After the Marvin robots were deployed, the empty Black Star Base finally showed signs of life. Crates slid out of the space storage racks. Tool arms unfolded. The robots marched material to marked zones and started raising frames and walls with the same patient precision they showed on the factory floor.
With this many Marvin units working in parallel, the base should not take long to complete. Lissandra would watch the build queue, track progress, and push new task lists while construction ran. For the near term, Rocky did not need to babysit space.
He walked to the boundary beacon, keyed in the Ascension Technology Lab as the destination, and brought the portal online. Green light wrapped him. The world narrowed to a soft, luminous tunnel. A few steps later, the effect bled away, and the lab's familiar fluorescents came back into focus.
Something small and warm hit his chest before he could speak. Rebecca had been waiting.
"Done with the space stuff?" she asked against his ear, arms looped tight.
He steadied her and exhaled. "All set. We will stay planet-side for a while."
Their trip to space with Lucy had never been a secret from Rebecca. It was Lucy's wish, and Rebecca chose not to interfere. That did not mean she surrendered her own line in the sand. The understanding was simple. After that journey ended, Rebecca would claim her legal time with Rocky. She had little interest in stargazing, so the deal suited her just fine. Lucy got a dream trip. Rebecca got what she wanted, too. Rocky, stuck between their gravity wells, could only honor the agreement.
A cough came from the side of the room. Viktor leaned in the doorway, the clinic's resident and the lab's most regular guest, watching without surprise. He knew Rebecca well enough to let the moment land without comment.
"Up there go smooth?" Vik asked with a half-smile. "I am guessing you finally tried that portal rig you mentioned."
Rocky nodded. "Yes. The portal works. I ported a batch of Marvin robots to the station. With those units building, the base should finish fast. If you want a look, I can take you up early."
Vik waved off the offer. "I will wait until you finish the place. I look forward to that day. For now, keep Rebecca company. She gave me an earful while you were off-world."
"That is right," Rebecca said, pleased.
They were turning to leave when a system ping caught Rocky's attention. Lissandra pushed a priority notice to his feed.
{ Alert: Multiple hostile netrunners detected. Coordinated attempt to breach the Ascension Technology origin server. }
Rebecca saw his focus narrow. "What is wrong?"
"Someone wants to mess with our date," Rocky said, scanning Lissandra's metadata. A familiar, unwelcome label surfaced in the alert stream.
Rebecca's grin sharpened. "Who is that bold? If they crash our night, I can switch the theme to blood and noise. Works for me, L. Same as our first time on the bike."
For Rebecca, a good date could include a fight. As long as Rocky was there, the category did not matter.
…
Night City
Pacifica
NCPD rates this zone as one of the city's most dangerous. Tourists do not come here. Gangs and crimes do. It was not always like this. Pacifica was once planned as a resort district for the ultra-wealthy, with golden beaches, luxury towers, and tailored entertainment for corporate travelers. The Unification War shattered that future when fear of a New United States push from Southern California turned the area into a battlefield. Investors fled. Projects froze. Towers went hollow. The district fell out of the city's adequate jurisdiction and slid into combat-zone status.
Today, Pacifica revolves around two dominant crews. One is the Animals, a gang that puts raw muscle first and prefers body-boosters over chrome. The other is the Voodoo Boys, leaders within the local Haitian community and some of the sharpest netrunners in Night City.
The Voodoo Boys are notorious not only for ripping data from corporate vaults but also for probing the Old Net and the far side of the Blackwall. Their long game is to uncover secrets buried beyond that barrier and to tinker with the rogue AIs that haunt it. Netwatch built the Blackwall to keep those feral intelligences out, but the wall is a compromise, not a cure. The Voodoo Boys keep pushing anyway.
Recently, their interest settled on a fresh target. Ascension Technology, the upstart name on every corporate brief in Night City, had moved from rumor to influence too quickly for comfort. Anyone who could lift its core research could sell that payload for a fortune, especially to Militech, whose orbit kept intersecting with Ascension's moves