"Here's the remaining 1,500 eddies after splitting the advance."
The total 6,000 eurodollars meant 2,000 each—decent pay by Night City wage-slave standards, but pocket change for mercs like Carl, Oliver, and Jackie. After grabbing lukewarm takeout and synth-beer from a neon-lit stall, they reconvened in Oliver's megabuilding apartment, resuming their interrupted feast. The room smelled of burnt wiring and soy-based despair, its flickering LED strips casting jagged shadows over stacks of ammo crates and a couch held together by duct tape and denial.
Scratch that, it peeled off. Only denial.
"Fuckin' hell," Carl groaned, slumping onto the couch. A spring immediately jabbed him in the kidney. "Maelstrom, Scavs... How do corpo rats pull 20-hour shifts without flatlining? Do they unplug their brains and let the chrome do the work?"
"Rumor says they yank out their sleep glands," Jackie said, tossing Carl a garishly labeled soda. The can's holographic label screamed Koko Kola: Love in Every Sip! in migraine pink. "Pump themselves full of combat stims. That, or they're just really into spreadsheets."
"Christ, no." Carl recoiled, missing the catch. The can ricocheted off Oliver's temple with a metallic clang.
"Hey!" Oliver snapped, rubbing the spot. His face—still all natural flesh, save for a faint scar from a childhood brawl—twisted into a scowl. "Watch the aim, choom. Not all of us sleep with our guns."
"Sorry," Carl muttered, flexing his unmodified hand. "Meat fingers. At least I don't accidentally download malware when I sneeze."
"What's the time?" Oliver grumbled.
"8:30," Jackie mumbled around a mouthful of soy-glazed "chicken." The skewer dripped neon-orange sauce that glowed faintly under UV light. "Damn, this tastes nova—almost like the real thing!"
Carl grimaced after nibbling a rubbery chunk. The synthetic meat oozed artificial sweetener and existential dread. "Tastes like gutter water filtered through a burnt-out circuit board." In disgust, he flung his skewer across the room. It lodged into the wall with a wet thunk, neon-orange sauce dripping down the peeling paint like radioactive sap.
Jackie feigned offense, clutching his chest. "You wound me, hermano! This is art. Chef's kiss!" He bit into another piece, and the "meat" snapped back like a rubber band, smacking him in the nose. "¡Coño! Okay, maybe it's got… personality."
Oliver snorted. "Personality's one word for it. Last week, I saw a guy use this stuff to fix a leaky coolant pipe." He peeled a strip of "chicken" off his skewer and stretched it taut between his hands. "See? Industrial-grade adhesive. Could weld a car frame with this."
Carl lobbed a fry at him. "Maybe you should've been a mechanic."
"Pass. I like my fingers attached." Oliver caught the fry mid-air, his unmodified reflexes sharp from years of scavenging Santo Domingo's streets. "Besides, welding pays worse than getting shot at."
Jackie leaned forward, grease glinting on his jaw. "If your corpo tastebuds can't handle art, maybe we smuggle some real meat from the Badlands? Know a Nomad clan that trades in legit livestock. Fresh pork, real corn… chingado, maybe even a lime that didn't grow in a petri dish."
"Price?" Carl interrupted, prying a rogue spring from the couch cushion.
Oliver ticked off fingers: "1k for a chicken. 5k for a pig. Not counting bribes, transport, or the 50% chance it arrives as irradiated jerky. Oh, and if NCPD catches you? That's another 2k in 'fines.'"
Carl blinked. That should sound outrageous—a "premium" synth-chicken meal cost 20 eddies downtown—but after today's paycheck, his neural account pulsed with 52,000€$. Part of him itched to burn a fifth of it on a single roast. "Could buy decent chrome for that."
"Meat's rarer than honesty here," Oliver said, biting into a synth-beef taco. The shell crumbled like drywall. "But if you're serious, I know a fixer in Santo Domingo. For an extra 5k, he'll guarantee fresh pork—no Scav juice, no rat meat substitutions. Probably."
Carl hesitated. "You two in?"
"Nah." Oliver waved his disintegrating taco. "Grew up on cricket protein. Real meat'd probably make me puke. Last time I ate something organic, and that was by mistake I must say, my stomach staged a coup."
Jackie's Saints necklace clinked as he leaned in. "I'll chip in. Miss my abuela's tamales. Real corn, real pork… chingado, even the masa here tastes like chalk." He gestured to the neon-orude sauce now dripping down the wall. "This shit's basically edible hazard tape."
The TV flickered, cutting to a news update. A holographic anchor with a glitching face announced:
"UPDATE: Cyberpsycho from Kabukichi Market attack still at large. Suspect last seen heading toward Watson District. Described as heavily chromed with a… uh… distinctive odor of burnt popcorn. All citizens advised to—"
Carl froze, a synth-fry halfway to his mouth. "Kabukichi's… thirty minutes on foot from here."
Jackie's grin died. "Don't jinx it, hermano. Last thing we need's a chromed-up psycho crashing dinner." He brandished his skewer like a sword. "Though if they try, I'll stab 'em with this. Might take their eye out."
Oliver muted the feed, the silence thickening with the hum of faulty neon outside. Somewhere in Night City's smog-choked belly, a rogue cyberpsycho roamed—and 52,000€$ suddenly felt thinner than a Scav's mercy.