Strong Enough 3.3

You can catch up on this story HERE

I will be uploading any missing chapters and organizing the Patreon collection this week (6/17/25).

A/N Reminders:

The Storm—The name for Maelstrom’s doomed rampage across Night City, and the damage that it left behind

Kikiyo—Taylor’s ripper doc, an old friend of Annette’s

Refugee 3.3

Several truths vie for Taylor’s attention, and she dives into them in lieu of grief.

First, Arasaka has ended the Academy semester early due to ‘extenuating circumstances.’ To its hyper-elite clientele, Arasaka has promised that the Academy will be using this time to implement exciting new features! That usually means new software licenses that cost more and do less, but this time it also means automated turrets and upgraded security protocols as well. So, while Taylor needs the time away from the Academy, she knows returning will be costly.

Second, Taylor and Emma are homeless. Alan has transferred Taylor enough eddies for a deposit and a month’s rent at an upscale condo complex, and conveniently forgotten to include anything for food, utilities, other necessities, or Emma’s medical care. She’s not surprised he forgot real world expenses; Alan’s never lived off of vending machine scop. It’s up to Taylor to find a place for them to actually live and budget enough for them to survive after the third problem:

Emma has one leg and one prosthetic connector. because her Trauma Team package doesn’t cover chrome. Her severed leg still lies, unrecovered in a condemned Maelstrom chop shop. It’s not an option, but good prosthetics cost eddies. Taylor struggles with the idea of bringing Emma to Kikiyo’s clinic, even if there’s no one she’d trust more.

Simmering beneath are the truths Taylor can’t look at right now. Like how she’s newly unemployed, like how she has completed her vengeance and is left with nothing, like how Emma looks at her with new eyes that she cannot read and—

“Stay in the car,” Taylor says.

Emma stiffens, a bit of fire returning to her expression. “I’m a cripple, not a baby.”

“If I keep babying you, the prop manager will screw us on rent.”

Emma huffs. “It’s a megabuilding.”

“Cause you’re too good for a megabuilding.”

“Oh, shut up.” Emma rolls her eyes. “Like you want to live here.”

“Yeah, well.” Taylor shrugs. “Until your dad figures out how rent works.”

Emma’s face twists. “Here’s to shitty dads.”

The joke forces a laugh out of Taylor like a punch to the gut. They slip so easily back into old skins, even if they prick and stretch at the seams. “Stay in the car.”

“Wait—” Taylor gets out, ignoring the flash of fear playing across Emma’s face before the door slams shut. The windows tint black. Emma calls Taylor almost immediately. Taylor ignores it, and the next. After the third call she blocks Emma’s number.

The manager’s office is on the second floor, because only an idiot would live on the first floor of a megabuilding. The stairs are packed, but so is the line for the lift. Taylor muscles through her headache and uses the Sandevistan to slip up to the second floor and into the manager’s office. She drops back into real time just as the previous applicant closes the door behind him.

The manager of megabuilding D-1 is a fat woman wearing an open suit jacket. Taylor recognizes it as a men’s cut and pushes that useless Academy factoid away as the woman blinks up at Taylor with surprise.

“Looking for a two bedroom, what have you got?” Taylor asks.

The woman laughs, turning back to her monitor. “You and everyone else, babe. Out of two bedrooms.”

Taylor winces. “Threes?”

“Building doesn’t have any of those.” The woman blinks rapidly, flicking through her interface. “I’ve got a studio, take it or get out.”

“One studio.” Taylor knew the Storm would impact housing, but not that open apartments would be gobbled up this quickly and this soon. “How much?”

“Three.”

Taylor glares. “You get out.”

The woman laughs again. “Don’t get stuck in the door.”

Taylor leaned over the desk. “C’mon, you don’t have anyone who’s late on rent?”

The woman flicks her eyes towards Taylor. “Wouldn’t be swapping ‘em for you.”

“I’m good for it,” Taylor replies.

“My ass.” The manager shakes her head. “Saka-looking cunt like you? You’ll be gone in a month, or else you’re already so short that I’ll be evicting you in two.”

Taylor pinches the bridge of her nose. Common sense says to leave, but D-1 is already halfway across the city from the Storm. She’s had even worse luck with anything closer, and if this building is full and jacking the rent, the rest of Night City will be as well.

“Two and a half for the studio,” Taylor says. “And a month and a half deposit, extra paid to you.”

The woman pauses on that, sucking her lip. “That—”

“Processing fees,” Taylor says. “Due to exigent circumstances.”

The woman grunts.

Taylor knows the extra twelve hundred will go directly into the woman’s pockets. It’ll only save Taylor and Emma money if they’re here until the start of the next semester. But if Taylor and Emma don’t have to slum it in a mega building three months from now, then that means she’s scraped together enough eddies to pay for something better. Taylor plans for the worst-case scenario instead.

“Sure,” the manager replies.

Taylor wires the money. In return, she gets the key shard for their unit.

“101, first floor.”

Taylor blanches. The manager grins. “Why’d you think it’s still open? Now get outta my office.”

Taylor lets out a breath. “Thanks for your help.”

Only an idiot would live on the first floor of a mega building.

The manager leans back in her chair, scratching at her stomach. “Any time, babe.” Taylor turns, stalking out of the office and past the line. The pair in front stares at her accusingly, and even moreso after the manager’s voice comes over the intercom. “No more vacancies!”

Taylor makes for the back staircase before the groans finish spreading down the line. She pulls off her coat and slips into the evening crowd before anyone can shift from annoyance to outright anger. It has the added benefit of flashing her Burya, the revolver burnished silver and black from the battle. Her last stop is the megabuilding’s gun shop for more rounds, as well as a new smart linked pistol.

At least those are cheap.

To Taylor’s utter lack of surprise, ‘her’ red Quadra is still completely fine. She slips back into the car, rolling her eyes at Emma’s half-hunched form in the passenger seat. “Got us the last unit.” She slumps back.

Emma says nothing.

Taylor shifts half from the seat. “You’re not still fucking mad, are—”

Emma slaps her.

Taylor’s head jerks to the right, and Emma pulls back her arm, shuddering with heavy breaths. She’s shaking.

Taylor turns to look at her, Emma’s head snaps up, green eyes shimmering with anger. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!” she hisses. “You—you can’t just leave me here! Fucking Christ, Taylor, I can’t walk!”

Taylor works her jaw, feeling her skin stretch, red and stinging. She lets Emma slowly wrestle her emotions back under control. Then she leans forward, over the center console.

“Or what?” Taylor asks. Emma pulls back, eyes fluttering rapidly. “What will you do, Emma? Report me to the administration? Pour acid in my hair?”

Emma flinches back further, shaking her head.

Taylor hisses out another breath, clenching her teeth shut against the histrionic rant burbling up her throat. Dorio died for this girl. Taylor aches to scream it, to throw it into Emma’s face and grind it against her too soft skin. Her fingers clench around the grip of her Burya.  Once she had a plan for the six bullets it holds: one for each of her mother’s killers, and the last for Emma.

Only now, she’s spent many more rounds, a carpet of brass she walked across to save Emma Barnes. The City gave Taylor her revenge, but took something else in return.

She pries her fingers from her pistol and turns back to the steering wheel. “Let’s get you a fucking leg.”

Emma curls up in the passenger seat.

Taylor swears again, under her breath. She ignored Emma’s flinch in favor of rummaging around in her lab coat, pulling out the Nue and an adjustable holster. “Here.” She shoves it into Emma’s hands, and the other girl flinches. Taylor rolls her eyes. “It’s not loaded, idiot.”

“The fuck?” Emma asks.

“Self-defense,” Taylor replies.

Emma gingerly takes the gift, eyes flashing as she syncs her implants to the gun’s smart system. Her fingers tremble lightly as they curl around the grip.

Taylor pulls the car wordlessly out of the garage.

“…Thanks.”

Taylor jerks her chin into the shallowest nod. She turns onto the interchange towards Arroyo as the sun creeps lower towards the horizon. The heat from the evening light creeps into the car, settling over Taylor and leeching away at her rage.

She only realizes she’s drifting off when the autopilot beeps at her. Taylor’s eyes jerk open in a shot of ice-cold terror. She almost activates the Sandevistan out of instinct before remembering where she is.

And where she is not.

With a small exhale, Taylor sends the autopilot her destination and lets the system take over so she can slump back in the driver’s seat. The headaches, the sweat and gun smoke, all of it weighs down the edges of her limbs, pricking at the tips of her fingers. Emma glances at her, eyes bright in the sun, but Taylor ignores her.

“You…look tired.” Emma shifts, lowering the pistol to her lap, but unwilling to relinquish it. “Did you…did you get a chance to sleep?”

Taylor bites back her instinctive response. They…they’re going to be living in much closer proximity than before, so instead she takes the olive branch for what it is. “Not much. A few hours, maybe.”

“I…”

After a moment, Taylor lifts her head and looks at Emma. The redhead worries at her lip, eyes distant. They meet Taylor’s gaze. Taylor remembers when they used to have whole conversations with just a passing glance, a language of quirked brows and pursed lips. Unbidden, she seeks out the same twists and turns of Emma’s face now, reading her once-friend’s simmering fear and confusion, but she can no longer understand the deeper currents. The feeling of loss returns, sharp and stark, even though Taylor gave up on this friendship long ago.

After a moment, Emma shakes her head, and Taylor doesn’t know why.

For each moment that slips beneath Taylor’s defenses, there is a pause like this one. A distance that no touch can cross. The two women are strangers but caught in familiar tides. Each time they close the eddies send them drifting away once more.

Neither Taylor nor Emma says a word until they arrive at Kikiyo’s clinic.

Getting Emma out of the passenger seat and into her wheelchair, however, is not something they can accomplish in silence. It is a new shape, one they have yet to fill in. Taylor slips her arms beneath Emma’s with a whispered ‘Ready?’ and lifts. Both of them huff, slipping Emma out of the car and into her new seat. This time Taylor remembered to lock the wheels.

She ignores how Emma’s hands linger on her shoulders, fluttering like little birds.

She leads Emma from their parking spot to the concrete overhang that Kikiyo’s clinic sits beneath, unchanged since last Taylor passed it by. The familiar receptionist glances up, waving to Taylor as she enters, before his eyes track to Emma.

“Need a leg replacement,” Taylor says. “Is she in?”

Satoru nods. “You and wheelchairs, huh kid.”

Taylor starts when she remembers that her first visit was likewise in a wheelchair. A rented one she somehow returned just in time to avoid the late fee.

“Hard to stay on your feet in NC,” she replies.

Satoru snorts. “I’ll let ‘er know you’re here.” He glances to the side, and two seconds later, the door to the surgery room hisses open as Kikiyo storms out. She locks eyes with Taylor, red implant focusing in on her face with mechanical intensity.

“Never a word,” she says. “Just like your mother.”

“I’m fine,” Taylor says. “Not even a scratch.”

Kikiyo crosses her arms. “In, now. Satoru will go over the catalogue with your friend.”

Taylor takes a step, then Emma’s hand clamps around her wrist. The two of them lock eyes.

Emma looks more surprised that Taylor, already flinching back like in the car. She doesn’t let go.

“Gonna pour acid in my hair?” Taylor’s voice comes soft.

Emma shakes her head. “…Please,” is all she manages.

Taylor sighs, then turns back to Kikiyo. “Can Emma wait inside with me? She—we got caught out in the Storm. Sorry.”

“You made it out, which is more than I can say for some of my clients.” Kikiyo turns. “Satoru, a datapad for the girl.”

The clinic proper is the same. Emma gives a wary glance towards the chair in the center of the room, but she seems to have less apprehension about the surgery room than being left alone outside of it.

“You, there for now.” Kikiyo points Emma to the corner desk. “I will go over legs after I ensure this girl has not poached her brain.”

Taylor frowns. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“When I did not hear from you, I assumed that it was because you had been intelligent,” Kikiyo replies. “Now, I am sure you charged into the eye of the hurricane instead.” Taylor opens her mouth, and Kikiyo glares. “Chair, girl. Now.”

Taylor slumps, complains. The surgical recliner lifts her up, and Kikiyo plugs several wires into Taylor’s wrist and neck ports. Sasha’s ICE remains good enough to block the intrusion long enough for Taylor to authorize it. Kikiyo turns to the set of monitors, clicking through several screens and images that Taylor understands only academically, with no ability to decode their significance.

Kikiyo’s heavy silence and the furrowing of her brow are much easier to untangle.

“Oh child,” she says. “What have you done with yourself…”

Taylor stiffens. “Something wrong?”

Kikiyo does not answer with words. Instead, she stands, retrieving a handheld neuroscanner from the metal cabinets beneath her gun wall.

Emma and Taylor share a glance.

Emma’s eyes flick to the door. She half hunches, eyes flicking towards Taylor, as if to ask ‘do I have to?’

Taylor shakes her head. Emma can stay. She sits back in the chair so that Kikiyo can do her work.

The neuroscanner is a metal ‘U’, flat on the inside where delicate scanners can peer through layers of skin to read the electrical impulses dancing beneath. The scanner’s mouth is wide enough to sit comfortably over a person’s head, but Kikiyo places it beneath Taylor’s chin instead—right where her spine goes from metal to bone.

“How much have you used the implant?” Kikiyo asks quietly. The scanner vibrates, a frequency she cannot hear, only feel in the back of her neck, a trembling of cerebrospinal fluid.

Taylor closes her eyes. “A lot…during the riot. I—”

Kikiyo cuts her off, “Before then.”

Taylor’s eyes snap back open. “Huh?”

“Outside of battle, how often do you use the device? A dozen times a day? A score?”

Taylor frowns, thinking back. The truth slithers down her metal spine with a cool finger of clarity. “I don’t keep track anymore.”

Emma’s head snaps up.

Kikiyo lets out a huff of air.

“I told you last time,” Taylor continues. “It feels weightless. I barely notice the strain, especially when I’m not moving.” She uses the Sandevistan during class, even, just for the simple solitude that nestles between two beats of her heart. It is a time that is a place that is hers and hers alone.

Kikiyo rests a hand, gently, against her own face, and Taylor wonders if maybe that was not such a good idea.

“I had overuse headaches, starting two days ago, during the fight,” Taylor says. “And problems with heat build-up. The heat hasn’t…hasn’t been a problem since, but—”

“Enough,” Kikiyo replies. “That is answer enough for my questions.”

Taylor frowns, half rising from the chair. “But what about my questions? Did—did I…?”

Kikiyo’s hand catches her by the sternum. “As soon as I understand pigheaded idiocy,” Kikiyo says. “I will inform you.”

Silence settles over them, awkward and heavy. Taylor clenches her fists at her side.

Emma’s datapad beeps happily, and Emma pastes on a fake smile so sincere even Taylor has trouble piercing through it. “Ms. Kikiyo,” she says. “I’ve selected a prosthetic, but I would like…”

Kikiyo stands, turning. She is a sharp woman, hard edges and gleaming chrome. Emma doesn’t have to feign surprise, to fake her confidence dripping away. Taylor watches from the chair as Kikiyo visibly masters herself, stalking over to snag the pad from Emma’s hands. They converse quietly, Emma attentive, apologetic.

Emma glancing back at Taylor as Kikiyo looks away, eyes asking ‘did that help’.

Taylor has not been on this side of Emma in years. She feels a scream battering against the inside of her teeth once again. She nods. It did help.

Then Kikiyo returns to the chair. She calmly taps through several readouts, takes a deep breath, and turns to Taylor. “I lied to you, it appears.”

Taylor can only blink, surprised by the sudden change of tone.

“This,” her metal fingers find the top of Taylor’s spine, chrome against chrome, “I once called a brutal piece of metal. I saw only the prow of the ship, hard and unyielding. I did not wish to think about what it would do to you.”

Taylor wets her lips. “What does that mean about the…rest of the ship?”

“I do not know.”

Taylor blinks in surprise.

Kikiyo leans back in her chair. “With your permission, I will spend longer on the schematics. But this is for a different day. For now, I explain what I do know.”

Taylor nods.

Kikiyo turns to look at Emma. “Satoru will prep you.”

Again, Taylor can immediately see the tightening of Emma’s shoulders, the way her pupils shrink by micrometers, even as she holds the rest of herself in perfect composure.

Taylor swears under her breath, but out loud she says. “It’s fine.” When Kikiyo turns back to her, Taylor adds. “Emma can stay.”

Emma slumps in her chair, relief visible in every line.

“If you are certain,” Kikiyo replies. “I will begin with the quasi-rejection symptoms you have described.”

“Quasi-rejection?” Taylor asks. “As in…”

“Your body is not rejecting the implant.” Kikiyo turns back to the displays. “The heat buildup comes from overuse. The device has efficient heat dumping systems, but at the cost of rapid degradation with repeated use. This is by choice; doubtless the designers did not anticipate a user with such high compatibility, who focused solely on one implant instead of incorporating others.”

The pieces click into place immediately. “I don’t have any other implants taking up neural-load. Has my synchronization increased?”

“Has my synchronization increased, she asks.” Kikiyo looks skyward. “Annette, you raised a daughter worthy of yourself.”

Taylor feels her cheeks burn.

“You use this implant so easily and so often you forget to count, child,” Kikiyo tells her. “I am a ripper, and I do not have devices that would measure such compatibility.”

Taylor swallows. “What should I do, then?”

“Use it less.” Kikiyo holds up a hand as Taylor furrows her eyebrows. “Yes, yes, incorrigible girl. I will courier order a separate cooling system, one that will not compromise your spine, or your neural load.”

That catches Taylor’s attention as well. “If that’s why I’ve been able to use the Sandevistan so much, if I do get more chrome…”

Kikiyo shrugs at the unasked question. “The brain is adaptable. However, it is likely that with more to manage, you would find it less ‘weightless’ when you use what you already have.”

Taylor frowns at that. “But I’m already having headaches.”

“A sign of your plasticity at work,” Kikiyo replies. “And of a mistake on my part. Look.” She turns the display, showing a simple scan of her spine.

Taylor raises an eyebrow.

“When I first established the nerve connections, I used safe configurations. Clearly, the device was not meant for such. The contacts have proliferated.”

Taylor’s eyes flick to Emma. “Nanomachines?”

“Do not be ridiculous. No, there are simply more available connectors than usable nerve endings. When impulses are sent down nerves, the connection is strengthened, more connections are formed. I gave you medicine to encourage that. Only, with so many impulses traveling from the Sandevistan into your central nervous system, your spinal cord has grown organically.”

“More connections,” Taylor says. “And not necessarily in the correct places?”

Kikiyo nods. “Your brain is still finding ways to process this increased load. This, I can assist with. We shall handle this and your friend’s leg while I wait for the courier to deliver your new implant.”

At that, Taylor grimaces. “How much is that going to run me?”

Kikiyo leans over Taylor. “You will purchase it, or else you will end up burning your spine out of your back.”

“…Yes ma’am.”

“Good. We will discuss a payment plan you are able to support after.” Kikiyo claps her hands once. “Now, let me begin. I desire to sleep sometime tonight.”

“Wait,” Taylor says. “What does this mean, for me? Going forward.”

“When I understand,” Kikiyo repeats, “I will tell you.”

This time, Taylor does not need to stay awake for her surgeries. She stays at Emma’s shoulder as Kikiyo installs her leg, holding her once-friend’s trembling fingers. Then, Taylor slips beneath the waves of anesthetic knowing that Emma is still watching over her as well. Somehow, the thought brings more comfort than fear.

After the surgeries the two of them return to their new ‘home’. Emma has picked a sleek model for a leg, the glossy black and gold accents managing to be just gaudy enough to pass muster with Arasaka. Despite that, it is one of the cheaper models in the catalogue, even after the adjustments Emma required.

“Because it is old, and valued function over form,” Kikiyo said. “Only now, that form is functional as well.”

What a strange way to say that Efficientism was back in vogue.

They don’t use Megabuilding D-1’s parking garage this time, because doing that is so stupid that even Emma doesn’t suggest it. Instead, Taylor shells out another hundred eddies for a subscription to a ‘secure’ parking garage. Unlike the apartment, the price is for that is cheaper because of the Storm. Maelstrom wrecked a lot of cars.

Normally, two teenagers walking home at night would be just as dangerous as those two teenagers parking a Quadra in a megabuilding garage. Fortunately, neither of them is normal.

Their studio is, as previously established, on the first floor. On one hand, that means it’s near the first-floor concourse. On the other hand, that means it’s near the first-floor concourse. A couple of teens eye the girls as they head to their unit, tucked right in a hallway next to the elevator. One of the teens just so happens to meander in front of the girls. Taylor flashes her iron. That makes his friends take notice, standing. More guns.

Then, two of them are on the ground, the third clutching his broken fingers. Taylor lets out a breath as she slips back into the normal progression of time. At the base of her spine, she feels a hiss as the coolant pumps up her back, relieving the Sandevistan as much as it can.

It leaves her cold.

Emma walks up, placing her new metal foot right on the first boy’s chest. She whispers something Taylor doesn’t bother to listen to, and he nods frantically before the three of them delta fast as they can.

“Let’s hope we don’t have to do that every day,” Taylor mutters.

“I’d die.” Emma’s hand goes into her own jacket, poking at her gun. “I’m…gonna need some help with this.”

Taylor rolls her eyes. “There’s a shooting range on the fourth floor.”

Emma nods, they go inside.

Fixing the security so that the door can’t be sliced open by a random gonk off the street is a problem for tomorrow. For now, Taylor is exhausted, and a nap on the ripper table hasn’t fixed that. Inside, she sees the mattress she ordered set up in the wall alcove. The delivery man didn’t even bother to close the cabinets after finding nothing to steal.

But there’s a bed. There’s a couch. There’s a TV mounted and welded into the ceiling so the previous tenant couldn’t steal it. Taylor grew up most of her life in a room just like this. She takes one last look and sighs. “I’ll take the couch.” She moved forward, only for Emma to snag her arm once again.

They share one look, and this time Taylor understands.

“Just for tonight,” Emma whispers. “I don’t…I don’t want to wake up alone.”

Taylor sighs again. She rubs the base of her spine where the new implant sits beneath her skin.

“Fine,” she says. “But only because I’m cold.”