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"Dorio…"
A groggy rumble echoed through the clinic as Maine hauled himself off the floor. Propping himself up on his hands, Maine's eyes—dulled by the heavy sedative—instantly sharpened as they locked onto his new limb. His pupils contracted, dialed, and whirred, a digital startup sequence for his soul.
Excitement surged through him, his mechanical valves opening wide as a rush of adrenaline flushed the last of the anesthetic from his system.
Click—
Maine flexed the new arm, testing the tension of the actuators via his neural link. He stared at the brand-new, matte-gray hand cannon with a look of pure, unadulterated joy. "Fuck, this is what you call a hand cannon!"
"I'm glad you like it, but please keep the hardware stowed," Viktor's voice drifted over from the monitors. "It's a workshop, not a firing range."
Maine retracted the weapon and stood up, his boots heavy on the concrete. He walked over to Jax, who was still deep in conversation with the boisterous stranger.
"Jax, didn't you get any chrome?" Maine asked, frowning. Jax's clothes were clean, and he looked exactly the same as he had two hours ago.
"I did. Picked up a low-profile anti-surveillance suite," Jax replied.
"A scrambler? That's it?" Maine's brow furrowed. To him, cyberware was the only metric of power. He wanted Jax to be a god of steel, not a man with a fancy privacy filter.
"Mano, you think that's 'just' a piece of junk?" Jackie Welles chimed in, leaning back with a grin. Maine's head snapped toward the newcomer.
Maine liked this guy immediately. Jackie had a presence like a cold beer on a desert highway—bold, refreshing, and completely devoid of the usual Night City edge. He was a far cry from the awkward, cold kid Jax had been when they first met.
"How much do you think a military-grade scrambler goes for?" Jackie asked Maine, holding out his hands for emphasis. "Forget the gangs; even if a corpo satellite tries to peep your face, all it's gonna see is a handful of pixels. One hundred and sixty thousand eddies! That thing is a masterpiece!"
"One hundred and sixty thousand?" Maine's cheek twitched. His optical slots hummed with a confused vibration. "Jax, you spent a fortune just to put a mosaic over your face?"
Jax shrugged. To him, the ability to walk past an Arasaka security camera without ending up on a hit list was worth every cent. In a city that never stops watching, being invisible was the ultimate power.
Before Maine could lecture him on the virtues of reinforced tendons, a weak, mechanical groan interrupted them.
"I… what the hell…"
Kiwi was stirring. She sat up in the surgical chair, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. Her signature red mask was gone, currently being cleaned by Misty, revealing the intricate, sunken cybernetic jawline beneath.
"Kiwi, you're with us?" Maine asked.
"Maine… Jax?" She rubbed her temple, her optics flickering. "I remember… someone got the drop on me. Uploaded a virus. Then a shot to the head. I'm actually alive?"
"Jax caught the bullet with his shoulder," Maine grinned, gesturing to the "natural" standing nearby.
Kiwi looked at Jax, her gaze complex and unreadable. She looked at the fresh bandage on his shoulder, then away. "I'm fine," she muttered. "Just… empty."
"Threw up your oil and your coolant, sis. You were a mess," Jax noted.
Kiwi took a slow, deep breath. She looked at Jax and asked the one question she couldn't wrap her head around: "Why? Why didn't you just leave me in the garage?"
"What kind of stupid question is that?" Maine roared before Jax could answer. "I told you, the moment you helped us kick those 6th Street bastards, you became family. You don't leave family behind."
Kiwi fell silent, lowering her head. The word "family" seemed to bounce off her internal firewalls, looking for a way in.
Slowly, the rest of the crew began to wake. Sasha rolled across the floor like a pink-clothed maggot before jumping to her feet; Rebecca sat up, tapping her head to calibrate her new Kiroshi; and Dorio and Pilar stretched their new limbs.
Viktor sat back at his table, returning to the boxing match as if he hadn't just performed six miracles.
"How are the patients?" he asked.
"Slept like a baby," Pilar cheered, admiring his new crimson Gorilla Arms.
Jax walked over to Sasha. She looked up at him, her cat-like smile returning, though it was a bit softer than usual. "How you feeling, Kitty?"
"Better than ever," she said, poking the side of her head. "The doc installed an anti-overload shunt. Tell me… did I do anything embarrassing while I was loopy?"
"If you count crying because I wouldn't buy you a soda as embarrassing…"
Sasha's hand was over his mouth before he could finish. Her eyes narrowed into a playful, dangerous glare. "Shut up."
Jax laughed, and Sasha started mock-wrestling him, rubbing her head against his shoulder. Jax instinctively caught her, pulling her into a protective hold to keep her from tripping over the med-cables. The "little cat" froze, suddenly docile, her big eyes blinking rapidly.
"Damn it, Jax! My turn!" Pilar yelled, rushing forward.
But Jax didn't hear him. His eyes flared yellow. An encrypted call was coming through—a name he recognized from the city's highest echelon.
"Hello, Rogue."
The room went dead silent. Pilar stopped mid-stride. Jackie's jaw dropped so far it practically hit the floor. Maine and Dorio exchanged a look of pure shock.
Rogue? The Queen of the Afterlife was calling the kid?
In Jax's head, her voice was like dry ice.
"Afterlife. We need to talk. All of you."
"Now?" Jax asked.
"Immediately, kid."
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