Mistrunner 4 (Mistborn/Cyberpunk)

Vin-ettes

“Have you ever fired a gun before?” Robert Wilson asked, eyeing up the tiny woman. She was only 5 feet tall, and thin, without any obvious signs of cybernetic enhancements that would let her fire something heavy like the guns on the shelf she was eyeing up.

“No,” she said bluntly, causing the gunshop owner to do a double take.

“Well, least you’re honest about it. Alright,” he said, taking a survey of the store. The ‘Second Amendment’ was pretty dead right now, so he could afford to take a break from the front desk. “Come with me to the shooting range. You can get a feel for how the iron handles before you decide on what to get. I’ll need to take a five eddy fee for the bullets,” he said, admitting it a bit guilltily. Wilson didn’t want to charge for that, but he needed to put some price tag on it to stop people from using it for free.

The girl, Vin, surprised him by pulling out a five from a stack of bills and passing it to him. It was odd to see someone carry that much money physically on them, would mark them out as a juicy mark. Which was likely why she wanted the iron, he realized.

Vin strode off quickly to the range, taking her place in one of the booths. Wilson slapped the gun, a pretty light pistol on the shelf along with some bullets. Rather than reach for it immediately, she stared at it, like it was still somewhat foreign to her. “Alright, first things first, before we go firing these things willy nilly, you need to show proper gun safety.”

Rather than argue like most gonks, she nodded respectfully, waiting for instructions, eagerly drinking in every lesson he taught her. That was the easy part, though. The more telling factor would be what happened when she fired.

With the lesson’s imparted, he took a step back, letting her fire the gun down the range. She went through a few rounds, her first few shots going wild, then improving, then, oddly enough, going wide again in ways that baffled Wilson and had him checking his optics to see if something was wrong with his eyes because he was pretty sure shots couldn’t change trajectories like that. He shook it off as just a glitch after as on the fourth clip and beyond, she started nailing the bullseyes every time.

She put the gun down safely afterward before turning to him, which filled Wilson’s heart with joy. Despite the thrill of having fired a gun for the first time, she hadn’t forgetten his lessons. Right there he decided to give her a small discount when she purchased her first piece, just for that.

“Thank you, but do you have anything that… hits harder? Or faster? Or both?” She asked, a small frown on her face. “This gun works well, but many people here are more armored than they look.” She said the last part as if subdermal armor existed as a personal slight to her.

“Well sure, we got heavier pieces, but are you sure you can handle them? They got a lot more kick than that ____.” She had handled it remarkably well, however, so when she nodded, he decided to give her a chance with a Mandalorian Arms. 

Vin had to brace a bit for its first shot, but the rest of the chamber barely moved her arms, making Wilson wonder briefly what this girl was made of. When she placed it down and looked expectantly for more, the store owner sighed, and started running her through the gamut.

The machine guns she handled decently, but she seemed to dislike, preferring the rifles and pistols over them. Eventually, having gone through the rest of his library, he finally handed her a Burya. The gun was thicker than Vin’s forearm, but given how she handled the rest of the iron, he was confident that she wouldn’t break her arms at least.

“This one isn’t the easiest iron to wield, but if you’re looking for heavy damage up close, you can’t beat it. Go and give it a try.”

She held the gun up, taking aim, and firing. The first shot, despite her bracing for it, had it flying back to whack her in the face. Her nose was bleeding, but before Wilson could rush over, she waved him off (keeping the gun pointed down the lane). Then she took her next shot. The gun still jerked heavily in her hands, but didn’t nail her again.

When she took a breath before her next shot, the gun owner felt something change, even before the steady shot was fired. And then again, and again, hitting accurately each time, tearing off massive chunks from the target due to the force of the huge gun.

As she finished her rounds and placed it down, Wilson saw an assured smile on her face. “I’ll take it.”

***

“Bad news gang,” Roxane said to the crew. “Some gonk was dumb enough to leave a witness alive,” she said, directing her words at Freddy who wilted in on himself. “So we’ve got someone after our loot. Word on the street is-” aka: her Solo cousin who knew the biz and was good enough to occasionally get invited to the Afterlife. “-That we’ve got a hit put out on us. Someone called ‘Vin’ is out for one of the shards we klepped.”

Before she could give a rousing pep talk (aka; telling her boys to get their shit together), Davy groaned. “That’s it, chooms, we’re cooked.” He grabbed out a can of synth-vodka and took a swig of it before huddling closer to the fire. They were camped out under an overpass, waiting for the heat to die down so they could slink back to Santo Domingo.

“What gives? It’s just a Solo. Sure, they might have a bit more chrome than us, but there’s four of us. We can take him,” Roxane scoffed. Hei Lin shook his head slowly, which worried Roxane; hee was usually the steadiest hand in her crew.

“This is not some gunk with a gun and a few subdermals who thinks they’re invincible,” he began slowly, the world around them seeming to grow darker at his words.” I’ve heard she’s a ghost, a super netrunner that can hack through any system without leaving a trace. She can even blind your optics to her presence, so you can’t perceive her.”

“Okay, spooky, but if we know that we can deal with her. C’mon, let’s just reset our Kiroshis and go offline for a bit, then we’ll-” Roxane began before getting cut off by Davy.

“Naw, he’s no Netrunner, he’s some Arasaka or Militech Super Soldier project. They bioengineered him to be as stealthy as possible, but gave him super strength too. He’s torn people in half with his bare hands and wields a gun larger than your head.”

“So wait, he’s first a super hacker and now he’s got no hacking at all? Make up your minds!”

“I-I-I’ve heard they’ve got arcane powers granted from an occult entity beyond our knowing. It warps their minds towards conflict to absorb data from their mind.” Freddy added and Roxane sighed heavily. Three different, totally incompatible datasets, each equally useless to her.

“I can confirm that last one isn’t true,” a voice above her said.

“Yeah, what do you… know,” Roxane wheezed as she looked up to see a figure wreathed in shadow, hanging on the underside of the overpass, directly above them.

“Shit shit shit! Fire on that go-” She was cut short by all the weapons they had at their sides or holstered to their hips flying up of their own accord towards Vin, before she tossed them out, sending them flying possibly a mile away, off in the distance.

“Ahhhh! It’s true! She does have magic powers!” Freddy said, the skinny teen boy running off down the hill, hoping to flee.

“Fucking gonk, won’t share a damn bit of our payday with that idiot.” Seeing the rest of her crew on the verge of breaking too she said, “C’mon, look at those gloves, it’s just some magnetic tech or something, we can still get her.”

Picking up largeish rock in her Gorilla Arms, she tossed it up at the woman. With one hand, she swiped the improvised projectile out of the air and tossed it down back at Roxane, but with even more force. The rock hit her hand, shearing off two fingers and breaking parts of the palm, leaving the exposed and broken wires sparking and the palm seizing as error messages pinged her agent.

“FUCK!” She shouted as the woman dropped down, landing on top of Davy and kicking off of him. Hei Lin had been pulling out a moltov cocktail but froze as she backfliped gracefully over the man, drawing her iron as she did so, placing the barrel of it at the base of his skull.

“What are you waiting for, get her!” Roxane growled out, only to feel another flicker of fear as the woman spoke.

“You’ve lost. Give me the shards, and I won’t have to take your lives.” It was their ticket to a big payday, the road to living large in Night City. part of Roxane wanted to resist, to fight against this petite woman. But seeing Davy on the ground and Hei Lin held hostage, her own arm wrecked, despair washed over her as the fear ramped up. They wouldn’t live to see the day where they could be living large in the city if she refused now.

With her good arm, she shot out the shard, and tossed it over to the woman. Then, at her cool gaze, Roxane tossed over the bag with the rest of the shards they klepped, not just the important one on the merger deal the company they’d robbed from was about to make.

“There you got it all. You happy? Now let us… go.” Without another word, one of the growing legends of Night City leapt away, soaring dozens of meters up and across the air, towards a nearby building, then leaping from there to the next.

***

“Shit! We’ve got company!” Brass, an old ex-Militech veteran called out, as more guards poured in after them, hefting Sable over his shoulder. The diminutive girl had boasted about being a ‘jack of all trades’ and Brass supposed he couldn’t argue with that - in that she got off quickhack and a half off and two shots before eating lead and was now bleeding heavily from the gut.

She still offered a little covering fire against the security forces running after them, but the main deterrent was Vin, their ‘infiltration specialist.’ She’d got them inside the Biotechnica lab easily enough, but after the hidden alarm was triggered when they pulled out the information, she’d been serving as the point against the security bots and guards. Each of the robots were taken out in quick succession, those magnetic gauntlets she wore smashing them apart, and even deflecting the bullets the guards got off around her before she’d rip those weapons away too.

It wasn’t enough to stop all the damage, Brass taking a hit on his cybernetic kneecap from a turret before Vin caused the structure to break and be torn nearly off its hinges. Vin didn’t have a spot on her however, gracefully dancing amidst the firefight.

A quick shot over her shoulder with that oversized Burya shattered the glass security doors and they made it out of the hallways and down the stairs. A few flights they raced down, only encountering one labtech who seemed dazed and surprised by the alarms for all of a second before Brass zero’d him on the spot. He wasn’t taking chances here, even if he thought he saw a flash of a frown on Vin’s face.

Bursting through the lobby, they found it thankfully empty (few corps guarded side building lobbies beyond metal detectors and maybe a guard or two that had likely been called away - automated defenses in very public facing spaces lead to too many lawsuits). There were heavy shutters closed down over the main exit, which was a pain. “Think you can handle those with yer fancy gloves?” Brass asked, swiveling around to face the interior entrances, gun ready to provide covering fire against any guards that raced after them.

“I’ll try,” was Vin’s clipped response, the girl rushing to the shutters, squatting down to grip them at the base and lifting. With a shriek, the metal crumpled and twisted, rising up. Heaving it up, Vin placed herself beneath it, pushing up even harder and forcing the heavy metal up. 

Brass darted through the opening, running to the outside and racing to the getaway car across the street. Sliding in the back, he placed Sable across the seats, the girl having lost consciousness. Vin paused standing outside the vehicle with a perplexed expression on her face.

“What the fuck are you waiting for! We gotta delta!”

“I’ve never driven before,” Vin admitted in a small voice.

“The fuc- ah dammit, another vessel ruptured. Shit! Just figure it out, one pedal to brake and one to accelerate, the wheel to steer. It ain’t rocket science and I’ve gotta patch up Sable.” Brass doubted the odd petite woman had as much skill in field repairs as he did, which left her as the getaway driver.

After a second, she steeled herself and stepped into the driver’s seat. The car was already turned on, and she pressed on the gas hard, the car lurching forward before slamming to a stop, throwing Brass and Sable around. “The fuck do you think yer doin’?”

“Sorry.” Vin squeaked before trying again. It was still jerky, but less so than before, until she hit the intersection and turned.

“What are we driving on here, ice?” Brass wondered aloud as he tried to staunch the bleeding. 

“The vehicle doesn’t turn smoothly,” she shot back.

“Oh sure, blame it on the car! Last time I work with you,” Brass grumbled.

“God, can’t a girl die in peace?” Sable groaned rhetorically, her eyes fluttering open.

“Just hold on - literally!” Brass cried, gripping a seatrest as he took another turn, wondering how anyone could be this bad at driving.

In the end, they made it clear to the ripperdoc, but by the next morning Brass saw the newsfeeds filled with reports of the ‘worst driver to ever grace Night City’s Streets.’ Despite the low mortality count compared to some common cases of road rage in Night City, brass couldn’t find it in him to disagree with that assessment.

A/N: For anyone wondering about the name of this one, it’s just a really dumb pun on Vin’s name and ‘vignette’ being a small look into her life. Also just had fun making fun of the driving system in the game.