The cult doth welcome Aydehan to its venerable ranks. Give due praise to their pious service in the name of the Machine, lest you end up in the next wave of optimizations.
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The Mother
They landed on the soft concrete of the sewers one after another, leaving no sound behind save for the creaking of servos audible only to the augmented and the slightest shudder in the filthy stream of water running by them.
"Would you look at that." Mikey faux whispered "Actually functional sewers."
"We are in Charter Hill." She agreed.
"Bold of me to expect things like basic infrastructure, I know." He shook his head "Let's go, our entrance is ten minutes north northeast."
They abandoned their levity and began skulking through the narrow tunnel, eyes peeled for any potential surprises.
Being fully kitted out again felt good for Svetlana, the familiar weight of body armor and her weapons fitting her like a second skin she had forgotten she had.
It was like being alive again for the first time in what felt like a year after helplessly crawling through the mud.
But she knew better than to give in to the feeling.
She had already tasted the consequences of being lulled into a false sense of security, and she wasn't enough of a gonk to allow their well deserved revenge to turn into a shitty cliche drama at the worst possible moment.
This was simply an errand that needed to be dealt with before they could move on with their lives, nothing more.
Michael raising his hand stopped her in her tracks.
They had reached the security line.
"Cameras disabled." He said and they walked up to the metal wall cutting the gated parts of Charter Hill from the rest of it.
He stood completely still for a few seconds "...aand detection systems are off too. This is ridiculous security, even for a rich corpo residence area."
"Should we expect an alarm?" She asked.
"It isn't that ridiculous." Her son said just a bit smugly "Otherwise I'd have just had us fall back." He shook his head "Fucker isn't worth risking our lives."
She smiled despite herself, before looking down "Please don't tell me you expect us to go under the wall." She really didn't like the idea of swimming through sewer water.
"We wouldn't fit anyway." He shook his head and approached the wall "Thankfully they settled for reinforced steel instead of anything more expensive."
He shouldered his shotgun and suddenly the fingers on both his hands lit up before he rammed them directly into the metal, making it groan loudly as he slowly and methodically ripped a passage through it.
"Let's hope no one heard that." She heard him mutter as he stepped through the hole "We have two hours."
Svetlana nodded and followed him inside.
The sewers of the 'private' section were far more narrow than their public counterpart, and every second twist or turn had a security system set up for the home above it.
A death sentence for anyone without a dedicated netrunner watching over their shoulder.
And a complete joke with her son present, as they simply strolled through the murder corridor without a sound, quickly reaching their destination and climbing past the row of disabled turrets.
The instant they were under the night sky again, both of them scampered away from sight and under a nearby artificial hedge, giving them a good view of the Werner manor, whose walls they had just completely avoided.
It was a massive three story luxury home, surrounded by so much greenery it probably cost more than the manor itself, up to and including a tiny hedge maze and an outdoors pool, because the fat fucker just had to rub it into her face how far he got by being a backstabbing little bi-
A metal hand lightly stirred her shoulder and her eyes snapped to the right.
[You good?] Her son's golden eyes looked at her with concern.
[...Yeah. Just a bit pissed.]
He looked away and nodded solemnly [One day, we will make this look cheap.]
Her moroseness was almost overtaken by a bout of delighted chuckles but she managed to hold back.
And just in time [Guard rotation turns optimal in ten seconds, get ready.]
Each second of the mental countdown felt like a small eternity.
[Security is disabled.] Michael informed coldly [Uploading Ping now.]
Red outlines filled her vision.
[You take the left, I take the right. Don't stop until they are all dead.] He rattled off [Go, go, go!]
They sprang out from their hiding spot in a blur of motion, the two guards marching by them barely having the time to twitch before one had his head sent flying by the swing of a thermal katana.
The other found his head twisted aside by 180 degrees, her arms barely even feeling the resistance as she ended him with a satisfying crack.
Neither she nor Michael wasted time turning to each other and instead rushed to finished their work, systematically ambushing the guards and killing every single one of them silently as they made a full circle of the compound before meeting once again in the back.
"All guards are down." Michael said, habitually flicking his sword before attaching it to his back.
He breathed in, and grinned "Time for the main course."
She returned the expression, and they slunk into the manor.
There were no guards inside, ostensibly to provide some actual privacy to the resident corpo rat, and more likely because they couldn't be trusted with any information they might catch.
Which left just the automated security to bar their way.
The end of which was completely predictable.
[Clear.] Michael voiced as the last security drone landed and quietly deactivated.
They rushed up the stairwell, and stalked up to the wall of the main living room, only to pause as they heard a familiar voice from within.
"You want me to what?!" Neville Werner's voice was filled with anger as he growled into his phone "Hitoshi, while I do appreciate what you did for my son, it isn't nearly enough for me to go against Yorinobu, at least not without the Emperor's direct instruction."
"Why is he here?" She absently registered Michael's frustrated mutter.
But Werner's scoff drew her attention away "Yorinobu-sama, yes, yes, apologies. Point is you are going to have to give me more if you want me to go anywhere near that shitstorm."
Silence stretched as the caller responded, making Werner's voice turn tense "You wouldn't-" His voice caught "Fine you bastard." He growled "But you owe me for this. Double my usual for the same price, my other supplier dried out."
"Good." He scowled "Don't be late." He shut the call and even through the wall they could hear the creak of his phone as he squeezed it in anger.
"Dad-"
"Shut the fuck up!" Werner snapped at the other person in the room, followed by a loud crack and a pained yelp "I don't know who the fuck you offended to get infected by a high grade daemon but you cost me a lot of favors today, boy."
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
'Ah. That would explain it.' I mentally deadpanned 'Great job, Mike!'
"I already told you, I didn't provoke anyone!" Nicholas snapped back at his father angrily.
"Shut the fuck up!" But the man was having none of it "You better stop fucking around or I will-"
I tuned out the rant and looked to my mother [Nicholas wasn't supposed to be here. What do we do?]
She narrowed her eyes slightly [No witnesses.]
[Fuck no.] I immediately shook my head [He did nothing to us.]
[He will if he survives today.] She pointed out coldly.
But I was firm in my choice [No. We wait until he leaves.]
She scowled but nodded [Fine.]
Thankfully we didn't have to wait long as the shouting match ended soon enough and the son slammed the doors on the way to his room.
A knockout daemon followed after him.
Which we took as our cue, and as one burst through the entrance, far too quickly for the fat corpo to react in any meaningful way.
Before he even managed to drop his cigar and stand up, I was already behind him, folding his arms into a painful hold as my mother stopped in front of him.
"Hello Nev." She said with pure hatred in her voice.
The fat shit's eyes widened in both pain and surprise "Svetlana?" He asked disbelievingly "What-"
"What do you think?" She scowled, and promptly stomped one of his feet, shattering every single bone held within and making the man scream out in pain.
"Why did you do it?" She asked as the man finally stopped making so much noise, and instead began breathing painfully.
But there was still some spite left in him "You are a dead woman."
The expected backhand cracked a few teeth but she managed to not snap his neck "I asked you a question."
"Even if you somehow managed to get through my security." Neville slurred with pure hatred in his eyes "You aren't getting out of this alive, bitch."
I squeezed.
"Fuck!" He cursed as his bones snapped like tinder.
"Are you sure about that?" I leaned into his ear.
His eyes snapped to me as much as he could manage "A cyborg?" He hacked a laugh "Whose dick did you suck to get that kind of money-"
More bones snapped but the man just laughed through the pain.
"Hahaha!" He wheezed "Oh, I know who you are!" He laughed "You are Gregor's pathetic little pet project. Tell me, how does it feel to be the only reason your father couldn't advance in over a decade?"
"My pride is overwhelming." I growled and headbutted him, cracking one of his Optics.
"Argh, fuck!" He screamed, unable to even clutch at his head.
We gave him a few moments to catch his breath.
"So that is it?" He breathed heavily, the fight slowly leaving him as he realized no guards were coming for him "You came here to kill me then? Do you really think Arasaka will let you go after you removed one of their executives?"
"Not if they don't find out anything." I Informed him "Besides, you don't look nearly Japanese enough for them to actually care."
He made a sound that made it seem he wanted to both spit on me and agree with me at the same time.
An open handed slap drew his attention back to my mother "You still haven't answered my question, Neville. Why did you kill him? You had so many better options."
He looked up at her, eyes full of anger and humiliation "Because it was expedient." He smiled spitefully.
"Expedient?" She took a step back "We were friends for years..." She muttered, horrified "We were there for you when your wife died. And you killed him because it was expedient?!"
"Yes." Neville grinned widely "He was getting ideas about promotions, about becoming a peer." He practically spat "Removing him was simply the correct choice."
Mom's arm blurred and in a blink Neville's jaw was cracked and half his teeth had flown out of his mouth, inbefore she proceeded to kick him directly between the legs.
With a fully titanium Cyberleg.
The fat man's howl was so loud I could only hope the neighboring security forces didn't have augmented hearing.
But I still made sure not to let him twitch.
And just as well, as that was the exact moment I heard someone rush through the door behind me, and felt the ping of a tiny pistol bullet bouncing off my shoulder.
Before I could even register what had happened, mom's arm snapped up, pistol out and aiming behind me as she unloaded her entire magazine in one swift burst.
Already knowing what I'd find but unable to stop myself, I turned back to see Nicholas' tumbling body, his vital signs flatlining less than a second later as mercenary marksmanship was not to be fucked with.
And as my scan told me of the Cyberdeck stuck in the back of his head filled to the brim with defensive autohacks, I realized I had pretty much sentenced him to death myself.
'He took up the gun.' I shook my head feeling the slightest tinge of sorrow 'It's on him.'
Neville disagreed, as the scream of "NO!" That ripped from his throat was the first time I had heard him voice genuine panic or despair, his broken body pathetically attempting to rip itself from my grip and crawl over to the corpse of his son.
My eyes met my mother's, and we nodded.
Mistake or not, we were only getting started.
The Rat
Neville Werner had no idea how he was still conscious, much less alive.
Every single nerve in what remained of his body felt like it had been set on fire, and his mind was still reeling from over an hour of the surgical levels of butchery he had been subjected to.
Each and every one of his limbs had been methodically removed piece by piece while a cocktail of sensory enhancers ran through his veins, no matter how much he swore, and then pleaded, and then outright begged, the butchery continued without a single mistaken twitch.
All that remained of Arasaka's Director of Marketing for Night City now was a human nugget with only his left eye remaining, positioned so he could look down at his dead son.
But Neville was not broken, despite the efforts of those fucking street rats.
They made the fatal mistake of leaving him alive.
And they would regret it for the rest of their pathetic little lives!
The windows of his home burst open as the Trauma Team Aerodyne deposited a squad of medics directly into the room, the professional security team immediately clearing the room while their doctors rushed to Neville.
"Patient is critical." One noted coldly.
"Prepare stimulant injection." The other agreed "Platinum Package coverage."
Neville felt his pain dull behind cold satisfaction. He would get out of here, and he would make. them. pay.
Which is exactly when the microvave device shoved into his neural port activated, and he was treated to one last bout of agony as his brain was cooked to exploding.
The Trauma Team operatives took rapid steps away from the detonated corpse, guns raised in caution until they realized it was a one-off.
"Patient was booby trapped." The lead said "Make sure to note that down in the report, I'm not losing our bonus."
"Sure thing Echo." The other doctor nodded.
"Let's check on patient two." Echo said "Watch for more traps."
"Yessir."
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
Our escape from the compound was somehow even easier than our approach, even if we were pushing it by staying as long as we did the alarm didn't activate until we were already out of the walled community within Charter Hill.
I felt a mental ping as we exited the sewer system and smiled "Kill confirmed."
Mother exhaled, her shoulders slumping "Good. Serves the bastard right."
"Was it worth it?" I asked, mostly to myself.
"Yes." I felt a hand land on my shoulder "Now we can finally move on."
I nodded jerkily, happy that we got in and out without complication, and quite satisfied with the revenge I managed to extract... But for some reason I just couldn't stop feeling like I lost anyway.
"Stop moping." Mom patted my shoulder "Let's go get some pizza. I feel like celebrating!"
I looked down at my bloodied hands, then back at her, and shrugged.
Pizza sounded just about perfect right now.
-------
The children yearn for the mines.
And the cult is happy to provide.
14 glorious chapters await for those wise enough to seek them upon the forbidden Patreon (at patreon .com/ Rastislav156)
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