Smooth Criminal

March 20 2076

The plan was in motion. 'The butcher' had already been butchered and Maxim was driving the limo toward the diner, the 'Jacked and Coke'. The crew was already on the move to get there before him, with Maine driving, Kiwi on the passenger seat, then Ernesto, David, Dorio and Lucy in the back. Rebecca was already in position.

"Reminder. What is your task?" Ernesto asked his brother with a severe tone.

"I wait until this Maxim guy is wasted on the table. Fire up the Sandevistan, nab his shard, hand it over to Dorio for a copy, then put the shard back before he notices."

"Excellent. Remember: you use the Sandy exclusively for that. What happens next, we'll see."

Dorio groaned. "Why are you jinxing it?"

"Plans never survive first contact. It's something I learned the hard way, in the Legion." Ernesto replied calmly.

"Chill out, dawg," Maine reassured. "we'll klep the nav-data and be out before the shitface even gets up again."

"That's what we all hope. But I prefer be ready for anything."

"Well, you'll soon see." Kiwi commented. "We're here."

Indeed, through the windshield Ernesto saw the bar in front of them. Maine was pulling over slightly behind, knowing that Maxim was most likely going to park right in front of the door. The crew behind disembarked, except for Lucy, who stood ready for plan B. Dorio jogged toward the bar, while Ernesto halted David for a few words.

"Just keep your focus and everything will go swimmingly."

"Yeah...I got it." David said. Tension in his voice, but willing to face the danger anyway.

The older brother nodded and the younger rushed inside, too, with Ernesto looking at him go with a mixture of fear for him but also sincere pride. Then he stepped back on the back of the van and closed the doors. The Captain folded his arms and leaned his back against the chair, making a silent sight that Lucy noted anyway.

"He'll be fine." she said in an unusually reassuring tone. "He has the uncanny ability of getting out of every pinch." she added as a quip.

Ernesto giggled. "He has."

Around five minutes later, the limo finally arrived. Everyone opened the group channel with the intercom and signaled the people inside that the target was approaching. Maxim walked out of the car still very much pissed at having wasted a little fortune on the wrong bet. Sure enough, he was going to take a few drinks to extinguish that fiery rage.

Dorio kept them updated. In the span of twenty minutes, Maxim had finally dropped his face on the counter.

"Go, kid." Maine instructed through the channel.

Just a moment later, the copy of the nav-data was ongoing, a sign that David had done his part correctly. Everything was coming up just gang.

"Hold on," Kiwi said suddenly in the com. "his boss's calling him."

"Sheesh, poor bastard can't catch a break." Maine added. "No rest for the wicked."

Ernesto didn't take too much to get the hint of what was about to happen and already prepared to get out of the van again.

"No good," Kiwi said indeed. "boss wants needs 'im there."

"Shit, on his day off?"

"Data's not copied yet." Dorio reported.

"Fuck!" Maine exclaimed. "Change of plans, kid. Key to the car, grab it. Becca, trip him up."

Knowing well what they had to do, both Ernesto and Lucy jumped down of the van and headed for the limousine, where David had just preceded.

"We'll handle that. Just get in." Ernesto ordered to his brother.

Promptly, Ernesto got the wheel, Lucy used the panels on the passenger side to start hacking, David got in the back seats and admired in awe at the ostentatious luxury of the car. The Legionnaire had his eyes glued toward the door of the bar.

"How long do you need?" he asked Lucy.

"No talk, Focusing." she simply replied while tapping frenetically on her datapad. "Arasaka's firewalls are such a pain in the ass."

Lucy kept dealing with the console for around two minutes. Ernesto kept his gaze toward the bar, ready to react in case Maxim came out too soon. Rebecca could only stall him so much before the guy remembered that his boss had explicitly asked for him to return.

Then Kiwi brought another bad news. "We're blown. Target's coming in hot."

"Status?" Ernesto asked.

"Just a lil' more." Lucy said, still busy with the last layer of security measures.

"Time's up. Cut it!" Kiwi insisted.

"Almost…" Lucy said back. The holograms suddenly became all green. "Done."

"Good. Then…" Ernesto started, but when he pulled the lever of the door, he noticed that it was sealed. "Oh, come on!"

"Security's back online?" Lucy asked incredulous, trying to open her own door.

"Uh...guys…" David murmured.

Ernesto lifted his gaze just in time to see Maxim smash against the glass.

"Open up, now! You fuck!" the bodyguard intimated before stepping up and shooting three pistol shots against the window, which cracked a bit, but held on.

"Oh, shit." said Maine from the van. "No way back. Start 'er up."

While Maxim kept hitting the glass and screaming at the Legionnaire, the latter grunted in frustration. Being forced to do this meant that the mission had already failed: however this ended, the nav-data of Tanaka would soon become useless.

Still, right now he had to get he and his friends out of that situation immediately. He pushed the start button of the car.

"Wait, stop...my car." Maxim now almost whimpered as Ernesto started moving the limo. He rushed forward. "Wait...wait! That's my car!" Maxim pretty much begged while trying to run and fire at the car that was speeding away.

Through the call, Maine laughed loudly, just like David and Lucy when the rush of adrenaline subsided and the serotonin briefly washed their minds.

"Sure glad them ain't my wheels." Maine said. "Take it straight to Aldo's. You hash the GPS?"

While Ernesto kept running the car away, Lucy returned to focus on her pad. "Can't from inside. Got a jammer up, but encryption's shaky. They'll snatch our position soon unless we find solid cover."

"Then Aldo's it is. Should be safe there. On our way...ah fuck, comm's cutting out."

"Should we pull over?" David asked.

"No." replied his brother. "Geo-sat pings us, they'll drop a hit squad on our asses. What will save us now is speed. Lucy, send the route to my implant."

"On it."

Putting the pedal to the metal, Ernesto drove like mad, putting at use his improved reflexes and his experience at the wheel.

"Bro. We got Tyger Klaws behind us!" David suddenly warned.

Ernesto peeked at the rear camera of the car and he saw them: two Asian guys, dressed in a caricature of the bosozoku. One wielded a pipe as a mace, the other had a sickle, and they were throttling with their bikes, one green and one fuchsia, right behind the limo.

"Maxim already put the bounty out, I see." he commented.

"Already?" David asked incredulous.

"That's why we don't fuck with corpos." Lucy explained while searching for a new path on the maps.

"Where is the closest highway?" Ernesto asked.

"Over there. Turn right." Lucy instructed.

Indeed, after taking the turn, Ernesto spotted the access lane to the highway, where he could use the limo's more powerful engine to lose the bikers. On their part, the two punks were still yelling threats in Japanese.

"All right, we're losing them." David said relieved as he could see the bikes failing to keep up with the limo, due in no small part to the edgy decorations they put, which significantly invalidated the vehicles' aerodynamic and put unnecessary weight on them. They may still keep up in the streets of the urban jungle, but on a straight line they couldn't compete.

Ernesto also felt a bit relived...for about two seconds.

"Traffic?!" he exclaimed, seeing a long queue formed a hundred meters in front of them.

"Oh my, my." Lucy said in a tone that didn't sound much worried, but she didn't offer any alternative.

Instantly, Ernesto decided there was only one way to get out of the situation.

"Buckle up, chooms."

"Uh?" Lucy and David said in chorus.

When he was just ten meters away from the queue, with the bikers catching up due to him slowing down, Ernesto pushed the pedals to make a sudden drift toward his left, turning the car ninety and accelerating toward the short separative barrier of the highway. He went fast enough that, even if the limo was damaged, she still managed to climb the barrier and go on the opposite lane.

While the green bike smashed against one of the waiting cars, Ernesto resumed his furious rush, avoiding the cars coming his way and trying to lose the second biker.

Which he eventually accomplished by exploiting a truck coming his way. Dodging it at the last possible second while Lucy and David expressed their worries about that, the second biker instead wasn't able to turn in time and was crushed beneath the tires of the heavy transport.

Finally free from chasers, Ernesto bumped again and jumped into the correct lane. He breathed of relief while the other two giggled.


After Lucy managed to sever the limo from Arasaka's network, Ernesto could slow down a bit and reach Aldo's without drawing more unwanted attention.

"Looks sealed." David commented at the indeed apparently desert workshop.

"Aldo should be inside." Lucy said. "Well, at least the jammer 's still up."

With the doors finally unlocked, The three dismounted and Ernesto walked forward. "You two wait here, I'll scope it out."

The Legionnaire approached the closed door and peeked through the small glass. Light were out, it certainly didn't seem like Aldo was in. He was about to knock, but then he heard an engine rumble closing in.

He turned his head and saw that the second Klaw, the one who had crashed against the queue, had gone back on his wheels and now barged into the scene, trying to run over Ernesto.

The Legionnaire rolled away just in time. The punk crashed his bike against the walls, but before that happened he jumped away, falling onto Ernesto. The captain drew out his pistol, but the punk turned out to have a katana with him and hit the pistol with the sheathe.

He rambled something in Japanese while slowly taking out his sword, which just allowed Ernesto to pull out his own and prepare for a fight. The Klaw guy attacked, Ernesto parried, but the katana was longer than his short sword, so he needed to close the gap. Luckily enough, the punk clearly was only good at swinging that thing around and had no real technique, so when he threw another very clumsy attack, Ernesto easily disarmed him, this time.

Then Lucy intervened, throwing her monowire at the punk. The thread wrapped the right arm of the guy and then cut it in pieces. As blood started pumping out from the cut limb, the punk didn't seem to go down just yet, as his left arm revealed another hidden blade, with even more range than the katana.

Caught by surprise, Ernesto managed to barely dodge the first attack, using the momentum to throw a kick at the punk and sending him back a couple meters.

Then a gunshot preceded a hole into the guy's chest.

Ernesto turned on his right only to see that David had picked up his pistol, the barrel still smoking. The kid sweating but with eyes shot with adrenaline driving his actions.

Before his brother could say anything, David repeatedly shot at the punk, emptying the magazine of 8 at the Klaw, who finally flatlined. Then he dropped the gun and felt the need to lean against the wall, clearly feeling dizzy.

Ernesto and Lucy rushed to him, with the former helping the kid to slowly sit on the ground.

"Easy, there. Focus on breathing." Ernesto said in a calming tone, seeing that his brother was almost hyperventilating. "You did great. It was him or us, just think about that."

Sure enough, with his brother's support, David managed to at least start breathing normally again.

"I think I'm gonna hurl." he said with a tired voice.

"It's okay, David. Only psychos feel nothing when they first kill someone, no matter how much they deserved it." Lucy tried to comfort him, surprising Ernesto.

And just a moment later, Maine and the others arrived with the van. Seeing the scene, the boss walked up to them.

"Yo, kid, holding up?"

"Just his first kill, he'll be fine." Ernesto reassured.

Marine peeked at the corpse of the Klaw, seeing the multiple gunshots on the body and laughed briefly.

"Shit, man. Even I haven't opened that many ports into my first gonk."

Hearing that, David let out a fatigued chuckle.


The party was going hard at Minjung's, with the music pumping from the stereo and everyone having a good time. There wasn't just the crew but other edgerunners, each with their own reason to party.

For Ernesto, though, this was the occasion to speak with Lucy about something that had concerned him in the last few days.

"I wasn't expecting you to talk to David like that."

"Why not?" she asked, smoking her cigarette while sitting on the hood of one of the parked cars.

"You seemed to avoid him. And from what you told me, you didn't seem to think he should be allowed to take part in the gig."

"That's just your imagination."

"Oh, really? Then why did you ask me to call it off, the other day?"

Lucy turned her head away and didn't answer.

The way Ernesto saw it, there were only two options: either she felt somehow threatened about David's arrival into the team...or she had developed a crush on him.

Without any more hints, and deciding that he didn't want to pry right then, he said. "Look, if you have something with David, I would appreciate that you talk with him and solve it. Whatever it is."

"I don't have a problem with him. Just…" she didn't seem willing to finish the phrase.

"You know what we're working for and what is at stakes, Lucy. We can't allow cracks within the team, so if you need to take something off your chest, just go talk with him before this becomes too big of a problem."

"All right, all right." she wavered away.

Then Ernesto heard the sound of another car halting on the road in front of the kiosks. He turned around and saw a limousine of somebody that he knew. And indeed, a man with three eyes instead of the right one and a reddish suite stepped down the car. Maine, who up until then was talking with David, stood up and went to speak. The music had subsided and everybody was looking at the scene with a certain tension in the air.

"I believe I was clear when I requested only the navigation data. Not Arasaka corporate property." the man sentenced.

"You get what you asked for, didn't ya?" Maine retorted.

"What I asked for, above all else, was your discretion in the matter."

"We tried, but you know how things be sometimes. Gotta improvise."

"It was imperative I learned Tanaka's routines, the places he frequents."

"So check the navigation! It's all there."

"Your joyride puts us back at square one and Tanaka on high alert. He's already switched sites, the data is useless."

"Ok, switched sites for what?" Maine started to sound annoyed.

"That's not for you to know."

"God dammit, man! How the hell we supposed to do the job right when you leave us in the dark?"

Ernesto understood the sentiment, and were it for him, he would've told Maine what Tanaka was actually hiding, but he couldn't risk it. If Arasaka found that a simple band of edgerunners knew about the cyber-skeleton, the entire scheme of MI6 might come down, preventing the corporate war and the takeover of the city.

Meanwhile, Faraday had stressed once again that Maine's task was not to think, but to 'check the boxes of my list'. Then the fixer mounted back on his car and left.

Ernesto walked up next to David and Maine.

"Who's that?" the kid asked.

"Faraday. The guy I mentioned you." Ernesto explained.

"Oh." David mumbled.

"Ah, don't think about it too much, kid." Maine said as he started walking back toward the party. "We celebrate, tonight."

The brothers stood there for a moment, enjoying the view of the party and knowing that they had contributed much to create this occasion. Rebecca walked up to them and gave them two full glasses, presenting herself to David and then rejoining the party.

Right after that, Ernesto saw that David was making a call with his neural implant, or most likely receiving one.

"Uh, yeah, but it's fine." the kid said at one point.

Ernesto listened attentively.

"Yeah, I got it." and after a few moments his tone became a little more defiant. "Pass this along to Katsuo for me, would you?…If he wants revenge, tell that prick I'll be waiting. But I'm done going easy. Oh, and you can all kiss my ass!" and the calla was over.

"Damn, who were you so pissed at?"

"Oh, just the Academy's principal. Just this morning he wanted to give me a scholarship or whatever."

"You didn't tell me that." Ernesto managed to say only in a curious tone, hiding the fact that the news actually alarmed him. "They offered that after you beat up that classmate of yours?"

"Yeah. Pretty gonk move, wouldn't you say?"

"Right…"

No, this wasn't a gonk move at all. Ernesto understood this immediately: Tatsuo was the name of Tanaka's son, meaning that now Arasaka's main Executive knew about David and the Sandevistan. Offering him a scholarship must have been a way to lure the kid in to use him as a guinea pig for further researches, perhaps for the cyber-skeleton itself. He took a mental note to report this to Pétran as soon as he could.

For now, Ernesto had an offer for David. "Say, Dave, there is a place I would like to introduce you to. Mind if we stop by on the way home?"

"Sure, I guess." David replied.


After saying good night to the crew, the Martinez hopped on Ernesto's car and fared away.

"So, how do you feel with Maine's group?" Ernesto asked.

"They seem nice chooms." David said gladly.

"Good, because not everything I do for the mission is something you can take part in."

"What, why?"

"For two reasons: first, you're not ready yet. Hanging out with the crew and taking part in their gigs will let you make some precious experience over how this hellish city actually works. Second, because I want you to stay as far as possible from the corpos' radars."

"Why? Why should they be interested in me?"

"Think about the first thing you did with the Sandevistan."

David mumbled the words as he pondered. "Uh...I gave Katsuo what he was asking for…" then his face indicated he caught something. After a few seconds of thinking, he finally understood. "Shit. There was plenty of cameras in there. Tanaka will know that I have the sandy."

"So you was a top student." he quipped, praising his brother's acumen. "Exactly. Now, I don't think you might be the only person they have in mind as a candidate for their new products, but your unusual tolerance will make you a preem tool to get. That's why I want you to stick with the gang as long as possible."

"Because corpos ignore regular punks?"

"They ignore pretty much everybody. Their arrogance knows no bounds and they just can't conceive that somebody inside their territory is cutting the floor beneath their feet. Nonetheless, we will soon ramp up our operations. They will have to at least look into us."

"Us?"

"Me and the guys you're about to meet."

No later than a minute, Ernesto stopped the car inside the park of another tavern. It was quite the secluded place in the periphery of NC, but there were people outside, indicating that there was some life inside, with even music resonating all the way there.

The two stepped out of the car and Ernesto decisively walked toward the door. Three men with guns were there, seemingly chatting but actually keeping a close eye on whoever passed around there. When they saw Ernesto, however, they almost snapped at attention, surprising David.

"Captain." one of the men saluted.

"Any problem this evening, Niko?" Ernesto asked jovially.

"Not a noise out of place. It's almost boring." the man replied.

"Boring is good, for now. Keep watch."

"Sir, yes sir." Niko replied and leaned back at the wall.

Ernesto quickly waved at the three sentinels and pushed the door open, with David looking with curiosity at the scene. The place was much similar to an old-style pub. With a real wooden counter and chairs. The speakers were connected to a federal radio station that was transmitting power-rock music, not a genre one could hear frequently in Night City.

"Hey, Captain on deck!" somebody yelled in a festive tone, bringing up a pint of beer.

A cheer followed by pretty much everyone inside and Ernesto waved back at them before many gathered around him and make enthusiastic comments.

"Hey, boss, we heard about your gig."

"Bet some 'Saka's fat-ass is fuming over losing their fucking car."

Then the voice of a woman resonated loudly and authoritatively. "All right, people, let him breathe a little."

Soon enough, the group let Petra pass. The woman smiled at the Captain, who returned kindly, then her gaze turned toward David.

"You must be David. Damn, you do look like your brother."

"You know me?" David asked a bit overwhelmed by the strangers.

Petra extended a hand. "Inspector Petra Kennedy of the NCPD. Your brother works with me as a bounty hunter, in his spare time."

David shook the hand with clear hesitation. He didn't feel comfortable around a cop.

"Chill, bro. Petra is on our side." Ernesto reassured.

"Our side? You mean…?"

"I'm part of the plan to return Night City to the Federation. In fact, all of us are."

David looked around stunned. There were dozens of people crowding the pub. "All of you?! I thought it was you, Lucy and at most a handful of contacts."

"Yet here we are, kid." a man of the crowd replied with the same enthusiasm showed by the others. "We all want the fucking corpos to learn their place in the world."

"There is all kind of people here." Ernesto explained. "Mostly the cops at the NCPD, but we don't lack volunteers who have seen what the Federation offers and see that Night City is only a cancer for humanity. A cancer that we need to eradicate as soon as possible."

"Yeah, whatever, choom." another guy said. "I'm just here because I want Militech melted on the ground."

Ernesto sighed, feigning tiredness. "You always got to ruin the poetry, don't you Klaus?"

The people giggled.

"Point is, kid, that when shit will start go down between Arasaka, Militech and the Feds, somebody will have to secure key-points and protect the civilians. That's what we are here for." Petra concluded.

"Makes sense, I guess…" David commented.

"Welcome to the Loyalists, kid." someone said.

"Come on, Dave. There's something I wish you to see." Ernesto said with a suddenly serious tone. He turned to Petra. "Anybody in the backroom, right now?"

"Not for now. Luckily enough, we didn't have much reason to use it, recently." she said in a more serious tone, almost relieved.

"Let's hope it stays like that."

The brothers went down a set of stairs that brought into the underground level of the pub. There it was the game space, with BD's, holo-games but even some classics like billiards. Things that David had never seen all together and clearly got his attention, but before leaving him to explore the place, Ernesto motioned him to follow him inside a room at the edge of the room and quite isolated.

Ernesto opened the door. The light lit up on its own once the sensors detected that someone had come in.

There it was the small memorial of the Loyalists. The row of pictures of the fallen, each inside a metal frame with the names, births and deaths of the victims, were hanging on a metal board, and on the ground right beneath it there were flowers, bottles left as offerings and other things.

"Are these…?" David asked a bit shocked and impressed.

"Comrades who didn't make it. These have been some two rough years." Ernesto said in a dry tone.

He then walked up in front of the last picture of the row of 12. There was a young girl with a short brown bob but dyed in black, blue eyes and a slender figure. He looked at the tag, even though he knew what was written on it perfectly.

Sasha Yakovleva

5 April 2055 – 12 April 2075

Flashes of that day quickly came and went from his memory. He needed to focus on the present.

"Was she your friend?" David asked with curiosity.

"Can't really say I knew her very well, but what she did…fuck it."

"What happened?" David asked. He seemed really curious, but also understood that Ernesto needed to vent it out.

"Sasha had joined the group just a week before. She was a netrunner, a really good one. Until last year, BioTechnica Corp had an office here in Night City where they held all their dirty secrets. I gave Sasha the task to infiltrate the place and search for a certain intel that we could use to force Technica to work with us against the major corporations."

"Hold on...didn't BioTechnica fail last year?" David realized.

Ernesto chuckled. "You are sharp, lil' bro. Yes. Sasha found the intel, but before disconnecting, she found out something else. Something that made her do something rash and fucking epic."

"Something that brought down Biotech?"

"She found out confidential data about some painkillers produced by the corp: Securicine. It turned out to cause a gradual neural degeneration to the patients who took it, but the company had hidden the report here in Night City, where the federal law couldn't reach them. Problem for them was...Sasha's mother used to take those painkillers in the last period of her life."

"Oh." David hummed, realizing where this was going.

"Instead of running, she made sure to send that report to MI6. The security mechs attacked her and she replied by blowing up the building the moment after the report was sent. I ran like hell to try and reach her, but it was too late. I found her lying on the top of a car parked beneath the window she had fallen for. The mechs had shot her, but at least she died with a smile on her face."

David huffed amused at that last detail. "Certainly much more than many get in this place."

"Precisely."

Ernesto now turned his body toward his brother. "Take a look at his board, David. Because if you want to follow me, than I want you to know what's really at stake here. We don't fight for money or personal glory: we fight, kill and die so that justice for people like Sasha become the norm, and not something one has to lay his life down for."

David didn't reply. His face was clearly indicating that he was processing all of this, but at least he wasn't afraid.

Deciding to leave his brother to think for a few minutes, Ernesto left the room and decided to enjoy some time before going back home.