Chapter 80: One Eddie
The game had already laid out the best way to communicate with these people.
V, Johnny... they all told Rhys the same thing: in Night City, when shit hits the fan, you don't negotiate. You swing first.
Smash everything in sight, then you start talking. Trying to resolve things diplomatically here? Give me a break. When the power dynamic is this lopsided, you can talk until you're blue in the face, and they'll just laugh at you.
So, this new mission? It suited Rhys perfectly.
My Heart is Fire. Burn it all down.
Fine. Let the smashing begin.
The Tyger Claws ran Japantown, right? Then he'd start there. If he saw a Claw, if he saw their tag, he was attacking. Zeroing the gangers, trashing their property. He was sending a message. You hit the Mox's warehouses?
Then I'm hitting back. Rhys was going to make sure the Tyger Claws—and everyone else in Night City—understood the consequences of messing with his family.
Why did players still hold onto a shred of hope in the grimdark world of 2077? They knew they couldn't truly change the world. Arasaka falls, Militech falls, and something worse just crawls out of their corpses to take their place. In a world ruled by capital, unless you burned the soil to ash and ripped out the roots, nothing changed.
But players still felt like they could make a difference. Why?
Because individual power could reach godlike levels.
Like V. Like Bartmoss. You could be the President of the NUSA, you could be a corpo CEO, but did you have extra lives? Unless you locked yourself in a bunker and never saw the sun again, someone like V could get to you. Hell, for V, it wasn't even assassination. It was just walking in the front door and flatlining everyone.
And what could they do about it?
Rhys planned to do the same. He was going to use today to show those corpo-dogs and fixers exactly who should be afraid when a powerhouse decides to go psycho.
Screw it. I've got nothing to lose.
Rhys wasn't a genius. He was just a guy. An Intelligence stat of 4 didn't exactly make him a mastermind. He couldn't out-scheme a fixer or out-plot a corpo. But he knew one thing.
When you get bullied, you don't just take it. Getting bullied wasn't your fault.
The NCPD wouldn't intervene immediately. Even MAX-TAC would turn a blind eye as long as civilians weren't targeted and no one called it in. At least... Rhys didn't have to worry about facing a psycho-squad right out of the gate.
He crossed the street, staring down the block. He crouched and unwrapped the black cloth bundle.
Inside lay a sleek, azure weapon. It was larger than a katana. Ignoring the front end, it looked like an assault rifle. But the business end was a shimmering black blade.
Rhys picked it up. This was Pilar's brainchild. A rifle-sword hybrid. With a modular design, he could swap out the blade for an extended barrel, converting it into a sniper rifle.
But Rhys had rushed them. Vick hadn't had time to finish the assembly. The blade part was ready, though—the edge of a high-end katana fused with the body of a quality rifle. A gunblade.
In Night City, most "custom" weapons were just modified stock. Finding a traditional blacksmith? You'd have better luck in the Badlands.
Gripping the handle, Rhys stood up.
SCREECH—
A car skidded to a halt right in front of him. Rhys looked up into the grinning face of a massive man with white punk hair and sunglasses, arms crossed over his chest.
"..." Rhys stared at him silently.
"If Lucy hadn't called me, I wouldn't have known shit about this," Maine said, his voice thick with displeasure. Behind him, the rest of the crew arrived.
Kiwi pulled up on her bike, smoking a cigarette. Lucy sat behind her, watching Rhys quietly. Rebecca popped out of the window of a gold-plated luxury sedan, with Pilar chewing gum at the wheel. Dorio was driving Maine's car, parked right behind him.
"Maine, this is between me and the Mox," Rhys said, standing up.
"Rogue told me, and you told me: mercs are mercs, gangs are gangs. Right?"
"I also told you that if the edgerunner life didn't work out, I'd join your gang with you. Did you forget that part?" Maine shot back.
Rhys laughed bitterly. "I know what you're thinking. I knew if I told you, you'd come. But this breaks the code. If mercs start taking sides in gang wars based on personal feelings... who's gonna hire us?"
"Fuck that! You're making this complicated, you gonk!" Maine ripped off his sunglasses, rolling his eyes. He dug into his pocket.
Clink.
He pulled out a single eddy coin and slammed it into Rhys's hand. Before Rhys could react, he snatched it back.
"There. Payment received. Client Rhys, Maine's crew is at your service." Maine pocketed the coin and got back in the car.
What? What kind of merc works for one eddy?
Fuck you, that's what kind!
Our crew works for whatever price we want. Got a problem with the market rate? Come find me!
Rules? Maine didn't break them. But friendship? He protected that with his life.
Rhys stood there, stunned.
"Get in! The hell are you waiting for? You planning on walking into Japantown? Trying to make it easy for them to zero you?" Maine yelled from the passenger seat.
If Lucy hadn't found him, told him Rhys had taken a call and stormed out mentioning the Mox, Maine would have been clueless. The fixers were locking down info on the Tyger Claw attacks.
Rhys's crew had been busy. Maine had been testing his new Sandevistan—yeah, he had one now. A military-grade sandy. He wasn't fully used to it yet, but he was officially a high-tier operator now. Jackie had one too. Pilar, Rebecca, and Dorio had all upgraded. Rebecca especially—given her reckless streak, she'd loaded up on armor plating. The little loli was probably the tankiest member of the team now.
"You guys..." Rhys looked at Maine, then at the others. He found he couldn't speak.
He took a deep breath and walked to Maine's car.
"Fuck it. Whatever happens next, I don't care," Rhys said, breaking into a wide, genuine grin.
He'd been too precious about it. Vick was right. Friends, family... they were the people who stood by you when you were in deep shit. Maine was that kind of person. Rhys was that kind of person. That's why they worked.
This bond wasn't a burden. They could help him.
Behind the two cars, on the red motorcycle, Kiwi spoke quietly. "I remember you saying you don't get out of bed unless there's profit involved. So, why are you here?"
She didn't wait for Lucy to answer. "And don't give me that 'I'm part of the team' crap. Save that for them. I'm not an idiot."
"..." Lucy remained silent, gripping the seat handle to steady herself.
"So, what's your reason? You have zero reason to be involved in this," Kiwi pressed.
In Kiwi's eyes, she was Lucy's guide to Night City, but Lucy was even colder than she was. Lucy was a hedgehog, spines out, keeping everyone at a distance. Risking her life for nothing? For a one-eddy job? What did she gain?
Lucy didn't answer. She just looked at Rhys.
Her reason for risking it all?
He was standing right there.