Cyberpunk: I'm Not Cheating Chapter 13: Forget It

No luck. Neither side was willing to give David the satisfaction.

David told everyone to calm down, activated the Sandevistan, lifted Lucy's cigarette right out of her hand, flashed back to where he'd been standing, showed the room, then flashed over and returned the cigarette to Lucy's fingers before snapping back again.

His nose started bleeding. He wiped it without much concern and spoke to Maine's crew.

"The doctor said normal people can only use it two or three tis a day. I've used it nine. Ten, counting just now. So I can join your crew and earn for you. Now. Put the guns down."

Vito had been half-listening, trying to process. He'd followed David here with a tracker because he was worried about a honeypot. Getting close, he'd heard Maine's crew inside. He planted a small device at the front door to make noise and pull their attention, then hacked a ventilation shaft and ca in through the bathroom.

He'd pushed through at gunpoint thinking he understood how dark Night City got. Apparently not dark enough. David got honeypotted and now he's offering to work off the debt. Where exactly did this city get the nerve?

"I only want the cyberware," Maine said. "I never asked the kid to sell himself."

Vito unloaded on him anyway. "Then what the hell did you have Silver over there seduce him for? He slept with her, so what? The cyberware cos out the sa way it went in. Why are you making him pay back anything?"

Lucy's face went slightly red. She shouted:

"Will everyone shut up! I did not sleep with him! Put the guns down, all of you. Let's talk about this like adults."

Vito said: "Yeah. Let's hash it out."

Both groups put their hardware away and sat down facing each other. Vito sent David a private comm: if anything goes wrong, activate the Sandevistan.

"All right. Walk through it."

Maine laid out the whole situation from the start.

Vito laughed.

"That's it? One Sandevistan? All this for one Sandevistan? You can't even run a netrunner build with that thing. What's the appeal?"

The room stared at him. Everyone present independently concluded that this man was either Yorinobu Arasaka or a certified cyberpsycho.

"Are you serious? That's military-grade cyberware."

Vito rembered that this Night City was considerably more real than the version he'd played, and adjusted accordingly.

"My mistake. I forgot. So. Military grade. Is there really only the one? Tell what you paid and I'll cover it."

Vito had just co from cleaning out another unethical clinic and was sitting on a decent pile of eddies. The harshest father unethical ripperdocs never knew they had.

Before Maine could answer, David spoke up.

"No. Vito. I can work for them and pay it off myself. I want to be the one who gets my mother out of Night City. You can't keep doing this for . I'm not useless. I can actually help you and my mother."

Vito thought about it, then nodded. He looked at Maine.

"How about it? Can you work with that?"

Maine looked at the determination on David's face and felt like the atmosphere in the room had quietly shifted from Night City to a shounen ani. If he said no at this point he'd be out of character. He said:

"Fine. But new mbers go eighty-twenty. That's standard."

Vito nodded again.

"Fair enough. rc crews all run that way. Heard it from Vik. Give the compact piece-of-work back to David, and I'll mod two guns for you as his buy-in fee. Also." He turned. "Silver. I'll need that locator back."

"Locator?" Lucy frowned. "What locator?"

"The Puppet chip."

Lucy pulled it out and handed it over. She looked puzzled.

"How did you turn a Puppet chip into a tracker? And how did I not catch it when I scanned it?"

Vito pocketed the chip.

"The first one I showed you was the real thing. The one I actually handed you had sothing extra in it. I figured you wouldn't run a scan on it right away."

Through the conversation Vito had built a working picture of Maine's crew: small unit, well-rounded, average combat capability. Not quite primo material yet, but functional.

"Good. I've got a job for you. No fixer, no cut taken. It's yours outright. Take David along on the run. Split the money yourselves however you like. There's a deposit now and the rest when it's done."

Maine's interest sharpened. He nodded for Vito to continue.

"There's a scav crew. Boss went by Dov, but I already put him in the ground. My intel says the crew ran about thirty people total. I've taken out a dozen or so already. I like to finish what I start. Find the rest and clean house. All of them, nice and tidy."

Maine ran a quick risk assessnt. No high-grade cyberware on the remaining scavs. He quoted market rate. Vito transferred ten percent without blinking.

"Try to move on this quickly. Don't get any ideas about keeping the deposit."

Maine smiled.

"Relax. We don't burn our contractors."

Vito had them exchange contact info with David, then moved to take David and go. But David said he had sothing he needed to ask Lucy. Vito spread his hands and walked out with Maine's crew.

The tall woman with the short hair introduced herself.

"I'm Dorio. You're a weapons specialist?"

Vito shook his head. "Not exactly. But I can take sothing apart and rebuild it to spec. New configuration, different function."

"What does a mod job run?"

Vito hadn't thought about pricing before. He said: "Depends what you want done. Enough materials and I can put together sothing high-end. The kind of thing that punches through heavy armor."

The group talked idly while they waited. Vito kept adding to his read on Maine's crew.

Inside, David and Lucy stood facing each other.

He had questions. He couldn't get any of them out. He stood there for a full minute and in the end couldn't bring himself to ask why she'd deceived him. He sighed and turned to leave.

Lucy called him back.

"David. I hope your mother gets better soon."

"Thanks."

Santo Domingo Valley. The apartnt.

David ca ho to find Vito hadn't returned yet. He sat on the couch and turned the gun over in his hands.

He'd had his chance today. With the Sandevistan he could have drawn, could have at least gotten clear. He never took the step. Pointing a gun at a living person and pulling the trigger.

He turned the last few days over in his mind. Vito showing up had changed everything. Without him, he couldn't have gotten through Vik's door. Getting Gloria to an unlicensed clinic alone had nearly wiped them out completely.

Earning money wasn't just sothing he'd said. In Night City, he didn't particularly want to beco a legend. He just wanted to keep the people around him safe.