I stared at the merc, beaten and duct-taped to a chair, his body a mess of bruises and blood. Despite everything we’d done to him, despite being knocked out and wrapped in bandages, the asshole still felt dangerous to me. We’d hauled him into a forgotten corner of the GIM, far from the homeless and mercs who loitered around the place. I was sure they’d heard the gunshots echoing through the halls, but nobody had come to check what it meant. Not yet, anyway.
I crouched down and pulled a shard from my jacket – something I’d lifted off a Scav months ago. It was a signal jammer, a crude but reliable piece of tech. I slotted it into the merc’s neural port, the tiny light flickering green as it activated, severing any potential SOS signals his internal Agent might send. Cyndi had patched him up just enough to keep him from bleeding out, but with all the chrome the merc was rocking, blood loss wasn’t exactly my biggest concern. The guy was decked out in tons of expensive cyberware and reinforced with a web of synth-muscle and titanium bones and a whole host of other things I couldn’t identify.
I took a closer look to try to gauge the arsenal embedded in his body. High-grade subdermal armor, a Sandevistan for boosted reflexes, and probably a pain editor since he hadn’t even flinched when Cyndi’s mantis blades sank into him earlier. His optics were definitely Kiroshis – top-tier. This guy didn’t skimp. My eyes shifted to his arms; and I figured he was packing a kinetic frame; a nearly indestructible piece of cyberware that made him stronger and tougher. And he’d thrown everything he had at me. If Cyndi and Diego hadn’t shown up when they did, I’d be lying in a pool of my own blood on the filthy floor of the GIM.
I glanced over at Diego who was still staring at the merc like he might spring awake any second. “How’d you two even know to come for me?”
Diego let out a dry chuckle. “Pure luck, kid. Cyndi and I were trying to track you down to go over your plan for the…Scavs. Then we heard the gunfire.” His eyes shifted to the restrained merc. “And there you were, ducking and weaving behind pillars while this guy was on your ass like a goddamn specter.”
Diego was a force of nature – one of the most lethal individuals I knew. I’d seen him break people twice his size and walk out of firefights with barely a scratch on him. But this merc had pushed him hard and forced him to fight tooth and nail. They’d traded bone-crunching blows, each strike heavy enough to break a lesser man. Even Diego, with all his experience and skill and raw power, had struggled to keep up.
“If you two hadn’t shown up…” I trailed off, glancing between Diego and Cyndi.
Cyndi leaned against a cracked pillar, and she just shrugged at me, even as blood trickled from her split lip and a jagged scrape marred the side of her jaw. “Hell of a fight,” she muttered, eyes flicking to the merc with a hard, assessing glare. “We wouldn’t have him taped up if it weren’t for all three of us throwing down.”
A chill ran down my spine as I stared down at him. He was a near-invincible brute who’d come within a hair’s breathe of killing us all. He was a different breed. There was a clear gap between him and everyone else I’d ever gone up against before. For a second, I wondered just how close he’d come to putting Diego down if we hadn’t closed ranks when we did.
“Who the hell has this kind of monster on their payroll?” Cyndi’s voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and demanding.
“That’s what we gotta find out.”
&&&&
I was pacing in front of the merc when Sandra pushed through the doorway, one brow lifted in mild annoyance. She looked like I’d interrupted her in the middle of something important – which I had.
“What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait until I finished cracking the…Scav…things?” she asked, voice clipped as she tried to remember not to talk about anything to do with the VDB while in Pacifica.
“Yea, sorry about that,” I said. “We still on track?”
Sandra exhaled, her expression softening just a touch. “Yea. A couple of runners from my crew are taking over for now.” She tilted her head toward the merc strapped to the chair, eyes narrowing. So, why am I here? You wouldn’t pull me away unless it was serious.”
I nodded toward the bound merc who still hadn’t stirred since our scuffle. “I need you to get into his head. Make sure you turn off his implants, anything that could harm us. His ICE is no joke, but if anyone can crack it, it’s you.”
Sandra sighed, stepping forward and squatting beside him. She examined the merc’s neural port with practiced eyes before connecting her personal link. Her eyes glowed an electric blue as she skimmed his defenses, and then she whistled. “This isn’t just high-grade ICE,” she muttered, reaching for a handful of connectors tethered to her wrist-mounted cyberdeck. One by one, she hooked into his neuralware, her fingers dancing across the keyboard embedded in her deck as if she was playing a symphony.
Before I could process what was happening, the merc’s eyes snapped open, cold and sharp as razors. He strained against his bindings, muscles coiled and teeth bared, but Diego and Cyndi had done their job well – there was no breaking free. They both rushed forward and held him in place, adding their strength to all the tape we’d used to hold him there. I stepped in front of him, meeting his glare head-on, watching for the slightest hint of…anything from him.
“Who sent you?” I asked. “Who paid you to kill me?”
His eyes never wavered from mine. His mouth was a mask of defiance. After a long pause, he spoke. “No one,” he finally said, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. “Just thought I’d see if I could.”
“Yea, sure. You just stumbled across a rando in a sea of mercs and thought, ‘Hey, I’ll kill him for the shits and giggles?’” I activated the scanner in my face implant, trying to get a scan of his face.
Sandra shot me a sharp glance, fingers flying over her cyberdeck as she picked through the merc’s defenses. “Whoever built his ICE didn’t cut corners,” she muttered. “This is like trying to unravel a spider’s web.”
“Yea, I figured,” I said with a frustrated sigh. “I tried throwing a quickhack at him, and his ICE shredded it like it was nothing. I couldn’t find any purchase there.”
The merc stopped struggling suddenly and a grin flashed across Sandra’s face. “Got ‘em.” She turned to me with a look of triumph. “All his implants are off. At least, the ones that would have let him get out of those restraints. I didn’t turn off the ones that are keeping him alive. What the hell did you all do to him?”
I ignored the question and instead focused on my implant scan that was spitting out data – basic facial recognition, a fragmented profile, nothing substantial. He hadn’t said enough for me to be able to build a good approximation of his identity.
Diego stepped forward, his imposing frame casting a shadow over the merc who, despite his offensive implants going slack, still glared defiantly at everything around him. “Militech taught me a few things," said Diego, his voice dropping to a chilling monotone. “If you need him to talk, I can make that happen. But…” he glanced over at me. “We’re on a tight schedule. We got business to handle soon, and I don’t think I have the time to work on him properly.”
I clenched my jaw, considering Diego’s words. If he said he could break the guy, he could. The merc shifted, his eyes darting between us, but kept silent, a flicker of defiance tugging at his mouth.
Cyndi stepped away from the wall, coming to stand beside us. “Or we could just kill him,” she said, as casual as if she were suggesting what to have for lunch. “Then we double your security. We make sure we always got eyes on you. It’s only a matter of time before someone else tries to take a shot.” Her gaze softened slightly when it met mine. “You’re not just some solo operator anymore. You’re the leader of The Pack. That makes you a target, and you need to start acting like it.”
Her words hit me harder than I wanted to admit. I shot her a look, but she just shrugged, as if to say you know I’m right. The truth was, I did know. I’d known that I was a target for a while now, even if I wasn’t ready to face it. My thoughts drifted back to my first days in Night City, when Fred had found me – a wide-eyed kid who was too green to last a week alone. He’d taught me where to lay low in Watson, how to move about in gang territory without getting shanked, who to trust and who to avoid. Life was brutal, and I was so much poorer than, but it was simple. I didn’t owe anyone anything. I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. There was freedom there. And now, with all the eyes on me and all the people counting on me, that freedom was a distant memory.
I remembered those nights at the alcove with Fred and Mor and everyone else – joking around, feeling the easy warmth of camaraderie as rough laughter echoed through the place. No one was worrying about what tomorrow might bring. I hadn’t been on anyone’s shit list. Hell, I wasn’t even worth the bullet it would take to put me down. No one was coming up with ways to end me for a payday or a reputation boost.
That all changed after The Pack went toe-to-toe with 6th Street. Now, even stepping outside was a calculated risk. Riding my Kusanagi out into the city felt like a distant dream, with eyes lurking around every corner, eager to take a shot at me or cash in on a bounty on my head. It gnawed at me, that constant sense of being tethered, like a wild dog straining against a leash. And what would happen once we took over Pacifica? Would it get worse? It was already starting to feel like the walls were closing in, each day drawing them tighter around me.
“Got it!” Sandra’s voice snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts and back to the grimy reality of the GIM. I looked over and saw the interface from her cyberdeck casting a glow across her face, catching the spark of triumph in her eyes.
“Finally got through ALL his ICE,” she announced, the hint of a smirk playing on her lips.
Lines of data scrolled rapidly across her wrist-mounted screen – call logs, message snippets, even login details for a game called Elfines Online. My brow arched slightly at that. This high-trained killer spent his downtime playing MMOs? The merc twitched, his breath steady but shallow, while Sandra sifted through the chaos of information she was collecting, organizing the torrent and sending key fragments my way.
“Here. Should be hitting your system now,” she said.
I pulled up the files sent my way and started reading through the call logs. They repeated with one number, again and again. Not just a disposable contact then. Copying the number, I shot a message to Rogue, asking her if she knew who it belonged to. I figured if anyone could get me answers, it was the queen of the Afterlife.
A reply came quicker than expected.
Rogue: what business do you have with Hands? You’re searching for even more mercs?
“Shit,” I muttered, my pulse pounding in my ears.
&&&
I called in a few of Rogue’s mercs to watch the hitman we’d taped to a chair, and then left Sandra with him to continue going through all his files and everything we’d pulled from his internal Agent. Diego, Cyndi and I had wandered off to a room a few corridors away, trying to figure out what our plan to address the hitman was.
Cyndi paced back and forth, the sharp sound of her boots echoing faintly in the abandoned GIM. Zion had joined us as well, slumped in a corner with an uncharacteristic tenseness about him. Anna was out in Dogtown, unreachable and off-grind until we started our attack on the VDB; otherwise, she would’ve been here in the meeting as well. Reed was somewhere out in Night City. He’d show up for the big hit on the VDB, but after that? Who knew. I knew my promise to help him with Songbird would only keep him tethered to The Pack for so long.
“So, this…Hands guy. Who is he? Some gang leader? VDB lieutenant? What?” Zion’s questions hung in the air and Cyndi stopped mid-pace, looking over at me for an answer.
I exhaled slowly, trying to shed some of the unease that had coiled in my chest. “No, not a gang leader. And not VDB either. He’s a fixer. Hell, he’s the fixer for Pacifica and Dogtown. He’s got a hand in just about every deal and scheme that goes on in this area of the city.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Zion’s brows knit together. “A fixer put a hit out on you?” I thought they played neutral, kept everything business-first.”
“Yea. I don’t…I don’t really get it either,” I sighed, rubbing at my temples. My mind flitted back to the game, to how Hands had become my favorite fixer. Most of his contracts in Dogtown had some kind of complicated moral dilemmas attached to them. He never complained when V chose the tougher, more righteous route, even if it complicated his dealings. He stayed professional, polite, even affable. Never talked down to V, never betrayed V, never threatened V. He was like…a criminal Santa Claus.
And now? Now, I had to deal with him for trying to put a bullet in my head. And that left a sour taste in my mouth.
Cyndi had resumed pacing as I explained about Hands, but she suddenly stopped and pulled up short to look at me. “So, we go in and pop the guy. You don’t get to put a hit out on someone and expect to be left alone.”
“It’s not that simple,” I explained. “His hideout is in the Lonely Hearts club. It’s out in Dogtown. Getting in is gonna be difficult enough without drawing the attention of Barghest or the VDB. Plus, I don’t have the elevator code leading to his office. We can’t just bust down the door and drag him out to the streets or people…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence: people might start looking closer at what we’re doing in Pacifica.
“So, what’s the plan?” asked Diego.
I hesitated. I didn’t have a whole lot of options. One wrong move and everything could go wrong. “We’ve got a small opening. The merc communicated with Hands mostly through text, so I might be able to impersonate him. I managed to get a decent face imprint, but no voice. The guy’s too tight-lipped for that. So, we’re banking on Hands not catching on that the voice doesn’t match his guy.”
Diego’s eyes narrowed at that. “And if he does?”
“Then it’s on to plan B. Our netrunners can get me into the club and I can deal with Hands. But…it’s not ideal. It’ll tip our hands to the VDB about our capabilities and would draw too much attention for us in Pacifica and Dogtown. We can’t really afford that. For now…make sure the merc stays alive. Sandra’s running through all his files he’s got stored on his internal Agent. And I’m gonna be using him to try and convince Hands that his loyal dog is still wagging its tail.”
I could tell my team didn’t really like the plan. For one, it put me in further danger. But they all agreed to it because they also knew I was our only shot at sneaking into Hands’ club without setting off alarms with Barghest and the VDB.
&&&&&
The cracked rearview mirror of the Thorton Colby reflected back a cold, hard gaze. My eyes were sharp and my jaw looked like it had been chiseled from stone. Scars cut across my temple like jagged memories. I forced myself to meet the eyes of the merc who’d tried to kill me, staring back at me through the rearview mirror.
The merc’s Thorton Colby was an absolute piece of shit that screamed PTA meetings and grocery runs more than high-speed chases and gunfights. I was surprised the guy’s car wasn’t more…merc-like. I half expected someone with his skills to be driving a tricked-out Quadra with mounted machine guns and a custom paint job. But instead, the guy had opted for something that looked like it should be dropping off kids at soccer practice.
The absurdity of it made some small bit of sense to me. No one was gonna look twice at a station wagon trundling down the street. No one would expect the man behind the Karen-mobile to be anything but harmless. Who the hell would guard themselves against the guy who was driving something that said he was the type who’d get an earful for forgetting to bake lemon squares for a school fundraiser?
I rolled out of the GIM parking lot and eased onto the cracked, winding roads that led out of Pacifica, heading toward the tangled streets of the rest of Night City. The Colby rumbled along, unassuming and modest, as I navigated my way through the streets. With a flick of a thought I activated my internal Agent and connected with Sandra. The merc, bound and under watch back at the GIM, was still muzzled tight. Sandra had patched my communications through his internal Agent, a neat trick that kept my cover intact. I drafted a message and had Sandra send it to Hands.
XX: contract complete. Got something extra. Need a fence.
The minutes crept by as I waited for a reply. The tension was gnawing at me so I flipped on Morro Rock, letting the familiar riffs of old Samurai tracks fill the Colby’s worn interior as I drifted, aimlessly, through the city. Sandra’s message finally buzzed in, carrying the careful tone I half expected from Hands.
Hands: and what, pray tell, are we fencing?
I glanced at the reply, already running through the lie I’d prepped with Cyndi and Zion. It had to be convincing and intriguing enough to pull Hands in but not so overblown that it spooked him.
XX: cyberdeck OS. Target was messing with it, so I klepped it on my way out.
My heart thudded against my ribs as I waited for a response. I was nervous about trying to trick Hands. The dude was a former corpo – a high ranking one if memory served me right – which meant he was used to dealing with people constantly trying to lie and scam him. If this didn’t work…it could screw up my entire Pacifica plan.
A few more seconds ticked by before his response came in.
Hands: that tracks. From what I gathered, the former Pack leader dabbled in netrunning.
I exhaled, relieved but not entirely out of the woods yet. I still needed to bait the hook a little deeper.
XX: doesn’t look like the standard OS. It’s got Militech’s logo stamped on the casing, but it’s not one of their paralines.
I tapped the worn steering wheel as I waited for Hands’ next message. I was idling at a stoplight and didn’t even notice when the red flicked over to green.
Hands: anything more to go on? If I don’t know what it is, I can’t sell it.
XX: it’s tagged as a Canto Mk. 6. Nothing else on it. What is it?
That should do it. The Canto Mk. 6 was the stuff of legends in the netrunning community – a cyberdeck whispered about in hushed tones in the Afterlife booths and in netrunner hideouts and on BBS newsfeeds. It was tech that was so advanced and so elusive that most people dismissed it as a myth. It was also my favorite cyberdeck in the entire game; debuting in the Phantom Liberty DLC. The real deck was buried beneath Pacifica in an old Militech facility. Grabbing it was something that was always on my mind. The idea of owning a piece of tech that could instantly propel me into the upper echelons of netrunners was…intoxicating.
But I couldn’t go after it at the moment. Going after it would draw the full attention of the Voodoo Boys. And that was a risk I couldn’t afford, not when I was so close to positioning The Pack as Pacifica’s new ruling force.
Plus…there was the whole issue with the fact that the cyberdeck housed a rogue AI. The Canto Mk. 6 wasn’t just some cyberdeck that was a little faster than everything else on the market. It was a cyberdeck that was fused with a captured AI, a digital entity that plugged directly into the user’s mind, amplifying power but threatening sanity. It was the kind of tech that whispered promises of untold power while dangling your mind over the abyss. I’d seen what the Blackwall did to Songbird, one of the most talented netrunners in the game. If she struggled with that kind of force, what chance would I have if I willingly slotted an AI into my brain?
Still…it was an interesting concept.
Hands: I might have an interested buyer.
I read the message twice and typed out a message before my thoughts had fully caught up.
XX: not sure I’m ready to sell it now.
The pause was brief before Hands replied.
Hands: I thought you were looking for a fence? Are you trying to tell me that you’re suddenly interested in becoming a netrunner? Because if you’re interested in expanding your capabilities, I can find you a beginner’s deck.
I smirked and pulled over to the side of the road.
XX: just seems like you’re holding something back. And I’m not keen on handing this over to your person in the Roundabout. You’ve been a solid fixer, but I’m not convinced I’d get what this thing is really worth.
Was I pushing too far? Was I trying too hard to bait him into giving me an invitation to the Lonely Hearts? If I played this wrong, I could get this face put on his blacklist, or worse, tip him off that something was up.
The reply finally came, and with it a thin smile tugged at my lips.
Hands: then we should meet up. I’ll have my netrunner meet us at the club to verify the Cyberdeck. Lonely Hearts. Elevator code is 2941
I kept my eyes glued to the message as I typed out my last question.
XX: just your netrunner? Or should I expect company?
The wait was shorter this time.
Hands: I like to keep things smooth and above board. The netrunner’s there just to confirm it’s real. If you actually have your hands on a Canto Mk. 6, this will be an easy payday for you.
&&&&&
Passing through Dogtown’s front gate was an experience that was both foreign and familiar. I’d driven through those gates more times than I could count, pausing for the routine scans before plunging into Night City’s most chaotic, exhilarating district. Yet all those times had been in the game. This time, the tension in my chest was real as I was heading directly into one of the few districts I didn’t want to visit.
The Lonely Hearts club loomed ahead, just as I remembered it: drenched in neon, with a line of sleek, high-end cars parked out front. The bass from inside thudded through the pavement and the walls hummed and the crowd inside moved as one living, breathing organism. I entered into the club and pushed through the throng of people on the dance floor, dodging flailing arms and intoxicated stares as I made my way to a lone elevator tucked in a dim corner. My fingers tapped out the VIP code, and with a soft chime, the doors slid open. I stepped inside and pressed the button for the VIP floors.
The VIP hallway greeted me with a polished scent of wood and an undertone of something floral, an attempt at sophistication that couldn’t mask Dogtown’s ever-present smell of desperation and danger. In the middle of the hall was a familiar door leading into Hands’ office. I paused as I reached it, straining to catch the sounds beyond it. A soft voice, warm and familiar, drifted out – Hands speaking to someone. His daughter. My chest tightened at the realization. The man who’d put a target on my back was also a father, and a decent one if my past interactions with him were any proof.
A voice inside me whispered hesitation, but I shut it down. Hands had tried to kill me. He was standing in the way of The Pack taking control over Pacifica.
I rapped on the door and silence followed. Then, a warm ‘goodbye sweetheart’ followed by footsteps. The door opened to Hands’ lined face, splitting into a smile that almost made him seem like an old friend. “You made good time,” he said, his voice casual and inviting. He stepped aside, gesturing for me to come in. His office was lit by a soft amber light that cast shadows across its rich, Egyptian-like inspired décor. “Tea?” he offered, moving to a small tea set on a side table.
I scanned the room, taking in the carved motifs and muted gold accents. Hands turned away, focusing his attention on the delicate task of brewing a cup of tea. That’s when I made my move. My monowire unspooled from my arm and I stepped forward, my footsteps silent on the plush rug. Before he could reach for the kettle for his tea set, I was behind him, my monowire looped around his neck. I drew it taut but didn’t activate it.
Hands froze, his breath catching as my monowire bit gently into his neck. I leaned in close and kept my voice to barely above a whisper. “Don’t move.”
His eyes darted downward, fingers twitching toward the inside of his jacket. I tightened the monowire a little. “Easy,” I murmured, slipping the pistol he was reaching for from its hidden holster. An Omaha, Militech-made – the same model that Deng swore by. It was a good gun, dependable, compact, and deadly.
I stepped back, letting my monowire retract smoothly into my arm, and held up his pistol while nodding toward the couch. “Take a seat,” I said, keeping the Omaha trained on him. Hands complied, moving with a measured caution, his eyes flicking between me and the gun I held as he settled down, a tea cup still cradled in one hand.
His composure cracked when my face began to shift, the disguise peeling away as I deactivated my implant. Recognition washed over Hands’ face, dragging disbelief in its wake. The practiced, polished mask he wore for negotiations shattered, leaving only a stunned, older man who seemed momentarily stripped of all his strategies as he came face to face with the guy he ordered killed.
While he tried to process his shock, I used the moment to tap out a quick message to Yoko over at the DewDrop Inn in the Kabuki Roundabout.
Noah: don’t bother coming to Dogtown. Hands won’t be meeting with you.
I sank into a chair opposite him, the pistol steady in my hands. “Why?” I asked. “Why put out a contract on me?”
Hands sighed, a sound that carried old regrets and uncertain futures. “The Pack is pushing into Pacifica. And don’t tell me it’s just to clear out Scavs. If that was the case, you’d be hiring mercs all over the city and sending them to Watson, Heywood, Santo Domingo. But you’re not. You’re focusing here, and the only mercs working for you are ones Rogue’s approved. That tells me one thing: you’re consolidating power. And you’re making a play for Pacifica. That means chaos. And I try to avoid chaos when it comes to my business dealings.”
He wasn’t wrong there. And his answered started to worry me. If Hands could piece together that I wasn’t just interested in the Scavs, what were the VDB seeing?
“Have you told anyone else your concerns?” I asked.
A smirk flickered across his face, a glimpse of the calculating fixer I knew him to be. “You mean the Voodoo Boys?” He scoffed lightly. “They only see what fits their vision. But I read between the lines. I know you’re making a play for Pacifica. And probably Dogtown as well.” He glanced a way, seemingly trying to collect himself as he scrolled through a mental checklist of all the angles, bargaining chips, and anything else that might buy him time.
“I have to admit, you’re a mystery, Mr. Batty. A year ago, you didn’t even exist. Now you’re here, building a gang out of thin air and making a bid for a piece of Night City.”
Hands took a deliberate sip of his tea before setting it back on the table between us, the porcelain of the cup making a soft clink. “You’ve got ties to Rogue, I know. But if it’s Pacifica you’re after, having more allies among the fixers couldn’t hurt. I’m sure we can find a way to coexist.”
I shifted back slightly in my chair. “Coexistence is a tricky thing,” I said quietly. “Especially when I know you don’t mean it. You’ve got a mole inside Barghest, Hands. You’re planning to chip away at Kurt Hansen’s grip on Dogtown, and if we teamed up, it’d only be a matter of time before you tried to pull the same on The Pack.”
For a moment there was silence, broken only by the distant pulse of bass from the dance floor below. His eyes narrowed, a glint of a challenge in them. “Who’s feeding you intel?” I obviously couldn’t tell him the truth – that I’d played out his missions so often until every twist of his story had been memorized.
“You’ve got a daughter,” I said. My quick shift of the conversation caught him off guard. His eyes darkened and his posture stiffened. The unspoken threat in his eyes was enough to chill me a little.
“Easy,” I said, lifting my hands in a show of peace. “I’m not here to threaten her. That’s not why I brought her up.”
The tension in his posture didn’t ease, but a flicker of curiosity crossed his face. “Then why mention her?” The words came out cold and protective.
“Because I’m willing to let you have one more conversation with her,” I replied, the meaning hanging in the air.
His eyes searched mine, looking for any sign of deceit or any hint that I’d twist this moment into some kind of leverage. When he found none, his expression shifted. The sharp edge dulled, replaced by something resigned.
“Give me a moment,” he said, the steel in his voice tempered by something softer.
I nodded and lowered the Omaha. Hands’ eyes shifted to a blue glow, signaling the start of a call. I glanced away, letting my gaze wander to the ornate paintings on the wall.
“Hey, sweetie. Yea, the meeting’s all wrapped up. Tell me about your day,” he said, his voice losing its edge, warmth bleeding through as he spoke to his daughter.
&&&&
I leaned back on the old, beat-up couch, the whiskey in my hand shining in the glow from the lamp beside me. I took a sip and let the burn settled into my chest like an ember – familiar and numbing. The HQ was quieter than usual. Most of the crew was either grinding out last-minute prep for our attack on the VDB or were grabbing whatever sleep they could get.
My attention was drawn by the sound of approaching footsteps. I turned and saw Diego striding toward me, his heavy boots scuffing against the floor as he dropped into the chair opposite me. A silent figure appeared, set a glass down in front of him, and slipped away without a word. Diego nodded the retreating figure a thanks, took a sip, and let the whiskey settle.
“Hands is dealt with,” I said, not bothering to hide the exhaustion in my voice. I swirled the amber liquid in my glass, watching the tiny whirlpool spin, then added, “I’ve got Sandra and John combing through his office now. Files, contacts, everything.”
Diego’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. I met his stare and tried to appear unaffected by everything. “You’re off,” he said, tipping his glass toward me. It wasn’t a question.
A sigh escaped from me before I could stop it. “I liked him. Hands. It shouldn’t matter. He went against The Pack. But…I liked him.” The image of Hands’ resigned look after his final call with his daughter was still fresh in my mind and refused to fade away. “Remember my first kill? Deng got you and Zion together, with that other vet, to talk to me about it.”
Diego nodded as he listened.
“That wasn’t the first time I tried to kill the guy,” I admitted. “The first time, I snuck up behind him. Had a shiv right up to his neck. And I froze. Couldn’t do it.” I paused and took another sip of the whiskey, recognizing that it had a more bitter taste to it now. “Now, it’s different. I’ve grown used to the violence. To the killing. It’s too easy, and that’s worrying me.”
Diego sat back and rolled his glass between his hands as he considered my words. “I get it,” he said, his voice coming out more thoughtful than I’d expected. “When I was with Militech, they kept trying to promote me. Kept offering to move me up the ladder. They thought I was the perfect soldier – always taking the tough jobs, always getting my people out. They assumed I turned down the ranks because it would take me off the front lines and that I craved the action. Hell, it convinced them to give me even worse jobs because, no matter the gig, I always got my people through it.”
He took a longer gulp from his drink, the silence stretching around us. “But that wasn’t it,” he said, eyes fixed on the amber liquid as if it held memories that he could see. “I turned down the promotions because I didn’t want the weight that came with being an officer. It was hard enough just trying to keep my squad alive. If I was promoted, I knew I’d be ordering people to their deaths. And I couldn’t live with that.”
Diego set his glass down on the table between us and leaned forward. “You’re the leader of The Pack. That fixer, no matter what you might have personally thought about him, stood against us. If he’d had his way, he’d have put me, Cyndi, Zion, Deng, Anna…all of us at risk. It’s a shit job, being the leader. I’m not gonna deny that. But we’re your family. We keep you safe. And you’re ours. And you keep us safe.”
He paused and let the words sink in. “This city runs on blood. Demands it. It’s easy to give it, easier to stop feeling it. But don’t let it numb you. The day your choices stop weighing on you is the day you become just another chrome shell with a heartbeat. Remember why you’re fighting. Remember why you’re making these choices. Because the day you forget? That’s gonna be the worst day you’ve ever had.”