3 Living with your worst enemy
Eva barely slept that night. How could she? Gizmo and Han were giving each other death-stares the whole night, quite literally sleeping with a gun under their pillows. Mykel was just up the whole night, possibly worried that one of the gang members will slit his throat in the middle of the night. Tensions were through the roof.
It wasn't any better in the morning. Eva awoke to the sound of yelling, finding Gizmo aiming her shotgun at the bathroom door.
It'd be bad enough sharing a single bathroom with any regular old roommate…when your roommate is quite literally your worst enemy, AND he's the type to spend an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom, you'd be excused for wanting to murder him.
"Don't even think about it!!" Eva pulled out her dusty old revolver.
"This Tyger prick's been in there the WHOLE MORNING!!! The Corpo and I have agreed, he needs to go!!!" Gizmo yelled, "yeah!!" Mykel meekly chimed in.
"No killing, or…I'll shoot myself!!" Eva pointed the revolver at herself.
"…Is that supposed to deter me?" Gizmo questioned.
"It should" Eva slowly got up off her bed, the revolver still pressed against her head, "…I haven't been in this city for very long…but I do know, if I kill myself, the NCPD will turn this into a crime scene, and you three? Well…you'll be kicked out, with no place to stay…and considering you haven't moved out yet, I'm assuming you guys aren't exactly in the best spot financially" she looked between Gizmo and Mykel.
"The NCPD can't just kick us out, it's our property!! We paid for this place, right?" Mykel pointed out.
"…Welcome to Street Life, Corpo…" Gizmo sighed, putting her gun away.
Eva nodded, slowly lowering her revolver, "…good…"
The bathroom door slid open, and Han stepped out with a hairbrush in his hand, "you can't afford to be trigger-happy, Mox" he sneered as he walked past her.
———
"It's a disaster" Eva stood outside of her apartment, speaking on the phone with Zeus, "I'd try and maintain peace, only to find them trying to kill each other less than a minute later, it's been a week, I can't live like this!!!"
"You can't expect rival gang members to just live peacefully, it's like expecting us to live comfortably with corpos, it'd never work out, you might as well just give up at that point" Zeus stated.
"Oh yeah, there's a Corpo too"
"Ohhhh…well, scratch what I said earlier, maybe you can try and…have them be less hostile to each other? Back before you joined up with us, I and some of the other nomads would have game nights, we got to know more about each other, and had fun while doing it" Zeus suggested.
"Game night…what, like board games? Where would I get that?" Eva sighed.
"It's Night City, you can find anything there, just gotta look hard" Zeus shrugged, "it'll work out, I'm sure"
———
Later that evening, Eva returned to the apartment with a plastic bag full of old board games, ones from the early 2000s.
"Took me a while, but I was able to ste- purchase…some board games" she announced as she entered.
Gizmos ignored her completely, focused on calibrating a neon green prosthetic arm.
Han seemed to be carving a snake onto the wall, and Mykel was ironing his shirt.
"…Guys…I have board games…" Eva announced again.
Nobody cared.
"…Fuck it" Eva tossed the board games aside, "can't you assholes just work together? From morning to night, you're all at each other's throats, threatening each other, swinging your guns around, I'm fucking tired…literally and figuratively!!"
"I'd rather die before I work with one of those plastic bitches" Han spoke up.
"I'm more than happy to grant that request" Gizmo fired back.
"Uncivilized dogs" Mykel muttered under his breath, hoping the others couldn't hear.
"FUCK!! YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF ASSHOLES, Y'KNOW THAT?!"
Suddenly, the room was pitch black, followed by a moment of silence, possibly the most quiet it's been since they started living here.
"…You plastic freak, did you do this?!" Han yelled.
"No way!!" Gizmo yelled, rushing to the door, only to find its locked shut.
"Fuck!!! Goddamn it!!" Gizmo kicked the door, "what's going on?!" Eva asked.
"Probably just a blackout" Gizmo answered, "and since our door is electrically powered, if the power goes out, we'll basically be stuck like this…maybe for the whole night" she pouted.
"Crap, I was gonna head to Afterlife" Han punched the wall.
"Oh god!! Are they coming for me!!" Mykel panicked immediately.
"…So what now?" Gizmo crossed her arms.
Eva pulled out a lighter, a souvenir she kept from her Nomad days, flickering it, she grabbed a trash bin with multiple chocolate wrappers inside.
"The hell are you doing?" Han asked.
Eva lit the wrappers, causing fire to burst within the garbage bin, illuminating the entire room.
"Damn…old-fashioned, aren't ya?" Gizmo commented.
"Since there's nothing else to do…" Eva pulled out her board game, "how about a game of…Candyland?"
"…Fuck it" Han sat across from Eva as she was setting up the board.
"…Mm" Gizmo shrugged, sitting next to them.
"…Really?" Mykel looked between the three of them. Two hardened gangsters and a nomad, sitting down to play a children's board game…it's certainly a rare sight.
He reluctantly sat down, setting his briefcase next to him.
"…Great!! Let's play then, I'll be the red!!"
———
It was actually going well.
Gizmo and Han are still going at it, but rather than point their guns at each other, they're constantly trying to get ahead of the other in the game.
Mykel seemed genuinely into the game. Eva was just happy things were going well.
"Shit!! Licorice!!!" Han slammed the board.
"Ha!! Stupid Tyger!!" Gizmo stuck her tongue out.
Eva let out a chuckle, they're actually goofing around with each other.
They all suddenly paused upon hearing knocking at the door.
"Hm?" Gizmo immediately went for her shotgun.
"…Who is it?" Eva asked, getting no response.
"I don't like this" Han grabbed his rifle.
"Oh god, it's them!! They're here for me!!" Mykel latched onto his briefcase.
Eva grabbed her revolver, aiming it at the door.
There was silence.
Bullets suddenly started bursting through the door, Eva and the others quickly got behind cover as the door was busted open.
"Who the hell?!" Eva took a peek, seeing several armed guards.
"Hands up!!" One of them ordered.
Mykel hid behind cover, holding onto his briefcase.
"…Surrender and we will let you go, resist and we will be forced to execute!!" The guard shouted.
Gizmo and Han glanced at each other, "…you know them?" He asked, "nuh-uh…I'm guessing you don't either…" she shook her head.
"…Fine…Search the room, kill anyone you see" the guard ordered.
Eva suddenly blasted the guard in the head with her revolver, taking out a huge chunk of his head.
The guards all began firing at her direction as she quickly went back into cover.
"FUCK!!!" Mykel screamed.
Han peeked at the guards, there were three left.
While the guards focused her attention on Eva, Gizmo grabbed her neon arm from earlier, throwing it at the guards, thus distracting them.
"What the hell?" "Is it a bomb?"
While they were distracted, Han aimed his rifle, taking out two of the guards with quick precision.
The final guard aimed his gun at Han, ready to fire, only for his vision to suddenly blur.
"SHIT-" the guard dropped to his knee.
"Go!!" Gizmo told Han, her eyes flashing blue.
Han grabbed his knife and went in for the kill, stabbing the guard in the throat.
"…Shit" he groaned, getting blood all over himself.
Mykel slowly got out of cover, seeing the bodies in the room, he slowly approached one, seeing a name on the vest that they were wearing.
"Nightcorp"
"What the hell did Nightcorp want with us?" Eva questioned.
"No no, more specifically, what did they want with YOU?" Gizmo turned to Mykel, "I saw you holding onto that briefcase for dear life…what's in that thing?"
"…It's confidential" Mykel stepped back.
"Yeah? Guess I'll just have to pry it off your body then" Gizmo glared.
"Okay look…in this briefcase is a chip containing hundreds of top secret shit, things that these companies wouldn't want to be out there…there's stuff about corporations testing out mind control, about AIs meant to replace you…all sorts of shady shit" Mykel explained, "and all these companies. NightCorp, Militech, even Arasaka, are willing to kill me for it"
"…Jesus Harold Christ…you've put us all in some real deep shit, ya know that?" Han gripped his rifle.
Mykel could tell, the three of them were wondering if it's really worth keeping him alive if it'd bring this much trouble to them.
"…Well, we just killed a buncha Nightcorp guards…we're pretty fucked either way" Gizmo kicked the dead body in front of her.
"…Every corporation in the world…after you…and by proxy, after us as well…Dude, you're a really shitty roommate, Y'know that?" Eva told him.
