Cyberpunk: Whispers of the Blackwall

AN: Apologies for the late chapter.

The House of the Reaper has opened its arms to welcome:

Novices kilba Sch and Bruhman1032.

Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.

—

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

– Oscar Wilde

—

It was around six-something in the evening, and I had finished with the transmission and had now moved on to the part of the build I’d been dreading and looking forward to in equal measure. Putting together this puzzle I called the Widowmaker.

I already had the frame set on the lift, and for the last five hours, I had been hanging things off of it. Racing axles, forged and heat-treated, the highest spec I could find on the market for underground street racing. Upper and lower control arms machined out of billet aluminum. Tie rods. Hub carriers. Every piece of it had come in its own foam-lined crate with a certificate of authenticity and its very own expensive price tag.

I had wanted to build all of it myself, and I had spent weeks telling myself I would. But I slowly came to realize that I would have to expand my current operations with a forging press, a heat-treating furnace the size of my bathroom, and a metallurgy lab. So, I had swallowed my pride and just ordered the parts. There was building everything from scratch, and then there was being a gonk about it.

Now I was down to installing the last piece of this puzzle… well, the start of it anyways.

The active hydraulic suspension I had custom-ordered would be able to read the road ten times a second and adjust the ride height and damping on each corner independently. I had been a little skeptical about it initially, but since the seller was a nomad racing mechanic that came recommended by Muamar Reyes, I figured why not have a little faith. And shit, did it pay off. It had four struts, four accumulators, a pump, a reservoir, and more hydraulic lines than I wanted to count.

I had spent most of the past five hours bolting the struts into the mounting points I’d welded into the frame, running lines, and cursing every time my torque wrench slipped and my hand slammed into the frame. But I thanked my lucky stars I couldn’t feel the pain due to having cyberarms.

But it was done for the time being.

I rolled out from under the lift, and stood up and looked at it. The Widowmaker was starting to come together, and all I needed to do was install rotors, brakes, wheels, tires, brake lines, and a fuckton of… wiring. Who was I kidding? This is gonna take an eternity. But at least it was starting to look like a car.

I wiped my hands on a rag and looked over at the couch where Sasha was sitting. She had shown up around two in the afternoon with two synthi-cafs and some sweets, and had been lying around ever since. Right now, she sat cross-legged on the couch in an oversized hoodie, her cyberdeck forgotten beside her as she watched the movie on the wall. She had put on some movie from the 2010s called Need for Speed, which was apparently based on a racing game and had a Mustang as its centerpiece. I remember her saying that she had picked it “for motivational purposes.”

I had been sneaking looks at her for the last five hours, and now that I was paying attention to any signs of interest from her end, I had caught her sneaking looks at me too. At least four times. Every time I looked in her direction, her eyes would dart back to the wall like she had been a streetkid caught klepping from a store.

As I looked at her, Vik’s voice rang in my head. “Time waits for no one, Santi.”

And it was followed by Mom’s. “Las flores se marchitan si no les das agua.”

So I dropped the rag on the bench and walked over to the couch, and Sasha looked up at me as I made my way over until I was practically standing over her. With her legs crossed and me standing, I had to look almost straight down at her, and she had to tilt her whole head back to meet my eyes.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just taking a break.”

“Okay,” she said as she scooted over. “Then sit down. Boże, jaki ty jesteś wysoki, idioto (God, you’re so damn tall, idiot). You’re blocking half the movie.”

“Did you forget I can understand Polish thanks to that neat translating program of yours?” I asked her as I sat down beside her. I noticed her blush a bit as the couch sagged under me and tilted her a little closer, but she didn’t move away.

“I stand by what I said,” Sasha pouted.

On the wall, the movie’s main guy and the girl had just driven the Mustang straight off a cliff after a helicopter had swooped down and they had hooked the roof onto a cable, and now they were dangling under it, swinging over a canyon. The two of them had stopped panicking long enough to look at each other and start arguing about the color of each other’s eyes.

I watched them for a few seconds and felt my heart starting to beat a lot faster than it should be, considering I was just sitting on a couch.

“I’ve been thinking about something lately,” I said.

Sasha didn’t take her eyes off the wall as she replied. “Yeah? What about?”

“About, uhh, stuff,” I said as I rubbed the back of my neck. “You know, things. In general. And specifically.”

She turned her head and looked at me with that cute-ass little smirk of hers as if she knew everything I was going to say but was clueless at the same time.

I tried to remember what Mom had coached me on while she followed me around earlier. Something about telling a girl she was like a flower. Something about candles. Something about looking at her like she was the only person in the room. The problem was that all of it sounded amazing coming out of my mother’s mouth and completely insane when I tried to imagine it coming out of mine.

“Okay, you know what,” I said. “I’m just gonna be blunt about it, because if I try to do this the way my mom told me to, I’m gonna sound like a gonk.”

“You’re already sounding like a gonk,” Sasha said, her cute smirk growing a little wider.

“Yeah. Trust me, I know,” I said as I ran a hand down my face and then turned to face her fully and made myself look her in the eyes. “Ever since we met at that warehouse when I needed your help to sell off that haul, I’ve felt something I can’t really explain. I’ve never met anybody like you. Well, I guess I haven’t met many people and talked to them long enough to know them, but that’s beside the point. You’re smart, and you’re funny, and you’re… I don’t know. You’re you. And you’re around all the time, and I like that you’re around all the time, and I don’t really know where I’m going with this.”

I noticed her face start to change color as her smirk wavered a bit and her cheeks grew pink.

“So I’m just gonna say it,” I said. “I like you, Sasha. More than a choom. And I want to take you out on a date or something. Tomorrow, if you’re free.”

For a second, she didn’t say anything at all. Then the blush that had started in her cheeks spread across her whole face and down her neck, until she was redder than the Tyger Claws’ neon, and she turned her head sharply toward the wall so I couldn’t see her eyes.

“Took you long enough,” she mumbled into the collar of her hoodie. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Something I hadn’t known was sitting on my chest suddenly lifted off of it. It was like taking off a vest I’d been wearing without realizing it. My shoulders dropped, and my breathing slowed.

“Is that a yes?” I asked.

“Tak, głupku (Yes, stupid/dummy/idiot),” she said in Polish into her knees, still not looking at me. “Oczywiście, że tak (Obviously it’s a yes).”

AN: (I’m leaning into her being Polish rather than Russian.)

“Cool,” I said. “That’s preem. Nova. Holy shit.”

“Zatrzymać (stop),” she said in Polish, and we just sat there for a minute, looking at the wall as the helicopter carried the Mustang away over the canyon. Then she bumped her shoulder against my arm, and I bumped mine back, and she laughed, letting out a short, surprised laugh like she hadn’t meant to let it out.

“How long?” I asked.

“How long what?” She asked.

“You know,” I said. “How long have you been waiting for me to ask?”

She finally looked back at me and though her face was still bright red, she held my eyes this time.

“I can’t remember,” she said. “But it’s been a while. I do know that i felt something for you when I first met Judy.”

“That was like half a year ago,” I said.

“Yeah,” Sasha said, her cutesy smile dropping into a deadpan. “I’m well aware of how long it’s been, Santi.”

“Well, you could’ve asked me,” I said.

“I could have,” she said, shrugging. “But Judy bet me fifty eddies that you’d figure it out on your own before the new year. She lost, but I wanted to see how long it would take you.”

“Judy knew?” I asked, then remembered that Judy had said I had a cute input when they first met.

“Ugh, why are guys so dull?” She sighed while rolling her eyes. “Santi, everybody knew.”

I put my face in my hands, and she laughed again, louder this time.

We talked for a while longer. About nothing, mostly. About the movie, which she insisted was terrible, but still loved it anyway. About the Mustang, and she asked me things like how the suspension worked. And then we talked about where she wanted to go, and she said she didn’t care as long as it wasn’t a noodle stand, because she had been eating at noodle stands her whole life, and if I was going to take her on a formal date, it had better be formal.

So after we finished the movie, I started looking for the right spot. It didn’t take me long to find a restaurant called Aurore, just two blocks off Corpo Plaza, on the ground floor of an office tower that had been converted into luxury residences. It had white tablecloths, real candles, a wine list that I couldn’t read half of, a menu with actual meat on it, and a dress code at the bottom of the reservation page, in small elegant letters.

“Formal attire required. No tactical wear. No visible weapons.”

The new curfew was set to start at twelve in the morning, so I booked a table for seven the next evening, which would give us plenty of time to dine, talk, and do anything else.

“Hey, I found this place called Aurore,” I told Sasha, sending her the page. “Made a reservation for tomorrow at seven. They’ve got a dress code, so, you know, dress nice.”

She scrolled through it with her eyes glowing, and then her eyebrows went up.

“Santi, this place is expensive,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I can afford it,” I quipped.

“I know you can afford it,” she acknowledged. “But I don’t own anything that belongs in there.”

“Then go buy something,” I said. “I’ll send you the eddies for it.”

“You can spoil me once we’re actually a thing,” Sasha said. “But you’re not paying for my dress.”

“Then don’t buy a dress,” I said, shrugging. “Show up in your hoodie and let them kick us out.”

She glared at me while I grinned back, and then she just rolled her eyes and stood up, grabbing her deck and her bag.

“I’m going home,” she said. “I have to figure out what I’m going to wear, which is apparently going to take the rest of my life now. Thanks for that.”

“I’m sure anything will look good on you,” I said, which caused her to blush and stop mid-step and look back at me.

“Santi,” she said. “We better get there on time.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Don’t ‘of course’ me, I know how easily you lose track of time while working on your precious metal baby,” she said teasingly.

“Don’t worry, it just got bumped down on my list of priorities,” I said in an attempt to reassure her. But that only caused her eyes to narrow into slits that said she didn’t believe a word I said. “You have my word, I won’t be late.”

And with that, she finally smiled and then continued to walk with a little spring in her step, and then out the door.

I sat on the couch for a good ten minutes after she left, staring at the ceiling like an idiot and smiling at nothing. Then reality caught up with me, and I looked down at myself. Black sweatpants that stopped above my ankles, a borrowed nomad’s flannel, and stitches and glue lines everywhere. Then I thought about what I had in my closet, and it was a very limited rotation of laze-around clothes and tactical clothes. The cream mock turtleneck I’d worn to the Afterlife was the closest thing I owned to formal wear.

I had nothing to wear to Aurore.

And then, right behind that realization, came another one.

Aurore was on the other side of the city, and I didn’t have a car I could use. I mean, I could take Mom’s G240, but I think that’d get us kicked out even faster. My other option was having to pick Sasha up in a cab that smelled like the last guy’s takeout and would probably charge me extra for no reason.

Yeah. That was not the impression I wanted to make. So, what else could I do but call my good old friend, Muamar Reyes. He picked up on the first ring.

“¡Fantasmita! (Little Ghost! OR Ghostie!)” he said, and his voice filled my head with that same enthusiasm he always had. “My favorite ghost! It has been too long, my friend. How is the Mustang? Tell me you finished my baby.”

“Getting there,” I said. “I just put the suspension in today.”

“Ay, beautiful, beautiful,” he said, and I could imagine him jumping up and down. “Now, what can El Capitán do for you?”

“Right down to business,” I said with a chuckle. “Right. Well, I was just wondering if you deal in rides?”

There was a short pause, and I could practically hear him grinning.

“Well, my amigo, you are in luck. Lately, I have been expanding. Stretching my fingers, you know? I have come across a few rides here and there because people are desperate right now with the war, and desperate people sell good cars cheap.” He paused before continuing. “What do you have in mind?”

“Something sporty,” I said. “But aggressive and elegant at the same time. Something I can take somewhere nice without looking like a gonk, but that won’t fold if somebody starts shooting at it.”

“Sporty, aggressive, and elegant,” Muamar repeated slowly. “You don’t want much, eh?”

“You asked,” I said. “And that’s just the bare minimum.”

“I did, I did,” Muamar sighed. “Okay. Right now, I have only two that fit what you’re asking for. A Quadra Type-66 640 TS, and a Mizutani Hozuki.”

“Send me pictures, and I’ll see what’s up,” I said.

A few seconds later, I got a ping as a message containing the images arrived. The Quadra was clean, black and chrome, long and low and muscle-heavy, the kind of car that looked like it would get you a lot of attention on the Afterlife’s curb. It was, by all means, a good car.

QUADRA TYPE-66 640 TS

But I barely looked at it, because the second picture had already caught my eye and wouldn’t let go.

It was a Hozuki, but it wasn’t any Hozuki I had ever seen. The stock Hozuki MH1 was a clean little sedan that corpo middle managers drove to work. The Hozuki MH2 was a nicer version of it, with more horsepower and a lighter weight. And then there was the Kozuki “Hoseki,” which was a sport variant of the Hozuki MH2.

But even then, this thing was a completely different monster. It had been rebuilt, had a wide-body kit, and the fenders flared out so far past the wheels they looked like they were trying to escape. A massive rear wing bolted to the trunk, riveted panels running down the sides like armor plating, an aggressive front splitter that sat so low it would scrape a coin off the street, with vertical LED strips glowing in the intakes on either side, and it had deep-dish black wheels on low-profile tires.

The whole thing was calling my name. But there was a caveat. It was painted in bright red, electric blue, hot pink, and black, in jagged slashing stripes that ran across the hood and down the sides, with “ホズキ” stamped in big pink Japanese letters across the doors, which just translated to “Hozuki Mizutani.”

MIZUTANI HOZUKI

“You have any before-and-after images of the Hozuki?” I asked. “It’s the one I want, and I just want to have something to compare and contrast- actually, hold that thought. What the fuck is that paint job? It looks like a Tyger Claw threw up on it.”

Muamar laughed. “Very good eye, my friend! It did belong to a Claw with good taste in cars, terrible taste in style. He needed the scratch urgently, since, you understand, some debts in Japantown cannot wait. So he sold it to me for much less than it is worth.”

“It doesn’t even look like a Hoseki,” I said.

“Hells yeah! That was the whole point, amigo,” he said, and I could hear the pride in his voice. “Stock, the Hoseki makes three hundred and sixty-two horsepower and weighs thirty-one hundred and ninety-four pounds. A sporty grocery getter for corpo wives. Then the Claw got his hands on it, stripped it down, lightened everything he could, and brought it to twenty-eight hundred and thirty-seven pounds and six hundred and fifty horsepower. Not bad for a gangoon.”

He paused for a second. “Then I got my hands on it, and now it makes one thousand, two hundred and forty. But it does weigh an even thirty-six hundred and forty, because I put armor on it. Door panels, firewall, underbody, glass, the works, I’m sure you understand. A car like this, in times like these, you need the armor.”

“Twelve-forty?” I whistled. It was an impressive feat, but I had a whole other question going through my head. “But how the hell did you get an operation like that up and running this fast? Last I checked, you were just handing out driving manuals.”

“I know people, and people know me,” Muamar said smugly. “And those people know people. I point, they build. That is the beauty of being El Capitán.”

“Alright, alright, how much for the Hozuki?” I asked.

“For you? One hundred and twelve thousand,” he said. “But if that is too rich for your blood, the Quadra is only eighty-three. Also a very nice car. Less armor and horsepower, but still very nice.”

“No,” I said. “It’s fine. I want the Hozuki. And send me those before and after images.”

“Excellent choice,” Muamar said. “I’m sending you those right now.”

MIZUTANI HOZUKI

I nodded, satisfied, as I got the before and after images. “Oh, one thing, though. Can you get rid of that color scheme?”

“What!?” He said, sounding shocked and confused. “Don’t tell me you don’t like the rainbow?”

“I’ll get shot on sight if I drive that thing around,” I said in a deadpan voice. “I want white, maybe give it some purple. Actually, let me draw something up and send it to you real quick.”

I pulled up onto my terminal and loaded up a program and fed it the image. I quickly came up with a scheme and sent it back to Muamar.

MIZUTANI HOZUKI – Santi’s Scheme

“Hmm, not bad. As a matter of fact, it’s fucking sexy. That white and black make the purple stripes pop,” Muamar said, and I heard him typing. “Like the ghost himself, eh? White hair, minimal with the purple eyes. I like it. For my ghostly friend, I can do anything. But a full repaint like that, with the change in lighting and everything, it will cost you extra.”

“That’s fine,” I said, nodding to myself. “When can it be ready?”

“I’ll have my guys working on this double time, so the paint will be dry by morning,” Muamar said. “You can come and pick it up yourself, or I can have one of my boys deliver it to your door. Delivery costs extra, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated. I was about to tell him I’d pick it up when a thought hit me.

Mom was still driving the Galena. The same Galena I’d pulled out of a junkyard and rebuilt in our old garage a few years back. Sure, it was in perfect condition, but it was a good ride back when I was a kid who counted every eddie he was siphoning from the SCSMs. Speaking of, I wonder how that program has held up over the past few years.

“Muamar,” I said. “You got any SUVs?”

“SUVs? For who?” Muamar asked.

“For my mom,” I said truthfully.

“Ah, for la señora. You’re a very good son,” he said as I heard him typing away in the background. “I have only one right now. A Thorton Merrimac. Sending you the picture of it.”

THORTON MERRIMAC

The image came through, and honestly, it was a monster. A six-wheeled Thorton Merrimac, white with black, riding high on off-road tires with floodlights along the roof rack, a clean front, and an even cleaner side profile.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“You don’t even want to know the price?” Muamar almost gasped on the other end.

“That’s because I want it armored too,” I said. “Give it the same treatment as the Hozuki and increase its horsepower while armoring the doors, glass, underbody, everything. I want my mom to be able to drive through a firefight and come out the other side annoyed about the paint.”

Muamar was quiet for a second.

“The armor on something that size is a big job, man,” he said. “It will cost extra, and the Merrimac will not be ready for about a week.”

“That’s fine,” I said, thinking about how things were currently going. “A week’s fine.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, and I heard more typing. “Then your total comes to two hundred and sixty-eight thousand eddies. The Hozuki with the paint and the Merrimac with the armor.”

I didn’t even blink when he sent me the invoice and just authorized the transfer. I watched my balance drop by two hundred and sixty-eight thousand eddies, and I didn’t feel weird spending it.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Fantasmita,” Muamar said. “I’ll shoot you a message tomorrow morning with the deets. And my tall friend?”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Whatever you need this car for tomorrow,” he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. “I hope she says yes.”

I felt a grin tug at my face as I replied. “She already did.”

“Ay, then drive carefully! Nothing kills romance like a crash,” he said, and then the call ended.

I sat on the couch in my too-short sweatpants and my borrowed nomad flannel and stared at the Widowmaker’s frame for a bit. I had a date, and now I had a new ride, and my mom was getting an armored six-wheeled tank.

And after picking up my new set of wheels tomorrow morning, I was going to have to go shopping for clothes.

“Fuck,” I said to nobody, let out a long, long sigh, and let my head fall back against the couch.

—

Love is in the air. Send stones for the date, or I’ll f*ck it up…

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