Bad Time in Night City

"Papa was a rolling stone." I couldn't get that damn song out of my head. Even through all the noise of traffic, through the throngs of people walking by, the sirens, horns, and screech of tires, the tune still clung to my brain. Like a dog with fleas, I just couldn't shake it.

Couldn't even tell you the last time I heard it. No one plays the oldies anymore.

"You want anything else, choom?" the street vendor asked. I shook my head as I awoke from my day dream and placed the empty carton of noodles down on his cart. "Thanks for the chow Lee. See you tomorrow." Lee ignored me, as he did with most people. I suppose when you have the best noodles this side of Watson, you can afford to have the second worst manners. I didn't much care either way. Lee wasn't a bad fella. Gives his closing leftovers to the street kids when he thinks no one is watching. Will spit in your food if you mention it though. Real class act.

It was a rare sunny day for Night City. The kind of day you just wanna punch in the face when you're hung over. Fortunately for the day, my hangover simply wouldn't allow it. I had gotten a call earlier that morning from a fixer of mine, Regina Jones. She had a job for me and wanted me to look over the details at my earliest convenience. Coming from Regina, that meant now.

Regina was the kinda woman you saw in those old scifi thrillers. A badass with a steel arm and a look that could kill. Didn't know much about her past and I liked it that way. Harder to say no to friends. She handed out a lot of freelance work in this part of town and was who you came to when you wanted a problem solved.

I flipped through my messages and looked over the job she had sent. Simple sabotage job, or so it seemed at first. Some hacker named "B d" wanted some custom malware uploaded to a nearby mega-building. I rubbed my temples and sighed. It was always some stupid name like "B d" or "L33t-b0y" or "A$$-B1 57ER". All thought they were the next savior of the net. Youth in all it's stupid glory.

I continued reading. Apparently this "B d" wanted to attack a local subnet of a major corporation but didn't want it to be traced back to him. So he concocted a plan to download a virus to a local mega-building so he could use their network as a proxy. He just needed some schmuck to do the legwork for him. Enter sucker, stage left. I was to enter the building, make my way to the server room, insert the virus, and leave. The elevator was even already fixed to let me down to the server room. Simple right? Not so much. The building was run by one of Night City's illustrious gangs, the Tyger Clawz. Yakuza mixed in with a not so small helping of cybernetic upgrades. Sprinkle on a bit of motorcycle fetish and voilia!

They operated mostly out of Japantown but had been expanding business evidently. I disliked getting mixed up with gangers in this town, but I disliked missing this months rent even more. I sent Regina the confirmation, she sent me the virus attachment, and I started walking. Maybe I'd forget the damn song by the time I got there.

Fat chance.

It stuck with me the whole damn walk.

I finally reached the building at a little past three: Mega-building 03. It was your typical megabuilding in design. A large building sitting atop a smaller cubicle base made It resemble a piston from a distance. Its street level atrium was filled with half stocked vending machines, cardboard boxes, and air conditioners that sparked every time you looked wrong at 'em. A real gem of Night City. I made my way past a few tenants smoking and chatting, hopped on the elevator, and hit the button for B6: Server Room.

A few seconds later I was at my destination. The elevator let out it's customary ding and the rusted doors creaked open. I stepped into a dimly lit corridor that somehow brought the sophisticated charm of your average Night City alleyway right to your basement doorstep so to speak. The concrete walls were weathered and covered in aged graffiti. The floors were strewn with trash and other loose boxes. I crept ahead, towards a window that I found looked over the lower level which was filled with server towers and computers.

On either side of me was a door. I figured they must lead down to where I needed to be so I chose the right door. Turned out to be less right than wrong. As I stepped through the doorway, a hint of movement struck me from out the corner of my eye. A camera. I hit the deck behind the solid balustrade of the staircase as quick as possible. "Sloppy work Sam" I hissed to myself. I gripped my pistol in it's holster and waited. If it had seen me, I'd hear a commotion very soon. 30 seconds went by. Nothing. I lucked out.

I carefully peaked over the railing and timed out how long it took for the camera to do it's sweep. Once it turned away, I vaulted over the railing and hid beneath it. Waited again for another sweep, then made my way to the next door. I quickly checked that the coast was clear, not wanting to tempt fate again with another mistake, and hid behind a few boxes on my immediate right. I was in the server room.

As I listened to my surroundings behind my cardboard palisade, I heard a conversation on the closer end of the room. I peaked my head over my fortress of beige to see if I could spot the orator of this supposed scolding. Tyger Clawz. Nothing is ever easy. I spotted three in all. One was a woman, head shaved on one side and bright blue sweeping hair on the other. The two other men were bigger, bulkier, run of the mill apes you see being hired for simple muscle work. All of them were armed. From what I could tell, the woman was berating the other two for touching something they apparently weren't supposed to.

I waited for a few minutes as the woman finished her scolding and headed to the back room with one of the big apes. The other one stayed behind and began to work on the wiring of one of the servers, assumedly as punishment. As luck would have it, right next to this big baboon was a large screen that all the servers seemed to connect to. I knew that was my ticket to completing this job and getting paid.

Judging by the frustrated grunting, I didn't think this poor primate knew what he was doing, and being the good Samaritan that I am, I decided to lend a hand.

I crept up from behind my barricade of boxes and quietly made my way behind him.

"No the blue one goes on top, and the red one on bottom." I stated from over his shoulder.

"Oh ok. I never understa-… Hey wait a second there-"

Thump. I quickly introduced the butt of my pistol to the side of his head. One could say they really hit it off.

As he slumped against the side of the wall, I quickly dragged him out of sight of the doorway. Just in case. I peaked around the corner again to make sure no one saw, then proceeded to the large screen panel. "Almost done" I told myself.

I reached down to my left wrist and opened a small compartment that blended into my skin. It was one of the small cybernetic upgrades I allowed myself. I reached into the compartment, pulled out one end of a thin wire and plugged it into the screen in front of me. So much easier than carrying a device around. It was all in the ole' noggin. Data danced in front of my eyes as I made my way into the server mainframe and uploaded the virus. Done. I breathed a sigh of relief. "That was relatively painless" I said to myself.

"Not for me." Grunted a deep voice over my shoulder.

Before I could even turn around, a sharp pain hit my left jaw. My world spun as I slid along the concrete floor. I stumbled to me feet and reached for my gun, but it wasn't in its holster. Before I could look around for it, the musclehead I thought I knocked out had his hands around my throat, and was lifting me off the ground with surprising ease. "Damn" I thought to myself, "Must have gotten steel plating for his skull." It was a popular modification for underground fighters and made it a real pain to knock someone out for very long. Strike two for me today.

The brute drew me close as his grip tightened and asked "What were you doing with that screen there?" I tried to loosen his grip with little success. Probably had augmented arm muscles as well. I gasped for air and wheezed out "Nudes…"

His face turned to one of confusion and he loosened his grip slightly so I could speak. "What?" he asked.

This was my chance. "Nudes." I repeated as I gasped. "I was…*gasp*… downloading your mom's…*gasp*…nudes. *gasp* Big fan!" I put on my best shit eating grin.

His face turned bright red with rage and I knew my plan may have worked. My guess was that he'd either punch or throw me across the room. Either way, it'd give me chance to run. I ended up being half right. He gave an angry holler as he tossed me not just across the room, but through the overlooking window on the floor above.

I crashed through the glass and rolled along the cement floor. I heard more yelling from my previous location as the other gangers had clearly heard the commotion. I slowly rose from the pile of broken glass and looked towards the elevator. "Perfect." I thought to myself. "The dumb lug tossed me clear onto another floor. No way he can run up here in…" Before I could finish that thought, my new friend leapt from the floor below, sailed over the server towers, and through the now broken window. "My mommy is a saint!" He hollered.

"Bionic legs too!?" I thought.

"How do you even afford all that?!" I yelled right before taking a fist straight to the chest and sailing backwards a good half dozen feet. I remember once wondering what it would be like to be hit by a car. I now regret tempting fate with that question.

I knew I was only a few feet away from the elevator at this point. I scrambled, bloody and bruised into it as fast as I could and smashed the button to take me up. The closing doors were suddenly stopped by two massive hands, and one very angry looking face. I never could catch a break. As he strained to force the doors open bit by bit, I thought I'd throw a punch of my own this time. It landed straight to the head, and nearly broke my damn hand. It was definitely steel plated. It was his turn to wear the shit eating grin.

I was running out of options fast. The second he forced the doors open all the way, I was a dead man. I'm ashamed to say that I only had one option left and I didn't quite fancy using it. At this point though, anything was better than being squashed by momma's boy here.

"Sorry about this choom, but we're at max occupancy here." I declared as I swept my foot back, and then forward right between the legs. Lucky for me, his balls were the only thing not brass on him. The poor fella went pale as a ghost as he let go of the elevator doors and dropped to his knees. His pals rounded the corner just as the doors finished closing and I began my ascent.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I slumped against the elevator wall. That could have gone better.I had a few broken ribs, but I was alive and about to get paid. I quickly limped as fast as I could away from that damn building as soon as I hit my floor. Made sure I wasn't being followed for a few blocks and then headed straight for a nearby diner I knew. After I cleaned up a bit in the restroom, I found a nice dimly lit booth and sank into the red faux leather. Pure heaven.

I messaged Regina that the job was done as the waitress brought me a cup of coffee. Shortly after, I saw that 900 dollars were deposited into my account. Another job well done. I was just about to flag the waitress down for my order when I heard it. Over the diner radio came the song that was stuck in my head. "Papa was a rolling stone." Not two seconds after it started, almost like a natural reflex, a passing line cook reached over from behind the kitchen, and turned the dial to something else.

I smirked and shook my head.

No one plays the oldies anymore.