BANG! BANG! BANG!
“Open this door! You taking the piss!”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“If you don’t open this door I'm going to kick in!”
That was the sound I was woken up to.
Slowly rising from my bed, I noticed that the door could fly off at any moment.
I began walking to the door intrigued to see who it was that had a problem with him. “Yeah, Yeah, I’m coming.”
The mysterious person bashing in the door was revealed to be a medium build bald man who was pissed off and was ready to knock Max out.
“Can I help you with something mate?” I said still half asleep
“Mate! Mate! I ain't your fucking mate you prick!” The bald man was even more furious with my comment.
“Sorry if me calling you mate has offended you. Now would you please be kind enough to tell me why you're trying to smash my bloody door down”
The bald man grabbed me by the neck. “Listen your little shit We don’t need to be hearing your fucking shitty music! Okay! Who do you think you are? The next big Rockerboy huh! If I find out you’ve done this again, I'll bash your fucking skull in! You got that!?”
I responded by pushing him to the floor, grabbed his shirt, and clenched my fist, ready to punch him in his stupid face, this caused the bald man’s face to change from being tough to now petrified of what I was about to do.
“And I don’t need to hear about your broken marriage issues. So, here’s my advice. Mate. Fix your marriage problems before I bash your skull in. You got that?”
I decided to let off his shirt and walked back into my apartment, leaving him on the floor petrified, shortly after this encounter with the bald man my phone rang.
Max: “Hello?”
???: “Mr. Carver. You are required at Afterlife for an urgent matter.”
Max: “What for?”
???: “You will find out once you get here. Please don’t delay.”
---Call Ended---
By the tone of the stranger’s voice, I followed his instructions and headed for Afterlife.
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Once there someone approached me and instructed that I follow them as there is someone that I need to meet.
We walked into a room, and waiting for me were two people. The first was a man sitting behind the desk who oversaw new Knight Rider members. The other was a complete stranger to me.
“Take a seat please Mr. Carver,” the man behind the desk said.
I sat down on a chair, feeling a little uneasy. I had no idea why he was here or what was going on.
“Mr. Carver, let me introduce you to Alejandro,” he said, pointing at the other man in the room with us. “Our newest Knight Rider.”
We exchanged hello's before returning to the conversation.
“Mr. Carver, you have been selected to show him the ropes,” the man added.
“What? No chance, get someone else to do it, my hands are full anyway and stop calling Mr. Carver it's way too formal,” I protested.
“No can-do Mr. Carver. Besides, you were recommended anyway. No point in complaining.”
“Who the hell recommended me, Eddie?” I asked.
Eddie started going through his documents to check who recommended me for teaching Alejandro the ropes before eventually finding the two big names that recommended me, “It was Reese which is not surprising seeing as though you two are chooms. But what is very surprising is the queen of Afterlife herself. Rogue.”
I was shocked I had never even met Rogue I've only heard about the stories about her and Johnny Silverhand planting a nuke in Arasaka Tower. As for Reese, we weren’t chooms, not even close, as there was something about him that I didn’t like ever since we first met.
“Are you sure? I get Reese recommending me but why Rogue?” I asked.
“It says that she sees potential in you.”
“Fine... I'll do it. Do you have a job for us?” I asked.
“Yes. There's a netrunner we’ve lost contact with. We would like you to go and check to see if they haven’t flatlined. More information is on the shard.”
I said goodbye to Eddie and left Afterlife with Alejandro.
We got inside my car and headed for the motel that was displayed on the data shard, on the drive to the location, we started to have a bit of small conversation, to get to know each other a bit better.
“So, Alejandro. What made you become a Knight Rider?”
“Needed some excitement back in my life Mr. Carver.”
Alejandro had a thick accent that you would normally hear from Valentinos, “Please call me Max, I hate getting referred to as that. You're not from NC are you?”
Alejandro laughed “What gave it away? But you're right. My family came from Mexico, we moved to Night City a few years ago, I worked in my family’s restaurant until we had a run-in with some bastardos. That caused me to join up with Militech but I eventually got frustrated with their orders and decided to leave and that brings us up to here. What about you hermano? What’s your backstory?”
I responded by detailing some of my life events so far, “I lived with my grandparents, my mum, and dad were constantly fighting, and I had enough of sitting there day after day listening to them yelling at each other, so I packed a bag and left, and went to go live with my grandparents. Later in life, I became a member of the Almano Crime Family.”
“You worked for Tony Almano?” Alejandro said shocked.
I continued, “Yeah, I was a made man alongside my chooms. Before we were made men, we mostly attended parties but that ended with the massacre of 6th Street.
“Yeah, I heard about that. People say that it was the work of the Bloody Carver.” Alejandro said
“That was me and I hate that name. When I was 21 my closest choom Henry and I decided to leave but thanks to an impressive resume we’d built up while in the family and with some help with Tony we were able to become Knight Riders.”
“That's quite the life you’ve had hermano. Let's hope I don’t disappoint, eh? I like the chemistry we have. I feel that we’ll get along fine.”
“I hope so too,” I replied.