Fear And Business In Night City, Part 1

[This fictional piece was written by me, using characters I created in Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk Red. It is set a few years before the Cyberpunk Red setting. Players in my current online game will recognize the main character.]

Rain fell upon the street, the neon lights of the buildings reflected off the wet pavement in brilliant greens, blues and pinks. Sandy’s dirty yellow overcoat was keeping most of it off him, but rain is rain. It will go where it goes. I’m sure this is all Arasaka’s fault, he jokingly thought. Taking refuge underneat a muddy awning, the Sandy ran face to face with an older Asian man saying something in a language the Norwegian fixer didn’t know. Sounded like Japanese, but could be Korean for all he knew.

October 19, 2020October 19, 2020

Clone Insurance Part VI: Cheapass pens

I woke with Masterson staring at me, smoking those goddamn MJ’s. What a shitty way to wake up. My mouth was dry. I sighed. “I was hoping that maybe you were a bad dream.”

He laughed irony not lost. “You wish. How do you feel?”

“Physically or emotionally? Physically I am thirsty. Emotionally I want some payback.”

Something in Masterson’s grin told me that I just sold my soul to the devil. I was unsure how to feel about that. I felt raw. It was inhuman. The enormity of what she did was nearly too much to comprehend. And what was I? At best a dead end. Would Masterson himself put me down when it was over? His large hands reminded me of DA’s. The time he choked me. My brain unable to cope hyper focused on the hands. I decided at that moment I hated them. Masterson picked up a plastic shopping bag and tossed it to me. “Get dressed.”

October 11, 2020October 12, 2020

Clone Insurance Part V

Part V(a)

I sat upright with a violent jerk. I knew I had just been cloned. My lungs always had a wet feeling to them…

I clutched my chest. I had just been shot, I was bleeding—my mind echoed the pain. I had trouble breathing. I sobbed. Jodie died and I was dying. Or I had just been.

It was dark and dank. So dark and dank it seemed to have a physical presence. It certainly wasn’t my clone lab. I don’t think that antibiotics would have made much of difference. I rolled to my side and hacked viciously.

October 4, 2020October 11, 2020

Clone Insurance part IV

I sat upright with a violent jerk. I knew I had just been cloned. My lungs always had a wet feeling to them… I clutched my chest. I had been shot, I was bleeding—my mind echoed the pain. I couldn’t breathe. I shook with emotion, remembering my own death. Jodie died in the explosion and someone shot me on the oilrig.

I had been dying just a moment ago; I looked down at my finger, hooked still trying to carry out the last order given to it. Pull the pin.

September 26, 2020September 27, 2020

Clone Insurance Part III

I placed the electrodes on my scalp and gave myself a sedative. I would sleep and the computer would map out the memories. It took several hours so it was best to do it overnight. I’d wake up in the morning snug in my own bed and I’d have a current backup. No worries. I wanted to make sure I had it up to date, the Yakuza job was tomorrow night.

September 19, 2020September 23, 2020

Clone Insurance

I.

I have never doubted God’s Wisdom in that He knew what He was doing when He didn’t give babies the ability to remember being sustained in liquid (that they don’t actually breathe) and transitioning to air. They go through this horrible trauma without any lasting memory. The experience of using lungs the first time is akin to the panic of drowning in air, like a goldfish that has been dropped while cleaning it’s bowl. It works out for us, not undo much for the goldfish. I certainly understand why babies cry during this transition. I was in warm liquid and suddenly not. I hacked up the nastiest stuff imaginable. I convulsed and hacked… and twitched… trying in vain to expel the remaining liquid. God spared me this memory when I was born a couple lifetimes ago. Technology did not.