Chapter 86: 40 / 60
Against Moiré, Dorio's usually unstoppable tactics were, for the first time, rendered ineffective.
Moiré's movements defied all conventional logic. Her Joric-optimized Sandevistan allowed her to execute short-range bursts and lateral shifts at impossible speeds, her form dissolving into an un-trackable afterimage. She never, not once, met Dorio's mountain-shattering blows head-on. She was always able to evade, by a razor's-thin margin, the instant before impact.
She used her superior speed and precision, striking with the flat (un-activated) edge of her Transonic Razors, leaving cold, clear "tags" on Dorio's neck, ribs, and joints—all critical defensive gaps.
The entire "spar" was like watching Dorio, a force of nature, try to punch smoke. She had all the power in the world, but no way to land it.
The session ended in silence.
A fine sheen of sweat covered Dorio's bronzed skin. Her chest heaved slightly, her expression grim.
Moiré calmly retracted her blades, as if she had just completed a simple warm-up drill.
"Forty-sixty," Maine stated, his voice low and heavy, his eyes still locked on the two women. "Dorio forty, Moiré sixty. And... Moiré wasn't even trying."
His assessment was absolute.
Rebecca's eyes were shining, a pure appreciation for the sheer lethality she had just witnessed, but she still had to argue. "Dorio wasn't going all out either! If one of those punches did land, it'd be game over!"
"That's just it," Falco said, pushing up his shades, his gaze as cold and analytical as a diagnostic panel. "Moiré also held back. She never even activated the transonic-resonance on her blades. If this were a real flatline..."
He didn't need to finish. Everyone understood.
If those blades were active... a technology that supposedly disintegrated armor at the molecular level... could even Dorio's enhanced flesh withstand such a blow? The fight would have been over in seconds.
Kiwi, who had been observing the entire spar through her own remote sensors and data-analysis tools, now walked over. Her voice was flat, objective. "Based on her energy-signature fluctuations and motive-patterns, if Moiré went to full, unrestricted combat-protocol, her win-probability would increase to seventy, maybe even eighty percent. Her entire... system... the integration is flawless. There is zero wasted energy in her movements. It's... it's beyond any top-tier combat-chrome on the market."
The sight, combined with the cold data, hit the crew like a physical blow.
What began as simple admiration for Dorio's new strength, and perhaps a flicker of jealousy for Moiré's, now coalesced into a single, burning, undeniable hunger to achieve that same state of transcendence.
This was it. Moiré was living proof that Joric held the key—the core-tech to shatter their limits, to let them truly ascend.
"The Boss promised," Pilar hissed, rubbing his hands together, his voice tight with excitement. He pointed at his own, still-functional-but-worn, older-model augmetic arm. "He promised us each a 'custom re-consecration'! Look at Moiré, and then look at this cobbled-together, second-hand scrap we're running... the gap is just too delta-damn big!"
Maine took a deep breath, forcing down his own surging anticipation. He knew the rules of engagement with the "Boss" better than anyone. He looked at his crew's eager, hungry faces, and his voice was a hard, cold warning.
"Cool it. All of you. Don't get antsy, and do not go bothering the Boss while he's working. Remember the deal: we have to prove our value first! The Boss only cares about efficiency and results. We need to bring him a tithe, a real 'offering,' to show we're worth the resources, then we can talk about our upgrades."
His gaze swept over them, finally landing on the distant, shimmering outline of Joric's sanctum. "Our new priority is to scavenge anything the Boss might find interesting. Especially... high-performance cybernetics."
The opportunity to prove their value arrived with the new, chaotic state of Night City.
Joric's "message," delivered by Moiré, had sent a seismic shock through the city's corporate-elite. The "silence" from Militech and Biotechnica was not peace. It was the calm of a deep, dark, churning sea.
Corporate-espionage, internal-faction power-plays, and the raw, naked greed for this "unknown tech" had caused a sudden, sharp spike in shadow-conflicts.
Assassinations, data-thefts, and small-scale skirmishes multiplied.
Every morning, the "Death-Lotto" odds were impossible to predict, because the obituaries were no longer just street-gangers and low-level mercs. They were now mid-level corpo-managers, high-ranking gang-lieutenants, and even well-known solo-runners.
Their bodies were found in alleys or luxury apartments, the cause of death varied, but the one constant was that their expensive, high-grade, or custom cybernetics were always missing.
These high-performance augmetics, ripped from their former owners, were flooding the black market, becoming a new, high-demand currency.
For Maine's crew, this was both a danger and a massive opportunity.
Joric had already expressed his deep, technical interest in this world's technology, especially its high-end cyberware. These physical samples were invaluable to his research, to his reverse-engineering and integration-experiments.
Maine seized on this.
"We start harvesting," Maine gave the new directive. "Acquire any high-performance chrome that hits the black market, especially the 'fresh' stuff. It's the most direct way we can earn the Boss's favor right now. But be smart, be clean. Don't get tangled in the crossfire."
They activated their old, deep-rooted network of contacts, and began the careful, selective acquisition of this new, bloody harvest. It was a high-risk game. They had to dodge corpo-eyes, outbid rival buyers, and, most of all, watch their own backs for the inevitable double-cross.
(End of Chapter)
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