Establishing a secure communications channel
Outgoing call – Zorg (Free Problems)
Call accepted – connection established
"You picked up fast." A weary voice crackled through the comms. The face on the holo was a blond, and he looked like hell.
"I don't like loose ends. So, let's hear – what's your offer?"
"Alright, no sense dancing around it," the fixer said, his voice dropping into his native tongue. "Alex, I'm screwed. Badly."
"How badly? Give me a ballpark, so I know whether to book you a one-way ticket to hell."
"Someone dumped a datashard on me and my crew to the whole Net. Now every lowlife with a grudge is trying to take me out. With the country in the middle of an all-out war, they're using the chaos to make their move. The backroom games aren't so 'backroom' anymore – they've escalated to something a lot dirtier."
"So let me get this straight: you want to drag me into your corporate soap opera and dump part of your mess on my plate?" I couldn't help but lace my voice with a hint of sarcasm.
"Exactly. And you know damn well I hate owing anyone." His tone sharpened, shifting from strained to steady as if he'd straightened his spine on the other end of the call. "Name what you want, and I'll get it for you."
"Zorg, you know it's not about the money. You of all people know eddies mean jack to me. I can pull a few thousand in seconds if I gave a damn." I took a long breath, forcing myself to cool down. No sense snapping at Zorg – he wasn't the kind of guy you wanted to make an enemy of, even if he'd given me a decent excuse to bite back. "I've got a family, and their safety comes first. I don't touch jobs that smell of the corps – the kind that could land me and my people in a shallow grave. And your mess? It reeks of that… or worse."
If I was being brutally honest, my family's safety wasn't what gnawed at me most. I could handle that on my own – ship them out to the Badlands, leave them with the Aldecaldos, and no one would ever find them. No, what really had me curious was just how far Zorg was willing to go to pull me into his storm. I wasn't about to wade into his political quagmire – not after what happened to Jeremy and Marco – unless he made it worth my while.
"If it's security you're worried about, I can make arrangements," Zorg said. "In the Union, no one – corp or otherwise – will touch you or your family."
Now that was interesting. That wasn't just an offer; it was practically a confession. He was hinting that someone high up the food chain back home had already taken an interest in me.
I didn't know every twist in the current Soviet Union's political games, but a statement like that isn't something you throw around lightly. And I couldn't help but wonder: was this about my skills as a tech and a medic – the ones Zorg knew only a fraction about – or was it about Lex, the other me? The one he knew all too well.
"Honestly? I'm touched by your offer, but I'm not exactly jumping at the chance. Neither Lex nor Alex is particularly eager to jump into this mess. But…"
That "but" landed with more weight than I expected. Even through the comms, I could feel him tense up.
"…there is one option. A nameless merc, never shown his face on the grid. If the guy works for you, we can talk details."
"And this mystery merc… what do I call him?" Richard played along.
"You don't. He prefers to stay strictly off the radar."
"And payment for his services?"
"Same as usual. Except triple the rate."
"Triple? You're bleeding me dry here," Zorg protested, but after a pause, he let out a long, heavy sigh and asked a question that made me want to laugh. "You're not building a nuclear bomb in your basement, are you? Why the hell do you need that much?"
"Call it… a rainy day fund," I deflected with a dry chuckle. Truthfully? If I told him what I was really up to, a nuke would sound like child's play.
"Fine. Here's hoping your guy isn't some Johnny Silverhand wannabe planning to blow up a Biotechnica tower in the middle of the city."
"He's not that stupid or self-absorbed. He won't drag civilians into someone else's war."
"Alright then. Let me give you the rundown on our new problem." Richard's voice shifted back to his usual sharp, businesslike tone, the cheer returning like muscle memory.
"A massive data leak hit today. Sent the whole damn system into chaos. Some people were taken out already; others were smart enough to cut ties and go dark. SovOil and Techtronica are no help – they can't cover me on this one. Even if they could, corporate ties don't guarantee safety. You've been in the merc scene long enough to know: there's no such thing as real security in our world. Everyone has a weakness. And I'm no exception.
"Right now, I'm caught squarely between a rock and a hard place. To get out of this pinch, I need room to maneuver. Lying low in Night City is nearly impossible for someone like me – I stick out too much. One of my safehouses already got hit and stripped clean, but thankfully there was nothing of value there. No one knows my current location – not even Jeremy or Marco – so for now, I'm relatively secure.
"But the city's about to be crawling with bloodhounds for the next week. Tell your crew to keep their heads down. They're not a priority target, or even secondary, but caution never hurts."
"Let's just say… we've got an idea to deal with this problem a little more permanently."
"Let's hear it," Zorg replied, sounding almost amused as he began to regain his trademark upbeat tone.
"We're going to play a little game of Russian fishing."
At first, he didn't get it. Then the meaning clicked.
"You do realize how dangerous that is, right? My people aren't exactly hardened solos. If it goes sideways, they'll get flatlined, and not even MaxTac will blink."
"Relax. I've got eyes on them, and right now, they're just sitting tight."
"Sometimes I wonder how you manage to be everywhere at once."
"Part of the job. It requires… a unique approach to handling business."
"Fine. Do what you need to do – just don't get carried away," Zorg gave his final word of caution before signing off. "And remember this, Alex: a good merc isn't the one who makes a name for himself in history. It's the one who lives long enough to grow old."
"I'll keep that in mind."
As the words left my lips, I heard a faint, satisfied chuckle on his end before he abruptly killed the call.
***
Errands done. My legs carried me home on autopilot. All I wanted was to crash.
The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the apartment was that one pair of shoes was missing from the rack by the door. I shrugged mentally, kicked mine off, and headed straight for the kitchen. Hunger hit me like a freight train – I'd skipped dinner last night and hadn't even bothered with breakfast this morning.
In the dining area, I found Sasha quietly sipping tea, scrolling some vid on her datapad.
"Everyone cleared out already?" I asked as I came up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist.
"Kiwi's still asleep, and Vega's in your office. She said she's finishing up some program. Lucy grabbed her guitar and disappeared without a word. And Roxy? She's in her room, practicing what you showed her yesterday."
"So, didn't miss much, then." I released her and dropped into the empty chair beside her.
"Hungry?" she asked warmly, glancing up from her screen.
"I could eat a whole damn elephant," I smirked.
"Sit. I'll get you something."
"Huh," I mused, a faint smile touching my lips. Maybe today wasn't a total loss after all.
"Here you go," Sasha said, quickly setting food on the table before fixing me with a look that practically screamed: 'Now spill. What's going on?'
"Alright, alright, you extortionist." I chuckled, giving a theatrical cough into my fist before laying out the morning's events.
"So, long story short, an assassin jumped the crew this morning. Probably Kang Tao. She didn't have time to do anything irreversible, but Marco got roughed up pretty bad. Jeremy managed to slice her arm clean off, and from the tattoos, we traced her back to one of the oldest assassination syndicates in the world."
"Well, now I see why Kiwi thinks that friend of yours, Marco, is nothing but trouble," Sasha snorted.
"In his defense, he wasn't the target. Chances are, they were using Ramirez as a stepping stone to get to his fixer. They probably wanted to neutralize Marco and squeeze whatever intel they could out of him."
I paused, taking a bite. "Thing is, Marco's boss is having problems of his own. Someone leaked a pile of his sensitive data onto the Net – the kind of stuff that gets people zeroed. And the Chinese? They're just using the chaos in the NUSA as cover. Trying to stir the pot, make a move, and then ghost before anyone knows what hit them."
I leaned back. "It's all political bullshit, really. The Union and its corps are stonewalling Beijing, trying to keep them out of the American market. On top of that, the USSR tore up its contracts with China after the last big international scandal. The Chinese overstepped, got slapped down hard for it, and honestly? They had it coming."
I took a sip of hot tea while Sasha processed what I'd just dropped on her.
"So…" she said, arching a delicate brow at me. "They're basically looking to settle a grudge and have the last word?"
"Couldn't have said it better myself." I nodded, then threw in a little more detail – give her something to chew on. "That's why, on top of the mercs he's already got on payroll, Zorg wants to drag me into this mess."
"Knowing you, you're going to stick your nose in anyway." Sasha snorted again. I shot her a look. She knew me too damn well.
"Almost," I admitted. "Neither Alex nor Lex has any plans to jump into this little corporate turf war. But… a random, completely unknown merc? That's a different story."
Then, I triggered the nanites. My reflection in the window shimmered as my skin tone deepened slightly, my hair lightened, and a lattice of faint scars and blemishes appeared across my face. Nothing drastic – just enough to ensure no one could connect this stranger to me. Unless I decided to give myself away.
I'd ripped the idea straight out of a Militech black project. Their field agents have been using similar tech for years. The difference? They relied on specialized facial implants. Me? I'd perfected a fine mist of nanomachines that mimicked the effect – subtle, seamless, and way harder to detect.
The hardest part had been teaching my little swarm to understand exactly what I wanted. But Vega… Vega cracked that problem like it was child's play. Even improved the end result. Now I had one hell of a tool for my line of work.
I was starting to think it was time to let "Lex" retire for good.
"You're like some secret agent out of an old spy flick," Sasha murmured, studying my new face with barely concealed curiosity.
"Volkov. Aleksandr Volkov," I shot back, deadpan. My best Bond.
Her lips curled in a smirk. Good. Joke landed.
"That's cute and all," she said, resting her chin on her hand, "but tell me – why the hell would you pile even more trouble onto your plate?"
"Picture this," I began, leaning back in my chair. "The world's one massive forest, and for years now, it's been bone dry. One careless spark, and the whole thing goes up in flames. That spark? The megacorps. They're chasing profit on every continent, and they'll do anything to get it. Hell, they'll rewrite the rules of war if it suits them. When two giants like that collide, it starts small. Backroom deals, economic warfare, posturing. But eventually, the bad blood boils over. That's when the gloves come off. Industrial espionage, targeted killings, sabotage, false flags – you name it. And when that phase burns out, the shadow war spills into the open. I've seen the history vids: cities leveled, thousands dead on both sides. And when they've burned through everything else, there's always one last card to play – mutually assured destruction. Nuclear gifts, raining down on their rivals."
"You know, you've basically just given me your own personal retelling of the Fourth Corporate War." Sasha smirked. "But you still haven't answered my question."
"Patience." I took a small sip of tea – lukewarm by now – before continuing. "Look, if we're cutting through the noise, the cold war between SovOil and Kan-Tao is a direct echo of the old conflict between KINO and OTEC, with Militech and Arasaka playing the role of friends holding baseball bats behind their backs. The difference this time? The powder keg could go up a hell of a lot faster – and without any concern for international fallout. Back then, Arasaka and Militech operated as true independents. They didn't answer to the states where they'd set up shop. And the only reason things didn't end in full-scale nuclear winter was because they mutually destroyed enough of each other's infrastructure to give the rest of the world room to breathe. Barely. Even so, humanity nearly slid back into an early 20th-century level of existence. Radiation levels spiked globally. Nature, already hanging by a thread thanks to climate catastrophes, gave us the middle finger and checked out. Resources were scarce, and to top it off, the Net – overflowing with viruses and rogue AIs – was nuked almost beyond repair by Rache Bartmoss. Even now, decades later, the problems from that war haven't been fully contained. Hell, NetWatch has only managed to restore about forty percent of the global network. One more war on that scale? The world won't survive it. And that brings us to why I agreed to help the Union. If we can take out one corp before the others pile on for their slice of the chaos, the rest won't even flinch. No one's eager to start a feeding frenzy if they think there's nothing left to gnaw on. So the idea is simple: help one side quietly rest in peace. Between the two evils, I picked the Soviets. They're not saints, but they sit a little closer to my moral comfort zone than the Chinese."
"I want to scream about how you've just fried my brain again... but really, I brought this on myself." Yakovleva sighed, covering her face with one hand. "What I don't get is how one guy – you – thinks he can sway something on this scale."
"History's full of examples of lone wolves flipping the board. You just have to dig for them. But if you want the real answer..."
"Based on what I know, Zorg – and the fixer Marco, who I've had the occasional honor of working with – have already slowed the growth of several corps. They've also exposed a slew of corporate crimes, forcing the big players to waste time and resources cleaning up their own messes."
"And up until now? None of those corps have figured out who's behind it – or how they're pulling it off."
"Sounds like you secretly admire him."
"Maybe. Truth is, I think he's a very smart man – and I've always found it easy to get along with smart people. Besides, by helping him out now, I can count on him to return the favor if things ever go south for me. Call it a contingency plan… a safe harbor for my family if the worst happens."
"Alright, I get it." Sasha suddenly clapped her hands together with a loud smack. "You've got a plan for every possible scenario."
"I try to act based on the circumstances." I shrugged, amused by the tortured expression on the pretty brunette's face.
"If by 'circumstances' you also mean us meeting in the first place, then yeah… I'm not surprised at all." She let out a short sigh before flashing me her trademark sly smile.
"Sometimes I feel like trouble has a way of finding me. Even back when I was living with the nomads, I somehow managed to stumble into all kinds of… adventures."
"Now that I want to hear." Sasha rested her chin in her hands, her posture practically screaming that I had her full attention for whatever stories I was about to tell.
"I remember one funny incident. It happened during my very first month in the camp…"