Static on the news screens. The color of a dead port sky. Cathode glow brimming far and wide, a fog of light.
Channels synchronize. Tune in. Blaze of color. The talking heads all tilting, touching their earpieces, maintaining their uncanny smiles. It could be the end of the world and they would still be smiling, eager to be making the last-ever broadcast beamed out to the world and beyond the stars.
Over the course of several hours, the news plays, the telecasts magnified overhead upon the large holographic screens, floating by on the aerozeps they were anchored to, or emitted over scratchy car radios. Blazing chyrons repeat exactly the same information being announced. Every channel reports the same news, no matter the host, no matter the owner.
The reception is mixed. Some passerby either stare at the screens or crank up their volume. Others disregard it entirely or change the channel. Just like any other day. There were people who cared too much or cared not at all. Perhaps it would not make a difference in the long run.
"—if you're just tuning in, we have some breaking news to report to you tonight—"
"—after a sudden turn before the close of business last night, we have confirmed reports that, in what pundits are calling a 'hostile takeover', Militech has secured the collateral it has required to acquire NetWatch, the world's leading—"
"—the news comes after a sudden turn in which Militech's Boca Chica launch site, its largest operational location for rocket launches in both the tourism and military industries, was destroyed after an unknown rival corporation ambushed the location and—"
"—was just announced that in the wake of Arasaka's Night City headquarters' collapse, the corporation has announced that it will not pursue plans to rebuild on the site, or in Night City. A spokesman from the company has said that plans are being made to relocate the national headquarters to the East Coast. Some have speculated that Washington D.C. is a likely option—"
"—we are just now getting reports that Michiko Arasaka of the famed Arasaka family and head of its Hato faction, has been found dead in her apartment. Police say they have been barred from accessing the crime scene, which is being carried out by internal Arasaka departments—"
OUTSKIRTS – US_101
The gas pump made a clicking noise as it set to work. The long rubber hose twitched intermittently from the flow of fuel, acting like a jet black serpent. The pump looked like it had been installed over a century ago—it still had analog dials that rotated to show the amount of gallons filled along with a second counter that showed the total cost. On the other hand, the pump did accept wireless payments. A strange dichotomy.
Upon securing the pump into the fuel spigot of his modified Chevillon Emperor, Falco walked a circuit around the massive van while it was being filled. There was no one else in the parking lot of the gas station—even the little building where the register was usually located had its windows dark. The pavement was black and cracked, layered by different laminas of asphault from many different repairs over the years. In two hours, it would be blistering to the touch.
He knelt down, felt the tires and checked the air pressure of each one. He looked at the brakes, making sure that they hadn't been worn down. It was a long way to go to get to Alaska. A shade under seven thousand miles, if he recalled correctly, and seventy hours of driving cross-country. The Emperor was going to have to be in perfect condition if he was going to get there in a week's time.
After checking the tires, the wheelman opened up the hood of the truck and gave a cursory check to the various fluids, making sure that they were at acceptable levels. He slid out the dipstick, checked the quantity and the color of the oil, finding both to be within tolerance, and slammed the hood shut after pronouncing the rest of the engine fit for a drive. He had purchased the Emperor a year ago after he had to ditch his old van after his stint as an Edgerunner went south. The truck had actually been a former NCPD vehicle that someone had once stole and had changed hands several times before it had ended up in his possession. He had spent a fortune to make sure that all of the onboard trackers were no longer transmitting and that each individual vehicle part had been catalogued and scrubbed from the NCPD databases in case they came looking for it.
Stepping back from the vehicle, Falco clapped his gloved hands out of habit, dusting them free of whatever particulates he had come across. The scant traffic of the 101 roared nearby. Early in the morning on a weekend, hardly anyone was keen to take a long trip at this time of day. He turned around and looked at the warbling mirage of Night City in the distance. Ten miles away, give or take. The morning sun was making the buildings sparkle like an impacted crystal in the earth. In a couple of hours, the desert at the outskirts of the city would be baking hot. To the south, the raw mountains that would raze all the way down to Mexico. At night, this place would turn blue and cold, unlike the city which would always remain lit, for it would withstand anything, even the veil of nuclear fire.
He would not miss this place.
The pump gave a clunking noise and Falco figured that was his cue to pay. He walked back over to the pump and eyed the amount he owed. Compared to the pool of eddies the transaction was automatically subtracted from, the payment was barely something he needed to concern himself with at all.
He held the number in his head. Over two hundred thousand eddies that, until a couple of days before, had not even been in his account. Somehow he knew where it had come from, but the person that he could ask was not accessible.
Falco shook his head and spat on the pavement. "Damn it, Fiona," he said, rubbing his chin. A dry breeze billowed dust around his boots, a fine screen that scurried above the pavement.
After replacing the pump, Falco stepped up onto one of the Emperor's ridged aluminum running boards so that he could open the back door and enter. He could nearly stand up to his full height in the truck. Everything he owned—everything he needed—was here. Bed, food, clothes, even a portable Net router. Hell, he could live the rest of his life out in this truck and he'd be better off than most people in Night City. He made one last cursory check of the interior, making sure that everything was locked down and he was not missing anything. It would be a shame if he got the munchies while on the road only to find out that he had not packed any snacks.
He was so engrossed in counting out how many spare oil filters that he had that he almost did not notice the phone ringing.
The sound made him pause. It wasn't the phone on his software. It was coming from outside. A classical ring, like the one in the movies. It struck Falco that he might not have heard such a sound in real life before.
Curious, he stepped back outside, the day already starting to grow uncomfortably warm, and searched around for the source of the sound. He quickly found it—a phone booth adjacent to the barricaded gas station shop. He could have sworn that thing was offline. No one used landlines these days, except for hobbyists.
Falco gave quick glances around the parking lot. His truck was still the only one parked at a pump. No one else was making a beeline toward the phone, not that there was anyone else around to hear the sound. Surely, the call wasn't for him?
Trepidatiously, he made his way across the lot, muttering to himself that he was being crazy. His boots crunched against the asphalt, which radiated heat through the soles. He made it to the phone booth, open the flimsy door that rattled on loose joints, and wedged himself inside, keeping the door open. Now, he fumbled a bit, trying to think as to what he was supposed to do next. Maybe it was as simple as… lifting the handle off of the hook and just… holding it to his ear? Falco was struck by the quaintness of the technology. Hard to believe that people made calls this way in the long ago.
He held the receiver to his ear and, feeling very stupid, waited for ten seconds before he spoke, still unsure of how to do this. "Hello?"
A crackling noise. Blistering feedback. Falco had to remove the phone away from his ear about an inch. When he returned it back to the last position, another voice was already talking.
"Well, finally. You know how hard it's been to get a hold of you? You've been bouncing out of satellite range so much that we hard a hard time triangulating you. Not your fault, the signal in the desert sucks." A ragged voice. Male. One that creaked with age.
"Listen," Falco said as he took a glance back toward his truck, no doubt imagining that some kind of prank was being played on him, "I think you have the wrong number."
"I'm talking to Falco, aren't I?"
"Yeah?"
"The same Falco that was part of that Arasaka tower assault two years ago?"
"How do you know about that? How did you find me?"
"The answer to your first question isn't that important. As for your second—hmm, actually, no, that answer isn't important, either."
The door to the booth was sliding back shut on Falco and he had to wedge his foot against it to prevent from closing all the way. The glass in the booth was not tinted and he was already starting to sweat from the sunlight streaming in. He gave a grunt that he did not know what it meant, but that he felt he should communicate his surprise and annoyance in some fashion. "So, what is it you want, mister… actually, what the hell should I call you?"
There was a clicking noise over the phone. "Just Mitch."
"Mitch. Okay."
"And as for what I want—well, it really isn't what I want, but what someone else wants."
"Someone else."
"Right."
"Look," Falco sighed as he leaned against the door, one foot extended out, a heel in the dirt, "if you're about to offer me a job or a contract, I'm going to have to give you the bad news right now. As of quite recently, I'm retired. Officially."
"I don't want to offer you a job," Mitch said. "Had something else in mind."
"That's a shame. You might have to put that 'something else' on the back burner, Mitch, because the minute I hang up this phone, I'm gone from Night City, which is why you've caught me at a gas station in bumfuck nowhere. I'm headed where no one can easily find me. Preferably someplace where I'm not going to die of skin cancer from massive UV rays anytime soon."
"It's not a bad plan. I hear Alaska is nice this time of year."
"I didn't say I was going to Alaska," Falco frowned.
"I know."
Falco felt a twitch at the base of his spine. His blood pressure rose, but only a tad, and he straightened up in the booth. Was Mitch a netrunner, or did he hire one to comb the Net for his activities? He had done a lot of research with regards to living in Alaska and he for sure had left a digital trail of his search queries—was that how Mitch knew?
Leaning towards the phone, he clutched the handle more firmly against his head. "Okay, so you did a check on me. Fine, whatever, you're free to poke around. Like I care. What did you say you wanted with me, anyway?"
"I didn't."
"I know, but you know what I'm goddamn well asking. And who's this 'someone else' you mentioned? Do I know them?"
"You know them, all right. Matter of fact, there's more than one 'someone else' with me that knows you. By reputation, at least. Some of their names probably won't be familiar to you. But you've had dealings with them before."
"What are their names?" Falco shifted his weight.
"They asked me not to say," Mitch almost sounded apologetic. "Not over the phone, at least."
The wheelman wracked his brain over who would be resorting to such tactics to obscure their names by using this Mitch as an intermediary. A ray of sun was shooting through a stray patch of morning cloud and was hitting the side of the phone booth in a focused beam, making it start to heat up.
He suddenly felt tired. "You never answered my question."
"Which one?"
"I don't even know why I'm still talking on this shitty phone," Falco grumbled, mainly to himself, but he knew that Mitch could hear him. Then, louder: "Why did you call me?"
"Ah, yes. That." Mitch cleared his throat. "Basically, I wanted to ask—or rather, I was asked to ask you—if you'd consider making a little bit of a detour in your trip. Meet those 'someone elses' we've been discussing."
"Buddy," Falco shook his head, "I told you already, I'm not doing another job." I've done too many as it is, he thought, remembering the cold concrete under his shoes just days earlier—or maybe it had only been hours—when he had lifted the manhole cover away after running for what felt like miles of underground tunnels, the NetWatch building just a block to his left and shrouded in mist, the garden of skyscrapers ablaze by police lights, and him left in the darkness with barely any notion of where he was or where he was going. There had been no one behind him then and he had kept looking over his shoulder ever since, thinking that he was going to see someone standing right there, either with a smile or a gun levelled towards his face.
"You're not getting me. I don't want you for a job. To be honest, we've enough wheelmen at camp already. You'd just be extra baggage, if you get my drift."
"So why the hell are you asking me to come down if you don't even need me to do anything?"
"Maybe we'd just like the company."
"Just how many of you are we talking about? I mean, as you're using the royal 'we'…"
"Let's just say that there's enough," Mitch said cryptically.
"Enough for what?"
"To do whatever we'd like."
"So, is that what you're asking me?" Falco's brow furrowed. "If I wanted to join up with you for the hell of it? I don't even know you."
"Yeah, well, some of us here know you. That's a better start than most here get."
"And where's 'here'?"
"Tucson."
The laugh that emitted from Falco's throat was instantaneous and even the booth creaked in his sudden bewilderment.
"Wasn't meant to be a joke," Mitch pretended to sound hurt.
Falco replaced the receiver against his ear. "I don't know if you've ever looked at a map before, Mitch, but Tucson is in the opposite direction of Alaska."
"Does that matter? You're free to travel anywhere you want."
"It's lost time, is my meaning. Lost time, and gas, and cash."
"Two of which can be reimbursed."
"I'm still not—" Falco was sighing, but Mitch cut him off.
"Look, I'm not going to force you to come. All I promised our common friends was that I would give you their offer and the details. I've done just that. I'm not really sure how else I could phrase it. There are some people that would just like to see you, one of which who's keen on renewing their acquaintance. And we just so happen to be located in Tucson. Now, if that doesn't sound appealing to you at all, you can ignore me and hang up this phone. Not like I held you at gunpoint or anything."
Mitch was sounding rather impatient on the other end and Falco was at the point of second-guessing himself. Someone had gone to all this trouble to call him at this specific place at this specific time. Maybe… there was a spark of fate to this whole encounter. One of those moments that could change the course of one's life, though one could never see it until it had passed them by.
Carefully, he spoke, "Say I do come to Tucson. Say I make it down there. No guarantees, just a hypothetical. How do I find you?"
A laugh. "Don't worry. We'll find you. Anyway, I have to go."
"Mitch?"
"Yeah?"
"You ever going to tell me who wants to see me?"
The man on the other end didn't answer. Falco was about to try again when Mitch unexpectedly picked up the conversation.
"One of them wanted you to know… they appreciate the jacket."
Before Falco could ask any further questions, the line disconnected with a click.
There was no redial function on the phone, no matter how hard Falco looked at the dirt-encrusted keypad. Eventually, he just set the headset back into the hook with a murmur, extricating himself from the phone booth and nearly knocking the folding door off its disintegrating hinges in the process.
He walked back into his car and clambered into it, now behind the wheel in his raised seat. Twisting the key, the fully-loaded engine growled to life and the wheelman gently eased it out onto the road. The pavement was shimmering, warbled spirals hanging above the surface as if an invisible hand was stringing them up. The throttle was stiff, as was the wheel, but the clutch glided like a dream, and the air conditioner was working an absolute treat. Perfect for a long drive.
The mountains in front of him looked like paper. As the truck started to roll forward, he took stock of the country. The volcanic slopes. The rolling ridges clustered with chaparral. Pale orange light of the sun causing the rocky headlands to glow to the north.
He pulled up to the freeway and came to a dead stop at the sign just before the 101. The long green rectangle read only two locations. The arrow that pointed north read "Seattle." The arrow that pointed south read "Los Angeles." Both cities had the number of miles it would take to reach them upon it.
The truck sat there at the entrance to the highway for an inordinate amount of time. There was no one behind the truck that he was holding up. Falco just leaned in his seat, looking down both ends of the impossibly straight road. A black line of civilization demarcating god's own wasteland. The true web that knotted all people together. He tapped his fingers against the wheel and sighed heavily. He leaned back and set his head against the headrest. Then he took the bridge of his nose in two fingers and squeezed, his eyes falling shut as if he were about to suddenly fall asleep.
"There ain't no way…" he whispered, but didn't know what else he was going to say.
The rumble of the engine comforting him, he opened his eyes. They darted to the right, following the path of the semis and the military convoys that patrolled the scarred lands before him, a similar coating of dust and dirt befalling each and every vehicle out here. Off in the distance, the glass mountains, the hollow calderas. Dead and brown as far as the eye could see.
A familiar smile twisted his face, realizing that he had been down this road once. Memories of youth flooding back, to when he had been younger and more arrogant. To when the future was more unknown and he had been hurtling up to meet it. If only he had slowed down then. And all he was leaving behind were the shapes of faces that would forever haunt his dreams. People he had cared about. Loved, even. But they were gone now, freeing him from this part of the world.
He took a breath and his hands regripped the wheel in reassurance.
"Fuck it," he rasped, his mouth twisting into a small grin.
His hand reached down to the gearshift and finally moved the knob. The truck hummed and Falco turned the wheel right and the Emperor pulled onto the 101, heading south, the coast shimmering past the small ridgeline between him and the rocky beach. He followed the road until he would hit the city. He would then follow it again until he hit another city. And so on it would go, but Falco did not mind. Everything he ever worried about was behind him now. And there was something rather liberating about seeing an open stretch of road spread limitless past the horizon, with no one else to overtake, as if he was lord over all he could see, this sparse domain.
And he was destined to never see Night City again as long as he lived, then that would not be such a bad thing.
AFTERLIFE
Quite a crowd had picked up tonight at the Afterlife and it was not even approaching peak hours. Gleams of plastic clothing, wisps of pastels, and the glint of prosthetic apparatuses formed a throbbing conglomerate among the crowd that aimlessly chattered away. Patrons told jokes, hit on girls, got drunk. A menagerie of beauty that had been paid for by the eddie—everyone here was cut in some way. For once, the place was acting like a real bar.
Not that Rogue was enjoying the backdrop much. As the lime-green neon seared down upon her in her soundproofed booth, the fixer lounged against the cracked leather seating, her boots atop a dust-scuffed low table. Bodyguards flanked the entrance to her private domain, knowing that she wished to be alone for the remainder of the night. She could see the crowds squirm and congeal through the translucent glass of her booth, but the thought of interacting with anyone out there made her feel queasy. The desire to do biz now left a sour taste in her mouth. Maybe there would never come a time when she would regain the stomach for it.
Just this one last phone call for the night and she would be done.
"…no, that wasn't a promise," she was saying, her voice already fried to the verge of breaking. "I don't make promises to people like you."
In her earpiece, another voice patiently chattered away. No one would ever know whom she was talking to, as she was running a triple-layer encryption that would give Arasaka's toughest netrunner a run for their money.
"If you want ground support, that's your issue, not mine," Rogue said after the other person had said their piece. "I can only guarantee that a significant portion of guns aren't pointed in your direction by the time you set boots on the ground. I give the word to back off, they'll listen. Not all, but most."
More chattering from her embedded earpiece.
"No, I have no interest in Dogtown," Rogue affirmed. "Hansen did such a good job of locking it down in the beginning that most consider it condemned these days. And BARGHEST is many things. A pacifying force, yes, but a stable government, no. The district is as good as a blank spot on the map to me. Put it this way, if you take it back, no one downtown would complain. Much."
The voice in her ear seemed pleased by that. A smile lifted the edges of Rogue's mouth.
"Perhaps you misunderstand how much influence I really have," she said. "Or maybe you understand completely." She paused to let the other person speak. "Flattery will open a lot of doors for you. Consider it cracked open a tad. I'm not as amenable as you hope. I'm not saying no to doing business with you—first I need to figure out what you can offer me for my cooperation."
In the next ten seconds, the voice told Rogue exactly what she could offer for her cooperation.
Rogue lifted her boots off of the table and sat up in interest, her face returning to neutral. "I'm now just slightly above ambivalence. I think I will enjoy having more conversations with you."
The voice affirmed the same to Rogue.
The fixer stood, rotating a finger to let the bodyguards at the front know that she was wrapping up. "Then I will await our next call. Goodbye, Madam President."
She disconnected the call and sighed in the grateful silence. There was a glass of beer on the table, the contents having gone warm half an hour ago, but Rogue downed the rest of the contents with a couple of swallows. She grimaced after finishing and set the empty glass back down. Secrets and lies, politics and subterfuge. The games that everyone played in order to get ahead. Suddenly, she was sick of it all.
Triggering a control to let the soundproof doors open, noise suddenly hit her like a hammer. Dance music crackling from speakers that were an ohm away from self-destructing. Maybe she should put some more money into the place. Stop everything from falling apart. She walked through the crowd, not needing to shoulder anyone aside for they all moved aside for her. Rogue scanned the sea of faces, but they all blended together, as if they had all been cloned from the same template. No matter if they were wearing the grungy clothes of a street rat or the zaibatsu suit from one of the arcologies, they could not be distinguished. Too young, they all looked too young. And they would probably die too young, no matter how good they truly were. The city would eat them alive, as it always has done since the beginning.
A few patrons tried to accost her, looking for a job or something, but she ignored them as she soldiered past. Her bodyguards shoved away anyone who ventured too close. There was a strata of cigarette smoke in the air, illuminated from the shifting flickers that emanated from the projection gear around the club. She could see where the smoke picked up from when it hit the air currents provided by the industrial ventilation, able to spy the rotating fans sheathed beneath thin grills where the walls and ceilings met.
An amplified and altered voice began to hum over the harmonics. Rogue couldn't place the singer. Pop culture shifted too quickly these days for her to stop and take notice. Everyone was always after the next best thing, whatever that was. One could only be on top of the world for a little bit before the world threw them off. How many times had she seen it before?
She did not walk towards the shadows, where she could be hidden and no one would bother her. Instead, she headed towards the bar. Claire was midway through her shift, in fine form, currently filling a glass full of Mexican beer, half a dozen other orders listing in a digital queueboard behind her.
The bartender saw Rogue coming over to sit down at the counter and she smiled warmly towards the other woman. "Gonna be a long night. Can I get you anything, Rogue?"
The fixer opened her mouth when she felt her handheld console vibrate from her pocket. She pulled it out. The device was old tech, but it had been a gift from someone she had known way back when. For some reason, she had never been able to part with it.
The screen was showing that she had received a message. Rogue thumbed in the password to unlock the device until the note was displayed before her.
IM ALL RIGHT BUT I THINK IM GOING TO STAY A WHILE. ITS DIFFERENT HERE. BUT IM SAFE. WE ARE ALL SAFE. JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.
Rogue locked the screen to the device and slid it back into her pocket. She leaned over the counter and clenched her hands together and stared off into the distance. She then placed her elbows on her table, moving her mouth behind her tangled hands so that no one could see her smile. That was the last thing she needed, for people to say that the queen of the Afterlife could actually emote. But everything shifted around her in meaningless blobs, out of focus, the music slurring into unintelligible subharmonics in the recesses of her ears. Everyone around her moved, except her. For she stayed in her tiny bubble of crystal clarity, the future laid open before her, and the weight of her knowledge focused on tearing everything up. Maybe everything had changed. Maybe it hadn't. But she knew that something was going to be different going forward and the time to avoid her fate had long passed her by.
Regardless, it did not conflict with the fact that, if only for a moment, she was genuinely happy right now. It had been years since she felt this way, but she was afraid to stoke that emotion any further, out of fear that she would snuff that fragile flame out with the barest hint of breath.
"Rogue?" she heard Claire ask again. "You want a drink?"
Shaking her head to snap her back to the present, that small fire in her head extinguishing with a whisper, the fixer's eyes widened in apology before that cold gleam returned to them. Whatever had briefly possessed her had vanished, leaving behind the pragmatic side she had spent the better part of several decades crafting. She wore the persona like a beloved coat, knowing it was her armor against everything and everyone, especially the city itself.
Straightening in her seat, flipping a strand of gray hair behind her neck, she cocked her head towards the bartender and gave a nod of affirmation.
"I'll have a Fiona Merrick."
CONCRETE
BUSHIDŌ
/
Written by
ROB SEARS
/
Based on
CYBERPUNK 2077 by CD PROJEKT RED
and MIKE PONDSMITH
/
Ending Theme
"Her Broken Smile" by DEADLIFE
A/N: Writing this was easier than I thought.
If that sounds like arrogance, I can expand on that. I've written for Mass Effect, Halo, Metroid, and now I can say that I've added Cyberpunk 2077 to my list of franchises that I've written complete fics for. And for those franchises, I did my best to slave myself to their respective canons as though they were sacrosanct and could not be broken no matter what. This was different, because Cyberpunk is a franchise that was largely popularized by people creating their own stories for Night City, going back to its tabletop roots. It struck me early on, while outlining this, that I didn't have to follow V or anyone else from the main game. I'd be sticking with the theme of the franchise—its original intention—by coming up with an original story that I could essentially DM from the ground up, like running my own campaign but in fanfiction format.
Going the route of creating original characters but using the vibrant backdrop of Night City was very liberating for me, creatively. Having the preestablished setting being all laid out there for me to use and populate with characters gave me all sorts of ideas that I wanted to tackle, along with the opportunity to utilize some concepts that I had been looking to write about for a long time, now. It was very exciting, writing Concrete Bushidō, with all of the freedom that I was afforded from the franchise. Does that mean I'll return to Night City again with another story? Honestly, I have no idea. I don't think all that much about what story I write next until I'm finished with the one I'm working on. As for what's immediately down the road, I think a little break is in order until my next idea hits me. Anything is possible from here on out.
A big thank you to those who read this story from beginning to end. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As always, I hope to see you further down the road.
- Rob Sears