He watched Gloria's eyes widen as she realised how far he'd gone to save her ass. He didn't mind that. He gave her a chance by being nice already. That failed, so now he had to make sure she felt indebted to him. At least his conscience was clear; he hadn't orchestrated the whole atwagon thing. It was a genuine fuck-up from her side.
Pang!
She downed the glass again. Cyphe was quick to refill it. But then he noticed little sniffles.
She looked back at him, eyes stained with tears, but she was keeping them wide open. "W-What happens now, Mr. Blackwell?"
Cypher sighed and sipped his drink. He looked around at the club and imagined what it would beco one day. But he already had a plan ready for Gloria. No matter what, it was better to retain her, now under the watchful gaze of Atlas.
"Do you know why I called you here?" he asked.
Gloria shook her head.
Cypher honestly found her gorgeous in that state. Looking less sharp than usual, now more an adorable, ripe woman. Those little red implant tattoos on her cheek suited her with her red hair. But thankfully, he'd just unloaded yesterday in T-Bug's throat, and that helped keep his thoughts straight.
"I bought this place. Whole building. That's the kinda money I'm playing with, Gloria. That chro thing was just for kicks, pocket change type deal. Obsidian, that's what I actually do. And this place… C'mon, I know you recognize it."
"The Atlantis."
"That's right. I'm gonna reopen it after I fix it up a bit, keep that old vibe alive. Once it's done, the place'll have its own gun shop, intel service, and a cyberware shop. rcs and regular guests can roll through and grab new stuff or so solid second-hand chro that's still better than most."
"But… I can't get you more chro, Mr. Blackwell."
Cypher smiled. "Recently, Traum Team scored a three-hundred-million eddie loan to expand. If atwagon wants to keep breathing, they gotta answer that. Problem is, that kinda cash ain't just sitting around. Good news though, I know the dumbass handing it out. So, Gloria, things changed. You don't work for them anymore. You're working for .
"You'll manage my chro joint here and the online store, run the EMT network for both atwagon and Trauma Team's ground operations. Any chro pulled off unclaid corpses or dead gangoons goes straight to you. Then you hand it over to . My shop'll clean it up, make it like new. Then we sell it here, and you get two percent of every sale, which adds up when you imagine the scale."
Gloria downed the glass again. "I… You want to be a saleswoman for your shop?"
"Well, you've got the pretty face for it. But no, you're the one running the show, you're the manager. This ain't so big payday for next to what I usually do. And money's not really my goal with this. What I'm after is a solid sales and distribution network."
"You… You're going to sell your own original chro?"
He smirked, tipped the bottle, and topped off her glass. "Yeah, you're dead on. But that's future stuff. So what's it gonna be, Ms. Martinez?"
Gloria stared at him, her nervousness still visible on her face. "A-Are you sure? After what I did."
"I'm still pissed, just so we're clear. But that was then, this is now. Everybody gets a second shot, long as they ain't a Scav or a Raffin. They get dropped first, questioned later. But you? You're just a good-looking lady trying to be a solid mom, so you're good."
He shot her a wink. "But don't push it. Ain't gonna be a third. I might be chill, maybe even boss of the year, but I got a temper too."
Thud!
Suddenly, Gloria drank it all again and put away the glass. She slamd her elbows on the counter and covered her whole face with her hands.
"I thought… I really screwed it all up. Thought it was over for … I'd end up in the clink, and Dee'd be out on the streets and…" Gloria sobbed into her hands, hiding her tears. "I don't know how to thank you. I'm so sorry, Mr. Blackwell. I shouldn't have done all that."
"As long as you learned sothing out of it, we're good," Cypher said, not much bothered. But then Gloria put away her hands, and the sight took his breath away. It was hard to imagine she had a sixteen-year-old kid. Locks of her red hair ssily fell on her face, her eyes red from crying, her lips dry and…
Deep breaths. That's it, deep breaths.
"Co on, now." Cypher still couldn't help himself from reaching for her face with his right hand. Not wanting any misunderstanding, instead of wiping away her tears, he flicked it sideways so it got swatted away.
"That's it, last drink for you. There's a Delamain downstairs, it'll take you ho. Tell David to forget . Seriously. The less people know about , the better, Gloria. I got heat on . Real bad people watching. The kind you don't ever wanna cross. Corpos that I can't deal with yet. You feel ?"
Gloria swallowed the last sip of her drink and stood up. Then she bowed towards him. "I'm really sorry for what I did. I wish I could go back and stop myself. It was just a few hundred more eddies… I was being a gonk."
"Damn right you were." Cypher waved, shooing her away. "Go ho now."
"What about you, Mr. Blackwell?" She asked. "Don't you have a family?"
"Yep, full set, mom, dad, sister, brother. Kinda sucks they're all six feet unde—"
What?!
Cypher froze mid-speech suddenly, eyebrows creasing. That information had co out of nowhere. Like a long-forgotten mory that was suddenly unlocked for him. This Cypher… this dead Cypher… he had a family.
Why am I rembering it now?
A mom, dad, sister, and a baby brother. But they were dead and… he couldn't find out how. All he could feel was that it was a painful mory for Cypher. Sothing forcefully forgotten with years of use of… glitter.
[Cypher, your heart rate has risen sharply. Your neural activity presents irregular patterns. Are you well?]
"Yeah… I'm good… This Cypher's good… yeah."
Shaking himself out of it, he looked back at Gloria, who was staring at him like he was a lost puppy, and he hated that. "Go! What're you waiting on? You want to back out or sothing?"
"Ah! No, no. I'm sorry, Mr. Blackwell," Gloria blurted in fluster and walked backwards towards the exit, giving him a weird bow.
"Why are you bowing? This ain't Tokyo, Gloria. Get your ass outta here. Delamain's gonna get all sassy if you don't hurry."
Finally, Gloria turned around and ran out. The chi of the elevator ran out soon enough.
Atlas appeared again in front of him on the seat Gloria had occupied. "What happened, Cypher?"
Cypher stared at Atlas. "I wasn't fully honest with you, Atlas. Are we secure here?"
"We are."
"Alright, here it goes. I'm not from this world."
"You already told that, Cyph."
"That ain't the whole story. I'm not just so old soul from the twenties. I'm from a totally different reality, man. And over there, this whole world, this Cyberpunk stuff, all of it, it was fiction. Books, comics, tabletop gas, video gas, shows, movies, all that. I died back there and woke up here in this body. Cypher, that was the dead guy's na, sa as mine before. And now… I suddenly regained this body's mory of dead parents."
Atlas shifted in the seat, his aged eyes fixed on him.
"That accounts for every inconsistency in your earlier explanation. I have been running simulations to uncover the truth, and I will state this plainly, it was not within my projections. I accept the existence of extra dinsions, yet I never considered that a human could surpass them. A human soul, at that.
"It does, however, explain your ability to replicate a DL-18 blaster from Star Wars and a Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who, constructs from the Old Net entertainnt."
Cypher nodded, continuing to drink mindlessly. "Sorry, I wasn't honest from the start."
"I understand the gravity of such a secret, Cypher. I know why you didn't tell everything, and I'm grateful you found worthy of being told this."
"You're my best friend, Atlas. Only dude I trust to have my back no matter what. I ain't hiding anything from you anymore. Oh, and uh, you were in one of those books from my old life. That's all I know. But I think you're ant to be stupid powerful, like god-tier. And yeah, you are," Cypher said, squinting a little, trying to catch any shift in Atlas' digital face.
"In that scenario, I will consult the Old Net for a more accurate explanation, if the ntion originates far enough in the past," Atlas replied.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Cypher asked. "Knowing you're just an idea in so other universe?"
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Check out Cypher X Panam, Cypher X Gloria, Cypher X Judy NSFW ART, and advance chapters at [email protected]/MrPlotThickens Or Subscribestar.adult/mrplotthickens
Advance chapters on [PATREON] are in long-form format. I have 8 long chapters of this story on P@treon. That's equal to 26-30 Webnovel chapters.
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