Cyberpunk: Whispers of the Blackwall

"You may delay, but time will not."

- Benjamin Franklin

---

I stood under the shower for a good while, watching the water run pink, then clear, taking the last of Thumbart and Clarita and whoever else I'd been wearing since midnight. The bits and pieces that Vik had patched still stung, and my ribs hurt numbly every time I lifted my arms. Vik had done the best job he could, but I was still partially deaf in my right ear.

For some reason, this was the best shower of my life.

When I finally stepped out, the bathroom mirror was fogged over completely. I wiped a streak through it with my palm and looked at myself.

My hair was finally clean, and there were lines of medical and real stitches across my collarbone, chest, stomach, and thigh. And across my sternum, there were four purple bruises the size of my fist from when I had gotten shot.

"You done in there, or did you drown?" Vik called through the door.

"Almost done," I replied.

"Clothes are in a bag right out here, grab them when you're done," Vik said once again and I heard the ruffling of a bag being dropped right outside.

I opened the door after about a minute and grabbed the plastic bag. It had a pair of black sweatpants that were too short for my size, stopping a few inches above my ankles, and a red flannel shirt big enough to fit two of me, no underwear though. I put them on and stepped out into the hall.

Vik's apartment was just two floors above his clinic. It was small and clean, though the couch had seen better decades, a small kitchen, a shelf of actual paper books with a few old boxing magazines stacked on top, and a single old flat-screen TV on the wall playing N54 News on low.

Vik was sitting in an armchair by the window with a glass of whiskey in one hand, and he looked me up and down as I came in.

"Well," he said. "At least now you look like a person. When you got here earlier, you looked like you escaped from one of those old slasher movies."

"Whose flannel is this?" I asked.

"Some big nomad," Vik replied. "Had his leg sewn back on about two years back, and he never came back for his shirt. Take a seat and chill for a minute. I don't want you stressing those stitches just yet."

I sat down on the counch, which groaned under my weight.

"Your mother would've had nightmares for a week if you'd walked in the door like that," Vik said as he took a sip of his drink.

"Yeah, I figured," I said. "That's why I came here first."

Vik smiled and gestured at me with teh glass in his hand. "Glad to see a few brain cells survived the night."

"Only two," I said. "And they're both fighting for third place at the moment."

"You're funny, kid," Vik said while chuckling before his face shifted to something a little more serious. "So, tell me about your life, kid."

"My life?" I asked.

"Yeah, your life," he said, swirling his glass. "You come in here falling apart, I patch you up, you leave. I don't know much about little Ale's kid. What do you do all day? What are you planning? Do you think of your future? That kind of thing."

"Honestly? Not much," I said after thinking about it for a second. "With the war about to blow up in our faces, I mostly just stay in cooped up, working on the Mustang. I'm almost done with the transmission, and after that, I'm gonna start assembling everything on the frame, and then get to working on the body."

"And that's it?" Vik asked with a raised brow. "Just you and a car?"

"I mean, there's also Sasha," I said with a shrug.

Vik's eyebrows went up. "Sasha."

"Yeah. She comes over pretty much every time she doesn't have a gig to pull and just hangs around. Sometimes she brings a projector and throws up some movies while I work. Sometimes she works on her own rig or just sits on the couch, and we chat," I listed off. "Judy used to come around a lot too. But she got that settlement from the NCFD, and now she's gone off the deep end into BD editing. Bought herself a whole rig and everything. I barely see her unless she needs to borrow the CNC or something."

"Mhmm," Vik hummed as he set his glass down on the windowsill. "Rewind a little bit."

"To what?" I asked.

"To Sasha." Vik leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "She's the netrunner from your birthday, right? Short hair, on the slender side."

"Yeah, that's her," I confirmed while nodding.

"So. She's over at your place every day off she gets," Vik said with a growing smirk.

"Pretty much," I answered.

"And she's just there, hanging around and watching you work on a car?" He asked again, to which I just nodded.

"Uh huh," Vik said as he pulled out his handheld Agent. "You got a picture of her? Something recent. I only saw her the one night, and that mood lighting bullshit you had set up didn't let me get a good look at her."

I sent him a picture I'd taken with my Kiroshis a few weeks ago without really thinking about why. Sasha was sitting cross-legged on the workbench with her cyberdeck in her lap, the projector light throwing blue across her face, her short hair falling into her eyes while she pouted at a line of code.

Vik pulled down his glasses and squinted at the screen for a second.

"She looks good," he said.

"Yeah, she's great," I said. "She's really smart. Smarter than me at some stuff, if I'm being honest. And she's funny too, but in her own way. Like, she'll just say something with a deadpan face, and sometimes her blank stare is just the funniest shit ever. And then there's the fact that she knows when to leave me alone and when to bother me, which is a whole skill, you know? Oh, and she always brings me synthi-caf every morning without me asking. I think she might have given me an addiction to it, but they're actually good. And when she's really focused on something, she does this thing where she bites the inside of her cheek and does this little cute-ass frown..."

I stopped myself as I noticed Vik was grinning at me.

"What?" I said, and he started laughing. It started as a chuckle and turned into a real laugh, deep and wheezing, and he had to put his Agent down on his knee so he wouldn't drop it.

"What?" I said again.

"Kid," Vik said, wiping his eye with his knuckles. "You're in love."

"What? No I'm not," I denied.

"You just described the way a girl bites her inner cheek," Vik pointed out. "And called her frown cute."

"That's just an observation," I countered. "I'm just an observant guy."

"Yeah, right," Vik said as he picked up his glass again and took a sip, still grinning around the rim. "There's no shame in it, Santi."

"She's my choom, Vik," I said.

"Sure she is. And she spends every free day she has sitting in around and watching you turn wrenches, when she could be doing literally anything else in this city." He stopped and then pointed the glass at me. "I was at that party, kid. That girl didn't look at the cake once. She was too busy looking at you. And you think about her a lot as well, that much is obvious from the way you talk. And she likes you enough to spend her days with you instead of anywhere else. The only person in this equation who hasn't figured it out yet is you, and you're supposed to be the genius."

I opened my mouth to argue, then I closed it again because my brain had decided to start pulling up memories of Sasha on the couch, her chin resting on her knees, watching me as I worked. I had looked up and caught her eyes on me.

Sasha on the arm of the couch at my birthday, while Mom cut the cake, watching me with a small smile I didn't understand, and then turning bright red when Judy nudged her in the ribs and whispered something into her ear.

When the NUSA broadcast came in about Sacramento, she had been staring at me while Judy and I subconsciously stared at the speaker.

"Huh," I said.

"Yeah," Vik said. "Huh."

"Shit," I said.

"There it is." Vik smiled.

On the screen, the N54 News anchor's voice shifted as a red banner scrolled across the bottom of the broadcast.

"...city officials have confirmed that an enforced curfew has been put in place and anyone found outside until six in the morning will be arrested, effective immediately, as a precautionary measure. NCPD and private security units are now stationed across the city, and residents are advised to remain indoors..."

Vik looked at the screen, and then he looked at me.

"Well," he said. "Looks like you're crashing here tonight."

"It appears so," I nodded. "This couch ain't too bad."

"That couch is just fine," Vik agreed, and went to get me a blanket and a spare pillow.

We talked for a while longer about the Mustang, and whether a car that heavy could really drift the way I was hoping it would. About the boxers Vik watched back when nobody had chrome in their fists. We also talked about my father a little, mostly stories of when my old man was a "young buck," as Vik called him, and the things they got up to. It was... fun... to hear about my father from someone other than my mother.

After a while, I just knocked out, and when I woke up, the smell of miso ramen filled my nose. It had been about 4- 5 a.m. when I passed out, and my internal clock said it was currently 11:04. This had been the first night in a long time that I hadn't dreamt of anything.

I looked around and saw Vik at the stove with his back to me, putting eggs into a pot of boiling water.

"Morning," he said without turning around.

"Morning, Vik," I said.

"Bathroom's yours. I went out and bought you a toothbrush, so you owe me three fifty," Vik said. "Once you're done, you can take a seat. I'm almost done here."

I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, and when I came back out, Vik had already set a bowl at his little kitchen table. It was noodles, broth, a few slices of scallion, and two soft-boiled eggs sitting on top with their yolks just starting to run.

"Eggs aren't ganic," Vik said, sitting down across from me with his own bowl and passing me a pair of chopsticks. "Before you ask. I'm not made of eddies. But they're a good source of protein, and you lost a good amount of blood last night, so eat all of it."

"Yes, Doctor Vektor," I quipped.

"Don't get smart with me," Vik said while grinning.

The ramen was really good. But halfway through the bowl, I started to feel weird about it. I had never slept at another man's place before. I had definitely never had breakfast with one the morning after. I don't even remember doing this with my father since he always had to be away at his job before he got zeroed by his corpo buddies. The closest thing I had to this was eating at the kitchen table with Mom.

And here I was, eating ramen at eleven in the morning with my ripperdoc, who was watching me over his bowl as if he was waiting for something.

"So," Vik said. "You give any thought to what we talked about last night?"

"About Sasha?" I asked while stuffing a mouthful of ramen.

"Yeah," Vik said with a nod.

I pushed a noodle around the bowl with my chopsticks. "Yeah. I did."

"And?" Vik pushed.

"And I think you might be right," I said with a sigh.

Vik set his chopsticks down across the top of his bowl. "Good. So, here's my advice for you. Ask her out."

I rolled my eyes at his suggestion. "I mean, we already hang out every day."

"No, Santi," Vik said with a chuckle. "I'm telling you to ask her out properly. Take her out on a real date, just the two of you, somewhere that isn't your garage. Do something you'd both actually enjoy. Make it intentional and let her know that you see her as more than a choom who brings you synthi-caf."

"I don't know, Vik," I said as I set my own chopsticks down. "With the war and everything. The NUSA could roll into the city any day now. I mean, they had a whole curfew last night. It feels like a really bad time to start something."

"There's never a good time to start something, kid. Not in this city," Vik said as he leaned back in his chair. "How about this? Just go for it. Humans don't really live until they've loved. All they do is survive."

I frowned at him. "Have you ever loved anyone, Vik?"

I noticed something change in his face. It happened fast, but I saw it. His eyes looked past me, past the kitchen, and out the window. It was the same look I had seen on Maine's face in the van.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Once."

He then smiled, and it was the most bitter smile I had ever seen on someone's face. I didn't ask him who it was or what had happened since I could tell from his face that he had cared for whoever this was deeply.

"That's why I'm telling you to do it now," Vik said, his eyes coming back to me. "Before something outside your control makes it impossible. War, gangs, corpos, a bullet with your name on it. This city takes things from people, kid, and it doesn't ask first. So if there's something you want, you grab it while it's still there to grab... And who knows. Maybe she gives you more of a reason to live. Something to come home to besides a car."

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter, and there was this sadness in it that I didn't know what to do with.

"And maybe," he said, "she can keep you from going cyberpsycho. Because it is one of the worst fates a human can ever face, and God knows I'm out of ways to do so."

I swallowed hard at his words and we didn't say much after that. I finished my ramen, and I washed my bowl.

"Thanks, Vik," I said as I dapped him up and he pulled me in for a hug. "For all of it."

He held me tight for a second before letting out a big sigh. "Get out of here. Go work on your car and call that girl. Time waits for no one, Santi... Time waits for no one."

---

The turrets tracked me as I crossed my lot, their barrels turning to follow my heat signature as my biometrics cleared, and they swung back to their resting positions. The grey-side door slid open and the ground floor was quiet and cool.

I didn't even go upstairs and just picked up my tools and I went straight to work on the transmission. About ninety percent of it was done, and I only needed to seat the last set of gears, the final shift fork, and then the case halves. After that, I just needed to close and torque everything dow. Then I could start mounting everything to the frame, then build the body, and the Widowmaker would finally start looking like a car instead of a skeleton on a lift.

I was in the middle of working when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs followed by my mother calling my name. "Santiago."

Mom came down the last few steps with a mug of coffee in her hands and her hair tied up in a messy knot, still in her robe. She gave me a quick head-to-toe scan that saw everything.

"Where were you last night?" She asked me.

"I told you I had a gig for Padre," I said, turning my attention back to my work at hand. "After that was done, I went to Vik's to get fixed up and ended up spending the night due to the curfew they instituted."

"Yeah, I saw that on the news," Mom said as she came closer. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I said with a few nods. "I'm just peachy."

"Santiago," Mom said again with a little tension in her voice.

"I'm good, Ma," I said while rolling my eyes. "I just had a pretty nasty falling out with somebody after the gig. He was trying to give me advice in a very fucked way, but everything is handled now."

That was the wrong thing to say. I knew it the moment it left my mouth. Mom set her coffee down on the workbench and stepped right up to me and pulled the collar of the flannel open.

"Ma..." I began but was interrupted.

"Callate (Shut up)," she said.

She pushed the flannel back off my shoulders and looked me over, seeing the glue lines, stitches, and bruises. I waited for her to yell or something, but instead, she reached up and put her palm flat against my chest, right over the bruises, and ran it slowly down across my ribs and my stomach, careful of the cuts.

And she smiled the saddest smile I had ever seen on her face, and the proudest, at the same time.

"Mírate (Look at you)," she said softly. "Mi niño. Mi bebé. Ya eres todo un hombre, mijo. ¿Cuándo pasó esto? ¿Cuándo creciste tanto? (My boy. My baby. You're now a grown man. When did this happen? When did you grow so much?)."

"Ma," I sighed, and she patted my chest gently before stepping back, and just like that, the sad smile turned into something else.

"Okay," she said, switching back to English. "Now listen to me. You need to make a move on Sasha."

I stared at her blankly.

"Soon," I said.

"Soon?" she added. "Mi niño, las flores se marchitan si no les das agua. (My boy, flowers wither if you don't water them). Pretty girls like that do not wait around forever, mijo. If a boy doesn't give her the right kind of attention, she'll just end up finding somebody else who will. That's just how it is."

I started laughing, and it hurt my ribs so much I had to lean against the bench, but I couldn't stop.

Mom put her hands on her hips as she looked up at me. "¿Qué es tan chistoso? (What's so funny?) It's the truth."

"No, I know," I said, still laughing. "It's just, Vik and I literally talked about this last night. Like, for hours."

"He did?" She asked, and her face lit up as she clapped her hands together once. "Good. Then you listen to him. Vik is a good man. His story is a very sad one, and it is not mine to tell, but he was always a gentleman. Always. He was the one who taught your father how to talk to a woman without sounding like a complete idiot."

She stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. "You think your father got me on his own? Ale was a genius, but around women, he was a disaster. Vik fixed him."

"I didn't know that," I said.

"There is a lot you don't know," she said as she turned around, grabbed a wheeled stool, and dragged it toward me, then sat down. "Now, what did Vik tell you?"

"He said I should ask her out on a real date," I said, repeating what Vik had told me. "Just the two of us, doing something we'd both enjoy. He said to be intentional about it and let her know I like her as more than a choom."

Mom nodded so hard her hair knot almost came loose.

"Yes. Yes. Exactly. It is about damn time, Santiago," she said, reaching for her coffee and taking a sip. "And you ask her to be your girlfriend. Your girlfriend. None of this input, output nonsense. What is that? Input. She's not a computer, mijo. She's a girl."

"That's just how people say it now, Ma," I said while rolling my eyes.

"¿Qué le habrá pasado al romance? (Whatever happened to romance?) People say a lot of stupid things now," she said while waving her hands. "Okay. So, where are you going to take her?"

"I haven't really..." I started, but Mom interrupted me.

"You could take her to dinner at a fancy restaurant with tablecloths and everything. You have the eddies for it," Mom said as ideas started invading her mind. "Oh, there's that Italian place in Japantown, the one with the little candles. Or you could take her dancing. Do you know how to dance? You don't know how to dance. But that doesn't matter, I'll teach you. Your father couldn't dance either and I had to teach him too. Or the pier in Pacifica, before all of this, they used to have that little amusement park. Is it still there? It's probably closed. Everything's closed. Okay, what about a picnic? On the roof? You have that whole roof, mijo, and you never use it for anything. You could put some lights up, bring a blanket, some food, I could cook something. Or no, I shouldn't cook, that would be weird. You should cook. Do you know how to cook? You don't know how to cook either. Ay, Santiago, what have I been doing with you all these years..."

She kept going, and I just stood there with a transmission gear still in one hand and looked down at my mother. She was about a foot shorter than me, and her coffee sloshed in her mug as she gestured, her whole face glowing as she planned a date for her son with more enthusiasm than I had ever seen her put into anything.

She looked... happy. Really, truly happy. Happier than I had seen her look in a long, long time. And without even realizing it, I found myself smiling too.

---

It's time this subplot starts to move. Send stones for the future love birds, or I'll kill one of them off...

There you can find everything I've ever written, as I'm writing it.