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Night City is the worst during the day. Nobody likes it. It’s hot, it smells, and the swiss cheese excuse for an ozone layer does nothing to protect against the radiation emanating from the sun. The worst gangs are more active during the morning to early-afternoon hours as well, seemingly getting off on the idea of running around in broad daylight. At some point, you do have to get used to it. Either brave the skin cancer, psychogangs, and NCPD, in order to run your daytime errands, or head out at night and get disappeared, ticking up the Night City bodycount by one on the next morning’s news.
V hated it. She hated how the only time you could come alive and be yourself, was the time when you would disappear most unspectacularly. In your search for authenticity and an attempt to break the mould, you would die in some XBD recording studio without anybody even knowing you were missing. Sure, there were spots where you could feasibly have a good time and keep yourself safe simultaneously; anywhere controlled by the Mox had maybe a 50% less chance of getting you tossed in the back of a van. But maybe you didn’t want to get hit on all night by desperate joytoys. Maybe you didn’t want to get dirty looks from across the club floor, eyed by some timestuck Mox elitists who felt that you didn’t deserve to be here.
It was ironic, really. Probably a third of the sex workers in Night City were trans, and maybe 75% of the trans population in NC was into some sort of sex work. Even so, a large chunk of the Mox excluded them from the valuable protection and fair wages offered by the gang. And it wasn’t like you could form any cohesive group of trans individuals; either you meet in the daytime and put everyone in harm’s way, or you meet in the nighttime, and nobody shows up because everyone’s too busy getting stuffed in order to put food on the table.
The one small relief is that if you could afford it, any ripperdoc worth their salt would work you over with some new chrome that made you nearly unclockable. A new faceplate, voicebox, SynthSkinn, and some light bone restructuring? Might run you 20k eddies.
V snorted. She spent 20k eddies in a week alone, what with buying ammo, gear, and meds, for the week. She’d make 30k in that week, spending the 10k on staying alive, and sinking the rest right back into mercwork. Scraping by for survival, both on the job and financially. She hadn’t repaired most of her cyberware in months, and limbs and processes were starting to freeze up. A small voice in her head told her to see Vik, he’d give her a tune up free of charge. But a louder voice said that she was never going to go to Vik again unless she could pay him up front. Half the reason she became a merc was so that she could stop relying on others for her wellbeing.
Then again, if nobody hired her, she’d dry up pretty quick.
V pushed the thought away. Nothing worth dwelling on, she had a job to do. An important one at that; the bartender of the Afterlife needed her help? She’d just gained access to the legendary mercenary nightclub. Doing a job, a favour, even, for the bartender and anchor of the establishment would up her street cred considerably. Plus, maybe some free drinks would be in order.
Claire was also just a nice person in general, but being nice didn’t get you too far in Night City.
The mercenary rounded the corner, stepping into a short and secluded alleyway, a garage on her left. The smell of gasoline and oil immediately hit her. It reminded her a little bit of Jackie’s garage, and better times spent fine-tuning his Arch. She sniffed dismissively at her own thoughts. She was on the job right now. Not time for reminiscing. V steeled herself, formally donning her no-nonsense, detached killer persona. Her features hardened, her irises darkened, and she moved her shirt slightly to keep her sidearm revealed, the weapon grip peeking out from her waistband, as if begging someone to start something.
The borderline menacing look was knocked off her face just as quickly as it was put on. As she approached the garage, a familiar colour scheme caught V’s eye: pink, white, and blue. Like cotton candy. She focused on it, trying to process what she was seeing. On the back of what looked like somebody’s beloved-yet-roughed-up Thorton Mackinaw, was a flag. Specifically, the transgender pride flag.
V’s throat made a weird noise. She instantly spun around, checking all directions to make sure nobody was watching her, that this wasn’t some fucked up setup or message being sent by a cruel Tyger Claws gangoon. Her Kiroshi’s spied nothing.
“Oh, good, you’re here! One second.” A muffled voice rang out, and V swung her head back to the garage, looking for the source. Rolling out from under the Thorton, was Claire. She stood up, reaching under the truck with her foot and dragging out a wrench, before stretching and dusting herself off. After what felt like an eternity to V’s frazzled mind, Claire spoke. “Preem wheels, huh? I call her Beast.”
“Wait, so-” V looked from the rear end of the truck to Claire, stepping into the shade of the garage. “This is your ride?”
Claire patted ‘Beast’s’ hood, a look of fondness and pride on her face. “Yup. Been tuning and modding her for years now. All mine.”
Opening her mouth to speak again, V found that her voicebox only made that same weird noise. She coughed, scrambling to regain her composure.. “Sorry. Took some lead to the throat last job, modulator’s all fucked.” V hoped the unrepaired bullet wounds around her clavicle would lend some credence to the lie. She sniffed dryly. “No biggie.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “Neck looks fine to me.” The bartender took a step closer, and V’s eyes darted around the room, trying to find something to look at other than Claire’s dark green eyes.
“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Ripperdoc-” V sniffed again. “Uh-”
Suddenly, Claire was in her face. Her usually soft, welcoming features, were now sharp and betrayed a dark expression. And even though her eyes were ‘ganic, V could swear she saw storms in them. The oil and grime on her face was like war paint. Claire wasn’t even armed, and V still felt like she was about to be in the fight of her life.
Defuse, defuse, defuse. “Your makeup is uh, very industrial. The spent oil really makes your eyes pop.” The merc put on her friendliest grin, and finally mustered up the courage to look into the shorter woman’s eyes. It felt like Claire was staring into V’s soul, violently scraping through every thought she was having.
“You got a problem with me?” Claire finally asked, her face still not relaxing.
“Huh? Why would I? Should I?”
Claire looked into the interior of the car, and V followed her gaze. Right above the console was that flag, again. But this time, when she looked at it, V didn’t feel that burning anxiety in her gut that she always felt before something went wrong. She felt… she didn’t know how she felt. But she knew it was a good feeling, whatever it was.
When V looked back, Claire’s eyes were already boring into her skull again. She had to think of something to say, anything, that would make it clear to Claire that V wasn’t gonna be weird about this. That V wasn't a massive prick. That V herself was like, super duper trans. Fuck, there was so much she wanted to say.
The words tumbled out of her mouth with zero tact or subtlety.
“You’re like me.”
V watched Claire turn the statement over in her mind. It was only a millisec, but it felt like three lifetimes, as V waited for Claire to say something, anything. For a moment, she even thought she’d fucked up; Claire wasn’t trans, and V had just committed career suicide.
The bartender’s face suddenly became a mixture of pain and relief. The anger and posturing was thrown away, and tears began to bud at the corners of her eyes. She brought her arm up to her face, covering her eyes with her forearm.
V lifted a synthetic hand, pausing for a moment. “...Claire?” She took the other woman’s hand in her own. It was so soft, not like V’s cyborg limbs. Part of her could see why Claire had chosen not to install any chrome. It was like she was taking pride in her own body. Not grafted metal. “Um. Can I… uh?” V used placed her other hand just beyond Claire’s shoulder, offering herself to her. Hugs with ‘borgs like V weren’t the greatest, what with the sharp angles and rough SynthSkinn, but in the moment, it felt like it was all V would do.
Claire nodded her head into V’s chest, and the merc took it as her cue. She fully embraced her, wrapping her arms firmly, but not uncomfortably, around the woman. She felt so small, so soft, so delicate, in V’s grasp.
“Been so long.” Claire muttered, her voice wrought with emotion. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be-” V shushed her quickly.
“We gotta stick together.” V said carefully. “Cool of you to have the flag on your truck.” The Flag. Sounded almost conspiratorial. V still couldn’t say ‘trans’ out loud after all these years. She chalked it up to living in NC. “Need to stick together.” V repeated.
“Like glue.” Claire agreed.