Just as I entered the city’s limits, I gave Abuela a call.

  Abuela: David! Back so soon! How are things? Did you end up resolving your crisis?

  David: Yeah, thankfully. I’m here on—

  I felt the slightest intrusion on my phone line, and turned around to glare at Lucy, who just gave me a smug smirk.

  We were speaking Spanish, anyway. What was she hoping to achieve? Weirdo.

  David: I’m here on business, but I’ll swing by to hear how things are with your business.

  Abuela: You have nothing to worry about, David. We have things under control. But I would love for you to pop by!

  David: See you soon.

  I hung up the call. “The hell was that about?” I asked her.

  “Your Spanish is really good,” she said.

  “I’m Mexican?” I said.

  “Lots of Mexicans in NC don’t know their language,” she said, “So… you’re gonna introduce me to your granny?”

  The reality of the situation dawned on me. What the hell was I thinking? Introducing Lucy to grandma would… raise uncomfortable questions. The girl wasn’t right in the head and would probably say or do something stupid. As I joined a greater stream of traffic leading into Tijuana’s downtown, I gave a defeated sigh. “Are you going to behave?”

  She scoffed. “Never.”

  Oh God.

  I didn’t have to go to granny’s, did I? Not with Lucy at any rate. We could just finish up the gig, I’d drive Lucy home, then come see Abuela.

  “I have her number,” Lucy said, “So if you’re not taking me to her, I’ll just… give her a call.”

  I slammed the brakes on the bike, causing her to crash into my back, her face hitting my Sandy head-on. Then I sped up once again.

  “You fucking—” Lucy cursed.

  “Behave,” I said. “Or I’ll speed all the way to her house. You’ll throw up once we get there.”

  She grumbled, “Fine.”

  000

  “Hey, grandma,” I said in English as I stepped into her occult shop, Lucy in tow. She was behind the counter, cash register open as she gave it a count. I never imagined that this front even made any money. Or maybe she was counting the laundered money from the mercenary front?

  Why did she particularly need a front, anyway? Her business was legitimate, and her partnership was with Militech. Clearly, she just liked this stuff.

  When grandma saw me, her eyes lit up. Her eyes seemed… younger. Prettier. Newer. I scanned her, and my suspicion was realized. Kiroshis. Decent models. She ran up to me with a spring in her step that was completely at odds with her otherwise elderly appearance, almost as if she no longer suffered from any of the usual pains and weaknesses of old age. She hugged me fiercely, and even the force of it was enough to squeeze some air out of my lungs. “David! I’m so happy for you!”

  “Happy?” I raised an eyebrow.

  She pulled back and kept both hands on my shoulders. “You’ve freed yourself from your binds. I can see it.”

  I chuckled uncomfortably. I wasn’t… super into the supernatural anymore, not after my close brush with it. I’d rather forget I even had that crisis, being honest.

  “Don’t be ashamed,” she said, “You did a brave and powerful thing.” She looked over my shoulder, “And who is this friend you’ve brought?”

  “This is Lucy,” I said to her.

  “Can Lucy not speak for herself?” Abuela asked me pointedly. I felt fully disarmed.

  “Hey,” Lucy said with an awkward wave. “I’m a… colleague of David’s.”

  “Ah, I see,” Abuela said, “Here on business, then?”

  Lucy looked at me pointedly. “Yes,” I said.

  “Lucy, dear,” Abuela said, “Why don’t you just speak for yourself? No need to be so tense. Have you eaten today?”

  “No, but—”

  “Ah, so you’re hungry! I can make you both something nice before your gig,” she said, “Follow me!” she walked towards the stairs and went up. Lucy gave me a raised eyebrow, but I just shrugged. What the hell was I supposed to do about this? When Abuela tells you to eat, you just do it.

  Besides, her food was bomb anyway. I wouldn’t mind having a bite.

  As we walked, Abuela still chattered, “You look Asian, Lucy. Are you from Japan, maybe?”

  “Japan and Poland,” Lucy said.

  “Pierogi or gyoza?” Abuela asked.

  “Uh, gyoza,” Lucy replied.

  “I’m making chochoyotes,” Abuela said with a mischievous tone. “It’s another kind of dumpling, but Mexican. You will love it, I’m sure. David, what sort of gig are you here for anyway?”

  “Just the usual stuff,” I lied.

  “No work in Night City?” she asked as she led us to her kitchen. “I can’t imagine you will make more eduardos here than back there.”

  “Eh,” I shrugged. “Anyway, how is your business?”

  Abuela retrieved a pan from some drawer, and proceeded to get out a bunch of ingredients from the pantry, not answering my question. Finally, she sighed. “Onboarding is hell. Militech is asking for more cash. We’re taking jobs from them nearly at cost to pay their fees off.”

  I frowned. They were being exploited? “You don’t have to do that,” I said, “I saw the accounts. You have more than enough money to pay them.”

  “We have things under control,” she frowned, “It’s just some corporate bullshit, you know? Always is. Lucy, do you like chicken? Can you handle spice?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, “S-sure. A little, maybe.”

  “David, are pimento peppers spicy?”

  “I have no idea,” I replied in Spanish, “Probably? All peppers should be spicy.”

  “Even bell peppers?”

  “Maybe?” I shrugged. “Try not to burn her mouth off. She’s weak.”

  She looked at Lucy with some pity. “Dios mio.”

  “I can handle spice,” Lucy bristled, her grin shaky, “I usually don’t eat it, but I can handle it. Go ahead with whatever, misses. And thank you.”

  Okay, so she actually was behaving. That was a pleasant surprise. And it made me feel a little guilty for riding her about it.

  Abuela chuckled. “I’ll just do it a little spicy for you. And no worries! A friend of David’s is always welcome to eat here! You have his back at work, that means he owes you his life. And that means I owe you as well for taking care of him.”

  Lucy looked away. “It’s… usually the other way around.”

  “You’re very shy for a solo,” Abuela said, and Lucy looked at her in shock. “You’re a Netrunner, right? Were you the one who taught David?”

  “Not really, no,” Lucy said, “We have the same… instructor, I guess.”

  “Ai, that’s very good! We have some Netrunners in the family as well,” Abuela began to chop some vegetables, “I know your type don’t like to talk shop or anything, so please don’t assume I ask that of you. How is the Net in Night City anyway? I hear the whole city is connected nowadays!”

  While she answered Abuela, Lucy sent me a call.

  Lunacy: Your granny is a corpo? She knows-knows you’re a solo, too?

  David: Not really a corpo. It’s a merc corp—corporation.

  Lunacy: Holy shit. You came from a family of solos?

  David: It’s complicated. Didn’t have any contact with them until, like, last week. Helped them out of a tough spot. It’s the reason why I got into shit with the cartel. Why they think I owe them a free-freebie.

  “Wow, that’s really amazing!” Abuela said, “Down here, there’s still places the Velo Negro doesn’t cover! Sometimes, you get rogue AIs infecting turrets and causing mass shootings! Scary stuff, no?”

  Lucy winced at that. “Yeah, that sounds… awful. I heard rumors that some people down here were developing a quickhack that can temporarily breach the Blackwall. I don’t know why anyone would want that.”

  “I can imagine,” Abuela replied, “Cruelty, obviously. And ego. Everyone thinks they can harness monsters, until the monster bites back. I believe the Chinese may have a saying about riding tigers. Once on it, it’s hard to get off.”

  While Abuela cooked, she and Lucy continued chatting. They didn’t have much in common, but Abuela was good at meeting her halfway, and Lucy respected that effort as well. It was mildly bizarre to see them together in the same room, until I realized…

  I had known Lucy for longer than I had known grandma.

  And they were all quite new to me.

  Still, it felt like they had been with me my entire life.

  I cracked a grin as I watched them. I was lucky, I guess.

  I wasn’t alone.

  000

  We ate and chatted with Abuela for almost an hour until it was time to get going. I hadn’t shared any specifics about why I was here, and I doubted my grandma would be happy to hear that I was trying to give the cartel a nosebleed.

  I took off on my motorcycle with Lucy at my back. She gave me a call the moment we pulled up on the road.

  Lunacy: What were you even planning on doing today?

  David: Uhh, shoot up a couple of strongholds

  Lunacy: you mean take them all out? Singlehandedly? What, are you fucking crazy?

  David: No, no, I’m not a gonk. I just wanted to weaken them, so their rivals would do the rest for us.

  Lunacy: At least you got one thing about this whole operation right; give their rivals just enough to finish the job for us. But I want you to forget your plans for a second. I have a plan.

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  David: Already? How?

  Lunacy: I scanned the net for info.

  Fuel tank was low, so I stopped at a gas station. Lucy hopped out from the bike as some gas station attendant ran up to me. I tossed him a couple of bills and told him to get a full tank, and to keep the rest. Just then, Lucy cut the call and pulled me away.

  “You’re fucking strong, David,” Lucy said, “But you’re not playing to your strengths right now. Maybe you can survive a shootout against hundreds of goons all gunning after you at the same time, but why do that when you can Full Dive instead? The Net is where you are strong. Because of that… thing you have in your head.”

  I frowned. I didn’t like that Nanny was the only thing that made me special, but… it made sense. “Why do we need to Netrun anyway?”

  Lucy snorted, “You said you wanted to weaken the cartel, but you don’t even know what the cartel is.”

  I rolled my eyes, “What is it, then?”

  “It’s a branch of a biotech megacorp known as Green Farm,” Lucy said, arms folded as she eyed him intently, “Partnered to Biotechnica. They provide plenty of services to each other and—”

  “Wait,” I said, my blood running cold. “Biotechnica is behind this?” I clenched my fists.

  “Only one of its partners,” Lucy explained, “But if you have it out for the Italians, then yeah, crushing Green Farm would snip at their profit margin. I’d recommend it if that’s what you’re after. Anyway, the key to crushing any corporation is to Rache Bartmoss that shit. We need to go into a data center and leak everything of importance; proprietary data, asset warehouse locations, stash houses, everything. And finally, you leak that shit to the other megacorps. If Green Farm goes down, the cartel follows.”

  I nodded along. Everything about me felt cold as I digested the extent of my hatred for the cartel. They were complicit in more ways than one in making my life shit.

  No mercy.

  “Alright,” I said to Lucy, “Tell me where I need to go, and what I need to do.”

  Lucy snorted, because of course she would. “You’d be a flatline without me, just saying.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I waved her off as I looked over at my bike, no longer connected to the fuel pump. I walked up to it and hopped on, Lucy following a moment later. I pulled out into the streets from there and put on my D mask.

  “We’re headed to a data center!” Lucy shouted. “I’ll send you the coords!”

  She did. My Kiroshis linked to my agent, accepting the data packet, and superimposing the coordinates to the onboard GPS system. I made a quick U-turn, so smoothly that it didn’t disturb any traffic at all, and shot away.

  I then received a call from Lorenzo. I accepted it.

  Lorenzo: D, my good man. I hope you haven’t forgotten the very attractive offer I handed to you.

  Fucking gonk. I was a little curious, though.

  D: Not at all. What are the details?

  Lorenzo: Why don’t we meet face-to-face and discuss the terms?

  What, did this corpo mouthbreather think I was born yesterday?

  D: Not a particularly interesting proposition, that. How about a dead drop? You drop the shard somewhere, and I come pick it up.

  Lorenzo: And do your best Speedy Gonzales imitation, eh? Hahah!

  What the fuck was that?

  D: Yeah, sure.

  Lorenzo: Oh, you are young.

  Shit.

  D: What can you tell me about the gig?

  Lorenzo: Oh, same old same old murder and carnage. That’s all you are good for anyway. Can’t exactly put you on a security detail next to an important person, or make you carry around sensitive packages. This is the best-best thing for you.

  D: Well, then just tell me who to murder and where the carnage happens.

  Lorenzo: I’m afraid the meeting is mandatory. You pissed off some higher-ups, and they want to see you come in person.

  D: I see.

  Lorenzo: Believe me, D. You turn this down, and it’s certain death. The cartel has use for you, but only if you can prove that use.

  D: Thanks, man. I’ll come right away.

  I hung up.

  Lucy called me immediately after.

  Lunacy: Don’t go, you gonk

  David: You’re the fucking gonk if you thought I would go.

  Lunacy: Really? Because having access to the higher ups would be something I thought you’d jump at the opportunity for.

  I scoffed.

  David: If they’re ready for me, there’s no helping it. I’d be a gonk to just walk straight in. Besides, this plan sounds like it would make us a lot more money.

  I drove past the more rundown buildings of Tijuana until I arrived at the business district. I travelled further in, and considered idly about the fact that we were going to infiltrate this place in broad daylight.

  “Stop here,” Lucy told me, and I smoothly slid into an alleyway between two high-rises, staying there for a moment as Lucy’s eyes shone blue. “It shouldn’t be too far from here. But… the facility’s well fortified. Over a hundred security personnel, and not the ‘ganic kind, either. These are all corpo borgs. Big motherfuckers.”

  “Going in guns blazing ain’t an option then,” I growled, “How do we get in, then?”

  “Peel the onion one layer at a time,” Lucy said. “I take care of the cameras. You carry me away from all the goons with the Sandy, and then we keep doing that until we’re inside. That’s when we find an access port and jack in. You wreck shop with that sword program of yours, and done.”

  “Sounds easy,” I said with a frown.

  “Only reason’s because of that sword program,” Lucy said, “Otherwise we’d have to go in way deeper. But I can tell that it would still be effective even when inserted in the least sensitive parts of the system.”

  I considered that for a moment, and vowed to actually take a closer look at the sword and how it interacted with Net architectures. I transmitted a message to Nanny to remind me of this task.

  “Alright, let’s go,” Lucy said, “Stop a block away, and take the sandy the rest of the way—and drop the fucking jacket. Why did you think wearing high vis in a stealth op was a good idea?”

  I growled as I pulled up out of the alleyway, muttering underneath my breath. I didn’t know this was going to be a stealth op anyway.

  But honestly, stealth was so… boring.

  000

  My heart almost beat out of my chest as I pressed myself to the wall as tightly as I could. The section of the wall was shadowed by a structure hanging above our heads, giving us just enough stealth to avoid the pair of armored-out borgs walking around with Militech Tech snipers.

  The kind of shit that MaxTac used.

  This was our third close brush with security personnel as we ‘peeled the onion’ so to speak, travelling one layer of security deeper through the outer rim of the facility. And we still weren’t indoors.

  Lucy sent me a message.

  ‘Path is clear over the road. Now.’

  I didn’t hesitate, activating the Sandevistan, putting Lucy in a bridal carry, before running past the road around the outer warehouses, where the facility received all sorts of deliveries and whatnot. At this very narrow stretch of time, no eyes would be on us.

  I zipped across the street to another camera dead zone—confirmed to me by the use of my own Ping—and stopped there.

  And there it was. The door to the facility. According to the data that Lucy had scrounged up from some periphery access ports, this door wouldn’t lead directly to the data center’s inner sanctum, but merely an office area populated by more security. We were around the middle layer of the onion now, and things would only get harder from here.

  Lucy busted out her external cyberdeck, and linked it with her internal cyberdeck and all her ‘runner Chrome. Her fingers became a whirl of activity as she whittled away at the door’s ICE with pure and utter finesse. She wasn’t just hacking away at the wall like a miner—like any old hacker would do—but instead, she made her breach seem like a natural access protocol, as though triggered from a key. It was far slower than if she had used a key, but that could be blamed on a variety of different factors, most importantly hardware issues.

  It was the form of her hacking that was important at this step, and I took mental notes as I watched her.

  Then a message hit me.

  ‘Take me in—one left, one right, and two doors down—the moment the door opens’

  The door opened, I activated the Sandevistan, and didn’t hesitate to scoop Lucy up again and run down the hallway like she had described. On the way, I saw the backs of several security personnel. Thankfully, the door we stopped at had no security.

  But it did have cameras.

  I glared at one and prepared to take it out with a hack, but then Lucy put her hands over my eyes, and then shook her head. Her own eyes shone blue, and she was sweating, as she worked the door we had stopped in front of.

  The moment it opened, I dragged both of us inside. No one was in at the moment, but this place was undoubtedly some kind of an office, with a desk, a terminal, several other miscellaneous office devices, and several access ports.

  The door behind us closed.

  “I disabled the camera in here,” Lucy said, “The one outside saw us, but I doubt anyone noticed. I locked the door, though. That might become a thing once the person who works here comes back, so we’ll have to work fast.”

  I nodded, and rummaged through my pockets for a personal link cable. In edgerunner attire, I never left the house without one. After all, I was a netrunner now. “No ice baths,” I said, “How will that work?”

  “We go low-spec,” Lucy said, “Can’t do much of anything else anyw—” she wretched, doubling over and holding her stomach. I immediately appeared next to her.

  “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “I’m—” she swallowed and stood straight before giving me a withering glare, “I’m fine. I only just broke three code gates in as many minutes while you blitzed me everywhere at hundreds of miles an hour, so excuse me if I throw up your sweet grandma’s spicy dumplings.”

  I blinked and took a step back at the tirade. For a lack of better choices, I latched onto one thing in her speech, “Wait, you seriously thought those dumplings were spicy?”

  Lucy took deep breaths before rummaging through her own pockets, pulling out a personal link of her own.

  “Stick close to me,” Lucy said, “You might be strong, but you don’t have the experience to run around. And if you thought Tenshi’s data fortress was a bitch, you ain’t seen shit yet.”

  “Scary,” I muttered as I stuck the end of the personal link to the back of my head and walked up to the access port to stick the other end in. I pulled a chair of the office while Lucy sat on the desk as we both jacked in at the same time.

  I easily crushed the breach and sent my consciousness into the localnet, readying my Sword all the while.

  Before I knew it, I was in what looked like the inside of a spaceship of sorts.

  “Sci-fi aesthetic,” I heard behind me. “Real popular around these parts, I hear.” I turned around and found Lucy’s ICON—it looked like a more conservative version of herself. Her white jacket covered up all of her torso and shoulders, and her white hotpants reached all the way down to her knees. As for her face, half of it was covered by her jacket’s collar.

  It was charming, honestly. Covering herself up like that made her seem smaller, a little more vulnerable. Not that I’d ever say that to her face—she might cut my head off with her monowire if I did.

  Not that a bit of mortal danger ever scared me before. “Say, Lucy, why’d you make your ICON so cute?”

  “Why’d you make yours look so goddamn edgy?” she replied with an even voice. I looked around myself, and for a moment, went into third person mode to see myself better. I was no longer a skeleton man. I looked more or less like myself, only my face looked like a sugar skull, and my hair was made out of blue fire.

  “Looks preem,” I said, snapping back to first person. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Focus, you gonk,” Lucy growled, “Where’s your sword?”

  I activated the program, summoning the giant flaming blue sword. Immediately, I dimmed its output, setting it to inactive, as I could tell that just its presence outside had a noticeable impact on our surroundings.

  “Use it,” Lucy said, “Make sure the influence spreads quietly. The moment the Netrunners for this data center spots us, they will annihilate us, you hear me?”

  I closed my eyes, flashed my Sandy once so I could have some time to do some off-the-cuff modification to suit my needs. Then I spent a few more subjective minutes on creating a proper interface that I could foresee would be useful if I wanted to make more mods in the future. Finally finished, I activated the sword and stabbed it into the floor of this spaceship’s floor.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now we wait and pray,” Lucy said. “Pray that the Runners don’t notice the spread until the Sword is done doing its… thing.” She eyed the sword intently. “Provided you live long enough, David, you could do some real damage with a program like that. Why would you even want to go and do shootouts when you have this thing?”

  “It’s Nanny’s thing,” I waved my hand, “And, sure, we sorta… got tangled up together after the Balron almost killed me, but it still feels more like it’s her thing than mine.”

  “Can I… talk to this Nanny?” Lucy asked.

  I frowned.

  [I can project myself here and talk to her, if that is what you want, David.]

  David: I dunno, feels weird. What do you even have to say to each other? Ah, fine. Go ahead.

  Then she did.

  And the ICON that Nanny had chosen for herself was… surprising.

  She looked like she could have been my sister. She had an undercut on one side, and long brown hair on the other. She had a high-vis jacket that was red, like a firefighter’s, and she wore red pants as well.

  I stared at her for a while, feeling a new kind of emotion bubble up as I saw her. Longing, sorrow, irritation, and… love? Nanny had always been a tool to me. An object that helped me get stronger. But now that she had a semblance of human emotion to her, all that felt… wrong.

  “Ah,” Nanny nodded, understandingly, “I sense that I have caused you distress, David. My apologies. I will modify my ICON.”

  “That’s… not necessary,” I said. “Anyway, this is Lucy.”

  “I know,” Nanny said, looking at me like I was stupid, “I’ve shared every moment you’ve had with her, you know.” She then turned to Lucy, “You wished to speak with me?”

  Lucy, for her part, didn’t seem any more prepared than I did. “So you’re an AI?” Nanny didn’t say anything, as though waiting for Lucy to continue.

  Eventually, it was Nanny who cracked, “Apologies, I assumed that was a rhetorical question. Yes, I am.”

  “Sorry, I just… it’s hard to believe. You seem so human.”

  “Really?” I frowned, “She’s…” I gestured vaguely at her.

  Lucy rolled her eyes at me. “You have no idea how AI think. At worst, she’d be considered neurodivergent or something, but if you think she has anything in common with AI, you’re a gonk.”

  What the hell? “So, what, you’re some kind of expert on AI psychology or some shit?”

  “Got more close brushes than I’d care to admit,” Lucy said, “Nanny,” she turned to my onboard AI, “What purpose were you made with in mind?”

  “Biocyberization and its impacts on the human body,” Nanny smoothly said, “Though my purpose and capabilities have widened and deepened over time as a result of certain events.”

  [I will refrain from telling her about my unexpected synergy with the Sandevistan for now]

  I shrugged.

  “Don’t you want to have your own body?” Lucy asked.

  “I already do,” Nanny said. Lucy tensed up, “Ah, I sense distress in you. I do mean to say that I consider David’s body to be my own as well—” Wait, what the fuck? “--but only in the sense that I inhabit it, too, and I do my part in this body. Living. Like David does. Like you do. I have no interest in taking direct control over David’s body, however.”

  “But can you?” Lucy asked.

  “Perhaps I could, in the past,” Nanny said, “No, I definitely could have. But if I were to take over David’s body as we currently exist now, he would be able to fight this influence. Our consciousnesses are interlinked, twinned together and forced into a state of symbiosis. I have no interest in taking over his part of our dynamic, but even if I did, he would be able to resist this incursion.”

  I nodded along with her words, “She’s telling the truth, as far as I can tell.”

  “And what if she isn’t?” Lucy asked, “And what if she’s making you think that she’s telling the truth?”

  I chuckled ruefully and spread my arms apart, “Then I’m fucked. No use thinking about it any harder. I don’t have a choice but to trust Nanny, and she hasn’t broken that trust yet anyway, so why should I obsess over that?”

  “Gonk,” Lucy said.

  “On the contrary,” Nanny said, raising a finger, “By freeing oneself from the clutches of fear, even if that fear is very warranted such as in this case, is far more productive than continuously living in fear. In both cases, you still have no power to affect the cause of said fear.”

  “Right,” I nodded, “So if you can’t do shit about what’s scaring you, stop being afraid. It’s a waste.”

  “Right,” Nanny nodded.

  Nanny’s head swung towards the sword, “Ah, we seem to have picked up some interesting data already.” I immediately honed in on the sword and felt after what Nanny was indicating, and then I saw it.

  An experimental quickhack.

  Blackwall Gateway.