Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

My first thought on waking up was: why the hell is it so bright in my apartment? That was quickly followed with: when was my apartment moved outside? Who turned New York City into a desert? Why am I naked? What is this mattress stained with? And finally: what the hell is going on?

The blue twin mattress I woke up on was covered in what I hoped was merely years of dirt and grime. I was out in the middle of the desert despite passing out last night in the relative comfort of my one-bedroom apartment. Okay, I’m going to be honest here. It’s not even a one-bedroom. There’s a small alcove for my bed set off from the rest of the apartment and I tell everyone it’s a one-bed. Makes me feel a little more put together than I actually am. But my crappy apartment was a big step up from sleeping outside under the stars on a – I hope – dirt covered mattress, completely naked.

I sat up and took stock of where I was and what was around me, hoping that jeans and a t-shirt would magically appear next to me on the dirty mattress, and quickly noticed the gargantuan mountain of trash at my back. Climbing up from the mattress, trying not to notice the dirt that clung to me, I stared up at the mountain before spinning around and trying to figure out where I was. A couple wind turbines dotted the horizon, a somewhat broken and aged asphalt road stretched out ahead of me, and miles away was the tell-tale skyline of a massive city. But that’s not what caught my attention.

Hovering above the city, like a flock of birds, were…I don’t know what. They were too big and rigid to be blimps. And when was the last time anyone ever saw a blimp floating above a city? It was like someone took a small building and tipped it over on its side and flung it through the air. There were dozens of them, all flying around above the skyscrapers of the city. They were too big to be birds, too small to be airplanes.

What the hell was going on?

I picked my way over to the asphalt road, the desert floor hiding rocks and twigs that scraped my feet and made me dance-march over to the paved road. And that wasn’t any better. It was scorching in the midday sun, so I stood off to the side on the slightly cooler sand.

Billboards jutted up into the sky and my eyes quickly scanned them, reading through the advertisements.

‘Feeling kumquat today?’ Nope. I definitely wasn’t.

‘Real Water. Only 99E$/Gallon.’ That had to be some Instagram influencer product, maybe something sold by a Kardashian.

‘Decker Tanaka & Rogers. We move things, so your business can grow.’

‘Pure Overkill. RT-46 Burya.’ Something about the Burya name twigged my memory but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And what was with the E$ after the Real Water?

I walked along the road, heading towards the city. What else was I going to do? Someone had kidnapped me and smuggled me out into the middle of a desert, stripped me naked, and left me on the most disgusting and uncomfortable mattress outside of a frat house. Was it a prank? I tried thinking of any of my friends who had both the inclination and economic resources to pull off something like this and no one came to mind.

I passed a few more billboards as I made my way along the road.

‘Now in King Size. Abydos. Let’s Warm You Up!’ Man, ads have gotten really sexual lately.

‘Nicola. Taste the love.’ Why did I want to read that in an annoyingly high-pitched voice?

‘Sojagil Machistador. Explosion of Taste.’

‘Introducing the new Aerondight. Substance and Style. Rayfield.’

Wait. Wait. WAIT. I knew that car. In the ad it was a sleek gold and black and looked nice and futuristic. But I knew it drove like an old boat and was completely impractical as a city car. Every time I drove it I’d glide across the lanes and accidentally slam into pedestrians. What are these memories?

I thought back to the other ads. Nicola, taste the love. And I want to say it in a weird cartoon voice. I could almost hear it while riding an…elevator? The Burya. It was a gun that had ridiculous recoil. AVs in the sky. Wind turbine looking things. Desert. A massive city filled with enough skyscrapers to make a skyline that would put New York’s to shame.

Was this Night City!? How? Oh, holy hell. I got isekai’d. I bounced up and down and flapped my arms for the lack of anything better to do. The excitement was getting to me, but I couldn’t run around because I w would have stabbed my feet on a rock or stripped the skin off my foot if I wandered onto the burning asphalt. I wanted to tell someone I had been isekai’d. But who could I tell? I was out here in the middle of the desert, not a soul to be seen for miles. No. Not the desert. I was in the badlands. And as soon as that thought filled my mind I started to squeal. Well, less a squeal and more a…squeam? A squeal combined with the scream of excitement you might hear from someone who has suddenly found themselves in a video game. I punched the air and jumped around, laughing. I got isekai’d!

Did I get hit by a bus? The last thing I remembered was passing out in my tiny alcove bed. Unless a bus somehow climbed three stories and made its way through my slightly janky door, something else had to have teleported me here. Oh shit. I’m going to meet Panam and Vik and Judy. I’m going to become a ninja and cut bullets out of the air. And, if I knew anything about the isekai genre, which I definitely did, then…

“System,” I shouted up into the air. Nothing happened. No scrolling words. No ‘quest’ or ‘tutorial’ popped up in my vision.

“Uh. Stats?” Nothing. “Settings. Cool. Body. Reflex.” Still nothing.

“Tutorial? Um…help?” The silence from my isekai system was jarring. It was a standard trope of the genre. The main character gets teleported to a mystical new world and is given a gamified system of stats by a benevolent god or goddess and uses it to become ridiculously OP. So, where the hell was my system?

The only possible answer to that question was: since this was the Cyberpunk world, I needed some kind of optics to unlock the system. I didn’t have a HUD because normal boring people with their normal boring eyes didn’t have a HUD. I needed optics before I could gain access to my system.

Satisfied with my sound reasoning, I continued my walk towards the city. Daydreams filled my vision as I marched along. I’d become so OP. There was a level cap on V in the game, but I probably didn’t have one. I could envision future me, bullets bouncing off my skin, running through the air like a ‘saka ninja, hacking people and spreading overheat and short circuits everywhere, then dicing them up with a katana and a couple of those laser grenades.

The few negative thoughts that intruded on my daydreams were centered around all the people I had left behind. How did I get isekai’d? Did I die? Was there a funeral? Did everyone just think I was ghosting them or that I dropped off the face of the Earth? Was anyone even looking for me? Would I ever see my friends and family again? But despite the gloom that rose from those questions, I quickly cheered back up.

Unlike most main characters in the isekai genre, I was going to embrace my new life. There wasn't gonna months of me pining away for my past life and slowly coming to terms that I was in a new world. I was jumping in with both feet. Afterlife merc. Crazy rich dude. Guy who you didn’t want to mess with. I’d beat Adam Smasher and claim his spot as the number one Night City nightmare.

My daydreams didn’t last long, being interrupted by the roar of engines and a shock of fear that crept its way up my spine. I was naked and unarmed and wandering through the badlands. And I had completely forgotten about the Wraiths.

I was at a T intersection with a road sign – a road sign in the middle of the desert? – telling me I was on Edgewood Lane. I could hear engines roaring to my left, hidden behind a sand dune and piles of garbage that had spilled down from the massive trash mountain. I dropped into a crouch and desperately searched for cover. I was a sitting duck out here in the middle of the road. The only safe place for me was a run-down shack far off in the distance.

I sprinted towards it, trying to cover the distance and hide before the Wraiths could find me. The desert ground gave way to wet squelching mud that clung to my feet and disrupted my sprint, my legs and lungs burning with effort as I tried to power my way towards the shack. Sharp bits of metal and plastic that spilled from trash bags littered the ground in front of me and jammed into the soles of my feet, causing pain and occasionally drawing blood. This was the desert. Why was the ground suddenly muddy? And where did all this trash come from?

I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind as I ran. I was too weak at this point to challenge the Wraiths. Maybe in a month or so, after I leveled and trained a bit and had a gun, I’d come back to the badlands and take out every Wraith I could find. But right now, a naked, dirty, bleeding, unarmed man wasn’t going to strike fear in the hearts of the Mad Max villains of the Cyberpunk world.

The engines increased in volume behind me, and I knew the Wraiths had spotted me. I imagined it would be hard to miss my pale naked ass running through the desert. Why hadn’t I ever bothered to tan? I was so pale I probably glowed like a beacon, drawing the Wraiths towards me like moths to flame. My skin probably reflected sunlight at them, telling them ‘Hey, come chase down the human-shaped disco ball and break it.’ And why didn’t I ever exercise? A stitch developed in my side as I ran, and every footstep brought a curse from my mouth. “Why was I so lazy?”

The Wraiths were going to be on me in seconds, so I scanned the terrain for some place I could make a final stand. But before I could come up with any kind of plan, something hit me, and I went flying. I could hear a crack, felt a pain, blacked out for a second, and then once more woke up on my back. My arm was bent underneath me, and I was covered in dirt and grime. At first, I thought the crack I heard was the windshield of the car that hit me. That made me a little happy that I could wreck someone’s vehicle when they tried to kill me. But a quick glance at my arm, combined with the sharp pain that radiated through my body, told me that something was probably broken. I had enough sense to look up at the Wraiths instead of just lay there, moaning in pain, and I noticed three Wraiths were approaching: one car and two motorcycles.

The car had been what smashed into me and sent me flying, eliciting a cheer from the bikers. I could feel a tenderness in my side – the car had probably messed up my ribs – and a stinging pain coming from my shoulder. The Wraith driver climbed out of his car, a grin plastered across his face, as I struggled to my feet. There were only three of them. I was hoping to run away but…I could take them. My videogame body would soon heal, then I’d take out these three dudes, grab their weapons and cars, and make my way to Night City.

I staggered to my feet and the scene in Lethal Weapon where Mel Gibson pops his arm back into place by smashing it against a wall fluttered into my mind. That probably wasn’t a great idea. I’ll fix my arm later. Preferably not by smashing it into a wall.

The Wraiths made no move towards me, just laughing at my obviously injured state. The two bikers parked behind me, cutting off any chance I had to safely run towards the shack. But that wasn’t my intention. The driver of the car was in front of me and if I could take him out, grab his gun, and use his car as a barrier to protect myself from gunfire, I felt good about my chances against the two biker Wraiths. Hide behind the car, take potshots at the bikers. That’s the plan. I’ll come out of this fine, with two bikes and a car and a bunch of weapons. With that, I charged the driver, thinking ‘you dicks should have finished me off when you had the chance.’

Three sounds rang through the air in quick succession. The first was the pained “agghh” that tored itself from my throat as I ran at the driver. After two janky steps towards him my jerky movement had jostled my shoulder enough that the pain ripping through my body made me want to pass out. The second sound was the gunshot that came from the pistol held by the Wraith driver. My right leg gave out as I stepped down and I felt a burning sting in my thigh, and I belly flopped to the ground. The mud didn’t completely rob me of my forward momentum, so I slid to a stop about ten feet from where I fell, covered in bits of trash collected during my slide. The third sound was the belly laughter that escaped the Wraiths as they watched all this happen.

I knew I couldn’t get up. My body was telling me I was an idiot who was about to die. Again. Maybe this time I’d be isekai’d into a nice magical fantasy world. Maybe this time my system would actually work, and I could level a bit before being thrown directly into combat with bandits.

The laughter and conversation became muted in my ears as I slowly slid into unconsciousness. Were they arguing? What was going on? One of them said something about a scan. I ignored the arguments as I slowly lost consciousness and my last thoughts were ‘the Cyberpunk world sucks.’