Cyberpunk: STRAY

The neon lit street, the smell of piss and synth weed of Night City clung to Vincent's cheap nylon jacket like a second skin as he walked past a flickering hologram ads for straight up porno BDs. His secondhand contact lenses linked to an portable cyberdeck strapped around his wrist, held together with a distorted waypoint toward the Black Sapphire Casino in Dogtown, which is an complete hellhole in Night City.

"Turn Left" chirped the AI, its voice warped by the cheap earpiece jammed in his right ear.Vincent frowned. The alley it suggested reeked of coolant and stale urine. He squinted. It was a bad path—half-lit, one exit, a perfect mugging zone.

"Shit's glitching again, you gotta be fucking kidding me," he muttered in crisp, unaccented English, swiping a finger over the earpiece. Burmese curses lingered beneath his breath"Nga lee Kwarr!!!(A way of saying For fk sake in Burmese)"—remnants of a childhood in Yangon's squatter camps. Poverty had taught him to patch code, haggle for black-market textbooks, and disappear.

Here, in the city of dreams, those skills kept him alive...

He backtracked, shoulders hunched to minimize his silhouette. At his towering height of 5'5", with a baby face that drew:"Hey, kid, brat, gonk, miget" —from corpo suits, street thugs, gonks with a few screws loose to Joytoys all across Jig-Jig street to Dogtown.

Invisibility was his armor...

As he walked toward the tall towering tower, the glitterati at the casino doors—augments, flashy coats, cyberware gleaming—screamed wealth, Vincent's lack of them screamed not worth the bullet. His only tech? An earpiece, smart lenses, and an old Cyberdeck on his wrist so basic it couldn't even run Tetris. He exhaled, adjusted his jacket, and moved toward the Black Sapphire's entrance. He thought to himself "Don't get noticed."

The Black Sapphire

 Outside, bouncers scanned the crowd. One, a tall slab of muscle with chromed up eyes, locked eyes on him for half a second too long.Vincent slowed. Casino security didn't like errand boys, one wrong look, one wrong move, one nervous twitch, and they'd pull you aside for a 'random check'—where you either paid up or get 'fucked up' in an alley. He stepped aside, pretending to check his earpiece, letting corpos and mercs funnel in first.

Took his time. Night City was all about pace—move too fast, you look nervous. Move too slow, you're a mark.His turn. The bouncer's glare was a "What the fuck do you want from me" question. Vincent flicked his wrist chip up, its balance pathetically low, and said in a perfectly neutral tone,"Delivery." The bouncer barely glanced at the details. Vincent looked like a nobody. He was supposed to. A dismissive grunt. Waved in.

The Job

Inside, the casino glowed—holo-tables, corpos drunk on power, mercs with too much chrome and not much in their brains. He moved without stopping, following his HUD's shitty waypoint. Walked past a bar where a fixer whispered into a netrunner's ear, her nails lighting up like a Daikon blade, right through a VIP corridor, where a bored-looking escort scrolled messages while some gonk in a neon suit talked big about Arasaka. Vincent kept walking. Didn't look too hard. Didn't act like he belonged—just acted like he had somewhere to be.The mark was up ahead. He reached a side lounge, empty except for one person, a woman.

Aurore Cassel

Sitting with her legs crossed, a sharp grin on her lips, French accent thick as new money. Aurore Cassel, the more firey half of the infamous netrunner duo Skylight. Dangerous, she is. She damm sure didn't look up right away to him. Just flicked her her mind over her neural link, shadows of codes reflecting in her lenses. Then, finally, her gaze snapped to Vincent. One sharp inhale, she smiled like she'd already sized him up. "…You are lost, mon chou? "Vincent's expression didn't change. He knew better than to lie to someone like Aurore. So he just gave the truth, "Only for a second."

She looked at him, tapping her lacquered nail against the table looking at the cheap synth wine glass, eyeing Vincent like a puzzle she'd already solved. "So you sure you didn't took a peek?" she looked at him with her lips curling up a bit, voice thick with that Parisian lilt, half amusement, half disapproval.

Vincent reached into his jacket, pulled out a slim black leather case, and placed it on the table.

No hesitation. No extra words.

Aurore's fingers barely grazed it before she smirked.

"No small talk? No excuses, you're no fun kid."

Vincent met her gaze with a flat tone, subtle fear behind his eyes. "You paid for a delivery, not a conversation."

For a second, she studied him, Aurore let the words hang, rolling them in her mind like a well-aged cognac. Then, her smile sharpened. A nobody kid, no chrome, no status, just a pair of smart lenses held together by bootleg firmware and a jacket that had seen better days.

Then she huffed out a laugh. "Efficient. I like that. well go get yourself soemthing nice will you? Non?? but still... here you are. A courier, small, vulnerable perhaps cute.. *she chuckles*... Tell me, mon chou.., do you ever get curious?"

A soft beep. Funds transferred.

Vincent gave her a short nod, then turned and walked away.

No wasted motion. No lingering.

Aurore watched him leave, she watched Vincent disappear into the crowd, her fingers brushing the smooth leather case. 

She flicked it open, eyes scanning the data shard inside. Then, she smiled. "Oh, mon chou... you don't even know what you've just carried."

Her hands opening the shiny small leather black case.. looking at an piece of data shard in it..