On The Edge Of Legality (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)

Night City

Night City.
A city of opportunity some say.
And they were right.
Though not in the fucken way you may think.

This city is a breeding ground for crime and debauchery, the only way you make it big here is to be the child of a corporate family or make a successful name for yourself offing people one by one and jacking their rides. Of course there are some who try to live a normal life here like opening up a small shop or going to school, but those who end up that way can never leave this damned city as their souls become eternally bound.

Personally, I was the latter. I went to school per my mother's request as she worked her life away on the moon. Away from me, away from this fucking city, Her life couldn't have been easier so I had thought.

Turns out she owed a lot of debt to a crime boss known as Jantex back down here and her way of payin was smuggling down valuable tech being developed up there. That was her job, a researcher and technician. Well soon her employers finally caught her and subsequently killed her.

Nobody fucking told me about that, and she never told me about her 'activities'. The only way I found out she was dead was after the eddies stopped getting transferred, our apartment was seized and I found myself with a blunt object to the back of my head and soon coming to in the backrooms of a damn bar.

That's where I met Jantex. He was a large guy in a muscular way, with a thick black pompadour covering his head, and some heavy-duty cybernetic arms. Perhaps not the size of a tree trunk, but large nonetheless along with a thick navy blue vest to finish off his style. He always wore heavily shaded sunglasses hardly taking them off once since I first met him and his goonies.

He was the one to break all the news to me, My mothers status, the debt, all of that. Surprisingly he had a heart buried in there, it was obvious he and those he lead pitied me, he even took me under his wing and gave me a place to stay. However, biz never left his sights uncompleted and so it was I who was forced to finish off my mother's fucking debt. He sent me to work straight away snatching cars and stealing data from other fixers, where soon I would come to eventually take someone's life. I knew it would happen eventually which is why at that moment I didn't feel much of anything as I stared at the fixer's corpse with the gun lowered at my side.

Jantex even paid me a fair share to do these jobs. But despite all his help and kindness I never felt any loyalty towards him, he knew this too which allowed us to come to a mutual neutrality between each other, I do his jobs and pay off this fucking debt and in turn, he pays me and gives me a place to stay before we inevitably part ways on mutual terms.

Despite all this, I never hated my mother, I never felt any anger toward her at all. She originally took that loan to get into a good school to make good money, and she did it all while raising me. Unfortunately, her past dealings had to catch up to her one way or another.

By now I was already three months into this whole ordeal with three months of carjacking and fixer robbing to go before this debt is finally paid. Since my enrollment into the Edgerunning side of Night City I had purchased multiple upgrades to enhance my own self while trying to keep as much of my humanoid look as possible. Many in Night City want to forget their roots, I however keep as much of that as close to me as possible. Some stronger limbs, synthetic lungs and some tricked-up optics as well as a couple upgrades to the frontal cortex. Despite what a large sum it sounds like there's plenty more organic matter that's still there if I ever wish to upgrade my chrome further. Only a few Cyberware veins lined their way through my skin but to me It was better than turning myself into one of those full-fledged fucking robots. Besides, I was only nineteen, I'm still young and fit. The only thing that could slow me down was a bullet through the chest.