Chapter 16: Maine's Decision
Rebecca and Pilar were in a quiet corner of the warehouse, sitting on crates with the food trays Dorio had given them.
The trays were piled with yellowish-brown synth-protein blocks, glistening with a slimy, orange-colored sauce. Beside that was a lump of nutrient paste and two boiled, vat-grown bean pods that only vaguely resembled vegetables.
The combined taste was a mix of cheap artificial flavoring and basic carbs, just barely strong enough to mask the warehouse's permanent stench of old oil and dust.
"Fuck, I'm starving," Rebecca grabbed her fork, stabbed a block of protein, and tore off a huge bite, chewing mechanically. The texture was as bland as always, with that familiar chemical aftertaste, but it filled the void.
Pilar, using his newly repaired metal fingers, delicately picked up a bean pod but didn't eat it. He looked across the warehouse through his flashy goggles, watching Maine, Dorio, and Falco talking in low voices.
"They're still watching us... Becca, you think he really bought it?" he whispered.
"Eat your food and shut up," Rebecca said without looking up, gesturing at his tray with her fork. "Doesn't matter if he bought it. We slip up now, forget all that preem gear—Maine'll be the first one to flatline us and sell us for parts."
She swallowed the mouthful of paste. "Tastes like shit, but it's fuel."
Pilar sighed and finally popped the bean pod into his mouth, chewing it like cardboard. "I know... it's just this thing," he unconsciously tapped his temple. "It's too damn quiet. My old chrome always had a little buzz, a little static. Now? Nothing. It's creepy. And this arm... it's so light, doesn't even feel like mine..."
He swung his left arm. The motion was impossibly smooth, even creating a faint swoosh in the air.
Rebecca stopped chewing. Her green cyber-eye scanned his nervous face in the dim light.
"Listen, you big gonk," her voice was uncharacteristically low, all the usual explosive energy gone. "We're alive. We didn't lose the ride. And we got upgraded. That's the score. The 'how'... that doesn't matter."
"Once we get him those batteries, finish the first trade, and let Maine see the payout for himself, then we can slowly start to explain the... weirder shit. If we tell him now, he'll just say it's too risky and cut the cord." She slurped the last of the sauce. "Now hurry up. We need to figure out where to score a delta-damn mil-spec power cell. That's not gonna be a walk in the park."
The siblings said no more, silently choking down the typical, rock-bottom Night City meal—efficient, cheap, and life-sustaining, but utterly devoid of joy. The air, thick with the chemical smell of the food and their shared tension, mixed with the low murmur of the meeting across the warehouse.
Later, the warehouse was dark, save for a single buzzing work-light in the corner. Maine, Dorio, and Falco sat around a scarred metal table, a holo-projection of the data-chip and its parts list floating between them.
"What's your read?" Maine's voice was a low rumble, his knuckles rapping on the tabletop.
"Rebecca's eye is custom, high-grade. Even the mil-tech on the black market doesn't have integration this clean," Falco reported, swiping through data-streams. "And Pilar's neural interface repair... the work is insanely precise. Near-zero trauma. Looks like nano-level tissue reconstruction. That's beyond most street ripperdocs, even beyond some corpo clinics."
Dorio leaned forward, her arms crossed. "But they're back. And in better shape than when they left. This 'tech-nomad,' whoever he is, showed his hand. He's got real skills, and he's willing to trade."
"Look at this list," she pointed at the holo. "Mil-spec batteries, restricted alloys, prototype neural-ware... this isn't street-level junk. It'll be a high-risk gig to source. But the payout is real, high-grade tech and medical support."
"The price is intel and this hard-to-get gear," Falco countered, his voice cold. "A solo techie needing this stuff? It doesn't add up. I'm betting it's a corpo trap. Maybe Biotechnica, or some new player. Using tech as bait to get us to run their dirty work, and we end up as test subjects or disposable assets." He'd seen too much corpo treachery.
"Corpo traps are usually simpler, more direct," Maine rumbled. "But their story is definitely edited. That depot... a techie who can do this level of work doesn't just... exist. And the gear Rebecca described? Doesn't sound like a 'dump'."
His cyber-eye glowed as he weighed the possibilities. "I'm worried it's something worse... something we don't understand." He was thinking of old-Net legends, rogue AIs, or weirder things that haunted the edges of the city.
"But we need an edge, Maine," Dorio said, ever the pragmatist. "The gigs are getting harder. The competition is better-chromed, and the corpo-rats are hitting back. If... if... this guy just wants to trade, this is our chance. The tech support he's offering could be key. The list is hard, but not impossible for us."
"It's too big a risk," Falco insisted. "Unknown means uncontrollable. We can't bet the crew's safety on some mystery-man and his weird shopping list."
Maine looked at his two most trusted partners. They represented the two sides of his own mind: Dorio, who saw the opportunity and the need to build strength; and Falco, who saw the threat and the trap.
He was silent for a long time. As the leader, he had to walk that edge. Refuse, and he might lose a powerful ally. Accept, and he might drag his whole crew into the abyss.
"We make contact. Carefully," Maine finally decided, his voice firm. "Falco, you analyze that list. Assess the risk. We'll try to fill a small part of it first. See what he really wants, and what he really gives. Start with... that 'Thunder-7' power cell. You can find 'em in scrap-heaps, but a working one is rare. It's a good test."
He looked at Dorio. "Next meet, you take a team. Hang back, overwatch. Anything smells wrong, you pull them out."
His expression turned hard. "And everything about this techie stays between us three. We don' in't tell the others. Especially not Rebecca and Pilar... I need to watch them."
Dorio nodded. Falco, though still frowning, accepted the cautious plan. The warehouse returned to its silence, but the air was now charged with a new, tense anticipation.