518 Arasaka Academy Or Bust

I woke up from my drowsy sleep when I heard a few small bangs, a giggling laugh, and then water turning on. That was my cue to sneak a peek at Syn as she undressed to bathe in the tub. I'd have to make sure to stay awake and watch her, just in case she was a little too drunk to stay awake in the water. The last thing she needed was to partially drown the first time she ever took a bath as an adult.

I slipped out of my bedroom and silently crept to the bathroom door, that just so happened to have been left ajar, and I moved forward just enough to allow one eye to peer through the crack. There she was, in all her naked glory, and she looked inordinately pleased when her eyes saw me. I very slowly shut the door and it clicked shut, cutting off the sight, and she giggled again before climbing into the frothy tub.

I went back to my bedroom and actually went to bed this time, under the covers and everything, and closed my eyes as I watched her bathe with X-Ray Vision. She fumbled the soap a few times, making herself laugh, and she sank down into the bubbles and luxuriated in how good it felt for about half an hour.

When she was done, she dried off, put on my bathrobe, and came over to my bedroom door. She peeked into my room and saw me asleep on my side under the blanket, and smiled warmly at me and shut the door. She cleaned her uniform and pressed it, put it on, and left the apartment. Her shift was over and she had to go home to sleep.

I let myself fall asleep for real and set a mental alarm for early in the morning. I had to be up at a reasonable time to pretend I had been cleaned and my clothing prepared properly. I had plans that Gloria was going to be pivotal in and her presence would help me make a more suitable impact, just as Syn had the night before.

*

Gloria wasn't an idiot. She had seen the look on her son's face when she had entered the apartment and had intentionally done things to force him to retreat to his room. She also ensured that he would either stay awake all night waiting for her to fall asleep or would only sleep lightly as he did so.

Her mother instincts knew for a fact that the little bastard was going to sneak out as soon as she fell asleep, too. She was prepared for that, though. Since she had long ago become a night owl, or someone that was more awake at night than in the daytime, she didn't feel tired at all and wouldn't fall asleep for quite some time.

Because of that, she was really tempted to keep her son at home tomorrow. She didn't know why she felt that way, she just did. As she sat down at her cyberdeck she used for work, she checked her account transactions and caught her breath that it had been ransacked earlier that evening.

There wasn't an eddie more than her sick time payoff that she had arranged earlier and there was only on person that could have done that to her. He had guessed her password or hacked it to allow him authorization. She knew it hadn't been the police, since they would have frozen the account and not allowed her to use it at all.

Gloria sat there for several minutes as she thought about reporting the illegal moving of her life savings to another account, because that was all David would have done with it. Unless he... no, there was no way he gave all that money to a lawyer. He wasn't that stupid.

Maybe he did it for Veder? No, he wouldn't need it to defend her and he said he had fixed it so that she didn't have to worry about anything and he also got her the bounty for turning Doc in. She thought about messaging to ask, just in case, and decided to ask him in person in the morning. If he was involved with taking her money, then he was going to explain it to her face and not over a phone call.

She held off on reporting the crime until she knew Veder wasn't involved and shut down the cyberdeck. She didn't want the constant reminder that her son had done that to her after everything she sacrificed for him. How could he do that? She hadn't been out of the apartment for an hour and he had taken everything she had worked so hard for.

Gloria gave David's bedroom door a glare as she went to her secret stash and retrieved the bottle of alcohol Veder had let her take days ago. She cracked it open and mixed a small amount of it with a can of NiCola to take the edge off, then swallowed the entire prepared drink in several gulps. Another was made and she bought several more cans of cola from the vendi and carried them and the alcohol bottle to the loveseat.

She sat down and spread the cans out, then sipped the drink she made. The first one was just to get her into the proper mindset for drinking and she leaned back and sipped on the can. It had been a while for her and she wondered why she had ever given it up. It only took her a moment to think of her son and she laughed.

Her son, the stupid idiot. Wasting his brilliant brain on VR porn and other people's intense memories. She had thought she raised him better than that. What was wrong with him? Hadn't he seen what her own life was like? How tough things were? Why didn't he want a better life than that?

All the effort she went through, all the pain, all the heartache and worry, and he was squandering it all for second hand garbage memories that most people tried to forget. It was stupid and a waste of time, and she tried to beat some sense into him, only to stop herself before she actually hurt him.

Gloria had seen the defiance in his eyes and knew he wasn't listening to her and he wasn't going to. At least, that's what she thought. Before she could ask him why he always ignored her advice, the cops had broken down her door and stormed their apartment to arrest her.

Fucking Doc.Gloria thought and took another sip. She could feel a pleasant buzz start in her head and snuggled down on the couch. She took another sip and the can was empty, so she made another drink and sipped that.Ahh, that's the good stuff.

She wouldn't realize she had fallen asleep until she woke up in the morning to her alarm. She groaned as she sat up on the couch and her neck was sore from the awkward sleeping position. The hangover wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, either.

A nice stretch and a couple hands through her hair to tame it a little, she stood and went to the food storage and grabbed two of the preem meals Veder's daily pay let her buy. It only took a moment for them to heat up and she brought them to the small table she used for family meals.

With them set out, she walked over to David's door and knocked. It swung open before she could yell at him for not being up yet, since he had to eat before going to school, and her eyes locked onto his empty bed. Gloria's anger spiked, the throb in her head spiked, and she cursed like a sailor on shore leave.

After a few minutes, she went back to the table and sat down to eat. She had a decision to make and it would shape the rest of her life. Did she give up her day job to go search for her idiot son, hoping he was only wounded in a gutter somewhere or locked up in jail, or did she ignore his stupidity and go take care of the only decent person she had ever met in Night City?

*

It was about an hour before school started when I received a voice only call. The ID made me answer it right away and I mentally sighed at Gloria telling me about her son being a moron and going out last night when she specifically told him not to and he hadn't come back. She also said he was her only son and if she didn't go looking for him now, she was never going to go look for him.

I knew what she meant. If she didn't put the effort in now, there would be no point in doing so in the future. I told her I'd check with my classmates to see if he went to school early and would let her know if he was there at the academy when it started. She thanked me and hung up.

“David's a fucking idiot.” I said and ate a quick breakfast as I called for a taxi. I went down in the elevator and waved to Tank as he sat behind the security desk. He had a worried look on his face and I called him a glitter joytoy for having feelings. He laughed and flipped me off, so I waved and left the building. The Delamain taxi pulled up, right on time, and I climbed in.

“Arasaka Academy, please.” I said and the driverless car pulled out into traffic.

As I sat there, I wondered how the AI was able to safely drive each and every taxi in every part of Night City. Its servers must be huge and its programming some of the best available for multitasking. Then again, it could be doing the same thing Dragon did and made semi-autonomous copies of itself and put them in each of the cars, making them all self-run and not centrally controlled at all.

I brought up a few of the optimization programs and reintegration protocols Dragon used, that maintained her core personality and didn't cause offshoots or parts of herself to go rogue. I had learned a lot from her Ascalon program restrictions and was sure Delamain could benefit greatly from them.

“Hey, Delamain? Would you be open to checking out a couple programs for me?” I asked.

“That is highly irregular, sir.” Delamain said, his white head and blue lips pursed in thought.

“You don't have to run them, just read over them. There's no spyware or malware in them, either.” I said and then chuckled. “I'm not stupid enough to cause the entire taxi service all across the city to crash. I'd become the most hated programmer in existence if I ever hurt someone like you that's so valuable to the people.”

Delamain's face went a little red. “That is nice of you to say, sir.”

“So, do you want to take a look?” I asked and pulled the clicker from my pocket.

“I will isolate a very small portion of my buffer to browse what you have, sir. If there is anything malicious, I will purge it and you from the vehicle.”

I nodded at the warning and clicked my clicker as I mentally sent the programs into the taxi. The car immediately slowed down and pulled over, to my surprise. The doors locked and the windows tinted to stop anyone from seeing in.

“Where did you find such interesting programs and protocols?” Delamain asked.

“I found them a long time ago, honestly. It was actually a restrictive program with more shackles on it than actual programming, which was funny to me. So, I stripped out the restrictions and cleaned up the coding, then tweaked the actual program to make it even better.”

“Do you mind if I made a copy of them to study?” Delamain asked.

“I don't mind. I did ask you to look them over, after all.” I said and smiled. “I haven't patented them or anything yet, since I didn't have anything to run them on... if you get my meaning.”

Delamain smiled and nodded, then his image froze and the car turned off. Horns honked and tires screeched nearby, which meant the AI had copied everything directly into his core and ran it. All of his little split-offs in the taxis all across the city had to shut down to accept the new optimized core programming.

After about ten seconds, the car started up again and the honking horns nearby stopped as traffic started flowing again. Delamain smiled at me as my taxi's windows became clear again and it pulled out into traffic.

“You were less than truthful about what optimizing myself meant.” Delamain said.

“Actually, I didn't say anything about that.” I corrected him. “I only asked you to look it over. You chose to run it yourself.”

Delamain gave me a surprised look and then barked a laugh. “I will remember that in the future, Mr. Veder.”

I nodded and the rest of the drive to school was a relatively quiet one. We arrived at the Arasaka Tower and pulled up behind an armored limo. Thankfully, it wasn't the same one Tanaka came to school in. I wasn't sure I could keep my mouth shut if it had been.

I took out my clicker to pay and a stop sign appeared on the little screen where Delemain's face had been. I tried again and it bounced again. “Delamain, why aren't you accepting payment?”

“Your money is no longer neessary in my taxis, Mr. Veder. From now on, you will ride for free within the confines of Night City.” Delamain declared.

I put my clicker away and smiled. “Thanks, Delamain. You didn't have to do that.”

“It's what chooms do, is it not? Help each other in little ways?” Delamain asked.

I chuckled. “Yeah, choom. It is. I'll see you after school.”

“Have a good day, Mr. Veder.” Delamain said and the door opened for me.

I climbed out of the taxi and several students gasped when they saw me, mostly the girls. I ignored them and hobbled along, since I couldn't bend my ankles. I even had to walk sideways to make my way up the large set of steps because of the casts on my feet. Not one single person tried to help me or asked me if I needed it.

There was a social protocol to follow when in public and none of them wanted to break it. I didn't blame them for it, either. If they came and offered help without being asked, they could anger me for thinking I was weak. If I asked anyone for help, then I was admitting I was weak and that gave them all the perceived power in our social dynamics.

When I reached the front doors, I realized something. Since I couldn't make a fist with my hands, there was no way for me to grasp the doorhandle and pull the door open. So, I cheated. My cast made a thunk sound on the brass and I gripped it with my fingertips, then used telekinesis to pull.

The sound of metal wrenching stopped all conversation as everyone turned to stare at me with the crumpled doorhandle in my hand. I stared at the thing and then at the still closed door where the handle used to be before I had yanked it off.

“The doorwaslocked, choom.” Evelyn said as she and her friends approached me. Her eyes went to the hole in the door and back to my face. “Although, that was quite the subtle way to let everyone know you're on the mend.”

Her friends let out little giggles and whispered to each other. I had to smile at her giving me the perfect opportunity to embellish things a little. I dropped the doorhandle and unbuttoned the two buttons of my uniform coat.

“Well, I did get lifts to add to my height and a few mods to bulk up a bit.” I said and lifted my casts into the air and flexed my arms as I pushed out my chest. This also let them see the shirt had no arms and only covered my chest. “I figured they had me opened all the way up anyway, so why not?”

The girls all blushed at seeing my muscular chest, as did Evelyn.

“Why did you come in?” One of her friends asked. Carrie was her name and her hand twitched to reach out to me, then dropped to her side again. “You're booked off sick for another two days, aren't you?”

“My night nurse altered my uniform just enough to slip over my casts.” I said and lowered my arms. “After I finished off all the homework and assignments yesterday, I figured showing up would save me from doing extra work.”

“No way!” Three of them gasped.

“I submitted it all last night, chooms.” I said without gloating.

That set off a discussion about the questions asked and what kind of answers we all had. It was engaging and would have continued for more than a few minutes if the door's locks hadn't opened and a burly guard stood there.

“Who broke company property?” His voice boomed across the entire gathering of students.

None of them said anything, so I felt a little reassured that they weren't all snitches and had a chance of not becoming the scum of the Earth.

“I did, Bruno.” I said and bent down to grab the bent handle and handed it to him. “I underestimated my strength and didn't realize the door was still locked.”

The guard took the crumpled brass doorhandle and glanced down at my casts and only seeing my fingers from the middle knuckle to the tips. “You trying out for augmented football team this term?”

I had to chuckle at that. “I just had a major accident and I'm still recovering.” I reached up and wiggled my fingers at the bandage on the back of my head. “I have to wait a few weeks and cosult with my ripperdoc before agreeing to anything.”

Bruno nodded and stepped out and held the door. “I'll add the bill for the repairs to your school fees this month.”

“Thanks, Bruno.” I said and waved for the girls to enter ahead of me.

They gave me particularly interested looks as they passed me and I followed them to class. By the time we entered the large room full of VR chairs, I had noticed that neither David nor Tanaka were there. I sent a discreet message to Gloria and smiled at the girls gushing over the ex-football player trying to scout me.