41. Food

"Beep... beep..."

Accompanied by the sound of the electronic alarm clock, Karl opened his eyes. He realized that the alarm Oliver had set did nothing to wake anyone up, let alone make a dent in the thunderous snoring of Oliver and Jack.

Unbelievable.

Yawning, Karl checked Blanca's messages on his comms, only to find she hadn't sent any mission details yet.

Well, that made sense.

During this period, the folks at Militech were still bickering with Arasaka over who was supposed to transport the ACPA in. Even if those pilots had the heart for it, they probably didn't have the chance to slip into Night City just yet. Right now, Arasaka was just waiting for them—people with pilot credentials—to show up so they could ramp up the pressure on Militech.

Find something to do?

Yesterday, Karl, Jack, and Oliver had discussed trying out some gigs from the Padre. But looking at Jack and Oliver right now, sleeping like dead pigs... it didn't seem quite that urgent.

The two of them had spent nearly two full days and nights awake by his bedside, and then yesterday, they had pushed through sleep deprivation to drink heavily late into the night...

Resting for a bit was fine too. Work-life balance and all that.

As usual, after washing up and rinsing his mouth with purified water, Karl grabbed his pistol and headed out to buy breakfast for Oliver and Jack.

The gun he carried was a Lexington.

Karl's Kenshin had somehow been lost or thrown away during that fierce battle with the ACPA. Yesterday, he hadn't found the time to buy a new one, so he had no choice but to rely on his backup Lexington as a keepsake.

Before buying breakfast, Karl took the elevator up to the floor he had first arrived at back in 2075, walking over to the exact spot where the original owner of the Lexington on his hip had died.

Almost every day he stayed in the megabuilding, he would make this trip. It wasn't really in hopes of finding another Lexington lying around; it was simply to repay a debt.

A debt owed must be repaid. That deceased, green-haired mohawk had given Karl his first stash of cash and a self-defense weapon, helping him survive long enough to meet Oliver. You could say Karl's career as a mercenary had been "sponsored" by that guy's friendship, and that was something he had to honor.

Today, however, Karl came away empty-handed once again.

The dead mohawk had lived on the eighth floor, and Karl had already "gourmetly" questioned all the residents on this floor over the past few weeks. Given the persuasion of the pistol at Karl's hip, those people were more than happy to answer his questions. According to the information they provided, the green-haired mohawk kept to himself and hadn't been close with any of them. He had only moved in a week before Karl arrived in this world, and no one had ever seen anyone visit him.

To account for any potential visitors who might actually know the mohawk, Karl had already paid a full year's rent in advance for the dead man's room. It wasn't expensive—just 12,000 eddies—which ensured that anyone coming to visit and registering outside the mohawk's door would be logged, allowing Karl to review the records later.

Yet, nearly a month had passed since Karl arrived in 2075, and with 2076 just around the corner, not a single person had come to visit the mohawk.

Whether the mohawk simply had no living relatives or acquaintances, or if his family and friends had no idea about this address, Karl didn't know. But since it only cost 12,000 eddies a year, Karl was willing to keep footing the bill until he could find a way to look up the green-haired mohawk's identity through Night City's official archives.

Speaking of Night City's archival records, aside from the corporations, the NCPD seemed to keep the most thorough logs of that sort...

Karl remembered he had the number of an NCPD officer named Johnson, whom he had met during the cyberpsycho incident. But Karl wasn't particularly close with him; asking him for a favor probably wouldn't yield much effort.

Did he really have to go hunt down a few more cyberpsychos just to build a rapport?

Cyberpsychos weren't exactly something you ran into on every street corner.

Checking the room's visitor log to confirm no one had stopped by, Karl headed all the way down to the ground floor. After buying food from the usual vendor, he made his way back up to Oliver's room.

The real pork on Oliver's end was supposedly arriving in a few days. By then, he'd finally be able to eat some proper meat.

Waking Oliver and Jack up and tossing them bottles of purified water to rinse their mouths, Karl sat down to eat his cold Chinese noodles—the dish he had eaten more of than anything else since arriving in 2075. As he chewed, a familiar sense of nausea began to churn in his stomach.

The noodles tasted fine, but nobody could eat the same thing over and over without getting sick of it. Karl was remarkably picky about his food, and enduring cold Chinese noodles up to this point had practically pushed him to his limit.

Watching Oliver and Jack devour their food with relish and wolf it down, Karl suddenly thought of Hanako Arasaka from their previous mission.

*Does that woman get to eat fresh fruits, vegetables, and real meat every single day?*

Damn corporate lackeys.

"Got any plans for today?"

As he ate his spaghetti with tomato and meat sauce, Jack suddenly realized today's breakfast was a bit different. "Hey Karl, how come it's spaghetti today? Isn't that vendor supposed to do Japanese food?"

"The vendor swapped out for someone else again. The new boss is a master of all cuisines."

"All cuisines?"

"Meaning whatever you want, he can make it."

"Guess I'm having pizza next time, then."

"Sure."

Thinking about pizza made Karl's nausea flare up even worse.

Eating pizza for breakfast didn't bother him; what actually turned his stomach were the toppings.

In 2075, the most popular pizza on the streets was known as Extra-Spicy Italian Sausage Pizza, and it happened to be one of Jack's favorites. Karl's only real grievance with it was that the people of Night City instinctively omitted a crucial part of the name.

The full name of the dish should have been "Extra-Spicy Grasshopper Italian Sausage Pizza."

Literally grasshoppers.

Though Karl had to admit that back in his era, plenty of people enjoyed eating grasshoppers, and he wouldn't mind trying them, treating grasshoppers as normal meat and dumping them straight onto a pizza still clashed a bit too much with his traditional Italian-pizza values.

It felt just as absurd as putting pineapple slices on a pizza... Oh wait, pineapple was illegal in Night City now. Illegally using pineapple and pineapple-based products violated Article 1, Section 5a of the *Pizza Desecration Act*, making offenders wanted criminals with a bounty on their heads.

Barely finishing his cold Chinese noodles, Karl waited for Oliver and Jack to finish eating. While waiting, he opened Oliver's computer, curious to see what had happened in Night City during the two days he was unconscious. The moment he opened the browser, an advertisement covering the entire screen popped up.

*"Arasaka Academy is currently enrolling students. All applicants hoping to become the elite of the new era are welcome to apply."*

This... wasn't the New Year almost here? Enrolling students at a time like this—was Arasaka out of its mind?

If Karl had taken the time to check the enrollment schedules of other schools, he would have realized something immediately.

Fucking corporate rats never rest.