[TN:Hey guys, I'm back was taking a short hiatus, was busy with finals and having a month-long internship for my major, so I wasn't able to do any chapter here for the two biweekly chapsters I own. I know I own one more, will post at the end of this week]
The Midnight Nuclear Detonation Incident was underway.
Jackie and V both loved vehicles—the former loved bikes, the latter loved sports cars.
But no vehicle had ever given them thrust like this—
The high-temperature shockwave directly "slammed" into the rear of the car, transmitting through the frame and smashing into their backs with a force unlike anything they had ever felt, almost like being hammered by a giant sledgehammer!
The heat was so intense that the rear compartment was melting and catching fire. The whole vehicle was engulfed in flames, like they were trapped inside a firestorm!
Acceleration pressure! The high-temperature version!
The immense G-force compressed their bodies so hard blood could barely reach their brains, but thankfully... thankfully, cyberware meant people had tricks.
Jackie went without saying. His entire Lizard component suite was built around biotech. Electronic systems might get disrupted, but that wouldn't interfere with the effects of the Lizard serum.
Even under such overwhelming acceleration, those lizard-enhanced muscles could still force blood into his brain—at least enough to stop him from blacking out completely.
V also wore a lightweight exoskeleton. Originally, it had been meant to support magnetic grip gloves, turbofan boots, and web launchers to improve mobility, but now Little Octopus had seized control of it, tightening the frame completely and turning it into something like a G-suit.
As for Leo...
He was purely tanking it with Lizard serum. The lightweight exoskeleton used to stabilize the octo-arms was enough for someone with V's physical conditioning.
For Leo?
Barely a drop in the bucket.
"LeoooOOOOOOAAAHHHHHHH—"
Jackie was the clearest-headed of the three, and therefore yelling the loudest, eyes bulging wide as his huge hands gripped the interior safety bars with all his strength.
Those safety bars had already begun softening from the heat, deforming under the violent impacts. If Jackie hadn't been wearing powered gauntlets, the bones in his hands probably would've melted already!
He was screaming because he could see it clearly—
They were heading straight toward Pacifica.
Straight toward the ocean!
At this speed, smashing into the water wouldn't be any different from hitting a steel wall!
But Leo had already entered "autopilot mode." There was no way he could answer.
The Mackinaw's control systems had been completely fried by the nuclear EMP, but the AI driver had left itself one last trick.
All four wheels had already rotated fully sideways on their omni-directional steering axles before the explosion even happened.
The wheel hubs themselves had hidden miniature turbofan assemblies inside. Once rotated horizontally, they effectively became small jet thrusters.
Actually, skimming across the water like a surface craft at these speeds was unrealistic.
What mattered was the extra thrust preventing the vehicle from colliding with the ocean at too direct an angle—
BANG!
The Mackinaw hit the ocean surface at 450 kph, nose pitched downward at 23 degrees...
It didn't sound steep.
But the speed was insane.
The vehicle began flipping, bouncing—
Then slammed into the water again!
The burning metal box skipped and rolled across the sea, finally bleeding off enough speed through the water's resistance that its nose tilted almost completely vertical before crashing violently onto the beach!
Screeeee—
Thunk.
The Mackinaw was completely warped now.
Smoking heavily, the ruined Legendary Mackinaw finally came to rest on Pacifica's Golden Beach under the night sky. Two of its wheels tore free entirely and rolled wobbling into the distance.
On a night with little light pollution, beneath a sparse moonlit sky, the twisted wreckage reflected pale silver light, echoing the moonlit ocean beside it.
Waves lapped softly against the shore.
Everything became quiet.
Only the long burning trench carved into the sand behind the vehicle reminded anyone...
Something had landed here.
Pacifica was lawless territory, but human civilization only truly gathered where resources existed.
An abandoned beachfront amusement district didn't count.
The waves whispered. The night wind blew softly...
BANG!
The silence shattered.
A dent suddenly punched outward from inside the battered vehicle hull, followed by the horrible screech of metal scraping against metal.
Clank—
Jackie finally tore the door open.
A huge cloud of black smoke burst from the opening as Leo and V were thrown out one after another. Jackie himself crawled out with difficulty, looking like a zombie dragging itself out of a coffin.
Thud.
All three collapsed onto the beach.
For a while, only the sound of heavy breathing remained.
The gig had come together fast.
And they'd finished it even faster.
As consciousness slowly returned, Leo and V awkwardly shifted into more comfortable positions. All three of them ended up sprawled out in matching starfish poses, breathing heavily as they stared at the moon emerging slowly from behind the clouds.
"HELL YEAH!" V suddenly shouted, flipping off the direction where MaxTac had crashed—toward Night City itself. "HAHA! MaxTac! Eat our exhaust!"
Jackie sat up, exhausted but exhilarated, laughing up toward the sky as well.
Only Leo still lay there like a corpse, unmoving.
V immediately rolled over and poked his head.
"You little bastard. Been hiding your real skills this whole time, huh?"
Leo moved the one eye still functioning properly and glanced at her.
"I thought your first reaction would be screaming at me for carrying a nuke in my pocket."
"How could I?" V shrugged and lay back down again. "Though honestly... that was way too fucking intense."
She stared at the moon blankly.
Leo understood her pretty well.
V actually wasn't the suicidal type.
She'd just been broke for too long, and alone in Night City for too long.
Everyone needed a sense of security.
For her, security had become tied to money—and every possible way of making money.
Sometimes she ignored danger because she needed the eddies.
But when things got too dangerous?
When survival itself got threatened?
Of course, she'd lose her shit.
Just like back in Atlanta, when Leo had suggested they directly hit Militech forces. She'd nearly overheated from panic.
But for a nobody from Heywood...
An orphan...
What could feel better than pulling off a gig like this, becoming famous across the city, surviving, and still being able to flip everyone off afterward?
"But," V said, patting Leo on the shoulder, "your big sis trusts you, little Leo. Good work."
Leo smiled.
"Then this time I won't feed you some giant inspirational speech."
"Fuck you." V laughed and punched him lightly. "Makes me feel like some corpo sucker that got conned."
But while speaking, V suddenly remembered the feeling of flying inside that car.
That sensation of everyone below looking up at her while she looked down over Night City...
It had felt incredible.
Too bad it only lasted a moment before the nuclear blast interrupted everything. Now they were wanted criminals. Maybe she'd never get another chance to ride in an AV again.
So before she realized it, she muttered to herself:
"AVs really are cool as hell... wish I could properly enjoy one someday."
When she said it, she sounded exactly like a kid staring at some awesome toy through a store window.
Strangely pure.
Leo wasn't someone who naturally obsessed over flashy sports cars, motorcycles, or other inherently "cool" things the way most people did.
Still, he'd once been a kid, too.
Of course, he'd had moments envying children from better-off families.
The difference was that his regrets were more abstract—things like his parents never attending school meetings. Things you buried deep once you grew older.
But for most people, childhood regrets slowly transformed into deeply material desires.
And to pursue those desires, people sold away everything they could.
Until they became something else entirely.
That was the sort of longing Leo had never really understood before.
But now he suddenly did.
V wasn't obsessed with luxury cars and houses for their own sake.
Maybe, as a street kid, the root of that desire was simply some rainy night sleeping outside, watching somebody else get picked up and taken home in safety.
"…You'll get the chance someday," Leo said softly, inhaling through the pain spreading across his entire body.
This pain wasn't caused by cyberware.
There was no reducing it.
Still, Leo had always tolerated pain unusually well.
Enduring the ache, he sat up from the beach and looked toward Jackie.
Jackie was easier to understand.
The big guy was clearly thinking about his mother...
And the girl he was about to finally win over.
"Leo," Jackie asked, looking up at him, "we're wanted criminals now. Can we still go back?"
Leo glanced around the beach, casually removing his damaged optics.
"Of course we can. And remember this—Night City needs us."
He stood up.
"Alright, break time's over. We should leave before the Voodoo Boys or the locals find us."
"And then…"
"We find somewhere with a phone signal and give our mayor—and our new deputy mayor—some work to do."
The moment he finished speaking, Little Octopus's voice sounded in his head—
[Little Octopus: Big bro! I'm back!]
[Little Octopus: Big bro, I think there's someone inside the amusement park.]