Cyberpunk 2077 Lore Street Kid Life Path

Street Kid V knows how to hold her own in a fight. Her best weapons are street smarts and cred. In Night City, the law of the jungle dictates the weak serve the strong, and not many know it as well as she does. Still, she does not intend to stay on this level forever.

It’s time to make a move. V resides in Heywood. It’s not a safe place, but there is opportunity for those who know how to take it. She takes a shot of tequila at her favourite spot; a dive bar called El Coyote Cojo. The drink is on the house, as V has known the bartender for what seems like forever.

Today, he wants V to square his debts with a local fixer, Kirk Sawyer. However, Kirk does not feel like doing her buddy any favours on his debts. Given her reputation, Kirk decides that in exchange for the debts she needs to do an easy car-theft-job.

V acquiesces to his demands. On the way to the target, she bumps into an old friend. Padre, a man of cloth. Covered in tattoos, he’s one of the most experienced fixers in Heywood. Padre offers V a lift to the target. On the way, some gang members who have beef with Padre temporarily hold up the car, guns drawn.

Sure, V could stay silent, but that is now how you do business in Heywood. Thus, she intervenes. The theft is supposed to be easy. The guards have already been bribed, and the security cameras are turned off. Just as V enters the Rayfield, an armed silhouette approaches the door out of nowhere.

V recognizes him. It’s Jackie Welles. Padre’s driver. Jackie had overheard V’s conversation and decided to screw her over. Suddenly the NCPD turn up. Cuffed on the ground, Jackie and V attempt to smooth talk their way out until the car owner, a corpo by the name of Kooru Fujiaka, arrives on the scene.

He tells the cops the street rats are not worth arresting and they should just be thrown over the dock to drown. The next thing she knows, V has been knocked unconscious by a baton. Hours later, V wakes up to find herself sitting next to Jackie. Apparently, Jackie’s connections kept them both alive.

V is still pissed, but grateful. They both realize they have bigger fish to fry. Common enemies. Common goals. Maybe it’s time to start a beautiful partnership. Street Kids make up most of the youth in Cyberpunk America; this is thanks to minimum supervision due to the increasing workloads, and the lack of any public schooling system in most states.

By the age of ten, almost 90 percent of street kids are involved in some type of youth gang; either simplistic and feral child-families, or possibly as a junior affiliate to a larger Boostergang. Whatever the modus, the street kid is well on their way to death in their teenage years.

By age fourteen the affiliates are usually either full gang members, or dead. It is not uncommon for a Patron to give an execution over to a group of twelve-year-old kids. Even in the Cyberpunk era, a murder conviction is difficult to obtain with a juvenile.

The most logical explanation of this is the generational gap; most judges grew up in the more liberal times before the Collapse and there is still a prejudice against executing children. Usually, if any vague pretence of self-defence can be alleged, the street kid will get off with a few years.