The Thorton Galena shuddered to a halt outside El Coyote Cojo, its overworked engine dying with a final, choked cough that seemed to echo the silence in Teo's own skull. Even from here, the bar pulsed with the raw, chaotic energy in Heywood.
The muffled thump of synth rock bled through its reinforced walls, a visceral beat against the night. Laughter, shouted conversations, the sharp clink of glasses, the sounds of life, loud and messy, yet utterly alien to Teo. He sort of disconnected. He was too tired to move, his limbs heavy, his mind a battlefield of fractured code and screaming gunfire.
Apex was out first, her movements stiff, but still carrying that lethal aura. She opened Teo's door, the groan of the old chassis a familiar complaint. For a moment, he simply stared blankly ahead, his Kiroshis showing him nothing but the oppressive weight of the world.
He felt like a toddler, limbs too heavy, mind too slow. He was a wet rag, drained. She didn't say a word, her face a mask of grim resolve, but she reached in, a surprising gentleness in her otherwise rough movements, and helped him out.
He leaned against her, the unyielding strength in her arm the only thing keeping him upright for a moment, before he pushed himself, forcing his own legs to obey. His boots scraped against the gritty pavement, a stark, grating sound.
A group of Valentinos, bellies sloshing with beer and cheap booze, lounged near the entrance, their chrome glinting under the flickering neon. One of them, a man with a punk like mohawk and a silver cyber arm etched with intricate gang tats, straightened up.
It was Gary Payton, a Valentino lieutenant Teo knew from a handful of small, discreet netrunning gigs, mostly decryption work, nothing that put him on the firing line. Gary moved with an easy, fluid grace, sliding an arm around Teo's other side, taking some of the dead weight.
"Let me help, ermano," Gary said, his voice a low rumble, concern softening the usual street edge. "You look like you wrestled a cyberpsycho and lost." His gaze flicked to Apex, then to the blood smeared on Teo's jacket.
The Valentinos might be violent, but they had a code, a sense of family that sometimes stretched to those who showed them respect. Teo had earned a sliver of that with his quiet, reliable decryption work.
The heavy synth steel door hissed open, spilling the bar's chaotic symphony out into the night. Inside, the air was a thick, cloying soup of its usual smoke, cheap synth ale, and the metallic tang of sweat and unwashed bodies. The bass vibrated through the floorboards, a constant, low tremor against his aching feet. The usual crowd of mercs, brawlers, and low lifes filled the booths and lined the bar, their faces a blur of cybernetic enhancements and hard earned scars. Every conversation was a fractured murmur, every laugh a sharp bark.
Behind the long, scarred bar, wiping it down with a practiced, almost meditative rhythm, stood Mama Welles. As Teo, supported by Apex and Gary, shambled through the door, a subtle shift occurred in her posture. The wiping slowed, her gaze, heavy and knowing, settled on them. She saw the blood, the exhaustion, the fresh grief etched on Apex's face.
Mama Welles quickly went under the counter, resurfacing with a handful of medical stims two sleek, black auto injectors and a bundle of fresh, wet cloths. Her movements were swift, efficient, born of years of patching up her "kids." She motioned for them to take a seat at a nearby table, one away from the main crush of bodies but still within her sight.
Gary and Apex gently lowered Teo into a chair, the synth leather groaning under his weight. Apex pulled up a chair close beside him, almost pressing against his side. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, a single, visible tremor running through her arm. He heard a low whisper from a merc at a neighboring table, hushed but still audible over the din.
"Hey, is that… Apex? The merc queen of Westbrook?" The name was uttered with a mixture of awe and fear. Teo looked at Apex, seeing her reputation, her legend, physically embodied in the weariness and grief etched on her face.
'Looks like she has a bit of rep' he thought, a detached observation.
Mama Welles came over, her expression a mix of fierce concern and no nonsense practicality. "Mijo, you look awful. Who did this to you?" she pressed, her voice gravelly but surprisingly soft, cutting through the thrum of the bar. She held out the stims, her hand firm.
"Tiá, calmate, I'm fine," he mumbled, reaching out for one of the stims in his aunt's hands. He just wanted to get it over with, get some of the burning ache out of his limbs. She slapped his hand away with a surprising snap.
"No, let me!" she almost commanded, her eyes flashing with a protective fire. Before he could react, she jammed the stim into his exposed forearm with brutal efficiency.
"Ay! Dios mio!" he almost shouted, the sharp prick followed by an immediate, searing cold that blossomed through his veins. The trauma stim hit him like a lightning bolt, a violent chemical kick. The overwhelming feeling of pain and fatigue receded, replaced by a jarring clarity, a hyper awareness that felt almost alien. His muscles tightened, his vision sharpened, though the images of the night still flickered behind his eyes.
Apex, with a grimace, injected herself with the second stim Mama Welles handed over, her movements just as swift and practiced. She let out a low grunt, then cracked her neck with an audible pop, the sound sharp even over the music. The raw tension in her shoulders eased, but the shadow in her eyes remained.
As Mama Welles finally finished pampering him, wiping blood and grime from his face with the wet cloth, he heard a dry, almost amused voice to his left. Apex spoke for the first time since Cipher went down.
"I can't believe you're a 'Welles'," she said, her voice still a little rough, but with a new, almost disbelieving amusement. "I thought that name was just common in Heywood... You related to the Jackie Welles or something?" The way she said Jackie's name was laced with respect, almost reverence.
Jackie Welles. "El Lobo." He was a titan in the merc biz, a legend carved into the very concrete of Night City. Well known, respected, equally feared. "Yeah," Teo replied, the simple word carrying the weight of a complicated legacy. "I'm his cousin."
Apex let out a low whistle, a ghost of a smile touching her lips, though her eyes remained distant. "Damn... that's why a kid like you was connected to Padre. That makes a lot more sense now." She paused, her gaze drifting to the bustling bar. "Guess you got some big shoes to fill, choom."
He only nodded, the stim induced clarity making his thoughts race even as he felt the dull ache beneath the surface. He subtly felt a piercing stare and turned his head. Padre was waiting for them at a secluded booth in the back, away from the main noise, near the kitchen entrance.
He wasn't alone. Sitting opposite him was Tanaka, the Synapse Dynamics operative, pristine in her charcoal suit, the fabric a stark contrast to the gritty ambiance of the Coyote. Her face was an unreadable mask of corporate composure. Her hulking bodyguard, a chrome behemoth with reflective optics, stood impassively behind her, scanning the room with predatory efficiency. The contrast between Tanaka's sterile corporate sheen and the Afterlife's raw, unfiltered humanity was stark, almost offensive.
Padre's gaze swept over them, a quick, assessing glance that lingered on Teo's blood splattered jacket and Apex's haunted, yet now focused, eyes. He didn't speak, just gestured for them to approach. Teo got up slowly, the stim suppressing the pain but not the deep weariness. Apex rose with him, her movements still precise, but a faint stiffness betrayed her.
They slowly made their way to the table, the distant throb of the music a low accompaniment to the tension. Teo slid into the booth beside Apex, the worn cushion offering little comfort. The wooden bird was still clutched in his hand, hidden from view beneath the table.
Tanaka offered no condolences, no polite inquiries about their well being. Her eyes were cold, impatient, reflecting the neon glow of the bar without truly seeing it. "You have the data?" she asked, her voice as crisp and devoid of warmth as the recycled air in a corporate high rise.
'Corpos,' Teo angrily spat in his mind, the silent expletive a bitter taste. They only cared about the data, never the lives.
Apex shifted, her jaw tight, but it was Teo who answered, his voice still a little hoarse from the dust and exertion.
"On the shard. Fully encrypted. 'Project Chronos' data packet." He reached for his forearm implant, his fingers fumbling slightly, still adjusting to the stim's effects, and with a soft click, ejected the data shard. It glowed with a faint, internal light, a vibrant green, matching the color of his natural eyes, a small, unassuming piece of plastic that had cost a life. He slid it across the polished synth wood table.
Tanaka's bodyguard, with a fluid, almost unnatural speed, intercepted it before it reached her, his large hand dwarfing the shard. He quickly jacked it into a discreet port on his wrist mounted deck, lines of code scrolling across his integrated optics. A small, almost imperceptible nod from him was all Tanaka needed. She allowed a thin, satisfied smile to grace her lips, a brief, predatory flash that sent a shiver down Teo's spine. "Excellent."
She stared at Teo then, with an almost predatory glance, her gaze calculating, assessing, like a corporate predator sizing up its next prey. It made him shift uncomfortably. "I'm surprised," she said with a pause, her voice smooth, almost purring. "Your skills are... better than I expected of a little street goon from Heywood." The veiled insult was clear, the satisfaction in her tone almost palpable. She was testing him, dissecting him.
"Your little stunt that caused chaos in BioDyne," she continued, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk playing on her lips, "caused far more chaos than we anticipated. And delivered far greater dividends."
Teo raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his features. "How so?"
Tanaka leaned forward, her voice dropping, as if sharing a delectable secret. "Your 'ghost,' as you called it, Teo... it didn't just disrupt their internal systems for an hour. It wasn't merely a system glitch. It was a complete, systemic collapse of their primary data packet routing, their encryption keys, and their top tier NetWatch ICE defenses. Your unique 'System Glitch' daemon, your signature... it wasn't just a chaos agent. It operated on a previously unknown sub frequency, bypassing their deep scan countermeasures. It created a cascading failure that corrupted their internal network architecture, not just temporarily jammed it." Her eyes glittered with professional admiration, cold and unsettling.
"For nearly an hour," she continued, "BioDyne's digital fortress was nothing more than a hollow shell. Their Blackwall fragments, usually impenetrable, flickered like dying embers. This meant our own corporate netrunners, those we pay a king's ransom, were able to intrude into their cyberspace with minimal resistance, tearing through their primary data conduits and siphoning off gigabytes of critical intelligence. Not to mention the third party solo netrunners who capitalized on the chaos, sensing blood in the water. They swarmed BioDyne's exposed network like digital piranhas, causing even more chaos, stealing info, leaking everything they could get their digital claws on."
She paused, gauging Teo's reaction. 'My ghost did that? Really?' He felt a jolt of shock, a strange mixture of awe and a chilling sense of power. He'd known it was a powerful hack, but not this. Never this. He'd broken a corpo, shattered it.
"Data was stolen and leaked thanks to you, Teo," Tanaka said, a genuine, if ruthless, satisfaction in her tone. "BioDyne's a wreck now. Their inhumane research, the unethical clinical trials, even the names of their corporate collaborators... it all leaked, spraying across the mainstream Net like digital shrapnel. It's causing all sorts of drama for them. Their stock plummeted a record amount in the last hour. You single handedly fucked a corp, our rival. For that, we thank you. Deeply."
Her bodyguard smoothly slid a slim, matte black briefcase across the table towards Teo. It was sleek, minimalist, with no visible branding, yet it hummed with a faint, almost imperceptible energy.
"That, Teo," Tanaka explained, gesturing to the briefcase, "is our latest Zetatech 'Phantom' Cyberdeck. Military grade, prototype model. It's designed for elite netrunners who operate in the deepest, most heavily guarded corporate networks. Enhanced daemon capacity, next gen ICE breaking capabilities, and proprietary stealth protocols that make your old Paraline OS look like a child's toy. This will further enhance your netrunner capabilities, allowing you to truly 'be the ghost' you aspire to be."
Teo stared at the briefcase, then back at Tanaka. This was nuts. This would go great with his new SpecterNet optics he'd just stolen. He subtly patted the pocket of his jacket, feeling the familiar, rectangular shape of the uninstalled cyber optics. A stolen prize, now complemented by an even more potent gift. The irony wasn't lost on him. He felt a surge of cold, exhilarating power. He'd shattered a corpo, and they were rewarding him for it. That... felt... good. He thought.
Tanaka then paused, a predatory gleam in her eyes, before starting again, her voice losing its previous warmth, turning sharp and precise.
"Also, a fair warning to you two. The third party netrunners that leaked BioDyne's internal info... they also leaked camera security footage of the entire exchange in the Echo Chamber. Your footage, your faces, your combat styles, the full sequence of events, it's on the net. It's on the deep web, it's going viral on the street streams. You're... celebrities now." Her gaze flickered to Apex, then back to Teo, a chilling reminder of the dangers that now lay ahead.
Padre, observing the exchange with a quiet intensity, reached under the table. He produced a standard data chip, its casing plain.
"The payment, as agreed," he stated, his voice even, his gaze flicking between Tanaka and the two remaining mercs. "31,500 eddies for the crew. Your cut is secured, Teo. 10,500. It's already in your account, pending the client's final verification." He paused, then added, his voice a fraction softer, "And Cipher's cut... it'll be split between you two. An additional 5,250 eddies each."
Teo felt the digital confirmation in his Kiroshis, Transaction Complete: +15,750 eddies. The numbers flickered, a cold, hard sum that felt utterly meaningless in the face of the night's events, yet undeniably real. Blood money. But it was his money now. Enough to upgrade. Enough to survive. Enough to seek answers.
Tanaka took the data chip from Padre. "Synapse Dynamics is grateful for your... discretion." She stood, her bodyguard moving smoothly to open the booth for her. She didn't offer a handshake, didn't offer a word of thanks for Cipher's sacrifice. Her eyes, as they swept over Teo and Apex one last time, held a flicker of something almost like pity, quickly replaced by a clinical detachment. "We will be in touch if further... services are required." With that, she turned and, accompanied by her silent sentinel, vanished into the swirling crowd, leaving behind only the faint, sterile scent of corporate perfume, a lingering residue of power and indifference.
Padre remained seated, his gaze lingering on the empty space where Tanaka had been. He looked at Teo, then at Apex, a profound weariness in his eyes, but also a hint of respect for the successful operation. "You two... get some rest," he said, his voice softer now, tinged with a familiar, weary pragmatism. "Cipher... he was a good choom. Talented. He knew the risks. We all do." He laid a heavy hand on Apex's shoulder, a gesture of quiet support. She flinched, but didn't pull away. 'Padre knew their relationship,' Teo thought with a glance, the unspoken truth hanging in the air.
Apex pushed herself out of the booth, her body rigid. "I need a drink," she rasped, her voice thick, on the verge of breaking. She didn't look at Teo, didn't look at Padre. She simply walked towards the bar, her broad shoulders trembling slightly, the powerful silhouette of her Militech M-10AF Lexington a grim, silent testament to the night's violence. Teo watched her go, a profound sense of isolation settling over him, but also a quiet sense of purpose.
Padre paused, gave Teo a pat on the shoulder. He looked like he wanted say something, a struggle visible in his usually stone like demeanor, a flash of grief, a flicker of something human that quickly vanished. But he said nothing. He simply squeezed Teo's shoulder once more, then began walking towards the door, disappearing into the pulsating crowd.
"The fuck was that?" He muttered under his breath, genuinely confused about that short interaction.
Teo was alone now, sitting in the noisy, chaotic bar, the silence within him deafening. The eddies in his account felt like a solid weight, a tangible step forward. He looked down at the wooden bird again, its intricate carvings revealing a subtle detail he hadn't fully registered before. It was a crow. A sleek, intelligent crow, not just some generic bird. Cipher was gone. A professional, a ghost. But why that crow? Why does this bid mean so much to him?
He reached into his inner jacket pocket, his fingers finding the cool, smooth surface of the stolen SpecterNet optics. He glanced at the unboxed Zetatech 'Phantom' Cyberdeck sitting in the briefcase on the table before him. This was the next step. He needed to be better. He needed to be faster. He needed to understand what it truly meant to be a ghost in Night City.
"Need to visit Viktor," he muttered, the words barely audible even to himself. "Install these new implants. See what the Phantom can really do." He slid out of the booth slowly, picking up the sleek briefcase. He walked to his basement room, a small, grimy space beneath the Coyote that served as his sanctuary and workspace.
Placeing his blood stained jacket and both the new cyberware components, the SpecterNet optics and the 'Phantom' Cyberdeck, on his cluttered desk, he paused. He then grabbed a can of spray paint from a workbench. Walking to an empty section of the wall on the left side of his small living space, he started to spray. A bird, an ethereal one, large and beautiful, began to take shape. It was crimson in color, its form almost cartoonish in its stylized brutality, a crow. His next project. His next marker.
'Project Cipher'...