Tony Stark. A Few Hours Earlier
Waking up early in the morning—a task that required truly heroic effort—Tony sat on the bed for another two minutes, trying not only to get up but to wake up. It was an incredibly difficult task, demanding an irrational amount of moral strength from the rejuvenated Stark, which made his sleepy brain find more and more reasons to delay waking up for at least another two hours. However, Tony couldn't surrender to sweet self-deception, as Omnissia entered the bedroom with a steaming mug, quickly filling the room with the enticing aroma of coffee. Without opening his eyes, purely by feel, he reached out his hands, into which the saving cup was immediately placed. He wrapped both hands around it and slowly, savoring the moment, began to sip the divine drink.
"Mmmmm..." After half a cup, the world once again beheld the blue depths of his eyes, in which disappointment with the imperfection of the universe and the cruelty of fate splashed. "...as always, that swill."
"Synthetic coffee of average price range," Omnissia replied. Over the past few weeks, this had become their peculiar tradition. "We need to save if we want to upgrade my chassis soon, not in a decade."
"And why the hell did I show you those blueprints?" Tony rolled his eyes in suffering, expressing all his mental anguish on the matter with a single gesture. However, this didn't stop him from taking another sip of coffee.
Since the death of the Starks, their offspring had been seriously engaged in self-development if he was engaged in anything serious at all. The technologies of the new world, while inferior in some fundamental areas like robotics, energy, and several other fields, sometimes surpassed his knowledge. Nanotechnology applied in medicine, for example, filled him with genuine admiration, far exceeding everything the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. had. Yes, they had more advanced analogs and methods, but in terms of price-to-quality ratio, medical nanites—even the old ones—surpassed them many times over. And that's not even considering the complexity of production, individual application methods, and side effects. After all, in his past life, Stark had dealt with cutting-edge technologies—literally the best humanity could offer—and in addition to the advantages, there were also disadvantages. For example, common teething problems, short operational life of the technology, which is why many aspects were simply ignored due to low usage requirements. While here, technologies were polished by all of humanity over decades, eliminating even the smallest rough edges, gradually bringing the technology to the maximum of its potential. Immersing himself in more and more new knowledge, Stark not only distracted himself from bad thoughts, developing in parallel, but also created new projects that surpassed the current level of technology not by decades, but by centuries. For example, computational computers based on artificially grown crystals. At one time, he himself had one in his helmet; the memory banks it provided were enough to copy ALL of humanity's knowledge at that time... several times over. He never managed to create anything better by the time of his death. Combining his knowledge with the knowledge of today's humanity, Tony could create projects considered possible only in poorly developed science fiction of the last century. And in one of his projects, Omnissia was naturally involved. Tony knew a simple truth: there was either not enough firepower or it was insufficient. As was defense. As was maneuverability. As was survivability. Unfortunately, even with his intellect, creating something truly universal, suitable for action in any type of terrain, capable of countering all types of enemies, was unrealistic. There were attempts, but they all ended up bloating to the size of a skyscraper, suitable only for single uses due to the high cost of operation, complexity of repair, and complete unsuitability for action in cities. But this didn't stop Tony from trying, serving as a kind of hobby and an attempt to achieve the unattainable ideal. And in one of these attempts, Tony created a new body design for Omnissia. Skipping the details, having obtained such a vessel, Omnissia would become a completely autonomous unit with extremely high self-repair capabilities. Being a partially organic organism, she could easily blend into human society, but most importantly, she would have an extremely powerful server in her head unit, surpassing even the one currently installed in Omnissia by several times. But, as strange as it might seem, what attracted the robot girl the most to this new platform was the ability to start feeling. Being in a completely metallic body, Omnissia couldn't touch, taste, or smell, or tell if it was hot or cold. In fact, of all the senses, she only had sight and hearing, which greatly upset this individual with perfectionist notes in her character. But as perfect as her new platform was, it was also expensive, on the level of Tony's suits, almost always having price tags like the annual budget of a small state. And the Stark family didn't have that kind of money at the moment, nor was it expected. What's more! Tony was essentially saving money for seed capital, so they were in a strict savings mode to accumulate faster and start living normally. Half a million eddies was good, but for a truly good start, at least two million were needed, along with a group of extremely angry and armed people at their backs, so that overreaching officials and brazen bandits wouldn't try to take it away.
Actually, it was for this that Tony was making such terrible sacrifices as waking up early.
"Good morning," he said, entering the kitchen.
Well, not really a kitchen—a portable gas stove, a couple of pans, a small oven, an electric kettle, and that was it. The original layout didn't include a kitchen; it was replaced by a burrito vending machine with a single delivery system running from the lowest to the highest floors. A questionable solution, but considering that simple products were becoming increasingly difficult to find in megacity stores due to widespread epidemics, soil poisoning, and mutations of combat viruses spreading to cereals, it was quite an acceptable solution. Fortunately, it wasn't difficult for Omnissia to go to Pacifica and buy full-fledged products from the locals there, such as meat, milk, eggs, and vegetables. As for the diseases that these products might carry, the modified stomachs of Tony and Lucy could handle weak poisons without issue, and medium ones would at worst leave them contemplating life on the white throne for a long time.
"Good morning," Tony nodded, sitting at the table.
Lucy was now in charge of the household. Unlike Tony, who had to run around the city for work—both his own and helping Lucy—she decided to take on the household chores. Lucy hadn't learned to cook, but she was extremely responsible, meticulous, and attentive to details, easily following simple recipes and ultimately preparing quite tasty food. "What's for breakfast today?"
"Egg rolls," Lucy replied enthusiastically, wrapping the filling in lavash. Tony managed to see corn, lettuce leaves, an omelet, and some sauce inside. What kind, he didn't know—probably not mayonnaise, which hadn't been produced for twenty years, but some substitutes were supposedly still around.
"Well... let's try it," Tony agreed, and only then noticed the second cup of coffee. "Is this for me?" Tony raised an eyebrow. Omnissia made him a strong brew to wake up, so it was more than enough, and he never asked for a refill, even if he hadn't slept all night.
"Uh... yes," the back of young Miss Kusinada replied, carefully not turning her head.
"Lucy," Tony groaned the name of one white-haired individual. "We've discussed this," he continued reproachfully. "It's harmful for you at your age to consume coffee, especially this synthetic crap."
"I wanted to try it, I was sleepy, so I brewed a cup," she began to defend herself. "And, by the way, it tastes fine, especially with sugar."
"The point isn't the taste," Tony sighed wearily. He never would have thought that when it came to a child's health, he'd turn out to be such a mother hen, but here he was.
In this matter, Tony was quite paranoid, but he had reasons. He had no idea what exactly Ryu Kusinada had done to Lucy's body during her training and preparation. Before that, a whole staff of Arasaka doctors—extremely professional and possessing her complete medical history from the moment she was "designed" in the incubator—had monitored the little girl's health. According to Lucy herself, she was sent to the medical wing of the complex almost daily for tests, scans, and overall careful monitoring of her body. On one hand, this could have been Ryu's desire to ensure Lucy's results, but on the other, he could have been looking for flaws and shortcomings in her body. After all, Lucy was an extremely deep modifier, a significant part of whose enhancements involved the nervous system and higher cognitive functions—the most dangerous, complex, and unpredictable area in modern genetics. If it were otherwise, all the moneybags of today would have long since put their children through such procedures, further widening social inequality. So Tony worried about her health even more than his own, because unlike the little girl, his enhancements came from his parents and were generally aimed at increasing the body's strength and efficiency. He understood that he was overdoing it a bit, and one cup of coffee wouldn't hurt her, but until they had access to a full-fledged genetic laboratory—even a poor one—it was better to be safe.
"Fine," Tony said decisively, standing up and approaching Lucy. He turned her around, took her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes, and in the most heartfelt tone he could muster, said: "It's been proven that young girls who regularly consume coffee from an early age have breasts twenty percent smaller than they could have."
"I'll never drink coffee again," came the immediate reply, with absolute seriousness in her tone.
Was Tony lying? Well... he didn't know. At some point in his past life, he had genuinely stumbled upon an article stating that girls who drank coffee at an early age had smaller breasts than their mothers. Then there was something about the composition of coffee, part of which hindered breast growth, but in any case, he wasn't sure it was true. But he did know that the swill they called drinks these days was a chemical mess, not very healthy even for an adult body, and what it could do to a child's, Tony could barely imagine. He was generally extremely suspicious of food in this world. If before, his parents took care of this, and then Lucy's mother, now Tony himself had to handle it, because Lucy alone in this city couldn't be sent anywhere, and he would never again trust Omnissia with buying food. He had tried it once, and they were still eating rice for lunch. Considering that even in his much more prosperous world, there was instant noodle that literally caused cancer... what was happening with the food here, Tony was afraid to imagine, and there was no data to be had—all research was either bought or not conducted at all.
"Good. In general, drink water instead. Did I waste my time on the filter for nothing?" Tony nodded toward the massive iron contraption in the corner of the room, whose sole purpose was to filter and boil water. Why such complications? Because of the same thing—he was simply afraid to drink tap water, and simple measurements of bottled water showed it wasn't much better than plain boiled water. And yes, this might seem paranoid, but Tony was personally afraid to drink water that damaged tooth enamel, and by thirty, almost all residents of Night City were forced to either get dental prosthetics or grow a new set. But with his little machine, the water would be like from the purest spring.
In general, the problem with quality food in Night City was more than present. There was no hunger here, thanks to protein factories in the Badlands; the city received food from crickets without markup for transportation, so prices were more than democratic. But there was tension with something not just filling and tasty, but also healthy. In Pacifica, for example, a de-energized district of the city, locals, taking advantage of the complete lack of oversight by the authorities, used abandoned buildings to raise animals, converted them into greenhouses, and in general ate premium-segment products. The problem was that an epidemic could break out there at any moment, but the poor simply had no alternatives—only a few could earn eddies there, while the rest got by with barter. But Tony didn't trust them as food suppliers either. Unqualified poor people could use a lot of chemicals on their plants and animals, sometimes turning the product into an unassimilable chemical mess, and each such purchase was a real Russian roulette, with fatal cases not uncommon. Omnissia's sensors helped with this, of course, but the AI herself had repeatedly admitted that there wasn't much safe meat to eat in Pacifica—mostly poultry. The situation with vegetables and fruits was no better. Tony, lacking his former financial flows and connections, was seriously considering organizing a greenhouse right in the city, where he himself would personally grow plants. And a small cloning lab to grow good meat for their table, so they wouldn't have to replace the entire digestive system with implants in twenty years.
"However, these are all tasks for tomorrow, and today I need to drop by Padre's—he's got a profitable job lined up," Tony thought, literally devouring the breakfast Lucy had made. It turned out very good—the eggs paired well with the corn, lettuce, and sauce, creating a tender and pleasant taste with a slightly tart aftertaste. He didn't hesitate to share his thoughts, eliciting a satisfied smile from the little cooking master.
"It was delicious, thank you," Tony said, wiping his lips with a napkin, quickly jumping up, kissing Lucy on the top of her head, and rushing to the arsenal. He didn't know what task awaited him today, but he could always swing by home for more weapons, so he limited himself to a bulletproof vest, three throwing knives, a powerful pistol, and a submachine gun pistol. "I'm off!" he announced to the pair.
"Bye! Be careful!" they called back.
Lucy also had work to do today. She had become an information trader and had even hired herself a tutor in the Net to show her how to better navigate the city's digital reflection and train her as a combat netrunner.
Leaving the house, Tony immediately headed for the elevator leading to the garage. As it turned out, with their skills, acquiring their own vehicle wasn't so much a difficult task as it was a matter of finding a gang member, killing them, and taking their ride. Tony had initially doubted, but after delving into the horror that local gangs perpetrated, he quickly stopped considering them people, easily spilling their blood and taking their property. They often carried a decent amount of money, especially those higher in the hierarchy—up to ten thousand—but this couldn't be a long-term solution. The gangs might not care about their own members, but if someone started systematically cutting them down, they would start a hunt, and Tony wasn't in that weight class.
"See you," he added mentally, tossing the keys to his beauty, remembering how he had acquired his current vehicle.
The Quadra Turbo-R 740 was a good car, worth about seventy thousand eddies, depending on the configuration. Reliable, fast, comfortable sports car, but it had a number of drawbacks that made it not particularly popular in Night City. The first and most important was that it was urban transport, completely unsuited for off-road conditions in the Badlands outside the city. The second drawback was its extremely low ground clearance, which on one hand allowed this model to develop insane speed, but on the other, any bump was equivalent to damage. And the third drawback was its lightness. Due to the use of reinforced plastic instead of some parts and a lightweight frame, the car was rightly classified as a sports car, but this was the main problem—it was extremely difficult to control due to strong drifting. The wheels simply didn't have the necessary contact area with the surface for stable grip, making it easier than anything to flip during a sharp turn. Professionals weren't bothered by this, but ordinary citizens were, because due to the car's lightness (and thus fragility), such an incident was a guaranteed hospital visit for them, quite possibly with a fatal outcome. Tony had acquired the Quadra Turbo simply by taking it from its former owner—a corpse didn't need a car.
It happened a couple of weeks ago. They had just settled into their new home and left the megabuilding for the first time in a long time, more or less inspecting it for cafes, shops, and gyms. Now it was time to explore the surroundings, and in general, Tony saw what he expected—a more or less decent district with a variety of shops. Of course, it would have been nice if there were fewer 18+ service establishments and bars with hookah lounges offering some suspicious mixtures, but overall, it was tolerable. Then they stumbled upon a robbery by the Tiger Claws, who, without hesitation, tried to kill passersby, but before they could even aim their weapons, Tony took out two with his pistol, Omnissia killed three, and Lucy fried one with Overheat. That was when Tony acquired his new vehicle (the rest arrived on bikes). The color and interior left much to be desired, but they quickly fixed that. Then Tony figured out how to fix the shortcomings of the model they had acquired, and Lucy began searching for where to "expropriate" the necessary parts. Preferences were given to gangs, of course, which was why the search took so long. They didn't want to spend money—their income was still purely negative—and Stark refused to steal from more or less decent people.
Sitting in his car, starting the engine, and listening to the powerful motor roar under the hood, Tony couldn't help but smile. Yes, the car wasn't the best, but it was his car, and it had cost him absolutely nothing, so it was wrong to complain. Moreover, after all his improvements, it could be resold in good conscience for a full hundred thousand Eurodollars, and with the proceeds, buy another one, also for resale. You could even start by taking the cars of dead bandits, modifying them, and reselling them—just make sure to get out in time, or they might get angry.
Padre
"Padre," Tony greeted the bald old man, shaking his hand and recalling a very significant and important proverb: "Beware of old men in professions where it's customary to die young." This was more than characteristic of his new acquaintance.
Sebastian "Padre" Ibarra was an old fixer, a skilled informant, an extremely cunning and influential man with connections throughout the city, but most importantly, he was respected on the streets. Amazingly, he was a vanishingly rare type of bandit with principles, for which he had been beaten more than once, but still maintained his own vision of nobility, which is why many mercenaries still chose to turn to him for work, ignoring shadier figures. But perhaps the most distinctive thing about Padre was his extremely great influence on the Valentinos, a gang of Latinos with extremely strong ties to cartels around the world. Literally, many members of their gang either went to work for them or had previously been part of cartels, which is why they had connections all over the world and access to almost any chemicals, drugs, and fighters of their allies. The unimpressive old man, on the contrary, was one of the main predators of Night City, on par with the fixer Wakako Okada, another old wreck, but one closely associated with the Tiger Claws and not inspiring the same trust. An old woman sitting in the most debauched district of the city, adorned with tattoos that not even closed clothing could hide, and with a predatory look in her eyes, inspired much less trust than a kind grandfather constantly quoting the Bible. But Tony wasn't fooled—Ibarra would easily put anyone under the knife if the profit was worth it.
"Tony," he smiled warmly at Stark. "Glad to see you. Come in, sit down," he gestured to the spot next to him on the street basketball court. It was unclear why Padre preferred to conduct business here—maybe it was for the image, maybe something related to the past, or maybe it was simply easier to defend this place than an office in a building—but the fact remained that Tony had never been invited to conduct business anywhere else. "Your work was highly praised by my friends from the Valentinos, asking when they can give you more weapons to upgrade," he immediately began, making Tony grimace.
"We're here for another matter," Tony tried to deflect. "Or has something changed?"
"No, everything is in force, but we need to wait for someone from the Valentinos," the old fixer reassured him. "But Tony, your work was appreciated by one of the captains of the group, and that's already different money, you understand. Even I'm interested."
"I see," Tony sighed wearily.
Tony didn't particularly like working with weapons—an old moral trauma. And although he had long overcome it, the scar remained, especially strongly reminding him of itself when he was forced to hand over guns to bandits. If the situation were different, Stark would never have agreed to such a thing, but here, as always, the nuances were important.
Tony wanted to establish himself as quickly as possible in the solo community to avoid getting involved in outright dirty business, and getting in touch with one of the most prominent fixers in this matter was the best and almost the only option that allowed him to cut corners. But what could interest a shadow bigwig in one of the most criminal cities in all of America? His skills? The chromed tops of Afterlife would crush Tony like a flea, despite all the inheritance from his parents and the brain optimization procedure. Touching the story that he had seriously messed with Arasaka? Not funny. Fixers could pretend to be independent figures all they wanted, but they existed only as long as they were convenient to the corporations... or at least not harmful. New technologies? Unfortunately, Padre didn't work with that—at most, he could help with sales, acting as a guarantor of the deal, nothing more. The only thing left was his father's craft—the production of weapons. So Tony, without much thought, took the trophy guns of the bandits, obtained in the same way as his little car, and redesigned them into something more useful and valuable than the standard models. This interested the former solo, who knew his guns. A young talented mechanic capable of turning a standard weapon into something truly lethal was always valued even by army units, let alone large but street gangs. It wasn't that Tony was pleased with this state of affairs, but he was comforted by the thought that such firearms were only given to elite fighters of the gang, who simply couldn't afford to go around and tyrannize ordinary people by status.
"But I'm only willing to talk about it after payment," Tony returned to the conversation, emerging from his thoughts.
"Everything will be," Ibarra assured him. "I spoke with the guys; the new owners of the guns are currently on a business trip and will return in four days. Then, with their approval, they will transfer the remaining funds."
"Good," Tony nodded in relief. It would have been a shame to lose a contact like Padre, but having received specific deadlines, Tony calmed down. "Then we'll talk."
"Agreed," the old man smiled.
And, as if waiting for this moment, a guy with Valentino signs approached them. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with rough facial features but surprisingly kind eyes for a bandit.
"Hi, are you Tony?" he asked, extending his hand after greeting Padre. "I'm Jackie."
Jackie
Jackie was a bit nervous. He had been with the Valentinos for a relatively long time, and in general, he often went under fire, rightfully considered a veteran of street wars, but this was his first assignment where he would work with someone outside. Not a friend he grew up with on the same street, not a gang comrade, not a simple drinking buddy, but a complete stranger from whom you didn't know what to expect. And the assignment itself... was tense.
A new gang of Scavengers had appeared in the district controlled by their gang. Who they were, the names of the leaders, the approximate composition—all this they had managed to get from Padre, but there was a moment that made his captain move his ass. In short, this gang of Scavengers had been driven out of their previous location by the Tiger Claws, after seriously bleeding them dry and creating a real mess on their turf. It seemed like nothing special—there were dozens of such stories in Night City every week—but two things happened. First, the Tiger Claws failed to finish off the scum of Night City's underworld. They thinned them out, yes, and not by much, but that very "terrible and awful" retribution they promised never happened, and that was a blow to their reputation, which would be even more painful if the Valentinos finished the job for them. The second point was that these particular Scavengers saw no limits—they didn't care who they harvested for chrome and organs, as long as it made them money. They had only been in Heywood for a week, but in that time, they had managed to kidnap about three important bigwigs, bringing this problem into their district, thereby exacerbating relations with other groups. Worse, they had already been not-so-subtly hinted that either the Valentinos would deal with this problem in the shortest possible time, or it would be done for them, introducing their own fighters into their territory, which the senior gangs did not want to allow under any circumstances. But the problem was that their forces were almost fully occupied, gnawing at the Maelstrom, and those who were free were guarding their property, so they could only assign Jackie and a newly minted Night City solo to reinforce him for this task.
Jackie glanced at this Tony and again, against his will, tensed up. Having grown up on the streets of Night City, communicating with gang members from childhood and being the son of not the least important people in Heywood, he had seen all kinds of people, learning to understand them well. And this Stark... seemed not of this world.
Let's start with the appearance.
His temporary partner was dressed in a black jacket, clearly tailored to his figure, with a burgundy shirt, a black tie, and red sunglasses. In the second half of the twentieth century, when technology gave people enormous opportunities to change their own identity, everyone who really cared about their appearance or tried to be in tune with global trends looked extremely original. The more details, the brighter the colors, the more unusual the shapes, the more individual you were... and yet you didn't stand out at all. The only exception was the corps, uniformly dressed in business suits of different price ranges, but in fact, this was the same uniform as any other gang. Tony, however, wore a business suit casually, relaxed, and dismissively. The jacket was unbuttoned, the tie loosened, an ironic cheerful smile on his face, and his eyes behind the glasses seemed to look down on the whole world like a wise old man observing the foolishness of children. How this was possible, Jackie didn't understand, and it was dangerous on the streets. Corps weren't liked, and even the police could quite drag a corporate employee into a dark corner to recount his ribs (at best). But the thing was, Stark didn't look like a corpo. Jackie had seen suits both up close and from afar, on TV screens and in person; there they all wore suits stiffly, like uncomfortable collars. Stark, however... Stark had breeding. How and what, Jackie himself didn't understand, but his brain literally itched that this particular person could be dressed both in brand-name clothes worth a sports car and in the last rags, and he wouldn't care, because behaving differently wouldn't even occur to him, because he was who he was. And the younger Wells had to admit, it was true. His today's colleague's clothes were just the tip of his oddities, so to speak, the first thing that caught the eye. Next came the appearance.
Appearance... in the modern world, people grew tails for themselves, installed implants to connect their thoughts, grew fur, scales, or feathers, and some even replaced organic parts with biometal. Once, a delegation from a gang that styled themselves after the Aztecs came to them, and their fighters all had green scales instead of skin and yellow eyes with vertical pupils, and against their background, Stark should have been completely lost... but he wasn't. Wells was a man of normal orientation, and he understood very little about male appearance. In his opinion, the taller and more muscular, the better. And he could admit to himself that he wasn't a pretty boy, far from it, but he wasn't ugly either, and with girls, his charm and those very muscles helped him. However, even a layman like Jackie could understand that Stark was ridiculously handsome. Not with that dove-like beauty where, without seeing an Adam's apple, it was hard to determine whether it was a woman or a man, but with a mature, masculine beauty of a confident man. Unreal blue eyes (and natural ones, which was rare), black thick hair combed back, light stubble, and a toned figure could make even a nun spread her legs, let alone less steadfast individuals. But the main thing was in the facial features, perfect to the point of slight nausea—no modern surgeon could replicate such features, because they were all natural, native, and it showed.
And the last oddity was his manner. Stark was confident in himself, easily communicating with the same Padre as if with an equal, dismissively ignoring his armed-to-the-teeth guards, and demonstratively ignoring attempts to test his mettle, expressing with a single look that he wouldn't deign to measure his worth in pants with some street punk.
Even his car, a sports car repainted in gold and red, an extremely rare combination for Night City, demonstrated this wonderfully arrogant attitude toward everyone else. When one of Ibarra's guards tried to joke about the color, Stark easily turned it into a joke, and Jackie saw that he wasn't offended by the bandit's words—he simply felt zero emotions about it, and the response was given only because of Tony's good mood. Usually, young solos, on the contrary, were extremely sharp about such jabs, but here there was absolute calmness with complete indifference to others' opinions.
And the last thing that caught the eye was education. As soon as Stark opened his mouth, the smell of higher education and high erudition wafted out. And this at a time when more than half of the country's population hadn't even been to school!
Why did all this worry Wells so much? It was simple—this very person would be covering his back in the upcoming shootout, and it was about him that he would have to give a report to the Valentinos.
"What are you thinking about, big guy?" the cause of Jackie's headache broke the silence.
"About the upcoming fight," he didn't dare to tell the truth.
"Do you expect something serious?" Tony lazily raised an eyebrow.
There! That's what he was talking about. A young solo without proper chrome should have tensed up, latched onto his slip with pliers, and as a result, either refused the order or demanded extra pay. Here, there was complete calm and even boredom.
"Unlikely," Wells honestly admitted. "Pedro's information is verified and reliable, as much as possible. The bastards were well thinned out during their escape from the Claws' territory; they recruited a little meat, but that's it. They had neither the money to improve their combat effectiveness nor the time, so the two of us should be enough."
"So you're so tensely thinking about a shootout that will go without problems?" Tony asked ironically, as if inviting him to confess some shameful secret. "Is that how it is?"
"That's how it is," Jackie nodded. "But in general, this is Night City. You can catch a bullet even on your way home, so it's better to take even a drunken fight as seriously as possible."
"Well, I'll trust your experience, big guy."
Tony Stark. Same place. Same time.
Feeling the unpleasant pull in his legs, the ache in his back from the excessive load, and the sweat stinging his eyes, Tony allowed himself a slight grimace. The hastily crafted armor he'd designed was excellent in every way—except comfort and weight distribution. His primary goal in constructing it had been to create the most reinforced armor possible, giving the not-so-experienced-in-firefights Stark an undeniable advantage over everyone else. And the armor delivered, but he had underestimated the resulting strain. Or perhaps overestimated his own body. As a result, instead of shifting the main load to his waist—which would have significantly eased wearing the armor—the entire burden fell on his back, and even his enhanced physiology struggled with it. And he couldn't pull off many fancy maneuvers—he'd already tried to quickly outflank the walker to avoid its guns, nearly tearing a ligament in the process. Unpleasant, but tolerable. The armor plates held, ammo was sufficient, Omnissia was taking control of the complex's digital systems (those with their own power), and Tony was almost at his goal.
Breaking through the guard-infested corridors was no picnic, especially considering the corporate paranoia that, over the past half-century, had created an entire architectural style designed to turn any corporate facility into a fortress masquerading as an office building. But the armor, machine gun, hammer, elite mercenary support squad, and Omnissia did their job.
"Good thing I decided to play it safe," Tony thought to himself, watching as a squad of defenders was utterly obliterated by a synchronized turret barrage under the control of one spiteful AI. When planning the operation, he had anticipated the possibility of failing to disable the nuclear reactor or the guards' power systems (at least the critical ones) and had chosen to leave Omnissia in the secret data center, opting for electronic support over an extremely powerful assault unit. And, as it turned out, he had made the right call.
There wasn't much left to reach the room where Lucy and the children were being held, and resistance was fading as they neared the secret elevator. The mercenaries, sent through the central gates, were doing their job, drawing all the guards' attention, who were openly panicking over the elevator's capture. Apparently, during the assault, they had managed to kill the head of security, and now his deputies were either unable to share power or weren't as competent as their boss. Tony didn't know, nor did he care. The assault was going well, and that was what mattered.
However, when they finally descended the elevator to the lower levels, they were met by a crowd of terrified civilians. Disheveled, some in pajamas, others in hastily donned uniforms, their eyes wide with fear and confusion—they clearly hadn't expected to see them here. And Tony... Tony tilted his head as if in thought, his eyes behind the armored visor scanning their faces for signs of remorse, sorrow, self-reproach, or at least a shred of conscience. Instead, he found only fear for their own skins.
"Fire," he ordered quietly, and a dozen of the best mercenaries under contract immediately, without hesitation, opened fire on the densely packed crowd. Bodies without combat implants or armor were riddled, torn apart, and shattered under the dense hail of lead, literally turning the elevator entrance into a small lake of blood with chunks of human flesh floating in it. "Move on." Coldly stepping over the carnage, Tony strode across the red floor without a hint of emotion.
Stark wasn't entirely sure how to feel about this act. After all, killing unarmed people was completely out of character for him. But this wasn't his old world. There, where the name Tony Stark carried weight, he could have captured all these people alive and been confident they would face deserved punishment. Here, he was certain they wouldn't spend a day in prison. There, he had people close to him, many of whom were idealists who, under no circumstances, could justify such a massacre. Here, Stark saw what had happened as... rational. The optimal solution among those currently available. But what unsettled him was that he had only thought about morality and ethics after giving the order. It wasn't his first time killing people, but such cold-bloodedness was something new. Yes, all the complex's workers were scum, experimenting on children and sending them to their deaths—literally indefensible. But Stark had never considered himself a judge. A wise man, Tony understood that any eye could become jaded and biased, so the decision of punishment should be left to an impersonal system, not to a person involved in the capture and imprisonment of the guilty.
"Ah, that's what it is," Tony realized. "There's no system here at all."
Whatever was said about the USA in his world, its judicial system was maximally independent, impartial, and incorruptible. Too many interested parties ensured it stayed that way, ruthlessly slapping down anyone who tried to bend the courts to their will and mercilessly punishing judges who sold out. An unspoken agreement among the world's powerful, silently agreeing to have someone unbiased to pass judgment in case of their defeat. Here, though... there was none of that. All the courts were corrupt, all the officials were on the gangs' payroll, the gangs themselves were extensions of the corporations, and the corporations had turned governments into utility services, forced not to maintain order by timely reining in the overly ambitious, but to clean up after the corporates, pretending they still mattered. Tony simply had no one to rely on for judgment, and if that was the case, he unwillingly became the sole and fairest judge.
However, such philosophical musings didn't prevent Stark from monitoring the situation and moving toward his goal. Not much left now.
The Old Toy Factory
The old toy factory was a gloomy place. Primarily because its owners hadn't just gone bankrupt—they had died, the heirs had started a real legal war, and brought the situation to the point where inheriting the factory was no longer worthwhile, as years of litigation had broken all the equipment or it had been stolen, and the employees had quit. Moreover, it had a debt for years of downtime in taxes and an undelivered batch of children's toys, which had long since grown to a seven-figure sum. The heirs did everything to avoid inheriting this factory, while the factory itself was fully used by gangs, drug addicts, rapists... and Scavengers. Of course, all the warehouses with goods had been broken into by the first uninvited guests, scattering the generally good, clean toys throughout the premises, then this was repeated by the next ones, who also soiled them with cheap booze, blood, and other bodily fluids, creating an atmosphere of a children's fairy tale that had suddenly turned into a bloody horror from an abundance of blood, in which all the red paint in Hollywood had run out. And the smell completed the picture—an indescribable mixture of old shit, urine, sour beer, blood, and male semen, all creating an indescribable aroma. Only the most deranged psychopaths or veterans who had survived and worse could be in such a place.
The new uninvited guests of the factory entered the dark maw of the main entrance at a calm pace, but with weapons at the ready. The first was a slick man in an expensive business suit, holding a monstrous revolver in one hand and a submachine gun in the other. His whole appearance screamed that he should be anywhere but here. In an expensive restaurant that bandits were about to storm, in a casino looking for information on which the fate of the world depended, negotiating with terrorists—but definitely not preparing to storm an old, despair-soaked building. The second man was more suited to this place.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with rough, as if hewn from stone, facial features, he frowned and cast a glance with his brown eyes around, as if expecting the enemy to jump out of a hidden niche at any moment and try to take his life. A solid automatic rifle of an unknown model, but well-maintained, lay in his hands as if it were an extension of his own body, and his left shoulder was tense, ready at any moment to draw the machete sticking out from behind his back.
The first inhabitants of this gloomy place the pair of intruders saw through the cameras. Three drones, silently flying like shadows into the large hall where toys were once assembled, rose to the very top, dispersing to the corners and scanning the entire area with their gaze. The place was gloomy—piles of corpses, clothes, containers with organs, and implants lay in large heaps, and among them walked people with empty eyes. There was an old man with a burn scar around his neck, placing a container with a new batch of organs with the rest, wiping away sweat. There was a young guy without pants, unashamedly desecrating the corpse of a young girl, enthusiastically moving his hips and making disgusting whimpers every time the dead girl's chest swayed under his greedy gaze. And there was a third, taking the first bite of a heated pizza, lazily tinkering with a bloodstained laptop.
There were five Scavengers in the room, busy with their business and paying little attention to the world around them. They were completely confident in their safety, relying on the camera system and the turret placed opposite the main entrance.
Both guests, without consulting, grimaced. Jackie didn't see what Tony saw in his glasses, but from around the corner of the main entrance, the scene of one individual satisfying his lust was perfectly visible. However, distracted, Wells didn't notice how Stark suddenly rushed forward, running right under the cameras into a well-covered area... and then, making a full turn, shot all the Scavengers with the submachine gun, which turned out to have an integrated silencer. One and a half seconds—that's all it took for him to put three bullets in the skull and heart of each of the bastards.
Jackie's eyes widened in impression, but he was even more indignant. Taking such risks, rushing forward without warning his partner, was a lousy tactic that could easily lead to injuries. But he kept his opinion to himself for later, until a calmer environment.
The path forward continued. There were up to ten people in the gang with extremely lousy weapons, a minimal amount of chrome, and not even clothes made of armorweave. Stark had just zeroed out five of them; there were still that many left.
"I hope the rest will be just as easy," Wells thought, readjusting his grip on his gun.
Night City Police Officer Olivia Rose. Ten Minutes Later
Olivia Rose, a middle-aged woman in body and with the look of a dead fish, melancholically sipped her coffee, boredly staring at the monitor. A black police officer whose job was to take calls for a good decade now, she had survived the change of seven captains and three mayors, managing to hear the most impressive, strange, insane, or simply surreal police calls that this damned city generated with enviable regularity every day.
She remembered a call where a huge black man, two meters tall with biceps the size of her thigh, called the police on his own wife, a one-and-a-half-meter Asian woman with a boyish figure. The called patrol laughed, gave a couple of warnings with photos, and left. And then, three days later, she received a new call from the same area, this time from neighbors about loud noise and screams of pain. So she sent the patrol again. And what do you expect hardened, life-weary cops who don't believe in this world to find when responding to a domestic violence call where the husband is a huge brute and the wife is a fragile little thing? In any other city, it would be the wife being beaten by the husband, which, given their weight difference, could end in serious injuries or even death. But this was Night City! Everything was different here! As a result, the arriving patrol saw the corpse of the brute with a neck so riddled with holes that it was held together only by the spine, and that very little Asian woman, covered in her husband's blood and with a kitchen knife in her hands. And not a healthy one for cutting meat, but the smallest in the set. This rabid bitch had almost severed the head of a man with a bull neck with a knife that could barely cut bread! So Olivia vowed never to be surprised by calls in this insane city, just quietly and calmly doing her job, at which she was quite good. After all, experience spanning decades was hard to drink away (and she tried), and compared to the new dispatchers, she stood out favorably, regularly receiving bonuses. But today's day surprised even her.
"Hello, Night City Police Dispatch, how can I help you?" she answered the next call of the day with a phrase learned to automatism, in an extremely dry, lifeless voice.
— ...
— Gunshots at the old factory?
— ...
— Maniacal laughter?
— ...
— Explosions??
— ...
— Fire from white flames???
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