The car rolled through the streets, surrounded by the glittering chaos of Night City.
Psychedelic neon signs, towering monumental buildings, and filth rotting away in the corners.
"In Night City, you can't afford to stay idle," Jackie said with feeling.
"What's the difference? It's just bigger," V replied dismissively.
To him, what they'd been doing over the last six months wasn't that different from life in the Badlands. Only the setting had changed, and the format. At its core, it was still the same world of killing and being killed, the strong devouring the weak.
"No, mano. It's different here." Jackie used that conspiratorial tone of his. "Morgan Blackhand, Andrew Weyland, Adam Smasher—they're all legends born from this place."
With rap music thumping from the radio, the scenery sliding past outside the windows, and those larger-than-life Night City legends hanging in the air, the moment suddenly took on a rich cinematic feel.
"Adam Smasher…" Luo Qi laughed. "Sounds like a guy made entirely out of meat. From what I hear, he's basically a walking machine so heavily modified his own mother wouldn't recognize him. The stuff we're carrying probably wouldn't even be enough to scratch his paint."
"That guy works for Arasaka. Who'd have a death wish big enough to pick a fight with him?" Jackie said. "Shit, I'm starving. Let's go get something heavy."
"Jackie—they're about to lock down Watson, remember?" V said helplessly.
"Ah, shit, right." Jackie's enthusiasm stalled, and he looked annoyed. "Uh… is it just me being paranoid?"
He glanced at the rearview mirror.
Then his gaze froze.
"Someone's tailing us…" Luo Qi, kneeling in the back seat, racked the slide on the Copperhead power assault rifle in his hands.
"I knew it. That truck behind us—it's surveillance!" Jackie said.
The blood pressure he'd only just calmed came surging right back up. If he hadn't needed both hands on the wheel to stop the three of them from meeting the King of Hell together, Jackie would have pulled a gun instantly and blasted away on the spot.
"Trauma Team was there just now, so even if they'd thrown all their men at us they couldn't have scratched a single hair on them. But now we're alone, and they're here for revenge," Luo Qi said. "They only bully the weak? Then let's show them we're not soft targets either!"
"Chingado, Lucky! Watch out!" Jackie shouted.
"As if you had to tell me—they're—" Luo Qi was jolted sideways. "—they're right on top of us now!"
"It's the Scavs! ¡Hijos de puta!" Jackie yanked the wheel hard and barely dodged the incoming spray of bullets.
"Drive faster, Jackie!"
V leaned out the window and unleashed a burst from his SMG at the van in front of them.
Luo Qi leaned out from the other side of the back seat. "You sons of bitches! I didn't have a gun when we were fighting Arasaka—now you bastards can eat lead!"
He squeezed the trigger, and the rifle started spitting fire in a continuous stream.
The chatter of gunfire ran together into a single vicious roar.
The two gunmen in the van were cut down almost instantly under the crossing fire from Luo Qi and V.
"Faster! Keep shooting!" Jackie shouted as he dodged the bullets flying everywhere.
"The car's shaking so much, how the hell am I supposed to aim?!" V yelled back.
"Forget the car—hit the driver!" Luo Qi gritted his teeth and fought the powerful recoil as he hosed the driver's side with bullets.
He had no idea whether he'd landed the shots, but when the van reached the next turn, it shot straight through instead of making the corner, letting Jackie fling their car around and shake it loose.
"Hold on! V! Lucky!" Jackie swerved by the skin of his teeth to avoid pedestrians on the sidewalk.
"Shit! Sorry!"
The terrifying part was that the moment Luo Qi turned his head, he saw the van that had overshot the turn plow through a flower bed, circle back, and come after them again—with the side door open, and another gunman still inside.
"Forget him! Shoot the driver!" Jackie shouted.
But before he could finish the sentence, the van suddenly screeched off the road.
At that range, Luo Qi had absolutely washed the driver's seat in gunfire.
If they still wanted to keep chasing?
Only if the driver's skull was made of titanium alloy.
"No chance now, asshole!" Jackie howled, sounding like he wished he'd been the one firing.
The car quickly returned to the proper lane, as if the chaos they had just left behind had all been an illusion.
Once they were sure no more pursuers were coming, V and Luo Qi finally exhaled and pulled themselves back inside.
"Damn. I scratched up your baby. Sorry, V," Jackie sighed.
"It's fine—we'll deal with it later. Right now let's just get home," V said, waving it off.
The three of them sat in the car breathing hard, but it no longer felt like those first few days in Night City, when every escape from death felt like a miracle.
After enough time in gunfights, you got used to it.
As for shooting it out in the middle of the street…
No matter how corrupt NCPD was, Luo Qi still felt a little uneasy about that.
But gang scum—especially Scavs, those organ-harvesting bastards—he never showed them any mercy.
Once things quieted down, the city around them seemed to regain its color, and the music on the radio started sounding alive again.
It was a strangely surreal feeling.
By the time they reached the bridge between Japantown in Westbrook and Kabuki in Watson, NCPD officers and vehicles had already set up a checkpoint. For some reason, Luo Qi suddenly felt the same tension he'd felt half a year ago, passing through the border crossing.
He guessed V felt it too.
He just wasn't showing it on his face.
"Shit, they've even brought out the barricades," Jackie muttered as he slowed the car.
If there was anyone in the car panicking the most, it was definitely Jackie.
Beside the checkpoint stood a two-legged combat mech, a full three meters tall, both arms mounted with machine guns and cannons. It looked like some giant full-metal crab that had grown legs.
But Luo Qi knew better.
That Militech-made toy was basically a miniature tank that could run. It could tear their little car apart like tissue paper.
"Watson District is under lockdown. Await further instructions. These are necessary security measures."
A female NCPD officer in sunglasses walked over and bent down at the window.
"Officer, ma'am! Meeting you tonight is the luckiest thing that's happened to us all damn day!" Jackie launched straight into his signature brand of "Jackie-style polite greeting."
"Oh yeah…? Then tell me, what makes me different?" the female officer asked, curling her lips.
Without missing a beat, Jackie laid it on thick. "A heart of gold. Because only someone like you could understand how badly I need to get back to my girl."
"Your… daughter?" the officer asked.
"That's right." Jackie lied with frightening smoothness. "If I don't get back, my little girl's gonna worry herself sick."
Holy shit. Oscar-worthy acting.
Luo Qi covered his smile and secretly gave Jackie a thumbs-up from under the dashboard.
But Jackie's performance was still going, completely unstoppable. "Look at me. I'm trying to become a respectable man. She gave me a chance. She's waiting for me."
"Mmm~ how touching," the officer said in the most sarcastic tone imaginable.
"Look at him," V chimed in from the side. "Maybe he's no model citizen, but he's a good kid from a decent family."
The female officer slowly straightened up. Just as Luo Qi thought she was about to explode, she waved a hand instead.
"Let them through. But they're the last car."
"Alright. Go on."
"Have a pleasant evening, Officer, ma'am," Jackie said, his eyebrows practically flying off his face with joy as he floored the accelerator and sped off.
"She kind of liked you, didn't she?" V teased.
"Naturally. I moved her with the sincerity of my heart," Jackie said smugly.
"Right~" Luo Qi and V answered in perfect unison.
But Jackie still seemed immersed in his own performance. "I'm loyal in love… and steadfast."
"Mmm~" Luo Qi and V expressed their wholehearted agreement.
"And never overdramatic, you know~" Jackie said, waggling his brows.
"Ugh… that's enough already, hahahaha…"
The car crossed the bridge and entered the streets of Watson.
Energetic pop music was blasting from the radio, giving the night a wild pulse.
As they rounded a corner, Luo Qi saw several people sprinting across the road ahead.
"Get out of the car! Move!"
Before he could figure out what was happening, Jackie had already stopped at the red light and was looking around.
"Joder… look. Something's going down over there."
Jackie stared at the scene unfolding at the intersection up ahead.
Several gang members with weapons were dragging a driver out of a car by force.
They were really just pulling a carjacking right out in the open.
How desperate did you have to be to do something that loud and stupid?
Weren't they worried NCPD would hunt them all over the city?
Before Luo Qi could even finish the thought, a roaring engine screamed overhead.
Blue thruster flames flickered as an armored AV settled into position under heavy gunfire from the gang members.
"They're here! Open fire!"
The driver on the ground rolled and crawled away from the scene in the chaos.
Bang!
Bang!
Two figures leapt directly out of the aircraft and slammed down onto the pavement, impossibly steady.
Bullets hit them and bounced off like they were made of rubber.
"This doesn't look like normal cops arresting criminals…" V said.
"These guys are dead," Luo Qi said, shaking his head.
And then, just like that, the gang members were blasted apart like paper dolls, thrown around by two or three shots each.
God only knew how much force those officers' weapons were putting out.
A full-grown adult weighing over a hundred kilos got sent flipping backward by a single round, muzzle flashes blooming like miniature suns in the night.
"They're not regular cops. That's MaxTac," Jackie explained. "NCPD's own elite killers."
"If a case gets big enough, they show up. Those dumbasses over there?" He jerked his chin toward the gang members. "They're not even enough to get stuck in MaxTac's teeth."
As Jackie explained, the MaxTac officers casually walked over and put an extra round into every corpse one by one.
The sound was deafening. Blood exploded everywhere. Every shot turned into a fountain. Bodies shattered across the pavement.
Maybe that was what people meant by fighting terror with greater terror.
When your enemy was cyberpsycho-level violent, you had to be even more violent. Even more terrifying.
It was brutal as hell.
Luo Qi realized he had judged those gangsters unfairly just a moment ago.
They had a very good reason for panicking.
And it was one hell of a reason.
"Well, show's over. Those poor bastards had it coming," Jackie said with perfect calm now that the trouble wasn't theirs.
One of the MaxTac officers saw the traffic stalled up on the road and waved at them. Jackie immediately hit the gas and sped away from the scene.
As the car passed, Luo Qi's eyes stayed fixed on the weapons the officer was carrying.
Purple glow. Dense energy humming through the frame.
Tech weapons. Expensive, beautiful, and painful to even look at.
He was drooling with envy.
"Those are good guns. Problem is, they're so damn expensive I couldn't afford one even if I sold myself," Jackie said with a grin, noticing where Luo Qi was looking.
"I'm just looking," Luo Qi said with a smile of his own. "Once we've got money, then we'll talk."
The car drove on through the city night, weaving beneath the neon-dark skyline.
"We're here. Your place is up ahead," Jackie said, pulling into the parking structure.
"What about you? You can't get back to Heywood now, can you?" V asked.
Normally Jackie still stayed at his old family home in Heywood—the place he'd grown up.
"It's fine. They'll let me through," Jackie said, absurdly confident in his own acting skills.
"You sure?" Luo Qi asked.
"Of course. I can be Peaceful Jackie one more time."
They drove up a few levels in the parking structure and came to a stop.
"Then sleep well," Jackie said, saying goodbye to his two brothers.
"Say hi to Misty for both of us." V bumped fists with Jackie. After that, Jackie pulled his fist back and tapped Luo Qi's too.
"Same here."
That was Luo Qi's classic line, and Jackie knew it well.
"I will. Ahí luego." With that, Jackie drove off.
V and Luo Qi stepped into the elevator and pressed 8.
Just like "Room 1237 on the fifteenth floor," even though this was clearly the third floor above ground in the parking garage, the building insisted on labeling it B3.
When Luo Qi saw blue light flicker in V's eyes, he knew someone was calling him.
"What is it?" Luo Qi asked.
"T-Bug says she's giving me a netrunner plug-in."
"Oh, nice." Luo Qi nodded. It was useless to him, but for V it could be a big deal.
The four screens inside the elevator were all playing advertisements, just like the ad that had been running on the Arasaka crate the day V and Luo Qi first met Jackie—a futuristic high-energy bar, basically the world's most cyberpunk Snickers knockoff.
When they stepped out of the elevator, several aimless residents were gathered around, drinking from bottles and chatting idly.
Vending machines lit the hallway with lurid color.
Garbage and grime sat uncleaned in the corners. Some tenant nearby was complaining that the main hallway door was broken yet again.
A high-tech slum.
That was Luo Qi's most immediate impression of the place.
"Lucky, this is where we split. Sleep well," V said, standing at his own door and waving to Luo Qi.
"Come on, don't make it sound like we're parting for three to five years. We're only a few rooms apart," Luo Qi said with a laugh, watching V head inside. "If anything comes up, call me."
"You too," V's voice came back through the doorway before the door shut behind him.
A familiar apartment.
Its structure and design were full of futuristic touches: a holographic TV, a touch-controlled home vending unit, a floor kept reasonably clean, and a bed big and soft enough to sink into. The place was empty, sure—but there was an old saying: A friend afar is still a neighbor at heart. As long as he knew V and Jackie were alright, even a little place occupied by only himself still felt warm.
A shower, then sleep.
As for whatever bullshit tomorrow would bring…
That could wait until tomorrow.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 172)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 116)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter69)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter119)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 66
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 50
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 52
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 55
The Way the Umamusume Look at 42
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 40
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 36
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 30
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 26
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 26
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