## Chapter 1 — The Rumor With Teeth Night City did not believe in miracles. It believed in invoices. It believed in wetware, firmware, black clinic miracles with payment plans, military-grade reflex boosters with serial numbers filed off, and back-alley surgeons who could promise you a new spine if you did not mind owing the rest of your life to the kind of people who collected interest with pliers. So when clips of Ace kept moving through the city, the city did what it always did. It found a way to make the impossible sound expensive. The first clip was old by Night City standards, which meant two weeks, three murders, six remix edits, and a dead comment thread that still refused to stay dead. Ace moved through three armed men before the camera remembered it was recording violence. The feed shook. Somebody yelled. The image blurred as if the device itself had second thoughts. Then one of the men hit the pavement hard enough to make the viewer’s teeth ache. Ace stood in the middle of the frame. Small. Black-haired. Still. Not even breathing hard. The first comments had been ordinary. > holy shit > who is that > she’s tiny wtf > that’s the triad one right? > replay replay replay Then the second wave came. > frame skip > edited > hidden booster > no human moves like that > military chrome 100% Then the third wave arrived, and the third wave had teeth. > she’s running ghostware > black clinic combat rig > no visible ports means nothing > expensive girls hide expensive toys By the end of the week, the rumor had become cleaner than truth. Ace had hidden combat chrome. Not maybe. Not probably. Had. Night City preferred hard lies to soft mysteries. A lie with enough confidence could move through the city faster than a fact with evidence. Facts needed proof. Lies only needed rhythm. The rumor got rhythm. In Santo Domingo, two 6th Street shooters argued over whether Ace had Militech prototype spinal threading. In Japantown, a Tyger Claw netrunner insisted the movement pattern looked like reflex compression paired with predictive muscle firing. In Watson, someone selling fake cyberware diagrams out of a noodle stall claimed to have seen her “implant map” and charged fifty eddies for a copy that looked suspiciously like a forklift manual with purple marker on it. At Afterlife, three young mercs replayed the same clip so many times that Claire finally told them to either buy another round or let the table recover from their stupidity. Rogue watched them from her booth. She did not ask what they were watching. She knew. Every serious rumor in Night City eventually walked past her door pretending it had not come to ask permission. One of the mercs slowed the clip to one-quarter speed and jabbed at the air above the table. “See? There. That’s not muscle. That’s chrome.” His friend leaned in, squinting like focus could compensate for ignorance. “Maybe under-skin rig.” “Too clean.” “Expensive clean.” The third merc, the quietest one, watched Ace in the frame instead of the blur around her. “She doesn’t move like chrome.” The first one snorted. “Then what?” The quiet merc did not answer. That was his mistake. Night City hated unanswered questions. It would rather be wrong loudly than uncertain in public. Rogue lifted her glass, took a slow sip, and let the argument continue without her. Across the city, the rumor found better soil. Animals hated it. Not because they cared whether Ace had chrome. They cared because if she did, then every story about her made sense. If she did not, then their entire hierarchy of meat and force had a small, black-haired problem standing at the bottom of it and looking up without fear. An Animals lieutenant named Mace watched a clip of Ace dropping one of his people in a parking structure and felt his jaw tighten. “No.” The room around him smelled of sweat, supplements, cheap beer, and the sharp chemical promise of bodies pushed past sensible limits. Men and women built like weapons crowded around the projection, all muscle and ego and hungry disbelief. The clip looped. Ace slipped under a swing, turned, hit low, changed angle, and the man folded. Mace pointed at the image. “That is not clean.” Someone behind him laughed. “Nothing about her clean.” “She is hiding chrome.” A woman with arms thick as bridge supports leaned forward. “Then call her on it.” Mace looked at her. The smile arrived slowly. Animals respected force. They respected bodies made into declarations. They respected the kind of violence that left dents in walls and losers in traction. A hidden implant was an insult. A small woman pretending meat could beat meat was worse. By morning, the challenge began spreading. Not through official channels. There were no official channels for stupidity that confident. It appeared on gang boards first. Then on local fight feeds. Then clipped into screaming short-form edits with bad music, worse captions, and more confidence than literacy. **ACE.** **NO BLADES. NO TRICKS. NO HIDDEN CHROME.** **HAND TO HAND.** **COME PROVE IT.** The Animals logo stamped the end of the first challenge like a fist through concrete. For approximately eleven minutes, Night City enjoyed having one stupid idea at a time. Then Maelstrom found it. Maelstrom did not hate the rumor. Maelstrom loved it. Hidden chrome was not an accusation. It was a flirtation. A Maelstrom tech-priest with too many polished teeth and not enough remaining original skin watched the Animals challenge three times and began laughing through a voice modulator that made joy sound like metal scraping inside a pipe. “They think she is meat.” Beside him, a woman with red optics and a jaw too angular to have been born that way tilted her head. “If she is hiding it that well, I want to see where.” “She will not show in hand-to-hand.” “No,” the woman said. “Meatheads ask meat questions.” The tech-priest’s optics narrowed with pleasure. By noon, the second challenge began riding the first. Maelstrom did not overwrite the Animals challenge. They improved it, in the way Maelstrom improved everything: by making it less human and more dangerous. **ROUND TWO.** **BLADES. CHAINS. TOOLS. ANYTHING YOU CAN CARRY.** **NO GUNS. NO BOMBS. NO BORING DISTANCE.** **SHOW US WHAT YOU REALLY ARE.** Someone added a final line that spread faster than the rest. **IF YOU ARE MEAT, BLEED LIKE MEAT.** By evening, the city had a show. By midnight, the show had a title. Not officially. Not yet. That came later. At the Watson safehouse, Ace sat on the kitchen counter with one knee drawn up, a cup of coffee in one hand, and a look on her face that suggested the entire city had become mildly inconvenient. Mai stood near the table, one hand resting beside an open shard display. Silver hair tied back. Eyes too calm. Shammy leaned against the far wall because the ceiling light above the normal chairs had begun to flicker whenever she came too close to the discussion. Brenda Boom sat cross-legged on the couch with a half-disassembled camera rig in her lap and the expression of someone trying very hard not to grin. She was failing. “That,” Brenda said, “is a lot of people asking to be embarrassed on camera.” Ace took a sip of coffee. “No camera.” Brenda froze. The camera rig in her lap made a small, offended clicking noise. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought I heard a war crime against journalism.” Mai did not look up. “You are not a journalist.” “I have a channel.” “You have a public hazard with branding.” “That is modern journalism.” Ace pointed at her with the coffee cup. “No.” Brenda opened her mouth. Shammy said, quietly, “Brenda.” Brenda closed her mouth. For three seconds. Then she leaned forward. “But hypothetically.” “No,” Ace said. “Purely as an academic question.” “No.” “If someone with a respected independent media platform—” Mai looked up. Brenda corrected herself without losing speed. “—with a historically significant pirate broadcast identity—” “Brenda,” Mai said. “—were to provide neutral coverage of a major public challenge affecting the reputation of a household member—” Ace stared at her. Brenda finished, “—would that not be, technically, community service?” Silence settled across the room. Then Shammy smiled. It was small. It was also enough to make Brenda sit up straighter with betrayal in her eyes. “You too?” “I said nothing.” “You smiled with intent.” “I did.” Ace put the cup down. The ceramic tapped once against the counter. That was enough. The room changed. Brenda’s grin faded. Mai’s attention sharpened. Shammy’s hair lifted by the smallest fraction, silver-white strands responding to pressure no one else could name. Ace looked at the shard display. The Animals challenge played without sound. Then the Maelstrom one. Then a stitched edit showing her old fight clips over captions accusing her of hidden chrome, ghostware, military rigging, black clinic spinal reconstruction, and something called “Kiroshi predator mode,” which made Mai visibly consider a future lawsuit against language itself. Ace watched the loop once. Then she said, “I’m going.” No one looked surprised. That did not make the room calmer. ## Chapter 2 — No One Goes Alone Mai shut off the display. The sudden absence of neon challenge text made the kitchen feel more honest. “That is not a plan,” she said. Ace hopped down from the counter. Her boots hit the floor softly. She was so small that the motion should have made her seem less dangerous. It did not. “It’s a decision.” “It is a beginning,” Mai said. “Not a plan.” Brenda raised one finger. “As the only person here currently holding broadcast equipment—” “No,” Ace said. “I hadn’t even said the idea.” “You were holding it wrong.” Brenda looked down at the camera rig. Then at Ace. “That is rude and probably accurate.” Shammy shifted away from the wall. The flickering light steadied, then dimmed as if it had decided not to involve itself. “I do not like the shape of this,” she said. Ace glanced up at her. “The fights?” “The air around them.” “That’s not vague at all,” Brenda muttered. Shammy’s electric-blue eyes moved to her. Brenda lifted both hands. “Respectfully vague.” Mai came around the table and stood across from Ace. “Animals want to prove that their model of strength is still intact. Maelstrom wants either proof of hidden technology or evidence worth taking apart.” Ace’s mouth tightened. Mai continued. “Neither group actually needs the truth. The challenge is useful either way. If you refuse, they say you are hiding something. If you win, they say you proved the hidden system works. If you lose—” “I won’t.” “I know.” That landed harder than warning would have. Mai’s certainty did not soften the problem. It sharpened it. “If you lose,” Mai said again, “they build a story from that too. The point is not the result. The point is that they are trying to make you answer the question in their language.” Ace looked away. Brenda’s face had gone still now, all the streamer brightness tucked behind her eyes. She knew audiences. She knew how fast people stopped asking what happened and started fighting over what the footage meant. She had built a following on spectacle before she fully understood that spectacle was not a container. It leaked into everything. “Rogue should know,” Brenda said. Mai nodded. “She already does.” Ace looked back. “You told her?” “No. Night City did.” The shard display pulsed with an incoming message. Mai glanced at it. Then, with the faintest sigh, she answered. Rogue’s image appeared above the table in low-resolution blue, her face cut by static and Afterlife’s booth lighting. Grey hair. Controlled expression. The kind of stillness that made other people’s urgency feel childish. She looked first at Mai. Then at Shammy. Then at Ace. “No,” Rogue said. Ace crossed her arms. Rogue did not blink. “I didn’t ask.” “You were going to.” “No.” “You were going to stand there, let Mai explain the problem properly, let Shammy say something weather-adjacent, and then do it anyway.” Rogue lifted her glass off-screen. “So I’m saving time.” Brenda whispered, “That was kind of mean-accurate.” Rogue’s eyes moved slightly. “Brenda.” Brenda went upright. “Ma’am.” “Do not turn this into a circus.” Brenda’s lips pressed together. A smart person would have stopped there. Brenda was smart. That was the problem. Smart people sometimes needed extra effort to become sensible. “With respect,” she said, “it already is one. Without me, it’s just a badly lit circus.” Rogue stared at her. Brenda held the stare for one second, then two, then wisely became very interested in a loose cable. Rogue looked back to Ace. “You can beat the Animals champion.” Ace said nothing. “You can probably beat whatever chrome shrine Maelstrom drags out.” Still nothing. “You will not beat the rumor.” Ace’s jaw moved once. Rogue leaned back in her booth. “You’re trying to hit a story until it stops moving. Stories don’t have ribs.” Shammy’s gaze lowered slightly, as if the line had touched the air. Mai folded her hands in front of her. Ace said, “If I don’t go, they own it.” “Yes.” “If I go, they still twist it.” “Yes.” “So what’s your advice?” Rogue’s mouth changed, not enough to become a smile. “Don’t make it easy for them.” The line stayed in the kitchen after the call ended. Ace looked at Mai. Mai looked back. There were entire conversations they did not need words for anymore. Finally Ace said, “I’m going.” Mai nodded once. “We are going.” Ace’s expression shifted. Not surprise. Not objection. Something softer and more irritated by being seen. “I can fight alone.” “Yes,” Mai said. “You do not have to arrive alone.” Shammy stepped closer. The room breathed easier around her. “No one goes alone,” she said. Brenda lifted the camera rig slightly. Everyone looked at her. She cleared her throat. “I am not saying anything.” Ace stared. Brenda’s eyes widened with exaggerated innocence. “I am simply holding historically significant equipment in a respectful posture.” Mai closed her eyes for one second. “Brenda.” “Yes?” “If you do this, you do not interfere with the fight.” “I would never.” “You do not provoke Maelstrom.” “I would rarely.” “You do not reveal safehouse information, tactical details, private relationship dynamics, or anything that makes this household harder to keep alive.” Brenda’s face went serious. “I know.” Mai studied her for a moment. Then nodded. Ace looked personally betrayed by physics. “No,” she said. Brenda turned to her. “Ace.” “No.” Brenda leaned forward. “Night City is going to watch either way.” “No.” “If I stream it, at least one person in the feed will understand what not to show.” Ace opened her mouth. Closed it. That was the problem with Brenda. Sometimes, under the glitter and timing and terrible instincts, she was right. Shammy tilted her head. “The channel has been quiet for a long time.” Brenda’s fingers tightened around the rig. Just a fraction. “Yeah.” “Why this?” The room became careful. Brenda looked down at the camera, at the patched casing, the hand-painted mark on the side, the ugly little sticker she had never removed. Then she shrugged with more casualness than she felt. “Because if the whole city is going to misunderstand someone I know, I’d rather they misunderstand in high quality.” Ace stared at her. Then she sighed. It was not permission. Unfortunately for Ace, everyone in the room understood it as permission. Brenda’s grin came back, slow and electric. “Oh,” she said. “This is going to be extremely illegal.” Mai looked at her. “In a media sense,” Brenda added quickly. ## Chapter 3 — Dead Channel Comes Alive For three months, the channel had been dead. Not down. Not deleted. Dead. That was different. People had checked. Of course they had checked. Night City loved a dead signal almost as much as a live disaster. The archive pages still existed. Old stream fragments still circulated. Compilation channels still posted Brenda Boom clips with titles like **ANALOG BOMBER MOST INSANE MOMENTS** and **TAB NEARLY DIES?** and **WHY FIXERS HATE THIS GIRL**, which irritated Brenda for several reasons, including accuracy. But the main pirate feed had not moved. No new countdown. No scrambled warning. No hand-painted title card. No bright voice cutting through static like she had personally offended every broadcast law in the city and was planning to do it again with better lighting. People assumed many things. That she had been arrested. That Rogue had killed the channel. That the Triad had locked her in a basement full of safety manuals. That a corp had bought her. That she had died. That she had grown up. The last theory offended Brenda most. At 21:03, every old relay marker tied to Brenda Boom Presents woke up at once. Not cleanly. Never cleanly. The first sign was a pulse of analog snow across illegal entertainment boards in Watson. Then a burst of color bars on old scavenged screens in Heywood. Then a flicker on a broken vending machine display in Kabuki that had not sold anything edible in two years but apparently still had enough dignity to pirate television. A tone rolled through the feed. Low. Warm. Slightly wrong. Then the screen went black. Five seconds passed. In Night City, five silent seconds on a dead pirate channel was not emptiness. It was bait. The chat count appeared first. Then the viewer count. Then the viewer count stopped pretending numbers were stable. A hand-painted logo slammed into the frame. **BRENDA BOOM PRESENTS** The chat exploded so fast half the messages became visual noise. > NO WAY > SHE’S BACK > TAB LIVES > BRENDA??? > I WAS HERE > I WAS HERE > I WAS HERE > WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN > IS SOMETHING EXPLODING > PLEASE SAY SOMETHING EXPLODING > WAIT IS THIS THE ACE THING > OH MY GOD IT’S THE ACE THING The logo crackled. A second title burned in below it, letters uneven like they had been cut out of an old fight poster and threatened into behaving. **FIGHT NIGHT** The feed held. Then Brenda Boom stepped into frame. She wore a patched jacket, practical gloves, three cables draped over one shoulder, and the exact smile of a woman who knew she had been missed and planned to be unbearable about it. “Miss me?” The chat became unusable. Brenda gave it three seconds. Four. Five. She looked off-camera, listening to the flood of notifications through an earpiece she had definitely built out of parts that had once belonged to five different legal devices. Then she looked back. “Good evening, Night City.” A pause. “Tonight’s episode is sponsored by bad decisions.” She leaned closer to the lens. “Not officially. Official sponsors have lawyers. Lawyers have questions. Questions slow down the art.” Behind her, out of focus, noise swelled. Not music. Crowd. Metal. Voices. A thousand ugly little sounds rubbing together. Brenda stepped aside. The camera adjusted. The arena came into view. It was not an arena in the legal sense, which meant it was exactly an arena in the Night City sense. An abandoned freight sorting yard had been gutted and converted into a ring of stacked containers, floodlights, scaffolding, jury-rigged screens, and enough illegal power draw to make the local grid develop a nervous tic. The central fighting space had been cleared and marked with industrial paint. No ropes. No official barriers. Just a broad circular zone surrounded by people who had paid, threatened, bribed, or hacked their way close enough to see blood. Animals held the west side. They did not so much occupy it as swell against it. Muscle, laughter, bare arms, heavy shoulders, bodies built to make statements. They moved like the crowd itself was breathing through them. Maelstrom held the east. Red optics. Metal jaws. weaponized posture. Stillness that clicked. Between those two noisy religions stood the Triad. Ace was near the edge of the fighting circle, small and black-haired, her expression flat enough to make the entire event look like a scheduling error. Mai stood a few steps behind her, hands relaxed, eyes moving in quiet measurements. Shammy stood beside Mai, tall enough that even the bad camera angle could not soften her. Silver-white hair. Electric-blue gaze. The faint impression that the air around her had opinions. Brenda’s camera lingered just long enough for the chat to understand. > ACE > ACE ACE ACE > SHE’S ACTUALLY THERE > TRIAD > THAT’S SHAMMY RIGHT > WHO LET BRENDA NEAR THIS > WHY IS BRENDA WITH THEM > WAIT BRENDA LIVES WITH THEM NOW??? > SOURCE???? > LOOK AT MAI SHE IS NOT AMUSED > ACE IS SO SMALL WTF > THAT’S THE POINT IDIOT Brenda’s voice came back over the feed. “So for those of you joining us late, which is rude but forgiven because the city is on fire in several metaphorical ways, tonight we have a two-round public challenge issued by Animals and Maelstrom against Ace.” She turned the camera slightly, giving the viewers a better view of the ring. “Round one: hand-to-hand. Animals champion. Fight ends when someone cannot continue.” The camera panned to the Maelstrom side. “Round two: melee. Maelstrom champion. Rules are ‘anything you can carry,’ which is legally not a rule and spiritually a cry for help. No guns. No explosives. No distance toys. Just bad choices at arm’s length.” She turned the camera back toward herself. “And the question allegedly being answered tonight is whether Ace has hidden combat chrome.” Brenda held the pause. Then smiled without humor. “Because apparently Night City saw someone impossible and decided reality was underperforming.” At the edge of the ring, Ace looked toward her. Brenda saw it on the monitor and winced. “Love you too,” she muttered off-mic. The mic caught it. The chat loved it. Mai did not. ## Chapter 4 — Round One: Animals The Animals champion was named Bullrush because apparently subtlety had been murdered in his childhood. He entered the ring to a roar from the west side, arms raised, chest bare, veins standing out across shoulders thick enough to have their own weather system. He was tall, wide, and built from the kind of confidence that came from years of rooms moving aside before he had to ask. Brenda’s camera tracked him. “Okay,” she said. “That man definitely skips leg day.” The chat filled with question marks. Brenda let it sit. “Because he skipped every other day too.” Somewhere behind her, one of the Animals yelled something anatomically rude. Brenda did not turn around. “I stand by my independent analysis.” Bullrush rolled his neck and laughed down at Ace. Ace stood across from him with her hands loose at her sides. She was so much smaller that the difference became absurd. Not just height. Scale. Bullrush looked like someone had carved him to block doors. Ace looked like someone who had been placed in the ring by accident and had not yet told anyone it was their mistake. That was the part Night City never understood. Ace’s size invited the first wrong assumption. Her stillness punished the second. Bullrush pointed at her. “No blades. No tricks.” Ace looked up at him. “Okay.” He waited. She did not add anything. The crowd shifted, disappointed by the lack of speech. Bullrush grinned. “You gonna show us where the chrome is?” Ace tilted her head. “No.” That got laughter. Not from the Triad side. Mai did not move. Shammy’s gaze stayed on Bullrush as if he had become a pressure reading. Brenda’s commentary lowered. “Round one about to start. I’m going to say this once for the feed: do not try this at home. Do not try this outside home. Do not try this near a home. If you are watching a woman named Ace fight an Animals champion and thinking ‘I could do that,’ please seek immediate supervision.” Someone shouted the start. Bullrush came forward. Not reckless. That was the first surprise. He was huge, but not stupid. His opening movement was heavy pressure with a testing jab, shoulder rolled, hips ready to follow with a body-level smash that would have folded most people in half if they tried to stand their ground. Ace did not stand her ground. She stepped half a line off center. Bullrush adjusted. Fast, for his size. Ace moved again. He swung. The strike passed where her head had been and hit only air. The crowd roared anyway because a huge man missing a small target still looked dramatic if you loved the wrong thing. Ace touched his wrist. Not a grab. A note. Bullrush frowned. He threw the second attack harder. Ace ducked under the arc, stepped inside, and hit him once under the ribs. The sound was small. Bullrush’s breath changed. Mai’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. Brenda stopped talking. That was when the stream changed. Thousands of viewers heard the absence of her voice before they understood why. Bullrush tried to clinch. That should have ended it. If he got both hands on Ace, if he could pin, crush, lift, slam, turn the fight back into mass, the story would become simple again. Ace did not let the story become simple. She dropped her weight, turned under one arm, drove an elbow into the inside line of his bicep, shifted, and kicked his knee from an angle that did not break it but made every nerve in the joint reconsider employment. Bullrush snarled. Ace was already gone. He turned. She was at his side. He swung down. She stepped in. The crowd’s noise fractured. People wanted a brawl. They got geometry. Bullrush tried to make the fight about strength. Ace made it about timing. He tried to make it about reach. Ace made it about angles. He tried to make it about intimidation. Ace made it about breath. After the fourth exchange, Bullrush stopped laughing. After the sixth, the west side stopped laughing with him. Brenda’s voice returned, quieter than before. “Okay.” That was all she said. Bullrush charged. This time there was frustration in it. That was the third mistake. The first had been assuming small meant fragile. The second had been assuming Ace was avoiding him because she could not take contact. The third was giving Ace a straight line. She let him commit. At the last possible instant, she stepped outside his drive, caught his wrist, turned with his momentum, and struck three times in a sequence so fast the feed compressed into blur. Elbow. Knee. Palm. Not flashy. Not cinematic. Not generous. Bullrush hit the ground on one knee. The impact shook dust from the painted ring. The Animals side screamed for him to get up. He did. That was his courage. He should not have. That was his pride. Ace watched him rise. For the first time, something like irritation crossed her face. Not anger. Disappointment that he was going to make her finish it harder. Bullrush raised his guard. Ace moved. The end took less than four seconds. A low feint. A pivot. A strike into the already damaged line. A second strike that folded his balance. A third that put him down without smashing his skull into the ground because Ace was not here to entertain the parts of the crowd that wanted proof through ugliness. Bullrush tried to push up. His arm trembled. His leg did not answer properly. He looked furious. Then he stopped trying. The silence after the call lasted half a second. Then the arena erupted. Brenda exhaled into the mic. “Round one goes to Ace.” The chat drowned itself. > NO WAY > THAT WAS FAST > HE GOT DISMANTLED > HIDDEN CHROME > NO THAT WAS TECHNIQUE > TECHNIQUE MY ASS > REPLAY > FRAME BY FRAME > SHE TOUCHED HIM AND HE BROKE > ANIMALS COPING HARD Ace did not look at the crowd. She walked back to the Triad side. Mai held out a water bottle. Ace took it. Their fingers touched briefly. Mai’s eyes moved across Ace’s shoulders, neck, jaw, breath. “Anything compromised?” “No.” “Pain?” “Annoyance.” “That is not a body region.” Ace drank. Shammy held a towel. Ace took that too, dabbing at a split near one knuckle that had not been there before. Brenda lowered the camera slightly and stepped closer, still keeping the feed angled away from anything too private. “Don’t die,” she said. Ace looked at her. “Wasn’t planning to.” “That is exactly what people say before becoming ironic.” “Brenda.” “Fine. Professional silence.” Three seconds passed. Brenda looked at Mai. “How long does professional silence usually last?” Mai said, “For professionals?” Brenda nodded. Mai said, “Longer.” ## Chapter 5 — Between Rounds The break should have calmed the arena. It did not. Animals anger had body heat. It rolled across the west side in waves. Some of them shouted that Bullrush had slipped. Others yelled about nerve strikes. A few were already rebuilding the rumor in real time, adding invisible joint actuators, micro-servo muscle control, subdermal density plating. Anything except accepting what they had seen. On the east side, Maelstrom watched with a different kind of hunger. That was worse. The Animals had lost a contest. Maelstrom had gained a question. Mai saw it first. Not because the Maelstrom side moved more. Because they moved less. “The second fighter changed plan,” she said. Ace twisted the cap back onto the water bottle. “Good.” “It is not good.” “Better than boring.” Mai gave her a look. Ace returned it with the bland innocence of someone who had never been innocent in her life. Shammy’s hair lifted again, silver-white shifting with faint static. She looked toward the Maelstrom side. “They are not angry enough.” Brenda, who had been checking two overlay feeds at once, paused. “That is a terrible sentence.” “It is accurate,” Mai said. “Oh, I believed it. That’s why it’s terrible.” Ace rolled her shoulder. A tiny motion. Too tiny for most people to notice. Mai noticed. Shammy noticed. Brenda noticed only because both of them noticed, which made her look sharply at Ace. “You got hit?” “No.” Mai said, “Impact transfer.” Ace sighed. “Barely.” Brenda looked offended. “You know words like ‘barely’ are how people end up on medical dramas, right?” Ace glanced toward her. “You watch medical dramas?” “I study pacing.” Mai stepped closer and set her fingers lightly against Ace’s shoulder. Ace held still. The gesture looked small from the outside. From inside the Triad’s rhythm, it was a conversation. Mai’s hand moved once. Ace’s jaw tightened by a millimeter. Mai said, “Later.” Ace said, “Fine.” Shammy leaned down slightly, bringing her voice closer without making it private enough to seem secret. “Do not turn this into punishment.” Ace looked up. “For them?” “For yourself.” The words landed in the space between them. Brenda pretended to adjust the camera because looking directly at people being seen too clearly felt like trespassing. Ace looked toward the ring. “They asked.” “Yes,” Shammy said. “They did.” A pause. “Answer the challenge. Not the hunger around it.” Ace did not respond. That meant she had heard. Across the ring, the Maelstrom champion stepped forward. She was tall, chrome-framed, and carried herself with an almost religious confidence. Her face had once been human and still technically remembered the shape. Red optics burned where eyes should have softened. Metal traced the jaw, the throat, the hands. One arm was more machine than flesh, polished in some places, scarred in others. She wore no theatrical armor. She did not need to. The body was already a declaration. In one hand she carried a hooked blade, short enough for close work, ugly enough to avoid romance. At her hip hung a chain weighted with a triangular metal head. Brenda’s camera tightened. “Round two,” she said. “Maelstrom champion entering the ring. Name circulating as Serrate. Because of course it is.” The chat flared. > SERRATE??? > SHE CUT A GUY IN HALF LAST MONTH > FAKE > NOT FAKE > ACE SHOULD HAVE GUNS > RULES SAY NO GUNS > RULES ARE STUPID > THAT IS WHY WE ARE WATCHING Ace handed the water bottle back to Mai. Mai took it. “Do not let her set your rhythm.” Ace’s mouth curved slightly. “She won’t like mine.” “No,” Mai said. “That is the concern.” Ace stepped away. Shammy’s hand brushed the back of Ace’s hair once. It was barely a touch. The air settled. Ace walked into the ring. The arena noise changed again. The first fight had been loud with expectation. The second was quiet with appetite. Serrate watched Ace approach and smiled with teeth that had been improved by someone who thought biting was a philosophy. “There you are.” Ace stopped at the marked center. Serrate tilted her head. “No ports.” Ace said nothing. “No visible seams.” Nothing. “No heat bloom from muscle rig.” Ace blinked once. Serrate’s smile widened. “Beautiful work.” Ace finally spoke. “You talk a lot.” Serrate laughed. The sound came through metal. “I want to know where they hid you.” Ace looked up at her. “They didn’t.” Serrate’s optics brightened. “Then we find out what you look like open.” The crowd loved that. Brenda did not. Her voice came through the stream low and flat. “Reminder for the feed: if your personal philosophy requires opening someone to settle a debate, your philosophy may be experiencing structural problems.” The signal caught laughter from several places. Not from the Triad side. The start call came. Serrate moved. ## Chapter 6 — Round Two: Maelstrom There was no testing strike. Serrate came in fast, blade first, chain hand low, body angled to hide the second line of attack. Her movement carried chrome certainty, a precision shaped by servos and altered nerves and the deep belief that flesh was an outdated negotiation. Ace gave ground. The crowd screamed. Serrate cut once, twice, then snapped the chain low toward Ace’s legs. Ace jumped over it, landed inside the arc, and had to twist hard to avoid the returning blade. The edge kissed fabric. A black line opened along her sleeve. The arena noise spiked. Brenda’s breath caught before she muted herself. Mai’s hands did not move. Shammy’s eyes brightened. Ace stepped back. Looked at the cut. Then at Serrate. Serrate smiled. “There.” Ace said, “That was my jacket.” “Wear better skin.” Ace’s expression went very calm. Brenda whispered, “Oh no.” The chat caught it. > OH NO WHAT > BRENDA WHAT DOES OH NO MEAN > WHY DID SHE SAY OH NO > WHAT IS ACE DOING > WHY IS MAI NOT MOVING > SHAMMY LOOKS SCARY > OH NO IS CORRECT Ace drew the first katana. The sound was not loud. It carried anyway. Emerald frequency slid through the floodlight glare, not glowing like cheap theater, but cutting a line through attention itself. The weapon looked too elegant for the yard, too clean for the rust, too honest for the crowd. Serrate’s smile changed. Not fear. Recognition. “Good.” She attacked again. This time Ace did not retreat. Steel met hooked blade with a sound that made the front row flinch. Serrate drove in, trying to use her weight and augmented arm to force Ace backward. Ace let the force arrive. Then she changed its address. The katana turned, slid, redirected, and Serrate’s blade struck the ground hard enough to throw sparks. Ace’s foot hit Serrate’s knee joint. Not the meat. The hinge. Serrate staggered half a step, chain already moving. The weighted head came in from the side. Ace ducked. It passed close enough to disturb her hair. She cut the chain. The severed end snapped away into the dirt. The crowd inhaled as one animal. Serrate looked at the broken chain. Then at Ace. The smile vanished. There it was, Brenda thought. There was the thing under the ritual. Not curiosity. Not philosophy. Ego. Serrate came harder. The fight lost its shape as spectacle and became work. Ugly work. Close work. The hooked blade tried to trap the katana. Ace turned the trap into a cut across Serrate’s forearm plating. Serrate punched with the chrome arm. Ace slid under the strike, but the edge of it caught her shoulder and spun her half a step. She recovered before the crowd could decide whether to cheer. Mai’s eyes sharpened. “Left,” she said. The word did not sound like a command. It did not need to. Ace shifted left as Serrate’s footwork changed. The next blade line passed through the space Ace had occupied. Brenda’s camera captured it perfectly. She said nothing. For once, she did not want the sound of her own voice over the thing happening in front of her. Serrate began to adapt. That made her dangerous. She stopped overcommitting with the blade. She used her chrome arm to threaten space. She changed the angle of her shoulders to hide the real attack behind false openings. She fought like someone who had survived enough close violence to learn that cruelty was not the same thing as carelessness. Ace’s second katana came free. The arena dropped into stunned noise. Two emerald lines now. Serrate laughed once. “Yes.” Ace moved. Not faster. Cleaner. That was worse. The first katana caught Serrate’s blade and held it half a breath too long. The second cut across the strap holding her backup tool. Serrate twisted, drove an elbow down, nearly caught Ace against the side of the head. Ace rolled under it, came up inside Serrate’s guard, and slammed the hilt into the junction below the chrome jaw. Serrate’s head snapped back. Ace did not follow with the blade. She followed with a knee to the abdomen, a turn, a cut shallow enough to disable without opening the femoral line, and a kick that took Serrate’s leg from under her. Serrate hit the ground. She rolled. Good recovery. Too good. Ace was already there. Serrate swung the hooked blade from the ground, trying to force distance. Ace pinned it with one katana. The second stopped at Serrate’s throat. Not touching. Close enough. The arena froze. Serrate’s optics burned red inches above the emerald edge. For one second, everyone understood how easy it would be. For one second, Maelstrom got exactly what they had asked for. Not proof of hidden chrome. Proof that something small and human-shaped could decide whether the next breath happened. Ace looked down at Serrate. “Done.” Serrate’s jaw worked. Pride fought survival. Survival won, but badly. She released the blade. The call went out. Ace stepped back immediately. No flourish. No pose. No victory claim. She sheathed one katana, then the other, and turned toward the Triad. The noise came late. When it arrived, it arrived wrong. Not celebration. Argument. The crowd split itself open. Animals shouted that Maelstrom had choked. Maelstrom screamed that Ace had hidden systems. Half the crowd cheered because they had wanted violence and got quality. The other half shouted because the quality had not explained itself. Chat became a battlefield. > CHROMED > NOT CHROMED > YOU CAN SEE THE BOOSTER TIMING > YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT BOOSTER TIMING IS > HAUNTED > SHE’S HAUNTED > THAT SWORD CUT CHROME > THAT WAS SKILL > THAT WAS NOT HUMAN > THAT WAS ACE Brenda stared at the feed. Then at Ace, who had reached Mai and was letting Mai look at the shoulder impact with a lack of protest that meant it hurt more than she wanted to admit. Brenda turned the camera toward herself. For once, her smile was smaller. “Well.” She glanced at the chaos behind her. “That answered absolutely nothing.” The chat loved it. Brenda kept going. “Half the city still thinks she’s chromed. The other half now thinks she’s haunted.” She looked past the camera, toward Ace. “Personally?” A pause. “I’m just glad she’s on my side.” She leaned closer. “Stream ending in three.” The chat screamed. “Two.” The arena roared. “One.” Brenda smiled. “Boom.” The feed cut to black. ## Chapter 7 — Home, Not Hideout The trip back to the safehouse was quiet in the way vehicles became quiet after too much noise had tried and failed to follow them inside. Brenda sat in the back with her rig across her knees, checking the dead feed even though she knew it was dead because she had killed it herself. Three mirrors were already rehosting clips. Seven commentary channels had begun arguing over whether the second fight proved hidden chrome or disproved conventional human limitation. Someone had clipped her “reality was underperforming” line and set it to a bass drop. Brenda made a face. Mai, in the front passenger seat, did not turn around. “How many relay nodes?” Brenda’s thumbs stopped. Ace, sitting beside her with one shoulder taped temporarily under her jacket, opened one eye. Brenda cleared her throat. “Define relay.” “Brenda.” “Enough to maintain signal integrity under hostile interference.” Mai looked at the side mirror. “How many illegal ones?” Brenda hesitated. Shammy, seated on Brenda’s other side because the vehicle had not been designed by anyone who respected tall women, looked down at her. The air inside the vehicle became very still. Brenda nodded wisely. “I will eat before answering further questions.” Ace closed her eye again. “Coward.” “Alive coward.” Mai said, “Temporarily.” Brenda hugged the rig closer. “This household has a hostile relationship with artistic infrastructure.” Ace muttered, “This household has you.” “Exactly. Infrastructure.” Shammy smiled. That helped. A little. When they reached the safehouse, the building felt less like a hiding place than a hand closing around them. Watson’s night stayed outside with the rain, headlights, arguments, distant sirens, and all the hungry signal of a city already turning Fight Night into product. Inside, the air was warmer. Not safe. Safe was too absolute a word for Night City. But survivable. Marco had food ready because Marco responded to crisis by feeding it until it became less sharp. Lena had cleared space on the table before anyone asked. Kiro had already pulled up seven stream mirrors and was muttering at compression artifacts with the intensity of someone personally offended by bad encoding. Reyes stood near the kitchen entrance. Red hair tied back. Arms crossed. Expression unreadable in the way that meant she had already read everything. Ace stopped just inside the door. Reyes looked her up and down. Once. “Sit down.” Ace sighed. “Hello to you too.” “Chair.” “I was going to.” “No, you were going to say you were fine, steal coffee, and stand in the worst possible posture until someone smaller than your ego had to make you stop.” Brenda leaned toward Kiro and whispered, “Is this romance?” Kiro whispered back, “I think so.” Lena placed a bowl in front of Brenda without looking at her. “Eat.” Brenda looked down. Then at Lena. “Yes, ma’am.” Mai removed her coat and hung it with too much precision. “Reyes.” Reyes did not take her eyes off Ace. “Yeah.” “Shoulder impact. Left side. Possible rib bruising from round one. She will underreport everything.” Ace made an offended sound. Reyes nodded. “I noticed.” “I object,” Ace said. Mai said, “Logged and ignored.” Marco coughed into his hand. It sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Ace pointed at him. “Don’t.” Marco lifted both hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Lena looked at him. Marco lowered his hands. “Dream cancelled.” Shammy moved past Ace and touched the edge of the nearest lamp. It had been flickering since they entered. It steadied under her fingers. Brenda watched that, then looked away quickly because some things in the safehouse still felt like they deserved privacy even when they happened in plain view. Reyes pulled out a chair. Ace stared at it. Reyes stared at Ace. The household, in perfect and insulting unity, pretended not to watch. Ace sat. “Happy?” “No.” Reyes stepped closer and gently touched Ace’s chin, turning her head toward the light. Ace allowed it. That was the first real sign that the fight had cost something. Reyes checked one cheekbone, then the line of her jaw, then the side of her neck. Her hands were not tentative. They were careful. There was a difference. She touched like someone who knew bodies did not tell the truth all at once. “Jacket off.” Ace looked at Mai. Mai looked back. There would be no rescue from that direction. Ace removed the jacket. The left sleeve had a clean cut through it from Serrate’s blade. Reyes picked up the fabric, examined it, and her mouth flattened. “That close?” Ace shrugged with the wrong shoulder. Reyes’s eyes sharpened. “Do that again and I’ll tape both arms down.” Brenda, from the table, made a very small noise. Reyes looked at her. Brenda put food in her mouth and became fascinated by chewing. Shammy’s eyes brightened with quiet amusement. Reyes crouched slightly to check Ace’s shoulder line. “You’re tight through here.” “I fought two idiots.” “You let one idiot transfer force through your left side and the other clip your shoulder.” “I won.” “Congratulations. Your muscles did not receive the memo.” Ace looked annoyed. Reyes looked unimpressed. The room began to drift away from them without being told. Mai stayed close for another few breaths, watching Reyes’s hands, Ace’s breathing, the small betrayals of posture that Ace could not entirely hide. Then Mai said, “Tell me if anything is worse than she admits.” Reyes did not smile. “That list starts at her mouth and works down.” Ace said, “I hate this room.” Shammy passed behind her and touched her hair once. “No, you do not.” Ace muttered something in Japanese that made Mai’s mouth twitch. Reyes said, “I heard tone.” “You heard nothing.” “I heard poor patient cooperation.” “I’m not a patient.” “You are if I say so.” Ace looked up at her. Reyes looked down. The challenge was familiar, warm around the edges, dangerous in no way the room needed to fear. Finally Ace looked away first. “Fine.” Mai gave Reyes one small nod. Then she stepped back. Not out of indifference. Out of trust. That made Ace quieter than anything else had. ## Chapter 8 — Hands That Know Where It Hurts Reyes had been a merc long enough that most people forgot the other thing. That suited her. People in Night City liked clean labels. Merc. Solo. Runner. Fixer. Tech. Problem. Asset. Corp. Gang. Victim. Reyes had never fit clean labels well enough to respect them. Before the merc work, before the debt, before Watson made every doorway a negotiation, she had trained hands to read the body without first asking who had caused the damage. Sports massage therapist was not a title that impressed people who measured worth in weapon calibers. That was their loss. Bodies were honest if you knew how to listen. Ace’s body was furious. Reyes moved her to the couch because the chair was wrong and Ace was too stubborn to ask for better. She made her sit forward, boots planted, shirt shifted enough to expose shoulder and upper back without turning care into spectacle. The safehouse gave them space. Mai was nearby but not hovering. Shammy had settled into one of the larger chairs, long legs angled carefully around furniture that had not been built for her. Her presence made the room’s air low and even. Marco and Lena kept the kitchen moving. Kiro watched replay footage silently now, wearing headphones, one hand over her mouth. Brenda had retreated to the end of the table with food, her rig beside her, still lit by status LEDs. For once, she did not narrate. Reyes warmed her hands. Ace noticed. “You don’t have to do the whole thing.” “I know.” “I’m fine.” Reyes placed two fingers beside Ace’s left shoulder blade and pressed. Ace went completely still. Reyes waited. Ace said nothing. Reyes pressed a fraction deeper. Ace’s breath caught. “Fine, huh?” Reyes said. “That was betrayal.” “That was anatomy.” From the kitchen, Marco made the dangerous choice to laugh quietly. Ace pointed at him without turning. Reyes caught the pointing hand and put it back down. “No.” Ace looked over her shoulder. “No?” “No using threats as pain management.” “That is half my personality.” “I know. We’re rehabilitating.” Ace looked personally wronged. Reyes began working through the shoulder. Not gently at first. Gentleness was not always kindness. Sometimes gentleness only let the body keep lying. She used slow pressure, then release, then angled contact along the muscle that had locked around the impact. Ace’s breathing changed in tiny increments. Guarding. Resistance. Forced relaxation. More guarding. Reyes tracked all of it. “You let the Animals guy push force into this side.” “I redirected.” “You absorbed before you redirected.” “He was big.” “Noticed.” “Did you enjoy the stream?” Reyes’s hands paused. Ace’s attempt at distraction had been elegant in the way throwing a knife at a wall was elegant. “No.” Ace tilted her head. Reyes resumed work. “I watched after the first round.” “You were there?” “I watched it again anyway.” Ace did not answer. Reyes moved down along the edge of the scapula and felt the exact place Ace had decided pain could wait until later. It had waited. It was no longer later. Ace’s fingers curled against her knee. Reyes softened the pressure. Not much. Enough. “Why?” Ace asked. Reyes understood the question. Why watch again. Why look at the thing that had already happened in front of her. Why choose the outside view when she had seen Ace with her own eyes. “Because from the outside,” Reyes said, “you look impossible.” Ace went quiet. The whole room seemed to understand that the conversation had narrowed even if everyone else pretended not to. Reyes kept her hands steady. Ace’s voice came lower. “And from here?” Reyes’s palm settled warm against Ace’s back. The body under her hand was small, tense, bruised, overheated from adrenaline fading too late. Real muscle. Real breath. Real pain. Real stubbornness. Not chrome. Not myth. Not rumor. Not a clip for people to slow down until humanity disappeared between frames. “From here,” Reyes said, “you feel real.” Ace did not move. Reyes did not push the words further. That was how you ruined true things. You repeated them until they became performance. After a long moment, Ace said, “That was almost sentimental.” “Don’t spread rumors.” “Brenda has a channel.” Brenda, from across the room, lifted one finger without looking up. “I am eating and respecting privacy.” Lena said, “Good choice.” Brenda lowered the finger. Reyes continued down Ace’s back, then along the ribs, careful with the bruised area. Ace hissed once and immediately looked furious at herself. Reyes leaned closer. “No one scores you here.” Ace’s mouth tightened. “I know.” “Do you?” Ace did not answer quickly. That was almost an answer. Reyes worked until the muscle stopped fighting her like an enemy. She checked the shoulder again, the neck, the jaw. She had Ace turn, stretch, breathe, stop pretending the stretch did not hurt, then breathe correctly because Reyes waited in silence until compliance became less annoying than resistance. At some point Mai brought water. Ace took it without looking. Mai’s fingers brushed the back of her hand. Ace held the bottle a little longer than necessary. Reyes saw. Mai saw Reyes seeing. Nothing needed to be said. That was one of the strangest things about the safehouse, Reyes thought. The trust was not simple. It had architecture. Rooms inside rooms. Doors that stayed open because everyone knew what they guarded. Ace leaned back carefully when Reyes finally let her. “Am I allowed to live?” “For now.” “Generous.” “You’re sleeping on your right side tonight.” Ace opened one eye. “You assigning sleep positions now?” “Yes.” “That sounds invasive.” “That sounds like medical advice.” “You’re not a doctor.” “I know where you hurt.” Ace looked at her. Reyes looked back. The warmth came in sideways, as it usually did between them. Neither of them had much patience for softness that arrived wearing perfume and asking to be admired. Their tenderness tended to come with bruises, insults, practical instructions, and the kind of quiet that did not demand translation. Ace shifted slightly closer. Reyes let her. “Stay,” Ace said. Small word. No decoration. Reyes’s expression changed only at the edges. “Was going to.” “Good.” Across the room, Brenda made another tiny noise and hid it in her food. Shammy’s smile turned the air soft. Mai sat down nearby, close enough to be there, far enough to leave the shape of the moment intact. Outside, Night City was already chewing Fight Night into legend. Inside, Ace rested under hands that knew where it hurt. That mattered more. ## Chapter 9 — Iris on the Line Later, when the safehouse had settled into its after-midnight rhythm and Ace had finally stopped pretending she was not tired, Brenda took her rig upstairs. Not because anyone told her to. That was important. No one made her retreat. No one scolded her out of the room. No one treated her like a problem to be put away now that the adults were handling the real aftermath. She simply knew the night had shifted. Ace had Reyes. Mai had the quiet line of sight she needed. Shammy had softened the weather inside the apartment until even the old pipes sounded less hostile. Marco and Lena had turned food, blankets, and practical silence into the kind of care no camera deserved to own. Kiro had fallen asleep half-sideways near a tablet still showing a frozen frame of Ace mid-dodge, one finger resting on the screen like she had been trying to understand the impossible through compression artifacts. Brenda went to the roof. The rain had slowed to mist. Watson stretched around her in layers of neon damp and electrical fatigue. Somewhere below, someone shouted. Somewhere farther away, a siren tried to sound important and failed. Brenda set the camera rig on the low wall beside her. For a while, she just looked at it. The old Brenda Boom Presents logo was scratched along one side in paint that had survived heat, smoke, transport, bad weather, and several decisions she would not describe honestly in a court that respected itself. The comeback had worked. That was not the question. The channel had woken. The city had watched. The stream had held under hostile interference, three attempted hijacks, two brute-force flood attacks, and one extremely petty fake copyright strike from a user Brenda was pretty sure belonged to a 6th Street media goblin with too much free time. She should have been glowing. She was, a little. But the thing about public noise was that it left a vacuum behind when it stopped. Brenda pulled out her phone. She stared at the contact for three seconds longer than necessary. Then called. The line rang twice. Iris answered on the third. “You are alive.” Brenda leaned against the rooftop wall and smiled before she could stop herself. “Hi to you too.” “I watched the stream.” “I assumed.” “You opened with ‘Miss me?’” “That is called brand continuity.” “That is called making every sensible person in Night City consider developing a headache.” “I don’t market to sensible people.” “No,” Iris said. “You collect them by accident and worry them on purpose.” Brenda looked down at the street. A vending machine flickered below like it had opinions about romance. “So,” she said. “How bad was it?” “The stream or the part where you announced yourself like a wanted woman with a production budget?” Brenda closed her eyes. “That was one time.” “Which part?” “The wanted woman part.” Iris made a small sound that might have been a laugh if she had been less disciplined about letting Brenda win. Brenda turned, sliding down to sit with her back against the low wall. The roof was cold through her jacket. It helped. “Be honest,” she said. “I usually am.” “But not mean-honest.” “You called the wrong person if you wanted decorative honesty.” Brenda smiled again, softer this time. “I know.” The line quieted for a moment. When Iris spoke again, her voice had changed. Still dry. Still herself. But closer. “The opening worked. You let the dead channel breathe before you appeared. Good tension.” Brenda’s shoulders loosened. “The title worked. Fight Night was simple enough to travel.” “I told them.” “The commentary was mostly controlled.” “Mostly?” “You nearly overplayed the first three minutes.” Brenda put a hand over her heart even though Iris could not see it. “Wounded.” “You asked.” “I asked for comments, not emotional ballistics.” “Then do not call someone who likes you.” That shut Brenda up more effectively than any insult could have. She looked out over Watson. The mist caught neon until every sign bled color into the air. “You liked it?” “I liked parts of it.” Brenda snorted. “Wow. Romance.” “I liked you better when you stopped performing.” Brenda’s fingers tightened around the phone. Iris continued before she could deflect. “During the Animals fight. You went quiet. The whole stream changed. It stopped being Brenda Boom showing the city she was back, and started being you realizing what everyone was actually watching.” Brenda swallowed. “That sounds suspiciously like criticism.” “It is.” “Rude.” “It is also praise.” Brenda leaned her head back against the wall. “You are very annoying.” “I learned from professionals.” “I’m professionals?” “You are at least three public hazards in a jacket.” Brenda laughed. It came out smaller than her broadcast laugh. Better. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. Then Iris asked, “How is Ace?” Brenda looked toward the rooftop door, toward the warm rooms below. “Bruised. Annoyed. Being aggressively cared for by Reyes.” “Good.” “Yeah.” “And you?” Brenda opened her mouth. The easy answer waited there. Fine. Amazing. Legendary. Did you see the numbers? Instead she rubbed her thumb over a scratch in the phone case. “I missed it,” she said. Iris did not answer too quickly. “The channel?” Brenda looked at the rig. “The channel. The timing. The feeling when the signal catches and everyone looks at once.” She paused. “I didn’t miss the part where everyone turns into teeth.” “That part comes with audiences.” “I know.” “Knowing does not make it lighter.” “No.” The city hissed below her. Brenda listened to it and, for once, did not try to make it into content. “I wanted you to think it was good,” she said. There. Small. Terrible. True. Iris’s voice softened in the exact way that made Brenda want to hide under sarcasm and also never hang up. “I did.” Brenda breathed out. “It was dangerous,” Iris added. “There it is.” “And good.” “Both?” “Both.” Brenda smiled. “Emergency-meeting good or proud good?” Iris paused. “Both.” Brenda groaned. “You cannot keep using both. That is cheating.” “It is accurate.” “It is emotionally inefficient.” “You called me for honest feedback.” “I regret everything.” “No, you don’t.” Brenda looked at the dark camera rig beside her. “No,” she said. “I don’t.” Another quiet moment passed. Then Iris said, “Next time, warn me before you resurrect a dead pirate channel and point it at a gang challenge.” Brenda considered that. “How much warning?” “Enough that I can decide whether to worry professionally or personally.” “That distinction exists?” “With you? Barely.” Brenda laughed again. This time it stayed. Below, the safehouse door opened briefly and Shammy’s voice drifted up, gentle and impossible to ignore. “Brenda. Food is still warm.” Brenda looked toward the stairwell. “Coming.” Iris heard it. “You are home?” “Yeah.” “Good.” The word landed with more weight than Brenda expected. She looked out over Night City one last time. The city had watched her return. It would talk. It would distort. It would make clips, theories, accusations, myths. It always did. But below her there was food, warmth, people who would ask difficult questions about relay nodes, and one bruised, impossible woman being reminded that bodies mattered more than legends. On the line, Iris waited. Not demanding. Just there. Brenda picked up the camera rig. “So,” she said, standing. “Final rating?” Iris sighed. “Out of what?” “Ten.” “Production quality, eight.” “Rude but fair.” “Commentary, seven and a half.” “Cruel.” “Opening, nine.” Brenda grinned. “Correct.” “Personal concern level, twelve.” “That is not how ratings work.” “It is now.” Brenda reached the rooftop door. “And overall?” Iris’s answer came after a small pause. “Very you.” Brenda stopped. The grin softened. “Good very me or emergency-meeting very me?” Iris said, “Both.” Brenda laughed into the stairwell. “Goodnight, Iris.” “Goodnight, Brenda.” The call ended. Brenda stood there a moment longer, phone in one hand, rig in the other, the city behind her and the safehouse below. Then she went downstairs. Not to hide. Home was not a hiding place. Home was where the legend stopped being useful and people still saved you a plate. ---