David hung up the phone and sat against the wall for a few more seconds.
He missed that modest apartment more than ever, but he couldn’t go back yet.
Priority number one was figuring out what the hell was wrong with his body.
He had to get checked out by a professional.
A ripperdoc…
Doc immediately popped into David’s mind.
In Night City, most people went to a ripperdoc they knew personally for cyberware modifications.
David helped the guy make extra cash on the side by selling bootleg braindances, and when the academy required a headband upgrade, he’d had him modify it too.
If something was really wrong with his body, or if whatever was controlling him had invaded through his cyberware, Doc was the most likely person to spot it…
David stood up and walked over to the motorcycle painted in 6th Street colors.
He looked at the bullet holes on the frame and hesitated for a second.
The bike was way too conspicuous.
But not knowing if the NCPD was currently hunting him down, riding a bike that gave him freedom of movement still seemed safer than taking a cab or riding the Metro in North Watson.
“Bike it is, then…” David took a deep breath, straddled the bullet-riddled 6th Street motorcycle, twisted the throttle, and sped off.
Santo Domingo.
Arroyo, Mission Waterfront.
Neat rows of public benches lined the coastal guardrails, and the water reflected the neon lights of the shops along the street.
David parked the bike outside a building along the walkway; Doc’s clinic was tucked away inside.
He glanced around to make sure the coast was clear.
Then he raised a hand and knocked on the metal door in front of him.
*Knock, knock, knock…* Hearing the knock…
The doc, who was in the middle of replacing a cybernetic hand, paused his work.
He looked up.
An eyepiece resembling a spider’s compound eyes covered his face, its lenses reflecting the faint glare of a display on the wall.
Local news was playing on the screen.
“Early this morning, a violent shooting broke out in Santo Domingo, leaving six 6th Street gang members dead on the scene.” “Police preliminarily suspect an internal gang vendetta.
The killer is believed to be a professional hitman or mercenary who fled the scene on a 6th Street-painted motorcycle.
The investigation is ongoing…” The doc switched off the news, plunging the clinic into sudden silence.
He pulled up the security camera feed at the entrance.
On screen, David was nervously looking around as if bracing for a shady deal.
Beside him stood a motorcycle.
“Hmm…?” The doc zoomed in.
The bike’s details came into sharper focus: 6th Street custom paint, the Stars and Stripes on the gas tank, and several fresh bullet holes on the frame.
The jagged metal around the bullet holes flared slightly outward—clearly the result of point-blank gunfire.
“…” Instead of opening the door immediately, the doc stared at David on the screen for a moment.
David stood at the door with his hands in his pockets, his leg twitching nervously.
His eyes darted about, checking over his shoulder every few seconds.
Looks like…
Either he was in trouble, or trouble was coming for him.
The doc pressed the door release.
The iron door slid open with a screech, letting dim yellow light spill through the crack.
“Get in.” David cast one last glance behind him before stepping over the threshold, pulling the door shut behind him.
Sitting behind his workbench, the doc was tightening the cyberhand he had just swapped out.
He looked like a dried-up corpse, with messy hair and an unhealthy, grayish-white complexion.
“In trouble?” “No…” David shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Doc, run a check on my cyberware.” “Which part?” “All of it.” David paused, then added, “Especially the neural port.” The doc’s spider-like optic visor locked onto David’s face, the lenses shifting slightly as if scanning him.
“Notice anything weird lately?” “Sometimes I lose control of my body, and I’ve been hearing a voice,” David said, getting a bit agitated.
“It controls me and makes me do insane shit…
like jacking a bike.” “Loss of motor control?
Auditory hallucinations?” The doc’s five long metallic fingers twitched like squid tentacles.
“Interesting.
You’re running Arasaka gear.
Supposedly not so easy to hack.” He was half a head shorter than David.
But those whirring optical lenses made David feel like a test specimen on an autopsy table.
“Lay down.” The doc pointed to the beat-up operating table in the center of the room.
“I’ll do a full scan.” David walked over and laid down.
The icy cold of the metal surface sent a shiver straight down his spine.
The doc’s emaciated fingers fumbled along the back of David’s neck, plugging a cold cable into the neural port beside his spine.
*Bzzt—* David saw the monitor beside him flood with dense data: cyberware status, neural response, blood oxygen levels…
parameters he couldn’t comprehend cascaded down the screen like a waterfall.
Looking at all these unfamiliar stats, his mind drifted to something else.
“Doc.” David suddenly spoke up.
“Is there any kind of cyberware…
that can turn back time?” The doc’s fingers froze over the keyboard.
He glanced at David like an insect studying its prey.
“Turn back time?” “Yeah.” David swallowed nervously.
“Like…
rewinding everything around you, back to a few minutes or seconds ago, so you can restart.” “Of course not.” The doc let out a raspy sneer.
He turned back to the screen.
“You’re supposed to be an Arasaka Academy student.
You really need to ask me that?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a hard rule of the universe.
Time only moves forward.
It doesn’t rewind.” “But…” “Did you scroll some braindances recently?” the doc interrupted.
David blinked.
Before being possessed, he had indeed scrolled illegal braindances—all kinds of them.
“I did.” David answered truthfully.
“The ones you sold me were pretty high quality.” “Figures.” The doc kept working, his tone unfazed.
“Some jackasses whose brains got fried by black-market BDs have asked me the exact same shit.” “BDs are realistic enough, and they’ve got fast-forward and rewind functions.” “Plenty of dumbasses who belong in a museum can’t tell reality from illusion.
After scrolling, they start blabbering about turning back time, seeing the future, or meeting aliens.” He looked at David.
“Which one do you think you are?” David fell silent.
He could clearly feel his own body right now.
Was that period of being controlled really just an illusion?
David stared at the ceiling, his mind a tangled mess.
“Stop overthinking it.” The doc seemed to read his thoughts.
“Classic braindance aftereffects.
Don’t touch that dirty garbage for a few days.
Get some sleep, and stop letting your imagination run wild.” David remembered the voice in his head.
Did that lunatic really not exist?