The sentinel's optics sputtered and went dark, then dropped like a falling star into a stack of pallets. Sparks and a small spray of insulation filled the air. The silver SUV swerved, tires screaming as its driver tried to close the gap.
Jackie didn't waste a breath. He slammed the Quadra into gear and shoved it toward the opening Max had marked—metal screaming against metal as the reinforced bumper took a glancing blow from a stray container. The Quadra slid sideways, hugging Max's trajectory like it had been born to follow it. Crates thudded as they shifted in the trunk.
"Move! Move! Move!" Jackie whooped, the stress and joy braided together in his voice.
V covered their flank from the hatch, smart-AR spitting calculated bursts. A drone tried to re-orient and lock a target; V's rounds chewed its sensor package and it spun out of control, smashing into a shipping crane in a shower of sparks. The convoy's radio chatter went choked and confused beneath Max's narrow-band EMP. For three heartbeats, they had silence—dirty, electric silence.
Max's HUD lit bright as the rail spur approached. He lined them up to drop off the paved road and onto the maintenance track he'd mapped—a narrow corridor, barely a lane, flanked by concrete and rust. The Quadra's suspension screamed but held. Jackie drove like a man who believed the car and the plan were the same thing.
Behind them the corp unit tried to follow, tires grinding against ballast. The SUV clipped the rail, slowed, then fishtailed off the road into a tangle of scrap—its crew cursing as they climbed out, weapons drawn but late.
They hit the narrow bridge Max had flagged and were across it before the silver SUV could reorient. For a few moments the world narrowed to engine howl and the smell of hot metal. Then they were gone—disappearing into a maze of service lanes Max had already pinged to safe houses.
Three blocks away, in an alley that reeked of grease and old smoke, they finally stopped. Jackie threw the Quadra into park and the three of them tumbled out, breathing hard, hearts pounding. For a second they just stared at each other, half-laughing, half-crying with the raw surge of survival.
Jackie whooped first. "That was—holy shit—beautiful! We took it clean!" He slapped both their shoulders until V laughed and Max hardly moved, mask unreadable.
V pried a sealed crate open and stared down at the contents: medical packs stamped with a contractor's logo, encrypted comm modules, and a set of optics that would fetch an insane price. She ran a finger along a module and smiled. "This'll buy us a hell of a lot of everything."
Max keyed a sequence into a secured channel and pinged Padre with a short, clean message: done. Meet: El Coyote. Drop: Rick's garage. No chatter. No noise.
"We move the goods to Rick first," Jackie said. "He gets the handlers, we split, then Padre takes his cut. Fast, quiet."
Max nodded. "Rick, then Padre. Keep comms tight. No streams, no calls except my channel." He watched their faces as he spoke—relief, hunger, the raw edge of a crew that'd survived its first proper test.
They split the haul into two loads. Jackie and a grinning wheelman rolled half toward Rick's under the watch of a cautious lookout; V and Max took the rest, slipping through different alleys to avoid tails. At Rick's, the old mechanic grinned like a wolf smelling blood; he helped unload, palms rubbing over the crates like a man who'd been waiting for this all his life.
Padre's blessing came cheap in words but rich in consequence. He met them at the back of the cantina later, eyes soft for a second when he saw how clean they'd run it. "You did well," he said, voice low. "You took from those who thought they were untouchable."
Jackie puffed up with pride. "Told you, Padre. We got this."
Padre looked at Max the way he had in the chapel—measuring, thoughtful. "You—they—have my ear now. But remember: Night City remembers two things. The names you make, and the debts you leave behind."
Max inclined his head once. "We know the terms."
Money changed hands in quiet pockets and neutral rooms. Rick took his cut and a promise of future favors. Padre kept what he needed to grease wheels and eyes. The rest went into a secured account Max had already set up under a dozen layers of proxies—cash to pay Vik, to restock gear, to keep the crew fed and patient while they grew.
Word moved faster than they did. By midnight, a rumor scorched through the barrios: a convoy hit, Corps embarrassed, drones fried. Names began to circulate—whispers of a ghost crew that hit with surgical silence. Jackie grinned every time someone bowed or hailed him on the street. V moved through markets with an extra edge of swagger.
Max didn't celebrate. He replayed the hit in his head, looping every clean move and every tiny stutter. He logged variables: the drone reconstituted a half-second earlier than predicted; the SUV almost caught the rail exit; one crate had an unexpected secondary lock. Each anomaly went into his mental ledger.
They'd pulled a clean job. They'd got eddies, gear, and a name.
But Max let the quiet fact sit where it belonged: the city had heard the noise they made. Now the noise had answered.
He keyed a private channel and sent a short packet to an invisible list only he knew. Names, locations, timings—little warnings, not threats. Let the city feel how the game was shifting.
The crates were gone, the creds secured, but the aftertaste of the job lingered like smoke. Jackie swaggered through Heywood the next day like he'd just won a title fight, chrome arms gleaming, laughter louder than usual. V kept her cool, but even she couldn't hide the faint spark in her eyes—money and reputation had that effect.
Max, though, stayed on the edges. Mask on, optics dimmed to an idle glow. He was already dissecting the angles of the next play. The convoy had been a test, yes—but it had also been a message. Corpo chatter had spiked in the grids he monitored. Militech was sniffing the Industrial corridors, and a smaller logistics firm had locked down their convoys tight. They'd rattled cages, and the city was watching.
That night, they sat back in El Coyote Cojo, the hum of music and smoke filling the air. Padre poured them drinks himself, his cassock sleeves rolled up, showing the muscle of a man who had once lived harder lives.
"You pulled clean," Padre said, voice low, steady. "No bodies left for the badges to find, no trail leading back to Heywood. That is rare."
***
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