Connoisseur.
A ping from his Agent alerted David to a data key mailed into his neuralware right as the van pulled up to a high rise apartment building in Kabuki. It wasn't a towering megabuilding like where David lived, but the place had guards in suits outside and a security scanner. He felt uncomfortable in the Neokitsch clothes he had bought with Shibuya, and this wasn't helping. The scars on the guards and fact that they didn't have any corpo logos on them made him pretty sure that this was closer to a building owned or protected by a gang than any of the respectable sources of security.
Really, that was the one reason why he didn't want to vomit.
Charlie parked the van on the street before her eyes lit up as she checked the info online. "Yeah, Creek Loop safehouse. We're good."
Spoiler: Charlie (Codename)
"What exactly are we getting?" Rayno adjusted his militaristic jacket to hang off his shoulders while sliding a huge knife on the front's inside. The bodybuilder techie grabbed a blocky SMG from below his seat, the weapon's stock was absurdly short, allowing him to put it on a sling to hang opposite of his knife due to how tall and big he was.
"There will be a metal suitcase with a sticky note saying Hard Rock," Charlie hopped out of the car. "We grab that and go." She waved to the guards. "Hey, you guys should have gotten a call. We're going to Apartment 521B." The guys looked her up and down before stepping aside. A screen by a third guard on the inside showed a readout of an absurdly huge revolver from a quick scan that the gate had done.
David halfway expected to get shot, but they were all let in, the gate only really seeming to pick up on guns in the outlines it gave.
"Welcome to GozuMezu Court," The guard by the screen tapped away at a keyboard. "There is a shooting range in the basement, bullets and targets can be provided but please do not use explosives. Pool is on the second floor." He waved them off while David turned from side to side.
It wasn't like everything was gunmetal gray or anything, but the subtly off-gray walls were decorated with a lot of portraits going down. All of them made in different styles but each one seemed to depict some kind of hell. He recognized a scene from one of the Classics Arasaka Academy had him write a report on, a very humanoid monkey wrestling figures with Ox and Horse heads. "Gonna guess this is a runner apartment building?"
"Plenty of gangsters and fixers, corpos that want a place to lay low as well," Charlie stated while they headed past the paintings to a set of Elevators semi-disguised by screen doors. "We'll need the data key to go up." It slid open upon pressing a button but David had to connect to it wirelessly to transmit the code Shibuya had given him to get it moving.
"An entire building full of gun nuts," Rayno folded his arms together and leaned against the wall as they began the climb, tempered glass in the back showing a view of a further tube of the same material that protected them from any outside attack. David tilted forward to see glistening water spread wide out in a pool bigger than the apartment he had grown up in. only a few people were there, but he noted a group in a smaller round pool that might have been a jacuzzi. "Need keys to even access the different floors, probably limited to different service areas outside of your floor. Probably plenty of people who rent the rooms under assumed names so anybody that gets it wrong will get buckshot to the face if they manage to make it that far."
The European man smiled. "Yeah, that sounds pretty good so far as security goes. Plenty of the guys around here would be paranoid that they'll get in the crossfire and flatline the gonks trying to start shit."
David thought of what would happen if everyone in his megabuilding was good with a gun. "That'd be a bloodbath."
"Security on top of neighbors with guns," Charlie nodded while the elevator dinged. She led the way through, passing through several apartments before finding the one they were meant to visit. "There should be people who have friends or trustworthy services perform drop offs. Guys who just keep the rooms as safehouses would want to make sure the rations and other perishables are replenished."
David placed his hand against a scanner next to the door and got another alert as his key was tagged. They entered a large apartment with a semi-divided level from a set of staris and open layer that took up half the space. Shaded orange glass that didn't show any of the outside world were arranged in an almost honeycomb pattern on two of the walls while reinforced by metal bars. Most of the floor was metal as well with the exception of what looked like a lounging area with synthetic wood paneling and a thick U shaped sofa with a short table set inside of it.
Bluish light fell down as an automatic switch turned on the flat chandeliers. Rayno walked past, scanning the room with his eye's movements hidden by the visor. "Pool table, poker table." He headed to a fridge and opened it, revealing a lot of plastic bottles. "Synth-Milk, synthetic egg substitute, juice flavoring." The door next to it was opened, revealing shelves and shelves of rations and dry food. "Looks like some of the more upscale places I've seen. Freezer probably has microwavables, I'd guess international Edgerunner or a guy used to needing to sit on an exfiltration target before pickup."
Charlie walked up framed metal stairs. "There is probably a giant wall of guns and ammo somewhere, but I'd advise against touching it."
Rayno paused and went back to the fridge before carefully closing it. "That's not orange juice, that's liquid explosives."
"Sounds like Uncle Mori." Charlie disappeared on the second floor as she ducked down and came back with a burnished metal suitcase that had dents from bullets. A wider dent was actually a series of pings from what might have been a shotgun blast. "Got the package."
David knew who she was talking about and opened a rolling screen door in the back of the room. It slid back to reveal a walk in closet lined with guns. Shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, smgs, rocket launchers with spare ammunition in cases, armor in multiple styles set on display for quick use. "How many guns does he own?"
"This is what happens when you become friends with arms dealers and are an obsessive compulsive looter." Charlie commented with a tone that seemed more concern with storage space and cleaning than actual judgement at the behavior.
"Meaning he just has apartments full of guns somewhere," David tried to think of how many eddies that would cost.
"And the cyberlimbs of people who he either ripped them from or sliced the meat of." Charlie commented as if that was normal. They got back to the car without issue and began to drive, Rayno at the wheel while Charlie's eyes were lit up by a call. She eventually turned to David, curtly asking. "What do you have on the loadout? I didn't check the bag since that was personal."
He shrugged. "Clothes that can take a shot, burner phones, bug detectors, audio recorders, radio, techtool, camera, scramblers, radio communicator. A lot of drugs for in case things go south." David removed the black and red Arasaka Yukimura. "Modified Yukimura, electrothermal enhancement and recoil compensation."
Rayno gave a friendly whistle. "You plan on pulling the trigger and not letting go until everyone is mush?"
"I'm not really trained, relying mostly on chips and smart-link right now." David admitted, leg beginning to tap on the floor.
Charlie reached in one of her bags and handed him an old looking gun. "Glock 30 MP. Has a burst fire method like the Yukimura but no smartchipping or anything wireless. Basically analogue, use it if the other one gets hacked." She sat back with a small smile on her face. "Turn by the roundabout. We're going to Pao's Pie Shoppe."
The car slowly ground to a halt as they got to a kitschy diner that fit in the movies David had seen about the old fifties. "We meeting people here?" David looked at the old aesthetic of bubbled windows and red on white walls that made up an almost train car looking block. She nodded and got out.
Plenty of other vehicles were around, though David was wondering how likely it was for the cops to blow up an ancient sandblasted pickup with a machine gun turret mounted on the bed. It was pretty likely that they'd do it for the crime of existing. Maybe just plain on sight given that it had what looked like the symbol of Samurai styled on the side despite the rust and grit.
He pulled at his jacket, feeling awkward about the holsters on his pants while Rayno slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, been here before. They'll give you a funeral service if you pay a ten eddie membership fee every month."
David closed his mouth before wondering how many people this guy saw die on his runs. An entire bulletin board had been set up on the inside of the doorway, actual photographs pinned to it with tape, needles, and glue. Street punks, kitschy edgerunners and total gonks were all there in a sea of people getting covered over time by others as the faces were either burned off or crossed out with big swirling circles.
We'll give a photo to your Chooms to let em know who you died with
The plaque underneath was only vaguely threatening. David spotted seven pictures where the pale haired European had at least half the faces with him blacked out. "The fuck Choom." He muttered while Charlie sat down in a synth leather booth where a girl with thick and wavy hair sat, probably dyed blond given her tanned skin. The features were all over the place, Arabic, Asian, Vaguely Hawaiian, and Caucasian features making her fit somewhere in just about anybody's definition of attractive even with gold cybereyes.
Spoiler: Rest of the team
Her clothes were conservative by any Edgerunner's standards with a white double layered dress connected to some kind of black shirt that fully covered her arms, tight white pants, and a white shrug, the hood pulled down on account of being indoors.
A blonde girl in what looked like a school girl outfit sat beside her, red cybereyes shining while she dripped water on a scrunched up piece of straw paper to make it 'crawl' forward. Across from the two of them were a beady eyed guy in a hoody, eyes covered in bags as he choked back coffee. Both of them just seemed to amuse the final person, a presumable solo wearing a white greatcloak draped over a skintight black bodysuit, both garments seeming to cover less than long pink tech-hair.
Charlie handed the golden eyed girl the suitcase before sitting down next to her, David and Rayno took up seats with the other guy while Charlie laid down the info. "Everyone's here, language chips in?"
"Yeah," The red eyed 'schoolgirl' rubbed the area behind her ear. "Had to get the chipware last month when trying out what people excuse musical-chips for."
"Good, have the chatroom?" Charlie glanced at the tanned girl as the woman's eyes began to glow. "Log in." David got an invite to a private chat and entered it after activating the language and encryption chip he had been given.
Voices flew into his skull as radio signals, intent and thought translated into audio signals that got shifted into a new language, scrambled encrypted, and then reorganized by the chips and software. "Okay," Charlie spoke to them through the voice chat. "The contacts of my parent Triad, Kongque Fang Bang got the word on a job that a Mr. Who over on the Arasaka side put out."
An image of a muscular blonde teen popped into David's view. "The target for exfiltration is Maurice Talley. Seventeen years old, kid of Corpo Managers at Militech. Model for miliitech sponsored ads and movies. Straight B student, head of the local Militech Wrestling team. Spent three years in Beijing during a Militech-PRC operation where he got to spend a bunch of time in a monastery that taught Lee Kwan Choo. Good at the physical part but utterly shit at the spiritual stuff about respecting others and nonviolence. Has a bad habit of turning on his Braindance Recorder when on dates and screwing inputs. The XBDs keep getting released and circulated, which is a problem."
The golden eyed girl groaned over the chat. "My legwork says he's been doing that shit around Militech but no one could really stop him since his parents pulled cover when even family got pissed. But it's spread to other corporations and there are a ton of angry execs."
"Got it in one Woje," Charlie gave a physical nod.
David's cyberyes began to pick out names and the like for the others as their data steamed. The fake schoolgirl put her feet up and waved over a waitress in a pink dress. "Could we get synth milkshakes? There is this thing I've seen in vids where you dip fries in em and I wanted to try that." Everyone ordered food, with David getting a Hawt Dawg that should be ready soon. He saw the name Spiel show up over the red eyed girl as she went back to the voice chat. "So what, what? We gonna drag him to some angry dad who wants to flatline him?"
"Pretty much," Charlie confirmed. "We need him alive but not necessarily intact. I've set up a meeting by an old factory in Santo Domingo. Day here," David didn't like that name but it he was relieved that he wasn't being called D. "Sells XBDs to Arasaka Corpo kids. I banked on Maurice having heard rumors that Saka kids were getting Jimmy Kurosaki BDs and set up a sale through some false IDs."
The beady eyed one tapped on the table. "He's gonna have bodyguards or at least friends. Plus a TraumaTeam membership." An actual name was over him, Kaimana.
"Gotta spoof that," Woje supplied, hunching over while pulling her shrug closer. "Problem will be making sure no signal goes out."
"I've got scramblers, it'd make sense for an XBD seller to want those up while selling snuff," David was thankful that they met in a diner as he got to finally fill his stomach with synth meat.
"Moon," Charlie addressed the Solo. "I want you on standby, not in the Outlaw. Day and I will be out making an exchange. Kaimana's on watchout in his van, he has guns on it so I want you riding along with him but I want you close by him. Spiel and Rayno have bikes we are putting in the back of Woje's trucks. Both are going to use bows to hopefully take down any hangers on silently. Spiel, go with Woje, Rayno with Kaimana in case Moon can't get to his van After that, you go to town along with Kaimana. Rifles or swords, whichever you prefer.
"And the netrunner just makes sure we don't got traumateam and others coming on our asses?" Spiel grumbled.
"Unless you want AVs coming down on us," Charlie eyed the girl. "After that, we go to the dropoff, determine if we want to be a consistent team or not. If the latter, you can still take solowork, just make sure to be available for when I schedule group gigs. Money gets split seven ways if any of us part ways, eight ways if we team up with the final eighth going to a group fund that we all need to talk about if we pull anything from there.
Moon nodded. "Sounds more than fair."
Spiel rolled her eyes. "You set me up for singing gigs anyways so it's not like I can turn up a good band. Even if it is the murderdeathkill version instead of the kind that stiffed me."
The Netrunner's fingers twitched, but she made eye contact with the waitress as she brought over the drinks. "I'm good, need consistent people for when I'm deep under."
Rayno grinned at the agreements. "Triad has a good history despite their chapter getting hit, I need to flatline a guy soon so doing that for you guys sounds like a good way to get started on earning the help." He made a fist and stretched it out to Spiel as the rocker met his. "Got an Eagletech Hellcat. Oldie but goodie."
"Kosugi Twilight, collapses fast and can be put together faster than any instrument tune up. Fabrique de National GP 80 for when guys are close, Also," She grinned. "A really big sword."
"If any of you start complaining and spout off about the beauty of a katana, you will be shot." Charlie broke her professionalism. For only a moment before the drinks were brought out and the waitress took a picture of them. She went back to normal speech to address the woman. "Please get me an extra copy, I want to send one to my grandfather if this goes well."
The waitress grinned. "Got it, baby's first run."
"No, that is Day, not me." She rolled her eyes before taking a sip of synth chocolate. "Now, whether we come back here or not. I am ordering a pie for celebration if we all live."
David groaned. "You have no Chill."
"Ice cream pie," She decided while Rayno whooped in joy.
Kaimana nodded. "That sounds good. So what, four cars, two bikes. One left behind due to the mission?"
Moon stretched, her long hair doing the most to obscure her curves. "My car is fast but we need armor more than that right now. Could have brought a bike, but we don't have the room."
The guns on David's sides became a welcome weight while he got up, the Sandevistan's surgical scars no longer aching due to the medicine he had taken. Charlie downed the last of her drink and gave David a smile. "Now, I have an idea," Pale blue eyes became the most malicious things he had ever seen. "How about you introduce yourself as Tanaka Katsuo."
"You are Satan."
"Chinese religion allows all gods and demons."
=
Water dripped from broken pipes all over the more dilapidated parts of The Glen. Outside of the city hall and parks were ganglands where Valentinos and Sixth Street fought for turf. Several blocks from the more sophisticated and safe parts of the city, it wasn't that far from where Corpo kids with gear or buddies would go to slum it or get what their posh parents publicly disliked.
David stood by a basketball court, Canine Power trilayer coat and exojack boots providing a fair amount of armor while Charlie sat on the sideskirt of her van. The woman typed away on a tablet while David skimmed over the files on his XBD. It was a real one, the same XBD that he'd been watching before going to school and crashing its mainframe on accident. His gear could run that but not school software, corpo hardlocks were a bitch.
Somewhere out there past the scrambling field they had up were the others. He didn't know where they were exactly, but there were punks with guns and goddamn bows ready to kill people.
An obnoxiously large hummer cruised to a stop by the court, six corpo kids in unbuttoned neo-militaristic jackets and camo pants all coming out with buff muscles the size of cinderblocks before their mark did. Nominally better than if they just got straight up Corpo muscle with them.
Spoiler: Maurice
The problem came with the fact that he was pretty sure that the smallest of them was goddamn six two.
Militech Corpo kids were hitting some kind of sauce.
"Ubermensch Nanotech rebuild," Charlie supplied. "Strength, speed, reflexes enhanced, no sense of pain and can get a ton of drugs in them without negative side effects. Tend to have no regard for human beings that aren't as modified as them."
Great, some of the Arasaka propaganda was right.
"Chooms!" David greeted the guys who had probably gone full Psycho with bio-enhancement instead of chrome. "You Talley? I was expecting one guy, didn't bring BD wreathes for a party."
The tall blonde stepped up, muscle rippling under a tight jacket and shirt without looking disgusting like the Animals as everything had been set to be proportional. "You the dealer that's been in Saka?"
"Tanaka Katsuo," He lied through his teeth. "Seen your work, its all over school." David remembered the jeering his classmates had given that girl before she went to the bathroom. How they only care they had when they learned what happened was trying to make sure she flatlined.
It didn't matter where you were born or how hard you worked, they just hated everyone. Any weakness would get people shredded.
"Call me Tally," Maurice looked at David's sides, eyeing up the guns. "I'd make a joke about corporate loyalty," He folded his arms together, pecs bulging. "But you've got some analogue gear."
David nearly fumbled it as he remembered the Glock. "Sometimes you want stuff that nobody can hack. Picksockets that can break the code to get at my eddies can crash a smartgun.?
Maurice laughed. "Don't I know it, the shitheads have done that plenty of times. Just need to squeeze their skulls a bit though. Why I refused gorilla arms when my dad talked about them."
That was what Katsuo used.
Charlie stood up, looking the guys up and down. "This is why toughs are a good thing."
He had to play along. "Hey, trust is important. Besides, the bond between guys who like prem action and death is way up there."
"True, sharing the experience is different from what anyone who hasn't seen the BD can understand. You've been in the same head and felt the same emotions," Maurice smiled at David without a care in the world. "Everyone can interpret it differently and have different feelings about it, but what's in the BD is burned into your skull. Some guys want their shit personalized, make it exactly to their settings, but that filter will weaken the experience."
David's spine burned. It felt like his forehead was about to explode. "Don't I know it." Why did his fingers ache?
The guy reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick credstick. "Better than opening anything up, and paper's going the way of the dodo." His eyes narrowed. "What's with the white fuzz on the net.
"Yeah, scrambler is for the leeches and media rats. I'd set up white noise, but I wasn't sure if you guys would have cyberaudio and come out screaming about ants in your brains." David shrugged, his heart pumping like a jackhammer against his BounceBack healed ribs.
Maurice stared him down, blue ganic eyes boring holes into his chromed out ones. "Jimmy Kurosaki Edgerunners series huh?"
"Heard about the Cyberpsycho that got splattered all over corpo plaza?" David stuck with the truth. "In his head, all the bloodlust, Military Grade Sandevistan fully recorded while he blazes past MaxTac. Went by the crime scene the day after, it was all the same. Felt the chills from when the bullet breached his skull armor."
The suspicion fell away. "Wow, you are a real psycho. Returning to the scene of the crime to enjoy the bloodstains from every blueboy you flatlined." He laughed. "We should hang out even if you are a more into blood than anything else."
"Never felt like experiencing another guy's nut," David blew that off.
Instead of taking any offense, the XBD peddler smiled. "Got that, I never dream another guy's work when it comes to that.
He handed off the XBD chip, the man's hand squeezing the one that Katsuo had crushed earlier. Maurice's fingers pressed along the healed over skin, scabs having fallen off after the BounceBack. "Been in a fight?"
"Yeah," David admitted. "Plenty of guys in Arasaka fight, choom likes his Gorilla arms and tries them out whenever he gets the chance. Left him screaming in the girl's bathroom."
"Hardcore." Maurice gave David a hard slap on the back. "Guess you've got a good trainer or great skills chipped in."
Charlie answered for him. "It was his first fight, Choom's parents always told him to be the bigger man and never stop to anybody else's level."
The corpo kid groaned. "I know that, hearing old guys complain about all that. The world's built on violence." He pushed the credstick into David's hand while the tingling refused to go away. "Corps, Governments, Gangs, it doesn't matter who, all of them rely on violence." Maurice grinned as he flexed his muscles. "Freezing bank accounts, evictions, legislation that makes it so the arms of the law crash down on people who disobey. All of it is about force. Any division that hires Edgerunners and Gangs to do their dirty work only to spit on the bill while giving a cut down version doesn't get it. The difference is the clothes and how far they are willing to go, not much else."
David balled his fists. "Yeah, I get that."
"Part of why I like big trucks, people move for you or do their best to get away," Charlie rubbed her eyes. "Do you want to try it out now. We've got a pre-em BD wreathe," She removed David's new BD wreathe, a Kogane no Yume bought from Jinguji.
Maurice glanced at his buddies, most of them looked annoyed, wanting to try it out. "How about you put it on first?"
They glanced at each other before Charlie tossed it his way, making it seem like the expensive gear meant nothing. David caught it on reflex before putting the wreathe on.
David's heart jumped out of his body as he stood in a bloodstained building, the face of a body next to him completely destroyed with the brain long since falling out. He could barely see the floor because of shredded corpses and blood strewn across every bit of space in the cold gray-green room. The AC was insane and all the heat was from bodies.
"Cyberpsycho, he's armed!" A gun in David's hand went off, splitting open the skull of a cop before going down on another. More men came in and the pistol barked three times, eviscerating one's torso as time slowed down so he could smash into another with the full foce of his body, mantisblade extending from his body in slow moto slice off another's head.
He felt amazing, like his heart was a sun.
Every breathe burned as he stepped out of the room, grabbing a cop's gun before his corpse could fall to the ground. An entire hallway of guys responding to the gunshots had begun to crouch with shotguns and rifles.
"He fired, blasting a skull to pieces while the pistol began to cycle. His wrsit twisted, rocket launcher popping out to fire. Smoke trailed through the hall before it impacted on the fall wall, making an exit whilie shrapnel shredded the meat in front of him.
And there were plenty of guns for him to use now.
The BD wreathe was pulled from David while the psycho's glee just about made him cream his pants. Hot, ragged breaths ran through David's throat, drool melting with the acid that came up while he sucked in gasps.
Maurice pulled David up to his feet while Charlie gave him an unreadable look. "Fucking Christ Tanaka, you really are a Psycho."
His spine thrummed and both of David's hands itched to pull triggers.
"Yeah," David agreed. Tanaka Katsuo loved crushing people and couldn't take a hit.
"Party with us later, but I'm gonna want a couch for when I'm dreaming that up." Charlie rubbed David's head just hard enough to hurt.
Charlie cracked her neck while walking to the van. "Please, I'm not giving you a ride if the two of you start sucking."
Maurice snorted. "You don't know how to do sales huh?"
"Sorry about her, she's a Fixer but," David played along with their story while taking a step back, making sure to look at Charlie's shorts-clad ass. "Marketing and everything else is on me. Wanted to prove that I could move product but didn't want to be an intern being paid in experience." Looking at her like that was part of the plan, building a rapport, but damn if it didn't have benefits.
"Fuck, Saka does that too." Maurice gave David a fistbump as Charlie put the wreathe in the van. The BD player's placement was the signal, something that could be done whether it was put on or not.
Two of the Corpo Supermen sprouted arrows from their skulls, brains still active long enough to reach up at their injuries before dropping. A bullet glanced off of David's shoulder, his armored clothing managing to reduce the impact to being just horrifically painful instead of blasting off part of his body. "Fuck" David didn't need to act out that one while Charlie pulled out a revolver the size of her head, ducking into the van with the door still open for him. "Sixth Street?" David shouted while scrambling for the van.
Instead of the pretty pink haired girl from the bar, a Cyberypsycho-esque demon twisted through the air, monokatanas slicing up the basketball court's wire fence while cybereyes gave off the burning look of infrared vision, face obscured by a glowing red facemask like the maw of a monster, part of it crawling up the side of her face with a wicked horn jutting up.
Spoiler
"Maelstrom!" One of the corpo kids pulled an SMG from his jacket and fired. He didn't even get to cycle the bullet before his head fell apart into a hundred pieces. The remaining three and Maurice all fired on Moon while the demon let out a screech of rage at them.
One blurred forward, some kind of speedware letting him catch up with Moon and pull her into a headlock as his buddies both opened fired on her torso, SMGs unloading until they ran dry. Barely any made a mark on her clothes and not a drop of blood fell on the ground.
"Holy fuck," David's body still hurt from the BD, itching to do something while Charlie pulled him into the van.
An arrow sailed forth. One of the Corpo kids turned to see it, but got hit in the throat by a second one that had been coming in its shadow. Part of his skull was missing, but the guy just gave a scream of rage before a second planted in next to the other. "I'll kill that bastard."
The earth next to the guy exploded as a sniper bullet went wide before a car engine started up in the distance with a roar.
"Yo," David called out to Maurice. "Time to bail!"
Moon grabbed the head of the man holding her down and squeezed, crushing it while a blade came out of her heel to crush kneecap of the guy closest to her, twisting it around to rip the limb off from the man before his buddy's body was used as a bludgeon on him.
All of this had happened in under thirty seconds.
"AAAAH!" The final corpo superman went blazing against Moon, his SMG reloaded and firing on full auto with bullets flying everywhere as they hit chrome and were deflected.
Instead of coming to them, Maurice jumped forward foot snapping into a kick as he cleared over six meters in a standing jump. David could hear the crack as Maurice's foot slammed into her head with a crack that send Moon stumbling backwards. The sheer amount of bioware in him had to be ridiculous.
The exchange of blows continued with Maurice launching a series of punches to Moon's face, skin breaking and bleeding against her mask while the woman abandoned subtly and slice his leg off before kicking him in the stomach hard enough to slam him into the van.
David was a zen monk at home with the gore, body thrumming as he grabbed Maurice's bloody and bent form and jabbed him with a hypodermic needle filled with Beauties. The combination of sedatives wouldn't knock the superhuman out, but his blood loss would be reduced while the muscles went lethargic, nervous system not firing as fast as inhibitors scrambled coordination. "Hey buddy, ah…fuck it." He slammed the door behind him while the last guy outside fell to his knees, hands batting around as his face exploded into flame.
Charlie got into the driver's seat and showed him a text.
Keep the scrambler on and put the Neural Interface blocker on him. Woje is frying the other guy's memory, leave enough to remember 6th Street, Tanaka, and maybe Moon's mask.
He fished out a MaxDoc and put it in Maurice's mouth, the guy breathing in the nanomachines, chemicals, and aerosolized proteins needed for them to do the work. Blood kept coming out of the guy's leg and his ribcage was half crushed. David took out an interface link to plug into the back of Maurice's neck, applying the blocker to prevent the TraumaTeam chip from sending a signal if the scrambler had been dropped. No data would come from the guy and into anywhere, but he had a good look at his vitals.
One lung was perforated, his liver was mush along with a kidney. Intestines, well he was definitely going to die without help.
David fished out the medtech bag and went to work. Hands bloodied by the guy's somewhat opened chest cavity as he went through enough chemicals to kill a horse before having to fix ribs back into place with staples and medical glue. He was up to his forearms in blood and the guy was almost definitely going to be sick if he survived the night due to the far from sterile conditions.
But, the guy would be too high to know what the fuck was going on.
"You know your stuff," Charlie broke out into laughter while David buckled the drugged guy in.
"I am good at studying," He stated before turning off the scrambler.
A call came over their comms. "It's Woje, gonna crack this guy's ICE but we've got Valentinos."
David tossed the student ID he'd stolen from Tanaka out the window and checked, seeing the gold and red of four Valentinos cars and trucks blazing down the street. "Oh shit." He pulled back as bullets pinged off the armor. "I think its because of the gunshots and Corpos."
Charlie kept driving. "Gun or wheels?"
"What?" David's zen broke. "I haven't done either so, ah, you choose."
She glared at him. "Look, you are an Edgerunner now, so grow some balls."
"Fuck I'll drive while you use the stupidly big gun." David crawled into the front and controlled the wheel as Charlie moved to the other side, her butt turning out to be surprisingly big up close.
He might not want to drive while erect for way too many reasons.
The red glow of Moon's mask and eyes lit up the rear view mirror as the woman sprinted down the road in a blur. One of the cars got an open roof as the speeding scythe of a Solo swung her sword kicked it or something given her position as the Sandy turned off. Blood gushed out of the spaces where people used to be sitting as she took control of the car, one hand spraying the car next to her with SMG fire.
Sandevistans were fucking bullshit.
One of the trucks rammed their armored vehicle, bashing against the side as he drove onto the highway ramp with gunfire going off in every direction. His eardrums exploded the moment Charlie pulled the trigger of her gun, destroying most of the truck's front hood in one shot before another massive bullet punched through the engine block, sending the car careening off into the highway's railing.
David saw more cars and bikes behind him. "We've got a problem."
Why did he hear Arabic rap?
The fucked up Samurai gun truck moved in reverse ahead of them with a manic schoolgirl standing on the back with a belt fed machinegun pointed near them while shouting in a foreign language.
Woje groaned over the comms. "That is what you take out of the Quran after I translated it for you."
"I am in a gun truck from the Afghan war, do you want me to start shouting about the Soviet Union?" The woman cackled while countless bullets tore apart cars, more due to the sheer volume than any aiming.
David's back burned as he used the Sandevistan just in time to dodge the Valentinos' responsive gunfire, the car wheel turning absurdly slow in his vision. It jerked it response, moving at what seemed to be a snail's pace before he returned to normal time.
Unfortunately, that was when he remembered the Charlie was shooting out the window. Cantonese curses that David hoped weren't being translated by the other's chipware filled the air while the girl clung to the roof. David regretted going to Cantonese classes, but the situation was way worse. "Sorry!"
"Keep driving and I'll forgive you!" Charlie breathed raggedly as she continued to fight from on top of the van.
A much cleaner but still ancient looking van rammed a Valentinos' car diagonally, sending the vehicle sailing into the concrete as it blazed at a hundred miles per hour. "Sorry for being late!" Kaimana called over the comms. "Had trouble getting on the highway. Rayno!"
The Jolly Giant rolled the van door back to reveal dual 7.62 machineguns mounted on a helicopter's mounting. "Hey guys!" More gunfire hailed out, shredding cars left and right. "Normally have to be in the badlands for this!" He laughed while Kaimana managed to weave the large vehicle around to sideswipe bikes onto the ground.
David's met a Valentinos face to face as the guy stared at him from the passenger side door. "Holy!" He barely managed to bring his hand up and get shot in the arm, cracking something as the armor took the hit from a pistol. "We've got guys on the van!"
Brain matter coated david's face and he vomited up the hot dog he'd eaten at the diner. "Did you just vomit in my van?" Charlie asked.
"You iced a guy and splattered his brains all over!" David's intent let the message go despite how busy he was spitting chunks of brain and bone out of his mouth.
A yelp came from the gun truck while Spiel got knocked on her ass. "I'm hit, alive though."
One of the Valentinos came up in a truck, scratching the van as they pushed against them. David activated the Sandy as an SMG got pointed at the window. He fired with the Yukimuri, the burst fire getting the man's shoulder arm and head in a shower of gore that exploded out so slowly it was practically the frames of a movie.
He pulled the trigger again, blood pounding like a jackhammer against his skull only to feel that the trigger hadn't gotten back to its original position. David saw the gun cycling and flipped the switch to full auto.
Memories from BDs flashed through his brain rather than the reflexes of the chip. He tried again, the gun jerking in his hand due to not having a good grip. Only the slowed perception of time let him adjust it to go from scratching a paint job to hitting the next guy. Two tore through the passenger's right arm, severing it with a screech of metal and wires.
Time resumed as normal.
The car went out of control, flipping onto its back with the occupants on the back screaming. One managed to jump out and land on the gun truck. Spiel pulled scrambled to the side as the Valentinos fired at her, both moving unsteadily on the truck as it weaved through traffic. She kicked up a bag, drawing a wicked looking broad bladed sword while the Valentino ran at her. The wicked blade carved through the Valentinos's jacket, spilling intestines all over the truck while he fell back and got mulched by the cars coming after her. "Holy shit that just happened."
Swords were goddamn insane.
"Uh guys, um Monster Truck." Woje called out.
"Oh what asshole even uses those?" Charlie fired rapidly at the vehicle, probably fanning the gun as he heard six shots before she started to reload. Her oversized bullets shredded the large target's tires, making it move unsteadily while still heading straight for them despite the metal now sparking on the highway while every car on the highway tried to move out of the way.
"Who aggroed these guys?" Spiel shouted just in time for the Monster Truck to reveal a side gunner. A rotary cannon blades against the armored van, dinging the walls before bullets began to severely dent the armor plating.
"Charlie, hold on as hard as you can, then let go!" David activated the Sandy again, going over the divider and entering normal time before hitting it again and going behind the monster truck.
There wasn't much of a thought or plan, but the intent was understood as David turned the car as he got behind the Vehicle and launched Charlie up at the monster truck, she grabbed onto the back, slamming her face into the trunk with a smash that left her bloody. "I'm so-"
"Later!" She pointed her revolver at the back window and pulled the trigger.
Her gun jammed for the first time in the firefight. "Fuck." The windshield got spiderweb cracks as the Valentinos inside began to fire through it. Giving her enough time to try and run over the roof and slam onto the front while everyone kept shooting the other cars. She pulled something from her jacket and cut along the front windshield, slicing the thing open while the guys tried to turn around. A scream came over the comm as she got hit. "Bastards!" Charlie unjammed her gun and fired directly into the driver's seat before dropping off with what looked like a hole in her side.
Time slowed while David moved to her, tires blowing out due to everything he'd done. He screamed and jumped out, diving to catch the girl as he could see the drops of sweat fly from his hands.
Pink and white filled his vision as Moon shot forward at inhuman, cybernetic legs leaving holes in the pavement as she grabbed onto David before catching Charlie by the jacket. The stolen car flipped over both of them, sailing straight into the monster truck with an explosion while she threw the two of them into the van's still open door and clung to it before her Sandy timed out.
David could still follow her movements the entire time, her reactions slower than her own despite moving fast even in the odd time.
Blood poured down David's face. "How many times is it safe to use a Sandy?" He choked.
The car was still slowing down as the wheels scraping due to the blown out tires. But he kept driving, his fixer bleeding in the seat next to him with at least three bulletholes in her stomach. "I have at least one more MaxDoc and BounceBack in the back," David tried to grab the bag and pull it up front while Charlie passed out. "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck."
Moon leaned in from the back to grab the BounceBack and stabbed it in Charlie's jugular. "Bullets are in her, we'll need to pull them out." She promptly opened the side hatch and fired directly into a car's front to destroy the engine block while the others covered with machinegun fire. "Just make sure to flatline these guys before we get to the drop off."
David put the pedal fully down while following the coordinates on his Agent. "Seriously, what the hell is going on?"
"Got something, lover boy did the sisters of Valentinos." Woje answered the million eddie question.
"I am going to flatline this asshole!" David screamed at the last Valentino car got Iced by Spiel.
=
David stared at the black roads and skeletal rigging of the oil fields, scaffoldings and buildings having long since fallen oil drills and other machinery having rusted to death. The badlands weren't a place he had ever been to, and this place was as dead as place could be. More of the stuff in his bag had been used to stabilize both their target and Charlie, the woman's bleeding having mostly stopped due to the Bounceback but still with a heavy fever and god knew how many infections.
She was just barely conscious due to an adrenaline shot, skin pale and sweating as she ground her teeth. "Everyone, wounds?"
"Internal bleeding and bruises, but alive," Spiel called with her cheery tone muted. "Was I the only other one hit?"
"Invest in more armored clothes." Charlie practically rolled out of the van with the metal briefcase, sitting on the edge of the doorway and vomiting blood. "Hell." Moon helped her stand while Daviid took their drugged up target out just in time for the guy to realize what was going on.
Maurice grimaced. "Exfiltration team, great." He looked down at his lack of a left leg. "All of that was one show huh? You got me good."
Rayno hopped from the Nomad's van and picked Maurice up by the collar, shaking him up for good measure.
"Hey," Kaimana stepped towards them with his own first aid kit. "Got some MaxDocs, only one BounceBack."
Charlie wiped her mouth and took a proffered inhaler before covering her mouth. "I feel like death."
It was surprising that she was till alive, skinweave was something he'd need to get. "You are going to need to sit down after we get the bullets out of you. No telling what that'll do in the long run." David advised while Moon scouted the area.
The Solo's voice came over the comms. "Near point blank assault rifle rounds to the belly will kill most people. Skinweave protected you for the most part but you are lucky we had someone to put you back together."
David breathed in and regretted it as blood poured from his nose. "I think I need one of those." He fell down before Kaimana even got the inhaler near his mouth.
"We've got contacts, seem friendly," Moon advised them.
"Keep calm, sit down, don't do much for a while okay."
A familiar muscle car cruised onto the scene as their comms got a ping. "You've got the client here." Shibuya stepped out of her car while a black and red Porsche cruised over near it and an unmarked AV landed on the opposite side.
"Give me a cyberleg and I'll die on me feet," Maurice glared at the AV before its doors pulled back.
The first person to leave was an over seven foot tall mountain, the only bit of what might have been flesh being a top head with metallic lines going over the nose and eyes to connect to some metal apparatus at the back of his head that melded with a cybernetic jaw. "Covered in blood, bullet holes in the cars, gunsmoke all over everything. Good picks."
David still felt the tingle of the MaxDoc as he stared at an armored Arasaka borg, his hands far too metallic to just be from gauntlets. Another figure that was somewhere over six three stood next to the man, dressed in a suit that would make more sense on a corpo drone than a professional killer, the only bit of color in his outfit being a red tie that hung loose around his neck.
More guys filed out, mostly men in black armor that lacked markings for deniability purposes, but a cat eared woman came out, really confusing David about what was going on.
A guy with red hair shaved short on the sides stepped out of the Porsche. "Adam, you wanted the keys for your car." The absolute unit of a borg caught keys as they flew by. "Ah, I don't have a ride."
"If the job is interrupted, you drive, I slaughter everything," The Borg growled before glancing at the man with the suit. "You said there was Hard Rock."
Green-blue eyes that looked almost dad stared out from dark wavy hair. "They've got it." He removed a packet from his jacket and stepped across the field. Without another word, he handed a bag of BounceBacks over. "More trouble than you expected?"
"Valentinos saw us grab him and thought we were protecting him from Sixth Street," Charlie groaned as she struggled to stay on her feeet. "Got three bullets to the gut."
The guy looked at the group. "Well, you won't need to drive. Still better than your grandpa, he refused to ever take the wheel."
"It would hurt to laugh," Charlie winced while handing him the suitcase. "This was part of the extra objective?"
Instead of the Suit, it was the giant that strode forward to grab it. "This what I think it is?" the Chrome demon looked at the man, gleaming red eyes meeting silvery green-blue. "Yeees," The creature hissed and shook it before it unlocked electronically. "The spice, the spice mélange." He took out a thick black bag and looked at it. "Hard Rock Nigeria, Myanmar, Mongolia, Phillipines, Columbia, I can smell it, the drugs on it." He took the bag out and discarded the suitcase. "You have another 'I won't smash your brains in ticket.'"
"Just buy the company with your savings," Suit snorted.
"Don't wanna own it, just enjoy it you shithead chicken Katsu." The borg turned to the prisoner. Maurice glared up at the Arasaka soldier. "And this is the guy?"
A tiny girl with silvery purple techhair stepped out of the AV and blinked. "Maurice."
"Prude," The Militech kid groaned before spitting up blood. "Are you guys going to kill me or what?"
Suit stared at the student, dead eyes shining. He puled and interface link from his wrist and inserted it into the guy's neck. "Shibuya, he has Pain Editors and Tactile boosts right? Set 'em to max."
Spoiler
There was barely a half-second that passed before the man crushed Maurice's remaining thigh, bone and gristle exploding outward with muscles flopping with nowhere to connect to as the corpo kid screeched in agony. "So, kid. Here's how this goes." The man's fingers dug into Maurice's ribcage as he was lifted up, bones breaking one by one as he screamed from more pain than an unaugmented human could imagine. "You have enough in you to survive a lot, but now you get no filter from real danger. I'm just going to break your limbs, then step on your ribcage." Nearly dead eyes glanced towards David, glowing with an emotion David had only seen on Vid screens and never really believed in. "Sorry for ruining your work."
"How many of you were in on a plan to execute my ex?" The short girl shouted in more outrage than fear or worry.
"Learned about it on the flight to the USA," Suit stated.
David had a lot of feelings right now.
His father dropped the militech kid to the ground, drawing a pistol that fired a burst of three bullets into the guy's right arm to send it flying away from the body before repeating the act on the other.
Screams filled the abandoned oil drilling station, no one else around for miles to hear before the agonized cries were silenced by Mori Katsunaga reaching down to crush Maurice's jaw to pieces.
His father introduced David to the insanity. "So, Shirabe, Adam, this is my son David. David, that's my…well I'm not being paid to bodyguard right now but I've been doing this on and off for Shirabe since before she wass born. And that's Adam, he killed the guy who helped Flatline the man who made it so I even went to Night City, and I crushed the skull of the woman who goaded my friend into committing seppuku via soulkiller. Everyone else, well…"
"Charlie," The injured woman gave her codename.
"I'm just happy it's not Jackie. Charlie, granddaughter of Zhong Khan, my main Fixer." He finished right before she vomited blood again. "Adam, you choose when to cut this guy's head off and put the preservation unit around the neck. Also, we are extracting a BD for personal use."
The borg stepped on the corpo kid's chest and let his weight slowly crush Maurice as the wordless cries rasped from a throat no longer able to articulate anything.
"Both of you," The young girl glared at them. "Are impossible."
Charlie jabbed David with a BounceBack while Katsunaga observed everything. "So, everyone alive?"
"David decided on a whim to pin the kidnapping or whatever people will think of it as being done by his highschool bully," Charlie supplied.
A long suffering sigh left the small girl. "And now I do believe the family relation."
The AV blew up behind them, leaving the Arasaka team without a clear exit.
"I love my job," The full borg man grinned while David got a map of enemy IFFs from Shibuya.
AN
Holy shit this got long.
View in Thread
Nov 7, 2022Report
Like+ QuoteReply
Charlie
Bullets whizzed overhead, tracer and smart bullets lighting up the already burning desert landscape while Charlie ducked into her van.
"No one wants to be defeated, showin' how funky and string is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or right. Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it."
That her Auntie Izumo was playing music wasn't helping her killing headache. It being a mental communication over comms at least saved her from feeling already agonized bones rattle with nanomachines just barely holding her together like a duct taped wall.
Tammie was running out after the gun truck with an Arasaka princess in it. She didn't have any complaints as that girl dying might get the entire group on the Emperor's shit list. Weirder than that was Rayno dragging the remnants of the Militech target's corpse into his car.
She really, really didn't want to remind the guy to not eat corpses or whatever it was that Vlads did over in Europe. Her Arno gun kicked with a loud scream as she hit a Wraith in the foot, severing the appendage in an explosion of blood while the Raffen screeched in agony. Charlie just managed to close the door and start the car again while getting a glancing shot on another's arm, taking off the combatant's hand in the process.
A thunk echoed on her hood as a shorts-wearing catgirl fired continuous bursts of gunfire on the Wraiths. Dual SMGs blaring with a constant staccato of bullets. Charlie decided to just start driving while the detective rolled around and put a foot behind her car's front hood to keep balance.
"Everyone just focus on falling back," She alerted the others close by over their comms. "Our delivery was completed and all we need is to get back to Night City alive." She peeled out, still shooting out the window while a Wraith decided to tail her.
Plumes of sand followed both like trains. Spreading out in thick black and brown colors that would fuck with the vision of anyone behind them. Twisting around the dunes didn't stop a psychopath that survived out here without the support of anyone respectable and the bite that matched her gun's bark wasn't helping particularly against forward mounted armor plating.
Quantity had its own quality though as the blaze of SMG fired from the Danger Gal pockparked the chasing wraith's hood and reinforced glass until the entire vehicle veered off to the side. it flipped into the air as the car hurtled into a particularly well packed dune and flew all of ten meters before crumpling on its roof.
Kaimana's voice came over the comms while Charlie held back from feeling relief. "I have two trucks on me. Both have drivers and three guns…make that four counting mounted weapons keyed in with the cars' controls. Unlikely to survive without help here. Tires are reinforced against caltrops."
The dark haired girl let out a scream before connecting over the comms. "On my way." She shouted through the window. "Are you willing to help take out some Wraiths?" Charlie began to turn the car, the body nearly spinning as they turned in the direction of Kaimana's GPS.
Genetically altered ears flattened against the woman's skull. "I doubt that I will receive much of a choice."
They were already hurtling in the direction. "Indeed."
A van older than the both of them combined flew from a tall dune and sailed overhead while an armored truck plowed front first into the sand.
Twin thumps announced their visitors as a Raffen landed next to the Danger Gal and a monoknife scraped through her roof. The raffen on the hood instantly drew a hatchet. It swung easily, hooking the Danger Gal's left gun to twist it up as bullets began to fly. Her passenger didn't fire the other one in fear of shooting the van itself and let it fall, foot now on the weapon to keep it in place while long metal claws extended from Realskinned fingers.
The Danger Gal's other gun fell down, clattering on Charlie's windshield while the woman tried to avoid throwing both fighters off. Ax met claw as the woman ducked and drove her ripperclaws into the Wraith's gut, not quite managing to shred his armor. It didn't stop the cybernetic weapons from finding purchase in his insides though, greatly reducing his options while he tried to not get disemboweled from pulling back.
Raffen number two dove from the roof, sliding down with a blazing sword. His weight and weapon let him stab through armored leggings and straight into Charlie's engine block. The Danger Gal let out a scream. Rending the man she'd already stabbed from stomach to groin in a flurry of vicious fluids and organs. The sword wielding Raffen warded her off by pulling with his sword, dragging the woman by the leg as they both fell down on Charlie's car.
By now, pissed and bleeding from a burnt thigh, the cat eared detective settled on committing the same attack upon the Raffen. She stabbed the guy or girl in the junk, making a screech of pain echoe through the desert and kicking the SOB out into the sand to bleed out.
A low hiss left the woman. "I am not holding this against you.
She doubted that.
Rayno's voice gave her an alert before danger came. "Charlie, the one on Kaimana switched so C-YA."
The roar of another truck announced the arrival of that other truck that had been on Kaimana's ass.
"Chikishou," The Japanese catgirl cursed while a 40mm grenade launcher pointed straight at them. Charlie slammed the breaks and turned the wheel, fully willing to take a tumble through the dunes in exchange for not getting hit.
Charlie slammed the gas as soon as four wheels hit the sand again. "Grab something." Something inside of her had torn open during all of that. They accelerated as fast as the car could take it while she shot out the window. The last two bullets in the Arno saild ou while her wrist nearly snapped. Everything moving in slow motion while adrenaline smashed her skull in with a bat so she could feel every pump of her erratic heart.
By some stroke of luck, two of the bullets managed to hit gigantic grenades before they got close to the car and another two missed while she rode out the shockwave of the prematurely detonated devices.
Ten meters, twenty meters
The last one hit the car with an explosion of white and choking gas that still managed to knock the van on its side. Charlie hit her head on the dashboard as air bags inflated, a thunking sound coming from above as the Danger Gal climbed into the car and physically pulled the window back up. "That's white phosphorus!"
Motherfucker.
=Kaimana
"The Raffen have white phosphorus, and we got hit."
Kaimana gunned the engine all the way into the red when Charlie gave that alert. "Get out of the van fast, it can eat through metal and ignite fuel."
"We have people shooting MMMRPH, that was my thigh. Who gave these people armor piercing bullets?"
He didn't think at all while coasting over the hills and down at the Raffen gun truck, one of their members sitting in the back to change out the ammo in a massive cannon. Kaimana's van hit a sloped dune fast enough to get launched in the air, flying fast and over the truck just enough to crush the guy and crush the car's front with the greater weight of his vehicle. Two Raffen with rifles turned around instantly to fire on him. His windshield and car door took the hits without shattering, but he could see the stuff get far deeper in than normal bullets would have.
Sand crunched under his feet while Kaimana dove out, a boomerang whizzing from his arm fast. The bladed weapon sunk into the leftmost shooter's thigh, blood pouring from the wound while the guy kept shooting despite the pain.
Armor piercing bullets carved through his armor and skinweave, the entire right side of his body flaring up in agony. He fell to the ground, seeing the thick white cloud of white phosphorus where the Charle's vehicle should be.
His arm came up, Meta Warhammer pointing at the two gunmen. His wrist screamed even as he brought his other hand up to steady the gun, smarthelmet altering the gun's movement to make up for the inaccuracy that had been allowed in exchange for an obscene rate of fire for a shotgun.
Three shots burst forth, the rounds exploding in midair with enough force to knock both men off their feet. The guy on the left was hit directly with an round to the leg, detonating right next to him with a shower of gore.
Blood poured from the other guy, scrambling up with his right hand shaking around a serrated Nomad smartwhip because half the other one's fingers were gone.
Two Nomads stood in the desert.
The smartwhip snapped out faster than Kaimana could pull the trigger, an explosion going off to the side as his shot went wild and the gun flew from his hands. He grabbed a flail from his side, the heavy spiked weapon lashing out with speed due to the weight on its end.
His opponent's weapon avoided entanglement, the cybernetic 'muscle-wire' within responding to the Raffen's interface plugs. Both men drew knives in their off hands, viper-like weapons snapping and rattling while white phosphorus spread towards them.
A weapon moving at nearly a hundred kilometers per hour straightened as it hit his right wrist, carving through his armor and piercing skinweave to spill blood on the sand.
Whip met flail the smartweapon wrapping around his own right as Kaimana pulled back, all his strength going into a move to disarm the man. Interface plugs ripped from the metal handle as the sudden jerk was enough to dislodge them.
The flail's weighty continued forward, slamming into the man's stomach and tearing into armor while he got knocked on his ass, wheezing in the sand while his knife dropped.
They both scrambled, Kaimana closing the distance with knife drawnbut not fast enough to keep the guy from trying to get back up. His knife was deflected by a punch to his already injured wrist, making the youth hiss.
Kaimana punched the man straight in the gut, making the man vomit into his own mask before throwing another one at the guy's skull. A scram echoed in the burning wreckage before he followed it up with a stomp, cracking the man's head open. He grabbed a hook winch from his van and started up the car, throwing it into the wreckage.
"Get the hook, I'll pull the truck but you guys need to get out of it." He called over their comms and groaned as the agony of metal made their presence all the more clear. Kaimana noted a group GPS node set up in their network. Charlie must have marked the thing for pickup in case any of it was left. It took a bit for the two women to climb out of the still burning vehicle, both covering themselves with tarps that they discarded the second they had the chance. "You are alive at least." He didn't know what else to say.
Then he got worried while the cat eared woman picked up the 40mm grenade launcher meant to be mounted on vehicles. "I… am not going to ask." He got into his truck and left the side door rolled open while the weird woman sat in with a cannon.
Charlie collapsed in the passenger seat. "Rayno, Tammie, report?"
=Rayno
Bullets filled the air, pinging off Rayno's stolen car's Crystaldome. The advanced technology showing the exterior through a series of cameras while protecting him with a solid sheet of metal. He twisted the supercar through the desert, finally finding the road and getting his tires on solid ground while a jeep with a 7.62 mm gun on its back shredded his rear tires.
"Fuck you guys," He growled while sparks lit up behind him. Rayno didn't have a real clue on the car's controls outside of making it run yet. Twin SMGs had been mounted on the front, but the readout of the bullets and controls were locked behind a password. The Techie rolled down the windows and fired a CCMMC grenade launcher. A whump announced the projectile's arc before hitting the front of his pursuer's hood. Plastic explosives spread out on the impact site for a split second before exploding.
A good chunk of the car went sailing despite the damn thing continuing on forward with some kind of ungodly heavy chassis.
He got winged in the leg, belly, and arm as the armor piercing bullets fired by the machinegun penetrated the stolen vehicle. His toughness managed to let him deal with that as the multiple layers of armor helped slow the stuff down.
One of the Wraiths took an inhaler full of drugs before jumping out, catching onto the back of a motorcycle that sped past their vehicle. Chromed out arms glistened in the night, meaning that was one of the Iron Sights.
Rayno's eyes widened as the biker's hand shoot out with a wire connecting it to his arm. The cyberlimb grabbed onto the back of his car, slowing him down while the two vehicles approached. Weirder than that was that the drugged up Wraith was climbing on the wire. He fired another shot with the grenade launcher only to see the Borg dodge it, jumping from his bike at the last second to get carried forward by the shockwave.
A familiar old van crashed through, sideswiping the jeep enough to knock its gunner into the road with a bloody splat.
"How many Nomads get kicked out of the Nations?" Charlie growled over the radio.
"All our criminals tend to congregate together," Kaimana gave a non-answer. A torrent of gunfire erupted from the van, shredding the truck now that its main defender was gone.
The Iron Sights borg began to fire, denting the car's roof before he decided to straight up punch through the metal. "Meat."
Instead of getting a weapon, Rayno stepped on the breaks hard. What tires he had left squealed while the Wraith on the back was thrown off and more of his roof got destroyed by a borg hanging onto it.
He stepped out of the car while the borg's arms extended, Mantis Blades unfolding from the limbs. Rayno drew a pistol from his jacket while the borg's speedware activated, his own Adrenal Glands pouring chemicals into Rayno's genetically augmented flesh.
Meat versus Metal was a key part of both America and Europe's Solos. Those who sacrificed every part of themselves for their work.
The answer to which would win this time was left in the wind since he shot the guy with an EMP grenade from a pistol sized grenade launcher. Cybernetic limbs locked up and eyes exploded out of the gangster's skull.
Bullets shredded his lower jaw as another Nomad vehicle came around the dunes, leaving Rayno touching the mangled mess of bone and gore hanging loosely from his mouth.
He just barely had the time to see a truck full of people get penetrated by a mass of metallic tentacles, a white cloaked figure burrowing through the Crystaldome like a horrific snake while people screamed on the inside.
Rayno collapsed into blood drenched arms while Kaimana just barely managed to heft his several hundred pound form. "Gaaahaka," He grabbed onto the Nomad while blood poured out of him only to relax in a darkness that became pleasant after someone jabbed him with wonderful fluid that seeped through his cells.
=Kaimana
Kaimana internally screamed while driving in the desert with a bloodstained techie. "Why do none of us know first aid?" He cursed himself for never taking classes in that while the dark haired fixer dosed the guy with a cocktail of drugs which might kill any normal person.
"Moon is giving me a run over while she drives in that shot up car," Charlie injected the guy with something. "We are mainly lucky that Rayno has so many bodymods that he can't really OD at this point. Other than her, Woje, Day, and Rayno were all trained in first aid." She frowned. "Thinking on that, we are a rather good set up for keeping members alive."
The woman nodded while that cat eared lady held the mountain of muscle down. "We are really an excellent first response unit. And I make drugs."
"We will talk about that later," The cat girl bandaged up the pile of ground beef that a guy's mouth had turned into.
He slammed on the breaks while three Arasaka soldiers stood in the middle of the road. Well, one stood while with his thumb out while another was being carried due to having lost both legs and an arm. They ground to a halt, engine running while the guy at the lead pulled the sliding door open, not even responding to the fact that a gun had been mounted there. Moon continued on in her car, pinging them as she got optics on Izumo and Smasher's cars.
The Saka goons slumped in the van once it was closed again. "Note to Intel, figure out who is funding Iron Sights and giving Nomads armor piercing rounds.
Charlie held up a burned arm. "They also have white phosphorus."
Both the guys that were mostly fine choked while their maimed ally groaned. "What the fuck?"
Kaimana glanced at Rayno while they kept driving. "Are we going to a Ripperdoc?"
"Yeah," Charlie gave him coordinates and a playlist. "And I am contractually required to plug Spiel's music."
"This story is fantasy, this story is fantasy.
I was all wrong, everything was just wrong.
I was bound to fear, its better to have nothing
The storm was bad that day
Everyone was swept and blown away
I just watched the devastation, yes, because I'm already-"
"Did Smasher hire a rocker to write a theme song for him?" The injured goon asked.
"In spite of the cold wind blowing
Ears ringing with terrible thunder
The scorching sun may burn it all down
And yet we continue to be alive
Even if I lose my body
These are mechanized memories
Even if it destroys all of me.
I'm just a fantasy."
"Yup, this is the Adam I Survived a Nuke Smasher theme song," The guy stopped complaining as the cat eared woman jabbed him in the neck with sedatives.
"This iis a nightmare we should not eim for, even though we know it is
You can make as many mistakes as you want
Because it'ss…
Yes
Because it's…
Because it's…
Fantasy
Fantasy."
Rayno wasn't sure if this was an indictment of or supporting how murderous everyone in the city could be.
=
Kaimana was incredibly worried while they carried Rayno through an abandoned school. He saw plenty of evidence of its old occupation underneath gang tags and graffiti. Actual blackboards were in a few of the classrooms, medical drawings taking up a fair amount of the space when they weren't destroyed or fucked up in some other way. Electrical fixtures that had been gutted by scavengers hung from the ceiling, the wiring practically gone with husks of plastic casings exposed like entrails.
Red eyes glowed in the dark while Maelstrom Gangsters sat around, rifles and pistols in hand while unintelligible chatter left their throats or strange speaker-like implants in various parts of their bodies.
The Arasaka guys were still with them because of the probable costs they'd get sidled with if they got company cyberware. Insurance was certainly a thing in the Megacorp, but that didn't mean they could afford what would be implanted in them without taking out a debt with the corporation.
One of the gangsters waved them over by a set of stairs, making Kaimana drag a bloody streak over what might have once been a school kid's desk. A mass of surgical scars were spread across the guy's entire body. Dermal plating on his chest was obvious despite skin having been stretched over with thick veins that showed some kind of alteration from further experimentation. Random bits of metal and bolts were exposed as well, making him look like a cadaver. At least seven optical implants were in his face, taking out a portion of his frontal lobe to cram in more machinery along with two ventilation ports where a nose should have been.
Most of the guy's body was outright scar tissue, and an Arasaka brand tactical vest hung over his bare skin along with camouflage pants. "Shit," Browned teeth showed as the guy smiled. "You guys got fucked up." His eyes lit up. "And you brought over a Wraith car."
The Danger Gal just stared at him. "There a ripperdoc in the basement?"
"Yeah." The Maelstrom gangoon cricked his neck while Charlie pushed past him. "How's it going CC? Grannie's out of town so Sis is down there."
Charlie froze, seemingly mulling that over. "Thank's Dum Dum I am going to remind her to not shove in any extra organs. If we do not have the cash on us, you can have a Wraith car that can pass two hundred miles per hour easily. Smartchipped with guns on too."
"Nice." The Maelstrom gangster waved some of his guys. "Who wants to ram Tyger Claws? Check out the new ride." Charlie took a chip from Rayno's head and tossed it to the gangsters while they headed down.
The lower floors were much better taken care off. Clean of graffiti though someone had put pin ups on as decoration in a warm brown room dominated by a class cage furnished with an operating table and medical equipment Kaiimana didn't have names for.
Gurneys were around the place along with cardboard boxes, twenty-four packs of bottled water, and sealed metal cannisters he hoped had cyberware in it and not harvested organs.
Moon carried Rayno over in both arms while a woman with a bob cut washed her hands in a ceramic sink. All six of her hands. Either excellent skinweave or a monstrous exotic package had allowed the woman to have six arms, four of which were attached to her back and required her to wear a backless dress. Extra joints on the arms let them move all around her in spindly motions that were utterly unnatural. Beady black orbs on the sides of her head lacked an organic look, but the metal sheen moved around as if the solid orbs were rotating.
Spoiler: Sis
"Are we sure this woman is sane?" He met plenty of exotic packages in the Nomads, but the cybernetics and bioware to function with all of that had to be taxing on a human brain.
"Yes and no," Charlie stated while Moon let out a squeal.
"Sis!" The pink haired Solo's arms shifted, metallic tentacles pushing through her sleeves to embrace the Ripperdoc in a hug. "We brought you patients."
"If I wake up talking about blood," The one limbed Arasaka agent glanced at Kaimana. "Please, flatline me."
Dark black eyes that he couldn't' find a pupil in glanced at the injured people. He could see them expand and contract, but the coloring made it hard to precisely figure out her feelings especially as the girl simply had a content smile on her face. "I see, if you want a fast surgery he'll need a cyberjaw."
The eyes expanded far further than what was humanly possible as the doctor circled around Rayno, two of the Maelstrom goons washing their handns before putting him on another rolling gurney. "Oooh, he has poison glands in his body. It will be a bit more difficult to include that functionality. Oh, I could make room in the jaw, but then I need to connect the parts that will let it make more and feed into that system."
Kaimana took a step back while the guy got wheeled into the glass cage, Moon following while putting on scrubs. "Is this…moral?" Charlie just walked around, peering at different labeled boxes while talking about what she could sell the ripperdoc.
"Oh, his heart has never been maintenance. I can deal with that," The doc gave a cheery chirp while removing a cybernetic heart, strange tubes expanding from one of her limbs and interfacing with the blood vessels as she used her own body to filter oxygen and nutrients into the guy.
"This is wrong," The Arasaka guy that had flagged them down stated.
"His stomach has been pierced in different places along with the kidneys and liver, and I think he breathed in…was this white phosphorus?"
Charlie groaned. "Yes."
"It's in the dumpster! Oh, and I can give all of this in exchange for taking biopsies of his altered tissues. Keep the car."
He could hear that Maelstrom guy shouting from above about a dead body in the trunk. Right, Rayno had taken the battered corpse from the crime scene.
"Do you want your burns treated?" The Ripperdoc, Sis, stared at Charlie and the Danger Gal with wide unblinking eyes.
=Rebecca
Rebecca didn't even feel surprised when two guys in outright Arasaka branded gear wheeled in two gurneys with dudes tied down to them with Hannibal Lector masks over their lower faces. An Asian chick and haunted looking Nomad in motocross armor walked ahead of them, not saying a word while Rita put her pink bat on the door. "What the fuck happened to you people?"
"Grenade launchers with white phosphorus," A green haired Danger Gal in a dress that barely reached her upper thigh pushed past the borged up bouncer. "I need to be in there. My charge is with an eighty year old psychopath."
"Because it's fantasy
So I can fight bravely.
Let's do this, shout it out.
This voice will be realized.
Shout it out,
This can be realized"
That drugged up rocker schoolgirl kept singing on one of the Mox's stages, just about everyone too scared to say anything after that Elvis looking guy and a second full borg woman came in laughing.
"A guy will come by to drop off some pies," The Asian chick standing in front of the Arasaka guards pointed at herself. "That's for us as a celebration. If you need her to stop hogging your stage, I'll drag her down." She sighed. "Or just pay to let her use it."
"Five hundred eddies." Rebecca told her the usual price for when rockers got super drunk. "
"So we don't stay on our feet, all right?
You must not lose the curse of memories."
"Look, she is good enough that it shouldn't be that much," The woman haggled.
"Everything she sings is either super depressing or sounds like it is trying to get people to fight." Rebecca shrugged. "The boss here doesn't exactly want chrome junkies to go on about how they should be fighting all day. Even if that's what they do anyways."
Rebecca paused when the woman handed her a 40mm grenade. "Here you go, white phosphorus."
The woman of Sasha's nightmares joined the group, parking a bullet riddled car bearing Wraith iconography. She paused a second at the door before looking at Rita and Rebecca. "Do not open the trunk no matter the smell coming from it. That is the best option to make sure you both stay safe. Kay? Bye-bye!" The Solo followed after her friends.
AN
Added image of the doc
View in Thread
Last edited: Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022Report
Like+ QuoteReply
Mortanius, onlyDayzd, Drak4806 and 100 others like this.
Threadmarks: Interlude 1: Corpo Rats and Street Punks
View in Thread

shadowdiceConnoisseur