Author's note:
There are spoilers ahead, if you have not seen/finished Cyberpunk Edgerunners, continue at your own risk.
Welcome to my cyberpunk headcanon. loved the ending to Edgerunners, but I'm a sucker for sappy stories that end with a nice bow tied on it. Night City is an overwhelming force of fear and loathing, and though I love the source material, I'm gonna embellish past the ending just a little bit. Any key points in the stories of Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077 will be kept to the most precise canon, based off of my first Corpo playthrough in 2077.
Now that the stage is set, please enjoy the ride! Reviews and thoughts always welcome.
A Fistful of Eddies
Chapter one
Trauma Team Tribulations
"Look alive, remember our client is in critical! Neurolink is down on the client! Last vitals to come through show crushed organs! Going into a hot LZ, unknown combatants! NCPD has the area on lockdown with MaxTac inbound! This client has platinum with us, so once you've found him, immediate exfil is priority number one! We clear!?"
"Crystal, Sir!"
2076, Night City, California.
The trauma team AV jets roared on and off in the teams' ears as they passed each building, giving brevity when not surrounded by the concrete titans around them. It was a standard operation to the crew: a platinum Arasaka client was in terrible condition. The caveat to this particular operation was that it was in the middle of Memorial Park, and any air travel through the area, drone or manned, was not to enter due to a dangerous and unidentified flying object. The crew had lost precious minutes thanks to that, so the pilot was making quick time. The AV shook the four men in the canopy with resistance.
"Hey flyboy, how about you don't flatline us! You think I get platinum on my salary!?" the Team Lead shouted over the buckling chassis.
The pilot held firmly on the thrusters, ignoring the warning signs on the dashboard, "All due respect, boss, how 'bout you let me do my fuckin' job and not distract me!? Tough enough tryin' to get ahead of MaxTac!"
The Team Lead laughed heartily "Just don't let those bloodthirsty bastards beat us to it then!"
They arrived on scene to see a cavernous hole between the two giant holo-fish. The irony that a bloodbath was happening in the middle of Arasakas' depiction of peace was not lost on them.
"Hey boss!" an inexperienced security detail shakily bellowed, "You think I'm gonna have to pop my firefight cherry on my first evac!?"
They made a slow descent to the center cautiously, with the NCPD below them getting into their cars and scattering in different directions. A broadcast from the police scanners blipped on their emergency radio.
All units fan out. One confirmed suspect escaped, most likely armed in a black and yellow Chevillon Emperor. If located, follow at a large distance and alert Maxtac immediately. Authorized use of deadly forc-*
"Looks like you won't have to, Greenhorn! It's a cakewalk now!" The Team Lead shouted back, turning off the radio.
The unit grabbed their harnesses in unison and attached their rappelling ropes. A red landing zone was cast from the undercarriage of the Atlus, detailing the wreckage below them. Scraps of everything from rubble to limbs canvased the inner sanctum of the Arasaka headquarters underground level. A green light in the ship lit the cabin, with a small silhouette of a stick figure holding a rope.
"Alright, Atlus is stable, it's go time! Greenhorn, grab the profile scanner, it's your time to shine!"
The Team Lead leaped from the side with the others following closely behind. Dirt and shards of glass bounced off their armor the lower they got to the entrance, the jagged chunks of rebar just below them shaving off bits of grey cement in increments of pebbles. The sharp LED lights above them shining down cast small shadows that grew larger with each whine of the cables holding them, getting closer every second to the pronounced square landing marker, jagged from countless edges sticking out beneath like small mountains. Arasaka custodial employees frantically attempted to move larger bits of debris in an effort to get noticed by the higher-ups keeping a distance. The trauma team landed swiftly and scattered the custodial crew, using a small boost from their boots to soften their impact.
"Create a perimeter, make a square. Scan the area, if you pick anything up, get Greenhorn to it."
They stood as sentinels in each corner of the landing square, turning their helmets from side to side. Mists from the surrounding trees cascaded through lean pathways in their vision, the atmosphere tense with small conversation from a gaggle of well-dressed corpos observing close by. A custodial worker that failed to clear the immediate area, lugging a large piece of rubble, caught the Team Lead's wrath quickly.
"Move, five feet back minimum!" the Team Lead barked as he bashed the man the butt of his rifle, "Leave the concrete alone!"
The man stumbled back, as he held his freshly wounded head, scrambling away to the illusory safety of his crowded cohorts.
The Team Lead pushed his attention to the corpse parallel to the landing square. Seemingly stripped clean of cybernetic limbs, the body was little more than a torso. The remnants of what was left of the head spattered across the manufactured scenery around them. A faint smell of accelerant and iron tinged the air with a stuffy, Night City familiar smell.
A smell of absolute evisceration.
Dismissingly, the Team Lead looked away from his passing glance, "Got one casualty, but it's not our man. Keep looking."
The Greenhorn, seeing the same view in the corner of his ocular vision, nearly threw up at even such a small glance. The state of the body was incomparable to anything he had seen before.
"Fuck, there's nothing left of this guy. Who could've done that shit?" he choked out squeamishly between dry heaves.
"Got an idea who. Move on." The Team Lead snapped back at him, "Don't wanna hear anything else 'less its an ID on our client."
The EMT paired next to The Greenhorn gazed down the pathway closest to them and slightly off to the corner had a signal in his optical matrix. A sign of something living, or at the very least, close to life. He struck his helmet in an act of percussive maintenance, doing little more than glitching his vision.
"Optics and cyberdeck are on the fritz, anyone else having trouble?" He asked his team.
"Chalk it up to whatever that UFO was earlier. Saw the grav imprints outside? Magnetic interference must be lingering, why we can't get the patient." The Team Lead moved forward with a mix of haste and caution in the opposite direction, "Stay frosty."
A very hazy figure appeared, very distorted to the EMT. It was confusingly hard to confirm anything amidst the mist and the rubble from above that was likely covering the specter he was focused on. The EMT amplified the lights on his helmet in an effort to clarify his readings.
"Think I've got something, chooms." The EMT hastily moved forward down the pathway with rifle shouldered. The Greenhorn shook his head to snap him back into reality and followed behind, activating the profiler as he took it out of his bag. The EMT's approach slowed, but with each inch closer, he got to his target the clearer the readout on his visuals did as well. It was certainly a body, or what appeared to be parts of one. Far less destroyed than the other, with most of its limbs intact. The skin appeared to be a faded teal with various pink tattoos spattered with blood. A large coat hid most of the damage done, but closer inspection was necessary.
Something seemed off.
With his scan proving unreliable in the moment, he switched to amply sound coming through his helmet as the Greenhorn moved forward to scan it with the profiler. He could hear a faint rumble of the lungs moving. Stepping steadily past the fog, he was able to get a good look at who the Greenhorn was crouching next to. It was a girl, small in form. She lay still with long green hair spalled across the floor, a vacant stare peering towards the sky. The EMT's face curled in his helmet, a reaction he did not expect to have. He looked only for a few moments, but in his mind, it felt as though hours had passed. An all too familiar memory resurfaced in him, one that was unwelcomed and uncomfortable to bear. The triangular scan of the profiler covered the girl's face, accenting her facial features on the side still structural. The profiler beeped and flashed.
"Not the client, pull back." The Greenhorn stood and backtracked the other way.
As the EMT was stuck, staring at the body of the girl, he tried to pull away. Something about her grasped his gaze.
Snap out of it. His mind tried to jump back to the situation at hand. Got work to do here. Can't be thinking about the past. Why is it coming up now? All times it could, it has to be on the job? Shit…
As he paced slowly backward, still unable to avert his eyes, it happened.
She looked back at him.
One piercing red cybernetic eye, Kiroshi mk 2, with a green iris. The one eye with a thousand-yard gaze towards the beaming light of the Atlus AV eclipsed only by the moon found its way into the EMT's.
He stopped abruptly, taken so off guard he stumbled, falling at her feet. He wasn't even sure if there was someone to save in her. She more than likely flatlined and the stare was the body acting on its own accord. With his time in Trauma Team, he'd seen bodies all but reanimate, move on their own as if possessed by a daemon protocol, rip their own cybernetics off, one even recited poetry before slowly fading out hours later. However, if she was dead, she hadn't been for long. On the Trauma Team "death state" scale, taking into account this happened minutes prior, she would be somewhere close to a 4. It was a mixed bag between a shot in the dark and a possible recovery. Why this one moment stood out among the others was a mystery to him. He knelt beside her and removed his trauma pack with haste.
"Hey, didn't you hear me?" The Greenhorn asked with newfound urgency, "that's not the client. We gotta move."
"Need a sitrep, talk to me." The Team Lead's voice came through over their comms as the EMT continued to rummage through his medical gear.
"Gonk is tryna help a non-client. Looks like a joytoy." The Greenhorn responds, failing to grasp the EMT's attention as he shoveled as much gray matter as he could back into the girl's head and covered it with spray skin.
"She's still alive, she can make it," The EMT mutters, holding the girl's skull in place and attaching a blood pump to her chest, "still know the priority, not gonna leave someone behind if I don't have t-"
"Not on my dime, anything you use comes out of your paycheck." The Team Lead interrupted, growing irritated, "team efficiency is gonna tank thanks to you. Lucky you're backed by Arasaka."
"Understood." The EMT hurriedly reached into his pack and pulled out a vial. The last resort, an injector with Trauma One, is said to greatly shorten the speed of Death Rate. Pricey and limited only two per Trauma Team member; one for self and one for other. Without hesitation, he injected the girl and threw it aside.
"Picked up vitals!" The more experienced security specialist confirmed. He and the Team Lead hastened forward.
On the other side, the EMT was using up a majority of the spray skin in his applicator to close up her lower intestines. Her shattered arm could use a tourniquet, but he had to make sure the organic wounds got closed, and fast. He focused his sound amplification on her chest. No heartbeat. Rubbing his hands together, sparks shot from his gloves. No one ever let it be said that the palm-mounted shock panels were a welcomed budget gift from an undesirable corporate benefactor. He placed his hands around her heart and sent lightning through her body. Her body jolted, but as he pulled his hands back, he heard no pulse.
"This him?" the Security Specialist asked, moving a fallen tree from the suit-clad man trapped beneath. Thankfully for the crew, the body from the waist up was untouched, with a lucky fall into the grass beside the pathway. The Greenhorn held the profiler beside the injured man's head. It was an instant confirmation
"We got him." The Greenhorn gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to the Team Lead, who promptly lifted the patient onto his shoulder.
"Vitals look good up close, cyberdeck is fried." The Team Lead pointed towards the sky and gave a signal, "Let's delta. Greenhorn, grab the assistant EMT."
"Sir, is that name gonna stick with me?" The Greenhorn disappointedly asked.
The Team Lead turned back to him and pat his shoulder, "Focus on the delta, not the nickname." He pointed towards the EMT in the distance, engulfed in fog with only a brief glint of light painting his silhouette from his shock panels going off. "He's not listening to comms, Grab him and leave the input behind, job's done."
The Greenhorn ran past the wandering voices of corpos, taking the toll of damage and talking about where they were going after wrapping things up as if it were just another day in life. Still through the dense mist, he saw another flash, outlining his team member's frame, followed by a Trauma Team helmet hurling towards.
"Fuckin' helmet, can't hear worth a damn." The EMT muttered in annoyance through gritted teeth. He was readying his gloves for another charge when he received a firm tap on the back. "She's close! Heart wants to beat; I heard her breathe!" he shouted behind him.
"Leave her, man. Our evac is now. Done all you can." The Greenhorn stood above the EMT, hovering as sparks lept from the gloves rubbing together once again. The Greenhorn realized he wasn't getting through to him, that this EMT was dead set reversing that flatline. He didn't understand why his teammate wouldn't stop, but with a burgeoning position to become a specialist, he wasn't at the mercy of whichever outcome the EMT made. He leaned forward and grabbed the EMT beneath the arms and began to pull him away from the girl.
The EMT fought back, pushing his body weight away, "After she's stable, I'll grab her and go! Catch up with the client, gonk!" he growled angrily, closing his arms until parallel and lined up his hands with the girl's heart
"Don't know if you're on stims or what," the Greenhorn grunted as the EMT banded his arms with his own, "but you're getting on that AV now!" he yanked again, pulling the EMT back further. Refusing to back down, the EMT pushed harder toward the girl. The power behind the Greenhorn was strong, most likely civilian plating and bionic joints to add heft and leverage respectively.
"One!" A whirring sound emitted from the back of the EMT's head.
"More…!" His Berserker cyberware activated.
He lifted the Greenhorn on his back with ease, squeezing the arms of the novice gunman and fracturing his elbow from the clenching force alone. "Clear!" his hands made contact and with a quick jolt, the girl took a deep gasp of air and began breathing on her own.
"Yes!" The EMT shouted with an injured Greenhorn cursing behind him, "Stay with me now, stay with me." He leaned over and pulled her body over his shoulder with care. He turned to the teammate gripping his arm. "Sorry 'bout that choom, let's get going." The EMT huffed while grabbing the Greenhorn and lifting him off the ground.
Grabbing the Greenhorn by the back of the collar, the EMT sprinted to the AV as a madman would with fast and reckless abandon, carelessly smashing his helmet along the way.
"Threw my elbow out of place, asshole!" The Greenhorn hissed as the EMT attached him to one of the two available rappel ropes, "Boss isn't gonna be happy 'bout this. Just fuckin' drop the joytoy!"
The EMT attached himself to the last rappel without acknowledgment of the Greenhorn and ascended to the AV, with the Greenhorn not far behind. He gripped the girl's body firmly on his shoulder, feeling her steady breathing and garnering a sense of success. A thought hit him quickly as the situation he was in. He couldn't simply take her to a ripperdoc immediately, she was in shock and the experience might permanently flatline her. She was most likely one of the edgerunners that laid siege to the tower so any chance of his connections with Arasaka and their medical RD department would prove fruitless. There was absolutely no way he was going to take her to a back-alley Night City clinic with the number of scavengers that circle the places like vultures, waiting for the next preem piece of cyberware to roll through. There was one ballsy option he had, but by the time they made it back up above ground, he made up his mind.
They arrived in the AV. The rest of the trauma team placed the platinum client in a life support pod and were working on connecting the stim tubes to the patient. The EMT sat the girl down, making sure that nothing had ruptured on arrival. She was stable, but as for how long she would stay that way was uncertain. He immediately went through his contacts in his holo and made a direct call.
The Team Lead turned to see the girl and the EMT kneeling beside her. He marched over to the EMT and grabbed him up by the collar. With a firm fist, he dealt a blow on the EMT's cheek, hearing a loud crack on impact.
"The hell were you thinking, gonk!? You bring an uninsured ganic on the AV, and you lose your standard issue helmet! Greenhorn tries to get a line on you, and you end up messing his arm to high hell? I don't know what the hell you were thinking, but once we get to HQ I don't wanna see you swinging your humanitarian dick around this team again." He bellowed in the EMT's face, "Copy?"
The EMT spit a tooth onto the floor of the AV and looks at the Team Lead's face mere centimeters from his own with a cold, emotionless stare.
"Yeah, I copy."
The Team Lead tisked and let go of the EMT, walking to the side of the specialist to attend to the patient, "Fuckin' solo mentality. Won't get you far, kid."
Still on the line of his call, the EMT finally got through on the holo.
Militech International Armaments, office of Donald Lundee Jr. Unfortunately, Mr. Lundee isn't taking any appointments at the momen-"
"I know he's there. Tell Dixie that I'm cashing in my favor, need to see him ten minutes ago."
The Militech line was quiet for a moment. "May I ask who is calling?"
"Tell him it's V. He'll know who I am."
