JohnnyZ
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[Demons of NC] Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2024-11-19 18:04:00 +0000 UTC"How’re you feeling?" I asked Rebecca as she stepped out of the ripperdoc's "clinic" at Petrochem Stadium.
"I’m alright..." she replied, looking a bit dazed.
They’d installed a Dynalar Sandevistan—one of the lightest, simplest models of that kind. Good survival stats, according to the studies. Though I suspect those studies were heavily funded by the corps.
"We’ll check in with my ripper in a week," I added. "If he notices any issues..."
"Yeah, yeah, I’m good," Rebecca waved it off. "What do I owe you?"
"Sixteen grand, just like we said. But it’s on me. Consider it part of the prep for the big job."
The implant and its installation cost fifteen thousand, but Jago gave me a hundred grand for expenses, so it didn’t sting too much. We really needed someone in the crew with a Sandevistan or a Berserk.
The Dynalar cyberware doubled time perception for eight seconds, but it had a long cooldown—almost a minute. Pretty solid for short, close-range fights, which most of our skirmishes ended up being anyway.
I hadn’t installed anything for myself yet. Might need to rely on my “demonic” powers soon, so I had to keep my nervous system intact. While we were at the market, we picked up more grenades, ammo, and I got myself a short, one-handed sword. Not a katana—a wakizashi. The fifty-centimeter blade was forged from excellent steel, extra thick for durability. It also had a broad, square guard that made it perfect for blocking enemy blades. That’s exactly why I got it—for defense. A lot easier to fend off Hunt with this than just my metal arm.
The wakizashi and its scabbard were all black, matching the rest of my gear. I strapped it to my right side since I planned to wield it left-handed.
The rest of the day was spent gathering intel on how to reach the bunker. Problem was, I didn’t have exact coordinates. My memory wasn’t that clear. In one of those futures that never came to be, V ended up in Cynosure chasing a rogue AI possessed Songbird. A hijacked MaxTac truck smashed through an entry point that led to the heart of a secret Militech project.
Wandering through the underground alone, hoping to stumble across the bunker? No thanks. I didn’t have the time or patience. So, I asked Slider for a route through the underground networks. Naturally, he suggested sending a guide—or even a full escort—but I shut that down quick:
“No. You’ll get whatever data I can pull, but no escorts. If your people show up unannounced, I’ll assume they’re hostile and shoot first. This is a solo deal. Just give me the map and the timing, and I’ll handle the rest.”
“Alright, alright,” the netrunner’s raspy voice crackled back. “You’re a tough one, aren’t you? Fine, I’ll play nice this time. Let’s see what comes of it. You wouldn’t cheat a poor cripple, would you, V? That’d be a real dick move.”
“I’m not promising I’ll find much. This trip’s mostly recon. I’ll take a camera, record everything, and maybe send you the footage later.”
Hell, sounded like something straight out of a paranormal show. Haunted bunker, dude with a camera poking around for ghosts. Real spooky hours.
“Oh, I’ll be watching every second,” the Figurehead chuckled. “Frame by frame.”
Couldn’t help but wonder why he was still blind. Optics could fix that easily these days. Maybe his brain was too fried from deep dives or some nasty cyberattack. But either way Wilky LaGuerre stayed blind and made jokes about it.
The Voodoo Boys handed over a detailed map of the underground. Everything except the Black Sapphire tunnels and their bases. Abandoned subway lines, maintenance rooms, dry sewers—a labyrinth meant to support a thriving city that never came to be. None of it was well-maintained.
“I’ve seen plenty of ghost towns,” Panam muttered, studying the map. “Little ones—just a saloon and a couple houses. Mining towns, factories that shut down. Even big cities with skyscrapers. Millions of eddies gone to dust and wind. This place is no different. If corpos can abandon whole cities this easily, what chance do regular people have?”
Panam would stay topside with the car. Meanwhile, we stocked up on weapons, meds, respirators, flashlights, night vision gear, cameras, motion detectors, and other spy gadgets.
The plan was simple: don’t trust anyone, especially the locals. Always expect an ambush—stabbed in the back, blindsided.
Panam dropped us off near a crumbling building on Elizabeth Kress Street. A Barghest patrol was hanging around. Sure, we’d supposedly struck a deal with Hansen, but you could always count on someone—Bennett, maybe, or one of Abernathy’s agents—to try and screw you over.
Our entrance was a rusty old hatch hidden under a collapsed ledge. A pile of dusty garbage lay nearby—faded wrappers, probably years old. Trash was a problem in Night City, but here? Nobody gave a damn unless it was right on Hansen’s front lawn.
The hatch wasn’t fully closed. You could tell from the scrape marks on the asphalt that it had been moved recently. I gripped it with my cyberarm and dragged the rusty metal plate aside. Rebecca switched on a flashlight, pointing it down the shaft.
A rusty ladder. Broken bottles at the bottom. And… a human skull.
“Shit, even Night City doesn’t get this bad,” Rebecca said. “You sure this is where we’re headed, choom?”
“V’s sure,” Lucy cut in before I could answer. “He’s got a thing for trying to grab fate by the balls.”
“Alright, fine,” Rebecca sighed. “But after this, I’m calling dibs on a shower.” She jumped down, landing on a ledge partway down before hopping to the bottom. Broken glass crunched under her boots. Lucy followed with a similar move.
“Well… I’ll take the ladder,” I muttered.
The stench of decay hit me as soon as I reached the bottom. Breathing was a struggle. I put on a basic chem mask, and the girls did the same. Lucy pressed a finger to her mask, signaling for silence, then pointed toward a dark corridor.
I strained to listen. Nothing. Lucy must’ve been using some software to pick up faint sounds. Smart.
I slipped on a simple night-vision device that synced with my optics. On my head, a light helmet with a mounted camera. A tactical vest over my chest. Fully geared, ready for war.
We moved cautiously through the tunnel. Even with the mask, the stench clawed its way in. My eyes drifted to the wall.
“The voices whisper. Louder. Louder. It’s waves. Frequency waves piercing minds. Every day. Every minute. Fewer thoughts of my own…”
Further down, the scrawl turned to more paranoid rambling. Red lettering on the gray concrete. Of course, there were the usual crude tags, too:
“Myers is a gonk slut.”
And…
“God made humans. Satan made the Japanese.”
We made it about thirty meters in before I started hearing it too. Strange noises deeper in the tunnel. Metal scraping against stone. Crunching. Mutters.
Not good. Best-case scenario? Some unhinged bum reeking of piss. Worst case…
Something darted out of sight behind a corner. Not human. Red eyes glowed in the dark.
Rebecca fired her rifle. Sounded like she hit it.
"Back!" I yelled, pulling a still firing Becca back with me.
A split second later, a cyberlimb emerged from the tunnel, draped in the tattered remains of military gear. The hand shifted upward, revealing the dark maw of a barrel. Flames sparked, and the round shot out.
I saw it all in perfect clarity thanks to Kerenzikov.
I sent a quick implant jam toward the enemy while dragging Becca and myself to the ground.
Luckily, the bastard wasn’t aiming properly. Two rounds hit the wall, sending shards whistling above us. One ricocheted off my helmet—not a big deal. The protection held.
Before I could react, Lucy darted toward where the attacker had appeared. I couldn’t stop her. She lobbed two EMP grenades around the corner. Blue flashes lit up the darkness, followed by guttural screams. Becca and I scrambled to our feet, bumping into each other as we rushed forward.
Around the corner lay… something. Calling it human would’ve been generous. Its skin was torn off in patches, exposing titanium bones beneath. Covered in grime and blood, this cyber-ghoul had clearly lost its mind ages ago. It must’ve wandered the tunnels for who knows how long, howling and scraping its flesh against concrete walls.
Another cyberware malfunction. Then—just keep shooting.
It took us about twenty seconds to finish it off. Longer than I’d like, but someone had seriously reinforced its innards.
“Ugh! A freak like this killed my brother,” Becca muttered, kicking the shredded head of the ghoul. “Just had his junk hanging.”
The thing had nothing worth salvaging. Just a heap of chrome and filthy rags.
Further down the tunnel, we found evidence of its meals. Rotting corpses, three of them, their limbs and faces gnawed to the bone.
Ah, the marvels of modern tech, turning old-school horror stories into reality.
We moved past its hunting grounds, descending deeper. We traversed a few long tunnels, setting up cameras as we went. Then crawled through a wide pipe. Here, the air was less foul, and the trash thinned out. Too remote for anyone to bother with. Just concrete, rust, dust, and the echoes of our footsteps. Even the graffiti was gone.
Occasionally, a sharp gust of wind would blow through the ventilation shafts, sounding like distant wails. Places like this could make anyone believe in ghosts.
“What a shithole…” Becca muttered, sounding a bit uneasy as she pulled her mask down to hang loose around her neck. “Feels like someone’s watching us through the walls…”
“One of the sensors we left earlier just went off,” Lucy announced.
I cycled through the camera feeds. Empty. Empty. Empty. Then—there. A flicker. Just for a second. Definitely not a group. A lone figure.
Looked like Wesley Hunt was tailing us again. Too bad for him. This time, we were ready, and his usual tricks wouldn’t work. Now we just needed to pick the right spot for a fight. Long corridors? Nope, not ideal. Hmm. We were close to the bunker anyway.
Listening carefully, we pressed onward into the depths of the abandoned tunnels. Sometimes we’d come across shell casings or old bloodstains. In one corner, there was even the skeletal remains of a soldier in NUSA gear.
Most of the flesh had decayed, but scraps of synthetic armor still clung to the body. Optical implants dangled from the empty eye sockets like grotesque decorations. Poor bastard had probably been lying there since the Unification War.
Too deep, too empty—there weren’t even rats or bugs to clear out the corpses.
We left the wide tunnels behind and entered narrow, winding corridors.
“Yo, check this out!” Becca said, gesturing with her rifle.
I spotted a faded Militech symbol on the wall. A quick check of the map confirmed it—this was it. The bunker was just on the other side of that wall.
“We need to deal with Hunt,” I said. “How far, Lucy?”
“About ten minutes out.”
“Perfect. Let’s give him a warm welcome.”
The plan was a bit of a throwback to my last face-off with Lucas Costa. We set up cameras in the darkest part of a corridor leading to a brightly lit room where Becca and I would be waiting. We planted three EMP grenades with remote detonators as backup.
Becca was armed with a Nokota D5 Copperhead assault rifle. I set aside Widow Maker, opting for Apparition.
“We should pretend we’re talking about something important,” I told Becca as we took our positions.
“Like what?”
“You believe in ghosts?”
“Well… I’ve seen some weird shit during a dive. Everyone does. But one time, I got up at night to take a piss, and I swear I heard—”
She didn’t get to finish.
“He’s coming. Fast,” Lucy cut in over comms.
I flipped to the camera feed but didn’t even have time to trigger a script. Hunt was moving that fast. Lucy detonated the EMP. He didn’t even slow down as he passed through the electromagnetic pulse.
I spun around just in time to see him.
Hunt burst into view, wreathed in blue sparks from the EMP disrupting his cloaking. A shadow with glowing eyes. His Sandevistan was glitching, though, unlike my Kerenzikov.
Flash. Sparks.
I managed to yank my wakizashi from its sheath just in time, catching his katana on the flat of the blade. The steel slid down and stopped against the tsuba.
Short circuit. Overheat. Synapse burnout. No time to deploy more scripts.
I tried to fire a shot, but my reactions weren’t fast enough for everything.
Hunt pulled his blade back, spinning on the spot. Becca activated her own Sandevistan, circling around me to get in close. She aimed for his head, unloading a barrage.
Through the slowed time of Kerenzikov, I saw a round punch through his skin and lodge in his reinforced bones. Another shot knocked his visor askew, revealing two cold, orange pinpoints where his eyes should’ve been.
He didn’t even flinch. EMPs, bullets—nothing seemed to faze him.
Hunt pulled his blade back, spinning in place. Becca fired up her Sandevistan, darting around me and trying to pump shots into Hunt’s head from nearly point-blank range. Even under the slowed perception of my Kereznikov, I could see one bullet rip through his skin, lodging into reinforced bone. Another knocked off his shades, revealing two pale orange lights glowing coldly where his eyes should’ve been. His face was blank, unaffected. EM blasts, bullets—nothing fazed him. The Skater was right: Wesley Hunt wasn’t a hunting dog. He was more like an insect or a reptile. Cold-blooded, half-insane, driven only by the urge to kill his target before slithering off to his next deranged party.
A blinding white flash erased the world. Hunt had thrown flashbangs. In the final moments of Kereznikov’s slowdown, I lunged backward, shielding my head with my cyberarm and wakizashi. The ringing clang told me Hunt had struck, but I’d managed to block it.
Then I felt the pressure—Hunt’s blade jabbed into my chest, aiming for the solar plexus. My armored plate absorbed the blow, barely holding.
I crashed onto my back. Becca kept firing, the roar of gunshots and the clink of shell casings filling the air. Flat on the dusty floor, my optics were a smear of red static. My systems were still resetting.
"Think I can’t kill you just 'cause I can’t see? I’ll fucking fill you up with lead!" Becca yelled, her voice sharp, electric with rage.
I stayed down for now, not wanting to risk catching a stray bullet. Finally, my vision cleared.
"Becca, stop!" Lucy’s voice rang out from behind.
"What?! Why?!" Becca snapped, mid-reload, genuinely confused.
Looks like her sight hadn’t returned yet. Blind as a goddamn Slider, but still trying to pin Hunt down.
"He's dead," I said, getting to my feet.
Hunt's body lay further down the corridor—damn, he’d managed to get pretty far. A good seven meters from us. Lucy walked up to him.
"Yeah," she nodded. "He's done for."
"Who got him?!" Rebecca shouted. "Me? You? V?"
Lucy turned, irritation flashing across her face.
"How the hell should I know? Do I look like a ripper? He’s zeroed, and that’s all that matters."
I stepped over to Hunt’s body. Blood-flecked foam dribbled from his mouth. No signs of neural burn from an overheating synapse system. Maybe he kicked it from a cocktail of injuries? Or was it just a bad trip from the junk he pumped into himself before coming at me for round two? Who cares? Dead is dead.
I picked up his katana. Nothing fancy. A dime-a-dozen blade you could snag at any market for cheap.
"Lucy, think you can pull the cloaking software from him?"
"What, you planning to go ghost on us? I’ll give it a shot. But if it’s some military-grade custom, you might be outta luck."
"You’ve got time. Meanwhile..." I glanced at the heavy metal door emblazoned with the Militech emblem. "...I’ll go play house with the ghosts. Stay here. I’ll be quick—hopefully."
After adjusting my gear and activating my helmet cam, I approached the door. The lock gave me a bit of trouble, but my tricks got it open. No people were supposed to be down here.
Behind it? Another door. This one was a beast—hermetic seals, reinforced panels, and ice-cold security protocols. Cracking this bad boy took me nearly twenty minutes, but I managed. As the doors slid apart, I felt the air pressure shift. The seal had been tight. No dust, no rust, no musty stench.
The room beyond was pristine—technical as hell. Wires snaked everywhere, massive system blocks hummed silently in sleep mode. The blind, dark eyes of security cameras stared down at me. Off, or so it seemed, but they gave off a vibe like something—or someone—was watching.
Hello, Cynosure. Time to catch some ghosts.
