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heartofsnark · 3 years

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Can You Feel The Sun? (Chapter Five): Just To Want It All

Notes: As stated in last chapter notes, i have a decent chunk of chapters done so these are coming out pretty rapid fire. Otherwise, I don’t have much to say other than massive thanks to my friend who reads these over for me and has been cool with me dropping 80+ pages of fic on them in a week. because yeah...I finished another chapter of this.

Word Count: 7885

Chapter Warnings: mentions of alcohol and cursing, if that counts as a warning in cyberpunk 2077.

If you haven’t yet, you can read the previous chapter here!~

Lizzie’s Bar stands out brilliantly in the city; out of all the gangs, she thinks she likes The Moxes aesthetic the best. Vivid pink and bright teal. Their colors splashed across the overpass, along with a neon pink skull sign with hair and a bow. At the side of the building is a towering neon skull girl sign, full bodied with an animated kicking leg and axe held above her head, the same hot pink color.

She parks and gets out of her car, doing a quick scan of the area, searching for more Militech drones. None that she sees, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. The credchip burns in her pocket, remembering some of the stuff T-Bug has taught her. How to crack an encrypted shard and see what’s on it, how to transfer its contents. V rifles through her bag, remembering she had a blank credchip somewhere. If Militech did anything dirty, V should be able to transfer the eddies onto a clean chip.

V makes a beeline to the front door, cement blockers and walls covered in graffiti. More neon signs, the bars name over the door in glowing turquoise letters. Lizzie Jizzie scrawled across an outside wall; two screens on each side of the double stores, all covered in Nicola ads requesting V ‘taste the love’. Groups of people loiter in the open outside the bar. V’s eyes are drawn to the two bouncers outside the doors.

Two women, one leans against the outside wall as she puff away on a cigarette. Short slicked back hair that starts blue and then fades to green, eyes hidden behind sunglasses and a gold septum piercing in her nose. The other one stands in front of the doors, a yellow spiked bat held over her shoulders. Long hair pulled up into space buns, purple roots and pink ends. Both of her arms are metal; black with pink and teal accents as well as spikes along the forearms. Both women are skimpily dressed, no shame in that. The one wielding the bat has a white top with cleavage going beyond her breasts, showing her almost plastic looking skin and the Moxes tattoo across her chest. The other shorter haired bouncer is wearing neon pink pasties beneath a teal bomber jacket. V’s been here before, has maybe seen them in passing, both really attractive. She’s not sure there’s a Mox member who isn’t.

“Hey there, dollface!~” The bat wielder greets her with a grin, as if she could actually see V’s face.

“Interest you in a preem BD?” The smoker offers.

“What you got?” V asks to be polite, she doesn’t honestly even like brain dances. But the girls are cute, so… no harm in a little small talk.

“What don't we got? Women and men of your dreams, synaptic acting A-listers. No washed-up virtuporn boytoys or blow-up dolls here.”

“Auteur stuff - It'll grip your heart and blow your nerves right outta your body. Pure bit-based ecstasy - that’s why people come here.”

“Sure know how to sell it, don’t you?” V signs, trying not to laugh as the bouncers give her the spiel.

“Not a sales pitch, it's a warning. I'll give you one word - bespoke. Not for everyone's synapses.”

“Think you can handle it?”

“Think I can manage it,” she tells them, knowing damn well she has no intent to get any sort of virtus.

“Mmhm. Couple of things you need to know first,” she affectionately rubs her bat, “Ahem. Severe penalties for any unauthorized recording… “

“No drugs, no groping. Someone catch your eye, you do not grab 'em. You find 'em in the catalog, ask for a BD and get yourself a box.”

“No worries, not even my first time here.”

“Door's open. Have fun, Doll.”

“Welcome to Lizzie’s.”

The double doors open and V walks through a blue beaded curtain. There’s a front room, a stand where a woman with a bright pink mohawk is selling clothes, under another Nicola ad and neon letters saying ‘Fuck To Death’ behind her.

“My what a sweet face you have,” she says, her tone honeyed but its clear she hasn’t looked up from the counter, not even noticing as the masked merc walks past through another beaded curtain and double doors to the main club.

“Here in Night City~”

Music thrums as she steps in; the room is lit with strobing pink and teal lights. Couches with neon glowing lights on the underneath, some people with BD wreaths and others playing on their phones. People dancing to the club music and bar tucked away in the corner. She doubts the client will be right at the start of opening, so V finds an empty stretch of couch, sitting down on black leather with a pink neon light at her feet. V slides the Militech cred chip into her mask, it takes a moment, but she manages to crack it and get a look at the inside.

Ten thousand eddies and malware; it was meant to send all of Maelstrom’s data to another server and then fry the systems. Meaning, if V handed it over Maelstrom would get their systems fried, with her and Jackie dealing with the aftermath. V slides the blank cred chip into another slot in her mask’s edge, transfering the clean money over to it. Fucking around with tech and daemons isn’t her strong suit, but if she recalls Bug telling her that fairly simple malware like this could be reworked pretty easily. She works through the coding with her thoughts, the data and interface all on her mask. If she can get the coding right, she might be able to have it send something other than data back to the Militech servers… Shifting and twisting what she thinks will work… if she’s done it right, instead of sending data back to Militech’s server, it should inject the same malware back into their system. If used, it would spike both Maelstrom and Militech.

She’ll call up T-Bug before they hit Maelstrom, double check she did the steps right. If Maelstrom play nice, they can pay and be done, if not...she can fuck over the gangoons, Militech, and walk away with an extra ten thousand in her pocket. She puts the credchips in her pockets, spiked one in her left and clean one in the right.

Time to have a look around for the client. V making a beeline for the bar, bartenders always have all the info. Lizzie’s Bar in neon over the drink station, a brightly blue lit corner where a man works at making drinks, shelves of booze behind him. She climbs onto a blue vinyl bar stool, feet no longer on the ground and unable to resist swinging them a bit. The bartender comes to her; a man with slicked back dark hair, glowing white cybernetic eyes, and silver embellishments run across his cheeks and jaw. His shirt bright blue with a tropical design and if not for a single button above his pants, it’d be completely open. Beaded necklaces bringing even more attention to his exposed chest and stomach.

“Get you something?”

“Looking for Evelyn Parker,” she speaks the woman’s name, not wanting to waste time fingerspelling it even if the sound feels tight in her throat.

“And you are?”

“V, me and her were supposed to meet here.”

“Well, V, it’s a pleasure. I’m Mateo.”

“Nice to meet you… any idea where she’s hanging around?”

“Club's big. Gonna have to look around. Can't do it for you-”

“It's all right, Mateo,” a feminine voice calls out and V’s eyes are drawn to a woman at the bar, “I was waiting for this one.”

There’s something about her, distinctly Mox and also not. Her hair is a short vivid blue bob with bangs cut straight across her forehead. Heavy makeup, a tight silver sequin dress with a dipping neckline, red thigh high vinyl boots, a black trench coat that pools around her knees with a pink and white feathered collar. She holds two fingers up to the bartender and moves to the bar stool closer. There’s a clang and tink of glass; Mateo getting out a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses.

“That won’t be necessary,” V signs before he can fill the second glass, “I don’t drink on the job.”

“Aww, what a good girl,” Evelyn coos, a smile pulling at her painted lips, “Evelyn Parker. I knew it was you as soon as you walked in.”

“And you decided to let me wander around instead of introducing yourself?”

“I wanted to get a good look at you first.”

“And?” V watches as Evelyn takes a swig of her tequila.

“Rest assured, if I didn’t like what I see, you’d know,” she takes another drink, “C'mon. Know a place we can talk where ears won't prick up to listen. We'll be in the lounge, Mateo. Anyone asks we're not here.”

Evelyn takes her black clutch purse and leaves the bar, V puts some money down for Mateo; if nothing else to compensate for his time. V hops down from the stool and follows after Evelyn, through a pair of double doors that goes into a hallway tinted red and pink, booth doors lining the way. The blue haired woman opens up a door, standing to the side as V walks in.

The booth is small, circular with a red vinyl couch around it’s curve, a table in the middle projects a hologram of a stripper who twists and dances. V sinks into the cushions, watching Evelyn stride in and light a cigarette as the door closes behind her. Everyone in the city a smoker it seems. As Evelyn puffs on a cigarette, V is somehow just noticing the gold nail like finger caps she wears.

“Dex had a load to say about you. Called you professional, effective. And trustworthy. I hope he wasn't overselling…“

“You don’t give a shit what he says,” V retorts, not missing the tinge of disdain Evelyn’s voice. V doesn’t need anyone to blow wind up her ass.

“You have trouble accepting compliments?”

“Flattery’s beneath you.”

“Maybe Dex is beneath you,” Evelyn moves around the table, grabbing an ashtray from the table, then sitting down next to V, crossing her legs, “Have you known each other long?”

“First time working with him.”

“Hmmm, I've heard there are two kinds of fixers. Those with stable crews on long contracts and short leashes. Loyalty and predictability they value above all else. Then there's the other kind- Dex's kind.”

“Meaning?”

“Headhunters. They lay their trust elsewhere, not in people but in a thing- their intuition. They bet on potential. And if they lose that bet…It's the last mistake they ever make. I’m hoping Dex’s intuition served him well in this case.”

“Let's get to the point, why am I here, what’s this about?”

“Your target - I trust you know what it is.”

“Arasaka biochip.”

“Mmmhmm, their Relic, secure your soul technology. Arasaka's poured billions into personality transfer technology. But me - I just want the data on this one. The chip is tucked away inside Konpeki Plaza, the hotel. You ever been?”

“Fancy corp hotels? Yeah, no, way out of my price range.”

“The decor's to die for. As you'll see for yourself.’

So, V and Jackie have to bust into some fancy hotel to get the chip people are arguing about on tv. Understood, so far. But, theres a lot of risks involved in a heist of this scale. Its one thing to rip off a dropped piece of cargo or a convoy from a corp; but this kind of top notch tech?

“You know where the chip is, exactly?”

“In a suite on the top floor. The room's occupied by Yorinobu Arasaka.”

V swallows the lump in her throat, the son of Saburo Arasaka, heir to the entire fucking corp. She’s once again finding herself wondering why Dex thinks her and Jackie can handle a job of this caliber, the Arasaka’s seem downright un-fucking-touchable to a merc like her.

“He’s in NC?”

“Don't you read the screamsheets?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Well, the media couldn't get enough of Yori coming to Night City, it was all over the headlines. He's heir apparent to the Arasaka empire - Saburo Arasaka's only surviving son.”

“So, he trying to take over while he’s in town?” V asks, trying to understand what exactly is going on.

“Only a handful of people in Night City know what the Arasakas' real plans are.”

“And you included in that?”

A smirk stretches across her face, green eyes devious; “Yorinobu is a puppet. He lost all his cards years ago when he failed to do daddy's bidding. Saburo's had Yori's balls in a vise for years. He might just turn the screw and crush them outright if he learns his son's up to no good again.”

“Someone like him is bound to have an army surrounding him, that hotel is probably a fortress by now.”

“Yorinobu keeps exactly no muscle around. Not one guard. Got rid of them a long time ago.”

“Why?”

“Surely you know what they say about Arasaka intel? Sneeze in Night City and a blossom drops from a cherry tree in Tokyo. Yorinobu was convinced his Arasaka security detail reported directly to his father.”

“If you got a spare ache up your sleeve, I’d love to see it.”

“ Now, this should make your tits perk up,” she says, putting the ashtray aside and leans forward.

“My tits are quite comfortable where they are, I assure you.”

“Cute, but more importantly, Yorinobu recently swiped the chip from an Arasaka laboratory. He's made a deal with NetWatch, aims to sell it to them. Have you spotted my ace yet or do I need to spell things out?”

“Okay, no muscle because he has daddy issues and no security on the device because he stole it from said daddy. Any idea where he’s hiding the thing?”

“Likely in a specialized container, one that mimics an organic neural environment. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary briefcase.”

“Which would be where?”

“You'll see for yourself soon enough,” she stamps out her cigarette and stands up, walking to the door, “Provided we're done gossiping about the Arasakas.”

“You know anything else about him?” V asks, wanting to see if she can mine any more useful information about the heir that could help.

“Quite a bit, actually. He studied finance and biotech in Tokyo. Hm, probably didn't have a choice in the matter, come to think of it. Saburo was grooming him to be his successor. But then Yorinobu vanished to chase his own dreams, cut himself off from the corp for years. Long story short, though the black sheep returned, the bitter taste remained. But that's only one side of him. There's another - an intelligent man who has always walked his own path and so has his own designs on the corp.”

There’s no doubt in V’s mind now that Evelyn knows Yorinobu personally, the way she talks and speaks is clearly colored by experience. Some prodigal son who ran away from his father and then came back with his tail between his legs when he couldn’t cut it alone. An odd lump in V’s throat at the thought; running away from shitty dads, being a black sheep…

“Sounds like any other corpo dick to me,” V signs, not liking the parallels her brain is starting to draw.

“Hm. Ever tried to imagine what life might be like for an emperor's son? You have everything, yet you are no one, nothing. At least as long as you remain in Saburo Arasaka's shadow. I…” she scratches almost sheepishly at her neck, her wannabe femme fatale attitude slipping for just a moment, “...sympathize. It's a vulnerability I understand well.”

V is still finding herself finding uncomfortable similarities between herself and fucking Yorinobu Arasaka. Its stupid, she doesn’t know the man and he has the wealth to destroy her for pretending she does. But, a power hungry leader for a father, leaving home, terrified of being under his thumb. Only difference, well many, but most pressing is she’s managed to make it on her own...so far… at least. Not that she hasn’t had her doubts or worries.

“So, what’s next?” V asks, practically shaking her head to dispel the weirdness swimming in her brain. Black sheep or not; Yorinobu Arasaka has a silver spoon in his mouth. She’s a nomad turned Night City edgerunner; their lives couldn’t be more far removed.

“Now comes the best part,” Evelyn opens the door and turns to leave, “Follow me. Got somethin' for you. Should help you plan. Braindance from Konpeki Plaza.”

V follows Evelyn out into the hallway, “ how’s a braindance going to help?”

“Think BDs are only good for fondling virtual tits, jackin' off to in those boxes?”

“Thought that was the main selling point, yeah,” V teases back as they turn a corner in the hallway, headed towards a door.

“No. They can be a very useful tool. Good for analyzing details human perception, even boosted, doesn't grasp. Exactly what you need,” Evelyn teases as they enters a dressing room, a few Mox at the tables painting their faces with makeup and styling their hair.

“What's on the tape?” Through another door and neon lights fade to harsher, darker lighting.

“Yorinobu's suite. The glorious interior,” the walk down a short metal flight of stairs, “You'll need to locate the Relic yourself. Hope I grabbed enough detail to make that possible.”

The stop at the end of the steps, Evelyn turning to look at V with a hand on her hips. Not that V really had any more doubt about it, but she’s been given more evidence that Evelyn and Yorinobu know each other.

“You recorded it?”

“Mhm. BD rec implant. Why, you object?”

“Not particularly, who you know and what you do with them is none of my business, lets see the braindance.”

“Judy'll help. She's a Mox, too,” down another short flight of stairs, deeper into the basement, “Besides, we go back… years.”

Evelyn stops them again outside a pair of double doors, Lizzie’s is starting to feel like a little maze at this point. But more importantly, Evelyn’s paused again, stumbled over her words and showed something under her facade. V felt something was off, a Mox but somehow not, and she’s starting to think Evelyn is purposely trying to put up a front. That she’s trying, a little too hard, to come across like femme fatale or corpo. Evelyn clears her throat.

“V, this is important. Judy's always been there for me. Always helped out. I trust her. But she's a Mox, not the latest member of your crew. Try not to forget. So you'll be a good girl, tread lightly and keep that tongue on a leash.

“Oh, but it's not my tongue you need to worry about.”

“Hmm, can feel you smirking under that mask, keep it up and I’ll tie those hands down, too,” Evelyn says with a wink as they pass through the double doors into another hallway, then through one more door.

Evelyn leads her through the basement doors, a dark little room with servers, netrunning chairs and screens. In an office chair slouching with one leg on a desk is a woman; late twenties or so with olive skin. One side of her hair is shaved, the other shaggy and down to nearly her shoulder, a deep green color with bright pink ends. The woman is heavily tattooed, bright red roses nestled above her collar bones, a spider web on her right shoulder, a cartoon ghost sitting in a shell, and a large number 13 on her bicep are among the standouts. But V could spend hours describing each artwork.

“Ahem.”

“Hey, there you are…” Judy greets Evelyn, a playful almost flirty tone to her voice.

“This is V. She's here for that BD roll. And V, this is Judy - best braindance editor I know.”

“Enough already, gonna make me barf.” There’s a slight accent to Judy’s voice, not unlike Jackie’s.

“Impressive set up,” V signs, at least, she assumes it’s impressive. Tech is already a bit of a blind spot for her, especially when it comes to brain dances.

“Mhm, Analyzers, sensory sig amps, acoustic and emotive wave monitors, facial expression translators.”

“Ahem, Judy,” Evelyn stops the inked editor before she can tell V more.

“All right, all right… Compiled your BD, Ev.”

“What do you think? Will it do?”

“Still pretty raw… but yeah, oughta do.”

“Mhm. V needs to get deep inside, that's most important.”

“So, let's calibrate, tune it to her,” Judy stands up from the table and moves to the desk closer to the door, sitting down below a neon pink light, “Believe me, I've dealt with worse. Should see the dig-Jig Street porn we gotta contend with sometimes.”

Evelyn has followed behind Judy, standing behind the editor’s chair, “So we drop V inside? Let her look, let her rummage around, right?”

“How 'bout it, V? Raw braindance - ever taken a dip before?” Judy leans forward on the desk, looking at V.

“No, not at all, but I’m a quick learner,” that feels like a lie as soon as she says it, “ and need to know what I’m dealing with. So.”

“Siddown, settle in, and we'll get you goin'.”

V turns around to the chairs, either netrunning or ripperdoc chairs, she’s not sure. But, she climbs into one, settling down into it as Judy comes back out around the desk. Judy is nearby, fiddling with a brain dance wreath.

“Be easier to fit without the mask.”

“Mask has optic tech, linked to my neuroport and biomon, should work just like it does with any set of cybereyes.”

“‘Fraid of ruining the mystery?” Evelyn asks, teasing again.

“Mask is for business, lot harder to track a merc if you got no clue what they look like. You that curious, feel free to try and track me down during my off time.”

“Fine, fine,” Judy affixes the BD wreath around V’s head, lining it up properly on the merc before walking back to the desk, “Gotta create your sensory profile first.”

“Go for it.”

“Now, sit still, look at me. Gonna run the analysis soft should feel a slight tingling…”

V’s breath catches as it prickles across her skin, a crackling and warm sensation crawling across every nerve. From the base of her skull, down her spine, across her arms to her fingers, running down her legs to her toes. A vague pulse, a current of something.

“OK now let's set the optics and other sensory sigs. Look smack into these two screens, pretend it's an eye exam.”

The two wreath panels flash and strobe white light, building in urgency and frequency.

“Gimme two more minutes. One more sec, need to get the pain receptor limiters in… OK. All set. Need to test your profile first. Tossing in a sam-”

“We can just use my recording, there’s no point in wasting time,” Evelyn interrupts Judy.

“It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I’m fine with just jumping to her BD,” V interjects her opinion, “better to get right to it.”

Judy sighs and rolls her eyes; “Fine, fine, what do I know.”

“Great, I’ll just need to patch Bug in.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Who?” Judy jumps up from her desk, crossing her arms and looks at V like she just asked to summon Satan.

“Runner from my crew, security specialist. She'll tell me what to look for while we analyze. No problem, I assume?”

“Actually, it is a problem! You’re already asking me to cut fucking corners and now you want to bring someone else in?! Not what we agreed, Ev!”

“It’s not a big deal,” V signs, not sure what Judy’s sudden problem is.

“No big deal! You don't quite grasp the risks I took by lettin' you in here! What I'm risking pokin' around with this stuff!”

Judy continues to yell and V rolls her eyes, she’s a BD editor, not part of the actual crew, the client, or the fixer. If Arasaka goes after anyone it sure as shit won’t be Judy, so why is she throwing a fit.

“And you don’t seem to grasp the risk I’d be taking if me and my partner went stumbling into that hotel with no fucking clue as to what we or our runner are up against. I miss one hidden turret and I get pumped full of lead, either my runner links in or I’m gone.”

V makes a point to twist her head and look at Evelyn at the last part; Bug is the most highly trained member of their crew and Dex’s go to runner. Without her involvement and eyes on it, the job won’t be going anywhere.

“Bye then!” Judy yells out, “good riddance and don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”

“Judy, please…”

“Ev, she wants to bring a 'runner in. What part of that don't you understand?! How do I know she'll only perch in this footage, observe, not fuck with anything?!”

“Because Bug is literally involved with the heist, has a dog in this fight, and wants it to go well too,” V signs, hoping the AI voice is getting her annoyance across, Judy does level a glare at her over Evelyn’s shoulder.

“Me,” Evelyn steals Judy’s attention, “I'm your guarantee.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Help me, this one last time. I promise everything'll work out, just like we planned.”

And it hits V, between the flirting and the soft drop in Evelyn’s voice here. The reason Judy is so worked up about this; her and Evelyn have something. Friends teetering the line into something else, girlfriends already, or maybe even more than that. V’s not sure. But there’s something distinctly not platonic to the way they interact. Maybe that’s the play on Evelyn’s. Scam Yorinobu Arasaka then run away with her porn editor girlfriend.

“Fine,” Judy shakes her head and sits back down, the anger gone, “call Bug and we’ll dive in.”

That issue taken care of V rings up T-Bug, the netrunner answering after a ring or two.

“What’s up, V?”

“Bug, listen. I got some useful footage from Konpeki Plaza. It's a braindance.”

“Konpeki? Ohhh, thought as much…” Judy looks up at Evelyn.

“Someone there with you?”

“Client and her...friend...is what I’ll settle on; that’s not what matters right now, its going to give us a layout of the room, a chance to find where the chip is, and some idea of security.”

“All right, see if I can walk you through it. Jackin’ into your tech now,” notifications alert across her mask’s interface, “Mh, you've gotta give me access. Opening port 1779… Secure protocol? Good, I'm goin' in. Should be getting my request… …now.”

“Got it. You ready?”

“Millisec. OK, connection confirmed, now some quick temp ICE and… we're clear. Ready to dance.”

“Let’s do this.”

And with that the wreath panels begin to flash and strobe in front of V’s eyes, quicker and quicker until the world goes out in white. And in the next snap of a moment, one reality becomes another. Her body is no longer her own, she’s placed in Evelyn’s mind standing outside an elevator. What feels like her body, moves to adjust a purse strap, gold capped nails.

“All right, V - eyes open. Gotta find out where Yorinobu is keepin’ the Relic. Everything is controlled by thought and intention; you can step into editor mode, access everything her cyberware picked up a signal of, can scan, rewind, fast forward. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

The doors open, exposing the hotel room, and a horror show of a man walking towards her. V can feel the spike in fear, whether from Evelyn in the moment or V’s own instinctual reaction; she isn’t sure. He’s around eight feet tall, complete metal and cyberware from his feet to his upper lip; more machine than human. Wire, hydraulics, steel; all branded with Arasaka. The flesh section of his head is sickly ashen protrusive veins, glowing red where eyes should be. As he draws closer there’s a whirr of machinery, hydraulics pistoning to give him movement. How is he alive? How is he functional?

“You look like a cut of fuckable meat. Are you?” He asks as he walks past, voice edged with something inhuman.

Evelyn reigns her fear back in, the past version of her walking deeper into the room, where a dark haired man sits at a table in front of a large screen where another blonde haired man speaks back to him.

“I said no,” the dark haired man speaks out, his voice colored by a Japanese accent and V knows it’s Yorinobu. Evelyn continues to walk closer, her heels clicking against the floor.

“They'll have my head for this…”

“Then you shall perish for a good cause.”

“But I-”

“Make yourself comfortable. I need a minute to finish,” Yorinobu tells Evelyn, sparing just a glance over his shoulder.

“Listen in on that conversation, V! Could be something important.”

She wants to watch through first, do an initial watch to look for things and then go more in depth. Two watches at least should mean she’s covered everything. Yorinobu switches the conversation to his holophone, pacing around the room. Evelyn meanwhile puts her purse down on the chair, then walks behind him, trying to keep him in range

“My father is a tired, visionless old greybeard who thinks nothing will change and he'll live forever in his tiny, frozen bubble! You will listen to this - Saburo is an addled despot utterly removed from reality, stuck in some fossilized vision of a world that no longer exists! Of a world that may never have existed! We have not seen eye to eye for the last twenty years. I am quite sure we won't now.”

Yorinobu continues to talk as Evelyn pours herself a glass full of champagne and takes a drink, the tech allowing V to taste the sweet bubbles as if they were on her own tongue. Glass in hand she takes a slow look around the room and walks back to the center of it, sitting at the table, the plush of the cushion letting her sink into it.

“Noted,” Yorinobu says into the phone as he starts to walk back to Evelyn, there’s something in his eyes, “enough.”

He hands up, putting the phone down on the table. Evelyn looks up at him and V through her eyes gets her first good look at the Arasaka heir. Dark hair with the sides shaved down close to the scalp, glasses perched on his nose. His cyberware is surprisingly minimal for a man of his wealth, two streaks of silver going up his neck to his jawline.

“Sorry, to make you wait,” he touches Evelyn’s shoulder and the woman rises, “business can be stupid.”

They’re close and V can feel his hands on her, Evelyn’s, hips. Evelyn’s hand on his shoulder.

“Mmh, it wasn't long,” Evelyn hums and it feels wholy unnatural to feel like she’s speaking with someone else's voice, “Not even long enough for me to grow bored.”

His hands start to creep and Evelyn goes to pull away, movements playful, when Yorinobu pulls her back in. Then he starts to dip his mouth.

“Fuck no!” V yells out as she pushes the thought to enter editor mode, separating her senses from Evelyn’s before she has to feel Yorinobu’s lips on Evelyn’s neck. She looks down and sees herself, though slightly digital, her bright blue nail polish and not gold jewelry. The scene around her has paused and a digital filter over them.

“Something wrong?” T-Bug asks with a slight laugh.

“Nearly had corpo droolon me,” V signs, happy to find the tech allows her translator to work in editor mode, “was going do a watch through, then a second go in editor mode, figured two look throughs would be best...then”

“Then you nearly had to lock lips with Yorinobu Arasaka.”

“Gag, rewinding back to scan the call fully.” With a thought she watches as Evelyn and Yorinobu move in reverse, getting back to win the heir was starting the call. Once she gets where she needs to be she scans his phone and restarts it from editor mode, thankful for the sensory disconnect. She hears the man on the other end of Yorinobu’s call speak.

“Please speak with your father. He's taken a particular interest in this project, he can certainly explain the risks invol--”

“My father is a tired, visionless old greybeard who thinks nothing will change and he'll live forever in his tiny, frozen bubble!”

“I should not even be listening to such things.”

“You will listen to this - Saburo is an addled despot utterly removed from reality, stuck in some fossilized vision of a world that no longer exists! Of a world that may never have existed! We have not seen eye to eye for the last twenty years. I am quite sure we won't now.”

“Read the documentation carefully. The Relic requires specific storage conditions. You MUST provide them.”

“Noted,” Yorinobu hangs up again and V pauses the BD.

“Heard that? Relic docs gotta be around here somewhere. Look for them,” Bug confirms.

“Once we find where the chip is stored we’ll do a clean sweep of the security, okay Bug.”

“Smart thinking.”

V watches half-heartedly as Yorinobu and Evelyn interact; her range of vision and senses limited to Evelyn. She fast forwards through the two canoodling, only mildly catching Evelyn mentioning something about ‘candy’ though V assumes it’s of the nose variety. Evelyn separates away from Yorinobu for a moment and walks to a control panel, offering to lend music to the scene.

But V’s interest is piqued when she catches Evelyn rifling through Yorinobu’s messages, a few spam and scam emails. Then she pulls up an email from Clouds, a dollhouse in the city. Evelyn deletes it, V rewinds back and pauses. The email thanks Yorinobu for his patronage; hmm, heir has a taste for doll prostitutes. Something, Evelyn doesn’t want that email to be there… Its all beginning to make more sense and V’s not sure she likes it.

The merc fast forwards further through the BD, moving through to Evelyn playing awful music and going to meet Yorinobu in his bed. Where he sits with a tablet, the second the screen is clear. She pauses and scans it, bingo.

“Manual details a special temp controlled container. Relic needs to be kept real cool,” T-Bug explains through the technobabble.

“Chip’s got to be in a freezer.”

“Yep. Could damage it otherwise. OK, switch on thermal layer detection in the editor. Should be easier to spot where Yorinobu's keeping the chip.”

V switches with a thought, the world turning into temperature signatures as she searches for unnatural cold places and spots. An air conditioner pumps out cold air, but that would be a stupid place to put billion dollar tech. One malfunction and you lost it all. She rewinds back to get more of a view, a ice bucket for champagne, a fridge?

“That’s just a regular fancy fridge, not cold enough,” Bug tells her when she spends t0o long contemplating it.

V rewinds further and an amass of blue ice cold air from behind a pillar catches her eye, It seems to come up through the floor, unlike the AC, ice bucket, or fridge she has no clear idea where this one is coming from. A secret container in the floor? Seems like a much craftier place to hide expensive stolen tech, V scans it.

“Right, grabbed the heat sig. Matches the spec in the docs,” T-Bug tells her.

“Chip has to be here, we got it.”

“Mmhmm, time to scan security.”

V switches back to the regular mode, looking for what she needs to scan. The camera system first.

“Shit, cameras packed with newtech motion sensors, heat sig activators. IFF.”

“Can you kill it?”

“With access to their subnet, but we need the Flathead bot for that.”

They continue on, with Bug commenting on each security measure they scan. Alarm with fresh firmware, Automated turrets connected to the hotels server. Yorinobu’s pistol, loaded with the safety on. V rewinds and fast forward, searching anything else that might be an issue but comes up empty handed.

“Seems like we got everything. Looks like all their security systems are linked to the hotel subnet. We need the Flathead. No other way to shut down these systems,” T-Bug sumises.

“No way around it ourselves?”

“Nope. Least I'm fresh out of ideas. Think we got everything we need.”

“Okay, but hang on the line with me after we get out of the BD, need you to look over something for me, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem.”

V exists out of the brain dance, a flash of white and the world returns. Judy and Evelyn looking at her from across a desk, T-Bug still in the call panel of her mask. Her eyes hurt, her throat feels dry, and she can feel a migraine pushing at her temples. She fucking hates brain dances.

“Get everything you need?” Judy asks, a dark raised eyebrow.

“From the BD, yeah, got to clear something with Bug while I got her on the horn,” V gets the chip she fucked with out of her pocket and slides it into the proxy reader of her mask, “got a chip I fucked around with; decrypted and tried to rewrite the virus on it, so it will spike the people who gave it to me. But I want to make sure, I didn’t fuck up.”

“Need me to grade your work, V?”

“Kind of…”

“Oh, shit, V. You fucking over Militech?” T-Bug exclaims, a little pride in her voice as she reads over the code, thankfully her voice is only audible to V through her hearing aids.

“Mmhmm.”

“And you don’t want to sign and have your translator read it, because you don’t want to risk the client knowing you’re fucking over Militech while prepping to fuck over Arasaka.”

“Mmhmm, will it work?”

“It will fry the servers of any tech it’s plugged in proper and fry the servers it’s linked to, a Militech van from the looks of it. Won’t be a dent in their bottom line, but will surely piss off some reps. That what you meant for it to do?”

“That was the plan.”

“Preem work then, but I do want to make some...edits,” T-Bug edits the chips code in front of V’s eyes, “there we go.”

“Something wrong with it?” Nerves creep up V’s throat, if she fucked up, she’d rather learn her lesson now.

“Nah, I added a bit of a personal touch for you, nothing wrong with a little style added to your hacking.”

“Appreciate the help.”

“You know I won’t always be here to check your work.”

“I know, I know, but it doesn't mean I won’t take advantage while I can. Thanks again, talk soon.”

“Later, V.” With that V hangs up the call and slots the spiked credchip back into its respective pocket. Judgement, suspicion, and resentment are radiating off of Judy.

“I'll wipe the cache and your data. You were never here.”

Judy stands up from the desk and V tries to decipher a few of the tattoos she sees, noticing more sea themed ones, like a dolphin and sharks. V flinches behind her mask as Judy removes the BD wreath, glad to be free of the contraption, but she could have taken it off herself.

“Thanks…” V signs, despite this, just trying to be polite despite their spat.

“Keep it,” Judy hands her the wreath, V getting a good look at the octopus tattooed on the woman’s hand, “I'll put it on Ev's tab. Portable device for handling BDs. I already uploaded your calibration settings. Not as sophisticated as what we got here, but should do the trick.”

“And it keeps you outta harm's way. Clever.”

“Speaking of harms way, know what I see looking at you,” Judy pins her hands to her hips and gives V that look again, “walking, talking corpses.”

“We needed this recording, just… relax, will you?”

“Relax! If Arasaka finds out you have it, you're dead. I'm dead! If you fuck this up and Arasaka comes knocking on my door!”

“Judy, relax, that’s… not gonna happen,” Evelyn is the one trying to soothe the editors temper again.

“Evelyn, please… no shortcuts. You go that route, city'll always win. So be careful.”

“'Course I will be. Besides, we'll talk in a bit,” Evelyn looks to V, “lets walk.”

V stashes the new BD wreath into her bag and climbs from the chair, following Evelyn out of Judy’s basement space. It’s not like V is heartless or doesn’t know anxiety; but of everyone involved, Judy has the least skin in the game. V can’t spend her time coddling someone who doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to worry about compared to her, Jackie, or Bug.

“Well? What do you think?” Evelyn asks and V can see that hint of nerves coming back.

“You’re not worried about this coming back on you, if they start looking through everyone he’s been dealing with?”

“They'll have a long list, then. Packed full of big names. Much bigger than mine. You tell me who they check first. Corpo hotshots and cutthroats? Or a little bedroom plaything like me?”

“Well, then... “ V tries to find her words, this all seems, too good, “intel on the heir, on the place, know roughly where the chip is, and how we should get to it… Seems like a perfect plan and job.”

“Mm. Thanks. Now the punch line, please.”

“Seems too good to be true, there’s got to be a catch…”

“Cold feet? Are you looking to get out of it?”

“I want to know you’re in control here; that there’s no secrets, no catches, no surprises that turns this heist from a cakewalk into a bloodbath.”

“V. I have zero reasons to haze you. We’re in this together. Really. Trust me that I got this.”

“Okay, if you say so, what next?”

“V….” there’s nothing good in the way Evelyn pauses, words stuck to her tongue for a moment, “Do this job for me. I mean me alone. No splitting the payout with anyone else. No middlemen. No Dex.”

Of course, of fucking course, there had to be something. Evelyn’s trying to play cutthroat corpo, fucking over a fixer because she has dollar signs in her eyes. But, she’s too damn naïve to the game to know that no merc with the lead in their gun would pull that shit. Greedy mercs who screw over their fixers end up broke on the street at best and swimming with cement shoes at worst. And a high profile one like Dex has the means to destroy her.

“Fucking knew there was a catch, you want to fuck over our fixer.”

“Dex is a middleman. And a useless one at this point.”

“You don't fuck with fixers. That's the one rule every merc in this city knows - and actually follows!”

“But if we're smart…”

“There is no smart to this, a mistake like that will cost me my reputation and without that, a merc is fucking nothing in this city. Are you serious about this?”

“Better ask yourself that question. Do you want to spend the rest of your days blasting scavs? Or become a legend overnight? Your choice.”

“He would put me in the ground, if I pulled some gonk shit like that.”

“I could give you fifty percent, V, . Eddies enough to do whatever the hell you like, without needing Dex for anything. With cred like that, you wouldn’t want for anything, you could retire.”

“It’s not about the money.”

“I thought you were a merc. I thought it was always about the money.”

“No, its not actually. He trusts me, he’s taking a leap with me. And even if he weren’t, I’m not the only person I got to worry about. Bug vouched for me too and Jackie is my partner. I fuck over my fixer, it hurts them too. I’m not going to send them down the river for a bigger cut of the pie.”

“Fine. I never asked. But V?”

“Yeah.”

“I just hope you're as good as you are naive.”

“Pff, you think I’m the naive one, here. Cute.

“If you need me, call. I'll send you my number. Now go. I need a few words with Judy.”

“Later, then.”

And with that V heads back up the stairs, tension draws tight across her shoulders. This whole damn thing with Evelyn throwing her off. The BD and everything seems clear cut, if they get the Flathead, the job might even be easy. But, wanting to fuck over their fixer. Evelyn is not the corpo or femme fatale or whatever she seems to think she is. A doll, V’s sure of that. Evelyn must have deleted the email from Clouds because its’s connected to her and the Mox offer protection to sex workers; must be where she and Yorinobu met. Clouds even has connections to Arasaka through the Tyger Claws. And she managed to become a powerful rich man’s plaything, so now she thinks she’s smart enough to fuck over not only him but Dex too.

She’s a messy client with good intel. V doesn’t want Evelyn to get hurt. The older woman is in over her head and doesn’t know how the merc world works. She doesn’t deserve to get hurt for that, the last thing V wants is for Dex to lose his cool and hurt the woman. But, V also owes it to him to let him know Evelyn put that deal on the table. If she doesn’t, what’s to say Evelyn won’t pull this on another fixer? Or Dex gets another job aligned with her and the next merc she offers this to isn’t so loyal? She has to tell him.

V fumbles with her holo as she walks back through the club, doing some quick research on Konpeki Plaza. Finding their policy on guns. Given the stealth nature of this mission, she can assume the only way they’re getting in is to find a way to get in like regular patrons. Which means they’d be scanned for guns as soon as they get through the door. If something goes south, she doesn’t want her and Jackie left unarmed with a hoard of Arasaka soldiers on their ass.

But they can’t confiscate cyberware.

Might be time to cash in her savings for something. Her holo buzzes in her hand as Dex calls; her stomach drops. Unsure for a moment what to say to him, if she should go ahead and tell him what Evelyn tried to pull. Would he lose his temper? Drop the entire damn heist? Would he hurt her for it? It weighs on her shoulders as she pushes through a blue beaded curtain, considering her options with a finger hovering over the phone.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #johnny silverhand #silverv #(slowburn eventual)#evelyn parker #judy alvarez #aidan becker #aidan v becker #female v

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