Chapter 6: Loose Ends
As night began to fall, the Toward Stars began to land outside of a small cave in the badlands. Jericho stated that this would be their base for the time being. It was far away from prying eyes and the city itself. They would lay low here until the heat was off of them and then they would begin the next phase of their master plan, a plan that David still didn't quite know the details of. Jericho himself simply disappeared into the cave along with the AV, still being expertly piloted by the drunken pilot, Scotch. This now left David alone with the rest of Jericho's crew and his own.
"That was too close. We need to get out of here before we have every Arasaka assassin on our ass.", Lucy sighed.
"Actually, you guys are in the clear. My Veil kept you, David and everyone else from being detected. Yeah, the whole Saburo Arasaka thingy is going to cause problems but for now it should be safe to return to NC... Well for you guys at least.", Asher mused, walking towards the cave mouth with her cyberdeck in hand. She was still connected to the subnet somehow.
"Still... If you go back, be safe. The City is probably crawling with corpo goons...", Lucy sighed again.
"I'll be fine. There's really nothing I need to do in there anways.", David reassured. Unfortunately he was interrupted by Hildegarde.
"No. You need to meet up with Dexter DeShawn and tie up some loose ends. Take this decoy chip and tell him you were successful in retrieving the biochip, but it got damaged during the escape. Then take care of DeShawn in any way you see fit. We do not leave loose ends untied, David."
David just took the chip, it was similar to the one they'd just retrieved, but different somehow. He couldn't figure out why, but it was eerily familiar for some reason. He just nodded to Hildegarde and began to make the trek over to their modified Ragnar. He'd do this alone.
"You're not thinking of just leaving us behind, now are you?", Falco noted.
"It's safer this way. I can handle DeShawn.", David reassured.
"Sure you can, but you still can't drive worth a shit. I'm going too, same with Becca. Lucy, are you in?"
"I'm in. Back together as a team?", Lucy added.
"I'll just stay here. Jericho said he needed me.", Kiwi noted, the rest of her teammates nodding in approval.
"Well? Where to?", Falco asked.
"No-Tell Motel. DeShawn sent us the deets during his briefing.", David stated, still staring at the biochip in his hand.
Falco just nodded, getting back into the driver's seat of their Ragnar and backing it up and back onto the dusty roads out of the Badlands. They'd be back in Night City in a few minutes and then Dexter DeShawn would have to either pay up or shut up.
Farther away, back in Konpeki Plaza, V was awoken to the sound of corporate guards breaking down the door to their room. He rubbed his eyes and then realized that maybe he'd found something to do that wasn't appropriate. He was stark naked in bed. Jackie was cuddling him. Jackie was also stark naked. A few corporate guards looked at him in confusion and disgust. He simply slapped Jackie in the face and woke the larger man up.
"Ah! What? Oh... Oh no.", Jackie mused as he beheld the situation that surrounded him. Booze bottles all over the floor, naked, cuddling V. They'd drank too much and something had happened. He really didn't know what, though.
"Er... Civilians, there has been an evacuation order for Konpeki Plaza. Please gather your belongings and then follow the signs towards the nearest exit.", the now somewhat redfaced guard announced, beginning to look away from V.
"We'll be right out!", V shouted, covering his loins as he got out of the awkward position with Jackie.
As the guards left, V just grabbed his pants and turned around to face Jackie."What the fuck, Jackie! What did we do!?"
"I dunno. Looks like we got smashed and then got friendly.", Jackie sighed.
"We are never going to talk about this again! Fuck!"
"I hear you, broder."
"What about the heist? The biochip? Where's David?"
"Dunno. Got a message from Dex. Heist is a bust, we're to meet up at the No-Tell Motel. Kid probably tried to go alone and got flatlined."
"Aww shit... Jackie, look at the news!", V cried as he looked at the television. "Saburo Arasaka Murdered...", the headline screamed.
The newsfeed showed the inside of Konpeki's lobby, filled with corpses some of corporate guards and some of Max-Tac. An absolute massacre had taken place here. Yorinobu Arasaka appeared for a moment to address the citizens of Night City regarding his father's death. V made the conclusion in his own mind. David went ahead to grab the biochip while they were passed out drunk, ran into problems or alerted security and then went down as a legend in the lobby. The kid was something truly special.
"Let's just delta the fuck outta here. Maybe Dex has something else we can do.", V sighed.
V and Jackie just got dressed, awkwardly avoiding looking at each-other and began to make their way into the long line of other hotel guests down the hallway and through an emergency exit. They'd meet up with Dex and figure this shit out.
Sooner than later, the No-Tell Motel loomed in the distance. David just checked his weaponry and made sure all of his chrome was working properly. It was, there really wasn't any reason to check it since this new AI companion alerted him to anything strange going on with his systems. He formed the plan.
"Alright. I'm going to go meet Dex. Lucy, stay with Falco and run surveillance on the motel's subnet. Rebecca, you're my cover. Stay in the hallway and keep an eye out for anything suspicious."
"Awh, why do you get to have all the fun?", Rebecca complained.
"Because Dex is expecting me. He doesn't even know who you are."
"I'm already in the subnet. Cams are clear. No cams in the rooms though, just audio.", Lucy noted.
"I'll keep the engine warm in case we need to delta.", Falco added.
David just nodded to his crew and exited the vehicle, making his way into the No-Tell Motel and towards the room that Dexter DeShawn had indicated. He knocked on the door and jumped back slightly a DeShawn's bodyguard opened it, gun drawn, before motioning him inside. The Fixer was pacing anxiously inside.
"Hey, kid. You get the goods?", the large man asked.
"Yeah. Got the chip. Your other mercs didn't make it. Bad news, though. The chip got fried during my escape. It still worth any chop?"
"Heh... Well, that's to be expected. Couldn't have gone any worse. All you had to do was grab the chip and leave, not kill Saburo Arasaka and bring the fucking corpos down on my ass!"
"Kill Saburo? I didn't do shit. Your other gonks tripped security, I barely got out with my life! You better have some fucking compensation for this shit!", David lied. The other two gonks were probably still snuggled up with each-other right now.
"You-... Alright, I'll be honest. I might know a buyer. Why don't you get yourself cleaned up? Bathroom is over there.", Dexter noted, pointing to a small washroom to the side.
David just went over to the washroom and closed the door. He looked into the mirror. He wasn't too dirty, but still splashed some water onto his face and cleaned up the little bits of dirt from the day. This wasn't his first rodeo and Dexter DeShawn was no Faraday. DeShawn was definitely going to try to pull something on him the moment he opened the bathroom door. Cautiously, he pressed the button to open the door and then activated his Sandevistan. As the door opened, Dex's bodyguard began to swing towards the entrance with his gun drawn. David dodged around the man and simply fired his arm-cannon into the man's face, splattering the bodyguard against the wall like a wet paper towel .He then turned on Dex.
"Whoa, whoa! It's just business, you know? Gotta tie up any loose ends before I delta the fuck outta here!", Dex shouted in a poor attempt to de-escalate the situation. "I'll pay you. I'll give you half of what I promised right now if you let me just walk away."
"I don't think so, Dex. I found a new crew and they have a rule too. No loose ends.", David noted as he took aim on the very large target in front of him.
"Yeah, thought so.", Dex noted before he pulled out his own firearm and aimed it at David.
Unfortunately for Dexter DeShawn he either didn't know that David actually had a military-grade Sandevistan or he didn't care. David just fired his arm-cannon into Dex's fat body a few times, blowing the fixer's face and shiny gold arm off as his body slumped onto the ground. His work here was done. No loose ends.
David just left the room. At this point, he'd probably be having some issues as cyber-psychosis began to trickle through his mind. However, none of that happened and he felt... nothing. No remorse, no sadness, just content with what he'd done. Walking back into the hallway, Rebecca just stared at him and then stared at the inside of the room.
"Shit. You fuckin' splattered those gonks. You okay?"
"Never been better, Becca. Let's go."
"Sounds good to me."
David just tossed the decoy biochip onto Dex's corpse and shut the door. He walked back out to Falco and the rest of his crew as the patiently awaited him. Falco just gave him a nod.
"Everything go alright in there? Lucy picked up some gunfire."
"Yeah. Dexter DeShawn is dead. He won't be giving us any trouble."
"Preem. That's one loose end tied up. What about that Parker woman?"
"Evelyn Parker? She just wants the biochip. We don't need to kill her. I'll just grab the chip from Jericho whenever he's done with it, get paid and then go home."
"Well? What do we do now?", Rebecca asked.
"Buck-A-Slice. I'm fucking starving.", David sighed. He was really hungry and hadn't eaten since yesterday. Nerves probably, but now hunger was creeping into his mind.
Falco just nodded and drove away from the motel. No loose ends. New crew, scary crew, but they were getting paid rather well. Only time would tell if this was a good idea or not.
A few moments after David left the No-Tell Motel, a Delamain Combat Cab politely depositied two awkward mercenaries outside. V and Jackie. The two hapless mercs just walked through the front door and began to make their way to meet up with Dex. Hopefully the Fixer would have some idea of what to do next. Jackie just knocked on the door, but there was no response. He knocked a bit harder. V just shrugged and hit the door button, not expecting it to open, but it did.
"Dex? We- Awh fuck...", V cursed.
Inside the motel room laid another massacre. Dexter DeShawn and his bodyguard were both splattered against the walls opposite from each-other. Dex was definitely not going to be giving any words of advice, nor was he going to be doing much else except feeding the worms.
"Shit... What now?", Jackie asked now completely out of ideas. Things went tits up so hard their nipples were scraping against heaven's gates.
"Afterlife. The bar. Maybe we can pick up a few gigs. Not the big leagues, but maybe it'll pan out better than this.", V sighed.
The two hapless mercs began to make their way back out of the motel only to find that without Dex being alive, the Delamain was no longer useable to them. Jackie just had his motorcycle sent to him and jumped onboard. Once again, V had to cuddle Jackie's backside on the ride over to the little mercenary bar that would.
Over at the Buck-A-Slice, the pizza tasted about as good as the cardboard boxes it was delivered inside. Nonetheless, David still ate a few slices and talked with his crew. Jericho was still working on deciphering the biochip and still hadn't contacted them yet. Wondering what was going on, David sent a Holo-Call to Hildegarde.
"Hey, Hildegarde, any luck with the biochip?"
"No. I suggest you and your team find something to do in the meantime. Jericho will contact you when he is ready."
David just sat back and relayed that information to the rest of his group. Rebecca just looked bored. "What now?"
"I dunno. Bar? Afterlife? Maybe do a few quick jobs?"
"Are we gonna shoot some guns?"
"Probably."
"Then let's gooooo!"
Falco just jumped out of the little booth they were sitting in to go run after the Gun Gremlin. David and Lucy briefly shared a kiss before following their friends back out to the car and towards the funny little merc bar that they all knew and loved.
Far away from Night City, Jericho had already set up a small basecamp inside the cave. The Toward Stars had been parked facing towards the cave entrance just in case they needed to leave in a hurry. He was currently busy deciphering the mysteries of the Relic a chipset not too different from his own. It was nearly by sheer luck that David had agreed to join him and take his offer. If he hadn't then it would've involved a much longer search for someone even remotely compatible with the chipsets that he had more or less 'inherited' from a previous life, a life before he had been turned into a full-cyborg.
The life Jericho led before his conversion had always remained some kind of mystery. Memories were missing and there was a painful gap in a series of events. It wasn't until fairly recently that he and his team were able to finally uncover them. In truth, he was the creator of said biochips, Relic not included, but he had suspicions that its designs were based off his own. Some kind of 11th hour betrayal had led to his subsequent conversion into essentially a living weapon and the long gap in his memories.
Jericho did had a plan, an End Game of sorts. He was a survivor of the 4th Corporate War, but had taken severe losses. Determined to prevent any such war from ever occurring, he programmed and designed JANUS, a AI. And then following Janus' creation, created the JERICHO project. A project that he had designed to harness and control the supposed Cyber-Psychosis that was caused by overuse of cybernetics. Now the key was getting Janus, as the AI was the one responsible for controlling the Chipsets that allowed for infinite Cybernetic Evolution, into every person on the entire planet. A task that he had attempted several years ago back in Prague.
Prague had been an utter failure. They had managed to break into the subnet and begin Janus' upload. Prague's subnet was small, weak, and mostly undefended. Their failure stemmed from one of their newest members, Vostok, a greenhorn edgerunner that looked promising but was utterly incompatible with even the base systems provided by the chipset. The rookie ultimately sold out the team and nearly got them killed over the Mediterranean Sea. David was different. David had a rather unique natural tolerance to cybernetic modification, one that was also shared with Jericho himself. The kid seemed to be considerably more capable than thought and if all things went well, then this New World Order would come quietly and without anyone suspecting anything else. There would be no loud revolution in the streets, guns blazing and buildings crumbling. The world would simply change one day and that would be the end of everyone's worries forevermore.
The End Game, or simply The End as Jericho called it involved uploading Janus into the Net. Janus would then proceed to consume and integrate every rogue AI and bolster itself into a sort of manufactured digital God. Once the Net had been secured, Janus would simply lock every user without a Chipset out of it, effectively causing a second DataKrash. With only a handful of users still capable of even accessing the Net, Jericho would effectively control the entire world. Corporations would fall. The economy would crash. Everything would End. And then everything could be rebuilt better than it was before. Jericho only needed a willing Shadow Corporation to take on this task. Hildegarde repeatedly mentioned perhaps visiting Monarch, a Mega-Corporation based in London. They specialized in construction, maintenance, and home living products. They were also the creators of the Toward Stars. Monarch was definitely an option, although there was a certain bounty that had to be addressed first. Monarch had set an astronomically high bounty on Hildegarde's capture, preferably alive, and her delivery to the corporate headquarters. Jericho was not about to just turn over one of his most trusted and beloved companions for petty cash. He needed to have a talk with Monarch first.
All of this could wait at the moment. He had just finished up deciphering the base code on the Relic. It was not in fact, based on his own designs. It had similarities, but seemed to simply be some kind of storage unit for digitally captured personas. The Engrams as they were called could then theoretically be uploaded into a bot or android to effectively bring back a copy of the dead. Interesting, and oddly enough, a way to defeat death itself. Through slightly more thorough scans it had become apparent that a certain program called SoulKiller was used to make such Engrams. Jericho needed to find this program and integrate it into Janus as soon as humanly possible. It would both serve and protect him from its own usage against him. Also, strangely enough there was already an Engram saved onto the Relic prototype. A Johnny Silverhand, Jericho had absolutely no clue who this was, but copied the persona onto a separate data-shard and placed the Relic back into its storage case. He was done with it for now and David could go and use it as a bartering chip for extra cash if he wanted. He went to go and find Hildegarde. They needed to have a chat about their new teammates.
Jericho found Hildegarde sitting inside the passenger compartment of the Toward Stars. She was just idly reading the local screamsheets, stories about the death of Saburo Arasaka and an unknown terrorist group attacking Konpeki Plaza were the main headlines.
"Hildegarde? Thoughts on our newest member?", Jericho asked.
"David? He's rather young, but age doesn't seem to matter much in this world. He's got a lot of city miles on him. And if I had to wager a guess, some sort of hidden trauma.", Hildegarde mused. David was actually pretty good. A lot better than the last one. "That being said, he's modest. He wasn't distracted by my rather large assets and never made any kind of childish remarks. He's got a thing for the netrunner with the hair."
"Oh. So he's with Kiwi? Odd."
"No, the other one. Lucille?"
"Ah, Lucy. That makes sense. Anything else to note?"
"I honestly thought of him as a one-trick pony with that Sandevistan. Honestly, he uses it well and it pairs with his general ability. Even more now that he's been Chipped. You picked a winner, Jericho. He trusts us and I trust him."
"That is good to know. One more thing, about Monarch. Are you sure they'd be willing to sit down for a nice chat considering the bounty they've placed on you?"
"Oh they'll sit down for a talk alright, it'll be a nice little brunch with tea and biscuits right before my public execution in the middle of London. No, but seriously. They're the most likely to be able to do what you want them to do. Trust me. Use me as a bargaining chip if you want, I know the CEO on a personal level."
"I'll consider it. First things first, however. We still need some things from Night City and Arasaka. I'll let David know that I'm finished with the Relic. Asher will run a data trace on a program called SoulKiller and then once we have acquired SoulKiller we will begin The End."
"Sounds like a plan, Jericho. Now, since we're alone... Do you have a little time to readjust my cybernetics? Maybe a little bit more intimately than usual?"
Jericho just nodded and got down to business. The doors to the AV were locked, a sock was placed on the door handle, and the remaining teammates were told not to interrupt on the penalty of death. Kiwi just glanced at the AV as it began to rock and shake and shook her head. This fucking team...
The Afterlife was busy as usual, more mercs swarmed the bar and talked to the various Fixers that had assembled here following the chaos at Konpeki Plaza. V and Jackie looked around at all of the mercenaries. He spied a dirty and disheveled man in a dirty brown robe, the robe had bright orange pipes coursing all over it leading towards some kind of cannons intergated into the man's cybernetic hands. The dirty man sat next to a strangely bio-modded group of mercenaries, a green-skinned goblin-like woman next to him sharpened a set of mantis blades and stared around the room in near paranoia. V decided not to talk to this man for the time being.
V thought he saw the legendary Adam Smasher at a nearby booth and went over to see. A massive and heavily armored full-cyborg sat in a booth next to a shorter and smaller woman with pale skin and a Maelstrom-like red-eye modification replacing her left eye. Three nearly identical twins sat beside them and were engaged in petty banter. The cyborg looked annoyed.
"I vanted orrrange! They gave me lemon lime!", the cyborg complained in a thick German accent.
"Perhaps you pressed the wrong button?", the pale woman noted.
"I do not make miztakes of zat kind!"
"Can it, Gunter. We've got business to attend to.", one of the triplets said.
"You can it, Paul!"
"I'm JC. That's Paul... and that's Alex.", said JC, the triplet with sunglasses. Paul didn't have sunglasses and Alex was a woman.
"Yeah, maybe your hand slipped.", Alex noted.
"It did not slip! Navarre, back me up here!"
"Calm down, Gunter...", the pale woman, Navarre added sighing.
V was almost certain that this was not Adam Smasher despite the cyborg having a similar design. He just walked back to the bar and sat down next to Jackie. He hailed the bartender, Claire and began to make small talk about their failed heist.
"So, you buys are back. Heist didn't go well, did it?", Claire mused.
"Nope. We're just a couple of gonks. Not legends, just broke.", V sighed.
"Yeah, but we still gotta celebrate our friend. He went out like a legend.", Jackie added. "Heya, new drink. It'll be a shot of vodka on the rocks and topped with NiCola. Call it a David Martinez. Aim high and go out with a bang."
"Damn... Kid bit it?", Claire asked.
"Yeah. Tried to solo the gig and went down in a hail of gunfire and Max-Tac. Took a helluva lot of them with him though.", Jackie sighed.
"What happened to the two of you?"
"We got taken out early. We were in over our heads.", V noted.
"Well, here's to a new legend in the Afterlife. To David Martinez!", Claire announced before pouring the drinks.
V and Jackie just sat and drank. It was the only thing they could do at the moment and there really didn't seem like they were ever going to get to the Big Leagues anytime soon. At least they were both still alive and had some interesting memories of their failed heist at Konpeki Plaza.
About 45 minutes after V and Jackie arrived at the Afterlife, Falco finally pulled into the parking lot. It was close to midnight. The bar was still busy and the usual gonks walked around outside. They had been delayed getting here somewhat by Rebecca spilling one of their take-away pizza's all over the interior of the car. He would never get the stains out of the upholstery. David and the rest of the group exited the vehicle and walked down the stairs towards the bar itself, the bouncer giving him a side-eyed look and letting him in anyways.
Upon entering the bar, David spied some familiar mercenaries at the various tables. Kale and Naught, two rather unscrupulous mercs sat and counted their money among their teammates. Kale was dirty and disheveled as usual. Naught just waved at him before going back to sharpening her blades. Next he saw the entire team of Ex Machina, a set of triplets and the two cyborgs, Navarre and Gunter. Gunter was complaining about drinks again. He never got what he wanted. David's eyes soon scanned over the bar and found the two gonks from Dex's crew sitting slumped over several empty drinks at the end of the bar. He walked over to them to go and say hi before Claire interrupted him.
"Whoa! Dead man walking!"
"Who me?"
"Yeah. Your buddies said you went out like a supreme at that Konpeki thing. Took down a Max-Tac batallion and then got flatlined."
"That wasn't me. I barely got out with my life, these two gonks went and got drunk and nearly blew the heist! One of the other hotel guests went cyber-psycho; had to dodge that nightmare before I got to the door."
"Huh. Figures... Anyways, you want one of your namesake drinks?"
"Sure."
David just took a sip of the drink. Way too sweet. It was vodka and NiCola. Why? It was still kinda odd to have a namesake drink at the Afterlife when you were still alive. He just walked over and slapped Jackie and V on their backs and abruptly got their attention.
"Heya, chooms! You guys lived!"
"Oh shit! Jackie, are we seeing ghosts?", V slurred.
"Oh yeah! He's a spoooooky ghost. OooooooOOooOOOoooo!", Rebecca mocked walking up behind David and the two gonks.
"Who? Who are you again?", Jackie asked.
"Meh, David, these guys are losers! Come over and sit with us in our usual spot!", Rebecca chided before walking off, beers in hand.
David just shrugged and left V and Jackie alone. They needed to sleep this off after their fun time at Konpeki. They'd be fine. At least they were still alive. He walked over to their crew's usual spot and sat down. He grabbed a Broseph ale from Rebecca and began to drink. Pizza and beer was a great combination. As he relaxed for a moment, his Holo rang. It was Jericho.
"Hello, David. I'm done with the biochip. It is yours to do with what you want. You may come and retrieve it at any time except for right now right this second. I am busy servicing Hildegarde at the moment.", Jericho noted. He sounded oddly out of breath for some reason, but David didn't pay much attention to it. This just meant he could still get paid for the Konpeki Heist.
"What's up? You zoned out for a moment.", Falco noted.
"Jericho's done with the chip. Means we still get paid for Konpeki, just need to see Evelyn Parker again."
"Preem. Sounds good kid. Eddies are eddies."
"Yeah... That's boring, though! I wanna go shoot stuff!", Rebecca complained.
"I think you'll get your chance.", Falco added as Kale began to approach their table.
"Ah, hallo David. Would you be free for a moment?", Kale asked in a slight German accent.
"Hey, Kale. Sure, what's up?"
"Ah, well. Naught and I have a small job to do. Clear out a Scav Den. The rest of our team have accepted another gig and do not require our skills at the moment. We could use you if you're free."
David looked back at his team. Rebecca gave a big blue and red thumbs up. Lucy and Falco were motioning in a clear way to say "NO", but David just turned back to Kale and agreed.
"Sure. Sounds like a milk-run. Where?", David stated. Lucy and Falco just facepalmed. Kale was a loose cannon and his napalm cannons didn't discriminate between friend or foe.
"In the slums. I'll send you the details. We can leave immediately if you have nothing else to do."
"Sounds good. Eddies are eddies, right Falco?"
"Right...", Falco sighed. There wasn't enough burn cream in the world to heal the wounds they were going to sustain just from friendly fire in the next few moments. As long as they stayed towards Kale's backside they'd probably be fine. Probably. Maybe.
Back in the Jericho Cave, Jericho had finally finished loosening up Hildegarde's joints. The outlaw woman left the AV and headed off to find something else to do, leaving Jericho to cool down for a moment. She also felt the need to go and find some Anti-Rad even though she didn't really need it, but the tingly feeling felt good. Jericho just popped out of the side door.
"Kiwi, it's your turn!", the cyborg called. Kiwi just stared at him in confusion. Was this how this team operated?
"My turn? With what?", Kiwi asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
"It's time to give you the Chipset you deserve. You did well back during the heist. I trust that you are not going to betray our team any time soon."
"Oh... Okay."
Kiwi just climbed into the AV and sat down in one of the chairs there. Jericho simply began to do the required work to install one of his Chipsets into her system. There was nothing more and nothing less. It was best to have his team fully operational and even if Kiwi did try to do anything suspicious, he would know and Janus would intervene. Kiwi just thought for a moment. Maybe they weren't having sex after all... She wondered what kind of upgrade Hildegarde got.
The sky was orange. The ground was orange. Everything was orange and in flames. David just crouched behind cover along with the rest of his team and wondered why Kale even decided to bring them along. Napalm streamed from the merc's dual arm-cannons. Even Naught was behind cover as long ropes of flame shot everywhere.
"Burn. Burn them all! Burn them all!", Kale cackled. He just laughed like a maniac as Scavs burned to death.
"Uhh... It usually doesn't go like this. Kale has these moments where he just... Shuts down.", Naught noted, her voice was raspy. "It's a 50/50 chance. He's either the Burninator or a gibbering pile of agony."
"How the hell does that thing even work? Where's the fire coming from!?", David asked.
"I don't really know. Kale is a Techie, he's just good with books and knowledge and things. One day he'll be strong enough to turn me back into a regular person.", Naught sighed. She was forcibly bio-modded as it seemed and disliked her current appearance.
"Smells like Christmas Dinner!", Kale shouted in insanity as he ran into the flaming building. Burning Scavs streamed out of the doorway. Kale's maniacal laughter just got louder and louder as bodies burned.
"Don't worry about him. He's fireproof.", Naught reassured, peaking from cover to shoot down the burning Scavs.
"We're not!", Lucy shouted. She was trying to quick-hack the Scavs but there really wasn't much point.
"I'm Naught!", said Naught. "But I understand. He'll still pay you. Don't worry."
"Let's just give these poor gonks a quicker death.", David added, firing a few killing shots into the flailing gangoons.
"Big guns!", Rebecca shouted with glee as she pulled out her shotguns and began to fire on their hapless burning enemies. "Boom! Pow! Splat!"
Between the fire, flames and screams attention had been drawn to their position and various corpo guards and NCPD began to arrive on the scene. The Scav Den was just a burning hulk at this point and David's team was now being approached from behind. They were surrounded. Kale just began his slow walk out of the burning building, his eyes alight with madness and a sinister glow not unlike the flames he spewed.
"Feuer frei!", Kale shouted. He slammed his right hand into the palm of his left, drawing it across like a knife blade. A wall of pure flame erupted and cut off the approaching opponents. David and his group was now surrounded by fire, which wasn't any better.
"Quick! This way!", Naught shouted. She just jumped into the air and spun, blades out like a fan and launched through the wall of flames and carving out a path for the rest of the hapless group. David didn't hesitate, he grabbed Lucy, Rebecca and Falco and tucked them under his arms as he ran through the hole. Fire licked at his elbows as he did so, but his friends didn't take any damage.
Kale just looked at what he had done. He smelled the carnage and the burning Scavs. It smelled like barbecue. He thought about his actions and his past. And he smiled widely before charging up a ball of napalm. He sent the flaming sphere towards the panicked NCPD officers who were busy calling in a Cyber-Psycho attack. No alerts made it out of the resulting explosion that proceeded to level the Scav Den and shake the surrounding neighborhood.
David, his team and Naught just ran. They ran out of the slums back to where Falco had parked their car. The flames were visible for miles. It would be a nice distraction from the Konpeki incident, but without Asher's Veil, there was no doubt that they'd be implicated in this. Kale himself eventually rejoined the group looking a bit worse for wear. His bouts of madness had subsided and he looked a bit sad.
"I am sorry. I lost control...", Kale sighed.
"I know... One day you'll be in control... And when that day comes, we wont have to live like this.", Naught reassured. Kale just sighed before turning to David.
"Here. Your payment. Thank you for coming with me."
Kale just wired David about 20k eddies. It was payment, not a lot, but it was more than enough for being support. Falco just nodded and turned to David. "Might as well get back to Jericho. Get paid and tie up some more loose ends."
"I hear you. The sooner we're out of here, the better."
Falco just jumped into the driver's seat and began to drive the rest of the group back towards the Badlands. Kale and Naught headed off in a different direction. The two odd mercenaries were heroes of another story.
Now nearing almost 2 in the morning, David and his crew found themselves outside the Cave that Jericho had turned into their base. Kiwi was standing just inside the cave entrance and smoking as usual. She just stared at them as they approached.
"Looks like you had fun.", Kiwi noted apathetically.
"Yeah, if you call nearly getting killed by a dickhead Fixer and almost getting burned to death 'fun'.", David sighed as he just walked past Kiwi and headed into the cave.
Jericho had set up a small set of tables and chairs around a firepit close to the AV. Hildegarde just sat with her feet on the table and looked rather content with herself or whatever had transpired in the absence. Asher sat side-saddle in one of the chairs and was busy with her Cyberdeck. Jericho was sitting bolt-upright in the final chair. He just looked towards David and the rest of the crew as they entered.
"Hello David. The Biochip is yours. If you are going to meet with Eveyln Parker, I suggest you take the netrunners. All of them. Your other friends can rest and relax here in the cave. Scotch will be your driver."
"Preem. I'll just be getting some rest. I've had a long night."
"As you wish."
David just walked past Jericho and his team and entered the AV. He pulled down one of the cots from the wall and flopped into it. He needed sleep. It had been a very long day and tomorrow would be even longer. He was just about to shut his eyes when Lucy walked into the AV and shut the door behind her.
"David? Are you okay?", she asked.
"I'm fine. Just tired."
"No, really. Ever since you got that Chipset, you've been different. Cold. Like you have no emotions. It's like you're on beta-blockers."
"I- Maybe. I'm good, though. I won't slow you down by having random psychotic episodes. It's feels good, too. I can actually just be me. Not have to worry about using immuno-blockers, not have to worry about my chrome... No worries at all."
"David... Look, if anything happens... If you feel bad at all... I'm here for you."
"I know. You always have been."
"David... About our 'team'. I still don't know anything about Jericho, but... Hildegarde has a bounty on her head. Huge. Almost a million eddies."
"Yeah? And? You're not thinking about trying to claim that are you? We've got a good thing going on here, let's not waste it."
"No! I'm not... It's just that, it might cause problems for us. I just wanted to let you know."
"I know... G'night, Lucy. See you in the morning."
Lucy just sighed. David was changing, slowly but surely. He wasn't going psycho, but it still felt like she was losing him somehow. It had to be this Chipset that Jericho was giving to everyone. She didn't feel the same way or even feel the effects from it espite also having one. She just shook her head and pulled down another cot next to David's. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
Chapter End.
A/N: It's getting a bit long. Better to split this one into two. Once again, I promise that this will be shorter than the Nuclear Nomad. V and Jackie lived, hurray. Too bad they're just another set of mercenaries in a city full of hopeful street samurais. Where's Johnny? You'll just have to wait and see.