Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Ghost Signals

The caffeine hit Terissa Scott's bloodstream like liquid focus, cutting through the morning haze that clung to City Center's concrete canyons. Steam rose from her cup in lazy spirals, mirroring the perpetual smog that painted Night City's skyline in shades of amber and rust. The small café—Café Destino, according to the flickering neon sign—served as her unofficial office, a neutral ground where information flowed as freely as the overpriced synthetic coffee.

Her neural interface cast a pale blue glow across her retinas as data streams cascaded through her vision. Gang territories shifting overnight. Corporate executives found floating in the bay. The usual symphony of violence that made up Night City's pulse. She moved through the reports with practiced efficiency, cataloging threats, opportunities, and the occasional nugget of genuinely valuable intelligence.

Then she saw it.

Buried three layers deep in a routine NCPD filing about a warehouse fire in Watson, hidden beneath metadata that would've looked like corrupted data to anyone else—a message. The encryption was military grade, wrapped in NUSA protocols she recognized from a lifetime ago. Her fingers paused over her coffee cup as the decryption subroutines in her military chrome worked their magic.

Songbird.

The codename hit her like ice water. Song So Mi. The brilliant young netrunner who'd worked beside her in a Bogotá safe house six years ago, watching Terissa methodically eliminate seventeen people who'd threatened to expose Militech's chemical weapons program. The same woman who'd filed the after-action report with near invisible tremors in her hands, her moral compass already cracking under the weight of what they'd been asked to do.

Terissa's enhanced vision tracked the message's metadata, analyzing packet routes and encryption signatures with the same detached professionalism she'd once applied to target elimination. The message itself was elegantly simple in its complexity—a single word wrapped in enough security to stop a corpo netrunner cold.

"Now."

Her peripheral awareness systems triggered a soft alert. Movement at the café entrance, too purposeful to be casual. A figure in dark clothing, face obscured by the kind of subtle optical distortion that suggested high-end privacy chrome. The person paused at the threshold, and for just a moment, their head turned toward Terissa's corner table.

Then they were gone.

Terissa's enhanced reflexes tagged the figure's biometric signature—gait analysis, thermal profile, even the subtle electromagnetic emissions from their neural implants. Song So Mi had always been careful, her years of working for the most paranoid intelligence agency in the NUSA had refined that caution into an art form.

She finished her coffee with deliberate calm, left exact change plus a fifteen percent tip, and walked out into Night City's brightening morning. The air tasted of ozone and industrial lubricants, with an undertone of something organic and unpleasant that might have been decay or might have been life—in Night City, the distinction was often academic.

The tracking subroutines in her head painted So Mi's path in soft yellow overlays. Not running, but moving with purpose through the urban maze. Through City Center's chrome and glass corridors, past vendor stalls selling synthetic meat and black market chrome, around the ever-present clusters of corpo executives pretending the homeless didn't exist.

Twenty minutes of shadowing brought Terissa to Reconciliation Park, one of those optimistic urban planning projects that had survived Night City's particular brand of entropy through sheer stubbornness. Real trees grew here, their leaves filtered sunlight into patterns that danced across worn concrete paths. It was the kind of place where people came to pretend they lived somewhere else.

Song So Mi sat on a bench near the park's center, her posture carefully casual but her head tracking pedestrians with the systematic sweep of someone who'd learned never to stop calculating threats. She looked smaller than Terissa remembered, more fragile. The years had worn on her in ways that went deeper than her young age would suggest.

Instead of sitting, Terissa leaned against a nearby light post, close enough to talk but far enough to move if this went sideways. "Fancy meeting you here, So Mi. What brings NUSA's prized netrunner to Night City? Especially after your starring role in the Unification War."

So Mi's laugh was soft and bitter. "Is it illegal to reach out to a friend?"

Terissa's eyebrows rose. In all her time running intelligence operations, she'd learned that friends were a luxury most operatives couldn't afford. The NUSA and the FIA had a particular reputation for discouraging personal attachments. "Friends? That's not exactly the FIA's style, especially when it comes to anyone connected to Solomon Reed."

The name hit So Mi like a physical blow. Her carefully maintained composure flickered, and Terissa caught a glimpse of something raw and wounded beneath the professional mask. The young woman who'd helped orchestrate Reed's ambush after the Unification War, who'd watched one of the Agency's best agents walk into a trap of her own making.

So Mi recovered quickly, but the damage was done. "Reed didn't stamp out every bit of humanity from Songbird," she said, her voice steady but her fingers clenched in her lap. "Some of us remember what it was like before we became assets."

Terissa studied her former colleague with the same analytical focus she'd once reserved for high-value targets. The tremor in So Mi's hands. The way her eyes darted to escape routes she'd undoubtedly memorized before choosing this meeting spot. The subtle but unmistakable signs of someone operating on borrowed time.

Finally, she pushed off from the light post and settled onto the bench, maintaining arm's length distance. Old habits. "Alright. Let's skip the nostalgia tour. What's this really about? And don't feed me some line about social calls—we both know better."

So Mi was quiet for a long moment, watching a group of children play near the fountain with the kind of wistful attention that suggested she was seeing something she'd lost long ago. When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of someone who'd run out of comfortable lies.

"I'm dying."

The words hung in the air between them like a confession. Terissa's enhanced senses automatically cataloged So Mi's vitals—elevated heart rate, stress hormones spiking, micro-tremors in her voice that suggested this wasn't manipulation. It was truth, raw and desperate.

"The chrome," So Mi continued, her fingers unconsciously tracing the neural interface ports at the back of her neck. "All the modifications they've pumped into me over the years. The deep net interfaces, the Blackwall protocols, the experimental gear they needed to make me their perfect weapon. It's finally eating me alive from the inside out."

Terissa's mind immediately began calculating possibilities, analyzing options with the cold efficiency that had kept her alive through dozens of impossible missions. The resources required for this kind of neural modification were staggering—military grade chrome that pushed the boundaries of human compatibility. The kind of cutting-edge tech that came with a price tag measured in years off your life.

"How long?" she asked quietly.

"Eighteen months. Maybe less." So Mi's voice was steady now, the initial vulnerability buried beneath layers of professional control. "The degradation is accelerating. Every deep dive, every time they push me beyond baseline human neural capacity, it gets worse. Soon I'll start losing cognitive function. Memory degradation. Motor control failure."

She turned to look at Terissa directly for the first time since the conversation began. "And then I won't be Song So Mi anymore. I'll be whatever the Blackwall wants me to become."

The mention of the Blackwall sent a chill through Terissa's enhanced nervous system. Everyone in the intelligence community knew about the barrier that separated the public net from the dark corners where rogue AIs lurked. But only the most elite netrunners ever interacted with it directly, and even fewer survived the experience with their sanity intact.

"They've been pushing you beyond the Blackwall," Terissa said. It wasn't a question.

"For two years now. Deep reconnaissance missions into the old net, hunting for AI threats and data archaeology. Each time I come back a little less human." So Mi's hands trembled slightly as she spoke. "The corruption is spreading through my neural pathways like digital cancer. I can feel it changing how I think, how I process information. Sometimes I catch myself thinking in patterns that aren't mine."

Terissa absorbed this information with the practiced calm of someone who'd learned to compartmentalize horror as an occupational necessity. But beneath the surface, her mind was racing through the implications. If the NUSA was willing to sacrifice their most valuable netrunner to Blackwall corruption, whatever they were hunting beyond the barrier was significant enough to justify the cost.

"So what do you want from me?" she asked finally. "I'm not exactly equipped for neurosurgery, and my contacts in the medical black market don't typically handle experimental military chrome extraction."

So Mi smiled for the first time since Terissa had sat down, and for a moment she looked like the young woman who'd sat in that Bogotá safe house, still believing she could save the world through precision and good intentions.

"I want what you've always been good at," she said. "I want you to help me disappear."

The request hung between them like a bridge across an abyss. Terissa had helped people disappear before—assets who'd outlived their usefulness, witnesses who knew too much, operators who'd decided the price of their missions was higher than they were willing to pay. But those had been simple extractions, relocations within established networks of safe houses and false identities.

This was different. This wasn’t just asking her to hide someone from the NUSA, from an intelligence apparatus that had resources and reach that made corporate security look like mall cops. This was asking her to pit her skills against the same organization that had trained them both, that knew their methods and capabilities better than anyone.

"The FIA will burn half of Night City looking for you," Terissa said quietly. "They've got too much invested in their prized asset to just write off the loss."

"I know." So Mi's voice carried the weight of someone who'd already calculated those odds and found them acceptable. "But they also know that pushing too hard in Night City brings unwanted attention. Corporate interests, local power structures, the kind of political complications that make extraction ops messy. They'll look, but they'll be careful about how they do it."

Terissa found herself almost admiring the strategic thinking behind So Mi's approach. Night City was a perfect place to disappear—an urban ecosystem so complex and chaotic that even the most sophisticated intelligence networks struggled to maintain comprehensive surveillance. Corporate territories that shifted like tectonic plates. Underground communities that had learned to exist in the gaps between official jurisdictions. A thriving black market in identity modification and neural enhancement that could make someone functionally invisible to automated tracking systems.

But it would also be a perfect place to die. The same chaos that offered protection also meant that predators operated with impunity, that violence was currency, and that trust was a commodity most people couldn't afford.

"Even if I could help you disappear," Terissa said slowly, "what's your long-term plan? You said you're dying. Hiding in Night City doesn't solve your medical problem."

So Mi's expression shifted, and Terissa caught a glimpse of something that looked almost like hope. It was the most dangerous emotion an operative could feel—the thing that made people take risks they couldn't afford, trust people they shouldn't.

"There are rumors," So Mi said quietly. "Black market researchers working on experimental treatments for chrome-related neural degradation. Ripperdocs who specialize in military-grade modification extraction. People who've learned to work with neural pathways that conventional medicine considers irreparable."

"Rumors," Terissa repeated flatly.

"It's more than I have working for the Agency. They're not looking for a cure—they're trying to figure out how to manage the degradation process, how to extract maximum value before disposal. To them, I'm a consumable asset with a finite operational lifespan."

The words carried a bitter edge that Terissa recognized from her own experience with military bureaucracy. She'd seen good people reduced to spreadsheet entries, their lives measured in mission effectiveness rather than human value. It was one of the reasons she'd walked away from the NUSA, why she'd chosen the uncertain freedom of independent operations over the structured hell of being someone else's weapon.

She looked at So Mi—really looked at her—and saw someone who'd reached the same crossroads she'd faced years ago. The moment when you had to choose between loyalty to the organization that owned you and loyalty to the person you used to be.

"This is going to be expensive," Terissa said finally. "And dangerous. The kind of people who can help you don't work cheap, and they don't offer guarantees. You could end up dead in some back-alley clinic, or worse—captured and returned to your handlers with a few extra restraints built into your chrome."

"I know." So Mi's voice was steady, resolved. "But right now, that's still better odds than I have if I stay."

Terissa nodded slowly. She'd made similar calculations herself, had walked away from everything she'd known because the alternative was losing herself one mission at a time. The mathematics of survival were brutal but simple—sometimes the longest odds were still the best ones available.

"I'll need time to think about this," she said, standing up from the bench. "Set up some preliminary contacts, figure out who might be willing to take on this kind of risk."

So Mi stood as well, and for a moment they faced each other like the professionals they'd once been—two people who'd learned to read threats and opportunities in every gesture, every pause, every carefully chosen word.

"How long?" So Mi asked.

"Forty-eight hours. There's a bar in Kabuki called the Dark Matter. Tomorrow night, ten PM. If I'm not there, assume the answer is no and find yourself another solution."

So Mi nodded, understanding the implicit message. In forty-eight hours, Terissa would either have a plan that could work, or she'd have decided that helping Song So Mi disappear was a risk she couldn't afford to take. Either way, the conversation would be over.

They separated without another word, walking in different directions through the park's carefully maintained paths. Terissa didn't look back, but her enhanced hearing tracked So Mi's footsteps until they faded into the urban background noise of Night City's endless, restless motion.

As she made her way back toward Watson, Terissa's mind was already working through the complex logistics of what So Mi was asking. Safe houses that could shield someone from military-grade surveillance. Ripperdocs skilled enough to work on experimental neural modifications. The kind of people who trafficked in new identities and disappeared pasts.

It would be the most dangerous job she'd ever taken. But as she remembered the young woman who'd sat in that Bogotá safe house six years ago, who had helped her methodically destroy seventeen lives in the name of operational necessity, Terissa found herself hoping she could figure out a way to make it work.

Some debts, she reflected, were worth paying regardless of the cost.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Neon Sanctuary

The forty hours of planning had carved grooves into Terissa's enhanced neural pathways, each iteration of escape routes and contingency protocols burning slightly deeper than the last. Her apartment in Little China had transformed into a war room of holographic displays and encrypted data streams, the kind of operational planning that would have made her NUSA handlers proud if they could see it. If they weren't the ones she was planning against.

Eight hours. That's all she had left before the meeting at Dark Matter, before she had to look Song So Mi in the eye and either offer her hope or watch her walk back into the slow death of FIA servitude.

The lunar colony of Tycho floated in her vision like a taunt—a pristine medical facility orbiting in Earth's gravitational well and, more importantly, beyond the immediate reach of terrestrial intelligence agencies. Their neural reconstruction labs were legendary, the kind of place where impossible cases went to become merely improbable. The kind of place that could potentially extract military-grade hardware and Blackwall corruption from someone's neural architecture without killing them in the process.

The cost estimate glowed red in her peripheral vision: 62.3 million eurodollars, minimum. That was just for transport and initial treatment. Full neural reconstruction and recovery could triple that figure. Even with her considerable resources and the various emergency funds she'd squirreled away over the years, Terissa was looking at a sum that would require either a significant heist of a corporation’s monthly budget or selling her soul to the very corporations she'd spent years avoiding, though even that would come up bitterly short.

She killed the displays with a gesture, the holograms collapsing into darkness. Her enhanced metabolism had been running hot for two days straight, burning through stimulants and nutrients at a rate that would have killed most people. She needed air, needed movement, needed something to shake loose the gridlock in her strategic planning.

Watson's streets welcomed her like an old friend, the familiar chaos of the district wrapping around her enhanced senses in layers of sensory data. Street vendors hawking synthetic noodles that almost tasted real. The electric hum of badly shielded power lines creating a baseline thrum that most people never consciously noticed. The subtle chemical signatures of a dozen different drugs being dealt in corners and alleyways, each with its own promise of temporary escape from Night City's grinding reality.

Her feet found their own path through the urban maze, muscle memory and subconscious navigation taking over while her conscious mind continued to work the problem. Safe houses in the Combat Zone that even the FIA would think twice about assaulting. Black market surgeons who might—might—have the skills to attempt Blackwall extraction. The complex web of favors and threats she could leverage to buy So Mi a few weeks of invisibility.

None of it was enough. Every scenario she ran ended the same way: either So Mi died from the corruption, died from a botched extraction attempt, or got dragged back to become the FIA's weapon until her mind finally collapsed into something inhuman.

The bass line from Lizzie's Bar reached her enhanced hearing two blocks away, a rhythmic pulse that seemed to sync with her accelerated heartbeat. She hadn't consciously decided to come here, but her subconscious had made the choice for her. Sometimes the best strategic planning happened when you stopped trying to force it.

Rita Wheeler stood at the entrance like a purple-haired guardian deity, her expression shifting from professional assessment to recognition as Terissa approached. The Mox bouncer's aesthetic was pure Night City punk—hair in dramatic buns, chrome studs catching the neon, and the kind of casual readiness that suggested violence was always a conversational option.

"Back again so soon?" Rita's voice carried amusement beneath the professional distance. "Starting to think you've got a thing for our particular brand of chaos."

Terissa offered her most disarming smile, the one that had gotten her through a dozen different covers over the years. "What can I say? You run the most interesting establishment in Watson. Plus, Mateo makes a drink that almost makes me forget what synthetic alcohol tastes like."

Rita's eye roll was theatrical, but she stepped aside with fluid grace. "Judy's downstairs. Try not to give her a heart attack this time."

"No promises," Terissa replied, already moving past the threshold into the bar's pulsing interior.

The music hit her like a physical force, the kind of aggressive electronic beats that made conversation impossible and thoughts mandatory. Early evening meant the usual crowd hadn't materialized yet—just a handful of regulars nursing drinks and a few Mox members holding court in the corner booths. The stage was empty, its holographic projectors cycling through abstract patterns that suggested movement without quite achieving it.

Mateo spotted her before she'd made it three steps inside, his hands already reaching for the bottle of real vodka he kept for customers who could afford to pay for authenticity. His aesthetic was calculated casual—the perpetually unbuttoned blue shirt revealing carefully maintained muscle, the kind of look that suggested availability while maintaining professional distance. In Lizzie's, everyone was performing something.

"Terissa!" He had to raise his voice over the music, but his grin seemed genuine. "Judy's been asking about you. Says she's got some new tech that'll blow your mind. Her words, not mine."

"When doesn't she?" Terissa accepted the drink, the burn of real alcohol a welcome change from the synthetic substitutes that dominated Night City's bars. She transferred the credits with a gesture, adding a fifty percent tip that made Mateo's grin widen. "How is she? Still trying to save the world one BD at a time?"

"You know Judy." Mateo's expression carried the fond exasperation of someone who'd watched too many idealists bloody themselves against Night City's indifference. "She's convinced this new project is going to change everything. Real emotional connection, she says. Like that's what this city's missing."

Terissa took another sip, feeling the vodka work its chemical magic on her enhanced nervous system. "Maybe she's right. God knows we could use more genuine connection in this place."

She left Mateo to his other customers and navigated through the bar's back passages, the music fading to a muffled throb as she descended into the basement levels. This was Mox territory proper, the public face above giving way to the working infrastructure below. She passed a few gang members she recognized, exchanging nods but no words. Her relationship with the Mox, like most of the gangs in Night City, was built on mutual respect and carefully maintained boundaries—she helped when she could, they didn't ask questions about her other activities.

Judy's workshop occupied what had probably been a storage area before she'd transformed it into a technological nest. Multiple screens covered every wall, displaying everything from BD editing interfaces to streams of code that updated faster than unenhanced eyes could follow. The centerpiece was her custom BD rig, a modified Zetatech unit she'd rebuilt so many times it bore only passing resemblance to its original configuration.

And there was Judy herself, lost in the kind of deep focus that made the rest of the world cease to exist. Her green and pink hair fell forward as she hunched over her console, fingers dancing across haptic interfaces with the unconscious grace of long practice. She wore a tank top that showed off the elaborate tattoo work covering her arms, while also giving a tantalizing view of her chest when hunched over like she was now.

Terissa drained the rest of her vodka in one smooth motion, setting the glass aside with deliberate quiet. She moved through the workshop with predatory grace, her enhanced reflexes allowing her to navigate the chaos of equipment and cables without making a sound. The technique was pure muscle memory from a hundred infiltration ops, though she was using it now for entirely different purposes.

She leaned in close to Judy's ear, close enough to smell the mixture of electronics and jasmine shampoo that seemed to be the younger woman's signature scent, and blew gently.

"¡Mierda!" Judy jumped hard enough to send her BD wreath flying, spinning in her chair with her hands already coming up in a defensive posture. When she saw Terissa's grin, her expression shifted from shock to indignation to reluctant amusement in the space of a heartbeat. "I've told you not to do that! One of these days I'm going to have a heart attack and then where will you be?"

"Probably giving you CPR," Terissa replied, her tone light but carrying an undercurrent that made Judy's cheeks darken slightly. "Mateo says you've been talking about me. Should I be flattered or concerned?"

Judy turned back to her console, but not before Terissa caught the slight smile tugging at her lips. "Flattered, definitely. I've been working on something new, something that could change how we experience BDs entirely. Real-time emotional sharing, not just sensory input but actual feelings transmitted between users."

"That's..." Terissa moved closer, genuinely intrigued despite her mental exhaustion. "That's incredibly ambitious. The neural bandwidth alone would be staggering."

"Right?" Judy's enthusiasm was infectious, her hands moving as she talked, sketching shapes in the air that her implants translated into holographic diagrams. "But I think I've cracked it. The trick isn't trying to transmit everything—it's creating a resonance between compatible neural patterns. Like tuning forks, but for emotions."

She pulled up a complex schematic that hurt to look at directly, the kind of advanced neural architecture that existed at the bleeding edge of what was possible. Terissa's enhanced pattern recognition immediately began breaking down the design, and what she saw was genuinely impressive. Judy hadn't just created a new BD interface—she'd potentially revolutionized how humans could connect through technology.

"This is incredible work," Terissa said, meaning it. "But the trust required... you'd be literally opening your emotional state to another person. No filters, no barriers."

"Exactly." Judy's voice softened, and she turned to look at Terissa directly. "That's why I haven't tested it yet. It requires someone you trust completely, someone who won't take advantage of that kind of vulnerability. And in Night City..."

She trailed off, but Terissa heard what she didn't say. In Night City, trust was a luxury most people couldn't afford. The fact that Judy had even conceived of such a project spoke to an optimism that bordered on the miraculous given everything the city threw at its residents.

"What about Evelyn?" Terissa kept her tone carefully neutral, though she watched Judy's reaction closely.

Judy's expression did something complicated, a mixture of longing and frustration that she quickly smoothed away. "Evelyn's got her own stuff going on. Big plans, she says. No time for experimental tech that might not even work."

There was hurt there, buried but present. Terissa had seen Judy's devotion to Evelyn Parker, watched the younger woman orbit around someone who seemed perpetually just out of reach. It was the kind of emotional masochism that Night City specialized in—wanting someone who couldn't quite want you back the same way.

"Her loss," Terissa said simply. "This could change everything. The applications for therapy alone—"

"I know!" Judy's enthusiasm returned full force. "Imagine being able to actually show someone what depression feels like, or PTSD, or even just everyday anxiety. No more trying to explain something that doesn't have words. Just... direct experience."

They talked for another twenty minutes, Judy explaining the technical details while Terissa asked the kind of informed questions that made the younger woman light up. It was good, this. A reminder that Night City hadn't crushed everyone's capacity for innovation and hope. That people like Judy still believed technology could be used for something more than surveillance and control.

But even as they talked, part of Terissa's mind was elsewhere, turning over possibilities like a jeweler examining stones. Judy's work was revolutionary, but it couldn't help So Mi. The Blackwall corruption was too deep, too alien for human emotional resonance to touch. What So Mi needed was something more fundamental—a complete neural restructuring that only a handful of facilities in the system could attempt.

"You okay?" Judy's question pulled her back to the present. "You seemed to drift there for a second."

"Just thinking," Terissa replied, which was true enough. "This city has a way of making everything feel like a problem to be solved, you know?"

Judy's expression softened with understanding. "Yeah, I know. Sometimes I have to remind myself that not everything needs to be fixed. Some things just need to be experienced."

The wisdom in that statement hit harder than Terissa expected. She'd spent forty hours trying to fix So Mi's situation, trying to find the perfect solution that would guarantee success. But maybe there wasn't one. Maybe there was only the best bad option and the courage to take it.

"I should go," Terissa said, standing with the fluid grace her enhancement provided. "But this was good. Really good. Thanks for sharing this with me."

"Anytime." Judy stood as well, and for a moment they were close enough that Terissa could feel the warmth radiating from the younger woman's skin. "And I mean that. You're one of the few people in this city I actually trust."

The weight of that statement settled between them, carrying implications neither quite wanted to examine. Terissa reached out and squeezed Judy's shoulder gently, feeling the tension in the muscles there, the constant low-level stress that came from living in a city that demanded vigilance as the price of survival.

"Take care of yourself," Terissa said softly. "And don't let Evelyn's distance make you think you're worth less than you are."

Judy's eyes widened slightly, but before she could respond, Terissa was already moving toward the door. She climbed back through the bar, the music washing over her like a tide, and emerged into Night City's neon night.

The walk back to Watson helped clear her head, the rhythm of movement allowing her thoughts to reorganize themselves. Seven hours now until the meeting with So Mi. Seven hours to finalize a plan that might get them both killed but at least offered a chance at something better than slow degradation.

As she walked, an idea began to form—not fully shaped yet, but gaining definition with each step. She'd heard whispers recently, the kind of intelligence that floated through Night City's information ecosystem like ghost signals. Kurt Hansen, the warlord who'd carved out his own kingdom in Dogtown, had somehow acquired something extraordinary. A neural matrix, military-grade, possibly experimental. The kind of hardware that could theoretically support a complete neural transfer, backing up someone's consciousness while their original wetware was repaired or replaced.

If it was real. If Hansen actually had it. If it could be acquired without starting a war that would bring every major player in Night City down on their heads.

It was insane. It was probably suicidal. It was absolutely the kind of operation that the old Terissa, the one who'd been NUSA's perfect weapon, would have considered with cold professionalism before ultimately deciding the risk parameters exceeded acceptable limits.

But she wasn't that person anymore. Now she was someone who sat in underground bars listening to young women talk about revolutionizing human connection. Someone who had drinks with idealists and dreamers and people who still believed Night City could be something more than a meat grinder that turned human potential into corporate profit.

Someone who might be willing to risk everything to save a former colleague who'd made the mistake of believing her country would protect her in return for service.

The plan began to take shape as she walked, each piece clicking into place with the satisfying precision of a well-designed operation. It would require resources she didn't have yet, allies she hadn't recruited, and a level of luck that Night City rarely provided.

But it was possible. And in this city, sometimes possible was all you had.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Dark Matter

The Dark Matter bar existed in that sweet spot of Kabuki where corporate influence hadn't quite strangled all the life out of the streets. Terissa arrived five minutes early, her enhanced perception immediately cataloging exits, sight lines, and the three patrons who were definitely more chrome than their clothes suggested. The place had the kind of calculated seediness that made it perfect for conversations nobody wanted recorded—dim enough for privacy, loud enough to defeat basic audio surveillance, and run by people who understood that curiosity was bad for business.

So Mi had claimed a corner booth with her back to the wall, a position that offered clear views of both entrances. She'd changed since their park meeting—darker clothes, a subtle scrambler pin on her collar that would fuzzy any casual surveillance, and the kind of rigid posture that suggested she was burning through stims to stay functional.

Terissa slid into the opposite seat, signaling the bartender for a beer. Real beer, not the synthetic swill most places served. She needed the ritual of normalcy before she proposed something completely insane.

"You look like shit," Terissa said once her drink arrived, the condensation on the bottle grounding her in the moment.

"Charming as always." So Mi's attempt at a smile didn't reach her eyes. "Though I suppose honesty is better than false optimism at this point."

Terissa took a long pull from her beer, organizing her thoughts. The plan had crystallized during her walk back from Lizzie's, each piece clicking into place with the terrible logic of desperation. "Alright. I'm going to be straight with you. What you're asking for—complete extraction from FIA surveillance, medical intervention for military-grade neural corruption, a new identity that'll hold up under scrutiny—it's impossible through conventional channels."

So Mi's expression didn't change, but Terissa caught the micro-tremor in her left hand, the way her breathing hitched for just a moment. "So this is where you tell me you can't help."

"This is where I tell you the only option is completely fucking insane." Terissa leaned forward, lowering her voice. "Kurt Hansen. You know the name?"

"Dogtown's warlord. Ex-military, runs the district like his personal kingdom." So Mi's eyes sharpened with interest. "What about him?"

"Word is he recently acquired something extraordinary. A neural matrix, some sort of experimental tech. The kind of hardware that could theoretically reverse neural degradation."

So Mi went very still, the kind of stillness that suggested massive internal processing. "That's... if that's real, if it actually works..."

"It could buy you time. Maybe even a solution." Terissa watched So Mi's face carefully. "But acquiring it means either negotiating with a psychopath who collects people like trophies, or stealing from someone who's turned an entire district into his personal fortress."

"And then?"

"Tycho Station. They've got the only facilities that might be able to handle your level of corruption with the help of the neural matrix. It'll cost everything—I'm talking tens of millions of eddies just for transport and initial treatment."

So Mi laughed, soft and bitter. "From impossible to merely catastrophic. That's almost progress." She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing patterns on the scarred table surface. "Tycho... I might be able to manage that part. Slip onto a shuttle with the right digital camouflage. I still have access to certain NUSA transportation protocols, at least until they realize I've gone dark."

"So you're in?"

"Do I have a choice?" So Mi met her eyes directly. "This is literally the only option anyone's offered that doesn't end with me dead or worse. I'll take impossible odds over certain degradation."

Terissa reached into her jacket and slid a matte black access card across the table. "Safehouse in City Center. Clean, secure, decent equipment for whatever digital work you need to do. The kind of place that doesn't exist in any database that matters."

So Mi pocketed the card with practiced smoothness. "When do we move on Hansen?"

"I need to confirm the intel first. Make sure this neural matrix actually exists and isn't just another Night City ghost story." Terissa finished her beer and stood. "Stay low, stay quiet. Use the safehouse equipment to reach out to any contacts you trust—and I mean really trust. We're going to need resources for this."

"Terissa." So Mi's voice stopped her before she could leave. "Why? Really. This isn't your fight."

Terissa considered the question, remembering her own run to freedom years ago. "Maybe it wasn't. But I'm making it mine now."

The Arch motorcycle purred between Terissa's legs as she navigated the maze of Night City's streets toward Pacifica. The bike was her one real indulgence—a perfect fusion of power and precision that made her feel like she could outrun anything, even her own past. The storage compartment held her tactical gear: smart pistol, ceramic knife, various electronic warfare tools, and a few surprises she'd picked up over the years.

The checkpoint into Dogtown loomed ahead, concrete barriers and automated turrets creating a chokepoint that channeled visitors through Hansen's security screening. Terissa downshifted, letting the engine's rumble announce her approach. Her cover identity for today was solid—Natasha Cross, dilettante daughter of a Biotechnica executive, the kind of rich kid who thought danger was exciting.

The guard who approached had the look of ex-military gone feral, tactical gear mixed with gang colors, professional competence corrupted by Dogtown's particular brand of chaos.

"Business?" His voice carried the bored authority of someone who'd asked the question a thousand times.

"Pleasure, actually." Terissa let Natasha's vapid smile spread across her face, tilting her head in practiced affected charm. "Heard the Black Sapphire has the best view in the city."

The guard's scanner swept over her forged credentials, the light turning green after a moment. "Stay out of the stadium district. Mr. Hansen doesn't appreciate tourists getting too curious."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Terissa purred, already filing away the warning as useful intelligence.

Dogtown spread before her like a monument to organized chaos. Kurt Hansen had taken the abandoned district and transformed it into his personal kingdom, complete with its own economy, justice system, and the kind of brutal order that made Night City proper look civilized by comparison. The Black Sapphire rose from the ruins like a middle finger to gravity, its upper floors promising views and vices for those who could afford them.

She parked the Arch in the building's secure garage, making note of exit routes and security camera positions. The elevator to the 99th floor was all chrome and glass, offering glimpses of Dogtown's vertical sprawl as it climbed. When the doors opened, bass-heavy music washed over her like a physical force.

The Black Sapphire's bar sprawled across the entire floor, different sections offering different experiences—intimate booths for business, a dance floor for exhibition, private rooms for things that required discretion. Terissa moved through it all with Natasha's practiced confidence, ordering a cocktail that cost more than most people made in a week and beginning her hunt.

She drifted through conversations like smoke, her enhanced hearing picking up fragments and filing them away. Arms deals, territory disputes, the usual detritus of Night City's shadow economy. It took forty minutes before she heard what she was looking for.

"—told him he was crazy going down there, but you should've seen what we pulled out." The voice belonged to a man in his thirties, military augmentations poorly hidden under an expensive suit, trying to impress two younger women who were definitely working an angle of their own. "Militech lab, buried under the stadium since before the war. Still had power, still had inventory."

Terissa materialized at their booth's edge with Natasha's brightest smile. "Oh my god, that sounds incredible! Like something out of a BD thriller. Mind if I join? These corporate parties are so boring."

The man's ego practically glowed at the attention. "Jack Collins," he said, gesturing for her to sit. "I run tactical procurement for Mr. Hansen."

Perfect. Terissa slid into the booth, her body language broadcasting fascination. "Natasha Cross. Procurement sounds so... dangerous. Tell me more about this lab."

Three drinks and careful ego massage later, Marcus was deep into his story. The lab had been discovered during stadium renovations, sealed behind blast doors that had taken shaped charges to breach. Inside, they'd found experimental hardware, weapons prototypes, and something Marcus called "the real prize"—a neural architecture system with a unique program on board.

"Hansen's keeping that one close," Marcus said, his words slightly slurred. "Says it's the key to the Blackwall or some shit. Personally, I think—"

Terissa's phone buzzed with practiced timing. She glanced at it and affected perfect annoyance. "Ugh, my parents. They're having another crisis about my trust fund." She stood with fluid grace, touching Marcus's shoulder. "This was fascinating. Maybe we could continue another time?"

She left before he could respond, Natasha's mask dropping as soon as the elevator doors closed. The neural matrix was real. Hansen had it. Now she just needed to figure out how to take it from him.

The stadium squatted on Dogtown's eastern edge like a wounded giant, its damaged structure a testament to the corporate wars that had torn through the district. Terissa found an observation position on a partially collapsed overpass, pulling tactical binoculars from her bike's storage.

Through the magnified view, she could see Hansen's security in full effect. Guard rotations every twelve minutes. Automated turrets with overlapping fields of fire. Drone patrols running randomized patterns. And that was just the visible security—the electromagnetic signatures her enhanced vision picked up suggested sensor networks, proximity mines, and possibly worse.

The stadium's sublevels, where Marcus had mentioned the lab, would be even more heavily defended. This wasn't going to be a simple smash and grab. This would require planning, resources, and probably allies she didn't have yet.

Her secure phone vibrated. A message from So Mi, encrypted and bounced through enough proxies to make its origin untraceable: "Safehouse secure. Running diagnostic protocols. Degradation worse than anticipated—timeline adjusted to 14 months maximum. Whatever we're doing, we need to move fast."

Terissa stowed her gear and started the Arch's engine. The ride back to Watson gave her time to think, to begin sketching the outline of an operation that would either save So Mi or get them both killed. The neural matrix existed. Hansen had it. Now she needed to figure out how to make it theirs.

The city's neon glow painted her path in shades of possibility and danger. Somewhere in City Center, So Mi was probably running her own calculations, using whatever resources she had left to prepare for a confrontation with her own mortality. Somewhere in Dogtown, Kurt Hansen sat on a treasure that could save a life, not knowing that he'd just become a target.

And somewhere in the space between impossible and necessary, a plan began to solidify.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Ghosts in Dogtown

The message from Mr. Hands had arrived encrypted in seven layers of security, each one a subtle reminder that Pacifica's most enigmatic fixer didn't deal in simple transactions. Terissa had burned through three favors just to get his attention, another two to secure what he'd called "an audience with the king of ruins." The meeting with Kurt Hansen was set for tomorrow evening, which left her less than twenty-four hours to finalize her approach.

She'd chosen a safehouse on Dogtown's southern edge for final preparations, a forgotten apartment in a building that straddled the line between habitable and condemned. The kind of place where nobody asked questions because everyone had their own secrets to protect. Her tactical gear lay spread across a salvaged table—weapons she hoped she wouldn't need, data shards containing intelligence that could reshape Night City's power structure, and a neural scrambler that might buy her seconds if things went completely sideways.

The offer had crystallized over the past week of careful consideration. Information was the only currency that might interest Hansen enough to part with the neural matrix. Not just any information—she needed to offer him something that would fundamentally alter his position in Night City's ecosystem. NUSA sources and methods, the kind of operational intelligence that even a former Major wouldn't have had access to. Surveillance protocols, asset recruitment techniques, the digital signatures they used to track persons of interest. With that knowledge, Hansen could anticipate and counter any move the NUSA might make against him.

It was treason of the highest order, the kind of intelligence leak that would have gotten her burned in a dozen different ways back when she'd been Matron. But Terissa Scott wasn't bound by those oaths anymore, and Song So Mi's life hung in the balance.

The bar she'd chosen for her final equipment check was exactly what she'd expected—a run-down establishment that served synthetic alcohol to people who'd given up on better options. The bartender, a heavily augmented woman with dead eyes, didn't even look up when Terissa entered. Just another face in Dogtown's parade of the desperate and dangerous.

She ordered a beer, something that at least pretended to be imported, and settled against the bar with practiced casualness. Her enhanced perception cataloged the room's occupants automatically—two mercenaries nursing wounds and drinks in equal measure, a joy toy on break from whatever establishment owned their contract, and a figure in the corner whose digital mask couldn't quite hide the predatory awareness in their posture.

Terissa's blood cooled to ice, though her expression never changed.

Even through the facial distortion, she recognized the way the woman held herself, the specific configuration of combat chrome barely visible at her wrists, the particular stillness that came from years of professional violence. Alena Xenakis. Alex. FIA operative, specialist in long-term deep cover, and according to Terissa's last intelligence update, officially listed as MIA after the Unification War.

The beer tasted like ashes as Terissa processed the implications. If Alex was here, if she was still operational, it meant the FIA maintained assets in Dogtown. It meant So Mi's escape might already be compromised. It meant—

Terissa forced herself to take another casual sip, her body language broadcasting the bored exhaustion of just another Dogtown resident. Her peripheral vision tracked Alex's movements while she pretended to watch the news feed playing above the bar. Corporate expansion in Heywood. Gang violence in Northside. The usual white noise of Night City bleeding itself dry.

Alex stood, moving toward the back of the bar with the fluid grace of someone whose augmentations had been tuned for murder. The movement triggered every tactical instinct Terissa had developed over years of field work. That particular casualness, the way Alex's hand brushed her hip where a concealed weapon would rest—this was about to go kinetic.

Terissa left her bottle on the counter with deliberate normalcy, standing and stretching like someone who'd simply finished their drink. Three steps toward the door. Four. Five—

"Matron."

The name hit her like a bullet, but Terissa's training held. She didn't react, didn't acknowledge the call. Just another patron leaving a shitty bar. Her hand was reaching for the door when she heard the distinctive click of a hammer being pulled back.

Now she froze, but not as Matron. As a civilian would freeze when confronted with the sound of imminent death. She raised her hands slowly, letting confusion and fear paint themselves across her features.

"I... I think you've got the wrong person," she said, voice carrying just the right tremor of someone trying not to panic.

Alex had positioned herself with professional precision—clear sight lines, minimal exposure, the textbook stance of someone who'd learned to kill in government training facilities. The digital mask flickered slightly, revealing glimpses of sharp features underneath.

"Turn around. Slowly." Alex's voice carried the flat tone of someone processing too much information at once.

Terissa complied, maintaining her civilian facade even as her enhanced nervous system calculated seventeen different attack vectors. But Alex was good, too good to leave obvious openings. The pistol—a modified Unity, Terissa noted—remained perfectly steady.

"You're good," Alex said after a moment, something like admiration creeping into her tone. "Still maintaining cover even now. But I spent three months studying your file, Matron. The way you shift weight to your left foot when you're preparing to move. The micro-expression you make when you're calculating odds. You can change your face, your name, even your DNA if you've got the right chrome. But you can't change the way you move through the world."

The game was up. Terissa let her mask drop, her posture shifting subtly as she embraced the operative she'd once been. "Alex. Or should I say Agent Xenakis? Though I have to wonder—are you still an agent if your agency left you behind?"

The gun twitched slightly. Score one for psychological warfare.

"The last FIA operation in Night City was what, six, seven years ago?" Terissa continued, her voice conversational despite the weapon pointed at her chest. "Unification War ends, massive clusterfuck of an extraction for FIA operatives, and then... nothing. Radio silence. No extraction for the assets left behind. Must sting, being forgotten by the people you bled for."

"You don't know what you're talking about." But there was something in Alex's voice now, a hairline fracture in her professional composure.

"Don't I? Reed and Songbird made it out. Probably set up in some comfortable facility while you're here playing pretend in Dogtown's ass-end bars." Terissa saw the eye twitch at those names, the involuntary tell of someone whose psychological armor had taken too many hits. "Face it, Alex. We're both orphans now. Cast-offs from agencies that used us up and threw us away when we became inconvenient."

The gun lowered a fraction, uncertainty creeping into Alex's stance. "You're running an op. Here, in Dogtown. Why?"

"Same reason you're probably here. Survival. Making the best of a shit situation." Terissa gestured carefully to the bar around them. "Look at us. Two of the most highly trained operatives in North America, and we're standing in a bar that serves beer that might actually be recycled piss. If our handlers could see us now."

Alex actually laughed at that, short and bitter. "Myers would have a stroke."

"So would my former COs." Terissa took a calculated risk, slowly lowering her hands. "We're not enemies anymore, Alex. We're just two professionals trying to navigate a world that doesn't need us anymore. I stay out of your business, you stay out of mine. Simple."

The gun lowered completely, though Terissa could see Alex's finger still rested on the trigger. Years of training warring with the practical reality of their situation.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." Terissa let a disarming smile spread across her face, the one that had gotten her through a hundred different covers. "Hell, if you ever get tired of whatever ghost protocol you're running here, give me a call. I know people who pay well for our particular skill set. No politics, no ideology, just straight payment for services rendered."

Alex stared at her for a long moment, and Terissa could practically see the calculations running behind her eyes. Risk versus reward. Duty versus pragmatism. The eternal mathematics of the abandoned operative.

Finally, the gun disappeared beneath Alex's jacket with practiced smoothness. "Get out. Don't come back to this bar."

"Already forgotten," Terissa said, backing toward the door with careful steps. "But the offer stands. When you get tired of waiting for handlers who've already forgotten your name, you know how to find people like me."

She pushed through the door into Dogtown's neon-stained evening, not allowing herself to breathe properly until she'd put three blocks between herself and the bar. Her hands were steady—training held even when nerves didn't—but her mind was racing through implications and adjustments.

Alex's presence changed things. Not catastrophically, but enough to require recalibration. If the FIA maintained even dormant assets in Dogtown, So Mi's extraction would need additional layers of misdirection. And Hansen—would he know about Alex? Could he use that information as leverage?

Terissa ducked into an alley and pulled out her encrypted phone, typing a quick message to So Mi: "Package confirmed but competition in marketplace. Adjusting approach vectors. Maintain position."

The response came back almost immediately: "Understood. Clock ticking louder. Whatever adjustments needed, make them fast."

She pocketed the phone and began moving toward her safehouse, taking a deliberately circuitous route that would confuse any surveillance. The encounter with Alex had been too close, a reminder that even in Night City's chaos, the past had a way of reaching out with sharp fingers.

But it had also given her an idea. Alex was isolated, cut off from her support structure, probably running on fumes and stubbornness. That made her dangerous, but it also made her potentially useful. Another piece that could be maneuvered on the board if Terissa played things right.

The safehouse materialized from Dogtown's urban decay, and Terissa sealed herself inside with locks both physical and digital. She had less than eighteen hours before the meeting with Hansen, and now she needed to account for a new variable in her calculations.

She spread her intelligence files across the table, adding Alex's presence to the mosaic of information. The FIA operative was a complication, but every complication was also an opportunity if you looked at it from the right angle. And Terissa had learned long ago that in Night City, the right angle was usually the one nobody expected.

Tomorrow, she would walk into Kurt Hansen's domain and offer him keys to the kingdom in exchange for So Mi's salvation. But tonight, she planned for every contingency, including the possibility that Alex might not stay neutral in whatever came next.

The work was familiar, almost comfortable. Building operations from scattered intelligence, turning chaos into carefully orchestrated action. It was what she'd been trained for, what she'd excelled at before walking away from the life that had defined her.

Only this time, she wasn't doing it for country or orders from above. This time, it was personal. And in Night City, Terissa had learned, personal was the only thing that really mattered.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The King's Gambit

The adjustments to her operational plan carved new pathways through Terissa's neural architecture, each contingency branching into sub-routines that would have made her NUSA handlers proud. Alex's presence had shifted the probability matrices—not catastrophically, but enough to demand respect. FIA assets in Dogtown meant potential surveillance networks she hadn't accounted for, extraction protocols that could activate at the worst possible moment.

She spent the morning hours embedding a simple but elegant virus into Dogtown's power grid, using stolen maintenance credentials and a utility worker's uniform that made her invisible to the crowds. The program lay dormant, waiting for her signal, ready to plunge Hansen's kingdom into darkness if negotiations went sideways. Three separate escape routes, each with its own cache of supplies. Two diversionary charges in the old subway tunnels that could simulate an attack from a rival gang. And most importantly, a dead-drop location where she'd stashed medical supplies and a backup communication device.

The stadium loomed before her as evening painted Dogtown in shades of rust and neon. Hansen's fortress, built from the bones of corporate ambition and decorated with the sovereignty of violence. Guards at the entrance knew her face from Mr. Hands' introduction, waving her through with the casual menace of people who killed for a living and enjoyed it.

The elevator to Hansen's office was a study in intimidation—transparent walls that showed the stadium's full height, the implication clear that anyone who rode it existed at Hansen's pleasure. Terissa kept her breathing steady, her enhanced metabolism already flooding her system with combat chemicals that sharpened every sense to a razor's edge.

The office doors opened onto calculated opulence. Kurt Hansen had decorated his throne room with the spoils of a dozen corporate raids—artwork that had probably once graced boardrooms, weapons displayed like trophies, and a view of Dogtown that proclaimed its owner's dominion over everything he surveyed.

Hansen himself stood with his back to her, studying something on his desk. Even from behind, he radiated the particular brand of controlled violence that came from years of sanctioned murder followed by years of the unsanctioned kind.

"Matron," he said without turning around. "Punctual. I appreciate that in a business partner."

The name hit her nervous system like ice water, but Terissa's expression never flickered. She stepped forward with measured confidence, letting silence be her response to the provocation.

Hansen turned finally, and she got her first real look at Night City's most successful warlord. The years since his discharge had carved hard lines into his face, and his chrome—military-grade but modified with black market improvements—suggested someone who viewed his body as just another weapon to be optimized.

"I prefer Ms. Scott these days," she said evenly. "I find it's healthier to leave certain names in the past."

"Of course." His smile suggested he'd already won something just by knowing that name. "Though I have to say, your reputation precedes you. The NUSA's ghost who walked away. There aren't many who manage that."

"There aren't many who try." She moved closer to his desk, noting the positions of his bodyguards in her peripheral vision. Two by the door, one in the corner with a clear line of sight to where she stood. "But I didn't come here to discuss ancient history. I came to make a deal."

"Straight to business. I respect that." Hansen reached behind his desk and produced a case about the size of a briefcase, setting it down with deliberate care. "Mr. Hands says you're interested in some specialized hardware. Says you've got something worth trading for it."

He opened the case with theatrical precision, revealing the neural matrix nestled in foam like some technological crown. It was smaller than Terissa had expected—a crystalline structure that seemed to shift and flow despite being solid, quantum processors visible through its transparent shell.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Hansen's voice carried genuine appreciation. "Militech's crown jewel, or it would have been if they'd ever figured out how to properly utilize it. Took my best netrunners three weeks just to crack the basic interface."

"May I?" Terissa gestured toward the device.

"By all means."

She leaned closer, her enhanced vision parsing the matrix's construction. The quantum architecture was beyond anything she'd seen, even in NUSA's most classified projects. But there was something else, a pattern in the crystalline structure that suggested...

"There's an AI," she breathed, genuine surprise breaking through her professional composure. "This isn't just hardware. There's an actual artificial intelligence embedded in the matrix."

"Very good." Hansen's approval was patronizing, but Terissa ignored it, too fascinated by the implications. "A medical AI, specifically. Designed to map and repair neural networks in real-time. Militech was trying to create the ultimate combat medic—something that could bring soldiers back from brain death, rebuild them from the neurons up."

With something like this, plus Tycho's facilities... they could actually save So Mi. Not just delay the degradation, but reverse it entirely. The AI could map the Blackwall corruption, isolate it, and guide the surgical teams in extracting it without destroying So Mi's consciousness in the process.

"Impressive," she said, straightening. "And you're willing to part with it?"

"For the right price." Hansen moved back to his chair, settling into it like a king on his throne. "Mr. Hands suggested you have access to some very interesting information. NUSA protocols, operational intelligence, the kind of data that could make my little kingdom here significantly more secure."

Terissa reached into her jacket, producing a data shard that contained just enough genuine intelligence to prove her worth. "A sample. Authentication codes, communication protocols, basic surveillance countermeasures. Enough to show I'm not selling fantasies."

She placed the shard on his desk, the soft click as it touched the surface somehow louder than it should have been. Hansen picked it up, slotting it into a reader built into his desk. His eyes flickered as he processed the data, and she saw the moment he realized what she was really offering.

"This is..." He looked up at her with something between greed and admiration. "This is current. These protocols are still active."

"I keep my ears open. Old habits." She kept her tone casual, but her nerves were singing with tension. Something about this felt wrong, had felt wrong since she'd walked in. The way Hansen kept glancing toward the door, the slight smile that played at the corners of his mouth.

"Indeed." Hansen leaned back, steepling his fingers. "You know, it's fascinating how patterns repeat themselves. Former government operatives, trading state secrets for personal gain. It's almost... predictable."

The door opened behind her.

Terissa didn't turn, didn't need to. Her enhanced hearing had already identified the gait, the specific pattern of breathing she'd catalogued days ago in a park where they'd discussed impossible odds and necessary betrayals.

"Hello, Terissa."

Song So Mi stepped into view, moving to stand behind Hansen's chair. She looked better than she had at their last meeting—color in her cheeks, steadier hands, the kind of improvement that suggested medical intervention. Or a deal already made.

"So Mi." Terissa kept her voice neutral even as her mind raced through implications and adjustments. "You look well."

"Mr. Hansen has been very accommodating." So Mi's expression was carefully blank, but Terissa caught the flicker of something—regret? Shame?—before it disappeared. "When you told me about your plan, I realized there was a more direct approach. Why involve a middleman when I could negotiate directly?"

Hansen's smile widened. "She came to me three days ago. Offered me something even more valuable than old NUSA intel—active FIA intelligence, including the locations and identities of every dormant asset in Night City." His eyes glittered with satisfaction. "Agents like your acquaintance Alex, for instance."

The betrayal stung, but Terissa had survived worse. She'd been trained to compartmentalize, to adapt, to turn disadvantage into opportunity. Even as her tactical mind calculated odds and angles, part of her understood So Mi's choice. When you were dying, drowning in neural corruption, you grabbed any lifeline available.

"I see." She looked at So Mi directly. "The degradation must be worse than you let on, if you're burning every bridge this quickly."

Something cracked in So Mi's composure. "You don't understand. It's not just degradation anymore. The Blackwall... it's trying to use me as a gateway. Every time I access the Net, it gets stronger. Hansen's offered immediate extraction to a facility in Istanbul. Full neural reconstruction using the matrix. I'll be free in weeks, not months."

"Assuming he keeps his word."

"I keep my bargains," Hansen interjected, his tone suggesting he was enjoying this far too much. "Though I'm afraid yours has just changed, Ms. Scott. Or should I say, Matron? You see, I'll be taking that intelligence you brought either way. The only question is whether you hand it over voluntarily, or I extract it from your cooling corpse."

Terissa sighed, the sound carrying years of exhaustion with scenarios exactly like this one. "It's been a long time since I've been in shit this deep."

Her hand moved to her jacket pocket—not for a weapon, but for the trigger she'd prepared hours ago. The virus she'd embedded in Dogtown's power grid responded instantly.

The lights died.

Emergency lighting kicked in a heartbeat later, but Terissa was already moving. Her enhanced vision adapted instantly to the near-darkness, military augmentations finally earning their keep. She rolled across Hansen's desk, her hand closing on the neural matrix case as Hansen's first shot split the air where she'd been standing.

"Stop her!" Hansen's roar echoed through the office as Terissa crashed through the space where his bodyguards had been positioned. One tried to grab her, but she drove an elbow into his throat with enhanced strength, sending him gasping to the floor, windpipe crushed.

The hallway beyond erupted in chaos. Guards responding to Hansen's alert, their tactical lights creating a strobe effect in the emergency lighting. Terissa moved through them like violence given form, every motion economical, every strike calculated for maximum effect with minimum exposure.

A burst of automatic fire chewed through the wall inches from her head. She grabbed a guard's rifle, using his body as a shield while she returned fire, the weapon's smart targeting system painting her attackers in red overlays. The corridor became a symphony of gunfire and breaking glass, Hansen's voice over the intercom promising rewards for her corpse that would have fed a family for years.

She hit the stairwell at full speed, vaulting over the railing to drop two stories, her enhanced legs absorbing the impact. More guards poured in from above and below, turning the stairwell into a vertical killing field. Terissa kept moving, using momentum and superior positioning to stay ahead of their targeting solutions.

A door exploded off its hinges as she burst through, finding herself in what had once been the stadium's concession area. Ancient popcorn machines and rusted drink dispensers provided minimal cover as more of Hansen's soldiers converged on her position.

She felt the first hit as heat spreading across her ribs—a round that had punched through her jacket's armor weave. The second caught her thigh, sending her stumbling but not stopping her forward momentum. Adrenaline and combat drugs flooded her system, turning pain into distant information to be processed later.

The service tunnels beckoned, a maintenance hatch she'd identified during her reconnaissance. She dove through it as bullets sparked off the metal frame, landing hard in ankle-deep water that reeked of decades of urban decay.

The tunnels were a maze, but she'd memorized the layout, her enhanced recall painting the route in her mind's eye. Behind her, she could hear pursuit—Hansen's people were good, but they didn't know these passages quite like she did.

Another hit, this one to her shoulder, spinning her into a wall. She pushed off, kept moving, the neural matrix case still clutched in her hand like a talisman. The sewage outlet was ahead, a circle of lesser darkness in the tunnel's black.

She emerged into Night City's polluted evening, the transition from Dogtown's underground to the industrial wasteland beyond the walls. Her legs finally betrayed her, sending her sprawling into contaminated mud that immediately began soaking through her clothes.

Three wounds, maybe four—she'd lost count. Blood was pooling beneath her faster than her enhanced healing could compensate. She tried to push herself up, managed to get to her knees before the world tilted sideways and deposited her back in the muck.

At least she was outside Dogtown, she thought with bitter amusement. Small victories.

The neural matrix case lay beside her, its contents probably worth more than most people would see in a lifetime. She'd gotten it out. Now she just had to survive long enough for it to matter.

Her phone was miraculously intact, though the screen was cracked and bloody from her fingers. She managed to navigate to Judy's contact, each movement feeling like it required enormous effort.

"Hey, T!" Judy's voice was bright, warm, completely unaware of the situation. "What's up? I was just—"

"Judy." Her voice came out strained, wet with something that was probably blood. "I need... I need you to come get me."

The warmth vanished from Judy's tone, replaced by sharp concern. "Terissa? What's wrong? You sound—"

"Sending location." She managed to trigger the GPS ping, watching the confirmation with vision that was starting to blur around the edges. "Bring medical supplies. And maybe... maybe a tarp for your seats."

"Oh fuck. Oh fuck, Terissa, what—I'm on my way! I'm getting in the van right now. Just... just stay on the line, okay? Keep talking to me."

Terissa laughed, the sound turning into a cough that brought up more blood than she was comfortable seeing, yep that was probably a hit in the lungs. "Not going anywhere, Judy. Pretty sure my running days are done for the evening."

"Don't you dare joke about this!" She could hear Judy's van starting, the roar of an engine being pushed hard. "You're going to be fine. I've got stabilizers, I've got… Just stay awake, okay? Stay with me."

"Always so optimistic," Terissa murmured, her eyes focusing on the stars barely visible through Night City's smog. "It's one of the things I lo— like about you."

"Save the sentiment for when you're not bleeding out," Judy shot back, but Terissa could hear the tears in her voice. "I'm fifteen minutes away. Ten if I ignore traffic laws, which I absolutely am. Just... don't go anywhere."

"Told you," Terissa said, her voice getting softer as the adrenaline finally began to fade. "Not going anywhere."

The phone slipped from her fingers, landing in the mud beside the neural matrix case. Above her, Night City's neon glow painted the smog in shades of false dawn, and Terissa found herself thinking it was almost beautiful, in its own poisoned way.

She could hear sirens in the distance—not for her, never for her, just the city's constant song of crisis and catastrophe. But somewhere in that noise, getting closer, was the sound of Judy's van, burning through the streets with desperate purpose.

Terissa closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing, on keeping her enhanced systems focused on the simple task of not dying. She'd gotten the matrix. She'd escaped Hansen's trap.

Now she just had to survive long enough to figure out what came next.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: Blood and Trust

The industrial wasteland outside Dogtown's walls materialized in Judy's headlights like something out of a nightmare—toxic runoff pooling in craters, rusted metal jutting from contaminated earth, and there, at the coordinates Terissa had sent, a body lying too still in the mud.

"No, no, no..." Judy killed the engine and practically fell out of the van, her boots splashing through puddles of things she didn't want to identify. The smell hit her immediately—blood, chemicals, and the underlying rot that permeated everything outside Night City's maintained zones.

Terissa lay on her side, one arm stretched toward something that gleamed dully in the van's lights. Blood had turned the ground around her into dark mud, and Judy immediately began cataloging injuries even as her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.

"T? Terissa!" She dropped to her knees beside the other woman, hands hovering uncertainly before simple training kicked in. Check breathing first—shallow but present. Pulse—weak but steady. The blood though...

"Jesus Christ," Judy breathed as she began her assessment. Two entry wounds in the left leg, still seeping. Lower torso, right side—through and through by the look of it. Her hands moved to Terissa's chest, finding two more holes that had somehow, miraculously, missed the heart by centimeters. The shoulder wound was still bleeding freely.

Six shots. Six fucking shots and Terissa was still breathing.

Judy's hands moved on autopilot, applying pressure with gauze from her emergency kit while her mind raced through what basic medical procedures she could recall. The stabilizers—she had three doses in the van, military grade because living in Night City meant being prepared for the worst.

"Come on, T, work with me here." She pressed an injector against Terissa's neck, watching the cocktail of coagulants and synthetic adrenaline disappear into her bloodstream. "You don't get to die on me after calling me for help. That's just fucking rude."

Terissa's eyes fluttered open, unfocused but aware. Her lips moved, forming words that came out as whispers Judy had to lean close to hear.

"City Center... Pershing... forty-seven twenty-three... Doc Lenard..."

"Save your strength," Judy commanded, but she was already committing the address to memory. "I'm going to move you now. This is going to hurt."

"Already... hurts..." Terissa managed a ghost of her usual sardonic smile. "Least you're... pretty to look at..."

"Shut up and let me save your ass." Judy slipped her arms under Terissa's body, biting back a curse at how limp she felt. Dead weight, her mind supplied unhelpfully. Not dead though. Not fucking dead.

The lift into the van was awkward, Judy's strength was barely enough to manage Terissa's enhanced muscle mass. Blood immediately began soaking into the seats despite the tarp she'd thrown down, but that was tomorrow's problem. Today's problem was keeping Terissa alive for the next ten minutes.

She grabbed the metal case Terissa had been reaching for—whatever was inside had better be worth this—and threw it in the back before slamming the doors and diving into the driver's seat.

The van's engine roared to life, and Judy threw it into gear with enough force to leave rubber on the contaminated ground. City Center was fifteen minutes away if she obeyed traffic laws. Eight if she didn't.

She wasn't.

"Pershing Avenue, Building forty-seven twenty-three," she muttered, weaving through traffic with the kind of aggressive precision usually reserved for combat zones. Her hand reached back periodically to check Terissa's pulse, each confirmation that it still beat allowing her to breathe for another thirty seconds.

Red lights became suggestions. Other vehicles became obstacles to navigate around. The NCPD could kiss her ass if they wanted to try pulling her over—she'd ram them before she stopped.

"Stay with me, T," she said, taking a corner so hard the van lifted onto two wheels momentarily. "I know you've got that whole mysterious badass thing going on, but bleeding out is not part of the aesthetic."

No response from the back. Judy's jaw clenched harder.

Seven minutes. Six. The buildings of City Center rose around them, chrome and glass monuments to corporate excess that Judy usually hated but now represented salvation. Pershing Avenue materialized in her navigation display, and she took the turn hard enough to send the case sliding across the van's floor.

Building forty-seven twenty-three was a modest storefront, the kind of place that looked abandoned from the outside. But Judy recognized the subtle signs—reinforced door, hidden cameras, the particular stillness that suggested serious security. She pulled up directly in front, not caring about parking regulations, and was out of the van before it fully stopped moving.

The door was locked. Judy pounded on it with enough force to dent the metal. "Medical emergency! I've got Terissa Scott and she's dying!"

For a heartbeat, nothing. Then locks disengaged with rapid clicks, and the door swung open to reveal a woman who was more chrome than flesh, her movements carrying the liquid precision of high-end augmentation.

"Shit," the woman—Carol, according to the name etched into her chrome jaw—took one look at Judy's blood-soaked clothes and the body in the back and moved. "LENARD! CODE BLACK! SCOTT'S DOWN!"

The next minutes became a blur of controlled chaos. Carol lifted Terissa from the van with mechanical efficiency while Judy found herself pushed aside by medical equipment that emerged from hidden panels in the walls. The back area transformed from innocuous medical office to something that belonged in a Trauma Team facility.

"How long since injury?" A man's voice—presumably Lenard—sharp and focused as his hands moved over Terissa's body with practiced precision.

"Maybe fifteen minutes," Judy managed, her voice cracking. "Six gunshot wounds. I gave her military-grade stabilizers—"

"Dosage?"

"Three units, fifteen CCs each."

"Good girl." Lenard didn't look up from his work, tools appearing in his hands as if by magic. "Carol, prep theater two. We're going straight in."

They disappeared through another door, leaving Judy standing alone in a waiting room that suddenly felt too quiet, too still. Her hands were shaking, she realized. Covered in blood, Terissa's blood, and shaking like she was some rookie who'd never seen violence before.

But this was different. This was Terissa.

She found herself pacing, seven steps from wall to wall, turn, repeat. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a sick feeling in her stomach and thoughts that wouldn't stop racing. What the fuck had Terissa been doing? Who had shot her? Why was she even out in that industrial wasteland?

The case. Judy retrieved it from the van, surprised by its weight. Whatever was inside, Terissa had held onto it even while bleeding out. That meant it was important. Important enough to nearly die for.

Hours crawled by. Judy's pacing wore a pattern in the floor. Carol appeared periodically, offering water that Judy didn't drink and updates that basically amounted to "still alive, still in surgery." The chrome woman seemed to understand Judy's need for silence, returning to the surgical theater without pushing for conversation.

Dawn was painting City Center's towers in shades of gold and amber when Lenard finally emerged, pulling off surgical gloves with the slow movements of exhaustion.

"She'll live," he said without preamble. "Though it's a goddamn miracle. Two of those chest wounds were millimeters from her heart. Another few minutes of blood loss and we'd be having a different conversation."

Judy's legs nearly gave out with relief. "Can I—"

"She's unconscious and will be for several more hours. But yes, you can sit with her." His expression softened marginally. "You did good, getting her here quickly. The stabilizers you administered probably made the difference."

The recovery room was small but well-equipped, dominated by a medical bed where Terissa lay surrounded by monitors and IV lines. She looked smaller somehow, vulnerable in a way that Judy had never seen her. The always-present tension in her features had smoothed out, leaving her looking younger, almost peaceful despite the circumstances.

Judy collapsed into the chair beside the bed, exhaustion hitting her like a physical weight. But she couldn't sleep, couldn't look away from the steady rise and fall of Terissa's chest that proved she was still breathing, still fighting.

Carol appeared with surprising quietness for someone so augmented, setting down a tray with actual food—not the synthetic crap, but real bread, real meat, even what looked like actual coffee.

"She's important to you," Carol observed, not a question.

"She's..." Judy paused, not sure how to define what Terissa was to her. Friend seemed too simple. The attraction was there, had been for months, but complicated by Judy's feelings for Evelyn and Terissa's own walls of secrets. "Yeah. She's important."

Carol nodded as if that explained everything. "She's tough. Seen her walk off injuries that would've killed most people. She'll pull through."

The next two days blurred together. Judy refused to leave, catching fragments of sleep in the chair while monitors beeped their electronic lullabies. Carol brought food regularly, sometimes sitting with Judy in comfortable silence, sometimes sharing stories about past patients that were probably meant to be reassuring.

On the evening of the second day, Lenard emerged from another marathon treatment session looking satisfied.

"Major danger's passed," he announced. "Few more days and she'll be mobile. Week or two for full recovery, though knowing Terissa she'll probably ignore that advice."

Judy pushed past him before he'd finished speaking, needing to see for herself. Terissa's color was better, the deathly pallor replaced by something closer to her normal complexion. The monitoring equipment showed steadier vitals, stronger heartbeat, deeper breathing.

She settled back into what had become her chair, taking Terissa's hand without thinking about it. The skin was warm, calloused from years of violence, but the fingers were elegant despite their capability for destruction.

"You better wake up soon," Judy murmured. "I've got some choice words for you about whatever insane shit got you shot six times."

Hours passed. Carol came and went with food that Judy mechanically consumed. The city outside continued its relentless existence, but in this small room, time seemed suspended.

It was deep in the night, that strange hour when Night City's neon couldn't quite banish the darkness, when Terissa's eyes finally opened. Just a crack at first, then wider as she took in her surroundings with the systematic assessment of someone trained to catalog threats even when half-dead.

Her gaze landed on Judy, passed out in the chair with her head tilted at an uncomfortable angle, still holding Terissa's hand like an anchor. The ghost of a smile touched Terissa's lips—soft, genuine, the kind of expression she rarely allowed herself in the company of others.

She shifted slightly, testing her body's response. Everything hurt, but it was the manageable hurt of healing rather than the sharp agony of dying. Her enhanced systems were already working to repair the damage, though she could feel the strain of it. Six shots. She was definitely getting sloppy if she'd let them land that many hits.

The movement woke Judy, who went from asleep to alert in an instant. Her eyes widened as she realized Terissa was conscious, and then her expression shifted through relief to anger so quickly it was almost comical.

"You absolute fucking idiot!" Judy's grip on her hand tightened enough to hurt. "Six shots! Six! What the hell were you thinking? Were you trying to die? Because that's what it looked like!"

The Spanish came next, too fast for Terissa's drug-addled brain to fully process, but the tone was clear—threats of bodily harm if Terissa ever put her through this again, promises of violence that would make the gunshots look pleasant by comparison.

"Judy," Terissa's voice came out rough, her throat dry as sand. "The case. Did you—"

"Are you seriously asking about some stupid case right now?" Judy's eyes blazed with fury. "You nearly died and you're worried about—" She paused, studying Terissa's expression. "Is it important?"

Terissa managed a slight nod. "Very."

Judy's eyes narrowed, then rolled dramatically. "Of course I grabbed your precious case. I'm not an idiot, unlike someone in this room who apparently thinks they're bulletproof."

"You grabbed it," Terissa said with a weak smile. "You wouldn't be this angry about me asking if you hadn't."

"I hate that you know me that well," Judy muttered, but some of the anger had drained from her voice. "What the fuck is in that thing anyway?"

"That's... complicated."

"Everything with you is complicated." The words carried frustration but also something softer, something that made Terissa's chest tight in a way that had nothing to do with bullet wounds.

Carol chose that moment to appear, taking in the scene with professional assessment. "Good, you're awake. I'll get Lenard." She paused, looking at Judy. "Maybe give them some space for the medical evaluation?"

"Like hell—"

"Judy." Terissa squeezed her hand gently. "I'm okay. Let them work."

The next hour was a blur of medical checks, medication adjustments, and Lenard's professional disapproval of whatever had led to Terissa getting shot six times. Through it all, Judy hovered at the edge of the room, refusing to go further despite Carol's suggestions about getting some actual rest.

Finally, Lenard declared himself satisfied with Terissa's progress. "Another day of observation, then you can move to recovery somewhere more comfortable. Though I recommend—"

"I've got a place," Terissa interrupted. She gestured weakly to Judy. "My phone?"

Judy retrieved it from the pile of Terissa's blood-soaked belongings, trying not to think about how close she'd come to these being final effects. Terissa's fingers moved across the cracked screen with surprising dexterity, navigating through multiple layers of security before transferring something to Judy's device.

"Access codes," she explained. "Apartment in City Center."

Judy's phone chimed with the receipt, and her eyebrows shot up as she read the address. "This is... this is a penthouse. In Corpo Plaza."

"Mm-hmm."

"How the fuck do you have a penthouse in Corpo Plaza?"

Terissa's grin was weak but genuine. "I have so many secrets you don't know about."

"Your entire life is one giant secret," Judy shot back, but she was already studying the access codes with interest. The building was one of the expensive ones, the kind where rent cost more per month than most people saw in a year.

Terissa's expression sobered slightly. The accusation hit because it was true. Seven months of friendship, of growing closer, of this thing between them that neither quite acknowledged, and she'd kept so much hidden. Her past, her connections, the violence that lived beneath her skin like a second skeleton.

But that was a conversation for when she wasn't high on painkillers and held together by surgical staples.

"Help me up?" she asked instead, ready to test her body's limits.

"Absolutely not." Judy crossed her arms. "Lenard said at least another day of observation."

"Lenard's being overcautious."

"Lenard kept you from bleeding out on his table, so maybe listen to him?"

They stared at each other, stubbornness meeting stubbornness, until Carol cleared her throat.

"Compromise," the chrome woman suggested. "We move her to the penthouse tomorrow morning. I'll come along to ensure the transfer goes smoothly and set up basic monitoring equipment."

Terissa wanted to argue, but the fact that sitting up had made the room spin suggested maybe Carol had a point. "Fine."

"Good." Judy settled back into her chair with an air of victory. "Now you're going to rest, and I'm going to sit here making sure you don't do anything stupid like trying to escape."

"I wasn't going to—"

"You were absolutely thinking about it."

She was. Terissa settled back against the pillows with a sigh. "You know me too well."

"Not well enough, apparently," Judy said quietly, and there was something in her tone that made Terissa's chest ache again. "But we're going to talk about that. About all of it. Once you're not held together by staples and prayer."

Terissa nodded slowly. She owed Judy that much—probably more. The woman had saved her life, had dropped everything to race across Night City to pull her out of the mud. Had sat by her bed for days, refusing to leave.

That kind of loyalty deserved truth, even if the truth was complicated and bloody and might change how Judy looked at her.

But for now, Terissa let herself drift, Judy's hand warm in hers, the steady beep of monitors playing a lullaby of survival. The neural matrix was secure, So Mi's betrayal was a problem for tomorrow, and she was alive despite Hansen's best efforts to make her otherwise.

In Night City, sometimes that was the best victory you could hope for.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Truth and Water

The private elevator ascended through Corpo Plaza's chrome spine with the smooth efficiency of money properly spent. Judy stood rigid against the polished wall, her eyes tracking the floor counter with an expression that cycled through emotions like a malfunctioning hologram—outrage at thirty floors, suspicion at forty, genuine surprise as they passed fifty and kept climbing.

Terissa sat in the wheelchair Carol had insisted on, her enhanced body protesting the indignity even as her healing wounds reminded her why walking wasn't quite advisable yet. She could feel Judy's questions building like pressure in a sealed container, each floor adding another atmosphere of confusion and barely restrained fury.

Carol stood behind the wheelchair with the detached professionalism of someone who'd seen too much to be surprised by anything Night City offered. The medical equipment stacked on the chair's handles clinked softly with each subtle shift of the elevator.

"Penthouse," Judy finally said, the word carrying enough accusation to convict. "You have a fucking penthouse."

"Technically, I have access to a penthouse," Terissa corrected, knowing it wouldn't help.

"Oh, that makes it so much better." Judy's eye twitched, a tell Terissa had noticed appeared when the younger woman was trying very hard not to explode. "Any other 'technical' distinctions you want to share? Maybe you 'technically' own a yacht? Or 'technically' run a small country?"

The elevator chimed, doors sliding open to reveal the penthouse's entry foyer. Judy's eye twitched again, harder this time.

"Jesus fucking Christ."

The space unfolded before them in layers of understated excess. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed Night City's skyline like the world's most expensive artwork. The living area sprawled in carefully orchestrated zones—conversation spaces that suggested intimate secrets, a kitchen that had never seen synthetic food, and beyond the glass doors, a balcony where an infinity pool caught the morning light like captured sky.

"This is... this is..." Judy seemed to run out of words, which Terissa knew from experience was a dangerous sign.

"Excessive?" Terissa suggested.

"I was going to say 'fucking insane,' but excessive works too." Judy grabbed the wheelchair's handles from Carol with perhaps more force than necessary. "Where do you want your lying, secret-keeping ass parked?"

"Living room would be fine."

Judy navigated through the space with the careful movements of someone afraid they might break something worth more than a lifetime's earnings. Her gaze swept across original artwork, furniture that belonged in museums, the kind of casual wealth that made normal people's teeth ache.

Carol moved with professional efficiency, setting up monitoring equipment in an unobtrusive corner where it wouldn't disrupt the room's aesthetic. She ran through basic instructions—medication schedules, warning signs to watch for, emergency protocols—while Judy nodded along with the focused attention of someone memorizing every detail.

"She'll try to do too much too soon," Carol warned, gathering her things. "Don't let her. The enhanced healing only works if she actually rests."

"Oh, I'll make sure she rests," Judy said with a tone that promised creative enforcement methods.

Carol's gave a wry smile. "Good luck with that." She paused at the elevator. "Terissa has my direct line if there are any complications. Though somehow I doubt she'll use it unless she's literally dying. Again."

The elevator doors closed on Carol's knowing expression, leaving them alone in the penthouse's orchestrated perfection.

Terissa carefully transferred herself from the wheelchair to the sofa, trying not to show how much the movement cost her. Every muscle fiber protested, healing tissue pulling in ways that sent sharp reminders of Hansen's hospitality through her nervous system.

Judy perched on the edge of the chair across from her like a bird preparing for flight—or attack. The questions were written in every line of her body, in the way her fingers drummed against her thigh, in the careful distance she maintained.

Terissa sighed, recognizing the inevitable. "Ask."

"I don't even know where to start." Judy's hands gestured at the space around them. "This? You? The fact that you've been living in that shitty apartment in Watson while you had access to this? The fact that you nearly died for some mystery case? The fact that I apparently don't know anything real about you?"

The hurt in that last question cut deeper than any of Hansen's bullets.

"You know me," Terissa said quietly. "You know the person I am now."

"Do I? Because the person I thought I knew wouldn't have…" Judy stopped, visibly pulling herself back. "Start from the beginning. The actual beginning."

Terissa studied the ceiling for a moment, organizing thoughts into something she could share without painting targets on either of their backs. "I was recruited young. NUSA intelligence saw potential in a teenager who'd already learned that violence was just another form of communication."

She kept her voice neutral, clinical, as she sketched the outline of a life spent in shadows. The training that had carved away everything soft until only purpose remained. The operations that had taken her across the globe—a ghost who destabilized governments over breakfast and disappeared dissidents before dinner.

"I was good at it," she continued, meeting Judy's gaze directly. "Very good. The kind of good that made me valuable enough to keep upgrading, keep pushing, keep sharpening into a more perfect weapon."

"What kind of operations?" Judy's voice was carefully controlled.

Terissa chose her words like a surgeon selecting instruments. "Deep cover infiltration that could last years. Destabilization campaigns that made governments collapse from within. Assassination of targets who thought they were untouchable."

She watched Judy process this, saw the moment when abstract concepts became concrete reality. This woman she'd known for seven months, who she'd shared drinks with, laughed with, had been…

"How many?" Judy asked quietly.

"I stopped counting after the first hundred." The admission hung between them like a confession. "It became easier not to keep track. To think of them as objectives rather than people."

"Jesus." Judy's hand covered her mouth, but her eyes never left Terissa's face. "And you just... what? Decided to retire? Move to Night City and play normal?"

"I walked away." Terissa shifted, wincing as the movement pulled at healing tissue. "There was… a delicate mission that required covering up some very heinous crimes. I completed the objective, but something broke that day. The part of me that could pretend it was for a greater good. Especially after…"

She didn't mention the entire village she had to dispose of, didn't explain how watching children be put down like animals had caused her to not just break, but shatter completely.

"So I disappeared. Used everything they'd taught me to vanish from their radar. Night City was perfect—chaos incarnate, where anyone could reinvent themselves if they were smart enough and tough enough to survive."

"But you kept working," Judy pointed out. "Information broker, security consultant, whatever else you do that involves getting shot."

"I needed to eat. And my skill set is somewhat specialized."

"Somewhat specialized," Judy repeated flatly. "That's one way to describe being a fucking super spy assassin."

"Former," Terissa corrected. "Very former."

"Right. So former that you're bleeding out in toxic mud with bullet holes from some current situation."

Terissa didn't have a good response to that, so she carefully stood instead, testing her balance. The room swayed slightly, but she managed to stay upright through pure stubbornness.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting us better drinks than talking requires." She made her way to the kitchen with deliberate steps, each one a small victory against her body's protests. "There's actual beer in here. The kind made with real ingredients by people who cared about the process."

She retrieved two bottles, noted Judy had followed her with the protective hovering of someone ready to catch her if she fell. The simple concern in that gesture made something in Terissa's chest tighten.

"Outside?" she suggested, nodding toward the balcony.

They settled by the pool's edge, feet in water that was exactly body temperature, the kind of precision that cost more than most people's rent. The city spread below them, a vast circuit board of light and shadow, beauty and decay in equal measure.

"This is fucked," Judy said after a long silence.

"Yeah."

"I mean really, properly fucked. My friend for seven months turns out to be some kind of international super-assassin with a secret penthouse and a past full of classified murder."

"When you put it like that…"

"How else should I put it?" Judy's voice cracked slightly. "God, T, I thought I knew you. I thought we were... I don't know what I thought. But it wasn't this."

Terissa took a long pull from her beer, organizing thoughts that had no good arrangement. "I couldn't tell you. It's not just my secrets, knowing certain things would make you a target. There are people who would kill you just for having an inkling about what I've done, where I've been."

"So instead you lied."

"I omitted."

"That's lying with extra steps."

"Yes," Terissa admitted. "It is."

They sat in silence, the pool's gentle circulation system creating small waves that lapped at their feet. Judy's reflection wavered in the water, distorted but recognizable, and Terissa found herself thinking about distorted truths and whether any relationship could survive that much refraction.

"The apartment in Watson," Judy said suddenly. "Why keep it if you had this?"

"Because Terissa Scott lives in Watson. She's a mid-level information broker who struggles with rent sometimes and drinks at dive bars. She's nobody important enough to notice."

"And this?"

"This is a safehouse. One of several. For when I need to not exist for a while."

Judy turned to look at her directly. "How many other safehouses?"

"Three in Night City. A few others scattered around."

"Jesus." Judy's hand ran through her hair, leaving it in adorable disarray. "Any other massive secrets? Secret families? Clones? Alien connections?"

Despite everything, Terissa found herself almost smiling. "No families, no clones, and if aliens exist, they haven't contacted me."

"Small mercies." Judy took a drink, then seemed to come to some internal decision. "The case. The one you nearly died for. What's in it?"

Terissa weighed the options. So Mi was already burned, her betrayal public enough that discussing it wouldn't add danger. And Judy had earned some truth through blood and loyalty.

"A neural matrix. Experimental medical AI designed to repair catastrophic neural damage. I was acquiring it for someone who's dying from Blackwall corruption."

"Blackwall corruption?" Judy's technical curiosity overrode her anger momentarily. "That's not supposed to be survivable."

"It's not. Hence the desperate measures."

"And this someone, they're important enough to risk your life?"

"I thought so. Turns out they had other plans. Made a deal with the person I was acquiring it from, left me to be the distraction that got shot."

"They betrayed you." It wasn't a question.

"Comprehensively."

"And you still have the matrix."

"Sometimes spite is excellent motivation."

Judy surprised her by laughing, short and bitter, but genuine. "So you're telling me you got shot at partly out of spite?"

"When you put it like that, it sounds less noble."

"Nothing about this sounds noble, T. It sounds like a fucking disaster."

"That too."

They lapsed into silence again, but it felt different now. Less charged, more contemplative. The sun climbed higher, painting the pool's surface in sheets of gold that hurt to look at directly.

"I don't know how to process this," Judy admitted finally. "You're still you, but you're also... not. Or more. Or… fuck, I don't know."

"I'm still the person who sits in your workshop while you explain BD theory. Still the one who brings you real coffee when you've been working too long. Still…"

"Still the one who lies about everything important?"

The words stung because they were true. Terissa had compartmentalized her life so thoroughly that even she sometimes forgot which parts were real.

"I didn't lie about the things that mattered," she said quietly. "How I feel about your work, your passion, your refusal to let Night City crush your idealism. How I…" She stopped, the words too dangerous even now.

"How you what?" Judy's voice had gone very quiet.

"How I feel about you."

The admission hung between them like a bridge neither was quite ready to cross. Judy's expression did something complicated, cycling through emotions too quickly to track.

"That's not fair," she said finally.

"I know."

"You can't just drop emotional bombs when I'm trying to be angry at you."

"I know that too."

"I still have feelings for Evelyn."

"I know that as well."

"Stop knowing things!" Judy's frustration exploded outward, but there was something else underneath it. "God, this is so fucked. You're bleeding and broken and apparently some kind of international assassin and I saved your life and you have a secret penthouse with a pool and I don't know what to do with any of this!"

She stood abruptly, pacing along the pool's edge with agitated energy. "Do you have any idea what it was like? Seeing you in that mud, all that blood? I thought you were dead. I thought I was going to watch you die in the back of my van and the last thing we'd talked about was some stupid BD tech."

"Judy…"

"No, you don't get to 'Judy' me right now. I'm processing. I'm allowed to process."

She continued pacing, words spilling out in a torrent. "Seven months. Seven months of friendship and flirting and this thing between us that neither of us would acknowledge because I'm hung up on someone who barely notices me and you're apparently made of secrets and murder. And then you nearly die and I realize I can't lose you, can't even think about losing you, but I also don't know who you actually are."

She stopped, breathing hard, looking at Terissa with eyes that held too many emotions to name.

"I'm whoever I am when I'm with you," Terissa said simply. "That's the most honest version of me that exists."

"That's either really romantic or really fucked up."

"Both, probably."

Despite everything, Judy laughed. Real laughter this time, tinged with exhaustion and absurdity. "God, we're a mess."

"Comprehensive disaster," Terissa agreed.

Judy returned to the pool's edge, sitting closer this time. Not touching, but close enough that Terissa could feel her warmth.

"I'm not saying I forgive you," Judy said carefully. "And I'm not saying this is okay. But I'm also not leaving. Not yet."

"I'll take it."

"You'll take it and be grateful," Judy corrected. "And you'll rest like Carol said. And you'll stop keeping massive secrets. And maybe, if you're very lucky and I'm feeling very generous, we'll figure out what this is between us."

"After Evelyn?"

"That's... complicated."

"I'm familiar with complicated."

"Yeah," Judy said, looking at the water where their reflections wavered and merged. "I guess you are."

They sat in companionable silence as the morning stretched toward noon, two complicated people in a complicated situation, finding something like peace in the admission that nothing was simple and maybe that was okay. The city hummed below them, indifferent to their personal disasters, but up here, by this impossible pool in this impossible penthouse, they had carved out a moment of truth.

It wasn't enough to fix everything. But it was a start.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Safe Houses and Old Habits

The penthouse kitchen gleamed with the kind of chrome and black marble that screamed corporate excess, but Terissa found comfort in its sterile perfection. It was clean, controlled, nothing like the chaos that had nearly killed her three days ago. She moved carefully, her healing wounds protesting each stretch as she reached for ingredients from the refrigerator, real vegetables, actual meat, luxuries that felt almost obscene after days of medical nutrients.

"You sure you should be doing this?" Judy asked from her perch on the counter, legs swinging slightly as she watched Terissa work. "Pretty sure 'shot six times' is on the list of reasons to order takeout."

"I need to move." Terissa sliced through a tomato with practiced precision, the knife work automatic despite the pull of healing tissue. "Besides, cooking helps me think."

"About what? Your next suicidal mission?"

The words carried bite, and Terissa set down the knife carefully before turning to face Judy fully. The younger woman's expression was a complex mix of anger, worry, and exhaustion that had been building for days.

"About keeping you safe," Terissa said quietly.

Judy's laugh was sharp, bitter. "Little late for that, don't you think? I'm already neck-deep in whatever shit you've gotten yourself into."

"Which is why you need to be careful if you leave." The words came out harder than Terissa intended, her own stress bleeding through. "The people I evaded, they know someone helped me. They'll be looking for both of us now."

"The people you evaded." Judy's voice went dangerously flat. "You mean the ones who shot you six fucking times? The ones you still won't tell me about?"

"It's safer if you don't…"

"Don't." Judy slid off the counter, her boots hitting the floor with deliberate force. "Don't give me that 'for your own protection' bullshit. I saved your ass, T. I think that earns me some actual answers."

Terissa turned back to the cutting board, buying time with the ritual of food preparation. The onions went under the knife next, their sharp scent filling the air between them. "Kurt Hansen. Dogtown's warlord. I was acquiring something from him and the deal went sideways."

"Acquiring or stealing?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does when I'm apparently an accessory now." Judy moved closer, and Terissa could feel the heat of her proximity, the anger radiating off her like a physical force. "What was in that case, Terissa?"

The knife paused mid-chop. Terissa could lie, could maintain the walls that had kept her alive for so long. But Judy deserved better. Deserved at least part of the truth.

"Medical hardware. Experimental neural architecture that could save someone's life." She resumed cutting, the rhythm helping steady her voice. "Someone who betrayed me to Hansen before I could deliver it."

Judy was quiet for a moment, processing. "So you risked your life for someone who sold you out?"

"I didn't know about the betrayal until I was already there." Terissa swept the vegetables into a pan, the sizzle of oil filling the silence. "Now I have the hardware and a problem, because both Hansen and the person who needs it will be looking for me."

"And by extension, me."

"Yes." Terissa finally met Judy's eyes. "I'm sorry. I never meant…"

"To drag me into your spy movie bullshit?" Judy's anger flickered, exhaustion winning out. "Yeah, well, too late for that."

They worked in tense silence for a few minutes, Terissa cooking while Judy set the table with aggressive precision. The domestic normalcy of it felt surreal against the weight of everything unsaid between them.

"You can't keep me here," Judy said finally, not looking up from the plates she was arranging. "I won't be your prisoner."

"I know." Terissa plated the food, a simple stir-fry that smelled better than it had any right to. "I won't stop you if you want to leave. Just... be careful. Vary your routes. Don't go to your usual places for a few days."

"A few days?" Judy's laugh was hollow. "How long is this going to last, T? When does it end?"

Terissa didn't have an answer for that. Not one that wouldn't sound like another deflection. They ate in relative silence, the clink of silverware against plates the only sound as Night City's neon glow painted patterns through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"Guest room's down the hall," Terissa said when they'd finished, gesturing toward the penthouse's east wing. "Should have everything you need."

Judy stood, pausing at the kitchen's edge. "This place... how do you afford this?"

"Another secret for another day." Terissa managed a weak smile. "Get some rest, Judy. You've earned it."

The guest room door closed with a soft click, leaving Terissa alone with the dishes and her thoughts. She cleaned mechanically, each movement pulling at healing wounds, reminding her how close she'd come to not having these problems at all.

Her own bedroom felt too large, too empty as she entered it. The shower beckoned, hot water to wash away the lingering smell of medical antiseptic and the phantom sensation of mud and blood. She moved slowly, peeling off clothes with careful movements that minimized the strain on her injuries.

The bandages came away pink-tinged but not soaked, healing progressing well thanks to her enhanced metabolism and Lenard's skill. The bruising painted her torso in shades of purple and yellow, a canvas of violence that would fade but never fully disappear from her memory.

She sat on the shower floor, letting hot water cascade over her, each droplet a small percussion against skin still hyperaware from trauma. The medical cocktail Lenard had prescribed made everything feel slightly distant, like she was watching her own life through frosted glass.

So Mi would find her eventually. The woman was too skilled, too desperate to give up. And when she did... what then? Terissa couldn't maintain her anger at the betrayal, she understood desperation too well. But understanding didn't mean forgiveness. Didn't mean she'd hand over the neural matrix just because So Mi asked nicely this time.

Hansen was another problem. He'd want his prize back, would send soldiers or worse to retrieve it. The penthouse was secure, but nowhere was impregnable in Night City. Not forever.

A plan began forming through the medical haze—contacts to leverage, favors to call in, moves and countermoves that might keep them alive long enough to find a real solution. She needed to get the matrix to someone who could use it, someone So Mi couldn't manipulate or Hansen couldn't threaten. But who?

The water was starting to cool when she finally shut it off, exhaustion winning over planning. She toweled off perfunctorily, not bothering with clothes before collapsing onto the bed. The sheets were excessive—real silk, because whoever had owned this place before her had expensive tastes—and they felt like cool relief against her overheated skin.

Sleep took her between one breath and the next.

Judy sat on the guest bed—a king-size monstrosity that made her own sleeping arrangements look like a cot—trying to process the last few hours. The last few days. The last everything.

Terissa Scott was an assassin. Former assassin. Whatever.

Terissa Scott had multiple safe houses and enough money to maintain this penthouse.

Terissa Scott had gotten shot six times acquiring something for someone who'd betrayed her.

Terissa Scott had feelings for her.

That last one kept circling back, demanding attention she wasn't ready to give it. Because underneath the anger and confusion and fear, Judy had to admit she felt... something. Had felt it for months, a pull toward Terissa that went beyond friendship, complicated by her feelings for Evelyn and now made impossibly complex by everything she'd learned.

Her phone buzzed. Evelyn's name appeared on the screen like a summons from a simpler time.

"Hey, Ev." Judy answered without hesitation, needing the normalcy of Evelyn's voice.

"Judy! I was just thinking about you." Evelyn's tone was warm, casual, the voice of someone whose biggest concern was which club to visit tonight. "It's been ages since we properly caught up. Want to grab a drink? That new place in Japantown just opened."

Judy hesitated. Terissa's warnings echoed in her mind—be careful, watch for surveillance, stay aware. But fuck it, she needed something normal, something that wasn't secret penthouses and bullet wounds and complicated feelings.

"Yeah, sure. Give me twenty to get there?"

"Perfect. Can't wait to see you."

Judy grabbed her jacket, pausing at Terissa's door. Should she say something? Leave a note? But Terissa was probably dead asleep from the medication, and Judy would be back in a few hours. Just drinks with Evelyn. Just something normal in all this chaos.

The elevator descended smoothly, carrying her from Terissa's impossible world back to the Night City she knew.

The bar Evelyn had chosen was exactly her style—just exclusive enough to feel special, just public enough to be seen. Judy found her at a corner table, looking flawless as always, every hair placed with intention, outfit managing to be both professional and subtly provocative.

"Judy!" Evelyn stood, pulling her into a hug that smelled of expensive perfume and promises never quite kept. "You look tired. Everything okay?"

"Just been a weird few days." Judy settled into her chair, signaling for a beer. "You know how it is."

"Mmm." Evelyn's smile was sympathetic but distant, already moving on. "Well, you're here now. Let me tell you about this absolutely ridiculous client I had yesterday."

And just like that, they fell into their pattern. Evelyn talking, Judy listening, the conversation flowing around Evelyn's world of high-end clients and corporate drama. Judy nursed her beer and tried not to feel the sting of disappointment that this was all they ever were—Evelyn talking, Judy listening, no real depth, no real connection beyond Judy's one-sided attraction.

"—and then he had the audacity to suggest I wasn't worth the premium rates. Can you believe it?"

"Sounds like an ass," Judy offered, because that was her role in these conversations.

"Right? Anyway, enough about work." Evelyn's hand briefly touched Judy's, electric for a moment before withdrawing. "How's your BD project coming? The emotional resonance thing?"

Of course she remembered that. Evelyn always remembered just enough to seem interested without actually engaging.

"It's... progressing." Judy thought about explaining how she'd spent the last three days tending to a wounded former assassin instead of working, but that seemed like it would raise questions she couldn't answer. "Still working out some technical issues."

"You'll figure it out. You always do." Evelyn's smile was warm but already moving past the topic. "Oh, did I tell you about the party at Konpeki Plaza next week?"

Two hours passed in this way, Evelyn's world spinning around them while Judy sat at its edges, close enough to feel the warmth but never quite invited inside. It was familiar, comfortable in its disappointment, and Judy hated herself a little for how much she still wanted more.

Finally, Evelyn checked the time with a graceful glance at her wrist. "I should go. Early client tomorrow. This was nice, though. We should do it more often."

They always said that. They never did.

Outside, they hugged goodbye, Evelyn's lips brushing Judy's cheek in a gesture that meant nothing and everything. Then she was gone, disappearing into a taxi that whisked her back to whatever life she led when Judy wasn't around.

The streets were quieter than usual, that late-night lull when even Night City seemed to catch its breath. Judy's thoughts drifted, replaying Evelyn's laugh, the way she'd touched Judy's hand briefly when making a point—

"It's nice to finally meet you, Judy."

The voice came from behind, soft and feminine with a slight accent Judy couldn't place. She turned to find an Asian woman with dark pink-purple hair, pretty in a delicate way that seemed at odds with the predatory stillness in her posture.

"Do I know you?" Judy asked, but even as the words left her mouth, she felt it, a strange tingling at the base of her skull where her neural interface connected.

The woman smiled, sad and apologetic. "No. But you know someone I need to find."

The hack hit like fire burning through her nervous system. Judy's chrome seized, every augmentation suddenly turned against her. Her vision fractured, legs giving out as her neural pathways burned with hostile code.

Terissa, she thought desperately as darkness rushed up to claim her.

The last thing she saw was the woman standing over her, that same sad smile on her face.

"I'm sorry," So Mi whispered to Judy's unconscious form. "But she left me no choice."

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Laguna Bend

The phone's insistent buzz dragged Terissa from the depths of medicated sleep, each ring a hammer blow against her consciousness. Her hand fumbled across silk sheets, finding the device more through muscle memory than intention. The display swam into focus—3:07 AM—as she brought it to her ear without checking the caller.

"Yeah?" Her voice came out rough, thick with painkillers and exhaustion.

"Hello, Terissa."

The familiar voice hit her nervous system like lightning, every augmentation snapping to combat readiness despite the protest of healing tissue. Song So Mi. The fog of medication burned away in an instant, leaving crystal clarity edged with dread.

"So Mi." She kept her voice neutral, sitting up slowly as her wounds reminded her why sudden movements were inadvisable. "This is an interesting time for a social call."

"I have Judy." The words were delivered with clinical precision, no emotion, just fact. "She's safe. She'll remain safe as long as you bring me the neural matrix."

Terissa's grip on the phone tightened fractionally, the only external sign of the arctic rage flooding through her system. Her tactical mind was already running calculations—how So Mi had found Judy, where she might have taken her, what resources the netrunner had at her disposal.

"Details," she said, the single word carrying enough edge to cut.

"One hour. The dam at Laguna Bend." A pause, deliberate, letting the location sink in. "Come alone. Bring the matrix."

Laguna Bend. Judy's childhood home, drowned beneath corporate greed, the place she went when Night City's weight became too much to bear. So Mi had done her homework, chosen a location designed to twist the knife deeper.

"And her current condition?”

"She's fine. A little confused, probably angry, but unharmed." So Mi's voice carried a hint of something that might have been regret. "This doesn't have to be complicated, Terissa. A simple exchange. You get what you care about, I get what I need to survive."

Terissa didn't bother with threats. They both knew the stakes, knew what each was capable of. Threats were for amateurs trying to sound dangerous. Professionals just acted.

"One hour," she confirmed, then killed the connection.

She was moving before the phone hit the nightstand, her body protesting but responding to the cocktail of combat chemicals her enhanced systems dumped into her bloodstream. The medical haze could wait. Judy couldn't.

Her clothes were tactical but understated, dark pants that wouldn't restrict movement, a jacket with concealed armor weave, boots that could handle whatever terrain waited at Laguna Bend. Each movement pulled at healing wounds, sharp reminders that she was operating at maybe sixty percent capacity. Against So Mi and whatever resources she'd marshaled, sixty percent might not be enough.

The safe tucked behind a false panel in the bedroom wall opened to her biometric signature, revealing the tools of her former trade. She selected carefully, a smart pistol with armor-piercing rounds, ceramic knife, two flash grenades, and a scrambler that might buy seconds against So Mi's netrunning capabilities. Not enough to win a fight, but maybe enough to create an opportunity.

The neural matrix case sat where she'd left it, its contents worth more than most people would see in a lifetime. Worth Judy's life? The question wasn't even worth asking.

The private garage beneath the tower was silent, her footsteps echoing off concrete as she approached the Quadra Type-66. Not her usual ride, too conspicuous, but speed mattered more than subtlety now. She threw the case and a rifle in the back, then paused.

One call to make first.

The phone rang twice before a gravelly voice answered. "The fuck you calling at this hour for, Scott?"

"Rogue." Terissa didn't waste time on pleasantries. The owner of the Afterlife and Night City's most connected fixer would appreciate directness. "Transferring one hundred thousand eddies. Burning that favor you owe me."

Silence for a heartbeat. Then: "I'm listening."

"Scout sniper team. Laguna Bend. Fifteen minutes. Ghosts—nobody sees them until they need to." Terissa initiated the transfer, watching the numbers disappear from her account. "Hostile extraction scenario. Multiple targets probable."

"Fifteen minutes is tight."

"That's why I'm burning the favor."

Another pause. Terissa could practically hear Rogue calculating logistics, weighing options. "Done. Signal?"

"I'll make it obvious."

The line went dead. No confirmation needed—when Rogue said done, it was done.

The Quadra's engine roared to life, 740 horsepower barely contained by Night City's streets. Terissa forced herself to drive normally for the first few blocks, knowing So Mi would have eyes on the building. Once clear, she opened up the throttle, the city blurring into streaks of neon as she pushed toward the badlands.

Laguna Bend materialized from the darkness like a monument to corporate conquest. The dam loomed against the stars, holding back water that had drowned Judy's childhood, her grandmother's grave, everything she'd known before Night City. Terissa killed the lights a kilometer out, using enhanced vision to navigate the final approach.

She parked behind a cluster of rusted shipping containers, moving on foot to survey the meeting point. Her tactical mind catalogued positions automatically, four sniper teams, positioned for overlapping fields of fire. Professional setup. Hansen's people, had to be. So Mi alone wouldn't have this kind of resource deployment.

Movement near the dam's observation platform. Terissa raised tactical binoculars, the image resolving into crystal clarity.

Judy. Tied, gagged, conscious and struggling against restraints. Alive. The relief that flooded through Terissa was immediately replaced by cold calculation. So Mi stood nearby, looking smaller than Terissa remembered, the degradation visible even at distance. And Hansen, the motherfucker himself, radiating satisfaction like he'd already won.

Her phone vibrated.

"Stop watching and come down." So Mi's voice carried a hint of exhaustion beneath the control. "We both know you're out there calculating angles."

"Old habits." Terissa let false lightness color her tone, the verbal equivalent of showing empty hands. "Give me a minute to drive around."

She returned to the Quadra, driving slowly into the meeting area with deliberate visibility. No sudden moves, nothing to spook trigger fingers. She parked twenty meters from the group, stepping out with careful precision. Hands visible, jacket open enough to show she wasn't carrying obvious weapons.

Kurt Hansen stood like a king surveying his domain, the neural modifications in his skull gleaming dully in the reflected light. His tactical gear was military surplus upgraded with black market modifications, the kind of equipment that said he'd learned to treat his body as just another weapon system. Six of his soldiers formed a loose perimeter, weapons not quite pointed at her but ready to be.

So Mi looked smaller than Terissa remembered, fragile in a way that had nothing to do with physical size. The corruption was getting worse, she could see it now, faint traces beneath the skin that pulsed with their own sick light. The netrunner's hands trembled slightly, whether from the corruption or stimulants Terissa couldn't tell.

And Judy. Fury and fear warred in those expressive eyes, directed at everyone present but mostly at Terissa. The betrayal there hurt worse than any of Hansen's bullets.

"Ms. Scott," Hansen's voice carried across the space between them as Terissa killed the engine. "So nice of you to join us. I was beginning to think you'd developed an attachment to my property."

"Your former property," Terissa corrected, stepping out with the case visible but not offered. "Possession being nine-tenths and all that."

His laugh was genuinely amused. "You've got balls, I'll give you that. Walking into my sniper kill box with nothing but a case and whatever chrome you're hiding under that jacket."

"I've got what So Mi needs. That's enough."

"Is it?" Hansen moved closer, his soldiers shifting to maintain optimal firing positions. "See, the way I figure it, you owe me for the trouble. My men you killed, that costs time, money… Reputation."

"Your men need more practice then," Terissa replied, her tone conversational despite the tactical disadvantage. "I counted at least six down as I was leaving."

Something dangerous flickered in Hansen's eyes, but So Mi stepped forward before he could respond.

"Enough." Her voice carried surprising authority for someone who looked like a strong wind might knock her over. "This isn't about your wounded ego, Hansen. It's about completing our arrangement."

She turned to Terissa, those dark eyes holding depths of desperation barely kept in check. "The matrix for Judy. Simple. Clean. Everyone walks away."

"Except you're not walking away, are you?" Terissa studied the netrunner's deteriorating condition with professional assessment. "Istanbul was a lie. Hansen doesn't have the facilities to help you. No one does, except maybe Tycho."

So Mi's composure cracked slightly. "How did you…"

"Because I did my research before trying to acquire experimental tech. The neural matrix is just hardware. Without the right medical expertise, it's an expensive paperweight." She shifted the case slightly, noting how everyone tracked the movement. "Hansen promised you something he can't deliver."

"Shut your fucking mouth," Hansen snarled, but Terissa caught the tell, the slight shift in stance that suggested she'd hit truth.

"He needs you functional just long enough to crack the matrix's encryption," she continued, watching So Mi's face pale further. "After that? You're a liability who knows too much about his operations."

The platform fell silent except for the distant lap of water against concrete and Judy's muffled sounds of struggle. The tableau held for a breathless moment, Hansen's barely controlled violence, So Mi's dawning realization, Terissa's careful balance between truth and provocation.

Then So Mi laughed, soft and bitter. "You think I don't know that? You think I'm naive enough to believe in Hansen's altruism?" She gestured at herself, at the corruption visible beneath her skin. "I have a couple months, maybe weeks now, before this thing takes me completely. Any chance, no matter how small, is better than none."

"Not if it gets everyone killed in the process."

"Everyone?" So Mi's smiled, sad and knowing. "Or just her?" A gesture toward Judy. "That's what this is really about, isn't it? Not the matrix, not me, not even Hansen. Just her."

The words hung in the air like an accusation, true enough to sting. Terissa felt the weight of Judy's gaze, the questions there she couldn't answer while surrounded by enemies.

Terissa palmed the micro-transmitter in her pocket. The signal was subtle, a brief electromagnetic pulse that Rogue's team would be watching for. She counted heartbeats. One. Two. Thr…

The antimaterial rifle's report echoed across the water like thunder. Hansen's chest exploded in a spray of blood and bone, the massive round designed to punch through vehicle armor making short work of mere flesh. He was dead before his brain could process the impact.

Smaller caliber fire erupted from multiple positions, Rogue's team engaging the sniper nests with systematic precision. Terissa was already moving, grabbing the neural matrix case and swinging it in a brutal arc that connected with So Mi's temple. The woman dropped, her neural implants probably screaming from the impact.

Terissa dove toward Judy, combat knife appearing in her hand to slice through restraints. The gag came away and immediately Judy's voice filled the air.

"Fucking finally! Do you have any idea—Mierda!—they grabbed me right off the street! That puta fried my chrome and…"

“Down!” Terissa threw herself over Judy as return fire sparked off the concrete where they'd been. She half-carried, half-dragged the younger woman toward the Quadra, using her own body as a shield while Judy continued her multilingual tirade.

"…should have fucking listened to you about being careful but no, I had to go see Evelyn and…"

"Car. Now." Terissa shoved Judy into the passenger seat, diving across to the driver's side as bullets spiderwebbed the windshield. The Quadra's engine roared to life, tires screaming as she threw it into reverse, threw it into first as the car spun around and launched them away from the firefight.

In the mirrors, she could see So Mi struggling to her feet, blood streaming from where the case had connected. Their eyes met across the distance—predator recognizing predator, both knowing this wasn't over.

"Holy shit." Judy's voice had shifted from anger to something approaching shock. "That guy, his chest... You killed him."

"Technically, Rogue's sniper killed him." Terissa took a corner at speeds that had Judy gripping the door handle. "I just provided targeting data."

"That's—you—" Judy seemed to run out of words, then found them again with renewed fury and she starting hitting Terissa in the shoulder as she drove. "You got me fucking kidnapped!"

"I didn't…"

"Your ex-girlfriend or whoever the fuck she is grabbed me off the street! Fried my implants! Tied me up like cargo!" Judy's fists finally stopped. "All for some fucking case!"

"She's not my ex-girlfriend."

"Oh, well that makes it so much better!"

They drove in tense silence for several minutes, the badlands giving way to Night City's industrial outskirts. Finally, Judy spoke again, quieter this time.

"She knew about the dam. About what it means to me."

"I'm sorry." The words felt inadequate, but Terissa meant them. "I should have been watching. Should have made sure you were safe before…"

"Before you passed out from being shot six times?" Judy's laugh was bitter but not entirely without understanding. "Yeah, real tactical failure there, T."

"I'm still sorry."

"I know." Judy was quiet for a moment. "That woman, she's dying, isn't she? I could see it, even tied up. The way she moved, like her body was fighting itself."

"Blackwall corruption. It's eating her neural pathways, converting them into something inhuman."

"And the matrix could save her?"

"Could have. Maybe. With the right facility, the right team." Terissa's hands tightened on the wheel. "But Hansen played her, and she played me, and now everyone's fucked."

"Except us."

"Except us." Terissa glanced at Judy, noting the bruise forming on her jaw, the rope burns on her wrists. "You're hurt."

"I'm pissed." Judy examined her wrists with clinical detachment. "Hurt fades. Pissed tends to linger."

They reached an industrial building as dawn painted Night City in shades of gold and smog. Terissa parked inside, exhaustion hitting her like a physical weight as the adrenaline finally faded. Every wound screamed in protest, the frantic activity having undone days of healing.

"You're bleeding again," Judy observed, gesturing to the spreading red stain on Terissa's shirt.

"Probably tore some stitches."

"Jesus Christ, T." The anger in Judy's voice shifted to concern. "We need to…"

"We need to stay on the move." Terissa retrieved the case and rifle from the back. "So Mi knows about the penthouse now. It's compromised."

"Of course we do." Judy shook her head, as Terissa was already moving toward a nearby room with purpose.

"We grab essentials, medical supplies, then move. And then…"Terissa turned to face Judy directly. “I’ll tell you everything this is about.  Everything."

Judy’s gaze met hers and Terissa could see the steel beneath her usually warm demeanor. This was someone who'd survived Night City on her own terms, who'd just been kidnapped and used as leverage and come out cursing rather than crying.

"Everything," Judy demanded.

They moved efficiently, Judy grabbing medical supplies while Terissa retrieved essential equipment from hidden caches.

"Where to?" Judy asked as they loaded the supplies into the Quadra.

"Badlands. Old tunnel system. Anonymous enough to disappear for a while."

"Good." Judy settled into the passenger seat, exhaustion finally showing in the slump of her shoulders. "Wake me when we get there. And T?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time someone kidnaps me as leverage against you? Maybe try not to start a fucking gang war to get me back."

Despite everything, Terissa found herself smiling. "I'll try to keep it to a minor skirmish."

"That's all I ask." Judy closed her eyes, asleep within minutes despite everything.

Terissa drove through Night City's awakening streets, her mind already working through the implications of the night's events. Hansen was dead, which would create a power vacuum in Dogtown. So Mi was still out there, desperate and running out of time. The neural matrix sat in the back like a ticking bomb, too valuable to destroy, too dangerous to keep.

But those were problems for later. Today, she had Judy safe, they had a place to hide, and sometimes in Night City, that was the best victory you could ask for.

The sun climbed higher, painting the city in false gold, and Terissa drove on through the light and shadow, carrying her precious cargo toward whatever came next.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Underground

The junker wheezed its death rattle as Terissa killed the engine, its protest echoing off the canyon walls like a mechanical swan song. The vehicle—a Thorton Galena that had seen better decades—sat crooked on the uneven ground, one headlight flickering its last desperate blinks before giving up entirely.

"From penthouse to this piece of shit," Judy muttered, slamming the door with enough force to make the whole frame shudder. "Your range is truly fucking impressive, T."

Terissa rolled her eyes but said nothing, retrieving their hastily packed supplies from the trunk that required three solid hits to open properly. Every movement pulled at her reopened wounds, the adrenaline from Laguna Bend having burned through her system and left nothing but raw nerves and exhaustion in its wake.

The entrance wasn't much to look at—just another pile of rusted metal and collapsed concrete among dozens littering the abandoned highway project. Corporate ambitions turned to decay, like everything else that tried to push too far into the badlands. Terissa moved to a specific sheet of corrugated steel, its placement calculated to look random while concealing what lay beneath.

"Help me with this," she said, gripping one edge.

Together they shoved the metal aside, revealing a narrow tunnel that disappeared into darkness. The opening was barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through, carved from rock with more determination than skill.

Judy stared at it with visible disgust. "A fucking cave. We're literally going to ground in a cave. From crystal champagne flutes to... what? Drinking condensation off stalactites?"

"It's secure," Terissa said, already lowering herself into the opening. "And off everyone's radar."

"It's a hole in the ground!"

"Just follow me."

The tunnel was worse than the entrance suggested—rough stone that grabbed at clothing, ceiling low enough that even Judy had to duck in places. Their breathing echoed strangely in the confined space, mixing with the sound of gravel shifting under their boots. Terissa moved with the confidence of familiarity despite the darkness, her enhanced vision painting the path in silver-green overlays.

After thirty meters of claustrophobic progress, the tunnel opened into something more reasonable. The cavern wasn't large—maybe ten meters across and half that high—but it was enough. Terissa dropped their bags and moved immediately to the corner where a small generator sat silent and waiting.

"Fuel's good," she murmured, checking the gauge and various connections with practiced efficiency. "Should last us a few days if we're careful."

The generator coughed to life on the third pull, settling into a steady rumble that filled the space with mechanical white noise. Terissa flipped a switch, and a string of work lights illuminated their new home in harsh, unforgiving detail.

It was, Judy had to admit, exactly what she'd expected from an emergency shelter. Utilitarian to the point of depression. Two military surplus cots against one wall. A folding table supporting a pair of monitors connected to what looked like a jury-rigged satellite uplink. Shelves cut directly into the stone held cases of water, MREs, and enough ammunition to supply a small war. A basic sink fed by a water tank. A chemical toilet behind a tarp that served as the world's most pathetic privacy screen.

"Home sweet home," Judy said flatly. "All the charm of a prison cell with none of the amenities."

Terissa was already at the sink, stripping off her jacket with movements that tried for casual and achieved barely-controlled pain. The shirt beneath was soaked through with blood—some old and brown, some fresh and vibrantly red. She pulled it over her head in one motion, dropping it into the sink with a wet sound that made Judy's stomach turn.

"Jesus," Judy breathed, getting her first real look at the damage.

It wasn't just the fresh wounds, though those were bad enough—angry red holes held together by surgical staples that had clearly been stressed beyond their limits. It was the map of violence written across Terissa's skin. Scars layered on scars, some surgical-clean, others ragged tears that spoke of desperation and bad luck. A puckered burn across her ribs. What looked like claw marks down her back. Years of survival carved into flesh like a resume written in pain.

Terissa caught her staring in the small mirror above the sink. "Attractive, right?"

"That's not..." Judy started, then stopped. What was she supposed to say? That the scars were horrifying? That they made her wonder how anyone survived that much damage? That despite everything, she found herself studying the play of muscle beneath damaged skin with interest that had nothing to do with medical concern?

Terissa turned back to the mirror, attempting to check the wounds on her back by twisting in ways that made her wince. The bandages there were soaked through, peeling away from skin in rust-colored strips.

"Here," Judy said, moving before she'd consciously decided to. "You're just making it worse."

Terissa went still as Judy's hands touched her back, carefully peeling away the ruined bandages. The skin beneath was a mess—two entry wounds that had been healing well until tonight's exertions tore them open again. Blood seeped steadily, not the arterial spray of immediate danger but the consistent leak of damage that needed attention.

"These need to be cleaned and re-dressed," Judy said, her voice steadier than her hands. "Where are the medical supplies?"

"Blue bag."

Judy retrieved the kit, relieved to find it well-stocked. Military-grade coagulants, proper bandages, even a few auto-injectors of antibiotics. She worked in silence, cleaning the wounds with careful efficiency while trying not to think about how warm Terissa's skin was, how she could feel the other woman's breathing in the subtle shift of muscle, how this was definitely not the time to be having these thoughts.

"Thank you," Terissa said quietly as Judy secured the last bandage.

Their eyes met in the mirror, something electric passing between them before Judy looked away, busying herself with packing up the medical supplies. "Yeah, well. Can't have you bleeding out after all the trouble I went through helping save your ass the first time."

Terissa's smile was tired but genuine. She pushed away from the sink, taking two steps toward the nearest cot before her legs betrayed her. The stumble was small, barely noticeable, but Judy was there instantly, arm around Terissa's waist, taking her weight.

"Easy," Judy murmured, guiding her to the cot. "You're running on fumes and stubbornness."

"Story of my life," Terissa managed, sinking onto the thin mattress with visible relief.

They were close now, Judy still half-supporting her, faces inches apart. The cavern's harsh lighting caught the green of Judy's eyes, turned them into something jewel-bright and impossible to look away from. Terissa's hand had somehow found its way to Judy's arm, fingers wrapped loosely around her wrist like an anchor.

"Judy," Terissa started, then seemed to lose the words.

"I know," Judy said softly. "Not the time or place."

"No," Terissa agreed, though neither of them moved to create distance. "Definitely not."

The moment stretched between them, taut as wire, before Judy finally pulled back. She helped Terissa lie down properly, noting how the other woman's eyes were already growing heavy.

"Thank you," Terissa said again, words beginning to slur with exhaustion. "For everything. For coming to get me. For not running when you found out what I am. For..."

"You came for me too," Judy interrupted gently. "Started a fucking war to get me back, remember?"

Terissa's smile was small but real. "I'd do it again. Though if there's a third time..." She paused, eyes already drifting closed. "Third time I might have to think about it."

"Ass," Judy said without heat, pulling the thin blanket up over Terissa's shoulders.

She stood there for a moment, watching Terissa's breathing even out into sleep. Even battered and exhausted, there was something compelling about her—the contrast between the violence written on her skin and the vulnerability of sleep. The way her face relaxed, losing the constant vigilance that seemed hardwired into her consciousness. The steady rise and fall of her chest that proved, despite everything, she was still alive.

Judy caught herself tracking the line of muscle along Terissa's side, the way the bandages wrapped around her torso like the world's worst lingerie, and immediately berated herself. Get it together, Alvarez. She's injured. You were just kidnapped. This is trauma bonding or adrenaline or some other psychological bullshit.

She moved to the other cot, suddenly exhausted herself. The thin mattress felt like luxury after the night she'd had—tied up on cold concrete while psychopaths discussed her fate like she was cargo. The generator's steady hum filled the space with white noise, oddly comforting in its mechanical consistency.

You're interested in Evelyn, she told herself firmly, settling onto her back and staring at the rough stone ceiling. Evelyn who's beautiful and sophisticated and doesn't come with a body count and secret safehouses and enemies who kidnap people for leverage.

But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't entirely true. Evelyn was a fantasy, a beautiful dream that would never quite manifest into reality. Evelyn kept her at arm's length, close enough to want but never to have. Evelyn would never start a war to get her back.

Terissa had killed for her tonight. Had walked into an obvious trap, injured and outnumbered, because Judy was in danger. That kind of loyalty, that kind of fierce protection—when was the last time anyone had considered her worth that kind of risk?

The generator hummed. Water dripped somewhere deeper in the cave system. Terissa's breathing remained steady and even, occasionally catching on what might have been pain or might have been dreams.

Judy turned onto her side, studying the other woman's sleeping form in the harsh industrial lighting. The scars told stories she'd probably never hear. The fresh wounds spoke to a life that courted death like a familiar dance partner. Everything about Terissa Scott was dangerous, complicated, probably catastrophic to get involved with.

And yet.

Tomorrow, Judy decided, exhaustion finally pulling her under. Tomorrow we'll figure out what this is. Tomorrow we'll deal with the woman who kidnapped me and the mess we're in and whatever the fuck is in that neural matrix case. Tomorrow we'll have the conversations we keep not having.

But tonight, in this ridiculous cave with its military surplus cots and chemical toilet, they were safe. They were alive. And sometimes in Night City, that was enough of a victory to build on.

The generator hummed its mechanical lullaby. The work lights cast harsh shadows that turned the cavern into a chiaroscuro of survival and stone. And in the space between two cots, something unspoken hummed with its own frequency—not quite admitted, not quite denied, but present all the same.

Judy's eyes closed, her breathing evening out to match Terissa's rhythm. Two women who shouldn't trust anyone had found their way to trusting each other, even if neither quite knew what to do with that trust yet.

Outside, the badlands stretched endless and unforgiving. Inside, in their underground sanctuary, the rest of the world could wait until tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Cavern Life

The generator's mechanical heartbeat marked time in the underground shelter, its steady rhythm the only measure of hours in a place where sunlight never reached. Terissa's internal clock insisted it was early morning, though the distinction meant little in their stone sanctuary. She lay still for a moment, cataloging the familiar symphony of healing—the tight pull of knitting flesh, the dull ache of deep tissue trauma, the sharper notes where surgical staples held her together.

Moving was an exercise in negotiation with her body, each shift requiring careful calculation. She rolled to her side first, letting gravity do most of the work, then pushed herself upright with deliberate slowness. The expected wave of dizziness never came—a small victory that she'd take.

The cavern materialized in the work lights' harsh honesty. Their makeshift home looked even less inviting than it had the night before, if that was possible. The monitors cast blue ghosts across rough stone, their screensavers painting abstract patterns that reminded her of neural decay patterns she'd rather forget. Supply cases stood like silent sentinels against the wall, and there, on the other cot—

Judy.

She'd kicked off most of the thin blanket in her sleep, one arm thrown above her head in unconscious abandon. Her hair spread across the flat pillow in pink and green chaos, and her face had lost the sharp edges of yesterday's anger, softened into something that made Terissa's chest tighten in ways that had nothing to do with bullet wounds.

The memory of Judy's hands on her skin surfaced unbidden—careful fingers peeling away ruined bandages, the concentrated furrow of her brow as she worked, the warmth of her palm steadying against Terissa's back. Professional care that had felt like anything but.

Terissa took a deep breath that pulled at her injuries, hung her head for a moment to center herself, then stood with the careful precision of someone who'd learned that sudden movements were rarely friends. The dozen steps to their food supplies felt like a minor expedition, but she made it without stumbling—another victory to add to the morning's tally.

The selection spread before her like a love letter to military logistics. MREs in their brown plastic, protein bars that promised nutrition while delivering the equivalent taste of cardboard, instant coffee that insulted the very idea of a caffeinated drink. She picked through the options with the resignation of someone who'd eaten worse and been grateful for it.

"Menu selection looking good?" she muttered to herself, grabbing two ration kits at random. The writing on one promised beef stew. The other claimed to contain chicken teriyaki. Both were lying, but at least they'd lie consistently.

She popped them open with practiced efficiency, dumping the contents across the folding table like the world's saddest buffet. The heating elements activated with their characteristic chemical hiss, filling the cavern with the smell of preservatives pretending to be food as she opened them up.

"Mmmph." The sound from the other cot was half groan, half question. Judy's nose wrinkled before her eyes even opened, her face pulling into an expression of preemptive disgust. "Oh god, what is that smell?"

"Breakfast," Terissa said, unable to suppress her laugh at Judy's horror. "I've got beef stew or chicken teriyaki. Both taste like salted cardboard, but the teriyaki comes with a candy that might actually be from this decade."

Judy sat up, her hair defying several laws of physics in its morning rebellion. She squinted at the spread with the suspicion of someone who'd just realized how far they'd fallen from civilization. "That's... those are the options?"

"Welcome to the glamorous life of hiding from multiple hostile parties." Terissa gestured grandly at their feast. "Five-star accommodations, gourmet dining, and a chemical toilet for the full tactical experience."

"You really know how to show a girl a good time." Judy swung her legs off the cot, stretching in a way that drew Terissa's attention to the curve of her spine, the shift of muscle under her tank top. "Next you'll tell me the coffee is instant."

"The coffee is absolutely instant. And probably older than both of us."

"Fantastic."

They moved through the morning routine with the careful choreography of two people hyperaware of each other's presence. Judy claimed the allegedly-chicken while Terissa took the theoretically-beef, both settling at opposite ends of the folding table like it was a DMZ. The distance between them felt calculated, each movement considered, as if getting too close might trigger something neither was ready to address.

Terissa noticed Judy's eyes tracking her movements, lingering on her torso where bandages wrapped around her like battle flags. She hadn't bothered with a shirt yet—the wounds needed air, she told herself, though the appreciative glint in Judy's gaze suggested other benefits.

Unable to resist, Terissa straightened slightly, flexing her abs in a way that made the muscle definition stand out despite the medical wrapping. The effect was immediate—Judy's cheeks darkened, and she rolled her eyes with exaggerated annoyance that didn't quite hide her interest.

"Really?" Judy stabbed at her meal with unnecessary force. "Showing off while looking like a medical textbook on trauma surgery?"

"You were looking." Terissa's grin was unrepentant. "Figured I'd give you the full show."

"Ass."

"You weren't looking at that part."

"I—fuck you." But Judy was fighting a smile now, the tension cracking slightly.

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the MREs living down to expectations with impressive consistency. The candy from Judy's meal turned out to be fossilized beyond recognition, earning a disgusted sound as she flicked part of it into the shadows.

As the ritual of terrible breakfast wound down, Terissa felt the weight of unfinished conversations settling over them like dust. She'd promised Judy the truth, or at least more of it than she'd shared before. The debt of honesty hung between them, interest accruing with every moment of delay.

"So," she said finally, setting down her spork with the solemnity of someone about to perform surgery. "We should talk about So Mi. About all of it."

Judy's expression shifted, the playfulness draining away. "Yeah. We should."

Terissa organized her thoughts, trying to find the thread that would make sense of the chaos. "I told you we worked together, but it was more than that. Six years ago, we were partners on an operation in Colombia. Deep cover intelligence work that..." She paused, searching for words that wouldn't paint the full horror. "That required us to do things neither of us came back whole from."

"What kind of things?" Judy's voice was carefully neutral.

"The kind that make you question whether following orders makes you a soldier or a monster." Terissa traced a finger along a scar on her forearm, remembering how she'd gotten it. "So Mi was brilliant even then—young, eager to prove herself, convinced she was serving a greater good. The operation broke something in her. In both of us, really."

She looked up, meeting Judy's gaze directly. "Two weeks ago, she contacted me out of nowhere. First time we'd spoken since Colombia. She needed help disappearing from the FIA, said they'd been forcing her to breach the Blackwall repeatedly for intelligence gathering. The exposure was killing her—Blackwall corruption eating through her neural pathways like digital cancer."

"Jesus." Judy's hand had stilled on her cup. "That's not supposed to be survivable."

"It's not. Maybe a few months if she's lucky, weeks if the degradation accelerates." Terissa stood, needing to move, to pace the small space like it might make the words easier. "She asked for my help finding a cure. The neural matrix was our best shot—an experimental AI designed for neural repair. In the right facility, with the right team, it might be able to map the corruption and extract it without destroying her mind in the process."

"The right facility being?"

"Tycho Station, most likely. Lunar colony, best neural reconstruction facilities in the system. Also completely outside Earth jurisdiction, which would have solved her FIA problem."

Judy absorbed this, her technical mind clearly running through the implications. "So you agreed to help her. And she sold you out to Hansen."

"She was desperate." Terissa's voice carried more understanding than anger. "When you're dying, when you can feel your own thoughts being rewritten by something alien, you'll make deals with anyone who promises even a chance at salvation."

"That's bullshit!" Judy's anger erupted suddenly, fierce and protective. "She used you! Set you up to get shot, then kidnapped me to force your hand! That's not desperation, that's—"

"Survival." Terissa turned to face her fully. "It's what everyone in Night City does, just usually with less dramatic stakes. She saw a chance to cut a deal directly with Hansen, eliminate the middlewoman—me—and get what she needed faster."

"And you're defending her?"

"I'm understanding her. There's a difference." Terissa moved back to the table, sinking onto the bench with visible exhaustion. "I've made similar choices. Done worse things for worse reasons. The only difference is I survived long enough to regret them."

Judy was quiet for a long moment, processing. When she spoke again, her voice was softer but no less intense. "She knew about Laguna Bend. About what it meant to me. That wasn't just tactics—that was cruel."

"Yes," Terissa agreed simply. "That was personal. A message to me that she'd done her research, knew the pieces on the board. Classic intelligence work—know your enemy's pressure points."

"Is that what I am? A pressure point?"

The question hung between them like a blade. Terissa met Judy's gaze, seeing the hurt there beneath the anger, the vulnerability she was trying so hard to hide.

"You're..." Terissa started, then stopped, starting over with more care. "You started as someone interesting. Became a friend. And then became..." She gestured helplessly at the space between them. "More. Important enough that I walked into an obvious trap because the thought of you being hurt because of my choices was unacceptable."

"You killed for me." It wasn't quite a question.

"I would have. But technically, Rogue's people pulled the triggers."

"Semantics."

"Important semantics. There's a difference between killing and arranging for death to happen. One leaves powder residue."

Judy threw the remains of her candy at her, the fossilized sugar bouncing off Terissa's shoulder. "You're impossible."

"You're just figuring that out now?"

The moment of levity faded as reality reasserted itself. Judy stood, moving to lean against the rough stone wall, arms crossed in unconscious defense.

"So what happens now? So Mi is still out there, probably more desperate than before. She knows you have the matrix. She knows who I am, where I work, probably where I live." The implications were clearly sinking in. "I can't go back to my normal life, can I?"

"Not immediately." Terissa wished she could offer better comfort. "She's running out of time, which makes her more dangerous but also more likely to make mistakes. And with Hansen dead, she's lost her primary resource. She'll need to find another plan."

"Hansen's death is going to cause chaos in Dogtown," Judy observed. "Power vacuum like that doesn't stay empty long."

"Already started, probably. His lieutenants will tear each other apart trying to claim his throne. The chaos might actually work in our favor—everyone's going to be too busy fighting each other to worry about us for a few days."

"A few days." Judy laughed, bitter and tired. "And then what? We can't live in this cave forever. I've got work, the Mox need me, and you've got..." She gestured vaguely. "Whatever shadowy shit you do when you're not getting shot."

Terissa stood, moving closer but maintaining careful distance, reading Judy's body language for signs of welcome or warning. "We figure it out. Find a way to neutralize So Mi without killing her—she doesn't deserve that, despite everything.  Whether I help her or not remains to be seen. Maybe find some way to benefit from having the matrix, someone who will actually pay up for it, no questions.  I don’t think I’ll hand it over to So Mi."

"You'd give it up? After everything it cost?"

"It's cost enough already." Terissa's voice was quiet. "Sometimes the best victory is knowing when to stop fighting for something that's already taken too much."

Judy studied her for a long moment, and Terissa could see her processing everything—the scars, the bandages, the weight of choices made and unmade. The distance between them felt charged again, that same electricity from yesterday when Judy's hands had been on her skin.

"You're not what I expected," Judy said finally. "When I first met you. Thought you were just another information broker with good connections and a nice smile."

"I have a nice smile?"

"Don't fish for compliments while you're literally held together by surgical staples."

But Judy was smiling now, small but real, and the space between them felt less like a chasm and more like a bridge waiting to be built.

"We'll stay here another day," Terissa said, practical concerns reasserting themselves. "Let things cool down, let my body do a bit more healing. Then we'll carefully reach out to contacts, see what the landscape looks like. I've got other safe houses if we need them, other resources we can tap."

"Other secret penthouses?"

"Nothing that nice. But better than this cave."

"Low bar to clear."

They stood there for a moment, two women in an underground shelter, surrounded by MRE wrappers and the weight of dangerous knowledge. Outside, the badlands stretched endless and unforgiving. Inside, they'd carved out a temporary peace, fragile as the surgical staples holding Terissa together.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: Old Ghosts and New Deals

The morning sun carved harsh angles through the cavern entrance as Terissa emerged first, each movement a negotiation with muscles that screamed their objections. The surgical staples pulled with every step, a constellation of small agonies that she refused to acknowledge beyond the slight hitch in her breathing. Behind her, Judy's footsteps crunched on gravel, punctuated by muttered Spanish that didn't require translation to understand the sentiment.

"This is insane," Judy said for the third time since they'd started packing. "You can barely walk without wincing."

"I'm not wincing." Terissa hefted the last bag into the Galena's trunk, the motion sending white-hot threads through her shoulder. "I'm concentrating."

"On not passing out?"

"On remembering where I parked." The joke fell flat as Terissa gripped the car's frame, waiting for the wave of dizziness to pass. The junker sat at its awkward angle, one headlight now completely dead, the other maintaining a cataract stare at the canyon wall.

Judy crossed her arms, hip cocked in that particular way that suggested she was contemplating physical intervention. "We could wait another day. The world won't end if—"

"Every day we wait, So Mi gets more desperate." Terissa straightened with deliberate control. "Desperate people make messy choices. I need intel from Rogue, need to know what's moving in the shadows."

The Galena's door protested as she opened it, metal grinding against metal in a death rattle harmony. Judy slid into the passenger seat with visible reluctance, her fingers immediately gripping the door handle as if preparing for emergency evacuation.

"If this piece of shit breaks down—"

"It won't." Terissa turned the key, and the engine coughed to life with all the enthusiasm of a dying pack animal. "Probably."

The ride back toward Night City was a symphony of mechanical distress. Every pothole sent jolts through Terissa's injuries, each gear change accompanied by sounds that suggested the transmission was staging a rebellion. The air conditioning had given up entirely, leaving them with hot wind that tasted of dust and burning oil. Judy had stopped commenting after the first ten minutes, settling into a tense silence broken only by her sharp intake of breath whenever the engine stuttered particularly badly.

They'd made it through the worst of the badlands, the city's industrial edge rising before them like chrome promises, when the Galena decided it had suffered enough.

The sound started as a new variation in the engine's complaint—a deep, rhythmic knocking that Terissa recognized with the clarity of someone who'd heard too many machines die. She had just enough time to wrestle the wheel toward the shoulder before the engine threw a rod with a violence that shook the entire frame.

Steam erupted from under the hood. Something metal pinged off the undercarriage and went spinning into the desert. The Galena rolled to a stop with a final, shuddering wheeze that sounded almost relieved.

Terissa let her forehead rest against the steering wheel, a string of curses flowing in three languages, each more creative than the last. The Ukrainian ones were particularly colorful, learned during a six-month operation in Kyiv that had gone exactly as well as this drive.

"Well." Judy's voice carried that particular tone of forced calm that preceded explosion. "This is perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect."

She got out, slamming the door hard enough to make the whole car rock, and leaned against the side with her head tilted back to the sky. "From penthouse to cave to broken down on the side of the road like fucking nomads. Your range really is impressive, T."

Terissa remained seated, calculating options. They were too exposed here, too visible. Calling a cab was out—too many records, too many ways to track. She could reach out to contacts, but that would take time they didn't have, standing here like targets on the highway's edge.

The rumble of an approaching engine made her enhanced hearing prick to attention. Heavy vehicle, well-maintained, the kind of purposeful approach that suggested this wasn't a random passerby. Her hand moved instinctively toward the pistol tucked under the seat before she caught herself. Six bullet wounds and she was already reaching for violence.

The truck pulled up behind them with practiced precision—not too close to block escape, not too far to lose advantage. Terissa's blood cooled as she cataloged the details: government plates with subtle modifications, reinforced frame that suggested armor plating, tinted windows that revealed nothing.

Then the driver's door opened, and her tactical assessment shifted into something closer to resignation.

Solomon Reed unfolded from the vehicle with an economy of movement that spoke to decades of training never quite forgotten. Tall, dark-skinned, still wearing that damned leather jacket that managed to look both professional and tactical-ready. His face carried the weathered dignity of someone who'd seen too much but refused to let it break him. Even now, he moved with the fluid confidence of a predator who'd never needed to rush.

"Shit," Terissa muttered, finally emerging from the Galena with careful deliberation. Every instinct screamed danger, but her body was in no condition to respond appropriately.

Judy had pushed off from the car, stepping forward with the kind of helpful concern that would get her killed if this went bad. "Hey, you need to—"

Terissa moved faster than her injuries should have allowed, positioning herself between Judy and Reed with unmistakable intent. The movement cost her—she could feel staples pulling, wounds protesting—but she kept her expression neutral.

Judy's words died as she took in the scene more carefully: Terissa's sudden tension, the way Reed had stopped moving the instant Terissa had shifted position, the careful distance he maintained that spoke of mutual professional respect mixed with very real threat assessment.

"That's close enough, Reed," Terissa said, her voice carrying an edge that could cut glass.

Reed stopped immediately, hands visible and relaxed at his sides—the posture of someone showing they weren't an immediate threat while maintaining readiness to become one. "Ms. Scott. You're looking... well-ventilated."

"Occupational hazard. What do you want, Reed?"

He tilted his head slightly, and Terissa could see him cataloging her injuries, her defensive positioning, the way Judy stood behind her radiating confusion and growing anger. "I received an alert from an old FIA asset. Former partner of mine, actually. She indicated there was some unusual goings on in Night City."

"Cut the shit." Terissa's tone dropped another degree. "We both know why you're here."

"Direct. I appreciate that." Reed's slight smile held no warmth. "Very well. I'm hunting Song So Mi. And given the rather spectacular mess you've created over the past few weeks—Hansen's death, the running firefight in Dogtown, various other disturbances—it seems our paths have converged."

Terissa started to ask how he knew, then stopped. Of course he knew. FIA assets talked to each other, even the burned ones. Especially the burned ones. Alex had probably reported her presence in Dogtown, and from there, connecting dots wouldn't be difficult for someone of Reed's caliber.

"Fascinating," she said flatly. "And this concerns me how?"

"I'm willing to let you walk away." His tone was reasonable, which made it infinitely more dangerous. "Your recent activities have certainly crossed some lines, but I'm prepared to ensure no official attention falls your way. Provided, of course, you help me bring So Mi back into the fold."

The threat was elegant in its subtlety. Not 'help me or I'll kill you'—too crude for Reed. Instead: 'help me or I'll make your life impossibly complicated.' NCPD investigations, corporate security alerts, all the bureaucratic nightmares that could turn a carefully constructed cover into ash.

Terissa felt her expression go arctic. She'd worked with people like Reed before, been one of them. They wrapped threats in reasonableness, made coercion sound like cooperation. The fact that she wasn't in any condition to take him in a fight just made the situation more bitter. Even at her best, Reed would be one of those rare challenges for her. He'd been FIA's apex predator before his fall from grace, and that kind of training didn't fade.

"Interesting offer," she said carefully. "Counter-proposal: give me the keys to your truck, and I'll start looking into where So Mi might have gone after Laguna Bend."

Reed's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture—amusement, maybe. "I think not." He gestured toward the truck with elegant simplicity. "Please. Both of you."

"No fucking way," Judy said, grabbing Terissa's arm. Her grip was tight enough to hurt, fear and anger radiating off her in waves. "We're not getting in that death trap."

Terissa turned slightly, meeting Judy's eyes. The younger woman's face was a study in barely controlled panic mixed with fury at circumstances that kept spiraling beyond control. Two weeks ago, her biggest concern had been whether Evelyn would return her feelings. Now she was standing on a highway shoulder with two former government assassins discussing the fate of a dying netrunner.

"He's right," Terissa said quietly, hating the words even as she spoke them. "If Reed wanted us dead, we'd never have seen him coming. And right now..." She let the words trail off, but the implication was clear. Six bullet wounds, barely healed. A firefight here would have only one outcome.

She took Judy's hand, feeling the tremor there. "I don't usually make promises about things like this. But I will do everything—everything—in my power to make sure you don't get pulled any deeper into this than necessary."

Judy's expression cycled through emotions like a slot machine—rage, fear, frustration, and finally a kind of exhausted acceptance. "This is fucked. You know this is completely fucked, right?"

"Comprehensively."

Judy yanked her hand away and stalked toward the truck, throwing herself into the backseat with enough force to rock the vehicle. The door slam that followed probably registered on seismographs.

Terissa took a breath that pulled at every injury, then moved toward the passenger seat with deliberate calm. Reed watched her approach, and she could read the assessment in his eyes—calculating her recovery time, her current capabilities, the leverage Judy represented.

"If anything happens to her," Terissa said quietly as she passed him, "there won't be enough of you left for anyone to identify."

"Noted," Reed replied with the same professional calm. "Though I rather think we want the same thing here, Ms. Scott. So Mi contained, the situation resolved, everyone walking away with their respective pieces intact."

Terissa settled into the passenger seat, the truck's air conditioning a shocking relief after the Galena's suffocating heat. Reed moved around to the driver's side with unhurried precision, adjusting mirrors and checking displays with the methodical nature of someone who'd learned that preparation prevented problems.

In the back, Judy radiated fury like a small sun. Terissa could see her in the side mirror, arms crossed, jaw clenched, everything about her body language screaming displeasure with the current situation. The guilt of dragging her into this sat in Terissa's stomach like lead.

"So," Reed said as he pulled onto the highway with smooth competence, "shall we discuss terms, or would you prefer to continue the hostile silence?"

"Terms," Terissa said, watching the city grow closer through the windshield. "Let's hear what you think this cooperation looks like."

"Simple enough. You have connections I lack, particularly with the local fixers. Rogue, for instance. You leverage those connections to locate So Mi. I handle the extraction."

"And So Mi? What happens to her?"

Reed's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. "She receives the best medical care the FIA can provide. Her knowledge is too valuable to lose."

"You mean they'll keep her functional just long enough to extract everything useful, then let her rot." The words came from Judy, sharp as broken glass. "Just another asset to use up and throw away."

Reed glanced in the rearview mirror. "Ms. Alvarez, I presume? Your reputation in certain circles precedes you."

"My reputation?" Judy leaned forward, her voice dripping skepticism. "What reputation would that be?"

"One of Night City's most talented BD technicians. Someone who believes in protecting the vulnerable." His tone remained conversational, but Terissa heard the subtle threat. Reed had done his research. He knew exactly who Judy was, what she valued, how she could be leveraged.

"Don't," Terissa said quietly, but the warning in her voice could have frozen blood.

"I'm merely making conversation," Reed replied. "Though I do find it interesting—the company you keep these days, Ms. Scott. Rather different from your NUSA period."

The truck hummed along the highway, eating distance with mechanical efficiency while the three occupants sat in their careful arrangement of mutual threat and necessity. Outside, Night City rose before them—chrome and concrete, neon and shadow, a monument to humanity's ability to create beauty and horror in equal measure.

Terissa watched it approach and wondered, not for the first time, whether some prices were too high to pay. But with Judy in the backseat and Reed at the wheel, she was running out of options that didn't end in blood.

The game had changed again. Now she just had to figure out how to play it without losing the only things that mattered.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: The Afterlife

The Afterlife's neon sign flickered its perpetual invitation to Night City's most dangerous clientele, the bright neon sign shining bright above the entrance. Reed pulled the truck into a space with the precision of someone who'd learned to park in hostile territory, killing the engine with a soft click that seemed to release a breath none of them had realized they'd been holding.

Terissa was out first, her body protesting every movement but her face revealing nothing. The familiar weight of the Afterlife's atmosphere settled over her like armor—this was her territory, or close enough to it. Here, at least, the rules were ones she understood.

Judy emerged from the backseat with barely contained fury, slamming the door hard enough to echo off the surrounding buildings. When Reed stepped out to join them, she shot him a look that could have curdled synthetic milk.

"You're not seriously coming in with us."

"I'm afraid I am." Reed's tone carried the same infuriating reasonableness he'd maintained throughout the drive. "Ms. Scott and I have business to conclude."

"Business." Judy's laugh was sharp as broken glass. "That's what we're calling—"

"Judy." Terissa's voice cut through quietly but firmly. "Save it for inside."

She started toward the entrance, not waiting to see if they followed. Her gait was steady despite the fire burning through her wounds with each step—she'd walked into the Afterlife bleeding before, would probably do it again. The regulars here respected strength and despised weakness in equal measure. Showing either too clearly was an invitation for complications she couldn't afford.

Emmerick materialized from the shadows beside the door like he'd been carved from the same concrete, his massive frame blocking the entrance with practiced ease. His eyes swept over Terissa first—cataloging the pallor, the careful movements, the telltale signs of someone held together by willpower and surgical staples—then flicked to her companions with sharper assessment.

Recognition softened his stance. "Scott."

"Emmerick."

He stepped aside without further comment, one hand already moving to the comm unit at his ear. Terissa caught the subtle motion, knew he was alerting Rogue to her arrival and condition. The Afterlife's information network was legendary for good reason—nothing happened here that Rogue didn't know about within minutes.

The interior hit her senses like a familiar drug: bass-heavy music that vibrated through the floor, the blue-tinged lighting that turned everyone into ghosts and shadows, the particular smell of expensive alcohol and dangerous deals. Even at this hour, the bar held its share of mercs and fixers, their conversations dying to curious murmurs as the trio passed.

Claire was behind the bar, her dark hair catching the neon as she organized bottles with the methodical attention of someone who'd seen everything and been surprised by none of it. She looked up at Terissa's approach, and her expression cycled through surprise, concern, and sharp assessment in the space of a heartbeat.

Her eyes lingered on Terissa's condition—the way she was holding herself too carefully, the gray undertone to her skin—then moved to Judy with a flicker of recognition. When they landed on Reed, something in her posture shifted. Not fear, exactly, but the particular wariness of someone who'd learned to identify trouble in human form.

"Well, shit." Claire's voice carried its usual dry warmth as she reached beneath the counter. "You look like death decided to take a rain check."

"Generous assessment."

A bottle appeared—the good tequila, the real stuff Terissa had developed a taste for during operations in Mexico that she'd rather forget. Claire slid it across the bar without bothering with glasses, her grin carrying an edge of genuine concern beneath the bravado.

"Think you're gonna need the whole thing this morning."

Terissa caught the bottle, feeling its weight like an anchor to something approaching normalcy. "Claire. You're a saint."

"Tell that to my mechanic." Claire's attention shifted to Judy and Reed, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. "Friends of yours?"

"One of them." Terissa didn't elaborate, just offered a strained smile that probably looked worse than she intended. "Rogue in?"

"When isn't she?" Claire jerked her chin toward the back. "Fair warning—she's in a mood. Something about power vacuums and amateur hour in Dogtown."

"Can't imagine why."

Terissa pushed away from the bar, the tequila bottle dangling from her fingers like a talisman. She navigated through the Afterlife's geography with the ease of long familiarity, past the scattered tables where deals were being made and broken, toward the booth where Night City's most legendary fixer held court.

Rogue Amendiares sat in her usual spot like a queen on a throne she'd carved from the city's bones. Silver hair, sharp eyes, the kind of presence that made the air around her feel heavier. She watched Terissa's approach with an expression that managed to be both welcoming and evaluating—the look of someone calculating costs and benefits even while greeting an old friend.

"You look like shit," Rogue said by way of greeting.

Terissa slid into the booth, biting back a groan as her wounds reminded her why sudden movements were inadvisable. "Everyone keeps saying that. Starting to think it might be true."

Judy settled in beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched—protective positioning that wasn't lost on Rogue's keen observation. Reed, true to form, didn't attempt to join them at the table. Instead, he leaned against the divider wall between booths with the casual ease of someone who'd learned to occupy space without demanding it.

Rogue's eyes lingered on him for a long moment, reading the leather jacket, the posture, the particular stillness that screamed government training. Her expression didn't change, but Terissa caught the slight tightening around her eyes.

She produced four glasses from somewhere—the Afterlife's furniture had more hidden compartments than most smuggling ships—and set them on the table with precise clicks. Terissa poured equal measures into each, the tequila's amber catching the blue light and turning it into something almost beautiful.

She drained her shot in one smooth motion, feeling the burn cut through the fog of pain and exhaustion. "You're not wrong about looking like shit. Feeling it too."

"Hansen's handiwork, I'm guessing." Rogue lifted her own glass, studying the contents before drinking with more restraint. "My people said it was quite the show at Laguna Bend. Lots of bodies, lots of questions, one very dead warlord."

"The bodies were self-defense. Mostly."

"And Hansen?"

"That was your sniper team earning their fee."

Rogue's smile was thin but genuine. "They mentioned you called in quite the marker. Said you were extracting someone important." Her gaze slid to Judy with renewed interest.

Judy met the look without flinching, though Terissa could feel the tension radiating off her. "I didn't ask to be kidnapped."

"No one ever does, sweetie. It's what makes it kidnapping." Rogue turned back to Terissa. "So. You've burned a favor, cost me significant resources, and now you're sitting in my bar with someone who has FIA written all over him. I'm guessing this isn't a social call."

Terissa poured herself another shot but didn't drink it yet, using the ritual to organize her thoughts. "I need two things. Information on an FIA agent gone rogue—Song So Mi, codename Songbird. She's somewhere in Night City, probably getting desperate."

"And the second thing?"

"Protection for Judy." Terissa felt rather than saw Judy stiffen beside her. "She doesn't need to be involved in this anymore. Just until it blows over."

"I don't need—" Judy started.

Rogue lifted one eyebrow, the gesture carrying enough weight to silence the protest mid-sentence. Something in that look—the assessment of a woman who'd survived decades in a city that ate the careless and the stupid—made Judy's words die in her throat.

Terissa sighed, the sound carrying more exhaustion than she'd intended. "So Mi knows who Judy is. Where she works, probably where she lives. She's already used her as leverage once. Until this situation is resolved, Judy's a target."

"And you think hiding her is the answer?"

"I think keeping her alive is the answer. The method is negotiable."

Rogue was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the rim of her empty glass with meditative precision. The Afterlife's ambient noise filled the silence—music, conversation, the eternal background hum of deals being made.

"I can set up surveillance on her place," Rogue said finally. "Couple of my people nearby, eyes on the building, alert systems if anyone comes sniffing. Not a guarantee, but it's better than nothing. And it’s going to cost you."

Terissa's eyes flashed with that blue light meaning she was working, initiating a transfer before Rogue could name a figure. The amount that disappeared from her account would have bought a decent apartment in Watson—or fed a family for years. Rogue's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline as the notification hit her system.

"That'll cover it," she said, something like respect coloring her tone. "And then some."

Judy's head whipped toward Terissa. "How much did you just—"

"Enough." Terissa's voice carried a finality that closed the subject. "What about So Mi? What do you know?"

"That'll take some digging." Rogue leaned back, her posture shifting into something more businesslike. "Blackwall-touched netrunner, dying from corruption, burned her handler and half the NUSA intelligence network on her way out. She's been quiet since Laguna Bend—probably licking her wounds, reassessing options now that Hansen's no longer available to play sugar daddy."

"Any leads on where she might surface?"

"Nothing concrete. But give me a few hours." Rogue gestured toward the back of the Afterlife, where private rooms offered something approaching privacy for those who needed it. "In the meantime, you look like you're about to fall over. Get some actual rest than whatever the hell you’ve gotten lately. I'll send someone when I have something."

Terissa nodded, pushing herself up from the booth with movements that cost her more than she wanted to show. Judy slid out beside her, and for a moment they stood there—two women bound by circumstance and something neither quite wanted to name.

Reed straightened from his position against the wall, clearly intending to follow.

"Not you." Rogue's voice stopped him cold. "You stay where I can see you."

Reed's expression didn't change, but Terissa caught the slight tension in his shoulders—the calculation of someone weighing options and finding them limited. After a moment, he shrugged with elaborate casualness.

"As you wish." He moved toward the bar with unhurried steps, settling onto a stool with the ease of someone who'd learned patience in places far less comfortable. "I'll take whatever passes for whiskey in this establishment."

Claire's response was inaudible, but the look she shot Rogue carried volumes of unspoken communication. The fixer gave a nearly imperceptible nod—watch him—before turning back to whatever calculations occupied her thoughts.

Terissa guided Judy toward the back rooms, her hand finding the small of Judy's back in a gesture that was half direction, half reassurance. The younger woman was vibrating with barely contained questions, protests, and probably a few creative insults that would have to wait until they had privacy.

The room Rogue had indicated was small but functional—a couch that had seen better decades, a table bolted to the floor, walls thick enough to defeat casual surveillance. Not luxury, but safety. In Night City, that was the more valuable commodity.

Judy rounded on her the moment the door closed. "How much?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me." Judy's voice cracked with frustration. "You can't just—I'm not some helpless damsel who needs—"

"You're not helpless." Terissa sank onto the couch, her body finally surrendering to gravity's demands. "You're targeted. There's a difference."

"So Mi grabbed me once. I can be more careful—"

"Judy." Terissa's voice was quiet but carried an edge that stopped the protest. "She's a military-grade netrunner with nothing left to lose. Being careful won't matter if she decides you're useful again."

The words hung between them, harsh and true. Judy's shoulders dropped slightly, the fight draining out of her posture as the reality settled in.

"I hate this," she said finally, dropping onto the couch beside Terissa with none of her usual grace. "I hate being the liability. The weak point."

"You're not weak." Terissa's hand found Judy's, fingers intertwining with a naturalness that surprised them both. "You're just not built for this particular kind of war. That's not a flaw—it's what makes you worth protecting."

Judy was quiet for a moment, staring at their joined hands like she wasn't sure how they'd gotten there. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. "That man. Reed. He's FIA?"

"Former. Maybe current. The lines get blurry with people like him."

"And he wants So Mi."

"He wants to bring her back in. Use whatever's left of her brain before the corruption finishes eating it." Terissa's jaw tightened. "Classic intelligence work. Extract maximum value, dispose of what's left."

"That's..." Judy shook her head. "That's fucking horrifying."

"That's the game. The one I used to play."

The admission settled between them like a third presence in the room. Judy turned to look at Terissa directly, her expression unreadable in the dim light.

"You were like him. Like Reed."

"I was exactly like him." Terissa didn't look away, though the words cost her something. "Maybe worse, definitely worse. I believed in the mission, followed orders, told myself the ends justified the means. Right up until I couldn't pretend anymore."

"What changed?"

The question deserved an honest answer, but Terissa found the words sticking in her throat. The village. The children. The moment when something inside her had shattered so completely that even the NUSA's best psychological reconditioning couldn't put it back together.

"Everything," she said finally. "And nothing. I just... stopped being able to live with who I was becoming."

Judy's grip on her hand tightened. Not judgment—something closer to understanding, or at least the attempt at it.

"Get some sleep," Judy said quietly. "You look like you're about to collapse."

"What about you?"

"I'll be here." A ghost of Judy's usual humor surfaced. "Making sure you don't do anything stupid. Like trying to sneak out and fight a netrunner while held together by staples and spite."

"I resent the implication that I'd—"

"You absolutely would."

Terissa couldn't argue with that. She let her head fall back against the couch, exhaustion finally winning the war against vigilance. The Afterlife's muffled bass vibrated through the walls like a heartbeat, and somewhere outside this room, Reed was waiting with his agenda and his leverage.

But for now, in this moment, Judy's hand was warm in hers, and that was enough.

Sleep came faster than she expected, pulling her down into darkness that, for once, didn't feel like a threat.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14: Bar Talk

Judy waited until Terissa's breathing had settled into the deep, even rhythm of genuine sleep before slipping off the couch. The movement was careful—partly to avoid waking the wounded woman beside her, partly because her own body had started cataloging complaints about caves and car rides and the general indignity of the past few days.

The Afterlife's back corridor swallowed her footsteps, bass notes vibrating through the floor like the bar's own heartbeat. She emerged into the main room and immediately spotted Reed still perched at the bar, nursing what looked like the same whiskey he'd ordered an hour ago. His posture suggested patience refined into art form—the kind of waiting that could outlast stone.

Judy pointedly ignored him, sliding onto a stool three seats down with enough space to make her feelings clear.

Claire materialized with the supernatural efficiency of veteran bartenders everywhere, already reaching for a glass. "What's your poison?"

"Beer. Whatever's coldest." Judy rubbed her eyes, exhaustion making everything feel slightly unreal. "Actually, make it something stronger. Tequila. The same stuff you gave T."

"Coming right up." Claire poured with practiced precision, then surprised Judy with a wink that carried far too much meaning.

"What?"

"Nothing." Claire's smile was knowing, the kind that suggested she was enjoying a private joke. "Just nice to finally put a face to the name."

Judy's brow furrowed. "What name?"

"Let's see..." Claire leaned against the bar, her expression shifting to theatrical thoughtfulness. "Green and pink hair. Attitude that could cut glass. Genius with BD tech. Sound familiar?"

The words took a moment to arrange themselves into meaning. When they did, Judy felt heat creep up her neck. "She talks about me?"

"Honey, when Terissa Scott sits at my bar—which is more often than you'd think for someone who pretends she doesn't need people—she spends a fair amount of time talking about this chick who's apparently revolutionizing braindance technology." Claire's grin widened at Judy's expression. "The way she describes you, I half expected you to walk in glowing or something."

"I don't—she doesn't—" Judy found herself stammering, which was annoying as hell. She was a grown woman, not some teenager with a crush. "We're just friends."

"Uh-huh." Claire's skepticism could have filled a swimming pool.

"We are!"

"Sure you are." Claire relented slightly, her smile softening from teasing to something warmer. "Though maybe not all the time. She does occasionally talk about work, the city, whether the synthetic whiskey is getting worse or if it's just her taste buds dying."

Judy snorted despite herself, taking a shot of the tequila. The burn helped ground her, gave her something concrete to focus on besides the implications of Claire's words. Terissa talked about her. Regularly, apparently. To the bartender at the Afterlife, of all people.

"So." Claire planted her elbows on the bar, settling in with the air of someone who'd heard a thousand stories and was always ready for one more. "How exactly did you end up in whatever shitstorm she's dragged herself into this time? Because I've seen T walk in here looking rough before, but six bullet holes is impressive even by her standards."

The story spilled out easier than Judy expected—maybe it was the tequila, maybe it was Claire's particular gift for making people talk, maybe it was just the desperate need to process everything that had happened. The phone call in the mud. The race through Night City. The surgery, the penthouse, the cave. So Mi and Hansen and the neural matrix. The kidnapping at Laguna Bend, waking up tied to concrete while her childhood's grave spread beneath the dam like an accusation.

She left out some details—the almost-moments, the way Terissa's hand felt in hers, the growing weight of something neither of them would name—but Claire's knowing look suggested she heard those parts anyway.

When Judy finally wound down, Claire let out a low whistle that carried genuine appreciation for the sheer scope of the disaster.

"Well, shit." A chuckle followed, warm and slightly incredulous. "And I thought my week was complicated because some Tyger Claws tried to shake down the delivery guy."

She reached for the tequila bottle, pouring fresh shots for both of them with ceremonial gravity.

"Here's to surviving some more of Night City's bullshit," Claire said, raising her glass.

Judy laughed—a real laugh, the first one in what felt like days—and clinked her glass against Claire's. The tequila went down smoother this time, or maybe she was just getting numb.

But even as the warmth spread through her chest, her mind kept circling back to what Claire had said. She spends a fair amount of time talking about this chick...

Terissa Scott, former NUSA assassin, woman of a thousand secrets and twice as many scars, sat at this bar and talked about Judy. Not about operations or intelligence or the violence that lived under her skin—about her. About BD technology and attitude and whatever else made up Judy Alvarez in Terissa's eyes.

It was a perspective shift that made her feel slightly dizzy, like the ground had tilted a few degrees when she wasn't looking.

"Food?" Claire's voice cut through her thoughts. "You look like you haven't eaten anything real in days."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Sweetie, you've got that hollow look people get when they've been surviving on MREs and adrenaline." Claire was already moving toward a small kitchen area behind the bar. "I'll put something together. Nothing fancy, but it'll be actual food."

Judy nodded gratefully, finishing her drink while Claire disappeared. She could feel Reed's attention from his position down the bar—that particular weight of being observed by someone trained to notice everything—but refused to give him the satisfaction of acknowledgment.

The food arrived in a neat container: some kind of noodle dish that smelled impossibly good after days of military rations and synthetic coffee. Judy thanked Claire with genuine warmth, sliding off the stool with the container balanced carefully in her hands.

"Hey." Claire's voice stopped her. "Take care of her, yeah? She's better at surviving than she is at living. Could use someone who reminds her there's a difference."

The words settled somewhere in Judy's chest, next to the tequila and the exhaustion and the growing certainty that her life had veered onto a path she'd never anticipated.

"I'll try," she said, and meant it.

The back room was quiet when Judy returned, lit only by a small lamp someone had left burning in the corner. Terissa hadn't moved—still stretched out on the couch, one arm thrown across her eyes, breathing deep and even in genuine sleep.

Judy set the food on the nearby table, then stood there for a moment, just looking.

Even unconscious, Terissa carried an edge of danger—the kind of stillness that suggested she could snap awake and become lethal in the space between heartbeats. But there was vulnerability there too, visible now in ways it never was when she was conscious. The lines of pain around her mouth had smoothed. The perpetual tension in her shoulders had eased. She looked younger somehow, closer to whoever she must’ve been before the NUSA had carved her into a weapon.

"This is completely outrageous," Judy muttered to herself, sinking onto the edge of the couch. "Absolutely fucking ridiculous. Kidnapped, shot at, hiding in bars with government spooks and former assassins, and now I'm..."

What? Falling for someone whose past had a ridiculous body count? Getting attached to a woman who could disappear tomorrow if the wrong people found her? Sitting here watching her sleep like some lovesick teenager?

All of the above, her brain supplied unhelpfully.

Her hand moved before she'd consciously decided, reaching out to brush a strand of red hair away from Terissa's face. The gesture was gentle, almost reverent—the kind of touch she'd been avoiding for months because acknowledging it would mean acknowledging everything else and one particularly sore spot with the name of Evelyn Parker.

"Such a gonk," Judy whispered, her fingers trailing through Terissa's hair with careful softness. "All this trouble. The secrets and the safehouses and the enemies who kidnap people for leverage. Could've just been a normal information broker, but no. Had to be all mysterious and complicated and..."

She trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence. And exactly the kind of person I apparently can't stop thinking about. That seemed too honest, even in the privacy of whispered confessions to an unconscious woman.

A yawn cracked her jaw, sudden and overwhelming. The cave hadn't offered much in the way of restful sleep—between the tiny cot, the generator's drone, and the constant awareness of Terissa's injuries, Judy had managed maybe a few hours of something that barely qualified as rest.

The couch wasn't large, but it was big enough. Judy kicked off her boots and stretched out beside Terissa, careful not to jostle any of the healing wounds. The warmth of another body was immediate and grounding, a comfort she hadn't realized she'd been craving.

Just for a few minutes, she told herself. Just until I get my second wind.

Sleep claimed her before she could finish the thought.

Hours passed in the Afterlife's eternal twilight.

Terissa surfaced from sleep gradually, her consciousness rising through layers of fog like a diver ascending from deep water. Her body ran its automatic diagnostic—wounds healing, pain manageable, stiffness present but not debilitating. Better than yesterday. Progress.

Then she registered the unusual weight pressed against her side.

Her eyes opened carefully, survival instincts briefly flaring before memory caught up with sensation. The dim light revealed Judy curled against her, face slack with sleep, one hand resting on Terissa's hip like it belonged there. At some point during their unconscious hours, they'd shifted toward each other—Judy's head now pillowed on Terissa's shoulder, their legs tangled together in casual intimacy.

A grin spread across Terissa's face, slow and genuine and carrying more warmth than she usually allowed herself to feel.

Well, well.

She shifted slightly, testing her range of motion, and felt the change in Judy's breathing immediately. The younger woman's eyes cracked open with the unfocused confusion of interrupted sleep, blinking against the low light.

"Hey," Terissa said, her voice rough with sleep but carrying unmistakable amusement. "You know, if you wanted to sleep with me, you didn't have to wait until I was incapacitated. I'm reasonably confident I could have been persuaded while conscious."

Judy snorted, the sound somewhere between embarrassment and annoyance. She shoved herself upright, putting distance between them with movements that tried for casual and achieved something closer to flustered.

"Don't flatter yourself." She looked around, spotted the food container on the table, and reached for it with obvious gratitude for the distraction. "I was tired. You were unconscious. The couch was there."

"Uh-huh." Terissa pushed herself up more carefully, accepting the container Judy passed her and opening it to discover cold noodles that smelled like actual food. "Very practical. Though I have to say, if this is how we're doing things now—passing out together after near-death experiences—I should probably warn you that I snore sometimes."

"You don't snore." The words escaped before Judy could stop them, and her cheeks immediately darkened as she realized what she'd admitted. "I mean—the cave—you were right there and—cállate."

Terissa's grin widened as she took a bite of noodles, chewing with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "So you were awake. Listening to me breathe. In our romantic underground hideaway. Very flattering."

"I will smother you with that couch cushion."

"Kinky."

"Terissa."

"Fine, fine." But the laughter in her voice wouldn't quite die, warming something in Judy's chest even as it made her want to throw something. "Thank you for the food. And for..." She gestured vaguely at the space between them, at the shared warmth still lingering in the air. "The company."

Judy grabbed a handful of noodles for herself, chewing aggressively. "Don't mention it. Literally. Never mention this to anyone."

"My lips are sealed." Terissa's expression softened slightly, the teasing giving way to something more genuine. "How are you holding up? Really?"

The question caught Judy off guard, breaking through her defensive irritation. She considered lying, deflecting, making another joke to keep the walls intact.

Instead, she sighed. "I don't know. This is all so far outside anything I ever expected my life to be. Two weeks ago my biggest problem was whether Evelyn would ever see me as more than a friend. Now I'm hiding in the back room of the Afterlife while some dying netrunner wants to use me as leverage and a government spook is waiting at the bar to hunt her down."

"And sleeping with former assassins," Terissa added, because apparently she couldn't help herself.

"Napping near." Judy threw a noodle at her, which Terissa caught with reflexes that shouldn't have been possible for someone so recently shot. "There's a difference."

"If you say so."

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the food disappearing with the enthusiasm of people who'd been surviving on protein bars and spite. The Afterlife's muffled bass continued its eternal rhythm through the walls, a reminder that the world outside this room kept spinning regardless of their personal chaos.

"Claire says you talk about me," Judy said suddenly, the words escaping before she could second-guess them. "At the bar. When you're here."

Terissa paused mid-bite, something flickering across her expression too fast to read. "Claire talks too much."

"That's not a denial."

"No." Terissa set down the container, meeting Judy's eyes with an directness that felt almost physical. "It's not."

The moment stretched between them, heavy with everything they kept not saying. Judy felt her heart rate increase, felt the pull toward something that terrified and thrilled her in equal measure.

A knock at the door shattered the tension like glass.

"Scott." Rogue's voice carried through the thin barrier. "I've got something. You're going to want to see this."

Terissa was on her feet before the last word finished, the intimacy of moments ago locked away behind professional focus. She glanced at Judy—a look that promised later—before moving toward the door.

"Coming."

Judy followed, her mind still spinning with implications and possibilities and the lingering warmth of shared sleep. Whatever came next, whatever chaos Rogue's information brought, at least she knew one thing for certain now.

Terissa Scott talked about her at bars. Regularly.

In Night City, that meant something. She just had to survive long enough to figure out what.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: Uncharted Territory

Rogue's booth had transformed into a tactical display by the time Terissa reached it, holographic maps casting blue light across the fixer's sharp features. The data streams painted Santo Domingo in layers of threat assessment and opportunity—gang territories, corporate interests, the particular kind of industrial decay that made the district perfect for someone who wanted to disappear.

"My people spotted someone matching your girl's description about two hours ago," Rogue said without preamble, her fingers manipulating the display to zoom in on a cluster of abandoned warehouses near Pacifica's border. "Moving careful, staying in the shadows. The kind of movement patterns that scream trained operative trying not to be seen."

Terissa studied the map, cataloging the terrain with automatic precision. Heavy industrial infrastructure, minimal civilian traffic, dozens of places to set an ambush or disappear entirely. Classic territory for someone running out of options.

Reed materialized at her shoulder, his presence announced by the subtle displacement of air that came from someone trained to move without sound. "That's our window, then. She'll be looking for resources, contacts, anything she can leverage now that Hansen's operation has collapsed."

"She's dying," Terissa said flatly. "Desperate people don't always follow logical patterns."

"Which is why we move now, before she does something that makes containment impossible." Reed's tone carried the particular certainty of someone who'd already made his calculations. "Ms. Amendiares, your assistance has been invaluable. We'll take it from here."

Rogue's expression didn't change, but something in her posture shifted—the subtle adjustment of someone being dismissed and not appreciating it. Her eyes found Terissa's, a question passing between them in the shorthand of long acquaintance.

"One stop first," Terissa said, straightening from the map with movements that cost her more than she let show. "We're dropping Judy off at her place in Watson."

Reed's eyebrow climbed toward his hairline. "That seems like an unnecessary delay."

"It's not negotiable."

For a moment, the air between them crystallized with competing wills—Reed's operational efficiency against Terissa's immovable determination. Then something shifted in his calculation, and he shrugged with elaborate casualness.

"Fine. One less variable to account for in the field." He turned toward the exit, pausing just long enough to add, "Five minutes."

Terissa watched him go, then turned back to Rogue. "If this goes sideways—"

"I'll make sure your girl stays protected." Rogue's voice carried no sentimentality, just the cold promise of a professional honoring a contract. "Now go. Before your new partner decides efficiency trumps courtesy."

The drive to Watson stretched in silence thick enough to choke on. Reed navigated Night City's arterial highways with the mechanical precision of someone whose mind was elsewhere, running scenarios and contingencies. In the backseat, Judy radiated fury like a reactor approaching meltdown, her arms crossed so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

Terissa sat in the passenger seat, acutely aware of every degree of temperature in the vehicle's atmosphere. She'd tried twice to explain—about safety, about focus, about not wanting to risk Judy in whatever waited in Santo Domingo—but each attempt had been met with a wall of Spanish profanity that required no translation.

"This is bullshit," Judy finally said, the words escaping like pressure venting. "Complete and total bullshit."

"Judy—"

"Don't." The single syllable cracked through the air. "Don't give me another speech about protection and variables and tactical considerations. I'm not some fragile doll you can just put on a shelf when things get dangerous."

"I never said you were fragile."

"No, you just act like it." Judy's reflection in the window was a study in wounded pride. "First Rogue's surveillance, now this. You're treating me like cargo, T. Like something to be secured and forgotten about while you go play hero."

"I'm trying to keep you alive."

"And I'm trying to—" Judy stopped, jaw clenching around whatever she'd been about to say. The silence that followed was worse than the anger.

Reed, to his credit, maintained the fiction of not listening with admirable professionalism. His eyes stayed fixed on the road, his expression revealing nothing of whatever conclusions he was drawing about Terissa's personal entanglements.

Watson's familiar chaos eventually materialized around them—neon signs in a dozen languages, street vendors hawking their wares, the constant hum of a district that never quite slept. Reed pulled up outside Judy's building with the efficiency of someone eager to move on to more pressing matters.

Terissa was out of the truck before it fully stopped, ignoring the pull of healing wounds as she moved to open Judy's door. The younger woman climbed out with rigid dignity, her spine straight enough to serve as a structural beam.

"I'll walk you up," Terissa said.

"I know where my own apartment is."

"Humor me."

They climbed the stairs in silence, three flights that felt like thirty. The building was typical Watson—aging infrastructure held together by stubbornness and duct tape, the kind of place where people minded their own business because they had plenty of their own problems to worry about.

Outside Judy's door, Terissa stopped, the words she needed to say tangling in her throat. "Rogue's people will be watching. Anything happens, anything at all, you call me. I don't care what time it is or what's going on."

Judy's expression flickered through something complicated—anger, fear, something softer she was trying hard to suppress. "So I'm just supposed to sit here? Wait while you go chase down a dying netrunner with a government spook who probably has his own agenda?"

"I'm asking you to trust me."

"That's the problem, T." Judy's voice cracked slightly. "I do trust you. That's what makes this so fucking hard."

Terissa reached out, her hand finding Judy's shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture. "I'll come back. I promise."

"Don't make promises you might not—"

"I'll come back."

She meant it. Standing in this grimy hallway, fluorescent lights flickering overhead, she meant it with every fiber of her being. Whatever waited in Santo Domingo, whatever Reed's true agenda turned out to be, she would come back to this woman who'd saved her life and then refused to let her face the consequences alone.

Terissa turned to leave, taking two steps toward the stairs before Judy's hand caught her wrist.

The kiss came without warning—fierce and fast, Judy yanking her back with enough force to make her wounds protest. Lips crashed against hers with desperate intensity, tasting of tequila and determination and something that felt terrifyingly like hope.

It ended as abruptly as it began, Judy pulling back with wild eyes and flushed cheeks.

"Don't make me regret doing that," she said, her voice rough.

For perhaps the first time in her adult life, Terissa Scott found herself genuinely stunned. Her tactical mind, usually running constant calculations, had gone completely blank. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again.

Then the cocky grin she'd perfected over a lifetime of danger spread slowly across her face.

"Interesting development," she murmured, leaning in to capture Judy's lips again. This kiss was slower, more deliberate—a promise rather than a demand. When she finally pulled back, her thumb traced along Judy's jaw with surprising gentleness. "I'll make sure to keep you on your toes."

Judy's eye roll was magnificent in its scope. "Get out of here before I kick you out. Some of us have actual survival instincts."

"Noted." Terissa gave a playful salute, the gesture carrying more warmth than military precision. "Stay safe, Judy."

"You too, you absolute disaster."

The stairs passed in a blur, each step lighter than the last despite her injuries. By the time she reached the truck, something fundamental had shifted in her expression—a brightness that hadn't been there before, a particular curve to her lips that spoke of recent and pleasant surprise.

Reed raised an eyebrow as she slid into the passenger seat, his attention clearly cataloging the change in her demeanor. "Should I ask about—"

"Drive," Terissa said, cutting him off with easy authority.

He studied her for a moment longer, whatever conclusions he'd drawn hidden behind years of professional inscrutability. Then he shrugged—a gesture that managed to convey both acceptance and filed-away curiosity—and put the truck in gear.

"Santo Domingo, then."

"Santo Domingo."

The city scrolled past the windows, neon and shadow blending into the familiar tapestry of Night City's endless appetite. Somewhere ahead, So Mi was waiting—desperate, dying, dangerous. The confrontation that had been building for weeks was finally approaching its crescendo.

But in this moment, with Judy's taste still lingering on her lips and the memory of that fierce kiss burning in her chest, Terissa allowed herself something she rarely indulged in.

Hope.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: Convergence

The empty lot sprawled before them like a wound in Santo Domingo's industrial flesh, cracked concrete and rusted machinery creating a landscape of urban decay. Reed killed the engine and sat for a moment, his attention fixed on the cluster of warehouses rising in the middle distance—skeletal structures that had outlived their purpose and now served as shelter for those who'd outlived theirs.

"Last confirmed sighting was an hour ago," Reed said, his voice carrying the flat cadence of operational briefing. "She was moving northwest, toward the old processing district. My contact lost her somewhere in that maze."

Terissa studied the terrain through the windshield, her enhanced vision parsing shadows and sight lines with automatic precision. The warehouses formed a natural chokepoint—limited approaches, excellent defensive positions, the kind of ground a trained operative would choose if they expected pursuit.

Which she does, Terissa thought. She's been expecting us since Laguna Bend.

They exited the vehicle in coordinated silence, Reed checking his weapon with the methodical attention of long habit while Terissa ran a final diagnostic on her systems. Her wounds had knitted enough to function, but she could feel the places where healing tissue pulled tight, reminding her that sixty percent capacity was optimistic.

"The plan," Reed said, not quite a question.

"Find her. Assess the situation. Avoid civilian casualties." Terissa met his gaze directly. "Beyond that, we adapt."

Reed's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes—the acknowledgment of a fellow professional recognizing the deliberate vagueness of her response. They both knew the real conversation happening beneath the words. He wanted So Mi back in FIA custody. Terissa wanted to deny him that prize, if only to keep one more person from being consumed by the machine that had nearly destroyed her.

And they both knew the other knew.

"Business as usual, then," Reed said, a ghost of dark humor coloring his tone.

"Business as usual."

They moved out, falling into the natural rhythm of two operatives who'd been trained by the same system even if they'd never worked together. Reed took point, his attention sweeping crowds and cover with the systematic efficiency of someone who'd hunted people across three continents. Terissa followed at tactical distance, her consciousness splitting between physical awareness and the digital realm.

The local camera network opened to her intrusion like a reluctant door, security protocols yielding to override codes she'd acquired through years of cultivating the right contacts. Images cascaded through her neural interface—street corners, loading docks, the blind spots where Night City's surveillance couldn't quite reach. She tracked backward from So Mi's last known position, reconstructing a path through the industrial maze.

"She's been careful," Terissa murmured, highlighting a sequence of movements that avoided the most obvious camera positions. "But not careful enough. There's a pattern in her route—she's circling back toward the central warehouse cluster."

Reed nodded, adjusting their heading slightly. "Establishing a defensive position. She knows we're coming."

"She's been expecting this since Hansen."

They pressed deeper into the district, past faded corporate logos and equipment that had rusted into abstract sculpture. The crowds thinned as they moved away from the main thoroughfares, replaced by the particular emptiness of places where legitimate business had long since fled.

Terissa's scans painted the environment in overlays of threat assessment—structural weaknesses, potential ambush points, the electromagnetic signatures of active electronics. The warehouses loomed larger with each block, their hollow windows watching like dead eyes.

She was running a trace on a promising camera feed when her system screamed a warning.

"DOWN!"

The turret activated a fraction of a second before she finished speaking, its targeting laser sweeping across the street with lethal precision. Terissa threw herself left, feeling the heat of rounds passing close enough to singe as she crashed behind a concrete barricade. Across the street, Reed had found cover behind a rusted dumpster, his weapon already up and returning fire.

The turret was military-grade—Militech design, probably salvaged from one of Hansen's caches—and its fire control system tracked their movements with mechanical patience. Rounds chewed through Terissa's cover, spraying her with concrete fragments that stung like angry insects.

"She's here," Reed called between bursts. "Has to be."

"No shit." Terissa pressed herself flat as another volley tore chunks from the barricade. Her neural interface was already working on the turret's control frequency, but So Mi had layered the encryption with the kind of paranoid complexity that took time to crack.

Time they didn't have.

Reed popped up, squeezed off three precise shots, and dropped back as the turret swiveled toward him. One round sparked off the weapon's housing, another went wide, but the third found something vital—the turret's fire slowed, its tracking becoming slightly erratic.

"Move!" Reed was already sprinting for better cover, drawing fire while Terissa bolted from her position.

She ran in a zigzag pattern, her enhanced reflexes reading the turret's damaged targeting system and exploiting its lag. The world narrowed to trajectories and timing, each step calculated against probability of intercept. A round grazed her thigh—burning pain that her combat drugs immediately dampened—but she kept moving, kept pushing toward the warehouse entrance that represented their only real option.

The door was ahead. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.

She hit the threshold at full speed, shoulder checking the weakened frame and tumbling into the warehouse's dim interior. The relief lasted exactly one second.

Three more turrets activated, their targeting lasers painting her in crosshairs of red light.

"Kurwa."

Terissa dove as the first turret opened fire, rolling behind a stack of rotting pallets that immediately began disintegrating under the assault. Her neural interface was screaming overload warnings, trying to process three separate intrusion attempts while her body fought to survive the physical assault.

"SCOTT!" Reed's voice from outside, sharp with warning.

No time. No time. Think.

She reached for the nearest turret's control frequency, hammering at its encryption with every override she possessed. The code yielded—barely—and she felt the weapon's systems shudder as her commands overwrote its targeting priorities. The turret went dark, servos whining into silence.

One down.

The second turret tracked her movement as she broke for new cover, and Terissa fired three shots from a angle that would have been impossible without enhanced spatial processing. Two rounds sparked uselessly off armor plating, but the third found the hydraulic line controlling the weapon's traverse. Fluid sprayed, and the turret's movement seized into a grinding stutter.

Two down. One to go.

The last turret had her dead to rights.

She threw herself behind the disabled turret, making herself as small as possible against its chassis. The active weapon's rounds began tearing into her improvised cover with mechanical determination, each impact sending shrapnel spraying in lethal arcs. Metal fragments sliced her arm, her shoulder, her cheek—dozens of small cuts that added up to significant blood loss.

The disabled turret shuddered with each hit, its housing deforming under the sustained assault. Terissa could feel it shifting, the cover becoming less effective with every second.

Come on, Reed. Any time now.

As if summoned by thought, the warehouse door exploded inward. Reed came through firing, his shots precise and economical, each one targeting the active turret's vulnerable points. The weapon tried to track him, its attention splitting between two threats—and that momentary confusion was all the opening needed.

Reed's final shot found the turret's ammunition feed. The resulting explosion wasn't large, but it was enough. The weapon convulsed, sparked, and went silent.

Terissa pushed herself up from behind her ruined cover, her body cataloging damage that her combat drugs were working overtime to suppress. Blood ran freely from a dozen wounds, mixing with the sweat and grime of combat. Her leg throbbed where the round had grazed it, and her shoulder screamed from the fall.

"You look like shit," Reed observed, already moving deeper into the warehouse with weapon raised.

"Everyone keeps saying that." Terissa fell into step beside him, her pistol tracking shadows. "It might actually be true at this point."

The warehouse interior stretched before them in rows of abandoned machinery and collapsed shelving, the kind of industrial archaeology that told stories of corporate abandonment and economic decay. Emergency lights cast everything in bloody red, creating pools of shadow that could hide anything.

So Mi was here. Terissa could feel it in the prickle along her spine, the particular awareness of being watched by someone who knew exactly how dangerous they could be.

"She'll have more surprises," Reed said quietly, his eyes never stopping their systematic sweep.

"Counting on it."

They moved forward together, two predators stalking prey who'd become a predator herself. Somewhere in the darkness ahead, a woman was dying by degrees, her mind being consumed by something alien and hungry. And she'd led them here deliberately—into her chosen ground, her prepared defenses, her final stand.

The game was about to end.

Terissa just hoped she'd be alive to see how it played out.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17: Ghost Protocol

The stairwell yawned before her like a throat, metal steps corroded to lace in places where rainwater had pooled and eaten through industrial-grade construction. Terissa moved with the particular economy of someone conserving strength for what mattered, each footfall placed where the structure remained sound.

Reed had peeled off at the ground floor entrance, his attention already locked on the maze of shipping containers and derelict equipment that filled the warehouse's lower level. They hadn't discussed the split—professionals didn't need to. Vertical separation meant covering more ground while reducing the chance of friendly fire incidents. It also meant neither could be entirely sure what the other was doing.

Which is probably the point, Terissa thought as she crested the second floor landing. Trust only extends so far when the prize is this valuable.

The upper level opened into a sprawl of administrative space long since stripped of anything worth stealing. Cubicle skeletons marked where middle management had once counted inventory and filed reports, their modular walls collapsed into geometric debris. Emergency lighting painted everything in shades of blood and shadow, transforming the mundane decay into something almost theatrical.

Terissa slowed her breathing, letting her enhanced senses expand into the space. The turret engagement had left her running hotter than optimal—combat drugs still circulating, heart rate elevated, the particular edge of sustained adrenaline that made fine motor control tricky. She forced herself through a centering routine, old training rising like muscle memory.

Be the ghost. Move like you belong. Let the environment tell you its secrets.

She pressed herself against a support column, its concrete surface cool against her shoulder as she surveyed the terrain. Camera—mounted in the far corner, its housing weathered but the indicator light glowing steady red. Active surveillance. So Mi's eyes in her little kingdom.

The angle was good. Terissa had positioned herself in the camera's blind spot almost unconsciously, decades of training making the calculation automatic. From here, she could study the device without being studied in return.

Her neural interface reached out, probing the camera's wireless connection with the delicate touch of a safecracker. The encryption was solid—better than corporate standard, layered with the kind of paranoid redundancy that spoke to someone who'd spent years protecting secrets. But Terissa was skilled and So Mi was running on desperation at this point.

There. A hairline fracture in the security protocols, probably a firmware update that hadn't been properly patched. She slipped through, her consciousness sliding into the camera's simple processing architecture like water finding cracks in stone.

The feed opened before her mind's eye—grainy footage of empty corridors, abandoned offices, the general desolation of a building left to rot. Terissa cycled through connected cameras, each one offering a fragment of the warehouse's geography. Loading dock. Storage area. Break room with overturned vending machines.

And then—

So Mi hunched over a console that shouldn't have been there, her fingers flying across holographic interfaces with frantic speed. The room around her had been converted into something between a command center and a medical bay, equipment that Terissa recognized as military-grade neural monitoring clustered around a central chair that was obviously So Mi’s netrunning platform.

The netrunner's face was drawn tight with concentration, her lips moving in what might have been curses or prayers. Even through the low-resolution feed, Terissa could see the corruption's progress—faint circuit patterns pulsing beneath the skin of So Mi's neck, creeping toward her jaw like digital vines seeking sunlight.

The image lasted perhaps three seconds before the connection severed.

Terissa felt the hack slam shut with almost physical force, So Mi's countermeasures activating with the speed of someone who'd felt the intrusion and understood exactly what it meant. The camera's indicator light flickered twice, then went dark entirely—killed rather than risk further compromise.

Well. She knows I'm here now.

Terissa pressed deeper into the shadows, taking a moment to assess her condition with clinical detachment. The surgical staples had held through the turret engagement—a minor miracle given the acrobatics required to survive it. The graze on her thigh had settled into a dull, throbbing ache that her combat drugs were managing adequately. The dozens of small cuts from shrapnel stung when she moved, but none were deep enough to worry about.

All told, better than she'd expected. Worse than she'd hoped.

"Never again," she muttered, checking her pistol's magazine with automatic efficiency. "Absolutely never getting involved in this kind of shit again. Next time someone from my past shows up asking for help, I'm moving to the badlands and changing my face."

Her comm unit chirped.

The caller ID made her pause—a routing protocol she recognized, bounced through enough proxies to make tracing impossible. She accepted the connection, keeping her voice low.

"So Mi."

"Terissa." The netrunner's voice came through strained, compressed by encryption but still carrying unmistakable desperation. "You found me."

"Weren't exactly hiding, were you? Those turrets were basically a welcome mat." Terissa began moving again, her footsteps silent on the debris-strewn floor as she navigated toward where her brief camera access had placed So Mi's position. "Though I have to admit, the warm reception was a nice touch."

"I had to slow you down. Buy time." A pause, filled with the sound of fingers still working frantically at keys. "You brought Reed."

"He brought himself. I'm just along for the ride."

"Don't bullshit me." So Mi's laugh was brittle, cracking at the edges. "You know what happens if he takes me back. They'll drain everything useful from my skull and then let the corruption finish what it started. A slow death in a government facility while they document my neural degradation for research purposes."

Terissa rounded a corner, her weapon tracking shadows that might hide threats. "And you think I should care? After Hansen? After Judy?"

The silence on the line stretched long enough to become its own answer.

"I'm sorry." The words came out small, deflated. "I know that doesn't mean anything. I know I burned that bridge and probably a dozen others. But I was dying, Terissa. I am dying. And when you're watching your own mind being eaten alive by something that thinks in patterns no human was ever meant to comprehend..."

"You make desperate choices." Terissa's voice carried no warmth, but something in it had shifted—recognition, perhaps, of the particular mathematics that governed survival. "I understand that. Understanding doesn't mean forgiveness."

"I'm not asking for forgiveness." So Mi's typing had stopped, the line carrying nothing but her ragged breathing. "I'm asking for one more chance. Not for me—for the person I used to be before the FIA turned me into a weapon and the Blackwall tried to turn me into something worse."

Terissa paused at an intersection, her enhanced hearing straining for any indication of Reed's position below. Nothing but the building's settling groans and the distant hum of So Mi's equipment. "You had a chance. At Reconciliation Park, when you first reached out. I was going to help you."

"I know."

"I had a plan. Not perfect, but real. Acquire the matrix, get you to someone who could actually use it, arrange transport to Tycho."

"I know."

"And you threw it away for Hansen's lies because you couldn't wait. Couldn't trust." Terissa started moving again, faster now, her mental map of the building narrowing toward So Mi's likely position. "So tell me—why should anything be different now?"

The question hung in the digital space between them, heavy with all the weight of bullets fired and bridges burned.

"Because I actually have a way out." So Mi's voice carried a desperate hope that sounded almost painful. "I've been working on something since Laguna Bend. Transport protocols for NCX Spaceport—I can get on a shuttle to Tycho, but I can't get to the port. Not with Reed hunting me. Not in my condition."

"NCX." Terissa processed the implications. Night City's primary spaceport, corporate-controlled but chaotic enough that the right credentials and the right distractions could get someone through security. "That's a hell of a distance with FIA on your tail."

"I know the systems. I can create documentation that'll pass inspection. I can mask my neural signature well enough to fool the scanners." So Mi's words tumbled over each other, rushing to get out before Terissa could reject them. "All I need is someone to get me there physically. Someone who knows how to move through the city without being tracked."

"Someone like me."

"Someone exactly like you." A pause. "Help me reach NCX, and I disappear. Forever. You'll never hear from me again, never have to deal with any of this. The FIA loses their prize, Reed goes home empty-handed, and everyone moves on with their lives."

Terissa found herself standing before a heavy door, its security panel blinking a gentle amber that suggested active but not alarmed. Beyond this point, she knew, So Mi waited with whatever final defenses she'd managed to prepare.

Kill her. It would be easy enough. A debt repaid for Judy's terror at Laguna Bend.

The thought rose unbidden, cold and practical. So Mi was dangerous even diminished, a liability that would continue to complicate things as long as she drew breath. Eliminating her would be the cleanest solution, the choice her NUSA training would have demanded.

Hand her to Reed. Let the FIA have their asset back, let them deal with the complications.

Equally practical, if morally questionable. Reed would ensure So Mi's knowledge was extracted and preserved before the corruption claimed her. Valuable intelligence protected, a threat neutralized, and Terissa's hands technically clean.

Or...

The third option sat in her mind like an unexploded grenade, dangerous in ways she couldn't fully calculate. Help So Mi reach NCX. Put a dying woman on a shuttle to the moon, to facilities that might—might—be able to save her. Let her disappear into the void between Earth and its colony, one more refugee from Night City's grinding machinery of exploitation.

It was stupid. Tactically unsound. The kind of choice that got operatives killed by their own sentimentality.

It was also, Terissa realized, exactly the kind of choice she'd been making since she walked away from the NUSA. The choices that had led her to Judy, to this particular life she'd carved from Night City's indifferent stone. The choices that separated the person she was now from the weapon she'd been.

"If I do this," she said slowly, "if I get you to NCX—you understand what that means? No more games, no more manipulation. You get on that shuttle and you stay gone."

"I swear it." So Mi's voice cracked with something that might have been tears, might have been the corruption affecting her emotional regulation. "On whatever's left of who I used to be, I swear it."

Terissa's hand rested on the door panel, feeling the decision crystallize in her chest.

"Then we need to move fast. Reed's somewhere in this building, and he's not going to stop hunting just because I ask nicely."

The line went quiet for a moment, and when So Mi spoke again, her voice carried the first hint of genuine hope Terissa had heard since this whole disaster began.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." Terissa's fingers found the door release. "We still have to survive the next few hours."

She pushed through into whatever waited beyond, the ghost of her former self whispering that she was making a mistake even as the woman she'd become moved forward into the unknown.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18: Terminal Velocity

The door swung open to reveal exactly what Terissa had expected—So Mi standing beside her jury-rigged console, arms hanging limp at her sides, the posture of someone who'd already surrendered to whatever came next. The neural monitoring equipment hummed its electronic dirge around her, screens flickering with data streams that tracked a mind being devoured by degrees.

Terissa's pistol came up automatically, sights settling on center mass with the mechanical precision of a thousand repetitions. Her finger rested on the trigger guard—not quite ready to fire, not quite willing to lower the weapon.

"Don't move."

So Mi didn't. She stood there like something carved from exhaustion, her dark eyes reflecting the monitors' blue glow. The corruption had spread further than Terissa thought—circuit patterns now clearly visible along her jaw, pulsing with their own alien rhythm beneath skin gone pale as paper.

A quick glance at the security monitors told Terissa what she'd feared. Reed's figure moved through the ground floor with systematic efficiency, clearing corners and checking shadows with the patience of someone who understood that rushing got people killed. He'd reach the stairs in minutes.

Shit.

The room offered exactly one exit—the door she'd just come through. No windows, no vents large enough to crawl through, nothing but concrete walls and dying equipment. Classic kill box, which meant So Mi had either chosen this position out of desperation or stupidity.

Terissa's mind ran the calculations it had been running since the stairwell. Shoot So Mi now—clean, simple, a mercy killing for someone whose remaining time could seemingly be measured in hours rather than weeks. The corruption was worse than she'd imagined, far worse than the estimates So Mi had given at Reconciliation Park. Whatever timeline had existed then had collapsed into something approaching terminal.

Or.

NCX Spaceport sat roughly an hour away if she ignored every traffic law Night City bothered to enforce. An hour with Reed hunting them, with So Mi barely functional, with her own wounds still protesting their objections to continued existence.

She studied So Mi over her pistol sights, really looked at her for the first time since entering the room. The netrunner was swaying slightly, micro-tremors visible in her hands and jaw. Her breathing came shallow and irregular, the rhythm of someone fighting their own body just to remain vertical. The brilliant mind that had once cracked encryption faster than anyone imagined was now struggling to maintain basic motor function.

Days. Maybe less.

The pistol lowered a fraction, then further. "Nearest exit. Now."

So Mi's legs gave out before she could answer, her body folding into the console chair with the boneless collapse of someone who'd been standing through sheer will. A sound escaped her—half laugh, half sob—as her hands gripped the armrests like anchors.

"Emergency stairwell. Down the hall, maybe twenty meters." Her voice came out thin, stretched. "There's a ground-level exit that opens onto the back lot."

Terissa checked the monitors again. Reed had reached the stairwell—the main one, not the emergency access. He was being thorough, which bought them seconds they desperately needed.

"Get up."

So Mi's attempt was painful to watch—arms shaking, legs refusing to cooperate, her body staging a rebellion against commands her corrupted neural pathways couldn't quite deliver. She made it halfway before sagging back down, frustration twisting her features into something raw.

"I'm trying—"

"Try harder." Terissa crossed the distance between them, her free hand closing on So Mi's arm with enough force to bruise. "Get up and move, or the option to just shoot you remains very much on the table."

Something in that—the cold practicality of it, perhaps, or the recognition that Terissa meant every word—sparked whatever reserves So Mi had left. She rose on legs that trembled but held, her weight shifting until she found something approaching balance.

"Go." Terissa pushed her toward the door. "In front. You lead."

They moved through the corridor in a grotesque parody of tactical movement—So Mi shuffling forward with the uncertain steps of someone relearning to walk, Terissa close behind with her pistol tracking their backtrail. The emergency exit materialized at the hall's end, its push-bar gleaming dully in the emergency lighting.

Ten meters.

Five.

"Scott!"

Reed's voice echoed from somewhere behind them, sharp with recognition and something that might have been disappointment. Terissa spun without thinking, her body dropping into a shooter's squat as her weapon came up.

Two rounds, spaced precisely—not aimed to kill, just to create hesitation. The shots sparked off the corridor wall near where Reed had appeared, and she heard rather than saw him pull back into cover.

Then she was through the emergency exit, her shoulder taking the push-bar's impact as she hauled So Mi along by sheer momentum. The stairwell stretched downward in rust-eaten spirals, and Terissa's tactical mind was already three steps ahead.

"Move faster."

"I'm—" So Mi stumbled on the first landing, catching herself against the railing with a sound that was half grunt, half whimper.

"I don't care. Faster."

Terissa's free hand dove into her bag, fingers finding the small charge she'd packed for emergencies. Not enough explosive to kill someone of Reed's caliber—the man had survived worse—but enough to make him think twice about following their exact path. She armed it with a twist and wedged it into the door frame's gap, the adhesive strips gripping concrete with satisfying solidity.

They hit the ground floor exit as the stairwell above them echoed with the emergency door being tested. Terissa shoved So Mi through into Night City's orange-tinted twilight, the industrial district's decay spreading around them like a wound that refused to heal.

The charge detonated with a sharp crack that echoed off warehouse walls—more sound than fury, but the momentary silence that followed suggested Reed was reassessing his pursuit options. Good. That bought them maybe a minute.

"Move." Terissa grabbed So Mi's elbow, propelling her forward through the lot's debris field. The netrunner was flagging badly now, each step requiring visible effort, but fear proved an adequate motivator. They crossed the open ground in a stumbling rush that felt like hours compressed into seconds.

A restaurant lot materialized from the gloom—some dive establishment that catered to the district's remaining workers, its parking area holding perhaps a dozen vehicles in various states of decay. Terissa's eyes found the newest model, a Thorton that looked like it might actually start on the first try.

The owner was still inside—she could see him through the window, hunched over a counter with the resigned posture of someone whose shift had three hours left after whatever break he was on. That changed when Terissa entered and her pistol came up, the universal language of give me what I want spoken clearly.

He raised his hands, keys already extended in the classic Night City gesture of please don't shoot me, the insurance isn't worth dying for. Terissa took them without a word, shoving So Mi toward the passenger door with her free hand.

"Sorry about your evening," she offered, which was more courtesy than most carjackers provided.

The Thorton's engine caught on the first try—a small mercy in a night desperately short on them. So Mi collapsed into the passenger seat, her breathing gone ragged, the corruption's circuit patterns now pulsing visibly at her temples.

Terissa hit the gas before the door was fully closed, the vehicle surging forward with enough force to press them both back into seats that smelled of synthetic leather and someone else's cigarettes. The restaurant's lot vanished in her mirrors, replaced by Santo Domingo's industrial sprawl.

"NCX." So Mi's voice was barely a whisper. "Take the 7th Street interchange. Less traffic."

"I know how to get there."

"Just..." A shuddering breath. "Trying to help."

Terissa glanced over despite herself, taking in the ruin of someone who'd once been brilliant enough to terrify governments. So Mi had curled in on herself, arms wrapped around her torso like she was trying to hold the pieces together. The corruption had reached her cheekbone now, digital veins spreading beneath skin that looked almost translucent in the passing streetlights.

"How long?" Terissa asked, the words coming out rougher than intended.

"Since when?"

"Since the estimate changed. You told me months at Reconciliation. You're barely holding together now."

So Mi's laugh was a fragile thing, more air than sound. "A couple things.  The hack at Laguna Bend. Using that much processing power to grab Judy... it accelerated things. Exponentially." Her fingers traced the corruption's path along her jaw. "I could feel it happening. Feel myself becoming less with every second I stayed in the system."

"And you did it anyway."

"I was desperate." The familiar refrain, worn thin with repetition. "I thought if I could just get the matrix fast enough—"

"You thought wrong."

So Mi didn't argue. What was there to say?

The city scrolled past in ribbons of neon and shadow, Night City's particular brand of beauty-in-decay painting itself across the windshield. Terissa pushed the Thorton harder than it wanted to go, engine protesting as she wove through traffic patterns that existed more as suggestions than rules. fifty-eight minutes to NCX if the roads cooperated.

"Reed will follow." So Mi's voice had steadied slightly, her tactical mind still functioning even as everything else failed. "He'll guess where we're heading."

"Let me worry about Reed."

"He knows the spaceport. Knows the security protocols. He could—"

"So Mi." Terissa's tone cut through the spiraling panic. "Shut up and conserve your energy. You're going to need it when we get there."

Silence fell between them, filled only by the engine's complaints and the distant wail of sirens that probably weren't related to them. Probably. Terissa kept her attention split between the road ahead and the mirrors behind, watching for the particular headlight patterns that would suggest FIA pursuit.

"Why?" So Mi asked finally, the word small and lost.

"Why what?"

"Why are you doing this? After everything." Her head lolled toward Terissa, exhaustion stripping away the last pretense of control. "You could have shot me. Given me to Reed. Either option would have been easier."

Terissa considered the question as she took a corner hard enough to make the Thorton's tires scream. The honest answer was complicated—too complicated for a dying woman in a stolen car with federal agents probably tracking their route.

"Because I remember what it was like," she said finally. "Running from something that used to own you. Knowing that going back means losing whatever's left of who you are." Her jaw tightened. "I got out. Someone helped me when they didn't have to. Call it paying forward a debt I never asked for."

"That's almost poetic."

"Don't get used to it." Terissa checked her mirrors again. Still clear, but that wouldn't last. "And don't mistake this for forgiveness. What you did to Judy—"

"I know."

"—that debt's still open. You get on that shuttle, you disappear, and you never come back. Ever. No contact, no messages, no reaching out because you're lonely or scared or whatever other excuse you might manufacture. You're dead to this city. You're dead to me. Understand?"

So Mi's nod was barely perceptible. "Understood."

The interchange for NCX appeared ahead, its signs glowing with the promise of escape—or the threat of ambush, depending on how the next section played out. Terissa took the ramp without slowing, the Thorton's suspension groaning as they merged into the flow of vehicles heading toward Night City's primary connection to the stars.

Somewhere behind them, Reed was mobilizing whatever resources he could muster. Ahead, security checkpoints and corporate bureaucracy waited to test the limits of So Mi's failing systems. And in the stolen car between those two points, a dying netrunner and a woman who'd once been a weapon hurtled toward an ending neither could fully predict.

Terissa pushed the accelerator harder and watched the spaceport's lights grow brighter on the horizon.

Chapter Text

Chapter 19: No Exit

The NCX Spaceport materialized from the urban sprawl like a monument to human ambition—all chrome spires and landing platforms reaching toward stars that Night City's smog and light pollution rarely let anyone see. Terissa slowed the Thorton as they approached the main access road, her tactical instincts screaming before her conscious mind had processed why.

Empty.

The approach lanes that should have been clogged with corporate shuttles and cargo transports stretched ahead in eerie silence. No ground crews moving between vehicles. No passengers hurrying toward departure gates. No automated drones running their endless supply routes.

Just stillness, and the distant flicker of security lighting reflecting off glass that had no one behind it.

"That's not right," So Mi breathed, her voice carrying the particular fear of someone who'd seen enough government operations to recognize their signature.

Terissa pulled the Thorton into a maintenance alcove, killing the engine with deliberate calm while her enhanced vision swept the facility's perimeter. Guard positions at the main gates—occupied, but not by standard corporate security. The posture was wrong, the equipment too uniform. Military precision masquerading as private sector.

"He called it in." The words came out flat, stripped of surprise she didn't feel. "Reed went over everyone's heads and got federal authorization."

"NUSA doesn't have jurisdiction in Night City."

"NUSA has jurisdiction wherever they decide they want it badly enough." Terissa's eyes glowed as she accessed a database, pulling up the spaceport schematics she'd downloaded during the drive. "Especially when their prize asset is about to slip off-world permanently."

The facility's layout painted itself across her neural interface in blue wireframe—departure terminals, cargo bays, the automated shuttle platforms that ran their schedules regardless of earthbound politics. So Mi's transport was scheduled for Platform 7, tucked into the spaceport's northeastern quadrant. Forty minutes until departure, assuming the lockdown hadn't affected automated systems.

Thirty-eight minutes now.

So Mi had slumped against the passenger door, her breathing shallow and irregular. The corruption had spread further during the drive—circuit patterns now crawling down her neck, disappearing beneath her collar. Each pulse of alien light seemed to drain something essential from her features.

Terissa studied the schematics with the cold efficiency her training demanded, even as another part of her mind ran a different calculation entirely.

Shoot her. Walk away. Simple.

The thought surfaced with familiar weight, the ghost of Matron whispering practical solutions to complicated problems. So Mi was dying regardless. The shuttle might not even help—Tycho's facilities were legendary, but legends didn't always translate to reality. Every minute Terissa spent on this extraction was another minute she wasn't getting back to Judy, wasn't rebuilding the life she'd carved from Night City's indifferent stone.

One bullet. Clean. Merciful, even.

Her hand didn't move toward her weapon.

"There." Terissa highlighted a path on the schematic, the route illuminating in her vision like a lifeline through chaos. "Service entrance on the western perimeter. Feeds into the ventilation infrastructure—ducts large enough for maintenance crews, which means large enough for us."

"And the operatives?"

"We avoid them." Terissa zoomed the display, tracing the ventilation network's maze. "These ducts run through most of the facility. Two major exposure points where we'll have to cross open ground, but if we time it right—"

"If." So Mi's laugh was brittle. "That's a lot of weight on a two-letter word."

"You have a better option?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.

The service entrance yielded to Terissa's override codes with a soft click that sounded impossibly loud in the facility's unnatural quiet. She'd acquired the codes years ago, part of her standard preparation for a city where knowing how to get into places was often more valuable than knowing how to get out. The door swung open to reveal a maintenance corridor lit by emergency strips, their red glow painting everything in shades of dried blood.

So Mi moved like someone fighting gravity, each step requiring visible concentration. Terissa kept close, ready to catch her if—when—her failing body finally surrendered. The ventilation access point waited at the corridor's end, its grated cover already loose from years of neglected maintenance.

"Inside." Terissa pulled the grate free, gesturing into the darkness beyond. "Stay low, stay quiet."

The duct was cramped but navigable, metal walls pressing close as they crawled through the facility's mechanical arteries. Terissa led, her enhanced vision compensating for the absolute darkness, her audio sensors tracking the sounds of movement somewhere in the building's depths.

Thirty-one minutes.

They reached a junction point where the duct widened enough to stand—barely. Terissa paused, pressing herself against the wall while she processed the tactical picture. Her neural interface had been passively scanning local communications, and what it found made her stomach tighten.

Dozens of signals. Encrypted, but the volume alone told the story. Reed hadn't just called in backup—he'd called in an army.

Through a ventilation grate below, she caught her first glimpse of what they faced.

Operatives moved through the terminal in coordinated patterns, their gear marking them as something far beyond standard security. Body armor that ate light. Weapons configured for close-quarters lethality. The kind of equipment that governments deployed when they wanted to make absolutely certain their target didn't escape.

Terissa counted eighteen in her immediate field of view. The building probably held five times that number, positioned at every choke point and exit.

Well. Shit.

She pressed her forehead against the cool metal, allowing herself exactly three seconds of despair before discipline reasserted itself.

"Judy's going to dig up my corpse just so she can kill me again," she muttered.

"What?" So Mi's whisper came from behind her, strained with effort.

"Nothing. Keep moving."

The first exposure point announced itself through the ventilation grate's bars—a main lobby that connected the terminal's eastern and western wings. Once, it had probably bustled with travelers and corporate functionaries. Now it held nothing but hostile intent and overlapping fields of fire.

Terissa studied the space with clinical precision. Six operatives visible, their patrol patterns suggesting another four in adjacent corridors. The maintenance shaft entrance waited on the far side—maybe forty meters of open ground with minimal cover.

Forty meters might as well have been forty kilometers.

So Mi had caught up, her breathing ragged, one hand braced against the duct wall for support. In the dim light filtering through the grate, she looked like death wearing a human mask. The corruption's circuit patterns had spread to her jaw, pulsing with rhythms that had nothing to do with human biology.

"You'll never make it across if you have to shoot your way through," So Mi said quietly, reading the tactical reality as clearly as Terissa had.

"No." Terissa's mind was already three moves ahead, calculating angles and probabilities. "But you might."

"What?"

"Get ready to move. When I drop the first one, you cross. Don't stop, don't look back, just get to that shaft entrance."

"Terissa—"

"Save it." She was already removing the grate, her movements precise and silent. "You have maybe thirty minutes of functional time left. Don't waste any of it arguing."

The grate came free without sound. Terissa slipped through the opening and dropped to the floor below, landing in a crouch that sent fire through her healing wounds. She bit back the grunt of pain, moving immediately toward cover—a decorative planter that offered concealment if not protection.

Twenty-six minutes.

The operatives hadn't noticed her yet. Their attention was focused outward, toward the approaches they expected threats to come from. Terissa circled the lobby's perimeter, using structural pillars and abandoned check-in kiosks to mask her movement.

The first operative died without knowing she was there.

Her knife found the gap between his helmet and body armor, sliding through the exposed throat with the surgical precision of a thousand practice repetitions. Blood splashed hot across her hands as she caught his weight, easing the body down before it could clatter against the polished floor.

His rifle was highly customized and, more importantly, suppressed, with a targeting system that interfaced smoothly with her neural architecture. She liberated it from cooling fingers, checking the action with movements so automatic they required no conscious thought.

Twenty-four minutes.

Terissa positioned herself where the lobby's lighting would work against her targets—emergency strips at her back, their red glow creating a wash of glare that would make targeting difficult. The operatives below moved in their patterns, unaware that their formation had already been compromised.

She raised the rifle, let her enhanced optics sync with the weapon's scope, and began to work.

The first shot took an operative in the head before he could register the sound. The second caught his partner mid-turn, the round punching through body armor. Three. Four. Each trigger pull accompanied by the rifle's muffled cough and the wet sound of bodies hitting ground.

Return fire erupted within seconds—these were professionals, their response time measured in heartbeats. Rounds chewed through the pillar she'd used for positioning, spraying concrete fragments that stung her face and arms. Terissa was already moving, rolling to secondary cover as the lobby filled with rounds.

Come on, So Mi. Move.

She caught a glimpse of motion near the ventilation access—So Mi's dark hair, her stumbling gait as she forced her failing body across the open ground. Good. Almost there.

An operative had spotted her. His weapon came up, muzzle tracking the fleeing netrunner—

Terissa's shot took him through the eye.

Fifteen meters. Ten.

More operatives pouring into the lobby now, their boots hammering against polished floors. Terissa's position was burned, but that had always been the point. She dropped the rifle—empty anyway—and sprinted for the maintenance shaft entrance.

Rounds cracked past her, close enough to feel their displaced air. Something hot grazed her arm—pain that her combat drugs immediately suppressed. Five meters. Three.

So Mi had made it through. Terissa could see the shaft entrance ahead, its door still open, darkness promising refuge beyond.

She hit the threshold at full speed, shoulder checking the frame as momentum carried her through. Her hand found the door handle, hauling it closed behind her with enough force to slam it into its housing. The lock engaged with a solid thunk that echoed through the narrow space.

Fists pounded against the door immediately, followed by the sharper sound of someone testing its integrity with gunfire. The rounds didn't penetrate—industrial steel, designed to contain maintenance disasters. It would hold.

For now.

Terissa pressed her back against the locked door, breathing hard, blood running freely from a graze on her arm that she'd deal with later. Her wounds had reopened—she could feel the hot spread of blood beneath her clothes—but that was also a problem for future Terissa.

Present Terissa just needed to get a dying netrunner to Platform 7 before the clock ran out.

So Mi had collapsed against the shaft's far wall, her body shaking with tremors that had nothing to do with fear. The corruption's light pulsed faster now, its alien rhythm accelerating toward some terrible crescendo.

"Can you walk?" Terissa asked, already knowing the answer.

"I can try." So Mi pushed herself upright through sheer will, her legs threatening to buckle with every movement. "How far?"

Terissa consulted her mental map of the facility, factoring in their new position and the likely response to the lobby engagement.

"About four hundred meters. One more exposure point, then we're at the platform."

"And the operatives?"

"They'll be repositioning. We have maybe five minutes before they figure out where we're headed." Terissa moved to help So Mi stand, taking some of her weight. "Five minutes to cover four hundred meters with half an army between us and escape."

So Mi's laugh was barely more than a whisper. "I like those odds."

"You're delirious."

"Probably." But she was moving, leaning heavily on Terissa as they started down the maintenance shaft toward whatever waited at its end. "Thank you. For not—"

"Don't." Terissa's voice carried an edge that surprised them both. "We're not having that conversation until you're on the shuttle. If you want to thank me, stay conscious long enough to walk up that ramp."

The shaft stretched before them, lit by emergency strips that painted their path in shades of warning. Behind them, the sounds of pursuit organized itself into something systematic and deadly.

Twenty-three minutes.

Terissa tightened her grip on So Mi and kept moving.

Chapter Text

Chapter 20: Last Light

The maintenance corridor stretched ahead in segments of shadow and emergency lighting, each turn bringing them closer to Platform 7 and further from the operatives still organizing their pursuit. Terissa guided So Mi through the facility's mechanical arteries, her mental clock counting down seconds they couldn't afford to waste.

Nineteen minutes.

A junction ahead offered options—continue through the corridor where boots would eventually thunder, or take the larger ventilation shaft that climbed toward the upper levels. Terissa chose the shaft without hesitation. Predictable paths got people killed.

The climb was brutal. So Mi's arms shook with each rung, her grip failing twice before Terissa caught her, pressing her against the ladder until she found whatever reserves kept her moving. The corruption's light pulsed faster now, its alien rhythm visible even in the shaft's darkness.

"Almost there," Terissa murmured, more to herself than her failing companion.

The shaft opened onto a maintenance access point near the landing pad—the private vehicle section where corporate executives parked their toys while conducting business that couldn't wait for commercial shuttles. Terissa pressed her eye to the grate, her enhanced vision cataloging what waited beyond.

"Kurwa mać."

Four dropships sat on the pad in tactical formation, their angular hulls drinking the floodlights like wounds in the air. Military transport design, each capable of carrying twenty troops in full combat loadout. The math was simple and terrible—eighty operatives had descended on NCX, and she'd accounted for maybe a dozen.

Two fire teams patrolled the perimeter, four operatives each moving in overlapping patterns that covered the pad with professional efficiency. Their attention focused outward, toward the approaches they expected threats to emerge from. The hatch Terissa needed sat thirty meters away, partially obscured by cargo containers that offered something approaching cover.

"Can you move?" she whispered.

So Mi's nod was barely perceptible, her jaw clenched against whatever internal battle the corruption was waging.

"Stay low. Stay quiet. Don't stop until you're through that hatch." Terissa removed the grate with careful precision. "I'll be right behind you."

So Mi went first, her body folding into a crouch that probably cost her more than Terissa wanted to think about. She moved across the open ground in a stumbling rush that somehow stayed silent, each footfall placed with the desperate precision of someone who understood that sound meant death.

Terissa followed, her own wounds screaming their objections as she pressed herself low against the concrete. The patrol teams continued their patterns, unaware of the two figures threading between cargo containers like shadows given purpose.

Twenty meters.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, each beat a countdown to discovery. The operatives' boots scraped against the landing pad's surface, the sound impossibly loud in the tension-stretched silence. Any moment, one of them would turn at the wrong time, catch movement in peripheral vision, raise the alarm that would end everything.

Ten meters.

So Mi reached the hatch, her fingers finding the release mechanism with fumbling urgency. It opened without sound—small mercies in a night that had offered precious few.

Five meters.

Terissa slid through behind her, pulling the hatch closed with the controlled care of someone defusing a bomb. The lock engaged with a soft click that might as well have been a thunderclap in her straining ears.

They waited. Counting heartbeats. Listening for shouts, for running feet, for the particular chaos of discovery.

Nothing.

Whatever force had been watching over them tonight remained kind. Terissa allowed herself another three seconds of relief before the timer in her head reasserted itself.

Fourteen minutes.

The final stretch to Platform 7 unfolded in eerie silence. Corridors that should have bristled with operatives stood empty, their emergency lighting casting long shadows across polished floors that reflected nothing but absence. Terissa's instincts screamed warnings her conscious mind couldn't quite articulate.

Too easy. This is too easy.

She moved with weapon raised, each corner cleared with the systematic precision of someone who'd learned that complacency killed. So Mi followed in her wake, her steps growing more uncertain with each passing minute. The corruption had claimed more territory—circuit patterns now crawling past her collar, pulsing beneath skin that had gone the color of old paper.

The shuttle bay materialized ahead, its entrance marked by the sterile signage of automated transit. PLATFORM 7 - TYCHO COLONY - AUTOMATED DEPARTURE. The words glowed with the promise of escape, of medicine, of a future So Mi might actually live to see.

Eleven minutes.

Terissa paused at the corridor's final turn, her enhanced hearing straining for any indication of what waited beyond. The shuttle bay stretched silent and still, its automated systems humming their patient readiness. The shuttle itself sat on its platform like a metal promise, its hull gleaming beneath the bay's harsh lighting.

Empty. The bay was empty.

The wrongness of it settled into Terissa's bones. An army of operatives hunting them through the facility, and the one place they needed to reach sat unguarded?

It's a trap. Has to be.

But the clock kept counting, and So Mi's legs kept failing, and sometimes you walked into traps because the alternative was standing still while time ran out.

"Move," Terissa commanded, her voice carrying an authority she didn't entirely feel.

They crossed the bay's threshold—

So Mi collapsed.

Her body folded without warning, legs simply refusing to carry her weight anymore. She hit the ground with a sound that echoed through the empty space, her breathing rapid and shallow, the corruption's light pulsing in rhythms that had nothing to do with human biology.

Fifty meters to the shuttle. Fifty meters might as well have been fifty kilometers.

Terissa holstered her weapon and bent down, sliding her arms beneath So Mi's limp form. The netrunner weighed almost nothing—whatever the corruption was doing, it was consuming her from the inside out. She lifted, feeling her healing wounds tear open with the effort, feeling blood begin its warm spread beneath her clothes.

Doesn't matter. Keep moving.

She carried So Mi across the bay's expanse, each step a negotiation between will and failing flesh. Forty meters. Thirty. The shuttle's boarding ramp extended like a tongue, inviting them into its automated embrace.

Twenty meters.

The shuttle's door hissed open.

Solomon Reed stepped through.

Terissa stopped, her arms full of dying netrunner, her weapons holstered, her tactical options reduced to approximately zero. Reed descended the ramp with the unhurried confidence of someone who'd already calculated every possible outcome and found them all acceptable.

He looked exactly as she remembered from the truck—leather jacket, military bearing, the particular stillness of a predator who never needed to rush. His expression held something that might have been respect, might have been regret, but was probably just professional acknowledgment of a game well played.

"Ms. Scott." His voice carried across the empty bay like a judgment. "You've led us on quite a chase."

Terissa's arms ached. Her wounds bled. Her body screamed for rest it wouldn't receive. She took a breath that tasted of exhaustion and faced the man who'd outmaneuvered her.

"Put her down," Reed said. Not unkind, but absolute. "Step away. This ends now."

The Matron whispered in her ear: Take the deal. So Mi made her choices. You don't owe her anything.

It was true. Every word of it was true. So Mi had betrayed her, had kidnapped Judy, had burned every bridge between them with desperate flames. Walking away now would be the smart play—the survival play—the choice that let her return to Judy with minimal additional holes in her body.

Terissa lowered So Mi gently, easing her against the wall so she sat with some dignity rather than sprawled like discarded cargo. The netrunner's eyes flickered, consciousness surfacing briefly through whatever internal apocalypse the corruption was staging.

Two steps back. Hands visible. The dance of surrender performed with mechanical precision.

Reed nodded, something like approval crossing his features. "Sensible. Now turn around. Walk away. We never have to see each other again."

"She could actually get help." The words came out before Terissa could stop them, dragged from somewhere deeper than tactical calculation. "Tycho has facilities that might cure her. You know what happens if you take her back."

"She'll receive the best medical care available."

"She'll be drained of everything useful and left to rot." Terissa's voice hardened. "We both know how this ends, Reed. The FIA didn't send eighty operatives to retrieve an asset they planned to treat humanely."

Reed's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture—the subtle adjustment of someone whose justifications had just been stripped away. "She's too valuable to lose."

"She's already lost. The question is whether she dies as Song So Mi or as a government experiment." Terissa met his gaze directly. "You were an agent once. You know the difference."

Silence stretched between them, heavy with implications neither wanted to examine. The shuttle's automated systems hummed their patient countdown.

DEPARTURE IN FIVE MINUTES.

Reed's hand drifted toward his weapon. "Last chance, Scott. Walk away."

Terissa thought of Judy. Of the kiss in the hallway. Of promises made and debts owed and the person she'd become since walking away from everything the NUSA had made her.

She thought of So Mi—brilliant, desperate, dying—and the choice that would define what both of them had been.

Please, she prayed to whatever listened. Please let me be fast enough.

Her hand moved.

Two shots split the air—nearly simultaneous, the sound merging into a single crack of violence. Reed's head snapped back, her round finding the target her enhanced reflexes had painted in the milliseconds available. His own shot punched through her gut like a fist made of fire.

Reed collapsed.

Terissa staggered, her hand finding her stomach where warmth was spreading with concerning speed. She looked down—red blossoming through her shirt, the particular shade that meant possible arterial involvement.

Oh. That's going to be bad.

So Mi flickered to awareness at the gunfire, her eyes focusing with desperate confusion. "What—Terissa?"

"Get up." The words came out wet, wrong. Terissa lurched forward, grabbing So Mi's arm and hauling with strength she shouldn't have had. "We're leaving."

"You're—there's blood—"

"Move."

She half-carried, half-dragged So Mi up the boarding ramp, each step leaving red footprints on the metal surface. The shuttle's interior materialized around them—rows of passenger seats, the automated controls blinking their ready status, the particular sterile smell of recycled air.

Terissa deposited So Mi in the nearest seat, her movements growing clumsy as blood loss began its inevitable accounting. The neural matrix—she still had it in her bag, the weight of it familiar in hands that were starting to shake.

"Here." She pressed it into So Mi's lap. "This is yours now. Get to Tycho. Get cured."

"Terissa—"

"And So Mi?" Terissa's voice carried an edge that cut through the corruption's fog. "If I ever see you again, I'll finish what Reed started."

So Mi's eyes widened—with pain, with understanding, with something that might have been gratitude buried beneath everything else. Her fingers closed around the case like a lifeline.

"I know."

DEPARTURE IN THREE MINUTES.

Terissa turned and staggered back down the ramp, her hand pressed against the wound that kept bleeding despite her body's best efforts to stop it. The shuttle bay stretched before her—empty except for Reed's body and the blood trail she was leaving behind.

The door sealed behind her with pneumatic finality. Through the shuttle's windows, she could see So Mi's face—pale, corrupted, but alive—watching her retreat.

Terissa raised a hand. Not quite a wave. Not quite a salute. Something in between that carried all the complicated weight of what they'd been to each other.

The shuttle's engines engaged with a rising whine that vibrated through the bay's floor. Platform clamps released. Landing lights activated in their automated sequence.

Then it was moving, sliding toward the launch position that would carry it to the stars, to Tycho, to whatever waited for Song So Mi beyond this particular nightmare.

Terissa watched until it disappeared from view.

Then she sat down—heavily, gracelessly—her back against a support pillar while she tried to remember how first aid worked when your hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Judy's definitely going to kill me.

The thought was almost funny. Survived six gunshots from Hansen's people. Survived a firefight in a federal facility. Survived Solomon Reed, barely.

And now she was bleeding out in an empty shuttle bay while an army of operatives presumably wondered why their commander had stopped responding.

She pressed harder against the wound, feeling warmth pulse between her fingers with each heartbeat. Her med-kit was somewhere—pocket, maybe, or had she lost it in the ventilation shaft? Hard to remember. Hard to think through the fog that was settling over everything.

The emergency override for the bay's trauma kit was twelve meters away. She could see it from here, its red casing glowing like a beacon.

Twelve meters. She could do twelve meters.

Terissa pushed herself up, felt the world tilt sideways, and sat back down with considerably less grace than she'd intended.

Okay. Maybe not twelve meters.

She tried her comm unit instead, her bloody fingers leaving smears across the interface as she navigated to Judy's contact. The signal connected on the second ring.

"T?" Judy's voice, sharp with worry. "Where are you? What's happening? There's news coverage about some kind of incident at NCX and—"

"Hey." The word came out softer than intended. "So. Funny story."

"What's wrong. What's wrong with your voice."

"I might need..." Terissa paused, trying to organize words that kept slipping away. "I might need a pickup. And maybe some medical supplies… again."

"Terissa."

"Shuttle bay. Platform 7." She could feel consciousness getting slippery, the edges of the world going soft and gray. "You should probably hurry."

"I'm on my way. I'm already in the van. Just—stay awake, okay? Stay on the line."

"Trying." Her eyes drifted to where Reed's body lay, the legendary FIA operative finally still after all his years of hunting. "Did I ever tell you... you're one of the best things that's happened to me in a long time?"

"Don't do that. Don't you fucking dare get sentimental while you're bleeding out." But Judy's voice cracked on the last word. "Stay awake. Keep talking to me."

"So bossy."

"Someone has to be, since you clearly can't take care of yourself."

Terissa laughed—or tried to, the sound coming out as something closer to a cough. "Fair point."

The shuttle bay's emergency lighting cast everything in shades of warning. Somewhere in the facility, operatives were probably realizing their trap had sprung on the wrong prey. Soon they'd come looking for answers, for their commander, for the woman who'd turned their careful plans into chaos.

But for now, in this moment, there was only Judy's voice in her ear and the distant thunder of a shuttle carrying a dying woman toward the stars.

Terissa kept her hand pressed against the wound and held onto consciousness with everything she had left.

Help was coming. She just had to survive long enough to see it arrive.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: Diplomatic Immunity

The wound was bad but not catastrophic—a small mercy in a night that had offered precious few. Terissa's fingers worked with mechanical efficiency, tearing strips from her jacket to fashion something approaching a pressure bandage. The round had punched through soft tissue, missing the major arteries by centimeters. Reed had been good, but not quite good enough.

Or maybe he hesitated. Maybe some part of him understood.

She pushed the thought aside. Philosophy was for people who weren't bleeding on shuttle bay floors.

The makeshift bandage held when she tested it, the pressure sending fresh waves of pain through her nervous system that her depleted combat drugs could barely touch. Good enough. She braced herself against the support pillar and began the agonizing process of standing.

Boots echoed in the corridor.

"Kurwa mać," Terissa muttered, her hand finding her pistol despite knowing exactly how many rounds she had left. "What now?"

The sound grew closer—not running, but purposeful. Multiple feet moving in coordinated formation. The particular cadence of military precision that she'd learned to recognize before she could legally drink.

Too many. Even at full capacity, too many.

She raised her weapon anyway, sighting on the corridor entrance with arms that trembled from blood loss and exhaustion. If this was how it ended, she'd take as many as she could with her.

The first operative rounded the corner—full tactical gear, weapon up, the stance of someone expecting resistance. Behind him came more, flowing into the shuttle bay with the systematic efficiency of a force that had done this a thousand times.

And behind them—

Terissa's pistol wavered.

Rosalind Myers walked into the shuttle bay like she owned it, which in some sense she did. The President of the New United States of America moved with the particular confidence of someone who'd clawed her way to power through a civil war and hadn't forgotten how. Her suit was immaculate despite the hour, her blonde hair caught the emergency lighting like a crown, and her eyes—

Those eyes found Terissa immediately. Assessed. Calculated. Filed away.

Terissa started laughing.

She couldn't help it. The absurdity of the situation crashed over her like a wave—bleeding out in an empty shuttle bay, surrounded by enough firepower to take over an entire city, facing down the most powerful woman in North America while wearing clothes soaked in her own blood.

"The Matron." Myers' voice carried the weight of someone used to being obeyed. "I'd hoped we might meet under different circumstances."

"Madam President." Terissa's laughter subsided into something closer to a grin, sharp and slightly unhinged. "You came all this way just to see me? I'm flattered."

"I came to oversee the retrieval of a critical national asset." Myers stopped ten meters away, close enough for conversation, far enough to let her operatives handle any complications. "Song So Mi represents an investment of considerable resources. The NUSA doesn't abandon its investments."

"That's a funny way to describe someone you've been slowly killing for years."

Something flickered across Myers' expression—too fast to read, too controlled to be accidental. "Where is she?"

Terissa's grin widened, though the expression cost her. Every breath pulled at the wound in her gut, sent fresh warmth spreading beneath her improvised bandage. "Dead."

"Excuse me?"

"So Mi. She's dead." Terissa gestured vaguely toward the launch platform with her free hand. "Made it onto the shuttle, collapsed before it cleared the bay. The corruption finally finished what you started." She met Myers' gaze directly. "All that effort, all those operatives, and your prize asset died anyway. Tragic, really."

Myers studied her with the particular intensity of someone who'd built a career on reading lies. The silence stretched, filled only by the hum of automated systems and the subtle shifts of operatives maintaining their positions.

"You're certain."

"Watched it happen myself." Terissa kept her voice steady, her expression schooled into the professional mask she'd worn through a hundred debriefs. "She was already failing when we reached the platform. The exertion of getting here accelerated the degradation. By the time she made it up the ramp..." A shrug that she immediately regretted as pain lanced through her shoulder. "Nothing anyone could have done."

More silence. More assessment.

Finally, Myers sighed—a sound of genuine disappointment that probably cost her nothing to fake. "A significant loss. So Mi's capabilities were... unique."

"Should have thought about that before you burned through her neural architecture chasing ghosts beyond the Blackwall."

The words carried more edge than Terissa intended, but she was too tired to care about diplomatic niceties. Her vision was starting to blur at the edges, her body's way of reminding her that standing upright while leaking blood had a limited shelf life.

Myers made a subtle gesture—barely a flick of her fingers—and the operatives began withdrawing. Coordinated, efficient, the kind of retreat that left no openings for counterattack. Within thirty seconds, only a handful remained, forming a loose perimeter around their commander.

"A warning, Matron." Myers' voice dropped, losing the performative edge it had carried for her audience. "If Song So Mi is somehow still alive—if this story you've told me is the kind of misdirection you were trained for—there won't be anywhere in this system you can hide. Not Night City. Not the orbital stations. Not even Tycho Colony. And that’s if you don’t bleed to death right here."

"Noted." Terissa forced herself upright, ignoring the protest from every damaged system in her body. Her hand came up in a mocking salute—parade-ground perfect despite the blood staining her fingers. "Always a pleasure serving my country, ma'am."

The salute transformed smoothly into a single extended finger.

Myers' expression didn't change, but something in her eyes suggested she'd expected nothing less. She turned without another word, her remaining escort falling into formation as she walked back toward the corridor that led to her waiting dropships.

Terissa held the pose until they disappeared from view, then let her arm drop as her legs finally surrendered to gravity's demands. She sat down hard, the impact jarring through her wounds with enough force to make her vision white out momentarily.

Okay. That could have gone worse.

Footsteps again—faster this time, urgent. Operatives rushing past carrying a stretcher, Reed's body secured beneath a tactical blanket. One of them glanced at Terissa as they passed, his expression unreadable behind tactical goggles. She watched them go, feeling nothing but tired.

All that training. All those years of service. And in the end, we both ended up bleeding on the same floor.

The philosophical implications could wait. Right now, she needed to move.

The walk to the spaceport entrance took approximately forever.

Terissa measured distance in steps rather than meters, each one a negotiation between will and failing flesh. Her bandage held—another small mercy—but the blood loss had pushed her past what combat drugs could compensate for. The world swam in and out of focus, emergency lighting leaving trails across her vision like red comets.

The entrance materialized through the fog of exhaustion: glass doors reflecting the first hints of dawn, the particular emptiness of a facility that had been locked down and was only now beginning to stir back to life. Terissa pushed through and immediately regretted the decision as cool morning air hit her like a physical force.

She made it three steps before her legs decided they'd had enough.

The bench was right there—some corporate installation meant for passengers awaiting transport, its surface cold and hard and absolutely perfect. Terissa collapsed onto it with a groan that she'd deny making later, her head falling back against the rest as she focused on the simple task of continuing to breathe.

Judy's coming. Just have to stay conscious.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Time had gone slippery, refusing to behave in any linear fashion. Terissa drifted in the space between awareness and unconsciousness, her body staging a rebellion she couldn't quite suppress.

The screech of tires snapped her back to something approaching alertness.

Judy's van materialized from the pre-dawn gloom like salvation with terrible suspension, its familiar silhouette skidding to a halt directly in front of the entrance. The driver's door flew open before the vehicle had fully stopped, and then Judy was there—green and pink hair wild, expression cycling through relief and terror and fury with the speed of someone who'd spent the last hour imagining worst-case scenarios.

"Hey." Terissa managed a smile that probably looked worse than she intended. "Good to see such a pretty face."

"Vete a la mierda." Judy's hands were already on her, checking pulse, assessing damage, the particular efficiency of someone who'd had too much practice at this recently. "You absolute fucking disaster. I can't leave you alone for five minutes—"

"Was more than five minutes."

"Don't you dare get smart with me right now." But Judy's grip was gentle as she helped Terissa stand, taking most of her weight without making it obvious. "Can you walk to the van?"

"Define walk."

"Move your legs in a forward direction without dying."

"Probably."

They made it to the van through a combination of stubbornness and Judy's surprising strength, each step leaving Terissa more grateful for the arm wrapped around her waist. The passenger seat accepted her with the particular comfort of familiar territory, its worn upholstery smelling of electronics and jasmine shampoo and home.

Judy was in the driver's seat before Terissa had finished processing the transition, her hands already finding the wheel as the engine roared back to life. "First aid kit's behind your seat. Start working while I drive."

"Bossy."

"Someone has to be." The van lurched into motion, Judy's driving carrying the aggressive efficiency of someone who'd decided traffic laws were suggestions. "Doc Lenard again?"

"He's going to start charging me frequent flyer rates."

"He's going to start charging you extra for the emotional trauma you keep inflicting on his staff."

Terissa fumbled for the first aid kit, her blood-slicked fingers making the simple task unnecessarily complicated. The supplies inside were better than what she'd improvised with—actual bandages, coagulant gel, the kind of quick-application medical tech that separated survivors from statistics.

She worked on herself with movements that were mostly automatic, peeling away the makeshift bandage to get a better look at the damage. The wound was clean—entry and exit, no fragments to complicate healing. Reed had used precision ammunition, the kind designed to punch through and keep going rather than expand and devastate.

Professional to the end.

"So." Judy's voice cut through the haze of pain and concentration. "Want to tell me what the fuck happened in there? Because the news feeds are losing their minds about some kind of 'security incident' at NCX, and you sound like you gargled broken glass."

"Got So Mi on the shuttle."

"And?"

"And she's gone. Tycho-bound. Out of reach."

Judy's grip on the wheel tightened. "And the part where you got shot? Again?"

"Solomon Reed happened." Terissa applied the coagulant gel, hissing at the cold burn of it activating against raw tissue. "He was waiting at the shuttle. Had the whole thing locked down."

"Jesus Christ."

"He's dead now, if that helps."

"It really doesn't." Judy took a corner hard enough to press Terissa against the door. "You killed an FIA agent?"

"Former FIA. And technically it was self-defense." The bandage went on with more efficiency than her earlier attempt, medical-grade adhesive gripping skin that had stopped bleeding. "He shot me first. I just shot better."

"That's not how any of this works, T."

"It's how it worked tonight."

The van ate distance, carrying them from the spaceport's corporate sterility into Night City's familiar chaos. Dawn light caught the chrome and glass, painting everything in shades of gold that almost made the city look beautiful. Terissa watched it scroll past through eyes that kept wanting to close.

"Hey." Judy's hand found her knee, squeezing once before returning to the wheel. "Stay awake."

"Trying."

"Try harder. We're fifteen minutes from the clinic." A pause, weighted with everything Judy wasn't saying. "Did you mean it? What you said on the phone?"

Terissa's exhausted brain took a moment to process the question. "Which part?"

"The part about me being one of the best things that's happened to you."

"Oh." The memory surfaced through the fog—her voice on the comm, words slipping out before she could stop them. "Yeah. I meant it."

Judy was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried something raw beneath the anger and fear. "We're going to have a real conversation about this. About us. About whatever the fuck we're doing here. But first you're going to let Doc Lenard patch you up, and then you're going to sleep for about a week, and if you try to do anything heroic or stupid in the meantime, I will personally sedate you."

"That's almost romantic."

"Shut up and keep pressure on that wound."

Terissa smiled—genuinely smiled, despite everything—and did as she was told.

The clinic's familiar facade materialized ahead, and she found herself thinking that maybe, just maybe, surviving this particular disaster had been worth it.

The sun climbed higher over Night City, and somewhere far above, a shuttle carried a dying woman toward the stars.

Chapter Text

Chapter 22: Coming Home

The clinic's familiar facade materialized through the van's windshield like a promise Terissa wasn't sure she deserved to collect on. Judy killed the engine and was out of the driver's seat before Terissa had finished processing the transition, her boots hitting pavement with the urgency of someone who'd spent the last hour or so watching their passenger fight to stay conscious.

"Hey!" Judy's voice cracked through the pre-dawn quiet. "I need help out here!"

The door swung open before she'd finished shouting, Carol's chrome-enhanced frame filling the entrance with the particular readiness of someone who'd learned to sleep lightly. Her eyes swept over Judy first—the blood on her clothes, the panic barely contained—then tracked to Terissa emerging from the van with movements that suggested she was operating on spite and not much else.

Carol sighed. The sound carried the weight of someone who'd been through this exact scenario too recently.

"This can't become a regular thing." She moved forward, her augmented arms already reaching for Terissa's failing form. "I mean it, Scott. My cardiac subroutines aren't rated for this kind of stress."

Terissa's grin was weak, barely more than a twitch at the corner of her mouth. "You could always—"

"Get in that clinic. Now." Judy's voice cut through like a blade, leaving no room for the deflection Terissa had been attempting. "You can make jokes when you're not actively bleeding on the sidewalk."

"Technically, I've mostly stopped—"

"Now, Terissa."

She went.

The surgical suite materialized around her in familiar patterns of harsh lighting and sterile equipment, Doc Lenard already prepping his instruments with movements that carried more exasperation than urgency. He took one look at her—the improvised bandage, the pallor, the particular exhaustion of someone who'd pushed past every reasonable limit—and shook his head.

"I really shouldn't be surprised anymore." His hands moved with practiced efficiency, peeling away her field dressing to assess the damage beneath. "And yet, somehow, I always am."

"It's part of my charm."

"Your charm is going to give me an ulcer." Lenard's probe found the wound's edges, and Terissa hissed through clenched teeth as he began the work of actually fixing what she'd barely managed to stabilize. "Through-and-through, at least. Small mercies."

The surgery wasn't gentle—Lenard didn't believe in coddling patients who should know better—but it was competent. Terissa remained conscious this time, which she counted as progress even as each stitch pulled at tissue that had already endured too much tonight.

Judy appeared in the doorway, her arms crossed, her expression cycling through emotions that Terissa couldn't quite track in her current state. When Lenard muttered something about "reckless behavior" and "statistical anomalies who should be dead," Judy's response came sharp and immediate.

"You'd think nearly dying twice in one week would teach someone to maybe not get shot."

Terissa shrugged—or tried to, the movement earning her a glare from Lenard. "In my defense—"

"There is no defense." Judy's voice carried an edge that could have cut glass. "There is no universe where 'I killed a federal agent and got gut-shot for my trouble' counts as a reasonable life choice."

"Former federal agent."

"I will smother you with that pillow."

Lenard finished his work with a final knot that made Terissa's vision white out momentarily, then stepped back to survey his handiwork with the critical eye of a craftsman examining flawed materials. "You'll live. Again. Though at this rate, I'm going to start keeping a running tab."

"Put it on my account."

"Your account is why I'm considering early retirement." He reached for the familiar array of medications—painkillers, antibiotics, the chemical cocktail that would keep her healing system from staging a full rebellion. "Same instructions as last time. Rest. Fluids. Try not to do anything reckless."

Terissa's grin was genuine this time, though it cost her. "It's actually over this time. Promise."

"It better be," Judy muttered from the doorway.

The drive back to Little China passed in comfortable silence, Night City's morning traffic providing a backdrop of horns and engine noise that required no commentary. Judy navigated the familiar streets with an efficiency that suggested she knew this route like the back of her hand—probably did, Terissa realized. Probably had been paying attention to where she lived, how to get there quickly, long before circumstances made that knowledge necessary.

The thought settled somewhere warm in her chest, next to the painkillers and the exhaustion.

Her apartment materialized from Watson's urban decay like something half-forgotten—the cramped space she'd maintained as Terissa Scott, mid-level information broker, nobody important enough to notice. After the penthouse's excessive perfection and the cave's utilitarian desperation, it looked almost comforting in its mundane reality.

Judy helped her up the stairs, taking more of her weight than Terissa wanted to admit she needed. The door's locks disengaged to her biometrics, and then they were inside—surrounded by the particular clutter of a life lived carefully between covers and secrets.

"Sit," Judy commanded, depositing Terissa on the bed with less gentleness than the gesture probably warranted. "Don't move. Don't even think about moving."

"Bossy. I like it."

"Someone has to be." Judy surveyed the apartment with critical assessment, noting the sparse furnishings, the basic kitchen setup, the general impression of someone who didn't spend much time here. "I'm going to be here every day to make damn sure you actually relax and recover. No arguments."

Terissa's grin carried more warmth than her usual deflections. "Wouldn't dream of it."

She reached for the hem of her ruined shirt—blood-soaked, torn, irredeemable—and pulled it over her head with movements that only made her wince twice. The fabric joined the general entropy of the room's floor while she tried to move to the drawer for something clean.

Judy's eye roll was magnificent in its scope. "Really? Now?"

"I need a shirt."

"You need to stop stripping every time I'm in the room." But Judy's voice carried a slight hitch, and Terissa caught the way her gaze tracked across the landscape of bruises and bandages that made up her torso—clinical assessment layered over something warmer that she was clearly trying to suppress.

A shirt from the drawer hit Terissa in the face before she'd actually been able to reach it.

"Now's not the time for that kind of shit," Judy said firmly, her cheeks slightly darker than they'd been moments ago. "Put that on and try to remember you have multiple holes in you."

"Healing holes."

"Still holes."

Terissa dressed with more compliance than usual, the medication making everything feel slightly distant and soft around the edges. When she emerged back into the main room, Judy had claimed the couch with the territorial certainty of someone who'd already made decisions about the evening's arrangements.

The kitchen offered limited options—the kind of basic microwaveable fare that suggested someone who ate here rarely and cared about it less. Terissa threw two containers in and waited for the familiar hum of synthetic food becoming marginally edible.

"You know," she said, turning to raise an amused eyebrow at Judy's couch occupation, "the bed's a lot more comfortable."

The playfulness in her voice carried an invitation that was impossible to miss. Judy's expression cycled through something complicated before settling on exasperated fondness.

"You'd be a lot more convincing if you weren't still swaying on your feet."

"I'm not—" Terissa paused, realizing that she was, in fact, swaying slightly. "Okay. Fair point."

The microwave chimed its synthetic completion. Terissa retrieved the containers and made her way to where Judy sat, settling onto the couch's opposite end with movements that were mostly controlled. She passed one meal over, their fingers brushing in the exchange.

"It's been a long day," Judy said quietly, accepting the food.

"Yeah." Terissa opened her own container, the smell of processed nutrients somehow comforting in its familiarity. "It really has."

They ate in silence for a few minutes, the simple act of shared sustenance grounding them in something approaching normalcy. Outside, Night City continued its endless churning—sirens in the distance, the bass thump of someone's music too loud, the general symphony of a metropolis that never quite slept.

"Once you're actually recovered," Judy said finally, her voice carefully neutral, "we're going to talk about what happened."

She didn't specify which part. The ambiguity hung between them like an invitation and a warning.

Terissa took another bite and shrugged, the gesture carrying acceptance rather than deflection. "Yeah. We should."

The exhaustion she'd been fighting finally began winning in earnest, the combination of blood loss, surgery, and medication pulling her toward unconsciousness with inexorable force. Her container was half-finished when her hand started to lower, her eyes growing heavy despite her best efforts.

"Come on." Judy was there suddenly, her hand warm on Terissa's arm. "Bed. Now. You can finish pretending to be invincible tomorrow."

"'M not pretending."

"You're barely conscious. Move."

The journey from couch to bed took longer than it should have, Terissa's legs staging a final rebellion against the demands she'd placed on them. Judy guided her with patient efficiency, pulling back covers and easing her down with a gentleness that contradicted her sharp words.

"Stay," Terissa mumbled, the word slipping out before she could catch it.

Judy's hand paused on the blanket she was adjusting. "Someone has to keep watch. Make sure you don't try to do something stupid in your sleep."

"Couch is uncomfortable."

"I've slept on worse." But there was something soft in Judy's voice, something that sounded almost like a promise. "Get some rest, T. I'll be here when you wake up."

The darkness claimed Terissa before she could formulate a response, pulling her down into the first real sleep she'd had in days. Her last conscious awareness was the sound of Judy settling onto the couch, the quiet rustle of someone making themselves at home in her space.

Outside, morning light painted Night City in shades of gold and amber, and somewhere far above the atmosphere, a shuttle carried a dying woman toward stars that might offer salvation.

But in this moment, in this small apartment in Little China, two women who'd found each other through chaos and blood and impossible choices existed in something approaching peace.

Tomorrow would bring conversations. Complications. The inevitable reckoning with everything they'd been avoiding.

Tonight, it was enough to simply be alive, and not alone, and together.

Chapter Text

Chapter 23: New Beginnings

Consciousness returned in layers of discomfort—the dull throb of healing tissue, the stiffness of muscles that had been pushed past their limits, and the particular ache of surgical sites reminding her they existed. Terissa opened her eyes to find morning light cutting through her apartment's cheap blinds, painting stripes across the ceiling she'd stared at a hundred times before.

Everything hurt.

She fumbled for the painkillers on her nightstand, dry-swallowing two tablets with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this too many times. The pills scraped down her throat like a promise of future relief, and she lay there for a moment, letting her body catalog its complaints before attempting anything as ambitious as standing.

The smell reached her first—coffee, rich and real, accompanied by something savory that made her stomach clench with sudden, desperate hunger. Her apartment didn't have food that smelled like that. Her apartment barely had any food at all.

Terissa pushed herself upright, the movement sending fresh protests through her torso. The bandages held, which was something. Her legs cooperated when she swung them over the edge of the bed, which was something else. Progress, measured in the small victories of a body learning to function again.

The walk to the kitchen took longer than it should have, each step a negotiation between will and weakness. She wobbled once, catching herself on the doorframe, and found Judy standing at the stove with a spatula in one hand and a look of concentrated focus that Terissa had previously only seen directed at BD equipment.

"You went shopping," Terissa observed, her voice rough with sleep.

Judy glanced over her shoulder, taking in the sight of Terissa propped against the doorframe like she might collapse without its support. "Your idea of groceries was instant coffee and protein bars that expired two months ago. I'm amazed you haven't died of malnutrition."

"I eat out a lot."

"You eat like shit, is what you do." Judy turned back to the stove, where something that looked remarkably like actual eggs sizzled in a pan. "Sit down before you fall down."

Terissa's stomach growled with enough force to be embarrassing, and she shuffled to the counter without further argument. The stool accepted her weight with a creak of protest, and she found herself staring at a kitchen that had been transformed in her absence. Fresh vegetables on the counter. Real coffee in the pot. The particular order of someone who'd taken charge and wasn't interested in objections.

"You look terrible," Judy said, setting a plate in front of her with more force than strictly necessary. Huevos rancheros, perfectly assembled, steam rising from the eggs like an invitation. "Eat."

"Yes ma'am."

The first bite was transcendent—actual flavor, actual nutrition, the kind of meal that reminded Terissa she'd been surviving rather than living for longer than she wanted to admit. She ate with single-minded focus while Judy claimed the stool beside her, their elbows almost touching as they worked through their respective plates.

The food disappeared faster than Terissa intended, her body demanding fuel with an urgency that overrode any pretense of dignity. She was scraping the last of the salsa from her plate when Judy stood, gathering dishes with efficient movements.

"I can—" Terissa started.

"You can sit there and recover." Judy's voice carried no room for negotiation. "Doctor's orders."

"You're not a doctor."

"I'm the person who's going to be here every day making sure you don't do anything stupid, which makes me close enough." The dishes clattered into the sink with pointed emphasis. "So sit. Rest. Try to remember what relaxation feels like."

Terissa opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. There was something in Judy's posture—the rigid line of her shoulders, the controlled precision of her movements—that suggested the conversation waiting beneath the surface. Arguments about dish duty would only delay the inevitable.

She shuffled to the sofa instead, lowering herself onto worn cushions that molded to her shape with familiar comfort. Her head fell back against the rest, eyes drifting closed as breakfast settled and painkillers began their slow work. The sounds of Judy cleaning filled the apartment—water running, dishes clanking, the domestic symphony of someone making themselves at home in her space.

Part of Terissa wanted to resist it. Years of self-sufficiency, of trusting no one enough to let them this close, screamed warnings about vulnerability and dependency. But another part—the part that had been alone for so long—found itself relaxing into the care with something approaching gratitude.

The cushions shifted as Judy sat down beside her, one leg tucked beneath her, body angled to face Terissa directly. The air changed—charged with the weight of everything they'd been avoiding.

Terissa hesitated for a moment, then opened her eyes and gave Judy her full attention.

"We need to talk." Judy's voice was steady, but her fingers fidgeted against her knee. "The sooner the better, I think."

Terissa nodded slowly. "Okay."

Judy studied her for a long moment—the bruises visible above her collar, the careful way she held herself, the exhaustion that no amount of sleep seemed to touch. When she spoke again, her words came out measured, controlled.

"What the hell were you thinking? At the spaceport?"

It wasn't quite an accusation. More like someone trying to understand a puzzle whose pieces refused to fit together.

Terissa took a breath that pulled at her healing wounds. "You want the full story?"

"I want to understand why you nearly died. Again. For someone who—" Judy stopped, jaw tightening around whatever she'd been about to say. "Yeah. The full story."

So Terissa told her.

She started with the warehouse—finding So Mi huddled over her console, the corruption spreading across her skin like digital cancer. The moment when putting a bullet in her would have been the cleanest solution, the kindest mercy. The choice to push past what the Matron would have done, to be someone different than the weapon she'd been forged into.

She told Judy about the turrets, the fighting, the desperate scramble through ventilation shafts while her body screamed its objections. About carrying So Mi when her legs failed, about the shuttle bay and the soldiers and the particular mathematics of survival when the odds turned impossible.

She told her about Reed.

"He was waiting at the shuttle." Terissa's voice had gone flat, stripped of emotion by the telling. "Had the whole thing locked down. I had maybe three seconds to decide—keep walking, surrender, or..."

"Or what?"

"Or be faster."

Judy's expression cycled through something complicated. "You killed him."

"He shot me first." Terissa touched her bandaged stomach absently. "I just shot better."

"Jesus, T."

"It gets worse." A ghost of dark humor touched Terissa's lips. "After I got So Mi on the shuttle, after Reed was down... Rosalind Myers showed up."

"The President." Judy's voice had gone dangerously quiet. "Of the NUSA."

"In person. With enough operatives to invade a small country." Terissa met Judy's gaze directly. "I told her So Mi was dead. That the corruption had finished her before the shuttle could launch."

"And she believed you?"

"She believed I wasn't worth the trouble of pressing. For now." Terissa shrugged, wincing at the movement. "So Mi's gone. Tycho-bound. Out of reach. And I'm..."

"Here. Bleeding. Again." Judy's jaw clenched, anger and fear and something else warring for dominance. "Let me make sure I understand this. You put yourself in danger—again—for this woman who betrayed you. Who kidnapped me. Who was dying anyway. Who was being hunted by the fucking President of the NUSA. And at the end of it all, what did you get?"

"Well—"

"Another gunshot wound." Judy's voice cracked. "That's what you got, Terissa. Another hole in your body and another nightmare for me to add to the collection."

"Well, when you put it that way—"

"If you ever do anything so fucking stupid again," Judy interrupted, her words coming fast and sharp, "I will break up with you so fast—"

Terissa froze.

The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implications that Judy seemed to realize a beat too late. Her cheeks darkened, but she didn't look away, didn't try to take them back.

"Break up," Terissa repeated slowly, carefully, like she was handling something fragile. "With me."

Judy's chin lifted, defiance replacing embarrassment. "Yes."

"That would require us to be..." Terissa felt something warm spreading through her chest, something that had nothing to do with the painkillers. "Dating."

"We are now." Judy stabbed a finger at her, the gesture carrying all the force of a legally binding contract. "And you'd better not do anything to risk that."

Terissa's smile started small—just a twitch at the corner of her mouth—and then grew into something genuine, something that made her healing wounds ache in ways she didn't mind at all.

"Judy Alvarez," she said, her voice soft with wonder. "Are you asking me out?"

"I'm telling you we're together." Judy's finger hadn't lowered, her expression fierce enough to start fires. "There's a difference."

"Pretty sure that's not how dating usually—"

"Do I look like someone who does things the usual way?" Judy's voice carried an edge that dared Terissa to argue. "I've spent the past week or two by now watching you almost die. I've pulled you out of toxic mud. I've been kidnapped as leverage against you. I've sat by your bed while doctors put you back together twice. At this point, I think I've earned the right to skip the awkward 'will they, won't they' bullshit."

Terissa's grin widened despite her best efforts to maintain some dignity. "You have a point."

"I always have a point." Judy finally lowered her hand, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. "So. We're dating. You're recovering. And if you try to get yourself killed again before our first actual date, I will personally haunt you in whatever afterlife accepts idiots who can't stop getting shot."

"That's almost romantic."

"Shut up." But Judy was smiling now too, small and reluctant and impossibly warm. "This doesn't mean I'm not still angry at you."

"I know."

"And we're going to have about a hundred more conversations about boundaries and communication and your apparent death wish."

"I expected nothing less."

Judy studied her for a moment—the bruises, the bandages, the exhausted lines around her eyes—and her expression softened into something that made Terissa's breath catch.

"You scared the shit out of me," Judy said quietly. "When you called from that shuttle bay, when I heard your voice like that... I thought I was going to lose you before I even figured out what you meant to me."

"I'm sorry." The words came out rough, weighted with genuine regret. "I'm not good at... letting people in. Letting them worry about me. I've been alone for so long that I forgot how to factor other people into my calculations."

"Well, start learning." Judy's hand found hers, fingers intertwining with a naturalness that felt like coming home. "Because you're not alone anymore. And I'm not going anywhere."

Terissa looked at their joined hands—her scarred, calloused fingers wrapped in Judy's ink-decorated grip—and felt something shift in her chest. Something that had been locked away for years, protected behind walls of professional distance and careful isolation.

"So," she said, a hint of her usual humor surfacing despite everything. "Girlfriend, huh?"

Judy's eye roll was magnificent. "Don't make it weird."

"I'm not making it weird. I'm just... processing."

"Process faster. I need you functional enough to take me somewhere nice once you're healed."

"Somewhere nice." Terissa pretended to consider this seriously. "I know a cave in the badlands that has running water and only minimal radiation."

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"No," Judy admitted, her thumb tracing circles against Terissa's palm. "I really don't."

Chapter Text

Chapter 24: First Date

The first week was hell wrapped in gauze and punctuated by pills.

Terissa's body staged a rebellion that even her enhanced healing couldn't fully suppress—fever spikes that left her sheets soaked, wound sites that throbbed with their own malevolent pulse, muscles that had forgotten how to cooperate with basic commands like "stand" and "walk to the bathroom without assistance."

Judy was there through all of it.

She appeared each morning before Terissa had fully surfaced from medicated sleep, armed with fresh bandages and the particular brand of stubborn determination that brooked no argument. She changed dressings with careful efficiency, monitored medication schedules with the precision of someone who'd memorized every instruction Doc Lenard had provided, and absolutely refused to let Terissa do anything more ambitious than exist.

"Eat," Judy commanded on day three, setting a bowl of soup on the nightstand with enough force to slosh liquid over the rim.

"I can—"

"You can sit there and let me feed you if you don't pick up that spoon in the next five seconds."

Terissa picked up the spoon.

The routine established itself with military precision: wake, eat, shower (supervised, despite Terissa's protests), rest. Judy had somehow transformed the cramped Watson apartment into a functional recovery ward, complete with a medication station on the kitchen counter and a schedule posted on the refrigerator that tracked everything from pill times to wound checks.

"This is excessive," Terissa observed on day four, watching Judy adjust the pillows behind her back for the third time that hour.

"This is what happens when you date someone who's been kidnapped as leverage against you." Judy's hands paused on the pillowcase, her expression softening slightly. "I'm making sure you actually heal this time. No arguments."

"I wasn't going to argue."

"Yes you were. I can see it in your face."

She wasn't wrong.

The painkillers made everything feel slightly distant, wrapped in cotton wool that muffled both physical sensation and emotional regulation. Terissa found herself reaching for Judy more often than she probably should—catching her hand as she passed, pulling her down for kisses that started innocent and threatened to become something else entirely.

Judy tolerated the affection with amused patience for the first few days. Then, on day five, when Terissa's wandering hands ventured past the boundaries of innocent comfort, she pulled back with a gentle but firm hand on Terissa's chest.

"No."

"But—"

"You have literal holes in you, T." Judy's voice carried the particular exhaustion of someone who'd had this conversation before. "Holes that are still healing. Holes that could reopen if you get too... enthusiastic."

"I can be gentle."

"You don't know the meaning of the word." But Judy softened the rejection with a kiss pressed to Terissa's forehead. "When you're healed. Actually healed. Not 'I feel fine' healed, but 'Doc Lenard clears me for physical activity' healed."

Terissa groaned, letting her head fall back against the pillows. "You're killing me."

"No, I'm keeping you alive. There's a difference."

The distinction felt academic when Judy was right there, warm and close and smelling of jasmine shampoo. But Terissa had to admit—grudgingly, privately—that the enforced rest was working. Each day brought slightly less pain, slightly more mobility, the gradual return of something approaching normalcy.

By the end of the first week, she could make it to the bathroom without assistance. Small victories.

The second week brought progress measured in careful increments.

Terissa's enhanced healing finally kicked into higher gear, knitting tissue and rebuilding what had been damaged with an efficiency that bordered on unsettling. The wound sites closed properly, the bruising faded from angry purple to sickly yellow to something approaching normal skin tone. She could stand without swaying, walk without clutching furniture, breathe without feeling like her chest was wrapped in barbed wire.

Judy noticed the improvement with the sharp eyes of someone who'd been watching for exactly these signs.

"You're fidgeting," she observed on day ten, looking up from her tablet where she'd been catching up on work she'd been neglecting.

"I'm restless." Terissa shifted on the couch, her body practically vibrating with the need to move. "I've been lying around for over a week. My muscles are starting to atrophy."

"Your muscles are fine."

"They're screaming for activity."

Judy studied her for a long moment, running some internal calculation. "A walk."

"What?"

"We can take a walk. Short. Slow. If you start looking pale or breathing weird, we come back immediately."

Terissa was off the couch before Judy finished speaking.

The first walk was barely a walk—more of a shuffle around the block that left Terissa embarrassingly winded. But it was movement. It was progress. It was something other than staring at the same four walls while her body complained about inactivity.

By the end of week two, they'd established a routine. Morning walks through Little China's crowded streets, Judy matching her pace to Terissa's gradually increasing stamina. Afternoon rest that actually felt restful rather than enforced. Evening meals that Judy somehow kept making from actual ingredients despite the apartment's limited kitchen.

"Where did you learn to cook like this?" Terissa asked on day fourteen, working through a plate of chicken adobo that had no business being this good.

Judy shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. "Mi abuela. Before..." She trailed off, the sentence carrying weight that didn't need elaboration.

Terissa reached across the table, her fingers brushing Judy's wrist. "Thank you."

"For cooking?"

"For everything. For being here. For not..." She struggled to find words for what she was trying to say. "For not letting me push you away."

Judy's expression did something complicated before settling into warmth. "Someone has to keep you alive. Might as well be me."

The third week brought something that felt almost like normal life.

Terissa's walks grew longer, faster, her body remembering what it meant to function without constant pain as a companion. She started doing light exercises in the apartment—stretches, mobility work, the kind of careful movement that rebuilt strength without stressing healing tissue. Judy watched with the critical eye of someone ready to intervene at the first sign of overexertion.

"You're pushing it," Judy observed on day eighteen, watching Terissa work through a series of slow lunges.

"I'm testing my limits."

"Your limits nearly got you killed a month ago."

"That was different." Terissa finished the set and straightened, barely winded. "That was combat. This is just... maintenance."

Judy's eyebrow climbed toward her hairline, but she didn't argue. Progress, of a different kind.

They fell into patterns that felt domestic in ways Terissa hadn't experienced in, well, ever. Shared meals at the small kitchen table. Evenings on the couch with Judy's tablet casting blue light across both their faces while some documentary played in the background. The particular intimacy of occupying the same space without needing to fill it with conversation.

Judy still drew lines around physical intimacy—kisses that didn't progress, touches that stayed above the waist, the enforced patience of someone waiting for proper clearance. Terissa found herself oscillating between frustration and gratitude, her body's demands tempered by the knowledge that Judy was right.

"Soon," Judy promised on day twenty-one, after a kiss that left them both breathing harder than strictly necessary. "Soon."

A month.

Thirty days since Terissa had watched a shuttle carry So Mi toward the stars. Thirty days since she'd killed Solomon Reed and lied to the President of the NUSA. Thirty days of healing, of Judy's stubborn care, of learning what it meant to let someone close enough to matter.

She returned from her morning run—an actual run now, her body finally cooperating with demands for speed and endurance—to find Judy waiting at the kitchen counter. Arms crossed. Expression unreadable.

Terissa paused in the doorway, suddenly wary. "What's up?"

"Shower." Judy's voice carried no room for negotiation. "Get ready."

"Ready for what?"

"You owe me a date, Terissa Scott." Judy's chin lifted, challenge and anticipation mixing in her dark eyes. "A real one. Not soup on the couch while you're doped up on painkillers. Not walks around the block so you don't forget how legs work. An actual, proper, first date."

The grin that spread across Terissa's face felt almost too big for her features. "Yes ma'am."

She headed toward the bathroom, already pulling her sweat-soaked shirt over her head. The movement was deliberate—showcasing the muscles she'd rebuilt, the scars that had faded to pink lines against her skin. She let the shirt drop carelessly to the floor.

In her peripheral vision, she caught Judy's attention tracking the movement.

The sports bra came next, up and over her head and discarded with the same calculated carelessness. Terissa reached for the waistband of her running shorts, making a production of the stretch, the bend, the slow revelation of skin that she knew Judy was watching.

A throw pillow hit her square between the shoulder blades.

"Hurry up," Judy called, her voice slightly rougher than it had been moments ago. "We don't have all day."

Terissa's laugh echoed off the bathroom tiles as she closed the door.

She emerged twenty minutes later, hair still damp, wearing the nicest clothes her Watson wardrobe could offer—dark jeans that actually fit properly, a fitted charcoal shirt, the leather jacket she'd barely worn since everything started.

Judy was waiting at the door, Terissa's keys dangling from her fingers.

"This date better be good." She tossed the keys in a lazy arc, her expression carrying the particular challenge of someone who expected to be impressed. "You've had a month to plan it."

Terissa caught the keys one-handed, her mind already racing through options. Unplanned meant improvisation. Improvisation meant relying on knowledge she'd accumulated over years of living in Night City's shadows—the hidden spots, the overlooked gems, the places that existed outside the usual circuit of corporate entertainment.

"No pressure," she said, her grin carrying more confidence than she entirely felt.

"Plenty of pressure," Judy corrected. "This is literally our first date. You set the tone for the entire relationship."

"Thanks for that."

"You're welcome. Now drive."

The restaurant occupied a space that shouldn't have existed—a converted garage tucked between two corporate towers in Charter Hills, invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. Abuela's Kitchen, the sign read, hand-painted on weathered wood that seemed to belong to a different era entirely.

Judy's eyebrows climbed as Terissa pulled the Arch motorcycle to a stop in the narrow alley. "Here?"

"Trust me."

Inside, the space opened into something that felt transplanted from another world. Mismatched tables covered in bright cloths. Walls decorated with photographs spanning decades. The smell—God, the smell—of actual spices, actual meat, actual food being prepared by people who cared about what they were creating.

"Welcome, welcome!" The woman who emerged from the kitchen was small and round and radiated warmth like a furnace. Her eyes found Terissa first, recognition flickering across weathered features. "Ah! La pelirroja returns! It has been too long."

"Señora Martinez." Terissa accepted the enthusiastic embrace with only mild discomfort. "I've been... recovering."

"So I see, so I see." Dark eyes tracked to the scars barely visible above Terissa's collar before moving to Judy with sharp assessment. "And who is this?"

"Judy Alvarez." Judy extended her hand, but found herself pulled into the same enthusiastic hug. "I'm her—"

"Girlfriend," Terissa supplied, testing the word. "First date."

Señora Martinez's face lit up like Night City's skyline. "Ay, first date! Then you must have the special table. Come, come!"

The "special table" turned out to be a small corner booth with actual flowers in a ceramic vase and a view of the kitchen where Martinez's team worked with the coordinated chaos of people who'd been doing this for decades. Menus appeared, handwritten on paper that showed signs of frequent updating.

"No synthetics here," Martinez declared with evident pride. "Everything real. Everything fresh. You eat, you taste what food is supposed to be."

She vanished back into the kitchen before either of them could order, leaving Terissa and Judy alone with menus and the particular awkwardness of a first date that had been preceded by kidnapping, surgery, and a month of enforced cohabitation.

"How did you find this place?" Judy asked, her eyes scanning the menu with growing amazement.

"Information broker, remember? You'd be surprised what people trade when they're desperate." Terissa leaned back in her seat, watching Judy's expression shift from surprise to delight as she read the offerings. "Martinez's son needed help with a corporate harassment situation a few years back. She pays me in food whenever I stop by."

"This is..." Judy shook her head, seemingly at a loss. "This is not what I expected from you."

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know. Something... flashier? Corporate dining? The kind of place where they judge you for using the wrong fork?"

Terissa's laugh was genuine. "I spent enough time in those places when I was working. They're all the same—expensive food that tastes like nothing, designed to impress people who can't tell the difference." She nodded toward the kitchen, where someone was grilling something that smelled like heaven. "This is real. This is what actually matters."

Judy's expression softened into something that made Terissa's chest tight. "You're full of surprises, T."

"Keeping you on your toes, remember?"

The food arrived in waves—tacos al pastor with actual pork, chiles rellenos stuffed with cheese that hadn't come from a lab, arroz con pollo that made Judy close her eyes in something approaching religious experience. They ate until their plates were clean, then ate more when Martinez appeared with dessert she claimed they hadn't ordered but obviously needed.

The conversation flowed easier than Terissa had expected. Without the weight of crisis pressing down on them, without the constant awareness of danger lurking in every shadow, they could just... talk. About Judy's BD projects and the innovations she was still developing. About Terissa's plans—or lack thereof—for what came next. About Night City and its endless capacity for destruction and creation in equal measure.

"I want to go back to the shop," Judy said eventually, scraping the last of the flan from her plate. "Eventually. Once things settle. Works been piling up and some of the girls have been trying to handle it, but..."

"But it's yours."

"Yeah." Judy met her eyes directly. "And I want to see the looks on everyone’s faces when we tell them we’re dating."

The word still felt new, unfamiliar in a way that had nothing to do with language and everything to do with what it meant. Terissa turned it over in her mind, examining it from different angles.

"I'd like that," she said finally. "Though I should warn you—my track record with meeting people important to my partners is... limited."

"Partners?" Judy's eyebrow climbed. "How many are we talking?"

"That came out wrong."

"No, I think it came out exactly right." But Judy was smiling, the teasing warm rather than sharp. "We'll work on your social skills. After you pay for lunch."

"How do you know I'm paying?"

"Because you asked me out, T. Or rather, I told you that you were taking me out, which functionally amounts to the same thing."

Terissa couldn't argue with that logic.

The afternoon sun had mellowed into evening gold by the time they left Abuela's Kitchen, Martinez's enthusiastic farewells echoing behind them. Judy leaned against Terissa's back as she navigated the Arch through Night City's traffic, her arms wrapped around Terissa's waist with comfortable familiarity.

"Where to next?" Judy's voice came through the helmet comm, curiosity evident.

Terissa had been thinking about that. The date was going well—better than well—but she wanted to give Judy something more than a good meal. Something memorable. Something that proved she'd been paying attention during all those conversations about art and technology and the way Night City crushed dreamers without mercy.

"You'll see."

The ride took them north, out of Westbrook's corporate geometry into the fancier districts where Night City's skyline could be viewed from the nearby mountains. North Oak's mansions were spread out amongst the hillside and they passed by laughing at some of the tacky decorations and architecture until Terissa guides the Arch to a stop at an abandoned lot.

Silver Pixel Cloud Drive-In materialized from the twilight like a ghost, its massive screen dark against the fading sky, its lot empty except for the skeletal remains of cars that had been left to rust when the business closed decades ago.

"What is this place?" Judy asked as Terissa killed the engine.

"Used to be a drive-in theater. One of the last ones in the city before everyone switched to home BD setups." Terissa swung off the bike, offering her hand to help Judy dismount. "Been closed for nearly ten years now, but the equipment's still here. Still works, if you know how to turn it on."

"Breaking and entering." Judy's voice carried amusement rather than disapproval. "Very romantic."

"I prefer to think of it as... self-authorized access to abandoned infrastructure."

The fence was more suggestion than barrier, its chain-link rusted through in multiple places. But Terissa took a quick look at the old digital lock and cracked it in a couple seconds, opening the door and ushering Judy inside.

Inside, the drive-in felt like stepping into another era. Rows of speaker posts stood like metal sentinels, their cables long since stripped for salvage. The projection booth sat above the main entrance, its windows dark but intact. And scattered throughout the space, the remains of vehicles too damaged to tow, left to slowly decompose into the earth.

"This is..." Judy turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. "This is actually incredible."

"Thought you might appreciate it." Terissa moved toward the projection booth, pulling out the tools she'd need to bypass its security. "Give me a few minutes?"

The booth's lock yielded to her skills with minimal protest, the door swinging open to reveal equipment that had been state-of-the-art probably twenty years ago and now looked like museum pieces. Terissa ran her fingers along dusty surfaces, remembering the first time she'd discovered this place—bleeding from another job gone wrong, looking for somewhere to hide while her body healed.

The projector hummed to life on her third attempt, its ancient systems cycling through self-tests with mechanical patience. She checked the film still loaded in the system—Bushido X: Fade to Black, according to the faded label.

She chuckled, imagining Judy's reaction.

"What's the movie?" Judy called from outside, her voice carrying through the booth's open door.

"Bushido X," Terissa replied, already moving toward the shelves where other reels sat in dusty rows. "Action flick. Lots of sword fights and dramatic deaths."

"Absolutely not." Judy appeared in the doorway, her expression carrying firm rejection. "Last month had enough action for a lifetime. Something else."

"Your call." Terissa gestured toward the shelves. "Pick whatever looks interesting."

Judy moved through the collection with the focused attention she usually reserved for BD equipment, fingers trailing across labels and cases. Most were action films—the drive-in's specialty, apparently—but tucked among them were romances, comedies, the occasional documentary about subjects nobody cared about anymore.

"This one." She pulled a reel from the shelf, examining its faded cover. "The Silent Sea. Romance set on a deep-sea exploration ship."

"Never heard of it."

"That's the point." Judy handed her the reel with a smile that promised interesting things. "Something neither of us knows. No expectations."

It took a bit to figure out how to swap the digital reels, but eventually the projector clicked into readiness. The massive screen flickered to life, casting pale light across the abandoned lot as opening credits began their slow scroll.

They found a spot on the hood of an ancient Thorton, its roof caved in but its hood still intact enough to support their weight. The metal was cool through Terissa's jeans, the evening air carrying the particular freshness of Night City after dark—smog and ozone and the distant smell of the ocean.

Judy settled beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. On screen, a submarine descended through digital waters while orchestral music swelled from speakers that had no business still functioning.

"This is nice," Judy said quietly, her attention more on the setting than the film.

"Yeah." Terissa's hand found Judy's in the darkness, their fingers intertwining with familiar ease. "It is."

The movie played. Neither of them watched it.

The tension that had been building for a month—through recovery and enforced rest and careful boundaries—finally reached its breaking point somewhere between the submarine's first crisis and its romantic subplot. Terissa couldn't have said who moved first. Maybe it was her, turning toward Judy with intent she'd been suppressing for weeks. Maybe it was Judy, finally releasing the patience she'd been maintaining since the first week.

The first kiss was careful, almost tentative. Testing. Making sure this was okay, was wanted, was happening.

The second kiss was anything but.

Judy's hands found Terissa's jacket, pulling her closer with force that spoke to weeks of waiting. Terissa responded in kind, her fingers tangling in Judy's hair, tilting her head for better access. The movie's dialogue became background noise, irrelevant to what was happening on the hood of a rusted-out car in an abandoned drive-in.

Clothes began their gradual surrender. Terissa's jacket first, pushed off her shoulders and discarded without care for where it landed. Judy's shirt followed, pulled over her head in a movement that broke their kiss just long enough for Terissa to appreciate the view—Judy's skin painted in flickering light from the screen, her tattoos transforming into something almost magical in the shifting shadows. The ink seemed to dance as the projection flickered, turning Judy into a living canvas of light and art.

"You're staring," Judy observed, breathless.

"Enjoying the show." Terissa's grin was unrepentant. "Though this is much better than whatever's happening in that movie."

Judy's laugh was bright and genuine, her head falling back in a way that exposed the elegant line of her throat. Terissa took the invitation, pressing her lips to the pulse point there, feeling Judy's heartbeat quicken against her mouth.

"That's cheating," Judy managed, her fingers tangling in Terissa's hair.

"I don't remember agreeing to rules."

The car's hood was cold against Terissa's knees as she shifted position, the metal protesting with a groan that made them both freeze for a heartbeat before dissolving into laughter. The absurdity of the situation—two grown women fumbling on a rusted car in an abandoned drive-in—only made it better somehow. More real.

Judy's jeans proved stubborn, the button catching, and Terissa's muttered curse earned another laugh that turned into a sharp inhale when she finally succeeded. Her fingers traced the newly exposed skin of Judy's hip, following the line of ink that disappeared beneath fabric still waiting to be removed.

"You're going slow on purpose," Judy accused.

"Savoring the moment."

"Savor faster."

Terissa obliged, helping Judy shimmy out of the remaining barriers between them. Her own clothes followed in a tangle of rushed movements and impatient hands, Judy's fingers proving far more efficient at buttons and zippers than Terissa's had been.

The first press of skin against skin drew sounds from both of them—relief and want and a month of careful restraint finally releasing. Judy's body was warm against the cool night air, her curves fitting against Terissa's like pieces designed to interlock.

They fumbled for position on the curved metal surface, the awkwardness leading to more laughter when Terissa nearly rolled off entirely, catching herself with a grace that had more to do with luck than skill.

"Smooth," Judy observed, pulling her back by the hip.

"I meant to do that."

"Sure you did." But Judy was smiling as she said it, her eyes dark with want in the flickering light. "Get back here."

Terissa went willingly, settling between Judy's thighs with a deliberation that made the other woman's breath hitch. She took her time then—learning the geography of Judy's body with the focused attention she usually reserved for tactical planning. The spot below her ear that made her gasp. The sensitive skin along her ribs that made her squirm. The way her back arched when Terissa's mouth found her breast, tongue tracing patterns that drew increasingly urgent sounds.

"T—" Judy's voice cracked on the single letter, her hips rolling upward in wordless demand.

"I've got you."

Her hand slid between them, finding Judy slick and ready, the evidence of her arousal making Terissa's own need pulse sharply. She explored with deliberate patience—learning what made Judy gasp, what made her moan, what made her fingers dig into Terissa's shoulders hard enough to leave marks.

Above them, the movie's orchestral score swelled toward some dramatic moment neither of them noticed. The only soundtrack that mattered was Judy's breathing, growing ragged, punctuated by sounds that might have been Terissa's name or might have been Spanish or might have been nothing but pure sensation given voice.

Judy's climax built in waves—Terissa could feel it in the tension of her thighs, the way her body tightened around exploring fingers, the increasingly desperate roll of her hips. When it finally crested, Judy's cry echoed across the empty lot, her body arching off the car hood in a display that Terissa committed to memory with fierce satisfaction.

She worked her through it, gentling her touch as aftershocks rippled through Judy's frame, pressing soft kisses to whatever skin she could reach. The flush that spread across Judy's chest was beautiful in the screen's pale light.

"Dios mío," Judy breathed when she could form words again. Her eyes opened, finding Terissa's face with an expression that promised reciprocation. "Your turn."

Terissa found herself flipped with surprising strength, her back meeting cool metal as Judy settled above her with predatory intent. Whatever clever response she'd been forming dissolved into a groan as Judy's mouth began its own exploration—throat, collarbone, the sensitive skin between her breasts.

Judy traced Terissa's scars with her lips—the new ones still pink and just healed, the old ones faded to silver. Each mark received attention, acknowledgment, acceptance. It was more intimate than the touching, somehow. A conversation without words about what Terissa had survived and what she'd become.

Then Judy's hand slid lower, and thinking became impossible.

She knew exactly what she was doing—had clearly been paying attention during their month of careful boundaries, cataloging every reaction, every response. Her fingers found their target with unerring precision, establishing a rhythm that had Terissa's hips moving of their own accord.

"Look at me," Judy commanded, her voice rough.

Terissa forced her eyes open, meeting Judy's gaze as pleasure built toward something inevitable. The connection felt electric—more intimate than the physical sensation, though that was considerable. This was Judy seeing her, really seeing her, in a moment of complete vulnerability.

The climax hit like a wave breaking, pulling a sound from Terissa's throat that she'd deny making later. Judy held her through it, her free hand stroking Terissa's hair as her body shuddered and released the tension of a month—of a year—of years of careful isolation.

They lay tangled together afterward, breathing hard, sweat cooling on skin that still hummed with sensation. On the screen above them, credits had begun their slow scroll, white text against black that neither of them bothered to read.

"That was..." Judy started, then seemed to lose the thread of what she'd been trying to say.

"Yeah." Terissa pressed a kiss to her shoulder, tasting salt and satisfaction. "It was."

The night air cooled their overheated skin, raising goosebumps that had nothing to do with temperature. Somewhere in the distance, Night City hummed its eternal song of violence and commerce and survival. But here, in this forgotten place, two women who'd found each other through chaos and blood lay together and let the world turn without them.

"Best first date I've ever had," Judy said eventually, her voice carrying the lazy satisfaction of someone thoroughly pleased with how things had turned out.

"Must have been a high bar to clear."

"You'd better believe it." Judy propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at Terissa with an expression that made something warm bloom in her chest. "This sets expectations, you know. Future dates need to meet this standard."

"Future dates." Terissa tested the phrase, found she liked how it sounded. "Already planning ahead?"

"Someone has to. You'd probably just keep finding new ways to get shot."

"That's not fair."

"It's completely fair." But Judy softened the words with a kiss that lingered. "Come on. We should probably get dressed before someone calls NCPD about suspicious activity in an abandoned lot."

The process of re-clothing was slower than it should have been, interrupted by kisses and touches and the general reluctance to let the moment end. By the time they were both presentable, the movie had long since finished, the projector showing a black screen with patient determination.

Terissa shut it down, returning the booth to the darkness it had occupied for years. The drive-in settled back into abandonment as they made their way to the fence, the screen standing silent sentinel over the ghosts of movies past.

The ride back to Little China passed in comfortable silence, Judy's arms wrapped around Terissa's waist, her head resting against her shoulder. The city scrolled past in ribbons of neon, beautiful in its destruction, alive in its chaos.

Home materialized from Watson's familiar decay, the apartment waiting with its worn furniture and healing memories. They climbed the stairs together, and Terissa found herself thinking about what came next—not in the tactical sense she was used to, but in the way of someone building a future rather than just surviving the present.

Whatever it was, whatever challenges waited in the weeks and months ahead, she wouldn't be facing them alone.

And in Night City, that meant everything.