The best noodle shop in the Pacific Northwest was a goddamn dive and proud of it. No matter how many times his corpo nephew begged him to reopen downtown where the customers would pay you outrageous sums to eat with real wooden chopsticks-or to have their asses wiped with eddies or whatever else was in fashion these days-Montrose Bishop wasn't fucking moving. He opened the Slurp'n Hot all the way out on the eastern sticks for a reason.
That reason was that he didn't give a damn. There were only three things he cared about, that his kitchen was clean, his ingredients halfway serviceable, and his staff sober enough to do their jobs. Everything else had gone to shit. His shop had dirty windows and the scarce remnants of a sign that had faded fifteen years ago. The tables were sort of clean, but only because he charged his customers extra if he happened to remember them leaving a mess. One of the lights in the ceiling still worked, but that was so he could read his invoices after closing time, and the bar still had a thick crack running down the center where some borg got his skull cracked open in the middle of rush hour.
He was proud of all that, because it kept the whiners out. Everyone who came to the Slurp'n Hot came for the best damn ramen in Seattle, and learned to forgive all the rest. He never lacked for business, even in the middle of the night when the only customers were a couple of old veterans and some lonely addict, strung out and passed out next to her bowl. Montrose was musing over whether it was time to throw her out on her ass when a fourth customer waltzed on in, dressed for war.
It was easy to miss if you were any regular idiot, but Montrose had seen a thing or two. He recognized reinforced clothing when he saw it, the pistol she only barely bothered to conceal, and the way the surprise flickered across her face for a moment when those damn Kiroshis scanned not a single ounce of chrome on what was left of his body. He noticed something else, too, and roared out at her in full volume while pointing out the door with his bad hand.
"You're getting blood on my floors!"
And it's not like he didn't have worse than blood on his floors already. It wasn't the kitchen, so he didn't really care, but Montrose'd be damned if he showed anything like fear just because some cyberpsycho dressed up like a teenie bopper waltzed into his noodle shop.
Looking suitably abashed, the girl turned right back around and scraped her boots clean. Honestly, who marches out of a massacre straight into a noodle shop?
Actually, wait. That sounds like proper thinking. Montrose decided he liked her, so he gave her a grunt that was only mildly aggressive when she approached the counter, this time with cleaner boots.
"Sorry about that!" she apologized, her tone friendly. "You know how it is with meeting new people. Most of the time it works out okay, but every now and then someone makes a horrible mess!"
Her gleaming smile was bereft of any bloodthirsty gleam, and if he couldn't smell the blood and gunpowder on her, he might've been fooled.
Montrose responded with a barely amused snort. "Whattya want?"
Looking for all the world like a normal teenager, the cute little gunwoman in front of him clapped her hands together and studied the menu. He still had a menu-the same menu, even after forty years-but all the prices were wrong.
"Oh... I'll take the tonkatsu deluxe, with an extra egg and lots of green onions! Wait, are these real eggs?"
"Laid 'em myself," he recited with a poker face decades in the making.
Her nose scrunched up in disgust. "... I still want the extra egg, but both of them on the side, please!"
By the time he got back from the kitchen with her order, the new girl was distracted by the busted up old jukebox he hid away in the corner. It was a true relic, not even hooked up to the local net, and most people barely gave it a second glance. She was rapt, bent over and studying the internals, the power cord, everything.
"It's the Slurp'n Hot!" Montrose shouted as he put down her bowl, "Not the Slurp'n Cold! Get over here and eat!"
Unhurried and unbothered, she returned, gesturing back over her shoulder towards the jukebox with a flick of her eyes. "That jukebox is so cool!"
His grimace faded into muted confusion. She knew what it was? She used the word 'cool'?
"Do you have any quarters," she asked, after nibbling on one of the eggs. "I wanna give it a try!"
She knew what quarters were?! Before, Montrose had her pegged for spec ops or some fortune of soldier type with a fetish for looking young, but anyone who remembered the old US currency would have to be even older than his own pappy.
"I'm surprised you managed to get 120V AC current to it, did you build a custom transformer?"
Or maybe she was just a nerd. He answered her first question, and overlooked the second entirely. "Quarters are 20 eddies each."
"I'll take ten!" she cheered, and threw down a wad of cash that was more than enough for the ramen and the quarters both.
Silently, he reached down towards his shotgun, then reached a little further still for his jar of quarters. He gave her ten in exchange for the real cash, and watched in continued confusion as she made her selections. Classical music started to play from the corner of the Slurp'n Hot, as she bounced back to the bar, happy as a clam.
"Thanks! And thanks for the food, too, this really tastes like pork! I'd almost forgotten what real pork tastes like."
Well, now she was just trying to charm him. And it was working, a little.
Montrose grunted again, this time in thanks, and noted, "You're all sorts of fucked up, aren't you? What brings you to Seattle?"
She didn't contest the claim, instead responding between slurps, "Tomorrow we've got a job, but tonight I'm cutting loose!"
He didn't hold back his judgmental stare. "This is your idea of cutting loose, huh? Eating ramen at some old dive?"
"Weird way to talk about your own bar."
"Weird way to spend your night, new girl."
After another bite, she asked, "How'd you know I was from out of town, anyway? What gave me away?"
"Seattle mercs know better than to get blood on my floors."
A nod, as she accepted this as right and proper. "Yeah, this whole town is pretty tame. I've been here for hours and haven't even seen a single machine gun!"
"You're from Night City, then," he concluded. Should've been obvious from the start, really.
Another, happier nod, and a smiling, "Mmhm! That's why I'm enjoying myself here. It's not like Seattle really has anything to tempt me, you know? If I wanted drugs, booze, or joytoys, I've got plenty back home."
Montrose shook his head at that, and tsked. "Not what I meant. You're surrounded by strangers for a night, and there's nothing new you wanna try while no one's watching? No family to judge you, no friends to tease you, and you're slumming in a shitty noodle bar."
"Again, that's a weird way to talk about your own restaurant..."
"A shitty noodle bar. If you're half as young as you look, it's a waste. But youth is always wasted on the young."
The strange girl just finished her bowl of noodles, having nothing to say to that, until a jolt ran through her. She slammed down a fistful of euros, again, and stood straight up with realization written all over her face. "I HAVE TO GO!" she shouted, before darting out the exit of the Slurp'n Hot.
In her wake, she left nothing but Montrose's scowl, the murmurings of the two old veterans sharing a table, and the agonized groan of the addict who glared balefully at the jukebox. "Make it stooop," she whined, and Montrose walked out from behind his bar to throw her out.
It was an irritating song, though, and a long one.
Hours later and several miles away, Tanaka Keiko clung to the side of her choom and shouted insults at the stage. It was open mic night at the Neon Locust, which on any other night was one of the better dance clubs in Seattle. When they had real music playing, she'd spend hours on the dance floor, bouncing from one guy to another until finding one hot enough to take home. On nights like this, the real entertainment was razzing would-be talent. Everyone knew the corpo labels had people here from time to time, so wannabe rockerboys would risk it, even though the crowd was hostile at best. That meant no dancing for Keiko, but she still had a good time screeching up at the grunge band determinedly finishing out their set.
When the last note faded and the last beer bottle had been thrown, the stage was quickly evacuated and left empty to the general noise of conversation and laughter of the drunken audience. She was halfway through cracking a joke with her chooms when the smile vanished from her face and her eyes widened. Even as buzzed as she was, Keiko couldn't help but feel a wince of sympathy.
"She's so young!" she responded to the unspoken question that hadn't quite escaped her friend's lips, and pointed up to where a teenage girl was taking the stage solo. Her outfit was nova, sure, and that guitar looked expensive, but there was no way she'd escape without being scarred for life. For goodness sake, that shitty synth she was setting up looked like it had been cobbled together at the last minute out of spare parts!
And there was a slight undercurrent of concern-this latest performer was so young she couldn't even drink here, legally, not that this had ever stopped anyone-but it couldn't pierce the swelling of sneering catcalls and horrible jokes erupting from the crowd before the music even started.
Keiko couldn't help it. She stood up on her tippy-toes, and when that didn't work, clambered up onto the top of her choom's back and shouted,
"Get off the stage!"
Then, so much happened at once.
Every neon light in the Locust went out, the stagelights illuminating nothing but the lonely girl in the middle of a mess of broken glass and freshly spilled blood.
She turned, then, spinning around to face the crowd, and Keiko could swear the teen was staring straight at her with something like manic gratitude in her eyes?!
And her fingers were flying, the synth playing out a rapid top hat into drum opening even while the chords erupting from her guitar grabbed the attention of everyone in the club. The jeers vanished in a sudden silent surprise broken only by instrumentals and the piercing harmonies of her voice singing,
"Blazing on by! There's nothing more that I can do..."
The instruments quieting underneath the slowly swelling pathos, her song was joined by a few whoops and cheers from the crowd, then gasps of shock and alarm.
"I'm sorry that, I'll never be with you again..! Even though, my heavy heart is parched with pain, I know somehow, your sorrow's something I won't see!"
Her gaze was raking across the crowd, seeming to stare straight into the eyes of one person after another, and when Keiko met the girl's eyes for the second time, the sight before her suddenly transformed. Instead of a leotard and jacket, the girl up on stage was dressed in... a bunny-girl outfit? with a yellow ribbon in her hair. Surrounded now by a band of other teenage girls, she continued to play and sing on a now-clean stage that had replaced Keiko's view of reality. All around her, the club was gone, simply gone, and she found herself in some sort of auditorium? No, this was a gymnasium of some kind. A really old one.
The girl on stage hacked her optics! She was hacking the optics of everyone in the crowd, even as she played, all for the illusion of performing in a shitty halloween costume. For once, Keiko was too confused and overwhelmed to shout anything at all.
Then the music swelled up throughout the end of the verse into the chorus. By the time she reached it, the crowd was bouncing on their feet and cheering. Somehow, she had gotten on the least forgiving stage in Seattle to sing about her shitty breakup, and she was getting away with it!
Still clinging to her choom's back, Keiko let out a whoop, then lost her balance and fell to the ground in the dark. By the time she got herself sorted and back on her feet, the breif song had come to an end and girl on stage was pointing a victorious finger into the air.
"Thank you! I'm Haruhi Suzumiya, and We! Are! WEEB TRASH!"
The cheers of the crowd were punctuated by a boom at the door, as a dozen men in uniform stormed into the benighted club and pointed their service weapons at the stage.
"SPD!" they shouted, to the sounds of quickly growing panic from the crowd. "You're under arrest for multiple homicide!"
Even if she wanted to forget what happened next, Keiko never would. She'd see it in her dreams, that blur of sudden movement. Without any warning, there was a gun in the bunnygirl's hand, and a staccato crack of gunfire. The whole club was plunged into absolute darkness as the stagelights were shot out, and she found herself racing the hail of broken glass to the ground as the cops opened fire. When the hacks ended moments later, she was back in the Neon Locust, illuminated once again by the bright and gawdy house lights.
The girl was gone, nowhere to be seen. For weeks, all Seattle would talk about was the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.