It had been four days since he killed the dragon, and the boy still hadn't been found yet. Four fucking days of mapping out these goddamn tunnels, and systematically eliminting potential routes, aided by a task force of Arasaka agents who came to secure the site. This was technically a breach of the NUSA treaty that forbid Arasaka from openly operating within NUSA territory, fortunately, as Arasaka had no way to hold any of these tunnels alone (at least, not profitably) the files on operating Underground Railroad were simply given to the NUSA as a bribe.

They wouldn't stop them from searching, as they had tunnels through their entire country to now look for, and a map of those tunnels were invaluable. There were probably going to be repercussions for Metacorp because of this, but he couldn't give less of a shit right now. A party that isn't the government or directly controlled by the government drilling miles of strategic weakness into your bedrock? This was the kind of thing that wars were declared over.

It had been four hours since the old man had arrived in Night City, Kujira docked just off the coast and forces waiting to deploy. Apparently he was setting up an event of some kind, and wanted Adam to attend. While frustrating, the golden hour had already passed. Finding the boy now was going to be a matter of endurance, not pace. He was going to pulp the crafty fucker who thoughthey could get away with this. He knew that they were nearby, watching his movements, because that shipping fortress was perfectly designed to waste his goddamn time.

The dragon bought enough time for reasonable doubt to enter about the kids location. The tunnels were the perfect time waster, because he couldn't be absolutely sure they weren't used. If his hunch was right though, the kid absolutely wasn't on any of those trucks. The kid was somewhere in Night City, all they had to do is make sure no fucker left NC without being searched first, and they'd find him eventually.

Difficult, but not impossible. They still had a lot of goodwill left over from turning Pacifica into a not-shithole, Nightcorp could be convinced to cooperate with that and a few promises to fix up more of the shithole parts of Night City. Probably. Politics was a pain in the ass, it's why he usually didn't bother.

The old man told him to come back in six hours. Thirty minutes to run back to Night City, that left him with one hour and thirty minutes left to search today. Tomorrow he'd put out a bounty for the kid, and start looking in Night City itself, leaving these tunnels to the grunts. The mercs had already been paid and dismissed, they had done their parts of the job in clearing out the other locations, no need to waste his time managing the meatbags anymore.

That left him, the brats, and the grunts to look through the tunnels. The brats were all near him, within sandevistan range. He wasn't about to let another one of the fuckers get klept, that would be a goddamn embarrassment. If it happened again, he was going to murder everything he saw until the old man told him to stop.

It had been one hour since he started heading back for the entrance of the tunnels. The kids had been operating in shifts, with a temporary camp set up on the surface for them to rest and retreat to whenever their shift ended. He didn't bother using it. He had been clearing out tunnels for the last four days.

He had almost forgotten how much he hated searching missions. Usually they were search and destroy, but search and retrieve sometimes didn't even have the satisfaction of annihilating something at the end of the job. Just look until you find it, murder whatever was guarding it (if anything), and bring it back.

He preferred the jobs where he got a ride to the target, got to slaughter everything in a three-block radius, and got a ride back. Those were the best.

He was nearing the surface now, almost out to start getting ready to go back. Uriel was charging the Gemini, keeping note of any messages from outside, watching Blueberry and Bowlcut as they rested for their upcoming shifts. Behind him, Spares, the woman, and the girl walked. Their faces were grim and ugly, and their brows furrowed in frustration. He knew that the girl was staying up late, searching the net for signs of the brat. He knew that the woman was crying herself to sleep for the past couple nights. Both were irritating.

They'd get the brat back, they'd kill this Vincent fucker and patch the boy up, then the'd move on. Worst comes to worst they boy would be back as a construct, it certainly didn't seem to bother the woman, so it would be fine. Humans were annoyingly overdramatic. At least Spares wasn't reacting before focusing on the mission.

He stepped onto the temporary elevator platform the grunts had built, and broadcast a message.

'Uriel, updates?'

His memories once again linked up with Uriel's. He clenched a fist at what he discovered.

A message from the fucking cats.

A message saying they found the boy. A tip off a few hours ago, a quiet and immediate investigation, and confirmation of his presence fifteen minutes ago.

The fucking cats.

He audibly growled, alerting the brats on the elevator with him. His horns were swiveled backwards at the current moment, letting him see the expressions on their faces from their mounted optics.

"Get ready to move out once we reach the surface, you have five minutes." He snarled out, not turning around to face them. He instead watched the pattern of stone swivel and twist as they rose out of the hole that he had been in for the last few days.

Slowly, suspicion and realization began to grow on the face of the woman and the girl. He continued to explain as they ascended.

"The brat has been found. We are going straight there, we are going to murder everything in sight, got it?"

""Got it."" The voices of the woman and girl called out, glares on their faces growing into fierce expressions. Their backs straightened up, their own fists clenched, their teeth ground.

"Affirmative." Spares spoke, just as calm as she always was.

On the surface, Uriel was telling the other two the same thing. After he did that, he began to run the numbers of speed real quick.

What was better, the consistent speed of the Kuma, or the running speed of his frames? He stepped off the platform and moved to the camp. The woman and girl ran past him to get ready faster, but Spares remained dutifully beside him as he stomped past gangs of working grunts. She didn't have much other than weapons to grab anyways.

The fucking cats found the kid. Note to self, kill the next cat he saw, just to even the score. One quick fucking stomp on it's dumbass cat head, turn it into fucking pulp.

Goddamn cats.

Brat was going to train until his myomer snapped for this bullshit. Getting kidnapped by some fucking rando.

…Well… Not just some rando. Uriel had checked it after they first heard his name.

Vincent. Name means 'Prevailing', or 'Victorious' according to some Patch on the NET that cared about stupid shit like that.

The Prevailing V.

This was him. This was the meatfucker. The timeline lined up, the motive in the original future lined up. His apparent abilities to screw him over lined up. Everything lined up.

If he killed this meatfucker, all he would have to do is wait a year. The brats would fuck off after the year ended in a few more months. He and Uriel wouldn't have to worry about this shit anymore, and he could go back to not having to deal with meat in his rooms.

The five minutes were up, he stomped over to the edge of the little camp, seeing them beginning to load up their gear on the Kuma. Uriel, what did the speed difference come out to be?

'Running is faster.'

He thought so.

He couldn't carry them, the sudden accelerations and decelerations of constant sandevistan use over the course of the trip would turn their organs into slurry. He should know, Arasaka once lost an exec that day. He was glad for it, the smug bastard wasn't cowering enough when talking to him.

"Bowlcut, here's the address, distribute it." He grumbled out, making sure the kid had it before stomping over to the edge of the camp. He rolled his shoulders as Uriel stepped up on his knee before grabbing onto the DaiOni's collar armor. Uriel turned back and spoke to the assembled brats rushing to get in the Kuma and start moving.

"Try to keep up brats."

There was no need to worry about them, really. He was going to get there long before them, and he wasn't in his Dragoon right now. He was in the DaiOni. There wasn't anything any meatbag in existence could do to hurt him right now.

Getting into a runner's crouch, he estimated the travel time again, and broke out into a sprint. His sandevistan activating, a one-ton and some change warmachine exploded forwards at close to five-hundred miles per hour. His mere running left a line of destroyed earth and dust clouds.

He was looking forward to getting a proper layer of gore on his armor. It was about damn time.

—

The world hadn't gotten better while he had been dead. His message had gotten out there, loud and clear. The bomb had gone off, it shook the world with its repercussions, and the ivory towers nearly fell down. The world was just a single good push away from getting rid of those corporate bastards.

And no one did a thing. They just sat back, and let the corps quietly accumulate again. He would've killed for a chance like that while he was alive, he would have sang cities into frenzies and broke all their shiny toys under the weight of the bodies. Bringing power back where it belonged, in the hands of the people.

The world hadn't gotten better while he had been dead, it had only gotten worse. That was a pretty clear sign of what he had to do. If he wanted something done, he had to do it himself. The world had fallen under darkness, and no one would do a thing.

No one except him it seemed.

Alt had caught him up to speed on what had been going on since he had died in Arasaka Tower. The NC Holocaust they called it. The banishment of Arasaka, The Time of Red, The Blackwall, the Unification Wars…

The disappearance of Morgan Blackhand, the success of Rogue's Afterlife, the new Legends of Night City, Eurodyne's new corporate handlers and sanitized tunes, Smasher's new apprentice and marketing…

There was a lot that had gone on since he had died. Most of it was pissing him off, to be honest. Somewhere along the way, these gonks started pretending that being a Legend meant dying for the sake of dying. The other gonks decided that they'd prefer to be sheeple, pumped and dumped by whatever corporations came around.

And not a goddamn one of them were even trying to bring down the fuckers who put the world in chains. Not a single one of them was trying to stop the corporate machines. When did they give up on trying to fight? When they just accept it all? The whole world was dying and they just shrugged their shoulders and pretended to not see the sickness in it all.

He clenched a fist, and stared at the Malorian spinning around in his other hand. He reached up, and pulled down the Samurai 'Oni' mask that he klept out of some corporate store.

He stood up, turned on the walkman around his neck, and began to step in tune with his old songs. Walking forwards at a steady pace, around the corner, out from an alley, and then straight ahead.

In front of him loomed a tower. He paused on the road, and simply stared at it in thought.

No one wants to tear down the corporate system? That's fine, he'd just have to do it himself. He gave Arasaka a black eye with just one silver hand back in the day. He had far more than just a single hand now.

Alt's presence filled his mind once more, soothing warmth settling on his shoulders like a cloak.

'The ship out in the bay brought the Shogun over. Saburo Arasaka on the top floor right now.' She whispered to him, a beautiful voice coming from a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman with many grudges against Arasaka, for everything they did to her.

He wanted to tear down the corporate system, and Fate agreed. He rolled his shoulders, ignored the stares from the civvies around him, and readied himself.

'You ready Alt?'

'I'm ready, Johnny.'

He turned his walkman up as high as it could go, Samurai blasting through the streets, letting people know exactly what he intended. In one hand, he held the Malorian, in the other hand, he held a Monokatana. Secured in his thigh, he carried The Gun.

He activated his sandevistan, and cracked the asphate with his running.

Straight towards Arasaka Tower. All the way to the top. Those branches were taking up all the sunlight, they were pissing him off.

Like hell he was going to let the world stay in the corporate shadow. Singing didn't do anything last time, it was time to do the killing himself. All he had to do was get through all of Arasaka first.

Easy as pie, he had an Angel on his shoulders.

As he ran forwards, Alt reached out and bypassed the tower's net security for its outer layers.

The great symbol of Arasaka emblazoned on the front of the tower shimmered, and the face of a chromed oni burned its way on, covering the logo almost entirely.

Bend it backwards until it breaks.

Capacitors roaring inside my brain.

Agent of chaos and discontent.

I'm gonna take out the corporate man.

—

Much to his frustration, he was only able to hold off the prying eyes of DangerGal for a few hours. Not long enough to get everything done, not nearly long enough. He had to delay for another hour or so at minimum.

It would take Adam Smasher at least twenty minutes to get here, the best time to intercept him would be in the badlands. That was just about his only chance for success here, and it was a non-optimal outcome at that. He was fortunate that Saburo didn't recall Smasher for a few hours after arriving, but there shouldn't have been anything to tip DangerGal off.

He tried going over everything he knew, every detail he had, and couldn't come up with anything.

Pure dumb luck. He was screwed over by something he had no information on yet again. That was fine, he would just have to adapt.

"Continue working, let no one inside until after you're done." He commanded the Technomancers, one of whom idly nodded as they continued their work.

He grabbed his gun and walked out of the building, stopping just inside the doorway to prevent the sniper with the sleep darts from getting a good shot on him. He took a moment to look down at the chip in his hand.

The chip that they had pulled out of his son's brain while working on it.

An Arasaka chip, installed months ago during some sort of operation in which the cheek was shattered open. It wasn't on Smasher's orders, he wasn't that type of man, if he had an order for you he'd just order you and leverage his reputation. This thing was for those who wanted to stay out of the public eye.

It had been just like he feared. He was fortunate these Technomancers were such good surgeons, otherwise it might have been impossible to get out.

He slid the chip into his pocket, and stepped out of the door. He raised his battleglove and snatched the high-velocity dart out of the air as it approached his neck, exactly on cue.

He moved his gaze up, and locked eyes with the sniper he knew was there, even if he couldn't actually detect them. That was the best spot for these sorts of things.

He raised a hand, and curled his fingers in twice.

The sniper decloaked as four more agents appeared on the roofs around him.

My, my, DangerGal was bringing out the heavy artillery, weren't they. The five biggest hitters short of Kilo, Victoria, and Zero were here. He rolled his shoulders and reviewed what he knew about them.

…He'd have to take some bruising, but he could do it.

In the distance, the logo on Arasaka Tower flickered, and the mask of a robotic demon was stamped upon the holographic.

He grinned in victory.

Good job Silverhand, right when he needed you. That meant Smasher was going to have to go defend his contract holders first.

That meant he had enough time. Enough time for everything to go according to plan. He needed to duck in a quarter-second.

A blink.

He ducked under a mantis blade that would've cut off his head, grabbing the arm holding it and spinning to toss the agent in the way of the barrage of sniper-darts that were just now fired from the rooftops.

The battle was on. He had incomplete information on these units.

6% chance of failure.