"Night City, Night City! Now let's swing the finish-feed over to Colorado Farm!"
"Poor Santo Domingo—ever since the last time Night Corp's power station got hit, the grid never came back. Look at it—dark as the Badlands."
"Good thing we've got Zeta Tech's newest XDR-8 multimodal perception drone. City alleys, open wastes, haboobs, smog—battlefield clarity, all angles!"
"Civvie models don't get this feature, of course, but it can also interface with multiple heavy weapon systems for precision guidance."
"Oh! We've got flames! They're engaging!"
A Thorton Jefferson 388 tore down the street. It was the kind of ride mid-tier corpo managers loved: clean executive lines, "respectable" styling—and armor wrapped around the whole damn thing.
For a car aimed at mid-level suits, the Jefferson 388 was basically a pure armored executive carrier. Bland, forgettable silhouette… but the empty curb weight still cleared two tons.
When it dropped off the overpass and entered Colorado Farm, the mercs inside took one look at the empty streets and got hyped.
Colorado Farm was poor, and the power still hadn't fully come back. Huge stretches of homes and roadways sat drowned in darkness. The streets were dead—no pedestrians, no traffic.
Speeding was already a rush. Speeding inside the city was another tier. And if the speeding was "legal" for once—if someone was filming you, if the whole city was watching—then it was pure synapse candy.
And the darkness made the hidden cameras and recording rigs between buildings stand out. The drones overhead felt like a superstar's multi-cam setup.
Put it together and the core city's light pollution became stage lighting.
The soundtrack was the rise-and-fall of engines.
The show was mutual slaughter.
"Ha-ha!"
One of the mercs—a woman in full kit—let out a weird, high, unhinged laugh. The other two felt their guts tighten.
What the hell? Why was that laugh so creepy?
"What're you laughing at?" the driver asked, eyes scanning the dark. "You glitching out?"
The third in the trio was a huge guy—took up the entire back row by himself. The seatback had been modded into a heavy machine gun mount, and he had rockets within arm's reach.
On a normal day, a setup like this could jack a corpo convoy.
Tonight? It was just baseline.
The big guy didn't answer. As the gunner, he had to read the street—every angle, every shadow.
The woman kept talking anyway, voice buzzing like a bad BD feed.
"Just thinking… we've been breathing this long, and this is the first time we've ever felt like stars. Makes the last few decades feel like a waste—like we were just digging for food in a trash heap."
"Where isn't a trash heap?" the driver muttered.
"This isn't!" she snapped. "Night City is preem—so preem. That line… how does it go again—"
The big guy's low voice cut in, steady and grim.
"No one leaves Night City. Not unless it's in a body bag."
"Yeah."
"Contact!"
He slammed the brakes on their little moment, his growl yanking them back into combat reality—
And the enemy was in the dark: inside those rotten wooden houses and half-finished concrete shells.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—
The heavy MG started barking. Big-cal rounds streaked through the night like meteors, tearing into a roadside shack. The gunner's chrome held the muzzle dead-steady; with gyro assist and motor stabilization, every round walked exactly where he wanted it.
Less than a few seconds of precise bursts turned the structure into a sieve.
It collapsed.
"Did you see who it was?!" the driver yelled.
"No! Can't see—more!"
The big guy swung the muzzle, but now the heat signatures were on both sides.
The gun had to traverse fast. The car was moving fast.
And he realized it wasn't one or two hostiles.
The buildings were full of bodies.
BANG!
A trash bin at the curb suddenly popped.
A guy exploded out of it, the lid flipping off with a metallic clap—
He was carrying a rocket launcher.
Ten meters, maybe less. The woman in the passenger seat saw it crystal clear: the guy popped up and squeezed the trigger like it was muscle memory.
That wasn't a scav. That was trained.
In less than a blink, her skill chip kicked into a defensive routine. She raised her hand and snapped a throwing knife out at high speed—
WHOOOSH—
"RPG!"
BOOM!
The rocket got cut in midair, detonating early after the knife sheared through it.
Still smoking, still shaking, the woman dropped back into her seat and slapped at flames licking her sleeve.
"Whoa. That guy wasn't bullshitting. We—"
"Mine!"
Barely survived the rocket, barely got the car settled, and the driver suddenly saw a blink on the road.
One glance was enough.
Wireless mine.
He could see it.
He couldn't dodge it.
Click.
The wheel rolled right over it, and the driver's only thought was: where the hell did these freaks come from?
BOOM!
At almost three tons total weight, the Jefferson 388 was still just a slightly heavier tin can against an anti-vehicle mine.
Fire punched up into the air. The blast ripped through the armored car's belly, bending and snapping "reinforced" metal like cheap scrap.
The front and rear sections tore apart. The vehicle flew, slammed down, and pancaked into a twisted lump.
"Nice!" someone cheered from a distant unfinished building. Morton watched through binocs and clapped. "You see that? That's a clean ambush!
War's about brains, chooms!"
"But boss," one of the rookies raised a hand timidly, "wasn't that just… hiding in a trash can and popping out to tag 'em?"
Morton glanced at him, put a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a warm smile.
When the kid smiled back, Morton smacked him upside the head and started cussing him out while hitting him again.
"You think you're so smart? So damn smart? If you're so smart, how come you didn't think of it first?!"
"Boss!" another voice snapped in—one of the snipers. "Not dead!"
"I'm obviously not dead—"
"No, boss—the one who hit the mine isn't dead! Holy—!"
CRACK!
Maybe the optic lens flashed and gave their position away. The next second, the sniper's head popped like fruit.
Morton reacted on instinct—kicked the mouthy rookie off the roofline and flattened himself behind cover, cold sweat flooding his spine.
The mine target didn't die.
From above, the ambush looked perfect.
Sixth Street didn't have swarms of high-end drones for battlefield intel, but they had something else: locals. A whole population of human cameras.
That's how they could camp the city like jungle vets—everywhere and nowhere at once—always waiting on the routes those mid-race roaches would take.
But…
These targets were scary strong.
The sniper clutched his neck, blood spraying through his fingers. Morton barked at the rookies.
"Eyes up! This is field medicine!"
He pulled a syringe and jabbed it in.
The kid's eyes—wide with terror—smoothed out. The pain faded into something soft and distant.
"Kid. You got family?"
The kid nodded, tears spilling.
"Good." Morton kept his voice flat. "I just hit you with a Tiger Claws special. Now I'm pulling your observation feed."
He yanked a personal link out of his wrist and plugged it into the kid's neural port.
"Uh… am I gonna die?" the kid slurred.
"Course not." Morton stared right into his eyes. "You ever watch that old flick, Saving Captain Ryan? You stay strong now. Think happy thoughts. What'd you eat for dinner?"
The kid's mind jumped there immediately.
Grilled fresh synth-meat—rare in Santo Domingo. Tasted… almost like real meat.
Thinking about it made him smile.
It was his first time eating "meat."
Then his cyberware systems stopped.
Everything.
The whole thing took seconds. The rookies lay flat and silent. Even the one who loved asking questions shut his mouth.
The dead sniper's neck had only a thin strip of flesh still holding. His spine was bent at a disgusting angle.
If his ballistic vest hadn't supported his cervical line at all, his head would've come clean off.
Morton unplugged, snatched up the dropped sniper rifle, and addressed the rookies.
"Remember this. Triage. Give him a sedative with neural maintenance effect, then pull what you can from the battlefield recorder.
At least you won't be blind walking into the next contact."
The question-kid couldn't help himself.
"Then why ask what he ate—"
"So he dies calm, and so he cooperates. Tiger Claws stuff hits hard. Heard if you take it, you can climax just from thinking."
The rookie froze.
[Morton: 48 vehicles total. 37 disabled, but a lot of them aren't dead. High-tech.][Morton: I marked the locations for you.]
[Burger King: We're almost there.]
Morton drew a long breath.
These racers were built different. You didn't feel it until you faced them.
"Boss."
The rookie again.
He leaned in and whispered, "Boss… later, can you ask me what doing A feels like? I don't like eating."
[Name: Adam Pound][Age: 16]
Morton looked at the kid's innocent face and laughed like he wanted to scream.
"I swear to God I'm gonna slap your face off. Shoulder your iron and keep it steady. We're relocating."