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Retirement by Noodlehammer

Worm & Cyberpunk 2077 Xover Rated: M, English, [V, Skitter], Words: 181k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Jan 28 Updated: Jul 29

743Chapter 8: New Stuff

Kudos to Alvor for beta-reading

XXXXX

Taylor shut the door behind her with a sense of relief. It had been a long day.

"Welcome home, honey." V greeted cheekily as she climbed the stairs into the loft, wearing nothing but an apron. "What would you like first? Dinner, a shower, or me?"

Taylor could only stare for a moment, then snorted out a laugh. "What the hell, V?"

Her girlfriend had been learning how to cook and other domestic stuff, but this was new.

"I was reading up on nice ways to surprise your partner from the early two thousands – what survived the DataKrash, anyway – and this was one of the suggestions." The older woman explained with a smirk. "I'm guessing it was targeted at men, but what do you say? Does this do it for you?"

She posed a bit, squishing her boobs together and doing a little twirl to show off her naked ass.

"You know damn well that you look great in anything."

"True." V agreed, walking towards her. "And it was a rhetorical question – dinner still has to sit for a bit and you can have me in the shower."

"I suppose it'd be rude to argue." Taylor allowed herself to be pulled towards the shower and peeled out of her clothes.

"Very rude." V confirmed, being unnecessarily handsy and pressing kisses to whatever exposed skin she could find. "How's the fresh meat coming along?"

"Almost ready to be promoted to greenhorns." Taylor replied, a bit amused. "They've been working hard."

And they were, mostly. Jackie had let it be known that the Beast Crew was looking to train a few young punks as proper mercenaries. The initial interest had been high, but most of them quickly washed out as it became clear just how much would be demanded of them and that they would have to take orders from an eighteen-year-old girl. Two, however, had stuck with it, bringing the total number of trainees up to four. Veronica, in particular, seemed familiar enough with pseudo-military discipline and worked at it like she had something to prove. It had been a couple of months and pretty soon, they would be ready to go on their first gig, although she was planning to escort them.

She'd been a bit uncomfortable with the idea of training kids for combat, but Night City was not a kind place. Being a civilian was no guarantee of safety, especially for orphans that had nowhere to go.

V sidled around her and began pressing kisses to her neck in between words. "Have. I. Ever. Told. You. How. Much. I . Appreciate. You. Training. My. Future. Minions?"

"Your future minions?" Taylor lifted her hands, allowing herself to be undressed.

"Our future minions." V corrected, smiling.

"That's better. And yes, you did."

"Well, then let me show you."

She had done that as well, but Taylor didn't complain as she was maneuvered into the shower. They kissed under the water just long enough to get wet before V pushed her against the wall and started trailing kisses down her body. Soon, the older woman was kneeling in front of her and moving in to lavish attention to her groin.

At first, Taylor just let herself enjoy the attention, but then she gasped in surprise as a decidedly unusual vibration stimulated her.

"Valerie, what was that?" She asked, looking down expectantly.

V grinned up at her unrepentantly and opened up her mouth to show off a tongue that was not only a bit too long, also moved with an almost cartoonish dexterity. And vibrated. "Midnight Lady series Vibrotongue, for the lady's lady. It has thirty six modes."

"I thought we agreed on no more cyberware without talking about it first?" Taylor gasped, gripping V's hair for stability as the vibrotongue assaulted her unprepared clitoris with a pulsating rhythm of vibrations.

"It's just a harmless toy." V argued, pulling away just long enough to speak before diving back in. This time, the vibrations started off slow before picking up speed, reaching a peak, and slowing down again.

"We will be talking about this later!" Taylor promised, gritting her teeth against the pleasure.

V just hummed in assent, not stopping for an instant.

XXXXX

After the shower fun and cleaning was done and dinner was eaten, the two women went to relax on the couch.

An unlooked for benefit of a cybernetic arm was that it never got tired, so it could be used to hold up a book or pad indefinitely. Taylor frequently made use of this trait to read comfortably. After V had moved in, her girlfriend took the opportunity to use her lap as a pillow for her head while she did some work or read a book of her own or simply napped while Taylor used her free left hand to run her fingers through the silky black hair.

It had become a very pleasant little ritual for them, and Taylor considered it one of the most enjoyable parts of her day. The sense of quiet companionship and intimacy was a wonderful contrast to the violence that was so common in their work. For a parahuman, it felt a lot like having her cake and eating it too, as the saying goes.

At some point, without her really noticing, life had become… good. Not just tolerable or okay or less shitty than average, but objectively nice. The grief of being separated from her father and friends had dulled into acceptance. Upon contemplating this alien and unexpected turn of events, Taylor discovered that there was very little she wouldn't do to protect this little oasis of happiness from anyone and anything that threatened it.

Such as the group of Scavs currently skulking through the sewers.

"V, we've got company." She murmured, giving her girlfriend's scalp a scratch. "In the sewers."

"Is that right?" The older woman grinned, her eyes already glowing with the telltale sign that she was connecting to the building security. "This I've got to see."

XXXXX

Sergei had been a Scavenger for three years now, which made him a veteran. He had survived that long by being careful about his targets and knowing when to let things go. Being a Scavenger was all about high risk and high reward, and anyone who went into the business should know that they would constantly be in danger of getting flatlined by the cops, gangs, corpo stooges, or random mercenaries.

As long as you were careful and knew when to strike, when to hide, and when to bail, being a Scav was actually pretty fucking nova.

The guys who had been using this building in the Glen had clearly not known when to bail. Sergei had actually been thinking of hitting them himself in an act of Scav-on-Scav cannibalism, but then they got cleaned out by the Valentinos.

Fucking gonks really should have bailed.

And now he heard that some rich bitches had moved in. Sergei smelled a fat payday. He'd seen the heavily armored front door and knew there'd be no getting through that, but he also knew about the secret sewer entrance from his previous scouting.

Even if they'd sealed it up, a little explosives could open it back up. Nobody would pay much attention to a small rumble from the sewers, and his boys could rush in, take the bitches, steal all their shit, have some fun with them, and then take them apart once they were done. Easy money.

His first hint that something was terribly wrong came when one of his men suddenly started screaming in terror and firing his gun wildly.

Sergei twisted around, a reprimand already on his lips, but then his throat went dry.

There was a veritable tidal wave of bugs coming from the sewer passage they'd passed not long ago. There had to be millions and millions of them, all crawling and scuttling and sliding over each other, and they were not impressed by the gunfire being poured into the swarm.

The men were clearly panicking and Sergei wasn't much better. Deciding to do the smart thing, he turned with every intention of running forward until he reached the nearest sewer access, leaving his men behind to die. That plan was dead in the water before it got off the ground, because there was another tidal wave of bugs coming from the other direction. They were trapped.

One of the boys threw a grenade into the swarm, usually an absolutely gonk idea but Sergei would say nothing if it saved them. It exploded in a muffled boom and a shower of bug guts, but the creepy crawlies just flowed over it without any visible dent in their numbers. They'd run out of grenades and bullets long before the bugs ran out of numbers.

Not that they'd have a chance. With the bugs closing in from both ends, they ended up pushing against each other in the middle. Sergei was nearly knocked over by the man at his back and shoved him forward viciously in response. The other Scav stumbled forward with a scream and was instantly swallowed by the swarm. The way that scream cut off was even more chilling.

Some of the men began crying, praying or begging for mercy, all things they were more used to hearing from their victims. Just like then, Sergei knew it wouldn't help. There was only one way out of this hell.

Sergei put his gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

XXXXX

"He pussed out like a bitch!" V howled with laughter, watching the remaining Scavs get swarmed.

Taylor smiled, going back to stroking her girlfriend's hair. "Does me swarming people like that really not bother you?"

"Bother me?" V echoed, a strange little smirk on her face. Then she put down the pad, and started stroking Taylor's leg. "Oh, I'm plenty bothered. Hot and bothered."

"V!" Taylor protested. It felt incredibly inappropriate to be turned on by the brutal killing of a group of Scavs. Especially since she was currently using her bugs to devour their flesh and bones so that they could add their cyberware to the stash afterwards.

"You know damn well that I always feel a sudden urge to worship at your altar when I see you going full Swarm Goddess on some gonks." V replied and rolled sideways off the couch so that she was kneeling in front of Taylor.

"Please don't refer to my vagina as an altar." Was her dry response.

"Mmm, why not? I feel pretty blessed when I have these legs wrapped around my head." V smirked, running her hands up said legs. "And people have been deified for doing far less than you, hero."

"I'm not a hero." Taylor muttered, but didn't resist as her panties were pulled off.

"You are." Was the immediate, firm response.

Unlike Dr. Yamada, who had tried to lead her away from the aggressive and violent impulses she had learned as a villain, V considered those to be valuable traits. In the brutal and unforgiving culture of Night City, people without the capacity to do great violence were just victims waiting to happen. The strong-arm negotiation tactics that Lisa had pointed out at the end were standard here.

Even if it wasn't for the different culture of Night City, the simple fact that those very traits were what had allowed her to defeat Scion excused everything in V's eyes. Plus, she really didn't see where Taylor had done anything particularly villainous. Being forced into choosing between two bad decisions didn't count as far as she was concerned.

Taylor had tried to argue back, but the older woman was a much better debater and picked her reasoning apart easily. Then she made her look in the mirror and tell herself that she'd done the best she could. It was as frustrating as it was sweet, and her sense of obligation towards her old morality system had mostly crumbled.

Before it could go any further, their phones rang with an incoming message.

V let out a huff of frustration at the interruption, but looked at it anyway. "Huh, it's from Jackie. He wants us to meet up with him tomorrow. Says he has a surprise for us."

"So he's finally ready to reveal what's had him so excited for the past few weeks." Taylor commented, amused.

"Seems like it." V chuckled, just as amused. "But let's not think about Jackie right now."

As the older woman lowered her head again, Taylor decided that she had the right idea.

XXXXX

Jackie said that he would come pick them up, which he could do now since he had a car, a sturdy Thorton Merrimac. It was practically an APC and so very Jackie, even though he still preferred his bike.

The big Latino only looked a bit different even with the addition of all the bioware they'd all been getting over the past couple of months. Maybe a little bit bulkier, but he'd already been pretty buff. The biggest different was the Sandevistan hidden under a layer of RealSkinn on his neck.

V and Taylor had stuck with bioware reflex boosters. In V's case because her aesthetic was important to her, and in Taylor's case because she didn't have the neuralware to trigger something like a Sandevistan… nor did she want such an invasive piece of cyberware. The synpatic accelerators were plenty good enough – it boosted transmission speed in response to adrenaline, effectively putting the user into a state of heightened perception.

Taylor had experienced being 'in the zone' a couple of times naturally during moments of extreme stress. Having that happen reliably in every combat encounter was more than enough for her.

"Eyyyy, where's my sisters from different misters?" Jackie greeted in his usual gregarious way as he got out of the car, spreading his arms wide.

Taylor let V pull her along into the hug, oofing a bit as he picked them up off the ground for a bit.

"Jackie." V said back amusedly once they were set down. "What's got you in such a fine mood?"

"Can't a man just be happy to see his chooms?" He said back, fooling nobody.

"Not when you're obviously dying to tell us something." Taylor remarked drily.

"Okay, fine, be that way." He said with a grin. "Come on, we need to get a bit out into the Badlands for this."

"The Badlands?" Taylor raised an eyebrow. "Does this have anything to do with those boxes you're hiding in the trunk?"

"Boxes?" V echoed, a smile growing on her face. "Jackie, did you get us presents?"

"No peeking!" He scolded and got into the car. "Go snuggle in the backseat to distract yourselves if you're too curious for your own good."

They did exactly that, spending the short drive holding hands and chatting. Their destination was not at all far out of the city, so they reached it quickly.

"A firing range?" V asked bemusedly, seeing a bunch of bottles and cans set up like it was some kind of western. "You know that there's plenty of those in Night City, right?"

"Trust me, it's necessary." He insisted and got one of the boxes out of the trunk. "First, a little something for V."

V opened up the box and froze, staring at the beautifully customized Kenshin pistol inside. It was colored black, with a scaled purple pattern gilded in gold. A rearing serpent coiled around the grip.

"I call her the Gorgon, higher quality than your typical Kenshin for a higher quality of woman." Jackie said, sounding awfully proud of himself. "And since I know how much you like your neurotoxins, she's designed to handle specialized neurotoxin bullets along the normal kind."

"I don't know what to say, Jack." V sounded honestly touched as she picked up the pistol, admiring its sleek lines and professional paint job.

"Did you go looking up mythology just to find a name?" Taylor asked, amused. Jackie was not the kind of guy that would know much about Ancient Greek myth.

"No comment. Anyway, try it out!" Jackie urged with a grin.

V, looking visibly amused, aimed down at the makeshift targets and fired off a few rounds, both the default burst fire and the powered railgun shot.

"It handles really well." She complimented, clearly pleased. "Thanks, Jack."

"I ain't done yet." He boasted and brought out another box. Popping it open, he showed a pair of beautiful hooked knives that looked like fangs. "These are the real kicker, the Serpent's Fangs. Again with the neurotoxin and balanced well enough to be thrown in a pinch."

V put the gun back into its case and took out the knives, testing their balance. "I can't believe you remembered my drunken rambling about how much I wanted some special knives."

"Hey, you've got a style, and I always appreciate good style." Jackie bragged. "And now for Taylor!"

"You really didn't have to." She tried to protest.

"I wanted to." He instantly shot down. "We can't be the most preem merc group in town if we're using basic weapons. Besides, you two didn't have to be overpaying me so I could afford this car, the renovations to my mama's bar, and the nice apartment for me and Misty."

"That was to pay you back for giving up on a few paydays so that Taylor and I could get our place all set up." V pointed out.

"Eh, there's no debts between friends." Jackie waved off and held out a box. "Now open it up."

Taylor decided not to argue anymore and did as she was told. Inside the box was a customized Liberty with a black paintjob. The grip was much more ergonomic and comfortable than the standard Liberty, with a web-like pattern that could either be a reference to her style or just something to prevent slipping. The black barrel was decorated in such a way that it looked like countless glowing crimson eyes glaring out of the darkness.

"This beautiful lady was made with extra care. Tougher and more accurate, she's a higher class of iron and only takes payment in dual-purpose ammo." Jackie recited proudly.

Taylor had recently swapped to using dual-purpose ammo. It cost much more than regular ammo, even more than smart ammo, but the peace of mind of knowing she would never have the wrong ammo type loaded again was worth it. Problem was, the standard Liberty wasn't really made for that kind of ammo. Jackie had obviously seen that and taken it into account.

"Why are you describing my new gun like it's an expensive prostitute?" She asked drily.

"I thought about calling her the Black Widow, but I know you don't want to be too on the nose with your powers. And unlike V, you don't ramble when you're drunk." Jackie flagrantly ignored her question.

Taylor ignored her girlfriend's snake-eyed glare and turned the gun over in her hands. Black Widow wasn't a bad name by any means, but it didn't quite speak to her. Too much association with her powers, rather than her life.

Unfortunately, Taylor was really not good at naming things. Did a gun really need a name? Not like it was a legendary sword in a fantasy novel or something!

By the expectant faces of her friends, yes, yes it did.

She was not one to umm and uhh, but shunting into the swarm and becoming a statue served the same purpose. The silence grew awkward.

"It's a beautiful gun, Jackie. Thank you." Taylor said sincerely.

"No idea what to name it, huh?" He chuckled.

"Something righteous and heroic?" V suggested with a raised eyebrow.

Clearly another attempt to hammer in the idea that Taylor was, or at least had been, a hero.

Righteous. A hero. The custom Liberty.

She had been thinking of her father recently. If he would be proud of her. If he would be happy for her. With how domestic things had gotten between her and V, she'd been thinking of what it was like between him and her mom, back before Mom died and everything went bad.

V's mention of being righteous, combined with the guns, the casual violence, the degeneracy of Night City, her surviving Gold Morning when she should have died to the two bullets in her head, combined with her recent thoughts, sparked a memory of one of Dad's favorite movies. An Aleph import that they had watched not long before Mom died. It stuck in her head because there had been a few things in there that her mother had decided to turn into a short lecture.

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men." She quoted slowly, dredging the words up from memory.

"Oh, I know this one!" Jackie perked up, his face twisting with concentration as he struggled to remember the rest. "Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great anger and furious vengeance those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee. That passage is a Valentino favorite. Padre likes to quote it, too."

Taylor almost snorted. Yeah, she bet he did.

"Didn't think you were one for Bible verses." V commented, looking interested.

"I'm not, that was from a movie my dad liked, Pulp Fiction." She replied, looking down at the gun and smiling slightly. "A hitman liked to recite that passage before killing someone because he thought that it was, quote, 'a cold motherfucking thing to say'. But then he has a near-death experience that he really shouldn't have survived and it makes him think deeper about it."

"I'd like to see that movie." Jackie said, interested.

"So would I, but I doubt we'd be able to find it, if it was even made in our Earth." V sighed in disappointment, then she turned to address Taylor. "It fits you, too. You were beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. And women. More women than men, actually."

"The Bible wasn't being sexist in this case." Taylor addressed the irrelevant point first instead of trying to argue with V's insistence that she was a hero. "In Old English, man was a gender neutral root term that simply meant human. I think the word for woman was wifman, but I can't recall the one for men. The 'race of men' as a term for humanity was still used up to the early 20th century, although mostly by authors and linguists like Tolkien."

Her mother had expounded on it at length, using it to talk about linguistic drift.

"Huh, I didn't know that. Interesting."V smiled at her.

Well, time to name the gun. Hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be stupid.

"You keep saying I was a hero, and maybe you're right." Taylor conceded, ignoring V's responding smug look. "I did my best and tried to help people, but I retired from the hero biz. I'm in it for myself now, which I guess makes me the tyranny of evil men."

And she was fine with that in a way that she would never have been able to imagine even a short while back.

"Please, chica, you couldn't be the tyranny of evil men if you tried." Jackie scoffed disbelievingly.

"She could, but she's too much of a softie under that hard exoskeleton, so she'd just end up terrorizing other evil men." V chuckled. "But Tyranny is a good name, especially for a Liberty. Very ironic."

Taylor huffed at them and aimed her newly named Tyranny down at the remaining 'targets', firing off a few rounds. She didn't use her powers to cheat, so she didn't hit all of them, but it did feel like the bullets were more prone to going where she wanted them to.

"It handles really good." She said, switching hands. It was as comfortable in the left as it was in the right.

"I got another one for you, too." He said, going to take another box, this one somewhat bigger. "I know your biggest gripe has always been how to handle borgs. That Burya you've been using is a piece of shit and I know you hate it."

She did hate it and it was a piece of shit. The Soviet gun was huge, clunky, heavy, badly balanced, kicked like a dozen mules, and had a non-negligible chance of exploding in your hand. The only reason Taylor carried it around was its raw stopping power and because any alternative was even clunkier. She avoided using it as much as possible and had only needed to fire it twice since getting it.

Taylor opened up the box and furrowed her eyebrows at what looked like a strange mix of heavy pistol, sawed-off shotgun, and an old M79 grenade launcher. It had a similar black paintjob to the Tyranny, but with white highlights. Most notably, it had a curving 'horn' on top of the barrel that reminded her of an old friend.

"Think of this one as a bastard child of the Satara shotgun and the Burya. One thing you have to give to Rostović and Techtronika, their shit is easy to modify. What you got there is a single-shot break-action railgun that fires these babies." Jackie said, holding up a chunky bullet that, again, looked almost more like a grenade shell with a pointy tip.

"They're basically shaped charges made to look and act like bullets. The tungsten tip digs into armor, then the whole thing explodes partially inside. Good for taking out heavy borgs and lightly armored vehicles and not much else."

"It feels a lot better than the Burya, that's for sure." Taylor said admiringly. She aimed down the sights, tested the break-action, hefted the bullets. The stock made it much less front-heavy than the Burya, and it was actually possible to brace against the forearm. "Making this must have been expensive."

"Eh?" Jackie made a wishy-washy gesture. "It's not really that complicated of a weapon, just keep in mind that it fires only charged shots and needs at least five seconds to cool down before you can use it again. The custom job and the quality did cost a nice bit of scratch, but it's the ammo that's the real money hog on this one. Each round costs about six hundred eddies to make."

V whistled. "Good thing we don't run into a lot of borgs."

"You styled it after Atlas, didn't you?" Taylor asked, staring at the Hercules beetle-like horn on the barrel.

"Damn right I did." Jackie said, looking at her. "The idea of a giant beetle still freaks me out, but I have to admit it sounded pretty preem."

"Atlas is a good name." Taylor said with a smile, testing out the grip and break action on her new borg killer again. It was much more fluid than the Burya had been. "How much kick does it have?"

"Not as much as the Burya, probably, but the bullets explode instead of penetrating." Jackie smiled awkwardly. "That's why I brought you out here. Can't really test fire that thing in a normal firing range without blowing out a wall."

Taylor hummed and aimed Atlas at a big rock. Taking just a second to brace herself, she pulled the trigger.

Atlas had a mean kick, but it was less bulky and better balanced than the Burya and easier to handle because of it. It would probably bruise the muscle of her left arm if she didn't prepare for the kick properly, but the cybernetic right could handle it pretty easily. Ideally, she would use both while bracing it against something, but it could be fired one-handed if necessary.

Down the 'firing range', the rock was reduced to pebbles.

V whistled again. "I think even Adam Smasher would feel that one."

"Hehe, it's good, right?" Jackie chuckled happily. "What do you think, Taylor?"

"I like it." She smiled, breaking the gun open with a flick of her wrist and loading in a new shell. One of the bigger problems she'd had with the Burya was that it hadn't been specifically been made to kill borgs, but to punch through cover. "I'll feel a lot better having this bad boy with me. Thanks, Jackie."

"Was my pleasure, hermana." He puffed out proudly. "Now we've all got style."

"You got something for yourself, too?" V grinned. "Show us!"

"If you insist." Jackie acted like he wasn't dying to do just that, and then flashily drew two Nue pistols, covered in beautiful golden paintwork. "How do you like my La Chingona Dorada, eh?"

Taylor and V exchanged amused looks.

"It's very you." Taylor said.

"Sexy guns for a sexy man." V added, smirking.

"Calm down, ladies, I'm taken." Jackie played it up. "But since I'm the heavy weapons guy, I also got myself something a bit more beefy."

He went over to get another box, the biggest of the lot, and pulled out a clearly customized Defender.

The light machine gun was painted a very dark grey, but the barrel was shaped into a red bull head with golden horns that acted as dual bayonets.

"What do you think?" Jackie proudly hefted the big gun. "I call this one the Bull's Horns."

"Well… it's memorable, I'll give you that." V said, staring oddly at the LMG. "Won't maintenance on that muzzle be a bitch and a half, though? And how much extra weight is it packing?"

"Eh, a little?" Jackie grinned sheepishly, but clearly unrepentantly.

Taylor couldn't stop staring at the actual gold-plated horns jutting from the gun. "I hope you're not planning to actually stab anyone with those?"

"Not unless they get really close."

XXXXX

It was about a week after Jackie upgraded their style that the next big thing happened to them

"Heeeeey, Pepe, how's it going?" Jackie greeted the bartender gregariously as they entered the Coyote Cojo.

"Can't complain." The other man shrugged with a small smirk. Then he turned serious. "Padre is waiting for you up at your booth."

That brought them all up short in surprise. Heywood's fixer didn't wait for people, they waited for him.

"Did he say why?" V asked, hiding her concern. She had been careful not to step on any important toes while building up money and connections, but there was always a chance that she'd screwed up somewhere.

The bartender shook his head. "You know Padre doesn't roll that way."

"I'm sure it's nothing bad." Jackie declared with confidence. "Let's go see what he wants."

V and Taylor shared a look. Unlike their partner, they were far more cynical.

Still, Taylor gave a slight shake of her head, indicating that she wasn't detecting any threats in her range. Not that there was likely to be any violence in the Coyote Cojo, but it was good to be sure.

The old fixer greeted them warmly and they made a bit of smalltalk before Jackie broached the subject.

"So, Padre, not that we aren't happy to see you, but I'm guessing this isn't a social call?" He said.

"It isn't." Padre nodded. "Your successes have been noticed. Rogue wants to talk to you."

Jackei froze for a second, then a bright grin appeared on his face. He knew that getting Rogue's attention meant that you were in the big leagues.

Taylor only raised an eyebrow. She didn't have the cultural background to think of this as a big deal, but she knew what kind of trouble it could be to be noticed by important people.

V had the least amount of reaction, a slight untensing as she realized that Padre was just delivering a message. For her, this was effectively the same as having a higher up in the company notice your hard work. Yeah, it was potentially problematic, but Rogue had a solid reputation.

Plus, this was exactly what she had hoped for when she'd started thinking of her new career as a solo/fixer.

"And when does the Queen of Fixers want to meet us?" She asked.

"At your convenience." Padre replied. "Just tell the bouncer who you are and he will let you in."

Leaving it up to them if they wanted the association. V's impression of Rogue went up a few notches. Most high ranking corpos were paranoid control freaks that would take other people's independence as a threat. That Rogue knew how to use a light touch without coming off as weak was a big mark in her favor.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries with the Heywood fixer before Padre said that he had to go, leaving them alone to talk.

"Madre de Dios, we got Rogue's attention!" Jackie exclaimed, looking like he'd been holding it in for a while.

"Do we want her attention?" Taylor asked neutrally.

"What do you mean, hermana?" Jackie's face scrunched up in confusion. "This is Rogue we're talking about. The Queen of the Afterlife. If we start taking gigs from her, we'll be swimming in eddies."

"Taylor has a point." V said her own piece. "We have a good thing going here, taking out Scav dens and klepping all of their shit for ourselves. We don't need Rogue."

"But, V, it's Rogue!" Jackie protested, looking far too much like a oversized puppy.

"I'm not saying it's a bad idea." She smirked at him, amused. "We're making good money right now, but having powerful connections is always useful. Even if we don't take a lot of gigs from her, just having access to her services would be worth it."

"Alright." Taylor shrugged.

"Really?" Jackie blinked. "I thought you were against it?"

"Just playing Devil's advocate." She shook her head. "Somebody on this team has to be the naysayer to counter your enthusiasm."

"Hermana, you wound me!" Jackie grabbed at his chest, playing up the injury.

"Sorry, Jack, but we promised Misty to keep you in one piece." V teased.

"I have too many women around me." He joked. "You're all trying to stifle my manly energy."

"Easy there, stud." V snorted. "How about we order a round of drinks to celebrate before your 'manly energy' gets away from you?"

"Now you're talking my language!"

A few minutes later, they all had shots of tequila in front of them. Jackie raised up his glass in a toast.

"To the big leagues!" He said.

Taylor and V smirked at each other and clinked their glasses against his.

"To this."

The stream of Spanish curses as they ruined yet another toast turned their smirks into grins.

XXXXX

Night City might be a dystopian nightmare in most respects, but it did have some upsides. Looking at her shiny hair, Taylor had to admit that the cosmetics were top notch.

As long as you had the money to buy the good stuff. The cheap shit was probably toxic in some way.

Stepping out of the bathroom, she saw that V had just finished putting her hair up into her favored high ponytail and was now applying makeup. The clothes they would be wearing were laid out on the bed.

Taylor's smile at seeing her girlfriend dropped as she saw what was laid out for her to wear.

"V, I don't own a pair of leather pants."

"I know, but I screwed up." V said, turning to look at her with a pout and puppy dog eyes. Given her half-applied makeup and slit, serpentine pupils, she looked ridiculous. "I accidentally put all of your pants in the wash while you were showering. You can wear one of mine, though!"

Taylor stood stock still at the brazen lie. Today was the day that they were meeting with Rogue, so she couldn't just refuse to go. V had set things up so that she would have to wear leather pants.

And… yep, those weren't even one of hers. They were freshly bought, and definitely sized for Taylor's somewhat skinnier waist and legs.

"Valerie…" Warlord Skitter growled.

"It's for your own good, Tay." V said unrepentantly. "You would look hot as hell in leather pants and if this is the only way to make you try them, then I'm willing to take a spanking later if that's what it takes."

The suggestive statement left her a bit flatfooted. Early on in their relationship, V had been the one taking the lead sexually. Taylor hadn't minded learning the ropes from the more experienced woman, as she hadn't really done anything objectionable. Lately, though, she'd been making these kinds of statements, which seemed to be hinting at something.

Taylor took another look at the leather pants, then at V's earnestly hopeful face. The expression was so easily readable that it could only be deliberate, so she sighed in defeat. "Fine."

"I knew you'd see reason!" V beamed and stood up. "Come sit so that I can get you ready."

Taylor trudged over to the vanity table and sat down, not bothering to put on any clothes. Both of them had gotten quite comfortable with being naked around each other, and the windows were tinted.

V hummed to herself as she started brushing her hair while it was still wet, gently working out any knots. Once that was done, she started carefully braiding it and pulling it into the same high ponytail that the former corpo favored. The only difference between them was that V's hair was left straight and bound with a golden serpent clasp, while Taylor got a black and red spider clasp. The end of her braid was further bound with another spider clasp.

"I'm not sure I like this hair style." Taylor said, frowning at herself. With her hair pulled back like this, her bony face seemed even sharper and harsher.

"It makes you look older and scarier, especially when you're shunting into the swarm to make your movement more spidery." V explained, moving on to applying makeup, the same 'spider legs crawling out of her eye' kind of makeup that was now 'her thing' apparently. "Plus, we match!"

Taylor exhaled, but didn't protest anymore. Frankly, V was the expert on presentation and probably knew better. She was just protesting because she was nervous.

All too soon, the hair and makeup were done, which meant it was time to get dressed.

Both of them had homemade spidersilk panties, which was where the easy parts ended.

For Taylor's top, V had respected her desire to not be overly sexualized. It was just a sleeveless black halter top with a white spider web design on the front. Unfortunately, it was also skintight and clung to her curves like glue, and the spider web was done in a way that drew a suspicious amount of attention to her boobs.

Taylor had very conflicted feelings about that, but she decided not to complain. Then came the black leather pants, which V took far too much pleasure squeezing her into.

"Well, how do they feel?" V asked with a knowing, smug grin.

Taylor tried out a kick, noting that the skintight faux leather didn't impede her movement in any way. It was, in fact, quite comfortable and really not that different from her hero costume or the spandex-like suit she'd worn before getting proper armor.

"it's fine." She said, deliberately being as unenthusiastic as possible.

V wasn't having that, though. She leaned forward to speak into Taylor's ear, her hands going down to grab two fistfulls of ass. "It's more than fine! I knew these sexy legs of yours would fill out a pair of leather pants like a dream."

"Okay, jeez." Taylor muttered, wiggling away from the grabby woman. But she did feel her irritation at the dirty trick fading. She still didn't feel like a leather pants kind of girl, but V certainly seemed to enjoy her in them, so it couldn't be all bad.

"Now come on, I'm gonna need your help to get my top on." V said, wiggling into her own leather pants.

"Why…?" Taylor trailed off, taking a second look at what kind of top her girlfriend had chosen.

At first glance, it could be mistaken for a tank top, but a closer look showed that it was actually more of a corset.

"Need you to lace up the back." V said shamelessly, pressing the front to her chest and turning around to show that there was no back at all.

"Why don't you just slap a pair of pasties on your nipples and be done with it?" Taylor muttered, pulling on the laces and checking to see where each one went.

"Jealous?" V teased.

"No." Taylor lied.

"You're supposed to say yes." Her girlfriend chided. "That way, you can toss me on the bed when we get home and ride my face until you've made it clear who I belong to."

"V!" Taylor's fingers fumbled the laces.

Another non-too-subtle suggestion that she be more aggressive in bed. She really had no idea what to do with that.

"Don't shunt into the swarm!" V said just as she was about to do exactly that.

Taylor huffed, but obeyed, allowing her blush to form. They had an agreement. She was only allowed to shunt her reactions into the swarm on the job and in emergency situations. Just being embarrassed didn't count.

The fact that V constantly abused this agreement to get a rise out of her notwithstanding. She knew that it wasn't malicious, that it was to teach her how to properly process emotions instead of running away from them. Or so the older woman claimed.

Still, it was embarrassing.

A couple of minutes later, the corset was fully laced up and the two of them stood side by side in front of the mirror.

"Damn, we are some badass sexy bitches." V declared, looking them over approvingly.

It was definitely true for V. Taylor herself still thought she looked too harsh to really be called sexy.

Experimentally, she shunted her reactions into the swarm and took another look. She was now eerily still, moving only when she wanted to, which created an almost stop-motion kind of effect. The harsh attractiveness that V had created was turned creepy.

"Come on, say it." V urged. "We are badass sexy bitches."

"We are badass sexy bitches." Taylor obliged, knowing that her girlfriend wouldn't relent.

"Damn right!" V nodded sharply, punctuating it with a slap on the ass. "Alright, let's get going."

The only things left to put on was their boots. Combat boots, because this was technically work and you never knew when you were going to run into trouble.

And, of course, their weapon belts.

XXXXX

"Killer look, ladies!" Were Jackie's first words as he saw them, giving them finger guns.

They were meeting up near the Afterlife, because he was intending to spend the rest of the evening and night with Misty afterwards.

Taylor happily shunted any and all nervous reactions into the swarm as the three of them made their way towards the merc bar. Very soon, they started running into the various loiterers that hung around the place.

Said loiterers generally consisted of two types of people. The first type was cocky street kids that thought they were hot shit and deserved entry. The second type were… well, sluts that thought they could get in by spreading their legs for mercs that already had access.

Taylor had gotten used to seeing… sexually loose people all around the city. She had learned to tune out the propositions of joytoys and such. Hell, it wasn't even all new. This kind of thing had occasionally happened during her time as a warlord, much to her mortification at the time, although not nearly on the same scale.

It did not prepare her for what happened when you walked towards the Afterlife looking like a badass.

Thinking about it objectively, edgerunners were people who took suicidal risks in a foolish pursuit of fortune and glory that they would definitely not live long enough to enjoy. To a Night City native, they were akin to the heroes of old, people who had the guts to take life by the horns and wrangle it even if it eventually got them killed.

Taylor was doubly glad for her ability to shunt into the swarm as they had to walk past a crowd of scantily-clad men and women, all hopefully putting themselves on display as they walked past and calling out all kinds of offers if one of them would just pull them out of the crowd and into the bar with them.

Compared to the tiny plastic skirts and other, extremely skanky, articles of 'clothing', the leather pants V had tricked her into were downright conservative. Fucking Night City was screwing with her sense of normality again. She really should have gotten used to it by now.

Taylor could understand why this kind of attention would appeal to street kids with nothing to live for. She was going to need to increase the training for the minions to make absolutely sure they had the stupid beaten out of them.

Thankfully, it didn't take long before they were past the crowds outside and heading down in the bar proper. There were still some people here, but not as many.

"Heh, Afterlife is as wild as ever." Jackie commented.

Taylor side-eyed him with a deadpan look. He'd been one of the stupid kids with guns posturing around the entrance once upon a time, hadn't he?

V confidently stepped up to the bouncer guarding the entrance proper. "Beast Crew. Rogue invited us."

The bouncer nodded silently and stepped aside. That got the attention of the loiterers and they tried one last time to get attention. One of the women actually stomped her heeled foot in frustration when it didn't work.

Taylor ignored that and took a look around the bar interior. She had already gotten a decent feel of the place with her bugs, but it was different seeing it with her own eyes. The bar was full of dangerous people, and nobody would guess that it used to be a morgue with how much it had been altered.

"There's Rogue, the Queen of Fixers." Jackie said, trying to be subtle with his glancing towards a booth guarded by two more big bouncers.

Inside was a woman with grey hair that had only a few strands of black left, wearing a bright yellow, long-sleeved crop top that had 'SURVIVE' printed on the front, exposing some pretty significant cyberware on her stomach… and leather pants. Were leather pants some kind of secret dress code for female mercenaries? At this point, Taylor wouldn't even be surprised.

"Let's go have a drink." V suggested. "Don't want to seem too desperate to talk to her."

Ah, the famous drinks of the Afterlife, named after people who went out in a blaze of glory. It was a tradition that said a lot about how fatalistic the people in Night City were that it was considered something to strive for.

"You order for me." Taylor told her girlfriend, sitting down on one of the stools.

"You got it." V winked and turned to address the bartender. "Give us a couple of Silverhands, as a reminder of what not to do."

Taylor had heard of Johhny Silverhand and wasn't particularly impressed. She could understand the man's hatred of the megacorporations, but what exactly did he think detonating a nuke in the middle of a city was going to accomplish? It wasn't as if this was Arasaka's only base of operations, or even its main one. It was a Japanese company. Sure, it had resulted in them getting banned from North America for almost fifty years, but it was debatable how much the nuke had to do with that.

The bartender snorted, clearly amused. "Coming right up. What about you, big guy?"

"A shot of vodka, lime juice, ginger beer, and a splash of love." Jackie once again did that thing where he used an unnecessarily suave tone.

"Looking to have that named after you?" The bartender asked.

"No. He's going to live a long, long time and he's going to like it." V interjected.

"Never hurts to be ready, just in case." Jackie grinned irrepressibly. "The name's Jackie Welles, and these mamacitas are V and Taylor. Together, we're Skitter, Slither, and Stampede, the Beast Crew!"

Taylor took a sip of her drink, glad that she was shunting into the swarm. Jackie really should have a little more shame. There was no need to introduce them to everyone they met, especially with that kind of braggadocio. Sure, they'd clearly made a bit of a name for themselves, but nobody of any importance had ever been impressed by boasting. You were supposed to let your accomplishments speak for you.

"That right?" The bartender certainly didn't sound too impressed either, although she was definitely amused. "You new here?"

"First time." V took over. "We're based down in Heywood, but we operate all over the city."

"Hmm, well you must be doing something right if you got Rogue's attention this fast." The bartender said. "You can go talk to her right now, if you want."

Taylor had a feeling that their presence had been noted and that this was a subtle nudge. It was annoyingly hard to tell when someone got a message when people had phones built into their heads. Still, it did spare them from looking weak if they were made to wait, so that was appreciated.

"Much obliged." Jackie grinned and held out his drink. "A toast, to success! And don't ruin this one for me!"

"Should we?" V asked teasingly, holding out her own drink.

"I think he's earned this one." Taylor decided to be merciful and clinked her own drink with theirs. "To success."

They knocked back the shots together.

"Aaahhh." Jackie smacked his lips. "Now doesn't it taste better with a proper toast?"

"I don't know, they all taste like burned brain cells to me." Taylor deadpanned.

"You'll get there one day." Jackie encouraged.

"Come on, time to get serious." V slid off the bar stool, giving a nod to the bartender. Her eyes briefly glowed to indicate a financial transaction. "Thanks for the drinks."

"Anytime." Was the laconic response.

They made their way over to Rogue's booth. V took the lead, as the face of their group.

"Let them through." Rogue said as soon as they reached the two beefy guys blocking the way, and they stepped aside to let them in. The Queen of Fixers then looked up at them and gestured to the booth. "Have a seat."

"Thanks." V said, immediately lounging with the kind of effortless grace that Taylor was still envious of. "We were pretty surprised to get your message. Hadn't thought we'd done anything big enough to get your attention."

Jackie pretty much casually 'dumped' himself onto the sofa, but Taylor sat down next to V with the motionless stiffness that she knew unnerved people. It was part of the plan and Rogue's eyes immediately flicked over to her before returning to V.

"I pay attention to all kinds of things, and a new merc crew that's good enough at hunting Scavs to carve out a small piece of the cyberware black market for themselves? Now that's interesting." Rogue leaned back.

The woman was well into her eighties, but she looked more like a prematurely grey forty. Rejuvenation treatments, no doubt.

V had started herself and Taylor on them as well, insisting that the sooner you started the more effective they were. Nobody really knew how long they could prolong life, especially as technology continued improving, but Taylor and V could both expect to retain their youth for at least forty years. Jackie and Misty were also on a rejuvenation plan. Even Mama Welles had gotten a little touch up.

It was expensive, but V continued to blow money almost as soon as they got it. Taylor might have protested if she trusted either the banks or the economy. As it was, spending it while it was still worth something was only sensible, though they did put some of it away.

"You want us to hunt down some Scavs for you?" Jackie asked, sounding a bit surprised.

"No." Rogue chuckled. "That's just what got my attention about you, but you do other gigs as well, don't you? Clean, precise, professional – all the things I like. I want to give you a test, see if you're really as good as Regina and Padre say you are."

"What's the gig?" V asked.

"Biotechnica Hotel." Rogue replied promptly. "Seeing as you used to be Arasaka counter-intel, I'm sure you're familiar with corporate espionage. I want you to bug the place as thoroughly as possible."

"Nostalgic." V smirked humorously. "We'll need Biotechnica employee credentials to get in."

"Just send me the details and I'll set it up for you." Rogue promised. "The pay for this one depends on how thorough you are with bugging the rooms and computers."

That was pretty vague, but Rogue's reputation was rock solid and she was probably rich as hell. Stiffing them wouldn't be worth the loss of reputation.

"You'll provide the daemon and reimburse us for the bugs we use?" V asked, likely thinking the same thing.

"Of course." Rogue nodded. "Getting them into the hotel without being caught will be your job."

"I've got some ideas already." V said simply, pointedly not glancing anywhere.

Taylor could guess what those ideas were – using bugs to airlift said devices to the hotel. Done at night, it would be as good as invisible. High end hotels like this had tech built into them to repel insects, but that wouldn't stop the ones she controlled.

"Then you'll take the gig?" Rogue asked to confirm.

There was a strange look in V's eye as she looked towards Taylor. "I'd like to."

"I always did want to see how you did your corpo spy shit." Jackie grinned.

Taylor decided to be the voice of caution, though it came out cold and monotone due to the swarm shunting. "I want to hear what kind of plan V has before agreeing."

Rogue scrutinized her for a few seconds before giving a slight nod. "That's fair. If you don't get back to me in three days, I'll assume you turned the gig down."

"You'll hear from us much sooner than that either way." V promised.

A couple of minutes after that, they were out on the streets, walking slowly towards the car and discussing the gig.

"Alright, V, what's the deal?" Jackie asked.

"It's a pretty basic gig." V shrugged. "All the megacorps spy on each other all the time. I can't even tell you how many times I had to do bug sweeps across Arasaka properties. It's usually more targeted, but it makes sense if Rogue is just testing us."

"So it'll be easy?" He pressed.

"I didn't say that." V shook her head. "Just because it's common doesn't mean it's not dangerous. Counter-intel can't keep up a constant watch for enemy operatives, but the hotel staff will have its own security. If we get caught, then we'll either be shot on the spot or dragged off to be interrogated."

Meaning tortured and having their brains probed. Taylor resolved to not be taken alive if the gig went south, as usual. She had too many dangerous secrets.

"If only Biotechnica employees can get into the hotel, then what's our cover going to be?" She asked. "I noticed that you already seemed to have an idea that back at the Afterlife."

"I do have an idea." V had a strange smile on her face. "I can pass off as an employee easily enough – I've done it before – but you two can't."

"We can't?" Jackie repeated.

"Nope." V nodded. "You, Jackie, are a street kid to the bone. Even if we dressed you up in a suit and gave you a corpo makeover, you'd still put out street kid energy."

"I'll take that as a compliment." He huffed, amused.

"Quite, that's why you'll be our emergency escape. While Taylor and I are in the hotel, you'll be waiting on the roof of a nearby building with a harpoon launcher. If we signal you, you fire it at the hotel and we zipline out of there."

"Sounds boring as hell, hermana, but I'll do it." Jackie didn't try to hide his disappointment, but they all knew the importance of an escape route. "But wait, isn't Taylor too young to pass as some corpo bitch?"

"She is." The strange smile was back on V's face. "But she's just old enough to pass as fresh-faced new employee or an intern."

"But why would a new employee or an intern be going to the hotel with… whatever you'll be pretending to be?" Taylor asked. "Am I going to be posing as a personal assistant?"

"You've got way too much expensive bioware for that, and they will scan us at the doors." The strange smile widened. "But you've got just the right amount of bioware, and are just the right age for a dirty old woman's sugar baby."

It took a few seconds to sink in, then Jackie started howling with laughter.

Taylor stared at her girlfriend flatly, even as she felt her face heating up. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Dead serious." V refuted with a grin. "Senior corpos treat anyone lower than them on the totem pole as things to be used, and Night City is well known as a place where you can go off grid for a bit. Nobody will blink an eye at being told that I'm some European corpo renting a room so I can have my way with you without the distractions of work."

Taylor really should not be surprised that sexual harassment and inappropriate advances in the workplace had evolved into institutionalized sexual exploitation. This Earth was that kind of corporate dystopia.

XXXXX

V had a plot in mind, a scheme to get multiple birds with one stone.

She waited until they arrived back home, thinking and rethinking if she wanted to move forward with the idea she'd had or if it was too much, too soon. In the end, she waited until the after-sex cuddling to bring it up.

"Are you okay with the plan for the Biotechnica gig?" She asked, spooning the younger woman and pressing gentle kisses to her neck. V had discovered that Taylor really liked that. "You've been quiet."

Not that Taylor was particularly chatty at the best of times.

"Did you ever have to go through something like that?" She asked. "Being… preyed on, by a higher up?"

Ah, if it wasn't the consequences of her own procrastination. She had been gently prying into Taylor's life and soothing the damage done to her so that she could become confident as not just a fighter, but also as a woman.

But she had avoided sharing her own bad history with personal relationships. Now the question had been asked directly and V couldn't deflect without outright lying, which she absolutely could not do without risking damage to their relationship.

"V, are you okay?" There was a tone of alarm in Taylor's voice, meaning that she must have noticed V's low key panic at being suddenly and unexpectedly cornered. She twisted around in the cuddle so that they were face to face.

"Just a bit surprised." She said, taking a deep breath. "To answer your question; not… exactly. Jenkins, the guy who caught me after I killed my parents and later became my boss… I obviously couldn't live in my parent's place after killing them, so he took me to his place. Not like he was home most of the time anyway."

"Did he…?" Taylor's voice had already gone cold with murderous intent.

That actually made V crack a smile, feeling a rush of fondness. There was just something so heartwarming about having someone willing to kill on your behalf.

"No, he didn't really do anything. Didn't try to act parental either, which was for the best given my mindset at the time. He just let me stay there until I was ready to move out on my own. I was the idiot."

"What do you mean?" Taylor settled down, but sounded even more wary.

V shrugged uncomfortably. "Puberty was really kicking off and I latched on to the handsome older man I was living with. I snuck into his bed when I was just shy of fifteen and he didn't kick me out. But I didn't know that he was a true psychopath and deluded myself into thinking that we had a thing. He used me the way psychopaths always use people, and when I tried to bring up 'our' future he made it very clear that he only bothered fucking me at all was because it would 'teach me useful skills' for when I came to work for him in counter-intel."

She hadn't realized it right away, but she had been insanely lucky that Jenkins only seemed to care about his career. He could have very easily started thinking of her as his personal cumdump instead of as a potential asset.

That was part of the reason that she had obsessively studied psychology at the academy. The idea that she could misjudge another person that badly had been terrifying. She had to know people.

"I'm sorry." Taylor said quietly, but by the tension in her frame she was still aching to unleash the swarm on someone.

"If it was necessary to go through that for life to bring me to you, then it was worth it." V said back, snuggling into the embrace and relaxing.

"Is that why you kept tensing up sometimes?" The bug master asked.

"You noticed, huh?" V said back ruefully. "I guess it was too much to hope for that you wouldn't."

"Why hide it from me?"

Damn it. Taylor's voice was flat and toneless, which meant that she was upset and hiding in the swarm.

"Because I wanted to be the chill older woman that has her shit together." V admitted. "I wanted you to see me as someone you could rely on."

"We're supposed to be equals and rely on each other." And there was definitely censure in Taylor's voice now.

"I have been relying on you." V admitted again, wiggling close and hiding her face in the crook of the younger woman's neck. "You've been so sweet to me and made me feel safe. It's been… soothing."

A bit sappy, but it wasn't untrue. V had forced herself to open up to Taylor despite the constant surges of paranoia she had to keep suppressing. And the younger woman had always met those with affection, which had eventually eroded old behavior patterns. And there was something to be said for knowing that nothing could move within a three hundred meter radius without your girlfriend knowing about it.

"Good." That might sound a bit curt to most ears, but V could hear the choked up emotion in the single word. The tight hug was also a big clue.

"I've never been able to trust anyone the way I feel I can trust you." V continued.

"You can trust me." Taylor said, swallowing a bit thickly. "And I feel like I can trust you, too."

They lapsed into comfortable silence for a long minute before V spoke up again, her voice suggestive. "You know, we could spice this gig up a bit."

"Oh?" Though she couldn't see her face, V knew that Taylor had that same expression on her face as when she saw the leather pants on the bed.

"I remember you telling me that your first act as a hero was to try going undercover in a villain gang." V began.

Taylor groaned. "Don't remind me. That was so stupid."

"Very." V agreed with a chuckle. "Proper undercover work takes a lot of training. You have to really submerge yourself into the role."

There was a lengthy silence before Taylor wiggled a bit so that she could stare her in the eye. "Valerie, are you suggesting that we submerge ourselves into the roles of a perverted senior and her sexually exploited junior?"

"Maaaybe." V said coyly, smiling at the fact that hearing her name no longer came with an instinctive rush of anger. At least if it was from Taylor.

Taylor flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, clearly thinking. V propped herself on her elbow and waited.

Finally, Taylor looked at her. "What would this entail?"

"You'd have to act meek and do everything I say for the duration of the gig. But don't worry, my fake persona won't do anything too terrible to your fake persona."

"Riiight." Taylor drawled.

"It would be just a bit uncomfortable and plenty embarrassing, but nothing outside of your ability to handle." V promised. "And it would be a good first infiltration mission, because all you'd have to do is follow my lead."

"Uh huh." The bug master continued to drawl.

V wiggled closer and whispered into her ear seductively. "And you could take what you learn on the gig and use it on me later."

Hopefully, that would make Taylor more assertive. One of her biggest weaknesses, socially, was how reactive she was. Too content with just fading into the background until there was something to work towards. She had plenty of natural charisma, if only she would use it more consistently instead of in desperate bursts when she was cornered.

And if that made her more sexually aggressive as well… or if making her more sexually aggressive would make her more passively confident… well, V was willing 'suffer' those consequences.

It wasn't something she would have been comfortable with at the start of their relationship, but it had weeks since her body decided that she was being too relaxed during a cuddle and flooded her with stress hormones.

"Have I been boring you in bed?" Taylor asked after another long silence.

"What? No, never think that!" V said sternly, giving the younger woman a firm hug. "What we have is beautiful, and it's something that I never had with anyone else."

That was definitely true. She might have gone easy on Taylor out of respect for her sensibilities, but V had also benefited from the slow and affectionate lovemaking. It was so different and new that it had done a lot to help her adapt.

"Then why suggest 'spicing things up'?" The bug master asked.

"You don't want me to hide, right?" V shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm a dirty old woman, Taylor."

Taylor snorted in amusement. Then she went quiet, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom life for a long minute, before exhaling gustily. "Okay."

"Okay…? You're not even going to protest?!" She squawked in fake outrage, leaning back so she could glare.

"You're my dirty old woman." Taylor retorted and pulled her back into a tight hug.

"I guess that's fine." V grumbled, but hugged back to make it clear she was just joking around.

"Would it help with the gig?" Taylor asked after a minute or so of silence. "If we did this?"

"It would." V nodded. "When you're making a false identity, you need more than just a list of details. You have to fabricate a whole history, even if only in your head, and you have to really think about how they would talk and move and act. And then you have to talk and move and act like them. The more deviations there are, the more fake the identity feels to others."

There was another long silence before Taylor took a deep breath. "Okay, let's do it."

XXXXX

Over the past few months, the residents of Heywood had gotten used to the sight of a tall teenage girl leading a pack of other teenagers on a jog. At first, they had been a source of bewilderment and a target of mockery – look at those gonks running! Who even does that?

But word eventually got around that they were being trained as mercenaries. There was still bewilderment, but less mockery. The average Night City denizen was mostly just curious to get a glimpse into the dangerous life of an edgerunner.

Taylor didn't like being gawked at, but it had its uses. The initial jeers had been hard for the brats to handle. Teenagers weren't known for their even tempers, and 'street' culture taught people to never tolerate disrespect. Pair that with how being hot-blooded was considered a vaguely good thing among the Valentinos and you had a volatile cocktail. More than once, one of her trainees had wanted to pause the training so they could go beat the crap out of a random passerby.

Taylor hadn't allowed it, and so lost six of the original ten trainees. Although she suspected that they'd just been looking for an excuse to quit without looking weak, as their constant complaints had been getting surlier and whinier by the day.

The remaining four, including Veronica and Alejandro, stubbornly huffed and puffed behind her as she led them across nicely even ground, up inclines and stairs, made them climb when the city's labyrinthine construction created dead ends, and generally took the most difficult path she could find.

The finish line was at a dojo that rented out its space when they weren't teaching students.

"Take five." Taylor said once they were inside.

Immediately, the four trainees sprawled gracelessly over the mats, sucking up air like their lives depended on it.

By contrast, she was still fresh as a daisy.

"Did you get another upgrade, Ma'am?" Veronica asked after a couple of minutes.

It was kind of strange being called that, but she and V were in agreement about this – they had to see her as an authority figure rather than as one of them. Jackie hadn't really understood, but he hadn't protested either.

"My heart." Taylor admitted.

At this point, she had the nanocarbon skeleton, nanosurgeons, a much more robust and efficient digestive tract, hormone glands, neo-lungs, biomodded muscle, synaptic accelerators, and now the neo-heart. She felt like she could take in twice as much air as before and run forever without any lactic acid build up.

No wonder people got addicted to upgrades.

"Don't you feel bad about making us do this at baseline while you cruise through it with all your fancy bioware, Ma'am?" Johnny, one of the two extra recruits who had stuck with it, asked cheekily.

"No." Taylor gave him her best Warlord Skitter smile, amused by the scent of fear her bugs picked up in his sweat. "I told you already – this is for your own good. Short of a full-body conversion, there will never be a time when exercise becomes useless and discipline is easiest to train when you're at baseline."

"When will we be allowed to upgrade, Ma'am?" Miguel, the last and oldest of the group at nineteen, asked eagerly.

He was the most eager for it, and had done this before.

"When I and Doctor Vektor both say that you're ready." She told him firmly, which she knew was not the answer he wanted to hear.

Tough luck, because she wasn't letting these brats use cyberware and bioware as a shortcut or replacement for hard work and skill. Night City, and maybe this whole world in particular, had a bad habit of using chrome to cover for weaknesses. She had experienced that temptation herself.

No, the augments would be just that, augments.

"That being said, you've been making me proud with your hard work." She continued.

V had helped coach her on how to do positive reinforcement. It didn't escape her that her girlfriend was doing something similar to her, but it was hard to get upset at someone for insisting that your were a good person and beautiful.

And it worked. The brats tried to act tough and the flush from the exertion hid any blushing, but she could see them smiling.

"Thank you, Ma'am." Veronica said, sitting up.

"You're almost ready for your first gig, then we can talk about starting you on some augments." Taylor said.

That got them excited, and they cheered.

"Haha, yes!" Johnny crowed.

"Finally!" Alejandro chimed in, cracking his knuckles eagerly.

What a bunch of kids. Every time they acted like this, she was reminded of how young and clueless they were – never mind that two of them were older than her. But if she refused to train them, they would end up joining the Valentinos and probably getting killed. Several of the guys that hadn't taken to the training had already joined the gang.

Or worse, they'd try to become independent mercenaries. She was giving them the best shot she could at something better.

"Since you're so energetic, we can move on to the next part of today's training – sparring practice." Taylor interrupted their celebrations.

Skill shards were another thing that she was not allowing them to use. Frankly, she thought that those were mostly good for showing off and little else. The textbook skills they imparted were too rigid to work in a real situation. Plus, Veronica was the only one of them that had the cyberware to really use skills shards anyway.

Their groans were music to her ears. No wonder the PRT trainers always seemed to enjoy themselves so much.

"Pairs?" Veronica asked, getting up.

"I was thinking all four of you against me." Taylor said, giving them another Skitter smile.

Early on, back when she'd still had ten trainees, the fastest way to establish the pecking order had been to kick their asses. Few things were as humbling as losing a ten-on-one fight, when you were the part of the ten.

It hadn't even been hard – they had gotten in each other's way more often than not.

Taylor waited for them to pick themselves up and position. Then she raised her hands and made a beckoning gesture with her fingers. They were already tagged with tiny bugs. "Whenever you're ready."

They came at her as a group, so Taylor pivoted sideways to keep them from ganging up on her so easily.

Miguel came in first, but he overextended and she was able to pull him off balance and shove him into Alejandro. Both of them were big boys and still thought too much with their muscles. Especially when looks could be so deceiving in Night City.

Johnny came in next, actually using the boxing training Jackie had been giving him to toss out a few quick jabs. Veronica tried to circle to her back and attack her legs.

Taylor bounced sideways again, throwing out a few fast hits of her own to ward them off. Alejandro and Miguel untangled themselves quickly and rejoined the fight, this time with more caution.

Of course, she could have disabled one of them easily by using her enhanced strength to hit with more force than they could take, but that wasn't the point of a spar.

They tried to surround her and she moved laterally, slapping aside grasping hands to punish overextension and delivering painful pokes when they left openings. Before long, the already exhausted teens were panting as they continued attacking her, but they did a decent job at keeping their guard up.

It wasn't really a fair match up. Aside from their exhaustion, she was also constantly aware of their every move even when they tried to hide in her blind spots. But it was good training and she eventually let them corral her towards a wall.

"Time!" She called once there was no escape.

The trainees immediately backed off and started panting.

"You could have taken us down easily." Veronica wheezed.

"I could have, but that wasn't the point." Taylor shook her head. "The point was to get you to figure out how to work together, to train your minds to spot opportunities and dangers, to hone your instinct. That's something that no amount of upgrades will give you."

"Can you show us how to fight against a whole squad, Ma'am?" Johnny asked enthusiastically, taking a karate pose and doing a 'waaaa!' sound.

During her two years in the Wards, Taylor had trained in martial arts zealously. Anything to give her an edge for what she'd known was coming. Still, those martial arts relied heavily on her bug proprioception.

"We'll get to that eventually." She said. "But the best response to being attacked by a group is to run away."

It was telling that they simply nodded in response. At the start, a statement like that would have prompted a storm of macho denials about how they'd never run from a fight.

"What if you can't run away and they're better than you?" Miguel asked, probably hoping for some secret technique.

"Then you curl up and protect your vitals." Taylor shrugged.

"You face!" Veronica cackled at him, setting off the other two.

"Fuck you, gonks." Miguel grumbled, turning away.

"When do we get to go on a gig?" Alejandro asked, still grinning.

"Soon, I will be going on a long term gig with my team." Taylor said, panning her eyes over the recruits. "It's probably going to take around a month, and that means that I won't be here to supervise your training during that time. During my absence, Veronica will be in charge of making sure that you don't slack off. If you can maintain discipline without me looking over your shoulder, then you will have impressed me enough to take you on your first gig. If you fail, I will double your training."

The corpo brat was the youngest, but she was also the most willful of the bunch. And the most disciplined, thanks to her Militech upbringing. The fact that she was the youngest was also a test for the other three, to check if they were able to keep their teenage egos in check.

That got a look of mixed eagerness, dread, and determination. Pointedly, none of the four looked like they were thinking of quitting.

They were still just kids, but Taylor wouldn't be a hypocrite and tell them that they couldn't risk their lives to make something of themselves. Still, she already had entirely too many people on her conscience. If these brats died, then it wouldn't be because they had lacked anything that she could give them.

XXXXX

When I first got the idea for this fic, this is about where I got to before focusing on Metagaming and then Ruinous Gift. I only ended up adding bits when my morning wood steered my imagination into a lesbian direction.

What I'm saying is that chapter 9 and 10 turned out to be some of the most lewd-dense writing I have ever published, over a year of thickly-concentrated horny. It should have only been a single chapter, but it bloated into two.

Chapter 484 - 8