"You gotta be shittin' me." Teo leaned against the gleaming, custom built Kang Tao executive vehicle, a low growl rumbling in his throat. The polished black shell reflected the distant, hazy neon of Night City, a mirror to the chaos he usually navigated from a keyboard, not a driver's seat.
Tanaka, the corp suit, was so stiff he probably shat chrome. He adjusted his pristine jacket, a gesture of almost religious devotion to his tailored threads. "My regular driver's indisposed, and I find automatics… uninspired," Tanaka stated, looking down his nose, his voice a flat, almost synthetic purr of disdain. He didn't just look like he swallowed a synth bone, he sounded like it too.
Teo glared at the vehicle, then back at Tanaka. Driving. Right. He was a netrunner, a digital ghost, a phantom in the Net, not some joyboy chauffeur for a corp gonk with a stick up his ass. But then, the thought of the payout hit him like a jolt of strong stim.
Ten thousand eddies. That bought a lot of Szechuan noodles. The thought was a tangible warmth in his gut, overriding his annoyance.
"Fine," Teo muttered, the word heavy with a practiced resignation that masked his eagerness for the scratch. He slid into the driver's seat, the leather molding to his form. "Just try not to soil yourself when things get interesting." He caught Tanaka's offended sniff in the rearview. The corp probably had sensors to detect even a drop of sweat. Good.
The Kang Tao ride purred to life, a low, powerful rumble that vibrated through the floor, It wasn't just a regular armored truck, not really. It was a beast, sleek and black, armored like a tank but with the curves and lines of a luxury sports car, a true testament to corpo flare.
No doubt fast, capable of tearing through Night City's concrete arteries like a bullet. Teo's SpecterNet Optics immediately painted the world in vivid layers of data, an augmented reality that showed him traffic flow, security nodes, and the endless, invisible network of the city's comms.
And then… there it was. Whispers. Not audible, no, but digital. Low level probes, tentative tendrils reaching for Tanaka's data packet. Some wannabe data broker, a script kiddie, or just a random opportunist, looking for a quick score from a high value corp target. Pathetic. They never knew who they were really messing with.
Ping.
Teo's fingers danced over a discreet panel built into the steering wheel, a seamless extension of his cyberware. A quickhack launched from his cyberdeck, a silent, surgical strike in the digital realm. The probes shriveled, the digital noise dying down like a snuffed candle in the wind. Just like that.
"Just a glitch," Tanaka huffed from the passenger, already engrossed in his datapad, utterly oblivious to the silent skirmish that had just unfolded around him, a storm of data that could have cost him everything. "Night City's airwaves are always so… cluttered."
Teo just snorted, a sarcastic grin twitching his lips. "Yeah, 'clutter.' We'll go with that, choom." Fucker's voice crackled in his internal comms, a dry chuckle, the sound like static through an old radio. 'He's got more chrome up his ass than in his skull, Teo.'
"Tell me about it," Teo thought back, navigating a particularly tight turn off the main street, heading deeper into the concrete jungle. This was going to be a long ride. A profitable one, but long.
Ten minutes passed and the gleaming spires of Corpo Plaza slowly receded in the rearview, replaced by the grimy, smoke- hoked arteries of Night City's industrial zones.
This was Santo Domingo, a sprawl of rust belt factories and forgotten warehouses, where the air hung heavy with the scent of ozone, stale exhaust, and something metallic, acrid, the unmistakable stink of impending violence. Teo's gut twisted. This wasn't a scenic route, this was a gauntlet. Every shadowed alley, every rusting scaffold, felt like a coiled spring, ready to snap.
He took a hard, jarring turn into a side alley shortcut, a narrow cut through he'd used countless times. It was a risk, but it saved minutes, sometimes precious seconds, navigating through this shithole.
This was his little short cut, the dark underbelly he knew intimately. He'd driven through here in beat up jalopies, on his bike, on foot, running packages, dropping off data, casing targets. He knew the blind spots, the ambush points.
And that's when he saw it. Or rather, felt it. A cold ripple through his optics, a signature he knew meant trouble.
Just as he was about to emerge from the alley, passing the derelict warehouse, its corrugated metal walls scarred with rust and graffiti, a heavy duty transport truck roared to life from a blind alley parallel to them.
Its lights flared, blinding, before it swerved, cutting them off with a screech of tires that ripped through the night, a harsh shriek of protest from the asphalt. Before Teo could even register the threat, two more vehicles, dark and heavily armored, peeled from the deeper shadows, boxing them in like a meticulously planned trap. A textbook ambush.
The doors of the lead truck burst open, disgorging a crew of heavily armed gangoons. Low tier mercs, no doubt, looking to make a name or a quick eddy by hitting a Kang Tao vehicle. Their cheap, aftermarket cyberware glowed ominously in the dim industrial light, weapons already rising, pointing straight at their target.
"Shit!" Tanaka shrieked from the passenger seat, his voice a pathetic squeak of pure terror. The thin veneer of his corp composure shattered like cheap glass, revealing the raw fear beneath.
"Fucking MILK RUN!" Teo roared back, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that cut through Tanaka's fear. His fingers, a blur of motion, slammed down on a hidden panel, kicking in the reinforced locks on the vehicle doors. "HEAD DOWN, MEATBAG!"
A savage spray of bullets immediately hammered the front of the armored car, a sickening thump! thump! thump! against the armored glass of the windshield. A couple of rounds, heavier than the rest, managed to spider web and then puncture the multi layered glass, shrapnel spraying inward like tiny, deadly diamonds.
Two of those slugs smacked into Teo's chest, right where his Reinforced Subdermal Weave lay just beneath his skin. He felt the jarring impact, a dull ache, but the weave and his thick jacket took the brunt of it. They didn't punch through. Not yet.
He slammed on the brakes, the custom ride skidding to a halt, the smell of burning rubber momentarily overwhelming the industrial stench. With a practiced, brutal shove, he threw Tanaka over the center console, forcing the corp suit into the back of the truck, out of the immediate line of fire. Before the gangoons could react, Teo was a blur, already out of the driver's seat, moving like a shadow into the chaos.
His weave felt like a second skin, a subtle, light protection that hummed with a primal, almost predatory confidence. He didn't have fancy schmancy combat cyberware, no Gorilla Arms or Mantis Blades, but he didn't need them for this kind of work.
His extra combat knife, a familiar weight in his hand, slid into his grip, a glint of polished chrome and lethal steel. This was his preferred tool. Surgical. Intimate.
One merc, a hulking brute with a crudely chromed arm and an archaic bat wrapped in barbed wire, roared, lunging with surprising speed. Teo ducked under the wild, arcing swing, the bat whistling inches above his head, the wind of its passage stirring his crimson hair.
He was fluid, almost impossibly swift. As the brute overextended, Teo surged forward, his knife a silent blur. The blade sang its lethal song, finding a soft spot in the merc's exposed neck, just beneath his ear where the plating ended. A wet gurgle, a choked gasp, and the man crumpled to the greasy concrete like a discarded sack of synth meat, a grotesque heap.
Then, a sudden, brutal spray of bullets erupted. The gangoons, blinded by their rage, swiss cheesed their own fallen comrade. Teo, already anticipating it, used the dying body as a shield, pressing forward even as bullets tore through the human flesh and bone, splattering hot, sticky blood and grey matter across his jacket. He moved closer, through the hail of fire.
With a grunt of exertion, Teo threw the dead man, a heavy, gruesome missile, sending him crashing into the two mercs behind him, knocking them off balance. He wasn't a brawler, he was more a surgeon of violence, each movement calculated to end the threat with brutal efficiency. Another merc, a woman with a chipped tooth grin and a cheap pistol, opened fire, her face contorted in a snarl.
Teo sidestepped, the bullets sparking off the side of the Kang Tao vehicle, leaving angry gouges in the black paint. He closed the distance in a breath, his knife flashing, finding the gap in her exposed jacket, a quick, vicious thrust to the gut.
He twisted the knife and dragged the blade up, watching as her intestines flopped out, spraying even more blood onto his form. She dropped, her eyes wide with shock and agony, blood blooming rapidly on the industrial floor beneath her, steaming slightly in the cool air.
Two more men attacked. One, a ganger with a cheap cyber pistol, rushed forward, trying to fire at Teo, only for the weapon to backfire in his face with a loud POP!, the cheap tech blowing apart and causing deep lacerations to form across his face, blinding him. (Weopon malfunction QH)
He staggered back, screaming. The other attacked with a flimsy, decorative sword, a tourist trap souvenir. Teo sidestepped, letting the desperate swing go wide, then shoved his blade hilt deep into the man's forehead. The blade punched through bone and brain with a sickening crunch. The merc stiffened, then collapsed, the sword falling uselessly from his hand.
More bullets sprayed around him, tearing into the concrete, chewing through discarded crates. He felt two sharp impacts against his ribs, one glancing off his subdermal weave, a dull thud, barely a bruise.
But the other, a lucky shot that found a gap in his jacket, carved a searing line across his side, a fiery trail that made him grit his teeth. He swore under his breath, biting back a grunt of pain, and ducked, scrambling behind a rusted, overturned truck, finding momentary cover.
But even as his flesh and steel danced with death, even as the metallic tang of his own blood filled his mouth, a cold dread snaked through his SpecterNet Optics. A more sophisticated signal. This wasn't some script kiddie's clumsy attempt at hacking a corpo vehicle, this was a persistent data tap, a hungry leech, a digital maw latching onto Tanaka's packet, gorging itself on critical information. This was a dedicated netrunner, working in tandem with the meat-puppets outside, a synchronized assault.
"Fucker! Get me a lock on that netrunner, now!" Teo barked internally, dodging a wild spray of autofire from another charging merc, bullets pinging off the metal barricade he had been hiding behind, sending sparks flying.
'Working on it, bitch! They're buried deep!' Fucker's usually flippant tone was edged with urgency, a rare note of genuine strain in the AI's synthesized voice. Teo could almost feel the heat of Fucker's processing, a faint warmth behind his optics, a desperate push for more power.
Teo broke cover, scrambling behind a reinforced concrete pillar, its surface already scarred with old bullet marks. He pulled out Bon Bon Mark 2, his custom Arasaka Kenshin, his baby, his wittle-
The sleek, matte black tech pistol hummed, a low, resonant thrumming in his hand, the internal green LEDs glowing brighter, a promise of deadly, charged force. He popped out from behind the pillar, taking aim at a charging merc with a cheap submachine gun, his eyes locking onto the center mass.
VROOOM! POW! The gun barked in his hand, a concussive blast of sound and energy. The recoil sent his hand back with a violent jolt as the merc's head split like a watermelon, bone shards and brain matter spraying a gruesome red and grey pattern against the concrete wall behind him as he collapsed, lifeless.
"HAHA, EAT LED PUTO!" Teo yelled as he fired again at a hiding merc who was behind a wooden palate. The bullet tore through the wood and into the side of the mercs, head spraying blood like an exploding soda can.
Another merc, a stocky man with a cybernetic arm, took aim from behind their vehicles, trying to flank Teo. Teo quickly turned and locked onto the man's chest. VROOM! POW!
The enhanced bullet from his Kenshin, supercharged, slammed into his chest with incredible force, throwing him off his feet and leaving a fist sized hole where his heart should have been. He flew backward, slamming into the side of his own vehicle before sliding down, a trail of crimson painting the dark metal.
Then, Teo re engaged on the digital front, his mind splitting, dedicating core processes to the hidden battle. This was a direct digital assault. Teo sent a burst of raw, violent data from his cyberdeck, a digital fist slamming into the hidden netrunner's defenses.
His COX 2 Cybersomatic Optimizer kicked in, a surge of raw processing power flaring through his frontal cortex implant. Neural pathways hyper optimized, pushing pure quickhack lethality, accelerating neural impulses for devastating payloads.
System Glitch. Overheat. Data Spike. The quickhacks launched in rapid succession, not just scripts but digital weapons, tearing through the Net like a virus. He saw the enemy's network shriek as its defenses buckled, firewalls melting, nodes overloading, digital screams echoing in his augmented hearing.
He was fighting on two fronts, a brutal, synchronized dance of meat and code, bleeding in both the physical and digital realms. The gun in his hand roared, spitting death at the remaining mercs, the rounds tearing through flesh and even cheap subdermal armor.
A female merc, more agile than the others, launched herself from cover, firing wildly. Teo ducked the bullets, his hand a blur as he pulled his combat knife from the last victim. He threw it, a silver streak, and the blade buried itself hilt deep in the female's head. She fell, twitching, blood gushing onto the already slick ground.
The digital current flowing through his deck was a firestorm, tearing through layers of sophisticated ICE, ripping through firewalls like wet tissue paper. Tanaka's panicked yelps from inside the vehicle were just background noise, a pathetic wail amidst the symphony of chaos.
"Kang Tao will hear about this!" Tanaka shrieked, his voice choked with indignant fury, completely unaware of the digital war raging for his data.
"Oh, I'm sure they will, choom," Teo grunted, a sardonic chuckle escaping him as he kicked a fallen merc's weapon away, the metal scraping against the concrete. "After I save your sorry ass."
'Got him, Teo! He's trying to reroute through a public terminal! Sending a ghost trace now!' Fucker laughed, a gleeful, almost maniacal cackle in his head, triumph lacing its voice, even as Teo felt the raw data heat his cyberdeck, a dangerous warmth spreading through his temples.
"Mmm, check please!" Teo yelled, lining up a final digital payload, a taunt aimed at the unseen netrunner. SUICIDE. The hostile netrunner's connection shrieked, a high pitched digital death rattle that only Teo could hear, echoing in his neural pathways, then died.
Physically, a final merc, the last one standing, suddenly dropped his pistol, his eyes going wide and vacant before he flopped to the floor, a neat, bloodless hole appearing through his temple.
Silence. Just the low thrum of the engine, the distant wail of a siren beginning to approach, and Tanaka's frantic, ragged breathing from the back.
Teo stood over the fallen, bloodied mercs, his side throbbing, the cuts stinging, his jacket smeared with gore. He took a deep, shuddering breath, the adrenaline slowly receding, leaving him wired and vibrating. He felt drained, but utterly exhilarated.
Preem.
A/N: Okay hope I got all the enemies dead, can't remember. Anyway make sure u guys leave a review! I'm watching u goblins, typing comments! I see you SSPEXTRILLEX! You and your absolute cinema gifs! Nah but seriously I appreciate all of yalls for sticking around fr.
In the future I might do a Council ark or something, not much is known about the night city council other then that its run by the mayor. Im pretty sure all the councilors are corporate drones anyway. I have some fun things planned so give me some suggestions on what you'd like to see!