Revenants (Cyberpunk X Male Reader)

018

The vehicles passing us and the mix of the partying happening all around us have made for quite a decent place to chill for a moment. We found a place overlooking the lower half of New Night City.

"We scouted our end, T-Bug gave us your location. You are about a block away from the lab," Quin states, "Give us a moment to catch up with the two of you and see if you can sort us something to eat while you are waiting around."

"No promises," I chuckle.

"Team-building exercise, you get me something to eat and rank higher than T-Bug on my contact list."

"You know we all share these comms, right?" T-Bug breathes out into our ears.

"Meant what I said, Bug," she laughs. "Besides, now is not the time to feel sour about being a bitch. What if I die?"

"The vindication will surely overpower my dread," she states.

"Vindication for what exactly?"

"Lay off of her Quin," Jackie's voice breaks through. "Besides, need to work together on this one and then you two can go back to shooting icicles with every stare."

I disconnect from the channel to let them have their privacy, wouldn't want to intrude on what could easily be mistaken for sexual tension.

"Lovely bunch," Lucy says as she lights up a cigarette. "Kind of like Maine's crew."

I glance at her. "Kinda? The bickering is often?"

She takes a deep pull, blowing the smoke into the air. "Maine's an assmunch. Think it is his crew so he bosses everyone 'round. The rest aren't nearly as bad as he can get, plus Gloria's been working her ass off for everyone in the crew."

"She's your fixer, right?"

"Just one we trust," she counters. "Funny term that, 'a fixer you can trust'. She's loads better than any of the fixers around Night City but ultimately that's what is stopping her from being any better."

"Eyes for one crew?"

She nods, before crossing her arms and tapping her finger against her upper arm. In my optics pops up a feed to show that both V and Quin are getting some distance. Though it would be a safe bet to hold out on getting something to eat just a tad bit longer.

I dismiss the notification as Lucy asks, "Your past with Lazarus, how'd you end up with them?"

I return my attention back to her. "Lazarus saved me from one Corporation."

"Saved?"

I transfer my gaze to the sky above. An AV flies overhead with an advertisement dancing in the sky.

"It's... I guess there is more to it than that but to really understand you need to know that I didn't have a choice from the start. I was born... or maybe, given away after my birth to another Corp and I was kept as an experiment project."

"Fuck knows. But I was in containment for most of my life growing up and never saw the world before the age of seventeen maybe? Then they started chipping me, modding my body, getting whatever chrome they could put in me at the time."

"It started as a measure, sending me out into the world to kill other corporate leaders, terrorists, gangs... anyone they needed in a grave really. I don't know if you are aware how inhumane replicant procedures are but I was treated no better than them."

She stops me, "They kick all emotion out of them. You mean to say they did the same to you?" I don't look at her, her tone alone feels almost harrowing. "Replicant procedures were there to remind them the moment they show an inch of humanity they will be put down."

I nod as I glance at her to see a pained expression on her face, or maybe a dreadful realization. I don't know, I can't read that expression of hers.

I crack a smile. "They bragged about it, reminding me that I am exactly that. The power cut in that facility and I used the tools they gave me to slaughter a facility of 23 soldiers and even more scientists."

Some faces I recognised... but I felt nothing killing them. I didn't spare a single shred of my humanity while killing my captors, I only gave them exactly what they would have given me.

"Lazarus snatched you immediately after, didn't they?"

I nod silently. With an exhale I chuckle, "Easy to put the puzzle together. They treated me marginally better but that didn't change a single fucking thing the moment Elster and Ariane got rid of the leash."

She lowers her gaze to her feet, smiling a rather sad smile. "Fucking corps."

"Does it make a little bit more sense now?" I ask and she lifts her gaze to look me in the eye as I crack a smile. "Silly things like looking at stars, and looking at this place and appreciating what little I can from it."

"None to had to begin with," she hits the nail on the head. "You hate the name, don't you?"

"Ghost?" She nods. "It bothers me less and less by the day. To them, it was a reminder that I am nothing but their dog, to the Edgerunners and Cyberpunks I was more a boogieman... or at least a less scarier version of the real boogieman of Night City."

"I find it ironic. Ghost to remind me that I they killed me," and I am just back with a vengeance.

Revenant, right? When the dead come back just to haunt the living. Resting both of my elbows on the railing behind me I settle my gaze on the food stalls and I can feel my stomach gnawing at me.

I express, "For what it is worth, there's no sense in telling people what they should call me. No sense in cursing the outcome and that my entire existence is worth questioning. Even if the question is always 'can I trust him'? So I'll prove myself, even though I don't need to."

"You will," she adds softly. "World isn't fair, same way you aren't remembered through what you did, just how you died."

I shut my eyes with a chuckle, "What a twist of fate," I push myself off of the railing. "Enough about that though, starving and Quin's going to have a lot to say if we waited on them to fetch us something to eat."

She lifts the cigarette to take a long pull before tossing it towards the bin. "Let's."

With a firm nod, we step towards the stalls and into the crowd to see what is going to be on the menu for dinner.