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"Royce, Royce, Royce…"
I shook my head and walked over to him. No, I wasn't going to gloat. When he opened his mouth to say something, I simply knocked him out with a kick to the head.
"Girls, get to work… pull everything you can from this choom…"
"Maelstrom might not like this… After all, he's one of the top guys after Brick. He should have a lot of info and extensive access…"
"Exactly… we'll sell the info through the fixer. If they don't want the info to fall into the wrong hands, they'll buy it back themselves, and they'll pay us… and they'll pay us a lot."
"A lot of problems will come with it, too…"
I sighed.
"Nah… besides Royce, no one's gonna die. I'll make sure to drag them all outside before I set off the boom."
"Then maybe Royce, too…"
"Bookworm. Is there something I don't know?"
"Ugh… I had a friend who was a Maelstromer. He talked about Royce, too. And even though he spoke exclusively in profanity, that profanity was still full of admiration."
I sighed.
"Well, in general… a lot of fixers already know my face… and we've been to the Afterlife a couple of times, so I really don't need to wipe out everyone who's seen me. I've never done anything like that before, anyway…"
"See?"
"But Royce is a vindictive piece of shit… he'll definitely try to get revenge, and he won't give a damn about where or how… so it's easier to just take him out…"
I thoughtfully looked at the Maelstrom gang member's body. At the same time, I was thinking very hard. What would I gain by leaving him alive? I'm not even considering the fact that it would preserve a certain part of the canon… I've already jumped on the butterflies so much, I haven't just stepped on them… so…
"Bookworm…"
"Ghost?"
"Are you asking for him or not?"
"Huh?"
"Are you asking me to leave Royce alive or did you just bring it up?"
"Well, I guess I'm asking…"
"Alright, then I'll grant your request…"
"What?"
"I said, alright, let him live…"
With those words, I stepped away from Royce and went down, activating my Sandevistan again. I entered the last room. There were ten thugs, each with a rifle in their hands, and all of those barrels were pointed at me.
However, these chooms didn't have advanced optics to see me coming through the door, nor did they have the experience, skills, or gut feeling to start shooting in time. In short, unlike Royce, they didn't stand a chance. Although Royce had minimal chances, too.
"Get to work, girls…"
While the girls were hacking everything the shards could reach, I was injecting substances into the reagents that were here, which were supposed to start breaking them down. It was because after the second day, it turned out that the explosions didn't destroy everything. Some of the substances were still poisoning normal people, so I turned to Vik, who helped me come up with a plan.
While the girls were working, I started to drag the bodies…
Just some rough choom work…
When I moved all the bodies, I had nothing else to do. The girls asked for at least another fifteen minutes, since there was more info here, and a lot more accounts. In short, we were about to hit an incredible jackpot.
So I just started to plant the mines more carefully. The building was already unsafe, so I could just blow it to hell to bury everything in the basement under it.
"We're done…"
"Got it…"
I was already on the first floor and calmly walked out of the building. I stood next to the pile of Maelstromers and pressed the detonator button…
BOOM…
As far as I know, it must be a branch of hell inside right now because of the heat that is destroying everything that was in there. And after that, the building started to cave in on itself…
Beautiful…
I shook my head.
"Girls, send me the data you downloaded…"
The data was immediately sent to me, and I immediately put our comms on standby and contacted Regina.
"Ghost…"
"Regina, there were Maelstromers at the last location… they're mostly alive, although Royce lost his chrome arms and legs, but those psychos will quickly find and install replacements for him… unless they send him to the scrap heap after such a public failure. In short, I have data from their network here…"
"You wanna sell it?"
"Yeah… I think you know what to do with this data, but I'd like you to offer it to them first… after all, I don't want to have any big problems with these psychos, and I don't think you do either… and they can just start problems out of principle…"
"That's true… alright, send it over… it looks like you destroyed all the labs, and the other solos, though not as successfully as you, cleaned out the sales points… and I even got Dorio and Pilar involved at your request…"
"Thanks…"
"You're welcome… they did a pretty good job… so I don't mind giving them jobs from time to time… at least as long as they're willing to work with me. But nothing serious for now… after all, even though they have a good reputation, their crew is clearly not complete right now…"
I nodded.
"Are we free?"
"For now, yeah…"
"Regina?"
"Tell me, would you be willing to take on a problematic job?"
I sighed.
"Well, you know me, I don't really want to work against corpos, but in general, sooner or later, I'll have to go down that path. So…"
I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds.
"I think so… just warn me in advance… I'll have to get more chrome and install some upgrades on the girls… otherwise, I'm afraid you can't get by on just skills and a small amount of chrome there…"
"Well, according to the data you've already sent me, it's not a corpo on the level of Arasaka or Militech. It's more likely a subsidiary. But you're right, you'll definitely need an upgrade… But I'll check everything first, and it won't be urgent… they won't be able to quickly restore the production of glitter or set up the production of another drug… so we'll hit them hard…"
I nodded.
"Get the payment, as well as the bonus from the client… and yeah, I'll contact Maelstrom and tell them to pick up their guys…"
"Thanks…"
I ended the conversation and started talking to the girls again.
"Alright, I talked to the fixer. Everything's good, but it looks like we're gonna need an upgrade…"
"Ghost…"
"Cherry, I know you're against it, but if what the fixer warned me about comes true, then an upgrade will be necessary. But in any case, it's all open for discussion…"
"Alright, we'll talk about it at home…"
"Uh-huh… thanks, everyone…"
I logged into the account and sighed. After that, I flinched.
"Holy shit…"
"What's wrong…"
Kiwi showed interest. I just closed my eyes and sent her, Lucy, and Judy four hundred and fifty thousand each.
Kha…
The girls started coughing. Becca and Panam also started coughing when I sent them their shares.
"Man… what a jackpot…"
I was a little stunned, too. After all, in this week of work, we had already made over a million per person… and Panam and Becca, who received the smallest shares, had made over a million each. And as for our netrunners…
"Listen… what are your plans now?"
"Mentor, did our Ghost take you captive?"
"More like the earnings captivated me… I might not have made this much in a year in our old crew… and here, in a week… I can pay off half of my debt to the F… fixer now!"
"Let's talk a little later…"
I closed my eyes.
"I'm declaring tomorrow a day off. But we'll definitely get together… we'll celebrate such a successful week, and yeah, Mentor, this is the first time we've had such successful jobs. So don't count on us always getting jackpots like this. On average, I think we'll be able to pull in fifty to a hundred thousand per person from two daytime jobs… if we're talking about the current crew, of course."
While I was talking, I pulled all the shards out of the Maelstromers. After that, I walked to the road, where my car, the Thorton, soon picked me up. Kiwi was riding her bike next to it.
"Let's go…"
The call from Rogue was very unexpected…
"Can I congratulate you?"
I sighed and raised my hand, stopping the conversations in the car. I had already put the comms with Kiwi on standby when I saw who was calling me.
"I see you get info VERY fast…"
"Information is my business…"
Rogue's image smirked.
"When will you start my jobs?"
"The day after tomorrow. We have a day off tomorrow, and after that, I'll do your jobs."
"Good… then catch the data…"
I blinked, and my image nodded, signaling that the data had come through.
"Study it and get to work when you're ready."
"Got it…"
The connection was cut, and I sighed in relief, activating the comms with Kiwi again so she could hear what I was saying.
"The Queen of the Afterlife is, as usual, very well-informed and shows a bit of impatience…"
"R-Rogue?"
Becca was very surprised by my words.
"Yeah… she's already given me a job, but she agreed to postpone the start until the day after tomorrow… so tomorrow, as I said, will be a day off… we're going on a picnic…"
"A picnic? What do you mean?"
Kiwi was very surprised.
"Exactly… I'll barbecue some shashlik… I'll make you a delicious meal… we'll relax in nature… the most important thing is to find a place that isn't in the sand…"
"Well… I know a place…"
Judy joined the conversation.
"A house by the lake…"
"Um… you mean the lake near the city?"
"Yeah, there aren't any others nearby…"
Judy looked a little annoyed at Becca, who had asked the question.
"I'm from the town that used to be where the lake is now. When the city was flooded, one of the residents built a house near it… I used to go there a lot to relax. Although I haven't been there once since I met David… But it's a pretty good place…"
"Alright, then we'll get together, and tomorrow morning, we'll go there… to relax… so let's get the girls to the city so they can get ready, and we need to get ready, too… buy some lounge chairs. I also need to put together a proper brazier and make some skewers, because you can't buy them here…"
"I see you've planned everything out already…"
Kiwi was surprised.
"Are you against it?"
"No… it's just a little unexpected… I'm used to us celebrating at the Afterlife… so I'm a little confused…"
I shrugged.
"Get used to it. If you're going to be working with us, I'm not going to take you to bars. I prefer to cook for myself in those cases. Well, you should have figured that out from the snacks I've been giving you all."
"Uh-huh… that's unusual… are you trying to hit on all of us?"
I was about to answer, but she beat me to it.
"I'm sorry, David, but you're not my type… I prefer more mature men."
"Pilar?"
Khm…
"Did I guess right?"
I was so surprised that I had hit the mark. Pilar was quite a character, and I just said his name to poke fun, but it turned out… man…
"Well…"
"Fuck, no way. You've fallen for my asshole brother?!"
"Well… fallen is too strong a word… I'm more interested in him…"
"For fuck's sake…"
I even turned around to see Becca's completely flabbergasted face. Lucy also looked confused and disbelieving. However, she at least kept it to herself, while Becca didn't seem to have any intention of stopping.
"He's a degenerate! Completely unreliable! An idiot! An asshole! A chrome-obsessed meathead!"
"Becca, we get it… Kiwi gets it…"
I stopped her from continuing her insults toward her brother.
"I just don't get it…"
"Becca, there's a saying… Love is blind; it'll make you fall for a goat…"
"Yeah… just like my brother…"
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