Chapter Text
Jesus, Kiwi hated taking the NCART.
She was mostly thankful that she could turn off her sense of smell on a dime now— she didn't need to smell that puddle of piss she'd damn near stepped in climbing into a train car that had probably been nice about twenty years ago.
Delta, Maine had said, once the job had gone bad and the NCPD were on them like ugly on a cop. They can't catch us all, he said. Oh, we'll take the getaway car though, he said.
It wasn't like Kiwi was exactly unrecognizable either in her deep red trenchcoat and her hot pink mouthpiece, with her red eyes and her skyscraper figure. She just had to hope that the pigs were paying more attention to the couple built like trucks gunning it down the 5 instead of the woman walking briskly off to lose herself in the crowd.
But a few hours and a few dozen miles on, it was so far so good, anyways. And as far as the NCART went, it was peaceful. They were way past commuter hours, so it was mostly just barhoppers and the local homeless population. Which wasn't to say that it wasn't crowded, but it was less crowded. Which Kiwi would take.
She watched Night City rumble on past them, all neon and stained concrete, and she would have mused on how much she hated the city on the whole— but she didn't get the chance.
The sound of a light click, just at the back of her neck, broke her away from her thoughts.
If she was your average citizen with your average neural mod, she wouldn't know anything was amiss. Whatever, or whoever, had done the deed had moved through her head like a ghost. But, Kiwi was fucking good at her job, and she had the kit to match. Get caught off guard by too many unregistered users trying to play with your soft, and you developed an eye for this kind of subterfuge. Hell, she'd coded a piece of soft just for this kind of situation. It only took her a split second to cross-reference her diagnostics to catch that the chips slotted into the base of her neck had been forcibly ejected, and only a second longer to turn her head.
Just in time to see a figure, dressed in a ratty brown hoodie, slipping their pale hand into their pocket. They had almost gotten away with it, too.
She narrowed her eyes. Fucking picksockets.
She reached out through her NFC faster than the hand could ever reach. Unless they were some kind of ascetic monk they had their own neural more like than not, and in the moments between seconds she had confirmation. It wasn't half bad; Arasaka branded, decent encryption. It was almost a challenge, slipping through and patching herself in, knocking on her thief's comms. She didn't need to make a scene, nor could she really afford to draw attention to herself right now anyways. Text would be fine.
[heyyyyyyy. slick fuckin work, kid. almost impressed]
[who is this?]
[look behind you, smartass.]
The figure froze, and slowly turned around. Their eyes met, and she saw those sad opal eyes for the first time. A fringe of a snow white bang poked out from underneath her hood to frame her pale face.
Kiwi almost felt bad for the sucker, but you couldn't feel bad about every down-on-their-luck sad sack in Night City. There wasn't enough empathy in the world.
But, there were grown-ass adults who struggled with the kind of finesse this kid had managed in a heartbeat. It was curiosity more than pity that kept her from plucking their digital wings just as quickly.
[nice trick. not a simple move, confirming the handshake and suppressing the notification at the same time, you know?]
[what do you want from me.]
[pretty simple. you have two choices kiddo. one, you walk over here and gimme my shards back. or two, i short your neural mod and you lose the next two hours. and i walk over there and grab my chips anyways :)]
She feels a struggle, a familiar enough one. The link worked both ways, after all, and she felt an unfamiliar user trying to press into her own brainspace, spectral fingernails trying to find purchase.
Oh, this was how they wanted to play, huh?
[the brass balls on you, choom. i like your spunk, but i wouldnt if i were you. can do this all fuckin night.]
Re-up the ICE, send the probe through redundant pathways, recursive file-structures. The strange kid kept her on her toes, but she managed to stay one step ahead— only just. It had been a little while since she's actually danced with a runner that could match her steps, and it was kind of exhilarating. Like her own little game of chess.
But while the kid was making her offensive gambit, she hadn't focused on defense. Kiwi took the opening, and pressed it. Just her toe on the gas pedal.
She could see the flash of pain cross the girl's face as she lost focus. Just a spark to the pain receptor of her brain, nothing more, but it'd hurt like a sonuvabitch and then tingle unpleasantly for the next fifteen minutes or so. She'd made just enough of a point to demonstrate that she could do a hell of a lot worse when pressed.
The picksocket scowled at her as she marched over to her. Kiwi, with a glint in her eye, extended her gloved hand palm out. The kid slapped the two stolen chips back into her hand. Checkmate.
"...We done here?" She whispered, pulling on the drawstrings of her hood.
"Only if you wanna be." Kiwi looked her up and down. Rough around the edges, but... you didn't meet talent like this every day. Her interest was piqued. "But if you're hungry, there's a diner two blocks down from the next stop, and fuck, I'm in the mood from a shake. I'll cover you."
"...Why?"
The kid seemed guarded. Wary. As well she should, considering she was talking to the woman she had just tried to rob, and had received a few too many volts of electricity to the brain for her troubles.
"You look fucking starving. Besides... consider it a thank you for the hacking practice, if you want." She'd smile if she could, but she can't, so she doesn't.
She can see her weighing her options, pale brows furrowed.
"...No tricks?"
"No tricks. Second you get cold feet about the situation, you walk."
"...Fine." Her odd new acquaintance heaved a sigh, and reached up to grab one of the handrails as the train took a sharp curve around a bend in the monorail track.
"Got a name, kid?"
"...Name's Lucy."
"Well, hey, Luce." There's a smirk in Kiwi's voice, at the very least. And here she thought her evening was going to end with reruns and leftovers or jailtime. Besides. Kid was too smart to be out here acting so stupid, and it'd be a waste of her talent if she got herself zeroed by some bum on the street. "Name's Kiwi."
"What kind of a name is that?" Lucy scoffed.
Kiwi couldn't resist giving her another shock for that one.