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"Stop!"
My yell made Panam slam the brakes, yanking the wheel and sending the car into a skid to change its direction.
"What are you screaming about?!"
As soon as the car stopped, Panam punched me in the shoulder and hissed quietly in pain.
"I almost flipped the car!"
"Yeah... would't you rather hit a mine?"
"Huh?"
"I just happened to see it... I switched my optics to a different mode and picked up a mine."
I sighed.
"And not a pressure-sensitive one, either. One that reacts to presence..."
"Presence?"
Panam scoffed.
"Like an electromagnetic one, I guess... I don't know much about mines or how they work. So right now I'm taking..."
I looked back.
"I'll go."
Lucy leaned forward a bit, showing she was ready to work, and I nodded, confirming I was fine with her coming with me.
"...Lucy, you don't need to come with me. I'm not crazy enough to drag a runner across a minefield. But we can set up a direct connection right now so you can work through my deck."
"Tch..."
"What, did he shut you down?"
Becca gave a sly grin.
"Alright, that's enough talk..."
I gave Becca a stern look, then nodded to Lucy. She sent me a request for a direct connection, which I approved, of course.
"David..."
"Yeah?"
"...just don't use the Sandevistan at full power while I'm using your optics. My chrome's really good now, one of the best a solo not connected to a corpo can afford, and I probably won't fry my brain, but the jolt would be intense."
"Okay."
I nodded and activated a few different modes on my optics in succession, which let me find several mines. Or, well, not several... practically everything in front of me was mined. Getting to the farm in the Thorton was impossible. Even walking there was impossible!
The first two mines beeped and clearly deactivated. I moved very slowly toward the farm.
"Listen..."
Lucy decided to use the situation to talk to me.
"Yeah?"
"...do you think we could go out sometime?"
"Theoretically? We could."
"What about practically?"
"Snowflake..."
"I'll talk to the girls..."
"Well, if you get them on board, then yeah. We could definitely go on a couple dates and see if our relationship could go further..."
"I wasn't expecting anything more..."
"You should have been..."
"Huh?"
But I acted like I hadn't said anything. It was impossible to mislead her like that, though.
"Are you saying you think a relationship between us is possible?"
"Snowflake... I'll be blunt... if I didn't think it was possible, I wouldn't be paying so much for you guys... no, a crew and friends are cool, but think about it, would I lend you guys SO much if I wasn't considering the possibility of you becoming part of my family?"
"Uh... what about Moxie, not now, but back then... the first time."
"Same reason."
I shrugged while Lucy kept deactivating the mines I was finding. We weren't moving very fast, which made sense; we didn't have a password for the minefield, and for the most part, we didn't have time to look for an access point to enter it. The mines were from different manufacturers, and as a result, they needed a different approach to deactivate them.
"So you planned everything?"
"Moxie, I didn't plan anything. It's just that my feelings for you and my desire to build a deeper relationship with you is what's behind the massive generosity of me investing in you."
"Uh... I see..."
I chuckled.
"See those cameras?"
My gaze locked on a camera hanging at the entrance to the farm.
"Hang on, I'll hack it. It should be connected to the main network; I can probably use it to safely hack the rest of the security system..."
"What happened? Why'd you stop talking?"
"Listen, the ICE here is insane... no way a random psycho put this up. I can understand the minefield, I guess, that's a bit of a stretch, but theoretically he could have gotten the mines and even set them up. At the very least, he could've hired a solo for it, but this kind of ICE... no freelance runner would put this up."
I frowned.
"Are you saying..."
"A corpo's involved here."
I sighed.
"Fuck... I should've guessed when I ran into Mystic..."
"Well, that run-in could've been a fluke, but this kind of ICE... I'd personally spend a month setting this up, and I don't see any reason why I'd do that for a random person... unless he's a pawn and I was covering up some of my own plans."
Inhale... exhale...
"Should we retreat?"
"No... call the fixer. We need to warn her... maybe she has some free specialists we could hand this gig off to..."
"I doubt it..."
Judging by her voice, Lucy gave a sad chuckle.
"Me too... we probably can't turn this job down... but... I have to try."
And I immediately called Regina.
"Greetings, fixer..."
Just by saying that, without using her name, I was showing her that things were pretty bad.
"Ghost?"
"...we've got a problem here..."
"And its name is Biotechnica?"
I blinked.
"So you knew?"
"No, I found out literally ten minutes ago. I was able to find data on Mystic; in recent years, she's been working very closely with this specific corporation. Though I still wasn't sure a corpo was involved, not until you called... so what happened?"
"There's ICE here... The farm's protected like... it's insane... a minefield, ICE, and this is just us getting to the entrance of the farm. There'll probably be turrets there, too..."
"And?"
"Do you have any other crews in mind?"
"I wish I could say yes..."
I sighed.
"I figured you'd say that..."
"Are you backing out?"
"You kidding me? Listen, you know me... if you had another crew, I'd back out, but leaving a bunch of teenagers to get torn apart by a corpo... But you gotta understand me... while this was about a regular psycho and helping your friend, I wasn't bringing up the money. But now the risks are getting..."
"I understand..."
A short silence hung in the air.
Fuck...
"What?"
"Hang on, I'll contact the client... I didn't want to tell him you were already working, but I guess I have to. Anyway, once he realizes Biotechnica is probably involved, he definitely won't be rushing in ahead of you, but as for the reward..."
"I've got an idea, but I don't know if he'll go for it..."
"And what's the idea?"
"He works as..."
I didn't say River's profession. It was stupid, sure, but when you're talking about a corpo like Biotechnica... they can probably trace the call anyway, but for now, I could try to play it down. It would look like it could've been anyone doing it, and another fixer could've been taking the call, too, trying to set Regina up.
"That's already clear..."
I sighed and crossed my fingers for real.
"Moxie, get maximum protection on the channel with the girls. For the next five minutes, any runner, even a corporate one, should only hear static when they try to listen in."
"Thirty seconds."
And after that time passed, she said everything was ready, and I spoke to Regina again.
"He could get us info on old police warehouses. The kind of warehouses where tech like the Basilisk and the Manticore are stored."
"Gah!"
Regina's image stared at me with a shocked expression.
"You've got some gonk-level requests..."
"Don't get me wrong, I don't need the new models; I just need one or a few old warehouses that have that tech. Preferably not just a single unit, and also access points where I can wipe the info about those warehouses and then empty them out. It doesn't even have to be working tech; it could be a warehouse of damaged tech that's just too expensive to repair and dispose of."
"I get it... I'll talk to him now..."
The connection was cut.
"Alright, Snowflake, get ready for some really hard work with the girls..."
"Uh... you think you'll pull it off?"
A couple seconds before that, she'd connected Panam and Becca to the conversation, and Panam couldn't contain her curiosity.
"Pull what off?"
"Yeah, our Boss decided to arm himself with a little army..."
"Huh?"
"He's asking for Basilisks and Manticores as payment for taking on Biotechnica..."
"Gah?!"
"What? If I can get them and rent them out on the side..."
I didn't get to finish my sentence before I was interrupted.
"Fuck, I give up... you can get as many girlfriends as you want, but I'm not only going to make you join the clan, I'm gonna nominate you for clan leader."
I blinked.
"Hey... what about me?"
"Moxie, I'll come to an agreement with you... but Ghost, if this works out, he's not getting out of it... because the current clan leader hasn't done half of what our guy has already done for the clan... And we need to tie him to the clan more firmly... yeah, we definitely need to get pregnant..."
I blinked.
"Uh... do you mind that I'm listening to this?"
"Who cares... if you pull this off... I'll fucking worship you like a god... you've basically brought the clan back from its knees... and with this... we'll get our greatness back!!!"
"Uh... doesn't my opinion matter?"
"Don't worry, no one's gonna force you to work... someone else will handle the day-to-day stuff, but you'll be the one making the important decisions."
"Well, actually, he's a solo and the leader of our crew..."
Judy put her two cents in.
"We'll include you in the clan, too..."
"What if we don't want to?"
Kiwi's voice was pretty serious.
"Come on... if this works out, we'll just be solos who can leave Night City and start working in another city if we want, with a solid home base we can always return to!"
"Except nothing's been decided yet..."
I decided to cut off Panam's fantasies about a potentially impossible future. After all, Regina had given a very specific description of this River Ward. He might not agree to sell old police equipment just to save someone...
Regina called me, and as soon as I answered, she hit me with just two words.
"He agreed."
"Ahem..."
"What?"
"I didn't expect that..."
"You'll get one address with all the accompanying data if you can only bring back a dead body. If the guy's alive, you'll get two addresses and the data. Fair?"
I sighed.
"More than."
"Good. Get to work."
"Yes, ma'am!"
My image saluted her, and Regina chuckled before she hung up.
"Let's get to it, ladies. We have a chance to get our hands on some old but really good equipment, and I'm not about to lose this chance."
"Girls, you gotta work hard for this..."
Panam encouraged our runners, and I took another step forward, this time under the cover of three runners working through a direct connection with me...
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