After we left the Afterlife, I drove Lucy to my house to pack up all my most important belongings—my mother’s urn, my school uniforms, my BD Wreath, personal link, external ‘deck, and collection of XBDs. I stuffed all of it into a backpack and then drove us both to Kiwi’s house to get started on fixing Maine’s chrome software.

  We didn’t chat much during the ride, and when we got to Kiwi’s house, the older Netrunner was equally disinclined towards social niceties. Small mercies. Getting set up took us about half an hour, as did coming up with a plan to tackle the mountain of implants whose code we needed to fix.

  When I had first proposed this project—fixing Maine’s chrome—I had never imagined I would be going into it so… distracted. I didn’t want to work on this—well, I did. But now, in these circumstances? I wasn’t in the right headspace for this. There were only so many things I could care about at once—and right now, all I cared about, all I could care about, was working towards my plan of ending Katsuo.

  But—and I had to force myself to admit this—Maine was right. Better to wait. Faraday had set the crew up with a big job involving Katsuo’s old man for later in the week. If I killed his little shit of a son now, the old man’s behavior would become erratic, and the last thing Maine and the crew needed was a complication before a key job that might take us to Night City’s big leagues.

  It was with that thought in mind that I started my section of the work, first bringing up Maine’s general diagnostics before diving into the particulars of his chrome’s software, getting a feel for the lay of the land before diving into the source code, so to speak.

  By the time it was one AM, Lucy called it quits—she was too tired to be productive. Kiwi and I worked until 3AM when she got too tired as well.

  Then it was just me.

  We had made good headway, her and I, but now that I was alone, I’d finally get to do this at my speed.

  I activated the Sandevistan as my mind interfaced with the terminal before me, and got to work, mentally typing out every line, belting out hundreds of them every second.

  Lines of code scrolled across my vision like a never-ending waterfall, a mess of bloated logic and deliberately obfuscated subroutines.

  I spotted another redundancy loop—fucking hell—nested deep inside the firmware, pinging unnecessary micro-requests between the neural interface and the limb actuators. A few million cycles of that bullshit, and the delay would start creeping in, the cognitive load ramping up just enough to stress out a user’s nervous system. And that was just the obvious stuff.

  I disabled the Sandevistan for a second, rolling my neck. Math. Fucking math.

  My eyes flickered to the screen’s clock. 4 AM. Whatever. I dove back in, Sandevistan humming, brain parsing logic at speeds no human coder was meant to.

  After honing in on certain irregularities in the code, I found that a biometric feedback loop flagged as “adaptive stabilization” was doing the exact opposite of what it was meant to—feeding erratic voltage spikes into the nervous system whenever it detected an off-brand implant. Subtle enough to feel like fatigue or stress at first, but keep running a mixed loadout, and the glitches would start. Twitchy reflexes. Bad sleep. Then mood swings, paranoia. Then...

  Fuckers. I exhaled through my nose, hands flying across the terminal.

  There. I rerouted the feedback to a null state, then ripped out a parallel callout that was dumping junk data straight into the optic nerves. I had some experience with that already from re-writing my Kiroshis and finding out that the warning on the label for possible migraines when switching away from those implants was warning about something engineered entirely by design.

  A quick diagnostic pass. No errors.

  Good.

  5 AM. I moved onto the next segment—Maine’s subdermal weave. Arasaka and Zetatech both had “maintenance packets” running in the background, sniffing out foreign firmware and subtly tweaking resistances, making non-native chrome feel heavier, slower. A deliberate desync. Death by a thousand micro-lags.

  “Lazy,” I muttered, deleting the entire process chain.

  Another efficiency test. I ran the numbers.

  And my jaw clenched. What the fuck is this?

  Some corpo dickhead had left a memory buffer hanging open, hemorrhaging processing power into dead cycles. Not even sabotage—just bad coding. Waste. The kind of thing that added up over time, slowing everything down by imperceptible fractions.

  I rewrote the routine from scratch, cutting out the bloat, optimizing the calls.

  New test.

  CPU load dropped by 27%.

  I exhaled.

  They made chrome that ran worse by design. And no one cared, because the end result kept people on corpo-approved hardware. If your shit ran like garbage, they wanted you to blame yourself.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight, I was burning every wasted cycle to the fucking ground.

  The little sleep I caught was only to ensure that my mind was present enough to continue coding. I knew it would shoot my reflexes to hell, but I wasn’t planning on doing anything physical for the next few days anyway, and sleep was just a distraction. The sooner I got this working for Maine, the fucking better.

  Hopefully, by Monday, we would get entirely started on hollowing out Tanaka’s private drives for Faraday, and then I could get started on Katsuo.

  Pretty late in the morning, Lucy found me—still hunched over my terminal, empty wrappers of various snacks and junk food scattered around my keyboard, speakers now blaring ‘Chippin’ In’. I enjoyed the irony, and the energy from the music and the corpo-processed sugar was what I’d needed to keep my pacing.

  “Did you get any sleep?” Lucy asked groggily, yawning somewhere behind me.

  “Yeah,” I said, eyeing the little clock widget on the corner of the computer terminal. It was almost 8 AM. Sloppy. Lucy should keep a better schedule than that.

  Suddenly, I received a text message from Katsuo.

  I’ll have you know I’ve already informed the NCPD that you have the motive to kill me. So if you even come close to my fucking property, they’ll come down on you like the fist of fucking God, you hear me? Stay the fuck away from me, you gutter trash!

  I dismissed the message. Didn’t matter. Once his dad was out of the picture, no one who cared, no one who had any real pull would be left to throw the kind of money at the pigs it took to make them do their fucking jobs. His mom wasn’t Arasaka—I’d done my homework.

  “How far have you gotten?” Lucy hovered over my shoulder, getting into my space. She smelled sweet—like she had just showered.

  “Almost done,” I said as I typed away, doing it old school. I had racked up a bit too much Critical Progress for comfort: a full 50% in fact. That was just from using the Sandy while mentally typing.

  “With your part?”

  “With all our parts,” I said.

  Lucy leaned in closer, “The fuck? What do you mean ‘all our parts’?”

  “I’m done with fixing all the sabotage,” I said, “Right now I’m just fixing the shit code besides that.”

  Lucy stiffened beside me, but I was too tired and irritated to care, or even look at her. “It’s crazy that these guys were allowed to even get these jobs to begin with,” I scoffed, eyes still flickering over the screen as I sniffed out another pattern of some shit-for-brain’s rank goddamn incompetence. “You’d think the corpo jackass who got the job to program all the firmware’s punishments for brand disloyalty would be halfway decent at writing good code when it fucking matters. And these are some high-end parts too,” I gestured disdainfully at the screen. “Maine’s got some really top pieces of chrome that really shouldn’t be this badly coded. Pieces I’d expect corpo huscle to have.”

  I was getting deep into this coding job, I was perfectly aware. But too deep? No. True, I usually have just stopped at just fixing the firmware sabotage, but all this shit code was also a contributor for Maine’s neural strain and thus potential cyberpsychosis. Therefore, cleaning up the baseline code had to be done too.

  But there was even more to this, wasn’t there?

  While there was value in ensuring modularity for each piece of cyberware—having a way for them to connect and synergize was several times more neurally efficient, almost by an order of magnitude. Of course, I couldn’t hard-code the connection, or the next time Maine dechromed or chipped in, the whole network would fall apart and very likely kill him. But I could design a dynamic interface layer—something lightweight, self-adapting. A middleware that sat between all his chrome, smoothing out the inefficiencies and letting different systems talk to each other without stepping on toes.

  “Lucy, I’ve got an idea,” I said, “pull up a chair and I’ll show you.” She hurried to do just that. “The main problem,” I said, pulling up the schematics, “besides the straight-up sabotage, is that every corp’s got their own proprietary protocols—different data formats, encryption layers, all that bullshit. They don’t want their cyberware to play nice with others.”

  Lucy scooted her chair closer, peering at the code. “Yeah, no surprise there. So what’s your fix?”

  “I’m thinking a universal handshake protocol, better than the SCOP they’re already peddling.” I started typing, the screen filling with fresh lines of code. “Something lightweight, modular. It’d recognize and map new implants on the fly—no hardcoding, no brittle dependencies. If Maine swaps out a part, the system adapts instead of frying his brain.”

  She hummed, watching my hands move. “Smart. That way, each piece only needs to understand one language instead of every other brand’s garbage. How do you handle power draw?”

  “Already on it,” I said, switching to another function. “Some of his chrome is guzzling juice like an AV, while others are running on a trickle because they assume they’re in a corpo-approved loadout. I’m balancing the flow—adjusting distribution dynamically so no piece gets over- or underpowered.”

  Lucy leaned in, scrolling through my work. “Okay, but latency’s still a problem, right? Different brands, different refresh rates, different processing speeds…”

  “Exactly,” I said. She was catching on fast. “So I’m writing a predictive sync algorithm. It’ll smooth out micro-adjustments in real time. No more lag spikes, no more misfires.”

  She tapped the screen. “You’re overcompensating here. If you buffer too much, he’ll feel like his limbs are lagging.”

  I frowned, scanning the code again. “Good catch. I’ll tighten the margins.” I adjusted the parameters, trimming the fat. The lack of sleep had definitely fucking gotten to me for me to slip up in such a way. Embarrassing, really. How much other stuff had I let go? I’d have to check with Lucy for sure.

  Then I started building. Lucy watched, sitting quietly as I typed away, realizing my plans. Occasionally, she’d ask questions, and I’d do my best to explain without throwing off my train of thought.

  Finally, after I was done, I ran a test.

  Power efficiency up 59%. Neural load down 62%.

  Lucy let out a low whistle. “Damn.”

  I leaned back, rubbing my eyes. “Yeah.”

  This wasn’t just a fix.

  It was a complete game-changer.

  Maine wasn’t just running on better software—he was running on something no corp would ever allow some unaligned merc to run around with. Something that could perhaps rival their own in-house products.

  How far could we take this?

  No. Wrong question. I blinked away some of my exhaustion, grit my teeth for a moment, and remembered my mission, which brought to mind an even more important question:

  How low could I take this?

  Because if I could execute on these principles of software, but in reverse, I was pretty sure I now had just the thing to use against Katsuo—

  And put an end to his entire sorry chapter in my life.

  000

  Kiwi couldn’t believe her eyes. All the diagnostics she ran, all the tests, came back with stellarly positive results.

  From the jump, she had never assumed that between the three Netrunners, their best efforts would ever amount to even a twenty-percent reduction in neural strain, after weeks of hard work at that.

  But the numbers didn’t lie, no matter how many times she ran them. Eventually she just found herself staring at the screen, trying to process the implications.

  “Well?” Maine asked. He and his mainline Dorio were hovering behind her, obnoxiously staring at the screen as though they even understood what the fuck any of it meant.

  David was further behind, sitting on a couch, arms folded, staring into space with an intense expression of ill-contained anger. Yesterday’s tussle still weighed on him, that was for sure. Even after all that work, too.

  Fuck, had the kid even slept? She had found both him and Lucy working away when she had woken up at nine, only to find that not only were they done with what they had initially set out to do—they had gone above and beyond to boot.

  He had gone above and beyond. Kiwi had quizzed them on what the fuck she was looking at, only for David to answer most of her questions without missing a beat. And every time she turned the code around, she found no problems or blemishes—not even with the tests or diagnostics that she had designed.

  “We’re done,” Kiwi muttered. “It works.”

  Too well. Too fucking well.

  Frighteningly well.

  93.4% down on neural load from baseline.

  93.4%.

  She didn’t like it. The results were too good. And the code—it looked unholy. Like literal magic. Parts of it had even been written in assembly, which was—what the fuck? Who even learned how to code in that archean syntax in this day and age? You couldn’t even get lower-level, closer to the language of the actual silicon. Looking at it all destroyed her conception of limits, but in a way that didn’t really illuminate her either. Instead, all it made her fixate on was her own downright lacking acumen.

  Kiwi had worked with many so-called ‘geniuses’ and ‘prodigies’ over the last twenty years. She’d even been called one herself. Often. This was something else. There was—something deeply fucking wrong with David. Was his brain part AI or something? Was he a flesh-suit for some horror from beyond the Blackwall? What else could explain this?

  “That was quick,” Maine muttered.

  “Is it good work?” Dorio asked, looking a touch worried. And in Dorio’s eyes, Kiwi saw only a future of death.

  If Kiwi still had a proper jaw, she would have been gnashing her teeth. Yes, the fucking thing worked. It worked so well in fact that Maine would probably do something ridiculous like tempting fate and going full borg, chroming up until there was nothing left of him—and then he’d go cyberpsycho anyway, because nothing could stop an actively using chrome addict from chasing death, aside from no longer using.

  And he’d never stop using.

  How many years had David bought him?

  Months, more likely. Maybe weeks.

  Kiwi stood up from her chair so fast that it rolled back all the way to the table near the couches, and then she whirled to face Dorio. “You wanna know how good this work is? I fucking quit—that’s how good.”

  “What the fuck?” Maine asked, shocked.

  Lucy had just returned from Kiwi’s kitchen with a bottle of liquor, only for her to freeze and stare at Kiwi in shock. Even David looked surprised—and slightly outraged.

  “Let’s get this soft inside you quick,” Kiwi said coldly, “Then I wanna make a clean break, Maine.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Lucy asked, shocked, “Kiwi, you can’t just quit.”

  Kiwi glared daggers at her erstwhile mentee—another overpowered little prodigy, but at least this one was actually human. “You gonna stop me?”

  “Kiwi,” Dorio looked concerned, “Talk to me, girl. What’s the matter?”

  Kiwi inhaled deeply, “This stuff is gonna reduce Maine’s neural load by ninety-three, point four, percent,” she looked at Maine seriously, emphasizing every syllable, “That means you get a blank slate. You’ll feel like you’re in meat again.”

  “No way,” Maine growled, “Quit bullshitting.”

  “It’s not bullshit,” Kiwi said, “And you have those two to thank for it,” Kiwi gestured behind them, to where David and Lucy were. David huffed and looked away. Lucy snarled. Kiwi glared back for a moment with all her ire. Lucy, that idiot little girl, was only nineteen. She had no idea what she was really working with. Kiwi scoffed contemptuously before turning back to her ‘leader.’

  “You can do whatever you want with your life now, Maine. You can let this trick you into thinking that chroming up any more is safe—because yeah, up to a point, it would be. But I won’t be there to see you when you inevitably break. They can babysit you, but I’m done.”

  Maine looked lost for a moment, just for a passing breath as he searched her eyes, her dead-set expression. But then his bafflement turned to anger before flickering to sadness, and finally, resignation. His fists clenched. “Fine. But I’m getting that soft installed, Kiwi.”

  Somehow, her outburst had only emboldened him. Of course it would have. That was how Maine responded to risk—by doubling down. Always, doubling down.

  Kiwi wondered if she had made the right decision getting out now rather than later, while Maine was still in the upswing of his career as he continued to chip in and get stronger and stronger and stronger. The millions she could make playing with the big leagues while Maine slowly killed himself made her hunger.

  But she knew that there was no easy way to cash in her chips once she got started on a winning streak. No easy way to get off that stock bubble before it popped. Always, there’d be a part of her whispering for her to stay, to make more, to keep playing around while the ticking fucking nuke next to her got more and more unhinged.

  Getting out now—that would be the wisest thing she ever fucking did in her life. Maine was a ticking time bomb. David was just a monster. Too dangerous to live. The moment a corpo found out even half of what she had—

  Her thoughts stopped. Hm. There were… profitable possibilities there.

  “And I’m giving you a week to think about this,” Maine said gruffly. “Let’s get started already.”

  000

  Maine closed his eyes after his three Netrunners were finished plugging cables into his chrome, every access port now exposed to them. Usually, he’d have done this at his ripper’s, but that guy’s place was hardly any cleaner, really. And this way, he’d save some edds.

  The moment they got started, he blacked out.

  And then came to a moment later in his dreams, feeling like everything was somehow right with the world.

  Light. That was the first word that popped into his mind when thinking about how he currently felt. Light.

  His Kiroshi Optics booted up—they didn’t include the giant logo in the start-up screen for some reason—and he finally saw the room. He was sitting on one of Kiwi’s Netrunner chairs—a spare that could handle Maine’s weight. One by one, the three Runners were pulling out the cables, and metal panels slid over the access ports on his chrome one by one.

  He could feel the strange movements of the panels—the inhumanity of it—, but they didn’t bother him for some reason. At all.

  “How do you feel?” Kiwi asked, her tone cold.

  Maine moved his right arm once all the cables were off, and curled his fingers. Seamless movement. Smooth joint-action. And the arm felt like it was his in a way that it hadn’t before. His mind knew where the limb was, with crystal clarity. The imagined location of the limb, and the actual location was one to one—with zero margin of error. It was shocking that his hand wasn’t meat.

  Neither of his hands. Or his feet. His feet!

  Everything felt smooth as an oil slick. He no longer had to force his mind to sync with his chrome. Like it was all pre-synced.

  It was like he could finally relax a muscle that was always straining. It was almost heaven.

  Dorio gave Maine a hand, and he took it—and felt her touch, her warmth, through the receptors. His hands didn’t have the soft give of finger paddings. His Realskinn didn’t cover his hands at all, leaving them bare and metallic. Yet, every surface exposed to Dorio’s touch felt alive. He could feel her.

  And in that moment, all he wanted to do was feel her. For hours and hours.

  Maine cracked the widest grin he could, “Aw yeah, baby. We need to get our asses home and get busy.”

  Dorio’s eyes widened and she smiled, slightly bemused. “I thought you’d be chipping in the Sandy and Chrome Compressor first thing?”

  “That shit can wait, I’m—”

  “Pay up,” Kiwi muttered. Maine felt a stab of irritation at the uppity bitch for interrupting his moment. His anger evaporated almost as soon as it arrived when he sensed the rest of his body, how right it all felt.

  He shot the bitch her cash, and made sure to do the same to Lucy and David. As he got up, he wrapped his arms around Dorio.

  Then he kissed her.

  It felt like the first time.

  000

  Lunacy: Kiwi’s hexed. What the hell is her problem? Why would she just quit like that?

  Lucy rode behind me on my bike as I drove her sedately to her house. After that, I’d head to Pilar and Rebecca’s—for my tech rifle, and for Masamune. After the party, Rebecca had stolen the former and Pilar had taken the latter for honing.

  Once that was over, I’d do some gigs with Reyes to calm the nerves.

  Lunacy: Not gonna answer? What, you don’t give a shit?

  I growled.

  D: Kiwi’s a shit teacher and a mid coder. I don’t give a shit where she goes.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Lunacy: Stop the fucking bike. Right-right now!

  God fucking—whatever. I pulled up on some sidewalk in Japantown. Lucy got off from the bike and—walked away.

  What the fuck was this now?

  D: Lucy—

  She cut the call.

  “Lucy!” I shouted after her. She kept walking. I put the bike on park mode and jogged after her, “What the fuck am I supposed to think, here? Leaving us out to dry for fucking nothing? Because, what, we’re better than her? What the hell was I supposed to do? If she can’t handle that we’re better than her, then why would we care?”

  She turned on her heels and threw her open hand at my face.

  I caught it by the wrist. She snarled and pulled her hand back.

  “You’re a fucking asshole, D,” she said.

  “SO ARE YOU!” I roared.

  A few passers-by turned and gave me some odd looks, but no one stopped. Lucy’s eyes widened.

  “So are you,” I repeated, “You’re a fucking asshole too, Lucy. But what you don’t do is leave on that account.” I sighed, “Take it from me, okay? I left once too, thinking it’d be better for all of you. When I left, I wanted to die. I had nothing. No one. And I regret it. I regret it bad. I won’t ever abandon any of you again. Not in this life. No matter what happens. I won’t quit like Kiwi did, I won’t forget everything we ever did because things got inconvenient. Whether I’m down there in the dirt or in front of a terminal—or any other fucking thing—I’ll be there,” I snarled at her, “So you be there too, alright?!”

  Rather than wait for a response, I whirled on my feet to walk back to my bike before some dipshit boosted it.

  I felt Lucy’s hand wrap around my wrist and stopped. I turned my head to look at her. She finally spoke.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “Not anytime soon at least.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Good. Good news. I nodded. She let go of my wrist and instead followed me as we went back to the bike. She hopped on the back and I got on the driver’s seat.

  As I pulled away from the curb and drove off, Lucy called. Only way we could talk at the speeds I was driving at.

  Lunacy: Where are you headed after dropping me off?

  D: Pilar and Rebecca. Getting my stuff looked at.

  Lunacy: Don’t mind if I tag along?

  I shrugged my shoulders, tamping down on my slight excitement.

  D: Sure.

  000

  “That’s fucking crazy,” Pilar muttered as he took a long drag from his cigarette, “Fuckin’ all of it. The chrome, fixin’ it all, and now Kiwi’s bailing? Fucking Kiwi? She’s an OG, been with us since the start! Shit is fucked up.”

  Pilar sat on his chair, back turned from his work desk where he was working on a katana—mine, most likely. Around us, Lucy, Rebecca and I stood, Lucy having delivered the news.

  “She’s not leaving,” Lucy said, “Maine gave her a week. She’ll come to her senses soon enough.”

  Pilar groaned, dragging a hand down his face, “Fucking shit, man. Everything’s crazy. Should pay Maine a visit, see if he’s as good as you say. One thing’s for sure, though. Sure as fucking shit in the sewers at least: we’ve got some gigs coming our way. Serious gigs.” I clenched my fists in excitement. Just fucking bring it.

  “Well, shit, D!” Rebecca said, looking up at me in awe, “And you too, Ice Queen! Next time I chip in, you wouldn’t mind takin’ a look, would you?”

  “Not if you’re going overboard,” I frowned, “Seriously, Rebecca. I’m not playing.”

  “We’re not here to enable chrome junkies,” Lucy said coldly.

  “Fine! Jesus Christ—never said I was going overboard, was I?” Rebecca rolled her eyes. Then she gave me a pout, “And I told you to call me Becca, didn’t I?”

  I sighed, “Alright, then. Where’s my tech rifle, Becca?”

  “First things first!” Pilar announced, swiveling on his chair to face the sword. “Your Masamune—sword edition! I got some fun materials I kept on hold ever since you cut me in on that Apogee klep and boy was I glad to get a shot at using ‘em” Pilar’s eyes were gleaming. “Sword’s a beaut, right? Look at her, at all that metal! All made from a single piece of armor cladding salvaged from the hull of a Weapon-class spacecraft, cold-forged and grinded down with synth-diamonds to keep the alloy’s internal crystallinity all preem. Did you hear that right? Weapon. Class. Spacecraft. Those things don’t even officially exist!”

  Pilar wildly gestured at the sword, as though even he was struggling for words, “So it’s got the best of both worlds in terms of hardness and flexibility—that means this baby’s now packing some serious edge retention. You won’t find a better blade this side of Japan actual, I’d bet a thousand eddies!”

  I scoff-snorted. A thousand? Cheapskate. Still, I looked at the rest of the design: the tsuba—yellow in color—was circular, with a star pattern of cross frames inside, and the hilt was bound in white cloth, arranged to only reveal a vertical pattern of yellow diamonds—the bare guard. As for the blade itself, it was as black as tar, nothing like normal steel, and was somewhat thicker than normal for a sword—but with a single-bladed cutting side that narrowed to a molecular edge, if Pilar wasn’t shitting me.

  “The tang’s full, in case you were wondering,” Pilar was practically dancing, “And all in all, this bad baby weighs a cool three kilos. A little heavy for a katana, definitely, but nothing a little chrome wouldn’t fix—and in exchange, you get pure cutting power. Brother, I’m talking cuts that rip clean through armored vehicles. Let alone borgs.”

  “No shit?” I asked, reaching for the handle and pulling it out of the crafting mounting to get a closer look. Yep, the weight was substantially higher compared to the last version, but it was nothing I couldn’t easily handle.

  I did an experimental cut in the air.

  “Watch where you swing that!” Pilar yelped, scooting away rapidly as I swung a healthy distance away from him. Was he doing that for my benefit, to sell me on the new sword’s sharpness? Not like it mattered anyway—never look a gift horse in the mouth, whatever the actual fuck that meant.

  I swished the sword some more in the air, appreciating the bell-clean sing of a sound it made as it cut through the air. Something too fine to be called a whistle. Anyway, point is, I was getting this for free. No need to be a bitch, Pilar.

  “Feels nice,” I said, “Is it all ready to take home?”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” he bent over under his desk, rummaged through the trash, and found a long stick which he tossed at me carelessly. I grabbed it—not a stick, but the scabbard. It was painted a high-vis white.

  “Appreciate the colors, Pilar. Thanks, choom,” I muttered, sheathing the blade and resting it over my shoulder. “But…”

  “What?” Pilar asked, with a tone of affront. “The fuck’s the problem?”

  I shrugged, “Masamune doesn’t work for me. As a name.”

  It had always been just a placeholder. A generic name to give to a good sword. But a weapon like this deserved a more personal appellation. I thought for a moment.

  Whenever I thought of such personal stuff, my mind would inevitably wander back to mom’s face. Her red hair. The ruby implants on her cheekbone.

  The encouraging glint in her eyes, and the smile that I hated—for being so full of lies, chief among them the lie that everything was going to be alright.

  Less of a lie, though… more of a comfort. And comforts didn’t have to be true. That’s why people believed in god after all.

  “Eikō,” I said.

  “The fuck that mean?” Pilar asked.

  “It means Glory,” I said, looking the scabbard over. “I guess, in a way, that’s what I’ve always been looking for. Nothing’s changed on that account.”

  “Whatever floats your boat, nerd,” Pilar said.

  Lucy scoffed, “You’re the one that named it Masamune, no?”

  “And who the fuck are you calling a nerd, anyway?!” Rebecca yelled shrilly, “You’re a goddamn NCU grad—”

  Pilar moved first, pulling a gun from his desk to aim at Rebecca—who had already made her move, aiming her own pistol at his face.

  Jesus Christ.

  “I got it first, big bro,” Rebecca intoned evenly, “You fucking know I got it first.”

  Pilar sagged in defeat as he put the gun back on the desk, “Yeah, yeah, fuck off you pale shortstack bitch, don’t ever ask me for money again. Trying to air out my dirty laundry in front of guests? Who the fuck do you—”

  I cleared my throat loudly.

  “—think you are anyway, you Mox-fucking braindead amoeba—”

  “You think you’re any better, you Strom-sucking shit-metal listening SCOP-for-brains—”

  “GUYS!” I roared. They both finally shut the fuck up and turned to me, “Let’s pin that until I’m out of here. For fuck’s sakes.” Jesus Christ. I turned to Becca, and reached out my hand in a ‘gimme’ motion. “The tech rifle. Now.”

  “Now?” Pilar whined, “It’s Achilles-class, man. Achilles. Class. Do you know how rare—” his eyes lit up. “Hol’ up. Got an idea. About that tech rifle—wanna trade it in for—”

  “Now,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Worked pretty hard for it. I want it back.”

  “Shit,” Pilar muttered, hanging his head.

  “But I’ll give you edds for other stuff,” I said, “You got a tech pistol or something? Something small that can still blow a hole through a borg. Never been much of a volume guy, honestly. I’d rather have something more decisive.”

  “Becs,” Pilar groaned, still looking at my tech rifle sadly, “You got some Buryas lying around in the back, don’t you?”

  Becca snorted, “You want me to give him trash?”

  I looked at Pilar in annoyance.

  “The fuck did I do?!” Pilar yelled plaintively as he took in my look, “You said decisive and small and you’re not much of a volume guy! Fair! Fucking fair! The Burya holds four bullets, it’s small as far as handguns go, and can blow a hole through a borg easy! Is it light? Reasonable for a non-borg to use? Subtle? All good questions! But what it can do is blow through shit!”

  “Yeah, when it doesn’t break the arm of whoever shoots it!” Rebecca complained, “And David’s mostly ‘ganic!”

  “I’ll take it,” I said immediately. This was exactly what I was looking for.

  000

  Pilar led the way, weaving through the cramped corridors of their place—barely more than a glorified bunker stacked high with parts, weapons, and whatever loot they hadn’t offloaded yet. The armory was in the back, behind a reinforced door that looked like it had seen its fair share of break-in attempts.

  "Welcome to our humble arsenal," Pilar announced grandly, throwing the door open.

  Inside, racks lined the walls, packed with guns of all calibers and origins. Old Militech rifles sat next to Kang Tao pulse carbines. A wall of handguns gleamed under the flickering fluorescent light, from standard iron to the kind of high-powered iron that could punch through AV hulls. The air smelled like oil, ozone, and gunpowder—homey, in its own way.

  Rebecca sauntered in, kicking over a box of mags as she went. “I really need to clean this place up, holy shit. Never expected visitors, though.”

  Pilar snorted, already digging through a crate labeled “Old World Bangers.” He pulled out something dusty: it looked like a brick of steel, ugly, heavy-looking, and unmistakably Soviet in design.

  “Glory to the progress of Soviet Socialist science!” he declared, dusting it off then holding it up like it was some lost relic of a bygone era. Which I supposed it was.

  Nanny gave me the thing’s specifics. The Techtronika RT-46 Burya—this one was matte black with thick plating and a revolver-style cylinder, with a massive bore practically daring you to test its stopping power.

  I reached out, and he dropped it into my hand. Heavy as hell. Had to be, what, ten kilos? Fifteen? Hard to tell nowadays, what with my newfound strength.

  “This bad boy was Techtronika’s attempt to make a hand cannon for the common soldier. Big mistake! Thing kicks like a pissed-off cyberpsycho, the weight and recoil is way above what a ‘ganic soldier can handle. Half the people who fired it ended up with shattered wrists! They had to cancel their production line after only a few months.”

  Rebecca snorted. “Yeah, ‘cept nowadays, all that Soviet steel means it’s still around, while half the shit corpos make today fries itself in a month.”

  Pilar nodded, happily explaining. “Yep, the Burya handcannons are practically immortal—with the mass production standards they had back in the day, the thing would eat modern garbage for breakfast. They don’t even make guns like this anymore, except for the best of the best corpo huscle.”

  I turned the gun over in my hand, getting a feel for it. Something caught my attention on the side of the barrel—someone had engraved some tiny Russian characters into the steel, which, after a quick consult with Nanny apparently translated as: for the indestructible union of free republics.

  Interesting. This pistol had history. As for the thing’s stopping power, it had a four-round drum, electromagnetic rails running along the barrel—definitely not some everyday peashooter. I scanned it and my eyes immediately widened at seeing the power this thing could output.

  That was fucking insane. How many dozens of mach could this thing launch a round?

  Lucy, who’d been quiet up to this point, finally spoke. “It’s excessive.”

  “That’s the point,” Pilar grinned.

  Lucy gave me a look, but I just ran my thumb against the drum. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  000

  The four of us stood in a back lot of their bunker, a makeshift range with some old car doors, thick slabs of scrap metal, and a few unfortunate mannequins set up as targets.

  I squared up, feeling the weight of the Burya in my grip. Rebecca leaned on Pilar’s hip, both of them grinning like they were about to watch something hilarious. Lucy stood beside me, arms crossed, impassive as ever.

  I took a breath. Lined up the shot.

  Thought of Katsuo.

  Pulled the trigger, held it—until finally, the gun fully charged. Then I released.

  The gun roared—not fired, not discharged, but roared, the electromagnetic rails sending the bullet screaming downrange. The kick blasted through my whole body, rattling my teeth, my shoulders slamming backward as my feet dug into the ground. My whole goddamn skeleton felt like it had just gotten jolted by a power surge.

  But I was still standing.

  The target? A mannequin reinforced with steel plating?

  Blown in half.

  All the tension in my body released in an instant, and I felt a full-body sense of relaxation, for the first time since yesterday’s massacre.

  Maybe I’d pass on the solo gigs after all. I could do this all day.

  “WOO! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!” Pilar howled, clapping like a lunatic.

  Rebecca cackled, slapping me on the back hard enough to jolt my already-sore bones. “Holy shit, D, you didn’t even fall on your ass!”

  I exhaled slowly, flexing my fingers, making sure nothing was broken. The aftershock still hummed in my bones, but I was fine.

  Lucy, watching, nodded slightly. “Not bad.”

  Pilar waggled his brows. “Wanna go again?”

  I cracked my neck, reloading the cylinder. Charged to full. Then I fired.

  Again.

  And then one last time.

  My radius—one of the two bones in my forearm—snapped audibly. Fuck, that smarted.

  I turned to Pilar and gave him an impassive expression and a nod, “How much?”

  “The fuck was that sound?” Pilar asked, “Did you just break a bone or something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What, it doesn’t hurt?”

  I activated the Sandevistan. Nanny healed it instantly—hopefully, that would give her useful data. My Critical Progress didn’t move at all from where it had been earlier—in fact, it was now down to 42%.

  “How much will you take?” I asked.

  “From you? Twelve grand.”

  Was that cheap or expensive? You know what? Fuck it.

  “Yeah, sur—”

  “Five grand,” Becca said, snapping her fingers, “Eyes down here, big guy. It’s my gun,” I looked down at her, “It’s a fucking monster, but I can’t fucking use it, so it’s yours for how much I got it for. That alright?”

  “Two grand, and he’ll take it,” Lucy said. The fuck?

  “What the fuck are you butting in for?”

  “He’s not gonna haggle—gonk that he is—and I’m bored. So yeah. Two grand. Best he can do.”

  Not true, but—

  “Fuck off, Ice Queen—he could easily do forty-five hundred. That ain’t even a bad deal! This one’s got history, too! Look at the engraving on it! I think it’s modded!”

  On and on it went.

  I turned to Pilar, “Also need an SMG—small, light, but rapid fire. Needs to pack a punch, but I’m also looking for volume on that. Got any suggestions?”

  Pilar’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.

  000

  Neon lights rippled across the runway like spilled gasoline, gliding over the silhouettes of the models striding down the stage. Gold-threaded kimonos and sequin-infested boas shimmered under the neon lights of the ceiling, the fashion house alive with the murmurs of corpo elites and celebrities alike, all gathered to witness the bleeding edge of fashion. The sweet scent of sakura incense mingled with the more acrid scent of chems being used a few booths over, but Jing Fei barely noticed.

  She sat beside Katsuo in their private booth—right where the runway ended—, her hands resting in her lap, fingers knotted together so tightly they ached. She was supposed to be relaxed, smiling, draping herself against his arm like the good fiancée she was meant to be. Instead, she felt like she was suffocating beneath the weight of her own silence.

  David’s words still rang in her head, looping like a glitched out music chip.

  "Katsuo sent some goons to have me killed."

  Despite everything she knew of Katsuo, most of her had believed David instantly. The tone of his voice from the call—the lack of energy throughout their conversation—was a clear marker that something was wrong. At first, she had been angry that he would ask about Katsuo. Afraid that her trust was being abused. Afraid that David would just prove to be another corpo fuckboy who didn’t care who he used. But those words…

  A part of her remained stubbornly disbelieving—probably the part that immediately sought to cut the call and remove herself from a situation she was ill-equipped to handle, whether or not David was telling the truth. Inevitably, she had to eventually see Katsuo, and truly face the truth—that the man beside her, the one tracing idle circles against the table with his chrome index finger, had definitely tried to kill someone she…

  She swallowed hard. Her pulse stuttered when she risked a glance at Katsuo.

  He had been strange all evening, even by his standards. Smiling too much, too widely. Laughing at nothing. And now, that finger of his, still idly tracing on the table, moving faster, pressing harder, as if carving something into the lacquered surface. He hadn't said much since they sat down, just little comments here and there about the designs, but there was something about the way he held himself—rigid yet brimming with energy, like a tripwire waiting to snap.

  Then, without warning, he exhaled sharply, flexed his hand, and slammed his fist onto the table. The wine glasses rattled. A few heads turned in their direction.

  Jing Fei barely kept herself from flinching.

  The catwalking model—wearing a bold get-up of white and yellow that reminded her of a certain someone—barely paid the outburst any mind at all as she showed off her apparel and turned around to walk back behind the stage.

  Jing Fei idly wondered if the model had reminded Katsuo of David as well.

  "Ugly," Katsuo muttered under his breath, voice barely audible over the music swelling from the runway. "Tacky. Garbage. I swear, Japantown is rotting from the inside out."

  She forced a smile, hoping no one had heard him. "I think it's… unique," she offered, trying to keep her voice even.

  Katsuo turned to her slowly, his smile creeping back, but his eyes—flat and hungry, like a shark scenting blood—told her the truth.

  "You always were too soft, Fei," he murmured, reaching out to tuck a strand of her seafoam-green hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered against her cheek, a parody of affection, and she had to fight the urge to lean away. "You think too much of people."

  She felt her stomach churn.

  Because he was right. She did think too much of people. And one of them was David.

  Did he know? Was that why he’d go so far? To end someone’s life over—what? Because she was cheating on him?

  “What do you mean by that?” Jing Fei asked.

  He scowled at her, “What do you mean, what do I mean? Wasn’t I being clear?” He scoffed, “You don’t know anything about what it takes to survive, Fei. You’re soft.”

  Jing Fei forcefully tamped down on her outrage. She wanted nothing more than to unload the sum total of all her grievances at that very moment, but that could prove a deadly blunder in this corpo chess game. David was living proof of where the stakes now lay.

  “Have I done something wrong?” Jing Fei asked.

  He snorted, then grinned, “Why are you asking me that? What—was I being too harsh just now? Like I said! You’re too soft!”

  She tried not to squirm as his expressions shifted, from annoyance, to confusion, to anger, then to amusement. She didn’t know which was worse—or at what point he would snap. His hand shook. No, that hand was vibrating. What the hell?

  “Talk to me, please,” Jing Fei said. At this point, she’d rather he tell her that he knew she was cheating—it was far and away a better position to be in than this. Having to wonder at when his next outburst would be.

  But what she definitely wouldn’t do was assume that he already knew. Something about his attitude dissuaded her slightly of that notion.

  But that begged the question—why would he put a hit out on David, a classmate? Moreover, a classmate who had his cousin’s favor, and someone who was already below him on the social hierarchy?

  “I’m moving up in the world,” Katsuo said through gritted teeth, “Growing up. Learning to do what’s necessary.” He nodded, “Yeah,” he said, as if to comfort himself, “I’m not doing anything wrong. This is the way things have to be.”

  “What way is that?” Jing Fei asked. Katsuo grabbed her hand and held it—so hard that it hurt. “Katsuo—!”

  “With me at the top,” Katsuo said, “and all the rats scurrying on the ground, where they’re meant to be. On the ground. Not up here—not with me. On the fucking ground.”

  “Katsuo!” She cried, looking down at her hand, biting through the snapping sounds.

  What the fuck?

  She bit down and activated her Pain Editor, and looked at Katsuo coldly. His eyes widened when he saw what he had done and he let go as though her hand was hot. It was numb—and slightly misshapen. She hid it under her healthy hand, and tamped down on the slight nausea at the fact that her body had been injured. Even beyond pain, that simple fact was disconcerting. And distracting.

  She had to concentrate—she couldn’t afford distraction right now, not in front of him.

  “I’ll pay for that,” he said, a touch of guilt weighing on his eyebrows. He looked at his vibrating hand, as though betrayed by it, “I’ll have to get a look at these hands, too—my hands, fuck,” he winced and cursed harshly.

  “What the hell is going on with you, Katsuo?” Jing Fei’s voice was low, “If you don’t tell me, I will have a chat with your mother. She won’t ignore this, you know.”

  He glared daggers at her, “It’s got nothing to do with you. I’m taking care of biz. You just sit back and let everything fall to your lap, you useless little girl. Don’t fucking question me.”

  Useless little girl? She was the first daughter of QianT’s CEO, and no Arasaka employee, not even executives would dare talk to her this way if her family’s company hadn’t lost their experimental prototype. If only—

  —And ‘taking care of biz?’ Killing his classmate. That’s what this gonk called it? Was he for real— ?

  Jing Fei felt her composure slipping with every second, and she just… could not find it in herself to care.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Why are you so upset anyway?” he growled, “The hand’s fucking ganic. Useless trash—you should have gotten rid of it ages ago.”

  “And end up like you?” she raised an eyebrow, looking at his malfunctioning appendage. His eyes widened. She stood up angrily, “If you think I’m your fucking joytoy, Katsuo, you’re entirely mistaken. I do have rights, and options. I’m under no obligation to continue looking the other way when you physically and verbally assault me for no reason.”

  “Fei,” Katsuo eyebrows furrowed in consternation and he gaped plaintively, “Please, it’s just—I’ve been under a lot of stress and…” he paused.

  Jing Fei’s patience snapped just as the curtains on the stage closed—ending the first phase of the fashion show.

  She walked away, broken hand shoved roughly inside her purse so that no one would see. She surreptitiously looked over her shoulder once on her way to anywhere else, and saw Katsuo still in his booth, head buried in his hands. Fucking gonk.

  Clearly, she could rule out him knowing about her tryst—injury notwithstanding. He wouldn’t have apologized if that was the case.

  This was about David, probably.

  Jing Fei felt an urge to call him, see how he was doing—but that would be imprudent. Hasty. Reckless.

  She did need to call someone—talk with someone. Not necessarily to rat on Katsuo. She just needed to vent. None of her ‘friends’ would understand, and though Katsuo’s mother was really friendly—all too friendly to have really birthed Katsuo, which did beg a certain question—, Jing Fei didn’t feel like talking to her either. She was too zen—wouldn’t be cathartic to bitch with her.

  Her walk took her into the dance floor in another section of the fashion house—steadily filling up after the intermission had been called—, and from there, her destination became simple—she’d head to the bar. Then to a bioclinic to get her hand taken care of. A break like this wouldn’t be hard to heal, but getting the platinum package for an overnight full heal would tip her over her monthly allowance. Katsuo was so going to foot the bill for that.

  Once she reached the bar, she just put her order on the Net and settled on calling the one person she thought would put up with her desire to let off some steam—her brother.

  He picked up on the second ring, as usual.

  Qi: Yeah?

  Fei-Fei: The hell do you mean ‘yeah?’ What a gonk way to start a conversation

  Qi: For a gonk-ass princess like you, I figured it’d do just fine. Something the matter, your majesty?

  Fei-Fei: Screw off—you’re the one who’s actually inheriting something here. That makes you the prince, doesn’t it?

  Qi: Still fits—or did you really think princesses inherited shit way back when? Unless they were specifically sent to marry and then kill foreign royalty. That your plan?

  Jing Fei glowered—the nerve of this absolute dork.

  Fei-Fei: Way to rub it in my face.

  Qi: Way I see it, I just gave you a plan.

  Marry and then kill Katsuo?

  Well, now that she considered it closer, it was a fun fantasy to indulge in.

  Qi: *Sigh*, What did he do?

  Jing Fei frowned. How had he suddenly assumed that?

  Fei-Fei: Nothing you need to concern yourself about. Things are going great-great on my end.

  Qi: When your signal stutters, it’s usually because you’re lying.

  Fei-Fei: That-that’s a fucking myth and you know it.

  Qi: Yeah, sure. Keep not listening to me. Your big brother—the only one in this city who's got your back. Don’t worry, I can handle it.

  Fei-Fei: That’s why I don’t listen—because you’re so good at taking your lumps.

  Qi: Doesn’t mean you have to take yours, you know. I already told you to stop seeing that rat fuck, didn’t I? I’ve got things handled.

  Fei-Fei: But dad said—

  Qi: Forget dad. I’m serious, Fei-Fei—forget him. He’s off his meds. This set-up is fucking crazy. No one sane is gonna go for it after granddad kicks it. ‘Saka wants money, we can pay money—but you’re not money, Fei-Fei.

  Her drink finally arrived—a gin and tonic that glowed blue under the bar’s blacklight. She took a sip with her uninjured hand while replying.

  Fei-Fei: You’re forgetting the set-up is also enforced not just by granddad, but by Kang Tao, who wants to smear dad’s face in shit after his fuck-up, and Arasaka isn’t exactly unhappy to play along if it means humiliating their rivals.

  Qi: It ain’t right that this should all fall on your account—dad doesn’t own you. He doesn’t get to take insult at this, not when you’re the one going through it.

  Jing Fei looked down at her drink forlornly. For some reason, she couldn’t help but resent her brother’s efforts. Well-meaning as he was, she felt like he’d only hurt himself in the end.

  Fei-Fei: Wish I’d at least have had the choice to shop around a little—find a prep boy that actually caught my eye and wasn’t chosen for me.

  Qi: …someone catch your eye, little sister?

  She pictured an overconfident guy with a mohawk, excellent in bed, the only warmth she had felt in an ocean of cold steel. Jing Fei’s eyes widened and she blushed.

  Fei-Fei: Nevermind that.

  Qi: I’ll pick you up wherever you are and we can talk. Sounds good?

  Fei-Fei: Not tonight. I’ll just be by myself.

  She’d have taken him up on his offer if that gonk Katsuo hadn’t injured her. She’d rather not her brother have to deal with that—since men were categorically incapable of not putting their feelings front and center whenever a woman close to them was hurt.

  As if they were the true injured party.

  Her brother was better about such things than most men, and he wouldn’t really fly off the handle and do something regrettable if she let him know about the injury—but she’d rather he not go through that stress anyway. He was going through enough as it was.

  She received an incoming call just then—from Katsuo.

  Fei-Fei: *Sigh* I’ll call you back, alright?

  Qi: Stay safe, okay? Love you.

  Fei-Fei: Don’t make it gay, Qi.

  Qi: You’re fucking crazy and I’ve had enough of you. Alright, bye.

  She could feel amusement come through the line though. Once he hung up, she accepted Katsuo’s call.

  Fei: What is it.

  TonKatsu-Ramen: It’s David. David Martinez. A classmate of mine—the one that Jin’s taken a liking to. Remember him?

  She blinked. He was going to tell her, then? Would it be wise to even listen? Wouldn’t she be… implicated somehow?

  Fei: The one in the overly bright get-up?

  TonKatsu-Ramen: That cretin, yes. My father—he’s had enough. He can no longer abide by the fact that Martinez stubbornly remains ahead in the class rankings. He bade me to take matters into my own hands. To… ensure my superiority.

  Jing Fei’s eyes widened. She felt a sudden surge of revulsion from the pit of her stomach—enough to make her nauseous. That was it? That was the entire reason why David almost died? And was still actively in danger?

  Fei: Oh.

  TonKatsu-Ramen: You’re soft. I told you that already, didn’t I? You think I’m a monster, right? You think I chose this path, don’t you? If I’m a monster, then what about your parents? Or grandparents? You really think you’re better than me because you’ve never had to work for all the eddies you’re enjoying? Don’t give me those fucking eyes, Fei—I’m serving my family here.

  Eyes? He couldn’t even see her! The comment made her look around, wondering if he had caught up to her somehow. She couldn’t find him. Meaning he was too much of a coward to approach her, and tell it to her face that all this was for, for…

  A class position. That’s what this was for? He was securing a class position?

  She looked at her gin and tonic, and the nausea redoubled. She definitely wouldn’t do any more drinking tonight.

  No matter how she turned it around in her head, she couldn’t make sense of it—any of it. He was an executive’s son. Merit didn’t matter for someone like him. And no one looked at high school class rankings. Or hell, even NCU rankings. He had more connections in his pinkie toe than David had in total. His success wasn’t even up to chance—it was a guarantee.

  Fei: So you’ve secured your position, then?

  TonKatsu-Ramen: Not yet—that scumfucker got help somehow. No idea—never knew he had so many resources, but he clearly does. Getting rid of him won’t be easy.

  Fei: Or necessary. He may have already gotten the picture. Shouldn’t you wait and see?

  TonKatsu-Ramen: He means to kill me.

  Fei furrowed her eyebrows. David?

  Fei: How? And how do you know?

  TonKatsu-Ramen: He told me to pray. He—he called me, then he told me that I should pray for my life! I’m in danger! No—but he won’t touch me-me, no not me. He can’t. He’s too weak. He can’t reach me. If that gutter rat even tries, he’ll be neck deep in Night City’s finest, no two ways about it.

  Fei wracked her mind for advice or anything that would defuse this shitstorm.

  Fei: Tell him it was just a warning shot, next time you meet. Whatever you did to try and kill him. Tell him you’re letting him off as long as he understands what you want from him. Okay? Why put yourself through all this dirty business anyway? I can understand the need to get rid of a rival, but this gutter rat isn’t worth your time or effort at all.

  She desperately hoped that any of that had gotten through to him. He was clearly rattled—did he even want this, or was it his dad?

  TonKatsu-Ramen: You think he’d go for it?

  Fei: If you remain confident, yes.

  Then to add surety, just for good measure:

  Fei: And I’m willing to let go of what you did to me if you take this advice—really, this isn’t the move. Your father is wise, but too old-fashioned. And he’s not on the ground like you are. He doesn’t have the information that you have.

  And no matter how much Katsuo tried, he would never gain his father’s favor. It was futile. All that boorish corpo would achieve was destroying every last shred of Katsuo’s conscience, and it would be for nothing anyway.

  It was downright obvious to anyone with eyes though—Katsuo didn’t want this.

  TonKatsu-Ramen: Excuse me, but I will have to make some calls.

  Katsuo unceremoniously hung up, leaving Jing Fei in slight uncertainty. She could tell that she had swayed him—but for how long, she couldn’t say. She recalled the way his hands vibrated, the way he had lost control over his strength. He was erratic. Guilt? Drugs, maybe.

  She should get on top of that somehow, find evidence that he was using—at the very least, it’d give her a free shot to switch fiancés. She’d take literally anyone else at this point—except for Jin. Even the age-inappropriate son of Arasaka’s marketing exec, who was twenty-eight.

  She opened her contact list and stared at David’s name. She felt all too tempted to call him, but her own problems felt practically minuscule compared to what he was dealing with. What would she even say? Especially after she had so curtly cut the call the last time?

  In the end, she left her gin and tonic half-drunk on the counter as she made a beeline towards the event’s exit, hailing a Delamain for her trip to a bioclinic.