A Break in the Sunlight

32. Sleepless

After her first few days in the Night City, it became clear to Jaren that the place had no real sense of time. Without day and night to regulate it, it simply flowed along in a stream of activity, a world adjusting to its occupants, rather than the other way around.

Most of the business sector ran on the Central clock, staying open to match the schedule of major stock trading franchises like the UFP. Storefronts, like Jeremy's, operated on whatever clock they pleased, those near the spaceport keeping hours that matched peak arrival and departure times, those near residential areas running on a pretty much 32 hour cycle.

*When* one slept, or ate, or worked depended entirely on one's self. Jeremy, for example, tended to spend long hours plugged into his design deck, manipulating chemical formulas and watching the colors spill out onto the canvas of his flatscreens--falling into bed only when he grew too tired to sit upright.

It was hard for Jaren to get used to the pace, for the first week or two. But after three weeks, she found that she had stopped checking her internal clock for the "real" time, and just let her activity flow as it would. Her day was pretty much as she built it. A few hours sleeping, a few in the store with Harley, a few more wandering the city, and many lying, as she was now, parsing through the material in Biddle's archive, and circling around the static cloud that was Gennwrugh.

"What are you doing?" She heard Jeremy's voice from beside her.

"Parsing," Jaren replied, opening her eyes. The room was, as usual, in semi-darkness. Hours had passed that way, since they'd gotten back to the flat and wolfed down take-out food. The greasy cartons had been left in the middle of the floor while they moved to the bed to fool around, and then Jeremy had removed to his deck while Jaren lay naked, retreating into her head.

"Oh."

She hadn't told him about the Gennwrugh codes. She wasn't sure why. There was little doubt that she'd need his help to get them hacked. But first, she thought... she wanted to get Biddle's codes locked up firmly in her own kind of static. There was only so much she wanted to share.

"What are you parsing?" Jeremy asked, after a moment, turning to look down at her, the side of his face haloed in swirling pink and orange.

Jaren shrugged. "Just deleting some old files."

He smiled down at her, and unplugged the deck from his head, motioning for her to make room for him on the narrow bed.

"I still can't get over that equipment you have," he said, as he rolled beside her. The bed creaked, even under his meager weight.

Jaren wriggled over with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"The deck. Head decks are pretty rare, around here."

"This isn't a head deck," she answered, "It's bioware."

He snorted, "Sure it is."

"It is," she replied, a little shortly.

Jeremy rose on an elbow to look down at her. "No shit?"

Her lips thinned, and she nodded. He'd better not be hinting at what she thought. She'd tell him where he could shove his deck.

"Christ," he chuckled, "I didn't think anyone got bioware anymore."

That was it. A flush of anger darkened her cheeks. "Well, I did," she replied coldly. "You don't have to look at me like I'm a frigging carnival sideshow. It's common in my sector." Our sector, she'd almost said. But she didn't.