Evening.
The fading, mottled glow of dusk spread across Santo Domingo.
Inside the apartment at Megabuilding H4, the neon lights in the living room ceiling cast a dim blue glow.
Kai sat back on the main sofa in an extremely relaxed posture, his suit jacket draped loosely over his shoulders. On the glass coffee table in front of him sat a half-finished glass of reddish-brown whiskey.
Gloria's tied red ponytail looked even darker beneath the blue light. Even after a few drinks, she still seemed stiff and uneasy. Compared to Kai's easy posture, it almost felt like she was the guest in her own home.
There was no style or taste to the way the apartment was arranged, and it was even a little messy. If she had the choice, she would rather have invited Kai to an upscale restaurant. Even if it cost her more, at least she would not have to let an outsider see how cramped and worn-down her home really was.
She had done plenty of filthy, exhausting work out on the streets, but blending into a crowd of people all struggling to survive had never made her feel uncomfortable.
Today was different.
Having a guest in her home felt like being dragged onto a stage under a spotlight, making it impossible to stay at ease.
In the end, Gloria could not hold out any longer.
Kai sat on the sofa without saying anything about the implant, without mentioning the medical bills or compensation. From beginning to end, he had only made a few simple remarks about David's condition.
It left her feeling as if she were sitting on needles.
So she forced a smile and asked,
"Mr. Kai, I'm sorry, the apartment really is a little shabby..."
"Are you waiting for someone?"
Kai did not answer directly.
Instead, he started talking about his own past.
"I used to live in an apartment like this too."
"Back then, I had absolutely nothing. But I got lucky and met a good choom. A real friend."
"Later, something happened to him, and we were apart for a very, very long time. Long enough that I was almost starting to forget what he looked like."
"Luckily, he came back."
"Sometimes I really want to change certain things. But this city has a way of making that impossible."
"And now you have a chance to change something too."
Hearing him speak like that, Gloria assumed he was talking about being reunited with a close friend after many years, and she felt a little moved.
But she did not understand what kind of chance he meant, or what exactly he wanted her to change.
So she said,
"You saved David and me. That alone already changed a lot."
"At this point, no matter what you ask of me, I really don't have room to refuse."
There was helplessness in her expression.
Poverty did not allow even a single mistake in her life.
One mistake was enough to destroy what was already a fragile family.
She stood up on her own and went to the room where she had hidden the stolen military-grade Sandevistan.
Then she returned and held it out in front of Kai.
"Honestly, in this whole apartment, this is the only thing left that has any value."
After saying that, she took out a thick stack of paper currency from her clothes and placed it on top of the bag containing the implant.
Kai judged the thickness of the cash with a glance. It looked like around twenty thousand eddies.
He did not reach out for it.
Instead, he said in a low voice,
"Put the money away. I didn't come here to collect your treatment costs."
"At the end of the day, your car crash happened because of me."
At that moment, there was a sudden noise from the bedroom.
David appeared in the doorway, weakly holding onto the frame as he looked at his mother and the stranger in the living room.
The moment Gloria saw him awake, she immediately hid the implant behind her back and said in slight panic,
"David, you're awake. Are you feeling better?"
David nodded, but his eyes remained fixed on Kai, full of doubt and caution.
Gloria caught the confusion in her son's expression and quickly explained,
"This is Mr. Kai. He's the one who arranged for us to stay at the Trauma Team medical center."
Only then did David's expression ease a little.
Kai's figure slowly overlapped with the silhouette in David's memory from the crash.
The man he had seen in the final moments before blacking out had been the same person now sitting on the sofa.
David quietly said, "Thank you."
Then, as if that was not enough, he added,
"I'll pay you back someday."
He was too used to hardship and not used to accepting help, especially from someone from Arasaka.
In his eyes, Arasaka people were all arrogant and looked down on everyone else.
This time, though, Kai had saved both him and his mother.
No matter what, they had to repay that debt.
But right now they were so poor he could barely even afford to run the washing machine.
There was no way they could pay back a sum like this.
And for some reason, his left side kept aching badly, like the same pain he had felt in that dream when his kidney had been cut out.
If he had not woken up and found no surgical scar at all, he might have really believed he had undergone kidney surgery.
The pain and exhaustion from that dream felt so heavy, so real, that he still could not shake it.
Gloria saw that David's attitude was still not exactly respectful.
She knew his stubborn resistance to Arasaka was still strong.
At first, she wanted to make him apologize properly.
But when she saw how weak he still looked, she gave up on the idea.
So she could only look back at Kai and say sincerely on David's behalf,
"I'm sorry. Please forgive him. David just woke up from a coma."
"But we truly are grateful for your kindness, Mr. Kai."
Just as Gloria was apologizing, suddenly...
The apartment door exploded inward from outside.
All three of them turned toward the entrance at once.
The first to walk in was a broad, powerfully built Black man with a golden pompadour and long narrow shades, his expression anything but friendly.
Beside him came a heavily built woman in a cutout jacket.
Trailing behind them was a thin, gangly guy with sunglasses and a thick beard.
Only after those three had entered did a tall woman in a deep red bodysuit and mask step in with slow, composed strides.
Gloria blurted out,
"Maine?!"
The big man at the front saw the implant package Gloria had hidden in her hand, along with the wrapped stack of cash that seemed like it was about to be handed to the "rich young master" sitting beside her.
In a cold, unfriendly voice, he asked,
"You vanish and stop answering calls, and now you're handing the implant I bought over to him?"
"Working this line of business, you should know what happens when people don't keep their word."
At that moment, the tall woman in the red outfit touched her temple with one hand and said calmly while staring at Kai,
"He doesn't have any cyberware. I can't read anything off him."
Maine said nothing.
He only kept staring coldly at Gloria and the others.
If they did not hand over the Sandevistan today, then violence was almost certainly unavoidable.
Gloria hurriedly stepped in front of Kai and explained in a rush,
"It's not what you think! Mr. Kai has nothing to do with this!"
"The reason I didn't deliver it is because David and I were in a car crash yesterday!"
Maine remained expressionless.
"Then if you're awake now, why didn't you answer your calls? Why didn't you come find me?"
"I already paid you in advance."
Back then, because he trusted Gloria, he had transferred thirty thousand eddies into her account before the deal was even completed.
Then on the very day she was supposed to deliver, she disappeared.
To him, that felt like betrayal.
Faced with Maine's questioning, Gloria was trapped.
She did not know how to explain any of this.
It was not that she did not want to hand the implant over to Maine.
It was that Kai had never agreed to it.
But she also could not return the thirty thousand eddies to Maine, because she truly needed that money right now.
And with David standing right there watching everything, she had no idea how to explain any of it.
If David found out she had stolen the implant, he would only feel even more humiliated in front of his classmates.
"This is all my fault..."
Just as Gloria was about to shoulder everything herself and beg for things not to get worse, a voice came from behind her.
"Gloria, this has nothing to do with you."
"Maine, I'm the one who wants to talk business with you."
(End of Chapter)
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