Neon Requiem (2023)

Bitting The Hand That Feeds You

The party was a wreck, the chrome-plated vultures already circling. MaxTac and Trauma Team had shown up in force, summoned by the panicked cries of corpo wives desperate for a taste of real danger. An additional platoon of 50 hired guns swarmed the place, because apparently overkill is just kill in Night City.

I could see the botoxed faces of the elite twisting with exaggerated fear and excitement. Nothing like a near-death experience to spice up their dull, privileged lives. What a joke.

"Time to go," I growled at Sharon, scooping up Hilbert. The kid was mercifully quiet, probably the only sane one in this circus.

The ride home was as tense as a street kid in corpo plaza. Sharon sat there, still as a statue, her eyes fixed on some point in the neon-soaked distance.

"Everything alright, Mrs. Sharon?" I asked, more out of obligation than concern.

"I'm fine," she replied, her voice as flat as a flatlined EKG.

I didn't push it. My job was to keep her alive, not play therapist. I pinged the boss, giving him the rundown. His response was predictably self-serving.

"Stay with her tonight. In case she needs anything."

Translation: He was out painting the town red and didn't want to deal with the fallout. Typical.

At the penthouse, I broke the news to Sharon. "Looks like I'm your shadow for the night. Boss's orders."

She nodded, zombie-like, and disappeared upstairs with Hilbert. I made myself at home, fishing out a bottle of synthetic tequila from the bar. The burn as it went down was almost enough to make me forget the clusterfuck of a day.

Hours crawled by, the city's neon glow casting eerie shadows through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The light upstairs stayed on, a silent sentinel in the night. Then, cutting through the quiet:

"V?"

I trudged upstairs, passing Hilbert's room where the kid was miraculously still asleep. Sharon's bedroom was at the end of the hall, a glass-walled testament to corpo excess. The entire city sprawled out below, a glittering carpet of light and shadow.

Sharon was a lump under the sheets, her voice oddly flat. "Turn off the lights and come sit on the bed."

I complied, perching on the edge like it might bite me. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, until she finally broke it.

"Where's Jenkins?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," I shrugged. "Boss just said he wouldn't be home."

"He's out with his friends, isn't he? At the strip clubs, fucking who knows how many girls."

I winced internally. "I wouldn't know about that." The lie tasted bitter, even to me.

"Two years of marriage," she continued, her voice hollow. "I can count on one hand the times he's touched me. But I had no choice. My family needed the money. The 'opportunity' was too good to pass up."

"We all make choices in Night City," I offered, feeling like a gonk. "Usually between bad and worse."

"Sometimes I dream about running away from it all," she whispered, more to herself than to me.

"That's the tequila talking," I said, trying to steer us back to safer waters. "You should get some sleep, Mrs. Sharon."

She went quiet for a moment, and I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. Then, "Lay back, V."

"Come again?" I asked, wondering if my audio implants were glitching.

"I said, lay back," she repeated, a hint of steel in her voice.