Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
"-Sixth Street tend to get uppity if too many people from the same group enter their territory, so its probably best to just stick to northern Santo Domingo if you are going into the city at all." I rattled off "Doing biz anywhere else is too expensive if you are looking to stay frugal anyway."
"I see." Ezekiel Jode nodded slowly "I'll keep that in mind."
"Still, if you are looking to do anything above street level I highly suggest keeping those dealings to the Fixers." I said "They may take their cut but they are definitely worth the eddies."
He frowned "I trust Dakota, she is an Aldecaldo, but I don't know why I should be giving my money to any of the others."
'The whole Fixer hustle does look quite odd from the outside, doesn't it?' The idle thought struck me "Their whole business model is tied to their reputation staying squeaky clean. If you make a deal with them and get them their eddies they will get you what you want."
"So it is a guarantee?" He asked.
"Pretty much." I shrugged lightly "Not a perfect one mind you, but it is definitely more secure than conducting biz on unfamiliar ground on your own."
Offhandedly, I flicked El Capitan's details to his Agent "He'll probably be able to get his hands on the kind of hardware you are looking for. Consider him vouched for."
There was a brief flash of hesitance on the nomad's face but he quickly masked it behind a nod "Alright, I'll take your word for it."
'And that is probably where I should stop before I start looking like a meddler.' I reminded myself. Helping the Jodes cost me absolutely nothing, but as proven by their other guests, things were rarely that simple.
"Thanks for the info." He said, evidently agreeing with me as he picked up a box of beer cans "But that is enough of the dry stuff, the food should be done by now."
Nodding in agreement, I picked up a stack of boxes myself and we made to rejoin the rest.
The party outside the metal shed was already picking up, and the previous tension was replaced with a much more relaxed jovial air as the nomads celebrated their survival, and the mercs celebrated the age old NC tradition of flatlining gonks.
"Took your sweet ass time!" Pilar called as I moved to rejoin the group "'Becca here was starting to get jealous!" He pointed his thumb at her and cackled.
For all of a second before his shin was promptly folded with a mighty kick "Shut the fuck up, asshole!" Rebecca yelled and smugly crossed her arms as her brother started rolling on the ground and cursing her.
Shaking my head in amusement, I set the box down and began giving out the cans and soon enough all of us were seated around a fire, most of them on folding chairs while Maine and myself had to settle for thick metal boxes.
And speaking of the hunk of flesh and metal, he seemed to decide to follow through with his previous decision words and as we both flicked our drinks open, he extended his hand in my direction expectantly.
The way his crew watched the entire exchange with bated breath felt almost comical.
But I kept any bubbling snark to myself and lightly clinked my can against his "Cheers."
"Cheers." He grunted back and we both downed our drinks.
All five of the others made relieved noises, especially the netrunner as she physically deflated at the sight.
Maine gave her a slow look, before snorting and going back to his drink.
And her startled pout seemed to drain whatever tension was left from all the rest, leaving us to actually relax and enjoy the atmosphere, alongside the surprisingly delicious barbeque the nomads prepared.
"So." Maine spoke up over the din of small talk "Anything big happening in the city?"
"Aside from the gang war you mean?" I asked.
"Aside from the Tygers and 'Stromers butchering each other, yeah." He nodded.
"Well." I thought "The new Pacifica Fixer seems to have finally set himself up. Goes by Mr. Hands and is by all rumors a professional, seems to dislike showing his face too."
"Too bad he landed in Pacifica." Maine seemed unimpressed.
"Well it isn't like he can take over someone else's turf right now." I shrugged "All the others are too entrenched so no easy pickings there, and there are eddies to be made in Dogtown if you know what you are doing."
"Maybe if you are looking to get flatlined." Dorio interjected "Dogtown is a hellhole."
"Doesn't mean there are no eddies to be made." I pointed out lightly "Especially with the black market they got set up in there."
That earned me a few nods of agreement.
"You've been?" She asked.
"Not yet." I shook my head "The kind of hardware I could find in there is tempting, but I doubt the army of spec ops goons Militech left behind in there are all that eager to get a visit from a fullborg."
"You afraid of some corpo doughboys?" Maine asked, not quite mockingly, much to his output's brief annoyance.
"Not particularly." I said, completely ignoring the implied challenge "But there is no point in stirring shit up when I don't have to, and I have other less irritating ways of getting what I want."
"Boooriiing!" Rebecca booed from beside me.
"I have plenty of excitement as I am, thank you very much." I quipped.
Probably too much now that I think about it.
We moved on to less exciting topics after that, mostly discussing random rumors or the group's time outside the city before slowly inching towards what Rebecca and myself had been up to.
Which inevitably led up to me talking about my joining the Afterlife and ironically enough reducing the amount of merc work I did in favor of focusing fully on my clinic.
Somewhat hesitantly at first, I will admit, but after seeing no particular halfborgs start bitching at me I began discussing it more animatedly and time seemed to blur before the nomads finally decided they had given us enough time for ourselves and we were unceremoniously dragged into the wider party.
The nomads were so grateful in fact, that even Pilar managed to score for the night, and while I did not ruin it for him I made sure to nail a list of medicine used in combatting venereal diseases on a clipboard on the unfortunate woman's trailer.
Just in case of course.
I also managed to wring out an answer as to why Zeke seemed to be so uninformed about some of the more obvious aspects of doing biz in Night City, and why he felt pressured to ask someone he was already feeling indebted to about it.
Simply put, the previous leader, his father, died to a Raffen raid, alongside a good number of the other nomads, and he was left to pick up the pieces.
The moment I pieced the story together, I made it a point to back off and just enjoy myself.
No reason to have them relive their trauma just so I could satisfy my curiosity.
By the time we were finally ready to leave, the sun had already long since set.
But just before we set out, I found myself cornered by Rebecca and a somewhat embarrassed Sasha, the former of whom was grinning ear to ear while pushing the latter along.
"Hey Mike!" She waved eagerly "Sasha wants to ask you something."
"Dammit 'Becca, no I don't." The self proclaimed netrunner whined.
"Come on, I didn't drag you all the way here for nothing." Rebecca kept pushing her though.
"'Becca." I spoke slowly "What are you doing?"
"Helping my gonk of a friend!" She declared "So she can stop being a gonk."
"I'm afraid it is quite terminal." I drawled before I could fully stop myself.
Rebecca choked down a burst of laughter, and her choom looked at me like I had just killed her cat.
Inbefore that familiar irritating flash of determination appeared in her eyes "Teach me!" She said, more like demanded.
And how else could I answer such an earnest request but with an immediate "No."
And just like that she deflated "Awww."
"Ah come on, Mike." Rebecca smirked "It will be fun!"
"Since when is teaching complete noobs-"
"Urk." Sasha twitched as if shot.
"-supposed to be fun?" I drawled with my arms crossed.
"Damn." She muttered briefly before realizing she did so and promptly pretending like nothing happened, she pressed on "We are going to start doing gigs again in a few days, I could totally use some better support."
"Really, 'Becca?" I asked, more amused than anything "Moving on to emotional blackmail already?"
"Is it working?" She blinked innocently.
Sighing and shaking my head, I took a good look at the two of them "Alright, what exactly brough this on? You must know I'm not your greatest fan, so it's got to be something."
Sasha winced and Rebecca immediately took that as her cue.
"Maine has been talking about getting another netrunner on the team." She said wit a wince of her own "He says its so we can do bigger jobs, but Sasha got it in her head he is trying to replace her."
"He didn't drop this on you today, did he?" I asked 'That would have been a supremely dick move.'
"No." Sasha shook her head "We've been talking about it for a few days."
"Well from what I know about the man, I sincerely doubt he is just going to toss you away like spent garbage." I said after some brief thought "And its never a bad idea to have some support while netrunning, or so I hear."
That final bit earned me a wry look from Rebecca.
"But what if I don't measure up?" Sasha asked, though something told me it was directed at herself more than me.
"That sounds distinctly like a you problem." I pointed out dryly.
She sighed in disappointment and nodded "Yeah... sorry."
"But." I said before she can keep wallowing "As much of a cheeky shit she is being-" My output grinned "'Becca is right in saying that she could use some better support."
Sasha immediately perked up, looking up at me with hope in her eyes.
"I'll give you some tips, and maybe a few of my more basic quickhacks if you don't prove to be completely incompetent." I said, raising my finger to forestall any interruption "But if you fuck up like you did with the Biotechnica gig again while Rebecca is with you, I will feed you your own spine. Deal?"
She gulped before rapidly nodding and taking my offered hand "Deal!"
"I'll contact you when I have free time." I said, not so subtly telling her to fuck off.
Something she thankfully caught and quickly scampered away but not before giving 'Becca a quick hug.
"Thanks." Said gremlin said a bit more seriously now "She really needed that."
"She needs a lot more than that, I'd say." I snorted "But you're welcome."
--
Our return to NC felt almost eerily silent, what with the road being left completely undisturbed.
Destroying the band of Wraiths usually patrolling the area to the last man tended to have that kind of effect I supposed.
After we reached the city proper though, Falco took everyone else to their homes while I drove Pilar and Rebecca to their apartment.
And just in time as well, as their rent had been due for a while and they were just about to be evicted, both of them having completely forgotten about it.
This naturally led to another shouting match between them, and a few more holes in the wall as Pilar wisely chose life and fled.
After making sure no one was about to die, I helped them move back in, but found myself leaving soon afterwards as they were both completely exhausted by the day's events, and I had some very important work lined up for tomorrow.
It felt odd, having my room completely to myself after over a month of sharing it with someone.
But I didn't bother overthinking it, simply following Vik's advice in removing my Mechadendrites before plopping onto my bed face first.
Before even a minute had passed I was out like a light.
-----
Walking through the artificial park Arasaka had set up in the center of the Corpo Plaza felt... surreal. Alien, even.
Certainly I knew the grass and trees were all mostly cloned and artificial but even then, I had never seen so much green in one place outside of the movies, or old world photos. Hell, the most plantlife I had seen in one spot that wasn't just desert shrub was the garden Jugo had in his night club, and that was comparatively tiny.
Thankfully, I drew only some attention from the nearby onlookers as I kept all of my shiny bits covered and the visor of my biker helmet lowered, making me out as someone heavily modified instead of a FBC stalking the ground between the corporate towers.
Still drew some gonk ass gawkers though.
"Its decided." I muttered as I sat on the concrete fence separating the walkway from the plants "I both love and hate this place."
"First time on the plaza?" A familiar light rasp came from my right.
"Yeah." I said without turning, having already noticed her approach minutes ago "Had no real reason to come before. Didn't know what I was missing out on."
V nodded, taking a seat next to me "The Emperor wanted to show off in front of the other corps, and the marketing department made it happen."
"He must have thrown a lot of money down the drain if he bought the project before Biotechnica could." I chuckled "Don't they specialize in this?"
"They do." She agreed "But what the Emperor wants, the Emperor gets."
"How very loyal of you, Price-san." I drawled, earning myself a brief glare "And speaking of your marketing department, do you have what I asked for?"
"Yeah." She nodded "Had to jump through hoops to make sure my skimming didn't get noticed, but I managed to get just about everything you asked for and then some."
Feeling a spike of curiosity, I finally turned to face her "Really now? Hoping to have me owe you a favor now that you've paid your own?"
"If you don't feel like it is worth one, then you don't owe me a thing." She smirked challengingly before offering me a datashard "I managed to get the access codes to all of his company provided properties in the city."
Absently scanning the shard for any issues I inserted it into the security port in my arm before quickly skimming through the data itself "Ah." I couldn't help but voice.
Why did it not surprise me she meant all of his properties, period?
Nodding to myself and ejecting the datashard I looked back up to V "Alright. What do you want?"
But I found she wasn't looking at me, or really listening to me, her eyes were unfocused and she was staring off into the distance while absently holding herself back from swaying in place.
"Shit." She hissed, one of her hands moving to her face as she began to massage the sides of her head "Sorry. What did you say?"
"I said, what do you want in return?" I repeated, already knowing the answer.
"That offer to fix me still up?" She asked as she blinked herself awake.
'God damn bleeding heart.' Huffing to myself I nodded "Yeah, fine. Fuck it, why not?"
-------
You too may be fixed with but a fix of stone... maybe.
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