“So!” Jin said. “You ever hear about this vassal thing ‘Saka’s got going?”

What? What was he on about now? “Uh, yeah. Think Allister explained the concept to me some months ago. Slave corpos.”

Jin barked out a laugh. “That’s what you think? Nah, man. Think of it like… a company within a company. The vassal helps ensure the miniature company’s success, and in return, they get protection and backing, essentially becoming household members of their…” he hesitated for a moment before shrugging, “Their lords. If we wanna keep using this cringe-ass wording.”

“Wait,” I paused for a moment. “Why are you telling me this? Wait, Jin…” I stopped for a moment.

“Don’t say anything, David,” Jin looked at me gravely. “Nothing. Not even a ‘I’ll think about it.’”

Fucking hell! “So, that thing about us being partners? That was a lie?”

He looked at me incredulously and shrugged. “I mean… yeah? Please tell me you didn’t buy that shit. Did you?”

I sighed. “No, I didn’t actually. Not really.”

“Dude, I was like thirty beers down,” Jin grinned, shaking his head. “You cannot hold that shit against me.”

“Jin,” I said. “No.”

Jin’s expression screwed into intense displeasure for a moment. “That’s… not an option for you.”

Not an option? Who the fuck—

Don’t tell me… “Jin—“

“It’s out of my hands, David,” Jin said. Fuck.

“Who’s hands, then?”

Jin gave a mild grin. “My old man. The CFO. For our North America ops, anyway.”

“Jin,” I grit my teeth. “Is this how I’m repaid for everything I did for you today?”

Jin’s eyes widened as he grinned and nodded. “Fuck yeah, dude! Congratulations! Welcome to the fucking family.” Then he scowled. “What, you think you’ll ever get a better offer in your life? You know how heavy my name is—you gotta be a fucking idiot not to. This is a good thing, David!” He walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “You got a job before you even signed the ‘Saka contract. And you’re a part of my household, now. Do you even know what that means? It means I’d never backstab you. It means we’re actually a team now. Ride or die. That… Tyger Claw bullshit you sent my way? You’ll never have to worry about that shit again. Or some stupid Italian fuck putting a gun to your head. In my household, you’d be as good as another son of Masaru.”

“Second favorite, though,” I said, staring at him dead-on. “And detachable, because there’s no blood relation, right? Plus, I’m not even Japanese.”

Jin’s eyes widened. “Why the fuck should that matter?!”

I stared at him for a long moment. “I know it does, Jin. Don’t have to fucking lie to me. And I know you are. You’re promising safety when you and I both know that shit doesn’t exist. You’re promising never to sell me out, when you and I both know that you would in a heartbeat if that option ever became more profitable than keeping me on.” I’d be at the total mercy of one asshole’s cost-benefit analysis.

“Alright then,” Jin took a step back. “No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.”

“You impressed him,” he said, tilting his head upwards to indicate who ‘he’ was. His father. “Them, really. You should’ve seen how the suits up on high were reacting—up on the top floor and the rest of the baby corpos. Yorinobu Arasaka, our head honcho himself was watching you, man!” I blinked at that. Seriously? What the hell? But Jin continued on blithely. “The mayor, the CEOs of Petrochem and Night Corp and—gah! You fucking guy! You should’ve seen how constipated the Biotechnica and Zetatech bigwigs were looking by the end—fuckers got nothing after their big Tōge Oni play! Rhyse Galore looked like she just got raped by her cat! And Giovanni de Prima’s face—fuckin’ art, man! Like he could’ve swallowed a cactus.”

I didn’t flinch. “So what? Why does this matter to me?”

“Because, David,” Jin’s eyes narrowed, “that’s how all these fuckers are supposed to look after they try to screw with ‘Saka. That’s how high corpo politics should always be going for us. And us includes you, now. So, get this. Listen close.”

I crossed my arms, waiting.

“Hiroto wasn’t Alessandro’s racer. He was his father’s. They were setting up this inheritance thing that involved Alessandro beating the rest of us babies with daddy’s toy, essentially fucking cheating in the process.”

Well, that explained a few things.

But, seriously? This was like getting into a playground brawl with some other kid, and calling your dad to jump the kid. Dirty. Corpo. Scum. But this was Biotechnica. I was convinced that no low was beyond them, nothing at all. This was fucking tame compared to the shit I already knew they pulled when they could get away with it.

“In the process of you wrecking this plan of the de Primas, my old man, he, ah, let some of the city’s bigwigs know that I’ve been secretly heading your training for years, and that you’re already a part of the household.”

What the fuck.

[Calm down, David.] I could feel Nanny’s influence slowly smothering my raging heartbeat. I felt caged, on the brink of losing everything I had built up.

This wasn’t a conversation. This was a fucking ambush.

This felt like the end to it all. The end to freedom as I knew it. It was almost sickening.

“And if I don’t play along,” I said quietly, “It’ll be embarrassing. To him.”

What the fuck was going through that corpo’s head, anyway? Was he really just that used to dictating the lives of those he viewed as below him?

[His embarrassment is your leverage.]

D: Until he starts asking around for granny in Tijuana. Or digging into my biz and finding out who I am. All that’s left is endless escalation, and then mutual destruction.

They weren’t going to hold my hand through this onboarding. They were going to twist my arm and frogmarch me through without a care for how I felt. And then they’d use me until there was nothing left for them to use.

[Then just say yes.]

D: I can’t—

[Lie.]

I considered the scenario.

Saying yes meant that I’d have at least bought myself some amount of time of peace, all the while as I set my own pieces up. The QianT buy-in, the algorithm…

QianT!

A far more palatable option.

I looked at Jin for a moment, and debated on whether or not to turn up my honesty for a bit, appeal to his sense of sincerity, but I decided against it in the nick of time.

He and I… would never be friends. Not in the way that I was friends with Fei, or the crew. He was always just a rival that was a hair’s breadth away from becoming a problem that I needed to solve.

“I need some time to think,” I said.

“Don’t bullshit me,” Jin said. “And don’t make it hurt for you, either. We can both do without the distractions that would cause: the hard feelings… the trauma.”

I could tell he wasn’t even just saying that to scare me. To him, my anguish would just be an inconvenience that he’d rather avoid.

I just sighed and dragged my fingers through my hair, staring up at the ceiling. “Fuck me.”

“Just say yes.”

I felt my entire body tense up in preparation to punch him, but I stopped myself in time. Just say yes?

“What’s the rush?” I asked.

“I was told I needed to produce results today,” Jin said.

“Use your discretion. You’re not gonna get me to say yes. Not here. You can go big stick and send a strike-team to my house to scare me or whatever, and honestly I’d welcome it. Just as long as I get to go. Now.”

D: Nanny.

[Already gotten a consult with a tax lawyer who is on his way to the Country Club. The venue is waiting in their office as well to discuss the payout.]

D: Thank you.

Jin nodded. Then he tapped at his chip-socket on his neck. “Aight then: limited time offer. My data.”

“You mean… the trading data that you won from this bet?”

He nodded. “It might get a little cramped with the two of us using it at the same time, but the payout would still be insane. Plus ninety percent, from what I can tell.”

I immediately used Breach Protocol on him. Gently

, just prodding at his ICE, seeing what stuff he was on.

The answer was… nothing that I’d be able to penetrate remotely. I’d have to jack into his system to get anything useful out of him—preferably while his ass was down for the count, unconscious.

This guy was running hardware every bit as complex as Tanaka’s.

Shit.

If I wanted to get at his data, I’d need to take it from him, physically. Take the shard, plug it in, read it, and give it back without him noticing.

But if I tried to picksocket him only for him to be mid-read on the shard’s contents, he would immediately know.

But… I wanted this data. It had the potential of turning my seventy-five into a hundred and forty-two, which was… more money.

A lot more money.

And realistically, trading financial instruments was my only practical method of making more money at this point. Anything else would take too long. This was perfect for me.

[Just get the greed out of your system, but remember that in the end, this isn’t feasible.]

Shit.

“Thanks, but… I just need some time, dude,” I said. “Just give me a few days.”

Jin screwed up his face in anger. “You don’t—“

“You’re so fucking bad at this,” I snapped.

“The fuck did you--?”

“I told you to wait, and here’s the thing: I don’t give a shit that you’re getting squeezed. I don’t give a goddamned fuck, actually. That’s your problem, choom! I’m not your fucking slave. Shit, I’m not even your friend. I’m here to help you for my own sake, in a way that we both benefit. You want me to say yes immediately? You can’t afford that level of loyalty. And until you learn how to talk to me, you never will.”

“Ah! I see, I see!” he stared widely at me. “You get a little money and suddenly you start changing your tune, biting the hand that fed you?”

“Say hi to your pops for me. Tell him what I told you: time.”

Then I walked past him, shoulder-checking him on my way. "Fuck out of my way," I muttered.

000

Seventy-five became seventy-two after some exhausting back-and-forth between my new lawyer and the venue.

To hear Nanny tell it, Benjamin Cohen was the same lawyer that negotiated the highest casino win in post-Datakrash history: eighty million Eurodollars, won in the Crystal Palace casino up in orbit. To think that I was only five million away from that record.

Thankfully, my bet and subsequent winnings weren’t public. My winning the race definitely was, though. I’d won a hundred grand for my troubles. Not even the highest I’d ever made doing a gig. It was so much trash to me, now. A check that took up extra pocket-space.

The bald-headed, middle-aged, portly lawyer walked besides me as we left the venue’s head office, where I had spoken to the Country Club’s proprietor, a cowboy-hat wearing fuck of an old man that reminded me too much about that one guy I killed: Spring Roberts. They were both cut from the same passive-aggressive Texan cloth. Loudly arrogant, with a core of wrath waiting to be unleashed at the drop of a hat.

Starting to think that the only nice Texan I’d ever meet was Falco.

Thankfully, I didn’t really have to talk much. Mr. Cohen had done a good job. “Three million down is small potatoes, kid,” Cohen told me as we walked down the hall. “Don’t fret so much about that. Now, all of it is yours. All of it. Minus my retainer, of course.”

I took out my first place check and handed it to him. “Does that cover it?”

He looked at the check for a moment and then shrugged, pocketing it. “With sixty-four thousand to spare.”

“Keep it in credit,” I said. “Might have another use for you at some point.”

“Of course,” he nodded. “What are you planning?”

“A buy-in.”

“Makes sense. Let your money make more money. No use throwing it around on luxury items. You wanna give your wealth staying power, and that’s wise.”

I sighed. “No need for the compliments, sir. I appreciate them, but I’d rather you just level with me.”

“Ah, my bad,” he nodded, looking forward. “Respect is important, but know that that’s all it was: not condescension.”

“Appreciate it.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Once I’d walked him to the elevators on one of the many different lobbies, I decided to get an elevator of my own while Mr. Cohen took the one next to it. I gave him my hand, and we shook. “Thank you for your hard work.”

“Just doing my job,” he said.

“I’ll skip the after-partying and the networking, though. I have some other business I must attend to.”

Cohen looked a little surprised by that. “Are you sure? My firm won’t hesitate to pull out all the stops for you once we sign you on. Have you ever eaten at Pepper and Spice, perchance? It is truly an experience—”

“It won’t be necessary,” I said. “The only way to make a good impression with me is if you do right by me. Today, you did. Three mill is nothing to sneeze at, but we were looking at way steeper fees until you came along. I appreciate that help. Really. But I’m a busy man, and I’d prefer it if you saved your efforts for when we next must work together.”

Nanny materialized next to Cohen and gave me an impressed grin and a nod. [Who are you and what did you do with the David who can’t keep his cool to save his life?]

She was spoiling the moment.

Cohen gave me a nod of respect, and his elevator arrived just then. “Until we see each other again, Mr. Martinez.”

“Likewise.”

[From kid to Mr. Martinez! I’m impressed.]

My elevator arrived as well. I walked in and punched in a number, before waiting for it to take me up the building to Fei’s floor.

Fei. Another source of… not stress. Anxiety.

Jin’s stupid ambush had completely wrecked my mood after the race. I couldn’t even mentally enjoy my winnings in peace. In fact… there was no peace whatsoever. Just a race to move my money as quickly as possible, money that didn’t even feel like it was mine. It felt like an arbitrary value, really. Video game currency.

And with this psychopathic kid breathing down my neck, following my every thought, I wondered if I’d even be able to get any sleep tonight. Probably shouldn’t.

And now…

A PLS arm. Shit.

Fei-Fei had pretty much gone off the deep end.

[She seems to be handling herself well,] Nanny said with a simple shrug.

“We don’t know that,” I said. “We don’t know anything about what she’s going through.”

[She could try and spec low if she wanted. She’ll always be able to afford it, at the very least. Not even the flash-cloned SCOP meat either. Artisanal biowork would be well within her price range.] Didn’t help.

“So fucking stupid of her,” I growled. “She just survived a cyberpsycho incident and now she chipped in a fucking arm-cannon? The hell is she thinking?”

[She’s probably thinking about her own safety. In any case, a PLS isn’t any more cyberpsychosis-inducing than a Sandevistan like yours.]

“But I have you.”

She shrugged. [You’d have lasted quite a while even without me. As I’ve noted before, your natural cyberware affinity is great. And Fei did mention that her affinity was in the top one percentile. A PLS won’t tip her over.]

I groaned. Fuck. “Couldn’t she have just gotten some iron or something? Why does anyone even think to chip in weapons? Convenience?”

[…Yes?]

Fucking stupid.

The elevator finally opened, and I walked through the hallways of the private bedrooms in a trance, until finally, I reached Fei’s room.

I knocked three times and waited patiently for her to open.

There she was, grinning excitedly. She dragged me into the room by her arm and threw me onto the bed, before immediately straddling me. “How long I’ve waited for this,” she said, before bringing her head down to mine to kiss me.

As I looked past this ambush and into her ardent, innocent eyes, it occurred to me, then, in a flash of thought, how much of a scumbag I was being. How much of a scumbag I should be, rationally speaking. How much I could potentially benefit from continuing to be a scumbag.

Because it would be so, so easy. It would be so easy to stay on this bed, celebrate this win with her as any other red-blooded man would. So easy to let everything go back to how it was before. So easy to find some excuse to keep two-timing, and tell her I loved her, pretty sure she would believe it. I wasn’t even sure if I would be lying.

I’m such garbage.

I closed my eyes, feeling profoundly uncomfortable as I fired up the Sandevistan. Time slowed to a crawl. I had to give myself more time to think, feeling ashamed as I did.

Unfortunately, I just… hadn’t been strong enough to do the right thing, right off the bat. Do right by my friend by being honest with her from the start.

The problem now was, there were so many benefits to keeping just a few cards close to my chest. Like how well I could… use her. For my ambition.

She was an heiress to QianT. The creators of my, somehow special, Sandevistan. An experimental prototype potentially made with knowledge from Mars. A company that I had plans for, potentially.

But I’d already used her enough. Already put her through enough.

I had to be a man about this. Even if it hurt her, or me, even if it meant somehow destroying this relationship. Even if that happened, I’d find a way to keep moving forward, as I always did, as I always would.

I deactivated the Sandevistan, and time moved once more. I pushed her off me gently and stood up.

“Fei, I have a girlfriend.”

Dead silence.

Seconds passed. Then minutes. Then, finally, there was a quiet, high-pitched, “oh.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to her. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

Silence passed again, for quite a while.

“Is she…” Fei wasn’t looking at me either, now. “…do you love her?”

I nodded. “I do. I love her a lot.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to lead you on,” I said. “I just… didn’t know how to talk about it. I thought it would be nicer to just… have you as a friend, without really ever thinking about what you and I were to each other… before. But that was a mistake. I’m sorry I kept you waiting for this. I really am.” Finally, I dared myself to look her in the eyes. She wasn’t looking at mine, though. Instead, she just… stared at the floor.

“That… that sucks,” she said. More color returned to her voice as she spoke. She seemed to want to say something else, but then she aborted her attempt and deflated. “That sucks.”

“I don’t want to stop being your friend,” I said. “To me, you were never just… a means to pleasure. From the moment we first met, you’ve been kind… without expecting anything in return but my company. I appreciated your honesty back then, too. Just as much as I appreciate… you. Your bluntness, your messed up sense of humor, and…” I shrugged. “Your pain, too, I guess. It was nice to not be the only one hurting. It was nice to share that, you know?”

She let her back fall on her bed and heaved a sigh. “Damn. Well. That’s life, I guess. I’m… happy you’re happy. And I appreciate your honesty, David. I really do. You’re a good man.”

I shrugged. “I’m just… trying to do right by the people closest to me.” I was a far-cry from a good man, but I could at least do that much.

“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit. Sorry, I just… need to get this off my chest.”

“I can… give you a minute if you want.”

“No,” she said. Then she sat up straight and looked at me. “Well, you must have come here for another reason than what I wanted. Was it just to tell me this?”

“Your chrome,” I said. “Fei-Fei, I’m not… I don’t want to control you or anything, but…” I pressed my hand against my forehead and growled. Then I sighed and calmed down before I yelled at her. “How do you feel, Fei?” I decided to sit next to her instead and ask.

“About the chrome?” she looked at me with a grin. “I feel strong,” her eyes widened at the last word. “Safe. Capable. And… sure. Less of me… in some areas.”

“What do you mean?”

She paused for a moment, and then just laughed. “Well,” she said after calming down. “When you have a gun for an arm, a lot of problems start to look like shooting targets.” I laughed. Yeah, that… sounded about right.

“Why not just carry?” I said. “PLS’ aren’t a joke, you know. Way better to chip in reflex boosters and some body mods than to go all in like that. You got any other weaponized mods?”

She shook her head. “Just the arm. My ripper didn’t deem it wise to go any further. Ever.”

“Wise,” I said. “I hope you’ll listen.”

“I’m not a fucking chrome jock, David,” she growled. “I’m just… scared, okay?”

I nodded.

My fault.

“I have a friend, Fei, who’s… pretty deep in. When it comes to chrome, that is. He’s not on the edge or anything. Pretty healthy as far as everyone’s told me. But… we all know this sort of stuff doesn’t always just happen gradually. Sometimes, the signs are there, and things only get worse and worse.”

“David,” she grinned at me. “Do I have to remind you what family I come from? We live and breathe cyberware. And unlike Katsuo, I’m not already halfway psychotic from planning the assassination of my classmate.”

I winced at that. “I’m being too worried,” I said. “That’s fine. But I’d rather be too worried than not worried enough.”

“Of course. Makes sense. It’s what you do, isn’t it?”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Do what?”

She grinned. “You do too much. And it ends up paying off. Like with tonight. Congratulations, big winner. We haven’t even talked about any of that yet!”

I chuckled a little. “Yeah, that’s…” I shook my head. “Just kill me right now.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

I looked at her. “Don’t call me stupid for getting surprised by this but… Fei-Fei, I’m famous now.”

“You’re stupid.”

“I didn’t think the Nightmare Rally was this much of a big deal.”

“You’re real stupid.”

“And now Jin’s… backing me into a corner. Hanging with him has officially stopped being fun.”

“Why, what happened?” she turned her body towards me, sitting closer in shock and surprise.

“His old man wants me to be his vassal. Told a bunch of other high-tier corpos this bullshit story that I already was one. Now, if I say no to the offer, I’ll have made a liar out of him. I don’t think I’ll… get away with that.” I sighed. “Maybe… maybe I just need some time to accept this fate. Maybe that’s why I didn’t say yes right off the bat.”

Or maybe I should figure out how an all-out offensive between the two of us would look like?

How did I even reach a guy like Masaru? Faraday had one really ingenious way: get some nav-data, plan an ambush, blow the huscle out of the way within seconds and then grab the guy. No muss, no fuss.

That’s how Tanaka senior bit it. But Tanaka senior was not Masaru Ryuzaki.

“What do you want, David?” Fei-Fei asked me quietly, head leaning close to mine.

“I want… freedom,” I said. “I want…” Top of Arasaka tower, down with Arasaka tower, freedom, death. I frowned. “I don’t want this.”

If saying yes to Jin was the only way to live in relative peace for the time being, I probably would. But that wouldn’t be the end to my ambition.

[If you were going to say yes, David, then why didn’t you just take the chip?]

That was something I barely regretted at all. Fuck Jin. Dogshit negotiator. Well, not that bad. He didn’t shy away from letting me know the consequences of denying him. That was a point in his favor at least. It let me know the reality of my situation.

But I was done subsisting off of what trickled down from his high throne. The vassal set-up would be a fucking headache, but it would give me time. Jin wasn’t slated to enter the corp-world for at least another three years, once he graduated the Academy and NCU. Until then, I’d probably just be running gigs for Masaru, or helping groom the kid for his role as the successor of the finance department.

But how much time would that give me for my personal projects?

That could be negotiated. I was not a fucking slave. They couldn’t have me full-time. At least not for another three months while I still went to Arasaka Academy. He’d be forced to consider my schooling situation.

I could make it three months and a whole semester as well. My plan had been to graduate as early as possible so that I could jump into NCU, graduate there and get a job at Arasaka.

But all that had changed the moment Nakajima and I had that conversation, when he had filled my head with dreams of making money from the top rather than from the bottom: becoming a shareholder, and providing value through my inventions.

I’d have to speak with Nakajima about this as soon as possible. He’d have some insights.

“But it’s looking like it might be what I’ll do,” I said with a sigh.

“It’s not fair,” she said. “You did everything right. You won. But somehow, this doesn’t feel like you won anything but a greater struggle.”

I chuckled. “Actually, that’s just downright familiar at this point. I really don’t know what I was expecting, but I shouldn’t have expected a freebie to the top from here on out.”

She sighed. “I should be in more of a celebratory mood as well. I did, after all, come into quite a large sum. Not enough to actually save my family. That was just a bit of theatrics, and I do love playing the clown when the mood strikes.”

“That’s good,” I said. “I remember you were worried about getting cut off if you didn’t follow that whole engagement plan. Now that’ll never be a problem.”

“Maybe it never even was,” she said wistfully.

“What do you mean?”

“I think… I should have been more disobedient from the start. Called all their bluffs. Looking back at it all, now, I think the only leverage they truly had over me was… their approval. I know my brother wouldn’t have allowed anything to happen to me, but… I don’t know, really. It’s difficult to talk about.”

“I can’t imagine,” I said. “But I know that family is important. You… do a lot of things for ‘em, even if it’s not what you want. Because you have to, sort of.” I thought of mom. How hard she fought to keep me in the Academy.

I was still here. Even after all this time, I still was.

She looked at me for a moment, and then smiled. “Do you want half?”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Half of what I won! Forty-five. Million,” she added the last part with a shrug.

“Twenty-seven point five,” I said dryly. “You’re just gonna… hand that over to me. But… what about your family, or you?”

She laughed. “What is forty-five million going to do for us, David?”

I looked at her seriously, and shook my head. “No.”

Her grin fell and she sat up straight. “No.”

“No,” I repeated.

“I refuse,” she said. “I refuse your refusal. You’re taking that money.”

“I don’t need it.”

“Me neither!”

I stood up from her bed and walked a few steps away. “I’m not taking it. And you can’t force me.”

“David—“

“You’re kinda pissing me off, Fei. That sort of money can’t just be given away

—and I can’t take that money from you either. Not in good conscience. Not while I know how much you care about me.”

“You think I’m trying to buy you?” she laughed.

“No,” I said. “I think… you know what? I’ll just say it: you might regret it someday.” There.

“David.”

I faced away from her as I spoke. “I care about you, but… I’m not who you think I am. I’m really not. You have no idea who I am.”

“David.”

“You will always be important to me, for how you’ve been to me. But I don’t expect the same from you. And damn-near thirty mill between friends is… insane.”

“Alright, then,” she shrugged. “Think of it as a loan.”

I perked up then.

I turned around and watched her give me a smug grin. “No interest rate,” she said. “No expectation of return. Just… give it back whenever you can. How does that sound?”

I clenched my jaws, trying to hold myself back from bargaining. Dammit.

Shit!

I sighed. “I’ll give you back double. Forty-five.” Then I shrugged my shoulders. “Someday.” Then I looked her in the eyes. “I promise you, Fei.”

“Alright, alright!” she said. “Jeez, you don’t have to be so intense.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I rolled my eyes. “It’s just almost thirty million eddies. Who gives a shit, am I right?”

“Don’t villainize me,” she said, giving me a tight grin.

“I’m serious, though,” I said. “And… thank you. This is fucking crazy, honestly, but thank you.”

I took a deep breath. “Alright, uh… I wanted to talk to you about something else. Something else that I’ll need from you.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Am I gonna like hearing about it?”

“I can’t say I know, honestly. It’s… I want to have a meeting with your brother.”

She blinked and then gaped. “What? Why?”

“I want to invest.”

Her eyes widened. “In QianT? Are you kidding me? David, no!” She stood up. “We’re not doing good. Why would you even—“

“Listen, Fei-Fei, I have a plan. I’m not doing this to return a favor. I’m doing this to get rich, too. Make all of us rich. Or,” I shrugged. “Richer.”

“David…” she put a hand on my chest. “You’re… too loyal for your own good. You just made a crapload of eddies and now you want to follow us into ruin?”

“Just… get me a meeting,” I said. “Please? Or not. You don’t have to. It isn’t life or death. But I really do think I can help you.”

“How?”

“I’m… good. At stuff.”

She giggled. “Good? At stuff? That’s… precisely what we need.”

“I have a product,” I said. “And to make it clear that I’m not here to waste anyone’s time, I want to buy in and then implement the product. That way, all my skin is in the game. There isn’t a clearer show of faith in the world than that.”

She frowned and nodded. “That’s… true. Still, I can’t tell if you’re just being naïve or if you really have something.”

“Let your brother—or whoever’s in charge—decide that.”

“You’re not even supposed to know he’s alive, David,” Fei said. Then she narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you… tell anyone else?”

“No, not at all,” I assured her. Well, except Lucy, but she wasn’t going to do much with that information anyway. “Well, it doesn’t have to be your brother, then. If it’s not too much to ask, though. If it is, then forget I ever said anything.”

She hummed. “You’re… you’re fucking crazy, David.”

“I am. There’s no doubt about it.”

She sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll… try.”

“Thank you. That’s all I can ask for.”

Then I received a call… from Rebecca. I rejected the call and texted her. ‘Will be leaving soon. Is it an emergency?’

She texted me back. ‘KACHING KACHING KACHING MOTHERFUCKER’.

Ugh.

“Your secret mystery friends?” Fei-Fei asked me.

“Yeah…” I said, shaking my head. “I… uh.”

“Go,” Fei said with a grin.

“I wish I could bring you,” I said honestly. “They just don’t…”

“They don’t like corpos, do they?”

I shrugged. “Can’t be helped. It’s Night City.”

“Makes sense. I don’t begrudge that. There isn’t much to like when it comes to our kind.”

I nodded.

Then I frowned slightly, as an idea just occurred to me. “Hey, can I get your chrome data?”

“What? Why?”

“You remember that friend I told you about? The one that’s deep into the chrome thing? I helped him out. I fixed his operating systems, made them safer.”

“David, I have people for that. People that are better than you.”

Honestly, I doubted that. “Can I at least get a look? For my sake? If your stuff is as good as you think it is, and I can’t improve on it, then I’ll admit defeat. But I want to make sure that you’re safe, okay? Just let me do it.”

She sighed. “Alright. Jack in,” she said, moving her seafoam hair away from her shoulder, revealing her neck and chip socket. I realized then that I had forgotten my personal link at home.

[No you haven’t. Check your right wrist for a rectangular seam of skin.]

My eyes widened for a moment and I checked, looking around until—wait, holy shit. I peeled the skin-flap off, opening it on its hinges, and beheld a link cable inlet. I pulled it out and spooled out twelve inches of black rubber cable.

[Surprise!]

Hell yeah! God, this was perfect.

D: Thank you so fucking much, En.

Fei sat on the bed, back towards me, and I sat behind her, gently jacking into her neck. I tried not to think about the intimacy of our contact as I searched for the data that I needed from her—all the implants that she had chipped in. The list was… dishearteningly long.

“Last time I’ll ever feel you inside me, huh?” Fei said.

“I’m calling HR,” I muttered dryly. She chuckled.

“I’ll miss you, David,” she said. “Or… I’ll miss what we had. But I’m glad we had it. And I won’t be greedy. I know that’s kind of our thing, in this world, but… with you, I’ll just be grateful.”

“Thank you,” I said to her, “For not calling it quits with me after today. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” she said. “No shot.”

I couldn’t help but feel a sort of strain at that.

If she knew what I had done to her, if she knew that all the suffering she had gone through was because of me, would she still be this… kind to me?

No.

And now I was going to accept a loan from her, too.

And I’d continue to meddle in her life, despite not having the rights to.

I wasn’t doing right by the people close to me at all. I was being selfish.

There was no stopping it, though. All I could do was feel the guilt. I couldn’t act on it. I didn’t dare to.

Just then, I received a notification from Becca.

‘HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS, CHOOM! COME! IT’S GETTING STICKY!’

The fuck?

‘SHIT’S GOING DOWN, D. BRING IRON.’

I finished copying Fei-Fei’s data, and yanked my jack away quickly. Then I stood up.

“Wha—“ Fei-Fei started, but I interrupted her quickly.

“My choom’s in trouble. I gotta go.”

I didn’t waste any time rushing out the door and leaving then and there.