Chapter 1: Welcome to Night City

It all happened on just another ordinary day. The city was bustling to and fro while its people traveled through it like leaves flowing down a stream. From the crowd of undistinguished passersby there remained one noticeable figure; he stood alone, whistled a strange energetic tune, and basked in the sunlight as if he were a sprouting plant.

The young man of mystery was none other than me, your unlucky protagonist, Markus Berkut. On this day however, I had enough luck, joy, and excitement that even if someone dinged my car then I would let them go instead of immediately drop kicking them in the chest.

Now such a good mood could only be caused by either good news or good drugs and in this case it is the former. To make a long story short today was when I got my first official career paycheck and it was a lot larger than a typical fresh graduate. The amount included a bonus based on the result of an extensive marketing project that the company was using to gain PR for a client.

You may be correctly assuming that the company's PR team was ecstatic with my work but still be asking what I managed to do. Well, thanks to my contribution the marketing team was able to shift the blame from the client company onto a government entity after an oil leakage blackened beaches around the coasts of Florida. 

This silver bullet overall saved the company millions in environmental fines and lengthy court fees. For my part, all that was needed was a mindset to put in the hard work required and a daily sacrifice of sleep to the point that the logos on products started talking to me. You know you have never reached my level of tiredness unless Aunt Jemaima tells you to go to bed. 

Sleep is for the weak however and with my new paycheck it's time to splurge on myself.

Ever since the trailers came out there has been one game that has been putting my piggy bank in a stranglehold, Cyberpunk 2077. It took six months and one miraclous payday but it was finally my time to see Keanu Reeves and I would be dammed if I didn't see Johnny Silverhand burning the city down at max settings. You can't imagine how hard it was to stay away from spoilers, videos, as well as random colleagues discussing the game. Bastards almost got me too, hope they had fun dealing with HR. 

Anyway, let's just ignore all that and enjoy Night City!

It took one hour of mad shopping, ramming my way through traffic, and setting up the prebuilt gaming pc but it was all worth it the moment the launch screen appeared. 

The second it did, I pressed the button. 

The next second had to have been an act of God, or Budda, of the Omnisaiah, or whatever cosmic deity likes to take people and have reality hit them like Mike Tyson in his prime.

There was nothing I could do as a strange flash of lightning that was somehow colored purple hit me and sent my mind into a blur. 

The instant that I opened my eyes, instead of the cozy bedroom that held everything of value to me, I was surrounded by a strange scrap yard while lying face down in the most rancid looking burrito to ever exist.

'What the hell!' I thought frantically. 'Did I just keel over from overworking?' was my first conclusion while a second possibility came after. 'Maybe this is just some weird psychological dream where the junkyard represents my hopes and dream of the future' I hesitantly hoped. 'Such a killjoy for it to happen right as I getting into the game'. 

However, it felt too real to be something made up. I could feel my nose hairs being reduced to atoms just breathing the horrible stench from the junkyard. The warmth of the sun was too eerily similar to just earlier in the day. When I say that I started to panic that was too much of an understatement. I processed the situation like a child being told Santa was real, but he hated poor people and ate babies. 

Denial was not just a river in Egypt, and it was flowing strong at the moment. My mind had to be playing tricks on me, or my maybe my body was just in some type of coma. Something that could be reasonably explained MUST be the answer.

'Ok ok ok; calm down, breathe in, breathe out. Even if it's a coma or some weird ass dream it will have to end one way or another.' 

It took more time than I'm comfortable admitting, but the thoughts worked.

'No point in panicking. Let's consider it a trip caused by sleep deprivation. Yeah, a new adventure into the depth of my madness.'

After a few moments I decided to get a good look around, my first action was climbing up the nearest hill of waste and scrap to get some kind of usable vantage point. What I saw when observing gave me goosebumps in an instant. 

It was a big city with an emphasis on big, more skyscrapers than any other buildings as far as the eye could see. Strange flying vehicles rising, falling, and zooming everywhere. Large holographic advertisement panels that almost hurt to look at. The most important thing was a big blimp hovering in the sky, menacingly - Welcome to Night City!

'Jesus Christ. I'm in the cyberpunk world.' Disbelief lacing my thoughts. What came next was a laughter that was borderline psychotic, it could have given the Joker a run for his money. 

"haAHAHAHAHAhahaHAHhhAHahHahHhhAHAHHahahAHHHAhahhAHhhaHHh"

'This is one strange dream but I'm loving it. At least my mind has a good sense of humor.' I was enjoying this strange sight enough that I stopped paying attention to anything else except that amazing view in front of me.

However, reality often doesn't care about your beliefs and things can change very quickly. It started by me hearing a strange sound like a jet engine making a flyover but unlike a normal thunderous roar, the engine wheezed as if it had smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for forty years. It was only a few seconds later that I saw a small Aerodyne slowly falling down and flying directly towards my junk hill. I don't know why but my body urged me to run as far as possible even if it meant burrowing through rotten trash. 

'Weird, I mean what can even happen to me here. It's a dream after all.' Nevertheless, I decided to climb down and get out of the possible impact zone.

It was almost thirty seconds later that I heard a crash and saw the junk hill being carved apart by the crashing Aerodyne. The vehicle wasn't completely stopped by the initial crash but kept sliding for another twenty-five meters and, as if by destiny it, ended right next to me. From the wreckage two battered and bloodied men in strange uniforms came out of it guns blazing.

"Clear the landing area and prepare to defend it until reinforcements arrive." - shouted a man wearing a shattered helmet, partially concealed underneath was a scarred face.

"We've got an unknown individual here" - shouted the other man, pointing his gun so quickly that I instinctively rise my hands up.

"What the hell do you mean by unknown?" - the first stated while allowing his gun to hover in my general area

"He is.... clean. Like fresh out of the womb clean. The scanners show no active cyberware implants on him and no history of them based on the lack of scarring. Gonk hasn't even chipped bioware. Hell, he doesn't even have a weapon on him."

"Tell him to fuck off and not cause problems."

"You heard him. Now get the hell out of here before I flatline you, damn bum."

I just nodded and planned to run like Forrest Gump before these trigger-happy dudes change their minds and shoot me for fun or worse. 

"Wait. You said he is clean. No implants right. Hold him there. We got problems with one of the pilots and a client." - quickly ordered the shattered helmet man.

"DROP TO THE GROUND" - shouted his partner as he pointed his gun back at me.

'Come on. Just let me go. These are not the droids you're looking for man' I sighed in my head, getting down on my knees with hands behind my head. 

After a few minutes, another man with a strange med kit came out of Aerodyne and took a sample of my blood using a quite futuristic syringe device. 

"Woah. We hit the jackpot. This guy never got chipped but his body is perfect, hell he doesn't even have dehydration like almost everyone in Night City. Toxicology test came out shining and he's got a universal donor blood type." - his words were normal, but the tone made me feel like I wouldn't want to meet him even in a lit alleyway. He sounded like a butcher looking at an award-winning cow.

" Listen here, bum or whoever you are. You can make some cash if you voluntarily donate your blood." - yeah voluntarily what a great choice of words when you point a gun at someone and ask for something. Even if I disagree, they could just knock me out and suck me dry.

Not left with a choice I just sighed and nodded. 

"You guys are quite polite gangsters." - I said while following to the Aerodyne. 

" We aren't gang goons or some other scum. We're Trauma Team. Now sit down and prepare for the transfusion." - the medic, or whoever he was, ordered me to take a seat next to the two worst looking cases. One man was charred on over fifty percent of his body along with missing a limb while the other one had blood oozing from his mouth. 

For the next few minutes, I was donating my blood like a sprinkler while Trauma Team secured the area and treated the clients. It was only when I donated around half a liter of blood that I started feeling weak. Let's hope that this will be enough, otherwise I am dead meat for sure, especially here in the junkyard. 

" Bad news Cap. Our nearest Aerodyne is still far away, and they can only get here in about three minutes at the least. Neither the client or the pilot will last without an extra blood supply. I already pumped out a lot of blood from our preem blood bag here." - said the bloodsucker while checking something on his monitor. 

"Shit. What's your advice on the situation." 

"Well. We could offer the friendly trash bum a bit extra for another pint of his blood. It's the best we could get and would keep both client and pilot stable in time. Otherwise, we have to sacrifice Wingy." 

"Aghh, the head office would cut my bonus again this month for 'wasting emergency budget reserves' if I did that. Could use my own eddies instead but let me have a quick chat with him and hope he won't be too greedy." - shattered helmet aka Captain started walking towards me, menacingly.

" Listen here choom, the more you donate the more you earn. Are you in?" - Captain stated while gripping my shoulder with a little excessive pressure.

I pondered on it for a few moments but then had a strange, mad, or brilliant idea, depending on the perspective. 

"I have a better idea. How about you guys let me join Trauma Team? Your medic already checked my blood and knows how good it is, why not make a bigger deal? You train me up while I donate my blood or other valuable things such as bone marrow or whatever. This should at least cover some costs while I payback your help by working for the corporation"

This was very thin ice. One wrong step and I can end up as a dried-up corpse but in my situation, I had no better plan. It took some time but I started to realize that this was not a dream based on a game but an actual real-life world. Being completely alone and unaware in this new reality was an easy way to get killed or turned into some organ farm. Joining Trauma Team while not the best option was still somewhat of a plan. Let's hope it turns out for the best.

" What do you think?" - Captain asked the medic. 

" I am not completely sure, but he and his blood could help us a lot. Also, he doesn't give off a corpo or gang goon feel so that's a bonus. Let's just bring him to base and give it a go."

" Alright, you got a deal. Gonna be honest with you and say that I can't just sign you up but I will do my best to give you a chance. Now, let's get back to work."

Again, I started donating blood and slowly with each second passing the weakening was getting worse. 

The last thing I remembered before passing out was getting carried into Aerodyne and seeing the glowing letters on the blimp in the sky. 

NIGHT CITY 

'Heh, yeah welcome to Cyberpunk me.' And then darkness shrouded my mind.