Chapter 30 - Chapter Thirty

Maine kept his word and went to the clinic early, no crew at his back, just him and a jacket thrown over a body that already carried more scars than most people see in a lifetime, and when he stepped through the glass doors he paid attention to everything because that was his habit: the way the reception staff treated the old man in front of him with respect, the way the waiting room didn't stink of antiseptic or sweat, the way the armed security at the far end didn't posture or stare, and the way prices and procedures were posted on a wall monitor in plain language without hidden fees, a thing he had never seen in Night City; an aide in light scrubs called his name and walked him through clean halls to an evaluation bay where a nurse scanned his vitals and asked simple questions, no attitude, no upsell, then a medtech in a white coat sat with him at a table and said, "What are you looking for and what do you need it to do," and Maine appreciated that it was the right order, need before want; he told them straight that he led a crew, that he took hits first, that he needed toughness and stability more than flashy tricks, and the tech nodded and pulled up three bundles on a screen: subdermal ballistic mesh with localized trauma gel injectors to keep bleeding down when rounds got through, a skeletal reinforcement package for spine, hips, and knees to carry heavy loads and reduce fatigue in long fights, and a neural interface upgrade tuned for stress control to keep adrenaline spikes from tipping him into cyberpsychosis territory when everything went hot, nothing exotic, nothing that would wreck his head, just solid gear made to last; Maine asked for numbers, recovery times, and compatibility with what he already ran, and the answers came fast and clear, two days light downtime for the mesh, four for the bone work, half-day for the interface, all staged so he could stay functional between procedures if the crew got a call, and when he asked about the Sandevistan model that used to be bouncing around in rumor mills the tech didn't dodge, "We have our variant, safer on the nerves and cardiovascular system, but based on what you said we recommend you skip it unless your role changes, you're a tank and anchor, not a sprinter," which matched what Maine had already told himself in the quiet hours, so he grunted and said, "Do the mesh and bones, schedule the neural for after," and the tech nodded, printed consent with itemized cost, and then surprised him by offering the testing contract he had heard about from other patients, the one that cut bills if the client agreed to field feedback and checkups, nothing shady, no gotchas, just a trade: real-world data for reduced price and priority service, and Maine read every line because he always did, then signed because it was clean, and as he set the stylus down the tech said, "Pre-op in two hours if you want it today," and Maine said, "Do it," because waiting never made a cut hurt less; the prep was simple and professional, he lay on a table listening to the dull hum of machines while nurses checked lines and clamps, a surgeon came in long enough to confirm the plan and say he would talk to him after, and an anesthetist told him to breathe, count, and relax, and Maine did, letting the numbers roll out of his head until they stopped meaning anything as the world drifted away; when he woke his chest and shoulders ached like he had done a week of pushups without sleep and his hips felt like someone had tightened bolts inside them, which was true in a way, and a nurse was already there with water and instructions, "Walk with assistance in an hour, light movement today, come back tomorrow for a scan, no firefights until we clear you," and he laughed once at that because firefights didn't read calendars, but he said "Got it," and meant it because he wasn't stupid; on his way out he watched two other patients sign contracts at the front desk without being pressured, watched a kid pick up a bag of meds with a receipt that didn't list an amount he'd never pay, and watched a guard hold a door for an old woman with a cast, and none of it looked like a setup because there was no camera crew and no ad, just a clinic doing its job and getting paid reasonable money to do it; he messaged the crew that he'd be quiet for a day and Dorio told him not to be a hero, Pilar asked if they sold chrome rabbits for Rebecca's pet, Rebecca sent a photo of the rabbit chewing a shoelace and said, "Hurry up so we can break it in," Kiwi typed a single "ok," and Lucy sent nothing, which was normal, and Maine felt the dull ache settle into a steady throb he could live with and thought the choice had been right; while he ate plain food in his kitchen and let the meds do their work the city kept moving, and in another tower across town a different conversation was happening in a different tone, because Adam Smasher didn't fill out forms or wait in chairs, he took orders wrapped in threat and pay, and when Arasaka told him to test the strength of the new players he didn't argue, he armored up, locked his frame, checked his mags, and picked a target with the kind of logic only he used—go loud on a place that would answer loud, because loud answers reveal truth; the first target on his list was Black Mesa's known perimeter facility just beyond the Badlands ridge, a site that looked like a solid cube of concrete and steel from the air but bristled with sensors and kill-zones on the ground, and Smasher walked straight into it because that was his way, a wall of moving metal stomping through dust and scrub with rifles in both hands and a grin behind his mask that nobody got to see, and the first line of automated guns woke up and died almost in the same second because he tracked and destroyed turrets like they were cans on a fence, methodical, efficient, clearing lanes with seasoned rhythm; the second line reacted better, adaptive mounts shifting arcs, drones lifting from recessed wells, and armored security teams flowed out from reinforced doors in clean formations, not like rent-a-cops but like people drilled to fight something like him, overlapping fields, disciplined bursts, someone on command frequency keeping cadence, "Two-three advance, four-five hold, drone grid up, mark heat," and Smasher felt a flicker of respect because most private security broke the first time he roared at them and these didn't, they adjusted, they pressed, they tried to box him into a crossfire to stack damage and peel him apart, and for a minute it almost worked, his left shoulder pinging with impacts, his knee ringing as a concussive round clipped the joint, his optics flashing a red bar that only made him push more power to his hydraulics and bull through the angle, ripping a drone out of the air and pulping it against a wall; he kept moving because stopping was how you died, crossing a service yard under a net of bullets that ate concrete and spat chips against his chest plate, and when a pair of guards in powered frames tried to flank, he stepped in, crushed the first with a slam to the helmet, turned the second with a knee to the ribs, and used the body for cover until the line faltered, then dumped both rifles on dry bolts, drew a heavy sidearm, and put three rounds into a sensor array that had been feeding the teams his position with too much accuracy; alarms were a constant tone now, lights burned red, and a calm synthetic voice tried to sound in charge over the chaos, "Intruder detected, containment teams to grid C," and he laughed once because containment was a word people used when they couldn't say "kill him," then a door ahead of him hissed open and everything in him shifted a notch, not because of fear but because he recognized a new category—one target, not a team, stepping out like a problem that knew it was a problem, tall and heavy, armor built into a frame rather than strapped over it, plating segmented along joints for full mobility, hands too steady for panic, helmet a smooth dark visor with no eye slots because eyes didn't matter at the speeds they were going to move, a torso built like a ram with a reinforced spine shaped into the armor like a spine should be, and weapons slung low for quick draw: a compact rifle that hummed in a way ballistic rifles never did, a heavy blade fixed to a forearm mount, and a backup pistol riding a magnetic clip at the hip—everything placed where a fighter needed it, nothing extra; they stopped ten paces apart and let the last of the guards fall back because those men had already done enough and this wasn't their fight anymore, and the yard went quiet under the flashing alarms, Smasher rolling his shoulders and muttering through his speaker, "Finally," while the figure's voice came back steady, "Adam Smasher," no question, just a statement; for a moment they held each other's gaze across the distance, both bodies coiled, both waiting for the other to make the first move, and Smasher tilted his head and said, "Show me you're worth keeping that frame," to which the figure replied without hesitation, "Step back and live," and then neither of them moved, alarms echoing in the background as the silence thickened, the promise of violence hanging in the air but not yet unleashed, a clash inevitable but paused at the edge, the chapter closing on the image of two monsters facing each other, each daring the other to be the first to blink.