The bathroom smelled of sweat, mildew, and rust. Parked in a corner, stripped to only his underwear and drooling slightly as he sat slumped in a chair, was Tanaka. He had been propped up next to a bathtub, bound to his chair with a length of steel chain, with cables running from his chipware sockets to the lip of the tub itself. Held in place with duct tape, they fed into the back of Kiwi's neck as she lay naked in the tub full of ice. A classic netrunner setup, though it was unusual to be quite so directly hooked up. Peer-to-peer file sharing had not been intended to be quite so literal.
Leaning against the doorframe, David glanced over at Lucy. "You think it'll be long?" he muttered. They had been here for about six hours already, the abandoned apartment building that someone had ironically named 'The Last Home You'll Ever Need' acting as a decently sequestered place to crack into Tanaka's files and recover the information they needed. It was in a maze of similar buildings in Japantown, well away from the beaten path. Faraday hadn't specified what exactly it was he wanted, just that he needed any and all data in Tanaka's personal files. Turned out it was a lot harder to get through Arasaka's intrusion countermeasures when you didn't have an insider slipping you past. The hum of the standing freezer they had stocked with ice had provided background noise for the first while, but eventually even that went away as they worked through their stash. If it took much longer, someone was going to have to do an ice run, or they'd have to shove Kiwi in the fridge.
Lucy watched Kiwi for a moment, then glanced back at David. "Could be. Hard to tell. ICE is tricky, and it's no guarantee there's no traps waiting for you in there. With an Arasaka exec like Tanaka, they'll have loaded him up with plenty of nasty things. Daemons, recursive script, embedded traps." On the upside, the info they had stolen during the virus attack had meant that Kiwi at least had some preparation for what she might be encountering. There had been a few tense moments when Kiwi's body had stirred, twitching and jerking slightly, sending the ice that surrounded her clinking before settling once more.
Nodding, David looked back at Kiwi, then glanced out of the bathroom. Maine and Dorio were sitting in the living room, guns in their laps and dozing lightly. The crew had split into groups of two, each taking it in turn to watch Kiwi, rest, and patrol the entrances and exits. Right now it was Pilar and Jackie on one team with V and Rebecca on another. Even if Tanaka had come without alerting anyone, the kidnapping of a corporate executive wouldn't go unnoticed forever. It was a race against time, and time was quick on their heels.
Over on the couch, Maine was twitching in his sleep, lips moving silently. His behavior…it was worrying. He had popped immunoblockers at least ten times while they'd been here, and there were still growing signs of something being off. Now that it had been pointed out, David could see it. The man who had been leading this team was falling apart, fraying at the seams. He was terrified, but it felt disrespectful to run or look away from the impending end.
It was like a car, driving off of a cliff. As the edge came into view, he was turning the steering wheel and hitting the brakes, but the momentum was still there. Maine had been aiming for the top for years, but now that he was approaching his goal, the strain was taking him to pieces.
Jackie and Pilar re-entered the room, and his uncle gave a slow wave. "Right, we'll start watchin' Kiwi. You two get an hour of shuteye, keep you fresh." Heading over to the bathroom doorway, he patted David on the shoulder as Pilar moved over to the wall and thumped down against it, tapping irritably at his visor. It made a slight fizzling noise, and he groaned in annoyance and began fiddling with it again.
Nodding back, David moved over to the couch and raised his voice a little. "Maine, Dorio. We're swapping out now." The two stirred at the sound of their names, and sat upright on the torn and decayed couch that had been designated as the rest area. Standing up and grabbing their guns, Maine turned to look at David for a moment.
"... Get the data yet?"
"Uh, no. Still working on it."
"Damn. Let me know when she finishes." With that, he shouldered his shotgun and stomped out of the room, heading off down the hall. Dorio looked at him go worriedly, then turned back to David and Lucy for a moment as if to say something. She half-opened her mouth, before biting her lip and turning away to follow her boyfriend.
Sitting down on the couch, David leaned over to one side to give Lucy room and rested his head on one hand as he stared at the wall. Lucy, however, sat down with her back against his side, and looked up at him. "So, what're you going to do with your cut?"
"Probably get my own place. I like Uncle Jackie and all, but some privacy would be nice. I feel bad when I stay out late or whatever." He was eighteen as of a week ago, but the recent situation had meant he wasn't really in the mood for a party. Wasn't anything stopping him from saying it was his birthday in a month or two when things were looking up some. Still, he didn't want to come off as childish. He was an adult, no way was he having some lame affair with balloons and cake.
"Oh?" Lucy sounded amused, and she stretched out in a very intriguing way as she looked up at him. "Any particu—" Wherever that line of thought was going, it was cut off sharply and definitively by the sudden sound of ice clattering and water splashing. Kiwi was thrashing in the bath, and before anyone could reach her, she jerked upright, eyes screwed shut and breathing labored. Lifting one hand, she made a 'hold on' gesture, and took greedy gulps of air before finally opening her eyes and looking around.
"I got it. I got the data from Tanaka, all of it. We're good to go." Jackie slumped against the wall in relief, Lucy sighed and got up to hand Kiwi her clothes, and Pilar just grumbled as he got up to walk out the door.
"Finally. I'mma gonna go tell Maine, let him know we're done here." Stalking down the hall, he vanished into the gloom. Moments later, a shrill scream echoed from afar, followed by a shotgun's report.
"Sooooo. Did Arasaka execs really have parties where they used children's tears as mixers, or were you too low-ranked to go to those?" Rebecca asked, kicking a can across the hall as she rested her shotgun on her shoulders.
Patrolling with Rebecca had been, so far, mostly a series of inane questions coming every 10 minutes or so. She had been like this ever since David got assigned to Lucy's team. It'd been a bit tough deciding on the pairs because none of the female members wanted to be with Pilar, and the idea of a Pilar and David team had been equally unappealing to those concerned. Once again, V responded in the same tone they had used for every question like this so far. "No." The silent doorways and concrete walls created a constant, clear line of sight, all the way down to the stairs. They were watching the ones on the left, with Pilar and Jackie camped out by the ones on the right.
"Ugh. You're no god-damn fun."
"Bitch, I'm plenty of fun, you're just not making it worth my time," V replied, bouncing the back of the machete they had picked up on their knee as they stared down the hall. At this, Rebecca stopped spinning the pistol she had hooked over one finger and looked at them, confusion written all over her quirked eyebrow and tilted head. V just met her stare with an unimpressed raising of their own eyebrow. "C'mon. You're asking me pointlessly antagonistic questions, the kind of thing you hear from some hobo in a trashbag robe who's convinced aliens from Jupiter are impregnating the Mox to take over the sex industry in the city."
Rebecca actually snickered at that, then shook her head. "Yeah, alright. Fine, so I'm still a little skeptical of ya. You're an ex-corpo, those types are usually assholes and ambitious to boot. So far you haven't really done anything wrong, but I won't lie, ya haven't gotten me to like you yet."
"So, I shouldn't give you the upgraded Arasaka model HJSH-18X Masamune assault rifle I have hidden in a cache outside my old apartment complex? I mean, I mainly use melee weapons and the occasional pistol, so I could just sell it…" Rebecca's eyes widened, and she actually drooled a little before wiping her mouth with a sleeve, glowering at V.
"I respect your cunning, but I also hate you for it. Fine, maybe you're not SO bad. Although I still say that one was easy. Not like I make a secret about what I like," she said, hefting her shotgun as she patted it. A Militech Crusher, painted mint green and pink.
"Not really, no. First idea I considered was seeing if David would come out and unzip his pants so your mouth would be too full to speak," V replied, leaning forward to glance down the stairs for a moment. They frowned, taking another step forwards as Rebecca started cackling at that, before holding up a hand. "No, hold on, I think I hear something. People talking, down below."
Rebecca shut up, moving forwards to listen as well. For several moments, they listened to hushed voices whispering excitedly as they got further away. Raising a hand, V waved a very slow 'follow me' and crept down the stained and weathered stairs. Together, the two got to the bottom and peered around the corner. At the far end of the hall, a pair of figures were moving down the hall trying doors. A voice echoed down the hall, throaty and a bit breathless. "We can just do it here, we don't need a bed."
"Oh, trust me, we'll be goin' for long enough you'll need to lay down, baby." Shaking their head, V had to cover their mouth with one hand to avoid groaning. Some horny couple, looking for a quiet corner to fuck in, and they just had to pick this place. As they watched, the pair started to climb the opposite staircase. Fine, Jackie and Pilar would scare them off, problem solved. V was turning on their heel when the sound of a shotgun firing rang out down the hallway, and their eyes flicked to their HUD's clock.
Maine and Dorio had swapped out a couple minutes ago. "Fuck. Fuck, Rebecca, we need to go, now. Get upstairs."
He felt like the walls were closing in
on him as he walked towards
The stairs.
Blinking, he pushed the— the— the feeling away and glanced over at Dorio. She was quiet, too quiet; what was she thinking about? Was she going to bring up the goddamn cyberpsycho thing again? He was fine. He wasn't going to back down now, not a goddamn chance. Without his chrome he was gonna be weak, scrawny again. He'd get taken down by some punk, some lucky shot, and then nobody would remember him. Nothing nothing at all, just another body fed to this fucking city.
"Do you hear that?" Did he? Yes, whispers, but how, how could she hear the whispers? Wasn't real, not real, he couldn't tell them about the whispers, no no no but—
New!
New whispers, new sounds coming up the stairs towards them. He could see shapes at the bottom of the stairs, wide white teeth, reaching for their belts as they went for hidden weapons. It was Arasaka! It was NCPD! It was Faraday's goons, come to clean up their mess for failing—
His shotgun was rising before he even really processed what was going on, and he squeezed the trigger, once, twice. With a double roar, the two figures coming for him were torn into shreds, and he whipped around, looking for their backup that was surely coming; it had to be here somewhere. Right…? Right? Right!?
But all he could see was Dorio's pale face as she put a hand to the side of her head, her lips trembling as she tried to form words, terror filling her face.
"Huh? What the fuck's happening, my visor's on the fri—" A Maxtac agent, monovision optic glowing red, was right there, lifting a gun towards Dorio, about to take her out. No choice, then.
His hand was swinging out as the voice came from one side of him, long fingers brushing against his elbow. Like a falling tree, the fist slammed sideways into the wall, a wet crunch and sharp pain in his hand the punctuation to a sentence that would never ever be finished.
As Maine slowly withdrew his hand, looking with disbelief and confusion at the mangled, broken visor and blood-slicked mohawk pasted to the wall, Dorio's voice finally came back. In a strangled whisper, she spoke. "T-trauma Team." That hadn't been MaxTac, why—
"One of the two on the s-stairs. T-they had Trauma Team coverage. They're on their way."
Cold water washed down his back, and Maine looked down at his hands. At the bloodstained stairs and wall. Then, voice steady, he spoke. "Get the others. Even if the data's not there yet. Get outta here. I'll make sure they don't follow you."
Her face fell, and she raised a trembling hand towards him. "Maine, hun, no, no no no we can fix this, we just gotta get you somewhere, gotta get you stronger meds, if we get you out of here we—"
"Dorio." He lifted a hand and took off his sunglasses, as his mouth slowly spread wide into a grin. His teeth were flat against each other, and his pupils were dancing and jerking about as he stared past her. "I love ya, babe. Okay? But a second ago I just—" He had—
He stopped, and looked around in confusion. He raised a hand slowly, leaving dripping red prints on the wall as he leaned forwards. His chin was nearly brushing her forehead as he trembled. "Dorio? Where'd you go, Dorio?" The fingers against the wall suddenly stabbed into the cheap plaster, crushing it into dust. A line of drool ran down his face, as he looked out onto the vast expanse of the Badlands just beyond him, the ruined apartment building melting into the desert sands.
"Gotta… gotta get Tanaka. Gotta draw their fire before… before uh…" He turned, shoulder clipping something for a second, but when he waved his hand through the air, there was nothing there. He began to stalk down the hall towards the open door, a fat, oozing pile of flesh crucified on massive lengths of wood visible inside the dingy white room at the far end. He ignored the street kids scrambling out.
Those were his friends, and those chooms had been dead for years. OD'd, shot, or just starved. They weren't real. That'd be crazy.
As Dorio ran in the door, Jackie stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, we need to move." She pulled back, slapping his hands away. David halted from where he was clearing the remains of the team's gear into a rucksack, suddenly unsure what to do.
"We need to help Maine! Where's his—" Jackie lifted up a plastic bag, and turned it upside down, giving it a shake. Nothing fell out. Throwing it to one side, he grit his teeth and grabbed Dorio by the collar, eyes boring a hole through her.
"He's out. He burned through all the meds he had!" His eyes were cold, but there was a slight hitch in his voice. "Listen. We can't do anything for him now. If he starts swinging at us again, we are all fucked. We already lost one person out there and we could hear what you said. Trauma Team, any second now. NCPD probably on the way too; if we stay we are all dead. Get moving or don't."
David looked around the room as he slung a pack onto his back, Kiwi and Lucy hurrying out of the room. Rebecca was biting her lip so hard blood was starting to trickle down her chin, a twisted and hateful look on her face as she stared down the hall at the slowly approaching form of Maine. Her finger was twitching over the trigger of her Crusher, and she took a half-step forwards as if ready to sprint at her former boss.
Moving between her and Maine, David grabbed her by the shoulder and stared into her eyes. "Don't die. There's nothing there to get revenge on anymore." His voice was thick and choked as he looked back at the gleaming white crescent advancing through the gloom. In the doorway, Dorio flinched at that, and began to raise her fist before slumping. Then, turning for the opposite stairs, she sprinted after the rest of the edgerunners.
Trembling, Rebecca glanced after her, then back at Maine, then threw her head back and screamed "Fuck! FINE!" before pelting after Dorio. Jackie slapped David on the back, and he took off running with his uncle just behind. Maine was just entering the room, and leveling his shotgun again. One eye flicked towards David, and after a moment, it winked slowly.
David didn't think he would ever forget the last time he'd ever see his boss. Face contorted, blood splattered across his visage, and a distant look in his eyes as his pupils danced that frenetic dance he had seen only a few days before in the face of the cyberpsycho outside the Afterlife. It was inhuman, a caricature of the person he had been speaking to only an hour beforehand. The face of a corpse whose last actions would only make more.
As they fled down the stairs, Maine's voice followed them. "C'MON YOU TRAUMA TEAM FUCKS! I GOT YOUR VIP RIGHT HERE! COME AND GET IT, BOYS!" The sound of a shotgun blast punctuated the cry, and he could feel hot stinging in his eyes as he dove down the steps towards the parking garage.
Across the nearly empty garage, the group's ride was waiting. Someone had already started it, and the driver-side door was open. Running for the car, David slid across the hood and threw himself behind the wheel, barely waiting for the rest of the crew to pile in and slam the doors shut. He floored the accelerator, screeching out of the parking space as other guns began to answer the sounds of shotgun blasts upstairs. Emerging onto the street, he passed a handful of parked NCPD cruisers, with a Trauma Team AV hovering just beside a wrecked balcony two floors up. The windows sparkled with the light of muzzle flares, occasionally obscured by heavy splashes of blood, and one of them shattered as a body flew out of it to smash into the hood a police cruiser below.
Whether they had jumped or been thrown wasn't clear.
As they sped off down the street, David gripping the steering wheel hard as they flew around the corner and into Night City traffic, another AV passed over them, this one bearing six letters on the side. MAXTAC. Kiwi's eyes flashed for a moment, and then a message appeared in the air as she connected to David.
"Delivered the package to Faraday. We're clear. Let's… let's head for the hideout. I don't think anyone here should be alone right now. Me included."
In the back seat, Dorio sat slumped, shoulders shaking, as the remnants of Maine's crew vanished into the pre-dawn maze of the city streets. Behind them, the rolling thunder of an explosion engulfed the building. If anyone noticed the tears dripping onto her revolver, they didn't mention it.
Sitting in his limo, Faraday smiled thinly as the data upload completed. Transferring the funds, he opened a line to the contact he had been waiting to call for weeks now. "I've got the data. All the information on the Cyber-Skeleton project, as promised."
"Well done. Welcome to the fold, Faraday. Militech thanks you for your contribution," said the voice of the R&D head on the other end. "This is going to change everything."
(A/N: SPAG and suggestions by somnolentSlumber , Editing and Cruelty-to-Readers-Consultant from Golden_ )
(Sometimes, it was better that the characters failed a quest. Not that they know that.)
