Although David had always loved watching Dark Braindances—blood-soaked, chaotic, and violent simulations designed for cheap thrills—experiencing real violence was a completely different matter.
In a Braindance, no matter how realistic, there was always a thin, invisible barrier protecting your mind: the knowledge that it wasn't real. No matter how many gunshots rang out, how much blood sprayed, some part of you always understood—this isn't reality.
But when the blood is real, when the stench of burned flesh and fear clings to the air, when the screams aren't part of a soundtrack but rip straight through your ears...
That protection collapses.
Reality was brutal, merciless, and inescapable.
And David, right now, was crumbling under its weight.
Arthur glanced over his shoulder at the boy gagging and retching behind him, his disgust evident.
"You're only at this level, and you still dare to like Black Braindances? What a waste," Arthur sneered, cocking his shotgun and pressing forward through the carnage without slowing. "Too weak, you won't survive a week in Night City. Get up and follow me, or you're dead meat."
He didn't wait for a response, striding confidently down the blood-slick corridor.
Despite the nausea twisting his gut, despite the tears pricking his eyes, David bit down hard on his lower lip. After a long moment, he wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, tightened his grip on the pistol Arthur had shoved at him, and forced his legs to move.
Because Arthur was right.
In Night City, weakness wasn't an option.
Arthur, meanwhile, was multitasking. While navigating the corpse-strewn hallways, he tapped into his personal link and dialed an old contact.
Despite being gone from Night City for over a decade, he still had connections—people who had, like cockroaches, survived the endless cycles of violence and decay.
Not many people lasted long here. But the smart ones? The careful ones?
They hid well and lived longer.
One of them was a hacker Arthur had worked with before—a woman with quick fingers, a sharp tongue, and nerves of steel.
Ring... Ring...
"Yo, this is T-Bug."
Arthur smirked.
"Still alive, I see."
"Arthur?!" T-Bug sounded genuinely startled. "Damn, choom, I thought you'd gone cyberpsycho and ended up fertilizer in some alley! Didn't expect you to crawl back into this muddy pond."
"Please." Arthur scoffed. "Only one person's allowed to kill me—and that's me. Listen, I need a favor. Look up a patient admitted to the Night City Rehabilitation Center this afternoon. Name's Gloria."
T-Bug chuckled. "Ah, moving mountains for a beauty, are we?"
"Spare me the romance novel crap," Arthur said, rolling his eyes. "You keep reading those, you'll be quoting Shakespeare next."
"You owe me a beer for this," she said. "Check your terminal. And for the record, literature saves souls. Keep refusing to read, and you'll end up like the cyberpsychos you keep capping."
Arthur glanced at the incoming data flashing across his retina. "Damn," he muttered. "That's bloody even by Night City standards."
"Yeah," T-Bug said dryly. "Welcome home."
The line went dead.
Arthur smirked and veered sharply to the left, cutting down a side hallway. The gore only thickened the deeper they went.
Corpses littered the floor—doctors, nurses, scavengers. Blood pooled and spread, glistening black under the flickering fluorescent lights. Shattered equipment and bullet-riddled walls completed the scene.
David followed, eyes wide, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. His hands trembled around his pistol, but he still kept up.
Halfway down the hall, David suddenly snapped.
"MOTHERF—!"
He screamed, squeezed the trigger wildly, sending bullets ricocheting off walls, floors, ceilings—anywhere but the enemy.
Arthur ducked instinctively, a bullet passing so close to his temple he felt the heat.
"F**k! You little psycho, you're gonna kill your own old man!" Arthur barked.
With a snarl, Arthur wheeled around and smacked David upside the head—hard.
David staggered, blinking rapidly, the panic jolted out of him.
"Get a grip, choom! You're acting worse than a cyberpsycho on Black Lace!"
David rubbed the back of his head miserably. "Who's the one acting like a cyberpsycho here, huh?!"
Arthur ignored him, stepping over yet another bloodied scavenger and continuing deeper into the building.
By now, most of the hospital staff were either dead, unconscious, or had fled screaming into the night. No alarms had been triggered. No NCPD response teams were en route.
Because in Night City, no one gave a damn about scavenger clinics.
Especially not at night.
At best, a peacekeeper might swing by tomorrow to hose the blood off the pavement.
Arthur finally reached a heavy metal door marked "Basement Access: Authorized Personnel Only."
He paused, shotgun at the ready.
"Stay here," Arthur ordered without looking back. "Guard the hallway. If anyone comes at you, shoot first. No questions."
David opened his mouth to argue.
"I said STAY," Arthur barked. "The stuff downstairs... it's not something you're ready for."
David clenched his fists but nodded reluctantly.
Arthur kicked the door open.
The stench hit him first.
Rotting flesh, oil, disinfectant, and something else—something acrid and metallic.
Arthur descended into hell.
The basement was a slaughterhouse.
Blood and viscera covered every surface. Severed limbs dangled from hooks. Spinal cords, wet and glistening, were coiled in tubs like grotesque noodles. Bodies hung from the ceiling—some missing limbs, others nothing more than meat slabs with cyberware still gleaming from torn sockets.
Rusty surgical saws and scalpels lay scattered across tables, caked in gore. Slaughter bots idled in the corners, powered down but still stinking of blood.
Arthur moved carefully between the carnage, his boots squelching in puddles of crimson.
Wails and moans echoed from deeper inside—the survivors, still alive, still hoping.
Arthur's jaw tightened.
F**k Night City.
He didn't hesitate.
He followed the signs until he found a side room labeled Surgery 4B.
Inside, strapped to an operating table and half-stripped of her cyberware, was Gloria.
His—David's—mother.
She was unconscious, hooked up to a cheap oxygen rig. Her arms and legs were already marked for removal, and a technician was prepping a bone saw nearby.
Arthur didn't even blink.
BOOM.
The technician's head exploded in a red mist.
Gloria stirred, whimpering, but didn't wake.
Arthur rushed to her side, scanning the cheap monitors attached to her. Barely stable—but alive.
"Hang on, señora," Arthur muttered, ripping the cables free. "We're getting you out."
He threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and stormed back toward the entrance.
Along the way, a few desperate scavengers tried to block his path.
It didn't end well for them.
When Arthur kicked open the basement door again, David jerked upright.
His mother—bloody, battered, unconscious—was slung across Arthur's back.
David's mouth worked soundlessly, horror and gratitude battling for dominance.
"Don't just stand there," Arthur grunted. "Cover me."
David scrambled to Arthur's side, raising his pistol with shaking hands.
Together, they made their way out into the polluted Night City night, ready to face whatever came next.
And if anyone dared stand in their way?
Arthur was ready to teach Night City exactly what real madness looked like.