Viktor's clinic smelled of ethanol and scorched circuitry. A wall-mounted monitor displayed a looping boxing match—two chromed-up fighters trading blows in a blur of hydraulic fists and sparks. Carl hadn't noticed it earlier, too focused on the surgery, but now the rhythmic crack of synthetic knuckles punctuated the silence.
"Procedure's done. Up you get—easy now, the local anesthetic's still wearing off," Viktor said, snapping off his gloves.
Carl ran a hand along his spine as he sat up from the operating slab, the fresh neural port tingling where it met flesh. The surgical lights overhead left afterimages that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"How's it feel?" Oliver, who'd kept silent through the hours-long surgery, practically vibrated with pent-up energy. He'd spent the time disassembling and cleaning his Nova revolver three times.
"Took me weeks to adjust to mine. First time my HUD booted up, I puked all over my dad's shoes."
"More manageable than expected," Carl admitted. With a thought, he could already sense the pulse of nearby corporate networks—raw, unfiltered data streams waiting to be tapped. A flicker of Japanese text from a passing food vendor resolved instantly into English.
Viktor massaged his forearm, muscles strained from precision work. Behind him, the looping boxing match played silently—two chromed fighters locked in a sparking stalemate. "Stripped the corporate backdoors clean. You've got basic access functions, but no processing boosts or specialty programs." His gold-rimmed glasses flashed as he leaned forward.
"Listen close—you're walking around with zero ICE. Intrusion Countermeasures. Without 'em, even a script-kiddie netrunner could fry your brain through that port."
Viktor jabbed a finger toward a wall-mounted security feed—grainy black-and-white footage of the alley outside, where two Scavs circled a parked ambulance like vultures. "And grab some Kevlar while you're at it. Won't stop a sniper, but it might let you crawl home with your lungs intact. Got it?"
Carl remembered body armor being restricted back home. Only in Night City would Kevlar be casual advice. He nodded.
The ripperdoc nodded toward the bloodstained eurobills. "Set up a neural account. Money's safer in your head than your pockets." His gold-rimmed glasses caught the light as he glanced at the stained currency. "And for God's sake, use digital payments next time. Laundering cash is a pain in the ass."
Carl's lips twitched at the mental image of Viktor as some mobster complaining about dirty money. "So killing someone lets you loot their accounts?"
Oliver chambered a round in his Nova with an exaggerated spin. "Dead men can't firewall." The DR-5's cylinder clicked into place with satisfying finality. "Could've bought top-shelf if we'd popped those Maelstrom gonks' neural wallets first."
"Noted."
Viktor snorted, tapping the monitor to freeze the fighters mid-swing. Their sparking fists hung suspended like a violent sculpture. "Polite kids like you are endangered species here. Now get moving before I charge you rent."
Carl shouldered the bag of scavenged guns, the weight familiar now. The leather strap creaked in protest. "Time to find work. And a pawn shop." The remaining two hundred euros rustled in his pocket like anxious crickets. "These won't buy much ammo."
The gun shop's neon shotgun logo sputtered like a bad flu, its light bleeding into the street's perpetual twilight. The pawnbroker—a wiry man with more metal than skin on his face—eyed their bag like it contained yesterday's trash.
"Best I can do is twenty-five hundred," he said, poking at a Lexington with a screwdriver. "These things been rode hard and put away wet."
Oliver opened his mouth to protest, but the pawnbroker cut him off by sliding two boxes of 9mm across the counter. Carl didn't miss a beat. "Throw in the ammo and a decent holster," he countered, "and we'll forget you tried to screw us."
The pawnbroker's ocular implant zoomed in and out before he shrugged. "Deal."
Carl's neural account pinged as the eddies transferred. Weirdest first date ever, he thought, watching digits materialize in his mind like magic.
Oliver's implant flashed. "The hell—?" €$1,250 glowed in his HUD.
"Halfsies." Carl snapped his new holster's retention strap, the Kydex grip hugging his stolen Lexington snugly. "We're partners. Save the accounting for big leagues."
Oliver rotated the virtual bills in his vision like rare artifacts. "First money I ever earned," he murmured. No handouts from Dad. No sis bailing him out. Just lead and luck.
Carl tossed him a box of rounds that Oliver caught one-handed. "Means you grew up safe." The observation hung between them as rounds clicked into magazines with metallic kisses.
Outside, the sky had turned the color of a fresh bruise. A Trauma Team AV screamed overhead, its searchlights cutting through the gathering gloom.
"So how do we find work?" Carl asked, thumbing the safety on his pistol.
"Fixers," Oliver said automatically, then froze.
[Fixers]
The grease in Night City's gears. Part broker, part devil's advocate. They take 20% and make problems disappear—sometimes including troublesome mercs.
Carl's fresh neural port itched. "You know any?"
Oliver's mustache drooped. "I was gonna be 6th Street's golden boy. Didn't need contacts."
They stared at each other in the gun shop's radioactive-green neon glow. The mercenary paradox:
No jobs without rep.
No rep without jobs.
Somewhere nearby, glass shattered and someone screamed.
Oliver's optics flickered across the alley where a Tyger Claw kicked a malfunctioning vending machine, its holographic ads glitching between noodle specials and a static-scarred warning: [OUT OF SERVICE - PLEASE MURDER RESPONSIBLY]. "So… how the fuck does anyone get started in this?"
Carl racked his Lexington's slide, the chambered round glinting under flickering streetlights. "That's what I'm trying to figure out."
Above them, a holographic billboard fizzed to life—a grinning corpo avatar hawking afterlife insurance. [DIE WITH DIGNITY! 50% OFF FOR MILITARY VETERANS!]
The two stood there, silhouetted against the neon hemorrhage of Night City, their breath syncing with the distant thump-thump of a scavenger's power saw carving up some poor gonk's chrome.
Somewhere, a legend was being born.
Tonight, it wasn't them.