---

---

---

The room was bright. The furniture new and modern. The shelves made of clean wood and shiny metal, the coffee table made of glass and steel that also illuminated anything placed upon it, the seats made of firm but comfortable comfortable polymers with soft, tactile handles and a pleasantly crafted seatback. The large windows were covered by elaborate curtains. On the table sat an empty bottle of Courvoisier XO, three coasters surrounded it.

A loud, boisterous laughter filled the room. The source was a balding, rotund man who was laying back in his chair. He looked in his mid/late forties, auburn hair (what was left of it), an unremarkable nose, pudgy face, hazel eyes, white teeth. The Irishman was clean shaven, he wore a casual, plaid shirt with dark pants. It was Daniel “Danny” O'Donnell, current governor of California. Graduated UCLA, traded stocks and bonds, tried his hand in Washington lobbying, then landed a cushy job taking bribes from various corporations in exchange for good publicity and allowing them more corporate freedom.

“Epstein,” he blurted, chuckling, “you’re a fucking hoot, you know that?”

Joshua Epstein, freelance lobbyist for large firearms manufacturers and automobile producers. Graduated from NYU, went to law school at Yale. Joshua is an older gentleman, around a decade older than Daniel. He sports a large nose with a weary face. He dressed formally, wearing a three piece suit, although it was clear he was at least semi-relaxed.

“I’m serious, Dan,” Epstein muttered, “it’ll be a great investment!”

Daniel stopped laughing. He stared at Epstein, his gaze cold, determined, heavy. He finished his glass and went to pour himself some more, yet the bottle sat empty.

“Amanda!” Dan called, “We need more cognac!” His demeanor relaxed momentarily as he called for his maid. Amanda wore a revealing blue dress with long, thin stockings. She quickly made her way to pick up the bottle and went to retrieve another. The bar was not far, so her trip was short, yet all three men eyed her the whole way through, in almost complete silence. She placed the bottle on the table and made to leave them alone, yet Daniel interrupted her escape, “Wait a minute, dearie, open the bottle first, won’t you?” She complied, begrudgingly. She bent over and made to open the bottle for them, trying to work through the procedure as quickly as possible. She noticed Epstein looking at her ass, while Daniel examined her cleavage. She placed the bottle down as quickly as she could and scurried off, this time unaccosted by the men’s gaze.

“Anyway, back to business,” Daniel steeled his gaze at Epstein once more as he poured himself a drink, “Josh, we’re friends, so I’m gonna be nice to you, but know that I wouldn’t be as cordial if you were almost anyone else. If some two-shoed motherfucker who just got done sucking all of Congress’ dicks came to me and asked me to sign off this kind of land to Militech, you can bet I would sock him straight in the jaw for trying to pull that kind of bullshit on me,” Daniel sighed, Epstein looked away, as if ashamed, “Two fucking months from the election and you ask me to sign away hundreds of acres of Anza-Borrego to Militech of all people?! Christ almighty! Do you understand what they’d say about me? I’d get fucking crucified for that type of ploy! ‘Good luck with re-election, dickhead!’ Good luck having a fucking job anywhere other than Washington when all of California knows you as the fuckboy who literally sold off the area of land he is supposed to govern to a fucking gun company! I’m dead fucking serious, after CNN and MSNBC get their hands on the story and spin it to oblivion, they’re gonna expect me to start clubbing seals and killing kittens! Do you understand?”

“He’s right. You knew that before you proposed this shit, Josh,” the third man interjected. He, too, wore a suit. He was younger than both of them. Late thirties, still had a decent set of hair, nice dark blond color. White, clean shaven, a thin face and lanky body. Isaac Argen, personal friend of Daniel. Owned a successful bakery chain that ran between Night City and San Diego. “Even barring the natural feeling of betrayal Dan’s constituents will feel, it’s Militech, for christ’s sake. Who is their biggest rival? Arasaka. Do you know where we are? You know how many lemmings Arasaka has to throw around in California? Rhetorical question. The answer is: a lot. You don’t think that San Fran’s mayor isn’t an Arasaka plant? You don’t think he’ll make a move to publicly disavow the action using some hamfisted environmentalist or anti-capitalist message Arasaka will put on his doorstep? You don’t think that the weapons trade scandal that happened in San Fran wasn’t the result of, oh, I don’t know, him and his cronies turning a blind eye to Arasaka’s meddling?

“Ok, San Fran isn’t the entire state, right? There’s still Night City, L.A., San Diego, everywhere else, right?” He took a sip, “Wrong. The mayor of L.A. is a weaboo, half of San Diego’s city council has history working with Arasaka, and Night City will just vote what the media tells them to. This plot was stupid to begin with, Josh, so let's cut the politics talk and relax, ok?”

---

Roger Ortega was head of security for Daniel. Tall, heavy, with broad shoulders and a defined jawline: Roger was an ideal specimen for this type of job. He was imposing, but his neatly trimmed goatee and his slicked back hair gave him an aura of both professionalism and liveliness. Born in San Jose, he had a rough and tumble life. Raised by a single mother, he took solace in hanging out with the bigger boys, the ones in the gangs. Was a gang member himself, before this job took him. An enforcer for the 6th Street Salamanders (they had a thing for alliteration). Pretty good one too, judging by how he managed to stay alive in a job that gave him a fair amount of enemies. He had this job for a decent number of years now, becoming a personal friend of Mr. O'Donnell.

Roger stood quietly outside the room. He was alone in his vigil, many of the other guards went home or were relaxing in the recreation room. He could only faintly make out some of the boisterous conversation occurring behind the thick metal doors. Daniel liked having his conversations in private, so he made sure to pay extra for sound-insulating walls.

He saw a figure walking down the hallway. The figure was a man, shorter than him, he was tan, Middle Eastern, with a large beard and an eyepatch on his left eye. He wore military fatigues and his hair was blasted back with a blue bandana, leaving his forehead exposed. His eyes were a dark brown, they were fierce but were accompanied by very thin eyebrows. The man held a gun in his right hand. It was large, exposed, crude: not something of modern design. The barrel was unpolished, as was the receiver, the stock unrefined, the handguard uneven. It didn’t look the best, but it did the job.

“Roger”

“How’d it go, Stripe?”

“Eh, lost a few guys, but things are moving along,”

“Is everything ready?”

“Oh yeah, heli is in the back, loaded up and everything”

“So, you know how he looks like, right?”

“Of course! Do you know how long we’ve trained for this?”

“What’s with the boom-stick?”

“Something a couple of the gun nuts decided was a good idea. They have a hard on for the AKM,”

“Right . . . I’ll let you in then,”

“Ready when you are,”

Roger turned his back on the new arrival, now looking at the door. There was a small keypad on the left side. Roger entered the password.



The door opened.

“You know that cheese we tried, that I liked? That we couldn’t figure out the name of? It was swiss cheese!”

A hearty laugh distracted the occupants.

The two walked in. Stripe raised the reproduction AKM and fired. Three shots went into Isaac, four into Epstein. The noise was deafening. Daniel recoiled in fear, blubbering like a child.

“Mr. O’Donnel, please, follow me, we have to get you out of here. I’ll explain the situation later. You’re in grave danger,”

Daniel looked up at his bodyguard, lowering his hands. He was terrified, petrified, stupefied. He had no choice. He stood up and made to follow his bodyguard.

“Stripe, you sure your guys got everyone?”

“Yep. We counted. Six guards, two butlers, and a janitor. Sco—”

“Was there a girl, a maid?” Roger interrupted,

“No, not that I know o—,”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Tell your men to scour the building. There’s still a maid somewhere! Don’t let her escape,” Roger commanded. “Come on, Mr. O’Donnel. Let’s go.”

Daniel looked in disbelief as he followed his bodyguard. Dead. Everyone was dead. Roger helped them. He wanted to speak, to protest, but his mouth was shut. He couldn’t etch out a single word. He knew this wasn’t the time. If they did that to them without a second thought, what would be his repercussions for dissent?

---

Amanda was relaxing in the side room, entranced by the mellow colors of the vast selection of alcohol. The room had no door, but it has enough space for her to sit out of sight yet still hear everything going on in the main chamber. She heard the metal door lurch open. Guests?

Seven deafening bangs clouded her conscience.

Not guests, guns.

Shit. This was bad. She had to get out.

Amanda slid away through the servant’s hallway. A convenient, if not claustrophobic, method of transport for the rest of the staff. She ran without thinking, but stopped when she realized that she didn’t know where to go.

If the gunman got all the way into that room, they must have killed all the guards. She couldn’t go through any of the main entrances for fear of being stopped by accomplices. She didn’t have a car, and she had no idea how to steal one, so trying to look for someone’s corpse and then run all the way to the garage was a big no-no. She was trapped, there was no way to escape.

But then she realized something.

There was a lower level which housed the laundry and storage rooms. There was an exit to the forest outside somewhere around there.

She ran towards the lower level, which was conveniently connected to the underground. She wiggled her way through the maze of cardboard boxes until she finally saw the exit. A cellar door, plain, made of metal, colored a coppery red.

The outside was dark, only a few stray lights from the building illuminated some choice areas of the forest ahead, but not enough for her to see much. Amanda stumbled for a while in the complete darkness, but quickly gained her footing as her eyes got more accustomed to the night. She looked behind her. Lights. Flashlights. They were searching for her. She heard a sound, farther away. A helicopter. Moving away from her. Thank god. She kept moving. She had to run faster. She had to escape.

She tripped.

A manhole, placed into an indentation into the ground. It was the sewage system.

She could go through there.

The manhole was heavy. Too heavy for her to fully grasp, let alone lift it completely. She could see the lights coming closer towards her. She used every ounce of her strength to open the manhole, using her leg to stop it from closing. She began to slide in. The friction tore at her skin and clothing. She could feel the metal scratching into her legs and arms and back.

But she made it though.

She was more than roughed up, but she made it. Ahead: black. No lights. Only her. Dankness filled the air as she closed the manhole.

And she moved on into the darkness.

---

---

---

Two men waited in the warehouse by the pier. They wore suits. One black, one white. Big, burly men. Manly men. They had sunglasses on, yet the night had came and the sun had set. They just wanted to look cool. They were corporate. Literally and figuratively.

For them, today was the big day.

So they waited.

The creaky, grungy hotel room's windows were covered. The curtains (which looked like they hadn't been cleaned since 2035) hung limply over the glass, blotting out any light or, more importantly, eyes from entering or leaving. It was on the third floor; high enough that it would be difficult to get to from the outside, low enough that it wouldn't be impossible to drop from. It was in what could charitably be called the "undercity" of Night City; a dim, labyrinthine network of alleys and narrow streets running haphazardly between the foundations of the skyscrapers. A city existing between the bones of another, out of any wealthy individual or corporation's lines of sight.

If one were to enter the door without being prepared, a wave of musty odors would assault them. Old food, cheap alcohol, and mold. The floorboards and stairs would creak as they ascended, and the door's hinges would squeal like pigs in pain. Then they would see a young woman, seated on a rickety desk, holding a small penlight in her mouth as she twisted at a wrench connecting to a scuffed-up black and silver cybernetic leg on the table. They might see one segment of her hip, where the thigh usually connected, covered in titanium, with a large data terminal post in the center. It was incongruous looking, robbed of its usual occupant. They may hear the strained grunts of the woman as she adjusted a particularly fiddly connection socket. They might see the expression on her face, an expression of concentration to the exclusion of all else, a tongue tip sticking comically out from between her pale lips.

None of this was visible to anybody, though, as Sariya had made very sure to keep her door locked exceedingly tightly, as she'd always been directed. Danger can come from anybody, anywhere. The seedy-looking doorman of the hotel might have been holding a gun underneath his unwashed uniform. One could never know. A small dossier labeled BIOTECHNICA lay on the desk before her. Even in this day and age, there was still sometimes—though rarely—information more sensitive than digitizing would allow. Any number of hackers and deckers could access something on a chip, no matter how well safeguarded. Occasionally, low-tech was the best tech.

The night wore on as she continued her maintenance. Soon, she would be called for whatever job her superiors had managed to land her at Biotechnica. Then, once that was over, she'd be able to go back home to Russia, at least for a few days.

She spared a glance at the window, almost wishing for a moment that the curtains were lifted and she could see outside. Then again, she thought, crushing that line of questioning and remembering what the street outside looked like, even with all of their natural resources, the Americans have still managed to ruin their cities.

Eventually, she finished the last of her leg's tuneup. Her face an impassive mask, she lifted the leg off of the table, positioning the hole in the top of the thigh against the jack on her pelvis. With a single deep breath, she "plugged" the cybernetic in. The breath came out fast and she tightened her teeth until she felt they might shatter like sugar glass. The electrical signals racing up and down her nerves shot off a million tiny pain signals, and she hugged the leg to her lightly-clothed chest, sweat streaks rapidly running down the tanktop as she gasped in breath after jagged breath for what seemed like hours.

When the pain finally abated, she let the newly-installed leg fall to the ground, staring at it in some form of detachment. Then, with a sigh still clinging to remnants of pain, she pivoted out of the chair and fell down into the ragged, poorly-made bed. Her foggy eyes shut, and she felt a slight sting behind them as the optic transmitter went quiet.

One more sighing breath, and she was asleep.

---

Sariya's awareness and paranoia were ratcheted all the way up.

Her eyes narrowed as she recalled the past hour of her life:

---

---

And that had brought her to where she was now; about to dart through the open door in the side of the building. She wasn't a fool; she knew that once inside, escaping something would be far more difficult. Yet...information was information, and she was confident in her abilities to evade anything that might pose a threat to her. Her eyes flicked to the corner of her visor, where an unobtrusive 4/4 was displayed next to a simplified depiction of a bullet. Nodding to herself, she entered the darkened warehouse, releasing a single phrase:

"I am Arcturus. What do you want with me?"

---

(For those interested, the Russian translates roughly to "blood levels of modamerizol inadequate. Injection beginning.)

Gabriella would never admit it, but patience was something she had never mastered. It was different during a stakeout; the tension that grew from knowing that at any second her target could enter into her sights or she could be spotted by a drone and thrown into a run-and-gun shitstorm was thrilling. Waiting in a line, waiting on a train, waiting for the man? Those things were absolutely maddening, and they were topped only by waiting on the job. Her current job had sent her across the country from her little homebase in NYC to Night City, all expenses paid out of her pocket, and for the past week she had been watching the numbers in her account drop as the penthouse BnB she had rented ate through her bankroll.

To be fair, it had a nice view and the out of town owners had left her a (now empty) bottle of champagne. Still, she couldn’t help but have the sneaking suspicion that this Biotechnica job might have been nothing more than a prank thought up by some punk ass trying to get back at her for, well, for whatever asinine reason someone could possibly have to be mad at her. Regardless, Gabby had been making the most out of her week, turning into some kind of impromptu vacation with daytime tourism snapping shots of herself outside of the enormous skyscrapers that were serving as some sort of pissing contest between several corporations and nighttime tourism of working her way into the swankiest of clubs in search of drinks, drugs, or any other kind of distraction. Yet with every shot, every snort, and every dance partner that refused to become more than that, an annoying voice piped up in the back of her head, reminding her that within this week she could’ve just quit the Biotechnica job and done a little networking in Night City. She had seen enough during her nights out to know that there were people that needed to be exterminated from the gene pool.

Case and point, this fucking bartender right here, who had made eye contact with her at least three times and still hadn’t taken her order. Come on, it isn’t even busy in here, how long does it take somebody to pour six shots for a blabbering pack of bachelorette party basic bitches? Shit!

Gabby tapped her credstick on the counter, flipping it in her fingers between each tap, as she stared down the bartender in the same way she watched a target down range. She had picked this jazz lounge as the start of her night despite the clubs having just opened, largely because she knew that the first lone girl who walked through the doors was instantly coated with an air of desperation so thick that even the loneliest of souls would instantly be turned off by the odor. Now she was standing at the corner of a bar full of artificial smoke and red velvet circular booths where a handful of people were chatting. There was a disco ball spinning in solitude over an empty dance floor in front of a stage with the projected hologram of a three-piece jazz group, the illusion ruined every time the beams of light reflected from the disco ball sliced the sax player in half.

The placed smelled like a mixture of ammonia and bleach, although that could’ve been only because Gabby was posted up near the bathrooms, desperately trying not to appear desperate, as if a little black dress that rode a bit too high and a department store makeup counter makeover didn’t paint a neon sign above her head that read, 'Will Debase Self For Free Drinks'. Of course, she barely went home with anybody who bought her a shot, but they didn’t know that and for a small moment both parties would have a boost in confidence and she could get drunk pro bono. A victory for everyone. The death stare in Gabby’s eyes shifted into those of a doe as the bartender finally turned around and made her way over. To her surprise, she put down a neon pink drink in a stemmed cocktail glass on top of it.

“From the gentleman,” said the bartender, jerking her head down the bar.

Gabby followed the gesture down towards the other end and, as the flock of women retreated back to a booth, she caught the eyes of a man in a tailored suit. She smiled softly, lifted her drink in a cheers, took a sip, and took the moment to quickly analyze him. Fresh haircut and slight stubble, healthy and tanned skin, zero apparent chrome, expensive watch, nice smile, fit, somewhat handsome, likely corporate and probably pulling down at least six figures, which turned that somewhat handsome into undeniably attractive. She beckoned him over with two fingers and, with a boyish smile, he pushed up off of his stool and sauntered his way over. Gabby turned her head to hide her smirk; poor bastard, he was trapped. Already her eyes were studying the top shelf.

“Hi,” he said as he leaned up against the bar. Tall. Deep voice. Another plus.

“Hi. Thanks for the drink. You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been trying to get her attention,” she said, her cup already drained.

“She’s like that with anyone who isn’t a regular. It’s a local bar; they don’t really try with out-of-towners. But I hate to see someone go thirsty,” said the suit. “Angela! Another one of these, please, and for my friend…”

“I’ll take the same.”

“Good pick. Two more, please.”

“So, what gave it away that I’m an out-of-towner?” asked Gabby as the bartender fetched there drinks.

“That did, right now,” he said. “I was just taking a guess. So, what brings a nice girl like you to a hellhole like Night City?”

“Work.”

“What kind of work? Sales?”

“Mercenary. I get paid to put pretty little holes in people’s heads from a mile away.” There was a pause, and then the two laughed. “Yes, sales. It’s absolutely mind numbing, but there isn’t always a nice guy around who’ll buy my drinks.”

“Now I find that hard to believe. Nice tattoos. What’s that one say?” He pointed to the Hebrew on her arm.

“I don’t know, actually,” she said with a laugh, lying. “I was told it meant love and peace, but for all I know it could mean anything.”

“Do you have any others?”

“Hm. Buy me another drink and I might show you,” she said, leaning forward. “Say, what’s your name?”

“Shit, sorry,” said the man as his phone buzzed. He reached into his pocket, looked at the screen, and hastily got up. As he was about to step away he turned to Gabby and said, “Flip your coaster over.”

Confused by the bizarre demand, Gabby lifted her drink and flipped over her stained coaster. On the back was some scrawled directions to the docks, and underlined twice was the phrase ‘GO TO THE BIG RED WAREHOUSE’. A frown began to form on her face as she looked back up at the man, but in the moments in had taken her to read the note he had simply vanished. She glared at her drink, feeling more embarrassed than anything, and slammed the cocktail like a shot before chasing it with the messenger’s own drink. The drinks helped restore her confidence, as did the promise that the Biotechnica job was finally starting. Hopefully she’d be able to shoot something real quick; her fingers were getting itchy.

---

Gabby had taken a moment to swing by her place to change and grab her gear before heading off to the docks. She was wearing her armor but kept the helmet retracted, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that bounced as she walked. She could feel the folded micro uzi smacking against her side as she moved briskly, the firearm covered by a hot pink windbreaker that fell below her hips and made a swishing noise whenever the fabric rubbed against itself. Her footsteps fell quietly as she walked between shipping crates, the takedown case containing her rifle in one hand while she held a cigarette in the other, occasionally bringing it up to her still made-up face to take a drag, the orange cherry serving as a perfect target to make her the victim of sniper fire.

Funny. She didn’t even consider the possibility that she might’ve just been walking into a trap.

Gripping the cigarette between her lips, she pulled out her NetBuddy. She had set the route into her device, and just by looking through the camera it would reroute and point her in the right direction. Assuming, of course, the damn thing would update. She wrinkled her face and tucked the device back into her jacket pocket. Fuck, who needs technology? She craned her neck, looking up to see if she could find some sort of vantage point to get a lay of the land, her eyes settling on a crane used from moving containers to and from cargo ships. She worked her way through the maze that she had gotten herself lost in, eventually coming to the base of the large crane. Slinging her case over her back with a strap, she scurried up the ladder until she came to a landing and pulled out her binoculars.

She scanned the docks. Yeah, let’s meet in a specific color building when it’s too dark to easily distinguish colors, brilliant! Gabby flipped between settings until she found one that enhanced the low light. She stopped instead when she hit the thermal vision, spotting several humanoid heat signatures in the warehouse across the way. Shit, she should’ve just followed the directions written on the coaster. Frowning, she slid down the ladder and hastily made her way across the docks at a light jog, slowing to a normal walking speed as she made it within one hundred yards of the warehouse. She sighed. Corporations just loved to make people jump through hoops; why couldn’t they just send a ride?

She checked out the other people as she walked up. Salt and Pepper standing there in their suits and shades were corporate as hell, the kind of dudes who exchanged fist bumps on the reg and liked to brag about their 401k. Now that she thought about it, they looked similar to the guy at the bar. The woman, tall and slender, looked like a runway model that had been convinced by some idiot stylist that chrome was the new Chanel. There was something about how the woman toed the edge that dropped off into the uncanny valley that made Gabby feel uncomfortable. Perhaps that was why she settled closer to the old man, with his wrinkles and the lingering smell of dead fish that had as much of a chance as radiating from him as it did from the docks. She gave him a sad little smile. Maybe some people would regard someone that still ran in this kind of business as that age a certain level of respect, but not Gabby. If she was ever that old and had to keep doing this kind of grunt work she’d kill herself.

“Well, this definitely can’t be all of us. Great,” she said, looking around at the crew. She unceremoniously set her case down and sat down upon it like a dejected child grounded from playing with her friends would sit on a stoop, throwing her head back with a groan as she lit another cigarette. More waiting, huh. She pulled out her phone and poked away at the screen, the sound of cheerful chiptunes and popping bubbles filling the warehouse. “Any of you guys play Bubble Battle? Something’s up with this things WiFi, but I think we can link it if we’re close enough together with that thingy, right? You know, the, um, the thing that makes it so...” For a second the popping stopped as she looked up from her phone, pulled the note out of pocket as if to show it off, and raised an eyebrow, asking, “Did you guys get coasters, too? I got a coaster.”

And then she went back to battling those bastard bubbles.

"Mmmm, decisions..." he said to nobody in particular. Ceramic fingers, kept in immaculate polish, performed a slow ballet down a rack of ties before finally stopping on a satin lilac. Having finally set up his various properties in the new apartment, this was Andrejs' first night to himself, and he planned to spend it in style; who knows, perhaps he could even find some fine feminine specimen and show her a good time. Manhattan, eldredge, half-windsor, trinity... No, he thought, unraveling the tie once again, his fingers repeating a practiced motion and assembling a crisp rose knot around his neck. Andrejs tightened the knot with a small grunt. Content with his work, he then reached into the tall cabinet built into the wall next to his mirror, revealing row upon row of artificial flowers. Performing the same finger-ballet as he examined his options, Andrejs took but a few seconds to select what, in the loosest possible terms, seemed a mock carnation. As he fit it to his lapel, the white base and gentle lavender bleeding along the fabric's edges made for a contained yet powerful contrast against a navy suit. Andrejs took much less time to select a pocket square, having already visualised the tame blue pindot in a reverse puff while he was tying his tie.

Little remained to do in the way of suit assembly; Andrejs had already spent the requisite hour obsessing over the slim, but not too slim, fit of his jacket and the pressed, but not outwardly stiff, collar of his shirt. With a quick look in the mirror and a smile at the dashing man looking back, he took a step towards his closet and looked down. After a moment of consideration he reached for the black—no, black is too formal... brown—brown derby—no, derbies are too bland... brogue—brogue shoes to the left of the black oxfords and the right of the brown derbies. A moment later, he was ready to go, and with one more quick look in the mirror and a nervous run through his hair to ensure its tidiness, he opened the door—

—to a man. The man looked surprise for a moment, but he took less than a second to regain a perfectly unaffected composure. A delivery man. Andrejs was puzzled for a few seconds, but soon after nodded his head in understanding. "Ah, the new shirts I had tailored. I must say, your delivery is quite prompt; I'm impressed. Alright, show me where to sign." The man didn't offer any pen or paper. He simply extended his arms with a small package in hand. Andrejs' puzzled countenance returned as he accepted the package. His mouth opened to speak, and to support it rose a single inquiring finger, but the delivery man turned and left. He did not run, in fact, he did not even walk particularly quickly, but something in his gait exuded a confidence, or a fear, or a something that told Andrejs not to follow or protest. Instead, he took a step back inside of his apartment and locked the door. He opened the package, and where he expected a bomb, death threat, or at least something that might offer an answer, there was only another question. This question took the form of a list of instructions and a little model house. No, it wasn't a house; it was a warehouse. Taped to the side of it was a small piece of paper that, in a pleasantly neutral font contained one of the most pleasantly neutral messages that it could, and Andrejs' was terrified: GO HERE. Andrejs swallowed his built-up saliva and began his practiced ritual of converting anxiety to motivation and fear to indignation. He rose.

He took perhaps twenty steps into a bedroom, kept in perpetually pristine condition. He reached into a drawer next to the bed, and withdrew its contents. They shone a bit in the mellow lighting, letting off a very muted glint along the corners. He placed the larger piece on the bed while examining the other, counting the little golden cylinders that ran up its frame. Nine. Perfect. Andrejs then mated the two objects and let out a small sigh, both of exasperation and relief as he felt the familiar weight of something he'd not held in a long time and hoped to never hold again. Reaching back into the drawer, he withdrew a holster and slung it about his torso, placing the handgun by his left hip. With that, he put his jacket back on, concealing the weapon, and wheeled about to face his apartment door. Another sigh. A pause. Hesitation? Where lies the difference between contemplation and avoidance, between caution and fear? No matter. Regardless, it ends now. Andrejs took a step; it felt a bit shakier than usual. One more sigh, but this time more focused and focusing: tranquil, ready. The next step was firm. Another step. Another. Soon, Andrejs was out the door, his face almost as hard as the neatly pressed lines of his suit.

---

It wasn't a long walk. Twenty minutes, perhaps, though Andrejs walked quickly. Whether this was a consequence of anger, fear, or purpose was not written on his face. When he reached the warehouse, Andrejs looked around. There were quite a few suspicious characters lurking about the general area, but then again just about everyone in this city looked suspicious to him. As for persons who actually seemed concerned with the warehouse itself, Andrejs could find none. No more instructions. Andrejs started towards the first doors that he noted, his steps a touch lighter and deliberate. What came next was hardly light or deliberate. There was a pause once he reached the door and considered his options. However, this moment of calculation was short-lived. A sort of giddy rage sprung upon him, and though it was tamed by habitual tranquility and professionalism, it still bled from his face at the eyes and lips. The feeling was familiar. The indignation at being told what to do and knowing that it was dangerous, without knowing exactly what the task would entail or how dangerous it was; paired with the thrill, that shameful leaping passion that came with the prospect of adventure, that horrible joy that came whenever death didn't touch Andrejs, didn't even open the door, but only looked through the window, smiled, and waved. Andrejs loved that rush, and hated to love it. So while it was neither the anger nor the primitive excitement in totality that drove Andrejs to kick open the door, the passion was certainly fueled by both. He raised one hand in a wave and kept the other gently resting on his sidearm.

"Honey, I'm home! Now what the fuck do you want?"

That's when he saw the others, standing around and not doing much in particular. They looked calm. Whoops. Andrejs headed over, keeping his head high and a hand on his gun, though his grip loosened. Quietly now, "Hello, all. But really, what the fuck do you want?"

---

Nighttime in Night City. That’s when everything truly came alive. Damian’s place was no different. Once the suits were done with their boring daytime jobs, the allure of the nightlife called to them. It didn’t matter whether they were single, married, or brought their significant other along. Damian had something for everyone.
Tonight was little different than normal. DJ had arrived in the early afternoon, making the rounds and ensuring everyone was comfortable. He nodded to Jay, the security muscle he had hired. Nothing out of the ordinary. A few hours from now, DJ would be several hundred bucks richer, even after paying all his help. That’s just how it went. Once you were in with the corps, you owned a part of the world, at least until someone proved themselves more useful.
A few big shots came in early, flashing their cash and making demands that Damian was more than happy to acquiesce to. Should any requests make his girls uncomfortable, most of them knew how to deal with their patrons. If things got too heated, that’s what Jay was for. Around eight, one of the patrons dropped an extra $50 tip behind when he left. At least, DJ assumed it was a tip, like he did when anyone overpaid. In true social grace, DJ waited for the man to leave before taking a closer look. ”Dammit... fake.” DJ was about to crumple the bill and throw it away when a line of writing caught his eye. ”A red warehouse? At the docks...” The bill dropped into the trashcan. There was little that could be more profitable than his own business. If one of the corps wanted him, they could tell him to his face.

Jacob stood in the alley behind the establishment, an unshakeable sly grin creeping up the side of his face as he playfully shook his head and brought a lit cigarette to his lips. There were definitely some perks to this job, flirting with the working girls was one. Rochelle, a particular sassy one was his favourite. She really knew how to tease a man and was as quick witted as they come. While many girls had offered him their services, some out of attraction, others out of boredom, and on a few occasions, despite policy, he accepted, Rochelle made herself untouchable and that was her allure.
Jay was so in his own world daydreaming of things that would never be that he nearly didn't even notice the delivery man drop a box and spill product all over the floor. "Oh for fuck sake!" he curses at the guy as his heightened sense of smell was suddenly overwhelmed by that of citrus fruits. Cigaret still lit hanging in the corner of his mouth he kneels down with a groan and begins collecting and re-boxing the fruit. "Either we sell too many girly drinks or our girls are heavy drinkers!" Jay says jokingly with a soft chuckle to the guy he just scolded unnecessarily over a simple mistake.
He thought it rather odd to be rewarded fruit for his help when they just received a whole box. Perhaps it was just odd humour, but then he realised the fruit wasn't even real and decided the guy was just being a smug jackass. Looking around for the culprit he realised the delivery van was already gone and he could no longer smell the guys presence. Angered he squeezed the fake fruit, it was pretty strong. He considered tossing it down the alley or simply crushing it but then he thought it might make a nice ornament.
With one last hit of his cigaret he drops it to the ground and grinds it out with the toe of his boot. Tossing the polymer tangerine up and catching in the same hand, Jacob checks the alley one last time before stepping back inside and locking the metal door shut behind him.

It was only a short walk to find Damian. Jacob threw the fake fruit over to him. "Check out what I just got for being on my best behaviour." he says with a laugh as he looks around the near empty room. He gives Sarah, a curvy blonde, a nod and a smile as he passes her on his way to the bar. Serving himself a non alcoholic drink he continues talking. "Thinking we can put it on a shelf or I could gi... Hey man wait. Oh damn! Why did ya have to go and break it?
Damian caught the fruit with his left hand as it was tossed. Angel? Analysis, he thought to himself, focusing his cybernetic eye on the material. There was definitely something odd about this. As the composite analysis popped up on DJ’s HUD, he switched his optics to a more penetrating beam. Sure enough, there was writing on the inside with the same message he had seen before. Damian crushed the fruit to Jay’s perturbation and thrust the half with the writing into his guard’s face.
”That’s the second note I’ve seen on this today,” Damian said. ”Obviously someone wants us to go. If they went through enough trouble to give us both notes, I have a feeling there’s something useful waiting for us.” Damian turned to Sarah, adjusting his optics back to the standard clothing-defying setting he usually left it on. ”Sarah, baby. Jay and I have to run. Could you have Rochelle work the front? If anyone gives you trouble, I’m sure Kass can take care of it.” Although Kass was one of the workers, she also was DJ’s muscle before Jay had come on board. Handy to have a good-looking gal to step in with a gentler touch when someone as brawny as Jay could scare off a customer from future payments.
Jay didn't like leaving the girls to fend for themselves, for multiple reasons, but beyond the usual noise things had been getting pretty quiet and steady of late. This, well this was something new. Something they had never dealt with before and it smelt a lot like trouble. With an excited grin he replied. "A'rite, Let's go do this!"

As normal Jacob brought the car around without need for further instructions. With it running he waited out the front for Damian as he set up the destination. Wasn't too far. Damian plugged the location into Angel, and her instructions seemed to correspond with the directions given on the fake orange. Well, it was useful to check, at least. Once he was certain everyone would be fine on their own, Damian joined Jay in the company car, pointing out the path to traverse.
Damian was a man of few words when he wasn’t mooching on the corps, but even he felt compelled to speak up as they began the drive to the docks. ”What do you make of this, Jay?” he asked. ”Trap, work, or something else?”
Jacob laughs. "It seems to be too obvious to be a trap but that could be the genius behind it. I gotta say if we roll up and just get mowed down it's gonna be pretty disappointing." Jacob's smile fades as he considers the stupidity of walking right into this without knowing more. "Got any guns in the trunk?" he asks half seriously looking over to his boss. "Could be a ploy to get us out the club, I'll call the desk if you want. We don't have unsettled debts do we? None of our, ah, 'arrangements' have changed have they?" Jacob was prying into parts of the business that were not his, but Damien would know he was just doing his job and covering all bases.
Without a word, Damian reached forward to the glove compartment and opened it. Inside was a simple revolver, not powerful enough to contend with any real threats, but enough to make someone hesitate before jumping into a situation they would regret. DJ withdrew a package of bullets, inserting them into the chambers. To the untrained eye, Damian appeared comfortable with the task, but in reality, he had called up an instruction video with Angel’s help on how one loads this particular model.
"Guns aren’t really my thing,” Damian replied shortly as he checked that the safety was engaged. DJ then placed the weapon into the cupholder in the console between them, not wanting to handle the weapon any longer than necessary. "And nothing unusual has happened. Just the regular. If anyone wanted me dead, why would they invite my security guard along? This all smells fishy, apropos as we are heading to the docks.” Jay slightly smirked at the pun.

It wasn't until a bit later when the vehicle pulled up to a complete stop just a small way from their destination did Jacob take the gun. Quickly getting out the car he tucked it into the back of his jeans under his belt as he looked over their surroundings with his left eye. "I see see a few heat signatures inside the warehouse but nothing else suspicious, you? He asked his boss, well aware his cyberoptic was superior. Excitement, duty and nerves drove Jacob to the front door, pushing it open he went inside. A moment later he waves Damian in.
Damian simply nodded his assent as Jay opened the door. DJ entered the building a few steps behind his bodyguard, his gait showing an air of confidence as he glanced around. Those who had gathered seemed a fairly eclectic group, many of whom had fairly impressive cybernetic devices, but none seemed to be individually more dangerous than himself or Jay. From the way they looked at each other, it was fairly evident many had received the same instructions. One of the ladies looked up from the game she was playing on her phone and mentioned a coaster, at which point Damian held up the faux fruit. “We got an orange,” he replied. ”Anyone know who’s in charge here?”

Night City was an apt name. It was dreary place during the day with not all that much going on. The food scene was lackluster and if you wanted a good beach, you'd best believe that there were better elsewhere. The nightlife was what more than made up for all the bad. As the sun set and all of the streetlights came on, you'd see the denizens below migrating toward the downtown area. The bars were numerous, the drinks plentiful, and the girls....yeah. Made him happy that he hadn't settled down yet. Victor took a drag on a cigarette and watched the cloud lazily disperse above the glittering city. He could hear the distant din of music mixing with the cars driving through the street below his balcony. He rubbed his beard idly, as he passed the cigarette over to his buddy Glen. The man was monstrous for lack of a better term. Damn near lost his entire face during some work in Yemen and had it replaced with pure metal. Reminded him of those Terminators from those movies back in the day. His right arm was a hulking mass of metal and cables and he'd seen him crush weapons and people like grapes on more than one occasion. It was odd seeing how easily he could manipulate the cigarette with it.

The sliding glass door slid open behind before as a brown haired woman, fitted dress and cybernertic arms, bottle of vodka in hand spoke at them with a thick Southern drawl.

"Y'all coming in?"

"Yeah, yeah. But pass me that real quick?" replied Victor as he motioned for Glen to finish off the cig.

"So you can keep it asshole? Get your own," Susan fired with a smile, hugging the bottle closer and rejoining the others inside.

Victor laughed as he rejoined the others inside. Susan, him, and two others along with Glen outside made up the group pregaming at Victor's
hotel room. At first, this hadn't been a plan but while they tried to figure out what to do it had become pretty clear that his hotel room was the only one among them that would fit all of them. Mercs were a bunch of cheapskates if it didn't involve guns, bombs, armor, and tech. Victor walked over to the bar, faux-wood counters that despite the plastic-like texture still looked pretty alright, and grabbed a bottle marked with red tape over the label. If there was anything that stood out about this room though, it was that the sound system was top notch and the pumping beats shook their bones and metal to the core. Definitely unexpected for the price he paid and when Art started fiddling with it, it had damn near made him piss his jeans and go full flashback; the boom was that loud. As he sat down on the couch between Susan and Troy, he took a swig of the rum in hand. Troy was regaling everyone with his last assignment. Something to do with some anti-corporate cult in Congo and how he got stuck in the back of an RV hiding under some poor schmuck who got himself shot. Over the laughs and bass, it was Art who noticed the pounding on the door first.

Victor got up to get it as Glen turned down the music. Victor couldn't keep a straight face looking at the guy. Even with his God-damned terminator face, Victor could see the worry in his bio eye. This guy could punch through plateglass and he still got scared over getting in trouble. With laughter barely being held back, he opened the door to find two men, one in hotel uniform and a cop. Confusion flashed over his eyes as he looked them over. His frame blocked the doorway but that didn't stop the other mercs from trying to peek around at the surprise visitors.

"Yo, are you the stripper?!" shouted Troy from the peanut gallery as soon as he saw the badge.

Now in his line of work, and most any lines of work, that's what would be called a mistake. The cop's face turned into a frown as the hotel employee started to fumble over his words. I guess he hadn't expected someone that towered over him.

"Oh, uh, w-we received some c-c-complaints about the noise coming from this room. We want your guests to l-leave and for you to t-turn the music down for the night. Quiet hours are in effect."

What'd that peachpuff say there?" shouted Susan from the couch as she finished off her vodka, not breaking eye contact with the hotel employee.

Victor stepped aside as the cop came forward, "Alright, everybody out. Just get to downtown already."

Victor looked over at the others inside. While he had not notion that Glen would refuse, Troy and Susan were a different story. Especially after the drinks. Mouthing at them to get the hell out while Glen meekly shuffled out with Art not far behind, Troy couldn't help but get one last jab in by stomping loudly on the ground as he walked out. Asshole. Susan followed close behind cradling a beer.

"I'll text you guys when I'm on my way. Go ahead and find a good spot."

"Get a fuckin' implant for that ya caveman," she said as she passed before leaning over and probably whispering some vulgar, hedonistic temptations into the hotel employee's ear.

Victor motioned toward the empty room, "Anything else officer?" The cop ignored the question as he scribbled onto a sheet of paper. "How about don't get me called up here again?" he said as he shoved the paper into Victor's hands and exited the room and closing the door behind him.

Malparido, he thought as he looked at the ticket before realizing that most of it had been left blank. "Pero que es con esto?" he mumbled as he flipped the paper and found it blank there too. Flippng it back and examining closely he noticed the comments section was filled out. "Red Warehouse. Docks. Now."

---

• [20:10] I'm out for tonight. Gotta deal with the ticket you guys got this crooked cop to give me.
• [20:10] Sorry man, thanks for the cig btw
• [20:11] Sucks to suck
• [20:18] I think I left my pinky in your couch fuck
• [20:22] Sucks to suck heathen

Victor changed out of his nice jeans and into some darker ones. While he didn't have the gut feeling of walking into a trap, if he was gonna get shot at tonight, his going out clothes would not be casualties. Simple grey t-shirt, jeans, boots. Wishing he could wear his tac gear while he made his way into the unknown, he knew that if he wore any of it, he'd probably get flagged down by an actual crooked cop and held up for way too long. Didn't mean he couldn't bring any of his toys though. Holstering a pistol in a non-intrusive holster, Victor stuffed a small bag with several grenades, and, after giving it a kiss, a rifle with several loose mags. Putting on a leather jacket, he stuffed some extra mags into an inside pocket and then put on his rosary and tucking it into his shirt. Slinging the back of hardware on his shoulder, Victor headed out.

The ride was mostly uneventful though he wistfully looked out the window at all of the people getting to go out to the clubs instead of working. Lucky them. Sucks to suck indeed, he thought as the lights began to fade. The cabbie had given him a bit of an odd look when Victor had told him to take him close to the docks but not wanting to question the man in dark clothes and a suspiciously bulky duffel, the cabby did well by focusing on the road and avoiding the smalltalk. Victor's heart beat faster and faster as the lights of downtown faded behind them and the dreary industrial area engulfed them. He wouldn't call it nerves. It was more like excitement. The moments before hitting the stage, the pause before the beginning of the futbol game when everyone is waiting for the whistle. Victor left after giving the guy a healthy tip and put his boots to pavement for the last four blocks. It was lonely out there, seemed like Saturday night at the docks was not what many people considered a good time. It helped though, made anything outside of his footsteps and breaths stand out that much more.

It took a while to find the warehouse. Knowing it was a red warehouse without any other direction wasn't as helpful as one would have thought but hey, the walk itself was nice. The cool night breeze streaming in from the water was refreshing with a hint of salt. It wasn't a beach and "long walks on the docks" didn't have quite the same ring to it, but it was nice all the same. It was peaceful and it really made him want some junkie or thug to try and jump him so he could get the blood flowing. Walking up to the warehouse, a pair of yellow lenses appeared over his eyes. Reaching to his pistol he pulled a small plug-like piece out from the handle and plugged it into his arm. The number of rounds in the mag popped up in front of him before fading to the corner. As he approached, he kept out of the lights above as best he could, hugging the shadows as his steps quieted. He approached the nearby car and examined it. His overlay shifted vision modes to observe the electronics of the vehicle. Car bomb was not how he wanted to go and when he found nothing out of the ordinary he went up to the warehouse and took a deep breath.

Pushing the door in, his right arm twitched in anticipation. When he entered and no rounds started flying, he exhaled. A feeling like disappointment filled him but so did a touch of relief. His lenses disappeared as he approached the others. Some men, some ladies. An old guy, an really augmented woman, two ladies on their phones, a suit and a merc, and another suit. A really nice suit actually. Almost made him feel underdressed for the occasion. Oh well. With a wave to the group as a whole, he sat down on a crate amongst them. Nearby was a concrete column. If the bullets began to fly, he knew where he'd jump to first. It was a really strange collection of people. Just what exactly were they getting themselves into? He looked over at the two suits in coordinated outfits. Seems as though they were still waiting for more.

"So I just had my night out shot. When's this party getting rolling?" he asked aloud, accent on display, as he looked over at whatever game the two women were playing. Looked kinda fun.

The apartment was quiet. Its adornings were meager, though not enough to portray any impecunity. Each room was dimly lit by a maximum of one incandescent light stand. There was little trace of occupancy. The bed was neatly made; the kitchen was clean; there were no visible traces of dirt on the floor; the closets, cupboards, and drawers lay empty. There was no food in the refrigerator, no toiletries in the bathroom, no books in the shelves.

Catherine looked over what was left. She was assured that she had made sure to clean up any trace of her occupancy from the premises, but she also wanted to double check.

And it turned out that her hunch was right: a burger wrapper sat crunched up, hidden in the corner of the kitchen countertop. She picked it up. It was from the morning. The meal was unremarkable, so much so that she could barely remember what the wrapper even held. She picked it up and threw it away without a second though. What was the point of dwelling over a piece of paper?

She stepped out of the apartment and closed the heavy wooden door behind her, locking it with a worn key. She walked down the desolate hallway for a good while until she finally made it to the elevator. She pressed the button with the arrow pointing down, that was where the car park was.

She waited for a while, staring at the plethora of lights outside the window, the city illuminated to the point where it resembled a christmas tree rather than a skyline. It was a pleasant sight. It brought her a sort of comfort she rarely felt in her occupation. The lights spoke to her, they warmed her, they made her feel like a small little girl in a big and wonderful world. She looked away. She realized she was getting distracted.

There was a trash can by the elevator entrance. Catherine took the key out of her pocket and clenched it in her hand. She looked up at the camera in the corner of the mini lobby. Maintaining eye contact, she slipped the key into the trash, the key landing with a satisfactory *swish* as it was caught by the thin plastic inside. This had to have been the hundredth time she did this. At first she had some qualms with just throwing things like this into the trash, but after a while the conditioning wore on her, and such an action became routine. She had to throw it out. It was what she always did. It was what she was required to do.

---

---

The two men exchanged glances after they noticed a lack of more people filing in.

“Right, I think that’s everyone,” the black man noted

“Looks like it,” his white partner concurred

“Guess we’ll call HQ and get this show on the road,” he said with a slight smirk.

---

---

The elevator door opened softly and Catherine stepped out into the warm air of the car park. The heat was a welcome change from the constant air conditioning of the apartment complex. She walked past the rows of various automobiles; many spaces were empty due to how it was a Saturday night. Her footsteps reverbed around her, giving Catherine a sense of scale she felt all too familiar with. She hardly even played attention to where she was going. She knew the route by memory, it was like clockwork to her. She stared at the outfit she was assigned, instead, Plain white shirt under a thin gray hooded coat that was covered in pockets. Her pants were basic, dark blue jeans, form fitting and comfortable, but she always thought they were too revealing of her figure. Her shoes were plain white sneakers, clean and new, but not something anyone could find in today’s stores; they had a vintage look to them.

She didn’t realize something was wrong until it was too late.

She bumped into a man. The guy was large, bulky, muscular, tall. His skin was tan, very tan, although he was still visibly caucasian. Catherina had to look up just to see his face, a clean shaven face painted with a wide grin. Catherine stepped back instinctively, her body tensed up and was ready for a fight. This was where her car was, but her path to enter it was blocked by this man. She looked around, another guy sat on the hood of the car. He had a similar build, but his features were definitely those of a hispanic man. The two wore full leather. It was new leather, shiny, not black, but a deep crimson. It looked as though both of them has just bought this get-up.

“Relax, babe, we don’t bite,” the guy in front of her purred, “We’re juss wonderin’ why a girly such as yourself has such a sweet ride like this? Is this your car? Is it your boyfriends?”

How did they know it was mine before I came here?

“That’s really none of your business,” Catherine replied. Her voice was monotone and low, betraying no information about her demeanor, other than a hint of mild annoyance.

“Oh I think it is, babe. See, ‘round here, we like to keep tabs on who has what on the streets, make sure the natural order is preserved, if you see what I’m sayin’,”

This isn’t even their territory

“No, I really don’t see what you’re getting at. Can I just go?” Catherine responded. She put her right hand in her coat pocket, with her left hand hanging onto her belt loops by a thumb. She glared at the two men.

Yet the two guys chuckled heartily. The one in front of her pulled out a switchblade from the pocket of his pants. He opened it and slowly held up to her face, softly running it around her cheeks and neck.

“Listen babe, come with us and do what we say, and then maybe we’ll let you go on good behavior,” the man whispered as he pulled her chin up with the flat part of his knife blade.

“How about no”

Catherine caught his wrist with her left hand and pulled it down and towards her, knocking the thug off balance and bringing him closer to her. Simultaneously, she whipped her right hand, with it’s mechanical middle, ring, and pinky fingers transformed into a sharp blade, out of her pocket, plunging them into the man’s stomach.

The man screamed in agony as Catherine pulled him into her, cutting deeper into his abdomen. He dropped his knife with a loud clang. She let go of his hand and stuffed it into the back of his pants as his partner hopped off the car hood and fumbled to attack Catherine.

Bingo.

Before his partner could bring out his weapon Catherine had already taken aim with her first victim’s .38 special. Two bangs later and the other man was on the floor, bleeding from his chest.

Catherine slid her blade out of the first man’s chest and let him fall onto the ground.

“Damn,” the man gasped, “I guess you knew,”

“Knew what?” she inquired nonchalantly as she wiped off some of the blood that was on her right hand, transforming it back to its original state.

“That we were fake,”

“Yeh, there were a few tells. The last one was how you kept your gun in the back of your pants rather than the front. Most gang-bangers like to be more ostentatious with their firearms, so they hide them in the front of their pants. Anyway, who hired you?” she asked as she crouched down beside the guy.

“I don’t know, some hot shot, apparently. Said he wa— ” the man wheezed abruptly, “said he was working in tandem with one of the corps, didn’t disclose much.” The man’s breathing was heavy and staccato as he struggled to cope with the pain, “Just told us to dress the part, post up near this car, and stop a girl, you, I guess, from leaving. Kept it ambiguous what he wanted us to do. We planned on kidnapping but I guess we faffed about too much, eh?” he finished with a chuckle.

“Yeah. I guess you did”

Catherine stood up and went to her car. She pulled the handle; it was already unlocked by proximity to the car key she had. She entered the car and made herself comfortable, trying not to look at the poor saps bleeding out just a few feet away. It was a push-to-start, like most others. She missed turning keys.

She put the car into drive and disengaged the emergency brake, now getting a feel for how the car handled and accelerated as she drove around the car park. Catherine stopped at the exit ramp in order to reorient herself. She put the car in park and checked the car. Under the passenger seat lay a backpack. Inside was a 12mm pistol^[1], already loaded and accompanied by two extra magazines, as well as a cell phone, a charging cable, a wallet, and a bottle of pills.

She turned on the phone and called the only number listed in the contacts book. She put the phone on speaker as she waited for an answer, setting it on the center console of the car.

“Catherine what the hell, you’re way off schedule,” a perturbed voice answered. The voice was older, with a British received pronunciation

“I got into a bit of an altercation. Tell me, how many people are in the warehouse?”

“Catherine, what ar— “

“Just tell me,”

“Ok . . .” the voice then sounded more distant, as though the woman on the other side was calling to someone else, “Jerry, pull up the SeeMee TV from the docks . . .”

A pause.

“I see now. This is bad,”

“What’s the plan?” the car began speeding along, ever faster. It slithered through the streets, passing in front of any car she could, red traffic lights magically turning green as she approached.

---

---

The black man whipped out his cell phone and dialed a non-disclosed number. The person on the other side was giving some information to the man while he listened in almost complete silence. He motioned some hand sign to his partner and the other man left for another part of the building while he stayed on the phone, listening intently to what he needed to do.

---

---

“Ok, listen Catherine, there's a small hole in the wall on the side nearest the streets, You can enter discreetly through there,”

“Ok then . . . call a Trauma Team,”

“Why wou— right, on it,”

Catherine sped into the paved area around the warehouse, stopping her car under one of the few lights around. She made little sound, the car was designed to do just that. A newer model, electric, like most others, made by Honda. The silver car was sleek, aerodynamic, with a wedge-like shape that had a focus at the front. Its doors merged seamlessly with the body and the tinted windows were all angled in order to accentuate the shape of the body.

Catherine stuffed the .38 into her backpack and pulled out the 12mm. She opened the door, stepped out, locked the car, then ran as fast as she could to the warehouse. She only hoped she wasn’t too late.

---

---

As one suited man ended his phone call, the other returned with a large suitcase. He placed it down in front of his partner and opened it, hiding the contents from the arrivals. Inside were two submachine guns. Small, but exuding a feeling of hidden power. Fully loaded, with a magazine capacity of around 45 9mm bullets. They looked at each other and slowly began to take them out, making it look as though they were about to reveal some sort of secret documents or special dossier to the group.

*BANG*
*BANG*

The noise was monstrously loud. The two balls of lead pierced the flesh of the agent with ease. The caucasian man looked at his partner, then behi—

*BANG*
*BANG*

“Sorry I’m late. The name is Catherine,” the woman said as she lowered her gun. At that moment, the sound of rotors pierced the air. Catherine stepped out of the shadows and towards the group, motioning them to follow her. “That’s our ride, I suggest we hurry,”

Two Trauma Team workers stepped out of the tilt-rotor aircraft that had landed just outside the warehouse. One of them gave a quick nod towards Catherine as she made her way into the aircraft, hoping the others would be quick to follow.

Goonster's coat flew back, revealing the man's arms as the two appendages flew upwards aiming a .38 special at the two agents who were just merked by a disembodied shooter. His trench coat hit the ground as the man stood there in his suit, tie and dress pants. As the men dropped he let out an audiable sigh, holstering his pistol he went to go pick up his coat which he quickly puts his trenchcoat back on. His arms vanishing once again as he looks around to the crowd of people who'd shown up. Presumably called by the same - now dead corporate agents. The old man takes his time to look around his surroundings, specifically the people that appeared in the short time - besides the Russian he was staring down since he got here. He saw a few chicks and a couple fellas who look like mercs. Not necessarily the best people to call to take out, outnumbered a sub machine gun can only do you so well. The smell of death and blood began to pour out of the two men who laid dead on the ground in front of the group, maybe those around him didn't mind that the men had just eaten their own soul's thanks to some well-placed bullets. Goonster shuddered a bit, the death - death in real life was always the same. You never saw the person on the another side of the net it was just you Black ICE and the net ready to scramble any brains of silly deckers who wished to challenge the legend. Well, that's how it was on the net, in real life well? Things were different, everything was different in flesh escape and this was something Goonster wasn't too happy about. He was never happy, that's why he looked up to the stars - the dark gloomy skies of Night City. When was the last time the city had a clear sky, maybe it was the corporate smog or the way the atmosphere works (thanks to world war three). Yet no matter the day or time the skies never wanted to open, even for Goonster. It just goes to show, the world moves even if two scum bags get dropped.

His eyes stuck to the sky, the conversation seemed to drain out his ears as he focused on the sky. He brought his head back down to the woman who had just sent the two corporate agents to their graves. The woman was young, equipped - heavily equipped possibly augs. From a glance, maybe it wasn't evident but a woman - a normal woman couldn't possess the finesse, accuracy, and skill this woman had. Maybe, she wasn't a woman - a cyborg, possibly. The thoughts flooded his mind, there were many questions to ask - albeit, this was not the time. The TTI AV4 landed and two medics stepped off, it was evident she wasn't with Biotechnica if the medical mega-corp was here to escort them - to fly them wherever. It would be foolish to resist if that was even the option. Goonster looked around again, suspiciously eyeing the group of individuals. Each has their own intentions, motives, and allegiances. Who knows if this would end in bullets flying, in any case - he's fucked. A .38 wouldn't last long unless he reached for that subbie the Agent was cradling. It was pointless to even consider, the old man's legs were already shuffling the decrepit corpse to the helicopter.

It wasn't long before the man was already seated, locked in and ready to fly. He looked back out to the others, his face devoid of emotion.

He didn't really want to be here.

------

Damian hardly had a chance to react before a flurry of activity dropped the two would-be gunmen to the ground. Pathetic, he thought as he watched the blood pool out of them. If murder were their intent, Damian could think of several simpler ways to dispose of them. This group was obviously too highly trained for just two men with an excess of bullets to take out. No one had bothered to check for weapons or to restrict their movement or line of sight. Heck, even a simple low-power EMP grenade would have at least disabled a few of them.

Instead, the morons had intended to open fire and the group was to assume that this chivalrous knight who came charging in on a shining helicopter was their savior? For all anyone knew, she could have been the one to send the incompetent assassins, and likely was. Angel, identify, please. As Angel worked on crosschecking this Catherine, Damian stepped forward. ”I must say, Catherine, I don’t think most of us feel as if we would gain much from joining you at this point. Perhaps you should explain why we shouldn’t turn around and get back in our cars?”

------

Victor had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach over these suits. Every one he's met has been rather lively and if this was supposed to be the welcoming committee for a new contract than this was a piss poor couple of guys to be in charge of it. No small talk, no life. Maybe it was just how Biotechnica rolled? Some kind of strange show of power despite them being the employer and a legitimate one at that. While he watched over the shoulders of the two chicks playing Bubble Battle and trying to figure out exactly what the objective was, he couldn't help but continue to keep tabs on the suits and think. There was something off but he couldn't exactly throw around accusations if he didn't know what to accuse them of. Could just be Biotechnica mercs in fancy suits but it didn't make much sense in his head. Why would a pair of mercs care about how they looked to a bunch of strangers? Then again, he didn't exactly ignore his own grooming when he got the call to come to the docks. Hm. That's some vanity right there. He perked up when the two spoke up but that sense of unease only intensified.There was something to that smirk that irked him, something about the way they seemed to be talking more to each, than to the group. Call it a "solo-sense" or just "paranoia" but either way, it made his gut turn.

When the other suit left, he looked around at the others to see if anybody else was as on edge as he was but found that nobody seemed to act as if anything was amiss. The suit that stayed was on his phone, silently nodding his head with the occasional acknowledging grunt. Victor took the opportunity to move his bag, putting the concrete pillar between it and the men. Getting up from his seat on the crate, he took a position leaning on the pillar. He laid a hand near his pistol, tucked safely on his right and simply observed the man on the phone. His apprehension wasn't subtly hidden away. The way he tapped his foot and his unbreaking stare made it pretty obvious to anybody near that he was not feeling right about the situation, like a guard dog that had heard some small bump in the night. When the other suit came back with a suitcase, he didn't move from his spot. Instead of calling the group together to start the briefing, the two men seemed to huddle over the case, putting their backs to the group and shielding the contents from view. He looked over at the two women on their phones, and made a motion of getting down before he looked up and saw the case being opened.

He didn't see from where but two shots rangs out. Fuck, he thought as he slid behind the pillar, placing the concrete between him and the action. In an instant his pistol was in hand, safety off. That was not the sound he expected. It was semi-auto from the sounds of it, one pull of the trigger, one shot. As he was about to duck out of cover to return fire, the pause after the first two shots were echoed with a second pair, keeping him behind the pillar. After a quick breath, he turned the corner with his own pistol out and pointed at the woman lowering her gun. The sound of a rotary craft faded in over the ringing in his ears. His pistol was trained on the woman as one of the fancy men began to question her. "I'm gonna have to agree. Security for this shindig was a bit of a shit-show, yeah?"

-------

Sariya remained almost preturnaturally still as the two men discussed. Her cloudy eyes were unmoving, locked onto their faces. She subconsciously rolled her right wrist as though loosening up the joint. It was fine; no jams. She often did this in situations where she felt there might be some danger to her person. The gun was functional, she'd tested it yesterday. From the looks of things, they were unaugmented. She doubted they could even begin to harm her unless they were packing a lot more than just the two of them. Danger can come from anywhere, anytime. The phrase rang through her head again. She silently began to contact her superiors in Russia, concerned. The dossier hadn't contained any information about these two. Their faces were unfamiliar, and the unfamiliar had a way of setting Sariya on edge. Then her paranoia ratcheted up even further. They were hunched over an open briefcase, and she surreptitiously raised herself onto the balls of her feet, ready to lunge forward or to the side if something started to go wrong.

Something always started to go wrong.

Two bursts, two bullets each. Sariya tossed herself to the side, wrist already disjointed and prepared to fire two perfectly-aimed shots of incendiary ammunition. Then she realized that, while the gunshots had indeed involved the suits, they certainly hadn't come from them. They slumped over, and from behind them stepped a woman. Older, she thought, though she couldn't quite tell because of the woman's augmentations. Or her own, for that matter. They had a tendency to distort the apparent age, especially the metallic plate embedded in her own forehead. The fact that she was over six feet tall certainly didn't clarify matters any. Her eyes focused, laserlike, on the other woman as she introduced herself only as Catherine. The helicopter's appearance did little to dissuade her exclusive target. There were too many variables here. She didn't know where anybody else stood, and she was wound up tight, a hair trigger ready to pull. For all she knew, the helicopter could've been drone-piloted and loaded with hidden explosives. Catherine herself could be an advanced android sent to lull them into a false sense of security and get them on the craft.

"Merely a name is insufficient," she spoke, clear and cold as ice. "I'll need more to go on than 'Catherine.' Who do you work for? Who did they work for?" She gestured at the dead suits."Where is this ride taking us?" The gun that was her wrist was aimed squarely at Catherine's face, a single mental impulse away from embedding a bullet into her brains. She felt another sting in her shoulder. The stress was pulling blood faster and faster, and her modamerizol was metabolizing far more rapidly than usual. She filed the information away, and remained impassive, staring at Catherine.

---------

When the first action that the suits took beyond lurking was to further isolate themselves from the group, Andrejs' suspicion began to rise again. He had calmed down since his initial entry, finding no sense in fuming while the rest of the group waited in relative silence, but this change in pace was cause for alarm. He corrected his posture and put a hand on his tie knot. A bit loose. He tightened it, and looked down at the pale purple fabric. Shame. Lilac doesn't go particularly well with red. He heard footsteps and looked up again. The suits were back. A quick glance around the room showed that Andrejs wasn't the only one on edge; everyone seemed a bit nervous as the two men reached into a suitcase—

—and fell over dead. Andrejs barely heard the gunshots over his own heartbeat, pounding and echoing in his ears. The conflicting instincts of an engineer and a soldier took over as he collapsed to the ground but simultaneously drew his pistol, fumbling with it a bit before establishing a firm grip around the handle. He expected shouting, gunfire, crashing, anything but the deafening silence that followed. "The name is Catherine," stated a woman Andrejs hadn't even seen enter. “That’s our ride, I suggest we hurry." One man headed over to the landing aircraft obediently, and Andrejs considered joining him, but the few that stood in opposition to this new threat compelled him to do something uncharacteristically stupid. Andrejs stood up, deliberately behind the Russian and the huge man—damn, was he huge—and raised his sidearm with a practiced artificial confidence. A gentle gleam bounced off of his ceramic fingers as they briefly unraveled and regripped the weapon's handle to establish a better grip.

"Merely a name is insufficient." Andredjs was inclined to offer an affirmative chime-in to the exchange, but reason caught him first. He looked around once again. Metal. Guns, big guns. Muscle. Most of the people here had some or all of these. He considered himself: a nice and meaty, but not imposing, target lacking any form of body armor, noteworthy armaments, training, helpful cybernetics, or any other items that could keep him from bleeding out on the floor like an idiot if he pissed off this trigger happy newcomer. All he had was an expensive, easily-stained suit. God dammit. Before he could say anything that might encourage the shooter to make an example of him, Andrejs lowered his weapon and began a somewhat ashamed scuffle towards the VTOL. As he walked past the Russian, he mumbled, "Maybe a name is 'insufficient' for you, but some of us are made of meat and are highly allergic to bullets," and then began to walk a bit quicker with the realisation that there were now two people who might shoot him in the back. His pace stuttered, however, as he passed the corpses of the fellow suit-wearers. He felt no empathy towards them, nor even a hollow, distant curiosity in their lives or purpose; he could save the philosophising for a time when he was less concerned about dying an embarassing death. Instead, he focused on the weapons that they had planned to turn on him. He looked at his pistol. Back to the submachine guns. Better than this. Grabbing one of the firearms and giving a quick look around like the nervous glance of a child stealing a cookie, he scuttled over to the TTI AV4 and sat down in a nervous silence, deliberately avoiding any potential eye contact with the old man across from him.

Catherine considered that she was perhaps a bit too “aggressive” in how she presented herself, but she had faith in the fact that these criminals wouldn’t be too perturbed with a bit of bloodshed.

Still, when she looked back, a few were at least noticeably flustered. That was unsatisfactory for this operation, but Catherine had expected for minor discrepancies in the plan such as this. Indeed, this was a rather satisfactory outcome given the circumstances of her arrival. Regardless, she tried to maintain a calm composure as her group filed into the aircraft.

After everyone had entered, the pilot had closed the back door and slowly began to lift the machine off the ground. Catherine knew that this flight would take some time, so she had to keep the group occupied for the duration.

”I must say, Catherine, I don’t think most of us feel as if we would gain much from joining you at this point. Perhaps you should explain why we shouldn’t turn around and get back in our cars?”

"I'm gonna have to agree. Security for this shindig was a bit of a shit-show, yeah?"

"Merely a name is insufficient, I'll need more to go on than 'Catherine.' Who do you work for? Who did they work for?" She gestured at the dead suits."Where is this ride taking us?"

This was the sort of hostility and wariness she had expected. She had assumed this would come as a shock to most, given how they were under the assumption of some steady-state world in which they would get their assignment from the men in black and that would be that. Their brains had already filled in the gaps based on some assumption that this job would be easy and straightforward.

— When you assume, you make an ass of u and me —

“Listen . . . I’m as much in the dark of all this as you guys are. The fact of the matter is that our location was compromised. Those guys back there were some unsavory characters who were out to do all of us some harm,” Catherine sighed, “I’m from Biotechnica. I’m here to help you on what you guys were hired to do. You can trust me . . . because you sure can’t trust those two anymore,”

"Takes more than a couple pellet guns to blow this kid away," he said with a grin, "But for real, they knew who we were and how to contact us. Does Biotechnica know who these guys were with?"

“You’re sadly mistaken if you think they contacted you all. Regardless, I don't know who they really were . . . but hopefully the road will soon be illuminated,”

The aircraft gave a faint hum as it moved swiftly through the air. The vibrations gave a feeling of security, a sort of white noise that could slow things down and drown out the troubled of the world, if only for a little while.

---

A phone rang within an auto shop.

No one answered.

It rang again.

No one answered.

It rang again.

A bald headed man with a goatee went to pick it up. He wore dirty cargo pants and an old leather jacket, beneath that was a graphic tee with some esoteric vector cube design. He looked perturbed. His smoking session with his buddies had been interrupted. He spoke in a groggy and hostile tone, as if he were just woken up.

“Yeah, Jim’s Chop-shop, you need sumthin’?”

“Zinc Bison Twenty-two three”

The bald man’s tone changed immediately. It became dull and lifeless, almost mechanic. Like one of those old text-to-speech programs.

“Listening”

“Mobilize your gang. Information will be sent via neural uplink”

“Understood”

“Eighty-nine zero”

The caller hung up. The man put the phone down and silently walked back to his friends.

“Right boys. We got a job to do,”

---

Three SUVs sped down the street as fast as they could, ignoring all stop lights, their tires squealing at every turn. They were unmarked, yet clean, their windows were tinted very dark, to an extent where it was impossible to see into the car from any angle.

The bald man had a small laptop, on it was open an application of Google Maps, however it was clear that the program wasn’t tracking his car, but another machine, something that could fly.

“Next left”

After a second the car lurched in a sharp left turn, the centripetal force shifting all passengers to their right.

“Keep going”

The man kept his eyes glued to the windshield. After a few seconds of driving, he saw what he was looking for.

“See it?”

“Yeh, boss”

“Fire”

The rocket shot off towards its target.

---

---

The aircraft violently shook, and within less than a second, a feeling of downward motion seemed everpresent. Catherine looked at the pilot, who himself tried desperately to pull the aircraft up from it’s descent into the earth, but the movements of his yoke were little more than death throes as his aircraft clipped the edge of a building and plummeted onto the streets of Night City.

She braced for impact.

---

Their target crashed right in front of them. A sitting duck, and all they had to do was wait. They had a perfect sightline of anyone trying to crawl out of the wreckage.

“EASY MONEY, BOYS!” he yelled out of his car as he motioned for his convoy to halt, “3 K for each body! Post up here!”

His men got out of their vehicles, creating a barrier from which they could shoot from. They each held rather sophisticated weaponry: rifles and shotguns, each holding enough power to rip a large chunk of flesh out of their target should their handler’s aim be true. They tried to keep calm, but their excitement could be easily gleaned from their fidgeting and darting pupils.

A few men used some of the fire escapes to get onto the roofs of the overlooking buildings, creating multiple nests from which they could see both the front and back of the now burning wreckage.

They were ready for a fight.

---

It wasn’t long before Catherine had regained her composure to a point where she could focus well enough. Her head ached a bit, but she was otherwise unharmed and unaffected. She wasn’t sure about the others, though. A cursory glanced confirmed the worst.

The pilot’s section of the aircraft had been completely crushed during the impact. The aircraft had gone vertical, it’s front end bearing the full brunt of the force before tipping into its normal position.

That brothel owner, the one with the brown hair and weird eyes, Damian, seemed to have gotten the worst of it. He was sprawled out on the floor, his head right up against the wall of the cabin. His neck was hyperextended, to a point where it was clearly evident that his spinal chord had been snapped, most likely as a result of being flung across as the aircraft crashed into the ground.

The Israeli girl, Gabriella, had likely suffered as worse a fate. While she had sat comfortably in her chair, the force of the impact had warped some of the metal frame behind her, which, combined with the irregular and powerful whiplash of the crash, had caused this chunk of metal to embed deep into her abdomen. The death was probably quick, as it had likely impacted vital parts of her circulatory system.

The next casualty had been the Chinese decker, Chiue. She lay face up on the floor of the cabin, a single shard of glass protruding from her jugular, her blood spraying profusely onto the floor. It seemed that the pressure of the explosion had shattered the glass on the windows of the cabin, and the weight and shape of the glass was enough to puncture her neck as the aircraft came to a sudden halt at the bottom of its descent.

“Well, this is bad,” Catherine thought for a moment.

“Wait here, I’ll be back. Don’t die.”

Catherine slipped out of the wreckage, dodging the rain of bullets by ducking behind the hood of a car. She slipped into one of the alleyways and ran as fast as she could.

She had a job to do.