I jiggled the tablet in my hand, scanning the construction site with a scowl on my face as I waited for the right moment. Just a couple more minutes, and it would be showtime. Diego and Zion had already slipped into the site earlier, blending in as day laborers. All it took was a quick stop at the Kabuki Roundabout for some hi-vis jackets and work pants, and they morphed into just two more faces in the crowd of workers grinding away late into the night.

For me, though, the setup was a bit more involved. If I was going to sell the role of an entitled corpo asshole, I needed to look the part. I needed to be the kind of guy who strolled onto worksites like he owned them, throwing his weight around with all the arrogance that came with it; the kind of boss that everyone hated but no one dared to cross.

I pulled up to the site in Zion’s Cortez V5000 Valor – a sleek, intimidating vehicle he’d bought with his share of our loot over the past month or so. Climbing out, I adjusted my black suit, the kind that reeked of luxury, and threw on a construction hard hat – backwards, of course – to complete the look of someone who clearly had no idea what he was doing but didn’t care.

The construction site drowned out my thoughts with all the noise – machines humming, metal clanging, and workers shouting to be heard over the din. Tower cranes loomed overhead; their skeletal frames outlined against the city’s perpetual haze. Diego and Zion were already in place, blending seamlessly into the chaos around them as if they belonged there.

I kept the scowl plastered to my face and began stalking the site, barking orders at anyone unfortunate enough to cross my path. I demanded to know why the project was behind schedule, questioned the competence of the workers, and generally made myself the biggest nuisance possible. A few workers, experienced enough in this line of work to notice a corpo asshole, steered clear of wherever I went. The others quickly scrambled out of my way, their expressions a mix of fear and irritation – exactly what I was aiming for.

Then I spotted Zion standing nearby, looking bored out of his mind, and I knew it was time to kick things off. I stormed over to him, my face contorted with feigned anger, and launched into my act.

“Hey, asshole!” I shouted, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I don’t pay your gonk ass to stand around with your hand around your dick. What the hell is all this equipment still doing here? This shit was supposed to be up in North Watson for the new project. Are you completely incompetent, or are you being paid to fuck up my shit?”

Zion played his part like a pro. He turned to face me, his expression hardening into a defiant glare. “You got the wrong guy, choom. I don’t make the calls; I just follow the orders.”

“Incompetent it is then,” I snarled, shoving my finger closer to his face. “That tracks. It’s why I don’t pay you to think, because you clearly can’t. Now, get this equipment loaded up and move out – now!”

Zion didn’t flinch. He squared his shoulders and stepped into my space, his voice rising to meet mine. “I don’t take orders from corpos. I’m here to do my job, not kiss your ass.”

Our shouting match quickly drew the attention of the nearby workers. They paused mid-task, their tools forgotten as they watched the drama unfold. A few of them edged closer, unsure whether they should step in or just enjoy the free entertainment. It wasn’t long before a couple workers hesitantly moved to pull us apart, muttering about cooling it before things got out of hand.

“You’re fired!” I screamed at Zion, jabbing a finger towards the site’s exit. “Get the hell off my site. Be glad I don’t tell my father about this shit, or the only job you’ll find is sucking dick in a parking lot for two eddies an hour!”

Zion fixed me with a murderous glare, his eyes burning with fury. He muttered curses under his breath as he spun on his heel and stormed off. The workers who’d pulled us apart watched him go, exchanging uneasy glances.

I could feel the site foreman’s eyes boring into me as he made his way over, no doubt ready to chew me out for the scene I’d just caused. But before he could open his mouth, Diego stepped in, intercepting him with a look of concern plastered on his face. Diego placed a hand on the foreman’s shoulder, whispering urgently, his voice low and serious. Every few seconds, he shot glances in my direction, as if the situation was more dire than it appeared.

Whatever Diego was telling the foreman, it was working. The man’s eyes widened in shock, his earlier anger dissipating into something closer to anxiety and resigned acceptance. He quickly lost the fire he’d had just moments ago.

“You!” I barked at Diego, my voice cutting through the air like a whip. Diego turned to me, feigning a look of unease, and pointed at himself as if unsure I meant him. “Yes, you, gonk. Get over here and load this van. This shit needs to go to the new site.”

Diego cast a quick glance to the foreman, as if asking for him to help out, but the foreman was a true Night City citizen. He made himself scarce, happy that someone else was bearing the wrath of my judgement. Diego gathered a few workers to help him load up one of the construction vans, and I watched with anger steaming off me as they loaded three crates of explosives and a crate of Bombus drones into the vehicle with meticulous care.

Once everything was secure, Diego hopped into the driver’s seat, fired up the engine, and drove the van out of the site, merging into the flow of Night City traffic as if nothing had happened.

I lingered for a few more minutes, prowling the site with barely-contained frustration, berating anyone who crossed my path. I made sure everyone knew just how dissatisfied I was with their shoddy work and slow progress. Finally, satisfied that I’d left a lasting impression of corporate dissatisfaction, I strode back to the car I’d borrowed from Zion, leaving behind a trail of disgruntled and confused workers.

Zion: sucking dick in a parking lot for two eddies?

Noah: it worked, didn’t it?

&&&&

I leaned against the counter of the food stall, the greasy scent of grilled “meat” hitting me like a slap to the face. The sizzling sound from the grill didn’t help me avoid thinking too hard about what passed for food here. Anna stood beside me, her eyes tracking the rhythmic flip of patties by the cook, as if it was the most fascinating thing she’d seen all day. My attention, though, was locked on the tiny screen mounted in the corner of the stall.

“…and under my leadership, the streets have become safer. Your families have become safer. Night City has become safer,” droned the politician on the screen, his voice oozing with smug self-satisfaction. The small crowd behind him cheered on cue as he grinned at the camera.

Anna snorted. I turned to her, raising an eyebrow. She shook her head, taking a long sip from her can of Spunky Monkey – the fizzy, neon-green energy drink that tasted like someone’s idea of fruit crossed with regret. “That’s a load of shit,” she muttered, her voice low.

“You don’t buy it?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Nah. The brass has been massaging the compstat numbers for months, all to look good for election season.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

I frowned, not entirely following. I’d heard the word before but couldn’t remember where. “Compstat?”

She sighed, realizing she’d have to break it down for me. “It’s a system for tracking crime. Crime mapping. They grab all the data from arrests and reports – burglaries, robberies, aggravated assaults, murders – and map out where crime is happening in the city. It shows hot spots where things are heating up, and where it’s cooling down. If it’s cooling down. You see a sudden spike in, say, Watson, and you know something’s brewing – maybe a gang war, maybe a new player trying to carve out some territory.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, still trying to wrap my head around the idea.

Anna paused, clearly trying to figure out the right words. “Alright, imagine this: let’s say that last year, Watson had something like 500 B&Es. Breaking and Entering. This year, that number jumps to 600 because some new gang is on the rise, busting into shops and apartments. That’s a 20% increase. But if you’re on charge, you can’t go on TV and admit crime’s spiking under your watch, right? So, what do you do? You tell the cops to reclassify some of those B&Es as simple trespasses – just a misdemeanor. Now, instead of 600 B&Es, you report 450 B&Es and 150 trespasses. Voila, you’ve turned a 20% increase into a 10% drop in serious crime.”

The pieces clicked into place, “So, they’re just cooking the books,” I said, finally understanding.

“Exactly,” replied Anna. “They’re shuffling reports, downgrading crimes, ignoring others altogether. It’s all smoke and mirrors to make everything think they’ve got shit under control.”

I turned my eyes back to the screen, still processing what Anna had just laid out. It was always a shock to realize how deep the rot in this city ran. Violence in the city was just as bad as my first day here – maybe even worse now that I had my own crew pulling off jobs. The NCPD was as corrupt as ever, and yet everyone kept playing their part in the grand illusion that things were somehow getting better.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a figure approaching the food stall. It took a moment before I recognized it as Sandra Dorsett, looking jittery and out of place as she made her way towards us. She was decked out in dark sunglasses despite the overcast sky, a bulky jacket that looked like it had been pulled from a dumpster, and a baseball cap pulled low over her face. Her head was constantly on a swivel, scanning the area like she was expecting trouble at any second. She was clearly trying to pull off some secret-agent routine, but her exaggerated caution only made her stand out more, drawing curious glances from passersby.

Sandra sidled up to the food stand, her hand slipping into her jacket pocket. After a quick, nervous glance around, she pulled out a shard and passed it to me, her fingers trembling slightly as they brushed against mine. “Here,” she whispered, like she was sharing a classified government secret. “That’s what we’ve got so far.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I gestured to the empty seat beside me. “Have a seat, Sandra. Take a load off.”

She flinched slightly at the sound of her name, shooting me a wary glance before nervously scanning the area again. The tension and anxiety were practically radiating off her.

“Sandra, relax,” I said, my tone gentle. “You’re walking up here like you’re selling state secrets to the Chinese or something. That draws a whole lot more attention than if you just stopped by to chat with some friends.”

She hesitated for a moment before finally nodding and taking the seat next to mine, though her unease didn’t fade. “I’m…better behind a screen,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “I haven’t done any of this before.”

I nodded, slipping the shard into my neuroport. “You’re doing fine, Sandra. We all have our roles to play.”

The food stall cook slid our plates across the counter, the scent of it wafting through the air as Anna immediately went to work devouring her burger. I, meanwhile, turned my attention to the shard Sandra had handed over. Slotting it into my neuroport, I let the data scream into my vision, lines of text and numbers flashing rapidly as I sifted through the information.

The shard was packed with detailed profiles of every prisoner in Night City – cell numbers, work assignments, behavioral reports, the works. I scrolled through the endless stream of data, noting names, affiliations, and movements of various inmates. Some inmates were flagged as high-risk, others as informants. A few unlucky souls had been marked as targets by the gangs inside, their days clearly numbered. The sheer level of detail was almost overwhelming, but it was exactly what I needed.

“Good work, Sandra,” I said, glancing over at her. She was still fidgety, her fingers tapping lightly on the counter as she tried to keep her nerves in check. Her eyes darted around the crowded market, scanning for potential threats even as she sat next to me.

She leaned in closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Yoko got in touch with me. She passed along the simulation software for the SCADA system in the prison.” Her words were so quiet I had to strain to hear her, like she was afraid even mentioning the SCADA system might get her in trouble.

“Have your people start digging into the software,” I instructed. “The better you all understand it, the smoother our next job will go.”

I reached into my jacket and pulled out another shard, sliding it across the table to her. “I also need you to take a look at this. It’s the algorithm for self-driving cars. How long would it take to modify it for drone use.”

Sandra picked up the shard, her brow furrowed as she studied it. “That’s…gonna take some work. Cars are basically moving in a 2D environment – forward, backward, side-to-side. But drones? They’ve got to navigate in three dimensions – up, down, diagonally. We’ll have to rewrite a lot of the core code. It won’t be quick. And my people…they’re going to want payment.”

I smirked, then handed the prison shard over to Anna who was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her burger already demolished. “Dig into this. I need a list of the top twenty bounties in the prison system.”

Anna nodded, her focus shifting as she inserted the shard into her own neuroport. Her eyes glazed over as she began sifting through the data. “We’ve come to an agreement with several guards,” she said, her voice distant. “One of them is the head of the afternoon shift. He’s got a bunch of guards under him who are all ready to move our burner Agents, cigarettes, booze, and anything else we got lined up.”

I raised my hand, cutting her off. “Don’t sell the burner Agents yet. I’ve got a plan for them.”

Turning back to Sandra, I could see the wheels turning in her head as she continued examining the self-driving algorithm shard. “Once we start moving the contraband, it’ll be raining eddies,” I assured her. “Your crew will get their cut, don’t worry about that.”

She nodded, her focus still on the task at hand. “I’ll start on this. Just don’t expect miracles overnight.”

“I’m not expecting miracles,” I said, leaning against the counter. “Just results.”

&&&

I gave Yoko a nod as I passed the counter, heading straight to the back room of her netrunner café. The space back there was reserved for the serious netrunners – people who needed more than just a fast connection and privacy. Nobody asked questions of the people back there. I had rented time in one of the netrunner chairs, knowing it would give me some freedom to work without anyone looking over my shoulder. When I was done, Yoko would erase all my access logs, and nobody would know what I had been doing.

I slid into one of the netrunner chairs, the cushioned seat molding to my body as I plugged my personal link into a port on the side. My cyberdeck was already set up, prepped with the C-to-assembly compiler I’d managed to scavenge from a forgotten corner in the public library. I reached into my jacket and pulled out the shard that El Capitan had handed over earlier in the day, and slotted it into a free port on the side of the chair.

The shard was special, and one of the most expensive things I’d bought in Night City. It was worth more than any of my cyberware – save for my prototype face implant. It took some doing, but El Capitan had finally managed to find me a copy of the simulation software for the Langley Nexus Control system. When he had handed the shard over to me, I could see he was itching to ask what I needed it for. Thankfully, he was way too much of a pro to ask. In Night City, knowing when not to ask questions was a survival skill.

I slotted the shard into an open port, the interface lighting up as the system read the new input. As I prepared to dive into the code, I couldn’t help but think about all the new tech that I had studied in Night City. Nearly everything in the city ran on META – a monstrous hybrid of an operating system, programming language, and API all rolled into one. META was efficient, adaptable, and had become the universal language of the new age. It was a relief, really. No need to juggle dozens of programming languages like in the old days. But that convenience came with a catch.

The problem with creating an all-encompassing language like META was that certain pieces of old infrastructure simply couldn’t be replaced. While nearly every system in Night City ran off META – from computers to cars to security systems to cameras – a few relics stubbornly held on, refusing to be overwritten by the march of progress. Among these was the SCADA system at the Night City power plant, an ancient network that controlled everything from power distribution to security protocols. The core of the SCADA system still ran on a bizarre amalgamation of C and assembly – a holdover from a time when these languages were cutting-edge.

It reminded me of a quirk from my previous life, where the U.S. military still used floppy disks to control its nuclear arsenal. The reason was simple: updating the entire system was too complex, too costly, and too risky. So, they kept the old tech running, layered with patches and workarounds to make it compatible with modern systems. The SCADA system of the powerplant was much the same. Engineers had patched META over it, making it accessible to contemporary users, but underneath, it was still driven by lines of code that most netrunners today wouldn’t even recognize.

I loaded up the simulation software, and the SCADA system’s interface flickered to life on my screen. It was a clunky, archaic display, contrasting sharply with the modern interfaces I’d grown used to over the past few months.

I cracked my knuckles, settling into the rhythm of work. Writing in C was like navigating a minefield. META was a memory-safe language which…requires a complicated and tech-filled essay to explain. But I’ll give a quick rundown.

Basically, a memory safe language like META is sort of like programming with guardrails. It’ll look at your code and be like hmm, you wrote something that’s going to accidentally brick your computer while simultaneously selling all your information on the dark web. Are you SURE you want to run this code?

Programming in C was more unforgiving. It assumed you knew exactly what you were doing. It would look at your code and say something like sweet code…let’s see what it does.

The Langley Nexus Control software was a labyrinth of interconnected subroutines, each managing a different aspect of the power plant’s operations. My job was to make sense of it all, to rewrite and adapt the code so that it would do exactly what I wanted without breaking the entire system. I wrote, tested, and rewrote again, each new line of code carefully integrated into the simulation to ensure it wouldn’t cause a cascade failure as soon as I installed it. Every so often I’d glance over at the diagnostic readouts, making sure all my new code smoothly integrated into the old parts of the system.

Time slipped away as I lost myself in the work. The outside world faded, taking with it all my problems, all my anxieties, all the risks that I was taking until all that existed was the code in front of me. And with every new line of code I wrote, I took one step closer to pulling off the heist I’d been planning for weeks.