The New Man: Adam Smasher Si

by Crossposted

Crosspost of Seat Admiral’s fanfiction on SpaceBattles, all credits go to the original author.

11. Upload 11

Davey had gotten past the first round, in his usual brash manner. Dramatic gestures, fast paced strategizing, efficient speedware usage, capped off by revealing the opponent's strategy and then immediately countering it to end the match. It was practically a flatvid ending, it was clear Davey was a natural spectacle fighter despite clearly not being aware of it.

Then he emphasizes the drama inadvertently by heading over to the medics to check on his opponent after the fact, stirring up both drama and public approval.

She gave a long-suffering sigh.

Davey was dumb, but adorable. That was his biggest flaw. Talented, but outside of combat he thought zero steps ahead. He had very little idea about what his actions would mean to the rest of the world, and didn't seem to care to consider it either.

She didn't care either, but she could at least see how people were going to react when he beats up a girl and then asks for her number while she's on a stretcher. People were already going wild with speculation about the 'Secret Smasher Seduction Strategy' that he had been taught.

Beat a girl up and then flirt was apparently a hidden art that Big Guy had preserved for generations and refined into the ultimate pick-up technique. The lost caveman art.

She didn't even smoke and she still felt the urge to grab a cigarette from Lucy.

At least he got through the first round fine, the next rounds looked tough from what she had seen. Davey had joined them after the first round to watch the others unfold, and try to come up with strategies for them later. By them, she meant herself and Kats.

Betty, the half-japanese looking girl, had won the second round through seemingly nothing but pure skill. Her opponent, Naito, was a Tyger with Wolvers, and she had spent the entire fight dodging, redirecting his attacks, and occasionally punching into a soft or unguarded spot.

It was an endurance fight, where every mistake was punished against a target with tremendously strong defense. Kats said 'that's not Aikido.' with a puzzled expression at one point, and then he clammed up to start thinking.

She didn't seem to have any speedware, but she also didn't need it against Naito, who only had a low-grade kerry. David would have to play carefully again to make sure that she didn't, before capitalizing on his probable greater speed advantage.

Tigre, the one guy who loudly proclaimed advertisements for his various cyberware implants as he fought, had won the third fight in boisterous aplomb. He focused on leaping to an opponent, using his speedware to get a split second of advantage, before grappling the opponent. Gori, the unfortunate opponent with bladed legs, had suffered a constant barrage of throws, slams, and disorienting tosses before finally being hurled bodily straight up and landing on Tigre's devastating uppercut.

From how far he threw Gori up, he was probably around twice as strong as Davey was. If Davey got grabbed, it was probably over for him. Davey had also noted his impressive ability to soak damage, subdermal armor, skinweave, and constantly rolling with every blow in overdramatic fashion.

He looked unharmed by the end of it, despite taking multiple head-on blows from Gori's Gorilla Arms.

The girl named Ranko had won the fourth fight. Fight was a bit of a stretch though, as Paul didn't really stand a chance. The redhead had a paired set of monoblade wolvers, an internal autoinjector filled with combat stims, and high-grade kerenzikov.

She had torn him apart in less than fifteen seconds, ignoring the electrocution from Paul's taser-fists completely. Paul was the next permanent death in the tournament immediately after.

Kats and Davey had both immediately scoffed at her performance. She was fast, her weapons could ignore a lot of armor, and she could ignore pain. Davey could do all that but better. They didn't think she would make it past Tigre and his grapple-focused fighting style.

Former arena champion, 'The Rat', had won the next fight against Sandro. Sando was a defensive fighter, with a riot shield and brass knuckles. The Rat had a second set of jaws installed on his head big enough to act as his helmet, his face hidden away in the 'mouth' of the beartrap of the second jaws.

The Rat had managed to grab onto Sandro, and from there practically ate him alive until he forfeited. Sandro had to get cloned limbs, and The Rat's face was covered in gore afterwards. Judging from his raised arms and skybound roar, he loved it. Judging from the cheers of the crowd, they loved it too.

Jun had won the next match against Jin. It was a rather amusing coincidence that they fought each other. Jun used a monokatana, cyberarms, and speedware against Jin using a monoglaive, cyberarms, and speedware.

It was a rather standard match, all things considered. Both fighters being careful to sync up their speedware, neither fighter risking a hit when they didn't have to, neither fighter having any real gimmick to speak of. It was a match of pure skill in weapon against weapon. The fight ended when Jun managed to cut off the blade of the glaive after an overextension, and Jin forfeited.

Not as bloody, but still very interesting to spectate. Davey had better speedware overall, so all he had to do was fight as normal against him in order to win.

…That's where the fights ended. Obito, Mashiro, and Hetalia all died of various causes the night before. Oto had been injured by what he claimed was an attacker, and there was a lot of speculation about which of the fighters decided to off them and why only them. There were some accusations aimed towards Oto, but his missing arm and fractured leg cleared much of the suspicion aimed at him.

It was nothing that speedheal and a cloned limb couldn't get him up to speed in time for his next match, so it wasn't too suspicious that he showed up to fight with such injuries anyways.

Still, that meant that Oto had just gotten a ticket to the semi-finals without having to have a single fight, something that rubbed many viewers the wrong way.

Including her.

She'd keep an eye on that one, she didn't trust him. He had those psycho eyes. Yellow and slitted. She had seen a couple gonks like that on the streets before, and in the arena, and they were always trouble.

She didn't think she would get this kinda hobby, watching bloodsports in an arena, but it had pulled her right in. Not so much the technical fighting stuff, that kinda thing she'd leave to Kats and Davey, but the stories intrigued her.

Rat was the second champion the arena had, dethroneing the first by chomping down on his reinforced skull and into the brain. He went from a skinny nobody to a chromed-out, chilled-out modern-day gladiator. He refused any sponsorships and marketing deals because he believed in fighting for the sake of fighting, not for making a profit off of it.

His signature fighting style of latching on and chomping down was refined after his brutal fight against Brokeback the Nomad, and by his constant need to purchase new teeth eventually culminating in a custom extra-large combat jaw that was specially reinforced for this specific purpose.

He would go onto defend his title against six fighters in a row, before eventually losing it against Rock & Shock, who used taser-skin to defend himself, before getting the title BACK in a later fight after he trained himself to ignore the pain of tasers and install hardened shielding!

A moment of glory before falling to an up-and-coming strommer, who would go on to reign as the current champion. Jerome the Chromed, who decided to not participate in this tournament for whatever reason. Despite the power in his jaws, he was simply unable to penetrate the densely layered armor of Jerome, who was mostly metal already at this point.

Every fighter in the arena had a story like that! It was like a constant flatvid but it was happening in real life! How could she not get excited about it?!

Quietly grumbling to herself about her new hobby, she took a sip from the drink she stole from Kats. No she didn't ask, because that corprat deserved to be bullied a bit, keeps him humble. It was root beer flavored, which she was slowly coming around on.

"I figured it out." Kats suddenly from the other couch. She grunted and turned her head over from where she was laying down. Kats had been searching the NET and his old hard drives for a while now, maybe a few hours, to try and figure out what Betty was doing.

"It's not Aikido, it's an older style." Kets stood up and gestured for her to follow, off to find Davey and tell him probably. She scrambled up, careful to not spill her pilfered drink as she did so. "It's called Akki."

—

"Well, the south side of Night City."

"Is the baddest part of town."

"And if you go down there."

"You better just beware."

"Of a man named Leroy Brown."

The clean up operations for Night City were going about as smooth as nuclear clean up in sewers and underwater could be. Namely, the EEG had hired several specialist work crews to help with the efforts. He was one such worker, toiling away down in the sewer sections to get the cleanup handled here. He was glad for his ability to turn off his nose, and the company-provided radio playing one of those modern Adam Smasher covers of an old classic.

Brock grunted as he lifted the massive concrete block out of the way of the partially-collapsed sewer system, apparently the city had been skimping out on repairs for this section of the system for years now, and now it was biting the blue-collar borgs out here to help. Finally hefting it out of the way enough for his fellows to go in and grab the other side, they drug the massive chunk out in the open for Brodie to hammer away at it with his jack-hammer right arm.

Brodie, never one to disappoint, got to work right away, and started cutting the block into easier to haul chunks in short order. Brock grunted and pulled out his walkie talkie.

"Hey Amad, This is Brock with Samson crew eight. We've gotten the rubble almost cleared out of tunnel four. The Sheols should be clear to go in in about fifteen minutes."

He held the walkie up and waited for a reply from the otherside. The grumbling voice of Amad called out soon enough.

"I hear you Brock, how blue is it down there?"

Brock squinted his optics down the corridor, stepped forwards to peer inside better. His radiation detecting optics outlining a faint glow down the entire tunnel. "Maybe a 3 or 4 down there. A bit too blue for us, but you lads should be fine."

"...Right, We'll be down there soon enough, tunnel eight you said?"

"No, tunnel four." He corrected.

"Tunnel four." Amad confirmed

Brock clipped the walkie back to his rad-resistant belt and stepped back from the tunnel. He turned to see the boys already working on getting the rubble out of there. Good, they didn't need him to micromanage them anymore.

He liked his job well enough. Challenging work, free healthcare, paid traveling, the ability to slap cocky little shits at the bar down for his buddy frank. Lots of benefits being a Noveltech Samson, he didn't have any particular regrets for getting converted back in 60'.

He narrowed his optics for a moment. Where was Jamie?

"Boys! Any of you seen the newbie?" He called out over the noise, bellowing to get their attention over the sounds of industrial power-tool limbs being operated by men made of metal. They looked among each other for a moment before a few shrugs were given. Jason spoke up.

"Think he went off to grab the extra battery pack."

He huffed in irritation. "That damn kid knows full well we don't need it, we're already almost done."

Tony spoke up with a laugh. "Probably wanted to waste a few minutes without having to work."

He shook his head and stomped off. "I damn well know that! I'll be back boys, I need to shout at that kid again."

"Don't take too long boss! Otherwise you'll miss all the fun stuff!" The boys got back to smashing up the rubble and loading it into the MULE, as he stomped off.

Through the dark tunnels leading up to the central operations site, connected to several other branches through the sewer systems. He turned on his head-mounted spotlight and stomped up, following the map loaded onto his Internal Agent to go give that kid a talking about his laziness.

Two engineering degrees and the brat was still this lazy. It was downright shameful.

He paused for a moment. He turned around and scanned his immediate vicinity, spotlight shining through the damp tunnels.

For a second there, he thought he heard something. Tunnels had a way of making a man paranoid.

Well, most men. Brock was a Samson. His skin was strong enough to bounce bullets off of.

He kept walking through the tunnels.

He never saw the hyperhammer crash right into his biosystem, breaching armor with rocket-propulsion. Nor the seven red optics glare down at him. Nor the body of Jamie with a similar hole punched into the back of his metal head.

Jerome the Chromed raised his head, and focused his array of optics in the direction of construction work in the sewers and a faint radio.

He had more blessed bodies to plunder. Boss wanted them ready by the time they summoned another Archdemon. The first one went so well after all.

Boss was aiming for one they had info on, an AI named 'Lilith' next.

And he had a job to do, and borgs to take.

"Well the two men took to fighting."

"And when they pulled them from the floor."

"Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle."

"With a couple of pieces gone."

—

It was a six hour drive to Night City.

He had his demanded gear, and drove off with the sincere hope to never see Blandie ever again. That prick rubbed him the wrong way.

He had a new musclecar, a new gun, and a few other things. Things like clothes and a suitcase full of chips, memories and skills that he might need along the way.

Johnny would've rushed right in, guns blazing, to Arasaka Tower to bring it down.

He wasn't Johnny. He was Silverhand. Doing that wouldn't help him bring them down. Nuking them didn't bring them down last time, and he didn't even have a nuke this time.

He had to think about this, the one thing he drowned himself in sex and drugs specifically to avoid.

This body couldn't get drunk. He knows this because he tried it already. He took satisfaction that he at least left Blandie a few hundred eddies worth of Smash poorer.

There wasn't anymore running away from his memories, he couldn't drown them out. He hated that.

He snarled and tightened his grip on the wheel as he drove through the desert night.

…Take stock of his gear, that would distract him for a bit.

His new gun wasn't his old Malorian, but it was good enough for Blandie's stock. A rail gun in pistol form, capable of breaking through the hull of an armored truck. He tested it. The kick was higher than he was used to, but this body was stronger too. He could deal with it.

He took a monoblade with him too, just because he knew those were expensive. That, and swords were cool, any guy knows this. He made sure to grab a skill chip for it.

His clothes were reinforced against wear and tear, because he probably wasn't getting another set for a while.

…what else…?

…His mind began to drift off. Thoughts of…

Just before it could he clenched a fist and let the force in his grip drag him back to reality. He glared at nothing for a moment as he drove, the steady sound of wheels on old pavement clearing his mind.

…

He pulled off to the side of the road.

He kept glaring, and pulled out the MGR music chip, socketing it into the car's viseoradio.

He kept glaring as he listened to it all the way through again.

He forced himself to think.

There was nowhere for him to run from his memories.

Not in this life.

A man in a well-pressed, fitted, and armored three-piece suit walked up to a private mansion, escorted by his two bodyguards. 4S and 3K were as beautiful as the rest of their line was, beautiful and dangerous. Long black hair, piercing black eyes, fair skin, a form-fitting armored bodysuit. They were practically sex on legs, which was yet another advantage to use against their targets.

It was hard to fight someone you desperately wanted to sleep with after all. It was why their line was deliberately engineered to be all female. The drop in physical parameters was made up for with the appropriate bioware, and the psychological training helped offset any emotional deficits that they might have on certain days.

That, and they made for excellent propaganda, something that their neighbors in Arasaka demonstrated the effectiveness of, and they were quick to start capitalizing on. Profits expanded with every 'cute' thing they were recorded as doing, and so they were tacitly ordered to start recording each other for the marketing team to look over later.

If any of them happened to die while on a mission their internal bioeditors went off, scrambling their DNA before any real information could be gleaned from their corpses. That DNA was something they had paid a very pretty penny in order to license the use of, it wouldn't let any rivals potentially steal samples for themselves.

4S was a recent unit, and it showed in her slight hesitation in movements and brief considerations. She would get better in time, the standard was about two years of active service. She was only recently created after the last one died inside the COYOTE EDEN some months ago.

It was good that Arasaka managed to preserve and improve upon the railgun design for more everyday use. That gamble had paid off well and one of their agents had been able to retrieve the updated schematics some time ago.

He stopped before the gateway into the reclusive mansion, it wouldn't do to be anything but polite and reasonable when speaking to the asset, otherwise he might get irritated at the company and that might have disastrous consequences. The asset was to be given everything he requested within reason, and left to sit in the middle of nowhere, not inferring with the actions of the company.

Millions of eurodollars was nothing compared to the potential damage of the asset and the asset's assets, it was well worth it to keep the asset as a strictly neutral party in the affairs of the company. Of course, that's not why he was here today. He was here today on behalf of his CEO to negotiate for the asset's assistance. It was not expected for him to succeed, but he was expected to try his best.

Eventually, a speaker came online and a voice called out from it. "ID." It was a simple demand, one with a simple answer.

"B6EN8HQ60Y. I'm here to speak with Mr. Hammer on behalf of my superiors. There was a meeting scheduled for this time." His voice was smooth, collected, and calm. Every trait required by a company representative like himself. The code was randomly generated ahead of time, and was different for each meeting.

From the corner of his optics, he spotted the incredibly well-hidden sentry turrets turn away from his position. He had only known of those and their locations after three meetings such as this one.

The gate slowly opened, and he ignored the tiny bead of sweat on his brow. It was always present here, and he was well-used to disregarding it. He stepped through and onwards to the entrance of the mansion of the Hammer Estate. He kept his pace steady, not too slow and not too fast, anything else might offend the host unduly, and the last time that happened they had lost three agents.

That was several hundred thousand eurodollars wasted in an instance, an unacceptable and avoidable cost. He was quite a bit better than his former colleague.

Eventually he reached the fine and heavily reinforced doors of the central building. Politely, he grabbed the knocker and knocked thrice, before pulling back and waiting for a moment. He crossed his arms behind his back and stood perfectly straight.

A moment passed, the scanners at the door confirmed that the only weapons that were present were being held by his escorts, and the door opened to reveal an older man with a fine gray mustache. He was wearing a tidy but relatively inexpensive suit.

"Representative." The polite and slightly posh voice of the older man greeted him, stepping back from the door to let him and his group enter. Properly wiping his perfectly clean shoes off on the welcome mat, he stepped inside and nodded in return.

"Mr. Stevens."

"Master Hammer awaits you on the western balcony. I will escort you there."

Nodding to show he understood, he followed after Stevens at a pace that wouldn't fall behind nor get any closer. It was best understood to remain at least one point five meters away from any of the asset's assets, that would give him adequate time to escape if any of them decided to utilize one of their more unusual abilities.

Any one of them could potentially revolutionize their understanding of science and technology, and give the company an incredible advantage over their competitors. They were all left alone, untouched, unharmed because that was what the asset wanted. The neutrality of the asset was well worth it, and keeping such an advantage out of the hands of any competitors was an immense prize in its own right.

Testing had been requested and rejected before, that was now a dead-end and was treated as such. The company would simply wait for the asset to expire naturally before moving to capitalize. They were patient, and the subjects were not going anywhere.

Finally arriving at another door, Stevens opened it and stepped aside. He had likely alerted the asset well before they actually arrived at the door. Nodding at the man one final time, he stepped inside and walked over to the man currently watching a video on a flatscreen tablet in his hands. His optics zoomed in, and he saw that it was some manner of… arena battle?

Ah, the asset must be watching the footage of that newest Arasaka venture in Night City. Interesting to note, he would have to ask the analysis teams for their input on such for cross-comparison with the asset's potential tastes.

The asset grunted and glanced up, looking back to the screen and snorting in slight irritation, which was very bad for him, but there was little he could do about it. The asset paused the vid and set the tablet aside, looking at him directly.

"Alright bub, so what do the corpses wanna try to take from me this time?" The stare of the asset was always unnervingly piercing, so he quickly explained. It was best to be quick and efficient with what the company wanted to the asset, it left him in a better mood more often than not.

"Mr. Hammer." He greeted. "In accordance with the Unification policies of President Myers, the company wishes to sponsor the creation of a new team of specialists, their actions publicized with slight dramatization in order to-"

"Corporate superheroes." the asset cut off with a laugh. "Sponsored superheroes! What, they steal the idea from Arasaka, Mexican Metals, or Biotechnica? Which one was it this time?"

Before he could answer, the asset waved a hand. "Nevermind, I know the answer. Those boys won't bother copying anyone but old Saburo. This came from that new campaign over in Japan, didn't it? MM's been doing this for a decade now and none of them cared then."

"That would be my suspicion as well, Mr. Hammer." He had no such suspicions, he wasn't instructed to think of such, but it was best to agree with the asset.

"And what, they want me to train up the team?" The asset laughed out the question, pouring a scotch and taking a sip. "No way, I'm retired now and I have no interest in dealing with a buncha knuckleheads anymore."

"Actually Mr. Hammer, they want you to be the face of the team."

The asset paused, and all of his cheer disappeared. He slowly sat his drink down and stared at him. He resisted the urge to fidget. The asset narrowed his eyes in consideration.

"...This is bigger than just the old US. They wouldn't want to bother me over anything of that scale."

The asset leaned back in his seat. "...They have enough leverage over the EEC to push for more without interference. They're going to be aiming for the rest of the continent this time."

The asset glared outright at this point. "This is going to be the first Central American War but worse. They're going to lose a whole lot of public favor with that, so they need everything they can drum up to counteract it. That's it, aint it?"

"It's not my place to question the motivations of my superiors."

"Leave."

He gulped. He was not expected to succeed, but he was expected to try his best.

"Mr. Hammer, I beg you to reconsid-" He was cut off by the feeling of a massive gunbarrel pressed against his forehead.

The asset was standing in front of him, a massive assault rifle held in one black chrome hand and rock-steady in front of his face. He was more than two meters away from the asset. His speedware was high quality for a civil-oriented employee.

He didn't even see the asset move, nor see where he got the gun from.

His bodyguards were quick to react, drawing their own weapons and pointing it at the asset in defense.

"You'll have to excuse me, meat." The asset slowly drawled out. "See I'm not as young as I used to be. If I get too excited my hands start to twitch." Despite his words, the asset was completely still aside from his mouth. "I'm going to ask you to leave, I don't want to make a mess in my nice house."

He was quick to agree and back away, stepping through the door and moving as quickly as was polite away from the property.

Morgan Blackhand watched them leave, waiting until Stevie confirmed they were completely off the property. Afterwhich Steive entered with a genuine paper letter, good for keeping records off the NET.

He took it with a frown, still irritated from the implications of the meeting.

A cross was displayed on the front.

"What does that brat want now, huh?" He spoke aloud, to which Stevie had no answer. "Stevie, make sure to get the kids to review the 'clean break' plans just in case, got it?"

"Of course Master Hammer."

"Stop calling me that."

"I cannot."

—

On a private jet heading from NC to Washington, Lucas Harford watched the most recent fights occurring in the Arasaka Pacifica Arena unfold. This fight in particular was of interest to him. It was a battle between the intriguing apprentice of Adam Smasher and the newest Blackwatch agent. Betty was the most recently replaced, the old 3B having died in a skirmish just three months ago.

Betty was good enough for light duty, and she was old enough to join the actual ranks of Blackwatch, so this was her trial run. She was told to do well enough in the tournament or she would be rejected for another year of training, she didn't know that she was going to be accepted into active service regardless.

It was good motivation for them, a time-proved tactic to make them try their hardest.

The match opened up simple enough.

Martinez slowly approached, having drawn his monosword and patiently waiting for an opening. Betty, having been trained in the same way that all members of the Blackwatch were, was equally patient in waiting for an opening. Her current objective had no time limit and no extraneous goals or outside threats, she could take all the time she wanted to here.

After a few long moments of circling one another, they burst into activity. Their respective sandevistans activated, and they clashed. The cameras displayed a slowed down version of what was happening in the corner of the screen as they went back to circling.

Martinez had ended up swinging twice with the monoblade, both times being redirected, before lashing out with a kick. A kick that Betty attempted to grab and transition into a throw, but was halted by Martinez immediately kicking off the ground and performing a tackle.

Betty rolled back, released her hold of his foot, before kicking his torso as she hit the ground, sending him flying over past her. He recovered as well, cartwheeling into a standing defense against another potential attack. Betty rose, and they began to circle one another again.

The boy was impressive. Betty was a fresh Blackwatch recruit and he was keeping up just fine.

As he was watching the second screen, their speedware cycled again, and they clashed a second time. Martinez dashed forwards, making a low kick against Betty, which she jumped over and lashed out in a kick of her own.

Martinez angled his head to glance the blow of the side of his face, causing severe bruising but not impacting his momentum. He rose in a backhand against her own head, which Betty blocked with her hands as best she could. The force of it still sending her flying back into her own roll of recovery. Their speedware expired again around this point, but the fight continued on.

Martinez didn't let her recover, as he approached again while she was getting up. Lashing out with a straight left, he was forced back as Betty performed a near-perfect elbow block, fracturing his chrome fingers in the process. Stabbing with the sword in his right hand, Betty was able to twist enough for it to slice her side shallowly but not penetrate deep enough to slow her down.

Catching his hand in between her arm and torso, she attempted to strike against his neck. Instead, he crashed his head down to meet her fist directly, protecting his neck and seemingly breaking her knuckles.

Staggering slightly, it was all over for her at that point, as Martinez grabbed her by the hip with his free hand and forced them both to the ground. With his superior weight and grip, he forced Betty into a submission hold, and the fight was over once she tapped out to signal surrender.

Getting up and offering her a hand with a grin, Martinez raised a fist to the crowd as he was declared the winner. Betty looked downright miserable for her failure. Well, as miserable as any member of the Blackwatch could with their psychological training.

Setting the tablet aside, he checked how soon he was due to finally return to the capital, and was delighted to notice that it was very soon. He stretched in his seat, groaning and sighing in satisfaction with every crack.

His arm made a pinging noise, to which he raised a brow and let the screen project from it.

Putting an internal agent in his remaining flesh was simply silly, he already had a perfectly good cybernetic arm to put things like it. A pop-up screen for his internal agent, hardened shielding to protect from discharges, a microcomputer, and some extra memory space for his chief advisor.

He frowned as he read the transmission. Morgan had rejected the request. It was expected, but it was still disappointing. That meant that he would have to look elsewhere for his symbol.

He let out a laugh at the section that contained what Morgan had thought he was trying to accomplish. It was downright quaint, and slightly insulting. Lucas Harford would not do something so small as take over one measly continent.

Feeling the jet shift slightly, he glanced out the window to see that they were beginning to land. He stood up and walked out of the private room to the central chamber of the plane where his bodyguard detail waited patiently. Five 'Blind Dragoons' and five Blackwatch agents, the best that Militech had to offer in terms of current-gen special operations forces. They had another in the works, but the 'Hatchling' project wouldn't be complete for some years.

Those internment camps were incredibly useful for fresh recruits, he made sure to pat himself on the back again for that one. A fantastic idea, it kept paying dividends.

The plane landed, and he stepped off to see a car waiting for him. A car that would take him straight to the White House. He grinned handsomely to the cameras and the help, and stepped in for his ride. A single Blind Dragoon and Blackwatch agent followed, the rest being sent back to the local base.

The drive was uneventful, but he struggled to think of who exactly was the best candidate for his unfilled position. His talent was in talking to people, not exactly in planning all the fiddly details of a project. That he left to his little genie in an arm.

Stepping out of the car and onto the road in front of the White House, he walked confidently, raising an arm and waving with a charming smile. Waving to the security agents outside the center of NUSA governance, they stepped aside and let him through with nods.

He was the CEO and majority shareholder of Militech. They wouldn't dare stop him.

Finally walking into the presidential office, his security took positions outside the door as he was let in. He looked at the woman sitting at the main desk and gave a small crooked smile.

Rosalind Myers, President of the New United States of America. She glared at him to keep up appearances, before waving to the air.

"Clear the room." She ordered, and the various security and secretarial staff left quickly, closing the door behind them. The old windows of the office were destroyed in a terrorist attack back in the 2040s, and it was replaced by fully reinforced stone to act as a bunker of last defense. The entire White House was remodeled back then, turning from just a symbol of governance to a modern day fortress.

They were alone. His smirk expanded a bit and he stepped forwards confidently. She lost her glare and her eyes widened a tad. Cupping her chin and forcing her to look up, he gave an outright grin. He trained her well.

"So eager? I've only just gotten back." He teased her. She flushed and glanced away.

"Please?" She asked, fidgeting a bit. He obliged her by picking her up and planting her on the table. She gave an excited but startled yelp. Locking lips with her greedily, he started doing his second favorite thing.

Note to self, as soon as he ruled the world, he was going to put a baby in this woman.

While getting on with her, he opened his neural link to his arm, and relayed his current lack of a symbol.

Now then Kei, what would you do?

Arasaka used him for many jobs. Well no, that wasn't quite true.

Arasaka used him for exactly two types of jobs. The first was a relatively simple form of deployment that he only rarely got to engage in.

Whenever Arasaka needed to send a very clear message that something had offended them, they sent him out to murder everything in a given region. Whenever someone or something thought they got away with a flagrant disrespect that Arasaka couldn't resolve with other, more diplomatic means, he was deployed to a given location to make sure everyone remembered that he existed.

That you wanted Arasaka to use diplomatic means of dealing with you, and the way to do that was by cooperating. That you wanted to be careful about making Arasaka notice you impacting their bottom line. That you remembered that Arasaka had monsters like him on their call.

In total, Arasaka was directly responsible for around 30,000 deaths each year. He alone was responsible for 300 of those on a bad year, and 3,000 of those on a good year. Assuming he had killed his exact average each year for every year that he had worked for Arasaka thus far, then his personal kill count was somewhere around 115,500. He wasn't sure about the exact number.

There was a neat bit of cyberware you could get back in 2020 called the kill counter. He didn't know if they still made them today. It was a little implant that you could hook up to your neuralware and it would automatically track how many kills you made. Useful for bragging. There was a program back then that could scan your memories and check how many you made before too, and combined they could tell you how many you were personally responsible for.

He bought one in 2022, and received an immediate refund from an apologizing meatbag after getting it taken out again. Those kill counters only went up to 9999. He was already maxed out back then. He did get a free T-shirt and sponsorship deal for the thing out of that encounter, so that was nice. Where was he?

Ah, right, kill counts. He didn't know what his actual kill count was now, but considering he just threw a couple nukes and flooded a good chunk of India, it must be in the millions now.

Well, it would be if he was counting indirect kills. He and Uriel thought it over for a bit and decided that they couldn't, because if they did that would mean that Mao Zedong was probably ahead of him, and that would be annoying. Also if he was counting indirect kills then all those deaths over in India would actually belong to the Old Man because he was there on his orders and…

It was too irritating to try to work out the fiddly details. They had decided to chalk it up to around 115,500 kills and 1 man-made disaster so far. Regardless, those jobs were his first type of job, going out and making sure meatbags remembered why playing nice with Arasaka was within their best interests.

His second type of job was infinitely more boring. Bodyguard duty. Of course, when the bossman tells you to do something, you do it. That was the nature of having a job.

So here he was, standing menacingly behind the Old Man as he patiently sorted through a small summary document that the incredibly nervous underling on the other side of the table had given him.

Finally, after many long moments, the Old Man looked up from the tablet to stare at the salaryman who wasn't making eye contact. It wasn't any wonder why, the Old Man was an intimidating guy to most.

"You are dismissed." He said simply, to which the Salaryman quickly went through the motions of respect before all but fleeing from the room. Saburo then twitched his right eyebrow once, which apparently signaled V3 to approach and pour a perfect cup of tea for him. Drinking it slowly, Saburo sat down the tablet and simply enjoyed the tea for a few moments.

"Yojimbo, tell me your thoughts on Goro and Oda's performance during your mission." It had taken a few days for him to ask that, so the old man was probably busy with something. This might be his first block of free time in a week. As he was not told to drop formalities, he didn't let himself get casual.

"Both of them were professional quality. They were quick, efficient, able to adjust as the situation progressed and capable of sufficient initiative to capitalize on openings. Goro has no notable flaws outside of still being mostly meat, but Oda still uses a sub-optimal loadout and potentially hindering hairstyle."

Saburo hummed into his tea for a moment, thinking it over. V3 stole glances at him.

"Elaborate on suboptimal."

"A pair of thermal mantis blades is useful against meat, and almost pointless against metal. He has little way to harm actual threats."

"Recommendations?" He took a sip.

"At minimum change out the thermal blades for vibroblades. I'd recommend changing his fighting style entirely. He needs a way to deal with armored units, his fists alone should be good enough for standards. I'd also recommend both of them trading their kerenzikovs for sandevistans and receiving a full-body conversion."

"And the hair?"

"It gets in front of one of his eyes."

A pause. Saburo sipped his tea.

"You may drop formalities."

"It also looks fucking stupid."

Saburo let out a small chuckle, closing his eyes in amusement. He held out his cup for a refill and calmly sighed.

"Yorinobu, how has your work under him been like so far?"

He grunted and thought about it for a moment, before replying. "He's been watching me, and asking what I would do in any given situation. Pretty sure he's still trying to get a read on me."

Saburo didn't sigh, but it seemed like a close thing. "It has been weeks. You are not a very complicated man, Yojimbo. He should have already…"He closed his eyes and took a drink. "...He has told you that he's testing you?"

"Everytime so far." He wasn't offended over the old man saying he wasn't very complicated, because he completely agreed. He liked to kill things, that was about all there was to him, he liked it that way.

Saburo hummed again. "Ah, I see. He is appealing to your honest nature while still evaluating you. Two objectives with one action is… a good start." He took a sip. "A good start…"

Adam stared at him for a moment, before speaking up. "Stress isn't good for the heart, Old Man."

Saburo didn't react for a moment. V3 looked downcast.

"Ten years."

He raised a brow, Saburo continued.

"I will die in ten years according to the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, my body will finally fail me in less than a year."

Saburo turned his head to look at him. "I have been busy making sure the preparations for my death are all in place. My son is one such preparation. It is my hope that he can be molded into an effective executive before then. This is complicated by his hatred for my life's work."

Adam grunted. "I don't have any advice to give Old Man, I've never had a kid."

Saburo's eyes glinted for a moment and a hint of a smile grew on his face. "Ah, but you do have an apprentice, do you not? There is little difference to my old eyes."

He snorted in reply. "The brat is going to be my backup once he's finally trained up. That's about it."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more."

"You guard your heart well, Yojimbo. Ever since your falling out with my granddaughter."

He clenched a fist and glared at nothing. Saburo observed his reaction for a moment, before setting down his tea cup and folding one hand over the other.

"You are Adam Smasher. Self-loathing will only dull your blade."

"I don't loathe myself, I loathe her."

"No, you don't." Saburo let his eyes slowly shift into a glare. "You loathe that you let your guard down. That you let yourself be vulnerable, and that it almost cost your life. Everytime you see her it is a reminder of that."

He didn't bother replying, no use in arguing with the boss. V3 took nervous glances at the both of them. Saburo huffed in frustration.

"You are the Sword of Arasaka. Your forging, tempering, and sharpening are all complete, but a sword always drawn will dull and shatter in time. Cracks in the blade born from each clash."

"You must find a sheath Yojimbo. I refuse to let my masterpiece rust into nothing."

He stayed silent, a quiet show of his immense displeasure with the topic at hand.

He was Adam Smasher. The day he needed someone else was the day he died.

Saburo closed his eyes and furrowed his brow for a moment, before relaxing and taking up his tea again. He moved on, topic discussed.

"...I have already been fitted with the appropriate cybernetics to unleash the soulkiller upon the moment of my death. It will be loaded into a chip in my socket." Saburo tapped his neck twice. "In the event of my death, so long as that chip remains intact, it will only be a matter of time before I return."

He nodded, understanding why the Old Man was telling him this. It was to prevent his Long-Term Contract from breaking the moment he learns that Saburo dies. Knowing the conditions of his return is the same as knowing that he was still alive, more or less.

"If I have to go get it, who should I bring the chip to?" He asked, just to be sure.

Saburo sipped his tea for a moment. "Either Hanako or Goro. Attempt to get it to Hanako if you can. If neither is available, I'll entrust it to you. Do not tell Yorinobu that you have my soul until after I have been revived."

He nodded in confirmation.

Saburo was about to speak again, but then V3 finally spoke up. "Arasaka-sama.". She didn't elaborate further.

He turned to her and nodded, slowly standing up. Seems like he told her to keep his schedule too. He began to walk, and like a proper bodyguard he followed, opening the door for him and letting V3 (Rin was it?) walk through too.

"As you know, the Jorogumo line had to be put on hold with their original purpose. The looming war makes their usage untenable as suspicions build. Instead their line will be repurposed into the Tsukumogami line. A mass-production model of cyberforms that will be subsidized and sold cheaply. Their primary use will be household chores."

"Ultimate loyalty to Arasaka I'm assuming."

"You assume correctly. Naturally, the populace will not be informed of such, and as that information will be stored in their biosystems, it will be impossible to glean through Netrunning. In another decade Arasaka will have a direct monitor in every household that has need of an attractive gynoid to help around the household."

"What do you want me to do?" He asked, the old man wouldn't bring this up out of nowhere to him after all.

"One of their variants will be combat models to assist high-quality warriors, the Kosho-class. You have one such prototype now serving you. You are to devise a two-year training regime to bring her up to acceptable levels of combat, that will be the basis for the training course for the future model type."

He grunted. "Why not just use my memories to train them?"

Saburo slowed his pace a tad, and turned to look at him. "You have no qualms about your hard earned skills being distributed so easily?" That was a strange question as he was company property, but the old man was sentimental like that.

"Planning on asking you to turn them all into some BDs for the brat. I promised them if he managed to win that tournament going on back in NC."

Saburo got a contemplative look in his eye and nodded. "I will arrange it. They will be used to train the Kosho-class instead."

He nodded, and Saburo started walking again. After a moment they reached the entrance of the compound where a black limo-AV was waiting for them. Saburo didn't move, but instead nodded at him.

"This will take you to a festival. I have arranged for you to sing alongside one of the musical groups Arasaka has invested in. You will perform to the best of your abilities."

That was an order, his contract could feel it. He stared at the AV for a moment, before mechanically turning his head to the Old Man. Foxy bastard's face was unchanged, but his eyes twinkled in amusement.

He grumbled as he stepped into the almost-too-small AV. This was fucking bullshit. Fucking old man dropping this shit on him.

He was flown away as Saburo turned and headed back into the compound, one hand on his cane, the other behind his back.

'Do his best'.

Fucking hell.

—

When the old man told him that he was going to sing with a musical group, he was expecting an older sort. Maybe one of those old-timer bands that he would fit right into with age alone, with a bunch of old japanese men who would also sing old japanese songs. It would have been easy to deal with, relatively speaking.

He was not expecting this.

"So.. uh… umu." The girl in the frilly dress continued to stutter in front of him. She was dressed in a lot of pink, red, and whites. Looking at the two girls who were half hidden behind her, he could tell that they were color-coordinated to some degree, Pink with white hair and fair skin, Red with white hair and tanned skin, and purple with black hair and fair skin. The woman to the side of them all dressed in a black three-piece suit and an opti-shield, was their manager. She too was looking a bit nervous, but that nervousness was quickly being replaced by what seemed like mild aggravation judging from how she was pinching the bridge of her nose listening to the girl in pink stutter.

It was a fucking idol group. The Old Man wanted him to sing with a fucking idol group. Old bastard was probably laughing his wrinkled ass off right now about his misfortune. The girls were sheltered little meatbags, no wonder they were fucking quivering right now. How fucking annoying.

He glared down for a moment, before turning to the manager. "When is the event?" He rumbled out. She flinched a bit, and all three of the tiny idols also flinched back. The manager regained her composure quickly and replied.

"Ah… six hours before it starts. It will last for one hour and practice for what songs will be sung is important…" She trailed off, turning her gaze away from his glare.

He huffed in slight frustration and turned his gaze back towards the idols, who flinched again. Fucking terrified little meatbags are going to sabotage this entire lousy affair. He turned his glare to the ceiling for a moment, lamenting the path his life had taken.

"I should have never picked up the guitar." He walked over to the instruments, past the girls, and picked up the first guitar that didn't have glitter and shit on it. Plugging in his interface cable to the end of it, he strummed it once. "Fucking live show bullshit. Fucking meatbags."

Needless to say, he was not happy.

"Umu… do you not like making music..?" The girl in pink managed to speak up. He didn't bother to look at her as he replied.

"Music is a hobby. Having to put up with bags of literal shit made out of meat is the annoying part."

He strummed once, twice, and got into the rhythm of making slight adjustments to the tensile strength of each string through the interface cable again. It had been years since he had touched one of these things. After a few long moments of shaking off the rust of a few decades, he glanced over his shoulders to look at the trio of girls who were around half his height.

They flinched as he turned around. He ignored it, barrelling through any nervousness they might have with the task at hand.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked, fully content to not make any decisions here. That way he didn't have to try as hard.

The pink one blinked. "Ah… You want us to decide?" They apparently hadn't been expecting this. Shame for them, he wasn't going to do jackshit of the actual hard work of deciding marketing bullshit. He was ordered to perform, and that's all he was going to do.

"Your event, isn't it meatgirls? Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it."

The pink one stared for a moment, before straightening up and pounding a fist into an open palm. She gulped and asked "H-how fast can you learn a new song? Are you only good with guitar?"

"Play it, and yes."

She pulled a tablet out from the manager's hands and boldly stepped forwards to stand next to him. She tapped several times before holding the screen up as high as she could so he could see the music-sheet she had pulled up.

Pressing the play button, the speakers around the room began playing some japanese pop-song he didn't know. The lyrics eventually came over the speakers with what he assumed to be the voice of the purple one singing.

"Everytime I think of you

I feel a shot right through within a bolt of blue

It's no problem of mine

But it's a problem I find

Living a life I can't leave behind."

Music was ultimately just memorization and reflexes. Play the right notes at the right time. His memory was cybernetically perfect, and his reflexes second to none. Needless to say, he only had a handful of errors the first time he tried playing it, and none the second time.

The idols very quickly started rambling excitedly about what songs they were going to play, and got to practicing.

Seven more hours Adam, then you can be done with this shit.

"H-hey! Do you have any songs you haven't released yet?" The red one asked, and he nodded before thinking. He then groaned as they started badgering him for sheet music.

Uriel, you fucker, you got him into this mess, now you were going to help him out.

'I'll do my best.' Uriel begrudged

—

"Alright!" Pink yelled into a microphone.

"ALRIGHT!!!" A crowd of thousands yelled back, lights in the crowd flashing this and that way, most of them wearing virtuality goggles, glasses, or optics.

The reason why? Modern day idol performances were partially in Virtuality these days, both singing in person but with visuals and whatnot also accompanying them in the Netspace around them.

A decent performance enhancer, Uriel took notes for ideas on how to improve the Arena.

"Now before we begin! We have a special guest for this night's performance!" Pink announced.

"Manager-san asked us if we wanted to have him on, and while he's pretty scary, it sounded fun!" Red spoke into her mic.

"Turns out, he's a bit of a softie after all!" Purple gave a faux-giggle into her mic. That was his que.

"Oi Oi, What the hell do you think you're saying?" He announced, the curtain rising up from around him after his (really Adam's) voice boomed out over the crowd.

The crowd that was stunned silent for a moment, before beginning to build up into an uproar once more. Adam internally groaned from within his body. He was supposed to be met with fear and shock, not this… whatever this was. Uriel gave him the mental equivalent of a shrug and continued to play up his part.

What part was that?

Tsundere Yankee.

He was having a little fun with it, to be frank.

Shame that he was going to have to sing in front of a crowd now.

"Eep!" Purple gave a comical jump and moved to hide behind Red, who put her hands on her hips and laughed.

"Listen up you meatbags!" He announced to the crowd. "I'm here because I was told to be, got it! I don't like a single one of you! The sooner this is done the sooner I can get back to fighting!"

"He's saying he has stage-fright." Pink gave a pretend whisper through her mic.

"Like hell I do!" He immediately countered.

Red pointed at him and made little devil horns with her fingers, which was apparently slang for being a liar. The crowd cheered, Adam grumbled.

"Alright! Let's not make him too grumpy!" Pink announced to the joy of the crowd. "One! Two! Three!"

The first song began, thankfully he wasn't singing this one. That would come later.

Adam took over the arms, and focused on playing.

The best of his abilities.

Fucking hell Old Man. This was a waste of his time. Use him to kill stuff, not this shit.

—

Adam Smasher revealed 2 new songs in the "Prismatic Idol Group 2077 January Tokyo Festival". According to insider sources, he was asked by the girls if he had any love songs, which explains the content of the two new singles. One of these songs was a remake/cover of a city pop classic 'Plastic love', the title of which was revealed in the Prisma Jan-Tokyo-77 album release to be 'Something About Plastic Love.'

The second song is believed to be an original, or at the very least, a cover of a song that we no longer have records for. The title was revealed in the same album release to be "Baka Mitai" ('I've been a fool." Is the currently most commonly accepted translation).

The addition of Adam Smasher to their performance would go on to prove a successful idea in the long term, as sales of the album spiked well beyond what was projected for their previous releases.

It irritated her that she couldn't find it in herself to dislike Gloria Martinez. Optimistic, hard-working, and just a little shy. She went out of her way to avoid causing trouble for others and tried to do her best in whatever task she happened to be doing.

Rogue had realized who Gloria reminded her of a few days ago, the last time she spoke with her. She had shyly revealed that the dense shithead she was having sex with had come onto her, and quickly clarified that she didn't want to cause issues between them.

Adam had decided to fluster the woman for fun and the woman was apologizing to her for it. Rogue immediately got a flashback to the last time this happened. A younger woman with blonde hair and blue optics nervously apologizing to her, hands waving slightly in denials about her intentions.

Gloria Martinez reminded her of Alt Cunningham. It was a distinctly unpleasant feeling to look back on the similarities in their behavior.

She supposed it was too good to be true anyways. These past few months of slowly chipping her way into the asshole's chest were nice, but were of course going to end eventually. He was going to get tired of her and move on, it was only a matter of time.

It had happened before with Johnny, it was bound to happen again Adam. She should've been expecting it, really. She had shit taste in men.

So she distracted herself with her fixer work instead, made easier by the asshole being away from Night City for a while. Lot's of jobs being thrown around and requested through her, she made sure to filter out those that might hurt her own interests, and gave priority to the things that might help her.

Even if that work was requested by other people, she could still take advantage of them to advance her own plans. Most of these plans begin and end with 'solidify her power base', but it was something she constantly had to do. Her influence was at constant war both with the other fixers of NC and every other faction that wanted a bigger slice of the pie.

So when she sees a job that targets someone who tried to undermine her in the past come up, she makes sure to recommend it to one of the better solos she has contacts with. If she sees a job requested by one of those people come up, one of her less experienced contacts gets the job.

They'll still succeed most of the time, but it'll never be quite as clean as it could be.

A lot of this she had to learn on her own, and her early days involved a lot more of her getting her hands dirty directly. She didn't need to do that anymore, she had people to do that for her.

An explosion outside of her fine establishment pulled her out of her idle business of assigning jobs to solos. She narrowed her eyes and opened a link between herself and her bouncers out front.

"Bronson, talk to me, what's going on out there?"

There was only static in reply. Her instincts were telling her that something very bad was about to happen. She snarled and got up from her booth, snatching her iron from where it was strapped underneath as she did.

The moment she fucking thought about not having to get her hands dirty, the fucking moment she thinks that, this happens. Lady Luck was a gonkass cunt who needed to fuck off sometimes.

"Battlestations people, we got trouble coming down!" She shouted to the half-full bar. Immediately, the few dozen guests of her fine establishment all drew their various guns and weapons and pointed them at the door. They were already on alert from hearing the explosion, her call out was simply the trigger they needed to get ready.

There was a reason most people were reluctant to attack Afterlife. Mostly because she had a policy of 'everyone can have their guns' and 'If someone causes trouble she shoots them'. People are often very reluctant to start a fight in a place full of various factions and lots of guns.

The only people who'd be willing to attack here were people with no connections to NC or with nothing to lose. Crazies, to put another way.

Normally Bronson was tough enough to handle any random cyberpsycho that tries to attack. He was a card-carrying member of the Animals, and had an array of bioware to back it. Bioware, combat drugs, and the occasional heavy implant.

Her club's defenses were being activated as she waited, the fans already at full ventilation to blow any air in the building right back out into the streets instead of lingering. The fire-suppression systems were online and waiting, the few EMP sentries popping out of the ceiling and aimed at the door. Gas, Fire, and Drones all countered as well as one could reasonably expect.

Bronson could handle any regular cyberpsycho so she was expecting some spec-ops unit from out of town to come down.

She was not expecting an exceptional cyberpsycho to come down, let alone a squad of them.

Hearing a distant footstep, she activated her sandevistan.

Just in time to see a warped figure throw itself down the stairs to crash against the floor, quickly throwing itself up. Six-armed and spindly, with a tangle of wires forming a crude fur coat and obscuring the body below. Head hidden under a heavy helmet with nine orange-red optics shining underneath. It was slower than her.

Almost fluid in the way it crashed against the ground and pulled itself up, it reached out with three of its arms to the nearest people in her bar, most of whom were moving in slow motion compared to the thing. Rockets in those arms activated, and they shot out to grab three of her customers.

They would have if she didn't immediately blow all three into shrapnel with a half-dozen rounds of explosive smartbullets. The submachine gun in her hands barking in a steady rhythm as she shot at the fucker.

Adam had been right when he mocked her a few months ago, she had really let herself go. She should've been able to get that with half the bullets in her heyday. She needed to hit the firing range more.

Some of the patrons were just now beginning to react, their speedware quite a bit worse than her own. She wasn't sure how the cyberpsycho was so fast, it was unlikely that it could afford anything good…

…on its own that was. Fucking strommers were deciding to commit suicide then, this was going to get everyone in the fucking city pissed at them. The cyberpsycho turned its head towards her, and its jaw opened into four segments screaming at her.

Still in slowed time, half of the electronics in her club immediately went out. Her optics adjusted immediately, but she was out of sandy time. She aimed her gun in its center mass and started firing as her perception returned to normal time.

Her gun immediately turned into heavy rain, she was unable to count the individual rounds as it sprayed at the fucker in her bar. It was then she came to the unfortunate realization that it was very well armored, and didn't have a sandevistan. It had a kerenzikov.

It moved, three of her customers exploded into red mist, and suddenly its corpse crashed into the far wall to the side of her, smashing a few chairs along the way before coming to a halt. She turned her head to see Weyland letting go of the trigger of his light machine gun and turning to nod at her.

Good, he cycled his sandy after her like she told him to awhile back. She stared at it for a bit to make sure it wasn't moving anymore, before staring at the three poor souls that were in the path of its rampage to get to her.

Of course, that was just the first cyberpsycho.

Just as she began to move, the vent in her far wall exploded as another monster of cybernetics burst through concrete and reinforced steel. She turned to begin shooting, and got the unpleasant surprise of another two psychos bursting down her front-door stairs again. One wielding a pair of sledgehammers and the other carrying a heavy machine gun.

Each one was a tangled mess of wires and chrome, a nightmarish and blurry figure of plasteel and myomer, with five or more glowing eyes a piece. Each one giving off a godawful screaming noise.

By this point, the slower patrons in the bar had finally begun shooting.

Her bar erupted into violence.

This was bullshit, her insurance was going to up her fucking rates through the goddamn stratosphere.

—

"YES I AM! EL TIGRE GRANDE!"

David could admit, he kinda liked the large man on the other side of the arena who was currently shouting and flexing to the crowd. The guy was wearing a mask modeled after a tiger, a set of skintight pants and integrated boots, and a cape. His skin was a heavy bronze sorta tone, and he could tell that the dude had both skinweave and subdermal armor from the way the light bounced off the dude.

Human skin was a little translucent or something, skinweave was a little less so, and subdermal armor was a little less so as well. Combined they made the guy seem a bit darker than he probably should be. A little less illuminated around the edges, which only made him a bit more accented on a bright day.

"LEAPING INTO THE FIGHT! EL TIGRE…" The man shouted out to the crowd, then stopped and raised a hand to his ear, the crowd quickly responded with their own roar.

"GRANDE!" He burst into another round of wide-armed flexing. Hyping up the crowd with their eventual fight. This was the kinda fight he liked. The one where everyone involved was into it. This was partly why he was even fighting in their tournament.

So he hung back and let the guy do his magic. Hey, he was enjoying it too after all.

Eventually, Tigre turned to look at him. "MY YOUNG FRIEND! I TURN TO ADDRESS YOU NOW!" The man was grinning under that immense mustache. "I APOLOGIZE FOR THE WAIT!"

"I was beginning to feel a little neglected." He joked back, his own grin fixed on his face. "Got a question though, shouldn't you be Smilodon?" He liked reading about dinosaurs as a kid, everyone did, dinosaurs were cool. Smilodon wasn't a dinosaur but eh, semantics.

"...A Saber Tooth Tiger?" The man raised a hand to his chin and scratched at it in confusion, pausing in realization when he felt his own mustache.

They burst into laughter at the same time. David was chuckling, Tigre had thrown his head back.

"YES! I THINK I SHOULD BE, SHOULDN'T I?! HAHAHA!" He exclaimed. Eventually he settled down and rolled his joints. David copied him and got into a stance.

"COME MY YOUNG FRIEND! LET US HAVE AN EXCELLENT DUEL!"

"I can agree with that."

Aoi waved him hand down, their speed went up, and both of them burst forwards to clash in the center of the arena.

David, Tanaka, and Becca had been studying his moves for the last two matches. He was primarily a grappler, and focused on controlling the pace of the fight through throws into the air. An opponent who was airborne was at his complete mercy. David's strategy to counter this was fairly simple.

If he got grappled, he was going to grapple back. It was hard to throw someone who was currently latched onto your arm.

As he approached, he readied himself to throw a straight punch. Locking eyes with Tigre, he grinned and copied his approach.

A head on clash as their opener? David was fine with that.

Stomping to straighten up again, he twisted into a punch aimed squarely at Tigre's own approaching fist. Their speedware expired.

Their fists collided with a tremendous clang that rang out through the arena. David withheld a flinch from what was probably a fracture opening up in one of his fingers. Judging from the twitch of his mustache, Tigre was just as damaged in that exchange.

Equal damage huh? He was down for a game of chicken. David readied his other fist for a punch, and Tigre's eyes widened a tad before he copied.

They threw another punch, left fists clashing just the same as their rights. They were grinning at each other. Now it was a game of who stopped punching first.

Rights, crash.

Lefts, crash.

Rights, crash.

Each time he felt another fracture open up in one of his fingers. This wasn't the best strategy, but it was incredibly fun to just have a head-on clash like this.

His sandy had cycled, time to mix it up. He wound up another punch, which Tigre copied. Just before their fists collided, he activated his sandevistan and spun into a roundhouse kick against his hand, sending it to the side.

He moved to punch his now-open mid-section. Tigre's own sandevistan finished cycling, and the man carried his spin into a mule kick. David aborted his punch and copied that elbow block he saw that Betty girl do the other day, but the force still sent him flying back into a roll.

He jumped up as he rolled, landing on his feet and throwing a smile at the man who waited for him to recover before stomping his foot back down. That ever present smile still wide on his face, Tigre began to shout.

"YOU ARE FAST YOUNG FRIEND! FORTUNATELY MY MEXICAN METALS 'SPEEDY-G' SANDEVISTAN IS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR ME TO KEEP UP!" Throwing his now visibly damaged hand forwards, he continued. "LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN ENDURE AGAINST EL TIGRE GRANDE!"

"Buddy, I can do this all day." He boasted right back, pointing an equally damaged index finger at him. "I'm what you might call built different."

"HAHA, VERY TRUE YOUNG FRIEND! NOW LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE BUILT BETTER!"

Of course, it was around that point that everyone in the arena heard a massive explosion in the distance and stopped what they were doing. Both fighters paused and looked in the direction that it came from, north it looked like. The crowd fell into hushed whispers.

"What was that?" He muttered. El Tigre hummed in consideration, his grin falling off into a contemplative frown.

The DaiOni refs froze for a moment, before Aoi announced. "We have been recalled to Arasaka Tower immediately. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Both fighters looked to them, but a moment later they were gone and an line-shaped explosion of dirt traced out of the arena, falling in an instant. It was clear they had activated their sandevistans and ran out of the arena, towards the tower.

David frowned. Smasher did say they were fast, but he wasn't expecting them to be that fast even with speedware. They were something like two thousand pounds after all.

He scratched his head and the crowd started yelling in disappointment. If the refs were gone then they couldn't exactly finish their fight. He gave an awkward look over to Tigre, who had his arms crossed and a frown on his face.

"I do not blame them for heeding their orders, but this is inconvenient." He announced. David nodded. The crowd started throwing random things into the arena, not at them obviously but the situation. There were probably live streams that were going on right now about this.

The announcers were saying something about getting a replacement ref in there, and sounded just as caught off guard as everyone else.

He was about to say something in reply, when the side of the arena exploded. He turned to look at it, and Tigre copied. The crowd fell quiet once more, even some of those nearest to the explosion started to panic slightly and approached the walls to look down.

From the settling rubble, a hulking figure of metal stomped forwards, a massive hammer clutched in both hands and swaying slightly with its steps. Almost as tall as Smasher, plated in as much armor as that Junkerknight had, and with seven orange glowing eyes glaring out from the dust.

Eventually, it stopped its approach and tilted its head at them.

The announcers were calling this out as an intruder and not a part of the tournament. Judging from the red that caked the figure, it had probably killed some security to get here.

It raised an arm. Both of the fighters activated their sandevistans and threw themselves to the side. A projectile launcher emerged from its arm.

A massive explosion bloomed to life in the center of the arena, where they had just been moments before.

It tilted it's head again.

David grinned and yelled out to Tigre. "Hey Tigre, I got a proposal!"

"WHAT IS THAT, YOUNG FRIEND?!"

"Whoever bags this chromedome first wins our match, whaddya say?!"

El Tigre Grande began to laugh with delight, David followed with some chuckles. The crowd roared with approval.

The cyberpsycho didn't seem to find it so funny, it started to roar.

—

A car from the desert slowed to a stop outside of a now unfamiliar city. A silver chrome hand rested on the windowsill, before it pulled the rest of a chromed body out to stare at the city.

The city that he just heard a massive explosion echo out from. He glared at it for a moment before pulling himself back into the car and slamming on the gas.

Night City was the exact same it seemed like.

Exact same except for one thing that was.

On an old radio channel, one that no one used except him anymore, a message began to play on repeat. It was a channel Alt had told him to watch for in case she ever had to send him a message before her capture.

[Help Me. Captured. Maelstrom.]

He could burn the city later.

He had to find Alt.

Maelstrom was still around? That was fine, he'd kill every last one of them if he had to.

Maelstrom held the majority of the Northside Industrial District of NC. Nearly one third of Watson was firmly within their territory, and they had reinforced it greatly over the years. Every dumpster reinforced with extra plates of old steel, every wall layered with sandbags, every abandoned building turned into a safehouse, every side-tunnel underneath turned into routes and passageways between different sections of their territory, and filled with equipment besides.

Inside these urban bunkers were rows and rows of pilfered or crudely assembled generators, powered by the rushing of sewer water, hooked up to filtration plants, hooked up to abandoned warehouses filled with bags of imperishable foods and crude hydroponics. Every net-system and datafortress within the territory was something they had a backdoor into, a way to observe anyone from anywhere if they were properly motivated.

The strommers themselves had the most chrome per ganger in the entire city, and were up there on the international charts too. They were kept lean, hungry, and mean, ready to murder any meatboy who decides to fuck around in their territory. The main Maelstrom hideout in the old All Foods was another sign of their ultimate self-reliance, a reminder to everyone in the gang that they were on their own, and no one else in the world was going to give them shit.

Maelstrom is a gang that was hated by everyone else in NC, they only managed to survive and even thrive due to scraping and clawing for every advantage. Snapping up any meal like hungry dogs, and fighting off anyone who tries to mess with them to the death.

That's the core philosophy that Maelstrom operated on, and Brick was a gonk-fucking retard shithead dumbass motherfucker for not realizing he was trying to bite off what he couldn't fucking chew.

They had boys with the most chrome. Some of their boys were even fucking AI now. This was a considerable advantage, and if they stayed patient, laid low, and continued to build up quietly like they had been doing for fucking years, it would only further reinforce their position. They would become even harder to dislodge from NC, and thus have more time to build up. Logistics in a fucking prepack shell.

Brick had looked at all their shiny new advantages, urged on by that SECOND AI he decided to summon up, and promptly decided that Maelstrom was going to gobble up all of Watson.

Watson had the most water separating it from any other part of NC. The only real ways in were either right through reinforced Maelstrom territory along the land, over the various bridges leading into the area, or through the now thoroughly-irradiated waters of the bay.

Four main bridges, a dozen or so smaller bridges, each one vulnerable to a few dozen pounds of plastic explosives that Maelstrom had tucked away, or one of their boys with an auto grenade-launcher, or one of the many other big booms they had stored away. Give their boys some speedware and the bridges all go down within the same minute. That leaves irradiated sea or Maelstrom territory land.

Brick forgot that travel by air was fucking easy apparently. Godfucking shitfuck gonk retard fucker. Real smart fucking move there Brick, you retard, you forgot that fucking air travel exists you goddamn moron.

In terms of local resistance they would have to quash to take the territory over completely, it wasn't too bad. Mostly fleshies, a few fleshie fixers, and the Mox. All of those were easy enough to handle. The NCPD wasn't too bad, but the MaxTac might prove to be an issue. Still, Strommers had more than enough boys with speeware and big guns to take them out at this point, and their new AI boys would be able to handle the hacking shit.

Who else was in Watson? Oh yeah, that's right.

FUCKING TRAUMA TEAM TOWER! ARASAKA WATERFRONT! AFTERLIFE BAR!

FUCK! BRICK! YOU GOD FUCK FUCKY FUCK SHIT FUCK!

….

He took a deep breath to calm himself down.

Fucking Brick.

In his gonkass words, the strommers didn't have to win, they just had to make themselves more trouble to clear out than to negotiate with. A nice little idea planted in his head by that Lilith.

Brick forgot that everyone in NC wanted them fucking flatlined apparently, and that this would make it about ten times worse.

Brick had told them his plans beforehand, and the moment he did he and Dum-Dum were plotting. Plotting, and whispering into the ears of some of the smarter boys, the ones that knew to keep quiet.

The moment Brick called the attack on? He, Dum-Dum, and a full half of Maelstrom left NC in all their various vehicles and with as much essential supplies as they could carry. They looted the shit out of their own holdings, and immediately left. Brick wasn't going to get any fucking help from them on this elaborate suicide.

The attack will happen, then the various corporations will decide that Maelstrom doesn't need to exist anymore, and a full purge will be conducted in their old territory. Maelstrom wouldn't be a thing in NC.

Fuck that shit then.

Maelstrom would survive. If they couldn't stay in NC, then they would have to leave. Now the diplomatic part of the job was on him.

In a caravan of 700 or so Maelstromers packed into dozens of cars, trucks, and similar, he rode near the front. He was in the flatbed of a pickup truck, riding out to the last known location of a Nomad group.

They didn't have anything left anymore, so they would need to be… diplomatic.

And by they, they meant him, because no one else in this fucking gang can talk to fuckers apparently. His boys were gonkasses. Gonkasses that he was somehow supposed to keep alive as fucking nomads now. He didn't know jackshit about being a fucking nomad.

Fucking Brick.

His optics could see the Nomad camp, right about a kilometer out. Nice and bright on his thermographics. He got up on the moving truck, grabbing onto the roof for stability, and raised a hand into the air.

Slowly, all the Strommer cars slowed down to a halt, only about an hour out of NC, and a few minutes away from the NC Aldecaldos nomad pack.

His boys now stopped, he opened up a radio line and began broadcasting a continuous beeping in that direction, waiting for a pick-up. Soon enough, a pick-up he got.

"This is the NC Aldecaldos Pack. What do you want?" The voice sounded just a little standoffish, annoyed at having to answer the radio. Alright fucker, he'd give you a fucking wakeup.

"I am the leader of the breakaway Maelstromers. I have 114 vehicles filled with guns, supplies, and chrome junkies about a kilometer and a half to your west."

There wasn't a reply for a while, eventually, a different voice called over the radio back at him.

"This is Saul Bright, leader of the NC Aldecaldos Pack. We see you. What the fuck do you want?" the voice sounded threatened, tense, nervous.

Royce grinned maliciously, yeah, you better take him fucking seriously.

"To negotiate."

—

The modern day NET was a series of net-cities interconnected, protected by the immense Black-ICE that was the Blackwall, and with lines stretching for miles to other cities out in the wildernet. Before the 2030s it was primarily a series of ravaged and tangled connections built on the backbones of fiber-optic connections. These fiber-optic lines would connect to dataterms, a prospective netrunner would have their neural interfaces interface with said dataterms, and they would enter the NET as data-selves.

In a very real way, they left their crude matter behind as they traveled an unseen world. A world of glittering connections and stars of code, interfaced with their mind and console. Former runners would often scrap and claw at the walls of their rented sleeping-capsule, reaching for keyboards that weren't there.

It was a beautiful world, a free world, a world of information and connections. A world where your mind was all you needed to do anything. It was a world that was unfortunately encroached upon by control-hungry corporations and governments, and then destroyed by the furious genius of the greatest netrunner to ever live.

The old connections were warped and tangled. It was he who set down the foundations of the NET once more.

He was UR, founder and CEO of Ziggurat, the corporation responsible for the creation and maintenance of the lines of communication that comprised the new NET, the NET that was guarded by the Blackwall. He was the father of the modern NET.

It was his corporation that recreated the NET in America, and then further beyond, spreading until it was a global entity once more. Though some parts of this process was trickier than others, he had eventually done what he had set out to do during the 2030s so long ago. He had dragged up an ordered NET from the wildernet, and his word was law within its boundaries.

It was his AI that roamed the NET to aid the people of the world. It was his applications that their internal agents utilized. It was his chatApp that the lonely spoke to. It was his searchApp that they relied upon for information. His mail service, his editing suite, his Garden.

The Garden, the one-stop shop for all of one's social media requirements. He leased out a small patch to each and everyone in the world who paid the tiny fee, and they managed it for him. The beautiful array of colors and personalities displayed on his temples of marble.

The NET was his Garden. He was the King of the NET. It was a position that he greatly enjoyed.

From a tower overlooking a good portion of Night City, he sat, drinking a very nice cup of tea. He liked tea, he adored tea, it was a wonderful drink for any occasion.

Night City was where he had gotten his start so long ago, they had funded his ambitious plan to rebuild the City-Net, and when it worked they had given him the leverage he needed for more capital, for more expansion, to rebuild the world's NET in artistic splendor.

It was him that Netwatch came to, to ask permission to establish the Blackwall.

It was him that the Vatican so desperately tried to avoid with their silly little TempleNET.

It was him who ruled the NET.

He sat in the center of his private tower. A monolithic pyramid-spire that reached into the heavens. His floor at the top could rotate with his commands, and the windows contained any and all visual arrays that he could possibly desire.

From his private floor, he could look out and see all of Night City, in both reality and virtuality, at any zoom, in any spectrum of light, with any thermographic array…

The all-seeing eye of UR.

God once spoke saying "I Am he who is I Am."

God once spoke to him saying, "You Are he who is You Are."

You Are.

U-R.

He was the architect of the Ziggurat, a temple to his God.

He quirked an elfin brow and twitched an equally elfin ear at the explosions that rang out in realspace. Letting his tower twist to look over at where it had come from, he zoomed in the sensors with a thought as he sipped his tea.

The bridges of Watson were falling. How interesting.

He opened his mind to Watson, and let his pet commune with him. It knew all that had occurred within its boundaries, for it was its boundaries. All that transpired within were known to it, and thus known to him. Shifting through the last few weeks of data, his mind turned over the information steadily.

…

He started to chuckle, slowly at first, but building in tempo and acceleration until he could hardly control his uproarious laughter.

Maelstrom had delivered such a wonderful opportunity to him, it must be divine providence, his God had arranged for this no doubt!

A small test for what his God had planned was in order, this opportunity was too good to pass up now that he had the perfect scapegoat upon his plate.

He took another sip of his tea, and watched the chaos unfold. It wasn't quite time for him to proceed with such of course, that would come at an appropriate moment. When Maelstrom was suffering setbacks in their little scheme, when they could feasibly be called 'threatened' by an outsider, then would he unleash it.

The cleanup was sure to be expensive, but he wouldn't have to pay for anything. They would pay him to correct this damage once it was all said and done.

That, and this seemed like it would be excellent practice for his daughter. He sent a message to a servitor, telling them to get her battledeck ready.

Upon a tower in the center of Night City, the King of the Net watched over a district he planned to destroy.

They were within his court, he couldn't wait to see them dance.

—

Miles away from Night City.

A caravan of Nomads began to approach, a mere six hours away at their current speed.

Vincent Martinez stared into the horizon, knowing from the various reports that things had already accelerated into chaos in Night City.

It would be time soon enough.

Time for his modest little plan to come together.

When he was close enough, he'd give the signal, Falco would do the rest.

After that? It was all up to David.

He didn't know much about Maelstrom.

He had heard of them, of course. There wasn't a person in Night City who hadn't. The posterboys for cyberpsychosis, the multi-eyed monsters of the north, the 'fuckers'. He had taken jobs against them before, back in his solo days, and they were always the hardest overall.

They cut their faces off as part of initiation, some say that they have to do it themselves, and without meds. They chipped in more chrome on average than anyone except the most absolutely hardcore edgerunners around. He and Maine had chipped in quite a bit, subdermal armor, limbs, optics, weapons. They were textbook chrome junkies.

That was probably how much the average Maelstromer had chipped in, let alone their most hardcore members. If that was it, no one would care much. Maelstrom had a funny habit of nabbing gonks off the streets and seeing just how much they can install before their victims break.

About a third of all the XBDs he used to watch came from a strommer in some way. It wasn't always combat either, sometimes it was a public execution.

He didn't know much about Maelstrom, but he knew enough to tell that they were dangerous. Of course, he would have been able to tell that about the thing in front of him regardless.

He looked to the corner of his vision, locking his pupils on the strommers that just shot a grenade out of his forearm but focusing on the little percentage read-out. He had asked for this from Saika, the techie, a few weeks ago, and apparently it was some kind of app, no additional chrome required, just a download and an update.

Right now, it was telling him that the thing in front of him was one-hundred percent metal.

It wasn't a borged-up strommer. It wasn't a fullborg strommer.

This thing was a fucking bot.

'What do we do with a drunken sailor?'

He grit his teeth as he stared at it. This wasn't someone he could afford to have fun with, he had to go all in with his advantages.

Advantage the first, his speedware was second to none. It was Smasher's spare, it was better than anyone else's in the world. He was almost guaranteed to be faster than the seven-foot mechanical monster.

Advantage the second, he wasn't alone.

He couldn't guarantee anything else until they started fighting. He drew the monokatana sheathed at his hip, taking it in both hands and watching the botgonk for the hints of any motion.

A common symptom of cyberpsychosis was the eyes. They blurred and unfocused, they stared at things that weren't there, they didn't see things that were right in front of them.

The thing about this bot's eyes? He couldn't tell a damn thing about them. Seven furiously glowing orange optics staring out of a partially-carved-in face, wires splayed out from such and falling down like a loopy mane. Its mouth was almost gorilla-like in its form, mimicking breathing with plate-lips that folded up and out instead of up and down.

Its body had clearly been some sort of borg beforehand, what with that one-hundred percent counter and the plates of scrap-metal welded to every surface and grinded down to allow for mobility.

It just stared with its arm raised, almost like it couldn't understand that it had missed. He glared at it, waiting even as the audience started to get antsy. He really didn't care what they thought anymore, not with this coming out of the scrapyard.

He almost jumped when he heard the loud proclamation coming from his right.

"HOLA BANDITO! DO YOU HAVE A NAME?! I, EL TIGRE GRANDE, WOULD HATE TO BREAK YOU WITHOUT LEARNING SUCH!" Arm thrown forward, the other on his hip, and a wide grin firmly mounted on his face once more. El Tigre almost effortlessly plowed through the tension that had been building up to demand a name.

There was silence for a moment. The big bot took a heavy step forwards, David noticed that its legs ended in clawed feet that seemed perfectly capable of grabbing if needed.

A horrible, distorted voice called out from the speaker in the mouth of the bot, although it's mouth didn't line up with the correct motions of talking at all.

"Jerome. Boss wants me ta kill Pacifica, so I'm gunna do that."

[LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, DID I JUST FACKING HEAR THAT RIGHT?! JEROME THE CHROMED HAS RETURNED TO STOMP THIS ENTIRE DISTRICT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TOURNAMENT?]

The bot continued walking forwards, something that the both of them returned.

"I see, you understand that El Tigre Grande, friend to all children, enemy of evil, ally of justice, cannot allow you to do that?" Tigre's shoulders were level, and his arms swung steadily as he stomped forwards.

"My mother, my output, and my friends live here, you're not going to do gonkshit before I flatline you." David chose to be polite and wait for El Tigre to finish his line before speaking. He chose to be equally polite in threatening the now-walking corpse.

This so-called Jerome laughed. It made his ears hurt. He ignored it, it was just pain. "Can't flatline me, can't no one flatline me no more."

We'll see about that, gonkbot.

Right before he entered the swinging distance of those two massive sledgehammers, he stomped just a bit harder than normal and activated his sandevistan. The next clawed step of the bot slowed to a crawl mid-air.

Glancing over to see that Tigre was still moving like normal, he had gotten the signal. Their eyes locked briefly, and he nodded with a grin before lunging forwards.

Swinging his monokatana, he aimed for one of the legs. If he could take that out, then the bot would be a sitting duck for the rest of the fight.

Just as he was about to connect, the bot paused for an instant. His eyes widened as he threw himself back.

The hammer swiped through the space he was just in almost too fast for him to see. A pained grunt drew his gaze as he was jumping back. Looking over he saw Tigre with his arms braced against the handle of the hammer above his head, he had stopped it before it reached full speed, but from that noise he was still feeling it.

Landing on the ground, he kicked off a slowly-rising dust cloud as he threw himself forwards again.

His speedware was top of the line, how the fuck had this bot managed to keep up? He'd figure it out later, right now he couldn't let it focus on his ally. Taking on a bot alone sounded like a bad idea.

He moved forwards, stomping down on the hammer to keep it in the ground, slicing out with his blade.

He was forced to abort it as the bot twisted his left-hand hammer, sent it down to the side of Tigre, and used it as a hook to physically throw him in his way.

Throwing his sword up, he linked an arm with Tigre, who matched his grin.

Panzerfaust was built on three principles. Vibration, leaping, and spins. His new style was based on the latter two, and throws.

Grounding his stance, he twisted and spun Tigre around.

Tigre's powerful legs crashed against the bot's raised guard, and then he kicked. Both of them went separate directions, Tigre leaping off and the bot stumbling back due to its higher weight.

Ducking below Tigre's return, he lunged forwards again…

His sandevistan expired.

He blinked, and his side exploded in pain.

He was weightless. The sky was blue.

He crashed against the near wall, dust exploding outwards as his vision and hearing blacked out.

His senses slowly returned. He activated his pain editor and turned off all the white static in his body. His vision was still a bit blurry.

He tried to push up with his left hand. It didn't respond to him anymore. He glanced down at it.

It was gone. He frowned and pushed up with his right hand instead.

His breathing felt off, he coughed. The ground in front of him was sprayed red.

He glared and pushed himself up all the way up, staring at where he had just come from. Remnants of his arm littered the path now.

"YOUNG FRIEND, ARE YOU OKAY?!" El Tigre shouted out, not moving his gaze from the bot. The bot that was bent backwards and staring at the sky, feet carving groves into the ground, arm stretched out with that hammer extended.

That fucker had hit him once and took off an arm. More importantly…

"He has both a kerenzikov and a sandevistan! That's how he's so fast!" He shouted out as he strode towards his sword, which was now planted into the ground.

"BOTH!? ARE YOU SURE YOUNG FRIEND!?" El Tigre took his eyes off the bot for one moment. That moment that the bot seemed to be waiting for, as it immediately threw itself forwards at an unnaturally fast pace.

He cursed and started running, much too far away to help. His sandevistan hadn't had time to cycle again-!

He noticed El Tigre's slightly hidden grin.

The bot lunged, swinging its hammers down.

Tigre threw himself back, crashing against the bot's chest and avoiding the hammer. In the same motion, he twisted his arms to grab the bot by the arm.

"TIIIGGGEEERRR-!" He began to shout as he used the bot's momentum against him, lifting him off the ground and over his head.

"-CRRRAAASSSHHHEEERRR!" He finished roaring as the bot weighing multiple hundreds of pounds crashed against the ground. The bot didn't bounce, but it was a close thing.

The bot was only phased for a moment. El Tigre moved to leap away.

He wasn't fast enough, as the bot then demonstrated that the bulky hammers were not just hammers as a jet of fire exploded from the back of both.

They were fucking rocket-powered.

The bot turned into a veritable tornado as it spun on the ground, propelled by the immense thrust of two tiny jets it used as bludgeons.

Tigre took the blow head on, throwing himself back with it as he soared through the air. He gave a shout of pain that was only slightly exaggerated. Reducing the damage of the blow itself didn't help him when he too crashed into the far wall of the arena, leaving another cloud of dust from the impact.

The bot was still spinning. He held his blade up with his remaining hand, and slowly began to stalk around it, towards Tigre.

He wasn't sure he could take this thing alone.

A rush of wind, and Tigre was standing next to him again, a smile plastered on his face even through a pained grimace.

David could see why.

There was a hole torn open in his side. The head of the hammer had apparently crashed there, and ripped off the section entirely. David could see from here that Tigre apparently had an endo-skeleton enhancement, judging from his metal-colored ribs and hip bone.

"Don't worry!" He declared. "My Mexican Metals 'Cortés' Internal Stauncher stopped the blood loss immediately!" His eyes glared at the bot in front of them, now up on its feet again and staring at them. "Although I must admit. This level of foe is uncomfortably close to my upper limit."

David thought for a moment. "I've fought worse." They were getting hits in on this thing. He never even scratched Smasher, and this thing wasn't fucking singing.

"Oh? How did you win?"

"I didn't."

"...We are in a predicament, young friend. Any ideas?"

David chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment.

"...When you threw it, how much do you think it weighed?"

Tigre pondered it for a moment. The bot slowly began to stomp towards them again.

"...I could lift maybe three and a half of him, perhaps around four-hundred pounds." He grinned and got into another stance. "My Mexican Metals '20-12' Linear Frame affords me great strength, but I can tell he is stronger still."

David slowly nodded. Four-hundred? He could lift around twice that much at his max, so a throw is certainly possible.

He couldn't say his plan out loud. He was just going to have to trust the guy to understand.

Smasher had taught him a couple tips specifically to take out himself. His reasoning being that if he could manage decent against him, David could scrap any other borg out there with relative ease. One of those tips was using his own body weight against him.

Gravity hit you harder the heavier you were, a borg was incredibly vulnerable to such without the right implants to help mitigate the shock. Of course, just slamming them into the ground over and over wouldn't help here, if they were reinforced enough then the slam from this distance would just shake them.

Shake them long enough to get another hit in. From Tigre's last throw, they had about one full second before it recovered enough to attack again.

That would have to be enough.

He clicked his tongue. The world slowed to a crawl. He raced forwards, feeling the strain of moving so much with the sandevistan already accumulating.

The bot reacted, suddenly moving much faster than it had been. It swung one of its hammers as he approached, he swung his sword.

Not at the bot, but that fucking hammer.

Their weapons clashed, and his monoblade cut right through the thing. He let go of his sword immediately after, letting his arm-mounted blade unfold to clash with the other, stepping forwards to meet the second swing.

He didn't try to cut through, merely stay still as the hammer cut itself in half on his arm. The monoblade on his arm was not as good as a Kendachi, and his arm was forced back.

He grit his teeth and headbutted the back of his own fist, using his whole body to force his arm in place

Hey gonk, congratulations, you just lost both your hammers against two guys specialized in unarmed combat.

His sandevistan deactivated.

He was thrown to the side again, Tigre tackling him instead of attacking.

He almost shouted in surprise, but then felt the immense heat he was being moved away from.

Landing some distance away, Tigre let go of him and David saw where the heat had come from.

A three-foot lance of white-hot, screaming fire extended from the bot's other arm. It rushed forth, popping up like a projectile launcher from the center of the forearm. A continuous stream of burning that was hard to look at, and that he could feel from many feet away.

"...The fuck is that?" He muttered.

"A thermite lance, used for welding industrial plates." Tigre answered severely. "His body is a Noveltech Samson underneath all those modifications it seems."

Welding industrial plates huh? That probably wouldn't do anything good to his body.

"Thanks for the save." He spoke, a grim frown on his face. "Didn't know he was packing heat like that." Literal heat in this case it seemed.

"Neither did I."

"We have to take that arm off. Once he's out of weapons, he's going to be far easier for us to deal with."

"I agree, but I'm afraid you're out of monoblades young friend."

David glanced at his arm-blade. It was snapped in half. He bit back a growl of frustration.

"Need a hand there?!" A voice shouted from the side of the arena. He snapped his gaze over to see two young men enter through the hole in the arena wall, both of them holding monokatanas.

[ENTERING FROM THE SIDE OF THE ARENA, IT'S KUSANAGI JUN AND YAMADA OTO, THE OTHER SEMI-FINALISTS, AND THEY LOOK READY FOR A FACKING RUMBLE!]

He stared at them for a moment, careful to keep the bot in his line of sight.

They both looked irritated but focused. Jun, the beefier one, actually looked calmer than Oto, the skinnier one.

Oto spoke first. "Strommer, you had no right to interfere in this. If you stayed away maybe you'd get to live another day. Unfortunately you chose to get involved with Tigers." He sounded downright offended that this interruption happened at all.

Jun spoke next. "I got a cute lil' imouto waiting for me back home, mind dying real quick for me?" He sounded almost bored, but with an undercurrent of steel.

Jerome actually bothered to respond to this, laughing as he did so. "Don't worry, you'll be together again soon meatboy. I'll kill her after you."

Jun disappeared and the sound of steel crashing on steel rang out. A blink later and Oto was gone too, and another scream of steel came from the blurry figures in the center of the arena.

A blink, and his own sandevistan finished cycling.

He threw himself forwards as the blurry nonsense solidified into actual figures. A furious exchange of blows occurring again and again, Jerome keeping up with both well enough.

One of Jun's arms was melted from the elbow down, and he was using it over and over again as an improvised club to redirect the arm hosting the lance of white-hot thermite as he slashed out with the sword in his other arm. His face was perfectly, unnaturally blank. His eyes were glowing a furious red.

Everytime Jerome moved to attack Jun, Oto stepped forwards to cut at an angle he wasn't prepared to defend, forcing Jerome to continually abort his attacks to clumsily defend himself. Each time a chunk of rusted armor was sheared away.

David wasn't looking to shear away any armor though.

Jerome thrust his thermite arm at Jun, Jun batted it away with his melted arm and moved to attack. Jerome was forced to block both Jun and Oto.

He wasn't able to block David too, who leapt and swung.

Jerome's arm flew off at the shoulder.

El Tigre tackled his midsection, throwing him off balance.

Jun threw himself forwards in a sideways swing.

Jerome's head was cut cleanly in half, one half lazily spinning in the air.

Their speedware deactivated. David took a deep breath in and out, coughing again, this time into his hand. It was red, but that would be fine. He'd get patched up later.

Jun was glaring as Jerome's massive body started falling down, slowly due to the joints locking up. Oto spat at the corpse, and sheathed his blade. El Tigre grinned broadly as he rose from his tackle, about to yell something out.

It was then David noticed something as Jerome was falling.

His head was empty.

The should-be corpse seized up halfway to the ground and started screaming.

All four of them collapsed and started seizing up as their ICE was assaulted. His own datawalls were holding out enough for him to move, but only some. He forced himself up on one shaking arm, sparks flying.

Jerome was grinning down, half of his head completely gone. He began to reach down and David struggled to move away…

Jerome stopped suddenly.

Jerome suddenly gripped his own head and started thrashing in pain, screaming loud enough to crack glass.

"Sorry buddy, but unregistered AI are not permitted to be on this side of the Blackwall." A voice that sounded like the opposite of sorry called out, as footsteps approached. David pushed himself up, no longer being subject to a data-assault, and looked towards the voice.

A decently tall guy, with a face that sorta naturally pulled into a frown. A bit of a beard, some smartgoggles on his head, and a coat that cut off above the waist for mobility.

The cold expression of Wallace 'Macguffin' stared at the borg, some kind of techie battleglove on his left arm, a holographic interface projected over it and his right hand patiently typing away on it.

David didn't know much about the guy other than Smasher had apparently hired him to do the advertising for the arena, and that he was apparently some kind of netrunner.

Wallace ignored the screams, and a few moments later Jerome went limp, falling over with a tremendous crash. The others had pushed themselves up at this point, warily looking at the apparent metal corpse.

"You okay kids?" Wallace asked, not looking away from his screen.

"What the fuck was that?" David bit out. It was obviously a netrunning attack, but he didn't see Jerome's eyes light up like Lucy's did whenever she was quickhacking, and all four of them seized up.

A new icon popped up on the holographic screen, and Wallace grimaced.

"A Ghost."

"A Ghost Senor?" Tigre asked, equally perturbed at what had just happened.

"It's what happens when people mess around with what they shouldn't." Wallace sighed, and suddenly looked much older. "The entire city is under attack, you all might want to find your chooms and hunker down."

Jun's eyes widened and he immediately disappeared. Oto frowned for a moment, looking after him.

"Martinez. How did you decide to resolve your match with Tigre?" He demanded.

"Whoever kills the bot wins."

Oto cursed and also disappeared. David blinked for a moment before realizing something.

"Wait, you said the whole city is under attack?"

"It's concentrated up north, around Maelstrom territory. They just took out some bridges to Watson." Wallace replied, a furrowed brow stubbornly sitting on his face. "This is a fucking mess, I'm going to have to message Ol' Curtis, aren't I…"

That's where Rogue was. She was Smasher's… friend?

That's where the Mox were. Those were Becca's friends.

His resolve hardened, he ran out of the arena, sending the crew a message as he did so. They had to go help.

The city was in uproar, and he didn't know why. People screaming and sirens wailing in the distance, the occasional muffled explosion, the screeching of rubber tires clawing at pavement.

Echoing in his mind, the distress call was played over and over. He found out how to change the channel on the radio that his mind was apparently linked to now, and he set it to listen to her. Over and over, echoing in his mind to keep him focused on what he had to do.

The car wasn't his, and he didn't care for it either. He left it parked on the side of the road, key in hand, and stepped up to the seedy looking bar that was at the bottom of the building he parked next to.

The city looked different. It was filled with neon lights even during the day, and archways that filled the skyline and connected towering corporate obelisks together overhead. Massive complexes that allowed those beavershits to loom over the neo-serfs. Hundreds of AVs flew about through the towers and overhead bridges, more than he had ever seen in one place before but common in the modern day.

Banners of holographic advertisements on every building and floating through the sky, Maglev trains rushing along their silent tracks, and a hint of red on the horizon that he didn't remember.

The heights of Night City were completely different. Where he was standing looked the exact same though. Concrete roads that were worn down and coated in a fine layer of fluids and garbage. Old flickering signs and wary looks from alley dwellers around him.

New tech, old problems.

He kicked down the door leading into the bar. Just as he did so, a gunshot rang out. He noticed it, and twisted to the side, letting a burst of pellets fly past him and into the street. Twelve pellets total, he could count them as they passed.

How did he do that? His speedware wasn't activated…

It didn't matter.

He stayed still and let his glare sweep the room, looking at the tense inhabitants. All of them had some type of gun out and pointed at him, lots of them had fancy little lights glowing on them. Probably the newest trend in looking good these days.

Alt needed him. She was captured by Maelstrom. He was familiar with Maelstrom from back in the day, Relative small-timers then hung out in an abandoned building on the west side of town. He didn't know where they were right now, and he needed to find out.

Best way to do that was to ask. A bar like this? The best way to ask was direct, blunt, and with an incentive or two.

He held up the keys to his temporary car and announced loudly to the bar and its inhabitants.

"I'm new in town." He told a technical lie. He didn't know what the city looked like anymore. "I'm looking for Maelstrom, they took something from me, and I'm going to take it back."

"Hah!" A bar goer with a submachine gun laughed. "What? They take a fancy new implant you were going to chip in? You're looking mighty borged up already, choom!" There were grumbles of agreement from the bar-goers, of course, they didn't answer his question. He glared at the assembled and shook his keys.

"Whoever tells me where I can find them gets my ride out there."

That got their attention, a few of the lowlives straightened their backs to look outside at the shiny new armored car, and their eyes began to shine with a little greed.

"They're up in Watson, north of the city center, now pay on up chrome-dome." A bulky looking guy spoke up, grubbing hand out and grabbing at air. He turned his glare over to him.

"You got a map?"

"Wasn't part of the deal boy."

"You want the fucking car or not?"

Another man, a reedy looking guy with three eyes, tossed a tablet his way. Catching it without looking away from the first guy, he glanced down and saw that it had a labeled map of NC pulled up on the screen. He nodded and tossed the keys to the second guy, and began to walk out.

The click of a gun alerted him. He activated his sandevistan and turned around to see the first man angrily pointing his gun at him.

Fucking drunks, wasting his goddamn time with this. He needed to make sure they wouldn't follow him now.

He walked over and behind the man, letting the holster on his thigh open up and pulling out his new iron.

He deactivated his sandevistan and let the man realize that a gun barrel was pressing up against the back of his head. The man froze, as did most of the bar-goers.

"You consider yourself a gambling man?" Silverhand asked coldly. "Must be, with how quick you played a losing hand right there."

"...I-I don't want any trouble." The now very nervous man spoke. He must have realized that Silverhand had a solid six inches on him, and a much bigger handgun.

"Strip." There was a pause in the room.

"W-Wha-?"

"Your clothes and gun. They're mine now. Unless you want to gamble again." He kept his voice low and straight as he talked. He needed to make sure none of them would follow him. The best way to do that was to utterly humiliate one of them, it would give the rest something to laugh about.

Five minutes later, in a new set of leathers and with a backup gun, Silverhand walked out of the bar and away from the man reduced to his undergarments. Checking his new mini-tablet again, he nodded before putting it away in his new trench-coat pocket.

Man had a little walkman on him, a more portable boombox or something like that. He pressed play to have something to listen to on the road, before letting it sit in his inner-jacket pocket. Then he began to run, slowly at first, but moving faster and faster. He wasn't getting winded anymore, so a full-sprint wouldn't hold him back when he got there.

"I am in so much trouble

Busted, arrested, guilty

Oh you got me

Again."

He frowned as he heard the song start playing. It wasn't his kind of music, he made a note to throw the thing out the next time he had to stop.

It was only after he began to overtake some of the cars on the road when he realized just how fast he could move now. His boots smashed against the pavement and propelled him almost as fast as the car did.

Good. Alt needed him.

The sirens increased in volume, as did the gunshots and screams, as he approached the north. Soon enough he began to spot police cars zooming to some location he couldn't spot in the distance.

The cityline cleared, and he saw a blockade erected on both ends of a bridge in front of him. He stomped on the ground to slide to a stop, and glared at it for a moment. He moved to the left of it, towards the edge of the city and looked across.

This was the shoreline in between the mainland and Watson according to the map. Watson wasn't a thing back in his day, that area was called North Oak back then. They must have changed it for some reason.

His gaze searched for an alternative entrance, but all he could see was the ruins of bridges along the channel of water to his left. To his right, a hundred meters or more, was the police blockade and their active shootout with people he couldn't see from here. They were specifically preventing anyone from getting near the… supports? Someone was attacking the bridges then. He checked his map again. The tablet was off.

He glared at it and rotated it in his hand, pressing buttons on the side until the screen lit up again. It was asking for a password.

…He didn't know the password. He chucked it off to the side and rolled his joints.

Only one way to his destination, and that was right through. He began to run as fast as he could, activating his sandevistan just as they noticed and pointed at him.

Right before he reached their lines, he moved to jump over the hood of a car.

It was immensely surprising to find himself rocketed into the air, far above his initial goal of just going over the car. He almost panicked, but clamped down on it enough to land and roll with the impact, throwing himself up immediately to keep running. That one jump had taken him nearly halfway across the bridge.

He didn't know how long this new sandy would last, so he just prepared for it to go out at any moment.

Sprinting past the temporary fortifications of the police lines, he approached the other end of their shootout, and jumped again, now prepared for how far he would go.

…or so he thought, as he smashed through the wall of a building on the other side of the road and rolled to a crash on the interior wall of some club. He shook himself off and pushed up, not really damaged by the sudden impact.

His instincts flared, and he stepped forwards once to dodge a shot aimed for his head. Spinning around and grabbing the hand holding the gun, he forced it up and away from himself.

It was the hands of some scantily-clad woman with tattoos and brightly colored hair. He glared down for a moment, before glancing around the room.

He quickly realized he had broken through the second floor of a stripclub, judging from how the booths up here were laid out, and the numerous women pointing guns at him. It felt a little nostalgic, but he quickly clamped down on it. He wasn't here to feel, he was here to save Alt.

Her words echoed on his internal radio again.

"I need info. Maelstrom took something from me. Where's the nearest fixer?" He could bargain for some accurate information from one. If negotiations failed, he'd simply kill them and then start looking for himself again.

There was a moment of confusion. The woman whose gun he was holding started kicking at him ineffectually. He ignored it and glared around the room.

A woman from the side yelled out. "You think some rockerboy-poser can crash through our fucking wall and demand answers from the fucking Mox? You don't know shit about how Night City works gonkfucker!"

He turned his glare to the woman who shouted that, and raised one leg. These things were powerful enough to send him flying, they must be strong enough to make a point.

He stomped on the ground as hard as he could. The entire floor cracked in spiderwebs, and the room shook. The lights flickered, and dust fell from the roof like light snow. Judging from the suddenly very nervous expressions and tightened grips on their guns, they all felt it too. The woman he was holding stopped kicking at him immediately, freezing on the spot.

Another woman spoke up, looking just sly enough for him to be suspicious. "Best fixer in Night City is just south of here, in a bar named Afterlife. It's built into an old morgue, you can't miss it."

That was good enough for him.

He let go of the woman's gun and walked back to the hole he made in the wall, ignoring their shouting and weapons. Looking down for a moment, he saw nothing below him, so he jumped down to crash against the concrete. It cracked under his weight, but his legs flexed with the impact and left him underharmed.

Aiming his gaze south, and ignoring the police taking potshots at him, he started to run again.

There was open violence everywhere around him as he ran. He ignored it, they didn't matter to him. He just kept running until he reached the shore again. Narrowing his eyes, he searched around for any signs of his destination.

Not finding any, he activated his sandevistan and raced to the nearest fight.

One chromed up dude with a bunch of eyes brawling with a few in leather jackets. Judging from how the dude glanced over at him and immediately started moving to fire at him, he was probably hostile.

The ganger wasn't faster than him though. He pulled out his new handgun, and aimed a shot from the hip.

"Boom." Silverhand said. His finger squeezed the trigger.

"Boom." said the gun. His hand jerked back from the recoil.

The boosterganger turned into red rain and scrap hail as his upper half disappeared. Behind him, the wall of the building exploded into rubble and had a meter-wide hole open up. This continued through the next wall, and the wall after that. He could see the sunlight on the other side of the brand new windows his gun helped install.

He deactivated his speedware, and stared at the people now shouting curses and hiding behind cover.

"I'm looking for a bar called Afterlife. Where is it?" He spoke, loudly, firmly.

These people, proving that they were polite enough to immediately give him what he wanted, immediately spoke up.

"D-down the block and through the alley on the right, it's underground!" One of them yelled in a panic. He nodded and ran off in that direction.

He found the stairs leading down quickly enough, taking note of the bodies of a beefy dude and two boostergangers outside, and started walking. He could hear violence inside, and frowned. Guess he was going to have to kill something else to get the fixer to talk.

There was a really annoying screaming noise going on, like binary or machine code or something. He drowned it out with Alt's message, focusing on it.

He calmly stepped through the doorway, activating his speedware as he did. The walkman changed to a new song. Another song that he wasn't a particular fan of.

"Thought we were about to get serious

You know me and you

I didn't know you were making love at another place too."

There were two corpses of metal and meat, and two living, screaming gangers of metal and meat. They looked worse than even Smasher did back in 2020, a twisted mess of wires and metal. If they weren't cyberpsychos, he'd be fucking surprised.

Judging from how everyone seemed to be shooting at them, he decided that they probably weren't the fixer he was looking for. He'd have to be careful to not destroy the walls in here, so that meant no big gun for right now.

He drew that monokatana and stepped forwards, moving around the bullets that crawled through the air. The first booster turned to look at him, but not fast enough to really do anything.

"Chop." Silverhand said. His arm swung as hard as it could.

"Chop." said the sword. It passed through the booster with little resistance.

He took a few steps, and repeated the process on the second booster. Afterwards, he deactivated his speedware, and started wiping the blade off on his new jacket. It was covered in oil and blood, he needed to get that off before putting it away.

Behind him, the gunfire slowly came to a stop as the corpses of the two psychos collapsed in bisected halves. He kept working on his fancy new sword, the coat wasn't a very good rag.

Once it was clean, it sheathed it again and turned around, letting the bar see his face. Letting them see his glare.

"I heard the best fixer in Night City hangs here. I need info."

"W-who the fuck do you think you are!" A familiar voice rang out.

He almost jumped in recognition, and turned to the bar to look at the source of the voice.

Rogue and Johnny locked eyes. His breath caught in his throat, although he no longer needed to breathe.

"...Rache..?" He muttered in surprise.

She shouted at him, looking just as beautiful when mad as she always used to. "How the fuck do you know that name you goddamn poser! You think you can walk in here with that fucking face and…" He tuned her out, just staring for a moment to make sure it was her.

Her hair was a light gray, her face just slightly aged, her fashion a tad more conservative, but it was her without question. She had survived all these years…

He was about to say something, he wasn't sure what.

Alt's cry for help repeated on his internal radio.

Silverhand's optics focused into a determined glare, and he cut right through whatever she was saying. "I need a map of Maelstrom territory. They die tonight."

She paused in baffled rage. She blinked once and was about to shout something else at him. He ignored it.

"The radio. Switch to Alt's channel." He demanded.

She froze. Her eyes raced over his form once, twice, before she muttered in almost fearful realization. "...You're not a poser, are you…?"

"The radio!" Silverhand repeated himself, emphasizing his demand. Her face lost its nervous tension and sharpened into a beautiful, angry glare again.

"Everyone keep your irons pointed at this fucker. If he makes a move, flatline him." She ordered, and all the still-living bar-goers fixed their aims at him again. She moved over to the radio near the bar, and adjusted the frequency a few times.

A voice echoed both his internal radio and the external radio.

[…tured. Maelstrom.]

Rogue froze as she listened to a familiar voice. The entire bar stayed silent to listen to what was going on. The voice eventually repeated again, this time in full.

[Help Me. Captured. Maelstrom.]

"You kept my car." It was a plain statement, giving nothing away with inflection. A simple observation to fill the awkward quiet that took hold after the message was delivered. He stared at the Porsche 911 Classic parked inside the shipping crate, now woefully out of date for whatever the modern style of vehicles were, but painfully familiar to him.

He walked over and laid a hand on it, opening up the hood and prying up the trunk cover to make sure the engine was still good. He didn't know much about cars, but he knew how to take care of his baby well enough. The inside had none of the expected wear or rust from fifty odd years since he drove it, not exactly polished but still completely functional.

He kept going through the motions of checking his ride as Rogue replied.

"No. Adam Smasher gave it to me a few weeks ago." She sounded angry, provocative, challenging him to say something that would distract him from his mission. He didn't rise to her bullshit.

He paused at that, and glared down into the engine. "Smasher had my baby?"

"Your gun too, it's in the glovebox." He walked over to pop open the door and check. Sure enough, his old Malorian 3516 was in the glovebox, and a box of extra ammo on the floorboard. He took it out and tucked it into his right side leg-holster through the torn pockets of his pilfered jeans.

"Why the fuck would Adam Smasher give you my shit?" He could understand why the big metal gonker might keep his shit, little trophies of the Legends he's killed, Smasher seemed like that kind of guy.

"He said he was cleaning out his storage, found them, and decided I wanted anything to do with them." She growled out at him, and he almost growled right back. He was restrained by his current need to have Rogue give him info.

Her answer didn't tell him what he wanted to know. Why the fuck did Adam Smasher give it to her specifically? That made no fucking sense unless…

He clenched a chrome fist.

…He didn't give a shit about this. Rogue might be working with 'Saka these days. He didn't care about them right now. Alt needed him, that's all that mattered. He was about to leave it at that before Rogue decided to speak up again.

"Not going to ask why the fuck Adam Smasher is giving me shit?" She slammed the hood of his baby down and glared at him. She was clearly trying to piss him off and it was working.

"I don't care." He simply replied, walking around the back of the car to open the driver's side door and settling in. He ignored her for a moment and looked for the keys.

He noticed very quickly that there were no keys. He turned his glare up to Rogue, watching her give a small flinch at his sudden movement.

"The keys." He ground out.

"Do you even give a shit about me!" She yelled out, to which he finally lost his patience. Throwing open the door to his car and standing up, he smacked a silver hand on the roof and yelled back.

"I don't have time for this fucking drama! Alt needs me! Pull this bullshit later and stop wasting both of our fucking times with it!"

She glared at him, breathing heavily and face flushed in fury. He could hear her teeth grinding, but maintained his glare at the woman who seemed content to prioritize garbage like this.

She suddenly stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Fists clenched on the hood of his car, she looked away from him for a moment.

She then turned completely away and called out. "Boys! Grab the heavy guns and load up!". Not looking at him, she walked over to the passenger side and got in. He kept up his glare, she explained her actions icily.

"You're a dumbass who will get yourself and Alt killed if you go in alone. I don't give a shit about you, but Alt's a good woman." Her face scrunched up and she pointedly didn't look at him. "She deserves better than this, better than you."

He really didn't care what she had to say anymore. "The keys." He ground out again, hand held up. She handed them over, pulling them out of her front jacket pocket, careful to not touch his hand with her own.

"Pull to the side, give the boys a few minutes to load up." She demanded. He audibly growled at this, but she spoke again before he could express his frustration with being ordered.

"Alt's lasted this long, she'll last a few moments longer. What do you want more, to wait a little longer to see her, or to die right as you get there?!"

He ignored her, starting up the car, hearing it purr, and pulled over to the side that she designated. Two dumb looking guys came out the side-door with two heavy looking guns and a couple boxes of ammo. Popping the trunk to let them load it, there was a minute or two of tense silence in the car.

There was a faint sense of regret in his mind. The moment he noticed it, he crushed it as low as it could go. He wasn't here to make amends for his past actions, he was here to save Alt and burn a city down.

Rogue would get out before the fires got her, she was a smart woman, and the best in the business in a gunfight. She'd be fine.

She didn't need him around, they brought out the worst in one another. They both knew that.

So why the fuck was she wasting her time?

He kept his hands on the steering wheel, and optics straight ahead, waiting to get the clear to move on. The back doors opened up eventually, and the two gonks with dumb looking haircuts got in carrying good sized machine guns and vests covered in grenades.

If they died, they died, oh well.

He began to drive out, getting onto the main street and starting to drive.

"Straight north past the next two intersections, then drive straight east. We'll get to Maelstrom territory in a few minutes." Rogue spoke, he nodded in confirmation.

Slowly teasing his baby for a moment, he began to accelerate, ignoring the gunfights going on around him. A few minutes? He'd make that two minutes, tops.

Zooming forwards, he saw the police blockade to his right. They weren't taking potshots at him this time.

"I gave them a call, they won't stop us so long as you don't do something stupid." Rogue explained, noticing his glance.

"Lawman contacts? You a fixer now or something?" He asked idly, shifting gears and swerving around a pothole at close to eighty miles per hour. His tires screaming at him as he twisted around potential slowdowns on the road.

"Queen of Afterlife. Best goddamn fixer in Night City." She snapped at him.

"Not content just being the best solo around huh?" He drifted around the intersection corner at ninety-five miles per hour, letting his baby twist into a 360 to prevent a flip and straightening out into a clean shot down the road. About a mile or two down, he could see the start of crude fortifications and tire spikes…

…how was his vision this good?

It didn't matter.

Rogue didn't respond after that, letting him focus entirely on driving. He narrowed his gaze and carefully considered his approach into what he could now see as guns pointed down from the windows.

He lied. He didn't need to consider it at all.

He drifted into a second 360 to bleed off momentum safely and drove on the north road he was just passing. He had a good feeling about this.

Namely, the road was much wider, clearly meant for industrial shipping, and thus much harder for anyone to block off with spikes and firing lines. It twisted back east again too, still taking him where he wanted to go. He swerved around an RPG that was fired at him from a rooftop.

"Where are they holed up in?" He demanded as he shifted gears and built up speed again. He bounced the car off the curb to get over the roadspikes with tires intact.

"Allfoods, old abandoned nutrient factory. Strommers all have more than two optics." Rogue replied, tightly gripping the car to prevent being thrown about by his (very skilled, thank you very much) driving.

"All of you have speedware?" They better, otherwise they'd be deadweight. He accelerated through a shitty barrier of scrap metal, snapping the welds on the rusted plates and barrelling through.

A round of confirmations came from the three in his car, so he sped up even more. He turned a particularly brave fucker into red mist.

Most deadly thing on the streets was never a borg, or an ACPA, or anything like that. The most deadly thing on the streets was a car moving very fast. He turned on the windshield wipers.

Spotting the dilapidated sign over the factory two miles away, he pressed the gas to the floorboard straight at it. He really didn't need this car anymore, it would serve him better like this. Sorry baby, mind helping daddy out one last time?

His baby roared in affirmation.

Subtly twisting and weaving his approach to make all those guns aimed at him bounce off the armored hull of the car instead of his tires or windows, he pushed his baby as fast as it could go down the two mile stretch.

The max speed of the Porsche 911 Classic was around 195 miles per hour. It weighed around 2300 pounds unloaded, and was currently filled with ammo and explosives in the front-mounted trunk space.

He aimed his baby at a curb right outside the target factory, and shouted.

"Now!"

The inhabitants of his car activated their speedware, and comparatively calmly they hopped out of the suddenly very slow car. The three of them did some sort of strange crouching stance, not behind cover, but rather in an open space of the road.

Not having time to ponder this much, he deactivated his speedware.

A 1.15 ton bullet traveling at nearly 200 miles per hour turned the front of the building into shattered rubble. He had no time to appreciate it however, as he suddenly realized that he wasn't braced to bleed off the momentum of the ride at all.

A second bullet, this one only weighing around 350 pounds, followed the first closely, flying through the hole and tumbling through the air as his foot clipped something.

He spun, unable to control his flight through the air, and crashing into something very solid and very hot to the touch. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, his whole world was pain.

Alt's cry for help echoed in his mind.

His optics burned with static, coming back online very quickly as he was distracted by white static- pain, it was pain. Activating his pain editor, all of it rushed away, replaced by cool nothing as he threw himself up and behind the nearest cover, a large metal basin on his left.

There was someone here already. The multiple optics told him all he needed to know.

Pulling out his Malorian as the strommer stumbled with his own weapon, he took aim within the same fraction of a second that it took for him to leap from where he crashed.

"Bang, bang." He whispered. His finger twitched twice.

"Bang, bang." Said his friend. His arm compensated for the recoil without any trouble.

The strommer had two fresh new holes opened in his head and torso as he dropped to the ground. Silverhand threw his gaze around the inside of the factory, trying to get his bearings.

That was his plan. That plan was quickly aborted as his instincts screamed at him to move. He threw himself to the side as bullets began to scream out, turning where he just was into swiss cheese. He turned to see what had fired at him, only to be forced to dodge again.

He jumped up, legs propelling him into the air and away from the screaming chrome junkie, limbs making a good impression of a blender and body only vaguely human.

He was forced to put up an arm to defend himself from the burst of bullets that came for him from just about every shadow in the massive factory.

This was a poor situation. It was made better by his sandevistan cycling again, he activated it immediately.

The bullets slowed to a crawl around him, surrounding him like a swarm of angry brass bees. Glancing around as quickly as he could, he saw that the front side of the factory was open to the outside, and that Rogue and those three were hunkered down and firing at anything coming for them.

That wasn't much, because he was taking up most of the attention. Dozens of almost-human shapes filled the factory around him, a few dozen now smears and scrap from his baby crashing through the wall and turning a swathe of them into red paint.

That still left a few dozen strommers, each with guns that he would have struggled to lift while alive, each with more eyes than a person should have, each tracking him better than they normally would be able to.

They all had kerenzikovs or sandevistans. Every one of them. He was suspended in the air, surrounded by bullets the size of his pinky, with very little ways to defend himself.

C'mon Silverhand! Think! How the fuck are you going to get out of this situation? He didn't have anything that could move him…

He paused, then scanned around for the biggest mass of strommers he could find.

His left thigh-holster opened up.

His hand grabbed his new iron, three bullets still inside the four-shot revolver design. He had two more reloads worth of bullets left outside of this. He'd make them count.

He aimed for the largest mass of strommers.

"Boom." Silverhand declared. His finger pulled the trigger.

"Boom." Said the Gun.

Nine strommers were turned into blood and oil. A truck-sized cone of concrete shrapnel exploded out from the floor behind them. Even in the slowed time of the sandevistan, it was nearly instantaneous.

His sandevistan deactivated.

He was thrown back harshly, away from the swarm of bullets, crashing against the far wall almost to the ceiling. His pain editors currently on, he felt very little of this impact.

Letting himself slide down, he saw two strommers having already turned to keep firing at him. They were behind an improvised fortification, good enough for him.

"Bang, bang." He and his Malorian spoke in unison. The two strommers collapsed, one after the other, as their heads and upper torsos were punched right through with a nice, big bullet.

He landed on their corpses, crouching behind the cover for a moment and waiting for his speedware to refresh again. He was faster than them when it was active, those were the windows of opportunity he had to use to kill them.

He stayed crouched, and waited with his guns pointed in either direction. The first thing he hears, he's firing at.

The scream of gunfire echoed over his head, bringing back memories of hot, muggy trenches. His arms were smaller, and made of flesh and bone. His helmet didn't quite fit over his head. His legs were shaking with nerves.

His eyes unfocused for a moment…

Alt's cry for help echoed on his radio again.

He snarled and forced himself back into reality. He shot twice with his Malorian and turned a strommer who ran up on him into a corpse. He smashed the memories down. He could deal with them later, Alt needed him now.

His sandevistan cycled.

He holstered his Malorian, and drew his new sword as he activated his speedware again.

Kicking off the ground, and then again off the wall he was near, he threw himself down into the crowd of strommers trying to come up the stairs. This wasn't time for restraint or skillful swordplay, so he didn't bother with either.

He just started swinging, and let the sword do the rest.

A limb. A head. A torso. A few tentacles of chrome. Another sword. A club. A gun. Another gun.

He hacked his way through the mass of strommers, pushing and tackling them aside when their corpses didn't get out of his way fast enough. When he reached the bottom, he kicked off the stairs and forwards again.

That looked like a mighty large mass of strommers huh?

He raised the Gun, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

"Boom." Said the Gun.

Another seven strommers suddenly learned that their limbs were filing restraining orders. This caused such immense heartbreak that their internal organs ceased to exist. The wall behind it turned into open air. The building shook with the impact.

One bullet left before he needed to reload, he'd save it for when he needed it again.

There was a sudden lull in the combat as the remaining strommers hid behind cover. He could hear them reloading all around him. He took this chance to talk.

"You have Alt. Give her back." He demanded, glaring at everything that took a peak at him.

There was a hush in the factory, even as the sound of bullets continued outside from Rogue's defensive point. Good, they should stay right there and not inside the factory.

A dull boom of metal crashing on metal. He looked to the far wall, behind the heaviest fortifications.

A second boom, he turned fully to face it.

A third boom, and a cellar door behind the fortifications was thrown open. A giant of metal stepped out.

Almost nine feet and probably a ton of metal stepped out. Its steps cracked the ground as it slowly rose from the apparent basement level. Rusted plates welded over the top of more plates, all covering a crudely humanoid form like a parody of an armored knight.

In one hand, a massive hammer was clutched. In the other, an equally massive and crude slab of metal. Like the walls of a train cart, cut out, and strapped to a giant's arm.

From its face, nine red optics glared down through a transparent visor.

"Well, well, well…"

A completely inhuman voice came from the armored giant. It sounded like an avalanche, a mass of stones grinding against one another.

"I wasn't expecting Johnny Silverhand to come back from the grave. Much less with a respectable level of chrome in him."

He decided that, quite frankly, he didn't care about whatever this gonk had to say.

"Alt. Now. Before I flatline your entire gang."

The armored giant paused, before chuckling briefly.

"Sorry to say, Silverhand. I need her for a little while longer. You can have her back when me and my boys are done."

"Boom." Said the Gun.

The armored giant's shield turned into scrap, along with a good chunk of its upper arm, and the wall behind it. It staggered back and crashed against the fortifications.

Silverhand's optics burned orange.

There was no real decision process, just a simple, absolute, irrefutable fact. There was no need to think it over, or consider it, or hesitate in following through with it.

Everyone in his way was going to die within the next five minutes, three if he managed to finally get the hang of his new body in time. His problem was that it wasn't that it wasn't good enough. No, just the opposite in fact. It was too good.

A dodge back would end up as a leap many feet off the ground, hearing an enemy come around the corner would result in him shooting too fast and needing to double-tap to ensure a clean kill, a swing of the sword designed to knock a weapon up would instead cut it in half.

Even the speedware was better than he was used to, now this shit actually made him go faster rather than just giving him better reactions. It was incredibly annoying that it seemed like all speedware did that these days, judging from how fast everyone was now.

Everything he tried to do, his body would output way more force than he was intending on, sending it wildly off the original mark. It was only the fact that he could take far more of a beating now that kept him in the fight. His body was covered in segmented plates of metal capable of bouncing off a few shots from his own Malorian.

Smasher had a point back in the day, as annoying as it was to say Steelhead was right about fucking anything. Metal was better than Meat, and that fact was throwing off every-fucking-thing he tried to do.

Fortunately, Silverhand considered himself a fast learner, and right now he had plenty of targets to practice on.

His new Gun was out of bullets, he would need at least two seconds to reload it. It was his best bet for turning the big one into scrap.

His sword could cut through one of those joints just fine, but he would need a clear shot at it.

His Malorian wasn't going to do any damage except to a real delicate part, but it still had four bullets left before he needed to reload.

He activated his speedware, the world slowing down to a crawl once more. His optics locked onto the form of the giant falling back, his audio suite could detect the guns around him starting to fire, bullets whizzing through the air.

His hand moved, holster in his thigh opening up, Gun slammed inside and holster beginning to retract. His other hand gently tossed the sword in the air, then moved to draw his Malorian again.

He kicked off the ground, very lightly this time, and caught the sword in his now free left hand as he flew.

He swung as hard as he could, letting the blade carry him. Two strommers suddenly lost their bodies from their pectorals down, their guns began to fall. He twisted into a crouching aim, letting the homing micro-missles slowly trail past his head and into the wall.

…who had fired those?

Ah, that one with his arms unfolded. Silverhand took aim, moving his arm slower than he was used to, locking on and firing a bullet. Three shots left.

His gun didn't fire any faster than this. This wasn't a problem back when speedware didn't make you actually move faster. He grumbled as he ducked down in the cover the two strommers were slowly dying in, and deactivated his sandevistan.

It left a bitter taste in his not-mouth, to know that his most recent Malorian couldn't keep up with him anymore. That taste was only made more bitter when he realized he didn't have any eddies to commission a new one.

His instincts screamed at him, he threw himself to the side.

The cover he was behind disintegrated as a rocket-fueled hammer the size of his torso smashed down. Nine baleful optics turned to follow him as he moved. He didn't even hear the big fucker move, one moment he was a safe distance away and the next he was turning steel bench into scrap.

So he had speedware too then, that pissed him off just a bit. He landed and rolled, scrambling to get up as bullets from other strommers in the room began to ping off of him like hail.

"Don't be so impatien-"

"Bang." Malorian interrupted, punching a spider-web of cracks into the fucker's visor. The giant staggered back as Silverhand got his bearing and stood up straight again. Nice visor gonkass, bet that's really helpful right now.

His instincts screamed at him to move. He jumped off the ground as hard as he could straight up.

The hammer crashed against the sound barrier right where his body just was. He ignored the spike of dread and hooked his sword around the edge of the balcony, pulling himself up and over.

Swinging around the edge, he kicked and turned the strommer about to shoot him into crumbled plasteel. His sandevistan was ready again. He crouched behind the sandbags they put up here and activated it.

The world slowed to a crawl. He tossed his sword up and unholstered both guns.

One, Two, Three, Four new bullets into the Gun.

A new clip for his Malorian.

Lightly tossing the Malorian up. He reached up to pluck the slowly spinning blade from the air and sheath it.

He stood and grabbed the Malorian. This fight was already over, they just didn't know it yet. He glanced over to the open side of the factory, to make sure that Rogue was doing fine. His brow furrowed when he saw that she and her lackeys were actually starting to fire into the factory itself now, every now and then turning a strommer into scrap with heavy fire.

Had she already taken care of all their reinforcements? How many strommers were there these days anyways? There were only around fifty of them back in the day, and he's already flatlined at least that many…

It didn't matter. There could be a whole country of them and he'd still kill them all. He might have to start taking their guns partway through though.

His optics widened as he saw a blurry figure rush from underneath him, heading straight for Rogue. He finally realized why the giant was so fast.

It didn't have a kerenzikov or sandevistan. It had both. It was only its immense bulk that made it anywhere near reasonable for him to react to.

Rogue began to turn, faster than the world around her but not fast enough.

He kicked off the wall, rocketing towards the rushing figure.

The giant began to swing.

He realized his mistake, as the giant's hammer was turned the wrong way around. Its rocket back-end ignited brilliantly. He wasn't holding his sword…

The giant spun on a dime, hammer moving to crash against him. Eyes glared at him in triumph, half orange, half red. Judging from what it did to his cover earlier, it would scrap him in a single hit.

His speedware timed out. He was out of time to think.

He was never really good at thinking anyways. He trusted his not-gut and squeezed his finger.

"Boom." Said the Gun.

The hammer turned into an improvised shrapnel mine as the bullet collided with its head mid-swing. He grunted as he was hit by what was now just a metal stick, sending him flying back to collide against the wall.

Rogue gave a shout of pain. He threw himself off the wall and forwards. Rogue had fallen back, clutching at her face, a bloom of fresh red. Her lackeys were peppered in newly installed metal spikes.The giant was turning to raise its arm at her.

He trusted his gut again.

"Boom." said the Gun.

The giant was thrown to the side, now missing the arm it tried to aim at Rache. It began to let off an electronic roar as it crashed to the floor, stumbling in an attempt to catch itself.

Rogue and her help screamed, along with every strommer in the room. He didn't know why, all he knew is that he wanted this fucker to shut the fuck up.

He didn't need to trust his gut this time. The shot was guaranteed.

"Boom." Said the Gun.

The giant was thrown from its position on the floor to fly through the air, crashing against the far wall of the factory, a sizable hole opened up in its side. The roaring intensified, and Silverhand almost felt like he could hear the voice of a second woman in pain. He decided that he didn't care.

"Boom." Silverhand declared. His finger pulled the trigger as the giant's head began to rise again.

"Boom." The Gun confirmed. The giant's head and upper-torso disappeared, and a hole opened up in the wall behind it. The metallic roar ceased. The strommers stopped screaming. Rache and the other two stopped screaming. That was four shots, the fucker better not move again. In fact, he better just make that clear.

"THE NEXT GONK THAT RAISES THEIR HEAD LOSES IT!" He roared out to a now-quiet factory, voice drowning out anything that the strommers might have been saying or listening to.

A couple of them thought they were clever. Silverhand started walking sideways, over to Rache, keeping an eye on them.

A few raised their guns…

Bang, Bang, Bang.

A few lost their heads.

He kept walking until he was over her. He leaned back against the cover she was using, gun raised, optics on the factory, Malorian idly spinning in his hand.

He glanced over, Rache…

Alt's cry for help repeated in his ears.

No, Rogue.

Rogue was already fixing herself up, a bloody stake of iron sitting on the ground next to her, her hand clutched over one of her eyes, face painted red. A second stake was still in her gut, and another in her thigh.

She fared better than her lackeys, both of which weren't moving anymore, their impromptu acupuncture being much more thorough than her own.

He turned his gaze back to the strommers.

Bang, Bang, Bang.

Three more fuckers would be going home in caskets.

"Can you fix yourself up?" He asked, voice low and serious.

"Give me a minute." She grumbled out at him, pulling out a medical kit and quickly going through the motions of self-patching by using her speedware. In another few instants, the shrapnel was out, she had sprayed some kind of foam on all the wounds, and she had a bandage tightly wrapped around her left eye.

…He was able to keep up with that, but only barely. He glared out at the crowd of subdued strommers and ignored it. He also ignored her frustrated complaints about how he crashed the car. It was his car to crash, she had no right to complain.

Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang.

Four more strommers suddenly realized they had appointments in the afterlife.

He activated his speedware, and reloaded everything.

He didn't have any more reloads of the Gun. He only had four shots left. He stored it in his thigh and resolved to not touch it if he didn't need to. His Malorian was still good enough for anything on the streets.

He drew the blade in his right hand, transferring over his Malorian to its proper place in his left hand.

"I'm good for now." Rogue said plainly, weapon drawn and standing with her back to him, watching for anyone coming up to them.

"Let's go, they probably have her in the basement." He said, his optics glanced down to the two he didn't even know the names of. He frowned briefly, before pushing down the feeling.

He started to walk forwards, Rogue following behind him.

The strommers, now reduced to perhaps a tenth of their number and leaderless, didn't peak their heads up anymore.

He descended into the concrete hall leading down. The lights flickered as he passed them. He checked every door as he stepped through.

Some doors were filled with random chrome. Some were operating tables. One was a studio. A few were crates of storage.

Some of them were empty. Some of them had strommers in them. He made sure that they didn't have any strommers left by the time he moved on, just scrap metal and viscera.

Eventually, they reached the final door. Kicking it down and turning the strommer inside into a ghost with one well placed bullet, he looked around the room.

He didn't recognize what it was for immediately. There was a medical table, diagnostic machines, a computer with an actual interface, a cut cord leading to a modem…

He walked over and around to see the computer screen. On it was just a single chat room screen, with replies from 'user' and 'guest 1'. Rogue followed behind him, glancing at the screen but her weapon trained on the door.

They were talking to someone. He narrowed his eyes and began to type, pecking away at the keyboard.

[where is alt]

There was a moment's pause, before the guest began to type out vitriol.

[You absolute dense motherfucker, don't play games with me you son of a bitch, you ape-brained gonkass incest-baby shit eater. I will rain death and spit fury down on you the moment…]

It kept going. He didn't need to read anymore.

He pulled out its interface cable and slammed it into the port on the computer. Immediately his body locked up and a presence settled in his mind. He didn't move, even as Rogue started cursing and wheeled her gun around to point at him.

The presence paused, the hold it had on his body slackened.

A sweet, beautiful voice echoed in his mind.

'...Johnny…?'

He slowly collapsed, gripping the computer as a lifeline to stay upright. He began to laugh, it would have been a cry if he was still capable of shedding tears, and shake in the dimly-lit room of a cyberpsycho fortress.

He lost her in 2013.

Ten years that he remembered since he had her back. Fifty-four years that he didn't remember since he had her back. Sixty-four years he's been separated from her, and here she was, she was…

She was…

'Oh Johnny…' Her sweet voice turned a little sad. She was always beautiful when she was sad, she was beautiful all the time.

"H-hey Alt… Long time no see, huh?" He held back the hysterics just enough to give her a reply. Rogue slowly lowered her gun as realization took hold over her features.

He couldn't care right now. Right now, none of that mattered. He just kept laughing, desperately clutching the computer, desperately hoping this wasn't another dream.

He had Alt back.

He felt the sensation of imaginary hands rub against his back, he welcomed the delusion for what it was.

He didn't know how long he stayed like that, but eventually Rogue grabbed his shoulder.

"We need to get back now Johnny. We're still in enemy territory here." She said with a conflicted look on her face.

'Let's go home Johnny.' Alt whispered to him, feeding his mind the sensation of a tight hug.

He picked himself up, and nodded, forcing his features to smooth out again.

'There's no Johnny left anymore. I'm all chrome now.' he thought sadly back to her. 'I'm just the Hand. Just the worst bits…'

'Johnny, stop being a gonk.' Alt playfully returned, voice twinged in melancholy.

He left out a laugh that was relieved and desperate in equal measure. That was just like her to say.

He moved to unplug himself, hesitating before the plug.

'Don't worry Johnny, pull it, I'm right here now.' Alt confirmed with an imaginary smile.

He pulled, like ripping a bandaid off, and almost froze in panic. It was only the feeling of the hug squeezing tighter around him that reassured him.

She was in his head now, she was with him, she wasn't going to go away again…

…she was in his head.

…Note to self, Alt, we need to get you a body ASAP.

Alt's laughter twinkled in his mind as he and Rogue fled the basement levels. Rogue didn't speak again for the rest of their time rushing back to her club. Along the way, Alt started filling him in on everything he's missed since he was dead.

Of course, about halfway back, an announcement blared on all frequencies, a man who he didn't recognize speaking just barely below shouting levels.

[This is a Netwatch-sanctioned announcement. There has been a class-four breach in the Blackwall in the Watson region. I repeat, a class-four breach in the Blackwall in the Watson region. Netwatch has been notified and will arrive in an estimated three hours. All Netrunners in Night City are requested for aid in containing the breach, with standard compensation for breach events.]

'Oh no…' Alt whispered in horror. Her voice matched the expression on Rogue's face.

All around him, every electronic in the neon city began to go haywire, firing randomly.

Around him, half of the strommers started screaming or convulsing or both. The other half suddenly started firing randomly.

His eyes flickered, and suddenly he could see things he couldn't before.

'Sorry love, I need to see this.' Alt spoke urgently, and he swallowed down the frustration.

The sky overhead was a swirling vortex of angry black storm clouds.

And from the clouds, thousands of things descended.

Wallace never considered himself the best driver, but he was good enough to steer through the various twists and turns of the now-chaotic roadways out of Pacifica. Normally, in disastrous events like this, he'd been hunkered down right now and waiting for the metaphorical storm to pass. Unfortunately for him, the moment the Netwatch Net-Tripwire on the Blackwall broke was the moment he had to get to work.

The first thing was to assess the level of breach in the Blackwall, of which there were six. A level one breach was a lone AI that had slipped through and was currently passive. This level of breach required an agent to communicate with the AI, assess the personality matrix, and then either leave it alone or try to convince it to go back across the wall. Most of the time, AI were here on accident and were simply waiting for an appropriate authority to send them back safely.

The Blackwall did not play nice with other AI, only certain routes were safe for most of them.

A level two breach was a single AI that had gotten through and was currently active. This is the primary job of most Netwatch elites, tracking down these threats, locking them down, and kicking them back across the wall or deleting them if possible. Now, in a net-battle between a newborn AI and an experienced runner who's down to his last six-pack of smash, he'd personally bet on the newborn AI most of the time. Netwatch Wargs were both very experienced and had all the fancy tools that all the global funding could buy them to help, and even then they had a 15% casualty rate most years.

There was a common joke among netrunners, that there are very few male netrunners. Most living runners were female, and that had an element of truth to it. Netwatch typically saw more male recruits than females, for reasons that he never bothered looking into. Very few of these netrunners live to retirement.

A level three breach was the tipping point in which multiple Netwatch elites were typically called in to handle the threat. It involved a newly openly route through the Blackwall being formed by some faction, and active AI starting to wander through. It was a job that required at least two elites to handle, one to hold off the AIs, the other to seal the route.

You couldn't seal the route just on this side though, that would be too easy. You have to descend to the bottom of the Net-architecture, fighting through the swarms of Black ICE, hostile AI, and whatever enemy netrunners that decided to dig this 'tunnel', all the way to the wildernet at the deepest levels, and then start sealing from there, working your way back up. If you just seal it on one layer, then it's too easy to break through, such seals are temporary at best. You had to seal each and every layer of the 'tunnel', working your way back from the edge as you layered ICE again and again.

A level three breach was a job that an entire Netwatch Wolfpack was called in for, three to seven veteran agents, often working with whatever corporate or independent netrunners were in the area to help the event. It was one of the few times he had to get off his ass and actually put forth some effort.

Officially he was retired, but that's the thing about Netwatch. Once you were in, you were in. They were a tight-knit bunch, and retiring often meant 'I'm not doing jobs anymore, but I'll help out when you need it.'. Nobody wanted the Blackwall to fall, their entire modern civilization depended on it.

A level four breach was when the Blackwall fell in a localized area. This was a potentially city-ending disaster, demonstrably so because they have an example of it happening in the past.

Tel Aviv used to be a city in Israel.

Israel almost isn't a country in the middle east anymore. The Mideast Meltdown back in 1997 turned every nation in the middle east except Egypt, Syria, and Israel into radioactive puddles, the refugees had to go somewhere, often violently resisting any attempt to turn them away. The three remaining nations in the area swelled, filled with the survivors from the Suicide War, and started to lose control of their own nations as crime and poverty swelled.

Israel handled this as well as it could, even if it was now completely cut off from its primary backer in the US, with the US undergoing its own collapse in this era. They handled it mostly with violently gunning down as many refugees as they saw heading for their country.

This worked until the Datakrash, which destroyed much of the more advanced infrastructure they relied upon to manage their impromptu defense. No longer able to supervise their borders as well, their nation started to be filled with more and more wandering wastelanders who wanted the safety of civilization. They handled that as well as they could…

Until someone decided to put a level-four breach in the Blackwall of Tel Aviv back in the 2050s. AI swarmed until the city itself just had to be cordoned off entirely. Now, much of the Israeli military is dedicated to making sure that nothing in the city gets out, including much of their military cyberforms and the factories that make them in the city. Israel only funds their efforts through foreign investment, turning much of their international policy into one of securing more funding for themselves from anyone willing to give it.

An entire nation crippled into begging for international alms because no one could close a level-four breach in time.

Wallace lived here, so he had a vested interest in making sure it stayed afloat.

Netwatch, with express permissions from most every country on the planet, had developed a series of bounties and incentives for any netrunner willing to help in the event of such breaches. A level one breach would net the runner a 1,000ed reward. A level two breach would net the runner a 10,000ed reward. A level three breach would net the runner a 50,000ed reward and a free subscription to the Netwatch Pin-up Calendar for women.

A level four breach? Confirmation of your aid in helping against one of those would net you 50,000ed and legal forgiveness for all non-felony crimes. Helping out in one of those would give you a clean start for anything you did in the past below felony level. It was a very tempting thing for many, especially as prone to legal gray areas and minor crimes as netrunners often were.

It was only forgiveness though, not exemption from the law. If they committed another crime afterwards, it was entirely within the right of the local government to prosecute them. Most criminals were repeat offenders, so this resulted in very few people actually turning their lives around. There were some cases of it though, that was always nice to see.

The moment he noticed the tripwire-ICE breaking and saw the hole opening up in the sky, he sent out the alert to everyone in the city using his old Netwatch authorization codes (they never expired on their own, the boys back in Europe had to cancel them manually). This got just about every Netrunner who was high enough level to matter against swarms of AI to sit right the fuck up and get to the breach site.

Where he now had to go to make sure his city didn't die, instead of staying in his nice bunker with his cute wife and cute daughter and cute granddaughter. He grumbled at the unfairness of it all.

He pulled to a stop and honked at the group of kids he saw running (running!) up the road. They turned to him and ran over to his truck as he rolled down the window.

Yes, truck. A flatbed truck with a roofed back, partly filled with a massive mobile server to help him coordinate the breach-defenses. It was the standard type of gear an old retiree like him would have in his garage.

"You kids going up to Watson?" He spoke as they approached.

Adam Smasher's apprentice, now fitted with a spare arm, yelled back. "Yeah! You offering a ride, choom?!"

He nodded and waved for the four of them to hop in. David Martinez, Lucyna Kushinada, Rebecca, Katsuo Tanaka. All in combat gear and running north for some reason. His truck would be faster, and he had the room for them.

"Off to fight strommers? Where's your mom, kid?" He spoke idly, waiting for them to throw themselves in his very nice, very large truck. Tanaka hopped in the passenger side front, and the other three hopped in the 3-seater back.

His truck was a very nice truck, it cost him a pretty penny, and he had a nomad buddy soup it up a couple times.

"Rebecca has friends with the Mox, so we're going up to help them out. Mom got recruited by a guy from Trauma Team to help them out in stabilizing lower-priority peeps." Martinez quickly explained, and Wallace nodded as he burned rubber through the Santo Domingo main road. He had to take the long way, as the roads to the corporate plaza were shut down entirely right now.

He glanced in his rear-view mirror, and got a closer look at the battle-glove on Lucyna's left arm. He narrowed his gaze a bit, then focused back on the road. Casually, he spoke out to her.

"Nice Battledeck kid, you got any program-chips for it yet or are you running on an adaptor plug right now?" He recognized the thing on her arm, mostly because he had an older model currently worn over his own left arm.

A Netwatch Icewolf Battledeck. An armored gauntlet dedicated to an integrated cyberdeck, and loaded with a special innovation that wasn't sold on open markets.

Lucyna tensed up, showing that she knew exactly what he was implying by her having that on her arm, and cautiously answered. "I'm using an interface plug, if that's what you mean.". So she was running off the programs installed in her old cyberdeck still, that wouldn't be enough for what was coming up.

"There's a suitcase below the backseat, open it up. You can borrow some of my old ones for this." He simply replied, as right now really wasn't the time to prosecute her for restricted equipment.

Hearing the sound of her cautiously moving to grab the case, and the click of her unlatching it to swing it open, he smirked a bit at her small inhale of air.

Program-Chips were a simple in-theory but tricky-in-production innovation. Instead of loading a program directly into the limited space of the cyberdeck, you loaded it onto a chip, and installed chip ports onto the deck itself. It normally took around ten minutes to reformat a cyberdeck to have different programs installed and at the ready.

A Netwatch agent could change out every program in his Battledeck in a few seconds if he practiced enough. Eject the old chips, install the new chips, refresh the deck. It provided immense tactical flexibility to any agent, and was a decisive advantage over everyone else.

That suitcase she opened up was one of his on-the-go spares. It contained around 100,000ed worth of program chips in rows and rows. Any amount of money was worthless if it didn't help him stay alive.

"Hey, Wally, what was with that announcement you made earlier? The Blackwall has a breach in it or something?" Rebecca spoke somewhat nervously, he nodded and explained.

"Well, it's less that it has a breach and more like it suddenly stopped existing in Watson." It was a pretty fucking bad situation overall, but theoretically any AI willing to dig enough tunnels and collapse them all at once could do this. With that strommer earlier being a Ghost, it was very possible that some 'AI' have been doing just that.

Something like this would require basically all the net-architecture in the entire region to be painstakingly reconstructed. It was a huge fucking mess already, and he was very glad he didn't have to pay for any of it.

"...That sounds very bad." She replied eventually.

"It is incredibly bad, that's why Netwatch has rewards set up for anyone willing to help keep it contained. Speaking of which, mind if I borrow Lucyna for this? I'm going to need all the help I can get." He spoke aloud, and all four of them gave him a briefly suspicious glare before turning in on themselves and starting up a private call for a bit.

While they were doing that, he pulled up to the police blockade on the last bridge into Watson and pulled to a stop. Three officers pulled guns on him as one slowly walked up to his open window. He reached over to the glovebox to pull out his Netwatch badge and held it up to the lady about to ask him questions.

She gave it a look, ran the security number through her personal computer to make sure it lined up, and eventually nodded to wave him past. He drove up to the other side of the bridge, and parked before the second police line. NCPD netrunners were already struggling to keep everything afloat in their area, he could see their ICONs clash in the sky above.

In the distance, he could see probably a hundred or more ICONs of about every Watson-local netrunner struggling to keep the flood of insane programs held back.

He arrived before it all went to shit then, good on him. Time for the hard work.

"Here we are kids, Mox territory is dead ahead, I'm staying here to start the defense. Is Lucyna going with you or staying to help me?" He asked, getting out of his truck to open up the back and start booting up the powerful mobile system.

"I'll stay, I'll do more help here than with them." She didn't look especially happy about it, and she pulled her output into a firm and demanding kiss immediately after. "You are not allowed to die, got it?"

Martinez nodded, somewhat dazed, before breaking out into a cocky grin. "Not possible."

"Hey what about us huh? No love Lucy?" Rebecca flatly complained. Lucyna gave her a dismissive wave with a slight smile on her face. Rebecca gave an exaggerated cry of frustration before she, Tanaka, and Martinez ran off into the region proper.

Lucyna looked nervously at their disappearing forms, before turning to him as he finalized the boot-up sequence.

"Ready for hard work kid?" He asked aloud, and pulled out two heavy-duty interface cables from the interior of the truck. "I need you to keep my body safe while I'm unconscious. The NCPD should help keep all the physical threats back right now, it's the Net-threats that might take me out while I'm managing this."

She nodded and stared at him like he was a mass murderer or something. Twitchy kid, huh?

"Don't worry about them, just flash my badge if they come to ask what you're doing here."

With that final statement, he jacked the two cables into his neck and separated from his body. As he did so, he punched the activation code into the virtuality of the console.

That activated the district barrier program.

In the virtual world, a pillar of light erupted from his truck, expanding infinitely up into the sky. It then began to spread to the left and right, sending requests to all the data-terminals in the region.

As it expanded, he began to define the GPS coordinates, the barrier slowly expanding outwards in this area as it got the appropriate permissions in the defined area.

The Blackwall ran off every system in the world, because it had to in order to function as a firewall. Everything with a wireless connection had the Blackwall installed on it in some fashion, because it linked the processing power of everything together in order to be as powerful as it was.

The Whitewall was a secondary barrier program that could be erected at will, not quite as expansive as the Blackwall, and not online until it was actually needed. It was meant to redirect all wireless signals going into or out of the area through its host server first.

Everything that used a wireless connection in Watson was suddenly locked into Watson, with only a single way in or out, that being the 'gatehouse server'.

His very nice truck suddenly turned into the one way out into the wider net from Watson, and the one way into Watson from the outside.

It was his job to make sure that only Netrunners came in and out, and that every AI stayed in the region. He had to keep this up for the next three hours, until the non-retired members of Netwatch arrived en-masse.

He hated his sense of responsibility sometimes. He sent Lucyna a data-package to explain what exactly was going on.

In Virtuality, he looked up to see the hole in the sky was expanding out, but not fast enough to escape the endless wall of white slowly closing it off from the rest of the world. He nodded once, and stepped back into his body, unplugging the two-step verification from his neck, and out of his truck.

Battleglove on his left arm, sight fully focused on the virtual world, he began to rez his array of programs. Appearing in a whirlwind of snow, a pack of three massive white wolves began to stalk around him.

If even a single AI got through the gatehouse, they could collapse the entire barrier. That might cause Night City itself to fall. Needless to say, he couldn't allow that to happen.

He glanced over to Lucyna, who was still somewhat enthralled by the Whitewall. He smirked once, remembering the first time he saw it too.

"Start rezzing your programs kid, we're in for the long haul right now." He spoke, she shook out her wonder and nodded at him.

The icon of a Samurai manifested next to her, its weaponry and armor morphing as she applied more and more supporting programs to it. One powerful Black ICE and a support array? He supposed she was still young, she'd learn to stop relying on only one line of defense eventually.

His wolves burst forwards and up and tore into the side of a cackling Balron, currently being held back by various low-grade Wolfhound ICE programs. The NCPD netrunners noticed, and cheered slightly, moving back from the frontline and towards the Gate-server. He nodded and let them inside, where they went through the process of taking pain-killers and re-rezzing their programs.

"The cavalry's here boys!" a woman with curly black hair cheered as her Wolfhounds got refreshed.

"You all know what to do right? They teach you it in the NCPD runner courses just in case right?" He asked, to which one of them waved a hand.

"They stopped it this year to save on budget." The NCPD runner laughed. "Of course, they might reconsider it real soon." There was a burst of laughter from the various ICONs in his gatehouse server, himself included.

The server pinged for a moment, and he turned to quickly verify what was on the other side of the Whitewall and tried to come in.

He gave the permission for access when he verified that it was the ICON of a netrunner, a local one. The woman clad in the ICON of an anthropomorphized fox with nine tails and a large bust gave a grin as she entered.

"I heard you boys give big eddies to gals looking to help."

He nodded firmly, eyes still on the Balron in front, sending the appropriate data-package that listed the relevant rewards. The NCPD went back out, their Wolfhounds joining his Winterwolves in attacking the now weakening Demon. The Balron immediately turned one of the Wolfhounds into scrap-code with a swipe of its claws.

She grinned and rushed out to join them, rezzing a variety of attack programs. Lances of fire began to shoot out and incinerate various Demons moving to support the Balron.

The server pinged again. He glanced back through the other side.

There was a line of ICONs forming.

He began to verify them, knowing that around half of them were probably going to die in this.

Three hours.

They had to last three hours.