AN: Well...it here is. I just finished watching Edgerunners and my heart was officially broken :(
This fic takes place a month after we left off, when Lucy has gotten settled in to her Moon habitat and gotten a job and all that. Please leave a review and enjoy!
EDIT: Thanks for the reviews DustyDraken and DaBestBerlin! I probably should've introduced the OCs a little better huh? Haha...*tugs at collar
She was dead drunk.
There wasn't a single thought floating around in the solemn girl's mind as she floated in the sea of nothingness. This was the first time she jacked in...in what. Two months? Maybe three? She forgot how long it had been but her mind didn't belong in a brain made of gooey pink stuff. She needed to stretch her legs in the vast expanse of the Net. In an unfamiliar bath tub, in a body she didn't feel belonged to her, mind you. She clasped her fingers over her torso and waited. Her eyes drawled here and there but it was all the same static and white lines that vaguely resemble corridors.
She breathed easy. Growing up in the Night City Net, she appreciated how bland the Moon Net was. Maybe she was the only Runner here, on the plaster chunk of moon rock she called home. The few wires that joined atrium to atrium Lucy had traversed a dozen times over when she first arrived to check out her competition, before realizing that the kind of people on the Moon weren't the kind of punks that would go there in the first place.
"...I'm sorry," she whispered to no one. "I really am." She shielded her eyes with a forearm. "I got you all killed. All for a handful of eddies? Fuck you. F-Fuck you...Lucy."
The brief moment her eyes were dried clean, she saw a blur dressed in yellow. Looking straight at her. "Hey. Stop that," his voice echoed. "You're making me upset too, don'cha know?"
She didn't know if she inhaled water or her own drool first. She ripped the cord from her neck like it was burning her and toppled over the bathtub. Somehow both boiling and freezing at the same time while dry-heaving bits of alcohol-infused kibble from her system.
"...ugghhh...remind me to never drink and dive ever again," she groaned, clutching her stomach. Her face was entirely red and the usual cool, collected smile was replaced with a wobbly frown. Naturally, she poured herself another glass from the long cylinder of forget-it-all liquid. And when she finished that off, she ditched the glass and grabbed the wine bottle from its neck like it owed her eddies. In her dimly lit quarters she could see her bed from the bathroom...maybe she could try?
One step forward and the entire moon shook itself to death. She saw the sink- she really did, from her dizzy point of view, but it must've been a little further than she expected. Her hand confidently leaned on nothing and she felt the cool ceramic ground once more. Only after bonking her forehead on the sink, for good measure.
"OW!," she yelped. She punched another tile into shards. "FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!," she roared, but each 'fuck' lost its steam gradually before collapsing into a garbled mess of drunken sobs. She couldn't make it to the doorway, let alone the bed. She couldn't save David, or anyone she cared about. She was hopeless and alone and scared. She resigned herself to the coldness and curled up in a ball wishing that the pain in her chest would stop.
"Wow."
Her eyes widened. When she lifted her head from her knees, her monowire was already wrapped firmly around the intruder's neck like it saw him before Lucy did. From the orange glow, the tall suit had his hands where Lucy could see them. Like he had planned for this to happen from the moment he opened his mouth. He had glowing red eyes- no, lenses more like, dotted all over his face and head. She didn't see a mouth or nose. There must've been a speaker lodged in his throat.
"Talk about a fall from grace, huh?," he spoke slowly.
Nothing escaped her lips. Apart from a grunt that sounded like it came from grandma when she got herself up and off the floor.
"I'll come back another time," he nodded, almost politely.
Lucy tilted her head so far to the left it could've toppled her over. "Tell me...what you want," she breathed.
He looked her up and down and shrugged. "We need your help."
"What kinda help?"
"The Netrunning kind."
"I'm not available right now."
"Of course you are."
She sighed so hard her synth-lungs could've spilled out. Back then, she would've shit her pants senseless face to face with a suit. His augments were top-spec. She couldn't get past his corporate-installed ICE. And there was no doubt there were a hundred space-goons floating outside her home right now with their smart-rifles locked to her person. But now she didn't care one bit, with or without the alcohol buzzing in her veins. She had lost everything that mattered to her. And it wasn't too long when she was staring down the barrel of her own gun anyways. At least this would've been messier.
The monowire went limp and ziiiiiped back into her arm. Her arm was getting tired anyways.
His arms were by his side too. "I know you think you've hid your tracks, but we've been watching you. We always have."
She didn't say anything.
"Lucy," he sighed. "Our prodigal daughter. The higher ups used to take bets. On who would rip an ICE first. It was always you. You always won."
"Or else I would've croaked," she whispered.
"I suppose. But we pretended not to know- that you were chipping away at Arasaka's ICE, night after night. Maybe you still do. From time to time."
She was about to get the same migraine from all those years ago. "It's impossible," she bluntly stated before taking a swig from the bottle.
"You sound so certain."
"Please leave," she said nonchalantly. "I don't care anymore. If you wanna zero me, make it bloody. And I don't care about eddies either."
He slowly moved towards her and stopped about an arms length apart. "I heard what happened to your crew. To David."
"What'd you hear?," she asked. "What shade of green his blood was?"
"I heard he did exactly as we predicted."
"Right."
"He fought to gain control over the world we live in. So did you. So does everyone. But your victories are only so because we let them. Because it would damage our competitors."
She grit her teeth at the thought of her David getting tossed in a landfill like it was just another Monday for Arasaka.
"You're a good person. You want the world to get better. To stop this killing and violence. Working with Arasaka, you can make that happen Lucy. More than all the Cyberpunks combined."
SHWIP!
Something in her snapped and she severed his left arm clean at the joint. As expected, sparks crackled from frayed wires and the hunk of former arm shook the walls when it thudded on the carpet. As expected, he was a machine. A walking, talking, corporate sponsored machine that repeats nothing but propaganda.
She growled with the monowire taut in both hands. "Get out."
It was like he didn't even notice his arm had been removed. "Feel free to call anytime." He calmly walked to the doorway, opened the first door to the airlock and stood inside with his back turned against Lucy. But just as he was about to leave, he said something that would leave the drunken girl breathless.
"Especially if you want to know who broke the Arasaka ICE."
With a single exit signal from the back of his head, the exhausted Netrunner jolted to life and surfaced above the liquid. He coughed once, twice and another five times to get rid of the slimy, heavy goop that was in his lungs. And when he did breathe, you could hear him wheezing like an old smoker who had just gone for a run. KA-CHUNK! Pressing two mechanical buttons on the top and bottom of the pistol like grip, the cable released from his head and hissed excess liquid nitrogen. He had probably heard that sound more than anything else: the cable was made up of these metal segments that rattled like a snake, and was about as wide as one too.
"...heavy...," he groaned, clutching it in both hands and docking it into his wall. It was like he had finished gassing up his car and docked the fuel pump.
Now of all times, he chose to wake up with a beam of sunlight shining in his face. It was just one beam though, the beam that always leaks through the edges of the curtains, but the rest of the apartment was dim. Looking around, nothing had changed. Luckily. If it weren't for the dust, he would've thought that a full week hadn't gone by while his consciousness was traumatized by Arasaka's digital playground. Blood, drool and tears leaked from the orifices on his face and colored the bathwater a light shade of red. The artificial ice, these transparent metallic spheres, had all but lost its charge leaving him sitting in a pool of his own lukewarm liquids. And if it weren't for the sound at the door, he would've stayed there. Forever.
Upon seeing the familiar red outlined silhouette outside his door, he breathed easy. He leaned back and slid even further into the liquid until his nostrils were just above the surface while he heard the rustling of plastic bags and the fridge opening and the tip-taps of feet on carpet.
It got closer. Feet on tile. He looked up and there stood Julia, a lean, taller girl with shoulder length black hair. Tiredness permanently lingered on her face as dark eyebags, bloodshot eyes and a frown, and today was no different. Maybe even more so, seeing as Aiden hadn't brought in eddies from his netrunning gigs this past week, leaving Julia to fend for herself. "Oi. Up and out," she ordered. "Get some food in you."
Aiden sat up to talk. "...don't wanna."
"Haaah...?" She dragged his face out by his cheek. "I'm not askin' skinjob! You've been in there for a week! How you're still solid is beyond me!"
He gave a defeated groan while leaned over the edge of his tub. But she crouched down and looked him face to face with worry.
"What are you even doing in there?," she sighed. "I know you haven't been doing gigs- the landlords on my ass about you not paying rent!"
"I'll pay all of next month. Swear."
"And Aiden...what...happened to your legs?! Jesus fucking Christ!"
He looked down. Skin and bones he was, and from his waist down it just looked like lengths of bone surrounded in veins and loose skin. Not that he minded though.
"...leave me. I'm...dying," he whispered half-mockingly.
"Greeaaaat. Would you mind dyin' outside?"
"...urghhh...why is it so bright in here?"
The twenty something year old woman draped a towel- those long ones swimmers would use, over him before they sat down on the couch side by side. They were watching some reality show on low volume. She tried to eat slower but even after an hour had gone by he had barely touched his food, instead opting to take little sips of beer every now and again. He could use a buzz. The smells of meatspace almost fried his brain. It was like the physical world just couldn't fit inside of there. The smells, the sounds, the blinding light of the TV and sunlight. Even though she had closed the blinds all the way and made sure the TV brightness was lowered.
"You okay?," she asked, failing to hide her concern. "Here." She handed him the bin. "Throw up in this."
"No, I'm fine."
"Seriously, did something happen in there? Tell me."
He set the takeout box on the ankle-high table in front of them and opened his mouth. "Yeah."
"Let's hear it. Was it Laspin again? That piece of shit can go die painfully."
I...broke the ICE," he spoke quietly. "Arasaka. I found a way in."
She didn't move from her laid back spot on the couch. She was sprawled out horizontally with a takeout box of noodles on her chest and a leg on his lap without a care in the world. You could say that she was happy; no, had been happy. But it slowly dawned on her that he was telling the truth from his blank stare, and that he pretty much signed their death warrants. At first she looked defeated. Accepting almost. She sat on the edge of the couch with her back hunched as he was, except she still held her breakfast in her hands.
"...you're not dying that easily," she snarled on the verge of tears.
"I...Jules...I'm-"
She slammed the box noodles on the ground. She scrambled up and stormed into his room, and immediately he could tell she was crying. There was no hiding it. She hurled insults and slang his way like she already had a gun in her hand and was ready to fight Arasaka to the bitter end, when really she just wanted to run. Run so far away from this hellhole and live in the mountains with her friend. No criminally high rent, no enforced births, no corpos and no one trying to kill them on a daily basis. She took all the dust masks and hazmat suits from his closet and stuffed them in a duffel bag.
The apartment was small enough for him to hear her cry-mumble in his room. "Do you...know what you've done...?! You...fucking idiot."
"Stop," he coughed. "We're not gonna die."
She shook her head and kept packing. "...you couldn't leave well enough as it was, could you? You were safe. We were happy. I was busting my ass makin' eddies day and night but it was well worth it. And now you went and fucked it all up!"
"I deltaed before I saw anything! I-I just didn't realize it until it was too late!"
"Well you fucking thought about it," she scowled in his face before peering out the curtains. "And that's all it takes for us to get flatlined."
"I'M NOT LEAVING!," he yelled. But she got taller and taller the closer she stomped towards him, where she open-palmed slapped him to the ground.
"I'll carry your sorry ass out of this fucking place."
"And how will you pay for that?!," he coughed with a hand on his cheek. She looked off for a second.
"You'll be alive."
"No. Not without my meds I won't."
"I have friends out in the sticks, I can do a few favors a-and..." She didn't want to accept it. He was right. They were struggling to pay for everything as it was, even with the Netrunner's skillset. Her grip on the duffel bag tightened as he spoke.
"Aiden. Here's what's gonna happen. And don't you fucking dare interrupt me-"
"-I won't." Aiden got up, walked past Julia and sat on the couch.
She took a deep breath and spoke. "You're gonna sell that exploit. To Riley or Kahira. The Voodoo Boys. Fuck, even Militech. You're gonna delete any trace of you or me and then we're gonna delta. For good."
He didn't say anything. He was hunched over and his face was buried in his hands.
"We'll get you fixed up. Preem healthcare. And with the leftovers, we're gonna leave Night City. Okay? Aiden? Say you understand."
He shook his head. When he looked up at Julia, he was on the verge of tears. "I can't."
"The fuck did you say?"
"I said I can't."
"I fucking heard you you little shit, I mean what do you mean you can't?!," she yelled.
"I mean I can't just sell it off and go!"
"Why not?!"
"Because I just can't!"
She let out the most baffled scoff Aiden has ever heard. She paced all over the main area of the apartment with her hands on her head, but eventually found herself sitting right next to her roommate.
"I worked too hard to just sell it off," he said. "I can't do it."
"Aiden," she replied. "This ain't a damn movie. You will die. Do the smart thing, and sell it off. We can live in Alaska, just like we dreamed. And you'll be cured. You'll be happy. I'll be happy."
"I've gotta do something. Arasaka fucked me, you, everyone! More times than we can count-"
"-then sell off the key! Let someone else fight them!"
"..."
Julia spoke in a quiet voice. "Aiden. What exactly are you hoping for here? Do you even want to run away with me?"
He matched her tone. "Of course I do. You don't know how much I wanna leave. To have a childhood. To not be sick anymore and run and dance and scream and do whatever I want in meatspace. But selling off the key...it's like...it's like admitting to yourself that Saka won before we even tried."
"They have won. They always have. The world belongs to the corpos. You know that. The least we can do is be happy in spite of it."
"I'm sorry."
A fist slammed into his jaw. Julia was up and getting her bags before he even registered that she had punched him as hard as she could. She thought that maybe the Netrunner would appreciate actual pain from a trusted loved one before inevitably getting tortured by the digital leviathan, if he chose to go down this path. There was a duffel bag hanging off her left shoulder and a backpack on her right. And she spat some kind words his way as she stormed out the apartment in tears.
