There's an old saying: the person out catching frogs in a rice paddy cos ho muddy, however many frogs they've got in the bucket.
Right. Night City doesn't have rice paddies. No frogs, either. Crude oil, on the other hand — Night City has crude oil in abundance.
Life in Night City kept moving. David and the crew worked through their scattered jobs.
Every few days, Jackie and Vito picked up a gig they actually wanted to take.
They had that option now. Both of them.
The Gunfire Children's Clinic was doing decent business. Most of the profit ca from the weapons side. The cyberware repair side didn't see many repeat custors — the people who ca in for their chro either stayed fixed or they didn't.
Vito had told Gloria that if soone ca in genuinely struggling, she could discount the civilian cyberware work at her own judgnt. It wouldn't co out of her wages.
Days went by that way.
Jackie had beco a na on the street. He ca by the clinic the sa as always.
Vito was stretched out on a chair under the awning with a book. A bucket of iced beer sat beside him.
"Hey, mano! Mom's at it again — says you haven't co by for dinner in days. She's starting to wonder if her cooking's slipped."
Vito put the book down, smiled, and pulled a beer from the bucket. He tossed it across.
"Find sowhere to sit. Mrs. Welles's cooking is the best in Heywood. I've been looking forward to it every single day."
Jackie knocked the cap off with the tal knuckle guard he'd had installed — the kind of piece that let a fist work its way through standard-grade cyberware — and drank.
"Then co around already. Mom's been talking about you. Where's Gloria?"
Vito opened another bottle.
"In the back. Kid split his head open. His mom brought him in, took one look at the gun display, and nearly turned straight back around."
Jackie laughed.
"That's the na doing that! Ha! I'm telling you, it's absolutely the na!"
He noticed the book.
"What are you reading?"
Vito held it up.
"Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club. Want to look at it?"
Jackie hesitated.
"Fight Club. Is it about actual fighting?"
"Not really. A writer from decades back going after consurism and nihilism."
Jackie pulled a plastic stool over and sat.
"Sounds solid. I'll track down a copy in a few days."
Vito settled back in the chair.
"I figured you only read Hemingway."
Jackie lit up.
"You know his work? Hell, Vito — I'm dead serious, I put him above Morgan Blackhand. For Whom the Bell Tolls. I go back to it before anything big."
Vito stretched and found a comfortable position.
"The real deal. The Old Man and the Sea was formative reading for too, at so point."
Jackie got the look he got when he'd been sitting on sothing worth telling.
"You heard about this? Sothing new's moving in Night City's underground."
Vito lifted an eyebrow.
"Another rc out of the Afterlife?"
Jackie pulled him upright by the arm.
"No, choom. What's with you lately, lying around like a well-fed cat. You need to find yourself soone. Forget that — I'm serious about this one."
Vito took a pull of beer after being hauled up.
"All right. Who is it? Must be worth talking about if it's got our legend this animated."
Jackie leaned in.
"This person ca out of nowhere. Weird mask. He's been working through all of them — the ones shooting up neighborhoods, the gang people, the scavs stripping bodies. Word is he's taken out corpo people too. The streets are calling him Cube Head."
Vito shrugged.
"Sounds like a cyberpsycho."
Jackie shook his head.
"Plenty of people are saying that. I don't see it. He kills the right people. The bottom-feeders never run out — you need soone genuinely vicious to make a real dent. Good on him."
Vito let that one sit.
"Since Cube Head blew up, people have been saying they've spotted him just moving around the city. Not drawing a weapon. Not killing anyone. Just walking. He only goes after the garbage."
Jackie paused.
"So of the braver ones went to see the scenes afterward. Not pretty. But everyone the scavs and gangs had taken — the innocents — he let them all go. So so people have started calling him the Punisher."
Vito laughed before he could stop himself.
"The Punisher? Sounds like so old comic character that already had its mont. Cube Head's a better na."
Jackie waved at him to be serious and kept going.
"Right now every fixer in Night City is looking for Cube Head. Especially Arasaka's people. Old Captain's getting word from inside — Cube Head has taken out a few of Arasaka's own. Now all the suits are looking at everyone like they might be the one."
Vito turned that over quietly. He'd been going out too many nights in a row.
Gloria's patient ca out through the clinic door. At the entrance, the child's mother was still thanking her.
"Thank you, doctor. Thank you for the discount — to be honest, I was counting that money toward the laundry machine paynt."
Gloria saw them out and waved hello at Jackie. She waved him inside, then went back in and brought the beers out of the heat.
Watching her, Jackie exhaled sothing between a sigh and a thought.
"We rough types just don't have the instinct for it. Sotis I think about what I'd be like if I settled down."
"You haven't taken Misty ho yet?"
Vito was curious.
"We're not there yet. We've known each other since we were kids, but my mom's not warm on Misty. The whole thing keeps getting pushed back."
Jackie looked resigned about it.
"Co on. How is Mrs. Welles not going to like Misty?"
Vito leaned forward.
"I had an ex. Camila. We were good together, and my mom decided on the spot that she was the one. Now every ti she looks at Misty she finds sothing wrong with her. Drives completely insane."
Jackie sighed.
Vito put a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't stress it. I'll talk to Mrs. Welles. Misty's a good person. I should be in your corner on this, and I will be."
Jackie put a hand on Vito's shoulder in return.
"Appreciate it, mano. But forget that for now — I think you should find yourself soone. We've got the money now. We don't have to grind every day. I've noticed lately... you've gone quiet on jobs. Like you're running on autopilot."
Vito laughed.
"Have I? Hadn't noticed."
He left it there.
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