Today was a double upload due to the fact that I hit a kudos/fav-follow milestone really early, so I'm posting 2 chaps as a thank you!

Hope you enjoy it!


"Damn, they told me it was gonna be a kid, but you're young as fuck, choom!"

David had to stare up at the guy he was meant to be getting the package from, the man's cyberware making his legs almost twice as long. Without thinking, he heard himself blurt out; "Isn't it hard to go through doors with legs like that?"

He immediately flinched, ready to activate his Sandevistan if the guy got angry, hoping that he hadn't just fucked the job up before he'd even started it, but the guy just threw his head back and laughed at him.

"HA! You're greener to all this shit than the SCOP they try to pass off as vegetables, aren't you kid?"

David slumped inwards a bit, his cheeks reddening slightly as the man patted him on the shoulder. "Well, I don't mind questions, and it's pretty funny watching a newbie startle like a fucking deer."

David watched in surprise as the man's legs telescoped back into themselves, leaving the guy only about a foot taller than him, instead of several feet. "And to answer your question, no, it ain't hard."

David coughed into his hand as the guy chuckled to himself, leaning to the right of his doorway and picking up a small box wrapped in brown paper. "Alright, you've got the coordinates for where you're taking this, right?"

David nodded, and the guy handed the package over. David put the box, which was only about the size of a datapad… actually it probably was a datapad, into one of the pockets sewn into the inside of his mum's EMT jacket that had a velcro lid that secured it.

The guy gave him a short nod before closing his door, and David was left standing outside the guy's apartment by his lonesome. Jogging outside of the apartment building the guy lived in, David put his hands into his pockets as he walked down the street.

'Huh, just realised I never actually got that guy's name.'


[Quest Completed!]

[200 XP | 500 $$]

[+1 to Athletics]

David glanced over at the writing that had appeared after he'd handed the box off to whoever was buying it. They hadn't opened the door or spoken out loud to him, so he assumed it was a personal safety thing, but it still felt a little anti-climactic.

Going through his list of contacts, which wasn't very large, to be honest, he moved down to [Lucy] and called her. There was a second or two of ringing before she picked up.

How-how did it go?

I mean, it went off without a hitch?

I'm honestly a little surprised at-at how easy that was.

I did-did tell you that it was the easier job Wakako had for you.

But it is interesting that you weren't stopped by anyone at all.

Usually 6th street likes to-to patrol that area.

Straight up-up did not see a single 6th street goon.

Just walked from pickup to drop off.

Hey, that's a good-good thing in my book

Good work, David, I'll tell Wakako that the job's done and send the eddies in a second.

Sounds good.

What do I do now?

Should I swing by the warehouse?

Uh, you can-can do whatever you want until tonight

This was the only job I could get you on such short notice and our big one is still back on the drawing board.

Damn-damn, alright.

I guess I'll see you tonight.

Down by the docks, yea?

Yep.

See you there.

[Lucy] ended the call

David huffed, his hands pushing deeper into his pockets.

He felt like he'd just been teased. His first job as an edgerunner turned out to be a literal walk in the park, and now he had nothing to do for the rest of the day except wait until 7:30 to go running with Lucy.

You have received 200 $$ from [Lucy]

David blinked as the message showed up in his HUD. He flipped the message from before back up into his vision, his eyebrows knitting together in surprise. He'd gotten 500 eddies from completing the quest, and he'd thought that had been his payment for the job.

But… Lucy had just sent over the payment.

A huge grin appeared on his face as he realised what this meant. It meant that somehow the Sandevistan had some way of giving him extra money. As the quests he was given got harder and harder, would the amount go up? Because if it did, he was going to be a very happy edgerunner.

That message honestly brought back a pep in his step that had been lost from finding out that he had no more jobs for today, and he practically strutted his way back to his apartment, flopping down on the couch to watch some TV while he waited until 7:30.


Lucy looked a little surprised to see him sitting on a box when she arrived at the docks before a smirk grew on her face.

"Told you, 15 minutes early."

David just smiled, hopping down off the box. He'd actually been there for about half an hour, making sure that he was in the right spot, but he felt it best not to mention that to her. "Yea yea, laugh all you want."

She just shook her head, a soft smile on her face. "Alright, let's get going. We'll be running about 5 kilometres along the dock, two and a half up that way, and then the other two and a half back down to here."

David nodded, doing some stretches he'd seen some people do on TV before, and Lucy just gave him a look that told him he was doing it all wrong. "Stop. Let me show you how to actually stretch for a run. Just follow my lead."

They spent about 15 minutes going through various stretches, David doing his best to copy Lucy as she contorted her limbs in ways he didn't think possible without cyberware.

[+1 Athletics]

But even if he couldn't keep up fully he must have been doing something right, for the Sandevistan to give him a perk level. It was only about a minute after the message came up that Lucy stood back up, clapping her hands against her sweatpants.

"Alright, let's go."

The run went much more smoothly than he'd been expecting it to. As he jogged after Lucy, he could see a small yellow bar appear under the red one that went down when Maine punched him, but the yellow bar was depleting steadily.

It had actually already depleted once, which had left him feeling really exhausted for a little while, but it had refilled soon enough. Was this the 'Stamina pool' upgrade that the [Body] stat had talked about?

[+1 Athletics | +1 Perk Point]

Lucy didn't really talk as they jogged alongside each other, but by the time they reached halfway, and she started downing some of the contents of her water bottle, she turned to him. "You're a lot better at this than I thought you were going to be, especially for someone who doesn't even know how to stretch properly."

David froze at that for a second. Should he tell Lucy about his Sandevistans 'Level Up' stuff? He was still kinda figuring it out himself, so maybe he should hold off on telling other people until he'd gotten the hang of it?

But… no, this was Lucy. She'd shared her dream to go to the moon with him. Sure, it had likely only really been to keep him busy, but now that he was in the same crew as her, even as a trial run… he wanted to tell her, wanted to trust her.

She trusted him with something, so he could trust her with this.

"I think it's the Sandevistan, to be honest. It's been giving me a whole bunch of weird options. Did you ever play those really old-school games as a kid? I'm talking pre-collapse ones."

David immediately felt guilty as she flinched when he asked her about her childhood, and he was smart enough to read between the lines. "Never mind about that, what I mean is, back before games started using AR and Braindances and stuff, a lot of games had this thing called a 'Level System'..."

As they sat at the halfway point of their run, Lucy stayed silent as David explained what the Sandevistan had been showing him, and how he'd already seen it work its magic. He talked for a lot longer than he meant to, to be honest, and before he knew it the street lamps flickered on.

"And that's why I'm keeping the perk points for now, so that I can be sure I'll choose the right- ah, shit. We've been here a while."

Lucy, whose elbows were on her knees and her hands covering her mouth, nodded at that. "We have, yea."

David felt a little awkward, now, and ran his hand through his hair. "So, uh… what do you think? I won't hold it against you if you don't believe me."

Lucy's eyes snapped over to him, and a frown formed on her face. "I've seen weirder and less likely things happen in this city, David. And besides, it's clear that at the very least, you believe what you're saying."

She stood up, rolling her shoulders, before extending a hand out to him to help him up. "And if you're so sure that what you've told me is true, then why shouldn't I believe you? You still believe me, right? About the moon? I really hadn't shown anyone else that BD, but I was worried that me ratting you out might have made you think otherwise."

David sucked in a breath at that. He looked up at Lucy, the moon hanging above and behind her, peeking over Night City's skyline, and a smile appeared on his face. He took her hand, and let her pull him to his feet.

"I still believe you."

Her smile was blinding. Gorgeous. It dug into his chest and filled it with warmth, and he could feel himself falling, and falling hard. She let go of his hand and started jogging on the spot.

"Alright, then how about we finish our run, so we can go get some sleep. I'll try to find something else for you to do tomorrow as well."

She then sprinted off ahead of him, and he scrambled to start running, trying to catch up to her, as her laughter bounced off the crates and shipping containers of the dock. Somehow, a night that started as just running up and down the docks had transformed into one of the best he'd had in a long time.

He couldn't wait to see what came next.