"T-BUG, did you do something?" That was Karl's first reaction.
Mamàn Brigitte had clearly been trying to breach Karl's system just moments ago—but then her device had suddenly exploded, killing her on the spot.
It looked almost like the Voodoo Boys' classic move of purging used-up mercs. And considering T-BUG had already infiltrated their subnet, Karl instinctively thought she'd triggered the explosion remotely—just like the Voodoo Boys used to do.
"I didn't do anything," T-BUG said, equally surprised over the comms. "I'm helping Oliver hold off their netrunners—I haven't had time to touch anything yet. Maybe NetWatch got involved?"
"Weird…"
Karl frowned, but now wasn't the time to get caught up in speculation—there were still Voodoo Boys standing. He'd figure out what happened later.
Whether the explosion was due to aging hardware or outside interference, a proper inspection would tell the tale.
With that in mind, Karl shifted his aim from Brigitte's body to the rest of the gang.
By now, the Voodoo Boys in the tunnel were done. Actually, they'd already broken.
Seeing KK Squad charging in was terrifying enough. But when their last hope—Mamàn Brigitte—suddenly died from her own equipment exploding? That shattered what little will they had left.
Only those already locked in combat with Jack and the others kept fighting—everyone else turned and fled deeper into the tunnel in panic.
The Voodoo Boys had built several escape routes into the back of the tunnel. Paranoid as they were about real-world raids, having multiple bolt holes made perfect sense. If they reached those tunnels, even KK Squad would struggle to chase them in the dark.
But they weren't going to make it that far.
Lately, Karl had been leaning more into gunplay—probably because V was now handling most of the close-quarters slicing. And with his gun trained on the backs of fleeing gangsters, they were nothing but target practice.
He tucked away his sidearm—too tiring to keep pulling the trigger—and pulled out a Kang Tao G-58 Dian SMG.
Or rather, the upgraded version circulating among top-tier mercs: the Yinglong.
Fully tricked out with a reinforced auto-loading system, radar-assisted targeting, and a smart-link aiming module, the Yinglong was the kind of weapon where you only needed to pull the trigger—everything else was handled for you.
No aiming required. Karl squeezed the trigger.
In the hail of gunfire, Voodoo Boys who thought the darkness and their skin tone might help them vanish were slammed forward by kinetic impacts, collapsing one after another.
"You're making us look bad, man," Oliver called out as he finished his last opponent. "We're over here fighting tooth and nail, and you just whip out a smartgun? Haven't you heard what they say on the street? 'Only wimps who can't aim use smartguns.'"
"Of course I've heard it. Back during that escort op, Brown and the others wouldn't shut up about it. But I'm not even in a shootout here, am I?"
Karl shrugged and gestured to the trail of corpses behind him. "It's not like any of them even dared face me."
"…Huh. Fair point."
Oliver paused—he couldn't really argue with that. While they were talking, V had just finished off the last remaining Voodoo Boy.
Wiping the blood splattered on his face, V ran his hand through his hair. When he looked at his palm, it was sticky with half-dried gore. "I seriously need a shower."
"Maybe try using a gun now and then, V," Jack said, flashing his Gold-Plated Bitch. "If you're not into other guns, want one of mine? I've got two—don't mind handing one over."
"Been a long time since I used a firearm…"
V looked at the others—clean, spotless. Especially Karl, who didn't even have a speck of dust on him. After a beat, V nodded. "Alright. Might be good to knock the rust off."
"Exactly. Places your blade can't reach? A bullet'll do the trick."
With that, Jack tossed over his spare Gold-Plated Bitch. "You know the model—Tsunami's Nue. Give it a shot if it feels right."
"I'll head down to the gun range later and try it out."
V nodded again and noticed Karl crouched beside Mamàn Brigitte's body, examining something. Curious, he walked over. "Karl, what are you checking?"
"She suddenly died when her gear exploded. I just want to figure out why."
Karl picked up a piece of shattered tech. "From what I can tell, there's no sign of age-related failure. All the components scattered around are in good shape. So I doubt it was a hardware malfunction."
"So what's your theory?" Oliver had walked over too. "You think someone helped us out?"
"Not exactly. Looks like the system overheated—burned itself out from running something too heavy. That ignited the battery and caused the blast. Like those recent street cases where black-market BDs overloaded outdated gear and caused fires."
"Oh yeah, I saw that on the news," V said. "Somebody trying to run corrupted braindance data and fried their rig?"
"Right. So whatever she tried to load up—it was too much. But what exactly it was? No idea. I didn't detect any breach attempts. Maybe she screwed up."
Karl shook his head, still unsure. In the end, he gathered the scattered parts, took off the coat he'd worn during the David persona, and packed everything up.
"I'll get T-BUG to analyze it later."
As he spoke, a message popped up on Karl's holo.
It was from the NCPD.
"We have received your distress report. Officers are en route. Please stand by, Mr. KK."
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