The TV filled the room with studio light and corporate polish. On screen, Rocky stood in a fitted suit at a lectern, voice steady, cadence clean. He introduced Ascension Technology's new stimulant as a next-gen combat aid, built for acceleration, tested for safety, and ready for a dozen theaters. Gloria sat on the sofa in the apartment and stared at the broadcast without seeing it. Two days had swung the ground out from under her. First, the crash and David finding her secret. Then David gets a Sandevistan and clashes with Maine's people. Yesterday, the company texted a single line to her phone and erased her job without a reason or a question. She had missed a shift after the crash. No one asked why. The payroll system cut her loose and filed it as routine.
She did not call to argue. She knew what that would buy her in Night City. Nothing. What the message did buy was more weight on a back already bent. No job meant no income. No income meant debt that would not stop multiplying.
David learned about the dismissal and pressed his case. He wanted out. She tried to steer him back to a safer course and offered to fix the mess alone. He refused. Arasaka Academy had wanted him gone for months anyway. When he went to the office, no one blocked him. The withdrawal paperwork took minutes. In the end, she had no leverage to hold him. He walked away from the academy, and the last, thin cord she had believed would pull him upward snapped.
Now the room felt emptied of direction. Everything she had pushed toward for years looked smaller and further, as if she had been climbing the wrong face the whole time.
"Mom."
David's voice came from behind her.
"Mom, what are you watching? You look zoned out."
She did not answer the first time. He called again, and she blinked back into the room.
"News," she said. "Arasaka's press conference."
"Why follow Arasaka anymore? We have nothing to do with them."
"You are right," she murmured, half to herself, and reached for the remote.
The broadcast kept rolling. The speaker on screen shifted from broad claims to specifics, talking through Ascension's research team and lab capacity. The camera pushed in as numbers and features lit the backdrop.
David stepped closer and caught a clear look at the stage.
"Wait. L?"
His voice lifted. The man at the lectern helped him in the clinic. Same build, same voice. He could not mistake him.
"You know him?" Gloria asked, startled by David's tone. A second ago, she had been watching Arasaka's announcement. Even if she had drifted in the middle, the person talking should have been Arasaka staff. Why did David connect with someone on that stage?
"He is the one who helped me get you out."
"You mean the company you plan to work for is Arasaka?"
"I do not know. Maybe," David said. He did not want to guess wrong.
They looked back at the feed and read the overlays.
"Ascension Technology," David said, and Gloria repeated it, testing the name. She listened harder and realized Arasaka's segment had already ended. This was the follow-on product launch. L was not Arasaka at all. He was running his own company and standing beside Arasaka as a partner.
David searched Ascension on the Net. Article snippets stacked fast. Headlines on a dozen feeds tracked the tie-up and called the company a fast riser. The two of them read enough to get the shape.
"An Arasaka partner and the founder is L," David said, surprised to have a name and title for the man who had been a blur of competence to him until now. It was the first time he understood who Rocky was in public.
Gloria said nothing. She processed. Ascension was not Arasaka, but it was close enough to have weight. The indicators were strong. The story was not a sales page thrown into a dark corner. If David joined a place like that and climbed, maybe there was still a way to lift him above the ground they stood on.
Her mood shifted. If the Arasaka ladder had kicked away, another ladder had rolled across. It might not rise as high. It might be enough.
"Have you contacted him?" she asked.
"Not yet. I was going to reach out today, but he looks busy."
"Listen to me," she said. "However you go, I want you to succeed. If my way does not fit you, chase what you want."
Hope walked back into her voice for the first time since the dismissal. David nodded, the promise landing heavier than he showed.
"I will work at it," he said.
The launch wrapped soon after. David changed clothes, told Gloria he would head over, and emailed L to announce himself while he grabbed his things.
At the station, he stepped onto the platform and checked the time. The bus had not arrived. He replayed lines in his head, small and simple, so the meeting would not fall into awkward silence. He considered opening the message thread and writing more, then decided not to spam the man's inbox.
Light from the billboard on his right shifted and nudged his attention. He turned. Fresh copy burned up from black and started running, a brand-new ad cycle rolling across the massive screen. He watched the first frames hit and waited for the bus.