[Good morning Night City! Wow, yesterday had quite a strange evening, didn't it? Laguna Bend, what used to be such a lovely town on the edge of the badlands was now a toxic lake thanks to NC- oooh, I should've rephrase this… ahem- due to some mishaps with an unnamed Megacorp. For the past 15 years it remained toxic, but in just a day scientists have found the toxicity level of the lake cut down to half. Half, folks. What remained polluted for 15 years was suddenly dropping down the moment our little visitors from space came down from their floating cannon ship and started building towers near polluted areas. Cleaning up Scrap mountain, purifying deadly water. If I didn't know any better, I'd say our Starmen came down to save Night City! And for those who are still suspicious of our new alien neighbours, scared that they're planning an invasion- just look at the video of them circulating the media. Look at them go! Singing at the top of their lungs. Even alien soldiers can help but like 'I really want to stay at your house'. And we've all seen what their boss was holding. Carrots! By the looks of it they were freshly grown too, fresh out of the ground! Boy, if I had the chance I'd be running to my car and driving out to the badlands to have a chat with them. With the amount of Raffen Shiv attacks they were dealing with, I doubt that'll go well right now. For the time being, let's just enjoy the fact that they're cleaning up our mess].
The radio inside the vertical farm was booming out the door as Washington walked through the hallway, getting close to his permanent pain in the ass.
Spartan Cell was humming to himself as he assembled a new sprinkler. Compost made from specifically designed and coded nanites had caused the dry sand he had collected outside to become fertile soil, nutrient rich.
Don't ask where Cell got the nutrients from. You don't want to know.
Sprinklers themselves were spraying the vegetables with clean water, and the simulated high light intensity allowed for the crops to grow at an accelerated rate - what would've taken months to grow was now ready to harvest and eat in a day. The automatic planter and harvesters were at work, filling up crates with fresh food.
Quite honestly, UNSC Revenant didn't need that much food. Neither did those participating in Project Freelancer. They were overproducing food- which if Earth wasn't suffering from the Collapse, it would've been considered a waste (It would now be considered charity).
While agriculture was a potential business avenue Captain Church was looking forward to pushing when they finally got into proper contact with Night City as a Megacorp, farming was just for Spartan Cell's own personal amusement right now.
Washington slammed his fist on the doorway as he entered the vertical farm.
From engines to softwares to weaponry and farming.
Everything. Everything was for Cell's own achievement and amusement. If a project didn't amuse him, he dropped it immediately and moved on to the next. The very fact that he had several completed inventions comfortably under his belt was a sign of his sheer determination in getting the satisfaction of making a breakthrough (and flipping the bird to Dr. Halsey) and pure miracle.
That was the kind of scientist Cell was.
"Cell, What the fuck."
Cell looked up from his current small project, and grabbed a potato from one of the crates next to him.
"Hungry?"
Washington let out a defeating chuckle as he threw his datapad onto Cell's table. Cell, in exchange, tossed the potato into Washington's arm- which Washington caught and stared at.
Damn, these potatoes looked much better in quality than the ones growing on the UNSC Revenant.
Cell tapped on the screen to open the datapad, revealing a video of yesterday's Spartan party.
"Oh shit, it was caught on camera."
"It was caught on 27 cameras, you moron."
"Damn, that many? I guess it's fair to be mad at us getting caught fooling around."
"No, I'm… I'm not mad about this."
"You're not?"
"No, but I'm livid about this." Spartan Washington swiped his finger across the screen of the datapad. This time it wasn't a video footage of outside.
It was a video footage of one of the areas in the water harvester- one that had nothing to do with directing purified clean water to the vertical farm. "Cell, what the fuck is this?"
Cell took a moment to check which area it was, then nonchalantly answered.
"Hydro-processing centre."
"... Why?"
"For collecting Deuterium and Tritium."
"Why?!"
"What do you mean why? How else am I supposed to power up the pinch fusion reactor?"
"What do you mean how else- Why do we even have a pinch fusion reactor?!"
"The hell do you think we power up our structures here? Wind and solar power?"
"Well I didn't expect our buildings needing to be powered by a dying fucking star!"
Cell lifted 3 fingers.
"3 dying stars."
Washington stood silent and frozen for the briefest moment, before throwing his hand up in the air. He pretty much gave up on remaining angry. The Chief Engineer in front of him took too much emotional toll on him. He was even feeling physically drained.
"You're insufferable. You're insane. How are we not dead yet? How are we still surviving after letting someone as psychotic as you be the chief engineer?"
"Because I'm that damn good at my job, Wash. And so is Khyl and Kyle."
Cell muttered 'also the Huragok too' under his breath as he continued assembling a prototype design for a sprinkler, standing up from his chair to install it in one of the vertical farm column.
"And where are my cows, Wash?"
"... What?"
"Where are my goddamn cows and pigs, Wash? I've built everything, I'm waiting on those animals."
"... Seriously? Already?"
"I spent the entire 2 days building this entire agriculture station. With the Hydrogen-processing centre for Pinch fusion. All I need are the cows and pigs. I've already got the info about birds, so I'm fine with chickens for now."
"Did you even sleep?"
"No. But that's besides the point. I'll have my sleep when I have DNA samples I can shove into the artificial womb and process into zygotes."
"I'll… I'll get work on that this week."
"I want my farm animals by the end of this month."
Washington sighed as he left the farm, looking back to see Cell pull out a beetroot and check how red it was.
Guy sounded like a loan shark.
"Yooo, Baba Yagas! Freelancers~! How you doing?"
Agent Locus heard Reilly's cheery voice on the other side of the call. Just yesterday, they had taken 15 different gigs consecutively.
To Reilly, that was unheard of. Most Mercs would take an entire day to complete one gig smoothly. Even if they were in a group.
Fireteam Baba Yaga was already starting to become the talk of the town. Agent Locust and his team slowly becoming hushed whispers, tales travelling from mouth to mouth, in bars and in alleyways.
People disappearing in their own offices, transports of important technology gone from its own crate.
Corpos didn't have a single clue of what was happening. But fixers and mercs did.
Some of the people working for Reilly were already spreading the news. Boogeymen for hire, capable of completing your hits with 0 alarms raised.
It was too good to be true, but their recent results made even Rogue's head turn.
"Listen, choom! You and your team's skills already made the streets talking! Just yesterday I had Dexter Deshawn and Faraday give me a call to ask about you guys, and how much I was willing to get paid to get you guys in contact! Fuckin' Dexter Deshawn and Faraday!"
"You have new jobs for us?"
Reilly pouted from her couch as she heard Agent Locust's reply. Here she was, singing high praises and trying to make that eyeless-Skull blush. And all she gets in return is asking for work.
She didn't realise that for UNSC Black ops like Agent Locust, all they needed was confirmation that their task was done successfully. For all the Spartans cared, the media can spout propaganda about Spartans to fatten up the crowd. Not them.
They were on a mission that ended who knows when. And they were simply focusing on it.
Reilly huffed. "Yeah, yeah. I have a job for you and your friends too." Reilly rubbed the bridges of her nose as she continued. She liked Agent Locust for the same reason she was frustrated with him. He was a workaholic. "We've got a gig from a High-class client. Willing to pay whatever amount needed. I made him pay two thousand eddies: he sent me 4 thousand for the gig to be completed now. Because of his generosity, I'm perfectly willing to send him my best mercs."
"Details, if you can."
"Rescue mission. You see, our client is an executive of Kiroshi Optics. His poor little daughter was kidnapped off the street by some Scavs. If they still like how she looks after they shittily take out her implants, they might just doll her up. They'll ruin her by the time her father could find her again. If, he finds her again."
"Do you want us to finish this quietly, or do you want us to go in loud and hard?"
"I'd say do your usual and… hang on- … you sure? Ok, I'll tell them that.- our client wants you guys to go in and kill all of them. Make sure you put the fear of god into them as you send them to hell. And fear of god into any other gangoons that sees the aftermath as well- think twice about ever kidnapping his little girl off the streets again."
"Copy that. Send me the location. Tell your client to wait for 10 minutes."
"Can you guarantee her safety?"
"How long has she been missing?"
"Roughly 10 hours now. She didn't come home last night."
"... I can guarantee her being found."
"That's a bit concerning, but I guess our client will have something. Call me once the job's done."
Agent Locust ended the call and turned to his team. The old factory was roughly renovated into a temporary base of operation, Ram was using one of the assembly table as a makeshift workshop.
Different parts from several guns were littering the tables - the useless ones rolling on the ground.
Ram and Cell were twins - born with physical capability inherited from their ODST trooper of a father, and with intelligence inherited from their ONI scientist of a mother (she was an assistant to Dr. Halsey in several projects). Despite both being near identical in appearance and skills, their ultimate differences in personality lead to their distinctive direction.
Cell was a Spartan who liked advancement - reverse engineering of Forerunner and Covenant technology despite the paranoid ire of ONI showed just how much he favoured completely new technologies.
Ram was a different Spartan - he would constantly be called old-fashioned by his brother for his preference and philosophy. When Cell liked new dominating old, Ram liked the idea of recycling and modification of the old. The art of reusing 'antiques'.
It didn't really matter in the end: In the eyes of Cell and Ram- Militech, Arasaka, Biotechnica's latest invention was a living piece of technology 100 years ago.
"Look at this, Jim. They either rely on gunpowder still, or on flawed rail gun technology."
Jim simply looked at the piece of bullet Ram was holding up and grunted. Ram chuckled as he tapped the bullet on the table.
"You guys felt it yourself while firing shots, right? How slow the bullets were going. We managed to perfect gas-operated firing mechanics to allow for hit-scan performances, and here we can see the bullets as it flies in the air."
It was a waste of chemical powder they could've used for better things.
Ram finalised his creation with a crude soldering iron made from previously deactivated factory arms.
"Here you go, big fella. Just as you ordered."
Ram held up the crude and oversized revolver and tossed it to Jim, which the giant Spartan III looked all over before testing out on the factory wall.
The rest of the team saw what Jim was holding - What used to be a Burya revolver had most of the barrel and chambers replaced - replaced by parts taken out of Constitutional Arms M2038 Tactician and Malorian Overture.
The chamber of the revolver was fat, the back of the revolver was now extending back enough to touch Jim's wrist. The only thing that stopped it from being a drum-fed shotgun was it's short barrel - but even that was pushing it.
Around 30% of whoever sees this monstrosity of welded firearm will call it an oversized revolver.
70% will call it a sawed-off shotgun with the end of the barrel extremely shortened.
Leon noticed the blade welded on the hand guard and groaned. By the size of it, Ram took the blade from a machete.
"Did you seriously make him a replica of a Mauler?!"
"Hey, big man wanted something with more punch. So I made it have more umph. Don't worry, all the parts were pre-existing in Night City."
"Not the brain of the man who welded it together."
Ram simply shrugged his shoulder.
"Meh, it's not for sale anyway. I doubt anyone could pry that out of Jim's finger, not unless they're UNSC."
For something that was fed shotgun shells with gunpowder, the initial firing of the weapon was silent. Noble 6 noticed the sound and correctly guessed that it still used the rail gun system of the Burya for shooting the bullet.
But the moment it shot out and hit the wall did the gunpowder explode, further shooting out buck shots that dug into the wall. That threatened to deafen anyone close.
The wall now had several holes in them, before they collapsed into smaller numbers of much bigger holes.
Locust didn't exactly know how, but Ram managed to make shotgun shells into bunker busters
"I eavesdropped on your talk with the fixer, commander. We're suppose to go in loud and hard, right? Well, I guess it's Jim's time to shine."
Killshot swapped out the cracked long scope on his newly acquired SOR-22 with a new one - holographic Kairo SA-1, looking through it to test it out and and then firing on the single piece of rubble still standing inside the hole in the wall.
He took aim for only a short moment, yet the rubble was effortlessly hit and reduced into dust.
"Bah." Killshot exasperated as he took the scope out. "Too cluttered, I'll be going with the iron-sights this time."
Everyone else got ready, either grabbing magazines or sharpening knives.
This was their first gig asking for kill-all rushing in loud.
Something first time mercs loved, and experienced mercs wary of.
It didn't matter. Fireteam Baba Yaga advertised dirty deeds done dirt cheap.
[This is Spartan Killshot. Commander, I have the Scav leader in my sight.]
The downside of a sniper rifle is the inability to silence their shots.
Killshot was capable of calculating bullet trajectory that far extended from effective range, making Precision rifles with suppressors built in just as deadly.
The top floor of the apartment building was just filled with Scavs, and soon they would put all of their attention on the 5 spartans busting into through the elevator.
[We hear you loud and clear, Spartan Killshot. I've gotten access to the fuse. Turning off the lights in three… two… now.]
Spartan Ram ripped out several wires from the breaker box, and Killshot saw the Scavs getting confused over the sudden lack of light.
Then it started.
The elevator door opened, the two Scavs keeping watch was expecting their people to come in with fresh meat to dismantle and rip implants off of.
What they got was a knife flying from the opening of the elevator, thrown by the one and only Spartan Leon, which went through the holographic mask and lodged into the skull.
The other Scav next to the poor sod, barely registering what happened, could only look back to see Noble 6 running towards him, closing the distance in a flash before a giant hand covered the Scav's mouth - knife digging into the chest and puncturing the wound before his neck snapped as his head rotated 100 degrees to the left.
They died without a sound.
[Spartan Killshot, this is Spartan Locust. We are in position, and ready to go in loud and clear when you take the shot.]
Killshot didn't even hesitate. He pulled the trigger immediately after he had received confirmation.
Fireteam Baba Yaga knew he would do this. He always did. That's why they gave the confirmation with the full knowledge that they would be busting in immediately after.
They went in loud and hard - Spartan Jim bashed through the concrete wall and grabbed the nearest Scav by the head, throwing him down and shooting the russian with what the Fireteam had dubbed: the Proto-Mauler.
Fragment of flesh and bones exploded from the gang, reducing him into half a pile of ground meat. Agent Locust shot a Scav point blank with a tactician, while Noble 6 unloaded bullets from a Nowaki into two Scavs shooting in the distance.
Jim went to work the hardest, throwing corpses at the gangs to throw off their aim, then offing them swiftly using a revolver shooting shotgun shells.
It was loud- judging by the pain expressions of the surviving Scavs as they held their ear it would've been deafening without helmets.
Bullets from precision rifles shatterd walls and windows, shooting any Scavs that hid from the 5 Spartan's view.
Their leader was dead anyway. They were just cleaning up the floor with method the client had ordered.
A Scav with heavy statures walked in with a Defender, ready to try and use large firepower to suppress the intruders.
Jim simply ran up, kicked the Defender out of the Scav's hand (demolishing it with the kick in the process) and crushed the Scav's throat.
He shot the Scav point blank immediately after.
This was the bullet speed Spartan Jim was used to. Somewhat. Mind you, it was still slow.
But the kick made up for it.
Hell was unleashed in under a minute- floor and any remaining walls splattered red with flesh and bones.
All the Spartans had to do was sweep through the floors to find their target. Still on watch for any potential Scavs in hiding, they scanned through any corpses of unfortunate civilians and Joytoys that got the Scavs' attention.
For better or for worse, none of them were the client's daughter.
[Commander, we've found the target.]
Spartan Leon's voice rang through the Comm link, the rest of the Spartans taking no time to start moving to Leon's location.
Jim had already crushed the metal door open - heavy plating and signs of clumsy welding showed how difficult it would be for a solo to open this without the right tools.
Jim didn't need tools. He had his hands. He'll brute force the fuck out of anything if he needed to.
Several young teens, recently swept off the street, were huddled around corners. Sniffing and crying, tears running down their eyes.
They looked at the 5 metallic behemoths standing outside the door, the largest in front ripping the giant metal barricade off its welding with one arm.
They looked like Moas caught in a head light.
"Which one of you is Erica Johnston?"
One of the girls slowly raised her hand.
"Your father paid us to rescue you. I guess rescuing the rest of you would be bonus. Everyone follow me, we'll get you out of here alive and safe."