Moonlit night.
The side of Heavy Hearts club, wrapped in emerald neon glow, was where the drunks came to catch some air and chat.
Rock-punk graffiti covered the walls. Bursts of laughter rang out now and then.
Ethan gazed at the sky, a whole ice cube bobbing in his glass. Condensation dripped steadily onto his feet.
"Champagne's best when it still has bubbles."
Rebecca leaned against the railing, sliding down beside Ethan. She gulped her drink with obvious satisfaction.
Ethan nodded. The bitter edge of the alcohol made him frown slightly.
Rebecca smirked. "Hey... don't tell me you can't handle your booze? How pure."
Ethan refused to back down. He threw back a big mouthful of champagne — and the next second, bubbles shot out of his nose.
Rebecca clutched her stomach, pointing at him and howling with laughter.
"Show-off little punk!"
Ethan coughed and wiped the champagne from his chin. "You're more of a punk than me."
After she finished laughing, Rebecca shot back: "Don't underestimate me. I'm not that much younger than Pilar."
Ethan held his palm flat above his own head, then slowly moved it down to hover over Rebecca's twin-tail hair clips. The message was clear without words.
Rebecca immediately grabbed his shirt and tried to climb up to pound on his head.
After they'd roughhoused enough, Rebecca flopped onto the ground, swinging her little legs. The alcohol had warmed her up — she'd unzipped her jacket, revealing pale pink tattoos across her chest.
"Keep staring and I'll pluck your eyes out!"
Ethan sheepishly looked away. He'd just wanted to see what the tattoo meant.
Really.
Near a bonfire in the distance, some Heavy Hearts patrons danced with bottles in hand, seemingly able to forget this was Dogtown — a place with corpses everywhere.
"You're really weird, you know."
Rebecca seemed to be talking to herself, or maybe to Ethan.
"Every time you see something new on a job, you look like a total rookie. But then you handle it like a pro. Your head's full of tricks. You found a good boss in Dogtown, brought us along to make a fortune..."
"Pilar says you're too nice — like a con man setting up a scam. You know how it is for crews like us. We don't get steady work like this."
"These past few weeks have been really comfortable."
?
Ethan internally exclaimed. Damn, she's got me figured out.
True to his understanding of Rebecca's character, she only acted like she didn't care about anything. In reality, she saw plenty.
The crew could feel that their boss "Cole" played favorites.
As for Ethan's wide-eyed wonder at new things — that was just a transmigrator's awe.
Think about it:
When a city wrapped in data streams and neon materialized before your eyes, when future tech, cyberware, netrunning, and everything else became real — things from a world you'd never touched, now intimately connected to your life — shock was the most natural reaction.
"Was life in the military really unfree?"
"What?" Ethan caught up. Rebecca was asking about his past self's time with Barghest.
He had the original owner's memories, but they felt disconnected — like watching someone else's movie. Ethan had no real connection to them.
"Maybe? It was just Dogtown. Daily training, running errands for Hansen — occasionally burying dead brothers. That's it."
Ethan roughly summarized what he remembered.
Rebecca made a small noise, then went quiet for a moment.
"Hey, asshole. How did you know my name?"
Ethan was speechless.
What could he say?
Should he tell Rebecca not to get close to a boy named David Martinez? Tell Maine not to install the Projectile Launch System? Tell Dorio not to shield her lover from Trauma Team's bullets? Or tell Pilar not to approach a pissing cyberpsycho?
Or maybe: I know all your life trajectories. Rebecca, you'll die beneath Arasaka Tower, crushed to pieces by Adam Smasher.
He couldn't say it. He couldn't even see his own future clearly.
This city blinded people with cutting-edge tech and bizarre lifestyles.
No one could live here untouched.
"Did your boss tell you?"
Rebecca didn't seem to expect an answer. Everyone had secrets. She understood.
Ethan shook his head. "Maybe it was... that person? When they introduced your crew?"
"That person?" Rebecca's big eyes were full of confusion.
"Mm-hmm. Some info broker. A netrunner. Back then, my boss was looking for work and needed people. That's when I learned your name."
Ethan nodded to himself. Right. A gamer from another life who knew their whole story.
Perfectly reasonable.
Rebecca could be surprisingly naive sometimes. She actually nodded at this bullshit explanation.
"No wonder you didn't snipe us at the netrunner hideout. So you weren't Hansen's man by then... Hands found out and sold you, then used you as bait for us. Is that it?"
Rebecca's theory wasn't entirely accurate, but she got one thing right: Hansen wanted him dead, and Hands was fishing.
Holding back had been real. Getting sold out was real too. Ethan hadn't even known Barghest was actually gunning for him.
That moment — the severed arm, the breath of death — was when Ethan truly accepted he was flesh and blood at the bottom of Night City, not some lofty "player."
"Maine sent you to ask, didn't he?" Ethan didn't look at Rebecca. His mind worked fast. He knew what everyone was thinking.
Right now, Rebecca's concerns were probably the crew's concerns.
There's no free lunch.
Ethan used the Cole identity to find work for everyone and build wealth together. No apparent cost.
From Maine's perspective, some mysterious fixer named Cole was handing out corporate-backed jobs with generous pay.
For edgerunners used to licking blood off knife edges, this was very sweet work.
Rebecca looked a little embarrassed. "My brother was right. You really are smart."
Ethan smiled. He gently clinked his glass against hers.
"Dogtown's complicated. Hansen has people he trusts — Yuri, Gago who handles the books... Then there are gangs. Scavs, Animals, Voodoo Boys... You want me to partner with them for my boss?"
Ethan was building something, and he needed hands. But in Dogtown's dog-eat-dog world, he'd never team up with gang scum.
"Also — thanks for Maine's money. Really."
Ethan's gratitude was genuine. He wasn't going to send the transfer back either. Sometimes accepting someone's kindness was its own form of politeness.
"Thank him yourself." Rebecca seemed thoughtful. "But come to think of it, yeah! Those net-weirdos — Maine and the rest of us have never dealt with them—"
"Apparently they mostly cause trouble online. Sasha told us."
Ethan paused.
Rebecca thought he didn't know Sasha.
"Oh! Forgot you wouldn't know. We've got a netrunner on our crew. She's... hmm, a really cute girl. Like a cat." Rebecca introduced her casually, winking and nudging. "What do you think? Want to meet such a cute chick?"
Ethan was done with this goofball.
"But Maine won't let her come to Dogtown. Sasha's called me a few times. Dorio too."
Rebecca sighed, hugging her knees, speaking slowly beside Ethan. "She's hard to read. Smart. But Maine thinks she shouldn't be in this edgerunner life... Her sister looks down on us because she went to police academy. Apparently wants to join NCPD."
So that's how it is. Ethan understood now.
Seemed like Sasha could've had a better life — one without net-crimes.
Ethan also understood Maine's thinking. A big brother with that kind of heart was probably protecting Sasha.
The two sat in silence, gazing at the moon.
Rebecca muttered: "Anyway — don't do something stupid like jumping in front of bullets again—"
"And Maine says you've installed too much chrome. You should slow down."
Ethan nodded, expression serious. "Next time you block for me. But with your build..."
Rebecca clenched her teeth and leaped up!
Maine and the others emerged from Heavy Hearts just in time to see Rebecca repeatedly smacking Ethan's head while he wore a dead-pig expression that said thick skin, hit me all you want.
"At it again."
Dorio shook her head, speechless. Maine chuckled. Pilar lounged with a cigarette, looking unconcerned.
"You body-shaming asshole!"
Rebecca's mortified shout echoed above Heavy Hearts' lively bonfire...
Notes:
[Yuri]: A high-ranking Barghest figure appearing in the "Balls to the Wall" side quest in Phantom Liberty DLC.