JohnnyZ
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[Demons of NC] Chapter 79
🕑 Added 2025-02-23 06:10:54 +0000 UTC“Sent you the local cops' contacts,” Angie texted. “They won’t show up, no matter how loud it gets. Not that they like coming here anyway. Sixth Street’s in the loop too, so no trouble expected.”
“Perfect,” I replied, sliding my newly bought monotanto—picked up in Dogtown just yesterday—out of its black sheath with my left hand.
The ghostly blade had a faint green tint. I held it up, looking through it at Rebecca, who was sitting across from me.
“Woooooooow…,” she drawled meaningfully. “Not really into knives, but those are sick.”
Further back in the van, Panam was hunched over the bot’s control panel, making last-minute adjustments. Falko was parked nearby with a fast getaway ride, just in case. Lucy wasn’t here—she was already jacked in, running support remotely. Jackie’s crew and the Animals were in position, waiting for the signal.
Outside, the last embers of sunset smoldered in the sky. Long shadows stretched behind every passerby, dragging across the cracked asphalt and concrete like ghosts. Rush hour was winding down, and the night was just getting started, laced with the kind of promises that never came true.
“Alright. And… it’s working,” Panam announced. “Now we just gotta get this thing to the building. You had a plan for that, V?”
“Yeah. Don’t sweat it.”
The building’s inner courtyard was fenced off and well-guarded, but the opposite side was a little sloppier. No doors, no guards, no fence—just a blank wall, a couple of cameras, and a dumpster. Homeless folks drifted through sometimes. If a group of younger ones lingered too long, some asshole in camo would eventually show up, real aggressive-like, and kindly suggest they fuck off—either that or take a free shock baton massage. But if a single, pitiful-looking vagrant wandered in alone, security didn’t react as strongly.
That’s what I was gonna use.
“Need to scan something real quick,” I lied. “Gonna zone out for twenty minutes. When a really dirty-looking guy comes up to the van, hand him the bot, Panam.”
“Got it. Really dirty guy. Understood. Is there a password or something?”
“‘Magnus never betrayed.’”
“The fuck does that mean?” Rebecca asked.
“A lot,” I said. “Those words hold conflict and drama, but no time to explain now.”
“Shakespeare or what?” Panam smirked.
“Nah, but also a classic. Alright, going under.”
I latched onto a homeless guy, his face covered in sores and scabs, his age impossible to tell. A quick observation of his behavior told me he’d long since crossed the threshold of sanity. He wandered aimlessly between dumpsters, scratching furiously, pushing a shopping cart back and forth. His body was barely holding together, but it had enough implants left for me to take over without a hitch.
His right leg seized up every few steps, making him limp. His vision was full of floating black spots. How long did this guy even have left? A week? A month? Probably not much more.
Gripping the cart with shaky hands, I threw in a couple of crushed boxes and crumpled black bags, then shuffled around the corner to where our van was parked. Knocked twice, and the door opened.
Panam took one look at "me" and barely masked her disgust.
“What do you want, buddy?” she asked.
“M-Magnus never betrayed!” I rasped, feeling something rotten and wet gurgle in this body’s throat.
“Uh-huh. Come closer,” she said, eyeing me like she might need a hazmat suit. “Hope you know what to do with this.”
With quick, practiced hands, she passed over a black plastic case, the bot hidden inside. I struggled to drop it into the cart, covering it with trash bags.
“Prospero burns… P-Prospero’s on fire…,” I muttered, shambling away.
Hopefully, this poor bastard wouldn’t just die on the way. No clue what kind of hell he’d put his body through, but his HP bar was in the fucking red. Limping my way to the dumpster, I let myself collapse with the cart, flailing around like a junkie in withdrawal to mask the bot’s movements. It activated its cloaking and slid out from under the trash.
The pile shifted, then something half-invisible scuttled toward the building’s wall. Perfect. Now to ditch the bot’s case in another dumpster and get out of this body.
When I snapped back to my own, Panam glanced over. “Where’d you find that super spy?”
“Trash, obviously. How’s the bot?”
“We’re in,” she confirmed. “Slapped a magnet onto one of the arms, even managed to close the vent behind it. Patching the feed through to you now.”
The screen showed a dusty ventilation shaft as our little spider scurried along.
“Keep an eye on everything,” I reminded her.
“Of course.”
I expected surprises. Hopefully, the Brazilians hadn’t been here long enough to perfect their security. No ultra-sensitive tripwires in the vents or some such.
“Fuuuuck…,” Panam groaned. “Well, that didn’t last long.”
Up ahead, the vent was blocked by a welded grate with wires running out of it.
"That’s the entrance to the Brazilians' inner sanctum," Lucy said over comms. "Try backing out and exiting the vents. There might be another way."
“Okay… There was a drop into a storage room somewhere.”
The bot crawled out into a dimly lit space, closing the vent behind it. It was packed with old construction leftovers—unused transformers, relay cabinets, and other debris. The Brazilians had clearly remodeled before moving in.
Panam frowned. “Huh… Even if we can’t get inside, maybe I can fry their system from here?”
“Would that take out their cameras?” I asked.
“We’ll see. Weren’t you planning to enter from the roof?”
“Yup!” Rebecca beamed. “And we got that sick-ass thing from the comics!”
She meant the grappling hook pistol. I had my doubts about its actual effectiveness, but if it failed, I had a much more reliable method—one Viktor had helped with yesterday.
Meanwhile, the bot crept into a hallway. A few old, torn construction posters clung to the walls. Dust covered the floor, crisscrossed with footprints. Loose screws and fasteners littered the ground—a clear sign of recent structural modifications. The Brazilians had made themselves at home.
Further down, a guard stood decked out like he was heading into a war zone. But on closer inspection? No high-end detection gear. Intimidating look on a bargain-bin budget. I’d considered trying to bribe this security group, but the risk was too high. The second word got out, the Brazilians would vanish into thin air. No doubt they had a backup escape plan.
The bot froze as the guard approached. Closer… Closer.
A car rumbled by outside, and Panam seized the opportunity, using the noise to scuttle the drone onto the wall. It was cloaked, sure, but those little mechanical legs still made some sound.
"Fifth, all clear," the merc reported into his headset and kept walking.
Panam waited for him to move a safe distance before guiding the bot forward through the hallway again. Looked like she was following a bundle of cables running along the ceiling, hastily secured with plastic ties.
A short while later, the bot bumped into a locked door.
"No big deal. We’ll try another way," she said, still sounding optimistic.
Back into the vents, but this time, the bot didn’t attempt to enter the Brazilians’ domain. Instead, it found its way into some kind of utility room. Electrical panels, heavy-duty transformers, network switches. I didn’t know shit about this kind of equipment, in this life or the last, but Panam seemed to have a clue.
"Fucking classic!" she exclaimed, clearly pleased. "Super high-tech netrunner defenses, cameras on every corner, but the electrical grid? Looks like a drunk monkey put it together. I mean, nothing completely fucked, but press it in the right spots, and the whole thing crumbles. Should we press, V?"
"Will it take out their surveillance?"
"External, yeah. Inside? No clue. Probably got backups. Surge protection, generators."
"Alright. The outer perimeter is good enough for now. Hold for my signal. Gotta check our gear."
"Don’t rush. I’m gonna run a few more numbers."
"Fucking hell, this thing…" Rebecca groaned, struggling into a skintight aramid-insulated bodysuit. "Turn around, please. Gotta ditch my bra. It’s getting in the way."
"I got a better idea," Panam suggested. "Why don’t you just turn around?"
"Oh! Alright! Fuck, this thing is so uncomfortable."
"Trust me, getting shot through walls is even more uncomfortable," I commented while she kept fumbling.
I was wearing a similar suit. It wouldn’t completely block implants that could see through walls, but it shortened their detection range and threw in some interference. Plus, it worked as extra protection against shrapnel, broken glass, and all the other sharp bullshit this city threw at you. Over that, I strapped on a light vest. We both wore open-face helmets with built-in shrapnel-resistant goggles.
For weapons, Rebecca really wanted to bring the "Hercules," but it was better not to flash that around in front of the Animals so soon after we zeroed Mauser. That gun left very distinct wounds. We settled on the Nokota D5 "Copperhead"—solid balance of fire rate and armor penetration. She also packed a couple of Lexington pistols and a sawed-off shotgun loaded with buckshot for those close encounters.
I was rolling with Apparition and the HA-7 Warden—smart SMG built in Dogtown off an Arasaka "Shingen" model. Mine was modded with a 50-round mag. Solid power for an SMG and smart weapons in general. Recoil was rough, but hey, that’s the trade-off. And we’d be working in tight spaces today, so fine by me.
For blades, I had two monotanto blades and a pair of throwing knives. Rounding it out—five grenades. Four standard, one EMP.
Probably the most prepped I’d ever been for a job in my career as a Night City freelancer. The Brazilians weren’t gonna be easy. This wasn’t some low-level gang sweep.
"Giving you a heads-up, we’re moving," I told Jackie over comms.
"You need us doing anything yet?" he asked.
"Finish your coffee, load your guns, and wait for the signal."
A few more minutes of final checks—made sure nothing was loose or interfering with movement.
"We’re ready," I told Panam, pulling up Lucy’s rough building map in my optics.
"Good," she replied. "Starting the autopilot."
Our van started rolling. A couple of minutes, and we’d hit the enemy’s camera range. Hopefully, Panam would have them dark by then.
"Taking phase, grounding neutral, and…"
The building’s lights flickered and died.
Our van pulled up near the dumpster where I’d dumped the bot. Time to step out.
Outside, the sky had fully surrendered to night. Twilight thickened in every alley and corner that neon couldn’t reach.
A small recon drone zipped out after us—Panam’s work. I took a few steps, then switched to the drone’s camera feed.
"Three," Lucy's voice came through comms. "I’ll handle the sniper and the guy near the far side of the roof."
"Got it."
Three rooftop guards. Solid security, but not enough against two good runners. I locked onto my target and started casting.
Amnesia. Short circuit. Short circuit. Synapse burnout.
A second later, all three guards started convulsing as their implants glitched and their nervous systems fried. Clean takedown, but these guys probably had scheduled check-ins. It wouldn’t take long for someone to realize something was very wrong.
We had to move.
"Becca," I whispered.
"Yeah, yeah! I wanna to do it already…"
With a click and a faint whirr, the grappling hook launched… and then promptly fell back down.
"Fuck! What the—" she cursed. "Gimme a sec…"
"No. Just jump."
"Oh… Alright."
She spread her legs, bent slightly, and launched—shattering every Olympic record in my old world. Viktor had done solid work. Reinforced ankles for long-distance jumps. Simple chrome, but damn useful.
She didn’t quite reach the roof, but she landed on a pipe jutting out from the side.
"Now drop that amazing hook down here," I said over comms.
A few seconds later, the grapple fell at my feet. I clipped it to my vest, and Becca reeled me up.
And just like that, we were on the roof. Two intruders loaded to the teeth.
Ahead: a hatch and a stairway down to the second floor. It was dark, but my optics had no problem adjusting. Red outlines of guards moved through the walls.
If this turned into a gunfight, it wouldn’t be a small one.
We moved quietly through the hall, hearing shouting below—someone was already hitting the fire extinguishers. Looked like Panam had completly fried the wiring. Even up here, the air smelled like burnt plastic.
Checking the map, I led Rebecca past the roaming guards. The darkness worked in our favor.
"Enrique! Enrique, you copy?" came a voice to our right.
"Shit, rooftop’s not responding?"
"No. We should—"
"Nine to Three, all clear," a voice answered over the guards' radios.
Wait… what? How?
Had Lucy hijacked their comms and cloned the rooftop guards’ voices? Or maybe even synthesized them entirely?
"Three to Nine, hold position. Wiring’s totally fried down here."
"Copy that, Three."
So she had faked it. Smart. That was her own little addition to the plan. Not something I’d thought of. This bought us even more time before the full alarm went up.
Slipping past the last of the guards, we made it to the Brazilians' restricted zone. Two guys stationed at the door—one local merc, one of our international guests.
"Lucy," I whispered. "Their agent's on the right. I think he’s got built-in defenses. Can you hit him with two amnesias back-to-back?"
"Yeah. Got it."
Now we just had to sync our attacks so the scripts hit both targets at the same time. I crept up to the corner, peeked around. One second. Two. The Brazilian spotted me even in the dark but didn’t have time to trigger the alarm—just reached for his holster and managed to say:
"Hey—"
Then Lucy’s net attack hit both him and the local merc. The attack was digital, but the death? Very real.
I quickly rushed to the Brazilian’s body and jacked into his port. Needed to pull their IFF data to open up the next passage.
"Got the key," Lucy said over comms. "Opening the door now."
The metal doors slid open in front of us. Lights were still on. So yeah, they definitely had backup power.
Inside was a small room packed with netrunner gear. This was my area of expertise. Without wasting time, I slotted in the shard and uploaded the virus we’d prepared earlier. Originally, the bot was supposed to handle the upload, but I had to do it manually.
Our virus would give Lucy safe access into their digital fortress.
"You in?" I whispered.
"Yeah. Perfect. Now… head straight, then take a right. Not many cameras here."
I immediately noticed the walls were lined with white panels. Not just for aesthetics. These were insulation materials. My optics couldn’t see through them—but neither could the enemy’s. Level playing field.
We moved fast down the short hallway and descended into the basement. So far, everything was running smooth.
"Go straight until the fork. Take a left, third door on the left. Kiwi should be in there."
"Got it."
But then—two guards.
I recognized the voice around the corner. They were speaking Portuguese:
"They say it’s just the wiring. Everyone’s been pulled back. Posts reinforced."
"Better play it safe. We should call Diego."
‘Not gonna happen,’ I thought, already pulling an EMP grenade from my rig.
Round three, boys. You had two chances to catch me. Now it's my turn to hit you by surprise.
