Setting:Evening, outskirts of Pacifica – 2075Just after the convoy mission, before Rogue's call is answered.
The sky was bleeding neon. The horizon melted into pink and violet hues as the sun dipped behind the skeletal towers of old Pacifica. It was the closest Night City ever got to peace.
Lucy sat on a hill of broken concrete and overgrown vines, a hacked old radio softly crackling out synthwave from decades past. Beside her, Bee knelt in the sand, scanning the air for movement but there was none.
For once.
She looked at him.
"You always like this quiet?"
Bee shrugged, then tapped a soundbite on his wrist.
🎥 [Soundbite: "Silence is golden."]
She smiled faintly. "Most people don't shut up."
🎥 [Soundbite: "Most people aren't interesting."]
A beat.
Then Lucy laughed, pulling her knees up and hugging them. She stared into the fading light.
"You ever… think about what you'd do if you weren't fighting all the time? Like—no blades, no chrome freaks hunting you, no merc gigs?"
Bee turned his head toward her, slowly. Then he sat beside her, the plates of his armor hissing softly as he folded his legs like a machine trying to imitate a human's peace.
"I'd drive," he said aloud.
Lucy's eyes widened. "Still weird hearing your voice."
"Still weird using it," he admitted.
She tilted her head. "You'd drive?"
"Yeah. No missions. No guns. Just… drive. Open roads. Stars overhead. Maybe someone in the passenger seat."
Lucy blinked.
"I'd take that ride," she said.
Bee turned to her, his glowing optics studying her expression.
🎥 [Soundbite: "Really?"]
"Yeah," she whispered. "I'd like to see a world that isn't trying to kill us."
But Night City Doesn't Sleep
A sudden flash. Blue static lit the edge of their hill.
Bee shot up instantly blade snapping out of his forearm.
Out of the dark came a ragged figure. Chrome implants barely working. Eyes cyberblind but glowing red with combat-enhancing optics.
A cyberpsycho.
"FIRE- EVERYTHING'S FIRE!" the man screamed, firing wildly with a melted pistol.
Lucy rolled. Bee transformed mid-move his motorcycle mimic form racing in a blur. The psycho turned, confused
and Bee rammed him, knocking him flat, flipping into bipedal form in one fluid motion. He pressed his arm blade to the psycho's chest.
But stopped.
The man was shaking, barely human anymore.
"I-I-I didn't ask for this…" the psycho whispered, before passing out.
Bee froze.
Lucy approached slowly. "You okay?"
"I've seen that before," Bee said softly. "Where I'm from."
He deactivated the blade.
"Let's take him to someone who can help," Lucy said. "If he's not too far gone."
Bee nodded.
🎥 [Soundbite: "Compassion... still exists."]
Later – On the Road Back
The city shimmered below them as they rode in silence. Lucy sat in the passenger seat of Bee's bike-mode mimic, wind whipping her hair back, the radio crackling with old music.
She leaned forward and whispered:
"Still want to drive with someone?"
Bee's voice rumbled through the chassis.
"Always."
And they sped into the night just a girl and her not-quite-Cybertronian partner, lost in the moment, hunted by secrets, but finally alive.