The next morning.
For once, Night City was enjoying a rare clear day. Blue sky—honest-to-god blue—had finally made an appearance again.
Outside the All Foods plant.
"Lucky, what took you so long?" Jackie called out, straddling an outrageously flashy motorcycle and waving him over.
"Hah…" Luo Qi let out a huge yawn as he walked up and waved a hand. "Don't even start. It was all for your sake."
"Me?" Jackie blinked. "What, did you go get me a present?"
"Heh." Luo Qi laughed the yawn away before it could finish. "Something like that. A big present. Not for you to use, exactly, but definitely prepared with you in mind."
Jackie scratched his head. "Quit being mysterious already. Come on, tell me. Now I'm actually looking forward to it."
"Business first." Luo Qi wagged a finger. "V, how'd things go with the spiky-haired woman?"
"I did what you said and worked with her. Then she gave me a chip and told us to use it as payment." V took out the shard. Its circuitry was full of bright, messy colors, but there was no MILITECH branding anywhere on it.
"Perfect. That's exactly what we'll use to pay them." Luo Qi nodded.
"I scanned it. There's a virus on it, plus a daemon. If we hand that to Maelstrom, something's going to go down," V warned.
"Hoh, chingón." Jackie slapped his thigh. "So we're throwing hands?"
Luo Qi glanced toward the entrance hidden behind piles of trash and down the slope, then nodded. "Be ready. Once we're inside, follow their lead. Don't start anything. Then…"
"Then we pull our guns and blow their fucking heads off, mano." Jackie patted the pistol at his waist.
"Are you sure this is okay? Shouldn't we be a little more careful?" V rubbed his chin, thinking it through.
Sometimes, when Luo Qi's plans looked a little too blunt and straightforward, V actually became more cautious, not less.
"Militech will help us. Meredith Stout especially—she's got to be even more desperate than we are," Luo Qi said reassuringly.
"How do you know that?" V asked.
Instead of answering directly, Luo Qi suddenly sighed, leaving both of them confused. "Honestly, I wish I could keep being all-knowing forever. Too bad that once the Relic business is over, that'll pretty much be the end of it."
V and Jackie: (・_・?)
"Alright. Let's go in." Luo Qi snapped his fingers. "By the way, did you two end up waiting long?"
"It's fine. My mom always says good things take time."
Jackie spread his hands, not remotely bothered by something that minor.
"Good."
The night before, after leaving Lizzie's Bar, V had called Luo Qi—even though it was deep into the night. Because Luo Qi had specifically told him before: no matter what time it was, no matter what happened, tell him everything. They'd talk it through together.
But V was starting to feel like Luo Qi's brain was some kind of machine, spinning at impossible speed. V would throw out a few details, barely halfway through explaining, and Luo Qi would already be rattling off the whole situation, analyzing it cleanly, and even laying out countermeasures—as if he already knew everything.
Dexter had already paid Brick for the combat robot codenamed Flathead, but right before pickup, Royce had staged a violent coup and taken over Maelstrom. Whether the gang would still honor the deal now was anyone's guess.
Jackie, meanwhile, couldn't help feeling bad about the money—never mind that it was Militech's money. But the thought of the place getting smashed to hell in a little while still made him want to grin.
"Come on," V said. "Let's go have a little talk with these bastards."
"First we knock, see if anybody answers." Jackie finally got off his beloved bike. "I hate these chrome freaks more than anybody. How'd we end up stuck dealing with them?"
"Aren't they just another gang?" V asked.
Jackie shook his head and swaggered ahead. "Take the Valentinos, for example. They believe in God and the Virgin Mary, they care about honor. You know what they want, what kind of methods they like, and where the lines are."
"But Maelstrom? They don't follow any street rules."
He had left the Valentinos long ago, but he still had deep ties with the people there. Especially through his mother, Guadalupe Alejandra Welles—known to everyone simply as Mama Welles.
By common agreement, anyone who entered her home would find somebody willing to listen to their troubles—and usually get fed a great meal too. Like every mother, she would give anything to protect her children, even her life.
She was a major figure in Heywood. Even the fiercest Valentinos showed her respect. Padre once even said that Mama Welles wasn't just kind-hearted—she was tougher than every gang member in the district put together.
It was absurd. She was basically a hidden boss.
Back when Luo Qi had only seen all this from the outside, he hadn't thought much of it. He used to think the "important" characters were the ones with flashy scenes. But after ending up in the real world, it was more like—well, damn. Adam Smasher could go sit in the corner. He was just meat packed into metal. There were plenty of people more dangerous than him.
Because this was a real cyberpunk world.
And as for Maelstrom, they were pure cyberware lunatics.
They controlled Watson and the northern industrial sector. You could recognize them immediately by the intimidating faceplates and hostile optical implants they wore. Those were standard Maelstrom features, and a perfect expression of their blind obsession with chrome and cybernetic modification.
If you saw Maelstrom, you might think:
Now those are the true pioneers of transhuman evolution.
And maybe that would be true—
if they were only experimenting on themselves.
Unfortunately, they also liked experimenting on anyone unlucky enough to fall into their hands.
Maelstrom was infamous for extreme brutality, public gang executions, illegal braindance production, and a rabid, chaotic fighting style. It was a gang permanently balanced on the edge of cyberpsychosis. To be fair, their business model itself wasn't actually that insane. At the end of the day, it was all just commerce. In fact, the scarier their reputation got, the better business went.
The business wasn't insane.
The people absolutely were.
Forget everything else—just taking a face from the brow ridge down, ripping out the brow, nose bridge, eye sockets, and replacing it all with spider-like optical assemblies growing out of the skull was already pushing the limits of what a normal human being could look at without flinching.
Now imagine that on top of that, they liked using multiple eyes—six or seven red lights jammed into the place where normal eyes should be—then having that mangled face lean toward you and ask whether you wanted to buy something.
They were crueler and crazier than most gangs.
With almost any other gang, you could maybe find some excuse, some angle, to soften the verdict.
Not with Maelstrom.
They were a gang that did serious damage to public safety, brutally victimized huge numbers of innocent people, and engaged in every kind of criminal activity imaginable. The sooner they vanished, the better for everyone.
Too bad there were a lot of them.
NCPD's old estimates put Maelstrom at around 1,300 members, but that figure was ancient history by now.
Luo Qi shook his head, forcing his mind—still foggy from being up all night—back on track.
Why think so much?
Just charge.
V pressed the intercom button. On the other side came a rough, wet breathing noise, like some zombie had leaned right into the mic.
"Hm? Who the hell are you?" came the impatient demand.
"Open the fucking door already." Faced with these half-mad bastards, V wasn't in the mood to be polite either.
"Who the fuck are you? I don't know any of you."
"We're here for Royce. Dexter sent us."
There was a brief pause on the other side, like the speaker had swallowed a breath. "Go to the server room. He's waiting."
Then the rolling security door at the entrance rattled upward.
Inside was a dark, cavernous space packed with shelves and machinery.
"Nice atmosphere. Add a couple of flower pots and it'd be perfect," Jackie joked. Then he looked around and gave a low whistle. "Damn, they really came prepared."
Two machine-gun turrets stood at the entryway, stiff and obvious, turning with mechanical squeaks as they scanned the area.
Luo Qi quietly looked around.
No cameras.
A restrained, tasteful little smile appeared on his face.
"Why are you grinning like that?" V asked, turning to look at him.
Luo Qi's smile had grown so suspiciously smug it practically had its own background music.
"I just thought of something funny," he said with total seriousness.
Staring at the two turrets, however, V found nothing remotely amusing. "I've never seen a food plant this heavily fortified."
"Uh, probably all looted from hijacked transports or something… hell, they've probably armed themselves all the way down to their assholes," Jackie said bluntly, making it clear just how much he hated Maelstrom. Then he pointed deeper inside. "Hey—what's that over there?"
As they moved farther in, the space opened up, and the three of them saw vehicles parked on the wide floor.
MILITECH trucks.
"So they didn't just jack a few crates—they stole the entire damn truck?!" Jackie slapped his forehead. Now he understood why Militech wanted Maelstrom wiped out so badly.
"Hey. Hold up."
At that moment, Luo Qi stopped V and Jackie.
"Message the spiky-haired woman. Send her pictures of all this. Then tell her to have her people ready—once the virus gets inside, they start the assault immediately."
"And from here on out, you two go in without me."
"Then what are you doing?" Jackie asked.
V gave him the same puzzled look.
"You'll see in a bit." Luo Qi patted them both on the shoulders and flashed an OK sign. "Just go. Stay safe."
Then he turned around and started walking back the way they had come.
Jackie and V looked at each other and both shrugged.
"Trust Lucky. He always has a plan." V had immense faith in Luo Qi, so he kept moving forward.
"Let's roll," Jackie said easily, and followed.
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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