"Beep beep beep beep, collecting trash, collecting old furniture, old appliances, collecting used sofas, beep beep beep beep..."
The green garbage truck drove down the road, its engine rumbling like a low drumbeat, as lampposts flashed past.
Inside the car, Johnny sat with her arms crossed, head bowed, eyes tightly shut, the veins on her head faintly visible.
Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.
"If you don't turn off that damn song, I'm throwing you out right now!"
"Huh? You don't like it?"
Berry, gripping the steering wheel as wide as her body and still humming along to the beat, let out a sound of surprise before reaching out to turn off the stereo.
"I thought you might be bored, so I put it on for you to listen to."
The car didn't have a radio, but Berry figured it was all pretty much the same. Rock and roll was just 'boom-tss-boom-tss' and shouting, right? Not much different from the garbage truck's built-in trash collection jingle.
She even thought Johnny would like it.
It was a good thing Berry didn't say her thoughts out loud, or Johnny would have been hopping mad.
Not only was she insulting Johnny Silverarm, but she was also insulting rock and roll.
She might just blow you up with a nuclear bomb.
Although Berry was unreliable, it was also unlikely that Berry was completely unreliable.
At least she wasn't wrong about one thing: this modified garbage truck was really fast.
Its four wheels spun rapidly, the trailer behind it shaking and rattling, swerving left and right to overtake car after car, heading towards the Northside Industrial District amidst a chorus of curses.
Upon reaching the Northside Industrial District, the number of cars on the road significantly decreased. Apart from the occasional large truck carrying containers, even pedestrians were sparse.
They had arrived at the Northside Industrial District, an area considered extremely special even within Night City.
If Night City were likened to a cesspool, then the Northside Industrial District would be the foulest part, of course, excluding the Pacifica district which had already become a no-man's-land.
The Northside Industrial District was once the most prosperous area of Watson, now abandoned by corporations due to earthquakes and failed investments. Most of the factories had long ceased to operate.
Only a few factories still belched black smoke, filled with cold assembly lines and numb workers, laden with cheap cyberware, suppressing their pain with alcohol and 'weed'.
Just like the dust and sulfur in the air, these were veritable sweatshops.
Most of those who came here with the Night City dream ended up rotting in these dark, sunless factories.
To work, they had to remove limbs to install high-load labor cyberware, and that money had to be borrowed from the factory to cover the costs. Despite paying a hefty price, workers would find their meager wages only enough for their pain-numbing controlled substances.
As the old saying goes in the streets, if you're born in the Industrial District, you die in the Industrial District.
Under such extreme repression, people should have resisted, and indeed they did.
But under the bloody suppression of NCPD, gangs, and corporations, the hope of resistance eventually vanished.
Corporations would rather pile bodies into the river than concede even a single cent.
Even worse, corporations had enough power to make good on their words.
Under extreme repression, when explosive resistance failed, the only path left was extreme depravity.
Night City's most cruel and ruthless gang—Maelstrom—was born from this.
Maelstrom was originally just an organization of disabled and mentally unstable workers banding together for warmth, but you know how people fall into depravity.
Soon, bought out by corporations, Maelstrom became the enforcers suppressing workers, becoming a looming shadow over all residents living in the Industrial District.
Maelstrom was not only cruel to others, but also to their own.
Anyone joining Maelstrom had to undergo brutal and cruel cyberware modification surgery. These guys would literally dig out half your face and violently insert spider-eye-like visual cyberware.
Such crude modification surgery made it hard for anyone not to go mad. Every single Maelstrom member was practically a latent Cyberpsychosis patient, ready to snap at any moment.
They numbed their nerves with excessive controlled substances and tobacco, while ruthlessly unleashing their pain on innocent people in the streets. You could be walking along, and suddenly be dragged into an alley by a few red spider-eyed individuals. Either you end up as another corpse in a garbage pile, or when you wake up, you'll find yourself having undergone inhumane modifications.
And into this gang of lunatics, whom ordinary people avoided, Nancy, Johnny's former bandmate, plunged headfirst. Who knows what was going on in her head.
"We're here. This is it, Death Dance."
By the side of an abandoned factory, on a trash-strewn road, the two got out of the car. Death Dance was right before them.
Death Dance was a bar where Maelstrom members gathered. Here, they listened to black heavy metal as wild as bomb explosions, discussing which shop to raid next.
"Hmm, it certainly looks quite intimidating."
On the mottled wall, a massive compound-eyed skull was crude and ferocious, making it almost seem as if one could smell blood.
Berry put her hands on her hips, clicking her tongue in wonder.
"Let's go in. Hopefully, that crazy old woman Nancy hasn't been chopped up and canned by the Maelstrom guys yet."
Johnny disengaged the safety on her silver Malorian Kinetic Handgun and was the first to walk through the rickety main entrance.
"Tsk, what kind of awful music is this? It's making my ears hurt."
As soon as they entered, both Berry and Johnny winced.
The first floor was dimly lit, cluttered with junk, and the floor was strewn with used syringes and cigarette butts. Several Maelstrom members, covered in bolts, sat on cargo containers, puffing smoke, their weapons laid beside them.
A smell of old rust mixed with an unusually sweet scent assaulted their noses, making their heads spin.
If it were just that, it would have been fine, but as the two went deeper, that chaotic sound, like a mix of chainsaws and welding torches, which was supposed to be music, almost pierced their eardrums, making their hearts pound and leaving them breathless.
Is this damn place fit for humans!?
Berry vigorously shook her head to slightly alleviate the discomfort.
She finally understood why these Maelstrom members were so crazy all the time. Staying in a place like this every day, it would be hard not to go mad.
"Hahaha, look at her pathetic state."
The Maelstrom spider-eyes guarding the staircase fixed their crimson gaze on Berry, openly mocking her.
"You two, while we're in a good mood, hurry up and get out. We don't welcome cowards here."
It seemed these Maelstrom members were indeed in a good mood, perhaps high as a kite, and thus had no intention of killing anyone.
If some idiot accidentally stumbled in here at any other time, even if they didn't die, they'd at least lose a layer of skin.
"I advise you to clean up your mouth. If your eyeballs get gouged out, that'll be a lesson learned. Be careful your mouth doesn't get smashed to bits too."
Johnny stood with her hands in her pockets, her white twin pigtails hanging behind her, her eyes coldly fixed on the Maelstrom members in front of her.
Stung by the retort, the Maelstrom members first froze, evidently not expecting such words from the two short, weak-looking women. Then, the smiles on their faces gradually faded, and the red glow of their spider eyes flickered incessantly.
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