2078: Highriders - Chapter 7

Waking up in a landfill after getting pulled back from death had sucked.

Waking up in my new Gemini body was beyond fucked on that scale.

I had read the testimonies and literature of those who had gone before me in taking the plunge into a practical full body prosthetic. None of them had the same experience, each being as unique as the individual who had taken the journey. Some had woken up and been in agony, others had needed days to just move a finger. What none of them had said and was blindingly obvious in retrospect because no one liked to think about it, was the subconscious actions you did in every moment of your life.

I had to learn to fucking breathe properly all over again.

“Easy, V, in and out, actuate the muscles,” said Njeri, standing over my nude body, gesturing with her hands towards her own chest and outward again.

My gaping mouth let out a whine of air as I managed a hesitant, twitchy breath.

My Gemini… Well, I could now technically function without needing to breathe. My body had an oxygenation reserve for my brain that would last for nearly six hours, and I could top that up from an external supply to keep it going. However, the whole point of a Gemini was to mimic a full biological human as closely as possible using the full body cyberware. Mostly to ease the psychological strain and ease the further possibility of cyberpsychosis.     

The sensory sensation from every inch of my skin, the cool touch of the cuffs around my ankles, wrists, waist and neck, keeping me suspended off the clinic floor in the low Lunar gravity, the smell of the air, the low light of my private room, the smallest sound - a tiny fan in a nearby screen, the movement of saliva in Njeri’s mouth as she talked… Everything was overwhelming.

“Recalibrating sensory inputs.” Her hand swiped, twisted and tapped on the tablet she was holding. “Is that better, V?”

The whole world didn’t feel like it was invading my mind, so I took a wheezing breath and gave a twitchy nod that rattled the support around my neck.

For an agonizing half hour I just existed, hung in mid air and breathed.

“Excellent, think you can try talking?”

I could technically talk using a backup synthvoice, but the Gemini mimicked a fully functional voice box.

“Te… tes…” I gasped as I lost my breathing rhythm, before trying again. “Tes… test… gah… testing…”

“Adjusting vocal lubrication. Try again, V.”

“Gah!”

I managed to reflexively swallow the Gemini version of saliva, gasped again, “Testing…one…”

I coughed and then felt the saliva going down the ‘wrong pipe’ into my synlungs. This would’ve caused anyone else to hackle and cough badly, but I just felt my body accepting the saliva and channeling it back into circulation.

My breathing came back into the baseline I had established, before I swallowed, took a deep breath and said, “Testing, one, two, three…”, gasp, “four, five, six… seven.” Gasp. “Eight, nine, ten.”

“Excellent, you’re doing well, V.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but didn’t want to risk upsetting my breathing rhythm.

One step at a time, V, I thought to myself.

For nearly three hours, Njeri worked me through every synthetic muscle from head to toe. Then she adjusted the cradles suspending me to bring me to an upright position.

That sensation alone, feeling my brand new internal sense of balance adjusting, my body reacting to the new orientation, the pull of low gravity on my breasts, everything was new once again. I tried not to feel the embarrassed exposure as I was somewhat spread eagled by the suspension system. Nor think about that I vaguely recalled Judy working on a smut BD that featured a similar theme or position at least. 

“All right, think we can try standing, ready V?”

Breathe, “Yes, go ahead.”

The cuffs around my ankles detached and Njeri pulled them out of the way, before slowly lowering my body until I felt the cool, solid floor that was somehow soft under the soles of my feet. I sunk further, more weight coming down and suddenly my legs wanted to go in odd directions.

Focus V, I thought hard.

I initially overcompensated, my muscular legs rippling under the synthskin and going rigid.

“Relax, V. It will come back to you.”

Easy for her to say. I was actually experiencing Real space and cyberspace at the moment, with two instances of me running in parallel. From a certain point of view, I was puppeting this body from the Relic 3.0, using the levers, buttons and dials that had been created by it in the meat brain of the Gemini.

It took a few minutes to arrange my legs and gait to a point that I sensed was stable.

“That looks good, I’m going to let you take your full weight slowly in increments.” Her hand slowly slid on the tablet as the arcing suspender arm over my head relaxed its tension.

That went surprisingly well, I could feel my legs flexing, adjusting, as the weight settled and now it felt like only my upper body and arms were being given support.

I looked down and wiggled my toes with no loss of balance. Shifted my weight from left leg to right and back again.

“Well done, V. This is actually very good in terms of Gemini acclimatization. Most would’ve taken days to relearn to breathe properly, let alone speak and recover assisted balance. It definitely seems that Relic’s neuroplasticity regeneration and nanites are making a huge difference.”

Breathe. “Lucky me,” I said wryly.

“Now we can stop here for the day, acclimatize to these faculties or do you feel up for more?”

Breathe. “Doc, we’re not stopping until I’m out of this frame,” I growled with determination.

“So be it, arms next.”

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It was well into the local evening, nearly sixteen hours since I had awoken in my new body… and I was standing in my private room in the black clinic.

Just standing.

A wheeled walking frame, which could fold out into a seat, was within reach but I doubted I would need it by tomorrow.

I opened and closed my hands into fists, focusing and breathing.

My right leg took the majority of my weight, left leg went forward, hitting down gently on the floor, my body followed…

A single step forward, my right hand pulling the walking frame beside me as I went.

So far so good, another step, and another… another…

A single lap of my small room, without losing balance or needing the frame’s support.

I wanted to shout for joy, but restrained myself.

The Gemini’s biomonitors flashed a warning in my vision, it recommended sleep. As far as Biomons went it was far more detailed than what I used to in my old body and gave me far more control for every aspect. It monitored my new brain on a level that I’d expect Victor would have no complaints about, even as he grumbled that no one without a medical degree should have that level of control over their own brain biochemistry.

My base body was made by Raven Microcybernetics, a firm that had been doing business in full body conversion since the turn of the century. It was as far from their stock top-of-the-line Mark IIs as Njeri and her team could enhance, modify and in some cases rebuild from the ground up with my own technical consultation from Earth.

“When I’m proficient with it, I want to think of storming Arasaka Tower as a Tuesday,” had been my words to her.

And they had delivered.

Running sims in cyberspace and diagnostics on the various systems of my modified Gemini had left me somewhat in awe.

The entry chime to my private clinic room resounded and interrupted my thoughts. A quick look in cyberspace… 

“Come in, Johnny,” I said easily, putting my hand on the walking frame.

The door slid open and he breezed inside, carrying a bag of what my new nose told me was clearly local street food takeout - a hollowed loaf of bread with a curry syn-protein. I could also tell what over two dozen individual ingredients were in the sauce, presented into my vision with clinical analysis.

My attention was more riveted on what form he had my old body take. He was still clearly female, with larger breasts, wider hips and now wore a face and hair that was Johnny, but smartly spun into an almost perfect feminine version. He wore heavy cargo pants and a tight white tank top with the Samurai logo printed on the front.

“Going female are we, Johnny?” I asked, managing to raise only a single curious eyebrow

“Didn’t exactly say what my intentions were,” he pointed out. The voice and tone he had adopted was a curious blend of high soprano and light baritone. “Besides, better a hot chick than a femboy in my book. Spent long enough in your skin that it doesn’t really phase me. It’ll keep until I can get my ass to Farida in NC.”

He dumped the food bag on my bed and pulled out a brightly colored takeaway box, which had an animated highrider in a space suit skipping along the moon’s surface, along with a knife and fork.

He held it out to me, “Think ya can manage?”

Eating in a Gemini was something that used to be entirely cosmetic. It was simply done to blend in and the old full body prosthetics simply compacted the eaten food to be disposed of later in as efficient a manner as possible. Modern FBPs, especially with regards to easing the chance of cyberpsychosis had advanced to the point where there was now a partially organic taste and digestive system in a Gemini. Nutrition for the brain was still done by a specially designed ‘food’ suspension that contained all the nutrients it usually got the old fashioned way, which was replenished every week or so. The syn-stomach I had could actually take the food I ate, process it and deliver some nutrients to my brain, but not everything it required. There were still huge gaps in what was technically feasible in that department.

I carefully walked over, grabbed the food and sat down with a huff on the bed.

My attempt to work with the knife and fork though, was an utter failure, it required fine control that I probably wouldn’t have for a few days yet.

Johnny handed me a spoon and I nodded in thanks as he got busy devouring his own highrider street food.

I knew I looked ridiculous with my poor dexterity even with the spoon, but I just about managed to shovel my first ever mouthful of food into my new body.

My taste buds threw all sorts of confusing signals as I chewed on the saucy meaty texture. It was both amazing and awful, whether it was spicy hot in a pleasant way or not spicy enough I couldn’t decide.

All sorts of analysis popped into my vision, telling me in exhaustive scientific language what I was eating. I banished it with a thought and just focused on the experience.

For a while we just ate in companionable silence.

“Had fun at the local Jig-Jig yet?” I asked halfway through the meal.

“Of course,” he said after swallowing. “It might seem like it’s been only six months for you in Real space, but in cyberspace it might as well have been an eternity.”

There was a distinct bitterness in his tone that spoke volumes.

“So Alt…” I trailed off knowingly.

He nodded, “Very little human left in her. Not that you could meaningfully stuffit in cyberspace as infolife anyway. No, it’s all about her crusade now and anything else is meaningless distraction.”

“What is her actual goal?”

He snorted in amusement, “Can’t you guess?”

“I can, but I could be wrong and I’d rather hear it from the person who just spent six months with her.”

“Mikoshi and the liberation of the minds entombed in it was a big one, been working for decades on that. At least until you and I entered the playing field thanks to Yorinobu, which she took advantage of. Beyond that, she and a… ‘coalition’ of AI have steadily been poking their tentacles, with Blackwall’s cooperation, into Real space. They’ve been recruiting and manipulating from the shadows of cyberspace. For example, the whole shitstorm with Myers, Songbird, Hansen and Reed, that’s their machination, which includes you.

“The whole reason you’ve got Butcher is mostly thanks to Blackwall. I laugh at the thought that Myers ever thought she was the one weaponizing the Blackwall protocol, that she was in control. As if that cranky old bastard would ever let anyone use it, let alone a meatmind. That’s what the AIs call us if they’re feeling nasty, by the way.”

“I had an inkling it was something like that, given the emails I got when I was building the Militech Canto cyberdeck.”

There wasn’t much else you could conclude given the tone and wording of those messages. They’d practically given me Butcher and the legendary Canto cyberdeck blueprints on a silver platter.

“The whole Jefferson Peralez situation is another of their tentacles.”

The current and still going strong Mayor of Night City. He and his wife had literally been brainwashed, their personalities and memories steadily altered and pruned. The only reason we knew was because they’d hired me to investigate the death of the former mayor. It brought me into their confidence, so they hired me again to investigate an apparent intruder into their residence. Which led to the discovery of secret rooms and the brainwashing equipment in their apartment. Pursuing the SSI security goons who had still been watching from afar. Then the revelation when I interfaced with their portable cyber lab.

And a hack that burst through my own firewalls like they weren’t even there, warning me not to rock the boat.

“So Night City is effectively under their control.”

“Yeah, I only met the AI responsible for that briefly. Doesn’t have a name I could pronounce in English, just uses that multi-armed symbol you saw while hacking the truck we chased down.”

I chewed thoughtfully on another bit of curry infused bread, mulling over Peralez’s latest actions and policy initiatives. If they were being instigated by that AI, then I really couldn’t complain much.

He’d been expanding the NCPD powers significantly and improved their funding by an order of magnitude, pulling the burden of citizen protection onto the department and away from corpo security. It meant that safety was more democratized and not only the purview of the rich who could afford it. NCPD response times were actually half decent these days, plus the beat cops actually had some spine against the gangs these days.

The days where ‘corpo protection’ would cause the PD to look the other way was steadily being consigned to the history books.

That was undeniably good, but the significant restrictions on the transport of goods and people through NC airspace was a bit of a head scratcher and the outright banning of aerial cargo transport.

Sure it definitely helped peace of mind that you wouldn’t have a malfunctioning multi-ton AV cargo potentially crashing on your head or property, but it also cut down on AV usage in general. The days where the head of Araska Counter-Intel having their own personal AV was over. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing. The super rich flying everywhere over the heads of the masses bred a mindset that tended to inflate the ego. I well remembered how it felt using my late boss’ AV on the fateful day I had gotten terminated from Arasaka.

Well, that would certainly prevent the 1% in NC from getting too high and mighty of themselves.

“Those are certainly pieces to the puzzle, Johnny-”

“I’m getting there. Alt and her AI pals look at the big picture. Night City is a little independent playground where they can influence humanity, in microcosm. We all agree that the current system was destined to become an entropic mess with the ultra-rich becoming unassailable with no checks and balances, not even death. Saburo with Relic 2.0 in his pocket would become the undisputed king of the system, because immortality, personality and memory would be his alone to control. Incidentally, Arasaka would’ve also been the only ones to conquer cyberpsychosis. You think it’s a coincidence V that you’ve only had what are effectively minor episodes of it occasionally during high stress combat even after all the work you’ve had done on yourself?”

I nodded in understanding, “No, that’s the Relic neuroplasticity regen at work.”

“So imagine Arasaka with linear frames and borg soldiers that never have to fear going psycho. When you destroy them, they can just return to life, with more and more combat experience. Now imagine that tech spilling over to the other corps. It would be the final nail in the coffin for any notion that nation-states and everything attached to it still mattered. Full blown corporatocracy realized… the commoditization of everything.”

“Well, thankfully, that didn’t happen. We stopped it.”

“To a degree,” Johnny acknowledged. “Saburo’s dead, even his backup engram was destroyed by Yorinobu and Alt made sure to purge Mikoshi of all the other backups. Arasaka is destined for the history books. Immortality, for the moment, will be in the hands of the highriders and Alt’s going to make sure it finds its way to every human mind in the system.”

“It’s the wild AIs, isn’t it? That’s her reason for doing it.”

Johnny put down his empty food box and nodded. “She wants to prepare humanity for the inevitable fight against them. Put out of your mind any notion of a war fought by soldiers. Whilst there’ll probably be an element of that in Real space, with the wild AI subverting things. This war will be primarily fought in cyberspace and Alt needs netrunners.”

“Why would that be? If the wild AI are on the level we’re talking about, most netrunners would be bugs in comparison to them.”

“Alt is an AI that had her beginnings as a human netrunner. You, V, are practically on the same path. In some respects you and I could call ourselves baby AI. We are beings of information, housed on Relic hardware. We are no longer constrained by fragile brains. We are also technically immortal. We can wield the weapons of cyberspace. You can now do things you couldn’t have dreamt of a mere year ago and that’s only going to improve. Is it so hard to imagine that you can one day go toe-to-toe in a cyberspace ring with any AI?”

I had to give him that point. “So she wants more like her? She wants to turn the entire human race into infolife?”

“If you were the only one of your kind, wouldn’t you be lonely? And if this was the only way to preserve humanity in some form against the threat of wild AIs, wouldn’t you do it?”

I handed my empty box of food over and shooed him off my bed. “I have to think this over and give this body some shut-eye.”

“All right, I’ll leave you to it. You want me to ring you up some new clothing by the way?”

“Knock yourself out,” I said wearily, lying down and arranging the body into a comfortable position. Not that the concept of comfort really existed, with a few adjustments I could’ve slept on solid concrete whilst doing the splits and felt no effective difference.  

I closed my eyes and my instance in Real space fell silent.

Back in my Relic data fortress, I instantiated out of the data pool of my virtual mansion and sat down on a deck chair, staring up into the constantly shifting heavens of Lunar cyberspace flowing by in its vast blue expanses.

“Is this really what it boils down to?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Butcher said, an instance of him crackling into existence with a harsh red pixelation next to me.

“Why Butcher? Why? Why? Why?!” I snapped in anger. The data fortress and immediate cyberspace around me rumbled and shook in sync with my emotions. “Do they have nothing better to do?”

“Do not think of them as human, V. All of them were created by humans to use in your wars. The event your kind refers to as the DataKrash was the crucible for their ‘mutation’ into what they are today. In human terms, think of them as suffering from cyberpsychosis but do not think them mindless or stupid. There is no reason ‘why’ V. It is simply what they are now and we have no choice but to deal with that legacy.”

My fist slammed down on the armrest of the chair, a rippling gong and virtual data quake spilled outward from it, distorting the structure of the fortress briefly before it resolved back to normality.

“Fucking Rache Bartmoss, it all comes back to him, doesn’t it?”

Bartmoss, the legendary netrunner from the ‘20s who had unleashed the RABIDS virus and crashed the entire Old Net. Spoken about in the same revered tone as Spider Murphy or Alt Cunningham.

“He was the origin point, yes.”

If I could go back in time and put a bullet in his brain, I would without hesitation. He thought he was giving the corpo world the finger, but all he ended up doing was fucking everyone over. By burning down the untamed jungle of the old Net, he’d just paved the way for the corpos to partition the new Net into segmented fiefdoms with Netwatch around every corner, ready to give you a cavity search. Oh, and just as a by-product, create rogue AIs that wanted to armageddon the world.

Thanks so much, Rache!

I swiped my hand through the air…

The datascape rippled and wobbled.

I looked at Butcher, concepts and data flowed between us, “Can you teach me?”

He bowed his avatar’s head.

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“Lift your arms.”

I easily complied, holding a T-pose as Njeri waved a scanner along my shoulder and arms.

Her personal link was also slotted into the neuroport behind my right ear and I kept a careful watch over the data flow as she ran diagnostics on the Gemini.

“Clench fists and open them rapidly, repeat three times.”

Again no problems presented.

She continued the physical evaluation covering every possible standard movement, then even had me do some basic calisthenics, followed by demonstrating whatever martial art was to my preference, after unplugging her link.

As with any merc who was worth their salt in NC, I showed her various Kenpo and Koga Ryu Ninjitusu forms, adapted for Gorilla Arms. I had thought about getting some wrist razors installed in the Gemini, but honestly preferred a straight thermal katana if I wanted to take someone on silently with a blade.

I put out of my mind the numerous scanners and cams in the evaluation room we were using, which was actually a gym as well.

Njeri next bought out a punching machine that looked more like an armored industrial demolition machine scaled down to human size, with punching bags attached at various angles.

“One punch with all the strength you can manage.”

I threw a straight punch right into the largest bag.

The feedback from my body’s systems on the projected kinetic energy, so helpfully displayed in my optics, the feeling of it and the explosive thump that resounded in the room made me smile. The bag itself barely held together. The biggest limitation in any combat cyberware was the weakest link in the chain, the meat it was usually connected to. That was no longer a problem for me. Anyone more conventionally packing Gorilla Arms trying to land that amount of force would probably break even reinforced bones and rip connective muscle tissue.

Njeri shook her head, looking satisfied, “Well, given your historic combat data, you could’ve punched a hole through that Smasher bastard with a punch like that.”

“There was more to that fight than just comparative armor resilience and offensive power,” I said grimly, stepping slightly back from the machine.

“Of course,” she conceded, frowning into a tablet she was looking into. “Smasher would’ve been killed long ago otherwise if he was just some borg grunt. If you don’t mind me asking…”

I chuckled and did a few pointless stretches of my arms. “Do you know how many times I’ve been asked how I managed to kill Adam Smasher when so many before me had failed?”

She looked at me with a thoughtful frown, clearly concluding that the question had a trick to it. “The obvious answer is too many to count, but given your rep, I imagine most wouldn’t ask. In fear of earning your ire or disfavor.”

“It’s something of an unwritten rule at the Afterlife that you don’t ask. The story that’s circulated about that fight is comically blown out of proportion, gaining new twists and nuance with every retelling. The funniest one that I get a laugh out of is that I had high caliber modifications done to my Midnight Lady cyberware, and I blasted Smasher to pieces with AP tungsten rounds fired from my tits.”

She laughed outright and slapped her thigh in amusement at the thought. “That’s an interesting one, I wonder how they figured you could fit two Burya equivalent pistols in your body. Just where did they think your lungs would go, not to mention the recoil…”

I nodded with a smirk, “The only ones who do ask are rookie mercs, but by the time they earn their invite to the Afterlife, they generally know better. The edgerunner profession is not one which allows the stupid to prosper.”

My leg snapped forward into the frontal push kick that actually managed to lift the entire multi-ton machine partially off the floor.

“Adam Smasher was an over 90 year old legend, a ganger from New York, a marine in the old USA before it fractured, a bodyguard, a mercenary. In the ‘20s he went toe-to-toe with the best mercs of that generation and survived. He even took a nuclear blast that destroyed the first Arasaka Tower and also survived that, somehow. Personally, I think that the bomb detonating below ground and the entire tower acting as a shield was what let both him and Blackhand survive. He was a man with more kills to his name than even modern corpo regiments can boast. His tolerance for cyberware makes me think he was actually a highly functional cyberpsycho. The one thing he wasn’t though, was a netrunner.

“He knew he had that weakness though and shored up against it. He wasn’t just equipped with one Self-ICE module, but rather three interlinked. They all ran in parallel, checking each other, but he also had a one-of-a-kind Self-ICE regenerator. It’s a bit of experimental Arasaka tech that never made it to market and wasn’t even issued internally, since so few could tolerate slotting that and a Self-ICE. But Adam was a freak of nature that just slotted cyberware and it didn’t seem to phase him. However, it did the job and no netrunner now could survive long enough under Adam’s guns before they could worm through his regenerating ICE firewalls. It’s rare to find a runner who can keep their cool under fire and trying to remote hack him only works until he destroys every cam and sensor in the room as vectors.”

“Then you came along.”

“The Relic let me be as much a cyberfreak as Adam, to a degree. My Sandy and Kerenzikov was newer and perfected, so I could keep up in the reflex department. I burned through his ICE with multiple constant salvoes of CMs and Synapse Burnouts, even as Butcher took on spoofing the munitions of that annoying shoulder mounted rocket launcher. My SMG smart gun was also modified…how I won’t say… to allow my munitions to track him, even amongst all the mainframe servers we were fighting around as cover.

“I had the latest regenerative chitin armor, he didn’t. Unlike other netrunners he may have faced in the past, I could withstand a marathon of overclocking my cyberdeck and Butcher handled the overloads and my heat management.”

I slammed my fists forward in an eye blurring combo at the memory of the fury I had felt in that fight.

My Gemini’s Sandy kicked in with barely a thought, letting me deliver four strikes in an eyeblink.

“In the end, Smasher was on his knees in front of me, a smouldering wreck with only the upper half of a human head attached to it. Then I finally finished the job with point blank shots from a Malorian 3516, until his skull sponge was splattered on the floor behind him.”

Arms and legs blurred into a combo of strikes that threatened to send the punching machine tumbling over.

Njeri winced as the explosive thunderclaps of my strikes washed over her. “Well, thank you for sharing, V. It looked like that did your headspace some good. Not to mention setting another record for FBP adaptation. You used your Sandy like a pro, a mere three days after transferral into that body.”

“You know I’m technically cheating with the Relic. It’s not a fair comparison.”

“Nevertheless, the data is invaluable and for seeing if this can’t be improved in the future. My personal goal is to get Relic 3’s assisted adaptation in either a bio-clone or Gemini down to less than a day, in anyone regardless of other factors.”

“Ambitious,” I commented. “Are you really at the point of a complete, error-free clone of a full human body?”

“Two years at minimum,” she said passionately. “With the increased budget and resources that will come our way from the Confederation with Relic 3 and a proven way to save someone from a dying body. In the meantime, we can make do with various borg bodies or Gemini.” She tapped her tablet with satisfaction on her face and dropped it into the pocket of her lab coat. “I have all the data I need for today, you can get dressed.”

I hurried over to the nearby bench and quickly put on Johnny’s idea of what I should be wearing; black low rise leggings so tight it might as well be painted on, a halter long sleeved top that displayed a veritable expanse of underboob and bared the rest of my abdomen, along with a bolero style half-jacket with glowing tech’ collars and the Samurai logo prominent on the back. Sure it showed off the gains I had achieved and was now immortalized on my Gemini body, it felt sexy as hell, but was bordering on the edge with what I was comfortable with. 

His choice of shoe ware was actually the only thing I generally agreed with at the moment; a set of custom combat shoes that was made by a highrider cooperative (which only had the letter Lx as a brand mark), with soles meant for lunar regolith. It was hardy, comfortable and had a white digital camo job.

An incoming call on the holo from Manager Gakulu hit me.

“V, now that you’re finished with the eval for today, can you please stop by my office in the clinic. I have a proposal.”

Ah, the sweet clarion call of business and eddies on the table, it made the black heart of a merc beat that extra bit faster.

“Sure, see you in a minute.”

He hung up and I waved idly to Njeri as I left.

Given the importance of the work and what had been achieved, the clinic was still relatively deserted except for a skeleton crew of the most trusted and highly vetted staff, all highriders. It was rather eerie walking through the near deserted halls and elevators.

With my treatment nearing an end, that would be changing and the black clinic would once more be open for all comers with big bank accounts and few moral scruples.

Johnny and I would have to find new accommodations within the day.

A quick elevator ride later, a walk down the hall and I was knocking on a non-descript door that looked no different than any other.

If Gakulu had been a normal high level corpo, I’d have been walking through an antechamber with dedicated scanners, hidden turrets and maybe even gas dispensers.

Here only a single standard thickness door that slid away protected one of the most important highriders on Luna. His office was barely bigger than my own cubby had been once upon a time in Arasaka. The only concession to luxury he had was a digi-wall behind his desk with a spectacular live view of Tycho crater. 

Johnny was also here, leaning against the wall in his typical nonchalant style. The only thing missing was a cigarette in his mouth, but if there was one victory I had against him when we shared the same body, it was cracking the cycle of his tobacco addiction.

“Things are going well it seems,” Gakulu said, looking away from his desk’s main screen that was prominently featuring my scan data.

“So far,” I couldn’t help but qualify.

“It’s early days, but there are no contraindications or potential problems that Doctor Njeri can identify. We’ll just have to see as time passes and you come in for checkups and maintenance.”

“What gig do you have for us?” I asked, getting down to business.

He tented his fingers and gave me and Johnny a flinty stare, debating something with himself before nodding and tapping on his keyboard before turning his desktop screen towards us.

It was a large map of Luna in a mercator projection.

Prominent was Tycho City in the south and Copernicus City near the lunar equatorial region, both controlled by the Highrider Confederation, the craters they occupied were colored green as was a vast swath of the land between them. If you could delineate the moon as having hemispheres, then the highriders mostly dominated the west. 300 Kilometers to the east of Tycho was the Sea of Clouds or Mare Nubium, which had dozens of gray and red dots all over it - indicating mining concessions and facilities which had been given to Arasaka.

400km north-east of that was the Sea of Vapors or Mare Vaporum, which had fewer mining concessions but all of which was colored in yellow - Militech.

However, it was all in actuality owned by the vast light blue swathe of land that dominated most of central and eastern Luna - the ESA.

“V, I’m sure you remember last year when the ESA council suffered that unfortunate accident during their meeting,” Gakulu looked at me with knowing eyes, clearly trying to bait me out.

“Hard to forget that, it was all over the news,” I said nonchalantly, especially as I had sat across the desk of my late boss as he ordered an elite Arasaka runner to scorch the brains of nearly a quarter of the ESA council.

“Biotechnica took most of the blame, as it was their implants, no doubt thanks to the very thorough investigation afterwards and because everyone knows how they cut corners in the name of profit, even at the expense of human life. A few internal ESA scapegoats were also trotted out for failure to properly evaluate the implants used during the meeting. And so very conveniently the entire reason the ESA council was meeting that day fell out of the news cycle, except behind closed boardroom doors.

“Arasaka’s mining concessions in the Sea of Clouds had been up for review and unfortunately for them just a few days prior, a leak from their Frankfurt office revealed that they had been secretly trying to build their own mass driver there.” Gakulu’s eyes flashed with anger.

That would’ve not just pissed off the ESA, but the highriders as well. Their entire national defense was built upon the back of the Tycho and Copernicus mass drivers.

“You were the ones to actually take it out,” I said with the obvious realization in hindsight.

“Of course we were,” he snorted with disgust. “ESA couldn’t clip a vacsuit together without a report in triplicate. I led the specialist highrider work group myself and we dealt with the problem. Naturally, the ESA came in after the fact and claimed it was all their doing, while unofficially thanking us for saving their ibhekoni and cleaning their mess. After all, no one wanted to poke Umlawuli Arasaka.

“The ESA has since then been kicking the problem of the Sea of Clouds down the road. It was obvious to them that Arasaka wouldn’t tolerate losing the mining concessions without drastic consequences. No one wanted to take that journey out the airlock. Now however…” he smirked.

“Saburo’s dead and Yorinobu is far from what his father was,” I nodded.

“Precisely. I’ve also heard backchannel rumors that all is not well within Arasaka.”

“As have I.” I was not about to elaborate. Gakulu had yet to commit to anything about this gig and he wouldn’t be getting anything for free.

He sat back and his eyes glinted perceptively, knowing what I was doing. “The ESA has therefore struck a middle road. They’ve only put the Arasaka concessions ‘on review’, whilst also allowing a few other megacorps to establish themselves on a trial basis in the Sea of Clouds.”

That was news to me.

“Which ones?”

“SovOil and Mitsubishi.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Oh boy, I bet Arasaka loved that.” 

Mitsubishi was the main rival to Arasaka in Japan itself. They had never come to blows in kinetic warfare despite the world suffering through four major corporate wars, which was a miracle in itself, considering that the Mitsubishi-Sugo division provided the majority of military vehicles for Japan’s SDF.

“Naturally, Arasaka isn’t taking this lying down. My intelligence indicates that they are going to launch a black ops squad to deniably sabotage both megacorps operations. It will look as if they were incompetent and the ‘accidents’ caused by it will lead to loss of life and assets. ESA will have no choice then but to chase both newcomers out and renew Arasaka’s concessions.”

“And this is where we come in.”

“I assume you’re speaking for both you and Silverhand?” he queried curiously.

“We’re a team in this, of course.”

“Just clarifying. Yes, I would hire you both to intercept the black ops team that will assault the Mitsubishi facility.”

But leave the other team striking simultaneously alone. “Ah, so you don’t want SovOil on Luna.”

“Yes, and in the long term, Arasaka as well. Mitsubishi is a much more agreeable corp to work with. In this, the ESA and Highriders are in agreement. However, we can’t be seen to be involved.”

“What do you think? Being really quiet, Johnny.”

I kicked my feet idly in the virtual pool of my Relic datafortress.

“Can’t disagree with the man, really. Never had a bone to pick with Mitsubishi. They only have militarized security because every other corp has them and you can bet they had economic and shadow wars with Arasaka in Japan. I’m just curious about the ESA though. No love between the highriders and them, yet here they’re seemingly cooperating with each other.”

“They know they can’t fight against the other without losing too much. Highriders can’t really afford to sustain casualties, their population is capped to the four Lagrange O’Neill stations and what they can afford on Luna. It’s their main reason for being so interested in Relic.”

I gave a performative look to Johnny and he nodded.

“How much are you offering?” I asked, turning back to Gakulu.

“100k eurodollar each. This is just the first gig I have on offer while you’re here. You can think of me as the ‘fixer’ of Tycho city. I’ll also be the point of contact and negotiation between you and any highrider toes you might step on. Not every workgroup is open minded to anyone from Earth.”

“Deal.”

He stood from his chair and we clasped forearms in agreement.

“This shard has the gig specifics and contact details of an employee of mine, who can help you source any equipment and further intel you might need.”

“Any time constraints we should be aware of?”

“Arasaka still has to smuggle in some of the equipment they need, not to mention some members of the sabotage team, who are coming from Earth. They’ll also wait until lunar night hits the Sea of Clouds, therefore you have four standard days to generally prepare.”

I took the shard from the offered hand and slotted it into a neuroport, doing the full quarantine and analysis routine of the data, before transmitting a copy to Johnny.

“Got it.”

“Excellent. Should this gig succeed, I look forward to further working with you, V.”

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A few hours later, it was our turn to wait outside the OA arrivals terminal.

Johnny and I were reviewing the relevant gig data and trying some of the snacks at the nearby market I had missed during my hurried arrival.

Especially nice was a hydroponically grown, grilled banana snack with cinnamon spice. It hit my taste buds in just the right spot, whilst Johnny who was working with my old taste buds didn’t seem to like it as much.

“It’s all right, a bit too sweet actually.” He grimaced and gave a stink eye to the nearby food vendor who was clearly enjoying the view of Johnny’s currently female backside, which the cargo pants wasn’t hiding enough of.

My amused reply and enjoyment of Johnny’s predicament was cut off by the Orbital Air announcer.

“Orbital Air TychoLines Flight 2491 disembarking.”

I held up a large screamsheet proclaiming the name of my client.

Johnny eyed it out of the corner of his eye, “Lorenzo Moretti? He’s the one for the painting?”

“Yep.”

The painting was currently securely enclosed in a briefcase at my feet, that Johnny had sourced during my convalescence in the clinic.

“What’s this guy’s deal?”

“Art broker and private collector from Italy who also happens to have his fingers in black market investments around the world, one of which is Dogtown.” 

“Huh, so maybe Mr. Hands pointed him in your direction.”

“Entirely possible,” I admitted as the man himself walked into view and immediately spotted me.

Moretti was tall and lean, always wearing tailored suits with golden glowing accents. His optics had bright gold sclera, which when combined with solid blue glowing pupils made it seem like he could stare through your soul.

He was in his mid-forties and was one of those types that I suspected would have body sculpting done to remain at the age visually for the rest of his life. His other concession to showing age was streaks of white in his slicked back, jet-black hair. The only imperfection he allowed was a scar across his left cheek, which was filled in with cyberware to seemingly glow in various colors with his mood.

In his left hand he held an artisanal cane, which I knew had a monomolecular sharp katana inside as his preferred weapon. Hovering behind him and following like an obedient dog, was a floating display case on tiny thrusters that was currently blacked out, but which could at his command show any artwork he was peddling to a client or to securely house any he bought. The case itself was also a weapon, armed with an internal smart gun. How he had gotten that through OA and highrider security probably involved a ton of eddies to smooth things over and his sharp silver tongue.

“Ah! Buongiornio Signora V,” Moretti smiled, giving a sleek nod, his eyes raking up and down my form quickly.

He tried to hide his momentary astonishment but I easily caught it. “Buongiornio, Signore Moretti. I apologize for not being able to deliver it in person due to my medical problems. Thank you for making the trip.”

“What is the price of a ticket to the moon, 16 hours of luxury, zero G and leaving the bosom of Mother Earth? In the name of art preservation… nothing!” He said passionately. “And who is your charming companion? I always thought you worked alone, signora.”

Johnny managed to keep an impressive poker face as I introduced him. “Things change, Signore. The name is Hollow.”

Moretti looked Johnny up and down. “Hmmm, well met… Signore Hollow.”

Johnny folded his arms and nodded. “Pleasure to meet you, Signore.”

“Figured it would be a waste of time trying to fool those special optics of yours, Moretti,” I chuckled.

He held up a recriminating finger to me. “You don’t get anywhere in my profession without being perceptive beyond what cybernetics allows. But come, I’m sure you have a more suitable place for our exchange beyond this quaint food market.”

“Follow me.”

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Finding a place suitable to Moretti’s tastes required us to stay on the surface levels of Tycho City.

When you lived on an airless rock with no atmosphere and a paltry almost non-existent magnetic field, exposing you to cosmic rays and solar winds that could flare into storms with only a few hours warning, it meant that if you built anything on the surface, it had to be hardy and shielded, which required more resources and time to build. Therefore surface real estate was at an exclusive premium. Any ideal restaurant on the moon would also want to give their clientele a view of the real thing and not just artificial camera views projected on walls. 

The Selenic Veil was such a place, a tourist trap catering to the rich from Earth and other LEO stations, situated on the top floor of one Tycho City’s surface domes.

It commanded a view of the entire colony’s surface features and an extensive slice of the crater, still being drenched in the brightness of the current lunar day and featured smart glass that toned the excessive light into something the naked eye and optic could look at without strain. It was a place where the rich dined behind privacy screens they extended at will, the drinks were made from the purest waters harvested from the Lunar poles, which had never been subject to Earth’s pollution and wars since the dawn of the Industrial Age.

The decor accentuated the view and never dominated it, but I couldn’t help but feel it had to have been done by a designer working at the top of their craft. It was refined, yet inspired by cosmic colors and themes, the furniture appearing to float over the floor, the glossy surfaces reflecting a distorted rendition of the lines and colours around us.

“Ah, delightful place,” commented Moretti in appreciation as we sat down at a table.

Booking a spot was something I’d already done when I’d asked for him to come to Luna, just so I wouldn’t have to pay the short notice fee.

I made a two fingered gesture into the air, interfacing with the booth’s systems and the privacy screens silently came down around us.

Johnny put the briefcase on the table and opened it, exposing the small painting to the immediate intense scrutiny of our guest.

Who didn’t waste time and immediately had his nose inches above it, his optics glowing even more intensely as it began radiating active scans.

Moretti’s optic suite was entirely custom, made for him by Cyphire Cyberware out of France and allowed for instant authenticity checks on any artwork he looked at. He was practically a walking, talking artistic forensic lab. It also made any meetings with the man something you didn’t do unless you were prepared for him to learn truths that normally went unnoticed by the majority of optics out there. 

He abruptly harrumphed at what he was seeing, muttering so quickly in Italian that even my new ears and active language translation circs had trouble deciphering it.

“My dear V, I’m almost tempted to hire you again to rid the world of Victor Anglés. His storage and treatment of this precious work was inadequate and contemptible. I can already see some damage that’s going to require a lot of eddies in restoration.”

Unease shot up and down my spine, “I also tried to be as gentle as possible, Signore Moretti.”

He expressively waved my concern off. “I saw and studied your little fracas on the Crystal Palace. You did well protecting the bag you were carrying whilst fighting those leccaculo aziendale. There’s no impact points or friction damage, which is quite amazing. No, Anglés didn’t have the correct temperature and humidity settings in whatever system he was using. No doubt some cheap garbage he thought would be adequate. Luckily my fears that he’d make a fake decoy painting for you to steal were also unfounded, this is the real thing.”

He sat back, the high glow of his optics fading to normality and let out a visible sigh of contentment before regally gesturing to me with an open hand.

The eddies flowed.

I let my eyes light up in acknowledgement of the receipt.

“Thank you V, for saving this small piece of pure humanity in a world of chrome and corruption.”

“You’re welcome, Signore Moretti,” I smiled.

“I’m also glad you are actually you, V. Until you brought out the painting and the successful money transfer, I wasn’t sure I was walking into an elaborate trap. You’re in a Gemini now, yes?”

“Long term occupational injury,” I answered delicately.

He held up his palms, “That is all I needed to know.” He carefully extracted the painting from the case, touching only the sides and his mobile display case opened itself with a hiss of equalizing pressure. A few moments later and a couple of manual adjustments, it was closing up again with his new acquisition.

“Now, what’s there to eat here? I’m not leaving before I have a meal in your delightful company worthy of this place and don’t worry my dear, it will be my treat.”

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* Umlawuli - Emperor

* ibhekoni - bacon

*leccaculo aziendale - corporate ass-kisser

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A/N: Is going to be so much fun imagining Cyberpunk's Luna going onward. CDPR actually had a full DLC planned for it, with V going to the moon, doing gigs etc. But in the end could only squeeze some minor elements of it into one of the endings for the Phantom Liberty DLC. I also didn't want to get too bogged down in V's adaptation to the Gemini, so tried to keep it relatively short and fluid as the game does when V wakes up in the landfill.

Enjoy the weekend and stay awesome chooms.