Night City is a jungle of cold asphalt, reeking smog, and flickering neon, complete with its own ecosystems—people call them districts. One of them is Santo Domingo, a quintessential industrial zone home to countless factories, refineries, power plants, and mechanical workshops.
Even though most of the factories are automated, human labor was never fully eliminated. Out of necessity, being sold, or simply due to various stories (pick one at random), many children end up illegally employed in these places.
Cheap, long-lasting, and if they're smart, obedient.
Welcome to the school of life!
We don't give out certificates or accept returns.
"Fae!" A blonde girl with short hair down to her ears peeked over a container of microtransistors to look at the hooded boy with sunglasses leaning against the wall, hidden from the rest of the factory staff with a mastery that could only come from practice. "Come on, the register just updated and says we have to finish the new order before nine. If we don't, there won't be enough time for both of us to use the helmet."
"Hm?" The boy opened his eyes behind the tinted lenses, revealing a deep, swirling green in his pupils. "Oh, it's you, Kiwi. For a second I thought the foreman came back."
This was the soul that had arrived in a new world thanks to SAV, now living under the identity of Faelan Verdant Kusanagi.
Faelan to friendly acquaintances.
Weird kid to adults.
Fae to his inner circle, though it wasn't very large.
He was currently eight years old and, thanks to SAV's generous backstory editing, ended up sold to the same factory as Kiwi. His more observant and mature behavior compared to the other children caught the interest of the clever girl, and after two years working together in the same factory, they became friends who had each other's backs.
An anomaly in a place where every coworker is just another competitor—for better resources, even just to survive. Case in point: only eight kids from their intake remained in the factory. The fate of the rest was obvious…
And why did he approach Kiwi so early, even before the accident?
Because if he wanted his second wish to come true, he had to be there for Kiwi from the start, before she built a wall against everything and everyone in her heart.
Naturally, it would be best to prevent that painful moment from ever happening.
"The foreman would've kicked you awake—or slapped you, if he was in a good mood," Kiwi pointed out as she nimbly jumped over the container and crouched in front of him, taking his sunglasses with practiced familiarity.
When Kiwi discovered what his eyes looked like (naturally that way, not some special-effect optics), she developed a fondness for seeing the vibrant color behind the lenses whenever they were alone and away from the cameras.
"Not everyone's favored by the factory foreman."
"Don't remind me," Kiwi groaned, covering her eyes with her free hand.
From the moment she arrived, Kiwi had the "luck" of catching the foreman's attention, which got her put in charge of the other kids her age and granted a few extra comforts that came with the position.
Among those was access to an old model of virtual helmet (consisting of a visor and headphones) for additional training and education. For kids who essentially relied on cheap work chips to silently do their jobs, it didn't hold much appeal.
But for children who were ambitious or understood the power of education?
They envied Kiwi—and by extension, Faelan, since he was the only one she shared the helmet with without asking for anything in return. The others had to offer her something of value to gain access, usually to complete short training modules that made them better at their work and helped them stand out.
In the factory's hierarchy—at least in their little corner—Faelan was Kiwi's right hand.
But unlike the other kids, Faelan didn't even have a basic neurolink.
He was fully organic, and even with that "disadvantage," he could outperform those who relied on prefab chips. Luckily, the helmet didn't require a neurolink to function, nor did it fully cover the user's head.
And the reason?
The cheats he received from SAV.
One cheat per wish granted, three in total—but in a way, all of them were connected.
Although he later discovered that aside from the first cheat, the other two were partial or altered versions of the originals. They felt incomplete, as if slapped together last minute or without much care.
It was odd… almost like this was SAV's first time handing out cheats to someone.
"Did you spend too much time using that junk again?" he asked, taking the sunglasses from Kiwi's hand and putting them back on. In his early years, his eyes had caused quite a few problems, and they weren't even as striking as they were now.
The old model they had access to came with many defects. They often had to reboot it or do memory wipes. One of the worst bugs was the splitting headaches it caused after more than two hours of continuous use—something Kiwi did daily.
"You know if we want to get out of here, we'll have to pay the 'tuition' before they change their minds," Kiwi nodded, acknowledging the throbbing in her head. "But if we want to leave before we're fifty, we need more ways to earn money. That means knowing and doing more than just putting pieces together from a manual."
That is, assuming they didn't become too valuable to be let go—at which point their departure would be seen as a net loss.
Strange fact: the factory did pay the kids for their work. It was a pittance, and nowhere near what their effort was worth, but it was far more motivating than fear.
But if they hoped to use that money to leave and start real lives…
They'd need to rise in the factory ranks and/or take side jobs in their free time. The "tuition" wasn't cheap, and only a few managed to leave without trouble.
"Can I have the usual?" Kiwi asked quietly. "I checked—no one's nearby right now."
Faelan nodded, placed his hand on the ground where a cracked spot revealed dirt beneath the industrial concrete. A soft green light glowed in his palm for a few seconds. When he lifted it, a tender green sprout had appeared in the soil.
Faelan plucked the plant and handed it to Kiwi, who shook off the dirt from the roots and popped it into her mouth to chew.
"It's still amazing, no matter how many times I see it," Kiwi said as she chewed the fresh mint. "I hate the taste, but it really helps with the headache. Thanks."
"At your service, boss," Faelan grinned, standing up to help her finish the day's work.
Where nature has been forgotten, you will be its final whisper.
His first cheat: druidic powers in all their varied forms. Though, lacking a safe space to test them, he still didn't know their full limits.
Honestly, it was his favorite of the three cheats for one simple reason: it let him eat and drink normally instead of relying on ultraprocessed factory food made of chemicals, worms, plutonium, and who-knows-what-else mashed together by machines that had never been cleaned.
The vending machine burritos?
He tried one once, out of curiosity.
The taste? Bloody red.
His thoughts after the first bite?
No wonder curiosity killed the cat!
Sure, he still got his factory-issued food rations (basically chemically flavored calorie bars), but he usually saved them to reward high performers, ask for favors, or help the hungriest kids.
A big reason why, despite his position, the other kids didn't hate him.
He didn't abuse his status. He "paid" for extra work and was never the one to start trouble. That was rare in the factory, so it earned him goodwill. More than once, someone had covered for him to keep him out of trouble.
One might think showing this power to Kiwi was risky—but only someone who'd never tasted the local food would think that. Besides, it wasn't even intentional... he was embarrassed to admit he hadn't realized she was following him while he tried to learn more about his powers.
When she caught him secretly eating some juicy, sweet strawberries in the very corner they now sat in, and he shared some with her to buy her silence, the moment she took the first bite, the risk melted away like ice in the sun.
In a way, that was the beginning of a real friendship—not just one of mutual benefit. Though from that day on, he had to produce twice as much natural food.
There was a reason why Kiwi and he looked much healthier than the others. They still looked bad and made sure to keep themselves dirty enough not to draw attention—including some deliberately stiff movements—but the comparison was obvious.
If he didn't know how rare healthy, natural food was around here—and how treacherous human hearts could be—he might've left hidden stashes for the other kids to find and secretly eat.
Seeing how they were treated made him sick. It was one more reason he handed out his rations under various pretexts, hoping at least everyone could have a full stomach.
A basic need that even many adults in Night City couldn't meet.
"Aren't you going to install the neurolink?" Kiwi asked as they walked to their workstations, set up for fast and efficient assembly of more complex and delicate electronics. "It's the one thing the factory gives us for free."
Only because it was cheaper to implant neurolinks and hand out chips than to teach the kids how to do the job properly.
"No," Faelan shook his head as he pulled his hood tighter. "No implants for me."
Kiwi frowned—living in the city without a neurolink was unthinkable.
Conversations, calls, messages, apps, even basic money transfers were all handled through them. Physical money was practically a myth by now. They didn't even print it anymore.
Faelan's salary?
Everything was stored on an encrypted chip in a bracelet the size of an old-fashioned wristwatch, which Kiwi and he had made from leftover scrap at the factory and which Faelan ended up naming: Pip-Boy.
He could understand Kiwi's concern, but what could he do?
His second trap made it impossible for him to use any kind of implants!
To keep up with the "shortcuts" of chrome users, he had to discreetly use his druidic powers, but again, he had neither the time nor the space to test ideas. Rarely did he get moments to experiment.
The blonde decided not to press the issue anymore. Ever since she'd witnessed some of Faelan's supernatural abilities, she had somehow concluded that maybe her friend needed to remain fully organic to retain them.
Mystical crap.
If that were the case and she were in his shoes, she'd do the same.
"By the way, I found information on the people you asked about," Kiwi whispered belatedly as she sat at her workstation "I hope they really can help us, like you said."
Truth be told, focusing on tracking down people with the surname Yakovleva had been a smart idea when they had nothing else to go on. Even with Night City being such a culturally diverse melting pot, it was a fairly unique name and easy to spot.
There were only six people in the entire city with that surname in the past thirty-five years, and once you filtered out the deceased, only two remained.
Sasha and Galina Yakovleva.
Faelan read the data Kiwi showed him on a cracked-screen tablet after their shift ended. Encouraging her to learn the basics of netrunning years ago was paying off and revealing her talent.
Plus, Kiwi was cautious and only handled what she was absolutely confident she could manage. It was a shame she could only learn the essentials at the factory; it had too many restrictions, no real training access, and she'd barely scratched the surface.
The data on screen read as follows:
[Galina Yakovleva, 28 years old, single mother with a deceased husband. Retired ex-sergeant from UNKNOWN after a leg injury during a covert operation. Works in customer service for a small local company in Heywood.]
[Sasha Yakovleva, 8 years old, daughter of Galina.]
The information wasn't as detailed or polished as a fixer's dossier, but it confirmed not only that they were the right people, but also how vulnerable personal data was in this city.
Heywood wasn't far from the factory—just a trip northwest. As long as he avoided trouble with local gangs like the Valentinos, he should be fine.
In any case, it was curious that Sasha turned out to be the same age as him and Kiwi.
He'd always thought she looked younger, though that could be due to some kind of dermal implant.
Apparent age in this kind of world was never reliable…
But unlike the two of them, Sasha enjoyed a slightly better standard of living thanks to her mother's job—tentatively at a lower-middle level. She could even afford to buy old toys that weren't made anymore, like a kaleidoscope telescope.
Faelan frowned as he read the most recently added note.
"Looks like she only recently started taking the defective painkillers," he concluded.
You could tell she'd been missing work a lot lately, which might mean she was starting to have nervous system issues.
There was still time to save her before she reached the point of no return.
A relief, partly because SAV never told him what would happen if he failed a target.
He'd had nightmares for weeks imagining the consequences…
As for why she was taking Securicine, Faelan figured it was because of the leg injury that got her discharged from the military. It was probably much cheaper to rely on painkillers like that than to visit a clinic to get the whole leg replaced and then pay for implant maintenance.
A surprisingly common course of action.
If she wanted to raise her daughter properly, every eurodollar had to stretch as far as it could go.
The biggest challenge he faced now was how to approach them.
He couldn't exactly say:
"Hi! I'm a soul from another world sent here to help you because of a wish a ten-year-old girl made on a falling star. Come with me and I'll heal you with my superpowers!"
Galina would think he was insane—and he had little doubt she had a weapon hidden somewhere in the house (probably several, given her military background), ready to deal with people like that.
"To think the hardest part wasn't finding them, but figuring out how to approach them without sounding like a lunatic talking about space lizard men…"
Well, he had an idea.
If there was one way to prove beyond a doubt that he was the real deal—this was it!