CHARTER_HILL

The muzzlebore seemed endless, a pit unto the very depths of some unholy mechanism. Ramses just stared at it, the perspective unfamiliar yet kindred at the same time. He could count on one hand just how many times he had been in such a position. The effect was sobering, something about all this uniquely focusing his mind, where every second of his life ticked by in slow-motion, the stimuli his armor allowed him all heightened in that one glorious moment. [1]

The pistol shook in Fiona's grip, the netrunner's strength waning as she held the weapon up, the sights aimed directly at Ramses' head. This might have been the first time she had held a gun before—her grip was clumsy, her fingers positioned in the wrong areas. There was hesitation in her eyes, and fear. Hot tears lingered in the corners of her vision, brought on by a rooted panic and unfamiliarity.

No, just a scared woman, lashing out at a new world.

Ramses merely stood, letting the netrunner put him under her sight. Night City burned a toxic white just out the windows, the glimmer of the skyscrapers and towers of holographic advertisements descending into a blur of pixels. A mosaic, gone nova.

The mercenary kept his hands well away from his own weapons, which were holstered under his coat. He did not access the quickhacks he kept primed in his cyberdeck—no telling if Fiona had wormed any spoofing programs into his system when he had not been paying attention. There was no need for things to get out of hand. Yet. Ramses was never one to shoot without gaining some semblance of understanding first. A scant semblance.

Fiona shivered, ignoring the fact that the cashmere robe she wore was opening wider and wider, providing further glimmers of her pasty skin underneath.

Ramses held out his hand, palm up. "That is not something you should concern yourself with," he said, referring to the pistol. "Give it here."

But the netrunner backed up, just out of reach, breath hitching. "Stay back," her fragile voice whispered, constrained by fright.

The merc's hand remained outstretched, his helmet lidding a judgmental stare. Almost baleful. Another request would not be provided.

"Don't come any closer," Fiona directed, jabbing the air with her pistol for good measure.

"Even if I comply," Ramses said, keeping his tone even, "what will you do afterward? The outside is not as forgiving as it is in here." He tilted his head in the direction of the window. "What will your plan be, upon leaving this apartment?"

"Just shut up!" she all but squeaked. The netrunner rearranged her hands so that both of her fists gnarled upon the grip in a twisting position. The bore steadied, becoming more laser-focused. Arms bent, Fiona's breath came in short gasps, mouth slightly crooked as she angled her eye so that it was behind the sights of the pistol. "Why did you take me away?"

The very same question Ramses had been asking himself since the beginning. Whether she knew it or not, the very conundrum perturbed him more than it did her.

Fiona braved a step forward. Sometimes the pursuit of answers could override all fear. "Tell me! I… am owed that. You got me out of that ice bath, away from NetWatch. Why? You brought me here—kidnapped me—and I know you did it for something. What could have possibly motivated you? Why am I even here?!"

The woman was rightfully disturbed—her entire world had been upended in a matter of seconds by a man she, by all rights, knew virtually nothing about. From a decision that cost him little overall, it had cost her everything.

He wondered if she could have come to the same conclusion that he did, were their roles reversed. Just something about the sight of that 'runner in the bath, all cold and still like a corpse, wired up like a modem, had stirred something dreadful within him. A distinct lack of control, whether willingly or by force, infiltrated the visages of all the ones that he had seen upon going under. Deep into that dark sea of old code and subnet labyrinths. Lines of light in the mind, like a city grid. That shared vision in sublimate. Eerie.

Was that the destiny of all humanity, to surrender themselves to that matrix of their own creation? Or did their purpose still remain in the here and now, to possess the freedoms they were entitled to by virtue of their own life? Surrendering the body to solely feed the mind. A conundrum that the few remaining philosophers could not come to an accord upon.

But for that matter, what right did he have to dictate life on his own whim? He could justify extinguishing it with nary a second thought. But to preserve one?

Perhaps there would be a reckoning with himself one of these days. It would be what she deserved, he had to admit.

Hand still partially extended, Ramses took one step forward. Then another. And another.

"Stay back!" Fiona cried out, both arms rigid as she frantically motioned with the pistol. "Wait—"

Ramses kept moving towards her.

"Wait—!" Fiona tried again, before finally, she clenched down hard on the trigger out of panic.

Only, nothing happened.

Her brow scrunched and she gave a grunt, glancing at the mechanism as she tried squeezing the trigger of the gun again. It refused to budge even a millimeter, her finger straining against the effort without any success.

Taking advantage of her confusion, Ramses reached out and gently took the weapon from Fiona's grip. It just slid from her hands as if Fiona had simply surrendered it, her crestfallen expression joined by a wrenching sob from her throat. A noise of pained impotence. As if she thought of herself as pathetic. Useless.

The merc spun the pistol upon his palm, hit the magazine release and pocketed the clip. He locked the slide open—a bullet, casing and all, spun through the air and loudly bounced on the floor, rolling away into the dark somewhere.

He looked at Fiona, held up the gun and tapped a little lobe on the side of the weapon so that she could see what he was indicating. "Biotag. Only accepts credentials from my hands positioned in a certain way on the weapon. It would have been foolish of me to leave any weapons around that you could actually fire."

Fiona shrank back—now that she was disarmed, Ramses would surely attack her, right?

Her fears were not the case. Ramses simply tossed the ammoless weapon onto the couch, turned with a perfunctory motion, and took the chair closest to the door, facing the woman. He gestured to the couch, noting the discarded blanket and the disconnected tangle of IV tubes from where he had last seen her upon exiting his place. "You can either leave and fend for yourself out there in that metallic sprawl, or stay, and get the answers to your questions."

The 'runner eyed the door before considering Ramses. The lights from the passing aerodynes melted across the bits of his armor that was exposed, as if he were a sculpture made of ice. He sat with his back perfectly molded to the couch, a hand on each armrest, appraising her just as thoughtfully.

Bare feet upon the carpet, Fiona slowly moved back to the couch, now pulling her robe tight against her. Both merc and netrunner kept their eyes locked on the other. Fiona sat upon the couch, as far away from Ramses as possible.

They waited for several minutes in utter silence, the sounds of the city muffled behind thick panes of bulletproof glass.

Ramses shifted in discomfort in the chair. "You are allowed to dictate the conversation," he said. "I'm not doing this as some performative gesture, just to humor you. The offer was genuine."

A steel glint passed across her eyes. "Ask you anything?" When the merc nodded, she provided her first question, but not before she mustered the courage to voice it: "Why did you bring me here?"

Hands now upon his thighs, Ramses just sat in the chair. Staring. Studying.

Fiona was about to ask the question again when he interrupted.

"Later."

She felt her face grow hot with indignation. "You just said I could—"

"And I will. But we need to build trust before I can give you that answer."

Fiona just blew air from her mouth and shook her head in derision. Bending forward, she rubbed a thumb upon her temple. "You don't know," she declared, more to herself than anyone else.

"I know enough. More than you, at least. More than your average gang-banger down there on the street, scuffing concrete, peddling drugs, doing what barely constitutes as a living, content with not making a name for themselves. No, that answer only comes after other questions, or else you might not think that I'm sincere. You're already looking for any excuse to distrust me. That barrier needs to burn between us if this is going to work."

Fiona scratched at the back of her neck with her nails, chewing her lip. Ramses did take stock of the fact that the netrunner's fine motor controls had drastically improved since he had last seen her. Her sentences had been formed without as much effort, and she was able to stand on her own power for several minutes. A far cry from the frozen corpse he had found in that freezer.

"How could I possibly trust anyone?" she asked aloud.

"You'll soon learn that trust is a commodity that is not so easily achieved. You've been handed that lesson your whole life and only now were you able to step outside your limited worldview." The merc drummed his fingers upon the armrests of his chair. "It would be foolish of me to presume that I would earn your trust from one singular 'good deed.' Which… is why we are here. Right now."

Fiona was silent, color rushing into her cheeks. She rubbed her palms together and sighed.

Brushing a strand of auburn hair from her face, she glanced at the floor before meeting Ramses' gaze again. "So what is it that you really do, then?"

"My occupation, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Independent contractor."

"You mean a mercenary."

Ramses raised his hands an inch from his thighs. Dry acknowledgement. "Mercenary. Solo. Rōnin. Street samurai. They have many names for such work in Night City, because there are many out there like me, and there is much work to be had."

Fiona smirked. "Not quite like you."

"What do you mean?"

The netrunner had a knowing look about her. "You think you're better than all of them."

Behind the mask, Ramses frowned. He would not have put it so succinctly, but he could not deny the slash of the question.

But Fiona had rotated in her seat, leaning forward in a distant interest, hands clasped together. "So. You're a killer."

"When I'm paid to be."

"Is killing your preference?"

"I have a knack for it."

The netrunner made a sound with her tongue behind her teeth. "It pays well, I'm guessing?"

Ramses thought for a second. "Depends on how good you are. And the job. Anything involving live bodies typically merits a substantial upcharge on my efforts. Cadavers go with a flat rate, to be increased on a sliding scale based on the quantity of people needing to be flatlined. One needs to be seen as reliable before they can charge premium prices."

"And just exactly how much experience have you accrued?" Fiona lifted her head, a dim curiosity beginning to spark in the embers of her eyes.

He decided to employ a modicum of immodesty. "Enough to be considered a mainstay. In this town, that's a rarity. Do you know how many jobs are successfully pulled off in Night City each day?"

Fiona shook her head.

"Less than half. First-time mercs have the same success rate, to put it in perspective. The street tends to notice these things. You carry out one job to completion, you're an asset. Three, you're reliable. If you've never failed, you're one step away from a legend. But I will say this, if one maintains a certain selectiveness in their work, then that tends to increase their lifespan. Doing jobs for others all the time with little regard to the company one keeps, or the exact nature of the work, just increases the risk, increases the danger."

Fiona clenched a fist several times, as though the nerves there were being increasingly scalded, "Selectiveness. When does it come into play?"

The death's-head mask remained expressionless to her, which must have aided in her frustration when Ramses gave his comparatively plaintive reply. "Depends on certain conditions."

"Such as?"

"The who. The where. The why. Although, the why is a deceptive criteria—better not to know the why. But sometimes clients can't help themselves. They insist on ensuring that the one who carries out the job is aware of the why, which just brings out complexities. Emotions. Things that are just distractions during a job. Does nothing but poisons the other conditions. Some mercs want to know the context. I don't. Not particularly. Not unless it directly affects me."

Shivering, Fiona grabbed for the blanket and placed it over her legs. Her hands returned to clenching one another.

"Was there a who? Besides you, I mean. When you came to… get me."

Ramses lifted his chin, almost considered lying to the woman, before he thought better of it, remembering the reason he was here. "There was not."

A bitter look infiltrated the 'runner's eyes. "I guess it was personal, in a way," she said, harkening back to their earlier conversation.

"Until it wasn't."

"So, what happens now?"

Her answer was forgone for the moment as Ramses slowly stood from his chair without an immediate word. The towers of advertisements that reached far into the night sky slowly scrolled their tapestry of colors past the glass.

"Wait here," he told her as he began to head for the staircase, disappearing into his room, amongst the shadows.

Fiona was left by herself in the room again, uncertain if Ramses held her in a strange trust, or if he was trying to bait her into another attack while his eye was off her. She located the discarded pistol that Ramses had tossed behind on the couch. She had the urge to hurl it against the window in an impotent rage. The device had failed to yield to her and she had been unaware the whole time. It had been the thoroughness at which she had been caught off-guard that had embarrassed her so. Made her feel weak.

She was still sitting in the same position, dully considering the handgun, when Ramses came back down the stairs. He had something perched in the crook of his arm. A soft bundle.

Once he reached the ground, he tossed it to her, underhand. Fiona caught it. The bundle unraveled in her hands—a tactical half-zip coat in Entropism style, a black tank-top, and matching composite pants.

"Clothes?" Fiona arced an eyebrow.

"I don't have any garb for females, so you'll just have to make do," Ramses said brusquely. "A robe won't do you much good out there."

"Out… there?" Fiona stood, the blanket once again being flung from her body and crumpling at her feet. She glanced at the interweave of glass, light, and steel that punctuated the darkened horizon. "Where are we going?"

"Around." Ramses moved past her to stare at the window, putting the netrunner at his back. He would not move from that position—his version of giving her privacy. He allowed a short look behind him. "Can you even recall a moment where you stood outside in the sun? Or sat at a restaurant down there, took a moment for yourself, able to go anywhere you desired?"

Fiona's mouth opened and closed soundlessly as she realized she had no answer and that Ramses had been questioning her rhetorically.

Ramses dimly nodded and turned back to look at the magnificence of the city. "That's why."

The netrunner unfurled the coat. It had a zip that was longer than her torso, plus two oversized zip-pockets, presumably for concealing handguns.

Before she put it on, she spoke: "Ramses."

From the call of his name, the merc turned fully around, the outside world glimmering just behind him. "Yes?"

"One more question. For now." When Ramses remained silent, she took that as an invitation to proceed. "Why do you wear that armor? That helmet? Is there a… reason… or…?"

He almost touched the jaw of his helmet out of reflex, as if he had been struck by the uncertain fear that she could see the faces he could make underneath it.

"A precaution for an event that might never arise," he said. "In this century, Fiona, privacy is nothing but a myth. Even the most secure of buildings can open up to a prying eye, wishing to take a peek into the lives of others. We distribute our names across networks, Net or otherwise, in the hopes of acquiring a reputation. That we, in essence, are a known quantity. It's a blurred line, one that bleeds into our personal lives, and has completely eroded the concept of privacy. No such thing anymore. Not unless one remains fastidious in their own way."

Slowly, Ramses gestured to himself, the motion deliberate, as almost as if he was taking pride in performing such a showcase.

"The armor gives me that privacy, the one thing in Night City that no one else can claim to enjoy. In a sense, it's a priceless thing to possess. It ensures that only so much about me is known, while everything else remains a blank."

It seemed his response had resulted in nothing but confusion for Fiona. She was now looking at him like she was on the edge of terror, that his own personal code was in a language understandable to no one else on the planet. Perhaps she did not even want to understand him, if he was like this. So alien. Severe disciplines often seemed that way.

With a halting hand, Fiona began to shrug the robe from her shoulders so she could undress. Ramses looked back at the city once more.

"Have you ever taken that helmet off for someone?" she asked to his back.

He dipped his head, as if he meant to peruse the dots of pedestrians in their insect-like patterns several stories below, as though he thought he was above their paltry concerns.

"Never."

The night was cool and pleasant, and the streets were only partially full of traffic.[2] Rivers and eddies of red and white lights, wafting upon the pillars of the highways and the walls of the alleys. This early in the morning, only the brave and the violent were out roaming the sidewalks. Dark figures huddled within their coats, breath smoking from their mouths as they walked.

Ramses had retrieved the Mizutani Shion from one of the garages in the building, another one of the many cars he owned around the city, the dark two-seater effortlessly gliding down the roads without expending any more than fifty horsepower. The merc was at the wheel, Fiona in the passenger seat, watching through the windows as the city peeled past like an infinite manuscript.

More than half the establishments that Ramses drove the car past were closed—grilled windows shuttered over unlit windows. A few places selling 24-hour Buck-a-Slices streamed yellow light that spilled out onto the street—beacons for the destitute and the desperate.

He drove along Longshore Street, headed for the Lincoln Bridge, the polluted river next to them. The cops had pulled over someone on the side of the road, judging from the red and blue strobes that animated the side of one of the corporate buildings. The lawmen were out of their vehicle, standing over a tarp that had just been freshly put down upon the sidewalk, covering what was unmistakably a body.

Ramses noticed Fiona's head remaining centered on the sight as they drove past. "You'll get used to that. Happens more times a night than you could count."

"You think they deserved it?" she asked, referring to the body.

"Most of the time, we'll never know," he said, his gaze remaining fixated ahead.

The exit for the bridge was in sight. Ramses hung a left, up the ramp toward it. A thin mist clung to the river—it would be gone an hour after the sun had come up. He positioned the car in the far-left lane—the highway was a sprawling suture of concrete that seemed to bisect the city in two. Ten lanes in total, the sight would be intimidating for any new driver.

A building with a skybridge that spanned across the highway loomed before them. The next exit was just beneath it—Ramses too it, which led him to the gigantic roundabout that was Corpo Plaza. Full circle—he was slightly amused at the irony.

Fiona could hardly tear herself from the window. She was like a kid in a video game store, her nose nearly pressed against the glass, eyes darting every which way, hoping to absorb the sights of this magnificent but completely foreign environment. The visual marvel of the varied makes and models of the vehicles that passed by in the inner lanes. The close-up perspective as the glass towers lorded over everything else, making her crane her neck to see the top of the spires. Hovercrafts and aerodynes whisking from the landing pads atop these monumental plinths that were merely a manifestation of the corps' hubris. The street vendors hulking over their steaming carts near the redglow of the bollards that surrounded the circle, scooping up some colorless slaw to spread across a gray piece of meat in a bun. The night owls in their plastic coats upon the sidewalks, headlights shimmering off their clothes, breathing masks around their face so that they would not inhale the smog.

For someone like Fiona, who spent pretty much their entire life in the Net, it was as if she had landed on another planet.

This did not escape Ramses' attention. In fact, he had been anticipating it. This was why he had taken this meandering route around the city, to get the netrunner used to her new surroundings. To the real world, where different actions held different consequences.

Still, there were some emotions that could emerge from his own private vault for him to feel a stab of pity as he saw Fiona's awed expression. That wide-eyed, completely seduced astonishment.

"It's…" Fiona breathed, the window fogging near her mouth, "…I never knew…"

The merc adjusted his grip on the steering yoke. He glanced at Fiona, the movement icy and robotic.

"Not many places in the world like it," he said. "There used to be. But not anymore."

He drove on, towards Little China. Another bridge, this one just before the bay. The highway seemed to curve directly into a morass of buildings. Housing projects. Slums. The arcologies of the corps lay behind them in their wake, domed against the tapestry of the shrouded night.

It had not been three minutes before Fiona's expression drooped. She pushed herself away from the window slightly. "This sector's… different."

"Different how?" Ramses asked.

"In the Net… I could see the city in my graphics display. All of Night City represented by the amount of data exchanged. The center—it was always white hot. Blinding until I had to up my scale. Everything else… was a cold glow. Thin webs always tangling towards the middle."

They were in Kabuki now. Fiona had taken note of the multiple power lines that ran overhead, tangled like the weave of an arachnid's trap. Many of the cables splintered, intersected, and jumbled in all different directions. Apartment dwellers illegally splicing into the datastreams. Or for power.

The streets here were completely congested with massive video screens and brightly lit advertisements, so bright that any residents parked across from the signage probably had to buy blackout curtains in order to get a restful sleep to protect themselves from the glare. Many of the ads were obscenely sexual in nature. Milfguard Sex Shop. Midnight Lady Accessories. Mr. Stud V3.0. New episodes of Watson Whore. And the occasional plug for Real Water at 99E$ a gallon. The important things in life.

They continued down the streets, which were soaked from the storeowners hosing down the pavement in the early hours. Red and white paper lamps hung upon the cables and streetlights. Neon in Japanese calligraphy. Cheap plastic chairs and tables in front of makeshift food courts. Junkies slumped against the graffitied concrete reservoir walls. Masked gangsters—most likely Tyger Claws—milling around the alleys, holding bats and brandishing sidearms, protecting the places where their most successful rackets were housed. Pachinko parlors, open 24/7, oozed cheerful 8-bit tunes, octogenarians slumped in their seats as they poured their life savings into the slots, their expressions remaining constant whether they won or lost.

Fiona turned in her seat upon Ramses getting back onto the freeway that led to the 101. Holding the crown jewel of Corpo Plaza in her sight, which cascaded in the distance over the squalor.

"I would have thought that the entire city would've been similar to the center," she admitted. "But that's only a small part of the whole, isn't it?"

"Same as it is anywhere else. The majority of money is held by the elite few. The corporations. Arasaka. Militech. Naturally, they aren't philanthropic. You won't see any serious charities being spun up from these guys. So, what do they do? They spend all their Eurodollars on themselves. Build bigger skyscrapers, bigger campuses. Invest in more bodies for their private armies. More to their R&D divisions. Siphon everything they can from the surrounding areas—fuel for the corporate beast."

"So, there's a logical unfairness to it all?"

"By design," Ramses replied. "The main job of the corps are to post good quarterly statements. Bring out huge dividends for their shareholders. Infinite growth, that kind of thing. All at the expense of everything else—people, infrastructure, the economy. There's a reason why Night City has a 30% unemployment rate. Why 99% of all employed people are shared only between five companies. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The execs live in their cushy penthouses while places like Kabuki have to fit four families to a single apartment. Unfairness breeds animosity, which is why things are the way they are in Night City."

Fiona faced forward in her seat again, trying to fit the geometry of the city together in her head.

"And NetWatch?" she asked, slowly turning her head towards Ramses. "Where do they factor? What was my role in that whole?"

Ramses maneuvered the car to the 101 south exit, earning a honk from the car behind him as he awkwardly merged, which he ignored.

"NetWatch," he explained, "is the police force of the Net. If you didn't already know that, then that's just further proof that the corp must have been keeping things siloed from the separate divisions. But it's an organization founded and funded by US/Euro governments, whose main goal is, put simply, to prevent cybercrimes." He toggled the cruise control of the car so that he could partially maneuver in his seat, providing Fiona with his full attention. "A goal that, I presume, you were never carrying out at all during your deep dives?"

Rapid eye movement in the netrunner. Searching for a probable answer to something that she would never conjure. "No," she said, shaking her head.

That tracked with what Fiona had told him earlier. But it was odd that, for an organization of NetWatch's scope, that the one singular directive that had resulted in the organization's founding had not been communicated to its netrunners. Fiona had been in that ice bath for years, doing god knows what behind the Blackwall, and she never knew that she was performing work contrary to what NetWatch stood for.

"Hmm," was all that Ramses said for a bit.

He flipped the cruise control off and took control again of the vehicle. Driving in silence, he took the Japantown exit, but hung a left at the intersection, heading up the switchbacks in the direction of Westbrook, the swankiest location in Night City, partly because that was where all the mansions on the hills had been built, giving the residents a complete view of the megalopolis, from the sea to the rusting refineries to the north.

"It's a complex creature, the city," he said midway through a turn up one of the many meandering roads that ribboned upon the hillside. "The hierarchy of the corps is exactly why there exists this dynamic between them and everyone else. Arasaka, Militech, Petrochem, they can only govern so much. The vast majority of the law in this city, to people like you and I, is doled out by ones seeking to gain something by virtue of exchange by people entirely divorced from the corps. Eddies, a rep, anything with a value."

Fiona was glancing outside as the car rose higher and higher. The tops of the tallest buildings were beginning to waft a dim orange glow. The sun was starting to rise past the jagged horizon.

"Like an economy formed to make up for the corps' neglect?" Fiona asked.

"To some degree. Most people here, they just want to make a living. Only issue—very few honest jobs to be had. So, some get creative. Find out ways to put their body to work. Some become joytoys to cater to any clientele. Some volunteer to slave their brain into a human network, putting their body on ice while they receive a steady income for doing nothing. Some even go corpo despite the pressure from back home—carrying out the work of the few in exchange for a comparatively substantial paycheck. Others decide to carry out the whims of those not as eddie-flush in a more… permanent fashion."

"Mercenary work." Fiona caught on quick.

Ramses nodded. "The solution to many problems in this city is simply to remove someone from the population count. It's an unfortunate metric, but it's the truth all over."

"Do you enjoy it? The work, I mean." She was looking at him, cheeks ghostly in the creeping light in the coming dawn, the ends of her hair beginning to pinprick with a soft fire.

Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, Ramses made a point not to turn his head. "It's what I do best," he simply said.

When that did not seem to assuage Fiona any, he continued: "Some try to rationalize it with themselves by imagining that they kill less people than the current rate of birth. Then there are those who take delight in killing as many as possible. I don't consider any of those perspectives. I take the work as it comes to me. Without emotion. Best way to keep oneself sane in this city. We're just cogs in the wheel and this is just a job without a 1099 form. No self-respecting person ever goes into their work expecting it to be the best day ever. They just take the day's events as they happen. Whether you're a corpo, a netrunner, or merc, we all fall into the same patterns. We just need to find that niche for ourselves and capitalize on it. Otherwise you sink into obscurity, just like everyone else."

Fiona watched the traffic snarl by upon the highways down below, a gray snake worming through the jagged gray expanse.

"Would you ever want to be part of them?" she asked.

"A corpo?"

"Yeah."

Ramses thought for a bit, his consciousness on a delay. "I'd have to give up too much for so little in return. In Night City, you learn to take your freedoms wherever you can find them. If you're not beholden to a singular master here, you're one of the lucky ones."

They parked in a small lot near an overlook in Westbrook, where the trifecta of Wolf, Acorn, and Lilac intersected at a roundabout. Ramses got out from the car, Fiona soon realizing that he meant for her to follow, and she extricated herself in short order.

They walked towards a nearby crosswalk, in the direction of downtown. Fiona's attention was drawn to the sculpture in the middle of the roundabout for a moment—a bronze depiction of what looked like a phoenix arresting itself in flight, its wings spread to magnificently display its plumage, shedding a vast wreath of fire as if the world was in flames behind it. She wondered what the metaphor was supposed to be.

"This place got hit hard when the nuke went off at Arasaka Tower," Ramses explained, as though he could read her thoughts. "For decades, it was nothing but a shantytown."

The netrunner looked up toward the manicured hills, where the massive whitestone villas seemed to extend like gruesome broken bones amidst the non-native greenery. Some of them had magnificent waterfall displays as well as microclimate rainforests integrated past the towering white sign which read "North Oak."

"What changed?"

"Corps did. Sponsored a new war on crime for just this area. Hundreds killed during the op, with thousands more displaced. The execs got a lot of new real estate from the affair. The new mansions were being built within a year after the site had been sterilized and bulldozed."

They crossed the street and stepped over the metal guardrails, which were lit with orange sodium tubing, crunching through the thin and straggly grass until they reached a flat patch between a couple of crooked palm trees, allowing them an unobstructed view of the city.

The sun had rose just enough to gradient the sky in its favor. From here, Fiona could see the tangled jungle of buildings, with their labyrinth of skybridges all interweaving between one another, a forest of antenna springing from the tops of each hulk, the sizzling pyrotechnics of the massive holo-ads that took up entire building faces. The air was filled with the sounds of horns and the taste of exhaust. VTOL craft glimmered in the air, strobe lights flickering against the redrimmed dawn. Cometary trails of exhaust stitched the sky in the distance—shuttles from NCX, headed to the moon.

Ramses shoved his hands in his pockets, letting the city wash over them both. The sight did not transfix him as it did to Fiona. Not anymore. When he had been younger, a new immigrant to the city, he could not stop gawking at the neon-drenched avenues, the cacophony of eight different languages hitting his ears at once, and the crushing dread of being able to make something of himself when there were millions in his proximity with the same hopes. Now, he looked at the city with a sort of disdain reserved only for its residents, a kindred experience that could only be experienced in order to be understood.

He took a step forward and turned, the city a blurred backdrop behind him. To Fiona, he said, "The why."

Fiona did a double-take, distracted after poring over the city's details that she could see. "The what?"

"You wanted to know why I chose to save you. To save you from NetWatch. Do you still want to know?"

Without the shadow of a doubt, with all of her heart, Fiona nodded.

Almost pensively, Ramses looked out to the south, where the shards of glass buildings gleamed, the sun's light twisting and fragmenting like a supernova. "There were moments in my life where I was never given a choice. I recall those moments like they happened yesterday. I know the feeling well. That irate notion where you lacked all control and someone else could decide your future." He cocked his head toward Fiona. "When I first saw you, I knew that you could never remember the last time someone had given you a choice. You were just a prisoner in that ice bath, less than a person in NetWatch's eyes. Of the many people that I've had to flatline on the many jobs that I've taken, every one of them had been responsible for their futures in some capacity. But not you. There was no ultimate point in your life from a conscious decision you made that made our paths cross. You didn't choose to be put into that ice bath, to do NetWatch's work. Someone else had chosen that path for you and you were just along for the ride."

The netrunner had glanced down at the ground, observing where her ill-fitting boots were scraping in the thin dirt, noting how Ramses' thin digital growl had softened to a soothing rumble, almost delicate.

Ramses started to pace back and forth, albeit slowly as he still considered Fiona with all his attention. "The both of us are here now because of the choices we could not make. And of the regrets for those chances that were never afforded to us. You wanted to know why I saved you? It's because I thought you deserved to make at least one choice for yourself."

Fiona lifted her head, not understanding.

Perhaps Ramses did not understand as well, because he could not fully subdue the shock from the next words that seemed to automatically spill from his mouth.

"The way I see it, this next part is up to you. You're free to decide if this is where we part ways—a handshake and a goodbye—and we'll never see each other again."

She opened her mouth, about to protest, thinking that this was starting to get too hasty, but clamped her mouth shut when she realized that Ramses was not done speaking.

"Or if you feel that there was an error in my judgment, we can take you back to NetWatch, plug you in again and you never have to worry about anything else." He paused a beat, letting that sink in. "Then there's a third option."

A gust of wind grazed Fiona's hair, blowing a strand over her mouth. "What is that?"

The merc's shoulders rose only millimeters as he breathed in, not knowing what the consequences would entail but forging on all the same.

"You come back with me and I'll train you to become a merc."

A still drop in a quiet summer's pond. Not a singular muscle moved in Fiona's body, not even her eyes. The weight of the choice folding in on itself, resounding greater and greater.

"I've…" she whispered, "I've never done anything like that before."

"Mercs come in many specialties," Ramses explained. "One doesn't need a gun to solve a problem. And you," he pointed a finger, "are a natural netrunner. A talent. And that doesn't come from me often—it takes true skill to break my ICE, but you would have done so in less than a minute. So-called jockeys have done less with more time. The other skills, the muscle memory, that can be taught. Instilled. But not everyone can become a netrunner, not at your level."

A thousand thoughts went through Fiona's head at once. Multiple futures, for better or for worse. Imaginings of her wasting away her years in that ice bath, doomed for her body to shrivel or her cortex to blow from one wrong misstep in the Net. The unknown road ahead if she went with Ramses, the myopia just as daunting as the destiny she already knew.

As the dawn burned away the shrouding night, the city underneath a new glow, Fiona closed her eyes as her cheeks grew warm, basking in the light. Such a strange sensation, after a lifetime of cold.

There would be other tomorrows. Other dawns.

She had missed too many of them already.

Hugging herself while rubbing at her arms to dispel the chill that refused to leave her bones, she stepped sideways until both were square with the other, with her looking up at his impassive mask.

"If I do this… if I take up your offer… could I still get out if I wanted?"

"At any point," Ramses shrugged. "But, once you start, trust me, you wouldn't want to take any other path."

Fiona unleashed a deep breath. Working up the nerve. A red reflection rimmed in her perfect blue optics.

The inverted chandelier of the city sparkled like a gemstone. Fiona wanted to catch one last glimpse of it, her hair now hurtling past her face as the wind blew at her back. For the first time, with all of the stimuli rushing around her, a smile cracked her face.

"What do I need to do?" she asked aloud.

ELSEWHERE

It was evening when the Extremaduran arrived in Night City from the north. Took him forty-five minutes more to reach Japantown. Rush hour went until nine—still had an hour to go. Just another face in the metal crowd, obscured by a windshield. No one would notice anything unusual about him.

He followed the directions on his GPS, waiting patiently at the lights, even as some rambunctious children kept on tapping the walk buttons at the crosswalks as part of a prank, congesting the already heavy traffic even further. There were the sounds of police cars racing by on the overpass above, contraflow direction, but the Extremaduran paid them no mind.

When he arrived at the neighborhood, he made a slow loop around the block in his truck, marking all of the various entrances and exits. He finally slowed and parked in front of an unmarked door, which was situated between two different shops, like it was the entrance to the apartments above. He shut down the vehicle, the GPS screen snapping off after it had indicated that he had arrived at his destination, opened the door, and stepped outside. The pavement was dry underfoot, steam rising from a close-by manhole. He stood next to the truck, listening for a moment, before he headed to the door.

It opened before he raised his hand to knock. A grim-faced fellow in a NetWatch suit poked his head out and saw the Extremaduran but did not seem surprised that he was here. Merely, he beckoned for the other man to follow. "Through here," he said.

They walked down the dry staircase until they reached the bottom floor in the basement. The suit opened the door—bad fixtures flickered light all about the place, which was in a state of disarray. Tables had been overturned, crumpled wax paper in the corners, and blood smeared across the cheap tile and spattered upon some of the walls.

Taking out a canister from his pocket, the suit huffed the device's contents. Thin gas pooled in his mouth for a moment, before he inhaled.

He indicated the four tarps on the left to the Extremaduran, each of them draped over what were unmistakably bodies.

"Got all four here," the NetWatch man grumbled. "Cameras didn't pick up anything—figure they were using a local virus. Hard to tell the number of infiltrators. Could have been one. Could have been a squad."

The Extremaduran just bent to the first tarp and flung it aside. He studied the dead man. Looked deep into the lone eye in his socket, the other a destroyed and blackened pit. The suit produced a flashlight and shone it on the body, trying to be helpful, but the mercenary did not relay any appreciation.

He repeated the same process with the other tarps. The second body had their throat slit so deep he had almost been decapitated. The one after that had their head so brutally deformed that dried brain had leaked from the cracks in the skull. The last body just had two gunshot wounds—one in the neck and the other just below his eye socket. The damage mapping painted a complex picture. Equal parts professionalism and rage. Rare to find anyone that practiced both in due supply.

"The rest are in the back," the suit said after a minute, figuring this part of the investigation was not going to amount to anything.

They pushed through the curtain of thick plastic strips and stepped into the next room.[3] There were broken screens flashing random discolored patterns. Shards of plastic electronics littered the floor. The multi-screened console at the far end of the room was displaying a login image, replicated across every monitor, throwing a pale green light about the place.

Ignoring the devastation, the suit gestured to one of the six lead-lined freezers that rimmed around the room, the one that had been badly dented as if it had been thrown off the edge of a building.

"She was taken from this one," the suit said as he opened the freezer for good measure, showing the Extremaduran that there was nothing inside except for melted ice and disconnected modem cabling. He fumbled in his breast pocket. Got out a shard. He held out his hand to the merc with the little chip perched between two fingers. "Scansoft only works when she accesses certain Net zones. Beyond that, nothing. Can't guarantee she'll try to find a way back in. Got no reason to, now."

The Extremaduran took the chip and slipped it into the inside pocket of his bomber jacket.

"They've agreed to your usual fee, plus expenses," the suit eyed the merc, unable to hide his disdain. "There's a bonus if you're able to provide her quickly, they wanted me to say. Damage to the body is tolerated, as long as the brain is intact. They were quite insistent I relay that."

Scanning around, the Extremaduran walked over to the next freezer and opened it. Inside was a dead male, naked, around twenty years old. A round hole in the center of their head leaked a thin serum. The melted water in which they partially floated was a deep red.

The suit, watching, took another huff from his canister. "Had to liquidate the site," he explained. "Corporate will be clamping down. Couldn't afford to let anything linger on the balance sheet. Just need to wait for them to thaw out before we break them down." He let his eyes rest on a stainless-steel chainsaw that sat on a folded tablespread on the floor.

The Extremaduran gave no reaction. He closed the freezer back up, his eyes processing everything, wet stones nestled in their sockets. The other black freezers in the room were also tombs, he understood. They served their purpose in more ways than one.

At the computer, the suit was trying to log back in, one hand at the keyboard lazily typing out a bunch of combinations. When all failed, he raised a hand in defeat. He delivered soft curses to the console and the simplistic robotic line that had built it, so concentrated on impugning its purpose that he failed to notice the Extremaduran loading a thin plastic capsule that contained a colorless liquid into a cuff-mounted device that glinted silver just under his jacket.

"We can try pulling the drives, scrub them magnetically," the suit was speaking aloud, the Extremaduran moving up behind him. "Though I can't imagine that'll do much—"

A hand at his shoulder, gently spinning him around. The suit had his canister in his right hand, not allowing him to reach the holster at his hip. The Extremaduran lunged his right arm forward and the metallic pushrod that he clenched between middle and ring finger depressed. There was a clicking noise and a thin needle shot from underneath the cuff of his jacket, punching straight through the breastbone and pricking the suit's heart, flooding it with the capsule of hydrobromic acid.

The suit made a soft "uh" noise of surprise. Quickly, the Extremaduran yanked his arm back, the needle withdrawing from the entry site, leaving only a thin trickle of blood behind.

Clutching at his chest, the suit started to moan, which was rapidly escalating towards a full-on scream. The Extremaduran did not bother to stay and watch. Direct shot of that strong acid to the circulatory system—death was guaranteed in minutes. In his iron gait, he pushed past the plastic curtains, already hearing smashing sounds as the suit was no doubt writhing on the floor after having thrown himself atop the desk in a blind panic, thrashing away as his internal organs dissolved. Faint gurgles from his melting throat cut through the electrical hum in the room, but that quickly faded the further the Extremaduran got.

NetWatch was wise to have sent just a lowly manager to debrief and glimpse his face. He would not have displayed any prejudice if it had been the CEO himself. They knew his boundaries and they abided by them. Why else would they have coughed up a low-level employee?

He went back up the staircase the way he had come, closed the door once he was back at streetlevel, and got in his car, but not before noting that a cadre of some punks had smashed the window of a sedan just across the road, trying to hotwire it. The youths spared the Extremaduran a few seconds' glance before they returned to their work. The merc, in turn, left them alone.

Turning the key, the old truck cranked to life, and it crawled away from the curb, back toward the highway where the better half of the city resided. He was going to be staying a while.

Playlist:

[1] Establishing Trust
"Heaven"
Hans Zimmer
The Creator (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

[2] Sunday Drive in Night City
"6006 P3-5"
woob
6006

[3] Acid Capsule
"Novak 監視™"
woob
Tokyo Run

THE CAST (so far):

MAIN_CAST:

Ramses: Night City merc. Solo. Unknown age. Unknown origin. Adept in: precision weapons, infiltration, assassination.
Fiona (JP422-7C): Netrunner, formerly in the employ of NetWatch. Early twenties. Unconfirmed origin.

SUPPORTING_CAST:

Michiko Arasaka: Corpo. Head of Hato faction of Arasaka and member of the corporation's board of directors. 68 years old.
Rzhevsky: Unknown age. Estonian origin. Housed in DaiOni cybernetic conversion. Personal bodyguard of Michiko Arasaka.
Wakako Okada: Fixer in Japantown. A former mercenary. Known for her brusque manner and high (sometimes unreasonable) expectations with the contracts she holds.
The Extremaduran: Assassin. Hails from Europe. Under NetWatch employ. No Night City identification.