After parting ways with Vega for now, I shut the server room door behind us and leaned against the nearest wall. My eyes fixed on Lucy, who was shifting her weight from foot to foot, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else. She didn't say a word — just stared at the floor like it held all the secrets of Night City.
I knew I'd have to nudge her. At this rate, our heart-to-heart was gonna fizzle out before it even got started.
"So… what's on your mind?"
"Yesterday," she said, exhaling hard. Her ears went pink, and after a quick internal struggle, she spilled what she'd been holding back. "I'm sorry, Dad."
The flush spread from her ears to her cheeks.
"For what?" I cocked my head, ready to mess with her a bit.
"Don't play coy. You know why," she mumbled, finally locking eyes with me — those sharp, sky-blue eyes, same as her sister's.
"Then maybe you owe your sister an apology."
"Already done," she said fast, then looked away, tugging nervously at the hem of her tee.
"Well, then it's all good," I said, letting an easy grin slide back onto my face.
"You're really not pissed?" She squinted at me, like she was scanning for some hidden catch.
"Everybody's gotta vent sometimes," I said, slipping into my wise-dad voice. "Point is, you owned it. That's more than enough for me."
"Thanks," she muttered, still a bit sheepish. Then, out of nowhere, she stepped in and threw her arms around me in a fierce hug.
"Thought you said you were too old for this kinda thing," I teased, resting a hand on her head like I'd done a million times before.
"You're the worst," Lucy groaned, pressing her face into my chest.
"By the way, remember that promise I made?" I said softly, easing back just enough to catch her eye. When she looked up, I went on. "You and your sister are old enough now. And honestly? I've got zero doubts about your driving skills."
And why would I? After seeing the kind of death-defying stunts they pulled in racing sims, it'd be flat-out dumb to underestimate them. Even Inga kept up — most nights, she was right there with the family, tearing up virtual tracks like a pro.
"You're the best!" Lucy squealed, squeezing me tighter, like she was trying to crush all her excitement and gratitude into one hug. Gotta admit, it warmed me up.
"Alright, alright," I said with a chuckle. "Your bikes are waiting in the lot. Wanna take 'em for a spin around Arroyo? Just a quick loop."
Lucy's eyes were practically sparking with excitement — no words needed to know she was all in.
I lingered on her reaction for a second, then pulled out my holo and pinged Roxy with a quick message to meet us in the lot. Their bikes — custom jobs I'd tweaked to perfection — were ready to roll.
Heh. No surprise they got Inga's need for speed, I thought, grinning as Lucy bounded ahead, practically vibrating with anticipation. My mind flashed back to their first time in the sim.
That was maybe six months after I'd dragged those two half-dead kids out of that corpo lab from hell. Nomads teach their kids to drive before they can even spell, and as their guardian, I had to get crafty. Problem was, I was always neck-deep in the clan's workshop, tearing into drone guts or patching up gear, so a standard setup wasn't gonna cut it.
Instead, I hacked together the next best thing: a hyper-real racing sim, cobbled from open-source code and some shady black-market firmware. Paired it with a couple of DIY driving rigs I threw together from scrap parts. Nothing flashy, but it got the job done.
Word spread, and soon enough, every wannabe racer in the clan was banging on the shop door for a turn. It got so bad I had to move the whole setup. Lucky for me, John and Kirk came through, scrounging up a couple of decent shipping containers. We turned 'em into a proper training hub and hauled the sim rig over.
Wonder if it's still in one piece… I muttered under my breath.
***
January 30th, 2069
Night City – Megabuilding H4
David Martinez
"This blows," David muttered under his breath, trudging along the megablock's concrete walkways.
Everything had been off since morning. His dad had ghosted without a word, and to top it off, his mom had grounded him hard, banning him from stepping outside the tower. Second time this month this crap had gone down, and David was over it.
Hoping to clear his head, he figured a walk might do the trick. The megablock was massive enough to feel like you were getting somewhere, even if you were just pacing. Eyes glazed, no destination in mind, he drifted through the corridors, barely clocking the walls around him. Before he realized it, he'd hit the top floor — deserted.
He scanned the area, just to be sure. Not a soul in sight.
He was about to bounce when a faint sound caught his ear — a soft melody, hummed so quietly it almost drowned in the tower's background hum. Curious, David froze, straining to listen. It wasn't coming from a speaker or some cheap holo-device. It was a voice. Someone was singing.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, he followed the sound. Didn't take long. At the end of a dead-end hallway, he found her — a white-haired girl perched in a beat-up old armchair, strumming a battered guitar. A big cat — definitely a cyberpet, judging by its slick, mechanical twitches — sprawled nearby, half-asleep but alert.
Cyberpets weren't exactly rare, so that didn't faze him. What did grab him was how lost the girl was in her music. She hadn't clocked him at all.
David didn't say a word. Didn't budge. Just watched.
The girl stopped suddenly, tweaking her guitar with a focus that screamed she wasn't messing around. A few minutes passed as she tuned it, lips pressed tight in concentration. Then she let out a small, satisfied hum, strummed a quick test riff… and started singing again.
Her voice was soft. Melodic. Tinged with something heavy — sad, maybe, but not fragile. The words, unfamiliar but raw, hit him square in the chest:
"Shards of days keep slipping by,
But memories won't let go.
You tried to save me, locked me high,
Thought it'd stop the show.
This world — it didn't make me. I'm its scar.
In the quiet, I finally saw…
My time's right now."
David was so lost in her song that he didn't even notice she'd stopped singing. Jerking back to reality, he looked up — only to catch her staring at him from under snow-white brows.
"Uh… hey. You sing pretty good," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck like it'd somehow make this less awkward.
"How long you been creeping there?" she asked, not moving a muscle.
"Couple minutes, maybe?" David shrugged, still squirming under her gaze.
"Hm. So, what'd you think?" Her tone was chill, but her eyes drilled into him, like she already had him half-figured out.
"Well, uh…" He fumbled for something to say. "I'm no music critic, but yeah — it was solid. Really solid."
"Mm." She gave a short nod, and silence slipped back in like it owned the place. David shifted his weight, already second-guessing every word he'd just said.
"You sing?" she asked, cutting through the quiet.
"Nah," he admitted, flashing back to the off-key howling he did in the shower when he thought the walls were soundproof.
"So, no." She stated it flat, then squinted at him. "Y'know… you look kinda familiar."
He blinked. "I do?"
"Yeah," she murmured, her eyes narrowing as she tried to pin it down. "Tch. Of all the eddies in this damn megablock, I get you?" she muttered, throwing a dramatic glance at the ceiling.
"We've met?" David tilted his head, scanning her face closer. Something about her did spark a memory, buried under a few years of haze. Then it hit him.
"Wait — yeah! But, like… weren't you way smaller back then?"
"People grow, choom," she fired back, rolling her eyes with a sarcasm he swore he'd heard before. Then she exhaled, dialing it back. "Alright, guess I should've started with intros. Lucy Mitchell."
"David Martinez," he said, mimicking her vibe with a slight nod.
"Martinez…" she echoed, the name clicking somewhere. "Your mom — she's a medic in the block, right?"
"Yeah," David said with a shrug. "You know her?"
"She works at my dad's clinic." Lucy gave him a fresh once-over, her expression shifting as she studied him again. "You got her face, y'know."
"Uh… thanks? I guess?" David muttered, scratching his neck again. "Should I, like… bounce?"
"Up to you," Lucy said with a half-shrug, her attention already drifting back to the guitar in her lap.
David rubbed his cheek, ready to dip — but then her voice drifted out again, soft, almost hesitant. It stopped him dead.
Well… she's not flat-out telling me to scram, so that's something.
Quietly, he leaned against the wall and slid into a relaxed slouch. Eyes half-lidded, he let her music pull him under as the white-haired girl started playing again.