Nova was hunched over his bathroom sink, knuckles white, body trembling. Whatever was left in his stomach was now painting the porcelain. His skin glistened with cold sweat, every muscle screaming rebellion.
“Shit... I better not die before I even get to use this thing properly,” he groaned, coughing into the drain. “Forty-five activations in two days... yeah, real smart.”
Grimacing, he staggered upright and tried again. Across the cramped room, a glass full of water rested on the counter. Nova triggered the implant. Time dilated. His senses expanded. The air thickened. He hurled the glass across the room and, in a fluid blur, snatched it mid-air without spilling a drop.
A grin cracked through his exhaustion.
“Alright. Fifteen seconds of active use. Not bad. But timing it while everything’s crawling? Whole different story.”
He grabbed his notebook, holding it up with unsteady fingers, and dropped it without adding any momentum. Eyes locked in. Slow motion. He watched it fall like a feather through molasses.
“That’s a noticeable shift... definitely slower than before. I’d say time’s down by about forty-five percent around me.”
The data clicked in his head, but his body said otherwise. His vision blurred. Muscles failed him. He collapsed to the cold, tiled floor, wheezing.
Then—of course—the fucking phone rang.
Incoming call: Lucian
“Nova! Buddy! You got those Syn-Lungs I ordered? I’ve got the cash—no installments, no bullshit. I need this, now. Can you make the drop?”
Nova, barely keeping upright, grunted and rolled over. He picked up.
“Yeah... Lucian, right? Send the coords. I’ll be there with your ware.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Nova. Coordinates sent. I’ll be waiting.”
The call ended. Nova dragged a hand down his face, frustration curling at his lips.
“Every damn time…”
Still, eddies were eddies, and Nova wasn’t in a position to turn any down. He packed the cyberware into a secured carrier rig, slung it over his back, and headed out. First a bus. Then a Delamain taxi, humming smooth jazz as it cruised through the electric veins of the city.
Halfway there, the hum shattered.
From the side—blurred shapes, neon-streaked glass—came a black muscle car screaming through the intersection, skimming the taxi with just inches to spare. Time slowed naturally for Nova now, a reflex more than conscious thought. In that moment, he saw them clear as day:
David. Lucy. Front seats. Adrenaline in their veins. Two bikes on their tail—chrome riders lit up with violence.
“Son of a bitch—that was close.”
Two of the bikes blazed past, engines roaring. The third lagged, weapon raised, target locked on David’s ride.
Nova didn’t think. He didn’t have to.
Sandevistan lit up.
He kicked the cab door open mid-roll, blurred into motion. In one seamless sequence, he disarmed the biker, sent his elbow crashing into the man’s visor, and watched him lose balance and tumble into the pavement behind.
Breathing hard, Nova turned back as time returned to normal speed.
“If we’re still in this part... then nothing’s gone to hell just yet. I got little time thou”
Looks like Nova had made a decision—one that was about to royally screw up his life. He knew the aftermath was gonna be ugly: heat, corps, maybe worse. If he wanted to interfere with what was coming, he'd need backup. Contingency plans. People. Eddies.
So he went straight to the one person who had both power and trust in Night City—Regina Jones. No time wasted. He headed to her place and pitched the idea raw.
“Not like you to drop by this often, Nova,” Regina said, crossing her arms. “Honestly, it’s got me worried.”
Nova smirked, eyes dimmed with exhaustion but burning with purpose.
“Shouldn’t be. I’m just thinking bigger lately. Scaling up. And yeah, I need eddies to match. You know what I’m capable of.”
Regina studied him. She knew that tone. Trouble. Nova had always been her techie—reliable, discreet, low-profile. Never gave him anything high-risk or tied to major clients. Just fixer-grade gigs, nothing that made ripples.
“What is it you want, Nova? I don’t have any open requests for your kind of work right now.”
Nova raised an eyebrow.
“My kind? What, you think I’m some bargain-bin techrat? I can bring dead Militech hardware back to life. You name it—I’ll fix it like it’s fresh off the line.”
Regina said nothing, just turned and disappeared into the back. When she returned, she tossed a half-melted Sandevistan onto the table like a corpse.
“Pulled this off a psycho. ICE’s still active—corporate-grade, Arasaka. Got biofeedback burn damage too. You fix this... then we talk.”
Nova didn’t flinch.
“Get me tools.”
He dropped into a chair, slipped on his diagnostic visor, and scanned the Sandevistan piece by piece. Red lights danced in his HUD.
> Arasaka ICE: ACTIVE
> Neural nanowires: FRIED
> Cooling system: COMPROMISED
He grabbed a decrypter, a backup power cell from Regina’s stash, and cobbled together a makeshift magnetic insulator—just enough to sneak past the ICE without setting off corporate alarms.
As he jacked in, a shimmering holo-terminal opened up, code streaming like a waterfall of knives. It was ugly. Raw. Dangerous. But Nova didn’t blink.
Too much to lose. Had to prove he was worth the weight.
He flicked his wrist, activated his own Sandevistan. Time crawled.
5 seconds.
10.
15.
30...
His fingers blurred across the virtual interface, rewriting subroutines, purging kill-switches, isolating corrupted nodes. The Sandevistan flickered, hummed, then fell silent—code stabilized.
He exhaled, collapsing back against the chair.
“Code’s clean. Now for the body.”
Using whatever scraps he could find—old cyberlimb actuators, broken optics, fried streetware—Nova fabricated new components, rethreaded the nanochannels, and rebuilt the cooler. Bit by bit, it came back together.
By the end, it looked brand new.
Nova held it out to Regina.
“Here. No serial. No signature. No net presence. This Sandevistan? It’s technically mine now. Fully functional. Reprogrammed. Sell it. Keep it. Doesn’t matter.”
Regina narrowed her eyes.
“And if it doesn’t work?”
Nova didn’t hesitate. He pulled his sidearm and pressed it into her hands, then guided her aim straight to his own temple.
“Then you know what to do.”