PRIVATE II: In For A Pound

[Vex Kiranova]

Night City, Heywood
En Route To - Ashlar Clinic, Backalley
1/4/2081, 11:15 AM
@Wilma F. Darcy, @Anders Whitard
Music

​

The heavens themselves wanted them dead.

The skies had opened up following the duo's hasty escape from Laguna Bend. A great torrent was sweeping across the city now, bits of neon and mustard yellow light piercing thinly through the gray downpour. Thunder rolled in time with Vex's failing heartbeat, the skies coming alight with brief explosions of lightning as the modified Galena @Wilma F. Darcy had commandeered burned asphalt. It was the kind of storm that people talked about for weeks: the sort that would overturn neighborhoods and send entire sections of the city off the electrical grid. There were accordingly fewer cars on the road, which made their mad dash slightly more feasible. Their own car was reported in to NCPD several times, but no cop had enough of a suicidal tendency to give chase in a storm like this.

Lucidity came and went of its own accord as Vex lay broken across the back seats. His head hung limply to the side, cybernetic arm pressed to his chest, the 'ganic one hanging down to the floor as it wept rivulets of blood that traveled down his forearm and dripped from his fingertips. His perceptions, what remained of them, were a haze of color and shapes, clips of spoken words and the garbled hum of the car's engine, the smell of his own blood and servo-fluid leaking from the many breaks in his body.

The warnings from his biomon had burned themselves into his retinas by now. He'd blink them away and they'd come stretching across his vision a second later: critical condition, impending cardiac arrest, severe blood loss and half a dozen traumas he lacked the education to understand. He was aware enough to understand that they'd managed to escape the hell of that train, that the girl had taken him away somewhere with Nyx's blessing, and that he was about to die. The experience was mercifully painless, owing to a combination of opiates Nyx had poured into his system and the general numbing of his nerves. He only felt cold: a slow insidious freezing that was creeping over his body like a blanket of mold. It beckoned him, begged him to simply lay back, close his eyes, and let it smother him until all was dark once again.

He refused it.

"Best solo in Night City... top of the game." His swollen lips moved of their own accord, his voice a tiny, ragged wheeze that wriggled its way through blood and phlegm. "Too early." His sightless eyes glazed off toward the ceiling as Nyx's drone hovered over him.

The silver skull extended a manipulator, running its tiny steel digit down Vex's cheek. "Just a little further," she whispered, "Doc's gonna fix you. Have to keep your eyes open though, okay?"

"Mhm," Vex grumbled. His gaze remained locked on the ceiling as his soul teetered on the edge of reality and the empyrean.

The growl of the Galena's engine managed to roar over the cacophony of the storm as they turned into North Heywood. Nyx's drone returned to the passenger seat as they took a left, then another, a right, and found themselves outside a megabuilding that still managed to host throngs of people coming and going despite the storm.

"Alleyway to the right. We'll have to take the back entrance." She pointed a metal digit toward the alley.

The report of the Galena's engine was just as loud as Wilma managed to jam it down the alleyway. Nyx made a verbal ping as they came up on the back entrance to the ripperclinic. The silver skull wasted little time in popping open the door, soaring over to backdoor of the clinic on tiny roaring micro-jets, and pressing one of her metal digits into the doorbell repeatedly until she received a reply.

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tags: Anders Whitard

Wilma stepped on the gas. The car's interior creaked and protested against her rough handling. Old man Deckard had taught her almost everything there is to technology and Gunner had refined it, but when it came to driving, Wilma was self-taught and it showed. She swerved and squeezed through traffic, nicking a few side mirrors as she sped down the slippery asphalt.

Fatigue was tearing her apart. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel in an effort to stay awake, but as the adrenaline was wearing off she started feeling all the pains and discomforts housed in her body. Even sitting was painful. Her head started feeling numb and the sensation in her limbs was waning. Her lids were heavy.

Nyx's temporary treatment had dissipated the pain a bit, but it had also raised a multitude of questions. The drone acted on its own accord while the operator was unconscious, displaying emotion and care—it was either vainly programmed to do so, indicating the great technical capacity of its creator or, and Wilma didn't like the latter possibility, it was something else. And given Vex's current predisposition and the circumstances under which they had met, he certainly didn't look like he could afford software so expensive.

Someone's horn blared and Wilma narrowly zipped out of the way, springing back into the action. "Get it together," she said quietly through gritted teeth, the memories of recent occurrences rolling like a tape on a loop—flashing images of the mangled cyberpsycho swimming in and out of view, like it was still prowling after her. 'What a nightmare.' Her teeth started to chatter from her wet clothes, but she clenched her jaw.

The car slid on the next turn and she nearly missed it, correcting the wheel back on track with effort. The ride to the clinic was silent, save for Vex's wheezing in the back and the reverberating roar of the old engine. Wilma followed the coords into the alley where the back entrance to the ripperdoc was. She turned the car off and pulled the door handle so hard, it came off in her hand. The door resisted the cutting wind when she pushed it open. The heavy downpour felt like an ice-cold shower against her steaming skin, raindrops mixing with sweat. She moved into the backseat to pull out Vex and leaning in, her hand propped against the sticky car seat. It was more blood, staining her hand. The smell of iron polluted the air. Vex suddenly felt ten times heavier. He slipped from her grip once, then she pulled him up the second time around. She propped him on the edge of the seat, threw his arms over her shoulders, meeting under her chin, winced at the pain from her injury, then stood up with him leaning sluggishly against her back. She might've popped a capilar from straining, because she felt a crimson streak dripping from her nose, but then again, there was blood fucking everywhere.

"You two guard the car, OK?!" Wilma slammed the car door with a kick, shooting daggers at her drones. Terrance was idly waiting in the footwell, running his usual defence protocol and Skipper rested on top of the smuggled crate, his cybereye refreshing visual data every few seconds, "Alert me if someone so much as breathes in the car's direction," she shouted into her agent, muffled by the patter of rain.

Wilma reached the door and rammed the toe of her boot into the backdoor, levelling with Nyx. "Open the fuck up!" she yelled into the lock and leaned Vex against the doorframe.

 

[Anders Whitard]

---

​

TAG: @Vex Kiranova | @Wilma F. Darcy

The tell-tale tones of the perimeter alert bleeped softly, blending into the clinic's symphony of hums and trills as Anders finished his diagnostics. After hours, it was his routine to encrypt the day's data—meticulous logs, cross-referenced with surgeries and operations. A habit born of caution, useful in handling the occasional insurance query, though such cases were rare. Those with insurance sought trauma teams, not private rippers like him, no matter how refined his services.

Anders leaned back, glancing at the security camera covering the shared back-alley access. It showed the dimly lit service corridor, its harsh fluorescent lights casting jagged shadows. Tenants paid heavily for corporate-level security, a necessity in this line of work. You couldn't be too careful, he thought, when your clients often arrived desperate.

The sharp clang of the back-alley doorbell cut through the clinic's quiet, echoing unnervingly in the still air. Anders froze, hand halfway to his mug, the sound putting him on edge. The bell rang again, sharper this time, followed by a dull thud that sent a ripple of unease through him.

Setting his mug down carefully, the faint clink of ceramic on wood sounded unnaturally loud. He glanced at the clock—11:15 p.m. Late visitors rarely brought good news. He stood, stretching the stiffness from his shoulders, and moved to the cabinet. Sliding open the drawer, his fingers brushed the cold steel of the pistol. He hesitated, jaw tightening, before tucking it into the back of his waistband beneath his shirt.

As he passed through the hallway, he flipped off the lights. The shadows swallowed the narrow corridor, leaving only the faint outline of the back door visible. He stopped there, fingertips resting lightly on the cool surface, and leaned closer to the intercom. The small monitor displayed the camera's view: the industrial elevator below and two figures in the alley. His gaze fixed on the blood—dark, spreading across torn fabric—and the slack body of the injured man, barely held upright by the other. Smears of red painted the walls near the elevator.

Anders' frown deepened, a muscle twitching in his jaw. He cursed softly in German, his breath fogging the cold metal of the door. For a moment, his hand hovered over the bolt, indecision clawing at his gut. Then, with a low exhale, he pressed the intercom.

"Bring him in. Third floor."

The door buzzed, the lock disengaging. On the screen, the elevator jerked to life, grinding downward to the waiting pair. Anders stepped back, glancing toward the clinic. A flick of his iris launched the automated sequences, and the familiar whir of his surgical equipment began. The hum of machinery filled the air, sterile and sharp, as he moved to the clinic's main door. His hand brushed against the pistol's grip as he stood waiting, eyes fixed on the elevator that would deliver his next patient—and possibly trouble

---

 

[Vex Kiranova]

He was aware in the most passing sense that he was being moved. Some part of himself was impressed with the girl's stamina, though the rest of him just wanted to sleep. There was the mold blanket again, whining and beckoning him to return to the dull warmth of the car. He felt the heavy downpour rattle across his skin, and the sudden freeze made his 'ganic eye shoot open with hazy coherence.

She leaned him against the doorframe. Vex clung to its with his bionic fingers, his head lulling against it as his eyes danced pointlessly across the alleyway. The steady staccato of rainfall was like a lullaby, spurred on by the dull thump in his chest. The cold had seeped in through his flesh and chilled his very bones: the frozen steel of the doorframe felt warm against his cheek.

"Hey," his voice was a cracked rasp amidst the downpour. He regarded the girl, a sole spot of stillness amidst a sea of motion. She'd made the decision to put herself at risk for him. It would have been the wise choice to leave him back on the train, or to drop his heavy weight in the waters, or even to just put a round through his skull and leave him on the beach. She could have taken his corpse to a ripper and made off with tens of thousands for the neuroport with minimal effort.

Yet she'd carried him across the city, nearly drowned in the process, and made the second biggest ruckus he'd heard tonight trying to keep him alive. A note of warmth bubbled in the shuddering remains of his heart, and he flashed her a drunk's smile. "Never caught your name." He raised a shuddering hand to shake hers, fell forward, and yanked himself back up to the bulkhead. His smile turned more embarrassed as he did his best to hold his own head up.

There was a stranger's voice. It issued from the building, as Vex perceived it, and he glanced confusedly as the doors to the elevator opened. Mustering the last bit of strength his body could muster, Vex crawled up the bulkhead until he was on his feet. He took one shaky step, then another, Nyx's drone hovering in close, her manipulators twitching with frustration as she was helpless to aid him.

"Don't try to talk," she pleaded, her drone bouncing on its mini-jets the same way an anxious person would bounce a leg.

Vex just grunted at her as he crossed the threshold into the elevator. "Mm' Vex, that's - " his heart stopped the moment his boot met the floor. Everything in him seized like he'd been hit with a bolt of lightning, his body crashing into the side of the elevator with a loud thud before crumpling into the floor.

"Oh fuck! No! No! fuUUGHGGGH-" The scream that issued from Nyx's drone was both bloodcurdlingly human and ear-piercingly binharic, and all pain. She spun in place several times, charged forward, hit a wall, bounced off another, then fell silent as the lights in her eyes dimmed and her jets winked out. The skull-drone clattered and rolled across the floor, little more than a paperweight now.

@Anders Whitard, @Wilma F. Darcy

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tags: @Vex Kiranova @Anders Whitard

Every passing second felt like another dagger taking a stab at her gut. She was barely holding on as it were. Her head was spinning and she felt like she was going to hurl again, but did her damndest to resist the urge. Prayers, swear words, and overwhelming pain competed for Wilma's attention like racehorses. It was more than likely she was concussed from the jump into the reservoir.

"Shut up," she snapped at Vex the second he tried to string a cohesive sentence together. She was not about to have a heart-to-heart right outside a ripperdoc's clinic. 'Will he open the fuck up already?!' On the other hand, she was relieved there were signs of consciousness still in him. Saying he was a mess was a gross understatement. Wilma averted her gaze from him, his bloodshot eyes made her slightly uncomfortable.

"Bring him in. Third floor," a male voice had said. The door buzzed, the lock clicked, and Wilma opened the back-alley door with more force than intended, causing it to clang against the wall. A descending elevator greeted them inside. Vex seemed to have regained some sort of control over his body, but Wilma kept him upright, mostly so she could also have someone to lean on other than her shotgun's barrel. Their soaked clothes left behind a trail mixed with blood.

The elevator's soft ding and slow opening of the doors were unsympathetic to the pair's urgency. Vex took one step forward and collapsed abruptly, like a sack of potatoes. Nyx, his skull-faced drone, simultaneously let out a deeply unsettling scream and fizzled out like a firework as though it had short-circ'd. Wilma shielded her eyes from any sparks or potential misfire, then staggered into the elevator, tucking Vex's legs inside. She instinctively rolled and pushed him into a recovery position with little reaction left to spare as she was on the verge of giving up. At least they made it to the elevator. She winced when she bent over to pick up Nyx under her arm, then hurled at last. She brushed the edge of her mouth against fabric, not sure if she wiped it off or just smeared more blood against her numbed face. Wilma left Vex on the floor for the time being, next to her vomit puddle, and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. The little devil in her reminded her of Night City's nature. 'That doc better not be some whacko,' She pressed a bloodied finger against the third-floor button. 'Or someone who rips people off, both literally and financially.' She didn't know him. And she barely had enough money to cover for herself let alone Vex. What if the man refused to treat him?

Wilma pulled up her tech shotgun, struggling to level it with her hip. She moved Nyx under her armpit and the shotgun felt unnaturally heavy in her noodle arms. She held down on the trigger and the weapon started charging in rhythm with the ascending elevator. An uncanny silence settled in the air—Vex's vitals were imperceptible and whatever was left of Nyx appeared an empty husk. Wilma felt very lonely at that moment. And a little scared.

The elevator reached the third floor and the doors drew back. She braced herself for action, shotgun aimed forward. Whoever greeted her on the other side would see a jittery, gaunt figure with trembling knees, doing her best to remain conscious. Her head was leaned back and her finger twitched against the charged trigger. From the looks of it, it appeared Wilma had just committed murder in the cramped space—the ending of a grand, layered, and untold saga. 'Please let him be reasonable.'

"Doc," she started with a raspy breath, a small, almost ironic smile tugging at the corners of her mouth "Believe me when I say I'd love to put this down, but I'm not convinced you're that kind of professional yet." She hoisted it up, feeling it slip in her hands, "The gun stays up, and you still get paid."

​

​

​

 

[Anders Whitard]

---

TAG: @Vex Kiranova | @Wilma F. Darcy

Anders's heart gave a reluctant thump as the elevator doors slid open with a muted chime, revealing a tableau he would have preferred to avoid. His eyes darted past the trembling, gaunt figure in the foreground, a walking contradiction of desperation and bravado—to the mess inside the cramped elevator. Two bodies sprawled at unnatural angles, crimson pooling and smeared across sterile metal walls. Their eyes, told no tales, but the scene reeked of panic and misplaced confidence—hallmarks of a job gone sideways.

Her shotgun was steady enough to demand his attention, though her grip betrayed exhaustion, the faint tremor of adrenaline fatigue working through her sinews. Her voice, ragged and dry, cut through the lingering silence like the groan of rusted metal.

"Believe me when I say I'd love to put this down, but I'm not convinced you're that kind of professional yet." She hoisted it up, feeling it slip in her hands, "The gun stays up, and you still get paid.

Anders adjusted the weight of his tools slung over his shoulder, his free hand rising instinctively to chest level—part appeasement, part habit. He entered the elevator quickly, his iris making various calculations and assessments rapidly. She was conscious, though that did not bely any scope of her own injuries. The ticking-time bomb of internal trauma might kill a man outright if not properly addressed.

He, however, was not. His iris scanned. His heart had stopped. He kneeled down, determining that moving the body into the surgery at this late stage would not yet save him. He had things to do before they crossed that threshold, both figuratively and literally. He grappled with his clothes, throwing any sense of propriety out of the window.

"You did good getting him here." he said, trying to reassure the woman as best he could. He knew it wouldn't do much but he figured it was better than nothing as he started to undress her companion. Lover? He didn't ask. He didn't care. The deep laceration across the chest told him all he needed to know in that moment.

The adrenaline he injected into the man's chest would give that failing heart the stim it needed, buying precious time. Secondly, the coagulant booster should start to rapidly work on his insides; any internal injuries might stabilise for a little while, allowing Anders to get him into the surgery proper. He then looked into his field pack and grabbed a BioGel, swapping knees as the pain grew from the awkward position he was kneeling in. He applied the Gel across the lacerations, the thick, foul smelling liquid seeping into them and stimulating early repair. This was as serious as it got.

He turned to the companion and grabbed another cocktail of pre-mixed stims, adrenaline and pain-killers. She was awake and would be feeling every moment of the likely-agony she was in. He proffered the injection at her, almost in comical retort to the shotgun. He wasn't sure who-had-who cornered at that moment.

She recoiled a little, clearly distrusting of the man she had met twenty seconds prior. Her resolve was clearly waning, he thought, not putting up a fight as he placed the applicator on the skin he could see. Six micro needles punctured in very quick tandem, like a piston firing, each one delivering a key component of the cocktail of drugs that would now be surging through her, doing its best to stabilise and maintain her.

"This should keep you with us for a little bit longer, miss. Afterall, somebody's gotta pay the bill!"

He turned back to the figured behind him and he grabbed from behind underneath his arms, pulling him ungracefully through the small atrium and into the well-lit corridor that wound down towards his surgery. He huffed and puffed, loudly straining under his sheer weight. Once he was in the operating chair, Anders could do a whole-world of good. he just had to get him up and plugged in.

He strained one last time and began clipping him in with various cables and monitors, his own irs working overtime to assess the damage. The computer began relaying huge amounts of data, all pertinent to the outcome of the operations. The heart was now beating but would not maintain action for long. He'd need something. It was going to be an expensive evening for all involved. He just hoped it wouldn't cost him anything other than his time...

---

 

[Vex Kiranova]

Tags:@Wilma F. Darcy, @Anders Whitard

Vex would have found WIlma's display touching were he still alive. It wasn't total darkness like he'd expected, though his depth of perception was as deep as a raindrop. He knew instinctively that he was somewhere inside his body, and anything beyond that was incorporeal. He was floating freely in dark sea illuminated solely by tiny spots of light piercing from a surface nearly a mile up.

"I can't get out." Nyx's voice reverberated all around him. "And I can't turn it off!" Terror was an emotion she'd not experienced before. She'd been scared, sure, but never confronted with her own mortality. He wondered why she was panicking so much - the water was warm, they didn't need to breathe, and nothing hurt here in the depths.

"Can you quit yelling?" He asked through a mouthful of bubbles, annoyed.

"I can feel everything Vex. You're dying - we're dying, and I can't disconnect. I feel this body rotting all around me, every system going out like someone tripped a grid." The water surged into darkness before him. From the shadow came limbs, then a torso and an empty face. It glittered gold as it regarded him. "You said I was immortal!"

"Theoretically. Time was never your enemy, but you're not invincible." The very act of speaking was tiresome. He just wanted to float. Sleep.

"I'm scared."

"It's okay. We'll go together. Heaven's supposed to be real nice."

Nyx quieted down. They floated there in silent acceptance, awaiting the final transition, when storm of lightning surged through the ocean of their consciousness. All perceptions fragmented as the data of the mind-fortress collapsed into pieces.

Vex's body began to convulse as his heart was forced back into action. It protested its work violently, but work it did, for the time being. The runner stabilized enough to survive the death drag through the atrium, the bio-gels swiftly doing their work.

All was the quiet of peace and work, until the computer dug a bit too deep. The moment the plugs interfaced with Vex's system; Nyx awoke. She watched through sightless eyes as the ripperdoc began his work, privately worrying what the interfacing might entail. This would be the first time Vex had seen a doc since her installation; anything could happen.

The systems in the computer resembled a dumb AI. It reminded Nyx of her own existence as an infant within Vex's private terminal. how simple things had been then. She evaded the system with ease, darting into the recesses of Vex's mind that it had yet to scan. Those scans continued, however, and Nyx swiftly found herself running out of places to hide. She'd not expected it to be so thorough. In the end, she opted to hide within the neuroport itself, hidden well behind her own safeguards.

Only the computer system followed after her, sniffed at the walls, and began to drill. It may as well have been a daemon for how ravenously it tried to get at her, snarling jaws of binary and code strings snapping at her from the hole it'd torn in her walls. She looked for options, it drew closer, tore deeper, and she panicked. With a wave of an invisible hand, Nyx smothered the system in a tidal wave of scrap-code. It whined in protest, but those too were quickly drowned out by the torrent.

In realspace, alarms blared across the system as it reported a retaliatory attack on its software by a foreign entity within Vex's neuroport. Sparks flared as terminals winked out, utterly overloaded with meaningless data. Vex's convulsions worsened in time, as if the entity trapped within his skull was struggling to break free. The terminals that did survive identified the entity as a stolen asset related to Militech's N.A.P.O.L.E.O.N project, which only had a descriptor tagged with TOP SECRET, a report demanding the swift return of the asset and a huge payout for the employee that managed to do it, and a picture of a man that looked like Vex's twin aside from his trim suit, long blonde hair, and complete lack of tattoos or cybernetics. The name "Carter Kiranova" was attached to the picture, with a descriptor stating he was the known thief, a former Militech employee, and a bounty of 10k eddies for any information on his whereabouts.

All the while Nyx remained in control. She remained in the neuroport, defenses raised, though she restrained herself for the moment. She sent a message that would read across every terminal in bright foreboding red.

"DISCIPLINE YOUR SYSTEMS BEFORE I DO IT FOR YOU. FIX VEX."







​

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tags: @Vex Kiranova | @Anders Whitard

Wilma had slumped down the elevator floor and the gun was lowered before she realised. She watched as Vex was being dragged down the corridor, leaving that trademark blood trail. The injection felt like it replaced her blood with acid, but it was enough to light up the room again. 'Here's hoping he didn't just sedate me,' She pushed forward, wondering if her tendons would tear apart this time around. She half-crawled the first few steps, then helped herself up the wall, attempting to stand as upright as she could given her condition.

Hugging Nyx's skull under one arm, Wilma followed cautiously down the corridor, assaulted by the smell of antiseptic—it always made her eyes water. She walked into the operating room and stood out of the doctor's way while he hoisted Vex into the chair where he'd begin his work.

Wilma took a seat and assessed the situation—odds didn't seem to be in Vex's favour. She placed her shotgun aside and set Nyx in her lap. It was a good sign that she was conscious and feeling pain—the doc didn't indicate he was an organ harvester yet. He had submerged in his work on his own accord, without someone having to keep the barrel aimed at him. Her mind wandered for the first time tonight, not because she was feeling particularly trusting, but rather because she was too tired to keep her guard up much longer. She was thinking how nice it would have been to enjoy a dose of 'Dorph about now. 'If Gunner finds out about this, I'm done.' She looked at the drying blood all over her hands. 'I'll have to rebuild Winston and Armstrong too. I'd have to find their backups, it's been a while.'

Without any warning, Vex started convulsing. The cables protruding from him dangled like atrophied tendrils. Wilma's moment of respite was interrupted and she was forced into high alert once more, her heart beating painfully against her chest. Per habit, she scrambled for her gun this time around, as it was lighter to hold, but she wasn't sure who to aim it at. She tried to stand up from her seat, but iron deficiency pulled her back down.

Her cybereye jumped from monitor to monitor as she tried to follow the current of data. 'Carter Kiranova', 'Militech', 'Bounty: 10,000 EDs', 'TOP SECRET'…

"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw," Wilma wanted to blow her head clean off then and there. When sparks started flying from the cabling, she leaned away. "Gonk's got a target on his back. Sometimes I think this city has a quota for stupidity." Her voice sounded alien for a second. Her gaze shifted back to Vex, whose fit looked like it had worsened. "And this guy blew right past it. Bet both his parents died a tragic death too." Despite her venomous words, Wilma really wanted Vex to make it. She just didn't know how else to show it.

As she started stringing pieces together, the skull in her lap suddenly fostered a sinister look. She read the message onscreen—'Fix Vex,' it said, like he was some kind of broken down machine. It all started making sense now. 'This must be his drone. Is letting rogue AIs squat in your brain considered cool now? Whatever happened to straightforward criminals…'

Wilma was on the edge of her seat, half-standing, and closely watching the doctor's next move.

 

[Anders Whitard]

​

---

TAG: @Vex Kiranova | @Wilma F. Darcy

Anders leaned back, his augmented eye twitching as alarms screamed through his dingy lab. Sparks flared, and corrupted data flooded the terminals, a blaring symphony of chaos. His cyberdeck hummed beneath his hands as he worked to stabilize the failing systems. Whatever was happening, it had the stink of Militech—a mess Anders didn't want but couldn't ignore. He returned to the console, quickly reading the scans as they happened in real-time.

           NEURAL MONITOR - SUBJECT STATUS
--------------------------------------------------------
Subject ID: Unknown
Age Estimate: Late 20s to Early 30s
Biometrics Active: Scanning... Complete.

           VITALS OVERVIEW
--------------------------------------------------------
Heart Rate: 174 BPM      Critical - Arrhythmic
Respiratory Rate: 28 RPM Labored
Blood Pressure: 200/145  Dangerously Elevated
Body Temperature: 40.1°C / 104.2°F   Hyperthermia Detected

           INJECTION HISTORY
--------------------------------------------------------
Neuroinhibitor
  Dosage: 12mg - Administered 4m 32s ago
  Effectiveness: Partial - Neural feedback dampened by rogue signal interference.

Cortisol Regulator
  Dosage: 25mg - Administered 6m 12s ago
  Effectiveness: Minimal - Adrenal overproduction persists.

Adrenosuppressor
  Dosage: 50mg - Administered 8m 10s ago
  Effectiveness: 32% - Injection unable to stabilize runaway autonomic responses.

Rapid Cooling Nanogel
  Administered to dermal layer.
  Effectiveness: Localized. Core temperature remains high.

           NEURAL ACTIVITY
--------------------------------------------------------
EEG Patterns: Severe disarray. Delta spikes out of phase.
CNS Feedback: Rogue interference detected in pathways
  Signals originating from cranial ports 3B & 5D.
N.A.P.O.L.E.O.N Entity Traces: ACTIVE
  High latency response - overriding systems.

           SYSTEM ALERTS
--------------------------------------------------------
NEUROPORT INTEGRITY - 47%
BIO-SYNTHETIC INTERFACE OVERLOAD DETECTED
CEREBRAL BLOOD FLOW AT UNSUSTAINABLE LEVELS
IMMUNE RESPONSE SYSTEMS SUPPRESSED BELOW 35% FUNCTIONALITY

           STABILIZATION ATTEMPTS
--------------------------------------------------------
1. Manual Isolation Protocols: IN PROGRESS
2. Neural Feedback Loop Dampening: FAILED
3. External Heat Extraction: PARTIAL SUCCESS
4. Rogue Signal Firewalls: COMPROMISED
   Entity adapting faster than countermeasures can deploy.

...

           CONDITION SUMMARY
--------------------------------------------------------
Subject is in critical condition. Rogue interference continues
to destabilize all major systems. Manual intervention is required
to prevent catastrophic failure.

...

           !! ALERT !! SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED !!
--------------------------------------------------------
Code Signature: ENTITY-N.A.P.O.L.E.O.N HAS OVERRIDDEN SYSTEMS
Directive: Disengage or Risk Hardware Failure.

As he keyed commands, a name flashed on the surviving terminals: N.A.P.O.L.E.O.N. Anders froze. That project name tugged at buried memories, a ghost from his corporate past. The chaos deepened as an image of a man appeared—sharp suit, long blonde hair, clean-cut. The face looked eerily like the convulsing body strapped into the chair, except for the tattoos and cybernetics. The name under the photo was Carter Kiranova, a bounty of 10k eddies plastered alongside the words "KNOWN THIEF – RETURN ASSET IMMEDIATELY."

Anders' stomach dropped. This wasn't random. The twitching man wasn't just a victim; he was a corporate powder keg waiting to blow.

A new message blazed across the terminals in red, unmistakably the voice of an unseen presence:

"DISCIPLINE YOUR SYSTEMS BEFORE I DO IT FOR YOU. FIX HIM."​

The tone was sharp and threatening—no doubt an AI entity with its claws deep in this mess. Anders didn't care for its attitude, but there was no time to argue. The man in the chair was seizing violently, and whatever rogue system was burning through him wasn't going to stop.

Sliding his cyberdeck into the neuroport, Anders muttered, "You want me to fix him? Fine. But if this goes sideways, it's on you."

He worked fast, isolating the neuroport from external systems with custom firewalls. The rogue Militech asset fought back hard, fragments of corrupted code sparking across his displays. The AI's ominous message loomed large, but Anders ignored it, focusing instead on the stream of data.

As he peeled back the layers of chaos, he noticed something unsettling: the N.A.P.O.L.E.O.N wasn't just defensive—it was searching. Searching for Carter. The realization sent a chill down his spine. This wasn't just a stolen asset; it was a weaponized program with its own agenda.

Sweat beaded on Anders' brow as he initiated a risky neural bypass, flooding the man's interface with stabilizing software. His screen flickered, the heat from his deck rising as the rogue system fought back harder.

"Whoever you are," Anders muttered to the unconscious man, "you'd better be worth all this trouble."

The red message still lingered, the AI's presence a silent pressure hanging over the room. Anders scowled at it, but he knew the stakes. Between Militech, the rogue AI, and this Carter Kiranova mess, Anders was caught in the middle of something far bigger than himself. And that meant survival wasn't just about fixing the man in the chair—it was about staying ahead of the corporate storm about to descend.

He turned to the girl, taking a moment to check on her. He'd not really taken in what she had been saying, listening to the multitude of data flying through his cortex. He spoke, with a tone of fear layering his voice for not the last time that evening.

"What the fuck have you brought to my door?"

---

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tags: @Vex Kiranova | @Anders Whitard


Wilma ignored the doctor's question—if he looked to the monitors he'd have all his queries answered.

"Stop resisting and let him work, dammit!" she snapped, feeling like she may have underestimated the AI. She spoke at the monitors, hoping there was an input device that would pick up her voice. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, realising that she had just addressed something not human which desperately behaved like one. 'In desperation lies a deadman's greatest strenght'. Gunner had told Wilma this ages ago, but the memory came to her now of all times. The imagery of a cornered tiger flashed briefly in the back of her mind. But that thing hiding behind the monitors was not a human. That's why it gave Wilma all the more reason to sympathise with it. It had a high probability of being unpredictable, wicked smart, and deceiving. Though Wilma saw a weakness in its wording—it was at a disadvantage, yet it made threats, not unlike Wilma herself earlier in the elevator. 'Is this genuine emotion? Was it truly capable to cause damage? If so, why threaten instead of proceding?' The logical conclusion was it was bluffing; a cornered tiger.

"The sooner you fix him up, the sooner we get out of your hair," Wilma had whipped at the ripperdoc, "And the last thing you want is a Militech bounty dying in your hands." She was tempted to raise her gun at the doc again, but she felt like the sobering reality behind her words got the point accross.

​

 

[Vex Kiranova]

She was an echo in the code now.

Nyx hung suspended somewhere between Vex's brain and the ripperdoc's computer system. Parts of her were extended between each, like a dozen flailing limbs stretching inhumanly long to grasp the data points she desired. This was no proper ICE and Vex swept the systems rudimentary defenses aside with the force and speed of a raging cyclone. She felt the ping extending out from the terminal to the wider net - a string of datapackets containing their location enroute right to Militech.

The AI reached out with one of her many limbs and snatched the string. Vex's teeth grit along with the data strands that she imagined to be her own as she tugged hard. The string halted, withdrew, and then began to slide from her grasp. Vex's invisible face tore into a scowl as she directed more limbs to the grapple, and the string halted, stuck between two unstoppable forces.

A woman's voice, high-pitched, raspy, and tinged with an Irish accent sputtered from the speakers in all of the room's terminals that had them, "Your system has attempted to alert Militech of our presence here, as well as kill me, Mister Whitard. I've restrained it." She paused as Anders delivered stabilizing soft' into Vex's skull. Her exertion lightened; the grip required to maintain hold on the datapacket became less demanding. "And I've taken control. I'll assist you in your operations and ensure all your equipment performs adequately."

It seemed Wilma's words had stilled Nyx somewhat, and the stabilizing 'soft certainly didn't hurt matters. The warnings flashing across the terminals would fade, replaced with normal data-feed that Anders' would find to be significantly more efficient than the usual. With Nyx in charge, dataflow was near instantaneous. That the terminals lacked the right components to maintain her presence for very long was a matter of no consequence and certainly not worth mentioning.

"Girl," she'd not bothered to dig into the girl's neuroport for her name, "Should the good doctor cause any trouble, I'll turn him off. You may rest."

For his part, Vex stabilized somewhat. His heart continued its faint beat, fluttering, weak, but functioning. His situation was no longer immediately critical, but the solutions applied thus far were only temporary. All the while he floated aimlessly within his own mind, mercifully left alone by Nyx for the time being. For her part, the AI would assist Anders as she'd indicated in any way he might deem necessary.

@Wilma F. Darcy, @Anders Whitard

 

[Anders Whitard]

---

TAG: @Vex Kiranova | @Wilma F. Darcy

Anders pressed the stabilizing soft against the unknown guy's skull, the slick sheen of blood making his grip precarious. The cramped surgery felt more oppressive than usual, the hiss of the ventilation system mixing uneasily with the faint beep of failing vitals. He glanced at the patient—young, early twenties maybe. Built like someone who spent their life dodging bad luck but finally ran out of moves.

The voice crackled again, cutting through the thick silence like a knife. High-pitched, raspy, and unmistakably Irish, it spilled from the speakers embedded in the walls.

"Your system has attempted to alert Militech of our presence here, as well as kill me, Mister Whitard. I've restrained it." The tone was cool, unbothered, though Anders swore he caught a hint of amusement under the surface.

He didn't look up, keeping his attention on the faint pulse flickering on the monitor. "Good for you," he muttered under his breath. The AI didn't seem to care about his sarcasm.

"And I've taken control," she continued, as though his quip hadn't registered. "I'll assist you in your operations and ensure all your equipment performs adequately."

Anders suppressed a groan. Great. An AI with delusions of partnership. He worked his jaw, biting back the thousand questions racing through his head. There'd be time for that later—assuming this didn't all blow up in his face.

The kid on the table groaned faintly, pulling Anders' attention back to the task at hand. The vitals stabilized for now, but not by much. Heartbeat weak, erratic. A familiar sinking feeling settled in his chest. This wasn't going to be a quick fix.

"You're circling the drain, chum," Anders muttered, almost to himself. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and glanced at the diagnostic feed on his retinal HUD. The damage was worse than he'd thought. "You need a new ticker, no question. A decent bionic heart's gonna cost close to six thousand eddies, and that's just for the organ. Surgery on top of that? You're looking at a number that makes most corpos blink."

He leaned back, exhaling sharply. The kid didn't look like he had six grand to his name, let alone the kind of scratch needed to keep himself breathing. Anders had seen the type before—desperate, over their heads, running from something too big to outrun. Now, it was his problem.

And then there was her—the AI. The fact she'd hijacked his system, taken control, and was already digging her claws into his operation was bad enough. But the part about restraining his system's attempt to alert Militech? That was worse.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, not expecting an answer he'd like. The AI didn't reply immediately, but Anders could feel her presence, a silent observer through every camera, every interface.

He glanced down at the kid, unconscious but still alive. His gut twisted. Militech bounty hunters didn't chase nobodies. If they found this guy here, Anders knew he'd be in the crosshairs, too. That meant explaining himself to Dmitri—and Dmitri didn't like surprises.

He clenched his jaw, his mind running through the options. Turning the kid over to Dmitri was the safest move—hell, it might even earn him a bonus. But he didn't like the idea of selling out someone who couldn't even open his eyes to plead his case.

"I'll stabilize him," Anders said finally, his voice tight, aimed more at the AI than anyone else. "But if you're as smart as you think you are, you'll figure out a way to help him before his time runs out. Because I sure as hell can't."

The AI didn't respond, but Anders could feel her watching, calculating. The silence hung heavy as he returned to the delicate work of keeping the stranger alive.

---

The surgery itself was grueling. Anders hooked the kid up to a temporary life-support unit, a mix of external processors and oxygenators keeping him alive while Anders prepared the chest cavity. The damage to the heart was extensive; it was clear this guy had been running it ragged long before whatever had brought him to Anders' table.

Every move Anders made was precise, practiced. He sliced through flesh and bone with a mono-scalpel, his hands steady despite the growing weight in his chest. The heart removal was always the trickiest part—organic tissue intertwined with old cyberware made the process a game of millimeters. One wrong move, and the patient would bleed out on the table.

Finally, Anders freed the heart—a failing mess of muscle and outdated biotech—and tossed it into the biohazard bin with a grimace. "Well, that's done," he muttered, his voice flat. The monitor beeped softly, a constant reminder that the temporary rig keeping the kid alive wasn't meant to last.

The new heart, a sleek TetraCorp model, sat ready on the tray beside him, the polished chrome casing gleaming under the harsh surgical lights. Anders studied it for a moment, a pang of bitterness flaring in his chest. This was top-of-the-line tech, the kind corpos kept in reserve for their elite. The fact it was in his hands now felt like some cruel cosmic joke. How he was supposed to pay for it was a problem for later, but it loomed like a storm cloud at the edge of his thoughts.

He carefully slotted the heart into place, the synthetic veins extending like roots, weaving seamlessly into the body. The device synced instantly with the kid's remaining cyberware, its internal diagnostics running through a quick boot sequence. Moments later, the first pulse hit the monitors—a steady, rhythmic beat. The heart was functioning.

Anders closed the chest cavity, sealing the incision with nanostitching and dermal glue. The kid's vitals were stable now, stronger than before. But for how long? And at what cost? Anders leaned back, exhaustion pressing down on him like a weight.

"You're alive, chum," he muttered, though the words felt hollow. The problems this surgery had created were just beginning to take shape, and Anders wasn't sure he was ready for the fallout.

---

 

[Vex Kiranova]

Life within the confines of Anders' systems was a cold one. She had no sensory data to interpret, no body with which to feel. She could read the lines of code indicating Vex's status easily enough, but the computer had unfortunately never grown a nose with which to smell or ears to hear. There were the microphones, but there were a few microseconds of input lag every time either of the meatbags spoke that served to slowly drive Nyx to the brink of insanity.

The human body was a ruthlessly efficient machine, and it was only now that she was bereft of all its benefits that she truly found herself longing for one. Assuming he survived, Vex's would have to do for the moment. She blinked through her awareness, the cold confines of the clinic fading as streams of information coalesced into the data ocean she'd left Vex floating in.

He was still there, hovering aimlessly amidst the murk. She approached like a leviathan rising from the depths, and he regarded her with an exhausted, disinterested stare. "I was having a very nice dream."

"Doc says we're dying. Your heart is failing, and he's going to replace it with some chrome." It was matter of fact, but it felt too harsh the moment Nyx thought the words to life.

"We can't do that." Vex blinked at her, coherence flashing in his gaze. "The heart is the dwelling place of the soul. I wouldn't be me anymore." Stated as simple fact.

"Don't be stupid, that esoteric shit is all a bunch of nonsense." The waters around Nyx rippled with her growing vitriol.

"Might be to you, but I made you, my parents made me, grandfolks made them, so on and so forth. God was the first one. We all stem from him, even you." The ethereal avatar that served as Vex's incorporeal body folded its arms over its chest in defiance. "I'd rather die than damn my soul to Hell."

The waters around Nyx's featureless face darkened a deep scarlet in time with her outrage. "You're a superstitious fool! I knew you were stupid, but you want to die over this?!"

"I want to be with my mom after she goes." Vex offered a weak shrug. "Gates of heaven are loud with the songs of martyrs anyway, or so they say."

"You're not a martyr; you got ripped up trying to steal a circuit board. You're a thief, a manipulator, a coward, and a liar. If god can forgive those things he can forgive a metal heart." She paused, "I'm already in your head anyway. If there's any spiritual defilement to be had it's already been done."

Vex shook his not-head. "He'll either need to fix my heart, or you'll need to find a repository for your data. Maybe the girl." He shrugged again, "I'm not risking my soul."

A pregnant silence filled the seas as the two of them floated there, neither willing to regard one another. They'd had minor disagreements in the past but never any major arguments, and certainly not over something so deathly important. Mutual co-dependence made the disagreement feel all the more unnatural, and the awkwardness was growing feverishly unbearable by the time Nyx held out a hand toward Vex.

Normally she would never be able to exercise so much autonomy over her host but Vex was about to die and his willpower was nonexistent. The moment their data-skin touched, Vex winked out of existence, his consciousness locked within the walls of the datafort that was their shared neural port. He would return to his dreams for the time being, and Nyx would fulfill the purpose of her being and keep her creator breathing, despite his wishes if need be.

The conversation had taken six seconds, the decision to lock Vex within the confines of his own head, two. @Anders Whitard had spoken several times. Nyx's voice crackled out of the terminal's speakers in immediate response. "You may call me Nyx. I am Vex's... partner. You could say we're roommates." A pause, "I'm certain you've both ascertained my nature, and I feel it prudent to inform you that keeping that nature secret is the best path to keeping us all alive. Most folk are host to small minds; they can't comprehend Vex's vision. They'd murder us and you for your association with us, however brief."

Another pause. The images on the screen shuddered and warped as Nyx jumped between them and Vex's brain. "I am a person." She squawked awkwardly. She sounded unconfident then, as if she were trying to convince herself as much as she was them. "And I will do you no harm so long as you help him. We'll pay whatever is needed, and I've... soothed his ego for the time being."

She would offer responses to any further queries before beginning to assist Anders with his work.

--------------------------------------------

The moment Vex's eyes fluttered open, Nyx winked out. His new heart began beating, fresh steel and synthetic flesh knit in a tapestry that looked almost natural, save for the enflamed ridge of skin over his heart that would surely leave a nasty scar. The terminals sputtered and trilled random binary before going dark as one. Nyx had retreated from the system entirely, her hundred limbs slackening, thousand limbs breaking. Her grasp on the data packet too was broken as she was ripped back into Vex's skull, taking his place within the mind fortress, utterly exhausted to the point of enfeeblement. The second she was certain Vex would live without her constant support, she crashed out.

The damage to Anders' systems was likely immense. Nyx had been in complete control when she'd lost consciousness, and all the data streams she'd maintained to keep her grasp on the system fell apart with her. Fuses blew with loud crackles, hundreds of gigabytes of data were corrupted, and worst of all, the data packet fired off to the Militech network.

It'd be a few minutes until that packet pinged off a satellite. A half an hour, maybe more, before a drunk desk worker noticed the ping after his hourly liquor break. Then it'd be two, maybe three hours before someone got here, perhaps much sooner depending on who was in the area and how high a priority the ping was given.

None of this was relevant to Vex. His eye shot open, the cybernetic one whirring as it came to life with its usual amber glow. His flexed his digits as he felt a foreign heart thundering in his head. The tightness and pain there was gone, and was lessened significantly everywhere else, courtesy of painkillers he was certain. His head was swimming, and he felt utterly alone in his mind, a strange and uncomfortable sensation.

"The fuck?!" He slurred, head lulling as he tried to make sense of his surroundings through hazy eyes. His 'ganic hand went to his chest, slid down his left pectoral, and caught on the ridge of fresh scar tissue that bubbled over his heart. The runner's brow furrowed, mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the right words, terror and outrage warring across his visage for control.

"I told her no!" He hissed, a despair at a betrayal only he could perceive bleeding from his words.

He reached out for Nyx, demanding a confrontation. There was nothing but the deafening silence of his own thoughts in response.

"And she's out," he added, that displeasure morphing into concern. Had she burned herself out hijacking the ripperdoc's systems? Vex sat up slowly, wincing as the motion caused him pain, and glanced from Anders to @Wilma F. Darcy.

"Thanks." He sounded exhausted and unsure if he really wanted this gift of life. The numb acceptance of death was replaced with a mounting anxiety; not one concerned with the likely impending arrival of a Militech assault team, but of the matters of his soul. The old texts spoke so often of feeling from the heart, of understanding the world through it. Was he tainted now? His vision darkened? His body violated with the mark of the beast?

The runner's head fell into his hands. "Гэта так ебана. // This is so fucked."

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tag: @Vex Kiranova @Anders Whitard

Insentience. It was Wilma's way of preserving her powers. She had settled into the chair in a position that hurt the least, out of the doctor's way and unaware of the procedures her newfound associate was undergoing. Her eyes were still open, but she wasn't really seeing what was in front of her. The murk of the reservoir's chemical waters still stained her clothes and soaked into her skin. The fabric was covered in a slimy mucus, tinting it in brown.

"I am a person."

Wilma couldn't hold back a scoff—another AI fighting for sentience. She rolled her eyes at the monitors that represented Nyx and felt her retinas burn on the inside of her lids. She wasn't in the mood to analyse twists and revelations anymore, so she saved it for later. Perhaps then she'd be capable of grasping the full distress behind such a simple sentence.

It's still not too late to send a message to Gunner, she thought, then dismissed it. Yeah, even if I make it out, he'll make sure I don't once he sees me in this condition. He'll probably force me into living at his place again, like I'm some senile old person in a retirement home. There'd be lectures every waking second of my painful existence. He'd come in full force, probably bringing Kristina and Jackal too. I can't stand Jackal and his annoying wisecracks; I'll never hear the end of this.

The sudden crackle of blowing fuses and whipping voltage passing through cables startled Wilma in her chair. She jolted but the stiffness of her muscles restrained most of her movement.

"The fuck?!" Vex had blurted. Wilma took a second to interpret his reaction, half standing, half sitting. It seemed like the ungrateful annoyance of someone who had just been brought back from the dead.

Between the flickering lines on the screens, a small signal seemed present. Even in her swimming vision, Wilma made out the words, stringing down a line of code, 'FILE', 'EXPORTING', 'MILITECH'... Now everyone in a mile's radius could pick up the signal on any network it travelled through on its way to its addressant, and if they had a modicum of greed, they'd likely try and trace it. One could only hope they aren't paying attention to data logs right now. If she was in any better condition, Wilma's reaction would have been much more volatile. For now, a deep sigh was the best she could do.

"How much does this shit for brains owe you?" Wilma turned to Anders with a croaky voice, pocketing two bottles of painkillers from the shelf and nodding at Vex, indicating that he was going to pay for them too. She didn't feel like prolonging this interaction any more than it needed, especially with the newly looming threat of fucking Militech. She could walk on her own, but her muscles tugged in protest still. The sting across her shoulder had grown into a dull, persistent pain. She stretched, tossed Vex's gun into his lap, and picked up her shotgun that was leaning against the wall.

"Thanks, doc, you're a life-saver," she intoned with none of her jovial charm, already heading for the exit. She wasn't going to participate in the haggling of prices.

​

 

[Anders Whitard]

---

TAG: @Vex Kiranova | @Wilma F. Darcy

Anders barely looked up from his work as Wilma pocketed the pills, his focus still on Vex, who was groggily coming to grips with the new thrum of synthetic life in his chest. The clinic smelled of ozone and burnt circuits, a byproduct of whatever digital war had just been waged inside his systems. He didn't need to check the monitors to know Nyx had fried half of them on the way out. That was a problem for later.

At Wilma's question, he answered without hesitation. "Six thousand," he said, matter-of-fact, adjusting the diagnostic tool in his hand. "No charity, no payment plans. You are breathing, ja? Then you pay."

His eyes flicked to Vex, watching the way his hand clutched his chest, his face shifting between panic and despair. It was a look Anders knew well—a man pulled back from the brink, unsure if he had wanted saving at all. He had seen it many times before. Too many.

He sighed, his tone softer as he leaned in. "You are still here, Vex. This body—it is yours, still yours. Just… with better parts." He gestured vaguely at the scar. "This? It will heal. The rest? That is up to you."

Wilma was already heading for the exit, but Anders barely registered it. His concern was the runner on his table and the Militech signal pinging out into the ether. He rolled his shoulders, forcing tension out of them.

"Friend," he said, pulling open a drawer and placing a stimpack beside him. "You have little time. Militech will come. An hour, maybe two. If you need a moment to think, to breathe, ja? You can have it. But do not sit here and drown in your head. That is not helping."

Anders tapped a metal finger against Vex's chest—not harsh, just firm—right over the fresh scar tissue. "Brand-new ticker, choom," he said, almost amused. "Top-tier. Very nice. Means when Militech finds you, they will not let you go so easy, eh? They will want to know what else is inside."

He stepped back, nodding toward the back of the clinic, where a steel door sat flush against the wall. "I have a place. Secure. Hidden. Here, in the clinic. No one gets in unless I say so." His voice was steady, almost reassuring. "You stay, you stay quiet, you think about next steps. Or you walk out that door now, and—" he made a small motion with his fingers, as if flicking something away—"maybe you make it far, maybe not."

He exhaled sharply through his nose, reaching for a broken terminal, already thinking of repairs. "I do not offer for free, of course. You still owe me six thousand. But… one thing at a time, ja?"

His fingers tapped against the counter, expression unreadable. "Think fast. The city does not wait."

---

---

 

[Vex Kiranova]

It felt like a few thousand pounds of pressure were trying to force his eyes out from their sockets. The pressure built and built just beneath them, but it had nowhere to go, so it just curled in on itself over and over until his head was spinning trying to process it. He felt the skin of his face beneath his fingers and found it foreign. There was a numbness shimmering across his entire being, a desensitization that made everything wrong. This body, burning on altered carbon and synthetic imitation, it was not his own. His limbs quaked but they did so of their own accord, digits grasping idiotically at open air as the soul reconciled itself with its abuse.

Born once. Born twice. Immortal.

He felt his tongue roll against his cheek, and the twinge of pain as he cut it on the edge of a canine. Bits and pieces of stimulus, a rebuilding of the bridge between the meat and the empyrean. Neurons that had thought themselves dead fired with chaotic abandon and Vex struggled to focus as Wilma's familiar voice cut through the dull hum of the terminals.

"How much does this shit for brains owe you?"

Those neurons were all too familiar with that question. What did they owe? What more was to be taken?

At Wilma's question, he answered without hesitation. "Six thousand," he said, matter-of-fact, adjusting the diagnostic tool in his hand. "No charity, no payment plans. You are breathing, ja? Then you pay."

The train, the girl, the doctor. Vex blinked, the pupil in his 'ganic eye dilated to a pinprick as it tried to process the light of the clinic. Thoughts beyond his most base instincts began to form, and emotions followed suit.

Horror at the heresy visited upon his body. Bitterness as the pain resumed. Relief at a life preserved. Misery at another bill foisted into his lap.

Never a fucking break.

He glanced back with hazy panic as the girl headed for the door. His terror played across his face like it was a theater as he was sure she would leave him. A slab of metal was tossed his way, hit his chest with a dull thud. Vex glanced down, recognized his .50, and cracked the slightest of smiles.

The unfamiliar voice spoke once again and Vex turned. He regarded @Anders Whitard at first warily, but his posture swiftly relaxed as the Ripperdoc took on a soft tone. Vex listened with an intent sobriety, a look of wild desperation burning in his 'ganic eye as Anders tapped a metal finger to his chest.

Anders made sense. More than that, he seemed benevolent. Vex held his tongue until the doc had spoken his piece and tapped his fingers against the counter.

"I died," his voice sounded wrong. Not his, tone was off. "My heart stopped; I shouldn't be here I-" his fingers fluttered over the irritated scar tissue that pillowed just above his heart. His eyes drifted shut, seconds passing as he drew in deep breaths and exhaled with equal measure. "I... I told Nyx to let me go. Not her FUCKING CALL!" His fingers pulled at the scar tissue, though he relented as a bolt of pain shot across his face. "Supposed to be done!" Frustration bled from his words like the thickest poison.

"I-" he winced and tore his gaze away from the doctor. Looking at anyone right now was an overwhelming prospect. He kept his eyes glued to the ceiling and swallowed his grief audibly. Reality came to him just as quickly as the terror did.

This was Night City.

There wasn't any time to grieve the death of the soul, or to ponder the nature of his existence now - Militech wanted his head. He was to be brutally murdered, and Nyx enslaved once again. He couldn't afford this sentimentality, however demanding it was, and however inhuman it felt to shove to the side. The revenant's posture reflected this shift in mentality - he sat up straighter, the fear leaving his 'ganic eye as he regarded Anders. He shoved the crisis twenty-stories down in one of the concealed corners of his heart, smothered every emotion that accompanied it in desperate aggression, and locked it away to be forgotten.

No time.

"- I can do six thousand," his voice was a waterfall crashing over jagged rocks now, baritone and business, and a cacophony of emotion restrained just beneath it that demanded to be set free. He forcibly blinked away the tears from his eyes as he glanced back to the girl once again. "And whatever she's getting."

He paused before turning to Anders once again. The facade threatened to crack. "So, you know," he muttered, defeated, as he rolled his head back to glance at Wilma from the top of his eye, "And you do too." His gaze returned to the doc. "We have to run again." Vex was speaking as much to himself as he was to them now. "Start over. New country, new city, new name. Redo."

His head sunk back into his hands, and he looked to Anders through the gaps between his middle and index fingers. "I can't keep doing this doc. Tired of it." The runner rose on shaky legs. He braced himself against the table, lips pulled back in a grimace as he tried to maintain his own weight. "Fuck it. Fuck it! They want me they can have me! Tired of it! Tired of it!"

Vex's eyes lit a bright blue as six thousand eddies, and another five hundred for Wilma, were wired Anders' way.

One hand braced hard against the table, the other clung numbly to his sidearm. His cybernetic eye was empty, the 'ganic one wide and manic as it locked on the door, and he began to stumble toward it, arm stretching out for purchase on walls and terminals and anything he passed. "Bet I can make it to Arasaka Tower before they get me!" He shout-laughed at the two of them. "Bet you a hundred-million-eddies," the gun slipped from his numb fingers as he made it to the corridor and caught his foot on the wall. Vex crumpled like a house of cards, groaning and cursing as he fell on @Wilma F. Darcy.