January 28th, 2069
Aldecaldo Clan Camp
Inside a small tent, a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man sat hunched on a folding chair, deep in thought. A heavy shadow of stubble darkened his jaw — Saul Bright, known among nomads as the leader of the Aldecaldo clan. He looked to be in his early forties, maybe forty-five at most — and that was pretty close to the mark.
It hadn't been long since Saul had the privilege — if you could call it that — of taking over one of the most respected nomad clans in North America. The title came with more than just weighty responsibilities; it came with a truckload of baggage the Aldecaldos had been dragging for years. Now, all of it was falling squarely on his shoulders. The biggest headache? A new crisis, courtesy of the freshly minted NUSA president and her latest announcement. Overnight, her declaration had knocked the wind out of the clan. People who had been laughing and planning for the future just days ago now walked around like ghosts.
Saul couldn't stand it. He'd spent the past forty-eight hours chasing answers — anything to snap his people out of their daze. But when he sat down to figure out what could actually be done, only one answer kept surfacing: the Aldecaldos had to change. Drastically. No more living job to job. No more smuggling. That life was a dead end, and everyone knew it — even if no one wanted to admit it.
Sure, smuggling brought in decent eddies. Sure, the corps turned a blind eye most of the time — compared to their own bloody backroom deals, the Aldecaldos were practically saints. And sure, they'd gotten lucky. But that luck? It was running on fumes. Saul could see it plain as day. Everyone else was still chasing the dream of fast, easy cash. No one wanted to talk about what came after.
So Saul made the call. Forced the issue. The first sign came in the form of Militech patrols — real ones, not the half-assed drive-bys. They'd set up shop right along the state lines, and just like that, the usual smuggling routes turned to ash. The fallout was immediate.
Before the war, the Aldecaldos had managed. They'd scraped by, supported one another, and never felt the squeeze too hard. Now? They were bleeding. They needed money, and they needed it yesterday. Otherwise, the clan would fracture under the pressure — and Saul wasn't going to let that happen.
One option seemed both simple and logical: sign a long-term contract with one of the corps. Plenty of other nomad clans had done it. But after President Myers's little speech, that option was poison. Signing up with a corp now meant dragging the Aldecaldos into a shooting war. Best-case scenario? They'd lose a third of their people in the first month. No payout was worth that kind of blood.
Even if the deals were good — and they were — Saul couldn't do it. He couldn't trade lives for eddies. Not when those lives were his family.
Even in this all-consuming pit of shit, there was a flicker of hope. Saul's search for something — anything — resembling steady work had led him to some promising intel on BioTechnica. A string of sudden deaths among their top brass meant that a controlling stake in the company was about to hit the open market — just as soon as the corpo lawyers finished chewing through their own red tape.
Knowing full well he wouldn't be the only shark in the water, Saul moved fast. He reached out to the clan's best netrunner. The goal was simple: grab at least a sliver of stock — just enough to buy the Aldecaldos a little breathing room, maybe even a lifeline. Time was the one currency Saul didn't have, and he was ready to fight tooth and nail for every last second he could steal.
His eyes dropped from the dirt floor to the man in the netrunner chair. Wiry, wired, and half-conscious — Varick Force. For years, he and Dakota Smith had been the Aldecaldos' go-to deckheads. If Dakota hadn't shipped off for a gig in the next state just yesterday, Saul wouldn't have had to lean so hard on Varick. But here they were — and the stakes weren't exactly small.
Saul knew the clan's liquid funds wouldn't cover more than a hundredth of a percent of BioTechnica's market cap. But even that fraction could be enough to get a foot in the door, to build something real. The key was speed. Beat the brokers, or get left in the dust.
Suddenly, Varick's eyes snapped open.
Saul exhaled — a breath he hadn't even noticed holding — and waited while the man clawed his way back to reality, shaking off the post-dive haze that came after a deep Net run.
"Talk to me. How much did you get?" Saul asked, the moment he saw something resembling awareness behind the runner's eyes.
"Keep it down… my skull's still cracking…" Varick muttered, avoiding Saul's gaze. A long silence followed. Then came the answer, flat and final.
"Nothing. It's… complicated. Someone bought everything. Instantly."
"What the hell?!" Saul snapped, fists clenching as his voice dropped to a furious hiss. "Why didn't we even get a single goddamn share?!"
"Because we weren't the only ones watching," Varick said after a pause. "These were pros, Saul. High-level ops. My guess? They're the ones behind the BioTechnica hits. Coordinated, fast, surgical. And honestly? We're lucky. If they'd noticed us sniffing around, they would've buried this clan without blinking. We're nothing to them. Dust under their boots."
He slumped back in the chair, staring at the ceiling like he was trying to forget the Net even existed.
His words landed hard. The fury burning in Saul's chest fizzled into cold silence. He sank onto the stool behind him, ran a hand through his hair, and stared at the floor, unmoving. Quiet. Processing.
First, he had to admit it — what happened at BioTechnica looked like a coordinated op. The string of murders, the chaos that followed... it all had the fingerprints of something carefully engineered. Sure, there were probably layers of manipulation buried beneath the surface, stuff no one on the outside would ever see. But the core of it? Clear as day. They'd just witnessed the endgame of one of those classic corpo shadow wars — the kind you don't stick your nose into unless you've got serious firepower behind you.
Running through the shortlist of who might've pulled it off, Saul landed on the most obvious name.
"Only outfit that fits the profile is Militech…" he muttered, thinking aloud for Varick's benefit. "And knowing what our 'beloved' President's been up to lately, I wouldn't be shocked if she's got a hand in it herself."
"You think they just went and swallowed a whole corporation on the eve of war?" Varick said, scratching at his neck. "Honestly? Makes sense. They're gearing up — cutting costs on meds, tech, logistics, all the frontline essentials. Snagging BioTechnica gets them all that on the cheap."
"Shit, even here…" Saul started, but the words died in his throat. A voice outside the tent caught his attention — Bob, mumbling something under his breath. Too low to make out. Saul froze, listening, then decided to handle it himself.
He stepped outside and found himself facing a small knot of familiar faces — Bob Sagan, Mitch Anderson, Driss Merian, and Teddy Simos. Whatever Bob had been whispering cut off immediately. He looked like he'd just swallowed a bolt.
Saul narrowed his eyes.
"Well? You gonna say something, or just stand there breathing dust?" His tone came out sharper than he intended, all steel and edge. It wasn't until a few seconds later that he realized how harsh it had sounded. But the pressure building in his chest didn't leave much room for tact.
He exhaled. Loosened his stance.
"Alright. Spit it out."
Bob hesitated. Shifted his weight.
"It's like this, Saul…" he began, voice cautious. "We've been talking. All of us. And… we signed a contract. With Militech."
The words hit like a gut punch. Saul blinked. Just stood there, trying to process it. Seeing that reaction — too still, too quiet — Bob rushed to explain before the blowback landed.
"I know what you're thinking, but try to see it from our side. The clan's in deep, and we need the eddies. This isn't grunt work — they want us for Basilisk units. Real roles. Pilots." He paused, watching Saul like he was trying to read a fuse timer. "Tankers pull serious pay. And the risk? It's way lower than running rogue ops. We'll have gear, backup, insurance… hell, even a real paycheck."
Saul arched a brow — one of those slow, aristocratic moves that said I'm listening, but I don't like it. His eyes swept the group.
The other three nodded in near-unison.
He inhaled through his nose, scratched his stubble with the edge of his thumb. Counted to ten. They hadn't moved a muscle.
"For fuck's sake, man — lose the funeral look," Teddy said, breaking the silence. The big, bald nomad had chrome trailing along the right side of his face, etched into the skin like industrial tattoos. "At least we're trying to make something happen."
"Maybe he just wanted to bail himself, and we just beat him to it," Mitch chimed in, piling onto the joke. The others cracked up, and even Saul couldn't help the dry smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Hey! What the hell is this about a war?!" a sharp voice cut through the moment like a blade.
All heads turned as a dark-skinned, raven-haired woman rounded the corner, eyes wide and posture rigid. Trouble — Panam Palmer, in full force.
"Panaaaam," the group groaned in collective dread, like men already sentenced. They knew what was coming: the shouts of one very loud woman were about to bring the whole damn camp running.
"Well, congrats. Now the entire clan's gonna hear about it," Saul muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose before turning to Varick, who had just stepped out of the tent. "Force — round up our people. If we can't talk them out of this, the least we can do is give them a real send-off."
"What the hell is going on?!" Panam barked, but the nomads didn't answer.
Deliberate silence. Calculated avoidance.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!"