A Lighter Shade of Black
Yorinobu Arasaka paced the open floor of his penthouse impatiently.
He observed the streets of Osaka. From high up the neon signs, the bright lights, they all cut deep, sprawling scars
He could see where the crumbling inner ring of Osaka met the rest of the city. A rough, lawless place where drunks and rockerboys looking to establish a following roamed.
I can save them. He thought bitterly, Not just Osaka, not just Japan. I can save all of them.
He sat down on the couch, bringing up the schematics again.
Silverhand. He mused, Had circumstances been different, could you and I have been allies?
Part of him doubted it, the rockerboy-turned-terrorist was a rebel through and through. He would have refused to acknowledge Yorinobu as either.
How could the heir incumbent of the Arasaka family possibly embody the harbingers of rebellion that rockerboys were supposed to be?
How could a man who had rejoined the fold of his corporate family consider himself a rebel?
Some days, Yorinobu asked himself those same questions. He always told himself the same thing. He was resisting his father in a different way, trying to change the system from within.
He was a liar.
The truth was far simpler. He had lost.
He had become jaded, abandoned his dreams of his bōsōzoku rising up and leaving the Arasaka Corporation shattered, disjointed.
He scoffed, reaching for a glass of whisky. The Steel Dragons had barely made any impact on Tokyo alone, and now, nearly fifty years later, nobody remembered them except as a blemish on Yorinobu's name.
Forgive me. He begged the memory of Johnny Silverhand. In another life, in another time, I might have freed you. Might have given you a second chance and tried to walk by your side.
He downed the whisky in one gulp, savoring the taste of the aged alcohol.
Arasaka Single Malt Whisky- Night City HQ Memorial Edition.
His rockerboy past, his rebellious soul. They must well and truly be dead, or else he would have thrown up at the sick irony of drinking a toast to the fallen rockerboy with a product his family had made to further besmirch the blood that he had shed to try and make an impact.
Perhaps I could have befriended you. He mused, Johnny Silverhand and an Arasaka son tearing down Saburo Arasaka's life's work, wouldn't that be something.
But instead, you will be my weapon. he sighed, a call from his sister being brought up on his vision. I cannot give you a second chance, but I can give you this. I will use your sacrifice to burn down this corporation.
"Hanako." he greeted curtly, his penthouse was staffed by foreigners by his own request. To speak Japanese after so long felt... odd.
"Brother. I know what you are planning." Hanako said, eyes dark with concern. "I beg of you, do not do this."
"I must." he sighed, "The sickness of our family, it has plagued the world for far too long."
"It is not a disease!" she slammed her hands on her desk, "We have the resources and reach to make things better for people, it is our responsibility to do so!"
Yorinobu stood up, temper flaring.
"Is that why you ordered that expedition into the Old Net?" he demanded, Hanako's eyes narrowed, "Yes, I know about that. Nearly ten years ago now. Father uplifted a dozen street rats, offered them positions as cogs in the company, a life barely better than what they came from. And still you 'reassigned' them, using them as bait in the Old Net!"
"You speak of matters which you are ignorant, brother." Hanako hissed. Yorinobu could only bark a hollow laugh.
"They were children, Hanako!" he was shouting now, "The oldest among them were ten years old! The youngest was eight! How could you possibly do something so heinous even our own father, our 'glorious emperor' could not even fathom?!"
"You are wrong." Hanako stated plainly. "Father knew."
"What...?" Yorinobu couldn't say that such cruelty was beneath his father, however he still held onto some hope, some small dream that his family was merely sick, misguided.
"I told him of my plan to use talented netrunners to lure out Alt Cunningham and Rache Bartmoss." Hanako continued, voice neutral. "He approved."
Yorinobu collapsed onto the sofa, running his hands through his hair.
"So what will you do, now that you know what I am planning?" he asked, "Will you tell father? Will you have his right hand cut me down?"
"I will not." Hanako said, in english this time. "I will hold on to hope that you will come to your senses and return to us.
Yorinobu could not find the words to address his sister.
"My greatest relief." responded, also in english. "Is you have never been able to recover the few children that escaped. For the sake of your soul, Sister."
Yorinobu ended the call before his sister could respond.
As fat globules of rain began to pelter the penthouse windows, Yorinobu thought of Hanako.
The timid, attached sister of his youth.
Sheltered from the world, innocent of it's cruelty. A carefree girl, seeking adventure in the net, lighting up with joy whenever he could stomach returning home.
Burying his face in his hands, Yorinobu wept for that girl.
Tools of Destruction
"David! Lucy!" Rebecca waved at them from behind the reinforced glass of the shooting range. "What's up, chooms?"
"Becca!" Lucy waved back, "We brought some friends, trying to get David some iron he feels comfortable using."
"Cool, cool!" the smaller woman grinned, turning her attention back to the range and letting loose a barrage of fully automatic bullets. "Well get your butts in here!"
V and Valerie got themselves set up on the booths to the direct left of David. Valerie loading shells into a 'Tactician' shotgun, V adjusting the sights on a rusty DR5 Nova.
Lucy was in the booth to the direct right of David, glaring down the sight of her trademark Unity pistol. She took slow, methodical shots, cursing under her breath at every miss.
Rebecca was on the other side of her... the less David thought about what she was doing, the safer he felt.
"Alright kid." Viktor and Jackie sat and observed the group from the other side of the glass, "Remember your breathing."
"Hey, Doc?" David said, cocking the charging handle on a MA70 HB that Valerie had brought with her. "Been meaning to ask, what's with the focus on my breathing?"
"Been usin' your sandevistan lately?" Viktor asked, chuckling with Jackie as the recoil sent the LMG slamming directly into David's chest "How does it feel?"
"Feels... different, actually." David coughed, setting aside the gun. "Sometimes I feel faster than I've ever been, other times just barely faster than everyone else."
"That all?" Viktor prodded, David shook his head, loading a Testera double barrel.
"Feels great." David said, flinching slightly as gun fired a spray of buckshot at the target he aimed at. "Haven't been counting how many times I used it for a few weeks now."
"David!" Lucy chastised, setting her pistol aside to try and find something to smack some sense into her boyfriend with.
Jackie roared with laughter, Viktor stifled a chuckle.
"It's all right, Lucy." he said, trying to sooth her with his calm tone, mirth still bleeding into his gravelly pitch. "That's why I'm gettin' him to focus on his breathing."
Lucy and David both looked at Viktor, puzzled. David had a BudgetArms Guillotine held limply in his hands.
"I'm assuming your old ripper didn't tell you that your Sandevistan wasn't calibrated for you?" Viktor asked, crossing his arms.
"You have to calibrate them?" David asked, a blank look on his face.
Catching Lucy's glare, he turned, busying himself with trying to hit the targets with the SMG. Sighing, Lucy returned to her aim training routine.
"Yep." Viktor said, "Most Sandy's have a minimum and maximum output, specially calibrated neuralware helps regulate that to whatever you need at the moment.
"And if it wasn't calibrated?" Lucy asked, eyeing David nervously.
"'Fraid your suspicions are right." Viktor said, "Your Input there has been firing up that sandevistan of his at max capacity, at a rate that was calibrated for a man with much more cyberware on him."
David suddenly busied himself with checking that all the parts of the Achilles Tech Rifle he had picked up were clean, avoiding Lucy's deathly cold glare.
"Lucky we caught it in time." Viktor said, "David's cyberware resistance is remarkable, but his body wouldn't have held up for more than a few years at the rate he was going."
Rebecca adjusted her jacket, she could have sworn Lucy's gaze had lowered the temperature in the room by at least a couple of degrees.
"That's what the breathing's for." Viktor said. "Rather than rely on neuralware. I tried a more... natural solution."
"That being?" David asked, pausing slightly as he fired the tech rifle.
Hmm.
"The sandevistan is tied to your bio-mon." Viktor explained, "Your mind activates the sandy's effects, but your body, your stress levels, that's what regulates how fast you actually go."
"So what the breathing is actually doing is-"
"Making sure you're keeping as cool a head as possible." Viktor nodded. "That's what legends like Morgan Blackhand have that makes them special compared to your average punk.
David put the tech rifle down, thinking to himself. After a brief moment, he picked up a different gun. A Tsunami Kyubi precision rifle.
"Legends, huh?" he muttered to himself.
"Speaking of legends, Val, who did you say you looked up to?" V asked, smirking.
"You motherfucker." Valerie sighed, rolling her eyes.
"That's not an answer." the younger sibling teased.
"Fine!" Valerie snapped, "Fine... It's Saburo Arasaka, happy?"
"The fuckin' Emperor?" Lucy chuckled, "Guess you are a corpo through and through."
"Fuck off." Valerie laughed, "I don't mean like that. I mean more... he's a hundred and fifty years old. He's damn near untouchable, and he's the most powerful man on the planet. You can't tell me that's a little admirable."
"I guess a little." David conceded. What would he do, with that much power? The answer was simple really. He'd take Lucy and he'd make sure nobody could hurt her like she had been in her past, ever again.
"Shame he used that power to be a fuckin' asshole." Rebecca muttered.
"Major asshole." Lucy agreed.
"Alright then, David." Valerie said, "Your turn."
David scratched the back of his head, turning slightly pink.
"Well..." he trailed off, picking up an Overture revolver.
"I swear if you say Maine I'm going to barf." Rebecca said, reloading her machine gun. Lucy giggled at that.
David smiled, both at Rebecca's joke and at his girlfriend honestly having fun.
"Nah. Maine was... somewhere between the dad I never had and an older brother." David sighed, "If I had to pick someone I looked up to... Johnny Silverhand."
"The terrorist?" Lucy raised an eyebrow.
"Not a terrorist." David said firmly, "Met a guy in Jig Jig street who was around when he was still kicking. He was a rebel, he used his music to spread his message and started a revolution."
"Started the Time of the Red too." Rebecca chimed in.
David sighed, "Well I guess when you put it that way, it doesn't sound so great. What about you?"
"Don't have one." Rebecca said cockily, "I ain't trying to be the second Saburo Arasaka or the second Johnny Silverhand. I'm tryin' to be the first me."
"Fair enough." David conceded. "Lucy?"
"Honestly?" Lucy said, "I'm in the same boat as Becca. Or at least somewhere around that."
"My kind of people!" Jackie chuckled, "Whole world's gonna talk about Jackie Welles, one of a kind!"
"Alright then... V!" David said, "What about you?"
The former nomad chuckled, "Not gonna be that interesting." he said. "He's a guy that used to help out when I was younger. Never ran with the Bakkers, not officially, but whenever we'd run into Raffen... he'd be there, driving them off almost by himself."
"What was his name?" David asked.
V shrugged, "Wouldn't tell me. Most he did was tell me to call him Uncle Black."
Valerie looked pensive at that. or at least David thought so, sharing a look with Lucy confirmed he wasn't the only one who saw it.
"All right, kiddos." Valerie said, clapping David and V on the back. Both of the younger men frowned at her. "What are we feeling?"
"Got my sights set on these two." David said, holding up the Kyubi and the Overture.
"Interesting." Viktor said, folding his arms, "Mind explaining why?"
David grinned, "Told me yourself, Doc. Legends keep their heads clear and stay calm under pressure. If I have enough time to line up just a single shot that matters, guess I don't need to fire a lot of bullets then, do I?"
Viktor chuckled, "Now you're getting it, kid." he smiled, nodding in approval.
"As for me." V said, holding up a Lexington machine pistol. "My old revolver is a rusted piece of shit, figured I'd modernize a bit."
Valerie grinned, "All right, Baby Bro, David. Keep 'em. Consider it a gift."
"You sure?" V asked.
"Gonna need all the eddies you can get your hands on for that new Cyberdeck you were looking at." Valerie said, grin still on her face. "And there was also that other thing you two were talking about."
David's face lit up, "Oh that! Right, that uh... Good point!" he stumbled over his words.
Lucy looked at him, suspiciously. Her boyfriend did everything in his power to avoid meeting her gaze.
Sighing, she shrugged.
If it's important, he'd tell me she said, intertwining her fingers with his.
I Really Want To Stay At Your House
David sighed, the moon was visible from the roof of Lucy's apartment tonight.
The discarded remains of their dinner lay cooling in a pile, portable radio tuned to Body Heat, a familiar tune began to play.
"Remember this song?" Lucy asked, David hummed.
"You played it when we were in the Moon BD." he nodded, "I guess that was our first date, technically."
Lucy leaned, resting her head against David's shoulder. "I like it, it reminds me of you now."
They sat in silence, letting the song play out.
"Lucy..." David swallowed nervously.
Here goes nothing.
"What's up, David?" Lucy quirked her head, looking at her boyfriend.
"About that thing me, Val and V were talking about." he took a deep breath.
"Finally gonna tell me what it is?" she teased.
"What if we moved in together?"
Lucy's breath hitched in her throat. She definitely hadn't expected him to ask that.
"My mom's place is a chapter of my life that's behind me, now." David said with a nostalgic smile, "Of when I was lost, without a dream. Hiding behind my mom, and when she was gone, hiding behind Maine."
Lucy stared at David, at the pale moonlight accentuating the soft features of his face.
Ah... the Moon is beautiful today. She thought, though she hadn't looked up the entire night.
"Got a lot of good memories at your apartment as well." David continued, "So I thought, if you were cool with it-"
"Yes." Lucy said, planting a kiss on his cheek. Chaste but warm. "A hundred times, yes."
David's face broke out into a genuine, ear to ear beam. Lucy felt a warmth spread from her core all the way up to her face.
The Moon is very beautiful today...
As they sat, Lucy hummed as she recalled something she had heard her boyfriend just say.
"You said the time when you didn't have a dream was behind you?" she asked, David nodded.
"Mind telling me what it is?" she prodded.
"The Moon." he said frankly.
"The Moon's my dream, gonk-brain." she said with a smile, though she guessed it wasn't the full truth, not anymore. "Still chasing after other people's dreams?"
"No." David said softly, "I keep seein' how happy you were when you talk about the Moon, or even when we were in that BD."
Lucy smiled, the BD she had shared with him was different from all the other times she had retreated to her virtual moon, it held a special place in her heart.
"That's my dream, to make you happy." David said, turning to look Lucy in the eyes.
The warmth in her core was a raging inferno now. Threatening to consume her entirely.
"That's your dream?" she whispered, trembling slightly.
"Half of it." David whispered, taking her hands. "The other half is this. What we have now. I want this forever."
Lucy drew in a shocked half-breath.
Forever was a long time, not least of all in Night City.
"Forever's a long, long time." she whispered, letting David pull her in close. "Sure you're up for it?"
"Forever with you?" David whispered, "Always."
Lucy pressed another kiss to David's lips, less chaste this time. Hungry, passionate.
Forever wasn't assured. Not for Johnny Silverhand, not for her, not for Saburo Arasaka.
Not in this City, not in this reality
Lucy gasped as David pressed a kiss to her neck, letting her boyfriend take the lead.
But for now... please just give me this...