As the electrical explosion ravaged the interior of the car, the last remaining Maelstrom members successfully bit the dust.
“Holy shit, that was awesome!”
Watching just two Arc Stars completely wipe out an entire car of gang members, Rebecca let out a thrilled cheer.
With all the enemies taken care of, Loki slowed the motorcycle down.
Rebecca pulled herself back up against Loki, resting her hands on his shoulders as she leaned close to his ear to ask, “Hey, where the hell did you get these things?”
“These grenades are my own exclusive recipe.
If you want some, I can send a batch your way later.”
Loki had only bought the Grenade Pack module to deal with this emergency, but actually manufacturing them was worth considering.
After all, the function and performance of these grenades were top-tier, and the cost wasn’t excessively high.
“You made them?
No way.
Just how many secrets are you hiding, anyway?”
Loki’s words shattered Rebecca’s worldview once again.
This guy was a ripperdoc one moment, giving her commissions the next, acting like a hardened Night City merc to provoke Maelstrom just now, and now telling her he could manufacture grenades?
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.
But that’s fine.
You’ll get to know me eventually; we have plenty of time.”
“I guess so.”
Rebecca nodded, her curiosity about this man growing by the second.
Only then did she realize her legs were still wrapped around Loki’s waist.
She hastily let go, shifting back into a normal position where she just held onto him from behind.
“Sorry about that.
The angle was bad earlier, so I had to improvise,” she explained calmly, showing no signs of embarrassment or shyness.
“No worries.
It actually felt pretty good,” Loki teased with a chuckle.
With Loki’s physical strength, that tiny bit of pressure was nothing, let alone a hindrance.
In fact, he had rather enjoyed it.
He had to admit, having those soft legs wrapped around him felt pretty nice.
He couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like without any layers of clothing in the way.
Hearing Loki’s teasing tone, Rebecca lightly tapped his left arm with her pistol and grinned.
“Hey, watch it, or I might just kill you.”
Having gone through a battle together, the distance between the two had shrunk rapidly.
In her heart, Rebecca had truly begun to accept Loki as a friend.
After dropping Rebecca off at her apartment building, she let go of Loki, hopped off the motorcycle, and waved at him.
“See you tomorrow, L.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Watching Rebecca walk up the stairs, Loki turned his motorcycle around and headed back to his Megabuilding.
…
The next day.
A warehouse somewhere in Japantown.
This was a warehouse Loki had rented anonymously on the black market, specifically to facilitate the storage and distribution of his goods.
Inside, Loki was counting the boosters that needed to be delivered, placing corresponding clinic labels onto each pre-packaged box.
Just then, there was a knock on the warehouse shutter.
Rebecca had arrived.
“Morning, L!”
Opening the shutter, Loki saw a highly energetic Rebecca greeting him.
“Morning.”
Loki greeted her back.
Looking past her, he noticed a car parked outside.
It seemed that was what had brought her here.
“Who’s that?”
Loki spotted Falco sitting in the driver’s seat.
Falco was staring straight ahead, not noticing Loki’s gaze.
Seeing Loki’s curious look, Rebecca explained, “That’s Falco, our crew’s driver.”
After returning last night, Rebecca had told Maine about taking on the commission.
Maine had been completely understanding.
Since the crew didn’t have any jobs lined up for the next few days anyway, he told Rebecca to go ahead and handle it.
Rebecca had then contacted Falco to tag along.
Since she didn’t have a car of her own, she naturally needed a driver to handle a delivery job.
Falco had happily accepted.
After all, nobody was going to turn down five thousand eddies just for driving around Night City.
“Got it.
Come on in,” Loki nodded, gesturing for Rebecca to enter the warehouse.
“These are the goods to be delivered.
Every crate has its corresponding destination label.”
Loki pointed to the stacks of crates piled up in the warehouse.
“Got it, no problem.”
“Then I’ll leave things here to you.
I’m taking off first.”
Handing Rebecca an access card for the warehouse, Loki picked up a crate of boosters and left through the back door.
Riding his motorcycle, Loki brought the boosters straight to Vik’s clinic.
“What brings you here today?” Vik asked, putting down his tools and looking up with curiosity as Loki walked in.
“Nothing much.
Just bringing you some boosters.”
Loki placed the crate containing one hundred doses of Kinetic Booster Mark II onto Vik’s table.
“These are Kinetic Booster Mark IIs.
You can sell them here in your shop.”
Vik picked up a syringe.
It was indeed identical to the ones he had managed to scavenge from other clinics before.
“These must be worth quite a bit.
Let me transfer you the money.”
“Come on, Vik.
The cost of making these is only a few thousand eddies, which doesn’t even cover a fraction of what I owe you.
Just take them.”
Loki still owed Vik nearly one hundred thousand eddies for his equipment and supplies.
All he could say was that Vik was far too generous with his credit, but Loki truly couldn’t afford to pay him back just yet—not until he got his hands on the payout from the second batch of orders.
“We can talk about that debt later.
If you sold these to someone else, you could pocket nearly twenty thousand eddies.
You need the money more than I do right now.”
“Vik, you know I don’t like hearing that.
Just keep them.
Consider it interest on what I owe you.”
“…Fine, then.” Vik shook his head helplessly, knowing he couldn’t win the argument, and chose to accept the boosters, putting them away.
Loki then pulled out another pouch of injectors and handed them to Vik.
“These are a different model.
The original version, not for sale.
The effects are even better than the ones I just gave you, and they can rapidly heal the user’s injuries, but they have high requirements for the user’s body.
I brought a few for you to keep.
You can use them yourself or save them for your patients.
If you ever run into someone with life-threatening injuries, these might just save their life.”
Vik took the pouch from Loki and pulled out one of the injectors.
It looked almost identical to the ones before, except the casing was engraved with the mark for “Mark I.”
“Why aren’t they for sale?
An injector with better effects would have a much bigger market, wouldn’t it?” Vik asked.
Loki smiled as he explained.
“Force of habit, I guess.
I like to keep the best stuff for myself to use as trump cards.
As for the things I sell—as long as they make money, it’s all the same.”
“That makes sense.”
Vik nodded in agreement.
Keeping the best things for oneself was always the right move.
Even the megacorporations prioritized equipping their own personnel with their most cutting-edge, advanced technology first.
“Well, now that I’ve delivered everything, I’ll be on my way.
I still have to open my shop today, and I bet my patients are already getting impatient.”
Having successfully delivered the goods to Vik, Loki didn’t linger.
After a brief farewell, he headed back to his own clinic.