The Nuclear Edgerunner
Following David Martinez's journey from Streetkid to Edgerunner, several months have passed with the young man taking over his old Crew as its leader when its old one succumbed to Cyberpsychosis. The Fixer, Faraday, has tasked David with a small heist on an Arasaka Convoy, but things take a dramatic turn as a mysterious Nuclear Nomad makes his first appearance in Night City.
Chapter 1: Inhumanity
David Martinez, a young Edgerunner stood on a cliffside, the wind blowing his hair and jacket as his cybernetic eyes scanned the horizon. The convoy was coming, he had the deets already and the plan had already been formed. Faraday would send some other mercs as a 'distraction', the convoy would be split up and then he and his team would get in, get out and get paid. Falco muttered incoherently behind him while Rebecca and Kiwi argued about their plan and how Faraday was about as trustworthy as a drunken gonk. Still, money was money.
David activated the zoom on his Kiroshi optics, making sure everything was going according to plan. He plotted the course of the convoy, it was almost time... But then suddenly, something caught his eye. A man. A tall bald man in a black tattered trenchcoat standing in the middle of the road as the convoy drove closer to him.
"What? What the fuck?"
"What do you mean? What's going on?", Falco asked inquisitively.
"There's- There's a man down there! In front of the convoy! He's-"
David had no time to respond as the man down on the road pulled out some kind of energy cannon, charged it up with a blinding blue glow and let loose a meteoric blast towards the convoy. The blue beam of energy streaking through the air with a burning trail behind it and slamming into the front-most car in the convoy. There was a sudden flash of light, a sudden burning sensation on his face and a blinding explosion that was almost brighter than the sun. David's Bio-Monitor chirped at him, radiation. By the time David's eyes readjusted to the sudden explosion, the convoy and the man had both disappeared. The convoy itself was obliterated with vehicles lying in odd places, some overturned and some on fire. This job had just taken a turn for the worst, someone had been tipped off about it and he really had no idea who. The only thing he could do was run down there and hope that the cargo was still intact.
"Holy fuck! What the hell was that?", Falco exclaimed, rubbing his eyes.
"No clue, but we need to get down there. Salvage what we can!", David yelled as he activated his Sandevistan and catapulted over the cliffside.
"Don't just sit there like a three-toothed gonk, go after him!", Rebecca screamed. Falco just did as he was told, still in utter bewilderment of the whole ordeal. That was a nuclear explosion of some kind and someone else had beaten them to the punch.
Running down the cliffside at speeds faster than most cars, David kept an eye on the remnants of the convoy, still looking for the man. He quickly spotted the stranger surrounded by Arasaka Elites and forced himself faster. Whoever this guy was, he was about to be flatlined. Of course, this didn't exactly play out in the way he was expecting, with his Sandevistan still active he watched as the stranger disappeared in a burst of blue light, moving far faster than he could track even with the Sandevistan. He just dug his feet in and halted about halfway between the cliffside and the convoy. His cyberware deactivated as he just stood in shock. One moment there was a man surrounded by Arasaka goons and the next there was nothing left but blood and sand, every single Elite cut down or cut to pieces. Absolute destruction. The screeching of the Ragnar's brakes pulled his attention for a second.
"Oh shit... What the fuck happened here?", Falco asked as he surveyed the carnage.
"I don't know.", David sighed still in shock. His eyes fell upon a massive door discarded in the sand. It must've weighed several tons, but sat bent and sundered next to a larger truck that now lay on its side.
A few seconds earlier... Jericho, the mysterious Nuclear Nomad, had a mission. His own agenda that had relied upon his own team and their abilities. One failed heist back in Prague, an 11th hour betrayal and the forced hiatus he and his crew had to embark upon left a sour taste in his mouth. Jericho was tall, nearly six-foot five, of Eastern Asian descent and full-borg. He was thin and lithe unlike many of the full-cyborgs he'd run into, a design choice unknown to him just like his own cyberware. His mission was to figure out where, when, how and why he had been augmented to this degree and what exactly he was since those memories were painfully absent from his mind. All he knew at the moment was that there was an Araska Convoy headed his way that might have some interesting information inside it.
As of right now, he had data pertaining to his own cyberware, its designs and how to replicate it, but the reason why he had it still a mystery. He just scanned the approaching military trucks and activated his Gauss-Cannon, a very special piece of cyberware that was stored inside his left arm alongside a pair of Nano-Ceramic blades; fixed blades unlike those off-the-shelf Mantis variants. The power needed to use the cannon was nuclear and stemmed from the unique micro-nuclear fission-fusion hybrid reactor that powered his entire body. The nuclear core had its downsides though, irradiating everything around him when fully powered was one of those downsides, but the upsides of never having to eat, sleep or breathe outweighed any detrimental side-effects.
Jericho focused and charged his cannon, a brilliant Cherenkov-blue light forming into a ball at the tip. A three-quarter powered blast would be sufficient, he didn't want to disintegrate whatever was inside those trucks after all. He focused and released the nuclear-charged blast, the blue light streaking down the desert road like the fist of god, the blinding light illuminating the desert sands in the middle of the afternoon. The beam struck the first truck head-on and the resulting blast formed a neat and semi-circular explosion brighter than the sun. Jericho's eyes adjusted to the blast and he shot forwards with his own nuclear-powered Sandevistan equivalent. Get in, get out, get what he was looking for.
No sooner than he'd ripped the door off the largest truck than the surviving Arasaka Elites began to pour out and surround him. Jericho just sighed, more lambs to the slaughter. Still running faster than any Sandevistan on the market, he just extended both of his nano-ceramic blades and rushed the troops. A spin, a slice, and there was soon nothing left alive in the desert valley. Now free from any distractions, Jericho just hopped into the largest truck to investigate its cargo. He sighed again. Useless. A mech-suit of some kind. Regardless, it might still contain the designs he was looking for so he began to rapidly disassemble it.
"Nothing... Completely useless..."
"Worry not, we will find our designs in due time.", an electronic voice noted from inside Jericho's skull. It was Janus, an AI that allowed Jericho to use his various abilities.
"Ideas, Janus?"
"Continue our search. We have eternity."
"Hrrm... Quicker would be better than forever."
"Keep on guard. I sense motion outside. Four entities."
"Great."
Jericho just primed his blades, more fuel for the fire, more blood to be spilled, more lambs to the never-ending slaughter.
"Careful. I'm detecting a full-borg inside that truck.", Kiwi noted, scanning the wreckage for anything of use.
"Is it the cargo?", David asked.
"No."
David just stood his ground. He could hear that strange man inside the truck. A few moments later, that same strange man slowly approached them, a set of deadly-looking blades extended from his forearms. His eyes burned with a raging blue fire as he stared at them. He was sizing them up, scanning them and trying to figure out whose side they were on. He'd seen what the stranger had done to the entire platoon of Arasaka Elites and for some reason he really didn't want to end up like them.
"Who- Who are you?", David asked, not expecting a response.
"Jericho. And you?", the stranger noted.
"D-David and this is my crew."
"A pleasure. Why are you here?"
"We... We were hired to retrieve some cargo from this convoy...", David noted as his crew just stared at him in disbelief. He was either being overly trusting or had seen this guy do something that needed his trust rather than his fury.
"I got him. Overload incoming.", Kiwi added through their comms system.
"Wait, dont!", David had no time to respond as Kiwi's quick-hack slammed into Jericho, did absolutely nothing, and instead backfired directly into her own face. Kiwi just fell to the ground twitching.
"Shall I Black-ICE her?", Janus asked.
"Not yet.", Jericho noted mentally. "She could be useful."
"Kiwi!", Rebecca screamed before launching a volley of gunfire at Jericho.
Jericho just shook his head sadly. Oh, so this is how it's going to be. Oh well, kill the shooter first by crushing her tiny body with his bare hands; it would be easy, like swatting a bug. Kill the mustachioed man second by tearing him limb from limb. Kill the unconscious NetRunner by just stomping on her skull. And then when everyone else was dead, having made an example as to why not to fuck with him, kill David; a few good blows to his off-the-shelf borgware would end him quickly, if it didn't he'd just use his Gauss-Cannon and blow him away. He watched as the bullets flew towards him in slow-motion and simply sidestepped them before returning to his original spot. To the rest of David's crew it looked like the bullets had simply phased through his body doing no damage. Rebecca just looked at the cyborg in fear. Falco just dropped his gun into the sand and raised his hands into the air.
"No reason to fight us! I- I'm sure that was just a malfunction on Kiwi's part. NetRunning is hard, ya know?", Falco reassured hesitantly.
"I'm sure it was.", Jericho noted half-heartedly, his eyes still burning a hole into David's skull with their piercing stare.
"Well? Did you find anything in there?", David asked, trying to change the subject away from his own team's trustworthiness.
"Nothing. Nothing useful to me. A mech-suit."
"That's useful to us!"
"It's not. Not anymore. I've already scrapped it."
"You what!?"
"There goes our paycheck...", Falco sighed.
"Perhaps I can pay you to help me instead. I am looking for certain designs. Cyberware. Black-Project. Military-Grade."
"Well... I mean, I guess we could-", David was suddenly interrupted by Jericho's arm-cannon charging up, aiming directly at Rebecca and firing off yet another searing blast of blue energy. He jumped, activated his Sandevistan and plowed into Rebecca at full speed knocking her smaller body to the ground as the blue beam scorched through the desert behind them. Another explosion as bright as the sun had made its mark on a target very far away.
"I suggest you take these and use them immediately.", Jericho noted as he tossed a few hypo-stims their way. Anti-Rad. An anti-radiation drug. "I'm nuclear-powered."
Rebecca just shoved David off of her and grabbed the Anti-Rad and used it, a tingly feeling spreading through her body. "Ooh, tingly!"
"The fuck is wrong with you? What was that for?", David shouted.
"Militech convoy. Probably on their way here to figure out what happened. Nuclear explosions are rather uncommon in the Badlands.", Jericho mused.
"Well... I mean that's one way to-", David was cut off yet again as Lucy started calling him. "Lucy is calling!"
"Whaaat!? Why!?", Rebecca screamed.
"David! Cyber-Skeleton, get into it!", 'Lucy' stated.
"What how did you know?", David asked.
"No time. Militech convoy is on their way out there!"
"I know, but-"
"Do it now or everyone dies! Use the Cyber-Skeleton if you want to survive!"
"Lucy, I can't! It's been destroyed... Something happened..."
"What?"
"It's gone. The heist was a bust. Where are you?"
There was a crackle on the holo-call before a voice began to speak through Lucy.
"You fucking moron! Do you have any idea what you've done!?", it was Faraday and he didn't sound happy, worse yet Lucy was definitely with him and not in great shape if the Fixer was hijacking her holo.
"Faraday? Where's Lucy?"
"She's indisposed right now. She should be grateful I haven't scrambled her brain. But don't worry, she'll enjoy her new life at Arasaka. That is, if she survives what they have planned for her."
"You fucking bastard! Bring her back!", David screamed. He began to fall out again. Cyberpsychosis taking root in his brain as all of his past failures came to haunt him. "I'm gonna rip his fucking spine out! I'm gonna kill him! Kill him! Kill Faraday!"
"Oh god... He's going psycho...", Rebecca whimpered.
"Janus? Knock him out.", Jericho noted.
David's thrashing and now unbridled rage seemed to spill over for a moment before his eyes just rolled into the back of his head. He stumbled for a moment before falling face-first into the sand, ass up. He drooled slightly as Janus promptly knocked him out.
"Seems your friend has a slight problem, one that I am capable of fixing. I will do it, for a price...", Jericho mused. He had something up his sleeve, a prototype of the very same Chipset he'd gifted to his crew. It was basic, but it would quell the bloodlust from Cyberpsychosis.
"Do it then!", Rebecca commanded, rising onto her tiptoes as she attempted to reach Jericho's eye level.
"I shall. Bring him inside the truck... Now, this may hurt... quite a lot...", Jericho sighed as he stared at David's prone body.
Jericho's fingers transformed and split revealing several sets of Ripperdoc tools and prehensile data probes. Falco just stepped back, slightly disgusted by the perverse cyberware. In an instant, the data probes shot into David's data interfaces, the young Edgerunner sitting up in a silent scream before falling back down. The other tools began their work removing David's faceplate and skull plates, deftly exposing the man's brain and inserting a small biochip before opening his chest plates and installing a small cylindrical device. Wires attached quickly into the cylinder and then into the main power relay in David's body. Jericho examined his work before buttoning things back up again. The process had taken only a few moments, but it appeared to have been a success since David's eyes fluttered open.
"Oh god... My head... What- What happened."
"Jericho played with your brain.", Falco glossed nonchalantly. He'd seen weird stuff, but this had to be some kind of fever dream at this point.
"Huh? Oh- Lucy! Faraday has Lucy! They're headed to Arasaka, we have to get her back!"
"What? Why is he taking her there?"
"Faraday double-crossed us. Probably saw this coming and is taking her for collateral. We need to get to her ASAP!"
"We will fetch her when we have time. For now, you need to get used to the Chipset I have gifted to you. It will prevent any more bouts of cyberpsychosis, but it requires a small Radio-Isotope-Thermoelectric-Generator for power. You may use your Sandevistan without limitations, but if the core's power runs out, you will be only human and your cyberware will cease to function.", Jericho noted.
"What? No! I'm a full-borg, if I run out of power..."
"You won't die. But you'll be unconscious until your reserves have recharged. A trade-off since I am unable to replicate my own core and its nigh-limitless fuel source."
"Well... It's better than nothing."
"It is. And for now, I will help you find your wayward companion. But, I require your help with my own issues in due time."
"I- I don't know if I can promise that..."
"Think about it. I am capable of paying you for your time."
"Psst... Take the deal...", Rebecca whispered.
"I'll think about it. Right now, we have to get to Arasaka."
"No. You need to show me what you're capable of. Come on.", Jericho concluded. "Your friends will take cover behind one of the many wrecked vehicles. Also, please use another dose of Anti-Rad."
Falco just grabbed Kiwi by the scruff of her neck and dragged her still-unconscious body behind one of the overturned trucks, Rebecca following shortly behind, still keeping an eye on David and the Nuclear Nomad. Jericho just readied up, taking a martial stance in front of David. His eyes began to glow with a raging blue fire as a set of vents opened on his back, projecting a set of semi-translucent wings outwards as the radiation levels around them spiked. David pulled his sidearm and activated his Sandevistan before charging at Jericho. This was a horrible idea, but at least he knew what he was up against.
Jericho shot forwards faster than David could perceive even with his Sandevistan active and flew backwards several feet as a firm punch was planted into the middle of his chest. His backwards motion stopped almost instantly as Jericho seemingly teleported behind him and delivered a kick to his spine. Holy fuck was this guy fast. David spun, trying to see the blue blur as the other cyborg kited him around the wasteland. His legs were suddenly kicked out from under him and he ate sand. Turning around and trying to get back on his feet proved useless as Jericho had him pinned already, one foot on his gut and that very same arm-cannon now aimed at his head.
"Somehow I expected more. Nonetheless, you do have an inhuman level of tolerance to cybernetics.", Jericho sighed before powering down and retracting his arm-cannon. "Now then. Off to Araska?"
"Yeah... Off to Arasaka...", David sighed. He was somewhat relieved that wasn't a real fight.
Now that there was a time of respite, he could get a better look at Jericho himself. The cyborg was mostly comprised of a dull metallic black alloy with a human face plastered onto a smooth metallic skull. Jericho was entirely shirtless and wore on the black tattered trenchcoat and a pair of ratty combat pants. His legs were not human, and instead were oddly three-toed with two front toes and one in the rear, almost avian. There was no synth-skin except his face. No cyborg ever went quite that far and some preferred to still look human. Jericho was as far from human as he could be while still retaining the same shape.
"One more thing... Just a little peak into your NetRunner's head...", Jericho noted as he inserted his bizarre prehensile data probes into Kiwi's skull. The sudden mental shock catapulting the NetRunner back into consciousness.
"Awake already? How nice. I know. You needn't tell them, but... I know."
"You know?"
"I know all about you, Kiwi. I know what you had planned. It won't work now. That time has already passed. If you know what I know, then you know that if they know, then you won't be alive for very much longer."
"Got it."
"Good. Now, then... Arasaka?"
"Gonna be a helluva drive. Might not even get there until nightfall.", Falco added.
"Then it looks like we're going to need an AV, and guess who has one..."
"You?", Rebecca asked.
"Yes. Come along. I do hope you know how to fly, Falco..."
"I do. Lead the way..."
Jericho just motioned for the small team of Edgerunners to follow him. After his own team's rapid departure from the limelight, he had commandeered their old cargo AV, a Monarch XGP that was lovingly named the Toward Stars. It was currently missing its cargo box, but its cabin had plenty of room for the group. It would get them to Arasaka tower quickly and efficiently. It was heavily armored, but had no armaments itself. The raid was about to begin and Jericho knew that Arasaka's Corporate HQ would benefit him in the long run.
Chapter End.
A/N: Next chapter is the last one. Maybe I'll do an epilogue afterwards. FYI, this takes place in the already established AU I've written in the Nuclear Nomad. Please read that if you enjoy V being relentlessly mocked by Johnny and the rest of Jericho's team.