JohnnyZ
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[Demons of NC] Chapter 27
🕑 Added 2024-11-07 23:08:40 +0000 UTC"That big guy, he a spy too?" Rebecca whispered as I parked on the edge of Northside, far from prying eyes.
"Jackie? Nah. He’s a friend. And he’s got news. Wait here."
She groaned, rolling her eyes. "Bore-ring. Are we gonna get to shoot something tonight or what?"
Ignoring her, I climbed out and walked over to Jackie, who was standing by his bike. In the dim glow of the rare streetlights, he looked even more massive. Meanwhile, Vik’s jacket hung on me like an oversized hand-me-down. Well, because it was.
“You’re blending in faster than I thought,” Jackie chuckled. “Corporate’s washing off real quick. Another couple months and you’ll be explaining the street code for me in the badlands.”
“Is that a compliment, or do I look that bad?” I shot back, grinning. “What’s Vik want?”
Jackie glanced around, his gaze falling on Rebecca as she blasted some loud rock music in the Thornton, and he leaned in, lowering his voice.
“Some polizonte came around yesterday. That cop was asking if Vik had treated any young guy with nasty cuts and major blood loss. Guess which night he was interested in?”
“The night I got let go.”
“Bingo. And he had an old photo of you. Vik covered for you. Said everything was in order, and he never even logged you as a patient. Not even a deep hack could find anything. But maybe don’t show your face around the clinic.”
“True. And probably not at your place either.”
“What? Why not?”
“Connections, Jackie. You’re too close to Vik. If things get tight, they’ll dig into you, too. I’ll need to crash somewhere else for a while. Don’t like it, but it is what it is.”
Jackie let out a heavy sigh.
“Fate’s tossin’ you around, amigo.”
“It’s nothing. But I’ll still need to stay in touch with Vik. Not about to bail on my chroming plan.”
“But you can’t go to the clinic.”
“We’ll figure something out. Don’t sweat it.”
“Alright… Sounds rough, but I gotta go, V. Gotta keep tabs on some scumbag for Padre. And hey, your new friend looks like she’s getting bored. Did she come in a shipping crate too?”
“Nope. Not a crate. First time we met, she was strapped to a metal chair.”
Jackie smirked, then did a double take.
“Wait. You serious?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, V… Good thing you got outta that hellhole.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the heads up.”
We shook hands, Jackie clapped me on the shoulder, and he took off on his bike, his engine echoing into the distance. I headed back to the car. Rebecca was sprawled across the passenger seat, casually disassembling and reassembling her gun to some rowdy rock track.
“All good?” she asked as I turned the volume down.
“More or less. Cops are after me, so looks like I’m crashing at your place tonight. That cool with you?”
“Hell yeah, choom. What’d you do anyway?”
“I survived. Guess that didn’t sit well with someone. Gonna call Lucy tomorrow. Once she’s here, we’ll figure out how to handle this shit.”
“So where to now?”
“You know any wastelands where we can get some target practice in?”
“Oh, yeah!”
“Perfect. But first, let’s grab some beer or something. I’m down for a drink, plus we’ll need some targets.”
The next day, Lucy rolled in around twelve-thirty. Rebecca was still lazing in bed. I’d just woken up, feeling the dull edge of a hangover and the lingering buzz from last night’s ‘meal.’
“I was just about to call you,” I said, pouring myself a cup of some faux-coffee blend.
“Here.” Lucy set a credchip and a stack of cash on the table. “Last gift from the four-eyed bastard. Like I said, it’ll cover a couple cocktails, max.”
I counted it. Fifteen thousand and some change.
“Enough for a couple of really pricey cocktails. News for you, too, Luce. Looks like work’s missin’ me.”
Her expression tightened, so I filled her in on the cop who’d shown up at Vik’s clinic.
“Corps love to throw cops at their dirty work,” she sighed as I set a cup of pseudo-coffee in front of her. “Could track him down. Find out who sent him.”
“Makes sense,” I nodded, settling in across from her. “But it all seems too simple, too basic. Not like my old boss at all. A cop with a picture, hitting up the ripperdocs? They pull this for car thieves, not ex-counterintelligence agents.”
Lucy smirked, reaching out to brush her fingers across my cheek and teasingly asked:
“Did I sign up for another corporate lecture here?”
“Nah, no lecture today. But you better keep an eye out in the future,” I jokingly replied, shifting to a more serious tone. “This cop feels more like bait than a hunter. It’s almost like he’s not really looking for me… he’s luring me.”
“Could be,” she nodded. “You suggesting we just lay low?”
“No. We don’t need to find him. We need to find whoever’s already watching him—and do it without getting spotted ourselves. Tricky, but it’s worth a shot. I’m curious to see just how many resources Abernathy’s throwing into this search. We need to know the level of danger.”
V. Not some kid who just happened to survive. I’d survived multiple times now, and now Susan—or whoever else—is looking to change that.
Though there’s always the chance the Voodoo Boys are behind this, too. But a cop’s a weird choice of pawn for the net’s dark, twisted puppeteers. Nah, I’d put my money on the old crew.
“I’ll track down the cop today,” she said firmly.
“What about the workshop and the dealer?”
“Later,” she waved it off. “This is more urgent now.”
“Come on. You and Falco have been working that angle a while. You should wrap it up before it goes cold, or you’ll end up rechecking everything. If this cop’s a lure, we’ll find him easy enough.”
“You should do something about your look, V.”
“Plastic surgery?”
“No,” she smirked. “Let’s get you a damn jacket. New, without holes. At least get one shirt that’s not older than me. Or is this hobo-chic look your way of rebelling against your suit days?”
“Alright, alright. We’ll get to my ‘style’ sometime. Drink your coffee; I’m hitting the shower.”
“Go on, but don’t rush. I’ll be joining you soon.”
The first half of the day went by easy. Spent a couple hours with Lucy, just the two of us, and then Rebecca finally woke up. We ended up chatting about all sorts of random stuff. Lucy pulled up pictures of apartments we could rent, comparing neighborhoods and the gangs running them.
“The Claws are the biggest assholes,” Rebecca declared. “You just can’t negotiate with them. Scavs? You can scare them. Maine could talk sense to the Animals. But the Claws act like each Saburo Arasaka’s personal chamber pot carrier.”
The Claws have this honor system, something like blood feuds. Basically, if an outsider offs even some low-level grunt, they have to brutally avenge him without a second thought about why it happened. Doesn’t matter if the guy practically begged to get sent six feet under.
Of course, that rule only goes so far. They’re not gonna hunt a top-tier target just for some punk. But they love messing with civilians or cops. Because of this, a lot of Tigers end up adopting a wildly reckless way of life—talking tough with anyone, picking fights where silence would be smarter. So, naturally, their rookies don’t last long.
“Not gonna argue with that?” Lucy teased. “Didn’t you and the Claws get along great?”
“Got along,” I corrected. “Past tense. That’s what the suit and Arasaka badge were good for. Otherwise, I’m with Rebecca on this one.”
I chewed on a slice of hot pizza with synthetic meat, the taste already familiar. You’d never guess it was all protein grown on farm vats. Not that I wanted to think too hard about how it’s made. Most meat substitutes are bug-based—mushed-up protein paste from worms or crickets. They farm the bugs, crush them, then mix in color and flavoring until it’s close enough to real meat. A lot of people here haven’t even tasted real meat, though, so they’ve got no reason to compare.
“Mox are decent,” Rebecca kept going, “but there’s not enough of them.”
“So, why aren’t you in a gang?” I asked.
“What do you mean!” She looked at me and Lucy, genuinely confused. “I’m with you chooms.”
“I mean a big gang,” I clarified.
“No way. All those rules. Can’t go here, don’t do that, wait over there, dress like this, give us your money.” She rolled her eyes as she ticked them off. “It’s trash! It’s like…like having a job! Only losers with both hands firmly up their asses go Claws. We can make our own eddies.”
“Hmm. I’ll give you that,” I said, sharpening a chopstick with the blade of my cyber-thumb. “I’ve seen the corps from the inside. The big gangs are the same... Fifty on the rooster.”
I gripped the pointed stick between my cyber-fingers, aiming for a pizza box where three others were already stuck.
“Oh, come on! Go for the eye!” Rebecca taunted.
“That’s too much,” I replied. “For now.”
“Wing, then,” Lucy offered as a compromise. “I’ll put fifty on it.”
“Alright.”
I focused. The trick was to let the cyberlimb move, not treat it like a real hand. My fingers had to snap like a whip, quick but precise, so the stick would fly straight and sharp. Out of six previous throws, three had landed, two missed, and one didn’t stick.
“One…two…” Rebecca started counting. “Three!”
My fingers flicked, there was a dry snap, and the stick embedded itself right in the edge of the rooster’s wing on the box. The irony didn’t escape me—the box had a drawing of a chicken, and the “meat” inside was pretending to be it.
“Damn! Next time, hit the eye, or I’m not betting,” Rebecca pouted, tossing a crumpled bill my way.
Toward evening, Falco showed up. Time to get down to business. The ex-nomad sat down at our table, littered with empty cans, and started the briefing:
“Five or six inside. They’ve got three cars parked there, including a pretty nice Mizutani Shion. The shop’s loaded up, so they’re probably not getting new cars tonight.”
“There are cameras inside,” Lucy continued, “and a local network with decent ICE, plus some kind of remote alert system if anyone hacks in. So…”
She put a small shard with a script on the table.
“Memory wipe?” I asked.
“Yep. You don’t need a tutorial, right?”
“Please,” I grinned, taking the shard and moving on with our little plan. “The shop’s invite-only. No outside clients. There’s security, but their main protection was staying hidden, and we’ve already beaten that. We go in, neutralize security, grab the cars, empty the safe, and take anything else worth our time.”
“Oh, and…”
It was Falco’s turn to lay something on the table—a bundle of four suppressors.
“My weapon’s electromagnetic, special issue. Suppressors don’t fit it,” I said.
"We’ve already discussed this," Lucy declined too.
Rebecca chimed in, way more animated:
"Hell no! Shooting with a silencer is more boring than fucking with a rubber."
"Alright, alright..." the driver sighed. "I'll bring one, though. If it comes down to shooting, I'm keeping it quiet."
"There’s the main entrance, and there’s a back door," I said, laying out the plan. "Windows are welded shut. First, we check if there’s any guard by the back door. If there is, we try to take them out quietly. Then we unlock, head in... and make damn sure we don’t wake up the whole district. Otherwise, we’re bailing fast and empty-handed."
We headed out for the job around midnight, riding in Falco’s car, which Lucy had rigged and set on autopilot. If everything went smoothly, we’d be leaving that workshop in fresh rides.
Our target was a standalone building on the edge of Rancho Coronado. It could’ve passed for a residential house, if not for the tall iron fence with razor wire electrified at the top. Luckily, we had a simple but effective way to get past that first line of defense.
Falco pulled up right by the fence. Lucy had already disabled the external cameras, and Sixths welded the windows shut themselves for “security,” so we just climbed up on the car roof and hopped over. I had the hardest time doing it. I’d put on black sneakers with good shock absorption, but even then, my not-yet-bionic legs felt the strain. Nothing too bad, though—just enough to be felt but not to ruin the mission.
"You good?" Lucy whispered to me, having jumped first.
"Yeah..." I replied, taking a hit from a painkiller inhaler and adjusting my chest armor.
No fracture for sure. Maybe just a bruise.
We moved toward the building’s back door, scanning as we went. Honestly, I was expecting a trap. Maybe a simple tripwire, a mine, or some other fun surprise, but... nothing. Just empty, rusty fuel barrels, the shell of an old car, and the locked door where Lucy knelt down a moment later. She slid a flexible, thin camera through a crack underneath.
"No one."
So, no guard by the back door. Looked like sixths were counting on that fence. I pulled a magnetic pick from my jacket pocket, held the sawing device to the lock... nothing.
"Hand it here, choom," Rebecca stepped up to me.
She twisted the pick, toggled a switch, and... now the door clicked open.
From inside, we could hear loud music and the sound of a grinder working on something. I put the pick away, gripped my Kenshin in my right hand, and held a long knife in my left. Rebecca went in, wielding two pistols, both bright pink like toys. Lucy kept her weapon stowed for now.
Beyond the door was a short hallway, a couple of side rooms, and a passage leading to the workshop’s main floor—the garage where all the work was happening. That’s where we’d find the highest concentration of hostiles. First order of business was taking control of the security feed.
Lucy and I slipped into one of the side rooms. I disabled the camera, and she hacked the local network access point. From there, we started marking enemies on the video feed, scanning their implants, gauging their threat level.
So, what’s the layout? Three in the garage, one in the office room on a computer, one asleep, and one last patriotic NUSA fanboy tinkering with a shotgun in a small armory. We decided to start with him.
Memory Wipe, Short Circuit, Short Circuit, Short Circuit.
Lucy added in a few scripts of her own to my lineup. A few seconds later, the gun nut started to convulse, fell off his stool, and blacked out.
"One down," I said, closing out the camera feed. "No rush."
Next up was the sleeper. We made sure he was in deep sleep, reinforced by scripts, so he wouldn’t so much as stir. The last four we’d have to handle all at once.
The three in the garage were tinkering with their cars. One sat in the adjacent office. If anything went loud, he’d be right there, backing them up. And knocking him out with scripts wasn’t a good option—they’d hear him in the garage.
"Rebecca, I’m putting the camera feed on your view. See the guy with the beard at the computer? Your job is to slip in and turn him into swiss cheese. Got it?"
"Of course!"
"As soon as we hear your shots, Lucy and I will take down the three in the garage."
My heart was pounding a bit. We’d checked this place out long enough, but I still expected some hidden trouble. Maybe a combat bot in a closet or an old-school alarm system, like Jorge used to have.
Meanwhile, Rebecca checked both her guns. Her eyes were lit up with anticipation for the action. I, on the other hand, felt like I was about to take a final exam—or maybe I was already in the middle of one. We’d aced the easy questions. Now came the ones open ended. Only an A+ would cut it.
Calm down. I looked at Lucy. She gave me a quick nod, spinning a monowire from her hand.
"Let’s go."
Rebecca slipped down a side corridor to get to the office without crossing the garage. Lucy and I moved toward the main workshop entrance. On the walls, bright posters of an American eagle and Jefferson Peralez stared back. Through the wide doorway, I could already see the red chassis of one of the cars. From somewhere on the right, sparks were occasionally flying. That grinder was still going.
Lucy and I held position, side by side, right by the garage entrance, waiting for Rebecca’s signal—the shots. I decided to stow the knife for now. My cyberarm was a decent enough weapon. Not a boxing model, but strong enough for a solid punch.
Lucy, maybe sensing my tension, placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. And then the shots rang out. We leapt up, charging into the garage.
I was practically flying, riding a wave of pure adrenaline.
Inside were three, just like we expected. Two women and one guy in work jumpsuits. They all had tactical vests and guns, of course. In Rancho Coronado, walking around unarmed was asking for trouble. Though sometimes, even a gun wasn’t enough.
I activated my Kerenzikov, squeezing the Kenshin’s trigger. No messing around here. The effect of the implant felt different now. Before, it was like the world around me turned dense, like moving through water. Enemies slowed down, but I couldn’t fully control my body either. Now I had a lot more coordination.
Just left of me was one of the Sixths, close, but I aimed the gun at the enemy in the middle, further away. A stocky man in a welding mask. He was trying to take it off and reach for his Liberty pistol in the holster. Too slow. Kenshin lit up. Three tungsten-core bullets shattered the black plastic of the welding mask. After that, I fired singles. Shifting left, I left the rightmost target for Lucy.
Kerenzikov's effect was fading. I lunged to the side but managed to plant my foot, reaching out with my left hand toward the nearest woman. She was reaching for her gun, didn’t try to remove her mask. The Kerenzikov wore off.
I charge at the woman full speed, cyberarm fingers spread wide to grip. My artificial hand slams into her welding mask, and I use my momentum to smash the back of her head against the car frame.
A heavy thud.
Before she can come to her senses, I press my pistol under the edge of her mask and fire. Once, twice, three times.
Blood sprays onto the garage floor, splattering my black sneakers with their extra cushioning. She slides down the side of the car, hand never even reaching her holster.
Could I have just knocked her out? Maybe. Stuck her with a tranq needle, but those are less predictable than bullets.
I scan the room, gun ready, waiting for trouble. But there’s nothing. Nobody.
Lucy’s already slit her mark’s throat with a monowire. The garage’s music still blares, and the alarms are silent. Cameras show a clean sweep. Could it really be this easy?
I glance back at the woman I took down, her hand frozen, just shy of her gun. Blood pools around her head, welding mask still on, soaking into her badly-dyed pink hair, now darkening to red.
What was it that Rebecca said about big gangs? That they’re for people who can’t survive solo. A pack of prey banding together to ward off enemies. But tonight, we’re the real predators in this concrete jungle, picking off the weak and slipping away scot free.
Rebecca swaggers out of the office, twirling her pistols and whistling something. No new enemies show up.
“Alright…” I breathe out. “Let’s pop open the main doors and call Falco. We’re almost done here.”
