As expected, the sudden greening of a section of the Badlands stood out like a beacon in a stormy night. But instead of bringing hope, it stirred up equal parts greed and caution.
The nomads were the first to discover the sudden forest, and it didn't take long for them to spread the word through their contacts in exchange for a few eurodollars. Within two hours, every megacorp and fixer had the same document.
"Is this it?" one of the Biotechnica executives flipped through the file again, reviewing all the gathered information on the area. "Are you kidding me?"
There were barely three pages of data, and half the space was filled with irrelevant pictures!
"Never, sir!" denied the employee in charge of researching and compiling the details on the matter. "Although the registered landowner on paper is Gloria Martinez, she was dumb enough not to read the fine print and ended up signing a GE (special grade) contract with the new company that's taken over the land, full of tiny clauses favoring the company. As long as they pay her on time, even she can't reclaim the land. A little over a week later, this happened."
The executive looked again at the name of the aforementioned company.
Naturtal&Co.
(Faelan decided to name it that as a wordplay on natural and immortal.)
"Why is there no information on their executives or key personnel?" he asked in frustration. "Not even names from the R&D department or the lab?"
"That's because they've invoked the Fegert Law. We can't access anything..." the woman spread her hands helplessly as she delivered the news.
The Fegert Law was passed in 2058 to encourage the younger generation to innovate and contribute to the market, offering them certain benefits and special protections to keep heavyweights from crushing their businesses the moment they went independent. Essentially, as long as the founder (or one of them) hasn't reached a specific minimum age, their data is encrypted through a special algorithm that only verifies the legitimacy of the company, but the data restriction applies even to government administration, preventing leaks due to "human error"—also known as bribes.
The law had fallen into obscurity due to how impractical it was; it had only been used six times across the country since its approval—and even then, every single user ended up fading into obscurity.
The main reason was that corporations typically identified talent early—either to recruit it or eliminate it. And if someone that young had the resources to start their own company, it usually meant they were already backed by an existing enterprise, making a new business unnecessary. In such cases, they'd just launch a new research department or subdivision under the parent company.
"Wait—are you telling me the person behind all this is underage?" The executive nearly hurled his coffee mug at his employee's head. "Nonsense! It has to be a front. Find out who's really behind the company."
It wasn't that no one had ever thought about exploiting the law for their own benefit. The mere four-year tax exemption was enough to tempt people into founding, dismantling, and rebuilding a company every four years. But the person who wrote the law had been sharp as a tack, leaving no loopholes to exploit—everything was perfectly locked down in favor of the underprivileged.
This deeply angered the sovereign corporations, and they ensured the law was quietly buried shortly after its approval, as an act of retaliation.
"Yes, sir!" the employee spun around and dashed off as fast as her office-standard heels allowed.
Biotechnica had to find out how they'd managed to green three hectares of barren land in under an hour. This kind of breakthrough was way too valuable for such a small company!
The executive drummed his fingers on the table for a few moments before placing a call.
"Have you got the samples I requested?" he asked, more out of habit than doubt—he was already expecting a positive answer, as usual.
He wasn't about to wait for information to come through the official channels; that was just for appearances. Sending in mercs to probe the situation was faster and far more effective. They could uncover things no subordinate ever would.
He'd been using this particular mercenary team for twenty years—they answered only to him, and he knew just how good they were. As long as he didn't send them straight into a rival megacorp's main facilities, success was practically guaranteed.
"They're dead, sir," came the unexpected reply. "I'm the only one left."
For a second, he thought he'd dialed the wrong number—but he double-checked the call.
"...What do you mean?" the executive straightened up as he recognized the voice. It was the team's netrunner, Ferran Piera. "I spoke with Silvia just fifteen minutes ago—she said the security was a joke!"
The mercenary team leader, Silvia Bogart, had actually felt insulted that they were even called in after seeing that the only thing guarding the place was a wire fence—not even electrified!
No multi-lens cameras, no patrol drones, no explosive mines, no pressure plates, no AI-operated turrets, no armed guards, no heat sensors, no military-grade walls...
Just a damn wire fence—and not even a good one!
She demanded double pay just for having them play circus monkeys. Based on the intel they'd received and the real vegetation visible in the satellite images she'd been sent, they'd almost believed they were about to storm the equivalent of a secret Arasaka blacksite.
They called in favors, loaded up to the teeth (literally—some had ammo in their dental implants), and mentally prepared themselves for the possibility that not all of them would come back.
At least they got that part right.
"Entry was smooth, no alarms triggered. The team didn't even need to cut the fence thanks to the impulse boosters in their leg implants," Ferran explained in a voice so calm it was almost eerie. "But shortly after entering the greenery, their vitals started spiking—and then they all went silent, almost at the exact same time. Only Eric, the toughest and most ruthless guy on the team, managed to send me an audio clip."
The audio played through the call.
"HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! WHERE THE HELL DID THESE THINGS COME FROM?!" Eric's voice was panicked, hysterical even—no small thing, considering this was the same man who'd silently taken out a ten-man Militech squad five years ago using only a cheap plastic comb, a broken rubber chicken, and duct tape. "YOU WON'T DRAG ME TO HELL WITH YOU, YOU DEMONIC BASTARDS! FUCK THIS, THEY'RE IN MY DAMN PANTS! SHIT, SHIT, SHIIII—TELL MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER THA—AAAARRGG!!!"
Silence.
Neither of them spoke for a full minute.
"...No video?" the executive asked in a hushed tone.
Those horrific sounds after Eric's final scream gave him goosebumps—despite having synthetic skin. Maybe it was time to get his neural links checked.
"Nothing. I even had to patch this audio just to make it playable. It was barely salvageable," Ferran replied with the tired sigh of someone utterly done with everything. "I don't know what your next move is, but I'm out. I was never here. My team's gone, and I think it's time for early retirement. It was a good run—except for this last shitshow. Take care."
The call ended abruptly, and although the executive tried calling the same number multiple times, he was met each time with a recorded message: This number does not exist.
"What the hell?" he muttered, eyes shifting to his coffee as he opened a hidden compartment in his desk.
Today, his coffee would evolve—into an Irish coffee.
What the executive didn't know was that Ferran had sold the audio at an extremely high price to multiple sources, securing a considerable sum of additional money to be delivered to the families of his fallen teammates—people who would never again see their loved ones.
Corporations like Militech and Kang Tao paid it some attention, but weren't interested in mobilizing. For them, Naturtal&Co would soon be assimilated by someone else, and then they'd investigate—maybe.
Gangs were also circling, sensing that no one had this kind of "specialization" in their operations. It looked like a promising new revenue stream, even if they didn't quite know how it worked yet.
But the more perceptive—and realistic—ones, like the Valentinos or the Mox, felt more caution than greed over what they'd seen. The Mox didn't have the bite to take a piece of the business by force, and the Valentinos heeded the advice of Padre (Sebastián Ibarra): wait and don't provoke—for now. He might not have been a member, but Padre was a major ally to the gang, with many overlapping interests.
Fixers across the city found themselves overwhelmed with requests to dig up intel on Naturtal&Co or to assign infiltration gigs.
But after getting their hands on that audio?
At most, they'd send expendables. No trusted regular mercs.
...
One month later.
Faelan stepped out of his private potion lab—nicknamed "The Lab Where Logic Goes to Die" by Kiwi—with a satisfied smile on his lips. He had finally mastered the art of potion-making, no longer producing irregular results regardless of the formula, which had allowed him to start experimenting with more variants.
He had expected a lot of trouble after what happened, but the mysterious deaths on the premises and the lack of human presence had proven to be a powerful deterrent for most corporations and gangs.
Even the other workers currently employed by the company—where someone would occasionally "get lost" while wandering into restricted zones—seemed to get the message when those disoriented folks never came back, leaving behind not a single trace to follow.
That, combined with the paycheck and the extra bonus of taking a bit of real food home every month, made people behave surprisingly well. More than that, some workers had even reported spies before they could act—earning a well-deserved reward.
Organic food had been well received in Night City, and they were making good money. Their products quickly became coveted by the wealthy, which in turn gave the company a protective umbrella of interest. They weren't producing enough yet to feed the whole city's strata, but with time and land, that could be fixed.
"Are they all idiots?" Dorio asked, watching another group of "unauthorized visitors" fall victim to the vegetation on the hidden cameras installed in the tree trunks. She held a drink in hand. "This is the eighth crew this week, and it's Tuesday morning!?"
As mentioned, most were deterred. But there are always fools who think they stand a chance where professionals tread lightly.
On paper—and in public—Dorio had been promoted from fixer to Head of Security for the company. Though outside the company, her primary role was still that of bodyguard.
Her favorite part of the job, whenever she had to be present because Faelan was there or she was accompanying Kiwi, was watching the hidden security feeds like TV channels. The cameras ran on a closed internal circuit, no wireless option, and covered the main intrusion zones.
Even the Voodoo Boys hadn't managed to get a single byte of internal data.
"Where'd they die this time?" Kiwi asked lazily, lying next to her with her eyes closed.
"Spore junction—paralytic mushroom clouds and constricting bloodsucker vines," Dorio replied.
She had to admit, nature could be truly terrifying—especially when Faelan guided its shape. She still remembered a team from last month, one of the first to test the perimeter.
Their captain and crew walked straight into a field of hallucinogenic flora just past the forest's edge and ended up killing each other while laughing, sweating, and tripping out of their minds.
Dorio swore that must be what a cyberpsycho looked like.
"They've tripled the black market value of intel on the company," Kiwi reported, a cable extending from her neck into the data tower two meters away. "The fact that the company's focus is growing and selling organic food caught everyone off guard. But at the same time, there are still those who believe this is all just a cover for some deeper experiment."
Well… they weren't exactly wrong.
"How's the thing I asked going?" Faelan asked as he sat down.
Focusing on potion-making had taken time, and he'd had to delegate other responsibilities.
"I contacted the Animals, but they're not too eager to take the external security contract," Dorio said with a shrug, clearly annoyed. "It's not even about the money. Seems like their Alpha doesn't want the gang associated with us."
Understandable, in a way. Whoever joined the company first would become the initial thread everyone else pulled on.
As for why Faelan had reached out to the Animals of all gangs…
Well, technically, he was a druid—and they had that kind of raw muscle that could come in handy. If he could get a few of the younger "pups," maybe he could get them to switch sides.
"Forget it if they're not interested," Faelan waved the idea away. "Anything I should know?" he asked Kiwi.
Another reason he asked was because the company had received proposals from very enthusiastic security firms—especially for internal protection and restricted areas.
As subtle as a gas explosion in a fireworks factory.
"Actually, there might be a problem," Kiwi nodded, pulling up images and data on one of the room's screens. "Looks like someone's running out of patience with the lack of intel and wants to send Maelstrom to give us a 'message.'"
"So the first sacrifice has been thrown," Faelan chuckled.
Out of all the gangs in Night City, Maelstrom was the one he feared the least.
In fact…
"Kiwi, do you know when they'll come knocking?" he asked, a little too excited about the idea he just had.
"How the hell would I know?" Kiwi spread her arms. "I found out because a few of their guys can't shut up—bragging about their next big job. But even those idiots know better than to give specifics, or they'll end up in a junk heap. All I know is the whole gang is showing up for a 'big show' on this one."
"The whole gang, huh…"
"Fae, what are you plotting?" Kiwi recognized that look—that calculating posture.
The guy was scheming something big again.
"It's only been a month and people are already done with playing nice," Faelan said, his sunglasses catching the light just enough to make his eyes glow faintly behind them. "I think it's time to send a little message… I'll be bothering you for a favor."
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Hello! I hope you're enjoying the story, just a quick reminder.
Please read the extra chapter if you haven't, thanks.