Heya all this is my first story on the forum. Based on Cyberpunk 2077 (pre-Dog Town update where the Combat Zone was a lot more fluid.) The story follows a young Laotian man who's corporate mother/father fell afoul of the system. He and his two siblings were kidnapped and this documents his initial experiences through the trauma, escaping his kidnappers and trying to survive in the last free real estate Night City has.
A bit of a personal story in some ways but I hope you all will like it. Includes character stats / life history in bullet points after the main story. Working on part two now (90% completed.) If you like Mr. Pha Sao and want to hear more of his journey please let me know.
. Thanks for having me among your community 
.
- + - + - + - + - + - + - + -
Pha Sao (Street names: Pha-pha, Garbage man)
24 y.o.
5’4”, 155lbs.
Appearance: Slim frame but wiry, a small mustache and stubble, tan skin, always wearing a ball cap and his mirrored shades with circular lenses. Tattoo of a cityline burning across his chest and the word “LIMITLESS” tattooed just below his throat.
Music for story:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was an unusually cold night and the pieces of cardboard Pha was using to insulate himself were barely enough to keep away the reaper’s fingers. Pha shivered and convulsed a few times before mentally willing himself to stop. “What a night..” the seventeen year old whispered out loud; his fists tightening with anxiety and anger. “What did I do to be here God?” he said again internally between coughs. It was a rich, wet cough that shook up whatever biology had decided to find safety in his lungs. A worthy spit followed. Would he die this time? In the Combat Zone, even something like the flu could get you. The doctors you could find were eccentric at best. The medicine too. Your neighbors were as likely to sell you as they were to help you. Even if you did join a gang.
In the distance familiar blasts of automatic weapons fire met the cloud of loud electronic music. Screams of pain met joyous, insane laughter. All of these sounds fought for the dominance of Pha’s ear canals. The silence of the inner world was a treasure many never knew here.
- - - - - - -
Advertisements from the distant Night City flashed in the washed out tv-static like sky. Holograms that had replaced the stars. A giant winking supermodel playfully swallowed the moon every forty five minutes.
Pha had been in this little slice of hell for almost six long months now. He hated it more and more every day. By waking up very early one had a hazy chance at getting ahead. A time when the fiends were passed out or too high to care. One could scavenge and generally find enough discarded food and other items to get through the day. Sometimes you’d wander into someone on combat stimulants who had been awake for four or five days. Those were the most dangerous. When two or three in the afternoon came around though; it was time to go back into hiding. The fiends were awake by then. In pain, craving, hunting for their next experience. So many people went missing every week. Few even exchanged names here.
At times, the Combat zone could be so loud that you could barely think. “Maybe that’s what people want.” A few other survivors had chosen this area along with him. An abandoned parking lot behind some half-destroyed condominium, the “La Rosa.”
The parking lot around the failed tower was walled in on three sides and the smell of whatever was rotting in the high mound of trash bags on the right side kept most away. Living here was an acquired taste. Only the desperate stayed here. People just like Pha.
Everyone lived in this little pit of garbage for their own reasons. Each like rats; terrified of the day ahead. At best most just hoped for one night of unbothered sleep.
- - - - - - -
Pha had almost numbed himself enough to find the blessed release of sleep when he heard a peal of loud, manic laughter followed by a low, fiending groan. Shooting fully awake he started to instantly sweat; his heart racing. There were at least two people he thought. They were close by. Pha knew this almost instinctively by now. The predators always loved to move in pairs or groups. Only the very worst walked alone. He could hear their feet sliding and crunching on the trash scattered around the area. The muscles in Pha’s body began to twitch in preparation. The cloak of fight or flight was crashing onto his shoulders.
Pha’s hands reached shakingly down for the bulky plastic gun he kept under his pillow of clothing and cardboard. It was a “Slaught-O-Matic”, a bulky pistol made of 3-D printed neon green plastic that could fire 36 rounds before it broke. Never to be reloaded again. Pha had bought it from a vending machine for the low price of €$100. Money he has been lucky to find one day on a man that no longer needed it. The combat zone was that kind of place.
The unsettling laughter came again. Much closer now. It had the on-edge sound of someone fiending. High pitched and whiny, ethereal. “Junkies..”. In the distance, partially lit by a flickering sodium street lamp he could see them. Two skinny, wiry freaks in the midst of chemical delusions. Both had unhealthy, pock marked skin and cheap tattoos of daggers, guns and skulls covering their face. One, a bit older, was shirtless and scratching at himself as he plodded forward, eyes staring up at the sky. His friend beside him moved in a hunch like he was some kind of dog. A bloodhound on a scent. His face was inhuman. Overly pale with bulging, bloodshot eyes. His lower lip, what remained of it at least, was covered in scabs, freshly bleeding from his grinding teeth.
Pha’s hands began to shake and his heart beat loudly in his chest.. A feeling like cold water was pouring down his spine, washing away his sense of self and courage like an evil curse. His leg began to shake. = I just want to be left alone = the internal voice said somewhere in his mind. He grabbed his gun tightly with both hands and took a steadying breath remembering how much he had already been through. = I will survive. =
Both of the junkies whispered and giggled; standing at first in the center of the parking lot before seemingly at random turning and sprinting as one towards Pha’s neighboring trash hovel. It belonged to some older lady. One he had never talked with but who had once, in an act of unbelievable charity, left a can of dog food for him. It was a good brand of dog food. As far as homeless parking lot dwellers go, she was ok. Actually, she was more than just ok. She left him alone.
Pha began to silently pray that she was not at home today. The taller, sky gazing junkie suddenly stooped low and peered around the hovel.
“Hello hello hello, this is your special somebody!” his voice came out like a newscaster, full of malice and sarcasm. There was no reply that Pha heard which visibly angered the stooping man with the bleeding lip who yelled: “HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?!, CAN YOU HEAR ME? IS THE SIGNAL CLEAR?” More violent and alive now he grabbed the roof of the small hovel tightly in his crooked hands. With a grunt he pulled hard. His chemically emboldened strength tore out the array of zip-ties and metal wires holding the roof like they were nothing.His fingers were bleeding and bent even more wrong from the effort but he did not seem to care.
Pha was terrified. He heard a low groaning, tired sound. A hopeless scream that turned into a defeated sob from within the hovel. The junkies responded with laughter and joy “It’s cold tonight! The laws of randomness brought us to you. We’re about to warm you up, that is a gift!” the Junkie said with the least sincere smile Pha had ever seen. He was grabbing at a big jet lighter on his belt, one held on by lime green paracord.
With an audible click, a dagger of blue flame appeared. The junkie took a step forward and pressed it against the cardboard. The woman either too drugged or tired to resist, simply began to sob and cry. =Is she just going to die because of these people?=
The main junkies bug eyed companion watched mostly in silence, his glassy eyes staring in fascination as the cardboard began to burn. “Ohh… it’s beautiful.” The bleeding lip man whispered before moving in to observe more closely.
=Are they going to just burn her up for nothing?= Pha thought, his mind racing, hands shaking. This conflicted with everything he knew. He was becoming violent inside, angry, so mad that this was the world he had to live in. Did he have no control? Could he not at least save this wretched woman? Something cracked in Pha, his eyes watered for but a moment before they were replaced with the steel-like feeling of taking action. =People like this don’t deserve to live.=
Within a few short moments Pha had crawled quietly out of his hovel on all fours and moved up behind the two Junkie. They were so transfixed on their evil acts and so night blinded by the fire before them that they never once noticed him. Pha had become good at not being noticed. Those who stood out rarely lived long here. The plastic gun felt light in his hands and they were no longer shaking. He just felt tired and angry. Ultimately he felt nothing. This was okay, he told himself and believed it.
Pha fired into the fire starter’s head from just a few inches away. A loud bang, a flower of fire and the loud cracking pop of the plastic gun working in its one and done design. The dead junkie’s stooping friend turned mechanically to stare at Pha; now covered by the dead man’s brains and blood. His stare was full of confusion. Barely registering what had happened. Pha did not hesitate to shoot him between those staring eyes.
-----
“YOU OK?” Pha yelled, his body tingling, shaking, the adrenaline coursing through his nerves and muscles. It was so much adrenaline that his legs were practically jumping on their own accord. A pitiful groan came as a reply and Pha found himself dragging the woman out by her ankles while her hovel burned. She was injured, drunk and delirious. It was going to be a long night.
-----
It was indeed a long night trying to save a stranger's life. Fate had some fun to play though. The junkies had been out hunting. Pha was in shock to discover almost 400 euro dollars between them. That would be a real windfall. When the woman, who Pha now knew as Jill, finally awoke she was in shock. Pha explained what had happened and the woman crossed herself multiple times. “The devil almost got me again didn't he?”
Jill ultimately proved to be more intelligent than Pha had first assumed. She had been the executive assistant of a Corpo manager. With Pha’s own parents having been Corpo managers, they soon found they had a lot to talk about. Jill had been fired suddenly during a restructuring and her bank accounts drained.
With no money to her name she had no ability to legally challenge her employer. Like many women who suddenly found themselves homeless; Jill joined a doll club. After having her body abused nightly for a few disconnected and static filled years, not even the doll club wanted her anymore. With nothing left, Jill was forced into the last rent-free place Night City had: the combat zone.
Despite her desire to self-destruct, Jill had somehow managed to survive and had built connections that got her food, medicine and some small support. She still had a disconnected sort of family who would at times send her money while she was working on “climbing out of the pit” . Pha knew that climb was particularly steep and very few ever survived long enough to do so.
---
In time, Pha found himself relying on Jill and her on him. He opened up about how his family had grown up in Corporate housing and he was raised by a nanny. His mother and father lived overseas and he never once met them that he could remember. The only proof he had that they had ever existed was a photo he kept. His sister, Sanda at 4 years old, his brother Kaung and himself. All children sitting on a white couch between their mother and father in some forgotten holiday resort.
At 14 years of age, Pha’s parents committed the highest of sins. They had performed poorly in business and now their overlords were pulling the plug. The family fell into debt almost overnight and numerous people with owed favors began to pile up. One day while on their way to school, all three of the Sao children were kidnapped. It was easy. The bodyguard who had escorted them home for years now escorted them instead into another man’s home.
What followed were days of confusion and pain with the only view being that of the inside of a black bag or the blank walls of a random hotel or garage. Pha never found out if his parents had raised the money to free them. All three of them were separated. Sent to different safe houses; or so he assumed. Those were very bad times.
One evening, as fickle-fate decided, a rival gang attacked the group who had been holding him prisoner and in the confusion he had escaped. He had been a prisoner for over a year at that point. Used to make drugs and sometimes just to provide entertainment. When he had finally escaped the compound, he felt nothing but joy that they were gone.
Pha wondered what became of his family. At first he tried to contact his parents until he ran out of money. There was never a response. No one was checking the Sao family email anymore. He looked for his siblings but after a few months, he too accepted that they were probably dead. Those were the worst days. The days of despair.
- - -
Pha’s relationship with Jill never became anything more than friendship but it was a friendship that he truly valued. Jill would tend the base camp and at night, Pha would go out to hunt. He had stopped scavenging for scraps, begging for morsels. Instead he would kill people he deemed to be evil and would take what they had. Pha was aware that he was justifying murder to himself, but were people like those fiendish junkies really human anymore?
With every successful night, Pha slept a little easier. He and Jill were eventually able to get a small studio apartment. It was only a little better than sleeping outside, but at least he had a door and a nice window that faced a concrete wall. The warlord who “protected” the building took a rather reasonable rate and Pha would occasionally do work for the man. Mostly killing rivals or junkies that moved into the area. Ones who would not play along by the rules.
When Pha became 19 years old he found his sister, Sanda. She, like him, had been a survivor. Her skills in computers made her an asset worth more than sex work and she was eventually sold to another gang, the Digital Renegades. Her skills and ruthlessness pushed her into the upper echelons of the little gang and she had begun to branch out.
Sanda had become a small-time fixer. When they finally met up, she was visibly shocked but joyed to see him. She was kind to him, he was family. The years of having to survive though had changed her. She was not the big sister he knew anymore. She had become cold and hard in many ways. She managed people like they were numbers on a spreadsheet. She had lost her ability to truly trust. A wound Pha understood.
Still, having your big sister as the source of most of your jobs has its advantages. Pha’s street cred grew and he began to make some decent money, enough to eventually get him and Jill out of the Combat Zone and into the city proper. They had climbed out of the pit only to discover that they were in a new, larger pit with higher walls. At least this pit had a warm bed and two-for-one synth meat sticks at the corner mart. Damn did Pha enjoy a 4 pack of high alcohol beer and 2 for 1 meat sticks after years of scrounging for garbage. Pha would be damned if he would ever go back down to the hovel again.
At 21, Pha made another friend. A female ripper doc named Angel. Angel had hired him to kill a group of scabs who had been luring various people off the street only to harvest their organs, cyberware or to put them into sex slavery. Angel's best friend had fallen victim to them and she wanted heads to roll.
These were the kind of jobs that Pha loved the most. The feeling of rightness, the joy of removing monsters. Pha had gained access to his prey through a few days of playing the braindead newbie. He had managed to get himself “selected” by the gang. Nothing excited predators like easy meat.
When they eventually brought him to their safehouse to harvest him, he was quickly able to take advantage. He had hand grenade money now. The gang ultimately had a lot of cash, drugs and guns that Pha felt no guilt in selling off. Jill was good at finding him buyers.
Instead of being paid in credits by Angel, Pha always used her services instead. Implants were still a distant dream financially but the medicine, drugs and discreet medical services she offered were a boon he could collect on now. Angel had saved Pha’s life more than once and he adored her.
At 22, Pha made his first major enemy, Jordan Michaels. Jordan was the Superintendent for Night Cities Waste Disposal Department, Zone C. While the city had many regulations, places like the Combat zone were not known to abide by them. Jordan would routinely roll in caravans of trucks protected by hired security that would dump off truckloads of medical waste, noxious chemicals and other items that would normally require a hefty disposal fee. The kind of disposal fee that had a civil servant buying high-end security escorts to avoid. This kept him under budget and was helping his career, along with netting him a nice side hustle of bribes and payouts. Best of all? Because it was taking place in the Combat Zone, he could not be held liable for anything.
While Jordan was raking in the money and political capital, the north end of the Combat Zone was getting even worse. Disease was spreading, mutations, psychosis and more. Some streets were made even more uninhabitable and the friction it was causing the gangs was primed to set off a firestorm of extended conflicts. Entire territories were having to be redrawn, safehouses moved. Something had to give.
Multiple gangs came together to solve the issue and Pha was brought in (thanks to Sanda) as one of the many solos and mercs the gangs were working on hiring. When the nightly caravan of trucks entered the combat zone and began to dump their loads, every solo, freelancer and gang member the little temporary confederation could afford came out of the woodwork.
Sanitation’s security fell quickly in the ambush, overwhelmed by a combined assault from all angles. Every truck was set ablaze, every road was destroyed and every sanitation worker was shot, knifed, hung or sent away with broken limbs. Jordan was furious, beyond furious. He made such a stink about it that the NCPD launched a few vengeance missions. They strafed the streets, dropped bombs and made arrests on those dumb enough to be out when they came in.
However, attacking the Combat Zone is expensive, risky and has no real gain. After a few terrible days the attacks stopped and life returned back to “normal.”
Somehow, the names of the solos and freelancers who had worked that night were leaked out. Someone had recorded the whole thing, perhaps to make a brain dance. When it was found that Pha had killed Jordan’s cousin, the supervisor of the night's dumping, all bets were off. Pha knew one day that if Jordan maintained his status, he would come for revenge.
---
At 24, Pha won a radio contest by being the 33rd caller. His reward? One month of free “No holds barred” MMA training. MMA had taken off in Pha’s youth and he looked up to some of the fighters, especially So Min, another Burmese man who had for a time reigned as the lightweight champion on the West Coast.
Pha’s first few classes were unique. MMA training was expensive so his classmates were mostly corpo workers, some cops and a few rich kids. He had little incommon with any of them these days. The instructor, Gary Grimes, was a grizzled old solo and bodyguard. His face and fists were a network of scars and synth tissue. His voice was always raspy, an injury he got from being punched in the throat back in the day.
Pha and Gary got along great and the instructor seemed pleased to have someone who would be actively using the skills taught. Gary took time to help Pha figure out his own strengths and weaknesses, learning to use superior leverage and mobility to avoid the worst of his usually stronger, larger opponent.
Pha and Gary’s acquaintanceship grew and over time the two became good friends. Pha was able to keep training for a pittance and Gary was happy to pass on his knowledge. When Pha managed to take down his first fleeing target and choke him to death with his own coat collar, he called and thanked Gary first. “You collar choked him out? Hahaha, that’s an old school one! Don’t get to do that much.” Classic Gary.
-----
Currently, Pha is 24 years old and lives in a small, 1 bedroom apartment in Night City with his friend and partner Jill. Pha and Jill have a platonic relationship with Jill tending the paperwork, billing and home needs while Pha works as a solo for hire. Both Pha and Jill care deeply for one another and would do anything to keep the other safe.
Pha tends to be picky with his jobs and will not take any that go against his own hazy set of ethics. While Pha is a friendly, outgoing person and fiercely loyal to those who have earned his loyalty; he is equally misanthropic, violent and moody when it comes to those he deems to be “not worth living”. To Pha, the world is a terrible hell planet filled to the brim with vice and evil. Folks like Jill, Angel and Gary give him some hope, but for the rest? The roaches can have them.
A bit of a personal story in some ways but I hope you all will like it. Includes character stats / life history in bullet points after the main story. Working on part two now (90% completed.) If you like Mr. Pha Sao and want to hear more of his journey please let me know.
. Thanks for having me among your community .- + - + - + - + - + - + - + -
Pha Sao (Street names: Pha-pha, Garbage man)
24 y.o.
5’4”, 155lbs.
Appearance: Slim frame but wiry, a small mustache and stubble, tan skin, always wearing a ball cap and his mirrored shades with circular lenses. Tattoo of a cityline burning across his chest and the word “LIMITLESS” tattooed just below his throat.
Music for story:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was an unusually cold night and the pieces of cardboard Pha was using to insulate himself were barely enough to keep away the reaper’s fingers. Pha shivered and convulsed a few times before mentally willing himself to stop. “What a night..” the seventeen year old whispered out loud; his fists tightening with anxiety and anger. “What did I do to be here God?” he said again internally between coughs. It was a rich, wet cough that shook up whatever biology had decided to find safety in his lungs. A worthy spit followed. Would he die this time? In the Combat Zone, even something like the flu could get you. The doctors you could find were eccentric at best. The medicine too. Your neighbors were as likely to sell you as they were to help you. Even if you did join a gang.
In the distance familiar blasts of automatic weapons fire met the cloud of loud electronic music. Screams of pain met joyous, insane laughter. All of these sounds fought for the dominance of Pha’s ear canals. The silence of the inner world was a treasure many never knew here.
- - - - - - -
Advertisements from the distant Night City flashed in the washed out tv-static like sky. Holograms that had replaced the stars. A giant winking supermodel playfully swallowed the moon every forty five minutes.
Pha had been in this little slice of hell for almost six long months now. He hated it more and more every day. By waking up very early one had a hazy chance at getting ahead. A time when the fiends were passed out or too high to care. One could scavenge and generally find enough discarded food and other items to get through the day. Sometimes you’d wander into someone on combat stimulants who had been awake for four or five days. Those were the most dangerous. When two or three in the afternoon came around though; it was time to go back into hiding. The fiends were awake by then. In pain, craving, hunting for their next experience. So many people went missing every week. Few even exchanged names here.
At times, the Combat zone could be so loud that you could barely think. “Maybe that’s what people want.” A few other survivors had chosen this area along with him. An abandoned parking lot behind some half-destroyed condominium, the “La Rosa.”
The parking lot around the failed tower was walled in on three sides and the smell of whatever was rotting in the high mound of trash bags on the right side kept most away. Living here was an acquired taste. Only the desperate stayed here. People just like Pha.
Everyone lived in this little pit of garbage for their own reasons. Each like rats; terrified of the day ahead. At best most just hoped for one night of unbothered sleep.
- - - - - - -
Pha had almost numbed himself enough to find the blessed release of sleep when he heard a peal of loud, manic laughter followed by a low, fiending groan. Shooting fully awake he started to instantly sweat; his heart racing. There were at least two people he thought. They were close by. Pha knew this almost instinctively by now. The predators always loved to move in pairs or groups. Only the very worst walked alone. He could hear their feet sliding and crunching on the trash scattered around the area. The muscles in Pha’s body began to twitch in preparation. The cloak of fight or flight was crashing onto his shoulders.
Pha’s hands reached shakingly down for the bulky plastic gun he kept under his pillow of clothing and cardboard. It was a “Slaught-O-Matic”, a bulky pistol made of 3-D printed neon green plastic that could fire 36 rounds before it broke. Never to be reloaded again. Pha had bought it from a vending machine for the low price of €$100. Money he has been lucky to find one day on a man that no longer needed it. The combat zone was that kind of place.
The unsettling laughter came again. Much closer now. It had the on-edge sound of someone fiending. High pitched and whiny, ethereal. “Junkies..”. In the distance, partially lit by a flickering sodium street lamp he could see them. Two skinny, wiry freaks in the midst of chemical delusions. Both had unhealthy, pock marked skin and cheap tattoos of daggers, guns and skulls covering their face. One, a bit older, was shirtless and scratching at himself as he plodded forward, eyes staring up at the sky. His friend beside him moved in a hunch like he was some kind of dog. A bloodhound on a scent. His face was inhuman. Overly pale with bulging, bloodshot eyes. His lower lip, what remained of it at least, was covered in scabs, freshly bleeding from his grinding teeth.
Pha’s hands began to shake and his heart beat loudly in his chest.. A feeling like cold water was pouring down his spine, washing away his sense of self and courage like an evil curse. His leg began to shake. = I just want to be left alone = the internal voice said somewhere in his mind. He grabbed his gun tightly with both hands and took a steadying breath remembering how much he had already been through. = I will survive. =
Both of the junkies whispered and giggled; standing at first in the center of the parking lot before seemingly at random turning and sprinting as one towards Pha’s neighboring trash hovel. It belonged to some older lady. One he had never talked with but who had once, in an act of unbelievable charity, left a can of dog food for him. It was a good brand of dog food. As far as homeless parking lot dwellers go, she was ok. Actually, she was more than just ok. She left him alone.
Pha began to silently pray that she was not at home today. The taller, sky gazing junkie suddenly stooped low and peered around the hovel.
“Hello hello hello, this is your special somebody!” his voice came out like a newscaster, full of malice and sarcasm. There was no reply that Pha heard which visibly angered the stooping man with the bleeding lip who yelled: “HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?!, CAN YOU HEAR ME? IS THE SIGNAL CLEAR?” More violent and alive now he grabbed the roof of the small hovel tightly in his crooked hands. With a grunt he pulled hard. His chemically emboldened strength tore out the array of zip-ties and metal wires holding the roof like they were nothing.His fingers were bleeding and bent even more wrong from the effort but he did not seem to care.
Pha was terrified. He heard a low groaning, tired sound. A hopeless scream that turned into a defeated sob from within the hovel. The junkies responded with laughter and joy “It’s cold tonight! The laws of randomness brought us to you. We’re about to warm you up, that is a gift!” the Junkie said with the least sincere smile Pha had ever seen. He was grabbing at a big jet lighter on his belt, one held on by lime green paracord.
With an audible click, a dagger of blue flame appeared. The junkie took a step forward and pressed it against the cardboard. The woman either too drugged or tired to resist, simply began to sob and cry. =Is she just going to die because of these people?=
The main junkies bug eyed companion watched mostly in silence, his glassy eyes staring in fascination as the cardboard began to burn. “Ohh… it’s beautiful.” The bleeding lip man whispered before moving in to observe more closely.
=Are they going to just burn her up for nothing?= Pha thought, his mind racing, hands shaking. This conflicted with everything he knew. He was becoming violent inside, angry, so mad that this was the world he had to live in. Did he have no control? Could he not at least save this wretched woman? Something cracked in Pha, his eyes watered for but a moment before they were replaced with the steel-like feeling of taking action. =People like this don’t deserve to live.=
Within a few short moments Pha had crawled quietly out of his hovel on all fours and moved up behind the two Junkie. They were so transfixed on their evil acts and so night blinded by the fire before them that they never once noticed him. Pha had become good at not being noticed. Those who stood out rarely lived long here. The plastic gun felt light in his hands and they were no longer shaking. He just felt tired and angry. Ultimately he felt nothing. This was okay, he told himself and believed it.
Pha fired into the fire starter’s head from just a few inches away. A loud bang, a flower of fire and the loud cracking pop of the plastic gun working in its one and done design. The dead junkie’s stooping friend turned mechanically to stare at Pha; now covered by the dead man’s brains and blood. His stare was full of confusion. Barely registering what had happened. Pha did not hesitate to shoot him between those staring eyes.
-----
“YOU OK?” Pha yelled, his body tingling, shaking, the adrenaline coursing through his nerves and muscles. It was so much adrenaline that his legs were practically jumping on their own accord. A pitiful groan came as a reply and Pha found himself dragging the woman out by her ankles while her hovel burned. She was injured, drunk and delirious. It was going to be a long night.
-----
It was indeed a long night trying to save a stranger's life. Fate had some fun to play though. The junkies had been out hunting. Pha was in shock to discover almost 400 euro dollars between them. That would be a real windfall. When the woman, who Pha now knew as Jill, finally awoke she was in shock. Pha explained what had happened and the woman crossed herself multiple times. “The devil almost got me again didn't he?”
Jill ultimately proved to be more intelligent than Pha had first assumed. She had been the executive assistant of a Corpo manager. With Pha’s own parents having been Corpo managers, they soon found they had a lot to talk about. Jill had been fired suddenly during a restructuring and her bank accounts drained.
With no money to her name she had no ability to legally challenge her employer. Like many women who suddenly found themselves homeless; Jill joined a doll club. After having her body abused nightly for a few disconnected and static filled years, not even the doll club wanted her anymore. With nothing left, Jill was forced into the last rent-free place Night City had: the combat zone.
Despite her desire to self-destruct, Jill had somehow managed to survive and had built connections that got her food, medicine and some small support. She still had a disconnected sort of family who would at times send her money while she was working on “climbing out of the pit” . Pha knew that climb was particularly steep and very few ever survived long enough to do so.
---
In time, Pha found himself relying on Jill and her on him. He opened up about how his family had grown up in Corporate housing and he was raised by a nanny. His mother and father lived overseas and he never once met them that he could remember. The only proof he had that they had ever existed was a photo he kept. His sister, Sanda at 4 years old, his brother Kaung and himself. All children sitting on a white couch between their mother and father in some forgotten holiday resort.
At 14 years of age, Pha’s parents committed the highest of sins. They had performed poorly in business and now their overlords were pulling the plug. The family fell into debt almost overnight and numerous people with owed favors began to pile up. One day while on their way to school, all three of the Sao children were kidnapped. It was easy. The bodyguard who had escorted them home for years now escorted them instead into another man’s home.
What followed were days of confusion and pain with the only view being that of the inside of a black bag or the blank walls of a random hotel or garage. Pha never found out if his parents had raised the money to free them. All three of them were separated. Sent to different safe houses; or so he assumed. Those were very bad times.
One evening, as fickle-fate decided, a rival gang attacked the group who had been holding him prisoner and in the confusion he had escaped. He had been a prisoner for over a year at that point. Used to make drugs and sometimes just to provide entertainment. When he had finally escaped the compound, he felt nothing but joy that they were gone.
Pha wondered what became of his family. At first he tried to contact his parents until he ran out of money. There was never a response. No one was checking the Sao family email anymore. He looked for his siblings but after a few months, he too accepted that they were probably dead. Those were the worst days. The days of despair.
- - -
Pha’s relationship with Jill never became anything more than friendship but it was a friendship that he truly valued. Jill would tend the base camp and at night, Pha would go out to hunt. He had stopped scavenging for scraps, begging for morsels. Instead he would kill people he deemed to be evil and would take what they had. Pha was aware that he was justifying murder to himself, but were people like those fiendish junkies really human anymore?
With every successful night, Pha slept a little easier. He and Jill were eventually able to get a small studio apartment. It was only a little better than sleeping outside, but at least he had a door and a nice window that faced a concrete wall. The warlord who “protected” the building took a rather reasonable rate and Pha would occasionally do work for the man. Mostly killing rivals or junkies that moved into the area. Ones who would not play along by the rules.
When Pha became 19 years old he found his sister, Sanda. She, like him, had been a survivor. Her skills in computers made her an asset worth more than sex work and she was eventually sold to another gang, the Digital Renegades. Her skills and ruthlessness pushed her into the upper echelons of the little gang and she had begun to branch out.
Sanda had become a small-time fixer. When they finally met up, she was visibly shocked but joyed to see him. She was kind to him, he was family. The years of having to survive though had changed her. She was not the big sister he knew anymore. She had become cold and hard in many ways. She managed people like they were numbers on a spreadsheet. She had lost her ability to truly trust. A wound Pha understood.
Still, having your big sister as the source of most of your jobs has its advantages. Pha’s street cred grew and he began to make some decent money, enough to eventually get him and Jill out of the Combat Zone and into the city proper. They had climbed out of the pit only to discover that they were in a new, larger pit with higher walls. At least this pit had a warm bed and two-for-one synth meat sticks at the corner mart. Damn did Pha enjoy a 4 pack of high alcohol beer and 2 for 1 meat sticks after years of scrounging for garbage. Pha would be damned if he would ever go back down to the hovel again.
At 21, Pha made another friend. A female ripper doc named Angel. Angel had hired him to kill a group of scabs who had been luring various people off the street only to harvest their organs, cyberware or to put them into sex slavery. Angel's best friend had fallen victim to them and she wanted heads to roll.
These were the kind of jobs that Pha loved the most. The feeling of rightness, the joy of removing monsters. Pha had gained access to his prey through a few days of playing the braindead newbie. He had managed to get himself “selected” by the gang. Nothing excited predators like easy meat.
When they eventually brought him to their safehouse to harvest him, he was quickly able to take advantage. He had hand grenade money now. The gang ultimately had a lot of cash, drugs and guns that Pha felt no guilt in selling off. Jill was good at finding him buyers.
Instead of being paid in credits by Angel, Pha always used her services instead. Implants were still a distant dream financially but the medicine, drugs and discreet medical services she offered were a boon he could collect on now. Angel had saved Pha’s life more than once and he adored her.
At 22, Pha made his first major enemy, Jordan Michaels. Jordan was the Superintendent for Night Cities Waste Disposal Department, Zone C. While the city had many regulations, places like the Combat zone were not known to abide by them. Jordan would routinely roll in caravans of trucks protected by hired security that would dump off truckloads of medical waste, noxious chemicals and other items that would normally require a hefty disposal fee. The kind of disposal fee that had a civil servant buying high-end security escorts to avoid. This kept him under budget and was helping his career, along with netting him a nice side hustle of bribes and payouts. Best of all? Because it was taking place in the Combat Zone, he could not be held liable for anything.
While Jordan was raking in the money and political capital, the north end of the Combat Zone was getting even worse. Disease was spreading, mutations, psychosis and more. Some streets were made even more uninhabitable and the friction it was causing the gangs was primed to set off a firestorm of extended conflicts. Entire territories were having to be redrawn, safehouses moved. Something had to give.
Multiple gangs came together to solve the issue and Pha was brought in (thanks to Sanda) as one of the many solos and mercs the gangs were working on hiring. When the nightly caravan of trucks entered the combat zone and began to dump their loads, every solo, freelancer and gang member the little temporary confederation could afford came out of the woodwork.
Sanitation’s security fell quickly in the ambush, overwhelmed by a combined assault from all angles. Every truck was set ablaze, every road was destroyed and every sanitation worker was shot, knifed, hung or sent away with broken limbs. Jordan was furious, beyond furious. He made such a stink about it that the NCPD launched a few vengeance missions. They strafed the streets, dropped bombs and made arrests on those dumb enough to be out when they came in.
However, attacking the Combat Zone is expensive, risky and has no real gain. After a few terrible days the attacks stopped and life returned back to “normal.”
Somehow, the names of the solos and freelancers who had worked that night were leaked out. Someone had recorded the whole thing, perhaps to make a brain dance. When it was found that Pha had killed Jordan’s cousin, the supervisor of the night's dumping, all bets were off. Pha knew one day that if Jordan maintained his status, he would come for revenge.
---
At 24, Pha won a radio contest by being the 33rd caller. His reward? One month of free “No holds barred” MMA training. MMA had taken off in Pha’s youth and he looked up to some of the fighters, especially So Min, another Burmese man who had for a time reigned as the lightweight champion on the West Coast.
Pha’s first few classes were unique. MMA training was expensive so his classmates were mostly corpo workers, some cops and a few rich kids. He had little incommon with any of them these days. The instructor, Gary Grimes, was a grizzled old solo and bodyguard. His face and fists were a network of scars and synth tissue. His voice was always raspy, an injury he got from being punched in the throat back in the day.
Pha and Gary got along great and the instructor seemed pleased to have someone who would be actively using the skills taught. Gary took time to help Pha figure out his own strengths and weaknesses, learning to use superior leverage and mobility to avoid the worst of his usually stronger, larger opponent.
Pha and Gary’s acquaintanceship grew and over time the two became good friends. Pha was able to keep training for a pittance and Gary was happy to pass on his knowledge. When Pha managed to take down his first fleeing target and choke him to death with his own coat collar, he called and thanked Gary first. “You collar choked him out? Hahaha, that’s an old school one! Don’t get to do that much.” Classic Gary.
-----
Currently, Pha is 24 years old and lives in a small, 1 bedroom apartment in Night City with his friend and partner Jill. Pha and Jill have a platonic relationship with Jill tending the paperwork, billing and home needs while Pha works as a solo for hire. Both Pha and Jill care deeply for one another and would do anything to keep the other safe.
Pha tends to be picky with his jobs and will not take any that go against his own hazy set of ethics. While Pha is a friendly, outgoing person and fiercely loyal to those who have earned his loyalty; he is equally misanthropic, violent and moody when it comes to those he deems to be “not worth living”. To Pha, the world is a terrible hell planet filled to the brim with vice and evil. Folks like Jill, Angel and Gary give him some hope, but for the rest? The roaches can have them.
