Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Who am I? No one special. I'm just a kid from Santo Domingo.

Hi, my name is David Martinez. I'm 15, and I live in one of the most crime-ridden cities on the fucking planet.

This place is overrun by corporations, corruption, organized crime, and gang violence.

"City of Dreams," my full 'ganic ass. Anyone who lives here either dies soaked in blood or ends up a bucket of chum.

The selling point in this city ain't the money, the chrome, or even the joytoys. No, the selling point is a lot fucking dumber.

The reputation. Dying in a blaze of glory to become a legend.

What kind of gonkhead dream is that?

Immortality through remembrance? You'd be too dead to fucking enjoy the rep you've been given. And if you're still alive after cementing yourself as a legend, you're probably on the verge of putting iron in your mouth—because who the fuck wants to live after all the shit they’ve done just for some fucking brownie points from schmucks with death wishes?!

You die trying to be a legend, or you live long enough to regret it. Either way, you're alone.

You ever wonder what it’s like living at the bottom of the food chain?

No chrome. No eddies. No connections. Just me, my mom, and whatever scraps we could hold onto long enough before someone bigger, badder, or richer took them away.

My mom always said I was special. One of the smartest kids she'd ever met. I used to believe her—until Arasaka Academy reminded me what “special” really means in Night City.

It means you're rich enough to get your brain swapped for a better one. It means your daddy owns a tower that blots out the sun for five blocks. It means you’ve got a name, a legacy, a custom-tailored future waiting for you.

Me? I’ve got... glasses. Custom-made by me. Junk parts and stolen code duct-taped together with whatever I could lift off the Net. My neural link is rigged through the side of my glasses because, surprise, surprise—we couldn’t afford the kind they drill into your skull.

It gets me by. Helps me transfer money, receive messages, send messages—pretty much like everyone else with ocular implants and a neural interface.

I'm smart. I'm really smart.

Says my mom. Says my teachers. Says my best friend. And yeah—says me. I know I’m smart.

If I can't afford something, I’ll make it. If it’s broken, I fix it. If I can’t fix it, I’ll make it better.

Unfortunately, being a brainiac ain’t enough to stop people from wanting to cave your head in.

A young boy was pushed to the ground.

He lay there, blazer wrinkled and half-torn at the shoulder, its dark-gray fabric coated in fine dust and gutter grit. The red trim of the uniform—so pristine on everyone else—looked faded against the scuff marks and blood blooming just beneath his lip.

His hair was cut into a short faux-hawk, the sides of his head shaved bare, no tech etched into the skin. It made the look seem stubborn rather than stylish, like someone trying to look bigger than he felt.

There was nothing special about his face—not at first glance. A tan complexion darkened by sun and smog, thin lips pulled tight. His hazel eyes glared up at the boy who shoved him.

Behind cracked smart-glasses—old, clunky, patched with wire and tape—his gaze tracked everything. The crowd. The smirks. The ones who turned away like this was just part of the curriculum.

"That kid who landed on his ass? That's me."

"What's wrong, Martínez? Low-class 'ganic body can't handle a little shove?"

A teenage male of Japanese descent with a lean, athletic build spoke. His hair was dyed electric blue and styled in a bowl-mullet cut, with the sides shaved and the back left longer. His skin was fair, and his eyes were bright blue. He wore the standard Arasaka Academy uniform: a dark blazer with red trim, a white button-up shirt, and matching slacks with a sharp crease. The uniform fit him cleanly and was well-maintained. Visible cyberware included a dermal implant along the right side of his face—small, rectangular chrome plating beneath the cheekbone and near the temple, likely functional rather than cosmetic.

"The blue dickweed who pushed me on my ass is Katsuo Tanaka. He's just like any other corpo kid: snobby, spoiled rotten, and just an asshole to anyone he sees as 'lower' status. If you're not a corpo kid, you're just trash to him."

"Not sure why you're asking that question when you bragged about your new Gorilla Arms in front of the class," David retorted, rubbing the area where he was pushed.

Katsuo scoffed.

"And why shouldn't I flaunt it? My dad—"

"Oh my fucking God! Can you stop mentioning your dad every time you speak to someone?" a voice from behind Katsuo called out.

The bully turned and saw another student. Someone he really didn't want to mess with unless he wanted some major repercussions.

He stood 5'6" with broad shoulders that filled out the sharp lines of the Arasaka Academy blazer. Golden blond hair swept back in a naturally tousled style, the kind that looked effortless but probably took time. His uniform was worn just loose enough to be comfortable. A faint smirk played on his lips as he stood with hands in his pockets, collar slightly popped. His eyes were as blue as the sky and narrowed.

"Storm," Katsuo growled.

"That blonde guy right there is Johnny Storm, my best friend. And his timing couldn't have been more perfect... Actually, it would've been preferable if he showed up before I got knocked down, but better five seconds late than not at all."

"Listen, choom," Johnny started, waving his hands like he wasn’t the least bit worried—something that greatly annoyed Katsuo. "Mind leaving my friend alone? I know you're planning to beat him up as a coping mechanism for getting no babes—"

"What?!" The blue-haired brat turned red from embarrassment.

"But come on, man. Be better."

"I am being better!" Katsuo snarled. "I'm showing this low-class trash why he doesn't belong here!"

"Isn't he the top of our class?" Johnny asked, confused as to how David didn’t belong in the most prestigious school in the city.

"Pure luck!" Denial was obvious.

"Bitch, he's poor and makes his own stuff. That's preem talent right there! You, on the other hand, ask dear old daddy for new arms because your old ones were too trashy for proper jacking off."

"H-how dare you!" Katsuo was flabbergasted. "My father—"

"Isn't above mine," Johnny cut him off. "Now scram."

"Tch." Katsuo clicked his tongue, glared at David, then angrily stormed off.

"Oh yeah, Johnny's a corpo kid. But a good one. Something I never thought I'd see in my entire life."

"Thanks, man." David stood up and dusted himself off.

"I've been going to Arasaka Academy for three months now. Honestly, Johnny is the only thing that makes this shitstain of a school bearable."

"No prob, choom," the blonde said, patting his friend's shoulder. "When will that gonk learn?"

"I doubt even chipware can make him learn anything," David snarled, making Johnny chuckle.

"We met during the first week. Johnny's like me: full 'ganic. But I'm 'ganic because I'm poor and... personal stuff. He's 'ganic because he's, and I quote, too perfect to upgrade. I think he's just scared of blades and needles cutting through his flesh. See? When I put it like that, getting chipped doesn't sound so fun, huh?"

"Not so sure about that, pal. Heard he took a Kung Fu chip a while back." As he said that, the two boys walked through the hallway, drawing glances from fellow students. "Good thing I was here to be your knight in shining armor."

"Chipware. Cyberware. Fucking Bioware. They make being human obsolete.

Cyberware replaces meat with metal. Chipware turns knowledge into cheats. Bioware? Designer muscle, nothing more.

People used to train. Learn. Struggle. Now they skip the work and call it evolution. But evolution doesn’t happen in a lab. It takes time. Pressure. Consequence.

You stop earning what makes you human, you stop being human. That’s the problem.

The world worships convenience now. Faster reflexes. Sharper eyes. Instant expertise. All installed updates. But people forget—every shortcut cuts away something real.

That's why, even if I wasn't broke, I wouldn't mangle my body over fancy conveniences.

I don't hate people who pay to enhance their lifestyle. What I hate is that it makes effort mean shit when you can just download stuff from the Net."

"If you're that jealous, why not install chipware? You're rich enough for it."

"Because—"

"Don't give me that bullshit reason. Just admit you're afraid of needles."

"NEVER!"

The two took their conversation to the cafeteria, ordered food, found a table, and sat down.

"You're probably wondering just who this gonk is.

His dad is a well-known and highly respected scientist named Franklin Storm, head of the Baxter Foundation.

The Baxter Foundation was initially a research division under Militech, one of the world's largest manufacturers of weapons and military vehicles.

Due to ethical issues—ironically enough for a weapon-making company—Franklin Storm butted heads with Militech brass one too many times. Rumor is he refused to weaponize some quantum tech they were developing. So he broke off. Took his team, his kids, and whatever tech he could carry without getting flatlined. Founded the Baxter Foundation with the dream of science for people, not against them.

It's idealistic. Stupid, since it's in Night City, but definitely idealistic.

Now the Baxter Foundation is an independent think tank for those with brains and a heart.

How do they make money, you ask? Despite claiming neutrality, they receive funding from factions who want access to their discoveries. Sometimes they play both sides, getting cash from the NUSA and Arasaka by offering “early access previews” of theoretical tech.

The Baxter Foundation grew so much in terms of scientific advancements that it's on par with fucking Arasaka.

They’re 10 years ahead of public tech, 5 years ahead of Arasaka in theoretical and exotic sciences. The tech there is either too dangerous for the public or too valuable to destroy.

It's fucking nova.

They're funded by filthy-rich investors, licensing and tech deals, and academic partnerships. Safe to say, Johnny is pretty well-off.

His older sister, Susan Storm, is set to take over the Baxter Foundation in a few years.

So it begs the question: If Johnny was in a place where all you have to do is point a gun somewhere, it fires, hits someone, and there's a 90% chance that's someone's a genius—

Simple. Because he's a charmer."

A couple of girls walked past the boys' table. Johnny took notice and winked at them.

They giggled and covered their mouths like the schoolgirls they were.

David just rolled his eyes, which the rich kid noticed and smirked at.

"He believes Johnny can be the perfect public figure for the Baxter Foundation. What better way to prove it to other corpos than by attending another corpo's school?

Honestly, I can't blame his dad. Gonk's pretty chill when he's not acting like a... well, a gonk."

"You know," Johnny began, "I can set you up on a date if you'd like. I'd even vouch for you."

"Thanks, but I'm not really looking for input right now." David waved off the offer.

The offer was tempting, but he had priorities.

"Come on, man! This is high school. It's supposed to be the best years of our lives!"

"I never should've shown you High School Musical."

"I like old movies."

"Yes, because now I have a very romanticized view of what high school should be!"

"A musical?"

"Yes. But also, it should be fun!"

"Hate to install this in your database, but life isn't a musical." David took a bite of his sandwich, voice slightly muffled. "And remind me to show you Grave of the Fireflies."

"Oh!" Johnny perked up. "Is that something fun?"

"...Sure."

"I can be so evil."

"Alright!"

With that, Storm started drinking the soda he got from the vending machine.

"...So how's your sister?"

*PFFFT!* Johnny spat out the soda... directly in David's face.

"DUDE!" Martinez exclaimed, yanking off his glasses and wiping his face with his sleeve.

It was after school, and David was walking home.

"My life in Night City is hell."

The sun sets behind jagged megabuildings, casting a burnt-orange hue over the industrial skyline. Pollution turns the air to rust. The distant hum of AVs cuts through the static buzz of street-level advertisements. Neon signs begin flickering to life.

"The lights around me are like the bioluminescent lure the anglerfish makes. Get too close, and you're going to get eaten."

He was still in his Arasaka Academy uniform, walking alone. A cheap, clunky backpack hangs off one shoulder. His eyes stay forward, posture tight, and jaw clenched in silence.

"Only way to survive this city's nightmares is to fight."

Crowds pass him, loud and unruly. A brawl spills out from a noodle stall. David doesn’t flinch. He veers around it without looking back.

"Or have friends in high places."

A MAXTAC transport hovers overhead — spotlights bathing the crowd, sirens low and insistent. People scatter. David keeps walking.

"No one is coming to save you. Unless there's a price involved. Money or a favor. Those are the currencies here."

He passes a holo-ad, glitching. It flickers between a smiling Corpo executive and a missing persons report: "Have you seen this child? Call TraumaTeam Emergency."

He looks away.

"Some try to make it look like they earn an honest living."

"Hey, kid!"

A corner vendor waves him over, selling counterfeit chips and “adrenaline boosters.” David doesn’t break pace. A hand reaches for his shoulder—

David sidesteps, barely a blink, never looking.

"You fucking brat!" the vendor curses behind him.

"But that’s usually just a mask to hide the stuff that makes them real money."

From the corner of his eye, David saw highly addictive drugs hidden behind the vendor's stand: Boost, Synthchoke, and some Glitter.

"Some don't even bother wearing masks. They like the attention. Doesn’t matter if a badge or two spots them."

He turns down a side alley — darker, the air thicker. A pair of Animals—members from a gang literally called Animals—block the path, leaning on the wall, one tossing a blade between his fingers. They watch him.

David’s eyes narrow just slightly. He walks through the middle of them, wordless.

"There are perks to being a student at Arasaka Academy."

One of them steps forward, but a drone’s camera buzzes down, tracking David. It scans his Arasaka badge and veers away. The Animals back off.

David exits onto a wide skyway overlooking the city. Below, people scream. A car explodes in the distance.

David stops. Stares out.

"This city is full of consequences. Too bad the consequences only apply to people who have nothing to do with all this bullshit."

The Martinez boy shook his head and continued walking away from the chaos.

"Someone needs to do something."

"AHHHGGGGGG!" a woman screamed.

David wanted to turn around to see what it was—why that woman screamed—but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"That someone isn't me."

The hallway stinks of coolant and sweat. Lights flicker with each passing footstep. David walks in silence. His uniform shirt is wrinkled from a day spent slouching, hunched into himself like a folding chair no one wants to sit in. He ignores the braindance ads barking from the wall projectors, they’re background noise by now.

"I'm powerless. No rep. No eddies. No nothing. Just my brain, and that only gets me so far."

His sneakers squeak faintly on the stained concrete. He stops at his door: Unit 1024-D. The panel beside it flickers blue, half-dead.

"Every day. Every fucking day, I hear someone screaming out for help."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He pulls his glasses off, swipes a chip from the slot at the side, and taps it into the panel. Click. The bolt clunks free.

"Even in my own home. I still hear them."

The door sticks, as always. He shoulders it open, hard. The hinges groan.

A single strip bulb flickers near the ceiling. The air is warm and stale.

"Mom's working double shift again." David muttered sadly.

Clothes are draped over the back of a chair. A half-eaten cup of noodles has grown mold on the shelf. The TV glows faint blue on standby. One of the fans is still turning, slowly, clicking every few seconds like a clock.

"And it just eats me up."

David sets his bag down on the couch. Sits. Slouches.

From the large window across the room, Night City breathes, neon light flickering in. Smoke trails rise from towers. Sirens wail somewhere below. A police AV zips past, silhouetted by the sunset.

"The people in Night City are numb. All they care about is surviving, doesn't matter if other people don't."

He just sits there. Silent. Watching. The glasses sit in his hand.

He doesn’t turn on the lights.

"Humanity is fucked."

The room hums faintly. One of the ceiling panels buzzes with static. A fan on the far wall ticks every few seconds, its blades barely spinning. The air is warm, stale, thick with leftover heat and metal.

David hasn’t moved since he sat down.

A spider crawls out from under the couch armrest. It’s small, its legs delicate and fast as it scuttles along the edge of the cushion. David’s eyes catch the movement, but he doesn’t react.

“Tiny thing. Nobody notices you until they’re scared. Then they want you dead.” David said as watches the small spider.

The arachnid moves cautiously across the stained fabric, then climbs up onto his knee. It walks over the fold in his pants, then toward his wrist, where his fingers still lightly clutch the glasses.

“You don’t even know where you are, do you?.”

It crawls onto the lens.

“Everything in this city wants to crawl up something just to survive. A crack in a wall or up someone's ass.”

There, it pauses as almost reflected in the faint flicker of light from the window. Neon colors from outside cast distorted patterns on the floor.

“And when they see you... they kill you. No second thought.”

The spider keeps moving, crossing the frame and making its way over David’s knuckles.

“You don’t even know how easy it would be. All I need to do is squeeze.”

Still, he doesn’t move. Not even a twitch.

“But I get it. You’re just trying to exist. Same as me.”

Eventually, the spider crawls off his hand and disappears into the crevice between the seat cushions.

"Sneaky little one."

The fan clicks again. A siren echoes faintly from the city below.

David doesn’t say anything else.

He just sits there, staring at the space between the cushions, eyes dull, mind heavy.

He glances down at himself. Still in uniform.

Dust on the sleeves. Dried blood on the collar from an earlier encounter with two people having a brawl.

He exhales through his nose.

“Shit.”

Dragging himself upright, he shrugs off the blazer, tosses it over the back of the chair. Starts unbuttoning his shirt with one hand while rubbing his temple with the other.

He took his clothes to the laundry room and dumped them into the washer/dryer—dust, sweat, and dried blood included.

Now in just a tank top and a pair of boxers, David sat back down on the couch. The fabric was still warm from where he'd been earlier.

He leaned his head back.

Closed his eyes.

Let the noise fade.

"Nothing'll change tomorrow," he whispered to himself, already slipping into the edges of sleep. "But I hope it'll be different. A brand new day."

Dark. Not a total blackout, but hard to see anything. Just shapes and shadows. The air feels heavy, like the room's too small. Like something’s pressing in.

David tries to move.

Something’s on him.

Thin strands. Sticky. Webs.

They’re all over him—arms, chest, even his face. Not enough to trap him, just enough to slow him down.

He brushes at them, but they stick to his skin. Pull back.

He looks up.

Webs everywhere. Not normal cobwebs you dust off—these are tight, layered, thick like cable lines. Stretched between massive steel beams. No floor and no ceiling in sight. Just an endless drop and metal all around.

Then the skittering starts.

Fast. Too fast. One spider came. Then two more. Then dozens. Then hundreds. Legs clicking on metal. Movement from every direction.

He turns, trying to find a way out. The webs shift. Something bigger moves above him.

A shape lowers from the dark. Huge. Eight legs. Eyes glowing red like brake lights.

It does nothing. Will do nothing. It just stares.

And then a voice.

“You're not prey.”

He tenses. Backs up, but the web tightens.

“You're part of the Web of Life now.”

The web around him tightens. More spiders crawl down—past his shoulders, over his arms. He doesn’t fight. He just stands there.

"The Spider-Verse awaits you, David Martinez."

And it knows his name. Wonderful.

"Your world awaits you. It awaits the catalyst."

David has no idea what the voice is talking about. He’s frightened to think about what it might mean.

"It awaits a Spider-Man."

A fucking what?

---

“OH MY GOD!”

David jolted upright, yelling, eyes wide and heart hammering.

His breath came sharp, like he’d been choking. He grabbed at his chest out of instinct. His tank top clung to his skin, soaked through with sweat.

For a second, he didn’t know where he was.

The couch. The window. The fan. It all felt wrong, and he didn't know why the fuck that was.

He sat there frozen but panting, eyes flicking around the room. Looking for what, he wasn’t sure.

It was early morning, and the soft hum of ads echoed from outside.

His pulse slowly came down. He wiped his face with both hands. They were shaking.

“It was just a dream…” he told himself. He should have been convinced, but he wasn’t.

He peeled himself off the couch and stretched. His back popped. Then his shoulders. Then his wrists.

It wasn’t a normal stretch-pop. It was different. Smoother. Like something shifting into place for the first time.

He blinked at the thought. Shrugged it off. Headed to the bathroom.

The floor tiles felt colder than usual under his feet.

He grabbed his toothbrush from the counter. His fingers stuck to the plastic. Just for a second. Enough to pull it slightly off balance.

He had to peel them off one at a time.

He frowned. Checked his fingers. They were clean and dry. He brushed it off anyway.

In the kitchen, he opened the fridge. The smell hit him like a freight train—rotten noodles, stale sauce, something that might’ve been meat once.

He gagged. Slammed the door.

“Jesus. That’s never hit that hard before…”

His stomach growled like he hadn’t eaten in two days. He grabbed a protein bar from the drawer, tore it open—

And half the bar snapped clean in his hands like brittle chalk.

“Okay…”

He stared at the crumbling piece, then chewed it anyway.

It tasted like sand and sugar. His taste buds were screaming. Not bad—just overwhelming.

By now the washer-dryer had finished. He tossed on his boxers and socks, pulled out his uniform, still warm from the dryer.

Pants first. Shirt next. Then blazer. It all fits. Kind of.

The fabric clung to his skin in a way it never had. Like every thread was brushing his nerves directly. He adjusted his collar. It scratched like steel wool.

He sat to lace up his shoes. Pulled tight—

Snap. One lace broke clean in two.

He froze. Looked down. He hadn’t yanked that hard. At least, he didn’t think he had.

He tied the other shoe more carefully. It still felt like pulling on taffy or paper strings.

He stood. The couch creaked behind him. Loud. One leg scraped slightly, unevenly, like it had shifted.

“...What the fuck is happening in this house?”

He grabbed his bag, put on his glasses, and turned to leave. Then stopped.

There it was again.

A spider. Same one from last night—or maybe not. Up in the corner near the ceiling.

David didn’t move. Neither did it.

Then the dryer buzzed again—another load had finished.

David blinked. The spider was gone.

He stared at the spot for a few more seconds, then sighed and slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Same old, brand new day.”

He left his apartment and prepared for another in Night City.

The walk to school was never great.

The air smelled like burning plastic and hot oil. The sidewalks were uneven and sticky with who-knows-what. The noise of Night City—AVs, sirens, screaming, broken vending machines—blended into a constant headache.

But today, every sound came in crisp. The hiss of bus brakes two blocks over. The rattle of loose screws on a food stand cart. The flicker-pop of a glitching billboard.

David walked with hands in his pockets, eyes down—but his senses wouldn’t let him tune the world out like usual.

A couple walked past him, arguing quietly. He could hear every word. Like they were whispering into his ear.

“—just say you spent the eddies, Max.”

“I didn’t! You think I’d blow that much on BD credits?!”

David winced and picked up his pace. Tried to drown it out. But he couldn’t.

A rusted dumpster door slammed open across the street. The sound punched his chest like a bass drop.

He flinched, hand twitching—ready to move, dodge, do something. He didn’t know what.

“What the hell is wrong with me…”

Halfway down the block, someone shoved past him without looking. Some gonk with chromed-up gorilla arms and no sense of personal space.

David stumbled, reflexively throwing an arm out to catch himself, and grabbed a steel signpost.

Then the metal bent a little. Enough to curve around his grip before he let go.

He stared at it, then at his hand. Then back at the post.

Nobody noticed. No one stopped. But it was there.

“Okay, this is getting freaky.”

He kept walking. Kept his head down. The noise around him shifted—sharper now.

A flock of pigeons burst out from a rooftop above. Normally, he wouldn’t even notice. But now, they moved slow.

Too slow.

He saw individual wingbeats. Counted them. Tracked every shift in their angle mid-flight. Every feather. Every blink.

It wasn’t like watching in slow motion. It was worse.
It was like living in it.

He blinked. Shook his head.

A passing car rolled down the street. The tire rotation flickered in his vision frame by frame. Like an old braindance buffering.

“Nope. Nope. This isn’t real.”

His chest tightened. He rubbed his temples. The world snapped back to speed—but it felt wrong now. Everything was moving too fast and too slow at the same time, like he was stuck in two time zones.

He stopped walking. Just for a second. Eyes closed. Deep breath.

Then it passed.

Back to normal. Almost.

He didn’t look back at the signpost. He didn’t want to know if it was still bent.

He just kept walking.

David walked fast.

But then, a weird pressure built behind his eyes. Like heat pressing against the inside of his skull.

Then—

[Move]

*WHAM!*

A signboard above him cracked loose.

Before he even saw it, his whole body jerked sideways.

*CRASH!*

The sign slammed into the pavement, inches from his heel.

David froze. Looked up at the shattered board. Then around him.

“What the fuck…”

He kept walking, faster now.

That same pressure hit again—harder this time. A hum behind his ears. Like static inside his head.

[Look out]

*HOOOOONNNNK!*

A delivery van tore through the intersection. Red light, no brake.

David’s body moved before his mind did.
One foot yanked back. Shoulders jerked to the side. His balance caught mid-stumble.

The van missed him by a hair.

“AM I IN A FUCKING FINAL DESTINATION DEATH SCENE?!” David screamed at no one in particular, but the people around him were too panicked to care.

He didn’t even think. He just ran.

A few blocks later, while passing beneath a scaffold, the static flared again.

*SNAP!*

A metal rod dropped straight toward his head.

[Up from above]

He ducked hard—shoulder scraping the concrete wall.

*THUD.*

The pole cracked the pavement where he’d just been.

Now his chest was tight. Palms sweaty. Head pounding.

The sensation hadn’t stopped. The buzzing… the heat… it lingered. Like his nerves were constantly bracing for something.

He cut through a backstreet. Narrow alley. Trash bins, dripping pipes, busted neon.

Finally alone.

David leaned against the wall and yanked off his glasses. He couldn’t catch his breath.

His hands were shaking from pure sensory overload.

Every corner. Every sound. Every flicker of movement—it all felt too loud.
Too much.

He clenched his jaw. Squeezed his eyes shut.

“Damn it, Death… can’t you wait thirty more years?”

He rubbed his face with his forearm.

“Why is this happening to me…”

His voice cracked—shock tipping into frustration.

Then it broke loose.

“WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT HAPPENING TO ME?!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, head facing upwards as if he was cursing God.

*RRIP–SHK!*

His eyes flew open.

A flash of pressure surged up both forearms, like tendons snapping forward into place.

He didn’t want to look.

But he had to.

He slowly lowered his head and saw them.

Two sharp, organic blades extended out from beneath the skin. One from each forearm, angled forward. Dark, smooth, and non-metallic. It wasn't cyberware, that's for sure.

His jaw hung open.

They didn’t hurt.

They didn’t bleed.

He stared.

Then flexed.

*SHK!*

The stingers snapped fully forward. Long. Serrated on one side.

David dropped to his knees.

“...What the fuck am I turning into…”

He stayed there, panting hard, staring at the blades.

They twitched once.

*SKRCH!*

Then pulled back in—retracted into his arms like they’d never been there.

No cuts. No seams. No scars.

He swallowed hard.

David stayed there, kneeling.

Breathing shallow. Eyes locked on his forearms.

Whatever just came out of him—it wasn’t chrome. No synthetic shine. No seams. Just skin again. Like it imagined itself gone, and the body obeyed.

He stood up slowly, wiping the grit off his knees.

The alley was still dead quiet. Trash bins leaning sideways, some with tags scrawled across them. A busted neon strip above a back door blinked like it was struggling to stay alive.

He held up his right arm, slowly rotating the wrist, waiting to feel… something. A tingle. A click. Anything.

Then he felt that twitch again.

Not like the blades.

This one came from the heel of his hand. Right under the skin.

It itched.

He shifted his fingers a bit, the middle and ring curled in, thumb held out, index and pinky extended. A rockerboy gesture, but somehow it felt like it fit.

*THWIP!*

A thin white strand launched from his wrist and smacked into the wall across from him.

David flinched back.

"What—?"

The strand stuck. Tight. Firm. Still connected to him.

It hung there between his hand and the bricks. Slightly elastic. A little warm.

His jaw dropped for the second time today.

He turned his wrist slowly. The thread followed the motion like a leash. His hand flexed, and the strand gave a little tug.

Then he tried the same hand gesture with his left hand.

*THWIP!*

Another shot. It hit a trash bin this time, right near the lid hinge. The lid bounced a little from the force.

David staggered back a step, arms out like he’d just fired weapons.

But there was no recoil, nor pain.

There was a faint warmth in his wrists, but he wasn’t necessarily complaining right now.

He watched the line on his left wrist. Then, without thinking, he let his muscles relax.

The thread cut off.

He looked at it. Still stuck to the bin.

“Okay… letting go makes it drop.”

He turned to the right-hand line still attached to the wall.

Instead of releasing it, he tried something else. Focused on pulling it back in.

Like reversing muscle tension.

The strand twitched. Then quickly, it reeled in, sliding back toward his wrist and—

"AH!"

David was being pulled towards the wall and urgently tried to do what he did with the previous strand.

He immediately let go and staggered a bit from the force of the pull.

“That’s—what the hell was that?”

He raised his hand again. Repeated the motion.

*THWIP!*

Straight line into the metal side of a cracked fuse box.

This time, he cut the flow off early, right as it started.

*Pssst!*

A small shot of silk shot out—like the end of a hose shutting off.

He stared at the splotch of silk attached to the metal pipe.

One web at a time. Can be released or pulled back.

He fired one last shot, just to be sure.

*THWIP !*

Nailed a broken pipe up above.

This time he held on. Pulled. The pipe rattled.

Then he pulled harder.

It broke, and released steam.

“...Okay,” he winced, breath catching.

It was real. All of it. Stingers. Webbing. Whatever the hell this was—it was happening.

And… it was kind of nova.

David stood there, arms slightly raised, wrists warm and ready.

For the first time since this whole thing started, he didn’t feel scared.

He felt... curious.

And maybe a little excited.

So he grinned.

“…Huh.”

David stared at his open palm. Flexed it once. The spigot near his wrist was barely visible again, just a faint line in the skin.

Then he remembered something—earlier that morning. The way his fingers stuck to the toothbrush.

“I wonder…”

He walked over to the wall. Cracked concrete. Dirt-smeared. Nothing special.

He raised one hand and placed each of his fingers against the surface.

At first, nothing.

Then he pushed a little.

Fingers held fast.

He started to lift his arm away, and the whole wall came with it, for a split second, anyway. His fingers made a soft peeling sound as they came loose.

Sticky.

His grin widened.

“Oh… no way, choom.”

He pressed his hands back on, firmer this time. Spread his fingers. Then lifted his feet off the ground just slightly, using the wall for support.

He didn’t fall.

In fact, it also stuck.

“…Okay, now we're getting somewhere.”

This was actually happening.

And he wasn’t hating it.

He glanced down at his feet. Took a slow breath.

“Alright. Let’s see how far this goes.”

He crouched slightly, planted his other hand higher up, and placed one sneaker against the wall.

Grip held.

Then the other foot.

His body pressed flat against the alley wall like a spider with no technological assistance.

His breathing stayed steady.

No vertigo yet.

He moved one hand forward.

*SKRRK!*

That hand held.

Then he moved the other. Same result.

Each movement triggered a soft sticking sound, almost like Velcro. The adhesion wasn’t constant and it pulsed, syncing with contact and tension.

He climbed higher. Two feet off the ground. Then three. Then five.

The wall narrowed slightly, with cracked pipes and a ledge overhead. His blazer brushed against rusted metal, leaving streaks. He didn’t care.

His foot slipped once, but his fingers caught, held his whole body weight without flinching.

That’s when he realized that he didn’t even feel heavy.

“Holy shit,” he muttered under his breath, halfway up the second floor of the alley wall.

Ten feet up now.

He stopped at a busted AC unit bolted into the bricks. It gave him a place to perch, crouched sideways like a cat.

David took a second to look around.

From up here, the alley looked smaller. Less threatening. Trash bins and puddles were the only things he saw. But it was a place he felt overwhelmed five minutes ago.

Now, it felt manageable. Navigable.

He exhaled slowly.

“This is a bad idea…”

Then he smiled again, truly and genuinely.

And kept climbing.

The pads of his fingers pressed and released like he’d done this a thousand times before. There was no slipping. No guessing. Trust in the grip.

By the time he reached the top of the second story, David paused, hanging just below the rooftop ledge.

He looked down again.

He was two stories high, and if he fell... he didn't have any medical insurance for Trauma Team.

And yet, no fear.

He adjusted his footing, planted a sneaker against a vertical brick. The texture didn’t matter since it held.

He took a breath, then pulled himself over the ledge and onto the rooftop, rolling into a crouch.

He stood slowly, turned, and looked out over the stretch of rooftops ahead. Flat surfaces, jutting vents, billboard frames, aerials. All of it suddenly looked… doable.

He paced forward, scanning the skyline. He spotted a nearby building maybe twenty feet out, a couple floors up, with a fat exhaust pipe sticking out the side.

That would work.

“Alright…”

He flexed his hand, fingers curling into the now-familiar pose: middle and ring tucked in, index and pinky forward, thumb out.

He hesitated.

Still, he aimed at the pipe.

“C’mon… hit it.”

*THWIP!*

A perfect shot. The web line launched clean, hit the pipe, wrapped tight. No sag. No snap.

David’s eyebrows raised and grin widened. “Okay!”

He grabbed the line, gave it a quick tug. Solid.

No time to overthink.

He backed up, sprinted forward, and jumped off the rooftop ledge.

The drop hit his gut — pure freefall.

Then tension snapped in the line, yanking him forward. He arced across the gap, swinging in a tight, fast loop.

But momentum outpaced instinct.

He didn’t know when to release.

So he didn’t.

Instead of a clean launch, he slammed into the wall beneath the target rooftop like a human wrecking ball.

“UNGH—!”

His chest bounced off concrete, but his hands latched on.

He dangled for a second, feet scrambling.

Then he pulled himself flat to the wall again.

Huffing. Dented. But smiling.

He didn’t drop.

He climbed.

Hand over hand, foot over foot, he scaled to the next rooftop, this time faster. The wall was nearly sheer, but it didn’t matter. His hands gripped everything. His legs supported the weight like it was nothing.

He reached the ledge, pulled up, and rolled to a stop.

Flat on his back. Gasping.

Then laughing.

"HAHAHA!"

Just once. Just a quick, stunned burst of laughter.

“…This is nova.”

His chest rose and fell, sharp and fast from adrenaline.

He looked up at the sky again. The clouds looked nice.

He grinned wider than before.

“I could get used to this.”

He stood up slowly, shook out his arms, and looked at the next rooftop.

Another challenge.

Another shot.

He made the hand gesture again.

*THWIP!*

Voice Log: Entry 001
Timestamp: [REDACTED]
User: D.Martinez

“Alright. Uh… voice log test.”

pause

“Okay, yeah, this is dumb. But I gotta keep track of this somehow. Writing it down feels weirder.”

brief exhale

“So… today was completely fucked. In ways I can’t really explain to anyone without sounding insane or high off Glitter.”

“Something’s going on with my body. And no, not puberty. That I expected. This? This is different.”

“This morning, I broke a shoelace just from pulling too hard. Crushed a protein bar in my hand without even trying. My fingers stuck to the wall. I could hear every damn sound in the city like I had mics in my skull. Oh—and I saw time slow down. Not metaphorically. Like, birds flying slow. Tires turning frame by frame. It wasn’t normal.”

“Then the alley happened. That was the tipping point.”

“Something came out of my arms. Like blades. Organic, not metal. They retracted after, and I noticed there's this flap on my forearm from where it came out of. I checked. They’re just… on there now. Part of me.”

“And then the webs. Yeah, webs. From my wrists. I can stick to walls too. Climbed two stories like I was born doing it. Almost face-planted into a wall during a swing but… I didn’t fall."

"It was fucking awesome! I felt like Tarzan! Definitely doing that again.

pause

“Also had a dream last night. Real weird one. Spiders. Big ones. Webs everywhere. Voices telling me shit about a ‘Web of Life’ and calling me by name. Which, yeah, creepy. I don’t know what the hell that was. But now? I’m kinda starting to think it's connected to my...powers.”

longer pause

“I don’t know what’s happening to me, but it’s real. I’m not chipped. I’ve got no implants. This isn’t chrome. It’s just... I can't explain it. All I know that this is happening and I don't know why.”

"Tomorrow, I'll start testing these new powers. See what my limits are. What I can and can't do."

"I always had a thing for spiders. Read about them a lot as a kid. Their webs are stronger than steel, they can lift ten to fifteen times their own body weight, hell, they can even 50 times their own body length."

"If these powers are what I think they are, then I probably shouldn't shake someone's hand unless they chromed it...actual, thing I just might try crushing Katsuo's hand."

"....nah, he'll probably due my ass the first chance he gets. Oh well, better just go with my initial revenge plan. Become his boss and treat him like shit."

“Anyways, I’m gonna keep recording these. Just to keep a log. In case things go sideways."

"David out."

Chapter Text

It was early morning in Night City, before sunrise.

It was an ungodly hour to most, which made it perfect.

"Okay, I think this place is secure enough."

David stood alone in an abandoned, collapsed megamall, far away from cameras and bystanders. He wore grey sweatpants and a red hoodie, as well as sneakers, cotton gloves, and his custom glasses. On his back was his backpack, filled with essentials and his freshly cleaned school uniform in case things went longer than they should.

The collapsed megamall sat at the edge of Santo Domingo—massive, decaying, and long forgotten. Once a monument to excess and consumerism, it had promised luxury, tech, and convenience across five glittering levels. Now, it was a hollowed-out corpse of rebar, cracked polymer, and rust.

The ceiling had partially caved in after an earthquake and years of neglect, leaving jagged beams exposed to the sky. Rain pooled on warped tile floors. Escalators leaned at odd angles like broken limbs, their steps missing or fused with grime.

Stores still bore faded names above shattered glass displays—franchises long defunct or absorbed by bigger corps. Neon signage flickered sporadically, some sputtering through old ad cycles, others glitching with digital decay. A cracked Meditech kiosk repeated a looping audio ad through static: “Better skin, better you…”

Moss and mold crawled over what was left of the food court. Vines had burst through tiles and walls, spilling down from the upper balconies. Rats had claimed the remains of the kitchens. The smell of rot, oil, and scorched insulation clung to everything like smoke in fabric.

Below ground, the delivery tunnels ran deep and maze-like, built for industrial traffic and Corpo shipments. They were pitch-black now—dripping, echoing, their silence broken only by distant drips and the occasional clang of settling metal.

Few dared to go inside. Most didn’t even remember the mall existed. Official records marked it as “decommissioned” after multiple gang incidents and a Corpo dispute gone bad. Cleanup was deemed too costly. Eventually, the city just built around it, leaving the husk behind.

"...Fuck, this place looks and smells like a shithole!" David was repulsed and immediately covered his nose. "It's like a corpse sprayed with liquid ass. Jesus!"

The enhanced senses were not helping our protagonist.

"Good thing I brought this just in case."

He dropped his backpack on the ground and took out a filter mask.

"I knew this place would reek, but I didn't think it would reek this much." He strapped the mask onto his face, took a deep breath, and sighed in relief. 

"Oh man, that is so much better!"

He took another breath through the filter. The thick stench faded to a dull, background rot.

David pulled his hood up, flipped on the HUD in his glasses, and scanned the space.

"Alright… let’s see what I’m working with."

The augmented reality overlay lit up his lenses—flickering wireframes, depth mapping, heat signatures. He swept his gaze across the ruined mall.

[First: structure.]

He tagged a few remaining pillars—some cracked, others surprisingly stable. The collapsed center section had left a wide, open space perfect for mobility trials. No reinforced glass or load-bearing balconies. Just busted concrete, warped steel, and plenty of vertical challenge.

"That atrium might be tall enough for a full swing test," he muttered, eyes narrowing behind the lenses.

[Second: hazards.]

Rust patches, exposed wiring, and unstable beams. There was a split escalator that groaned when the wind shifted, and a half-flooded section near the old food court where electrical sparks danced in the shallow water.

"Alright, avoid that side unless I feel like getting deep-fried."

[Third: escape routes.]

David scanned the broken skylights above. Some were still open to the air—cracked but not sealed off. Good for a quick exit. The old maintenance stairwells to the north wing were intact too, partially blocked but usable if things got hairy.

"Cool. That’s two exits, one potential perch, and at least five spots I can faceplant if I screw this up."

He walked to the center of the atrium. The tile crunched under his sneakers. Above, the faintest trickle of dawn began to bleed through the shattered roof.

The light cast long shadows from the bent beams and destroyed signage. It painted the mall in rust and violet—almost pretty in a post-apocalyptic way.

David dropped his backpack near a dry spot on the floor, cracked his knuckles, and glanced up.

"...Alright, David. Time to find out what the hell you are."

He rolled his shoulders. Limbered up. The hoodie stretched tight across his back.

Then he flexed his fingers—felt the twitch near his wrists.

*THWIP!*

A web-line shot out, clean and fast, latching onto a rusted support beam high above.

He pulled gently. The line held.

And he grinned behind the mask.

"Round one."

David gave it two sharp tugs—firm tension, no give. He nodded to himself.

“Web tensile strength: good, exactly how good remains unknown. Anchor stability... solid. No sag under static load.”

He stepped back to the far edge of the fractured floor, checked his footing, then sprinted forward.

*JUMP!*

*FWOOSH!*

*BANG!*

"FUCK!"

*WHIP!*

First swing attempt: messy. He misjudged his grip, and his arc dipped too early. He slammed hip-first into a hanging beam and barely caught himself on a loose support cable.

“Shit—okay. Note to self: momentum and timing don’t sync naturally yet.”

He climbed to the beam using wall-crawling adhesion—no problem there. Each handhold locked tight, like magnetized palms.

He perched at the top and took out a beat-up audio recorder he salvaged from scrapped parts, speaking into it through his mask.

“Mobility Trial 01. Environment: ruined atrium. Wind factor low. Elevation: 12 meters. Objectives: climbing, swinging, jumping. Initial impressions—adhesion is...almost consistent . Gets hard to control when under stress. Seems to be some sort of molecular field of attraction. Normal spiders usually climb using small hairs on their limbs, but since I'm wearing gloves and shoes as I stick, I'm guessing that's not the case for me.

He slipped the recorder back in his pocket.

“Alright. Let’s test vertical burst.”

David crouched, tensed, then launched himself straight up toward a cracked glass ceiling.

He did not expect the height he was capable of.

“FUUUUUUUCK!”

He hit the ceiling, stuck, and painted. His body adjusted to the new orientation without vertigo.

“Oh god, how the fuck did I-. You know what? I'll question it later. What was that, 10 meters?" David calmed down a bit, deciding to have a little more professionalism for his experiment. "Balance and spatial awareness seem enhanced. Gravity shift doesn’t disorient. Nerve response time is faster than baseline.”

He crawled upside-down across the ruined beams until he reached the edge, then flipped down into a swing.

*THWIP!*

The line latched cleanly. He let his weight drop, swung low, and timed the release—

Clean arc this time.

He landed in a roll and came up on his feet, panting lightly.

“Swing efficiency improving. Line control better with two-handed assist. Momentum carryover… needs more work.”

He climbed again—this time not to swing, but to test how long he could cling.

He latched onto a vertical beam, then simply stayed there.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Still no fatigue in fingers or wrists.

“Cling duration test: ongoing. No degradation yet.”

He flexed slightly and dropped.

Midair, he flung a web toward a broken metal sign.

*THWIP!*

It connected and he pulled it back fast, dragging the sign off its hinge.

*CLANG!*

It hit the floor below in a burst of sparks.

“Web tensile strength... strong. Spider webs are five times stronger than steel, so not surprising”

He dropped beside it and crouched.

Then he felt something under his sleeve—his forearm muscles clenched involuntarily.

*SHNK!*

The stingers slid out. Long and serrated.

David stared at them. Still no pain. Still  no pain, somehow.

He swiped one of the blades against the broken metal sign. It cut cleanly.

“Organic stingers. Composition unknown. No bleeding. Appears retractable through muscle contraction.”

He let them retract.

*SKRCH!*

They vanished under the skin with the trace only being a near invisible flap.

“Still no clue how I grew these overnight.”

He stood up again and shook out his limbs.

“Okay. One more.”

He turned toward a long corridor of collapsed storefronts and broken pillars. A vertical mess of broken space. Perfect.

“Navigation trial. Speed, coordination, instinctive use.”

He took off running, and time slowed down.

Webs fired without thinking—grabbing angles, signs, metal beams. He moved low, then high, swinging, bouncing, wall-running through the chaos like a practiced free-runner on overdrive.

Each movement flowed smoother. Timing more precise. Breathing synced with motion. Legs springier. Grips surer.

By the time he reached the end of the corridor, he dropped from a pipe, breathing hard but controlled.

And time went back to normal.

He looked around.

David pulled off his mask. Let the sweat roll.

He pulled out his audio recorder and tapped the record again.

“…Mobility and altered speed confirmed. Effects similar to that of a Sandevistan's. At least I think. Only ever tried it on an XBD. No actual implants."

He looked up through the shattered roof. The sky was finally starting to shift.

Light crept into the dead mall.

And David smirked.

The sunrise cast a narrow beam across the atrium, spotlighting a half-collapsed storefront on the second floor. Faded vinyl signage barely clung to its mount, the flickering remnants of a digital mascot frozen mid-wink above the words:

"Mr. Studd’s Real Deals – Bulk Up or Shut Up!"

David squinted behind his lenses. “That’s... so corny it hurts.”

Still, it was exactly what he needed.

He scaled a collapsed stair rail and stepped over a cracked railing to enter the gym supply store. Inside, everything was coated in a film of dust and time. The smell was sour iron, dried sweat, and mildew. Shelves were buckled. Half the equipment was strewn across the floor, tangled in display banners and broken mannequins.

A shorted-out hologram behind the cracked counter buzzed on and off, the chrome musclehead frozen in a perpetual flex. One eye twitched in sync with a low hum.

David stepped past it, scanning the wreckage.

“Jackpot.”

Rusted weight plates were stacked in the back corner, partially buried under insulation foam and a shattered squat rack. Barbells leaned against a bent rack. Dumbbells of all sizes lay scattered across the floor. Some of the rubber handles were degraded, but the metal was intact.

He walked over and crouched near the plate stack.

A 20-kilo disc. Standard issue. He tapped the metal. 

He picked it up with one hand, and it felt... light.

He added a second, then a third. His arm remained steady.

“Okay… this is getting cooler and scarier.”

He grabbed a barbell, the metal cold and gritty with corrosion. The sleeves were stiff, but he muscled the plates on.

Two 20s and two 10s per side. 100 kilos total. He curled it with one arm.

No shake. No strain.

He pulled the recorder from his hoodie pocket and clicked it on.

"Strength Trial One. Raw lift. Initial load: 100 kilos. Curl, one arm. No signs of muscular strain. Grip stable. No tendon stress. Exceeds natural baseline by multiple orders of magnitude. No support exo or neural booster in use."

He racked the bar, then added more.

200 kilos.

He deadlifted it casually.

300

Still not sweating.

More plates. The bar sagged under the weight.

700 kilograms.

The concrete under his feet cracked as he lifted, but he didn’t buckle.

"Strength Trial Two. Estimated load: 700 kilos. Deadlift successful. Still no measurable failure. Grip strength off the charts. Breathing normal. No visible fatigue. Current estimate: spider strength is at least proportional to species in the Salticidae, Theraphosidae, or Halonoproctidae families. Strength possibly relative to that of a Bothriocyrtum californicum, the Californian trap-door spider."

He lowered the bar slowly. Concrete popped beneath it.

He turned toward the dumbbell rack. Picked up a pair of 50-kilo freeweights. Threw them skyward like softballs.

“Throw force: massive. Recoil negligible. Joint recoil suppression—probably structural adaptation.”

David moved to a squat press rig—old, warped, half-buried in dust.

He kicked the entire thing back upright with one foot.

Metal shrieked. Bolts jumped out. The frame rolled backward.

"Lower body output consistent with upper body readings. Single-leg kinetic discharge likely 2 to 3 metric tons."

He paced, flicked the recorder again.

"Still no lactic fatigue. Breathing stable. Either my metabolic rate is cycling out the waste instantly, or I’m just not producing it...Am I break laws of physics right now?"

David paused and glanced at the fractured mirror along the wall. Dim morning light caught his reflection.

He lifted up his his hoodie, expecting something chiseled like a Greek statue.

Nope

He is still a very skinny 15-year-old with no abs, nor bulky frame.

But he was stronger than anything that looked like him should’ve been.

"Oh man." He sighed in disappointment.

He raised the recorder one last time.

“Body mass, disappointingly, shows no external hypertrophy—muscle definition remains low. But strength is there. Hidden. Not cosmetic. Meaning this is structural, not aesthetic. I don’t need to look strong to be strong. Which is total bullshit. At least give me abs, giant dream spider."

He clicked off the device.

Then he cracked his neck.

"Alright… next test. Sensory."

He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out the recorder, thumbed it on.

“Sensory Trial One. Objective: test baseline input—visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile. Focus on quality and quantity of perception under resting and active conditions.”

He glanced around the room again. The detail was overwhelming. A dangling wire near the ceiling moved with the faintest breeze, its metal frayed. Behind the ruined front counter, a fly buzzed near a collapsed holo terminal. Even the chipped paint along the dumbbell rack seemed sharper now, like the world had been over-sharpened through a visual filter.

Not magnified. Just... clearer.

“Vision clarity boosted. Peripheral range wider. Picking up micro-movements. Almost predictive.”

He stepped forward and paused. He felt a tingling sensation at the back of his head like it was a warning.

A crack of broken tile underfoot triggered something. His foot had started to come down, but his brain told him to pull it back before the sound fully registered.

He looked down. Razor-thin shard of metal just beneath the surface. If he hadn’t stopped, it would’ve gone straight through the sole.

“Reaction time has changed. The second something enters awareness, the body tells me to adjust. Seems like this isn't reflexive, I need to actually listen to my body if it told me to do something.”

He walked across the floor, deliberately shifting weight, stepping over debris. His ears picked up the creak of every tile. But not in a loud, jarring way. Everything was separated into layers—foreground, background, and near-silent hums.

Then a distant sound hit him.

Scritch, scratch… scrape.

He froze again. He turned his head slowly.

It wasn’t in front of him. Not behind either. It was below.

The delivery tunnels.

Something—maybe a raccoon, maybe a loose pipe—something was moving down there. The acoustics were bouncing through the subfloor and making it harder to pinpoint.

David tilted his head slightly. The sound rebounded off different surfaces, and like sonar, it came into focus.

“Huh, subterranean detection. Source located beneath current floor—likely in the delivery tunnels. Sound is indirect, distorted by reverb and surface deflection. Still detectable. I’m able to localize it within a few meters despite echo interference.”

He paused, brows knit behind his lenses.

“Baseline human hearing shouldn't be able to isolate low-frequency, multi-path audio like this without external aid. Hypothesis: frequency sensitivity and neural processing enhanced. May function similarly to biological triangulation found in certain arachnids. Tracking via vibrations.”

David was reluctant for the next part of the experiment, but science requires sacrifice.

He took off his gas mask and sniffed the air.

Dust. Old metal. Burnt plastic. Sweat. Mold. Rot. And something else—acidic and sour, coming from the walls.

*HURGH!*

The boy nearly lost his breakfast from that.

"It's immediately awful!"

He followed the scent to a pile of busted insulation and paint-peeled shelving.

Buried in the layers, a spilled preem-workout tub. Cap cracked. Years old. But the powder inside still carried a chemical edge that burned his nose.

“Olfactory test: moderate. I do not have super smell. Probably just above average.”

Then he paused.

There was a faint hiss of airflow across his right cheek.

David turned toward a crumbled corner where the drywall had fully eroded away, revealing a hidden ventilation shaft. No wind outside. No mechanical hum. But he felt the change in pressure before his hearing or sight caught up.

He reached for the recorder again.

“Tactile feedback heightened. Picking up micro-shifts in air pressure and temperature. No skin damage. Receptors firing without stimulus pain. Close to surface-level motion sense—similar to how spider legs detect prey on webs.”

He crouched again, closed his eyes this time.

And waited.

A rat scampered in the food court down the hall.

A roach ran up a cracked pillar to his left.

Somewhere, water dripped onto metal. Each sound had distance, tone, vibration.

It wasn’t just hearing. It was everything—environmental mapping. Every sense was active. Synchronized.

He opened his eyes.

“…My entire body’s a sensor array.”

He clicked off the recorder, stood up slowly, and cracked his neck.

The sensory overload didn’t fatigue him. If anything, it made him feel more aware. More present. Like the world had been asleep, and now it was wide awake.

---

After the experiments, David sat on a toppled display bench beneath a collapsed balcony. The sky overhead had brightened slightly, the dawn light cutting in through the shattered roof. A breeze carried dust across the concrete. He pulled his hoodie down and took  off his glasses.

He clicked the recorder back on.

"Experiment Summary. Rough conclusions after testing."

He stretched his legs, glanced at his gloves, then flexed his fingers.

"Strength: 700 kilos deadlift, no strain. That’s mech-level, no exo required. Grip control is tight. Full-body output consistent. Muscle response immediate. Joint durability... off the charts. Based on frame stability, I'd guess I could lift a car. Maybe throw one. Easily break through reinforced barriers."

"Mobility: Wall crawling — stable and controlled. Swinging — improving, trajectory and release timing getting more intuitive. Vertical burst — 10 meters unaided. Definitely capable of rooftop traversal. Wall-to-wall bounce is efficient. Acceleration from a standstill is better than any human baseline. I can hit full sprint from zero in under a second."

"Webbing: Organic. Controlled via wrist flexors. Composition unknown, probably the same as actual spiders. The tensile strength is absurd. Webs adhere to most surfaces. Retraction possible, probably gets re-absorbs the silk. Webbing can also form nets. I’m not sure how much I can produce before I run out. Haven’t run dry yet."

"Sensory: Vision tuned for sharpness and motion. Able to track movement in near darkness. Hearing can isolate sound layers across vertical structures. Tactile response is tuned to micro-changes in airflow, impact force, and balance. Reflex system enhanced with...a buzzing. The second something enters awareness, my body tenses — but I still have to make the choice. I get warned before conscious thought catches up. Depth tracking, light compensation, and peripheral pickup feel augmented. My eyes don’t tire from strain, and sound doesn’t blur together like it used to. I can feel when something enters my field of awareness even if I can't see it."

"Stingers: Can puncture metal. Looks organic. Freaky as fuck. Venom unconfirmed... I'm not willing to test it out."

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

"Energy levels remain high. No cramping. No soreness. No shakes. If I’m producing lactic acid, I’m burning it instantly. Could be metabolism, or something else. Digestion might be hyper-efficient too — I barely ate today, and I don’t feel even remotely hungry. I might be absorbing more from less."

A pause. He watched dust swirl in a shaft of light.

"I feel... calibrated. Like my body’s running a new operating system. Everything so smooth smooth."

He rubbed his face with both hands and exhaled slowly.

"This feels like it came straight out from a comic book."

Another beat.

"I inspected myself earlier this morning, and there weren't any signs of cyberware or bioware modifications. I'm something else now."

He looked up at the roof again.

"And whatever I am... I like it."

*Click.*

Recorder off.

"Well, let's see what time it is." David put his glasses back on and saw the time. "OH HELL! I'M 10 MINUTES LATE AND I'M AT THE FUCKING EDGE OF THE CITY!"

He stared at the sunlit hole in the ceiling.

Then he grinned.

"...Okay. Shortcut."

He slung his backpack on, cracked his knuckles, put his gas mask back on in case someone recognized him, and took off running. Sneakers thudding over rubble. He leapt, hit the wall, ran up three stories, flipped at the top, and launched himself into the air with a webline.

*THWIP!*

It connected. He yanked hard.

*FWOOSH!*

He was airborne, ungraceful, limbs flailing slightly—but moving fast.

He shouted into the wind: "THIS IS SO STUPID!"

And then, with a wild grin: "BUT IT'S ALSO SO FREAKING NOVA!"

He crashed into a sign, bounced off it, swung wide again.

“Still working on the landings!”

Next stop: school.

David launched out of the broken mall atrium like a slingshot.

*THWIP!* 

Web latched. Air ripped past his hoodie.

“Okay! Okay—this is fine! Totally fine!”

He swung low over a rusted overpass, boots grazing a busted freeway sign. A startled crow squawked and scattered as he whooshed past.

“Speed’s great, control’s... garbage!”

He let go too late.

*FWUMP!*

He slammed chest-first into a vertical billboard for “Mr. Studd’s Real Deals — Bulk Up or Shut Up!” and clung there, wheezing.

"...I'm fine. I still can’t believe that’s a real store.”

He shook it off, climbed up the steel frame, and fired another webline toward a loading crane three blocks out.

*THWIP!*

This time he adjusted his wrist angle—twist 15°, tilt arm up, lock shoulder. The web shot true. The arc felt better. He swung wide, feet up, body loose to manage g-forces. Air rushed in fast. A smile pulled at his face beneath the mask.

He let go at the peak of the arc, keeping his legs tucked in to preserve rotational momentum—

*CRASH!*

—and landed in a stack of hanging laundry between two tenements.

Clothes flew. A very angry woman shouted something unintelligible in Vietnamese from a balcony.

“My bad!”

He scrambled up the lines, webbed to the fire escape, and shot up into the next swing.

---

The city blurred beneath him. Cargo trucks. Signs. Alleys stacked in layers like crumbling folders. He was above it all—for now.

“Alright… swing, release, arc, fire again. Do not eat concrete.”

He picked his next target—a light pole near the transit hub.

Fired.

*THWIP!*

Perfect.

He zipped under a neon billboard and landed on a moving delivery truck, sprinted across the roof, then launched back into the air—

—and immediately realized he misjudged the distance.

“Oh crap oh crap oh crap—”

He bounced off the side of a holo-ad tower, spun mid-air, and somehow managed to fire another web at a skywalk railing.

*THWIP!* 

*YANK!*

He dropped like a yo-yo and barely landed on the ledge, boots skidding.

“Okay! No broken bones. I think my pride took a bit, though."

---

He was picking up the rhythm now.

Web. Swing. Release. Web. Swing. Release.

Momentum control was key—he adjusted by compressing his body mid-arc to speed up, extending limbs to slow down. Anchor angles mattered. The higher the contact point, the smoother the trajectory. He began using lateral web shots to swing around corners and underpasses, reducing air resistance by tucking tight during transitions.

He flipped between rooftops, vaulted across balconies, zipped past pigeons and buzzed an AV drone that swore at him in Japanese.

His glasses pinged a navigation beacon he’d set the day before—his school, still 2.2 klicks out.

“Two klicks. 5 minutes.”

He fired a line to a passing cargo drone, yanked himself onto it, crouched, and rode it like a surfer through the smog-thick air.

Below, commuters in gridlocked lanes stared up in confusion.

A kid with glowing cyber-eyes shouted: “YO THAT DUDE’S SWINGIN’! SO NOVA!”

David grinned.

He leapt off the drone and went into freefall, tucked tight.

Pulled a webline.

*THWIP!*

Caught the roof of a high-rise.

Swung low between window panes.

Landed, hit a wall-run, ricocheted off an air unit, and dove straight into the school’s rear quad over the fence.

He landed in a crouch behind the trash bins just, minutes before the warning bell rang.

Panting. Sweating. Heart jackhammering. Still living.

That was greatest thing David had ever experienced. He felt powerful, unstoppable, and most importantly, he felt free. 

He didn't feel the pressure of school, his mom's stress, nor the city's apathy. It was just him and the wind.

And the occasional billboard slams.

For the first time in his life, he wasn’t surviving. He was moving free.

The city won't win with this one.

“...Best commute ever.”

Gloria Martinez looked tired. She was in her early forties, her red hair pulled back into a tight braid that framed a sharp, angular face lined with sleepless nights and stubborn resolve. Her yellow EMT jacket was worn at the edges, some parts were faded from repeated wash cycles, but clean and squared away. Her skin was sun-worn and creased at the eyes. Her ID tag wrapped around her neck. 

The siren wailed overhead as the MaxTac-registered EMT van swerved between lanes, engine humming through layers of traffic. Gloria gripped the wheel with one hand, the other on the edge of the dashboard as she banked hard through a narrow flyover. 

Her partner in the passenger seat swore in Spanish, bracing against the dash.

"We’re ten minutes out. Pulse is stabilizing but barely. You see what’s bleeding?"

Her partner checked the vitals. “Abdomen’s packed. Could be liver. And the chrome on his spine’s sparking — must’ve overloaded mid-brawl.”

Gloria didn’t answer right away. Her eyes were scanning the nav feed, one hand flicking through the interface. She zoomed out, checking traffic density, emergency corridors, blocked intersections. She was tired — had been since 5 AM — but her mind was locked in.

“Routing us through Japantown. We’ll beat the detour by four minutes.”

The van jumped lanes, sirens slicing through the morning noise of construction drones and AV horns. Night City was alive and indifferent.

Her partner glanced sideways. “You alright, Gloria?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“You look like you didn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t. David had one of his nights.”

“You two fight?”

“No. Not really. He just…” She trailed off, thinking back to the look in her son’s eyes that morning. He looked awake. Not like how someone would be after a cup of coffee, but like how someone's life had changed completely.

“…he’s acting different. Like he’s got something in his head. Didn’t eat. Didn’t say much. Looked like he hadn’t blinked since midnight.”

Her partner chuckled. “That’s every teenager, Martinez.”

“Not mine.”

She meant it. David was sharp, driven — sure. But something in him had changed. And she’d seen enough cases to know when someone was running hot on something.

The van banked hard onto the next stretch. Gloria’s HUD lit up with patient vitals — stabilizing.

She let out a long breath, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. The pulse indicator steadied, and for now, the bleeding was contained.

The city outside was a blur of color and smog, morning light caught in a maze of glass and grime. Drones passed overhead. Runners darted between cars. MaxTac patrols swept low in the distance.

“Keep pressure on the wound. Once we hit St. Jude’s, I want trauma prepped with a clean handoff. No more delays,” she said, already rerouting the nav path to avoid a police blockade two blocks ahead.

Her partner nodded, then glanced over. “You really doing okay, Gloria?”

She hesitated. Then nodded — but slower this time.

“I’ve just got a lot on my plate. David’s been... intense. Not in a bad way. He’s figured something out about himself and won’t tell me.”

Her partner raised an eyebrow. “Secret girlfriend?”

She smirked, but it didn’t hold.

“No, he wouldn't be able to keep that one a secret. He gets this goofy smile whenever he thinks of a girl he likes. No, Last night he barely said a word. Up early. Didn’t even fake being tired. He’s not like that. He’s nocturnal. Always dragging himself around in the morning. Today? He looked... ready.”

Her partner shrugged. “Maybe he’s just growing up. Kid’s smart. Hell, if I had a brain like that I wouldn’t waste it in school either.”

“No. His grades are as good as ever. It's more like he’s looking forward to something.”

There was a pause. Gloria kept her eyes forward.

"I think he’s carrying something heavy I can’t see.”

The call board chimed. Incoming emergency reroute: gang shootout in Pacifica. ETA after current drop-off.

Her partner sighed. “Busy morning.”

Gloria nodded and slowed at the hospital gates. As the doors slid open and staff rushed the stretcher inside, she lingered behind for a second, eyes distant.

“He’s hiding something. I can feel it. And whatever it is… I hope it isn't dangerous.” 

"Really? Not upset your son is keeping things from you?"

"He's a teenager, I stashed my fair share of porn from my parents."

"GLORIA!"

"It's true!" Gloria chuckled. She was still plenty worried for David, but that did mean she couldn't have a nice conversation with someone.

She exhaled through her nose, tight-jawed. Whatever David was caught up in… she just hoped it wasn’t something life threatening.

"WOOHOO!"

A red blur flew past the van's window.

Her partner jolted. "The fuck was that?"

Gloria blinked, leaning forward as her eyes tracked the motion — something had swung between buildings and disappeared across the skyline.

Just for a moment, her heart skipped. Something about the shape. The sound.

But she said nothing.

Just stared at the space it had vanished through.

She shrugged and kept on driving.

"Probably some gonk thrill seeker. I guarantee you that we'll be picking them up in an hour or so."

A warehouse reeked of oil, ozone, and old blood, has half-dozen of Night City’s worst leaned around a steel slab of a table, voices low. Cyberpunks, black-market ripperdocs, and gang liaisons — the kind of people who didn’t flinch at gunfire. And they waited.

The place buzzed with low chatter and the clink of chrome limbs tapping nervously against crates. A few low-level thugs gathered around a crate of guns, looking skeptical.

“What’s this meeting even about?” one asked, lighting a smoke.

“Something heavy, I heard,” another grunted. “High-clearance tech.”

“Yeah? Then why are we here? This smells above our paygrade.”

One of the more twitchy goons leaned in. “All I know is... this is a high risk, high reward deal. So don't be pussy when you flatline.”

The tension climbed, quiet spreading like gas in a sealed room.

Then—

The door slammed open.

Boots like sledgehammers. Silence followed. No one dared turn around.

Not one of them dared raise their voice.

Everyone had heard the stories. And some have seen them.

*CLANG!*

*CLANG!*

*CLANG!*

Heavy footsteps hit metal.

The doors at the far end of the chamber creaked open, and silence dropped like a guillotine.

He stepped in. 

6'5 in height. Shoulders like industrial pistons. His head wasn’t flesh, it was forged metal. Matte-black plating sculpted into a grim, angular jawline with glowing red eyes set deep behind reinforced sockets. His head was rectangular, squared like a block of steel, and at the very top, embedded into the plating, was a single engraved word: HAMMER — like a brand. He wore a tailored black pinstripe suit, the kind of thing you wore to a corporate funeral or a hostile takeover. His hands were chromed and weaponized.

Rumor said he once split a man’s head down the middle by headbutting through a riot shield.

But that wasn’t what made people shut up when he entered.

It was the way he looked at you. Like he already knew what you feared. And didn’t care.

The others shifted to make room.

A man rose to offer his seat without a word. The figure stopped. Put a metal hand on the man’s shoulder.

*BANG!* *CRUNCH!*

The guy dropped to the floor, limp. Maybe breathing. No one checked.

The newcomer sat down.

No rank announced. No title needed.

Everyone already knew.

This was the man whose skull had torn through Militech security squads and underground bosses alike. The one who survived getting vaped in a railgun explosion and walked out laughing. The one whose name still cleared rooms in Watson, Pacifica, and the Badlands.

THE MAGIA BORG BOSS: HAMMERHEAD.

“Alright boys. Let’s start this meeting.” said Hammerhead, his voice mechanical with an Italian-American accent.

He tapped a metal finger on the reinforced table. The sound echoed.

One of the underbosses, a nervous fixer with neural implants twitching behind his ears, slid a data shard across the table. “Recovered this off a dead Arasaka courier. Black ice nearly fried the team that decrypted it.”

Hammerhead didn’t reach for it. Another enforcer did, inserting it into a projector spike. A hologram flickered to life — distorted schematics, blurred outlines of internal augmentations, something spinal.

They knew what it was, and everyone felt the heat off the thing.

“Prototype tech, highly experimental,” the fixer muttered. “Neural-response optimizer. Boosts reflex time to sub-thought speed. Only one ever got built. Arasaka’s been trying to keep it from the public. Anyone who makes it their implant goes cyberpsycho and dead.”

Another thug leaned forward. “Gonks who wear it burn out in days. Can’t handle it. Goes psycho like a light switch. But the ones who can keep it together?”

Hammerhead’s red eyes flared slightly.

“They move like they teleport,” he finished.

The room went quiet again.

He finally spoke. “I want it. I don’t care where it is, who has it, or what lengths Arasaka is willing to go to hide it. If that thing’s in Night City, it belongs to me now.”

The fixer nodded. “There are rumors it was already recovered by Arasaka after the last cyberpsycho wore it. Location on where it is tighter than a virgin's hole.”

Hammerhead leaned back, steel jaw tightening.

“Then we start there.”

“Quick question, boss.” One thug raised their hand. “How're we supposed to get it? Arasaka aren't really friendly with us asking. Not after the incident with Smasher.”

Hammerhead didn’t even turn to look at the speaker at first. He let the question hang like a body in a noose.

Then he slowly rose to his feet.

He walked around the table, his footfalls like sledgehammers on the floor.

“The Magia don't ask. The Magia takes.”

He stopped behind the thug.

“And we're gonna take it.”

The man visibly stiffened.

Hammerhead leaned close.

“Because unlike Arasaka... I don’t send paperwork. I send a message.”

He patted the man once on the shoulder—then walked back to his seat.

Another ripple of silence passed through the room.

“Find out where it is. What they’ve done with it. If someone’s wearing it... tear it off their corpse and put the rest in a body bank. Two birds, one bullet.”

His glowing eyes narrowed.

“If it's not in our hands by the end of the month, I start wackin' wise guys and flattening neighborhoods.”

Voice Log: Entry 002
Timestamp: [REDACTED]
User: D.Martinez

“Day two. I’ve had powers for 24 hours and somehow I didn’t explode or mutate or grow six extra arms. So... that’s a win.”

“I spent most of today in the ruins of what used to be a megamall, and I swear—if I didn’t have powers, that place would’ve given me tetanus just from looking at it. But for testing? Perfect. Isolated, decaying, full of shit to climb, throw, and break. Ten outta ten.”

“Started with some light swinging. By ‘light’ I mean I flung myself across a collapsing atrium and immediately smashed into a support beam. Classic. But after a few rounds of trial and error—mostly error—I started to get the hang of it. The feeling? Man… it’s like riding the drop of a roller coaster that never ends. And I love it.”

“There’s a rhythm to it. Swing, arc, release, land. Even messed up a few landings and faceplanted, but hey, learning curve. Probably shouldn't have yelled 'PARKOUR' mid-swing, though. I blame The Office."

“Climbing is... natural. My hands stick to everything. It’s like thinking ‘go up’ actually makes my body do it. Crawled upside-down across beams and didn’t even feel weird about it. The hoodie stayed on too, so bonus.”

“Strength’s where it got crazy. I was lifting dumbbells like they were candy bars. Found an old weight machine and loaded it with every plate I could find. Still didn’t break a sweat. I even threw a 50-kilo barbell across like it was a pillow. Sorry, ghost of whatever gym bro used to haunt that place.”

“Oh, and the best part—no fatigue. I’m not sore, not winded, not even thirsty. I’ve barely eaten anything and I felt... fine? Fine until noon, at least. Johnny had to get a bucket of water to wake me up.

“My senses are cranked to eleven. I can hear things happening through the walls. Not even kidding—I heard a rat scurrying three floors down and knew it was a rat. I can see things in 4k. My hands feel air currents. I feel what spiders feel. How they navigate.”

“And there’s the buzz. The danger buzz. Spider-tingle? Danger sense? Whatever, it feels like static behind my eyes. Kicks in when I’m about to mess up—like stepping on a metal shard or when that loose cable almost took my face off. My body tenses up right before it happens, like it’s screaming 'MOVE!' Pretty sure that’s saved my ass at least six times already.”

“Anyway... today was insane. But it wasn’t scary. It was fun. I’ve never felt this free, this fast, this... me. For the first time, I didn't need to keep a brave face.”

pause

“Also, if Katsuo tries anything again, I may or may not test my strength on his locker.”

longer pause

“...Kidding. Probably.”

"David out."

Chapter Text

Arasaka Academy was the most prestigious school in all of Night City.

And why wouldn't it be? After all, it's Arasaka.

The school was attended by the children of the rich and powerful, training them to climb to the top of Arasaka Tower. Giving them the skills they needed to succeed in life.

The students were cats as fat as their parents. To them, those who didn't meet their standards had the same value as a discarded banana peel.

Arrogant, selfish, apathetic, and just total jerks to the working class. It didn't matter who you were — if you didn't have the money, you weren't worth their time.

But they weren't the only type of students in the Academy.

In contrast to them, who saw the school as heritage, there were those who made it with their intellect. The Underdogs. Scholarship students, competition winners, off-the-chart test scorers. They earned their way in, clawing past impossible odds just to breathe the same air as the corporate elite. To them, Arasaka Academy was an opportunity. A golden ticket to the top of the food chain.

The pressure to perform was immense. Fail once, and you're reminded you don't belong. Burn out, and you're quietly replaced. No do-overs. No backup plan.

The culture of "constructive competition" bred paranoia and obsession. The Rich Kids and the Underdogs sabotaged each other. Alliances rose and collapsed in the span of a semester.

The two sides hated each other. The Rich Kids hated the Underdogs because of their social and financial status, and the Underdogs hated the Rich Kids because they saw everything the Rich Kids had was unearned.

But, there are some exceptions to this.

Among the Underdogs, David Martinez had a reputation.

He wasn’t the loudest. He wasn’t the most social. But most knew who he was. The prodigy from Santo Domingo. The scholarship kid who outperforms everyone.

The Underdogs admired him, even if some of them tried not to show it. He was one of theirs, but on a different tier — like someone who’d already escaped the gravity of the Academy and was just waiting to launch.

To them, David was proof that it was possible to beat the system without becoming it. He didn’t suck up to teachers, didn’t dress flashy, and didn’t flaunt his success. He was just... unshakable. Calm, laser-focused, and always five steps ahead.

Some Underdogs tried to befriend him. Others quietly measured themselves against him like a benchmark. A few resented him for making it all look easy. But no one could deny it — David Martinez had weight.

The Rich Kids? They didn’t dare touch him. Not because they respected him, but because he was untouchable. Every time someone tried to sabotage his grades, his projects, his access — the blowback was immediate. Not from him, but from the system itself. Because David had value. Even Arasaka could see it.

And the thing that bugged them the most?

David never tried to join them. He never faked it. Never chased their parties or wore chrome for clout. He kept to himself, did his work, and walked like he had nothing to prove.

It made them itch.

As for Johnny Storm? He was a paradox of his own.

Born to wealth, legacy, and status, Johnny should have been every Underdog’s enemy. But he wasn’t. Despite being a corporate darling, Johnny broke the mold. He laughed too loud. Got into trouble. Stood up for nobodies. He was charming in a way that couldn’t be taught and generous in a way that couldn’t be faked.

He was Rich Kid royalty. He showed up to events with his tie undone and his sleeves rolled. He snuck snacks into the VR labs, and backed Underdogs when the system tried to chew them up. It made some of the Rich Kids distrust him and the Underdogs uncertain how to feel.

Together, he and David made an odd duo. Not quite opposites. Just two students who didn’t quite fit the mold everyone expected.

"Choom, I'm telling you. Aliens are real."

"I'm not saying the possibility of them existing is impossible, I'm saying unless we see proof, I'm keeping my opinion uncertain."

"But Reed saw life signatures on distant planets! He scanned them last night!"

Two students sat on a stone ledge that overlooked the school’s central courtyard — a terraced space full of holo-trees, glass walkways, and corporate banners fluttering in digitally rendered wind.

Johnny Storm and David Martinez.

Johnny leaned back on his hands, a half-grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. His uniform blazer was unbuttoned, the red piping catching the light with every small shift in posture. David sat cross-legged, backpack slung beside him, a half-crushed protein bar in one hand and his custom glasses flickering data in the corner of his lenses.

David stretched. "Reed also thought Mars was growing ice spiders. The guy's a genius, but goes into these unreasonable ranting whenever he doesn't get enough sleep."

Johnny snorted. "That's fair. Still — imagine the chaos if he was right. Corporates would try to colonize it by lunch."

Their banter was casual. A rare bubble of ease in a school that ran on tension and status.

Then it came — the screams.

"Oh my god, there he is!"

"Johnny! Over here!"

"I love you, Johnny!"

"Marry me!"

The courtyard's lower tier exploded in a frenzy of student attention. Girls waved, AR lenses zoomed in, and holo-drones adjusted their focus. Johnny tilted his head.

David deadpanned, "You’ve got groupies again."

Johnny stood up slowly, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve. "What can I say? Must be the conditioner."

David rolled his eyes. "More like the money. Half of them are probably gold diggers."

Johnny gave him a mock salute, straightened his collar, and descended the stairs like a model in a corporate ad. The crowd surged toward him, but they couldn't touch him without repercussions.

From his perch, David watched it all unfold. Despite the smirks and the sarcasm, he knew Johnny wasn't just some arrogant pretty boy. Well, he knew he wasn't just an arrogant pretty boy. The guy had a heart of gold.

David stood, slung his backpack over one shoulder, and made his way towards Johnny.

"Ew, why is that guy always hanging around Johnny?"

"Probably just trying to mooch off him."

"Can't even afford optics."

"Go home, low class garbage!"

David ignored the sneers. He'd heard worse. Instead, he walked straight through the murmurs, right up to Johnny — who didn’t flinch or distance himself.

Johnny saw him and grinned. "You ready for class?"

"It's just basic algebra." David shrugged. "I learned about it when I was 8, I don't really need to go there."

"...fuck you." Johnny pouted, slightly jealous of his best friend's intelligence.

David took this as an opportunity to mess with him.

"Woah, I knew you were compensating with the ladies' man thing, but I didn't think you were gay."

"Wait, what?!" the blonde was flabbergasted.

David snickered. "I'm just saying, you’ve got the dramatics, the hair, the fan club..."

Johnny gave him a shove. "You're an asshole."

"You love me."

"Not like that!"

The two cracked up as they pushed through the crowd and made their way into the east wing of the Academy, headed toward their next class. Behind them, the whispers continued — but neither of them cared.

David sat by himself on one of the upper walkways, gazing over the open courtyard while pretending to study. A few students drifted past — mostly Underdogs — and gave him nods, waves, even shy smiles. Some lingered too long, clearly hoping he’d invite them to sit.

He didn’t.

He appreciated the attention — kind of — but it also made him uncomfortable. A few of them had tried making conversation, but he answered them quickly and left no room for reply.

As David stood up and started walking down the path toward his next class, other kids talked in low tones, shot curious glances, or made inside jokes about their teachers.

"Hey look, it's David."

"Heard he doesn't have a single implant on him. Just those glasses."

"Really? Where did he get them?"

"He made them himself."

"Wow, he's so smart."

David tried not to let it bother him. But it did. It made things feel more complicated than they needed to be. 

And yet, as they walked, some of the Rich Kids parted ways at the sight of him. The Underdogs puffed up slightly in their presence, proud to have someone on their side who made the entitled nervous.

David sighed under his breath.

As he looked across the courtyard and saw Johnny in the middle of another swirling crowd of admirers, David’s smirked.

Sometimes, he wondered why Johnny hung out with him at all. The guy could be anywhere, with anyone. Surrounded by fawning rich girls, sliding through social scenes with zero effort.

And yet, somehow, he always came back around to David.

It made no sense.

David chewed the corner of his protein bar and kept staring.

He liked having someone like Johnny around. Someone who could make the academy feel a little less soul-crushing.

Then someone walked in front of him.

Katsuo Tanaka.

David blinked, visibly unimpressed. "...'sup?"

Katsuo didn't smile. "You still acting like you're better than everyone else, Martinez?"

David leaned back against the railing. "No. Just better than you."

Katsuo's jaw twitched.

"You think being a techie makes you untouchable? You're just another street rat pretending to be a player."

David shrugged. "And yet here you are, wasting time talking to me. Who’s really pretending?"

Katsuo took a small step closer, just enough to invade David’s space.

"Careful, Martinez. My father can kick you out of this school with a snap of his fingers."

"Wow, still going to daddy because someone said mean things to you. How very mature."

David got closer himself, and was taller than Katsuo remembered.

They locked eyes.

Then — without a word — Katsuo turned and walked away, a sneer adorning his face.

David watched him go, then rolled his shoulders and muttered, "Still a prick."

And with that, he headed to class.

The room was cold and polished, walls lined with chairs. Each pulsed a pale blue light, faintly humming, waiting for a user to jack in. Overhead, an automated assistant repeated its standard onboarding protocol: "Please ensure all neural wetware is compatible with the system. Arasaka is not liable for any disassociation, cranial overheating, or sensory disorientation."

David stepped into the bay, adjusting the fit of his uniform jacket. He didn’t look around. No need. He already knew who was watching.

A few Rich Kids tracked him from their peripherals, smug or sneering. A few Underdogs offered nods or brief acknowledgments. Most kept their distance.

David took his seat at a high-spec Arasaka neuro-desk. As soon as he connected his custom glasses to the port and rested his hands on the biometric keys, the system synced to his neural signature. The glass surface lit up, data flowing seamlessly into his optics and through his haptic interface.

"Neural link complete. Student Martinez, David. Welcome."

And then the world unfolded.

The VR classroom transformed into a data-constructed reality. It towered around him, a sprawl of logic rendered as physical space. Massive glowing pipelines curved through the air like expressways of pure binary. Buildings formed from algorithmic nodes, translucent and ever-shifting, populated the skyline. Entire blocks shifted color and density depending on function. Trees flickered with digital leaves made of procedural coding languages. It was breathtaking.

“Assignment: Reconstruct a legacy behavioral AI used in urban civic automation. Constraints: 80% original architecture must remain intact. Objective: restore full efficiency across five sectors. Bonus conditions: reduce latency below 50 milliseconds.”

David landed on a floating platform marked as the sandbox zone. The AI construct hovered before him — a semi-stable jellyfish of ancient code. Its tentacles sparked and stuttered with conflicting logic, neural pathways looped endlessly around its core, processing input like a drunk juggling flaming knives.

He could already see it. The problem wasn’t that the AI was broken. It was that it had aged out of relevance. Designed decades ago for a pre-net reform city grid, the code had been duct-taped into functionality by lazy upgrades and corporate shortcuts.

David’s hands moved before he fully thought about it. He called up the diagnostic lattice and rendered the entire code tree in layered slices. The interface wrapped around him like a spiderweb of holographic syntax, each line flickering as he made micro-adjustments.

Most students took the first ten minutes just to navigate the UI.

David rewrote the algorithm in five.

“Okay… first up, you’re running a twenty-year-old predictive tree that barely qualifies as functional. That’s going in the trash.”

He tapped and slid, replacing the route prediction table with a simplified feedback matrix that pulled real-time density data from six cross-layer nodes.

“Next… you’ve got redundant logic loops trying to calculate load balancing. Let’s clean that mess up.”

“Compression engine’s choking. Gotta bypass it with something smarter.”

He reached into his own library — a bank of scripts he’d written at home, on hand-me-down hardware and salvaged processors. With a flick, he integrated one: a reactive data node he called 'Ripple'. It smoothed out packet congestion by preemptively offloading non-priority requests to backup buffers.

“God, this thing's like duct tape holding together a car engine. Alright, jellyfish — let’s teach you to swim.”

He introduced a new prediction module based on civic flow heuristics. Instead of waiting for traffic data, it simulated outcomes and adjusted routes preemptively.

The AI pulsed. Stabilized. Began to adapt.

“Latency dropped to 16.2ms. Prediction stability: 91%. Assignment target exceeded. Bonus conditions achieved.”

But David wasn’t done.

In the root index, he found flagged legacy subroutines still handling ethics fail-safes. They were outdated. Clunky. They relied on hardcoded corporate morality — decisions that would prioritize profit zones over human life. David didn’t touch them. But he read them. Understood them. And then quietly rewrote the delivery stack to allow contextual override, just in case.

He stared at the stabilized AI construct, now humming like a tuned engine. “There,” he muttered. “Now you’re making decisions worth a damn.”

Then he backed out of the system.

"David out."

In a separate chamber, several instructors observed the simulation from behind a multi-layered digital glass wall. Interface screens hovered, projecting each student's stats, behavior graphs, and real-time data feeds.

Professor Yuki stood silently, her arms crossed, data-glasses reflecting the rapidly stabilizing sim.

Kael whistled low. “That’s him, right? Martinez?”

Yuki nodded. “No implants. No tutoring. First year.”

Dr. Hoshino leaned closer to one of the screens. “He rebuilt the predictive matrix in five minutes. Didn’t even brute force it.”

Rao, a younger instructor, shook his head. “I thought we’d stumped them with the ethics subroutine.”

Yuki replied flatly, “He rewrote it. Gave the AI modular decision pathways. It doesn’t just follow policy now — it can evaluate for nuance.”

Kael muttered, “That’s better than anything we had in ten years.”

Hoshino smiled, not with joy, but concern. “Recruitment’s going to want a word.”

Yuki just watched the screen.

Because what she saw had to be the smartest boy in Night City.

An hour later, the results were posted.

The classroom fell into stunned silence. Then came the murmurs — low at first, then spreading like wildfire.

“No way.”

“Sixteen-point-two milliseconds?”

“Is that even possible?”

“He must’ve cheated.”

“Cheated how? It was logged. No outside packets.”

“I didn’t even finish sector three.”

“He stabilized all five...?”

Underdogs leaned in toward the screen, scanning his stats. Some looked inspired. Others defeated.

“He dominated it,” one muttered. 

A girl bit her lip, brow furrowed. “I optimized everything and still hit 88ms. He cut that in half.”

A tall student in the back crossed his arms. “How the hell  did he do it so fast?”

“He's gotta be on boost.”

"He must have cheated.

Some Underdogs exchanged glances, half impressed, half resentful.

A kid with cybernetic fingers slumped in his seat. “I studied for weeks. Had logs, old AI builds... I barely got 60% stability.”

“Look at the flow graph. He didn’t even spike once,” another said. “It’s like he anticipated the bottlenecks before they formed.”

“I thought he was all hype from what I've heard of him,” a Rich Kid said quietly. “Now I’m not so sure.”

More screens lit up with overlays of David’s run. Students tapped through them obsessively — trying to catch a mistake, an exploit, something to prove he wasn’t perfect.

There was nothing.

“He did so well.” someone said, voice soft with awe.

“He’s ahead of us. Like years ahead.”

“Remember that decrypt challenge last term? He won it in half the time. Now this?”

“I thought Arasaka planted a ringer,” a girl whispered.

And all the while, David didn’t look back. He packed up his things in silence, slung his bag over one shoulder, and walked out like it was just another Wednesday.

Katsuo Tanaka stood frozen near one of the side terminals, arms folded tightly. His jaw clenched. Eyes locked on the screen displaying David’s final latency score.

He didn’t say a word. If he hands, then his knuckles would be white.

Around him, other students whispered, some shooting glances his way. Katsuo was supposed to be one of the best — top-tier scores, corporate backing, legacy admission. He was used to being the benchmark.

And David had just erased that benchmark like it was nothing.

One of his friends leaned over and muttered, “You okay, man?”

Katsuo’s eyes narrowed. “It’s one simulation.”

The bitterness in his voice didn’t go unnoticed.

“Sure,” his friend said, backing off. “One hell of a simulation.”

Katsuo stayed where he was, watching the screen until his eyes stung.

With David, A familiar voice broke through the buzz of conversation and envy.

"That was insane, choom."

David turned to see Johnny leaning casually against the wall near the door, arms crossed and a half-eaten snack bar in one hand.

"You seriously broke the sim," Johnny added with a crooked grin. "I don’t even think the system was ready for that kind of speed."

David shrugged. "It was just logic."

"Dude, you basically kicked the AI's ass and then taught it how to do its job better."

"Wouldn't you?" David raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'd make it analyze every girl in school and see my compatibility rate with them."

"...what?"

"I want something real!"

The sun was setting, the street lights powered up, and the sky started to show stars.

David was walking home alone. He wasn't necessarily tired, the test wasn't that hard. And thanks to his new increased stamina, he still had plenty of energy to swing. 

He just chose not to.

"Walking home is always cathartic." David said to himself. "Sure, I could always swing my way back. Faster and honestly way more fun. But it's probably best that I don't do it often. Wouldn't want to get any attention now."

David stopped, realizing what he was just doing. 

"Was I just talking to myself? Why am I talking to myself?" David rubbed his head, feeling some embarrassment for his actions towards no one in particular. "Thank god no one's around. People would think I'm nuts- why am I still doing this?!"

"AAAHHHHGGGGGG!" a woman's voice was heard.

And it was nearby.

David’s head snapped toward the sound.

Every instinct screamed at him to move — to act. His pulse kicked up. His legs twitched. But his thoughts hit harder.

"No... that's not my problem." David told himself, trying and failing to fully convince himself. "I shouldn't get involved in that."

He thought of his mother. What would happen if that was her? If she was the one screaming her lungs out.

David closed his eyes for a breath. Forced the adrenaline down. His hands stayed at his sides.

"I can't help her," his fist was clenching so hard, drops of blood were pouring from his enclosed palm. "It's not my fight."

“Don’t be stupid,” he muttered. “Just walk away.”

Another scream — this one choked, desperate.

His breath hitched. He turned, took one step. Then stopped again, frozen in place by a war waging inside his chest.

He stared at the cracked pavement beneath his feet.

"Don't owe her. I don't know her. I don't - you know what? FUCK IT!" 

He ran.

He ran to the voice.

Backpack bouncing on his back as he tore through the alley mouth toward the sound — faster than anyone without cyberware should’ve been able to move.

Because some part of him couldn’t let it go.

Because deep down, David Martinez wasn’t the type to walk away.

He skidded around the corner into a dim alley, breath sharp in his chest.

What he saw made his blood freeze.

A hulking figure stood beneath a flickering streetlamp — muscles straining against a synth-leather vest. One of the Animals. A gang enforcer.

Beneath him lay the body of an elderly woman. Her groceries spilled across the pavement. Blood soaked into the plastic bags, glinting under the cold neon.

The Animal turned, eyes catching David in the half-light.

“You lost, little boy?” he growled, voice like gravel scraped over steel.

David froze.

He knew this woman.

She had a shop near his apartment building. When he was a child, he always went there and she greeted him with a kind smile and warm food, free of pay. And in return, he would do small chores around to help her and ease her burdens.

And there she was, lying and over a puddle of blood.

Dead.

Because he hesitated. Because he was scared.

"Hey, kid." The Animal got closer. His face was covered with blood as he smiled sadistically and arrogantly. "This the first time you see someone flatlined?"

David's eyes remained on the dead woman, not even glancing towards the criminal.

"Hey!" The Animal pulled out a gun smeared with blood, her blood and pressed it against David's forehead. "I'm talking to you! Is the lady your grandma? I can take you to where she is right now."

He didn't respond.

"Well, tell her I said hi."

The Animal was about to pull the trigger. 

[Gun]

He ducked to the side.

The gun went off — the bullet grazing the air where his head had just been.

The Animal barely had time to react before David’s hand shot out, grabbing the weapon — and the hand holding it — in one brutal grip.

*CRUNCH!*

David didn’t hold back.

With a raw snarl, he crushed the firearm in his palm, shards of metal and synthetic polymers splintering outward as if the gun were made of plastic. The Animal screamed — his fingers caught in David’s vice-like grip, cyberware shattering audibly.

The ruined gun clattered to the ground in twisted, unrecognizable pieces. The Animal dropped to one knee, clutching what was left of his hand, howling in rage and disbelief.

David stood over him, eyes narrowed, breath slow.

The Animal tried to scramble backward, cradling his ruined hand, growling through the pain — but it was too late.

*SHK!*

From his forearm, his stinger snapped forward with a subtle noise.

The blade pierced clean through the Animal’s shoulder, crunching through muscle and plating like paper. The thug screamed again, this time raw and feral, the kind of scream that echoed off alley walls. The same kind the woman emitted before her death.

David’s face was stone.

He yanked the blade out. The Animal slumped to the ground, gasping, blood soaking his vest.

David stood over him, chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths.

Then something inside him snapped.

He dropped to his knees and drove the blade back into the Animal’s side.

Again. And again. And again.

There was no thought. No hesitation. The blade rose and fell, splattering blood across the alley walls. The Animal screamed at first, then gurgled, then went silent.

David didn’t stop until his stinger hit concrete.

When he finally pulled back, his chest was heaving. His uniform was soaked. His knuckles trembled.

The Animal was motionless, what remained of him twitching in a crimson pool.

David stared, panting. Then slowly retracted his blade and stood.

For a moment, the silence pressed in.

David looked down again. Blood was smeared across his hand, drying fast. The stench hit him — copper and metal and something else he didn’t want to name.

He took a step back. Then another.

His hands twitched at his sides. 

He swallowed. Tried to breathe steady.

The Animal’s body wasn’t moving.

David didn’t feel triumph. No satisfaction. Just... off. Like something inside him shifted slightly out of place.

He crouched beside the woman’s body, eyes flicking over her face, her groceries. He closed her eyes gently.

He looked around and saw he was alone.

"What....what did I just do?" He asked no one in particular, his voice shaking as the realization hit him.

He had just killed a man.

And he felt nothing.

Just like everyone else.

David crouched beside the woman’s body, eyes flicking over her face, her groceries. He closed her eyes gently.

Then, slowly, he tapped one of the side panels on his glasses.

The AR interface flickered to life in front of him —  pulsing with dull blue options. He navigated through a few menus.

[Request Body Retrieval?]

He hovered there a second.

Then selected [Yes].

A prompt opened. David typed in short, stiff words:

"[Deceased civilian. Elderly woman. Known shopkeeper on Calle 9. No ID on hand. No criminal context. Please ensure respectful pickup.]"

He paused, added a line:

"She gave food to kids. Even when she couldn’t afford to."

Then hit [Send].

A soft beep echoed in his ear.

[Request logged. Retrieval ETA: 47 minutes.]

David stood up, tucking his glasses away.

He didn’t know if anyone would actually come.

If he were to take the body directly, he might be accused of murdering her given that he himself was covered in blood. Just not hers.

David stepped into his apartment. The blood was dried up, and his uniform was black so it wasn't noticeable. 

His mother, Gloria, was standing near the sink. She turned around and saw her son.

"David!" Gloria greeted him happily. "I just finished making your dinner. I heard you aced your test today."

David shook his head in attempts to clear his head from the events that transpired earlier.

"Y-yeah." He replied with a shaky smile. "I got so many dirty looks."

The young man walked towards the couch and dropped his bag on the cushions. He took off his glasses and pocketed them, feeling no need to wear them, as well as undoing his tie immediately after.

"Ha! That's my boy!" Gloria placed his food on the table.

It was soup. Specifically chicken noodle soup. And it looked and smelled amazing. Light-colored, broth-based soup with pieces of cooked chicken and various noodles. The smell was savory and warm, with the aroma of chicken broth, carrots, celery, and herbs.

David sat down and took a deep inhale through his nose, enjoying the aroma of the food his mother made for him. He would be lying if he said it didn't make him hungry.

He grabbed a spoon and was going to use it to sip some soup. But before it could even come close, his hand froze.

He could still see her. The woman, who he knew as a child, is now dead because of his hesitation. Because he was so scared of what was going to happen to him, and someone paid the price. Someone innocent and undeserving of such a fate.

Gloria noticed this, and immediately got concerned.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Did something happen?"

"...Ms. Alvarez died today."

Her eyes widened. 

"...Oh." Gloria's voice softened. 

She understood now. 

Alvarez always had a soft spot for David. When he was a child, he'd always go to her shop and help around with whatever he could, and David would always come back home happy. Tired, but happy.

"Night City is cruel." she gave him a comforting Pat on the shoulder. "You can't help everyone. It wasn't your fault."

'It was.' David thought, but didn't say so out loud.

It was his fault she died. His fault why she suffered an unkind death.

He sat there, staring into the soup, but it may as well have been blood. The image of her body was burned into his mind — crumpled on the pavement, bags torn, blood soaking through plastic and concrete like her life had never mattered.

Because he told himself it wasn’t his problem.

His spoon hovered, then dropped with a dull clink into the bowl.

Gloria looked over again, concern knitting her brows. “David...”

“I could’ve saved her,” he said quietly, eyes still fixed downward. “I heard her scream.”

The words came out hoarse, like he had to force each one past the lump in his throat.

“I told myself to walk away. I—I hesitated.”

She didn’t speak and just listened.

“If I’d just moved when I first heard her... If I hadn’t wasted time thinking — she might still be alive.”

His fingers curled in his lap, nails digging into his palms. His voice dropped lower.

“I stood there and did nothing.”

Gloria pulled him into a hug. She knew all too well what he was feeling. She knew he didn't need words. Just comfort.

David didn’t cry. He just sat there, rigid, hollow.

That woman was good.

She helped people like him when she had nothing.

She didn’t deserve that.

And he would never get the chance to make it right.

They had just finished eating. Gloria’s door clicked shut behind her and David sat in his room, the lights off, still in uniform, hunched at his desk. The AR display hovered over his glasses, faint blue halos reflected in his pupils.

He hadn’t moved much since the dishes. Just sat there, tracing the memory of the death of an innocent woman. 

Then he suddenly remembered.

The dream.

The voice.

The spiders.

That web.

It said his name.

“You're part of the Web of Life now.”

"It awaits a Spider-Man."

It wouldn’t leave his head. It sounded like a title. What did it mean? Sure, he has the abilities of a spider, but what exactly is a Spider-Man?

Using his glasses, he opened the Net. Pulled up a fresh search. Typed in the name.

[spider-man]

Nothing real at first. Just fandom garbage, parody ads, old BD cover art.

But then… fragments. Weird ones.

News articles — dated, grayscale, watermarked.

1938. 1940. 1943.

“[Masked Wall-Climber Foils Gang Heist]”

“[Unidentified Soldier Reported to Leap Tank Trenches]”

"[The Spider takes out the Vulture]"

And there — a blurry photo: A man in a black trench coat, fedora, and white goggles crouched against a brick wall, shadow stretching behind him. Same hand sign he used whenever her fired webs. Same posture he took when crouching.

David zoomed in.

All of this was taken before cyberware was created.

His throat tightened.

This guy was the same as him. There was someone just like him over a hundred years ago.

David leaned closer, scrolling fast now. More clippings, mostly redacted. A field report from the old U.S. military in WWII. Mentions of a soldier seen climbing buildings during an air raid. No official record of deployment.

Just a codename from the soldiers and the civilians.

[The Spider-Man]

David stared at the words.

He slouched back in his chair, exhaling hard through his nose. His pulse was still quick.

So it was a title.

Someone else had gone through this. Someone who had powers. Someone who lived through war and used it .

“Why didn’t anyone talk about this…?” he muttered.

David pushed his glasses up, rubbed his eyes, and whispered:

“…I’m not the first.”

The words hung in the dark like a loose thread on the edge of something massive.

"Why did it choose me? What's so special about me?"

Before his powers, he was considered special by many. The only one who didn't was himself. To him, being smart wasn't special. It was just a requirement to survive this world. There were others who were just as or smarter than him. 

But now, he didn't know. Was he special because he was chosen to have these powers, or was he not because he wasn't the first?

Then another question surfaced in his mind.

“Why did it choose him? What made him special?”

David stood up. He pulled on his hoodie, slipped on his gloves, then reached for the mask.

He slid open his window. The chill of Night City drifted in, brushing against his skin. He leaned out, grabbed the building's edge with one hand, clinging to the outer wall like it was second nature.

“And why did he do it?”

David climbed up the side of the building with practiced ease, each grip effortless but heavy with thought. He reached the rooftop and stood there a moment, letting the wind whip at his hoodie. The city sprawled before him — all steel and neon, glowing from a thousand different sins.

He took one breath… then launched forward.

Web. Swing. Web. Swing.

“Why did he do it?” he asked again, this time aloud.

A man from the past. A century ago. No chrome. No backup. No net to fall back on.

“He had powers… same as me.”

David landed on a tower ledge and crouched, peering over the edge at the endless grid of lights and traffic below.

“But he didn’t have to do anything. He could’ve vanished. Disappeared. Lived in the shadows, like I could.”

He fired another web and swung low over a rooftop garden, the scent of wet soil and electric ads clashing in his nose.

“So why risk it?”

David rose higher again, sailing between corporate towers, catching reflections of his masked face in the glass. Every time, he looked away.

“He fought in a war,” he said aloud again, almost bitter. “Tanks, trenches, real enemies.”

He perched on the edge of an old maintenance spire and stared out toward the edge of Santo Domingo. Past the red haze. Past the dirty rooftops. Into the guts of the city where sirens never stopped.

“But what about here?” he muttered. “This isn’t war. The bad guys already won."

He started listing.

“Gangs running unchecked. Corps choking the poor. Cops bribed to look the other way. Kids starving while execs buy third homes on orbital rings. No one gives a damn. Nobody wants to fix it. They just want to profit off the rot.”

He stood, jaw tight.

“I can’t fix all that.”

Silence.

Then softer.

“I can’t fix all that…”

The wind howled around him.

“But I could’ve saved her.”

That thought hit him again, sharp as the first time.

“I should’ve saved her.”

He sat down slowly, legs dangling over the ledge.

“What if I tried?” he whispered. “What if I… started small? Not the city. Just... the people in front of me.”

He hesitated. Then shook his head. “That’s dumb. What am I gonna do, punch my way through corruption?”

But his mind kept going.

“What if he asked the same thing?”

David stared up into the night sky. The stars were faint, dimmed from the thick smog and the glow of neon. Towers loomed. Advertising drones floated in lazy circles, projecting bright slogans over darker streets. The city never slept.

“Did he hesitate? Was he scared too? Did he wonder if it was worth it?”

The idea that someone, decades ago, with the same powers, might’ve stood in a city just as broken, facing the same doubts. 

“…he fought for something so futile.” His eyes scanned the streets below. Cars zipped through intersections. Crowds clustered around vending stations and clubs, some laughing, others shouting. Somewhere nearby, a gun went off and no one flinched.

"So why did he fight at all?"

His quiet voice spoke. “Maybe that’s why the spider chose him.”

A long breath escaped him. The wind pulled at his hoodie.

Then, without thinking, David stood. He turned toward the skyline.

"And maybe that’s why the spider chose me."

*THWIP!*

A web snapped out, catching a rusted sign. He pulled, leapt, swung.

“Maybe I’m meant to do something that actually leaves a mark.”

*THWIP!* *THWIP!*

Two webs hit a skyscraper’s steel ribs. He yanked hard and launched himself forward, sticking to a wall midair with a solid *THUNK* before sprinting up its side. The wind screamed past his ears. Neon lights washed over his mask.

“Maybe this is my chance to stop pretending.”

The wind whipped around him, tugging at his clothes. The city stretched out in all directions — endless, uncaring, alive. From up here, it looked peaceful. Beautiful, even. But he knew better.

He reached the rooftop edge, then shot another web to the tower’s spire and pulled himself up. The metal groaned under his weight.

“Pretending I don’t care.”

He perched there, the wind howled past him. The lights blinked below.

“Pretending it’s not worth it.”

A beat.

“Pretending I’m something I’m not.”

He clenched his fists.

"No more pretending."

He jumped as high as he possibly could.

He was tired. Tired of the stink the city gave off. Tired of how people easily traded lives for a few eddies. How no one bats an eye when they see a dead body on the streets. 

Corrupted badges. Opportunistic fixers. Sadistic MaxTacs. Amoral Trauma Teams. Greedy Corpos.

They all took.

They took safety. Took peace. Took people. And when there was nothing left, they took more — because they could.

And David?

He'd done nothing. Watched it happen. Hesitated. Let someone die.

He clenched his jaw.

Not anymore.

It was his turn now.

His turn to take back something that mattered. A life saved. A moment of justice. A goddamn win, even if no one saw it.

His turn to take the risk. To take on the weight. To take responsibility.

To take the fight to them.

"It's about time..."

At the peak of his arc, everything felt still. Not quiet — just weightless. Like the city couldn’t reach him.

He turned his body in midair, letting gravity take hold and dove headfirst.

And as the city rushed to meet him, he shouted from somewhere deeper than anger, deeper than guilt.

Pure conviction.

“SOMEONE GIVES A FUCK!”

The staff lounge at Arasaka Academy rarely saw use this late. But tonight, the lights were on, coffee was brewed, and five instructors sat around a table cluttered with screens, dossiers, and datachips.

Professor Yuki tapped through a holodisplay, pulling up a neural latency graph from that afternoon’s simulation.

"Sixteen point two milliseconds," she said. "On an AI that hadn’t been optimized in decades."

Kael, the engineering advisor, leaned forward. "I’ve had grad students kill themselves on that assignment."

Rao, a newer instructor, gave a skeptical look. "No implants, right?"

"None," Yuki confirmed. "Not even interface ports. Everything’s done through his glasses."

Hoshino shook his head. "Then it’s not enhancement. It’s raw cognition."

Yuki nodded. "He rebuilt the predictive lattice on instinct. Integrated self-written scripts. Overhauled the ethics protocols."

Kael tilted his head. "What’s his background again?"

Yuki pulled up a file. "Santo Domingo. Single mother. EMT. No father on record. Scored off the charts on cognitive pattern recognition and situational response."

Rao raised an eyebrow. "Wait—EMT? His mom works trauma circuits?"

"Night shifts. Slum zones."

The room fell quiet for a moment.

Hoshino exhaled through his nose. "That’ll shape a mind."

Kael nodded. "It also explains the ethics override. The AI was prioritizing infrastructure. He shifted it to prioritize life."

Rao frowned. "But that’s not the assignment."

"No," Yuki said. "It’s better."

Kael flipped to another report. "This isn’t the first time he’s stood out. He solved the last decrypt challenge in half the average time. Didn’t even brag about it."

"Because he doesn’t care about status," Yuki said. "He cares about results."

Rao narrowed his eyes. "So what’s the plan? Recruit him into the internship funnel?"

"We’d lose him that way," Kael said. "That program’s for corporate social climbers. He’s not trying to be seen."

"Then what? Groom him for something more specialized?"

Hoshino crossed his arms. "There’s something else. The simulation logs show subroutines we didn’t teach. Code paths no one else accessed."

"You think he’s testing us back?" Kael asked.

Yuki gave a small, unreadable smile. "I think he’s already past the test."

The door opened and Dr. Renaud stepped in, tablet under one arm. "You’re all still here."

"You’ve seen the report?" Hoshino asked.

She nodded. "More than that. I’ve seen the surveillance overlays. Martinez exited campus two hours after sim block. Alone. Traveled east sector, no escort."

Rao frowned. "Why?"

Renaud shrugged. "We don’t know. He disappeared from public cams for fifteen minutes."

Kael muttered, "That part of the sector’s Animal turf."

Yuki’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Is he hurt?"

"Came back spotless. No medical triggers."

They sat in silence, the implications simmering beneath the surface.

Kael leaned back. "So what are we really looking at here?"

Yuki didn’t answer immediately.

She just stared at the screen, where David Martinez’s profile hovered — name, scores, psych metrics, footage.

Eventually, she said:

"Potential. And he's got a fuck ton of it."

No one argued.