Making It in Night City

My eyes jerked open when my ears were assaulted by the annoying sound of the alarm I set on my phone. It was Monday morning, and another week had passed since my clash with the Tyger Claws. I hit the snooze button on my alarm and tried to nap for a few more minutes, but further sleep evaded me. With an annoyed groan, I got off my bed and into my shower. Once I took a quick shower, I dressed and ate a simple breakfast of cereal and milk.

After finishing my morning ritual, I got dressed and made my way out of the shop, grabbing my trusty katana that was leaning on the wall by the door before leaving. Once I left my shop, I got into my car and drove towards the Badlands. Since it was a workday, the traffic was horrendous. Night City had eight hundred and fifty cars per thousand people, one of North America's highest number of vehicles per capita. While stuck in stop-start traffic, I thought about the new skills I had learned.

I had made good use of the gap between big jobs practicing boxing and Kenjutsu every, but I also started freelancing for the NCPD with the time in between. Other than a few close calls where my new subdermal armor saved my ass, fighting crime had been relatively uneventful. The only thing that stood out was that sometimes I got this feeling that someone was watching me. Even when all the civilians had left, the bad guys were dead, and there were no cameras, I still felt I was being monitored. But since nothing ever came of it, I just threw the feeling away as being overly paranoid. I was constantly intruding on gang business, after all.

Over the course of a few days, I earned almost forty thousand Eddies and leveled up ten times from level eleven to level twenty-one. That gave me ten attribute points and increased my perk points to twenty. I invested the attributes into raising my Body attribute to seven, Reflex to fifteen, and Technical Ability to twelve. With the significant bump in attributes, I also finally spent my bank of perk points.

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I spent twenty perk points throughout the week and picked up ten new skills. The four skills I picked for Crafting were True Craftsman, Innovation, Grease Monkey, and Ex Nihilo. True Craftsman and Grease Monkey allowed me to craft rare and epic items, respectively. Innovation made medical consumables fifty percent more effective. Ex Nihilo gave me a twenty percent chance of crafting an item for free.

These perks expand my crafting options and reduce the cost of making multiple items. I also want to pick up some schematics and test whether they will allow me to learn recipes. If I can learn from schematics, it would be interesting to see if I am limited to only weapons and gear. If I could make vehicles or robots, that would make my crafting ability something genuinely broken.

The Body related perks I picked up were all Athletic perks. Regeneration allowed me to heal while in combat, level three Invincible increased my health by thirty percent, level three True Grit increased my stamina by thirty percent, and max level Epimorphosis allowed me to regenerate all of my health outside of combat. These perks were necessary since they made killing me harder and allowed me to fight for longer.

I spent fifteen points in the Athletics and Crafting category, which left me with five remaining points. I spent the last of my perk points getting to level three in Sting Like a Bee and level two in Float Like a Butterfly. Flight of the Sparrow at level two halved the stamina cost of swinging a katana, while level three Sting Like a Bee allowed me to slash thirty percent faster.

With all these perks, I saw a marked increase in my fighting prowess. It was so noticeable that both Vic and Hideo, my kenjutsu instructor, thought I was some kind of prodigy with how fast I was improving. It was nice to receive their recognition, but I soon regretted advancing quickly since they both made my training harsher than it already was.

Vic was no longer sparing and just having full-blown matches with me, while Hideo used me as a dummy for some of his top pupils. I'd get beat by a former heavyweight champ, only to turn around and have a kenjutsu master strike and slash my body with a wooden sword. The process was painful, but it allowed me to refine my movements. I was a bit faster, smoother, and firmer, which made all the difference when I fought during my NCPD contracts.

I finished reminiscing about the events of last week when I finally managed to leave the city limits. Once on the freeway, the traffic eased up, and I could enjoy looking at something other than a pile of cars. Seeing the Badlands also reminded me of the Aldecaldos and the Wraiths.

Panam had called me two days back and informed me of the next part of her plans. The scouting team had not only found out the leader that managed to consolidate the Wraiths but also when all the movers and shakers met.

The new boss was Caesar, who was the right-hand man of Dogkiller, the leader of all the Wraiths. Apparently, the smaller groups of Wraiths paid tributaries to the central Wraith party, and the Wraiths in Night City weren't sending enough money. Dogkiller wasn't happy with the poor performance of the Wraiths, so he sent somebody he could trust to sort the place out.

From the intel the Aldecaldos could gather, Caesar stormed into Night City, and heads immediately started flying. Once the old administration was out, and the masses sufficiently culled, Caesar worked on installing new goons and setting some ground rules. The radical changes worked, and the Wraiths were soon more cohesive and effective than ever. Of course, this was all to the detriment of the Aldecaldos.

One of the new things Caesar introduced was having bi-weekly meetings. Having meetings now and then between all the lieutenants allowed him to keep his finger on the pulse of the ins and outs of the gang. It was also the perfect opportunity for someone to decapitate the leadership.

The last meeting occurred this week, so Panam had the next week to get ready and plan for the assault. And as usual for Panam, her plan was bold and ambitious, potentially too much so. As our luck would have it, Militech had just made a sale and was going to sell a surplus Basilisk tank to some third party. Panam wanted that tank.

Militech will transport the tank through the Badland, giving the Aldecaldos a perfect chance to hit the convoy and snatch the tank away. The setup was the same as in the game; the only difference this time was that Saul wasn't against trying to hit the convoy. Originally, he didn't like the idea because it was too risky and might make the Nomads look like bloodthirsty anti-capitalists, jeopardizing the deal with Biotechnica. But since Saul shifted focus from working with the Megacorp to attacking the Shivs in this world, he was more than happy to have a tank on his side when bullets started flying. As the saying goes, never bring guns to a tank fight.

The drive to the Nomad camp only took about twenty minutes when I was no longer restricted by gridlock. I called Panam and let her know I was close ahead of time, and she was at the gates to greet me when I pulled up. I had my head buried in the grind for the last two weeks, and Panam was busy with the Wraiths, so we haven't interacted much other than some late-night phone calls and text messages. But what lacked in quantity was made up for by quality.

I hugged and kissed Panam once she got close and enjoyed her warmth before letting my hands wander and get a bit naughty. Panam was a lot more liberal with what she shared over texts, and watching that signature strut that showed all her curves brought all the steamy pictures she sent back to the forefront of my mind. When she first sent them, it got me all hot and bothered, and thinking about them now gave me a semi. Time for a bit of payback.

My hands fell below her waistline and grabbed her pert ass before pulling her closer to me. My erection was at half mast, pushing against her crotch, letting her feel my desire. My two hands began to knead her cheeks while I moved my lips away from hers, gently kissing down her jawline until I was at her neck.

Since we didn't shy away from sex, I quickly learned a lot of small things about her body. One of the things I learned was that Panam was very sensitive in the area around the base of her neck and the top of her shoulder. I trailed kisses and licked slowly down her neck, building her tension and enjoying her breathing getting rougher. Once at Panam's secret spot, I opened my mouth and bit down on it. While I attacked upstairs, my left hand let go of her butt and gently slapped it. My actions elicited a soft moan from Panam, and she started grinding herself against my pelvis.

I let this go on for a few seconds, then pulled away from biting her. I enjoyed the sight of the hickey before raising my lips to her ears.

"Enjoying yourself?"

After saying that, I blew on her ears and started gently nibbling them. Panam responded by letting out an animalistic grow.

"Well, that's all you're gonna get."

Deciding that I had my fun, I stopped groping her and pushed her away.

"That's for teasing me with all those pictures you took."

Panam was frustrated by the sudden lack of stimulation and looked at me with annoyance and need in her eyes.

"You got me all riled up, and now you're goin' to leave me out to dry?"

I just gave her a simple shrug, acting as if her being horny wasn't my problem, despite my being the cause of it.

"Isn't there a critical job going down tomorrow you need to plan for? Maybe we can celebrate after we get our hands on that Basilisk."

Panam rolled her eyes in disbelief, then gave me a feral grin after something crossed her mind. She was probably planning some form of revenge, and I would be lying if I said I didn't think I might have pushed her a bit too far.

"I'm holding you to that. Come on, let's meet the team and get you caught up to speed."

I followed behind her and walked through the Nomad camp. The people were friendly, and quite a few nodded and waved at me when I made eye contact. More Nomads acknowledged me than last time, probably because they connected the dots that I was helping with the Wraith problem after seeing me together with Panam.

We weaved through the tents and people before landing at the main restaurant that fed the camp. Panam guided me to a table with people already around it and took her seat. It didn't surprise me that it was Mitch, Carol, Scorpion, Bob, Teddy, and Cassidy, the same group that helped Panam and me with the Hellman job.

I sat in the spot next to Panam and made myself comfortable. Mitch was next to me, and he cracked open a beer and pushed it toward me while slapping my back.

"Nice to see you again, Basil! How're things?"

I happily accepted the bottle and took a swig before responding.

"Likewise, Mitch. Not too bad. It'll definitely be better once we finally get rid of those damn Shivs."

"I'll drink to that!"

Mitch said as he took a long drink from his beer, tipping it above his head and emptying it. Panam took that as the queue for her to get started.

"Raid's going to start tomorrow around ten in the morning. Let's go over the details one more time."

I took another drink and then focused on Panam. It's time for business.