Chapter 1 - prologue

She had been working at Arasaka for 5 years now. Well, really 8, but that unpaid internship didn’t count for shit. She was in sales. Domestic sales. When she first got her placement all those years ago, Mia thought she was hired to sell security systems to small businesses around Night City. She moved across the country for the opportunity, ready to kiss her internship goodbye and rub elbows with the city’s elite on a whirlwind urban adventure in the infamous city.

However, after getting settled in Watson and reporting to HQ, Mia found that she had in fact, been hired for her pretty face. As it turned out “domestic sales” had little to do with security systems and more to do with inner city weapons deals. Apparently demand for arms, ammunition, combat mods and armor in Night City was so high that Arasaka, the corporate giant, had to get involved. Mia’s job was simple. Meet with the client, sell the goods, run militech out of the market.

Despite having an arsenal of weapons at her disposal, Mia’s greatest assets were her features, sharp narrow jawline, bright natural eyes, and shimmering red hair. In Night City, sex sells, and Arasaka was well aware of that. Everyone from sleazy crime lords to the steroid pumped cops wanted to get their hands on Mia, it was her job to fill their groping hands with Arasaka tech instead, while simultaneously emptying their wallets.

Part of that job required Mia to look the part. Although she was a natural beauty, thin, yet not unhealthily skinny, with toned muscles and soft curves. She had long natural red hair, dark brown eyes and cute freckles. However, with body mods rising in popularity, standards for appearances flew well beyond what was naturally possible. The company paid for her procedures, not sparing a single expense, removing every blemish, perfecting skin tone, adjusting facial structure and adding hormone control units. Her natural red hair was changed permanently to a vibrant crimson. Now not only was she up to the standards of Night City’s interpretation of elegantly beautiful, but it would be damn near impossible for her to not look the part. No more exercise regimens, no more dieting, no more skin care, no more hair dye. She was perfect, and her cybernetics made it so.

Until they didn’t.

It started with a regular meet up. Standard business. This one was a touch on the shady side, the order was for some heavy artillery from an anonymous group who wanted to meet near the city outskirts. But Mia was a veteran saleswoman. She brought what she thought was enough muscle for the job, but when she tried to close the deal, ready to make the transaction, guns were drawn and faces came from the shadows. It was a set up.

Mia had heard of these people before, reapers. Thugs who banded together to kidnap unsuspecting corpos, harvesting their organs and high end cybernetics for sale on the black market. She had heard the horror stories, people waking up in bathtubs of ice missing a kidney and an optic, but never had she considered the fact that she would be the victim.

Mia couldn’t remember much from the night of the attack after guns were drawn. A remote netrunner blocked her distress signal and shutdown her cybernetics, causing her to black out. In the darkness, she remembered nearly coming to, she heard the voice of a woman, and felt the strangers hands pick her up off a cold operating table and jack in to her cerebral port. What seemed like less than a moment later Mia came to in the hospital.

She doctor had informed her that her cranial implants were damaged and malfunction. Arasaka had been stingy on their health care coverage and Mia would have to foot the bill for her repairs and treatment.

“350,000 Eurodollars?! Are you kidding me?! I can’t afford this?!”
The hospital billing staff had replied coldly, “then I’m afraid we can’t help you”
Mia turned to her doctor, “well what happens if I don’t get my impacts repaired?”
He thought for a few moments “your hormone blockers are totally deregulated and your neurotransmitter control units are shot...worst case scenario your system gets overwhelmed and you die a painful, sudden death.”
“And the best case scenario?”
“The best case scenario is that noting bad happens at all. You learn to self regulate and adjust your behavior as needed when you sense shifts in your internal chemistry”
“And the most likely of the two?”
“Well that would put you somewhere in between, depending on what combination of hormones and neurotransmitters are out of balance, your symptoms could carry widely from anxiety to weight gain to fits of anger to abnormally dry skin”
“But, I could potentially learn to manage the symptoms?”
“Potentially, yes, but it will be very difficult, your own body will be against you”
Mia sighed “Well a little weight gain beats going bankrupt”