Fireballs rose from the street; in the black night everyone could see the explosions.
This was not like some RPG shot or the like.
[Name: Samson]
[Category: Full-body prosthetic mod; industrial-grade full-body retrofit]
[Registered corp: NewTech Ltd.]
[Special patent: Ultra-dense synthetic muscle fibers fused with high-power magnetic piston assemblies; strength sufficient to re-align steel beams and tear down old apartment blocks by hand.]
[Post-Net-collapse manufacturing processes lost; production cost skyrocketed.]
[Market price: €270,000]
NetWatch was the largest intelligence org on Earth; Leo soon received the full Samson spec from Bryce. From that data and the bits of material they'd scavenged, he estimated the explosive potential:
Ten high-capacity battery units, 100 kWh; 5 kg of Alkanol-2 hydrogen fuel, energy density ~90 MJ/kg.
On paper those numbers equated to just over 200 kg of TNT — roughly comparable to small low-drag aerial bombs.
Of course, Samson was still essentially a prosthetic suit, not an airframe bomb. The suit's structural strength varied; weak points would rupture first and vent energy prematurely, so the actual blast profile wouldn't be as clean as a purpose-built bomb.
Still — it was more than enough.
The road blew a shallow crater nearly ten meters across. The fire column lingered after the blaze faded; smoke spread fast, shrouding the whole block in dust.
The Sixth Street punks hiding in the houses felt like their ears had stopped working — only a dull buzzing remained.
They looked up. One wooden wall had been warped and split by the shockwave; Samson's armor plates and fragments were embedded in the building timbers.
No one wanted to imagine what would have happened if those shards had hit them.
The ground tremor, the blazing ball of fire, the gunpowder stink, the black smoke blotting out the lights — it all felt real, like the battlefield simulations on their skill chips.
Even inside the Legendary Mackinaw, despite the electromagnetic armor lock absorbing a ton of the shock, the three of them felt as if someone had walloped them right in the chest—
Leo felt it a bit more, since Little Octopus could route force through the octo-arms and the exoskeleton into the chassis.
It was a dazzling blast.
Jackie instantly felt ashamed — he hadn't expected to hesitate like that.
He had something to say, but Leo spoke first: "That was my call. Strip the Hammer. Kid reminded me — let's save a surprise."
HEAP calibers tended to be huge, but MilitaryTech had squeezed that capability down into the Hammer's 12.7 mm format so it would fit most vehicle-mounted heavy MGs.
It took Jackie's Scorch Knuckles — 14 mm caseless — with only minor mods.
Caliber up a hair, more mass, more punch.
Jackie obeyed and tore the Hammer off, pulling the last round from the feed and tucking it into the exoskeleton ammo pouch.
Those five HEAP rounds had cleared every Samson-class full-body setup in Sixth Street; all that was left was to hunt down anyone who'd escaped the ambush.
[Morton: Good guy! Over here! There's a madwoman on my tail!]
"She's on us!" the passenger cried.
Adan clutched his rifle and whirled the muzzle, yelling as he moved.
Morton truly felt hunted — the kind of terror you get when a murderous psycho is actually closing in.
He'd been driving a Corby C125 as a safe-move; thought it'd be a precautionary relocation. Turns out they'd hit the jackpot: the building they were watching had just been bombed! The vehicle's tire had been shredded; now it slid down the street, smoke streaking off the rims.
The tire skid made a white track; speed was low but Morton's driving was perfect.
From high above, you could see a figure sprinting across roofs. Every footfall dented the decking. Small frame, absurd weight. Each step punched holes in the panels, like someone stomping gravity out of the world.
That exaggerated spring gave her insane roof-to-roof mobility. She closed on the car in a single bound and landed over its hood.
Under Night City lights her silhouette cut clean. Morton's Sandevistan kicked in—
Everyone in the car went slack-jawed. Fingers curled around triggers they couldn't properly aim.
People were pissing themselves.
They called her a woman because the rigging was an Alpha full-body cybermod whose secondary sex features had been tuned. The left flank gleamed where fire had scorched metal; she carried a weapon.
At a glance it looked like a large pistol with a folding grip, but the grip assembly fused directly to her arm. Recoil fed into her chassis, increasing both felt recoil and control — a bespoke design for cyborg shooters.
Beyond the grip and the arm-integrated stock the barrel looked obscene — Morton estimated a 15 mm bore.
Fifteen millimeter rounds came in many flavors: HE, flechette, straight-walled caseless. Better to crash into a trash bin than take that to the chest.
BAM!
The driver slammed the wheel and stomped the gas. The ordinary car had a powerful engine. The stunt flipped it spectacularly.
A spray of rounds chewed the tumbling body; the woman latched a hand on a crumbling eave. Her mass snapped the rotten cornice, but she caught herself and slammed into the street.
The wood tore open a huge wound where she'd hit. The Corby C125 erupted into flames among the heaps.
Click.
The feed system linked into the weapon automatically, and rounds started loading with a metallic whisper.
The people in the car were still alive.
Not for long.
BOOM—
The Legend's engine roared from the tail of the street; tracer fire sprayed out. The woman re-engaged her Sain-Weisten — her ocular implants locked onto the gun barrel beneath the armor and tracked at speeds the human eye couldn't follow.
It looked impressive… until Jackie popped up with two RPGs where the Hammer had been.
A barrage of Archaean assault rifle burst and two RPG shots overloaded her skill chip.
No escape.
BOOM!
Morton who'd crawled out watched the woman launch again — this time her posture was less graceful. Flames and shrapnel and a shockwave shoved her backward.
The Legends' Achilles rifle had spooled up in the co-driver bay.
BANG.
Two rounds punched through both of her arms and through the torso. The 120-kg frame slammed into the pavement, metal sparks trailing across the tarmac.
As luck would have it she fell right in front of Morton who'd just rolled out.
Morton blinked — the placement was perfect for a kill shot.
Instinct took over; he yanked a tech revolver and, before the woman could recalibrate, fired a closing round into her skull.
Brain faster than thought, the Morton realized: he'd just killed a market-price €100k terror cyborg.
Lucky for him, he had a scarier cyborg on his side.
Beep-beep.
"Keep up!"
The Legendary Mackinaw honked; Little Octopus's voice blared out so exaggeratedly it nearly gave Morton a stroke.
Per the plan, Sixth Street was supposed to bleed vehicles into the stage end.
Morton kept crawling out, but someone's hand grabbed his leg.
"Boss! Boss!" Adan, face smeared with blood, clawed at his trousers.
"Gimme that! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! I wanna do a!" Adan wailed.
Morton kicked him hard. "Idiot! That's my blood! You got what in your head? Get the hell off me!"