retirement (7) - Fics I Read 2.0

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Retirement by Noodlehammer

Worm & Cyberpunk 2077 Xover Rated: M, English, [V, Skitter], Words: 181k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Jan 28 Updated: Jul 29

743Chapter 7: Escalating

Thanks go to Alvor for beta-reading

XXXXX

The drive back to Night City was silent, but a comfortable silence. Mostly.

V kept one hand on the wheel and one hand on her new girlfriend's thigh occasionally looking over to smile at her.

Making all of these little affectionate gestures, that was easy, superficial stuff. V might as well have had an executable program called AffectionateGirlfriend in her brain for how easy it was to adopt these kinds of mannerisms.

But sharing her name, her personal history, opening herself up to someone? That had been hard. And it would only get harder before it got any easier, but it had to be done, because this wasn't just a con.

It was a very good thing that Taylor was so much younger than her, because if she had been the older and more experienced one, V didn't think she'd be able to do this at all. Her paranoia was twigging hard enough already even when she had no doubts that Taylor was exactly what she seemed.

It had been over a decade since the last time she had allowed herself to feel anything genuine for another person – with the singular exception of Jackie. The clusterfuck at the Mexican border had forced them to work together because the alternative was certain death.

V had been fully intending to betray him once the bullets stopped flying, but circumstances had conspired to see her wounded and at his mercy instead. She had expected to end up dead, with her corpse dumped in a landfill somewhere, but that wasn't how it happened either.

He would never know how close he'd been to death back then, or how deeply his casual assumption that they were friends just because they went through a life and death situation together had affected her. It had left her in a confused, introspective daze for weeks as she reevaluated her whole life, made worse when he kept calling her up just to hang out and trying to cajole her into quitting her job so that they could be mercenaries together. He had no reason to be doing that, so it had been impossible to rationalize it away as a scheme to use her.

Now she had to let Taylor in even deeper, without the impetus of certain death if she didn't. She couldn't allow their relationship to just be surface-level, not if she wanted it to last, which she did. It made her skin feel like it was trying to crawl off her bones from the sheer discomfort, but V stubbornly ignored it.

She knew that it was just a physiological response, her lizard hindbrain raising an alarm because it thought she was repeating a past mistake. An irrational fear that didn't care about logic. A completely animal reaction that was beneath her.

It was going to be hell for a few months. Their world didn't put much emphasis on mental health, and V had never thought to even try unraveling her trust issues. Being distrustful and keeping people at a distance was simply common sense in the corpo world. And now she didn't have the time to try it, much less succeed.

That was why she was going to do things the fast way – browbeating her subconscious into submission until her brain's neural architecture adapted into what she wanted it to be, regardless of how unpleasant the process. It was going to be hell, and she would have to go through it without letting Taylor know. There was nothing she could do to help, and she didn't deserve to deal with V's baggage.

"Are you okay?" Taylor asked softly, hesitantly putting her left hand over V's right. She sounded concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine." V deflected automatically, smiling. "Why do you ask?"

"Your heart rate suddenly picked up." The bug master said.

Right, her bugs. Being seen through and constantly observed so closely was another thing that was causing her a lot of discomfort, but she ignored that as well. It would be stupid to complain about Taylor's powers when they were the reason that she was putting herself through this in the first place.

"Just a bit of nervous excitement, I've never been in a real relationship before." V admitted, vastly understating the situation.

"Never?" Taylor's incredulity was hilariously genuine as she used her cybernetic arm to gesture at her vaguely. "But you're…?"

"Old?" V teased.

"No!" Taylor quickly denied. "I mean… you're so beautiful?"

"If looking good was all it took, biosculpting would have made our world a paradise." She replied ruefully, knowing full well that in most cases, the ability to change one's looks only made things worse. A lot worse.

They lapsed back into silence for another minute, before Taylor spoke up again.

"I had a boyfriend, once." She said quietly.

"Brian?" V guessed, smiling at Taylor's surprised look. She and Jackie had both been very interested in hearing more about Earth Bet, and the bug master had shared a few stories. "I figured you had something going on with him by the way you talked about him. I would have thought you had something with Lisa, too, if you weren't so oblivious."

Taylor gave a slightly annoyed exhale over the light tease, but it was aimed mostly at herself. "Yeah, we had a thing… but I'm not sure it was a real relationship either. I liked him, but he treated me more like a little sister. We only got together after he was tortured so badly that he went through a second trigger and I almost had my head sawed open by the little monster that did it."

Taylor had explained trigger events before, the psychological break needed to awaken parahuman potential. From context, a second trigger was a repeat of that, undoubtedly deepening the original damage.

"You were already friends and then you went through a severely traumatic experience together." V nodded in understanding. "I would have been surprised if you didn't latch on to each other."

"It didn't last after I gave myself up to the PRT, and he got together with someone else." Taylor continued, the emotion vanishing from her tone.

If V had to guess, Taylor felt a little betrayed by that, even though she knew it was unreasonable. Emotions were rarely reasonable, especially under those kinds of circumstances. V should know – she was dealing with some unreasonable emotions herself right now.

This would be a perfect opportunity to share her own experiences, but she just couldn't do it. The words got stuck in her throat and her lungs felt like they were seizing up when she tried to force them out. Looks like sharing about her parents had been the limit of what she was capable of for now. None of it showed on her face, because she had trained herself to not give away that kind of weakness, but she felt it all the same.

"His loss is my gain." She said instead, giving Taylor's leg a firm squeeze.

The younger woman gave her a small smile, although her eyes were calculating. She'd probably sensed another jump in her heart rate.

Thankfully, they were almost home by that point and V gladly took the opportunity to shift the tone of the conversation. As Taylor went to unlock her monstrosity of a front door, the former corpo wrapped herself around her and started suckling on the bug master's neck, her hands roaming and grabbing and squeezing.

"V, come on, there's people watching." Taylor hissed, squirming in her hold.

"Then I guess you better hurry up with that door." V retorted flippantly, moving to nibble on the shell of her ear.

She did just that, rushing to slot in the physical key, the keyshard, and punch in the security code. There was actually an emergency release on the other side that Taylor could activate with her bugs, but she avoided using that frivolously. As soon as that was done, she pushed it open and stepped inside, V still clinging to her like a tick.

Taylor carelessly threw the duffel bag in her hand on the ground, more than a hundred scorpions and several species of desert spider scuttling out and using the hidden holes to go to the basement with the rest of her 'in house' swarm.

The bug master herself wiggled out of V's grip and fled up the stairs, but got caught again as soon as they were up in the loft.

"V, we're both sweaty and dusty. We need to shower and get started on lunch." Taylor said reasonably, putting in a half-assed effort to fight off the hands pulling at her clothes.

"You're right." V conceded, then grabbed her new girlfriend and carried her towards the shower. It was big enough for two for a reason.

XXXXX

Taylor had never considered herself a lustful girl. Three days of almost non-stop sex later, she had to wonder about that. V might have been the one initiating for the most part, but she hadn't exactly minded. Quite the opposite in fact.

"Shouldn't you call Jackie and Mama Welles? They'll be worried about you not coming home." She remembered to ask on the evening of the third day. They'd just had dinner and were laying in bed after another slow lovemaking session.

V gave her a pitying look and kissed her on the forehead. "They know exactly where I am and what I'm doing. Unlike you, they noticed my hints and knew that I was planning to seduce you."

"Oh." That Jackie and Mama Welles – and probably also Misty and Vik – knew what had been going on while she remained oblivious was kind of embarrassing. But at least it would spare them from making a big reveal of it.

"And I was hoping to call this place my home from now on." V continued, gazing deep into her eyes. "I know it's a bit rushed and I won't be offended if you want to slow down, but I've really enjoyed living with you and would like to make it more permanent."

It was rushed. They'd only just barely gotten into a relationship, so moving in together was definitely moving extremely fast. That being said, Taylor had enjoyed it, too, especially the past three days. Taking showers together, sleeping in the same bed together, cuddling on the couch together while she read a book…

Would it even feel like a home without V, or would it be just a secure place to sleep and keep her stuff? Besides, everything was too big for just one person. And V had pretty much done all the work to decorate and furnish the apartment, as well as technically paying for half of it by giving up her share of the loot from clearing out the Scavs... waaaaait a minute!

"V, how long have you been planning to move in with me?" Taylor asked slowly.

The older woman grinned unrepentantly. "Pretty much since the start."

The parahuman groaned and hid her face in her girlfriend's tits. They were nicely sized for just that purpose. "I can't believe I didn't notice, you weren't even hiding it!"

She really hadn't been. It had never been outright stated, but V had repeatedly mentioned that she was setting things up the way that she liked them. Taylor had shrugged it off because she'd never had to furnish a home before and the older woman's tastes were fine to her, if a bit on the expensive side. It had been a relief that she didn't have to waste time researching furniture, appliances, and figuring out which brands were reliable.

How many times had the older woman said 'let's go home' when referring to this place?

"I can't believe you bought my bullshit about the benefits of a shower big enough for two." V retorted with a smugness worthy of Tattletale.

Taylor wanted to groan again. For someone that was locally omniscient, she sure felt blind right now. Everything about the apartment was set up for two people. V was kind enough to let her hide in her cleavage until the embarrassment passed.

Which was when the unanswered question once more began to loom over the comfortable silence. Did she want V to move in with her?

Yes, yes she did. It was rushed and maybe premature, but they'd already basically been living together for almost a month and it had been good. And Taylor wasn't just some inexperienced teenager. Both of them were clear with their stance on betrayal, so if things didn't go well they would either part ways amicably or they'd kill each other. It was not another Emma situation.

"I'd love to have you move in with me." She said, looking up.

V smiled widely and wordlessly lunged in for another kiss. A kiss that swiftly turned into heavy petting and a now familiar heat between them.

XXXXX

The day had finally arrived. After weeks of experimenting, under the table dealing, and bribe negotiations, the team was finally getting some proper armor.

Taylor had needed to spend time figuring out how best to naturally incorporate carbon nanotubes into her spider silk production. V had needed to continue building up cash reserves by selling looted cyberware, as well as negotiating with armor suppliers, and bribing people to look the other way. But now it was finally done.

There were three separate armor sets, one for each of them. It had been painfully expensive to not only get them, but also to customize them, but V was apparently not a miser. In her words, money was only useful if it was being spent, and she seemed keen to spend it almost as soon as they got it.

Jackie's armor was rather bulky. A full coverage suit with a carbon-enhanced, multi-layer, spider silk undersuit, shock-absorbent gel, and ballistic plates made of both metal alloys and ceramics. It made him look like a black, red, and gold juggernaut, and his bull-horned helmet further reinforced that impression.

"I know I was skeptical about this armor thing, but this is pretty preem." He commented, testing out his range of motion. "Not even that heavy."

"Of course not, this is basically military grade stuff." V nodded. "As long as you're not being hit by weapons meant to take out vehicles and heavy borgs, you should be pretty much invulnerable."

V's suit was less bulky and shaped in a way to emphasize her curves. The purple lines gilding the black armor were also designed to call attention to her assets. Her helmet looked like a snake head with it's maw wide open.

"Is it really that easy to get military grade gear?" Taylor asked with a frown. She knew that Night City was very much the kind of place where enough money could get you anything, but she also knew that some technologies were restricted.

Her own suit was styled like a black and gray insect carapace, with a mandibled helmet that had ominous yellow lenses. Pretty much her original villain costume, except high tech. Very nostalgic.

"Not usually." V admitted. "If it was cyberware or certain kinds of weapons, we'd have needed to wait until someone stole it and put it on the black market, or stole it ourselves. Same deal if it was powered armor, but since it's only armored plates, some gel packets, and the software in the helmets, nobody really gives a shit. No single piece of it is worth paying attention to, no matter how pricey."

"I guess that makes sense." Taylor shrugged. If nobody understood the value of good armor, then all the better for them.

"Any problems with the gauntlets?" V asked, changing the subject.

Taylor flattened out her hands and claws popped out from the fingertips. Unlike the fake claws that she'd incorporated into her old costume just for appearances, these were deadly. A precursor technology to the dangerous 'scratcher nails' cyberware, these claws could shred most materials like butter. If she ever found herself in extreme close range combat with no other weapon on hand, they were an excellent last resort.

Another flattening of the hands hid them away again. "No problems at all."

"Great… now how about we take our new toys for a test run?" V proposed with a smirk.

XXXXX

It took a while before they got a gig that would truly test their armors. They didn't do anything out of the ordinary, a few easy enough gigs, finding and hitting another Scav depot to replenish V's supply of cyberware, and just enjoying their rising wealth and status.

And the new relationship, of course.

And then one day a call came from Regina while they were having lunch together at the Coyote.

"Normally, I wouldn't send a gig like this to a crew as small as yours, but you've been pretty impressive lately and I've heard good things about your new gear." The Watson fixer began seriously. "About a day ago, a Kang Tao AV got shot down by the Wraiths out in the Badlands and someone wants whatever it was carrying back. They also don't want anyone knowing that they want it back, which is why they aren't sending their own people to get it. You interested?"

"What's the pay?" V asked immediately.

"Fifty thousand." Regina answered.

Jackie whistled, apparently impressed. Taylor was less so, just the description was suspicious.

"A gig in the badlands, against a pack of Wraith, for a juicy corpo secret?" V shook her head. "A hundred and fifty."

Jackie stared at her wide-eyed.

"Do you think you're the only game in town or something?" Regina asked. She didn't necessarily sound angry, but her tone was hard.

"If you don't like it, then send someone else." V shrugged uncaringly. "Our crew doesn't work for less than what it's worth."

"You sure grew an awfully big opinion of yourselves in a short amount of time. What makes you think you can demand that kind of payout?"

"There are only two reasons why Kang Tao wouldn't want to use their own people for this." V smirked smugly. "Either it's a sanctioned project that they're trying to hide from other corporations, or it's a scheme that your client is trying to hide from his bosses. One way or the other, they'll be desperate for a quick, discreet solution and quick, discreet solutions are expensive."

There was a long, pregnant pause over the line before Regina gave a clipped response. "Seventy thousand."

V's smirk widened. "A hundred and forty."

"Eighty."

"One twenty. Final offer, take it or leave it."

Jackie was leaning forward in his chair, obviously tense with expectation, while Taylor only showed utter calm.

"Deal. Sending you the detes. Good luck out there." Regina capitulated and hung up.

"Forty thousand eddies for each of us." Jackie immediately crowed with glee, reaching over to slap V on the shoulder in his excitement. "I would have been happy with the fifty thousand total. You showed some cojones demanding that much, V."

Taylor looked back at her girlfriend, knowing that V had negotiated for such a high price of their services for more reasons than sheer greed. The rep of doing a job like this would help further her ambitions more than the money. Even the near extortionist bargaining strategy would work to cement V's reputation as someone that wasn't going to be taken advantage of.

Taylor had to admit that she was getting a bit antsy herself. A lot of their recent gigs had been kind of easy and she was itching for a challenge. Even the domestic bliss of a new relationship and living together with her girlfriend couldn't get rid of the taste for violence she'd developed as a cape. She'd never wanted to admit it before, but things were different in Night City.

V snorted. "Not really. You heard her say that she'd normally give this to a bigger crew, right? That means splitting the money more ways, and this is obviously a black project, or they wouldn't be so cagey about the cargo. If our rep wasn't so fresh, I would have demanded three hundred."

"That means we're on a time limit, doesn't it?" Taylor asked. "If it looks like we failed, they'll sooner carpet bomb the Wraith than let word of what they had get out."

"Maybe, depends on who's baby this is." V shook her head. "If it's been sanctioned by a high-level exec, then yes, absolutely. If it's an ambitious plot by someone lower on the totem pole, then they won't have the authority to launch a purge."

"Then I guess we better get goin'." Jackie suggested, notably more subdued now. It must have just hit him how dangerous this was going to be.

"What kind of opposition are we expected to face?" Taylor asked, already thinking of plans. It would be out in the badlands, which was far from ideal in many ways. On the other hand, there would also be no need to worry about collateral damage if what she knew about these 'Raffen Shiv' was at all accurate

"Wraiths usually move around in small raiding parties, a few dozen at most." Jackie offered. "It's a lot for just the three of us, but they're at their most dangerous in their cars. If we can catch them by surprise…"

"Not an easy proposition out in the badlands." V frowned. "We'll have to ditch the car a long ways off and approach on foot, and at night. It's definitely doable, but we can't go in there half-assed."

"If we're planning to kill them all, then I can swarm them." Taylor pointed out. The thought of such wholesale slaughter no longer bothered her, not after seeing the kind of horror shows Night City had to offer.

V paused for a moment. "…true, that would be a nice Plan B. For Plan A, I was thinking grenades. Lots and lots of grenades."

XXXXX

The first step was actually finding the right band of Wraith. There were over a thousand members of their 'organization' prowling around Night City, but as Jackie had said, they were dispersed in smaller raiding bands because feeding that many people and maintaining a fleet of vehicles was expensive. They had to prey on corpo caravans and Nomad clans near constantly.

Tracking down their quarry was done with a combination of Regina telling them where the AV had been hit, buying info on Wraith movements from Dakota Smith again, and consulting maps of the region. Raffen Shiv were the scum of humanity in a vein similar to Scavs and they knew that everyone hated them. Due to that, they learned to be careful about where they set up camp.

That very thing was what made it possible to narrow down the most likely location where they had holed up. Getting a precise location was impossible because all Nomad clans made extensive use of camouflage coverings when they weren't on the move. That particular technology had easily outpaced surveillance tech, the traditional camo netting enhanced by sensor-dispersing tech. Spy satellites could no doubt still track the various Nomad bands if they really wanted to, but that was not something the megacorps or governments owning those satellites typically bothered with.

They set off from Night City late in the afternoon and then drove with the lights off after the sun went down. V's Kiroshis had excellent darkvision, so it wasn't really an impediment and despite the Wraiths operating nocturnally, it would only take one man on watch to spot their car in the wide open Badlands, so it was still better to do this at night. Once they arrived, they parked the car somewhere well out of sight and loaded up on weapons and gear. As a final touch, they cloaked themselves in the very same type of desert camo that the Wraiths would be using before hoofing it towards their target.

Annoyingly, their first guess as to the Wraith location turned out to be a bust, forcing them to repeat the process at the second most likely place.

"This is the one." V said in relief, putting down the powerful binoculars she had been looking through. Desert camouflage worked great, but could still be beaten if you noticed movement or lights. "Looks like we won't need to be roughing it in the Badlands, thank fuck."

"Amen to that." Jackie agreed, taking the binoculars so that he could look for himself. "So, how are we going to do this?"

The Wraith were encamped on a small, rocky rise that gave them a good view of the surrounding area. A larger rock formation on the eastern side acted as a wall of sorts. It wasn't much of a fortified position, but it wasn't something they could just charge into either.

"We'll have to crawl." Taylor sighed, seeing no alternative. "If they spot us at a distance then we're dead. We can't risk it."

Not even her swarm would help much if they got run down by a bunch of armored cars.

"Yeah, I figured you'd say that." V sighed. "Alright then, let's crawl.

They painstakingly crawled towards the Wraith camp. With their gear and need to constantly check if there was anyone looking their way, the going was painfully slow. But they did, eventually, make it to the outskirts of the camp without being detected. Then they were able to use her bugs to move much more confidently. The sounds of revelry reached them in the otherwise still night air. The Wraith apparently preferred to be active at night.

It was a slight rise, with a large boulder on one end acting as a wall. The Wraith built a sort of encirclement out of their vehicles and then used camo nets to disguise the whole thing from casual observation. It would have been very easy to miss them if they weren't specifically looking, and it was also a pretty good defensive position.

"Well, I have good news, their subnet security is outdated dogshit." V smirked, whispering. "I can breach it and upload a daemon to their network no problem. What kind of numbers and weapons are we looking at, Skitter?"

"Thirty-two Wraith." Taylor answered, her voice cold and emotionless. "Organized in four groups with distinct hierarchies. One boss for each, two or three enforcers, the rest basically slaves."

She was in fact reminded of the Teeth with the way some of them used human bones as decoration.

"Sounds like the fuckin' Raffen alright." Jackie grunted. "Don't feel bad for them, though. Even if they're being treated like shit, if they aren't tied up or dead, then they're still part of the clan, and you don't become Raffen Shiv without being as bad as a Scav."

"They do have one man tied up." Taylor continued after giving him a quiet nod of acknowledgment. "The Raffen are using him as a live target for a knife throwing contest."

"We'll save him if we can." V didn't sound concerned either way. "Weapons?"

"The usual rifles and pistols, but they also have a couple of vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns and rocket launchers." Taylor paused for a moment. "Where did they even get those?"

"Where else? The corps gave it to them." Jackie chuckled humorlessly. "They love to use Raffen Shiv to fuck with the competition."

"I had to make a delivery myself once, met their sick fuck of a leader. Bastard was wearing stitched together human skin." V shuddered in disgust and shook her head. "You have your bugs?"

In response, the desert crawled. She had been gathering and moving her swarm with them the entire time they were crawling. Some she had brought with her, but the majority had been gathered on site.

"Don't flex on me like that, you know it turns me on." V flirted.

"Just give me the grenades, you perv." Taylor grumbled, hiding a blush.

Slowly and silently, the bugs smuggled the grenades into the Wraith camp. Webs held them in place and lines of silk arranged into a leverage system that teams of bugs could use to trigger them. While she was doing this, the three of them prepared their weapons. The usual pistols were kept stowed this time, the situation calling for bigger guns.

V had splurged on a set of Arasaka HJSH-18 Masamune assault rifles. They had been pricey, but nobody could argue with their quality. Taylor had practiced with it, and though she was leery of all the electronics stuffed into it, could not deny that it was an excellent weapon – stable, powerful, light, compact.

Jackie, on the other hand, had something bigger. Knowing that this mission would call for inflicting maximum damage in minimal time, he had opted to fully embrace his team role as the heavy weapons guy and brought a Constitutional Arms M2067 Defender. The confusingly designated 'light machine gun' had a hundred round magazine and was designed to hold a position while mowing down scores of lightly armored enemies.

"Stampede, you stay here and set up. Slither and I will circle around and drive them towards you." Taylor started giving orders. Their current location wasn't optimal for a machine gun emplacement, but all the better ones were already occupied by the Wraith. It would be good enough, though.

"Got it." He nodded.

"Then let's go, helmets on." She said, stuffing her hair under a net so that it would fit under. Unlike her first costume, this one had no glaring weak spot at the back of her head.

"Just one more thing." V interjected, tugging her into a kiss. "Be careful out there." She murmured.

"You too." Taylor murmured back, embarrassed by the open display of affection.

"Hehehe, you two are sweeter than me and Misty." Jackie chuckled.

Not deigning to dignify that with an answer, Taylor put her helmet on, once again appreciating just how comfortable it was. It fit perfectly, the lining didn't irritate skin in the slightest, and filtered her breath so that there was no blowback. That wasn't even getting into the sophisticated HUD it provided her. It was almost videogamey.

Unlike V and Jackie, she wasn't cyber-linked to it, but she still had a display that both of them could feed into.

V followed her lead as they circled around the encampment. Now that they were close enough, her bugs were providing her with information on their movements and sightlines, so it was easy to evade notice.

Taylor left V behind when they reached a good spot and she continued on alone, until the Wraith camp was more or less encircled by the three of them. Normally it would be stupid to attack a fortified position when the odds were almost 11:1, even with the element of surprise on their side, but they had a few other tricks prepared.

"Alright. V block off their communications." Taylor ordered.

That was one of the biggest problems facing them on any of their jobs – almost everyone could call for reinforcements. V's most important job was often jamming outgoing signals.

"Slipping the daemon in now… aaand done!" V reported.

"Huh, you weren't kidding about their net security being dogshit if that was all it took." Jackie commented.

"Pulling the pin on the first grenade in three… two… one… zero. Get ready!" Taylor counted down, gripping her rifle in preparation. A few seconds later, an explosion flipped one of their lighter cars over.

While the Wraith were busy yelling and jumping for their guns, she rose up from her hiding place and started putting them down with precise three round bursts. The first were for the lookout on top of the boulder, the next few were for anyone that looked like they knew what they were doing. None of them were especially chromed up, certainly not enough to survive a three round burst to the head from the Masamune. At the same time, other bug teams pulled pins on other planted grenades, sowing more chaos in the camp.

To her left, V was similarly taking shots and at any Wraith she saw or using her cyberdeck to launch quickhacks at any that managed to make it behind cover. V and Jackie were also using their cyberoptics to essentially call dibs, and her helmet would color code the enemies so that they didn't waste time and ammo shooting at the same people.

Credit where credit was due, the Wraith didn't just stand around looking shocked. They managed to figure out where the fire was coming from before they lost too many people and dove for cover behind rocks or vehicles. Too bad for them that Jackie had his Defender pointed in that direction and hosed them down.

Caught unprepared, surrounded, explosions going off, their cyberware messed with, and Taylor's omniscient knowledge of their movements, the Wraith weren't able to muster much in the way of resistance. They were used to being the predators and fared poorly when put on the defensive.

"Clear!" Taylor called out when the last Wraith fell.

Jackie and V stepped out of cover, trusting her word on the lack of further enemies.

"Goddamn." Jackie said in an impressed tone as he looked around at the carnage they'd wrought. "Are we badasses or are we badasses, eh?"

"Pat yourself on the back later." V audibly rolled her eyes. "Let's let our friend down, loot the place and get out of here. We don't want to stick around."

Taylor was already moving towards the Wraith's prisoner. He was an Asian man wearing a bloodied Kang Tao uniform, probably the AV pilot. He had multiple knives stuck in his legs and was sweating profusely from the pain he was no doubt in, but there was hope in his eyes alongside the fear.

She gave him a shot of medical nanites that would handle the bleeding and put a hand on the hilt of one of the knives. "Brace yourself."

Taylor knew that her voice came out creepy and buzzy when the speaker in her helmet was activated, so she didn't blame him for flinching. Still, he didn't try to fight when Jackie came up behind the man to support him, and gave a tense nod to show that he was ready.

She decided to get it over with as fast as possible instead of dragging it out, ripping out one knife after the other as fast as she could. Normally an absolutely terrible idea, but the medical nanites would prevent the worst of the bleeding and it wasn't as if there were any doctors anywhere nearby. Plus, he did have some chrome, too.

He screamed and thrashed, but Jackie held him firmly. It was over in seconds.

"Easy there, hombre. We got you, it's done." Jackie soothed, cutting the man's bindings.

"T-thank you." The Kang Tao driver managed to grit out.

"Take it easy, you'll be back in Night City in no time." He gave the man a final pat on the shoulder and stood up. "Come on, Skitter. Let's go help Slither find our prize."

"Already found it!" V called out before they could even start moving. "And a little something extra!"

Curious, they approached to take a look.

"… is that a cryogenically frozen head?!" Taylor couldn't help but say when she noticed what their objective was. She was shunting into the swarm, so it came out in a deadpan.

"That explains the secrecy. Whoever this poor bastard was must have known something important to someone." V shook her head. "We'll pack it back in and pretend we didn't see anything. More importantly, check this out!"

They did so and Jackie whistled, impressed. "Are those Sandevistan units?"

"Yep, QianT Mark 3 units at that. Not top shelf anymore, but still some high end military spec 'ware. That must be what they used to tempt the Wraiths to attack the convoy." V confirmed, enthused. "We'll probably get more out of these than what we're being paid for the gig."

The rescued pilot had too much sense to protest their looting.

"Hmmm, you think I should get one chipped in?" Jackie asked thoughtfully as they packed everything up, especially the frozen head. "I've been thinking of how I could up my game and this feels almost like fate, you know?"

"We'll talk about it later." Taylor cut off any further discussion. While she was somewhat more used to the idea of cybernetic augmentation by now, she did not want her friends ending up as crazy as that cyberpsycho they ran into. There would be no implanting anything without Doctor Vektor's blessing.

"Right, let's load it on that Warhorse over there." V nodded towards one of the two armored pickup trucks with the heavy machine gun mount. Taylor had deliberately not planted any grenades under it. Not only was it valuable, but several of the Wraith had made a desperate rush towards it and died for it. "Why don't you go spray paint the car, Skitter?"

Because driving anywhere near Night City with Wraith iconography on a heavily armed and armored vehicle was a great way to get killed. They had brought cans of spray paint to cover it all up and would take the truck to get properly repainted later. Then they would have another car to work with.

Unlike with the cars in Night City, stealing from Wraiths was perfectly acceptable. It wasn't like they could complain or report it to anyone.

"Sure." She nodded.

She'd just sprayed over one symbol when things started going wrong.

The desert was quiet except for the crackle of flames from the vehicles exploded by her planted grenades. That was why she was able to quickly identify a sound that didn't belong – that of powerful engines rushing towards them at full blast. The vibrations it caused in the ground and air were picked up by the bugs she had on the outer edges of her range.

Taylor looked around, squinting into the night and searching for the source of the sound. Actually spotting it was impossible with her eyes adapted to the flaming wreck of the Wraith camp, but she knew they were coming.

"We've got company!" She yelled just as they came into her range, already running for cover behind a rock. "Ten guys, one borg, and they have a vehicle mounted machine gun!"

"Mierda!" "Shit!" Jackie and V concurred.

The incoming group apparently saw them scrambling and decided that stealth was a lost cause. They turned on the headlights and started spraying with the heavy machine gun. Taylor wasn't able to use her swarm to do anything more than keep track of their progress, not at the speed they were moving.

"Who the fuck is this?!" Jackie yelled over the roar of the heavy machine gun, huddling down behind a rock. "More Wraith?"

"Don't think so!" Taylor replied just as the borg literally jumped out of the truck bed like some kind of demented cybernetic grasshopper, sailing dozens of feet through the air and deploying mantis blades on the way down.

"Shit!" Knowing that they might very well be done for if the borg got into melee range, Taylor decided to intercept him even as she cursed herself for putting down the Masamune rifle. Drawing her Liberty and firing, she was unfortunately not surprised when the bullets hit subdermal armor. And she didn't have AP rounds loaded.

And then he was on the ground, moving too fast to be natural even for a borg. She fired off the rest of her clip and, no longer in the air, he was able to dodge a good number of them. He was upon her before she could reload, so she dropped the gun and drew her knife and baton.

He came at her swinging his mantis blades like a madman. Taylor found herself barely able to evade his blows even with her bugs providing a perfect wireframe image of him in her mind's eye. This was far worse than the Maelstrom cyberpsycho. Worse even than Mannequin, because she didn't have her bug clones to obfuscate her position. It was only the rocky, uneven ground and her perfect awareness of it that let her backpedal away from his blows.

Even with all that, it took only seconds of the vicious assault before she was forced to do something desperate.

He was too fast and too skilled for her to sneak in a hit with her knife or shock baton, so she threw the latter at him, the electricity discharging into him when it bounced off his chest. Taking the momentary opportunity, Taylor lunged forward with her knife and deployed her own mantis blade through the slit in her forearm armor, impaling him from both sides.

The borg didn't react with pain, because of course he had pain editors, too. Instead, he shook off the effects of the shock baton and tried to stab her back with his right arm. She let go of the knife with her organic left hand, leaving it sticking out of his side, and tried to block it. Even with the muscle and bone lace now giving her a minor Brute rating, the cybernetic arm was much stronger. She was barely able to slow him down and the mantis blade raked over her shoulder, thankfully stopped by the armor. Her poor forearm didn't fare so well, and she felt the bones crack. If it wasn't for the bone lace, it would have broken for sure.

The borg took a step back with Sandevistan-enhanced speed, sliding off the mantis blade impaling him. In the same movement, he turned sideways and spin-kicked her in the chest, hard. Whatever kind of cyberware he was running gave his legs incredible power, and she was sent flying with a wheezing, forced exhale. The armor had resisted the mantis blades because it didn't have to accommodate delicate electronics or fit under the skin, but the only thing stopping that kick from caving her chest in was the gel layer absorbing most of the kinetic energy. Even so, Taylor knew that her ribs had to be at least cracked, if not outright broken.

It was becoming clear that she wouldn't be beating this borg, not if she was holding back. Jackie and V weren't in a great spot either, being pinned down by the heavy machine gun on the Warhorse and about to be flanked by the others. The borg, meanwhile, was already advancing with menace in every step, contemptuously pulling out her knife and throwing it to the ground as he did so.

The sight made her inanely recall a conversation she'd had with V about pain editors, and how they statistically increased combat deaths by 60% because people didn't realize how injured they were.

But that wouldn't help her now. Even if this borg died of his injuries later, he would still survive long enough to kill her and quite possibly her friends. There was no more time to hesitate. Taylor called the swarm to help her.

The chitinous tide roared out of the darkness, making the enemy hesitate at the unexpected development. They all tried to swat them away, but the swarm was relentless, seeking mouths and noses and gun barrels.

There was no thought of restraint or mercy – they all got the Alexandria treatment. Even the deadly borg couldn't do anything against that, swinging his blades ineffectually as he was smothered.

Only once they were all dead did Taylor relax, letting the swarm dissipate and retracting the mantis blade into her arm. That had been way too close. For the first time since arriving in Night City, she'd been in genuine danger of being killed by someone that she couldn't match without truly using her powers.

"Taylor!" V yelled, running towards her. Jackie was right behind her. "Are you okay?"

"Never better." She responded dryly, not wanting to admit how close to the truth that otherwise sarcastic statement was. The close brush with death left her feeling alive in ways that she could only compare to post-orgasmic bliss, now that she knew what that felt like. "Cracked ribs and a concussion, I think."

"Nothing Vik can't fix up." V said, relieved. She and Jackie carefully picked her up. "You really need to stop fighting borgs in melee."

"Sure, I'll just ask them to politely keep their distance." Taylor snarked back sarcastically. "Who were these guys, anyway?"

"That looks like Mad Mantis." Jackie spoke up, looking at the dead borg. "He's a solo that usually operates in Westbrook, the kind of guy you hire when you want a bloodbath. And those guys have Bakkers Clan patches. They used to be a big Nomad clan, but they started falling apart after their leader died a few years ago. I think they were here on a gig, just like us."

"So it was just bad luck?" Taylor asked, slightly incredulous. She'd heard that it was possible to run into mercenaries working for other fixers, but this was the first time it happened.

"Either Regina's client was trying to hedge his bets by opening up the same gig with Wakako, or someone else did it." V concluded. "We'll probably never find out either way, but we've got a bigger problem on our hands right now."

"What problem?" Jackie asked, looking around.

"A witness." V answered grimly, looking at the Kang Tao pilot they'd saved from the Wraith. The pilot who was even now staring at them with wide eyes.

Taylor's heart fell into her stomach as she instantly realized what V was silently suggesting. They couldn't let him report to his corp about her powers, and they couldn't trust him to keep his mouth shut. She wouldn't have trusted the man with that kind of information on Earth Bet, and Night City was orders of magnitude worse. She opened her mouth to say something, offer an alternative to murder, but she couldn't think of one. Even if all he knew was that bugs had suddenly started acting weirdly coordinated and aggressive, it was too much.

He was an innocent man, or as innocent as anyone working for a corp gets at least. He didn't deserve to be killed just to keep her secrets. That was exactly the kind of 'ends justify the means' bullshit that she had come to regret at the end, and yet she couldn't think of an alternative. Letting him take the information about her powers to his corporate masters was simply not an option. Kang Tao wouldn't hesitate to come after all three of them. She'd be at war with a multinational corporation, and the rest of them soon after. A war she couldn't win.

"I'll take care of it." V said softly, slipping away towards the pilot.

Taylor didn't try to stop her, but the bugs around them buzzed violently, tearing at each other in a frenzy. Her mind raced for an alternative, but kept slamming into the wall that was the cold certainty that letting Kang Tao know about her powers would cost a lot more than one man's life.

So she just watched as V approached the man with her pistol drawn. She had replaced her old Unity with a more sophisticated Arasaka Kenshin, which she aimed at the pilot's head. He babbled and begged for mercy, promising to not say a word, promises that none of them believed or could afford to trust.

A charged round for the railgun system in the pistol ended his life and destroyed his brain. Taylor didn't look away or react, but every bug around them screeched and buzzed madly.

"Come on, chica, let's put you in the car." Jackie said quietly, leading her towards the Wraith Warhorse.

XXXXX

The ride back was silent. They'd spray painted over the Wraith and Bakkers symbols on the two Warhorses and drove them back to V's car. Then the Archer Hella was set to automatically follow behind them.

They'd taken down the heavy machine guns to avoid alarming anyone as they approached Night City and delivered the crate with the frozen head to one of Regina's drop off points, then Jackie offered to park the two armored trucks in a Valentino garage that a buddy of his had, while V took Taylor to Viktor's clinic.

That ride was also silent.

Viktor caught on to the somber mood and kept it professional, doing what he could for her cracked ribs, concussion, and arm.

"Hey, Vik." Taylor spoke up, having come to a decision.

"Yeah, kid?" The ripperdoc asked kindly.

"You said I'm good to get more augments, right?"

The Kang Tao pilot had died because she was too weak to defeat the borg, Mad Mantis, without resorting to obvious uses of her power. How many other times had she needed to be more brutal than she would have liked because she wasn't strong enough for anything else?

"Gig didn't go well, huh?" Vik asked sympathetically and rhetorically. "Yeah, you're good to get more chrome, but don't decide now. Sleep on it, talk to V about it, and then come back when you've got your head on straight. Just like you shouldn't buy food when you're hungry, you shouldn't chip in chrome fresh off a bad experience."

Taking a look at her silent, stoically neutral girlfriend, Taylor knew it was good advice. They did have to talk.

XXXXX

V kept a calm appearance, but internally she was seething with frustration. Why did this have to happen now? It was inevitable that an innocent (relatively speaking) would eventually have to die to keep Taylor's secret, but it was too soon.

She'd been working with Taylor, helping her fully adjust to life in Night City. The dimensionally displaced woman was perfectly capable of being incredibly ruthless, but she had regrets about how she'd gone about things in the past.

V personally thought that it was all bullshit. She had yet to hear of a single instance where anything Taylor did was unjustified.

Had it been her in Winslow, she would have sweet-talked the local Nazis into targeting Sophia Hess within a month of the bullying starting. Taylor had talked about the Empire 88 as if their platform was something particularly heinous, but she wasn't feeling it. For her, Nazis were as much of a historical footnote as Genghis Khan.

Night City hadn't had a white supremacist gang in a while, but one would pop up again eventually, stick around for a while, then get replaced by something else. That was how the wheel turned. Racism was a constant undercurrent in street gang politics, an easy and cheap way to both rally people and direct their aggression.

It happened in the corporations, too, although in a slightly different way. If you paid attention to Saburo Arasaka's speeches and actions, there was a distinct sense of Japanese imperialism to him. The arrogant old bastard certainly did nothing to stop people from calling him 'the Emperor', and he was notorious for refusing to speak anything other than Japanese. Militech's CEOs also coincidentally tended to be very high up in the NUSA's politics. Less crude and basic than the street gangs, but really just more of the same.

In all honesty, aside from the locker, all the shit they did was common in corpo schools. Brats with important mommies and daddies lording it over the less fortunate and abusing them for kicks. As a half-breed with an American name, V had been subjected to that herself for a few years (until rumor started going around that she'd murdered her own parents, funnily enough). It was probably part of the reason why Jenkins gave her a chance, so that he'd have an ally that he could count on, because he had personally groomed her for the role.

But the locker was attempted murder, no matter what Taylor's school said. V would have reacted appropriately, which was to say that she would have used her newly endowed powers to make the lives of Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Sophia Hess absolute hell before killing them in some appropriately horrible fashion.

V had trouble believing that anyone would have held back from doing so, which made Taylor a fucking saint.

And the rest of the stuff that she felt bad for was similarly ridiculous.

Rotting Lung's crotch off? Fucking hilarious. He was a vicious gangoon that had been trying to burn her alive, so what she'd done to him was perfectly reasonable. He should have been grateful to still be breathing, because V would have sneakily injected him with extra poison after Armsmaster had sedated him. The dickhead hero would have taken the blame while she got away with murder and took over his gang.

The entire thing with the bank robbery? The so-called 'heroes' were the ones who escalated that shit. Who the fuck starts a fight when there are hostages present? Well, if you cared about the hostages that was.

Chopping Bakuda's toes off? In Taylor's place, V would have cut off all four limbs and rendered her brain dead. Dead man switch problem solved.

Murdering Alexandria and Tagg? You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

Shooting a toddler? As if letting a band of sadistic psychopaths like the Slaughterhouse Nine take her was any kind of alternative. It had been a mercy and the girl's mother should have thanked her for it.

Enslaving hundreds of thousands of people from across multiple dimensions in the battle against Scion? More than justified. Literally everything had been at stake.

Frankly, Taylor could have declared herself Queen of the Multiverse (had she been in a state to do so) after that battle and still been justified. Let the ungrateful fucks whine if they wanted to, they hadn't been the ones sacrificing everything for the slim hope that humanity might have a future.

But the people on Earth Bet had filled her head with undeserved guilt. V had been trying to undo the damage, talking her girl through everything and trying to get Taylor to be more selfish. Given enough time in Night City and tender loving care, she was sure that the bug master would eventually learn to put more value on herself and less value on the opinions of others. It was really just an extension of what Lisa had begun by drawing a lonely and isolated girl into a group of friends that accepted her as one of them. That had been on the tail end of Taylor's childhood, now V was continuing that process into adulthood by showing her that she didn't need to be some kind of hero or martyr to be worth loving.

She just had to hope that killing that Kang Tao pilot hadn't made Taylor reconsider their relationship.

The ride back home was silent and remained silent as they removed the rest of their armor. Taylor had already needed to take the top off so that Vik could examine her, and the plates damaged during her fight with Mad Mantis would have to be replaced. That would be expensive, but the armor had already proven its worth.

V was relieved that Taylor didn't resist when she gently tugged her towards the shower after they were stripped down to their underwear. Maybe things weren't as bad as she'd feared? Her girlfriend was definitely the 'bottle up your problems until they explode' type, but she wouldn't allow intimacy if she was truly upset. Probably.

The water felt good after the dust of the Badlands and V made sure to be careful about Taylor's ribs and arm as she soaped her up. The shower continued in silence, but it felt somewhat less tense.

Only once they were lying next to each other on the bed did she say something.

"Why the sudden interest in getting more chrome? You seemed happy to stay more or less baseline before." V could guess as to the reason, but it made for a good conversation starter. Certainly better than anything she'd been able to come up with on the drive back.

"You had to kill that pilot because I was too weak to take the borg on without my powers." Taylor replied, her tone carefully neutral. "What if we end up fighting someone like that in a place with cameras or too many witnesses? I need to be stronger."

That was admittedly a very good point. Most of their gigs were going to be inside Night City, which was teeming with cameras and gawkers. V had been too focused on how Taylor would take killing a witness to consider that one, but she was right. They couldn't let this happen again. On the bright side, it showed that Taylor wasn't holding the killing against her. A spot of tension in heart loosened.

"You're right, and we've honestly been punching way above our weight class because of your powers anyway." V nodded seriously.

Taylor lifted both of her arms up in front of her face, the cybernetic right and the injured, fleshy left. "When I first came here, I didn't understand how anyone could be comfortable casually replacing their limbs with cybernetics. Now I can't help but be frustrated by how weak my natural arm is in comparison. Is this how it starts? Just chipping away at weakness until there's nothing left but cold metal?"

"I guess." V shrugged a bit. "I always cared too much about my aesthetics to go overboard with the chrome." Following that confession, she smirked a bit and ran her fingers along Taylor's stomach. "We should be able to afford some preem bioware now, or at least the start of it. Bioengineered muscle can make you four or five times stronger than normal. More if you get the really good stuff. Pair it with carbon nanotube bones, nanosurgeons, enhanced organs, enhanced synapse relays, and some good old skill… That should be enough to handle just about anything that comes our way without risking cyberpsychosis. And I'd rather make love to flesh and blood than chrome."

The word choice there was very deliberate. Taylor disliked crudeness and street slang when referring to intimacy, thinking them dehumanizing, especially the input/output terminology. She was probably right.

A small blush lit up the parahuman's face and she put her arms back down on the bed. "Same to you."

The last of her concerns faded and V smiled, leaning over to steal a kiss. "Deal."

"And I'm going to need a Burya."

The declaration came out of nowhere, making V frown in confusion. "What? Why?"

"For borgs." Taylor frowned right back. "That ugly handcannon is the only reliable, easily portable way of causing massive damage in one hit. Unless you can get me a Malorian 3516…?"

"Been reading up on borg-killer guns, huh?" V was very amused.

"Why is everything either super rare and impossible to get or clunky as hell?" Taylor complained.

"Because anyone can make scop, but it takes an artist to make a masterpiece." V replied sagely. "We can think about sending a custom request to Malorian Arms once we have more money than we know what to do with. I heard that Eran Malour himself only takes interesting commissions these days, and he might be intrigued by someone that wants a specialized, compact borg-killer with minimal electronics."

"Fair enough."

XXXXX

Jackie Welles was a happy man. His dreams of becoming a rich, big shot merc were coming true, his chooms were as happy together as he was with Misty, and even his mama didn't seems so worried anymore.

It was hard not to puff his chest out as they walked into the Coyote. The awed looks on the faces of the other patrons, the whispered conversations, the greetings and shouted questions from his buddies as they went upstairs to what had become 'their' booth… all of it made Jackie's ego swell like a balloon.

At long last, he was a certified badass!

"To another gig well done!" He toasted once the food and drinks arrived.

"To this!" The girls chorused, identical smirks on their faces.

Despite knowing that they were just fucking with him, Jackie still couldn't help the twinge of irritation he felt.

"One of these days, I'm going to get you to make a proper toast." He swore, glaring at V. "You've even corrupted Taylor with your evil corpo ways."

"You're the one who got me drunk on the day we met." Taylor pointed out.

"Yes, Jackie. For shame." V tutted disapprovingly.

"How long are you going to keep bringing that up? It was an accident!" Jackie complained. "And soon enough you won't be such a lightweight anymore."

He had been surprised when they called him up after the mission out in the Badlands, saying that they needed to talk. At first, he'd been afraid that killing that pilot had soured Taylor on the whole merc thing, but to his relief they just wanted to talk about chroming up. Or whatever the bioware equivalent was called.

Jackie had always been proud of how strong he was, a strength earned through his own sweat, but there was no denying that there was a limit to how far you could go without augmenting. None of them wanted to get borged for one reason or another, so bioware was a good middle ground.

It was expensive, but they were making enough eddies to afford it. Their rep was rising steadily, and they were always able to go hunting for Scavs if there were no gigs to be had. Just like V, he wasn't one to hoard money, so he had no problem splurging on some preem bioware. The first was a nanotech treatment that would slowly transform their bones into a carbon nanotube equivalent. That was pretty much done now, though V had needed surgery to take out the titanium from her skeleton, so they were just waiting for Vik to give them the go ahead for the next stage, which was the organ enhancement. He wasn't some dumbass gonk that would ignore his ripper's medical advice!

Jackie couldn't deny that he was looking forward to getting that QianT Sandevistan installed, and the bioengineered muscles. It was a bit of a shame to replace his natural muscles after working on them so hard, but he would be getting a lot more out of that bit of bioware than the girls thanks to his bulk.

For a while there, he'd been concerned that he wasn't contributing as much as V or Taylor, but now he was settling into the role of the guy who brought down the big pain. Once he was completely augmented, he'd be even better at it. Jackie could already imagine himself Stampeding through the enemy while the girls picked off anyone that looked important.

Stampeding, hah!

Their celebratory meal continued with light banter and they stayed for a while longer to just enjoy each other's company. Just shy of two hours since their arrival, Taylor paused and her eyes narrowed.

"Trouble?" V asked quietly, noticing almost immediately.

"Maybe." The bug master murmured back. "Two kids, a boy and a girl. Armed. They've been asking leaving patrons if we're in here."

"Maybe they want to hire us for a gig?" Jackie suggested. It wouldn't be the first time someone had approached 'their' table for something like that.

Sometimes they agreed, and sometimes they passed them on to Padre. V was very careful about which gigs they took on their own initiative. Acting as both fixer and merc was dangerous if you stepped on the wrong toes.

"Maybe." Taylor didn't sound convinced. "They're coming in now."

The 'kids' in question were a couple of teenagers. The boy was about Taylor's age and the girl looked a couple of years younger, maybe sixteen. Both were Hispanic, or halfsies in the girl's case.

The guy looked like a typical street punk fresh into adulthood. Cocky swagger failing to hide how nervous and unsure he was, a few tats of things he thought would look nova, some gold jewelry. Not a Valentino, but could be mistaken for one easily.

The girl was a little different. She was dressed like a street kid, but didn't quite look it. Didn't move like one either. Too stiff. Some corpo brat poser? She looked even more nervous than her friend.

"Hey, you guys the Beast Crew?" The girl asked, all fake bravado.

It was one of them rhetorical questions. They'd just come back from a gig. Not one that needed their armor, but the girls had their spider and snake-themed makeup on and Jackie had his Stampede jacket.

"Who wants to know?" Jackie asked.

"Veronica Ramirez." The girl said, and the name rang a low level alarm in his head. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a ridiculous pimped-out gun, rosegold and gemstones, smacking it on the table. "Recognize this?"

"I guess you bought info on us from Regina." V spoke up, staring hard at the teens. "She wouldn't have sold you that info if she thought you were going to get yourself killed, so what do you want?"

"I want to join your crew." Veronica said, glaring back at V.

"You want to be an edgerunner, Veronica?" V asked casually, leaning back in the booth. "You and your friend…?"

"Alejandro." The boy introduced himself.

"You and Alejandro." V repeated. "Kill lots of people, fuck with the gangs and the corps? Become a legend and have a drink named after you in the Afterlife?"

"Yeah!" They both nodded sharply, Alejandro none-too-subtly ogling V's tits while he was at it. Veronica kept talking. "I've had Militech training with iron, and Alejandro's already zeroed a gonk. We won't drag you down."

Jackie felt the urge to facepalm. Was this what he'd sounded like when he first started out? It was painful to watch. And she was trying too hard with the streetslang.

"But are you ready to die?" V asked coldly. "Because that's what it takes to have a drink named after you in the Afterlife."

Alejandro went stiff as he stared back. "I've got nothing to lose."

"What he said." Veronica agreed.

It was an all too common story, but it shouldn't be. God, no wonder V didn't want to hear him talking about being remembered as a legend. It was the dream of every young punk with something to prove, but now that the shoe was on the other foot, Jackie found that he didn't like hearing it either.

"Why us?" Taylor asked. "Your father died on a gig with us."

"He died because he was a gonk that never listened." Veronica's lips twisted bitterly. "Now I've got nobody and Militech stiffed me on his life insurance. I figured you had to be smarter than him, and that I'd try listening to you the way he didn't."

So, she was a corpo brat that got tossed out on the street, and smart enough to know that her life prospects were looking grim.

Jackie exchanged looks with V and Taylor. It was obvious that if they refused to take these kids, they'd either find another merc crew or join the Valentinos. Or even worse, try to strike out on their own.

Jackie gave a small nod, and then so did Taylor. V turned back to the kids after getting their agreement.

"We can give you a chance. But!" She said sharply, cutting off whatever they were about to say. "We are closer to a military unit than a street gang, and you will be held up to a certain standard of competence and behavior. Is that understood?"

Veronica reflexively straightened out, the tone probably familiar from whatever kind of schooling Militech gave its corpo brats. "Understood."

"Don't worry, we won't just throw you into the deep end." V smirked and looked at Taylor more fully. "Think you can whip them into shape?"

Taylor gave the suddenly confused kids an assessing stare of her own. "It would be better if they were part of a squad, four or five people. Lone wolves die quick."

"You're barely any older than me, what do you know?!" Alejandro challenged.

"Chico, you should be more careful about who you mouth off to." Jackie spoke up, frowning at him. "Skitter is the most dangerous person here, and you're lucky that she's too nice to flatline you just to prove a point. Not every merc is going to take any amount of shit from an unproven street punk."

Alejandro had the brains to look like he regretted his posturing, so maybe there was hope for him. Either way, Jackie had a feeling this was another big turning point for their crew.

Chapter 483 - retirement (7)