexes gave him the clarity necessary to process just what exactly that sound was, and what he needed to do about it.
Seeing green, Spencer’s Sandevistan shot his spine full of both amphetamines and electricity- enough voltage to kill any souped-up Cyberpsycho if it weren’t for the drugs acting as a catalyst- and allowed him to stare directly at the slow spin of an approaching bullet; its metal shell long and golden as it crept forth at the speed a person might walk if they were in something of a hurry. Stepping to his right quickly, Spencer deactivated his Sandevistan after just two of his five safe seconds, giving himself plenty of stamina to start moving in real-time once color returned to his eyesight; his leg muscles now fully prepared to shoot him forward across the broken ground with all the speed they were capable of mustering.
Popping up two meters with a pump of anti-gravity from his leg implants, Spencer soared over a closed, metal gate connecting two concrete walls that formed the sides of the abandoned industrial lot just over the water that the arms deal had been arranged in. He hit the street on the other side with a light tap from his red-and-gold shoes, and turned swiftly on his toes to zip out of the way of another sniper round that smashed a hole the size of his head into the blacktop beneath his feet. Especially from so far away, he was virtually impossible to hit with speed and reflexes like his, and he was fully aware of that… as long as he kept moving.
“Spencer…!” A voice called from not-too-far away, just down the street and around the corner of an alleyway. He recognized it to be that of the female Valentino who had accompanied him and the two other men to the deal, and he took that to mean that her and her peer hadn’t been flatlined by the Tyger Claw sniper just yet; which was probably a good thing.
Avoiding another shot, Spencer hopped up from the road and planted his right foot on the hood of an orange car speeding away from the outburst of gunfire; a spray of precision rifle rounds cracking through the urban jungle just as Spencer kicked off the hood of the vehicle to whirl his body forward in a somersault before hitting the ground and dashing again in the direction of the voice and gunfire. Those gunshots seemed to be retaliatory from the Valentinos, the gangsters having likely been pinned down by the sniper and simply awaiting aid.
The voice screamed something indiscernible at the sniper far away from it over the sound of her own rifle firing, and then was cut off by the sound of an incendiary grenade detonating in the nook between a billboard and a tall, concrete building. The grenade’s blast shattered nearby windows as she gave a sneer, and Spencer’s golden eyes rolled.
She was having too much damn fun, and was going to get herself—
“f*ck!” The woman yelped after a bang. “f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, no!” She watched white paint a bouquet of liquid across the pavement as, with a scrape, Spencer’s two feet slid out from underneath him and the rest of his body tumbled backward along the path set by his legs’ momentum. His back and shoulders hit the ground and his head rolled to the side as he skidded to a stop, revealing a large, gaping hole blown through the side of his head. White synth-blood rolled out of the bullet wound in his fractured, metal-plated skull, and the gray of his brain could just barely be seen from the right angle as he lie, dead.
Shot through the side of his head by the sniper high above, Spencer’s systems began one by one to crash systematically. His brain cut from the heavy, sharp bullet slicing past it to cleave straight through the rest of his head, he could no longer see or feel or hear, and his heart- losing strength in his chest- struggled out one final pump…
Right before his eyes shot back open and his syn-lungs inflated with a full gulp of the garbage-smelling Kabuki air. Next to his Blood Pump, attached to the same arteries through a series of additional valves as his heart, quivered a white, plastic-looking organ that jump-started all of his systems back to working order. His hands slapped the pavement as he swung his bust up and from the ground, strands of straight, red hair falling down in front of him as he rose from his grave like a deity of the old world looking to demand tithe.
His Second Heart- a one-time-use implant with such a physical toll that it only worked on a host that was already dead, the kick of it turning on high-voltage enough to fry a living thing- sent Spencer shooting to his feet as his synth-blood continued pumping through his organic heart to reach his wounds. The nanomachines in his synth-blood wouldn’t be enough to close a bullet wound in his head, but they would stave off bleeding out until he could get proper medical attention. He stood straight up as if his body was started in high gear, not even taking a moment to ponder that he physically was not living for a split-second; his eyes shooting to the alleyway his men were holed up in just before his legs followed suit.
Darting off like he didn’t feel a thing, Spencer covered the last few meters between himself and the alley with a powerful bound. His killer failed to take another shot at him, either because he was too fast or because the sniper didn’t notice that Spencer had gotten back up, and he was able to shoot into the crevice between two crumbling, blue-gray concrete buildings unscathed with his knees taking the brunt of his weight as he ran into a slide before stopping.
“f*ck me!” The Valentino woman flinched from her position crouched just above wet, grimey ground as she fell onto her ass and leaned back to make room for Spencer’s incoming speed. She stared at him with massive, brown eyes and eyebrows arched high on her dark-brown face as her lime-green hair was blown back and off of her shoulders from the wind impulse made by Spencer’s landing. She looked as though she was in disbelief, a man who she’d seen die sitting right back up as if nothing happened.
“What?” Spencer glanced at the woman as he slammed his back into the wall behind them, using it as cover to stay as hidden from the sniper as possible. As he looked her over, he noticed the shape of a body lying behind her, the faint movements of a living thing catching his eye- breathing and muscles twitching- and causing him to slow himself down for a moment.
“I…” The woman sputtered at Spencer, “I thought I’s gonna be all alone here for a second, boss.” Her breathing hitched and she picked her gun back up from off the ground, her demeanor seeming to have been changed by what she saw. As though she knew now that they were dealing with a serious situation.
White dribbled down the side of Spencer’s head out of the larger crater made by the bullet’s exit wound, and his golden eyes slowly closed as a breath left his long, sharp nose. He supposed he had scared her somewhat, though he hadn’t even intended to. Sitting still for a moment longer, he watched her sigh and open her black-colored lips and speak again.
“Danielson caught one in the neck—” She explained to Spencer as he sat still finally, her head turning over her shoulder to rest her eyes over her ally. “Pumped him full of meds. He— he stopped gurgling, finally, so I guess…” She trailed off as she stared over the man and then slowly turned back to Spencer to take in his stony face.
He looked over her shoulder at the still Valentino as well, and then his hard facial features softened as he recalled that not every person around him was necessarily going to be an obstacle like he was led to believe almost by default; these two gangsters accompanying him were nothing except on his side, yet his immediate reaction was to just… let them die. How long did he expect the Valentinos to put up with everyone in his crew dying virtually every time he went out on a job? Did he not think they’d grow privy eventually?
“Sit him up.” Spencer directed the woman as the leather on his back scraped against the concrete wall behind him and he stood up against it. Reaching into his coat again with his free Cyber-hand, Spencer begrudgingly parted with another of his limited medical injectors as he tossed the syringe into the woman’s lap with a plop. “He starts looking or sounding like he’s gonna flatline again, punch him with that.” He paused before looking out of the alleyway as if he planned to dart away again. “If you do, he won’t.”
The woman jumped slightly again as Spencer moved, like she was transfixed on his every action and was surprised to see him moving again so suddenly. Looking over the Airhypo that she scooped into her right hand, her brown eyes returned to the one who had given it to her. “Jesus Christ, Spencer,” She gasped, shooting a look from the syringe to the man and then back again, “you’re takin’ these? Some strong f*ckin’ meds; you sure you—”
“My meds, my f*cking business.” He snapped back at the woman with a glare before turning his head away once more. Just because he didn’t want to just let Danielson die didn’t mean he’d be particularly friendly with either of them. “You did what you could, Naomi,” Spencer continued a bit less defensively, “now I’ll deal with the last Tyger.”
“With a f*cking hole in your head?!” Naomi replied, astonished at the sheer grit on display before her. “Chombatta, we need to grab Dani and delta; I already called a car.” She explained with a tilt of her green head as Spencer gave a scoff in return.
“So the sniper can pick off our driver mid-getaway?” He retorted. “I’m not your f*cking choom, I’m your superior, and you’re gonna do what I say.” Pointing his left hand’s golden, cybernetic index finger at Naomi, he turned to face the street. “Stay. Here. You’ll know when it’s safe.”
And, just like that, Spencer made his leave. He dashed out of the narrow alleyway with a wake of wind behind him, cutting into the empty road and crossing over the two pale, old-looking yellow lines streaking up the middle. He shot forward with such force that any incoming vehicle may well have only run through his afterimage anyway, though that particular variable was all but removed thanks to the scene that the preceding firefight had caused; ensuring that mostly everyone in the immediate eastern Kabuki area had fled inward to Little China or- if they were smart- across the river to Japantown. That also meant that the police had to have been called.
sh*t.
Spencer fell forth on his right ankle, letting his hips pivot and his left leg to kick out and take his weight. This let him change his direction with a sharp, inhuman angle, making damn sure he couldn’t catch another shot to anywhere vital by remaining moving in confusing, zig-zag patterns across the cracked road and sidewalk. A sniper round whizzed just over his shoulder, then, scraping his cheek and blasting through a storefront window behind him with an unbelievable crash; aimed expertly for his back- obviously intended to disable his Sandevistan- but dodged just as well as the Valentino pivoted and changed direction.
There was the sniper.
He gave a huff as he zipped around a narrow angle again, springing off of his left foot to barrel straight toward the high, multi-story, blue building that the sniper round had been fired from. Avoiding another shot and only confirming that he was headed in the right direction, his golden eyes scanned up the length of the building that he needed to cross the street to end up just at the base of, and he spotted the glow of a sniper scope’s powerful lens catching sunlight and shooting it back out the way it faced.
The glint- lasting only a moment before the attacker behind the weapon presumably realized their mistake- shimmered atop a browned, metal drum affixed to the high rooftop. The drum had a slight point to its top and stilts on its bottom, and around its rotund body, a railing separated a narrow walkway from a plummet to the rooftop below.
The water tower made for the perfect sniper’s nest, as long as one could remain undetected.
Knowing another bullet simply had to be coming and not wanting a repeat of what came before with the side of his head being blown out, Spencer preemptively tossed himself forward and onto his left hand as he sprinted across the street. He was correct, of course, as another powerful metal hunk was blasted into the pavement just behind him, leaving a pothole in its impact as his rapid momentum sent his legs swooping up and over his head. He flipped up so his weight was distributed perfectly on his cybernetic hand as his coat tumbled down and his red, sleeveless shirt slipped down his stomach, and he made a choice.
It wasn’t like he could sprint straight up the building- it was too much ground to scale using his Sandevistan- and his leg implants could only pop him into the air so far. But, he couldn’t reposition without being shot, either. He would need to take too much time to scramble to his feet and dart away; he would absolutely lose the engagement if he tried it. He was, however, more or less sitting right on top of a rocket inside his left forearm…
Fire and shrapnel screamed up from the pavement beneath Spencer’s left hand, an explosive warhead detonating on collision with the ground and scraping away red paint from the sidewalk and etching black scorch onto the road in a floral pattern around his body. The kickback- a shockwave flying out in all directions- shoved Spencer off of his hand with a grunt from behind his gritted, golden teeth as he launched himself fast and high into the air with a rumbling boom.
Glass from the building he shot up the side of shattered inward in response to the blast, and as his center of gravity began to right itself and his front-flip started all the way back on the ground came to a close, Spencer’s eyes landed on his Tyger Claw sniper. She wore all black- a rarity among her gang- and her hair was pulled up and shoved into a hood, likely to hide its aggressive colors. It was clear she wanted to stand out as little as possible, which made sense considering her one job was likely to snipe a group of unsuspecting Valentinos from afar and then make her escape totally undetected.
Displaying nerves of molten steel, though, the Tyger took a step back and raised her long, shimmering Tech Sniper. Like the scope was simply an extension of her eyes, the glassy circle followed Spencer up and over the rooftop, and over the water tower, until his rocket-propelled rise came to a slow. His arc in the air reached its peak, and right as his feet flipped back underneath him, he could stare straight down the barrel of the sniper rifle.
He was beaten completely.
The Tyger Claw woman had a perfect shot on him, and from in the air, he could do very little to actually stop her from taking it and blowing his head off for good, this time. If only there was some way for him to maneuver out of the line of fire; some way that he could fall faster.
f*cking-A.
Watching the world bleed green, Spencer switched on the metal spine attached to his actual spine and felt his nervous system sizzle with the kick of drugs and electricity shooting through it. His Sandevistan activated with the sound of time grinding itself thin, and he readied his steely blade as his arc began to invert itself through the effects of gravity. He fell at speeds that were perceived as ‘normal’ to him, his weapon clasping itself between his two hands as he poised to land feet-first just in front of the Tyger Claw sniper.
With a quiet clang that sounded more like a bell tolling than any kind of metallic impact, Spencer’s feet touched down on the rust-colored water tower’s walkway. Trailing behind him was his old machete, flipped blade-out as his knees bent with the weight of his falling and his waist scrunched to bring his arms and shoulders cleaving forth from over his head.
Cracking the skull and starting down into the face with a blade as heavy and sharp as his was easy enough, but with the added force of moving at so many dozens of miles per hour, it felt as smooth as cutting clean air as red shot up and out from a crevice cleaved in the woman’s head. Like a geyser, blood blossomed slow from Spencer’s perspective as the neck and collarbone were the next to be sliced clean through, and then the breastplate followed.
Quickly and with very little time for reaction, the woman’s visual on her target went blurry. He seemed to melt before shooting down to the surface she stood on and dragging his machete down and through her entire body. Her sagittal plane was divided evenly, slicing her left and right symmetrical halves into separate lobes that sprayed crimson out and up through all angles. Splitting with an awful tearing sound, the two halves of woman slid away from one another as the blade of Spencer’s machete sunk into the metal walkway beneath his feet after shearing down between the sniper’s legs. The two pieces parted with a grotesque pop finally, wet, red innards of all varieties spilling out and onto Spencer’s red shoes as each part of the woman fell in different directions onto the walkway to pour crimson onto the rooftop below.
Standing in two sunken-in divots a meter apart, Spencer’s Sandevistan was deactivated and his vision became clearly colored once again. He’d hit the walkway with such force that his shoes dented the metal he stood on, but that was of no concern as he yanked his machete’s black handle up as he stood; the blade becoming un-wedged in metal as he straightened his back up and squared his shoulders. Breathing out heated exhaust from his speed-demon processor implant, Spencer’s eyes scanned the skyline of the sprawling pink, blue and green-colored metropolitan area expanding inland as far as Megabuilding H10 and beyond.
All of Watson smelled of sea-soaked garbage.
He’d won, though, and that was what was important. Picking his shoes up to pull them out of the metal craters they were buried in, Spencer turned around- away from the water tower and the carnage he made- and placed his leftmost cyber-hand on the metal railing in front of him to hold his weight before hopping up and simply throwing his legs over the edge.
He fell a handful of meters before hitting the concrete rooftop flat on his feet with a thud that shook its very foundation. Though his knees buckled slightly, the fall proved to be essentially nothing for him, so he continued on his way over to the left-hand side of the building; the side facing north. Walking past generators and other various utilities, Spencer arrived at a drop just above the alley in question, his golden soles stopping just barely peeking over the building’s lip.
Looking down and feeling relieved- not that he particularly cared for them but that he didn’t have to deal with insubordination- that Naomi was still there with Danielson still looking to be in alright shape. That meant he could put the whole mess of an operation behind him sooner.
Taking a simple hop off the ledge, Spencer rocketed at the ground from much further up than maybe he should’ve, but he was largely not worried for his safety.
After all, he had his chrome to rely on.
He activated his leg implants once again, their burst-power engines exploding with a pump of reversed gravity to negate the speed in which he approached the ground. Slowing himself considerably with that technique, Spencer still crashed into the ground with a heavy, loud smash and still cracked the blacktop underneath him, but was unharmed as a whole.
Naomi, not seeming to have been expecting her superior back so soon, jumped again at the sound of his return far behind her. She watched him walk casually over to her with her black lips held slightly ajar at the sight of him; beaten to hell, a hole in his cranium, and the front of him covered in two different colors of blood, both organic and synthetic. He looked like he was on the verge of dying- for real, this time- yet he moved along as though he was just fine.
"NCPD'll be all over these docks in no time." Spencer informed his Valentino subordinate as he sheathed his machete and stopped just before her crouched form. "Tyger Claws won't like hearin' what happened here, either. Getting gone really soon is probably our best bet." Looking down as his black trench coat fluttered closed over his bust, he nodded to the crippled man lying still on the ground. "Can he walk, you think?"
Naomi looked at her peer and then back to Spencer before giving her head a slow shake in reply. "Nah," She said, "doubt it." She watched Spencer nod and, as he moved forward, she popped up and to her feet to back out of his way.
His head and shoulders dipped down to allow for both of his hands to wrap around the legs and lower back of Danielson. Giving a harumph of effort from his lips as he was already rather worn-out, Spencer hoisted the hurt Valentino onto his shoulder with a bounce. His cybernetic hand rested on the man’s back as his arms draped down Spencer's back, and Spencer leaned his weight to his right slightly to counteract the awkward distribution of Danielson’s body mass dragging his left side down.
“What about that car you said you called?” Spencer asked after standing straight and becoming still for a moment. He felt that, other than what was necessary for his thoughts to be conveyed, there was little to say to Naomi. Though, he supposed, he had always been that way.
“They, uh,” Naomi shook her shock off and started placing her feet before one another to join Spencer, “parked by the Brooklyn Barista a few blocks out.” She answered, finding it somewhat uncomfortable to have to speak in so many more words than Spencer seemed to need. “Sent a cleaner crew with them, too. Should… I message them—”
“Yeah.” Spencer cut her off with his own affirmative as his head of red hair turned to look over his shoulder. “Smart move; the cleaners. Someone’s gotta take that box of gear back to the Alley and pick the bodies for cash.” He spoke with a certain airy tone, as if those were things he hadn’t gotten around to thinking about quite yet.
“Well—” Naomi stammered as she picked her Tech rifle up and off of its side to slot it onto her back holster, “can’t really take all the credit for that, boss.” Once her weapon had been holstered and she had free hands, she placed her tanned palms out modestly. “Wasn’t my idea.”
With interest fully piqued now at such a response, Spencer raised a red eyebrow and slowly spun himself around on his heels to face Naomi. “Oh, yeah?” He asked. Who back in Valentino Alley could have possibly cared enough about an operation that they weren’t involved in to supersede the job’s leader- himself- and send an unasked-for cleaning crew? “Whose was it, then…?”
Naomi stalled at the question placed before her. It was as if she had expected him to know already by the way her brown eyes shot to her left and right like she wasn’t sure how to answer him. “I mean… who else?” She asked quietly, before her next words drew a sigh of pure, unmistakable stress from Spencer’s long, sharp nose. “It was Senora Helena Suarez.” She shrugged. “Your mom.”
Chapter 5
Chapter Text
“Dios mio!”
“Hi, mom.”
The door of a heavy-bodied, low-riding Alvarado car thumped shut behind Spencer as he stood from out of the black-leather interior of the back seat. Behind him, a small crew of people rushed in through the vehicle’s other side to pull Danielson’s limp body out from inside. He moaned quietly as they rushed him off- likely for medical attention- and Naomi from the back as well clambered out and followed them.
The car then simply pulled away, down the dark, shaded, concrete-and-glass canyon road leading out of the heart of Valentino Alley. Standing alone, Spencer frowned at an older woman with stressed, deep-set wrinkles on her forehead and the corners of her mouth. Her hair was curled tightly and jet-black despite her age, and her brown eyes combined with it to give her an appearance as far removed from Spencer as one might get.
They looked like different people, save for the deep-set wrinkles on her face mirroring exactly where skin on Spencer’s was folded with his low eyebrows and cold, distant frown.
“My Spencer,” The chrome-junkie’s mother approached him slowly as she stared up and into the crater of white-soaked flesh and metallic bone fragments gaping in the side of his head, “what… in the f*ck happened to you?” She asked, like any concerned parent would, with a high-pitched coo to her words as her head tilted. As her left hand reached up, the dim flash of a street light kicking on reflected a sparkle off of a diamond shape on the base of the under-side of her wrist.
“It happens all the time.” Spencer lied dismissively as he pulled away and his golden eyes shot down to catch the faint shimmer now dimmed by the shadow of his head. Avoiding her touch, Spencer’s own left hand swiped up through the air to snatch his mother’s wrist and twist it slightly toward himself. Catching a much better eyeful of the metallic object, Spencer made a face of confusion, like he demanded an answer. “When the hell did you get a Personal Link?” He asked, though it was really more like a quick, resourceful observation.
Sighing, his older mother let her posture falter and didn’t bother trying to take her arm back. Lacking much of the fire Spencer knew her for, she spoke. “A few weeks ago,” She started, dejectedly, as she glanced up at Spencer, “I was missing your dad, and thinking about you- my chromed-up king of Heywood- and…” She eyed her son’s golden, robotic hand that extended well up his forearm. “I wasted a lot of years.” Helena put it bluntly, as she expressed herself in a way that Spencer wasn’t quite sure she ever had to him, before. “I don’t think we've seen each other since…”
“Seventy-two.” Spencer’s bluntness made up for his abruptness, doing a fairly awful job at hiding the fact that he simply had that date on-hand, like it was something on his mind frequently. He simply continued to oppress his mother with his icy stare, silently inviting her to continue.
“The year your father died.” Helena gave a slow nod. “I thought about how… little I supported you- this-” She scanned her eyes up-and-down his body, referring to the dozen implants stuffed into him over the last decade, “when you were growing up. God led me to the answer,” She brought her explanation back around to the question at-hand, then, “to finally show you that I recognize something you’re passionate about, mijo.”
Watching his mother turn her face into a smile- a real grin with full teeth and the corners of her eyes lifting up- Spencer released her left arm and stepped back with a punch of surprise sinking into him. His mother- Helena Suarez- sporting a cybernetic implant? Hadn’t she spent his entire young life advising him against all of his chrome? Now, all of a sudden, after her years and years of parenting had already shaped him- for better or for worse- she wanted to act like she made a mistake? Like she was sorry for being the one who taught him how to distance himself from everyone- everything- else?
"Mijo, are you alright…?" Helena asked quietly as she eyed the emotions cracking the stony shell covering her son's face. She could see that she upset him, somehow, but as her black eyebrows pressed inward and raised against one another, she couldn't begin to fathom why. "What did I say, Spencer? Isn't this what you wanted…?" She asked again, as Spencer’s head slowly shook and he stepped to the side and away from her.
She had changed so much since his father died. Since he was a child. He barely even recognized the woman who forced her God on him, and made her opinions his problem to deal with. The one who openly prayed for her boy's soul the day he returned home with a rocket launcher stuffed into the forearm of a synthetic limb that was never his own as his first combat implant to better contribute to profits for his gang family.
“Nice to see you, mom.” Spencer let words fall from his lips sloppily as he seemed to stumble over just how exactly to respond. Shaking his head, he finished backing away a meter or two, and then started past her. “I need to get to a Ripper, if you’ll excuse me…”
He shuffled past quickly, causing the older woman to whip around after him and watch him go with a pensive grimace on her tanned face. He didn’t look back as he made his first face-to-face talk with his mother in over five years a notably short one, ignoring her attempt at reconciliation as coldly and ghost-like as she had demonstrated to him decades ago. Something about acting like his childhood never happened- as if he didn’t stuff himself full of Cyberware because his mother made his simple, boyish fascination with it as a child into a taboo- simply offput him. He needed to leave, and he was happy to take the first and best excuse he had to do so.
“Spencer—!” She called after him, though she didn’t follow. He made it quite clear that he didn’t want her to, even if he didn’t think he did. Grinding his golden teeth against one another as he picked his pace up faster and stared ahead at a corner he needed to turn to make it to a Valentino-owned Ripperdoc’s clinic, he struggled to listen to one last line that said to him all about his mother’s plight that he needed to hear to feel dignified.
“Spencer, mijo, what do you want from me…?!”
Hailey flicked the orange end of a cigarette into a pile of identical bits, red ash scattering along the dirtied, gray interior of a plastic-like bowl sitting alone on the small shelf of a cubby etched into a slick, white wall. She needed the break; nicotine and noxious vapors helping her headspace along to a spot where she needed it to be.
It wasn’t that she had never been attacked before, but Doyalah had interrupted a train of thought- a very specific train of thought- that Hailey had formulated just after going against her client’s wishes and murdering about a half-dozen Arasaka grunt workers. She didn’t introspect often, damnit, and he’d come along and thrown her off.
She wasn’t about to finish her thinking or come to any healthy conclusion- no- not now, or any time in the immediate future if she could help it. Her cigarette wasn’t to help her ‘think’ or ‘calm down’; she inhaled it so quickly upon getting home to give herself something to occupy her body with while her brain switched gears- as it were- away from gunfire and Quickhacks, and focused more on what her parents and childhood teachers would have called ‘real’ Netrunning. The concept of a combat Quickhack would have simply given her instructors a misaligned processor pin, leading to a full-on meltdown.
As a black, glassy door on the leftmost wall opened and Hailey crossed the threshold, she did her best to imagine that she agreed with them.
Sticks of cinnamon with long, white planks on the ends ran slowly across the smooth, black surface of synthetic leather pulled tightly over the cushioned arm of a chair sitting alone in the center of a small, dark room. The sticks curled into a pensive fist against the palm of a hand they were attached to, and the purple, leathery arm running up from it pulled away and back to the side of a rubbery, black thigh.
Hailey looked down the ridge of her slender, upturned nose at the sleek, new-looking chair sitting on the floor completely by itself, boxed in by four cramped walls that made the room feel almost more like a closet. A glowing purple hue shone out from a box fitted flush with the glossy, white wall, and thick, rubbery wires lined up against one another neatly ran down the side of the wall from the box to the bottom of the back of the chair, funneling into a metallic, ring-like port.
She wasn’t sure, honestly, if she regretted spending so much money on a Netrunning chair like this one as opposed to working out a more comfortable living situation than a tiny apartment in the lower floors of Megabuilding H8; though she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel like the cool, soft, slightly-squeaky synth-leather of an Arasaka deep dive chair didn’t feel like home to plop her cool, soft, slightly-squeaky, rubbery-coated ass down into.
The door behind her on the wall of her dive room, separating her from the rest of her apartment, hissed as it closed automatically behind her entering through it. Walking around the side to the foot of her expensive chair, Hailey shook her slender, suited-up shoulders up and out of the collar of her purple Pozer jacket, and then let the leathery garment fall down her back and into her hands. She tossed it aside, then, as she stopped there in front of the cupped, cradle-like seat on the front of the Netrunning chair, and then brought her left hand back behind her neck to lay a palm flat against the spot where her magenta curls unfurled down slightly; the frizzy ball’s volume fighting with its weight to maintain its circular shape right where a round, metallic opening stared out at the wall.
Mirroring the port on her chair, the neural port on the back of her neck was something she was glad she didn’t need to look at. She was glad she didn’t need to remember it, most of the time, but the thought that she couldn’t remember life without the slick ring of metal stuck through a congruent circle in the black coating of her Netrunning suit always seemed to roll back into her head in the moments before a dive. The fact that she was so young when she was told she would be a fantastic Netrunner and stuffed full of RAM and memory drives and her Cyberdeck that her parents had gotten made custom for their little prodigy…
Reaching for the headrest of the chair as she turned around and began to sit, Hailey’s hand pulled a thick, circular, metallic prong out with a black wire connected to it tracing into the innards of the chair. It fed out with a zip as she pulled it around to the front of her and then laid back in her seat, eyes staring emptily up at the ceiling.
She glanced aside at the glowing box- a personal server to house all of her Netrunning tools, as one had- and activated the Cyberdeck soldered onto her brain to interface with it remotely. Like second nature, the green glow dancing off of her eyes allowed her to access virtual addresses of thousands of networks in Night City and select one particular code from a list of addresses in a subfolder labeled simply as "Biotechnica Incorporated". Drawing a deep breath into her artificial lungs as if she were preparing to literally dive into a body of water, Hailey lined up the jack for her chair with her neural port, and then plunged the metallic drive into the back of her neck.
Opening her eyes after a clipping sound and then a flash of color, Hailey stared up at ethereal lines of blue scratched together loosely to form an illusion of a three-dimensional construct before her. Additional structures filled her eyesight as she glanced around herself and felt nothing against the digital engram of her skin other than the empty coldness of the Net.
Not quite in Cyberspace, Hailey stood just before the wall separating the public Night City Network from Biotechnica's private corporate servers; a place where her presence wasn't all that much of a surprise. Everybody accessed this level of the Net every single day, though not quite interfaced the way a Netrunner could be- but still, nonetheless- she was just another user online to any algorithm that may have been watching the data streams.
That would change quickly, though, as when Hailey reached the idea of her hand out to touch the idea of Biotechnica's firewall, a large, black screen popped open in front of her out of nowhere and nothing. A grid etched itself out of the black tile, and in the spaces of the grid appeared short, two-digit pieces of a code.
Entered in the right sequence, these bytes of code would decrypt into a sort of skeleton key that could be used to unlock any door in the network they originated from. That was what a Breach Protocol was. It was how she'd killed Doyalah, and it would be how she obtained answers to every question she wished she could ask his corpse. All she needed to do was to eke out the correct sequence based on the surface code of the network and…
As if a starting pistol at a race was fired into the air, a selection box began to shoot in zig-zag, lattice-like movements at breakneck pace over the code grid, punching out a byte in one row and then down to eliminate one in the same column, then again in that new row; repeating that pattern in blindingly fast succession before- in front of her first grid- a new one appeared.
Corporate dataforts, like Doyalah's, always had several layers of ICE to break. The sudden appearance of a new Breach Protocol grid told Hailey that she was successful already in cracking one layer, and that all she needed now was to persevere with data she'd gleaned from the first grid to break through the remaining layers; however many that might have been.
The textureless black of her simulated suit pressed harder against bricks of tightly-packed code as the new Breach Protocol grid flashed with the rapid selection of short key pieces. She broke the second layer quicker than the first, having picked up useful information from breaching the first, which implied a pattern of finishing this process sooner rather than later.
Soon, a fourth grid popped up, and in a flash, was replaced by a fifth. That, too, was solved almost faster than it could propagate in the void, as the glowing, blue firewall suddenly split down its center. With the near-instant completion of the thirteenth and final grid that had streaked in a line of others like it in front Hailey's digitized eyes, the Biotechnica countermeasures parted the rest of the way from the point where they had split; blue walls shooting apart to either side of the Netrunner before them to reveal a deep, thrumming, red walkway. The edge of the walkway faded into a spaced-out cloud of cubic particles just before Hailey, not daring to continue past where the firewall had been to keep it guarded.
Though it was narrow, Hailey could still easily step her metaphysical, undefined foot down and onto the path from where she stood in the public Net. Her body but a black shape with only loosely-identifiable human attributes other than her face and ball of fluffy, magenta hair, Hailey crossed the threshold from the public Net to a local, private Subnet, normally inaccessible through remote means; this Biotechnica server was for employees and shareholders, and could only be breached through proximity to Biotechnica servers and with a unique access code. Hailey, technically, had neither of those things.
She lived in Japantown, and she certainly wasn’t even close to being allowed a key to any corporation’s private networks. She did, however, possess a near-untraceable virtual private network to feign proximity, and the means to forge her own illegal key to the servers. That was really all Netrunning was, for her; as simply-understood as anything could be. But, for some reason, everyone always acted like it was supposed to be hard or dangerous.
Well, maybe she could understand the dangerous part.
“f*ck!” She muttered, her non-corporeal voice echoing slightly as she immediately felt a wave of code crash into her to try and force her out. She wasn’t deep enough in the subnet for any Biotechnica Netrunners to have detected her presence, so she was able to at least surmise that whatever tried- a second time- to shove her out was automated. Likely some internal antivirus identifying her engram as a line of errant code needing deleted, the system began to vibrate the blue walls on either side of Hailey. Splotches of them began to dissolve, de-spawning as though they were crumbling to bits of digital dust, and out from the holes on her left buzzed what manifested to her as large, metallic drones with boxy bodies and simulated weaponry.
“Of course you f*ckers bought Militech virtual security.” Hailey grumbled, holding still as the drones- not actual, literal entities but more like individual anti-malware programs being identified through the processing power of her Cyberdeck as physical combatants- scanned up and down the walls that they emerged from. It wasn’t like any old Quickhack could work. These weren’t real combatants; they were just code. She knew that.
Cheap, and easily-fooled, though if they detected her and reported her to Biotechnica employees, she would be done for. Dozens of Netrunners would be dispatched to her position, and she would be fried in her chair before she could even consider jacking out.
Thinking quickly and using her Cyberdeck’s most basic function- code-writing- Hailey manifested a script from the nothingness of the Net before her with her almost-real eyes shifting about in their non-sockets. She was already inside Biotechnica’s Subnet, so she could work with that; writing a script to paste over herself using copies of bytes from surrounding code that made her appear to the algorithms as a simple software update Daemon.
Covering her in digital camouflage, her script rewrote the virtual space around her so that she might pass as an unscheduled- but still needed- program with nothing other than good intentions. Her fake code stated that she carried with her a new version of the lower-level Subnet operating system, which she needed to access all low-level Subnet floors to upload successfully. She was just a simple Daemon, made to make Biotechnica’s life easier, and she must have just been forgotten about by the Netrunners in charge of writing and deploying hotfixes to the local Net. She wore this script like a suit, its strings of data altering her foreign appearance to the security systems as they bumbled up to her and began sniffing at her like a pack of starving dogs might something that almost vaguely smelled of meat.
Five of them in total; that seemed like a lot. Was Biotechnica always this secretive about their files and databases, or was this some kind of new push? As far as she knew, it wasn’t like Biotechnica was all that overtly shady; not like Arasaka or Militech or NetWatch were, anyway. So, what was it that they had to hide? Nothing?
Probably.
In all likelihood, as the security ‘drones’ fluttered away from her in disinterest, it was probably as simple as Biotechnica being a massive Megacorp, and wanting only to protect their precious data from anybody who might be able to snoop inside and steal it. She didn’t plan to take anything- she wasn’t deep enough to be able to copy or download anything, anyway- but she did plan to snoop around and learn some potentially damning deets.
Keeping the disguise plastered onto her artificial engram, Hailey took what felt like a breath of cold, dead, lack-of-air, and then began to move carefully. The security systems all nestled their ways back into the breached firewall to decompile into virtual sand and re-join the all-but-metaphorical Subnet all around her, and she walked slowly along the thin, red line leading her down the stretching canyon of blue reaching upward- or, rather, what appeared to her hot-running brain as upward- at her either side.
Stopping quickly after walking for a moment, Hailey’s attunement with the Net brought her gaze to her right, to a section of firewall that looked no different from any other; though for reasons only a Netrunner could fully grasp, the data inside it piqued her interest. The code simply… felt like what she was looking for. Data she didn’t even know was compared to what she thought she needed, and was subconsciously drilled into her mind.
Turning casually, Hailey strolled over to the side of the red path and stared into the firewall in front of her. It reacted in-time, obeying her innate control over this domain as it began to vibrate before splitting open just as its parent firewall had. A path was bored through the side, and the red walkway began to propagate more tiles to spawn a tangible hitbox that led into the second, offchute tunnel in the right side of the original firewall. Hailey smirked, and with eyes forward, allowed herself in.
Like the seemingly endless, enigmatic layers of a wooden matryoshka, the network opened itself in segments to reveal similar, smaller copies of the same space, with differences minute enough for only a true artesian to notice. Hailey wasn't a Russian woodworker, but she was a Netrunner, and if one were to ask her, her old teachers or Spencer, a damn good one.
The sides of the new tunnel rippled as Hailey strolled past them, as if her warship of a consciousness simply being there displaced such mass that it cast a wake into the sea of data. Her pink-topped head swiveled on her slender, black , untextured shoulders to scan over the walls of the Net now excited at her presence, and she watched smaller, incomplete cracks shoot up and down the blue, holographic-looking structures. They weren't fully completed like the first two, not separating their parent wall into additional layers but instead opening just a thin gap- a slot of some kind- on the surface.
Dozens and dozens of these slots were sliced open one-at-a-time at first, though as dozens more began to populate the Net, the time between them became almost instant. They cascaded in a flurry all the way down the long, ethereal hallway as far as Hailey could see on either side, and after a moment, she stopped her strolling.
Hailey looked up, the walls of the network shooting high into the void with just as infinitely many slots torn through them. Looking back down to a reasonable value, Hailey's digitized person jumped slightly in a recoil at the floating, black screen filling her vision all of a sudden.
Stepping back, she observed that it was simply a display, having shot from one of the walls and zipped in front of her. Squinting her non-existent eyes as if that would help her at all, Hailey ran her gaze over the empty square and then stepped back up to it once again.
At the far, top-left corner of the black, blinked a thin, blue bar. The insertion point stared out thoughtlessly, seeming to be awaiting instructions from whomever activated it. Hailey met its stare, though behind the idea of her black Kiroshi implants, there raced far more thought regarding just what the odd dialogue box wanted from her.
She was in a database, which she knew. She had been looking for… something. A list of Biotechnica clients, or something like that? Her instincts had led her here, inside another subfolder deeper inside the local Net. Now, she was being prompted to input something. A password? She would be able to use her Breach Protocol if that were the case, but that software didn't seem to be compatible with the kind of program before her. Slowly realizing just what it was, Hailey parted what felt like her lips to utter what sounded like words, but were as good as gospel to the algorithms and code engines filling the Net all around her.
"Bello." She stated, firmly, like she was a god commanding her will over this virtual realm. In plain, blue text, the dialogue box in front of her spelled out the letters of her family name the moment she spoke it. The insertion point blinked a few times more at the right of the 'o', before disappearing as the bright blue of the text dulled as though it were being submitted for processing.
Far in front of her, Hailey watched another rectangle of black slide out from inside the wall at her left. It floated in the middle of the hallway before it flew down the red path toward Hailey with its size shrinking down to about half the size of the large dialogue box before it.
The first box, clearly a search bar of some sort, shrank away into a single pixel that simply despawned as the new one stopped suddenly in its place. Sprawled over the new page was more simple, blue text, which spelled out words that Hailey was certain she might get to eventually, but three small images in the side margin to the right of the box caught her attention first.
The first, a man. Next, a woman. Finally, under them, a baby.
Her father, her mother, and…
"Subject File 8309684F: Bello, Hailey M." The top of the page read simply, before a series of lines of text underneath.
"Name: Hailey Marcellius Bello
Sex: Female
Date of birth (projected): 6/20/51
Projected DOB: Incorrect\\Revised > 6/23/51
Date modified: 10/12/50"
Modified? There was no way; she was perfectly normal, wasn't she? How could she have ever been modified?
"Parent(s): Marcus Wendt (Caucasian male), Ashante Bello (African female).
Status at the time of report: Engaged. Alive.
Reason for zygote manipulation: "To create a Netrunning prodigy for use in the Arasaka Corporation's ongoing feud with Militech. To prove our worth to the Corporation, even if only in our genetics."
List of modification(s):
Additional neural pathways (x50)
Brain surface area increased (3%)
Length between synapses shortened (10 nm)
Synapses fragmented (additional branches expected by sexual maturity: 8 million)
Cerebrospinal nerves thickened (100 nm diameter\\Expected nervous workload increase by sexual maturity: 12%)"
Hailey gave an awestruck gasp as she flicked her eyes over the file in front of her, shaking her head as she stepped back and away from it. What she was reading was… unbelievable. There was no possibility that it was her. It had to be some other Hailey Bello, from some other Arasaka family who had another Marcus and Ashante marry and have the man take his wife's name.
She never knew…
All this time… she was linked to another corporation. Another weight around her ankle that was anything but her choice. Her mother and father came to Biotechnica a little over eight months before she was born, and paid to have her brain more or less supercharged so she could…
So that meant that her Netrunning skills- her only real accomplishment in a life shaped by circ*mstance and pattern- weren't even her own to have made. They were quite literally handed to her as an infant, and all this time, she was running around with Biotechnica's f*cking property in her head, thinking she was hot sh*t as a Netrunner.
"f*ck…" Hailey breathlessly stammered as she watched the file close up into a black line and shoot back into the socket on the wall from whence it came. She needed to jack out. To breathe real air, and have a smoke, and think.
Up the concept of what was simulated as her spine, then, a chill ran. Like her very thoughts had been tapped by a prying wire, Hailey whipped around in the cold void of the Net to glare back at the way she'd come.
Standing there, a man- not a program, she could tell- stumbled back as he seemed to have been caught off-guard. His mouth opened in shock as a line of red code had been strung from him to Hailey, and it pulled tight as she effortlessly slipped code of her own into the stream.
A Quickhack progress bar filled in front of her face, displaying a Short Circuit Daemon that would cook her alive if she let it. She copied and pasted the same Daemon back into the stream and shot it the other way as her bar filled to ninety-eight, ninety-nine, then—
Chapter 6
Chapter Text
A light rain misted over the grimey brick paths running in a grid around Valentino Alley, illuminated by the soft, white glow of street lamps in the early evening. The low-riding muscle cars normally dotting every corner had mostly all been rolled into garages and the loose pods of Valentinos had followed suit into bars or apartments nearby.
Sitting on the concrete steps leading to the front entrance to one of those apartment buildings, Helena Suarez had sat herself down well before the rain started. Her knees bent tightly and the feet of her brown, syn-leather boots planted just a step beneath where she sat, she had been having second thoughts about doing what she was doing, but when the rain came to box her in, she'd decided to use that as an excuse- like it was a sign- to wait there.
She still remembered where the Valentinos' Ripperdoc stayed, and she had loosely followed Spencer from the Alley's entrance all the way back there, to where she was now. She wasn't sure if he knew or not, and she hoped he didn't plan on finding some way to avoid her instead of walking out the front door, lest she be sitting all alone in the rain for no damn reason.
Not long into her silent, rain-soaked moping, though, the entrance to the apartment building gave a clunk as a heavy, industrial, push-pull door swung outward behind her. She picked her head up and spun around, straining her neck to look over her shoulder at the black pantleg and red-and-gold shoes of the person who had exited standing on the top platform of the stairs. Looking up- as if she didn't know already- she smiled softly when an image of her son filled her vision as he finished swallowing something and then slipped a white pill bottle into a white, paper bag that his left hand crumpled the top of to close up. The gory, bleeding hole in his head had been patched over, seemingly, and he was back to looking like himself.
"Didn't think you'd stick around this long, honestly." Spencer started after locking eyes with his mother and taking a few slow steps down the short staircase. As he came closer, Helena stopped having to try so hard to look up at him, and opened her mouth as he slowly sunk down to sit next to her.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She quietly asked in reply, though she cringed slightly when Spencer almost immediately- very little pause between them- came back with words of his own.
"You know exactly what the f*ck I mean." He spoke blunt and hard as his forearms rested themselves on his knees and his shoes set themselves a few steps down from where he sat down. "C'mon, mom, what is this?" He asked. "Why are you here?"
Helena gave a whimper like a hurt dog as she looked down at her own hands folded in the lap of her blue jeans. "I already said, mijo," She said, "to see my son. Because I love you, Spencer." She explained herself confidently, as if that was all she needed to or had to say.
Spencer huffed from his nose. "We both know it's a little late for you to start saying that now." He seemed not to be taking her seriously.
"Spencer Camilo Suarez, who taught you to speak that way?" Helena quietly barked, finding Spencer’s cold disregard for her effort quite disrespectful. "I am your mother—"
"Well," Spencer met her increase in intensity with his own slight uptick, "that's f*cking news to me." He balled his fists, the bag in his cyber-hand crinkling as he continued. "When'd you decide that? Twenty years ago, or twenty minutes ago?"
Helena stopped her whisper-yelling. Spencer brought her temper down with just a few sentences, the sound of his voice echoing the way she herself used to speak, not long ago. In her brown eyes staring down at the stairs, water spotted up.
"I'm sorry, mijo." She shuddered out. "I mistreated you when you were a boy; I know. I made you feel like I didn't care for you and I want you to know that that isn't true." Helena spoke softly again, her tone to Spencer like something out of the uncanny valley. That was her voice, but those were not her words. "You deserved a mother twenty-eight years ago, and I wasn't prepared to be that for you when you were born." She looked at him, and ice stared back. "I was stuck living my teenage fantasy into my thirties; being a legend and making Heywood my bitch! I wanted to lead the Valentinos… and that ended up going nowhere." She did her best to explain her faults, to which Spencer stayed silent. "Nothing came of my career here… except you. I didn't make any legacy here, other than you. You're the Valentino I was trying to be, Spencer, and…" Helena looked away from him again, "and… I am so f*cking sorry for that."
Spencer's golden eyes grew wide and his red eyebrows were raised up and over his forehead, giving an expression quite unlike his usual range of emotions. He looked shaken, and shocked, and like he hated to hear what he was hearing. It was as though he was being told that his life was one big mistake on her part, but that it was okay, because it wasn't his fault. It was his life, damnit! None of it was okay!
"No, no, no!" Spencer turned the front of his mass to his mother as his left hand's golden index finger shot out from where it was curled to hold the paper bag and pointed in accusation at her. "You told me—!" He fumed, like he was slowly releasing words that had been held down for far too long. "You said being a Valentino was all that mattered! You're the one who taught me about God, and how usin' the 'tinos to 'glorify him' was all I needed to worry about!" He seemed to grow bigger, and his mother shrunk smaller in proportion. "That's what I did! I made being a Valentino my whole f*cking identity and now I'm, what, supposed to just take an 'I'm sorry'?" Spencer seemed to have almost been offended that Helena could have even considered that this ploy of hers would ever work. "And my chrome?" He asked. "That's preem, now? All-of-a-sudden? f*ck, mom; I only leaned so hard on this obsession 'cause you made me feel like you wouldn't give a sh*t about me regardless. It's not something I'm 'passionate' about," He quoted her words from earlier that day with a glare, "it's what I shoved into my body, trying to fill the f*cking mom-shaped hole that you left behind!"
Helena's bottom, brown-colored lip quivered as she simply took Spencer’s verbal beating, her eyes closing pensively as if her conscience was what was making her so docile. "But… you used to talk so much about it—"
"I was f*cking seven!" Spencer cut her right off, knowing exactly what she was trying to say and having none of it. "What punk kid doesn't dream of growing up, chroming up, and becoming a legend?" His words rang true to anyone listening. Everyone even somewhat on their side of the law had heard whispers about David Martinez and his Edgerunner crew failing as spectacularly as they had the year prior.
"Mijo, I'm sorry I…" Helena started, but trailed her voice off as she seemed to accept that nothing she said could fix what she'd done to Spencer. She sighed deeply from her round nostrils and ran her hand over her right cheekbone to rid herself of a streak of burning saline. "You've… always felt this way? Since you were a boy?"
Spencer's temper and emotions had come down as quickly as they'd shot up as he sat next to his mother and listened to her trying to speak her mind. "Honestly?" He asked in a rhetorical sense. "No. But yeah, kinda." Spencer explained, confusingly. "Pretty sure I did, but I never let myself… think it out like that. Always just shoved it down if I thought I was bein' blasphemous, or whatever." His eyes rested on the steps below his feet. "Surprised myself, too, blurting it out like that, as much as it surprised you. But… yeah." He nodded slowly. "Stop. I'm already who I am, and… it's all I've got." Spencer’s voice was soft for just a few words as he stood up and off of the step. "Don't try and be my mom now, okay? Just… stop."
Helena nodded as well, her eyes glued to the ground as she refused to look at her son. He was angry, and appeared to have been offended by what she thought was a kind gesture. "I see." She said quietly while Spencer began to walk down the short staircase and into her field of view once on the ground.
Spencer also avoided looking back at his mother, knowing that she would latch on to any vulnerability he showed, trying to 'toughen him up' or whatever it was she used to do to him as a child. That was the environment that raised him. He wasn't allowed to be vulnerable, because he had to be a Valentino, and to be a strong leader, he needed to stay steady. So, he obsessed over Cyberware, as any child with a dream for more power would. When his mother refused to acknowledge his clear insecurities, he leaned harder on that cybernetic crutch, until he looked in a mirror one day and could hardly recognize the cyborg staring right back at him.
"I gotta go." Spencer said, coldly; refusing to even think about changing his paradigm for his mother of all people, when it was her who made him the chrome-addict, sociopathic dorph-head he was in the first place. "Fixed the hole in my head, now I got another job to do. So…" He continued to stare down Valentino Alley, the opposite direction of his mother, "don't wait up." He simply began to walk, then, away from Helena as she said nothing in return. "Bye, mom."
And, like that, Spencer entered into the rain to leave Helena sitting alone under the awning-like space on the stairs. His eyes remained stony and his frown grew deeper as his fists both clenched and his shoes clicked against the wet pavement. Water bounced off of the thick, black syn-leather covering his shoulders, spotting the golden accents of his coat with moisture.
His conversation with his mother was over, whether he truly wanted it to be or not. There was so much more he wanted to say- beating the same points over and over again just to tell her how much he truly meant it- but he was already forcing himself to turn a corner and leave her line of sight. He knew it would serve very little purpose to continue their little talk, for either of them.
As he reached his left hand forward to tap it onto the black pad on the side of a larger, scaled, metal garage-like door on a smaller building, he reserved himself to the idea that he and her simply had no more to discuss. As far as he was concerned, she could die right then, and he would have had no regrets; nothing he'd have left unsaid. Nothing she didn't already seem to know all on her own, anyway.
"Alright," Spencer inhaled and swallowed his emotions as the silvery door in front of him slid up to reveal one small, yellow room, cluttered with technology and various mechanical parts, "what's this 'big plan' you've got lined up for me, Ruez?" His golden eyes fell over the backs of legs facing him as the red-and-gold rubbery material covering an ass squeaked against itself and the man it all belonged to stood up from where he had been leaning forward over a glowing computer terminal.
"Ah, Spencer!" The man, Ruez, clearly a Netrunner, shot a grin at his superior. "You wanna make a f*cking sh*t-ton of eds, choom? Christopher Ruez has got one hell of a scheme if you do!" He wore a glowing, red visor over his eyes as his brown skin contrasted the rest of his colorful, red outfit, lined with gold.
Spencer- whether due to his general demeanor or because of the emotional moment he'd just had- did not match Christopher's energy about making money. He looked over the Netrunner in front of him with a glare that was only a step above complete indignance; like Spencer didn’t completely hate him, but also wasn't a fan of his oh-so-chipper attitude, either.
Maybe his mother got further under his skin than he thought.
"...Right…" Christopher cleared the awkwardness out of his throat with a fist balled in front of his lips and then stepped away from the computer terminal he'd been working on with a squeak of his Netrunning suit. "Well," He continued, gesturing to the machine to invite Spencer forth to look for himself, "what would you say to procuring some of the finest chems for glitter-cooking this side of the NUS border?"
Unable to say immediately that that sounded like a terrible idea in a vacuum, Spencer hummed quietly and strode up to the long, rectangular screen stuck to the wall and begrudgingly settled his right hand over the mouse sitting on a desk just beneath it. Controlling the computer just fine with his off hand despite not wanting to, Spencer dragged his eyes along a line of text belonging to what appeared to be an order report of some kind.
"If you thought that sounded good," Christopher began as Spencer read things like 'Biotechnica' and 'inbound to Northside location' on the obviously-stolen cargo order form, "how'd you like to get it… for free?" He asked rhetorically with a cheeky grin, as if the Valentinos stealing was something even kind of somewhat out of the normal.
"Okay," Spencer finally said, "and these are all the deets you could pull from your last dive?" He glanced to his subordinate Netrunner from his spot leaned forward over the desk. While confirmation that the order had been placed within Biotechnica's headquarters was useful enough of a start to planning a heist, it wasn’t exactly all that impressive; especially not for what he knew a Netrunner could be capable of. He was pretty sure he knew a pretty good one, and her name was not Christopher.
"That's what I called you for, before you saw the Ripper;" Christopher explained his lack of data with a nervous chuckle. "I ain't actually done the dive, yet. What's on the comp is data I pulled from a shard I snatched from a Corpo on the NCART today." He explained himself, and then cleared his throat. "See, before Vanessa…" He trailed off, as if he didn’t wish to finish that sentence, "she always made sure she was in the room when us 'runners were diving." He placed a hand on the back of his black-and-red Netrunning chair and leaned into it.
Spencer scoffed. "Probably so she could monitor from the comp," He nodded his head of red hair aside to the terminal, "and control your dive if she needed to." He rolled his eyes, and Christopher gave him a look that communicated a clear misinterpretation somewhere between them.
"No…?" He half-questioned. "Said she did it so she could jack us out if sh*t hit the fan." Christopher raised a black eyebrow at Spencer as the cyborg gave a quiet laugh. "Anyway, since you took her job a while ago, I figure…" He gestured to the computer and then looked down at his chair.
A normie, jack somebody out quicker than a Netrunner could? That sounded like bullsh*t to Spencer, but he waved his golden, left hand dismissively anyway.
"Sure," He sighed, "I'll watch you from outside. Just pull out something good, huh?" Spencer nodded to the chair before Christopher gave a relieved exhale and hopped into it.
"Thanks, boss!" Christopher beamed, reaching behind him and pulling the connection cord out from the chair's headrest so it could near his neural port. "Hey, uh…" He glanced at Spencer before he could jack in, "you and Vanessa… didn't get along very well, did you?"
Spencer stopped moving and simply stared at the computer screen in response to being asked such a question. He remembered feeling her flesh tear at the behest of his blade, and he remembered looking down emotionlessly at her lifeless corpse once it had been done. Yeah, he supposed on account of Vanessa having been such an unbelievable bitch in life, one might be able to say that they didn't quite mesh like a couple of chooms.
"Jack in." Spencer promptly ignored the question after thinking for a long moment. He didn't plan to entertain anyone or anything about that woman ever again. She was dead, and that had been nothing but a good thing for him since he'd done it.
"Right." Christopher slowly acknowledged, nodding as he gathered that Spencer didn’t feel like talking. Sitting back in his chair, he stared up at the white ceiling, and then plunged his chair's jack into the circular port on the back of his head.
Spencer watched the systems displayed on the side of the monitor light up, brain activity and a temperature reading filling a margin that had been empty. The room went silent, then, as Christopher acted like he was either sleeping or dead, and Spencer simply watched his vitals through the corner of his right eye. A message popped up on the side of his vision at that moment from his holophone's neural link, the yellow box filled with black letters reading in the same exhausting way that Christopher always spoke.
"weird", Christopher shot one message to Spencer as he dove into the Net. "I don't even have to breach the wall". He sent another one after that. "it's already wide open."
"what?" Spencer blinked as he made a face and wrote a reply in an instant. "doesn’t that mean there's another runner inside?" He sent his message and received one back just as quickly.
"not always", Christopher wrote, "but yeah, probably".
Spencer held off on saying much else to Christopher in the time that it took for that exchange of messages to play out. He stood idly in the quiet room, considering that he would face no repercussions if he were to just delta and leave Christopher to deal with this messy situation himself. Frankly, Spencer couldn't believe it hadn't crossed the man’s mind to scan the network for any anomalies before diving in. He knew Netrunning could be dangerous, and especially so when the 'runner was acting like it wasn't.
But, then again, if he left, the Valentinos would lose out on a fairly promising heist. He had just gone on and on to his mother about how being a Valentino was his identity, and that was true, so it wouldn't make much sense for him to only do his job as a local gangoon leader when he felt like it. His small pocket of Valentino underlings could use that kind of cash to keep their operations afloat, so…
"sending you a pack of data I pulled from the fort", Christopher messaged suddenly, then, after a few minutes of silence. "went a completely different direction than the other runner", he explained through two additional texts, "probably won't even see him".
"just like that?" Spencer asked. "no security or nothing? you just walked in and pulled the deets?" He knew Christopher wasn't that great of a Netrunner; there was no way he found a way around corporate ICE so quickly and without saying so.
"ya", Christopher said, simply. "good stuff in here. shipping routes, delivery times, the shift schedules of the guards…" Christopher waited a long moment before sending another quick message. "holy sh*t!" He shot. "the net's f*cking shifting around, wtf is this other runner after?"
"dunno", Spencer replied, "just get outta there. got the data."
"f*ckin exit's changed", Christopher stated with haste.
"what?"
"the other runner, he's making new doorways in the subnet"
"okay? f*ck does that mean?"
"new paths can't fit where existing ones already are. net's gotta change its layout when a runner starts digging around like this"
"so…?"
"gotta find him", Christopher finally got around to his point. "zeroing him will reset the sub to default layout".
"f*ck", Spencer wrote as he shook his head and glanced over the computer. "alright, yeah. find him". Spencer rested his face in the metal palm of his left hand as he considered how quickly his subordinate's little plan had gone to complete sh*t. It was a solid idea in theory, but he supposed it was his own fault for assuming Christopher had taken every necessary precaution and worked out most kinks by the time he contacted his superior about it.
"found the runner", Christopher said after some time. "username's DOORS_CLOSED.dmn", He seemed as though he wanted to say something else, so Spencer allowed him time to. "gay name", There it was.
"wait", Spencer shot a text message at the Netrunner with a sudden, urgent gasp. "don't f*cking do anything, chris, I know that runner and she's not f*cking friendly". He raised his eyebrows high onto his forehead as he realized that he knew that username from somewhere. He was probably the only person in Night City aside from possibly some Fixers who could put a face to that name; the only person Hailey trusted enough for her to share the bridge between her two worlds with him.
"her back's turned", Christopher said back, as though doing this was going to be easy for him. "all I gotta do is upload a quick short circ. she won't even know I'm here".
"you got any idea what kind of soft she's running? I said don't f*cking move!" Spencer whipped around to place his hands on the keyboard of the computer and then scanned his eyes over the screen to determine how to extract his Netrunner manually. He knew Hailey's username, and he also knew just how dangerous she was; even outside the Net. She was every bit as bloodthirsty as any other Corpo, and that lust for death made her hard to keep up with when it came to deciding Christopher's fate.
"how'd she f*cking see me?!" Christopher's text message flashed across Spencer’s eyes at the same time as the computer terminal in front of him spat a wall of sparks and highly kinetic feedback at him.
The circuitry inside the computer all at once collapsed into a hunk of fried machinery as a static-y blast shoved Spencer by his shoulders off of his feet. The sparks burned his organic hand slightly as he was thrown onto his back and the lights inside the small garage-turned-Netrunner-den all flickered out completely. Glass shattered and smoke poured up from the terminal as, after the loud, electrical pop, the ceiling's light fixtures switched back on, and Spencer found himself lying face-up in a blackened scorch mark on the floor.
Standing with a quiet groan, he felt glad to see that he was largely unhurt, and simply allowed his synthetic skin and blood to quickly get to healing the burns on his right hand as glass crunched underfoot and he glanced to his left.
Taking note of a distinct sizzling sound in the air along with a rather disconcerting burnt flesh smell, Spencer settled his eyes over what was left of a melted, cooked, smoking body sitting in Christopher's Netrunning chair. Christopher had bled quite a bit from his nose, but his skin and his suit had both gotten so disfigured and burned that the blood was hardly even noticeable; let alone concerning. The Netrunner's death had been quite fast, clearly, as his body was still lying in a relaxed position even as his brown skin boiled and smoke continued to roll out of the blackened, charred port on the back of his cranium.
"sh*t…" Spencer sighed, following the chair's wires over to the exploded computer terminal. He couldn't believe how much of a mess had become of the half-baked plan so quickly, but he supposed that Christopher had at least served his purpose; Spencer had the details that the Netrunner sent him stored, now, and all he'd need to do is copy it onto a datashard to fill in a crew that would pull off the heist eventually.
He supposed that would have to be the next step; handing the details off to someone who had the time to gather half-a-dozen other people for robbing a Megacorp. He shook his head at the clusterf*ck behind him, now, as he turned and opened the garage door to let a breeze of wet air inside, and he peered out to spot a small group of Valentinos simply idling under the eve of a building to avoid the rain while speaking with one another. Stepping into the rain, Spencer nodded his head at them to gather their attention.
"You three!" He called across the walkway-like street- too small for any vehicle- at the Valentinos. "Get in here and clean this mess up!" The rain dragged his voice down as it drenched the ground, but the three other gangsters still acted as soon as they were spoken to.
They cut through the rain to stand in front of Spencer, and the tallest of the three arriving Valentino men glanced inside the burnt, exploded room as soon as they stopped. He made a face, then glanced to Spencer as if to ask for an explanation.
"Netrunning mishap." Spencer half-lied, leaving Hailey out of the story until he could talk to her about what she had been doing there in the first place. "Take his body somewhere, then scop his rig. Clean the char up, too." He gestured his left hand behind him before walking past the small group. "Find anything salvageable, take it if you want. I don't give a sh*t." He finished without turning around, and then simply disappeared around a corner.
Hearing the Valentinos murmuring to one another in mild interest after that last part, Spencer took a deep breath and leaned his back against a wall now that he was out of sight. Taking the moment of quiet to think, he came to the conclusion that calling Hailey as soon as possible would have been a good idea. After all, getting a story straight to tell everyone was a good idea, and he needed to know if he should pretend that he couldn't track Christopher's killer down or not; if the Netrunner inside Biotechnica’s Subnet was actually Hailey, or if it was just someone whose name was similar.
It certainly seemed quite unlikely, but he supposed dumber things had happened in Night City.
Glancing to either side of him to ensure he was alone, Spencer activated the phone-like implant in his head to bring his contacts screen up in a red box to the side of his field of vision. His eye implants- a generic brand that had been scavenged and sold on the black market- weren't even close to being as good as Hailey's, but he also didn't use them for much other than simple, day-to-day augmented reality stuff. He scrolled down a short list- there weren't many people he liked- and his selector stopped on a contact labeled simply as 'Hal'.
Standing off the wall and starting to meander away just to gain some more distance from everyone else, he selected to call the contact and then looked up at the gray sky drizzling water down. The phone emitted a chime in his brain as it rang only once, and then a small box opened up in the top-left corner of his vision filled with a rich, chocolate color and lots of purple.
Chapter 7
Chapter Text
"Hey, Spens." Hailey affirmed once she'd picked up the call, her face coming through clearly in the small window as she rubbed her chrome-surrounded eyes. It was like she was tired, or stressed.
"Hal," Spencer began, "hi." He let his eyes linger on her brown face for a moment as she seemed to try to move past something. "So, you're the Netrunner, right? This channel, is it secure?" He questioned, feeling stupid for asking, but then watching Hailey's expression grow slightly more serious.
"It… is now…" She said slowly, as if to ask why it needed to be so, while the green glow around her eyes lit up and shut off immediately after. "Why? You in trouble over there or something?"
"Nothing like that." Spencer shook his head, knowing that she could see him as well, and waved his left hand. "About five minutes ago," He started, "you didn't happen to be deep-diving into a Biotechnica Subnet, did you?" Spencer met his girlfriend's eyes as her magenta brows shifted.
"Uh…" Hailey brought a cigarette that she'd obviously been holding up to her lips and puffed a long drag out of her nose. "Yeah? I was taking care of some biz I'm dealing with. How'd you—?"
"The Netrunner you fried?" Spencer cut her off, seeing that her question was going to be needless since she would with certainty know what he was talking about. "Yeah, he was one of mine."
"f*ck," Hailey sighed more smoke out from her synthetic lungs, "I'm sorry, Spens." She glanced away. "I didn't… y'know, get you in trouble, did I?" She asked, seeming genuinely concerned that she may have gotten her boyfriend into a situation with the Valentinos. He knew she would upload a mass Suicide Daemon to the entirety of the Glen- killing Valentinos and citizens alike- if it meant she could help him out.
Spencer gave a soft laugh from out of his nose as he shook his head and looked down at his feet on the wet pavement. "Nah; don't be sorry, Hal." He dismissed her worries with a tone that only she could seem to coax out of him. "That's business, right? You were just doing your job." He shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I'll tell the 'tinos it ain't possible to track his killer; not totally a lie, considering the damage you did to his rig."
Hailey's face turned to one that was almost bashful, then. "You were in the room?" She questioned. "What'd you think of the fireworks? That much juice in my attack; I must've blown the f*cking roof off." The Netrunner gave a chuckle.
"Managed to burn my hand pretty good and knock me on my ass." Spencer explained to her, and watched her seem to try and hold back a laugh upon hearing that she'd accidentally almost hurt him.
"sh*t," She scoffed, "sorry." Her white nails caught a light source as she slipped her hand over her mouth. "Speaking of you getting planted on your ass, I heard about your mess in Kabuki with the Tygers." Hailey mentioned, striking up conversation with the first opportunity she had. It made sense that she'd have heard about Spencer being among the only survivors in a gruesome shootout; she did live in Japantown, after all. "It true you bleed white, now?"
"Got synth-blood pumped into me a few weeks ago." Spencer affirmed with a nod as he found himself cracking a smile in response to hearing Hailey's laugh. "It's supposed to keep temps down, and it does, mostly…" He trailed off, not wanting to admit the words that he had sitting in the back of his throat.
"But you're rocking too much chrome even for the synth-blood to do much good when you're going all-out?" Hailey finished his thoughts succinctly, her black eyes darting down and to her left as she let the gravity of what she said weigh her down.
"Maybe it's a software issue," Spencer shrugged awkwardly, his tone hard and defensive, "next time we get together, you can have a poke around—"
"You ever considered downgrading?" Hailey asked, then; her voice quiet and slightly shaky. It was like she didn't want to insinuate the things she was. "I mean… I lost count how many implants you have after you got that Blood Pump installed over two years ago, Spens."
"Sandy just runs a little hot," Spencer waved her off, dismissively, with a snappy reply that sounded almost forced, "that's all. I'll just take it to a Ripper one of these days and get it recalibrated."
"Spencer…" Hailey sighed, "you're not going to avoid turning Cyberpsycho by getting your f*cking exhaust vents air-blasted at a Softsys." She glared at him through the phone, and he frowned.
"I know." Spencer relented as he scratched at the back of his red-colored head with his golden fingers. "Got a job lining itself up pretty soon; could get a little dicey." He gestured with his golden palm outward. "How about after that, we meet up. I'll let you take a look at what might be bottlenecking my system with those top-shelf Kiroshis, and then I'll get rid of it."
Hailey stalled for a second, as if she hadn't been expecting such easily-won compliance from somebody as addicted to his chrome as Spencer was. "Anything?" She asked, breathlessly.
"Well—" Spencer stumbled over his words, even despite his superhuman reflexes, "I've gotta draw the line at the Sandy and the Launcher." He corrected the clear misunderstanding they'd had with a raised eyebrow, making sure to keep the two implants that he considered part of his identity safe from his girlfriend's prejudice. "But… yeah. Anything."
"Wow, sh*t…" Hailey scoffed in disbelief of what she'd somehow managed to convince him of. "f*ck me, Spencer, what got into you?" She asked. "I expected you to reach through the holo and strangle me for suggesting you scale back your chrome. You're just… cool with that?"
"I dunno why…" Spencer thought about his argument with his mother, and how she was trying to own his Cyberware now by accepting the fact that she caused his obsession. The whole thing almost made downgrading seem like a good way to push his mother away again. "But I'm down to lose a piece," He decided that he wasn't ready to share his feelings about his mom with Hailey yet, and especially not over the phone, "yes." He simply nodded.
Hailey gave an approving nod at the interaction, seeming quite satisfied with the result of it all. She seemed not to be able to tell that Spencer wasn't being totally truthful, and that made Spencer breathe a sigh of relief out of his nose before he sought to quickly change the subject away from his Cyberware.
"So," He started, "who's got you klepping from Biotechnica?" Spencer asked casually, posting up under another awning nearby and watching a curtain of rain wash down the eve of the roof above him. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to talk with her; just not about something so serious.
"Uh…" Hailey hummed in a high pitch, her wide, cybernetic eyes darting around as she seemed to work through how to answer that question. "It's not a job. It's personal biz, actually, but I… don't really have all the answers, yet." She brought her cigarette up to her lips and puffed it before waving her hand, her Smart Link showing over her palm for a moment. "Sorry, Spens, but it's… it's kind of complicated. What about your gig?" She blew smoke out with a sigh. "That what you had your 'runner digging around in the subnet for?"
"Coincidentally," Spencer began, "yeah." He nodded past what Hailey apologized to him for, as he completely understood wanting to be a little secretive if she didn't have all the details about whatever it was. Hell, that was what he was doing about his mother, more or less. "Gonna break into the Biotechnica shipping yard in Northside; steal some preem chemicals for cooking and probably sell 'em to our business partners."
"Funny." Hailey chuckled. "Us both dealing with Biotechnica's bullsh*t on the same day? Weird how that brought us together." She remarked, clearly seeming like she wished their phone call wasn't nearing its very obvious end.
"Work always does." Spencer added, giving a small, pensive smile as Hailey seemingly tried to goad him into visiting her. "What are you gonna do about that personal biz?" He asked. "Anything I can do?"
Hailey sighed, tearing herself away from the desire to abandon whatever she was doing and speed over to the Glen. "I'll let you know when I get that far." She answered him vaguely, glancing up above her before looking back at him. "Love you, Spens. See you soon."
"Love you, too, Hal." Spencer reaffirmed quietly and softly, either like he didn’t want to be overheard or like he wished he didn't have to even say it right then.
Maybe, as the call ended and the tile containing Hailey's pretty, slender, brown, face shrunk away, it was a little bit of both. Spencer threw his head back to tap it against the brick wall behind him as he took a deep chestful of rain-soaked air.
It was time to check in with the Valentinos and formulate a plan.
Hailey's Kiroshi eye implants faded back to black-and-white from a dim, blue glow as her holophone's call was ended and a small box surrounding a face that tried its hardest to hide its emotions closed up into a single pixel and disappeared. She knew Spencer was dealing with a lot; it wasn't hard to tell, if one knew what the signs were to look for. He got spacey and dismissive when he was feeling overwhelmed.
She loved him, but frankly, he needed to join the f*cking club.
She had quite the sh*tshow on her plate, too, right now. She looked up at the building her purple Arch Nazaré rumbled in the parking garage of, a white circle encompassing the simplistic three-branched tree logo that mocked her by simply existing. She sat on her motorcycle in a parking spot, glaring hatefully up at the ominous Arasaka insignia glowing on the outside of the luxury corporate apartment building as she finished up the last puff of her shrinking cigarette.
It was evening, and the rain had begun to slow just as she arrived. Talking to Spencer on the way over made the rather lengthy ride from Japantown to Corpo Plaza more tolerable; allowing her to stew in the implications of what she planned to accomplish here less than she perhaps would have otherwise.
What did she plan to accomplish?
Not much, yet. All she wanted were answers still, just like she did on her dive. Strolling up to the sleek, gray-black set of double doors, Hailey supposed that it wasn’t so different from taking a dive in the Net; just trading ones and zeroes, Daemons and Neural Ports for fake smiles, cutthroat money-making deals and suits and ties.
"いらっしゃいまっせ。" A man's voice- raspy and metallic- called out as soon as the two doors slid apart and the dim, red glow of the apartment building's interior spilled out and glittered against the freshly-rained-on sidewalk outside. The red light cast a Hailey-shaped shadow on the road behind her as she eyed the receptionist behind a short, small, black counter to her left, and then stepped inside. "アパートの番号を—" The man's artificial, fully-chrome-converted body had begun to stand up from a deep bow as he spoke before Hailey quickly and sharply cut his words off with a knife made of her own.
"Don't speak the language, bellhop." She said with a dismissive wave at the man who she spoke to as if he was beneath her. "Had Kiroshis longer than I've had periods; best I can do is translation software." Hailey poked her face just under the chrome surrounding her eye, oversharing a bit to the complete stranger.
That might have been a force of habit. Those died hard, after all, and being back in an Arasaka environment brought Hailey back to being a nose-in-the-air, better-than-you Corpo with something to prove and endless eddies to throw at her goals. She was used to treating lower-level employees like they were thoughtless children, constantly in need of her enlightenment, and the chrome-colored man wearing all red, velvet-like clothing was no exception. It made sense that she hadn't ever been taught how to speak Japanese, even as she was born and raised in Japan; with the adults in her early life having held those kinds of attitudes, why would she ever be taught when technology could simply do the work for her? She continued to glare down her nose at the man as he planted his feet on the red, carpet streak running down the center of the shiny, gray floor.
"My apology!" He forced out with another deep bow, seeming like he was used to taking that kind of talk from his usual clients as he stood up again and dared not look Hailey directly in her eyes.
"Lookin' for the Bello apartment." Hailey informed him, putting aside her memories of how hollow and plastic her upbringing had been. "Not sure if they're in the same room as they were last time I was here, but I remember it bein'—"
"Room 517." The metal man nodded his head, his Japanese accent thick and his eyes returning to a normal, metallic sheen after glowing blue for a quick second.
"Huh." Hailey hummed after she was interrupted. "Guess they must've got promoted; moved up a floor." She looked ahead, down the hallway, at the elevator that sat alone on the far-back wall. "If I was still part of the Corp," She wagged a slender, brown finger at the man, "I'd ruin your f*cking life for interrupting me. But, I got no power here, so you and whatever family you got living in NC got lucky."
"すみませんください！" The metal man fretted in a clumsy panic, once again offering a bow so deep that the red cap he wore over his shining, chrome head almost slipped off and onto the carpet. He held his deep, submissive bow for a few seconds, and by the time he stood back up, Hailey had already disappeared into the sleek, metallic, gray-black pair of slowly-closing elevator doors just down the hall from him.
She gave a quiet chuckle from the back of her throat as she watched the fully-borged-out receptionist glance around and breathe a sigh of relief. Being an Arasaka legacy was still the only place that felt like home to her; that… aura she got to have, believing she was one of the Corp’s youngest, most promising Netrunners. That made her want to spit. She wished desperately- violently- that she wouldn’t still love this setting or this feeling when she left her apartment with the intention of visiting her parents… but she did.
The red light inside the elevator bled her purple clothing into a much more ominous maroon color for the short ride up, the four stories that she needed to fly past shooting by in an instant. The crimson hue was another aspect that she was quite familiar with, and she remembered it fondly as a backdrop to her first dives into the Net; a class full of other Netrunners, all either Arasaka kids themselves or with parents wealthy or aspirational enough to pay for tuition, learning how to manage RAM on a Cyberdeck and how to efficiently scan several targets with their Kiroshis. Part of her wondered where those kids might be today, over two decades later. Part of her didn’t give a sh*t.
The elevator doors slid open in front of Hailey after that short moment, spilling the red glow of the inside of the elevator’s car out and into the more welcomingly white-tinted hallway. The gray hallway, its Arasaka-signature strip of red light shooting down its sleek surface, ran perpendicular to Hailey. She turned to face her right after exiting the glowing, red box, turning her back to the portion of the hallway labeled ‘500-515’. Staring down rooms 515-530, Hailey took a slow, reluctant step down the red, carpeted path with the heel of her purple-and-black Exo Jack boots. Another step, and she passed in front of a flat, metallic, gray-black door. She crept by room fifteen, room sixteen…
“f*ck…” Hailey sighed to herself as she turned again- left, this time- to face the door of room five-seventeen. Inside were the two people in all of Night City that Hailey hoped to meet the very least. She hated speaking with her parents; they infuriated her. But, as things were looking, she had no other alternatives to simply walking in and asking them what in the f*ck they were thinking getting their unborn daughter stuffed full of bio-enginieered substances and genetic scripts. Though muffled, Hailey could make-out the voice of her mother, and she was silently grateful that their work hours hadn’t changed since last she’d spoken with them.
“My dearest,” Ashante Bello had begun from somewhere inside the central room of the small apartment, “to fully believe that Saburo-sama died in Konpeki Plaza… it’s to doubt that he ever truly lived.” She spoke cold and poised, and it made Hailey cringe that even in private, her parents felt it necessary to refer to the Arasakas with a ‘sama’ suffix.
“Wife, my beloved,” Marcus Bello- just as chilling as Ashante had been- began to speak in retort, “with every modicum of respect that you are so obviously entitled to…” Hailey rolled her eyes, “what the f*ck does that mean?”
“It means, Marcus,” Ashante continued, “that I don’t for a moment subscribe to the idea that Saburo Arasaka would let himself so easily be taken advantage of.” She paused. “By his son, no less? We both know that Yorinobu-sama is little more than a reckless child rebelling from a sensible, caring father who knows what is best.”
“Don’t you f*cking say it…” Hailey quietly muttered, finding that hanging back and listening to them talk was serving as a very good excuse for her not to barge in just yet.
“Not unlike Hailey, I suppose.” Marcus hummed, as if he were nodding in approval and accepting what Ashante said to him.
“Precisely.” Ashante affirmed that that was what she had been trying to get at with her poke at Yorinobu Arasaka, and that slipped itself right up and underneath Hailey’s skin.
“Motherf*cker!” Hailey blurted aloud as green sparked around the blacks of her Kiroshis and she stared through the wall at the outline of the electrical panel that controlled the door. Switching it off literally in the blink of an eye, she was able to walk straight in as the sheet of metal-like material slid open before her.
“What in the—!” Hailey’s father, sitting at a gray-black table with her mother across from him, looked up from his plate of food and gazed over Ashante’s dark, chocolate-colored shoulder to meet Hailey standing in the doorway.
“Marcus, what—?” Ashante hummed, turning away from him and spinning around slightly in her chair to see for herself. Her dark face went slightly aghast, but she composed herself rather quickly as she stood up after Marcus.
“You f*ckin’ joking?” Hailey scoffed to the two of them as the door automatically hissed closed behind her. “Gonna try and compare my situation to that stunt Yorinobu tried to pull with the Relic? Think I’m just being a little brat?” Her black, artificial eyes narrowed. “I can assure you; you two are probably way worse parents than Saburo Arasaka.”
“Hailey, what on Earth are you doing here…?” Marcus, placing a hand over the undone suit-top he wore over a plain, black tee shirt, tilted his head at the woman who had just broken into his home. She was hardly recognizable as his daughter.
“And… did you just break in?” Ashante asked, following her husband’s lead in looking at Hailey as if she was some kind of stranger. She wore a white, long-sleeved compression shirt, and her blazer had already been slipped onto the back of the chair she was sitting in.
“Don’t act so surprised,” Hailey loudly and aggressively talked at her parents, just the way she’d been taught to, “you’re the ones who spent so many eddies making sure I turned out to be your own personal Bartmoss; putting me through school and getting my f*cking genes rewritten!” She breathed deeply, her anxiety quickly turning to rage as she remembered exactly why she moved away from her parents in the first place.
“Ah,” Ashante nodded as she dutifully ignored how stressed Hailey seemed, “it sounds like you met Doyalah.” She looked Hailey over before continuing. “Judging by your… status, it would appear that you found a way to get Biotechnica their due?”
“Ugh,” Marcus started immediately afterward, glaring at Hailey with a special kind of contempt one might never hope to see from a parent, “you reek of cigarettes, Hailey.”
“Yeah, ‘cause I still smoke.” Hailey bit back at her father before quickly turning her attention back to her mother, who at least wasn’t needlessly judging her. “And f*ck no, I didn’t pay anyone sh*t! Painted the street with his brains and then delta’d.”
“Wait a moment,” Marcus instantly moved on from his stance of not-so-silently judging his daughter’s choices as she spoke, “you killed him?” He asked, rhetorically. “You killed a Biotechnica corporate representative, and then you came here?”
“Exactly my point!” Ashante, too, seemed to realize something at the same time as Marcus did, her attitude changing like his to one of annoyance. “Reckless, ignorant child!” She shook her head and joined her husband in re-dressing themselves in their Arasaka uniforms. “They will be here any moment, now!”
“We simply must meet Biotechnica downstairs and explain to them that we- Arasaka- had nothing to do with Doyalah’s assassination!” Marcus sighed with frustration aimed right at Hailey as he and Ashante both largely ignored her.
“Hailey, see yourself out.” Ashante stated, totally dismissing what Hailey had come to discuss in the first place as she buttoned her red blazer and threw her braided, black hair behind her. “You came here to inconvenience us, and as you can see, you succeeded.”
Hailey stood silently for a moment, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly ajar as her mother and father brushed her off in favor of their work, like they always had when she was a child. Both of them buzzed around her like a couple of flies, and their incessant, chronic misunderstanding of her- as a person, really- brought the blood in her veins to a screaming simmer. They didn’t want to take her seriously, and they never had. They saw her as nothing more than a whining, spoiled baby; someone who had the f*cking world handed to her on a silver platter- with technopathic superpowers, to boot- yet who still found ways to make her misery everyone else’s fault. But, goddamnit, it was their fault! She never got a choice, and they always conveniently had something else to do- somewhere else to be- when she got close to bringing that up to them. Not anymore. That was all about to f*cking change.
“Well,” Hailey growled as the strap over her left shoulder and under her jacket rubbed her Netrunning suit, “we’ll just have to make this little Q-and-A really quick, then, won’t we?” She pointed the sleek, gray barrel of her old, overused Sidewinder from her hip at her two parents, which forced them to look at her and stop their drone-like routine of putting on their clown uniforms and getting ready for the circus.
"You're threatening us?" Ashante scoffed when at the business end of a rifle that she was blissfully unaware had murdered dozens of people. "Have you finally lost your f*cking mind, Hailey?" She stomped at Hailey quickly with a stern glare on her dark-brown face, her frown urging Hailey to take a step of her own backward.
"Dunno," Hailey started in return, "was it ever mine? You two crammed it full of Biotechnica intellectual property before I even existed, so…!" She gave a gasp as her mother- fearlessly and with a strength Hailey had never seen from her- snatched the barrel of the Smart Weapon from where it sat pointing at her and her husband.
"Release this accursed thing, Hailey!" Ashante hooted, tugging the Sidewinder and causing Hailey to snatch it back, creating a child-like tug-of-war between them. "Right this instant!"
"It's mine!" Hailey argued back, being yanked forward and spinning around on her toes as her and Ashante effectively flipped around so that Hailey's back could face her father and the large window on the wall across from where the door was.
"It belongs to a Militech soldier—!" Ashante growled. "The enemy, Hailey!"
"He's homeless, now, mom!" Hailey yelled, tugging her rifle and stepping back again to gain leverage. "And my only enemy is you! Arasaka!"
"Your true enemy is this entitlement!" Ashante grimaced as she fought Hailey tooth-and-nail for the Sidewinder, making it clear that Hailey hadn't ever intended to actually shoot. "This— this hate! Your father and I gave you everything and instead of being an adult- the Netrunner we wanted you to be- you run off; collecting paltry eddies in the slums of the city and fraternizing with some Valentino hood-rat!"
Hailey gritted her teeth as her Kiroshi implants lit up. "f*ck you!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as the adverse pull on the barrel of her gun released with a pop and a shower of hot, blue sparks. Smoke rolled up as Hailey stumbled back, her right arm flying back like a spring and a crash of shattering glass ringing her ears as she fell onto her back.
Her grip on her weapon slipped, and with a strap broken in the pulling match with her mother, Hailey's Sidewinder was thrown straight out the fifth story window. She and her mother hit the ground at the same time, but Hailey quickly realized the one difference between them as she felt the RAM in her Cyberdeck processing a Quickhack and working to reallocate resources as quickly as it could.
Ashante lay by the door, unconscious, with her white-and-red clothing scorched and smoke rolling off of the Cyberware in her face. She was sprawled out like a corpse, and Hailey had only a second to process that- more than enough, thanks to her bio-engineered brain- before the pump of a shotgun urgently called for her undivided attention.
Hailey flipped fully onto her back and glared up with her black eyes at the older, lighter man standing over her with a heavy, box-shaped gun pointed down at her; its four barrels giving it away to her as the 'family heirloom' L69 Zhuo.
An heirloom started by him, in 2064. Kept in their home, unused for thirteen years, the damned thing was virtually brand new. He was such a tool.
Chapter 8
Chapter Text
"You need to leave now, Hailey." Marcus sternly commanded, tightening his grip on his shotgun and frowning as his white-and-black Kiroshi implants quivered. He looked to be stern in his decision, and that only made Hailey even more mad.
"The f*ck I do." She grimaced, her eyes glowing green and transmitting a Daemon faster than her father could even think to pull the trigger. Targeting the pair of eye implants that she'd chosen to copy- albeit with a reversed color scheme- when she was a child for her own first pair, Hailey rendered her dear old dad blind for a handful of seconds.
Shooting up to her feet the moment he faltered, Hailey reached out and- with very little difficulty thanks to his foolish unpreparedness- snatched the big, heavy Smart Shotgun out of Marcus' soft, clammy hands. She took a step back and pointed it at him, making sure this time to have ample space between them to react in the case that he tried what her mother had.
"I'm not leavin' until you answer some questions I've got!" Hailey barked. "Why did you two do it?" She asked, then, with a strain to her voice as her father shook his head and slowly raised his hands to signify that he wasn't going to try anything. "Not just the gene editing; I already read that file. I mean… all of it. The Corposlave brainwashing, the pressure to be a Netrunner…"
"So, you don't hate Arasaka as some grand moral gesture…?" Marcus curiously posited, his vision slowly returning as he looked up at Hailey who- even several inches shorter than him- seemed to stand taller. "What about all that you said to us, three years ago? All of that noise about the Corp's master plan to keep the masses under control?"
"No," Hailey gave a stony reply as her father's words cut through her, "no I don't." Just then, she realized something about herself. "And I guess that makes me pretty damn selfish, doesn't it; saying I don't give a sh*t what the Corps do to everyone else?" She chuckled at herself, then. "I'm mad as hell, and I hate you for what you did to me. I hate Arasaka and Biotechnica for what they did to me." Placing emphasis on the common subject of those sentences- herself- Hailey boiled as she continued. "And after all this time, I still don't know why."
"We thought that setting our daughter up for success would be the best possible thing for us to do as parents." Marcus answered earnestly through labored breaths as he blinked away his temporary blindness. "We're not idiots, Hailey," He kept speaking, "your mother and I are well aware that Corporations own our world. We believe simply playing along and grabbing good fortune where one can is the only way to win." Marcus met Hailey's gaze, and the devastated look on her face said more than any words could have. "What?" He asked. "Were you expecting to continue feeling justified in hating us? Are you upset that now it seems you have no reason?"
Hailey slowly shook her head. "That's not good enough." She stated with a precision that somehow also felt blunt. "All my life, teaching me how to be cold and conniving… that supposed to help me succeed, too?" She questioned. "Because it f*cking ruined me. I'm an ice-cold Corpo on one hand, and I'm a pissed-off Cyberpunk on the other. I'm… I'm just wrong." Hailey swallowed her emotions as she burned holes through the dead look on her father's face with her rage-filled eye implants. "I kill people just 'cause I can, dad. I kill people because I like it, because somethin' inside me's just f*cked up, 'cause you and mom had to go digging around inside my head before I was born…!" Stifling a cry, Hailey looked away from Marcus, knowing he wouldn't be providing much for emotional support anyway.
"Hailey…" Marcus sighed out, "just… just go." He placed his face in his soft palms. "There is nothing I could say or do that can instantly 'fix' whatever it is you think is wrong with you." The white-skinned Corpo nodded to the door, at the woman lying just in front of it. “We must have had this conversation a half a dozen times, and every time, we reach this impasse; where you beg for an admission of wrongdoing that we simply don’t owe.” Marcus shook his balding head at his daughter as she shivered with the anger that had quickly boiled inside her and then reached a static simmer. “The only difference now is that you have two very good reasons to heed my advice and heed it well.”
“What could those be?” Hailey commanded an answer from her position as the man with the gun, referring to her father’s advice to simply leave. They always did this; pushing her away right when she got close to a real answer. But, what if he was right? What if the two of them truly felt they’d done no wrong to her? What if he refused to answer her questions because he didn’t believe that there was anything to even answer?
“As your father, I will continue to love you and want what is best for you,” Marcus preceded, earning a dismissive roll of Hailey’s Kiroshis, “which is why I am advising you to— oh, how do you Edgerunners say it…? ‘Delta the f*ck out’?” He said. “As we speak, Biotechnica agents are on their way here to repossess you, and to interrogate myself and your mother- if you haven’t killed her, that is- and if that isn’t reason enough for your departure, your mother’s Biomon has already alerted Trauma Team of her condition.” Marcus explained away as Hailey slowly lowered the shotgun she stole from him. “Trauma Team will seek to neutralize you if you are still a threat to her- their client- and from the looks of things, you certainly are. If you think you can fight through that many armed and trained combat specialists then be my guest; but, if not, Hailey, then I suggest that you leave.” He advised with a serious glare. “Immediately.”
Hailey’s face became busy with thought for a long moment as she made her own path around what her father had just said, and she then realized that it was the truth. She wanted to take her chances fighting endless goons as they came one-at-a-time through the door, screaming for her dad to tell her why he and her mother were so damn heartless, but… she knew she wouldn’t even last that long. If she stayed in the apartment for a single moment more, she would be a walking corpse, and she knew that that was the truth.
“f*ck!” Hailey shouted, lowering the shotgun completely and glancing aside to the door as her teeth were gritted beneath her lips. “When she wakes up, tell her that the two of you had better forget that you know about Spencer and I.” She looked from her mother back to her father. “I mean it, for your own good; we don’t even know one another.”
“I will see what I can do.” Marcus coldly replied as Hailey ripped herself away from him and stomped across the room to the sleek, gray-black door. Hailey knew he didn’t mean that- that he and his wife would continue to gossip to one another about their daughter and the violent, chrome-junkie gangoon she was f*cking, but she thought she’d still warn them.
If the Valentinos found her and Spencer out, Hailey would be right back here, and she might not stop at just one measly Quickhack.
Ashante had finally stopped sizzling as Hailey opened the door and stepped over her to make her leave. A deeply troubled, worryingly loud part of her hoped that she had killed her mother. It would serve the cold bitch right for all the ‘good’ her and Marcus had done Hailey over her life. Hailey, like always whenever she spoke with her parents, couldn’t stand to hesitate or look back as the door slid closed behind her and she marched to the elevator and punched the touchpad to call it up to her on the fifth floor.
Alone in the elevator now, Hailey blew a hot sigh from her lips as she looked over the boxy weapon in her possession. It was heavy, but she could manage it with some effort and two firm hands. She supposed it would do as a replacement for her Sidewinder that had been tossed out the window and onto either a nearby rooftop or some back alley somewhere; the old thing was in poor shape when she got it, anyway, and the strap being loose enough to snap like that in a slight struggle was a good enough sign to Hailey that it’d been time to upgrade. With a quiet chime, Hailey noted that her trip down in the elevator was over, and she stepped out into the lobby right as the door opened in front of her.
“Two meters! Back away; two meters!” A booming, commanding voice shouted along with the sound of clomping combat boots accompanying it down the long stretch from the front door toward the elevator. The timid voice of the receptionist blubbered back a string of incoherent Japanese syllables in an accent of pure terror before the turquoise arm of a Trauma Team paramedic reached out to shove him by his red-covered chest onto the ground.
“Civs are resisting!” Another booming voice called, a second paramedic cutting in front of the first and without hesitation bathing the immediate area in the white flash of a long, double-barreled shotgun firing. The punchy sound of the Tech weapon discharging silenced the chromed-up Japanese man for good as white synth-blood splattered in all directions over the red carpet and gray floors, and Hailey sighed as the small team of three Trauma Team medics all glanced up at her standing a handful of meters away.
“Control, confirm visual; is this the threat?” A third voice, more feminine than the last two but still every bit as booming, placed two gloved fingers on the side of her white helmet. “Copy,” She nodded as she drew a long Smart Submachine Gun from the holster on her back, “eliminate the hostile and then hurry to the client!”
“Goddamnit!” Hailey groaned as she realized immediately that she was going to need to fight her way out regardless. She lit her Kiroshis up with a green highlight as she eyed the network connecting her and Trauma Team, and then she understood the inner-workings of the woman’s submachine gun instantly as a Daemon was released off of one of the Quickhack slots on her Cyberdeck; the malicious string of code uploading through the airwaves infecting the expensive-looking Smart Weapon and causing its silvery barrel to simply explode in the woman’s gloved hands like a grenade.
The small blast knocked the woman onto the ground as the other two medics raised their own weapons- one with his Tech Shotgun and the other with a Power Revolver- just as Hailey raised the old Zhuo in her hands with a flippant sigh.
Either it fired without trouble, or she was dead.
A bang signified a cartridge of Smart pellets exploding inside one of the four chambers, and the self-guided micro-missiles curved through the air- around the two men- to rip into the grounded woman’s chest; a mist of red spraying up from her shredded body as Hailey made a relieved hoot and took the cue of her own violence to start moving.
Staying low so that a revolver’s heavy slug could whiz over her, Hailey moved like water; not necessarily all that fast, but hard enough to hit that she had ample time to rush around the flank of the two men. The one with a much smaller, handheld weapon was preem pickings for a Suicide Daemon; a favorite hack of Hailey’s for the sake of watching blood spill in a way that made her feel like the Corpo monster she was.
As the barrel of his revolver was nestled under the chin of his helmet and his voice made pleas for his life, Hailey moved on to the next paramedic; throwing herself onto her shoulder to avoid a second shotgun blast and glaring a green gaze of death at the man as she snatched control of the temperature regulator controlling his suit and Cyberware. At the sound of a crack sending gray putty and crimson syrup flying out of the back of his ally’s broken helmet, the remaining Trauma Team medic threw his gun to the ground and began to furiously pat at his clothing as they burst aflame and fused down into his cooking skin. Flash-seared like a strip of synth-steak, the medic let one final gasp of life out as he collapsed in a dead heap, charred flakes fluttering off of him as smoke rolled up.
Hailey stopped before she made her way over to the door leading out of the lobby, glancing down at the group of dead bodies and having one of the three catch her attention. The woman whose chest had been turned into ground scop wore a white belt around her waist, and lining that belt was a series of pouches, presumably filled with cartridges of Smart ammunition. Taking the quiet moment she had after efficiently killing the three medics, Hailey dropped onto a knee beside the woman and pulled one of the white pouches open to reveal six slender, thin, black objects with silvery ports on the ends.
“Nova.” Hailey muttered to herself, nodding as she helped herself and stuffed the handful of cartridges- six whole clips for the woman’s submachine gun but only six shots for Hailey’s shotgun- into the inner pocket of her jacket. She stood then, glad to have scavenged a little bit of ammunition at least, before making her trek over the receptionist’s splattered head and toward the closed front door.
As she drew nearer, Hailey began to pick up on the sounds of gunfire and shouting outside, and the realization of what was happening left her unsure if she should feel doomed or relieved. The bassy rumble of an explosion of some kind brought her to the conclusion that Trauma Team was fighting someone, and she knew precisely from her father’s frustratingly accurate assessment of the situation who that secondary party was.
She needed to go, and out the front door was where her bike was, so…
Opening the door with her new shotgun held steady and her Kiroshis prepared for scanning, Hailey stepped outside and into a full-scale urban warzone; streams of bullets of all calibers and rates of fire crossing the paved path in front of the apartment building as scattered fighters wearing clashing shades of turquoise skirmished in a messy ball of incoherent violence. Once she entered the fray, she knew there was little turning back, so she simply joined the chaos in the best way she knew how.
Hacking Biotechnica and Trauma Team’s separate communications channels so that she could listen in on both sides of this little war was an easy way for Hailey to gain an upper-hand, and she grinned as the sounds of confusion murmured through Biotechnica lines.
“sh*t!” A woman called through the open channel. “There’s the target!”
“Trauma’s on my f*cking ass—!”
“f*ck the target!”
“Guys, guys, I think she’s a Netrunner!”
“f*ck!”
“She can’t do that! Shoot her, or something!”
A scream was drowned out by the chatter as a single person wearing a darker turquoise set of combat gear than Trauma Team did usually was compelled to place their combat knife beneath their ribcage and hoist it upward. They spat a dark, nearly-black puddle of blood as they instantly fell forward, and Hailey darted to her right as she watched her single Quickhack matter even less than she could’ve anticipated in the swirling sea of carnage. Hailey was unsure what she’d expected to accomplish with that, and she shook her initial instinct to join in the slaughter out of her head as she threw herself off the side of the small, railed-in patio-like area just outside the apartment building’s front entrance.
“Primary threat to the client is disengaging!” A Trauma Team medic called over the communications channel to his squad at the exact moment another long, white Trauma Team Aerial Vehicle whined onto the battlefield. “Delta team,” He continued, “stay here with Gamma and keep the perimeter secure! Omega, behind me; we’re going upstairs!”
“f*ckin’ Trauma keeps on comin’!” A Biotechnica agent growled as gunshots clipped the sensors of his microphone. “They’re keepin’ us from the asset!” His voice sounded less full of static, then, as Hailey rounded the corner of an abandoned van with doors haphazardly left open by the fleeing passengers.
Right in front of her was the dark, green-blue tactical vest of a man who sported suspicious etches of chrome on his right arm. Hailey watched him realize at the same time as her what their situation seemed to be, and she downloaded an instantaneous understanding of what he was capable of- something she already suspected- as the chrome lines on his arm broke apart and he began to plant himself.
"Uh-uh; I know what that thing's capable of!" Hailey hollered, backpedaling slightly and peering through the green tint of her cybernetic eyeballs down and into the wires and circuits making up the Biotechnica agent's Cyber-arm. His Projectile Launcher offput her, and with the Cyberdeck soldered onto her brain, she sought to take it as a variable out of the equation completely; copying a Cyberware Malfunction Daemon and packaging it as a Quickhack to shoot it into the man's chrome like an Airhypo with its injection needle prepped.
The Biotechnica agent, his stance breaking as sparks shot like overly-compressed air from the mechanical joints and sheaths making up the Cyberware in his arm, gave a grimace of pain. The Quickhack worked by overclocking a piece of chrome way past its manufacturer settings, and more often than not, resulted in a slight electrical shock to the targeted implant. That served to be quite the unfortunate side-effect when said implant was connected to a wearer's nervous system, and was capable of feeling sensations such as pain.
He flicked his buzzing hand down, seemingly in an attempt to shake away the discomfort that was curling his fingers. That tiny moment- right when his eyes left the woman wearing black and purple in front of him- was when Hailey squeezed her index finger down. A feeling she was growing more and more used to, since becoming a Merc three years ago.
Like a wave crashing against the sun-baked rocks of Pacifica, crimson was flushed out from broken pieces of skull and skin; a cartridge of Smart ammunition blasting from one of Hailey's four heavy-gauge barrels with a flash. Lead soared through cool post-rain air as it curved to meet a hostile calculated by her Smart Link to be a threat.
Falling to the pavement with a head more hole than flesh or chrome, the Biotechnica agent was now simply something for Hailey to step over on her way out. Action still raged on either side of her- any side, for that matter- as she did her best to avoid the immediate line-of-fire of any armed, skilled individual.
Not making it more than a step, however, met Hailey with a turquoise body smacking the path directly in front of her. A Biotechnica agent fell onto her back and her helmet rolled away as she desperately failed her hand over the ground for the grip of her pistol. Just then, a spray of automatic rifle fire splattered red in a circular radius as it splashed up and out of her chest and head. Her body violently recoiled at being pumped full of a half-dozen holes, and from the peripherals of Hailey's vision, a Trauma Team medic stomped over with his long, black assault rifle still smoking as it pointed the opening of its barrel at her.
Before she could think to react- as if to illustrate just what kind of situation she was in- the man's head exploded after a quiet whizz into a cloud of blood and brains. Hailey flinched at the sudden series of events and flicked a spat of blood off of her purple sleeve as she looked ahead of her.
"sh*t…!" She groaned, spotting nothing less damning than the red glow of a sniper's laser sights piercing through the evening. The sniper- another Biotechnica agent perched far away atop a billboard- raised their aim slightly as they reloaded, and Hailey's enhanced vision coupled with her rather stunning super-brain allowed her to mentally determine the sniper's position through the triangle made by their sight and the angle of the ground.
Quickly and mercilessly, Hailey devised a way for her onlooker to meet their untimely doom. She couldn't quite spot them- either thanks to Optical Camo or just simple tactical skill- but she was almost positive that the billboard was where they hid; math didn't lie, and it was seldom mistaken. They were safe from a direct Quickhack, however, if the giant wall of electrical wiring and hot lights they were standing beneath were to somehow spontaneously explode…
A massive fireball erupted from ahead of the battle, turning heads and stopping the incessant shooting for just a moment as everyone watched flame lick into the darkening sky. Streamers of orange followed by tails of smoke fluttered down to the ground, and the couple-dozen fighters all stared in mild shock as flames and a billow of black fog curled over where the moon had begun to peek out from the gray sky. The deep thrum of an explosion echoed off of canyons made from skyscrapers as the stillness became apparent, before another sound cut through it and brought all heads in the area over.
Revving her motorcycle’s engine with her left hand on the handlebar, Hailey knew she'd need to cover herself now that everyone spotted her. But, it wasn’t like she was about to get out of there on-foot; she needed her wheels, and drawing attention when said wheels were ready to turn was simply the price she had to pay. Her back wheel screeched as she threw the acceleration down as hard as she could, popping her front wheel up and off the ground while she leaned back with her right arm stretched far out behind her.
"I'm not paying a f*cking enny!" Hailey called back at the Biotechnica suits all aiming their guns at her as her Smart Targeting system highlighted four of them to shoot simultaneously with her remaining two cartridges of Smart ammunition. Blasting out just as a hail of lead showered at her from the opposite direction, Hailey quickly released her two shots and peeled out; the four additional corpses she left behind serving little practical purpose as a meaningless act of spite against the Corporation.
She growled with tremendous effort as she fought to control the weight of her bike on its one wheel with only one hand, eventually getting the front wheel to hit the pavement with a rubbery bounce and a squeal. Her engine roaring as she broke through the security checkpoint at the front of the parking lot, Hailey cut into traffic and instantly screamed through a red traffic light to gain distance from the Corporate Solos all duking it out behind her.
Not on the road for much longer than a few moments, the Netrunner cursed aloud when she heard the crack of gunfire behind her. Smashing into a vehicle oncoming from the side and shoving it out of the way with a crunch, a heavy-bodied, black truck roared after Hailey with a body leaning out of the front-passenger window. Glass from a crushed headlight sprinkled over the black pavement as tires screeched and speeding vehicles from four cardinal directions punched their brake pedals down into their floorboards to stop before the high-speed chase cutting down the street.
“Get f*cking lost!” Hailey mumbled at her situation with her magenta eyebrows low on her cinnamon colored face, the chrome-colored Cyberware surrounding her eyes catching the light from passing streetlights. She knew she needed to do something to end this loud romp through the night-covered streets, and that her shotgun was currently empty, and that she certainly wasn’t capable of firing the damn thing with only her one free hand that was still holding it across her lap. As she leaned forward over her handlebars to stay low and avoid the bullets screaming past her, she hatched what may have been her most dangerous, stupid, risky-but-necessary idea of her entire Edgerunning career.
Peering into the chains of data making her motorcycle’s engines run, Hailey wired a new connection straight from her Cyberdeck- planted firmly in her brain- to the roaring block of metal parts. As she established a direct link, her left hand slipped off of the handlebar to join her right in nursing her long, smoking Smart weapon; her pathing on the road remaining steady as her Kiroshi opticals glowed a dim green and she reached into her jacket to retrieve a cartridge of Smart ammunition. Breathing in and out at a steady pace like she was struggling to maintain tremendous pressure, Hailey eyed both the road and her weapon as she tossed the empty cartridge aside and her handlebars made a sharp turn seemingly autonomously to avoid another motorcyclist who had swiped around the corner in front of her during an unluckily-timed green traffic light.
Spinning around in her seat as she remotely operated her vehicle, Hailey watched the poor motorcyclist be flattened against the hard, black front grill of the Biotechnica truck; his mangled body- dead before he hit the road- twirling gruesomely and sparks shooting from the body of his bike as it was swallowed by the roaring truck and spit back out the other side. Blood splattered up onto the windshield, and was promptly washed off by the wipers by the indifferent driver’s command, his stony, Corpo face driving Hailey mad as she slotted a new cartridge into her shotgun and leaned back slightly in her reversed sitting position.
He’d be the first one she’d aim for.
Understanding two congruent realities at once with her cybernetic eyeballs, Hailey let her Smart Targeting system highlight the heads of the two Biotechnica agents she could see and kicked her legs out in front of her to balance herself on her motorcycle. Her right leg bent at the knee slightly as her left leg stretched back, and she felt grounded enough to squeeze the black trigger of her shotgun with its butt pressed firmly against her shoulder.
One blast chunked out from one of her four barrels with a flash, the darkly-colored truck swerving in the same instant as a weapon was aimed at them. A spread of bullet holes sheared against the long, wide hood and shattered the windshield, but left the two occupants perfectly safe as their swerve brought them up and onto a sidewalk. There, their tank of a truck plowed through a small group of unaware passers-by, grinding their squishy, un-chromed bodies into paste as the truck turned back onto the road to follow Hailey onto the entrance of a highway which led over the water to Japantown from the City Center.
The Biotechnica truck smashed through another, smaller truck as it screamed onto the exit ramp over a small median wall to Hailey’s right. Vehicles driving that way sharply screeched to avoid the speeding battering ram of a vehicle, turning aside and crashing into guard rails as a hail of automatic gunfire from the passenger side of the truck rained horizontally at Hailey. Her purple Arch dipped between two vehicles that she was moving over twice as fast as, her core muscles burning as she fought against gravity from what felt like all sides coaxing her to fall off. Missing another shotgun blast, the unpredictability of road-based combat making even her high-quality Smart Link struggle to calculate optimal trajectory, Hailey growled.
“This isn’t working!” She hissed at herself, shaking her head as the truck swerved around her Smart shrapnel. As they scraped sides with an oncoming car, sending sparks in several different directions, Hailey watched the civilian panickedly smash their car into a small pile-up behind the Biotechnica truck; the collection of scared people making a blockage that held up traffic and began to give Hailey an idea- devilish and quite telling about the content of her as a person, maybe- but an idea nonetheless.
Able to watch both directions- in front and behind her- through her actual vision and the feed coming through the camera on her motorcycle, Hailey could spot yet another vehicle coming from behind her- the direction she was speeding- on the opposite side of the highway, the yellow Hella’s unassuming body communicating precisely what the one occupant did; a young woman who seemed completely, totally uninvolved and unprepared for something an Edgerunner would see as just another day.
Too bad for her.
Hailey readied her shotgun as the Hella approached, aiming it to her side slightly as the yellow hood of the civilian car began to enter her true vision. She let her Smart Link calculate that shooting either the driver or the tires of the car would accomplish stopping it in its tracks; accomplishing her goal of clogging the road in front of the Biotechnica truck. She had only a few moments to make a decision as she and the Hella met in a moment of shared latitude between taking a life or sparing one, and as she aimed her shotgun and curled her index finger, she gave a dismissive shrug at the not-so-difficult choice to be made.
Releasing a deafening pop after the sound of a shotgun discharging, the front-left wheel of the civilian’s vehicle exploded into smoke and shreds of black rubber. The woman inside screamed and tugged on her steering wheel to no avail, her vehicle's yellow chassis leaning on the deflated tire and causing its weight to veer off in that direction with a screech on the road.
The truck smashed into the passenger side of the car, shattering windows and crunching metal, but was ultimately slowed way down as more vehicles sped ahead. Sparks launched from the road as the Hella was pushed forward by the screaming, growling engine of the truck, the yellow vehicle's front and back scraping against the sides of the highway lane before…
Hailey cringed as- one after the next- three additional cars slammed into the small clog she'd intentionally caused. The first of which blasted against the yellow Hella, flattening the cabin against the Biotechnica truck and crushing the poor passenger woman in a tomb of metal and syn-leather.
The sound was grotesque as metal crunched and glass exploded, but Hailey zoomed forth with a deep breath as she carefully spun around in her seat. She had intended only to sacrifice the woman's car to the greater cause of letting her escape, but knowing she'd instead inadvertently sentenced the woman to death also didn't necessarily bother her all that much.
Horns blared and she could hear cursing in the distance as she disconnected the remote link from her motorcycle and gripped the handlebars properly with her shotgun in her lap. Turning off the highway and slowly pressing her brake, Hailey began then to understand what it was that needed to be done if she wanted Biotechnica to leave her alone.
They weren’t going to stop coming for her as long as they had records of her genetic manipulation on-hand. The truth was that she owed them money- whether she felt like she should have or not, her own experiences were irrelevant- and they would continue to send mercenaries and kill-teams after her until they either got their due or repossessed her manipulated genetic material; virtually her entire brain.
She needed to purge the evidence entirely so that their systems would stop flagging her as a debtor.
She had to make them forget.
Chapter 9
Chapter Text
“So… what do we do about security?”
“Zero ‘em.” Spencer replied to a question asked with an unsure amount of confidence, delivered by a shorter woman with her Tech Pistol brandished and a new clip of ammunition being slid into its narrow, boxy feed.
“Zero them?” She asked in return, tilting her head and getting a nod back.
“Won’t be a lot.” Spencer shrugged, standing over a small table with his golden eyes glowing a dim blue. Before long, his Cyber-hand reached up to the side of his neck to catch an ejecting datashard which he then slid over the table back to the woman. “It’s a Corporate hotel on one side; Biotechnica wouldn’t wanna risk scaring the guests with armed guards even in the shipyard,” He began to explain himself flawlessly, like he’d already thought it all out, “so they’d leave it mostly guarded by cams. Maybe some turrets, but really, all they’ve got to deal with up there’s Maelstrom, and what’re those ‘borgs gonna do with raw ingredients?” He disregarded Maelstrom entirely, and then continued. “The Scavs might want a piece, but they keep so busy fighting off Maelstrom that klepping the product’s an afterthought at best.”
The woman stared at her superior with her blacked-out eyes wide and her dark brows arched high. She seemed not to have expected an answer as sound and street-smart as that one, but Spencer wasn’t sure what she expected from their block’s resident Sicario. He worked hard at his job- some hellish combination of loving his mother and fulfilling her dreams in excess just to spite her- and took his position of newly-acquired leadership very seriously. It was hectic on Spencer's block in the soutwestern Glen when Vanessa was reported dead, and when he accepted the promotion to her position graciously, he took it upon himself to clean up the frays of her carelessness as former Sicario.
Sure, by title alone, he was just a hitman; somebody the higher-ups passed down orders through the grapevine for him to kill whoever incurred their wrath. But he was also respected amongst Valentinos on his block, and he commanded a large number- at least a couple dozen individuals- of them on their day-to-day gangooning. He coordinated their small-time heists and the goings-on around their handful of streets, and he raised a red eyebrow at the woman.
"What?" Spencer grouched at her, deciding not to dwell on it too long. "Christopher was a gonk but he had a good idea. The job's easy and high-reward; just a little outta the ordinary."
"No, no," The woman started, "it's not that, Sicario." Shaking her head, she rubbed her left arm's brown-leather-coated sleeve with her right hand. "Just… I'm not as good a 'runner as Chris was, and you seem like you got this all figured out." She pulled her brown trench coat tighter over her white-and-gold Netrunning suit. "I don't know the crew or the op, and you’re so damn quiet and… I'm just a little intimidated, I guess."
Spencer narrowed his eyes at her slightly and his golden Cyber-hand rubbed at his chin before he slowly nodded, like he understood her. "The 'tinos around here just call me Spencer, Lilly." He explained, losing his edge for a moment to put the younger Valentino at-ease. "The rest of the crew knows the op; you'll be in a chair, so all you'll need to be ready for is following directions." Spencer watched the girl take the datashard and slot it back into her neck. "You can do that, right?"
"Guess so…" Lilly, a Netrunner to replace Christopher after his death, nodded. She was from Arroyo- with what little Valentino influence existed there- and seemed unsure of herself thrust into an operation so big. Her Sicario- who Spencer couldn't be bothered to remember the name of- told him that she was eager to prove herself. Spencer hoped to see that in her performance on the upcoming heist, but frankly, wasn't expecting much.
"Good." He stated, not so much being friendly to Lilly but more so accommodating her nerves. He didn't need her anxious when she dove into the Net, misinputting a one instead of a zero and frying the entire crew with some errant Daemon.
Just then, Spencer's eyes flicked to his left as his holophone implant projected a small, rectangular box under his corneas. The box was a yellowish color and tapered off into a pointed tail that was tucked just beneath a square image of a face. The cinnamon skin had been shrouded by cigarette smoke in the photo, and the message attached raised his eyebrows into a curious glare.
"gotta talk, but not a convo for text or the holo", Hailey had messaged him suddenly. He wasn't used to speaking with her so many times in a week, let alone in the same day; he was made somewhat wary that there was something big going on. "neutral ground, meet me on top of the GIM in an hour", A second message followed, to which Spencer gave a hum.
"Got some new biz to deal with." He slowly worked a reasonable half-truth out of his lips as his holophone display closed and he eyed Lilly still standing there, like she was awaiting his orders. "Can't babysit you much longer; gonna have to toughen up, Lilly. Find a corner and post up with your wheels like everyone else until I call you."
As Spencer walked away, through a door leading into a hall inside a building, Lilly gave a determined nod. "Yes, sir!" She firmly answered, seeming to be inspired or encouraged somehow by what he told her, even if he'd intended for it to be perceived as condescending. "You won't regret taking a chance on me, Spencer!"
"headed there now," Spencer began to message Hailey back as he started down a stairwell and approached a lobby-like area, "if you wanna meet early", He dismissed his holophone as he stepped off the stairs, then turned a corner to exit the building, onto the sidewalk outside. There, his golden Alvarado was parked and waiting for him as Hailey shot back with a reply.
"sooner the better", She said simply. "I know how this all seems," He imagined her giving a quiet laugh in the pause indicated by that comma, "but we aren't going to bang on top of the mall. It's serious sh*t."
"right", Spencer affirmed as he entered his big, heavy car and chuckled himself. "I'll be there soon, since I'm in Heywood already. how long'll you be?" He knew she had difficulty opening up to others- even him- and that her joke had been a poor attempt at dissuading Spencer from prying about what was wrong with her; hoping she wouldn't have to talk about it.
"needed to get out of the city," Hailey replied fast, "so I'm already here."
"Oh." Spencer hummed as he pulled out of his 'parking' space on the sidewalk and began heading south.
"there were some scavs vibing in the parking lot, but there aren't anymore", Hailey continued. "gonks picked the wrong bitch on the wrong f*cking day".
She was pissed about something.
"I'll drive around the bodies on my way in", Spencer wrote back, halfway joking and halfway expecting to have to navigate a mess of squishy bodies if he didn't want blood all over his rims.
"gonna have a smoke and go offline for a bit", Hailey said then, as Spencer turned a corner and suspiciously eyed a passing gangoon on a motorcycle. "see you when you get here. love you, Spens."
Spencer read her message and then gave a slow nod, as though she could see him. That certainly said a lot, and he determined that leaving her be would prove the best outcome. He chose not to reply, and instead closed his phone completely and fixed his focus solely on the road. It wasn’t like he couldn’t reciprocate that sentiment once he saw her in person, and she likely meant it when she said she needed to be offline; getting another text would only bug her, probably.
"Hey, Hal." Spencer softly began as he strode over loosely gravel-covered cement of a tall, wide rooftop overlooking an ocean glittering with the bloom of neon suffocating the beautiful natural silver light above. His leg implants had made fairly short work of the vertical challenge that climbing onto the roof of the Grand Imperial Mall presented, and he supposed Hailey's had done the same for her about twenty minutes before.
"'Sup." Hailey responded in kind, not looking over her shoulder as his footsteps drew closer to her. She was quiet, and smoke from a glowing cigarette butt in her right hand rolled into the crisp, salty air.
"Sounds like you were busy today," Spencer started again, a bag crinkling as he stepped over to the ledge that Hailey sat on and dropped down to sit beside her, "dunno if you've had dinner, so I brought you Caliente." He paused, placing a white bag between himself and her. "Not your favorite, I know, but it was on the way, so…" Trailing off as he watched her black Kiroshis stare into the water, Spencer took a breath.
"Thanks." Hailey nodded, blowing out one last puff of smoke before tossing the remainder of the stick into the murky, choppy waves. "No, that's nova, actually," She shook her out-of-focus fog away from her magenta curls and then looked at him and flashed a smile, "I haven't eaten all day." She grabbed the bag and unrolled its top, opening it and reaching her slender hand inside to withdraw a heavy, warm object wrapped in paper. Like all food available to them in Night City, it smelled of trans-fats and salt- a far cry from the fresh fish and crunchy, watery vegetables she remembered growing up with in Niigata- but it was food nonetheless when she was as hungry as she'd only then just realized she was.
"Don't mention it." Spencer responded casually, following his girlfriend in retrieving a big, warm item from the bag. Unwrapping it, it was the same Capitan Caliente fish taco he'd eaten a million times before; growing up a Streetkid in Night City meaning that he was by far more accustomed to eating this processed, fatty, fast-food garbage virtually all the time than Hailey was. He liked to hear stories about growing up Corpo; how her meat often had blood in it and how she'd eaten fruit that hadn't first been inundated with sugary syrup. Eating a meal that wasn't glazed, brined or deep-fried in Night City was as good as a fairytale.
"How've you been, Spens?" Hailey asked after swallowing a crunchy, salty mouthful of god-f*cking-knew-what slathered in a pickly tartar sauce. Her jacket caught the light of a passing Aerial Vehicle that raced overhead, toward the city. She seemed to rush asking before he got the chance to. "Been a good bit since we've seen one another."
Spencer stalled as he chewed his food slower, giving himself more time to think about how to answer that question. He wasn't doing particularly good, but he wasn't as f*cked up as Hailey seemed to be. At least, he was very good at lying to himself and saying he wasn't.
"My… my mom's back in town." He forced himself to be truthful, which prompted a sympathetic curse to mumble from between Hailey's pink-glossed lips. "We argued, go f*ckin' figure; she told me…" Spencer stopped as he, just like she had, became a motionless sentry staring chillingly at the sparkling ocean licking the rocks beneath his dangling, red-and-gold shoes. Putting it into words seemed daunting, but there was no one he trusted more to see him at his weakest than Hailey. "Told me she was sorry." He sputtered a laugh. "Said she wanted to support me now; that I could do what I want with my life and that she'd see me through it." Shaking his head, Spencer began to feel himself… feel. That was never a good sign. "You f*cking believe that? Now that I'm a Valentino hitman- trusted with contracts all over the district and given authority over some of the gangoons- now she'll let me the f*ck go."
Hailey looked Spencer over as he started quiet and grew louder as he worked through the happenings of his day. She knew him very well, and as her black Netrunning suit squeaked when she repositioned herself slightly, she understood why he was growing unhappy. He was upset with his mother, but it wasn't hate like she felt for hers; it was broken trust.
"And that bugs you?" Hailey pried, partially wanting to hear what Spencer had to say and partially wanting to postpone her own inevitable emotional vent. So, she manipulated the situation slightly with carefully curated words sliced with a Corpo's tongue. "I'd fight MaxTac to get an apology from my parents instead of a f*cking guilt trip or gaslight."
Spencer gave a grumble. It wasn’t like that, necessarily. "It's like… I wanted to cut ties, never f*cking see her again," Spencer sighed as his golden hand clenched into a tight fist, "but I also don't wanna let her down- let her stupid f*cking dream die- you know?" He took a deep breath into his chest. "Either way I choose, I feel like I'm condemning myself to not being free! And now here she is, telling me to be my own person and that she's sorry; like that's gonna change anything!" He clenched his golden teeth as he worked himself up to the one person he didn't mind listening. "She's been absent all this time- all my childhood- and it's too f*cking late for her to be my mom now, but I still don't want to disappoint her, f*ck!" He let his golden, metallic palm rub over his face to remove moisture that had blotted up behind his eyelids. "She's gone and gotten chipped and I'm left questioning if everything I've got is even worth keeping, or if I want to stay a Valentino out of spite for her, now!"
"Oh, sh*t, she chipped in?" Hailey asked in surprise, her magenta eyebrows rising high on her face as she mulled over what she knew about Helena as a person.
"Just a Personal Link," Spencer waved his Cyber-hand, "but still; she made it seem like some gesture of good will, as if she wants to support me on the f*cking vice that she helped me to develop." He spoke, of course, about his addiction to Cyberware. How it developed out of a childish fascination with looking cool or being strong, into a desperate, shallow attempt to fill himself with something where his mother’s love and attention should have always been.
"So… that's why you're willing to part with an implant?" Hailey questioned Spencer with a curious slide to her voice, seeming more like she was genuinely conversating than pushing him to talk instead of her.
To that, he sighed. "Think so." He frowned as he looked at his hands on his black pants, one of which hardly even his in the first place. "I just feel so conflicted and trapped and… f*ck, what else is new, I guess." Spencer let water run down his face then, finding that organizing his thoughts for Hailey to hear them helped him somewhat to feel less worked-up about it. He loved his mother, but he wished he could leave that love at a distance. She seemed to only ever cause him turmoil when she came around, because she had always been so missing that she could only ever fundamentally misunderstand him. She never connected with him in the ways that she thought she would, and that only served to hurt them both.
Hailey nodded in understanding as Spencer recovered from his emotional outburst, and she moved her right hand to slip it over his left, curling her skinny, cinnamon-colored fingers around his chrome palm and squeezing. She was glad he felt comfortable just… talking around her. Being vulnerable- especially to someone with a bravado like Spencer’s- was a herculean feat. Hailey felt good about herself that she- even if she wasn’t a good person- could be a good enough romantic partner to provide him that comfort. He certainly did for her.
"I… think I killed my mom." Hailey quietly said, shifting the conversation after a long lull had overtaken them. She spoke without the emotion that Spencer had, as if that very real possibility didn't immediately make her panicked with fear or regret.
"What the f*ck…?" Spencer quietly gasped, shooting Hailey a wide-eyed glance as he picked his red head up. "Hal, why didn't you start with that?" He asked. "Way bigger than whatever I'm goin' through."
"You give my mom too much credit." Hailey responded with a deep frown as she waved a finger at Spencer. "She ain't as important as you, Spens." Shaking her frizzy head of magenta, Hailey watched him slowly relax his posture after that bombshell.
"Well… the f*ck happened?" He questioned her with a raised brow. He turned his body to face her as she breathed deeply as if she was trying to prepare herself for a long, exhausting journey.
"Same as you, we were arguing." Hailey answered. "But, I'm getting way ahead of myself. Lemme start from the beginning; late this morning, Corpo Plaza." She continued. “Finished a gig dumpster-diving around back of Arasaka Tower- f*cking sh*tbags- and was already in a bad mood ‘cause the job got me thinking about what the Corp did to me.” Kidding herself no longer about what frustrated her- not the boy that took his own life or his grieving mother- but the fact that Arasaka did something similar with her. They ruined her, and she was livid about it. “Some gonk with a Sandevistan like yours,” She nodded to the portion of the shimmering, golden spine visible out of the top of the back of Spencer’s coat, by the base of his caramel-colored neck, “real Corpo dickhe*d, got pushy about me owing Biotechnica a ton of cash. He attacked me, so I flatlined him…” Like Spencer before her, Hailey gave a long pause in her words as if what she wanted to say was glued to the back of her throat.
“Then…?” Spencer- much less subtly than Hailey had to him- prompted her to keep telling her story. He simply cared for her, and wanted to know what was eating her up so badly.
“Then I went home and did a dive.” She fixed her mechanical eyes to Spencer’s, her facial expression going grim as she seemed to relive the feelings she’d uncovered inside the Biotechnica subnet. “Before I zeroed your ‘runner, I… found what Doyalah had been talking about, and he wasn’t f*cking with me.” She took a breath. “Today, I found out I’m a f*cking GMO.” Looking at Spencer, Hailey frowned deeply.
“What, like Biotechnica…?” He trailed off. “What’d they do? Just make you pretty?” Offering the kind of joke that was clearly still coming from a place of sincerity, Spencer hoped to at least get Hailey to flash a smile at him.
Doing exactly that, Hailey let out a tiny chuckle and rolled her Kiroshis around in their sockets before continuing. “Well, turns out… I’m not a Netrunner. I’m a f*cking hack. Mom and dad had Biotechnica dig around and build them a perfect little Net-terrorist so they could offer me to Arasaka like some kind of tithe.” Her voice grew louder as she began to feel irritated, and she clenched her fists against her rubbery, black knees. “I’m not talented; I’ve got a bigger brain than you, more folds, more synapses with less empty space between, and thicker cerebrospinal nerves…! I’m literally custom-f*cking-built to Netrun, meanin’ what little choices I thought I got in life, I got even less!” She shouted into the night, clearly showing the difference between herself and her boyfriend when they were faced with something difficult. Spencer got distant, and pushed people away when they tried to apologize, and loathed himself for doing so. Hailey got pissed, and forced people to give her answers, and reveled in carnage if they couldn’t comply. “I have no other option than to be a f*cking Netrunner, and that’s why I went to see my parents after that. ‘Course, they saw nothing wrong with what they did to me and told me I was crazy, so I pulled my iron on them.”
“Holy f*cking sh*t,” Spencer said with a scoff-laugh, “you shot her?”
“My mom tried to take the gun from me, broke the strap, told me I was just being a stupid kid for being so mad…” Hailey paused, recalling exactly what her mother had said that had broken the seal on her rage and let it come pouring out. The final straw. “She knew about you. Called you a… hood-rat- like being a Streetkid was ever your f*cking decision in the first place- and compared spending time with you to being a Netrunner for Arasaka; like the latter was so obviously a better life.” Hailey spoke through teeth pressed together tightly behind her moving, pink lips. “Pissed me off that she acted like she knew you. The sh*t you just talked about? That’s real f*cking struggle, Spens, and callin’ you a hood-rat’s like ignoring all that and just assuming she knows what you’re like ‘cause you’re a Valentino.” She eyed him, her ocular implants filled with an uncharacteristic amount of tender emotion. “Neither of them even come close to understanding why I love you. It’s because you’re f*cking trapped here, too; different circ*mstances, sure, but you’re a victim of your parent and this f*cking world and the only way out of it you can see is either hurting people or spending a night in my bed.” She watched Spencer’s face change as he undoubtedly pondered just how right Hailey was. “Your problems are different from mine, but the symptoms are the same, and you’re pretty good medicine for making life in this damn city less like a punishment.” She got stony and angry, again. “I threw a Short Circ at her, and lost my Sidewinder out the window. Stormed outta there with my dad’s Zhuo ‘cause I damn sure wasn’t about to let them take my only good iron from me, and then I came here to cool off.” She finished her rant, letting a streak of warm, salty solution patter onto the breast of her purple jacket. “Called you as soon as I thought about it.”
“sh*t…” Spencer replied carefully, not entirely knowing what to do with a topic as heavy as this one when he was feeling just as troubled as she was. “I, uh…” He blew a hot lungful of oxygen-depleted air out of his long, curved nose as he leaned back on his left hand to look up at the night sky bled gray by the city lights below it. There was only one thing he could think to say with regards to Hailey’s story- the details she shared- and it was refreshingly simple in the face of complicated emotions plaguing each of them. “I love you, too, Hal.”
Hailey smiled when Spencer gave no argument against her assessment of his feelings for her, and she was okay with the very notion that she cared so much being an obvious indication that she felt almost identically about him. God, being alone with him for even ten minutes was better for her nerves than sucking down an entire pack of cigarettes was. Leaning to her right, Hailey’s arm snaked out to anchor around Spencer’s, and her face pressed itself against the leather covering his shoulder as her weight leaned almost entirely against his. She sighed, too, and continued staring off at the ocean as Spencer glanced down at her.
“You know,” He began, “I thought about how good a Netrunner you are a couple different times, today.” Spencer’s words were anything but hollow, filled with a sincerity that was palpable even if not properly expressed. “Learnin’ you were designed to be that way doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a badass, Hal. Hope you know that.” He thought aloud to Hailey, her ability to passively mine and breach a Corporate datafort while also avoiding a bloodthirsty assassin with a Sandevistan and a contract on the line fresh in his mind. Hailey was damn impressive, and Spencer wanted her to know that he thought she had the makings of a Night City Legend, even if she never wanted to Netrun in the first place.
Hailey made no expressional change with those words. That may have been true, but it didn’t mean anything when being a Netrunner was never her active choice in life, anyway. But, as she stewed on that for a moment, she considered that her pushing Spencer to remove an implant when that was something he wanted to do to spite his mother anyway was also a misguided misuse of the things he’d told her. That fact was enough for Hailey to move past the implication that Spencer admired her Netrunning skills even despite knowing that she hated them.
“So… there’s somethin’ else.” Hailey skipped over the part where she brought up his blunder and they inevitably fought about their future together until they f*cked one another silent, opting instead to get to the purpose of her wanting to speak with him; though, speaking in-person and not over the holo was- admittedly- because she wanted to be near him and talk about her troubles. That was entirely true, but the initial reason for contacting him had been much more business-oriented than the hormonal simplicity of a young woman wanting desperately to cling to a young man’s arm; a tale older than time.
“Okay?” Spencer propositioned, inviting Hailey to speak her mind as he breathed in the faint smell of cigarettes soaked into her hair. She’d clearly smoked rather heavily all day; cyber-hair wasn’t as susceptible to trapping scents as ‘ganic hair could be, and as close as they got, Spencer could normally only smell Hailey’s habit when she lit up right beside him. “Can’t be that bad,” He continued, “you’re leaning on my arm like you could sleep here. You’re too comfortable to have any more bad news.”
“Your job, up in Northside?” Hailey mentioned, not refuting Spencer’s accusations as they may just have been true. “You gotta let me come with.” She suggested, to which Spencer shot her a surprised glare and a scoff.
“What?” Spencer asked with a tilt of his head, his straight, red hair falling to the side slightly. “That’s definitely not a good idea, Hal; or I need to remind you that I’m not supposed to be with an outsider?” His golden eyes stared down into hers as he seemed to not grasp already why she needed this opportunity so.
Hailey sighed. “The ‘tinos hire outside help all the time,” She posited, seeming to be building to a point, “and I zeroed your Netrunner. Perfect opportunity to hire a new one for the job.” She referred to herself, clearly, and Spencer gave a shake of his head.
“Hailey, what the hell?” He sat up so he could turn to look at her as she released his arm and sat up herself. “I already got another ‘runner for the job.” Spencer added. “Since I killed Vanessa, my ‘tinos have been… edgy. They wouldn’t trust a Merc to do this job; especially not the one who was on assignment when Vanessa died.”
"That's not gonna work for me, Spens." Hailey quickly shook her head and twisted about, pulling her right leg up and onto the rooftop to sit facing Spencer. "I'm property. I need a license to keep living and it's way too much goddamn money to pay, and Biotechnica's pissed." She expressed herself with a Corpo's tone, but she made conscious efforts to make her vocabulary seem less clean-cut. "They'll keep gunnin' for me until I wipe myself from their systems, and I don't know how many more ambushes I can Quickhack my way out of."
Spencer idled, looking Hailey over with a frown set deep in his face. His red hair and caramel features were obscured by the dark, but he still made his position as easy to read as a fear-mongering screamsheet. He tried to hide himself behind his chrome, and to most people, he was an intimidating, cold-blooded hitman who should be avoided at all costs; but Hailey saw the insecure boy beneath that facade, pining for the validation of someone who could give him what his mother couldn't. That made it hard, sometimes, to love him without somehow taking advantage of that insecurity.
"Would you even be able to get inside the deeper parts of their Subnet from the shipping yard?" Spencer asked reluctantly, making it clear that he was considering helping Hailey out now that he fully understood her situation. He felt that he owed her the assurance that he would be there to help her if she needed him, and so entertaining her request became his next logical step.
"No," Hailey continued as if she'd anticipated him asking that question, "but the corporate hotel is nearby." She explained. "I'll be jacked in at home, already on the Net when your crew gets there. If I'm part of that crew," Hailey emphasized her words to fully express how much easier that would make things for her, "getting in and erasing the data while you do your klepping would be easy." Meeting his eyes, Hailey watched Spencer prepare himself to speak.
"And what about Lilly, the 'runner I've got? She'll know there's someone on the Net with her and—" Spencer stopped talking when Hailey gave a dismissive shrug and then simply cut him off.
"Kill her." She suggested, as if that was a simple cure-all to their problems. "We zero her, make it look like she got jumped by, I dunno, some VDBs or something."
"Jesus-f*ckin'-Christ, Hal," Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose with his shiny, golden fingertips, "I can't keep killing Valentinos. I'm not exactly liked, or respected, around my hood." He waved his Cyber-hand as he explained why- though convenient- killing Lilly would end poorly. "Pretty sure my 'tinos fear me more than anything, and too many more of my gangoons dead will get the attention of people way higher up and more powerful than me."
"Ugh, f*ck." Hailey muttered in a mix of disappointment and irritation. "What'd you say her name was, again? Lilly…?" Hailey asked, then, as her eyes sparkled with a green glow and she pulled up a Net page through her Kiroshis.
Chapter 10
Chapter Text
"Lilly Orlando Parrilla." Spencer gave his subordinate's full name as soon as Hailey asked, and only thought after to question why Hailey needed it. "What're you doing?" He asked, then, as his girlfriend seemed to move on to a plan-B of sorts without sharing any of the details with him.
Hailey hummed. "She's cute." She said, reading around some kind of record of the young woman displayed over her vision. "Young, too; sh*t, she's only nineteen and already 'running for the Valentinos?" She seemed impressed. "Wanted for burglary and arson on Corporate property, bribery of a police officer, two counts of murder on a Corporate Official… damn, she's got the soul of an Edgerunner but she's tied herself to the Valentinos…"
"Yeah," Spencer nodded in agreement, having known these things from Lilly's bio when he pulled her in, "she seems pretty desperate to make it big." He laughed. "Wonder how long it'll take this f*ckin' city to choke the life outta that dream."
"Huh," Hailey hummed again, having used her ability as a Netrunner to dig deeper into the file she pulled, into personal information that was not publicly available, "her big dreams would probably be due to the fact that she's the only eligible caregiver for her little brother." She read over the file as her glowing eyes flicked about, slowly nodding as she read up on Lilly's life story.
"What?" Spencer blinked rapidly as his eyebrows shifted. Clearly, he had no idea, and neither did the rest of the Valentinos; her brother would have been indoctrinated into the gang as well if they'd known. Maybe that was why she kept him a secret?
"Mom and dad died six months ago, apparently," Hailey kept reading, "owed Sixth Street some money and couldn't pay up. Lilly got guardianship of little Aaron here, then I guess she joined the Valentinos to try and make some cash." The cinnamon-colored Netrunner finished her brief invasion of privacy and then shut down her Kiroshi implants' advanced functions to let them go back to simply being eyeballs.
"So…" Spencer carefully navigated the new information presented to him, even though he was fairly certain he knew what Hailey was trying to insinuate. "What's that got to do with your Biotechnica problem?" He just wanted to be sure he and her were on the same page before he agreed.
"Ask me? She's in the perfect position for blackmail." Hailey affirmed what Spencer had been thinking with a downright satanic amount of calm. "Call her. Tell her some bullsh*t about wanting to chat about her role in the big heist or something, just get her to meet you." She suggested.
"Yeah, that'll work." Spencer agreed, mirroring Hailey's lack of empathy almost exactly. He'd thought of that, too, when Hailey mentioned that Lilly had a brother; the idea that Lilly wanted her brother away from the gang looking immediately like a vulnerability to be exploited. "Blackmail's cleaner than a hit, too. Zero her brother if she tells the 'tinos or doesn't let you do your thing."
"Exactly my thoughts." Hailey gave a smirk as she turned back around to stare out at the sea once more. "The Valentinos don't know about Aaron, anyway, even if we do have to kill him; so it's not like they'll be any wiser if the op goes south." She explained her thoughts succinctly, seeming at-ease that she and Spencer saw eye-to-eye.
“Plannin’ on doing the heist in six hours,” Spencer nodded to Hailey as he took note of the time through his holophone’s integrated clock, “so doing this soon is probably best.” His chrome hand once again met the cement-like rooftop, giving a crunch as loose, granulated debris was rolled and popped under its weight.
“So, call her.” Hailey suggested, and then gave a laugh. “Maybe she’ll think it’s a booty-call; come runnin’ from anywhere in the city since she looks up to you so much.” She teased as Spencer rolled his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t think he’d given any indication that Lilly looked up to him to Hailey during their talk, but he knew she did from the way she spoke to him, and Hailey was smart enough to infer that, Spencer supposed.
“Risky, but I think having her meet us somewhere in the Glen’s better than all the way the f*ck out here.” Spencer added his own thoughts as he slowly began to stand up from atop the roof. “Askin’ anyone to meet in Pacifica’s basically giant red flag that you’re gonna get jumped…” He glanced at Hailey again, then. “Which is exactly why I came all the way out here immediately when you asked me to, with no reservations at all.”
“Add that red flag to my pile, I guess.” Hailey responded with a grin cracked at Spencer’s comment, knowing full-well that any person not as damaged as she was- as Spencer was- would see the furthest thing from a suitable romantic partner in her. “At this point,” She scoffed, “I gotta have more red than green flags. Nothing new.”
“We’ll ride back individually,” Spencer explained, though he felt he likely didn’t have to, “don’t need the ‘tinos spotting us gettin’ out of the same car.”
“Might see us goin’ to the same place,” Hailey continued off the back of Spencer’s thought, “but I can just flatline the ones in my way.” She was strangely dismissive about the idea of killing Valentinos in front of her Valentino boyfriend, but as Spencer casually nodded, it was all-too-clear why that was the case.
“Hey, not gonna act like I ain’t killed my share of ‘tinos, too.” He met Hailey standing up, and then brushed his palms on the black of his jeans. “I don’t see it, and I don’t know you, so hack away, Hal. I don’t really care.” Spencer reassured her with a shrug.
“I know.” Hailey nodded along as she turned toward Spencer and looked him up-and-down. She knew he had no real love for the Valentinos on an individual level, and that he only strived for some abstract ideal for the gang as a whole, and wasn’t interested in its legitimate health or success. Truly, he was in a position to just quit and either flee Night City or join Hailey in being a Merc, but she wasn’t about to bring that up again.
“Sorry to hear about your sitch, Hal.” Spencer said, softly, as they both peered over the ledge of the Grand Imperial Mall. They appeared to be estimating their own respective ways to get down. “Really; I mean it. It’s f*cked up- the whole thing- and I hope you can figure it out.” He looked to her as she looked back at him.
“Thanks.” Hailey let a small smile press her brown cheeks to either direction as she took a step toward Spencer and reached her purple-coated arms out to wrap them around his waist covered in black-and-gold. She sunk her face into the red of his tank top and then looked up at him. “Your mom’ll leave town soon enough, I know it. Hope that helps you relax, too.” She said as Spencer’s arms wrapped around her shoulders.
“Thanks.” He parroted, returning her smile. It was a good feeling, to be understood as thoroughly as he was by somebody like Hailey. Staring down into the blackened abyss of her Kiroshi implants, Spencer leaned himself down a handful of inches to draw nearer to the woman he felt so endeared to and his golden eyes found themselves slowly closing.
Hailey caught Spencer’s movement and followed his lead, her neck stretching itself slightly and her legs pushing her up so she could meet him halfway to a conjoining of their lips. Her eyes batted themselves closed as well, her nose slipping past Spencer’s as his lips clasped onto hers and she tightened the corners of her mouth against the Valentino’s bottom lip.
There they stayed for a handful of moments as the ambience of gunfire and screaming behind them set a mood for their love, with the neon cage of a city glowing at their side. Their kiss lasted its course as after a few moments more, Spencer stood straight with a sigh and pulled himself from between Hailey’s lips with a smack. Hailey, flicking her eyes open quickly when Spencer pulled away, shot up on the toes of her boots to press another, much quicker, lighter kiss on his lips before plopping back down and slipping out of his cybernetic embrace.
“Meet me behind Embers.” Spencer informed her as he hummed and made certain to acknowledge her taste lingering on his lips. “It’s not too far from home, and the parking lot of a restaurant like that one’s way too rich for any Valentino’s blood.” He began strolling across the rooftop with Hailey not far behind him, toward the ledge that he’d climbed up from. “We should have the place totally to ourselves, save for any luxurious pricks for some reason goin’ to eat a meal at nine at f*cking night.”
“Rich assholes in NC don’t give a sh*t about anyone but themselves anyway,” Hailey dropped down onto the old, creaky scaffolding she’d used to boost herself onto the rooftop, “we could be straight-up murdering that girl and not a single one would call the cops.”
Spencer nodded silently to agree with what Hailey’s assessment was, considering that she was probably right. She came from a wealthy family, after all; it only made sense for her to know exactly what those types were like and how they’d go about reacting to injustice on the ‘lower’ rungs of society. He followed her to the edge and with what appeared to be casual disregard for his own safety, fell right over it.
Punching into the ground with a crash, Spencer stood out of the small web of cracks etched in the blacktop all around him after he jumped straight down from the roof. Backing away, he watched Hailey finish her descent down much more carefully than him, and then chuckled when she hopped from a meter or so in the air into the indent left by his crash-landing. Then, he nodded behind him as he placed his hands in his coat pockets and turned toward their two vehicles parked next to one another, walking alongside the Netrunner in relative quiet until they sought to temporarily part ways.
Big, round, black eyes stared glossed-over at a boiling surface, steam rolling up from inside a pot on a tiny burner plate. The silver-colored pot was partially discolored on the bottom from constant use, and Lilly Parrilla only contributed to the problem as she sat in the cool of night with nothing save for the electrical heat of her hotplate to keep her warm. Her Netrunning suit squeaked as she stirred the pot with an equally run-down spoon, her face firm and the corners of her mouth tight. She seemed deep in thought, and that quiet storm broke upon a high, young voice calling out her name from not-too-far behind her.
"Sis!" A little boy groaned as he came stomping across a grimey, gray sidewalk, his skinny, brown arms wrapping around his stomach as he started again. "When can we eat?" He asked. "I'm so hungry I could eat veggie paste!"
Lilly put on a happy face for her little brother, his eagerness for what little she could provide him filling her chest with the heavy throb of sadness but forcing the muscles in her face to pull her brown lips into a smile. She needed to be strong for him; seeing her cry was the last thing Aaron needed after he’d watched mom and dad be gunned down from the back seat of their family car. The thought that she was tooling the Net, trying to make a quick buck, while her parents were murdered right before the eyes of her brother made her want to puke.
“Very soon, my love.” Lilly hollowly promised him. She wasn’t even sure if what she was feeding him was safe to consume, pulled from the dumpster behind an All Foods-owned gas station. She assumed whatever kind of synth-food it was, if boiled to hell and back, could be made edible enough for two people too damn hungry to care all that much anyway.
“Good!” Aaron loudly proclaimed as he clomped his little feet against the sidewalk and plopped down onto his knees beside his sister. His little voice, high and full of tenacity, bounced off the metallic wall of the structure they were sitting closely to; and his back slammed into the tall, metal door sitting closed tightly beside Lilly as he seemed to act without regard for the world around him so long as he got to be himself.
God, Lilly hoped Night City never took that from him.
“Shh!” She hushed him, though, as he bumbled around and made a racket. “You need to be quiet, Aaron!” She instructed in a whisper-yell. “This store’s owner doesn’t know we’re here, but we have power,” Lilly gestured to the plug that ran electricity to her hotplate, “and we have the warmth from inside to sleep with. Please, don’t get us caught!”
Aaron, though unhappy and with a roll of his brown eyes, seemed to understand. “Seems like all we do is try not to get caught since mom and dad died…” He muttered. He seemed like he was sick and tired of being homeless, and Lilly couldn’t blame him.
“I’m trying to get us someplace to go, Aaron,” She explained, “and I’m close. I really think my new job will stick, this time!” Lilly smiled brightly in front of her brother’s glum frown, and then flicked the knobs on her hotplate to bring its temperature falling down. “My new boss likes me, I think,” She thought, then, about the way Spencer seemed to comfort her when her anxiety about the heist he planned seemed to be getting to her, “and the work he has me doing is going to pay back a load of eddies!” She only hoped what she said was true, both about her boss and her incoming payday. She was desperate enough, she’d f*ck him if she had to. She just needed to start making some f*cking income; feed her little brother, get him a place to sleep where they might not be robbed in the middle of the night by some skezzed-out Glitter-junkie.
“You gotta go back tonight, don’t you?” Aaron suddenly asked with a pensive expression, as if he knew his sister well enough to infer- even at a young age- when she had something on her mind. “Like you do, sometimes? When you think I’m sleepin’, and you go runnin’ off somewhere?” He questioned. “Don’t your boss pay you for going to work all late at night like that?”
Unfortunately, Lilly knew all-too-well, that simply wasn’t how being in a gang worked. She didn’t get paid for her time. She was expected to do odd-and-ends whenever her superiors needed her on the Net, and her payment was the ability to return to her little brother when she was done. Spencer, though, seemed to have no reservations about paying her as soon as she finished up Netrunning for his heist.
“That’s all been in preparation for this job, silly.” Lilly chuckled, holding back the devastation she felt that her dear brother would eventually conclude that his sister was a gangoon soon enough once he was old enough to understand what gangs even did. “And… yeah,” She sighed, “it’s tonight. Promise I’ll be home by morning, though.” She expressed with a genuine amount of eagerness. “Then, I’ll get you whatever you want for breakfast.”
“Yeah…” Aaron quietly agreed and nodded, as if he somehow knew his sister didn’t even know everything she promised for completely sure, “okay.” He flashed a tiny smile as Lilly stirred the broth she had cobbled together to break the surface tension and release steam before sliding the big spoon over to him around the rim of the pot.
She was a little jealous of how smart he was, sometimes.
“Well, why don’t we—” Lilly began, but was stopped by the holophone implant she’d had chipped since before her parents died. It chimed, and over her vision, a message from none other than her new boss expanded itself.
“Sis?” Aaron asked with a tilt of his head, watching Lilly’s eyes glow blue and shift as though she was reading line-after-line of text.
“gotta talk biz with you last minute before the job”, A message read, before a second one followed in its stead. “late, I know,” He’d typed, “so I’ll get you somethin to eat, if you ain’t ate already. meet me at embers, soon as you can”.
So there was a chance she didn’t have to feed Aaron slop tonight?
“I need to go.” Lilly brought up shortly to her little brother, her wide, black eyes indicating her emotion as she shot up to her feet. “Don’t—” She saw this as her shot- her chance to make an impression on Spencer with her knowledge and composure for the job- and her one opportunity to solidify her place amongst his Valentinos, “don’t move, Aaron. And don’t eat too much, either!” She grinned as she watched him stare in confusion. “My boss wants to see me before the job later tonight, and I get to bring you back real food!”
“But…” Aaron tried to protest as Lilly happily grabbed her coat from off the ground and started off toward the nearest NCART station. “I… love you, sis…”
Lilly’s brown, syn-leather boots stopped just in front of the staircase leading into Embers, the brutalist, concrete architecture washing a chilling air through her bones as she glanced to her right. It was late at night, but she supposed the fact that there was still one more vehicle parked right in front of Spencer’s golden, six-wheeled Alvarado made sense. She didn’t think a flashy, purple Arch was indicative of the usual clientele of an eatery as established and pricey as Embers was, but then again, nor was a homeless Netrunner who was coming to a place like this with the purpose of getting herself something real to eat only auxiliary to the goal of showing drive to the Valentino Sicario she called her boss.
She was almost too nervous to take the first steps onto the property- its flawless, gray surface contrasting starkly amidst the street-level filth of Night City that she had grown so used to since her parents died- but once her right foot started up the first, lowest step, she was on her way up the short set of stairs virtually on autopilot. She had a reason to be there, and she needed to move like it. The last thing she needed was for Spencer to pin her as a weak link and cut her out of the job at the last second… but who would even replace her? Netrunners who weren’t scheming to steal your personal info and sell it off to either a Fixer, a Corp or a rival gang were few and far between, and Lilly liked to think anyway that she was worth keeping around just because she was a nice person. Also a rarity in this city, it seemed.
Walking nearby to the entrance over the open, patio-like area, Lilly glanced around her. That same uncomfortable feeling chilled her bones again, and the moment she stopped to let her ears aid her Kiroshis in eyeing the landscape, she was shoved.
“sh*t…!” She growled, reaching into her coat as the sound of a Sandevistan deactivating whisked her over to the ledge of the raised patio. The glass guard-wall about waist-high lining the ledge shattered as she was held from falling backward over the edge by a hand gripping her jacket and holding her stationary. Shrouded in the dark, the figure smacked away the Tech Pistol she had begun to draw from her coat before her cybernetic eyes began to faintly glow with a green aura in retaliation. Scanning over the figure with her implants not caring that it was dark, she was able to get a positive identification on who was attacking her as a Quickhack failed to upload and her Cyberdeck seemed to simply shut off.
“Spencer…?” Lilly gasped, gripping his metallic wrist as his Cyber-hand effortlessly held her in a position where she couldn’t even move. “f*cking Christ, you go Cyberpsycho or something?!” She shouted at the man as his facial features began to become apparent and she tried harder to peer through the darkness. He looked calm.
“No.” Spencer answered with a cold edge to his voice as his golden eyes burned themselves into Lilly’s brain and fear began turning the muscles in her legs to jelly. Getting only error messages back when she tried to communicate with her deck, Lilly gave a grunt.
“Hi, Lilly.” A third voice, feminine and aggressive, accompanied the sound of boots stepping against the sleek floor as the new woman stopped her slow walking just beside Spencer. “Your ICE is pretty flimsy,” She continued, her voice carrying a malicious tune, like she’d take any opportunity to hurt Lilly if she had the chance, “what, you code it yourself?” Her face was shrouded by darkness, too, but a glow around her cybernetic eye implants lit up a portion of her face for Lilly to see. Lilly struggled again.
“All the best Netrunners code their own ICE,” Lilly bit back at the woman who- clearly, now- was disabling her Cyberware systems, “you should know that as a ‘runner!” Lilly thrashed in Spencer’s grip, but then gave a gasp as her right, brown, syn-leather boot lost its footing against the platform and sent her halfway dangling over the four-lane highway many meters below. She let an eek out from clenched teeth as she fought to regain her balance, brown hair hanging over the fall that may well have killed her if she took it on her head or back.
“Yeah,” The hostile Netrunner began, stroking a slender, brown hand over Spencer’s left shoulder as she stepped around his left side from behind him, “but you aren’t one of the best, are you, Lilly?” She gave a chuckle, and the comment immediately threw Lilly off her guard. Was she truly that bad at coding ICE? Or was this woman some kind of god-tier Netrunner? Maybe both? Maybe neither, and she was just bluffing?
“What the f*ck, Spencer?!” Lilly huffed, both of her hands clenched around his golden wrist and using him as an anchor to slowly pull herself back onto the flats of her brown boots. “What’s this about?! You not killed enough Valentinos lately?!” She tried her best- with her back against a proverbial wall- to spit venom at her attacker. She was a fighter, and even if she didn’t know what it was she was trying to fight against, she was going to defend herself. “You got a rep, you know; and it ain’t a good one! I turn up dead a day after coming to the Glen, the ‘tinos are gonna start asking questions! Pokin’—” She grunted in exertion, “pokin’ around your biz to see what the f*ck your deal is…!” She gave a laugh. “Clearly, you’re doing your own pokin’ around; outside the gang, it looks like…”
Spencer seemed to ignore her jabs completely, as if they didn’t register with him. Either he didn’t care, or he knew something she didn’t. “Yeah?” He asked in reply to being halfheartedly threatened. He didn’t deny that he was involved with the woman beside him, which made Lilly’s mouth run dry. “Well, I’m not the only one keepin’ a little secret from the Valentinos, am I, Lilly?” Spencer posited, which earned wide eyes in response.
“We know about Aaron.” The other woman gave her own input, her words shearing through Lilly’s bones like a cold wind as she stood with her arms crossed. They caught a sparkle of stray light from somewhere in the distance, and appeared to be covered in purple syn-leather; a Pozer jacket, without doubt.
“f*ck…” Lilly whispered over a very sudden change of inflection. Her entire world had been flipped upside-down with that one, simple, chilling sentence. “That what this is about? Gonna… w- what,” She spoke through a shiver that rattled her jaw, “kill me? Take Aaron instead? Cover it up or something?” She felt her hands run cold and sweaty against Spencer’s metal wrist. “Don’t you f*ckin’ dare! Swear to god, Spencer, I’ll fry you the second I get the chance—!”
“Nothing bad’s gonna happen to your little brother.” Spencer informed the captive Netrunner calmly and with a glare that communicated his urge to say something else. “Not if you can help it, anyway, right?” He let a dark-red brow arch on his forehead as if to suggest something to Lilly without expressly saying so. With her eyebrows low and pressed together in a snarl, she set her vision on him and swallowed her panic.
“What do I have to do?” Lilly asked, a quaver in her voice as she forced herself to sound like she was fearless, though she noticed that it wasn’t working. If she were to be frank with herself, she was goddamn mortified.
“First of all,” The other Netrunner, her magenta hair coming alight as she stepped closer to Lilly and let the neon ambience of their horror of a city glow around her, “you’re going to forget you know that Spencer has an output.” She stared into Lilly’s eyes, and the younger woman gave a slow nod as she continued on. “After that, you don’t need to do a thing; it’s more like what I need you to not do.” She had moved just in front of Spencer, slightly to his left, and stood mere inches away from Lilly. “In a couple hours, you’re going to dive into a Biotechnica Subnet.” She explained that which Lilly already knew. “Inside, you’ll see another ‘runner; me. All I need is for you to ignore me. Don’t say a f*cking word, don’t even act like I’m there. Let me klep what I need-” She continued after a wave of her hand tipped with long, white nails, “totally different from what you’ll be after- and then jack out.” She shrugged. “Sound simple enough?”
Lilly’s black eyes were but narrow slits in her face as brown eyelids came only millimeters from closing. “The ‘tinos will f*cking kill me if I let you pass through our op.” She explained, as though that wasn’t a factor on Spencer or his girlfriend’s minds. “They really don’t like secrets; you should know that if you’re an outsider f*cking a Sicario.”
“They’ll probably zero you if they find out about Aaron, so…” Spencer added in with a dismissive gesture from his organic right hand. “But hey, you probably already knew that if you’re keeping an outsider out of their influence.” Mocking what Lilly said to him, Spencer clearly tried to get in her head. As she glanced aside and blew her stress out as hot air, it was clear that it worked.
“C’mon,” The other Netrunner proposed, “I’m a good ‘runner. They’ll never find out, long as you never tell ‘em.” She egged, to which Lilly finally cracked like one. She couldn’t handle being pressured from so many different sides- so many different contingencies and ways she could be ruined- and she crumbled like sand.
“f*cking—! Fine!” Lilly shook her head violently as her eyes squeezed shut. “f*ck!” She grappled with the implications of her situation, suddenly regretting every decision since her mother and father died that led her to being dangled over the street below Embers by two heartless thugs who seemed eager to revel in their self-assured victory. Lilly hoped Night City crushed them one day like it had her, while they slept or ate or screwed; she hoped a stray bullet from some senseless shootout found their brains and put them both out of her own misery. She wanted nothing more than to trap them in their homes and burn them alive.
But, she only clenched two small, cold fists as she was pulled up to her feet by Spencer’s cybernetic strength. Her knuckles running white, she listened.
“Try anything in the Net, Hailey’ll fry you.” Spencer warned as he released the collar of Lilly’s long, brown coat and pulled his hand back to his side. He stepped back, like he all-of-a-sudden felt no need to be so threatening now that he had verbal assurance that he’d he wanted. His face became less sharp as darkness took parts of it, but the golden slots of metallic Cyberware caressing his cheekbones still shimmered regardless.
“I cracked your ICE in under two minutes.” Hailey, the second Netrunner with her pink hair and purple jacket over a nice, expensive-looking Netrunning suit, started with a confident smirk. Lilly saw her as some vapid c*nt from the start, but she was starting to understand that Spencer had always been that way, too. “Remember that, if you think you can out-hack me.”
“Uh-huh.” Lilly grumbled under her breath as she stared down at her boots on the shiny ground. The Glen was such a nice place. Of course only people like Spencer and Hailey lived there, while people like her were stuck, homeless, in Arroyo after Megabuilding H4 had been quarantined, her family evacuated, and then her parents murdered. They had only taken a loan from Sixth Street to try and find their family a place to stay, and they were going to pay the Sixers back, but they… just weren’t fast enough. “Hate this f*ckin’ city…”
“It f*cks us all, at some point. Every person who tries to make life here work out.” Hailey responded to something that she had no right responding to, and Lilly glared at her. What could she possibly know about loss? Or about the sickening way that Night City could churn people into scopspread? “Every last one…”
“Yeah,” Lilly argued, “but at least I don’t feel like I need to f*ck other people back because of it.” Her voice was strained, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she wanted to scream or cry. Maybe both. After her quick snap of a sentence, Spencer laughed.
“Ever consider maybe that’s why you feel like NC’s doormat?” He posited, arms crossed snugly over his chest as he seemed to find humor in Lilly’s plight. He spoke as if he had experience being passive, like he’d once been the type to let his life happen to him rather than actively live it himself. Lilly hated that.
But… she bit her tongue. She bit it hard, knowing she and her dear brother were still under Spencer’s red-and-gold foot, poised to be squashed at his discretion. Lilly wasn’t in a position to challenge him, or Hailey. She needed to prioritize keeping herself alive and Aaron out of trouble with the Valentinos. That was all that was important.
"Well," Hailey started speaking again after eyeing Lilly and spinning about on her heels, making sure the younger Netrunner was really as passive as she seemed, "I should get going." She announced to the others nearby her. "Really need to get some rest before diving. Been busy as hell today; shouldn't jack in with a full RAM cache." She glanced over her shoulder as the green light around her eyes went dark and Lilly's Cyberware systems all kicked back to life with a small start to her nervous system. "Ain't that right, Lilly?"
Chapter 11
Chapter Text
Lilly's blood ran cold as she watched the visual feed of her Kiroshi implants clutter with the boot prompts and text boxes of her various startup processes. She was so little threat to either of them that Hailey saw no danger in powering her chrome back on? Was Hailey really walking around with ICE that thick?
Flicking her Kiroshis into a sort of investigative mode once they had booted up fully, Lilly rested her scanner's circular crosshair over the other Netrunner casually walking away. Reading over things like 'Arasaka' and 'Wanted' on the identification card that appeared, Lilly then let her lips part slightly in some mix of fear and shock.
Quickhack costs on this woman- uploaded through direct line-of-sight or over an un-Breached network- would be raised by a staggering twelve RAM units. Twelve spaces in her slowly self-purging cache, in which she only had thirty-four, on top of whatever else the specific Daemon would cost to copy, paste and upload.
"Yeah…" Lilly gulped as she swallowed her nerves and realized then that she would be genuinely incapable of hacking both of them without seriously injuring herself. She was f*cked from the start. All disabling her Cyberware accomplished for Hailey and Spencer was keeping them from being mildly annoyed by Quickhacks that would likely cripple her and Spencer, who Hailey could probably just help recover with an inhaler or injection of some kind.
"We gotta go, too." Spencer informed Lilly, sounding as if he intended to portray that she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She looked at him, and he glanced toward the direction that Hailey had begun to stroll off in. Spencer turned after her, and Lilly only watched as he seemed to wait.
"What…?" Lilly uttered with a dark eyebrow raised high over her forehead. "I have a mouth to feed, Spencer," She scoffed as she stood up straighter and felt as though she needed to defend her brother, "a little boy back in Arroyo thinks he's got a meal from Embers coming back to him."
“Yeah,” Spencer continued off the back of that, “and a Valentino Netrunner’s got a Subnet to Breach before a heist.” He didn’t so much as glance behind him as he spoke and walked off, like he simply expected Lilly to follow submissively behind him.
Which, of course, she did. She couldn’t afford not to.
“f*ck, Spencer…” Lilly sighed sharply through her nose as she shook her head and took the stairs down from Embers’ patio behind him. “I really thought you might be different from my other boss, you know?” She mumbled, halfway hoping he didn’t hear her as she condemned him. “Everyone can see how much you don’t seem to give a f*ck,” She explained, “but I guess it’s on me for not realizing that disregard is about everyone who isn’t you.”
Spencer, again, said nothing at all as he walked away from the younger woman behind him. It was as though he didn’t hear her as he neared his parked vehicle, Hailey’s motorcycle and its glowing wheels already peeling off as their two pairs of shoes stepped onto the sidewalk. As Lilly stared at the deep, nearly-black red coating the back of his head, Spencer placed the tips of his metallic, golden Cyber-hand against the hood of his Alvarado with a clink.
“We’re goin’ to the same place.” He brought up with a shrug, seeming to stare down at the street just out in front of him just to keep his eyes busy and avoid looking at her. “Notice you came here without wheels; it’d take you a while to walk back to base.” He then spun slightly on his heels and snatched his car’s door open. “Need a ride?”
Lilly’s chest filled with a hot anger at that question. He insulted her by insinuating that she needed anything from the likes of him; his scheming and conniving having done enough for her already. However, walking anywhere alone in Night City after dark was a really good way to end up mugged, raped or murdered, and those weren’t even guaranteed to be mutually exclusive. Sighing, she popped the passenger-side door open and plopped herself in.
“I’m f*cking homeless,” Lilly grouched before the chunk of a heavy door closing behind her trapped her in a metal box with the man who so violently threatened her very way of existence, “yes, I need a ride.”
“... and the Daemon’s finished.” Lilly said with her voice casual to anyone who was paying little attention, but hiding an obtusely obvious amount of disdain if heard by somebody with reflexes as superhumanly sharp as Spencer’s were. She caught a datashard in her palm as it shot from the side of her neck with a click, and then tossed it without regard to the taller, muscular Valentino standing across the room from the chair she was lying in.
“Just plug this in once we’re done,” Spencer spoke as though he was reiterating something that had been covered previously, “then the whole Sub blows?” His left arm moved like a golden blur, a quiet, metallic click indicating that he’d managed to catch the lobbed datashard out of the air with little difficulty, while talking. It only made sense, considering with a machete in-hand, the cyborg could manage to deflect actual bullets, fired from a real gun.
“It won’t actually blow up,” Lilly begrudgingly engaged her superior in casual small-talk as if their relationship was anything but strained, “if that’s what you’re expecting. In fact, you probably won’t even be able to tell if it worked or not with your proficiency.”
Did that sound passive-aggressive? Because she meant it to.
“Lack thereof.” Spencer admitted with a shrug, owning his total novice status in the presence of a legitimate Netrunner. He could see that it bothered her that what she said didn’t bother him, her black Kiroshis going narrow behind her squinting, brown eyelids. He wasn’t sure why she thought it might; she knew Hailey was a Netrunner.
“Leave all your software troubleshooting to your output, then?” Lilly questioned, her eyebrow arching and her tone inflecting something like teasing, only in a context that felt far less playful than that word connotated. She chuckled. “Need her to turn your router on and off for you, too?”
“Watch your f*ckin’ volume—!” Spencer bit back in a whisper-yell, glancing to the door of the small room they occupied and feeling reassured that it had been shut the entire time. He sighed, and then blinked slowly as Lilly smugly glared at him. She knew he couldn’t kill her, and he knew she couldn’t rat him out. Being stuck in a stalemate with one another wasn’t an immediate reason to act like they were chooms, though, clearly.
“She really lives under your skin, doesn’t she?” Lilly asked with a scoff-laugh, seeming halfway amused and halfway empathetic for his situation. “puss* must be unbelievable for you to go through all this trouble keeping her around…”
“You’re not funny.” Spencer droned with his facial expression deadpan in the face of Lilly growing more pleased with herself now that the shock of having been blackmailed settled. She released more of her personality- that of a relentless fighter- and wanted to make every step of this ordeal as difficult for Spencer as she could manage.
f*ck that guy.
“What,” She continued, “am I wrong? It can’t be easy hiding your dirty little secret from the gang. Why even bother?” Lilly watched Spencer rub his face with a golden palm and sigh. “I mean, yeah, clearly she means something to you- why else would you get so defensive- but at a certain point… wouldn’t you say she’s more trouble than she’s worth?”
“You always talk to your superiors this way?” Spencer answered that question with his own, his voice snappy and his lips frowning strongly. But, before he could assert his authority and demand that the subject of their conversation be changed, he found himself opening his frowning lips to speak. "Hailey and me…" Like a deflating tire, he sighed again, "we get one another, I think. When we met, it was on a job, and I got a pretty good look at who she is."
"A blackmailing, homicidal maniac who can Netrun her way around any consequences for her actions?" Lilly suggested with a nod, as if to imply that her and Spencer both knew damn well what kind of person Hailey was, even hidden behind a Corpo mask.
"Somebody backed into a corner by sh*t she couldn't control." Spencer corrected the younger woman with his golden glare sharp and his arms crossing over his chest as he leaned back into a cold, metallic wall. "Only, unlike me," He continued, "Hailey looked her life in the f*ckin' Kiroshis and told it to suck her dick." He saw Lilly nodding slowly, and gathered that she was becoming somewhat interested in what he had to say.
After all, how could she not? Spencer wasn’t the type to speak his mind in all that many words, and hearing him open up and spill his guts like this was like watching some kind of historical event unfold right before her eyes.
“Her and I have so many of the same experiences and feelings, even if the circ*mstances are different,” Spencer ran his eyes over loose wires clinging to the wall furthest from him, “but she lives under my skin ‘cause of that Edgerunner streak she’s got.” As though pieces had been being placed the entire time for a massive puzzle to come together, every minute Lilly had spent with Spencer started to make so much more sense after he uttered that final sentence.
“My god,” Lilly scoffed and let a palm cover her lips as she cracked a wide, toothy grin, “you love her because she’s a dangerous outlaw?” She questioned, rhetorically. “Like your mom, only with even less rules? Or like you, if you weren’t a Valentino?”
Spencer quickly shook his head and un-folded his arms, fixing his long, black-and-gold jacket around his neck with both hands before turning away. It wasn’t that he was secretive or that he didn’t like to open up to people- he wasn’t your textbook macho man from every action BD post-Unification War- but what he didn’t like was hearing something that was true presented to him by someone who he didn’t want to hear it from. He didn’t want to hear from anybody at all that he was in love with Hailey because of some child-like fascination with being a lawless gun-for-hire who answered only to eddies and Fixers. He didn’t want to think about how losing a mother for the large majority of his childhood made him seek out a partner who fit that bill almost exactly; down to the black heart beating in her chest.
“This was a mistake.” Spencer grumbled as he quickly popped up and off the wall, making his leave and approaching the door. Tapping the touchpad on its right-hand side with his organic index finger, he began to bark orders out from his chest. “Jack in, meet Hailey in the Net, wait ‘til we get there to crack security.” The door slid open with a quiet hiss, and Spencer glanced over his left shoulder with a glare so sharp that it could cut glass. “Bring any of this up to anyone and I’ll f*cking kill you.”
Lilly, still sitting in her chair as Spencer rushed to leave after suddenly turning sour in response to what she said, felt a gulp of dry nothing fail to slide down her throat. Despite her teasing, she was still at his mercy, and what he told her felt like a reminder of that; like he meant it. She felt a chill, as though Spencer in that moment cared not for what the consequences of killing her might be; like he was- foundationally- a killer who put on a mask and played pretend like he was a functional member of their organization. That same Spencer who showed himself at Embers, he wasn’t an act; the other Spencer who everyone thought they knew as the quiet, devoted Sicario was.
She said nothing to him as he continued away from the door, turning off to his right. The door slid shut from the wall in its track, leaving Lilly alone in her chair with the threat on her life hanging around her head like a smog. Perhaps she'd gotten a bit too overeager and extended herself a bit too much, teasing the man in charge of her fate with her scrappy attitude and getting herself in more trouble than she needed to be in. She wished she could describe herself as a fearless, unshakable Streetkid with a fighter’s attitude, but she wasn’t. She grew up a fairly normal girl in Arroyo, drinking the same toxic water as everyone else and having the same financial problems as everyone else, and for the majority of her life and into her early adulthood, her parents were present and loved her very much. The fact of the matter was, thinking further on what she knew about Spencer now, he terrified her.
“Fine, Lilly,” She began to speak to herself in the dark, electrically-charged room, “you’ll be fine. Just one job, then you can get away from it all…” She took a deep breath through her lips as she pressed her dark hair into the headrest of the chair behind her and drew the thick, winding cable out from it to line up with the round, shadow-filled port on the side of her neck. Blowing the deeply-swallowed air through her nose, she continued to focus herself on the money she’d make after all was said and done and she was finished with the heist.
In a flash of what her brain perceived as colored static- though was actually her computing systems transitioning away from functioning in realspace- Lilly was transported instantly to a world of feelingless, binary void. Ones and zeroes blew past her digital engram like a breeze, only nowhere near as pleasant, and she was led to believe that she was walking by her Cyberdeck’s processing power through a valley between blue scratches of data stretching into a vast sky of total nothingness. The Net was both cold and not cold at the same time, almost as if the lack of a legitimate, quantifiable temperature wanted to be perceived in her human brain as cold, even despite her knowing better than that.
“You’re here,” A familiar voice- or at least, what felt like a voice to Lilly’s simulated ears- echoed through the unused data making up the illusion of unoccupied space around them, “guess that means Spencer’s on his way?”
Lilly glanced over her shoulder and whipped her digital body around, its white, untextured form almost glowing in the emptiness of the Net, as she spotted the only other Netrunner who was supposed to be in this area with her. Her black, untextured body contrasted Lilly’s, and the younger Netrunner nodded what felt to her like her head in affirmation.
“Yeah, he is.” Lilly began, seeming as though she may have had more to communicate before Hailey once again spoke up to cut her off.
“He threatened to kill you again before he left, didn’t he?” Hailey asked, though by the emulated look on her artificially-constructed face, she knew the answer already. “Yeah, that’s his way of reminding you that you’ve got a job to do.” She shrugged. “Just didn’t want you to get comfortable once he left.”
Lilly, standing before Hailey’s simulated person as she strolled past her and up to the now-repaired entrance of the Biotechnica Subnet, made a curious expression. “Did… you talk to him, just now?” She questioned with a tilt of her digitalized head as Hailey stopped at the firewall and looked up- again, what they both perceived as up, anyway- and then hummed.
“Nope.” She replied, her pink ball of untextured hair refusing to shake like it should have if where they were had conventional laws of physics as she shook her head. “I just know my input,” She explained, “and you seemed rattled when you jacked in. Spencer can be intense, but especially in this respect, he’s not like me.” Hailey glanced back at Lilly with a smirk on her pink, simulated lips. “He won’t kill you for no reason.”
“Jesus f*cking Christ,” Lilly half-yelled and half-winced as what felt like her eyes went wide in the sockets of what she assumed to be her skull, “you’re both monsters…!” She seemed to have been worked into a fret by the constant, back-to-back threats, and she eyed Hailey suspiciously as she chuckled. “What did I do to you? Either of you?”
“Nothin’,” Hailey said, “like I said, I don’t really need a reason.” She relayed that information as if it wasn’t something she’d realized about herself in just the last day. Being raised Corpo had a tendency to make one a very adept deceiver. “Relax, though,” Waving off Lilly’s obvious worry with a hand that bled a trail of brown pixels into the empty, blue void around them as it moved, “I like you. Plus, Spencer needs you for the job, and- well- I like him, too, so…”
"If you don't need a reason to kill me," Lilly emphasized her words carefully to avoid seeming aggressive, "why should I believe that you need a reason not to?" She stood defensively- as if footing or balance would help her at all in a setting such as this one- and stared holes through the code making up Hailey's avatar.
"That's smart." Hailey nodded as if she was impressed with Lilly's power of deduction, and then she gave a dismissive tilt of her head. "You can at least find assurance in the fact that I've got no reason to lie to you." She admitted, and watched as that seemed to calm Lilly's posture slightly. "You're a real bitch and I respect that," She continued, "but of course, I'm on Spencer's side. Just do your job and you'll be fine; I got nothing against you."
Lilly felt her simulated teeth grinding themselves against one another, her very real mind in the virtual space not knowing how she should be made to digest what she was being told. Obviously, trusting Hailey's words was as good as asking her to upload a Daemon into her systems- a death sentence- but then again, Lilly had no choice. Staying wary of Hailey would only distract her from her job, and failing would have too many negative repercussions to count. Lilly needed to stay alert and ready to react to anything, but that… wasn't a very good plan. It was about as non-specific as plans came, and didn't help her much.
"Uh-uh…" She hummed, knowing her unease was as good as blood in water to Hailey. "You two have to be the most Night City couple I've ever seen." She shook her head and slowly took a series of steps toward the firewall separating Hailey and herself from the Biotechnica Subnet. "Heartless killers and blackmailers, but the way you talk about one another… devotion."
Hailey blew a laugh out of holes that appeared as nostrils. "What, did Spencer have nice things to tell you about me?" She questioned in a tone that seemed like sarcasm after Lilly's dumbfounded comment on how her relationship with Spencer appeared. "Isn't that sweet."
"He…" Lilly, out of habit from when she was inside an organic body, scratched at the back of her neck anxiously, "really didn't want me to repeat what he said." She explained. "To anyone. That was actually where his threat came from."
"Yeah," Hailey's discolored, virtual eyeballs rolled in their simulated sockets, "that sounds like him." Chuckling, she waved a hand at Lilly to communicate that she didn’t care all that much. "I can probably take a good guess about what a lot of it was, anyway." Her tone changed, then, as her mind found something else for her mouth to say. "For better or worse, the two of us don't leave a whole lot unsaid. It's a good thing, but sometimes… the truth can hurt."
"Say stuff you don't mean, sometimes?" Lilly asked, but knew immediately after that that wasn't a great question. "I mean- no sh*t, who doesn't- but…"
"Nah," Hailey began again, "not necessarily, anyway." She shrugged. "There's some stuff between us that we… haven't ever been afraid of talking about. It's good- healthy- but… we both hate it when we realize we need to have that talk again."
“If he feels for you the way I do about Aaron in regards to the ‘tinos,” Lilly began to posit a guess as she drew a connection that she and Spencer were in rather uniquely similar situations with people they loved just barely out of the Valentinos’ influence, “I’m guessing it’s your relationship going public.” The younger woman explained herself and her thought processes with a simple connective sentence. “Can’t let the gang know you love somebody on the outside, unless you want ‘em to own them, too.”
Hailey’s gaze seemed not to change much, remaining that same not-threatening-but-not-friendly cold, as she focused then, too, on how similar their situations were. Of course, Aaron was Lilly’s brother and Hailey was the other party in Lilly’s metaphor if herself and Spencer were supposed to be the same, but it still made sense in her head as Lilly said it. She loved her brother, and wanted him to live the Night City dream that every Corp worth their weight in eds pushed as complete propaganda. Hailey supposed that was no different from Spencer somehow wanting her to live with him but also not wanting her to tie herself to the Valentinos.
“So, your wit isn’t the only thing about you that’s sharp.” Hailey, in a roundabout sort of way, gave Lilly a compliment. “Got a Netrunner’s brain, that‘s for sure.” Without expressly saying so, Hailey told Lilly that she’d guessed right- or, at least, right enough- in what it was that she and Spencer so often hated to talk about. “So, when’d they get you, huh?”
“What?” Lilly questioned, prompting Hailey to repeat what she said; perhaps rephrased. She didn’t quite grasp what the older Netrunner meant by that. Did it have something to do with what they were just talking about?
“Being a ‘runner,” Hailey elaborated, “what Corp swept you up in their bullsh*t too early for you to realize how f*cked you’d be in twenty years?” Her words positively dripping with the liquid angst of personal experience, she left Lilly a lapse to reply.
Laughing as she seemed to weigh the potential ramifications for actually entertaining Hailey’s question with the truth, Lilly shook the engram of her head and let her digitized curtain of brown hair sway to-and-fro. She supposed there was nothing she could tell a complete lunatic like Hailey that would utterly destroy her life any more than her knowing about Aaron already had, so she couldn’t logically come up with any reason to lie to the murderous psychopath and potentially piss her off. Lilly thought it wise to consider herself lucky that Hailey was seeming so much more docile than Spencer was to her.
That probably had a lot to do with how close-to-home she was for Spencer. To Hailey, Lilly was just another person to use and get what she wanted; it didn’t seem to be any more or any less.
“Would you believe me if I said the badges got to me?” Lilly expressed with a quiet chuckle from her nostrils. “Just a kid when I made up my mind, yeah,” She continued with a pensive flick of her eyes to the side, “and yeah, it was propaganda on TV that got me, but I guess I… wanted to save people.” Of course, the irony of her now being a gangoon was not lost on her. “Good intentions; too bad I grew up in Night City, right?”
Hailey scoffed. “You can f*cking say that again.” The manifestations of her eyes in the Net rolled as the powerlessness Lilly illustrated with her words felt all-too-familiar to Hailey. She would stand by the fact that the city they lived in was a complete nightmare, and that it was the reason for things going to sh*t like they always did.
After a brief moment of lull, Hailey’s eyes and face perked up from their idle frown when a display every bit as real as the two women in the digital black popped into reality, wrapped around the side of her head as if it were being projected from where her Kiroshis would have been, if they were in realspace. A ringtone carried through the air-less vacuum around them, and the digital display read ‘Spencer’, with a box of colors right beside it; a photo of the man himself, taken from the passenger seat of his Alvarado, with his left hand on the steering wheel and his eyes seeming lost in thought as they stayed trained on the road. It was as if he didn’t notice that there had been a photo being taken, and Lilly met Hailey’s eyes through the projection as she considered just what a contact photo like that said about what Hailey thought of him. It would have been charming, if she didn’t hate them both.
Being as they were both equally as integrated with the Net as one another, personal systems or files seemed to have completely gone out the window. Lilly could see Hailey’s holophone just as clearly as Hailey could through her Kiroshis in realspace, since they were both but errant lines of code at the moment, existing on the same data-floor. In the Net, they were equals- more or less- no ICE, personal VPNs or chrome keeping the power floor looking more like a ramp that led up to Hailey. As the holophone call was answered and Spencer’s front-facing bust filled the box where his photo had been, Lilly made a note of that. Spencer’s golden eyes stared out and into the blacks of Hailey's as night all around him choked any color at all out of his dark, blood-red hair.
“We’re in the shipyard,” His voice carried like a distant echo throughout virtual air, loud and somehow tiny at the same time, “and it’s like we figured; looks like turrets and cams.” Spencer informed his Netrunners. “Gonna need a full breach on security if we want to walk in and out.” His gaze turned aside as a Valentino just out of frame mentioned something indiscernible, and Spencer gave a shrug. “Whatever; let the Scavs watch.” He argued. “What’re they gonna do, huh? Get the cops?”
“Could just kill them.” Hailey laughed in response, seeming to think she was funny as she spun about the balls of her simulated heels to face the direction of the Biotechnica firewall. “Then half the block would know you're there.”
“That is,” Lilly pierced the firewall with her gaze as a set of Breach Protocol grids cut rectangular tiles out of the Net in front of her and Hailey, “if a shootout in Night City would even turn any heads, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, we don't need any f*cking attention.” Spencer barked, halfway between an order and a suggestion. He sounded like his nerves were on the edge of a blade, as if he'd either fall over the edge or cut himself on it sooner rather than later. “How's that Breach coming?” He asked after a moment. “We step foot onto this lot without it hacked and we're scop-paste, but we're getting eyed by Scavs just standing out in the open like this.” His concern was warranted, given how hostile the streets of Night City were known to be after dark.
“We're working on it.” Lilly responded in-time, her selections of two-digit bits of code snappy and tactile. As she spoke, her attention shifted to Hailey at her right, and then the flesh of her non-eyelids pulled back and her black voids of eyes went wide. Before Hailey lay a spread of grids, one layered atop the last like a loosely discarded stack of papers. “Jesus—!” She choked out from behind etheric muscles strained in virtual space. “You’re done with three already?” Lilly glanced back to her own grid, cracking her first one immediately after and getting promptly to work on the next.
Hailey’s consciousness may have been at the same depth in the Net as Lilly’s, but her understanding of what was to be done around her seemed to be noticeably deeper. The way she moved and especially so in the way she hacked; even in the Net, where on the surface it seemed that they had no differences, Hailey’s additional years as a Netrunner and the superior hardware she was sitting on back in her tiny Megabuilding apartment somehow still managed to show through. Simply, she was better at this than Lilly.
But… she didn’t deserve it, did she? It wasn’t like the skills were hers to have trained. She was this good at hacking when she was fourteen, and she hadn’t really seen much considerable improvement since. In hindsight, it started to make a lot of sense that her skills were a complete sham, because it almost started to feel like she’d never actually developed them herself, just uncovered them and then grew into them.
Lilly, on the other hand, was all-natural. She was keeping up with Hailey in Breach Protocol- struggling, sure- but she was only a few grids behind. This girl was not a novice, clearly, and she was proving that point quite handily as Hailey unlocked circuit after circuit of code-keys and felt as the firewall before them- repaired since her last foray into it- begin to react to the almost-complete key. Lilly’s skill had grown with her, and she’d fostered it since the day she decided to be a Netrunner- not for some Corporation but instead to her own ends- until she was able to use that skill with absolute certainty that it would get her what she wanted. She was young, but she was strong, and sharp, and had a mouth that could move fast enough to dodge bullets from most sh*t-starting gonks in Night City.
Hailey was jealous.
Chapter 12
Chapter Text
“Wall’s open.” Hailey said with a needless breath, as if she was at all in need of oxygen while submerged in a sea of ones and zeroes. ‘Ganic habits die hard, she supposed.
“Thank f*cking God,” Spencer muttered from in front of his holo-curtain, “let’s get in there, klep the sh*t and get out!” His face strained just slightly as he called to the Valentinos with him. He seemed like he was regretting having agreed to do this op in the first place, with Hailey closer than ever to the Valentinos on a not-so-professional level and her own safety being so on-the-line between Lilly, the gang or even Biotechnica.
“Cams are mine,” Lilly spoke up after a handful of quiet seconds before glancing to Hailey, “if you wanna grab the turrets.”
“Already on it…” Hailey replied, just as a new extension of her will was grafted on to her psyche like some kind of long-lost phantom limb, “and we’re nova.”
“Run the ingredients out to the truck,” Spencer spoke again to his small team of fearfully-obedient gangoons as he settled his golden eyes on something far away from him, “then delta like we planned. I’ll be behind you; just gotta crash the Subnet first before we go.” He described only events that were already a part of the plan, and none of his Valentinos had much to say in return as they as a group of five began to walk quickly across a gravel-like ground.
The five Valentinos, wearing colors brighter than one might anticipate they would to a dead-of-night heist, drew various weapons as they turned away from Spencer and headed down a ceiling-less hallway made of large storage containers. On their way to a specified container that they’d then empty into their large, boxy truck, they stuck to Spencer’s plan to the letter; after all, none of them wanted to end up like Vanessa.
Watching them go, Spencer dipped his golden Cyber-hand into the breast of his black, leather trench coat and drew his long, serrated machete. It wasn’t that he anticipated a problem, but he was alone- save for the two Netrunners in the network- and was only somewhat confident that the police wouldn’t bother investigating sounds of a shootout there.
He looked up in the not-too-distant foreground of his vision, the tower of glass and metal staring back reeking to him of Corpo luxury. Inside the Biotechnica Corporate hotel was where he needed to go to upload the virus Lilly created anyway, but it was also the part of the larger Biotechnica Subnet that he knew Hailey needed to get into; any one of the thousands of interconnected devices there serving as potential proxies for her to mine inside and erase her personal information.
The night around him felt as cold against what remained of his organic skin as the Net did to Hailey, but he continued on with a goal in-mind. Spencer wasn't necessarily the most driven person in the world- hell, he wasn't even the most driven person he knew- but he still knew when something needed done, there was no one more he could count on to do it than himself.
Did that mean he had trust issues?
Thanks, mom.
The doors to the Corporate hotel's quiet lobby remained tightly fastened as Spencer gave them a wide berth, their silvery sheen sticking out against the backdrop of brutalist city behind the building. He wasn't headed in the front door, and as he eyed a dormant camera, he slipped around the rightmost corner of the glassy dagger stabbing into the gut of the night sky.
This job was going to completely fall apart. It always did when Hailey was involved, and he knew he should have distanced himself from her for that. He just knew something would break, somebody would die, and he would need to make up a lie about it. He never wanted that woman more than he did when she was making life in the Valentinos harder for him.
Jesus Christ, she really was just like his mom; a complete and total problem that by all accounts he should have hated, but some pesky feeling in his chest when he looked at them kept him from wanting to cut either woman out completely. He wanted to live the life his mother made for him because he loved her. He wanted Hailey as close as possible, letting her see him for all he had to offer, because he loved her.
What a mess.
Right then was absolutely not the time or place to let himself think like that. He'd obviously push it down, telling himself he'd get around to unpacking it later, and then would forget about it like he always did when he lost himself in-between Hailey's thighs. She was always good at keeping his mind from occupying itself, and he supposed that was another thing his Cyberware habit was useful for; replacing Hailey as a distraction from his thoughts when she wasn't around.
Just like it had replaced his mom.
“Chingada madre…” Spencer grumbled aloud to himself as a brim of metallic fingertips pressed into the curved bridge of his nose and then slid over his left brow to iron out the thoughts behind it. He was thinking even despite his active attempts not to, and he was only distracting himself from performing in the job the way he needed to; the way he was capable of.
“What was that, Spens?” Hailey spoke up in his head, her holophone projection looking so much more like herself than he knew she did at-current inside the Net. He'd forgotten she was still on the line.
“Nothin’.” Spencer lied quick and dry through his golden teeth. Shaking his head, he cut alongside a concrete-like wall until he was met with a much smaller, much duller doorway; clearly a back entrance of some kind, not meant for the public.
“That door's locked deeper than where Hailey and I are.” Lilly said, her voice carrying through Hailey's brain and projecting to Spencer over his holophone. “I can probably hack it from outside through a camera, though…”
“Good,” Hailey affirmed, “I got bigger sh*t to worry about than a door, anyway.” Her attention in the window in the corner of Spencer’s vision seemed to drift to something else. “I need to go way deeper, Lilly, so you're on your own up here. Trust that you won't f*ck this up?”
“I might not have all the hardware you do,” Lilly responded with a scoff as a security camera above Spencer’s head whirred to life and pointed its lens at the door, “but I think I can crack a door open without help. I'm still a Netrunner, just like you are.”
Spencer listened to the two girls bicker and wished he could jack in for a second just to smack them both. Was being so hostile really necessary? They needed to depend on one another if the job was going to finish. He looked on as a series of augmented-reality boxes and panels slid open against the door's surface to imply Lilly's appearance. The name ‘ICE_Spectre’ flashed in crimson along a red panel, and Spencer was glad he was smart enough to at least discern that that was Lilly's Netrunning alias; even if every other byte of data flashing through his cheap eye-implants was as good as gibberish to somebody as uninitiated as him.
Spencer looked on with Lilly's influence on the door as her scripts and dialogue boxes were suddenly dotted with pixels and sheets of green. Her inputs were then reversed and erased, and Spencer watched in real-time as the young woman hit a wall of sorts inside the door. His posture shifted as he realized quickly that the door was not, in fact, easily managed for Lilly, and she'd instead done exactly what Hailey told her not to do; which was f*ck up.
“THAT DOOR GOT HANDS” Read a quick text from Lilly, her voice no longer able to be received as long as Hailey was as far away from her as she was. “I f*ckED IT, CORPO NINJAS INBOUND” She followed that up, and Spencer’s audible reaction piqued Hailey's interest.
“Huh?” She suggested curiously, sifting through strings of code longer than any novel as doors and halls of Subnet shifted and opened all around her. She needed to be somewhere, and she was digging as fast as she could to get there before Spencer needed to crash the servers.
“Lilly’s a f*cking gonk,” Spencer sighed hard as he watched Lilly's AR-interface disappear from the door's matte surface, “that's what. She botched hacking the door; now security knows someone's trying to break in!” He growled and gave a deep breath as he shook his dark-red head and backed away with a swish of his black jeans.
“You f*cking serious?!” Hailey snapped, though not at Spencer necessarily. It wasn’t his fault, after all. “I haven't even found my deets yet—! Not ones I can actually download, anyway!” Her engram gave a heated mutter from inside the Net as she watched Spencer in his little holophone window focus on something.
“You got time,” He explained as he made a golden fist with his left hand, “now that I don't need to worry about staying hidden, there's nothing stopping me from just walking straight in.” The hinges making up the panels of his Cyber-arm flipped out and he aimed a golden cylinder peeking from his forearm at the wall before him, obscured by darkness.
“f*ck!” Hailey groaned to herself as her hand swiped over a control panel of sorts and the Net around her reacted almost perfectly in-time with how rushed she was beginning to feel. She was deeper than she’d ever been in any Biotechnica system, which- admittedly- wasn’t saying much since she hadn’t ever stolen any data from them that she could recall; however, the feeling that at any moment, with the Subnet still standing and all of her activity within it logged, she could be intercepted by a Corporate Netrunner so much more potent than her that she’d barely have time to register their data packet in her Cyberdeck’s memory buffers before she’d fry…
“Come on, I know my files have to be here somewhere…” Hailey mumbled aloud as her eyes- nigh-omnipotent, in this realm- scanned over loosely organized folders of files, completely out of order in any pattern she could think of. This was no database where she could interface and simply read information like she had earlier; that was normie-sh*t compared to where she was currently. The level of Subnet she was burrowed into went beyond the need for user-interfaces period; the only way she was even able to visually observe anything was through her Cyberdeck’s rapid interpretation of the ambient code around her, rewritten into graphical data. She was at a level where files were archived and subsequently forgotten about, until either an AI or a Netrunner who knew their way around the Subnet could dip in to pull something out for a time before it was eventually sent back. It was deep storage, more-or-less, and she wasn’t made to be down there, so it only made sense in her Netrunner-brain that finding what it was she was looking for would be next to impossible without some serious processing power on her side. It was out of order simply because it didn’t need to be organized, so why would any lazy, self-serving Corpo bother putting in the effort?
To hell with it; what did she need her brain’s natural fat deposits for, anyway?
With a click inside her cranium that she could feel all the way from realspace, her Cyberdeck switched gears. Its normal functions remained, but it diverted its reading power from the RAM units installed into it; instead, the long, metallic stick of code and commands grafted onto the right side of her skull began to draw upon calories.
Her.
Her Cyberdeck grew hot as it began to viciously consume the fleshy, fatty goop inside her head; the mass of that so much more potent than RAM could ever be, but also far more limited. Her RAM could recover, but her brain matter didn’t, so she knew she needed to make every Overclock count, especially when she was almost never in the financial position to see a Ripper for a transplant to replace some of the brain tissue her Cyberdeck had since sucked the life out of.
This morbid supercharged state gave Hailey a surge of processing power, her posture inside the Net changing as she flung the idea of her right hand out in front of her eyes and through a language of software commanded the domain around her to manifest what she needed. The hand warped digital space around it like the event horizon of a black hole might to realspace, streaks of blue data bending and inflating as brown, untextured fingers wafted across in a delicate, graceful, yet domineering gesture.
For the next few moments, or until she was vegetized, the Net was hers.
Spencer’s feet were planted and his gold-and-silver spine was rigid as light, heat and shredded metal blew back from in front of him. His Projectile Launcher’s metallic plates closed up with a series of clicks washed over by a deafening boom, and as he peered through the smoke left in the aftermath of his wrist-launched warhead, he gave a dignified smirk.
The pesky door that had been in his way for a moment too long was now torn completely off its track, its locks melted and its frame twisted. It clattered to the floor inside the hotel, and Spencer wasted no time stomping inside on top of it to survey his surroundings.
It seemed as though he’d entered through some back hallway somewhere, the light-gray walls and turquoise-blue tile floors entirely devoid of life; which- in all reality- was probably a good thing. Needing to tear through a panicking crowd of civilians would only mean more time wasted, and this heist had already seen enough of that. He looked up and down the gray walls, a rotating flash of orange light streaking across his vision as it arched up and onto the ceiling and then back around again with no sound whatsoever to accompany its quite erratic visual appearance; a silent alarm that- if Spencer had to guess- had been going strong since the door’s lock was mis-hacked.
“Hey, Hal,” He began quietly, keeping his machete drawn in his right hand tightly as he stepped off of the bent, burnt door and onto the tile, “can you tell me from where you’re at in the system how long we got ‘til security gets here?”
“They were dispatched from the City Center two minutes ago.” Hailey answered fast, as if finding that information had either been simple or she already had it on-hand. Her focus seemed elsewhere, though her voice sounded like one of somebody who knew exactly what she was talking about; like she was everywhere in the Subnet at once. “They’re expecting to get here by 3:25,” She referred to the fact that it was just after three o’clock in the morning when they’d all arrived to start their heist, “so we gotta f*ckin’ move.”
“f*ck,” Spencer sucked at the inside of his bottom lip through his teeth, “okay. Gonna find the server room now; just let me know when you’re ready to jack out, huh?”
“Holy sh*t, I found it!” Hailey exclaimed after Spencer’s concerned proposition, as if she wasn’t listening. He knew she was, though. “Had to Overclock and I still need the processing power to speed up the download so I can’t turn it off, but I’ve got my file!”
Hailey read over her name, chained to two files each pertaining to her mother and her father respectively, and instantly began to extract them by shoving the surrounding code around it inward; the end goal to squeeze the data out of its packaged, encrypted state like the contents of a zit so she could snatch it out of the aether. To a layman, she was simply downloading it, and that was why she used that term when speaking to Spencer, but in the technical truth, what she was doing was really more like mining and then stealing data from a total rockwall of a Subnet. It wasn’t different enough in practice to matter much, but she found herself fixated on the little details as the process of drilling out ores made from code brought a fatigue to the basic foundation of her consciousness; even so separated from her physical body, the tax of performing what she did trickling down layers of reality to affect her engram.
“Glad you’re having luck…” Spencer muttered as he cut back across a T-shaped hallway junction after having dashed down it. He seemed to be finding every other direction to a server room except for the one correct path, and he didn’t like how much that sounded like a metaphor in his head. “Why is it you always make it sound like the simplest sh*t in the world to find some hotel’s server room and upload a virus when you talk about Merc-work, huh?”
Then, a blue box populated his peripheral vision, filled with letters that formed words and words that strung into a message. Lilly had decided to make herself useful, finally.
“Got the floor-plans, if Hailey’s too busy.” Lilly shot at him, her snark simply tangible through her wordless words. “Server room should be down a set of stairs after you take two more lefts.” She gave a succinct explanation, which Spencer was glad to take even despite the younger Netrunner’s unnecessary comments about Hailey.
Frankly, he was surprised the two of them had already gone so long without hacking one anothers’ brains into sludge, so Lilly just now seeming visibly bothered by Hailey just… being Hailey; it was a sign of a good thing, as far as he could tell. He didn’t bother replying, assuming that Lilly had been in the cameras and that she knew he got her message, and simply followed her instructions with the left turn just in front of him leading into another, which then led him to staring down the short slant of a stairwell.
Understanding his utter crunch for time as he noted the reading of the clock widget on the display of his holophone, Spencer glanced over the railing to his right, down the middle of the set of stairs that wrapped in a rectangular pattern down and down. He weighed his options for only a moment before he snagged the rough, brown, metal rail with his right hand and hopped up to swing his legs and body over it, opting to simply fall straight down the stairwell’s narrow middle until his red-and-gold feet stomped hard against unpolished, turquoise tile floors.
He sunk like a stone before hitting the floor hard, but his balance wasn't lost and he managed not to crack the tile as he began to stand straight. Bending his bionic knee joints back into an open position, he glanced over each of his shoulders before he cautiously sheathed his machete into his jacket. He didn’t think he'd need it, and he'd need both hands free for what he was going to hope to accomplish, anyway.
Spotting only one door at the far end of the small, hallway-like chamber he found himself in, Spencer took a short series of steps over uncleaned tile and approached the black, metallic sheet. He peeked through a small, rectangular window at eye-level on the door and had his mechanical retinas washed over with green light pouring out from floor-to-ceiling towers of technology that he had no hope of beginning to act like he understood.
Knowing enough to assume that those must have been the servers that he was supposed to be abusing, he stepped back from the doorway before him and eyed it. He assumed it would be locked, but he didn’t want another security ping to go out, so he didn’t bother asking one of his Netrunners to handle it. At least its matte, chipped frame looked to be old and weak.
Spencer’s left hand forced itself a rigid plate of gold, fingers jutting out straight as he drew the hand back slightly and aimed it right at the crease between the door and the wall. It cut air with a whump, before the metallic bang of chrome Cyberware hitting a metal-alloy door reverberated off the walls of the claustrophobic, forgotten-feeling hallway. Like the head of a shovel puncturing a mound of dirt, Spencer’s four top fingers stabbed themselves into the doorframe and then pierced into the room behind it; the golden appendages curling strongly back to grip the door tightly in his dominant hand before his right hand hooked the portion of the frame burrowed in the wall beside it for support.
Then, with a creak, he pulled.
Synth-muscles in his chest and shoulders pulled tight against his titanium bones, his left hand instantly creating a dent in the right side of the door as he tugged it forcefully aside. It screamed in its track as its motors were overpowered and its locking mechanism was crushed, and as if it had been dragged over the edge of some invisible hill that was keeping it held back, the door slammed open past its halfway point. The bent sheet of metal slowly crawled back in to fill its opening as if the friction keeping it in one place on its sliding track had been stripped away, and Spencer’s golden knuckles batted it out of his way as he crossed the threshold into the glowing, distractingly-green server room with a tap from his shoe.
“f*cking finally…” Spencer sighed, glancing around at the identical-looking towers of green and then giving a frown. “Now what? Which one of these do I jack into?” He asked, looking a tower up-and-down and being unable to discern any kind of port for his Personal Link to slot into.
“None of them.” A female voice that wasn't Hailey's came over the dark-skinned woman's holophone feed. As the voice began again, it was clear that it was Lilly, having joined Hailey's side once again. “Front of the room to your right,” She instructed, “there's a desk with a monitor on it. Jack into the plug under the desk; it's a server-wide Access Point.” She spoke casually as if she hadn't caused them all trouble, and Spencer rolled his eyes as Hailey decided she'd lay into the younger woman.
“Nice f*cking work there.” She meanly snapped at Lilly as her voice reverberated inside Spencer’s head. He knelt and reached both of his hands out to find the port as he listened to Hailey keep on antagonizing. “I figured unlocking a door would be the easiest part of tonight; that's why I left it to you. Good to know I'll need to do the hacking from now on so we don't get the f*cking cops here, next time.”
“Hey, f*ck you!” Lilly came back at Hailey like a clap of thunder. “Sorry I'm not a life-long prodigy ‘runner like you! Dunno if you remember being human or not in that blackened f*cking heart of yours, but we make mistakes, sometimes!” She shouted the best she could in the soundless void of the Net. “Yeah, so what; I choked on the hack when you decided you needed to think you were funny and throw in that ‘don't f*ck up’ before you delta'd!”
“Will both of you shut the f*ck up?” Spencer butted in soon after realizing that he’d need to play mediator before one of the girls wound up dead. He knelt on his left knee, his heavier-than-he-seemed weight distributed between that and his right foot planted flatly out in front of him. Both hands still slightly outstretched, he poised himself to draw his Personal Link from inside his left wrist before stilling and engaging in conversation once more. “Hailey, tell me when that download’s finished so I can upload this Daemon.”
“Didn’t say that ‘cause I thought I was funny,” Hailey started right back at Lilly after Spencer said his piece, “I said it because you obviously needed to hear it. Watching you fumble your way into the Subnet was embarrassing enough, but that door was so simple it’s pathetic.” She acted as though she hadn’t even heard Spencer, and the man gave an impatient groan as Lilly’s voice released a sound somewhat like a huff.
“You got a problem with me?” Lilly asked in a high pitch. “Before we Breached the firewall out front, you acted like we were chooms; now all-of-a-sudden we’re at one another's throats?” She gave a scoff and seemed to calm down from anger, as if she now wanted a conversation with Hailey about what her problem was instead of just yelling.
If only Hailey was so amicable.
“Yeah, I do,” She replied fast, “your hacking is sh*t, and I think you should—”
“Hey!” Spencer interrupted his girlfriend, frustrated not at what she was saying but by when she was saying it. “We got movement out front according to the crew!” His Personal Link feeding out from the base of his cybernetic wrist with a quiet hiss, Spencer leaned forward and plugged the prong on the tip of the wire into the small jack he was made aware of by Lilly. “We’re outta time, so Lilly, help Hailey if you can; if not, jack out and wait for me to call!”
“Motherf*cker!” Hailey responded with a harsh tone to her voice, like she had something else on her mind and the news that they were now under attack only added to that irritation. “Don’t you dare slip away, you little c*nt!” She grouched to Lilly. “You can-too help me, and you know how! Jack out and I swear to god, I will crucify your little brother!”
Lilly sighed. “f*ck’s sake, Hailey, okay!” Exhaustedly, she seemed to dismiss the very concept of leaving Hailey to her own devices. “I’ll start squeezing the data out, too; can’t really f*ck that up, can I?” With a passive aggression palpable to everyone listening, Lilly seemed to join Hailey in shutting her mouth and working the deeper Subnet over.
Gunshots from behind him grabbed Spencer’s attention, his crew of Valentinos opening fire on the just-arrived truck-full of Biotechnica Corporate agents. He hoped they’d be able to hold them off for a moment, but he wasn’t optimistic about their chances. He hadn’t expected armed resistance on the way into the shipyard, so he’d had his crew pack light weapons so heavier artillery couldn’t slow them down; he didn’t even think that they might be facing armed, dangerous resistance on the way out.
“They aren’t gonna last long out there.” Spencer commented, his cold demeanor unchanging as if to communicate that the deaths of his half-dozen Valentino underlings was but an inconvenience to him. All their deaths meant was that he’d have a harder time leaving with his prize once Hailey got what she was looking for.
“Eighty percent, now that Lilly’s making herself useful.” Hailey explained, while also managing to demean the other Netrunner even more. “I feel your link in the Net; a Daemon like that one uploads and works fast. Don’t let go of it just yet, ‘kay?”
“Uh—” Spencer began as fast footsteps approached the door to the server room, their sudden appearance to him meaning only one thing;an ambush.
“Sicario Suarez!” A Hispanic-accented voice burst through the slightly-ajar door, and Spencer let a breath from inside his lungs roll out of his lips as he took his grip off of his machete’s handle. “Corpo Solos’re lightin’ us up outside!”
“Yeah,” Spencer replied, “I can tell that.”
“What do we do?” The Valentino man asked, his white-platinum-colored eyes going wide as he gripped his Tech Pistol with two hands and spun around. “They’re makin’ it this way!” He cried and held the gun out with a surprisingly steady grip. With a shout, a charged bolt of lead punched through the creaky, broken, metal door just as it was being thrown open by a navy-blue-gloved hand. The Tech bullet- a rifle’s power packed into a pistol’s ammunition- gave a harsh metal-on-metal clang not once but twice, as it passed through the door and cracked into a metallic, tactical helmet on the head of a woman whose momentum carried her face-first into the room. Blood from the wound in her head splattered forward in a series of crimson streaks as she hit the ground in the threshold of the broken door, halfway in the room and halfway out, and Spencer recognized the Biotechnica insignia on a patch on the arm of a thick, padded sleeve. She had dropped dead very handily, but she was also only one.
“Nice shot.” Spencer, not usually one to lose his cool, glanced his underling up-and-down and found comfort in the fact that he didn’t appear fearful or otherwise shaken at all after having taken a life. Right then, he figured he needed a cold-blooded killer to be watching his back. “How much longer on that download?” He questioned seemingly no one, which- in a world with holophone technology and Cyber-eyes- was not all that unusual.
“Ninety-four.” Hailey shot a response and little else as she appeared intensely concentrated on her Netrunning through her holophone window.
“Good,” He returned to Hailey and then glanced at his gangoon, “just need a sec more and then—” Spencer’s statement- meant to inspire confidence- was cut off as the clang of a small, round, metallic object bounced off the wall facing parallel with the pried-open door. Its shape caught a glint of green as it clattered to the floor and bounced once, its form caressed by a handle of some sort to give it away to Spencer as a hand grenade.
Not good.
On instinct, he wanted to command his Sandevistan to switch on. Though, with a holophone window open in his field of vision, his brain was forced to stop and think critically about his plight in the instants before the grenade detonated.
For starters, he had precisely zero idea what the f*ck would happen if he suddenly slowed time around himself while jacked into a Subnet. Would that take Hailey and Lilly for a ride at a couple dozen times their normal speed of existence? Would it just cook them both? Secondly, even if he jacked out and then activated his Sandy, he had no guarantee that he could- one- make it there before the grenade went off anyway, or- two- how he’d manage to get back to the Access Point once whoever was trying to breech-and-clear the server room pushed inside.
With his free trial of all-natural, good-old-fashioned, one-hundred percent human adrenaline running dry, Spencer watched in real-time as the small object burst with a deafening pop and a white-hot glare not unlike the sun’s, except more obtusely blinding. His golden eyes squeezed themselves shut and his face scrunched into an expression of discomfort as he twisted his body away from the flash and bang.
Past his ears ringing- surprisingly, no chrome in there- Spencer could discern the faint sounds of gunshots popping. By the sheer number of rounds he could hear fired, there was a bit of a shootout going on, but he was too blind, deaf and disoriented to participate or even gauge who was winning. He muttered to himself as he repositioned slightly- a futile attempt at appearing smaller so that his attackers may not shoot him so easily- but ultimately remained unmoving as the gunshots grew louder and he slowly blinked the white away from his eyes.
Chapter 13
Chapter Text
“f*ck—!” He groaned, watching over his shoulder as crimson ink misted over a server column standing against the same wall that had caught the grenade not too many moments prior. The Valentino man who had entered the room before fought valiantly from the doorway to protect his superior gangoon, his little pistol’s barrel smoking as another clip’s worth of ammo spat from its front and his right shoulder was thrown back. He’d been shot, but he still continued on shooting back as he stumbled back and over the dead Biotechnica agent lying on the floor.
Blood splattered against the blue-gray wall behind his shoulder as he slowly slid down it, gun outstretched, with a brushstroke of scarlet in his wake. He let off another shot that burrowed into the wall, and then began to click an empty magazine with every pull of the trigger. He stared intensely at the doorway, which had been largely riddled into something that resembled cheese by a hail of lead, as a heavy boot stomped its way inside.
“God damnit!” Spencer barked as he whipped around, away from the entering Biotechnica agent and back to the Access Point in front of him. “You’re just gonna have to figure somethin’ out, guys; I gotta upload this Daemon and stand the f*ck up!” Shaking the head of dark, deep-red hair he wore, Spencer’s optical implants brought up a user-interface as he spoke to the two women on the other end of his phone.
“No!” Hailey snapped. “f*ck— sh*t! God,” She seemed to be working through a few things as she cursed aloud, “f*ck, okay! Fine, fine!” She knew Spencer had a lot of confidence in her, but just dropping a ‘figure it out’ was nothing short of stress-inducing. The engrams of her eyes vibrated at unreal speed as they combed over sets of data spiraling out in front of her.
“Wait,” Lilly started, having heard all through the window of Spencer’s face floating by Hailey, “he’s going to upload that thing? While we’re in here?!”
“Yep!” Hailey creaked, handling even more stress than she was under before much better than she thought she might. As the Net around her quivered, she stepped away from the hologram-like information terminal with a deep, soothing sigh full of dead air. “Lilly, I guess you can jack out, now; you did your part.”
“And wake up in my chair to be the one to tell everybody that the heist went to sh*t?” Lilly replied with her code-made eyebrows shifting and her head shaking back-and-forth. “Nah.” She continued. “You seem calm; what’s your plan?”
Not finding it within her to waste precious seconds arguing, Hailey moved on dismissively. “The Daemon has already rebooted the lowest floors of the Subnet, and these deets are just about mined out.” The older Netrunner explained swiftly. “I have a simple script set to keep drilling out the last few bytes of data, and a direct transfer line leading right to my Cyberdeck.”
“Sounds like you’re setting up for a remote download.” Lilly commented, to which Hailey gave a quick nod and then gestured to her holophone’s screen projected in Cyberspace.
“Nova, you get it.” She expressed in relief. “Spencer, I’m gonna transfer into your subsystems from where your Personal Link’s jacked in. There, I’ll gather the rest of my data and then delta; just text if you need me to swing by to help with the Corpo-ninjas.”
“You’re gonna f*ckin’ what—?” Spencer began to protest, but as soon as air was squeezed over his vocal chords to make a sentence, he had his eyes filled with a big, bold warning text-box. The border was red and the box’s darker red color sported bright, alarmingly red text, which read; ‘Malware Detected - Purging in Progress’. Reading his subsystems’ warning over again while trying to think of any response, Spencer flicked his head around his shoulder to spot a Biotechnica agent fire three rounds from a revolver into the other Valentino; two in his chest and one to his brain. Pink and red sprayed in a radial pattern out of the exit wound as Spencer found himself turning around and jacking his Personal Link out of the Access Point.
“Oh, hell—!” Hailey’s voice reverberated through emptiness that to her seemed not totally unlike the Net she was used to, but with one crucial detail making it apparent to her that she was- in fact- not in a network at all. With her integration into Spencer’s systems also came a sense of awareness when said systems shifted code about to accomplish something.
“His ICE wants us out!” Lilly, having made the jump to Spencer’s subsystems right alongside Hailey, gave a worried wince to the end of her words. “I can try to hack in and disable it if you can hold the Daemons off,” Looking at Hailey, she seemed to understand that she needed to put aside how much she disliked her or they’d both die, “but we can’t be so childish to one another if this is gonna work, okay?” Lilly put her hands out, their forms untextured just like they were inside the Net. “Truce?”
“Truce.” Hailey nodded quickly, seeing value in what Lilly was saying even if she was so jealous of the girl that she wished they were tangible so she could pop her head off with her bare hands. She felt Spencer’s systems thrash back at Lilly’s first incursion into their deeper layers, the blue streaks of data all around impulsing like a curtain that caught a breeze.
Spencer groaned as he stood and immediately felt his code- another internal organ, more-or-less- twist around in his chrome. Like he was suffering a case of digital vertigo, he watched the room around him spin slightly before his eyes landed on the Biotechnica agent who turned to him with his revolver drawn still.
“Ugh— The f*ck’re you two doin’ to me?” Spencer winced, knowing he’d need to do something if he wanted to survive whatever it was the Corp-soldier had in store for him. He eyed the man’s gun, and thought back to his instinct from before to simply activate his Sandevistan if he was in a bind. He felt that urge again, but this time, a brief moment of critical thinking led him to a different conclusion; Hailey and Lilly were in his Cyberware, which meant that they would be along for the ride if he were suddenly moving at an advanced speed. Right?
“We’re just gonna hack your systems until we can neutralize your ICE!” Hailey answered his question aptly. “We only need a little more time in here until we can jack out with the deets, I swear!” She felt his pain through his source code, and she was regretful that she and Lilly had to treat him that way, but there was no other option.
“Hang on to something…!” Spencer shakily said back, disregarding what she was telling him because it was simply irrelevant to him at that time. They were breaking his systems by simply being there, and that wouldn’t fix until they were gone, but to leave safely, they needed first to stay for a while; the loop was self-fulfilling, and the Netrunners would leave him be whenever they were ready to.
That meant that they had no sway over what he did or didn’t do.
“f*ck!” Hailey gasped in shock as in but an instant, her track on the Daemons from Spencer’s ICE was broken and the monstrous little things seemingly skipped ahead on their advance toward her. She could see the half-dozen programs now, thanks to her Cyberdeck, and she gave a mumble as she prepared to subdue them through code. “His ICE gets faster when he uses his Sandy! So, Spencer, don’t!”
Spencer reeled as he exited the time dilation of his Sandevistan, the sudden feeling of claws digging right back into his code when he hadn’t even realized how good it felt that those claws were gone for a handful of seconds. His vertigo came back as he gripped his machete tighter, his palm lathering blood against the blade’s handle as the hot fluid trickled down the silvery weapon’s edge and the thud of a body hitting the ground reverberated across every corner of the server room. He gulped and shook his head.
“The Sandy…” Spencer grimaced as he felt the cold shiver of Hailey sending a wave of domineering code over his ICE to no avail, “makes it go away…”
“What?” Hailey questioned back as she sealed herself in a coffin of Spencer’s ambient code, her Cyberdeck protecting her from a swoop of deletion protocol; red streaks rippling across the digital space as the shapeless Daemons drew closer.
“The f*cking—!” Spencer hissed as he tripped over his own ankle during a failed forward step and tumbled into a puddle of warm, silky crimson lying open on the tile floor. He didn’t know if it was the Biotechnica agents’ or his gangoon’s as he gave a growl and struggled to pull himself up despite the world spinning. “The way you’re f*cking with my system, Hal, it’s…! Gotta— need to use the Sandy or I’ll—!”
“Spens, you okay?” Hailey asked in a half-panic, half-laugh; not totally sure if she should be concerned for his health or not. “You sound… rough.”
“I think we’re… hurting him.” Lilly said slowly from her place just behind Hailey, having been deeply sifting through source code in order to find something to give her command over the ICE sending Daemons after them. The up-kick of her tone after that sentence almost made it seem like she was…
Spencer groaned something inaudible into his holophone, and then there was another skip of time. Cloud-shaped Daemons flicked forward and bit at Hailey, their attempts to simply delete her from the system being personified by her Cyberdeck as swipes and waves. Defending herself the only way she could, Hailey ripped lines of unused data out of Spencer’s operating system and contorted them into something like metaphorical armor for her engram; deletion protocols washing over her protective code and erasing that instead of the digitized person underneath it all. As she did, the sound of her holophone cutting off caught her attention, like Spencer in his agony simply hung up and moved on to other things.
That wasn’t like him. He always wanted to be around her, even when they needed to be apart. His words- that his Sandevistan made it better- as if he was depending on it, a piece of metal grafted to his back, to feel… like himself.
Oh, god.
“The way he’s acting…” Hailey commented as she shook her head, another skip pushing the Daemons straight onto her and forcing her to artificially inflate the ambient code between them and herself, which created a sense of distance between them, “I’m not sure he’s hurting…” Hailey watched in horror as yet another skip in time occurred and she was just as quickly closed in upon yet again. “f*ck me, I think we’re turining him Cyberpsycho!”
“His brain activity’s going nuts.” Lilly casually commented as she continued carelessly digging through Spencer’s Cyberware systems. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Like she couldn’t have cared less, Lilly shrugged her artificial shoulders and continued her work.
“And you’re happy about that?!” Hailey cried over her shoulder, quickly whipping her head back around to keep her attention on the Daemons she was fighting; if what she was doing could even be considered that. She was mostly trying to avoid dying to them while Lilly found a way to shut them off, and she didn’t even want to know what would happen to Spencer if she were to destroy them. Behind her, Lilly chuckled.
“I mean… kinda.” The younger woman’s voice exited her lips with a chill that rivaled the Net’s around them as her hands swooped over a large, green sheet of data laid out across the aether in front of her. The command that her Netrunning prowess ushered unto Spencer’s systems sent out a script to all Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics in his operating system, addressing the two intruders as a simple glitch and ensuring the algorithms all around that there were no actual intrusions to even countermeasure. As she found exactly where she needed to be and spread that command to every nut and bolt of the Valentino she and Hailey occupied, she watched a Daemon’s formless, red shape lunge at Hailey.
It had skipped ahead again while Hailey had been trying to scrape together more defenses, and she was left wide open to the dutiful little program that she knew was just doing what it was created for. The Daemon’s scripts and data streams creaked open like a beast’s maw as it advanced at Hailey and then… simply vanished. Like a pile of dust against a stiff wind, the Daemon melted away and its code integrated itself back into its parent system, where it joined the rest of its kind in going dormant and passive against the invaders.
“I mean, why shouldn’t I be happy about that?” Lilly continued as Hailey took a breath of relief and then turned around to stare at Lilly giving a grin. “Means I get to stand around in here while he burns himself out. I let him die, that’s one less monster hanging off my back.” She spoke like Hailey had no power over her in this scenario, and Hailey’s head began to tilt to her right.
“Oh, yeah?” Hailey gave a frigid comeback. “Have you forgotten our agreement?” Transforming before Lilly’s very non-corporeal eyes into a razor-sharp Corpo, Hailey’s own eyes narrowed. “If you want to start something, I’ll make sure that Aaron never sees the end of it.” She watched Lilly slowly nod with that smug look still plastered on her face and gave a low growl under her breath out of a slow-building anger that stemmed from her jealousy.
“Except… you’d never leave me in here to go and kill my brother.” Lilly placed down a trump-card made of letters as she shook her head. “Trade your input just to zero some kid you've got no beef with anyway? That doesn’t sound like you, Hailey.”
“So, what if I just zero you, instead?” The hard, sharp edge of Hailey’s Corpo silver tongue clashed against the efforts that Lilly attempted to negotiate with. Debating with somebody who grew up in a Corporate environment was bound to be a disaster for Lilly, she had to know that, right? Or, was her ego really that inflated?
“You could,” Lilly nodded along, seeming like she’d been anticipating this exchange, “but you’d regret that pretty soon after.” She laughed. “I’ve got a grip on the code that controls Spencer’s ICE, remember? Good luck killing me, scooping up your data and jacking out all before the Daemons chew you up until you’re nothing but ones and zeroes.”
Hailey’s stance faltered. That was either a really good bluff, or Lilly had managed to genuinely outplay her. Hailey stalled as she studied her now-enemy, no doubt in her mind that they were no longer working together on anything. What did she do, then? It was either her or Lilly… or Spencer. She didn’t want to let Spencer die a Cyberpsycho; she was a selfish and miserable person at-heart, but she still loved him, and would happily risk her life for his safety.
That… wasn’t as much of a revelation to her as she thought.
“You think you’re f*cking better than me ‘cause you worked for your skills?” Hailey’s venomous, toxic mindset made itself evident to Lilly, then. She’d decided she would stay inside Spencer’s Cyberware long enough to destroy Lilly’s consciousness and then take her chances getting out. “Think I’m less of a Netrunner just because my parents made me into one, huh?”
“What?” Lilly stumbled over her own confidence as she heard Hailey’s projected feelings and found them to be thoughts that she hadn’t ever even thought about thinking. “The f*ck are you talking about, Hailey?”
“Talking about you!” Hailey replied, the anger in the depths of her chest at how skilled this younger woman was despite having none of the opportunities she had when she was growing up exploding out through her mouth. “How you think you can f*cking challenge me like this all because I never had to work for my skills! Like I’m f*cking beneath you!” Hailey pointed a stiff, brown finger at Lilly as the other Netrunner’s expression shifted into something like confusion, her mouth slowly opening as Hailey seemed to let out steam built-up over a long while.
“What the hell is your problem?” Lilly slowly asked. “Why on Earth would I think I’m better than you? In fact, you scare the hell out of me.” Making it clear that, despite what Hailey’s insecurities told her, Lilly had very little ego that wasn’t just bluster. “Why do you think I waited until we were in here, where neither of us have ICE or chrome, before blackmailing you back? Because if you had your full kit plus all your skill, I’d stand no f*cking chance.” Lilly’s words only served to heat the embers of Hailey’s emotion even more, her mind not caring one bit that it had been proven wrong. “Why are you—?”
“Because I’m f*cking jealous!” Hailey roared as she clenched her fists and prepared to start the upload process on a Quickhack. She glared at Lily fiercely. “And I’m gonna show you why effort doesn’t mean sh*t if you’re born on your own level!” Her own insecurity, almost on a whim from her brain in order to justify this crusade, mutated into an intense type of god-complex.
Why should she be made to feel insecure that she was born a good Netrunner? She didn’t ask for these skills, but she received them anyway; why shouldn’t she have simply embraced them? So what if she never wanted to be a Netrunner? She was one, and there was no changing that, so who could stop her from simply owning her natural skill and being proud of it? She was an elite thanks to her parents, and she was able to ascend to something above them, and above Lilly. There was comfort in that shallow, foolish pride for Hailey; a place for her dead soul to go and feel as though it was worthy of something in a life it had so little control over, in the presence of those who were better people than she was.
She had successfully gotten worse.
“Fine,” Lilly returned the tone, her own frustration at Hailey becoming manifest as she herself loaded up a hack to shoot at the other Netrunner, “give me your best f*cking shot!” Her Cyberdeck hummed in realspace as it processed the script for a Daemon at her request, and she gave a frustrated glare as Hailey- now feeling as though she’d been enlightened- pursed her lips and stared patiently at Lilly.
Though she had the RAM allocated and available for a Quickhack, Hailey didn’t start the upload process on anything. She watched Lilly establish a sightline connection with a poise that resembled potential energy in a coiled spring, and then let her lips pull into a smirk as a warning flickered to life in a red, hologram-like projection out in front of her face; a progress bar appearing underneath a large, square icon that was all-too-familiar to Hailey.
“Nice; a Suicide Daemon, huh?” She rhetorically asked and then gave a nod as if she suddenly understood something to be true. “I’m a fan of those, myself; it’s just such a problem when they cost so much to upload and then take so long on top of it.” Hailey spoke with a newfound grace, her anger having given rise to her arrogance in some kind of deluded reverse-ego-death. She watched the Quickhack’s progress crawl up and over the one quarter mark in the upload bar as Lilly gave a scoff and eyed her.
“Whatever, choom,” She rolled her eyes, “nothing you could upload by this point would finish by the time my hack does.” Lilly seemed confident, and to that, Hailey had only one reply.
“Not if the upload path wasn’t already halfway established.” She casually, calmly shared insight that only another Netrunner could truly appreciate; the fact that since Lilly had started her hack first, a counter-hack following the same upload route through a Network would have its upload time and its RAM cost drastically cut.
An identical bar to the one before Hailey flashed in red in front of Lilly, its icon less familiar to the younger Netrunner but still one she had seen and used before. The hand-like insignia of a Cyberware Malfunction Daemon stared back at Lilly, and her confidence broke immediately as what Hailey had been saying to her about upload times immediately made sense.
The Cyberware Malfunction’s progress bar filled instantaneously in chunks to halfway, and then began its fast, smooth crawl forward to the end of the bar. Lilly’s eyes slowly grew wide as she watched it, and she felt her stomach- even as disconnected from it as she was- sink down into itself. She seemed to be scrambling to think of something- anything- to put a stop to Hailey’s rapid progress, but nothing could slow the now-completed Cyberware Malfunction from uploading over their digital connection and into Lilly’s Cyberdeck.
“sh*t—!” She winced, the feeling of her deck overheating in her brain feeling muted as she was so deeply buried in code, but still palpable to her regardless. The malfunction cut the upload of her Quickhack off right from its source, stopping it from filling past ninety percent, the box in front of Hailey weakly sputtering out after it informed her that the upload had failed.
Almost in the same second, another nearly identical box of red, holographic data flashed before Lilly, its icon one that communicated a sense of irony. Like Hailey had taken the Quickhack that Lilly tried to upload and simply spun it back on her, the progress bar of a Suicide Daemon began to shoot up from zero at a rate that was considerably faster than Lillly’s version had.
“Not super familiar with hack queuing, are you?” Hailey proposed something like a tease, only with far more of a mean spirit than the word’s connotation leads one to believe. Her face became little more than a smirk as the progress of her Quickhack crossed the halfway point, and in response to Lilly’s simple stare, Hailey laughed. “Cyberdecks are designed to save RAM when uploading more than one Daemon at once…” She shrugged. “In other words, the second Quickhack always uploads faster.” The darker woman continued her changed, arrogant rambling with a smirk. “A word to the not-so-wise; never frontload expensive programs.”
Lilly’s body, lifeless in its chair in realspace, filled with adrenaline as her mind inside Spencer’s Cyberware systems went into fight-or-flight mode; but where in a Network could she run to, and how could she begin to fight? She couldn’t just die; not like this, so quickly. She was still so young, and she had the rest of her life still to build! After all the planning she’d done in the back of her head, thinking up every contingency that Hailey could have resorted to and every exit strategy she could have devised; Hailey simply counter-hacked her and won. It couldn't be that easy.
“You f*cking serious…?” Lilly's shaky voice rippled along the weave of the internal Network of Spencer’s subsystems. She looked Hailey over, the older Netrunner's jealousy having twisted about in her heartless, emotionally-stunted chest until it became this… elementary need to puff that chest out and prove her skill; as if her displaying it passively like she had been wasn't good enough. It was as though Hailey couldn't see her own worth, and thusly needed to make it a point.
How sad.
“I…” Lilly began in her last moments, her panic subsiding as her brain compartmentalized the grief of herself and allowed her to think clearly. She, strangely, was beginning to feel okay with dying. Spencer and Hailey both made working for the Valentinos a nightmare, and if Lilly was to be honest with herself, she wasn't ever going to get out of the gang's vice with her heartbeat. She internalized, too, how satisfied Hailey seemed with herself after making sure a little boy would grow up with no structure; a victim just like her. “I hope you get better one day, Hailey, just so you can't f*cking ruin anyone else.” Her engram's head slowly shook in a display of disappointment. Aaron would grow up, Lilly had no doubts that he would survive- especially now with the Valentinos having no connections to him because she was dead- but Aaron growing up into the right kind of man was less certain. He wouldn't be who their parents wanted him to be; who he needed to be. He would probably wind up a career criminal like his big sister, or he'd be homeless… just like his big sister.
Maybe Lilly was bad for him, too. Her life was so f*cked already; maybe if she died, Aaron might become something different from her. Maybe he could find a job- a real job, like Lilly told him she had- and maybe he could be someone better.
Or worse.
“You're one depressing asshole.” Lilly finished her train of thought by thinking aloud, then, at Hailey. It was true; Hailey had been in Lilly’s life for a day, and now she was dying. Hailey, just by being herself, was a force of nature. The walking embodiment of pain and misfortune, whose boyfriend was the most deceitful manipulator Lilly had ever had the displeasure of meeting. They both worked together at ruining her life, and from where Lilly stood, they f*cking enjoyed it, too. “You and Spencer both; you deserve one another, and you'll be the death of one another.”
Hailey let the idea of her jaw clench against itself- either in realspace, the Net or both, she couldn't tell- as she processed what she was told. What did Lilly think she knew about her f*cking life? What, did she still think she was better than her? Even as the Daemon fully uploaded and the bar in front of the younger woman's face shrunk away, Lilly still saw Hailey as less of a Netrunner? Less of a person? Was that because that's what she was? Subhuman? Incapable of feeling empathy like some kind of unaware animal who lashed out at anybody whom she perceived as an obstacle to her, like her mother?
“You know what the best part of you being so right is?” Hailey asked, her voice like glass as she ruminated on knowing just how apt it was that she was described more-or-less as a monster. She knew exactly what she was. “The best part about being a murdering, inhuman mistake of nature…” She continued, “is that I don't give a f*ck. God, I just don't care.” Her frown upturned as she chuckled at her own words. They were so over-the-top, weren't they? Was she embellishing a little? “I can’t feel anything when you look at me like that, or when my targets howl for their lives. I won’t even remember you after you jack out and put your pistol in your mouth; what makes you think anything you could say to me would hurt my feelings?” Hailey rhetorically asked the woman she’d just sentenced to death. She didn’t need an answer; she knew Lilly was but ash beneath her feet as she burned through Night City… right?
Lilly’s lip quivered as her motor functions were overridden and she glared straight into the eyes of her murderer. In those eyes- digital and lifeless though they were- shone an emotion hot and bright. A feeling that every victim of Night City had to feel at least once before they died, and maybe even center their entire lives around. It was a shallow feeling; hollow and fleeting. It provided some comfort in the end, but it was ultimately in vain.
“I didn’t say it for you,” Lilly said, returning Hailey’s glassy composure, “I said all that for me. Woman to woman, ‘runner to ‘runner; f*ck you, Hailey.” Her last thoughts were spent not on her dear brother or her parents or even reflecting on her life. Her last moments were spent in spite of someone else, because in Night City, no one lived by being selfless. That emotion was the last thing she felt before her engram faded away and her presence could be felt no longer weighing down on the Network like a gravitational presence. “Try to not feel that one, you f—” That soulless feeling that made her- in that very second- no better a person than Hailey.
Defiance.
Lilly’s consciousness was no longer there. She’d pulled her jack out, and had probably even pulled the trigger by now. She wasn’t better than Hailey. She was dead, and Hailey killed her. That was Lilly’s penance for trying to double-cross a Netrunner of her caliber.
But she died unbroken. She died staring Hailey in the face and spitting at her. She died brave, and lived braver, and could see that Hailey was a coward. Lilly saw her for who she was underneath her fear and underneath the trauma that she’d let fester into open sores instead of covering up and trying to heal the way Lilly had. Lilly was just her, but healthier, more driven, and more deserving of her abilities. She was better than Hailey, but converse to what Hailey projected, she never acted that way or implied that she thought that way.
Hailey cared about that.
She would remember that.
She felt that.
Chapter 14
Chapter Text
He was buried.
Spencer felt like he had been wandering for ages in thick, murky black, without so much of any semblance of awareness.
In fact, the thought that he was trapped under a layer of black was the first thought he could remember having in… how long? What had him so disheveled?
Normally, he was the sharpest one in a room. He was quick and observant, like a blade. Though, as he thought to himself, he felt more like a baseball bat; dull, and slow. He couldn’t see or feel in any direction, as if he had no body. No senses.
Hell, until a moment ago, he didn’t even have his mind.
What could he remember last?
The Biotechnica heist?
Did he get shot? Was he dead?
If he was, he’d certainly made a gonk mistake in following a religion, because God definitely wasn’t sitting there ready to cast him to Hell for every sin under his belt. In fact, if he really was dead, he died sinning, didn’t he?
His gangoon killed that one Biotechnica Corp-soldier. Then the other one killed him, and then Spencer killed her. He remembered… pressure after that. He remembered Hailey in his head- no, in his Cyberware- because she’d needed out of the Subnet because Spencer needed to defend himself.
Oh, no. Did he die with her in his chrome?
No, no, because he’d have remembered dying; or, at least, what led up to it.
All he remembered was Hailey telling Lilly that they needed to delta. She was so panicked. He remembered her saying something to him about his Sandy. Why? Why wasn’t he allowed to use his Sandevistan? He’d used it to excellent effect when he killed the Corpo woman. Better than excellent, actually; he remembered it feeling like a comfortable respite from that awful sickness Hailey and Lilly made him feel by changing around his source code.
He’d used his Sandevistan and killed the woman, and then…
Then he…
He’d moved on and…
Ah.
So, that was why it felt so good. And why Hailey was so in-his-ass about using it. He hadn’t just blacked out, or even died.
In his infinite wisdom- his f*cking hubris and his f*cking stupid trauma response- he’d gone and done something so much worse than any of that.
At the sudden realization of what happened to him, like not knowing had been keeping him under, Spencer’s golden eyes blinked open and he suddenly felt everything. In vivid detail, Spencer saw a ceiling. He felt cushions crushed beneath his back and he felt cool air on his synthetic skin. The detail of these things were so intensely high; blinding, almost.
Fibers of cushion, impulses of air, the feeling of his eyeballs scraping slime off the insides of his eyelids to stay moist. He felt warmth on his stomach, too. It was a heavy warmth. He felt a tug in the side of his neck as he turned his head and began to sit up, and then he felt a star-shaped warmth press between the pectoral muscles on his chest; a hand.
“Lay down.” He heard a woman’s voice, quiet but stern, and then began piecing together the individual sensations his overstimulated brain still steeped in the fog of sleep had taken in with such clarity. That sharpness faded soon after he became conscious, though, and as his eyes moved to take in the face of his girlfriend, sitting atop his midsection with her left arm outstretched and her black-and-white Kiroshis glowing blue, he began to forget what it had even felt like to see, feel and hear in such incredible saturation.
“I fell straight over the edge, didn’t I?” Spencer found himself speaking with ease, like he hadn’t been hurt in his blindness. The surprising ease-of-speaking stopped not at physically, though. He was shocked that it was so… natural for him to assume such an awful thing. His surprise was from a mental context, too; but he supposed he’d known this was coming.
“Dunno how far down you sunk,” Hailey’s black-suited shoulders shrugged as she studied sets of data that weren’t there with her optical implants, “you were pretty much burnt-out by the time I got there.” Her words were lined with razor-edges, and Spencer knew why. “But, to answer your question,” She said, “yeah—”
“I’m a goddamn Cyberpsycho.” Spencer interrupted her. He didn’t want a f*cking diagnosis. He already knew he was crazy, and he had for a long time. When Hailey said nothing back to him, he knew that his interpretation of things had been the reality. He’d anticipated this for so long, knowing he’d wind up snapping one day, but he always figured he’d have at least been aware of it when it happened. “What’re you doin’, anyway, Hal?” He moved on, finding that he had very little actual reflection to give that revelation.
“Running some tests on your chrome capacity,” Hailey suddenly got very loud as her magenta eyebrows came low, “because my dipsh*t f*cking input can’t control himself and cool it on the implants even though I told him—!” The flickering-out glow of blue in her eyes caught a glint of saline as she ripped the jack of her Personal Link out of the socket on Spencer’s neck and let the slender, rubbery wire slide back into her wrist. “I f*cking told you!”
“Yeah.” Spencer gave a disappointed sigh. He knew this had been coming, too. A single beat on his chest from the ball of Hailey’s right palm ruffled his red shirt, drenched in dark splotches that made it almost appear black, as Hailey allowed herself to cry openly.
“What the f*ck do you even need a Pain Editor for, Spencer?” Hailey sat straight up, fists balled against the rubbery black on her thighs as she glared angrily down at him. “You’re so ‘borged-up anything a Pain Editor can do for you’s redundant,” She continued, “you know that?” She scoffed, then, and ran her knuckles under her eye to wipe away water. She seemed to have a good idea for what it was Spencer did and didn’t know. “No, you didn’t,” f*cking bingo, “because you don’t pay attention to stats or warning labels for this sh*t; you just stuff it wherever it fits and pretend like you’re not almost ninety pounds overweight in Cyberware alone!”
Spencer’s eyes stayed trained on Hailey’s as she yelled at him, and he began to feel his stomach churn in shame at her constant berating. He knew he had a f*cking problem, he just came down from a Cyberpsychosis episode.
“Don’t gotta yell at me.” Spencer put his thoughts into a verbal format, keeping them simple yet letting his tone do much of his communication. He, frankly, should have seen the response to that coming, as well.
“‘I don’t have to’—!” Hailey huffed, paraphrasing the man in disbelief. “The f*ck I don’t!” She rapped her knuckles onto his chest one more time, her fist lingering and taking the collar of his sleeveless shirt under the curl of her fingers. “Obviously, I do need to yell at you. How else are you going to cut your bullsh*t?”
“I’m f*cked up, Hal,” Spencer gruffly started after Hailey seemed to calm just a bit, “that what you wanna hear? There’s something the f*ck wrong with me.” His head fell back into the cushion behind him as he realized his left arm had been pinned to the back of a sofa the entire time. Snatching his golden hand back from the maw of Hailey’s couch, Spencer rubbed metal fingers over his closed eyelids and sighed.
“f*ck, Spens,” Hailey gave a half-whine and a half-scoff, “no, okay? I wanna hear… I dunno,” She shook the curly ball of magenta atop her head, “that you’re gonna get better? That you’re sorry for makin’ me drive across the city and fight nine Biotechnica agents while avoiding the NCPD so I could load your heavy ass onto my Arch and then drive back to Japantown?” Her pensive eyebrows and her frown brought a still to Spencer’s mind as he watched her deal with the aftermath of what was clearly quite the day for her.
He loved her, but frankly, she needed to join the f*cking club.
“Today’s been a wreck for me, too, Hal.” Spencer started in a groggy tone, looking down his nose as he laid back. He felt like he could have sunken into her couch and lived in her tiny Megabuilding apartment. The room was dark, but he could still catch her shape sitting on his stomach as well as the details of her face. “And, for what it’s worth…” He sighed, “sorry. I know I made it worse, and I wish we didn’t always do that to one another.”
“You f*cked it pretty royally, yeah,” Hailey nodded but then shrugged her shoulders dismissively to communicate that she wasn’t done, “but you just made up for a lot of it by not flatlining on me.” Very obviously trying not to, Hailey cracked a small smile. “I f*cked you up, anyway.” She shook her head. “You’ve got a high tolerance for chrome, but you were on the edge as it was. f*cking with your subsystems like that? All I did was shove you over it.”
Spencer nodded slowly. “Got involved with the job, too, like you always end up doing, and I’m willin’ to bet not a f*cking soul involved with tonight got to go home.” He knew the answer already. He didn’t even have to hear it. It happened every. f*cking. Time.
“Except us.” Hailey responded quietly, giving little more than an affirmative and then shutting her face. She knew that this was always the outcome, too. They were always alone at the end, ready to walk it off and eventually rejoin to do it again.
“Figures.” Spencer nodded and rolled the golden eyes implanted in his head. He hated how much he liked the fact that they always walked away just fine, even if it meant his life would be worse because of it. “My bosses in the ‘tinos aren’t gonna be happy with me. Too many of the gang dead on my time; I’m a sh*t Sicario, anyway.”
“Yeah.” Hailey copied Spencer’s dismissive, I-already-know-the-truth reply with a deep frown as she cast her gaze aside. “We’re both a couple of f*ck-ups, huh?” She laughed. “sh*t, I’m sorry, too, Spens. I shouldn’t give you such a hard time, I’m not your mom.” When Spencer glanced at her in reply to that, his red eyebrow giving a slight arch and his frown not moving, Hailey bit at the inside of her lip. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You are, though,” Spencer suddenly cut her off, “way more than either of us realize, I think.” He explained, recalling upon an earlier conversation with Lilly. “You’re both driven. Both do whatever the hell you want and dare Night City to try and stop you. Both do that and drag me behind you when you do, and you’re both mean as f*ck…” Spencer gave a small laugh from inside his chest. “Only difference? You actually seem to give a sh*t about me. You turn around and realize I don’t know what the f*ck I’m doing and tell me it’s okay not to.” His shoulders shrugged with a squeak from his jacket. “I’m an entitled f*cking baby; I want everything a certain way and I shut right down when I can’t get it. You don’t ever ignore me or tell me to get over it, though, do you? You could, but you don’t.”
Hailey’s cinnamon-colored skin pulled snugly over her face began to grow hot when Spencer very suddenly opened up to her about her being something like a supportive figure to him. She had no idea, but she couldn’t say she was surprised.
“Let me guess who made you realize all this…” Hailey gave a long exhale, beginning to sense a theme that a certain somebody crashed into their lives, observed them at their most private level, and then died and left them to ruminate on what they’d learned.
“Lilly.” Spencer confirmed.
“f*cking Lilly.” Hailey’s head shook.
“Take it she’s dead too?” Spencer asked, now that the girl had been brought up. He should have figured she wouldn’t have lasted long with Hailey.
“She tried to kill you.” Hailey explained, seeming satisfied with that as a statement before walking her words back after a moment. “Well, she wanted to stay in your systems. Keep you psycho for as long as it took for you to break.” She gave a sternly angry expression, as if she was recalling upon how that had made her feel. “I out-hacked her. She blew her own brains out in her dive room.”
Spencer nodded his red head, his expression largely unchanging from one of casual understanding. “There’s a surprise.” He commented, words dripping in sarcasm. “You could out-hack anyone, Hal. Shocked Lilly thought she could compare, honestly.” Spencer spoke plainly, like what he had to say was so obvious to him that it was simply mundane reality. He glanced back at Hailey from looking at the ceiling, and then tilted his head.
“That a fact?” Hailey quietly questioned as the corners of her lips curled downward. “Ask me? Lilly was… so much f*cking better than I am.” She sighed as she fell backward off of Spencer’s midsection, letting her ass plop onto a couch cushion. “Why does she get to be a good ‘runner on her own accord and I don’t? Why do I have all these skills that I didn’t f*cking ask for? What good are they if they’re not… me?”
“But you won.” Spencer simply rebutted after giving a small groan and sitting up from his lying back. His joints felt like they were welded and his hands felt numb, but he still managed to move. “Dunno how you think she’s better if you beat her.” He explained his view, his words filling the shells of Hailey’s ears like water in a cup. “Ask me? That proves you’re the better ‘runner. Sounds to me like you deserve your powers on-account that you have ‘em.” Sitting up just in front of Hailey, Spencer’s hands shook off their numbness by reaching out to take the darker woman’s and squeezing them slightly.
Hailey stared down as her hands were scooped up and her inferiority complex- which Spencer had no idea about- was enabled unknowingly by his words. Maybe he was right. Perhaps Hailey truly did need to accept that she was deserving of her abilities not because she did anything for them or asked for them, but simply because she was able to maintain them for so long. Nobody had managed to take them from her, and nobody had managed to kill her. Simply by surviving in Night City, taking what she wanted and killing any in her way, she had proven her worth.
“You’re a f*cking amazing Netrunner.” Spencer reiterated. “The best one I know. You’re a badass, and I think you deserve to stay a ‘runner for as long as you want.” He gave the truth that he felt, but he knew that it was dangerous. Night City was dangerous. If he truly cared about Hailey at all, he knew he should have been encouraging her to leave the Edgerunning lifestyle behind; to save her own life. But that idea of her- an outlaw- with wind in her curls and freedom in her lungs… that was the Hailey that Spencer saw when he looked at her.
A caricature.
He was just as shallow as she was.
“I think you’re right.” Hailey responded with her lips pulled tightly by muscles against her face to give a grin. If that was the case, then Hailey needed to lean into it.
She looked Spencer over and saw a man who looked up to her like he was a scared puppy. In the way that Spencer saw an ideal for Hailey, Hailey, too, saw an ideal for Spencer. Not a version of him that she could romanticize, but a version that she could manipulate. A version of Spencer that stayed miserable- stayed missing his mother and stayed looking for a replacement- so that he’d stay looking at her the way he did.
“So… the Pain Editor,” Hailey slowly started as she chose her words carefully, “can you agree to get it removed?” She suggested to him, knowing that he’d be willing to give thought to anything she said at a moment like this one, where he’d been so low and was in such a vulnerable state. “Start scaling back, one-implant-at-a-time?”
Anything to put more distance between him and his mother.
Spencer’s eyes closed as he nodded, and he felt instantly like he was a kid again, rebelling from his mother when she begged him not to get chipped. She wanted to tell him that he was allowed to be a ‘borg, now? Then he’d just start pulling back; go more ’gainc. That was what Hailey wanted for him, anyway, right? It was a win-win, since he actually gave a damn what Hailey thought and felt for him. That was another way she was unlike his mother.
“Yeah,” Spencer began, “I’ll do it. Like you said, not even like I need it anyway. Just got it because it felt like I shouldn’t have.” He wanted Hailey’s support. He wanted her, as an Edgerunner, to carry the emotional burdens that he couldn’t. He wanted his mother to just forget about him, instead of trying to talk and heal with him.
It was too late for that. It had to be, right?
Hailey released a held breath of anticipation as she nodded and then threw herself forward and into Spencer. She did want him to find his truth; it wasn’t like she didn’t care for him. She was just… damaged. She didn’t know how to love him in a healthy way.
Spencer let his arms snake around Hailey’s waist as she hugged him, his chin nestling into the top of her magenta head. He did want her to find her purpose; it wasn’t like he didn’t care for her. He was just… damaged. He didn’t know how to love her in a healthy way.
“You’re still f*cked up,” Hailey mentioned after their hug that lasted just a few moments longer than what was necessary, both of them wanting it to last longer, “you should get some rest either here or in bed.” She released his waist and then spun around on the couch so that her legs could throw themselves over the front and she could stand. Her jacket had since been tossed aside and she stood in just her Netrunning suit and her boots. “I’m grabbing a shower.” She explained. “Then, I think I’ll sleep for a couple f*cking days.”
Hailey turned and left, and Spencer trailed his gaze down her figure as she slipped through the curtain of beads separating her apartment from her bathroom. He hated Megabuilding apartments. Was a bathroom door really that hard to install? He eyed the ceiling, the doorway leading out of the apartment to his far left, the window to his right and Hailey’s bed straight in front of him. That did seem more comfortable than lying on the couch, and he thought about that as his knees bent and his leg’s muscles pushed him onto his feet. He, on the other hand, was still completely dressed. And covered in blood that was obviously not his, given the dark-crimson staining it gave his shirt. And mentally drained.
Hailey was undressed and standing under a stream of water quickly. Letting the warm liquid shout from its faucet-head and mat down her fluffy ball of hair, she closed her eyes and attempted to clear the last few days from her mind. She’d won. Her records at Biotechnica had been deleted first-thing after she jacked out, right before she rushed over to help Spencer. It had been a blur these last days, and a rush of emotions. She’d Short Circuited her mother, for f*ck’s sake; she needed to decompress. De-stimulate, if it was even possible living in Night City. She needed a break from… everything, for at least a day.
That was, at least, until the feeling of hands sliding over her hips from behind her was brought to her immediate attention. Her left hip was rolled over with the smooth, warm feeling of metal and her right felt genuine, human contact with another’s skin. Water ran down her front as she leaned back into the person behind her, foregoing her original plan without a second’s thought.
Overstimulation was the only way to exist in her reality.
He didn’t need rest, he needed dopamine. He was left at a mental and emotional low after his experience, and he needed to feel something. Someone. He needed anything to help him forget that he was turning into something genuinely inhuman.
As skin met skin and lips met lips, they were poison for one another.
They deserved one another.
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