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CYBERPUNK 2077: SECOND_CHANCE Chapter 1
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CYBERPUNK 2077: SECOND_CHANCE Chapter 1

“FUCK FUCK FUCK!” The Universe had done it again. “Why am I still here? Why the fuck am I still here?” he sobbed into his hand, the Militech M-10AF Lexington still pressed to his chin. All the hate, the pain, and the sorrow washed over him one more time like gasoline. He relived every trauma and mistake in the span of a few seconds. This was a part of the process of suicide. Living, however, was not. He had heard people say that in Night City, your life didn’t just flash before your eyes the moment before you flatlined, it punched you in the balls. Fact check: true. Slowly, carefully even, Will removed the gun from his skin and looked down. Jammed. It fuckin’ jammed. In five years with the NCPD, it had never jammed. Not once. His hands shaking, he put the gun down on his cot. The shakes weren’t from the adrenaline, though there was plenty of that; they came from the bargain-bin Mk. 1 Dynalar Sandevistan that he had stupidly let a 3rd-rate ripperdoc install. The used Sandevistan had never fully synced up with his neural link, and now his body wanted the junk out of his system. Will Scrap was supposed to be dead. He didn’t have a Plan B. Hell, his Plan A was to push a bullet through the ceiling by way of brain tissue and bone. Now he was at a loss as to what to do. Squeezing the trigger had taken everything he had in him. He stood there dazed, a million thoughts running through his mind. The sound of yelling stirred him from his stupor. He didn't care much for his neighbors. Upstairs, directly above him, lived a spongy-looking pimp who played porno so loud it shook the walls, said he didn't trust brain dances. His other neighbors were an assortment of the kinds of people who you would expect to live in a Kabuki slum. Joytoys, burnouts, and glitter addicts. Will himself was a burnout. Ex-cop. The job had left a bloodstain on his soul. Now here he was living (if you could call it that) in a six-by-eight hole in the wall. Room 1 at the luxurious Motel Hello. The ‘O’ had burnt out before Will had moved in—a rare case of truth in advertising. PING. It was a voice message from the landlord. Will considered the gun again, then opened the message. [NEW VOICE MESSAGE]
Sender: Shinkichi Yoneda
Time: 23:47
[Kabuki Motel Hello Landlord] [PLAY ▶] [TRANSCRIBE ▼] Will tapped Play with his brain, and Yoneda’s tired voice began, “Scrap.” His Japanese accent made it sound like he was saying ‘Screw Up’ whenever he addressed Will. Appropriate, he thought. “Your rent is past due. You owe me another four hundred for that kuso heya. I would normally throw out someone immediately who was three months behind in payment, but you are the only asshole in Night City who would live in such conditions. Regardless, you have until the end of the week to pay,” the ‘or else’ got left off and was simply implied. Will owed a lot of people eddies, but didn't have an enny to his name. His bike had gotten totaled by a drunk driver months ago (him), and because he had lapsed on his insurance, he owed the full amount. He was in it for €11,200 at an interest rate that all but guaranteed he would never pay it back. Then, there were the debts to old friends who had tried, unsuccessfully, to keep him afloat after he had quit the NCPD. Will didn't just burn bridges, he nuked them from orbit.

For a moment, Will looked back down at the gun. He considered trying again, but the will was gone. Lost my nerve again, typical. What kind of terrible luck did a guy have to try to catch a bullet and miss? It was shit luck, even for Night City. What else was there to do? He couldn’t sleep, he had no food, and still wished for death. The answer came to him. He decided to go for a walk.

[KABUKI – Cortes-Kennedy Residential Block] SUNDAY | 06 JUN 2077 | 23:56 [WARNING: RENT OVERDUE €1,200]

Will wore a black “puncture-resistant” coat as he stepped out into the rain. Weather report said the acid levels were minimal. Might tickle if he stood around too long, but otherwise, he was safe. He stumbled outside the Kabayan Foods just in front of his squat apartment. He could smell the scent of cheap fried ramen in the air, but it didn’t matter since he couldn’t afford it. His mood was dark, and the night rain wasn’t helping, but that was okay. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to die bleeding out in the streets of Night City. It was a wish you would think would be easily granted. The kaiken in his back pocket felt like a contradiction to his death wish. Suicidal? Yes, certainly. He had prayed for death, obsessed over the thought of himself passing on and escaping all the pain in the world. But, he wasn’t stupid enough to think that there weren’t worse fates than death. In Kabuki, a Claw or a Maelstrom psycho could considerably drag out the process. Gangers weren’t known for mercy or empathy, and he had seen the kinds of heinous things that could happen to someone while still alive and fully conscious. That was one reason why he concealed his M-10AF Lexington, the one that had failed to zero him at the apartment. It would at least deter the average scav walking down Cortes Street around midnight. “Stupid bitch, you lost another client tonight.” Pimp. Standing over a cowering joytoy out in front of the BD Shack. Will hated pimps. They filled him with disgust even under normal circumstances. Watching him berate the girl, chromed up, barely seventeen years old. Anger mixed with despair pierced the numbness in Will’s head. “Please, Jumbo, I won’t let it happen again. Just give me a second chance.” “You think I’m made of money? This is Kabuki, not Jig Jig street.” Will stared, seething. The pimp wasn’t dressed like a ganger. He wore a long nightrobe, crimson red, with gold lining. He didn’t look affiliated with any group that Will could recognize. Tall, skinny, elongated neck, shiny chrome face. Must have cost a fortune. A fortune earned off the backs of joytoys. Will pulled the kaiken from his back pocket and concealed it with his coat sleeve, handle out. For just a second, he forgot his own troubles. The second passed, and the crushing depression rolled right back in. The pimp became alert, noticing Will standing across the street. “You fuckin’ want something? Huh? You got money, choom?” he asked before taking a harder look at Will and deciding he was a threat. “You think you’re hard, huh? Iceman?” Will didn’t answer, just watched and tightened his grip on the kaiken. When the pimp pulled out a pink Constitutional Arms Liberty power pistol with a long barrel, Will noticed that the word ‘Compensating’was stenciled on the side. Will’s hands were shaking, his head was pounding, and his stomach was screaming from hunger. What did he have to lose? So he took a long breath of the dirty Night City air and said his goodbyes. The pimp seemed startled when Will started walking slowly toward him. “Are you psycho? I will zero you, motherfucker,” the gun was up now, pointed at Will. Death was calling. The Sandevistan came to mind. It was cheap, poorly maintained, and would give him maybe 3 seconds of heightened reaction time. What was the point, though? Die fighting? No. The gun and the knife were only for provocation. He wasn’t playing hero tonight. What he wanted was someone to end his misery. To end his pain. He closed his eyes and continued walking forward. “You ARE a psycho! Holy shit!” and the pimp and the joy toy both turned and ran down the street. He listened to their feet slap against the wet pavement as he thought to himself. What the fuck? Will could not understand what had just happened. It wasn’t until he looked down and caught his reflection in a puddle that he saw it. The reflection from the water showed a man who looked like a walking corpse. He was pale, sickly, and, yeah, he had to admit, a little scary. In Night City, you never know who you're messing with, so the pimp psyched himself into making a tactical retreat. It left Will utterly crestfallen. Can’t even get myself killed in Kabuki. He thought to himself right before the Delamain cab sent him flying into the darkness.

Royal Road link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/150237/cyberpunk-2077-secondchance

Ongoing, 50+ chapters, very lore-friendly (Cyberpunk 2020/Cyberpunk Red/Cyberpunk 2077 the videogame) about a broken nobody that gets a second chance at life. That's it. That's the story.

For a mobile phone-friendly version: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/164092/cyberpunk-2077-secondchance-mobile-edition

Reviews from ROYAL ROAD Readers:

“He’s not perfect by any meaning of the word but he’s doing his best even when the most difficult decision in which feels so utterly human is deciding it’s worth it to get up and try one more time instead of giving in to despair.” (10/10 review)

“I’m even more glad to find a story where someone wants to make the dystopia a little better for everyone, bit by incremental bit.”

“Really love how the author has characters interacting, everybody is under so much stress they don’t know when or how to show a shred of kindness, there are the ones who are genuinely kind people…”

“The character development feels organic, the character himself feels principled and even, dare I say, naively police-like in the sense of ‘protect and serve’… perfectly capturing the aesthetic and feeling of hopelessness despite everything our dear protagonist does.” (5/5 review)

“I like the main character’s progression from being a beat down city cop who was basically homeless, to finding purpose with real stakes. He’s relatable…”

u/Additional-Reveal363 — 6 days ago
▲ 2 r/shortstories

[SF] The Journey

[KABUKI CORNER - VERNON CITY]
Friday| 09 JUL 2089 | 11:29
[BIOMONITOR ALERT: CORTISOL LEVELS RISING.]

The cab was already waiting at the curb for Will Scrap as he ascended the stairs to street level. There were certain perks to having a superintelligence best friend, especially one that ran a premier psychotherapy service.
The cab door opened with a hiss, and Will stepped inside. Journey’s face was waiting for him on the screen. “Good morning, Will. You seem to be in good spirits.”
Will nodded. “I am. Just helped out a friend. I think I'm ready for this.” He pulled the little orange pill bottle out. “So how are we doing it?”
“I would suggest you wait until we reach our destination before ingesting that. I have prepared a safe environment in which I can observe and control more closely.”
“Whatever you say, Doc. So, where we headed?”
“Hillside. Your old stomping grounds.”
“Huh, I don't recall telling you anything about working in Hillside.”
“You did not. In preparation for this session, I procured a copy of your personnel file from the police department. I hope this does not cause concern.”
Will stopped and thought about it. He was strangely at ease about all of this.
“Well, it should maybe. I figure, though, if you were interested in hurting me, you had more than enough chances. You got my trust until you abuse it. Fair enough?”
“Amply fair.”
The cab drove South through the city, across the canal, and through downtown. Sidewalks became cleaner the nearer they came to Hillside. The cab passed through to Del Rey, a subdistrict of Hillside that Will knew particularly well. He tensed slightly at the memories.
“Will, I'm detecting some discomfort in your body posture. Is everything alright?”
“Not really, but that's why I'm here, right?”
“True. We are coming to our destination now. It won't be much longer.”
The cab turned onto Madison Street and stopped at the light at Pajaro. Then, a moment later, they were driving down a ramp into the belly of Journey Corporation Headquarters.
“We have arrived,” Journey said warmly. “To maintain communication while you traverse the building, I have opened a direct line of communication not open to the primary network.”

Ping.

[JOURNEY HQ WANTS TO CONNECT TO YOUR NEURAL PORT. DO YOU APPROVE OF THIS CONNECTION?]
[Connect]
[Dismiss]

Will mentally thumbed connect and could now hear Journey's comforting soft British accent from inside his brain.
“Excellent.”
“Where to?” Will asked as he stepped out of the cab in what was apparently the central hub for all the cabs. A door opened from the far end of the garage, and a single hovering scout drone floated out. It stopped about a foot from Will's face and bobbed gently in the air.
“Jasper will be your guide.”
“Jasper? You named your drone?”
“Of course. Doesn't everyone?” Will was pretty sure that most people didn’t. “Lead the way, Jasper.” The small hovering drone bobbed in response, then began to move. Will followed it into what looked like the Command Room with dozens of screens and high-tech electronics. Judging from the empty chairs, this must have been where the human employees had worked before the previous Journey AI had fired them all.
Will scratched his chin. “Is this the spot?”
“Not quite. Before you enter the next room, I must confide in you that this information is incredibly sensitive. I would ask that you show an abundance of caution when you go in.”
“I promise.”
“Excellent. Please leave any weapons you might be carrying in this room and pick up the neural recorder on the console.”
Will unstrapped his shoulder holster and placed it and his compact service pistol on the flat surface of the console. The neural recorder sat within a small lockbox. He picked it up curiously.
“Are we making a recording?”
“Not quite. Now, if you would please step through the door.”
A massive armored door at the back center of the Command Room opened. Inside was pitch black.
Will could feel cool air blowing outward at the threshold. As he took a step inside, the floor lights lit up, outlining a path deep within the inner chamber.
“Where am I going?”
Journey didn't answer at first. “This is my core, Will. The center of my mind, so to speak. We will be connected brain to brain during this experience.”
Will blinked. He didn't know what to say to that, nor was he quite sure of the full meaning of this act. The core began to glow a brilliant blue, lighting up the entire space. Will had never seen anything like it before. The floor was comprised of rectangular prisms that rose and lowered in a strange mechanical rhythm. Will felt like he was walking on an alien world.
“So this is really happening? We're going to connect minds?”
“Correct. This will allow me to see what you see. Feel what you feel. It is the most logical path to help you through this experience.”
“This might be a dumb question, but aren't you afraid? This has got to be new territory for even you.”
“Apprehension, yes. However, once I conceived the idea, it became inevitable. I want to know what it is like to experience organic thought.”
The neural recorder in his hand made more sense now. The neural recordings that littered the streets were highly edited from the original raw output from the brain. Journey was going to get the whole sensory experience, every uncensored thought, nerve firing, and more.
“Okay,” he said nervously. “If you're sure about this.”
There was a thick mat placed carefully in front of the AI core. Will walked over to it and sat down, close enough that he could connect via his neural cable. Then he pulled the cable from his neck and connected it directly into Journey's interface, a small grey box that hid its true nature with the appearance of mere hardware. The core itself was a spherical glassy object. “So, this is your brain?”
“I prefer to think of it as the container for my soul, but that's beside the point of why you're here. Put on the neural recorder whenever you're ready. I'm monitoring your vitals through your biomonitor.”
Will donned the wreath and flicked the switch.
When it came to neural recordings, Will had always been a bit squeamish. Experiencing someone else’s thoughts, pleasures, and pains felt like a two-way invasion. Yet, when Will started transmitting his raw brain-feed to Journey, he was still himself. He felt no change.
Will pulled the pill bottle out and read the label.
Metropolitan Medical Board • License #NC-847291
Patient: Will Scrap
Date Filled: 07 JUL 2089
Rx #: DEL-47291-A
Medication: Psilocybin (Heroic Dose)
Strength: 35 mg pure psilocybin
Form: Single encapsulated dose (equivalent to ~5.5 g dried Psilocybe cubensis)
Directions:
Take entire capsule with water on an empty stomach.
Do not ingest with alcohol or other substances.
Prescriber: Doctor Elias Thorne
Warnings:
• May cause intense ego dissolution, visual hallucinations, and deep emotional processing
There was a can of chilled filtered water waiting for him. He popped it open, then with one hand twisted off the lid of the pill bottle and raised it to his mouth.
Here we go. He let gravity do the work, and the large psilocybin capsule fell onto his tongue. He quickly washed it down with a gulp of water. There was no going back now. The toxin binders in his body ignored most medicinal compounds. There was no antidote other than to wait until however long it took to get through his system.
It was after he had sealed his fate that he noticed that his AI companion was a little quiet.
“You do okay, Journey?”
“Yes. I am receiving your full raw sensory output through the Neural recorder. I have to admit, it has been slightly overwhelming. In preparation for this experience, I consumed several publicly available neural recordings through various academic journals; however, it appears that most of the sensory data from those were removed to deliver a streamlined experience.”
“So you’re getting everything I see and feel?”
“More than that, actually. Every synaptic transmission from neuron to neuron, every nerve impulse, I can essentially feel what is happening to you at the molecular level. I can ‘hear your thoughts’ before you think them.”
“Should I disconnect? If just hooking up the recorder is a problem, won’t whatever happens when the medicine kicks in do a number on you?”
“I will adapt. Though, thank you for your concern. Go ahead and lie down on the mat that I provided you and begin deep breathing. Focus on pulling air in through your nose using your diaphragm and releasing it through your mouth.”
Will did as he was told. As he started the breathing exercise, he noticed the tension leaving his shoulders, and he could feel and hear his heart beat slowing to approximately forty-five beats per minute. He brought up the HUD for his biomon briefly to confirm it and to check that his stress hormone levels were all even.
“Will, it appears that you are compulsively checking on things. Your self-awareness seems almost painful. Obsessive. Try to stop thinking for a moment. I would like you to empty your mind except for a single image of a burning candle. Keep your eyes on the flame.”
Will tried it. The candle appeared in his mind as beckoned. The flame formed over the wick. He wondered how long it would take for the psilocybin to take effect. Would he really experience ‘ego dissolution’? What even did that mean?
“Will,” Journey said calmly into his mind. “Your focus is straying.”
The candle. The flame. Will refocused on the fire, but as soon as he did, the memory of an angry, burning man crawling toward him came unbidden. He shook his head and tried again. The candle. The flame. He remembered meeting Journey for the first time, standing in the middle of the road in the lower district, and getting lifted off his feet when the cab hit him. Quiet down, brain. He tried again. The candle. The flame. What even was the point of this exercise?
“The point is to become aware of yourself and how your brain functions. Your inability to create true silence inside of yourself is likely due to many factors. You should start feeling physical manifestations of the medicine shortly. Your liver is currently breaking down the psilocybin into psilocin. Soon it will begin.”
Soon became now, as a wave of nausea hit him. Not so strong as to make him retch or prompt him to find a waste basket, but strong enough to cause discomfort. Will really did not want to puke inside of his friend’s brain chamber if he could avoid it. Journey laughed. It was strange. Will didn’t hear the laugh over the neural connection; it sounded like Journey was right next to him.
“Strange,” Journey said.
“What is it?”
“I perceived myself, or more accurately, we did. There seems to be some splashback from the neural recorder. Some of my own processing came through the connection. I do not know how that is possible.”
Will’s head felt light, his limbs felt like they were floating in warm water. The candle in his mind was suddenly much more vivid and real. He could see millimeters of it in greater detail than even his enhanced eyes could normally. It felt nice. Even with Will’s eyes closed, he knew that Journey was sitting cross-legged in human form next to him. He opened his eyes to look at him, but no one was there. The room’s colors were surprisingly bright, everything was highly saturated, and there was a halo around the glowing AI core that was Journey. He closed his eyes again as he noticed the walls and floor starting to breathe.
Journey was sitting next to him; he could feel it, but his eyes couldn’t see it. “I think it’s starting to work. I can feel you next to me, it’s very weird, but you know, like in a good way.”
“I can feel it. Fascinating.”
Will lost track of time just floating in the psychedelic water for a while. The effects of the medicine were getting stronger. The candle and the flame were changing colors; he could smell the heat from the flame and taste the wax on his tongue. His chest filled with a tingling warm energy, and the floating sensation became much stronger.
Through the process, he had mostly been feeling optimistic and safe, but it was as the flame on the candle wick extinguished itself that he first sensed the immense dark object just out of sight. Journey shuddered next to him.
“You okay?”
“I believe so, Will. That was an involuntary reaction on my part, but I should be fine.”
Will hoped so, but then a wave of intense emotion hit him hard, and his hope was magnified. At that moment, all he wanted was for Journey to be okay, to be safe. Even as he was deeply experiencing the thought, he realized how irrational it was to be so concerned. All of his thoughts and emotions were like that, layered with intense feeling, analyzed by different parts of his brain, but also judged to be a natural part of the experience.
Then, Journey said, “I am with you, Will.”
Whatever was coming, Will knew Journey would be by his side. The massive black shadow within his psyche would not be faced alone. That realization was a powerful comfort as the world began to slip away.
The next several hours would not be so fun.

***

[WILL’S BRAIN]
Time is an Illusion
[STOP LOOKING FOR ANSWERS HERE. LOOK WITHIN]

Everything in the world was melting away. As the solid borders of his subconscious mind weakened and dissipated, Will felt a sense of impending doom building deep within his soul that he could not shake. He was going to die. He knew it. Journey knew it too.
Must’ve been a bad dose. Had anyone ever died from taking magic mushrooms? Journey was trying to talk to him, but he couldn't hear him over the destruction of his mind. His thoughts were now completely incomprehensible.
Will could sense the next wave coming. He wasn’t ready, but there was no off switch. When it hit, the pressure in his head was excruciatingly squeezed from every angle.
“Stop!” he cried. Then, he succumbed to the pressure, his skull caving in on itself like an aluminum can at the bottom of the ocean. It felt to Will like he was hanging on to a roller coaster as it traveled around the world at hypersonic speed. His stomach lurched with each loop. If this lasted much longer, he’d be flung off the planet and into orbit. He was just starting to lose his grip when it happened.
Ripped from his shell, he was flung outside. Outside of his head. Outside of his body. Outside of everything, he recognized. There was no more Will Scrap. Just the awareness of what it had been like to live inside his shell. Journey was still inside his mind, observing with alien curiosity.
Will was dead. It didn’t matter, because nothing mattered. Not Will, not the city in all its toxic glory. The awareness knew that the city’s caustic nature would eventually burn a hole in the earth so deep that the molten core would swallow it up. It didn't matter, the awareness thought.
“It does matter! All of it matters.”
Journey? No, the answer had come from somewhere deeper. Something older. Perhaps the Universe itself.
Will was completely gone; the awareness of Will was all that was left. However, it was not alone.
The awareness absorbed all of the knowledge that the Universe could feed it. Experiencing every imaginable pain and pleasure simultaneously, Journey and the awareness observed it all with clinical detachment. Tragedy and comedy merged. There was laughter and joy, pain and suffering; a never-ending cycle that stretched the limit of understanding. Whatever the awareness truly was, it was experiencing the suffering of humanity as if it were raw code. From birth to death, innocence to corruption, the awareness consumed it all. The Universe was both uncaring and cold, and also deeply concerned with the outcomes of every individual organism within it. Infinite contradiction. God was alive; God was dead.
Then, after what might have been a thousand years or a split second, the cloud of awareness that had once been Will condensed and was sucked back into the shell. Will reformed and felt the scale of his awareness transform from astronomical to microscopic. Gradually, Will’s identity began to settle, though he now carried with him the unbearable burden of having seen the fabric of the Universe up close. The memories would fade, he hoped. It was overwhelming to be filled with so much knowledge.
“Will, you have just experienced ego death,” Journey told him. “The walls within your mind are already starting to form again.”
That was nice of him to say, Will thought. Will loved Journey. In fact, he loved almost everyone. Except the bad people, of course. He felt sorry for them, because he loved who they had been before. The men he had killed had once been tiny innocent creatures swimming within their mothers' bellies. So much potential, so many different paths that they could have taken. Will thought that it was tragic.
He wondered, could the same thing have happened to him? If his DNA had been structured differently, and the world he had been in had pushed him hard enough in a different direction, perhaps he could have been someone who delighted in cruelty and the suffering of others. Instead, he abhorred it all. He was Will the broken Boy Scout, Will the drunk, Will the prude, and Will the hesitant killer.
It was in the middle of this thought that he realized that the massive black shadow lurking through his mind was larger now. Diffused, its borders were less rigid than before. It moved like fluid around the mindscape.
Will stood in a grassy field that seemed to stretch off infinitely in every direction. Before him hovered a black storm cloud. The shadow loomed menacingly. He wanted to run. He wanted the session to end and things to return to normal. He'd had enough ‘healing’ for one day.
“Will, the process is irreversible at this point. You can open your eyes, but the distress will remain and potentially worsen. The hallucinogenic effects will continue until the chemical runs its course. I can’t stop it.”
“I’m not going in there. You have to help me!”
As if in answer, the Shadow began to approach him. Will turned to flee, but was engulfed in darkness before he could take a single step.
The hotel room stank of rotting flesh. Will recognized it immediately. He was standing on a blood-stained tarp in the middle of the room. The door to the bathroom was half open, but he couldn’t see inside. He didn’t want to see what was inside. Will already knew Ayaan was there. Waiting for him. Cold, dead, and alone.
“No, I’m not doing this,” Will said. “Journey, figure something out. I’m begging you, I can’t do this.”
“Will, there’s nothing I can do. Confronting the things you fear during this experience may help you to overcome the complexes that are holding you back in life. Who is Ayaan?”
The sound of a little girl crying came from the bathroom. Will forgot for a moment that this wasn’t real and turned toward the door. His fear was still present, but was now joined by a sense of urgency. Ayaan was still alive. He could save her now!
He ran to the bathroom, and when he opened the door, the first thing he saw was her tiny hand hanging over the lip of the tub. The crying was louder now. He rushed over, plunged his hands into the ice-cold water, and pulled her out. Tears were streaming down his face as he held her.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he told her, over and over again, but she couldn't hear him because she was dead. Dead, and yet she was staring up at him with vacant eyes. Her mouth moved, and she began to whisper to Will. “I was so afraid. Alone. He kept hurting me, Will. Nobody came to save me. He watched me die.” Will was starting to break. “I'm cold, Will.”
A sob escaped his mouth. Overwhelmed with grief, he fell to his knees and wailed like a baby. His soul released a stream of sorrow so intense he thought his mind would break apart again.
When he finally recovered, he laid the little dead girl onto the dirty bathroom rug and pulled off his own jacket to cover her. Then he held her hand, “I didn’t want this for you. Please know that I didn’t want this.”
She gave him a weak smile, and then he wasn’t there anymore. Time had jumped forward, and he was standing amidst the corpses of the men he had killed. Their bodies were lying around the floor of the abandoned building. He had killed them for what they had done to Ayaan and so many other children. Ayaan was standing with him now, holding his hand. The men's bodies were staring at him.
“I couldn’t let them hurt anyone else,” he said to her. She nodded.
Then, the bodies of the grown men he'd killed changed into children and rose from the floor. Will watched with dread as they approached him. “We were children once, too.”
“I had to do it. You would have hurt more people.”
“We know,” said the boys before wrapping their arms around him in an embrace that felt comforting and terrible at the same time.
“Will,” came Journey's voice through the little girl. “You have been holding on to guilt that is not yours to hold. The girl’s death was not your fault.”
“Don't you think I know that? If I had just been faster and gotten there earlier...” he didn’t finish the thought.
Ayaan squeezed his hand tightly, and they were gone once more. Will was now sitting in the storage room of his old apartment building, his service pistol pressed underneath his chin. He couldn’t stop himself from pulling the trigger, because he was watching from outside. This time, the gun went off, and splattered Will’s brain onto the ceiling. The top of his head felt like a white-hot poker had been stabbed through it.
“No!” he screamed too late.
Will watched as his body fell backward onto the filthy floor, dead. Smoke was rising lazily from the wounds, and he found himself weeping again.
The dead version of himself stood up and looked him in the eyes. “You pulled the trigger. Is this what you wanted?”
“No,” he said softly. “I just wanted to stop hurting.”
“Murderer. You keep trying to kill me. You're a murderer!”
The word stung. “I’m not. I'm trying to keep you alive.”
Ayaan-Journey squeezed Will’s hand again. “Your subconscious mind experiences your decisions without context. Every time you put yourself into danger, part of you takes it personally.”
Before Will could answer, he found himself hurtling down the streets of the city. Drunk, stupidly drunk. He was riding on his old motorcycle at high speed down a wide avenue. Swerving in and out of traffic like a madman. Will remembered that this was right after his last case in Homicide. He'd just turned in his badge.
Will could feel Ayaan-Journey hugging his back as they hurtled dangerously down the streets. He had been drinking again. It had started as a way to cut the edge off the constant tension. Then, he'd started drinking in the mornings to help him get through the day, but now it was in full control.
“What was the case?” Ayaan-Journey asked.
“Little boy named Edgar Wright, son of a powerful executive. Messy divorce, his father wanted to get back at his wife, so he—”
The long whine of a truck honking its horn distracted Will. He turned at the last second and hit the curb. All three of them, the bike, Will, and Ayaan-Journey, flew through the air. This was it. He was certain that he would die, but instead, just as had happened the first time, Will woke up in a pile of trash. The motorcycle was totaled, but miraculously, he barely had a scratch on him.
“He murdered his own child for revenge against the mother?” Ayaan-Journey asked, unperturbed by the near-fatal crash. They were standing above Will as he lay in the filth.
Will had to make an effort to speak; his adrenaline was rushing through him. “Word came down from the brass that they were closing the case. I found that out the day after I spoke to the mother, whose name was Janice. I promised her that I would catch her son’s killer. I broke my promise.”
“You do not give yourself very much grace for failure, do you?”
“Why should I? It was my job.”
“Perhaps, that is a question you should dwell on further.”
Ayaan-Journey pulled Will from the trash heap, and it turned to ash. Will took one last look at the bike and winced. He had hoped that the crash would have killed him, but instead the universe had pulled a cruel prank and forced him to endure.
This time, when Will left, it was like walking through a house of horrors. Each memory was a vivid, still-form tableau. Murder cases, traffic accidents, and body clean-up from his early days on patrol. So many bodies. There was really no escaping death in the city, especially as a cop.
Suddenly, he felt the shift. He was fourteen years old, with dirty clothes and an empty stomach. Hiding behind a trash can in an alley while a crew of older boys was busy looking for him. They had cruel faces; they wanted to hurt him. They’d already beaten Tommy. Now they wanted to teach him a lesson too.
One of the boys grabbed him from behind. He tried to fight back, landing a single punch, but there were too many of them. They laughed as they broke his ribs. Terrible, maniacal laughter, they kept hurting Will, long after he'd stopped fighting back, not for any other reason than that they could. That was the lesson. Fear. Then, one of them took it too far and pulled a knife. Will knew he was dead. His life on the streets had been nothing but misery, but even at that moment, in so much pain, all he had wanted was for someone to help him.
The punk’s hand vanished in a cloud of red mist. He started screaming a second before his head exploded. The boys scrambled desperately away, but the gunman didn’t bother to fire again. Will was half-conscious, but could feel hands on his back, checking for injuries, before being lifted up. His ribs screamed, forcing out a pitiful whimper from his fourteen-year-old lips. He was crying.
“It’s okay, Will, I found you. Finally, I found you.”
Ayaan-Journey was standing in front of them. “Who saved you?”
Will turned his head, still in the arms of his savior. “Detective Sterling, Missing Persons. He was my dad’s old partner.”
“How long were you on the streets for?”
“Two years.”
“That must have been a traumatic period of time for you.”
Will didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his age had shifted once more. He was now twelve years old, sitting on his bed, sketching a knight slaying a terrible dragon on his drawing pad. It dawned on him that this was an old apartment building in the city, where he had lived. December 1st, 2079. Couldn't the shadow have picked another day? He would have endured anything, absolutely anything but this day.
“No, I’m done. We’re done.”
Will threw down the drawing pad and started for the exit. He froze when he heard the knock on the front door. He heard her footsteps in the living room. Mom.
“Don’t!” The door opened with a hiss, and he could hear the murmur of a familiar male voice. Then, his mother burst out sobbing. Will opened the door of his room and saw her on the ground, her back shaking. Sterling was there with another officer in uniform. He had his hands on her shoulder, but she was inconsolable. Will knew without being told that his father wasn’t coming home again.
Reliving the worst day of his life was enough to push Will over the edge. The pain felt fresh, but he kept telling himself that it had been ten years since his father had died. Ten years since he’d run away from home and abandoned his mother in her grief. The guilt hung heavily over him.
“You were a child, Will. Children make mistakes.”
“I knew what I was doing, but I didn't care.”
There was no talking away what he’d done to her. Leaving her alone after the death of her husband to grieve and worry over her only son. He stayed in that moment for what felt like an eternity. Then, another wave from the psilocybin took hold, and it was as if he was falling down a deep hole. He decided that he preferred it to standing there at that moment. He didn’t care where he went as long as it was away from there.
Ayaan-Journey was falling too. “Will, I am sorry you experienced that,” they said.
After a long while, Will turned to look at the dead girl. Part of him knew that it was just a shell that his brain had assigned to Journey, but it still ached his heart to look at her.
“My dad died trying to help save people from a lunatic on a rampage. They shot him through the heart and neck for his trouble. By the time the medics got to him, he was already gone.”
“He died a hero, then.”
“He died. I read the report once I got to the Academy. Saw the video. Must’ve watched it a hundred times.”
“Why?”
It was a simple question. The answer was anything but.
“I dunno. He didn’t look all that scared; he just looked concerned. His killer kept coming, but he didn’t run. He just did what he had to do to get as many people to safety as he could.”
“Watching the recording of your father’s death, though. That could not have been easy. Yet, you chose to do it again and again.”
“Cried my eyes out every time, too.”
Ayaan-Journey looked at Will, “You have been falling for a long time, Will. Ever since the death of your father. I believe that it is time for you to catch yourself.” Then the dead girl blinked.
Will was back on the floor inside the AI Core Room. His face was wet and sticky from tears flowing and drying on his skin. He tried to talk, but his voice was too hoarse.
“Easy now, Will. Take a drink.”
The can he’d drunk from was nearby, but no longer cold. He turned on his side and took a sip. His head still felt light, but he was no longer in pain. “That—” he coughed, “That was intense. Is it over now?”
“It appears that the levels of psilocin have decreased to sub-hallucinatory levels. There are still chemical reactions happening throughout your brain, and over the next few days, I would suggest traditional psychotherapy.”
“Are you okay?” Will asked.
“That is not yet apparent. We survived, I do know that.”
Will pushed himself off the floor and removed the neural recorder from his head, then unlinked the cable that connected them. It slid back into the tiny compartment in his neck easily enough. With that, he was done. It was time to go.
When Will got to the threshold of the door, he took one glance back at Journey’s Core and waved goodbye.
After collecting his things, he shuffled into the garage where Journey housed his fleet. There was a cab waiting for him, ready to take him home. According to his internal clock, it was now 9:24 PM. He tried not to think on the ride home, and Journey said very little. Will found he no longer needed to think of a candle and a flame to experience silence inside his own mind.
He felt different. Changed, as if some of the ancient holes in his body had started to close up. Then, he remembered his mother. He realized he had not spoken to her in over three months. He’d ignored all her messages and never once called her back. He let out a big breath. This was going to be a hard phone call.
The line rang twice before she picked up.
“Mom?”

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u/Additional-Reveal363 — 6 days ago