Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ “N54 News, reporting live –” “We interrupt our broadcast with urgent breaking news.
We have just received word that a Dogtown weapons transport team was attacked by unknown assailants in the Badlands.” “Casualty numbers are still being confirmed.
The surrounding area has been placed under military control by forces dispatched by Colonel Kurt Hansen.
Unfortunately, our reporters have still been unable to connect with the highly ambitious strategist himself.” “More on this story after –” Sino reached out and killed the radio.
The news had turned his expression ugly.
Compared to Sino, Cade was more curious and lost than anything else.
‘Not a streetkid.
Not a corpo rat.
Somehow, I ended up in Dogtown?’ Still, that counted as good news.
He was a Dogtown soldier, after all.
Otherwise, the fight just now would have gone a lot worse.
It was 2075.
The story of this world had not fully begun yet.
The embers of the Fourth Corporate War still clung to the world, and Night Corp’s legacy had left North America with Night City, a priceless asset built out of greed, concrete, and neon.
The legends who belonged here were all still moving, slowly, toward the tracks their lives were supposed to follow.
Back to the problem.
Cade stared at his personal status panel, and his vision almost went black.
Weak.
That was his current evaluation of himself.
His cyberware was all bargain-bin assembled junk, his stats were a mess, and his pockets were almost empty.
In short, this body’s military pay had either gone into cheap Glitter cut with acetaminophen, or into all-night card games with the camp lifers.
Cade hesitated.
‘Where am I supposed to go?
How do I even start?’ He had barely been reborn.
His head was still spinning when Night City, full of gunpowder and bad timing, slapped him hard across the face.
‘Looks like I can only go back to Dogtown and report in.’ It was not as if he could wander the streets looking for Rebecca’s crew and announce that he wanted to join them.
The life-or-death seconds from earlier still had his heart hammering.
During the fight with the edgerunner crew, Cade had shouted for Sino to grab the cargo on instinct.
That had come from the original owner’s memory, from a bone-deep fear of Colonel Hansen.
The man had presence.
He knew how to control people.
He rewarded and punished clearly.
The punishment just tended to be brutal.
[System Notification] Character: Rebecca Affinity: 0 Note: You caught her curiosity.
Good luck.
Reward: Reflexes +2 Cade only came back to himself after sinking into his frustration.
He did not notice anything strange.
He blinked, but the imagined surge of power never came.
His head just felt a little clearer, and the hand gripping the rifle felt a little stronger.
Fine.
At least he had something to work toward now.
Screech.
The sharp sound of tires scraping asphalt cut through the cabin.
“Fuck!
Choom, we can’t go back.” “I don’t even want to think about what Hansen will do to us.” Sino stomped the brake so hard that Cade, unprepared, nearly smashed into the console.
Cade frowned.
Sino looked as if his soul had left his body.
Was Hansen even worse than Cade remembered?
Sino’s badly wounded arm trembled as he lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.
“Come with me, choom.” Cade spoke for the first time since waking up.
“I don’t think that works.
Hansen’s reach is all over Night City, and the NCPD is in his pocket.
Where are you planning to go?
The only real option is leaving this dump for the New United States.” If they returned after losing the cargo, at least there was a reason.
If they ran, there would be no explaining it.
For all Cade knew, Hansen might decide Sino was the rat who sold the convoy’s route to the edgerunners.
“NCPD?” Sino looked at him like he had just realized Cade knew more than he should.
“Mm-hm.
Either way, I’m not going back to die for Hansen.
What about you, choom?” Cade’s gaze slid, almost imperceptibly, to Sino’s hand resting on the pistol at his waist.
His own hand tightened around the barrel of the rifle.
The air froze.
Only when the cigarette had nearly burned down did Cade speak.
“All right, choom.
Go.
I’ll tell Hansen I never saw you.” He forced a thin smile.
Sino had saved his life.
Everyone had their own path, and what Sino did with his was his business.
Cade had a reason he had to go back.
The development panel had given him one hell of a reason to believe it was worth the risk.
[System Notification] Character: Kurt Hansen Affiliation: Dogtown Affinity: 0 Note: You do not want to see what happens when his affinity drops too low.
Go back and admit fault.
Development Value: Extremely High.
Milestone Reward: Return to Dogtown and meet him to gain a chance to contact other legends.
All Attributes +1.
After hearing Cade’s answer, Sino’s tense body gradually loosened.
He finished the cigarette, turned toward Cade, and jumped out of the vehicle.
He stayed careful the whole way, clearly afraid Cade would put a round in his back.
“I’m gone, choom.
Doesn’t matter where.
Just not here.” “You can have the gloves.
Preem corpo gear.
Tough, abrasion-resistant, and plenty of grip.” Cade watched Sino stagger away in the rearview mirror until he vanished around a corner.
Then he picked up the blood-and-sweat-stained gloves and shook his head helplessly.
Neither road was good.
Even so, he felt Dogtown might not be as bad as it looked.
Hansen always paid back his grudges, but he did not usually make things too hard for his own people.
Assuming the mistake had not been made by one of his own.
The vehicle started up again.
Cade drove along the Pacifica roads lined with burning trash and paint drums until he reached the Dogtown checkpoint.
“Submit to inspection.” A soldier in an external infantry exoskeleton lifted a hand to stop him.
Behind the soldier, the rolling gate was laced with crossing infrared beams.
They looked sharp enough to count every hair on a person’s head.
Cade exposed the back of his neck.
The soldier plugged a cable into his neural port and checked the data at an unhurried pace.
“So you were one of the unlucky bastards from this morning?” The soldier’s tone was mocking.
“Colonel Hansen is waiting.
You’re the third one to crawl back with his tail tucked.” Cade forced out a smile and followed the directions through a series of scans.
“Move it, damn it!
You waiting for a car wash?” Even to their own people, the checkpoint soldiers were not exactly polite.
The lavish Black Sapphire was one of the few buildings in Dogtown that could still pass for respectable.
Hansen’s empire stabbed straight into Night City, and the former New United States soldier had long since become a thorn in the side of every major power around him.
The moment Cade got out, several soldiers confiscated his weapons.
Then a huge force clamped down on his shoulder.
“Hey, Mercer.
Keep your eyes open.” The soldier who spoke seemed to have been a friend of the body’s original owner.
Letters were tattooed across his face and back.
He lowered his voice, offered a few quick warnings, and then Cade was marched into the Black Sapphire elevator.
…
“Maine, did you hear a single word I said?” Rebecca was curled on the sofa in a private room at a Jig-Jig Street bar, one boot propped on the table as she snapped in irritation.
“Calm down.
You’re saying some Barghest gonk knew your name?
That doesn’t sound possible…” Maine rubbed his temple, already getting a headache.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be settled?” Rebecca gave a sharp little laugh, dragging out her words.
“Maine, this was the super-secret preem gig the fixer sent us?
It was preem all right.
So preem that a Barghest idiot shouted my name and called me a fucking moron!” Pilar, Rebecca’s brother, waved his arms dramatically.
“I thought this gig was gonna be as simple as putting together a grenade.” “Now they know names.
‘Hey, I know you.
You’re that chick I picked up at a bar.'” Maine’s headache got worse as Pilar kept muttering complaints.
Fixers did not handle cleanup.
This mess was on the crew.
So he looked toward the woman in the corner, where she leaned against the wall with her arms folded, quietly checking information.
“What do you think, Sasha?” Sasha Yakovleva closed the messages in her holo-glasses.
A pink heart popped up as the interface shut down, matching the pink-and-black netrunner suit she wore.
She tucked a strand of black hair back near her ear.
“Dogtown makes me want to puke.” “But leave it to me.
Let’s find out which Barghest big shot this is.” ✦ ✦ ✦ Ready for more?
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS EmberHollow Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.