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“Had to leave my clan too,” I say in response to her own angst. I could certainly identify.

“Ah yes, I remember. The Baker Family right?”

“Then I came to Nightsity, saw my chance to escape.”

“Second Lyfe?”

“*Their* Second Lyfe. Not *My* Second Lyfe. Not any more.”

“Lets… talk about something else, humm,” she said, depressed about clan chatter, the lack of Home. She downed the rest of her second beer in one huge gulp. I started seriously wondering if we were going to sleep together tonight — in the same bed. 10 o’clock at the Sunset but morning, not night. Lincoln wouldn’t be arriving for 12 more hours. 10 was waiting for him.

—–

Panama and I slept in separate beds that night, got up the next morning, knocked out power to the entire town of Rocky Boy attracting the Raffin Shiv renegade nomads that Panama sought revenge on for stealing her valuable wheels that day in April’s May 6 or 7 months ago, killed 17 of their gang there without so much as getting a scratch on us, buried their bodies in makeshift graves, even had time because of our efficiency for 17 makeshift, very quick services involving a lot of spitting on graves to rub the death part in, yada yada yada. All in a day’s work for good ol’ Samaritan mercenary V(al) here. But while we did this, the other part of our deal, the reciprocal act, was instead enacted by a party coming out of left field: the stealing of the Kang Tau AV and, most importantly, the goods within. Good news: they wanted to negotiate a price for it. Bad news: well…

—–

“There they are,” said Panama, indicating what lies behind her. “Annnnnd I’m outta here.”

Aw, *f-ck*. The Why quadruplets, I thought as Panama moved out of the scene, Act 1 of 2 of her Cyberpunk 2077 story completed. Why why why? WHY? I said to myself, counting them off. Oh well. I’ll deal with Doris and Dolores first, split up the burden; maybe I’ll make it through that way.

“Morning ladies,” I tried to say as brightly as possible, approaching the nearest pair. “Hear you have a package for me, all tied up with a bow or something, ha.”

“You”ll have to talk to Diedra over there about ties,” spat out demonic Doris. “And Debra next to her is the bow person of the group,” hissed devilish Dolores to her side. They stared coldly toward me, no emotion in their faces except maybe stark raving rage. Or nothing at all — hard to tell.

“Looking for something else,” I quickly recouped, my skin crawling from their voices, their stares. “Information. What’s inside the package.”

“Better,” gurgled Doris and Dolores at once; ahh, synchronized hell. What’s worse than this? Quadruple hell that’s what. Good I split them up into pairs. “We’re interior,” these 2 continued in their foul way. “*They’re* exterior. Whattaya want?” Would they ever become unsynchronized, dammit? Can’t stand much more!

The asking price — so ironic — was Panama’s just won back Thornton Mackinaw “Warhorse” vehicle — go figure. All that slaughter and risk for nothing. Should have focused on the Kang Tau AV first. Hindsight is golden of course. And I got to know Panama better for all this. We’re pals, we’re a pair. We’ll probably even sleep together given enough time. Is this… why I left *Their* Second Lyfe? Unconsciously, of course. Couldn’t have known about Panama and her bewitching ways ahead of time. Act 2 of 2 will tell!