"Hijacking MaxTac shipments? That's not exactly a job for the faint of heart."
Jack was listening as Karl and V recounted the day's events at their base. "You were right to turn it down."
"We're not idiots," V said. "Why the hell would we mess with MaxTac? Getting involved with a bunch of cyberpsycho-hunters is just asking for trouble."
"I honestly thought Karl would take the job," Oliver muttered as he brewed a fresh cup of coffee from his newly purchased machine. "We've taken on worse before."
"I don't pick jobs based on how much of a headache they are," Karl replied, sipping his sweet tea. "What, you think I'm some kind of thrill junkie who always chooses the hardest difficulty setting? That job had 'future nightmare' written all over it. Take it, and you're practically inviting MaxTac to hound you across the city."
Karl wasn't afraid of MaxTac—but he wasn't stupid enough to provoke them either. Just like in that old job involving the NCPD commissioner, he'd opted for assassination over a public hit. Fighting psychos only ends with you neck-deep in problems.
"The cleanup would've been a pain," T-Bug added, lounging on the couch. Her cybereyes flickered as she read the news. "Just came in—a group ambushed a MaxTac AV in Santo Domingo. Took it down. Official report says they were Militech, but they'd been discharged before the op. Company claims it wasn't sanctioned."
"That's sloppy," Jack frowned. "Let me guess—they're the same Militech guys who tried to hire you two?"
"T-Bug, send me their profiles," V said.
"Already in your inbox."
V scrolled through the files and raised an eyebrow. "Yup. That's them. No wonder they didn't care when I turned them down—didn't even ask for secrecy. Makes sense now. They were racing the clock. We've only been back what, two hours?"
"They wanted a scapegoat. When you didn't take the bait, they just ran the op themselves," Oliver said. "But there's no way MaxTac is buying that 'rogue unit' line."
"Of course not," Karl said. "Anyone with a brain can tell it's bullshit. Militech saying those guys were acting alone is laughable. What I don't get is—why would Militech target MaxTac?"
"Isn't it just standard corp-on-corp theft?" V asked. "Sure, it's not common, but it's not unheard of. They kidnap talent, poach projects. Stealing hardware seems par for the course."
"I'd buy that if it were against Arasaka, Kang Tao, Biotechnica, even Yorinobu's faction. But MaxTac?" Karl shook his head. "They're funded by all the corps. What the hell would they have that Militech doesn't? What's worth the mess?"
Karl mentally reviewed the sequence of events:
It started with Aison Brane, who somehow got his hands on MaxTac's transport routes. To draw in his niece Orianna, he used that data to strike a deal with her handler, Cormack, and set up a job.
From there, Aison and Orianna were sidelined by their personal drama. Kiley handed the data to Cormack, and shortly after, both were killed by a Militech strike team.
After failing to recruit Karl and V, the team went in alone and attacked the MaxTac transport.
All that—because an old man wanted to talk to his niece.
The whole thing spiraled into a chaotic mess involving mercs, fixers, Militech, and MaxTac. But Karl focused on two questions:
One: How did the Militech team know it was a MaxTac transport route? V only found out after they approached him.
Two: Why was Cormack even involved? What would a fixer want with MaxTac route data?
"It's obvious," Oliver said, surprisingly calm. "Classic black-glove operation. That old saying—'take the goods, take the credit.' Cormack's client was Militech. They wanted the route data but couldn't touch it directly. Too dirty. If Militech handled everything—the deal, the sourcing, the theft—no one would believe they weren't behind it. So they hired a fixer. Once it was done, they disposed of him."
"And that explains why they didn't kill V," Karl nodded. "They tried to draft him in last-minute. If he'd agreed, they'd have used him as another layer of insulation. Since he didn't, they just went solo. Simple."
Clearly, the plan was to clean house the moment the job was done. But V and Karl—and their whole crew—weren't part of the original equation. So the team tried a quick pivot. If V joined, great. If not, they'd act anyway.
"So if they thought I wasn't too much trouble, I'd be dead too?" V said, realization dawning.
"Pretty much," Jack said with a nod. "Your skills and rep made them hesitate. But the bigger question is—why the hell is Militech targeting MaxTac in the first place?"
Given how close it came to burning the whole crew, they needed clarity.
Karl had a way to get it.
"I'll make a call."
He dialed Blanca.
And he already had a gut feeling.
This smelled like another Militech power struggle. And if things played out the way he suspected, MaxTac might owe them a favor soon.
Simple logic.
Blanca was high up the chain. But when Karl had stayed over the night before, she hadn't mentioned a word about this.
If she'd been involved, she'd have reached out directly—not relied on some rogue strike team.
Which meant those mercs were working for a different executive.
And in Militech, "friendly competition" was a fairy tale. It was kill or be killed.
So if Karl's team helped recover what those psychos stole from MaxTac...
Then the psychos would owe them.
Big time.
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