In the end, the damages to Pacifica were relatively minor compared to the rest of the city. The coast would need constant radiation scrubbing until the bay area was cleaned out (with no current estimate for how long that would take). Many of the buildings were suffering minor damages that could easily be repaired due to their prefabbed nature. It was relatively simple to take off that component, order a new one from Lego, and then slot in the new section of the building.

The two advantages prefabbed buildings had over traditional buildings were how fast they were to build and how easy they were to repair. In all other categories they fell hilariously short, which was fine, Adam didn't need them for anything other than cheap temporary housing right now. In fact, they could afford to slow down the production of new housing and instead dedicate workers and funding to other areas. The population dropping by another thousand or so overnight freed up much in the way of rooms, giving a temporary reprieve there.

That, and some of the deconstruction was accelerated as well with Adam knocking down no less than three buildings against the Stormfucker. That was the closest he's been to being a corpse since the nuke of 2023, he wasn't about to let that happen again, he was going to be ready for the next time. The first panzerbot was a threat, but he could handle it. The second panzerbot was a threat, but he had backup. The third panzerbot…

He had no guns, he had no backup, and the bot had an army. All he had to do to win was not be in that situation again. That meant a full stock of guns and backup. He snorted as Uriel smugly radiated within his frame, a grin on his otherwise featureless face. Yeah, yeah, recruiting the boy was a good idea with these fuckers coming out of the woodwork. Whether or not they would have regardless was irrelevant, because he didn't live in a world where they stayed the fuck away from him. He lived in this world, that was all that mattered.

…speaking of staying the fuck away from him, he glared at the catgirl on the rooftop to his side. She flinched and fled. Keep your fucking pets in line, bitch. The old DangerGal building had been destroyed by what he was sure was a very reasonable mob of meat. They had paid for a lot of land in Pacifica, and their new building was going up as he walked back. It was unfortunate that he needed all the funding for the territory that he could get, otherwise he would have shot the fucker who came with the offer in the face.

Now he had to deal with pests in his territory, fucking great. He got back to walking towards the HQ with the brats in tow.

Tomorrow, he was going up to the techie and telling him to update his frame. He had some ideas for how to do that, but that would be later. Yorinobu wanted him present for some sort of meeting, so he'd do it after that.

It wasn't a surprise that he had received the message from Saburo telling him that he was to treat Yorinobu as the primary contract holder for the next six months, the old man had told him that he was doing that a while ago. It was just something to do. He'd see how the kid ends up, and if he becomes his new contract holder, then so be it.

He was in this business for the murder, chrome, and eddies. In that order.

He let his optics sweep across the streets as he walked on. The ripperdocs are now practically untouchable these days, because attacking any one of them means losing the services of almost all the ripperdocs in the city. No one went after the people who installed everyone's chrome, and so long as they stayed out of conflicts only the most deranged meatbags went for them. They were practically feasting with all the corpses full of chrome that was being brought to them.

It was standard practice at this point, the ripperdocs practically becoming pseudo-scavs. They wouldn't shank you for your chrome, but they would give a decent payout to anyone who brought a corpse for them to pick clean. Of course some meatbags would take advantage of this, killing low lives and just hauling them off to the docs for the extra cash.

What those meatbags didn't know was that it was standard practice to log those encounters, and cooperate with those that came looking for their dead comrades. They were a neutral organization after all, they had to be in order to operate like they did. That, and their stronghold was firmly in his territory, which was an established no-go zone for gang warfare outside of the Arena.

That arena was Uriel's best idea yet. It made him a shit ton of funding, and kept all the fights to it instead of the rest of his territory, it also made him something of an established neutral as well. If you go to Pacifica and start shit, Adam Smasher would kill you, irregardless of affiliations. But, for only ten eddies a pop, you and whoever you had a grudge with could go into the arena and beat the shit out of each other to the roar of the crowd and the promise of reward money. It became a place for gangs to meet and hold discussions with the promise of both sides walking away mostly unscathed.

Pacifica was still a shithole, but at least a small and growing chunk of it was a relatively safe shithole. Safety meant that his workforce died less frequently. Fewer deaths means faster production and growth. Faster production meant being stronger. Strength was the most important thing in the world.

The supreme principle that governs life was violence, the capacity to inflict it and the capacity to endure it, everything else was secondary.

He grunted as they approached the HQ, which was as menacingly dark as it ever had been. There were bloodstains all around that the cleaners hadn't gotten to, and it made for a pleasant aesthetic contrast. The stains were rust-red, and were splashed about the scrap-metal planters that various meatbags in his territory set up for the beans and potatoes.

…Can you water plants with blood? Questions for later.

He walked past the perimeter Arasaka security, followed by the brat, the girl, the smaller girl, the woman, the brat's friend, and the third girl…

What was a good label for this one? He mulled on it idly as they continued walking inside. Young Arasaka security agent, short cropped orange hair, excited and rambly…

He couldn't think of anything. He turned his head and glared at her. She suddenly froze in place, as did the rest of them.

"Name?"

Nervously, she replied. "Lily Shepard, sir."

…Flowergirl would do. He turned back and continued through the hall until he came to the still-broken door. Oops, he'll have to put in a work-order to fix that later. By him, he meant Uriel would do it right now, of course. Uriel grumbled in his head, but pulled up the relevant contact details and sent a message. It would have been an E-mail back in the day, but these days it was called something different that he didn't know and he didn't care to learn. He was close to a hundred years old, he was going to call things whatever the fuck he wanted to.

He made a note to update the names for the rest of them, just to make sure they still fit. It had been a while since he has had to deal with others long enough for that to happen. They piled inside, the small girl letting the meatbeast down from her arms to let it scamper around the rooms again, fucking rat-creature in his house.

They made noises of relief and exaggerated 'we're back!'s as they dropped their luggage bags and fell onto couches. The brat's friend practically fell onto a chair, his limbs barely holding on as he did. He had walked from the hospital on fresh chrome, which wasn't half-bad for a meatbag, though that made sense because he was now a half-meat. Adam made a note to come up with a better label for that one.

He paused for a second. He tossed the idea around for a moment or two, and made a decision. He messaged Rogue.

'Is Afterlife open?'

After several minutes, there was a reply.

'Yeah, what about it?'

'Bringing the kids to visit. A reward for them.'

Having explained it, he closed the screen.

It was basic psychology. When meatbags do something you like, you reward them. They were like dogs, which made sense because psychology as a field had not advanced since Pavlov. Everyone after has been a shameless fraud. Making up conditions so they could diagnose meat with them and then offer 'treatments'. Treatments that, oh so unfortunately, could not be free of course.

What a worthless profession. Aloud, he announced :

"Get cleaned and dressed, brats."

The smaller girl spoke up. "What?! We just got here Big Guy!"

He grunted, don't talk back to him girl. "Do you want to go to Rogue's little club or not?" he asked, semi-sarcastically. There was a pause, and then a burst of activity as the brats rushed to clean up the sweat and get into clean clothes. He made sure that they were freshened up each time before they went out, he wasn't about to have his rep damaged by association to people who smelled like so many by-product chemicals.

His own clean up was relatively simple. A wet coarse rag, a bucket of water and orange scented cleaner, and fifteen minutes of scrubbing. His Gemini was relatively easy to maintain that way. He cleaned himself off, and walked off to get dressed. Then, after he was dressed, he walked off to get his weapons.

With Jun dead, the standing order to withhold his armory was rescinded, and the haulers have already brought the storage crate back to him. All his guns and ammo, now returned to where they belong. It was a good feeling to have all his wonderful bullets back.

He decided on taking the Ol' Borg Rifle again, and grabbed a few spare magazines as he waited for the brats to get ready. He raised a brow as they assembled. The half-meat was apparently coming along. Meh, fine by him, he didn't care who they brought.

Then, all of them assembled, they began the long march to Afterlife. His car couldn't fit them all, no point in taking it.

There were stares and wide berths as they marched down the streets, and no shortage of talking. This would normally be indistinguishable over the sounds of all the emergency services in the city being dispatched to various minor catastrophes, but his sensors were more than good enough to pick them all out if he wanted to waste his time on that. He didn't though, so it was a moot point.

Uriel estimated that the next few years were likely to be a golden age for Arasaka. Between the sympathy they can milk from the public, and payments in damages and legal cases from corporations and governments, they were about to have a massive amount of soft influence. Saburo was certainly going to wield it like a sword, knowing the old man. Already there were talks of suing the national bank of Switzerland, and extracting damages from Militech for them 'somehow' losing a Militech Carrier Nuke.

Amusingly, that type of weapon was nicknamed the 'McNuke'.

How exactly these proceedings would go, he didn't know or particularly care, but a good merc makes note of these sorts of things. Most relevant to him in specific, was that last night killed off most of the most ardent anti-arasaka meatbags in Night City, and then immediately won over sympathy with the second attempted nuking of the Tower.

To get ahead of any potential accusations of detonating the nuke themselves, Yorinobu released the full footage of Kagekaze's duel with Shaitan to the Net. Revealing that Kagekaze was a dumbass who didn't know how delicate nukes were. He had outright groaned when he saw that. Kage could have just punched a couple times and disabled the thing. It was almost embarrassing to watch.

He shook his head as they approached the entrance of Afterlife, ignoring the stares and whatnot as they walked past the exterior bouncer and into the smelly, dimly-lit, place of drinking shitty and cheap alcohol. It was a bar, after all, and all bars were like this.

The place was pretty packed tonight, and the half-meat's legs finally gave out on him as he sat down on a bench. As was tradition, he waved the brats off and walked back to the corner of the bar to sit and drink fruity garbage. Rogue stood up as he approached, causing him to glare in suspicion.

She gave him a searching look, then took a deep breath.

"Follow me to the back." She demanded and began to walk off. Fucking woman, don't give him orders. He obliged her by following regardless, she probably had to give him info covertly. It had been weeks since he's been here. He walked past meatbags doing jobs of some kind, he didn't care.

She held open the door of the last room, and he stepped inside. It was a bedroom.

…Wait a minute. He turned to see her shut the door and shrug off her jacket, she gave a glance over her bare shoulder at him. She gave an expectant look, and spoke in an annoyed tone.

"Are you going to get that off, or am I going to have to do everything myself?"

…This bitch. He closed the distance in one step, and loomed over her. She flinched minutely at that, and internally he grinned. You don't get to boss him around, woman. In one instant, he took back the reins of this little get together.

He picked her up, to which she gasped and startled over, walked over, and slammed her on the bed. Pinning her weak, meat arms above her head, he leaned in close enough for his breath to warm her face.

"I'll get it off when I want to."

The double-speak here was obvious. She squirmed under his grip at that, eyes widened and face slightly flushed. With one move and one sentence, the momentum was firmly back where it belonged, with him. Now then, what would be a good next step here?

She reached up and kissed him, something he wasn't expecting. He almost flinched in surprise, before growling and deepening it, pushing her head down into the mattress. She growled back into the liplock and got her legs around his hips, pulling their still-clothed groins together. He could have pulled back, but he wasn't about to retreat.

Alright then, she wasn't going down without a fight, huh? Better prey than most.

He maneuvered her hands together over her head, and held them in place with one of his own. With one hand now free, he brought it down to squeeze her hip. She moaned angrily at that, and continued as he began to knead it with just the right amount of pressure.

Showing more dexterity than he was expecting, she kicked off her shoes and began to unbuckle his pants with her feet. Simultaneously, she bit his lip just hard enough for him to feel it. He let it continue, he had more endurance than she ever could. But it would be more fun to give her just a bit of hope that she could come out on top here before crushing that hope entirely.

Managing to unbuckle his pants entirely, she began to grind against his groin and broke the kiss.

Flushed and defiant, she spoke up to him. "What? Can't get it up? I heard they make treatments for that now."

He glared down. "You bitch."

He let the mental hold he had on his frame's automatic response system go, something she clearly noticed from how she rubbed against it. They were still dressed, he was going to have to correct that.

Keeping her pinned, he loosened his hold on her hip, which caused her to relax a tad from the released tension. With one hand he undid the buckle on her own pants, and then reached around. He let his palm rub against her backside as he slid it down. He could cup one of her cheeks in one palm, she let out a little panicked sound when she realized that.

Hooking a finger around the rim of her pants, he pulled it down her legs and forced her thighs upwards, letting her feet rest against his shoulders. Now she was pinned partially by her own tight jeans, she squirmed against this, but couldn't do anything. Between her arms being held in place above her head, and legs bound together and set against his shoulders, she couldn't move from her position easily.

"You asshole…" She muttered huskily. Her glare was contradicted by her flushed features.

She was wearing a black garter belt and panties underneath. How classy. He began stripping himself leisurely, his victory was already assured here, he could afford to play with his food a bit. Careful to keep her stuck with her groin slightly elevated, he proceeded slowly.

Jacket, vest, shoes, pants. He removed his shirt halfway, before changing which arm was pinning her hands to get it off completely. He could have gotten right to the feast, but that was no fun. Instead, he began stripping her somewhat more, starting with the top, of course.

Popping one button at a time, he deprived her of her vest to reveal a very slight amount of fabric that constituted her bra. Feeling vindictive, he decided to simply tear this off and throw it to the side.

"You fucker!" She growled at him, struggling to raise her groin to meet his. He kept just out of reach for now. His superior size afforded him many advantages, this was simply one of the more fun ones.

He decided that she would keep the pants for now. It kept her legs conveniently stuck together, helpful for his utter victory. He grinned down at the cougar he had trapped, who had not ceased her movements this entire time.

"Are you going to get it off, or am I going to have to do everything myself?" He mockingly asked. She glared at him and strained harder. Well then, time for the next step in their little dance. Time to heighten the stakes.

He gave a hard slap to her rear, and she tensed up and gasped. He grinned, and reached down to hook a finger around her garterbelt and pull down until he reached her panties, then pulled it down at the same time. He let them join her jeans in holding her legs together. He reached down and slid a finger across her entrance. She strained even harder, her legs pressing together and thighs rubbing. Her glare faltered for a brief moment, and she bit her lip to stay quiet.

Well that wouldn't do. Torturously, he began a slow and methodical stroking. She kept her lip between her teeth, resisting the urge to make a reaction and let him win. She was in denial of the fact that he had already won.

Letting his middle finger pause for a moment. Her eyes widened as she realized what was about to happen. It was too late, however.

He slid his middle finger in to the knuckle in one smooth motion, and she let out a panicked moan. He wasn't done though, bringing his finger back slowly, curling it to scrape against her most sensitive cluster of nerves.

That did it. Finally unable to resist it anymore, her legs shook as she shut her eyes and let out a pleased set of whimpers. Step two was completely, time to move onto step three. Pulling back, he licked his finger clean absentmindedly, and waited just long enough for her to recover some senses.

She looked up to him, sweat on her brow, and was about to say something. He cut her off by letting the underside of his cock press against her groin. Her sentence collapsed into a sensitive groan.

Suddenly, she clicked her tongue and proceeded with her own attempt at wrestling back the momentum. She undulated her hips to rub against him in just the right way. He grunted, caught off guard. She bared her teeth smugly up at him. He snorted, this wasn't enough to win here, cougar. You were still firmly in his trap.

He slid himself between her thighs all the way forwards, letting her see it for the first time. She tensed and gulped, and he huffed triumphantly. Slowly, he brought his hips back, and thrust them forwards, gently fucking her thighmeat in a prelude to what he was about to to. Her eyes were locked down there as he did, seeing exactly how far he went up her abdomen.

He made sure to rub the underside of it against her, something that she reluctantly enjoyed immensely judging from her glare, unsteady breathing, and clenching legs.

He pulled all the way back. She looked up at him with an expression split between arousal and frustration.

"Y-you fucker… W-what are you waiting for?"

He grinned meanly.

"I win."

He buried himself to the hilt inside of her. Something that she gave an unhindered moan over, throwing her head to the side and shutting her eyes. He rolled his hips in that position, enjoying her squirms briefly before pulling back, angling upwards by moving his hips down slightly, and thrust back inside. He made sure to rub against the top the entire way in, and out.

In and out.

In and out.

At some point, the brats messaged him. He messaged back that they were to head home without him. He was busy.

At some point, she lost the rest of her clothing.

At some point, their fingers intertwined.

They didn't get done for a while.