09: Habeas Corpus

'Call me your Huscle? Why in the actual fuck did I say that??'

I'm quietly seething as I stalk through the dim halls of the messed up 'hospital', the intrepid Martinez kid hot on my heels, his face mirroring the anger I feel inside. With him though, it's mostly aimed at the world around us, and this fucking City in particular, while my frustration is largely aimed at myself.

After all these years spent in this dystopian hellhole, becoming the tough, intimidating Animal feels second nature to me now. Growing up surrounded by those testosterone-snorting gonks has molded me into this role. It's like slipping on a well-worn mask, effortlessly assuming the persona the world expected of me as I interact with characters like Rogue and River. So, the moment I realized exactly who the scrawny little dude crying at my feet was, the familiar mask of the Animal slammed into place almost instantly, an effortless transformation projected full-force at the cowering teen.

It wasn't because I was being an asshole just for shits and giggles (well, I mean, I am a mean son of a bitch, but not to him in particular), but I sorta figured: "hey, future tragic protagonist here with two years to live, tops, if I don't get him the fuck outta here now" and so I thought I'd scare him off and be done with it. I knew the clock was ticking, and every passing moment could be vital for our survival. I needed to make him understand the gravity of the situation and motivate him to fuckin' delta, immediately, more so for his own sake rather than mine.

Keeping him around while extracting Gloria was just asking for trouble considering the nature of his show and Night City itself, and simply sending him away or begging him to please stay put was likely to backfire quite spectacularly as well, mostly because of another particular problem.

As we briskly make our way past one of the grim, gore-smeared cells, my gaze instinctively shifts to the side, capturing a glimpse of our reflections in the tainted surface of the little glass viewing window. The mixture of blood and what I desperately convince myself is merely mud adds an unsettling layer to the reflection. Despite the distortion, it's impossible to overlook the stark contrast between my imposing figure and David's notably diminutive frame, trailing a few steps behind me.

With a large bag still clutched tightly in a white-knuckled grip against his chest.

The mere sight of the ripped bag is enough to send chills down my spine and I mean that quite literally. After all, while he clearly doesn't know it, the kid is carrying the chrome to replace it.

James Norris died not too long ago, and I've only fairly recently taken control of Maine. That means Gloria hasn't had a chance to hand over the Sandevistan to his (now mine) crew yet. So, here we have this scrawny (yet indeed very scrappy) teenager holding the single most advanced piece of cyberware you could find outside the top-secret labs of Arasaka and Militech.

"A rudimentary implant" my ass.

Sure, while it's true that Sandys aren't exactly rare or anything, especially among the more seasoned edgerunners and larger gangs, that's basically the same as saying Jackie's Iconic La Chingonas Dorada pistols are just "rudimentary" guns because they happen to be based off the ubiquitous Tsunami Nue.

Not that there's anything wrong with the Nue, don't get me wrong: those eggheads at TDS certainly know how to create perfectly deadly weapons, even in their smaller line-up, despite their usual specialization being high-powered (and dizzyingly expensive) sniper rifles. Over at Tsunami Defense Systems, they excel at blending elegance and sheer lethality. Hell, that's literally their slogan. But here's the thing though— those perfectly serviceable Nue's that they churn out by the container off their production belts can't hold a fucking candle to Jackie's Iconic pistols, even if they share a common design plan.

When it comes to two seemingly similar pieces of iron, there can be a whole world of difference, and the same applies to pieces of chrome.

You see, it's not just about the hardware itself; the wielder plays a significant role in unlocking its true potential as well. A skilled individual can elevate even the most ordinary piece of cyberware to extraordinary heights. It's the synergy between man and machine that makes all the difference.

Hell, just look at how Morgan Blackhand absolutely wrecked Adam fuckin' Smasher's shit, despite being a solo with moderate (if top of the line) chrome going up against a full-borg in a mini-mecha suit.

That being said, while a high-ranking gangoon or a seasoned solo might be sporting a Sandy of their own, I can guarantee you none are running around with the calibre of hardware David is currently unknowingly transporting. While the big corpos might keep their best toys for themselves, James Norris had been an officer within NUSA, which meant he had the gear to match and the kit the military gets is in a league of its own when compared to the little corpo soldiers I've just turned into chunky salsa.

Norris' Sandy was simply unmatched when compared to the majority of Sandevistans out there on the black market: your average cyberpunk would find it too overwhelming, too intense to handle the sheer power and feedback, probably frying their neural system to a crisp after just a couple uses.

Unless your name is David Martinez, of course. Because of the kid's inborn cyberware-resistance, he was one of the few people on NC's streets actually capable of even withstanding the strain well enough to get any use out of the damned thing.

A man like Adam fuckin' Smasher might accept nothing less but the most formidable cyberware and sheer brute force, as expected of someone who has been part of the heaviest squads Arasaka was able to field against its competition, the 'borg honing his skills and wreaking havoc for well over half a century by now. But in the hands of a complete noob such as David, just a military grade Sandevistan and fucking grit (not to mention an unhealthy dose of plain stupidity and sheer stubbornness) would prove to be enough to practically catapult him to the top echelons of Night City's underbelly in the blink of an eye.

Quite literally, at that.

Which would set him on the path of cyberpsychosis and a bullet to the brain courtesy of the Butcher of Arasaka himself. Mother dead, friends and mentors all dead, and his girlfriend stuck on the moon with her grief as her only company.

Fuck. That.

So, the solution had seemed so childishly simple at the time: take the Sandy off David's hands and then scare him out of the hospital (and the cyberpunk lifestyle entirely just to be on the safe side), check up on Gloria to make sure David doesn't lose her and then chuck the both of 'em back into their Megabuilding.

Simple.

Except then the kid had to go all shonen protagonist on my dumb ass.

Clearly, scaring him off wasn't an option while his mom was still stuck here and I'd likely have to hurt him (bad) if I wanted a hope of prying the bag filled with her stuff from his trembling hands.

Not that my most recent pseudo-cyberpsycho tantrum made me feel particularly keen to get my hands on the madness-inducing piece of chrome anyways… as a lifelong Animal, my Humanity stat was probably sinking way too low already.

As it turns out, in real life Sanity isn't a dump stat.

"Alright, new plan: find Gloria, keep David and Gloria alive while I get 'em outta here and then chuck 'em back in their Megabuilding. Done and done." I muttered to myself under my breath.

It wouldn't deal with the immediate "military-grade Sandevistan"-problem I currently had, but we'd blow that bridge up Maelstrom-style once we got to it.

My muttering had escaped David's notice (or perhaps between that and the blood splatters, he was instead rethinking whether or not I actually was a cyberpsycho after all and had wisely decided to give me some space) but not Sasha's, who has been giving me a worried look ever since I left Chunky Buffalos behind me in a trail of smoke and burning rubber.

This isn't the first time she's seen me fight, but (with the exception of her rescue from a bunch of robots) all those previous times have been against other Animals in the ring. Sure, those can get bloody, but this… this was carnage on a scale she had never seen before and she was rightfully wary of me.

Not that I had wanted her to see that side of me, it's just… I couldn't let things play out as they did in the show. Simply watching those events from the comfort of my previous life in my former universe had been heart-wrenching enough. Now that these people were real though? Not just animation on screen, but living, thinking, feeling people that were destined for the meat grinder that was Night City?

No. I refused. I was barely twenty and in that short time I had already lost too much to this fucking place. My youth. My innocence. Friends, family. People that I admired and looked up to. All lost to the insatiable hunger of Night City.

No child should be forced to attend more funerals than birthdays. So, David Martinez would not be another bodybag. I wouldn't have to order yet another name to be inscribed at the Columbarium.

I wouldn't let Night City claim them, not this time. Not while I was still fucking breathing.

Which sadly had led to near a dozen other people not breathing anymore. Which makes me a hypocrite I suppose, but oh well. I find I find it difficult to feel any sympathy for the people that willingly involve themselves in some of the horrendous 'experiments' going on in this place.

For what they had planned to do to Gloria, the same thing they have already done to who even knows how many others before, I'd rip out their throats and not lose a wink of sleep.

I suspect a similar reasoning was currently going through Sasha's mind, which was why her face was troubled, but she didn't actually voice any complaints when I tore through the Militech protection squad. Part of that was probably because she had been preoccupied with hacking the hospital's ICE at the time, which had quickly been followed by a rant of truly epic proportions (lasting several minutes which left her room back at base covered in thin slash marks from her unsheathed claws) when she realized the true depths of depravity Biotechnica was willing to sink to.

But now that a temporary calm had settled over us, Sasha had a chance to truly absorb the sight of my blood-soaked appearance. It was as if the gravity of our situation had finally dawned on her, and the weight of the sheer violence I had just unleashed began to sink in. Her troubled expression deepened, and her gaze lingered on the wounds that marred my flesh and the weariness etched into my features.

"Sim… are you alright?"

My clawed hand briefly comes up to ghost over one of the bullet-holes embedded in my broad chest, quickly pulling away at the sharp flare of pain as a hiss slips between my fangs, but I push through the discomfort nonetheless. Between the enhanced size and density of my musculature, I was perpetually protected by something similar to an inborn MBL wetware upgrade, reminiscent of the one that Morgan Blackhand had sported during his tenure as the 'Solo of Solos'. The bullets had pierced through the skin, but pretty much got stuck in the fat and outer layer of my muscles.

Painful, yes, but by now pain has simply become a familiar sensation and I'm accustomed enough to the effects of small calibre bullet wounds on my body (which is… really fucking depressing when you take into account I'm just nineteen…) to immediately tell none of the wounds are life-threatening. Hell, even some of the other non-natty Animals share a similar immunity to small-arms fire, pushing through it on sheer rage and adrenaline alone. But when the fighting is done and the stims and hormones get flushed from their system, it would leave 'em utterly exhausted to the point of their over-stressed bodies practically shutting down and cause some nasty scars to boot.

Us Animals being Animals though, those were more seen like cool badges of honour than deformations.

A sign of the price we pay to be the kings of the concrete jungle.

In their cases, they'd need an extended period of rest and thorough medical treatment if they want to revalidate enough to have no lasting effects from the wounds (I mean, contrary to what the action movies would have you believe, you can't just lose tiny parts of your actual muscles and keep on trucking like nothing happened, since you need all of your muscles to, you know, fucking move), but they'd be able to pull through, even if they didn't like sitting still during the healing period.

We aren't very good at the sitting still part after all.

Hell, Ma got run through with a katana once. Not by a 'Saka ninja, surprisingly enough, just a Tyger Claw that was as absurdly fast as his blade was sharp. Which actually helped Ma out in the end, after he stood still too long in order to gloat when he ran her through, which allowed her to yank the blade (and thus him) further towards her and cave in his frontal lobe with a spectacular headbutt, Uruk-Hai style.

Fortunately, the razor-sharpness of the katana resulted in a remarkably clean cut, sparing Ma from (more) extensive internal damage, but it still left one of her abs practically bifurcated and that shit takes time to heal.

A lot of time.

Not being allowed to do sit-ups, crunches, planks, or any exercises involving her core for that matter (which includes swinging around that big-ass hammer of hers) had driven her stir-crazy enough that, after two weeks of moping, she pretty much just up and went looking for the nearest Animal gang, walked up to their Alpha, and blew his entire head clean off with a charged Satara shot.

Talk about aggressive negotiations.

As the smoke cleared and the stunned gangoons looked on, Ma stood there, defiant and fearless. With a glint in her eye, she dared those other Animals to defy her, to challenge her authority. It was a bold move, no doubt about it. But damn if it didn't show everyone that Ma wasn't to be messed with, even when still recovering from getting turned into shish-kebab for a sec.

Somewhat paradoxically, our pack saw some of its most rapid growth in the months Ma was officially on medical leave.

Thankfully for me, being a natural-born Animal does come with its perks to off-set the sheer fucking awfulness that comes with being a natural-born Animal: wounds this small would be practically gone in just a few days with relatively little rest thanks to my healing factor. I barely even scarred too, so I had that going for me, which is nice. I heal up clean and smooth, like it never even happened. It's like my body's got a built-in Photoshop feature, airbrushing away any evidence of the beatdowns I've endured.

It's not quite Wolverine levels of bullshit, but it's a damned cut above pretty much anything even the best, most exclusive wetware is even rumoured to be capable off.

Hell, Saburo Arasaka is pushing 160 years old and is definitely showing his age at this point: if even a man as rich and as obsessed with immortality as him is still stuck in a meatbag succumbing to deterioration, I think it's safe to say my physique is the absolute biological pinnacle of what humans can achieve in this world.

So, I shrug off Sasha's concerned question, once again ignoring the brief burning pain smattered across my chest at the sudden movement, knowing I'll pull through. Always have. Always had to.

"I'm fine."

"The fuck you are."

The corner of my mouth twitches at the call-back to my earlier conversation with David, but nonetheless I put on a frown as I shoot my best 'I'm your Alpha, stop questioning me'-look (one I modelled off Sasquatch's and practised in the mirror during my youth, though I'd die before admitting that out loud) at the picture of the cute netrunner displayed on my eyeballs.

"I'm tough Sasha, tougher than most, tougher than Ma even. I'll heal-"

"I'm not talking about the bullet holes, Sim. Though, that's a conversation for another time, I mean, who just ignores getting shot?? Multiple times! Like, seriously, who even fucking does that?"

I open my mouth, but my sheepish reply gets stuck in my throat as Sasha cuts off her own rambling with a raised hand, shaking her head and causing her bob cut to bounce captivatingly around her soft features.

"No, like I said, another time. But, Sim… look, I don't know what's going on between you and this… Gloria woman. But clearly, she's important to you, somehow. No, you don't have to tell me about it." She immediately cuts me off again when I open my mouth to interrupt, before giving me a long, soulful look with those big pretty eyes of hers.

"Sim… you just went pretty much cyberpsycho there just to free the woman from that disgusting place. And, I get it, trust me, I do. After this, after what happened to Mom, what could've happened to her, I want Biotechnica to fucking burn more than anyone."

Her words end in something between a hiss and a growl and I can see by the flex of the muscles in her slim arms that she has subconsciously extended those wicked long claws of hers in her anger. I can see why Ma likes her.

"Then what's the fuckin' problem?" I growl out gruffly, Sasha's eyes widening in surprise, her claws retracting and her earlier rage gone as her concern for me comes back to the fore again.

"The problem? The problem's you're fucking covered in blood Simba, about to save a woman who's left in God knows what kind of fucked up position, with her teenaged son trailing after you like a lost puppy into what could be another warzone." The netrunner says with passion, before 'leaning' in closer to me and for half a second my steps falter as her look intensifies.

"I'm not asking about the bullet wounds, Sim. I'm asking about you. Will you be alright?" she asks with genuine concern in her voice and it causes a slight pause in my stride as it takes me a moment to answer, unused to such care.

During all our time together, Ma never asked me that. Not intentionally, I don't think, it simply didn't occur to her to ask. It just wasn't in her nature, even though she cared for me more than anyone else in our pack, so the less said about the others the better. Pretty sure one of my 'Uncles' tried to eat me at one point when I was still a mewling baby, though that might have just been Sasquatch's idea of a scary bedtime story.

"Eat your vegetables and drink your protein shake, or Uncle Randy will stuff you in a Burrito XXL and eat you."

Hey, pretty sure the original European fairy tales tended to frequently involve cannibalism as well, so as far as parental guidance goes, Ma wasn't even that far off the mark really. Maybe a few centuries behind on the latest developments in babysitting theories, but we can't all be perfect.

Still, not exactly a child-rearing environment where 'care' is at the forefront and where the idea of 'nurture' mostly involves picking and choosing your kid's intake of whey and protein shakes. So no, in nineteen years nobody in the Animals has ever really bothered to stop and ask me how I was doing, how I was really doing. And my Predators are loyal, but I'm still their big, scary boss and we haven't been running as a crew for that long, all things considered, so they're not exactly keen to go digging into my feelings either.

Hell, it might be the first time anyone has asked me that question with such genuine care and I need to swallow for a second at the realization.

"I'll get 'em out of here Sasha. Make sure Biotechnica or Militech won't come for 'em. Then I'll burn this place to the fucking ground and, hopefully with your help, the rest of Biotechnica as well. So no, I'm not fine. Not right now, not yet. I'm dirty, I'm in pain and I'm tired. But, like the kid said: I will be. Just… gotta put all this behind us first."

While clearly hung up on why I'm so hellbent on helping the Martinez', the promise of violence against Biotechnica seemingly mollifies the gorgeous netrunner, as she leans away from me with a nod. The yellow-orange glow in her optics that signify she's on a call briefly shift to the tell-tale blue that comes with netrunning, her attention briefly turning to something I can't see to her side.

"Second hallway, left side, third door. Biomon read-outs state heavy damage, but stable condition." She quickly relates back to me and I nod.

"Keep pulling whatever files you can from this place while it's still standing. Their calls for back-up went through, right?"

Sasha nods at that, biting her lip, but before she can apologize I wave it off.

"It's not your fault, you did what you could from your end. It was a long shot anyways with you trying a remote hack like that. Hell, even if you'd jacked into this part of the Net in person, we probably wouldn't have won that much extra time: with two corpos involved in this place, someone was bound to notice a stunt like this sooner rather than later anyways. Still, that shortens our window: I don't want you lost somewhere in the Net if corpo hackers start showing up in force. The moment you detect their presence, pull out of the system, leave the rest to me. We'll worry about intel-gathering another time."

Sasha nods, but is clearly still worried.

"What about the physical back-up? They'll be more heavily geared than the squad you took out and this time you won't be able to surprise them. 'Sides, you do have several holes leaking blood in your chest-" she begins, her tone turning surprisingly sly and teasing towards the end despite the circumstances, likely as much to cheer herself up as trying to lift my spirits a bit and I brush her concerns aside with an amused chuff.

"Leave the wounds be woman, I told you I'll be fine. Still, an unknown number of corpo hit squads, with two civvies to protect… not exactly odds I like." I grumble.

"I can rally the pack? Most Predators are here on base and still have some of their gear from the Faraday gig lying ready-"

"No, no we're not going to step into a public fight with Biotechnica before we stacked the deck in our favour. Open warfare right now would just turn it into a battle of numbers, especially once NCPD picks their side and that's not something we can win. We need to hunt those corpo cunts from the shadows, start tearing 'em apart bit by bit, and that takes time, time we won't win by gathering the whole pack for just the opening strike." I muse, quickly following Sasha's directions.

"Alright, but there's a team nearby that I can easily divert your way. ETA is less than five minutes and they're already mobile. At least let me send them." My netrunner pleads, and I begin nodding my head as I think it over.

"It should help with the extraction at least, leave me open for the fighting should there be a battle. Alright, send 'em in."

"Also, if you're done poking through their files here, can you use that to start tracking down Jacob Shipman?"

Both Sasha and I startle at the voice piping up from just behind me at a little over waist-level and I whirl around to give David Martinez a warning look… one which has absolutely zero effect on the teenager as he stares right back with his head held high and his eyes blazing with anger.

Right, guess he listened in on my convo with Sasha. Sneaky little bugger, talking to my netrunner had made me forget for a second he was even there. Said netrunner briefly looks my way, and once I give her a nod, Sasha sends a brief confirmation to David, before the call abruptly ends, her entire focus on cracking the hospital's remaining layers of ICE.

"We'll track down that scum, don't you worry about that. My Predators have made a name for themselves when it comes to hunting people down, you know. We are the best in the biz." I rumble with a hint of genuine pride, before coming to a halt in front of one of the cell doors, David nearly bumping into my back due to the sudden stop.

"For now though, we got other priorities. Doesn't matter when Shipman dies, as long as your Mom lives, right?"

"R-right." The teenager responds, uncertainty in his eyes as he watches the door, his mother trapped behind it in who knows what kind of condition.

Only one way to find out.

I deliver a forceful kick to the door, causing the lock to shatter and the hinges to deform under the brutal impact. However, I make sure to pull back quite a bit, ensuring that my strength is controlled enough to prevent the door from collapsing completely. The last thing I want is to jeopardize my rescue mission by accidentally injuring Gloria Martinez with a flying cell door to the face.

The woman herself is lying unconscious in a rickety hospital bed, the majority of her face concealed by a medical mask, while that which remains visible is covered by medical bandages, mirroring her son. A network of tubes and wires extends from the data port in her arm, connecting her to the various machines and monitors surrounding her bedside. Fairly standardized equipment, not as run down as some other parts of the facility, but certainly not up to standard to what Biotechnica uses in-house.

Then again, with the experiments that they had intended to subject Gloria to, they hardly needed to roll out the good stuff. Comatose people make for easy patients after all.

They complain less, for one.

David's eyes widen when he finally sees his mother, and you'd think he already had the Sandy implanted in his spine with the way he's at her bedside in the blink of an eye. Not that my steps are any less hurried, really, Sasha's warning of incoming corpo soldier back-up still pressing on my mind.

"Mom! Mom, can you hear me?!" David immediately starts yelling, but just by her scent and the smell of chemicals in the room, I can already tell the woman is being kept in an artificial coma with a slew of medication and drugs.

With the proper medicine and help, it should be easy enough to wake her from it, but we'd have to get her to a secure location first, so I immediately get a move on. I remove the mask and the tubes, practically tearing them off the unconscious woman, David's eyes still wide in worry and his body frozen in indecision.

That is, until I easily lift the small woman from the bed, already moving to leave the cramped cell.

"Wait! Mom, wha-…" his words get stuck in his throat, his eyes transfixed on the slumped form cradled in my massive arms.

"What happened to her legs?" his voice so very, painfully small and on the edge of breaking.

With the blanket fallen to the floor, the true extent of the damage from the accident David and Gloria were involved in is now revealed. Both of Gloria's legs are cut off at the knee, the stumps swaddled in still-fresh bandages.

'Well… fuck me. There goes Plan B of chucking 'em back in their Megabuilding, I suppose.' I realize morosely.

"Biomon says she's stable, nothing else. Guess that was all that really mattered to these fucks." I rumble lowly, but my strides keep going, eager to leave this place behind me and like a magnet David is pulled from the room as well, sticking close to his mother.

"What's gonna-?"

"She'll be fine, David. It'll take time, a lot of time, but my pack has worked with cloners and wetware sellers long enough that securing a new pair of legs shouldn't be a problem. Can always go chrome if that turns out to be too difficult." I try to reassure the kid as we hurry to the exit.

"… Mom never liked cyberware." David mutters under his breath, his gaze glued to his mother's mangled form.

Considering what it ended up doing to her son after her death in canon, I can get where the woman's coming from. On the other hand, not taking action to restore her legs somehow could prove to be equally catastrophic: this City is cruel enough as it is against its everyday citizens, it would eat a cripple up for breakfast as an afterthought. Still, worries for the future, ensuring the safety of the rest of her was our current problem.

And it was quickly turning into an actual problem, because as we were stalking down the ruined hallway, I could hear the signs of several heavy vehicles clearly hauling ass as they approached the building. My suspicions were quickly confirmed as Sasha contacted me again.

"Sim, back-up's here!"

"I figured. ETA of the team you sent this way?"

"Less than two minutes!"

"We'll manage. I'm not hearing sirens, so it's just corpo soldiers: NCPD is probably being told to hang back until Biotechnica has scrubbed the place clean, prevent cops from seeing any evidence they shouldn't."

"Simba…" Sasha whispers in a horrified voice, and my expression settles in a dissatisfied frown.

When a corpo plans a 'scrubbing' of a place, they don't just mean files and databanks… and plenty of the cells we had passed were still occupied…

"Nothing to be done about it. Like I said, I'm not getting into open warfare with Biotechnica right now. What you've managed to lift so far will have to do. It'll stir the waters even more than the Securicine fiasco at least, but the real take-down will require more hunting."

At that, Sasha's eyes gain a dangerous gleam as she nods in agreement.

"Fine by me." She bites out, before ending the call, allowing me to focus on my surroundings once again.

Coincidentally enough, David seems to have snapped out of his daze at the exact same moment. His gaze, so long fixated on his mother's motionless body, finally breaks free, scanning the surroundings with a mix of confusion and bewilderment.

"Hey, where are we going?"

"We're running away."

"Wait, you're running away?"

"No, we are. Why, do you want to fight a corpo clean-up crew armed to the teeth and ready for a fight?"

"Well, no, just figured you would."

"I'm a Predator first kid, not just an ordinary Animal: I don't fight pointless battles, I hunt. And those fucking gonks aren't my prey. Not right now, at least."

"Right, that makes sense… I think?"

By now, I can pick up faint sounds from the front of the building, indicating that the first corpo soldiers have breached the now thoroughly ruined entrance hall. By my estimations though, David and I should be near the very back of the building, somewhere on the second floor. I steal a moment to peer through a grimy office window nearby, my eyes falling upon the desolate expanse of the Badlands stretching out in the distance, and in a burst of inspiration I quickly decide on our exit-strategy. Gathering my strength, I deliver a forceful kick to the nearest door, tearing it from its hinges and propelling it violently into the far wall (thus showing the importance of reigning in my strength earlier during Gloria's rescue).

Quickly stepping through the now torn doorway, we arrive in a private office of sorts, its only furnishings the remnants of a disheveled desk and a weathered filing cabinet huddled together in a distant corner. Soft rays of sunlight stream through the solitary window, casting a dim glow upon the room's concrete walls and showing us a sprawling vista of untamed desert, where the arid terrain stretches as far as the eye can see, broken and stalled wind-turbines dotting the horizon like blackened skeletal fingers.

As well as a view of a cloud of dust quickly approaching the 'hospital' from the back by approaching the building from off-road (and thus avoiding the pesky death squad lined up at the front of it), cutting swiftly through the surrounding desert landscape.

"Right kid, this is our exit." I declare firmly, the statement so sudden it tears David's worried gaze from his mother's still form.

"Wait, what? There's no exit here? There's not even a door! Well, not anymore, anyways…"

"And that's why we're gonna make our own."

"What?"

"Here, hold this for me, would you?"

"Wait, wha-?"

Before he can finish, I dump Gloria in David's arms. It's a callous thing to say, I know, but the loss of her lower legs works to his advantage here. While Gloria is a fairly petite woman and practically felt weightless in my arms, David lacks my stature.

Or, well, really any stature at all, at this point. Damn, he really is scrawny. Though that could be my Animal-upbringing making me biased.

Anyways, he definitely was far too small to have been able to carry his mother like that if it weren't for the… well, weight reduction, essentially. Still, he's caught off guard and has to drop the bag he's desperately been clutching, struggling to get a good hold of his mother as I turn towards the lone desk.

Lifting it clear off the ground in a single movement felt as easy as picking up Gloria, the heft feeling comforting and solid in my hands. It's an old piece of crap, meaning a blocky, heavy frame of steel and a solid top of synth-wood, making it perfect for my little escape plan. I heft it a little higher, grabbing it by the frame on one of the short sides and in a smooth turn, I aim the other end of it straight at the back wall of the office. Which I then obliterate as I grit my teeth and ram the entire desk straight through it in a shower of rubble and dust. Undoubtedly the impact (and David's subsequent shout of shock) was heard by the corpo squads towards the front of the building, but as the powdered concrete slowly settled, that hardly mattered.

The roar of a modified engine cuts off whatever question David clearly wanted to ask, and my ears perk up at the sound of it. I would recognize an engine like that anywhere and with a grin I realize which team Sasha has sent my way.

Figures. I should've guessed really.

"C'mon kid, that's our ride." I state gruffly, taking Gloria from the teen's arms, who shoots me a wide-eyed look.

"Our ride? But we're two stories up?"

"Your point being?"

"How the hell are we supposed to catch a ride when we're two stories up?" David asked irritably, before a boyish gleam of excitement entered his eyes.

"Wait, don't tell me you got an AV??"

"No, something much more better!"

"Something better than an AV? Like… two AV's?"

"What the… no? Do I look like I'm made of eddies to you?"

"But then-"

"It's a Quaddra, kid! Not only that, but it's a Type-66 640 TS to boot, meaning it's not just the second-sexiest car ever made, but because it's a 640 TS, it's also got way more horsepower than the regular Type-66, meaning it's our ticket out of here as well!"

"…huh?"

"Big car go fast."

"Uhuh, sure, but in case you forgot, car go on road and the road is two fucking stories down!" David finally snaps as I move towards the new hole I had smashed in the outer wall of the hospital, ignoring the nervous half-step the kid takes as I move his unconscious mother closer to the breached façade.

As my gaze sweeps across the parking lot, I let out a pleased rumbling growl as I spot some hospital staff's vehicles huddled at the rear of the building. Amongst the small array of vehicles, my eyes are drawn to a weathered sight—the blemished roof of a worn-out Archer Hella EC-D. A closer inspection reveals that it's the older i360 variant (the same one that V and Jackie would end up using as edgerunners), a stark contrast to the updated EC-H i860s that the NCPD has adopted and transformed into formidable Enforcers.

It's basically the cheaper version of the (ever so slightly) more prestigious EC-V i660, which thankfully translates to its structural integrity as well, which makes it perfect for my impromptu (yet genius) escape plan.

Turning back towards the concerned looking David, I can feel a wicked grin showing on my face.

"Which is why we jump."

"Wait, what-?"

'Wow, he says that a lot.' I can't help but ponder as his shocked scream follows me all the way down, the wind whistling past my ears as I jump through the brand-new exit I had created.

The ground rushes up towards me, and I grunt at the rough landing as I sink through my knees as I impact the roof of the Hella with a tremendous slam. My legs nearly buckle, before the body of the car does instead with a tortured, screeching sound of metals and plastics tearing asunder, glass exploding from its shattered windows. Which is exactly why I chose the Hella as my impromptu landing pad: despite their functional reliability (enough to almost bankrupt Archer way back in the '20s), the body of an EC-D is manufactured from cheap, brittle materials.

Materials that buckle and shatter underneath the violent impact of my landing, cushioning my fall just enough that neither I nor the still unmoving Gloria are harmed.

"Hell yeah." I mutter under my breath to myself, once again finding myself thankful for the sheer ridiculousness that is my Animal-born body (I didn't even so much as sprain an ankle!), before straightening as rust-colored dust billows from the wreck I turned the Hella into.

"Simba! Simba you fucking asshole!" David screams at me as he's clutching the ragged edges of the hole in the wall, staring down at me and his mother still lying unconscious in my grasp.

"She's fine! Now you jump!" I call out, taking a step forward over the crater that once upon a time used to be a Hella's roof, sinking to a knee on top of the crushed metal and platics.

Checking Gloria over, I gently place her on top of the still relatively intact hood of the car, one eye still on the approaching dust cloud behind me while straining my hearing to track the corpo soldiers currently storming the hospital.

"What?!"

Before getting distracted by the panicked scream of the teenager still stuck two stories up.

"Now you! Go on, jump!"

"Are you crazy!?"

"So people keep telling me! Now, jump!"

"I'm not killing myself!"

"I'm not telling you to kill yourself, I'm telling you to fucking jump!"

"THAT'S THE SAME FUCKING THING!"

"I survived, didn't I?!"

"I'm not built like you!"

"Neither is your Mom, but she survived too, right?!"

"…"

For a moment, the scared teen and I keep staring each other down, our gazes locked in a battle of wills (or desperation, in his case). When I next call out, my voice is pitched lower, but firm, the earlier teasing tone in my shouts gone.

"I swear to you that I will catch you. Trust me."

David is still unsure, looking down from so high up, but his eyes slowly track from me to his still mother and I can see him swallow. When he looks back towards me, desperation is slowly forced to give way to determination instead.

Scrappy little kid, that's for sure.

"You promise?" David calls out with barely a waver in his voice and I give him a serious nod.

"I promise."

"All right." The teen simply responds, before moving away from the hole.

For a moment I think he's moved back to get a running start, before something big and plastic is thrown out of the hole instead, rapidly plummeting to the ground to crash besides me. My eyes widen in confusion when I realize it's the bag that David dropped when I tossed his mother to him. Just barely peeking out from behind the frayed edge of the bag, I think for a second that I can spot the edge of something sleek and metallic-

"AAAHHHHH!"

"What the-"

Before my attention is torn away towards the teen hurtling rapidly down towards me, the little idiot having jumped while my attention was on the bag instead. Which means he misses my outstretched arms completely-

"Oomph!"

-and collides belly-first straight into my face instead, sending us both crashing into the ruined remains of the scrapped Hella in a big confusing ball of debris and rapid-fire insults.

Not that the insults are very good, considering both of us are left gasping for air and left choking on dust, but the intent is certainly there.

"You… utter… gonk!"

"You… said… you'd catch… me!"

"Then why… would you distract me… by throwing something else instead!?"

"I can't… leave… my mother's stuff!"

As we work our way to our feet, any further attempts at explaining the finer points of HABE (High-Altitude-Building-Extraction, a maneuver that I coined and am clearly an expert at, having done it twice now, though David evidently disagrees) as the Quadra has finally reached our position. It comes to a halt behind us in an impressive handbrake turn (unfortunately once more showering us with dust), the rumbling of its massive engine reminiscent of some great hellish beast purring lowly.

A 640 TS, it's lower, has wider tires and a bigger engine than your regular Type-66 (though not on the same level as my darling Avenger), which is why it's no surprise that it's considered by viewers to be the sexiest-looking car on the show "Guns and Horses." Done up in a blazing purple paint job and I gotta hand it to the man behind the wheel: while a certified gonk, there's no question the man's got a good sense of taste.

As he and his partner quickly exit the vehicle, I pick up Gloria in my arms again, motioning David to follow me towards the car with a nod of my head. The teen quickly scrambles to collect the bag with his mother's stuff (and James Norris' stolen cyberware) before he follows hot on my heels.

"What a shitshow Boss. What do you need?" the man asks and despite having a physique that makes him fit right in with the Animals, dwarfing an awed looking David in size, he still has to crane his neck in order to meet my eyes.

"This a protection gig for the civvies?" the woman asks, herself rivalling the man's height, if being just shy of him in sheer bulk, like her man sporting a distinctly Animal-like physique, with… ahem, proportions to match, so to speak.

She's certainly impressive enough to leave David blushing despite the situation. Though come to think of it, that might be due to the woman's aversion to bras. Or any type of chest-covering for that matter, something that's easily shown on display as she's left her flak jacket (of course embossed with my Predator logo) hanging wide open.

Sorry kid, she's taken and it'd be a toss-up between what'd kill you first: her thighs or her boyfriend's arms. Don't worry too much though, I already got an output in mind for you anyways.

"Well, I certainly don't need protecting, now do I?" I shoot back with a grin as I glance down at her (not something she's all that used to given her size, which comes pretty close to matching even Ma), before handing Gloria off to the large woman, feeling David's worried eyes bore into my back.

"It's more of an extraction gig. Take 'em to a safe house, don't care which. Considering the damage to the woman, you'll need to pick a place you can lie low comfortably for a while though. It'll take some time for this level of heat to die down." I rumble as the woman takes Gloria from me with a nod, her entire form stilling as she lays eyes on the redhead, her eyes widening in shock.

"Holy fucking shit! Is that-?"

Caught off guard by her sudden shout, the partner swiftly leans over the car's hood, his gaze fixated on the unconscious woman. His blond eyebrows peek above the edge of his sunglasses, widening with recognition as he realizes who she is.

"Is that Gloria Martinez? That's the civvie that we're supposed to extract?" he rumbles in surprise.

"And her kid." I chip in.

"Gloria has a kid!?"

"Wait, wait, wait! Does everyone in NC know my mom?!" David finally snaps, drawing our attention as an uncomfortable silence briefly falls over the parking lot.

"… you know, there's a joke there-"

"Don't you fucking dare."

"-but, considering circumstances being what they are and all, I'm not gonna make it."

"… thanks."

"Jokes aside, yeah, this is Gloria. Shit went south, real fuckin' fast and she needs immediate extraction. Kid too. Things have gotten… a bit heated, over here." I rumble, my gaze on the comatose woman.

Lowering his wrap-around sunglasses to look me over with startlingly blue eyes, the man shakes his head as he takes in my blood-splattered appearance.

"No kidding."

"Simba-" David pipes up, sounding somewhat worried as his gaze is locked onto the unconcious Gloria.

"Go with your mother and hold on tight. You'll be safe. We'll get Shipman eventually, don't you worry." I assure the teen, guiding David to sit in the passenger seat of the rumbling Quadra, the large woman placing Gloria with surprising gentleness on the back seat, before getting behind the steering wheel herself.

"But what will you be doing?" David calls out, and the woman doesn't drive away just yet, the same question in her eyes as she looks between me and her partner.

"What else? We're gonna give you a chance to delta the fuck outta here by being the distraction. 'Sides, I gotta go get my car back: I'm not leaving my baby in the hands of a bunch of corpo cunts. They wouldn't treat her with the proper respect!" I reply with a forced casual tone in my voice, deliberately banishing the brief glimpse of James Norris' Sandevistan from my memory as I tear away my gaze from the large bag sitting in David's lap.

"Stay safe. C-YA, you two." The woman simply responds as if it was the most natural explanation in the world, before putting the pedal to the metal and performing half a donut, pointing the eager nose of the 640 TS back towards the far-off Badlands.

"Cover Your Ass, huh? God I love that woman." The burly man says with a chuckle as we watch the car rapidly shrink into the distant desert as it races away from us.

They'd circle back towards the outskirts of Night City after a while to slip back into the metropolis once the heat had died down and the eyes of Militech, Biotechnica and the NCPD were aimed elsewhere.

Namely at me. And, more importantly, my Type-66 Avenger.

Tearing my eyes away from the purple Quadra, I glance at the muscular man at my side.

"You ready to go get my car back?"

The man's arms, big and burly enough many would mistake it for the Gorilla Arms implant instead, split alongside barely visible seams, showing off complicated and compact weaponry hidden beneath the synth-skin. His grin is menacing as he fully unfolds his Projectile Launcher.

"Lead the way… Boss." Maine says with an eager smile.

//

If you want to read ahead, Chapter 10 is currently live over on my Patreon!

AN: Bit torn on Maine's arms here. I keep seeing people say that he's got Gorilla Arms, but he clearly has a Projectile Launch System in place instead and as far as I know, it's not possible to be sporting multiple implants like that at the same time. So here I'm interpreting it as Maine just being that buff. On the other hand, maybe the fact that he squished together two incompatible pieces of cyberware is why his chrome is starting to act up. It certainly would fit his personality as a chrome-addicted cyberpunk to cram too much cyberware into his body.

But, then again, the failing of his chrome is heavily implied to be mentally related instead, which would tie back in nicely to the whole "High Humanity keeps you from going cyberpsycho" aspect of the setting, which has worked well so far (imo opinion at least) to create a bit of tension in regards to Simba and Norris' super-Sandevistan.

Like I said, I'm still torn. If you wanna give your two cents about it, why don't you go ahead and join the discussion over on my Discord! (hell yeah, that was smooth as fuck Bakku, nice plug)