Chapter 1

I've heard lots of different opinions on dying and death from all sorts of people over the course of my short life. It's a pretty common topic when you live in a city that has an average of twenty murders a day. Ah Night City, never change from your meat grinder ways.

Where was I? Oh, right! Dying. Because that's what is happening to me at this very moment. I'd like to say that my life was flashing before my eyes but with only twenty-two, rather boring, years to go through, it wouldn't be very entertaining as I lay here bleeding out from a gaping gunshot wound through my stomach.

It's funny, really. A lot of people have said that death is such a cold thing. But me? I only feel searing heat and the frantic thumping of my heart as it tries to push blood through my body to keep it alive while, ironically, killing me faster. I'm pretty sure that I'm in shock right now. There's no way I should be this calm about my impending death. Especially when it's over something so fucking stupid!

Why am I dying? Simple. I needed some extra money to pay rent on my little one-person apartment. I'd recently been fired from my shitty job as a slop jockey and replaced with a sixteen-year-old kid who'd take ten percent less pay than me. And my pay was shit to begin with. So, I did what I could for who I could to earn whatever amount I could.

A chick I used to work with heard about me doing shit for shit pay and asked me to do something for her. Her input wasn't taking 'get lost' seriously enough, so she wanted someone to tell him to fuck off and she offered me a few hundred eddies in exchange. Easy enough. I have no problem with telling the guy off and knocking a few of his teeth out, if necessary. It's not like it would be the first time I was in a fistfight. Hell, not even the hundredth time.

Thing is, the bitch didn't mention why she ditched her input in the first place. It's because the bastard was having himself carved up and filling every nook and cranny of his body with as much chrome as he could. All so he could hang with his new borg-buddies in Maelstrom. No way was I going to punch someone whose head was mostly metal. Hell, I didn't even get to do more than confirm he was the guy before he shot me in the gut and left me here to bleed out.

So yeah, it looks like this is how I go out. Shot just 'cause by some gangoon while trying to make a few eddies to pay rent. Ain't life grand? I feel a burning sensation in my throat before being forced to cough up a glob of something black and covered in blood. Every movement sent overwhelming signals of fire and burning to my overwhelmed brain.

Fuck I wish I could have a smoke right now.

I lay back and close my eyes to accept the inevitable. It's not like I have Trauma coverage. Ain't no one going to help some random dude bleeding out in a trash-filled alley. I'm definitely incapable of making it to a Ripper Doc and even if I was I couldn't pay. I'm unequivocally fucked.

…

What the fuck is that? Am I hallucinating from blood loss? Is my brain slowly dying from asphyxiation? Maybe my optics are glitching as my brain shuts down. Seriously, is that a fucking health bar? Did my biomonitor flip out and decide to display how close I am to dying? If so, fuck I'm close. Real or not, reading one out of one hundred sounds about right. I open my eyes to stare up at the black sky and spot something else that instantly registers as impossible, a fantasy, or yet more signs that I am clearly dying... or dead.

[Begin Character Creation?

Y/N]

I close my eyes and the red floating screen vanishes, though it is still there when I open them once more. Well fuck. I'm pretty sure I'm losing my mind right about now, but hell. Yes, let's begin character creation. Might as well have a bit of fun as I slowly go insane and die.

As soon as I thought that, the world seemed to freeze as my vision was dominated by a red screen. On the screen stood two versions of myself, one male and the other female. I'm pretty sure seeing myself with a female body should cause some sort of existential crisis. Instead, I calmly select the male body. I've been a guy for the last twenty-two years, no goddamn way I'm switching to a woman! I don't mean any disrespect to women but... well being a guy is just easier.

After selecting my male body the screen changed and presented me with options for changing how I looked. Curious, I tried changing a few things and watched as the avatar of myself on the screen changed. So... assuming I'm not bat-shit insane, or dead, would any changes I make actually happen? Fuck me! If I chose the chick avatar would I really become a woman?! Oh god, my brain hurts.

I take a few moments to breathe deeply which is when I notice something. It doesn't hurt to breathe! I slowly inhale and feel my chest expand as copious amounts of air flows into my lungs. When I exhale I pay close attention to every sensation and can't help smiling at the complete lack of any pain. A few moments ago I was barely breathing to avoid the flaring intense pain it caused. I'd like to move and check out what's going on with my stomach, but I simply can't. Paralysis maybe?

Yeah, pretty sure I'm dead right now. Eh, whatever. I want to finish making my character.

With that in mind I go through the options one at a time and check every possible one. Might as well so I can see the possibilities right? I'm not sure how long I've spent checking all the options but, I think I've made up my mind. I don't want to change myself too much. It would be fucking weird seeing a stranger's face in the mirror. I did make some tweaks though. It was a little disconcerting when I got to the options involving my genitalia. But hey! I made some minor tweaks in that area. Who needs a Mr. Stud anyway?

I only made very minor changes, mostly to tweak out the things my father gave me and replace them with things that reminded me of my mother. Let's just say that my 'father' was a shit stain on humanity and move on from there. My mother though, she gave me the best she could in this city and never blamed me for what my father put her through. I was lucky to have her and if I ever happen to come across the bastard that murdered her his death will be epic.

With all the changes to my body finished, I moved on to the next area. Which, if nothing else I'd seen so far managed to do, proved this was some sort of game illusion hallucination thing. Attribute points. I had five categories to choose from, Body, Intelligence, Reflexes, Technical Ability, and Cool. All of which started at three. Not sure what the maximum was so... is three low, average, or high? No idea.

I could make baseless assumptions on what each did, or I could read the descriptions that came up when I focused on one.

So, Body is pretty cool. It gives me extra health, stamina, and damage when punching shit or using a melee weapon, wielding big ass guns, and when grappling.

Intelligence was all focused on netrunning, something I know nothing about, so kinda useless to me. Still, it increased cyberdeck ram along with quickhack damage and cooldowns. I dunno what some of that shit means but I know a good hacker can kill a dude with just a look. Shit, if rumors are to be believed, the right hack can make you blow your own brains out. Scary shit.

Reflexes would make me move faster, increase crit chance (totally a game term!), boost damage from mantis blades and monowire weapons, and increase something called 'Mitigation Chance.' Mitigation chance is a random chance of reducing damage from an attack by fifty percent. Random defenses are a terrible idea in any game. Give me straight damage reduction any day over random chance.

Technical Ability would let me unlock doors, use Tech weapons, and increase my armor. Tech weapons were a pretty big deal since they could easily pierce through most walls and shit. Also, more armor! Like I said, give me straight damage reduction any day over random chance!

Lastly is Cool. Just the name is cool. Heh. Seriously though, Cool did a lot for me. Cool focused on stealth a lot and would increase crit damage, increase Resistances (What'd I say?!), stealth damage, increase how long it would take someone to spot me in stealth, and straight up increased grapple time by a second per point.

So... fuck. Aside from Intelligence, everything seemed useful to me. I'd never been the smartest but I was no gonk. Hacking and shit just wasn't for me. I had seven points I could spend to increase each attribute up from three. I checked really quick and the most I can increase an attribute to is six. I can't lower any below three.

I spent a while thinking about what I wanted to do before making up my mind. I wasn't sure what else was possible so I went with what I knew. In the end, I have: 5 Body, 3 Intelligence, 5 Reflexes, 5 Technical Ability, 4 Cool.

Why'd I go that way?

Well, I've always been good with my fists so having a stronger body made sense to me. Plus, ya know, punching shit harder is good. Right? Intelligence is useless to me so, fuck it. Moving quicker means throwing more punches and if I can get my hands on some monowire, Reflexes will be awesome. Technical Ability just because it straight-up buffs armor. I swear I'm getting some body armor so I don't have to deal with this getting shot shit again. Though, breaking into places would be nice too. And Cool because resistances and well... it's cool! Heh.

Once I finished selecting my attributes, I moved to the next screen which showed some weird profile about me and asked if I was finished. I double-checked everything before I confirmed I was finished. As soon as I did, everything went black and I instantly felt... different. I couldn't tell you how or what was different, but something definitely was.

When the darkness cleared the world returned in all its glory and I was still laying in a trash-filled alley in a pool of my own blood. Yet, things were different. For one, I was no longer in any pain. I slowly pushed myself up until I was sitting expecting a sudden flair of agony with every movement. I was surprised when I managed to sit up fully and look down at my stomach without feeling even a twitch of pain. I gingerly lifted my shirt, still sporting a bullet hole, and looked at my smooth stomach. No hole, no blood, no scar even. Nothing to show I'd been shot just a short time ago. I gingerly ran my hand over where the wound had been in disbelief. My disbelief grew when I spotted that health bar from before, it was slowly increasing from the one it had shown me before and getting higher as I watched.

I felt something bubbling up my throat and was somewhat surprised when I began laughing hysterically. I didn't stop laughing even as I felt tears rolling down my cheeks and saw them dripping onto my shirt.

When I finally stopped laughing I whispered, "I'm alive."

It took some time for that to sink into my thick skull. I'm alive. I'm not going to die.

"I'M NOT GOING TO DIE!"

I don't know how long I spent laughing, crying, and screaming that I wasn't going to die. I wasn't brought out of it until I unconsciously punched the concrete beneath me. I felt a dull thud but none of the expected pain that would come from punching stone at full strength with a bare hand. I lifted my hand up and stared at it in wonder. I didn't feel any pain at all and the skin of my knuckles wasn't even torn like it should have been.

I flexed my hand open and closed a few times before I experimentally punched the ground once again. I felt the same dull thud of the impact, but no pain, no torn skin, no blood. That brought me out of it and let me focus on my new reality. I needed to know more to move forward. If... if this game system thing was real... Well, I don't really know. But, it should be able to help me right? If the attributes are real then I can get stronger. If I can get stronger I can find a real fixer and get some real gigs to make money.

I could become a LEGEND.

I climbed to my feet and uselessly dusted myself off. My clothing was still stained with the blood I lost and there was a thick drying puddle of my life force coating myself and the ground. I ignored it all. I needed to get back to my shitty apartment, take a shower, and figure out this fucking thing and how to use it to make my life better.

I looked around and grunted as I remembered where I was, way up in Northside, Watson. I needed to get all the way to my shitty place in The Glen, Heywood. At least I could walk over to the El Coyote Cojo for a couple of shots. It was always nice to see Mama Welles too. She seemed to insist that anyone around a certain age call her that. It was a nice place, so long as you didn't step on any Valentino toes. They wouldn't do anything inside, but once you stepped outside your ass was theirs.

I started walking toward the tram station I used to get here. Since I had nothing better to do, I tried to see if I could figure more out about whatever the game stuff was. What was it they said in those old stories?

"Status?"

Nothing.

"Menu?"

Nothing.

"Main menu?"

Aha! With that command, a red screen appeared with five options listed side-by-side. Crafting, Inventory, Map, Character, Journal. Huh. I honestly wasn't expecting the ability to craft, none of the stuff in the character creation mentioned it. Weird. Selecting Crafting pulled up another screen with two options, Crafting, and Upgrades. Neither of which could be used. Not that there was much to craft, I could only make ammo and needed something called 'Common Item Components' to do so. No idea where to get that shit, moving on.

Back at the main menu, I noticed a few things I missed the first time. At the top of the screen, I could see my level, 1, my street cred, also 1, The weight of stuff I was carrying, 2/200, and my eddies, a paltry 300. Right, broke as fuck, moving on.

I checked the Inventory option next which actually had two more options when I focused on it, Backpack and Cyberware. I decided to check the main inventory option first. It was pretty much what I would expect from a game, that being weapon and clothing slots. It was odd seeing three weapon slots since I knew guys that carried a dozen weapons on them at once, but whatever.

The backpack option showed a whole lot of nothing. Just the clothing I was wearing and a bunch of empty boxes. Something to experiment with later. As for the cyberware option, well that listed a bunch of spots for chrome to be installed and they were all empty. Unsurprising since I have ZERO non-standard chrome installed. What bugged me was how few slots there were. Like, only one leg slot? Only one hand slot? One arm slot? The fuck? All I currently had were a Biomonitor, optics, shard slots, and a personal ID link. Shit every adult had.

It's not that I had anything against getting some chrome or that I wanted tons of the stuff. I just couldn't afford it and I refused to settle for some cheap ass repos. Just the idea of having something that was installed inside someone else stuffed into me seemed disgusting. Blech. Also, having too much chrome can lead to cyberpsychosis, I don't want to lose my shit more than I already have. Moving on!

The map... was a map. Shocker. Though it did show how the city was split into different territories and which gangs were generally in charge of the territory. The place I lived in, Heywood, was run by the Valentinos. Where I currently was, Watson, was run by those borg fucks in Maelstrom. Maybe it'd be more useful in the future. Moving on.

Character, now this was an important looking screen. It listed the five attributes I'd been messing with in my character creation. However, now when I focused on them I got even more details! And FUCK did the character creation not give nearly enough information! The attributes were arranged in a pentagram on the screen but I still started with Body, which had THREE goddamn subcategories! Athletics, Annihilation, and Street Brawler. All of which had their own levels that went up to twenty, along with things called perks, which I had zero 'Perk Points' to spend on them.

Ugh. Too much information. Fuck it. I'll go through it all later. I just get a general idea of what the various branches all relate to and move on to Reflexes. There's another three subcategories, Assault, Handguns, and Blades. Technical Ability has Crafting and Engineering. Intelligence has Breach Protocol and Quickhacking. Cool has Ninjutsu and Cold Blood. Gotta say, being a ninja sounds preem as fuck.

I'll check all that shit out later. It's way too much to focus on let alone try to comprehend right now. I'm in no rush either since I got zero points to spend on anything. Meaning it's all currently useless to me. Moving on!

Lastly is Journal which also breaks down into Messages and Shards. Wait, is the fucking game thing going to keep track of my texts? The fuck for? Whatever. The main Journal tab looks like a quest tracker of some kind. Hard to tell since it's empty. Messages is also empty along with Shards. Sooo useless at the moment.

So, I think I need to level up at least once to see if this game shit is legit. For that, I guess I need to kill and complete quests? Following game logic, fixers giving a gig would probably be a quest. So, need to find a fixer anyway. As for killing dudes... Well, no one was going to complain or miss a dead gangoon or fifty except other gangoons. That reminds me. I could, potentially, do some scanner hustles.

The NCPD are so overwhelmed that they offer bounties for people to go and do their job for them. It's not something a lot of people are willing to do since it can put you on the wrong side of the gangs in Night City. I'm pretty desperate though. I need money, I probably need experience to level, and I need to start building a reputation. That Street Cred stat is at the bottom of nothing and it needs to go up. On the plus side, killing the gonks the NCPD wanted would let me take all their stuff. Free guns, money, meds, and so on. Just needed to pull off one job and I would have the stuff to do the next one.

First, no matter what I want to do, I need a piece of iron. As I step into the tram station one of the many many vending machines catches my attention. Fuck. Not a piece of iron, a piece of plastic. I can't afford a real gun and I need something to shoot people with. The only thing I can afford is... a Slaught-O-Matic. The cheapest piece of shit on the planet. A gun that's ninety percent plastic, holds thirty-six rounds, and can't be reloaded. It kicks like a mule, will melt if left in the sun, and is likely to jam or break if not carefully watched. The only things positive about it are it's only a hundred eddies and you can buy them almost anywhere.

And the one I just got is fucking pink. Great.