Dying Young

"I'm sure you've already guessed without me saying it. You've got a mole."

Lier got straight to the point. Zhu Shen nodded after hearing him. "My deputy, Cai Pin. Is she your client?"

"No idea." Lier shook his head. "The client's identity is confidential. Sorry."

Confidential, his ass. Lier had no idea who V's client was, and he had no need to know.

First, there was no telling whether the client's identity was even genuine. Second, if Zhu Shen didn't know who had the opportunity and motive to hack him, they might as well throw him back out right now.

"Hmph. Still playing that game? Are you from the East?"

"You could say that."

"Then let's speak an Eastern language. I'm switching off my translator. Shutting down a few systems will make me feel better."

In 2077, for augmented people with cyberware, electronic viruses and biological viruses were effectively the same thing. A damaged implant meant a damaged body.

Lier nodded and switched languages. "All right. Go on. What's the beef between you two?"

"What beef? She just wants my position. I just didn't expect her to make her move at a time like this..."

Zhu Shen's brows knitted tightly, and he looked deeply agitated. "We've got a shipment that needs to go through Night City on its way back to headquarters. Now that I've been captured, they'll probably put Cai Pin in charge for the time being to keep things moving.

"Once she actually gets it done and takes my position, nobody will care whether I live or die."

"What's in the shipment?"

Zhu Shen glanced at Lier. "Some finished prototypes and partially assembled components. New products developed by the Atlanta marketing division. Headquarters needs to approve them for production.

"Listen, there's only one reason I still haven't rebooted my systems, contacted Trauma Team, or called the police: I want Cai Pin dead, and this shipment can't go wrong.

"I don't want the APD getting involved and hauling me into a cell. I'll stay offline. You need to catch her off guard and make sure my job gets done."

Lier didn't answer immediately. He looked at the television instead, where a ZetaTech advertisement was playing, showing the company's overwhelming lead in neural processor market share.

For some reason, though, another ad followed it, declaring that the finest civilian neural processor was still Militech's Sandevistan.

It was practically a slap in the face. "Sure, you sell a lot, but don't forget that mine is the top-of-the-line product."

ZetaTech could only take it, though. This was Militech territory, after all.

Lier thought for a moment, then said, "Then you're in luck. You've found the best mercenary around. Let's talk price."

"The best mercenary, huh?" Zhu Shen neither agreed nor disagreed, but he knew he didn't have many options.

After a little thought, he named his price. "Four hundred thousand for Cai Pin's life, four hundred thousand to deliver the shipment to Night City, and two hundred thousand to keep your operation covert. Remember, keep it quiet. I don't want to deal with the APD."

Lier shook his head. "All that work for one million? Come on. We're talking about killing a corporate executive in Atlanta without anyone catching wind of it. And you don't have any other options.

"Trust me, the second you show your face on the street, the hit squads will keep coming. Then you'll have to choose between handling them yourself and calling the police.

"With the first option, your odds of dying are practically a hundred percent. With the second, you lose your job. Sounds about as bad as getting killed.

"But you don't want either option. Two million. This is a tough job.

"And you'll need to pay a deposit first. Then I want Kang Tao's internal intelligence analysis on the local situation."

Almost without hesitation, Zhu Shen nodded. "Deal. I can't reboot my systems, but I still have emergency funds. Four hundred thousand eurodollars in total, held in a European bank. She can't trace them."

Lier whistled and pulled the door open. V was standing right outside, perfectly composed. Given the terrible soundproofing, she had probably heard every word of the deal.

Zhu Shen looked constipated. Lier merely shrugged. "We're partners. She needs to know the objectives, requirements, and pay, doesn't she?

"V, get the car. We need to find a ripperdoc. Mr. Zhu, I assume you have someone in mind?"

V looked calm behind the wheel, but her head was spinning.

Two million Eddies!

Who the fuck would keep working as a merc with that kind of money? You could just go enjoy life!

She glanced at Lier. "You're pretty damn good, kid."

Lier returned the professional flattery. "You're too kind. I'll be counting on you to do the heavy lifting later. You are the famous V, after all."

V didn't say it, but Lier's flattery had clearly hit the spot. "How do we split the money?"

"Seventy for me, thirty for you. Street rules."

"What kind of bullshit is that? What street says a bald bastard like you gets seventy percent?"

"Look, I'm basically half a fixer now. If you don't want in, you can cut me out. But if you kill me, see whether the client still wants to work with you."

Lier had nothing to fear. From this point on, the mighty streetkid V needed him. He could play her however he liked.

In fact, this was exactly what fixers did: deal with clients, then use their connections to organize the operation.

Finally, they hired some hotheaded rookie to get the job done. Someone efficient, but whose head spun at the mere thought of money.

Corporations looked down on fixers and mercenaries alike, but they only contacted fixers. They didn't negotiate directly with mercenaries.

Lier had presented himself to Zhu Shen as a rookie fixer, and that was indeed his role in this job.

Except... V knew Lier definitely wasn't a fixer. It was a gut feeling.

V said nothing, but Lier could distinctly feel the tension in the air...

"Ahem... considering I'm just starting out, and this job puts you at greater risk, you can have another ten percent."

V glanced at Lier. "Fifty-fifty. You can't pull this off without me, either."

Lier had no choice but to accept. "All right. It is our first job together, after all. But we won't get to pocket all of it. Don't get too greedy."

V's grip on the steering wheel loosened a little. "So what's our next move?"

"First, we spend the deposit Mr. Zhu arranged for us. Big jobs call for good gear. Then we find some help and get a little surprise ready for Miss Cai...

"Ugh-cough, cough-!"

Halfway through speaking, Lier suddenly felt a fierce burning in his lungs.

For a moment, his entire body seemed to lose all connection with his brain. A moment later, he could feel it again, but everything was overwhelmingly numb and tingling.

Dark shadows also appeared around the edges of his vision. It was like being nearsighted; everything looked doubled.

He couldn't hear anything. His eyes could see, but he struggled to make sense of what was in front of him.

A few seconds later, the sound of car horns returned to his ears. It felt as though his consciousness had only just come back from hell.

"You okay? You looked like you just died." V was a little worried that her five-hundred-thousand-eurodollar payday was about to disappear. "Holy shit, your eye..."

Lier's right eye was completely bloodshot, the entire white crisscrossed with blood vessels.

"I'm fine..." Lier reclined in his seat, gulping down air.

Besides buying V better combat cyberware, he needed to use the advance to find a specialist who could examine his physical condition.

Or rather, that was his main objective.

They drove to a bank to withdraw Zhu Shen's emergency funds, then headed all the way to a black-market clinic on the edge of the city. Zhu Shen had recommended it. It was a black-market clinic catering to corpo dogs.

As long as you didn't cross the line, it really was a black-market clinic. That was what Zhu Shen had said.

Lier obediently lay down on the operating table for a full-body examination.

The doctor performing the examination appeared to have implants only in his eyes, but both his arms were entirely cybernetic, working in tandem with the examination station.

He was a relatively normal ripperdoc. In the Rust Belt, after all, an outwardly respectable manner was the corporate norm.

"Hmm... this condition of yours..." The doctor studied a report only he could see, hesitating.

"What's wrong?" Lier opened his eyes. The anesthetic hadn't completely worn off yet.

"How old are you?"

"I should be... eighteen. Why?" After answering, Lier asked curiously, "What about you?"

"Me... sixty-two."

Lier was shocked. The doctor looked thirty-something at most, so he blurted out, "That old?"

"I am pretty old." The doctor glanced at Lier, then changed tack. "But you'll die before I do."

With that, the doctor handed Lier a tablet displaying his test results.

"All your organs are failing. It's not quite as bad without cyberware, but installing implants could speed the process up several times over.

"The worst part is that your cells are actually radioactive. That will interfere with precision implants and greatly increase their failure rate, so you can only use the most advanced second-generation implants. Say goodbye to off-brand gear.

"Something a little more urgent: you're probably about to go blind. Have you been seeing dark shadows around the edges of your vision, blurred images, double vision, and little floating specks?

"Ultimately, none of that is your biggest concern. If that were all, you'd still have at least four or five years left.

"What you really need to worry about is the declining activity in your spinal cord's gray matter. In other words, you're about to become paralyzed. That's progressing fairly quickly. You might have a month or two.

"As for a solution... you could install neural implants to reinforce your central nervous system. But like I said earlier, that would shorten your lifespan."

The doctor wasn't blind. He could tell Lier was a street punk without steady work.

For a street punk like him, paralysis was no different from death. Of course, in a sense, having a body that couldn't tolerate cyberware had already cost him his life.

"This is the first time I've seen such a contradictory body.

"Honestly, your brain has a lot of folds. Its surface area is excellent, and its electrical activity is very high.

"But your body, your cells, are completely unsuited to implants. Any implanted device will shorten your life.

"Otherwise, you might have been able to... work in network security."

In 2077, everyone needed cyberware, and hackers were no exception. Only by pushing the brain's potential to its limits could they better handle the various situations they encountered in practice.

Without cyberware, the only option was to live as an ordinary civilian. Unfortunately, surviving for long would be difficult.

[Complete a comprehensive physical examination. Read the report carefully to obtain Tech Points.]

[Note: Tech Points can be used to assist in analyzing technology or carrying items.]

But he had already crossed into another world and gotten a system. Lier would solve this problem his own way.