Never Fade Away: I'd Trade It All for Your Sweet Embrace (ch. 13) (Patreon)

I squeezed the trigger, the gun bucking in my hand as the bullet bounced off a sharply angled wall, striking the ground, and still ripped through the kneecap of a man that was taking cover behind a concrete barricade. I heard him cry out, but through a camera, I saw him fall to the ground, clutching his knee before his hands scrambled for an inhaler. He took a hit from it, breathing deeply before he jumped right back up on his feet, completely ignoring how his kneecap was missing. Bullets slammed into the stone pillar that I was hiding behind, the man screaming a primal roar to either intimidated me or convince himself that he wasn't afraid.

Shifting the gun, I lined up a shot. I couldn't see the guy behind me, but through a camera that overlooked the not-so-abandoned warehouse that we were in, I saw the ricochet outline line up a perfect shot. Pointing the gun at the floor, the bullet bounced off the concrete, struck the wall directly ahead of me, and passed over to the other side of the building, striking another wall, before the bullet slammed into the back of his head. The bullet didn't have enough force to pass through it, but getting a bullet to the brainstem was fatal enough. The man jerked, his legs giving out and his body tumbled over.

Just like that, the warehouse was filled with silence. Stepping out of the cover, I saw six men dead laying around the place with only one man left in the entire building. Who seemed to understand his position. "I'll fucking triple whatever that bitch is paying you!" I heard Tony McHeart shout at the top of his lungs from the office upstairs. Man in his late eighties but looked to be in his early twenties, brown hair, clean shaven, and he wore snakeskin boots. The job was a Gun for Hire.

David taught me that the detes were important, but at some point, they were starting to blend together. The reason why Tony was about to die wasn't about to change -- for money. The reason why someone was willing to pay to kill him? Something about a business deal that he cut his partner out of at the last minute, leaving her with nothing. Or something. Like I said, the gigs started to blur together.

In response to his generous offer, I looked through the camera in the office. Tony had a frag grenade in his hand, ready to toss it down. Unfortunately for him, he also had two prosthetic arms. Uploading a quick hack to his system, the robotic arms followed through the instructions I uploaded -- priming the grenade and pressing it to his chest. Naked panic was on his face as Tony realized that he couldn't stop the action, "No- Nooo-!"

He was cut off by an explosion that ripped through him and the office. Sliding the gun into the holster beneath my shoulder, I began my well-practiced looting. Guns were gathered up, drugs too, though they were rarer. The gonks' vehicles were already on their way to a half dozen chop shops. And, once I called my Zeya around, I loaded up the bodies and everything else that seemed like it could, theoretically, have value. The Zeya was already getting loaded up -- the six bodies were added to another twenty that were in it and when I opened the back door, a small river of blood spilled down into the floor.

Once everything was loaded up, I hopped in the car and gave Regina the confirmation that the gig was done. And I was once again on my way.

Regina gave me a ring, "Good work, L. And you earned some extra scratch -- the man certainly died scared. Sending over a nice tip your way." Instead of the normal thousand five hundred eddies, three thousand flowed into my account.

"Do you have anything else for me?" I questioned, pulling into the traffic.

"You're a hungry one, L. I'd be careful about that. Leave enough for the rest, or they'll start gunning for you to free up some gigs," Regina remarked. She made it sound like she was casual, but I could tell that there was a genuine warning in her voice. David said much the same a couple of weeks ago.

"Let them know where I'm at then," I responded, unimpressed. If they were the type to complain about me taking the work from them, then they weren't the type that I had to worry about. If they came at me? Then I'd zero them and toss their body in the trunk. I heard Regina chuckle at that.

"I like the attitude. Sending another gig your way. Search and Destroy. Deets in the message as always," Regina said and I got the message. Ex-wife wanted her ex-husband's car destroyed. Didn't care how. To the chop shop it would go. "Keep it up, L. People have been noticing your work ethic and rumors are floating that there are ten of you running the streets. I'd expect a few calls from other fixers, but don't you go forgetting about little ol me." With that, Regina ended the call and I let the car drive.

Leaning back into my seat, I reached out into the NCPD security that ran throughout the entire city. As it turned out? The NCPD network didn't have great counter-intrusion programs. Not enough to keep me out, at any rate. Going through the address, I sorted through nearby security cameras to find that a traffic camera had a view of the house in the Glenn. Pinging off the nearby system, I found the subnet of the house.

Breach chewed through it, granting me access to the subnet within the house -- control over doors, garage, and alarms. There weren't any cameras within the house except for a computer webcam that I peered through after giving myself access. I saw the ex-husband and probably the reason for the divorce going at it on a desk. Lifting the cyber key off of him, I used it on the car in question -- a sleek-looking Villefort Alvarado "Vato" that was black and silver. Opening up the garage, I sent the car to a chop shop with its GPS.

I held off on sending that the gig was complete until I got a message from the chopshop that they got the car and sent me my eddies. Plus a nice five hundred extra for the nice ride.

‘Very nice, L. Talk about speed. Sending you your eddies,’ Regina messaged me, and in total, I gained about three thousand eddies for the job. Not bad at all. ‘Don’t have anything else on the tee for now, but when something gets sent my way, you’ll be the first to know.’ She closed the message off with, meaning that I was done for the day. With that in mind, I set my destination to Whole Foods.

Regina hadn’t outright said it in so many words, but I’m pretty sure that I was her top merc. So far, I hadn’t failed a job or any of the extra stipulations that were tacked on for the client's preference -- from doing the job without being seen, letting someone know who was behind the gig, or, as seen with Tony, having them die in a specific way. In this case, scared. In the past two weeks, I had radically ramped up the number of gigs I did a day and I only stopped when Regina ran out.

Each eddie felt like tangible progress and my accounts were rapidly building up to the magical number of a million eddies. I was closing in on the halfway point already. A few more weeks, and I’d almost be there. It wouldn’t be all of the money that I would need, but it would be a really good start and money would open a lot of doors for the kids.

And I was getting more. “Dum-Dum. Got another load for ya,” I told the man, standing outside of Whole Foods. The intercom flared to life and I heard a rustling on the other side.

“Hm. Industrious. Opening the door for ya, L,” Dum-Dum responded and as usual the door opened up. Dum-Dum looked a little different, but that wasn’t exactly anything new. Everyone in Maelstorm was constantly changing their look. I saw him wearing a projectile launcher that I had brought in. In one hand, he had a Militech Mk. 31 HMG in hand, one arm bulked up to handle the recoil. Another weapon of my design.

I didn’t really know anything about guns, but I didn’t need to. Not when I could take them apart piece by piece while building a blueprint that could then be mass-produced through my fabricator. How did the gun work? No idea. Did the gun work? Yes. Yes, it did. That was the heavy firepower that I had promised and Maelstorm was a fan of it.

“How many this time?” Dum-Dum questioned me as the well-oiled procedure took place. The door was opened up, the bodies were dragged out, and people poked about the guns, drugs, and grenades that I had available. “Twenty-six? Ice cold. At this rate, you’ll have a body count higher than anyone I know in Maelstorm,” he remarked, sounding impressed. I brought bodies every other day. Sometimes as few as three. Other times as many as thirty. I’m not sure how many people I’ve killed to this point.

I did know why they were dead, though. And that was enough to let me continue.

“Nothing special this time,” I sidestepped the remark. Dum-Dum’s systems opened up to me with a ping, allowing me to see what he was shoving in his body. His listed implants was a long exhaustive list but the same could be said for anyone in Maelstorm. Since I came back to doing this, since Becca couldn’t be with me every time, I sicced the Skeleton Key on them. For the past two weeks, it had been infiltrating their systems at a slow, sluggish pace, but three days ago I gained complete access to the subnet that this group of Maelstorm worked under.

Beyond the garage, something that I had never seen, were fifty-six members of Maelstorm. I knew where they were in the building, I knew what implants they had, and I could…

“Can’t always be a winner,” Dum-Dum shrugged, dismissing the issue before he presented me with another wad of bills. “Your cut. Maybe look into getting a little more chrome yourself. Got a decent start with the hand,” Dum-Dum recommended. “Might be able to find a place for you in the gang. We appreciate talent.”

“I’m taking it a bit slow, but I’m looking to get chromed up eventually. Might take you up on that at some point,” I responded, lying through my teeth. Dum-Dum didn’t seem to notice because he just cracked a smile as I tucked the bills into my pocket. Experience told me that it was another three thousand eddies. A decent haul.

However, I did notice that ever since Doc got flatlined, the take was a little light. They were struggling to find another ripperdoc to sell the implants too, I think. I never said anything about it. I knew better than to push my luck.

“Any word on the job?” Dum-Dum questioned, sounding curious.

“Not yet, but get ready to jump. If it’s happening, then it's going to happen soon,” I told him, not knowing myself when Militech would be ‘adopting’ Subject Zero. The Skeleton Key worked through the Wayward Home for Girl’s ICE, enough so to convince me that the exchange hadn’t happened yet. Only that it would and it was expected ‘soon.’ The orphanage was put on standby, but specifics were lost to me. The ICE got a lot thicker the deeper you went, likely specifically to counter corporate Netrunners.

“Sounds amusing. Be good to finally test the hardware. Happy hunting, L,” Dum-Dum responded as I pulled the truck back once the bodies were taken. The transaction was over. Simple and clean without any fuss. The rest of the stops went the same way -- a pharmacist up in Northside that bought the drugs, weapon dealers across Night City that bought the weapons, and the chop shops were already working on the vehicles. All together? Another five thousand eddies worth of profit.

The ride back was uneventful -- Pacifica never bothered me outside of the initial days, before people realized that I would shoot back when they took shots at me. The car had to be left a floor above the bottom level because I had a makeshift wall put up to make it a little harder to get in. It was complete with two security turrets that I purchased on the cheap for eight thousand eddies each.

Progress had been steady by any measurement. The GN Drive Mk.1 was still going strong and with batteries of tests, I was honing in on how to get rid of the radiation from the particles. For now, I just put shielding around the Drive to prevent contamination. The power it provided powered two Material Recyclers and two Fabricators, one for smaller projects and one for larger projects. The latter had built the wall out of high-density armor that I had copied from a door that I had found in the dump.

My stockpile was always being stressed by the near-constant production of items -- implants, weapons, grenades. Some to sell, but others to use. There were gunracks set up along the walls filled with assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, and pistols. Ammo crates were both created, then filled with various sorts of ammo.

However, my current project was already nearing completion and, based on a beeping, the last piece of it was done. Heading over to the Macro Fabricator, I grabbed the half dozen nodules that it produced before heading over to the project that I was adding them onto. David had talked about the Chevillon Emperor 620 Ragnar I had wrecked upon leaving the orphanage and I gathered that the wreck had been bad enough that it had been completely totaled.

Over the past two weeks, I had been building one after purchasing one to base the model on. Thick armored platting, bulletproof glass that I ended up having to purchase, thick tires that were filled with foam. In addition, the small thin nodules that I was placing on the car would serve an additional function.

And, no sooner than I placed the last one… I got the notification.

It was time to rescue Subject Zero.

…

The transfer was under the radar, but Militech wasn’t taking any chances. Three separate convoys were coming in and out of the Home for Wayward Girls with two of them being fake. My tap into the subnet proved to be useless because the orphanage wasn’t informed what convoy Subject Zero would be in either. Lucy and Kiwi saved the day on that end -- between the two of them, they managed to learn specifically which convoy held Subject Zero.

A lot of the plan had to be improvised, but the outline was solid. Militech would be taking her out with a convoy of one AV and two tanks, as well as the truck that Subject Zero was in. I hadn’t seen her, but I did see that a cryogenic container had been loaded up, so she was currently out of it. The convoy itself would pass through the badlands following the Red Peaks then head north along Rocky Ridge.

However, there were three caveats. Within the city, there would only be the Behemoths that would then meet up with their respective convoys as designated locations where they would then be escorted out of Night City territory to the NUSA. Logic said that the best place to ambush them would be within the city, but that would be a death sentence -- between the cameras, squads of Militech soldiers, all on top of the police? Possibly Max-Tac?

No. It would be safer to hit them outside of the city when they had linked up with the rest of the convoy and they were far enough outside of the city limit -- such as around the abandoned town of Rocky Ridge.

Arasaka had the exact same idea because, according to Lucy, that's where they had placed their ambush well in advance, proving that they had better intel than us. Lucy didn’t know what exactly they brought to the table, but they were confident that it could beat down whatever Militech had.

“Everyone in position?” I asked, sitting in the back of the car. Falco was behind the wheel with Kiwi seated next to him. David and Becca were seated next to me while Lucy was seated across.

Becca gave a thumbs up, eagerly stroking the dual HMGs that she was rocking. Her dual shotguns were strapped to her back, her assault rifles dangling at her sides, and her jacket was lined with a wide variety of grenades. David seemed focused while Lucy’s eyes were glowing red, hacking into the Arasaka communications while Kiwi worked on the Militech coms.

“Ready as we can be,” Falco responded, his gaze dead ahead at the open road that we would be racing down. He had some apprehension at driving a new and untested car, but he was taking it on faith that we would make it.

As much as the words had been directed at everyone within the vehicle, it was directed to who I was speaking to over comms as well.

‘Fuck you,’ Brick responded from the other end, the first time I had ever spoken to the man directly. ‘We’re hitting the convoy and taking our score. You bringing this to us is the only reason why you get a damn thing, so don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re in charge here.’ With that pointed message, he ended the call. However, I was in his systems.

“Dum-Dum. How much do you trust this brat?” Brick questioned, his group of Maelstorm all in the designated position. Only it wasn’t just his group but two other smaller groups as well, bringing their total up to near seventy seated between thirty vehicles. The plan was to wait for Militech and Arasaka to weaken each other, then pounce on both. Brick broke against the plan by bringing more people than I expected, but in this case, it was a good thing.

“I don’t,” Dum-Dum answered easily. “But L’s desperate for money. If he says it's a payday, then it’s a payday.” To that, Brick grunted.

They were sticking to the plan. Good. That's what I needed.

I looked down at the weapon of choice that was in my hands -- a sniper rifle. A jack point into the weapons systems would connect to my optics and implants, making it deadly accurate. I purchased the crafting spec from a gun vendor in Arroyo and it hadn’t come cheap. It was well worth it, however. The Techtronika SPT32 Grad was exactly what I needed for this job -- precision and power.

“This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” Kiwi remarked from the front seat as we waited for the fireworks to start.

“That's because you need to live a little,” Becca responded, grinning from ear to ear as she gazed lovingly at the weapons that I had printed out for her. Each was a powerful weapon with explosive-tipped bullets, and the recoil on them was bad enough that me firing it would shatter bone if it didn’t rip my arm right off. The idea of Becca dual wielding them was honestly kind of scary. “Ain’t no different than the usual smash and grab.”

“Except for the tanks, drones, and robots,” Kiwi replied, her tone dry as the sand around us. There was a note of exasperation in her voice. And resignation. Her legs and arms were crossed in the passenger seat, looking out the window before blowing smoke through a small crack in it. “The only reason I’m here is the promise that this shit storm won’t be connected to us.”

That felt like it was directed at me. “If all goes to plan, no one will know it was us. Maelstrom will take the fall for it.” The only one who knew of what I planned would be V. It’s possible that she informed those up the chain, but I harbored doubts that she did. I can’t imagine me murdering a person of interest beneath her nose looked great for her. Letting me get away, less so. If I was a soulless scum-sucking corpo, then I wouldn’t pass that tidbit of information along. No.

Instead, what I would do was keep what I planned to myself. When Arasaka lost Subject Zero as well, I would be the one that ‘found’ her along with me. It looked far more impressive because a crisis would be introduced, and V would be the big damn hero that solved it for Arasaka.

“Really willing to burn that bridge?” Kiwi questioned, and I shrugged. My current relationship with Maelstrom was convenient for me, but I had no sense of attachment to them. It was a cold, calculated, ruthless move, but one that I needed to make to get Subject Zero out.

I didn’t answer verbally because Falco spoke up, “They’re in sight.” He voiced, bringing my attention to the window. I saw the Behemoth transport truck at the center of the convoy and it was flanked by two Militech Lincoln Mk.3 tanks, the latest iteration of them complete with three auto cannons and a double barrel railgun for continuous firing. They propelled themselves forward with thrusters. Flying above was an AV that was ready to drop Militech drones and manticores.

Falco let out a low whistle at all of the firepower -- it was a sight to see. It didn’t seem like a whole lot, but that small force could probably take out a small army of foot soldiers like it was nothing. Almost in sync with his whistle, another tore through the air as a missile leaped up from one of the buildings in Rocky Ridge, streaking towards the AV that banked out of the way. The missile struck the ground far off in the distance, an explosion leaping up that reverberated through the air.

And, with that, the fight began.

The Arasaka ambush revealed itself, three Hideyoshi Mk. 5 tanks erupted from the garages that they had been stuffed inside of as the Militech AV began dropping drones and minotaur machines. The Militech tanks surged forward, firing through buildings at the Arasaka tanks that I noticed were unmarked. As far as plausible deniability went, it was a rather token effort. A sense of awe washed over me as entire buildings were demolished in seconds, the opening salvo of the exchange laying waste to the abandoned town.

Missiles streaked through the air as the sound of cannons and gunfire echoed. It was a mesmerizing sight, watching a tank punch through a building like it wasn’t even there, firing all the while. The drones on both sides met in combat, tearing into each other while human personnel emerged from vehicles to exchange fire. I thought that between the machines, they would completely overshadow the exchanges between the people, but the exact opposite was true.

The soldiers on both sides were elites and outfitted with powerful weapons and implants -- reflex tuners that allowed soldiers to dodge bullets or move so fast that it was almost like they were teleporting. A soldier with Mantis Blades cut one soldier to pieces, only to have his torso pulverized with a bullet from a projectile launcher passing through him. The guns they used -- charge rifles or railguns -- tore through the buildings with almost as much ease as the tanks did.

All the while the transport truck hurled itself forward through the chaos. Directly towards us.

“Militech just requested backup,” Kiwi informed. I was tense, knowing that this was the one shot that we would get.

I also got an alert. “Maelstrom is moving in,” I muttered the words like a curse because it was too early. Neither side had punched each other out enough. It wasn’t the plan but I doubted that Maelstrom cared about the plan. They were here to get as much tech as they could before bouncing. Not ideal, but it was hardly a shock.

Maelstrom started to close in from their position at a CHOOM2 station and a handful of caves near the area, so they were closing in on all sides. How well that would work for them was anyone's guess, but for now, we had more important matters to deal with. The Behemoth was racing up the dirt path with the AV hovering above it, the drones unloaded, but it was still a gunship. That was my cue.

Standing up, I opened the hatch and brought up the sniper rifle. Setting up the bipod, my optics were hooked into the scope, and with my implants I could predict the trajectory of the bullet. I waited a long few seconds, my OS and the gun making the calculations to ensure that the shots would hit. Once I was certain, I pulled the trigger and it felt like my arm was about to get knocked out of its socket from the recoil.

The bullet itself struck true. The armor of the AV was dense. Extremely so. It was designed to eat hits from guns that packed more of a punch than the one I was using, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t knock the AV out of the sky. The bullet bounced off the dense armor and slammed into the thruster at a sharp angle where the thrusters were connected, ripping through it and damaging the internals. There was a small explosion as that thruster began to smoke.

The AV began to bank, shifting to figure out where the bullet had come from. At that moment, as it offered its side, I fired the gun again and the bullet ripped through the back thruster. The ones on the other side failed to adjust in time, causing the AV to spin sharply before the entire thing slammed into the ground with a thunderous crash. It flipped a half dozen times before settling upside down in the wake of the Behemoth. The transport truck itself was still blazing forward, trying to escape and reconnect with one of the other convoys that would be closing in.

It raced right past us, almost so close that I could reach out and touch it. Bits and pieces of sand, dust, and stone plinked off the car in the Behemoth’s wake. They made the cloaking field around the car ripple with red light on the points of impact before settling back down. I hadn’t been able to get my hands on cloaking tech -- it wasn’t commercially available, and finding it was tough on the streets. At least it was in the timeframe that I had.

That forced me to invent my own. It wasn’t as good. Something hitting it would make the red light ripple, and it didn’t do anything to dampen noise or hide a heat signature. The cloaking tech bent light around an object, so it wasn’t true invisibility. It worked best with a busy background and quick glances, but a long look would reveal the deception. However, for the job, it was good enough. It had to be.

As soon as the Behemoth raced past us, Falco gunned the engine and whipped the car around, placing us firmly in the Behemoth's dust trail. Lowering myself back in and closing the hatch, I looked to David. He gave a firm nod as he headed to the backdoor, accepting a ring of grenades from Becca. “Let's see those upgrades you’ve been talking about, choom,” Becca remarked, earning a cocky smirk from David.

“That’s the thing -- you won’t see me at all,” David informed before the backdoor suddenly opened and he vanished without a trace. I hadn’t been there for it, but David had been doing nothing but singing Vik’s praises in the past two weeks. He didn’t have quite the selection that Doc offered, but David seemed to think that was worth the trade off. “Brake in three… two… one!”

In response, Falco slammed his foot on the brakes at the same instant as the tires were blown off of the Behemoth, making the underbelly of the large vehicle scrape against the ground like a sled. We slowed down in response and I had a fraction of a second to brace myself for what was coming next. But, it was kind of like bracing yourself for getting kicked in the balls -- you couldn’t really get ready for it.

It felt like I blinked my eyes and I was no longer inside the back of the car but instead, I was in the driver’s seat in the Behemoth. My personal jack was already in the dash, and it was only because the program was already queued up that I was able to upload it. My stomach was doing flips inside of me, but between myself, Kiwi, and Lucy all chipping at the ICE, we breached it in a short second. I copied the IFF and flicked it to what was directly ahead of me.

Bending light was pretty good camouflage, but if you tweaked the settings, you could accomplish more with it. Such as outfitting a few shitty drones with it to copy the top of what the Behemoth would look like as they dragged an industrial fan to copy what the dust cloud it would leave in its wake. Anyone looking directly at it would instantly see that it was a decoy, but the people looking from above in a satellite? They’d have no clue.

Militech’s safety precautions ended up saving us. The tech was in the car itself, not Subject Zero. Simply because the Orphanage was seen as a security risk and they figured Arasaka would track her through any outputting signal. So, for now, Subject Zero was clean. Sending the copied IFF while masking the Behemoth itself would give us the window that we needed.

Calming my rebellious stomach, I opened up the back door and jumped out of the car, knowing that time was of the essence. Running through the dust cloud, I rounded the back to see that David was already opening up the doors. Hopping inside, I saw that the Behemoth was completely empty except for one thing. It almost looked like a coffin that sat against the far wall, the glass surface clouded over with frost.

Approaching, I disengaged the cryogenic coffin and cracked the case open, revealing who was inside.

Subject Zero was around my age. Maybe a year older or a year younger. Her head was shaved down, her skin carried a hint of a tan, and her build could best be described as lean. Reaching out, I started to extract her from the coffin, but the moment my hand touched her shoulder, Subject Zero’s eyes snapped open.

Her face twisted into a snarl while purplish black energy gathered around her hands…

I don’t think she was happy to see me.

When it felt like every single bone in my body was going to snap under an incredible pressure that suddenly bore down on me?

That's when I knew she wasn’t happy to see me.