Indolence

You had desired to meet V now, but it was not an opportune moment, and you felt that you would have been treated with contempt and suspicion if you suddenly walked into the offices of Arasaka NC's Counter-Intelligence Division.

Instead, you contented yourself with a job well done–in regards to information gathering, at least–and finding an effusive, if unreliable source for the latest gossip making its way down, through the clustered halls of Arasaka NC.

So, remembering that you should probably sign out of your computer, return to your unattended office–really, anything that adequately displays your complete disregard for job security and confidentiality– and then log out and signal to your attendants your desire to retire from work this day, slightly earlier than intended.

'Slightly early' in your particular circumstances means you have only been in the building for six of your sixteen-hour work shift; as Michiko predicted, you had already become bored with wandering around the building and mingling with the common masses–all dreadfully dull.

It's not like you're here to actually work, either; this is merely the facade needed to carry out your other machinations. You needn't put too much work into it anyway, since everything surrounding your appointment has given indication to any interested observer that you're merely a nepotism hire. Said observers are not far from the reality of things.

You will sleep on this–perhaps not literally, and give time for your subordinates to gather information, not just on the edgerunners you're interested in playing with, but also V herself; perhaps you will nab her early.

Or maybe you'll wait until she meets that Alvarez woman and cuck that nerd out of another love interest; none of it matters does it?

You've already won the game of life.

Having given direction to your chauffeur to take the longer, congested route back to your place of residence, you took advantage of the gridlocked traffic to observe the streets of Downtown Night City, aflush with pedestrians, hawkers, and the homeless alike.

And never, ever, had you taken sight of such an assembled mass of what could be, in the most favourable terms, considered the stagnant water of society.

Even in the heart of the Free City, your eyes were not free from the wretched sight of the underclasses, their bodies of sickly hues either painfully emaciated or so horribly grotesque with fat that you struggled to identify that as fellow men.

Their cybernetic prosthetics clashed terribly with their natural form; second-hand junk intended initially for more healthy, humanoid bodies than the misshapen creatures who now sport them.

Cybernetics maintained a ubiquitous presence, regardless of class in the city, from housewives on another shopping spree to homeless bums harassing pedestrians for eddies.

The quality and appearance differed significantly, and the utility of each one was tailored for their owners–if they could afford such an advantage. Regardless, to be without chrome is to be an outsider in this place.

Few laws prohibited or restricted the production and use of prosthetics in Night City; like firearms, if you could afford them, you had a right to bear them.

Such measures only widened the class gap rather than narrowed it; the wealthy could access cutting-edge enhancements and prosthetic technologies to reach the heights of the fabled ubermensch, something their poverty-stricken counterparts could ill afford to mirror.

Indeed, loans and interest-riddled payment plans are increasingly a scourge among the lower class.

In the slowly churning gridlock of Downtown Night City, you were left to your thoughts, enough to be grateful for the fortuitous advantage of your birth; from gestation, you enjoyed the benefits that came with your position in life; you were as much a product of scientists than you were of your own blood mother.

You were above these subhumans.

All of them had come to the city to grasp and gawk at the scraps of the Corporate towers which did business here, like vermin and carrion–an incredibly egotistical outlook, but one that was true of just about everyone, nonetheless.

V may possess prodigious fighting skills, Smasher may be a monster in human form, Michiko may have her army of catgirls, and Myers has the NUSA.

But you have, or rather, will have, Arasaka, and you won't let dear old dad ruin the good thing you have going on.