Chapter 5: Prohibited Items
For the past ten days, Kay had done more than just tweak old cyberware—he'd turned the entire derelict workshop into his personal R&D haven. Between sleepless hours of studying cybernetic modifications and self-diagnostics, he had thoroughly examined his own body.
His findings? Grim.
Aside from a basic neural interface and a pair of outdated Militech Mk.2 cyberoptics that could barely scan barcodes and log into the net, Kay's frame was practically a walking antique. No subdermal armor, no adrenal boosters, not even a low-tier Sandevistan. Just meat and bones held together by sheer luck and stubbornness.
Yet somehow—under crude conditions with janky tools and junkyard-grade implants—he'd successfully installed and calibrated the Succubus Mk.II unit for that church member Isabella. And nobody had died.
Kay wasn't just lucky. He was damn talented.
Now, he stood in the middle of the cluttered room, holding a mechanical glove the size of a melon. His latest creation: the Five-Finger Heartplucker. A gnarly piece of tech with retractable barrels in each digit, rigged to discharge close-range buckshot. Primitive? Maybe. Effective? Definitely.
Across the room, Riko Vega stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe, trying to look unimpressed. But his twitching eyebrows betrayed the truth.
Kay casually tossed the glove aside with a metallic clang, causing Riko to wince. The former ganger still wasn't used to seeing priceless mods treated like tin cans.
Then Kay bent down and picked up what looked suspiciously like a fire poker.
Riko blinked. "Kay, that's a conduit from the alley behind the bar, isn't it?"
Kay smirked. "A conduit? Nah. This, my friend, is a tactical high-explosive micro-launcher. Custom-made. You think too small."
"Yeah, small like a suicide vest."
"Come. I'll demonstrate."
Kay stepped outside into the open courtyard behind the hideout, surrounded by towers of scrapped tech, spent cartridges, and rusting servo arms. He raised the 'poker' toward the sky, aimed at nothing in particular, and tapped a pressure plate near the base.
Fwwwwshh—BOOM!
A piercing white streak ripped through the sky, detonating high above the rooftops. The shockwave rattled the busted neon sign clinging to the building. Nearby scavengers and squatters ducked for cover. In the distance, Kay swore he heard AVs triggering emergency protocols over Company Plaza.
Riko stood paralyzed, mouth agape. "That... was a missile."
"Yup."
"You just launched a missile."
Kay gave a lazy shrug. "Test fire."
"You wired a missile into a metal conduit."
"Improvised engineering. Don't try this at home."
Riko rubbed his temples. "Kay, I know you're a genius. But installing that thing inside someone—won't it, y'know, blow us up too?"
Kay raised a brow. "I mean… yeah. I was gonna test it on you."
"Wha—"
"I'm joking. Mostly. Look, I haven't tested recoil tolerance yet. It's safe up to twelve activations. Maybe."
"…Maybe?"
"Alright, nine. Don't exceed nine. Unless you like spontaneous combustion."
Riko gulped. "Copy that…"
They returned to the workshop where Kay unveiled more of his 'gifts': a mismatched pistol made of duct tape, solder, and street grit. It looked like it belonged in a landfill. But the barrel glistened with fresh weld marks.
"This thing," Kay began, "fires high-velocity depleted uranium rounds. Shoots clean through five-centimeter steel. One shot only, huge recoil, but if you hit the mark? Devastation."
Riko stared at it with suspicion. "Looks like something a drunk Corpo would craft during a blackout."
Kay nodded. "Exactly. That's the charm."
"Can I kill anyone in Night City with it?"
Kay scoffed. "What do you think this is, a fairy tale? Without Sandevistan reflex gear or dermal armor, you'd be pulp before you even pulled the trigger on a real legend. You're not David Martinez, Vega."
Riko grinned. "Yet."
Kay tossed him the pistol. "Treat it as your trump card. One shot. One chance. Don't waste it."
"Got it."
With the tension fading, Riko laid down on the surgical table, almost willingly. Something had changed in him over the past week. The fear was still there, but so was a hunger—for power, survival, maybe recognition. He didn't just want to survive anymore. He wanted to matter.
Kay worked quickly, cleanly. With the precision of a seasoned Ripperdoc—despite lacking any formal credentials—he removed Riko's defective cyberarm and replaced it with one of his rusted yet reliable creations.
Metal. Wires. Dull servos. But beneath the surface: power.
Two hours later, Riko stirred from anesthesia, blinking through haze as Kay handed him a flexpack of soothing agent.
"It's done," Kay said, wiping sweat off his brow. "Let's grab some drinks. You'll need 'em."
Riko looked down at his new arms—bulky, asymmetrical, but solid. He clenched his fists and smiled. "Feels good."
Kay didn't answer. His mind was already ten steps ahead.
---
Back in the hallway, the pair stepped over puddles of neon vomit and stepped around a vagrant collapsed against the wall. Kay accidentally kicked a discarded soda can, sending it skittering across the floor.
The air reeked of fermented synth-ale, burnt wiring, and ozone.
Kay stopped Riko from nudging the vagrant awake.
"No point," he muttered. "He's already more gone than we are."
Riko nodded. "Yeah…"
Kay reached into his coat and pulled out three blue plastic vials. He handed them to Riko.
"What's this?"
"Mini EMP bombs. Short range. Short fuse. One toss, and zap—every neural link in the blast radius gets fried for about ten seconds. Enough to disable anyone running chrome."
Riko whistled. "Damn. That'll paralyze half the city block."
"Exactly. But don't be stupid. These things are contraband. You get caught with even one, and MaxTac won't knock—they'll vaporize."
Riko blinked. "Then why give them to me?"
Kay smirked. "Because you're my contingency plan. If things go south, don't get caught. And don't leave witnesses."
Riko's smile faded. "You're serious."
"I'm always serious."
"Right…"
As they made their way back to the front of the bar, the lights flickered. The street outside buzzed with distant sirens and flickering holo-ads for fake medication, chrome upgrades, and city escape pods.
Night City never slept. And neither would they.
Riko gripped his new cybernetic arm tightly. His fingers, though mechanical, felt alive. Electric. Powerful.
He wasn't the same person from ten days ago.
And with Kay behind him, he might actually have a chance to rise above the gutter.
But in Night City, everything came at a cost.
And Riko Vega was just beginning to understand the price of power.