Had to skip writing on monday due to some minor health issues so no chap on friday, it is what it is.
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Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
The sparse streets of Santo Domingo blurred past us as I drove out of Night City.
Seeing actual houses instead of skyscrapers felt just as odd as the first time I passed through the area for a courier run over a month back. It was way too open to be comfortable, and so I rarely spent more time here than I had to.
Even if El Capitan insisted I visit him up at his perch on the dam whenever I ordered up a custom part for my ride.
The man was solid enough to work with, his selection of suppliers was ridiculous and he could get me anything I wanted as long as I had the eddies. He would have been perfect really, if not for his constant jabs aimed at my choice of vehicle.
People just didn't respect the classics these days.
Or he was just disappointed I wouldn't throw thousands of eddies at him for his preem rides, could be both really.
A pained hiss drew me from my thoughts as I activated the rear camera display on my windshield, revealing a Pilar who was still rolling on the floor like a wet dog, trying and failing to get the blood-cleaning solution to stop sticking to him.
"Why does everything smell like hospital?!" He groaned, still scratching at his face "Oh, God! It got into my fucking eyes!"
"Stop being a little baby." I chuckled over the intercom, Rebecca snickering next to me "You have Optics, and they needed cleaning anyways."
"Fuck you, asshole!" He sat up, suddenly not at all encumbered by his supposed pain "Why don't you shove it in your eyes and see how it feels, huh?"
"I do it after every big operation." I informed him, feeling just a touch smug "Really, if you can't take a tiny little sting, we should have left you in the safehouse. Much safer for someone of your... delicate sensibilities that way."
"Akh." He scowled "'Becca, your input is a fucking menace."
"I know, right?" She chirped happily, and proudly.
"'course." He grumbled "Where are we heading, anyway?"
"Badlands." I deadpanned and paused just enough to annoy him "A few minutes of driving past the landfill and we should see the Jodes' lookouts."
"The fucks a Jodes?" He made a confused face.
Rebecca slumped her forehead against the dashboard.
"Really?" I blinked.
"Yeah, really." Pilar rolled his eyes "The fuck are you talking about?"
"You don't even know the name of your driver's nomad clan?" Honestly I expected to be baffled but this was just plain disappointing.
"Eh, Falco is alright but I don't need to know his life story." The gangly man shrugged with a smirk, before accidentally sniffing the air and scowling in irritation.
"Fair enough." I chuckled, and briefly went over what I knew of the clan in my mind.
The Jodes were a southern nomad clan and one of their 'Seven Nations', making them one of the bigger nomad collectives out there. Supposedly they were honest, good at construction and agriculture, and for the past few weeks the rest of Rebecca's crew were hiding out with a small family of them out in the Badlands.
Now, nomads were simple people, usually tight knit in how they operated, which while appreciable to both my sensibilities and their chances of survival out in the open desert, also meant their views on justice were a bit skewed, seeing they tended to banish problematic folks from the collective whenever they got too 'rowdy'.
Why would this matter to me, one might wonder?
Well, those 'problematic folks' were just as disdainful of city living as the rest of their kind, and usually turned to less than honest ways of making a living after becoming known pariahs to pretty much every nomad clan out there by default.
In short, they became raiders.
The so called Raffen Shiv were a self contained nomad subculture of their own by this point, and NC's local Wraiths were the loudest of the bunch.
And they really fucking hated the other nomads, usually acting up whenever a family decided to stop anywhere near their territory.
All of which is to say that I was completely and utterly unsurprised as we approached the massive garbage landfill just outside NC and saw smoke in the distance, the source of which I quickly identified as multiple burning car wrecks surrounding a Zetatech transport detail.
The corpos looked to be winning, and just as another modified Wraith Chevillon went up in flames, the other Raffens wisely decided to call it a day and get the fuck out of dodge before the rest of them died as well.
Zetatech's security team kept hosing them with fire as they retreated but made no attempt at following them, the soldiers merely double tapping any grounded Wraits, and returning to their surprisingly undamaged armored truck before resuming their journey to the border.
"No." I raised a finger as my output perked up "We are not shooting up the corpo truck."
"Awww." Rebecca pouted.
Shaking my head, I sped the van up, giving the corpos a wide berth and continuing on my way.
It wasn't long before we left the landfill behind, and while the sandy horizon looked to be empty, I knew it to be anything but, as as soon as I turned next to a large rocky outcropping I came face to face with a trio of nomads sitting around a large armored jeep.
Immediately, all of them stood alert, two of them rushing for cover while a burly tan man with a cowboy hat on his head stepped out in front, raised shotgun in hand, and called "You! Stop right there!"
Having expected this, I slowed the vehicle, lowering the window and leaning out to the side, unable to hold down the small 'smile' as the nomads understandably tensed at the sight of me.
But their leader was made of sterner stuff than the rest, and merely narrowed his eyes "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"Magos, NC mercenary." I said "Here to pick up some chooms who have been in your care for the past few weeks."
"Riight." He said slowly "And just why should I believe any of that?"
Rebecca gave me no time to respond as she opened her door and hopped out, without a singular care for the guns suddenly pointed her way "Yo, I'm 'Becca!" She waved "Falco should have told you about us."
There was recognition in his eyes as he nodded "He did, yes." Before twitching his head in my direction "Just didn't mention anything about a pet technomancer coming along."
"A magic hand I may be at tech." I said with some amusement "But I assure you, I'm no nomad."
He frowned briefly and grunted "Right, we'll take you to the camp. Follow along, and don't make any trouble. I take the safety of my family very seriously."
"Yessir!" Rebecca mock saluted and hopped back in the van.
The man's stern facade seemed to crack at that as he let out a small chuckle and shook his head "Just Zeke will do, kid." Before waving at his people to get in the jeep.
As I started moving us again, I gave 'Becca an annoyed look "You know, jumping in front of agitated, and armed men isn't always the brightest of ideas."
"Well maaybe." She looked up at me teasingly "If you didn't scare the shit out of them first I wouldn't have had to do that."
"Come on." I waved my hand about as I complained "They've obviously dealt with fullborgs before, and I would have convinced them to lead the way anyways."
"You keep telling yourself that, Mike." She patted my arm 'consolingly.'
Much to her brother's amusement.
"Man." Pilar laughed "You two deserve each other."
"Hey." I shrugged "At least we don't have to pay for a few minutes of attention."
He flipped me off, and we descended into dumb bickering.
The rest of the ride went without incident, as the desert dwellers led us on a merry chase around the area past multiple checkpoints, intelligently guiding us through a few signal scramblers before heading to the base proper.
Not that it helped them any since I just memorized the way there, but it was still good effort in most cases.
To my surprise, instead of an open air camp, as was the stereotype, our guides stopped in front of a large unfinished tunnel construction, waving down the guards positioned above the entrance as we followed along.
We were quickly guided into the tunnel/cave itself, and I found myself impressed with the setup the nomads had here. Despite living in literal tents and trailer parks I could easily see their equipment was high grade and well maintained, and even the implants some of them had looked to be solidly built.
There were even some non-corporate models.
'From their Technomancers, no doubt.' I mused on my nomadic counterparts, paying no heed to the curious onlookers.
"Ah, right!" Rebecca spoke up suddenly, pointedly ignoring Pilar's painful attempts at getting into the pants of one our guides.
"Hm?" Zeke stopped.
"Probably should have told you we saw a bunch of Wraiths getting zeroed by corpos on the road earlier." She snapped her fingers.
"Yeah, probably." He chuckled "But we have our own lookouts, so don't worry about it, yeah?"
Rebecca just shrugged and fell back into step beside me.
"And what about you, big guy?" The man kept talking as we walked "What's got someone like you coming along with this bunch?"
"Just a favor for a friend, and I felt like going for a drive." I shrugged before offering a question of my own "And what has the leader of the family on lookout duty?"
The way the others looked at him as we passed them by made his station quite obvious.
He didn't overtly react to my 'discovery'.
"Everyone does their part for the family." He said with a shrug of his own "People look to me because they know they can trust me to have their best interests in mind, but at the end of the day I'm just another member pulling his weight."
I hummed at that "Respectable."
The man huffed in amusement "Not all city dwellers think that way."
"Not all city dwellers think." I groused.
Much to the amusement of my hosts as a good number of them burst into contained laughter.
"Here we are." He said as we approached a metal box-like structure carved into the tunnel wall that was probably some kind of tool shed during construction "Falco!" He called "Got your chooms here."
Suddenly reminded of why I didn't feel like coming at first, I took a few steps back as the doors were soon pushed open and the familiar hulking form of Maine stepped out, quickly followed by the rest of his crew.
And while the rest of them got to greeting Rebecca and Pilar, the former being glomped by an eager Sasha, Maine's eyes immediately zeroed in on me, his face scrunching up in a brief frown as he lumbered over to me.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, near growled.
"Don't worry, our business is quite finished." Was my sarcastic answer as I raised my hands in mocking surrender "There is no need to hide your aching wallet."
Sometimes I just couldn't help myself.
"Stop." His scowl deepened as he pointed at me threateningly, even if he was smart enough not to try and touch me "Sticking your nose, in our business."
"Your business?" I crossed my arms, my eyes narrowing "And who told you I'm here for you exactly?"
He made another low growl at that.
But before he could continue, an unfamiliar voice interrupted "Pardon me, Maine."
The moustached man I quickly recognized as Falco tipped his hat as he just slid in between us, looking at me with a polite smile "You this Magos I keep hearing about?"
"I am he, yes." I was still half looking at Maine as I addressed the ex-nomad driver "And you must be Falco."
"That would be me." He nodded, offering his hand "Just wanted to thank you for pulling all of them out of the fire while I was out. Damn scary hearing about it."
"It was my genuine pleasure." I allowed myself a small smile, returning the handshake, and ever so slightly ramping up the glow of my eyes as I gave his boss the stink-eye.
Fucker just clenched his fist, grunted, and wisely walked away.
"Probably would have just ended up flatlining all of us if I was there." Falco sighed, not having noticed the interaction at all "So I guess all of it turned out well in the end."
"Best not to think about that." I told him.
"Its not that easy." He sighed "Night City doesn't do 'lucky'."
So he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop...
"How does it work anyway?" I asked, deciding to distract the man from whatever was weighing him down "You being a part of the nomads while also being a merc?"
"Oh, I'm not part of the family." He shook his head, unbothered "It doesn't happen often but there is nothing stopping us from leaving for greener pastures whenever we like, we just can't rely on family support when we do."
"That makes sense I suppose." I said "And you still keep in contact? I'm guessing that's how you set up this little getaway in any case."
"Family is family even when you leave." He shrugged "No point in cutting myself off just because I wanted to go racing around."
I went to speak again but suddenly I felt a distant vibration in the ground, my gaze immediately snapping towards the entrance of the tunnel.
Rising my hand to silence Falco, I noticed Zeke had tensed and was now exchanging rapid words with Maine while Rebecca was looking between them in confusion.
Confusion that quickly turned to anger as she turned to call me over.
But by that time I had already stomped over to the nomad leader "What's going on?" I demanded, uncaring for the sudden tension around me.
As he twisted to look at me, the furious look in his eyes briefly turned to consideration, then confusion "Just tell me honestly, techie." He spoke with a deliberate weight as he clutched his weapon "Did you bring them here?"
Immediately, I could detect dozens of nomads aiming at me, though to my surprise Maine and his group were all keeping their weapons down, even as the cyborg was staring a hole into my side.
"Did I lead who, here?" I asked slowly, even as I prepared to annihilate anyone who decided to pull the trigger.
"The fucking Raffen!" Ezekiel Jode snapped, glaring at me despite being in crushing distance and barely reaching my shoulders "There is an entire clan coming here, and they came just after you arrived!"
"Really?" I asked, were they watching for new arrivals?
"Is this a joke to you?" He demanded.
"Is it a joke to you?" I retorted, and kept my hands down despite wanting to shove the little shit "Why the fuck would I leave myself so vulnerable to retaliation if my goal was to kill you all?"
Briefly, I was tempted to explain just how easy it would be for me to slaughter them on my own despite their defensible position, and without them ever knowing about it, but now was not the time to play the gonk.
Seeing the logic catching up in his tiny mind I added "They obviously followed us through long-range observers. Fuckers were probably trying to hunt you down ever since you crossed the border."
"Shit." Zeke muttered, lowering his weapon "Damn it, you are right."
And just like that the rest of his nomads stopped aiming at me.
"Told you it would be fucking stupid." Maine growled from next to him.
'The fuck?'
"Don't give me that fucking look." He scoffed as I turned to him "I don't like you, but I ain't some backstabbing bitch."
"Right." I nodded slowly, unsure exactly how to feel right about now.
"That's enough time wasted." Zeke snapped out "Help if you want, or get out of the way if you don't, but we Jodes have Wraiths to kill!" And without waiting for our response he led his people towards the cave entrance.
Seeing them rushing out, my gaze inevitably found Maine's, and despite our irritation with one another, we nodded as one, and ran after them, ignoring the calls of the rest of the crew to wait for them.
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Its stoning time.
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