David landed gracefully on a low rooftop overlooking the apartment complex, his grey jacket billowing behind him in the wind. The nice, cool breeze wafting through the evening air had become a howling gale as night fell, and the frigid wind bit at his exposed skin as he traversed the city heights. The moon cast a dim light that softly refracted off of the towering pillars of glass and steel all around him, immersing the streets below in a delicate curtain of luminescence. Night City wasn't silent—it never was—but tonight seemed even quieter than usual, like the calm before the storm. The city felt like it was on edge, biding its time as it pensively awaited the next disaster.

The apartment building Lucy had directed him to was drab and nondescript, even by his standards. A slapdash construction of concrete and steel, just barely skirting whatever building safety codes were still in place at the time, it was likely one of the oldest surviving buildings in Little China. He was almost surprised that one of the corpos hadn't tried to expand or build on top of it, but judging by the thin cracks stretching all across the wall, they probably thought it would just collapse if they tried to stick another floor or five on top of it. Graffiti speckled the walls, covering them in foreign characters and faded designs. The apartments within were probably pretty spacious, though, if the way the windows were spaced out was any indication.

The rent there probably would've been a lot higher there if the building didn't look like it could collapse at any moment.

David took a moment to survey his surroundings. He didn't notice any of Blackwatch's carriers parked in the area, but the building schematics Lucy had sent him did show that there was underground parking, so that was no reason to assume he was in the clear. Thermal vision didn't reveal much, either—the concrete walls made it impossible to determine if there was even anyone inside the building. He could see the occasional faint outline through the windows, if someone was standing next to it, but he didn't notice anything particularly telling from his current angle. A quick lap around the building proved just as fruitless, so all he could do was grit his teeth and press forward. He'd just have to exercise caution.

Dropping weightily into a nearby alleyway, he lazily meandered into the apartment building through the front entrance, picking up an empty beer bottle from off the street and swaying slightly as he entered so as to give off the appearance of being a bit drunk, just in case a receptionist or security guard was on standby. He was in luck, though; as soon as he entered through the sliding glass doors, he found that the lobby was completely empty. His only company was the unwashed tile floor and the slightly dirty wallpaper that lined the barren room, occupied only by an equally empty receptionist's desk. With no need for his disguise, he immediately tossed the empty bottle into the nearest trash can, turned the corner and made a beeline for the stairs.

His mother's residence was Room 305, on the third floor, according to Lucy—a small, one-bedroom apartment that was only slightly more spacious than his megabuilding, but still commanded a much higher price tag because of how limited living space was in Night City. The price wasn't nearly as high as some of the Glen or City Center apartments, which held such ludicrous prices that one would have to sell their soul just to meet the monthly rent, but it still held a noticeable premium—and would have likely charged more, if not for how massive of an insurance risk the place was. David was honestly kind of shocked that no one had tried to destroy it and claim the insurance payout on it yet.

Hopefully, it would still be standing after tonight.

He wasn't counting on it.

David silently ghosted up the dilapidated stairwell, keeping an eye out for any security cameras or other strange devices as he climbed, quickly arriving at the third-floor entrance and peeking out into the hallway. A few people were hanging about in the hall, all of them likely junkies, given they were each either slumped against a wall or passed out unceremoniously on the floor. He could smell the thick, tar-like scent of whatever drugs they were on all the way from the stairwell.

The hallway itself didn't seem to have any security. The only CCTV camera in the entire hall hung at a disjointed angle, its bare wires partially exposed and lens smashed. David doubted that was a recent incident, considering the state of the rest of the building. Hell, that was probably one of the reasons his mom had rented this apartment in the first place.

Stepping over the broken beer bottles, various pieces of fast-food litter and the occasional hypodermic needle, he made his way down the hall until he found apartment 305. A cursory inspection showed that the sheet metal door was still intact and in relatively good condition, with no obvious evidence of tampering. Jiggling the handle, David found it was still locked, as well, with the bolt engaged and working as intended. He pressed his ear to the door as well, checking to see if he could hear any scuffling inside, but he couldn't say he heard anything in particular. A quick flicker of his heat vision was equally fruitless.

With all reasonable precautions taken, David decided the only thing left to do was to let himself in. He sliced open the bolt with his monowire, swung the door open, and immediately found himself face to face with the muzzle of an automatic rifle.

Fuck.

He immediately threw himself to the side, but wasn't quick enough to escape the gunfire unscathed. The rifle let off an explosive report, catching him on the side of the head with the first round and digging a trench into his skull, just above his ear. David stumbled, clutching at the wound, but forced himself to ignore the pain and pressed his back against the wall, ready for when his assailant swung out. The druggies down the hall were instantly awoken by the gunfire, haul themselves up in sudden panic and stumbling blindly towards the elevators. He didn't check to see if any of them made it.

Muffled screams could be heard from the surrounding apartments, masking the sound of his attacker's footsteps. The man swung wide as he exited the apartment, holding down the trigger and sending a wide spray of bullets through the apartments on the other side of the hall, looking to press his advantage. But David was faster—he grabbed the assailant's rifle by the handguard to keep the muzzle away from him and socked the man in the face right through the gas mask with his free hand. The mask shattered instantly under his knuckles, and the stranger's face crumpled in on itself with a sickening crunch. He dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, brain matter spattering out of the back of the man's head as it hit the floor.

David didn't need his memories to know he was with Blackwatch.

Cutting open the man's vest with his monowire, David stole a spare mag, then picked up and reloaded the agent's rifle like it was second nature, flicking the safety selector to semi-auto. He hoped to cause as little collateral as possible here, and as long as he was only facing a squad of four, he wouldn't need more than one magazine, anyway.

Alright, three left. Go time.

Swinging aggressively into the shadowed apartment, David swept the rifle across the room, catching the glint of an optic from the right side of the room and dropped into a crouch just as the opposing gun went off, then immediately snapping his sight picture up to the agent's head and firing two quick shots into their eye, allowing his stolen chrome to guide his aim. The agent died instantly, their weapon dropping to the ground with a loud clatter as they fell.

Two left.

David swapped his vision to thermal before clearing the rest of the room. No one was behind the couch or the counter, and he didn't catch any thermal signatures tucked away in any corners, which meant that the other two squad members were likely holding position in either the bathroom or the far side of the bedroom, or possibly both. Given how neither had pushed him, they were both probably lying in wait for him to come walk into their little murder hallways, where they could proceed to riddle him with bullet holes while he was nice and exposed.

I can see why Cooper hated room-clearing.

He decided to push the bathroom first. If someone was there, then there were fewer places for someone to hide, which meant he could get them before they put too many rounds in him, and if it was empty, then they both were in the bedroom, which was still good information.

David took a step back to get a running start, lined himself up with the bathroom door, and took off in a dead sprint, crashing through the synth-board with a powerful shoulder charge, sending splinters of imitation wood flying all across the bathroom. The agent inside barely had time to fire a shot before David slammed into them. He rammed the poor scop into the back wall just as they loosed a bullet into his chest, opening a nice, clean hole in his midsection just before they impacted the wall, shattering their spine and driving shards of bone into their own cerebellum, snuffing them out unceremoniously. Ignoring the stinging pain in his chest, David summoned his tendrils from his back and tore the newly minted corpse apart, assimilating its flesh into his own and using the extra biomass to seal the bullet wound he'd just received.

Last one.

The agent's brain was already dead, unfortunately, so David didn't manage to get any memories out of the guy, but it was still extra mass he could use against the lone squad member holding position in the bedroom. They were almost certainly posted up in the back of the room with their sights trained on the door, ready to light him the fuck up the moment he showed his face. Even busting through the wall probably wouldn't give him enough leeway to avoid taking a few rounds.

Not to say that he couldn't, but he definitely preferred to avoid it if possible. Getting repeatedly shot wasn't a good habit to form.

David bent down and started rooting around in the dead agent's gear, checking to see if they had packed anything he could potentially use. After digging around in their plate carrier vest for a few seconds, he managed to find and unhook two frag grenades, an idea already taking shape in his head.

This could work.

Approaching the doorway, carefully keeping himself out of the door's line of sight, David gently sliced off the exposed parts of the grenade pins with his monowire, ensuring they looked like they were live before throwing them both into the bedroom, one after another. He bounced one off the doorframe, the ricochet sending it towards the south side of the bedroom, then tossed the other just beyond the bed corner that lay in his sightline. Neither would explode, of course, but he didn't need them to: he just needed the guy in the bedroom to think they would.

As soon as he heard the rustling of clothes and deep, hollow thump of someone hitting the ground to take cover, he knew he had 'em.

Go time.

David exploded into the room, his monowire crackling with energy as he threw himself at the last remaining agent, who was lying prone behind an overturned desk. The man was clearly prepared for him, though, because as soon as David cleared the table, arm held high, ready to bring his monowire down on the soldier's neck, he was hit with a hail of gunfire to the chest, shredding through a solid chunk of his biomass and sending him crashing to the ground. He tried to take a swipe at his attacker as he fell, but the sudden agony in his chest and subsequent loss of balance had thrown off his aim, causing his monowire to only bite through the man's arm rather than his head.

It had still done the job, if the tortured scream fighting its way out of the man's throat was any indication.

David tuned him out, focusing his attention inward instead, forcing his reserves of flesh to coalesce around the gaping wound and knit itself together, sealing the large cavity and replacing the tissue and bone that had just been forcibly ejected out of his back and sprayed across the room. It took him maybe fifteen seconds to repair his chest—far faster than last time—but in a fight, every second counted. By the time he was able to stand, his assailant was already on comms with someone while he tried to staunch the blood flowing freely from his gushing stump.

"—Repeat, subject Mars has engaged. Gamma Squad is down; three casualties, one wounded—"

David immediately shut him up by shoving a clawed hand through his throat.

Damn it.

He was originally planning to rummage through the apartment and see if his mom had left any other secrets lying around, but he didn't have that luxury anymore. This place would be swarming with Blackwatch agents in a few minutes, and even with his fancy new powers, he didn't particularly like his odds against every squad in the city all at once.

Besides, Blackwatch probably long since klepped everything of importance from this place by now.

After consuming the agent's corpse, David unlatched the bedroom window on the other side of the room and slid it open before peeking over the sill, looking for any sign of Blackwatch or NCPD vehicles. Little China wasn't explicitly gang territory, to his knowledge, so if any lawmen were around to have heard the gunshots, they'd be here soon enough. Blackwatch would definitely be here soon, since he wasn't fast enough to stop the last squadmate's report, but he couldn't hear anything just yet.

Honestly, that fact was more worrying than comforting. Blackwatch had a lightning-fast response time, according to the memories of the agents he'd consumed, so he figured he would have already caught wind of them by this point. The only probably reasons why they weren't converging on him were if they were all otherwise occupied, or if they were already set up to ambush him.

He knew which was more likely.

David pushed himself back from the windowsill, ready to turn and delta, but just as he made to turn around, his eye caught a glimpse of the abrupt appearance of a strange, pinpoint light in the distance, just above one of the further megabuildings, like the sudden birth of a new star in the night sky, stubbornly shining through despite the massive city lights doing their best to drown it out. He hesitated for just a moment, torn between the urgent need to get out before the Blackwatch ambush found him and the desire to get another quick look at the new light—

Black.

David's body hit the ground with a dull thud. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything, either. His neck hurt like hell, too—though his head didn't feel like much of anything. He reached up to grab his head, hoping to assess the damage, but he felt nothing but empty air.

What the fuck?

Walking his hand down to his neck, he quickly realized the problem. His head had been blown clean off His neck was now a massive, gaping wound; a large, fleshy stump with with loose gobs of biomass hanging on by bare threads, being slowly pulled back in and stitched back together by his main body bit by bit.

How the hell am I alive?

Well, if he needed any more proof that he was no longer human, he got it.

Existential quandaries aside, he needed his head back as soon as possible. Something had just blown it to pieces, and whatever that was, it gave whatever Blackwatch agents lying in wait the perfect chance to ambush him. David had maybe a minute before they caught him, and he did not want to still be on scene when they busted down the door.

The only issue was how he was supposed to accomplish that.

David had regenerated limbs only a few hours before, so he was confident he could, but the human head had a lot of different organs and odds and ends that were a lot more complicated than an arm. He remembered some basic models and layer-scans of unaltered brains that had been shown to him back in the academy, and his weird monster powers had given him a much deeper understanding of human organs, but his knowledge of his own mutated body made a lot of that information almost completely worthless.

Case in point: he was quite literally thinking despite missing his brain.

He doubted that he'd formed another literal brain somewhere else in his body, given he didn't feel any of his biomass shifting around in any weird ways, so he had to assume that his biomass was able to act as any organ or body part it required as the necessity arose. If so, then it was possible that he no longer had any organs, in the traditional sense—or that his body was simply recreating the functions of his organs whenever they were needed, or just creating and disassembling them without his notice. The ideas had some interesting implications, but he wasn't exactly in a position to test them right now.

David visualized his head, constructing a three-dimensional framework of it in his mind (or whatever was currently substituting for it) using both his own memories and his victims'. Almost instantaneously, he could feel his biomass flow out from his chest and up through his neck like the rising tide as it began reconstructing his head layer by layer: first his skull, reformed into smooth, chitinous bone, then winding the muscles and nerves around it like a braided skein, before filling in his eyes, ears, nose, then mouth, and finally regrowing his skin and hair over top. Even his jacket's hood was suddenly good as new.

The process of suddenly being able to see and hear things again after having it taken away completely was probably the strangest sensation David had ever felt.

As soon as his ears were reformed, David could hear the horde of heavy footsteps making their way up the stairs, only a few seconds away from reaching him. His time was up; he needed to jet, now.

He rolled to the side, putting himself out of the window's line of sight before pushing himself up and making a break for the nearest wall. Throwing a single haymaker just as he made contact, he annihilated the aged support beams within and plowed through the paper-thin drywall with little resistance.

Bursting into the apartment next door, David continued building momentum as he charged across the room and straight through the next wall, heedless of the terrified screams of the residents inside. He felt for them and all, but Blackwatch was hunting him, and he didn't have time to think about how some minor property damage would affect a few people he didn't know while an elite death squad was hot on his heels. His own survival had to be his top priority.

Besides, if he stuck around, they'd probably end up catching a stray bullet and flatlining from the ensuing battle, anyway. This was better for everyone in the long run.

David crashed through the outer wall of the apartment, sending chunks of concrete raining down onto the sidewalk below as he leaped across the gap, catching himself on the wall of the neighboring building. The concrete shards cut uneven grooves into his flesh as he impacted the opposite wall, but he forced himself to keep moving, confident that they would heal over in the next few seconds. He quickly traversed across the various outcroppings lining the side of the building, jumping from one protruding piece of steel to the next, doing his best to keep his movement unpredictable in case whatever had caused his head to explode was still out there.

Half a second later, something slammed into the wall just behind him, blowing a hunk of concrete out of the structure.

Yeah, still there.

Probably a sniper. He'd be seeing a lot more cement flying if it were an automatic.

David pushed off the wall just before he reached the corner of the building, jumping halfway across the chasm that hung above the intersection, then slung his monowire out like a fishing line at one of the tall steel supports surrounding the opposite building. He flexed his wrist and coiled the wire around the beam like a constrictor ensnaring its prey, tightening it down just hard enough that it began to bite into the steel, then tightened the slack and let his momentum carry him around the corner of the building. He swung through the air on his makeshift grappling hook like one of his favorite childhood cartoon characters, releasing the monowire at the apex of his jump and soaring over the gap before landing somewhat clumsily on a protruding sill on the building across the intersection, then bounding across a few more windowsills to bleed off some of his momentum so that he didn't crash straight through the wall.

Even with his superhuman strength, his new weight carried a lot of momentum. Stopping on a dime wasn't nearly as easy as it used to be.

David bounded across the windowsills, steadily building up speed until he was practically running along the wall itself. As soon as he reached the corner of the building, he flung himself across the gap, forgoing the monowire entirely this time. As he soared through the air, he heard the distant crack of the sound barrier as the sniper's bullet whizzed by his head, just barely missing him.

He caught himself on another high windowsill, pulling himself up with his fingertips before throwing himself straight through the window and into the building. Rolling to his feet as he landed, he took off toward the other end of the building, heedless of the slew of glass shards embedded in him as he ran. He'd shed them soon enough soon enough, but with the number of windows he planned on breaking through, it was a little pointless at the moment. Glass was a lot less damaging than a sniper round, so if dealing with a few slivers under his skin was the price of avoiding the sniper's line of sight, he was more than willing to pay it.

He'd have to take to the streets again eventually, though. Broken windows left too obvious a trail.

David threw himself out the opposite window, still unsure as to where exactly he was headed. He couldn't go straight home, obviously; not while Blackwatch was still on his tail. He'd have to shake them first, which meant he needed to get out of Watson as soon as possible. Over half of their squads were probably here, which meant they'd be fanning out and sweeping every street to try and find him once they lost visual on him, so sticking around meant a higher likelihood of getting spotted again.

Maybe Japantown?

He hooked his monowire around another outcropping, swinging around another corner and smoothly transitioning into a wall-run, sprinting across the side of the building before launching himself upward, using his monowire as a grappling hook to latch onto a nearby roof and heave his body up and over the top.

David supposed it could work. The Nightlife there was active enough that even if Blackwatch looked for him there, he could lose them in the crowds and make his escape. They hadn't been keen on making much of a scene thus far, preferring to operate under the public's nose, so he doubted they'd try and push into every party scene and busy street in the area guns blazing just on the off chance they might find him. Secrecy was the name of the game: everything flies as long as the corpos don't notice.

That applied to him as well.

Yeah, what the hell. I'll see if Luce knows about any safehouses or anything over there. Might be able to squat at one for the night.

His mind made up; David soared through the air with a powerful leap, setting a course for Japantown.


Shutting and locking the door behind him, David breathed out a sigh of relief as he sat down on the lid of the employees-only toilet. He'd shaken Blackwatch off his tail a while back, mostly due to the fact that they were still confined to the city's streets, whereas he was free to go through, under or over whatever he pleased.

He slumped back lazily in his seat as he pulled up his HUD, navigating over to his most recent calls and ringing Lucy up again. It was possible she was asleep, but he figured it didn't hurt to call her anyway. If she was awake, great, but if not, the call simply wouldn't connect, and he'd leave a text. Unfortunately, that meant he'd be on his own in regards to finding shelter for the night.

After a few seconds, though, Lucy did eventually pick up.

"Do you know what time it is?" she asked, her scathing tone bleeding through his aurals like magma.

Well, guess she was asleep after all. Does she have her ringtone set to wake her up or something?

"Sorry if I woke you. Figured you'd want the detes on the apartment run," he massaged the back of his neck with his hand, trying to work a kink out of it.

Lucy sighed, still obviously annoyed with him. "Sure, fine. Whatever. I'm already here, so might as well."

"Alright. Turns out the AO was way too hot. Mercs beat me there, set up an ambush. Had a squad in the apartment and backup nearby. If Mom had anything interesting in there, it's long gone by now."

"Whole thing was a wash, then?"

"Yeah. I'll probably have to avoid that whole block from now on," he grumbled. One block was hardly the end of the world, but every block they struck off was one more block he couldn't hide in. Even if Blackwatch didn't have the manpower to guard every block, they'd probably set up cameras all around the areas they suspected he frequented to see when he stopped by. "'Least I took down all the goons inside the apartment. Four less jackwads lookin' for me."

"Damn, you got all of 'em? How'd you pull that one off, killer?"

"I cheated," he admitted with a shit-eating grin.

A distorted exhale of amusement echoed over the comm.

"What, you pay 'em off in advance or something?" she snarked, though there was no heat behind it.

David snorted. "I wish. Would've been way easier," he grumbled. "Nah, first guy almost got me at the door, but I managed to get him first. Turned out he had frags on him, and the rest of his team was still inside the apartment, so, uh…."

He didn't consider it lying, technically, but even "stretching the truth" was an understatement.

"Pfft," Lucy snorted derisively, the sound partially clipping out as she did. "What kinda gonks bring frags without subdermals?"

David paused. Even though she was joking, she had unintentionally brought up a very interesting point: it was entirely possible they did. He hadn't actually pulled the pins on the frags, so he had no way to know what kind of armor they had, if any, but it was pretty reasonable to assume the agents had some implants for protection. Unfortunately, he'd killed both of the men he'd consumed beforehand, so they didn't have any memories for him to dig through and find out.

That was a pretty major fuck-up, now that he thought about it. Not only did he not have any idea what kind of chrome they'd had or how they used it, but he also probably lost his chance at learning what they'd taken from the apartment. That was some incredibly important info that he'd just missed out on, and it was possible that it was now out of his reach forever.

"…I dunno," he breathed out uncertainly.

He silently berated himself for being a fucking fool. This wasn't the kind of mistake he could afford to make.

"Oi, you alright there?" Lucy asked, only a slight bit more concern in her voice than usual. "It was rhetorical, leadhead. Don't think about it too hard."

"No, not that. Sorry. Was thinking about…somethin' else," he trailed off lamely.

David doubted that would convince her. It certainly hadn't convinced him.

"Uh huh."

As expected.

"Yeah. For real, though, I got a favor to ask," he shifted gears, hoping she'd at least hear him out. She'd already been doing him favors all night, so he felt like a pretty massive douche asking for another one so soon.

"Another one?" He could practically see her unamused expression as she said it.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You've been helping me out all night, and I hate to ask for another one already, but…" he apologized profusely, embarrassment hot on his cheeks as he massaged his neck.

"Fine, let's hear it."

David took a sip from the drink he'd stolen from one of the more shitcanned partiers. "I need a place to lay low tonight. There any empty safehouses around Japantown you know about?"

Lucy paused for a moment. "Yeah, a few. It's gonna cost you, though."

"I don't need anything big. Just a spot to crash for a night. Don't wanna accidentally lead those assholes all the way back to my place or anything."

The comm channel was silent for a few more seconds, before a ping eventually appeared on his HUD, showing him a map of Japantown with an arrow marked near the southeast side, on top of one of the tall, interlaced, winding buildings common to the more central areas of the city.

"Ninth floor, this building. There are a few massage parlors, a braindance studio…a few other services. They've got some private rooms in the back. One of the BD rooms is supposedly out of order, but it's been refurbished as a safe room. Ask the studio if they have a 'long whisper' in stock. They'll charge you a fee, but they'll lock you in until morning and erase the footage of you. It's pretty secure, and the people there know better than to talk."

David sighed in relief. That was exactly what he needed. "Sounds perfect. Thanks a ton, Luce. I owe you bigtime."

"I'll remind you that you said that when I cash in," Lucy drawled sardonically.

"No, seriously. If you ever need help with a gig, hit me up and I'll be there, no questions asked. I won't even ask for a cut," he told her sincerely.

There was a silent pause in the call that stretched long enough that it almost had him worried that the connection had dropped.

"…I'll keep that in mind," she hesitantly responded, her voice suddenly much softer. "I'm gonna get some sleep now. You can figure out the rest on your own."

"Alright," David nodded. "Goodnight, Luce."

She hung up on him without saying anything in return.

Rude.

David pushed himself up from his seat, washing his hands and shutting the bathroom door behind him before he wound his way through the gyrating crowd toward the exit. There was no reason to waste time sitting around; the sooner he was in for the night, the sooner he could relax.

And sleep sounded fantastic right now.


The reinforced metal door locked itself behind him, sealing him inside the small, drab room. Lucy's info had proven invaluable once again, allowing him access to a veritable bunker for the night, complete with clean sheets and a toilet. It lacked a shower and a kitchen, but that wasn't a big deal, since he was only there for the night. The Braindance company only rented the room out one night at a time, and demanded the customer check out by morning, but in return guaranteed the occupant's safety for the night, locking them in until 7AM via an electronic lock that was inaccessible via the door itself.

Given how sophisticated the system seemed, David doubted that it was funded solely by the BD company's sales alone. Some corpo was probably funding it for personal use and simply allowed the company to rent it out whenever they weren't using it themselves.

David sat down gently on the mattress, causing the springs to creak and groan in protest. He weighed a lot more than he used to, and it was very likely he'd be getting even heavier if he kept consuming people at the rate he had been. Hell, he might end up too heavy for some of the buildings in this city if he didn't slow down or start burning through his reserves faster. And given his situation, he doubted the former would be happening anytime soon.

He worried he was getting used to the idea of eating people far too quickly.

Wonder what mom would think if she saw me now.

David absently twisted the gold cross necklace dangling from his neck. He'd never paid too much attention to it when he was younger, but his mom had always been religious, believing that working hard, keeping her head down, being kind to everyone and holding faith in God would lead to a fruitful life and an eternal reward in heaven.

He hoped it was true, if only for her sake.

While he hadn't given it much thought, he wondered if God would still forgive him for his own sins. Supposedly, God forgave those who believed in him of all their crimes, no matter how numerous (which was probably why it was so popular with the Valentinos), but that was for humans, wasn't it? Would God still extend him the same offer of salvation that he did the rest of humanity? Would He acknowledge him as a human, despite having become a literal man-eating, shapeshifting monster? Or had whatever spiritual element God had supposedly imbued humanity with been destroyed the day he'd turned into this horrible creature?

Hell if he knew. Maybe he'd ask a priest if he got the chance. Hopefully he could find one before one of his gigs eventually pit him against the Valentinos.

Again.

He sent a quick text to Lucy, thanking her for all her help tonight, if only to try and take his mind off the heavier topics, but the message failed to send. David blinked, then pulled up his HUD to double-check his connection status, but surprisingly, he couldn't connect to the intranet at all. The wireless sensor—or whatever biological equivalent he had—just kept refreshing endlessly.

Which made sense when he remembered he was inside a sealed bunker that was probably bankrolled by some rich fuck with one too many skeletons in his closet.

Right. Probably some kinda faraday cage built into the walls.

David flopped backwards into the bed, sinking deep into the mattress as the springs struggled to hold his weight. The bed was still rather comfortable, surprisingly, despite the fact that it definitely wasn't rated to hold anyone as heavy as him.

He held his hand up to the dim ceiling light to keep it out of his eyes, too exhausted to get up again just to turn it off. Absentmindedly shifting the hand into a claw, he traced the black cords that enveloped his arm, running almost to his shoulder, and back down to where they met the base of the wickedly sharp blades extending from each of his fingers. He pinched and bent the connecting joints with his other hand, finding them to be remarkably pliable, almost as if they were nothing but muscle and tendons, lacking in bone structure entirely.

As soon as the thought popped into his head, the tissue became rigid and inflexible, as though there was suddenly a bone to provide structure for it.

Whoa.

He tried to think about it being flexible again, of the imaginary bone being converted back into muscle, and almost immediately, it was pliable once again, able to be bent and rotated in ways that were impossible for a normal human finger. It seemed that his body might respond more to how he imagined it rather than how it looked on the outside. To test his theory, David tried stretching out his fingers to see if he could lengthen his claws. It seemed to work at first, but after it reached a certain length, it started to feel…wrong—like a thorn in his mind, telling him that his fingers weren't that long—and the illusion broke, causing his fingers to suddenly deflate and implode, before they unraveled entirely, then rewove themselves back into the normal human fingers he'd always remembered.

David blinked. That wasn't the result he'd expected. He could envision himself having claws and heat vision and gorilla arms, and those all worked fine, so why couldn't he do something as simple as stretch out his fingers? He figured that would be a lot easier by comparison. He'd had his body for all his life, after all, whereas he'd basically never had any cyberware until after his transformation. So how could he replicate cyberware so well, even iterating on it, when he couldn't manipulate his own flesh nearly as freely? It seemed completely ass-backwards.

Fuckin' whatever.

He turned over in bed, too tired to think about it right now. Maybe he'd be able to figure it out tomorrow. For now, he just wanted to sleep and forget everything. Tonight had been a hell of a night, and he needed to be well-rested if he wanted to remember everything accurately when he told the rest of the crew about it.

Now that he thought about it, it had been a few days since he last slept. It was only a couple weeks ago when he was telling his mom that she wasn't sleeping enough; now he was the one skipping on sleep. Maybe he should take his own advice. Inhumanity was no excuse—he never liked seeing his mom all sleep-deprived, and he was sure she wouldn't want to see him that way, either.

David laid his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes. With any luck, he'd see her in his dreams tonight.