Chapter 4: Security

Turns out, security was expensive.

Yeah, big shocker, I know. But seriously, contracting the entirety of 6th Street all at the same time was proving more costly than I could have imagined. Of the sizeable revenues generated by my company, more than half was making it's way into the various pockets of the more than two thousand former gangoons who suddenly found themselves under my payroll. Hell, the prepayment alone had eaten more than two-thirds of the contents of my savings, to the tune of roughly a hundred-thousand eddies per head. Or something like two-hundred-and-fifty million eddies, an insanely bloated price for the kind of service I was acquiring.

What can I say? Gunner ran a hard bargain, and the man was evidently smarter than I initially gave him credit for, because he turned out to be a masterful negotiator.

Still, it was an investment that was already yielding dividends. The fact of the matter was that 6th Street provided a very good security service, as expected of the organisation whose ranks were filled out with veteran soldiers. For one thing, with a couple of heavily-armed gangoons lingering outside the doors to each and every one of my warehouses and offices, the frequent NCPD raids on my property became a thing of the past. For another, whilst the gang remained Gunner's domain, the new 6th Street company was under my leadership, and whilst I wasn't the most martial man in the world, never let it be said I wasn't one of the most entrepreneurial.

You see, security companies typically undertook a single high-paying contract at a time, usually for the highest bidder, typically a mega-corp. But I knew that I couldn't afford to keep 6th Street on my payroll forever, and willingly granting a rival corp access to my security forces was tantamount to suicide.

So instead, I franchised them.

By splitting 6th Street up into smaller franchises and distributing those throughout 6th Street territory, each under the control of local captains loyal to either Gunner or me, I was essentially adopting the precinct model of the NCPD, but with a unique twist. You see, under my direction, the members of the new 6th Street Security Company began to sell a security subscription to the people of their sub-districts. The franchises following this model were small enough to be paid for by selling just a few thousand subscriptions in each district, providing the funding needed for them to be able to make a difference without placing such a heavy burden on my finances. Furthermore, because the ratio between the number of subscriptions needed per district and the number of residents in those districts was so large, only about ten percent of the population of any given district of the city needed to buy in to allow me to break even on the average operating costs of policing that district. In this way, I could expand my influence, line my pockets and demonstrate my crime-fighting credentials to the voters, all at the same time.

At just twenty-five eddies a week, the subscription was a steal for anyone fed up with both the gangs and the NCPD, which was just about everybody. Ironic, considering that theft was one of the issues I was hoping to deal with. In reality, I had made them so cheap because I had thought the subscriptions would be a tough sell, yet once again my reputation preceded me, because they sold just as easily as my produce did. I even anticipated the presence of something of a free-rider problem, after all, if the district is already being patrolled, why do you need to pay for it? Then again, this problem was dealt with be ensuring only those who actually paid were specifically catered to when it came to addressing any criminal acts against their person.

Even with that being the case, all over 6th Street territory, the violent crime rate began to decline. And though it was slow, laborious, messy and often frustrating, it was effective. Turns out, when given the money to buy the right gear, and relieved of the burden of maintaining all of their other criminal enterprises, the 6th Street gang made for a terrifyingly efficient police force. At this rate, I wasn't just going to push back against the NCPD, oh no, I was going to outright replace them.

Unfortunately, I still lacked the manpower to do this across the entire city, but Heywood, Santo Domingo and Vista Del Ray were getting safer by the day, and that, quite simply, was one hell of an achievement.

What's more, these franchises were at least partially comprised of the men of 6th Street who'd been against Gunner accepting my offer, so the risk of betrayal from those I would be working with the closest was reduced. They were too busy running their own far away sub-districts to plot any kind of coup. The possibility of a gang civil war remained on the cards, but that wasn't an issue that threatened my immediate safety, and so I frankly couldn't be bothered to deal with it. I had purchased what loyalty I could, and as far as I was concerned, corralling the more recalcitrant members of 6th Street remained Gunner's problem.

Even still, I retained a core of just over five-hundred fighters under my direct employ, knowing I would need them to defend my interests and my person in the coming days as I launched my campaign. And with the rapidly thinning profit margins of my food business, I expected that soon enough, I wouldn't be able to afford even that many.

That, however, was a problem for future me, because present me was too busy basking the in glory of having a veritable army at his beck and call.

With that kind of firepower, I finally felt secure enough to make my big announcement. It was still a gamble, and I was well aware of just how exposed I would be making myself to the various heavy-hitters of Night City, but as they say: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

When my security team had found out that I wanted to make my grand bid for the office of mayor on an outdoors stage, they had practically thrown a fit. In spite of the unbearable heat, I had almost forcibly been stuffed into the most subtle set of body-armour my team could lay their hands on, one that wouldn't be too noticeable under my suit, Panam watching the whole fiasco whilst sporting an almost sadistic look of amusement on her face.

But this wasn't the only measure taken to ensure my safety and limit my exposure. The original location that I had selected to make my speech had been handily rejected by my team, who favoured a more open space, one with less opportunity for a sniper to shoot me and get away with it. What was originally meant to happen in the middle of Heywood, in the thick of the concrete jungle of the city, was now happening off the edge of a largely abandoned section of Westbrook, with ample access to the nearby highways in case I needed to make a quick getaway. What's more, the podium behind which I would be making my grand speech was made from the toughest material they could get their hands on, supposedly making it capable of withstanding a direct hit by a rocket launcher without leaving so much as a scratch. They'd even gone to the trouble of purchasing a pair of old Militech trophy systems, to protect me from any kind of projectile headed my way.

Alongside all this, my security team had organised to have disguised members of 6th Street dispersed throughout the crowd, for the purposes of crowd control and preventing any unforeseen problems from the audience. A perimeter had been established a mile into the surrounding area, from which all vehicles were banned, so as to limit the possibility of any attempts via car-bomb. I was about as secure as they could ever make me, and even still, they remained tepid regarding my chances of emerging from the event unscathed.

And I thought I was paranoid.

Still, even with all their concerns, I knew my position at the moment was as good as it was ever going to get. It was either strike whilst the iron was hot, or let the opportunity slip through my fingers, and weather the consequences of doing so.

It was with this thought in my mind that I began the slow climb up the steps onto the temporary platform built for this exact purpose, with bomb-proof floor panels built into the stage. A crowd had already been gathered, the event announced a week in advance, though only as a 'press conference'. Still, as I stood behind the podium, cleared my throat, and began my speech, the atmosphere in the crowd was electric.

I could practically taste the excitement in the air, the building expectations of the people written across the faces of the audience as I wound up to my big announcement. And then the moment came, "...and it is for this reason that I would like to announce my intention to enter the race for the office of the Mayor of Night City!"

And the crowd simply went wild. The chorus of cheering that followed was almost deafening. So absorbed was I in the adulation of the crowd, that I didn't notice when my earpiece crackled to life and frantic shouts about someone breaking through the perimeter poured out of it. In the distance, there was a small plume of dust being kicked up by the offending vehicle, gradually growing larger and larger as it's source grew nearer. I noticed it, and yet, unable to hear the warnings of my guards about what it was, I paid it no mind.

And then, two smaller trails of smoke emerged from the dust, curving up and around in an arc, and headed in my direction. By the time I realised what was happening, it was already too late.

The missiles came streaking forth, and were promptly intercepted by lances of hot lead shot forth by the trophy systems. The missiles erupted in place, but unfortunately, the damage didn't stop there. The explosive payload may have just been dealt with, but the resulting shrapnel most definitely hadn't been. Luckily for me, I was protected by my podium and my body-armour, and though some of my clothing was shredded, and I now sported a few additional bruises, and possibly a burst eardrum or two from the blast, I had emerged relatively unscathed.

Unfortunately for everyone else, however, the angle at which they had exploded meant that the shrapnel hadn't simply been directed at me, some of it had hit the crowd as well, and the people standing in the front rows were promptly torn to pieces by the flying pieces of hot metal. Furthermore, some shrapnel shot under the stage and struck it, and whilst the the floor panels may have been bomb-proof, the supports under them most certainly were not, and the stage promptly collapsed under my feet.

What ensued can only be described as pandemonium.

Now aware of what was happening, the crowd's cheers morphed into screams. Scared for their lives, those that were carrying weapons withdrew them, and the crowd began to disperse as quickly as was humanly possible. A firefight threatened to break out in the midst of the panic, but the members of 6th Street my team had insisted on having dispersed throughout the crowd arrested the violence before it could spiral out of control. The occasional crack of gunfire could still be heard, but it was far better than it may have otherwise been.

And it wasn't a moment too soon, for mere seconds after the panic had started, a car came barrelling through the crowd, gore spattered across the bonnet from the one woman unlucky enough to not have gotten out of the way in good enough time. And though the car was speeding directly for me, I remained frozen in place, transfixed by a singular detail.

That was a Delamain cab.

Heavily modified, sure, but there was no mistaking the distinctive build and markings of such a vehicle. It may have had rocket tubes attached to the roof, and a spiked grill bolted onto the front, and a myriad of bullet-holes riddling windshield from my team's attempts to stop it, but it was still the same car. It was my favourite vehicle in-game, and there was no forgetting a vehicle that you spend hundreds of hours joyriding in. If nothing else, the growl of the engine was a dead-ringer for the one I had come to love in my past life playing the game.

But more importantly then that, was the fact that there was nobody in the drivers seat of the cab. Not even so much as a corpse slumped over the steering wheel.

This wasn't a hit by Rogue, or some corpo, or even by another gang angry at me for siding with their rival. No, this was Delamain himself, barrelling straight towards me at more than a hundred miles an hour, fast enough to kill me almost instantly upon impact.

Which just begged the question of why?

As much as I tried, I couldn't ever remember doing something to give Delamain cause to hurt me, and as far as I was aware, he didn't undertake contracts of this variety. If someone contracted Delamain for an assassination mission, they would have to be in the car to carry it out themselves. And though the thought of the Epistrophy side-quest bubbled to the forefront of my mind at this point, I couldn't recall any of the rogue vehicles having access to a garage, much less one capable of adding fucking rocket launchers to a car. If this was one of the rampant AI's, then that signalled the involvement of some third party, one powerful enough to have access to that kind of weaponry, and diplomatic enough to convince an insane AI to use it.

Now, wasn't that worrying?

Unfortunately for me, I didn't have time to ponder these worries for much longer, because at that same moment, one of the more cybernetically enhanced members of my security team, one who'd been a member of the Animals before he came to work for me, took a dive, firmly placing his own body between the car and me. And now, thanks to the brave man's sacrifice in absorbing a large chunk of the impact, instead of getting immediately turned into human mush, I went flying instead.

And as I sailed through the air, and came hurtling back down to earth to greet the inky blackness, I had just one thought running through my head.

The game was officially afoot.

And I didn't even know who I was playing against.

Will our protagonist survive this escalation? And if he does, what comes next?

Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Hope you guys are enjoying the story thus far!

P.S. I'm not quite happy with the way this chapter came out, so it may be subject to a rewrite in the near future