Vik watches Rocky over the rims of those round glasses, worry softening the lines around his eyes. The clinic around them breathes in its usual rhythm—circulators whispering along the ceiling, the autoclave ticking as it cools, NCART rumbling under Watson like a tired heart.
"What's your plan?" he asks at last. "Will these technologies put you in someone's crosshairs?"
"They might," Rocky says. "That's why I'm keeping my head down first."
He leans back on the rolling stool and spins the empty can between forefinger and thumb, letting the metal clink against the tray once. "Step one is simple: make eddies with the stimulant. Capital is the ticket to sit at a table run by corporations."
Vik presses his tongue into his cheek, thinking. "You sure you've thought it through? Corps are roots, not weeds. People don't sprout under them; they get mulched." His voice goes dry. "One person's reach is limited. People die trying to prove it isn't."
Outside, Night City hums like a machine that won't power down. Inside, the caution hangs between them.
"Companies run the world," Vik says. "Shadow over every head."
He swipes a finger at the far wall, where a cheap newsfeed loops in silence. Arasaka Tower cuts the skyline in three angles of arrogance. "Even legends like Johnny Silverhand only managed to blow up a tower. The root held. The tower stands again. That's Night City's answer."
Rocky smiles a little anyway. "I'm not dying," he says, calm but stubborn. "And I'm not alone. I have you. You'll help me, won't you?"
"Heh." Vik huffs, a laugh worn smooth by years. "When you really need me, I'll be there. But I'm old, kid. Fists and firearms aren't my lane anymore."
He says it helplessly, and fondly. If Rocky truly needs a hand, Vik will give it; the promise sits obvious in the set of his shoulders.
Viktor Vektor once owned rings and rooms and crowds. He turned that precision toward scalpels, sockets, and sutures. Even the biotechs sent offers—clean salaries and dirty contracts. He turned them down. The man chose a quiet clinic and a difficult conscience in a city that pays neither well.
"If you ever want to join my crew to lock down the research side," Rocky says, only half joking, "I won't say no."
Vik's mouth tilts. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
Rocky raises his can. "To a future where we get to choose."
They toast with functional drinks instead of real liquor. The metal clicks feel like a promise all the same. They talk a while longer—old fights, new clients, which immunosuppressants actually behave in summer heat. When Rocky's energy comes back online, he stands.
"I'll get out of your hair," he says. "Thanks for the talk."
"Keep the head human," Vik says, like a benediction. "See you, kid."
—
The clinic door breathes him out into Little China's night. The air tastes like fry oil and wet pavement. Far off, some gonk tries to teach a car stereo to be a submachine gun. He fishes a green bottle from his jacket—Power Stimulant Type I—flips it in his palm twice, then seats the injector into his shoulder.
The sting rides a wave of lightness through him. Heat loosens the last knots the day tied in his back—the ache from sparring drops to a memory. "Yeah," he murmurs, starting to walk. "This stuff is good."
By the time he steps into Megabuilding H10, the elevators have given up pretending to be quiet. He showers until the steam peels the city off his skin, then drops into the chair by his terminal and brings up the clinic dashboards—orders, inventory, routes.
Numbers stack, honest and ugly. Most clinics that tested his samples sent second-batch orders. Count and quantity both jumped—the total hits two hundred thousand euros.
Critical money. The kind that moves a timeline.
He consolidates: clinic locations, unit totals, payment clears, and referred drop windows. He writes the dataset to a slim chip and taps open his contacts.
—
Watson District.North Industrial Zone.A cramped apartment that counts as "fine" by Night City math.
Rebecca towels water off her hair. Without the trademark twin ponytails, it hangs long and damp, softening the sharp lines of her face and making her look almost gentle.
It's an illusion. She knows it. The mirror knows it. Night City knows it.
Her holophone buzzes in her ear. On the overlay, an incoming call hovers.
"Huh?" Her brows jump. "Who dials me this late? The ripperdoc?"
She answers. "Hello? Is this the ripperdoc L from Japantown? What's up?"
"Rebecca," Rocky says. "Are you free now? Can you come to the Wild Wolf Bar in Heywood?"
She blinks. "Wow. Didn't peg you for the type who asks a girl to a bar on the first call." Her voice turns wicked with amusement. "If you're asking me out, your taste is mid and your playbook is tragic. You one of those gonks who think with the wrong head?"
Silence stretches a beat too long. A room away, Pilar—head down over a half-disassembled toy and a pile of wires—frowns like his name got dragged. He kills the music. "Becca? You call me?"
"No. Beat it."
"Oh." He shrugs, confused, and turns the volume back up.
On the line, Rocky clears his throat. "You misunderstand. I have a commission for you. Wild Wolf Bar is just a convenient place to talk."
"A commission? For me?" Rebecca flicks water off a fingertip. "Shouldn't you ask Maine? He's the lead."
"I don't know the internals of your crew," he says. "The job isn't complicated. Doesn't need numbers."
She rolls the thought around. She isn't a core muscle in Maine's crew—not yet. Back then, she ran bait, confusion, and delay. The Rebecca people will meet later—the one with a shotgun that kicks four times harder than sense allows—didn't exist until grief soldered steel to bone. Pilar and Dorio die; Rebecca changes; she chooses chrome and a heavier lane, then fights beside David until the city decides otherwise.
That's the future. Right now, she has a free evening and bills that don't wait.
"Okay," she says. "Wild Wolf. I'll come by."She heads for the door after, ties the twin ponytails back into place, and shrugs into the wide black jacker.
—
Another apartment across town.
Rocky ends the call, sets the chip by his keys, then presses his fingers against his eyebrow with a low groan. Being mistaken for a creep who takes first dates to bars wasn't on his bingo card tonight.
He exhales a laugh at himself. The embarrassment thins and leaves focus behind. He pockets the chip and grabs his jacket.
—
Heywood—locals still call this stretch the Valley: Wild Wolf Bar, second-floor private room.
Rocky arrives first. Pepi nods to him with a gesture that says, " It's always good to see you, and don't break anything you can't fix. The bar below throws neon at the ceiling and bass at the bones. Upstairs, the private room smells like wood oil, old whiskey, and the metal tang of a dozen knife scuffs on the table.
Rocky takes the corner seat, props his boots on the edge, and lets the day's weight run out of his shoulders. He orders a small drink, more for the ritual than the burn, and then scrolls the order chip, checking columns for errors.
The door cracks open.
Jack slips in first—leather jacket, chains soft at his neck, grin wide enough to rent by the hour. "L. Found you. Pepi said you were upstairs. Why didn't you ping me?"
Rocky hadn't planned to loop him in—this isn't a job, it's a conversation—but the Wild Wolf is Jack's second address. Of course, he walked in.
"I'm meeting someone to discuss business," Rocky says, waving toward the table. "Didn't want to waste your time. Drinks on me next round."
"That so?" Jack drops into the chair beside him and scoops a glass off the table like it grew there. "You call for a drink and forget your brother? Cold."
Before Rocky can answer, the handle clicks again. The door swings wide.
Rebecca steps in.
Her eyes take a fast read of the room—Jack in profile, Rocky in the corner, table cleared, chair waiting—and then she looks straight at Rocky, a grin tugging at one corner of her mouth like she's still not entirely sure this isn't a date.
Rocky stands, half sheepish, half amused, and gestures to the chair. "Thanks for coming."
Jack looks between them, the corners of his mouth climbing. "Oh," he says. "Business. Got it."
The City keeps its noise on the other side of the door while three people in a room set the next hour in motion.