Cyberpunk: I'm Not Cheating

So what's our David up to right now?

The answer: the handsome kid is currently surrounded by a group of very large men. Poor David is dangling like a baby bird, lifted clean off the ground single-handedly by a man built like a combat Borg.

"You're running my cyberware. Time to give it back."

David had just been in bed with the beautiful Lucy, sharing a Braindance that had taken both of them straight to the moon. The kid had never experienced anything like it and had been floating in pure happiness right up until a fist connected with his face.

"Ugh — cough cough! Your cyberware?"

The big man grinned, not pleasantly.

"That's right. I paid for it. Then the seller went dark. By yesterday I'd lost patience. Easier to just come find it myself."

David coughed twice more and started putting the pieces together. The unexpected money his mother had at home. After her accident he'd found that money and used it to pay for the emergency package. The clinic took the eddies and still moved to strip his mother's cyberware, right up until Vito pulled her out of there. Vito covered Vik's surgical fees himself.

His mother had probably intended to return the money and offer the cyberware to Vito as a thank-you gift. What David had never done was tell her he'd been the one to find the money in the first place.

"All right, kid. Stop spacing out. Hey, come check this. Get my cyberware out of him."

The long-armed man beside the big one ran a quick assessment, then smiled unpleasantly.

"Removal costs money too."

The big man laughed, not warmly.

"Then take the kid apart. Any discount for that?"

"A little. Not much."

The big man swung David around casually, holding him by the ankle.

"We'll start from here, then. Tear him up the middle." He laughed loudly.

Lucy was standing by the window, smoking. Expression blank.

"You're not planning to get blood all over my room, are you."

David's face was already swelling where he'd been hit. He looked at Lucy, defeated.

"You. You set me up?"

Another hit landed on his face.

"Don't interrupt. If the seller hadn't told me she needed the money urgently I wouldn't have transferred early. Hey, kid — nobody ever tell you not to install random cyberware you find lying around?"

At that moment a Unity pistol slid out of David's pocket and hit the floor.

"Oh? Kid came armed?"

The strong woman next to the big man picked it up.

The big man sneered.

"Constitutional Arms Unity. What's the plan with a budget pistol, disgruntled customer? Road rage? I've done this kind of deal plenty of times and this is the first time something like this has happened. Talk. Who gave you my cyberware?"

David steadied himself and asked:

"Who's your seller?"

"Gloria Martinez."

"Cough cough. That's my mother."

"Oh? Then why did she hand the cyberware to her kid?"

"She went into emergency care two days ago."

"She was dealing with me the day before that. What happened to her? NCPD?"

"No. She got caught in gang crossfire. Completely innocent bystander. She ended up at a clinic. I found the money and used it to get her out, but the clinic was working with scavs to strip her cyberware. Then someone decent pulled her out."

The big man thought it over.

"Keep going, kid. You still haven't told me why you've got my cyberware installed."

David took a breath.

"My mother didn't know I'd used the money. She came around late. She asked me to take the cyberware to the person who saved her as a thank-you gift."

Thud.

The big man let go. David hit the floor.

Lucy spoke up from the window.

"I've seen the person who saved Gloria. He's the one who told David to get it installed."

The big man dropped onto the couch.

"Damn scavs. But kid, that was still reckless as hell."

David steadied himself.

"I'll pay you back. Just give me some time."

The big man laughed.

"That's not what I mean. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to install cyberware of unknown origin? And that thing's military grade. Good luck finding a replacement."

David wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

"I'll return what you paid my mother. But..."

"Hey, Maine. Come look at this."

"What?"

The strong woman handed the pistol to the big man.

"Look at this Unity. It's been modified, and not just a little. I thought it was a shortened frame at first but it's a completely different animal. Even the rounds aren't standard."

The group examined it. What they had was a killing machine wearing a Unity's skin.

The man called Maine leveled it at David immediately.

"Kid. I think you left something out. How do you come to have something like this?"

At that moment there was a knock at Lucy's door.

Everyone went on alert, guns trained on the entrance. Lucy called out:

"Who is it?"

"Hey, hey. Is that Lucy? David left something behind. Can you open up?"

Everyone switched to internal comms. Maine asked:

"Who's outside?"

Lucy was caught off guard herself. How had Vito found this place?

"He's the one who saved Gloria. I didn't give him the address. David must have a tracker on him."

"Hey, Lucy. David. David, you're not doing anything in there you shouldn't be, right? Your mother's worried about you. Way too early for a kid your age. Come on, I'm taking you home."

The group arranged their positions and had Lucy open the door. The plan: the moment it swung open, Maine would move in and get control of Vito.

David's heart was hammering. He couldn't let them hurt Vito. He got ready. The second that door opened he'd activate the Sandevistan and move.

"All right, everyone. Let David go, or I set this string of grenades off and redecorate the room."

Everyone froze.

Vito had come out of the bathroom behind them. Left hand holding a string of high-explosive grenades. Right hand holding a military-tech M221 Saratoga, clearly modified, with an oversized drum magazine underneath that looked like it could take close to a hundred rounds.

He spotted Maine holding the pistol he'd given David and said, slowly:

"Relax, everyone. I open both hands in this room and nobody walks out. Big man: take that compact little piece-of-work in your hand and put a round into the iron door. Muzzle down. Don't make this difficult."

Maine fired at the iron door. The round punched clean through and blew a large flower of shredded metal out the other side. Large caliber, but the recoil barely changed.

"See that? The Saratoga in my hand makes that look like a toy. Everybody put your weapons down, let David go, and we can have a conversation. Did he get in, by the way? If he did I'll pay up properly. Just don't get greedy."

The group exchanged confused looks. Nobody knew what "get in" meant. What they did know was that the Saratoga was making everyone in the room deeply uncomfortable. The standoff held.

"Hey. Silver. Don't think about playing games with me. And put down whatever little toy your hand is drifting toward."

The pressure on both sides was immense. Then David stood up and stepped between them.

"Can we talk about this? I'll work off the debt. I've got the Sandevistan."

Maine tensed up immediately. He'd forgotten the kid was running a military-grade Sandevistan.