"Ha, the Padre doesn't live here. We just set up a meeting spot," Jack Welles chuckled. This Padre wasn't the type to hole up in a church all day.
The two of them bantered as they stepped into the church. Inside a confessional, they met the Padre—a man about the same age as Mrs. Welles, already sporting a shiny bald head.
"Hey, Padre, how's the health holding up?" Jack greeted him with his usual charm, acting like they were old buddies. Which, to be fair, they kinda were. The Padre was like a mentor to Jack, always looking out for him.
"Same old, Jack," the Padre replied with a smile, then turned his gaze to Riku. "This the new friend you mentioned who needs an identity fix?"
His eyes lingered on Riku's horns for a moment, but he didn't bat an eye. The old man had seen it all—back in his day, he was a big shot in the Valentino Gang before switching to the fixer game. Nothing fazed him anymore.
"Yep, that's Riku. New pal, we're in this together," Jack confirmed. He had no reason to hide anything from the Padre. The guy even hooked him up with gigs sometimes.
In Night City, cyberpunks like them relied on fixers to score jobs. Fixers were the middlemen, the guarantee. Clients worried about mercs taking the eddies and ghosting, or spilling secrets. Mercs worried about clients stiffing them or selling them out. A solid fixer like the Padre kept things smooth, building trust in a city full of backstabbing.
"Hey, Padre," Riku greeted, sizing up the man. He liked what he saw—a traditional guy trying to keep order in Heywood, sticking to old-school values in a world where the young were getting wilder and tossing honor out the window.
The Padre's name was Sebastian Ibarra, a fixer who still clung to tradition in an age where rebellion ruled.
"Nice to meet you. So, what kind of identity are you looking for?" the Padre asked, cutting straight to the chase.
"Can I pick anything?" Riku asked, curious. He'd thought it'd just be a basic ID, like getting registered in the system.
"You wanna be Night City's mayor? That's a no-go," the Padre said with a laugh, shaking his head. He wasn't that connected.
"Just something normal. Something that won't get me nabbed the second NCPD scans me," Riku said with a grin. Night City's mayor? Hard pass—that job was a death sentence.
"Easy enough. What name do you want on it?" the Padre asked, ready to make it happen. Forging a clean ID for some mystery drifter was child's play for him. Plenty of folks in Night City offered the same service, but they charged an arm and a leg. Jack brought Riku here to save a few eddies, no doubt.
The Padre didn't mind. Jack was like family—practically a son to the childless, unmarried fixer.
"Uh, just Riku… nah, let's go with Daivo Collins," Riku said after a moment. He'd planned to keep his real name, but why take the risk? A fake alias was safer. Out in Night City, a good cover could save your skin. If someone came looking for "Riku" and his ID pinged as Daivo Collins, he could just shrug and say, "Riku? Never heard of him. I'm Daivo Collins, choom."
"Alright, starting tomorrow, you're Daivo Collins, Night City citizen," the Padre said, jotting it down. Fake names were par for the course—hardly anyone registered their real ones.
"So, what do I call you now? Daivo? Riku?" Jack teased, grinning. He was the type to stick with his real name, no aliases or street handles, unlike some others—like that V character.
"Call me K? Or maybe L? D?" Riku suggested with a laugh. Single-letter names sounded kinda weird, though.
"What, so I'd be J? Or W?" Jack cracked up, then remembered something. "Speaking of, I know a kid who goes by V."
The Padre chimed in, surprising Jack. "I know a V too."
Riku wasn't shocked. He knew Street V, a Heywood girl who was tight with the Padre, always under his wing. But Jack? Why was he acting so surprised? He shouldn't even know V yet, right? Riku's brow furrowed.
"You know V, Padre?" Jack asked, clearly thrown. As far as he knew, V didn't have much to do with Heywood.
"Course I do. A Heywood chica. Never introduced you two," the Padre said matter-of-factly. He was talking about the V Riku had met at the Coyote Cojo bar.
But Jack's V? That was a different story. Riku's mind clicked—a hunch forming. "Uh, sounds like we're not talking about the same V. I know a V too, but she's not from Heywood."
Jack shook his head. "Yeah, my V's a corpo girl, not from Heywood."
Bingo. Riku had it figured out. Jack's V was the corpo-turned-rogue V, the one from a rich family that fell apart. By all accounts, she and Jack shouldn't have crossed paths, but somehow they were already chooms. Meanwhile, the street-smart Heywood V didn't know Jack, despite their worlds overlapping in a million ways.
"Two Vs, huh?" Riku said, half-laughing. Night City was wild—three walking disasters all sharing the same codename?
"Guess single-letter handles are pretty popular," Jack mused, though he and Riku weren't exactly on the same wavelength.
"Yeah, no kidding," Riku agreed. Who knows? Maybe they'd run into a third V someday—a nomad V to round out the set.
"Yo, Padre, got any gigs? I'm a little light on eddies, need some cash to burn," Jack asked, shifting gears. The V coincidence was interesting, but work came first. A codename overlap wasn't a big deal in a city full of duplicates.
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