The first thing Carl became aware of wasn't the hospital lights, or the subtle hum of sterile medtech monitors—it was the smell. Burnt chrome, cheap antiseptic, fresh bandages, and something disturbingly close to fried soy-salmon. It all mixed in the recycled air with a kind of synthetic vengeance, like someone tried to cook brunch in a Trauma Team ambulance.
He blinked slowly, eyes adjusting as if rebooting from an OS crash. The ceiling was unfamiliar, smooth corporate white with a hint of Arasaka trim. Great. He was either alive or in one hell of a corpo-themed afterlife.
Voices reached him through the haze—low, irritated, chewing. He turned his head just enough to see two figures flanking the bed. One of them was already halfway through a bag of vending machine kibble, crunching loud enough to violate his eardrums. The other was muttering something about miracles and necromancy.
Carl opened his mouth to speak, throat dry and sandpaper-rough. "Tell me... they didn't let you near my life support."
Jackie leaned over, hopeful. "Nah, mano. I just unplugged one thing. Pretty sure it wasn't vital."
Somewhere in the distance, a monitor flatlined for dramatic—and entirely unintentional—effect.
"I feel like I just came back from the dead."
"Yeah, well, no shit—you were doing the death-dance on a tightrope for two straight days," Jackie said, crossing his arms at the foot of the hospital bed. "We were this close to losing you, choom."
Carl blinked hard, eyes adjusting to the white fluorescent overheads and the antiseptic bite of clean air. His body ached in ways he didn't think were medically possible. Slowly, he turned to the other side of the bed and stared at Oliver. "So, what the hell happened? I wake up and find Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber staring at me."
Oliver, sitting beside a medical cart, half-wrapped in gauze and looking like he'd lost a boxing match with a MaxTac riot drone, gave him a wry look. "If you're gonna insult us, Carl, maybe wait till you can breathe without grunting like a dying rhino."
"You didn't answer the question," Carl said, dragging himself upright with a pained groan.
Oliver exhaled through his nose and leaned forward, letting the chair creak beneath him. "You were comatose. Med techs thought you were gone. The client made sure they didn't write you off. While that ACPA bastard was playing demolition derby with your bones, the Arasaka med team secured the target—got her stable. Word of mission success hit the net, and the remaining hitters pulled back."
Carl's brows drew together. "So she made it?"
"Yeah," Jackie said. "And the moment she did, the attackers got the signal and started falling back. Didn't stop us from stomping a few on the way in, though. We arrived just in time to see them loading your sorry ass into a med-van, all covered in a white sheet."
"I swear," Oliver added with a grimace, "Jackie was howling like you were a saint martyred by street scum."
"Bullshit," Jackie scoffed. "That was you! I just tried to tackle the medics and grab his body back."
Oliver raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, and I had to drag you off while you screamed, 'You bastards don't touch my choom!'"
Carl shook his head, lips twitching. "Guess I missed one hell of a scene."
"Yeah, well. Arasaka's trauma unit told us Hanako personally requested you be treated—said she owed you a debt," Oliver said, his tone darkening just slightly. "They had to cover your face, said it might… disturb the patient."
"Disturb her?" Carl frowned. "I took shrapnel for her. She should've sent me a fruit basket."
At that, Jackie leaned forward, grinning like a kid who found out Santa really was packing heat. "You know who she is, right? The chick you risked everything for?"
Carl nodded slowly. "Yeah. I know Arasaka."
"You're not grasping the scale, man," Oliver cut in. "That wasn't just some corpo exec. Her full name is Hanako Arasaka. Her mother is Michiko Arasaka—one of the inner ring—and her great-grandfather is Saburo Arasaka himself. Yeah. That Saburo. You saved the heiress to the empire."
Carl tilted his head, unimpressed. "We took the job. We completed the job. Doesn't matter who she is."
Oliver gave him a sideways glance. "You really believe that?"
Jackie snorted. "We're freelancers. We ain't family. But Carl… c'mon. Are you telling me nothing's weird about any of this?"
Oliver pulled back the blanket slightly and pointed at Carl's arms. "Then explain this. Why did she drop the eddies to have your arms rebuilt like a combat god?"
Carl blinked. His arms looked the same—flesh-toned, textured just like his old ones. But the moment he flexed, he knew. The movement was too smooth, too quiet. There was power under his skin now, humming low, like a whisper from a turbine.
"That's not standard issue," Carl muttered.
"Nope," Oliver replied. "That's top-shelf chrome. Military-grade titanium weave. Densified marrow core. Neural-linked feedback. You could punch through an AV hull and not even dislocate a knuckle."
Carl slowly clenched his fists, feeling the artificial muscles stretch like silk-covered pistons. "She gave me these?"
Oliver gave a slow nod. "Paid for everything. Best black clinic cyberdocs Arasaka could sneak through customs. Said your hands were critical. Wanted them preserved. Personally."
Carl didn't reply for a moment. Then: "She's got weird taste."
"Yeah, well," Jackie said, leaning back with a grin. "She didn't stop at your arms."
Oliver tossed a chipped data shard onto Carl's blanket. "Check that out."
Carl narrowed his eyes. Inserted it into the neural port at his temple. Numbers blazed across his HUD.
One million eurodollars.
Carl sat bolt upright—nearly pulled a muscle doing it. "What the hell?! Wasn't this supposed to be a 100k gig?"
"That's what we all got," Oliver said, brows raised. "Ten grand per head after deductions. But this million? Came direct from the client. For you."
"Cálmate," Jackie said, holding up his hands. "You sure you didn't, like, sign a prenup while you were unconscious?"
Carl shook his head, staring at his chrome fingers. "No… I didn't do anything. I mean… I did fight an ACPA solo. Maybe that counts?"
"Fight?" Oliver said. "Choom, the entire goddamn battle got recorded. Someone's camera rig survived the blast. Footage is viral. You're the merc who went toe-to-toe with forbidden tech in Night City. That fight's being memed to hell. You're famous."
Carl groaned. "So now I'm a meme."
"A very expensive meme," Jackie said. "And maybe someone's new crush."
"Knock it off." Carl dropped his head back against the pillow and sighed. "Look, I don't care who she is. Corpo or not—I hate those people."
"She gave you a million and the finest prosthetic arms chrome can buy."
"…Okay. I dislike most corpos. She might be the exception."
"Degenerate," they muttered in unison.
The three of them chuckled. Even under the smell of iodine and clean linens, even with fresh scars and half of Carl's original bones replaced, there was something grounding about it. Something real.
A pause settled.
Then Jackie asked, "Did you see him?"
"Who?"
"Adam Smasher."
Carl looked down. "Only for a second. Then I blacked out."
Jackie exhaled slowly, awe in his eyes. "Damn. That guy's a legend."
Upstairs, behind mirrored glass and air-purified corridors, Hanako Arasaka stood in her kimono, her long black hair tied back with a red ribbon. The soft click of her sandals echoed in the marble hallway as she approached a small ceremonial tray on a low table.
From the inner fold of her sleeve, she drew a blade—slender, elegant, sharper than the memory of war.
"The cherry blossom has bloomed for many springs," she whispered in Japanese. "But this time… it fell into someone's hands."
She brought the blade down—clean, precise—driving it through a sealed vial of MaxDoc™ still stained with blood. The vial shattered without a sound.
She had clutched that med during the firefight, holding it to her side with the same resolve Carl had shown gripping a live grenade.
One petal for another.
And as the glass split, and the blood pooled across the steel, Hanako Arasaka smiled.