D found his way to an old apartment in Northside, Watson.
The corridor smelled of cheap beer and loud music that said all about the people living inside.
He had to knock on the door for the fifth time before the music stopped. Heavy footsteps approached the door and several locks clicked open one after another.
The door swung wide.
The first thing D noticed was the height.
The man filled the doorway like a reinforced bulkhead. A battered mohawk, thick chrome lining his neck, and a pair of long hulking cyberarms made him look more machine than man. Where his eyes should have been sat a single matte-black Kiroshi Monovision unit stretching across the upper half of his face.
The visor's sensor line flickered red as it silently scanned D, leaving no clue where the man was actually looking. “...Who the hell are you?”
“D.”
“D? As in Dick?” As if to make his point the lanky guy thrust his waist and added, “But my Mr. Stud™ is bigger.”
“...” D had not considered that part of his name. To maintain his stoic persona he quickly thought of an answer. “Do I measure mine?”
And he self-destructed on the spot. What was he even talking about? Seriously.
“Pfft. Haha, mule’s funny.” A female voice came from behind the lanky guy. “Shitty brother, move. That’s my parcel.”
“Haa? Again?! You’re going to bankrupt us!”
“Fuck off! That’s my money anyway.” She turned to D and spoke rather lazily, “So, do I have to ask for my package?”
“Ha, ah, right.” D handed her the package, not expecting her get-up. Her outfit–or rather, the lack of one–seemed to scream just how much she hated clothes.
Aside from a simple black bra and matching underwear, she wore almost nothing at all. The girl herself was short in stature. Vibrant green hair was tied into twin pigtails, each secured by dual-clipped hairbands.
Her cyberware was surprisingly subtle, with only her pink and yellow cyberoptics standing out. Soft facial features and pale skin with a faint bluish tint contrasted against three distinct pink tattoos: a Mox-style collar circling her neck, a goat’s head across her abdomen, and another wrapping around her right thigh, stylized to read “PK DICK.”
Even as she took the package, her hand never left the giant gun he couldn’t name.
“Ah, you’re going to be the end of me!” the lanky guy walked away, his voice anguished with pain.
The opening made the room visible for D to sneak a peek.
A dismantled rifle lay across the dining table beside several cyberware components. Pizza boxes and beer cans competed for space with ammunition magazines. A television blasted a dancing competition no one seemed to be watching.
At the far wall he could see an open gun rack with a bunch of different varieties of guns and pistols.
“Exactly what I wanted, Ginger knows me the best!” The girl hugged the package, dismantled the gun in her hand with a few smooth motions and started to measure something D had no idea of.
“Ehem!” D cleared his throat, which finally attracted the girl’s attention.
“What? Do you need permission to leave!” her voice was rather accented, and, honestly, D thought it was cute while he avoided directly looking at her.
“I’m supposed to pick up a parcel for the fixer.”
“Huh? First time hearing about that.” She turned to the other side with an aggressive expression, “Oy, stupid brother, do we have something for the mule?”
“Is our usual mule also here? Hm, I only see the dick guy.” The lanky guy scratched his neck and spoke.
“...I also took the gig for the pickup–”
“Huh? What the fuck is going on? An absolute rookie hauling my tech? Wait here!” He turned around and seemed to holo-call someone.
With nothing to do, D extended his hand, hoping to make small talk. “I’m D. You have a wide variety of irons here. Are you guys suppliers or something?”
“Pfft,” the girl broke out into a loud laughter, “Supplier? Me? The hell do I look like, a gun store?”
“No, just here to deliver and pick up. Looking at your lineup, you have too many irons just for personal use. So, I thought maybe...”
“Meh, these are my babies. Not for sale.” She casually dismissed him.
Well, D hoped to get a cheap deal, not something he would say to her face. “You know where someone can actually learn to shoot?”
“...” the girl just stared at him. “You’ve got iron yourself...”
D glanced at his waist. The second-hand Lexington could be hardly made out. Most might not even notice.
“...and no shooting experience?”
He scratched his neck, but his eyes were completely calm. “We always skip the boring part, no?”
“...”
“BUHAHAHA!!! You’re absolutely not wrong about that! You’re funny for a mule, I will give you tat.” The girl burst out laughing. “Maybe we should go banging some gonk heads sometime! I’s Rebecca, that shitty guy there is Pilar, my helpless brother and our techie.”
She extended her hand which D firmly shook before feeling a sudden jerk and the Lexington from his waist disappeared. Just as he was about to Sandy all the way, he heard her speak.
“Hm, a Lexington...” Rebecca did not look impressed. She released the magazine lock, which... did not slide smoothly. “Yack. You’re not just new at shooting, but a complete newbie at handling irons, aren’t you.”
She didn’t question, no. She spoke with conviction.
“We all have something we are new at.” D knew his weakness and didn’t shy away from admitting it as he took back his iron.
Just then, the lanky guy, Pilar interrupted them. “Ah, whatever, Dick. Gin says you’re good at what you do, but don’t fucking let some gonk take my tech or I’m coming after you!” With that a long slim bag was in his hand.
“Rebecca says you’re a techie, maybe we can do biz?”
The guy just waved him off.
D thought to make some more small talk with Rebecca but the latter had long gone into doing her thing. So he just greeted his way out of there. “See you again, Rebecca. Let’s hope I can improve my aim by then.”
“See ya. Ah–” Rebecca said, just then she remembered something and sent him a holo request.
D added the contact and accepted it.
<Rebecca: Maybe you can try there. Location. It’s not cheaper than other places but a lot of retired cyberpunks hang around here. If you’re in luck someone can even teach you how to oil your gun.>
<D: Much appreciated.>
Just as they were done, D received another holo from Gin.
<Gin: Bring it to Little China, my location.>
<D: Roger.>
Perfect. He could drop by Viktor’s at the same time.
D glanced at Rebecca’s shooting range location before accepting Gin’s next gig.
/ / /
“You’re late, I’m about to close.” Viktor gave him his most serious dead eyes.
Ken pressed his palms and begged for forgiveness. “I’m really sorry. Had a quick gig, thanks to that I think I can clear the debts now, but aren’t there still custo...”
Ken’s words trailed. The only remaining customer was Jackie Welles. “Um, has he been there since morning?”
“Don’t get me started with that gonk!” Viktor had a fed up expression. “He is afraid of Mama Welles and refuses to return to his house. Forget about him and let’s get you checked up. Shouldn’t take long unless you botched yourself.”
Ken laid on his stomach and Viktor connected him with dexterous movement. Not long after that, he had a thoughtful expression as he ran a scanner over him.
“Any problem?”
“The problem is there’s no problem.”
“Hah. Sounds like something I’ve already heard from you.”
Sigh. “There’s several points I don’t know how to address. First, the skin that I stitched back after surgery they’ve already healed like I’ve never touched them. Then, the spine. There were some visible uneven bumps on your back, and now, they’ve already smoothened. Although you don’t have the usual spinal groove anymore, it’s not sticking out either. Did it compress itself?
“If that was not enough, you have your injury from yesterday. You’re already out of serious condition. People don’t heal that fast!”
Ken grimaced. If he didn’t think of something soon Viktor might start questioning his career. “Isn’t it that, Vik? The sandy! It must have something to do with it. Maybe when I activate it my body heals faster?”
“Like hell it does. With the amount of adrenaline and hormones it makes your brain release, I’m already impressed with your gonk head bearing that. That said, this type of spine-mounted Sandevistan is completely different from the ones popping out in the market now and then.” Viktor mused and turned to him, “Well, for the time being rest properly and don’t overuse it. We’ll do a check up next month.”
“Got it.” Ken happily obliged as Viktor freed him from the cables.
“While I’m happy that you’re recovering fast, I’m just worried that it might have serious consequences later on...”
“Don’t worry, I'll tell you the moment I feel anything wrong.”
“How many times did you use it though?” Viktor asked in passing.
“Today? Only twice.”
For some reason that gave Viktor a bad premonition. “How many times do you usually... no, yesterday, how many times?”
“E-eeh?” Ken deliberated but decided to come out clear. “Eight times? Or was it nine?”
“Madre de Dios... eight?!!” Jackie–finally unable to pretend sleeping–Welles chimed in.
Viktor just opened and closed his mouth, as if not finding exactly what he should reprimand about. “What were you even thinking?!”
“Eh? I was not thinking anything?” Ken thought. The [Cyberware] page was there. It said Recommended Cool-down time, he was sure it should’ve shot up to 16 hours but this morning it was completely clean, so he decided sleeping resets it off. And since it said recommended, and not hard cooldown he had been trying to see exactly where the limit was.
“Hermano, you’re more of a dark horse than I expected you to be. At this point you might as well be on the road of Night City Legend!” Jackie seemed genuinely chirped up.
“Jackie, don’t put weird ideas into the kid’s head.” Viktor warned before turning to Ken. “You too. SIGH Since you've already pushed it as far as eight or nine activations, I won’t be too hard on you but try to limit it to 5 times. Even in an emergency, try not to push it over eight times.”
Ken readily accepted the suggestion. Night City looked dark even from the top of a high-rise building, but even this underground shop in the alleys could give people warmth.
‘Sorry, Vik. I can’t just say I have some weird nonsensical system with me, and I can do a lot of other things...’
Ken paid Viktor 2,000 eddies including what he owed before. It wasn’t the full amount, but speaking of strict monetary things felt like he was making a boundary that didn’t exist.
/ / /
That very night, Ken rented a cubicle on the other side of Santo Domingo, which was Rancho Coronado.
Still the same type of cubicle, just pricer.
450 eddies a month.
A 50% increase from the one in Arroyo.
The first thing he did was to get inside the beddings, take out the Arasaka SecureBook and connect with the Megabuilding L6’s security network. It took some time as he was only skilled in programming and dabbled in hacking while he learned the former.
Hacking class came in a program outside of his usual school curriculum.
The building wasn’t even as secure as most well doing local businesses outside.
First, Ken mapped out the building’s security cameras. Maybe because it was a Low-cost Megabuilding, it didn’t have half as many cameras as it had on Megabuilding H4. If he could time it right and use Sandevistan, he could get out of the building without being noticed by cameras.
But the security didn’t just involve the camera. The sound sensors were set unusually high for some reason. He defaulted them all and planned to see if they would react to it.
With that settled, he moved to the problem not far from the area. There was a gang hideout according to his World Map. However, despite that he moved here because this side of the area was known for being mostly peaceful.
The RED World Map had a lot of icons that Ken didn’t get time to go through. However, if the information in the Map was accurate, he now held a lot of information, many info-brokers might not be aware of.
Especially information like gang hideouts and even headquarters.
However, a new, completely catchy icon caught his attention.
All of the icons in RED Map were only made of shape without filled colors. This one however had the shape of a female icon filled with a pink color.
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[Lucyna Kushinada’s Dwelling (Netrunner)
Congratulations! Against all odds, you've discovered your heroine's dwelling even before officially meeting her. Whoa, skipping the introduction and heading straight to baby-making sequence?!
NC Profession Ranking: 2]
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“Huh?!” Ken had only question marks in his head.
{Alternative Titles: Rebecca & Pilar; New Home?; Baby-Making Time? The Fearsome Netrunner?; Heroine: Lucyna Kushinada; }