My Robo-Buddies came in clutch. They mao defeat the lo Sinn's door by sing it extra hard, with their particle beams, for a millised. Probes for the win.

  Sinn's apartment, which was located in Kabuki Town, had bee in a messy state. Not the type of mess that indicated someone ransacked her pce, more the, "I don't know what ing supplies are" and "anization, what's that?" kind of mess. As the Probes went to work sing each cluster of disanization, I specifically searched for notes or datachips. Anything at all, that might be a quicker method of dedug where she might have gone. No luck there. Oher hand, one of the Probes found some odd soil on a pair of her boots. The caked on dirt wasn't odd because it looked out of por didn't it have an unusual color or odor. No, it was odd because it lit up the Probe's radiatioer to sky high levels.

  So, she had been marg through mud by what? A reactor, A nuclear waste dump or somewhere a nuke had been dropped? I o myself, it ce to start. I searched quickly on the ope for local reactors, a bombings. Any nuclear waste dumping robably illegal, so it wouldn't help to bother searg the for those detes. I pihe results of those searches, while I let my thoughts t to other ideas.

  Indeed, my mind was running off into a dozen different dires. Did someoually grab her, or was she holed up at a ripper somewhere? Did she head back out to where ever this radiation was a zeroed? Carefully clearing a spa her couch, I sat down then I called up every Ripper I could find listed. A swing and a miss. I tried Vik , because he's not listed and hears a lot of the word oreet. This was sadly, also a failure. He took the time to remio e in for a check-up, when I had more time to get examined. I gave him my thanks and said that I'd schedule it ohis mess was resolved. Then I tried the Hospitals, zilch. I thought about trying Trauma Team, but there was no way that they would share any info with me. My pool of eddies was no where near rge enough to ihem.

  My Probes tio find nothing but the signs of a life uned with, self improvement or maybe even self preservations. The only picture I could take away from her apartment was that she was on the edge of falling into a real downward spiral. She was starting to pletely withdraw, both from her usual is but also her ever shrinking pool of friends. Rita seemed to be the only person she had been talking to at anything more than a professional level. Which expined why Rita was on the ath, she had known this was ing.

  Alright, my logiext step, should be to go and poke around the louclear reactors looking for leaks. There were two that still maintaiandard operations. One up in the Northside Industrial Distrid the sed smaller one just south of Pacifica.

  I messaged Rita with my progress and my ideas. She firmed some of my theories. Sinn had iarted doath of social isotion. Then she informed me that Sinn's former pack denied any involvement with her. Their words were, "We don't need no weak gonks, you keep her." I hadn't like anything Sinn had told me about her fang. Now, I felt an irrational desire to track these Animals down and start introdug them to my Robo-Buddies. No, stay on task.

  I decided to go and poke around the reactor to the North first. This would get the rgest area out of the way, as the northeror was at least double the size of the one in Pacifica. Though if I was being ho, thanks to Sinn's initial warning about the southern parts of Night City, I really didn't want to have to search there.

  There were still several hours of night time left, which made keeping the Probes out of sight an easier task. My gut kept g up, it was trying to tell me that I was missing something. Yet, my brain had no insights and no great ideas. So we headed north in the Villefort.

  Sometimes you get lucky in the worst ways.

  While driving a plete circle around the Northside Nuclear Pnt, the Probes trying to get some initial readings, ened upon an active Scav camp by one of the t pools. It was tucked away, down one of the road leading deeper into the Reactor's plex. We had missed it the first time we drove by that road, but on a sed pass, I caught sight of a couple of Scavs fug around in the road. Knowing Sinn's distaste for the bastards, I had the thought that she might have been stalking this group. So we ditched the van and decided to iigate further.

  Their camp was very makeshift, with RVs and shacks built onto trailers. It seemed that the Scavs were stealing a page from the Nomads' pybook. Thought there were no signs that the Scav scum took care of any of the equipment or vehicles. Instead of perf maintehere were a few dozen of the masked bastards dang around a barrel fire all blitzed out of their skulls s, while a few others were using BD wreaths, plopped down on old and disgusting couches. Celebrating? Well, we couldn't let them have a good night, they'd have to pay the toll for being scop sug assholes.

  My mind wasn't in a rational pce, and I wasn't feeling like being subtle about this, so I started marg angrily towards them. My Probes were already sweeping around the camp to fnk them. I didn't bother to hide my approach, but the fuckers didn't bother to notice me anyway. It was long past time to test my new Omaha on live targets. I walked right up to the main cluster of them sitting or dang around a fire singing weird songs and ughing at stupid jokes. My pistol barely made a noise as six rounds found their new homes. The Robo-Buddies took that as the sign to start zapping.

  By the time I refocused my aim on the sed group, the Scav assholes had barely started to get a clue. It didn't matter because they were still too fucked up to make much of an effort to protect themselves. Five nearly airsoft level pops, and five more corpses hit the ground.

  Then a round bouny shield. I turoward were it seemed to e from and fired, that Sow had a new hole in his lung that I could see through from here. Then I was out. I took my time ging to a fresh mag. I felt o rush, my shielding was doing it's job well.

  The Probes were having a field day zapping every Scav they could find. There was almost a vindictive element to the Robo-Buddies beeps. Not that I bmed them, but maybe I was teag my little friends the wrong lessons. Then I shrugged, while ftlining a few more Scavs, that were trying to get away. Some people just needed killing, and the Scavs more than qualified.

  We had done ruesome task well, and at that point all that was left were the few Scavver gonks using the BDs. I found some duck tape nearby and then proceeded to mummify the bastards. The thinking was that I or the Moxes might want someoo question ter. While I was doing that, I had the Probes start sing everything. Somewhere in all of this mess, I realized I had named my Robo-Buddies.

  One of the Probes liked to bob about randomly while h, I Jitters. The other Probe liked to hum little tuo itself, but they distorted, so I Buzz. Funny, I only seem to hese guys after or during a battle, but maybe the Robo-Buddies deserve better. Still the Khai were a warrior culture, and traditions had a way of improving moral, so I guess it was fine. Hell, the little guys seemed to enjoy their new designations.

  'Energy signature of the area matches the soil from the apartment, Executor.' Jitters informed me a mier. Okay, that was extremely lucky. We'd somehow just ended up searg in the right area first. What were the odds of that?

  'Executor, ss of the victim's corpses has found a body that matches subject Sinnamin's biodata.' Buzz messaged. What?

  "What?" I felt the world slow down.

  'Ss of the victims, has uncovered a corpse with subject Sinnamin's biodata.' Buzz reiterated. No, not like this.

  No, no, no.

  This couldn't be happening. She knew not to fuck around with Scavs. Why would she have e out here by herself? Revenge? With this many? No, she'd have called Rita for backup.

  I shuffled over to one of the piles of discarded corpses that were behind the rgest RV. I dug through it, I had to remove over a dozen corpses before finding Sinn's ripped open remains. Her face bore signs of horror, being on a Scav's table again was her worst nightmare, but given the excessive damage she had otherwise taken, she had gone down fighting. Some broken part of me roud of her, she'd fought until the end.

  Tears, that I didn't feel I had the right to shed, streamed down my face as I hugged her grim remains to my chest. Somehow, I wasn't affected by the smell or the mess, these things simply didn't matter anymore. I pulled her free and carried what was left of her to a couch. Searg around for something to cover Sinn, led me to a body bag. In fact, there were plenty of bags just tossed about. I didn't stop to ponder why the Scavs would have body bags, I simply took the bag. I ope aly pced her body inside before resettling her remains on the couch. For some undefinable reason, I spent the hour tearing through all the stored ans and cyberware to find Sinn's and id them in the bag with her. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Zipping up that bag was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Realistically, there was nothing I could have done. But to my traumatized mind, that really didn't matter right now. Some part of me was aware that my Robo-Buddies were frantically h around me, making low soft beeps. Later, I discover this was when my Probes learned sorrow.

  Then, for no reason I could ever put into speech, I picked up the victim from the pile aed my previous as for them, includiurning their ans to them. My as were almost pletely on autopilot. Somewhere in there, between s out victims, I vaguely remembered calling Rita and givihe location and the terrible news.

  The Mox got there as I was finishing with the st body, the sun had long since risen. It's rays bathing my iableau in all its morbid splendor. 37 bags id out in rows tered around the couch with Sinn's body. All they could see was of me was, a crazy man covered in rotting flesh and blood, that had tried desperately t order to the chaos in his head.

  I colpsed onto the ground, somehow there were tears still rolling down my cheeks. They let me have my space.

  The harrowing screams of the two Scavs, I'd ed up before, sted for hours. The folks from the Mox knew how to make things hurt, and knew how t it out. Occasionally, there were words mixed in with the screams, ao questions I hadn't heard. Their agony distorted every word into pure animal whines and shrieks. I didn't care, I couldn't care, much as they didn't care when their victims were on the operating table. Their suffering wasn't real to me, while my thoughts were focused inward dealing with the all the turmoil left there. Slowly I pulled together some form of myself again. Though I doubted this new version of me would be quite the same.

  As I once again became aware of my surroundings, I found I erfectly okay with whatever the Mox had doo them. I probably wouldn't have tortured them myself, but I wasn't a hundred pert certain of that either. I was certainly on board with ending them, even before I knew about Sinn. So why did the details matter so muymore?

  Why did Sinn's death hit me so hard? I barely knew her. A couple of dozen hours of questions with a few life stories mixed in. Was it because despite every other factor, she seemed human to me? Real in way that a lot of the people roaming this city were not, at least not to me. Or was it because I was just too soft for this pce? Empatheti all the ways that Night City strips from the people living here while they are growing up. After all, what was one more body in Night City?

  In that moment, I felt the dark twisted spirit of the City pulsing with the need for more souls to feed on. A gaping maw that would ruly be satisfied. It was like it was void of all life energy and trying to fill itself with whatever it could. Night City whispered dreams of money, power and status to fatten folks up, before it sucked it all away.

  How do you "save" such a pce? Burn it to the ground? Sure, I'd joked to myself that the city o burn, and I'd heard others that live here do the same. Yet, even if that happened, and everything was wiped away, would the tormented spirit of this metropolis be freed? Or would the people who iably rebuild on the ashes find the city's soul eveier, hungrier.

  My meditations ended with no real answers, no sense of peace or even a new dire to strive towards. I felt hollow inside, maybe the city had already broken another mind, another soul. Mine.

  This is when my mind, my subscious rebelled, for ck of a better term. It started talking to me. It snorted.

  Stop being so dramatic. It serves no purpose. You are not a philosopher. You are a tradesman, you work with your hands. Build your solution! When things go to shit, repair them as best you and work to keep things in oing forward. Or tear it down and build airely new path. Look at you, look at your achievements. Take a long hard look at where you are and what you have. You have magic, you have awesome teology. Surely, somewhere in all of those tools, there exists an ahis wallowing iion will not help anyone, especially yourself. Yes mourn, yes feel, but uand that a will always do more t these troubles to their proper rest.

  Having my own thoughts chastise me foing emo was a surreal experience. I couldn't recall that ever happening before.

  I picked myself up and dusted myself off and cast a se without thinking about it. When I realized how that might not have been the best idea, I was thankful that none of Moxes present where paying any attention to me. If they noticed that I was now , well, I owed them nothing. I didn't trust them enough to expin my abilities to them. Yet.

  The screams had stopped. I walked over to Sinn's body, holy surprised that none of the Mox had moved it. "May you find peace, whatever that means to you." I spoke with a odd ce, like I had dohis before. Odd as that was, I knew in that moment this wouldn't be the st time that I performed this ritual.

  Jitters and Buzz bumped against me, I could tell it was a gesture of support. They were also eager for attention. I absently patted them.

  The Moxes that had been involved in the questioning, started moving from where they had been attending to the Scavs. They had used the shack with all the Scavs' cutting tools. A fitting irony.

  Rita and the dy with the huge 'fro I had seen my first time at Lizzie's came over to talk to me. My guess was that the other dy would be Susie.

  "You okay? You seemed really out of it there, Ryan." Rita asked. A genuine . Rita, gruff though she was, seemed to still actually care about folks. Some part of me couldn't help but look upon her favorably.

  "No, I'm pretty fug far from okay." I shook my head, and waved a hand nontly, "But I'm getting there. What did you find out? Any clue why she was out here?"

  Susie stared at me, her eyes said that she wao put me on that table with the Scavs. Rita started to speak but Susie cut her off. She stepped into my spad poked my chest hard with her very pointy finger. She s me, "We got nothing, other than she oking around, looking for someone or something. Maybe you?"

  She'd asked that like she was certain that was the reason. She'd already made up her mind. To her, I was guilty, and she wanted a piee in payment.

  "Sinn knew I have a pce out in the badnds. If she had been looking for me, she wouldn't have do here." I stared at Susie ftly, about two seds from killing her, sequences be damned. Her attitude was uandable, but in this moment unwele. I was way too raw to be reasonable. Rita pushed her way between us. I noticed she was actually pushing Susie back but was only holding her hand towards me. Which meant she didn't think she could push me back, or that she shouldn't. Another point for Rita in my books.

  "Hold up. There's no reason to fight here." She turo Susie, "Ryan and Sinn talked a few times, but she'd no reason to be searg for him. She didn't have feelings for anybody, as far as anyone knew. She'd started isoting herself... "

  They shared a look, something about Sinn's isotion suggested something to them. Somethiher one of them liked.

  Susie grunted, "Alright, then who or what was she looking for?" She looked away. Guess I wasn't getting an apology.

  "All I know is that she had been out here several times before. A pair of her boots had mud from out here. I still have no cue if she was hunting for the Scavs, or something else. Obviously, the Scavs nabbed her while she was searg, and she wasn't prepared for them. She went out fighting, but nothing suggests they she had been looking for a fight. I'll keep hunting around, see if I find where she was fog her search. Maybe that'll give some answers." I addressed the st to Rita. I wasn't doing shit for or with Susie.

  Now that my Probes had sed Sinn, they could more accurately sniff out her trail, so to speak. It would give me something to do, and maybe help put this all to rest.

  "We'll take care of the rest of the up here." Rita cut in over whatever Susie was going to say , "Let me know what you find."

  I nodded and started walking bay van. As I was leaving, I heard Rita arguing with Susie, "Ryan's been solid in all of this, and you jumped down his throat. I've warned you that you have to stop getting in peoples' faces like that. He was about to ftline you and I couldn't have stopped him in time." I was too far away to hear Susie's reply, and I didn't care about it anyway. My time of dealing with the Mox was over, for now. They had nothing I needed, nothing I wanted. Rita was alright, but she wasn't anything like a friend. If I found out what Sinn was hunting for I'd let her know. I had a feeling that when I really started making my moves in NC, we'd end up on opposite sides.

  If that day came, I'd have to see if I still cared enough to try a diplomatic approach.

  We Drove around the nuclear facility yet agaiing Jitters and Buzz s every little piece of nd. I'd started to feel a bit worse about myself. I could've hahe iion with the Mox and especially Rita, better. Though as I dug through my thoughts about it, I couldn't be bothered to drum up enough motivation to care. No, it was better to spend my brain power thinking about the future right now.

  Before I had left my new outpost, the Robo-Buddies seemed to be digging the tuo the broken bridge at rate of about 400' an hour. After some questionable mental math, I came up with a timetable hly 28 days until we reached the broken bridge area. Whi and of itself wasn't a problem, however, I'd told Amanda to chee by the bridge in a few days. That meant that I should head back to base, soon, probably tomorrow. Well if I could figure this mess with Sinn out, or at least reach a pusible answer, head back would be fine. I saw no reason to stick around this hellhole anymore. Really, I just wao get away from yet aragedy.

  One of the many reasons my Probes were awesome, was because they required almost no mianaging. Given a few instrus, they could and they would take care of it, while I was gone. In fact, I really respected the Khai ability to design and create AIs that not only seemed to be truly alive but were also mentally stable. The emotional parts were troubling, but so far I had no reason to believe my little Robo-Buddies were going to go all terminator on me.

  Buzz started beeping for my attention. I stopped the van. "What've you got?"

  "Readings indicate that subject Sinn was in this area." Finally, a lead. I was more than ready to put this chapter of my life to rest.

  "Alright, you guys sweep for tracks or any ns of where she was going." I said monotonously. They detached and began to fly bad forth searg for clues. I watched them for a moment, enjoying their systematic patterns. After awhile I turned my attention to the other things in the area. There was another t pond nearby and several long squat buildings whose purpose eluded me. Maybe buildings full of instruments to measure the radiation. Who could say? I began to wonder, who evehese roads? Most of the power pnt was automated at this point.

  Tired of being trapped in my own thoughts, I sighed. Then I turned on the radio. Some song about how someone didn't mean to let someone else doying. Yeah, I have the worst luck with car stereos. To say that the song hurt, was an uatement, but I left it on. Might as well face it head on. Only the most insane idiot would think I'd let Sinn down. Maybe I was that idiot, because I sure felt like I'd fucked up somehow.

  Jitters came back to the van, "We found a trail and it leads to a resting spot."

  "Good job. Lead on." I quickly followed them across the muddy grounds. We ended up leaving the nuclear pnt's property ahen by a random seeming warehouse, which as far as I could tell was empty. Then we circled around to the eastern side of the build to discover a toolshed.

  I could smell a foul odor e from the shed. Human waste. Argh. Opening the shed reveal that this was where Sinn had been... camping I guess. There was a sleeping bag and air mattress, some personal effects, and a lot of discarded food packages. There was even a camping toilet, the source of the horrid stench, requirio carry the odorous ister a few hundred yards away. Then I gave the shed a while to air out. Night City fast food produces some extremely toxic waste. Then after sitting a few days in the unusual heat... I was just lucky I wasn't spewing all over the pce.

  When I could tolerate going ba there, I tore through everything. My search turned up nothing and I still didn't really uanding why she'd chosen this spot. I'd sat on her mattress feeling lost aed, when I saw it. A small hole had been cut into the cated metal pahat made up the shed. Huh. I put my eye near it. The only thing I saw was a cluster of those tough but scraggly looking bushes that dotted the Badnds What was so special about some bushes?

  I decided we o get a good look at the bushes from up-close. I'd spotted tracks before I even got to the bushes, weaving around through the mud, little ohey looked familiar, rabbit maybe. I hunted around the bushes and found scat shaped like little pellets. Yeah, definitely seemed like a rabbit or something simir. After poking into the bushed themselves, I found a burrow. That was enough, I got an idea how this all went down now. I quickly headed back towards the van, because I didn't want to spook the little varmints.

  Sinn had been camping out to watch fug rabbits. Because they were so rare, she had probably never seen anything like them before. At least, not in real life. Maybe the odd rat, but even that wasn't a normal enter in NC. Why she'd e out here in the first pce, I'd probably never know, but this was absolutely why she'd kept ing back.

  Oh, that hurt so fug much. I damned near started g again. She'd just wao see some cute fug critters. Big giant of a woman, just wao see some soft little animals. If I'd known, I could of shown her all the fluffy little beasts she'd ever want to see. Then she'd still be kig and at least somewhat happier. Again, I k wasn't my fault, but fuck that knowledge burned.

  I spent a few minutes refleg on this mess before I called Rita. I gave her the full rundown. What I found, where it was and my theory on why it probably went s.

  Rita spent a few mio process everything. "That actually tracks. She was obsessed with movies and BDs that featured animals, especially ones where you could i with them. That's so sad." She pause for a moment, "Hey Ryan, I'm sorry about Susie earlier. She's under a lot of pressure, with Tyger Cws messing with our s. She's starting to see enemies everywhere." This was my problem how? No, I uood why Rita was tellihis, but I wasn't feeling much charity towards Susie right now. I simply had nothi in my emotional tank.

  "It's okay. Water uhe bridge." I stared down the road thinking about where I'd go .

  "Look don't be a stranger. I tell this really got to you. I uand. You need an ear. I'll listen." She seemed to actually mean it. Sometimes even hard folk soften up a bit.

  "Thanks Rita, I'll see you ter." I started the Van. The Probes reattached a going back to our little outpost. We'd give it a quick checkup before heading back to the Valley.

  I was still trying to get rid of all this pain, but I had no idea how to start.