At 1:00 AM, a yellow Galena G240 led a black Mackinaw into Rancho Coronado.
After winding through a shantytown, they pulled up in front of a low-rise building.
Opening the car door, Lin Ke stepped out and looked around.
Wild weeds, garbage, discarded oil drums—it looked like another abandoned construction site.
Still, this place was the main base of Mann’s squad from *Edgerunners*—the very spot David had driven to the first time he stole a car.
How interesting.
Scenes from the anime overlapped with reality.
This transmigrative jump really broke down multiple dimensional walls.
Still wearing his hat and face mask, Lin Ke walked over to Gloria’s car and leaned slouched against it, calling out to the red-haired woman inside:
“Big Sister Gloria, when’s Mann getting here?
It’s been over an hour since we drove out here.”
Gloria leaned back in the driver’s seat with her eyes closed, resting and choosing to ignore him.
When they’d first met, he had politely called her “ma’am,” but now he was calling her “big sister.”
In any case, she had no intention of getting out of the car until Mann arrived.
Not that she was afraid of Lin Ke—she simply didn’t want to deal with this brat.
Although she had only spent about ten short minutes talking with Lin Ke, Gloria had realized by now that he genuinely just wanted to use her to contact Mann about a gig.
His temperament was surprisingly mild; he hadn’t gotten angry even after she snapped at him several times.
She just couldn’t figure out how he knew the private details of her job so well.
Bored, Lin Ke leaned against the car and looked up at the night sky, most of which was blocked out by towering skyscrapers.
The city’s neon lights were far too brilliant, leaving not a single star visible beneath the night canvas.
*Ah…
yawn.*
He let out a yawn.
He was actually getting a bit sleepy—the Lin Ke in the other world had already crawled into a sleeping bag.
Lucidity and drowsiness coexisted; experiencing both sensations simultaneously was truly strange.
Suddenly, Lin Ke shivered as if zapped by electricity, feeling as though someone was watching him from behind.
Relying on the sharp intuition provided by his 7 Spirit points, Lin Ke turned toward the low-rise building behind him.
He saw a security camera hanging under the eaves, which had swiveled toward his direction at some unknown moment.
A faint red light glowed inside its pitch-black lens.
“Heh, looks like they’re already here.
Trying to dig up some intel first?
So who’s behind the monitor right now?”
Outside the wall of the abandoned site, Sasha disconnected from the network, opened her eyes, and backed out of the camera feed.
Beside her, Mann saw her wake up and asked, “Find anything useful?”
Sasha shook her head.
“It’s really weird.
No biometrics detected, no cyberware signatures, not even a pistol signal.
Nothing on him—even his clothes don’t emit microchip info.
He’s as clean as a walking, human-shaped rock.”
In the cyber era, almost everything was digitized.
Through optical sensors or the built-in scanner of a cybereye, one could see details invisible to the naked eye.
Even with a piece of clothing, scanning the embedded microchip would reveal basic info like manufacturer and materials.
Coming across someone completely blank like this was a first for her.
“Let’s head in, then.
If he came alone, he must have something backing him up.
Regular folks wouldn’t dare deal with mercenaries like us.”
Saying that, Mann restarted the car and drove into the squad’s base.
In the open lot in front of the building, Lin Ke watched the three people step out of the car and scanned them with his Eye of Truth.
[Mann] Age: 33 Identity: Cyber-Mercenary Cyberware Coverage: 54% Description: Leader of a cyber-mercenary squad.
Merit-based, fair, and just, he is a reliable man deeply trusted by his crew.
P.S.
His dream is to become a legend, but he cares more about his crew than fame.
[Pilar] Age: 26 Identity: Cyber-Mercenary Cyberware Coverage: 32% Description: A foul-mouthed techie.
P.S.
Enjoys verbally harassing women.
Bound to get headshot by someone sooner or later.
[Sasha Yakovleva] Age: 23 Identity: Netrunner Cyberware Coverage: 51% Description: Beneath her semi-cybernetic shell still beats a passionate heart.
P.S.
Beautiful girls are forever 18!
Please don’t blurt out a girl’s age!
A fascinating soul shouldn’t fade away in silence.
Mann, Pilar, and Sasha!
Looks like Rebecca and Dorio didn’t come.
Mann before his cyberpsychosis break.
Pilar before getting killed by a cyberpsycho.
And Sasha, cute as the cat-girl next door.
Lin Ke shifted his gaze away from Sasha’s black bob haircut.
Seeing Mann arrive, Gloria stepped out of her car and greeted him.
“Mann.”
Nodding to Gloria, Mann turned to the client, whose face was obscured by his mask and hat, and cut straight to the chase.
“I’m Mann.
What’s the gig, and what’s the payout?”
“I’m really sorry, but right now I only have enough money on me to buy a piece of bubblegum.
I’ll only have cash to pay you after you complete my first gig,” Lin Ke replied helplessly.
Penniless in a capitalist society, walking even a step was tough.
“Say what?
Kid, are you yankin’ our chain?”
Pilar stood beside Mann, waving his long cybernetic arms around, thoroughly annoyed.
Acting all mysterious made him think this guy was some big shot, only to turn out to be a broke loser.
Sasha remained silent, observing this mysterious man who emitted no signal whatsoever.
Her netrunning skills were entirely useless against someone like him.
Mann kept his cool and pressed on, asking, “So what’s your first gig?”
“See that Mackinaw behind me?
Appraise it, then help me sell it.” Lin Ke pointed at the truck behind him.
Mercenaries handled a wide variety of work.
Small scale: border smuggling, bodyguard duties.
Large scale: stealing corporate secrets, rescuing people from Scavenger nests, clearing out gang hideouts.
As long as it paid, mercs would do almost anything.
Lin Ke couldn’t resolve the vehicle’s registration issues on his own, and he lacked funds anyway.
Selling it off for cash to buy necessary supplies made far more sense.
“Pilar.
Go check it out,” Mann ordered.
He mainly wanted to confirm whether the components were intact and if there were owner locks or electronic security systems active.
“Got it, I’ll take a look.” Pilar walked over, opened the Mackinaw’s door, and climbed in.
Extending his personal link from his palm, he plugged it into the data port beneath the steering wheel.
Though not a netrunner, he had solid technical skills when it came to mechanics.
After a quick diagnostic, he stepped out and returned to Mann.
“Components are intact.
It’s an unowned vehicle, reinforced with heavy bulletproof armor—though the mod style looks like Nomad work.”
Mann nodded.
Since the truck was clean, he quoted a price to Lin Ke.
“A brand-new Mackinaw goes for sixty thousand eddies.
Secondhand, this is worth forty grand tops, but with the heavy armor, a used car dealer would buy it back for around forty-five to forty-eight thousand.”
“Just give me forty thousand eddies and drive it away.
Whatever you sell it for after that is none of my business—consider it your gig payout.”
Lin Ke didn’t care about a difference of a few thousand eddies.
He just wanted starting capital to help his other self in the Hunter x Hunter world out of a tight spot as quickly as possible.
“Deal,” Mann agreed.
Flipping it for an easy profit of at least five thousand eddies—only an idiot would refuse.
Besides, he didn’t necessarily have to sell it to a dealership.
Plenty of fellow mercs loved reinforced, heavy-duty pickups with plenty of horsepower and cargo room.
Selling it at the original sixty-thousand price tag was entirely possible.
After all, who didn’t like a bulletproof pickup?
A vehicle like that could save your life when shit hit the fan.
“So that settles the first gig.
Transfer the cash straight to Gloria—she’s acting as my fixer for now.”
The red-haired woman was about to speak, but Lin Ke raised a hand to stop her.
“Now for the second gig.”
Lin Ke removed his hat and pulled down his mask, revealing a head without a single sign of cybernetic implants.
He calmly looked at Sasha, who was standing quietly behind Mann.
“Help me pull off a resident ID that lets me move freely in Night City.
Sasha, with your skills, that should be a breeze, right?”
The four people present were startled to see Lin Ke completely untouched by chrome.
Gloria finally understood why Lin Ke knew so much yet still needed her to contact Mann, and why he wanted the money transferred to her.
Without a cyberdeck or neural port, you couldn’t even send a message in Night City, let alone open a digital bank account.
“You from outside the city?”
“Damn, bro!
No neural port?
How’d you even make it to adulthood?”
Mann was at a loss regarding Lin Ke’s background.
A pure organic meathead was a rare sight indeed.
Due to environmental degradation, citizens at the bottom of the ladder usually had to cybernetically enhance their organs to some degree, or stepping outside could literally kill them.
Pure organic bodies were a luxury reserved for top-tier corporate elites.
Those elites could pour money into high-end BioTechnica enhancements to modify or replace organs, drastically extending their lifespans.
Mann sent a few messages on the squad channel, scraped together forty thousand eddies, and transferred them to Gloria.
Meanwhile, Sasha folded her hands behind her back and tiptoed in a circle around Lin Ke.
“No wonder there were no biometrics.
Sasha thought you were using some fancy jamming trick, but you’re just pure organic with zero cyberware.”
“A full resident identity is a bit tricky, but Sasha can take an ID chip from some missing poor guy and clone it with your face and name.
NCPD won’t pick up any issues, so it’ll be enough for you to get around Night City.
But to read the chip’s data, you’ll need a neural port implant.”
Sasha did a full scan of Lin Ke’s physical dimensions and returned to Mann’s side.
“Got it, I’ll figure out the neural implant myself.
I’ll leave the ID to you, Sasha.
My name is Lin Ke.
The payment for the second gig is in the bed of the Mackinaw.”
As soon as Lin Ke finished speaking, the impatient Pilar rushed over and yanked off the tarpaulin, revealing two stiff corpses underneath.
“Holy shit, dead bodies!” Pilar yelled out, instantly tautening the tension in the air.
“Don’t worry, I just picked those up on my way here.
Both have NCPD bounties on their heads.
Though the bounty rewards are laughable, their cyberware should at least be worth something.”
Lin Ke was truly squeezing every last drop of value out of his beginner rewards.
In the cyberpunk world, however, recycling and reselling secondhand cyberware was practically a legitimate industry.
Unlicensed ripperdocs frequently bought and sold secondhand chrome harvested from corpses.
Sasha scanned the corpses in the truck bed with her cybereye and nodded to Mann.
“NCPD database confirms criminal records.
Scum from the Raffen Shiv.
The cyberware on them is worth decent money.”
“We’ll take this gig.
We’ll have it done before dawn, and by then, you’ll be an official resident of Night City, enjoying the freedom and legal rights every citizen deserves.”
Mann adjusted his sunglasses with his middle finger, his lip twitching as he agreed to take Lin Ke’s request.
*Picked them up?
Only a fool would buy that.*
*The truck probably belonged to these two Wraiths, and now both the truck and their bodies are someone else’s spoils of war.*
*Just who is this guy?*
*A pure organic, braving the Badlands alone, who managed to kill two heavily cyber-modified borgs.*
“Then pleasure doing business.
Let Gloria know once you have news.”
With that, Lin Ke walked back over to the Galena G240, opened the passenger door, and slid inside.
All he wanted right now was a place to get a good night’s sleep.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Gloria opened the driver’s door and looked at Lin Ke, who had already reclined the seat and laid back down, a black line of exasperation crossing her face.
“Heading home with you, of course.
You have all my cash, and I’m an undocumented illegal resident, so I have no choice but to stay at your place for a few days.”
“I don’t have a spare room for you.”
“I can sleep on the couch, I don’t mind.”
“Big Sister Gloria—no, wait, sister—you wouldn’t want David to know about—”
“All right, shut your trap.”
“You got it.”
Mann and his two crew members watched the taillights disappear around the corner, speechlessly.
“That guy’s got a few screws loose.
He trusts us just like that?”
“Sasha feels like…
he knows us.
Like he’s really familiar with us.”
“What a weird guy!”