The lights in Vik's clinic hummed with that same old, low buzz they always had—just beneath the threshold of irritation, a steady drone that filled the silence without breaking it. I blinked once, then again, and sat up slowly, my body heavy like I'd been underwater. One eye stayed shut, the other reluctantly opened, still adjusting to the too-sharp clarity of post-upgrade reality.
My vision didn't just see anymore—it processed. Every edge, every detail, every movement shimmered with layered data and flickering overlays I hadn't asked for but couldn't escape. Targets outlined themselves faintly at the corners of my sight, pulsing with diagnostics, identifiers, probabilities. The Oracle optic was online. No dampeners. No training wheels. Just raw data streaming directly into my skull, unfiltered and overwhelming.
I flexed my fingers, more out of instinct than need, watching the readouts cascade around them. Still functioning. Still mine. "I can see your heartbeat from here," I said, the words dry, half a joke, half a warning.
Vik, sitting a few feet away with his back slightly hunched over a piece of aging calibration gear, didn't bother looking up. "Yeah, well, enjoy it while it lasts," he said, voice flat but laced with quiet concern. "Don't let it get to your head."
I blinked, just to clear my vision. The glowing text dimmed momentarily, then resumed its quiet vigil across my vision. Everything felt too present, too sharp. Like the world had been redrawn while I was unconscious.
"Reality's got subtitles now," I muttered, trying to sound amused, but my tone betrayed the weight under the words. "It's like I'm in a movie."
Vik huffed, the smallest curve of a grin threatening the corner of his mouth. "Keep going the way I think you are and reality's not gonna keep being just a movie."
We settled into a quiet that wasn't uncomfortable, just... familiar. The kind that came from exhaustion and shared history. We didn't need to speak every second to fill the space.
"I didn't dream," I said softly, letting the silence carry the confession. "First time in months. Just... nothing."
He didn't say anything, but his hand paused over the calibrator. That stillness meant something. In Vik's language, that was as good as putting a hand on my shoulder.
Then the door slammed open.
The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot, and my body tensed before I could stop it.
David stood in the doorway, soaked through, shoulders squared tight. His school jacket clung to him like a second skin, water dripping from the cuffs. In one hand, he held a plastic bag like it weighed more than it should.
He didn't say anything. Didn't move. Just stared.
I knew that look. I'd worn it before.
"What's wrong?" I asked, but even as I said it, I knew. I felt it.
He walked forward, footsteps sharp and fast, and dropped the bag on the tray beside me. The soft clatter of metal inside made the moment heavier.
"It's Norris' Sandevistan," he said, his voice sharp. "Gloria found it. Thought you might want it."
I looked at the bag but didn't reach for it. Not yet.
"David—"
"You knew this was coming, didn't you?" he cut in. "This was part of your plan. All of it. The upgrades, the sneaking around, the way you keep looking at us like you're memorizing our faces."
I swallowed hard, words caught somewhere between guilt and denial.
"I didn't ask for it," I said quietly.
"No, but you sure as hell were ready for it," he snapped. "You know what this thing did to Norris. We all do. He went from street legend to chrome-sick maniac in a week. You saw what was left of him. And now you're going to wear it?"
Vik stayed silent, but I felt his attention sharpen.
David stepped closer, close enough that I could see the tremble in his hands. "You think I'm an idiot? You think I haven't noticed what's going on? You've been planning something, and you're not telling anyone. Not me. Not Gloria. Not even Vik. You're preparing for war—and you're doing it alone."
"I didn't want—"
"You didn't want to get us hurt," he interrupted, voice trembling now. "Yeah. I get it. I do. But this? This isn't you protecting us. This is you leaving us behind."
I didn't respond. Not yet. I couldn't.
He looked at me like he was seeing someone else. Like he didn't know how I'd become this person and couldn't figure out when it happened.
"You're not coming back, are you?" he asked.
The question hit harder than it should have.
"I never said that," I replied, softer than before.
"You didn't have to," he said, his voice breaking. "You're already gone."
I looked down. At the bag. At what it represented.
"You brought it to me," I said. "Even knowing what it was. Why?"
He laughed. One sharp, broken sound. "Because I wanted to see if you'd take it. If you'd actually do it. And I guess you will."
He turned toward the door.
"You want to destroy yourself? Fine. But don't pretend it's some noble sacrifice. Don't lie to yourself and call it protection when all you're doing is running."
He looked back one last time.
"You're not a ghost yet, Scarlet. Don't act like one."
Then he was gone.
The door slammed behind him, and the room fell quiet again.
Vik let out a breath that sounded like it had been waiting a long time to escape.
"He's not wrong," he said.
I didn't reply. My fingers curled around the edge of the bag, the plastic crinkling beneath my grip. Still, I didn't open it.
My mouth opened. Closed. No words came.
I leaned back in the chair and let the weight of everything settle across my shoulders.
The optic buzzed softly. The interface blinked. The Sandevistan appeared in a red outline, data feeding in as if it had already become part of me.
I stared at it until the overlay faded.
And then I blinked.
———————
The ride back to my apartment passed in a kind of sluggish haze, not because anything significant happened, there were no screeching tires, no sudden near-misses or paranoid glances in the rearview mirror, but because it lacked anything worth remembering. Just the muted hum of the car, the faint flicker of streetlights sliding across the windshield like dying fireflies, and the monotone voice of a newscaster murmuring something indistinct from the front seat of the taxi.
The Sandevistan rested in my lap the whole time, still and quiet, not making a sound, not giving off even the faintest vibration, and somehow that silence weighed more than it should have. It didn't glow. It didn't blink. It didn't even pretend to be special. Just a piece of stolen tech wrapped in a plastic bag, inert and ordinary.
I stared at it through the entire elevator ride, not blinking much, not really seeing the numbers as they changed above the door. One of the lights flickered, probably deliberately—everything flickered here, always on the edge of failure or drama or both. That was Night City's rhythm. Flicker. Pulse. Break.
When I got in, I locked the door without thinking and let the dark hold me for a while. I didn't turn on the overhead light. There was no point. The place didn't need to be bright. The plastic bag made a dull, reluctant sound when I set it down on the kitchen counter, like it knew I didn't want to touch it again. I didn't look back at it. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if I could help it.
The routine took over then. Jacket off. Boots by the door. Chair dragged out just enough to suggest I might sit down and stay a while, even though I already knew I wouldn't. My hands hovered over the mouse. The screen came to life in a low glow, painting the room in blue-white light. The Militech building was still there, exactly where I'd left it earlier, like it was waiting for me to come back and finish something I never should've started.
Another window opened over it. Data crawled down the screen: entry logs, elevator routes, cleaning schedules, all of it wrapped up in the kind of formatting that tried really hard to look authoritative, I minimized it.
My phone was in my hand. I didn't know when.
Then, almost against my own better judgment, my thumb drifted toward my contact list. I didn't think. Just hovered.
Jackie.
I didn't press it at first. Just stared at the name, thumb tapping once, lightly, like I could feel the weight of calling him before I made the choice. I pulled back. Breathed. Tapped again. Still no press. The silence stretched. Then I leaned forward and let my forehead rest against the table, letting the cold seep through my skin like a needle trying to wake me up from the inside.
Outside, Night City was alive in that particular way it always was—wheezing smoke into the air like an old, dying beast that refused to collapse. Distant voices tangled themselves into the fog, words indistinct but desperate. Neon soaked the horizon in that dirty yellow-orange glow, like a bruise stretched thin across the sky, and for a moment, I hated how beautiful it was.
I closed my eyes. Counted to four. Pressed the call.
Two rings.
"Chica?" he answered, voice slightly muffled, probably chewing something or sipping one of those awful drinks he swore sharpened his instincts. He always sounded like he was trying to seem casual, like he hadn't been expecting my call even when he absolutely had.
I let the silence hang for just a second too long, then finally said, "Yeah. It's me. I'm sending you an address."
I could hear the change instantly. The subtle shift in his breathing, the way the rustle of fabric suggested he was sitting up straighter, more alert. Maybe I even imagined that dumb metal coin of his flicking between his fingers, the way he did when he was nervous or just pretending not to be.
"What for?" he asked, carefully.
I scratched at the corner of my desk, where the paint was already peeling—had been for weeks. I kept meaning to repaint it. Or replace it. Or leave. But I hadn't done any of those things. I probably wouldn't.
"Just keep eyes on it," I told him, voice low but steady. "Watch who goes in or out. Focus on anyone who's got that Militech stink on them. You know what I mean. The ones with tactical gear and unmarked jackets? Those ones."
Jackie didn't tease me. Not this time. No jokes. No flirty nonsense about me dragging him into another mess. Just quiet on the other end.
"Surveillance gig?" he asked after a moment.
"Not exactly," I said, leaning back into the chair. "Think of it more like a precaution. Early warning, in case things start moving before I'm ready."
He didn't ask what I meant by that. He didn't have to.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked instead.
I didn't answer right away. My eyes were open, but I wasn't really seeing. I was just… somewhere else. Floating above it all.
"No," I said finally. "But I'll manage."
And then I hung up—not out of spite, not to be dramatic. Just to stop him from saying anything else that might make it harder to do what I was already doing. I couldn't afford comfort. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.
I let the phone fall, screen-down, and turned my attention back to the display. The building layout blinked lazily back at me, twelve floors above ground, six below, full airlock protocols and shielded entry points and the kind of smug corporate insulation that thought it could keep the world out just because it could afford the paperwork.
The janitor routes were annotated, red text, scribbles.
I stared until my vision started to blur. Then I opened the second file. The ones with all my hard work the past month.
In the back of my mind, I started to focus on a particular connection–no, limb is more accurate.
The Seer answered.
"How do I plant this information and then escape?"
It gave me the route.
No greeting. No sound. Just a rush of impressions.
I grabbed a pen. Wrote in uneven lines, fast, without cleaning it up.
• Loading dock, level B3. 3:17 PM entry. Cameras loop at 3:12. Five-minute window.
• Forge janitor ID. Age it. Scuff the edges. No shine.
• Plant the package inside the coffee machine shell, west lounge, floor 5.
• Create small fire on floor 3. Trigger alarm. Minor evac only.
• Exit with evac team. Don't react or one person will recognize you.
That last note hit something raw in me.
One person will recognize me?
Who?
From where?
And I'm just supposed to act like I don't know them?
I put the pen down. Not softly.
I stared at the opened file again. The payload. Data, receipts, rumors sharpened into something that could maybe pass as evidence, everything I'd need to spark a fire between Arasaka and Militech, or at least push them to look twice at each other while I slipped through the smoke. Some of it was truth. Some of it... well, Seer never promised anything clean.
I stood up. Walked to the fridge. Grabbed a bottle of that unnatural red-pink fluid they tried to pass off as "strawberry." One sip and my face twisted. But I could still drink it.
My hands weren't shaking. That worried me more than anything else. The ones who walked into situations like this with a calm grip and clear eyes? They usually expected something.
I leaned against the counter, the cold drink sweating in my palm, the light of the screen still glowing behind me, soft but constant. I didn't need to turn around. I already knew what it showed.
The plan. The data. The risk. The lies.
My voice came out quieter than I expected. Almost like I wasn't even talking to myself anymore.
"This better be worth it."