Maelstrom held the majority of the Northside Industrial District of NC. Nearly one third of Watson was firmly within their territory, and they had reinforced it greatly over the years. Every dumpster reinforced with extra plates of old steel, every wall layered with sandbags, every abandoned building turned into a safehouse, every side-tunnel underneath turned into routes and passageways between different sections of their territory, and filled with equipment besides.
Inside these urban bunkers were rows and rows of pilfered or crudely assembled generators, powered by the rushing of sewer water, hooked up to filtration plants, hooked up to abandoned warehouses filled with bags of imperishable foods and crude hydroponics. Every net-system and datafortress within the territory was something they had a backdoor into, a way to observe anyone from anywhere if they were properly motivated.
The strommers themselves had the most chrome per ganger in the entire city, and were up there on the international charts too. They were kept lean, hungry, and mean, ready to murder any meatboy who decides to fuck around in their territory. The main Maelstrom hideout in the old All Foods was another sign of their ultimate self-reliance, a reminder to everyone in the gang that they were on their own, and no one else in the world was going to give them shit.
Maelstrom is a gang that was hated by everyone else in NC, they only managed to survive and even thrive due to scraping and clawing for every advantage. Snapping up any meal like hungry dogs, and fighting off anyone who tries to mess with them to the death.
That's the core philosophy that Maelstrom operated on, and Brick was a gonk-fucking retard shithead dumbass motherfucker for not realizing he was trying to bite off what he couldn't fucking chew.
They had boys with the most chrome. Some of their boys were even fucking AI now. This was a considerable advantage, and if they stayed patient, laid low, and continued to build up quietly like they had been doing for fucking years, it would only further reinforce their position. They would become even harder to dislodge from NC, and thus have more time to build up. Logistics in a fucking prepack shell.
Brick had looked at all their shiny new advantages, urged on by that SECOND AI he decided to summon up, and promptly decided that Maelstrom was going to gobble up all of Watson.
Watson had the most water separating it from any other part of NC. The only real ways in were either right through reinforced Maelstrom territory along the land, over the various bridges leading into the area, or through the now thoroughly-irradiated waters of the bay.
Four main bridges, a dozen or so smaller bridges, each one vulnerable to a few dozen pounds of plastic explosives that Maelstrom had tucked away, or one of their boys with an auto grenade-launcher, or one of the many other big booms they had stored away. Give their boys some speedware and the bridges all go down within the same minute. That leaves irradiated sea or Maelstrom territory land.
Brick forgot that travel by air was fucking easy apparently. Godfucking shitfuck gonk retard fucker. Real smart fucking move there Brick, you retard, you forgot that fucking air travel exists you goddamn moron.
In terms of local resistance they would have to quash to take the territory over completely, it wasn't too bad. Mostly fleshies, a few fleshie fixers, and the Mox. All of those were easy enough to handle. The NCPD wasn't too bad, but the MaxTac might prove to be an issue. Still, Strommers had more than enough boys with speeware and big guns to take them out at this point, and their new AI boys would be able to handle the hacking shit.
Who else was in Watson? Oh yeah, that's right.
FUCKING TRAUMA TEAM TOWER! ARASAKA WATERFRONT! AFTERLIFE BAR!
FUCK! BRICK! YOU GOD FUCK FUCKY FUCK SHIT FUCK!
….
He took a deep breath to calm himself down.
Fucking Brick.
In his gonkass words, the strommers didn't have to win, they just had to make themselves more trouble to clear out than to negotiate with. A nice little idea planted in his head by that Lilith.
Brick forgot that everyone in NC wanted them fucking flatlined apparently, and that this would make it about ten times worse.
Brick had told them his plans beforehand, and the moment he did he and Dum-Dum were plotting. Plotting, and whispering into the ears of some of the smarter boys, the ones that knew to keep quiet.
The moment Brick called the attack on? He, Dum-Dum, and a full half of Maelstrom left NC in all their various vehicles and with as much essential supplies as they could carry. They looted the shit out of their own holdings, and immediately left. Brick wasn't going to get any fucking help from them on this elaborate suicide.
The attack will happen, then the various corporations will decide that Maelstrom doesn't need to exist anymore, and a full purge will be conducted in their old territory. Maelstrom wouldn't be a thing in NC.
Fuck that shit then.
Maelstrom would survive. If they couldn't stay in NC, then they would have to leave. Now the diplomatic part of the job was on him.
In a caravan of 700 or so Maelstromers packed into dozens of cars, trucks, and similar, he rode near the front. He was in the flatbed of a pickup truck, riding out to the last known location of a Nomad group.
They didn't have anything left anymore, so they would need to be… diplomatic.
And by they, they meant him, because no one else in this fucking gang can talk to fuckers apparently. His boys were gonkasses. Gonkasses that he was somehow supposed to keep alive as fucking nomads now. He didn't know jackshit about being a fucking nomad.
Fucking Brick.
His optics could see the Nomad camp, right about a kilometer out. Nice and bright on his thermographics. He got up on the moving truck, grabbing onto the roof for stability, and raised a hand into the air.
Slowly, all the Strommer cars slowed down to a halt, only about an hour out of NC, and a few minutes away from the NC Aldecaldos nomad pack.
His boys now stopped, he opened up a radio line and began broadcasting a continuous beeping in that direction, waiting for a pick-up. Soon enough, a pick-up he got.
"This is the NC Aldecaldos Pack. What do you want?" The voice sounded just a little standoffish, annoyed at having to answer the radio. Alright fucker, he'd give you a fucking wakeup.
"I am the leader of the breakaway Maelstromers. I have 114 vehicles filled with guns, supplies, and chrome junkies about a kilometer and a half to your west."
There wasn't a reply for a while, eventually, a different voice called over the radio back at him.
"This is Saul Bright, leader of the NC Aldecaldos Pack. We see you. What the fuck do you want?" the voice sounded threatened, tense, nervous.
Royce grinned maliciously, yeah, you better take him fucking seriously.
"To negotiate."
—
The modern day NET was a series of net-cities interconnected, protected by the immense Black-ICE that was the Blackwall, and with lines stretching for miles to other cities out in the wildernet. Before the 2030s it was primarily a series of ravaged and tangled connections built on the backbones of fiber-optic connections. These fiber-optic lines would connect to dataterms, a prospective netrunner would have their neural interfaces interface with said dataterms, and they would enter the NET as data-selves.
In a very real way, they left their crude matter behind as they traveled an unseen world. A world of glittering connections and stars of code, interfaced with their mind and console. Former runners would often scrap and claw at the walls of their rented sleeping-capsule, reaching for keyboards that weren't there.
It was a beautiful world, a free world, a world of information and connections. A world where your mind was all you needed to do anything. It was a world that was unfortunately encroached upon by control-hungry corporations and governments, and then destroyed by the furious genius of the greatest netrunner to ever live.
The old connections were warped and tangled. It was he who set down the foundations of the NET once more.
He was UR, founder and CEO of Ziggurat, the corporation responsible for the creation and maintenance of the lines of communication that comprised the new NET, the NET that was guarded by the Blackwall. He was the father of the modern NET.
It was his corporation that recreated the NET in America, and then further beyond, spreading until it was a global entity once more. Though some parts of this process was trickier than others, he had eventually done what he had set out to do during the 2030s so long ago. He had dragged up an ordered NET from the wildernet, and his word was law within its boundaries.
It was his AI that roamed the NET to aid the people of the world. It was his applications that their internal agents utilized. It was his chatApp that the lonely spoke to. It was his searchApp that they relied upon for information. His mail service, his editing suite, his Garden.
The Garden, the one-stop shop for all of one's social media requirements. He leased out a small patch to each and everyone in the world who paid the tiny fee, and they managed it for him. The beautiful array of colors and personalities displayed on his temples of marble.
The NET was his Garden. He was the King of the NET. It was a position that he greatly enjoyed.
From a tower overlooking a good portion of Night City, he sat, drinking a very nice cup of tea. He liked tea, he adored tea, it was a wonderful drink for any occasion.
Night City was where he had gotten his start so long ago, they had funded his ambitious plan to rebuild the City-Net, and when it worked they had given him the leverage he needed for more capital, for more expansion, to rebuild the world's NET in artistic splendor.
It was him that Netwatch came to, to ask permission to establish the Blackwall.
It was him that the Vatican so desperately tried to avoid with their silly little TempleNET.
It was him who ruled the NET.
He sat in the center of his private tower. A monolithic pyramid-spire that reached into the heavens. His floor at the top could rotate with his commands, and the windows contained any and all visual arrays that he could possibly desire.
From his private floor, he could look out and see all of Night City, in both reality and virtuality, at any zoom, in any spectrum of light, with any thermographic array…
The all-seeing eye of UR.
God once spoke saying "I Am he who is I Am."
God once spoke to him saying, "You Are he who is You Are."
You Are.
U-R.
He was the architect of the Ziggurat, a temple to his God.
He quirked an elfin brow and twitched an equally elfin ear at the explosions that rang out in realspace. Letting his tower twist to look over at where it had come from, he zoomed in the sensors with a thought as he sipped his tea.
The bridges of Watson were falling. How interesting.
He opened his mind to Watson, and let his pet commune with him. It knew all that had occurred within its boundaries, for it was its boundaries. All that transpired within were known to it, and thus known to him. Shifting through the last few weeks of data, his mind turned over the information steadily.
…
He started to chuckle, slowly at first, but building in tempo and acceleration until he could hardly control his uproarious laughter.
Maelstrom had delivered such a wonderful opportunity to him, it must be divine providence, his God had arranged for this no doubt!
A small test for what his God had planned was in order, this opportunity was too good to pass up now that he had the perfect scapegoat upon his plate.
He took another sip of his tea, and watched the chaos unfold. It wasn't quite time for him to proceed with such of course, that would come at an appropriate moment. When Maelstrom was suffering setbacks in their little scheme, when they could feasibly be called 'threatened' by an outsider, then would he unleash it.
The cleanup was sure to be expensive, but he wouldn't have to pay for anything. They would pay him to correct this damage once it was all said and done.
That, and this seemed like it would be excellent practice for his daughter. He sent a message to a servitor, telling them to get her battledeck ready.
Upon a tower in the center of Night City, the King of the Net watched over a district he planned to destroy.
They were within his court, he couldn't wait to see them dance.
—
Miles away from Night City.
A caravan of Nomads began to approach, a mere six hours away at their current speed.
Vincent Martinez stared into the horizon, knowing from the various reports that things had already accelerated into chaos in Night City.
It would be time soon enough.
Time for his modest little plan to come together.
When he was close enough, he'd give the signal, Falco would do the rest.
After that? It was all up to David.