Adam was on patrol around Pacifica. What that meant in effective terms is that he was walking around in a circular pattern, waiting for something to give him an excuse to rip them in half. He was hoping they would real soon, because he was in a fantastically bad mood.

Being restricted to Pacifica wasn't particularly bad in effective terms, he hadn't been leaving it often for a while now, but having it be an actual Order was grating. Having it be an Order from anyone who wasn't the old man was even more grating. The old man was his contract holder, and the guy who paid for all his fancier chrome, it was fair enough when he got orders from him. Adam understood business, he got guns, chrome, and chances to use it, and in exchange he occasionally did things he didn't want to.

The upjumped little shit was not the old man, he didn't give Adam jack shit, Adam didn't want to do jack shit for him.

The order to 'shackle his AI while outside Pacifica' was another order that irritated him severely, even if he didn't do much of anything. Neither Adam nor Uriel knew what the fuck Uriel was currently, and neither of them really cared about finding out. It was possible that he was an AI though, and because it was 'possible' the orders still forced him to do so. Even disregarding that, Adam knew what the shit was talking about, so he would have to obey anyway. They weren't sure if Uriel was able to disobey the orders or not, but they haven't gotten a chance to test it either.

Uriel had been operating mostly on instinct when it came to netrunning thus far. All of his actions were blunt and to the point. Uriel didn't set up hacking traps or datafortresses or anything like that, mostly because he had no idea how to. If he had 'proximity' to the bit of technology, and that technology had software and a wireless connection of some kind, he could make it do many things. Mostly simple things, shutting it off, overclocking it, tapping into its sensors…

Basics. Even Uriel's methods of cyberwarfare thus far were rudimentary. DDoS, Brute force signal spam, the cyberspace equivalent of hitting people with a brick or hitting them many times without a brick. Uriel had wanted to see if he could perform the sort of long-range hacking things that he knew people could do, setting up a radio signal to get remote cyberactions going on.

He quickly ran into the problem of having no idea what he was doing.

Uriel had no idea how to set up connections and programs in cyberspace. He had never been a programmer in his past life, he had never dealt with electronic security. In short, he had no idea what he was doing when it came to netrunning, he was just fortunate enough to apparently be an idiot-savant who could do the basics instinctively. It was quite irritating to realize that, for both of them.

"Your anima, while impressive, is fledgling. It would not survive my Void."

"Your Daemon is a weak, pallid thing. Did you think such fragile chains could bind me?"

Which meant that Uriel had to improve his Netrunning, not by getting more processing power, but by actually dedicating time to learning how to do it. Which meant that about a third of his total current processing power was now entirely dedicated to reading.

Reading what you may ask? Education courses on the ins and outs of netrunning. The kind that was available for a small fee to the public, purchased anonymously. The kind that you give to fucking children to figure out how to not turn their brain into ash. The kind that Uriel had to start with because, AGAIN, he had no idea what he was doing.

Adam wasn't about to be seen buying kiddie shit for himself. Absolutely fucking not. It was irritating enough having the shit in his head, he wasn't about to let it spoil his reputation too.

Perhaps the most infuriating order of all, was the one to relinquish Arasaka-provided weaponry. That wasn't all of his weapons, of course. But it was more than he would like. A full third of his armory. All but one of his swords, his club, and all the higher tier guns that you simply can't buy if you weren't a corporate or country military. All of that now locked away in an Arasaka storage container underneath the Tower.

The biggest gun he currently had in his personal storage was the Stroheim chain-shotgun, which was effectively a Tsunami Arms Helix downscaled to the point that even a fucking meatbag could theoretically use it. As much as he loved that gun, it was absolutely infuriating. He could hold that thing and fire it like a normal gun, it wasn't big enough to require him to replace his lower arm like the TA Helix. That was the problem, all his really big guns were things that weren't available on open markets, and thus provided by Arasaka.

All of his really big guns which were now sitting in a vault far away from where he could get them. He liked those really big guns, he wanted to have them around, and occasionally use them to thin the meatbag population.

The upjumped shit couldn't do anything to them, he knew that the old man would have him killed immediately if they were damaged or sold, but they were still out of reach for now.

The bigger problem was something else entirely. Arasaka paid for his bullets. All the arms and armor that was confiscated by the upjumped shit, including the ammo. He hadn't bothered buy ammo in fucking decades now, just putting in a request for the appropriate bullet type and receiving it in a few months.

Adam Smasher no longer had any ammo save what was already loaded in his personal stock of guns. Needless to say, having to go through, double check the ammo type for all of his fucking guns again to be sure of the calibers, and then bulk order more ammo himself was fucking infuriating. It cost him two-hundred and fifty thousand eddies to rebuild a decent stockpile of ammo, before taxes and shipping fees.

He reminded himself to try and spend two-hundred and fifty thousand eddies executing Jugemu Jun the moment he got the Order to, however he could manage that.

For now though, he was wasting his time. By wasting his time, he of course meant trying to find things he could kill without getting complaints thrown at him. He had standing orders to turn Pacifica into a functional scrap of civilization, so that took priority to watching his 'best of murdering meatbags compilations'.

So here he was, in his new frame, in a set of body armor to fill in for a future ACPA, walking through the streets of his property. Well not really his, but the thing that the old man wanted him to manage. A pitiful three power plants, three water purification plants, and three aquaponics towers. It wasn't enough for the entire territory now, let alone for the future population estimates, so they would have to expand as fast as they could.

Not too fast though, lest this shit gets sloppy on him. Adam Smasher doesn't do sloppy, not these days. Speaking of sloppy…

Adam pulled out one of his antiques, a .500 S Magnum (which was still almost too small for his hands), and shot next to a meatbag's head. Angled in such a way to fly out and into the desert after passing by his head. Those on the streets around him, already giving him a wide berth, all scrambled back and into cover away. The meatbag that nearly lost a head flinched and fell over in surprise. She pulled out a purse SMG and started to aim until she saw who shot at her.

Her eyes locked onto his, and her hands started shaking. He approached, gun lowered and stood in front of the meatbag. She was frozen in fear. He pointed the gun at the evidence of her offense.

A trashcan off to the side, a disposable cup thrown haphazardly towards it, not landing inside. She had just thrown it. He wasn't about to have fucking meatbags spreading their filth on his streets. They could spread their shit around somewhere else.

He didn't have to speak, just his glare and point was enough to get the meatgirl scrambling to throw it away properly. He didn't have the time or awareness to do this to everyone, of course, but he didn't have to. All he had to do was reinforce this behavior enough with the threat of violence and they would do it themselves eventually.

More than that though, he just wanted an excuse to shoot his gun.

The meatgirl quickly went over to grab her cup and throw it away, and nervously glanced back at him. He kept glaring for a second to reinforce the point, before continuing on his way, loading a replacement round for the one he fired. One of only five-hundred fifty caliber cased brass rounds that he currently had in stock. He really should be saving these for actual threats, but he was too mad to really care about that right now.

He kept walking until he got to what would normally form into the 'slums' of his new territory. He said 'would be' because there was no way he was going to have a fucking slum in his place, absolutely not. Uriel had made sure to set up patrols for his rent-a-cops in such a way to prevent an actual slum from forming, and he had made sure to not let anymore that the correct amount of people live in his land. He wasn't going to deal with overpopulation, it was first come first serve and anyone more than that was kicked the fuck out.

This area was where those addicts and junkies lived though among his temporary housing. So it would inevitably form into a slum if left alone for long enough. His solution was quite simple. Uriel murdered the shit out of them the moment they caused problems for the last two months, and he stationed the 'HQ' for the rent-a-cops right in the middle. The rent-a-cops had to be clean for him to pay them, that was a requirement for everything he was paying for.

He wasn't about to pay for someone's fucking habit beyond cigarettes and beer. It was fucking unsightly, they could turn themselves into gibbering bags of shit on their own dime. That was the job he gave the Ripperdocs, in addition to everything else. They would make sure his new employees were clean, and he'd pay them a heavily discounted consultation fee. The Ripperdocs had their own HQ in the area that he gave them, to perform their union work and surgeries and whatnot. It was put right across the street from his rent-a-cops to prevent any druggies from getting some fucking ideas.

…speaking of the Ripperdocs.

He pulled out his revolver again, this time aiming to kill the fat fuck who was sitting on the side of the road. He was wearing a BD and had his cock sheathed in an automatic masturbator. Adam blew a hole in his torso as he called up the Ripperdocs. The crowd dissipated even further again, and videos were being recorded from meatbags who felt the need to gawk at a dead dumbass. There was a moment before the call went through, being picked up by the girl they had assigned to taking calls in general.

"Hello! You're calling the Night City Ripperdoc Association helpline! What is the reason for your call?" A cheery and only slightly faked voice of some meatgirl answered him.

"Body at the intersection of 11-32, fat, half naked fucker. Get one of your boys to pick it up for mulching."

"...is that Adam Smasher? Oh god oh shit. E-excuse me, you said at the intersection of 11-32? I'll get them to send someone over right away sir!"

"I'm patrolling right now, have them on standby if I need them."

"Y-yes sir! Right away sir!"

He ended the call and kept walking. Eh, at least that meatbag was quick enough and didn't waste time with posturing. He had met too many of those recently. He took a moment to take in the area in general terms.

The streets were mostly clean, the legion of fuckers he paid to clean shit up also were willing to work to keep their pay and extra kibble. The roads had housing on either side in large apartment blocks, and the streets were lined in planter boxes of the beans and potatoes he wanted them to make. Those were the best two plants he could force them to stay busy with.

Beans were nitrogen fixing, they made the soil better as they grew. Potatoes had basically everything you needed to stay alive, you could live off them for months. He had offered five eddies per pound of the stuff that people wanted to grow, and gave them detailed and easy to understand instructions for how to do that best. He didn't know any of this shit of course, but Uriel grew up on a rather large farm, and was decently knowledgeable about the basics here.

Those basics were worth their weight in gold. Well wait, knowledge didn't have a weight…

…They were worth a lot. So Adam and Uriel gave it away for free for anyone to have. All the soil around here was shit, so he paid a premium for the initial bulbs and seeds to be modded by biotechnica. They would handle the shitty soil in time, he just had to get people to plant them a bunch, and then cycle the soil every few years. That combined with using bodies as fertilizer might make his dirt non-polluted in a few decades. If he had to have it, the he was going to have proper fucking grass, damnit.

His territory was going to look fucking fantastic, because it was his. He was going to make sure of it. He wasn't about to accept substandard fucking anything. He was Adam Smasher, best killer on the planet, and everything he had and was was top of the line. Even if he had to work for it.

He slowed his walking and stared at what looked to be a number of meatbags in one of the many alleyways of his territory. The alleyways did not contain dumpsters, or blocks, or anything that might obscure the view from one end to the other. The dumpsters were kept on the ground floor of each apartment, and the garbage legion circled the territory once a day to empty them out and drive shit away. The garbage legion were some of the only fuckers other than the construction workers, Arasaka personnel, and the Ripperdocs that were actually allowed to have vehicles on his streets, because he wasn't in the mood to design parking lots for all of a fraction of the population to actually use.

It was a number of meatbags in Maelstrom merchandise, from the arena, and most of them had some sort of visible chrome. Not much, but all of them had something. They were doing some shit in one of his alleyways. He narrowed his eyes and started walking into the alley.

It was several of them, and they were talking to an older guy with much more chrome than the rest. They noticed him pretty quickly and quieted down as he approached. He glared down at them, and then looked closer at what they were doing.

…A bunch of Maelstrom merch, one of those shitty satanism things that edgy teens always got into, a cyberdeck modified to look like an ouija board, several smaller caliber guns, and a few miscellaneous bits of chrome. A big pile of snacks and drinks off to the side.

Uriel scanned around the area, finding no active wireless connections other than their phones in the alleyway. The cyberdeck was turned off. He nodded his head in questioning at the set-up, and waited for an answer. One of the meatboys spoke up eventually.

"H-hey, we're just… uhh… trying out a ritual to summon a demon…" The meatbag paused when it realized just how fucking lame it sounded. Adam stared at it for a moment, the meatbag starting to fidget.

"It's noon."

"Y-yeah…"

…

Adam rolled his eyes. Fucking meatbrats, stop wasting his time on bullshit like this. He turned around and continued his patrol, leaving them alone.

Being annoying wasn't a crime, even if shooting them would have been satisfying. They wanted to be little satanists in his alleyways in the middle of the day, they could go right ahead.

It wasn't like they were doing anything, their cyberdeck wasn't even turned on. Unless a bunch of brats could make a Daemon with the collective power of their Neuralware processors, they were harmless.

He continued with his patrol, still annoyed, still looking for things to shoot.