The Big Leagues (Ward/Cyberpunk 2077)
We’re close to the big leagues.
That’s what Jackie likes to say, three beers too far into a 3 AM haze of vomit and stims. Too far gone to care, loud, raucous. Reminiscing over our latest gig like a dragon in one of those old pre-Krash animated flicks that Jenkins liked to play at one of his infamous mixers. This was back during my Saka days, before Jenkins grew too big for his little pond and threw me out like the rest. He only ever cared about himself, the prick. Certainly didn’t care about some washed out old fantasy movie. It was all about the clout, the cultivation of the appearance of culture. No real substance to it.
Just like that dragon. I was stuck in the corner of that corpo party, blazed out of my fucking mind on whatever upper was getting all of us little minions through the latest hell week. I remember staring at that flickering screen, that antique animated film scrolling by, that red dragon rolling about the screen, swollen and bulbous amongst the hoard. More gold than any one person could count, but it refused to let any of it go with those dopey cruel eyes.
Jenkins was like that dragon. So were Jackie and I, clinging to those moments of heart-pumping adrenaline as though we could taste the greatness in them. The memory of chrome and sweat and blood and neon lights so incandescently bright they bleed between your teeth. We’re close to the big leagues.
Too damn easy to get swept up in all that.
I shouldn’t forget that we were similar to that dragon in another way. Back in those days, things were simpler, the world was smaller. The Afterlife didn’t exist, Night City was still giving way to its first dreamers, it was still just our world. Just enough space for legends to be born: Morgan Blackhand, Adam Smasher, Spider Murphy, Bartmoss…
Relics of another era. That old pre-Krash fic with the dragon. Night City’s legends.
Jackie wants to be like them. The next big name, complete with a drink in the Afterlife.
I don’t even know if we live in that world anymore. I don’t even know if it’s possible.
It certainly won’t be if we fail to survive the next ten minutes.
Gunfire slams into the concrete wall that I’m crouched behind, rocky shards vibrating off the pillar and onto my shoulders. Thick heavy thuds, the penetrating thunder of some battered old Burya. On the other side of the doorway that we’re using for shelter, I can see Jackie, iron brandished red-hot. A thick haze hangs in the air, the brown stain of dried blood dirties the floor, angry Russian punctuates the staccato of the Burya.
Scavengers. Always the fucking worst, vultures with teeth.
We’re here on a gig from the Lady of Westbrook. Wakako Okada herself, the fixer of Jig-Jig Street. One step closer to the big leagues, but I can’t think about that right now. Probably would offend a lot of people to hear, but being an edgerunner’s like running corpo. Any dumb gonk getting high off the thought of their future success isn’t focusing enough on the here and now. I’ve seen far too many stupid fucks get their skulls ventilated trying to take too big a bite of the pie, corpo or edgerunner. Thinking too much about the big picture distracts from the here and now, gets you zeroed faster than you can blink.
So, the gig. A search and rescue, pretty basic. A woman named Sandra Dorsett who had a contract with Okada to hire some mercs in case she ever went missing. Pretty goddamn prescient, given that we’ve tracked her down to a scavenger den. Could just be her unlucky day, but Night City has never been that kind. It definitely isn’t the first time that someone has tried to use scavs to get rid of their enemies.
Not our deal, not our problem. Okada wasn’t paying us to bodyguard the woman, just to get her away from the scavs. I motioned to Jackie and caught his attention, then waved towards the doorway with my free hand. The other brandished my trusty Nue. It’s all you really need at the core of it, in theory anyway. A reliable gun and a choom, and a cool head to see you through the shit.
I had all three. Jackie nodded in response to my silent communication. Moments later, the roar of the Burya paused as its wielder scrambled to reload. In a flash, I darted through the doorway and planted two shots between the Scav’s yellowed eyes. Arasaka had taken back their implants after my abrupt dismissal, but I still had the training, and months of running with Jackie had retrained my meat enough to use it.
The Scav dropped. Automatically, my gun moved onto the next, fired, then moved on again. Two. Three. A fourth crouched behind a short workbench, a bullet to the neck. Jackie was at my back firing, taking out the ones that I had an awkward angle on. It was all going well, too well, which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Instinct alone saved my life as I dropped to the ground, dragging Jackie with me. Seconds later, a blistering beam of light pierced the air where our heads had been, coring through the far wall with a molten screech.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“Cape!” I roared at Jackie, shoving him back as I dove for the workbench. Another beam carved through the floor like a hot knife through a patty of SCOP, the smell of molten concrete equally repulsive. The power seemed fairly straightforward, some sort of ranged, superheated laser strike, but capes weren’t like implants. You could never trust any one power to be the same. They always had some weird fucking shit.
More beams were coming down, unfocused, scattershot. I tried to keep a cool head as I crept around my cover, catching a glimpse of the Scav. He appeared coked out of his mind, jittery, glistening with sweat. It rose off his body in twisting ribbons of steam. Part of his hand had been torn up, a jagged cut spurting blood across the floor. For a moment, I swore that I could see the glisten of chrome deep within, past the spasming muscle, but the glint only grew in intensity. The bone, the muscle, the blood – they all shone with that toxic iridescence before contracting and bursting from the wound in another lethal strike.
What a fucking mess. I couldn’t just shoot him without making the situation worse.
Or could I?
I didn’t even need to make eye contact with Jackie, inching his way forward on his stomach like this world’s most enthusiastic Valentino worm. With a muttered curse and breath, I leapt from my heading spot and aimed my Nue at the Scav. He was moving so jerkily that I couldn’t get a bead on his head. He absolutely could on mine, however. His eyes focused on me, the light of his power building in his wounds. I had provided him with a target and he wanted me dead.
Stupid gonk really should have been faster. He didn’t have a chance to react as Jackie popped up and blew off his head.
The light faded instantly from his wounds. I fired another round into his shattered skull just in case he had one of those regenerator-type abilities – you could never know for sure.
Beside me, Jackie laughed hysterically and put his hands on his knees. “Holy fucking shit, chica! We are going to have a story tonight! Two no-name mercs, putting down a cape. We won’t be nameless mercs after this, V!”
I rolled my eyes, buying time to settle the tremor in my throat. “Save it for after we rescue the client, Jackie. We don’t have a story if we fail the damn job.”
Jackie sobered up immediately and nodded. “Right you are, right you are. It’s just, you know how excited I get.” His tone was jovial, but his posture deadly serious as we moved room to room, alert for any remaining scavs. We were all in the clear. “Getting through a fight, all that blood going to my head. It’s feeding my dreams.”
“Your dreams?”
“Our dreams,” Jackie corrected with a hearty slap to my shoulder. “One day, V. Just imagine it. Our name spoken on people’s lips in the Afterlife. The latest legends of Night City. Edgerunners of renown throughout all the States. International mercs.” A familiar greedy twinkle entered his eyes. “Interdimensional, even. Don’t tell me you aren’t thinking about that either.”
Our odds were in the shitter, but Jackie’s enthusiasm was downright infectious. “Sure,” I laughed with a low rasp. All the smog got into my lungs despite my best efforts, scarring my throat. “We’ll get there someday.”
Jackie laughed heartily. “Always heard that the air is cleaner on the other side of the portal. Might do you some good, if we can’t find some ripper or cape to check on your throat.”
I swore that he could read my mind sometimes. We just had that bond, the sort that you could only find between two chooms in Night City. Finding those moments of levity wherever we could, reminding ourselves that we had each other’s back. It made the rest of our work easier to stomach.
Jackie noticed it first, his brow furrowing.. The caustic scent of antiseptic, mixed with the stench of rotting synthetic flesh and dead tissue dripping from scavenged chrome. Pushing through a bathroom door left ajar, the smell quickly became unbearable. Body parts hung from the wall, or had been stacked up neatly on the floor. It was almost funny, how much disrespect the scavs had shown towards their victims versus how much reverence they had afforded the chrome. Then again, the metal always sold for far more than the meat.
Sandra Dorsett fortunately wasn’t among them. We found her still alive in the ice bath, head shaved and skin slick with antiseptic. Jackie hefted her up by the shoulders, as gentle and kind as he always was, while I hacked through the jammer that the scavs had set up to block her Trauma Team signal.
The chill to her skin and muscles stuck with me as we carried her out onto the apartment block balcony and left her for the inbound Trauma Team rapid response unit. Night City hardened all of the people who lived within its borders, but the sight of a scavenger victim always sent an ugly twist through my gut. It was nothing compared to a borg beast or the weirdness of capes, but there was something about the mundane cruelty and greed of it all that bothered me more than I could articulate.
As always, Jackie put it best as we took the elevator back down to my car.
“Damn.” He shook his head mournfully. “I really could use a drink, but I’ve got that date with my girl.”
A ping on my agent caught my attention before I could respond. I scanned it, then stopped and read it again, more closely again.
“You may want to put a hold on that date, Jackie.”
“God damn, V? Are you insane?”
“Wakako wants to meet with us.”
Jackie was quiet. “I must be the insane one, V. I’m thinking about standing up my girlfriend with another woman.”
I punched him in the shoulder. “Shut the fuck up, man.”
His eyes squinted mischievously as he wiped away an imaginary tear. “I was only talking about the Lady of Westbrook. I don’t really have any other women in my life. Did you think I was talking about someone else?” Just as quickly as it had come on, his joking demeanor vanished. “In all seriousness though. Does she sound upset?”
I reread the message for a third time. “No. She just wants to see us.”
“Well then!” Jackie clapped his hands together as he settled into the passenger seat of my car. “It sounds like we have a pit stop before returning to Watson! I’ll have to get a gift for my girl.”
“You’d better wait until we’re wrapped up with Wakako, Jackie, or I’m going to shoot you.”
“I make no promises, V.”
