Meanwhile, on the arterial street leading to the Biotechnica Tower, a heavily modified Goodwood SUV roared like a starved beast, weaving wildly through the congested Night City traffic.
Falco gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white with strain, his every shift and turn a masterclass of desperate speed. The vehicle scraped the edges of other cars, drawing a cacophony of blaring horns and furious shouts.
"Faster! Falco! Are you zero?! Sasha can't wait that long!" Rebecca twisted restlessly in the passenger seat, her small fists slamming the vibrating dashboard. Her short green hair bristled with agitation, her optics fixed on the towering, brightly lit but menacing Biotechnica structure.
"Rebecca, chill! I'm already pushing this damn thing to the red line!" Falco growled back, sweat trickling down his brow. The time Sasha had been out of contact was far past any safe threshold.
In the back seat, Maine's face was a mask of furious concentration. He repeatedly hit the trigger on Sasha's encrypted channel, but all he got was unsettling static and piercing signal drops. "Damn it! Their internal jamming field is wicked!"
Beside him, Pilar nervously fiddled with Experiment No. 1, the servo-skull Osiris had lent them. The skull's eye sockets glowed with faint blue light, hovering eerily.
"Hey, boss," Pilar stammered, his voice laced with hope, "you think this thing… maybe it can cut through a jammer? Like… forcefully contact Sasha?" He clutched the skull like a lifeline.
Rebecca spun around, her optical implants glaring at Pilar. "Then what the f are you standing around for?! Try it! Ask this hunk of metal if it can find Sasha!"
Pilar flinched but obeyed, stammering at the skull: "Uh… 'Experiment No. 1'? Can you… can you find a way to contact Sasha? She's our netrunner, and she's in heavy scrap right now!"
The blue light in Experiment No. 1's eyes instantly brightened. Its cold, mechanical voice filled the tense car interior: "Target detected: Sasha. Associated communication protocol identifying… Attempting to establish connection… High-intensity corporate-grade signal jamming network detected."
Everyone's heart sank.
The skull continued, steady and relentless: "Analyzing jamming network vulnerabilities… Attempting to use non-standard data packet injection and frequency hopping protocols… Bypassing main gateway… Connection establishing…"
A few seconds later, to their collective shock, a faint, familiar voice, heavily mixed with static and ragged gasps, cut through the silence.
"...Pilar? Is… is that you Chooms? How is this possible…" It was Sasha's voice, shocked and weak.
"Sasha! What's your status?!" Pilar yelled, lunging toward the skull.
"I… I'm trapped… in the Biotechnica Tower… 27th floor… East side office area…" Sasha's voice was intermittent, explosions and tearing metal clearly audible. "They're breaking down the door! How… how did you contact me?"
"It's the boss' new toy!" Rebecca snatched the conversation, her voice cracking with excitement and fury. "Sasha! Listen! We'll be there soon! Hold on! Don't do anything stupid! Find better cover!"
On the other end, Sasha went silent, then spoke with a sudden, desperate urgency: "No! Don't come! This time it's different! It's my own beef! I can't drag you down! Biotechnica is on full alert! You'll just be walking into a meat grinder!"
"Bullshit!" Rebecca roared at the skull. "What do you mean your own business?! You're our Choom! You're family! You hear me?! Family! Swallow that 'don't drag others down' garbage! Just wait patiently! We're coming! You took my plasma pistol! And you owe me a drink! If you dare to flatline before paying me back?! I'll dig you out of your grave and beat you up!"
Rebecca's scream was a scorching storm of loyalty and desperate worry, slamming against Sasha on the other end.
"…Rebecca…" Sasha's voice caught with a hint of a sob, immediately overwhelmed by intense, closer gunfire. The signal dissolved: "…They're in!… Plasma gun overheating… I have to…"
Zzzzt—!
The communication cut off abruptly, leaving only a heart-wrenching dial tone.
"Sasha! Sasha! F!" Rebecca frantically slapped Experiment No. 1's cold casing.
"We're here!" Falco slammed the brakes, the tires shrieking as the Goodwood skidded to a stop one block from the Tower's main entrance.
They couldn't get closer. The airspace was sealed by heavy Police hovercars, their lights blinding, and swarms of reconnaissance drones buzzed like angry locusts. On the ground, heavy blast doors were thundering shut, and fully armored Biotechnica security formed an impenetrable defense line.
"Damn it! Too late!" Maine slammed his fist against the car door, his face ashen.
This was no simple security patrol; this was a corporate fortress sealing its perimeter.
Rebecca stared at the ironclad defenses, her eyes instantly bloodshot. "I don't care! We're going in! We're getting Sasha out!" She grabbed the door handle, but Maine's powerful arm locked around her.
"Rebecca! Stop! Look outside! That's corporate regular security forces! Not street trash! If you rush out, you'll be riddled with holes in a second! You won't save Sasha, and you'll flatline all of us!"
Maine's growl was like ice water, desperate to smother Rebecca's suicidal impulse, though his own hand gripping her arm was trembling uncontrollably. Forcing entry into a corporate core fortress was a death sentence, a taboo no Edgerunner dared break.