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"Wait, damn it, Jax, you know her too?"
Seeing Jax strike up a conversation with the new girl, Pilar let out a shriek that nearly cracked the car windows. What a joke! How did this guy do it? He looked like a standard civilian, no chrome-punk flair, no neon hair, and he carried a "big cannon" in his arm that he barely talked about. Meanwhile, Pilar had customized his look down to the last circuit, yet he couldn't even get a sympathetic nod from the women in his own crew—not even from his own sister.
"That's what I should be asking!" Rebecca shouted, standing beside her brother. She gaped at Kiwi, her jaw dropping. "You actually know this woman?"
"She's the one I told you about yesterday," Kiwi replied, her own expression unusually bewildered. Her friendship with Lucy was a cold, transactional thing based on mutual benefit—Lucy needed street smarts, and Kiwi needed a peek at the professional hacker training Lucy clearly possessed. The fact that the "little brother" of the team and the bratty gun-runner already knew her was a variable she hadn't calculated.
"An accident," Jax said, meeting Lucy's gaze.
Lucy didn't offer any details. She simply pulled a cigarette from her pocket, lit it, and took a long drag. "Kiwi said there was 8,000 euros and a subsidy. Is that still on the table?"
"Subsidy?" Maine laughed, stepping forward. "Sure, kid. If things get hairy out there, I'll bump it by another 2,000. Deal?"
"Deal," Lucy nodded.
"Then enough talk! Load up!" Maine called out.
The logistics were settled: Jackie drove one car with Jax and Rebecca; Maine took Dorio and Kiwi; and Pilar stood by his customized ride, waving a hand at Lucy. "Come on, beautiful! My car's the fastest, and I promise to give you a thrill you won't forget!"
Lucy stared at Pilar's grin for a long three seconds, then turned and decisively climbed into the back of Jackie's car.
Jax took the passenger seat, while Rebecca and Lucy shared the back. Jackie, visibly excited to be part of a real operation, gripped the steering wheel tight. "Last time I went out of the city, I just ate a face full of dust and came home broke. This time feels different. Hey, Jax, once we get the payout, should I get a hand cannon like Maine's?"
"Get dermal armor instead," Jax advised seriously.
"Dermal armor? Boring!" Jackie laughed, shifting into gear. "A real legend doesn't hide behind a shell, mano!"
Jax didn't argue. He watched the cityscape of Santo Domingo bleed away into the desolate outskirts. Within twenty minutes, the bustling traffic of Night City vanished. They turned off the main highway, and suddenly, their three-car convoy was the only thing moving on the vast, cracked asphalt.
"Approaching the checkpoint," Maine's voice crackled over the comms. "Stay in the cars. I'll handle the badges."
Jax watched as Maine stepped out to meet the customs officers. It was a tense dance of raised hands, digital scans, and a trip into the security building. A few minutes later, Maine emerged, laughing and shaking hands with the guards as if they were old war buddies.
The automatic turrets at the gate whirred as they retracted, and the heavy barriers lifted. As they drove through, Maine's voice returned to the channel, stripped of its joviality.
"Vultures. Rogue's paperwork was perfect, but they still squeezed me for 1,500 eddies. A five-hundred-bill bribe wasn't enough to satisfy their thirst."
"We have to pay again on the way back?" Jax asked.
"It's a tax on the living, kid," Jackie said bitterly. "I lost a grand just on tolls during my last desert run. Didn't earn a cent."
"Think of the alarm clock at home," Maine joked, trying to lift the mood. "If you don't have eddies, you don't even have the right to turn that thing off. The city owns your sleep, your door, and your air. We're out here to buy some of that back. Jax, call the contact."
The cars picked up speed, leaving the paved road for the dusty expanse of the desert. Jax looked out at the "scenery"—mountains of rusted garbage, abandoned oil rigs spewing pillars of orange flame, and the bleached skeletons of old-world cars.
He dialed the number for Leon Lundell.
"Hello?"
"I'm with the team Babos sent. Where are we meeting?"
"Took your sweet time," the voice growled. "Address is coming to you now. Meet me at the garbage mountain to the east. Move fast; I've got things to do."
The line went dead. An email pinged Jax's HUD.
"Lucy," Maine said. "Can you dig into this Leon Lundell? Use the CityNet while we still have a signal."
Lucy closed her eyes. Rebecca watched her with a mix of envy and curiosity; the "ghost in the machine" look was undeniably cool.
"Got it," Lucy said, opening her eyes a few minutes later. "Leon is part of a small splinter family of the Aldecaldos. He's a middleman. The team Babos lost? Leon says he doesn't know what happened to them, and his logs back that up. He just wants the cargo moved."
"Good work, girl," Maine praised. "Fast and clean."
Jax sat in the silence of the car, methodically wiping the blade of his thermal Katana. Aldecaldos, he thought. He remembered Panam Palmer from the game—a fierce, loyal tribe. But Jackie had explained that the once-massive family had fractured years ago into hundreds of tiny, independent cells. Leon's group might be nothing like the people V had known.
But Jax's mind kept drifting back to the "vegetables." Fresh food. Real vitamins. He could almost taste the crunch of a non-synthetic leaf.
Still, a nagging feeling tugged at his gut. A hundred thousand eddies just to deliver some groceries? It seemed too simple. In Night City, when a job looks like a gift, there's usually a bomb inside the box.
"Stay sharp," Jax muttered to himself. "Vegetables or not, this is still the Badlands."
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