Royce presses the muzzle against Brick's head. Brick freezes, jaw set, anger flaring in his eyes.
"You really plan to overturn me, Royce?"
Around them, a few of Brick's loyalists tighten their grips on rifles. Most of the Maelstrom crew stays quiet, watching, waiting to see where the power lands.
Royce scans the room, then laughs, sharp and pleased. "Yeah. I am. You are not fit to lead Maelstrom. You made a deal with Ascension Technology and told everyone to leave them alone. Tonight we fix that."
A woman in a suit, the envoy from the organization, starts clapping. Every head turns.
"Excellent. Royce, right? You are correct. If Brick promised not to provoke Ascension Technology, then a change of leadership solves the problem. From this moment, you are Maelstrom's leader. This operation is yours. Do not disappoint us."
Royce leans to Brick's ear. "Hear that, Brick? Your cowardice ends here."
"Damn it, Royce. You will regret this," Brick spits back, looking from the suited woman to the silent faces of the crew. He understands the math. His supporters are outnumbered and outgunned tonight.
Royce flicks two fingers. "Lock him up. From now on, Maelstrom answers to me."
Brick struggles, but the gangers drag him away. The coup is over as quickly as it started. Royce does not waste the momentum. The suit team leaves, and he immediately calls the gang to arms.
"Ascension Technology. Without you, I would not be in this chair so fast. Time to return the favor."
He smiles like he can already hear the sirens.
Night slides over the Northside Industrial District. At the Ascension Technology Industrial Park, a high wall rings the complex. Cameras dot the perimeter at regular intervals. Automated guard turrets sit in their housings like heavy-lidded eyes. Beyond the fence, security drones and armed patrols trace their routes under floodlights.
Arasaka supplied the outer defenses. Their integration work is meticulous, sensors stitched together into one perimeter picture. The agreement is explicit, though. Arasaka holds the line outside. No Arasaka personnel set foot inside the park's inner zones. Ascension Technology handles its own internal security and keeps the core sealed.
At the main gate, checkpoint lights glow against the quiet road. The overnight team watches the wind and the empty asphalt, the kind of boredom that invites small talk and second cups of coffee.
Then an engine note cuts the air. Not a standard throttle. A pinned pedal. A scream.
Headlights flare. A heavy tanker roars into view, coming straight for the gate.
Guards snap to ready. "Identify yourself! You are entering a restricted zone."
The truck does not slow down. The turret wakes and angles down. Security raises rifles and sights through the windshield. The lead guard gives the only order that makes sense.
"Open fire."
Turret cannons bark. Glass shatters. Rounds chew through the cab in a storm of sparks and foam. The tanker keeps coming.
"It is unmanned. Watch it!" someone shouts over the comms.
Guards backpedal to clear the path, but the truck is already across the warning line. The crash barrier slams up from the tarmac. The tanker hits the steel and blooms into light.
The explosion turns the gate into a kiln. Shock waves pick up bodies and throw them. Shrapnel scythes through signs and cameras. A heat front licks paint from housings and peels it away in molten curls.
For a few long seconds, everything is fire and noise. Then the blast cone passes. The gate is a broken jaw. The barrier is a twisted grin. Smoke rolls low over the road and carries flecks of blackened insulation that fall like ash.
The survivors at the perimeter drag themselves upright, ears ringing, vision narrowed to a tunnel. They try to reset the defense, to get bodies off the road, to find cover that still exists.
A new sound arrives. Engines again, this time many. White cones of light rake across faces and ruin.
Motorcycles spear out of the dark. Maelstrom riders lean over bars, chrome glinting along their arms and necks, weapons already up. Behind the bikes, a line of small cars stacks in, doors popping open even before they stop.
"Maelstrom is advancing on the park—all units to full alert. Requesting immediate reinforcement," a guard barks into the channel as the perimeter alarms finally catch up and start howling.
"Crazy bastards," someone curses, racking a rifle and shouldering it into the smoke. "Let's push them back."
The night answers with muzzle flash and the complex sound of metal on metal.