Rastislav
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Chapter 17: Tyger Hunt
🕑 Added 2025-08-28 14:53:41 +0000 UTCBeeeg thanks to the gremlin for beta-reading this stuff, as always.
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Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
"I keep telling you I have no idea where they took them!" The sole remaining Tyger Claw cried out as Rita slammed the back of her head against the wall.
I easily ignored the repeated questioning and focused on scanning their subnet.
We managed to find a single laptop but aside from scheduling from a higher up in the gang there was no trace of information about the Mox girls' destination. Even the cameras had been scrubbed clean which meant they had someone who was at least competent at netrunning...
The only odd thing I did manage to find was a string of... recpies? Or thinly veiled gruesome metaphors when one took into account just where I lived.
Fucking Night City.
"Damn it!"
It seemed Rita finally had enough as she smashed the gangoon against the wall just a touch too hard.
With deliberate slowless, I looked up from the laptop and pulled out my Personal Link "Still nothing?" I asked.
The Mox bouncer punched the wall.
Leaning against the opposite side of the room I droned "I will take that as a no."
She rounded on me with a glare "Fuck you." And kicked the nearby end table, which seemed to calm her just a bit.
"No trace on my end either." I shook my head "Whoever took them was meticulous."
"Oh yes, glaze the fuckers more." She scowled.
"Don't expect me to care." I shrugged "If I were to weep for everyone this city fucked I wouldn't have enough seconds in the day."
She cursed and looked away, knowing I was right.
"Let's get out of here before more Tygers come." I said after a bit, getting up "We can come up with an idea of where to look for them after we clear our heads a bit."
She looked back to me, surprised "I can't pay you for an investigation."
"I might not care about the girls as much as you do." I said, hefting my weapon "But now I am invested."
She snorted "Sure thing you bleeding heart." And turned to leave.
Before she fully could however, I pulled out my Liberty and shot the unconscious Tyger Claw in the head.
"The fuck?!" Rita rounded on me, eyes darting between my smoking gun and the fresh corpse.
"What?" I shrugged "I live in Tyger territory and I am not about to risk my home to let someone like her live."
She looked like she just got whiplash, but said nothing as we left the building and made our way to my van, the two bums happily welcoming me and saying no one touched it.
Though they did begin cursing me when I didn't tip them again, the human filth.
Rita slammed her door shut, gave the van's interior a genuinely baffled once-over, and finally spoke "A Supron, really?"
"It gets the job done. Why does everyone shit on it?" I complained "I am not going to waste money on another ride just because it looks preem!"
"You are one weird gonk, you know that?" She muttered.
"Well at least I don't die to something as petty as bullets." I snarked back.
She rolled her eyes.
"Enough about that." I said after a moment "Any ideas on where to look for them?"
"Unless you want to burst into every Tyger base I know?" She asked only half-sarcastically and seeing my dry look she sighed "Then no, I have no idea where to even begin."
I exhaled and leaned back into the driver's seat, staring into the distance.
"You really find nothing on their net?" She asked after a while.
"Aside from a non too promising cooking recipe?" I asked without turning "Nope, not a trace."
"What kind of recipe?" I could hear her frown.
"Either one belonging to someone ridiculously rich enough to afford actual delicacies." I slowly thougt aloud "Or a thoroughly wrung out metaphor for an xBD idea."
"Shit." She hissed, thoughts racing across her face before it twisted into a murderous scowl and her hand began twitching forwards "Motherfu-!"
My hand coiled around her arm before she could smash it into the dashboard and I yanked her back towards me "Do. Not. Strike. My. Property." Ignoring her suddenly dilated eyes I shoved her arm back and waited for her to chill out "What did you figure out?"
She began rubbing her cybernetic limb "I didn't figure out shit!" She hissed "You just told me my chooms are going to end up in an xBD!"
"Ah." I deadpanned, should have thought about that one "Right."
Despite herself, she snorted.
Suddenly, an idea came up "Do you have their contact info?"
She looked at me weirdly "Of course I do."
"Gimme." I said quickly.
She still looked utterly lost but sent me the contacts anyways.
"Try not to let me get dismantled for parts while I dive, if you please?" I said and not waiting for her answer activated my Cyberdeck.
The immense presence of the Net unveiled in front of me, and my ICON floated out from my physical location.
Reorienting myself from the sharp shift, I quickly pinged my home, absently checking on mom and making sure she was fine, I followed the connection to the Night Corp database every single Megabuilding hid in secret, and one I had already perfected hacking without a trace, even if it took me actual months to do.
A netrunner could do a lot of ridiculous shit to pass the time when they were bored enough.
I made sure to doubly mask my presence, slipping by the Dweller employed by the corporation and inserting the two contacts into the local database.
One request and five minutes of waiting later I had the last location of their Neural Links before something cut them off.
But despite being made for jamming, even those specialized chips gave out a tiny signal, a low near inaudible pulse when compared to a Neural Link but still distinct despite the simple programming.
And if it gave off a signal, I could follow it.
Well, so long as it wasn't too far from the Megabuilding.
I must have spent hours in my focused state as I crawled after the net-borne footprint, having to hack through numerous buildings if their defenses permitted, or sneak around and find the signal again when they did not, it was tedium at its most punishing.
But inevitably, my persistence was rewarded, and the signal finally stopped just at the edge of the Megabuilding server's range, in Kabuki's Junktown.
My ICON retreated, retracing my steps with far greater speed as I gave my Cyberdeck the time to dump its heat and finally disconnected.
My lips split ever so slightly open as steaming air hissed through, and my eyes snapped open to find a thoroughly agitated Rita Wheeler waving a hand in front of my face.
"Damn it." She cursed "Are you alright?"
"Just fine." I answered, rolling down the window to let the heat out as I did "How long was I out?"
She looked at the still steaming air but decided to ignore it as I did "Around three hours." She said, frowning "You find anything?"
"I have a lead." I said, firing up the engine and getting the van moving "Kabuki's Junktown, probably got shoved into some kind of cargo box."
"Fuck yes!" She very nearly went to slam my dashboard again but stopped herself "Let's get the bastards."
"I have no clue how many there are." I said.
"Doesn't matter." She said "We will fuck them up anyway." She gave me a sideways look "Unless you want to chicken out now, Borg Boy."
"In your dreams, Joytoy." I snorted.
She laughed, and slid down her own window, letting the air hit her face as I saw her eyes light up with the telltale glow of a holo-call.
"Calling for backup?" I asked, half teasing as I pushed the bucket of rust to go as quickly as it could "What happened to fucking them up ourselves?"
The bouncer just flipped me off.
The ride to the Junktown didn't take too long, at least by my standards, and soon enough we were standing above the coastal settlement built from cargo crates and scrap, trying and failing to find a way to observe the area through the net.
Whole place was completely cut off and a connection needed to bounce off of something to catch anything. I'd need to get closer for a ping it would seem.
"How much longer does your 'girl' want to make us wait?" I asked to distract myself from the possibility of them having just been taken away by boat, my Optics still fixed on the fenced off section of stacked crates.
"She'll be here." Rita assured me.
The nervous tapping on her Ajax did not.
"It's your friends that are at risk." I shrugged.
She scowled but still remained seated on the concrete ledge.
Just before I could get thoroughly annoyed, the sound of rapid footsteps cut through the din around us, and soon enough a familiar pale chem-skinned and green haired short girl covered in Mox tattoos ran up to us, hefting a thoroughly oversized Carnage in her arms.
"Hey 'Becca." Rita waved her over.
But instead of answering her, the shortie glared up at me "What is the borgfucker doing here?"
"This is your help?" I ignored the familiar Mox and looked down at Rita.
"You two know each other?" The bouncer blinked.
"This scopsucker laughed his ass of when I left!" She pointed at me accusingly.
At the same time I pointed a lazy thumb at her "I saw her exit from Lizzie's, thought the Mox started employing children."
"Hey fuck you!" The shortie cursed "Look at me when you are talking shit!"
I didn't.
Rita just laughed.
"You listening to me!?" 'Becca' demanded and started rising her Carnage.
But my hands were many times faster, and a Liberty was pointing directly at her forehead before she could so much as heft the oversized gun.
Finally I did look down at her "Seriously?"
She lowered the shotgun and flipped me off.
Rita pushed herself up "That's enough, Rebecca. You told me you'd help."
The shorter girl pouted and looked away with a huff.
The bouncer gave me a look as well but all I could do was stare back, it wasn't like I was the one stirring shit up.
She rolled her eyes and looked back to her fellow Mox, or was it ex-Mox now? "We need to work together to get our girls back so focus, please?"
"Fine." Rebecca accepted reluctantly, looking up at me "You got a name, choom?"
"I go by Magos when on the job." I said.
"A nickname, really?" She looked at me like I was some kind of invalid.
"A netrunner tag, actually." I corrected and began moving.
"Hmph!" She crossed her arms "Still a gonk."
"Your Carnage is about to fall off." I said without looking.
And immediately heard her curse and start flailing about, trying to catch it only to realize it was still firmly in her hands. Thus defeated, all she could do was grumble to herself as she followed after me and Rita.
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Rebecca
She really shouldn't have had that triple burger now that she thought about it.
Especially since as soon as they reached the muddy ground of the Junktown the asshole borgfucker just picked her up by the scruff of her jacket and dangled her above it 'so she wouldn't drown.'
By the time she kicked her way out of his grip they had already reached the storage compound, and the many, many Tyger Claw looking gangoons looking over the place stopped her from giving the fucker what for.
"That is a lot of them." Rita Wheeler, the badest girl in the Mox, muttered and looked up to the borgfucker "You got a plan?"
Rebecca's brain short circuited.
But that went unnoticed as the borg just stared off into the distance, and in a moment both Rita's and Rebecca's Optics began displaying the outlines of every single Tyger Claw on the compound.
That was a lot of red...
"Damn useless gonk." The borg chuckled, and quickly added "Put their 'runner to sleep, the moment they try to wake him up he fries." His face twisted into a metallic line resembling a smirk "Looks like they are waiting for someone."
"The customer or the editor?" Rita asked hatefully.
"Does it matter?" The borg asked "We just need to kill them all and get the girls before they get here and that is that."
"Guess not." Rita agreed "We going in loud?"
"Yes." He nodded "Just don't shoot up the rusty red crate near the middle, or we will have come here for nothing."
Both the Moxes quickly memorized that.
"What are you good at?"
It took Rebecca a moment to realize he was speaking to her, and she quickly grinned cockily "Zeroing gonks."
The borg sighed and lightly palmed his face "Rita, you flank around while the two of us take their attention, focus on heavier weapons if they have any."
"Sure thing." She agreed quickly and looked at Rebecca, the two sharing a quick nod as the bouncer silently slipped through the perimeter.
"Try not to die." The borg told her and simply marched up to the compound, Copperhead in hand.
The first Tyger noticed him and went to rise his smartgun but was already coughing his guts up by the time his hands started moving, the second one was nailed into the crate behind her, the borg simply walking by without a care.
Multiple Tygers around them began screaming as their heads caught on fire, and Rebecca had finally had enough of waiting.
"COME GET IT COCKSUCKERS!!!" She yelled out, smearing a pair of them across the mud and nearly getting knocked down by her own weapon's recoil.
The borg made an annoyed noise and quickly sidestepped in front of her, multiple smart bullets bouncing off him to no effect as he returned the favor with his assault rifle, cutting down even more gangoons.
"Whoops." Rebecca laughed and returned to the fight.
The Tygers tried slowing them down but despite her risky way of fighting, they couldn't even down her, much less the borg who moved more like a walking tank than a person as the only Tygers who could threaten him were the first to have their eyes burn out of their heads.
Whenever they tried flanking around them, Rita would appear seemingly out of nowhere, braining them with her bat or shooting them up if they were smart enough to move in groups.
In the meantime Rebecca discarded her shotgun in favor of a light machine gun that went unmanned, laughing like a maniac as she unloaded on any Tygers who tried rushing them down.
She missed most her shots but hey, it was the intention that mattered!
It was just too bad their numbers were not infinite.
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
My Copperhead clicked empty as I unloaded an entire mag into the chest of the dumbfuck leader of the Tygers, the evening's Darwin Award winner charging at me with a katana of all things...
Shaking my head at the terminal bout of idiocy, I scanned the area again just in case, and finding nothing I gave the tiny madwoman a sideways look "Break any bones yet?"
She stuck her tongue out at me but notably didn't try to raise her arms.
Moments later, Rita stepped out from behind a nearby crate with a visible limp in her step, and her bat heavily bent to one side, looking not at us but at a particular crate opposite us "That the one?"
"It's where the signal is coming from." I nodded "You two go and get them, I'll probably scare the shit out of them so I am going to check on the leader's 'Link."
Rita faced me and nodded "Sure." And then turned to Rebecca with an expectant look.
But she was already sitting down in the mud, limbs finally having failed her "Go ahead, Rita." She laughed "I'll be fine."
Rita looked at her with fond irritation but quickly focused back on our actual goal.
"What kind of a gonkhead uses weapons they can't survive?" I asked as I inserted my Personal Link into the leader's neck, quickly hacking through his firewalls without much effort.
"Hey fuck you, borghead!" She called out "You may be preem as fuck but you don't get to talk shit about my babies!"
"Preem, am i?" I drawled I stopped the data-deletion executable just in time to save a pair of messages "How nice."
"Fuck you asshole!" Was her answer, but there was no heat to it.
Ignoring her further complaints, I focused on the message.
The first one was a warning to the customer about the attack, absent of any specifics and only telling them to back away until further notice.
The second one went out to the same number, being the one sent just before the warning.
[Shobo-sama assures Werner-dono that the merchandise is prepared and in good condition, the area has been secured by my men. You may send pickup as agreed.]
Immediately my mind ground to a halt.
Werner...? Could it be?
"I need some help here!" Rita's voice rang out, distracting me from that train of thought.
My first instinct was that I somehow fucked up and she had gotten ambushed but instead I turned to see her staring into a cargo crate... filled with about a dozen terrified women.
Honestly? I should have expected this.
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An: Quick reminder, Neville Werner is the guy who made Michael's father his fall guy and offed him, and the father of Mike's 'friend' from chap 2.
Comments
DaoOfAnime
LUCYYYYYYYYY, WHERE IS SHE, SHOW HER THE MOOOOOONNNNNN
Cobalt
I genuinely hope you make rebecca the fmc in this btw, gets nowhere near what she deserved in edgerunners
