Baby Adam Smasher?
At this moment, leaping high into the air and clutching her shotgun, Rebecca's face under her helmet was flushed red with anger.
"Fuck your Adam Smasher!"
She descended from the sky, even activating her thrusters to accelerate her landing. Her feet landed squarely on a small car that had just screeched to a halt, crushing it from the roof down. She roared in fury, "Who the fuck called me Baby Adam Smasher? Die!"
The Voodoo Boys watched as bullets hit her body, only to ricochet off with metallic clinks. They didn't even have time to be horrified.
In the sky, a flash of fire erupted from the shoulder of a white figure. A shoulder cannon roared, and a car exploded in response.
Then, the white figure descended like a phantom. Two Mantis Blades shot out from her arms, and her V-shaped cyberoptics glowed with a terrifying, bloodthirsty red light.
"Hahahaha! Baby Smasher! I'll take it from here!"
V laughed maniacally. Her Mantis Blades sliced through several bullets aimed at her head, and then she left a series of afterimages among the crowd, charging straight for a Voodoo Boys expert who had activated his Sandevistan.
For V, her mission was to prioritize eliminating the enemy's Sandevistan users. As for the common grunts?
Naturally, others would deal with them.
Two heavy machine guns, arriving late to the party, began to unleash a torrent of bullets on the convoy. From a high vantage point, Jackie pulled the trigger as if he were scooping up fries, while Dorio, further away, was even more ferocious. She had ripped a vehicle-mounted machine gun right off its mount and was firing it from her arms in a horse stance.
A curtain of bullets rained down, blanketing the convoy and pinning down the group of Voodoo Boys gangers. Only two vehicle-mounted machine guns could still return fire from the cover of their cars, but their light machine guns had barely fired a few rounds before Rebecca blew them away with a single blast from her shotgun.
Rebecca's face was beet red. As she frantically pulled the trigger, she yelled, "Who the fuck called me Baby Smasher? Who was it?"
At this moment, who had the time to answer her?
On the ground, several wheeled drones, looking about two sizes larger than a fist, took advantage of the chaos to speed toward the convoy.
These drones, which looked a lot like toy cars, were cheap to produce. They were almost the same type of drone as the "Swarm" drones developed by Mercer, specializing in overwhelming numbers.
Although these wheeled drones couldn't fly, they possessed greater mobility and speed on the ground. A few Voodoo Boys spotted the small vehicles, but before they could sound a warning, the drones had already charged the convoy at extreme speed.
A Voodoo Boy, likely a squad leader, roared, trying to organize a counterattack. But he had only just shouted a few words before his head was blown apart like a watermelon by a sniper shot from Pilar in the distance.
That single shot completely shattered the Voodoo Boys' morale.
The sky was filled with heavy machine gun fire, punctuated by occasional explosions. The only enemies they could see were a high-speed white phantom and a pint-sized Adam Smasher who could stand perfectly still and trade fire with them without even flinching.
How the hell were they supposed to fight this?
Sasha's vision, synced with the drone in the sky, showed Rebecca standing in the middle of the road. Her shotgun was empty, so she'd picked up a Voodoo Boy's machine gun and was spraying bullets everywhere, sparks flying from her body as she was hit. Sasha couldn't help but feel a little worried.
"Are her thrusters damaged? It's too dangerous for her to just stand there shooting!"
But Mercer saw the truth at a glance and quipped, "She was too pissed off earlier. She used her thrusters at full speed to land, and even though a car acted as a crumple zone to cushion the impact... I bet her feet are numb right now."
The corner of Sasha's mouth twitched; so she was standing still because she'd landed too hard and her legs had gone numb?
Mercer stroked his chin, saying thoughtfully, "Looks like I'll have to consider adding an extra mechanical structure to her armor for leg-impact absorption. With that much weight landing at full speed, the built-in mechanical drive is far from enough to absorb the full impact."
Sasha rolled her eyes. Fine, if he wasn't worried, then she had no reason to be either.
And that was indeed the case.
Only now did Rebecca realize the benefit of her round mech; she laughed heartily, feeling as comfortable as if she were swimming in a hail of bullets. What was the difference between ignoring enemy fire and shooting at will, and playing a game with an invincibility cheat enabled?
After emptying the machine gun she had casually picked up, she began assembling her great axe right in front of the Voodoo Boys.
Then, under the terrified gazes of the screaming gangoons, she excitedly raised her axe and began to engage in some old-fashioned melee combat.
By this point, any Voodoo Boy who could run was already fleeing with all their might. Those who couldn't could only hide under cars, trembling.
Even when someone with a Projectile Launch System fired a grenade at Rebecca, all she had to do was cover her head with her hands and tank the hit. How were they supposed to fight this?!
As for V...
She took three seconds to catch an enemy who had activated his Sandevistan in a desperate attempt to fight back. Then, in just one second, she pierced both sides of his chest with her Mantis Blades. With a forceful pull of her hands, she nearly tore him in half.
Such violent, ferocious combat power had completely surpassed the psychological threshold of these street punks. It wasn't that they hadn't been in tough fights, or that they'd never encountered enemies equipped with a Sandevistan.
But even the strongest Sandevistan user had to take a breather and rest at some point, right?
But V?
Even when she deactivated her Sandevistan, it didn't mean her combat effectiveness was greatly reduced. With the help of her armor, she didn't even need to activate her Kerenzikov.
Relying purely on her superhuman reflexes, physical strength, combat instincts, and the electric-drive power assist provided by her armor, she could move even faster than a typical enemy who had activated a Berserk OS!
The gangoons who had cyberware like the Synaptic Accelerator could perhaps catch a glimpse of V's shadow. But for those without any kind of reflex-enhancing cyberware, V was more terrifying than a ghost.
All they could see were their own people screaming as they were cut to pieces one by one by the Mantis Blades, but they couldn't see V at all! They could only see a flash of white light circle around, and the companions who had been shouting just a moment ago were now all dead on the ground.
The Voodoo Boys' prized netrunners didn't even dare attempt a hack; the moment a notification appeared in V's eyes, she would trace the signal through her cyberoptics and go lop off the netrunner's head.
The Voodoo Boys broke and began to flee for their lives. Mercer, using the drone's audio pickup, could even hear people below crying and begging for mercy.
[Rebecca: Should we stop? I don't see anyone fighting back anymore.]
Rebecca, her heart softening a little, stopped her slaughter. She flicked her axe blade clean, stood her ground with one hand on her hip, and watched the now scattered and fleeing Voodoo Boys, not really wanting to shoot them in the back.
If they had been pointing their guns at her, she wouldn't have hesitated. But seeing some of them screaming for their mothers, their faces collapsing in tears as they wailed, she couldn't bring herself to do it.
[Mercer: It's fine. You don't have to wipe them out. If you're tired, come back and rest.]
Mercer's words were a relief to Rebecca. Although she could seem a little unhinged in a fight, she wasn't someone who enjoyed killing.
V, on the other hand, was unfazed. In her view, when you fight to survive on the streets, you should be prepared to die the moment you pick up a gun. Be as warm as spring to your friends, and as cruel as the winter wind to your enemies.
However, since Mercer had said there was no need to wipe them out, V had no interest in carrying out a massacre here.
So, she flipped gracefully and landed on an APC that had two of its tires blown out. Her sharp gaze swept across the surroundings. Only after confirming that no one else dared to open fire did she leisurely flick her Mantis Blades and retract them.
[V: Where's that Voodoo Boys' second-in-command?]
[Rebecca: Uh... I think I punched him? I don't remember hitting a vital spot.]
[Mercer: Stop looking. He's pinned under the vehicle. The one V is standing on.]
V paused, then jumped off the APC. She crouched down and came face-to-face with Placide, who was under the vehicle clutching a gun, his head beaded with sweat. "Hello."
Placide roared and pulled the trigger of his shotgun from under the vehicle, but V had already leaped nimbly out of his line of fire before he could.
The shot hit empty air. Rebecca walked over unhurriedly, bent down, grabbed the edge of the chassis with both hands, and with a casual flip, sent the astonishingly heavy APC flying. It even rolled over one an extra time.
Placide, cursing "bastard" in Haitian Creole, nearly broke the trigger of his shotgun, but the bullets that hit Rebecca had no effect. She just walked forward unfazed and yanked him out.
Placide's tall frame meant nothing to Rebecca now. She simply grabbed his arm and effortlessly restrained him in front of her.
"You're the Voodoo Boys' second-in-command? Oh, you should be the boss now... Why so cowardly, hiding under a car? I thought I might have accidentally run you over."
Rebecca mocked him. She didn't know why Mercer hated him, but it was clear he had his reasons. So, she now hated him for no reason at all.
Placide cursed, "You goddamn bastards, where's Brigitte?"
"In hell. Don't worry, you'll be there soon enough." Rebecca unceremoniously twisted his arm and shoved him forward.
Placide tried to struggle, but it was useless. Rebecca's hands were like iron clamps, her strength like that of a pushcart. No matter how much he struggled, he couldn't change the fact that he was being pushed toward the church by Rebecca.
V made a gesture to the others.
[V: Lucy, Kiwi, can you confirm it's safe?]
[Lucy: The drones can't find any more dangerous targets. The rest of those guys look like they can't wait to run right out of Pacifica.]
[Kiwi: We won't come over. We'll help you keep an eye out from here, just in case of Slider. You guys be careful too. With a commotion this big, even if the NCPD is about to be driven out of Pacifica, they can't possibly turn a blind eye to this.]
[Mercer: Doesn't matter. We're close to Dogtown. Worst case, we just go home.]
After the brief exchange, Pilar, Lucy, and Kiwi ultimately remained at their distant vantage point to continue observing the situation, while the others quickly began to clean up the battlefield.
Maine and his crew had long since developed a highly professional process for salvaging a battlefield.
They ignored the ordinary, cheap junk guns, but any custom-made or valuable goodies were to be taken. As for the money stored in the datashards in everyone's head, it was finders-keepers, a nice little bonus.
They also picked and chose vehicles, selecting a couple of valuable ones in good condition to drive off in. Even the APC that Rebecca had flipped was righted by Maine, who happily got behind the wheel.
This APC, the one Placide had been riding in, was a modified Thorton Mackinaw van. Everything from the interior to the chassis had been altered. Taken to El Capitán, it could fetch at least two hundred thousand eurodollars.
Jackie, on the other hand, had his eye on a motorcycle. The Voodoo Boys who had been riding bikes at the start were blasted away by a passing Rebecca before they could even come to a full stop, but one motorcycle had spun out, flying a dozen meters before stopping on the road.
It was a Kusanagi CT-3X. The base model was only worth 20,000 eurodollars, but this one had clearly been heavily modified: engine, exhaust, brake discs. Most importantly, Jackie truly loved motorcycles.
Everyone grabbed what they could: vehicles, guns, gear. It was a good thing Pilar wasn't there, or he'd usually be picking through for some high-priced or research-worthy cyberware to take back.
While they were cleaning up the battlefield, Rebecca and V had already hauled Placide back to the church.
Placide knew by now that his life was on a countdown. So, even as Rebecca held him, unable to move, his words were anything but submissive.
"So you're A? You little coward, hiding your face."
As he spoke, he secretly tried to send a Synapse Burnout quickhack to Mercer.
Mercer was so amused he laughed. Engaging in electronic countermeasures while simultaneously counter-breaching Placide's cyberdeck, he didn't even activate Overclock or his Synaptic Accelerator. He just went head-to-head, letting Placide see the sheer technical gap between them.
He even restricted his own brain processing power output, just so he wouldn't instantly fry him with raw processing power alone.
Placide's face changed again and again. In just three short seconds, he let out a bloodcurdling scream and began to convulse.
Mercer sneered, "Even Brigitte wouldn't dare hack my head. You've got some nerve, you dumbass."
"Son of a bitch," Placide roared, his face contorted with rage. Mercer just gave a cold laugh. "Let him go. We'll test our dogbot's strength on him right here. Toss him his piece-of-shit gun."
"Don't you fucking humiliate me!" Placide roared. After being released, he tried to charge at Mercer, but the permissions for his cyberware had long been locked by Mercer. Now, his legs gave out, and he found it difficult to even walk.
Rebecca quietly sent Mercer a message.
[Rebecca: I'm telling you, don't get too careless! What if he actually gets the gun and blasts you with it?]
[Mercer: Hmm, good point. Then let him come at me with his bare hands. I hope those muscles aren't just for show.]
Rebecca picked up Placide's shotgun. After observing it for a moment, she disdainfully twisted it into a pretzel and tossed it aside.
Junk like this didn't even qualify for the display rack on her room's wall.
Mercer remained seated lazily on the lectern at the far end of the church's center, his Octopus Arm propping him up from the ground, allowing him to lean forward and rest against it.
"Don't say I didn't give you a chance. If you can beat my dogbot, I might consider giving you a quick death. But if you can't... then you're in for a world of hurt."
As his voice fell, the eyes of the dogbot in standby mode beside him lit up with a red glow. It lowered its body like a real dog in a fight, entering an attack-ready stance.
With his cyberware permissions revoked, Placide pushed himself up from the ground. He stared at Mercer, panting heavily, his eyes bloodshot.
This was an undeniable humiliation.
He wouldn't ask why, just as he would never answer the questions of the blans he'd stepped on. Now that he had fallen into such a state, the only thing he could do was at least die like a man.
He let out a beast-like roar and charged directly at Mercer.
Rebecca subconsciously shifted her feet, but V calmly reached out and stopped her; in any case, even if things went south, she was confident she could take Placide out before he even touched Mercer.
And in truth, her help wasn't needed.
After Placide had taken just two steps, the dogbot at Mercer's feet shot forward. Its agile body and powerful burst of speed turned it into an afterimage in an instant.
V raised an eyebrow, remarking with interest, "This thing's pretty fast. Its straight-line acceleration is almost half as fast as mine."
Mercer didn't reply, merely watching in silence. Placide was startled by the dogbot, which had rushed him in the blink of an eye and leaped for his throat. He instinctively threw a hook punch.
But the dogbot flexibly curled into a ball in mid-air and completed a spin; a sharp chain blade suddenly shot out from its tail.
Placide instinctively dodged to the side, but even so, the chain blade still sliced off half his ear and a small piece of his scalp.
Leaning on his Octopus Arm, Mercer mused, "Its mid-air dynamic control needs to be improved. Maybe the AI isn't smart enough... It should have gone for a horizontal slice across his neck."
Placide had no time to make out his words, because after the dogbot landed with a swing of its chain blade, it lunged to tear into him again.
He kicked out instinctively, but the dogbot opened its mouth and bit down hard, and just like that, half his foot was gone.
Before the pain could register, Placide took advantage of his bent-over posture to violently pull out the pistol hidden in his coat. He aimed it at Mercer and squeezed the trigger.
This entire sequence of actions took all the strength he had; he didn't even have the energy to curse Mercer to hell as he fired.
But Mercer, at the very instant Placide drew his gun, simply smiled and gestured for V not to move. Then, almost in sync with Placide reaching for his weapon, he activated his Overclock and Synaptic Accelerator.
In the blink of an eye, time slowed to a crawl.
The ferocity on Placide's face, the flame and smoke erupting from the muzzle aimed at Mercer's head, and the brass-colored bullet firing from the barrel, all of it was now clearly visible.
Die!
Mercer could read the shape of his mouth as it opened but had yet to form a sound. He could see just how badly Placide wanted him dead.
But faster than the bullet was the Octopus Arm on his shoulder.
Even in the slowed perception of time, the Octopus Arm maintained its ferocious speed, powered by its formidable electric drive. Then, with pinpoint precision, it swatted the bullet flying toward Mercer out of the air.
The gust of wind kicked up by the whipping motion of the Octopus Arm even blew Placide's hair back, making him squint instinctively.
Placide's finger was still mechanically pulling the trigger, but Mercer's Octopus Arm was already hovering in front of his face, waiting in the bullet's path.
The bullets from his pistol struck the metal of the Octopus Arm, ricocheting off with a series of clangs. The metal density, mass, and resilience of this retractable, biomimetic Octopus Arm were astonishingly high, as it was blended with a large amount of nanorhenium.
A normal bullet couldn't even penetrate basic Skinweave. And this metal arm?
Clang! Clang!
From Placide's perspective, one second Mercer was a dead man, and the next, that bizarre-looking metal limb was hovering in front of Mercer's face like a monster's tentacle.
Only when he heard the sound of the bullets deflecting did he get a clear look at the Octopus Arm.
Before he could re-aim, the dogbot was already lunging for his neck. This time, Placide had no chance to dodge. The dogbot's immense strength slammed him to the ground, its jaws clamped around his neck.
He instinctively aimed the now-unsteady pistol at the dogbot, but pulling the trigger repeatedly only produced a series of clangs against its chassis. Then, as his neck was almost completely bitten through, Placide coughed up blood, trembled, and could move no more.
Mercer waved his hand and said meaningfully, "I never had the chance to experiment with this. I wonder what the process is for launching a Soulkiller attack directly over the network against an ordinary connected user.
Congratulations, Placide. You will receive the honor of having your consciousness digitized, something not even Brigitte got to enjoy. You'll become a being similar to the AIs you love so much."
Placide clutched his neck, blood spewing from his mouth in increasing amounts. He couldn't utter another word, because the Soulkiller program running in his neural link had already connected to the network and started to operate.
His consciousness was forcibly transcoded. In an instant, it was as if he had entered a state similar to a deep dive, and all of his brain's perceptions became incredibly ethereal.
Mercer, however, just narrowed his eyes and asked Morning Star for a progress report.
[Morning Star: The effect isn't great. If the target isn't in a deep dive state and doesn't have a Relic to automatically convert and store their data, the amount of data we have to transmit over the network is enormous.
Moreover, due to the forced transcoding and transmission, the target's consciousness data appeared significantly fragmented and corrupted compared to other experimental engrams.
From the moment his engram was transcoded and began transmission, it could almost be considered to have lost all sanity.]
[Mercer: When those Arasaka morons were developing my cyberdeck, they wanted to be able to copy a target's consciousness data to Mikoshi from a thousand miles away. Looking at it now, that was pure bullshit.]
[Morning Star: If you're looking at it from the perspective of preserving a complete personality, then yes. But what if Arasaka's goal was only to obtain partial key memory data, rather than a complete engram?
In that case, perhaps we only need to adjust the Soulkiller program's transcoding algorithm to be able to excavate as much of the important consciousness data we want to know as possible.
Even a corrupted engram can have its key information restored through a breach.]
Mercer was lost in thought. Hmm, like in Inception? Digging for key information from a mess of consciousness data... alright, this thing wasn't really that useful to him.
It seemed that next time he wanted to directly control someone's complete engram, he would still have to use it in conjunction with a Relic.
Mercer clicked his tongue and sighed.
Looks like he'd have to try using Soulkiller on a target with a Relic to see the effect of the upload.
[Lucy: I see Slider. His people are in a hurry.]
[Mercer: Understood.]
He stopped thinking and looked at the dogbot, which was still tearing into Placide. The man's eyes had rolled back into his head, and he had long since entered his final moments, or rather, his soul had already been gone for a while. Mercer issued the standby command.
The dogbot returned to his side, but Mercer was not very satisfied with its combat performance. Although Placide was a gang leader of sorts, his skills, to put it bluntly, were nothing special.
If it took this much of a struggle to deal with an unarmed guy like this, it meant his dogbot still had a lot of room for improvement.
It needed more training.
"Isn't this guy in charge of the Voodoo Boys' muscle? How is he so weak in a fight?" V found his performance hard to judge.
Mercer, however, shrugged and said, "His approach is quite similar to mine, fundamentally. We both charge in, combining close-range hacks with firearms.
It's just that his hacks were completely useless against us. He couldn't even break through the ICE on your armor. I didn't even bother counter-hacking him before his own hack failed.
He was hiding under the car because the ICE automatically counter-hacked and fried him. He could only lie there and try to recover."
"So that's why. This guy looked so ferocious, why was he hiding under a car..." Rebecca muttered. "I thought I might have hit him a little too hard and scared him into cowardice."
Sasha giggled. "Well, that's not entirely out of the question."
As the group chatted and laughed, Jackie and Maine stood guard at the entrance, wary of the forty-odd people Slider had brought with him.
But to be honest, there was no need to be vigilant at all.
Because Slider and his men were already dumbstruck.
Bodies littered the ground, vehicles were on fire, walls were blasted to smithereens, and the road was completely blocked.
Looking around on their way here, it didn't feel like they were looking at the scene of a gang shootout, but rather like they had arrived at some post-war ruins.
The ground was pitted and cratered; there was no way these marks were from grenades or any other small-arms fire.
Especially a flattened car, the people inside turned to meat paste. It was completely unimaginable what kind of attack could crush a car and its occupants flat.
Slider was terrified, even a little worried that Mercer's people had been killed by the Voodoo Boys; he had never imagined that a small squad like Mercer's could wipe out all the Voodoo Boys.
At this moment, the silent field of corpses wordlessly declared the severity of the conflict, yet the silence in his ears was frightening. Clearly, all this signified that the battle was over.
It wasn't until Slider saw Jackie and Maine standing by the church, holding their weapons and smoking, that he couldn't help but suck in a cold breath.
"Where's A?"
He asked cautiously after getting out of the car.
"The boss is inside waiting for you." Maine glanced at the massive crowd of people behind him and said with a cold expression, "Just take a few people inside. The rest of you, go hold off the NCPD. You'll need to transport Rezo Agwe back to our base later."
"...Right." Slider looked at his convoy; he had left in a hurry and hadn't brought a proper transport team, but thankfully, he had enough cars. If they disassembled the server and left only a driver in each vehicle, they should be able to move most of it.
He looked at Jackie in disbelief, then at Maine and Dorio, his voice unconsciously softening. "What about Placide, Brigitte, and the others?"
"Those netrunners died in the server room. As for Placide... the boss said he wanted to use him to test the dogbot's combat capabilities. He's inside. You can go confirm for yourself if he's dead or alive."
Maine and Jackie moved aside from the main entrance. For once, the normally lawless street thugs all looked remarkably well-behaved.
Slider quietly swallowed, motioned for a few of his bodyguards to follow, and pushed open the door. The first thing that met his eyes was the large cross behind the pulpit directly opposite the entrance, and then, Mercer, lazily leaning on his Octopus Arm as he sat on the pulpit.
Although he had swapped his mask for a helmet, he was the only man on the team with a normal human physique, so there was no doubt that had to be A.
As for Placide, he was lying on the ground, the whites of his eyes showing, with bloodstains around his mouth and neck. He had clearly been dead for a while.
V and Rebecca, two mechs, one white, one pink and green, stood casually on either side of the aisle.
Slider's breathing involuntarily grew heavy; with Mercer sitting on the pulpit before the cross, the cross in the background seemed to be glowing with a golden light.
Damn, are you a god descended to earth?
Just looking at V and Rebecca's getups made Slider's palms sweat with nervousness. What the hell were these things? The conventional models of exoskeletons or armor he knew of didn't seem to include these types.
Especially Rebecca's suit; it looked like a smaller, rounder version of Adam Smasher. Ferocious as hell!
"Uh... I'm here."
Slider took the initiative to break the silence, mainly because the oppressive atmosphere was making him panic.
Mercer's laughter came from within the helmet. "Haha, don't be so nervous, friend. As agreed, we've basically taken care of the Voodoo Boys' leaders and core members. Now, Pacifica is your turf."
"No, no, no, it's our turf, our territory." Slider corrected Mercer with a broad smile. "Once we take care of the Animals, we'll be the only real masters of Pacifica!"
"Then that has nothing to do with me. I wish you luck in dealing with Sasquatch and her muscleheads, and becoming the boss of Pacifica. As for me, I'll just be staying put in Dogtown for now."
Mercer's words were undoubtedly drawing a clear line between him and Slider.
Slider froze for a moment, then said, "You mean you're not going to take over the Voodoo Boys' assets?"
"Well, that's where I'll have to trouble you to do the accounting for me," Mercer said with a smile. "You take over the turf, take stock of the assets, and then give me seventy percent. We'll call the job done then."
Seventy percent!?
Slider kept his composure and said, "What about the other businesses, the factories, or the smaller trades..."
"I only want cash. Just convert all that stuff into money and give it to me. The turf here, the shops, the supply chains, they're all yours. I just want the money."
Mercer's words brought a bright smile to Slider's face, but it didn't last long before Mercer added, "In the future, for the Voodoo Boys' market, whether it's software chips, retail arms, or cyberware smuggling, I also want a seventy percent cut.
However, for those other businesses the Voodoo Boys rely on to survive, I'm not interested. Just give me thirty percent of the net profit."
Doesn't that make us his grunts?
Slider wanted to haggle, but the shoulder cannon on Rebecca's shoulder suddenly popped out, swiveling to aim at him. "Oh!" she exclaimed, quickly reaching out to pat her shoulder cannon. "Tank One, don't get excited, they're not bad guys..."
Slider immediately shut his mouth and nodded vigorously. "Alright, we'll do it that way!"
Only then did Mercer smile. "Looks like you really understand what it means to get rich together. You'd better remember this, my friend: it's because I'm too lazy to run street-level business that you guys get to eat. If I decided to get into the gang business..."
He tilted his chin, gesturing for Slider to look at the state of Placide's corpse.
"A lot of people really wouldn't have a bite to eat."
Slider remembered that the last time he had been this obedient, like a grandson, was when he only had a dozen men under him and had met Hansen.
But now, he was showing Mercer an attitude even more deferential than the one he had shown Hansen, smiling cheerfully. "I get it. You Kindling Squad guys are meant for bigger things. You look down on these small-time street hustles and aren't interested in scamming and cheating money out of ordinary people.
Don't you worry. From now on, the Kindling Squad will be our Voodoo Boys' best and most important friend!
How about this? You can leave a trusted subordinate to keep an eye on me. I guarantee you won't be short a single cent of what you're owed! As for the future market share, we'll do as you say. You provide the tech, and we'll run the errands and watch the shops for you."
Seeing how perceptive Slider was, Mercer nodded in satisfaction. "Then have your people dismantle the Rezo Agwe server and move it to my base. I'm leaving first. As for the NCPD, you can find someone to hold them off."
But Slider just smiled and shook his head. "The NCPD precincts in Pacifica are all about to be dismantled. Why would they have the energy to risk their lives here? When gangs fight, they usually wait until everyone's scattered before showing up. So don't worry, we'll definitely get your things delivered on time!"
Mercer chuckled. The Octopus Arm propped him up from the ground, allowing him to land smoothly as if he were floating. Then, the Octopus Arm retracted, resting over his shoulder. He rolled his shoulders and said,
"Alright then. Go in through the side door and just follow the path straight ahead."
Slider, remembering the devastation on the street, asked, "What about the stuff other than the Rezo Agwe server?"
"Whatever miscellaneous junk you guys clean up is yours. But the other things, like the automatic turrets, defense bots, and computer mainframes, those all count as assets."
After Mercer finished, Slider nodded and said, "I understand. We were just planning to strip the cyberware and flip it secondhand or something..."
"Do what you want with it."
Mercer, who couldn't care less about such scraps, said as he prepared to lead his team away.
Slider, knowing his place, saw him to the door. He even smiled and waved as Mercer got into his vehicle. Only when the taillights of Mercer's group had completely vanished did his face turn cold as he looked around.
"What the fuck are you all standing around for? Get in there, dismantle the Rezo Agwe server, and deliver it to their base! Move it, before the NCPD shows up to cause trouble!"
As Slider's voice fell, one of his underlings spoke up, aggrieved, "Deliver all of it? I mean, boss, it's like we're working for them. We have to share the market, and we have to share our own hauls... Do they even have enough goods to supply the market?"
"Why don't you go negotiate with him for more money?" Slider just turned to look at him with a half-smile. "Go on. If you can pull it off, you can be the boss from now on."
The underling glanced at the street, which was still emitting black smoke, and fell silent for a moment before scratching his head.
Slider smacked him on the back of the head. "Gonk! Get to work! If they don't have enough goods, then we'll bring the business to their doorstep!
Bag up all the cyberware we strip in a bit and sell it to their base. They just need to flash the software and do some simple repairs, and won't they be able to put it on the market?
From now on, send seventy percent of all the cyberware we get our hands on to them. We'll just charge them cost price, as long as we can break even!"
"Then what do we eat?!" another Voodoo Boys member blurted out impatiently.
Slider was speechless. He rolled his eyes. "Take over the shops, smuggle in more good stuff for a low-profit, high-volume business, and there's still the Voodoo Boys' old trade... For fuck's sake, stop torturing me and go move the stuff. Shit."
Sighing, Slider turned around and stared at the church's cross. After a long moment, he gave a helpless smile.
How could he possibly be willing?
It was just... a matter of being outmatched.
—--
Meanwhile, back in Dogtown, Mercer had just gotten back to base, warmed his seat, and eaten a few soup dumplings that Pilar had driven out to buy, when a series of emails made him sigh.
[Hansen: How was your outing today? If you're all warmed up, come to the workshop and use your brain a little. I'm very interested in your new invention. As my Design Director, why haven't I heard you mention such a big surprise?
I'm waiting for you at the EBM Petrochem Stadium. Don't keep me waiting too long.]
[Bryce: Holy shit, you guys are insane. Did you get the stuff from Rezo Agwe? I'll set up a dedicated Net line for you and send you the key. Just transfer the data over directly. I guess you've been busy lately, so I'll pay you a visit in a few days to discuss matters of further cooperation. We at NetWatch have high expectations for you.]
[Stout: You were the one behind that business with the Voodoo Boys, weren't you? I've seen a few recordings. Did you evolve Arasaka's exoskeleton into a new version?
The higher-ups are very interested in you. Interested in stopping by Militech for a chat? If not, then I'll come talk to you. Dogtown isn't very convenient. Let's go out for a drink. How about Afterlife, where we first met?]
There was even a message from someone Mercer hadn't expected.
[Xu Kangping: Hello, I am the general manager of Kang Tao's Night City branch. I obtained your contact information from a middleman. Are you interested in discussing the new things you have on hand?
This includes the data on the exoskeleton you previously sold to Militech, which we are now also very interested in.
We have always been friendly and generous to our friends. I was wondering if you have time to have a cup of tea together?]
Mercer stared at the string of messages in his inbox for a long while before letting out a soft sigh.
Now, the Kindling Squad had finally stepped out from behind the curtain and onto the stage.
This was a good thing.
But it also meant that a wider, yet more dangerous, new world was just around the corner.
---------
6300words
Bonus chapter @1000power stones. Ty for your support