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2024-10-29
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2025-09-30
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36/?
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Fault Code

Chapter 4: Dum Dum

Chapter Text

When Bjorn finally tells him where that rat Dexter DeShawn is hiding out, Dum Dum goes to pick up the bastard himself. Just in time, too. An hour later and the fucker would’ve been on a flight out of Night City. He catches him at gunpoint when he leaves his hotel room, and it’s all Dum Dum can do not to shoot him. He wants to. Wants to real bad. But that’s not why he’s here.

So Dum Dum hits him with a tranquilizer. When the big boy falls, he pats him down and rifles through his pockets for weapons and tech, tossing all the useless shit. That’s when he finds the M-10AF Lexington the girl was wearing when he first met her, recognizes the brightly painted clip and trigger. Bastard took her gun, too? Did he shoot her with it?

Fuck, at first, he couldn't believe she came back. Was his warning not enough? She like the idea of being a ‘borg slut? But then he noticed somethin’ was different… She was standing odd, like there’s somethin’ wrong with her side. Her face was tense, lacking all the peculiar friendliness from before. The stars were misaligned and she was scared.

Dum Dum squeezes the Lexington, once again considers shooting this meatsack…

“Get him in the trunk,” he snaps as he stuffs the pistol in his waistband beside his DR5.

Bjorn and Trey heft the unconscious fixer, load him into the back of the car, and they drive to this nice little spot Maelstrom has by the docks. The boys carry the prisoner into the warehouse, secure him to a chair, then head outside to keep watch while Dum Dum works. He starts with a little surgery, uses spare parts they keep for just such an occasion. He installs a biomonitor to keep an eye on the fixer’s vitals, a blood pump in case of accidents, and a pain editor to keep the fucker from going into shock too quickly. He tunes the cyberware to an external system he controls so the chrome won’t accidentally be too helpful, and finishes his preparations by laying down a bunch of plastic.

And then he wakes the bastard up.

“The fuck…?” the fat rat mumbles as he slowly comes to.

He looks around, takes in the red lights and bloody tools, the plastic, and then finally sees where Dum Dum’s leaning against the nearest column, lighting a cigarette, blood from those little impromptu surgeries staining the paper. The fixer’s eyes go wide as he realizes just how much shit he’s really in.

“Maelstrom,” Dex says, confused, afraid. “The hell’s goin’ on? I don’t got beef wit' you.”

“Yeah,” Dum Dum agrees on a cloud of gray, “but I got beef with you.”

“What about?”

Dum Dum’s lips twitch excitedly. “You’re the bigger rat.”

Dex grimaces. “Look, man, whatever misunderstandin’ this is, we can work it out. Jus’ name your price.”

Dum Dum stares at him, takes another drag, and exhales through his nostrils. Dex visibly swallows and looks around, finally seems to notice the cyberware threading into his body. His forehead breaks out in a nervous sweat.

“What’s all this?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” Dum Dum tells him. “S’for me, not you.”

He grunts, “You plannin’ on torturin’ me?”

Dum Dum grins. “Yeah,” he says and takes another long drag that sizzles tobacco and blood.

“Look, this is unnecessary, man,” Dex says, panicky. “I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know.”

“Nothin’ I wanna know.”

“Name your price, then!”

“Don’t want scratch.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?”

Dum Dum takes another long drag, watches ash fall to the ground. “Want you to bleed.”

“What the hell for?!”

“For the girl.”

“Girl—what girl?”

Dum Dum pushes off the column and snarls, “The one you shot.”

“The one I—” His eyes bulge. “V? How the hell you know about that?”

“Told me herself.”

Rage and bewilderment warp his expression into something comically repulsive. “She’s alive?” He shakes his head. “No… N’aw, I shot that bitch in the head, I saw her go down.”

Dum Dum bites down on the cigarette’s filter as something like anger injects into his bloodstream. In the head? He shot her in the head? Nah, her head looked fine to him, all pretty and red. But…there was something different about the stars in the thermal scan…

Dum Dum takes a final drag on his cigarette and drops it into the pile of ash by his boots. “Shouldn’t have done that,” he says, slipping his combat knife from the sheath on his thigh.

Dex winces. “C’mon, man, why the hell do you care? She your girl or somethin’? I swear, I didn’t know!”

His girl? …His girl? He never thought about her like that. Never entered his mind, not once. She’s all fleshy and soft, not his type—’cept for that copper hair and preem body, her pretty smile and sweet voice, and yeah, maybe her freckles, too. But them ‘ganic types don’t go for ‘borgs like him anyway. Nah, there’s no way he ever docks her.

Although…

Maybe bein’ his girl’s not so bad an idea, since clearly no one else is watching her back if this fat rat was allowed to shoot her and no one’s flatlined him for it yet. What the fuck happened to that choom of hers, anyway? Gonk-brain. At first, Dum Dum thought he was the one who betrayed her—after all, whoever shot her had to be close, and she had such a visceral reaction when he mentioned him. But then she gave him the name, and Dum Dum has to admit, he’s curious why Gonk-brain let her down like this.

“What about the big one?” he asks.

“Who?”

“The other one,” Dum Dum says impatiently. “Her choom.”

“Jackie?”

“The big one, yeah.”

Dex shakes his head. “He’s dead, man.”

Dead. So, she wasn’t angry, she was sad. He doesn’t like that either… Doesn’t give a fuck Gonk-brain’s dead, but he thinks it’s a real shame she’s not smilin’ like she was before.

“You zero him?” Dum Dum asks, brandishing his knife, because if it’s this fucker’s fault, he’s not quite sure what’ll happen next.

“N’aw, man,” Dex bellows, wiggling in his restraints. “That was Arasaka! I swear!”

So the job went bad, her choom dies, and Dex tries to zero her for it. Tying up loose ends and all. Sure, yeah, Dum Dum gets it. But too bad for the fatter rat, ‘cause he likes the straight-edged princess.

“Okay,” Dum Dum says, and then he flips the knife to his other hand and punches the meatsack in the face, once, twice, three times for three bullets.

Dex’s head whips to the side, blood and spittle flying with every blow. His lip breaks and the skin around his eye splits.

“C’mon, man,” he wheezes, teeth stained red. “I didn’t know… I didn’t—”

Dum Dum strikes him again, three more times in his gut. He doubles over, groaning, and red drool drips onto his too-tight tank top.

“Sorry,” he gasps. “I’m sorry…”

Dum Dum pushes him into a sitting position, takes stock of his swelling eye and busted lip. And then he lights another cigarette, takes a few drags as Fat Rat apologizes over and over again. When he’s finished, he puts the cherry out in the fucker’s shoulder, right where he shot the girl. Dex screams and writhes as the smell of burning flesh fills the air.

When it’s over, Dex spits a wad of blood to the ground and glares at him. “Told you, man,” he pants. “Didn’t mean to fuck with your girl. We can work this out. C’mon.”

“Not my girl,” Dum Dum says, thumbing the sharp edge of his blade. “Just like her.”

“Just like her?” Dex repeats in disbelief, one eye swollen shut, the other rapidly blinking, trying to understand. And then he starts chuckling, a wet and raspy sound. “Ah, shit. She know about your little crush? Heh. Didn’t take her for a ‘borg fucker. That what this is? Revenge?” He looks to a point behind Dum Dum, good eye searching for something. “She back there somewhere, gettin’ hard watching her little input torturin’ the man who shot her?”

“Nah, just you and me,” Dum Dum says, cutting Dex’s tank top away, revealing his rotund gut. “But maybe I’ll scroll it for her, yeah?”

He considered it already. There’s easy eddies in torture XBDs, especially with a celebrity like Dexter DeShawn. A lotta people out there would pay a fortune to carve this pig up. But he decided against it. His emotions are all wrong. It’s not personal. It’s just… He just knows what he likes and what he doesn’t, and what he likes is her smile, and what he doesn’t like is her getting shot.

But he, uh…he doesn’t hate the idea of her gettin’ off on this…

Dum Dum licks his lips. “Think she will?” he asks roughly, sliding the flat of the knife over Dex’s belly. He flinches, flesh rippling in fear. The biomonitor chirps. “Think she’ll get wet when I do this?” He brings the blade back, dragging the sharp end over his skin, drawing a red line. Dex cries out and the biomonitor beeps. “Think she’ll cum,” he presses the tip against gut, “when I cut you open?”

Dex gasps for air, gnashes his teeth. “Do you fuckin’ know who I am?”

Dum Dum draws another red line and Dex screams again. BEEP BEEP BEEP. Just a few little slices in his overindulged gut and the fucker’s already hyperventilating? Nah, nah, it’s pathetic. His princess tolerated more than that and still ran for her life.

Dum Dum bares his teeth and catches Dex by his blubbery throat. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” he growls, “squeal too early. We got a long night ahead of us.” He squeezes Fat Rat’s jowls, turns his head toward the pain editor and blood pump. “Not gonna let ya off easy, see?” He digs his fingers into his cheeks. “And you’re gonna feel it, all of it.”

“She’s…alive…” Dex chokes out, as if it’s a defense.

Yeah, she’s alive. Not really the point though, is it? If she was dead, Dum Dum wouldn’t know. Might not even care. Hell, Royce almost blew the girl’s brains out the other day. He didn’t care then. Didn’t wanna see it happen, but wasn’t gonna cry about it or anything. Hell, when he first asked her who shot her, he was just curious. Nah, it came later, this…this need to kill the fatter rat. It crept up on him when she warned him about Arasaka and the Flathead, like she was tryin’ to protect him or somethin’, like a fuckin’ sweet little gonk. And then she thanked him, for the s-keef, for saving her life, and—fuck, he knows she was just returnin’ the favor, but she didn’t owe him shit—and he felt like he failed her, lettin’ her get shot in the first place. Not his fault. Not his problem. Only met the girl four days ago, but…

That smile of hers, it made him wanna do things for her.

“Sure, yeah, she’s alive,” Dum Dum breathes, bringing the knife up to the Fat Rat’s fat cheek. “But ya shot her. Shouldn’t have done that.”

He rips the knife down his face and Dex screams.

Two hours and twenty-three minutes later, after Dex has shed a couple hundred pounds in blood and fat, Dum Dum ends the session by demonstrating how to properly shoot someone in the head. When the fixer’s brains paint the wall and the biomonitor wails one long, steady note, Dum Dum lights a cigarette and goes outside to smoke.

He stares at the dark waterline, city lights reflecting off the surface, and takes a long drag. He wonders if the princess wanted to zero the fat rat herself, but too late now. At least that’s one less thing she has to be scared of.

Two sets of boots scrape along the concrete as his fellow ‘Strommers join him.

“What the hell was that about?” Bjorn asks.

Dum Dum doesn’t answer. If he tells them, they’ll give him endless shit for likin’ a ‘ganic. That’s not the reason he doesn’t tell them, though. Annoying as it is, he doesn’t really care if they make fun of him or not. He just doesn’t want it gettin’ around, not to the others. Not to Royce. Probably won’t matter, but Royce… He gets crazy ideas sometimes. Last thing Dum Dum wants is for her to live in Royce’s memory for any reason. Besides, he doubts he’ll ever see her again—though he thought that after the Flathead sale too.

“Just didn’t like him,” Dum Dum deflects, puffing on his cigarette.

Bjorn and Trey exchange glances, laugh at some inside joke. If Dum Dum could still roll his eyes, he would. Bjorn and Trey are good boys, good ‘Strommers, and they’re loyal to Dum Dum. But they’re young and stupid, and sometimes he’s not in the mood for it.

“Dump the body,” Dum Dum tells them. “Put him somewhere Arasaka will find him.”

He wants that trail going colder than ice.

“Fine,” Trey whines, and he and Bjorn wander off.

Dum Dum stands alone in the quiet, exhales a stream of gray, and draws the girl’s gun from his waistband. Looks at it. It’s a decent piece. Too bad he has no need for it. But he decides to hold onto it anyway.

For a little while, at least.