Adam had little to fear from basically anyone or anything on the streets of Night City. His Dragoon frame was durable to ignore all but the heaviest urban guns (as opposed to open-warfare guns, which were the weight class Adam was equipped to handle). As for the weapons that were heavy enough to actually hurt him, his sandevistan made him fast enough to dodge them with ease. Indeed the only thing that could really threaten him were weapons that were extraordinarily fast and could penetrate his armor. Such as high-class railguns and the fists of speedware bots using panzerfaust.
His only other weakness was a nuke, and even then you needed at least two of them, judging from his prior experience. There was a reason he considered himself the greatest murderer on and off the globe. You know anyone else that can tank a fucking nuke? Didn't think so. At the end of the month, he was going to become even better at turning meat into ghosts, and he couldn't wait.
…on and off the globe… Maybe there was an alien out there better at killing than he was. If true, he would simply have to wait for FTL to be invented so he could track it down and kill it. Aint no fucker, human or not, who is going to beat him in his own specialty. He got an upgrade to his Biopod recently, a better extended life module, this one would apparently replace his braincells with 'Liveware' which was techno-organic or whatever, over the course of thirty years. After that, his few remaining organics and wetware components would be immune to aging. He didn't understand the science behind it, but the Old Man wouldn't allow something to be installed in Adam's biopod if he didn't fully trust it, so Adam would trust it too.
But his immunity to street-level combatants had exactly one weakness. It was very distinctive. Everyone in Night City could recognize him when he decided to go out and murder something, no one else in a hundred miles came close to his level of chrome, and no one on the globe other than him could walk around in an IEC Dragoon, even a modified one.
Bringing him to his most hated topic, this was not a job he could do and get recognized. The fucker might bail if he was alerted to Adam's snooping around. Which means that he either had to change his look dramatically, or use another frame. As deserved as it was, there was another problem. Adam had a very established set of behavior and attitude. He couldn't let that get recognized either.
Which meant that between the two of them, it was better for Uriel to go out and raid around the site, and he had to be fully concealed within the frame as he did so, which meant no convenient quick hacking. He had to use a frame with less armor, and essentially tie one limb behind his back as he raided a meat-bag's place with sub-standard (thus not-recognizable) gear.
Needless to say, Adam was mad that he was going to miss out on such a fun job. Uriel promised to rip a meatbag in half for him to review later. Adam grumbled as he very publicly started patrolling Pacifica looking for meatbags to kill.
Uriel was in Adam's CCPL Gemini frame, and clad in one of their positively ancient suits of armor. The US Military Assault Armor, a suit that was no longer in commission, from Adam's days in the military when the US was still a thing. It was more protective than a MetalGear street armor set, while only slightly impeding movements, for the low cost of three-thousand eddies.
It would be best if he didn't reveal himself to be a borg either, so he wasn't going to be able to carry around all Adam's favorite weapons. They were all much too heavy for a meatbag to use, requiring either being a borg or in an ACPA. So Uriel had to get smaller scale weapons as well. A stock Militech borg rifle, a 15 microwaver plus power pack, a belt of thermite grenades, and a knife.
This, in addition to the Gemini's sandevistan, was all he had to use on this mission. His loadout was also chosen carefully, wearing a defunct US army armor, using a militech gun, and using thermite all pointed towards him being Militech Spec-Ops or Deniable-Ops. This was good, because they had apparently helped Maelstrom in exchange for a raid on a Militech convoy, and thus a counter-raid was well within their expectations.
Adam and Uriel hated sneaky shit, but they were good at it.
Then, hiding him in the trunk of Adam's musclecar, Adam would drive to a location he was going to patrol, park in a location without cameras, in which Uriel would get out and then make his way forwards from there.
…As discreetly as an 8 foot Militech-looking soldier could he supposed. Which was to say, not very much at all.
Uriel abused the sandevistan as much as he could to move between out-of-sight areas, and moved in a long circle around the city until finding himself near the warehouse. This would be an hour-long affair to do, so he would have to be lucky to avoid being stopped by something unfortunate.
Of course, Uriel had made the mistake of dating and breaking up with lady luck a while back. She was a rather on or off girl, things were either great or terrible with her.
So it was no surprise at all when Uriel rounded a corner to find himself in the middle of an NCPD choke point, guns pointed right at him.
He froze, and a mustachioed man used a megaphone to yell at him.
"Unknown Soldier! Raise your hands, Identify yourself, and submit to questioning! Anything you do can and will be used against you!"
Uriel raised a hand, and pantomimed scratching the back of his head as he looked at the cops that surrounded him in a 180-degree arc. They were tense, and ready to shoot at him with what looked to be fairly heavy guns. How the fuck did they pull this off? He reviewed his movements again, and realized he had stopped in front of a Dunkin' Bucks coffee and donut place about fifteen minutes back.
Way to play into the stereotypes, coppers.
"I repeat, Raise your hands and submit to the authority of the law or we shall use lethal force!" The man with the honestly pretty nice mustache shouted at him through the microphone.
Uriel debated to himself for a second, before shrugging and calling back.
"Sorry boys, I'm on a job right now. Can't talk about it, op-sec being what it is." It was honestly strange to be speaking out loud again. "No hard feelings though, you're just doing your jobs and whatnot. I'll avoid killing any of you."
With that, he activated the sandevistan and jumped to the right as a hail of bullets, rockets and similar flew through the space he just occupied. He started moving forwards, noting with pleased surprise that several officers also had speedware. It wasn't enough to keep up with Adam's absurd specs, but it was a pleasant surprise to see some of them taking their jobs seriously.
Uriel moved, the top-tier sandy allowing him to blow past all the cops regardless. He occasionally punched and threw them around, but kept his word not to kill anyone. Moving past them and getting fairly far before the dilation of time ran out. He continued sprinting, no need to let them catch up, he had to lose them before he could continue the job.
He was essentially home free with two more sandy uses, after which he just had to get onto company property, property like the warehouse. You see, cops were not legally allowed to go on properties owned by megacorporations who could sue the shit out of them, so all crimes that took place in such areas were the legal domain of corporate security and the criminals.
So if he could get into the sewers coming up ahead, then exit near the warehouse, then get in, they wouldn't be able to follow him and would likely pick up any stragglers he didn't grab.
He dropped out of dilated time again, entrance to the sewers only about a hundred meters away. He grinned underneath the helmet, home free baby.
Of course, in thinking that, Lady Luck was quick to prove him wrong. C'mon babe, is this because he didn't finish? No need to feel bad about that, it's not your fault, he just has a lot of stamina!
A riot armor-clad figure, clad in what looked like a…
Wait, was that a customized Enforcer frame? NCPD had a cyborg? Since when? Credit to them, this was some pretty heavy artillery for cops, Uriel was impressed with them.
"Stop, in the name of Justice."
Uriel froze. He recognized that voice. That was his fucking voice. His voice doing a Zap Brannigan impression.
"Please submit to questioning, you are a suspect due to your incredibly heavy armament and no known affiliation. We have already contacted Militech, you are not known to them."
Uriel stood up fully, and looked at the figure guarding the sewer entrance. He thought for a second about how to go about this. First, confirm identity. Uriel tilted his head to the side, and relaxed his shoulders.
"Hurm… I think I remember hearing 'bout you? Eren Shepard right? Aren't you supposed to be working with Maxtac?" Be casual, talking only benefits him right now, not Uriel. Reinforcements are surely going to arrive within a few minutes, so he'll go along with a brief chat about trivial information.
"You have heard of me? I'm flattered, truly. I got my career started with Maxtac, that's true. I transferred to NCPD after my Maxtac ten-year contract expired. I find the work more fulfilling."
Identity confirmed, this really was who he thought it was. Eren Shepard was one of his old tabletop characters, played as part of a meat grinder, constant-combat campaign. Maxtac's finest rookies, the MAS (Maximum Attack Squad). A year of constant conflict, and sixty-eight deaths later, and Eren Shepard was the only survivor of the original group of four. Just his luck, to run into the second-most dangerous cyborg in Night City.
…But, that also meant he knew exactly how to manipulate him.
"Right, I don't begrudge you for doing your job, which is why I left the rest of the NCPD forces alive back there."
"I know, and I thank you for that. Judging from your words, you do not intend to cooperate?"
"I would ask you to step aside for me, I'm on the path of Justice myself."
That got his attention. Eren Shepard valued one thing above all else, and that was Justice with a capital J.
"Please elaborate."
Uriel shrugged casually again. Display no aggression or fear of the individual in front of him, that signals both personal power and general well-meaning towards them. "I can't explain too much, but I'm on the trail of collecting evidence to bring a high-ranking individual to justice. They directly caused the death of a few hundred people. They will know of me after this mobilization, so I'm on a time-crunch now to raid the place."
"I see, you understand I still cannot step aside?"
You couldn't step aside, sure, but Eren Shepard always was something of a reckless loose cannon cop. Doubly so when it came to his precious Justice. Uriel pretended to think about it for a moment.
"How about you accompany me?"
Eren paused at that, tilting his head.
"Please elaborate."
"Well, if you're there with me, you can give oversight as to what I'm actually doing, and I can get the evidence needed to bring the guy in. Sounds reasonable?"
Eren thought about it. Heh, no he wasn't. The moment 'help me bring someone to justice' left Uriel's mouth he had already decided what he was doing. Right now he was just trying to think of a way to explain that to his other officers.
He unclipped his walkie-talkie, and started talking to his fellow officers. Eren Shepard, in addition to having a cybernetic body, was absurdly persuasive. A minute or so passed, while Uriel patiently waited. He was already in the clear, and he was going to get backup he knew the full capabilities of.
Lady Luck, you beautiful, bipolar woman. He'll take you on a high-class date later, make sure to wear something cute. He was thinking that garter-belt and dog collar he bought you last time.
Eren clipped the walkie back onto his belt, and began walking closer to Uriel. Uriel waited patiently and nodded as he got close. Eren held out his hand, and Uriel shook it firmly.
"Eren Shepard, NCPD Elite Officer."
"Special Operations Unit 'Mr. Sunshine'. Pleased to have you onboard."