JohnnyZ
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[Demons of NC] Chapter 36
🕑 Added 2024-11-07 23:35:55 +0000 UTC“You ever shot one of these?” Jackie asked, nodding at the Grad sniper rifle from Techtronika.
“In the range a bit, and in sim,” I replied. “Don’t sweat it. My main role’s the hacking. Even if I miss, I’ll still be useful.”
“Just make sure you miss fair and square,” the merc grinned. “Better to honestly miss than hit the wrong target.”
We were chilling at the new place in Megabuilding Ten. Just me, Jackie, and Becca for now.
All over the tables, nightstands, and chairs were laid out an array of firearms. Mostly ballistic, though there were a few electromagnetic models. Becca was crawling along this arsenal, checking, tweaking, or tossing aside individual guns while reciting some kind of rhyme—or maybe it was pure improv:
“Bang-bang
Late-ass evening
Got nothing going on
I got up, looked under the bed
Damn, so much cleaning left ahead
There are panties that don’t fit
And guns, too — LOTS OF GUNS!
I'll grab a big pistol, biggest one
Shoot whoever dared to tell me "No"
I’ll fill the Claws with lead if I don’t die first
If I live through it, I'll be the best
And everyone who pissed me off is dead
And if you fuck around, you’ll be dead”
"Hey, chica, don't take it the wrong way…" Jackie started carefully. "…but how old are you exactly?"
"Old enough," Becca answered shortly, then added, "They sell me guns without an ID."
Right then, Lucy buzzed in:
"The tech's out. Everything's set up at the house, and we're ready for visitors."
"Nice," I smirked. "Sending out invites now."
I did a little magic with the protocols and encryption, slipped on some mirrored shades, and called one of my would-be killers. I spoke in Russian.
"— Nash? You alive over there? Looks like I've got a lead on that runaway corpo. You know, Price. But you'll need to roll up ASAP."
"Where?" asked the Shiv.
"Hold up. Payment's as agreed?"
"Yeah. No advance. I haven’t gotten shit yet."
"And what about Panam? Haven't seen her since the club mess."
"Who the fuck knows? She probably skipped town. Forget it. I’ve got the client contact. Fighters will show. All we need is intel."
‘Smooth talker,’ I thought. Though he might not stiff me out of that seven if the pot rises to sixty. Having a good runner contact can be damn valuable in Night City.
"Deal. Sending the info."
I sent him a little fairytale about some corpo runaway who supposedly had a meet with a tech merchant on the Northside outskirts, aiming to buy some device to prevent his former employers from tracking him.
"It’ll be in an hour or two," I warned. "You got people ready?"
"No need to look. They’re all set. Later."
Nash "hung up."
"You're pretty slick with the Soviet tongue," Jackie noted. "Didn’t peg you for it before."
"My Soviet’s just not as obvious as your Spanish. But if you like, I can start calling you 'comrade' and offer you 'vodka' before we kick things off with some ultra-violence."
"Whatever works. In Heywood, it’s all mixed up. People, cultures, languages. I’m used to this and that."
"Alright. Let’s get ready," I announced. "We’ve got ourselves a field trip to Northside with a pre-show fireworks."
There’d be four of us. Not a lot, but I doubted Nash was bringing a whole army. More muscle means less of the cut for himself.
My main concern was that advance payment point for the intel. But I’d given Nash little time on purpose. He’d rather grab the whole reward himself than try selling the info for a measly ten. And just in case some Arasaka cronies showed up, we had a few cameras on the roads and a backup route.
Half an hour later, we were in place, set up in a nearby abandoned building. The area was dead, barely even any bums. Just a pack of Maelstroms hanging out nearby, drinking and high as fuck since morning in some old garage. Chances were they wouldn’t even hear a shootout, heavy artillery and nukes included.
"Everyone in position?" I half-whispered over the comms, from my spot on a rooftop across from the five-story dead zone where Nash was supposed to pull up.
"Yep," Becca replied from the first floor.
"Waiting for our guests," I heard Jackie say from an alley to our building's left.
"They’re coming," Lucy announced from the third floor. "Two cars."
Maximum ten people, but probably fewer.
A decked-out Archer Quartz with some gang tweaks and a beat-up city Thornton rolled up to the bait house. Raffen got out of the cars.
Three, five, seven.
Nash stood out, dressed plain compared to his allies, who looked vibrant against Northside’s grim decay. Jackets with synthetic leather skulls, metal-studded short-sleeved jumpsuits, and raider-style knee and elbow guards.
The real threats were Nash, a chick with a green-blue mohawk with gang colors, and a tall machine gunner with two heavy cyberarms. The other four? Cannon fodder — no serious armor or implants. No runner with them, but two of them had detection software for quick-hack sources.
I tuned into the speaker near the bait building's entrance.
"Alright, Nash-the-Slasher," sneered the mohawked girl, popping her gum and pulling her assault rifle. "Where’s this corpo bastard?"
"Inside," Nash nodded at the derelict building. "No headshots. Need the body for ID."
The chick nodded, signaling three others, including the machine gunner, to follow her. Hold up. Nash’s not going in himself? Damn snake. Master manipulator. Wonder how much he promised that painted girl to off me. Bet it was around ten grand. So, if Nash’s plan goes smoothly, he’ll snag over forty without lifting a finger. Just for a little chat.
Four Raffen, led by Mohawk Girl, entered the building, aiming guns at every doorway along the way. Not here to talk, obviously.
There were a few old cameras set up to track their movements to the bait.
"Horb, cover me," barked the mohawked chick as she kicked in the door to the bait room.
Shots fired instantly. They riddled the mannequin sitting in the corner on a chair. With its black balaclava, goggles, and covered clothes, it looked pretty damn close to a real person. With a basic mechanical toy inside, it even twitched as if it were in pain.
The mannequin didn’t play "Vincent Price" for long, though. Once all four Raffen were in the room, an explosion hit.
We’d had no trouble hiding a few crude bombs among the trash and broken furniture in the dead building. Metal pellets sprayed the Wraiths. Two dropped dead, the machine gunner held up, and the mohawked girl tried to escape using Kerenzikov and Sandevistan to speed-dodge. But there were more bombs in the corridor. She jumped out of one shrapnel cloud, only to land right in another.
I sent her off with a little synaptic burnout for good measure, then switched my focus to the street.
"Lucy," I called, poking a small camera over the edge of the roof.
Stage one.
I hit Nash with a cyberware malfunction and a short circuit. Lucy did something too. But we didn’t get to go full throttle. Nash took out the camera and lobbed a grenade onto the roof. Seeing it, I rolled aside.
The explosion has gone off by an old, busted transformer box. Luckily for me, it did the job shielding me. Shrapnel whizzed by or clattered into the rusty metal.
“Let’s go!” I ordered.
And then Jackie and Becca jumped into action, opening fire on the remaining Wraiths. I joined in too, bracing my sniper rifle on the edge of the rooftop.
Two of the goons were already on the asphalt, full of fresh holes. Nash? Despite all the scripts we’d dumped on him, the bastard dove into his armored car, plowing through whatever was in his way to make an escape. Gotta respect his survival instincts.
The Shiv’s car had no windows—actually, the windows had been reinforced with armor plates. No easy way to hit him with another quickhack.
“Jackie…” I started to say.
“Already on it,” Wells cut me off. “Getting the bike started.”
That bastard needs to be finished off, or he’ll be haunting us again soon.
The Raffen car’s ICE was decent. Unfortunately, I was out of deck memory. So I fired a shot from the sniper, trying to blow out one of the tires. Missed. The heavy bullet just chipped the asphalt.
Nash gunned it. The scripts were wearing off, but Lucy threw another brake-hack on his car. The engine sputtered, jerking between acceleration and braking.
Jackie’s bike shot out of an alley, immediately locking onto the Raffen’s bumper. I linked up with him, seeing everything through his eyes. Jackie was chasing the car, firing at its wheels as he rode. Good. My memory was reloading a bit. Time to slow the car again. I ran a script. The car skidded and crashed into a wall, missing the turn. Dust poured from the old brick. The bull-bar held up, but Jackie finally shredded one of the front tires.
“Take cover!” I sent to him. “This asshole’s dangerous.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
Jackie whipped his bike to the side, taking cover behind a building.
Nash leaped out of the car like a damn jack-in-the-box, tossing two bio-grenades toward Jackie before darting off, Sandevistan kicking in as he vanished up the street, leaving a trail of toxic fog.
Luckily, we had a camera in that area, rigged up so Arasaka’s goons wouldn’t surprise us. Nash walked right into view. I sent the coordinates to everyone, stacking scripts, and called Nash directly.
“How’s it going, Big Bad? How’s life treating you?” I asked him in Russian.
“You little shit, you set us up!”
He snarled back. He was jogging along the street, his combat rifle in hand. Civilians scrambled to get the hell out of his way.
“Set you up? Oh no!” I sneered. “You were looking for Vincent Price? Well, you fucking found him!”
Soul Rip, Overheat, Short Circuit, System Collapse.
“He’s primed—take him out!” I relayed to the others.
Jackie was already in range, opening fire with both pistols.
Becca and Lucy were still busy taking down the heavy gunner. That dude was a tank, but hacks and bullets were wearing him down, and optical glitches kept screwing with his aim.
In a few seconds, it was over.
“Another soul in the Spirit World,” Jackie sent to me.
“Pretty smooth line. Did you come up with that yourself?” I smirked.
“Well, excuse me,” Jackie replied. “It’s the first thing that came to mind. I was a bit occupied trying to flatline one slippery bastard.”
Fair enough. Nash’s survival instincts were off the charts—sometimes too high. Maybe we could all take a lesson from him on that.
“Let’s grab what we can and clear out fast.”
I doubted the Wraiths had much worth looting, but we might as well get a little something. The main prizes were the vehicles and Nash’s rifle, which I was claiming for myself. I hurried over to where Jackie had finished off Big Bad Nash.
The bulk of his body was sprawled by the curb, under the shadow of a streetlamp. I wasn’t planning to gut Nash, as there weren’t a lot of interesting prospects for that. Sure, Nash had hustle and brains, but he wasn’t rich. Whatever cash he earned, he either blew on useless shit or gambled away. Supposedly he was even in debt to Barghest. Hence the whole “goddamn dogs!”
We started bagging loot from the dead. By “we,” I mean mostly Becca and me—Jackie wasn’t one for scavenging, and Lucy was busy scrubbing the surveillance feeds.
Checking Nash’s stuff, I found a credit chip with a couple of grand, plus his favorite gun. It was a customized electromagnetic Militech M-179e, “Achilles.” No idea if the Raffen had modded it themselves or if they’d just stolen a prototype from some corporate convoy, but the piece was solid.
There was even an engraving on the dark body: Bane’s Widow Maker.
A bit melodramatic. I almost wondered if the brute had actually thought it up himself. But maybe the engraving came with the gun, and Nash just claimed both the rifle and the nickname. That I could definitely believe.
While Becca and I looted bodies near the old building and Jackie was handling the vehicles, a Maelstrom ganger suddenly staggered over.
Red-eyed, he stumbled down the street, resting his janky cyber-limb on the grip of a sawn-off shotgun poking out from a torn jacket.
“Well… holy shit…” the chromehead muttered, looking over the bodies and the mess left behind.
Smoke still drifted from the room where the Shivs had shot up the mannequin. Bullet holes, blood, shell casings across the cracked asphalt. Yeah, we’d gone a little overboard.
The Maelstrom guy stared at me. I reached for my gun, but kept it low-key.
“Got a problem, choomba?” Becca asked.
“Problem with me?!” the chromehead spat, turning to her. “What the fuck are you doing here?!”
As he looked away, I quietly moved in from behind. Plan was to hit him in the neck, snap the vertebrae fast. The Dynalar-Kendachi cyber-arm had plenty of force. And if his spine was seriously reinforced, well, my right hand was already on the handle of my Kensh…
“Shit… Aaaagh!” The Maelstrom ganger jerked, screamed, started sparking, and collapsed, frothing at the mouth.
“Lucy, was that you?”
“Nope. I thought it was you,” she answered over comms.
“Guess he did it to himself.” I chuckled. “Motherfuckers overdose on chems and shard in with malware—no wonder health’s shot to hell.”
The rest of looting went quietly. Everyone got their share, plus I paid Jackie two g, and deducted two off Becca’s debt. All in all, the whole thing balanced out for me—if I don’t count the new rifle. And I’d get a little more from selling the cars. Falco never showed, so I put Jackie in charge of that part.
Well… one less psycho after my head. Nash was a tough bastard, but he was easy enough to bait into a trap. The others? They’re gonna take more work. Back at home that evening, I pulled up my list, which now had some fresh details.
Jack Mauser
Merc, infamous for his brutality, even by Night City standards. Decent implants, solid connections on the city's dark side. If he catches a lead on me, he might go solo or rally a team. That’s a fifty-fifty. Threat level: medium.
I remembered him, actually. Ironically, Mauser might end up the new owner of 7th Hell. Guess he’ll have some capital by ’77. Probably got some now too. Plenty to gain by picking his brains.
Nash Bane
Neutralized.
Els Sappley
Not the biggest fish in the Afterlife, but she’s got good implants and connections among both mercs and cops. A former cop herself—supposedly proud of it. Usually runs with one or two partners as backup. Threat level: medium.
Benedict McAdams
He was on the fence, but it sounds like he promised Linda to focus more on me after his fee went up. Corporate conflict specialist. Good ties in the Afterlife. If he takes this job, he’ll probably put together a serious squad. Threat level: high.
Taki Kenmoti
Some chick from Tiger Claws. Decent implants, but her story’s more flaws than perks. Always in debt, and a gambling problem. If she takes the job, it'll be with a pack of other Claws. Threat level: low.
Wesley Hunt
Barely anything on this guy; he works out in Dogtown. Not in a gang, never seen around the Afterlife. Supposedly took out some Scavs, but who knows. Works alone. Threat level: unknown.
Simon Randall
One of the higher-ups among those Maelstrom cyber-cultists. Mister “What’s with the Face,” also known as Royce. He’s got a whole army of lackeys, including netrunners, plus a centaur-style combat exosuit. Threat level: extremely high.
Hmm. Out of all of them, I’d be better off taking down Mauser first. He’s got cash and valuable info.
But no point rushing. If too many of Linda’s mercs drop too fast, it’s gonna point right to me. Arasaka could then use whoever’s left as bait. They’d turn my hunt for hunters into a trap.
And then, there’s that trip to Dogtown coming up, and for that…
I dialed a familiar number.
“Hey, Panam. Remember me? Alex?”
“Of course I do. Hey,” answered the nomad.
“I remember you wanted to grab a drink sometime, maybe find some work. Well, as it turns out, I’ve got both on offer tonight.”
