Later that night, Northside Watson, The Totentanz Bar, I arrived outside the place as I stepped out of my Quadra as I looked around and it only took a moment for me to see a guy leaving on the hood of a massive Chevillon Emperor 620 Ragnar which was if you took a military Hummer and thought, 'Why don't we make it into a Sports Car?' And thus the Emperor was born.
"Ahh you made it." Arthur said as he finished smoking his cigar before tossing it to the side as he looked me up and down.
"Huh, you really are borged up huh? How do you even eat like that?" He said to which I held up my hand to where my mouth and jaw was located before pushing down the sides to have a mouth and jaw appear, but it looked like a metallic jaw and teeth like the bottom half of a skull.
Luckily I had been trying many different things over the few days before I got my new place and figured how to use my Void powers and change my face entirely and made it look like I was borged up at the level of Adam Smasher to keep up with the disguise I had for myself going on, until I found people I could genuinely trust then no one will see my real face.
"It's and integrated helmet, but I still have a real mouth and jaw, well a chromed out one but I can still eat at least." I said as he just nodded before I pressed the buttons again to which it just became a full helmet again.
So with that said we went on into the Totentan's before taking the elevator up to the main floor of the bar which when we arrived I could hear music that was a mix of EDM and Death Metal.
Plenty of people getting drunk, partying and getting high on drugs in what was the club section of the bar but we didn't go into that area as a Maelstrom bouncer saw us.
"You the Fixer and the borg huh? Boss is waiting for you upstairs." The guy said motioning with his thumb to some stairs leading up what looked like a private area of the club.
So with both headed up there and past the door where several gang members were waiting with on guy sitting on one of the couches making it clear he was the boss.
Me and Arthur came in, ignoring the guys who had their hands on their guns or we're just our right holding their guns at the ready as we went over and sat on a opposite couch to Brick, the leader of Maelstrom.
Brick blew out smoke from his mouth as his glowing multiple cybernetic red eyes began to glow as he opened them, or whatever is the equivalent, as he looked at the both of us, "So, this is the Borged Merc you found for us to do the job Arthur?"
Arthur just shrugged, "You had very specific criteria and there is only two people in all Night City who fit your criteria, and one only works for Arasaka so Hayden here is all I got." Arthur said as he leaned back on the couch.
"Brick! This is fucking Bullshit! Why the hell we got to ask a Merc to do this when we can easily do it ourselves huh?!" Another guy who was here couldn't help but chime in pissed at the thought of a merc doing this job that the gang themselves should take care of.
"And what do you expect me to do Royce? Send in my whole crew only for all of us to just get fucking mowed down since those assholes have a way to fuck with our cybernetics specifically? We maybe crazy and psychotic to everyone on the outside but you should know that we aren't a gang full of idiots." Brick said surprisingly calmly back to the guy who was questioning his words who was his second in command after all.
Hearing that Royce just clenched his fists but didn't keep talking since even if he didn't want to admit it, Brick was right about this, if the Maelstrom gang did this they would just be killed like fish in a barrel.
"Alright, wanna explain why it's so dangerous to let your crew do this but think it's fine for one borged up merc to handle it all on his own?" Arthur asked because based upon what everyone was saying is that this gig was exceedingly dangerous for an entire gang to deal with themselves.
Rick then took a long drag on his cigarette before blowing out smoke, "Have you ever heard of the Inquistors before?" Rick said asking a simple question but one I wasn't too familiar with.
"The Inquisitors? Wasn't that a gang of guys who absolutely hated anyone having Cybernetics and hunted people down religiously because of that? I thought you and a few of the old gangs back during the 40's and 50's wiped them off the map for good?" Arthur said letting me in on a bit of history in the Cyberpunk world.
I wasn't too familiar to most of the stuff that has happened in the past here in the world of Cyberpunk besides the fact the Johnny Silverhand and a bunch of mercs had a hand in blowing up Arasaka Tower in 2023 in this worlds Timeline, but I never really paid much attention to everything else.
"We thought we did, but some of those rats fled from night city and now their back for a vengeance, if left alone they won't just be our problem but all the gangs will be targeted by them, but this is OUR problem and they are OUR prey to take down for good." He said making it very clear that the Maelstrom, no matter how many in their gang are killed, will take out the Inquisitors themselves.
"Okay, so what's the job exactly?" I had to ask since I wasn't going into wipe these 'Inquisitors' myself then there must be something else.
Hearing that Brick sighed and looked at Royce who was leaning up against the wall seemingly extremely irritated, "It's Royce's Sister, they are holding her hostage, if they see any Maelstrom go and attack them personally they will kill her, now if I didn't care and let Royce have his way we'd have gone to take them down for good ourselves, but Royce's sister would die as a result." Brick said pulling out a shard and handing it to me as I pushed it into my head as all the info flowed into my head.
Royce, whose real name is Simon Randall, had his sister Eve captured and taken Hostage by the Inquisitors, using her as a way to keep Maelstrom from attacking them outright, not only because it would endanger Eve's life but they have tech that specifically targets Maelstrom Hardware and can instantly Flatline any that try to get to them as a result.
Only reason why they haven't used it is that they want to make it even better to target the hardware of all the Gangs in Night City before attacking the corps and sending the city into chaos from their attack, well at least from what Maelstrom assumes but they are at least 90% sure that's what they plan on doing since those guys hate cybernetics with a passion making them less of a gang now and more like a full blown Terrorist group.
So the job is this, get into the Inquistors base north of Night City, save Eve and find the device the Inquistors have that can fuck with Maelstrom Cyberware and destroy it.
"I see…." I say before looking at Arthur as we both pull out the shards in our heads about the gig as I motion to the door.
"Well all I got to say is good luck with that, hope you can save your sister and deal with your problems yourself, cause no matter what you offer there is no way in hell I'm just going to walk head long into a death trap like that." Sure I like a challenge, and don't get me wrong I could really do this, but the amount of danger isn't worth the price they are paying me.
Though as we stood up to leave, half of the Maelstrom in the room decided to pull their guns on us, including Royce, "You think you can come in here and say no? Your lucky we are even thinking about paying you to do this job for us!" He said as he pressed the gun up against the back of my head.
Arthur had his hands up but I could see that his arms were Gorilla Arms Cybernetics, but he had them made to look just like his skin unless he was about to get into a fight, which was about to happen.
But I didn't look at Royce and looked right at Rick who was calm about the situation entirely as he kept smoking a cigarette, "So what's it gonna be Brick? Am I gonna have to kill every single gonk that decided to put a gun up to my face? Or you gonna let us walk?"
Brick let out a long puff of smoke as we stared each other down for a good few seconds and then he closed his eyes, "Let them go."
"Brick! The fuck you mean let them go?!"
"I said. Let. Them. Go. Anyone who doesn't put your guns down in the next 5 seconds isn't a Maelstrom anymore and they can kill you without any retaliation from us as a result." Brick said which made everyone besides Royce put their guns away from hearing that.
With Royce still pointing his gun at me I turned to look at him, "Well? I'm waiting, you gonna try flatlining me or not? Because neither you nor your gang has put forth enough creds for me to go out of my way to save your little sister."
This made him grit his teeth in anger but there wasn't really anything he could do, "Do whatever you want Royce, but you die I have no reason to try going to save your sister who isn't a full blown member yet." Brick says making Royce hesitate before taking a deep breath before putting his gun away.
I then look at Brick, "I'll let you think about the price for this job to make it worth my time, 50k isn't worth it for a suicide mission like that." I say waving them off as me and Arthur head on out of the room.
"Brick! What the fuck!" Royce couldn't help but shout out, enraged his boss just let them go like that.
But his eyes just glowed "Patricia, what's the status on Felix." He says speaking on his holo while putting it on speaker.
"He's dead, body was fried from the inside out." Is all she said which shocked everyone else in the room, including Royce, as Felix was one of the Netrunners for the Maelstrom, Specfically watching the Totentanz club for any rogue Netrunner intrusion from outside and to stop and counter hack them.
Or to hack someone from within the building, but now Felix was dead, "I had Felix specfically try and gleam any data he could from that Borg, and Felix paid the price as a result, not only that my Optics told me nothing about his Cybernetics, so I made the right call to stop you from doing something stupid." He said with all serious in his voice.
"I don't know what he has on him, but whatever it is must be next generation tech at least, but for now we will leave him alone, if we can't figure out how to do this ourselves then will just have to pay the price needed to take them down for good." Brick said making everyone go quiet in the room as a result.
But if I had heard what they were saying at this time I wouldn't have a clue what the hell they are talking about.
But if Felix could say what he saw before death was, it would be A Man in the Wall….
*******
Thank you all for the wait! I have come back to writing again, haven't moved yet as that will be in a few weeks but with everything set and ready to go I'm getting my groove back and writing again!
Anyway if you want to see more than 10 chapters ahead along with exclusive access to works that haven't gone public yet you can support me on Patreon.
Patreon.com/Izer5
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From what those on Patreon have said is that they find it interesting and I'm thinking of making it exclusive for maybe 15 to 20 chapters to incentivize people to want to subscribe to get more for the early access.
Anyway I'm back everyone and I will see you in the next chapter!