Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

The bustle of a city is an inescapable distraction that constantly wears down on me by the day. Since the day that I found myself in this city that is. A city that all whom find themselves drawn to it for fortune and fame, sometimes both, usually find themselves at the end of a barrel in a back end street that you may have taken to save time. Others get their live snuffed from the gene pool for angering the wrong people. Weather those wrong people are the gangs, corporations, government, normal citizens on the day to day, even your own supposed friends. Cities are were the average go to become something more than what they are, to make an impact and perhaps get rich along the way. Not this one. This one place is one in which you are chewed up and spit out.

Happy endings are a rarity only ever seen by the top of society here. Any others below that line get used and abused and then once you outlive the entertainment value you get done away with. Life and death are a common occurrence here in equal measure that it has become a cultural value of sorts here. There bigger the fashion you bite it, the bigger your name gets. Exceptions are made however though they are exceedingly rare. For instance, Adam Samsher. A man whose made a living off of stopping others from doing just that. Corporate war legend within night city that has the reputation of being the reaper for Araska. More machine than human at this point with so much technology integrated into his own body that he is more machine than man. A cyberpsychosis mystery to be sure.

Many may one day wonder why one such as myself came to Night city and the answer was simple. I did not come to Night city. I merely arrived here several months ago out of nowhere. A world that I thought to be naught but a game set in fiction yet here I was in the heart of the city so to speak being nothing more than a meat bag compared to everyone else. Zero implants and cyberware to speak of yet I had managed to get in the good graces of the Arasaka corporation for my stellar intuition, or say they say. All that was a lie though to get in good and make some money in stacks of eddies to set my plan on track. A breaking of the cycle to speak was my idea I set out for.

My eyes flicked to the left quickly to notice the tip of a tire halting in an alley way. Seems I had attracted the attention I so desperately wanted earlier than I had wanted. Regardless, this was the idea in the end to have them come after me eventually. I had been coming to chinatown to set a pattern in my behaviour for this type of moment. Being a part of a large corp like this on was bound to make me a high value target. A cheap trick considering my background knowledge on this world even if it was relatively small given the scope of it all. If it achieved my goal then I was willing to do it by all means.

Slipping in between a couple of passersby on the crosswalk I again noticed the car tailing me. The modifications confirmed that it was the modified version of the Chevillon Emperor of Maine's crew driver, the nomad Falco. While it may retrospectively be the most suspicious car out on Night city's roads it was certainly not the case. Most armed themselves with weapons to even walk a dog so a car with a manned roof gun was very inconspicuous. Finishing the crossing of the street I made my usual turn into a lesser used street that housed a odds and end shop I frequented every week or so to set the dedicated point of my ambush. After all dictating the point of conflict was already making this out to be a win as they would never stray from the easy cornering once I arrived in the shop.

Ignoring the street dwellers camping out front of the place by the parking I meandered through the automatic doors. Once inside the shop did a one eighty in decor. It was rather lively and pristine but little travelled due to the rather pricey nature of the collectibles sold here. Anything from guns from the 2000's to black market quickhacks and security was taken up by the Tyger claws so no one dared to make a move on it. The perfect staging area if I do say so myself. The affiliation with Arasaka and the gang made it appear like I came here due to the safety thus a stupid corp rat would make the foolish mistake to go with little guards. Guards I assume had been incapacitated by now by Maine and his crew.

"Welcome back, Glow-san." A older lady at the desk greeted with a brief bow as she smiled at me, eyes closed. "I have found some new antiques that I think you might like."

I greeted her back in turn with a formal bow of my own. A leftover of my months long work at Arasaka. "Miss Nakamura, you always have something of interest for me." Though it may seem like courtesy it was in fact truth as she often acquired items from seventy years or so ago. It gave me comfort to have common items from my time even if I was in the wrong place. "So what is it this time anyways? You always have me so curious."

Nakamura moved her prosthetic hand over the case on her countertop. She gave it a pat. "This is a truly rare find indeed due to the collapse of the old America stopping its production entirely. A true symbol of the old American gun culture."

I paused at that for just a moment as I heard the sound of heavy duty breaks stop outside. "Really now?" I said in a skeptical tone to mask my guess to the item it was sure to be. "What might that be?"

She raised a finger as a gesture to wait a moment. Doing just that the old lady popped the security on the case and heaved the top open before turning the case to show me the contents. "A G19 or otherwise more commonly the Glock 19. A extremely popular variant of the well known sidearm platform that was available to civilians unlike the Glock 18 that was used by the police of the time, it was used for home and self defense."

I heard the door open behind me and let it not bother me. Best to act like the regular that I am. I swiped the case closed and heard the locks automatically engage once again. "Now this is certainly quite the piece you have found indeed." I said to Nakamura as I leaned over the counter to whisper to her. "How much for it?" I even spiced it up with my signature deadpan glare. The old lady's face began to glow in mirth as she laughed aloud.

"I knew you would like this one!" Her eyes glowed blue as she ran the calculations on the old gun. "I told you you would like it." Her grin spoke volumes about her self esteem that was for certain. She tapped her cyberware along the top of the case, drumming out a song from her homeland. A happy little tune I was unsure of to be honest. Her eyes turned back to the characteristic brown I was used to as she finished her estimates. She looked behind me for a moment.

"Welcome! As you can see I am already involved in a deal so as soon as I am done I will be right with you."

I heard a deep rumbling of an affirmative to which she turned back to me without so much as a gaff from the split attention from her customer service. "For you, Glow, I am willing to cut you a discount for your regular patronage." She leaned ever so slightly more forward than she normally does. More than likely she did not want the others in the store to hear. "I will cut the price by twenty percent to bring it down to a cool 308 thousand eddies."

I whistled aloud reflexively. "Ah, now that is generous discount for such a historical piece. Are you sure to sell it to me for that little?" I spoke hushed to her. I looked over both of my shoulders more to locate Maine who was sure to be in here. I could barely make out a tip of his golden hair above a shelf at the other end of the store. Must be waiting for me to finish up to make me confident the sly bastard. I focused back in on the store keep. "Don't you need the scratch for handing over to the Tygers?"

Nakamura waved me off immediately. "Thanks to you I am ahead of earnings for the next year or so."

"Is that so?" I asked aloud to her. She said nothing and simply nodded sagely to me and my question. "Well then, here's the eddies for the-"

I stopped cold in my tracks to play up the part as I felt a gun press against the back of my skull. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how fast Maine was even with that size of his. I could see Miss Nakamura' eyes widen at the sudden intrusion to our deal as well as the gun at my head. I slowly raised my hands up to not alarm the big man behind me packing heat at my head.

"You corpo rats never learn do you. Come with us and I won't splatter your brains out all over the wall." I began to turn around to look Maine down in the eyes through those glasses of his. He huffed once he saw my face. "Shit. I see Arasaka is still making use of kids. Well, either way you are coming with us." He reached out his arm to grab at mine but was interrupted as his eyes glowed a sudden orange hue. He was getting a call now?"

"Ya what is it?" Maine started as I head the one way conversation. Then he just stood there stock still with his gorilla grip still encasing my forearm. His face remained stout and stern for much of the time. I noticed only his brow twitch at one or two things. "You Kidding me!?" The sudden boom of his voice made my brain reel back from the force behind it. He gave a sigh as the tell tale sign of his eyes glowing through the lenses of his shades before they illuminated once again. Another call.

I felt my spine tingle at the awkward pause in the action. This spoke of ill omens for myself. I flexed the wrist and hand being held by the large mercenary. I best secure my escape option now just in case. I heard Falco start up the large car outside the shop. That was when I realized I took my eyes off of Maine and his crusher shotgun. He had let go of my wrist and arm and had wracked his crusher. My eyes shook in their sockets at this point.

"Sorry kid. Plans changed, client wants you dead now." He cracked his neck as he pointed his one foot to the door. "Any last words?"

I licked my lips and nodded. "I do." He brought his gun closer to my forehead ready to make my head into a crater of its own. "Lazarus."

Just like that Maine gave a yell as he fell to the floor from a concentrated and localized EMP. Time to run, my mind screamed at me. I followed the mental dictation to a letter as I sprinted out the door and started to make my way down the street. The side of the Edgerunner popped open as I rushed on by. It only made me go faster from the adrenaline.

"Sasha, hit 'im!"

"I can't!"

"What do you mean you can't!?"

"He has no implants!"

"What the fuck do you mean!"

It made my head spin that my plan backfired so harshly. How could it have failed? I made all the proper precautions and measures whilst working for Arasaka to never go so out of line that it causes someone to wish me dead. Perhaps my thought as to just how brutal this life really was. The one mistake I made was being successful in a corporation.

What a monumental oversight to make.

Swinging around the corner to the occupied street of the chinatown district I sucked in air as smoothly as I could to keep myself going. I should have bought just a small amount of time by knocking Maine out like I did. There was no way that his crew was just about to leave him lying in a shop of Tyger claw territory. Not to mention that the kidnapping turned into an attempt at murder so the Night city police must have been alerted already by Nakamura, bless her soul.

Managing to keep pace at my constant headlong rush to the heavily used and occupied intersection ahead I was to use the crowd as cover to slip away. Bumping into shoulders as I bashed away through the dense sidewalk I managed to reach into my cargo pocket to seize my phone. Pulling up the directory I slipped into the designated pedestrian crossing mob to stop and catch my breath for a moment. All the while I swiped along the contours of the phone to bring up the panic button that would call to dispatch from Arasaka's domestic security force.

Pacing along the edge of the sidewalk I Placed the phone to my ear. Directly connecting me with a security agent I began. "This is Glow, I am at the main bridge in little China leading to the city centre. I was just jumped by a band of mercenaries. Requesting EVAC."

"Roger. Sending Security via AV. ETA: 2 minutes."

The agent then hung up leaving a tracer app on the phone running to monitor my position. I leaned against the concrete divider as my lungs lagged behind in catching up from the sprint. My eyes flicked about as my head turned to look left and right over and over. It was maddening. My mental state had never been so wrought with stress before now. Looking back down to the phone screen I checked on the eta of that AV. A minute and thirty seconds. Why does time have to pass so slowly when you need it to accelerate?

"Shit." I muttered as my thoughts went back to Maine. He was likely already in the car and awake with Sasha there to speed the reboot along. Likelihood of that crew tracing the distress from the phone was very high on probability. It must have been such a unique signature that the netrunner of the group would be able to pin down. I wiped at my brow to keep the sweat from getting into my eyes. I suppose that there should be enough noise within the net of the local space that it will take long enough to isolate.

I looked out towards City Centre to see the AV crossing the water that marked the border of the districts of Night city around these parts. I felt my heart rate lull at the sight of the corporations logo on the side of the airborne vehicle. It sped along the way at such a speed that very soon it came to hover over head as it then projected a red zone surrounding me. All the nearby denizens of the city quickly scattered from the red rectangle that read no entry.

I took a sharp breath inwards. If they had doubts as to where I was they sure know now. Watching the side of the AV unfold to open one side I was greeted with four heavily armed security agents with guns at the ready. One agent easily waved me to signal the safe to board as he wielded a large light machine gun with a box magazine. Quick to take up my rescue I hopped on to the edge of the ramp made up by the door of the transport.

The very same agent to wave me the clasped onto my shoulder as he looked out to the street behind me.

"VIP secured. Heading back." As the armoured man pulled me into the vehicle there was a sudden change in his posture as he peered to the streets below us. "Shit! Pilot dive, dive! We have a lock on from a projectile system in the crowd!"

No sooner than I felt the AV begin its evasive manoeuvre did I fall from the impact as the cockpit was hit and the pilots became a red paste. With the smell of carbon tickling at my nose I knew that we were going to crash. Wanting to avoid a fate of death by crushing I hopped out the transport back onto the very sidewalk I was lifted from. With a tuck and a roll to avoid hurting my ankles I once again began to make an escape on foot.

"Fuck trying to hack this gonk, just tackle him, Sasha."

Just as I had heard it before the name made my spine crawl. I knew she was fast. Taking a peek over my shoulder I found my eyes locked with hers. In that instant I knew I could not get away. Her leg augmentations made her highly manoeuvrable.

Sent to the floor in a heap of limbs I found myself at the bottom of the pile wrestling with the pick and black getup cat lady. Feeling like I may have been able to overpower her for a moment she whipped out her tech pistol and pointed it at my head. My hand for the second time in that day, in ten or so minutes found their selves above my head. I hoped this was not to become a common theme.

"Sorry!" I yelled out to her. It legitimately caught her off guard as she blinked a couple of time with the gun still trained on my brain case. The act of her target spouting out an apology was not a common one for sure. "So sorry." I grit my teeth as I knew this would harshly whiplash a netrunner but it was that or get my head blown off. Despite being a loner I actually liked living and would really like to keep it that way.

"SLEEPER!"

Within a moment of speaking the command line a distortion in the air became visible as a shockwave that looked like heat radiation from pavement lashed out out across the area. Every person nearby became limp as they twitched and cyberware additions and augmentations sparked infrequently and at random. Sasha as well was no exception to the rule here as she sat stiffly on top of me before falling forwards. I stuck out my arm to catch her head before it hit the hard ground. Cyber or not hitting ones head off the ground was never a good thing.

"Shit, shit, shit." I frantically brought two fingers to check her pulse in her neck. Such a blast like that was capable of flat lining a netrunner like her at close range. Thankfully the rate at which I felt her pulse in those seconds was enough to confirm her status as unharmed. I huffed in relief as I overlooked the scene. Everyone was twitching, this was good. Disturbing but good.

At least good I managed not to kill anybody this time.

Turning back to Sasha I recalled that while in this state they are not necessarily conscious, though they should still be able to remember certain stimuli given enough repetition. Given that my initial plan to make contact with the team that I knew from my world was defunct I need to connect with them another way. Make another meeting point that I was able to dictate. Thinking back to before I lived in the Night city centre in the plaza I had taken up a residence at mega block building eight in room 706. Luckily I kept up with the payments for the rent as a secondary place in cash so that other were unable to track my second home was.

Should be good enough, I shrugged to myself as I placed my hands in front of Sasha eyes far enough away that she could see clearly still. Begining my hand gesture I gave the room for the number of my room with the help of putting up x amount of fingers, a neutral palm horizontal, then repeating the process before for the room with the block number.

7

0

6

0

8

Then repeat around ten times to make sure the event makes a substantial impact in her memory while under the effects of Sleeper. Standing back up to my feet I moved Sasha over to a railing where I had sat her upright, leaning her head on the pole next to her. Hopefully that makes it so that her head is in less of a daze then were she to stay on the floor.

"Use caffine to help with the headache." I waved to her. "Bye now."

I had a lot to set up for this time but at least I had time. I thought as I deactivated the panic on my phone, calling the all clear.