Full Summary:
Rey is a techie slave, forced to work for the local crime boss, Unkar Plutt, in the fringe of the Jakku Combat Zone. When two strange men appear in her shop, she is thrust suddenly into the middle of an ongoing war between the Resistance, an anti-fascist, ragtag gang of rebels, and the First Order, the militech corporation in charge of Coruscant. With a target on her back, she struggles to find a way to adapt to a brutal world filled with deadly tech and even more dangerous people. She can trust no one.
Kylo Ren is a mercenary employed by the First Order, and is one cybernetic augmentation away from cyberpsychosis. The only things he cares about are picking off the Resistance one terrorist at a time, and fighting to maintain his tenuous link to humanity. His single-minded focus is shattered when he begins to hunt down Rey. He's going to have to make decisions he's not sure he's ready to make, for causes he doesn't know if he believes in.
A tale of anti-heroes, forbidden love, half-baked political theory, philosophical musings, loss, redemption, and plenty of attitude.
Based off of the tabletop rpg of Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, and the released footage of the upcoming game, Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk Glossary (taken from the sourcebook or online wiki):
Braindance: A sort of personal version of the Net. It is an immersive virtual reality.
Choomba: Friend, buddy.
Cleaner: An assassin (or team) used to eliminate all traces of a mission, including the participants.
Combat Zones: Areas of urban decay in major cities, characterized by high crime rates, unmaintained streets and buildings, poor police coverage, high
concentrations of homeless people, and frequent outbreaks of (often gang-related) violence.
Cyberpsychosis: A psychotic aberration suffered by excessive users of cyberware.
Cyberware/Cybernetics: Any bionic body implant which replaces or augments a specific body function.
Deltajock: A hotshot pilot.
Fixer: A go-between, deal maker, information broker. Also a fence or mover of illegal goods.
The Fringe: Edges of society where nomads hang out, barrens.
Gutterpunk A slang term for street riffraff.
Klepto, Kleptoid: Thief, prowler.
Mudgirl: Airborne rigger slang for a female non-flyer.
Parraquiano (spn): Lit. "a patron."
Porky: Someone who loves or collects weapons, and is usually bristling with them (from "porcupine").
Ripperdoc: A surgeon who specializes in implanting illegal or unregistered cyberware.
Streetmeat: A term for people not equiped to survive on the streets: hicks, sprawling suits, or involuntary meat puppets.
Techie: Range from technicians to cybernetic specialists. They are usually underground techies, who do "off-the-record" work.
Chapter One
The small Techie shop in the outskirts of the Jakku Combat Zone looked abandoned from the outside. The metal roof had almost rusted over completely. Several bolts and screws hung precariously far from the edges of the signs and walls, just waiting to give someone an infection. The sun had bleached most of the colour from everything in sight, leaving it a dull, monochromatic heap of scrap that looked haphazardly thrown together. The inside was surprisingly dark, given how blinding the sun was out here in the Edge.
Though the heat was stifling, there was no aircon or any fans to cool the storefront down. The shelves that lined the room were either filled to the brim, or completely bare, but all had a thin film of dust and sand collecting on top. The concrete floors were weathered and dusty, with a stray scorch mark here and there. The rusty stain of blood seeped into several cracks. Cyberhands, techscanners, blasters, detonation wires, and automappers took up a bulk of the shelves on the left side, while the rest of the shop was filled with basic survival gear, like canteens, water purification kits, basic medpacks, and toolkits. All of the tech out front was basic, having been scavenged by the slight girl, who was hunched over a cyberhand in the backroom.
The girl's tanned skin glistened with perspiration, and the light arm bands she wore up to her shoulder had darkened with wear. Despite the darkness in the backroom, a black pair of goggles with a small flashlight attachment covered her eyes. The only illumination in the dark room came from a stack of security screens that showed the perimeter and inside of the shop, her flashlight, and the faded teal numbers from the clock that flickered on the wall. A pomegranate cigarette dangled between her plump lips. There was a single, small fan placed on top of the work desk, but it hardly provided any relief from the oppressive heat.
Thick brown fireproof gloves covered her hands, and she cursed their lack of dexterity. The wires inside the cyberfingers she worked on were getting smaller and smaller these days it seemed, but her bulky tools stayed the same. Pretty soon she was going to have to seriously consider getting a droid for the job, even though she knew she couldn't afford one. Her owner, Plutt, would never allow it. Rey was too valuable for the fixer to kill, but not valuable enough to provide for.
A small radio crackled on a small table to the left of her. Johnny Silverhand was singing about the Resistance, and how one day they were going to usurp the corps in power. Rey's thoughts couldn't help but drift with the fantasy. She wondered if her parents fought for the Resistance, and if that was why she was hiding out on the Fringe of Jakku. She wondered if they would ask her to fight alongside them when they finally rescued her from slavery. She always dreamed she would say yes.
A stray spark burned her exposed shoulder, and she muttered a curse under her breath. She focused on the task at hand, and soldered the base knuckle of the index finger to the cyber hand. The first knuckle and fingertip were sitting innocently on the table still. Rey checked for the thousandth time that the fingerbomb hadn't somehow armed itself in the few seconds since she glanced away. After the knuckle had cooled, she gingerly picked up the fingerbomb, and slid it into place on the small platform that attached to it. When she heard the click of everything coming together, she sealed the finger into place. She picked up the SmartLink and jacked it in behind her ear.
The centre of her vision blurred with the hologram of the specs for the hand, along with a flashing green check indicating the successful connection to the SmartLink. With a thought, the fingers on the cyberhand flexed, and the wrist rotated. It felt fluid, as though she were moving her own hand. With a sigh of relief, she unplugged the Link, and placed the small chip onto the table. She took a long drag from her cigarette, before tapping the side of it twice to snuff it out.
For a moment, she wondered what would happen if she were to take the hand and run. Rey could sell it to a ripperdoc for a good amount of credits, then drive off on her speeder to Coruscant. How long would it take for Plutt to find her? How far could she go? Would she ever be able to live long enough to find out? While she was placing the hand into a steel, foam-lined case, her comm flickered to life, and Plutt's ugly visage appeared in a hologram just in the corner of her vision.
"Is it ready, girl?" Plutt sneered. The only thing that wasn't cyber on the man's face was his mouth and jaw. His eyes, nose, and forehead had been replaced by cyberoptic tech that glowed yellow.
"Yes," She replied, her tone neutral.
"About time. I'll send someone over in an hour to retrieve it. If it looks good enough, I may even give you a full portion tonight," the Fixer grumbled. Rey wasn't foolish enough to believe him, and said nothing. Plutt ended the call, and she flicked off the corner where it looked like he was.
Fuck him and his "generosity", she mentally spat. She leaned back in her chair, propped her feet on the corner of the desk, and flung her goggles off onto the counter. Her brown eyes flickered to the clock, and she sighed. It was an hour until nightfall, which meant she'd be going home in the dark again. Still, the promise of food kept her from being too resentful. She hadn't eaten anything all day. She'd been hungry for so long that she couldn't remember what it felt like to have an appetite.
Rey walked over to a small storage cabinet that squatted low beside a blacked-out window. She rifled through the pile of small chips she had been cultivating over the years. There were only a handful, but they meant everything to her. She chose the one that was the most weathered from use, and was hardly longer than her fingernail.
"Set timer for forty-five minutes," she commanded to her comm.
"Confirmed. Timer set for forty-five minutes," the mechanical voice of a woman replied.
Rey settled back in her worn chair, and propped her feet up once more. She slid in a small chip, the Braindance, and got comfortable. It took nearly thirty seconds to load, a testament to how old and worn it had become. Her vision was suddenly flooded with the bright morning sun that beat down on her skin. It was less harsh than the sun she was used to out in Jakku, and instead of burning her skin, it felt pleasantly warmed. The crisp smell of earth flooded her nostrils, while a light breeze tousled the strands of hair that escaped from her three loose buns. A small grin pulled at her plush lips as she closed her eyes, just basking in the smells and sounds. The caw of a bird echoed distantly. When she opened her eyes again, her brown gaze darted immediately to the massive canyon that split the earth for miles.
The Grand Canyon. She'd never been before, and with the lingering nuclear devastation from a war long passed, it was likely that it didn't look nearly as captivating as the view before her now did. Rey couldn't find it within herself to care. She stood atop the massive chasm and felt freedom twitch in her fingertips and fill her lungs. She looked to her left and finally acknowledged the glinting jet that sat precariously close to the edge of the cliff. She pulled the keys from her pocket as the small smile grew to overtake her face.
Rey may have never been to the Grand Canyon, and she may have never flown an actual jet, but she knew with absolute certainty that she would never feel as free as she did when she was flying. The Braindance was glitchy at times, and if she overworked the processor, which was often, then it had the tendency to lag. Rey didn't care. Nothing could ruin her immersion from a place that looked and felt as liberating as this did.
When the timer buzzed, Rey was startled back into reality. She was breathless from the exhilaration, and her blood raced from the adrenaline. It took her a few moments for her limbs to stop shaking from the rush, before she could move again. With some reluctance, she ejected the Braindance from her skull, and placed it back in the storage cabinet. Rey sighed, grabbed the case for the hand, and glanced at the security cams out of habit. She froze.
Two men were in the front of her shop, an aerojock and an ex-military guy if their appearance was any indication. She watched them for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. They didn't look like customers, not that she got many of those anyway, since they were talking to each other by the windows. They didn't look like Plutt's men either, since they had a distinct lack of cybernetic augmentations. The ex-military one peered through the shutters to the sandy street beyond, while the pilot gestured to the small rack of blasters.
Kleptoids then.
Rey breathed deep, then grabbed her Goncz-Taurus blaster and slid it into the holster on her belt. She breathed deep, pressed the button, and raised her blaster as the the door slid open.
"What's your business here, thieves?" She demanded, in what she considered her most threatening tone. The two men whipped around at the sound of her voice, and both of their eyes darted comically between her face and her autopistol, before raising their hands in the air.
"Hold on there, mudgirl, you don't understand," the pilot said. Now that she had a good look at the two men, they looked terrible. Dirt, sand, and blood stained their clothes, and sweat slicked their skin. The dark-skinned, ex-soldier wore an all black shirt and pants, with black combat boots covered in grimy white armour. A brown leather jacket was draped on his shoulders, but his arms were free from the sleeves. Rey couldn't see any weapons on him, which surprised her. He must have a synth-skin covering his cyber then. It was the only explanation she could think of, which made him more dangerous. The latino pilot on the other hand, was wearing his helmet and visor, with a logo so faded she couldn't make it out. His orange jumpsuit was tied around his waist, with a white t-shirt that was nearly transparent from perspiration. They obviously weren't accustomed to the heat. City-folk then.
Haggard appearance or not, she didn't trust them.
"Switch off, deltajock. What the fuck is your business here?" She snapped, refusing to lower her blaster.
"This how you treat all your parraquiano's?" The pilot smirked. He looked calm despite the fact that she was pointing a gun in his face. She squeezed the handle tighter, even as her palms slicked. He wasn't at all intimidated. This was not how she wanted this to go.
"You're not customers," she said.
"And you're not being very hospitable," the pilot snarked. Her patience thinned down to the bone.
"Do you have any idea who runs this shop, flyboy?" she sneered. The pilot made a point of looking around, with an expression of innocent confusion on his face.
"Sure as shit ain't a maid," he smirked. Rey glared at the man.
"Unkar Plutt does. And he has a couple of guys on his way here right now. If you don't get the fuck out, then they'll take you out. Understand, choomba?" she explained. The ex-military guy had the sense to look scared. The pilot still just looked amused.
"Poe, stop being a dick. We need her help," the ex-military guy pleaded with his friend.
"Why do you need my help?" she asked, brow scrunched in confusion. The pilot, Poe, sighed.
"We need a place to hide out for ten minutes or so. We won't take anything, and we won't interfere with your…business," the ex-military guy explained.
"Give me one good reason why I should risk my skin to save you," she demanded.
"We can get you credits," he offered.
"How much?"
"Enough," Poe said. Rey thought it over, while she took in the men's drab appearances.
"I don't want your stolen money," she said at last.
"Not even if it's stolen from the bad guys?" Poe asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Think you're Robin Hood, flyboy?" she snarked, "I don't want your dirty credits. And I don't want anything to do with you. Now if you don't wanna be a meat puppet, then I'd suggest you fucking leave."
"Look mudgirl, we really need a place to hide. We just need ten minutes to comm our guys at The Advocate, and they'll come back us up and get us out of here. Please, if you have any love for the Resistance, then help us," Poe pleaded. His dark eyes looked serious, and for once he didn't have a trace of amusement on his face. Rey blinked at him.
"You're with the Resistance?" She asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. Her eyes were wide with shock.
"Yes, we are," the ex-military guy agreed earnestly.
"Prove it," she demanded, though she lowered her gun slightly. Poe slowly lowered his hands and tugged at the collar of his shirt to show an orange and white light tattoo of the Resistance's insignia. Rey gasped, and her grip on her blaster trembled. Her breath seemed to escape her lungs in a whoosh, while her heart pounded. They were members of the Resistance. Actual living members. She'd always dreamed of meeting them before. She could hardly contain her excitement.
"Will you help us?" The ex-military guy asked, his soft brown eyes pleading. Rey lowered her gun completely.
"Alright, but you have to listen to everything I say, and answer all of my questions. Got it?" She looked pointedly between the two men. They nodded in agreement.
"Okay, so who are you hiding from?" she asked.
"Bounty hunters," the ex-military guy answered.
"Who just so happen to be a part of the Yakuza," Poe smiled sheepishly.
"Excuse me? Are you having a genuine fucking laugh?" Rey asked incredulously. The two men had the decency to look guilty.
"We wouldn't be so desperate if the guys were small-time," Poe tried to explain. Rey just rolled her eyes.
"Of course you wouldn't," she muttered, "You guys'll have to hide in the back. Follow me." She turned around and opened the door to the workroom, and beckoned for the two men to enter. She slapped the lights on in the corner, and thin strips of LEDs near the ceiling flickered wearily to life. She gestured to the ladder that lead to the loft above. A sleeping bag, a couple of blankets, and a change of clothes were stored up there for whenever Plutt made her work all night in the shop.
"Up you get. If you hide further back, there's a vent there that sometimes confuses thermal scanners. Make sure to cover yourselves with the blankets, and try to lay as horizontal as possible," she explained. She maneuvered the bed so it was closer to the edge of the loft, and hid the two men from the ground below. She glanced back over at the large and lumpy pile of blankets and bit her lip. They weren't very subtle.
"I'll be downstairs. If you hear any blaster-fire, then you'll know that your cover is blown, and I'm probably dead. Make sure the Resistance gets here sooner than that," she half-joked.
"Thank you, honestly. We'll make sure the Resistance compensates you for all of your trouble," Poe said.
"You know, I've never met any Resistance fighters before," she said wistfully, a smile tugging at her lips.
"Well this is what we look like," the ex-military guy said, "well, some of us. Others look different. Obviously." Rey had to fight the growing smile.
"I'm Rey," she said after a beat.
"I'm Poe, and this here," Poe clapped the ex-military guy on the shoulder, "is Finn."
She nodded towards them, before she descended the ladder. She glanced at the security screens, and watched as two men approached the outside of the store. Their chrome-covered skin and neon techhair gave them away. The two lanky porkies had at least three different kinds of guns strapped along their backs, with grenades dangling from their belts. The one with a blue mohawk had a cyberarm, while the one with the lime-green mullet had both limbs augmented. Plutt's men had finally arrived. Rey breathed deep and grabbed the case with the cyberhand, before going out into the storefront. She made a point of closing the door to the workshop behind her.
She just placed the case on the counter when the door swung open. The two men leered at her with flashing eyes, before they lumbered forward.
"Yo, pinkskin. You got what we need?" Mohawk asked. Mullet leered at her, making a point of checking her out.
"I think she does, Rex," he snickered. Rey glared at the both of them. She opened the case to show them the cyberhand.
"The hand is Keroshi tech. It's SmartLinked with a fingerbomb in the index finger and a two inch knife that slides out of the palm. The bomb's got a five second delay, and a fifteen foot blast radius. It's heat-safe up to four hundred degrees, but it may lock up in sub-zero temperatures. Scanner in the palm links with your guns so that they can only be used by you," she said, explaining the specs to the two gangbangers.
"Looks pretty to me. I'm gonna try it out," Mohawk said greedily. He grabbed at his cyberarm and twisted it off, before she could protest. He picked up the hand and began to switch it into place, when the door banged open again. Four large Japanese men with more guns and tech than limbs crowded into the small shop. Fear froze her blood. She knew how to deal with the gutterpunks, since they were too stupid to do any real harm, but the Yakuza were a merciless and highly organised lot.
"What the shit'er you Yaks doin' here?" Mohawk asked, pausing in his movement. Mullet beside him reached for his shotgun. The smallest of the four Yakuza, who still dwarfed her and Plutt's men, stepped forward. Before she could even blink, he raised the largest gun she'd ever seen, and fired.
Rey ducked down behind the counter, and grabbed the steel case as a shield of sorts. The deafening bang of the gun firing in rapid succession reverberated in her skull. Rey's heart raced, and her hands shook as she grabbed the hand's SmartLink chip and shoved it into the slot behind her ear. The skin pinched in her haste, but she ignored it. At the wet squelch of bodies hitting the cement, her hands shook and her blood raced. Rey grabbed the cyberhand, unlatched the bomb, set the timer for five seconds, and threw it over the counter. She raced to the backroom and slammed the button on the door to slide them shut.
As she ran to the other side of the backroom, the detonation of the bomb rocked the foundation of the shop. The security screens all shattered and fell to the ground as the wall separating the shop from the back caved in. Everything in her body flared with pain as she slammed into the ground from the force of the blast. She heaved herself onto her back, her arms protesting with the effort. She glanced through the new opening between the two rooms, and her eyes widened at the devastation. Fire climbed the walls, and most of the shelves and counter lay in fractured pieces that littered the floor. There were chunks of the men's remains, but nothing identifiably human. Her ears rang, and she wondered if she would ever be able to hear normally again.
"Rey! Rey!" a muffled voice called behind her. It sounded like it was calling her from outside of a bubble. Her head lolled back at the sound. She watched through bleary eyes as Finn jumped down from the loft, and ran towards her.
"Rey! Are you okay?" He asked, his soft eyes full of concern as he looked for injuries. She nodded until a sharp pain stabbed at the back of her neck.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," she said after a moment of effort. Her body protested as she gingerly sat up, while her eyes took stock of her body for injuries. Finn went to reach for her arm to help her up, but she instinctually swatted his hand away. She didn't realise what she'd done until after her arm lashed out, so she flashed him an apologetic smile. Nobody had ever asked her if she was okay before, and she didn't anticipate how much she'd appreciate it until now. But she also wasn't used to people touching her either, and she was pretty sure she wanted to keep it that way.
"Can you walk?" Poe asked, clambering up to them. His dark eyes were fixed on the growing blaze, and his mouth was set in a grim line of determination.
"Yeah," Rey said, struggling to her feet. She tested out her weight on her legs, and sighed in relief when nothing felt out of place.
"Good, 'cause we gotta get out of here. Now," Poe urged.
"Door?" Finn asked, while looking wildly at the walls of the room. Rey walked up to the window near the storage cabinet. She grabbed her pistol from her belt and swung the handle into the glass as hard as she could. The shattering of the glass was barely discernible above the blaze behind them. Moonlight streamed in through the fractured remains.
"Does this work?" Rey asked, turning to the other men.
"Good enough for me," Poe said. The pilot helped her clear out the rest of the glass. She leapt through the window the moment it was as safe as it would ever be. The two resistance members followed soon thereafter.
"Follow me," Poe beckoned to her and Finn. His dark pupils reflected the map he had pulled up on his comm.
Rey and Finn hurried after the pilot. The oppressive heat from the day was gone, and the crisp, biting chill to the air felt like a soothing balm on her sweat-slicked skin. She followed the two strangers beside her, and she wondered if she was making the right choice. Would her parents still be able to find her if she no longer had a shop of her own? She wondered if Plutt would track her down in hours or days, and what she would do if that happened. Rey glanced behind her as her shop was swallowed completely by the flames. A strange satisfaction warmed her. Even with her doubts, she felt lighter. She turned to the two strangers again, and they crested over a sand dune. The signature x-wing jets escorting a single GMI Hovertransport filled her view. The lightness in her chest gave way to a smile. She'd always wondered what it would be like to escape on a Resistance mission. As she ran into the transport, and strapped herself in tight, she took in the weary, but determined faces around her, all wearing the tell-tale rebel insignia, and she felt happy for the first time in years. For the first time in her life, Rey was free.
AN: This is my first ever reylo fic, and the first fan fiction I've written in years. This is also unbeta'd so please forgive any glaring spelling or grammar mistakes. If you are interested in becoming a beta, please let me know! I'd love to hear some feedback. Let me know if you need any clarification as well. This is my first time writing cyberpunk (though I'm no stranger to sci-fi), so I've been trying to place an emphasis on world building. This fic will also switch back and forth between POV, so the next chapter will be Kylo's, but overall it will be more Rey-centric. Please let me know what you guys think so far!
Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the idea for cyberpunk reylo was inspired by Cosmogonika's fic, Dystopia, which I highly recommend you go check out if you haven't already.
Fic is also on AO3. Come talk to me on Tumblr reveusedeminuit
Until next time, cheers!