Human bodies were primarily composed of water, specifically water that was bound to other molecules and substances to make the various fluids that filled the delicate systems that maintained homeostasis in the body. Blood, digestive fluid, spinal fluid, mucus, and more all went into the body and ideally stayed at appropriately high levels to make sure the human survived. All in all, roughly 70 percent of the human body was dihydrogen monoxide.

That portion of the human body was Adam's favorite, mostly because of the way it so excellently painted a room when a meatbag was butchered. He tightened his grip on the forearm and foreleg, flexed his arms, and pulled them apart in a single smooth motion. An arc of red and viscera exploded out in a cone in front of him, covering a Kusanagi motorcycle that had been modded to the point of aesthetic ruination.

He had just such a bike of his own. He had bought it back before… Jeez, before he was in his Dragoon frame, wasn't it? It was a custom by the manufacturers that he had ordered, upscaled for his massive frame and covered in smooth plates of armor. The final weight of the beast was right about twice the weight of a regular model, fifteen-hundred pounds or so. The massively increased weight made it a fuel hog and slowed its acceleration, but left its top speed intact, made turning easier at lower speeds, and massively increased the momentum whenever he hit someone with it.

He had the thing painted black, with hints of red and silver. He hadn't driven it in years now though, still sitting in one of his storage containers. He idly thought about bringing it out sometime. He hadn't needed to drive it much of anywhere in a very long time, not for jobs or for 'jobs'.

Speaking of 'jobs'...

He turned to the gremlin, and began breaking down where she went wrong. She did fairly decent for a meatbag this time, only one major error. He idly kicked the heavily-chromed corpse near his feet. It had two fist-sized holes punched through its torso.

"You had to use two shots to take out the cyborg. A headshot would have gotten it in one."

The gremlin gave a subdued but firm nod. Ah, she had gotten that way ever since he decided to save time with the lessons by simply telling her where she fucked up instead. He had wanted to make this little outing as fast a possible now that he some fucking meatbrats trailing him as he worked.

He turned his head to stare at them, they were looking checked out, glancing around at the butchered meatbags all about the room. Fucking brats, you lived in Night City, something like this shouldn't come close to phasing you. They coddled the little shits nowadays, because violence like this was not unusual, not during any point in human history.

Butchery was the norm, not the exception.

"The bike, take it and fuck off."

They gave looks towards the bike now painted red. He glared, they didn't hesitate again, walking over as a group to grab it and start wheeling it out of the garage section they were in. A full eight hours of having those fucking wastes of space in his vicinity, eight hours of clearing out houses one by one until they found the fucking bike. It would have been faster to just have him punch the foundations until they crumbled and killed everyone inside, but the gremlin was still forgetting that he was Adam Smasher.

Eight hours was a full training session, and despite how many meatbags and street borgs he had torn apart, he was still pissed. He would need the woman to give him a thorough powerwashing, because he was covered in a layer of mechanical fluid and blood enough to paint him dark red. His murder was ruined by the presence of a group of toddlers that yelped whenever something shot at them.

He needed to kill more to calm down. He looked at the meatbrats wheeling the bike out and over to the gremlin. Training was already over for today, and he needed some alone time.

"Stop."

They very quickly froze and slowly turned to face him. He turned to the gremlin.

"Training's over for today. You will escort them out of my fucking territory. I will be gone until tomorrow."

She flinched for some reason. "Ah, can do Big Guy. You uh… mind telling me where you'll… be?" She hesitated throughout the whole sentence, not looking directly at him.

"I will go to my armory. I will change my loadout. I will go find things to murder." He explained succinctly. She looked down, rubbed her upper arm armor, and replied.

"Sure thing Big Guy…" She trailed off, pausing and then walking over to group up with the meatbrats. She paused and looked back at him before they left the garage. "Sorry 'bout earlier, I just… hope it goes well for you."

Course it was going to go well, he was going to make fucking sure of it. Uriel started looking for targets that no one would mind him butchering wholesale.

Once they were gone, he closed his eyes for a bit and started looking with Uriel.

…

Wraiths, Raffen shiv nomads, last known location an abandoned distribution center for a now defunct supermarket corporation, information found via Arasaka surveillance satellite and no more than four hours old. No less than three-hundred and no more than twelve-hundred members.

Perfect.

He started stomping back home, out of the garage. His chrome feet splashing in the thin layer of blood and viscera on the slightly depressed flooring. He was going to get his real big guns out for this one. He thought about using the bike to ride out there, but dismissed it. Not enough fuel if he has to hunt down individual packs of them dispersing out. He'd take the car, it had better gas mileage and more trunk room for more ammo and gun.

Twelve hours was his deadline. He would have to start teaching the woman by then at the latest. Let's see if he can get one-hundred meat bags an hour. It wouldn't be a record, but it would be pretty high up there for him.

He sped up to a jog to get back within a reasonable amount of time. He wasn't going to get powerwashed first, not when he was about to get painted red yet again. It took about thirty minutes to get back at full sprint, as he approached he alerted the guards of his approach so they wouldn't kill themselves by firing at him. He went into the armory soon enough, and went over to one of his old storage lockers.

Twelve-hundred targets at the most. He had just the things for that. He dropped the duffle bag off to the side, and opened the locker. Inside was a massive weapon that was attached to an old arm of his, replacing its forearm. Pulling off his current right arm and setting it inside, he hefted up the old one and reattached it to his shoulder, taking a second to integrate the old software into his updated systems.

It had been a long fucking time since he used this baby, and he was excited.

A hex-barreled gatling shotgun which fires binary ten-gauge shells at thirteen-hundred rounds per minute. A gun that measured about one meter in length in total, his elbow socketed about one-third of the way up from the weapon, measuring from the back end. Each barrel of the weapon being a respectable forty-five centimeters long, and the whole thing weighing only fifteen kilograms thanks to lightweight alloys used in its construction.

A Tsunami Arms Helix, that could accept either a belt feed or a box magazine of sixty shots per load. Effective range of up to about sixty meters. The sound made by its firing was his favorite part, a loud metallic roar as it tore targets apart.

He was about to socket in a magazine, but then a thought occurred to him. He walked over to another locker, and pulled it open to reveal rows of Dragoon-grade back-mounted ammo hoppers. Each provided a belt feed that could increase his ammo capacity dramatically. In this case, he would have…

Roughly twelve-hundred rounds? That was the upper limit for how many wraiths there were, that was perfect. But what ammo type to use?

He looked for a moment, to the several ammo-hoppers each filled to the brim for ammo meant for this particular gun. He settled on one, and hefted up the one filled with High-velocity 'HE' rounds. Also known as 'High Explosive' rounds. They wouldn't explode until traveling about ten meters, but that just gave him an excuse to beat meatbags into paste when they got that close. With this particular combination of ammo and weapon? It cost one-hundred and thirty thousand eddies to fire this weapon for one minute.

He had the money to burn.

Ammo hopper secured to his back and belt feed attached to his temporary forearm, he moved out and towards his armored muscle car. He grabbed an extra can of gas for it and a spare ammo hopper of standard rounds and stuck it in the trunk. As he started it up, the vehicle hooked up to his smartlink, and he could control it like it was his own body. He wasn't the best driver, he didn't get much practice, so a link like this was pretty handy for him.

Uriel reminded him to message Kagekaze, Adam grunted and called him up. After a few seconds of ringing, Kagekaze picked up.

[Smasher-san, what did you need?]

[About to genocide the raffen shiv nomads that call themselves the 'Wraiths', I need to blow off some steam.]

[...Smasher, did you check if Arasaka has any outstanding deals with them?]

[No.]

Kagekaze sighed through the call.

[Very well, I will get the affairs in order for that.]

[Thanks Teach.]

[Troublesome student.]

The call ended, and Adam started driving out into the badlands. He had to keep his gun arm raised for it to fit in the roofless car. It would be another fifteen to thirty minutes before he got there, depending on how torn up the roads are. He drove in silence for a bit, left hand on the steering wheel.

…

He wondered what CD was still in the player of his ancient ride. He started it up.

It was still that old Citypop playlist that someone bought him as a joke. Who did that again, was it Kei? He couldn't remember, it had been about fifty years now. He was on the road, it was appropriate he supposed. He let it play, maybe he'd remember eventually. He kept driving, his bad mood starting to evaporate under the thought of the upcoming slaughter.

He encountered cars and a camp long before the distribution center, he turned the music down a bit as he approached, and slowed a bit. These weren't the raffen shiv, surely? Their cars looked to be in good condition, so that was impossible.

There were a lot of guns as he drove up. They wouldn't even scratch his paint, nothing except those two manned machineguns they had pointed at him. He ignored that and drove up to a glaring guy in the center, surrounded by guys with guns and grenades. It was a tanned guy with a decently groomed goatee and a sleeveless jacket.

…How many fucking belts do you need to wear, meatbag? Adam counted at least three. There were a lot of nervous looks at his right arm as he opened the door and stood, one foot still in the car.

Remember Summer Days, by Anri was playing softly from his car radio.

The tanned guy eventually spoke after glaring at him for a bit. Adam gave the meatbag credit, he didn't show any fear even though he could slaughter his way through everyone here. He either had great self-control or was an idiot.

"So… what brings Adam Smasher out here to nomad turf?"

"Genocide, are you the Wraiths?"

There was quite a bit of cursing at him and rattling guns at his question. Calm down meatbags, either you were or weren't, don't waste his time with grandstanding bullshit. The glaring man raised his hand and they all went silent, it seemed like they knew how to show off a united front, gang one-oh-one right there.

"No, and lest you want to pick a fight I suggest you don't imply that again. We're the Aldecaldos pack local to Night City."

Adam grunted and got back in his car. This seemed to surprise the glaring man, but it was a tanned woman who spoke up next in surprise.

"Wait, where are you going?"

Adam gave her a once over. Huh, it was a surprise to see a woman who didn't look like dogshit, that was a rarity nowadays. He appreciated the sight, might as well do them the favor of answering here in exchange. He shook his gun-arm a bit.

He replied, "Nice hips, fuckmeat. Told you already I'm off to genocide."

He ignored anything else they were saying, he had already wasted enough time here. He turned up the radio again and drove around them. They swiveled their guns to follow him as he continued along his way, but didn't shoot. He was disappointed, he might have gotten a chance to murder another group today. Shame they were too smart to pick a fight with him.

…

…Shit, he could have called them Wraiths again, couldn't he have? He made himself mad at the missed opportunity. He glared into the scrublands that rapidly vanished under his road-devouring wheels.

…

There was someone following him, about a half-mile back. He focused his optics and zoomed in in the rear-view mirror. It was one of the cars of the nomads he just met. Eh, they were probably wanting to watch. Let them, if they got in the middle of his job like the meatbrats did, he'd kill them too.

He was approaching the distribution center, there were cars circled around it like a makeshift fortress wall, and guns pointed in his direction. He stopped the car fifteen meters from them, and stood up. He yelled out to them.

"Are you the Wraiths?"

A voice called back. A woman standing behind one of the walls, with something that looked like a pale, dry tanned duster on.

"Yeah! Who the fuck wants to know!?"

Adam grinned, and activated his sandevistan. He started firing his right arm directly into their car walls, timing his shots to perfectly have five meters of distance between each bullet.

The HE rounds of the past were devastating, able to inflict massive damage on singular targets. The HE rounds of the present were another beast entirely, their on-impact explosion being something that most old grenade models would find respectable. Everywhere a bullet landed on their wall, an explosion started to blossom in slow-motion.

Area of effect on impact? The aforementioned five meters. He had time to shoot about fifty such bullets before his sandevistan expired. His gun not quite cycling fast enough to shoot any more than that.

His sandevistan expired, their shoddy wall of vehicles turned into scrap and fire. Their bodies turned into chunks of burnt flesh and a rain of gore. He started walking forwards and firing at anything that resembled a person or gun. Every now and then a burst of pitiful gunshots bounced off his armor, the gunner experiencing a very quick death soon after.

He almost felt like chuckling, their screams echoed with the metallic roar of his right arm. It was a beautiful melody.

An entire facility of easy targets, and there wasn't anyone in the world who would try and give him shit about it. He should have practiced target prioritization like that years ago, he wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath.

There weren't enough cars here to move twelve-hundred. Uriel got busy looking at the satellite images again, he wanted to make sure they didn't miss any of them. There were probably more groups of them like this spread out across the Badlands. Adam was more than happy with that.

A big gun, a hopper of ammo, a full tank of gas and a spare can in the trunk. All he was missing was a pack of cigarettes and a mission from God to make this a classic action flick.

He made a note to buy the cigarettes later and Uriel went ahead and approved the request to have a new church built in Pacifica. Adam didn't want to miss out on the full experience here. He started laughing alongside his roaring gun and screaming victims.

Meat was dying so fast. It was fantastic. He hadn't done this in years now.

His radio was playing that Citypop album whole night.

—

He was in a very good mood as he returned, his body caked in gore, his car similarly coated, cans of gas gone and ammo spent. He dropped the car off for the Arasaka cleaners to handle, and walked back to his HQ through the city. It took him about an hour to walk back, he was almost whistling the entire way.

He picked up his arm in the armory, and swapped it out with his gun-arm again. He held onto it, because everything still needed a thorough powerwashing to get the viscera off. He stomped up to the washroom, waving absentmindedly at the kids and woman in the main room as he passed them.

They stared at him, which made sense, he was fucking filthy right now.

Entering the washroom, he dropped the thankfully waterproof arm and took stock of himself. He'd need an armor repair by the techies, the Wraiths had a couple Junkernauts that he had to flip over to deal with, and their cannons were actually able to hurt him. That and their occasional burst of heavier ordinance shaking him up.

It was a good thing they had that, otherwise it might have gotten boring.

The woman came in, ah good, he could get an easier washing. She looked concernedly at him and his gun arm, before sighing and putting a hand on her hip.

"Who'd you wipe out this time, Adam?"

Almost cheerfully he responded. "Some meatbags calling themselves wraiths."

She paused for a bit, and smiled at him, running a hand through her hair. "At least they deserved it, from what I hear." She looked tired, like she had stayed up all night or something.

She walked over to the power washer, and started hosing him down. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of a river of blood pouring off his frame.

Good job woman, he was upgrading you from 'freeloader' to 'useful'.