JACKIE: Hey V! Anything new from leona?

V: Nope. I’ve pinged her, but she doesn’t share any deets. Only says she’s fine and that Lisa’s ok.

JACKIE: No news is good news, huh.

V: Still worried about the kid?

JACKIE: Of course, it’s been almost a week! I tried getting anything out of Vic, but he said they haven’t been in for a checkup. Just said not to worry about the pequena leona.

V: Pequena leona, I’ll call Lisa that next time I ping Barb.

JACKIE: Heh.

JACKIE: So, pick me up and we flatline some gonks? Padre had a few more deets.

V: I’m already on my way, be there in 10.

JACKIE: Preem.

#-----------------------------------------

Lisa woke up in a warm hug. Through the closed windows she could just barely hear the sounds of morning traffic, semitrucks, cars, motorcycles. Waking up in the arms of her mom wasn’t anything new. It had taken a while for her to sleep alone again, after the close shave with the cyberpsycho that cost her an arm. It would probably take longer this time. Not that Lisa particularly minded. She was probably too old to sleep in her moms bed. Did she care? Fuck no. I should probably find a different excuse other then horrendous traumatic events to crawl under her blanket though. Her lips twitched with a deprecating smirk. With a sigh she thought back to yesterday evening, when Conny, the friendly neighbourhood voice in her head, announced himself to the world. Easing someone into something or showing understanding and tact apparently wasn’t something he did. At least his clearly insane demeanour meant that instead of feeling crushing guilt, her mom just got utterly confused and bewildered.

Conrad had went on and on about his crazy theory, the one where he ‘isekai’d’, and even though her mom had vehemently denied the possibility, he had brought up knowledge that made a very convincing case. Knowledge that nobody had any business knowing. For example, that the recent attack on the european council was Jenkins’ doing and she should ask V for confirmation, because he was with his boss when it happened. Or, that that incident was probably also the reason why someone called Abernathy went and removed Jenkins. Her moms face had turned quite ugly when she heard that. And then he just casually dropped the name of a top-secret Millitech project called ‘Flathead’, Arasakas top-secret ‘Relic 2.0’ and Saka using and AI to figuratively rip people’s egos out of their heads to store them in orbit in a place called Mikoshi.

At that point, everybodies feelings could be summed up as ‘confused’. Her mom probably had a good idea of what he was talking about, but Viktor was just along for the ride, though he didn’t really seem to pay any attention and was more interested in the sensor readouts from Lisas brain and cyberware. Misty, who hadn’t left after bringing clothes, had suggested that, maybe, in her delirium, she had caught a bit of energy of a higher plane or something, similiar to how shamans would get stoned out of their mind to read the future, and the complications with her doll chip had spun that knowledge into a sort of second personality. That was honestly still a more reasonable and acceptable explanation then ‘reincarnation’.

At that point Viktor inserted himself back into the conversation, trying to explain a recovery plan to Lisa and Barbara. Simply removing the doll chip at this point would have wildly unpredictable results ranging from perfect recovery with no memories of the incident to descending into madness and becoming a cyberpsycho. Or simply going into shock and never waking back up. So, Lisa was stuck with Conrad for the foreseeable future and the way towards recovery was more a case of retaking the regions of her brain that Conrad was occupying, essentially, killing him in the process, if he was some sort of reincarnation. Viktor had been quite surprised by Connys complete support of that plan. He hadn’t expected her second personality to have so little selfpreservation. The reason for that was just as horrible as it was pitiful. [Where do you think the wiped memories are?] Conrads avatar on the screen had been laughing and crying at the same time and his cheery voice just made his words hit that much harder. [Its not Lisa with the morphine addiction. Its not Lisa who denied reality and wanted to die. Its not Lisa who remembers!], “If you are another soul, then this is basically hell, isn’t it?” Mistys quiet comment wasn’t answered for quite some time. [I wish I was nothing more then a technologically enhanced case of schizophrenia.] Lisa didn’t want to think about any of that. She didn’t want it, didn’t need it.

Of course Conrad wouldn’t be completely insane if he wouldn’t perk right back up after dropping a few emotional nukes like that. [Wanna see a fun magic trick? I bet I can help Lisa win in Rock Paper Scissors every time!] Nobody really had the heart to interrupt him, so Lisa had played against her mom. The first few wins had been disturbing. Feeling your hand have a mind of its own, moving without Lisas control, was pretty unpleasant, but after another 10 wins it wasn’t that bad anymore. It helped that Barbara had gotten quite competitive, letting herself be distracted from Lisas depressing circumstances. They played faster and faster, but every time they showed hands, Lisa would have the correct counter for her moms hand. Barbara wasn’t exactly livid, but she did demand to know how they cheated so well.

[I’m basically using the processing power of the doll chip to cheat. I use a bit to observe your hand right before the reveal and the rest to move Lisas hand into the correct sign. I can’t really do much more then this without Lisas consent though. I mean, I can override her, but that burns through RAM, literally and figuratively. This is how I dodged us getting shot by the way, Lisa, and also the reason your neck grew so hot.] Oh great, another tidbit to put in the ‘ignore’ pile. That had given Barbara pause. “You dodged a bullet like this?”, “Basically yeah. My body fell into a forward roll and then I nailed the gonk with three rounds.” Lisa had explained. She hadn’t been able to read her mothers expression after that, but Lisa had been quite relieved to know about the mechanics and limitations behind Connys interventions. General numbness to any and all repercussions not withstanding.

Lisa sighed and hugged closer to her mom. The bed of their new home wasn’t exactly large, but it was a lot softer than the ones they had in the megabuilding. Her mom had probably gotten new mattresses. At least her mom got a new mattress. Lisa hadn’t tested hers yet. What a shitty day, huh. That must have been the most fucked up thing that has ever happened to me. [The most fucked up thing that has ever happened to you, until now.], Conny commented with a smile in his voice. That was probably some sort of reference that nobody would get. Fuck off, you’re not helping. She chastised him, but there wasn’t any edge in her thoughts. Lisa just wanted to get in some more sleep.

#---------------------------

A few hours later Lisa and Barbara were sitting at the kitchen table having a late breakfast. The new place had actual rooms and wasn’t just one large, expanded living room. The small apartment was little more then a short straight hallway with two small bedrooms and a storage space to the left, and bath/washroom, kitchen/dining room and living room to the right. The apartment was located in the corner of the building on the third floor, the first and second being occupied by a food place. Being in the corner meant they had a balcony along the outside of both bedrooms, around the storage space in the corner and ending outside of the living room. The living room also had one of those bead curtains into the kitchen/dining room.

They were munching on some sandwiches they had gotten from the place downstairs. The food joint had the inspiring name of ‘Bob’s foods’ and they had a huge variety of meals, from multiple asian styles, to mexican, to german and all of them could be ordered as takeout. They even did deliveries. They ate their sandwiches, mostly in silence. Lisa was simply trying to establish some kind of normalcy and her mom was just glad that the stress and uncertainty of the last two weeks was finally over. Once they were finished, they moved out on the balcony, with Lisa sitting on the lap of her mom. From where they were seated, they could see straight down the main road towards the skyline of the city center. Watching the AVs dart between the buildings with the huge holographic advertisements scrolling up into the sky was hypnotic.

“So, what happened.”, Lisa asked absentmindedly. An especially loud motorcycle was racing down the main street. Lisa watched as it darted between cars, ignoring traffic laws and getting smaller and smaller. “That mission I was sent on that evening was a trap. Probably as a part of burning Jenkins. I didn’t think I was considered that much of a threat.” The motorcycle had vanished into the distance and traffic recovered from the unlawful disturbance. Charges would probably be filed, but the NCPD had bigger fish to fry. If the perp wasn’t conveniently caught doing something else, he wouldn’t face any consequences. “I wasn’t in range when the trap blew, but it was already too late. And, coincidentally, you vanished that morning too.” Barbara hugged Lisa a bit tighter.

“Do you...”, Barbara took a deep breath and asked in a quiet voice. “Do you remember how they took you?”. The traffic noises in the background were soothing. Just the sound of tires on pavement. Lisa tried to half heartedly recall what had happened that morning. She really didn’t want to dig too deeply. The only thing that came to mind was that white haired bitch sticking a tracker on her. Was that also more then a simple coincidence? Whatever, she still wanted to crack into that tracker. “No. Just the train ride before.” Conrad interjected. [There were some angry russian noises and a dark bare room.] Lisa frowned. She didn’t want to know any details of what happened. Neither how she got klepped, nor what happened after. The circumstantial stuff was already disgusting enough. Right now, she just wanted to not think about it, not think about anything, really.

Her mom nudged her. “Everything alright?”. Lisa sighed. “Conrad says there were some angry russian noises and a dark bare room.” For a while there was only the sound of the city. One of the delivery boys for Bob’s revved up their motorcycle. “Is there any way for me to join your inner conversations? I feel kinda left out.” Lisa looked up towards her mom, who gave her a playful pout. With a sigh and a small smile Lisa opened a call with her mom. After a moment she accepted. [Hey mom!] “Hi Conrad...”, she raised an eyebrow. “Why call me mom?” She could almost imagine Conrad’s avatar on the verge of tears. [You don’t want me?], he said with a quivering voice. Lisa sighed again. “Conny, please don’t be that way.” Doing a 180-degree mood swing he started laughing joyfully. [Because I’m part of Lisa, so of course you are my mom!]

“Huh, can’t really argue with that...”, Barbara said. The noise from the delivery boy had vanished somewhere behind them. For a while they simply enjoyed each others presence. Until Conrad cut through the silence. [Hey, did you know that coffee doesn’t actually wake you up, but just blocks tiredness?] Lisa took a moment to answer. “No. No I didn’t. Is that the reason why you don’t drink coffee, mom?” Barbara chuckled. “No, coffee just tastes horrendous.” Conrad was outraged at that comment. [What?! Blasphemy! To not enjoy the heavenly taste of coffee!] A smile tugged at Barbaras lips. “I take it you like coffee then, Conrad?” [I was a programmer! Coffee was practically my blood! Without at least 10 cups the day hadn’t even started!] Lisa gave a short laugh. “Hah! Some things are always the same. Programmers run on coffee.”

A few semi trucks rumbled across the street. Big heavy black transports sporting the Millitech logo. “So, Conrad, in your ... previous life... what did you do as a programmer?” Barbara was still on the fence about acknowledging Connys prior life memories. It was a lot less burdensome to think of him as just a mental disorder instead of an actual, separate entity. [Well, I was working on AI development. Nothing really fancy.] Barbara raised an eyebrow. “Nothing really fancy? Research in AIs is plenty impressive. And pretty dangerous.” [Ah, no, AIs weren’t nearly as advanced as they are here. All they could do was generate images from prompts and write grammatically correct texts. Not the true AI stuff you’re thinking about. I guess my AIs would be nothing more then a deamon here?] Barbara contemplated that for a bit. “I see.”, she said.

For another long while they simply listened to the sound of traffic. [Hey, I always wondered. When somebody gets new chrome, like and arms or a leg, were does the leftover biomatter go?] Lisa frowned and her mom was a bit strained when she answered. “The incinerator.” New chrome was a touchy subject. There was a loud crash a few blocks towards downtown. A small old car with plenty of scratches and dents was pushed of the road by a fancy looking limousine. With the old car pushed onto the sidewalk and blocked by the limousine, a few bulky men in suits jumped out, followed by a teenage girl who looked like the daughter of some high rank corpo, and made their way to the rust bucket. Screaming ensued, fists were shaken, until an old woman was dragged out of her ride and tossed to the ground. From their angle they couldn’t see what exactly was going on, but the mother and daughter didn’t care. Just a regular occurrence in night city. Lisa wondered briefly if the girl attended Arasaka Academy. She was about the right age. It made her think about the potentially two weeks of homework she hadn’t done.

“I’m not going to get that certificate from the Academy, am I? Not with you being fired.” It looked like they were kicking the old woman now. Any pedestrians had quickly run away. Nobody wanted to be caught up in the mess, nobody would play the hero. “Probably not a good idea. Physically attending, at least. Maybe we can get something going remotely...” Lisa thought that over and sighed. Years of... not wasted effort, but effort without getting the actual reward... “No, its fine, even attending remotely would put you back into their crosshairs.” Barbaras expression soured. “As if they could catch me. I’ll make sure they don’t get you a second time, I have blackmail for...”, “Third time, mom.”, Lisa interrupted her with a quiet voice. “The first time was when the Saka ripper chipped my arm. There’s no way the fucker was that incompetent. Maybe they even engineered my run in with the psycho...” Once again, silence settled between the two. The suits and the princess had reentered the limo and driven off. The old woman was still laying on the sidewalk.

Barbara sighed. “No need to get overly paranoid...” Lisa shifted in her mom’s arms and Barbara pulled her a bit closer. “I just don’t want all those years to go to waste...” Lisa didn’t really want to think about it. Her life had ended from one moment to the next. She didn’t want to think about picking up the pieces of her old routine. She would break out in tears if she tried. Much easier to just ignore it and build something new. “I don’t care anymore...”, she said. “I never cared.” Barbara just hugged her tighter and buried her face in Lisas hair. A shifty looking guy had snuck towards the old car and lady. Judging by his shaking, he was obviously a druggy. After hesitating for a bit, he went and roughly searched the woman before getting into her car and driving off, probably to pawn it for his next hit. And nobody, not me nor any of the fucks walking past it, give a single shit about that body just lying on the sidewalk. Lisa thought. Who knows when anybody will remove that. Its just like some roadkill, flattened against the pavement.

Conny decided to comment. He was imitating a husky british accent, speaking as if he were narrating a nature documentary. [And that, ladies and gentlemen... was the glorious circle of life... here... in Night City. Starting from a herd of predators... hunting their prey,... down to the scavenger, picking through the cadaver. Truly... a marvel of nature.] Barbara and Lisa gave a snort. “Fuck, that was dark...”, her mom said. Lisa sighed and they spent another few minutes in silence.

“I need to get stronger. Dangerous.” Lisa said. Her mom hummed. “The Academy was supposed to be the place where you get dangerous. Influential, good connections, corporate support...”, Barbara sighed. “I guess we’ll have to aim for a different kind of dangerous.” Lisa never argued with her mom sending her to Arasaka Academy. Lisa knew that it was the riskier move in the short term. Education was like playing the long game. Very little immediate power, but better and better the further you get. In video game terms, education had a weak early game, meaning you could easily loose when the wrong players came by, but has a higher late game power spike. You just needed to survive until then, which, in Night City, was definitely less certain then in other places. And Lisa had lost that gamble for survival. She had stumbled a few steps before the first mayor milestone. Or rather, somebody tripped her up. At least there were many ways to grow powerful quickly in Night City. It was all just a matter of weighing the risks versus the eddies required.

Chipping something was one of the more direct ways to gain power. [So, what do you think is better? Cyber or Bioware?] Lisa held her chrome hand up. “Bioware, definitely.”, she said. “Upgrading what’s already there is much less intrusive than full on replacements.” Lisa looked up to her mom. “For you sweety, definitely Bioware.” Lisa raised an eyebrow at her moms determined face. Weird, why is mom so certain? Before she could ask, Conny blabbed on. [I’m all for Bioware! I think Lisa would look cute with some fluffy animal ears!] Lisa sputtered. “What? Why?! What’s wrong with my ears?” Her mom had a mischievous smile. “Ooh, I like that! Some soft cat ears maybe? That would be so cute! And maybe a tail?”, Lisa pouted and crossed her arms. “No! No ears, and definitely no tail!” [Aww, com’on Lisa, think of the utility! They would be so much better then human ones. And maybe they would even fold back when you’re angry!] Barbara laughed. “Ugh. Tsk, I’m leaving. I’m getting hungry again.” Lisa shrugged of her moms hug and stomped back into the apartment. Her mom whined with a wide smile. “Aw, come on my little kitten, don’t be like that.”, “Ugh, don’t call me that!”, Lisa snapped back. Barbara laughed and followed after her. “Alright, alright, don’t be hangry, food first.”

#------------------------------

Nothing else of note happened that day. Well, nothing of note besides cat puns. After her mom had gotten them some hampurrgers they went back to lounging around, this time in the living room. Lisa wanted to distract herself from her annoying mom (who was ‘just kitten around’) so she started to delve into the code of the few quickhacks she had gotten from the Academy. Thank god Conny was easily distracted. Lisa was starting to understand why voices could be maddening ([Come on Lisa, cat ears! Its meow or never!]), but scrolling through the code for the Ping quickhack made Conrad moan about other things.

[Waaaaaiit, scroll back up. That part right there. What. The. Fuck! Who... who codes like this??? This is atrocious. Lisa, we are changing this. Right meow!] Lisa spent a moment staring towards the ceiling, annoyed, until she sighed in defeat. The cat joke would probably go on for a while.

Coding with an insane alter ego was a weird experience. They could look at two separate parts of the program at once, without knowing what the other was doing. Lisa would just leisurely scroll through the code, fixing some atrociously written loop or streamlining some handshake protocols and then stumble on a section that Conny had pulled from thin air. None of his code worked [Hey! This isn’t exactly python, or something I know!], but the intensions were mostly clear and if they weren’t, Conny had left enough comments to explain everything [Use comments in your code! Thats just good coding!]. Conny had, for example, tried to write a function that would make a system ping itself about 100 trillion times a second, with a loop to call more of itself, which was enough to bring any processor to a screeching halt and make it question its own miserable existence [You know, because its pinging itself, it technically IS questioning its own existence!].

And then Conrad wanted to bake this function into the bios of infected systems and have it run on startup. At that point, only a complete reinstall would save someone. The most basic Ping would now practically brick anything it came in contact with. If a system wasn’t guarded against these shenanigans. Which, admittedly, was quite an easy fix and someone had already thought of it, hence why their tv was still working, but that just meant they had to find a workaround. At some point Barbara had tuned the radio to an online podcast. Something about small time news from different places. Right now, it was reporting on a minor flooding somewhere in germany. Conrad commented, [Huh, never liked that place anyway.], but didn’t elaborate.

After Ping had been turned from an abomination of horrible code into a different kind of abomination, Lisa looked over the other hacks she had. Arasaka Academy had provided them with a few basic ones, like an unoptimized Reboot Optics and a weak Sonic Shock. They were meant to be study objects on the different ways software spoke to cyberware. Of course, they were also meant to test who could be a potential netrunner. The quickhacks were bad on purpose and there would be extra points if someone submitted an improved version. Lisa wondered if there was some way for her to submit the Ping. Technically, she was still a student and bricking the system of Arasaka Tower seemed fun. Probably wouldn’t work though. They had actually competent netrunners guarding the place.

Nevertheless, while Lisa was tinkering with Ping it had gotten late. After some more takeout and breaking in the shower of their new home, Lisa trudged into her mom’s room. There was no teasing when Lisa climbed into her bed. Just a warm hug giving comfort, security. “G’night mom...”, she mumbled. “Good night, sweety.”

Day one of ignoring everything. Lisa drifted of into dreamland.

#---------------------------

Day two of ignoring everything was spent with more of the same. Lounging once again on the balcony while in a nice hug, watching the daily drama that was Night City traffic and having a laugh when her mom overplayed her entrance down in sublevel 1. Lisa could tell her mom wasn’t really comfortable with talking about it, but she was taking care to frame it in a light-hearted way. She didn’t want to put her hand in the wound, but the bandages needed changing. “How were you able to see in complete darkness by the way? I thought your eyes didn’t have that feature?” Barbara asked. “Oh that. Conrad messed around with the settings a bit. Its not exactly sight, all I could see was something like white, blurred wireframes on a black background and everything had insane motion blur, but at least the settings were indifferent to light. Didn’t even notice when the flashbangs went off.”, Lisa shifted a bit. “I don’t think all of the settings are within factory specification though.”, [Yeah, there’s a bit of post processing going on. I had a similar problem in my mechatronics courses and we were lucky that the script even worked, with how different coding works here.]

They went back to watching the streets. Today’s drama was a gaggle of Maelstrom plundering a shop a bit down the street. Turns out they lived in Maelstrom territory and they had their little club, the Totentanz, nearby. The group of five scrap heads had probably partied all night and had decided to take umbrage with a small electronics store. Maybe they took offence at some red LED’s that looked similar to their optics or something. “Ah, so that was the new optic profile I saw...” Barbara took a deep breath. The Gangers were hollering as they tossed a few TVs out of the store’s windows. “At least we didn’t encounter that third party again...” Lisa clenched her jaw. “One of them hacked me, didn’t they?” Her mom hugged her tighter. “Yeah. An overheat. Can be quite nasty. It was one focused on speed though, not damage. Only good for making an opening for the sandi to go in for a quick kill.” Barbara buried her face in Lisas hair. “Your lucky V had a twitchy trigger finger.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she pulled Lisa closer. Lisa hugged the arms wrapped around her. They didn’t say anything for a while. When some more Maelstrom drove up in cars to pick up their piss drunk chooms rampaging in the store, a light drizzle had started, but the rain didn’t reach their balcony.

#-----------------------------

Sleeping together in the same bed was something they both needed. Lisa, because she needed the security her mom’s presence provided, and Barbara, because Lisa was all she had leftover from her old life and was what defined her new one. Barbara sighed as she remembered her time at Blackwork Genetics. The small up and coming business had been researching new gene tailoring methods. The sales of miscellaneous bioware wasn’t enough to keep the company afloat, but there had been plenty of people who paid for morally grey research. Messing with the human genome was something that plenty of large cyberware corporations had lobbied against, making it illegal in most parts of the earth, so Barbara and a few other researchers had been working in a secret lab bellow a secret lab, somewhere in the desert around Night City. It hadn’t been easy, but those were fun times. Unfortunately, Blackwork Genetics eventually entered the crosshairs of Arasaka. The economic behemoth wanted to expunge any competition for their cyberware businesses and they had been to small to fight back. Their funding had waned, making them desperate, but even the L-15-A project wasn’t enough to get the money flowing again. Too little too late. Funny how much Barbaras view on life had changed over the years. The irony that she had found refuge in the very corporation that had ruined her life made her smirk.

She sighed and shifted her arms that were holding her baby. The windows did an adequate job of keeping out the noise from the streets, but the rumble and light from a rocket launch from the Night City spaceport still woke her sometimes. She glanced down towards her sleeping daughter. Oh, how things have changed... She would have never thought she would have a kid. It never crossed her mind when she was a researcher. Even as they got desperate, motherhood wasn’t something she had thought about. She smiled as she studied her sleeping angel. Barbara still held some regrets about the downfall of Blackwork Genetics, but that spilled milk had long since dried. There were still some things to wrap up, but they had time.

Settling a bit on the mattress and trying to return to the sweet embrace of sleep, Barbara noticed that Lisa was shifting a bit. Did the rocket launch wake her too? Barbara wondered, but the next moment her breath stuck in her throat. “No...”, Lisa whimpered, “...stop...” Fuck, she’s having nightmares. Of course she would. Lisa had also been haunted by nightmares after losing her arm. Barbara hugged her tighter. “Its fine, Lisa. I’m here.”, she mumbled as Lisa was starting to struggle a bit. “Everything’s gonna be alright. I’m here.” Barbara hated this, she hated how there was nothing she could really do for Lisa right now, she hated herself for how she was instrumental for her existence. But she hated the world that played with their lives, with Lisa’s life, so carelessly even more. She hated that nothing she could do would be enough, because if fate wanted to fuck you over there was little to do other then bow down and take it. The only real requital was to fuck life back harder. If life tries to give you shit you make sure to shove life’s ripped of balls down its throat or die trying.

Barbaras anger didn’t bleed into her soothing whispers. She coddled her little angel, waiting for the nightmare to pass. The last time they never lasted longer than a few minutes, but she didn’t know if this time would be the same. Barbara didn’t really know what to do other then try to comfort her. It had worked when Lisa was little, but she didn’t know if it wouldn’t be better to try and wake her instead, now that she was older. After a few more minutes Barbara was fighting against tears. Lisa had been getting more distressed. Her voice had become hoarser. But something changed.

“No... burn... I’ll... I’ll burn you... all...” Lisas eyes were half lidded, glowing blood red. “It’s fine. I’m here.” Barbaras soothing faded to a whisper. She didn’t want her voice to quiver. It was hard enough to ignore the lump in her throat. “Burn... everything...” Barbara closed her eyes as she couldn’t hold back her tears. “I’m here, Lisa. Everything’s okay. You’re safe.” She wasn’t sure anymore if her whispers were meant for Lisa or herself.

Some time later Lisas breathing calmed. Barbara could feel her little angel settle and relax, her hand still caressing Lisas hair. “Burn... everything...” Her voice was growing softer. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Lisa. I promise.” With her eyes slowly closing, Lisa fell back into dreamless sleep. “Burn...” Her breathing finally evened out. Barbara kept feeling Lisas soft hair between her fingers. She wished she could have Lisas nightmares in her stead. She wished Lisa wouldn’t have to carry so many terrible burdens. “It’s okay, Lisa. You’re safe. Night City will burn, I promise.”

#----------------------------------

Day five of ignoring everything. Weirdly enough, Lisa had found the smell of the coffee machine downstairs at Bob’s enticing. Something she was pretty sure she could blame on Conny. The black sludge itself still looked unappetizing, so she wouldn’t ever drink coffee black, but a glass of fake milk with a shot of the stuff? Not that bad. Definitely went well with the pastries they had gotten for breakfast. Bobs really had everything.

After breakfast she was sitting on the couch in the living room, cracking the tracker the bitch had given her. Searching through the code was a bit disheartening. There wasn’t much. It wasn’t so much a tracker, but more like a beacon, sending out a signal that someone who was looking for it could pick up. After 15 minutes or so she slumped back and sighed. No way to turn the tables on her like this. No active components to backtrack. More like a system to warn her if she runs into me again. Lisa hated the bitch even more when she thought how, if the tracker had been an actual tracker, it maybe wouldn’t have taken two weeks to get out of hell. But she let it go. It was irrational. Even her biomon hadn’t been able to send for help, no way a measly tracker would be able to. White-hairs was still a bitch though.

She idly wondered if she should just delete the thing. It wasn’t anything impressive. But it also doesn’t take much space, might as well keep it as a reference. She let her head fall back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. What do I do now? I don’t really want to just keep staring at code... Sure she could play around with Reboot Optics and Sonic Shock some more, but she felt like they were fine as they were for any usecase she might have. Although Conny made a Sonic Shock that would ‘rickroll’ someone. Probably another reference. He had cackled when he made it. Lisa actually liked the song it played. It sounded really old, but the text spoke to her. Her mom thought so too.

Conny had also told her about other quickhacks that he knew from his gamer knowledge and while she was intrigued, especially with the offensive ones, Lisa didn’t really have the drive at the moment to write anything like them from scratch. The only quickhack she had that might have offensive use was the Ping abomination. She still needed a testsubject for that one. Lisa wanted to be kinda careful with where she pointed it, she felt like she was holding a potentially very hot potato. Nevertheless, she didn’t really feel like going out and finding a testsubject. The couch was just too good at supporting her weight. A short while later, her mom joined her.

Barbara crashed into the couch with a sigh. It was quite warm for Oktober, so her mom had taken a longer shower after her morning workout. Maybe Lisa would start working out. Na, who am I kidding. [You know, I could probably rig something that did the workout for you. The dollchip was made to manipulate you after all.] Lisa didn’t like how that sounded. Manipulate. But then she thought about what Conny had said and raised an eyebrow. Wait, you’re saying I can do workouts without the effort? [Well, technically you would still be doing the effort, but without the need to do so actively.] Lisa hummed. Huh, might be worth checking out...

“What are you thinking about, sweety?” Her mom asked. Lisa looked at her mom. Her wet hair framed her face, her eyes filled with soft concern. “Oh, Conny just suggested to puppeteer my body for workouts.” They looked into each others eyes, trying to judge their reactions. “And... how do you feel about that?”, her mom asked. Lisa broke eye contact and shrugged her shoulders. “Dunno. Sounds practical, I guess.” They sat for a bit in silence, both studying the ceiling. “You know, I could show you some Yoga routines if you want. Maybe you’ll even enjoy them?” Lisa slowly waved her head from side to side. “Eehh, maybe later.”

“So, how did you sleep?” Barbara asked softly. Lisa looked at her mom again. “Fine. Why?” They held gazes again, her mom looking for something. “No reason. There was a rocket launch and it woke me up, thought you might have heard it too.” Her mom went back to looking at the ceiling. That’s not the reason, is it...? Lisa thought. “No, slept like a baby.” Her mom hummed.

After a bit, Barbara sat up. “Come on, Lisa. Let’s do some Yoga.” Lisa frowned. “Ugh, we can do that later, mom.” Her mom gave a playful smirk. “But later is when we’re going to doc Vektor?”, “Tsk, I know...”, Lisa pouted. Barbara stood up with energy. “Alright! Let’s do some Yoga till then, little kitten!” Lisa groaned. “Only if you stop calling me that.” Her mom raised an eyebrow. “No purrmises?” The young woman sighed and let her head fall back on the couch.

#--------------------------------

Delamain was hands down the best way to get around night city. The drive through the evening rushhour was smooth. The AI was uniquely capable in finding the fastest and smoothest route to Viktor's clinic, he was most likely monitoring the traffic somehow. Or should Delamain be an it? Lisa would have to ask next time, though the AI probably didn’t care. When they got out of the cab, Lisa realized this would be the first time she actually walked into the doc’s clinic herself. The last time she had woken up inside and then been carried out half asleep.

Misty’s Esoterica looked weird. Way to crammed, full with stuff. It had a certain flair though. “Welcome to... Ah, hello Miss Schmidt. Good to see you.” Misty came out from behind her counter. “How are you, everything alright?”, “Hello Miss Olszewski. I’m fine thanks for asking.” Misty gave a small smile. “Please, call me Misty. And you? How are you holding up, Lisa?”

Lisa took a moment to study the woman. The way she looked at her with actual concern was uncomfortable. She was fine with her mom looking at her like that, but a complete stranger? “I’m fine.” Misty must have understood something from her being terse. She quirked an eyebrow. “And how’s the... tenant? Not giving you any trouble I hope? Its a bit hit and miss with those, I should know. With Viktor living in my garage.” Lisa snorted and crossed her arms. “Oh, he’s late on rent, but he says he’ll have it in a few days.” [I am working on that Yoga routine!] Conny happily interjected. Not that anybody could hear him. Misty smiled. “Yeah, they do that sometimes. I’ve held you up long enough. Come, I’ll walk you there.” She led them out back. Lisa sighed as she followed along. [Aw, don’t be like that, Lisa. Misty’s...] I don’t like people pocking their nose in my business, Conny. I don’t care how sweet they may be.

Down in the garage they went through the same greeting ritual again, this time with Viktor. “Yes Viktor, I’m fine. Anything else you’ll have to tell me.” Lisa was already annoyed when she made her way over to the medical seat. The doc gave an unbothered smile at her gruff demeanour. “Alright, let’s get you settled.” A few moments later, Lisa was reclining on the chair, electrodes stuck to her head. She didn’t want to think about all his other patients that sat on it, or the stains that some of the more intrusive procedures must leave on the upholstering. She was glad the chair smelled of antiseptics and cleaning detergent.

“So, what have you been up to?”, Viktor asked after setting things up. When Lisa frowned at him, he gave a disarming chuckle. “Just some mundane small talk while things finish. Humour an old man, alright?” Lisa sighed. “Well, I cleaned up some of the quickhacks I’ve got.”, “Oh, I imagine that must have been different.” The doc moved the conversation along while studying the readouts. “Yeah. Got twice the amount of work done.” The doc raised an eyebrow. “Really? Man, I wished I had something like that when I had to do homework. Just delegate the tedious stuff and do something else.” Lisa shifted in the seat. “Well, he’s part of me, so he also doesn’t want to do the tedious stuff.”, “Heh, I can imagine. Its good that you frame him as part of yourself.” Viktor gave her a small smile before focusing back on the readouts. Lisa was stumped from the weird compliment. Well, that killed the conversation... Lisa sighed and leaned back. Misty had left a while ago and her mom didn’t mind the silence.

Before the silence could get too awkward, the readouts finished. “Alright, so. From what I see from the scans, things have stabilized. You and Conrad have more or less settled in your corners, but you’re still mixing plenty in the middle.” He took a moment to let his words sink in. “I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, though I imagine you wouldn’t want things to... solidify, so to say. Kind of like working with clay. Keep it mixed with water so its easier to shape.”

“Because once the clay dries, I’ll be stuck with him.” Lisa felt some rising dread. “So how would you... add water to keep things soft?”, Barbara asked. Viktor leaned back on his stool and scratched the stubble on his cheek. “Well, this isn’t really my area of expertise. It’s more Misty’s thing. I imagine you would have to interact with Conrad. Like working your mental muscles.” He paused. “I’m not telling you to confront things, just... test the waters. Stretch and see what your comfortable with.” His face settled in his neutral scowl. Lisa frowned. Great, he’s telling not to run from my problems. Lisa didn’t want to admit it, but she could guess what the doc was talking about. Sometimes, when she was busy doing nothing, she felt like she was standing in a pitch-black room filled with millions of nails, afraid to move even an inch, lest she hurt herself. Afraid to move forward or backward, scared of taking a step and impaling her leg. Afraid that once impaled she would be pinned, unable to step back.

“Well, I do have some tangible advice though.” His soft smile was back. He rolled over to his desk and fished out a rather long shard. “Its a way for you to check on things on the fly. You wouldn’t need to come in and listen to me ramble to check on things in your head.” The shard was about a third longer than usual ones used for storage and had a gold finish. Lisa’s frown deepened as she looked at the thing, laying in the palm of Viktors hand. I don’t like where this is going. “That’s a BD recorder, isn’t it.”, her mom stated. Viktor’s expression stayed neutral, but his scowl deepened with a hint of unease. “Yeah. Though this one is a hardware addition to the doll chip instead of dedicated chrome. I’ve stripped its code down, all it can do is the diagnostic stuff I can do here. Tell you the ratios of who’s in your head, estimate how much you mix and make the pretty picture with the brain activity.”

Lisa stared at the shard. She hated the thing. What it represented. I haven’t even touched the fucking chrome and now I’m supposed to use it? Since crawling back from hell, Lisa had unconsciously kept a large strand of hair behind her left ear to hide the shitty gold inlay running down her neck. Five days of denying its existence. She had ignored the new feeling of stretching, when she turned her neck, she hadn’t even looked at it in the mirror. I don’t want to. I hate it! Why do it have to..

Barbara grabbed her left hand. Looking at her mom she saw distress, agitation, hurt. The way she had clenched her jaw, gripped her hand. Lisa wasn’t the only one who hated it. Who wanted to wish it away. Slowly Lisa’s breathing calmed down. She hadn’t even noticed that she had started breathing heavily. She looked back at the shard. Viktor was still offering it in his palm, his scowl still filled with concern. Fucker. For saying I didn’t need to confront anything he sure is pushing it. “Fine.”, Lisa growled. Viktor wore a rueful smile as she grabbed the shard with her metal fingers. She held it up and studied it for a bit. Its golden cover that would be flush with her neck, the thin lines that covered its surface. It would be so easy. Just grip it a bit tighter and it would break. Her metal arm had more then enough strength. Just squeeze a bit more and she could grind it to dust. Make the problem dissapear. [Maybe sneeze and say it was an accident?] Fuck you, Conny.

Lisa clenched her jaws. “Fuck.” She gave a mental flick to the dollchip, opening its interface for the first time. She didn’t care to look at any of its functions, she just wanted to open one of the three slots. A moment later she felt something in her neck change, not physically, but also not mentally. With her jaws set she guided the shard into the slot under her left ear. She was glad her silver fingers didn’t have the same sensitivity as skin, she still didn’t want to touch the damn chrome. Pushing the shard deep into her neck was like scratching something against the insides of her skull. Fucking invasive fucking piece of chrome! Probably works like nerves connected throughout my brain. She closed her eyes and growled, trying to ignore the new, alien fullness, along with the stiffness of having shoved a piece of plastic almost halfway into her neck. She worked her jaw trying to make it go away.

With another mental flick she probed the new hardware addition. It wasn’t exactly the same as accessing a shard, but it was similar. She felt a fleeting ghostly shiver run across the deep parts of her head that shouldn’t be able to feel, but it vanished quickly. A moment later it returned some statistics. |62 : 33 : 5 , 0.23| So, probably |Me : Conny : Chip|. “What’s the 0.23?” Lisa’s frown had only deepened as she stared into the space in front of her. She knew she was being gruff, but the doc had pushed her. “That would be the mixing. I’m guessing it’s an okay value to try and keep it at.” Lisa flexed her jaw and nodded. She stood up from the chair. Her mom smiled as she spoke to the ripper. “Thanks doc. Send me an invoice later?”, “Na, its fine. You don’t owe me for a simple checkup.” Her mom gave Lisa a look. Ugh, and now I’m supposed to be all goody two shoes and not be a bitch. Better not make the ripper grumpy, yadda yadda...

“Vic, at least for the shard. You probably took some of your time to get it, right?” Lisa said, frown turning into a resigned scowl. The old man chuckled. “Fine, I’ll send you the deets later. Ah, before you go, I have something for you.” He once again wheeled himself over to his desk. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna give me a lollipop or somethin’”, Lisa said, annoyed. Viktor snorted. “Na, you don’t give sweets to lion cubs.” Lisa cringed and stared at the ceiling. Not him too with the cat references. That backfired splendidly... Her mom smirked. Viktor raised a confused eyebrow at their reactions.

“I have a shard with the complete code for the BD upgrade here.” Lisa stared at him. “Just in case, y’know.” This was the second time he was pushing a shard on her. She looked into his cyan eyes through his shades. Is he testing me or something? Pushing me on purpose? She couldn’t decipher anything from his professional neutral face. How does he even see anything in here, wearing sunglasses inside... Lisa made a grumbling sigh as she took the shard. “See ya around, Vic.”, she said. He smiled. “See ya around, kid. Come by whenever you want, you two. I’ll make time.” Barbara raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying you’ll be free whenever we come? How would you manage that?” The ripper winked. “Trade secret.” Lisa scowled while her mothers’ lips twitched into a one-sided smile. “See you around, doc.” Barbara said.

Stepping in front of the misused garage, they took a deep breath. The sky was already darkening, the few clouds visible between the jungle of high-rises illuminated by the last vestiges of sunset. Lisa flexed her neck, trying to get used to the new stiffness. “So.”, her mom started. “Wanna go grab a drink?” Lisa sighed. No, no I don’t. But this evening’s already shit, what’s a bit more. And mom knows its the perfect time to ask right now. “Fine. But only one drink.” Her mom smiled and Lisa felt her grumpiness fade a bit.

 #- edits/corrections -#

Its meow of never -> Its meow or never

Viktor clinic -> Viktor's clinic

He rolled over to his deck -> He rolled over to his desk