Chapter 28: The Arrival of an Important Figure

Kiwi flopped back into her room and dove under the covers, rolling slowly as she lay there. Everything that had happened recently felt a little unreal...
She’d walked into a pretty decent company almost too easily. Yeah, the pay had been knocked down a bit, but it was still way higher than what she scraped together as a solo netrunner—taking small gigs that barely paid, or risking her life for a measly twenty thousand eddies.
What could she do? As an unknown freelance netrunner she had no clout. Clients haggled her down constantly, but she had to take the work—how else survive in this city?
Now… she finally had some security. She could breathe for a while.
After letting her thoughts wander, Kiwi climbed out of bed and decided to message Rook and the others. She didn’t owe the squad any loyalty; she felt a little bitter, but she accepted reality.
Her message was simple: she was okay, and she wasn’t planning to keep working the fringe jobs for now.
When Rook saw Kiwi’s message his eyes went wide. He thought he’d misread it at first, but after confirming he sighed and didn’t say much—just “Take care,” then left it at that.
No surprises—probably no more intersections between their paths.

“...Alright, kid—snap out of it. Kiwi’s fine. I dunno what’s going on in your head... You haven’t been brainwashed by some love-crazed Braindance, have you?”
“B-boss, you mean it?”
A scruffy, red-eyed youngster shot his head up and stared at Rook in disbelief.
“Mhm.”
Rook nodded and showed the message to Brew. Brew finally exhaled. It was a shame Kiwi was leaving the fringe life, but at least she was safe.

...

“I wonder what the boss wants me to do today...”
Kiwi got up slowly, dressed, and now called Roland “boss” almost naturally. In a place like this, whoever feeds you is family.
[When you arrive at the company, send me a message. I’ll have the person working with you today fetch you.]
Kiwi replied “OK” to Roland and headed out to catch the subway to PROJECT Corporation.
Roland, meanwhile, straightened his clothes and then peeled them off. As the exoskeleton armor loaded, PROJECT: Light—Yi—made its official debut!

“Hey, who’s that…?”
“No idea… Could that be one of our company’s products?”
“That looks like a full cyborg conversion… I’ve never seen cyberware like that…”
“Does our company even do cyberware R&D? I’m in R&D and I didn’t know about this!”

As Roland walked through the office in that suit, whispers followed him. He didn’t pay much mind—this identity was meant to be public, just not his face. If he slipped up, he could always say it was Roland’s twin. Problem?

Among the employees, one unremarkable worker watched Roland pass and something odd flashed across his face. His cybernetic eye whirred like a camera, as if transmitting data.

“What’s this? Who can tell me why PROJECT Corporation has this thing?!”
Gris from Militech glowered at the screen showing PROJECT: Light; his face went as dark as burnt metal.
“And you call this ‘basically having everything on PROJECT Corporation under control’? This is everything?! Where’s your pride—got eaten by dogs?!”
He slammed the file in the intelligence officer’s face. The officer shrank like a quail, ducking his head.
“Huff…”
Gris took a breath, still scowling. “Now go dig. I want everything on this guy. If you can’t handle it, you’re out.”
“Yes, sir!!”

Weis skimmed the intel Gris sent on PROJECT Corporation and tossed it aside—other things needed his attention. A conservative political heavyweight from the New United States, Fiers, was about to arrive in Night City by AV.
(By the way, Weis was aligned with Myers’ political bloc, so he didn’t like this old man Fiers. Still, it was work—gather intelligence.)
Security would handle the protection detail; Weis didn’t want to deploy the intel division’s armed units.
“It’d be great if that old man died here.”
Weis scrolled through Fiers’ dossier, snorted, and set it aside. Given Militech’s standing in Night City, an assassination was unlikely—unless a lunatic with massive firepower tried something.
After checking Fiers’ situation, Weis moved on to the company’s personnel reduction plan.
“Seriously—every day there’s a new mess...”

...

Kiwi leaned against the wall, exasperated, waiting at the reception desk. She hadn’t expected Roland not to have her info logged!
Now she had to wait downstairs—unbelievable.
A ding announced the elevator on the first floor. Kiwi looked over and froze—another maniac like Jhin stood there.
“Kiwi?”
The voice called her name and she blinked.
“You know me?”
“From today on, you and I are partners. Call me Yi.”
Kiwi nodded at that unusually magnetic voice.
“Let’s go. Complete today’s mission.”
“Um… I don’t even know what today’s plan is…”
“Population resource cleanup. Your old specialty.”
“...I thought I wouldn’t have to do dangerous stuff like that anymore.”
“With me here, it’s not dangerous. You just tell me where people are and how many there are.”
Roland glanced back at Kiwi and gave a thumbs-up.
“You can trust me completely.”

Hmm—finally, she thought, she could feel the thrill of combat firsthand.