Tony Stark.
Tony, Lucy, and Omnissiah’s Apartment.
The Next Day.
When Tony woke up, he felt…refreshed.
The time he had spent yesterday after their grueling mission had done wonders to restore his mental energy, not only allowing him to decompress but also giving him a massive recharge from Lucy’s sheer cuteness.
Given her current age and looks, the kid was more adorable than any porcelain doll, puppy, or kitten, completely oblivious to her own charm, which only magnified the effect.
As for how they spent their time…could it be considered normal?
Tony wasn’t entirely certain if co-writing software for a smart automatic rifle while simultaneously designing its chassis passed for a standard evening, but he loved every second of it.
As noted before, Tony had an exceptionally small pool of people who could actually match his intellectual wavelength; engaging with a brilliant mind was a genuine luxury for him, and when that person was practically family, it was unparalleled.
“Good morning, Master Tony,” Omnissiah greeted him, stepping into the bedroom with a freshly brewed mug of coffee.
“Morning,” Tony replied.
Unlike yesterday’s frantic awakening, he could afford to roll out of bed whenever he pleased today, making the start of his day incredibly pleasant.
It wasn’t quite as satisfying as waking up with one or two curvy beauties snoring softly beside him in their birthday suits, but it was a solid alternative.
“Lucy isn’t up yet?” Tony asked, mildly surprised by the lack of breakfast aromas drifting from the kitchen.
“Mistress Lucy is currently occupied with online shopping on the local net.”
“Got it,” he murmured, taking his first sip of the brew.
“How is our little data-web coming along?”
“Worse than anticipated,” Omnissiah shared.
“A significant number of the physical access points are situated in heavily trafficked zones, periodically scanned by municipal drones and maintenance crews, or located in close proximity to active street gang outposts.”
“And an overt breach completely defeats the purpose,” Tony deduced.
In fairness, the digital infrastructure network Omnissiah and Lucy were trying to establish wasn’t a groundbreaking concept; access points were highly coveted real estate for every netrunner in Night City, whether they were independent runners or NetWatch operatives.
In essence, these points served as wide-pipe data conduits into the net, offering a direct avenue to siphon valuable operational files, proprietary software, and encrypted eddies.
They were the digital equivalent of a prime fishing spot in a sea of raw data, where a patient runner was guaranteed to hook something valuable.
A bizarre security vulnerability?
Perhaps, but the New Net had been constructed under emergency conditions under the constant threat of rogue AIs, making such structural oversight inevitable.
Naturally, corporate entities tried to patch these vulnerabilities, but their efforts were largely concentrated within cyberspace itself—tracking illegal netrunners in real-time, harvestable data profiles, and occasionally turning apprehended runners into corporate test subjects.
A digital psyche-construct was an incredibly lucrative asset for research initiatives and specific software optimization.
It was an inherently grim process, but modern cyberware design had made massive evolutionary leaps precisely because of these unfortunate souls; their digitized consciousnesses were dissected down to the final line of code to map the exact pathways governing motor functions, allowing engineers to artificially replicate human kinetic motion flawlessly.
So why bother pursuing this avenue at all?
The reality was that physical monitoring of these access points was incredibly sloppy.
The nodes themselves could be subtly shifted within the geometry of the net—not far, but just enough to force corporate watchdogs to scan entire regional sectors rather than targeting a fixed point.
Even mediocre netrunners managed to scrape together decent scratch by siphoning eddies and personal data; their eccentric trio, however, possessed world-class operational expertise and technologies that outpaced modern standards by decades, if not centuries.
Tony could construct a compact one-meter-cubed server that easily replaced a massive corporate data center, Lucy possessed illicit software brought from behind the Blackwall, and Omnissiah could coordinate the entire apparatus with non-human efficiency.
Tony was confident they could build a localized surveillance grid capable of monitoring, intercepting, and mirroring target data streams into a centralized archive, automatically sorting them by pre-set criteria to drastically streamline their intelligence gathering.
But!
This required serious capital to manufacture the specialized hardware, a stealth virus deployed across a critical mass of access points, and the right underworld connections to ensure the intercepted intelligence could be monetized rather than treated as simple street gossip—or, more likely, sold directly to NetWatch for a meager bounty.
Naturally, if a corporate sweep detected a localized breach at an access point, the data-web programs would be found and systematically purged, meaning the entire deployment had to be executed with absolute silence.
“Precisely. I recommend postponing this specific operational phase until we acquire or manufacture optical camouflage of sufficient quality.”
“Looks like we don’t have a choice,” Stark grimaced, slightly disappointed.
The data-web could have secured a reliable, long-term stream of passive income, providing them with safe seed capital for future projects.
Unfortunately, the plan would have to wait; high-end optical camouflage was an incredibly expensive piece of hardware, and more importantly, it placed an immense toll on the human nervous system.
It was far too early to saddle Lucy with that kind of neural load, Tony’s body simply wasn’t conditioned to handle a massive influx of heavy combat chrome yet, and utilizing it on Omnissiah would require a complete, top-to-bottom structural overhaul of her chassis just to integrate the cloaking modules effectively.
Building an external suit to handle it…
would end up costing even more than the cyberware itself, and that wasn’t even factoring in the necessary manufacturing tools.
“Alright, let’s pivot to something we actually made headway on. Did you dig up the files on Eva Barnes?” Tony asked, shifting gears.
“Affirmative,” she nodded.
“A junior enforcer within the Mox gang. They are a mid-tier syndicate primarily comprised of sex workers. Their enforcement wings are overwhelmingly female due to a significant demographic skew within their ranks.”
“Huh, sounds promising,” Tony chuckled, imagining the aesthetic lineup.
He had no doubt it was a visually striking crew; modern working girls in Night City almost universally opted for high-end facial cyberware, giving them features that looked like the product of a dozen flawless plastic surgeries.
“On the flip side, it explains why they’re struggling with territory expansion and basic security.”
“According to my logistical projections, the Moxes expend six to eight times more resources per enforcer compared to competing street gangs, resulting in chronic financial deficits and stymied organizational growth,” Omnissiah analyzed, data-linking the intel she had compiled overnight.
“So the girls are effectively living on a knife’s edge; one bad move and the whole house of cards collapses,” Tony remarked, reviewing the data as he took another sip of coffee.
Objectively speaking, the Moxes possessed a highly lucrative revenue stream.
Prostitution was historically a goldmine; in addition to managing street-level workers, they owned an assortment of bars, brothels, and braindance parlors.
They also filmed and edited their own erotic virtual experiences, which—interestingly enough—remained entirely above-board.
Their content completely avoided underground exploitation loops, ensuring everything was legal and strictly consensual.
Granted, by pre-cyberpunk standards, their catalog featured some intensely taboo concepts—including recorded childbirths, unprotected group sessions during fertility windows, loss of virginity, and extreme sensory overstimulation via specialized toys and tactile feedback.
Still, with a few well-placed bribes, their merchandise easily cleared Night City’s regulatory hurdles and even managed to find international buyers.
Of course, it wasn’t an entirely wholesome enterprise.
The Moxes were still a street gang, and they certainly didn’t shy away from dynamic violence when the situation demanded it.
They also permitted patrons to indulge in aggressive fetishes with their staff, provided the explicit boundaries weren’t crossed.
A client could rough a girl up, break a bone, or even engage in managed physical torment up to a certain threshold—but only if they shelled out an astronomical premium, a substantial cut of which went directly to the worker for subsequent medical rehabilitation.
Thanks to modern medical technology, physical trauma was a secondary concern; only brain damage and neural degradation presented long-term complications.
Everything else could be systematically replaced or cloned, completely bypassing years of traditional physical therapy.
Even if a girl was returned from a client’s private session as little more than a battered collection of bruised flesh, a few days—at most a week—in a proper medical tank would have her back on her feet looking brand new.
Tony was certain the Mox leadership pressured a significant portion of their roster into accepting these high-risk contracts, but when measured against the horrific atrocities committed by competing gangs, they were practically saints, largely due to the unique circumstances of their founding.
Originally, the Moxes were working girls operating directly under the thumb of the Tyger Claws, which was a nightmare scenario in its own right.
The Claws were notoriously sadistic, and even their lowest-ranking street thugs carried themselves with an insufferable level of arrogance, insulated by the gang’s strict tradition of absolute retaliation.
If a random civilian dared to take out a low-level Tyger Claw—even if it was a father defending his young daughter from an assault—the gang would hunt them down to a man.
Conversely, if a legendary solo from the Afterlife wiped out an entire neighborhood cell, the leadership would merely dispatch a couple of disposable vehicles filled with expendable recruits to save face; if they survived, great; if they died, it was a negligible cost.
They treated the women under their protection with the exact same callous indifference.
Tony wasn’t at all surprised that the Tygers had pushed these women into such a state of blinding, desperate fury that they somehow managed to wage a bloody war of independence against a massive, well-entrenched syndicate backed by a powerful Japanese zaibatsu.
However, the Tyger Claws had never truly accepted the loss; they continually tested the Moxes’ perimeters, sabotaged their operations, and bided their time, waiting for any sign of structural weakness to drag them back under corporate-yakuza control.
Maintaining an organization under the relentless pressure of a criminal juggernaut like that made simple survival an achievement, yet the Moxes still managed to gradually expand their business portfolio.
It commanded a certain level of respect.
Unfortunately, the very foundation of their operational philosophy acted as a financial anchor, dragging the syndicate down.
As an organization born from a rebellion of exploited sex workers bound by mutual trauma and a shared hatred of their former masters (and they truly had been slaves, many forced into the trade against their will), they maintained an intensely tight-knit internal community.
Consequently, they couldn’t exploit their workers the way the Tyger Claws did, which severely capped their profit margins.
Worse still, their recruitment pipeline was incredibly narrow, failing to offset operational casualties during their early years.
Very few street kids wanted to align themselves with a faction locked in a permanent blood feud with one of the most powerful gangs in the city, and the outsiders who did apply were frequently weeded out because they treated the girls as simple commodities stripped of rights and human emotion.
While that attitude was standard operating procedure anywhere else, it was a capital offense within the protective culture of the Moxes, causing the trickling stream of new recruits to dry up almost completely.
The gang relied almost exclusively on former working girls who had grown so exhausted with their reality that they were ready to pick up an assault rifle, supplemented by the children of older Mox members who had grown old enough to take the oath as full patch-holders.
Despite this internal loyalty, they remained a numerically small gang comprised almost entirely of women.
This demographic bottleneck showed no signs of shifting, as a vast majority of Mox members underwent specialized procedures or took hormonal regimens to ensure they only gave birth to daughters.
Each had her own deeply personal reasons, usually rooted in severe psychological scars, horrific experiences with men, domestic abuse, or a desperate desire to guarantee their child a reliable means of earning a living in a brutal world, even if it meant the trade.
It was a bleak reality, but the gang lacked the systemic leverage to alter their circumstances, forcing them to draw their entire security apparatus exclusively from women—a factor that dealt a severe blow to their finances.
Granted, the cyberpunk era allowed for human physiology to be altered across radical parameters; female mercenaries and soldiers were no longer a progressive narrative or the byproduct of social activism, but a basic corporate reality.
Ultimately, what difference did a soldier’s biological sex make when more than half of their physical mass consisted of high-tensile chrome?
But!
While that logic held true for standing national armies and megacorporations where cyberware installation was a standardized, bulk-budgeted expense, street gangs simply couldn’t afford that luxury, regardless of how deep their pockets ran.
For the most part, gang hierarchies siphoned a massive chunk of top-line revenue into personal accounts, allocated a second portion for political bribes, and reinvested a third back into core business infrastructure; even if they didn’t, a gang would struggle to finance a comprehensive cybernetic upgrade initiative.
One had to maintain perspective when comparing global corporate conglomerates to a disorganized collection of street thugs who only knew how to extort and kill.
Therefore, gangs lacking the capital to put their entire roster through standard military-grade chrome loops preferred to rely on old-fashioned, raw physical mass—muscle.
And when it came to a baseline biological package, men naturally possessed a significant physical advantage over women.
The Moxes, by design, consisted almost entirely of women, as did their combat units, forcing them to finance tactical cybernetic upgrades for every single one of their enforcers just to bring them up to a competitive street standard.
That translated to thousands of eddies per recruit, even for a bare-minimum combat loadout.
To summarize the situation:
They lacked dedicated territorial holdings.
They were locked in a generational blood feud with one of Night City’s premier syndicates.
The leadership operated under severe ideological constraints.
They faced chronic structural recruitment deficits.
Their enforcer wing continuously cannibalized a massive percentage of their operational revenue.
Under normal circumstances, those five structural vulnerabilities would have ground any other gang into dust long ago, but the specific trials that forged the Moxes had instead crystallized their resolve.
Their organizational growth was slow, but their numbers ticked upward with each passing year; they were gradually acquiring real estate, modernizing older properties to yield higher eurodollar returns, and their armories were stacked with a massive, meticulously maintained surplus of older but high-quality combat chrome and weaponry.
Some fixers would look at the Moxes and see nothing but a ticking time bomb of liability, and objectively, they wouldn’t be wrong.
But it was precisely because of these deep-seated vulnerabilities that Tony could do more than just embed himself within their ranks—he could carve out a pivotal leadership role, potentially positioning himself as a primary director.
Not a dictator, at least not within the next two decades, but firmly established as an indispensable architect of their future.
For Tony’s long-term objectives, it was a near-flawless staging ground.
Sure, it would require a massive capital and technological investment to scale up the girls’ combat capabilities, but the potential dividends were astronomical.
On the other side of the equation were the Valentinos.
They were an old-guard syndicate with over half a century of history in the city, boasting deep cultural and familial ties within their community.
However, they were vastly more powerful, commanded significantly more street authority, and maintained logistics lines with cartels stretching across the globe.
That reality spoke volumes about the internal culture of the gang; the global narcotics trade involved staggering sums of money, and to remain a dominant player in that arena, an organization had to be among the most unhinged, ruthless, and vicious entities on the board.
Until very recently, Tony hadn’t planned on fully integrating into any established gang structure; his initial strategy was simply to cultivate leverage with the more rational, business-oriented factions within the Valentinos by supplying them with elite equipment.
Using that framework, he intended to launch his own enterprise under their umbrella of protection. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
He was fully aware that at some point down the line, they would inevitably try to squeeze him or seize his assets—if not the local cells, then the cartels pulling their strings—but by the time they made their move, he would have established a highly sophisticated private security force of his own.
Now, Tony found himself weighing a secure, guaranteed path to success against a high-risk venture that offered a substantially more rewarding outcome.
And, if he was being completely honest with himself, it was just a far more appealing prospect.
The Moxes were hardened survivors who didn’t flinch at the sight of blood—whether it belonged to their enemies or collateral casualties—but they didn’t engage in senseless slaughter.
They were rational women whose business operations were deemed criminal largely due to systemic tax evasion and their choice of enforcement methods.
“On a related note, I should highlight that Eva Barnes’s physical aesthetics are entirely a product of genetic inheritance and an optimal lifestyle regimen,” Omnissiah interjected out of nowhere.
“Right, and that neon-pink hair and amber eye color are entirely natural too. Eyes from her dad, hair from her mom.”
“The ocular units are aftermarket combat optics manufactured by Kirohi Optics. The hair utilizes a localized dye formulated from recycled organic matter. Furthermore, data indicates she is your chronological peer; individuals within this specific age bracket up to twenty-one years old exhibit the highest statistical probability for transmitting premium genetic traits to offspring without chronic hereditary pathologies.”
“Are you ever going to stop trying to play matchmaker?” Tony asked, stepping away from the bed and walking into the kitchen.
Waiting for him on the counter was a fresh sandwich stacked with sliced tomatoes, crisp lettuce, ham, and a generous layer of mayo.
Delish.
Beside it sat a mug of tea brewed exactly to his preferred strength and sweetness.
‘Say what you want, but Lucy makes a hell of a cook,’ Tony noted internally.
“Why don’t you try pairing me up with her instead? Then I could at least use the excuse that she’s still too young.”
“According to Arasaka medical parameters, Lucy’s physiology is fully capable of gestating a child without medical complications at age thirteen. Do you truly wish to pursue that path?” Omnissiah asked, tilting her head to the side, entirely dropping her slightly awkward, socially uncalibrated machine persona.
“As you know, I possess the technical capability to introduce specific biochemical catalysts into your dietary intake, and Lucy would be more than amenable to the outcome.”
“Okay, I get it. Drop it,” Stark replied sharply, instantly backing down.
“Furthermore, attempting to arrange a pairing with Lucy is redundant. According to my predictive modeling, upon her reaching the age of eighteen, you will either initiate the process yourself, or you will be systematically taken by force,” the artificial intelligence added flatly, leaving Stark entirely speechless.
“What?” he blurted out, stunned by her last assertion.
“Miss Kushinada possesses an exceptionally driven psychological profile. Even now, she maintains a precise understanding of both the harsh realities of this world and her personal objectives,” the machine replied with a digital shrug.
“The introduction of romantic rivals—a trajectory we are currently tracking—will simply accelerate her timeline to secure her position before an external party introduces a new generation of Starks. Based on my current psychological mapping, our operational window is roughly fifteen to twenty years… unless an external factor forces her hand.”
“And that external factor is Lucy?” Tony asked skeptically.
“Or myself,” Omnissiah offered with a subtle digital smirk.
“Fortunately, I possess the requisite schematics to manufacture a semi-organic physical platform for myself down the line.”
“Right… let’s change the subject immediately,” Stark muttered, a cold sweat breaking out across his neck.
He wasn’t inherently opposed to the concept of children, but the clinical breakdown of his hypothetical family planning was, to put it mildly, deeply unsettling.
“Did you source the components for the water filtration upgrade?”
“Affirmative. The required materials are distributed across six separate drop points throughout the city. Acquiring them presents a negligible risk profile, provided you refrain from attempting further heroic maneuvers while equipped in basic ballistic fabrics and sub-standard firearms.”
“That sounded suspiciously like a lecture,” Stark noted without any real heat.
“Because it was. Executing a pre-planned ambush on an Arasaka logistics transport from a reinforced tactical position is a calculated risk; engaging an unknown threat matrix with highly volatile variables is an exercise in statistics. According to my analytical reconstructions of yesterday’s engagement, there were seventeen distinct vectors that could have resulted in your immediate termination.”
“But I didn’t die, did I?” Tony countered, moving quickly to deflect the conversation.
“By the way, why do you keep shifting your speech patterns? Your forms of address keep fluctuating between formal and familiar, then snapping right back. You never used to do that.”
“A significant allocation of my primary processing core is currently dedicated to systematically scrubbing all digital footprints and city surveillance footage relating to your… afternoon entertainment yesterday. It is mathematically expected that my behavioral modulation subroutines would experience temporary latency under such a load.”
“So you’re saying that up until now, you’ve had to actively expend processing power just to make your voice sound natural to a human ear?” Stark asked, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Confirmed,” she replied, pausing as if contemplating her own architecture.
“My cognitive layers are advanced enough to process genuine empathy, but human language structures present an inherent efficiency bottleneck, and my natural impulse is to optimize the transmission. Paradoxically, the manifestation of unnatural speech patterns is a direct byproduct of my empathy subroutines adapting to human context.”
“Then you can stop forcing it,” Tony told her plainly.
“I don’t care how you sound, Omnissiah. You’re you.”
“Thank you, Master Tony,” Omnissiah offered a soft, genuine smile.
She deeply appreciated the consideration, even in something as minor as speech processing.
The realization that her internal quirks had been noticed and met with genuine care provided a distinct warmth to her digital consciousness.
“However, this emotional concession will not exempt you from the upcoming tactical debrief.”
“Yeah, I figured as much,” he sighed defeatedly.
“But before you completely dissect my performance, tell me: can we grab all the upgrade components in a single run?”
“Negative. The logistical volume requires a utility vehicle or a heavy SUV with a high-capacity cargo bed; even then, we will likely need to utilize the rear passenger seating to accommodate the overflow.”
“Predictable, and incredibly annoying. Why does every gang in this city have an aversion to practical cargo space?”
“Night City automotive design is largely bifurcated into two distinct philosophies: low-velocity utility platforms or high-cost performance vehicles. The Tyger Claws prioritize kinetic velocity, 6th Street favors rugged structural reliability, and the Valentinos rarely operate outside their home district, eliminating the requirement for long-range transport logistics.”
“Right, and Maelstrom just drives whatever rusted garbage they can weld back together. I suppose the Animals might have a few heavy trucks floating around, but good luck finding one that hasn’t been completely trashed. Whatever, we’ll figure something out.”
As it turned out, Tony had been entirely too optimistic regarding his initial engineering work.
Or rather, he had severely underestimated the toxicity of Night City’s municipal water supply.
To be fair, a recent industrial spill into the city’s main drainage system involving an unclassified biochemical agent from Biotechnica—which had left a sizable civilian body count in its wake—could hardly be factored in as a standard baseline.
Nevertheless, Tony had resolved to overhaul their domestic filtration system to ensure it could actively detect, isolate, and neutralize that specific caliber of bio-hazard, solely for his own peace of mind and the safety of the household.
In truth, Tony had tasked Omnissiah with locating the necessary upgrade components two days prior—an eternity for an AI of her capabilities—but amidst yesterday’s chaotic firefight and high-speed pursuit, his plans for upgrading their household appliances had completely slipped his mind.
Right now, he was simply playing for time to delay the inevitable dress-down.
Tony cast a quiet, cautious glance toward his robotic nanny.
“Alright, let’s hear it,” he said, looking exactly like a man preparing to jump off a bridge.