Spotting the car that was following me wasn’t hard.
I didn’t panic, though.
I just kept note of it and stayed calm.
If I hadn’t already died once, keeping my composure in a situation like this would’ve been a lot harder.
The taxi stopped right in front of Lizzie’s Bar.
I stepped out, caught a glimpse of the tail car parking across the street, and still didn’t react.
I just walked toward the entrance.
Two women stood on either side of the door.
As I approached, one of them peeled off the wall and took a couple of steps forward, resting a bat on her shoulder in a way that was clearly meant to be threatening.
“Wrong time, kid.”
“Maybe wrong place too.”
The dark-skinned woman smirked but didn’t bother moving from the wall.
“No, I’m in the right place at the right time.
Tell Judy that the specialist from Regina is here.”
“Hm.”
The bat girl’s eyes lit up for a second.
She nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“Thanks.”
I nodded to the woman who’d stepped aside, walked into the bar, passed through a short corridor with a security desk, and entered the main hall.
It was two stories.
I looked around with interest.
“Who are you?”
The bartender was the first to notice me.
“I’m here for Judy.”
“Hm.”
His eyes glowed for a moment.
“Wait.
She’ll be here in a couple minutes.”
I nodded and kept looking around casually.
About five minutes later, she came through one of the doors.
I let out a low whistle before I could stop myself.
“Judy?”
“Yeah.
What?”
“Just wasn’t expecting my employer to be so beautiful.”
“Pff.
Not a chance.”
I shrugged.
“I’m not making a move.
Just stating a fact.
I’m not gonna start a relationship just because someone’s pretty.”
“Oh really?”
She looked me up and down, then gestured for me to follow.
“Yep.
There has to be something here too.”
I tapped my temple twice.
She glanced back and noticed the gesture.
“…and here too.”
I tapped my chest twice.
“Brains and heart?”
“You know, there’s a saying from the Russian district I’ve heard.
They judge you by your clothes, but they see you off by your wits.
Same thing here.
A pretty face is nice, but in our time, it barely means anything.
You can make any face you want.
But you can’t insert someone else’s brain.
Or some kind of moral compass.”
“You’re interesting.
With that outlook on life, why become a solo?”
“Sometimes life puts you in a position where you either lay down, fold your arms, and die, or you stand up and keep walking.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.
Yesterday I was a corporate academy student.
My mother’s pride and joy, working her ass off to pay for my tuition.”
I shook my head.
“Today I’m an orphan who can’t afford rent or school.
So either you become a solo and deal with the consequences, or you just go die in a back alley somewhere.”
“I get that.”
“Hm?”
“When I was a kid, I found a fire truck on a junkyard.
It was in total shit condition, but I was curious.”
“You restored it?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a clever idiot.”
“Hey!”
“Come on.
The whole junkyard in Night City belongs to the corps.
Yeah, you might get away with stealing a wrecked car or a washing machine, but a fire truck?”
I shook my head.
“And you probably decided to take it for a spin too.”
“Uh…
yeah.”
She mumbled it quietly, a little offended.
I couldn’t help myself.
I caught up to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t be like that.
I’m not judging.”
I gave her a slight shake.
She looked at me, surprised.
“Honestly, if my situation hadn’t forced me to grow up so fast, I’d probably be doing the same thing.
Building a fire truck or a cop car out of junk and taking it for a joyride.”
“Hmph.”
“The difference is, that was stupid and reckless.
But that’s what kids do.
They make stupid choices.”
We went down into the basement.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Wow.
This place is actually clean.”
“Yeah.”
Judy shrugged.
“What were you expecting?”
“Creative chaos.”
“Ha.
You’ve got a pretty low opinion of me.”
She shook her head.
“Alright.
Show me what needs fixing.”
“Let’s start with this server.”
She led me into one of the rooms.
“The person who set this up said you don’t work with braindance equipment.
But you can handle computers and servers.
So get to it.”
“Cool.
Got any tools?”
“Follow me.”
We went back to the main basement area.
She handed me a tool kit and gestured toward the server room.
I went in.
I left the door open and decided to keep the conversation going.
“So what happened next?”
“Next?”
“After you built the car and took it for a ride.”
“Oh.”
Her voice turned sad.
I roughly knew her story, but she was my favorite character in the game.
I’d played through the entire game multiple times just for her.
Hearing her story firsthand was something I actually wanted to do.
“Next came juvie.”
“Got caught?”
“Yeah.
They hit me with grand theft auto for the fire truck.”
I paused for a moment, found the server’s problem, and thought about the best way to fix it.
There were options, but I wanted something cheap and reliable.
“So you’re a former convict, huh?”
“Pff.
Yeah.
When I got out, I tried to sue the city.
Found some lawyers who…”
“Idiot.”
“Hey!”
“Judy.
In this city, the only thing dumber than that would be suing a corporation.”
I shook my head, left the server room, and looked around.
“Where are the parts?”
“Over there.”
She gestured at some cabinets.
I walked over and started picking out what I needed.
“So what am I supposed to do?
Just accept it?
Swallow it?”
I gave Judy a long look.
“What?”
“Nothing.
I barely stopped myself from saying something crude.
As for your question…
you don’t sue the system.
You sue a person.
Find your case file.
Get the name of the official who signed off on it.
Then pull the fire department’s records and find the data on the truck you restored.
Sue that specific person.”
“But…”
“Judy.”
I cut her off before she could respond.
“I’m not saying the system is perfect or anything like that.
I’m saying you can only fight a system with another system.
You can only fight a corporation with another corporation.
The case against you was started by a specific person.
Someone who used the system to profit off you or get ahead.”
I shrugged and walked back toward the server with the parts I’d picked out.
“Just accept it as fact.
A person sent you to juvie.”
“You really think so?
But what about his family?”
“Look.”
I leaned out of the server room and caught Judy’s eye.
She’d looked up from whatever braindance equipment she was working on.
“It’s nice that you’re so kind.
That you don’t want to hurt anyone.
But in this specific situation, the only way to avoid causing harm is to forgive and forget.
If you want compensation, you have to sue that specific person.”
I went back to work.
“At the end of the day, you have a family and a life.
That official didn’t care about either.”
“Maybe.”
For the next few hours, we kept working, tossing a few work-related comments back and forth.
I fixed the broken server, then inspected and cleaned the rest of them.
Once I was done, I stepped out of the server room and sat down across from Judy.
“So?”
“What?”
She looked up at me.
“What else needs fixing?”
“Done with the server room?”
“Yeah.
You can sign off on that work.
I fixed the broken server and cleaned the others.
Nothing should break down for a while.”
Judy nodded, stood up, and walked into the server room.
She came back out about ten minutes later.
“Looks good.”
She gave me an appraising look.
“Can you look at the old computers too?”
“Sure.”
I shrugged.
Judy led me to a storage room where I dug into the tech.
We didn’t finish until late in the evening.
By then, the bar was already in full swing, and the noise carried down pretty clearly.
The soundproofing was good, though.
“So how’re things down here?”
“Susie?”
Judy looked up from her workbench.
So did I.
“Yeah.
You two really been working all day?”
“Uh huh.”
“And how’s the kid?”
“The kid knows his stuff.
He’s useless with braindance hardware, but he fixed the server and got two old computers running.”
“So you’re happy with him?”
“Yeah.
I’d actually book him for tomorrow too.
Get him to finish the rest of the computers.
Having extra working hardware is never a bad thing.”
“What about you?”
“The job’s not closed yet.”
I shrugged.
“So when I leave, I’ll call my fixer.
Tell her there’s more work here than expected.
I’ll come back first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Awesome!”
Judy actually looked happy.
“Let’s swap contacts.
When you’re on your way, give me a call.
I’ll meet you in the main hall.”
I nodded, we exchanged info, and I stood up.
I stretched and headed for the exit.
“Alright.
See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.
Later…
wait!”
Judy’s voice stopped me.
“Yeah?”
“What’s your name?
You know mine, but I only know your callsign from Regina.
Tikhon…”
She snorted.
“…even though you talk a lot.”
“David.
David Martinez.
Tikhon because I handle the more sensitive work quietly.
No unnecessary noise or collateral.”
“Got it.
I’m Judy Alvarez.”
“Nice to meet you, Judy.
See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.
Later.”