Cyberpunk: I'm Not Cheating

Vito killed the merc and felt nothing particular about it. Looking at the ruin of the man's face, shredded flesh mixed with shards of metal, he felt something closer to detachment than guilt, like he'd literally been dropped inside the game. Which, technically, he had.

What was bothering him right now was the fried noodles.

He'd stashed his guns in his clothes after leaving, but the Shingen's barrel kept jabbing him every time he bent over. So he tracked down a gun shop and asked if they'd take it off his hands. The owner launched into a principled speech about not accepting firearms of unknown provenance while simultaneously holding up five fingers below the counter.

Five thousand eddies wasn't bad. He'd buy decent clothes after, get a proper meal — he was genuinely getting hungry.

Vito nodded and agreed, but he wanted cash. The owner, pleased at how smoothly this was going, produced a stack of bills and handed them over.

Vito counted it and looked up:

"We said five thousand. This is five hundred."

That stopped the owner cold. He tried to remember when he'd said five thousand. Then it clicked — this guy, who looked like Clouds' top-shelf pleasure model, was a complete street rookie. He explained:

"Shingens are everywhere right now, this isn't exactly premium merchandise. Look at the body, looks like it took a burst from a Type 31 LMG. And these scratches? Like someone threw it into a drainage ditch. Frankly I'm being generous here. Try selling this in Dogtown and they'd throw you out before you finished your sentence."

Vito stared at him. Did you put a tracker on me or something? After a moment he said.

"Fine, five hundred it is. But throw in three Unity magazines and two boxes of pistol ammo, and those better be discounted."

The owner smiled, got the goods, and pocketed the eddies. Seeing Vito's miserable expression, he offered some consolation:

"Don't be down about it, choom. Street life's rough, sure, but it beats getting shanked, right? Where were you working before, Clouds?"

Vito's temper spiked hard. Sure, he'd sculpted his face to look like Jim Ross Stewart in the character creator, but jumping to conclusions about what a man does for work is something else entirely.

He yanked out his Unity and pointed it at the owner: "I don't sell myself. If I'm selling anything it's my labor. Watch your mouth."

The owner went pale:

"My mistake, my mistake, calm down choom, NCPD patrols around here constantly, don't do anything stupid. The ammo's on me, call it a friendship thing, just put the gun down."

He held the money out toward Vito as he spoke. Vito snatched the bills, kept the gun on him as he backed toward the door, then turned and left.

Once Vito was out of sight the owner spat on the floor.

"Fast hands on that kid. Nothing wrong with any line of work these days, what the hell was his problem?"

Out on the street, Vito got himself a properly fitting set of clothes, then found a packed Chinese food stall. The owner recommended the fried noodles, guaranteed good or money back.

The second they arrived he took a big mouthful and immediately spat it all onto the ground.

He coughed for a solid minute before he recovered. The fried noodles — how to put this — shared nothing with actual fried noodles except the name, and were conducting a full-scale assault on Vito's mouth.

He felt his regen kick in. He caught his breath and yelled.

"What the hell! Did you poison this? I'm literally taking damage!"

The owner, watching this performance, assumed he was being scammed for a free meal and jabbed a ladle in Vito's direction:

"What are you on about, kid? I've been running this stall for ten years. You think I poisoned you specifically? This spot is under Tyger Claws protection, so don't even think about running a con on me."

Vito had the urge to pull his gun again, but he looked around at the other customers eating away perfectly happily and figured Night City residents had simply adapted to calling chemically-processed plastic food. He walked away, expression grim.

"Hey kid, you haven't paid!"

Vito turned: "Seriously? You want money for that shit?"

The stall owner thought about making an issue of it, then noticed Vito had taken exactly one bite, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble. He turned around and tipped Vito's leftovers back into the pot, ready for the next customer.

Vito's stomach was growling, but he was genuinely convinced that eating any more of that stuff would kill him. His growing list of priorities now included saving up for a digestive cyberware upgrade.

Starving, he stopped at a vending machine and bought a protein bar. That sounded less dangerous and would do for now.

He was smarter about it this time. He took a small bite. Still awful, but not health-bar-threatening awful. He bit the rest into small pieces and swallowed them whole, bypassing his taste receptors entirely.

While he was eating, a Night City local walked over and handed him a small can of Coca-Cola. A medium-built Latino guy, looking him over.

"Looking hungry there, choom. Want to come back to mine for some hot pizza, baby?"

Vito's expression went flat. He swallowed his irritation and asked:

"Am I stabbing you, or are you stabbing me?"

The man, reading this as interest, immediately said:

"Either works, baby! I've got plenty of everything at home, whatever you're into."

Vito looked around, spotted a dark alley nearby, and pointed it out:

"Skip the home visit. Go wait for me in that alley."

The man was thrilled — couldn't believe his luck running into something this premium willing to come play. He strolled happily into the alley.

Vito waited until he was inside, checked that nobody nearby was paying attention, pulled out his Unity and checked the magazine, then followed him in.

The man was rubbing his hands together eagerly and asked:

"Everything off?"

Vito pressed the gun to his forehead.

"Everything out of your pockets. Hand over the cash, or I'll redecorate the back of your skull."

The man, significantly less thrilled now, dug a roll of eddies out of his pocket and handed it over.

Vito weighed it in his hand — maybe thirty or forty.

"That's it? Don't make me search your corpse."

The man's eyes went wet: "I'm not exactly loaded, choom! If I had money I wouldn't be wandering around Watson. I've got another hundred in my account but this is genuinely my last cash."

Vito considered this. The guy really did look broke.

"Consider yourself lucky today. I'm leaving your account alone. The cash is a fine for wasting my time, now get out of here."

The man ran out of the alley without looking back. Vito stood there surrounded by garbage, feeling genuinely low. Night City really was one enormous trash heap, and he'd had such a good heart when he arrived. One day in and it was already a pile of mud.

He walked out of the alley feeling like a different person. Night City was turning him into something he didn't want to be. He needed to turn over a new leaf and stop relying on violence.

Later.

The NCPD received over a dozen calls that day, men and women both, all reporting that they'd been honeypot-robbed. A gun-toting man had lured them into alleyways and taken every eddie they were carrying.

As everyone in Night City knows, calling the NCPD costs money. If over a dozen people had paid to file a report, the number who hadn't bothered was anyone's guess.

Word spread fast across the northern districts. There was a honeypot robber operating in Watson, and apparently he was quite the looker.

The man in the hotel room counting a pile of cash was grinning ear to ear.

Guilt? Not even a bit.