The drones belonged to Militech, and they were watching everything in crystal clarity.
Highway shootouts, vehicle-mounted machine guns, rocket launchers—those were things they could just sit back and observe. The spectacle was intense, sure, but in Night City it was nothing unusual.
But that vehicle that looked like a Mackinaw, was branded as a Mackinaw—what the hell was it?
If it were just a super-armored pickup tearing across the Badlands while handling something like an autocannon, they might only have leaned forward a little in their seats.
But the Anvil-2 hit it dead-on and it came out completely unscathed.
Forget the racers pissing themselves—Militech's observers stood up straight out of their chairs.
That was a genuine, military-grade heavy anti-tank weapon they'd been using for years. The missile alone was over 1.5 meters long, and the explosive payload plus launch kinetic energy were enough to punch through over 1000 mm of rolled homogeneous steel armor.
Which meant that pickup truck with the hamburger painted on it was, in essence, a new-concept super tank.
It could take hits. It could dish them out. It had absurd power. And it ran across the Badlands like it was walking on flat pavement.
And this thing was supposed to be a Mackinaw?
Stout was sweating bullets.
The Hammer-30 autocannon on the Legendary Mackinaw was sponsored by her.
But the armor, the suspension, the chassis, the tires—
She had no idea what was going on there.
This kind of high-octane event wasn't world-shaking yet, but it definitely had a huge impact on Night City itself. For people at the top, it was also premium entertainment.
She just hadn't expected that—
The current President of the New United States, former CEO of Militech International Arms Corporation, Rosalind Myers, was watching too.
And that she would call her directly.
[President Myers: Do you have the technical data on that vehicle's defensive system?]
Her tone was calm, but the pressure behind it was overwhelming.
[Stout: No, but I—]
[President Myers: Go find it. Now. I want every detail of that system.]
[Stout: Understood. I'll start immediately.]
The pressure on Stout wasn't just from Myers's direct questioning.
She had already been pulled into a special task group—one that included senior vice presidents in charge of R&D, executive VPs from intelligence divisions, and more.
Even her direct superior, the Night City regional VP, was in the group—and in terms of real clout, was probably half a tier lower than some of the others.
The good news was that she finally had a concrete mission.
The bad news was that the pressure from above was crushing.
At least the task force now included high-level agents who could actually help.
Since the vehicle was a Mackinaw, the investigation naturally had to start with Thornton.
But reality, of course, was nowhere near that simple.
At the instant the explosion was about to occur, Legend's main control AI reacted.
Using the mechanics database provided by Little Octopus, combined with the Burger King trio's driving patterns, it performed a rescue calculation outside of its original expectations—and executed it.
Just before the Anvil-2 struck, a counter-projectile fired.
At computation speeds rivaling Leo's overclocked processing, that active-defense round detonated the missile's precursor charge at exactly the right moment.
The mid-air explosion massively disrupted the missile's flight stability and velocity.
Those precursor charges were meant to detonate on impact, activating reactive armor panels and clearing the way for penetration.
But the counter-detonation turned them into traitors.
The missile's trajectory shifted slightly.
Legend's chassis violently tilted and accelerated at the same time, while the electromagnetically locked active armor plates all adjusted their angles in unison—
Forming, at the very limit, an incidence angle just sufficient to cause deflection.
At the same time, the armor plates in the impact zone had already lifted slightly under electromagnetic control, providing repulsive force under load—
A final, exquisitely subtle push that knocked the missile off course.
Put simply:
At the very last moment, the Legendary Mackinaw pre-detonated the missile's forward charge, then adjusted its body and active armor angles so the missile didn't hit the vehicle—it grazed it, detonating along the surface instead.
The shockwave was still absorbed by the vehicle.
But compared to a direct hit, this was the best possible outcome.
Chrony Titanium alloy was strong—but Leo had no intention of gambling on a clean frontal impact.
[Electromagnetic lock module damage: 2.16%]
[Electromagnetic suspension load exceeded limits. Adjusting motion strategy.]
The damaged lock modules meant that two armor plates would no longer be able to perform that delicate force-shedding maneuver.
And even though they'd avoided the worst case, the impact still rattled V hard—her head nearly slammed into the forward windshield armor.
The extreme torsion also pushed the electromagnetic suspension into abnormal states.
That suspension system was based on Spider-Man's electrostatic adhesion tech, capable of producing forces on the order of 50 tons per unit.
Enough for most situations—
But taking an anti-tank missile at high speed was pushing it to the edge.
"Fuck…" V shook her head, slapped her helmet, and looked up.
Legend's split-second decision was wildly counter-intuitive.
Not only did it not slow down—it actually accelerated.
The combined effect of sudden acceleration and explosive deceleration control would have made a normal person vomit on the spot.
The seatbelts snapped tight around all three occupants, preventing serious injury, but it was still brutal.
[Jackie: Mano, I swear I saw the guys in that truck blow themselves up!]
The Anvil-2 was standard Militech anti-tank ordnance. The missile itself was over 1.5 meters long, and its launcher was vehicle-mounted by default.
For infantry use, you'd normally need a tripod or similar setup.
Converting it to a shoulder-fired launcher meant recoil no normal human could handle—
And those lunatics were firing it from a speeding vehicle.
Not every pickup was a Legendary Mackinaw.
Most weren't even real Mackinaws.
Low-budget "full-send" modding ended exactly like this: exhaust flames straight to the face.
Suicide bombers were common.
Suicide missiles? First time anyone had seen that.
"Midnight Drop Dead"—true to their name.
A pure Night City nihilist gang. According to recorded databases, their favorite activity was yelling "Nothing matters!" and then turning people into things that mattered just as little.
[Leo: Midnight Drop Dead… watch those snipers!]
Because of stability constraints, the autocannon under Jackie's control had limited traverse speed.
When Leo's warning came through, Jackie squeezed the neural trigger immediately—
But he'd already missed the first firing window.
The rounds streaked past.
In the sky, the setting sun filtered through the dust kicked up by bullets, scattering into streaks of light as the rounds slammed into the ground—just barely overshooting a Mackinaw pickup.
BOOM!
Two HEAP rounds cratered the road, blasting out massive pits and showering rocks everywhere.
The driver—already flooring the accelerator—instinctively mashed it even harder, nearly snapping the pedal.
The Anvil-2 was proper military hardware.
And the Hammer-30's 30 mm HEAP rounds were no less serious.
The lightest platform that mounted something like that weighed at least 20 tons.
And who the hell fired like this while driving at full speed?!
The battered Mackinaw that had barely survived the blast jolted violently.
The driver saw Legend almost on top of him—
And made a bold decision.
Screw it. I'm not running anymore.
Hiss—
The sniper didn't even notice.
He was fully focused, pulling off the best shot of his life.
Before he could celebrate, the vehicle lost control and plunged straight off the road.
BANG!
The Mackinaw slammed into a pit.
The blood-covered driver crawled out, screaming—
"AHHH!! What the fuck are you doing—"
The half-enclosed rear bay answered with a shrill scream.
It cut off halfway.
The sniper climbed up with the driver and together they watched what happened next.
Legend floored it.
Two autocannon rounds detonated the Colby Mule ahead, blasting it sky-high before it slammed into roadside rocks.
Man and steel probably fused together in the heat.
That Colby Mule had been just slightly faster than them moments ago, running nearly side by side.
It also had a sniper onboard.
After seeing that, the sniper lost all courage to talk trash.
Sure, the crash had shattered his leg—
But at least he was alive.
"Fucking monster… what's even the point of racing this?"
The driver followed his gaze.
The sky had gone dark.
"…Maybe there still is one."