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Son of Sasquatch - Chapter 8
🕑 Added 2023-05-18 16:32:10 +0000 UTC“I’m not special. She is.”
Silence dominated the hallway for a moment (even the screams in other parts of the building had stopped, David worriedly noted) as the beast kept staring at him with an unreadable expression. Wordlessly, it let the scraps of fabric fall from his massive paws, before one came up-
“Fuckin’ christ, kid, you’re a fuckin’ headache, you know that?”
-and to David’s utterly gobsmacked surprise, facepalmed the giant Animal.
“…what?” David managed to ask as the beast let out a heaving, bone-deep sigh tinged with exhaustion.
It was only now that the teen noticed how some of the blood drenching the enormous man was his own, a small smattering of bullet-wounds scattered across his torso and arms.
David was aware of the existence of cyberware that provided bulletproof protection. He had seen some cyberpsychos in the XBDs, and they were equipped with various types of such enhancements. However, based on his (severely) limited knowledge of such high-end implants, they typically didn't leave you bleeding from tiny holes in your skin. Which meant that the beast before him (probably) didn't have that kind of chrome integrated into its body.
Meaning he took those shots straight to his meat and kept on fighting. David’s terrified awe of the behemoth increased a couple notches.
‘Madre de Dios, what kind of a man just rawdogs getting shot multiple times and is still able to stand and move like that?’ he silently thought to himself, not quite able to stop himself from comparing his own lithe (though those less charitable would probably say scrawny instead) unmodded form to the approaching behemoth. Sure, the man clearly had some Exotics implanted, but as far as David knew, those were mostly for show, meaning that, whateverthis guy was carrying, it was both top-of-the-line and most likely custom-built.
Or grown, as the case may be when dealing with Exotics-sporting Animals.
David felt a chill run down his back, a stark reminder of the immense danger emanating from the massive figure sitting across from him. This person wasn't just a run-of-the-mill criminal or someone plagued by cyberpsychosis, as David had initially thought. The fact that he had undergone such advanced enhancements, allowing him to effortlessly withstand bullet impacts, meant that he wasn’t just dealing with your ordinary gangoon here.
This was someone who had risen beyond that within his boostergang and David's heart skipped a beat as he realized that the towering figure before him was undoubtedly the leader, the Alpha, of a whole pack of aggressive gangoons. These muscleheads, though perhaps not as physically imposing as their leader, were likely just as prone to violence. The giant, now standing alarmingly close to the preoccupied David, cast an intimidating shadow over the teenager, his face etched with annoyance. The sudden proximity only heightened David's unease, making him acutely aware of the larger threat that stood across from him.
In both senses of the word.
“I know your Ma’s special, kid. It’s why I came here to save her. And why I don’t want you in this fight. You’re not ready and I don’t want to see you get hurt on my watch.” The giant said to his surprise instead.
“… you punched me.” Was all David managed as his brain tried to catch up to the sudden twisted logic the Animal just revealed.
If he had (more) circs, he was sure they’d have fried trying to figure out the blood-covered giant in front of him. It wasn’t as if the enormous man was wrong per se. David was no good in a fight, and it had been shoved in his face repeatedly today by his tormentor, Katsuo Tanaka.
Sure, his old BD Wreath messed with the class’ program, that was on him. Well, more on his Ripper Doc (‘or Rip-off Doc more like’ he thought to himself), David was just the gonk dumb enough to actually buy the crap off the Brain Potato. Just ‘cause the guy was addicted to BD’s (the really kinky XBD kind too…), didn’t mean his tech was worth the eddies you’d get for turning ‘em into scrap. David realized that now, but that didn’t explain why Katsuo of all people had beaten the shit out of him over it.
Talk about kicking a gonk while he’s down. David had already felt depressed all day yesterday after his mom drove him home after a dreadful meeting with the principal, who, much to no one's surprise, demanded even more money from the already struggling Martinez family. It felt like a twisted combination of payment and punishment, neatly rolled into one, all because of David's fuck-up.
‘It really is always about money’ the teen thought to himself, hand coming up to where the giant had punched him in the stomach as he tried to make sense of the Animal’s surprisingly care-filled words.
The drive back home had been terrible and not just because the seats in their shitcan of a car were so worn out, David was pretty sure both his ass-cheeks were being fondled by different springs whenever they hit a bump. His mother had been crying. His idiocy had increased his mother’s burden. His sheer fucking stupidity had made his mother desperate enough that even she was beginning to lose hope in their situation.
… he had made his mother cry.
The night spent in their tiny-ass apartment had been a complete shitshow too, especially with the damn roads all clogged up. All thanks to another corpo attack, though unlike the Maelstrom incident a few months ago, this one appeared to be successful, considering how the streets were swarming with cops. And as if that wasn't enough, there was this beat-up old truck that had to be dragged off the bridge connecting Santo Domingo and Heywood. That shitshow took the whole damn day, causing one of the most fucked-up traffic jams Night City had ever seen. It was almost as bad as that one time three AV’s from three different corps all thought it'd be a good idea to do a mid-air collision right above Westbrook, smashing right into a fancy-ass Beav house in the bougie suburb and turning it into a damn pancake.
Everyone figured it was some convoluted assassination attempt or PR-tactic (same thing really in the corpo biz), but the mayor had simply described it as a “tragic confluence of unfortunate circumstance and dumb fucking luck”.
Still, even as awful as the ride had been, the sheer time it took them just to get home at least meant they both went to bed quickly (sleep for dinner having become something they’d both gotten used to in recent years). Since she had missed her shifts yesterday, his mom had left even earlier as well this morning, leaving David to an empty house and a stomach that felt oddly hollow, and not just due to a lack of food.
The memory of his mother’s tears had spurred him to still go to the Academy despite his best wishes, but he never actually reached it. Katsuo, usually content to hang back and insult him from a distance (once having claimed he had just gotten a new neuro-port installed in his nose and he couldn’t stand David’s unwashed stench, which might even be true for all that David knew) had actually intercepted him before he entered the school grounds, dragging him down to the nearest NCART station.
Where he promptly kicked David’s ass. The Santo teen still didn’t even know why, though with all that had happened, he hadn’t exactly found the time to give the corpo-scion’s odd behaviour much thought.
All he knew was that, for some reason, despite being the one who got tossed through a wall and feeling like his face got punched straight out the otherside through the back of his own head, it had been Katsuo that had been left panting and wracked with sobs.
It couldn’t have been the chrome or chipware the other teen was sporting, they had definitely given him a vast advantage over the ‘ganic kid from Santo.
The Tanaka heir certainly hadn’t been forthcoming with an answer though and his two toadies had looked as shocked as David himself (well, probably even more so, considering David was hovering on the wrong side of unconscious for most of the beating after all). Katsuo had just stared at his arms, turned off his chrome, spat on the brutalized David and left the NCART station without a word.
It was why his Mom had to drop out of yet another shift to come pick him up, even giving him stims and ‘dorphs that he was sure were corpo property and thus coming out of her already slashed paycheck (meaning that, once again, he had caused his mother’s burden to increase even further…) just to get him back on his feet again.
They were on their way to the hospital when the… the accident happened.
‘Well, we did end up making it to the hospital either way’ the teen thought gloomily to himself.
Still, stims and ‘dorphs notwithstanding, the fact still stood that David had already gotten the beating of his lifetime today and had been in a major crash that… well, left his mother stable at least.
Meaning he really didn’t appreciate the giant’s punch to his stomach on top of all that. Said giant however uncaringly splattered David with a few more droplets of gore as he waved a massive paw in dismissal of the teen’s hurt voice.
“Tch. That was just a love tap. A bit of bruising ain’t the same as getting hurt, kid, not in Night City. Even someone who got spared the worst parts of this fucked up city should know that, no matter how Gloria sheltered you.”
Some part of David (mostly the aching stomach-area, in addition to the aching everything else-area) felt offended at how the brute brushed off its vicious attack, but the majority of the teen’s attention was instead grabbed by yet another sign of familiarity between this unknown behemoth and his own gentle mother.
“What did you mean when you said you’re here to save her? You know my Mom?” he tried, but the behemoth of a man had already dismissed him, turning away from him and stalking down the hallway.
“That is… uhh… complicated.” The giant muttered, clearly uncomfortable as he tried to brush the teen off.
David was having exactly none of that.
“How do you know my Mom?” he called out, a hint of desperation lining his words.
“A conversation for another time.” The brute brusquely said.
“Why save her if you don’t know her?”
“I’m not telling you how I know her and you just gotta trust that I amhere to save her.”
The evasiveness of the behemoth sent warning signs blaring in David’s mind, though his thoughts quickly turned an unexpected path. Here was a man, who he had never met before in his life, hadn’t even seen him (the enormous Animal obviously would leave an impression that would be hard to forget after all), yet he clearly knew both David and Gloria instead. He called David ‘kid’ and called Gloria ‘special’…
‘… no fucking way.’ The teen thought to himself, yet he couldn’t shake the intrusive possibility of the giant’s identity from worming its way into his thoughts.
So he quickly decided to try and ignore it completely instead. It was working… somewhat, at least.
“From what?” David managed to ask instead, finding himself running after the gore-splattered Animal to his own surprise.
And clearly to the surprise of the gangoon as well, as he glanced back over his broad shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
“The fuck are you doing kid?”
“Following you.” David stated flatly.
“Didn’t I just say-…” the giant began, before closing his eyes as he pinched the wide bridge of his nose as an annoyed sigh escaped him.
David was slightly impressed he managed to do so without poking his eyes out. Those claws looked sharp.
“Of fuckin’ course. Figures.”
The man muttered more under his breath as he began walking away again, but it was too quiet for David to really catch. It had something to do with “teenagers”, “protagonist syndrome” and “fuckin’ Night City bullshit” though the teen couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
Even so, he still wholeheartedly agreed with that last part. This town was full of ‘fucking Night City bullshit’, even David knew that much. He picked up speed to keep pace with the giant and when he didn’t try to dismiss him, the blood-splattered teen tried again.
“So?”
“So, what?” the giant bit out in an exasperated tone.
“What are you trying to save my Mom from?”
The Animal growled at that, one clawed hand coming up in a broad indicating gesture.
“This place.”
“What? Why? They saved her life-“
“So that they could experiment on her, not reunite you two.”
“Experiment?”
Dread enveloped David, sending a chill coursing through his stomach. Being the son of an EMT, he often to managed to catch some insider intel from the medical community. Yet, even without his mother's rants, he would’ve been clued in on the recent chaos surrounding Biotechnica regardless. It had become the latest sensation of Night City after-all, where the talk of the street was usually dominated by consumer-media, gangoon shoot-outs and corpo shadow wars. But Biotechnica’s recent intelligence leak had grown into such a colossal shitshow that even the least informed gonk and brain-dead gangoon in NC had picked up bits and pieces of the scandal.
Actual, irrefutable proof that the medical corp sure didn’t have any qualms about pumping their clients full of horrific, toxic and lethal drugs… the same corp that now had his mom on their patients lists…
“Whatever it is you’re thinking…”
“Uh, yeah?”
“They planned way worse for your Ma.”
“Wha- worse?! The fuck is worse than giving people nerve-damage?!”
For a moment, it would seem the giant wouldn’t answer, face set in deep thought, before he abruptly came to a halt. It was sudden enough David almost crashed into his broad back, before the Animal turned around to face him with a troubled look.
“Fine. It ain’t pretty, but I figure you deserve to know.”
With that, a single claw came up to the behemoth’s neck, pressing down on a slot just behind his ear with surprising gentleness. Thick fingers delicately grabbed a slim shard, before the giant extended it towards a suspicious looking David.
“Slot that.”
“What? Fuck no!”
The giant titled his head at him, one eyebrow raised in question.
“Didn’t you just say you wanna know what the fuck’s going on here?”
“I do, but I’m not slotting that?!”
“Well, why the fuck not then?!” the beast said, visibly getting annoyed as well.
“Because you’re fucking covered in blood man!” David exploded, wilfully ignoring the hypocrisy in that statement considering his own gore-splattered appearance (it wasn’t as if he’d asked to be covered in a butcher/surgeon’s blood after all, so there).
The Animal blinked a few times, before looking over his own body, apparently only now paying heed to the absolute carnage he was drenched in.
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that.” David bit out, but after a moment, the gangoon merely shrugged his broad shoulders, making a few more droplets of blood splatter against the floor.
“Look, if you’re worried about hygiene, it’s fine, the shard is clean-“
“It may not have blood on it, but how the fuck do I know it’s clean? You could’ve spiked it with all kinds of shit-“
David was suddenly cut off as an enormous hand, large enough it could engulf his entire head with ease, landed heavily on his shoulder, the giant leaning in so that his eyes were more on the teen’s level, his expression completely flat.
“Do you really think I need a Daemon to flatline your skinny ass?” he questioned with a challenging look, and David found himself at a loss for words, even as the giant’s other hand came up, shard gripped between the tip of two claws.
“That’s fair. I guess.” David muttered, taking the shard from the giant, though still giving it a dubious look.
“What even is on it?”
“Data my ‘runner managed to pull from the facility’s Net. Jacked into a port at reception when they wouldn’t give me Gloria’s room number. Had her hack their files, including messages detailing what they got planned for your Ma.”
“Wait, your netrunner did all that remotely? Fuckin’ nova.” David asked in an impressed tone, still standing with the shard in his hand instead of slotting it into his neural port.
Part of it was curiosity. But part of it was him trying to stall and he knew it. But, looking at the slim piece of plastic and circuitry as he could feel his stomach roiling, David began to question whether he reallywanted to know what was stored on it. His earlier thought returned to him unbidden.
‘What the fuck could be worse than dying of nerve-damage…’
“Yep. She’s that good.”
Despite the situation the two were in and despite how he looked straight out of some slasher XBD, the giant looked oddly pleased as he boasted. Not that David could really pay it any mind as he was shaken from his thoughts when a call bypassed his security features, a face suddenly popping up on his HUD.
+Yep, I am!+
“Whoa!” David shouted, leaning away on instinct, though of course the cute girl moved with him, plastered on the inside of his eyeballs as she was.
… a very cute girl, he noted with some embarrassment as his cheeks slightly flushed.
“So, uhm… you’re the netrunner, I’m guessing…” David said as he attempted to regain his composure.
The girl on his retinas nodded, sending her bob-cut waving around her feline features, eyes wide and mischievous, before her expression turned a bit more thoughtful.
+And you’re David Martinez… aged fifteen… which, makes you way too old… I think?+ she mused to herself for… some reason.
“Wait what?” the teen asked.
He had asked that a lot today, he began to realize.
+Oh! Forget about it!+ the beautiful netrunner said cheerfully, briefly looking caught and quickly trying to cover it up, and in the face of such peppy optimism and good looks, the teenager could do nothing but nod quietly.
“So… uhmm… since you’re the one that pulled the data…” he began instead, lifting the shard a little closer.
“… what’s on it?” he said, his voice choked so it came out barely above a whisper.
+… Simba is right, David. You should know what they intended to do to your mother. It is horrifying, yes, but thankfully these were just plans for the future. They intended to keep her overnight, look a bit into her and your background, get back to their customers and then begin their… experimentation.+
“Experimentation…?” David repeated in a horrified whisper.
“Yes. But, as Sasha said, they only planned to. Which means we can still prevent it. If we hurry.” The now-named Simba rumbled, David having briefly forgotten about him, focused as he was on the gorgeous netrunner displayed on his eyeballs.
The giant (‘what kind of a name is Simba anyways?’ the teen briefly thought to himself) gave a significant look towards the shard that David was still holding and he could see how in the corner of his eye, Sasha was giving him an encouraging nod. Taking a deep breath and steeling himself, David closed his eyes, lined the shard up with his neural port and slotted it.
Immediately, information was downloaded directly into his brain, records of patients, the experiments run on them and the notes of the ‘doctors’ overseeing this whole madhouse of terror.
It was enough to almost send him heaving, until he came to the data package labelled ‘Martinez, Gloria’. Pushing through his disgust and fear, David mentally opened the folder, seeing surprisingly few files.
It made sense in a way, he quickly realized. His mom had only recently been transferred to this facility after all. Most of the files (nearly all of them, in fact) were from first responders (his Mom’s colleagues, in a way) and the general hospital the two of them were admitted at. As David quickly flipped through the reports, his mind tentatively began to settle as he found nothing unusual, just the standard procedures and forms.
He had seen his Mom fill out hundreds of these type of files. Technically she wasn’t allowed to take them home with her, considering they were private corpo property, but with the amount of overtime she put in and the sheer number of calls she had to answer (again, fucking Night City bullshit), there was simply no time left in a day for her to finish them at work.
So, she’d sit with a stack of files and disks at their little kitchen table (one of the legs propped up on a few flattened and stacked Buck-A-Slice boxes to level it out) as she worked through them one at a time. Often young David would either be doing the cooking or preparing some coffee for her, from the moment he was tall enough to peer over the kitchen countertop.
On several nights, when she’d fall asleep right at the table, head faceplanted onto the stack of files, he’d take her large EMT-jacket and gently wrap it around her sleeping form, moving carefully so as to not wake her.
David felt oddly relieved at the familiar monotony of the well-known data sheets and bolstered by the nostalgic memories as he quickly skimmed over the shard’s files.
That is, until he came to the last ones. The first he opened turned out to be a read-out of his mother’s bio-mon, several of its stats somehow getting it red-flagged and sent towards one of the doctors responsible for treating him and his mother.
What followed were the two remaining files, both message exchanges. The first one was between the doctor and the facility.
+Got a new body. Looks promising.+
+Damage?+
+Extensive, but manageable. Attaching bio-mon scans.+
+Yeah, looks good. Interesting read-out. Family?+
+Got a son. You want his detes as well?+
+No, the mother will suffice. Can always grab him later if needed.+
+Fine. Mother has extensive physical trauma, I want 15% on agreed deal.+
+Trauma of subjects is not your concern. Forget it.+
+It’s gonna be difficult to explain sending someone in her condition to your facility instead of keeping her. Gotta lean on more than a couple of people. More than usual.+
+Then lean harder.+
+Not how it works and you know it. Pay me more, or find another supplier.+
+… 10% on your usual commission.+
+Deal.+
‘They talk about her like she’s… as if she’s… as if she’s just fucking meat’ David thought to himself in mounting horror.
David couldn't believe what he was reading. They were talking about her, about his mother, as if she was nothing more than an object, just a thing to be bartered and sold for a stack of eddies. His shock and anger grew with each passing moment, but it was nothing compared to the rage he felt when he finally opened the last file.
It was another exchange of messages, this time apparently between a doctor working at the facility here by the name of Jacob Shipman and an anonymous contact within Biotechnica itself.
From: Biotechnica
To: Dr. Jacob Shipman
Dear Mr. Shipman,
We are contacting you to offer you participation in a clinical trial for our new pharmaceutical drug Deludemol. We are particularly interested in assessing the impact of Deludemol on pregnant women. Perhaps you have a patient who fits that description? We would like to check the frequency of miscarriages, effect on foetal development, etc. We would of course like this to be conducted discreetly. Please contact us at your earliest convenience.
-----
I currently have no patients who are pregnant, though of course that can be remedied. I can have one of the new arrivals prepped and ready for trials in the near future. She looks very promising. Needless to say, the tests will be conducted without any paperwork. I await payment.
JS
David hadn’t even realized he had begun hyperventilating until a pressure on both his shoulders suddenly increased, accompanied by ten pin-pricks of pain, a deep voice forcefully talking in his ear in a steady cadence.
“Just breathe with me kiddo. Listen to me. Keep breathing with me kid, that’s it.”
As his shakes slowly began to subside and his throat gradually began to feel like it wasn’t on fire anymore, the red-black haze in front of David’s eyes disappeared to show the worried face of Sasha, the Animal’s netrunner.
+David? How you holding up?+
“I… I’m good…”
“The fuck you are.” Simba snorted in clear dismissal, but he didn’t move away from the stricken teen, enormous paws still lightly digging into the Santo teen’s slim shoulders.
“… you’re right. I’m not.” David said, the damning e-mail still projected onto his eyeballs and his wide-eyed stare intensified.
“But I will be…” he continued, strength and determination slowly creeping back into his trembling voice as he locked gazes with the enormous blood-splattered gangoon across from him.
“You for hire?” he asked to the giant’s clear surprise, who blinked a few times as he took a moment to answer.
“Look kid, I’m part of a booster gang, not a merc on the Edge-“
“You take eddies? Don’t got much, but still, cash is cash right?” David pressed with startling intensity.
“… sure, I guess? But saving your Ma ain’t biz kid, it’s personal. Meaning I ain’t gonna charge you.”
“It’s not for my Mom.” David said as he dug a hand into the pocket of his cargo jeans, extracting a fist clenching several tight rolls of eddies.
Extending the cash towards the surprised looking gangoon, David’s lips peeled back in an aggressive snarl.
“I’m putting out a hit. I want you to fucking murder Jacob Shipman. And I wanna be there when you do.”
In the dimly lit hallway, the teenager and the imposing gangoon faced each other, their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. The feeble glow of the overhead lights barely revealed their figures, heightening the tension in the air. After a prolonged moment of suspense, the colossal Animal relented, releasing an explosive sigh. However, his imposing, oddly unnatural heavy features transformed into a ferocious grin as he claimed the rolls of cash, engulfing them in his massive paw.
“Consider me your huscle, kid. It’s a deal.”
//
Fun Fact: Hideo Kojima appears as an NPC (named in-game "Hideyoshi Oshima") during the finale of Act 1. You can talk to him in the bar of Konpeki Plaza before entering the lift where Jackie is waiting with the Flathead.
AN: As with the previous chapter, this is probably later than you expected and shorter than you wanted. In hindsight, I’m wondering if going for David’s POV was a mistake in the first place. I know we briefly switched to Sasha’s and Faraday’s in previous chapters, so I figured it’d be fine for David to get a larger one, but now I’m thinking that wasn’t the best idea. Between my health during April and the sheer trouble I had writing this, I eventually decided to split the chapter in two, instead of keeping David’s POV contained to just one.
On the bright side though, it has allowed me to start having some fun with the identity of David’s dad (as mentioned in a previous AN, if you wanna hear my thoughts on what I plan to do with his identity, head on over to my Discord!), which could work nicely into a mini-arc for Simba’s dad as well. Right now I’m torn between Simba pulling an Anakin (or rather, Sasquatch pulling a virgin Mary I suppose?), have Simba’s dad be just some random Animal or have Simba’s dad be a named character. In the latter case, I’m thinking of making it Morgan Blackhand because that would create some nice symbolism for Simba’s eventual feud with Adam Smasher, which will be the third arc of this fic, right after the upcoming war with Biotechnica and the Voodoo Boys has been finished. I figure after the Smasher arc has concluded that we’ve arrived at the Heist timeline-wise, which would probably mean the end of the fic. While I’m absolutely blown away at how popular this story has proven to be to my complete surprise, I’m not sure I want to spend years and over half a million words on this fic like I did with twelve steps. We’ll see. Maybe when Phantom Liberty comes out I’ll change my mind, who knows? I do like me some Idris Elba. :D
Comments
So Chapter 7 is already publicly available over on SpaceBattles and Fanfiction, Chapter 8 was uploaded simultaneously here to Patreon exclusively for you guys :)
Jett
?
Jett
Any missing chapter 7
