"I'm gonna call Judy real quick."
After retrieving their weapons from the stunned receptionist, Roqi and the others left Clouds.
While waiting for the elevator, V placed the call.
"Told you I'd find her, right?"
Judy's voice was too muffled to make out, but V continued relaying what they'd just uncovered.
"Evelyn's no longer at Clouds. Her behavioral chip got fried, and now she's been handed off to—"
He was cut off mid-sentence.
"You know where to find Fingers?"
A pause.
"I'm on my way. Gonna get her back…"
He sighed and hung up.
"Judy asked me to find Evelyn. Lucky, Jackie, and… Mower—this one's on me. I can handle it."
Before he could finish, Jackie slapped a firm hand on his shoulder.
"What do you take us for, mano? You think I'd ever just walk away from a brother?"
"I don't mind," Mower answered before Roqi could.
She knew Roqi wasn't the type to bail on others. If he were, they would've split ways long ago after Konpeki Plaza—used each other, cut ties, moved on.
She'd grown numb from chasing corporate targets, from kill orders and disposable missions.
But now... things felt different.
The sword in her hand finally had a reason to swing.
Jig-Jig Street wasn't far. From Megatower H8, they descended into the underlayers of Japantown—right into one of Night City's dirtiest red-light zones. A proper cesspool, no worse than Umran Street where Viktor the ripper worked.
[Can't lie—this place's got some kick.]
Johnny, now fully alert, ogled the neon-lit alleyways like a horny ghost on a nostalgia binge.
"Wipe your damn drool, old perv. This is exactly your kind of neighborhood, huh?"
Roqi clipped his PDA to the strap of his nomad robe, camera facing forward so Johnny could get a full view.
He instantly regretted it—having a degenerate in your ear 24/7 was like strapping a clown to your shoulder. Good mood or bad, Johnny always had something to say, and none of it was quiet.
"Hey sugar cheeks~ Where you headed in such a rush?"
A seductive doll leaned against a pole, bathed in flickering neon, voice dripping with false intimacy.
"Come to me. Let me help you loosen up, mm? I'll take good care of you."
Roqi took a closer look.
Yeah. It was a guy.
He clenched his fist, resisting the urge to unsheathe his katana.
[At least here, no one pretends it's something else.]
Johnny sighed with the weird satisfaction of a pervert watching ancient VHS tapes.
[Christ. Her implants are older than I am.]
He gestured at a doll squatting on rust-stained steps, her chrome flaking like old paint.
"Takes dedication to keep that kind of junk working," V muttered.
Doll work—high-end or back-alley—was still doll work. In the end, just a bunch of poor souls sculpted into living sex toys.
Better than a bullet to the brain. Better than starving. That's what they always said.
"So, what year were you born? 1990?" Roqi asked casually as they walked.
[Close. '88.] Johnny clicked his tongue. [What a vintage year.]
"Another decade and Night City's top terrorist turns a hundred."
[You'd better throw me a party. With strippers. And a marching band. But first? Gotta get me outta this goddamn pocket coffin.]
Roqi rolled his eyes. "Be grateful the chip didn't scramble your brain. You should be thinking about survival, not your dick."
Sure, the place had a vibe that excited men. But Jackie had Misty. Roqi had Mower. Only V—and Johnny, the ancient LSP—were left single, and neither looked particularly eager to sample Jig-Jig's cheap delights.
As Jackie once said: it's about the vibe, not the action. Spoken like a true Night City native.
A holographic doll on the sidewalk kept repeating the same sultry phrase:
"I can keep you hard for hours~~~"
Was that even grammatically correct?
And "hours"?! Roqi winced. That sounded medically unsafe.
Expressionless, he walked past the projection.
The deeper they went, the fewer people they saw. Fewer shops. More trash. More water-logged puddles.
Random gangers and strung-out weirdos swarmed like flies on meat.
"Yo, stop right there."
A group of shirtless punks lounging outside a crumbling building glared at them.
"Who you looking for?"
"I'm looking for a ripperdoc," Roqi said, still polite. "Goes by Fingers. You know where he is?"
"Who the hell are you? What for?"
"My implants are acting up," V added, calmly.
"You lot don't look local. You telling me all of Night City doesn't have a single doc better than him?"
"They say Fingers has the best hands in the biz," Roqi said.
The punk nodded, smirking. "Yeah, if you're a working girl. That's his specialty. You one of them?"
Roqi's eye twitched.
This whole damn city was full of people who begged for an ass-kicking.
"Go fuck your mother. We don't have time for your bullshit."
In one fluid motion, Roqi drew his sword and slashed—two punks dropped before they could react.
Mower holstered her revolver, smoke trailing from the barrel. She shot a look toward a doll peeking down from a window. The doll shrieked and vanished like a cockroach sensing danger.
They entered the dim, half-collapsed building. In one corner, a bugged-out male doll was kneeling over a collapsed woman, muttering prayers that sounded like bad poetry written during a cyberpsychosis episode.
"Oh! Merciful spirit of the void! You drift in the dark… deliver us with blood and chrome… bless our souls, O cosmic king—aaaaahhh!"
[She's dead. Call that Night City gospel.]
Johnny scoffed.
On a nearby table sat a sludgy mound of blue-yellow goo.
"What the hell is this—blue butter?" V leaned in.
[Blue? Probably mixed with mech-serum. Strong stuff. Back in the Third Corporate War, people were pumping that straight into their veins. Blocks pain for 24 hours. After that? You don't remember a damn thing.]
"Damn. That explains it." V scanned the substance. "Benzodiazepines…"
"Some kind of tranquilizer. Doesn't matter what variant. Don't take it," Roqi muttered. He'd seen this kind of junk before.
In another corner, a figure lay curled in a pile of trash.
"Hey. You alright?" Jackie stepped over, accidentally kicking a heap of cans.
"I don't wanna swim! I hate water! Nobody cares, don't you get it?!"
The guy ranted like he was dreaming—or losing his mind.
"Do you know where Fingers is?" V asked, straight to the point.
"If I did, I'd sell that info in a heartbeat!" The man laughed, voice shifting from pathetic to manic. "Why complicate things? In the end, it's just you, some scrap wiring, and a few empty bottles!"
"Fried beyond repair." V shook his head. "Let's keep moving."
The first floor looked like a warzone—concrete dust, rusted rebar, leaking pipes. Low-grade dolls huddled in the shadows like broken toys.
At the end of the hallway, a flickering condom-shaped neon sign glowed blue beside the stairs.
They exchanged a look.
Yup. Definitely not a legit clinic.
Upstairs, a man and woman were mid-shouting match. From the sound of it: a doll in debt, and one of Fingers' lowlife pimps—cut from the same cloth as the thugs downstairs.
They pushed into a filthy room bathed in purple-blue neon.
Inside, several people were waiting.
"Hey, V."
A familiar voice called out.
.
.
.
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