[Morton: Real classy. Snobby too—won't even let us rural folk through the door.]
[Padre: I'm not heading into the Afterlife. But if you're up for it, there are a few people here who want a word with you. You could call it a pilgrimage.]
[.]
The inbox was lively as hell, but for the moment, Leo had no intention of letting any "irrelevant personnel" inside.
Click...
The octopus arms were starting to grind a little—high-intensity combat plus Leo's still-not-great direct control had left them stiff.
Little Octopus was busy driving the octopus arms, running maintenance on Jackie and V's chrome, checking the Legend's data in cyberspace, glancing at Leo—
then sighing.
The expression basically said:
Man, big bro...
Trying to speak, stopping itself.
Leo completely ignored the drama queen routine from Little Octopus. He sat in a surgical chair, both hands resting on the armrests, controlling the surgical instruments through his personal link.
A scalpel cut into Leo's back. An internal surgical manipulator slipped inside his body and pulled out a thumb-sized tumor.
The scene was bloody and disturbing—
especially when you remembered that Leo was currently his own surgeon.
The operating platform sat in a dedicated procedure space, with holographic scanners imaging everything and projecting it into two private rooms—
In one room sat Bryce.
The NetWatch agent made no effort to hide his shock. The instant he came in and saw this, his whole body went rigid.
Cyberware implantation was never a pleasant process for humans.
And netrunner implants were even worse. Most of them involved hardware added directly to the brain. Every injury, every replacement, every repair surgery left behind horrifying memories.
Some people thought netrunners were cool—stone-faced no matter what, numb to everything.
But in truth, they were the people most afraid of cyberware tech.
Just watching Leo perform tumor excision on himself, a smart guy like Bryce could already imagine how horrifying it had to be:
A patient could take anesthetic.
But when you were your own surgeon, you couldn't exactly anesthetize yourself.
Not only that—when using a personal link, neural activity had to stay above a certain threshold, and the current itself stimulated the nerves.
In plain language:
more sensitive.
Which was a little deranged.
"Not gonna lie, choom..." Bryce started, then stopped.
And this was with Leo having the octopus arms set off to the side. If Bryce saw them moving on their own, he'd absolutely write a long-ass report straight to NetWatch HQ.
And if he really saw that—
NetWatch would probably issue Leo an employment notice overnight.
Not the kind where they politely asked him to join, either.
The kind where they made him.
Leo lifted his eyelids a little. "Talk."
That was for Elizabeth too, in the other room.
She was Jefferson Peralez's wife—Elizabeth.
Not just a wife, but Jefferson's political partner too. Both of them were politicians from humble beginnings.
Her reaction was much calmer.
Or maybe just more composed.
The surprise only lasted an instant. She smoothed it over almost immediately and got straight to business—faster than Bryce.
"I won't say congratulations. This race caused too much destruction in Night City.
But the good news is, you won in the end, so—congratulations. You're now the biggest underground force in Night City."
Very official. Very polished.
Leo only had one question for Elizabeth.
"Where's Jefferson? Too busy?"
"He's dealing with other matters. Your fight drew far too much attention."
Over in the other room, Bryce shrugged. "What else could it be? If you're saying Muramasa got erased, that'd be underestimating you—it's in your hands, right?"
Leo immediately shot back, "Seems lively outside. Any recommendations?"
Bryce shrugged again. "Things are... complicated right now. Only telling you this—Arasaka's Kujira is already off the coast. Might dock in a few dozen minutes."
Leo turned to Elizabeth at once. "Looks like Saburo Arasaka has you people too nervous to sit still."
Elizabeth looked a little surprised. "Your intel network really is broad. And fast."
"Then let's talk business. Jefferson's commission is done—I buried all the Euro weapons. And now I can help you coordinate all five gangs."
"No. There's one more thing—someone very familiar with Night City had to help them smuggle all this in. We have to root them out completely."
Elizabeth was absolutely certain.
Leo didn't answer her right away. Instead, he turned to Bryce.
"Muramasa had a fixer. Dexter DeShawn. Pull his background for me."
Bryce shrugged and immediately brought up the data:
"Big black guy, loves chunky gold chains, picked that habit up from the Valentinos. Bold as hell. Real wild operator.
He's a little like you—well, the old you. No stable backing, no stable business, just real good at finding gigs.
He—"
Leo's brain kicked into overdrive before Bryce even finished. Some things didn't seem strange when viewed through a single intel source.
But once you connected them—
different story.
Bryce had obviously prepped Dexter's file before coming here. His answer came too fast.
That alone wasn't a big problem.
NetWatch had already been targeting rogue AIs. While Leo was doing the dirty work for them, they'd obviously continue investigating Muramasa's activity in Night City.
More importantly, NetWatch had been the one to send Leo this job.
Which meant their early intel pool had actually been deeper than Leo's from the start. Bryce had also been active in Pacifica for a while, and Dexter hadn't returned directly to Night City—he'd come ashore through Pacifica.
So tracing things back to Dexter at this point wasn't surprising. Preparing his file in advance so Leo could clean up the rest and maybe ice Dexter on the way out—
that all tracked.
And if it also let them slam into the Voodoo Boys in Pacifica, who were threatening the Blackwall's stability, Bryce would probably laugh himself awake.
But the interesting part was this—
Elizabeth also wanted Dexter taken out, and wanted it badly.
She was the one who had proactively pointed out that Muramasa had someone behind it.
And sure, wanting to erase that "market-opening vanguard," the fixer behind Muramasa, also sounded logical.
But why was she just as eager?
A normal person might just think it was a weird coincidence.
But Leo had script knowledge.
And he knew one crucial fact:
The Peralezes' main backer—the true power behind Night Corp—
was also a rogue AI.
And the funny part was, Night Corp used an almost undetectable electromagnetic frequency paired with cyberware to brainwash the Peralezes directly—altering their thoughts and steering their campaign.
Right in front of Bryce and Elizabeth, Leo took out one of Muramasa's micro transmitters.
He had done a rough repair job on one sample just moments ago.
"Interesting little toy."
Bryce and Elizabeth both looked confused.
Bryce knew it was Muramasa's design.
Elizabeth thought it was some Euro invention.
In cyberspace, Leo had Little Octopus wake Muramasa up.
[Leo: Tell me how to use it.]
[Muramasa: As you wish.]
The micro transmitter was reflashed with software. A stream of code was written into memory. Current flowed under control through the circuit board and into a 3-nanometer 3D-stacked processor.
Capacitors charged. Coils energized. Filters stripped out runtime noise. Then the signal spread outward through the micro antenna array—
[Emotion agitation caused by specialized electromagnetic waves: removed.]
This thing affected people with cyberware the same way as always—
but obviously, it hit Muramasa's people harder.
Jackie and V barely reacted. At least in the short term, there was nothing clearly wrong.
And Bryce almost didn't react at all. He just adjusted his cyberware with a look that practically said:
No shot a toy like this is messing with me.
But Elizabeth?
Different story.
One second earlier, she'd been perfectly composed, carrying herself like nothing was wrong. And she was a politician—her cyberware would absolutely help regulate her state.
Then suddenly she frowned.
Leo's pupils contracted sharply, and he overclocked the transmitter in his hand—
Elizabeth lurched to her feet in discomfort, then her legs gave out and she hit the floor, vomiting stomach acid...
This thing had been tailor-made for her.
Muramasa's tech came from Night Corp.
[Maekawa: I'm not coming in. Too many brothers died.]
[Maekawa: But I found that netrunner you told me to look into last time.]