At seven in the morning, Carl opened his eyes to the sound of his alarm and spoke the first heartfelt words that came to him after waking up.
"I really don't want to go to school."
Didn't matter. He still had to go.
Rubbing his eyes as he got out of bed, Carl checked the messages that had arrived while he was asleep as he washed up.
Johnson: The assistance bonus I applied for you has been issued. Sorry, the people upstairs judged it to be a cyberpsychosis case that was resolved quickly, so they weren't willing to pay much. I only got thirty thousand.
As expected. You could tell what the higher-ups in the Night City Police Department were like just by looking at the weapons their officers used.
Carl: Don't worry about it. This is already plenty.
After transferring ten thousand eddies each to Oliver and Jack from the thirty thousand Johnson had sent, Carl looked at the second message.
Blanca: As expected of professionals. Good work. This job is settled.
The hundred and fifty thousand from James Norris's commission had arrived.
After transferring another fifty thousand each to Oliver and Jack, Carl's still-groggy mind suddenly realized why he hadn't checked how much money he had before sending them money all at once.
There were no more messages about payments after that.
Carl checked his balance.
After receiving the down payment for the Cyber-Adamant job, he had nine hundred and fifteen thousand eddies. Five thousand of that was the team's food fund, and they had spent nearly two thousand over the past few days. Excluding the money temporarily being held by him, Carl himself had roughly nine hundred and ten thousand.
He had given David ten thousand yesterday, leaving nine hundred thousand. Adding Johnson's money and Blanca's money—