Chapter Text
The next morning, Ana and Mina arrived at the Glen apartment.
Blanca and Noira were still half-asleep when the door opened. Mina, again, handled most of the morning routine—helping them into the oversized tub, washing them, drying them carefully, then settling them back in bed for breakfast. Ana stayed mostly silent, assisting only when needed.
Once the plates were cleared and both sisters were dressed in clean clothes, Ana pulled a chair over and sat across from them. Mina took a seat beside him, watching quietly.
"Before we go any further," he said, "explanation, if you will. Feel free to interrupt, no need to wait till the end or anything."
"Okay," he continued. "As I said before, there are still parts of your bodies that haven't been fully fixed yet. I left them alone until now because they required your consent. Three majors, and one… sensitive area. Limbs are obvious, so I'm not going to say anything about that."
He raised one finger.
"First are your lungs. Because of... prolonged trauma, your lungs have suffered chronic systemic inflammation and structural damage. The stress response also disrupted the nervous system controlling them. Right now, they're weaker than they should be. Even light activity will leave you short of breath for a long time."
A second finger.
"Your hearts. Months of continuous stress hormones—adrenaline especially—kept them under constant pressure. High blood pressure, inflammation, possible early stress cardiomyopathy, and autonomic dysregulation. Meaning that your hearts are functioning, but they're not as healthy as before. If we leave them as they are now, it's bad for you in the future."
A third finger.
"Bones. Osteoporosis from malnutrition and long-term immobility. Meaning your bones are quite brittle. Not to the point being a minor fall could fracture, but... Well, it's more like old people now, and we'll need to rebuild density and strength from the inside."
And a fourth.
"And the last part… your vaginas. The damage there is both physical and internal. Tissue trauma, scarring, nerve disruption, and prolapse. Self explanatory, this one."
"If you want to live without constant pain or discomfort—these," he then twirled a finger, "need to be addressed."
"Any question then?"
A silence.
"Right... Now, the real elephant in the room. The contingency."
Ana pulled out a transparent box containing the head of a ballistic dummy and placed it at the end of the bed. Then he took out a round, metal-like object about the size of the tip of his finger and held it up for the sisters to see.
"What I'm going to do is very simple. I'm going to place this little thing right in your brainstem. Its functions are straightforward: a tracker and a micro biobomb."
Both sisters went completely still.
Blanca's eyes widened as she stared at the small device in Ana's hand. "Pardon, but did—did I hear that right? B-biobomb?!"
Noira didn't speak at all. She just sat frozen, lips slightly parted. Ana didn't even try to soften the moment. He set the device down carefully on the transparent box.
"Quid pro quo," he said. "An ol' Latin phrase. Something for something. This for that."
"You will get new lives. As well as new bodies. A place to live. Money and benefits. Protection from the people who hurt you—and from anyone else who might try. Mina and I will keep you safe, feed you, and teach you how to survive in this shithole of a city. In return, your loyalty… and your silence. No running to the cops and corps. No selling information. No turning on us the moment things get difficult."
He tapped the side of the clear box with one finger.
"A two-charge device. The first charge is small by design—but more than enough to destroy the brainstem and everything above it."
Without another word, he snapped his fingers.
And the ballistic dummy's head inside the box immidiately exploded as the two sister flinched . Bone fragments and simulated tissue painted the entire interior in a thick, wet crimson. The sound was sharp but muffled. Once the mist settled, the box itself remained perfectly intact—not a single crack in the acrylic.
"If I have to add, a clean death for you if such a scenario were to resort me to doing this, compared to what you had endured prior."
Ana waited a few seconds, let them process things, then spoke again.
"That is the first charge. The execution. The second—Hmmm... The second is a message. Comprised of a fungal specimen that I happened to find in a certain lab. Don't know the name, but my idiot ass happened to eat it by chance."
"Let's say due to... my current new self, I survive it easily. But to you, a normal human? Afraid not. Once spores are in the air and inhaled, the initial symptoms resemble those of the common flu. Fever, muscle aches, and mild chest discomfort, yada yada... but they rapidly progress to severe breathing difficulties, shock, and potentially fatal respiratory collapse."
"If the first one ever goes boom boom, the second will make them glug glug on their own pool of blood."
He picked the small device back up and held it between two fingers so they could see it clearly.
"This is not a threat I enjoy making. But it is the price of the safety you're asking for. You said you chose the second option. This is what that option includes. Only once this is installed on you, I will let you know my secrets."
"And a little comfort, in case you asked if the microbomb happened to malfunction... Hate to be that guy, buuuut... it doesn't, really. Nor would it blow up due to blunt force to the head. Both Mina and I have that bomb inside each of us, but worse. Way. Much. Worst. If anything, yours are just children's toys at best."
The sisters turned to Mina, who had stayed silent all this time. She could nod in acknowledgment.
Ana set the device down once more.
"One last time. Are. You. Sure?"
Both sisters stayed quiet for a long time.
"We already chose the second option. We're not changing our minds," Blanca finally spoke.
Noira nodded next to her, sheppish as usual. "O-oui. We accept."
Ana watched them for a few seconds, then gave a small nod.
"Alrighty then. The surgery starts tomorrow. "We'll begin at—" He glanced at the phone, "—noon then. That gives you the rest of today and a full night to sleep. We will come over early in the morning—nothing serious by the way, just making sure you're clean, rested, and as calm as you two can be before moving back to the clinic. Okay? Okay."
Mina stood up, stretching her arms over her head.
"I've got to head back to the clinic. Opening time's almost here, and I still need to get everything ready for tomorrow." She looked at the sisters. "You two try to rest, 'kay? I'll swing by later as usual. Toodles~"
She shot Ana a quick warning look, then headed for the door.
Ana waited until it closed behind her before turning back to Blanca and Noira.
"So... any questions? Or you want me to continue reading you some books like before?"
-------------
The clinic was quiet by the time noon rolled around.
"Front doors, done. Sign, done. Shutters, done. What else…?" Mina moved through the checklist under her breath.
"The cams," I said, nodding toward the ones in the corners.
"Right, right." She spun to the PC and shut it down. "Aaaand… done."
Only after she gave me the nod did I walk over to the two patient chairs. Readings were stable—blood pressure, heart rate, nothing out of line. I took a small flashlight and checked each of their eyes. No reaction. The sedatives had taken cleanly.
I didn't bother with gurneys. A quiet push of psychic force was enough. I lifted both of them at once and carried the sisters down the narrow stairwell into the basement.
One half of the room—the tentacle-horror section—had new additions. Operating chairs, the same basic shape as the ones upstairs, but... twisted. They weren't furniture anymore so much as living beings: thick, fused masses of meat and bone grown directly into the metal frames, spiked limbs jutting out. Tentacles and claws sprouted from the backs of the chairs, coiling lazily around the centers like they were waiting for someone to operate on.
Not my design, by the way. I stole the idea from Hitman—that Hokkaido mission where you have to take out the old man on the surgery table with the robotic spider arms—and obviously, Warframe.
I set Blanca into the first chair. The tentacles and claws shifted, adjusting to take her weight. Noira went into the second. Once both were settled, the tentacles went to work. The tips split into micro-filaments and slipped under the skin.
"By my estimate, we should be done by midnight."
I could do fast. Still, had to make sure that my work was flawless, if not anything. The least I wanted was for my patient to die on the spot due to my shortcomings.
Mina pointed at the chairs. "Okay, real ass question. Why am I even here if you've got those?"
"Not for the insides," I shook my head. "I need you for the limbs."
"The limbs? Those should be easier than fixing a heart or lungs, right?"
Instead of answering right away, I pulled a cooler unit between us and opened it so she could see what was inside.
"Knew we'd reuse these bad bitches one day."
We both stared at the contents.
"Is that—are those what I think they are?"
"Yep," I said, popping the p.
Bones. All four pairs of Blanca's and Noira's old limbs. Cleaned.
"The lungs, hearts, and other bones are straightforward. Patching, reinforcing. Even if something goes wrong, we've still got baselines to work from. Their limbs are a different story. Those were long gone before we ever took the sisters in."
I carried the bones over to the bio-fabricator bench. "I already stripped the rotten flesh—wouldn't have done us any good. As for why I need your help with the limbs… It's simple."
She raised an eyebrow. "Which is…?"
"A woman's touch."
"A woman's touch?" Mina was clearly confused by my choice of words. "The fuck does that mean?"
"Perspective. Aesthetic. Blah, blah, blah... Whatever you want to call it. I want you to design how their new limbs should look—make them as a woman's arms and legs that fit them, seamlessly."
I shrugged. "Look, I was a man in my past life, and I'm still a man now. I don't know how women see these things. Most of the people I ate back at the bunker were men, so the reference pool is shit. I did pull some of the women's memories, but… There wasn't much to work with. Most of them never left that bunker... And they were totally, definitely not 7ft tall amazons."
And the fact that Mina dealt with female patients more than I did. Well... I do have experience before as 'Mina', but it was a man's mindset in a woman's body... And I could get into Mina's memories, but...
How do you feel when your parents stomp into your room and search through your personal stuff? Nobody wanted that. Plus, it would be hypocritical of me to do so while I had already forbidden her to search through my personal memories.
"Okay, I get what you're trying to say. You don't want them ending up like… uh, what was it...? Ah—that one episode of Family Guy, when Joe steals Cleveland's legs? Upper white skin, lower brown skin?"
"Not that kind of borderline colorblind kind of error, but yes," I nodded.
"Wait, so I have to do this with you, too?" She gestured between us.
"Yes. I handle the legs, you take the arms. Capiche? Besides, it'll be good practice. Just in case."
"Dude, we have the central hivemind. It's basically Google at this point, thanks to you nerding out every night. If I ever need something, I can just pull it from there."
Fucking hell…
"Having the knowledge isn't the same as knowing how to use it, Mina. And you can't lean on the hivemind forever. Excuse the paranoid streak, but what happens the day you can't access it anymore?"
"Fine, fine..." She then rolled her eyes. "Jeez... So, how are we gonna do this?"
"Applying standard bone structures first, then muscles, ligaments, and everything that goes with them. We're working from the inside out—"
{WARNING: MULTIPLE UNKNOWN OBJECTS APPROACHING OUTER PERIMETER.}
The telepathic alerts hit me at once from the drones still guarding Leviathan's body.
"—What?"
"What's wrong?" Mina asked.
"The fuckers who played me like a goddamn fiddle," I said, the bitterness still raw. "Brought numbers this time," turning to her. "Mina, drop the bones. I need you on this. Two different minds are better than one."
"Okay," she nodded.
"Giving you greater access to the hivemind. Patching through… done. You good?"
She froze for a couple of seconds, then shook her head hard.
"Fuck's sake, don't fucking zip-bomb me like that! Jesus fuck! How the hell do you handle multiple feeds at once?! Sensory overload—fuck!" She groaned, rubbing her temples.
Right... I completely forgot that I was so used to seeing through fuck tons of eyes. Mina only had access to those in Night City, since her jobs, aside from running Arcadia, were also included in checking on the main casts. If anything, her case was akin to that of a security guard post.
"You can hit me later. Not right now."
I cut the rest of the feeds from her link and left only what we needed. Through the channels I routed to both of us, the picture came through clear.
Dozens of shapes moved across the seafloor toward the outermost ring of the pit that held Leviathan's body. After the last mess, I'd pushed the perimeter out another five kilometers and packed it with more mimics.
Unlike last time, the mech drones didn't push in close. From the feeds, they were circling farther out, past the outer ring, with a total of 12. However—
{These aren't the drones I ran into before.}
{Really?}
{Nuh-uh. Not even a little bit.}
{Okay, please don't tell me all of them managed to waltz through the minefield. With this size.}
{Well, they're fine and dandy, yes?}
These ones looked more like... builder-types? Bigger, bulkier, probably the size of a mini sub. Multiple arms and propellers, brighter headlights, even. Nothing about them screamed scouting or stealth.
{Dude, they don't look military to me. More like… specialized. Like they were made for underwater maintenance or some shits.}
Yeah. That didn't sound or look like anything a PMC or a pharmaceutical corp would field—Militech or Biotechnica. Only two players right now who even knew I existed.
...Actually, there were two other major companies involved in underwater shipping and tech: OTEC and SINO. I didn't think either of them would be in this, though.
For one, they didn't have much political weight on the American side of things. Sure, both had HQs around the States—for only those two had the gear and resources dedicated to navigating the absolute mess that was American maritime after the rogue AI self-replicating mines—but they stayed mostly clear of the local power games.
Second, both still carried old blood feud from the Fourth Corporate War with Militech and Arasaka. Self-explanatory.
Third, as far as I'd researched, almost every corporation in this world preferred to keep outside help to a minimum. Less chance of espionage that way. They were, in terms, hella paranoid as I was.
Those were my speculations. Then again, exceptions could always be made…
{What are we gonna do now?}
{Nothing, for now. Let's see why they're actually here.}
We watched.
The twelve machines then spread out in a circle around the outer perimeter. Took them a while, probably for calibration.
Then, one by one, they dropped lower, thrusters kicking up soft clouds of silt. Mechanical arms unfolded from underbelly compartments; each produced a single object: thick, dense, matte-black, curved segments of dark alloy, matte and featureless except for faint seams that glowed a dull blue. From the bottom segment, multiple metal limbs extended outward, then drilled deep into the rock and sediment to anchor the segment. A low vibration carried through the water, picked up clearly by the buried mimics. The others followed in sequence, working clockwise around the ring.
Twelve devices. Twelve points. Each one settling into position like the hours on a clock face.
{Is this some kind of ritual? Shit seems ominous as fuck, bro...}
Honestly? Less of a ritual, more of those bullshit people called abstract pieces of art that sold for gazillions of dollars in galleries back in old life.
...
Their shapes?... Why curves?... Twelve pieces... Twelve directions... A formation... Why circle—
{It's a fence.}
{That—Yeah... It could be. But if those are the posts, then where are the rails? I mean, you are technically a world-ending scenario? Isn't this feel... I don't know, lacking? Like, I don't see much effort put into this operation.}
{This world is dominated by corps, not governments, Mina. Puppets, straight up. Imagine the news that Biotechnica was hiding a monster beyond meaning, and that Militech had its foot in the door regarding the failed containment. Yeah, that day would be a fuckin' all-you-can-eat buffet for the others corps—}
*beep...*
...Dafuq?
{Did you hear that?}
{Hear what?}
{The beep.}
{No...?}
I tried to focus again.
*beep...*
{That! You must hear it, yes?}
{No...?}
*beep...*
The sound was faint. Not blaring or anything. Just
What the actual fuck?! How the hell—Wait, Mina was just connected to the drones, but not Levi—
{Fuck me... Those damn obelisk thingies are sonar detectors.}
The vast majority of fish cannot hear or feel fishing sonar. Most fish hear low frequencies below 3 kHz, while standard 2D and high-frequency sonars operate between 50 kHz and over 1,000 kHz—far above their sensory limits. The mimics, well, were mimicking fish and other creatures. And I only granted Mina the controls over some of those drones. Hence, the reason why she hadn't heard it.
But Leviathan is a different case. And I don't think those were just sonar detectors only, either... Must include seismic, too, no doubt.
{Isn't sonar like... loud? I mean, we are currently not that far away from where big boi is sleeping.)
(Lower frequency, judging by how I heard from Levi's. Not blaring kind, just fainting.}
Like the hood ceiling bird—
{Still, that's the most stupid thing ever, like putting multiple alarms just to annoy a guy who can kill you outright? AND, not to mention, salt water carries sound much more efficiently than air.}
{I think they've already come to a conclusion about Levi's behavior. That it only acts in retaliation. An animal that prefers its personal space.}
Compiling all my previous actions—or rather, Leviathan's actions from their perspective—they looked a lot like a solitary animal. First, Levi woke up in an unfamiliar environment. It acted out of panic, and the other side didn't exactly go easy on him during the escape either. Despite the assimilating ability, it still chose the sea as a hideout and stayed there in hibernation for an indefinite time. Their failed scouting attempt could have triggered the beast, but I didn't do anything after that.
Yet the threat was still there. A world-ending scenario hidden beneath the sea. Containment was technically impossible on Levi's part, let alone given its evolving capabilities. So stalling and keeping eyes on Levi until they found a foolproof way to kill or contain the beast was their best option right now.
Both of us watched the drones until they all decided to retreat.
{Dude… are you not gonna do anything?}
{...No.}
-------------
"Wait, no?" Mina asked.
The feed from the mimics cut off as she turned to Ana, walking back toward the bio-fabrication table and the more important task at hand: fixing the sisters.
"Yep," Ana replied, tossing a set of limb bones to her.
Multiple tentacles spawned from his back while both of his hands unraveled into micro-threads and started reconstructing the limbs. Mina quickly caught the bones and followed after, still surprised by his choice of action.
"If Levi's their main focus right now, why bother stopping them? Less chance of them suspecting that any of Levi's 'remnants'—" he clearly meant the two of them, "—have managed to infiltrate human society—"
Ana froze for a short moment. Then a tentacle slapped across his masked face and dragged itself slowly over the surface.
"Fuck me…"
"Something wrong?" Mina asked.
"No, it's just—It's about that day I rescued Blanca and Noira. Aaaand I made... quite a mess… Not the human-murder-hobo type of mess, I should say."
"Aaaaah… the famous' Night City Butcher' case. So that was you, huh?"
"The what now?" Ana immediately stopped working, clearly caught off guard by the name.
"You heard me," Mina smirked. "Night City Butcher. Heard it from one of the usual dolls who come to the clinic. Said her client was a cop from the case. He claimed it was the work of a cyberpsycho on the loose. Homegirl didn't buy any of that shit. Told me she's lived in this shithole for ten years straight and never seen a cyberpsycho sane enough to run from the scene and outrun both the cops and the locals. Weirdest of all, no MaxTacs were involved. She stated that if any murder spree like yours happens and the NCPD can't solve it, they just pin it on a cyberpsycho until it's closed."
"Hell," Mina continued, "most of the dolls I asked about your case seemed pretty happy you went psycho on those Tyger-tards."
"Mox? Lizzie's?"
"Mox. Lizzie's."
"Eh, figured." Ana shrugged and went back to work. "I'm honestly surprised that bar—or the Mox in general—hasn't been wiped off the map by the Tyger Claws yet." A dry chuckle came from under the mask. "They're more of a sex workers' union than an actual gang. Even more surprising—and suspicious as hell—that the Tyger Claws actually let them keep operating after what Lizzie did. A full-on gang war and Lizzie's Bar would've been nothing but a coffin for every last one of them if the Claws ever decided to go all-in."
He scoffed. "Can't fucking believe Judy later on thinks the Mox could handle the Tyger Claws with their so-called enhanced doll chip."
"Anyway," Ana continued, "now that you mentioned the 'Butcher' case—wait. Hmm… yeah. That could work."
"What are you cooking up?" Mina raised a brow at him.
"Since the unknown party's already monitoring Levi, that means we can't expect any future biomass deliveries from our dear big boi. So every nest on American soil is going to have to work overtime—grow while storing biomass just in case, while making sure the cover stays perfect. That includes us. Which means the 'Butcher' has to go full-time now…"
And fortunately, crime was basically a built-in feature of Night City at this point. As long as Ana kept his killing to a certain degree, stuck to justified targets, and didn't go nom-nom on scumbags and leave the crumbs behind like before, it was all good.
"Ana, can I ask you something?"
Mina decided to interrupt his train of thought. A tentacle rose in front of her, only for her to shut it down with a look.
"Not daily ragebait. And don't take this as my personal opinion or anything." She held out her hands. "Pure curiosity. Promise."
"Okay, shoot."
"About the corps—you know, the ones behind the scouting on Levi… Why haven't you…?" Mina finished the question with a neck-slice gesture.
"You're asking why I haven't gone full mayhem on Biotechnica or Militech, or anyone connected to our case, right?"
"Uh-huh." His sister nodded a few times. "I mean, with our current biology, aren't you—aren't we—technically the bane of living things and technology? Like, this whole world? We've adapted to almost everything they've thrown at us. Pyro, cryo, bio, yada yada… and not to mention your plan of exposing yourself to the Elephant's Foot?"
"The point is," she continued, "I still don't understand why we should be afraid of those corpo-dicks."
Ana thought for a short while, then turned to her and nodded.
"You're right. But that way of thinking will get us in trouble sooner or later."
"Like… how?"
"Hubris."
Mina looked deeply confused. Everything she'd said had been nothing but facts about what they were, not arrogant.
"I used to think the exact same way," Ana said, "until those fuckers blew the entire AV out of the sky just to leave no traces behind. That was the moment I realized how short-minded I was. That was when I realized I was just a child who happened to have powers beyond means."
"Yes," he continued. "In theory, I against all of humanity should be a one-sided fight. But this is 'humanity' we're dealing with. I was human too. I know how far a person will go when they're desperate under extreme conditions. If we act now, the chance that not just every corporation around the world, but every country, ignores their personal feuds and joins hands just to make sure we're dead… is astronomically high. Worse, this Earth is way more high-tech than my previous one. Holograms, flying cars, orbital stations, AIs—almost everything I once thought wouldn't be possible is possible in this world."
"And the worst of all, I still haven't found anything solid about the origin of the old me. Every memory from the people I've killed treats the old me like an anomaly they managed to take down a long time ago. Okay, fine—if they succeeded in putting me in a coma before, how the fuck did they struggle so hard just to barely contain me later? They did more good than harm by giving me all those adaptations and genomes from the secret site."
"Too many holes in our—new me's—past, okay? Every now and then, I ask myself if my old human life was just a very vivid dream. A side effect of being in a coma for so long, along with this beast's ability to absorb memories."
A tentacle moved toward Mina and tapped a few times on her forehead.
"We are 'hard to kill,' Mina. Not fuckin' invincible nor truly immortal. There's something that can discombulate our asses into a fuckin' veggie like before exists out there. Good news is, no one knows or has it yet. Bad news is, so do we. So don't you ever let our powers blind us. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. Always remember that, okay?"
Mina could only nod at his words.
"Good. Anyways, another thing I learned the hard way in my 'past life's profession' is knowing when, where, why, and how to act. "Now—" Ana continued his work. "I need you to use more than your usual two brain cells and answer this question of mine. Think really hard, please."
"Do you see any benefits in waging war? Not just against the corps, but against the world in general? AND. I don't talk about bragging rights or... I don't know, shits and giggles? Legit advantages, okay? "
And so, Mina thought. Hard. Actually brainstorming for once. Her expression varied from a good one to immediate dismissal.
"Yeah, can't think of anything reasonable, right? I prefer not to genocide on a whim, especially if innocents are gonna be involved. Bad for the soul, bad for the mind. I really, really don't want to be painted as the second famous painter you-know-who. Plus, kinda hypocritical for a mass murderer like me to say this, but... if I ever went six feet under, I want to have at least some self-dignity before God or whoever threw me into this."
"Yeah, that's fair." Mina had to agree there.
"Anything else you want to ask then?"
"Is soup a drink?" A smile crept into her face.
Ana's tentacles froze mid-work.
"…What the—Soup and stew ain't drink, dumpass. That's fuckin' disgusting."
"Nuh-uh."
"The fuck you mean 'nuh-uh'?!"
Back to the daily ragebait then.