Chapter 31: Preside Over Justice in Night City!
Arthur could tell he had thoroughly annoyed Lucy, which was no surprise. Then again, in Night City, it didn't matter much. Annoying someone was the least offensive thing you could do in a place where people regularly blew up cars just to get better parking spots. This was a city where consequences were just stories parents told their kids to help them fall asleep. Nobody actually cared, and even fewer remembered by the next day.
"By the way," Lucy suddenly asked, her voice shifting into a lighter tone, though her eyes remained sharp, calculating, "what's the deal with those 'graphics girls' you mentioned earlier?"
Arthur could feel the change in her posture, the deliberate attempt to shift the conversation, to move things into safer waters. After all, he now had leverage over her, and Lucy was far too experienced—far too smart—to let herself remain at a disadvantage for long. She'd grown up with chaos snapping at her heels, fled from places people didn't escape from, and lived to tell the tale. Reading a situation was second nature to her.
Still, curiosity had snuck its way into her voice. The term he'd thrown out wasn't one you heard every day, and something about it had hit close to home.
Arthur took a moment, glancing out toward the Voodoo Gang members who had been put to work cleaning up the factory grounds. Some were dragging corpses like trash bags, others sifting through crates and old tech pieces that had accumulated dust and blood over the years. The inside wasn't much better. The stench of mildew and machine oil hung in the air like a curse.
He inhaled deeply from his cigarette, letting the smoke settle into his lungs before answering.
"To put it simply," Arthur began, "a 'graphics girl' is like... a computer accessory. A tool with a heartbeat. Let me give you the short version, so you don't die of boredom."
He paused for dramatic effect, exhaling a slow puff of smoke.
"A long time ago—way before Night City was the pit it is today—people were obsessed with a thing called virtual currency. To get it, they needed high-power machines. The key was the GPU—graphics cards. These things were so valuable that people hoarded them like treasure. And the ones managing all that processing power? Well, they got nicknamed 'graphics girls.'"