404: Doom Not Found

- 11 years before canon - 

Time was going slow for Victor and Vik, they're eyes glued to the patient who appeared knocked out, undergoing software updates on their optics.

The man was left vulnerable, and to Victor, he found the affair - enlightening.

It further deterred his want for cybernetic optics, the idea that one's vision is dependent on mechanical operations, almost hilarious.

He could imagine a skilled netrunner hacking into an individual's optic systems, causing permanent or temporary blindness. 

It is no wonder that these netrunners are almost revered and feared in this world... They're almost sorcerers with how devastating their craft can be. Victor thought amused.

Though his amusement didn't last long, as suddenly five men bolted in.

"You got five minutes."

The words came from the tallest of the Valentinos, voice flat, tone tight. Vik gave a nod and stepped aside, waving them in like this was routine — because it was.

Victor, seated behind the desk with a disassembled interface cable in one hand and a soldering tool in the other, didn't move. He didn't speak. He watched.

The five Valentinos filled the clinic's small front space like a tide. Gold-threaded jackets, Saint Mary pendants, facial ink in old barrio styles — a parade of culture and silent warning. The kind of presence that didn't knock first.

One of them, barely older than a teen, had a bruised jaw and a stitched-up eye. The one from last time. He stood in the centre while the others closed in around him, forming a ring without words. Not for privacy. For theatre.

Victor didn't belong in the act, and they didn't pretend he did.

They didn't look at him. Didn't ask who he was. Didn't care.

This wasn't about him. It was for Vik.

Viktor Vektor stood near the counter, arms folded, lips pressed thin beneath his grey stubble. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't uncomfortable either — just present. That was his way. Keep the door open, let the city's tides pass through, don't get swept away.

Victor could see the edges of tension in the room, though. Unspoken. This wasn't just gang discipline. It was a ritual. An old song sung in new times.

The kid looked down at his boots as each older man took turns scolding him in low, clipped Spanish.

Not loud — never loud.

Quiet was scarier.

One called him desubicado.

Another flicked a gold tooth and muttered something about el barrio primero.

Each voice was like a knife cutting without spilling blood.

But the members didn't stop there; the kid was forced to strip in front of Vik, and the boy was now left with merely his undies.

Once stripped bare, the kid's tattoos and bruises came to bare, bruises all around. He didn't seem older than nineteen, but the Valentino members didn't care. 

Victor didn't flinch, didn't interrupt.

He didn't ask questions because the answers didn't matter — not here. This was pageantry, meant for ears that weren't present. For word to spread, the Valentinos still held the reins. Still had standards.

When the final man finished, he stepped forward and placed a hand on the kid's shoulder. No smile. No warmth. Just gravity.

Then they all turned and left as quietly as they'd come.

The kid didn't speak. Just followed, head low.

The door hissed shut.

Victor finally set his tools down.

"That happen often?" he asked, not looking at Vik, just letting the question float.

Vik shrugged. "Sometimes. Heywood runs differently from Watson. Family ties, strong codes. You make noise outside your turf, someone's gotta answer for it. Out here, it's more of the maelstrom"

Victor leaned back slightly, the gears in his coat's shoulder plates clicking faintly.

"They answer with words?"

"Usually. Sometimes with more."

"Not your business, though."

"Not mine," Vik agreed, voice flat. "Not yours either."

Victor didn't bristle. He nodded. "Understood."

Vik turned to grab a cup of cold coffee, paused, then glanced back.

"You didn't say a word the whole time. I respect that."

"I wasn't spoken to."

"Smart."

Victor picked up his soldering tool again. The conversation was over, and that was fine.

He didn't need their attention. Let them look past him. Easier that way.

They were Valentinos — they came with gold chains and holy ink, but Victor had seen what they were under it all.

A structure. A culture. A signal to the city: we are still here.

Victor made a mental note. Not about the boy, or the men, but the rhythm of it all.

The performance.

The message.

And how it was delivered.

He would remember that.

Victor sat at the edge of the workbench, posture rigid, arms folded as he observed the flickering glow of Vik's tools lining the far wall. The air was tinged with scorched polymers and disinfectant. A scent he'd come to associate with survival.

Vik moved slowly through the space, wiping his hands with a faded towel. The silence was not awkward—it simply was. Natural. Until Victor broke it with quiet intent.

"These Valentinos," he said. "How deep do their roots run?"

Viktor paused near the sink, then shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by 'roots.'" He tossed the rag aside and leaned against the counter, face drawn but open.

"They talk like it's all about family, honour, tradition. Tíos and abuelitas, Day of the Dead altars and golden crosses. But that's surface-level. These days, there's more chrome than soul in some of 'em."

Victor didn't respond immediately. He wasn't surprised. The structure reminded him of other systems—monarchies that turned to cabals, ideals lost to entropy.

He studied a bent scalpel resting on the bench, letting the silence draw out before speaking again. "The one who came earlier. The kid. He wasn't raised on tradition. He was raised on noise."

Vik exhaled sharply. "You're not wrong. More of the new blood coming up than the old these days. The manifesto's still on the wall, but fewer are reading it."

Victor gave a slight nod, almost imperceptible. He was observing more than listening. Each word Vik offered built a map—fragmented, incomplete, but a start.

"There are more of them," he said flatly. "The ones with loud guns and louder mouths. And the line between family and ganger... It's gone soft. Blurred."

Viktor chuckled once, dry and without humour. "That line's been blurred so long it might as well be erased. They still call it a familia, but in the end, it's just a gang with holy necklaces."

Victor's eyes moved to the far wall, where a broken cross lay next to a stripped-down cyberarm. The symbolism wasn't lost on him.

"Heywood's their cradle," Vik continued. "Most of 'em won't step outside it unless they're making noise or settling a score. You? You're Watson. Different crowd, different rules. If you plan on navigating between their streets and yours, keep your posture low and your eyes forward."

Victor didn't answer. He didn't need to. The Valentinos weren't the first cult of loyalty he'd observed, nor the most dangerous.

But he understood something now: the only thing that truly mattered to them was perceived stability. A façade of order. Discipline when convenient. Brotherhood when profitable.

"Gus Orta," Vik added, voice dropping slightly. "He was the one who kept the old ways intact. Now that he's locked up... well, the new blood's treating the gang like a brand, not a banner."

Victor processed the name. If power had once sat with a single man, then there might still be fractures within. Rival heirs. A possible avenue.

"You don't strike me as the loyal type," he said, tone dry.

"I'm not," Vik replied. "I treat whoever walks through that door, so long as they don't draw heat. That's what a good doctor does... The streets got their own code, and I got mine. That's the extent of my allegiance. But the Valentinos... well, they've done some good too. Keep some of the other sharks out of Heywood."

Victor let that settle. He didn't argue. He filed it away.

He leaned forward, fingertips brushing a worn holoscreen as he reviewed diagnostic readings from earlier. Outwardly calm. Inwardly, calculating.

Order maintained through show.

Discipline through public correction.

Faith, repackaged as branding. He'd seen all this before, in castles, in corporations, in the hands of tyrants and saviours alike. The Valentinos weren't unique. They were inevitable.

A factor of probability. The gangs were all part of an ecosystem designed long before their time. 

"The Maelstrom, what of their kind?" 

"Maelstrom... Heh, grew up with some of their elders... Well, their predecessors, to be more exact. Can't say many lived past forty. Night city in 2020 was vastly different to the city of today." 

"Elaborate, I'm curious, was Night City always like this?"

"Well, can't say exactly, but Night City was meant to be the city of dreams. The central hub for capitalism and commerce. In 2020, things were fast, and ideals were what made a man. For me, it was boxing. Pure boxing, not that shit you see on TV now." 

"I see." 

"One of the punks that beat me in the ring was a Maelstrom initiate. You see, most people back then either got chipped in either to fight better or because they needed to." Vik seemed to pause as if thinking carefully, "The Maelstrom in my heyday fought for something. They protected those who had nowhere to go. Especially against the inquisitors." 

"Inquisitors?"

"Gang of flesh purists. Thought the end times were coming and that cybernetics were heresy. BioWare was the way for them." 

"What happened to them?" 

"BioWare's expensive, and not everyone's got it as easy as they did back then. Now, you're almost guaranteed to require Cyberware. Some still operate, but I haven't heard anything since the fifties. Most went dark after bombing a hospital." 

"So, Terrorists, it would seem they made themselves an enemy of the state?" 

"I like to think the assholes got sweeped by some corpo's and gangers. Hard to make friends when you hate nearly everybody." Vik laughed.

"So the Maelstrom was a group of protectors... How ironic they've been reduced to nothing but cyberware addicts and violent extremists..." 

"You'll find that with most of the gangs here. Started real simple, rules and loyalties till they realise that's not how you get paid." 

"It still wouldn't explain how deprived this city has gotten." 

"Just a natural consequence, champ. Mega corps control the world..." 

With that closing sentence, the two slipped back into routine, and Victor's hour came. 

With his eyes glued to the clock, his shift was over, and money was handed. 

The ruffling of eddies was far less satisfying than Victor imagined it would be.

Two hundred. Physical. Folded with a simple clip and slid across Vik's counter. The doctor offered no fanfare, merely a nod, which Victor returned.

"Not bad for someone who keeps giving my old printer a heart attack," Vik muttered.

Victor tucked the cash into an inside pocket of his coat. "A printer that fears progress isn't worthy of ink."

"Sure. Keep telling yourself that, chrome-boy."

The banter was short-lived. Victor never lingered for long, and Vik understood enough to respect that. They parted as they always did—with little more than a nod and the quiet promise of return.

Outside, Night City's sky churned with electric clouds, a humid storm not yet broken. Victor's boots tapped steadily against the slick pavement as he made his way down the back alley leading to his temporary refuge.

The weight of the day hung lightly on his shoulders—calculations, diagnostics, conversation. The Valentinos still lingered in his thoughts. And Vik's words, too.

Everything was changing. Or perhaps it had always been broken, and he was only now measuring the scale of the fracture.

He reached the mouth of the alley that led to his makeshift workshop. The warehouse doors were in sight—rusted metal and old reinforced signage from a bygone corp that once manufactured fire suppression units. It was ugly. It was secure. It was his.

He never made it inside.

The sound came first—subtle, like a sigh of displaced air. Then a flicker—movement, too controlled to be vagrant.

His instincts didn't scream. They whispered. That was worse.

He moved, shifting his body to the side, and he ducked, drawing his modified sidearm alongside it.

Bang!

It missed, or more accurately, it missed his head. 

It had struck his left shoulder. 

Quickly observing the wound, the weapon was most likely a sniper carrying a rifle shooting .30 to .33 calibre. 

"He's not far..." Victor murmured, analysing the wound. 

The noise from the rifle indicated he was north of his position, most likely tucked above the abandoned buildings. 

The calibre itself was enough to reach his shoulder, yet not enough to rip his entire arm off.

The streets indicated that it was possible, underneath his armour, was merely flesh and bone. 

Had he been shot with anything larger, he would've died. 

How long has it been since a gun was threatening... Victor thought of attempting to trail the bullet line.

Attempting to retaliate, he was too late. 

The stun round struck him in the side of the ribs—silent, fast, precision-crafted. His coat absorbed most of the force, but the impact forced him back against the wall, momentarily dazed.

From the darkness, a figure emerged. 

A solo armed to the teeth. 

"Target in proximity... Understood." He murmured, accepting the order from elsewhere. 

Victor's vision narrowed. His mind raced.

The briefest calculation: retreat—blocked. Offence—risky. Evasion—possible.

He gritted his teeth and surged sideways into the workshop, chances of his survival increased within. 

Another impact struck the wall beside his head as he escaped within.

The last thing he saw before the feed on his datapad blinked was the shimmer of an encrypted badge on the attacker's shoulder—one he'd seen only once before.

Then the lights cut out.