The bright full Moon beams down on the quieted Night City streets. The sounds of stray sirens and slow rolling cars on wet pavement fill the air as we focus on the entrance to the hideout discretely tucked away from prying eyes. No light, no angles of observation.
As Audrey lay unconscious being tended to by Netty... she finds herself reliving a memory through her dreams:
*BANG BANG BANG* Audrey hears a sudden, heavy pounding on the door to her shop, jolting her awake and nearly falling out of her chair... she quickly looks over at it.
*BANG BANG BANG* "PRESCA!!" *BANG BANG BANG* She quickly gathers herself and rushes over to the door... she slides it open to see two uniformed PetroChem huscle. They slowly enter struggling to carry an extremely heavy black body bag.
"Easy! Easy! Watch it! Don't bang anything ya gonk!" One of the huscle yells to the other straining hard. "Table! Right here! Hurry up!!" He yells as Audrey moves out of the way... they drop the body bag on the table with a loud, heavy clink... the chrome meets the metal table with serious weight. They both rest their hand's on their hips in heavy exhaustion taking deep breaths.
"The fuck is this..?" Audrey asks with lowered eyebrows and her hands out.
"Got an A-thirty-six for ya doc. Rip and Recycle... I tell ya, the craziest ones always come in at the wildest hours y'know."
"A-thirty-six...? Executive Blacklist..? W-Who is this?"
"Said it yourself doc... Executive Blacklist. No deets, No clue. Other than the fact that they're fuckin' tall n heavy... you do the math." The huscle says dismissively while quickly scanning the body bag and entering some information onto a smart tablet. "Be seein' ya doc" He says as the pair promptly leave.
Audrey watches them exit and the door slide closed. She turns around to see a lone bodybag in the center of her shop on a cadaver table.
The dead silence intensifies the heavy tapping of her boots as she slowly walks up to it.
She takes a long, intense look at the lone, yellow PetroChem logo on the jet black body bag... she hesitantly reaches for the zipper.
She slowly unlocks the securing mechanism attached and unzips the body bag down to the chest... revealing Zaunya's mother's pale, lifeless face along with discolored bruising around her neck.
Her eyes and mouth open wide in disbelief as she feels the air in her lungs get yanked out of her. She slowly stumbles backwards... losing her balance as the quiet silence of a muted room causes a high-pitched ringing in her ears takes over.
The room begins to slowly spin as she hyperventilates... becoming light-headed while her heart pounds in her ears. She runs her fingers through her short hair as she begins to scream... she rushes back over to the table with eyes full of tears... the fading sounds of her screams of terror give way to a gentle nudge she receives on her shoulder from Netty; slightly jolting her awake... and ending the dream.
Audrey slowly opens her eyes with no reaction... this is a dream she's become all too familiar with. A memory incapable of being lost to time.
She glances over her shoulder to see Netty unplugging from her neuroport... giving her a gentle pat on the back of her shoulder. She glances over to see BugBear stood in a corner of the room with her arms crossed watching him work.
"Rise n Shine." Netty says in a soft tone with a slight grin. "Didn't wanna wake ya, you honestly seemed like you needed the rest... you were mumbling somethin' in your sleep."
"What did... what did you find." Audrey says groggy as she slowly sits up on the couch while scratching her head.
Netty glances at BugBear before responding.
"You uh... you had some sort of... nano tracker embedded into one of your neuro sockets. If they wanted to... they could have geo-sats pinging your location at anytime... It was still inactive so... I guess it was just waiting for a trigger remotely. We tried combing through info but couldn't find anything formal on whatever the hell custom hardware that is... You didn't know about this..?" Netty asks looking over at Audrey.
A pause of silence fills the room.
She closes her eyes tight without responding... plopping her head back down onto the sofa; They then hear the backdoor to the hideout slide open as Zaunya and Brian step back in.
They're next seen gathered in the living room of the hideout... temporarily both warm and safe from the various brutal hazards of Night City... early rain drops begin to fall. The energy of the crew has shifted as everyone sits patiently while Brian paces back and forth. He occasionally glances over at Audrey while doing his best to avoid making eye contact... an aura of embarrassment claws at the back of his neck.
BugBear breaks the seal on a fresh pack of Death Styx... she flicks at one of the bone white filters popping it up into the air. She snaps her fingers as the black cig flips toward her, catching it with her mouth effortlessly before lighting it. Netty looking on with awe is casually offered one... he hesitantly takes the cig and places it on his lips... getting that first taste of tobacco... Night City's finest. He fights back the gag as he leans over toward BugBear who lights it for him. He takes an uncomfortably big, rookie drag of the smoke... forcing out a deep, uncontrollable cough causing drool and spit to go flying. BugBear closely watching him die lets out a cute giggle with a hand over her mouth.
"They were after me once upon a time. However like all things in this city... focus changes from one event to the next. Like I said before, in times of crisis... they run on borrowed time. Think about how many enemies a megacorp like PetroChem makes a day... overtime it gets hard for them to see what's coming and from who. Different branches of the company move with different interests at times. They can splinter... deviate." Zaunya explains as the idle smoke from her cig whisps in between her fingers.
Netty finally finishing his cough puts the barely smoked cig into an ashtray on the coffee table. "I was able to isolate the geo-sat trigger and replace the resulting ping with something a little more... appropriate."
"Appropriate?" Brian asks.
"If they trigger the bug, those gonks'll get an urgent S.O.S pinging them directly to this deeply hidden compound run by The Animals. A nosy buddy of mine used to do dives into their subnet just to peep on em for whatever reason. Ended up learning more about The Animals than any of us really needed to. We used to always fuck with him and say he was lookin' to join up and they had a personal stack of synthroids waiting for him. Real chrome heads these guys... almost like they communicate through violence over words."
"So not only will it route them there but Audrey will still get notified of the trigger as soon as it hits." BugBear says to Netty piecing it together in an impressed tone.
"Exactly." Netty replies with a grin back at her. The two share a brief, subtle moment.
Brian instinctually opens his mouth to confront Audrey on the tracker but quickly catches himself... he instead switches subject slightly.
"Good work kid... I need you to do me a favor... do a quick sweep of the local networks in the area and cross reference them with that trigger. Let me know if anything comes up."
"You got it." Netty replies as the crew disperses around the hideout to do their own thing.
Brian sees Audrey make her way to the fire escape on the balcony. He waits for her to exit onto it alone before he follows her out.
She lights a smoke and rests her forearms on the dented railing... the pair listen to the rain settle in for the night... sharing a silence with each other before Audrey breaks it... the tone is somber.
"Hey... listen... i'm sorry I didn't-"
"-No, i'm sorry Audrey... I'm sorry... I didn't handle that shit the right way at all... I just-" He grits his teeth... clenches his fist... and shakes his head lightly before continuing.
"-Communication and results... they never pan out the way I expect or hope em to. Risk assessment is just.... it's just second nature to me. I don't know- its just... its hard to trust people without holding onto em too tight. I guess... i guess what i'm trying to say is-"
Audrey gently places a firm hand on Brian's shoulder causing him to stop and look over at her.
"Brian... I'm not the type to keep secrets from the people I care about... i promise. I know how this looks... but I just want you to hear it straight from me. I fucked up... guess I never realized... whatever they did could come back to bite me in the ass like this... regardless of however long ago it was. I don't want you to think I'm not taking the risk seriously."
"What'd they do exactly?"
She sees a series of quick flashes one after the other of her screaming while being tortured... interrogated in various traumatizing and inhumane ways. Being slowly cut on different areas of her back... slowly strangled by a rope around her neck tied to the ceiling... trying to to balance on a small flimsy cardboard box with one foot. Being waterboarded while crying... begging in a desperate panic... these thoughts cause her to close her eyes tight in discomfort before responding.
"Megacorps... operate on ownership... if they feel they own you? Well... you piece together the rest." She says taking another drag of her smoke before exhaling deep. "Shit they do changes you... violent or not."
"So no love lost then... between us huh?" Brian asks in a genuine tone shes yet to hear before.
The two of them glance at each other with a friendly smile.
"Depends." She says before flicking her smoke out into the alley below and pausing to think deeply. The pattering rain on pavement takes over briefly.
"I need someone to ride with me." She says causing him to look over at her again. She continues.
"My buyer has been bothering the shit out of me since we left for Jig Jig. The optics you guys helped me piece together aren't just nick-nacks... they're gonna fetch us some serious scratch. More than i'm comfortable with just picking up alone... even though the buyer was kind of a good choom of mine once upon a time, the area is pretty shit... and so are his contacts."
"Didn't answer my question choom... are we good?" He asks sincerely in a vulnerable tone.
Audrey pauses as she crosses her arms... a big smile washes over her face.
She nudges Brian's shoulder hard with her shoulder. "Yeah.. of course." She says gritting her teeth... her tone feminine and nurturing... one he's never heard from her before. The two share a moment on that balcony you don't often find in Night City. One of vulnerable... personal... genuine connection.
"Don't start to get soft on me now Varga... we've still got work to do." She says with a light giggle as she turns and walks back into the safehouse.
Brian hearing his last name out of Audrey's mouth causes him to close his eyes tight... hit with a wave of sudden discomfort... cutting to black.