The medics said that the bowlcut would get out in about fourteen days with normal recovery times. They had to pull all the shards out of his chest, glue him up again, and wait for the meds to do their work. They could use an IV drip with Speedheal too, but that cost extra. Adam was annoyed that it would be two weeks before the bowlcut recovered enough for training, seven even with Speedheal. He was already completely pathetic in a scrap, so the long delay before his organs patched themselves up was incredibly annoying.

No, the bowlcut wasn't going to be much help against the Meatfucker. Of course, the moment he thought that, the bowlcut showed some fucking initiative and asked for permission to purchase a small bioware suite. Skinweave, Enhanced Antibodies, and Nanosurgeons. It would make him a bit tougher overall, and heal much faster.

The medics estimated it to be about four times faster overall. He would be up in two and a half days instead of two weeks, and that was with no Speedheal. With Speedheal, he'd be at full capacity again in two days. The wonders of regenerating meat, two days compared to his half a minute with a spare frame on hand.

Adam approved, the bowlcut was actually going out of his way to get an upgrade, he didn't have to tell him to get it. Of course, then the boy got sulky for a bit over the other getting an upgrade. That lasted for all of about five seconds until Adam told him to get the same package. Tougher skin and faster healing was only going to make training go faster, and a bit of meatware was hardly going to make the boy go over the edge.

In truth, Adam had forgotten about bioware to heal faster. Normally if the meatware doesn't have an immediate effect, he didn't notice it at all. Mostly because he hadn't been meat in decades at this point, he only remembered it at all because it turned some meatbags into slightly entertaining fights. They don't survive long enough for healing faster to ever be relevant to him.

So, while waiting for the brats to get their healing implants injected, Adam waited outside with his arms crossed. He got looks as terrified nurses and doctors pointedly avoided looking at him as they passed by him in the hall. Which made sense, meatbags were pathetic, meatbags that specialized in keeping other meatbags alive were probably doubly pathetic. Distributors of mercy, even at exorbitant prices.

Mercy was disgusting. If you needed to rely on someone else to stay alive, you were better off dead.

Trauma Team was one of the few medical meatbags he tolerated for a reason. They were there for the payment, utterly committed to fulfilling their side of the bargain so long as they got paid. He's had scraps against them in the past, back in his early days, and they were always a good scrap. Unfortunately, once their client was secured they usually just bailed rather than stick around to finish the fight. It was always annoying, but understandable.

Adam Smasher was a merc after all, a very old merc. He understood how the business was done.

Idly, he rested against that stark white and neon-red hospital wall, waiting for this shit to be over so he could drill the brats on their strategy and all the ways they went wrong. The most obvious problem was letting the overwatch/netrunner and medic anywhere near the action. Both he and the boy had sandevistans, transport time to the medic was not nearly as much of an issue as they thought it was. The only one who was slow enough to not get there on her own was the blueberry, and she was light enough for anyone else to simply carry.

The blueberry wasn't using her missiles most effectively either. She was expending them all in one go instead of spacing them out. An alpha strike was useful against some targets, but gangers that used knives over guns were not usually one of those. She could have simply disabled the biggest threats with two rockets and waited for the boy or him to deal with the rest.

The boy had also…

He stopped as he got a message from the busty manager of his Arena. That was rare, he focused on that corner of his vision and brought it up to fill his view.

…The leader of the Animals and Tyger Claws were going to fight to the death in his Arena. That was… annoying but potentially good. Lots of revenue from that, if advertised properly. That would give him more funding to work with. He looked over the conditions.

He narrowed his optics.

They were bidding being employed under him like it was theirs to give away. That was frustrating. He made a note to threaten to murder all of them if they tried something like that again. He'd let it pass this time, who exactly he employed didn't matter as much to him as the fact that he needed the role filled, but the principle of the matter stood.

You don't fuck around with shit that belonged to him.

'Make them both do it, if that comes up.' Uriel idly suggested, reviewing manufacturing laws with a somewhat frustrated ripple to his fire.

'So none of them win?' Adam replied, contemplating the thought. That sounded like a decent enough punishment for trying to pull a stunt like this. Meh, might as well, he didn't have a better idea other than 'kill them all if they do this again.' 'Still locked up?' He asked back, even knowing the answer. Uriel's fire broiled for a moment, irritated.

As it turned out, starting up a new business in the modern year was something that required about a thousand and one lawyers to parse through all the legal bullshit. When megacorporations own most business on the planet, many laws are established that make potential competitors very rare. Food stand business and the like were the easiest to get licenses for.

Weapons manufacturing? Nigh impossible to sort through all the legal bullshit and steps involved. Uriel didn't have a brain anymore and he still had a headache thinking about it. There were really only two ways to go about it, one was to do it illegally, which he could not with all the public attention on him. The second was to do it as a subsidiary corporation of Arasaka, and while this was tempting, Adam and Uriel decided against it.

He was fairly sure the Old man would agree to it, he was also sure that he would have to deal with a legion of executives and corporate meddling constantly clamoring for a piece of the pie, or to shut it down with sabotage. Or any other number of bullshit things that he would be forced to deal with. The Meatfucker was less than a year away. He couldn't afford the distraction right now. Maybe after they could revisit it, but not right now.

Uriel grumbled in frustration, and looked around for something to distract himself with. Seeing the Mikoshi-AI staring at him again from underneath the neighboring tower, he waved hello. The Mikoshi-AI slowly waved back with a smallish 'hand' of influence. Uriel smiled, for progress had been made this day. He then went back to trying to ignore the way she kept staring at him.

Uriel paused, and thought for a moment. He looked back at Mikoshi-AI and stared at her. The Mikoshi-AI was staring back.

The Mikoshi-AI wasn't a her before. It was a formless shadow thing with four eyes. Since when was it distinctly feminine in shape? Still mostly shadowy, but with the hints of a female form underneath the impression of some sort of dress. The former eyes hovered around 'her' head, like fireflies.

The Mikoshi-AI broke the stare, ducking its 'head' downwards and not looking at him. He narrowed his theoretical eyes and kept staring, distracted by this new mystery. Adam grunted, scaring the passing doctor, and opened up a random compilation of his murders and played it. He was probably going to be here a while, might as well indulge in his favorite hobby.

…Miko… He should probably set up some shinto shrines to appease the old man. He'd probably like that.

—

The kids wanted to go to Afterlife afterwards. Apparently their old driver was back in town, and wanted to say hello. The bowlcut wasn't going to be going anywhere, it would still be a few hours before he could walk without ripping the wounds open again. This was fine, if they wanted to make the review process that much harder on themselves by being hung over for it, he'd oblige them. They'd do it first thing in the morning tomorrow.

So bowlcut was delivered back to the fortress, and then they loaded up in his reinforced muscle car. Just enough space for five people, two in front and three in the backseat. He was in his Gemini for outings like this, his Dragoon shipped over to the tower for minor repairs and a backup in his closet.

He twisted the old key and started up the engine, plugged in his interface cable, and noticed that the radio was still on and playing that old music disc. The brats stared at him as he drove out from the lot and through the security customs that he paid for. One good glower was enough to get the security to get out of his way.

Most of the shit nowadays was all wireless and whatnot, which was usually a horrible fucking idea. He preferred wired connections, less chance of some random fucker getting lucky and forcing your car off a bridge. Adam had learned his lesson from that back in his Samson days.

He was sloppy back then, and every now and then some punk would be clever or lucky enough to escape him. That was always infuriating, so he upgraded each time something fucked him over. It took only one time being trapped in a fucking net for him to install wolvers in both arms. It took only one EMP for him to get everything shielded. It took only one long repair session to get quickchange mounts and spare arms.

Everytime some fucker screwed him over with something new, he got better tech.

…When did he stop doing that? Sometime after getting the Dragoon frame. There wasn't much need to keep upgrading when nothing could stop you anyways. He got complacent.

He didn't plan to do so again.

He noticed they had arrived, him driving more or less on autopilot to the destination. He grunted and got out, turning off the car, disconnecting himself, and putting the key away in his boot.

He got out, the brats already having done so, excitedly walking over to see their old driver for reasons he couldn't understand. There was nothing stopping this meeting, so why was it special? It could have happened at any time. The woman had paused and turned back to look at him as he stomped forwards, probably because she had no connection with this driver.

What was his name again? Eagle or something.

He walked in, ignoring the bouncer who probably wasn't going to try and stop him anyways. He was Adam fucking Smasher, it was common sense to not get in his way. Inside the place was as packed as it usually was, filled with all manner of stinking meatbags indulging in various vices. He scanned the room with a glare, ignoring the flinching meatbags who saw him looking.

There they were, he stomped over to the kids excitedly chatting away with a familiar nomad. He looked more or less the same, perhaps a bit more tan and with a slight stubble on his face. His fashion was…

Adam took a moment to look at the man who had just finally noticed him. The nomad walked over and smiled politely with a hand out for a handshake. Adam glared but took it and shook hands with the nomad.

"Why hello again, Mr. Smasher. The kids were just telling me all about what they've been up to, well, rambling more like it."

His fashion was good. It was fucking startling to see in the modern day. He hadn't noticed last time.

"Driver. It's unexpected to see a meatbag who knows what clothes look good these days."

The driver paused at that, and scanned his own attire. Then he looked over Adam's attire. He put a hand on his hip and leaned back a tad.

"I could say the same about yourself, sans the meat part of course, didn't know you had a Nomadic fashion sense."

Adam grunted. "Brat, I was killing before the Nomads existed, more like they have my fashion sense."

The driver blinked at that. Adam was more or less done with this conversation at this point though, so he stomped off to get to his usual place at the corner table with the cougar.

She was standing up, and jerked her head to follow her to the back.

He grinned and followed.

—

Falco stared at the form Adam Smasher stomping away. The man would have been unrecognizable in that Gemini of his were it not for the eight foot frame and the widespread publicity of it. The Nomads had pieced together an eight hour-long movie that contained his slaughter of the Raffen Shiv outside Night City. They mass produced it as well as they could, and sold it to other clans for ten eddies a shard.

City dwellers got it for a hundred per shard.

They might number in the tens of thousands across all of America, but having a little more than a thousand die in a single night got them all riled up. With Vincent going around and actively uniting everyone on the west coast that he could, they were able to fend off the angry wasps. The Raffen Shiv couldn't get a foothold around Night City, not anymore. They were killed off, the locals took over the territory best they could, and they were cut off from supply lines by Vincent.

The Wraiths were gone, and the roads on the west coast got a little safer. It was strange knowing that the Butcher was the one to do it. Or… maybe not strange at all? Meh, not worth worrying over too much.

"You think I might have made him mad?" He asked aloud, unsure.

David, looking more well put together than he ever had before, laughed. "Nah, Smasher's just like that. He'll tell you if he's actually mad."

Rebecca yanked on his arm and nearly pulled it out of the socket dragging him over to the bar. "C'mon Falco! How've you been choom?! What's been going on with ya?!"

He resisted and raised a hand and the red-headed woman. "Hey now little missy, I need to introduce myself to the new lady of your crew first."

David smacked his head and grinned. "Can't believe I forgot. Falco, remember how I said my mom was dead? Well, uhh…" He trailed off a bit, before coughing. "Right, she was but they were able to revive her."

Falco stared at him for a moment. He looked at the pained looking red-haired woman. He turned back. "She… would have been dead for over a year, right? I don't know much about medical tech but…"

Little Lucy spoke up. "Arasaka bought her corpse and froze it for testing."

He rolled the thought around in his mind for a bit. He offered a hand to the red-haired woman and smiled all polite-like. "Well, the circumstances are certainly not the best, but I'm glad that it worked out for you. You must be Mrs. Gloria Martinez then, right? David talked about you a lot while you were having an ice-nap."

She smiled back and shook his hand firmly. "Nice to meet you, Falco, right? I've been told about you."

"Good things only, I hope?" he joked charmingly.

"They told me you charged Adam Smasher with a handgun."

He coughed into his fist and turned away to go sit at the table, ignoring the chuckles from the peanut gallery. That probably wasn't one of his wisest decisions, but his blood was hot and riled back then.

"So c'mon choom, no more avoiding the questions. What have you been up to?" Rebecca piped up, and he waved a chrome arm to get her to settle down.

"Well first, I'm going to order another drink from this lovely bartender of ours." He winked at the woman at the counter, who started pouring him another whiskey. "Thank ya doll." He took a sip, savoring the taste for a moment, then set the glass down and turned to face the kids.

"Right then, I drove off to go see an old friend of mine, tell him the news of Night City and maybe find myself a job to do." He briefly locked eyes with the woman he knew as Gloria Martinez. "A friend named Vincent, smart guy, impossible to beat in poker, and an all around scaredy-cat."

Gloria stiffened up at that, and shot him a look. He sent her a brief message asking her to be patient. The kids were enthralled by his little story too much to notice.

"Right, so Vincent has been going around and facilitating connections between the Nomads here in the west, he wanted me on board to help him out, see? The way he figures? He doesn't have to be so scared all the time if he's surrounded by an army of cars and guns, so he's been helping them plan and whatnot. I did that for a few months."

He took another drink of his whiskey. The kids practically bounced as they waited for him to continue.

"Then he started talking to some real shady types, guys in suits who wanted to offer money if the Nomads occasionally did some things for them. They had a little symbol on their suits I didn't recognize. A little green dot on a blue background."

"Now we Nomads do the occasional job for suits, no way around that, simply business. But there were a whole lot of Nomads in one place this time, and a whole lotta manpower. Anyone who can hire that many at one time is above my paygrade. So I told Vincent I was outta there, and then I drove back here to check up on you lot."

He shrugged. "And here I am." He grinned at them. "So c'mon, tell me how've you all been, what have ya been up to?"

They practically clamor over themselves trying to talk. Well, David and Rebecca did, Lucy instead just gave a sarcastic ribbing every now and then with a smile on her face.

After many minutes of back and forth, he eventually convinced them to try and wow him with the new bar tricks they learned. A task they hopped to pronto. While watching them, he opened a call with Gloria.

[Missus Gloria? I'm sure you have questions you don't want the kids to hear.]

She jumped slightly, and gulped before responding.

[Ah, yes… Vincent. You mean Vincent Martinez, right?]

He inclined his head.

[Yes, Vincent Martinez. David's daddy as far as I'm aware. I drove off to tell him you were dead.]

She flinched and looked down to the floor.

[...Did he mention coming here… to visit David maybe?]

He frowned and closed his eyes.

[...I asked him. He never ended up responding to that question.]

He opened his eyes. She slumped, and he could see her try to hold back little tears in her eyes. Goddamn it Vincent, now you made him make a woman cry.

He reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slightly.

[Now I know I'm a stranger, but I like to consider myself a friend of your son, and hopefully one of your friend's too. I'm here if you need a listenin' ear anytime.]

She jumped a little at the contact, looking at him with teary eyes. She rubbed the wetness away and smiled at him.

[Thank you, Mr. Falco.]

He grinned and sipped his whiskey, looking at the kids stacking each other high into the air to the cheering of onlookers in the bar.

[None of that now, we're friends now. Just Falco is fine.]

She leaned back and watched the kids with him.

[Then you'll have to call me Gloria.]

[Can do, Ms. Gloria.]