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The second base was a little more successful. We managed to fill the Thorton's trunk with chrome, though it was mostly optics and other small-scale cyberware. And now, we didn't even bother driving all the way to the final destination.
By the way, this time the destination was the port, or more specifically, the part of it where the containers were stored. One of the sections was sealed off, and there were just so many people there. Scavs and Animals… a sea of targets.
I gave a grim smirk. If I were in a game, I'd be sitting in a safehouse now, calmly hacking everyone, then moving through the location quietly, taking out every enemy. I always loved stealth playthroughs. But here, I had no desire to leave anyone alive. So many people had died at the hands of these gangs…
And while I could partially thank the Animals, since their actions triggered a chain of events that, in my opinion, ended David's story and began mine, I was also aware of how many people they killed every day.
Every night, if you turned on the news, you'd hear about either corpses found stripped of their chrome, which points to the Scavs, or about shootouts started by the Animals.
I wasn't an idealist, though…
No matter how many Animals and Scavs you kill, you can't get rid of them from the city. For every one you kill, a new one takes their place, or maybe more. It's a good thing that inexperienced punks replace the veterans. Punks who are ambitious, though…
"Alright, there are no access points on the outside. This isn't a civilian building, so keep your eyes peeled and give me access as soon as you can."
"Yes ma'am, Miss Smarty-Pants!"
"Ghost…"
Judy smirked and lightly hit my shoulder.
"Come on, get to work. We still have to load all this stuff."
"Uh-huh…"
I nodded my head.
"We just need to find a place to load it, and clear it all out…"
I sighed and got out of the Thorton.
"You guys are so careless with me…"
"I'll take care of you at home… if Panam lets me."
Judy smirked at me and leaned back in the back seat, closing her eyes and clearly focusing on the feed coming from my optics.
"Panam…"
"I'll keep an eye out…"
She smirked and blew me a kiss.
"Who are you kissing right now? David, or me, watching through his optics?"
"You'll just have to wonder, and figure it out for yourselves…"
Panam smirked again.
Turning around, I walked toward a good entry point, where the residential buildings were close to a high fence. After looking around and making sure no one was watching me, I sharply pushed off with my feet toward the fence, then I pushed off it toward the wall of the building, then back to the fence and back to the building, and with the third push toward the fence, I managed to grab its edge.
I could have done it faster, but I didn't want to waste my energy getting to the top of the fence in one or two jumps. Not that it would have taken a lot of energy, but it's better to be more efficient.
My optics told me that it was clear behind the fence, so I calmly pulled myself up until my eyes were over the top, and with one swift movement, I swung myself over it, landing softly on the ground. I didn't stay put for long and quickly ran to the nearest containers, hiding between them. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of metal was interfering with my optics' ability to see through things, and the labyrinth here was a whole other beast, so I moved very slowly and cautiously.
And still, I almost missed the five Animals who came out to meet me. Why the hell did they come here? There wasn't even that much space…
These thoughts were running through my head as I activated my Sandevistan and ran up to them.
The first knife went into an eye socket…
Shit… it's stuck…
I pulled the knife out with a little more force and threw it at the farthest opponent. Then I took out my second knife and made it to the Animal closest to me…
Five corpses, which I even managed to drag back to the narrow area they were headed for. I just wanted to get them out of the more open area.
"Damn… Ghost, with these synthetic muscles, watching everything that's happening through your optics is getting dangerous…"
Judy almost groaned those words, and her image started rubbing her temples in a futile attempt to lessen her migraine.
"Smarty-Pants?"
"Short bursts of the Sandevistan are fine, but you just worked… for a long time. Subjectively, it was almost twenty seconds, and all of it in one… that's too much for me. It's a good thing I got a powerful deck; it smoothed out the strain a little since the data goes through it. But next time, give me a warning."
"You should just turn off the video feed. The audio shouldn't cause that kind of strain."
"Yeah…"
Judy's voice was 'a little' sarcastic.
"…it shouldn't. You've never worked with braindances. You have no idea how much background noise there is even in a relatively controlled environment. And out here… no, I'm putting the comms channel on standby. You can open it if you need me."
"Copy that."
My image nodded, and the channel was immediately cut off.
"Well… I guess I'm on my own again…"
I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, then activated my Sandevistan, opened my eyes, and took my first step. My first step into hell for my opponents.
Of course, I didn't keep the Sandevistan on all the time. My brain, while surprisingly resilient, couldn't handle that kind of strain. Judy got all twisted up from just one use. And even though the Sandevistan itself is a complex piece of chrome that not only accelerates you but also takes some of the strain off the brain, I still didn't want to abuse it…
Two and a half hours later…
"Smarty-Pants?"
I was a little tired. I had to use the Sandevistan more often than before, and I had also killed a lot without it. I just moved a lot and moved fast. So now I was sitting next to an access point, resting a little.
"I'm listening, Ghost."
"I'm connected to the access point. Start hacking."
"How much time do I have?"
"How the hell should I know… I've already caused a bloodbath here. I've taken out about forty Scavs and put about fifteen Animals to sleep…"
I took some wet wipes out of the bag on my belt and wiped my gloves, which were now covered in a layer of drying blood.
"Alright, I'm in the syst… fuck… fuck… fuck…"
"What's wrong? Our Smarty-Pants just went pale…"
"She probably saw the situation on the cameras."
My image shrugged.
"And what's it like?"
"It's just corpses… a lot of corpses…"
Judy's image sighed.
"…okay, I'm back in it. Not getting distracted. Looking for the data… found it. I have a map of the area and the entrance our friends can use. I'm sending them the coordinates. And yeah, Ghost, you got everyone…"
I let out a sigh of relief.
That had been very difficult…
And not from a physical standpoint, but from a moral one.
"That's good… can you watch over me? I need to… relax…"
"Of course, take a rest…"
"Good…"
I closed my eyes. It was good…
"Ghost…"
I opened my eyes when Panam touched my shoulder, bringing me back to my senses. Did I feel better? No. But at least my body had rested a little, and the physical exhaustion I was starting to feel had subsided.
"Need some help?"
"Yeah…"
She nodded a little shyly. I managed to catch her gaze and didn't notice anything… strange. So many corpses in one place, and she was calm. It seemed I still hadn't fully acclimated to this world. David was trained for single eliminations. My adult psyche, having absorbed the kid's knowledge, was prepared for solo work where you had to kill one, maybe five people. Okay, ten. But I wasn't prepared for the kind of bloody frenzy I had just caused here. The act of doing it wasn't hard, but the aftermath…
"Let's go…"
I got up and followed Panam to one of the open containers where there was a stash.
"And all of this is for us…"
I smirked and looked at Panam.
"I didn't think about it, but you did check with the clan what they needed first, right?"
"Of course…"
Panam smirked and sent me a list. I activated the scanner in my optics and quickly scanned everything on the container's racks. I marked everything on the list, then quickly walked over to the first item.
"Panam, here you go. Tech arm, three of them…"
I handed her three implants, then walked on, grabbed a few more items, and carried them to the entrance.
A couple of minutes later, everything from that container that was on the list was in a small pile at the entrance. It was a good thing that everything was vacuum-sealed.
"Judy, any more containers?"
"Five more…"
I shook my head and went to the next one. After opening it, I continued my work of selecting the right chrome for the clan. And they needed a lot of it, since after the last time, Saul had apparently gotten a whole list from the clan's reps outside of Night City.
"Dude, you should rest. We can do it ourselves…"
"Scorp, don't talk nonsense…"
Panam gave her friend a fierce look.
"Panam…"
"Scorpion, Panam is right. I don't doubt your abilities, but how much time do we have? And how much of that time will you spend trying to find the right stuff with a simple list and a container number? But my optics can scan everything and find what we need."
"Alright…"
The third container allowed me to get through the list. After that, I looked at the guys and Panam thoughtfully.
"Alright, let's grab all the expensive stuff first."
"Uh-huh…"
"So…"
I walked over and, smirking, took out a couple of Sandevistans and gave them to the guys.
"This is…"
"Yeah, the most valuable thing. An opportunity for your clan to form a combat wing that will be much more effective. For now, take these. And in the first container, there were some third-gen Kiroshis…"
The entire loading process took us about an hour…
"Let's go…"
I got into the Thorton and immediately closed my eyes, relaxing. The car's engine roared, and with a screech of tires, three cars tore away from the scene of the crime.
I answered the call from Regina mechanically.
"David…"
"Regina…"
"Thanks for telling Judy to contact me. My people are already on their way to the location and will take everything they can. Your share will be transferred after an assessment."
"Uh-huh…"
"Are you very tired?"
"Mentally… very… physically… it's manageable…"
"I see. In short, I didn't want to get in the way right after Judy called, assuming you were busy since you didn't call. But an hour has passed, so I decided to call to say thank you."
"You're welcome…"
My image smiled, and the connection was cut.
"Judy, you're a genius…"
"Heh, well, I have to come up with some good ideas, right?"
The girl's voice was full of pride.
"What did she do?"
When Panam asked that, I told her about my conversation with Regina, and she laughed and praised Judy for her cleverness.
"It's a shame we couldn't just tell her the location and expect a profit…"
"Yeah… maybe Regina would have given us some scraps, but they would have been scraps from the rich man's table."
"Man…"
The girls were silent for a bit.
"And now, you think she won't give us scraps?"
"I doubt she would do that… we're the ones who cleared out the area, and she knows that since we got to such a tasty morsel once, we could very well do it again. And that means if she screws us over now, she won't be called next time…"
"Yeah, yeah…"
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