Cyberpunk - Badland Madman [Cyberpunk 2077]

Cypher eyed the DJ with a hidden giggle of triumph over Atlas.

"So, Mr. Blackwell, you wanna invest in Lizzie's Bar, grab a stake in it. You wanna set up a studio with the same name that you own outright. BD profits split two percent for talent, three percent for the club, and the rest straight to you while you handle distribution and kick in those old-school template videos?"

Damn, that sounds like a bad fucking deal now. Am I being too greedy?

"That's a deal too good to be true. What's the catch?" Ash asked.

"Huh? Atlas, I thought it was a bad deal."

[It is. But in this world of low-trust, where all deals are bad deals, what you offer is quite generous.]

Frowning at that, he sighed and got up, walking over to stand in front of the large screens so he could look at them all. He regretted that decision as the women looked a bit too hot for his own good. Especially with their legs crossed.

"There would've been a catch if I were some other corpo bastard. But you're talking to the guy who hooked the world up with free water. You're talking to the guy who'd one day hook the world up with free energy. The deal I offered already favors me, lines up my profits, and you get some, too. I ain't here to fuck you guys over. I'm here as a friend and a fellow degenerate."

"We're not degenerates, choom," Rita barked.

Cypher stared at the woman intently and took out a pen from his pocket. "You sure about that? Want another tattoo?"

Rita grinned and relaxed back. Everyone there already knew she had a thing for body writing during sex.

"What's your offer?" Susanna asked. "How much do you plan to invest in the club?"

Cypher thought about it for some time. "Hmm… I say, twenty-million eddies for twenty percent of the Lizzie's Bar."

"..."

It was an extremely generous offer as it put Lizzie's evaluation at a hundred million eurodollars. In comparison, Cypher had recently purchased the dam, the reservoir, and the lands around it in Badlands for eighty million.

"Are you sure?" Anna Nox asked.

"Damn sure. I'm gonna earn back the cost in a few months, I bet," he replied confidently.

"How? The Night City's BD market is not that big," Susanna asked back.

Cypher suddenly frowned, realising the mistake he'd made in explaining the deal to them.

"What do you mean 'Night City'? Ms. Quinn, my deal ain't about pushing BD in one damn city. It's about the entire fucking world. The BDs we put out are gonna be sold everywhere, every city, every street on the planet. There's gonna be a porn site too, and Obsidian's planning to release a new BD Wreath that lets people browse those sites and download BDs straight into the wreath instead of buying cartridges. We'll be selling this stuff online and offline. Horny bastards from all over the world are gonna come to Night City to see their favorite BD star in person."

"And they'll stay in the Continental to spend a quality night with their favorite star. Fuck, I'm a genius, aren't I, Atlas?"

[Cyph, if the itches belonged to pornography and not tech, I truly believe you would have conquered the world already.]

"Hah! Maybe. But look at their dumb faces."

"..."

Susanna and everyone else had fallen into cold silence.

Cypher's offer was actually exploitative when the entire planet was taken into consideration. Of course, he'd have never done it without Atlas. But with Atlas, running a global business wasn't an issue as long as it was information-based. Moreover, his investment in Lizzie's was a long-term plan.

That twenty percent would mean he'd get a twenty percent cut from the bar and all its future branches' business. It was going to be a long-term money-printing passive-income business for him.

After a long time, Susanna spoke again. "That's a damn lucrative offer. If you're planning to go global, I can already see the club's cut pulling serious eddies, even at three percent. And if you're handling distribution too, that makes things clean on our end. Still, I'd like some time to think it over. I've got to think about the interests of our core members and talent."

Cypher waved his hands and walked over. "Take your time. I gotta be somewhere anyway. Hit me up once you've made up your mind."

"Will do, Mr. Blackwell." Susanna got up and shook his hand again.

He did the same and finally left the room. Nobody came to escort him out; he reckoned they wanted to discuss his offers. Good thing for him, he was listening to it while he made his way out, all thanks to Atlas.

"Judy, you know him best. What do you think about this?" Susanna asked.

Quickly, Judy's answer came. "Think he's gonna do it one way or another. Even if we refuse, he can just buy some BD studio and roll from there. Only reason he's here is because, as mad as he is upstairs, he's still one of the few decent gonks in this city. His studio'll disrupt our BD biz and slash our income, and this is his way of avoiding that."

That's my girl.

Cypher listened to it all and nodded strongly. What Judy said was absolutely right. Once he entered the market, he'd dominate it because Atlas had all the data, and they knew which customers wanted what. His BD sales were going to be off the charts simply because of personalized recommendations and dynamic pricing.

"You don't think it's his plan to take over Lizzie's?" Ash asked.

"Come on, you all," Rita blurted. "He's got Club Atlantis. It's a weekend, and we ain't got much crowd today. Why? That nineties night is pulling them in there. My chooms are firing photos my way. The place is packed. You think he wants Lizzie's?"

Damn right, Rita. You've got a good head. I'm gonna write absolute filth on you next time.

Cypher walked to his car and sat inside, listening to the meeting continue. In the end, it was Susanna's decision to make, so they stopped after some time, and Susanna went away to her personal office to sit and think.

By then, Cypher was already driving like a cyberpsycho on the streets of Night City. Instead of going to his club to enjoy the nineties night, he drove to his Lake Farm house. He had a lot of work to do, from making the SecUnits to making his exo-suit for the Arasaka nuclear heist.

Besides, the club was running well. Atlas oversaw everything. T-Bug was acting as the netrunner, Panam was handling the Aldecaldos, and even Maine's crew was there just in case a major fight broke out.

"What trash should I eat tonight?"

####

Lake Farm,

Cypher returned home. He changed into a comfy tracksuit and went down into the underground factory's top level, which was designed for his personal projects. There, he set up two workstations.

One was for the SecUnit, and the other was for his exo-suit. He decided to build the SecUnit first since it had so many advanced technologies that when included in the designs of IEC Dragoon's altered version, it would improve significantly.

"Man, the more I sit with it, the more SecUnit seems like a cyborg to me. It's got way too many organic parts, shit needs cloned human brain tissue. We shouldn't make more than this one, Atlas. This one's gonna be sentient, but the rest I'll build as real robots with no brain just for you to control."

Atlas's old form appeared right beside him, staring at the large screen with the schematics of SecUnit. "Fascinating. They engineered it this way so it could think beyond the limits of lower-tier AI. The organic brain tissue, nervous system, and blood exist to optimize data flow. Conventional circuitry alone could never reach this degree of complexity."

Cypher nodded. That was the reason why SecUnits were so popular. They were almost like humans, but better in many ways. "Well, I don't know shit about SecUnits, but I can totally see us wrecking the fuck outta RealSkinn pretty soon. We got crazy good tech now for cloned human brain tissue, nervous systems, boosted muscles, human-looking skin, and upgraded lungs. Shit, we even got organic eyes with digital overlays. Ain't super high-end stuff like Kiroshi, but there's definitely people out there who wanna look ganic and still keep the tech."

"Indeed. These designs allow us to enter the medtech and organ-based cyberware market," Atlas replied. "My calculations confirm they exceed current market-grade goods by no less than twenty percent."

"Huh? Just twenty? I thought it'd be more."

______________________

Check out Cypher X Gloria, Cypher X Judy, Cypher X Rebecca NSFW ART, and advance chapters at [email protected]/MrPlotThickens Or Subscribestar.adult/mrplotthickens

Advance chapters on [PATREON] are in long-form format. I have 10 long chapters of this story on P@treon. That's equal to 35-45 NovelPhoenix chapters.