The New Man: Adam Smasher Si

by Crossposted

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

13. Upload 13

The reception room was the first room that one entered when traveling into the Temporary Arasaka HQ in Pacifica. It had one main entrance from the outside, very thin and tall windows, a reception desk and reinforced benches, and one door leading further in right behind the reception desk. The benches were perpendicular with the entrance, forming a vaguely church-like structure on the interior. Along each wall, small horizontal windows led to rooms that flanked the reception room and stored a large number of standard issue assault rifles and body armor.

It was a killbox, designed to funnel invaders into a room with cover that was useless to them but useful to defenders. The windows to the outside were too small to jump through, and the concrete exterior was reinforced with internal rebar, making it very difficult to break through by force with anything short of a tank. The exterior, cleverly, was surrounded by a wall, with two gates each about fifteen feet away from the center. Meaning that any such weapon would be forced to punch through two layers of outer wall first, as the gates were too small to fit any vehicles.

It was a crude, robust, and cheap modern day fortress.

The moment he got back, he started arranging the reinforced benches in a circle, and had a large table brought in to put in the center. He needed a war room and he needed one immediately. Uriel had made the calls on the way over, they had picked up the girl along the way south, and right now he was puppetting his other frames to gather everything while he worked on this.

This would take time, which meant that the meat-thieves would get farther away, but that was ultimately fine. If they captured the brat, that means they want him alive. If the brat was alive, then he could be patched up afterwards, which meant that he could take his time here. It was better to take more time to ready an attack rather than go in and not have enough bullets for all the fuckers you wanted to kill.

There was no chance the brat ran, boy was too touchy-feely to leave without his girl and mother. The boy was also completely worthless dead, there wasn't a thing in his frame other than his spare sandy that was worth taking. His spare sandy was something that no one would bother with either, because no one else could handle it. It had no particular secret to its performance, it was just cranked higher than any other on the market. It wasn't worth picking a murder contest with him over.

That meant the brat was kidnapped, and they wanted him alive. Probably to brainwash or something, he didn't really care why. So long as the brat was alive, anything they did to him could be fixed after. Taking the time to ensure success on the first try had no downsides then.

He told the assembled brats one thing when they got back. Grab everything, this is a full-force operation.

The entrance way burst open as someone stomped in, not halted by the guards at the door.

"Where is my son." It was a demand from a very angry looking red-head. Her forearms and legs were covered in bloodstains, an EMT jacket hung loosely from her shoulders, and her hair was a frazzled mess. Her glare was half-decent, not bad for a meatbag, unfortunately ruined by the hint of panic and tears behind it. Uriel had sent her a short message when they picked up the girl.

'David has been kidnapped, go to Pacifica HQ.'

"Get your best gear woman. Retrieval planning starts soon." He commanded. Fortunately, she seemed to detect his bad mood, and his glare was much better than hers, especially when he stood 11 feet tall and weighed more than a ton.

It had been difficult to fit through the front door.

She practically ran past him arranging the benches, deeper into the fortress to gather up whatever garbage she used. She was a meatbag, it was a given that her gear would be shitty meatbag gear.

Soon after, the door opened again, and walked in five figures with Arasaka logos on their uniforms. The second person Uriel had messaged had been the Old Man himself, explaining the situation. The Old Man then ordered five Arasaka agents to form a strike team and show up at the HQ. Apparently, handpicked by himself according to who was actually present here in NC.

One of Kagekaze's ninja brats, a modified Gemini, Jorogumo V1, a terrified-looking fuckmeat, and a full-kit Arasaka soldier from the tower security. All in all, a pretty sorry looking group for Arasaka standards, but if the Old Man sent them, then they probably weren't deadweight.

"Onimusha. We await your orders." The Ninja-woman (Kunoichi, Uriel provided) spoke in a sterile tone and bowed. He pointed a claw at one of the benches. Not reacting beyond that, they walked over to sit down. Well, most of them didn't make an expression. Scaredy-meat looked like she was about to rip her own skin off. He made a note to strangle that one if it started making annoying noises, he wasn't in the mood for it right now.

Eventually, he had gotten the benches just right, just in time for the second group to burst in. The second person Uriel had sent a message to had been that one meatbag that manages the Arena's finances, again just a message about the situation, and Adam's current need for the best fighters he could scrounge up and ask to go over.

Apparently, that group was Meatman, Tigermask, Copborg, and a Blackwatch agent. An eclectic bunch, but Meatman was respectable compared to most, Tigermask had… 66% percent chrome, Copborg was someone Uriel knew was strong, and Blackwatch agents were always tricky to deal with. He didn't know how the deskjockey knew all these people, but he really didn't care.

They took stock of the situation immediately, Tigermask bursting in with a shout.

"I, EL TIGRE GRANDE, ENTER AS A-"

"Shut Up."

He immediately went quiet, staring at him somewhat tensely. Adam pointed a finger at a bench and growled out his next line.

"Sit down."

"Ah, more allies are coming then." Meatman spoke as he walked over, leading the rest of the group without hesitation.

"Yes."

The brats were almost done, Uriel was keeping one wisp of fire watching them as he assembled everything.

There was silence for several seconds as the two groups stared at each other from across the table. He didn't care about the looks being thrown around, he walked over and crouched on one end of the table. He would destroy any bench he sat on except the one up in his rooms, and that was behind several doors too small for the DaiOni to fit through. He made a note, the next HQ was going to have every door big enough for the DaiOni.

After several minutes of waiting, the brats came downstairs with their gear in tow. Apparently they had gone shopping again while he was in Japan.

Blueberry was in her Kyudoka (which he only now realized had been a modified Arasaka Standard B this whole time. He hadn't seen one of those in decades now, Hijitaka must have pulled it out of the closet back then), carrying her Yumi Railcannon, and a few backup weapons strapped to her frame.

Bowlcut was in full Arasaka Light Armorjack, helmet secured to his head and carry-bag full of what was probably gear. A knife secured to his arm, waist, and foreleg. A bandolier of grenades, and an Arasaka Masamune on his arms.

Girl was sporting her fancy new Battledeck, a helmet and kevlar vest over her armormesh bodysuit, and a sturdy pair of boots. A pair of knives on her waist and a smaller bag over her shoulder.

Woman had her own armormesh bodysuit on, helmet, boots, and gloves included. Carrying her riot shield, what looked like an electrified nightstick on her waist, and a shotgun in her arms.

Spares looked exactly the same as she usually did. Armor on, her (his) limbs perfectly still, and a helmet that conveyed a blank expression. She was carrying one of his Militech HMGs and his club on her back. He did tell her to grab the best gear after all.

All of them, to his grim satisfaction, were carrying a Microwaver-20 on their waists.

They didn't talk, recognizing the seriousness of the situation, and instead walked over to sit at the bench he was pointing at next to him. They quickly got over, exchanging wary (or familiar) looks with the assembled group. He didn't care, he was busy making sure Uriel had gotten everything together.

Eventually, the last group walked in. Uriel had messaged Rogue last, asking her to send him some mercs that were good, but that she didn't mind dying violently. She had apparently come up with this bunch.

A red-haired woman with a shitty side-shave haircut, a man in a brown jacket and a shitty fade haircut, another man in a black jacket with a samurai top-knot, and a tanned woman with tight gear and dog-mods who hadn't stopped staring at him since walking in.

"Yo! Queen of the Afterlife said you had a gig for a couple mercs, huh?" The man in the brown jacket said with a cool grin on his face, scanning around to the assembled and the table in the center of the room before focusing on Adam once more.

Streetmeat. Basically useless overall.

At this Adam shifted his position to an informal kneel, to get a bit closer to the table. He pointed at the benches first, and spoke.

"Sit. Briefing begins now."

Slightly nervous under their confident expressions, they sat. After which, he began to speak.

"Fifty-four minutes ago, my apprentice was kidnapped and driven to a warehouse in the north-eastern corner of the city. From this warehouse, five trucks drove away and into the badlands. Their positions are currently being tracked by satellite."

"There are going to be five teams. Each team will handle one truck apiece. If the truck arrives at its destination first, then they are to butcher everything there and confirm that David Martinez is not present before reporting back. If they find David Martinez, they are to announce it immediately over comms before extracting him and moving to a secure location to await pickup. Failure is not tolerable."

"If David Martinez dies, I butcher everyone in your team."

"The trucks each are seemingly heading to one of the five following locations. Truck alpha is heading towards a Metacorp shipping stronghold. Truck beta is heading towards a Petrochem refueling station. Truck gamma is heading towards a known Snake Nation Nomad fort. Truck delta is heading for an abandoned NUSA weapons depot from the 2040s. Truck epsilon is heading for a Collapse-era ghost town."

"If they reach any of these locations and split again, this could escalate to unreasonable levels. As some of those locations are active, it is likely that this kidnapping is either a multi-faction conspiracy, or a false flag operation. I do not care which. Arasaka will shield you from the potential backlash if they attempt to retaliate."

"Questions." It was technically a question, but he did not state it like one.

"How will teams be organized?" It was a prudent question with an obvious answer from the Kunoichi. He stared for a moment before pointing a finger at the Arasaka group, then the Independents, then Meatman's group, then the brats, then himself. "Understood Onimusha."

"It would be prudent to investigate the first warehouse before departing." That wasn't a question, but he nodded at the copperborg anyways. "Correct. Potential heavy resistance, so expect it."

"What's our transport?" This time from the red-haired side-shave meatwoman. She seemed familiar, but that was every meatbag these days.

"Four Arasaka DaiKuma Land Rovers. Each team will get one with a full tank of gas and a second canister in the trunk." These were just being pulled from the Pacifica Patrol stock, sometimes it was good to have resources on hand for when he needs to genocide five fortresses at the same time. "I will not need one."

"Communications?" This time from Bowlcut.

"There are LR Radios available, or use your Agents, I don't care which."

"Any other provided equipment?" This one was from the Blackwatch agent. A cooly-staring raven-haired woman. She was practically a walking fetish, and thus good marketing for Militech.

"Anything from the armory in the rooms adjacent to this one."

"Not to jump ahead in the race or anything, but uh- what's the pay goi- '' The streetmeat with the top-know started talking.

"One-hundred thousand eurodollars. Each."

That seemed to strike most of the room quiet. Every streetmeat sucked in a shocked breath at the same time. Some of the Arasaka group staggered briefly. The Meatman group were stunned briefly before nodding in confirmation. The brats didn't react at all, entirely too focused on the actual mission. He was confused only for a moment, before realizing that most of the people here were not him.

He would be surprised if even one of them had a million eurodollars to their name.

That's what his lowest-paying jobs earned him. This affair would be worth about two-thirds of an average job for him. That was practically a steal for making sure the livestock that decided to cross him got butchered.

Fuckers decided to steal his apprentice. He was going to make sure it was the last decision they ever had to make.

After a moment, the room of poormeats recovered, and another question was asked. The Arasaka Gemini spoke up. "Which team will be assigned to each truck?"

"I will go after truck alpha. The Arasaka team will go after truck beta. The brats will go after truck epsilon. The remaining teams will go after the remaining trucks. Pick among yourselves, I don't care."

"I-I would prefer to use Internal Agents to c-communicate." The dogmodder spoke up, stuttering slightly for seemingly no reason. He huffed in irritation, and forwarded his contact information to everyone in the room. This drew a small number of reactions, such as the timid fuckmeat jumping in her seat and palling, and the dogmodder's tail starting to wag even as she tried to hold it down. Top-knot coughed briefing into one hand, and Tigermask briefly struck a pose.

"You will be going alone?" Jorogumo V1 asked, eyes boring into him.

He audibly scoffed. The door behind him opened.

"I'm the only help I need."

Uriel, puppeteering the body of his other frames, walked them into the room to stand behind the DaiOni.

His newest frame, the Oni, with its CCPL myomer and mounted lasercannons on its arms. His Dragoon, right arm replaced with the belt-fed form of the Tsunami Arms Helix. His Gemini, clad in Arasaka heavy armorjack, carrying his monosword and his old Hellbringer on its waist.

And the practically antique form of a slightly dusty fullborg frame. Covered in heavy armored coveralls, carrying an old hyperhammer and a number of smaller guns on its back. His Samson.

Uriel couldn't use all four bodies at once, but he could upload a basic combat algorithm in each and hop between each body as needed. The overall strength of each frame would be enough that even a basic combat algorithm would be enough to keep them in the fight long enough for Uriel to micromanage.

"I'm Adam fucking Smasher."

One-hundred thousand eddies.

The number kept turning itself over and over in Victor's head.

One-hundred thousand eddies.

An easy gig might net him fifteen-hundred. Basic, simple work that he did to pay the bills and buy some kibble or prepak afterwards. Moving packages from one side of a district to another, beating up (but not killing) some rival gangers to make a statement, dominating a game of stickball to settle things between beaverbrats. Fifteen-hundred would pay his bills for a day, buy him something to eat, and leave him a few bucks left over to get some smash from a vending machine, or check out the arena brawls.

Great fun, that arena was. There was an occasional death, sure, but they all knew that going in, and barely anyone cared. The way most people saw it, it was fully within your rights to have death matches with like-minded people. You usually had to be pretty fucked up or desperate to do that, but there was nothing wrong with deciding to.

Most people were pretty fucked up these days. No point in worrying about it.

His workhorse gigs, the kinda things that he tried to do whenever they came up, net him a couple thousand. Around five-thousand was about what he considered an average gig. They paid his bills for days afterwards, meaning anything he did in the meantime was pure profit, the real money makers. Deliveries across Night City, trips out to the badlands back when the wraiths were still a thing (good riddance, but the extra cash was missed), killing someone who decided to really piss off someone higher up, that sorta thing.

It was a bit dubious to kill people, so he tried to avoid doing those, but if he was running out of cash then he would without regret. Dying due to starving to death wasn't going to make you a legend, so if it came down to some stranger and himself, he knew what he would pick every time. Of course, this didn't apply to everyone, raiding scav dens was just a moral obligation.

It took a long time for those jobs to come back, so things had gotten a bit hairy there for a bit. Thankfully scav groups started returning a few weeks ago, and his wallet was a bit heavier from taking them out. Still, having his input smugly buy food for him was starting to get on his nerves (although it was really easy to turn the tables on her privately, Val was cute like that).

The really good gigs earned him at least ten-thousand. Five digits. He had only had a handful of gigs like that, and they were incredible for getting ahead of all the finances. Stealing an exec's car, Recusing a beaverbrat from a smaller gang, making a huge distraction for the security so that the client can break in somewhere else. These were the big shot gigs, the ones that made eddies hand over fist. They were also the ones that had the biggest chance of him ending up in a ditch somewhere, if he wasn't careful.

These gigs were the kinda thing that he had to be careful about. You couldn't just accept any one of these, you had to make sure…

Pft.

Heh.

He makes himself laugh.

You don't become a legend by being afraid of a little risk. You become a legend by chasing every opportunity life gives you like a cyberhound. You become a legend by going in and winning, or dying in the process of doing something great.

A true man doesn't die even when he's killed.

Needless to say, he's taken every last high-paying gig he's ever been offered.

And this was the single highest paying gig he's ever even heard of.

One-hundred thousand eddies.

One-fucking-hundred thousand.

Not just total, each.

Each.

There were nineteen people here. Even assuming he didn't pay the 'Saka crew, or his own crew, that left nine. Nine-hundred thousand eddies. That was most of the way to a million. A million was what CEOs and shit were supposed to make in a few paychecks. The highest echelon of wealth in the world. The highest ivory towers and distant spirals away from the real world.

Adam Smasher was a merc (technically, right?) and he had enough liquid to drop almost a million (or more) on a single gig. That's the difference between the top and the rest of them, huh?

He couldn't wait to get there. This paycheck alone was going to take him a long way up the ladder. He could pay off Vik, get some more chrome to help out on jobs, and snowball this all the way up to the top.

A short, strangled cough of laughter came from the girl at his side in the car, he looked over and nudged her inquisitively. Val waved off his question and then explained in her slightly sadistic way. In the front seat, Jackie was idly chatting with that Abbey chick about motorcycles or something.

"You remember the one in the Arasaka team with the heavy flak?" He nodded in confirmation and she continued. "His name is Shirou, he's one of the up-and-coming talents in our security sector, hired after the… it doesn't matter." She cut herself off and thought for a moment. She did this sometimes, trying to parse down info to the things he would actually care about.

They were very different people in the end. She was a corporate gal, he was a streetkid. They knew and cared about very different things. She was into that social power thing, he was into a good time. A good time like her. He reached over and kissed her on the forehead, to which she shook off with a face tinted red. He grinned and she growled in embarrassment before continuing.

"Right, Shirou. He tries to hide it, but he doesn't really get along with others in Arasaka. He's perfectly polite, he just doesn't… get the culture?" She tried, and he nodded to show he got it. "Right so he…" she dissolved into chuckles again, before starting over. "He just sent me a message, we talk in the break room sometimes, he just sent me a message-"

She laughed again and forwarded the message to him. He read it out and broke out into chuckles himself.

[Can we swap teams? These people are crazy.]

"Feel bad for the guy, if even half the stories you told me are true." He nudged her again, to which she vigorously nodded, eyes sparkling in amusement. Her face immediately blanked with a voice came over all of their internal agents.

[We are approaching the warehouse, ready for potential hostiles.]

It sounded sorta like the strommers he's brawled against in the past (and recently he supposed, gonks deciding to raid his home turf in Watson), but… bigger? Nah, not really bigger, stronger then?

It wasn't that either. It was more in a way he couldn't really describe. Gave him a jump the first time he heard it. Which made sense considering it was coming from a guy who was a bit taller than the smallest buildings, and strong enough to toss trucks around.

While that was really preem, it also required him to be mostly metal. Victor wasn't really in the mood to replace his johnson with smooth chrome, if you get what he means. Plus, he had heard some bad things about the new V3 Mr. Studd, and he didn't know any real competitors in that field. His dick worked perfectly fine as is, thank you very much.

Up ahead, the line of cars pulled off to the side of a road still covered in corpses, even as medical trucks came by to scrape the poor bastards off the asphate to identify them. There were a whole lot of bodies in Watson now, the estimated death toll was in the thousands right now.

They were starting to call this 'the Deadly Decade' in the news, the most disasters to hit Night City in a row since it was founded.

Jackie pulled the rover over, and they got out of the jeep to move forwards and group up with the rest of the teams. It was a bit odd to be working with so many other people, but they were going to be off doing other things, not directly with him, so it wasn't too strange. Right now they were all grouped together just in case there was an army in that warehouse, and to find any evidence of which truck might be the real one. Should only take them a few minutes, and the trucks were more than an hour or two away from their destination when they checked a few minutes ago.

"Plan of attack?" The jacked dude from one of the other crews spoke up, dude was like seven feet of muscle, he couldn't see any chrome on the guy at all.

"Surround the building and make sure nothing gets out. You all have three minutes." The Legendkiller growled out. There was a brief pause before the Arasaka team practically bolted to cover an angle. It took a moment more for the rest of them to realize they should move out.

[...178, 177, 176, 175…] Smasher growled over the comm as they moved.

Soon enough, all angles of the warehouse were covered and guns pointed at them. Over the comms, Smasher growled down the last few seconds of preparation.

[...5, 4, 3, 2…]

An eleven-foot giant of chrome disappeared from where they had parked. A hundred feet away and around a corner, the wall of the factory exploded. He raised an arm up to shield his face from the wave of dust and rubble that burst forth, and lowered it after a moment to get a look at the warehouse.

It was like someone took a truck-sized sledgehammer and slammed it down on one edge of the building, a chunk of the roof had collapsed down, and a cylinder-shaped opening had formed. It kinda looked like a narrow canyon, the kind formed by the occasional earthquake they get around here. Of course, this canyon was vertical and took a chunk out of a building instead of the ground.

He was glad he didn't have to pay for that. As preem as that was, he'd be dodging headhunters from the construction companies for years after doing something like that. Kicking in a door was really more than enough for him. He supposed being eleven feet tall came with some drawbacks, like not being able to fit in most buildings.

He glanced over to where they had parked again, seeing the four other borg bodies ready to shoot at anything that came towards them. Why didn't he just send a smaller body in? They could actually fit in doors. While busy debating the efficacy of breaking a wall down, a message came over the line again.

[Internals cleared, any runners?]

A chorus of 'negative's and 'nope's and similar responses called out.

[Move in to search the interior.]

"A bit anticlimactic so far, huh?" Jackie spoke as they rose up from their positions behind one of the many concrete barriers that helped stop cars from running people on the sidewalk over. He nodded in confirmation and got up himself before noticing that… What's her name? Abbey? Wasn't getting up. She was staring at that warehouse and tail wagging. That meant she was... Focused? He didn't know much about dogs.

He tapped her on the shoulder, shaking her from daze. She quickly shook herself and rose, hefting that monster of a rifle as she did. She wiped her mouth a bit before marching forwards in a serious manner.

He followed, a bit bemused, and stepped over the holes in the road and the occasional pool of body fluids. His boots were good, but no use in making them stand up to more than they had too.

"Get anything Val?" He asked, to which she replied.

"No, there's nothing I can connect to on the inside, only a few scrambled cameras on the outside."

"Makes sense, Strommer territory." Jackie replied.

"Former Strommer territory you mean." Victor pointed out.

"Heh, true enough. Don't think there's gonna be a Maelstrom after this settles down." Jackie laughed as they entered the hole in the wall, following the buff-guy's team in.

The inside of the warehouse looked like it was used to work on cars before this, which made sense. Tall interiors, a balcony or two to help mount things on top of bigger trucks, rows of decent equipment lining the edges. Of course, the most striking thing was the giant metal man in the center, currently scanning around and little horns swiveling as he looked.

He glanced over to see Abbey doing her best to copy the horns swiveling with her ears. Maybe it was an enhanced hearing thing? He only met up with her for this gig, so he didn't know any of the fiddly details with her yet.

The other teams had already spread out to search around the interior. Namely, their focus was on the elevator that looked unsafe for a normal person's weight, let alone Smasher's bulk in any of his bodies.

The others seemed pretty shocked that he could do that, but was it really that surprising? He didn't know much about the guy, but there were chooms out there with skin that let them turn invisible. Being able to move five bodies around was basically just fancier drones in the end, dude probably had some tech that let him do it. It's not like it was magic or something.

They looked like they were waiting for something but…?

Smasher reached over and grabbed the elevator, before pulling back. The flimsy metal platform was ripped away from its place in the wall, revealing a standard looking shaft. He placed the thing over to the side, and a few of them looked down for a moment.

Without needing a word, that cop-borg's hand shot off and grabbed one of the metal pillars that connected to the balcony above, then, using the line that connected the hand to his arm, he began to climb down rapidly.

Now that, that right there was useful. He could think of plenty of times where he just needed to grab something far away. That was a man's chrome, having multiple bodies was nice, but it wasn't a grapple hand. He turned to lock eyes with Jackie, who looked similarly appreciative of the demonstrated cybernetic.

He might ask Vik if he had some of those in stock.

[There is an unconscious subject, male, caucasian, brown hair, mustache. Matches profile of subject 'Falco'. I will attempt to wake and restrain him.] The mechanical but bombastic voice of the copborg came over the line. After a moment, he spoke again. [Subject is not responding. I shall bring him up.]

[Check the surroundings for tunnels first.] Samsher ordered.

After a moment more, the copborg replied. [There is a crude tunnel leading into the nearby sewer system. It was hidden behind a plate of sheet metal and an engine block.]

Smasher audibly snarled at that. Everyone local at once realized what that meant.

"Kid could be anywhere in Night City right now." Victor spoke, frown on his face. That was a problem that twenty people, no matter how good, couldn't solve. Night City was massive, and the sewers were sprawling. There were tunnels down there that no one remembered anymore, and they connected to all kinds of unexpected places.

"I shall inform Yorinobu-sama of this development." The 'Saka ninja woman spoke up, and Smasher nodded in frustration.

"So… Davey's not in any of the trucks?" The blue girl who had mox tats spoke up, concerned.

"This could be a double-bluff. There's no way to be sure. We have to chase the trucks regardless." The corpo-kid with the blue bowlcut shook his head.

"Our part remains unchanged." The mountain of muscles spoke out definitively. "We can do nothing here except leave it to others for now. The other locations must be ruled out first."

A burst of sound alerted them to a grapple impacting the roof of the warehouse, a hand clenched onto one of the beams above. It withdrew quickly, eventually revealing the form of the copborg and a man held by the waist in his other arm.

The unconscious guy was pulled out, and laid on the floor. The red-haired woman and the ninja-woman moved over to examine his body. The rest stayed back, guns ready to shoot just in case.

"So uhh, why isn't he waking up? He doesn't look hurt." Jackie questioned at a distance.

The two women, getting into a rhythm of checking him over, eventually checked the back of his neck. He wasn't sure what they found, but the redhead nodded at a white-haired girl.

"Lucy, eject his chips." The apparently named Lucy nodded, before her eyes glowed. Into the waiting hand of the ninja-woman, a chip shot out of the unconscious guy's neck.

The ninja-woman raised it, inspecting it closely, before silently handing it off to the older guy in a light 'saka bodysuit next to her. He raised it up, pulling out a small computer and slotting in the chip.

The screen glowed for a moment, before he nodded and ejected it again, handing it back to the ninja-woman. "A zombie chip." He declared grimly.

That drew some rather furious hisses, but it meant nothing to him. He raised a brow, but Abbey cut him off by asking. "...What's a zombie chip?"

"Evil." was the immediate reply from the copborg. "A doll chip that hides itself from internal sensors. Once it's in, you can't tell it's there."

He blinked.

Oh. Yeah that was pretty fucked up wasn't it? He made a note to put a bullet in the head of the guy who did this if he could. The glare of the redheaded woman slowly dissipated, replaced by her previous grim expression.

Smasher growled out, staring at the unconscious man furiously. Zombie chips touched a nerve there or something?

The unconscious guy slowly came to, blinking a few times, groaning, and eventually shooting up in panic and anger.

"W-Where the fuck-!" He was stopped by the sight of so many people around him, before pulling back and pinching his nose to stave off a headache. "G-gah… the… fuck?"

"Where's the brat." Smasher was immediate as he was unmerciful, booming above the just conscious man with the probable headache.

The man shook his head and looked up, a furious look on his face.

"Vincent, has to be. Who else would pull this kinda shit."

The redhead reeled back, looking quite shocked and confused. Smasher paused, and spoke the next line a bit strangely. "Vincent?"

The man on the ground replied.

"Vincent Martinez. David's father."

Ah shit. This was going to be one of those gigs huh?

He hadn't been expecting the breach in the Blackwall. He was already halfway to Night City when he got the news of it happening. It was… potentially very problematic for him, but was overall a neutral event. Good and bad came from it. He knew Silverhand didn't have the means or will to cause such an event, so that left him with a bit of a mystery.

On one hand, that gave him a good opportunity to activate Falco, on the other hand, the whole city would be alerted for a while. An hour later he arrived, checking the local radio frequencies for anything to note.

Adam Smasher was back from Japan more than a week early. That was a distinct problem, and it shortened his window of opportunity by six solid hours. Still within manageable levels, but he would have to adjust some variables and orders to compensate. Namely, this meant scattering five trucks, not four, and the most armored one heading for the Metacorp Bore Blacksite. That wouldn't kill Smasher, not by any reasonable expectation, but it would slow him down for as long as he wasn't recalled to Night City.

Then he got reports that the Kujira was moving from Japan to Night City, and Saburo never moves without a very firm reason. It was almost impossible for him to know where the chip was, so that left… Ceremony for victory against the Breach? That lined up. It also meant that Smasher would be back in NC for the celebration in a minimum of five days, which meant Vincent had another time limitation.

Then, reports from his camera-watchers. Smasher could control five bodies at once.

It's always something, isn't it? Five bodies at once… Assuming they operated with equal efficacy to the original, that meant… two of them, the Samson and the Gemini, were going to be destroyed at the Metacorp Bore Blacksite. That left three to search afterwards, which was thankfully more than long enough for his plan. Or, it would have been, if it wasn't assured that Saburo was going to recall Smasher within five days.

No wait, he checked the time. A little more than four days now.

He stepped out from the tunnel into an abandoned building, then moved up the stairs, pulling a large suitcase on wheels behind him. It was a bit bumpy, but the inside was more than insulated enough to prevent any damages. Stepping out of the sewer tunnel, he emerged onto the streets of Night City right between Watson and Pacifica.

Doing all this in Pacifica was much too obvious, so he began walking to Watson, where one of his agents and a few technomancers were waiting. He moved through the streets, head held high but looking busy and knowing exactly where to go. If you act like you belong, people don't tend to stop you, a basic psychological trick.

There weren't any more bodies on the streets, not down here where the fighting wasn't so bad. The bloodstains would still be here for a while though. The streets were usually cleaned by the good nature of the people in Watson.

They were very rarely clean.

The recent violence has made everyone much more reluctant to start anything, and the police patrolled in swarms of helicopters, AVs, and the occasional linear frame. They were out for blood tonight, but so long as he didn't look suspicious, they wouldn't stop him.

Maelstrom didn't have the capabilities to take down the Blackwall in a localized area like this. Unless they had outside help, they couldn't have done that part. The real question was who benefited, and Vincent didn't know anyone who would gain something here. That meant that this was done by someone who was motivated by non-material things. Those were always a bit trickier to figure out.

It was too early to guess, and Vincent wouldn't have time to assemble a working theory regardless. It was merely speculation on his part, and it would stay that way.

Someone glanced his way, a quick alteration in his expression and a downwards tilt of his head conveyed that he was unfocused, and mourning. They turned away, assuming that he just lost someone today and was going home to an empty house. He knew that with absolute surety, just from the subtle twitches in their posture and immediate motion. He knew what that stranger was thinking better than they did.

He knew that, even as much as he wished he didn't.

Now, with Adam Smasher going after the Metacorp Blacksite, that left four locations and four teams. He only got word of how many after the fact, and was lucky to have just enough trucks to handle them all. One more and he might have a problem. Adam Smasher assembling such a group was expected of him, beyond normal actions, which meant that Vincent's model was off again.

Four teams. Arasaka sent 2 professionals and 3 rookies. That meant that Saburo was using his standard model of letting fate remove the chaff from the recruiting pool, but leaving just enough veterans in the group to ensure mission success. If he had to guess, Arasaka team was going to take on Petrochem due to potential legal troubles that required corporate protection to sweep aside. From what he knew of the rookies (which wasn't as much as he would like) only one had a chance of dying on these missions, and that was only if they took the mission against Petrochem. Yuri, the drone operator, had limited self-preservation measures while in the field.

100% chance of death against Metacorp. 34% chance of death against Petrochem. 0% chance of death against anything else. The rest of the Arasaka team was too well armored and had good enough speedware to ensure survival against anything except Metacorp. 100% chance of death against Metacorp, again.

There was a ganger, low-level, not affiliated with anyone major in front of him. They thought they were subtle halfway behind the garbage disposal on the side of the thrift store they leaned against.

He adjusted his walking and expression, and kept moving forwards.

The small-fry moved forwards to get in front of him, and brandished his gun, about to say something cocky.

Vincent looked at him with a despairing expression. The ganger paused slightly when he looked at him. Vincent sighed, and looked as exhausted as possible.

"Choom… just… just not today choom…" He spoke, just barely above a whisper, staring straight at the small fry. Eyes locked. The small fry stared at him for a moment, before lowering his gun and stepping back to the side of the building.

"Yeah… alright choom, just-just keep walking…" The small-fry did his best to avoid eye contact.

"Thanks…" Vincent nodded tiredly, and kept walking forwards. He made sure to keep up the act until he was firmly beyond the awareness of the ganger, and then sped up again.

The next team comprised of David's crew and Gloria. That and the borg Saburo sent over to serve as Smasher's spare parts. They were probably going to be sent to the ghost town. There was nothing in particular there that anyone knew about, so to maximize their chances of survival Adam Smasher would assign them to that. Unknown to Smasher, of course, was that the ghost town was the homebase of a raffen shiv group these days. He had been starving them out for a few weeks now, so they'd be hungry and desperate.

…14% chance of casualties among this group if they went there. It was low enough to be acceptable, and they'd be at much higher risk anywhere else. 43-72% chance of a fatality at any other site, 100% chance of 100% casualties against Metacorp.

Vincent hated himself. 14% should be absolutely unacceptable.

He came up to a police checkpoint in the road, he kept moving forwards, looking distracted, until they held up a baton to stop him with a firm poke. He shook like he had been drawn from his thoughts and looked up, brows furrowed and face fallen.

"Oi, creep, where you going huh?!" The woman shouted at him firmly, riot gear on and other officers watching carefully.

He paused, taking in a breath and seemingly struggling to find the words. It couldn't be a lie, Voice stress analyzers were standard issue in NCPD.

"I-I… was coming back from out of town… My input was here and then… the Maelstrom…" His voice choked up with deliberate tension, and his eyes were roaming as if he was trying to find something. Looking down, not up, and right, not left. It wasn't a commonly known fact, but the direction one looks when speaking indicates whether one is constructing a thought or remembering one. Another simple trick to convey the truth to those in the know.

Even if the truth was another lie.

The woman's eyes softened, and she glanced to see if the body language checked out with the other officers. They gave a subtle nod, and she clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Head home and get some sleep, alright civvie?"

He tried his best to smile, but it came out as a pained grimace. She flinched a bit from the expression. "I-I'll try…" He weakly replied.

With that, she let him pass, and he kept moving along, dragging the large suitcase behind him on the sidewalk.

It was the last two teams he wasn't sure of. Two locations, two teams. They could go either way really. One team was composed of a couple star-rookie edgerunners (a redundant statement, edgerunners never live longer than about five years). And the other was a motley group of professionals from various walks of life.

The edgerunners were simple enough. Smasher had asked Rogue to send him some mercs she didn't mind dying, and she called up the leader of their little crew. They heard the chance for eddies calling, and hopped right on. Assuming they were as good as the average edgerunner crew, about half of them would die on either the NUSA weapons depot or the Snake Nation nomads. Both groups had enough firepower and weapons to handle most, but edgerunners were usually a different breed of fighter to last more than a year with their professions.

That weapons depot was supposed to be abandoned, but that was only the story that the NUSA was willing to tell. Their operating AI for the facility went rogue some decades back, and if word got out their rep would be ruined. If the edgerunners survived, the official story would be that they left the facility long before any AI got there.

Which was good, as the Technomancers wanted something out of that place's basement, and he wasn't sure what. This was his payment to them for their services, getting a team of elites to soften their target up for them.

It was cheap to him, other people's lives. So frustratingly cheap.

If they went to the Snake Nations camp… No casualties. 100% casualties against Metacorp. The professionals wouldn't suffer casualties to anything except Metacorp, where they would suffer at least 2 deaths before managing to run. The optimal outcome would be that the professionals go to the weapons depot, and the edgerunners go to the Snake Nation camp. In either case, that Snake Nation camp would go down, and there would be one less competitor in the western half of the NUSA for the United Nomads.

By now, Falco should have told them about him, and be furious with him for the chip. He would likely go with one of the teams to assuage his guilt over a perceived betrayal against David. The best case scenario had him with David's crew. The second-best case had him with the… edgerunners, probably. That would reduce their casualties down to a 45% percent chance of a single death at the weapons depot, and no deaths still at the Snake Nations camp.

If Falco goes to the Snake Nations camp, he tells them the situation, and they support him in a bid for power within the United Nomads later on. He knew how Dogbreath, their local leader, operated. With that, Falco would have majority approval within the United Nomads.

He paused, and looked both ways before crossing the street quickly as reasonable, ready to throw the suitcase away if he needed to. Getting hit by a car was always a risk, and not one he was willing to let happen. Unacceptable outcome.

Soon enough, it was in front of his agent's hideout.

A plain looking ripperdoc shop front. He walked in, and waved a hello at the fellow in front. A ripperdoc had recently moved in, on the run from Moore Technologies. The previous ripperdoc had been calmly evicted. Vincent did him a favor or three, and the fellow acts as his ears in the city. One of many.

His specialty was the nervous system. Deep-tissue integration, titanium skull reinforcement, spine replacements… that sorta thing.

"Oh hey, you're here for your appointment then? Come on to the back, let's get you arranged." The young ripperdoc with the monovisor spoke. Both of them knew he had no appointments today, Vincent had purchased his shop for the entire week for this.

Vincent nodded, and descended into the basement. The ripperdoc closed up the shop behind him, locked the door, and followed behind him.

Vincent descended to the medical chamber.

Inside, six technomancers, a full portable machining table, all the supplies they could need in crates around them, and an operating table next to a large cabinet of fresh medical supplies.

They stared at him silently as he approached, reaching down to unzip the suitcase.

Inside, his son was unconscious and curled up, still affected by the gene-tailored sleeping gas that filled Falco's car earlier. He reached down, and carefully lifted his son to set him on the table.

He grunted as his spine popped a bit. Geez kid, could you be a bit lighter? Your old man doesn't appreciate the weight you put on.

At once, the technomancers surrounded the kid, plugging in IVs to his few remaining bits of flesh, and installing a breathing mask to keep him unconscious. He sighed when he saw how much chrome David had. Another year and he'd be too late.

"How long till you're done?" He asked aloud, needing a solid time frame.

"We'll need to do a full DNA mapping, and then begin frame construction. The mapping will take at least one day. The frame construction will take at least three days. The modified biosystem will take around six hours." One of the Technomancers idly answered, already beginning the process of reading his son's DNA.

102 hours. He had to make sure they weren't interrupted for at least 102 hours, while ensuring the finale ended exactly as he needed it to for everything to work.

He breathed in, held it for a moment, then breathed out.

He pulled out his phone and sent a message to the Nomads that were in and around Night City that they could take breaks in shifts, enjoy themselves in the city for the next day. That would keep them content long enough to get everything in place. He ordered one group to bring him his gear from the truck in the southern badlands first.

He checked the time again.

…Smasher would be back in Night City in at least 97 hours. There wasn't any way he could hold him off for 5 more hours than that. That meant resorting to distraction and misdirection tactics. He made a note to start setting that up in twenty-five hours.

Silverhand should've already been attacking Arasaka by now. Where the hell was he? There shouldn't be any reason for him to be holding back right now. He was distinctly displeased that the 3% divergence occurred in that way, a way he wasn't prepared for.

He looked back to his son, more machine than man right now.

He frowned.

He knew what happened to people who get too much chrome.

They end up like Adam Smasher.

They end up as slaves.

Like hell he was going to let that happen to his son.

102 hours.

Piece of cake.

Adam Smasher wouldn't be back for at least 97 hours. Metacorp's little projects would ensure that. He had until then to get ready for the finale.

…He already knew what he had to tell Gloria when she got here. It would be better for her if she moved on without regrets.

His logic demanded no other path. He ignored his hate and fear. They were never useful.

He only feared for others.

He only hated himself.

There was something to realize, running along a mostly barren wasteland after a truck they could see via satellite link. There was no real need to use a truck when each of the bodies could run as fast as a car normally, and a sandevistan that refreshed every few seconds and dramatically increased their overland distance with each usage.

All sandevistans had something called an 'acceleration factor'. It was the degree by which the sandevistan overclocked the user. Most commercial sandevistans had an acceleration factor of two, thus, the subject experienced time fifty percent slower than normal for the duration. That was the 'safe' level of acceleration for meatbags. The current record-best from what he remembered (other than his own) was the Warp-Dancer Mk5, with an acceleration factor of ten.

All sandevistans had something called a 'subjective duration'. It was the amount of time that the user experienced while their sandevistan was active. Their real-time actions only took a handful of moments, but their perception of the event would be far longer. Commercial standard was about eight seconds. Again, that was the 'safe' level for basically any meatbag in the world. The current public-record best was the Militech Falcon Mk5, which had a subjective duration of eighteen seconds.

All sandevistans had something called a 'cooling rate'. This was fairly simple, it was how fast the sandevistan cooled down to safe levels again for indefinite usage. He didn't know the reason for it, but speedware built up heat as it functioned, and that heat had to be dissipated before it was used again lest the user burn out their nervous system. The current best-on-market was held by a few different models, at around fifteen seconds to cool off.

All of this, of course, was without after-market modifications. Enough supporting chrome around a sandevistan could increase performance well in excess of what they were initially designed for.

His own sandevistan had an acceleration factor of ten, a subjective duration of twenty seconds, and a cooling rate of ten seconds. You could get a longer subjective duration, or a faster cooling rate, or a better acceleration factor, but he had yet to meet anyone except the boy that could handle all three as high as he could.

Like all of his chrome, his sandevistan wasn't the absolute best in any one category, but it was the best overall…

Well that wasn't quite true.

The DaiOni, his body, was the most powerful frame ever constructed in just about every category that he cared about. He hit the hardest, he ran the fastest, he reacted the quickest, he was the hardest to damage. It was a monster of a frame, only made more so with his sandevistan installed.

Needless to say, every frame except the Samson was faster than any car could hope to be in terms of overland speed. The Samson had to simply be carried along the way to keep up.

Massive bounding leaps that tore the endless expanse of desert. Dry and dead clay and sand being thrown up in waves behind four robotic giants. Nearly four-thousand pounds of metal and myomer screaming across the barren land, up and down the craggy hills and valleys in a straight line towards the truck as it drove down the roads that were no longer maintained by any official action.

It was still miles ahead, but if they kept this pace up, then Adam would intercept the Truck a few miles outside of the Metacorp site. The DaiOni was a tad faster than any other frame, owing to its massive stride, but that was easy enough to compensate for.

'...It's more dead than I was expecting…' Uriel spoke, taking note of the landscape as they ran. Adam grunted in response, and Uriel continued. 'I mean, 'ecological disaster' sure, but there's not even scrubs out here. No weeds, no lizards, no insects… No life at all…'

'You going somewhere with this?'

Uriel hummed for a moment, casting a considerate look upon the barren world around them. '...I suppose not. We're not civic planners after all, we're high-spec murderers.'

'Are we not? It certainly fucking feels like it.' Adam complained. Uriel grumbled in agreement. He liked playing district manager, but not for fucking months at a time. Pacifica was starting to be more of a pain in the ass than it was entertaining.

It's why he picked up that AI, currently stuffed in a box with a copy of Tetris back in Pacifica. He needed something to handle some of the burden, otherwise he was going to get entirely too burnt out on this whole 'management' thing. Fucking hell, why do the meatbags want to manage anything? It's a goddamn pain in the ass to babysit all the fuckers in his territory.

Once more, definitively proving his theory that promotions were scams, and that getting paid by the job was far superior to getting paid by the hour.

Thankfully, this was a grand opportunity to relieve some stress.

One massive bound brought him over the small hill in front of him, and the land dropped off steeply down to the road that winded through the barren hills forwards. Adjusting his stance, he slid down the side of the (relatively shallow) hill with one claw cutting grooves into the dirt behind him. As he slid, his optics focused on the road ahead.

There, in the distance, was a solitary armored truck driving down the mostly-destroyed road at nearly a hundred miles per hour.

He was distracted for a moment during his slide as his Oni frame tumbled past him, out of control, flipping down the side of the hill at fifty miles per hour. He narrowed his optics at it and Uriel got the message. He rolled the eyes of the Gemini to Adam's right, set it to be automated again, and slipped into the frame of the out-of-control Oni that was making an excellent impression of a buzzsaw.

It took a moment, but Uriel got it under control just in time for them to slam against the broken asphalt and immediately continue their running forwards. The algorithm Uriel used wasn't perfect when it came to dealing with high speeds. Most of his frames were dirty from their various tumbles so far.

The truck wasn't quite close enough for him to do anything to it yet. Maybe… three and a half thousand feet out? It would take another few seconds of running before he was close enough to it.

He waited for Uriel to give the confirmation that all sandevistans were ready, and activated it. Uriel did so for the rest of the bodies at the same time. All at once, four borgs suddenly accelerated at… let's see. Fifty miles per hour at normal running speed, acceleration factor of ten… that was five-hundred miles per hour? That sounded right and he didn't care to do the full math right now.

Regardless, four borgs were suddenly five times faster than the thing they were chasing. Needless to say, by the time the sandevistan ended he was well within range.

He raised his left arm, and it's internals cycled once. From the ulna-side of his arm, a hatch slid open and a weapon emerged. Back in the day these were externally-mounted. One of the few improvements to the design was figuring out the internal mounting.

A light anti-tank guided missile. This model used a shaped charge to penetrate armor and had around three thousand feet of effective range.

The DaiOni had three of them.

God, he loved missiles.

The missile fired, aimed by his internal targeting tied to his neuralware. It screamed through the air, and aimed for the road directly in front of the truck. On the off-chance that the boy was in there, he couldn't afford to hit him. So he instead aimed for the road in front to force the truck to crash into the sudden massive crater that would appear. Might cause the boy some broken ribs, but that was easy to repair.

Kids were durable, you could throw one down some stairs and they'd be fine.

The missiles howled as it approached, and his eager anticipation was cut short by the side of the truck sliding open, and a flathead turret emerged. He narrowed his optics as the anti-missile laser shot his atgm halfway to the truck, causing it to explode midair. That was infuriating.

That was not a standard part of fucking anything. You mounted those things on ships and buildings, not trucks. The power-draw wasn't worth it most of the time…

He thought about the internals of an armored truck for a few moments, reviewing what he knew could and couldn't fit in one. This was a Metacorp design, so it had 4 modular hardpoints on the hood, roof, and sides, and an interchangeable back-end for heavier cargo or weapon mounting. That was standard for these things.

Flathead lasers could only cover a certain angle, so this truck had at least two, one on each side. That left an unknown factor for the roof and hood. The back end was a small cargo container, so that part wasn't a threat.

…If this truck had no actual weapons on it, they could fit enough batteries, armor, and a big enough engine, and enough fuel to get this far.

Every vehicle should have at least one gun mounted on it. The fact that this was mostly working right now was irritating in the extreme. Have some decency! Put on a mini-gun at least!

Enough grumbling, time for plan B. Uriel, do it.

Uriel set the Oni to automated again, and shifted his presence to the Samson currently clinging to Adam's back. The Samson that was carrying his EMG-83 as he ran forwards.

Uriel rose slightly, using Adam's hips as footholds, and held the massive railgun in one of the hands of the Samson, aiming it at the back-wheels of the truck. The one hand firmly grabbing onto his shoulder and used to adjust his aim with Adam's massive bouncing gait.

Their sensors beeped in unison, Uriel continued to aim as Adam checked what it was.

In the sky, around three miles out and to their upper-left, a speck was rapidly getting bigger. His optics zoomed.

…Metacorp Shipping Security VTOL. They were within range of the transport depot then? Uriel ordered the Oni frame to start doing some calculations.

A tight-beam laser connected with his form, and a transmission was beamed to him directly.

[Adam Smasher! You have fired upon a Metacorp Asset! Cease your hostilities and vacate the premises immediately or you will be treated with lethal force!]

He returned a simple message.

[Metacorp. Your asset might have stolen something from me. You'll all die for it.]

[Vacate the premises immediately and we will verify if ou…] Adam was no longer listening, as Uriel got his calculations done.

Adjusting his aim, Uriel fired the man-sized railgun in the air. Up and to the left. Adam's shoulder jerked slightly from the awkward angle of recoil. That did nothing to slow his run, however.

A good few moments later, the tight-beam transmission cut off and the speck in the sky started to rapidly descend. A ball of fire started to form around it as it descended.

'I beheld Satan, and he fell from heaven like lightning.' Uriel quoted absentmindedly as he stared at it for a moment, before turning his aim back towards the speeding truck…

…That just went around a hill about two-thousand feet in front of them. Goddamn it Uriel, stop reciting shit and shoot first next time.

'Gimme a break, that was cool.'

'Irrelevant. Shoot first next time. Dumbass.'

'You're a dumbass, dumbass.'

They circled around the next hill, and his gait jerked slightly at what he saw. It looked like an old quarry, repurposed to be an aerial shipping depot. Only one of the massive cargo carriers was currently parked here, but the rest of the quarry was filled with men, aircraft, and many, many guns pointed at him. In the center, a massive hole was drilled straight down, looking like it was used for… something. Neither he or Uriel knew much about how aircraft worked, but it looked like a tube for a rocket ship from this angle.

Except, of course, as a massive hole in the ground rather than a free-standing structure.

He didn't know how big the average quarry was, but this one looked like it was about a mile long and wide. A nice square that embodied mankind's desire to impose right angles upon the chaos of nature…

Goddamn it Uriel, stop that, we're in combat.

'Sorry.'

His right arm contained a Tsunami Grenade Launcher. It could fire a standard grenade up to five-thousand feet, could fire about five grenades per three seconds, and the DaiOni contained sixty shots.

A place this big and full of hostiles? There was only one correct option with it.

Uriel hopped off his back, and began to mirco-manage his other frames.

Adam kept running forwards as smaller caliber guns bounced off his armor, and his reactions allowed him to angle himself to make the larger calibers bounce off as well. Five massive steps away from his other frames, Adam and Uriel activated all sandevistans.

The grenades of the DaiOni exploded in harmony with the high-explosive rounds of the tsunami-arms helix that was replacing the Dragoon's right arm. Swathes of meatbags were destroyed in the first second of combat by that alone.

The massive railgun wielded by the Samson boomed every few seconds, each shot taking out the engine of another aircraft that was futilly attempting to rise from the ground and aim it's weapons at the cluster of borgs.

The Militech HMG wielded by the Oni frame cut meatbags in half as they approached, focusing its fire on targets that would be guaranteed to fall after a single round first, and then moving to attack others afterwards. Ensuring they wouldn't get overwhelmed by superior weight of fire.

The Gemini, directly piloted by Uriel, kept running forwards. It was the third-strongest frame, and the lightest by far. It's duty would be to cripple heavy armor targets like borgs and ACPA with his monoblade before moving on. A slowed target was all too easy to take out, and far less of a threat to the rest of the frames.

Within the first ten seconds of Adam Smasher arriving at the fully garrisoned Metacorp base, fifteen percent of the elite corporate security agents were dead, and ten percent of their vehicle support was destroyed.

Needless to say, morale among the defenders shattered almost immediately.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it…" a man in a lab coat muttered furiously as the elevator descended into the stone. It shook as another explosion boomed, only barely muffled by the hundreds of feet of rock.

How the absolute fuck did Arasaka find out about this site? It was a perfectly functioning shipping fortress on top, there should have been no indication!

They had a double-agent on the inside. It was the only way it was possible. Everyone he met from now on was a potential enemy. If anyone tried to slow him, he had to assume they were a hostile, the only way to be sure.

Another explosion boomed through the rock, and he flinched, before adjusting his glasses and coat again, anxiously waiting for the elevator to bring him to the bottom floor of the facility.

It would be bad enough had Arasaka sent Adam Smasher alone. But apparently they had Adam Smasher and four other elite agents currently using his backup frames as support. Smasher was supposed to be an anomaly, where the fuck did they get FOUR other assets capable of handling his frames! It was bullshit!

There wasn't any other way to save the facility or the Underground Railroad project. He'd have to activate project Jabberwocky. It wasn't finished, but it would be more than enough! His superiors gave him very clear orders on what to prioritize in terms of project secrecy, and the Underground Railroad was of the highest importance!

Surely they'd understand, five Adam Smashers! Five!

The elevator opened, and he ran from it as fast as he could, raising his hand to flash his security credentials chip embedded in the palm to the security bots and to open the door.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…" He anxiously whispered as the computer slowly checked his credentials and scanned his biometrics. Soon enough, the door opened and he was allowed into the control chamber.

Wilkins was in here, and she turned to say something.

His arm unfolded into a projectile launcher and turned her head into mulch. Anyone else was a risk right now that he couldn't afford. Her body painted the wall on the left as he ran for the console.

He practically smashed his fingers on the console, only going slow enough to make sure he got the passcodes right. Then he ran over to grab Wilkin's keycard and his own off his neck to insert it into the two slots on the computer.

Furiously he tapped his fingers as it verified his permissions to be doing this. An explosion boomed through the rock overhead as he was finally granted access to the command prompt.

Quickly he booted up the full-range prototype testing program, defined an area, and set hostiles to 'all'. Slamming his finger on enter, the console turned green, and he slowly slumped down to rest his head against the chair behind him.

Alarms started to blare as a light emerged from one of the tunnel-entrances at the bottom of the primary bore.

Illuminating a massive, hundred-ton form.

A massive form that blurred for a moment, and exploded out of the bore with the scream of its jet-engine wings. Its emergence onto the surface was heralded by his claws snatching a VTOL out of the air and crushing it into scrap. Its face glowed for a moment, before a massive laser ripped from its maw and cut a distant attack helicopter in half.

The D.R.A.G.O.N. had been awoken.

There were very few things that could threaten him anymore. Vanishingly few things that could put up a fight against him, that could challenge him, that could put up any amount of resistance. In the early days after his conversion, he was far stronger than before, but just about everything was still a reasonable fight. Gangers with big enough guns, Corporate samurai with monoblades, just about any combat vehicle, most cyberforms…

He was pretty sloppy back then, but his upgrade gave him enough staying power to always get through, to always learn from his mistakes, to always get better. He was built to endure, and endure he did.

By the time 2023 rolled around, he was stronger than just about everything that borgs were supposed to fight against. Meatbags, elite solos, other borgs, weaker ACPA. The only things that threatened him by the start of the fourth corporate war were other high-spec combat borgs, and ACPA. There was only one non-borg left in the world to beat at that point, only one left to kill and prove that he was definitively beyond meat at that point.

It still pissed him off that Blackhand pulled a fucking draw out of his ass.

After that though, he kept getting better, kept getting his frame improved. There were still challenges for decades to come. Kagekaze was good enough to kick his ass every now and then, and had him beat when it came to sneaky shit. Top-class ACPA were still something he had to pull out all stops for. Big enough groups of other combat borgs could still give him a hard time.

The decades kept passing though. Soon enough, there wasn't anything that could slow him down anymore. Open wars weren't really done anymore, and the shadow wars never deployed enough heavy metal to actually hurt him. All those concealable weapons and gimmicks just bounced off his armor, all those heavier guns were slow enough to avoid, and there were never enough units to beat him with weight of fire.

Eventually, he stopped pushing for frame updates. Eventually, he stopped bothering to try. Every mission was the same thing, go out and slaughter everything in a radius. That was incredibly fun, of course, seeing meatbags turn into splatters was always a good time. Still, there wasn't anything to take seriously. Taunting them was usually a good way to get them to fight harder, but it only helped so much.

The Unification Wars were the closest he had gotten to challenged in nearly thirty years by that point. Speedware had gotten majorly improved recently back then, and he was eager to see all the potential enemies and new tactics using it. They were not enough, and the first battle was a decisive rout on Arasaka's side. He was a bit let down, but the war was still going strong and he was optimistic that they would get better as time went on.

That was the only battle Arasaka participated in. Immediately afterwards a treaty was signed, and the NUSA Unification Wars ended, and he was back to business as usual.

The boy was the closest thing he had been to challenged since then. A highly experimental frame that was dogshit on its own, good enough speedware to compensate for the difference, and decently scrappy. It wasn't close to enough, but it was more fun than he thought he'd have.

Taking the boy in was the best decision he'd made in fucking decades, because all the fuckers that came out of the woodwork to have a go over it had been exhilarating. He's had more quality fights in less than a year than he's had in fifty years. All the annoying shit that he'd had to deal with on the side was completely worth it in exchange for those fights.

It's been years since he's had to try.

When the hundred-foot metal dragon exploded out of the massive hole in the ground, he had been annoyed at having to deal with shit like this while trying to get his apprentice back. When that same dragon destroyed two armored vehicles in the same second of emerging, there was a small part of him that started to get excited.

This kinda thing happens every now and then. Some corporate scientists convince the higher ups to spend billions on funding what was effectively just the scientist in question dicking around. Usually in the form of a giant robot that was shit at actually fighting, but had at least one major improvement somewhere in its systems, enough that the higher ups kept the scientist around instead of killing them.

Hijitaka did this all the time, the Cyberskeleton was one such example. The prototypes were always too gimmicky to bother with actually using, but there was enough learned from their designs that Arasaka kept him around.

The dragon lurched, and its form blurred for a moment. The jets mounted on its wings screamed to life. It moved as fast as some slower bullets across the quarry and shattered an APC underneath its bulk. That was a few hundred feet crossed over in perhaps two seconds.

It had speedware. That meant it had to be a cyberform, or a human underneath all that metal. He was going to put his bets on cyberform, because there wasn't a person alive who could handle that much who wasn't named 'Adam Smasher'. Speedware on a many-ton mass of metal and myomer with what looked like limited flight.

'…why does it have a sandy?' Uriel asked the obvious question. 'Wouldn't a kerry be way better on a cyberform? It's a cyberform, it's not like it can't handle it.'

Adam grunted in agreement before ignoring the question, he wasn't a scientist. It wasn't currently attacking any of his frames, and the defenders were much more focused on trying to run away from the dragon rather than attack him, so he and Uriel took the time to do a status check on everything. Down some ammo, the Oni was a bit roughed up from taking a heavy sniper round to the thigh, and that was about it.

His frames burst into motion, and moved to places of cover outside of the dragon's line of sight. They'd let it rampage for a while, maybe some of the meatbags will weaken it in the meantime, and then he'd move in to confront it at the end.

Alright Uriel time for a strategy meeting. We have a multi-ton cyberform with speedware. Assume it's as armored as a superheavy tank, that laser only needed one shot to kill that VTOL earlier, it's far bigger than even the DaiOni, and probably stronger too. What weapons do we have that can hurt it?

'If you use the panzerknight trick against it, and that's about it.' Uriel replied grimly. 'A superheavy tank needs a tank-scale railgun to damage, and the EMG just isn't that big. The Hyperhammer might stagger it and damage the internals, but it would need to be a good fucking hit.'

'That's Samson, next.' A series of missiles smashed into the dragon's side, and a tail-swipe knocked over an APC and crushed the driver. A roaring 3-foot wide laser burst from its visor-like face and cut a wave of soldiers hiding behind shipping crates in half.

'Gemini has the monosword, it would need to be a perfect cut, but it's capable of cutting through with the ideal setup. The Hellbringer is irrelevant here, it's just a handgun and we'd need an opening in the armor for it to matter.'

'Next.' A hail of bullets from several VTOL rotary guns rained down on the dragon, putting thousands of superficial dents in its armored hide. In response, it blurred and jumped. A few seconds later crashing into a VTOL and throwing it bodily into the flight path of the second VTOL, destroying both in a circling ball of fire and scrap.

'Dragoon has the Helix, which is meant for wiping out waves of weaklings, not taking on a single heavy armor target. The micro missiles are also pointless against this much armor. It doesn't have any weapons that can actually damage assuming that much armor. It can do severe damage, but only if we can get that armor off.'

'Next.' The dragon screamed again, this time firing two of those very big missiles from its wings, which sped forwards and unerringly tracked the two attack helicopters attempting evasive maneuvers. That done, it spotted a moving APC in the distance and swooped down to crush it beneath its weight. The APC flattened as the claws turned it into a shredded pancake.

'Oni has an HMG, which isn't going to be very useful. Its lasers might be able to damage it's internals and slag the armor, unless it's graded for heat resistance. Might be able to warp the glass on its own laser if we hit it enough. The club isn't going to do jackshit to it.'

Adam considered all that, he was already aware of all that information but another voice saying it aloud helps one consider everything. At least, according to Uriel's memories.

The dragon focused its laser on a particular shipping crate, quickly turning it into liquid metal which fell on the meatbags hiding within. Their screams were a bit distracting while he was trying to think. Hey assholes, shut up and die quietly.

'Reserve sandevistan usage to dodging. We don't have a single frame that can handle being hit by that. Samson is to focus on trying to shoot those missiles. Dragoon is to remain out of the fight until we can get that armor opened. Oni is to focus on warping that lens, firing immediately after it does. You'll pilot the Gemini directly, focus on the parts I open up. Got it?'

Uriel spent a few moments rapidly updating the order priorities for the combat algorithm. The dragon flew up and fired another set of missiles, turning two distant cyberwalks on the quarry ledge into burning scrap. It roared and descended upon an armored truck, ripping it apart like a cat tears apart a baby bird.

'Frames ready.' he replied after a few more moments, the dragon rampaging all the while. '...I know it's a cyberform, but it might be possible to hack.'

'Uriel, it's a fucking robot dragon. This might be our only chance to fight a robot dragon.'

'...You're absolutely right. That was a stupid question.' Uriel's resolve was strengthened and a grin grew on the Gemini's face.

Adam grunted and stood up. Most of the base was killed at this point, both from his initial attack and the dragon's rampage. Mostly a field of burning rubble and corpses at this point. Just about his favorite sight in the world.

He stomped forwards with deliberate swagger, getting the attention of the dragon after a few moments of walking. His part of the plan was fairly simple. They had nothing strong enough to damage the dragon here. Nothing except itself.

So he was going to taunt it, dodging what he couldn't afford to take, and waiting for a chance to counter. Once its armor was broken in a few places, the other frames could start doing damage. It was a plan that was absolutely suicidal for anyone who wasn't him, and heavily relied on his ability to perform it. One wrong move and he would be crippled enough to be easy pickings for the immense cyberform.

He knew for a fact that he could pull it off. He could kill this thing completely alone if he needed to. He had the skill and the ability for it. Good job panzerknight, your trick has been serving him well so far, thanks for killing yourself on his fist.

He spread his arms wide, and stood straight up. The DaiOni was around 3.5 meters tall. This dragon was around… 13.5 meters at eye-level. That fact annoyed him greatly . He ignored that annoyance and focused instead on what his pose conveyed.

Well, what is it, dragon?

Its maw began to glow a furious red. He activated his speedware and stepped once to the right and twisted his torso. The instantaneous beam of molten red melted a hole in the stone next to him, the heat washing over his sensors.

Checking out its temperature, and comparing it to his internal notes about his armor… He was pretty sure the DaiOni could actually survive that most of the time, the armor was rated equally against heat and was thick enough to endure it at least once. No other frame would, however.

He calmly ran forwards and diagonally to avoid the sweeping beam as the dragon tried to chase him with it. Its speedware was lower grade than his, so it didn't matter that the laser was instantaneous, the dragon's head was not.

Someone with speedware would almost always beat someone without speedware. Someone with better speedware would almost always beat someone with worse speedware. Adam Smasher had some of the best speedware in the world. This thing didn't really stand a chance.

Despite his sandevistan being activated first, it timed out right after the dragon's did. It let out a synthetic roar and crouched, the wheels mounted on its clawed feet roaring to life.

A twinned set of lasers burst out from behind him, and crashed into the dragon's visor-plate, right where the laser had emerged. It began to turn, but a quick burst of auto-shotgun from his arm brought its attention firmly back to him. It continued his charge, and he waited for a moment.

Then, just before it pounced and crushed him with its weight, he threw himself to the side. He had to wait for an attack he could redirect, and that wasn't something he was sure about. No sense in being reckless here.

A railgun slug crashed into one of the missiles mounted on the left wing, and caused it to explode. The dragon screamed in fury as a massive fireball engulfed its left side. The remaining missiles on that half of its body went off in a colossal explosion. Next time, don't stop moving, dragon.

Actually… It's been a while since he's engaged in some good ol' fashioned banter, hasn't it?

"You're making this too easy, cyberform. It's pathetic." He declared.

Much to his surprise, the dragon actually responded.

"Insult recognized. Communication protocols engaged. I will devour you, little boy."

The voice wasn't quite what he was expecting. It was distinctly robotic, but raspy and feminine rather than massive and grumbling. It blurred, sandevistan activating again, and moved away from him in one massive leap.

He glared and activated his own, running to keep up with it…

He was not fast enough to prevent it from melting the Samson some hundred or so feet away. It crashed down on top of the slag, and as it turned to face him, his ATGM crashed into its face and caused it to stagger.

Uriel crashed into its side as it turned to face him, sword stabbing into the now-opened wing structure and slicing through something as he tore it out. It screamed and moved to roll and crush him beneath its bulk, but he leapt off and disappeared into the rubble and scrap mountains surrounding the battlefield once more.

Its speedware wore off as it was rolling, but his didn't. A 5-grenade burst fired out from his left arm, crashing against the dragon's right wing as it rolled. The missiles on those wings, filled with very nice explosives, promptly chain-burst and engulfed the right side in an explosion that sent it sliding for a few dozen feet with a furious roar.

Alright, no more easy damage, from here on out it would get harder. Still, only one frame down and it was the one without speedware. Good trade overall. Uriel, give it a taunt.

"That your dick-sucking voice? Get something more intimidating, lizard!" The Gemini called out from somewhere amongst the piles of rubble and bodies.

The dragon's visor glowed red and a laser screamed out from its maw, turning a pile of rubble into melted slag. "Intimidating enough it seems. Your cowering amuses me."

Another burst of twin-lasers from the distance crashed against its visor-lens, and it screeched furiously. As it's head turned, a burst from his auto-shotgun and the grenade launcher brought it's attention back towards him. The explosions and bullets crashed against its chest primarily, dealing little more than superficial damage.

It leapt again, once more trying to crush him beneath its immense bulk. A deliberate jump to the side at the right moment caused it to fail.

"Stay still, morsel."

He spread his arms in a mocking fashion. The dragon, taking offense to this and seemingly tired of him avoiding its leaps, took a swipe at him instead.

Something that he absolutely knew he could handle.

His claws dug into the stone of the quarry, rooting himself into the earth.

The claw crashed against his raised left arm.

His integrated monoblade on his right arm stabbed into its palm.

The dragon screamed as it's right claw, wrist, and half of its foreleg exploded.

His optics glowed red in malicious glee.

"Like I said. Pathetic."

There was an immediate rush of wind that pulled him forwards, rushing to fill the gap the dragon left behind as it jumped back to land a few dozen meters away with a colossal boom and the shattering of the stone ground beneath them. A vacuum-like effect that heralded the dragon immediately fleeing from his counter attack.

Cyberforms can't feel fear, but they can make tactical assessments. Adam was sure that this cyberform was now classifying him as the most dangerous thing it had ever met.

Good. That was true.

"What? Running away? I stood still for you." He called out, spreading his arms wide and taking slow stomps forwards. "Weren't you going to crush me, did you lose your nerve, cyberform?"

The dragon, crouched lower than normal due to missing a fourth of its right foreleg, stared at him for a long moment. It's ceretronic mind was probably doing it's best to figure out how exactly he had taken its arm off like that. He certainly wasn't carrying a big enough weapon to do so conventionally. If he had a proper face he'd be grinning right now.

Goddamn, he had forgotten how fun it was to grandstand like this. Uriel, make a note, we're doing this more often from now on.

'Note made.' Uriel replied in amusement.

"How did you do that, morsel?" The dragon didn't surprise him when it tried asking him directly. It was a cyberform, and that meant it thought like an animal with a calculator at the steering wheel. Asking outright lost it nothing, and has a chance of giving it more information to work with. So naturally, he decided to fuck with it.

"Oh? Wasn't it obvious?" He asked deliberately, tilting his head in mock inquisition. "It's simple. I hit you very hard."

"You do not have sufficient mass to inflict this much damage." The dragon returned, posing somewhat awkwardly from its hind legs still on the ground as normal, and front legs shorter than normal. It was like it was crouching in preparation for a pounce.

"Interesting theory, cyberform, want to test it again?" He asked, continuing his steady, stomping pace towards the hundred… wait no, how much did that claw weigh? Maybe five tons? He continued his steady, stomping pace towards the ninety-five ton dragon. He activated his sandevistan and stepped to the right.

Like fucking clockwork, the dragon fired it's primary laser at him, turning the area he just was into blackened and slagged rock. He started running, and a moment later it activated its own speedware. It showed that it was learning something by using its burst of speed to move away instead of staying an easy target.

Unfortunately for it, the DaiOni was almost faster without speedware, and his speedware was better.

He immediately burst into a sprint, chasing after the fleeing warmachine, only slowing down to avoid that sweeping laser as it crossed over the landscape between him and it. It was doing its best to track him, but between its own movements and his, it wasn't having much luck.

Just like before, its speedware ran out before his did. He timed it this time, two seconds of relative duration in total. He had two relative seconds more to work with than it. An eternity in a fight, there wasn't a way to lose here. Well, if he decided to stand still and let it murder him, that would be a loss, but that was about the only way.

Bigger isn't always better, the superheavy class of tank attested to that. Massive guns, immense armor, and slow as a fucking snail. The thing was a walking beacon of, 'please oh god don't hit me with artillery because I don't move too well.' A bold fashion statement by the designers, for certain. No, better is better, and he's the best there is.

He approached the dragon, which was doing the best impression of panic that a cyberform can feel, clawed feet shattering the stone beneath him as he approached. It backed up to the point of colliding with the stony slope leading up the hills surrounding the quarry.

Then, when he got within range…

He jumped at it.

There were three principles to panzerfaust. Vibration. Rotation.

And Leaping.

A jump-kick was a very delicate thing, tricky to master, and tricky to use. Trying to do so without knowing what you were doing was a very quick way to be smacked down from the air and likely die on the floor. Knowing what you were doing wasn't that helpful, because of how dangerous a leap was in a fight.

Forfeiting your ability to adjust position entirely for the sake of a single slightly more powerful kick? Normally a bad trade unless you made sure that nothing would interrupt you ahead of time. Panzerfaust was slightly different, because it wasn't just a slightly more powerful kick.

Combining the vibration and rotation to the leaping kick turned a strong blow into an improvised mono-lance. Doing this in the DaiOni? A frame that weighed more than a ton, could lift armored trucks, and leap nearly twenty meters in a single running bound? He could stomp tanks to scrap.

Of course, this attack wasn't to hurt the dragon, not this time. It was a cyberform, it thought like an animal with a calculator at the steering wheel. Last time he hit it, he blew off an arm.

Predictably, it dodged.

Predictably, he impacted the stoney slope behind it. His impact cracked the stone beneath him.

Predictably, he jumped off the slope and twisted as he did, taloned mechanical foot crashing into the dragon's side as it tried to turn to keep track of him. The heavily-damaged jet-wing remaining somewhat intact was a little offensive to him.

Naturally, when his leaping kick impacted the already weakened joint that connected the wing to the body, he smashed right through.

The dragon roared as it stumbled back, recoiling like the dinosaurs seeing a rock in the sky. He twisted the immense bulk of the DaiOni to face downwards, and made sure to redirect the force of the impact to offset any damage to his structure from the multimeter drop.

Between the two of them, a six-ton wing crashed into the ground, now separated from its original owner. The dragon screamed in simulated pain and thrashed, struggling backwards over slagged and burning rubble of a once-whole military base. Well, a militarized shipping base, not really a full on military fortress.

The DaiOni was the most powerful frame yet constructed. A monster of war and slaughter.

Infantry were pawns. Borgs were Bishops. ACPA were Knights. Tanks were Queens. Artillery was King.

The DaiOni was a God.

Nothing beats being in your own body again.

The dragon, awkwardly balanced now due to the sudden lack of weight on its right side, struggled to bring itself up into a reasonable fighting stance. It was downright pathetic really. Uriel, order the Dragoon to begin firing upon the joint of the left wing, might as well do it a favor here and even it out.

"So, what do you think, cyberform? Do I not hit that hard after all? I clearly don't have the 'mass', right?" To give the Dragoon time to position itself, he started taunting again. This time he stood completely still, one claw slightly raised in a mocking fashion. "Surely that was just a love tap to you?"

The dragon was silent for a moment.

"...Insufficient agility against current threats. Ejecting extraneous components."

With a hiss, massive panels on its torso opened up, and from this dropped two truck-sized fuel tanks. They smashed into the ground, shattering the concrete below them, and the panels in its torso closed over again. At the same time, a hiss from its remaining wing joint sounded off, before it too fell off and crashed onto the stone ground below. The process took less than three seconds to complete.

"Insufficient aggression against current threats. Changing unit priorities."

The dragon reared up on its hind-limbs, taking its now-much lighter upper torso much farther into the air above. It now stood a good twenty or so meters tall, counterbalanced by its now low-hanging tail. Its left claw raised up to clench into a fist.

"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS, MORSEL."

It's malevolent visor glowed a furious red in his direction.

"YOU DIE NOW."

Adam felt distinctly unimpressed by the boasting. A stream of explosions began to burst to life against its spine. The Dragoon opened fire upon its weakened back-armor the moment it declared that.

He began to run forwards, firing upon its body with his grenades to draw its attention again. It proved itself smarter than the average cyberform by ignoring him, and instead jumping at the Dragoon to crush it beneath a three-point landing.

The Dragoon, as programmed, used its sandevistan to dodge. It stopped moving some distance away, and it was then he realized the mistake and activated his sandevistan.

The dragon activated its own speedware the moment the Dragoon stopped moving. He was already running towards it, as was Uriel.

A screaming lance of furious light turned the Dragoon, still firing his Helix, into melted slag and a burned shadow on the ground behind it.

Motherfucker. That was his favorite gun.

Uriel, being closer to where it moved to, leapt in with his own jumping slash. His arms vibrating with the signature motion of panzerfaust, incorporating a massive spin to maximize cutting force.

The Monofour opened up a meter-long gash in its heavily damaged upper back as Uriel passed over it. The dragon screamed again, moving to swipe a Uriel as he landed…

Only to be met with Adam's taloned foot crashing into its claws, counter-vibrating to negate as much of its impact force as possible. Claw forced back, and foot slightly damaged, Uriel managed to roll away and once more disappear into the piles of rubble and scrap surrounding the battlefield.

'Why the back?' Adam questioned as he readied himself to root or dodge as needed, noting that his left foot was now in the light yellow, structure-wise.

'The core might not be in the head, the torso is guaranteed to have something vital.' Uriel responded quickly, logic more than acceptable.

As programmed, the Oni's twin lasers crashed into the focusing lens, causing the dragon to scream in fury once more. It was beginning to get annoying now.

More annoyingly, it proved that this was a particularly smart cyberform by not trying to engage him and instead making another leap, this time towards the Oni in the distance.

The Dragoon was far closer, so he didn't notice then, but with the weight of the dragon reduced so massively, it's movement was far easier. So massively, in fact, that he cleared the dozens of meters in between it and the Oni quite easily. The ground shook as it jumped, staggering him briefly before he could move again.

'Uriel!' He commanded, and Uriel sent the order to make the Oni dodge behind some cover. That would give it enough to survive at least once hit by that laser.

Un-fucking-fortunately, the dragon proved it was smarter than the algorithm Uriel used. As it landed and the Oni dodged, it instead activated its speedware, grabbed a particularly large chunk of slag, and used its massive reach to its advantage.

By smashing the Oni like an ant underneath a rock.

It turned to face him as he ran after it.

The cunt grinded the slagged truck into the ground, deliberately staring at him as it did so.

"Running out of allies, morsel." It taunted him.

"Running out of patience, cunt!" He snarled at it, taloned feet propelling him forwards at max velocity, the occasional leap taking him over piles of rubble and scrap and cracking the ground each time he landed. He didn't bother disguising what he was about to do, a headlong jumping kick right into its chest.

He leapt, the visor of the dragon burned scarlet as it washed over his form. His armor charred black, and began to slag. His own visor blackened over. His entire frame reported significant armor and slight structure damage all over.

His kick impacted its central torso, its frame shook with the impact, and his talons cut grooves into its plating. It was all superficial damage at best.

He kicked off the torso, and clashed the swipe it aimed at him with a counter-vibrating monosword. He was batted away, flying for a dozen meters or so before rolling across the cracked stone and crashing into a pile of rubble.

His kick only accomplished one thing.

Distracting the fucker long enough for Uriel to get that perfect cut lined up.

Uriel crashed into its back like a rocket-powered guillotine. The monfour, hitting that gash he opened up earlier and going deeper, hit something very vital.

The batteries.

The dragon collapsed forwards, lights all across its body going dark as its central power supply was suddenly cut off. Apparently this thing had no emergency batteries. Or it was designed to run off those fuel cells earlier, and these were its emergency batteries. Either was possible.

He stood and took stock of the situation.

Three of his frames were destroyed. The Gemini was completely undamaged. The DaiOni was…

He checked his condition monitor.

…Orange armor and light yellow structure. He was halfway through his ammo and completely out of ATGMs. He might not be able to fight a second dragon, but anything less was perfectly in his abilities.

He turned to take stock of the visual situation, growling at the fact that his visor was damaged enough to obstruct his optics. Raising one charred claw, he ripped it off to clear his vision. Scanning the surroundings properly, he detected no other hostiles.

He looked at the corpse of the cyberdragon.

Fucking hell, that was good fucking fight. He made a note to give it a glowing review if Metacorp ever tried to complain. Eight out of Ten, made him work for it.

Now… where the hell was his apprentice?

…Where was the truck?

It took a few minutes of searching, but he and Uriel found it eventually.

Next to an elevator shaft going down, doors opened and the trunk emptied.

His optics glowed a furious red.

A solid fifteen seconds of falling later, and he crashed at the bottom of the shaft like a falling star. The mountain interior shook and his impact echoed as it landed.

The door wasn't big enough for him. His fist corrected that issue by removing the door and its surrounding stone. Uriel followed behind him, scanning the environment and net around them.

There were a few security bots down the hall. They took half a second to tear apart.

There was another few doors, one at the end and two to either side of the hall. He went to the middle door first, as that was the only one with a security lock.

Again, too small. Again, his fist corrected that issue.

There was a corpse inside, and an observation balcony that gave an overview into a tunnel that was at the bottom a massive room. Going to the edge and looking up, he saw that he could have saved time by simply jumping down the massive hole in the center of the quarry above.

He growled at the monitors. Uriel got the message, walking over and plugging in his interface cable to the main monitor.

After a few moments, Uriel spoke. He sounded both amazed and infuriated, an impressive combination.

"Fucking hell…"

The glass overlooking the massive tunnel shifted, and screeds began to appear on it. He crossed his arms and waited to read what Uriel was pulling up.

First was a map of North America with various dots on it, and in the oceans around it. Next was the same map, but with a sprawling mess of blue lines over the entire thing. Next was the same map, but with purple dots and red lines, with several blue lines turning purple and connecting all the dots.

His optics glowed in suspicion.

The next two screens were simple enough.

An automated tunnel-boring drone, and a project overview page.

Project Underground Railroad.

"...Uriel…" He growled out, demanding clarification.

"Project Underground Railroad. A project fifty years in the making to secure Metacorp's long-term power in North America for as long as they can control it. A project to buy up every dried up mine and non-profitable quarry in North America, turn it into a military base, connect them all with millions of miles of tunnels, and sell safe passage through it. A project to completely cut out other Nomads as a factor in shipping deals. It's incomplete, but lots of progress has been made already."

Uriel's voice was carefully blank as he monologued.

"Fighting that dragon took us a few minutes."

Mostly because he was just as furious as Adam.

"David could be in one of the other locations, back in Night City, or anywhere within these tunnels. We're going to have to check them all to make sure he isn't."

Adam's fist relieved a bit of his fury, as he punched the wall and shattered his way into the next room over. It was several long moments before he replied.

"Uriel… Call Arasaka, inform them of the situation. Salvage needs to be retrieved, and we'll need more eyes here."

"And the other teams?"

"Let them finish their assigned locations first, then call them here."

It was around this moment Adam decided that Metacorp would no longer exist if he had any say in it. This went beyond inconvenient. This was grudge-worthy. For managing to waste so much of his goddamn time.

Welcome to the Three Monkeys Message Boards

You are currently logged in, YuriYuriLove

You are viewing:

• Threads you have replied to

• AND Threads that have new replies

• OR private message conversations with new replies

• Thread OP is displayed

• Twentyfive posts per page

• Last ten messages in private message history

• Threads and private messages are ordered by user custom preference.

Topic: Adam Smasher General Discussion Thread

In: Boards Corporations Arasaka

Darkwraith_Lance (Original Poster) (Verified Edgelord) (Community Helper)

Posted on October 15th, 2076:

This is the thread dedicated as a containment thread for everything related to the Arasaka employee Adam Smasher. The admin has rejected the request for more threads, but made some changes to let certain threads extend past their normal limit. The old thread is in the archive (link 5).

Remember, there are no rules about moderation. Enjoy your ban if you piss them off.

Having said that, The following links contain the archive of basically everything known about the man in question. Remember to check the archive before asking questions about available content. Original content takes about a day or so before being added to the archive, we have to first check with the lawyer if it's legal to have saved or not.

So no, no pirated content, you have to go somewhere else for that.

Yes, parts of the UI are still bugged, yes they are still working on it, no we don't know when it'll be fixed again.

LINK 1, LINK 2, LINK 3, LINK 4, LINK 5, LINK 6, LINK 7, LINK 8

(Showing Page 140 of ???)

Onahole_Wannabe

OWO, LEASH ME DADDY YORI, I'LL BE A GOOD PUPPY SLUT!

Succu_USB

@Onahole_Wannabe

I hope that leash makes you braindead, you insufferable whore.

@Bengali_Lad

CGI Fucking sucks, I've seen better on old shit amvs of Daedalus

Brogus

Hey, didn't Arasaka and Militech just have a treaty thing going on? Isn't that kinda big news?

They brought back IEC, which was apparently pretty important in dino times.

Onahole_Wannabe

@Succu_USB

You take that fucking back, Papa is gonna pound me and he's gonna love it!

@Brogus

Fucking why would they bother? Wasn't there a whole thing about IEC being targeted?

Railgunner_Randy

@Onahole_Wannabe

I mean it's pretty obvious right? IEC will be used by Militech to spy on Araska and Vice Versa. They know new Metal Wars/5th corpo is coming, I would buy a ticket and fucked of to Europe if I were you

Hot damn, isn't Yorinobu hot tho? He looks both high corpo elegant and rebel cool. Is he single?

Succu_USB

@Railgunner_Randy

I don't fuckin know, they're now raising megacorps back from their graves to use them as proxies. Soon enough CINO and OTEC will miraculously come back to play out the corpo war fiesta all over again.

Onahole_Wannabe

@Railgunner_Randy

Doommonger is a euro shill

Yeah, tell me a new joke, gonktard

Railgunner_Randy

@Succu_USB

Oh nice, can't wait to buy brand new deck from InfroCorp

@Onahole_Wannabe

Your funeral

EyeonthePrize

Any other megacorps you monkeys would like to see resurrected? Personally I'd love to see BioDyne come back.

Exolifter_and_acessories

@Railgunner_Randy

Better dead than E*ropean

Also Yori fucks prostitutes

He's low quality

Give me another Ol' Luke any day

@EyeonthePrize

BioDyne still exists you gonkass

Titty_Stickies

@Exolifter_and_acessories

Anti Arasaka Slander!

Also, what prostitutes? I might want to find new side hustle

EyeonthePrize

@Exolifter_and_acessories

How the fuck

Who else is dead then?

@Titty_Stickies

Doll chipped ones, apparently

Cyberpunk_Ethical

@EyeonthePrize

Corps never die, they just go underground for a few decads

Kn1GhtM4r3

@Cyberpunk_Ethical

What, like Hitler down in argentinia?

@Railgunner_Randy

Yorinobu's whole "rebel cool" is just a front ever since he bent over for his corpsedad. Yori is a corpo shitbag, just like the rest of them.

Thicc_Thighs_and_Whatnot

Hell, knowing EBM was a German corp, they probably have the Fuhrer's head on Ice.

@EyeonthePrize

Go outside and touch 'crete you fucking NEET, BioDyne is all over.

But no, EBM couldn't come back, trying to take over Germany was retarded move

Knife's Edge

@Thicc_Thighs_and_Whatnot

Why did they try that?

Did the Fuhrer's frozen brain command them to go for a 4th Reich?

SmashmeDaddy (Shitposter)

I want the Smashdaddy to break in my asshole

Does he like girls or boys more?

I don't know. Does anyone?

EyeonthePrize

@Thicc_Thighs_and_Whatnot

And get my head blown off by the first strommer who looks funny at me? No thanks.

@SmashmeDaddy

Oh no, not you again...

Maniac_Malaka

@Knife's_Edge

Probably. Same fucking retarded moves. They fucked up Germany enough that Poland anage to win war against them and take their coastline back. Sure, with help of Militech, but still, what a fucking shitshow that was. Time of the Red was fucking wild

Bengali_Lad

@Maniac_Malaka

What fucking history shard did you read out of?

Delete_California

Since when did this containment thread become another fucking geopolitical general?

LUN4CY (Bot)

[I'm not in containment! I'm just waiting for David to come back.]

Delete_California

FUCK OFF LUN4CY!

Whichever mod made this shit bot should flatline himself immediately.

Heiny_Huney

@Delete_California

Ever since we could get an extension to the Old Net

I've heard that Yorinobu was a nomad biker before his bro got nuked. Maybe he needs a nomad gal, like me.

Succu_USB

He ain't giving you a ride

Dude has terrible tastes.

@Delete_California

Oh god, yeah. Isn't it originally some joke about that one netrunner Smasher has?

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 138, 139, 140, 141 ... ???

…

(Showing Page 141 of ???)

Minute_Kibble

@Succu_USB

He might

Also who the fuck cares? It's stupid

…That leotard does things to me, admittedly.

Bravo_Bitch

@Delete_California

@Minute_Kibble

[Picture of a woman with cat-ear mods. She is angry.]

PulloutmyBoombox

@Delete_California

Since Smasher became owner of Pacifica. City planners got there like roaches, and /geo/nks followed. Fucking scam, good thing most of them were retarded enough to unironically kill Saka for that Shaitan guy

Why the fuck is he even in charge of that? He's a killer,not an admin.

Ain't that a waste of his primary talents?

Corps are gonktards

Alphas

@PulloutmyBoombox

Yeah

Man, Night City is weird as fuck

Gur_Flurgel

@PulloutmyBoombox

Hey, every man likes to manage something

Some people like model trains, some people like those city manager BDs, and Smasher probably likes killing people who litter.

Mighty_Motoko

Wake me when someone puts out a hit on biotechnicucks.

They will taste my blade.

Succu_USB

@Gur_Flurgul

You know what?

Same

@Mighty_Motoko

What are you, fifteen?

Go to bed girl

Thicc_Thighs_and_Whatnot

@PulloutmyBoombox

Well to be fair, his model of governance is "Kill the fuckers who break rules" so…

At least it isn't chucking granola bars at Biotechnica

@Mighty_Motoko

Go out and get yourself flatlined already, kiddo.

Honestly, I'm planning on moving to Sacramento soon as this shit boils over

Nothing ever happens there

Except the Free Staters foaming at the mouth, but hey

Better than chromepocalypse

We got Martinez going bananas over his girl in some experimental frame, two borg larpers, a terrorist and a nuke, and it's all in just a year.

What's next, Hell will open up for Satan to teabag us?

Unstoppable_Force

I want to rape Adam.

Just bolt him to a table and have my way with him until his power cells run out.

Holy shit I want him to panic while he fills my pussy.

Burger_Borg

@Thicc_Thighs_and_Whatnot

Out of all cities in America, and he still chooses one in California.

@Unstoppable_Force

[SmasherOutOfYourMeds.wav]

How much would I have to pay for a BD of Smasher cucking this thirsty gonk?

Summer_Solstice_Suck_n_Fuck

HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING DUMB

THEY ARE LITERALLY SELLING SLAVE COLLARS AND YOU BUY IT

THEY EVEN NAMED IT A FUCKING LEASH

WAKE THE FUCK UP

@Burder_Borg

Never enough.

Burger_Borg

@Summer_Solstice_Suck_n_Fuck

You don't think I noticed it's called "Leash"?

They're honest about it

Man, humanity is fucked isn't it?

Hey, a century ago was a fuck ton better.

Even sixty years ago

Unstoppable_Force

@Summer_Solstice_Suck_n_Fuck

And what about that is different from before?

@Burger_Borg

Always has been

We live in the Era of entirely foreseeable consequences

Exolifter_and_acessories

even considering to buy modern chrome

Couldn't be me

@Summer_Solstice_Suck_n_Fuck

Hey, as long as the cyberpsychos are kept in check by it, I don't care.

@Unstoppable_Force

Why is the Smasher fanatic being philosophical all of a sudden?

Unstoppable_Force

@Exolifter_and_acessories

I want him to impregnate me, it's just not all I think about

Known_Sociopath

This fucking prick delayed my shipment due to 'rising tensions'

Fucking Orbital Air, goddamn space monkey shitskins

Justice4Haruko (BD Enjoyer)

@Known_Sociopath

Woah, cool it there, no racism outside of /beav/

(unless it's against Saka. And Euros. And Cali fags)

Can we do a "no lusting-over-Smasher" rule for this board?

Known_Sociopath

@Justice4Haruko

Can't wait for the EEC to conquer Africa so I can finally call them what they are

Gilded_Event (Mod)

@Justice4Haruko

It's the Smasher containment board

LUN4CY (Bot)

[I'm not in containment! I'm just waiting for David to come back.]

Gilded_Event (Mod)

FUCK OFF LUN4CY

Seriously_Serious

Can we at least pretend we're discussing Adam Smasher here?

And not posting ethnic grudges, horny daydreams, and gripes about Night City?

Bronstan

@Seriously_Serious

No

Percy_B_Dribblin'

Oh for fuck sake

I hate this board.

Jannies you wageless ducks.

I'm going to pay each one of you gonkshits ten K eddies if you ban all Smashsluts right now.

Gilded_Event (Mod)

@Percy_B_Dribblin

Can't ban other mods

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 139, 140, 141, 142 ... ???

…

(Showing Page 153 of ???)

Buttchug_Bandit

OLD MAN FIGHT

OLD MAN FIGHT

OLD MAN FIGHT!

Bets now people!

Tyger vs Dragon!

Woohoo!

Metal_Gear_Chungus

@Buttchug_Bandit

If I wanted to see two elderly people fight, I'd see the druggies on the street.

Looks cool, though

Pacifica_Thug_69

@Buttchug_Bandit

50 eurobucks for Beast to break Tyger over his knee

Steroidfags are rather annoying, but I'm on his side. The only good Tygers are dead Tygers, fucking Saka shills.

Heehoo_Peanut

@Pacifica_Thug_69

You merely adopted the fursuit...

Also

Das Racist

(but true)

Overly_Literal_Productions

@Buttchug_Bandit

100 eddies for Tyger to do some weeb shit and dice Beast into giblets

If not Saka we would be part of California in NUSA so I am greatful that much

Mantis_Man

@Overly_Literal_Productions

Doesn't really matter which hand is using you as a puppet

They've been gone from the city for forty years and it still fucking sucked. Night City is an irredeemable shithole no matter which corp sits here.

TheEagleRises

Names himself Dragon

Does not have Firebreather implant

Such wasted potential, I hope he dies just becuase of that

Lusty_Librarian

I sucked a Tyger dude's cock once

It was kinda cool

CandyBear

didn't take the Dragon Biosculpt

Could you imagine.

We dont need to know that…

was it barbed?

Lusty_Librarian

Lemon scented

Bet Smashers cock has knobs on it

TheEagleRises

There was some Canadian solo for hire in the 20s, HE was a fucking Beast, Animals can't step up even with Smasher's protection

It does not

[Detailed, AI-upscaled, picture of Adam's Smasher]

SunderDownUnder

EH, is that so Grandpa?

CANADIAN [KEKW.img]

…

Actually, pretty sure that's actually the dudes dad

Ages line up

Lusty_Librarian

@TheEagleRises

[vid of a monkey with cybernetics getting more and more excited]

@SunderDownUnder

Animals are lead by Canadian

Well I always knew they were subhumans

AmericanTan

@Lusty_Librarian

[vid of a man nodding his head, raising a large revolver to the side of his head]

I really need to ignore your shit more often

40lbsofcrackcocaine

Everyone shut the fuck up, it starts

…fucking hell their masks are preem

old-school LED tiger and a scrap-bashed dragon with glowing red eyes

Smasher could make a fortune in merch

Milkmancer

Holy fuck that one announcer chiick loooks gooooddd

Which one of Tyger's monoblades will break first? Place your bets!

Trusty_Patches (DangerGal)

@40lbsofcrackcocaine

[Picture of a man holding his hands together and grinning. The face has been replaced with an edit of Subject 'Macguffin']

Orphean

Wait, does Tyger have an artifial windpipe?

Has this mothergonker been nearly decapitated and just walked that shit off before?

Imagine not having Kerry and highFPS HoloTV for SmashTV

Imagine being poor

Buttchug_Bandit

JESUS!

OLD FUCKERS TAKING A BEATING!

KINO

[Picture of a muscular, kneeling man.

Gonkfucker

TYGER JUST GOT SENT LIKE, A KILOMETER WITH THAT KICK

COOL AS FUCK

Thank you Jesus for letting me having eyes too see this

MoreChromeMorePlates

HE'S GETTING UP

HOW THE FUCK

DO DRUGS KID, FUCK THE SCHOOL

THIS IS BETTER THAN PRO WRESTLING

VeryDisonorabu

TYGER'S LEFT ARM IS FUCKING GONE

BEAST'S LOST A FEW FINGERS

LOOKING LIKE BEAST VICTORY BROS

Night City have blessed us with a duel of the decade. Now it's time to pay the price.

Orphean

Fucking hell, I knew that old Tygerboss was apparently scary in his youth. But he's taking hits like a champ

Always fear the old man in profession where you die young

Buttchug_Bandit

DUEL OF THE CENTURY

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS OLD PRUNE GETTING BACK UP?

RIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS, PLEASE GOD!

Shipper_In_Seat

A FIVKING TIE!

...

the smasher speaks…

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 151, 152, 153, 154 ... ???

…

(Showing Page 156 of ???)

BigDonCampus

I WANT BETTY-CHAN TO CRUSH MY HEAD BETWEEN HER TIGHS LIKE A WATERMELON

[Picture of three crying emojis]

I'm going to install a Mr studd specifically to impregnate Betty

Cute gloomy fighter girl!

Papa_Pedro

The Blackwatch girl is doing pretty good. At least my daughter has fun cheering for her.

@BigDonCampus

The fuck?

Sadge (Annoyingly Depressed)

@Brick I know you lurk here from time to time, where the fuck is Jerome. Or better yet, where the fuck were any Mealstrom fighters?

Mattie_Match

@Sadge

Still pissed that Based Jerome didn't sign up, can you imagine just how fucking cool tyger themed cyberpsychos would look

Sadge (Annoyingly Depressed)

@Mattie_Match

Yeah

They'd be pumped to fight in this

MoreChromeMorePlates

BASED JEROME IS TOO CHROMED FOR THIS PUNY TOURNAMENT!

JuanDark

EL TIGRE GRANDEEEEEEE!!!!

SwordofSilence (Shitposter)

@JuanDark

Aw fuck, the Latinos found this board

It's starting

Lucha time, here we go

Gohan_Blanco

GIVE THIS MAN THE THRONE ALREADY, CALIFORNIA BELONGS TO MEHICO

MuyMachoGrandeSenor

EL TIGRE GRANDE LEAPS ONTO THE STAGE!

HIS AMBITION!

VICTORY!

Jeff12

MÉXICO NÚMERO UNO!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!1!!

Killimanjaro

@MoreChromeMorePlates

And David "Son of Adam" Martinez is not? He fucke like fourth of particpants in first 3 seconds

@Jeff12

MEXICO NUMERO UNO!

TitansTrippingBalls

@Jeff12

MEXICO NUMERO UUUUUNOOOOOOOO

Cinco_De_Manly

@MuyMachoGrandeSenor

EL TIGRE EL TIGRE EL TIGRE

MEXICO CAMPEÓN DEL MUNDO

VIVA LA MEXICAN METALS

Goblin_Layer

@Gohan_Blanco

California will belong to Mexico over my dead body

But this guy is cool

@BigDonCampus

I want the Mox girl to rim me so fucking bad

Look at her lips

Fucking bubble luscious

Can you imagine getting your balls stepped on by those killer heels?

that's the good shit

Bronado

Can't wait for the first match

@Goblin_Layer

Which ones? You seen how fucking TIGHT her pants were?

Goblin_Layer

I can't get those to tongue my asshole...

Unless...

Bruce_the_Tiny

Eh, moxie's a joytoy with sponsored cyberlimbs. Couldn't care much about her.

@Goblin_Layer

Stop

Jannieeeeees. This ain't Smasherlust, kill him.

Mama_Knows_Best (Verified Granny)

Charybdis Midnight Lady. Run that thig in early 60s. Good stuff

@Bruce_the_Tiny

It's Smasher's tournament, it's still on topic you gonk

Jannies, ban this fucker for trying to ban other fuckers

Nothing_But_Trouble

[Message has been Deleted by Moderation]

[User was Banned for this post]

Handsome_John

My boy, THE RAT, IS GONNA WIN THIS!

NO JEROME TO STOP HIM NOW!

All_Black_Chrome

@Para_Pedro

Go Blackwatch!

Who made this girl anyways? She is pure sex

…why is there so little about Smasher right now, isn't this his contai- thread?

Average_Futanari_Enjoyer

God I fucking love the announcers

big tiddy prego chick can't handled based Bruce's bants, and Kerry's just trying to stop the two from killing eachother

Imagine him chomping on Beaty's or Mox girl's ass

[Picture of a crying monkey]

Milkmancer

@Average_Futanari_Enojyer

...she got some really fat milkers, yeah

Like holy shit

I think those are bigger than my head

Can't believe Smasher got to breed that

Holy shit

Fucking perfect woman

That's HIS baby in that woman's womb right now

And you girls want to compete with HER? Hah, touch concrete.

Like_Lightning

@All_Black_Chrome

Most of us are posting in the Jap version of this thread right now. Smasher's over in Nipponland being forced to do PR. Sure, hourly delays, but it's still faster than waiting in this thread for new stuff.

@Average_Futanari_Enojyer

Jelly

...do you think she'll release her bioware suite list?

Because uhh

I want those

[picture of a drooling monkey]

@Like_Lightning

The fuck is concrete?

You mean asphate, gonktard?

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 154, 155, 156, 157 ... ???

…

(Showing Page 15- of ???)

Sap_Sipper

Where THE FUCK DID THE BRIDGES GO? How am I meant to reach Lizzie's now?

Gohan_Blanco

CMON TIGE SHOW THAT TWINK WHO IS TRUE MEXICAN MACHO

MoreChromeMorePlates

HOLY FUCK

JEROME'S FUCKING BACK

A-A-Ron

WALKING INTO THE FUCKING AREA

JEROME

THE

CHROMED

BiggerBoomstick

JEEEEEEERRRRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE

RETURNING FOR HIS TITLE MATCH!

JEROME CHADS ALLWAYS WIN

Delete_California

@Gohan_Blanco

@MoreChromeMorePlates

@A-A-Ron

@BiggerBoomstick

Stick off from the tourney for a moment, you monkeys. There's hell breaking loose in all of Watson.

A-A-Ron

NOW THIS IS FUCKING PREEM CMON TIGRE CMON DAVID SHOW ME YOUR GUTS

@Delete_California

no, Watson smelly and filled with whores

TouchMuffin

SOME SPIDER FUCKER JUST SHOT MY NEIGHBOR

IT'S GODDAMN CHAOS OVER HERE

Smal_Bongus

HOLY SHIT LADS I AM FUCKED

[Picture made from inside a block, of Maelstrom members attacking Trauma Team Tower with RPGs]

RealSteel

IT BEGINS

FOR THE FIFTH TIME IN HALF A YEAR

EVERYTHING GETS FUCKED

MEALSTROM REVOLUTION, LONG LIVE THE BRICKSTAN

WOOOOOOOOO

HellfireHumping

@Delete_California

That's Night City in its entirety. Anyways it seems that Maelstrom's trying to take over the entire region? Brick, you suicidal idiot, my favourite gang's gonna die now.

@RealSteel

CRASHING THIS REGION

WITH NO SURVIVORS

Gohan_Blanco

Holy shit, Jerome learned to netrun

@HellfireHumping

IT ALL COMES TUMBLING DOWN TUMBLING DOWN TUMBLING DOWN

AverageConcernedCitizen

[Pic of Afterlife's entrance blowing up]

Looks like the Hag's getting blown up as well, fucking Maelstrom.

SmashmeDaddy (Shitposter)

[Picture of McGuffin taking out Jerome]

"Dr. David, I am Netwatch"

Samurai_Forever (NC Resident)

Who in the everloving FUCK is driving Johnny's Porche?

StormisApproaching

@Samurai_Forever

WHO. WHERE. I NEED TO SEE.

Mister5by5 (Borg Watcher) (NC Resident)

@StormisApproaching

The same guy that ran over the police blockade on the last bridge

literrally ran

on his feet

Florghorg_the_Unwilling

Holy shit I just saw two street punks with some corpo slut killing like 20 mealstromers attacking Ripperdoc's union HQ at Vector's

Ass_slinging_slasher

[Camera footage of Subject 'Silverman' crashing into a block]

Who the fuck is this guy anyways?

Inyourcameras

(Blurry footage of a Porche 911 II (930) Turbo absolutely gunning it towards Maelstrom HQ)

This man is goddamn insane

SmashmeDaddy

@Inyourcameras

CRASHING MAELSTROM WITH NO SURVIVORS!

@Ass_slinging_slasher

It's him, the long lost brother of Smahser.

Samuel Atomiser

SunderDownUnder

Bros, I live in Westbrook and I heard that fucking 911 engine from all the way over here

whoever the fuck is driving it is goddamn MOTIVATED

@AverageConcernedCitizen

SERVES YOU RIGHT, SAKA SCUM.

LONG LIVE THE MAELSTROM

Man_Of_Mystery (Oldestfag)

GUYS

YOU WON'T FUCKING BELIVE THE SHIT THAT HAPPENED IN WATSON MEGABLOCK

FI-FUCKING-TY BONA FIDE INQUISTORS

WITH

PAINTBALL GUNS

JUST TOOK OUT THREE MEALSTROM SAMSONS

I_Found_The_Red_Jewel

@Man_Of_Mystery

AVE CEASAR

HAIL CAESAR

THE LEGION NEVER DIES

LEGENDS NEVER DIEEEE.wav

I will dechrome my Midnight Lady and go back to cloned pussy in their honor when this shit is over

In other news, Ladies, we are done.

[Picture from Virtuality looking over to Watson]

I'm getting into my fridge. See you on the battlefield, monkeys.

[Serverwide Shutdown]

[Records Corrupted]

[Records skipping to next viable iteration]

Welcome to the Three Monkeys Message Boards

You are currently logged in, Anonymous

You are viewing:

• Threads you have replied to

• AND Threads that have new replies

• OR private message conversations with new replies

• Thread OP is displayed

• Twentyfive posts per page

• Last ten messages in private message history

• Threads and private messages are ordered by user custom preference.

MOD NOTICE :

We are still counting the member deaths here, so if you have confirmation about a poster of this server dying in the Incident, please tell a mod about it. They'll add them to the tally post.

TALLY POST LINK

Topic: Adam Smasher General Discussion Thread (Version 2)

In: Boards Corporations Arasaka

Darkwraith_Lance (Original Poster) (Verified Edgelord) (Community Helper)

Posted on January 15th, 2077:

This is the thread dedicated as a containment thread for everything related to the Arasaka employee Adam Smasher. The admin has rejected the request for more threads, but made some changes to let certain threads extend past their normal limit. Most of the old thread is in the archive (link 5).

Remember, there are no rules about moderation. Enjoy your ban if you piss them off.

Having said that, The following links contain the archive of basically everything known about the man in question (that we've managed to recover). Remember to check the archive before asking questions about available content. Original content takes about a day or so before being added to the archive, we have to first check with the lawyer if it's legal to have saved or not.

So no, no pirated content, you have to go somewhere else for that.

Yes, parts of the UI are still bugged, yes they are still working on it, no we don't know when it'll be fixed again. Most of the Patch's features are still down, the mods are working as fast as they can to get those up again, no ETA yet.

Around half of our archived stuff got wiped out in the Maelstrom Incident (Jan 2077), so bear with us not having some stuff you might remember. If you have any copies of the old archive, please get in touch with a mod about it.

LINK 1, LINK 2, LINK 3, LINK 4, LINK 5,

(Showing Page 3 of ???)

Anonymous

After he fucked over Saka Tower first time, back in 2013, he fucked over too Nomads. And there are since Collapse rumors of one clan that is super technologically advanced. They are half legend, half truth, half not truth. Technomancers.

Anonymous

What, that stuff?

I think I met one once. Not entirely sure though. Coulda been a mad scientist by herself.

But other than that, they aren't real

I'm just holing up here with all the Net shit.

Anonymous

desert dwelling super borg engineers

Bitch you ain't the only motherfucker on the NET who's read Battlemace 40 Million, that's just the Engineer Adepts

Anonymous

Guys, brand new member of Nomad Melastroms here, get a hold of this what our drones captured

[Aerial photo of Arasaka convoy, with something under tarps spread across several trucks]

Any idea what this is or who the fuck was looted up north?

Anonymous

I heard rumors about a pack of Smashers (as in, all of his frames out and about at once) going north, but that's about it.

Considering how big whatever the fuck that thing is, that's probably why he (they?) was sent out.

Anonymous

...Smasher could run a train on me by himself

[Heavy breathing monkey]

Anonymous

Abbey volunteered for some corpo superweapon project, just to try and get SMASHED

I kneel Abbey-san, you are truly femcel supreme

Five smashers at once

Abbey is that you? Did you got dehydrated due to masturbation fantasies and that's why we couldn't get to you?

Anonymous

WE HAVE TO CONFIRMATION

THE MAD BITCH LIVES

[Selfie of Jackie showing two Vs and Falco talking with Snake Nation bloodied leader behind him, bodies all around. Abbey is in the background near the car.]

My choom sent me this to make me jelly over the 100k ebs each gig he got. And guess who pays? ADAM FUCKING SMASHER

Anonymous

Maybe it's have to do with this

[News link: Araska attacks Petrochem]

Anonymous

100k eddies

straight from Adam himself

She's living the dream, holy shit

Anonymous

No wonder she doesn't post, she is in her own personal paradise. Lucky bitch, I want piece too.

At this rate she's going to post a positive pregnancy test and never fucking come back

Anonymous

I got footage of where Smasher went

[Drone-view Video of the Dragon fight]

Anonymous

IS THAT A FUCKING DRAGON

HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET THIS

Anonymous

HOLY SHIT

METACORP SICCED FUCKING MECHAGODZILLA ON HIM

DRAGON DRAON DRAGON

Anonymous

I know how you bitches operate, if anyone will call the dragon "milf" or anything like that I will ban you. Take that zoophila shit to /bd/

Anonymous

...

mommy dragon uooohhh

[USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST]

Anonymous

Let's look at this the other way

Smasher fought a fucking cyberdragon and won

How the fuck did he even pull that off? Did Saka just cut his brain into fifths and slap the chunks in each frame or something?

Smasher was literally built different jesus christ

Anonymous

Maybe his ICON pilots them? Like during Watson NetMassacre

Still, the fucking cyberkaiju just DELETED three frames of Adam, including his personal one and the fucking DRAGOON

If it had better armor it could take one DaiOni I bet my Romanova's ass

Anonymous

You mean him?

he pilots them

It's not like he has an AI in his head, they were down the same time

Elephant called it "Uriel", maybe he has multiple personality disorder? He is only human after all, so much cheome should give him psychosis after almost a century of living

Anonymous

All you gonks aren't asking the real question

Why was Smasher out there?

Why did he hire mercs for this job?

And the cincher: Where's Martinez? He just dissapeared off of the publicly available footage after they finished cleaning up Maelstrom.

Anonymous

He was obviously there to fight the fucking dragon

it's a fucking dragon

this part isn't complicated

Anonymous

Well, he isn't in Night City, nor he was with Abbey nor Smahser.

And the saka agents that attacked Petrochem were no-name corpos.

Rest of Smashlings are MIA as well.

Did anything else got attacked outside of NC after Watson?

Br*vo you shitposter, show up again, give us some more infoscraps

Anonymous

No

Anonymous

I will pay your debts in Short Circuit if you do

Anonymous

[Picture of Adam Smasher with his arms crossed and looking slightly down.]

"Let me break it down for you boy. Michiko and I had a relationship that's all about a master/slave dynamic. When I called her a fucking cat, I meant that in the most literal way possible. Remember that time you found a pet collar in my old storage room and I told you I used to own a dog? That was a lie, boy. Truthfully Michiko liked it when I put the leash on her and walked her around the Arasaka Compound. She's usually naked, of course. I can't explain why, but the whole thing was her idea. She'll scratch at doors, sleep on my lap, hiss at other women - she once took a full sized, adult woman piss right on my carpet. Michiko was one fucked-up slut, David. And I loved her, but wasn't about to bring that energy with me over to Japan. Frankly? She scares me sometimes. I don't know who molested her or how they did it, but there is some dark juju in that woman's head and I just don't know if I'm chromed enough to fuck it all away."

He hated America.

He hated their disrespect, he hated their materialism, he hated their obsession over mindless entertainment, he hated their disregard for the past, and their disdain for the future. He hated their constant shouting, he hated their vanity and undeserved arrogance, he hated their culture and their politics.

He hated their needless warring, both against others and themselves. He hated their food and wine. He hated how thoroughly they managed to destroy their own lands, once brimming with life and abundant in resources enough to propel nearly anyone who controlled it to dominance over the whole of the world. Resources that they managed to completely squander with the inelegant policies and inefficient solutions.

He knew the nature of the American. Brutish and violent, at home in war and restless in peace, constantly seeking to shed the shackles of any authority that comes to bring them a better future. Their love of getting drunk and loudly celebrating even the smallest and least noteworthy occasions. Their hypocrisy in allowing themselves to become livestock so long as their bellies were full, throwing away all their previous demands for freedom.

He hated how far the once mighty Onis had fallen. Where were the warriors that he dueled in the skies upon eagles of steel and with bolts of fire? Where was the empire that could bring the world to heel, and force the Emperor to look small next to their statures? Where were the people who managed to force Japan to kneel with spears of sunlight dropped upon their cities?

As Arasaka rose, he was not greeted by the worthy enemy of his youth, but the rotting carcass of it being picked at by cardinal scavenger birds.

Onigashima had fallen, leaving only the worthless America in its place. There was no glory to be had in destroying them now, no worthy adversary to overcome. Just teeming masses of American cattle, patiently waiting for chains to bind them. Consumerist dogs, willing to buy anything with a pretty label and served with a smile, even if that thing was a leash. Willing to buy comfort at the cost of their warrior pride.

He hated America.

His eventual conquest of them is a mercy.

Yojimbo had been an idle experiment of his, so long ago. Take one of the Americans that still embodies a fraction of their Oni lineage, brutish, violent, proud, and see what can be done with it. Even if the Oni cannot be revived, perhaps the American can be turned into an effective vassal warrior.

For a while, it looked to be rather unremarkable. About what he was expecting. Yojimbo was still as brutish as he was before, still as violent and prideful, still just as American as before. His unique capacity to remain unchanged by the traumatic process was the only thing that prevented him from ordering his early dismissal.

In time, Yojimbo was used more and more often by his son, Kei. Elimination of problematic rivals and groups, search and destruction of a particular escaped subject, the occasional bodyguarding duty. Kei eventually confessed to him that he found Yojimbo's candor charming in its own right, a willingness to speak his mind that occasionally aided Kei in dismissing certain courses of action. All sons need allies, and more importantly, a friend to trust their secrets to. He was not impressed with his son's choice in confidant.

All boys are quarrelsome with their fathers, this is nature.

It was for this reason that he stayed his hand when his granddaughter started to court him. Seeking to dominate his attention and time with her chatter and insults, it was quite obvious that she held affections for him. Still, his behavior around her remained appropriately respectful, which was rare. Yojimbo respected him, Kei, and few others. This was a good thing to see, so it was allowed to happen.

Then his granddaughter was tricked, and a traitorous assassin used her naivety to get close. Both of them nearly died, and an altercation broke out between two hot-blooded fools.

It ended with his granddaughter missing an arm, and Yojimbo screaming, chained to the floor.

A setback of such severe proportions like that could not be allowed to happen again. Kagekaze was ordered to find all those who might do the same, and remove them as threats. Over the course of the next three years, everyone who Yojimbo once knew before Arasaka was quietly executed in the night. They had doubtlessly missed some, but he needed Kagekaze to perform other duties after that point.

Namely, teaching Yojimbo the finer arts. The ways of fist and courtly manner, the tongue of Japan and its ceremonies, and similar. Yojimbo improved in mannerisms and combat, but his bubbling fury for all things remained obvious to all who looked.

So Saburo deployed him far away from Japan, and waited to see if he would one day master his fury.

It took decades, decades before that happened. He had all but given up at that point. His empire had no appropriate heir, his ancient enemies were dead and forgotten for the rest of history, and more and more of his projects seem destined for failure.

A hairsbreadth before death, he was once given a vision of fire. Not in the sky above him, of Japan ascendent over the whole of the world, but across the sea. A vision of his vassal American, soul set aflame, reborn as an Oni, tempered as a Samurai. A vision that his ancient enemy could return, and could be trained and reforged into warriors loyal to Japan.

He felt young again, reinvigorated and brimming with the rejuvenated fires of that vision.

The Heavens had answered him with resounding approval. Victory was assured, he had only to continue his path.

A red sun, suspended in the sky above a red tree, whose roots encompassed the whole of the world.

He had felt like celebrating, but that first required an adequate reason. It would not do to celebrate simply for the sake of celebration, he was not an American after all. To his delight, the Heavens answered once again with an uprising of locals near Yojimbo's trial holdings, a perfect opportunity for Yojimbo to ride out, destroy the enemies of Arasaka, and for his return and victories to be celebrated.

The Heavens only continued to shower him in gifts, as Yojimbo was struck down by a hideous Namazu. A mere few minutes later, Yojimbo's spirit was retrieved from the underworld and cast back into his body to continue fighting.

When it seemed like he could no longer bear the weight of any more fortune, the Heavens bestowed a final miracle. A Dragon.

A Dragon!

Yojimbo had quested forth to recover his apprentice, and in the process slain a dragon! Not only that but uncovering a vast network of tunnels in the region, and slain the dragon's allies to a man.

He would make an offering for the rest of his days for all this, the heavens would know his gratitude in full. He would make it a national holiday when revealing this was no longer a potential legal risk…

Ah, what was he saying? He'd ask the Emperor to declare it a holiday the moment he got back to Japan. His old friend would surely make it so, the boy demanded a game of shoji at least once every month, he could do at least this for Saburo.

He knew how much the slight smile on his face alarmed his servants and vassals, he couldn't quite find it in himself to suppress it as usual.

Upon the gentle rocking of the Kujira speeding towards America, he looked out to the relatively calm seas, and sipped his tea.

The Kujira was a five-landing deck supercarrier, one of the only ships of its class. This is mostly because it was relatively worthless for its intended design parameters. The spaces between each deck was ultimately too narrow for any human pilot to reliably land or depart off of, requiring each aircraft under Arasaka control either be modified to include an AI pilot for landing and lift-offs, or repurposing the ship in its entirety.

It was only the fortuitous creation of a practical flight-capable ACPA that prevented him from executing the entire design team responsible for the Kujira's flaws. They were docked five years of pay and warned to not make the mistake again. They have yet to make such a mistake again

So the Kujira was partially remodeled, half of the hangars refitted to service a vast army of the new Arasaka GEV ACPA, and the outer half reserved for smaller, one-man jets and drones.

The main advantage of the Kujira was not its ability to transport massive quantities of war material, although that was great indeed. No, the main advantage of the Kujira was its speed.

Forty-five knots.

A standard one-deck supercarrier typically ranges from twenty to thirty knots. Some of the more efficacious designs from Militech could travel up to around forty knots flat. The Kujira, with its five landing decks, could travel five knots faster than even that. In the grand logistics of a proper war, that was a substantial advantage indeed.

The second advantage was it was one of the few ships hard coded to never be targeted by the Ryujin Sea-Mine AI. He still loathed the wasted potential of that project.

A series of sea-mines and underwater mining facilities, managed by a network of Master-Slave AI, and intended to halt all oceanic travel save for what Arasaka allowed.

Unfortunately, those that programmed its initial parameters gave it an ironclad logic system. There was a non–zero chance that any ship could hold passengers that Arasaka did not permit, and thus it would target all ships, even those belonging to Arasaka itself. The emergency patch uploaded to try and correct this was rejected by its systems as a net-attack, and from then on they could no longer communicate with it.

Those responsible for that failure were publicly executed after an open-and-shut trial. Some of the first public executions in the world in decades, as was appropriate for their mistake. They were not offered the honor of seppuku, they lost that right.

The oceans of the world were now locked off to everyone, even Arasaka, with but a few lonely ships hardcoded to never be targeted by it.

To assuage the rest of the world, all but one of these ships were gifted to the various powers of the world, leaving Arasaka with exactly one that could still cross the seas controlled by Ryujin. The Kujira now swam through an ocean empty of enemies, its only use now was to deliver war material and warriors to distant battlefields. It would never battle upon the open ocean, as all other things would be struck down long before by the uncontrollable sea-mines.

All the effort of creating Kujira, and it would never be used to its fullest extent.

Another disappointment. Another failed project. Arasaka's history was filled with them, all he could do was repurpose them as best he could.

He took a second sip of his tea, idly noting how cool it had gotten as he sat in thought. The seabreeze swept across him, bringing nostalgic memories of a war more than a century ago. That was fine, even cool tea was delicious and healthy. Not the sugar-filled abomination of America, but the proper rejuvenating tea of Japan.

"Takemura." He spoke, starting a conversation in idleness.

"Yes Arasaka-sama?" Dutiful and efficient, Takemura immediately responded.

"Yojimbo spoke well of your performance. Upon reviewing his and your memories, I am inclined to agree."

"I am honored, Arasaka-sama."

"You are aware of the rising tensions among the powers of the world." It was a statement, not a question. He had full awareness of what Takemura knew and didn't know. "If you were leading the armies of Arasaka, how would you take advantage of the coming conflicts?"

There were a few moments of silence as Takemura considered the question carefully. Saburo took another sip of his tea in the meantime.

"I would deploy agents to gently inflame the tensions between neighboring powers, once they begin warring, only occasional action would be required to keep them focused on eachother. With attention not upon Arasaka, I would deploy our chiefest assets to disable or take control of as many ortillery platforms as possible, negating such as a potential threat. The primary bulk of Arasaka's forces would be recalled from their working among other factions and deployed defensively. From there it would be a matter of endurance and selective strikes on key targets with our ACPA and Shinobi."

Exactly as he taught him then. Good. In a wide range of failures and disappointments, Takemura Goro was a resounding success. He continued without indicating his approval or disapproval yet.

"The selective nuclear strikes on Indian soil, how many objectives do you think that achieved?"

Another moment for Takemura to think, another moment for him to take a sip of his tea.

"It caused a large disruption in a rival power, forcing the factions within to focus internally until resolved. It damaged many rival schools of martial arts, slowing the rate of their training and growth. It crippled a corporation focused on budget-option weaponry, indirectly increasing the demand for such and sales of Arasaka budget options. It distracted a great deal of surrounding powers long enough for a larger raid on the AI-city in Korea."

Hm… not quite everything. "Take in account India's historic policies and relations."

"...Once India recovers enough to become an external threat, they will likely blame Pakistan and go to war for that reason."

"Correct. Two less powers for Arasaka to worry about for the upcoming conflicts."

"I apologize Arasaka-sama."

Saburo nodded in acknowledgement. "You will be attending lessons in such matters in the upcoming months. It will be important for your role."

"...Arasaka-sama?"

He took another sip of his tea with a small smile.

"When we arrive in America, there will be a ceremony for Yojimbo's successes in the past year. During which I will gift Muramasa to him, and he will be elevated as a branch member of Arasaka."

"Yes Arasaka-sama." A small degree of jealousy, but there was no real need. This experiment had proven to be a great success, so it was only proper to try again.

"After we return, you will be assigned a new holding to govern on my behalf."

Takemura's breath caught in his throat, Saburo didn't need to look to know that. He didn't need to say anything more, Takemura knew full well the implications of what he was saying.

Saburo finished his cool tea, and Takemura dutifully poured him a refill from the hot pot. The stream had exactly one stutter in its pour, evidence of Takemura's sudden nerves.

Only a few more hours before they arrived in America. For perhaps the first time in his life, Saburo was excited for it.

Doc Borge was a simple man. He liked to make money, he liked a good XBD, he liked cutting people up and putting in all kinds of metal in them. He wasn't really an exception to this, what with his quick-change mounts and a whole bunch of specialty arms.

A few months ago, some gonk had bought out his rented building, and forced him out at gunpoint. It was against his philosophy to pick fights over things like that, so he packed up his things and moved out. He was lucky that whole 'ripperdoc guild' popped up, otherside he might be on the streets right now.

Heh heh, well, more on the streets than a ripperdoc already was. Still, they gave him enough time to set up a new shop, albeit with a lousy deal to give 'em a percentage of his profits for the guild, but soon enough he was back in business. Chipping in chrome for sorry gonks with more eddies than sense.

Shame he had to actually give 'em painkillers now, guild rules. Buncha pansies, he didn't use painkillers when getting his own chrome chipped in, and his customers didn't neither. All that did was dull the senses, the corps put shit in those that kill your brain cells you know?

Right now, he was almost chuckling to himself as he casually strolled around behind the building he used to work out of, the one just across the bridge from Heywood. He was pretty good at pulling off the drunk malaka, so nobody paid him no mind as he stumbled into the alley.

Slumping against a particular section of wall, he slowly slid down until he was sitting still, head hung low.

A thin wire extended from his left wrist, a liveware, interface cables with just enough motive capabilities that you could move them around on their own. It snaked its way across the ground, up through a small hole in the wall he put there when he first moved in…

And plugged into the back of the camera on the otherside. Dumb gonk that forced him outta his shop must not've done a real thorough sweep of the wiring, otherwise he might've noticed. Heh, if he didn't notice, then tha sucker deserved to be screwed over by it.

Not that he was doing much screwin' right now, he was just kinda curious is all. A couple days ago the gonk closed the doors and locked himself inside, no customers in or out, and Doc Borge wanted to find out why.

He let the camera zoom and adjust to the interior, his vision in his left eye replaced with the interior of his shop's underground.

Inside there were a couple of suspicious looking guys (not that he was really one to talk) working on two bodies. His eyebrows furrowed and the camera zoomed a bit more.

…Was that ol' Davey?

He didn't end on the best terms with the kid, what with him losing it by the end. To his big surprise, the kid took it all the way to the top in a practically storybook ending. Kid fought up to Arasaka Tower and they called in Adam Smasher to take him down.

That's where the twist came in, Smasher took the kid on as an apprentice, and that shocked just about everyone.

It was a little bittersweet. He tried his best to not get attached to anyone he works on, but the kid had ended up growing on him by the end, even if he was slowly losing himself. It was his job to install parts for the customer though, so if the kid wanted to ignore his warnings, it wasn't his place to refuse to chrome him out. That's the professionalism of the ripperdoc right there.

He still kept up with tha' kid, what he was doing and all that, but kid didn't need a streetdoc no more. He was running around with Smasher and his 'Saka docs.

…or at least, he should be. These didn't look like no 'Saka docs, and the kid wasn't moving.

He was breathing, but he was a nugget right now, all four limbs detached, and helpless even if he was awake.

It didn't sit well with him. He debated getting involved for a moment. It really wasn't his place to get involved with other peeps screwing each other over…

He detached the livewire, drew it back into his wrist, sat up and sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, warring with himself over it.

He didn't even know 'Smasher's number, no way of contacting the legendkiller regardless. He pushed himself up and brushed himself off…

He paused as he felt his most recent purchase in his coat. Pulling it out and looking at it.

An Official DangerGal sponsored 'Pretty Kitty' XBD, featuring Romeo herself. DangerGal was run by a 'saka chick, wasn't it?

He flipped over the case and looked at the back.

A hotline number for official business and leaving tips.

He sighed and ran his fingers through his greasy hair.

…Yeah alright, he'll help the kid out on the house this time.

It had been four days since he killed the dragon, and the boy still hadn't been found yet. Four fucking days of mapping out these goddamn tunnels, and systematically eliminting potential routes, aided by a task force of Arasaka agents who came to secure the site. This was technically a breach of the NUSA treaty that forbid Arasaka from openly operating within NUSA territory, fortunately, as Arasaka had no way to hold any of these tunnels alone (at least, not profitably) the files on operating Underground Railroad were simply given to the NUSA as a bribe.

They wouldn't stop them from searching, as they had tunnels through their entire country to now look for, and a map of those tunnels were invaluable. There were probably going to be repercussions for Metacorp because of this, but he couldn't give less of a shit right now. A party that isn't the government or directly controlled by the government drilling miles of strategic weakness into your bedrock? This was the kind of thing that wars were declared over.

It had been four hours since the old man had arrived in Night City, Kujira docked just off the coast and forces waiting to deploy. Apparently he was setting up an event of some kind, and wanted Adam to attend. While frustrating, the golden hour had already passed. Finding the boy now was going to be a matter of endurance, not pace. He was going to pulp the crafty fucker who thoughthey could get away with this. He knew that they were nearby, watching his movements, because that shipping fortress was perfectly designed to waste his goddamn time.

The dragon bought enough time for reasonable doubt to enter about the kids location. The tunnels were the perfect time waster, because he couldn't be absolutely sure they weren't used. If his hunch was right though, the kid absolutely wasn't on any of those trucks. The kid was somewhere in Night City, all they had to do is make sure no fucker left NC without being searched first, and they'd find him eventually.

Difficult, but not impossible. They still had a lot of goodwill left over from turning Pacifica into a not-shithole, Nightcorp could be convinced to cooperate with that and a few promises to fix up more of the shithole parts of Night City. Probably. Politics was a pain in the ass, it's why he usually didn't bother.

The old man told him to come back in six hours. Thirty minutes to run back to Night City, that left him with one hour and thirty minutes left to search today. Tomorrow he'd put out a bounty for the kid, and start looking in Night City itself, leaving these tunnels to the grunts. The mercs had already been paid and dismissed, they had done their parts of the job in clearing out the other locations, no need to waste his time managing the meatbags anymore.

That left him, the brats, and the grunts to look through the tunnels. The brats were all near him, within sandevistan range. He wasn't about to let another one of the fuckers get klept, that would be a goddamn embarrassment. If it happened again, he was going to murder everything he saw until the old man told him to stop.

It had been one hour since he started heading back for the entrance of the tunnels. The kids had been operating in shifts, with a temporary camp set up on the surface for them to rest and retreat to whenever their shift ended. He didn't bother using it. He had been clearing out tunnels for the last four days.

He had almost forgotten how much he hated searching missions. Usually they were search and destroy, but search and retrieve sometimes didn't even have the satisfaction of annihilating something at the end of the job. Just look until you find it, murder whatever was guarding it (if anything), and bring it back.

He preferred the jobs where he got a ride to the target, got to slaughter everything in a three-block radius, and got a ride back. Those were the best.

He was nearing the surface now, almost out to start getting ready to go back. Uriel was charging the Gemini, keeping note of any messages from outside, watching Blueberry and Bowlcut as they rested for their upcoming shifts. Behind him, Spares, the woman, and the girl walked. Their faces were grim and ugly, and their brows furrowed in frustration. He knew that the girl was staying up late, searching the net for signs of the brat. He knew that the woman was crying herself to sleep for the past couple nights. Both were irritating.

They'd get the brat back, they'd kill this Vincent fucker and patch the boy up, then the'd move on. Worst comes to worst they boy would be back as a construct, it certainly didn't seem to bother the woman, so it would be fine. Humans were annoyingly overdramatic. At least Spares wasn't reacting before focusing on the mission.

He stepped onto the temporary elevator platform the grunts had built, and broadcast a message.

'Uriel, updates?'

His memories once again linked up with Uriel's. He clenched a fist at what he discovered.

A message from the fucking cats.

A message saying they found the boy. A tip off a few hours ago, a quiet and immediate investigation, and confirmation of his presence fifteen minutes ago.

The fucking cats.

He audibly growled, alerting the brats on the elevator with him. His horns were swiveled backwards at the current moment, letting him see the expressions on their faces from their mounted optics.

"Get ready to move out once we reach the surface, you have five minutes." He snarled out, not turning around to face them. He instead watched the pattern of stone swivel and twist as they rose out of the hole that he had been in for the last few days.

Slowly, suspicion and realization began to grow on the face of the woman and the girl. He continued to explain as they ascended.

"The brat has been found. We are going straight there, we are going to murder everything in sight, got it?"

""Got it."" The voices of the woman and girl called out, glares on their faces growing into fierce expressions. Their backs straightened up, their own fists clenched, their teeth ground.

"Affirmative." Spares spoke, just as calm as she always was.

On the surface, Uriel was telling the other two the same thing. After he did that, he began to run the numbers of speed real quick.

What was better, the consistent speed of the Kuma, or the running speed of his frames? He stepped off the platform and moved to the camp. The woman and girl ran past him to get ready faster, but Spares remained dutifully beside him as he stomped past gangs of working grunts. She didn't have much other than weapons to grab anyways.

The fucking cats found the kid. Note to self, kill the next cat he saw, just to even the score. One quick fucking stomp on it's dumbass cat head, turn it into fucking pulp.

Goddamn cats.

Brat was going to train until his myomer snapped for this bullshit. Getting kidnapped by some fucking rando.

…Well… Not just some rando. Uriel had checked it after they first heard his name.

Vincent. Name means 'Prevailing', or 'Victorious' according to some Patch on the NET that cared about stupid shit like that.

The Prevailing V.

This was him. This was the meatfucker. The timeline lined up, the motive in the original future lined up. His apparent abilities to screw him over lined up. Everything lined up.

If he killed this meatfucker, all he would have to do is wait a year. The brats would fuck off after the year ended in a few more months. He and Uriel wouldn't have to worry about this shit anymore, and he could go back to not having to deal with meat in his rooms.

The five minutes were up, he stomped over to the edge of the little camp, seeing them beginning to load up their gear on the Kuma. Uriel, what did the speed difference come out to be?

'Running is faster.'

He thought so.

He couldn't carry them, the sudden accelerations and decelerations of constant sandevistan use over the course of the trip would turn their organs into slurry. He should know, Arasaka once lost an exec that day. He was glad for it, the smug bastard wasn't cowering enough when talking to him.

"Bowlcut, here's the address, distribute it." He grumbled out, making sure the kid had it before stomping over to the edge of the camp. He rolled his shoulders as Uriel stepped up on his knee before grabbing onto the DaiOni's collar armor. Uriel turned back and spoke to the assembled brats rushing to get in the Kuma and start moving.

"Try to keep up brats."

There was no need to worry about them, really. He was going to get there long before them, and he wasn't in his Dragoon right now. He was in the DaiOni. There wasn't anything any meatbag in existence could do to hurt him right now.

Getting into a runner's crouch, he estimated the travel time again, and broke out into a sprint. His sandevistan activating, a one-ton and some change warmachine exploded forwards at close to five-hundred miles per hour. His mere running left a line of destroyed earth and dust clouds.

He was looking forward to getting a proper layer of gore on his armor. It was about damn time.

The world hadn't gotten better while he had been dead. His message had gotten out there, loud and clear. The bomb had gone off, it shook the world with its repercussions, and the ivory towers nearly fell down. The world was just a single good push away from getting rid of those corporate bastards.

And no one did a thing. They just sat back, and let the corps quietly accumulate again. He would've killed for a chance like that while he was alive, he would have sang cities into frenzies and broke all their shiny toys under the weight of the bodies. Bringing power back where it belonged, in the hands of the people.

The world hadn't gotten better while he had been dead, it had only gotten worse. That was a pretty clear sign of what he had to do. If he wanted something done, he had to do it himself. The world had fallen under darkness, and no one would do a thing.

No one except him it seemed.

Alt had caught him up to speed on what had been going on since he had died in Arasaka Tower. The NC Holocaust they called it. The banishment of Arasaka, The Time of Red, The Blackwall, the Unification Wars…

The disappearance of Morgan Blackhand, the success of Rogue's Afterlife, the new Legends of Night City, Eurodyne's new corporate handlers and sanitized tunes, Smasher's new apprentice and marketing…

There was a lot that had gone on since he had died. Most of it was pissing him off, to be honest. Somewhere along the way, these gonks started pretending that being a Legend meant dying for the sake of dying. The other gonks decided that they'd prefer to be sheeple, pumped and dumped by whatever corporations came around.

And not a goddamn one of them were even trying to bring down the fuckers who put the world in chains. Not a single one of them was trying to stop the corporate machines. When did they give up on trying to fight? When they just accept it all? The whole world was dying and they just shrugged their shoulders and pretended to not see the sickness in it all.

He clenched a fist, and stared at the Malorian spinning around in his other hand. He reached up, and pulled down the Samurai 'Oni' mask that he klept out of some corporate store.

He stood up, turned on the walkman around his neck, and began to step in tune with his old songs. Walking forwards at a steady pace, around the corner, out from an alley, and then straight ahead.

In front of him loomed a tower. He paused on the road, and simply stared at it in thought.

No one wants to tear down the corporate system? That's fine, he'd just have to do it himself. He gave Arasaka a black eye with just one silver hand back in the day. He had far more than just a single hand now.

Alt's presence filled his mind once more, soothing warmth settling on his shoulders like a cloak.

'The ship out in the bay brought the Shogun over. Saburo Arasaka on the top floor right now.' She whispered to him, a beautiful voice coming from a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman with many grudges against Arasaka, for everything they did to her.

He wanted to tear down the corporate system, and Fate agreed. He rolled his shoulders, ignored the stares from the civvies around him, and readied himself.

'You ready Alt?'

'I'm ready, Johnny.'

He turned his walkman up as high as it could go, Samurai blasting through the streets, letting people know exactly what he intended. In one hand, he held the Malorian, in the other hand, he held a Monokatana. Secured in his thigh, he carried The Gun.

He activated his sandevistan, and cracked the asphate with his running.

Straight towards Arasaka Tower. All the way to the top. Those branches were taking up all the sunlight, they were pissing him off.

Like hell he was going to let the world stay in the corporate shadow. Singing didn't do anything last time, it was time to do the killing himself. All he had to do was get through all of Arasaka first.

Easy as pie, he had an Angel on his shoulders.

As he ran forwards, Alt reached out and bypassed the tower's net security for its outer layers.

The great symbol of Arasaka emblazoned on the front of the tower shimmered, and the face of a chromed oni burned its way on, covering the logo almost entirely.

Bend it backwards until it breaks.

Capacitors roaring inside my brain.

Agent of chaos and discontent.

I'm gonna take out the corporate man.

Much to his frustration, he was only able to hold off the prying eyes of DangerGal for a few hours. Not long enough to get everything done, not nearly long enough. He had to delay for another hour or so at minimum.

It would take Adam Smasher at least twenty minutes to get here, the best time to intercept him would be in the badlands. That was just about his only chance for success here, and it was a non-optimal outcome at that. He was fortunate that Saburo didn't recall Smasher for a few hours after arriving, but there shouldn't have been anything to tip DangerGal off.

He tried going over everything he knew, every detail he had, and couldn't come up with anything.

Pure dumb luck. He was screwed over by something he had no information on yet again. That was fine, he would just have to adapt.

"Continue working, let no one inside until after you're done." He commanded the Technomancers, one of whom idly nodded as they continued their work.

He grabbed his gun and walked out of the building, stopping just inside the doorway to prevent the sniper with the sleep darts from getting a good shot on him. He took a moment to look down at the chip in his hand.

The chip that they had pulled out of his son's brain while working on it.

An Arasaka chip, installed months ago during some sort of operation in which the cheek was shattered open. It wasn't on Smasher's orders, he wasn't that type of man, if he had an order for you he'd just order you and leverage his reputation. This thing was for those who wanted to stay out of the public eye.

It had been just like he feared. He was fortunate these Technomancers were such good surgeons, otherwise it might have been impossible to get out.

He slid the chip into his pocket, and stepped out of the door. He raised his battleglove and snatched the high-velocity dart out of the air as it approached his neck, exactly on cue.

He moved his gaze up, and locked eyes with the sniper he knew was there, even if he couldn't actually detect them. That was the best spot for these sorts of things.

He raised a hand, and curled his fingers in twice.

The sniper decloaked as four more agents appeared on the roofs around him.

My, my, DangerGal was bringing out the heavy artillery, weren't they. The five biggest hitters short of Kilo, Victoria, and Zero were here. He rolled his shoulders and reviewed what he knew about them.

…He'd have to take some bruising, but he could do it.

In the distance, the logo on Arasaka Tower flickered, and the mask of a robotic demon was stamped upon the holographic.

He grinned in victory.

Good job Silverhand, right when he needed you. That meant Smasher was going to have to go defend his contract holders first.

That meant he had enough time. Enough time for everything to go according to plan. He needed to duck in a quarter-second.

A blink.

He ducked under a mantis blade that would've cut off his head, grabbing the arm holding it and spinning to toss the agent in the way of the barrage of sniper-darts that were just now fired from the rooftops.

The battle was on. He had incomplete information on these units.

6% chance of failure.

It was about halfway through running back to Night City that Adam received the alert that Arasaka Tower NC was currently under attack. The same tower that his primary contract holder was currently in. The same tower that was not where the brat was.

He changed the direction of his run automatically, his mind didn't let him take actions against preserving the life of his contract holder against physical harm, and getting the brat back wasn't an order from the old man.

Needless to say his brief furious snarl was absolutely expected. The fucker was taking advantage of the fact that the old man was in tower to divert his priorities. That meant he knew that Adam was coming for him, and that he would have to focus on defending the tower first, buying the fucker more time.

He had more info than Adam was comfortable with him having. It wouldn't change the fact that the meatfucker was going to die a painful death, but he had managed to buy a bit more time for himself. If he didn't have Uriel that was.

Uriel just had to jump off and continue running towards…

…

…Uriel couldn't move to do that. The myomer in the Gemini wouldn't flex or unflex to take that action.

This was a really shitty time to find out that Uriel was just as bound to the contract as Adam was.

"Goddamn fucking shit." Uriel uncharacteristically cursed aloud. It wasn't a particularly emotive curse, but it conveyed his severe annoyance at the situation. Adam was feeling equally irritated at the reveal. His stomps grew heavier as his claws dug into the broken and shattered earth deeper in fury.

Uriel locked the joints in the Gemini, stepped out of the frame, and raced ahead to Arasaka Tower as Adam continued running. Jumping across the scant connections and signals in the badlands to eventually reach the city-grid once more.

In the distance, the looming black tower framed by a burning red sunset hung over the rest of the city. He raced forwards towards it…

There was a barrier all around it, like a bubble made from thousands of tiny connected lights. It looked like the night sky stretched over the tower and turned transparent. Ignoring the Icons of the various things around him, he punched it as hard as he could.

The bubble shook, it's surface rippling like a lake as it absorbed his impact.

He reared back and punched it again, only to be met with the same result.

Punch, boom, ripple. This was a distinctly unpleasant situation. He floated back and sent a chain of fire down towards a security camera that was pointed at the tower. Now seeing it as it was in realspace, he saw that the massive Arasaka logo on the side of the building had been covered by the image of a cracked oni face with a robotic skull underneath.

…Was that a… Smasher fanboy logo? He didn't recognize it from anywhere, and Kabuto-Oni was a thing. Oh. This was probably what Saburo was displaying for the celebration tonight, huh?

However, this fucking barrier was still pissing him off, and he couldn't see any reason it existed. It was cutting off the Arasaka servers from the outside world entirely right now.

Furiously burning, he pulled his fire back to the Gemini.

'No good. We have to go there physically.' Uriel spoke, a frown on his face.

'Just our fucking luck. You know who's attacking?' Adam responded, still running at the steady pace of fifty miles per hour, and occasionally five-hundred miles per hour.

'No idea. At least one Netrunner better than me, which is a pretty long list. Considering that 'V' is here, I'm willing to bet it's Alt Cunningham.'

'We have no proof of that.'

'It makes narrative sense.'

Adam, unfortunately, couldn't dispute that. 'Daedalus ready?'

'As ready as it ever will be, it'll have to be enough against her. It was meant for AI not ms 'second best netrunner to ever live'.'

Adam ran in silence for a moment. Letting his fury bubble around inside, twisting and turning over itself again and again. He was slightly confused by one thing. If meatfucker was attacking the tower, then who was guarding the brat?

The crumbling desert offered no answer.

'Message the brats, tell them that we can't be there and why.' Adam commanded. Uriel nodded and began to do just that.

One thing after a-fucking-nother, wasn't it?

--

Throughout his one-hundred and fifty years of living, he had been the target of no less than five-thousand, six-hundred, and fifty six assassination attempts. The vast majority of these attempts are stopped the moment they begin by his counter-insurgency agents. At least one-hundred Arasaka shinobi present in every city he goes to, often there for weeks or months before he arrives, rooting out potential attackers and sabotaging or eliminating them long before they could become a problem.

Their information gathering capacity was vast, as were their connections in established regions. Most attempts on his life that get planned for more than a few days are ended at this stage. This roots out almost all attempts by the wider public and disgruntled masses. This left assassination attempts by larger enemy factions, internal usurper factions, and unplanned public attempts.

Assassination attempts from larger factions were typically prevented before they even began, leveraging the vast economic power of Arasaka to simply make his death unprofitable. By tying his personal wealth to the investments of several essential projects of rival factions (but not projects that would potentially threaten Arasaka overall) he effectively bribed the investors of these projects to act against such attempts on his behalf. In conjunction with the personal wealth of Arasaka, and loyalty benefits for those who participate in Arasaka's banking branch, this further increased the effective cost of attacking substantially.

It was no longer a matter of expending great war material to launch an attack. It was also a matter of dealing with public fallout for such a visible unprovoked attack, and the matter of dealing with investor backlash for their pet projects suddenly becoming somewhat more expensive. This left attacks that required little in the way of war material, attacks by stealthy and powerful agents who could fulfill a mission such as his death alone or with little support.

There was a reason that he deliberately focused on increasing the personal-scale power of his agents as much as his company could, to make this line of attack unviable for any other faction in the world. Arasaka was the leading developer of military cybernetic enhancements, few factions came close to their advantage in this field.

This left assassination attempts by larger rival factions simply unviable, too costly, too difficult, not worth the investment overall. Those rare attempts that were funded were almost always easily stopped by the warriors of Arasaka, one of which was the equal of two or more of any other warrior.

Attempts on his life from internal usurper factions were perhaps the largest risk of all, as such factions both had potentially easy access to him and the skill and enhancements from Arasaka's in-house cybernetics. This was where the development of the Long-Term Contract was put into place. All of the most powerful warriors of Arasaka were bound by it, with himself as the chief contract holder in each and every chip.

By ensuring that the most powerful answered directly to him, and were at all times obligated to protect him from any threat they were aware of, and to inform him of any threat they were aware of, the vast majority of usurper factions were rendered utterly impotent. The most powerful warriors of Arasaka were forced to be absolutely loyal to him and him alone, and they could act with relative freedom to automatically quell potential uprisings before they gained traction.

At least one DaiOni was deployed in all seven major Arasaka holdings. One DaiOni was a match for an army of lesser warriors. One DaiOni was enough to suppress any thoughts of rebellion from those within the corporation, as they acted to slay any that might threaten him without needing orders.

A DaiOni was a symbol of his power, of his utter dominance of his agents. To disrespect them was to disrespect him. To oppose them was to oppose him. If they deemed fit to strike down an arrogant executive who failed to show adequate respect, then it only reinforced his authority in the minds of all those who labored under his rule. Yojimbo was somewhat more quick to slay those that irritated him, but he was hardly unique in that regard.

Power. A DaiOni was power that was utterly loyal to him and him alone. A DaiOni was worth a thousand executives in personal power, and limitless executives for how they passively quelled rebellion by their mere presence within the same region. To try and plan for his death, one first had to slay a DaiOni, which would bring his attention to the region, and thus allow him to act to quell it himself thereafter.

Ah, but what of unplanned attempts on his life by the general public? Such a thing was laughable to consider at best. The personal power of Arasaka agents that made attacks unviable for rival powers did the same to attacks by those who were powerless as well. You could not expect a peasant to overcome Yamata-no-Orochi, such a job was best left to Susanoo, and Saburo made sure that any potential Susanoo was utterly loyal to him first.

So he was not expecting a seemingly random attack a few short hours after he arrived in Night City.

A lone individual, a fully cybernetic warrior carrying a handgun and monoblade, wearing an Oni mask, directly charging up to Arasaka Tower and fighting through the bottom floors trying to get to the top. When he was informed of such, for a moment he had thought one of the Ordo Panzer had decided to attack directly. They were the only faction with soldiers mighty enough to overcome his own warriors at this point, a thing he had begun taking measures to overcome the moment he was made aware of them some months ago.

Then he was informed of what the initial data-assault had actually done, stamping a brand over the front of Arasaka's banner on the outer tower paneling. A symbol he recognized both for its personal and impersonal insult. The logo of that upstart rockerboy who aided in the attack against Arasaka Tower some fifty-four years ago. He did not forget the details of his enemies.

Robert John 'Silverhand' Linder. Lead singer of the anti-corporate musician group known as 'Samurai' (despite having absolutely nothing in common with the associated values that Samurai should hold, the historical inaccuracy annoyed him greatly. They preached the message of taking down their corporate masters. Masterless Samurai were called Ronin! Why weren't they called Ronin!? The message was diluted by the implication that they still had masters! Typical gaijin ignorance at play).

The music only reinforced his conclusion, as did the raid on the Mikoshi servers and theft of the Relic at the end of last month. Someone had stolen the engram of Silverhand, loaded it upon the Relic, and revived it in a cybernetic body. The real question was why. Silverhand alone was not the greatest warrior, his proficiency was in rallying large masses of gaijin to fight for his futile causes. Summoning up storms of ineffectual riots, not direct combat such as this.

No. Silverhand was revived as a distraction for another event. Who would steal such a valuable artifact from Arasaka to use it on an engram meant for rallying civilians, but then direct that engram to attack directly at a later time? Militech would've weaponized the social currency of his soul, as would almost every other faction if they could. Using it in this way would mean that the planner had no plans for long term gain that involved the public at large. It was too inefficient.

Silverhand was a disposable asset distraction. Revived then set loose knowing that he would inevitably attack Arasaka Tower. What was the actual goal here? The timing did not line up for it to be the kidnapping of Yojimbo's apprentice, but there were no other plays against Arasaka currently occurring that he could think of. None that would be benefited by this, that was.

…Unless the frame was strong enough to actually become a threat, but then they would not have predicted his arrival in Night City. At best they had five days to prepare for such.

Hmm… not impossible, but it would have to be a faction that he was unaware of. That was a most disgruntling thought indeed. He'd have to punish all Arasaka shinobi in Night City for their failure after this.

The true threat here was whoever had breached the datawalls of Arasaka Tower, and then erected that quarantine firewall. To do so that quickly required… a class 4 AI. Nothing less could do so within the few seconds of Silverhand's approach of the Tower, and class 5 AI did not take overt actions in this manner. How infuriating, the in-house netrunners of Arasaka NC would not be capable of taking on such directly.

"Takemura, order all net-agents to disable wireless connections and switch to hardlines." He spoke as he watched the camera feed of the revived Silverhand battle the agents on the second floor. The elevator was already disabled, one of the new precautions from the last tower attack, only the secondary stairs could be used at this point. Filled with chokepoints and defensive turrets, it would be normally perfectly adequate for handling any intruder.

However…

The Oni-masked Silverhand disappeared from frame, appearing once more behind a group of security agents, sword now painted with a fresh coat of blood. A press of the button relayed the immediate slow-down of the event.

The minimum grade sandevistan for his tower security assets had an acceleration factor of four. Judging from the footage, however, the revived rockerboy had an acceleration factor of nine to eleven, somewhere within that range.

No typical warrior of Arasaka could handle that. A most unfortunate state of affairs. There were several factions that could possibly make such a powerful sandevistan, Kang Tao with their engineering AI came to mind, but vanishingly few warriors that could handle such acceleration. So engrams were not subject to the typical self-destruction of high level enhancements? Valuable information.

After a few moments, Takemura responded. "They say that the hardlines are no longer responding at all, Arasaka-sama."

So the AI prioritized that section of code, even as hidden as it was. That meant something that was already incredibly familiar with modern Arasaka data-fortress structure and defenses. The AI has had time to slip in undetected, scouting out the interior of the structure, and leaving. That would take several trips to manage without alerting the defenders.

The AI had been planning this for some time, possibly years. Slowly, carefully probing with passive methods to ensure non-detection, until the entirety of the Tower was laid bare before it.

A class 4 AI with a long term goal of attacking Arasaka Tower in Night City. There wasn't anything here that was more valuable than what was in Arasaka Tower in Japan, so it must be something common to both that it was easier to gain access to here.

…The Mikoshi database access. A class four AI that had been planning to attack for years to get access to it.

Alt Cunningham. Saburo snorted in brief frustration. He had told Kei to simply kill the woman after wresting the secrets of Soulkiller from here. But he saw value in having such an asset on hand for further development. It was true that she accelerated the progress of Soulkiller 3 by many years, but she was not essential. Hanako was more than enough for it.

Kei had not yet learned to plan for decades rather than years, and he was killed for it.

He hated America, in all of its petty grandeur.

A revived Silverhand and Cunningham attacking Arasaka Tower directly, likely in an attempt to take his head and destroy the Mikoshi. It was practically storybook. He repressed a small smile. He had to play his part in this theater.

Either he survived, his warriors achieving grand victory over a powerful foe, or he died and would be reborn from the ashes of his corpse at a later date. Victory was always preferable, but if he was slain here and his engram was brought forth, then it would not have to kill his son for treachery. The Mikoshi database being destroyed also mattered little, as all engrams within were also preserved in other copies in air gapped servers in Japan. Nothing would be lost from that.

This attack could only result in Arasaka's victory. They likely didn't know that. How wonderfully ironic.

The door to the top floor opened, he did not need to turn his head to tell who it was by the footsteps. Hanako, Yorinobu, and the initial run of the Jorogumo series.

He paused while drinking his tea. He furrowed his brow.

"...Why is Oda not among you?" He asked, low and dangerous.

Hanako responded, somewhat worried, most likely due to the overall stress of this attack on the Tower. She was far less used to such assaults that desired her death, which was good. It would not do for her to ever become used to such. "He said that he would take a proactive approach to guarding me, and disappeared."

…He had left to go battle the intruder, and in doing so abandoned his position at his daughter's side. He set his tea cup down and spoke. "I see."

Takemura's eyes tightened in anger and grief. Saburo knew that he knew what this action would entail. Oda had abandoned his ward, Saburo's daughter, in the middle of a two-pronged attack on the Tower of his own volition. His life was forfeit even if he succeeded at slaying the intruder.

Takemura will offer to atone for his apprentice's mistake after this, an honor that Saburo will allow. After which, he will be interred in a fully cybernetic frame. The honor of all parties will be preserved, and Takemura will continue to serve Arasaka faithfully.

"Jorogumo series. You will remain here to defend me. Takemura, you will escort my son and daughter to the emergency escape VTOL and to the Kujira. Keep them safe."

"At once, Arasaka-sama." Takemura, expertly shackling his grief behind an iron will, bowed and departed.

"...Father…" Hanako spoke, hesitating in following Takemura to the door. His son merely glared at him with a conflicted expression on his face, before turning and marching away.

"Hanako. Go to safety." He simply said.

"Why are you not coming with us?"

"The Shogun does not flee from a single enemy. The tower is defended by a legion of Arasaka warriors, numerous security measures, three Jorogumo, two DaiOni, and Yojimbo is currently on his way as we speak. They will be more than enough to defeat this threat."

She hesitated, before bowing to hide her expression, and running out of the room. The door behind her closed as they ascended to the roof just one floor higher. He breathed in and out once, before twitching a finger. At once, Jorogumo V3 was at his side, serving him a fresh cup of tea.

He turned his attention back to the monitors before him, and the camera footage of the third floor. He replayed what he saw of Silverhand's combat capacity, and what he knew of Oda's combat abilities.

…How the encounter would play out depending on where and how Oda chose to engage.

…Oda would die in no more than twelve blows.

Arrogant little shit. He should've heeded Yojimbo's words and had him assigned to corrective training.