Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

I stared into the rearview mirror of the car as I activated the behavioral face implant, feeling the subtle shift of my facial structure, skin tone, and eye color morph into those of Michael Cassidy, a mid-level engineer at the Night City power plant. His eyes stared back at me and I couldn’t help but feel a pang of unease.

I wasn’t the same naïve kid who’d first stepped into Night City, wide-eyed and hopeful with dreams of slicing bullets in half with a katana and challenging Adam Smasher for the title of ‘most dangerous merc.’ The body count I’d racked up since then was proof of that. But all those kills – gangsters, murderers, rapists, drug dealers – had always felt…justified. No, not justified. It was more like we were all playing the same deadly game, with rules we accepted, knowing full well the consequences could be fatal.

But Michael Cassidy was different. Sure, he wasn’t clean – nobody in Night City could claim that – but he was close enough to being a civilian that what I’d done felt wrong. As his eyes stared back at me from the mirror, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. I’d changed since coming to Night City. I was…better, maybe? The first time I held a gun, I was terrified. The first time I killed someone, I panicked, nearly losing my mind. The first job I pulled, my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. Now? Jobs didn’t make me nervous anymore, at least not more than the next person. I’d learned, adapted, hardened.

But killing an engineer whose only crime was taking a little extra cash from small-time gangs to boost power to their neighborhoods…it felt dirty. Wrong, in a way that gnawed at me. It was cold efficiency of a job that needed to be done, and that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I climbed out of the Archer Quartz EC-L, the tiny, budget-friendly car I’d swiped from Michael’s apartment lot. As I stepped onto the cracked pavement, I could feel the behavioral implant doing its thing. My posture adjusted, stooping slightly; my expression softened into a more reserved demeanor, and my walk settled into the easy rhythm of someone who’d spend years in a repetitive, dead-end routine. Tech in this world was weird as hell, but damn if it wasn’t effective.

Crossing the parking lot, I tossed out a few casual greetings, mimicking the kind of easy familiarity Michael would’ve had with all the workers. Once inside, I was quickly swallowed up by the maze of steel and concrete that was the power plant. I pulled up the plant’s schematics on my Kiroshi’s, keeping an eye on where I needed to go. All I needed to do was blend in and be just another face in the crowd until I got to where I needed to be.

Unfortunately, I had shit luck.

“Hey, Cassidy,” a voice called out as I rounded a corner. It came from a wiry man with thick glasses and a crooked grin. A quick scan with my Kiroshi’s pulled up his name: Jeff.

“Jeff, morning,” I said, tossing in a casual wave as I matched the real Cassidy’s tone and cadence. Jeff fell into step beside me, clearly in the mood to chat.

“You catch the Blackouts game last night? Man, what a comeback! I thought for sure they were done for. The entire halftime, I was pissed I’d blown half a paycheck betting on them,” Jeff said, practically buzzing with excitement.

The mention of the Blackouts sent a jolt through me. I hadn’t had the time to enjoy any entertainment since coming to Night City – too busy surviving one day to the next. The only game I’d ever watched was that old stickball match Fred refereed ages ago, and I didn’t even get to see more them do anything except set up the field. Not exactly helpful right now.

“Oh, yea, crazy game,” I replied, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Probably the best of the season, right?”

Jeff nodded eagerly, completely unaware of my discomfort. “Exactly! I’m telling you, this is our year. Gonna make the playoffs for sure. I’d bet my house on it. About time we had something to cheer for, huh?”

“Yea, it’s been pretty bleak,” I said, forcing a chuckle. Who the hell were the Blackouts? What sport did they even play?

“So, they got you looking into all the brownouts, right?” Jeff asked as we headed to a set of elevators. “Grid’s been struggling lately. You think it’s just old infrastructure, or is someone screwing with us?”

I tensed at the mention of power outages. Night City was notorious for its sketchy infrastructure, but the last thing I needed was Jeff digging too deep into it.

“Probably just the old systems acting up,” I shrugged, trying to sound casual. “You know how it is with them – this place is held together by duct tape and prayers. I’m actually on my way now to check on them.”

Jeff nodded, giving me a friendly pat on the back. “Well, good luck. From what I’ve heard, the bosses are breathing down Reg’s neck. The politicians are on their case too – nobody wants outages in their districts. Don’t be surprised if he comes down to scream at you.”

“Eh, he knows how valuable I am. I’ll get everything running smoothly. No need to worry.”

Jeff grinned and gave me a wave before disappearing into a crowd of workers. I watched him go, letting out a sigh of relief as he finally left me alone.

I took the elevator down a few floors and started navigating the labyrinth of corridors again, making small talk with a few workers who greeted me. Each time someone stopped me, my heart leapt in my chest. I knew that one wrong detail, one slip in my cover, and the whole gig would come crashing down. Every interaction was a potential disaster. But finally, after what felt like an eternity, I managed to slip away from the flow of people and get to a small workstation.

With a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching, I plugged in my personal link and got to work.

So, a power plant’s SCADA system is like the brain of a massive, complicated machine. Imagine a huge building crammed with computers, machinery, and all kinds of technical equipment. How do you keep it all running smoothly with a handful of workers? The answer is a SCADA.

It’s like the nerve center of the entire operation. It monitors everything – computers, machines, and all the processes going on across the facility – and feeds all that information back to a central control room. It lets operators keep an eye on temperature so things don’t overheat, flip switches to turn equipment on and off when needed, and ensures that the centrifuges keep spinning safely and within limits.

The problem with Night City’s power plant is that it’s practically a museum piece. The whole thing still ran off assembly instead of the newer, more secure META programming language. There were patches and added code so that the engineers didn’t have to learn assembly to do their job, but the place was still hopelessly outdated.

I knew I’d only get about 30 minutes of unfettered access to the SCADA system, and while I could’ve probably bricked the entire thing in that time, I needed the power plant to go offline at a precise moment. That required a massive amount of set up work.

El Capitan had sourced some SCADA simulation software for me, letting me get a detailed look at how the power plant worked. I’d spent hours poking around its coding, finding the weak spots, and fine-tuning the program I crafted in Yoko’s netrunning café. The outdated C-to-Assembly compiler I’d dug up from the old library allowed me to write in a programming language that was practically forgotten, something almost no one else in the city would recognize or understand. And with Michael Cassidy’s face as my disguise, I had the time I needed to slip my code into the plant’s aging infrastructure.

Stuxnet was the inspiration for the code I built. It was a program used by the United States and Israel a couple years back to shut down Iran’s nuclear power programs. My code was a nasty piece of software that would manipulate the plant’s control systems while feeding false data to the monitoring software.

For the first 48 hours after my program kicked in, everything would look perfectly normal. That was the bait. I didn’t want anyone suspecting anything was wrong. While my program quietly took over the monitoring software, the real work was happening under the hood.

The code was designed to target the plant’s critical systems – cooling systems, turbine controls, and the grid’s distribution nodes. It would gradually alter each of the systems, slowly so as not to trigger any alarms. As the three-day mark approached, my code would start destabilizing the power regulation systems. Voltage levels would fluctuate, the plant’s automated systems would go into overdrive. And then, right at 2pm on the third day, the program would unleash its full fury. It would overload the main turbines while simultaneously shutting down the cooling systems, leading to a catastrophic failure. All the backup systems of the powerplant that were meant to stop a melt-down would have already been corrupted by my code.

And just in case someone got clever and tried to shut it down prematurely, I built in a dead man’s switch. If anyone tampered with the program, it would instantly trigger the meltdown sequence. Of course, I didn’t want that to happen – I had plans that needed to align with the power plant’s failure. But at the very least, if someone did try to mess with my code, it would cause enough chaos that maybe some of my plans would still work.

Everything was looking good as I finished up the last minute touches on the program when the sound of heavy footsteps drew my attention. I quickly glanced over my shoulder to see a heavyset man storming towards me, his face a furious shade of red.

“Michael!” the man barked, his voice seeming to echo throughout the corridors. I quickly scanned him with my Kiroshi’s and saw the name Reginald Johnson. He was probably the guy that Jeff had warned me about, and the way he was screaming, he was also probably Jeff’s boss.

Shit.

I turned back to my work and kept fiddling with my code. I was way too close to finished to let this smarmy shit stop me.

“I called you, Michael. When I call you, you stand at attention in front of me.”

Who the hell did this asshole think he was? I looked over at him while still fiddling with my code and just said “I’m working Reg. What do you want?”

He drew back like I slapped him, but instead of focusing on what I said, he went back to screaming about whatever had drove him to find me in the first place. “I got half the city on my ass because of these brownouts, and you’re gonk ass is down here slacking off. When I tell you to get to work, you better fucking get to work.”

I clenched my teeth and checked on my code. It was almost completely hidden, just a few last-minute adjustments and I’d be done. I’d have to handle Reg carefully – or maybe not so carefully. An idea started forming in my mind, one that would let me slip out of the powerplant without anyone asking questions about me.

“Yo, you fat shit. I am working. If you ever bothered to get off your ass and find out what’s going on in your powerplant, you’d notice I’m the best you’ve got down here. So, if you want me to keep working and bailing your ass out, then you need to march your chubby legs back to your office while I finish what I’m doing.”

Reg looked momentarily stunned, clearly not used to anyone talking back to him like that. My code was finally fully inserted into the power plants infrastructure, and I turned back to the computer to delete all the access logs while Reg’s shocked turned to rage. He stepped forward and roughly grabbed my shoulder to turn me to him. For a second there, I thought that he might actually throw a punch. Instead, he stepped closer, his face mere inches away.

“Are you serious, Cassidy? You think you’re smarter than everyone else because you can push a few buttons? You think you can talk to me like that and still keep your job?”

“The hell you gonna do about it Reg? Like you said, you got half the city on your bulbous ass, and I’m the only one in this plant that knows how to do anything. You’re just a washed-up old man who gets off by screaming at people who actually know how to do their jobs.”

That did it. Reg balled up his fists and started screaming to the point where he was bathing my face in spittle. “You little piece of shit. You’re fired! Get the hell out of here. Pack your shit and go.”

I unclipped my personal link and brushed past Reg, giving him a final, mocking smile as I left. I didn’t look back as I retraced my steps through the power plant to the parking lot. This was, sort of, my first ever job in Night City, and I’d been fired after only about an hour.

When I finally got to the parking lot, I felt the tension slowly drain out of me. One step of my plan was finished, and by ‘getting fired’ nobody would think to look twice at what I’d been working on.

&&&

When Zion told me he’d finagled a meeting with a Valentino leader, I was excited. Then he told me that guy’s name was El Sombreron, and I thought he was fucking with me. The name instantly made me think of The Three Amigos. The main bad guy in the film called himself El Guapo, which translates to “The Handsome.” It was ridiculous that someone would actually name themselves that, but it was still a hell of a lot better than having your street named being “The Hat.” I even wondered aloud whether I could work the word “plethora” into the conversation when I finally met the guy.

But the second I saw him, I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

El Sombreron was nothing like the goofy bandits in the movie. He was…terrifying. His face was all tatted up, black ink stretched in intricate designs. His mouth was twisted into a permanent smirk, the result of some old wound that had scarred his face from the corner of his mouth all the way up to his left ear. It wasn’t a smile – it was a warning. His right arm was a gleaming gold cyberarm, and his fedora – or maybe it was a trilby, I could never tell the difference – was pulled low, hiding his eyes in shadow.

During my time in Night City, I’d met plenty of dangerous people. Diego, Deng and Zion all had something about them that screamed ‘danger.’ But El Sombreron? He was…different. Just sitting across from him, I felt a shiver crawl up my spine, like I was a mouse staring down a hawk. The air around him practically crackled with danger, and I quickly realized that any thoughts of banter or pleasantries were off the table.

“So,” he drawled, his voice a gravelly rasp that suited him well. “I hear you want something.”

“Dario Sanchez,” I started. “The NCPD’s got a case on him and a few others. They’re going for RICO charges. As you know, Dario’s already in prison for the next two years, but if things go the way they’re headed, he’s looking at life.”

At the mention of Dario’s name, El Sombreron’s smirk didn’t falter, but I caught a flicker of something darker in his eyes. Interest? Anger? Hard to tell.

“I’ve got a lawyer who’s willing to take the case, no charge,” I continued. “I can get Dario out. But in return, I need a favor from the Valentinos.”

El Sombreron leaned back in his booth, spreading his arms out, the gold fingers of his cyberarm tapping out a slow, rhythmic beat on the backrest. “Go on,” he said, his tone making it clear I needed to get to the point.

“On election day, I need the Valentinos to help out. There’s a polling site in Megabuilding H2 – you guys have control of the place. I want your people running it. My guys will come in, use their IDs, and vote. It’s a small ask for what I’m offering.”

A heavy silence fell between us. El Sombreron’s eyes, still hidden beneath the brim of his hat, seemed to bore straight through me.

Finally, he spoke. “So, you want to free Dario? Is that right?”

“It’s more like you want to free Dario, and I’m in the one who can make it happen.”

El Sombreron leaned forward, and for the first time, I caught a glimpse of his eyes – cold, calculating, and utterly unforgiving. “Here’s the thing, amigo,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper. “You’ve got me all wrong. I don’t want Dario free.”

I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

“He’s been running his mouth in prison, telling everyone that when he gets out, he’s going to take back control of the Valentinos. But the truth is, he’s a liability. Always was. He’s too cozy with the Animals, using them for protection in there. He’s more their pet than a ‘tino now. That’s not the kind of leadership we need.”

“So, you want me to…”

“We can’t touch him now,” El Sombreron said. “The Animals have him guarded too well, and I’m not starting a war for that pendejo. But if you can take care of him before he becomes a problem, I’ll help with your little election day scheme.”

I hesitated, weighing my options. This wasn’t the deal I’d planned on, but El Sombreron wasn’t leaving me much of a choice.

“Alright,” I finally said. “I’ll take care of it. And someone will be in touch about the election.”

El Sombreron’s smirk widened, a slow nod of approval following. “Good luck, chico.”

As I stepped out of the bar where we’d been meeting, the cool night air did little to calm the tremor in my hands. The entire meeting had left me rattled at coming face to face with a genuine monster. I approached my Kusanagi and swung a leg over. The hum of the engine thrummed through me as I started it up and I called Anna. “Tell me you got good news,” I said, as soon as she picked up.

&&&

I rifled through the books on the shelf, running my fingers over the spines, occasionally pulling one down. It was almost surreal, seeing so many physical books in one place. This whole city was driven by technology. Almost everything had been digitized, and all the information you needed was stored on shards that could be plugged into your neuroport. If you wanted to read for fun – something that had been sorely lacking in my life since coming to this world – you did it on an e-reader that could hold thousands of titles.

But Martin Price had spent a small fortune – more than most people in Night City made in a year – to fill his penthouse with books he likely never read. Being a high-priced lawyer for Asukaga and Finch paid well, but obviously didn’t leave time for much light reading. Every book I pulled down was uncut. They probably would have been covered in a thin film of dust if the dick didn’t have a team of maids come to his apartment weekly.

I continued pulling down volumes, reading their dust covers, and setting aside a few that caught my interest. Behind me, Martin Price, the man who owned this collection, was tied to one of his designer chairs in the middle of his opulent living room. Cyndi stood just behind him, her arm tensed, ready to unleash her mantis blades. Anna lingered off to the side, keeping an eye on everything.

She was the one who told me about Martin Price. I’d sent her to Lizzie’s to ask the joytoys if they knew of any lawyers who deserved Anna’s particular brand of justice. It didn’t take long for all of them to start talking, and they quickly fingered Martin Price as someone they wouldn’t mind disappearing.

Price had a reputation. He’d been banned from Lizzie’s after getting a little too handsy with some of the joytoys. But getting banned hadn’t stopped him. Joytoys talked, and they all had the same story about Price. He was one of the johns who didn’t take no for an answer, and his behavior had slowly been getting worse.

The girls knew the patterns. They’d watched as Price, like other johns before him, escalated his behavior. And they all knew that it always ended the same way, with a joytoy dumped in an alleyway, bruised and bleeding, while the john got away scot-free because no badge wanted to arrest a fine, upstanding member of Night City society.

As I sifted through another book, I noticed Price starting to stir. He came to slowly, groggy and disoriented, his eyelids fluttering open as he took in the room. His gaze flickered over the three of us – well, maybe only two, since Cyndi was behind him, her presence more felt than seen. Price’s confusion quickly morphed into fear as he realized he was bound to the chair. He struggled against the ropes, but they held firm, and I watched panic set into his expression.

“What the hell is this?” he barked, trying to inject some authority into his voice, but it came out weak and shaky. His bravado crumbled further when Cyndi calmly extended one of her mantis blades, letting the sharp edge graze his cheek just enough to draw a thin line of blood.

I sighed, abandoning my search through the books. I grabbed a chair and dragged it over, the legs scraping against the polished floor, and set it down directly in front of Price.

“Mr. Price. Word is you’ve developed a nasty streak with some of the joytoys over at Lizzie’s.”

Price’s breath hitched as he stared at me. “What do you want?”

I leaned back in the chair, folding my arms across my chest, and gave him a reassuring smile. “Just to have a conversation, Mr. Price.”