Charter Hill

  November 20th

  2069

  Sophie walked down the streets of Charter Hill, on her way back to the sewers after finishing a simple data acquisition job for Padre. However, a glint of shiny metal, barely visible in the dark lighting, caught her eye. Down a small side street, tucked between a pair of buildings, sat a Thorton Mackinaw.

  Sophie stopped in her tracks, heart skipping a beat as she took in the sight of it. Finding an unattended car that either wasn’t stored in a secure garage or didn’t possess security systems too advanced for her to get around was a rarity. The Mackinaw didn’t have any of the fancy security systems, at least to her knowledge and it certainly hadn’t been stored in a garage. It was also the perfect first car for someone like herself.

  She glanced up and down the street. No one in sight. The truck looked completely unattended. She moved closer, her recently upgraded boots making little noise against the cracked asphalt. The Mackinaw’s dark, scratched exterior was caked in grime, its tires coated in dried mud. Sophie found that slightly odd, considering mud wasn’t particularly common in the city, aside from the outskirts. The windows were tinted too, but there were no noises that suggested the presence of any occupants.

  Just as she reached the driver’s side door, she heard a clanking sound, followed by voices.

  Instinctively, she darted behind a dumpster, pressing herself against the cold metal just as a trio of figures emerged from behind a small garage door. Proudly displaying their hologram masks, the small group of scavs strutted forwards.

  She felt her lip curl.

  The scavs were laughing among themselves, speaking in a mix of Russian and broken English. Their clothes were a patchwork of syn-leather, metal, and blood. One of them, a lanky man with a hunched posture, shook something in his hand; a control chip, still wrapped in the original factory plastic. Sophie didn’t need to hear the rest of their conversation to know they were about to take the Mackinaw.

  Not happening.

  She moved quickly, slipping out from cover as they neared the vehicle. Before any of them could react, she was on them. Her knife found the first scav’s throat, stabbing through flesh and cyberware with ease. A wet gurgle filled the alley as the man crumpled to the ground.

  The other two had just enough time to turn before Sophie was on the second. She drove her knee into his gut, then followed up with a swift upward slash across his chest. He stumbled back, trying to draw a gun, but Sophie was faster. A quick, brutal thrust to his heart ended it and she abandoned the blade.

  The third scav managed to fire a shot, but it missed completely in his initial panic. A second shot impacted her in the chest but her armour allowed her to ignore it, closing the distance in a blink before grabbing his wrist and twisting. The crack of breaking bone was lost under his scream before a flurry of bullets sent him to the ground, groaning. She silenced him with a blade through the skull, yanking it free as his body froze.

  The entire sequence didn’t even take a minute, the ambush and her superior skills allowing Sophie to flatline them easily. Breathing steadily, she wiped her knife on one of the corpses before crouching to loot them, including the control chip in the dead man’s hand. Sophie pried it free, before opening the packaging and slipping it into one of the sockets on her neck.

  She cleaned up the scene before sliding into the Mackinaw’s driver’s seat. A quick mental command later and the dashboard flickered to life, the engine rumbling as she gripped the wheel. Without looking back, she reached her foot as far down as it would go, touching the accelerator. The pickup truck seemed to rumble as she pulled out onto the main road, heading towards the maintenance road connected to her home.

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  The following morning, Sophie rolled down the streets of Night City in her newly acquired Thorton Mackinaw, the large vehicle rumbling beneath her hands as she adjusted to its handling. It wasn’t the fastest thing around, nor the sleekest, but it was sturdy and it possessed a decent amount of storage, which is exactly what she needed.

  The city's dense skyline soon began to thin out as she passed through the last few stretches of Santo Domingo, the towers giving way to industrial plants and eventually to the barren outskirts of the city. The transition was stark. The towering, neon megabuildings faded away behind her, only to be replaced by dry, cracked roads and an endless expanse of dust.

  The Badlands stretched out before her, a vast and unforgiving wasteland destroyed by corpo greed and persistent drought. However, there were still signs of civilization on the highway out of Night City. Occasional buildings popped up and there were still plenty of cars around, even as she made her way towards the city’s landfill.

  It was the first time she had left Night City’s limits, and it was a strange sensation; liberating in a way but also unsettling. Out in the desert, there were no packed streets, no flashing billboards and no constant noise of a city that never slept. Yet despite that, the sense of danger that filled the city itself never disappeared. It was a distinct reminder that there wasn’t really anywhere truly safe in a cyberpunk world.

  As she drove further, she spotted something on the horizon; an old wreck, half-buried in the dirt off the side of the road. As she got closer, she saw the twisted remains of a car, its body riddled with bullet holes, doors torn off and long shattered glass. Similar skeletal vehicles littered the Badlands, leftovers from smuggler runs gone wrong or unlucky travelers who crossed the wrong people.

  A few minutes later, the radio briefly crackled with static as she picked up a distant transmission. She glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see a plume of dust rising behind her, off the road. A pair of vehicles, one looking like a modified nomad pickup and the other an armored corpo car, weaved through the dunes, gunfire flashing between them. Sophie grimaced before stepping harder on the accelerator, wanting to avoid getting caught up in something that had nothing to do with her.

  The landfill loomed ahead, a sea of discarded metal, shattered tech, and mountains of waste. The closer she got, the worse the stench became, even through the car’s filter. It was a vile mix of burnt rubber, rusting steel, and the unmistakable rot of organic matter long since abandoned to the sun. She suspected there were a number of old, rotting corpses buried under the more recent debris.

  She pulled the Mackinaw to a stop near the edge of a particularly large heap, throwing it into park before stepping out. Her menpo came out of her inventory, the only thing she had available to block some of the smell.

  Sophie started her scavenging efforts by sifting through the piles of broken appliances and tangled wires, keeping an eye out for anything useful. She found a handful of intact electronic components; capacitors, old circuit boards, and a few loose processors. All of it went into random boxes she found and placed in the Mackinaw’s tray.

  Next, she moved onto the piles of scrap metal, searching for pieces she could grind down into powder for her recently acquired 3D printer. She picked up a few steel rods, some copper wiring, and a handful of aluminum sheets that were still in decent condition. Belatedly, she realised the need to cobble together a device that would break the metal down to a powder fine enough to use in printing.

  As she moved deeper, she stumbled upon a cache of old, discarded weapon parts. A shattered rifle stock, a bent but salvageable suppressor, and even a few trigger assemblies. All tossed aside like junk. While they weren’t particularly useful in their current condition, she’d be able to experiment with them for Engineering.

  Near one of the larger heaps, Sophie found something much more interesting; a reinforced vehicle panel, somewhat dented but still solid. She knocked her knuckles against it, testing its integrity. Could be useful for reinforcing the Mackinaw’s body, she mused. She dragged it back to the truck with some effort, setting it down in the tray with a satisfied huff.

  The longer she searched, the more she uncovered. Some old but serviceable hydraulic pistons, potentially useful for reinforcing the Mackinaw’s suspension. A cracked but repairable display screen that could be used for some kind of interface. Even an ancient cyberarm casing, the internals completely shot but the exterior still salvageable for spare plating.

  By the time she was satisfied, the Mackinaw’s tray was nearly full, packed with metal sheets, electronics, and everything else she had managed to scrounge up. Her newly expanded inventory too.

  Unfortunately, her hands were also covered in grime and her boots caked in filth. Not to mention the smell that clung to her. She took one last look around before climbing back into the truck, slamming the door shut and taking a deep breath of the comparatively fresher air inside.

  Starting the engine, she pulled away from the landfill, her mind already racing with ideas on how to use what she had found. The Mackinaw needed more protection, that was for sure. Some extra armor plating, maybe reinforced windows. A little more power under the hood wouldn’t hurt either. The other materials would either go towards upgrading her home or enhancing her gear. She had a lot of ideas that needed testing, plus a skill to level up.