Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ Dogtown’s walls were not easy to get through.
Whether through flooded underground sewer lines or hand-dug holes, every path had already been stepped on by criminals trying to avoid the NCPD and the corps.
Any usable route was either sunk under water mines, or led to a shore covered in Militech mines.
Those mines were so well made that even after ten years in the river, they could still blow loud enough to shake the sky.
Everyone complained about Dogtown’s towering wall.
No one knew what awful things Militech had done under Dogtown, but the wall itself was first-rate.
Dorio’s arrangements worked, though.
For one thousand eddies, four of them entered Dogtown with a truck hauling construction waste.
Sasha stayed in her little place in Japantown, guiding them while fighting the opposing netrunner in cyberspace.
“That’s the plan.
Once the job is done, exit fast through the opening over there.
After the first gunshot, you get thirty minutes of operation time.” The fixer selling passage pulled open the cargo compartment of the debris truck, set the timing, and left.
Rebecca sounded annoyed.
“Thirty minutes?
What if that slippery bastard runs?” Then all of their phones showed Sasha’s cute cybercat avatar.
On the other end, Sasha was adjusting equipment and seemed to take a deep breath.
Maine frowned slightly.
After all the crew had been through, the person he worried about most was the one who never knew how to express what she felt.
“Any trouble, Sasha?” Sasha shook her head.
“The runner on the other side is experienced.
As soon as I get the Barghest data, you deal with the problem and pull out.” “Stay safe.” Everyone exchanged warnings and waited as the swaying vehicle carried them into the warlord Hansen’s den.
Rebecca sighed.
Her pink-and-yellow optics blinked.
For some reason, she felt like something was going to happen today.
She had always been fearless, the kind of edgerunner who loved dumping every round she had in a firefight and talking big with her crew before a job.
Then Dorio patted her shoulder.
“Don’t worry.
We’re only here to solve a problem for the crew.” “Smile.” Dorio was a powerful woman, blond hair cut short, with a restrained charm that always seemed to hold something back.
She was solid enough to burst a punching bag with one hit, and those same fists could land a little softer on Maine’s face whenever he tried to get handsy.
Maine liked her, and she always quietly covered the rear for him during jobs, no matter how much he liked taking risks.
In short, she was exactly the kind of woman you wanted at your side.
Maine bent a piece of rebar sticking out of a concrete chunk away from them.
His hand, intentionally or not, came to rest on Dorio’s shoulder.
Rebecca clearly felt Dorio’s heavy hand sink a little more onto her own shoulder.
“I’m thinking, after this gig, the four of us should go have some fun.
What do you say…” As Maine spoke, his hand acted up again.
He always liked putting his hands on Dorio while he talked.
Bang.
His sunglasses went crooked, and blood slowly ran from his nose.
Rebecca’s eyes said only one thing: entertainment.
The atmosphere inside the compartment finally loosened.
Rebecca pulled shotgun shells from her waist, tossed them high, and smoothly loaded them into the large gun she had brought.
Because of how they were entering Dogtown, pistols were not an option.
After plenty of choosing, Maine had given her a shotgun with decent punch.
She could turn loading shells into a trick, several rounds moving through her fingers at once.
Rebecca loved the heavy feeling of a gun in her hands.
Her size, her twin tails, and that flash of green hair made people underestimate her.
That was usually their last mistake.
Pilar was the most irritated one in the group.
His new “research” had only been halfway done, but cleanup jobs like this required the whole crew to move together.
And this one involved his sister.
When the truck stopped, everyone quietly waited for the door to open.
A Barghest soldier pulled it open and saw the solid wall of Maine, the equally strong woman beside him with an unfriendly expression, the short edgerunner with a weapon, and a long-armed lunatic.
He swallowed, turned, and left.
“Let’s move, people.” The sunset stained Dogtown’s sky blood red, its light sliding slowly toward the west.
…
[Incoming Call: Hamster] “Hey.
If the audio works, squeak.” Cade nodded.
“Loud and clear.” “Great.
Now shut up.
Find a decent position.
Hearing your voice pisses me off.” Cade carried the rifle to an abandoned building near Hamster’s hideout and found a relatively good firing point.
He ignored the cursing in his ear.
He actually wanted to lean close to Hamster and say, “Your shard works great.” Through the Nekomata’s scope, the motel was covered in a faint green glow.
The optic could highlight anyone near the rifle’s line of fire, and every moving living target was identified with precision.
Cade followed procedure and checked every weapon indicator.
Half a day of simulation had let a former Barghest soldier take up a sniper rifle for real.
As for whether that made him reliable…
Last-minute training was still training.
“I’m counting on you, big girl.” The contact sensors in Cade’s cybernetic hand had already uploaded the rifle’s data into his optics.
Then the weapon surprised him again.
It could accept plugins.
This massive rifle might become his strongest weapon in the days to come.
Night fell.
Residents on Dogtown’s back hill burned trash as makeshift fires, sitting in groups of three or five on torn sofas while drinking cold beer.
Scavs gathered on motorcycles in the street.
Either a new job had come in, or they were picking targets.
When they had money, they usually looked down on people without much chrome.
They preferred corpo rats and cyberpsycho-related business.
In the distance, the green laser from the tip of Mr.
Hands’s Heavy Hearts pyramid stabbed into the sky and fully ignited the night.
A half-moon showed itself overhead.
‘In 2075, the lunar port should be finished, right?’ Cade wanted to spend 250,000 eddies on that trip into space, just to see what the moon looked like and experience something he never could in his old life.
While Cade’s thoughts drifted, Hamster’s warning came through his ear.
“They’re here.
The other side is prying at the data.” “I don’t know what that old bastard Hands told you, but on my end, the file uploads automatically at exactly the twentieth minute.
You need to cooperate with defense.” Cade lay flat on the rooftop, his hand resting lightly on the trigger.
“My position has been pulled.
Stay sharp.” Hamster’s voice grew heavy.
Cade felt the invisible pressure too.
With Zetatech turrets plus himself, twenty minutes should have been manageable.
The problem was that these edgerunners were vicious.
Especially Rebecca.
Cade had experienced her marksmanship personally.
If the windshield on Barghest’s armed transport had not been tough enough, those black-and-gold pellets would have turned his handsome face into a sieve.
Then a pair of headlights appeared on the sloped road.
A car came in hard, engine roaring, and drifted to a stop in front of Hamster’s hideout.
Crack-crack-crack!
The Zetatech turrets opened fire without warning.
They punched straight through the door and walls, spitting fire at the car.
In that instant, the building’s facade looked as flimsy as paper.
Maine and the others jumped out and returned fire immediately.
Chaos erupted around the motel.
Dogtown residents fled in every direction, and Barghest channels began reporting the firefight on the back hill.
Cade breathed out.
The sniper scope locked firmly onto Maine’s head.
Then Cade shifted the sight to Dorio and Pilar.
Finally, Rebecca.
She was coming around from behind the pickup, holding a heavy machine gun that looked like it had been stripped off a Dogtown exosuit.
Muzzle flashes lit her wild expression.
Panels for these characters appeared one after another.
These future legends of Night City, people who would one day dare to challenge Arasaka, were they really going to die under a hidden sniper rifle?
Cade drew a deep breath.
His reticle followed them, and fine sweat covered his forehead.
“You motherfucker!
Mercer, shoot!
That crazy woman is about to wreck the turret with the heavy machine gun!” Hamster was clearly trapped in a high-frequency netrunning fight.
He forced the words out through clenched teeth.
“Shit!” Cade cursed.
Veins stood out on his forehead.
He swung the barrel without hesitation and aimed at Rebecca.
Bzzzz–bang!
The weapon finished charging.
Blue light erupted from the muzzle, and the terrifying round shot toward Rebecca while she was still firing wildly.
✦ ✦ ✦ 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.