"In Japan, brain surgeon, top of all. Good instinct. One day, tyger claw boss need surgery, but. Boss die on table."
"Really?" I muttered, with a small incredulous smile, trying to reign in as much sarcasm as I could.
"Tyger Claws were very angry. I hide in boat, swim to america. Here dennis save me." "But there is secret - i kill tyger claw boss on purpose. World best surgeon make no mistake!"
Standing there for a few seconds, I just gave them both a small chuckle before saying, "I wish you both luck," and simply walked away.
Standing on the sidewalk, I called my car and waited. This was easily one of the easiest and funniest jobs I've encountered in a while. Plus the reward is actually not bad either; Dennis' katana was pretty good.
I was just stowing away the blade when Hazey's icon pulsed in the corner of my vision. His story checks out. He really was a brain surgeon, and a pretty good one too.
"Makes sense." I whispered softly with a slight nod, "I mean, did you see his hands? They were steady, too steady, despite the stressful situation. That was not the reaction that you get from just any day, Joe. That man was a surgeon."
Yet he decided to throw his entire life away… Why did he do that?
"He stood for his principles. He threw away his career by killing a tyger claw boss. I'd say that it is a pretty good reason."
But he had power… influence, and he decided to focus on a short-term goal…
I was just thinking about how to answer her when a digital cigarette came from behind me and sailed in the middle of the road before disappearing in a burst of particles before hitting the ground, and then Johnny came and stood beside me. Taking off his glasses, he looked up at the skyline above us, trying to aura farm as much as he could before glitching and appearing in the road. Right in the middle of moving traffic.
During the past week, I've been having Hazey scan a bunch of my chrome and subroutines. This is to see if she can augment my cyberware by tweaking its code or changing its behavior. Basically we were trying to see if we can jailbreak Atomic Sensors, Adrenaline Convertor, Kerenzikov, Reflex Tuner, and Synaptic Accelerator.
All of these cyberware can increase someone's speed and reaction time for five to nine seconds individually, but what if we get rid of the conditions themselves? Instead now, all of these cyberware can be turned on and off manually by me or Hazey whenever we want! Meaning if I want, then I can slow time down by 60-70% for around 21 seconds, plus I can turn it on or off whenever the fuck I want. I've got one of the best Sandevistans ever produced! with a few side effects here and there, but we don't need to talk about them.
There is a little bit of a worrying note among all this, that Hazey can fuck with my cyberware so easily too…. But I don't like to think about it….
But not everything was good news.
When Hazey was looking in the relic, she found something interesting. It turns out that there is a memory bank in there, filled with codes and codes of data reserved for Johnny. These things were like different clothes, different hairstyles, guitars, and even a prop gun. All of these things that he could interact with. But instead of getting happy or excited about it, a chilling thought ran through us. The only reason these things would be in here is if Arasaka was planning on releasing Johnny's engram as a consumer product. I shiver at the thought. People owning Johnny like their own personal rock star. I guess now we properly know why Arasaka was trying to make an engram of artists like Lizzy; it was so they could sell them as a consumer product for the elites.
But not one for wasting stuff, Johnny, still in a bad mood, has started appearing in his alternative attire more and more these days. And I have to admit, these clothes do look good. Black coat with open shirt and leather jeans with combat boots. Plus the hairstyle really completes the look.
'Humans rarely think about the consequences of their actions. Emotions always win against sound logic.' He said slowly, from the middle of the road, while cars and trucks were literally passing through him.
Nodding, I also agreed while seeing my car coming into view. "Humans are emotional creatures. Happiness, sadness, and greed—these emotions make us human; without them, there would be no difference between us humans and AIs.
I was just about to walk towards my car when Hazey creepily said, "Humans are so interesting…"
'...I don't like that ominous tone of hers…'
"You won't hear any arguments from me…" I said with a slight shiver. Sometimes when she talks like this, it feels like Haezy is here with me, only to learn about humans, and I'm not really comfortable with that feeling.
Scoffing at my thoughts, Hazey just gave an annoyed hum before saying, "I wonder why Alt forced me to be with two of the biggest pussies in Night City?! I mean seriously, it's alm—" I was actually pretty interested in knowing what she was about to say. But unfortunately her nagging was drowned out by the sound of my car going up in flames. Taking a few steps forward, I blankly stared at the smoldering remains of my car, which was still burning up right in front of me. Running towards the back of the car, I pried open the stash to see if anything was still salvageable in there, but the only thing that was not completely destroyed or burnt to a crisp was an overcoat of mine that had its right sleeve on fire. Taking it out, I ripped off the burning cuff of the coat and stepped away from the burning wreck of my car.
Staring intently at the charred remains, I saw an entry hole in the front fender of my car.
Someone blew up my car with a rocket launcher.
Someone blew up my car…
"That was a fully customized quadra vigilante," I said in a flat voice, just staring at the screaming and cackling remains lying on the road. Taking in an annoyed sigh, I looked around and saw a guy, dressed in the most obnoxious clothes, slowly walking towards me from the other side of the road, with a shit-eating grin on his face.
"... So how can I help you?" I asked, stepping back on the sidewalk and leaning against a street light.
"You must be the one they call V," he stated with a smile, while brandishing the projectile launcher on his arms, trying to intimidate me. But unfortunately he was failing miserably at it.
"Sup?" I said in the most disinterested voice I could.
"I've heard quite a lot about you."
"Oh really?" I asked, finally looking him straight in the eye. This I actually do want to hear.
"The hell spawn, the ghost of NightCity, who came back to life after staring death in the face! a demon who glides upon the rivers of blood. The monster whose power and thirst for blood exceeds that of Jerry Walter! So much so that your power casts a shadow on some of the biggest gangs in Night City!"
"Oh, you dirty bitch, work the shaft." I exclaimed, throwing my head back, trying to control my laughter. It's always funny how different people from all over the city interpret me and what I do. I mean, how does someone come up with some of these names? And another thing, who the fuck is Jerry Walter?
Hearing my choice of words, the guy suddenly clicked his mouth shut and looked at me as if my faceplate was falling off. "...excuse you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I only like the dirty talk when someone's sucking my dick!"
Narrowing his eyes in anger and annoyance, he took in a deep breath and stood up straight, trying to tower over me. "Perhaps you don't know who you are talking to. My name is Jason Forman."
"And I'm Hideshi Hino! So better buckle up!" Smiling, I looked at him and saw him getting more and more angry. "I'm trying to have a serious conversation here!" he growled out, taking out an Achilles rifle.
Snickering at the, frankly, pathetic display of intimidation, I snarkily said, "Oh, me too. But I'm failing, and I'm sorry for that! It's just that I'm so agitated because this blond little shit just walked up to me, blew up my favorite fully customized Quadra vigilante! And is now trying to impress me like I'm his alcoholic stepmother!" Oooooh, that really set him off. Perhaps there's some truth to that. Smiling, I raised an eyebrow and with a little disdain said, "Be a sport and grab Mommy another drink."
Snarling in anger, he leveled the gun right at my head and started charging it. Now anybody else in this position would've been shitting their pants. But me? I just stood there calmly while looking at the guy with amusement. Why? Because his iron was already hacked, and the more he was charging it, the more unstable it got. And any second now, it's going to blow up and most probably take his hands. "You really have no idea who you're messing with here! I'll show you how to speak to your bett—!" and there it is. The gun in his hands went up in flames, splattering me with blood, and taking most of his arms with it too. Screaming in pain, he fell back on the road while waving his destroyed arms around.
"Pathetic" was the only thing I could say looking at the sniveling and whimpering mess in front of me. looking around us, It seems a small crowd has gathered around us. Focusing on the stumpy, I walked towards him, stepped on his chest, and applied enough pressure to knock his breath out a bit. "Now you have two options here, Forman: either you tell me who sent you, and I kill you quickly, or you don't tell me, and I kill you slowly, painfully, and whilst grinning from ear to ear. Either way, you're getting flatlined today." I finished with a creepy grin while looming over him. To be honest, I didn't actually need the information; I could tell just by scanning him that he's an afterlife merc. That means he got the job from Rogue. I'm neither surprised nor disappointed.
"Please don't kill me! I'll tell you anything! There's a contract on you! I was sent b–" I was enjoying his panicked begging when my holo lit up. "Wait, I'm getting a call." Cutting him off, I pressed the sheathed katana I got from Dennis on his neck and applied enough pressure to shut him up, but not enough to muffle his pained whimpering.
"Panam? That you?" I asked, a little surprised, after picking up the call. After the last time, I thought that I wouldn't hear from her again. But it looks like I was wrong.
"V… It's a good thing you answered; I could probably use your help!"
"Probably?" I asked with a teasing voice, and in return I got a frustrated sigh from her. "Fine… I could really use your help. Can we meet?"
"Of course. Just tell me when and where." Hearing those words, a smile suddenly blossomed on her face. "You don't know how good it is to hear that." she said in a relaxed and satisfied voice, before quickly adding, "Swing by the aldecaldos camp. I'll explain everything there."
"Alright. I'm on my way."
Ending the call happily, I once again looked around us and saw that quite a large crowd had gathered around us, and two of them were even police. "Quite the crowd we've amassed here." I said, looking down at him. Forman was almost unconscious by this point. He had already lost quite a lot of blood and now was just hanging on for dear life. "In any case. I need to go. So goodbye!"
It was time to introduce our rocket-loving friend to something more intimate and short range. "No, please, I can—aaagghh!" Focusing just a bit, I activated my reinforced tendons, and suddenly a shockwave went through his chest, blowing his entire chest open.
Just a few minutes into the day and I've already given a poor street cleaner a pretty crappy start to their day. Cleaning organs and blood from the road. But then again, Night City's roads are paved with eighty percent concrete and twenty percent blood of the innocents. I'm pretty sure the so-called 'Corporate Gods' won't mind it too much if I mix in a merc or a Gangoon every now and then.
The moment blood started pooling underneath him, the police standing in the crowd suddenly jumped into action and started screaming for my prompt surrender.
Waving at them cheekily, I quickly ran a few steps in the other direction before double jumping on a street light and, from there, a roof. After jumping and dashing from roof to roof for a while, I had Hazy scan the NCPD subnet for a while to know that I've finally lost the badges. Jumping down from a three-story building, I slowed my descent by dashing and landed on the sidewalk. Taking a calming breath, I looked around and called another car.
A few seconds later my Thorton warlock came into view. Compared to my last time, I don't own an obscene amount of cars this time. Instead, I've just bought a few necessary ones. Like this, Thorton.
Time to take care of few Wraiths it seems.
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Alright guys! first of all thanks for reading! second of all, fuck the powerstones, and fuck the saves, just comment! Comment and let me know what you guys think of the story, line and joke that I stole from different media. I don't know if you can tell yet, but I'm a bit of a attention whore. So give me attention! Thank you!!