Night City is an urban jungle of chrome predators and digital madness.
The urban sprawl was the center of some of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history, and most of them had been fought in the shadows, far from the public eye, which has barely started to see the consequence of such battles. Corporations, nations, and all kinds of organizations had their own pawns fighting in these wars, and the ones that got their business blooming were the edgerunners.
Edgerunners, cyberpunks, and pariahs that did not fit in society and found work in the shadows of the world, and the eternal battle of the Net. Be it a former soldier with way too much chrome, the anarchist rocker with pain to shout at the world, to the netrunner that steps into way too many digital toes. The past is the past, now they are running over the edge, making a living fighting in the shadows of the powers of the world.
Lucrative as a career edgerunning may be, it is also lethal, each gig, each apparent milk run biz can become a hot potato that would put a crew on the crosshairs of the entire world. One data file that should have never seen the light, zeroing the wrong target, stealing the wrong loot, all too many forms of making life a nightmare, as if it was nightmarish enough.
Why would anyone choose this demented way of living?.
The answer is simple. They had no choice.
People seem to forget that running on the edge is not a choice, is a necessity.
Wage slaves worked like drone ants, people had legit biz, trying to make a living for their families, but for the average Joe in Night City, hard, honest, work was only a patine of delusion to prevent them to realize how desperate their situation was. From the perspective of an outsider, 2075 looks as if feudalism was back, with a vengeance, but instead of kings, Corporations.
Sad tales take place a hundred per minute in Night City, statistically, there is a murder every five minutes, although, that number are included the collateral damages that violent actions usually carry. After all, in Night City, where cybernetic augmentations and other combat upgrades are dime a dozen, when irons came out to play, lots of bodies are going to hit the floor.
David Martinez, a young lad from Santo Domingo, was another of those sad tales. The kid lived with his single mother, Gloria Martinez, a paramedic of Night City, always scrapping for eddies, as the lad attended Arasaka School. To be fully honest, the lad was utterly out of place at the Arasaka School, which was as infected with the same hubris and bias than the rest of the corporation that gave its name. For the other attendants of the school, David was just a street rat aiming for heavens that were completely out of his reach.
Sadly, they were right, but not for the reasons they believed.
Arasaka is one of the biggest megacorporations, with fingers in most pies, the Japanese corporation had a massive presence on Night City, only with Militech coming close, and dozens of others eager to kick Arasaka to the curb if possible. At the top of the Arasaka Corporation is Saburo Araska, a genius, and a megalomaniac Japanese supremacist that believes himself the most competent man ever born.
Now, apply that logic to the entire corporation ladder, with an extra paint of Japanese values like honor, loyalty, bushido, subservience to the ruler, etc, etc. Apply similar demented values, but of a different flavor, to the rest of the world's corpos and nations, and you will begin to understand how the world ended in the dystopia it is.
Yet, there are small sparks of humanity in the middle of all this mess, family values, friends, chooms that will stay at your side come hell or high waters; perhaps one of the reasons why gangs are so utterly popular nowadays is because they grant a smudge of security in an uncertain world.
In the case of David, it was a blast from the past.
David had little to no memories of no family beyond his mother. As a street kid with a single mother, David was too busy trying to survive the cutthroat world around him, and make sure that his mom did not kill herself at work to let them have food on the table and a roof over their heads. But Gloria Martinez, Medtech, and EMT of Night City had family, distant, as it may be.
Distant family, until she died as collateral on a car accident leaving her son abandoned to his luck.
Night City is not a merciful city, the city eats people like David in spades, chew them for all that they are worth, and spits them back as corpses. The only option left for David was to run on the edge, and that is exactly what he did, chroming himself up with a military-grade Sandevistan reflex implant, and after punching his corporate bully into a wall, being bamboozled by a crew of cyberpunks that were the original buyers of the Sandevistan, and finally becoming a temporary member of the very same crew.
Although David had to admit that the date on the Moon; through a custom BD; with Lucy, the netrunner of the crew, was preem, the teenager could only be crossed with the lass, the entire thing was just a stalling tactic to entertain David before the muscle of the crew could appear. If not for the fact that Maine, the leader of the crew, was an old friend of David's mom, David had little doubt that they would have ripped his Sandevistan from his back, and be on their merry way.
Mercy is a rare female name in Night City, and that would be a mixture of a joke, and a stretch.
So, David found himself part of a crew of edgerunners, green as grass, and completely lost on the road of life. Not to mention with his apartment evicted, and with barely any eddies at his name. Thanks to the Sandevistan, David had managed to sneak into the apartment throught a loss ventilation grill, but David knew that such a trick is not going to last for much longer.
Standing in the main room of his apartment, David contemplated the ashes of his mom, and the photo of both of them standing at the entrance of the Arasaka academy. Gloria was smiling, happy that her son would have the chance to escape from the gutter of Night City and into the corporate ladder. David, on the other hand, had to admit that even in that photo, he looked as if he just wanted to delta the fuck out of there.
An alert of a visitor appeared in the eyes of David, who was surprised at such an occurrence. To be completely honest, David has been a solitary kid, barely his mom, some net-friends, and the gonks at the academy that had nothing better to do than screw with a street kid like him.
The H4 apartment where David lived lacked security cameras, but the apartment was expensive enough to have a door camera. David connected the camera and took a look at the unexpected visitor.
At first glance, David would have screamed corpo rat, but the tall man standing in front of the door was a bit different than the corpos that David has seen walking around the Arasaka Academy at Corpo Plaza. As tall as Maine, but not bulky as the chromed-up edgerunner, the man was dressed in a sharp corpo-style suit, but with a gun holster clearly visible, and with a small backpack at his back. The man was a redhead, of the same color as his mom, David noted, but the camera was unable to make a face recognition.
David has earned something about optics that could things like that, Kiroshi, a cybereye that was the peak cybernetic optics, and that kept recognition software unable to tag faces, well, at least from the most common scanware.
The call icon appeared on the upper left of David's eye, identifying himself as Herrera, a name that did not ring any bells for David, beyond the name of a Spanish car builder company.
Herrera Well meet, choom, can I have a word with you?.
The salute itself was unusual, to say the least, and David wondered about the possibility of bolting the delta out of the apartment. The man was sketchy as fuck, way too corpo for David's tastes, and after what happened at Arasaka Academy, not to mention his recent "interview" with a crew of cyberpunks, David was a bit paranoid. At the same time, there is a limit to how many sucker punches can the world deliver to an individual before he lost any capacity of giving any fucks, and David has seen his entire world upside down in less than two days.
The door of the apartment opened, and David let the Herrera guy enter his apartment, confident that if push come to shove, David could step up the Sandevistan, pick up his mom's ashes and photo, and bolt out of the apartment in a blink.
Herrera took a sit on the couch, in front of David, and stared at the ashes. The man sighed and shook his head, showing sadness in his body language.
"First of all, introductions", smiled Herrera. "My name is Rory Herrera, although my handle is Rip on the edgerunner circles".
David chuckled at that surname, resting in peace, a bit morbid handle, to be honest. David soon realized that such a handle means that the man was a very competent killer if that was his name, and quickly warmed up his Sandy, the Sandevistan, just in case.
"Easy little choom", waved Herrera the sudden tension of David. "I am not here with any bad intentions".
"Then why are you here?", went David to the heart of the matter. "I don't know you, and mom never spoke about anyone called Rip, Herrera, or much less of a cyberpunk with that name".
Rip winced at the words of David, unable to refute anything of what the boy has said, knowing that the kid had already more than enough on his plate.
A teenager that had barely survived the car crash that killed his mom, who was dispatched by the city healthcare as yesterday's garbage, a teenager that was kicked by his peers at the academy, David installed military chrome on him, not much after David was tricked by a pretty face, and David was finally roughed a bit by the same crew that he was part of, now. All of that in less than a day and a half.
Certain bitterness was to be expected.
"I take that your mom did not speak much of family, uh?". Started Rip, opening his backpack and taking out a bottle of the most expensive tequila in the city, the man opened it, took a gulp directly from the bottle, and offered the bottle to the astonished David.
"Uh, I…" David was confused, he never really liked carbonated drinks, but the alcohol was clean of bubbles.
"Drink, lad", snorted Rip, "being sober during this conversation is not a good idea, not to mention that you are a cyberpunk now, old enough to kill, old enough to drink".
"Well, you have a point there", David took a swing of the bottle, and the burn of the alcohol went all the way down to his stomach. It burned, but it was a good burn, much better than beer or Nicola.
"I am going to be straight with you David", Rip took a more comfortable position on the couch. "Your mother's single name was Gloria Herrera, my cousin", dropped the bomb Rip, and David spitted the tequila he was drinking.
"What the fuck?", the young man stared at Rip, coughing.
"Your mother, great woman that she was", Rip took the bottle that David almost dropped and raised it in salute at the ashes on the table, "did all she could to keep you as far as possible from the cyberpunk circles".
"What?". David demanded an explanation.
"Look, choom, you are a supposedly clever kid", pointed out the bottle Rip to David, "your mom was an EMT of Night City, even if she ran herself ragged, you were scrapping for eddies constantly, where do you think she managed to get the eddies to sent you to a place like Arasaka Academy?".
David paused, and like a ton of bricks, the presence of the Sandevistan on his mom's jacket and how Maine spoke about how Gloria was a contact had a lot more sense. Finally clicking together, David felt even more of a shit, knowing that his mother was pushing herself to the limit, to grant him a chance at a good life, and David just tossed it into the garbage.
"And that was her mistake", sighed Rip, calling the attention of David. "I don't need to be a genius to sum two and two, and deduct that Arasaka Academy was the worst possible place for a Santo kid like you".
David did not comment on that, even if it was true.
Right now, David's mind was running into loops. Mom was a smuggler for Cyberpunks?. A scav that picked the chrome of the corpses of the many violent events of the city and sold it to the cyberpunks?. Just to pay for a tuition of a place that David hated with all his soul?. Irony at its finest, a good woman forced to play devil, just to put her beloved son into a place that treated him like yesterday's garbage, and that would never, ever, give him even an inch of respect.
"I know Arasaka all too well", snarled Rip. "If you are not pure-blood Japanese, you will forever be considered second class, even at the top of the corporate ladder, you will always be the second choice, always the backup plan, and the disposable asset".
Quickly flashing through the mind of the teenager all the times that he has been...less than respected by his classmates, David had to admit that Rip had a point. Arasaka Academy has been rough, even if David was a straight-A student, the rest of his classmates always treated him as if he was a stain on the Academy.
Taking the bottle out of his hands of Rip, David took a long swing of the alcohol, wholeheartedly agreeing that being sober for this conversation was not a good idea. For fuck's sake, the world was determined to kick him in the bollocks as much as possible. The poor man, not about to reach eighteen years of age, and already with more on his plate than most adults, David was finally out of fucks to give.
Rip has seen people like David one too many times. The kind of eyes that the kid had, staring at the bottom of the bottle as if holding the secrets of the universe, was one that no kid should have. Alas, welcome to Night City, where you will suffer and then be spat out like millions of people are, daily.
"Why now?", asked David out of nowhere to the older cyberpunk. "Why the fuck now did you decide to appear?".
Rip was already expecting this reaction. Despite being a street kid, David has been blessed with a good environment at home, and a loving mother, losing that, in such a manner, and discovering the less-than-reputable methods that Gloria used to pay for his tuition was more than enough to soon turn angst into anger.
"One, Gloria was adamant in keeping you as far as possible of the edgerunner circles", started Rip,.
"Second, despite all, Arasaka Academy is a good shot at a comfortable life at a Corpo Plaza, secure, clean, stable, for the vast majority of the gonks out there, that is the golden dream, choom".
"Third, you had the street smarts, of that I have no doubt, otherwise you would have not earned a place on a crew, implant what's not, but you lack focus, you lack commitment, you lack will".
"Excuse me?", sounded David offended.
"Choomba, you had nothing to offer on the table beside the sandy", deadpanned Rip. "And that is a three shots per day trick before you bleed your brains out of your nose".
"Try ten", smugly smiled David proud of that achievement.
"Really?", raised an eyebrow Rip, a little impressed. "Interesting, you are unusually attuned with that chrome on your spine, but my point stands, what else do you offer to an edgerunner crew?".
Before David could respond, Rip cut short like a whip the argument.
"Zero combat skills, guns, weapons, or barehanded, no netrunner capabilities, no Medtech skills, no fixer, no drone rigger skills, no hacking skills, nothing, nada, just a good implant".
"Maine thought it was enough", grumbled David, a bit hurt, yet unable to deny the evidence.
"Maine is pragmatic enough to accept the kid of Gloria into the gang", chuckled Rip, "your chrome capabilities are unusual and useful, and if you flatline during a gig, it would be easy to pick your corpse and take the Sandy back, as if nothing ever happened".
David's eyes opened, realizing that he had stepped into a landmine that he did not expect.
"Breath choomba", laughed Rip, "Maine is not some fucking scav, he and his crew are a good one, they will give you a fair chance to prove yourself, but they will not hold your hands, if you fuck up, that's on you, Night City lives and breathes survival of the fittest".
"I can take anything," if anything David's bravado and will were to be respected.
"You can't", denied Rip in a flat tone, "not now".
"Fuck, I don't" stubbornly refuted David.
Sighing, Rip took the tequila bottle and put it in the middle of the table, and changed his seated position, staring at David with a challenging smirk.
"Prove it, then", showed Rip the bottle at David, with his hands on both sides of the bottle. "These are the rules, you are going to use your Sandy, once, to pick the bottle, and I will try to block you. If you win, I will pay an entire year of your rent, and leave you alone to your own devices, if I win, you will train with me before you flatline yourself".
David did not even respond, before kicking it the Sandy. The world at such a high state was a sea of blue and colors, everything was in slow motion, and he was a legion of Davids in motion reaching his objective and moving like a god in the middle of a frozen world.
Imagine his surprise, when Rip's hand, way slower than his, grab his left hand, the one that David extended to get the bottle, and felt the soft tap of a slow fist on his throat. Completely flabbergasted, David saw how Rip was also capable of moving at impossible speed, but, blatantly at a lesser rate than David's own.
The time was out, and David stared at Rip's neutral expression, completely blindsided by how badly has failed his triumph card.
"How in the fuck?", gaped David.
"Your Sandy is fucking incredible", conceded Rip, letting David go. "Way better than my own Kerenzikov, but I have decades of experience above you in terms of combat skills, and my combatsoft was more than capable of analyzing and predicting what you were going to do, allowing me to react in consequence".
"Fuck", slumped the kid back into the couch, cleaning the blood running down his nose. "Fuck!".
"Chill, Choomba", chuckled Rip, "the first time that I got cocky, I got a bullet to the stomach, happens to the best of us, also punch up some meds for that", pointed Rip to David's bloody nose, "even with your abnormally high tolerance, that reaction is a bad sign".
David apprehensively eyed Rip, with a mixture of emotions in his eyes.
"Oh, for fuck's sake choomba", groaned Rip, "what kind of two-bit hack put that Sandy in you, and did not even give you some meds for the aftermath?".
"Ah, doc was a friend and…", weakly protested David.
"No friend puts that Sandy on you and left you dry on the streets", snarled Rip, taking David a bit by surprise, "all chrome needs careful installation and vigilance, otherwise, the body will reject the implant, and either provoke you a bad rejection shock or sent you down the path of the cyberpsychos".
David went a bit pale, remembering the words that Lucy told him about meds.
Sure enough, Lucy helped him escape the asshole that almost killed him and rip his Sandy out of his body when David had collapsed after too many uses of the Sandy; and the girl was beyond beautiful when she smiled wildly atop the out-of-control stretcher down the road, but Lucy lost all goodwill after she stalled him for Maine and the muscle of the crew to ambush him. David was unsure about what to feel about the white-haired netrunner, she was beautiful, and David felt that the date on the moon BD was the real deal, but at the same time, she was also the one that almost sold him to an edgerunner crew, to be chopped and his implant taken.
Out of a million chances, Maine was a good friend of David's mom, and that earned David enough space to negotiate his entrance on Maine's crew.
So, David was attracted to the netrunner, obviously, but he was also very conscious that she was the same person that sold him to her crew to be chopped for an implant. Mind you that the poor gonk was a seventeen years old, and with zero experience on what relationships are.
"Okay, first thing first", the grumble of Rip took David out of his internal wondering. "Tomorrow you are going to come with me to a real ripperdock, I know the best ripperdoc in Night City, and he will fix you up before the worst comes to happen".
"Okay, uh, nova", replied David, still very unsure about the entire thing.
Reading the young man like an open book, Rip relaxed and tossed the tequila bottle back to the rookie cyberpunk that was still realizing how deep the water really was, and how many sharks predated those same waters.
"David", called Rip for his name, "I am not chromed up enough to not be able to recognize that the shit on your plate reaches the ceiling, and I am adding a new layer on top of it".
"That's putting it mildly", softly laughed David.
"But, choomba, I am here to help", raised his hands Rip, "you are family, the first cousin once removed if one wants to be pedantic, but I don't care, you are family, and even if I failed Gloria, I am not going to fail you".
"Sure, Night City has stabbed you in the dick one too many times in less than a day and half", lowered his hands Rip with a dark chuckle, "and I am the first gonk that will tell you to never, ever, trust anyone but yourself, but let me earn that trust cousin, is the least I can do after failing Gloria".
With his eyes glowing for a second, David received proof that five thousand eddies have been deposited in his bank account. Staring at Rip, David waited for an explanation about that generosity.
"One month", raised a finger Rip. "That's all I ask, train under me for one month, do biz with Maine's crew, hell, toss my name if you ever need a Techie, all biz is good biz, but let me help you find your place in the edge, because choomba, as much as I admit that you have potential, you are seriously unprepared for this world".
Silence stretched for a long time in the apartment, as David processed the words, swinging down more tequila, later, when the alcohol will hit David's brain, David going to curse high heavens, but for the moment, the pleasant buzz of alcoholic intoxication made the situation more palatable.
To say that David was torn would be an understatement.
Family loss, family found, life torn apart, love found, love betrays you, hard, dropped to the edge and left there, his triumph card proved to not be so nova as David believed, sign up with a cyberpunk crew, and being so low on eddies that rent was long past due. All of this to a barely seventeen years old boy whose biggest concern forty hours ago was to get enough eddies to pay for the fucking washing machine, and pose enough at the academy to be left alone by the wankers there.
Night City folks, hope you like your stay.
"What's the secret then?", whispered David to Rip, twirling around the empty bottle of tequila. "What's the secret for living in Night City without being shitted on by the rest of the universe".
"There is no secret", snorted Rip. "There is not a single person in this fucked up city that has not been shafted by life, in some way, shape, or form. You, me, fucking gonk emperor Saburo himself, we all had our share of bad days".
"Yeah, right", snorted David in disbelief. "Those gonks at the academy live like fucking kings".
"Aye, except for the guy that you punched into a wall", pointed out Rip, "and the next corpo that has to take one for the corporation, or the next corpo rat that must be zeroed to prevent some value to fail, or the gonk whose limo is attacked by a bunch of Animals because some fixer needs the data on his brain for another corpo".
David filled the gaps soon, despite the alcohol.
"What?".
"The Animals that provoke the accident were a crew of juiced up gonks that a fixer paid to put their hands on the corpo inside, tie the corpo to a chair, beat the shit up of him, drug him to the gills, and shove a deep dive connector to his brain to make a copy of anything he could know", inform Rip in a dry tone that could have been used to peel paint.
"What?", repeated David blinking in a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
"Standard counter intelligence corpo gig". Shrugged Rip. "Paid a gang, or a crew of cyberpunks, to snatch a corpo rat, rip its brain, and deliver the data to another corpo".
"Wut?", now David was not believing it.
"Better get accustomed to the freakshow fast, choomba", laughed Rip at the expression of David, "things only get even weirder on the edge".