JohnnyZ
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[Demons of NC] Chapter 52
🕑 Added 2024-12-12 12:17:45 +0000 UTCThree days into my little espionage venture, I’d already recruited four Arasaka employees: three from counterintel (Frank included) and one finance guy. My targets were all people Abernathy had kept the most dangerous dirt on—violations so bad they’d get fired on the spot, maybe even get a prison sentence… or worse.
Thanks, Susan, for being such a paranoid control freak. All I had to do was flash what I knew and work the usual playbook. Once someone agrees and delivers even the smallest favor, their escape routes shrink fast. Of course, we start small—innocent data leaks, no stolen files or classified materials. But the longer they leak, the deeper they sink.
Funny thing is, a mole doesn’t even have to sell out their own org directly. There’s another way. Arasaka’s got agents embedded in gangs, corps, police, and municipal agencies, plus access to paid databases.
Say someone in Barghest or one of their clients needs intel on Scavs or Valentinos. I can pull it from Arasaka’s counterintel files, sell it to the buyer, and the black-red megacorp won’t even notice. No direct harm to Arasaka means my agents stay off the radar.
I closed my first deal almost as soon as the recruits were in line. It took me back to Dogtown, but not for long. After a quick meet in "Black Sapphire," I spent a while at Barghest’s VIP armory, checking out gear you’d never find in the stadium markets. One weapon caught my attention more than the rest.
"So, how’s the reliability?" I asked, gripping the hefty piece.
The dark-skinned armorer in Barghest’s black-and-green uniform scratched his head. "You know how it is with prototypes—not much field data to go on."
"Figured," I replied, aiming the beast of a gun at a distant target. "Heavy, though."
"Yeah, experimental design. Overbuilt just in case."
Militech Hercules 3AX. A hybrid of traditional and smart tech. Two fire modes and… explosive rounds with toxic payloads. This thing was made to break as many rules of engagement as possible. Weird name choice, though—or so I thought. Then I remembered Hercules wasn’t just the guy who beat the Hydra; he dipped his arrows in its poison, too. Guess that tracks.
Smart targeting didn’t require a neural link—it had an onboard AI. Not sure that’s an advantage. The more complex the tech, the more prone it is to failure… or hacking.
I lifted the weapon, aiming at a target about 30 meters away. Squeezing the trigger, I felt the hefty recoil as the Hercules fired three rounds. Not the most precise, but good enough to hit a silhouette.
At every hit, a greenish-blue haze rose up from the impact points. The holes themselves seemed to smolder slightly.
“Toxic powder packed into the bullets. When it hits, it scatters and mixes with blood—or almost any liquid—and turns into acid,” explained the armorer.
“Not exactly humane,” I noted, firing off a few more shots as I wrestled the military-grade monstrosity against its heavy recoil.
“Weapons aren’t meant to be humane,” the Barghest tech replied. “Hercules nails that philosophy. A couple of hits to soft tissue, and then... pffffft!” He threw up his hands, mimicking a dramatic chemical reaction. “The wounds will be massive. Eats through artificial muscles easily, and the pain? Absolute hell. No combat stim can block it. Too bad it doesn’t do much against bots or borgs, though.”
“I can imagine.”
“Close range? Just hip fire. Long range? Use the smart targeting. The enemy will catch a dose of acid straight to the face and instantly regret messing with you.”
I flicked the weapon to smart mode with a swipe of my finger. There were several ways to toggle it—even a setting that adjusted modes based on how you held the gun. Seemed unnecessary to me.
A single pull of the trigger, and several rounds spiraled through the air like they were following invisible threads, locking onto the target dummy’s head. This time, the accuracy was solid despite the recoil. Slow but precise. Once again, a chemical haze enveloped the dummy for a few moments. The sharp, acrid scent tickled my nose, pure industrial-grade nastiness. They’d need to deep-clean the range after this.
“If it’s so great,” I said skeptically, “why isn’t Militech plastering ads for it everywhere and stocking it in their stores?”
“You know how corps test weapons. It's not just about going boom—they care about profits, losses, and all that accounting bullshit,” the armorer replied with a trace of disdain. “The ammo’s pricey. Around 300 eddies per hundred rounds. Plus, journos threw a fit about it—inhumane, non-eco-friendly, blah blah.”
“I thought Militech owned the media in NUSA.”
“They do. But Arasaka, Techtronika, and ‘independent’ press still have their platforms. You know, the ones who take money from everyone. Anyway, the prototype got shelved. Never went into production. But the blueprints hit the black market, and now we craft these for collectors. Ammo, too—made to order.”
A weird, overpriced, insane design. Cumbersome, but perfect for ripping through soft and lightly armored targets. Plus, Bec would love it.
I remembered the shootout with the Claws at Jimmy Kurosaki’s studio. If I or Bec had something like this back then, maybe we wouldn’t have needed the now-dead Miriam Levy and her buddy.
“How much?” I finally asked, side-eyeing the gun.
“Forty, with two thousand rounds included.”
Pricey. Forty grand was the fee for a top-tier solo merc gig. Then again, just today, Jago paid me twenty thousand for Arasaka data Frank and some others leaked to me. Five of that goes to them, fifteen to me. I’ve got nearly 1.2 mil in hand, and that’s just the start. What’s the point of hoarding cash if you skimp on gear?
“I’ll take it,” I decided.
“You won’t regret it,” the armorer smirked. “But anyone messing with you will.”
“Wrap it up. And what about melee weapons?”
“Ah, for that, you’ll want Zihao. He is around the corner there. If you’re into that kind of thing.”
“Not a fan of blades yourself?”
“God gave us guns for a reason. What was it in the Bible? ‘On the third day, God created the Remington bolt-action rifle so man could fight dinosaurs and gonks.’”
“Pack the Hercules. I’ll go check out the melee section.”
Leaving the gun fanatic and his warped gospel, I rounded the corner into another part of the armory. This space was dedicated to melee gear. The center held crude dummies for practicing strikes, while the walls showcased a dizzying variety of weapons—machetes, hammers, chainsaws, axes, tasers, and an overwhelming number of swords and knives.
Zihao—a heavily chromed-up Chinese guy—could’ve passed for a Tyger Claw gangster if not for the goofy dog-faced logo on his sleeveless shirt.
“Lefty?” he asked instead of greeting me, nodding at my cybernetic arm.
“Trying to get ambidextrous,” I replied, then added, “In an ideal world. Haven’t had much time for training—fast life, avoiding a fast death.”
“You seem like a rich man,” Zihao said, half-question, half-statement.
“Not yet,” I chuckled. “Getting there fast, though. Pretty damn sure of it.”
“Just figuring out what to offer you,” he said, tapping a battered steel drum riddled with slashes. “Something that won’t make you think I’m insane for showing it off.”
“Start with a price range. Cheapest and priciest items.”
“No junk here. Low end’s around two grand—those over there, or the neurotoxic knives.”
“Okay. And the top end?”
Zihao walked to a stack of cases and pulled out a sleek black container with chrome accents. Setting it on a low table, he opened it. A greenish light illuminated the contents: a matched pair of katana and wakizashi. Daisho—a traditional Japanese set of long and short swords.
The craftsmanship was unreal. High-tech silver-white grips. The blades looked ethereal, like dark glass, almost translucent.
“Monoblades. Traditional set. The crystals were grown in zero-gravity on an orbital station. Reinforced to the limit. Biometric locks.”
“Can I test them?”
Zihao shook his head.
“Not these,” he said, heading back to grab another case. “But I’ve got a demo set you can try.”
He pulled out another monoblade, though clearly a simpler one, and approached a metal pipe anchored to the floor, about as thick as a person’s arm. The metal was roughly four millimeters thick. A quick slash! I barely caught the motion of the blade before a chunk of the pipe fell away with a clang against the concrete floor. The cut was flawless.
“All monoblades are phenomenally sharp,” the vendor explained. “But this one’s not great for parrying. Not as durable. That’s why it’s cheaper. Still, when it comes to cutting and slicing? Unmatched. You can’t make a weapon sharper than this.”
He handed me the blade cautiously. It was light. Really light. I tried a few basic movements, holding it with both hands. My cyberlimb seemed almost custom-built for this, though my flesh-and-blood right arm lagged a little behind. Sure, you could wield it one-handed, but that required a different technique altogether.
My swing was clumsier than Zihou’s. The blade bit deep into the metal, slicing more than halfway through, but I couldn’t manage a clean cut. Still, it was impressive—effortlessly tearing through solid metal like that. Made me glad old Hunt didn’t have something like this on him, or I’d have ended up a bit more dismembered last time.
“How much?” I asked. “What’s the price on that pair and this one?”
“The pair’s 150 grand. This one? Just five and a half.”
“Is the only difference the durability?”
“Durability, blade geometry, how it moves through the air. Those two? They’re works of art—built to last centuries. This one? A decent toy for a few nights and a few dozen people. A fluttering butterfly—short-lived but bright.”
His poetic phrasing was basically a warning: the blade wouldn’t last, and complaining later wasn’t an option.
“Got anything in between? Something that’s not a masterpiece but also not a one-night butterfly?”
“Of course. Twelve thousand, twenty, and so on. We’ve got individual wakizashi, simple knives, too. But let me tell you why you struggled with the pipe. Monoblades are slicing weapons. You can hack with them, but that’s not their real strength. To cut properly, you’ve got to pull the blade through, using your own strength. It’s all about the edge.”
That required practice. Practice required time and money. I had some of both, at least for now.
In the end, I picked up two monoknives in tanto style, a couple of basic ones, one neurotoxic blade, six pure throwing stilettos, two mid-grade monoblades, and a standard katana for training. Total cost? Forty-six thousand. It had been a while since I spent so much boosting my combat readiness.
Alongside the Hercules, its ammo, and the melee arsenal, I also grabbed a few grenades and simpler firearms. That left me with 1.1 million eddies.
“You planning to sell all this?” Panam asked as we loaded the boxes of weapons and ammo into the car.
“Nope. All for personal use—and maybe to lend to friends.”
“Lot of friends, or a lot of enemies?”
“Well, there’s one less enemy as of recently,” I winked, settling into the passenger seat.
Dogtown’s apocalyptic ruins rolled past the window, corpses swinging from crumbling beams. But my mood? Surprisingly good. Freedom was intoxicating. My gaze flitted across the devastation outside, and my heart felt light. Everything was fine—until my thoughts drifted to that metaphorical closet of skeletons. The one now standing between me and Lucy.
I was thinking. Trying to map out a plan to open that closet and clear it out. Lucy’s words echoed in my mind:
“They’re monsters, V. Bloodthirsty beasts whose appetites even Smasher couldn’t match. People love fairy tales, and when they realized monsters didn’t exist, they decided to create them.”
She’d said that to convince me not to mess with the AIs of Cynosure. If that’s really what she believed… I worried that as soon as I stopped being “human” in her eyes, every word and action of mine would be seen as manipulation. A trick to lower her guard. After all, a monster couldn’t have human emotions, right? Her perception of me would crumble in seconds. I’d only have one shot.
“What’re you thinking about, V?” Panam’s voice pulled me back. She’d noticed me staring blankly at a concrete wall as we idled in a line to leave Dogtown. “Planning who else you can flatline for a mil or two?”
“Close enough,” I waved her off.
Shame violence, murder, and lies couldn’t solve every problem.
“Where to? Home?”
“Nah. The clinic.”
Victor was alone—no Gloria, and not even a rush of patients. Either Night City was having a rare quiet day, or people were using weapons heavy enough that there was no one left to send to a ripper.
“What’s on the menu today?” Vic asked.
“Skull bone reinforcements and a ThreatEvac,” I replied.
“All right. But tests first. Been a while since you’ve been in my chair. Gotta make sure nothing important’s been shot off.”
“My toe,” I smirked. “How’re things? How’s Gloria?”
“She’s complaining about her son’s problems at ‘work.’ She doesn’t get that Arasaka’s SB is more of an army or a gang than a job. A kid like David has no business there. Especially at seventeen.”
“You told her that?”
“Yeah,” Viktor shrugged as he hooked me up to the equipment. “But she thinks it’s better than being a merc. I tried to argue with her... well, I tried.”
“She’s kinda right. For a guy like David, there’s a path to the top, but that road’s not covered in rose petals. Mercs, gangs, or Arasaka—it’s all the same. You kill for money.”
“Then why’d you leave Arasaka?”
“They tried to zero me out. No choice.”
“Just because of that?” Viktor asked, clearly hinting. “You don’t seem like someone who’d suffer much on the streets.”
“Alright. I won’t deny it. Being a merc gives you a freedom you can’t find in a corp. Though, I’m not exactly a merc anymore. I might be a fixer soon.”
“Climbing the ranks?”
“More like slowly building a ladder to climb.”
“Hey… maybe you could talk to the kid?”
“Convince him to leave Arasaka?”
“Yeah. You’re kind of an authority to him. You saved him once, and you’ve been in Arasaka. Try to talk him out of it. He won’t starve, I promise. He’ll find something he enjoys. But he needs to get out of that corp before he loses his soul.”
“I can give it a shot. So, how’s my op schedule looking, doc?”
“Soon. Take a deep breath.”
Just as I was drifting off under the anesthesia, one thought stuck in my head: what kind of life is this? The hardest part isn’t surviving—it’s dealing with the mental health of the people around me. Lucy and David… I interfered with their lives once, set them on different paths. And now it’s up to me to fix it all?
__________________________________________________________
I walked out of Vic’s clinic with a spring in my step, hardly feeling the effects of the operation.
The ThreatEvac is considered pretty lightweight chrome. It only kicks in when your biomonitor freaks out, optimizing your body for “I’m about to fucking die” mode. Helps you run away faster or, alternatively, sprint right into danger to deal with it. Either option works for me.
The thought popped back into my head—I really needed to talk to Lucy. And David too. It’s on my list, but first, I wanted to do something more enjoyable. Easier, lighter. So I called Becca and got straight to the point:
“Hey. I need your help. I want to take down a guy.”
“Take down? I’m in!”
“Well, technically knock him out. Then I’ll rip some data from his implants. After that, we can take him out if you want.”
“Not as fun, but still sounds good. Does he have a squad of bodyguards I can just shred to bits?”
“Nope. He’s a solo, but a high-end one. Name’s Jack Mauser. Heard of him?”
“Oh yeah. Total psycho. Now it’s sounding fun again. Where do I meet you?”
“I’ll pick you up. Get your guns ready.”
