Trailing a thick cloud of black smoke, the battered Thorton Galena slowly rolled into the small town.
Several people drinking beside the road lowered their bottles and watched the unfamiliar vehicle pass.
A man cleaning his rifle quietly tightened his grip on the weapon, while an elderly woman running a small grocery stall hurriedly pulled down its metal shutter.
In the Badlands, an unfamiliar vehicle was a warning in itself.
Beyond Night City’s borders, the line separating ordinary residents, scavengers, smugglers, and bandits had almost disappeared.
People shifted between those roles whenever survival demanded it.
A seemingly harmless mechanic might spend his nights stripping abandoned vehicles, while a friendly shopkeeper could put a bullet in a traveler’s back for a few bottles of clean water.
Trust was dangerous.
Hesitation could be fatal.
The brutal rules of the Badlands left little room for anything else.
Valerie ignored the suspicious stares and guided the Galena toward an auto shop with a half-open rolling shutter.
The engine coughed several times as she drove inside, releasing another burst of dark smoke before finally falling silent.
She climbed out, slammed the door, and struck the hood with her palm.
“Hey, choom,” she called to the mechanic standing near a workbench.
“Take a look at the electronic coupling.
Listen to that engine—it’s been rattling and smoking like a burning landfill for the last ten kilometers.”
The mechanic gave her a brief nod.
He picked up a wrench, lifted the hood, and went to work without asking who they were or where they had come from.
That was the safest way to survive in a town like this.
Keep your head down.
Do the job.
Ask as few questions as possible.
Never involve yourself in another person’s trouble unless enough eddies were on the table to justify the risk.
Valerie watched the mechanic for a few moments before turning to Lena.
“Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes,” she said.
“I picked up a job that’ll get us into Night City.
Client wants something smuggled across the border.
Once the car’s ready, I’ll check the meeting point.”
She pulled a slim cigarette from a crushed packet and offered another to Lena.
Lena accepted it almost instinctively.
She placed it between her lips, borrowed Valerie’s lighter, and took her first drag since arriving in this world.
The smoke hit hard.
Cheap tobacco and synthetic industrial flavoring burned down her throat, leaving behind an unpleasant chemical taste.
Lena resisted the urge to cough and slowly exhaled.
Despite its harshness, the cigarette made everything around her feel more real.
The scorching sunlight pressing against her skin.
The dust gathering on her clothes.
The sharp smell of gasoline and leaking motor oil.
The faint metallic scent coming from the mechanic’s cyberware.
This wasn’t a game displayed on a monitor anymore.
There would be no loading screen if something went wrong.
No checkpoint waited to restore her after a bad decision.
The weapons carried by the townspeople weren’t decorative props, and the bullets inside them could tear through her body as easily as they would anyone else’s.
Lena leaned against the Galena and took another drag while considering her next move.
Arasaka, Kang Tao, Militech, the city’s gangs, and Night City’s twisted power structure were problems for the future.
She might possess knowledge of important events, hidden weapons, valuable technology, and people who would one day shape the city, but knowledge alone wouldn’t keep her alive.
Her immediate objective was simple.
She needed cyberware.
The Virtual Body and Cyberware Fusion Module gave her extraordinary potential, but every slot on her interface remained empty.
Until she installed her first implants, she was still an ordinary Nomad with limited physical ability and a revolver at her hip.
Grand ambitions were worthless without enough power to survive the first step.
Lena finished the cigarette and crushed it beneath her boot.
At almost the same moment, the mechanic lowered the hood and wiped the grease from his hands with a stained cloth.
“All done,” he said.
“Twenty eddies.
How’re you paying?”
“I’ve got it.”
Lena stepped forward before Valerie could respond.
She had been curious about this since waking up.
With a single thought, she called up her financial interface.
[Balance: €$1,028]
She selected the payment option.
Golden data shimmered across her vision.
Countless encrypted characters streamed past her eyes as her neural link connected to the local payment network.
[Transfer Successful]
The mechanic’s cybereye flickered.
“Received.”
Lena looked at her updated balance with open fascination.
There had been no cash, card, external terminal, or authentication code.
She had completed the entire transaction with a thought.
Digital payments had existed in her old world, but this was on an entirely different level.
“Alright, calm down.”
Valerie rolled her eyes.
“You look way too happy about losing twenty eddies.
Anyone watching would think you’d won the lottery.”
“What do you know?”
Lena dismissed her with a solemn wave.
“There are still plenty of things I haven’t experienced.”
“Such as?”
“A Sandevistan.
A proper cyberdeck.
Braindances.
Jig-Jig Street…”
Lena’s expression became increasingly enthusiastic as she continued.
“And, of course, the legendary Clouds.”
Valerie’s face twisted into an amused smile.
“Are you sure you’d be going there to experience the dolls?” she asked.
“Looking like that, they might think you’re applying for a job.”
Lena lowered her gaze toward her new body.
Long legs, a narrow waist, and curves that her old office clothes could never have concealed.
Combined with Rose’s nearly flawless face, the result was attractive enough to draw attention regardless of gender.
She considered the problem for several seconds.
“Fair point.”
Then she nodded with exaggerated seriousness.
“Maybe I should get a few custom modifications first.”
Valerie narrowed her eyes.
“What kind of modifications?”
“The kind that would make the misunderstanding impossible.”
Silence filled the garage.
Valerie stared at her.
Lena maintained a perfectly serious expression.
Finally, Valerie reached over and lightly knocked her on the head.
“What the hell happened during that nap?”
Lena brushed her hand away, laughing beneath her breath.
The two climbed back into the Galena.
Valerie inserted the key and turned it.
The engine coughed.
Once.
Twice.
On the third attempt, it finally came alive with a deep, uneven roar.
The repair had stopped the smoke, but the sound remained far from healthy.
Lena leaned back in her seat.
“When we’re rich, I’ll buy you a Rayfield Caliburn.”
“Sure you will.”
Valerie pressed the clutch and shifted into gear, sounding entirely unconvinced.
“And after that, we’ll start our own megacorp, claim half of Night City, and declare war on Arasaka and Kang Tao.”
“Sounds like a decent plan.”
“Before any of that happens…”
Valerie pulled up their combined account balance and glanced at the miserable number.
“We should decide which overpass will be warmest to sleep under tonight.”
Lena’s mouth twitched.
Valerie’s tongue was as sharp as she remembered.
It was easy to imagine her arguing with Johnny Silverhand for hours without giving him the final word.
The Galena began moving toward the garage entrance.
Before Valerie could drive outside, the rolling shutter suddenly flew upward with a violent metallic crash.
Both women immediately tensed.
A tall figure stepped inside, framed by the harsh sunlight.
He wore a cowboy hat and an old sheriff’s uniform.
An antique-looking revolver rested in a holster at his hip, positioned for an easy draw.
His movements appeared casual, but his sharp eyes examined every corner of the garage before settling on the mechanic.
“Mike,” the sheriff said, “didn’t know you had visitors.”
“They only came in for repairs,” Mike replied quickly.
“Figured they’d already checked in with you.”
The sheriff placed a hand on the mechanic’s shoulder.
“Relax, pal.
We’re only talking.”
His tone was friendly, but his eyes weren’t.
He turned toward Lena and Valerie, studying them with the patience of a predator.
His gaze passed over their clothes, weapons, and visible cyberware.
Only after confirming they weren’t heavily augmented did some of the hostility fade from his expression.
Not all of it.
He walked toward the Galena and placed one hand against the open driver-side window.
His other hand remained close to his revolver.
The sheriff’s faint smile disappeared.
“Don’t you know how things work around here?”
Valerie stared back at him without answering.
“When strangers enter my town,” he continued, “the first thing they do is introduce themselves to the sheriff.”
His fingers moved closer to the holster.
“So tell me—what exactly are you doing here?”
Lena had already placed her right hand on the grip of the RT-46 Burya at her waist.
She remembered this confrontation from the Nomad prologue.
In the game, it had been little more than an uncomfortable conversation before V continued toward the radio tower.
This was no longer a scripted scene.
The sheriff could reach for his gun earlier than expected.
Valerie could insult him more aggressively than she had in the game.
A nervous mechanic or armed resident outside might misinterpret one movement and turn the garage into a killing ground.
Lena refused to trust her life to the assumption that events would unfold exactly as she remembered.
Before Valerie could answer, she spoke.
“Our vehicle broke down outside town.
We came here for repairs, nothing else.
We need to use the radio tower to contact a client, and then we’ll leave.”
The sheriff didn’t respond.
He pushed away from the window and slowly walked around the Galena.
His boots struck the concrete floor with deliberate, measured steps.
He inspected the worn tires, the dust-covered Nomad markings, and the supplies secured in the back.
“Passing through,” he repeated quietly.
“That’s right,” Lena said.
The sheriff stopped in front of the hood.
He looked from Lena to Valerie.
“Nomads don’t travel in pairs.”
The garage fell silent.
Mike stopped wiping his tools and lowered his eyes.
Valerie’s hand remained near the steering wheel, but her posture had changed.
She was ready to move.
Lena tightened her grip around the Burya.
The sheriff shifted one step to the side, clearing his revolver’s draw path.
“Let’s try this again,” he said.
His voice had lost every trace of friendliness.
“Which clan are you with?”