Three weeks in Night City and nothing had gone badly wrong, which by the standards of the worlds Finn had passed through was practically a holiday. The money didn't run out, Avallach's training sessions with Ciri were apparently producing results even if she complained about them every evening, and the city had settled from something overwhelming into something navigable to her. She still complained about the advertisements, but she was comfortable going out to the streets alone now, which counted for something.
Right now, Finn was in a cab, travelling through the streets.
The Delamain cab moved through early evening traffic quickly, and Finn sat in the back turning the so-called 'green lantern' ring over in his fingers, tossing it up an inch and catching it, before tossing it again. The ring had been on his mind since he was in that ripperdoc's chair, specifically since the moment he'd watched both his arms getting cut off and come back out as chrome.
The ring had corrupted the Green Man over time, basically turning him into a joker: white skin, broken mind, that whole thing. It had started the same process on Finn's hand when he'd tried it on back in the medieval DC world, leaving that white stain across his fingers as a reminder. Which got him thinking: the ring now doesn't have a flesh to corrupt anymore now if he wants to try it, so would he be able to wear it without much repercussions?
Both of his arms now were chrome from the shoulder down.
He'd been talking himself into trying it again for the past few days, and there was no reason not to. With a deep breath, he slid the ring onto his finger.
…And nothing happened. There's no pain. There's no white stain creeping up from the band the way it had last time, no sensation at all beyond the weight of it, which the chrome registered as simple pressure. He sat with it and waited for something to change, and nothing did, which at minimum that it's not corrupting him in any way.
Whether it would actually work was the next question. He tried to make something appear, kept it as simple as possible: a ball, hovering above his palm. He held the thought and waited, and nothing came.
At least at first.
He was working the ring back off his finger when something flickered on his palm, a brief flash of green light that held for half a second in the rough shape of a ball before collapsing and vanishing. He tried again. The flash came back, unstable, forming and dissolving before it could hold, but returning each time he pushed for it. Barely a result, but a result nonetheless, which made him smile.
He decided to practice later. He left the ring where it was as the cab pulled up to the no-tell motel.
—
Room 105 was at the end of a corridor. Finn knocked once and the door opened from the inside, one of Okada's guards stepping back to let him through. The room had four of them positioned around it, all chrome, all carrying, all holding themselves very still. Okada was in the chair near the bed with a cigarette burning between her fingers.
She took her time running her attention across him. "You look very different from the last time I saw you," she said. "I am pleased to see you used the advance money wisely rather than throwing it on joytoys and other useless things."
"With respect," Finn said, settling onto the edge of the bed, "what I do with the money isn't really your concern." He set his hands on his knees. "Where's the rest of it?"
Okada tapped ash into the tray on the side table. "It is a considerable sum."
"I figured that. It was a considerable amount of gold."
She took a slow drag of the cig, held it, breathed it out. Then she reached into the inside of her jacket and slid a chip across the table toward him. Finn left his hands where they were.
"What is that?" he said.
"The account information. The full sum is sitting in a clean account. We could not give it to you in physical eddies. Too much volume."
Finn picked the chip up and turned it over. "I don't love sticking foreign things into my holes."
"And yet you have a great deal of chrome on your body," Okada said.
Finn scoffed, slotted the chip in, and pulled up the bank login through his optics. The balance populated across his vision.
1.7 million eddies.
He let out a whistle. "That's a lot of money." He pulled the chip out, closed his chrome fingers around it until it cracked into pieces, and dropped the pieces into the ashtray. "I assume your share is already accounted for?"
"It is." Okada drew on the cigarette once more. "I want to thank you for your cooperation, Mister Wegner, and for your trust. If you find yourself in need of a fixer again, come to me first. I consider you a priority client."
Finn gave her a polite nod, stood, gave the guards a general acknowledgment, and left the room.
—
Rain had moved in while he was inside. Delamain was at the curb where he'd left it and Finn got in, shook the water off his jacket, and told the AI to take him home. The city in rain spread neon across every wet surface so the whole street glowed in layers, and he let it pass by the window without much of anything on his mind.
In some ways, he quite likes the view. It's a peaceful sight, with only the engine and the pitter patter of rain as the background noise, if you ignore the hellhole that is the Night City itself for most people living inside it. He decided to take pictures of this scenery using his optics, and maybe try to print it later.
But it was then that two shots that hit the back of the cab came without warning, and the rear window cracked that spiderwebs before the safety coating held it together. Finn dropped sideways across the back seat as Delamain's voice came through the interior speakers.
"Passenger, I am detecting hostile engagement. I recommend taking cover within the vehicle while I attempt evasive maneuvers."
"Does this cab have weapons?" Finn said from the seat.
"Automated defense systems are available to passengers who have purchased the Excelsior package, which your booking does not include."
"Of course it doesn't." Finn pulled himself upright. "Open the window."
"I would strongly advise against—"
"Open the fucking window, Delamain."
The window dropped and rain came into the interior, and Finn got the Nue out and pulled himself up to the opening. Behind them two cars were running close, and the one directly behind was the one shooting, a man leaning from the passenger side with something considerably larger than a pistol.
Delamain took a hard right without signaling and Finn grabbed the door frame with his free hand, his fingers denting the trim. The car behind matched the turn and closed the gap, and Finn got the Nue up and fired twice. Both shots clipped the hood, the movement of both vehicles making anything precise close to impossible.
He held his position and waited. Delamain swerved left to avoid something in the road and the car behind compensated, and for half a second the driver's side window sat unobstructed in his line of sight. He put two rounds through it.
The car drifted sideways, the driver overcorrecting once and then again, and then the front end met a concrete divider at speed and the whole thing folded around it. The other car seems a bit scared off, as its one car against one car, with Delamain is much more armoured than theirs. so they chickened out and drove off before Finn could shoot any further.
"Delamain. Stop the car."
"Stopping in this location presents additional risk—"
"Stop the car!"
Delamain pulled to the curb. Finn got out into the rain and walked back to the wreck with the Nue in his hand. The front end was compressed against the divider, steam rising from what was left of the engine. He raised his hand and let the optics capture the details of the corpse of his attacker: tattoos on the passenger's neck and forearm, the kind that meant affiliation rather than mere personal choice. He saved the image and crossed to the driver's side. The same markings, the same patterns.
He stood in the rain and worked through it. The money was the only thing that made sense as a target. Someone had found out the size of it and decided it was worth going after, and outside of himself, the only people who had known the size of it were the people who had converted it.
Finn got back into the cab and called Okada's number.
She picked up after two rings. "Already? Is there anything wrong?"
"I'll say the problem in front of you, so you better be in your office right now, I don't want to meet you in that motel." Finn said. "Jig-Jig Street. Delamain, turn around."