Alright.
It made sense for Kiwi to be with Lucy.
Based on the plot of *Edgerunners*, Kiwi was probably the one who introduced Lucy to Night City, and after Sasha’s incident, she was also the one who brought Lucy into Mann’s crew.
The two of them must have known each other for quite a long time.
From a few rows of shelves away, Lin Ke watched the beautiful netrunners picking out clothes in the women’s section.
He had no intention of going over to talk to them.
Right now, he was just a stranger; approaching them out of the blue would definitely put these older girls on guard.
After all, when he first approached Gloria yesterday, she had almost pulled a gun on him.
The local customs of Night City were notoriously fierce.
He’d better focus on finding clothes first.
Since they weren’t warm enough individually, he would just layer up.
Since he had already scoped out the clothing section earlier, it only took Lin Ke half an hour to gather all the clothes he needed.
To prevent snow blindness, he first picked out a pair of black goggles, a beanie, and a long scarf.
For his upper body, he bought four cotton long-sleeved undershirts, two nano-plastic punk jackets for wind and water resistance, and two pairs of leather gloves.
For his lower body, besides spare underwear, he bought several pairs of pants—including the outer pants which were also windproof and waterproof.
Finally, he bought over ten pairs of socks and two pairs of high-top tactical combat boots.
Of course, he chose white wherever possible.
In total, it cost him over 5,000 eddies.
He piled all the purchased clothes into the shopping carts, completely filling both of them to the brim.
Having finished most of his shopping, Lin Ke prepared to head out with Gloria.
But before leaving, he glanced back at the women’s section.
Amidst the bustling crowd, the two netrunner girls were still picking out clothes.
Women shopping for clothes truly operated in a completely different dimension of time compared to men.
Suddenly—
*Bang!* A gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of something shattering.
*Bang!* Another shot.
This time, Lin Ke heard the gunshots coming directly from the adjacent daily necessities section.
The surrounding crowd began to panic.
“Looks like trouble!”
With the situation unclear, it was best to lay low.
He didn’t want the redhead beside him to face any danger.
Letting go of his shopping cart, Lin Ke grabbed Gloria and retreated into the depths of the clothing section—specifically, the women’s department.
Behind a row of changing rooms against the wall, they ran into their “acquaintances,” Lucy and Kiwi.
Lucy was holding a pistol, guarding Kiwi, while Kiwi had pulled her personal link out of her palm and jacked into an access point on the mall wall, seemingly performing some kind of data breach.
*Bang!
Bang!* Gunshots rang out in rapid succession, the sounds drawing closer and louder.
Damn, the shooter was heading their way!
Oddly enough, aside from the gunfire, there hadn’t been any screams of pain from anyone getting shot.
What was actually going on?
“Stay here and don’t move.
I’m going to check it out.” Lin Ke patted Gloria’s trembling shoulders.
He wanted to see what was happening.
“Don’t go out there.
Since guns are involved, the mall security should be here soon,” Gloria said, grabbing his hand and whispering.
“Heh.
Anyone firing shots in a public place like this is either a gangoon or a cyberpsycho,” Kiwi sneered from the side.
She was never one to entrust her life to mall security.
At that moment, her cybernetic eyes flashed as she cracked the security protocols of the mall’s surveillance cameras.
She was jacking into the camera feeds to identify the shooter and pinpoint their location.
“Don’t worry.
I came from the Badlands, I’ve seen plenty.
If it’s a cyberpsycho, I actually want to see what they look like,” Lin Ke comforted Gloria with a smile.
Lucy, guarding Kiwi with her pistol, took a closer look at the man upon hearing him mention the Badlands.
A flicker of realization flashed across her iridescent eyes.
*Isn’t that the idiot who was crouching on the radio tower?
He came to Night City too?
Looks like he got rid of those two scumbags.*
“You two, keep an eye on her for me.
I’ll owe you one.”
After speaking to the two netrunners, Lin Ke slipped his hand out of Gloria’s grasp, crouched low, and crept toward the sound of the gunfire.
Crouching behind a row of clothing racks, Lin Ke peered through the gaps between the hanging clothes to get a clear view of the shooter.
It was a middle-aged white man wearing a tactical vest.
Highly visible seam lines from cybernetic implants ran across his exposed skin.
Right now, he was aiming his gun and shooting the surveillance cameras on the mall ceiling.
A pair of optical cyber-eyes embedded in his sockets were twitching erratically.
[Jacob Bruce]
Age: 48
Identity: Veteran?
Cyber-mercenary?
Cyberpsycho!
Cyberware Coverage: 68%
Description: A veteran of the Unification War (the 2069 war between the NUSA and the Free States).
He once joined the military for his ideals and fought for the freedom of this city.
PS: He loves this city, but this city doesn’t love him back.
*Damn, it really is a cyberpsycho.
Kiwi called it.
She really knows her stuff.*
The 68% cyberware coverage made Lin Ke suck in a cold breath.
But what was truly mind-boggling was that a crowd had actually gathered around the cyberpsycho, with some people even whistling and shouting at Jacob.
“Hell yeah, choom!
Shoot down those corp cameras!
It was getting hard for me to lift shit anyway!”
“Nice shot, big guy!
There are a few more cameras over there, go blow them to pieces!”
“Yo, boss, what gang are you with?
So badass!”
…
Suffice it to say, classic Night City.
Telling a cyberpsycho what to do…
being this ballsy, do your mothers know?
They really have a death wish!
Lin Ke was utterly speechless.
Twenty minutes ago.
Jacob was walking through the supermarket, intending to buy some new clothes for his son.
However, he had left the house in a hurry today and forgotten to bring his immunosuppressants.
Now, he could feel a burning sensation spreading from his cervical spine to his limbs.
Without the suppression of blockers, the neural synapse irritation from his cybernetics was rapidly worsening.
But Jacob still planned to finish buying clothes for his son first, then head down to the cyberware store on the lower level to buy a few cans of blockers for an emergency.
He could still hold on for now.
But before he could even reach the clothing section, a message popped up on his cyberdeck.
[Spider Skull: You sure you don’t want to tell Maelstrom the convoy route?]
[Jacob: Scum.
You won’t get a single piece of info about my employer out of me.]
Since leaving the military, Jacob had taken up work as a mercenary.
He had recently accepted a job to escort corporate cargo across the border, set to depart tomorrow.
Of course, it was just a small corp; megacorps always had their own dedicated security teams.
But he hadn’t expected Maelstrom to catch wind of it.
They had targeted the corp’s cargo and had been trying to pry the convoy’s route through the Badlands out of him lately.
[Spider Skull: Nobody rejects Maelstrom!
I’ll take real good care of your son.]
[Jacob: Bastard!
If you touch my son, I’ll kill you!]
[Spider Skull: [Photo] Don’t worry, we’re taking great care of him.
Look how great he looks right now!]
The photo Spider Skull sent to Jacob showed a heavily chromed individual, fitting the typical Maelstrom aesthetic perfectly.
A massive, glowing crimson optical implant dominated most of his face.
His nose had been completely shorn off and replaced with a vent-like implant, and his lips were entirely severed, exposing sharp, metallic teeth and gums.
Judging by the photo, the cybernetic surgery had been done crudely.
The seams where metal met flesh were a bloody, inflamed mess, weeping red and yellow pus.
This made the person in the photo look hideously monstrous, with more than a touch of revulsion.
Staring at the photo on his screen, Jacob froze, the light in his cyber-eyes locking up.
What the hell happened?
His son had just said goodbye to him this morning to go to school.
How did he end up like this?
What on earth had happened?!
The middle-aged man, who had survived the fires of war, was on the verge of an absolute breakdown.
Having not seen him for just a single morning, Jacob could only identify the heavily chromed monster in the photo as his handsome, sensible son by the clothes he wore.
A crushing wave of grief welled up from the depths of his soul, closely followed by a rage hot enough to burn down the entire world.
“Maelstrom!
I’m going to slaughter every last one of you!”
Jacob only felt burning heat throughout his body.
It was as if dozens of steel needles were piercing his brain.
His mind briefly went blank, and his body no longer felt like his own.
He stood dazed on the spot for a long while.
*Who am I?*
*I am Jacob Bruce.*
*What am I doing right now?*
*Right!
I’m going to Maelstrom to save my son.
I’m going to turn them all into swiss cheese!*
Jacob’s optical cyber-eyes vibrated erratically.
Just then, a surveillance camera swiveled and pointed right at him.
The tiny red indicator light on the lens dilated in his vision, morphing until it looked exactly like the blood-red cyber-eyes of that Maelstrom thug.
*Bang!*
Blowing the ceiling-mounted “Maelstrom scum” to pieces with a single shot, a stiff smile tugged at the corner of Jacob’s mouth.
“There’s another one.”
He raised his pistol again, aiming at another “Maelstrom scum” hanging from the ceiling nearby.