Cal quickly realized he didn’t o send so many round into Garth to finish him off in his incapacitated state, but the fucker had thrown a grenade in his face. He had lost himself a bit in the heat of the moment, but damn was it cathartic to dole out some punishment iribution. Sure, it was a bit of an over rea, but so was the grenade. He only began tret his as wheiced the damage he had doo Garth’s head and chip sockets. Any information he could have dragged out of the man was now as dead as he was.
*Sigh* ‘Hopefully the info I need is still on his puter somewhere…’
Cal had to fight the urge to just ditch after finishing off the Aquads. All he wao dht now was go home to lick his wounds and fall asleep, but he wasn’t quite doh this job and he khat deying a trip to Vic’s ic to pull the shrapnel out of his side would e back to haunt him. He could still feel the bits of metal scraping against his muscles as he moved, but whatever chemical cocktail made up Bounce Back muted the sensation into a mix of odd and unfortable instead of the ht pain he should be feeling. Cal khat the drugs wouldn’t st forever though, so he swiftly made his way over to the desk at the side of the office disturbing the warehouse’s now eerie quiet.
He rummaged through the desk drawers looking for shards or dots that could clue him into the happenings here, but only found a few rolls of eddies and an open carton of Gold Medal cigarettes both of which he decided to pocket after a moment of deliberation. He had always been an off and on smoker and now that he lived in a world steeped in carogens, he didn’t see the o curb the habit any lohe mild temptation of the avaible paokes was all he o fall bato his old vice.
Cal didn’t spare the pse much thought as he ected his personal link to the puter and began to sift through it’s files. There was the predictable amount of spam and garbage cluttering up the puter’s hard drive, as well as some rather etric praphy, but what ended up drawing his attention were a number of correspondences with attached shipping schedules and mas. From the looks of it someone or some group was using the gang tet small shipping panies ing in and out of the port.
The retly deceased Aquads sisted of a group entirely formed of former dock workers and shiphands, making every part of their grift but the killing sed nature to them. Apparently they had started off just using their positions and tacts to intercept traband goods, but the new information they were being fed enced them to escate to hijag entire ships. The gang now had orders to make sure specific shipments never made it to their destinations and in some cases they were told to scuttle the vessels as well.
They were poiowards smaller, rgely unguarded ships that were either indepe or part of up and ing logistipanies (A.k.a. easy targets.) They would make their way out into the bay with sea scooters and board the vessels before taking trol. Knowing the ship’s yout and general defe was easy for them to subdue the crew and steal the goods loaded on the vessels ohey made port. Any bodies were generally weighed down and thrown overboard before they docked, but to erase the rest of the evidehey would then re-program the ship’s nav systems to go back out to sea straight into areas that were known to have AI trolled minefields, making the i look like any other lost ship to the casual observer.
The loss of goods and vessels would damage the targeted pany’s reputation and disrupt their core business putting some of the smaller businesses in situations that were difficult to escape from. Most of the sea based shipping panies would have tingencies in pce, almost expeg to occasionally loose a ship, but even in those cases these small anizations would still feel the pressure from the loss.
The masterminds direg the p weren’t stupid enough to unicate with them directly and the messages were all clearly sent through a number of proxies before making it to the gang. Cal guessed that trying to trace the orders back to the inal sender would be a fruitless endeavor. Still, just from his brief perusal of the correspondence he was almost certain the orders came from one of the rger shipping megacorps. They were clearly the ones who would be most from this and the only real question in his mind was whie of them was behind it.
None of that was really his busihough. Cal just o copy the files he found and deliver them tina to plete the gig. That said, he still spent a few more minutes looking through the iory list the gang had piled to see if there was anything in the warehouse worth taking. The drugs and bulk goods were of no io him, but he saw that there was supposed to be a crate of “Military Grade Cyberware” somewhere in the warehouse which peaked his i. He didn’t want to spend much more time here, but still felt that the hardware was worth a quick search.
The bodies of the dispatched gang members were all either too mangled or soaked in blood for him to bother with examining them for anything of use, and their ons were only slightly better than disposable Budget Arms trash, so his st order of business here was to spent a few minutes walking up and down the aisles to locate the small crate of cyberware.
The warehouse was actually fairly well anized and finding his prize didn’t take much time, but he quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to take the whole thing with him. Cal wasn’t in any kind of state where he could try to muscle the crate outside and into his Emperor, even if it looked like he could fit it in the back, so instead he dug through it’s tents only finding two pieces of e worth taking: a QianT Dancer Saan and a Synaptic Accelerator. He had no pns to get either chipp’d in, but they would still make food bits to use as disposable research material.
Like most other mercs he found all forms of boostware more alluring than a siren call, but without doing more research he was not fident that his body would be able to hahe stresses boostware would p it. The Dancer wasn’t even that great of a unit, if he remembered correctly, and the synaptic accelerator would do little more than speed up his itive abilities for brief moments to aid in deaking. If he was going to install this kind of e he was going to do it much like he did with his cyberdeck; It would be a one and done kind of deal aher piece of tech were up to his standards.
As the pain slowly began to creep bato his side, Cal made his way out to his car with his spoils and began to pull away from the warehouse. He only made a brief stop at the nearby drop point before sending a quick message tina, notifying her of the gig’s pletion and the location of the drop point taining the shard loaded with the info he found. She didn’t respond immediately and he didn’t much care since he still had to drop off his equipment at the garage and ge before dragging his battered body over to Vic’s. Cal wao get there before the Bounce Bapletely wore off because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk the short distance from the NCART station to the ic without it.
Just another day in NC.
----------------
“Jesus, kid. You’re luone of this shrapnel hit an artery. This is a nasty bit of work you did to yourself.”
“Yeah Vic, clumsy me alying around with live grenades… we just skip the guilt trip ahis patched up, please?”
Vic let out a frustrated sigh as he tinued pulling the shards of metal out of Cal’s left leg. and mild disappoi were written all over his face when Cal had finally made his way down to the ic, but they both khe realities of living in this city. Vic’s regur tele were far from ordinary, w abiding citizens (if ating that description still existed in Night City) and he was all too used to patg up the people he was close to. If they didn’t seek out dangerous situations of their own volition, one was bound to find them eventually. Still, that didn’t mean he had to like it…
“I’d ask why you’re diving into this kind of life, but I’ve already heard all the excuses. Just be more careful ime.”
“Sure thing dad.”
An awkward sileretched on as Vitinued his work.
“You think some Skin Weave would have stopped most of this?” Cal tentatively asked.
“’t say for sure, but it definitely would have helped. Would have at least made my job a little easier.”
“I think it’s about time I got that dohen… Probably o upgrade my optid cyberaudio suite too. Maybe eve a Naneon Hive chipp’d in.”
“All good decisions if yonna keep diving into the merc world… What kind of optics were you thinking?”
Vic had a distant, ical too his responses, but Cal couldn’t tell if that was because he was trating on his work or if he was just tired of having this kind of versation. He suspected it was a bit of both.
“Kiroshi Oracle. I was in the group’s sub, but the guy with the grenade popped out of a door on me. Would have been o have a bit of a heads up on that. I could have just shot him through the wall if I knew he was right there.”
“I only imagine. I’m gonna insist you get a Biomonitor installed in tandem with the Naneons. Just helps everything work better, especially if you want it to maintain the efficacy of any bioware you get. It’ll also let you know when you’ve taken a hit too big to walk off. Skin weave and the Biomon will be the easiest to source, but all in you’re looking at about €108k for the upgrade.”
“Shit. Well there goes my savings…”
“It’s that or you keep running on the edge.”
“Oh god… I’m not that bad Vic. I didn’t e in here and ask you to just repce the whole arm, did I?”
“You’re still treading out into the deep end, kid. Just make sure you know your limits, that’s all I say.”
Vic clearly wasn’t pleased with the dire Cal was heading in. They had grown closer over the past few months, approag something of a mentor/meionship, and Cal khe man had flicted feelings about the merc life. Those ihick of it were the primary source of work for the ripper, but Cal got the feeling he would rather be helping out athletes or disenfranchised youths if he had a choi the matter. The problem with that was athletes were all backed by megacorps, being little more than walking billboards sp their e. Vic would have to surrender his independeo work with them and his morals would likely go in the bin along with it. As for helping out struggling kids? Well, that just wouldn’t keep the lights on. He’d be out oreets himself if he went too far down that route.
“Well, here’s €52k to get started.” Cal relutly said as he wired over the money. “I’d like to get the Skin Weave and the Biomon chipp’d first while I sge up the eddies for the rest.”
“Take your time. I’ll have to do some work programming the Naneons before we eveo that install and it’ll take a while for me to get your optics. If you weren’t so banged up we’d do the Biomon and Skin Weave tomorrow, but it’s best to be at a healthy base line for those.”
“Alright, sounds like a pn.”
Cal hadn’t quite drained his at with the down payment, but he’d e close. It was a good thing El Capitán still had a list of cars he needed.
------------------
The rest of Cal’s time at Vic’s had beore than a little unfortable, and not just because the ripper ulling scraps of metal out of him. The air had grown heavy during his time in the chair, making Cal itch to escape from the old ripper’s disappointed gaze. There wasn’t much more that o be said between them so the rest of his time there was clouded by the heavy atmosphere that filled the room.
He was just gd to be back at his apartment, able to rest for the time being. He’d have to get ba the grind to raise the funds for his upgrade soon, but for now he was tent to just take a breather a his injuries heal. His left arm and leg were still stiff, only partially due to the adhesive medical film that covered them to keep the filth of the city from iing his fresh wounds. The shrapnel from the grenade had gone pretty deep into his flesh. Vic wasn’t really exaggerating when he said Cal was luone of it nicked an artery. He had the MaxDod Bounce Back with him at the time, but a worse injury from the grenade could still have proven to be fatal in that situation.
For all the shade Cal threw at Edgerunners, he felt like he was fighting a loosing battle whenever he cimed not to be one. He would never admit to it, but he could still reize that he had been toeing that line more and more as time went on.
‘Fug… whatever.’
Cal pulled a cigarette out of the pack he liberated from Garth’s desk and lit it. The first drag sent a shiver down his spine as he weled the rush of sweet nie. He always found something calming about the aoking. The ritual of it just helped him focus his mind and steady his nerves. He had to admit, though this wasn’t his preferred brand, it was still pretty good. All of the old brands he knew of died along with a rge number of the strains of tobacd food crops, disappearing during the Colpse of ‘02. The global food market had since shifted to primarily syic foods, but he was gd that tobacco was one of the hold out cash crops that survived.
He didn’t doubt that tobacco products were all now expoially more addictive, but that didn’t bother him much. Cal was a “quit cold turkey” kind of guy and would usually stop when the habit started to interfere in his daily routine or he just lost taste for it. Urges and mild withdrawal symptoms just never really weighed on him as heavily as it seemed to affect others.
He had also done a cursory search earlier out of curiosity and found that the deluge of carogens everyone experienced had actually spurred forward cer research to the point that there was actually a cure now. At least as close as you could get to a cure for such a diverse and dynamic ailment. As a disease, cer was now treated more like pneumonia or arthritis. It was still something to be ed about, but it was rgely treatable with the current state of medie.
The treatment had likely been around far lohan ublicized as well. The elite of this world could easily live for over a tury. Cal was sure that there were many other medical advahat were hidden from the public, but society would likely colpse if cer and radiation siess were not treatable ditions causing this particur treatment to be dissemio the wider public.
While the background radiation in NC had been rgely ed up sihe Night City Holocaust, it was still at dangerous levels pared to the standards from his previous life. The amount of radioactive particles spread through the area would have otherwise resulted iire area being designated as an exclusion zone or superfund site. Lag a means to mitigate the sting damage and treat those affected would spell doom for the indepe city and many of the corporations that were headquartered there.
Cal’s thoughts were interrupted by the chime of a message as he rexed on his couch sav the sm cigarette.
Shortly after his agent chimed again, notifying him of a transfer into his pseudonym's at.
*Payment Recieved: €17,500*
‘Could have gone worse.’ Cal cluded as he sank further into the couch.