NOVEL NEXT Chapter 18: Chapter 18
What a strange feeling. The last time I came to this apartment, it was with a Claws squad, and we were ready to paint the walls red. I still remember every word spoken during that tense encounter. But now, I'm a welcome guest. The apartment hadn't changed much. If you looked closely, you could even see the cracks in the wall from where Maine hit it.
I still felt nauseous, but the worst of the symptoms had passed. All that remained was the exhaustion from the day. I collapsed onto the couch with pure relief. Time to unwind. Meanwhile, Lucy seemed to have energy to spare, moving around the spacious room with a bounce in her step, like she was dancing. As she moved, the neon lights and holograms lit up, following her path like magic.
"You want a drink?" she asked, opening the fridge door.
The white light spilled out, highlighting her face like a spotlight. I could see every detail, every strand of hair—including the one that got clipped by a bullet. Lucy caught my gaze and gave a barely noticeable nod, like she'd just confirmed some thought of hers.
"A drink?" I repeated. "Just something light. Anything stronger than twenty percent, and I'm out."
Lucy chuckled. As she pulled out bottles, she asked, "Do you do anything? Like sports. Or what you rich kids call fitness?"
I shrugged.
"Shooting, now and then. Usually paired with some cardio, you know, dodging incoming fire."
She sat down beside me on the couch, handing me a bottle of some light alcoholic cocktail. The cold, sweating glass felt good in my hand.
"Well... cheers to us," I said, raising the bottle for a toast. "And next time, let's avoid the bullets, yeah? I don't want any more messing up your hair."
"We'll try," she agreed.
We clinked bottles. A soft clink, a taste that was chemically refreshing. I knew what was coming next. I'd known it from the moment I agreed to come here. The only thing that bothered me was my less-than-stellar condition after the fight.
"I've never liked shirts," Lucy remarked, glancing at my white one.
"What, are you going to rip it off and toss it?" I joked.
"No. Weirdly enough, it suits you."
Lucy leaned closer, unfastening the top button of my shirt, and placed two fingers on my neck, feeling my pulse. Then she began massaging my very un-augmented muscles with her whole hand. It felt amazing. I closed my eyes and sank into the sensation. After all the strain on my nervous system, this was exactly what I needed. She worked her way down, one button at a time. Her massage soon turned into caresses, then kisses.
At first, I thought about taking a more active role, despite feeling drained, but then realized it wasn't necessary. Lucy was perfectly happy to take the lead. All I had to do was not resist. I could relax and enjoy it. After... I'm not sure how long, she whispered in my ear:
"Come on."
We moved to the spacious bed. Lucy handed me some kind of inhaler. I took a deep breath while she undid my belt. Off came the clothes. The inhaler cleared my head a bit. At the same time, my senses sharpened. Every touch set off fireworks in my nerves.
Lucy slipped out of her jumpsuit, revealing her perfectly toned body. Years of training and heavy modifications. A figure any gymnast would envy. Compared to her, my body felt... old-fashioned, ordinary, vulnerable. I ran my hands over her skin, brushing over the places where other materials were embedded.
The next hour tested my physical limits—but in the best way possible.
It was nothing like what I had with Evelyn. Different emotions, different sensations, and thank the Net, no Voodoo Boys involved.
An hour later, I was lying there, barely able to breathe, while Lucy didn't even seem winded. Usually, guys try to hide their weaknesses from women—especially from those who are beautiful and strong. But I knew that wasn't necessary with Lucy. On the contrary, seeing my vulnerabilities would make her warm up to me even more quickly. According to my knowledge of the future, Lucy had fallen for David long before he became a chrome monster, taking down enemies single-handedly. She was drawn to a genuine, straightforward guy with untapped potential—a person cast aside by fate.
I'm not exactly like that, but I can play a different, more idealized role for Night City. The honor student from a good family, manipulated by Arasaka and used until he was drained. A young corpo clinging to his humanity, desperate to escape the system, and on top of that, the victim of a deadly experiment. If I play my cards right, she'll do most of the work herself, without me even needing to push. The key is not to stand in her way, to let her believe she has freedom... or at least the illusion of it.
Lucy needs someone close to her. Really close. To help her break free from loneliness, to share emotions, to trust, to open up. And when that bond forms between us... she won't run away.
Wait.
What the hell am I talking about? Why would she run? I like her. She can help me, and I can help her. Is that so bad?
I got lost in my thoughts, too relaxed, and muttered in Russian:
Ты снимаешь вечернее платье, стоя лицом к стене
И я вижу свежие шрамы на гладкой, как бархат, спине
Мне хочется плакать от боли или забыться во сне
Где твои крылья, которые так нравились мне?
"You know Russian?" she asked in surprise, resting a hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah. Learned it as a kid, my father insisted. He kept saying that a smart person should think and speak in multiple languages. Said it develops the mind. He drilled it into me."
Another lie. It came so naturally to me that I was almost surprised myself.
Lies, like a mythical hydra, have three heads: imagination, logic, memory. You have to come up with a story, make sure it fits seamlessly into reality, and commit it to memory. It's not hard, but weaving and maintaining a web of lies is a skill few can master.
I fell asleep almost instantly, slipping into darkness where the answer to a long-standing question awaited me, cloaked as a nightmare.
_________________
Again, I saw the third floor of the "Ho-Oh" club. Dressed in all black, I walked into a torture room.
"The subject is ready. Won't escape," said Jotaro Shobo.
The psycho in a white suit politely stepped aside. He moved out of the way, revealing a figure strapped to the torture chair. But it wasn't Faraday—it was Lucy. Her face was covered in bruises, mouth taped shut, eyes closed.
"Go on, V. Finish what you started," Jotaro said, but his voice sounded different.
I turned to see that it wasn't Jotaro—it was Jory. He'd taken on the appearance of the Japanese man, but the hollow black eyes and unnaturally long teeth gave him away. A monster of the Net, disguised as a human monster. How amusing.
And then I realized it was a dream. Just a hallucination. There was no Jory here, no Lucy. Just me, my paranoia, and... my memory.
"Yeah, yeah," Jory-Jotaro smirked. "Time to remember, V."
Time...
The club vanished. Before me stretched the Cyberspace. A boundless realm of spectral lights, where the living can encounter the dead. My subconscious was unraveling memories of the Net again.
Once more, I dreamt of that hunt. Jory and I had set a trap in the ruins of the Old Net. Living runners drew near, lured by the promise of our web—a chance to satisfy our endless hunger. Three flickering phantoms drifted close, noticing the trap, but one allowed themselves to be fooled. I tore into them like a starving vampire, ripping them apart and devouring them.
While my tendrils shredded the prey, Jory ensnared the others in his illusion trap. His favorite sadistic trick. But this time, the creep got carried away. One of the two remaining victims began breaking free from the false reality. I reached out to the one slipping away, diving into Jory's crafted illusion.
In past dreams, my mind skipped over what happened inside that false reality, but this time I saw it. I recognized it.
The illusion unfurled before me—a long, narrow hall that resembled a part of an old Japanese mansion. Wooden, rotting walls scrawled with threats, dusty sliding doors. Through holes in the roof, the yellow disk of the moon shone down. Many doors lined the hallway, but behind them, there was nothing. The illusion hadn't filled them in yet, since the only spectator of this grim show stood in the center of the room. Jory's abilities displayed people's appearances as they truly were, so there was no mistaking it.
In the middle of the hall stood Lucy, but ten years younger. A fragile girl in a Netrunner suit, surrounded by the malice of the Old Net. I was nearby, hunting her. I hadn't revealed myself yet, but I was weaving traps to block off her escape routes. Jory's illusions were getting in my way. His overloaded data streams were like a thick swamp, making my movements sluggish. I knew the girl might slip away. So, I decided to speak to her. For the first time in decades, I spoke to a living person. The cold, predatory instincts of a hunter in Cyberspace had no intention of offering the girl anything good.
Distract, intimidate, break, kill.
To start, I showed her an image of her recently slaughtered companion. A chubby boy with a serious yet harmless face appeared a few steps away from Lucy.
"Masaki?" she gasped. "Are you okay? We need to get out of here..."
"Calm down..." my puppet interrupted, buying time for me to weave my net. "Stop running. Try to see things differently, and you'll understand that all your life - you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain - it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room."
"Masaki... what are you..."
She was scared. Her fear and will to live came through on a primal level. Perfect. Just a bit more, and I could sink my tendrils into her. The puppet kept talking.
"A dream about being a person. And like in a lot of dreams..." the puppet's face twisted into a sinister grin, "...there's a monster at the end of it."
I attacked. I appeared in the hall, and Jory's illusionary system depicted me, creating the form of my former body: a tall man with dark hair. My skin was blue, like that of Japanese ghosts from old horror stories, and I was dressed in a hospital gown, torn at the chest. My flesh and skin were missing there too, revealing the white bones of my ribcage, with charred, swollen lungs protruding, filled with a black liquid. A vengeful spirit of someone who died from pneumonia.
My phantom grinned, reaching for the girl, and at that moment, hundreds of ghostly hands emerged from the walls, floor, and even the ceiling. The trap was sprung. However, instead of accepting her fate, the girl made a run for it. She slipped between my grasp, getting caught but breaking free again, refusing to let herself be killed.
Jory... His stupid illusion limited my abilities. It increased the response time, turning a deadly trap into a complicated but survivable challenge for a human.
And Lucy escaped.
She tore away parts of her own identity as she broke free from the illusions' hold. A tiny, vulnerable figure vanished into the endless expanse of Cyberspace, leaving me alone with hunger and cold rage. I had only consumed one, but I could have had two!
The dream was ending. As the final scene, I saw my new self: Corpo V, lying on a spacious round bed, holding a naked woman. Her sleeping face looked so peaceful.
"You lured her into a web of lies, just like I caught prey in illusions," Jory's voice echoed in my dream. "Aren't we alike, my friend? Just be careful. The girl might tear through the threads of your lies and escape. Just like back then. Run away from us again."
I fully woke up, and one thought spun in my mind: "Lucy must never find out. Not a thing. Never."
Well… at least now I understood why I was so fixated on Lucy escaping from me and that line from the show. Memories of the Net. They hadn't gone anywhere, still buried in my subconscious, sometimes triggered by especially strong stimuli. I hadn't thought much of them. I figured they hardly overlapped with my new life. I saw my time as a demon as just an extended transitional phase—a long leap through the void from one body to another. But first, Jory showed up, and now these memories. I'll need to dive into the Net again and try to untangle my past by taking on my old form. Slowly, I'll transfer those memories into my third life.
Trying to fall back asleep didn't work. The shadow of the past blocked out all the charm of the previous night. I lay with my eyes open, watching as the gray sky outside sprinkled a half-hearted drizzle over the city.
Lucy was lying next to me, turned on her side. Alive and grown-up, all because I missed my mark ten years ago. Rarely do you feel so relieved about your own failures.
I got up carefully, not wanting to wake her, and quietly walked over to the window, looking down at the illuminated umbrellas glistening in the gray morning.
All was calm. In essence, everything was fine for now. There was practically no way for her to learn the truth. That brain dance of Faraday's death? Sure, I recited that damned quote there, but there's no way Lucy will ever see it. Jory? He's still stuck in the Net, and I'm hoping he'll stay there for the next hundred years.
"Can't sleep?" she asked, stirring a little.
So, she woke up after all.
"Yeah. Got stuff to do. Today's my last day of freedom."
"The bird wants to fly back into its golden cage?" Lucy teased with a hint of judgment.
"Just temporarily," I replied. "I want to go back in there for a bit, scrape off some gold from the bars."
I managed to get a handle on my paranoia. I was already speaking like nothing had happened. It's fine. My web of lies is stronger than steel cables, and we'll keep hanging in it for a while longer.
While I was getting dressed, preparing to call a cab, I couldn't shake the feeling that she didn't want me to leave, despite all my rational arguments. Fate has a funny sense of humor. Lucy was trying to hold on to the person she barely escaped from in the past.
"You'll have plenty to do as well," I said, already dressed. "And I don't just mean those little stones. I'll send you something about Jimmy Kurosaki's accounts today. It's possible that some of the money can still be pulled out."
"You trust that kind of info to a network connection?" Lucy asked, disapprovingly. "You'd better bring me the shard yourself."
"No way. I'm not that easy to fool," I smirked. "I'll come over tonight, and I'll stay till morning. Best case. And who knows, we might end up robbing someone again."
"Could be," she agreed.
"Later," I sighed.
I didn't even have to fake the disappointment. The weekend was ending, and the dark silhouette of the Arasaka Tower loomed on the horizon like the fortress of Sauron.
I was almost out the door when Lucy came up to me, closer than usual, and said, "Get out of there, V. Get out as soon as you can."
"I will," I replied and kissed her before leaving that significant apartment for an indefinite period.
Back in my own place, I called Tanaka, announcing that:
"It's done."
"Glad to hear it, Mr. V. Let's meet and discuss the details at the usual place."
Great. Time to call Jackie. Need to make sure the corpo comes alone and doesn't plan on wiping me out after the job's done.
No-Tell Motel. Same room. Roughly the same time of day. Tanaka listened attentively to my report, which contained about fifty percent truth, but the key points lined up with reality. I told him about Faraday and his contacts with Militech.
"Industrial espionage. You were absolutely right. I sent them a disinformation package under Faraday's name. The fixer himself has already been dealt with."
"The operatives?" Tanaka asked.
"Two died in a shootout with the police. The others disappeared. I assume Faraday got rid of them himself to tie up loose ends."
Damn. I was tempted to hand Tanaka the brain dance where I fried Faraday's mind. It would've been a nice touch, considering my employer's twisted tastes. But that might connect the corpo to Jotaro. If Tanaka cozies up to him, he might get interested in a certain girl they brought me in a crate. Damn. Maybe I'm being paranoid again, but better not to take extra risks just for a cool move.
I handed Tanaka the info on Faraday's contacts with Militech, some documents from his computer, and a photo of the fixer's severed head before disposal. It was enough for him.
"I'll notify your superiors that the task was successfully completed," Tanaka replied instead of offering his thanks.
Not that I cared about his gratitude. What mattered was that he brought the money—120,000 in shards. That brought my total to 658,000, with 300,000 in cash. With this pleasant thought, I headed home.
Selling Jorge's stones, digging into the Kurusaki and Faraday accounts, and a heap of looted shards—all of this could bring in a pretty hefty profit. What might the final number be? 800,000? I sure hope so. With that kind of eddies, I could either arm myself to the teeth or start my own business. It's not so scary to go independent with a cushion like that.
Late at night, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. The past few days flashed through my mind like a vivid reel of events: the plan to zero out Faraday, my first face-to-face meeting with Lucy, our first job together, and our first night together. Even the grim echoes from the past couldn't spoil the whole experience.
The raid on the smugglers didn't go perfectly. Lucy was used to operating with far more risk than I was. She seemed to even get a special thrill from it. That's something I'll need to take into account.
It felt like a mini-life crammed into one long weekend. Now, my "beloved" office awaited. How long do I have to endure it? A week? A month? Two? I just have to survive it—both emotionally and literally. Okamura's dead, but Abernathy might find a new puppet.