"No weapons? That won't do!
That's your standard for finding pigs to slaughter, but we're here to do business, not to be pigs for you to butcher."
As Arthur's words fell, the short man shrieked, his high-pitched voice threatening.
"Stop your damn nonsense! If you want to do business in our territory, you follow our rules.
Either hand over your guns, and we talk; or get the hell out!"
As he spoke, the group of guys all pressed in a few steps, some even walking up to Jackie, extending their hands, looking as if they had them completely cornered.
Seeing Jackie about to draw his gun, Arthur pressed his arm, pulling him back a step.
Seeing this, the short man showed a disdainful expression and laughed loudly.
"Spineless rats, hand over your weapons early, and maybe you'll keep your lives. Remember to go home and cry to your mommy, you might even get some milk."
Looking at the Maelstrom members laughing again, Arthur's eyes under his hat brim completely chilled.
His right shoulder sank slightly, his arm naturally dropped to his waist, and his whole body became completely still, like a puma before a hunt.
Arthur's hoarse voice sounded.
"You really… want to die, don't you?"
Draw! Shoot!
His movements were like a thunderclap piercing through the dark clouds. As blood splattered from the foreheads of the six people opposite, the gunshots belatedly echoed in the vast darkness.
The scene was chaotic for a moment. As the remaining few on the other side frantically pulled out their guns, Jackie had already drawn his twin pistols from both sides of his waist.
His two thick arms, held straight forward, were like elephant legs. The twin pistols spewed fire, quickly taking care of the remaining few thugs.
Without stopping, after dealing with the trouble outside, they rushed directly into the black clinic.
The lights inside the clinic were a bloody red. After quickly passing through a narrow corridor, they saw a medium-sized clinic.
The lighting here was brighter. Several people wearing masks and casual clothes were standing around a hospital bed, nervously looking towards the corridor.
They were probably the "doctors" here, those Scavengers parasitic on the Maelstrom.
The so-called Scavengers were not originally a well-formed organization. In Night City, anyone who ran a black clinic and harvested parts from living people was called a Scavenger.
Looking at these bastards, Arthur had no intention of wasting words with them, leaving only one alive.
"Speak! Where are the people being held?"
He directly stepped over the hospital bed, grabbed the Scavenger's hair, and interrogated him.
Pointing frantically to a room deep inside the clinic, the guy's voice was filled with terror.
"There, they're all in that room, don't kill me."
These Scavengers, who could dismember a living person without any psychological burden, only remembered their reverence for life when facing their own life and death.
He fired four shots into the four joints of this guy's knees and elbows, but the revolver's bullets were clearly not enough, so the last elbow joint could only be smashed with the gun butt.
Throwing him casually to the ground, and ignoring his heart-wrenching screams, Arthur walked towards the room where the people were held.
The moment that door opened, an indescribable stench assaulted them. It was the smell of excrement mixed with corpses, absolutely deadly.
Inside the door was dim, and only with the outside light could they see a small area near the entrance, barely making out some human figures.
"Jessica, is there anyone by that name in there?
Your father commissioned us to bring you home.
Jessica!"
Arthur's shouts received no response.
Suppressing extreme discomfort, Arthur gritted his teeth and went in to inspect.
There were about a dozen people inside, all unconscious, likely due to some drug.
But Arthur didn't find the girl named Jessica in there.
Turning around, he lifted the dog-like Scavenger from the ground.
"Before we arrived, did you process a young girl, around nineteen?"
But the only response Arthur got was screams.
Seeing that the guy wasn't cooperating, Arthur gave him a hard punch to the side of his waist.
"I'll ask one last time, or I'll put two holes in your waist.
Speak!"
"No, no, that little girl was very healthy, and didn't have many cybernetics. They said she was a high-quality product and was sent to the Diman Slaughterhouse."
Frowning deeply, Arthur pressed on.
"How long ago was she sent away?"
"About a day ago."
According to Wakako's intel, the girl went missing three days ago. These guys worked surprisingly fast.
"Arthur, a slaughterhouse truck will be here in an hour, they said they're picking up a few people."
Jackie's voice came from the side.
Since entering, Jackie had been searching for clues on the clinic's mini-terminal. He found the communication records between here and the slaughterhouse.
Upon receiving this information, the two immediately decided to take this ride. They asked the Scavenger for more details, then finished him off.
The underground space where the clinic was located was actually the underground parking lot of this skyscraper. Opposite the stairs Arthur and his team came down, there was a passage for vehicles.
The people from the slaughterhouse would drive directly to the outside of the clinic, then enter the clinic to pick up the people they wanted.
Using the remaining hour, Jackie and Arthur cleaned up the bodies outside, then returned to the clinic.
Through the monitor on the door, they just had to wait for their prey to arrive.
Soon after, with a dazzling white light, a blue van entered the monitor's field of view.
As expected, the two people in the car were unaware, and skillfully entered the clinic.
When the iron door opened, what greeted them were two dark muzzles.
They had no intention of leaving anyone alive. With brain implants, they couldn't be sure if the other party had transmitted information.
Even exposure was better than stepping into a trap.
This was also why every mature Edgerunner squad had at least one Netrunner.
Accompanied by two gunshots and the sound of heavy objects falling, Arthur and Jackie stripped the two men of their clothes and changed into new outfits.
Although the "new clothes" were ill-fitting, they served as a disguise.
The disguise didn't need to be too clever; they only needed to quietly bypass the heavy firepower on the outer wall.
With the humming sound of the engine starting, the blue van that had just come down disappeared again into this underground parking lot.
The Diman Slaughterhouse was located in a secluded part of Chinatown, near the border of the North City Industrial District.
It was a deserted place, almost abandoned, and the scenery along the way confirmed this.
The distance wasn't far, and Arthur and Jackie soon saw the wall of the Diman Slaughterhouse.
It could only be said that their decision was correct. There was an automatic sentry turret on each side of the main entrance. If they were hit by that thing, they would definitely be torn to shreds.
As the car slowly approached, the gates of the slaughterhouse opened. The area behind the gates was not empty; it was less than a hundred meters from the tall factory building.
There were no guards near the gate, but a device hanging on the gate cast a blue scanning light curtain, and the car was let in.
They were clearly going inside the factory building, as the gate not far away had already opened automatically.
Up until now, they hadn't seen a single living person in this slaughterhouse.
"If the defenses here aren't compromised, then we've definitely walked into a trap."
Jackie gripped the steering wheel, his eyes above his mask staring straight at the wide-open factory gate.
"If your jinxing is accurate, I suggest we turn around and leave."
This situation was definitely not right. This was where illegal human experiments were being conducted, so how could the defenses be so lax?
However, their car still drove straight into that large gate.
The light changed, and after their vision recovered, they saw the situation in front of them.
It was an open space, four stories high, surrounded by circular iron ladders and walkways leading to rooms on the walls.
At the end of the open space was a sentry turret, identical to the one at the gate, facing every corner of the open space.
Many cars were parked in the open space. They were all very ordinary, like regular household cars, just like the one Arthur and Jackie were currently in.
At this moment, there was a long line of vehicles in the open space, and several armed guys were inspecting the first car in the convoy.