He watched as the Night City traffic passed under the bridge outside his megabuilding, enjoying the cold breeze on his skin. Maine was supposed to call him any minute now. The guy said he'd got a gig for him, and he'd give him the rundown tonight. The rest of the crew were probably being filled in at the moment, so all he could do was wait until they finished finalizing the plan so that he could be brought into the loop.

David supposed that standing out in public where other people could hear you wasn't the most secure place to have such a conversation, but there weren't that many people around him in the first place, and few that were all looked generally uninterested in anything besides themselves. A couple of them looked high, a couple more were deep in braindances, and all of them looked starved and destitute.

David turned his back to them and continued to stare down at the highway.

Since his mother died, he'd been spending less and less time in his apartment. He knew that objectively, not much about it had changed, since his mother was rarely ever home in the first place, but it still felt emptier without her. The apartment's air had become cold and stifling, and he found himself avoiding the place more and more as the week went on, instead taking to rooftops, bridges, ledges; anywhere he could find with a decent viewpoint. The scenery helped keep him out of his own head.

He'd found that the cold no longer affected him nearly as badly as it used to, either. Winter was only just ending, and nights were still expectedly cold, but he no longer felt the sharp, biting chill of the Night City winds digging into his skin, even as high up as he was. His knuckles no longer cracked and dried out from being exposed to the cold air for long periods, and he didn't feel the need to wear so many layers to keep warm. If he wanted to, he could probably stay out all night shirtless and not even have to worry about getting sick.

He wondered if he would feel the same way in the heat when summer arrived.

A call popped up on his HUD, its number censored, derailing his train of thought.

Took him long enough.

He answered, leaning forward on the rail and keeping silent, just in case it wasn't Maine on the other end.

"Kid. Got the deets on the gig tomorrow. You clear to talk?" The massive man's voice crackled through the call. Static tinged his voice, but not enough to make what he was saying undecipherable.

David swept his gaze behind him to check, but as expected, no one was paying attention to him. "All good here."

"Good," Maine grunted. "Here's the quick 'n' dirty. Our target's Maxim, a bodyguard and driver for an Arasaka bigwig. Tomorrow's his off day, and we've arranged so that he'll be at a specific bar after a fight he's betting on goes bad. We'll need you to use your camo and swipe his keys while he's drinking, pass it off to Dorio so she can make a copy, then put the original key back and pass the copy off to Lucy. She's gonna nab some data from the car and then get out of there before Maxim notices anything. Sound good?"

"Why not just take the keys and klep the car?" he asked. That seemed far easier, and they could grab the data from the car whenever they pleased without having to worry about Maxim catching them.

"We don't want the ride. Thing's probably traced, so no guarantee we can get it to a chop shop 'fore we get a hit put out on us. We want this done nice and quiet."

"Got it," he affirmed. "What time should I be there?"

"Be in the area at two. Should give us about an hour to ready up. Don't make a scene getting here, either."

"Will do."

"Alright, nova. Get some rest, kid. Can't have you fuckin' up your first gig 'cause you're tired."

David smiled a bit, despite himself. "Yeah, yeah, I gotcha."

Maine ended the call immediately after, forcibly closing the holographic screen in the corner of his vision. He exhaled, glancing back around to see if anyone had been listening in on him, but the few people still in his line of sight were all otherwise preoccupied, so he went back to watching the traffic, leaning heavily on the metal railing.

First day on the job, David. Don't fuck it up.

He didn't quite know what to feel. On one hand, he was on track to making real money, so if all went well, he would no longer be living solely off of his mother's slowly dwindling funds, but on the other, putting himself out there could potentially catch the attention of whoever killed his mother. Such a prospect was more than a little daunting.

He was searching for them just the same, but if they recognized him first, they'd have the drop on him, and thus would have every opportunity to take him out of the picture before he ever knew they were even there. And with the resources at their disposal, it was far more likely they would find him before he'd find them.

But none of that'll matter if I starve before then.

While Maine was correct, and it was probably in his best interests to head to bed a little earlier, David couldn't muster up the willingness to head back to his apartment just yet. Even if he tried, he knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep for a while yet, and laying down in his stale, lifeless apartment was pretty much the last thing he wanted to do right now.

…Maybe I'll check out the roof. Just for a bit.

He didn't get to bed until hours later.


"Target just rolled up. Everyone in position?"

David murmured an affirmative, pretending to mess around on the sole arcade cabinet in the corner of the small, dingy dive bar situated near the underground fighting ring that Maxim apparently frequented. Dorio sat at the bar behind him with a small encoding device in her pocket, while a short woman with red eyes and pink Mox tattoos— one of their crewmates that he hadn't met yet, according to Maine—was manning the counter. Maine had presumably paid off the owner to set that up, but he couldn't say for sure.

Despite how little sleep he got last night, he actually felt surprisingly refreshed—something he chalked up to the ever-expanding list of changes he'd gone through since his last hospital visit. David couldn't remember if he had ever felt truly tired since then. He'd pulled an all-nighter once, but he hadn't felt a noticeable difference in his energy levels the day after, which almost inspired him to test how long he could go without sleep until it actually affected him, but ultimately decided against it. Since then, he forced himself to sleep at least a little bit each night, if only to keep up his old habits.

He had always chafed against his Arasaka Academy routine, always wanting to stay up far later than his mother had ever allowed, but he still did as she asked, knowing how hard she worked for them both. Now, it was just something he did to try and hold onto some semblance of normality. Something to help him pretend that he was still the same person he used to be, untouched and unaffected by whatever had happened to him over the past week.

The dreams certainly didn't help him any.

Every time he slept; it was fitful. Disconnected dreams of circumstances he'd never experienced before played out back-to-back, like flipping through channels on the TV. All of them were played out through the eyes of one of three distinct individuals, from what he could tell, but never the same situations. Everything from living it up and getting down with bombshell nightgirls in fancy, exclusive clubs to waging wars in destitute countries to scheming and conducting corporate espionage, all seen through the eyes of the same three people, without any semblance of chronological order or underlying meaning.

David had a sinking feeling about them. He hoped he was wrong.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Maxim entering the building, and he immediately shoved all distracting thoughts out of his mind. He had a job to do; he could ponder the grand mystery of whatever the hell his life had become later. Inserting another coin into the machine, he pretended to play the old arcade game a little more convincingly, using the screen's reflection to keep a close eye on Maxim all the while.

The fat blonde man slogged into the building, visibly dejected, and lumbered slowly over to the counter before plopping down in one of the cheap, vinyl-cushioned stools lining the bar, rapping his knuckles on the counter twice and demanding a glass of something David hadn't heard of before. Rebecca apparently had, though, because she immediately poured him a glass of liquor over ice and slid it in front of him. The man downed it all in a single gulp, ice and all, before setting the glass back down on the countertop and demanding another.

"Hold position," Maine ordered through the comms. "Intel says he's a heavy drinker. Let him get a little blasted first, then make your move. Don't want him to feel his keys being pulled."

David didn't respond, knowing that Maine knew he got the message, and waited patiently for Maxim to drink himself into a stupor. It looked like Rebecca was serving him some weapons-grade alcohol, from what he could tell, so he doubted he'd have to wait all that long.

He was right. Within about twenty minutes, their target was slurring his words as he tried to order some new cocktail, rocking very slightly back and forth on the stool and sporting a noticeable blush. David doubted the man would notice if he went up and flicked the fat rolls on the back of his neck in such a state. Maine was probably going to give the signal any second now.

"Alright, kid. Go time."

David smiled to himself.

Finally.

Light bent and warped around him as he activated his optical camo, rendering him invisible to the human eye. He crept silently across the bar and positioned himself behind Maxim's back, careful to stand just far back enough to avoid accidentally bumping into him in case he swayed back a little farther than anticipated, and then waited for his opportunity. All he needed was for Maxim to give him clear access to his shard slots, and then he could make his move. Maxim wouldn't even realize they were ever stolen.

As soon as the man swayed towards the bar, exposing the back of his neck, David quickly unfurled his monowire and flicked his wrist forward, latching it onto the datashard in Maxim's neck before smoothly extracting it. He waited a second, just to see if the target would notice, but as soon as it became clear that he hadn't, David quietly snuck back over to Dorio's position and pressed the shard into her empty palm.

"Copying now," Dorio murmured into the comms under her breath.

"Good work," Maine told them both. "Soon as you're done, hand 'em to the rookie. Kid, you gotta put the original key back in his neck and then bring the copy outside. Think you can stay camo'd for that long?"

David stared down at his invisible body. He'd never really noticed a timer for the camo, and he hadn't done all that much testing after his run-in with Lucy, since his priority had been to lay low and not cause a scene before he got his first gig. Perhaps that wasn't the smartest idea, in hindsight, but for the moment, it didn't matter. If there was supposed to be some sort of strain or drawback from using optical camo for longer periods of time, he hadn't felt it yet.

"Yeah," he whispered, cupping his mouth with his hand to muffle his voice. "I'll be fine."

"Good."

Before he could respond, Dorio pulled two datashards from under her jacket and held them out behind her back for him to take.

He took them both, pocketing the copy, and snuck back over to Maxim, using his monowire to carefully slide the original shard back into place while the man stared down drunkenly at his empty glass. The alcohol was clearly hitting the big guy a little harder now, given how much easier replacing the key was in comparison to extracting it. David had to wonder how many eddies the guy was blowing on the stuff. The drinks Rebecca was serving him didn't look cheap.

With the hard part out of the way, David strolled out of the bar, deactivating his optical camo just as he stepped outside. Maxim's car, a sleek-looking Chevillon Thrax 388, sat innocuously at the curb across the street from the little dive bar, shiny and pristine and entirely at odds with the run-down buildings and vehicles it sat between.

It was also parked the wrong direction. He wasn't sure whether that was intentional or not.

It's a miracle someone else hasn't klepped it already.

Just as he was about the slot the duplicated shard and unlock the car, a hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, bringing him face-to-face with Lucy, who had her hand held out expectantly.

"Give it," she demanded.

Pushing aside any feelings that might have begun to well up inside him in the name of professionalism, David gently placed the datashard into her awaiting hand. She then slotted it into a small tablet held in her off-hand, tapped the glass screen a few times, and the Thrax audibly unlocked, the reinforced metal bolt in the door rotating and sliding out of the way.

"Get in the driver's seat. Looks less suspicious," she told him quietly, daintily stepping into the passenger's seat and closing the door behind her. Not one to argue, he followed suit, opening the driver's side door and getting in as well.

He nearly jumped when the door suddenly locked on its own accord as he closed it.

"That your doing?" he asked Lucy, who was busy connecting her device to the dashboard.

She shook her head, not looking up from her tablet. "It's a standard safety feature on most corpo rides. Can't be unlocked from the outside as long as someone's in the driver's seat."

Nodding, he took in how luxurious the interior of the car was. Plush, cream quilting and wood paneling lined the doors, the soft, padded seats had separate heating and cooling functions, and the dashboard was lined to the gills with more buttons, knobs and features than he'd ever seen in his life. He wondered how much the thing cost, and how many years his mother would have had to work without eating or paying rent just to afford something like this.

Probably decades.

"I can see why."

"Don't touch anything," she ordered. "We don't want your fingerprints all over the place in case they sweep the interior at some point. No evidence, remember?"

"Yeah, I gotcha," he responded wryly, leaning back in the seat and crossing his arms so he wouldn't touch anything, and settled in, watching Lucy work her magic with the tablet.

Immediately, David could tell that this was the field where she truly excelled. She was great at pickslotting, but she was a genius with tech, busting down firewalls and inputting code and whatever else she was doing that he couldn't even begin to understand. She was entirely focused on her craft, effortlessly tuning out the world around her as she worked her magic on her tablet in a manner reminiscent of a master musician performing a solo on their favored instrument.

He was once more reminded just how breathtaking she looked.

It was a real shame she didn't like him.

Maine interrupted his train of thought, chiming in over the comms. "Bad news: Maxim just got a call from his boss. He'll be heading your way soon. How fast can you finish that download, Lucy?"

"Shit," she cursed under her breath. "About four or five minutes. Can Becca or Dorio distract him?"

"They'll do what they can. Get that data as fast as you can and get out of there."

Lucy didn't respond, already back at it, tuning out the world around her as she worked on copying over as much intel as she could as quickly as possible. David leaned forward and peered through the passenger's side window, trying to get a quick peek inside the bar, hoping to get a better picture of what was happening. The angle the car was parked at relative to the door made it a little difficult to see what was going on, but he managed to make out Maxim standing a few feet from the door as Rebecca leaned dramatically against him. Any more than that was impossible to discern.

"Looks like Rebecca's got him distracted," he murmured, not sure if he was talking to Lucy or himself.

"Hope it stays that way," she told him sardonically, not looking up from her tablet.

Not a minute later, the bodyguard was slamming his fist on the driver's side window, his shouts muffled by the car's interior.

"I think he found us," he said dryly.

The sudden crack-crack-crack of three rounds slamming against the bulletproof glass window startled him, causing him to reflexively duck and reach down to his hip, intending on drawing his—

Two soldiers ripped the door off of the armored truck, mantis blades at the ready, one of them already trying to take a swing at him. He pulled his sidearm out of its holster, quick as lightning, and let loose two shots into each of their chests—

David snapped back to reality, realizing he was grasping at naught but air at his hip. His hand opened and closed around nothing, but still expected to find purchase on…something. A weapon, presumably, but he had never owned any guns or knives before. He deliberately put his hand back on the steering wheel to cement himself back in reality. Maxim beat at the window a couple times with the butt of his iron, drawing David's attention once more but quickly gave up and instead waddled over to the back of the car, out of his direct line of sight, and he couldn't see the man clearly enough in the rearview to figure out what he was up to.

Once reassured that he was solidly grounded in reality once more, he glanced over to Lucy, hoping she didn't notice his little slip-up.

She was staring right at him.

Shit.

Her face was inscrutable as ever, but her eyes were zeroed on him like laser optics: unerringly precise. She hadn't said a word, but from the way her attention was focused on him, she'd definitely seen his little episode.

Whatever. He'd deal with it later. They still had to find a way out of their current situations first.

"Any ideas, Maine?" he asked, glancing pointedly at the tablet to remind Lucy what she was supposed to be doing. "We're kinda stuck here, and I can't see what Maxim's up to, but I doubt it's anything good."

"Just take the car and get out of there. I'll send you a NavPoint for a chop shop I know in Santo. Get it there and we can salvage everything we need afterwards," Maine told him.

"You sure?"

"Maxim's probably callin' a hit on you right fuckin' now, kid. Get your ass outta there."

"Right," he agreed, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands before realizing he still needed to actually start the car. He jammed the ignition button in with his thumb, causing the engine to rumble quietly as it came to life, but realized he had no clue how to actually get the car to go forward. Pressing down on the gas pedal didn't seem to do anything besides make the engine rev louder.

"You know how to drive, Martinez?"

He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, glancing around the console, frustrated and unsure of what he was looking for—

He threw the car into third gear slamming down on the clutch as he threw his back wheels out and drifted around a large tree, avoiding the gunfire from the pursuing vehicles—

Deftly weaving through traffic on a crowded highway as he chased down an escaping car, pressing on and letting off the gas at just the right intervals to avoid losing control of the car—

He swung the car around the hairpin-turn of the parking lot, before screeching to a halt and turning the opposite direction in a textbook k-turn to escape the men running out of the building to chase after him—

As he reality snapped back into place, David felt almost overwhelmed as a jagged amalgamation of knowledge and experience began to pour into his head like a partially frozen spring beginning to thaw and break through the ice above it. Parts, maneuvers, technical specs; it was as if someone had just plugged him into the world's most psychotic XBD just to teach him how to drive. He imagined this was how coming off some of the synth-stims floating around the Santo streets probably felt. If he kept having such intense hallucinations, he feared he'd start to lose his sense of reality.

"I can handle it," he boasted, throwing the gearshift into drive and swinging the wheel around as he slammed on the throttle.

David punched it, causing the tires to kick up a large, thick clouds of smoke as he floored it. He angled the car to just barely avoid the telephone pole in front of them as he jetted the car onto the road, and they were off like a rocket. They tore down the street, recklessly swerving through traffic as David made a beeline for the highway entrance.

As soon as he turned onto the on-ramp, Maine's voice chimed in his ear through the call. "Hey, kids, contract on Maxim's car already hit the market. Expect company."

"What kind?" Lucy asked, turning around and looking out through the rear windshield.

"Claws."

"Great," Lucy muttered under her breath.

"How bad are compared to the other gangs?" David asked. The Animals they'd dealt with weren't too bad, but he'd heard some rumors about the Claws, and if they were anything like the merc group that had hunted down his mom, they were probably in pretty deep shit.

Lucy gave him a weird look, as if she was shocked that he even had to ask, but eventually answered him. "They're one of the more dangerous ones. Tyger Claws are funded by Arasaka under the table. They officially cut ties some years back, but Arasaka still hires 'em to do their dirty work if they don't wanna get directly involved. They're no Maelstrom, but they'll still be packin' some serious chrome."

"Sounds fun," he hummed sarcastically, glancing up at the rearview mirror. Sure enough, two figures on motorcycles could be seen distantly behind them, cutting between traffic and driving very obviously above the speed limit, making no effort to hide themselves whatsoever. "Any chance we could outrun them?"

"Doubt it," she pursed her lips, pointing at the traffic jam ahead of them.

"Mm," he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, not letting off the pedal. By his estimate, they had less than a minute before they caught up with traffic, and their pursuers would be on top of them only a few seconds after. He could try to use the bulk of the car to just ram straight through the slowdown, but that would cause far too much collateral damage for his liking, and it would still slow them down enough for the bikers to catch up to them.

David took another look at the situation, trying to shift his perspective, approach the problem from a different angle. He was certain another solution existed; he just hadn't found it yet. There wasn't enough space in the breakdown lane for them to skirt past, and pulling a one-eighty might catch the Claws off guard, but it was too risky to pull off in a Chevillon; its acceleration was too low to even bother trying. The next off-ramp wasn't for another mile or two, so he couldn't just exit the freeway. He needed a different way out: something the Claws would never expect. He needed—

Center dividing barrier is broken four hundred and fifty-eight feet ahead. Concrete chunk is laying at a thirty-nine-degree angle towards the barrier. Chevillon Thrax weighs fourteen-point-three-two-two tons. Not enough speed to clear the head-on. Accelerate to one hundred and thirty-four miles, drift and swing the rear of the car counterclockwise as hard as possible twenty-three feet from the broken divider, hit the ramp with the right rear wheel at an angle between two hundred and twenty-nine and two hundred and fifty-two degrees.

David could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on already.

His eyes felt like they had reconstructed themselves from the ground up. His brain felt like it had just been suddenly rewired in the space of an instant. Whatever the hell had just happened, it certainly hadn't been him—not naturally. He'd done pretty well in his physics class, but he could never have calculated anything that precise on the fly like that. Hell, he didn't even know how much the Thrax weighed before just now. Where the hell had he learned that?

Right, the chrome. Of course.

This fuckin' shit again? How much of this alien-ass super-chrome do I even have?

He shelved the thought. He could think about it later; he had more pressing issues at the moment.

"Hold on," he told Lucy, slamming on the gas and accelerating even further, despite the upcoming traffic. "This might get bumpy."

She immediately gripped the grab handle and pulled herself taut, bracing herself. "The hell are you planning?"

"Somethin' stupid," he admitted, keeping a close eye on the accelerometer as the car sped up.

One-twenty-one…one-twenty-five…one-twenty-eight….

A quick look through the rearview told him that the Claws were gaining on them, but not so quickly that they'd be caught before he could swing the jump.

One-thirty-four.

Showtime.

David dropped the gearshift down halfway between gears, disconnecting it from the powertrain, and slammed on the brakes while throwing the steering wheel all the way to the right, swinging the rear of the car out and around as its tires made deep black skid marks across the asphalt. The force of the maneuver pressed them both into the back of their seats as his drift carved along the exact trajectory he had predicted it would, the rear wheel lining up exactly with the broken chunk of the freeway's center divider.

"Brace!" he yelled out at the last second.

Then, impact.

They hit the makeshift ramp roughly, sending the rear of the car careening over the divider, its momentum dragging the front half with it. If not for their seatbelts, the force of the inertia would have thrown them both out the window. The car spun nearly a full rotation in the air (and David felt weightless for a second, as if he were back in Lucy's moon braindance again) before it came crashing down onto the other side of the highway, taking the brunt of the landing on one corner, sending shockwaves throughout the vehicle and causing the fender to crumple under the weight of the impact. David forcefully kept the steering wheel held all the way to the right, keeping the wheels aligned with their momentum so that the car didn't flip over, but they were headed directly at the outer wall of the highway on a frighteningly fast collision course, and if he wasn't firm enough with the brakes, the momentum of the car would send them straight through the far wall, tumbling down onto the streets below.

Can't brake too hard, but can't brake too soft. But there's no sweet spot where I don't either flip or fall, and trying to swerve hard could either send me over or cause me to hit someone else. There's no good solution; everything's too risky. I'm too likely to crash, no matter what I do.

His mind ran through another set of equations at lightning speed.

…Then again, maybe crashing is the solution.

David slowly eased on the brakes as he lightly turned the steering wheel, steadily applying more pressure on them both to the tune of some quadratic curve or function he swore he'd never heard of in his life, but by some miracle, he managed to rob the car of enough momentum to angle them slightly askew to the outer wall, and allowing the car to crash into it at an angle, forcibly correcting its course rather than sending it through the barrier, and slowing them down enough to allow David to come to a controlled stop. Once still, the car sank heavily down into its robust suspension as if sighing in relief. Its various safety measures had managed to absorb most of the damage, luckily, so it still seemed to be in working condition.

David took a moment to confirm that the car hadn't shut down on them, then shifted back into drive and took off once again, driving against the flow of traffic.

"What the fuck kind of plan was that?!" Lucy managed to sputter out, eyes wild and breathing heavily, her left hand pressing down on her sternum—presumably to try and calm herself down—while her right hand white-knuckled the grab handle.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" he justified. He could sympathize, though; he felt like his heart was pounding against his ribcage as if it were trying to break out of his chest and run away.

"You're fuckin' psycho," she muttered under her breath, slowly dragging herself upright in her seat.

He didn't bother responding, instead checking his rearview to see if their pursuers had also managed to clear the jump. One of them apparently had; David managed to catch glimpses of him weaving through the panicked, swerving cars behind him. He didn't see the other one, though, so he assumed that the other guy was probably smeared across the center divider or something.

Small victories.

"Maine, we're comin' up on the exit for Aldo's in a minute here," he spoke into the comms, preparing to make a quick one-eighty to hit the upcoming off-ramp. "We managed to lose one of 'em, but one's still on our tail. Want us to try and shake him first, or just keep going?"

"Nah, just keep goin'," Maine ordered. "We'll handle him at the rendezvous."

"Alright, copy that," he confirmed, making a full U-turn just as he passed the exit ramp, sending even more cars into a panic, swerving and braking to avoid him as he swung around onto the off-ramp and exited the highway.

"Remind me to never let you drive me anywhere," Lucy griped.

Yeah, he supposed that was fair.


They made it to Aldo's lot without incident, but David knew that wouldn't remain the case for long. They still had a gangoon tailing them, and Maine hadn't given them an ETA, so they were on their own against an assailant with unknown weaponry and presumably high-quality cyberware. David's first instinct was to just try and beat him down with brute force, but he couldn't guarantee that would work on whatever cyberware the Claw had. That kind of thinking engendered recklessness; it'd get him killed, eventually. He had to keep in mind that just because he'd become a lot stronger, it didn't mean he couldn't still die.

"Got your iron on you?" he asked Lucy, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning around to keep watch out the rear windshield.

"Yeah," she confirmed, pulling her compact pistol out from under her jacket and flicking the safety off.

"Same plan as last time, then? You shoot at him from in here, I go camo and whack him in the back of the head?"

She opened her mouth to say something, but deliberately closed it, cutting herself off. "Yeah, that's fine."

David hesitated for a second, tempted to ask what she was about to say, but ultimately decided against it. They were still on the job; if she had issues with something, they could hash it out afterwards.

"Nova. I'll still be on comms, just in case," he told her before opening the driver's side door and hopping out of the vehicle, activating his optical camo.

The parking lot was wide open, with almost no cover available. The raw cement exterior of the garage was entirely flat-faced, and there weren't any vehicles sitting out in the open, aside from the one they'd brought themselves. He thought about trying to climb up onto the roof of the building, but he didn't see any obvious access points, and he doubted he had the time to take a walk around the entire building just to look for one, so he quickly scrapped the idea. Better to hold position up against the wall and wait for a good opportunity.

He didn't have to wait long. A minute or two later, the loud, obnoxious roar of a motorcycle engine signaled the arrival of the Tyger Claw. The gangoon swerved around the corner, entering the lot at a steep curve and looping around the passenger's side of the Chevillon before jumping off the bike, letting it skitter off noisily across the asphalt as he landed on his feet, legs tensed like a coiled spring, whatever chrome augmentations he had in his legs taking the brunt of the landing. The mohawked man sprinted to the car, shouting something in Japanese, and unsheathed the katana hanging on his hip. He lifted the sword above his head, about to try and slice through the driver's side door, but before he could bring his sword down, the roar of yet another engine stopped him. He and David both turned their heads just in time to see Maine's Quadra 66 come barreling around the corner, straight at him.

The gangoon squawked, but managed to regain his composure in time and launched himself into the air with his augmented legs, jumping cleanly over the car as it passed. Maine swung the car and drifted to a violent, screeching halt, coming to a full stop just as their pursuer touched ground. The gangoon didn't waste a second, immediately taking off again, gunning for Maine's car, but Dorio jumped out of the passenger's seat and started letting loose at the man with her revolver, firing round after round at him, stabilizing her arms on the roof of the vehicle.

The Claw managed to avoid most of Dorio's fire as he charged, using his leg augmentations to keep his movements unpredictable, but as he closed in on the Quadra, Dorio landed a shot on his right arm, blowing it off at the elbow in an impressive display of blood and gore and causing the severed hand to drop the sword it was holding. He screamed something at her in Japanese, spittle flying from his mouth, but didn't stop charging, clearly intent on cutting them down with or without his weapon.

Dorio grimaced as the revolver's cylinder ran dry. She ducked back behind the car, forced to reload, which gave the gangoon opportunity time to sprint directly at Maine, who had just stepped out of the car and was now staring down the man, an unimpressed frown carved across his face. The Claw sprung high into the air, kicking out his shin and releasing a claw-like blade from the confines of his cybernetic leg, before scything down with an axe kick as he fell towards Maine.

Maine raised an arm, as if he were shielding his eyes from the sun, and effortlessly blocked the kick.

The Claw screeched in bewilderment. His blade crashed against Maine's mechanical forearm, using all of his weight to try and lunge forward to grab Maine's head, but Maine rotated his forearm to press it against the flat of the blade before swinging it forcefully outwards, causing the gangoon to spin wildly in the air. The man hit the asphalt with a loud crack, landing roughly on his back, knocking the wind out of him and breaking at least one of his ribs.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but Maine was already on top of him, his fist pointed right at the gangster's chest. The back of his massive mechanical forearm opened up like hangar doors, exposing an equally large, golden projectile launch cannon barrel that gleamed in the sunlight, aimed directly at his chest. The gangoon lifted his augmented leg up into the air, winding up a final, desperate kick to try and impale Maine before he could get his shot off.

Maine was faster.

He fired the cannon, and the Claw's upper half became a fine red mist.

What bits and pieces of the man that had not been instantly vaporized splattered across the asphalt, leaving thin trails of blood and shredded muscle tissue all over the area. Maine wiped the specks of blood off his shades with his other hand, but either didn't notice or didn't care about the blood spattered all over his face and shirt.

Damn. And I thought I was good.

He hadn't realized just how impressive Maine actually was. He was incredibly lucky that the man had underestimated him the first time they'd crossed. If Maine had taken him more seriously back when they first met, he'd have probably been zeroed back in Lucy's apartment.

David jogged up a little closer to them before dropping his optical camo, trying to make it look like he hadn't simply hidden off in a corner the entire time—which he essentially did, if he were being honest with himself, but that hadn't been his plan. Maine and Dorio just beat him to the punch, and he didn't want to throw himself directly downrange of Dorio's revolver just to try and land a punch on the guy.

…And I didn't even think about usin' the fuckin' monowire. God dammit.

He resolved to spend some time familiarizing himself with his new tools over the next few days.

"Pretty heavy artillery you got," David complimented, casually waving to Maine as he approached.

Maine grinned, flexing and showing off the oversized arm cannon. "Not bad, huh?"

"Yeah, it's pretty nova," he nodded, before looking back at the Thrax they had hijacked, watching Lucy calmly step out of the car and shut the door behind her. "Definitely cooler than what I was gonna do. I was just gonna go camo and hit him in the back of the head."

Maine laughed at that. "Hey, whatever works, kid. Gotta make the best of whatcha got."

"Right." David nodded appreciatively, before gesturing vaguely to the stolen vehicle. "But, uh…how do we get the car inside?"

"Don't worry 'bout it. I know the owner. I'll call him up, let him know we're here. He'll take care of the rest," Maine explained, turning to Lucy as she stepped in to join the conversation. "Luce. How'd the rookie do?"

"Drives like hell," she responded dryly. "We're still in one piece, though."

"And the data?"

"All there," she confirmed, holding the tablet out to him, which he took a quick glance at before passing it off to Dorio.

David got the feeling that Maine wasn't exactly super familiar with technology.

"Great work, kids. Be at Turbo's at eight for your cut," Maine gave them a casual thumbs up as he turned back to his car and opened the door, squeezing himself into the driver's seat. "I'll let the rest of the crew know. Y'all're free 'til then."

"Yes, sir," David responded quietly, almost habitually—except that calling people sir was anything but habitual to him. He couldn't remember when he'd last uttered anything of the sort, not when it wasn't dripping in sarcasm or spite. He'd always been a rebellious kid, and his disrespectful demeanor had repeatedly gotten him into trouble back at the academy.

So where did…?

Before he could think on it any further, Maine peeled out of the driveway, tires squealing, and recklessly bolted down the street like a rocket. He watched as the car kicked up a massive cloud of smoke and dust as it took off, almost impressed at the volume.

"And you say my driving's bad," he joked.

"It is," she deadpanned, walking past him.

He exhaled amusedly—not quite a laugh—before realizing she was leaving without him, already halfway across the lot.

"Hey, hold on," he called out, jogging lightly to catch up with her. "You're taking the NCART back, right?"

Lucy didn't bother to respond verbally, instead giving him a measured, sidelong stare out of the corner of her eye, one eyebrow raised. David wasn't entirely sure what to make of that, but she hadn't denied it, so he assumed she was.

"Wanna run some corpo shards on the way? Make a little extra scratch?" he offered, gesturing dexterously with his hand and showing off the monowire on the underside of his wrist. "We made a pretty good team last time."

Lucy stayed silent for a few seconds. David was worried he'd pressed his luck too far, given she already hadn't been too happy with him for most of the day, but eventually, her lips curled ever-so-slightly upward, forming what he might've hesitantly called a smile.

She shrugged, acting nonchalant. "Seventy/thirty, as long as you can pull your weight."

David grinned.

They couldn't quite call themselves friends, but it was a start.