Beep beep beep…
Walking down the street, Luo Qi's PDA suddenly started ringing.
"I talked to Dexter," V said.
"Heh heh, if a fat guy's offering work, it's gotta be a fat payout, right?" Jackie was as optimistic as ever.
"He wants to test us first, but I get the feeling he's trying to push us straight into the middle of Militech and Maelstrom's mess." Even V, no matter how dull his instincts could be sometimes, could tell how nasty this situation was getting. "There's this combat robot, a military prototype. Maelstrom stole it. Dexter wants it bought back from them—the money's already been paid—but it just so happened the gang changed leaders right then."
"Right, right, I heard about that. Royce against Brick—hostile takeover." Jackie nodded.
"Something like that. Dexter wants us to go talk to Royce. He also gave me the number of some Militech rep, but…" V hissed through his teeth. "No idea how she's supposed to help."
And this was only the prep work for stealing the chip.
"V, you absolutely need to contact that rep," Luo Qi said, already grinning that sly, dangerous grin. "Be polite. Be confident. Their hardware got stolen—they've got to be furious. Go talk to them about wiping out Maelstrom's nest. Whether it's material support or straight-up fire support, they'll definitely be willing."
And if things went well enough, V might even end up with a pretty nice one-night fling out of it. A mid-to-upper Militech contact also counted as a real connection.
"Ha, chingón. I'm into that plan," Jackie chimed in.
"You don't seem surprised at all, hearing the name Royce… don't tell me you know him?" V asked.
"That guy's a freak among freaks. Junkies smoke drugs—Royce smokes metal," Jackie said dramatically.
"It's Maelstrom. Everyone knows they're chrome-crazed psychos. So if he's the boss of the psychos, then naturally he has to be a super psycho," Luo Qi said with a laugh.
V went on. "There's one more thing. I've got to meet the client who set this whole job up—Evelyn Parker."
"You? So what, Dexter's gonna ride around in his luxury car while you go chat up the girl for him?" Jackie asked, clearly irritated by the way mercs had to run around while the fixer took it easy.
"Parker wants to meet the people actually handling the job. Dexter sent me."
"He definitely planned all that in advance…" Jackie muttered. "So what's the move? Maelstrom or Parker first?"
V thought for a moment. "I think we should meet Parker first. Get a feel for her. See what she's really after."
"I've got something to take care of. Once you're done meeting her, we'll go deal with Maelstrom together," Luo Qi said.
"Órale. Then I'll head to All Foods first and scout the area. Hasta luego."
The call ended.
Luo Qi's expression immediately slipped back into a kind of worried frown.
A game was a game. You could ignore the main quest and just stand around admiring the scenery if you wanted.
Reality was reality. If he left this alone, Saburo Arasaka's corpse would be stone-cold by the time he got there. Forget stealing the Relic—he'd be stealing emptiness.
If he could finish all this crap at top speed, get to Konpeki Plaza, pull everything off before it happened, and then dump Dexter's fat ass into a sewer, then none of the melodramatic bullshit from the original plot would happen—and the Relic could end up in their hands cleanly.
So right now, he needed all kinds of things.
Manpower.
Hardware.
Money.
Anything.
Manpower could mean netrunners like T-Bug—people to cover them, people to help break Konpeki Plaza's systems faster so they could finish earlier and get the hell out.
Hardware could mean any kind of flying transport, so they could escape from the roof. Or a vehicle waiting to pick them up and help shake pursuit.
Money was even simpler—once you had money in Night City, you could buy almost anything.
Flying cars were out of the question. If he had that kind of money, he wouldn't be doing the Relic job in the first place.
Any ground vehicle he could arrange would still be worse than Delamain's combat mode—safe, armored, and damn reliable.
Right now, what they lacked most was reliable people.
And no matter when or where, in operations like this, reliable people were always in short supply.
Take this for example: if you had ten thousand netrunners all attacking Konpeki Plaza at once, then forget the internal security system—even Adam Smasher's mechanical body would get hacked into a short circuit. That armored AV that shot Jackie in the original route? Its engine would just get remotely shut off midair for the world to see.
Luo Qi opened his contacts and dialed a number he'd gotten from V.
"Yeah, this is Regina Jones. What do you want? Make it quick, I'm busy."
A sharp, efficient woman's voice came through. She was a fixer with a single eyepatch, looking like a cyberpunk pirate straight out of 2077.
"V gave me your number. You can call me Lucky. Got any cyberpsycho jobs that need handling?" Luo Qi asked.
"V? He doesn't have time?" Regina frowned.
"No. He's dealing with something more important." Luo Qi shook his head. "I know you're in the intel business. Sooner or later you'll figure out who I am. But right now time's tight. We can go over the details another time."
V, Jackie, and Luo Qi had only recently started making a name for themselves as mercs. Regina had only just begun reaching out to V not long ago, so at the moment she didn't know much about this so-called "close friend of V's." Only that he could apparently fight a little.
"Give me the location of the nearest cyberpsycho and I'll go. Either I walk out alive, or you can write off everything I'm saying today as the delusions of some arrogant idiot getting himself killed." Luo Qi had no interest in wasting words. He was inwardly frantic, but his tone stayed calm—almost sleepy.
Nobody casually trusted a merc who sounded rushed, panicked, sloppy, or unreliable. Especially not a fixer in Watson—those sharp bastards, big and small alike.
"Alright. Since you insist." Regina sighed. Something in Luo Qi's words had worked on her. After all, she didn't have to pay until the job was confirmed complete. If it went well, she'd gain another useful operative. If it went badly, all it meant was the cleanup crew had one more corpse to haul away.
"As it happens, there was a cyberpsycho attack just now. Solid intel. I even heard MaxTac got called in. Though no way that's happening now—Militech's already sealed the place off. Psycho's probably one of theirs. Most likely Lieutenant Mower. Anyway, the corp's about to move in." Regina continued, "I'm running a treatment study on cyberpsychosis. Before the corporation's people make their move, make sure she's subdued and still alive."
"Dead gets you less money. Alive gets you more. Simple as that. I've sent the address. Check the attachment for details."
If Luo Qi hadn't already known a little about Regina, he'd absolutely have thought this woman had a personal grudge against him. She hung up so fast and so cleanly it gave the impression that saying even one extra word was a burden.
He opened the message and zoomed in on the location.
Near Creek Loop.
Practically right downstairs from Regina's own base.
Well damn.
So this intel came straight from looking down off her balcony, huh?
Luo Qi silently made the joke to himself, then flagged down a cab on the roadside.
"Creek Loop intersection. Fast."
Not a Delamain AI combat taxi—just one driven by a real human. The distance was less than a kilometer, so the ride was over quickly.
The scene was already cordoned off by Militech forces.
Regina sent another message: this had originally been a MaxTac job, but the corp had reached in and seized control.
"Cover me! Move in!"
Not far away, a four- or five-man squad of elite soldiers in gear far superior to regular NCPD kit charged into the building entrance in a disciplined rush—
And then instantly started screaming, so fast it was almost impossible to process.
A few brutal impacts later, everything went quiet again.
Luo Qi: ???
Was this what people meant by delivering themselves at light speed?
He lowered his footsteps and started edging down along the wall, wanting to see what the hell had happened, when his foot kicked something.
He bent down and picked it up.
A detached data chip.
It looked like it had been dropped in a hurry, because it definitely wasn't the sort of thing anyone would just throw away casually.
He took out his PDA and scanned the readable file.
[Code: Red
Target: Lieutenant Mower
Threat Level: Dangerous
Target is exhibiting symptoms of cyberpsychosis. Following telephone consultation with medical personnel, prognosis is: malignant, untreatable. Target is at the coordinates attached and is currently waiting for medical arrival. Ambush is authorized.
Warning: target is equipped with military-grade combat implants. Extreme caution is advised. Once the threat has been neutralized, submit report via encrypted channel.]
He looked around.
Not a single Militech operative was still standing. Their vehicles were parked in two separate groups, making it pretty obvious what had happened: the first team sent in to deal with the emergency had been wiped out to the last man, and the second team had rushed in immediately afterward only to get wiped out just as fast.
"Blood and cyberware!!!"
SCHLRRKKK—!!!
Luo Qi had only made it down two steps, planning to check one of the Militech agents lying in a pool of blood, when a near-insane scream erupted ahead, followed by the wet sound of blades plunging into flesh, chopping, tearing.
"Mother of—"
He nearly jumped out of his skin.
At the bottom of the stairs was an open courtyard filled with standing water.
A black figure with glowing green eyes instantly caught sight of his shadow and started howling.
"…I'm gonna snap your spine, waaaaagh!!!"
WTF!!
Luo Qi yelped and instinctively turned to run.
His shoes splashed into ankle-deep water, but it wasn't deep enough to slow him much.
His ass went cold. The hair on his back stood straight up.
A black blur came at him like it was literally teleporting—swish swish swish—three shifting afterimages in an instant, and then slash.
Who the hell's heart could take that kind of thing?
If she didn't have a Sandevistan and Kerenzikov installed, Luo Qi would eat his PDA on the spot.
He ran ahead, frantically circling and looping, with a cyberpsycho glued to his ass, swishing around behind him nonstop.
It had become a horror game.
"Why the hell is she chopping at me the moment I show my face?!"
He hadn't even figured out what the battlefield looked like yet, and he was already forced into full emergency serpentine dodging.
"EVERYONE DIE, waaaaaagh!!!"
A dark blur blasted past him like a gale and smashed a fist into an innocent crate, sending fragments and fire flying everywhere.
Ma'am, we won't even talk about your aim—but what the hell is with that strength? Does one punch just send a person straight into their next life?
Luo Qi's face was bloodless as he sprinted for his life.
He had only come here hoping to recruit a temporary teammate.
He figured cyberpsychos were probably pretty strong fighters.
He had not expected the firsthand experience to be this horrifying.
As if the next second—
AHHHH HOLY SHIT DON'T CHOP MY ASS OFF!!
Back when he played the game, dealing with cyberpsychos had been a matter of moving the mouse and tapping the keyboard.
Only after arriving here did he understand what it meant to have no choice but to run for your life.
What the hell were Militech's useless morons even doing? They all died without slowing this monster down at all!?
Luo Qi sprinted past countless corpses floating in the water.
Every one of them had either been hacked to pieces by the berserk Lieutenant Mower, blood spraying everywhere, or pounded into burnt black ruin by what could only be described as flaming meteor fists.
Not one had died in anything resembling dignity.
"I'm gonna blow your brains out, waaaagh!!"
Lieutenant Mower surged in again in a berserk rush. Luo Qi shuddered from scalp to spine, dove into a sideways roll, and watched as her flaming fist smashed the electrical box on the wall to pieces.
Bzzzzzzzzz—!!!!
Crackle crackle crackle…
Bright arcs of electricity burst out and coursed into the water, shocking the soaked Lieutenant Mower into idiocy.
Luo Qi blinked.
Then hurriedly jumped up onto dry ground.
There she was, bent over, trembling, flailing weakly with both hands—
and then, instead of collapsing, she suddenly tore the helmet off her face.
Those external optical units—three in a row, one on each side—were high-end corporate tech meant to boost visual performance, making her look like some kind of cyber swordsmaster. Only now, with the helmet gone, could Luo Qi finally see her real eyes beneath.
Bloodshot.
Completely red.
"AAAAAAARGH—!!!!"
In movies, this was supposed to be the part where you fucking won!
How the hell had she gone into an injured berserk state instead!?
Luo Qi was on the verge of tears as he resumed frantic circling.
He couldn't use a blade.
He couldn't use a gun.
He had to keep her alive—maybe even keep her combat capacity mostly intact—while somehow not getting punched hard enough to reincarnate on the spot.
Trying to capture a cyberpsycho alive with bare hands was way harder than he'd ever imagined.
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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