It's About Saving Yourself Ch 25

Heyo. Sorry I'm a bit late. Was waiting on something out of my control.

Specifically, a translation to Japanese. But my guy came through in the end! So chapter! Translation at the bottom of the chapter, so no need to go google translating.

Bit of a slower chapter. But an important one. Hope you lot like it. Lemme know if you do in the comments.

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I parked my car at the apartments on Holly and Floyd Street and sent off the text message that I’d arrived. It wasn’t even a minute later that Ciri, looking almost like she belonged, wearing figure hugging blue jeans, white sneakers, and a light blue crop top stepped out of the building, her longsword at her hip.

She walked in a huff to the passenger side door, unclasped her sword belt, and dropped inside with the most ‘I’m not pouting’ pout on her face, and closed the door as roughly as she could. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Sorry for calling you so suddenly I just…ugh!”

“Rough day?” I asked rhetorically as I reversed out of the parking lot and carefully joined Night City traffic.

“It’s Avallac’h!” She snapped. “He sees our basic needs are met, and is content enough to just, sit in the apartment all day and meditate! He’s not curious about the city, the civilization, the entertainment, or the food! All he wants to do is just, just stay inside and mooch off your generosity! Not the least bit inclined to give back or explore!”

I swallowed my advice on how to fix this situation and made an agreeing noise. Experience with Lucy had beaten into my head that what Ciri most likely wanted was someone to vent at.

And I was not wrong, as she continued to complain about her elven companion as I sedately drove to my next chore of the day.

Then again, this was the perfect opportunity to ingratiate myself more with my magic ticket to a better life. My chores could wait.

“Well, nothing I can do about the geriatric elf.” I said, flipping the radio on to 107.3 as Maximum Mike gave werewolf advice. “I’ll drive you around and satiate your curiosity. What do you wanna do?”

“He’s giving wrong information about werewolves.” Ciri said, pointing at the radio. “We must correct that; people will get hurt.”

I barked a laugh. “Werewolves aren’t real here.”

She scowled. “Then…why is he warning about them?”

“That’s his whole schtick.” I said, setting a navigation marker for Kabuki Plaza. “He talks conspiracy theories, urban legends, and bullshit to get more people listening. There are a few crazy people who will take his word as gospel. But it’s mostly entertainment, a scary fireside story. The only monsters you’ll find here are people.”

Monsters like me.

“I see.” Ciri said, her tone stating she didn’t. “Well, to answer your question…I guess I’d just like to learn more about this place. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Worry not. I’ve gotchu.” I said, it was a good thing that the apartments were in Japantown, as that made it so it was a very short drive to get to the market. I’d take her to the entertainment areas, but I didn’t think she was ready for the holographic advertisements, cybered up whores, arcades, the drugs, pickpockets, cutpurses, and the Tyger Claws.

So instead, I went to one of the markets. Not only would it (most likely) be more her speed, the lower noise and light pollution would make it easier to escort her. She got out of the car with a face-splitting smile, securing her sword belt at her waist and looking around like the tourist she was.

While the market was relatively anachronistic, there were still holographic advertisements, but there were also scream sheets and honest cardboard squares with English and Kanji written on them.

“Incredible…I don’t know what any of this does!” Ciri said with the biggest smile on her face. After that, I followed the ashen-haired tornado around. We mostly window shopped, Ciri and Avallac’h traveled light by necessity, but I still bought her a first aid kit, some MREs, water purifying tablets, some survival equipment, and the best knockoff of a Militech backpack I’d ever seen. Seriously, I got one for myself, whoever had produced the batch I was looking over had done too good a job and made a lighter, sturdier product than the corner-cutting margin-seeking corporate fucks.

After a few other purchases, I noticed a group of Tyger Claws, probably the protection racket for the market.

「ああ、くそ、レッドアイだ」

「俺たちが殺すべき奴は？あいつ…買い物してるのか？まるで店のオーナーみたいに買い物させていいのか？」

「お前があのイカれ野郎に『買い物するな』って言うのか？」

「いいえ」

「私たちは何をすべきですか？」

「黙って彼を見なかったふりをしろ、それが答えだ。

Great moment to remember I forgot to fix my translation software issues. The only thing I was getting were subtitles in Kanji. Still, they didn’t appear hostile, so I would not do something as impolite as starting a firefight on their turf.

Eventually Ciri got peckish, so I stopped at a stand and got us some food. We went to a corner where we could have some privacy, and I removed my gasmask so I could eat. We took a bite of the food, Ciri spat it out and started heaving while I chewed.

“What is this!?” She hissed, looking at the food like it had betrayed her.

“SCOP burger.” I said, taking another bite. Don’t know what she was complaining about, Slaughterhouse Prime ‘meat’ patty fried in…vegetable oil, artificial beef flavoring, veggie delight slurry also fried in vegetable oil, it was made with actual bread, and it had mustard flavoring for zest. With only a semi noticeable aftertaste of burnt plastic.

“It’s vile!” She said, holding it out at arm’s length. “It’s nothing like the food at the apartment! How can you eat it!?”

“I’m paying quite a bit of cash so you and Avallac’h have decent food.” I answered, taking another bite and shook the SCOP burger. “This is what the privileged people eat around here. It’s actually a step-up from what I grew up with.”

Ciri stared at me open mouthed for several seconds, before her face settled into a mask of determination and she took a bite of the SCOP burger. She nearly threw up three times, but she finished that mouthful.

I found my respect for her growing because of that.

We hung around the market for a while longer before heading back to my car. Time to show Ciri the wonders of the arcade. But of course, because I cannot have nice things, I got a call on the way that derailed my plans.

“This is Redeye, go ahead Dakota.” I said without preamble, the elderly fixer’s face paler than usual on the video window in my AR display.

[Redeye, I have an apology, paired with bad news.] Dakota Smith said, her reedy voice tight with anger.

“What’s up?” I asked, switching lanes without using the blinker so I wouldn’t get cut off. I ignored the honk of the asshole behind me, salty that he didn’t get a warning so he could speed up.

Well shit. That would not do. “Just refund me the delivery fee. Who took it?”

She blinked in surprise. [Redeye?]

“I’m going to get my stuff back.” No way was I going to let the full suite of pharmaceutical equipment I’d bought from France go that easily. Yeah, it was auctioned off for Ennies on the Eddie when a pharmaceutical company went under. But what was nothing to a company was a lot of money to me!

“I don’t need to know its location.” I said, my lip curling. “I only need to know who had the balls to take my stuff.”

“Very well, thank you.” I said.

I cut off the call and turned the car in the general direction of 6th Street territory. Mentally going over my roster…No, I couldn’t take the chance of an idiot damaging the equipment.

I called Apex.

+Hey dad!+ She answered immediately.

“Hey Apex, I need a favor sweetie.”

“The Sixth Street gang hit a convoy and stole something very expensive and very important to my Clients.” Ciri looked questioningly at me, I threw her a thumb up, which confused her further. “I’m going to get it back, but I don’t know where they took it. Could you help me with that?”

+Sure!+ She paused for three seconds. +Found it!+

A location marker appeared on the map in my HUD, as well as the fastest route to get there.

“Thank you sweetie, you’re the best!”

“Nah, just keep doing what you were doing honey, daddy’ll take care of things.”

She hung up and went back to doing…who knows what with Lucy. The two of them had been Netrunning together more and more often. It was good that Lucy seemed to have lost her reticence where Apex was concerned.

Then again, Apex was my cinnamon bun.

“What are all of the things you are having delivered to the apartment?” Ciri asked.

“All of the equipment my people and I will need to survive in a world that has a different technology base to this one.” I answered, lifting my right hand from the steering wheel to bring attention to the metal and plastic. “Implants are naturally rejected by the body. We all take medicine to suppress that natural response and be able to, you know, live. If we were to leave without the right equipment and preparation, we might survive a few months at most before succumbing to auto-immune damage to our replacement organs. Not to mention that eventually we’ll require replacement parts and maintenance on our implants. And we’ll need the capability to produce said parts.”

She frowned and chewed the inside of her cheek while she thought, then nodded. “I see, but why did you refer to us as your ‘clients’? If anything, we are hiring your services.”

I snorted. “Because nobody would believe the truth. Magic doesn’t exist here.”

Ciri blinked. “But…but you’re an Oracle!”

Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.

“And before I met you, I thought I was having some whacky dreams. Whatever whispers of magic we have, are far too easily dismissed as coincidence, hearsay, or bad dreams.” I said. “The only way that my people would believe me when I said we were going to go to another world, would be for you or Avallac’h to show them magic. Multiple times, under different circumstances.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it be enough to just show one spell?”

I shook my head. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Too many of the things that you could easily do could be replicated with the right setup. A fireball? We can do that. Strike something with lightning? Ditto. Make weird lights happen? We have holograms. The one that could most easily convince them would be to go to another world, but not only can we simulate something similar enough, I seem to recall you and the elf not wanting to do something so big because it’ll draw the attention of those hunting you.”

Ciri nodded. “I see. When will you explain what the plan actually is?”

“When we’re safely in another world and need to set up a base of operations so we can start growing the plants I’ll need to make our medicine. Not a minute before.” I said and parked the car in view of the building that Apex had pointed to, looked for the nearest camera, and brought up my hacking interface. “And now, I need to go assault that place and get my shit back.”

Ciri looked at the building through the CrystalDome panels, her hand clenching on the grip of her sword. “I’ll help.”

I finished breaking through the Sixth Street’s amateurish data fortress’ ICE. “Shouldn’t really be necessary.” I said, looking through the cameras and marking the gangsters.

“Wait…how are you going to get your equipment back without stepping inside?” Ciri asked.

“Oh I’ll step inside.” I said, then realized where the confusion was coming from, and copied a window from my AR display onto my car’s CrystalDome windshield. “That’s the interior, I’m about to make them regret taking my stuff.”

Ciri blinked and looked at the cloned camera feed I was seeing in my HUD, hers didn’t show the numerous daemons and hacks I was already uploading onto the one and a half dozen gangsters. “Incredible, but how are you going t—”

She cut off when half a dozen gangsters fell to their knees and started retching, others began dancing in place as their implants electrocuted them, one, the Netrunner, screamed as his eyes, mouth, and ears all spewed out electrical fire. Three of them wrestled with their arms, trying and failing to stop their hand holding a pistol to their temple and pulling the trigger.

As the last connection to the building’s Data Fort fell, I said. “That should do it. Wanna come with or stay with the AC? I don’t mind either or.”

Ciri stared at the screen; her face paler than usual. “I think…I think I’ll stay here, if that is okay with you.”

“Suit yourself.” I said and stepped out of the car. I readied my shotgun and stretched to loosen up. The skin-weave I’d installed after the last job made my skin feel oddly stiff as I stretched, I could now shrug off low-caliber rounds with just my skin, though a nine mil or a .45 caliber would still knock the wind out of me. A lot less than I was going to get installed, but having reconsidered after calming down, heavy subdermal plating, and replacing my left arm, both legs, and an upgrade to my lungs, would absolutely have been too much.

I’d had to up the dosage on my meds to stay regular, it was a safe bet that I was now on the threshold of having to take the really heavy stuff, the ones that required a cocktail to offset the side effects they caused.

But Rebecca was right, what kind of quality of life would I be able to enjoy if I replaced my body with metal? Especially after I left this god-forsaken hellhole?

No, I needed to keep my head as far down as I could get away with, finish getting my ducks in a row, leave, and grow old and fat eating actual food.

I walked into the Sixth Street building with my Omaha in hand, keeping an eye and ear out for anyone that had successfully managed to hide from me, and absently put a tiro of flechettes through the skull of the first incapacitated gangster I came across.

I tracked them all down methodically, it wouldn’t do to leave one of them to make poor decisions in the future and cause me trouble. Once the building was secure, it was easy enough to find my package in the back of a nearby pickup, luckily for me, it appeared like they hadn’t yet gotten to my package to mess up the equipment with the grubby mitts.

I looked around for anything else useful among the boxes of smuggled contraband. And paused when, opening a plastic crate, I was met with three gun cases. With a shrug, I popped one open and choked.

Sitting in front of me, with minimal scratches and bumps to denote that yes, it was used. Was a Chicago Typewriter. A Thompson Submachinegun model 1921 in all its original art-deco glory. Ridged barrel, weird-ass grip, utterly impractical stock, wooden furniture, and not one, not two, but three one-hundred round drums as well as six thirty round stick magazines. Folded on the side were the original manufacture papers sealed in a vacuum sealed pouch.

Its year of manufacture was, indeed, 1921.

Sacred shit on a stick.

I snapped the rifle case closed and set it carefully and reverently to the side. Then reached for the next rifle case. Popping that one open, I saw an M1 Garand. I could see some places where clearly rust had been removed, and the wooden furniture looked to have taken a lump or three in its time, but other than that, it looked like a perfectly serviceable old rifle. There was even a ziplock bag with empty clips.

Once I read through its documentation, I gasped.

It was produced by Springfield Armory, 1934.

Picking the gun back up and inspecting it more closely. I saw its serial number. Which made me sigh in exasperation.

Serial number sixty-nine. Because of course it was.

I snapped that rifle case closed and set it with equal reverence next to the Thompson. Then pulled the next rifle case. And was somewhat confused.

In it was an old soviet relic, a Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle with a damaged scope. Picking up the weapon, I saw that it hadn’t had the same level of care put toward preserving it as the other two, it had far more scratches and bumps, and what were definitely tally marks scored onto the side of the stock. Taking the rifle out of the case, I shouldered it and peered down the old soviet scope, and blinked in surprise when I realized it was missing…the…glass.

I put the rifle reverently down into the protective case, closed it, and hyperventilated in peace for a little while.

Someone…someone had paid an obscene amount of money for these; they were literally pieces of history.

Which is why I walked out of that Sixth Street building pulling a cart loaded with the medical equipment I’d purchased, as well as the three gun cases. It was a pretty tight fit, getting it all in the car, I had to transfer some of the equipment in the trunk to the car’s cabin beneath Ciri’s feet. But I managed.

Barely.

“Okay! Sorry about that!” I said happily. “Where to now?”

“I uhh…I think I’m okay to go to the apartment now, please.” Ciri said quietly.

“You sure? I have the whole day.” I asked, offhandedly sending Dakota a text message with the address of the location, as well as warning that the Sixth Street had been unloading for a while by the time I got there, and chances were there would be some items missing if she managed to get the shipment back.

She thanked me and gave me a sizeable tip for the help.

I almost felt bad.

Ciri nodded, then her lips pulled up into a smirk. “Though I think I’d like to get one of those…what were they called? SCOP burgers? For Avallac’h.”

Ah, the good old tradition of fucking with a mentor.

We went back to the market on Japantown, got the ‘food’ and made our way back to the apartment they were staying at.

And because I was all for watching a knife-ear suffer-cough!-because I had to drop off the medical equipment to the growing stash of stuff that I would take with me when we went to a better world, I went up with her.

“Zireael.” Avallac’h said, not standing up from his kneeling position on the yoga mat on the corner by the window, the incense burner lit next to him. “I am glad to see you return from your excursion.”

Ciri sighed. “Yes, yes, here, I brought food.” She said, plopping the greasy paper bag down on the table.

“I had been thinking of preparing something, thank you for your consideration.” The elf said, rising smoothly.

I went to the packed storage room and dropped the medical equipment off. Then as nonchalantly as I could, rushed back in time to see the knife-ear take the first bite of the burger.

He chewed for a while, his face unmoving, before swallowing. “A most peculiar mix of flavors.” He took another bite and chewed thoroughly before once again swallowing. “So strange, an imitation of animal fat achieved through the use of vegetable oils and a minimal amount of meat of some kind. With a most intriguing texture and after-taste. You may have had a point about the need to explore this city’s culinary arts, Zireael.”

Ciri, for her part, tried not to look as flabbergasted as I felt. “R-Right, anytime.”

Well on that note. “Good to see you two are still doing fine. Keep me updated on anything you need, want, or have to do. See ya later.”

“Be well.” The Knife ear said, biting into the SCOP burger with seemingly absolute focus.

Ciri looked a little green.

I waved my goodbyes and went back to the car. I considered continuing on with my chores but decided instead to drop off the museum pieces at home before I did anything else.

As I drove, Apex appeared on the CrystalDome pannel next to me. +Dad?+

“Yes, honey?”

+Are you cheating on mom?+

Tyger Claw conversation English translation.

“Aww hell, it’s Redeye.”

“The guy we’re supposed to kill? Is he...shopping?  Are we just gonna let him shop like he owns the place?”

“Do you wanna be the one to tell that psycho he can’t do his shopping?”

“Nope.”

“What do we do?”

“You shut the hell up and pretend you didn’t see him, that’s what.”