Dakota Smith didn't get to be the queen of the Badlands by being an OPTIMIST. She survived by counting minutes and measuring risks.
Cain was five hours late.
She paced the length of her garage, the gravel crunching under her heavy boots. Five hours in Night City was an eternity. It was enough time to get flatlined by a MaxTac squad, zeroed by a rival gang, or simply dismantled by a Scavenger crew looking for high-grade titanium. She looked at the hole in her roof—the one Cain had made when he fell from the sky—and felt a rare, nagging twitch of genuine worry.
"Mitch," she barked into her comms. "Any word from the border? Did the Colby ping the sensors?"
"Nothing, Dakota," Mitch's voice crackled back, sounding just as tense. "Gate logs are clean. Either he's ghosting the net, or he's scrap metal."
Dakota cursed under her breath, reaching for the custom Scout Rifle Cain had built her. If she had to drive into Watson herself to recover the remains of the most advanced tech she'd ever seen, she'd make sure the Maelstrom paid for it in blood.
Suddenly, a commotion broke out in the yard.
"What the hell is that?" one of the young Nomads shouted.
Dakota stepped out of the garage, squinting against the harsh midday sun. Most of the Aldecaldo camp had stopped what they were doing, drifting toward the main entrance with expressions ranging from sheer confusion to borderline horror.
Then she saw it.
The Thorton Colby she had lent Cain was barely recognizable. The suspension was screaming, the rear bumper was scraping against the dirt, and the engine was making a wet, rhythmic thumping sound like a dying heart. The car wasn't just full; it was buried.
Cain had used industrial-grade tie-down straps to secure a literal mountain of junk to the roof, the hood, and even the doors. There were crates of copper wiring, half-dismantled cyber-limbs, and three heavy machine gun turrets he'd clearly ripped off their moorings.
Cain forced the door open—which resulted in three smart-shotguns and a pile of circuit boards spilling onto the dirt—and stepped out. He stood there, his leather duster shredded, covered in oil and Maelstrom blood, looking at the heap of trash with a terrifying sense of accomplishment.
"What the hell is this, Cain?" Dakota asked, her jaw practically hitting the floor. "I sent you for one pallet of Militech optics. Just one."
Cain turned his glowing optical sensors toward her, standing tall and placing his heavy metal hands on his hips.
"Loot," Cain replied, his vocal synthesizer booming with a pride that bordered on the fanatical. "I got it all."
"Cain... you brought back a broken espresso machine and four left-handed gorilla arms. Why?"
"Components," Cain said firmly. "Every scrap counts, Dakota. You don't just leave a blue-tier drop on the floor. That's how the Darkness wins."
Then, reality decided to take another left turn.
With a soft, melodic chirp, a small geometric object flickered into existence over Cain's shoulder. It looked like a floating, rotating white star made of interlocking plates, with a single, glowing blue eye in the center. It spun with a frantic, agitated energy.
"He's lost it, Dakota," the little object said, its voice high-pitched and dripping with digital exhaustion. "He spent three hours in that warehouse. I tried to tell him we didn't have the storage capacity. I tried to explain the physics of weight distribution. He just looked at me and said, 'Watch me,' before trying to tie a refrigerator to the trunk."
"It was a high-capacity cooling unit for the forge!" Cain defended, pointing a finger at the floating star.
"It was a fridge, Cain! It still had a half-eaten burrito in it!"
Dakota stared at the floating, talking machine. She looked at Cain. She looked at the star again. Her cybernetic eyes whirred as they tried to find a manufacturer mark, a drone signature, or anything that made sense.
She saw the way the star moved—not with thrusters, but as if it were simply ignoring the concept of gravity. She heard it argue with the giant metal man like an old married couple.
Dakota didn't ask a single question. She didn't ask what it was, where it came from, or how it was talking.
"Nope," Dakota said, her voice flat and final.
She turned on her heel, walked back into her office, and slammed the door. Through the thin walls, Cain heard the distinct glug-glug-glug of a heavy bottle of real tequila being uncorked and a long, weary sigh.
Cain looked at Echo. Echo looked at Cain.
"I think she took it well," Cain grunted, reaching for a crate of copper.
"She's currently re-evaluating her entire life's philosophy," Echo noted, his eye flickering. "Now, help me unload. If we don't get the weight off this chassis in five minutes, the tires are going to fuse to the asphalt."