Cyberpunk Patriarch

Arthur returned to his modest home in Santo Domingo, the dim hallway lighting flickering as he opened the door and stepped inside. The place smelled faintly of machine oil and reheated noodles—exactly the way he'd left it. Before he could even hang up his coat or stretch his aching limbs, a voice from the other room greeted him with a familiar mix of irritation and desperation.

"Dad, you forgot to renew the subscription again! The washing machine won't work!"

Arthur's eye twitched as he exhaled slowly. He peeled off his weathered windbreaker, tossed it lazily onto the sofa, and strolled toward the sound of his son's voice like a man walking into battle.

In the cramped laundry corner, David stood next to the squat, boxy washer with a scowl on his face. Arthur studied the machine with the kind of disdain usually reserved for old enemies. Its display panel blinked red, taunting him.

This was life in Night City: where even your appliances needed a subscription. Rent, water, power—hell, if you breathed too loudly, a Corpo landlord might try to charge you for "ambient noise pollution."

Arthur sighed. "You alright, kid?"

David glanced over, a little surprised. "You're back?"

"Yep. In one piece." Arthur crouched in front of the washing machine and smirked. "You've been going to Arasaka Academy all this time, and you still can't hack a washer? Seriously?"

David blinked, caught off guard by the question. "I—I study business management and counter-intelligence! Not... appliance hacking."

Arthur chuckled and added with a straight face, "Your Aunt Lucy was hijacking ICE firewalls at your age. Hell, if she wanted to do laundry back then, the landlord paid her."

David rolled his eyes. "I thought the machine was just broken. Didn't expect to need netrunning skills to do the laundry."