Into the Void

Upon returning to Aldo's and reuniting with everyone, the robot introduced himself as Serial Designation N. N explained that he and his friend, Uzi, recently arrived at Night City via portal after the Black Mass took over their dimension. But sometime after their arrival, the two robots were attacked by a street gang: the same group of men Jesse and GingerBrave encountered when they came to the city. During a scuffle, said gang ripped N to pieces and kidnapped Uzi, leaving the poor winged robot for dead. However, he was able to repair himself due to somehow being able to regenerate. Since then, he was alone and was searching for his friend until he heard about people rescuing outsiders who were stranded in Night City themselves.

"I still don't get it, though," Jesse said as soon as N was done explaining himself. "How were you able to find out who we are?" he asked.

"I did some asking around," N answered. "Everyone I asked in this city gave me a different answer. One said a horse, a couple said a biped, a bartender said a majority of them were humans, an old man said a robot like myself, and a kid mentioned a talking cookie. After finding you guys at that bar last night, I pieced together every answer I got."

"Biped?" Lilac repeated, raising an eyebrow as she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"I think it's best if you don't question it," Lucy whispered to the dragon.

"And now that I'm here, I see that you've been finding others just like me and keeping them here, and I must say, I'm impressed!" N smiled for a bit before asking, "What are you gonna do with them, anyway?"

"We want to send them to Planet Specter as soon as we find all the refugees here. We plan on keeping them there until we clear their worlds of the Black Mass." Kai said. "There's just one problem: we don't have a functional cube to do that."

"Cube?" N raised a digital eyebrow.

"He means this." Jesse pulled out his cube to show the robot.

"Oh! Why not just use that?" N pointed at the cube.

"That's the problem: we can't because mine was drained of its power, and every one of ours has been destroyed here."

"Mine was drained, too," Zane chimed in as he raised a hand.

"Oh! And there's this friend we're looking for!" GingerBrave said. "Her name's Kasane and we believe that if we find her and use her cube, we can send all the refugees to Planet Specter."

"Oh, that's great!" N exclaimed before asking, "You guys will still help me, right? Rescue my friend, I mean."

Everyone turned to look at each other before Jesse asked, "Could you maybe step out for a bit so we can discuss this privately?"

"Okay!" With that, N walked out of the room.

"So, now what?" Kiwi began.

"Jesse," Maine said, turning to the latter. "You said that you and your little friend were almost attacked by a gang upon comin' here, right?"

"Well, yeah," Jesse replied. "They wanted to rob me and even take GingerBrave away; they wanted to eat him, too."

Meanwhile, GingerBrave shuddered.

"But when David showed up, they just walked away." Jesse turned to David, who recovered upon arrival, and asked, "What was that all about, anyway?"

With his hands behind his head, David answered, "Those guys knew I was one of Maine's teammates. They know not to mess with us."

"Why, though?"

"Some time ago, Maine put that small street gang you mentioned in their place; I hadn't joined them yet at the time." David chuckled. "But when I did, Maine told me that story himself. He said those guys were beatin' up a couple of lowlives and even tried to loot them. But then, Maine showed up and flatlined them one by one until there were only a few of them left."