Retirement

Night City had no shortage of tall tales. Rumors, legends, urban myths about demons, spirits, gods, aliens, and more. Corpos liked to laugh at the silly superstitious plebs and the things they believed, but some of the Arasaka suits still thought the ghost of Johnny Silverhand was haunting Arasaka tower, or they were so sheltered and out of touch that they thought even Scavs were just a story to scare children with.

There had also always been stories of the corps bioengineering psychic powers into people. V had never heard a single substantiated account, but the rumors persisted. Now she was going to get a first-hand account right from the source and could hardly contain her excitement. The bullet hole in her leg didn’t even bother her, that’s how eager she was.

As the only uninjured person, Taylor drove them to Viktor’s, calling Regina on the way to report that the gig had gone tits up. The fixer was displeased, but she had also tried to discourage the client from coming along and could hardly blame them for it when he died because of the exact reason he had been warned not to come. A borged up cyberpsycho in a box was a particularly nasty surprise, but sadly not out of character for Maelstrom.

The ripperdoc ushered them in with the gruff concern that she always found so very amusing. He patched up Jackie’s broken arm first and then the hole in her leg. Modern medicine meant that they would both be back to 100% in a matter of days.

To V’s surprise, when she subtly suggested that they go somewhere private for their talk, Taylor shook her head.

“Viktor should hear this, too.” The teenager said, looking at the ripperdoc. “I’m sure you have questions about how I ended up on your chair.”

“Of course I do, but you don’t have to tell me anything.” He gave her a way out.

But she shook her head again. “I want to, because I think I can trust you.”

“Damn right you can, kid.” Viktor assured, reaching out to pat her hand. “Whatever you tell me, it stays with me.”

Taylor swallowed, looking nervous for a moment before firming up with a nod. “Then you should know what V and Jackie already do. Can one of you tell him about the gig?”

Jackie immediately launched into the story. He always did like telling them, but this time he was rushing a bit to get to the good part.

“…things got dicey. My arm was fucked up, but Taylor was handling the cyberpsycho like a ninja, dodging everything like it was nothing. The cyberpsycho decided he didn’t want any part of her, so he turns to V. With her leg, she would have been dead meat.”

“For sure.” V agreed. Going up against a full borg, even one that was a random mishmash of parts, with a bum leg would have been suicide. Even if she was in peak condition, she wasn’t sure if she could have kept evading him the way Taylor did.

“But then suddenly, bugs start pouring out of everywhere.” Jackie shuddered dramatically. “So many fucking bugs, you couldn’t even see the walls or the floor through ‘em.”

“Bugs?” Viktor echoed, bewildered.

“Bugs!” Jackie nodded enthusiastically. “The cyberpsycho started going crazy…er, crazier. You know how Maelstrom is with the occult, so he starts ranting about demons and demanding to know its name. And the bugs fucking answer; ‘my name is Legion, for we are many!’ Scariest shit I’ve ever seen.”

They all turned towards Taylor with questioning eyes and she gave them a sheepish smile. “A couple of my old teammates used to complain about what a missed opportunity it was that I didn’t call myself Legion or Beelzebub and use bug speech to convince old people that I was a demon. The cyberpsycho reminded me of them.”

“I’m still stuck on you controlling bugs.” Viktor admitted.

Obligingly, Taylor held out her hand and a parade of spiders marched along it in perfect unison. Then they stopped and lifted up their front legs to fucking wave. It was surreal.

“See? I really do control bugs and share their senses.” The teenager offered. “Well, not just bugs. All arthropods.”

“That’s…” The ripperdoc paused, sounding faint. V could relate. “Taylor, that’s something like 99.9% of the surviving animal kingdom, despite efforts to use cloning to repopulate.”

“Really?” She looked momentarily surprised. “Huh, the corporations really fucked the planet over.”

“What’s your range?” V asked a more practical question, plans already swirling in her brain. “And how many can you control at once?”

“The range varies depending on my emotional state.” Taylor admitted. “It’s always at least a three hundred meter radius, but I’ve had it go as far as six hundred. And there’s no upper limit to how many bugs I can control.”

V felt both her throat go dry and her core clench as she processed that answer. Even lowballing it, three hundred meters in all directions was a lot of space. There had to be tens, maybe hundreds of billions of bugs in that kind of area. Trillions? It was hard to say, because for understandable reasons, the people living in Night City would rather not acknowledge what they were surrounded by.

Despite all of her theories and suspicions, V realized that she had ultimately still been expecting to get a disappointing mundane explanation. To hear that Taylor was just a really good con artist or something. Actually getting confirmation that there were super powers in play left her reeling.

“How many are you controlling right now?” She had to ask.

Taylor gave her a humorless smile. “About six hundred billion above ground. More under it. Night City is really disgusting.”

Vik made a choking noise that was something between a disgusted scoff and a laugh. “Can you please get them out of my clinic?”

Taylor said nothing, but the shadows writhed and a swarm of legs and chitin streamed out of sight. All three of them shuddered, but V figured she was the only one that did it out of arousal. Yeah, the bugs were gross, but the power? The power was sexy.

“But how does that translate into using the bugs to talk?”Jackie asked, somewhat desperately.

“I vibrate their wings and make them chitter in a pattern that sounds like English.”

“But… you’d have to control each of them individually to do that.” Vik’s voice was rife with disbelief.

“Yes, I control every single bug individually.”

V had the pleasure of seeing the usually unflappable ripperdoc looking completely gobsmacked. “The processing power that would take... wait! That strange tumor in your brain that Contessa told me to cybernetically link to your prefrontal cortex. That’s where this power comes from isn’t it?”

Tumor? Ah, Vik must have kept that to himself due to doctor-patient privilege. He had to be one of the only doctors in the city that actually took that seriously.

And the scanner at the biosculpt clinic wasn’t that precise. It didn’t need to be, since the clinic didn’t do anything with brains.

“It’s not a tumor, not really. Those growths are the corona pollentia and corona gemma. They’re what allow for the use of parahuman powers.”

“Parahuman?” Jackie echoed this time. “So was V right? Did some corp fuck around with bioengineering superpowers?”

“It has nothing to do with the corporations.” Taylor grimaced a bit. “This is where it gets complicated. Are you all familiar with the theory of parallel worlds?”

It was a concept that appeared in movies with some regularity so they all were, allowing Taylor to start explaining things. A different Earth, behind both technologically and chronologically, the appearance of Scion, the emergence of parahuman powers, how her world had turned into something like a comic book, the ugly truth behind it all, the reason she’d been shot in the head, Contessa’s last words to her in the letter.

Taylor was connected to a piece of an alien god, which was using some kind of dimensional fuckery to extrude a piece of itself into her brain, while the rest of its continent-sized body sat on an empty Earth in a parallel dimension.

It sounded insane, but V had no choice but to believe it. If Taylor wanted to lie, she would have picked something less outrageous. And past her own skill at spotting liars, she knew that if the corporations had figured out how to grant powers like this, the world would have already gone up in flames as they all fought for control over the parahumans.

And some of the powers Taylor had described… corpo big shots would have quickly found themselves booted out of positions of power as the parahumans took over. The megacorps would have finally overreached and paid for it.

But once V got past all this mind-blowing information, only a few things were truly pertinent.

Firstly, they all owed Taylor their lives, because their Earth would have died at Scion’s hands just as Earth Bet did and there was fuck all they could have done to stop it. Against something that casually shattered the British Isles with its opening move, everything the megacorps could muster was just dust in the wind.

A nice bit of perspective, actually, to know that Saburo Arasaka would have been crushed just as easily as the lowest street urchin. The old bastard would have hated knowing that, she was sure.

Secondly, Taylor was way more valuable than she’d initially thought and V had never been happier for putting in the effort to cozy up to someone. With an ally, a partner, like her, her dreams were a lot closer to reality than she’d thought.

Jackie had dreams of being a legend, of having people remember him, of being rich, of having a drink named after him in the Afterlife. He’d wised up a bit since hooking up with Misty, but he was still far too eager to rush to an early grave in pursuit of glory.

V didn’t want to be the next Weyland Boa-Boa, Johnny Silverhand, or that David Martinez kid from last year. Edgerunners who made a big splash with their deaths, but who were ultimately still dead.

She’d rather be like Rogue Amendiares, who got out of the mercenary game at the peak of her career and went on to become the best fixer in Night City, a living legend.

V wanted to be rich, powerful and alive so that she could enjoy it. Unlike Jackie, whose planning ability was more enthusiasm than details, being a successful mercenary was only step one for her. And she had no intention of letting her friend die a legend either. If all else failed, she would talk to Misty about ‘accidentally’ turning off her birth control. She knew what Jackie was like and the prospect of fatherhood would instantly kill any thoughts of going out in a blaze of glory.

Meanwhile, V was going to honey pot the fuck out of Taylor.

This thing between them had started as a means of using the younger woman’s repressed attraction to her own gender to make her more inclined to accept V’s help and guidance. She had expected to eventually extend the unspoken mentorship into the bedroom, helping the younger woman become as socially confident as she was in a fight. Then, if her secret was valuable enough, to fully seduce the younger girl.

But now that she knew the full extent of Taylor’s value? V was going all in. She was going to commit like an 18^th century wife to make absolutely sure that nobody could divide the bug master’s loyalties.

Love? V had been born and raised a corpo. If you cared about that kind of thing, then love was fluff that you looked for after you secured value. Usually that meant with quiet affairs on the side, but that wouldn’t appeal to Taylor. The teenager was functionally a time traveler with a very different set of cultural sensibilities. She had obviously left a lot out of her story, which V would slowly tease out of her over time, but there had been enough mentions of betrayal and broken trust to know that she valued loyalty a great deal. Anyone who wanted to gain her affection would need to be someone she could put her complete faith in.

And by the God she didn’t believe in, V was going to be that someone. Taylor’s value was such that she could demand anything and still not be unreasonable. V’s corpo-raised sensibilities were screaming at her to throw everything on the table now, when she was still the only player in the game, and hope it would be enough. If that meant adjusting her sexual habits and lifestyle to fit Taylor, then so be it. That Taylor hadn’t made any demands was irrelevant and in fact only further spurred V on. You always looked better making offers than caving in to demands, after all. It would be easier than continuing to act like an absolute cunt at her Arasaka counter-intel job after she received a reality check the first time.

And beyond the cold pragmatism of securing an asset of monumental value was another thing. Taylor had literally saved all of humanity across countless dimensions at terrible cost to herself. That largely had nothing to do with V, but a personal debt was still owed for her own life and those of her friends. Putting in maximum effort to make sure that Taylor was not only loyal to them, but also happy, sounded like the perfect way to both achieve her ambitions and satisfy that debt.

For a moment she wondered if this was all part of Contessa’s plan to reward Taylor as her letter claimed she wanted to, then she forcibly stopped herself from thinking about it. That woman’s power was the most horrifying of all and could drive you into an endless paranoid spiral, wondering if you were playing right into her hands.

Because the answer would always be yes. With the power to achieve any goal she set for herself, everyone was always playing into her hands.

“Hey, Vik.” Taylor spoke up once the talk about her origins, powers, and Earth Bet tapered off. “Now that you know about my powers, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“Fire away.” Viktor invited curiously.

“I skipped over it before, but that biokinetic I mentioned once made me some relay bugs that extended my range. Do you think it would be possible to bioengineer the same kind of relay bugs? Or maybe give some roaches a cybernetic implant to turn them into relays?”

V barely heard Viktor’s doubtful reply about not being a bioengineer or neurospecialist, especially for bugs, too busy swallowing down a horny whimper.

Relay bugs that could extend her range. Enough to cover the whole of Night City? More? With that kind of coverage and the ability to spy on practically every square inch of it at will, V could become more than just the next Rogue Amendiares. They could fucking own the city in ways not even the corps could dream of. The gang bosses and politicians would have to bow their heads and even corporate executives would have to step lightly.

I think I just came a little.

XXXXX

A couple of weeks later.

Jackie was not an idiot. He knew what he was good at and what he wasn’t. After the super powers reveal, the niggling fear of not pulling his weight in comparison to his chooms became stronger than ever. V, at least, could do stuff besides shoot guns. Even if he knew that they wouldn’t ditch him, Jackie couldn’t call himself a man if he wasn’t doing his share.

“Hey, V. You think we should chrome up a bit more?” He tried to be as casual as possible as he put forward the question during lunch after one of their gigs. “With Taylor being so preem, sometimes I feel like I’m not pulling my own weight, you know?”

“You do plenty.” Taylor immediately said, frowning. “Please don’t feel like you have to borg up because of me.”

“Jackie’s got a bit of a point, though.” V said with a frown of her own. “There’s a limit to how far plain meat and bone will take him. You’ve got your powers and I’ve got my augments.”

Which was a shame, really. Jackie had always admired Morgan Blackhand, who made up for a lack of chrome with skill, smarts, and grit. He’d tried to emulate the man, but a lot of that had been because he simply hadn’t been raking in enough scratch to buy much in the way of chrome. Now that he had it, though…

“I’d rather less effective and more reliable teammates than psychotic powerhouses.” Taylor weighed in again, frown deepening. “It’s not like we’re desperate for success.”

V shook her head in response. “I’m not saying we should go crazy and borg up all the way, but there’s other options. Some bioware mods are almost as good as cyberware and don’t carry anywhere near as much risk of cyberpsychosis. We’d have to go to Europe and fork over tens of millions of eddies to get the really top shelf stuff, but Night City still has plenty to offer. I’ve got no interest in becoming a metal and plastic tank either, but we’re living a dangerous lifestyle here.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “How about we head over to Vik’s and talk about it with him? I’m going there right now to get my optics replaced and a better cyberdeck installed.”

“No can do.” Jackie shook his head. “Got a date with Misty planned.”

“Alright, fair enough. Just think about it, okay?” V requested. “I don’t want to be the one telling her that you died on a gig.”

That was a low blow and Jackie huffed. It had been a while since V went for a cheap shot like that. “Sure, I’ll do that.”

XXXXX

Taylor had gradually gotten used to the idea of cybernetics, but it was still weird watching Viktor swap out V’s eyes and cyberdeck.

Once it was done, V gave a few experimental blinks and looked around the dim clinic with a growing grin.

“Damn am I glad to have some proper eyes again.” She said with a happy sigh.

“Felt like you were walking around half-blind, huh?” Viktor grinned back.

“You said it.”

“Is the difference really that big?” Taylor asked dubiously. Yeah, she’d experienced for herself what a difference improved eyesight could make, but it was hard to imagine how much better cybernetic eyes were.

“Fraid so, kid.” Viktor chuckled. “Top of the line cyberoptics have a resolution that ‘ganic eyes just can’t match. And that’s not even counting all the other goodies packed into them. Those sunglasses I got for you are just a cheap knock-off in comparison.”

“I think I’ll stick with my low resolution ‘ganic eyes, thanks.” She shook her head, not enthused about the idea of such an invasive procedure.

“Those pretty brown eyes of yours are part of your charm anyway.” V smirked, making embarrassed heat rise into her cheeks. The older woman kept teasing her like this. “But how about something else, then? I know you’re a badass, but I’d feel a lot better if you had some defensive ‘ware.”

She was still on this? Had something like this been asked when she was new to Night City, she would have refused out of hand. Now? Now, she was willing to consider it.

Since the reveal of her powers, things had… not really changed. Taylor had thought they would, but Vik, Jackie, and V were still the same people and they still treated her the same. They were always eager to hear stories from Earth Bet, but she was still their friend more than she was a cape.

It really struck her how much separation there had been between parahumans and normals on Earth Bet.

“What did you have in mind?” She asked warily.

“How about some muscle and bone lace?” V offered. “No surgeries or anything like that, just a quick nanite injection and you’ll have enhanced strength and durability after a few weeks.”

That did sound good, but she still turned to Viktor for an explanation. While she had looked up cybernetics to a good extent, muscle and bone lace were things that she hadn’t come across.

“It’s a type of bioware, so I don’t normally stock it, but I can buy a batch for you.” Vik offered. “After they’re injected, the nanites will thread microscopic artificial fibers through your muscle and bone tissue to reinforce it. You’ll get an increase to your strength and resilience. Not as much as surgical bone reinforcement and synthetic muscle, never mind the higher end bioware or actual cybernetics, but plenty enough to be noticeable. I wouldn’t recommend it if you think you’ll still squeeze out another inch or two of height, but other than that it’s perfectly safe.”

Brute 1 or 2. Taylor translated in her head. She had always wanted a Brute rating, so this was more than a little tempting.

She had already realized why some people went overboard with the cybernetics. By now, she could definitely have afforded getting a cloned arm to replace the mantis blade, but she really didn’t want to. There was a sense of strength and security in the powerful cybernetic limb and its hidden blade.

“I’m thinking of getting a ballistic skin weave myself.” V admitted. “Subdermal armor would be more effective, but it makes the skin look a bit off and I don’t want to ruin my aesthetic.”

That sounded good, too. While Taylor was sure that her enhanced spider silk bodysuit would be even better, defenses were cumulative. Having mildly bulletproof skin could save her life. She’d already felt a bit envious of V’s synthetic arteries and their ability to seal up to prevent bleeding. Ironically given her experience with Bonesaw, bioware was a lot more palatable than full cybernetics and it had a much lower risk of causing cyberpsychosis.

”…Alright.” She decided to trust V and take the plunge. “I’ll take the muscle and bone lace… and the skin weave.”

V smiled at her brightly. “That’s my girl.”

Viktor chuckled, apparently finding her caving in to the urge to ‘chrome up’ funny, even as she fought down the sense of embarrassment at the older woman’s approval. V had been acting like some kind of big sister since the start, but she’d really ramped it up since the powers reveal, probably to reassure her that they were still cool. Taylor was having trouble dealing with that much friendliness.

“It’s not that big of a deal.” She tried. “I know I’ve been a bit paranoid about adding more cyberware, but I can see the advantages.”

“And I completely get it, a lot of people go overboard.” V assured, giving her a casual hip bump. “When I was your age, I was tempted to add some exotic bioware, stuff like scales and fangs.”

Taylor was surprised by the admittance. “Really?”

“I always thought snakes were preem.” V shrugged with a small grin. “Would have killed my career prospects, though. Exotics went out of style decades ago.”

“The Animals also hate them if they aren’t part of the gang.” Vik weighed in, shaking his head. “If they run across any, they’ll beat the shit out of them for fun.”

Just another quirk of Night City. Taylor was about to ask what the boostergang’s problem was, but was cut off by her phone ringing. Quickly checking the caller, she saw that it was Padre.

“Padre, what can I do for you?” She answered it quickly, assuming that he had a gig for her.

“Nothing, this time. I am merely calling to inform you that the work on your new home is finished.”

A rare smile graced her face at the news. The old fixer had been true to his word and arranged for a huge discount to her very expensive list of requests. And with the work they’d done since then, her finances were quite healthy, healthy enough to buy some furniture and finally move out of Misty’s place. “So I can start moving in?”

“You can, as soon as you come pick up the keyshard and key for the doors.”

The front door of her home was by far the most expensive single item of it, as long as you didn’t count the reinforced, armored walls. It was a thick, titanium alloy with both electronic and mechanical locks, and a keypad on top of it, so that no single method could force it open. She had plans to add a medieval door bar as well.

Probably excessive, but if she ever needed to buy time to escape through the secret sewer escape tunnel, every second would count. It made her feel better.

“I’ll come get it today. Thanks again for doing this for me, Padre.”

“Think nothing of it, Taylor. It is always good to have another person join our community here in Heywood. Look after your neighbors and they will look after you.” After delivering that final bit of vaguely threatening advice, Padre hung up.

Taylor was pretty sure she’d just been told that the Valentinos would consider her a friend as long as she acted like it, which was good. Fortunately, she wasn’t being pushed to actually join the gang, which would have been much less good. Padre wasn’t technically part of the Valentinos anymore either, although he still had a lot of sway, and V had told her that he no doubt actually preferred to work with independent mercenaries.

Something that had been corroborated by a couple of gigs Padre had sent them on that were against the Valentinos. Taylor knew well enough that gangs were fractious entities. The Empire 88 and ABB had both splintered into multiple smaller gangs once their leaders were taken out, and those gangs were tiny compared to Night City’s main gangs.

Padre sometimes needed to do some ‘pruning’ to keep the really bad apples from dragging the rest of the gang into a mess, and he couldn’t always use other gang members for it. Taylor had no problem being sent against trigger happy hotheads looking to start a war, or especially violent cells engaging reckless murder, rape, human trafficking, and that kind of stuff. She had even occasionally sold info on such bad apples to Padre and then gotten paid to take care of it. V had been impressed by the hustle.

“Did I hear that right? Your place is ready?” V asked rhetorically, grinning widely. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“No?” She ventured uncertainly

“First, a shopping trip, and then a moving in party!”

XXXXX

Taylor didn’t seem to see a difference between ‘home’ and ‘defensive position’. V had even heard her slip up once and call it a lair.

With modern building techniques, it wasn’t actually all that hard to change the internal layout of a building by putting up new walls and tearing down old ones. Taylor took full advantage of this to turn the former Scav den into miniature fortress.

The entire ground floor was turned into a foyer of sorts. There was nothing really there except a room that was meant to hold the washing and drying machines, but that was deceptive. Within that same room was a hidden door that looked like a wall and which led to a small room that had nothing in it except the entrance to the basement levels.

On the near opposite end of the ground floor was a spiral staircase leading up that had a purely mechanical hatch that could be locked in place. It was no coincidence that such a staircase would be a horrible bottleneck for anyone attacking the place, turning them into fish in a barrel for anyone shooting down.

Other than that, the ground floor was just a wide open space that could be used for any number of things. It also offered invaders no cover. Taylor had even gone so far as to install camouflaged sliding openings that could be opened up on the floor above so that she could stick her gun through, or drop grenades. With her bugs to cheat with, she wouldn’t even have to see them.

V thought that Taylor would have fit right in with Arasaka counter-intel if this was the kind of paranoia she operated on.

Funnily enough, once it was time to stop designing defenses and killzones, Taylor was suddenly stumped, so she’d come to V for advice. This had been before the powers revelation, so V had simply given suggestions in accordance with her own tastes rather than any ulterior motives.

After the powers were revealed, V was a great deal more invested. After all, if everything went to plan then she would be moving in with Taylor soon enough.

Instead of keeping the first and second floors separate, they had been merged together to allow for the creation of a spacious loft. It was still separated into two levels, with the upstairs holding the bed, shower, and computer and the downstairs holding a small kitchen/dining area, a comfy couch and coffee table, a small room for the toilet, and the armory. The sliding pole Taylor had requested was hidden from view and ran all the way from the top, down into the armory and then further down into the secret room with the basement access.

After learning about Taylor’s powers, V had made some adjustments to her suggestions.

The bed suddenly had to be king size.

The computer suddenly needed specs higher than what Taylor would ever use.

The shower needed to be roomy enough for two people.

The wardrobe needed to be bigger.

The lights needed to have dimming and color options.

The sound system needed to be higher end.

Taylor hadn’t even wanted to bother with a television, but V had convinced her that it was at least useful for keeping up with the news, once you learned how to automatically filter out the bullshit. Maybe they would eventually find something she liked and could cuddle while they watched it.

Taylor’s requests had been expensive, but the majority of it was covered by the treasure trove of cyberware they gave up to Padre. V’s many little additions strained the budget to the breaking point, so she added her own money into the mix despite Taylor’s protests, knowing that she’d be short on what she needed to pay Viktor.

But it didn’t matter. Vik was a saint and would let them pay later without even charging interest on the debt, and with Taylor’s powers, they could always go trawling for another Scav den. It was only when the topic of the basement was brought up that V received another pleasant surprise.

“I’m going to use the basement for my bugs.” Taylor said when V asked what she intended to use it for. “I used to have a bodysuit made of spider silk and I want to remake it. There were theories back on Earth Bet that if spiders could be fed graphene dust, then their silk would naturally be imbued with carbon nanotubes. We didn’t have the technology to really test it on anything more than very small scale, here in Night City I can do it easily.”

“Spider silk.” V repeated. She heard the words after that and idly nodded along, realizing that this could certainly make good armor. Raw carbon was easy enough to get, but it took some fairly specialized machinery to work with carbon nanotubes. It wasn’t impossible to get, nothing was in Night City if you had enough money and connections, but it also wasn’t something that every gonk could find much use for. A silk bodysuit impregnated with carbon nanotubes would make for excellent armor, especially if it was multi-layered and further padded with shock-absorbent gel and proper ballistic plates. But that wasn’t the part that truly interested her. “You can produce spider silk?”

“Yes?” Taylor looked at her with a bemused frown. “I told you I can control all arthropods, including arachnids. The only reason I haven’t been making them churn out silk is because I didn’t have a proper place to hide them.”

V took a deep breath to calm down. “Taylor, do you have any idea how expensive natural silk is? It’s so impractical to farm in comparison to making synth-silk that only top ranking corpos can buy the stuff. If we put a dress worth of it on the black market, it could easily go for a hundred thousand eddies or more.”

“That sounds like it would draw attention.” Taylor pointed out.

“True.” V allowed. “But Night City has an expansive black market and my old job required me to know how to navigate it. I can put the sales behind so many layers of obfuscation that nobody will be able to follow the trail. I’d even make it look like it was coming in from out of town. It would take some time to get the word out and confirm it as legit that way, but it would give us a steady supply of cash.”

Taylor still looked dubious. “I don’t know, it still seems risky.”

V thought about it again. While she was certain that she could make the origin of the silk impossible to trace, Taylor’s style and association with spiders had to be taken into account. Even if there was no proof, some ambitious idiot might just decide to connect the dots anyway.

It was too risky, damn it. If V had known about this, she would have done something different with Taylor’s style. Something that had no connection to spiders at all.

“You’re right.” She sighed, her corpo soul crying out in pain at the loss of easy money. “We can’t let even a whisper of your powers get out.”

A minute amount of tension dissipated from the younger woman’s frame as she nodded. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Of course, your safety is way more important than any mount of money.” V assured. “But can I still get some silk for personal use? Sheets, shirts, robes, underwear, and so on?”

A slight blush colored the younger woman’s cheeks. “Sure, no problem.”

V didn’t mention what she planned to do to Taylor in between those silk sheets. That kind of thing was better demonstrated.

XXXXX

Taylor had endured the petty cruelties of Emma, Sophia and Madison, challenged the brutal vindictiveness of Lung, overcome the insane outbursts of Bakuda, fended off the attempts of the ‘heroes’ to arrest her, maneuvered through the schemes of Coil, battled the outrage of the Empire 88, stood against Endbringers, faced off against the sheer evil of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and sacrificed her humanity so that she could bully Scion into suicide.

She was far too jaded to feel panic at the thought of hosting a party. Indeed, she was only… mildly stressed at the prospect. As it turns out, none of the aforementioned experience had prepared her for the task of playing hostess.

She was honestly a little bit annoyed at V and Jackie for insisting on this party. Why couldn’t she just move in without a fuss?

Right, because Jackie was an extrovert and V was probably trying to teach her some kind of lesson. Taylor wasn’t blind to the fact that the older woman was constantly dragging her into uncomfortable social situations. Lisa had done the same thing, or at least tried before the succession of disasters hitting Brockton Bay made it impossible. It was probably for the best that she hadn’t realized what Lisa was trying to do back then.

Fifteen-year-old her had been angry and resentful. Eighteen-year-old her was just tired enough to concede that she was not good with people. Left to her own devices, she would probably be at war with someone by now. Or everyone.

At least she knew how to cook. She had already been decently adept before she became a cape, and her time in the Wards had given her time to practice when she wasn’t training like a woman possessed. The ingredients of this era left much to be desired compared to Earth Bet in the early 2010s, but they were better than what had been available a few decades ago. Still bioengineered or cloned – or, shudder, made out of ground up worms – but a vast improvement over what people once had to rely on to keep from starving. It was called Kibble and it was still available as an ultra cheap food option.

Taylor had tried it once, just to see how bad it was. She would literally rather eat bugs that let that crap anywhere near her mouth again.

The notion of the global situation improving in any kind of way was probably the biggest culture shock she’d had so far.

A car entering her range interrupted her fretting. Not a rare occurrence by any measure, but this car was carrying V and Mama Welles, as told by the tiny bugs she’d tagged them with. Instead of waiting for them to come to the door and ring the bell, Taylor went down to open it just before they arrived.

“Taylor! How did you know we were here?” Mama Welles greeted and asked, stepping forward to give her a one-armed hug. Her other arm was busy holding a bottle of tequila.

“I saw you through the window.” She lied, returning the hug with only a little hesitation. The first few times, she had stood there, frozen.

“Nervous about hosting your first party?” Mama Welles guessed with a small smirk and pushed forward the bottle of tequila. “Here, I brought you a gift.”

“Thanks.” Taylor figured that the bottle would probably end up sitting on a shelf somewhere, unless V and Jackie insisted on opening it up.

“I have a hug and a present for you, too.” V interjected, sauntering forward.

“I’ve never seen you wear a skirt before.” Taylor noted lamely. V was indeed wearing a skirt. It was, somewhat predictably, short and made of synth-leather. It only came down to about mid-thigh and clung tightly to her ass. Up top she was only wearing an equally tight white tube top and her hair, usually held up in a high ponytail, was now left to flow freely across her shoulders in a waterfall of shiny black.

It was a look of confident femininity that Taylor couldn’t help but envy. She knew that she’d never be able to pull it off.

“You like it?” V asked with a wink, turning around to show off.

“It looks great.” V was the kind of woman that made everything she wore look great.

“And here’s your present. With how old-fashioned you are, I figured you’d like a real book.”

“V, how much did you pay for this?” Taylor protested, but accepted the book nonetheless. She didn’t recognize the title, but it and the cover implied some kind of fantasy fiction. Well, it would make a nice change of pace from the science fiction that her life had turned into, at least.

“Not that much.” V waved off, probably lying. Actual paper books were considered something of a luxury item or show piece these days, and had to be custom ordered. A single book might not be a crippling expense, but a shelf full of hardcovers was often worth more than a car. “I still know some people.”

Taylor decided to drop it. “Alright, thank you both. Come on up and get comfortable. The food is almost ready and Jackie should be here with Misty and Viktor any minute.”

Mama Welles made a face at the mention of Misty. Taylor had no idea why exactly Jackie’s mother disliked his girlfriend so much. Misty once mentioned that she had liked his previous girlfriend better, but not why. Hopefully, it wouldn’t make things awkward.

“You have quite a lot of room down here.” Mama Welles commented as they passed through the foyer, exchanged their shoes for slippers, and went up the spiral staircase. “Were you planning to do anything with this space?”

“Not at the moment.” Taylor shrugged. She didn’t want to give intruders any potential cover and it would be easier to clean the bloodstains from the floor than out of furniture.

“You could always use it to do aerobics or practice yoga.” V suggested. “I had a life coach back when I was a corpo that kept suggesting I take up meditation and yoga as a way of relaxing and ‘rebalancing my spirit’.”

“A life coach?” Taylor repeated incredulously. It was one of the most absurd professions she’d ever heard of, although V probably would have benefited from following that bit of advice.

V just grinned at her reaction. “Sooner or later, everyone that works for a corporation tries to find a way to deal with the stress. Having a Buddhist monk in your contacts isn’t even close to the weirdest, trust me on that.”

Taylor had spied on some corpos with her bugs, both for gigs and out of curiosity, so she knew that to be true. Once you realized that the megacorporations were staffed largely by stressed out psychopaths, the state of the world became very understandable.

“Oh, this is nice.” Mama Welles complimented as she took in the loft.

“V did most of the interior decorating.” Taylor deflected, although she was a bit pleased by the compliment.

“I was happy to help, and we have similar tastes anyway.” V added.

That was not untrue. Taylor didn’t actually have much of an opinion on most of the furnishing, except for a dislike of the loud and garish crap that Night City seemed so fond of. V had obliged with faux dark hardwood flooring, a beige synth-leather couch, a burgundy carpet and matching drapes, sleek appliances, and so on. It was a bit on the pricey side because V seemed to like luxurious furniture, but they didn’t go too far over budget. Honestly, Taylor was just glad that she didn’t have to fumble through the process and the end result looked good.

“I see.” Mama Welles gave an amused little smirk that confused Taylor a bit.

“Something smells good.” V noted, sniffing the air. “What have you been cooking?”

“I figured you can’t go wrong with lasagna.” She replied a bit awkwardly. “I also made muffins. And a potato salad.”

Mostly because she wasn’t sure how much food was enough for six people. Better to have too much than too little.

“I can’t wait to try it.”

“It’s good to see another person appreciate proper food preparation.” Mama Welles added approvingly. “Far too many people these days just eat out of a vending machine.”

Taylor grimaced slightly in disgust. While the vending machine food was edible, the entire concept behind it was one of the more dehumanizing parts about the Night City experience. She’d feel far too much like a rat in a cage if she ate from it regularly. And that wasn’t even touching on the fact that you could also order prostitutes via vending machines in apartment buildings. Night City’s ability to mix sex into everything was impressive in all the wrong ways.

XXXXX

The party had been going great, for the most part. Jackie had arrived with Misty and Vik only a few minutes after them. They had also brought presents; Misty gave Taylor a dreamcatcher that she made herself, Vik had the same idea as V and gifted a book that he’d had stashed somewhere because he figured that Taylor would be able to appreciate it, and Jackie brought another bottle of tequila and some board games. There had been a brief moment of awkwardness as Mama Welles’ dislike for Misty made itself apparent, but V and Jackie had been quick to do damage control. Jackie’s mother had settled for ignoring his girlfriend, not wanting to ruin things for Taylor.

Once they were all there, it was obvious that Taylor had no idea how to move things forward. She didn’t look panicked or fidgety at all. In fact, she was eerily still, which was what told V that she was probably sending her panic into the swarm.

V had expected this, and slipped in a comment about how hungry she was, which was all the cue Taylor needed to suggest they get started on dinner.

The table had enough room for all of them and the lasagna received plenty of compliments. V was absolutely useless in the kitchen, so Taylor’s cooking ability was just another reason why seducing her was a good idea. Before the teenager could start worrying again, she signaled to Jackie to break out the board games.

V made sure to crack open the booze as they started. It was important that Taylor be at least a little tipsy and that V herself be seen drinking. At some point during the games, she also turned on the sound system for some background music.

The night wore on and V accessed the sound system with her neuralware, a bit of permission that she had sneaked in while they were buying stuff for the loft. A Latin party song came on, seemingly chosen at random to outside appearances.

It wasn’t the first time in the night, but by now Jackie had had a few drinks already and he wasn’t one to just sit around for too long.

“I need to stretch my legs and this is my kind of song!” He declared, cheeks flushed. He was a happy drunk. “Misty, come here and dance with me, hermosa!”

V grinned . She’d been wondering if he would ever do that. Turning to Viktor, she caught his gaze and used her eyes to point towards the sour-faced Mama Welles.

The ripperdoc gave her an exasperated look that clearly said he knew what she was doing, but asked Mama Welles to dance anyway.

That left only V and Taylor as the odd ones out, the latter of whom was looking at the two pairs of dancers inscrutably… especially since it was a more energetic song and Mama Welles proved that she had some moves.

“Well I’m not missing out on the fun.” V stood up and declared as if she hadn’t been trying to engineer this exact situation. Grabbing Taylor’s arm, she tugged the younger woman towards the ‘dance floor’. “Come on, dance with me!”

“V! I don’t know how to dance!” Taylor protested.

“Me neither, at least not to this kind of music, so let’s just have fun.” She dismissed and pulled the weakly resisting younger woman into the beat with her.

Taylor didn’t reply, just staring at her stonily and standing stiffly in her arms.

“You gotta move your hips, chicas!” Jackie advised with a laugh, holding Misty in front of him as she more or less ground her ass against his crotch.

“Like this?” V asked, spinning Taylor around so that they were chest to back and using her own body to move the younger woman’s. As per Jackie’s suggestion, she moved her hips a lot.

“Just like that!” He approved. “You should have been born a Latina!”

Taylor squirmed around in her grip so that they were face to face. She was glaring, but there was no real anger in it. Her cheeks were flushed from the few drinks she’d been sipping on the whole night and her brown eyes had a rare sparkle in them. “I’m going to get you back for this.”

“For making you have a good time?” V teased, rolling with the new position by putting her hands on her partner’s waist.

“Yes.” Taylor retorted with an adorable amount of petulance.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

XXXXX

Inevitably, it was time for the party to end and everyone to go home.

“Actually, I think I’ll stay and help Taylor clean up.” V said this as if the idea had just occurred to her, instead of being something she had been planning the whole time.

“You don’t have to.” Taylor immediately protested. With the party over, she had escorted them to the front door to wish them good night.

“It’s no problem. Besides, I’m the one that insisted you host this party in the first place.” V countered.

“Just let her help, chica.” Jackie opined with a grin, playing the wingman. He’d eased up on the drinks enough that he still wasn’t drunk. “V’s pretty stubborn. She’ll argue with you ‘till morning if she has to.”

Taylor looked like she might take that fight for a moment, but then her shoulders dipped and she huffed out a breath. “Fine.”

“You two take care.” Viktor said, with a pointed look in her direction. V knew that he was subtly warning her to do right by Taylor without giving away the game. The old man was fond of the teenager, but wasn’t willing to be presumptuous.

“Good night!” Misty said brightly, looking a bit excited. V would guess that she was eager to hear about any naughty details tomorrow.

“Enjoy your new home, Taylor.” Mama Welles said, giving the girl another hug. Then she turned to V with a much sterner look. ”Sleep well.”

It was amazing how much meaning the woman could pack into just two words. A last round of goodbyes followed and then it was just V and Taylor in the building.

“You really didn’t have to stay, you know.” The younger woman said again. “There isn’t even that much to clean up.”

True enough, the party had been very restrained by Night City standards. Except for putting away the board game boxes and cleaning some dishes, the loft was in pretty good order.

“Well, I have to do something to apologize for pushing this on you.” V shrugged, leading the way back up to the loft. She feigned a bit of drunken unsteadiness as she did so. While definitely tipsy, her tolerance was too high for the few drinks she’d had to really unbalance her.

“It’s fine.” Taylor dismissed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have hosted the party if not for you, but it was… fun.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” V smiled, picking up two glasses and the tequila bottle. “Come have another drink with me.”

Taylor gave the booze she was pouring a flat look. “I think I’ve had enough to drink tonight, thanks.”

“One more won’t knock you out.” V insisted, pushing one glass towards her, and raising her own in a toast. “To new beginnings?”

“Jackie would be so proud of you for making a proper toast.” Taylor snarked, but returned the toast anyway. “To new beginnings.”

V emptied the glass and gave a small hum of appreciation. “Mama Welles knows how to pick out some good tequila.”

“It all tastes the same to me.” Taylor frowned, taking only small sips from her own glass.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you cultured eventually.” V smirked. “You’ll fit right in with Night City before you know it.”

“I never knew how to fit in, even before it all went to shit.” Taylor said melancholically, staring down into the tequila. “That was always Emma’s thing.”

V’s interest was immediately roused at the new name. It sounded important. “Emma?”

“She was a friend, we were as close as sisters, then she betrayed me. I never found out why.” The parahuman’s voice had taken an exhausted tinge.

Very interesting.

“Do you want to talk about it?” V offered. “I have a degree in psychology.”

Granted, her focus had been on manipulating or mentally breaking people open rather than fixing them, but it was something.

Taylor didn’t answer, choosing instead to frown into the tequila again. Then she picked up her glass and knocked back all the remaining booze, still saying nothing.

“You’re wondering if Contessa set this up, too, aren’t you?” V guessed.

“Yes!” The bug master exclaimed in a sudden burst of anger, slamming her cybernetic hand on the counter. “That fucking bitch!”

“That fucking bitch.” V poured them another round so that she could make a mocking toast. “Ever since you’ve told me about her, I can’t stop wondering if every step I take is one of her Paths.”

“Welcome to life with precogs.” Taylor said bitterly, cradling her refilled drink.

“It’s not all bad.” V countered, smiling. “Even if that fucking bitch isn’t doing my paranoia any favors, I’m glad she brought you here.”

The younger woman’s cheeks flushed from something other than alcohol and quickly emptied her glass so that she didn’t have to respond. Then stood up. “We should probably start cleaning up.”

She tried to push away from the table, but the booze had been at work and she stumbled. V was quick to catch her.

“Maybe we should get you to bed and leave the cleaning for tomorrow?” She suggested, hiding a smile.

“I’m fine, just a bit of a head rush.” Taylor insisted, then frowned in realization. “Wait, are you planning to spend the night?”

“If you don’t mind.” V replied. The couch could unfold and there was another mattress hidden in a wall in case of guests, but she had something else planned. “And stop sending your reactions into the swarm. How am I supposed to tell how drunk you are if you hide it like that?”

“You’re not.” Was the somewhat petulant retort.

“Then I’m just going to assume that you’re pretty drunk and help you up the stairs.” The amount of booze she’d plied Taylor with over the course of the night was actually carefully estimated. If she’d gotten it right, then the younger woman should be close to the point where she would fall asleep almost as soon as her head hit a pillow.

“I’m fine.” Taylor insisted.

“I don’t believe you.” V held her by the waist and led her to the stairs. The fact that Taylor didn’t put up much of a fight and moved very deliberately was a clear sign that she was more sloshed than she was letting on.

Once they were up in the ‘bedroom’ area of the loft, she brought Taylor close and slid her hands under the younger woman’s T-shirt, making her immediately stiffen up.

“What are you doing?” The bug master demanded, not quite pulling away.

“Taking your bra off.” V explained easily, fingers finding the clasp of the infernal device and maneuvering it over one of Taylor’s arms before sliding the whole thing off without removing the shirt. “I always hated wearing these things.”

“Is that why you have cyberware to keep your boobs perky?” Taylor asked, swaying forward a little and nearly faceplanting in aforementioned boobs.

“Not cyberware.” V corrected, grinning a bit. “Just a bit of synth muscle in the pectorals and periodic biosculpts to tighten things up.”

She had never mentioned that, which meant that Taylor had been thinking about her boobs enough to come to that conclusion.

“Mmm.” The younger woman’s reply was vaguely agreeing and mostly sleepy.

“Come on, let’s put you to bed.”

“Kay…”

The show of trust implicit in Taylor allowing herself to be laid down was even more promising. As expected, she checked out pretty much as soon as she was horizontal, giving V the opportunity to tug off her pants and socks.

Now having her prey half-naked, she proceeded to the final part of her plan. Removing her leather skirt and tube top, leaving herself in just a thong, V cuddled up to Taylor and pulled the covers over them both.

There was a temptation to push things further, but this was better in the long term. Plus, she wasn’t entirely sober herself and could already feel sleep calling.

XXXXX

Waking up with a hangover, however mild in this case, was becoming far too frequent an occurrence. But at least there had been no nightmares this time. That muddled thought was quickly pushed aside when Taylor realized that she wasn’t alone in her bed – another body was pressed up against her back, their naked legs entwined and an arm wrapped around her chest.

Her immediate response was to freeze up and rapidly review her memories. There had been the moving in party. They’d been doing a little drinking, but she’d been careful to pace herself. V had insisted on staying to help clean up, but then they got to talking and she’d drank more of the tequila. Then V helped her to bed, but not before taking her bra off.

Her shirt was still on, as were her panties. V was almost completely naked, but nothing seemed to have happened.

Very slowly, she relaxed.

“Hey.” A gentle voice said from behind. “Nothing happened, if you were wondering. Half-drunk me just thought your bed looked way more attractive than the couch.”

Taylor pushed aside the awkwardness and twisted around so that they were face to face. V looked like she’d been awake for a few minutes at least, but her hair was still way more mussed than she’d ever seen it.

“Morning.” She said for lack of anything else to say, holding back a grimace at the smell of her own breath.

“Morning.” V said back with a smile. Her breath was similarly foul. “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever slept with someone where there was any actual sleeping involved. I’ve been missing out, you’re very cuddly.”

Taylor had years worth of memories of cuddling with Emma. They would do this pretty much every weekend, alternating which house they were sleeping at. After her mother died, Emma had been extra affectionate and held her tightly while she cried herself to sleep. At summer camp and then when the bullying first started, she had missed it horribly. Over time, the memories had become a bitter contrast to the monster Emma had become.

The closest thing she’d ever gotten before now had been Brian, but that was stained with trauma from the Slaughterhouse Nine and the nightmares that followed.

“I’ve been told I was bony.” She managed to say.

“No, you’re the perfect balance between soft and firm.” V asserted, scooting closer and pulling her into another cuddle. Taylor already knew that the older woman was very physical, so she saw no reason to resist. Plus, it solved the morning breath issue.

“You make me sound like a fruit.” She muttered into the older woman’s collarbone, just letting herself enjoy the contact.

“I always did like peaches.” V chuckled, stroking her hair. “We should go buy some for breakfast.”

Fruit had made a slow comeback to the food market via cloning over the past couple of decades, where it had once been available only to the super rich. It was still expensive, though, expensive enough to be considered a luxury for most people.

“Sure.” Taylor agreed, making no move to actually get up despite the increasing pressure in her bladder.

“Do you have anything you want to do after that, or were you going to just chill in your new apartment?” V asked, still stroking her hair. It was nice.

“I need to find a new gym.” Taylor sighed.

“We’ll check out the neighborhood for one.” V said as if it was already decided. “It’ll be nice to have a proper gym buddy. All Jackie does is pump iron in his garage. Man needs to stop skipping leg day.”

“Don’t you already have a gym you go to?” Taylor asked, pulling away from the cuddle with a frown so that she could look at the other woman.

V just shrugged. “Sure, but it’s a pretty far from here. I’m the one with a car, so it’s more convenient for me to switch.”

That wasn’t quite what Taylor had been getting at. “You don’t have to switch gyms just to work out with me.”

“I want to. Do you have any idea how much I get hit on when I work out?”

Taylor’s frown deepened at the thought. Considering that even she got hit on quite a bit at the gym, V probably got interrupted every ten minutes. “And us going together will help with that?”

“Oh yeah. Blame it on all the horny sluts going to the gym because they like getting railed by beefy guys. As long as we’re obviously there together, focus on our workouts and don’t ogle anyone else, we should be left alone for the most part.”

Considering that Taylor had the dubious pleasure of knowing exactly how often the locker rooms got used for quickies, she was indeed going to blame the horny sluts. It had rather taken out any sense of flattery at getting male attention. V’s premise also sounded sensible and it would be nice to have some friendly company to share workouts with.

“Alright, sounds like a plan.”