---
"Now do you understand what's going on?!"
William roared, his voice raw with fury and desperation.
Mann's brain finally snapped into focus. In that instant, he realized everything—the mission, the setup, the chaos—it had all been a trap. They had walked right into it, and someone wanted them all dead.
"Dorio! We're taking down the Netherhound—and him too!" Mann's orders came sharp through the intercom, and his voice trembled between rage and panic.
Through the thin walls, their shouts carried as if the entire building had become a drum for their fear. In Dogtown, sound never stayed private.
William's pistol roared, but the bullets ricocheted uselessly off the drone's armored shell. His breath quickened. The machine wasn't slowing down. Gritting his teeth, he dropped the pistol and swung his sniper rifle into place. Through the scope, the world narrowed to a single red dot.
He pulled the trigger.
The round cut through the night like lightning. The weapon—nicknamed "the Cat" for its vicious bite—fired with devastating penetration. The drone shuddered, its frame tearing apart mid-air, before crashing in a fiery wreck onto the asphalt.
"Good job!" Mann laughed darkly, relief and desperation tangled in his voice. He barked fresh retreat orders into his comms, rallying his team to pull back.
William smirked, mocking him in return. "Good job, indeed! But hey, Netherhound idiot—your boss sold you out. What do you think about that?"
The silence that followed Mann's curses only fed William's suspicion. His heart hammered inside his chest, faster than his boots pounding against the broken streets. He didn't wait for an answer. He holstered his weapon, spun on his heel, and bolted into the opposite direction.
It wasn't about saving Mann's crew anymore. Survival was the only thing left.
---
[Calling: Mr. Hands]
[No Answer]
The display on William's retinal implant blinked in the darkness, cold and merciless. Red numbers glowed against the void, mocking him with silence. He clenched his jaw and pieced the puzzle together in his head.
Mr. Hands had passed the task to a Dogtown middleman—a job wrapped in shadows, framed as a secret investigation. William was supposed to cut off some cyberpunks poking into Dogtown shipments.
But now? Everything had gone to hell.
What had gone wrong?
Wait… Hands' words from earlier clawed back into his mind, sharp as knives:
"Do you know her?"
The question, half-smile curling at the edge of his tone, echoed like thunder inside William's head.
Sasha.
Was it Sasha he had meant? William thought he had covered his tracks, thought he had left no flaws. So why was Hands so confident? Why ask in that particular way, as though already knowing the answer?
His stomach sank. Something didn't add up. Maybe he didn't know why Militech's netrunners had silenced the hamster, but one thing was undeniable: the corporations were already tearing each other apart.
And William? He wasn't the hunter. He was the bait.
A lure tossed into the water, forcing sharks and scavengers alike to frenzy. Everyone gnashing, everyone clawing, everyone killing. In the end, chaos would rip through Night City. And when the dust settled, the corpos would clean their hands and call it business.
The silence on his call confirmed it all.
Trust? In Night City? That was the first joke the city told newcomers—and the deadliest lesson to forget.
William had been arrogant. He thought he understood Hands, thought he'd earned the right to sit at the same table as one of Night City's most enigmatic fixers. He thought himself a "player."
But countless mercs had thought the same.
And countless mercs had been buried by the very middlemen they trusted.
This was the bitter truth, carved deep into Night City's bones.
"Damn it, are you kidding me?"
William twisted back for a glance at the Worry Club behind him. A beam of green laser split the sky, cutting through the smoke and neon haze. Rage boiled in his chest. He wanted to smash that light in Hands' smug face. He wanted to unload his entire magazine into the illusion of trust that had betrayed him.
But reason stopped him cold.
He gritted his teeth, fists balled so tight the veins stood out like wires beneath his skin. He couldn't stop. Stopping meant death. Stopping meant playing into their hands.
This was Night City's first true lesson: the reward didn't matter. Glory didn't matter.
Staying alive mattered more than anything.
---
He thought of Mann's team. He thought of Sasha's eyes, filled with suspicion and resilience. He thought of how hard he had fought to give them even the smallest chance to escape.
Maybe he had done enough. Maybe it was never enough.
Boots thundered behind him. Others—mercs, civilians, who could tell—were sprinting in the same direction. The whole district was bleeding chaos, and everyone was scrambling to survive.
William almost laughed. A hollow, bitter laugh. Heroism? That was a fairy tale here. Survival demanded either overwhelming strength… or the wisdom to cut ties before they strangled you.
He had done neither. He had hesitated. And in the end, it wasn't his words that had woken Mann's crew—it was the Netherhound's bullets.
What fools. What idiots.
William didn't spare them another thought. He vaulted over a rusted wall, slid down an iron support beam slick with rain and grease, and landed hard. Ahead, perched atop a hill, stood the Voodoo Boys' enclave—their gathering place on Dogtown's fringe. If he could reach it, he could vanish into the chaos, buy himself time, and maybe survive the night.
Meanwhile, Mann's group had no such luxury. Cut off from their vehicles, drones howling through the skies, they had no choice but to flee on foot.
---
"What did Sasha say?"
Dorio's voice was grim, as the team ducked behind broken concrete.
Rebecca spun, unloading her shotgun into a pursuing drone. The blast sent sparks flying, giving them a heartbeat of reprieve. She whipped her head back toward Mann. "Where the hell is the middleman?!"
Mann shook his head, breath ragged. "Gone. Sacrificed as a shield. Sasha said Militech is working with Arasaka—"
Pyrrha spat, voice cracking with both fury and fear. "They're gonna wipe us out! The data's fake, a fucking ghost file. Arasaka's netrunners will eat it, and no one else will touch it!"
Rebecca fired again, covering Pyrrha. "Stop whining, you bastard! My gun's doing the work you should've been doing!"
Their infighting echoed against the neon-lit ruins, punctuated by drone fire. Amid the chaos, Rebecca's eyes caught something—someone—dropping from an abandoned building in the distance. A figure sliding down metal supports like a shadow in the rain.
William.
Her instincts screamed, but there was no time to process why he looked so strange, why his eyes burned with something more than fear. This whole job had gone sideways. They had underestimated the stakes. This wasn't just another smash-and-grab. This was Night City's giants colliding.
Militech. Arasaka. Hansen. All pulling strings, all using them as disposable pawns.
The middleman's pitch had sounded so simple: disrupt Dogtown's grip, grab a fat payday, and leave.
Now? Now they were running for their lives.
---
A thunderous crackle filled the air as every loudspeaker in Dogtown flickered on. Colonel Kurt Hansen's voice boomed, amplified to every corner of the district:
"Ahem. This is Colonel Kurt Hansen."
Static fizzled. His words were smooth, rehearsed, and venomous.
"Dogtown is our home—our very survival. We arm ourselves because we must resist oppression! But now, those damned Militech dogs and Arasaka snakes want us disarmed, obedient, crawling at their feet!"
"There will be no compromise!"
"Residents of Dogtown, take up arms! Eliminate these scum who dare invade our paradise!"
"I, Kurt Hansen, swear to you: I will protect every resident's rights! To hell with corporate tyrants! If they violate us, we'll make sure Night City sees their true faces!"
The streets erupted. Civilians with old rifles, gangsters with chrome-plated arms, mercs with nothing left to lose—all howled with rage and joined the bloodbath.
---
William understood instantly.
Hansen had flipped the script. The corporations had been maneuvered into the role of invaders, painted as villains. Dogtown's pain had been reframed as righteous fury. Hansen had weaponized the people themselves.
It was brilliant. And lethal.
William's mind churned. Back in his old world, he'd always wondered why Dogtown remained untouched by Night City's powers. Why Militech and Arasaka didn't simply raze it. Why even New America didn't intervene.
Now it all made sense.
Dogtown was a trap. Whoever struck first bled out. Whoever moved became prey. The corpos weren't afraid of Hansen alone—they were afraid of each other, afraid of giving their rivals an advantage. Better to leave the rat's nest alone, better to let the sickness fester, than to risk being the one to make the first cut.
And Hansen? He thrived in that sickness.
Backed by Havana's pharmaceutical empire, with blood money flowing in from every corner of the world, he lit cigars while watching giants stumble. Every puff was a death sentence written elsewhere.
No wonder Hansen could live so comfortably. No wonder Dogtown endured.
---
William's chest heaved as he finally ducked into the shadow of a burned-out market. His pulse still thundered. His mind still replayed every revelation, every betrayal, every brutal truth Night City had thrown at him tonight.
This was the first real lesson of Night City. And it was carved in fire, smoke, and blood.
Trust nothing. Trust no one. The only thing worth clinging to… was survival.
And William? He finally understood.
(End of Chapter)