It was a day and half later when I heard back from Regina.
I was in the middle of a kata, moving through the sequence as slowly as I could manage, which was the point. Speed was easy, speed was the body defaulting to what it already knew. Slowness however, required control an active attention to every degree of every movement, so much so that it was useful as both physical maintenance and something closer to meditation.
I'm going to have to kill a lot of people today.
I was shirtless, the silver-black chassis exposed to the apartment light, the plating catching it differently depending on the angle, warm where the overhead strip hit the shoulder housing directly, deeper and more matte in the recesses of the joint work. The artificial musculature shifted visibly beneath the surface plating with each movement.
Currently I was in the Aú Batido, the capoeira movement that was less a technique and more a commitment, the full weight of my chassis inverted onto a single extended arm, the other tucked, my body held in a kick above the floor standing in absolute stillness that came from finding the exact center of a balance point. The floor creaked once under the concentrated load of my full weight through a single palm and then went quiet.
I held it.
Thirty seconds. A minute. The chassis made it mechanically achievable in a way it wouldn't have been for a biological body, but the balance still required attention, still demanded constant micro-adjustment from the systems that managed weight distribution, still felt like work in the way that mattered.
The HUD notification lit up in the corner of my inverted vision.
//ENCRYPTED CHANNEL: REGINA JONES
//SUBJECT: ARROYO PERSON OF INTEREST // EMMANUEL "REX" MILLER
I held the position for another five seconds, then pushed off and twisted in the air before landing upright in a single controlled movement, feet finding the floor with barely a sound.
I opened the text.
King
Found your guy.
Emmanuel Miller. Most people know him as Rex. A Middle tier Lieutenant with the Arroyo chapter of 6th Street. Before the gang he served during The Unification War. NCO. Saw enough combat that by the time he came back he was a genuine threat to the average Cyberpunk, those military grade implants saw to his quick rise in 6th Street.
Word is he's a soldier through and through, the kind of leader who believes discipline solves most problems. Doesn't tolerate junkies, thieves, or gonks who start shooting before they start thinking.
Street chatter paints him as cold, methodical, and mean enough that his own people straighten up when he walks into the room.
FAMILY:
You mentioned he had a brother, I've confirmed it .
Frederick Miller. Civilian. No gang affiliation. From what I could dig up, Rex spent years keeping Sam away from 6th Street. Paid his debts more than once, found him work, even put a couple of his own people in the hospital after they tried recruiting him, hell he wouldn't even let the kid own a gun.
Whatever Rex wanted for his brother.
It wasn't Street.
CURRENT SITUATION:
Frederick Miller's decapitated corpse alongside his cousin, one Samuel Dobbs, were found in a parking lot on his brothers hometurf.Rex as I'm sure you can imagine, is on a warpath he has effectively put normal operations on hold. He's burning favors, hired a netrunner, leaning on informants, and shaking down witnesses looking for whoever pulled the trigger. Anyone who could be even remotely connected to the incident is getting a visit.
LOCATION:
He's completely locked down the old industrial warehouse complex off Hargreaves St. in central Arroyo. It's a tight, defensible grid, and he's turned the central logistics office into a makeshift tactical command post. He's got a Netrunner hooked straight into the building's main power array, sweeping local subnets for any chatter on Frederick's murder. Rex has his most disciplined veterans running actual military-grade sentry routes around the perimeter.
If you're planning on sneaking in, forget the main gates—those overlapping fields of fire will shred you before you blink.
FIXER'S NOTE:
If Rex decides you're the one responsible, don't expect a drive-by or some half-baked revenge hit. He's a soldier with a grudge. Soldiers identify a target, people with grudges make them die slow and judging by the bridges he's burning time is not on your side.
[SERVICE FEE: €$350]
Jesus tapdancing Christ this guy doesn't waste any time. I finish putting on a shirt and lean against the window, staring out into the city half expecting to see the glare from a sniper the way my day is going.
'Pay the lady .'I addressed the VI in my head.
[€$13,265 — €$350]
[CURRENT BALANCE: €$12,915]
I moved away and closed the blinds, moving to the middle of my apartment with the file open in my HUD and read it twice.
Frederick Miller...that was his name.
Rex had spent years keeping him out of the life, had paid his debts, had put his own people in the hospital for trying to recruit him. He had built a wall between his brother and everything that being Emmanuel Miller meant.
And two days ago I had cut off his baby brothers head like a cyberpsycho.
I didn't feel anything at that thought, not regret even. That wasn't quite the right word for what I felt looking at the file. Freddie had made his choices, even with his brother wanting better for him, he still felt like he had something to prove, and that chip on his shoulder is what led to him trying to sneak me even after I let him go, there was no way I'd ever feel guilt about killing someone who was out to kill me.
But I could hold that to be true and also understand that none of it would mean anything to Rex.
I am definitely going to have to kill a lot of people today. My agent chimed, pulling me from my thoughts, an incoming call from Regina Jones. I accepted it. She popped up in the corner of my HUD, cigarette burning, eyepatch catching the light from wherever she was sitting.
"Payment got through," she said. "I take it you read it."
"Just finished," I answered, sitting down in the chair by the desk with the computer.
"So." She took a drag. "How bad did you step in it."
I looked at the balance figure still sitting in my HUD. At the name Frederick Miller still visible in the open file.
"It's up to my ankles, I'll tell you that," I said. "I'd bore you with the details, but I'm guessing you don't care."
A short silence. Regina, I was coming to find, knew how to make someone stew in their failed attempts at being quippy. "You'd be right," she said finally.
"It is complicated, for what it's worth," I said. "But I'm ending it tonight, one way or the other."
"Alright." She didn't sound particularly surprised by that. "So what are you going to do about it. Another shoot out, I'm guessing."
I looked around the apartment. The incense still burning low on the stand. The dream catcher above the bed. The tarot deck on the table where I'd left it after opening it up.
"I haven't decided yet," I said honestly. "And I'm getting the feeling you think I'm some sort of wrecking ball with bullets."
"Well decide fast," she said, ignoring my comment entirely. "Because from what I'm hearing Rex doesn't take long once he's identified a target. And right now you're the only target he's got." She took another drag. "I'll keep an ear out. Anything else moves on my end you'll hear about it."
"I'd appreciate that," I said. "Though could you also forward me his holo info."
A pause, the kind that came with a raised eyebrow even when you couldn't see the eyebrow doing the raising. "You want to call him."
"I want the option to," I said.
"That's a unique approach to a man trying to find you so he can put a bullet in your head," she said. "Most people in your position skip straight to the part where they either run or shoot first."
"I'm still pretty sure this is going to end with him zeroed, but hey he might surprise me and hear me out."
She studied me for a second through the avatar feed, or at least gave the impression of studying me, the cigarette held just shy of her mouth.
"You're a strange one, Genos," she said. "I've moved a lot of mercs through this city. Most of them, you tell them a man's coming to kill them, they ask where he is so they can get there first."
She exhaled smoke slowly, the avatar's version of someone deciding whether to push further or let it sit. "Fine," she said. "I'll send it over. But if this goes sideways and you end up dead because you decided to have a conversation with a man whose brother you killed, that's on you. Not on my information."
"Understood."
"And Genos." Something shifted slightly in her tone, less businesslike, more the register she'd used when she'd told him good call on the doll. "For what it's worth I think going after this guy first is probably the smarter play. Rex isn't some strung-out ganger you can scare off. He's disciplined. He's patient. And he's got a grudge."
"I know," I said.
"Just making sure," she said, and the holo info dropped into my HUD a moment later. "Good luck. Try not to need it."
She hung up.
I sat at the desk for a moment, the apartment quiet around me, the incense thinning toward its last few minutes of burn. The contact info sat in my HUD, a string of numbers attached to a man who had spent years building a wall to keep his brother out of exactly the kind of violence that had killed him anyway.
I stood in the quiet apartment for a moment before standing and moving towards my wardrobe looking for a long sleeved jacket with a good amount of pockets, and having found one I threw it on over the shirt and moved toward the stash room next to the wardrobe.
Well, calling it that was generous, it was still pretty bare, a waist-level built-in shelf along the wall and nothing else, no racks, or displays, none of the carefully arranged inventory the way V would have built it.
I stood in the doorway and looked at it.
I wasn't even sure I wanted to turn this into a stash room. The instinct to do it had been mostly habit, the residual logic of a different life where having somewhere to put things you'd looted made sense as a default. But I wasn't running the kind of operation yet that produced a meaningful surplus of weapons and gear. What I had I used or sold.
Though maybe a wall for some iconic weapons wouldn't be all bad.
What I actually needed was a workshop.
The idea seemed better the longer I stood there. A fabricator, bought or stolen, didn't particularly matter I just needed it to be able to recreate the alloy I was made off, I needed one that would let me start working on the broken pieces of myself instead of waiting on Viktor for everything, I would go to him for complex surgeries and integration.
But the incineration systems were different, my flight jets and booster array were different.
Those were mine. I understood them at a level that meant repairing them was a question of parts and time rather than just expertise I didn't have. Kuseno's schematics existed in full detail in my own architecture, every specification, every tolerance, every failure point already mapped.
I didn't need someone else's hands for this. I needed a workspace and the right components and the time to do the work properly.
The incineration systems were the priority. They'd been offline since before I could remember being conscious in this body, a glaring gap in my capability that I'd been navigating around rather than through. Getting them back online would close one of the larger holes in what I could actually do if things went the way they always went in this city.
The propulsion systems were second. Thirty percent capacity wasn't nothing, but it wasn't enough either, and every time I'd needed real mobility since arriving here I'd felt the gap between what the boosters should be able to do and what they currently did, I should be strong enough to punch through buildings, fast enough to be subsonic.
I looked at the empty shelf, at the blank walls, wondering what a basic fabricator setup would cost versus what it would save me in the long run.
It was going to take eddies, a fuckton of eddies, or one hell of a heist. But it was an investment in the same category as the neuroport, the kind of expense that paid for itself the first time I didn't have to rely on someone else to fix something I was fully capable of fixing myself.
I'll look into this later, after this whole mess is done with.
I made a mental note to ask Viktor where he sourced his parts, or failing that, to ask MK to start pulling supplier information for industrial fabrication units.
I moved in and went to the ammo case on the shelf, opened it, and loaded the speed loaders into my jacket pockets, the weight of them settling into the lining with a familiar density. Went back outside and picked up the Overture from where I'd left it on the table.
I was about to head out when the sight of the tarot deck caught my attention.
I stood there for a second. Eh, fuck it, might as well.
I placed my gun on the table and picked up the deck and shuffled it the way I'd watched Misty do it, the cards moving through my fingers, the same motor control that ran everything else about me applied to something that didn't need it. I set the deck down on the table, cut it once, and turned over three cards in a line.
The Five of Swords Reversed.
A figure standing alone amid scattered blades, victorious in the most hollow possible sense, the defeated walking away in the background with their backs turned, nobody satisfied, nobody whole. According to MK this was the card of a conflict that ends but doesn't resolve cleanly. Inverted, it represented something worse. Relentless revenge. Escalating violence that fed itself.
The Seven of Cups.
A figure standing before a row of floating chalices, each one holding something different, illusion, temptation, a choice dressed up as several choices that aren't actually as different as they look. The card of being offered something that looks like an option and isn't really one. A negotiation that appears to have outcomes when in fact it only has one.
The Ten of Swords.
A figure on the ground, ten blades driven through their back, the worst possible version of an ending already arrived at, no ambiguity left in it. The card of something finished completely and without mercy, the floor already hit, nowhere left to fall.
I stared at the three cards laid out on the table.
I had no idea what any of this meant, I mean I got the gist of it but not in the way Misty meant when she read them I could see the imagery hell I could even guess at the broad strokes, escalating conflict, false choice, finality, but I didn't have the vocabulary to turn that into anything specific, anything actionable, anything that told me what I was actually supposed to do with the information.
Maybe that was the point. Misty had said the cards didn't tell you what to do. They just made sure your eyes were open when you finally did it.
My eyes felt plenty open already.
I gathered the three cards back into the deck, set it down on the table, and picked the Overture back up holstering it at my waist.
Whatever was waiting for me tonight, I was going to find out the old fashioned way, I made my way out my apartment and took a left towards the garage elevator, nodding to the pair of teens sitting on the ledge playing with a drone, the one not playing with the drone giving me a lazy nod back.
It didn't take me long to reach the garage.
The elevator doors slid open with their usual hydraulic hiss, the underground levels of Megabuilding H10 lit by cold fluorescent strips that reflected off polished concrete and rows of parked vehicles. Somewhere further down, someone was arguing over an engine that refused to start, the metallic clang of a wrench echoing through the structure.
My Mizutani was waiting where I'd left it three days ago. It's heavy armor and all black finish stood out of place among the aging economy models and patched-up Thortons that filled most of the garage. I walked around it once out of habit before climbing inside.
The door sealed with a muted thud.
The cabin lights came alive, followed by the familiar shimmer of the CrystalDome, the opaque bodywork dissolving into a translucent projection that gave the illusion of a windshield. The dashboard booted, a soft pulse rippling across the displays as I started the car.
"MK."
[AWAITING INPUT.]
"Find me somewhere in Arroyo. Somewhere isolated. No active cameras, no NCPD peacekeeper turrets, no corporate security. Preferably somewhere people can shoot at each other without inconveniencing anyone else."
For nearly two seconds there was nothing but the quiet hum of the engine.
[QUERY ACCEPTED.]
[SEARCH PARAMETERS PRIORITIZED: LOW CIVILIAN PRESENCE. MINIMAL SURVEILLANCE COVERAGE. LIMITED RAPID RESPONSE CAPABILITY. SUITABLE FOR HIGH-RISK ENGAGEMENT.]
Rows of locations scrolled through my HUD before disappearing almost as quickly.
[SEARCH AREA: ARROYO DISTRICT. THIS PROCESS MAY REQUIRE SEVERAL MINUTES. IN THE INTERIM, AN OPTIMAL ROUTE TO THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN GENERATED.]
A translucent navigation line bloomed across my vision, tracing out through the garage entrance before disappearing into the streets beyond. I eased the car into gear and rolled toward the exit.
The city swallowed me almost immediately.
Night City's roads were never truly quiet. Even at this hour traffic moved in steady rivers beneath towers of neon and concrete, advertisements dancing across the sides of skyscrapers large enough to cast entire districts into shadow.
For a while I simply drove out of little China, and then Watson entirely, I was halfway through the hologram filled night of Kabuki when a thought occurred to me.
"MK."
[YES?]
"Do you think this is a good idea?"
A fraction of a second passed. [CLARIFY.]
"Confronting Rex I mean."
The silence lasted longer this time, a pause I had come to associate with the VI processing.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE.]
[BASED ON CURRENT INTELLIGENCE, PASSIVE AVOIDANCE IS NOT RECOMMENDED.]
The VI projected excerpts from Regina's data packet into the corner of my HUD. Military veteran. Operational leader. Established intelligence network. Netrunner support. Significant local influence.
[SUBJECT HAS DEMONSTRATED THE ABILITY TO MOBILIZE PERSONNEL, INFORMATION SOURCES, AND MATERIAL RESOURCES WITHIN A LIMITED TIMEFRAME.]
[CURRENT EVIDENCE INDICATES SUBJECT HAS ALREADY IDENTIFIED YOUR PRESENCE WITHIN NIGHT CITY.]
The image of Kuya Jin flashed briefly across the display.
[HAD THE PROPERTY MANAGER NOT DISCLOSED THIS INFORMATION, YOU WOULD HAVE REMAINED UNAWARE THAT YOUR LOCATION HAD BEEN COMPROMISED.]
I watched another turn glide beneath the wheels.
[PROJECTED OUTCOME OF DELAY: INCREASED PROBABILITY OF ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION REGARDING YOUR HABITS. INCREASED PROBABILITY OF SURVEILLANCE ON KNOWN ASSOCIATES. INCREASED PROBABILITY OF AN ENGAGEMENT OCCURRING AT A TIME AND LOCATION SELECTED BY SUBJECT: REX.]
The final line appeared by itself.
[THIS IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH DIRECTIVE ONE.]
I sighed faintly. "Keeping me alive."
[CORRECT.]
The navigation line stretched further into Westbrook.
[RECOMMENDATION: INITIATE CONTACT UNDER CONDITIONS OF YOUR CHOOSING. MAINTAIN OPERATIONAL INITIATIVE.]
I rested my elbow against the door as neon reflections drifted across the windshield. "I was hoping you'd tell me I was being an idiot."
[NEGATIVE.] A beat. [IF YOU WERE BEING AN IDIOT, I WOULD HAVE INFORMED YOU.]
I laughed. It was probably the closest thing to reassurance a machine was capable of.
The expressway bled out of the lower districts and into the long industrial stretch that fed toward Arroyo, traffic thinning the further the city's neon presence faded behind me. I had the radio going pretty loud trying to hype myself up or distract I wasn't sure, and for a few minutes it was just the road and the music and the city sliding past in the dark.
Then I heard it.
The roar of a supercharged V8 cut clean through the high-end drone of the highway. I glanced at the rearview. A heavily armored Thorton Mackinaw slammed through a concrete median behind me, leaving a trail of sparks across the asphalt, matte olive-drab, packed with three 6th Street bangers, and closing fast. I gripped the wheel and watched it gain ground in a way no civilian transport had any business gaining ground.
"MK, we've got company."
[CONFIRMED. THORTON MACKINAW, ARMORED VARIANT, APPROACHING FROM REAR. FOUR OCCUPANTS IDENTIFIED. WEAPONS VISIBLE.]
The Mackinaw surged into my blind spot and I heard them before I saw the weapons, voices cutting over the wind and the engine noise.
"THAT'S THE CAR! THAT'S THE ONE! GO GO GO!"
"GET ALONGSIDE HIM!"
"REX WANTS HIM ALIVE, SHOOT OUT THE TIRES, THE TIRES!"
Three bangers leaned out of the windows, one with a heavy Saratoga SMG, another with a drum-mag Defender, the third aiming a heavy-caliber revolver straight at the back of my head. I stared at the drum-mag for a fraction of a second longer than everything else. "Is that a fucking LMG?!"
"AIM FOR THE WHEELS! AIM FOR THE WHEELS YOU GONK!"
"I AM AIMING FOR THE WHEELS!"
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
Sparks exploded off the reinforced rear bumper. Bullet holes punched clean through the spoiler.
"FUCK you, I just got this car!"
I slammed my foot down. The engine screamed as I dove into a congested intersection right on the border between districts, cutting the wheel hard left, clipping past a lumbering civilian sedan.
The Mackinaw didn't bother braking. It rammed the sedan sideways, sending it spinning into a guardrail, barely losing a beat.
"He's cutting through the intersection, CUT HIM OFF, JOSIE GO LEFT—"
"I'M TRYING HE'S TOO FAST—"
"THEN SHOOT OUT THE ENGINE! THE ENGINE!"
"REX SAID ALIVE!"
"REX SAID BRING HIM IN ALIVE HE DIDN'T SAY WHAT CONDITION!"
I pulled a slalom between two heavy shipping haulers, the Mizutani threading the gap with tires smoking. The Mackinaw clipped a trailer hard enough to tear off its own mirror, the driver overcorrecting, the whole truck fishtailing before surging back into my lane.
"SON OF A—he's heading into Arroyo!"
"GOOD! That's where we want him! Run him into a wall!"
"WHAT ABOUT REX WANTS HIM ALI—"
"SHUT UP ABOUT REX I KNOW WHAT REX SAID!"
I checked the mirror. They were still closing. "I can't outrun them in this traffic."
[AGREED. RECOMMEND OFFENSIVE ACTION.]
"MK," I said. "Give me a Search Eye scan. I need a clean shot on the driver without putting this car into a wall."
[INITIATING.]
"And do it fast, they're about to figure out that shooting out my tires is genuinely the move here."
The world shifted, my vision bled out of standard optical input and into something else entirely, ultra-sound imaging flooding in, a full 360-degree representation of everything around the vehicle rendered in cold blue-grey topology, the Mackinaw's interior mapped down to the position of every occupant, the curve of the road ahead, the haulers on either side, all of it simultaneous and complete and deeply, viscerally disorientating.
I closed my eyes.
It didn't matter. The image didn't come from my eyes anymore.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED. DRIVER, FEMALE. OPTIMAL FIRING ANGLE CALCULATED. RECOMMEND ENGAGEMENT THROUGH DRIVER SIDE WINDOW AT NEXT LANE DIVERGENCE.]
I hit the electronic release. The driver-side door slid back into the frame with a mechanical hiss, freezing night air ripping into the cabin at well over a hundred miles an hour, the sound of the city at speed replacing the music instantly.
Right hand locked on the wheel. Feet braced against the pedals. I leaned my upper body out into the roaring wind, the Overture coming up in my left hand, the ultra-sound rendering painting everything in cold blue topology, the Mackinaw's grille filling the rear image, the driver's face visible through the windshield even through the chaos of the chase.
Alright I hope I don't fuck this up.
I yanked the emergency brake and threw the wheel hard left.
The Mizutani stopped agreeing with physics immediately.
The rear end broke loose with a shriek of rubber that I felt through the seat, through the floor, through every sensor in my chassis simultaneously, the car rotating on its own axis as it continued its momentum down the street, tires screaming against asphalt in a long smoking arc. The city spun past the windshield in a single continuous blur, streetlights and neon and the dark industrial geometry of the district cycling past like a carousel that had made a very poor decision.
The Mackinaw kept coming, the driver speeding up to try and ram me.
I counted the rotation. Felt the arc. In the ultra-sound rendering the geometry was precise, every degree of the spin tracked in real time, and there, there, a fraction of a second in the middle of the chaos where the Mizutani's open door came around horizontal to the road, facing directly into the oncoming grille of the Mackinaw at full sprint, the driver's face behind the windshield suddenly occupying exactly the angle MK had calculated.
Her eyes found the barrel, found mine behind it.
They went wide in the specific way of someone whose brain had just delivered news their body hadn't caught up to yet.
"What the actual fuc—"
I pulled the trigger.
The Overture kicked against my palm, the report swallowed by the wind and the screaming tires, and the bullet crossed the distance between us in a fraction of a second that felt considerably longer than it was. It drilled clean between her eyes before she finished the word. Her hands jerked the wheel on pure reflex, the Mackinaw veering hard under the sudden absence of direction, and then it hit my still-spinning car at the worst possible angle, went up and over, actually launching itself into a full roll over the roof of the Mizutani with a sound like a building falling down, flipping once, twice, cartwheeling past and crashing hard on the other side of the road in a shower of glass and bodywork and the kind of sparks that suggested the fuel line had strong opinions about the situation.
I let my vision bleed back into standard optical input.
The car was still moving, still spinning, actually, the momentum not quite spent, and I grabbed the wheel and hit the accelerator trying to correct the rotation but the angle was wrong and I clipped the guardrail with the rear quarter panel, the impact slamming through the chassis and bringing the Mizutani to a hard, undignified stop against the barrier, the engine stuttering before settling back into its idle.
Silence, mostly. The distant sound of the Mackinaw still settling into its wreckage somewhere behind me.
I sat there for a second, song still blaring in the background.
Fuck. I looked at the guardrail I was currently resting against, at the smoke coming off my own tires, at the damage readout MK was already generating in my HUD.
I should really get a driving skill chip or something, that was just embarrassing. I stepped out of the car.
The Mizutani hissed and ticked behind me, steam rising from where the front end had kissed the guardrail, the damage readout in my HUD painting a picture I was going to have to deal with later. I rolled my neck once and started walking toward the wreck.
"MK. Survivors."
[SCANNING.] A brief pause. [TWO SURVIVORS CONFIRMED. ONE CASUALTY, DRIVER, CONFIRMED DECEASED. FIRST SURVIVOR LOCATED IN VEHICLE CABIN, CONSCIOUS. SECOND SURVIVOR APPROXIMATELY FIFTEEN METERS EAST, APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN EJECTED DURING THE ROLL. RECOMMEND APPROACHING WITH CAUT—]
The Mackinaw's door exploded outward.
The banger with the drum-mag Defender came through it like he'd been launched, boots hitting the asphalt, weapon already up, face a mask of blood and road rash and pure uncut fury.
"FUCK YOU!" The first burst hit me square in the chest. I crossed my arms in front of me on pure reflex, the rounds tearing through my sleeves and sparking off the plating in a shower of hot metal, the impacts registering in my chassis as pressure rather than damage, each hit a dull thud that I absorbed.
"STOP SHOOTING AT MY FUCKING CAR!" I started walking toward him.
He kept firing. The Defender cycled through its drum, the rounds sparked off my forearms, my shoulders, the plating at my collarbone. I kept walking, unhurried, trying to keep the bullets away from my car.
His eyes changed when he realized I wasn't slowing down. The shooting became less tactical and more desperate, the barrel tracking up toward my face, rounds pinging off my arms, and the shattered bullets scraping by my jaw plating, one catching under my left optical and sending a glare through my vision that cleared in under a second.
Ten meters.
Five.
He swung the Defender like a club when the drum finally clicked empty, a wild overhead arc that I stepped inside without breaking stride, letting it pass behind me, close enough to feel the displaced air.
I grabbed his wrist on the follow through.
Used his own momentum, redirected it forward and down, the classic jujutsu principle of borrowing what someone gave you and returning it with interest. He went up into the air for a moment as I threw him, weight shifting, and I was already spinning, full rotation, the centrifugal force of the turn loading into my heel as I came around and drove an axe kick into the side of his head with everything the rotation had built, just as he was about to touch the floor.
The impact sounded like a gunshot.
He hit the asphalt face first, momentum carrying his legs up and over kicking the back of his head, before gravity settled the argument. The crack of his skull connecting with the asphalt was audible even over the ambient noise of the district. He didn't bounce, he just stopped, blood beginning to seep outward from beneath his head in a slow dark halo.
His gun landed two meters away.
I walked over, picked it up, checked the drum. Empty, as expected, but the weapon itself was intact and the secondary mag housing still had rounds in it. I swapped it out, racked it, and turned.
The last one was crawling.
He'd been ejected during the flip, probably through the window, and had somehow come through the rolling wreckage conscious and mobile, which said something about either his constitution or the quality of his cyberware.
He was moving away from me at a pace that suggested he was aware of how the fight between me and his friend went.
I walked after him, stepping over the body and glass that littered the road.
He heard my footsteps and looked back over his shoulder and made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
I placed the LMG against his back, between his shoulder blades, with enough pressure that the message was unambiguous, he hissed at the heat of the muzzle but he got the message and stopped crawling.
"Smart," I said, and crouched down beside him. "Here's how this goes. I ask you questions. You answer them, you tell me the truth then you get to keep breathing and I get to keep walking. That work for you?"
He said something muffled by the asphalt his face was pressed against.
"I'm going to take that as a yes," I said. "What does Rex know about me."
A pause, then reluctantly, "He don't know nothing but where you live and what you look like." He spat blood onto the road. "Isn't even sure your the one that flatlined his gonk of a brother, but..." he lets out a groan as he sits up. " I'm guessing he was right."
"What else."
"That's it. That's all we had." His voice was strained a bit. "Rex just wanted you brought in. Wanted to question you himself."
"Where."
"Here, Arroyo, he set up a fucking command base in the old warehouse off Hargraves st, you know it?"
"I'll find it," I said. "How many people does he have there."
The banger was quiet for a second too long, I pressed the LMG down slightly.
"Twenty," he said quickly. "Maybe more. He called in favors. People owe Rex, a lot of people owe Rex, and when he pulls that string they come." A beat. "He's pissed off a lot of shotcallers, but they get it, it's family, so they're giving him some leeway."
I sat with that for a moment.
"Last question," I said. "The ambush tonight, was it planned?"
The banger turned his head slightly, enough to look at me sideways with one eye.
"We had orders to keep an eye out for a black tricked out Shion with your plates," he said and then flatly, "I guess this was just bad luck, didn't expect you to be a fucking borg."
I stood up and stepped back.
"Go," I said he stared at me. "Fucking delta, don't make me change my mind about it."
God I'm even using the slang...
He got up slowly, favoring his left side, and walked without looking back, and I let him go until he'd cleared the wreck and turned a corner and disappeared into the Arroyo dark.
I looked at the secluded location MK had already plotted in my HUD, MK having finished finding one in the process of the shootout.
'MK put me through to Rex'
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Authors Note: That's it for chapter 14, I had fun writing this one out, you aren't a true merc until you've had a shoot out while speeding down a highway.
I called this chapter The Five of swords reversed, because In tarot, the Five of Swords is inherently a card of conflict, betrayal, and hostility. When it appears reversed specifically in regards to a quest for revenge, it serves as a powerful psychological transition point. It represents the moment where the toxic cycle of "an eye for an eye" either collapses under its own weight or reaches a hollow, devastating conclusion.
Tell me what you thought of the car chase, I wanted to give you guys some action, this whole Rex arc was basically set up so you guys wouldn't be bored while Genos was busy setting himself up in Night City.
As always leave a like and review, I like hearing your thoughts on the direction of this story, and my writing in general.