’This place has surprisingly tight security...’ noted Vahn, watching as tal barricades resembling blast doors dropped down on both sides of the hall he had teleported into. Imdiately after, a hiss, suggesting that the area had been hertically sealed, reached his ears, followed by vaporous gas flowing into the cordoned compartnt from angular ducts lining the floor and ceiling.
Unaffected by the gas, which appeared to be an aerosolized anesthetic, Vahn closed his eyes and carefully extended his Domain as a thin line to an unpopulated alley outside the hotel. When he opened them, he was in said alley, subjecting him to parched, pollution-thick air and thirty-degree temperatures, even in the shade.
’The sll of greed and corruption...’ Vahn mused, maintaining a relaxed smile but with a glimr of severity flashing across his eyes as advanced technology, automated security, and pollution were common byproducts of corporate greed and an exploited, consurism-focused society. And if the graffiti, gang tags, and corporate logos competing for real estate on virtually every static surface were any indicator, he had found himself in a city infested with criminality and violence.
poppoppop
tatatatatatatatatata
bwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
As if to confirm Vahn’s presumptions, the sound of distant gunfire pricked his ears, followed by a deep, bassy horn akin to a train’s whistle but lower in pitch. This was followed by the sound of rushing air and sirens, not just from the location of the shots he had, but several additional places within range of his enhanced senses.
’What to do...’ Vahn pondered, choosing to ignore the gunfire temporarily and make his way toward the nearby street, a broad, four-lane road with wide sidewalks. The forr had a variety of cars, ranging from run-down, heavily beaten vans, self-driving taxis, and even a handful of what looked like luxury space shuttles flying overhead. As for the pedestrians, one in four appeared to have had limbs replaced by cybernetics, while all within range of his senses had implants installed in their brains, forearms, and the sides of their necks to facilitate what looked like micro SD cards. And the disparity in their appearances was incredible, ranging from those with largely unmodified appearances to those with colorful synthetic hair that pulsed with light, glowing eyes that shuttered like cara lenses, matte tal skin, and outfits ranging from simple tees and form-fitting jeans to leopard-print, fur-lined, neon, and reflective ensembles that could feature at an avant-garde fashion show.
As Vahn unhurriedly took in his surroundings, two things he couldn’t help but notice were the yellow reflections of HUDs in people’s eyes and their lack of concern despite the sound of gunfire from only a few blocks over. This told him two things. The first was that the populace had grown used to such occurrences and had beco desensitized. The second was that he wasn’t getting a full picture of the situation, as the chips and interfaces in people’s brains and eyes seed to be presenting them with so kind of augnted reality, conceivably even blocking their perception of sights and sounds they didn’t need to see or hear...
(This should make things clearer) humd Sis, filtering out the excess data and noise entering Vahn’s Domain, causing his vision to briefly dim before innurable light-ford signs appeared out of thin air, including holographic projections of animated mascots in front of stores.
’Isn’t this a bit much...?’ asked Vahn, frowning deeply as he could barely distinguish the real world over the amount of advertisents on display. And the sounds—he felt like he was in the center of a crowded stadium where everyone was attempting to talk over everyone else.
(One mont) said Sis, followed by the vast majority of the sights and sounds Vahn was hearing disappearing one by one, leaving only a handful of holographic displays and signs, and preserving the dimming effect that made the sunlight cascading oppressively from above less intense.
Before Vahn could ask, Sis revealed, (It appears that the ads people see are catered to specific age groups, linked to paid services, or blocked by others. Since you don’t have the sa interface as the majority of people who live here, you were accessing and receiving ads targeting each group simultaneously.)
’You’re telling people have to pay a subscription fee not to have ads fed directly into their brains...?’ questioned Vahn, his incredulity evidently showing on his face as a random girl with Chinese features, blue and pink hair fixed in a twin-bao hairstyle, bright pink eyebrow, and a skimpy, blue, red, and gold-scale outfit asked him, "You geeking out, Gonk-head? Need a fix?"
Turning toward the person who had spoken, Vahn had to look down quite a bit as the bao-haired girl barely exceeded 150cm. As for her age, it was impossible to tell at a glance, as everything from her hair to her eyes and skin was synthetic or a cybernetic enhancent. Her voice and intonation gave the impression she was in her late twenties to early thirties, but with a change in hairstyle and outfit, she could pass for a high schooler—if not much younger.
"Gonk-head...?" repeated Vahn, raising his right brow.
"You soft or sothing...?" asked the girl, mirroring Vahn’s brow raise with an added head-tilt as she sized him up. His clothes were mismatched, but most of it was na-brand and appeared brand new. And as her lens-like eyes scanned his necklace, the rings adorning each of his fingers, and his evidently solid gold bracers, a certain thought entered her mind.
"Did you just arrive in Night City? Visiting from overseas?" asked the girl, adopting the kind of broad, narrow-eyed, excessively friendly smile that was commonly worn by female scam artists and call girls.
"Sothing like that..." responded Vahn, presenting a natural smile that caused the evidently thirty-eight-year-old woman’s eyes to shutter like a cara before she abruptly snaked her hands around his right arm, stuck close to him, and chid, "Then let this Miao-Miao be your guide. I know all the popular tourist attractions, and my aunty owns a restaurant in Little China that’s to die for~."
"Hmm...is that so...?" asked Vahn, pretending not to notice the savagery the woman, Miao-Miao, had tried to conceal behind the playful emphasis she had placed on the word die. There was a tattoo of a crouching tiger on her lower back, currently hidden beneath her dress, that matched one of the many gang signs spread throughout the area, so if he accepted her invitation, there was a good chance she would take him soplace to be extorted or much worse.
"Oh, absolutely! Everyone I take there practically has to be dragged out to get them to leave~" chid Miao-Miao, her left eye reflecting tiny text that revealed she was making a call while simultaneously flagging down a taxi. A person would have to be impressively oblivious not to realize what she was up to, but Vahn feigned cluelessness as he was curious to see to what extent the mbers of her gang were willing to go...
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’Pollution and invasive marketing aside, this city is admittedly a marvel...’ mused Vahn, staring out the window of the taxi Miao-Miao had secured for them while the diminutive woman sat to his right, separated from him and periodically glancing his way after he prevented her left hand, fitted with a vibration feature, from infringing on his inner right thigh.
"Which corporation you work for, Gano...?" asked Miao-Miao, ostensibly finished with her phone call as she suddenly started showing interest in Vahn after minutes of awkward silence.
"Gano...?" repeated Vahn, eting Miao-Miao’s gaze with his brow, once again, raised.
"It’s like Ganic. Ganic, you know, cuz you gots no chro—no hardware," explained Miao-Miao, gesticulating with her hands as if it would sohow clarify what she was trying to express. This was one of the few pitfalls of Vahn’s ability to interpret any language—when words were shortened into colloquialisms and slang, he still had to guess their aning.
"So, Ganics and Ganos are people without cybernetic enhancents...?" asked Vahn, prompting Miao-Miao to nod vigorously as she affird, "You got it, Chombatta! Wow! You so smart!" with a fake, narrow-eyed, fox-like smile.
Following a faint, unintentionally condescending snort, Vahn elected to roll with it, playing the part of a profligate as he smugly revealed, "As for the corporation I belong to, it’s a trade organization called the Dragon’s Pavilion—not that I expect you to have heard of it."
"Oh, yes, Dragon’s Pavilion! Powerful na! Veeeery powerful~!" chid Miao-Miao, presenting double peace signs and sticking out her synthetic, multi-segnted tongue in an effort to appear cute. anwhile, beneath her facade, Vahn felt nothing but contempt and a desire to see him dead, likely after being subjected to severe torture.
’Such pride and spite...how absurd...’ Vahn sighed internally, outwardly exhaling from his nose and leaning onto the knuckles of his left hand to resu looking out the taxi’s window. He never understood how people could imrse themselves in the lowest rungs of society, yet behaved as if they were deserving of deference and respect. Even as the leader of a transdinsional organization, recognized by nearly six trillion people as a Dragon God, he generally did his best to be considerate of people from all walks of life. But those who willfully preyed on others, especially those they believed to be ignorant, were, in his opinion, lower than animals who lived and thrived amid filth...
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After a ten-minute taxi ride to the northernmost region of Night City, the Watson District—ho to the vast majority of the city’s eastern-oriented citizens—Vahn found himself outside a three-story pagoda-like structure with neon blue, purple, and yellow signs written in Chinese, English, and Arabic script. The surrounding residential structures towered over it by a considerable margin, averaging fifty stories tall with eight to ten thousand modular apartnts, but Vahn was more concerned with what was taking place on the ground.
Surrounding the restaurant, called the Imperial Dragon Palace, were well over a hundred sleek-looking, heavily-tagged custom sports bikes parked around an outdoor noodle bar. More consequentially, several dozen scarf-wearing, cybernetically enhanced humans with tiger-thed facemasks adorning the lower halves of their faces or hanging around their necks sat together—socializing, eating, and consuming alcohol.
"Okay, Gonk. You get out now. Nice and slow-like~" chid Miao-Miao, sporting a particularly malicious grin as her right hand folded back, her forearm split, and a gun barrel protruded from within.
"Oh, no..." droned Vahn, his expression flat as he raised his hands and asked, "Whatever shall I do...?" in a chanical tone that caused Miao-Miao’s expression to scrunch before the door behind him opened and a pair of gang mbers reached into the taxi to pull him out. That briefly returned the smile to her face, but when she got out of the taxi and saw him being dragged away with a bored, unbothered look on his face, she tensed, suddenly getting a very bad feeling...
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"Please forgive us, Sir...we had eyes but could not see..." groaned a man in his mid-to-late thirties, his cybernetic arms leaking various fluids from their torn stumps as Vahn stood over his kowtowing body. Less than five minutes prior, he had instructed his n to rough Vahn up—citing that he didn’t like his pretty face. Now, the subterranean room they had ushered him into, resembling an operating room that reeked of blood, was littered with the shattered, broken, and maid bodies of thirty-seven mbers of his gang, thousands of bullet casings, and a handful of cold weapons like katanas, knives, and hand axes.
"One would think that replacing your eyes with cybernetics would improve your vision..." remarked Vahn, his expression utterly devoid of empathy as he placed his right foot on the back of the man’s head. On the wall a short distance away, the corpses of five people had been strung up, bound with their wrists overhead and their naked bodies riddled with throwing knives, shuriken, and hatchets. Initially, he had intended to squeeze the group for information, but the mont he saw the grisly, dehumanizing condition of the corpses, he very quickly concluded that Night City would be better off without such an organization in their midst...
crunch
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