Chương 85: Bonus Chapter: Interlude II

AN: For fulfilling last week's goal, here's a bonus chapter.

Three weeks went by, and Santi found himself elbow-deep in the beginning of an engine after he had finished making the frame for the Widowmaker. The plan was to make a compound-boosted 9. 4-liter big block V8, and sure, he could have just used the Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech's engine, which was a cult classic for engine swaps and modifying cars in Night City.

However, that engine also came with a price tag of 75, 000 eddies, and at that point Santi was just much more prepared to create and assemble one from scratch on the assembly bench that Santi had bought from Orsen specifically for this phase of the project. It may have been a junkyard salvage, but it still had a reinforced work surface with integrated tool trays, precision measurement equipment, and a hydraulic engine hoist mounted directly overhead, and it had barely cost him 1500 eddies.

The block itself was cast in aluminum on the scrap-fab and then finish-machined to Santi's specifications on the CNC machine. It now sat on the bench in its unfinished state, its cylinder bores freshly honed, and its main bearing saddles line-bored to within one ten-thousandth of an inch of the design spec. Around the engine there were the internal components that Santi had spent the previous three days machining, all of them sorted into their labeled trays.

He had a forged crankshaft that had been machined from a single billet of high-strength steel, forged connecting rods, each one balanced to within a gram of its mates, and forged pistons with anodized crowns and hardened wrist pin bosses. Apart from that, he also had the valve train components, the camshafts, lifters, springs, retainers, and everything a compound-boosted engine would need to survive outputting forty-five hundred horsepower without sending a piston to the moon at nine thousand RPM.

Judy was at the CNC machine, helping Santi out by running a batch of fuel injector housings that would eventually feed the engine's twin turbos and supercharger with a very precisely metered CHOOH2 spray that Santi's fuel mapping profile demanded. Her firetruck was, as of two days ago, officially operational. She had run into a few issues that delayed her, but by now the engine ran, the pumps worked, and the ladder even managed to be deployed.

The truck had actually left the parking lot for its first road test the previous afternoon, and Judy had returned five minutes later grinning from ear to ear with undiluted satisfaction. She had managed to bring a beast back from the brink of death, and now had even ridden it. Sasha was sitting cross-legged on the workbench as usual, though she now had her physical cyberdeck in hand and was working to refine her coding skills, and in front of her sat one of the synthi-caf's she had brought.

The projector was playing a Japanese film across the north wall, and the speakers were tuned to BodyHeatFM at a loud enough volume to enjoy without disrupting a conversation. The station's rotation of downtempo electronic and vintage synth-pop provided the ambient soundtrack that had become the shop's default aural texture over the past three weeks.

Santi was seating the crankshaft into the main bearings, working patiently with a torque wrench, knowing that a mistake at this stage of the build, no matter how small, could very well translate directly into a blown engine. As everyone was focused on doing whatever was in front of them, the music that had been playing on the speakers suddenly cut out and was replaced by a momentary silence before a feminine voice broke the silence.

"Chooms, this is Body Heat Live. We're breaking out of our normal rotation for a breaking news feed coming in hot from the field. Our correspondent is on the ground in the Sacramento theater, and apparently he's got some hot news for us folks down in Night City. Reyes Vaquero, talk to us." There was static followed by a crackle, and finally a second voice spoke.

"This is Reyes Vaquero for Body Heat Field, reporting from a ridge line approximately four miles southeast of the Sacramento city limits. I'm looking at... I'm looking at what I can only describe as... sorry, choom, I'm going to try to describe what I'm seeing, but I want you to understand up front that words are not going to do this shit justice." The voice of Reyes Vaquero sounded younger, and he was breathing hard as a background of wind noise intermingled with his voice.

Hearing the words, Santi set the torque wrench down, Sasha looked up from her Cyberdeck, and Judy killed the CNC machine's cutting cycle, its high-pitched whine dropping rapidly and leaving the space in utter silence.

"NUSA aviation assets have been over Sacramento for like forty minutes," the correspondent continued, his voice pressed with urgency as if his brain was screaming at him to run while he stayed in place.

"I'm counting at least twelve aircraft in the current formation, choom, and I'm seeing bombardment patterns that are not... this is not tactical strike doctrine. I mean, I don't know much about that shit, but this is like some sort of area denial. It's as if High Command gave the orders to raze the city... The downtown area is burning... The residential areas north of the river are burning... The Free State defense batteries are... fuck me, choom, they were firing not even ten minutes ago.

But they're not firing anymore, and I can see... I can see helicopters, they look like Zetatech Valgus, but I don't know. They look weird, and they're running low-altitude gun runs through the neighborhoods. They're just... they're strafing civilians in the streets... This is not... this is not what any of us signed up to report, but you need to know, you need to know that this is happening, you need to-" This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The correspondent's voice had cut out mid-sentence, leaving only the ambient sounds of the ridge line for a second before the sound of shells impacting the ground, accompanied by jet engines, was heard. Then the roar of the engines cut out before a brrrtt was heard and the transmission dropped entirely into digital silence. Then the studio DJ came back with a shaky voice.

"Chooms, it seems like we've just lost the feed. We've- we're going to try to reestablish contact with our correspondent. In the meantime, we're going to... we're going to take a short musical break, and we'll be back with- we'll be back." The station cut to a track that was mostly instrumental and calming. As the music played and the Japanese film kept running across the wall, Santi, Judy, and Sasha remained still for a while.

"He's dead," Sasha said finally. Her voice was flat and lacked any sense of shock, as if this was to be expected.

"I would guess so," Santi agreed.

"They zeroed him while he was live," Sasha said.

"Seems like the NUSA doesn't give a rat's ass about keeping up a facade of unity," Judy said as she walked over from the CNC machine, wiping her hands on a shop rag. She stopped beside the workbench with her arms folded, her expression neutral.

"Sacramento's most likely gone now. If they just did a gun run on a reporter that wasn't even in the designated area of attack... and with what the gonk said before he got got, who's to say just how far the NUSA was going to go on those poor bastards."

"Yeah," Santi said with a heavy nod. He looked at the engine block on the bench and the crankshaft he had been ninety seconds away from finishing the seating on, and all of the other parts spread across it. He then glanced at the projector and the movie playing on the wall and couldn't help but be glad he had bought this place. He knew Night City was too valuable an asset to just get the same treatment as Sacramento, but no one knew how bad things would be getting.

"Things are going to shit," Judy said.

"Things went to shit a while ago," Santi said.

"It's just that the shit has accumulated to the point that it's now overflowing." They stood in silence for another few seconds as the instrumental track kept playing. The Cyberdeck in Sasha's lap had gone into sleep mode, and its screen had darkened. Then Judy uncrossed her arms.

"You know what," she said.

"Fuck this."

"What?" Santi asked.

"If the world's ending, I'm not going to sit here and watch the Mustang come together while the news gets worse and worse every hour," Judy said.

"I finished repairing the firetruck, and I have not actually gotten to enjoy the thing I spent the better part of a year working on. So I'm going to go do that. Right now. Before those NUSA fuckers decide Watson is next and I don't get another chance."

"Judy," Santi said.

"What!" Judy said.

"You don't have any license to drive that," Santi said.

"Taking it around the block is one thing, but taking it out for a joyride is a whole other beast."

"You don't have a license to drive the thing you're about to build either," Judy pointed out.

"Shit, choom, you don't even have a license to drive around your mom's ride."

"I know," Santi said.

"I was pointing out the shared circumstance."

"Fucking right," she said as she began walking towards the door. She grabbed her toolbox off the workbench and turned back with both middle fingers raised in a gesture of affectionate contempt.

"The NCPD does not give a single functional shit about anything happening on the roads today, Santi. With the shit we just heard, I'd be surprised if they aren't pissing themselves or jerking each other off in a conference room. This is the safest day of the year to drive the firetruck. I think I helped enough for the day, and I'm not going to waste the rest of this perfect day standing around watching you seat a crankshaft."

She left through the blue-side door, and a minute later, the roar of the firetruck's diesel engine starting up carried softly through the walls, followed by the revving of the engine as the truck made its way out and onto the roads of Night City.

"She's going to get her ass pulled over and arrested," Sasha said.

"Maybe, but I don't think so." Santi shook his head.

"The NCPD is not equipped to deal with Judy today. She's probably right too, the situation at hand would make it so the pigs don't notice her. Even if they do, the NCPD never pulls anyone over, not unless they're trying to ice them."

"You know, if things weren't going to shit the way they are, and if the NCPD wasn't ass in general," Sasha said.

"Then Judy would absolutely be getting herself thrown in the tank."

"Yeah, well," Santi shrugged as he picked up the torque wrench and looked at the crankshaft.

"Like I said. Good thing the pigs never do shit." He went back to work, seating the crankshaft and torquing the main bearing caps in the correct sequence and to the correct values. Once he was sure they were tight, he gave them one additional rotational check between each cap, and then moved on to the connecting rods. The instrumental track on the radio ended, and another one started. Body Heat did not go back to their correspondent, and eventually the DJ came back on air as if nothing had ever happened.

Sasha stayed on the workbench, ignoring her cyberdeck as she preferred to watch Santi work, her chin resting on the heel of her right palm, her right elbow on her knee, and she had a certain expression on her face. It was warm, and carried a quiet interest that had nothing to do with the engine on the bench and everything to do with the person assembling it. And although Santi knew that she was watching him, since he could feel her eyes on him, he did not look up.

His SRN relay pulses had already worked to amplify his awareness, and it was honestly hard not to look her way and keep his attention on the connecting rod in his hands. He was going to turn seventeen in two months, and she was already seventeen. The world was ending, Sacramento was burning, and people were getting smoked at every corner. He told himself that he had no time to focus on or pay attention to the girl that was very clearly into him for some reason.

But as the time passed, he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with her eyes on him. So he set the connecting rod down, and without looking up, he asked, "You want another synthi-caf?"

"No," Sasha said.

"I'm good right here."

"Alright, I'll just-" Santi started to speak, but was interrupted as his agent pinged with a call from Dino Dinovic. Santi looked up, and Sasha saw his eyes flashing before he answered the call.

"Dino," Santi said, speaking internally.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Ah, my favorite manly child," Dino said.

"I've got a gig lined up for tomorrow, and it turns out that the runner I had for it was up in Sacramento doing fuck-all. So, with her iced, I needed another runner to sub in, and my other trusted runners are currently... undisposed. I'll pay you extra. Just meet me at the Afterlife at ten in the morning tomorrow." Santi looked at Sasha and thought to himself. He needed a break from building the Widowmaker, the car anyway, and making more eddies never hurt anybody.

"Sure, I'll meet you tomorrow at ten."

Eh, IDK what to say, give me stones. The infamous P@treon exists for those of you who want to read ahead. patreon. com/Crimson_Reapr (Don't be a gonk, remove the space) They get various long-form chapters weekly.