[Ining call from
Regina Jones was ner to accepting such calls. She was media long before she had bee a fixer, having mao leverage her sources and tacts from that time to transition from a position of helplesso one of retive power.
She never deluded herself into thinking she was someone who could actually turn the gears of this corrupt city, but she took so the fact that she was no longer just an insignifit cog in the great mae. Where she was once just an insignifit piece of the whole that tried to shine a light on the dark dealings withiy, she was noerson who merely facilitated those same acts.
Regina had long since decided to take hold of her fate and made a name for herself, making some powerful enemies and even more powerful friends in the process. All it cost her were a few ongoing favors and the optierve tht eye. A harsh payment, but one she did nret.
She wasn’t the same naive reporter that believed in the best in people. She had dug deep enough to see the ugly faces and skeletons that most tried to hide away and any moral puns she may have felt about her current work had long since disappeared.
“This is Regina Jones. Who the fuck are you?”
Just because she was used to dealing with aliases and nameless figures didn’t mean she ehe practice.
“My my… I heard you liked to be direct, but I wasn’t expeg this much hostility right off the bat.”
“Cut the shit ao the point.”
She no longer had much patience for these kinds of games. If someoh any real authority wao tact her anonymously, they would have access to the proper els to do so. This clearly wasn’t someone she o be cautious about.
“Name’s Outis, and I’m a new solo in town. Looking for some small gigs to start building up my rep here.”
The avatar this faceless figure used on the holo wasn’t anything u was the generic model one could expect to see when they called a business only to be received by an automated representative, matched with an equally generic moduted voice. She had already started trag the call and would soon know if this “Outis" character was all bluff or if he had some bite to him.
“All right. You want work? There’s a small pang calling themselves “The Aquads” in Northside that o go. Clear out their base he docks and send me any info you dig up ihey’ve been stig their noses into the wrong people’s business. My t wants it to end and know who put them up to the task.”
“How many targets?”
“Six to ten. Maybe more if they retly had a recruiting drive. We expect they’re on someone’s payroll now and the t wants them gone before they expand.”
“Uood. I’ll message you when I'm done.”
Regina checked her trag program as soon as the call ended. It didn’t mao return an ID, but it had traced the location of the call a rey in Kabuki.
‘So he’s a runner or he’s got es with someone in the Kabuki Cabal… no use digging too deep for now. I’ll just have to wait and see if he survives or fkes out.’
Regina really didn't care about this faceless merc. She had dozens of suteras over the past year and seven out of ten never tacted her again. Whether they realized they weren't cut out for the work ot cut down during their first gig, she didn’t really care. Results were the only thing that really mattered.
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Cal shook his head as he removed his personal link from the antenna. The building he was on was half derelid gaining access to the roof for his little act of subterfuge was as easy as climbing the stairs to get up here.
He was sure that his alias would eventually crumble, but for now it added another yer of prote that he hoped would insute him from anyone he pissed off in his early days as a solo. Once he had established himself and made some es, it wouldn’t matter much.
He could have tried to gather a team to help him, but in this city your allies were just as liable to stab you in the back as your enemies. He had decided that it was best to just go alone for now. As a solo unknow, he wouldn’t be sent on any gigs that were too far out of his capabilities. If he got thrown into something too big, Cal khat he could take it as a sign that he had poked a hors somewhere along the way. Having a team with him to deal with it would just cause the instigator to level a rger threat against them. At least this way he could underpy his abilities and hope to e out ahead in such a situation.
He khat Regina would try to dig up his personal details and had been immediately proven right wheected her trace during their call, justifying his precautions. What he had not expected was to be thrown into the deep end right off the bat.
Cal had known from his first day here that he would have to bloody his hands at some point, and he had already made his peace with that fact. Some people in this city just o get dead, and if being their executiot him closer to his goals he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. He already had his own growing list of people that o go, so adding a few more nameless faces to his body t wouldn’t weigh on his sce. If they ended up in his crosshairs, then Cal khat even if they weren’t his ehey surely weren’t saints.
It wasn’t that he was a cold blooded killer or some kind of sociopath. Cal just reized the y for brutality in this cesspool of a city and partmentalizing his emotions was the only way for him to manage what was to e. If he couldn’t deal with it then he was better off just putting a bullet in his owo save himself some of the anguish.
He was expeg Regina to send him on some basic retrieval or elimination gigs to test out his abilities first, but instead she decided to throw him at aire burgeoning gang. He had already been preparing for future frontations, but this was still something he knew was at the edge of his current capabilities. Cal had already surmised that he couldn’t keep avoiding physical flicts much longer, so he had been spending most of his time over the past two months fog on his training and gathering supplies for his entry into merary work.
He had tried tress with his teopathy arunning over that time, but the former was still slow going and to safely do the tter would require him to acquire or access gear for a full dive. Again, this was mostly hindered by his current living situation. He just didn’t have the power or bandwidth in his current apartment to facilitate a proper dive, even if he could get his hands on the equipment.
Coach Fred had not beele with his “lessons” in that time, but the relentless regimen had helped Cal progressed in leaps and bounds. He was now fairly fident engaging in close bat, but he khat he would loose in a purely hand to hand fight with a petent fighter and he would be pletely outcssed by someoh bat impnts. It was a good thing that Coach had also trained him in a few knife fighting teiques and his ongoing practice with his pistol had been steadily progressing because those would likely be his only possible edge over a skilled oppo.
Cal was fairly tent with the new gear he had gathered for his alias. It wasn’t anything special, but it was much better than walking into a gunfight with only his armored jacket, a pistol, and a dream. He now wore a hodgepodge bat outfit sisting of a pair of bck steel toed boots, gray ssh resistant loose fitting pants held up by his same thick belt and Nue loadout, bck gloves with armored knuckles, a gray turtlenederh his new bck polycarbonate-ced bulletproof aramid vest which sported fe mag pouches across it’s front, all topped off by a worn matte betrunner helmet.
The helmet was a little stifling, but it would stop or deflect everything short of high caliber rounds and had a built in air filter that would keep him from choking on any smoke as. A little disfort was a trade off he was willing to make for the extra prote. He could ect directly to the cameras and sensors on the helmet, giving him a slightly improved range of sight while also proteg him from the effects of stun grenades and slightly improving his ability to s and unch quickhacks. The prote and utility of the helmet retty standard, all in all, but he figured that if he wanted anythier he’d have to make it himself or take it off a fresh corpse.
He didn’t want to make it easy for people to link his two identities, so he usually stored all his new gear in a small garage that he was renting not too far away from his apartment. He paid for the space with cash to keep his name off any records and had acquired it primarily to store his “new” stolen armored Chevellion Emperor before it turned into his defacto base of operations. The garage itself was not anything special. It was just big enough to fit his vehicle and a ste shelf for some tools and equipment, but that was all he really needed for now. Anything more extensive would force him to spend more of his time stealing cars just to afford it.
He had wiped the VIN aration from the SUV, meaning it would be a little inve if he got caught by the NCPD while driving it, but the ces of that happening were slim to none sihey rarely cared about traffic viotions and cared even less about stolen vehicles. There was no she of crime iy for the boys in blue to spend their time on, so unless he drew their attention as an active threat, he’d be just fine.
Cal had taken all these measures in an attempt to keep his civilian and merc identities separate. He had even mao set up a digital wallet tied to his pseudonym after he figured out how to spoof an additional line on his internal agent with a generic avatar. The only thing that was left to do now was to drop by Wilson’s gun shop and see if his order was finally ready.
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“I’ve done a lot of builds, but I gotta say, never seen one quite like this.”
Cal ied the ilitech Crusher as Wilson passed it over the ter. He had gotten his hands on some CAD software st month and ended up re-designing the gun quite a bit, extending the barrel by 4.5 inches and adding ports along the length to vent gas into an integral suppressor. There were even a few standard baffles on the end to ehere wouldn’t be any muzzle fsh, even with high brass shells. He also went through the effort of adding a few rods eg them like a cage to guide any buckshot out the end and keep it from blowing the whole thing apart. It was a nice piece of design that Cal felt particurly proud of. With all the etegrated into the thing, any subsonic rounds would be whisper quite out of the gun. The loudest sound you’d hear when it fired would be the a cyg.
He also had Wilsoend the front hand guard and add a CQO Kanone MINI Mk.72 sight, select fire switch, folding skeleton stock, single point sling, a mounted fshlight, and finally a fred magwell. The modified shotgun was expensive, but Cal wanted something with some real stopping power and diversity for his primary on. On full auto the Crusher would spit out 2.5 rounds a sed, emptying his 12rnd mags in under 5 seds. It didn’t matter if he was throwing slugs or buckshot, that much lead could take down all but the most heavily armored foes. They wouldn’t fare aer against him though, since Wilson even mao get him some tungsten core AP rounds to deal with them.
“You know what they say: There’s no kill like OVERKILL.” Cal’s moduted voice respoo the portly gunsmith.
“True, but not many people prefer shotguns these days. Everyone just seems to want smart ons.”
“And you’re telling me no one ever developed smart rounds for a 12 gauge? There’s plenty of room in a shell for the tech.”
“Oh yeah, there are lots of those around. Most people just take a quantity over quality approach when it es to smart rounds.”
“Well, I guess I’m not most people then.”
He had already test fired his new baby in the range and leasantly surprised at how manageable the recoil was, even on full auto. He wasn’t sure if it was a result of the base design of the crusher or the ges he designed, but he had a feeling that he could credit most of it to the various mods Wilson had personally added to the shotgun.
“Just remember to her regurly. That suppressor won’t work for shit if it gets all gunked up.”
Cal just slowly nodded in reition with a stupid grin pstered on his fader the helmet as he turned over his new gun and ied it from tip to tail. The suppressor mirrored the geometry of the hand guard and hung low off the barrel to keep the sight picture low and free of obstru. It was still a retively short shotgun even with the suppressor, the length sitting around 23 inches with the stock folded. It would peek out of the bottom of his jacket if he tried to ceal it within, but this wasn’t really something he’d be trying to hide if he was carrying it.
“Thanks for the quick turn around, Wilson. How much extra do I gotta pay for you to keep the details of this little beauty under s?”
“Already charged you for it. It’s pretty unique and you’re clearly going to use it for some more discrete work, so I went ahead and took the liberty of charging you extra to wipe the data from it’s stru.” Wilson chuckled at the faceless merc.
“Preem. Well, thanks again.”
Cal khat he probably should have used a different armorer for the job, but H10 wasly a small building and Wilson had a good rep in the area for his ability to plete builds. Overall, it was a calcuted risk and he had grown to trust the man’s work and discretion if nothing else.
He didn’t linger in the building for long, quickly making his way out to the garage where he had parked his armored SUV. He wasn’t pletely familiar with all his new gear, but he had already spent some time trying to get fortable wearing it. He had purposely bought and arranged everything to avoid his equipment jostling around and g against each other while trying to preserve his freedom of movement, so it wasn’t especially cumbersome. Ideally, he wao maintain a stealthy approach to each gig, even during “loud” jobs, and that required him to make promises on the amount of armor and gear he included in his loadout.
Cal had wao find some kind of satchel he could strap to his thigh to use as an emergency medical kit, but everything he found was either too bulky or restrictive, signing him to carry his MaxDohaler and Bounce Bajector in his pockets. It wasn’t ideal, but he decided to make do for now.
He could only ugh to himself as he walked out of the building, kitted for war without pulling too much attention to himself. Night City was an iing pce. It wasn’t that strao see someone walking around the city sp full armor and assault ons at any time of the day, so Cal only mao draw a few unfortable looks as he made his way back to his vehicle. The walk had been short, but it had given him enough time to get fortable carrying his new Crusher with the rest of his kit. He would still have to find somewhere to train himself to shoulder it and fire while moving, but right now the only the only option he had was a little on the job training.
Soon enough, he had his new firearm id across the passenger seat of the Chevillon Emperor as he ehe coordio The Aquads’ warehouse up north and pulled onto the street towards his first real challenge.
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