Night City was a city of dreamers.
Gloria was no exception.
Her dream was simple. She wanted her son to graduate from Arasaka Academy, enter the Arasaka Corporation, and one day climb all the way to the top.
She had always believed that was the brightest future possible.
For that dream, she had nearly worked herself to the bone, scraping together multiple meager paychecks and living as frugally as possible just to keep David in school at Arasaka Academy.
She had always believed her child was the smartest, the best.
She had always believed that all her hard work and sacrifice would eventually pay off.
She was willing to burn herself up if it meant lighting the path for David to enter Arasaka.
But what happened today had poured a bucket of cold water over that dream.
She had been in the Glen in Heywood, trying to find another part-time job, when she unexpectedly received a notice from Arasaka Academy.
Her son had been ordered to withdraw from school.
She had no choice but to give up on job hunting and rush to the academy to deal with the situation.
That was when she learned what had happened.
David had upgraded his braindance headset using an unlicensed black-market pirated program. During remote class, it had infected the academy's online education network with a virus.
The entire system had crashed on the spot, and several other students' headsets had burned out along with it.
Faced with the principal's decision to expel her son, all she could do was beg and promise full compensation.
Only after the principal finally agreed did Gloria leave Arasaka Tower with David in the car.
She drove steadily along the elevated highway.
She had already warned him again and again to go get the braindance headset upgraded with licensed software.
And yet it had still gone wrong.
He had almost been expelled.
She knew David had only done it to save money, and she knew he had never intended to wreck the academy's online education network.
But she still could not help bringing it up.
"Didn't I tell you to go upgrade your headset?"
David did not dare look directly at his mother.
He could only weakly admit his mistake.
"It was my fault for going to a ripperdoc."
Gloria's tone immediately turned harsher.
"You made that decision on your own, and now we have to pay ten times the cost!"
Under his mother's relentless pressure, David could only turn to stare out the window, hiding his helplessness.
"Sorry..."
"If you're going to apologize, then you shouldn't have done something like this in the first place!"
"The first time I asked, you said we didn't have the eddies, so..."
"That was before payday! Of course we don't just have piles of cash lying around at home!"
She felt that none of her good intentions had been understood at all.
"And stop bouncing your leg!"
At the rebuke, David let out a helpless sigh.
Being out of place among his classmates, the crushing burden of poverty, and his mother's eager expectations all pressed down on him like mountains.
He wanted to pull himself out of that swamp.
So he tried to say what he really thought, even though he had no real hope it would work.
"Actually, lately I've been thinking..."
"Thinking about what?"
"I could leave school for a while. Try finding a job or something."
"What are you even talking about?!"
Gloria's emotions flared instantly.
"Mom, you know it too. We really can't afford the system repair fees."
David still frowned as he looked out the window. His leg had started bouncing again without him realizing it, but he kept speaking anyway.
"And I really don't fit in at that school."
"You don't know what it's like."
"If you're poor, nobody's ever going to take you seriously."
"No matter how hard I study, I can never become like them."
"And I don't even want to become like them."
Silence.
The entire car fell silent.
Deep down, Gloria's greatest wish was for David to graduate from Arasaka Academy, enter Arasaka, and keep climbing until he reached the upper levels of the corporation.
She did not want him living like she did, working herself to exhaustion every day just to barely survive.
In Gloria's eyes, David deserved a brighter future, a better path.
And that bright future was Arasaka.
The truth was, she did not really care that he had installed pirated software.
What she cared about was that Arasaka Academy had ordered him to withdraw.
Everything she had done had been for one purpose only: to make sure David graduated smoothly from Arasaka Academy.
David was still young. He had not truly suffered through the cruelty of society yet.
That was why he could still naively believe that finding just any job would be better than staying at Arasaka Academy.
Completely wrong.
Gloria knew all too well that in Night City, getting into a megacorp was the best future a person could hope for.
And studying at Arasaka Academy was the fastest shortcut into Arasaka.
The academy did not just offer the best education money could buy. Many of Arasaka's executives sent their children there too.
Those connections, those relationships, could all become a ticket into Arasaka's inner circles in the future.
In truth, David understood his mother's intentions too.
It was just that attending Arasaka Academy had not helped him fit into the world of the corporate elite.
It had only turned him into a target.
A joke.
At Arasaka Academy, he could not see a future.
He could not see friendship.
He could not see any place where he belonged.
His classmates isolated him and picked on him for one reason only.
Where he came from.
A long while passed.
Then Gloria choked up.
The hurt and sorrow inside her swelled until they clogged her chest like cotton.
"Then what have I been working so hard for?"
"I've been killing myself like this just so you could..."
"But now..."
"What do you think I've been doing all this time?"
Her voice was almost breaking into sobs now. All the blame and frustration from before had dissolved into tears.
David immediately turned to look at her.
The moment he saw the glimmer of tears in the corner of her eyes, shock flashed across his face.
His mother, who had always seemed so strong and independent, was crying.
This was the first time he had ever seen her cry.
"You're smart. And you're talented."
"That's why I've been working so hard to make money and raise you right."
"If you don't want to keep studying..."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
Gloria kept driving as tears ran down her face.
She was not crying for herself.
She was crying because David had been born at the bottom, and he still had no idea how dark his future could become.
She did not want him ending up like her, stuck doing the same low-paying jobs, maybe even risking his life doing illegal work just to survive.
David had no idea how to comfort her.
In the end, he could only back down again.
"I shouldn't have said that."
"I'm sorry. Please don't cry."
At that moment, a black executive sedan and a pink SUV were closing in from behind on both sides of their car, and neither of them had any idea danger was already bearing down on them.
Gloria understood that David needed comfort more than anything right now.
No matter how much pain she had to endure herself, she still wanted to encourage him.
"I know you don't fit in at school. And I know what your classmates do to you, because I've been through the same thing."
"That's exactly why we have to prove them wrong!"
She raised a hand and pointed upward.
"I want you to work hard, become an elite, and climb all the way to the top of Arasaka Tower!"
The moment she spoke of that dream, hope flared in her eyes again.
Her pupils shone with longing for a brighter future.
Gloria turned to look at David.
"I know you have that kind of talent. I know you can do it!"
David, however, looked completely used to hearing this dream by now.
He only sighed softly and leaned back in his seat, irritation creeping into his voice.
"Easy for you to say..."
"Huh?!"
David suddenly noticed something outside the window.
A heavy machine gun had appeared right beside the car, aimed straight at his side window.
"Mom..."
Before he could warn her, the gun opened fire through the window line toward the black executive sedan on the other side.
The terrifying barrage erupted in an instant.
David could only watch helplessly as countless bullets tore past him, shattering windows and ripping through car doors.
"Goddamn gang crossfire!"
(End of Chapter)
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