The rain hadn't let up. If anything, it had gotten worse — a cold, relentless downpour that turned the streets into mirrors of neon and steel.
Max walked through the haze, hood pulled low, the rhythm of his boots lost beneath the sound of thunder. His old coat was gone — replaced by something sleeker, anonymous. No insignia, no traceable tech, nothing that could tie him back to who he used to be. The man the city once knew was dead.
And that was exactly how he wanted it.
"Mary," he said quietly, voice barely above the hum of the rain. "How's the ID holding up?"
Her voice came through clean and even, filtered through the encrypted layer of his neural link. "Perfectly. Your new credentials list you as Alex Mercer, freelance systems technician, no criminal record, no implants registered under your former tags. Facial mesh passes every checkpoint scan."
Max — Alex, now — gave a faint smile. "You always did have a thing for clean slates."
"I just prefer when you're not being hunted by half the megacorps in Night City," she replied, dry as ever.
He turned down a narrow street, the glow of a noodle bar sign flickering weakly ahead. A couple of scavvers huddled near a fire drum, their faces hollow and tired. One of them glanced up at him, then away — no recognition, no alarm. Good.
Mary continued, "I've integrated you into the maintenance logs of three local grids. You can move freely between the lower districts without tripping a single camera. But if you go higher — corpo zones, especially — your disguise won't hold for long."
"I'm not planning on sightseeing," Max said. He stopped beneath the awning of a rusted building, watching the crowds pass. "Just need to blend in. Lay low. Watch what shakes loose now that everyone thinks I'm gone."
There was a short pause, and then Mary asked, softer this time, "How does it feel?"
He looked at his reflection in the rain-slick glass — different face, different eyes, but the same faint glow deep inside them. "Feels strange," he admitted. "Like I'm wearing someone else's ghost."
"You kind of are," she said gently. "But it suits you."
He chuckled — a low, tired sound that still carried a spark of that old defiance. "Yeah. Maybe it does."
From somewhere deeper in the city, a siren wailed — sharp, distant, fading quickly into the storm. Max pulled up his collar and stepped away from the wall, vanishing into the flow of people and neon.
"Where to now?" Mary asked.
"Someplace quiet," he said. "I'll set up a base. See what's left of the world without me in it."
Mary's tone softened even more. "You know you could stop, right? You've earned that much."
Max didn't answer for a long while. The rain dripped steadily off his hood, his steps slow and deliberate. Finally, he said, "Yeah. But stopping never really suited me."
He turned into an alley lit by dull amber light, disappearing into its depths as the city swallowed him whole.
And just like that, Max was gone again — no trace, no record, no past.
Only Alex Mercer, a name without history, walking through the heart of Night City as if he'd always belonged there.
The next morning came without sunlight. Just the gray, bruised hue of dawn bleeding through the smog.
Max — Alex — sat at the far end of a rundown café in the lower docks district. The kind of place that didn't ask names or run facial scans, where the coffee tasted like motor oil and nobody looked up unless you made them.
Steam curled from the chipped mug in his hands. He didn't drink it. Just held it, letting the warmth seep into his fingers as he watched the streets beyond the fogged glass. Vendors setting up stalls. Junkies crawling out of alleys. Corpo security drones sweeping by overhead, their sensors scanning for anyone who didn't belong.
"Mary," he murmured under his breath. "Run a soft trace on district comm traffic. I want to know who's whispering my name."
"Already running," she replied. "So far, nothing direct. But… there's chatter about an unidentified energy spike near the old Militech site. Some think it was an explosion, others say a failed weapon test. No one's linking it to you yet."
Max leaned back, faint smile tugging at his lips. "Good. Let's keep it that way."
A waitress came by — synthetic skin, tired eyes, the kind that flickered faintly with aging optics. "Refill?" she asked mechanically.
He nodded. "Yeah. Thanks."
She poured, and he caught her eye for half a second. She blinked, looked away quickly. Whatever she saw, she didn't recognize him — but maybe she felt something. The faint pulse of something off. That happened sometimes.
When she left, Mary spoke again. "You're stabilizing, by the way. The neural mesh synced perfectly with the new bio-shell. No rejection signals."
"Means I'm fully integrated?"
"More or less. But I'd still avoid heavy combat until your subdermal network finishes recalibrating. You take a rail round right now, you might not walk it off."
Max huffed quietly. "Noted."
He took one small sip from the mug, grimaced, then set it down. The coffee tasted like burnt synth oil. Perfect. Just like Night City.
Then a name flickered on his HUD — an alert from Mary. Unknown Contact: Encrypted Message Received.
"Mary?"
"Mary?" he asked quietly, his tone sharpening as faint digital static crawled across his HUD.
"Message just came through the darkline," she replied. "Encryption's tight — not corpo-grade, though. More like… street-level tech. Familiar pattern."
Max frowned slightly. "Familiar how?"
Mary hesitated. "It's Lucy's signature."
He blinked once. "…Lucy?"
"Yeah," Mary confirmed. "Encrypted with her old ghostline cipher — the one she used before you all went dark. She must've patched it through a throwaway relay. You want me to open it?"
He nodded. "Do it."
The message unfolded in flickering text, fragmented by interference, like a whisper through broken code.
Alex.
If you're reading this, it means Mary's still running and you made it out.
The others are safe. V and Jackie are working low jobs under their new tags — no one's looking for us anymore.
But things are getting tense again.
Millitecj's dogs are sniffing around the docks — they're looking for someone-most likely you. You.
Don't come back yet. I'll find you when it's clear.
Stay quiet. Stay alive.
— L
The text faded, replaced by a single flickering glyph — the stylized fox icon Lucy used to mark her drops.
***
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