They found Law stepping out of what smelt like a kitchen.

He blinked at her, clearly amused by the reaction she was having to the smell. Though the look that he and Ikkaku exchanged was anything but cheerful.

Before Gloria could dwell on that, the other woman patted her gently on the shoulder and strolled back the way they'd come with a murmured, "Good luck."

Despite the thrill of fear those words sent through her, Gloria's resolve held firm. She refused to go back to sitting around with the other patients, afraid of their own expectations of this man. She would face the reality of him, whether that confirmed her hopes, or damned them.

Law's eyebrow rose when she squared up as best she could with crutches and one leg still unable to take her weight. Then she said, "Ten thousand eddies." and it vanished beneath the brim of his hat.

"Oi, Glori-ya, what are you trying to buy?" There was a note of danger in his voice, but that was no worse than she dealt with from most Edgerunners. The weird nickname his translator didn't pick up was more concerning, but hopefully it didn't mean anything bad.

"My treatment." His eyes widened a little more, and she realised that she had forgotten something very important. So she abandoned what she had planned to say and instead said, "Sorry, I should start by saying this. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for saving my life."

Perhaps she was too used to David's school, because she found herself bowing her head slightly as she tried to convey her gratitude. She managed to keep her eyes on Law's face at least, catching the slightest hint of a smile as it flashed across his impassive features.

"What you said in the recovery ward, I think I understand." And even if she had thought lying would work, Gloria didn't need anyone's pity. "Well I'm not… I'm not doing great, but I can afford ten thousand. That's not loose change, is it?"

She hadn't meant to make it an actual question, but Law's gaze felt like being in front of a firing squad. It was impossible not to stumble here and there. So long as she could get an answer, that was fine.

"What you can afford huh. So what do you have in total?"

The words should have made her heart sink. Should have put an end to her hopes.

Should have, but oddly, they didn't.

Gloria thought that she was maybe starting to understand Law a little. So she held his eyes with her own, and answered, "Twenty thousand, maybe thirty or thirty five if I sell some things."

He cocked his head and offered her a smirk, "Things?"

"Cyberware." For the first time in a long while, she felt a flush of shame at what she was about to admit, but the truth had already started pouring out of her and it was too late to stop it. "I take the best of it from corpses when I can. Sell it on."

If anything, his smirk got wider, but there was a flicker of darkness in his eyes when he asked, "Ever let someone die so you could nab their metal?"

"Never!"

She had shouted her denial instinctively, furious at the idea of it, for all it was a fair question to ask. She caught herself before she could rant at the very scary man, even if she felt oddly unafraid of him as they talked that was no reason to be stupid. She followed up, a little awkwardly, "I'm no scav."

"A scavenger, but not a scav, huh?"

"That's right."

Admitting it made the shame bloom hot in her chest, but he didn't seem bothered in the least by her confession. His smirk was more of a smile when he asked, "What's the money for?"

It wasn't the sort of weakness anyone with a brain would admit to a stranger, but she still said, "My son. D."

"D? That's his name?"

"David, I just call him that." It wasn't like there was any special reason for it. The nickname had always felt right and she'd never put any thought into why. Whatever had made Law ask the question, he let it go just as quickly, and looked down at her with considering eyes.

The silence began to stretch, until even the strange confidence that had buoyed her along started to falter. Gloria looked up at the strange man who had saved her life and realised for the first time since she started talking just how far out on a limb she had gone; How much hope she was pinning on Law.

It was definitely stupid. Every instinct her life had instilled in her told her that. Every lesson Night City had taught her was backing it up.

So why did she still want to believe in him?

Finally, he nodded to himself, and announced. "...I'd take ten thousand. Except…"

"Except?"

"You've already worked off your bill. You saved that kid's life, or at least spared me some extra work. That's more than enough to cover you."

Despite herself, Gloria blurted out, "That's insane."

Now he was definitely smiling. Not smirking dangerously, but grinning like he was watching a comedy vid. "Hm?"

"Do you not get how much this kind of treatment is worth?" 'Of course he does, he charged the corpo more than five hundred k a head.' "Why aren't you taking more? Why aren't you taking everything? You're strong enough to do it, aren't you?"

That turned his grin into an outright laugh, though he quickly got himself under control.

"Glori-ya, I'm not gonna rip your life apart for some extra cash. That would just leave a bad taste in my mouth."

"Then why treat me at all?"

"Why treat you?" He sounded bemused at the question, but she felt like she had to at least explain this much.

"Yeah, why treat someone who can't pay for the kind of care you're giving them?"

He tilted his head again. "What does what someone can pay have to do with how much care they need?"

"It has everything to do with it!"

Her vehemence, her need to make him understand, made Law pause. Even as she realised that she didn't have an argument to go with it. Just the bone deep understanding that this was not how things worked.

He let the smile drop from his face, and she practically felt him shift from playful and amused to deadly serious.

"What someone can pay doesn't change what they need. Only what people will do for them." He was still looking at her, but as he continued Gloria realised he was seeing something else, "I've seen people who wouldn't treat someone because they were scared, or because there was nothing in it for them…and I've seen people who risked everything for even a chance to help someone who needed it. I know which ones I'd call Doctor."

His eyes focused on her again, and it was her turn to be the target of vehemence. Of certainty. Only his ran so deep and so strong that she could feel it overwhelming her, crushing her own.

"I am a Doctor. If a patient is in front of me, I'll do everything they need me to."

She had to force herself not to stare at him after he said it.

It felt like she had been knocked to the ground by the impact of his declaration, though she hadn't moved an inch. Finding words, let alone speaking them aloud, seemed as hard as struggling to climb to her feet would have been. Harder even, like she was having to lift a weight to do it.

She did it anyway, "And afterwards?"

He snorted, and the weight of that moment passed. His grin was back and with it came the distinct impression he was laughing at her.

"Still not getting it Glori-ya? If they've got money, I'll take it. If they're broke, then what do I care? A patient who's healed up isn't a patient any more."

She couldn't help but glance down at herself. Between the medical gown and the casts, she was certainly still a patient. Only, she was starting to realise it was what came after that she was concerned about. Maybe it was what she'd been thinking about the whole time.

Law's disregard for those he'd helped didn't bother her, but she didn't want to be one of them.

"At least let me pay off the ten thousand."

"I told you, you worked it off already."

"My work isn't worth that much."

"That's some pride you have there." She wasn't sure if he was right, or if she was just groping for sanity. Even that crazy low bill was more familiar than the idea of being appreciated for the work she did. "I'm not being charitable. You really did earn it."

"Then-!"

She didn't dare to continue. Didn't dare to voice the thought that had been rising in the back of her mind, higher and higher, since she first began to realise where she was. What this place of Law's really was.

The fingers that caught her chin were a surprise, and a reminder not to let her attention wander so much.

Law tilted her head to look up at him, admonishment in his eyes.

"You're braver than that, Glori-ya. Now say it. Whatever it is you've got to say."

"Can I-?" The start came out without her thinking about it, then her mind caught up and she couldn't keep going. She tried again. "I'd like to…" This time she just didn't know how to continue. Every word she wanted to say sounded short-circed, but the idea of letting it go and turning back from the precipice in front of her was more than she could bear.

So she took a deep breath, and said it as best she could.

"One consult isn't enough. Let me keep working with you, to pay off the rest."

It was insanity.

She was offering to pay off a debt that had already been written off. Offering to work without any guarantee she'd make enough to support her son. She was the gonk to end all gonks.

'Forgive me, D.' But with her dream in front of her, with it finally within reach, Gloria would never forgive herself if she didn't try.

As for Law, he nodded, serious and heavy with meaning, and said, "I accept." Then he snorted again. "But everybody on my crew gets paid. Seriously, you've got a kid, idiot."

Then the world flickered blue and he had a neatly sliced patch of one of his crew's jumpsuits in his hand. Smelling faintly of laundry detergent as he made another gesture and it stuck to her medical gown like it had always been there.

The verbal reminder of David brought her to her senses enough to be very glad he hadn't taken her words as licence to indenture her. She couldn't help but sigh and say, "Thank you." Then, because she couldn't seem to raise her defences against Law like every other boss she'd ever had, she continued wistfully, "I hope he's doing alright. It's been a while since I went this long without checking in with him."

"You should focus on getting some rest. Your kid will be back to visit you tomorrow."

Being as she thought she'd told David to get as far away from Law's crew as possible, hearing those words felt a bit like the crash had.

Before she could think twice, she'd hopped over and grabbed Law's coat as best she could. "Did you say he was coming back? Here?"

He took her outburst in his stride, quirking an eyebrow and saying, "Where else? He said he had to go pay your rent and then he'd come back, and I said you'd be ready to leave in three days."

"He didn't pay you off or anything-"

That definitely baffled Law, "No?"

"-Of course he didn't. You wouldn't ask him to."

"Why would I?"

"What did he say. Exactly." She remembered who she was talking to in time to add, "Please."

Law didn't show any sign he was angry at her though. Looking up and to the side as he recited, "He wanted to leave, because you were late on rent and he was worried, then he said that you sold metal at night?" She could have pinpointed the moment he realised what David had meant, and at any other time she might have found his, "Meaning that you're a black market cybernetics dealer." funny for the bold-faced attempt to pretend he had understood David's flood of teenage streetslang the whole time.

Instead it chilled her to the core, because David wouldn't have known that Law was from so far out of town that none of it would make sense to him. Which meant he had told what he thought was the head of a scav gang that his mom had a hook up for preem chrome, and that he would be back in a few days. Which meant he was trying to keep her valuable while he put together the money to do exactly what she had told him not to do.

With how delirious she had been, she might even have given him some clue of how to do it.

Which meant her son had not spent the last day paying the bills with her savings like she'd been assuming. He'd gone diving into the streets to try and save her.

Of course he had. He was her son.

Her son who she had spent years trying to keep away from that life. Her son who she hadn't even taught to fire a gun.

The feeling that swept over her was beyond awful. It was like death was leaning over her shoulder, whispering David's name in her ear.

"Law. Please. Please go get him. He's in danger, I just know it."

The look she got in return didn't suggest he was taking her worries too seriously, but he didn't dismiss her either.

Instead he turned and started tracking his gaze along the walls with something like the look of someone using their optics to look through walls. "Don't worry, I can check on him and if you still want him back early then-"

What he said next came too fast for Gloria to make sense of it until later. When she did piece it together, she thought he had started by saying "Huh?"

Then that became, "Shit!" before the first word had reached her.

Then the world tinted blue, and he was gone.

Leaving her to sit and stare at the time readout from her optics, blinking-

11:57:32

11:57:33

11:57:34

-at her…and ask herself…

Was she staring at the time her son died?

Maine had a lanky woman thrown over his shoulder, and a gun in his other hand. The merc made it to the door in a heartbeat and kicked that -much heavier- door down too.

Then he stepped out of the way of a hail of gunfire that tore through the open doorway. The thunder of bullets on the opposite wall sent David scrambling, but the Edgerunners barely flinched.

Casually, Maine poked his cyberarm around the corner, projectile launcher deployed. The cannon barked once, and the opposing gunfire was drowned out by the roar of the payload's explosion.

Dorio stormed through the doorway a heartbeat later, a few reports from her gun announcing the end of any survivors, and yelled back, "Clear!"

David wondered how many people had just died.

"What are you doing?! Move!" Lucy's hand on his wrist pulled him back to reality, and out of the apartment. He was standing in the corridor, staring at the wreck of the opposite wall, before he realised she'd grabbed his jacket as well.

"Wake up brat!" Maine didn't turn his head to face him as he shouted. "Kiwi was yelling about 'Saka on the way before she passed out, so we gotta delta!"

"We taking the kid?" Dorio cut in.

"Hell no. Gloria would kill me if we got her brat flatlined." There was motion at the end of the corridor and Maine and Dorio had weapons up and firing before David could blink. The merc kept on talking as he shot, "We'll get gone the usual way. Lucy, you take him and get out while they're focused on us. Clear?"

"Clear!" She shouted over the rising din of gunfire. Already she was dragging him towards the central column, only slowing down long enough to hear Maine yell one last instruction to them.

"Better take good care of that Sandy for me!"

Then they turned a corner and ran into a crowd of panicked flesh.

Someone crashed into David before he could get his bearings, then another, then a third gonk almost knocked him to the floor. Only the sheer crush of humanity that surrounded him kept David on his feet long enough for him to duck into a doorway flashing with vacancy lights. The holograms helpfully surrounded him in the terms of the lease -Just Six Months Deposit! Minimal Infestations Guaranteed!- while the river of humanity flowing past him quickly reduced to a stream.

With the ability to see more than three feet away restored, David found Lucy over by the central shaft. The Netrunner was using a shard of dark glass to look over the railing without making herself visible to anyone down below. Gunfire echoed up the empty space at the Megabuilding's core, and Lucy's scowl suggested it looked even worse than it sounded.

An explosion drowned out the rest of the sound for long enough for him to question that ratio. Then someone tumbled screaming from higher up in the building and the glimpse he caught of them tipped it right back.

At least, until he heard their scream end in a thud.

Then the roar of AV engines cut through everything else. Wind whipped around the building with rising intensity as something very large and very well armed began to rise up the central shaft.

Lucy swore and threw herself back from the edge. Both of them rushed to join the few stragglers still on their floor in ducking behind the stairs. They made it just as a scan swept the floor. Even his shitty optics let him track the vague outline of it, and wish he knew enough to be sure that a couple feet of concrete and metal would protect them from detection.

The thinner material of the railing certainly didn't protect a gangoon who had ducked down to use it as cover a few feet away. The AV's scanner suite chimed a hit and, with no more warning than that, heavy machine gun rounds shredded the railing and the man alike. The scan resumed before the last scraps of what had been a man could slop to the floor, tracking closer and closer to them-

This time the blast was enough to feel like it was shaking the entire Megabuilding. Though David knew, in the corner of his mind that still remembered school, that it had to just be on a floor within the same dampening band.

Lucky for them, the AV crew decided that it was a floor two down from them that they needed to pay attention to, as the vehicle abruptly dropped to that level and opened fire. A longer burst this time, then he heard the vehicle manoeuvring before there was a slam of metal on concrete below them.

"That's them deploying. We have maybe three minutes while they clear that floor and realise the others have already gotten clear." Lucy kept her voice low and quick, most of her focus on the lengths of monowire she was spooling out in very precise loops. "Stay here until then and you'll be fine." Then she was up and walking towards the railing with heavy steps.

Despite the chaos and the violence and the explosions down below and the screams coming from everywhere…David still found his thoughts on how she'd acted earlier. The weight that seemed to fall on her whenever she got quiet for long enough.

He'd grabbed her wrist before he knew what he was doing.

Lucky him, she just startled a little, gun barely twitching in his direction before she was asking, "Wha-?"

"My jacket." He blurted out, with a nod to the garment still draped over her shoulder. She started to shrug it off but he kept talking. "You'd better keep it safe. Got it?"

It wasn't the first time he'd caught her off guard, but for whatever reason, this time Lucy looked at him like a streetkid in a security floodlight. Eyes wide with something that wasn't exactly fear, but sure wasn't her usual chill. Then she glanced down and away, before she laughed and turned back to him with another of her sunrise smiles dawning.

Followed by her slipping into the jacket properly, and tossing the Sandy at him like she was passing a basketball.

He caught it in his gut and scrambled to tuck it into his belt while she said, half laughing and half something breathy and unfamiliar, "Little early for that expensive a gift, Rockerboy." She backed closer to the railing and glanced over her shoulder before looking back at him, the weight lifted again and nothing but mischief in her eyes as she said, "Now give me a push."

He started to ask what she was talking about and if she had -despite her reaction- completely missed what he'd been trying to say to her. Then he realised what her plan was.

And shoved her over the railing as hard as he could.

Lucy sailed backwards over the railing. Their last instants of eye contact stretching out as her adrenaline soaked glee met the dazed awe that had to be on his face. Then she twisted in the air and began to scream like she was dying. Like she was falling helplessly to her death.

With his mom's jacket hiding the bright loops of her monowire, David almost believed it. Unable to stop himself from leaning over the railing to watch her drop towards the floors where combat was raging and bullets were thick in the air.

Lucy just tucked in her limbs and shot past the battling floors like a skydiver in a holo. Already a few seconds from the floor, she was so small that he had to zoom his optics to catch the moment when she fully abandoned the guise of a poor gonk about to get pancaked.

The monowire was invisible from the height he was looking down from, but the way she suddenly went from falling to tracing a wide arc across the shaft was not. Zoomed in as he was, David even saw her bleed off the rest of her momentum by landing a flying knee into the neck of some 'Saka gonk who had been standing guard in the atrium.

She rolled and opened fire before she was even on her feet and running, out of his sight in another moment.

A few of the Arasaka soldiers he could see down there ran after her, but just as many stayed. Not that he was dumb enough to keep looking for long after she was out of sight.

David pulled back and slumped against the stairs. He hoped that Lucy would get away clean. That Maine and his crew would too, or had already, from what Lucy said.

As for himself, he just needed to give it a minute. Like Lucy had said, Arasaka would clear out once they realised their targets were gone and they were just wasting ammo and flesh on a lost cause. She might not have been able to wait it out for fear of a final sweep flagging her, but he didn't have that problem.

So David strolled up the stairs and found a wall to lean against where he could blend in with the other denizens of H10. Then he waited.

And waited.

And started to worry, because the firefight was still raging down below and the time on his optics was:

11:32:35

Not even ten minutes since everything went to hell, but well over three since Lucy had made her prediction. Meaning something had gone wrong.

Then there was movement on the stairs and he didn't dare to even think about his connection to the people Arasaka were after, because two of them had just swept and cleared their way up the stairs and were tracking their guns across the cringing forms of those without an apartment to duck into.

At least until they got to him. Both of the soldiers stopped as they got to him, despite his efforts to cower along with everyone else. Then one of them nodded and said, "It's him." and his guts went hollow with terror.

The fucker on the train! One of the goons had made him, and he'd seen that, and he'd said not one goddamn thing because he was a gonkbrained shithead who was about to get hauled in for picksocketing with stolen milspec hardware tucked into his belt where they couldn't possibly miss it.

Despite everything. Despite getting lucky enough to meet Lucy, and Maine, and get an offer of the money and backup he needed to get his mom back, he had still fucked it all up.

David liked to think of himself as a smart person. He liked to think that he could think things through before he did them. He also found himself acting before his brain could catch up for the nth time that day.

The trash chute had caught his eye when he first climbed the stairs, but he hadn't thought it was worth the risks when he could just wait for the sweep to pass him and walk out. Still, he'd stood next to it.

As bullets slammed into the mouth of the chute, and the wall around him, and he heaved the handle down with every expectation of dying before he could throw himself up and into the bucket of it, David was pretty glad his subconscious mind was at least looking out for him.

Someone shouted behind him and the bullets stopped. Gunfire was replaced by the thunder of boots getting closer very fast, but he was already in the bucket and it tipped back before he could find out why the hell they hadn't just ventilated him.

Then he was tumbling down the chute. Thrown back and forth between the slick and filthy slopes that alternated one way then the other the whole way down.

David tried not to think about the chance that some corpo was smart enough to tell their troops to check the chutes, and it occurred to him that, if he was that corpo, and at risk of having to explain such a decision to a boss who was even further from the reality of Night City than his hypothetical Suit-self, he would want to keep the resources expanded to a minimum.

Then again, if they cared enough to try and take him in alive -' Was there something top secret on one of those shards!?' - then they'd already have radioed it in and he could expect a welcome party to be on their way to the bottom of the chute if they weren't already there.

Lucky him. David might not be an Edgerunner, or a corpo ninja, or a teleporting scav in a dumb hat, but he knew Megabuildings and there was another thing he'd seen in a -very definitely X- BD that came to mind.

Slowing down on the right floor was tricky, and he had to jump down two more of the alternating slopes in a mad slipping run, but he managed to scramble up into the right kind of maintenance space. Even as the chute below began to echo with the heavy steps of 'Saka soldiers.

Then all he had to do was run as quietly as he could along the maintenance corridor until he burst out into the parking garage. Also into a warzone.

Within three seconds of going through the door, he'd barely ducked below a row of bullets that stitched their way across the door, had had to scramble for cover from a handful of grenades thrown towards it, and had noticed movement just in time to roll out of the path of an out control motorcycle and the Tyger Claw who rode it until it hit a car and he kept going. Right into the blast zone of the grenades.

Leaving David with a still running motorcycle, and a whole lot of excuses in the event that his mom found out that he had ignored her very clear instructions to never ride one of 'those deathtraps'.

Lucky him again. For the fit of rebellion that had made him look for so many BDs about motorcycles. With all their knowledge he managed to get on it and gun the engine twice before his hand slipped and he lost all semblance of control.

Arasaka wanted him alive -for some insane reason- but the Tyger Claws sure didn't. So he could only imagine it was confusion at someone driving a motorcycle directly towards the edge of the parking garage that kept him from catching a bullet before he slammed into the barrier and went clean through it.

The only thing that kept him alive was the scaffolding that clung to the side of the building. Probably for whoever was replacing the shitty excuses for barriers.

It was just wide enough for him to yank the bike into a turn that spun one wheel out over the edge in a wide circle that ended with him parallel to the wall and still going. Which was when he discovered that the boards he was driving on were loose, and the bike had more than enough torque to pull them away from the supports and turn a flat surface into a ramp, if the end of a ramp was in freefall.

Jarred so badly that he thought he was going to fly off the bike every second of the way, David made it down a level and found the same thing happening again. This time he almost tried to make it happen, and did try to ignore the battle still raging in each level of the parking structure he fell past.

Sheer dumb luck was working out better than any plan he could imagine coming up with, the scaffolding continuing to give way as he descended the building, until he came to a sudden realisation as he hit the third floor up.

Each floor he dropped cost him another segment of the scaffolding, and he had two left before he hit the end of the line.

Two left, and three floors to go.

By the time he realised, he'd crashed clean through another one, giving him just enough time to completely fail to come up with a plan, or just remember that the bike had brakes, before he made one last semi-accidental ramp and shot off the side of the scaffold with a full storey of empty space beneath him, the wreckage of the scaffolding falling behind him, and adrenaline pounding in his bloodstream.

Midair, he forced himself to remember the feeling. To remember shooting up the memory of a ramp on a bike that made a gangoon's road bike look like a toy.

He tucked his legs in tight and leaned in just the same way that memory had. Then he realised the angles were different and corrected just before he hit the road like he'd been jumping bikes all his life.

Blasting past the few 'Saka goons keeping eyes on the street outside the parking garage, David thought he might have actually learned something from all those BDs after all.

Then he nearly crashed twice as he shot into the battlefield that was Night City's roads, and opted to stop gloating in favour of trying to figure out how to actually ride a bike outside of a few half-remembered and poorly scrolled stunts.

By the time his head rang with a call from Maine, David thought he had just about gotten the hang of it, ignoring all the parts of the bike he had no idea what to do with.

He answered, and immediately found himself muted as Maine yelled, "The fuck did you two get to?! And tell Lucy to answer her agent dammit!"

David was spared trying to work out how to unmute himself without taking his focus off the road by Lucy doing just that. Then what she said stole his focus anyway.

"Pinned down down. David is still inside. Safe."

"Not according to Kiwi he ain't. His agent is reading halfway to Northside, and moving fast."

Managing to unmute with only two near misses, David chimed in, "I'm clear." Then, because he felt like somebody should know, "I stole a bike."

"Then head towards the waterfront kid. Falco's on his way but he's coming from Downtown and even driving like he does that's at least ten minutes out from any of us. Lucy?"

"Not not sure I can-" Her feed stopped for several seconds that felt like his heart had stopped with it, "-make it that long." Maine began to say something then she cut him off. "I'm on Martin and Twelfth. Too too far."

David brought up the time -11:46:24- and set an alert for ten minutes. Then he used all three minutes of his experience on a bike to lean into a u-turn and gun the engine towards Martin St.

The Sandy sitting at the small of his back, his belt tucked tight around it, felt heavy as he made the decision…but if it wasn't for Lucy, he might not have had a shot at saving his mom anyway.

So as Maine yelled orders and Lucy went silent, he poured on the acceleration until he spotted a cluster of 'Saka soldiers at the end of an alleyway a few blocks ahead, an alleyway that would cross over to Martin St. An alleyway they were firing down.

He pinged his location in the call, dumb as that probably was, and sent Lucy a very simple message.

"I'm coming."

Then he pulled closer to the side of the road, eyes on a stretch without any cars parked, and waited for his moment.

When it came, David took the chance to slip through and jolt up onto the sidewalk. Ignoring how he clipped a car with his back wheel. The soldiers ahead of him were shouting something but David was already leaning into a skid, channelling another memory as he feathered the front brake and fought to keep his balance.

One of the goons finally glanced to the side a split second before David slammed the edge of the bike into him so hard that he felt the fucker snap in half. The other three were further back, one of them going down as both his friend and the bike hit at once, and the next diving out of the way and catching the front wheel with his spine.

The last of the squad pivoted smoothly to bring their gun into line with David's head. Then a flicker of powered monowire slipped around them and their weapon fell in three pieces. The last of David's momentum knocked them down as they were grabbing for a sidearm, and then Lucy was there, digging her pistol into the seam between their neck armour and their helmet.

Three gunshots later, she was staring at him again, and David just couldn't help but open his big mouth.

"Need a ride?"

Lucy sprinted for him, the soldier's rifle in one hand and a looted pouch of ammo in the other.

They were taking fire before she made it halfway. More 'Saka boiled out of the building she'd just left, firing as they moved, their bullets tearing chunks out of the street and punching holes in the cars all around him.

David revved the engine, his foot jammed on the rear brake even as a near miss traced a line of fire across his arm. He glanced down at the soldier whose spine he'd crushed and through the pounding blood in his ears and the taste of bile on the back of his tongue, the thought of grabbing a gun of his own crossed his mind.

Then Lucy's weight hit his back like a warm sack of wrenches, and there was no time for anything but releasing the brake and holding on tight.

The bike shot forward and dragged both of them with it. The acceleration turned Lucy's grip on his waist frantic as the chromed up netrunner nearly slipped off the bike. Then the traffic swallowed them whole and she somehow relaxed despite the cars flashing by on either side of them. Death by fiery crash just a slip of the wrist away.

Somehow, when they went a whole five seconds without anyone shooting at them, David relaxed too. His eyes flicked up to check the time -11:47:59- and found that they still had at least eight and a half minutes before someone who didn't learn how to be a getaway driver from bootleg BDs would be around.

Lucy sounded like she was busy reloading, but as soon as he called she answered and started pinging him directions. Instead of cluttering the call she leant forward and yelled over the rush of wind, "Maine and the others are in Little China! If we can meet up with them-!"

An Arasaka truck came around the next turn so fast that it might as well have appeared out of thin air, and there was no more time to talk or plan or do anything but yank them into a turn that brought them close enough for him to kick off the side of the truck.

His shitty freeware map subscription started recalculating the route Lucy had sent him. At the same time as half a dozen more trucks appeared and David started wondering just what in the hell could have been on the shards of some random Corpos riding the NCART to deserve all this.

Instead of worrying about that, Lucy grabbed the back of his shirt and moved her legs an awful lot like she was going to stand up.

He risked a glance over his shoulder just in time for her to rise into a crouch, one hand braced on his back and the other pointing her stolen rifle back at the trucks. Or maybe at the people leaning out of the trucks with their own guns in hand.

More bullets raked the street around them, the guns louder than the bike's engine even before Lucy added her own to the chorus.

She fired in short bursts that immediately started reducing the volume of fire tearing up the asphalt. Reducing it, but not stopping the line of bullets that one turret started tracking across the road right for them.

David turned hard to avoid it and felt her weight start to shift too far. Letting go with one hand, he reached back to grab the oversized EMT jacket fluttering around her. The weight of her implants nearly yanked his arm from its socket and the both of them off of the bike, but only nearly.

Another black truck swerved out in front of them and he had to take another wild turn. This time Lucy's grip on his shoulders was bruising enough to keep her stable, and she squeezed the trigger in their latest pursuers direction until the gun clicked empty and the truck swerved into the side of a building.

Lucy yelled loud enough to be heard over the wind and the guns and the pounding of his blood in his ears, her voice thick with adrenaline, "Where'd you learn to drive!"

"Uh." He muttered, before yanking them to the side of yet another fucking truck with inches to spare and yelling before he could think better of it, "From BDs!"

A double loop of monowire, unpowered but still not comfortable, wrapped around his torso as Lucy sat down with her back to him. In the midst of it all, she leant her head back onto his shoulder with a breathy "Wow man!" and when he turned to find her looking into his eyes from a breath away she chuckled, "You're psycho." Before her hands finished reloading and she sat up to keep firing.

Properly anchored, she was even more accurate, but there was no end to the pursuit. Unlike the ammo she'd grabbed.

"I'm out!" She yelled, moments before he felt her move and something crashed into one of the vehicles pursuing them. The vehicles that started moving closer as she was reduced to plugging away at them with a pistol that didn't sound like it was even scratching their armour.

The buildings had gotten taller as they approached the accessible portions of the Arasaka waterfront, but the cranes up ahead still towered over most of them. A maze of stacked containers and warehouses lay ahead of them.

Exactly what they needed.

David knocked his shoulder against Lucy and, when she stopped firing, sent her a snapshot of what he was looking at.

A moment later she was leaning over his shoulder with a cyberdeck peripheral unfolding in her hand and her gun back in its holster.

Without even that much firepower to fear, the gunfire aimed at them started getting more accurate, quickly. David just opened up the throttle and hoped that they'd make it before anyone landed a real hit.

Up ahead, a cargo robot sparked as Lucy said, "Got it!"

Then it dropped all four of the cargo containers it was holding.

They shot past the robot, and the load of who knew what became a -probably very expensive- road block.

With pursuit stuck behind it, David brought up the original route and took a second to work out where he needed to go to get back on it before his feeds abruptly turned to static. Then he lost control of the bike.

The wheel didn't turn like it should have, and he had just enough time to wonder if they'd been hacked or someone had scored a lucky shot, before the turn became a skid became them falling off the bike at speeds just slow enough that he staggered to his feet with nothing more than bruises and a handful of friction burns. Just in time to see the bike hit a pile of crates that collapsed on top of it with some very heavy noises.

Lucy was already dragging him into a run, despite similar injuries to his. Eyes flashing with her agents attempts at reconnecting their dropped call.

"Fuck!" She swore, one hand pressed to the side of her head, "They've put a jammer up."

He checked he still had the Sandy as they both hauled ass away from the crashed bike. Then he asked the obvious question.

"We still getting picked up?"

That it wouldn't be easy, especially on the 'Saka waterfront, did not need to be said. So he breathed a sigh of relief when Lucy nodded.

"On the way. Can't say more than that."

He checked the time again.

11:51:08

Six minutes still to go, at best.

He was about to say something about how fucked they were, vent a little of the frustration bubbling in his chest, when Lucy slapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him into a narrow alley between two containers. She kept moving until they were both behind the sacks that almost filled the tiny space.

Seconds later, something crunched in the main walkway where they'd just been. Another crunch, and another, and he realised that he was hearing the faintest noise of one careful footstep at a time.

But all he could actually see was a slight…shimmer…in the air.

Lucy's hand had left his face, so he had to stifle the gasp himself. Optical stealth tech wasn't exactly something you didn't see every day.

It also multiplied his terror at their pursuit immediately.

Just why in the fuck Arasaka was sending corpo ninjas to kill them, he couldn't begin to…

Wait.

There was no way. But the more he thought about it, crammed into the dark gap between containers with nothing but the warmth of Lucy pressed against him to distract him from the prowling figure made of heat-haze, the more David found the dots joining up.

Maine and Dorio had gotten out clean. Their Netrunner -he thought Lucy might have called her Kiwi- would have been with them. Yet Arasaka hadn't faltered.

Lucy had slipped through their net. The picksocket had escaped the tower along with their shards, they had to know that much even if they had made him. But for all that they'd pursued and cornered her, they hadn't stopped searching the tower.

…And when they found him, they'd tried to take him alive.

They were shooting at Lucy when he found her, but they'd tried to take him alive.

It was him they were-

A yank on his shirt pulled him back to reality, and despite whatever of his thoughts was written on his face, Lucy didn't spare him a glance as she crept back out into the open. Her focus was on the maze of containers that rose up all around them, eyes glowing with activity before she abruptly picked a direction and started moving. Low and quiet and gesturing frantically for him to do the same.

He had no problem following that instruction.

Where he was following it to, he didn't dare make enough noise to ask.

Not that they got far anyway. Going slow and quiet meant that they'd barely made it within sight of the actual warehouses when the first AV roared overhead.

Again they slipped into a crevice between two containers that didn't quite meet flush. Only this time more than one shimmer ghosted past their hiding place. 'Saka ninjas headed for whatever reinforcements had just touched down on the edge of the container stacks. All except for one that stopped right in front of their hiding place and…

David could swear he heard the scornful thoughts in Lucy's head as the elite corporate agent fuzzed a flaw in their optical camo's field by fumbling at a pouch to get something he could just about see them bringing up to their mouth.

Then the field failed entirely beneath loops of powered monowire that cut deep but failed to dice the ninja like they had the soldier's gun.

David ducked past Lucy and grabbed the hand holding a very large rifle before the ninja could squeeze off a round and bring hell down on their heads. He pulled it away with a lot less trouble then he'd expected, and turned to find the bloody mess of a woman trying and failing to pull the wire out of the deep wound it had cut in her neck.

Lucy pulled the wire tighter and even those efforts stopped, her eyes dark with violence and glowing with what had to be a counter hack to stop any digital cries for help.

Despite it all, David couldn't help but glance down at the open pack of Moonchies that the poor gonk had dropped on the ground. The snacks were floating slightly in the puddle of blood that was pouring out of her. Then that flow stopped and David looked back up to find Lucy patting down a corpse.

The same pouch that doomed the ninja yielded a shard that had Lucy muttering to herself about 'Op Sec' and then they were on the move again.

He almost said they should take a moment to hide the body, before a look back at the small lake of blood they'd spilled made him rethink the idea.

Anyway, Lucy was busy slotting the shard and ushering him towards the warehouses that were closer to the water and further from any exit to the waterfront, but also away from the rising noise of Arasaka forces deploying at the edge of the area.

This time they managed to avoid any more ninjas ghosting through the stacks. Even as they skirted around the warehouses and ducked into a dusty equipment shed just a few steps from the water.

As they pressed they backs to the wall inside, and he scanned the air for any hint of imminent death, David looked at the time with a morbid -internal- laugh.

11:54:41

As if there was any chance of rescue punching through whatever another half dozen AVs had come out of the sky to drop around them.

He turned to look at Lucy, her gaze darting around data that he couldn't see, and said, whisper-quiet, "It was a trap, right?"

She nodded.

"They're after me."

This time she turned to look back at him, abandoning whatever she'd been looking at. "When'd you figure that out?"

"Had a spark when invisible ninjas showed up for a pair of picksockets." When that made her frown he added, "You?"

"Operative Cristoff," She popped the shard and held it up, "took notes."

The name flashed another image of the corpse they'd left behind them, but he swallowed it down to ask, "How fucked am I?"

"Cutting through the corpo scop? They need you alive and intact enough to stuff full of chemical weaponry so they can gas those scavs when they grab you again."

"...oh."

At least he wasn't thinking of Cristoff's body any more. Images of his mom choking on her own lungs drowned it out, and suddenly, he knew exactly what he had to do.

"Hey Lucy, you have the ninja's gun, so could I get your pistol?"

Back to scrolling through data he couldn't see, Lucy was halfway through handing it over when she stopped and looked at him.

"Why?" She said, voice flat and wary.

"I'll make some noise, give you an opening."

She was glaring at him, voice almost rising as she hissed, "And what about you."

There was only one way to be sure they couldn't use him to kill his mom, but even as he said, "I'll save a bullet." Lucy was already shoving her pistol back in its holster and staring murder at whatever netrunner magic she was trying to work.

"We're not doing that. Now shut up and let me think."

They both knew that time was not on their side. That whispering was only increasing their chances of being found.

David still had to bite down on an argument about how much thinking was worth when they had two guns and a bunch of dusty tools versus a small army that had to be sweeping closer every millisec. What were they going to do? Hide in the old medical…kit…

He moved as quickly and quietly as he could, then almost threw the lid across the room when it turned out to be much lighter than expected.

Lucy was beside him in and instant, furious and reaching to stop him from giving their position away, so he whispered his thoughts even as he kept searching by feel in the darkness.

"The scavs are in a boat, and 'Saka aren't deploying on the water." Something in the depths of the box felt right and he started trying to pull his prize free without making any noise. "Their whole plan is to avoid a fight. Preserve the teleportation tech or whatever."

"So you think they won't just shoot us while we swim for it?"

Easing it the last of the way out, David held up the emergency oxygen tank, complete with attached mask, and grinned. "Not if we're underwater they won't."

Surprise cracked Lucy's anger, then turned into an outright smile as she reached down to help him to his feet and pulled him towards the door.

With infinite care, she eased the door open and checked outside, then waved for him to follow her as she said, almost too quiet for even him to hear it, "There's things in that water almost as bad as a bullet."

They crept to the edge of the water, crouching down to make sure they slipped in as quiet as possible, and David turned to mouth 'almost' back at her.

Which was when the ninja tucked against the shed wall dropped their optical camo, gun already pointed right at them.

Pointed right at Lucy.

There was no warning. The operative squeezed the trigger and David and Lucy both moved, all at once.

He barely made it between Lucy and the gun before the first bullet hit him in the small of his back.

The second bullet-