He had run out of another type of ammunition yesterday. He still had the fifty caliber revolver, with a total of eighteen shots, keeping in reserve in case he needed it. His supplies of other types of bullets were beginning to get low though.

No 5.45mm, no 5.5mm, no 5.56mm, no 6.5mm, no 7mm, no 7.5mm, no 7.62mm, no 12.7mm, and no 14.5mm. He was entirely out of ammo for his various rifles, he didn't bother buying anything in smaller calibers before this. That, and he never had that much of his personal stock of ammo for much of anything. He had some, but most of it was before his long-term contract days, when he still had to buy some of his own bullets. Reserve stock from before the nuking of Arasaka Tower, he was almost embarrassed to see so many tiny bullets from those days. Had he really been that weak in that Samson?

He paused for a moment, and looked down at his arm. He bent it, feeling the myomer coil and flex around bones of endosteel. He was much stronger now, and much heavier than the Samson frame had been. He could probably do some of his more fun ideas from those days, like using an Autocannon without a tripod. He made a note to look up the biggest gun from Militech he could use and order later. Probably not tank cannons though, he wasn't heavy enough to handle the recoil.

He wasn't about to use snipers for patrols of all things, and sub-machineguns were for fucking meatbags to use, he wasn't about to touch one. He had a few revolvers, but not much ammo for them. He considered bringing out the Hellbringer .666, but he only had twelve shots for the thing.

You had to custom order rounds for the Hellbringer, no other gun used that gimmick-sized bullet, and the company that made the Hellbringer, Magnum Opus, went under years ago. Enthusiasts of the gun had to order their rounds from a sub-division of Militech focused entirely on custom bullet creation, and at a fucking premium at that. Each bullet was fifty eddies a pop, he wasn't about to waste them on fucking patrols of all things. The Hellbringer was staying in its very nice bulletproof glass case, with all the extra shots lined up around it in the style of a clock.

Regardless, he wasn't worried, the ammo had been ordered at the start of this week, it would be arriving in about three days now. He just had to stop rifles for a while, and start using his shotguns instead. He couldn't use his grenade launchers or missiles when patrolling his own territory, then he'd break some of his own shit and have to pay for it to be fixed again. That would be a pain in the ass.

So shotguns it was. He still had a large amount of ten and twelve gauge rounds, and if worse came to worst he could always just clear out some local gun shops of all their ammo stock, he had the money for it.

Decision made, he walked over to the shotguns section, and grabbed the only shotgun he ever bothered with nowadays. The Tsunami Arms Ragnarok, firing twelve gauge EAE rounds with dual-reciprocating barrel action and hydro-shock recoil compensation. Carrying forty shots per reload and having an effective range of seventy meters, it was the hardest hitting shotgun he had. Really easy to fire too, for his cybernetic body that was, he could fire it one-handed.

It was a baby that cost him four-thousand, five-hundred eddies when he bought it back in the day. He wasn't even sure if they sold them on the open market, he got to buy his from being Arasaka's chief killborg and securing one from the SDF 2021 arms trials.

Still, not being able to use all of his guns from needing to make an emergency order like that was fucking irritating. Ah well, gun in hand, and ammo cases on his belt he started walking for the door. Time to patrol his territory again…

The territory that he was in charge of developing…

Including its industry…

…

'Uriel.'

'Yeah?'

'Look into starting an ammo production company.'

Uriel paused his watching of the Netrunning guide for middle schoolers.

'...just ammo or full native arms production?'

Adam thought about it for a bit as he walked outside and started another randomized pattern of patrolling.

'Full native, everything needs guns and ammo.'

'Can do.'

This whole affair made him realize how fucking annoying waiting for his bullets to arrive was again. He had forgotten it from his early days, but the frustration had fully returned at this point. If he had any say in it, he was never going to have to wait for bullets again. If that meant starting a shit-ton of gun factories, then so be it. It would make him money too, which was a nice bonus for further expansion.

More guns meant more money, more money meant more buildup, and more buildup meant less of a chance for the meatfucker to take him out. A bit less than one month until the new year.

He didn't know the deadline after that.

—

He was about halfway through his patrol. The day had been mostly slow so far, him walking and his location being broadcast to the ripperdocs. He had been asked to carry a tracker and press a button whenever he needed a body picked off his streets, that way they could skip the conversation and already have a location from him. Uriel had followed the broadcast, and made sure that was all it was doing before Adam had agreed. It was convenient for both him and them, so he didn't mind doing it. It's not like he was trying to be sneaky here, so being handed a tracker wasn't an issue.

It was their de facto leader that asked him to, some meatdoc named Vik. The meatdoc was clearly fairly nervous about talking to Adam Smasher, but he was quick and concise with the explanation, so Adam didn't have a particular reason to kill him. Meatdoc even loosened up enough to crack a joke near the end.

'Of course, the real reason I'm asking is so Stacy will stop being so jumpy all the time, talking to ya. Having a shell-shocked secretary gets old after a while.'

It wasn't particularly funny, so he didn't laugh. Decent effort doc, joke was too long, get better material. Doc seemed familiar to Uriel, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. It probably wasn't particularly important, so he dismissed it and went back to work on figuring out the legal requirements for factory creation.

A few hours and a few dozen meatbags so far today, not particularly bad by any means. They were starting to learn not to do dumbshit on his streets. He even paused to watch a fist-fight between a couple gangers. He had been ready to execute the first fucker that pulled weapons, but that never happened. They stuck to unmodded fists and beat each other senseless, but nothing lethal or permanent. Three mox against two sixth streets, that was a good waste of about five minutes of his time.

He couldn't possibly confine all the violence to the arena, but low-level shit like that didn't matter. Only thing hurt here was pride and a few bruises, they'd be fine. It was funny to watch the meatbags fighting cheer for a bit before realizing he was standing among the crowd, gun upholstered but finger off the trigger. They froze like deer in front of a one-ton truck.

Still, they remembered the 'nothing that requires a doc' rule, so he couldn't kill them without breaking his word. He simply moved on after the fight was concluded.

Pausing his stride for a moment, he drew his gun and shot down an alley, turning a meatshit's head into rain. Don't shit in his alleyways, there were toilets for that. He pressed the button on the tracker and went on his way.

He looked at the meatbags, still giving him a wide berth on the streets, but not really surprised to see him roam around anymore. Most of them were unremarkable, and most wore what could be described as 'neon rags'. It was like a rainbow parade of bad fashion. Occasionally he saw bodysuits and armored jackets though, which was much more bearable. He hadn't kept up with fashion trends in years, if ever. He didn't need to know what it was called, he knew quality when he saw it. Most in the modern day clearly couldn't. Why not get optics that let you see how shit your styles were, meatbags?

…Uriel, make a note. See if we can get those made too.

Uriel chuckled and made the note.

It was then that he heard gunshots. Not a few gunshots. Many gunshots. He started running as fast as he could in the direction as Uriel checked the cameras in that direction.

There was a shootout happening. A bunch of fuckers with guns had rolled up to a group of Animals in his employ, in their little guardhouse next to his Arena. They started firing at everything in that direction. You motherfucking meatbags, he told you not to do this shit in his territory.

Uriel went to burn their chrome out.

…He couldn't interface with their chrome.

Adam activated his sandevistan, and continued running. These fuckers clearly had chrome, Uriel could see it through the cameras. Why the fuck couldn't he burn these fuckers to death. It wasn't like they had an ICE, Uriel's netspace hand just slipped right through them.

…His netspace hand. Uriel looked closer at their chrome, ignoring the bullets in slow motion. It was slightly bulkier than what he was used to seeing.

These fuckers had old-tech chrome installed. Modern-day chrome all used wireless connections to operate itself, to shave down on weight and internal complexity. It was easier to set up than doing it all with physical wires and whatnot, and often cheaper in material cost too. It was through those wireless connections that Uriel was able to interface with people's chrome the way he had been doing.

These fuckers were using the older style of chrome, twenty-forties or older. A bit more expensive, a bit harder to produce, but no wireless connections to abuse. Which meant immunity to quickhacking. His own frame was the same way, nothing except his wireless communications hardware could be hacked, and even that was backed up by his top-of-the-line Arasaka ICE. He had long since wondered why meatbags left themselves open with it.

On one hand, it was a pleasant surprise to see the meatfuckers finally realize what a vulnerability it was. On the other hand, it was fucking infuriating that he couldn't stop them from shooting up his employees right now. He had paid for those fuckers, they were wasting his goddamn investment right now.

As he ran, Uriel started checking the chrome of everyone in his range, to see how many of them were doing this already, without him noticing.

His sandevistan wore off, he kept running. It was nice to confirm his new speed in such a way, a smooth sixty-six miles per hour was nothing to scoff at. His feet strained the crete of the street, causing a noticeable crack with each step. Uriel made a note to get the road-crew to come fix this, he'd have to pay them overtime for it. How fucking irritating.

He turned the corner to see the armored van of fuckers about to drive off, not on his fucking watch. He activated his sandevistan again.

The world slowed to a crawl. His weapon wasn't big enough to take out that armored van. It was a big shotgun, but still just a shotgun. What could he use here?

…There was a motorcycle in the parking lot, a meatbag cowering behind it. He had a stupid-looking half-trimmed, half-top knot looking haircut. The motorcycle looked decently heavy, and it was the closest thing along the way.

He went wide as he ran up, grabbing the cycle as he approached the van and pulling it behind him. The meatbag started falling in slow motion behind him.

Getting close enough to ensure a good shot, he stomped and buried his heel in the crete. Twisting his entire body into the throw, he flung the motorcycle into the Armored Van. His sandevistan deactivated.

The motorcycle, propelled by the strength of his new frame, crashed into the armored van hard enough to send it into the air and fall over on its side, both vehicles being almost totally destroyed from the impact.

There was a tremendous boom and scream of metal when it happened. It was quite satisfying. Keeping his gun trained on the wreckage in case any meatbag decided to come crawling out, he pressed the button on the tracker. He looked over the scene.

A dozen upjumped little shits dead, the same amount or more of the Animals dead, and two totalled vehicles. Who the fuck let a fucking van into his territory? He was going to have to butcher a few fuckers when he found out who. Motorcycles and vendor carts were allowed near his arena, but that was fucking it.

He heard the yelp of surprise behind him, turning his head back he saw the meatbag pushing himself up and staring at him. Ah, right, he just used his motorcycle as an improvised weapon, didn't he?

"How much did it cost?"

The meatbag looked stupefied, frozen, and trying to process what had just happened. Adam didn't have any patience at the moment, so he repeated himself, letting his irritation seep into his voice.

"Your bike, meatbag. How much did it cost?"

The meatbag startled at that.

"Uh, twenty thousand?"

Adam grunted and wired him the appropriate amount, then turned his attention back to the vehicle. It didn't look like anyone was crawling out yet, but he was going to wait until his rent-a-cops and the ripperdocs got here. He had some fucking questions he needed them to answer.

They better hope the answer is satisfying.

—

Uriel had eventually gone through the camera footage to find where the van had entered his territory. The answer was through the fucking road. Not even disguised, just drove through after a brief chat and a substantial bribe to the guards at that checkpoint.

Those guards died screaming afterwards, his arms were going to be stained until he got the chance to powerwash them after his patrols today. That, and he had to call in the cleaners to pick up the chunks he beat them into.

Two fucking hours, having to deal with this horseshit. Staying at the site until his tremendously slow cops got to the scene to secure it, staying until the ripperdocs showed up and started stabilizing what meatbags were alive, following afterwards to interrogate the living meatbags that were in the van, interrogating them, finding who let them through, killing all involved very slowly to set an example to his workers.

It was a fucking time-sink on that end, now he had some questions for the ripperdocs. If these meatbags got their chrome installed from one of them, then he'll have a second data point to figure out what gang these fuckers came from. They had claimed Sixth Street while he was ripping fingers off, but information extracted under torture was unreliable at best.

He walked through the entrance of the ripperdoc guild base. Hall? House? It was where their legal operations were held, whatever the name for that was, he didn't care. He walked past the timid meatgirl with rabbit ears at the entrance desk, and the guards they had hired. They didn't try to stop him, which was good for them.

He walked through the hall until he got to the end, and opened the door. The meatdoc was in his office/operating room, and typing at his computer. He looked up and jumped a tad at seeing Adam in the entrance. He kept calm as he greeted him though.

"Ah, Smasher, you need something from me?"

"The meatbags in the bus, who installed their chrome?"

Meatdoc paused for a bit, and raised a brow. "...The ones from about two hours ago? They're still cataloging the chrome right now I think, I can call in and ask though."

Adam grunted and nodded. Meatdoc turned to the side and started a call.

"...Hey Missy, have you inventoried 12D-766 through 792 yet?"

"…Right, right, the ones who have gotten done, check their Serial for me."

"...Got it. Thanks Missy, you're a real sweetheart."

Meatdoc ended the call, and turned back to his computer, pulling up some sort of search engine and typing in a list of numbers and letters. Adam waited, quite patiently for how the day had been going thus far, for him to be done.

"...Right, it looks like the stock was distributed over to Rainwater and Ryder primarily." The doc paused and realized something, and looked over at Adam somewhat nervously. "Hey, you're not going to kill them are you? I can do some favors for you if it means you leave them alone."

Adam grunted, he doesn't murder every meatbag he comes across. "No, they didn't do jack shit. Just tell me where they operate."

The meatdoc looked relieved at that, and nodded. "Their shops are up in Watson." Adam noticed he wasn't told exact addresses, just general location. The meatdoc was trying to shield them in case he was lying. Didn't matter though, because he got the info he was looking for. Unfortunately, it only made things more confusing.

Westbrook was mostly Maelstrom territory, and they usually installed their own chrome with gang-only ripperdocs. That, and these meatbags didn't have nearly enough to be Maelstrom, not even close. The Mox were up there too, but somehow he doubted they would bother with this shit. They were small enough he could wipe them out in a weekend, so them doing this attack made no sense.

The Tyger Claws were nearby, but they and Maelstrom had a fairly long-standing 'murder on sight' policy outside of his territory. Them heading past Maelstrom territory to install chrome and then head down here to attack his men? Possible, but he doubted it. He didn't know the Tyger Claws had any particular grudge against him or the Animals. It was possible they were hired by an outside party though. He put them on the 'maybe' list.

Sixth Street was farther away, but still possible for all the same reasons that Tyger Claws was. He put them on the maybe list too. The Valentinos could have done it, but they were even farther away, and their boss probably wouldn't try antagonizing him again for quite a while. Uriel got a good sense of the old man when he was bothering his workers.

…Were there any gangs he was forgetting about? Maybe one of the countless minor fuckers. Upjumped little shits wanting to build a rep by attacking Adam Smasher's assets in his territory. He was also the Butcher of Arasaka. It was entirely possible these were independent meatbags who just happened to have a grudge against him.

He growled. They said Sixth Street while he was ripping them apart, so that was his best lead for now. If only he could go investigate. Ah, he was going to go do that right now! It wasn't like he was ordered to stay in Pacifica or anything! Goddamnit, he hated the fucker in the Tower.

He turned and walked away. Before he left, he paused at the doorway and half-turned back.

"When did the ripperdocs start offering wired chrome instead of wireless?"

The meatdoc raised a brow at this. "Kravitz started offering it a couple of weeks back, and they sold well enough. We started bulk orders and selling it as a pricier alternative about a week back."

A week, a solid week of not noticing this shit because Uriel was busy figuring out how to actually Netrun. He grunted and left, going to finish his patrol for the night, however little of it was actually left. He wasn't going to begrudge the meatbags for getting better chrome, but it sure would have been fucking nice to know ahead of time.

On the plus side, he expended only a little ammo