"Viktor?! What are you doing here?" V exclaimed, startled to see Viktor appear beside the car in a dusty blue Thorton Galena.
"Don't say anything yet. Let me try to save Jackie!" Viktor, wearing dark sunglasses and looking rushed, pulled out a transparent test tube filled with green nutrient fluid. Without hesitation, he injected it into Jackie's neck.
Jackie, pale and unmoving just moments ago, visibly regained some color in his face. His breathing grew steadier.
"Jackie! Jackie!" V cried out in relief and joy.
"Don't get too excited. He can't hear you yet," Viktor said calmly, patting V's shoulder. "I've only stabilized him temporarily. He's not out of the woods."
"That's good enough!" V smiled through tears. "At least there's hope. You have no idea how hopeless I felt when Delamain told me he couldn't override the route. Then he suddenly froze—and you appeared out of nowhere."
"Let's get out of here first," Viktor said, glancing around. "This place isn't safe. Arasaka's got half the city looking for you right now. You two are in deep."
"Yeah," V nodded seriously. "We saw something we weren't supposed to."
Together, they lifted Jackie into the back seat. As the car pulled away, V looked at Viktor with grim determination.
"We saw Yorinobu Arasaka kill Saburo Arasaka."
Viktor's jaw dropped. "What did you just say?!"
---
"Good morning, Night City! This is your favorite underground voice, Akim Kasi, bringing you the Random News update!"
"Did anyone else hear that boom at Konpeki Plaza last night? Aerial combat drones, NCPD, private security forces—like a war zone out there! All that firepower for just two thieves? What did they steal? Corporate tech? Executive blackmail files? I don't know, but man, I want to know!"
"Whoever you are, runner, you've got serious guts. Night City salutes you!"
The car radio blared its usual sarcasm and satire, but Leon Black wasn't laughing. He sat behind the wheel of his sleek Avenger, eyes focused on the road ahead, mind deep in thought.
So Saburo Arasaka's death hadn't been officially confirmed yet. But it was only a matter of time. A man of that stature couldn't disappear quietly in a world this hyper-connected.
He reflected on the Arasaka power struggle.
Saburo Arasaka—autocratic, profit-driven, ruthless. Everything he did was about maintaining control. He viewed people not as humans, but as assets. That mindset, while cold, built Arasaka into the global powerhouse it was today.
But it also destroyed the souls of those closest to him.
Yorinobu Arasaka, his son, had long grown sick of being a puppet. He had watched his older brother, Kei, completely lose himself under their father's psychological manipulation. Kei's every move had seemed like free will, but it was just Saburo pulling the strings.
Yorinobu, a top graduate from Tokyo University, once believed he could change the decaying empire from within. When Kei died under suspicious circumstances, Yorinobu became the heir.
He thought his time had come.
But Saburo wasn't finished. He had discovered Soulkiller—a method of digitizing a person's consciousness and uploading it into Cyberspace. The original soul died, but the data lived on.
Immortality. Not of the flesh, but of the mind.
The project birthed the Relic, a chip containing a soul backup. And when Yorinobu learned of this development, despair overtook him.
If Saburo could never truly die, what was the point of all the scheming and waiting?
"I waited all these years... and now you say you can't die?"
"You want to control me forever?!"
Leon understood the rage that would drive someone to kill their own father. In this city, betrayal was just another language.
As he pondered what to do next, he suddenly heard a thud.
Huh?
His car had been rear-ended.
That was almost unheard of in Night City's automated driving system. Unless a racer or a cyberpsycho was involved, traffic accidents were virtually extinct. So why had a self-driving taxi hit him?
Leon got out, pulling his key from the ignition, and walked to the rear of the car. From the cab, another man stepped out—messy-haired, bleary-eyed, still half-asleep.
A typical overworked employee.
The man wore a cheap Militech uniform and looked like he'd just woken up from a nap during his commute. Probably from Santo Domingo, Night City's industrial base, known for affordable housing and rough edges. Better than the gang-ridden Northern District, at least.
"Ah! I'm so sorry!" the man said in panic, eyes darting to Leon's Avenger. He instantly paled.
His brain was racing with a familiar childhood lesson:
"Stay away from cars with custom logos and powerful plates!"
Leon remembered that lesson too—his father yelling it after he almost scraped a limited-edition hypercar. That was a lifetime ago, though. Two decades and one transmigration later, even the memory of his father's voice felt faint.
Why were so many transmigrators orphans?
Because starting over is easier without attachments.
Yet Leon often found himself staring at the ceiling at night, haunted by their memory. Were his parents still searching for him? Had they moved on? Adopted? Forgotten?
He didn't know. He didn't dare know.
Back to the present.
For this stressed-out middle-aged man, hitting Leon's Avenger was like crashing into a priceless antique. He looked like he'd collapse from stress.
"It's fine. Relax," Leon said gently. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one.
"Want one?"
"Huh? Oh... yeah. Thanks." The man took the cigarette, noticeably calmer once he noticed the Militech logo on the pack. At least he wasn't dealing with a total stranger.
"Sorry, I need to call the company and report this," the man said, already reaching for his phone. "They'll deduct my pay if I don't."
Leon nodded, watching him walk away. He knew that walk—the worn-out, overworked shuffle.
He once walked that way too.
When the man returned, he looked crushed.
"Let me guess—lost your attendance bonus?" Leon asked with a sympathetic grin.
"Yup. And they're docking a full day's wages." The man sighed, dragging on the cigarette. "With a sick mother and pregnant wife at home… this sucks."
"If they don't deduct our pay, how else can the HR drones justify their jobs? How else do accountants pad their numbers? How else do CEOs afford their third yacht?" Leon clapped the man's shoulder.
"Damn bloodsuckers," the man muttered. Even a mild-mannered guy like him couldn't hold back the anger anymore.
"Everyone plays a role. If you were in their shoes, maybe you'd understand them too," Leon said, blowing a smoke ring.
The man gave a bitter laugh. "Easy to say when you're driving a luxury car."
"What, don't believe me?" Leon turned to him with a glint in his eye. "Want to try it for yourself?"
"Try what?"
Leon smirked. "I'm in the Security Division. What do you do?"
"IT," the man replied cautiously, still unsure about Leon's sudden friendliness.
"IT, huh? That's perfect."
Leon nodded to himself. At Militech, the security division didn't pay much unless you took on high-risk missions. So, unofficially, they worked with intel agents who supplied data about gang hideouts, black-market deals, and smuggling rings.
In return, the security teams offered a cut of the profits when they raided or disrupted those operations.
Technically illegal. Officially discouraged. But widely practiced.
It was an unspoken ecosystem within corporate security—a web of gray deals and mutual back-scratching.
Leon looked at him. "We could use someone with good access to info. You scratch our back, we scratch yours. We take out a gang base, and you get a cut of whatever we recover. We split profits based on effort. What do you say?"
The man blinked, caught off guard.
He hadn't expected a business proposal from someone driving a million-eurodollar sports car.
Leon smiled.
Night City was about to enter a storm. And storms always brought opportunities—for those who dared to take them.
pàtreøn (Gk31)