January 31st, 2069
Japantown – Upper Levels
Dan Fei
"You finally showed up," the man noted flatly, not bothering to turn toward the figures who had just stepped through the doorway. His attention lingered on a message one of his subordinates had just sent him. Only after a beat did his silver eyes flick toward the mercs entering the room.
"What did you find out?"
"Not as much as we'd hoped," replied the redheaded woman, crossing her arms.
Dan Fei raised an eyebrow, silently prompting her to continue.
"That fixer covered his tracks well," Luc said with a frustrated sigh. "The apartment was a decoy, completely empty. And the names of the two mercs he hired? All we got was a rough idea of where they might be staying. We've only been in the city for a few weeks – we don't know this place. Tracking someone down without even a vague idea of their location is like chasing ghosts."
"Their names are more than enough," replied the white-haired Asian, his voice calm and steady. The chip-translator worked flawlessly, allowing everyone in the room to understand each other without knowing a word of the others' languages.
"The last thing we need is to get the cops sniffing around," the redhead's partner said, speaking up for the first time.
"Based on what we've uncovered so far, it's our only lead, Ship," she answered, addressing him by his callsign.
Luc didn't trust their employer. Like any merc with a few years under her belt, she preferred to keep a healthy distance between herself and whoever was paying the bills. Not everyone was keen on parting with their eddies when the job was done – and she'd had enough brushes with that kind of trouble to know better. Sure, the Chinese assassin paid well. Really well. But in her eyes, Dan Fei wasn't the kind of man who liked leaving witnesses behind. In fact, she was nearly certain he wouldn't.
After a month of working together, she'd sized him up. Her instincts, sharpened by hard-earned experience, told her everything she needed to know: the payout wasn't worth dying over. And she was already quietly laying the groundwork for an exit plan. Just in case.
"You don't have to worry about that," Fei said smoothly. "I'll have someone handle the data extraction. You two will be focused on something else."
His eyes lit up with a soft orange glow. A subtle flick of his fingers, and a small, round device in his palm began to hum. The mercs standing across from him stiffened on reflex.
Fei pretended not to notice and waited, expression unreadable, until the device projected a massive 3D hologram into the room – an intricate, full-scale map of Night City that hovered mid-air, rotating slowly.
"As you can see," he said, "this is the most complete and up-to-date map of the city available. It took some effort to get it in this form."
"And what exactly are we supposed to do with it?" Ship asked, stepping closer to the map. His gaze narrowed, locking onto several marked points – names attached. His and Luc's.
"It's pretty straightforward," the man said, the corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly, though the irritation in his voice lingered. He was still displeased with how his subordinate had botched the capture of the street merc. "You can't just grab someone off the street in a city this size. That 'Wanderer' got lucky. If she'd picked a fight in a busier district, she'd have half the NCPD crawling up her ass by now. And don't underestimate the local gangs either. Street rats might look harmless, but once they swarm, they're a real problem."
"That means we just keep digging alongside you," Luc summed up, shaking out her fiery mane with a dry snap of her head.
"Exactly," Fei nodded. "And if you happen to find any leads outside what my man scrapes from the police database, that'll make our primary objective significantly easier." His tone carried the self-satisfied arrogance of someone who fancied himself in charge.
Luc's brow twitched. So did Ship's.
"Arrogant prick."
Ship silently promised himself he'd put a bullet between the guy's eyes the moment he broke even one clause in their contract. The only thing keeping him in check right now was the sizable advance – one-third of the total payout. The remaining balance was enough to make swallowing Fei's attitude just barely tolerable. Mercs at their level were known for one thing: professional patience. Even with clients like this.
"In that case," Luc said abruptly, "we'd better get started now."
She spun on her heel, dragging her visibly annoyed partner toward the exit before he could start voicing the death threats playing in his head.
"Don't let me keep you," Fei's voice followed them, distant and muffled.
"I can keep it together," Pascal muttered once they were far enough down the corridor, yanking his arm free from Luc's grip.
"I can't. Which is why we're putting distance between us and that bastard," she shot back, arms crossed. "Honestly, I don't even care what he thinks of us anymore. He handed us a job, but didn't give us any kind of deadline. That means this mission could drag on indefinitely. I get the feeling those smug bastards don't want to work with us either – but for some reason, they need us. And that tells me there are only two ways this plays out."
"I'd say there's only one," Pascal said with a dry smirk, closing his eyes. "They need us for something dirty. Real dirty. Which means we're getting burned."
"Whatever. It's not like this is the first time someone's tried that," Luc scoffed, hopping up childishly onto the railing of a skybridge connecting two wings of the megacomplex. "He's not the first. Won't be the last."
"That sounded way too optimistic – even for you," Ship remarked, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he tried to lift her clearly sour mood.
"Don't worry about it. Let's just head back and get some rest," Luc said with a soft sigh, her eyes closing as a lazy yawn slipped out. "We've been on our feet since yesterday, and I could really use a good eight hours of sleep."
"Sounds like the stims are wearing off," Pascal observed, offering her his open hand. "Shall we?" he added with a slight tilt of his head and a gentle smile tugging at his lips.
Luc gave a tired nod, slipped her hand into his, and leaned her head against his shoulder. The two of them shuffled off after Ship in weary silence.
By the time they reached the tiny apartment they were renting, Pascal had already keyed the door open with his e-chip. Luc, half-asleep on his shoulder, barely registered being guided inside. Her eyes scanned the dim room with a dull haze, and it took everything she had not to collapse right there in the hallway. The stim crash was hitting fast, but sheer stubborn willpower kept her on her feet.
"Shower, then sleep?" Pascal asked, steadying her with one hand as she teetered. He studied her drooping eyes with a hint of concern.
"No strength," she murmured, shaking her head.
"Figures…" he muttered under his breath, letting out a sigh as he hefted her up without protest and carried her toward the shower, stripping off his gear and clothes along the way.
After a hasty rinse – more mechanical than refreshing – he returned, scooped up the now fully-out Luc, and carried her to bed. He tucked her in, pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, then gave the room a quick once-over, scanning for anything out of place. Finding nothing that raised his suspicions, Pascal let his tired body give in. He collapsed beside her, arms instinctively pulling the sleeping redhead close as sleep claimed him without a fight.
***
February 1st, 2069
Japantown – Upper Levels
Alex Mitchell (Volkov)
"Damn rain."
I muttered under my breath, scowling as I tilted my head to shield my face from the constant drizzle.
Wandering through what used to be the famous flea market, I couldn't help but get a little nostalgic. This place – soaked in the stink of cheap drugs, trash, and burnt synthetic food – used to be where Susan and I spent entire days holed up in our own little world. I closed my eyes for a second, letting memory wash over me like static from a half-dead datachip. It took me back to when everything was new – when I was still figuring out the unspoken rules of this city, this life.
A lot had changed while I was gone. The market had ballooned into something massive, cramped, and overflowing. There wasn't a single spare patch of pavement anymore. Booths stood shoulder to shoulder, packed so tight it was a struggle to weave between them, let alone imagine anyone squeezing in another stall.
Pushing my way through the dense crowd, I kept an eye out – casually, but with purpose. Right now, all I had was a rough sketch of two targets: the possible leader of that hit-squad crew, Dan Fei, and the blue-haired girl who'd jumped Marco yesterday. Honestly, from the outside, my search probably looked like a hopeless attempt to spot a needle in a pile of razors – but I already had a few ideas brewing on how to tip the odds in my favor.
Japantown was crawling with surveillance. Cameras on every corner, watching, recording, streaming every blink, every breath. No surprise there – Westbrook's entertainment district was a goldmine, and nobody wanted that kind of cash flow collapsing under its own chaos. You can't have that kind of money funneling through a place without locking it down tight. Total control was the only way to keep the system running. And that worked just fine for me.
The city's network security? Mediocre, at best – especially for someone like me. Getting in, planting a couple of silent tracking routines to follow anyone I tagged… nothing too fancy. Even a half-decent amateur could pull it off if they stayed out of sight.
Each high-rise in the megablock had its own closed server hub – tucked away, off-limits to civilians. That's where the real feed ran: full access to every cam in that building's slice of the Red Light District. As far as I knew, there were four major routing points for all traffic in the sector. But I wouldn't need to hit them all. Get into one, and the rest could be reached remotely with the right code and enough finesse.
I made my way to the right floor and scoped out a quiet corner in advance. Once there, I activated my mimicry system – no reason to take unnecessary risks. The room I needed was up on a restricted maintenance level. Normally you'd need a keycard to get in, but in my case? Just thirty seconds of focused hacking. Maybe less.