“Good morning, Night City!
Yesterday’s ‘Dead Man’s Lottery’ ended with a nice, round thirty bodies!
Thanks to the endless gang wars, Watson alone accounts for twenty-two.
Two Trauma Team safety specialists were also checked out—I hope you’ve all got your insurance paid up, because T-Team doesn’t like losing money…” The grating noise of a holographic TV dragged Levi from his sleep.
He groaned, flipped over, and blinked—only to freeze.
His door was wide open.
Sitting on his couch was a woman with long, dyed blonde hair, holding a cigarette and crossing her legs.
She wore a form-fitting black bodycon dress that highlighted an intimidating, mature silhouette.
Levi’s grogginess vanished, replaced by pure, unadulterated irritation.
“Ruin someone’s sleep this early?
Who the fuck are you?” Levi grabbed his Atlas 45 from the nightstand and sat up.
“This is our executive—” the black-suited woman standing behind the blonde began.
BANG.
The suit’s forehead sprouted a ragged hole.
Grey matter and blood painted the wall behind her as she crumpled to the floor.
The remaining man in the suit gasped, stumbling back in terror, but the blonde woman—the “executive”—didn’t even flinch.
“Fuck your mother, did anyone ask you to talk?” Levi spat on the corpse before pointing the barrel at the blonde.
“You.
Explain why you’re in my room.” She looked at him with a faint, detached condescension, clearly betting that a gutter-tier mercenary wouldn’t actually execute a corporate hot-shot.
“Better?” she asked smoothly.
“Is your brain fried?
You wake me up, and you think I’m ‘better’?” Levi walked over in his underwear, sat on the sofa opposite her, and clicked his tongue in annoyance at her posture.
“Who the hell do you think you are, talking to our executive like that!” The male bodyguard, a massive guy with blue hair and red-light optics, lunged forward to pin Levi.
BANG.
Levi’s Atlas 45 was already under the man’s chin.
The bodyguard got a front-row seat to his own brain matter spraying the ceiling.
The blonde’s pupils contracted, her breathing hitching for a fraction of a second before she triggered an internal adrenaline implant to force her heart rate down.
“Better now?” she asked, blowing a puff of smoke toward him.
“Better?
I’d be ‘better’ if I turned your skull into an ashtray.” Levi swung the barrel toward her head.
She remained calm, playing the superior.
“I’ve seen a thousand low-life mercs like you.
You think a gun makes you scary, but you’re just cheap thugs looking for a paycheck.
I’m Meredith Stout, Militech Operations Executive.
You burned our experimental channel with the Maelstrom gang, and I’m the one who took the heat at the board meeting.
You have two choices.” She paused to inhale deeply.
“One: work for Militech, and I’ll personally authorize some top-tier experimental implants for you.
Two: follow Militech protocol—cement shoes, bottom of the harbor.” She turned her attention back to the TV.
Levi chuckled.
“I’ve got a third choice.” “Oh?
Do tell,” she replied, still feigning indifference.
Levi didn’t speak.
He jammed the Atlas 45 against her thigh and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
A clean hole appeared in her leg, blood blooming across her dress as the bullet tore into the sofa.
She didn’t even have time to scream before Levi pressed the barrel directly against her temple.
One twitch, and the Militech executive would be history.
“Kill the dog-shit Militech exec.” For the first time, panic broke through her mask.
She scrambled, her adrenaline implant failing to calm her ragged breathing.
“You—you want money?
I’m an exec!
My salary is huge, I have kickbacks, I have millions!
Just name a number!” “Fuck your mother, why do you corporate dogs always say the same thing?” Levi barked.
“Do I look like I’m desperate for cash?” “Then what do you want?!” “Give me 100,000, and get the hell out of my house!” He was desperate for cash—he still owed Vektor for the surgery—but he wasn’t going to let her know that.
Meredith Stout exhaled, her posture shifting from panicked victim back to slick corporate shark the moment she realized she could buy her way out.
She stopped playing the dame; she became the business partner.
“Then let’s talk business.
100,000 up front, 100,000 on completion.
We have a contract.” — Don’t forget to send Spirit Stones for more chapters.
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