When Haru and the Tyger Claws were finished with us, Deng and Fred walked me back to Patrick Street. As soon as we got to Fred's camp, Deng pushed me down onto Fred's mattress and told me I needed to get some sleep. I tried to bargain with him and explain that I could find a place of my own to sleep and I didn't want to kick Fred out of his camp, but Deng was adamant that I get some rest and kept pushing me back onto the mattress every time I tried to get up.

Fred wandered off to Lizzie’s to check in on Tomas. Something in my brain shouted that I should have joined in and made sure that Tomas was doing okay. But the stern looks Deng was giving me made me give up on the idea and instead I laid back and shut my eyes. I felt bad about displacing Fred from his camp. I never built a camp of my own, instead sleeping wherever I could find a quiet spot. And now, since I never put in the time or effort to build a place of my own, I had kicked Fred out of his camp when he should have been spending his time healing.

I slept for 16 hours. I guess I needed the rest. When I woke up the memory of Deng telling Fred that my odd behavior last night was a defense mechanism popped into my head. I guess that was over now because I felt fine. I realized I needed to check on Tomas, something I probably should have done yesterday, so I got up and headed out to Lizzie’s in hopes that someone there would know where he was.

On my way to the alcove, I passed tons of people going about their day. If my internal calendar was correct, and I wasn’t entirely certain it was, today was a workday. People would be at their jobs, dealing with customers, hawking their wares. They’d be going about their lives, with the one notable exception being the lookout that I had killed yesterday. His face popped into my memories and I was deep in thought about the whole situation as I walked down the street. I didn’t want to keep referring to him as Steve. That felt…wrong somehow.

When I reached the alcove I was hit by frosty greetings people sent my way. Maybe it was all in my head, but it felt like nobody wanted anything to do with me. Was it because I had killed someone? That didn’t seem like the right answer. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but Night City was a much more dangerous place than any other city I had ever lived in.

Sure, there was crime in the cities I had lived in in my past life, but we didn’t have cyberpsychos sporting bullet-proof skin and rocket launchers hidden in their arms. We didn’t have cults – because how else would you describe Maelstrom – with stolen military hardware who roamed the streets and got pulled into rolling gun battles with cops. All that meant it probably wasn’t the fact that I had killed someone yesterday that turned people away from me. Everyone at the alcove had been exposed to much more violence in their everyday life than I could even imagine. They had all grown up in a city that was only a single step up from a war zone.

There were two possibilities for the frosty reception I was getting. The first was that I had committed violence at the basketball court. The people in the alcove probably didn’t care that I had killed the lookout. But they would care that I did it only a block or so away from Lizzie’s.

No one wanted to be the person who brought problems to Lizzie’s doorstep. It was the one place in Night City that let us forget our worries, set down our daily burdens, and hang out without anyone judging us. The Mox never chased us away because we kept all of our problems far away from the area. My misadventure with Dennis’ crew had threatened the peace of the alcove. I had killed someone barely a block away, and then the Tyger Claws came sniffing around the area to deal with the rest of Dennis’ crew. That had to have brought a bunch of heat to the area.

The second possibility for the muted reaction to my presence was that I had left Tomas alone and he’d been caught and tortured by Dennis’ people. If everyone knew that we had been working together and that I had freaked out and let him get caught, that wouldn’t earn me a lot of friends. What kind of person ran away when a buddy was in need?

I found Tomas tucked away on a couch in the back of the alcove. Bandages were wrapped around his arms, and his face looked just as bad as Fred’s had after he’d been beaten by Officer Kirk. Seeing him there, bandaged and bruised, I was struck with a thought: I did that to him. That was my fault.

“Noah, hey!” Tomas tried to stand to greet me, but I quickly rushed forward and pushed him back onto the couch.

“Tomas. I’m…I’m so sorry. I thought you got away, but I should have checked on you to make sure,” I babbled. Tomas seemed surprised by my reaction and he waved me down.

“It looks a lot worse than it actually is. Plus, I had a chance to get away, but I was a gonk and they nabbed me. But I heard what you did. Nova, choom. You’re a man now. How’s it feel?”

I shrugged my shoulders and looked down. I wanted to blow past any talk of me killing the lookout, so I waved it away and asked “How were you a gonk? You said you could have got away?”

Tomas grinned and motioned me closer conspiratorially. “When you killed Choki, the other dealers started freaking out. They thought the Claws were coming to get them, so they hid behind some dumpsters. That’s when I saw where they were keeping their product. So, I grabbed some and tried to make a run for it but one of them tackled me.” He pulled out several baggies and inhalers from his coat pockets to show me the haul he stole.

“Blue glass and glitter and black lace. They didn’t know I was grabbing their products and then when the Claws cleared out the court, they never checked me!” he said laughing.

I just nodded along. “Wait. Choki?”

“Yea. The gonk you flatlined. That was his name. Stupid name but, what you gonna do?” Tomas put the baggies and inhalers back in his pockets and sat back on the couch. “So, tell me how it felt. Fred seemed a little concerned about you last night, but I told him not to worry. You’re a badass now choom.”

I let a small smile peek out so as not to temper Tomas’ good mood, but I wasn’t at all interested in talking about the shooting. “I’m still a little beat up from Dennis. I just came by to check up on you and make sure you were okay. I better get back to resting,” I said, trying to get away from Tomas and the alcove as fast as possible before he started peppering me with more questions.

Deng found me over on Patrick Street, zoning out and watching the cars drive past. It wasn’t Tomas’ fault that I needed to flee the alcove. I just didn’t want to answer anyone’s questions about what had happened yesterday.

Stolen story; please report.

“Thought I’d find you here,” said Deng as he got closer. “Come on. Time to be productive.”

“Where are we going?” I asked. As I stood, I realized that the answer didn’t really concern me that much. Deng had earned my trust with how he had looked after me yesterday. If he told me to follow, I’d follow.

“To meet up with some friends.” Deng turned and walked away, leaving me to race after him.

He led me to a small set of buildings over in East Watson near Kabuki and told me to wait. Then he disappeared into a run-down building. I spotted a nearby bench and ambled over to wait there. I thrust my hands in my pockets and was getting ready to sit down when I felt something jabbing into me. I pulled my hands out and stared at what had been in my pockets.

Eddies. Lots of eddies. And an inhaler that looked like the ones that Tomas had back at the alcove. Black lace. The eddies and inhalers were what I had taken from Choki after I killed him. I quickly stuffed the cash back in my pockets, knowing I shouldn’t flash it around here, and stared at the inhaler.

Almost an hour later Deng came out of the building with two men in tow and I stood from the bench. The first guy walking behind Deng was easily one of the most intimidating men I had ever seen. Deng had an aura around him that screamed ‘danger.’ That was probably what had freaked out the Tyger Claw guard yesterday and why he hadn’t tried to stop Fred from making a phone call. But the man trailing behind Deng was in a league of his own.

I could tell, solely by the way he walked, that this man was dangerous. He moved like a jungle cat, each step sure and smooth, safe in the knowledge that he was uncontested by those weaker than him. When I looked at him the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and some lizard part of my brain screamed at me to run as far away from this man as possible. But it was the second guy following behind Deng who threw me for the biggest look. I knew that face.

About a year from now V would get a contract from Regina Jones to deal with someone who was stealing medicine from ripper docs, and he’d track the theif to a rundown apartment building. And this guy would be there. As he stepped closer, I could almost hear him explain that ‘the baloperidol doesn’t even work. So, who’s stealing from whom?’ He had a black rubber jacket on and a brown faceplate implant that looked…off to me.

“Noah, this is Diego and William. They’re from my vet support group. We were just about to head out for some coffee. You should join us.”

I knew that when Deng said ‘you should’ he really meant ‘you will’ so after shaking hands with both men I wordlessly fell into step behind them and followed to a Buck-a-Slice where we all sat down and ordered coffee. Over the next half hour they shared stories of their time working with corporations and laughed at their mutual experiences. Diego talked about getting chewed out in training because an AV pilot wanted to do some risky flying and that ended with Diego puking all over the rest of his team in the AV. Will talked about a friend of his in Brazil who was so terrified of the possibility of night ambushes that he learned how to sleep with his eyes open.

When the conversation hit a lull Diego turned to me and said “Noah. Tell us about yesterday.”

I was like a deer caught in the headlights. Who starts a conversation like that? I had been silently listening to their stories, allowing my mind to drift, and was instantly caught off guard by Diego’s request. Or order. Coming from him it very much sounded like an order.

“We’ve all been there before. We know what you’re going through. Believe it or not, talking it through helps. And it gets easier with time.”

“Yea. That’s what…that’s what I heard,” I said, not wanting to bring up the fact that all my knowledge about killing came entirely from movies and tv shows.

The three of them waited for me to talk but, when they realized I didn’t know how to start, Deng piped up.

“My first kill was a nomad trying to ambush our caravan. He popped up from behind a ditch. I was in the passenger seat with my gun out the window. Let out a 3-round burst and the convoy sped away. Didn’t even know what happened until the driver of the truck behind me got on the radio and started congratulating me.”

Afterwards what did you…how did you deal with the feelings?”

“Everyone’s different kid,” said Deng. “When you get in a fight your body is like ‘this is dangerous, take all this adrenaline and hormones to protect yourself.’ Later, you get the shakes or vomit or cry. Or all three. I got really horny the first bunch of times. That’s also normal.”

William and Deng nodded along. “Nobody really knows how they’ll react to combat the first time.”

“I liked my kill. I had been training with Militech, going through a bunch of combat scenarios and spending hours at the range. After my first firefight, I felt so good. It was like I was finally able to put all that training to use,” said William.

“But everyone is different,” Deng jumped in. “Some people like it, some people feel nothing but guilt afterwards. Some need to talk it through with others. It’s why we have a support group for vets. It’s people who know exactly what you’ve gone through, and it helps when you wanna talk about it.”

The three kept telling stories after that, assuring me that I wasn’t alone and that there were people who understood what I was going through. Diego and Deng kept trying to explain that talking helped and that they had heard everything before and knew what I was going through. But they were wrong.

William loved combat. I got the feeling that he missed it. Or maybe he just missed being with his unit and doing something he was good at. Deng mentioned friends of his who felt guilty about all the lives they took. He said there was a guy he served with who had tons of combat missions under his belt and was one of the deadliest soldiers in the unit. But when he got into a hand-to-hand fight with a guy rocking mantis blades, and he was forced to stab the guy, he broke down crying. Couldn’t put on his armor or pick up his gun afterwards. Something about the fact that he killed with a blade instead of a gun tore him up inside.

All those stories were valid responses to killing someone. You liked it or you were broken up about it or you were guilty or you needed to talk to someone. But I felt nothing at all. Over the course of the day, I’d been trying to make sense of Choki’s death and my role in it. One moment he was there, and the next I shot a cheap plastic gun at him and he bled out at the top of the stairs.

And I felt nothing.

Sure, the adrenaline freaked me out and Deng had said it was a natural reaction. But other than that, I didn’t really feel anything for Choki.

William had been happy with his first taste of combat, and Tomas thought I should be proud that ‘I was a man’ now. I assumed Deng and Diego thought I was traumatized by the killing and needed to get the whole thing off my chest. But I was none of these things.

I was entirely neutral about the whole affair.

I pulled the trigger, and someone died, and now I need to move on to the next thing. If anything, it was my lack of freaking out that was causing me to freak out a little. It was a momentous thing that had happened. I felt like I should be grappling with the ethical, emotional, and spiritual ramifications of my actions. But I wasn’t. What did it mean that I felt nothing after killing someone?

The only thing I felt was worry. I was worried that Fred and Mor and Deng would think less of me if I was honest with them. I was worried that Diego and William would realize I was a monster who felt nothing at taking a human life and should be locked up for the good of society. I was worried that the people in the alcove would change how they interacted with me. Even in my ‘losing it’ state last night, I was more worried with how the Tyger Claws might see me if they knew I had killed someone rather than concerned with the actual act of killing.

Satisfied that they had said their peace, Diego and William split off from us and went their own way while Deng and I headed towards Lizzie’s. I still had no clue on how to broach the subject that I didn’t feel anything for Choki, and Deng seemed content to walk in silence next to me. But he stopped us as we got closer to Lizzie’s, and he guided us towards one of the concrete benches along the sidewalk.

“Noah, why are you still here?” he asked.

“What do you mean? I thought we were going to Lizzie’s.”

He gave me a stern look before continuing. “There’s a reason most of us are homeless. We can’t live in a polite society. Something about us doesn’t work that way. It stops us from being like the rest of the world. But you aren’t like us kid. I know I just got done telling you that you’ve got people who will always be there if you need, but I’m telling you now…you don’t belong with us kid.”

He must have seen the stricken reaction on my face because he quickly held up his hands to calm me down.

“It’s not that. If you want to be with us, we’ll always look out for you. Always. But I’m telling you that you can be better.” He fished around in his pockets for a cigarette, lit it, and stared at me for a second. “I’m screwing this up. I know it. Look, there’s a lot stopping me from getting an apartment and a job and paying my taxes and doing all the things good upstanding people are supposed to do. There’s a lot holding back Fred. And Mor. And Tomas. And everyone else who is waiting for us down at Lizzie’s. But you’re not like us kid.”

“I like being with you guys. We’re friends.”

“No,” said Deng. “I mean, yes. We’re your friends. But…you’re comfortable with us.”

He sighed and tossed his cigarette away before standing. “I’m really not good with all this. I’m just saying that you should be hanging out inside Lizzie’s. Not in the alcove. You shouldn’t be sleeping out on Patrick Street. And you shouldn’t have to kill a guy to get medicine for a friend.”

He looked down at me as I stayed seated on the bench, confused about where he was going with this. “All I’m saying is you should try for something more.”

And then he left me sitting there while he kept walking in the direction of Lizzie’s.