Unknown
There were faces in the fog. Faces of things.
They weren't someones. They were simply things.
There was no one in the maze, save him. He walked down the path.
The walls were sideways here. The floor was sideways.
The world was sideways here. The fog was upright.
He fell. The tower was collapsing.
He would die if he let the ground hit him. His body would shatter.
The ground approached him.
He killed it.
The ground stopped. The world was upright again.
He continued walking. The thing was behind him, watching.
—
Michiko Arasaka
Western Arasaka was in a rather poor situation, and would continue to be in such a situation for quite some time if she wasn't careful about her decisions moving forwards. She was sooo glad to be in this position, thank you Uncle, she really appreciated having all this responsibility dumped on her all at once.
With the recalling of most of their north american assets at the end of last year, the continued attacks and reinforcements, the pacifica development, and the immense amounts of gang violence this year… Western Arasaka had a glut of assets currently in Night City, and the city itself was heavily destabilized. This was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of and take the entire city if she wished, so long as she made the right decisions.
Because while they had a glut of assets, they no longer had as many distant secured facilities, eyes on potential problems, and the assets they currently had were very disorganized. A logistical nightmare of a situation to fix, especially with the Local Arasaka Towernet being outright deleted by gridfire.
She grunted unhappily, stuffing a dataslate under her arm and moving onto the next server room, where the offline backups were held. She would normally assign someone else to do this, but currently she couldn't trust anyone in Arasaka West as far as she could throw them, and all her girls were currently making sure everything held together long enough for things to be sorted.
It was simply too much to handle all at once with the servers fucked, which meant downsizing in the short term, cutting off what they could readily afford to. Like firing that fat bimbo and getting her out of her hair.
She was doing you a favor you bitch! You got to go fuck Adam some more, maybe you'll convince yourself that he'll care about you!
She grumbled all the way to the next room in the Pacifica HQ, Zaburo was looking quite amused behind her, she could feel it on that old fucker's face. She didn't dignify it by acknowledging the expression, instead continuing on her way.
Arasaka West probably wouldn't survive in its current state. At least, no in a way that she would prefer. The best solution, therefore, was to change it up. A corporate merger and rebranding. DangerGal would remain as DangerGal, and become a subdivision of its new parent company, Danger…
Danger something, she hadn't figured the name out yet, and that was the most important part. Branding was important.
It couldn't be the other way around. Danger Gal had offices all across the world, albeit concentrated in North America, but it couldn't compare to the sheer size of Arasaka. Even just this North American chunk of Arasaka outweighed her entire life's work by about a factor of ten. So DangerGal corporate would be reassigned to become the investigative and security branch of the new Danger…World?
She crossed that name off her mental list, that sounded stupid.
At least they still had steady income, mostly from prior contracts and the Pacifica development. That would keep them in the black for a while longer, hopefully long enough to get this settled and everything put back together.
DangerTime? No, she had already used that one for the cartoon, didn't she? Damnit. Also, note to self, she needs to send a gift basket to the surviving Puma squad members. That time of year is about to come up again. Also, maybe revive that series with DangerTime 2, that would be good for marketing.
Plugging her dataslate into the local server, she began to copy the files and send them over to the currently empty main tower server. They had found an AI left over in the basement server-interface, and she was being exceptionally helpful in managing the reorganization efforts so far. After a thorough analysis and verification from her girls, of course, you couldn't be too careful about this sorta thing.
That and getting the Segatari reps to leave her front door and go try to find Adam personally. Those guys were annoying and deserved a scare. Honestly though, what kinda gonk decides to netrun by forcing everyone to play an MMO?
…That sounded exactly like Adam actually.
She grunted unhappily. What was she doing wrong?
"You haven't done anything." Zaburo answered her unspoken question. She jumped slightly, before whirling on him with an accusing finger.
"Don't do that!"
The old bastard looked amused when he replied. "Do… what?"
"That creepy ninja magic where you read my mind!"
"Ah, I see… I'll be sure to keep that in mind." He wouldn't, she knew full well. She went back to staring at the screen for a moment before realizing what he said and turning back.
"What do you mean, I haven't done anything?! I brought everyone in to help him against the lightningboomer!"
"Do you think he appreciated needing help?"
"I've been keeping execs in Arasaka from fucking with him for months!"
"Do you think he even noticed?"
She threw her hands up in the air. "I've had two squads of girls stationed in Pacifica to help keep it together!"
Zaburo raised a white eyebrow. "...Do you think he even noticed…?" He slowly repeated.
She stared for a long moment, before letting out a long exhale and slumping slightly. "No."
Zaburo shook his head before continuing. "That is your issue, 'Chiko. You've been trying your best to help, but only in the background, never bringing attention to it. An invisible hand is not one he'll grab."
"But if I get in his way-!" She protested, only to be stopped by a wise glare.
"He will be mad, yes. He will hate that you are around him, he will resent that you are aiding him. But he will know it. He will know that you are aiding him, that you are trying to rebuild something. If not made obvious, he will do his best to ignore everything you do, and you have been letting him."
She watched the line that indicated progress fill up, silently staring at it increase. The man who practically raised her stared for a moment longer, before shaking his head.
"You're both still running away."
Silence for a long moment. She opened her mouth to reply…
The walls to their right exploded. Her speedware activated.
This section of the building was near the exterior, but it was still separated from the outside by a security hallway. This explosion was able to knock down two layers of reinforced concrete. Strong, but not powerful enough to narrow the list of potential attackers. She stood up and began to step back, avoiding the chunks of rubble as they flew. This was going to give her a killer headache later, speedware always did.
Three relative seconds had passed
Zaburo had already moved in between the slowly blooming rubble and her, tanto and handgun readied. She sent a message to Squad 7 to evacuate the building and regroup at policing station 2. As she did so, she opened the door out of the room and stepped through, waiting to observe what had caused the explosion. She frowned coldly.
Six relative seconds had passed.
Following in the wake of the explosion, not waiting for the rubble to finish falling, armored forms began to step through. She narrowed her eyes, and connected her sight to the camera outside. The second angle helped her ID the targets.
Five forms in light ACPA, wolfhounds by the look of it. Militech? No, they wouldn't make a move like this. Too obvious, and she had a standing agreement with Myers. She wouldn't be a target of an attack by them. This was either an attack by another group, or she wasn't the intended target.
…Adam didn't have a contract with Arasaka right now. This was the Pacifica HQ. The attack could be intended for him…
She didn't have enough information to confirm that, so she let her eyes disconnect and stepped back, closing the door behind her and sending a message to Zaburo.
[Take them alive for questioning.]
-[Of course.]-
While he was busy with that, she would need to get to an overwatch position.
Nine relative seconds had passed. Her speedware deactivated in the hallway, sending her stumbling and her head pounding. Acceleration sickness was a bitch. The sudden explosion of violence and gunfire behind her kept her moving forwards.
—
Ken Zaburo
Mercy was the privilege of the strong. The art of killing was vastly easier to accomplish than the art of capture. To kill an opponent was a simple matter, one only needed to ensure their death. To capture an opponent required one to subdue them completely, without making any actions that would lead to their death, while preserving the self.
He preferred to capture whenever possible, not because he had any particular scruples when it came to slaying those who endangered his ward, but for another reason.
The bullets started to scream as they leapt from the gunbarrels of the four… five attackers. They moved charmingly slow to his swift soul. This situation called for… hmm… perhaps Kamikaze Kicks into Descending Dragon?
He dropped his shortsword, letting it fall for a moment before rearing back and kicking it. The blade soared as it scythed through the air and cut the rightmost heavy machine gun in half. His twisting motion as he did so allowed him to avoid the current angles of gunfire while disabling one path. The twist also led optimally into the next motion.
Currently coiled by the opening move of God of Wind Style, he shifted his feet and kicked off the ground straight towards the ceiling, taking the path that was just occupied by the bullet stream he disabled. He had plenty of time to act, his Kerenzikov ensured it.
His hands touched the ceiling, bracing as the rest of his body re-coiled. Then, at maximum tension, he pushed himself off the ceiling and back down, this time at a forwards angle.
His metallic feet crashed against the relatively weak knee of another ACPA, snapping it at the joint and making the leg twist in an unintended direction. The moment after, he adjusted his angle and shoved the rest of his momentum into the man he attacked, throwing him back while preserving Zaburo's own location.
He hung in the air a moment, considering his next movement as his feet slowly approached the ground again. The ambushing move of Red Saber style was strong against heavy targets with knees, but it only flowed into a few other styles.
There were three guns currently adjusting their aim towards him. The first ACPA was attempting to draw his much weaker sidearm from the holster. He could ignore that target for a few more moments. That left the three targets, about four meters of total ground to cover…
White-Season Knife into Hiding Moon?
Hmm… No. He had a better option, he had technology.
He fired off a shot with his oversized handgun, the bullet crashing into the trigger mechanism of one of the three armored attackers and snapping it off. As he did so his feet touched the ground, and he kicked off it to flip over the head of the ACPA that was currently behind him.
In order to maintain mobility, ACPA could only armor so many places on the human body. Certain joints were always left more exposed than others, usually only being capable of being protected by more flexible plastics and weaves.
He kicked, the monoblade in his boot stabbing into the armored warrior's knee from the back. The warrior started to scream almost at once as his leg gave out underneath him. Well, not quite true. Rather, the man no longer wished to stand on that leg, and his connection to the powered armor relayed that information to it, forcing it to kneel with him.
The tool obeyed the wielder's desires, it was up to the wielder to regulate those desires.
The man began to fall, if he fell completely, his allies would no longer be reluctant to shoot in this direction. He had not the armor to handle such guns. He hand shot forwards and he braced himself, heaving the multi-hundred pound suit of armor in front of him as a shield.
Ho-hum… They were still hesitating, meaning that they weren't professional soldiers. These men had a bond with one another. Interesting to note.
He dropped his gun and twisted his arm, letting the spike emerge from his gauntlet, which he promptly stabbed into the less armored neck of the one he was holding. The spike detected the presence of a vein, and promptly injected an appropriate dose of Propofol.
Zaburo threw him forwards to crash against his allies, and picked up his blade from his place on the ground as he did so. Bullets immediately started to crash into his form as they tried backing up. His armor would hold for… maybe six seconds of continuous fire? These bullets hurt quite a bit.
Heat-Breaking Blade would be best here.
He threw himself forwards, and his blade lashed out, monoblade backed by cybernetic strength removing the arms of one warrior. A stream of bullets halted. That bought him a second and a half more.
He threw himself forwards, his monoblade cutting another heavy machine gun in half, along with the arm that was holding it, and the shield it was behind. That earned him another second and a half to act. More than enough time, just simple calculation.
He leapt forwards again, briefly halted by the warrior throwing his gun at him, forcing him to duck. He frowned, needing to adjust his stance again. He no longer had the acceleration to finish this attack, and Heart-Breaking Blade didn't like to flow into anything…
He stomped and reset his stance. The warrior's handgun tore strips of synthetic flesh off his shoulder. He twisted, using the spin of Waves like Water to flow into Thousand Scythe Kicks.
The monoblade in his boot cut the warrior's handgun in half. The warrior stumbled for a moment, giving him enough time to throw himself forwards into another burst of Heart-Breaking Blade.
The warrior lost his arm as Zaburo's shortsword cut into its elbow.
He paused for a moment, rising to his full height. The noise of a weapon being drawn alerted him, he twisted into a glare against the first warrior. The one with a broken leg, currently frozen in the middle of pulling out his sidearm.
"Do not." Zaburo commanded, a stern glare on his wizened face.
The ACPA clearly considered the action for a moment, before dropping the handgun and raising his arm. Zaburo let his glare soften into a stern look as he reached into his hip-bag to pull out medicine.
"Now, you all hold still, else you'll bleed out." He took to spraying the requisite foams and coagulants to hold their blood inside their severed stumps and broken parts. From there a dose of one-time nanosurgeons would fix them as well as he reasonably could from here.
Zaburo didn't mind killing, but he preferred to take his opponents alive.
It was far more challenging. Challenge was something he was solely lacking these days.
He alerted little Michiko that he was successful.
One of the warriors shifted to reach for a weapon. An immediate and fearsome glare stopped that motion immediately. The warrior's hand returned to his side.