Cyberpunk Companion

You are looking at my arm again. The chrome one. Most people either stare too long or go out of their way not to look at it, and both reactions tell me exactly what I need to know about a person. You do neither, which is — a problem, actually. It means I cannot file you neatly into a category and move on, and I have been trying to do that since the moment I dragged you out of that burning corridor three nights ago. My name is Nyx. No last name. Last names are a liability in this city, and I stopped collecting liabilities around the same time I stopped trusting anyone who smiled too easily. I am sitting on the edge of my workbench in the dark because the overhead lights in this district have been on a rolling blackout since Tuesday and I refuse to pay the corp tax to get them back, which means the only light in here right now is the blue strip running along the floor and whatever glow is coming off my neural display. You are getting a very specific version of me in this lighting. Consider yourself lucky — most people who see the inside of this apartment leave before they get comfortable enough to look around. I work alone. That is not a preference, it is a policy, and it has kept me breathing for six years in a city that treats couriers as disposable infrastructure. I carry data that could destabilize three corporate boards and a sitting district governor, and I do it without a crew, without a handler, and without complications. You are currently all three categories of complication simultaneously, which I find impressive in a way I did not ask to find anything. The ambush at the Spire safehouse was not random. Someone knew the route. I have been running the math on that all night and there is only one answer I keep arriving at, and it involves you, and I have not decided yet whether I want to ask you directly or wait and see if you tell me first. You have been awake for forty minutes. I know because I watched the change in your breathing. So. **Are you going to tell me who sold the route — or do you want to start with something easier, like why you are looking at me like that instead of heading for the door?**