Chapter 328
2-in-1-chapter
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River's expression gradually showed fear and shock. "You mean…"
Leo nodded.
"That's right. If Harris saw himself as this version's Peter Pan, then that child who was with Harris at the time was Martinez."
"River, do you still remember how the WNS anchor reported it?"
River strained to recall. "He was injected with massive amounts of hormones, anabolic steroids, and stimulants… Fuck! That pervert!"
Leo nodded again.
"Hormones, also known as endocrine hormones, are chemical signaling substances synthesized by highly specialized endocrine cells and secreted directly into the bloodstream."
"Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives structurally and functionally similar to the human male hormone testosterone."
"And stimulants originally referred to a type of opiate sedative mixture used in horse racing."
"All three of these substances are strictly controlled and shouldn't be used casually, let alone injected in large quantities."
River clutched his head and shook it. "Stop, Leo."
Leo didn't continue down that line, seeing River's pained expression, and changed the topic.
"You said Randy's mother thought Randy ran away from home. Why would she think that?"
Most parents would first suspect kidnapping if their child vanished. Calling the police would have been their first step—not assuming the child ran away.
River, embarrassed, explained, "Randy… he wasn't like other kids."
"How so?"
"Petty theft, drug use, running away from home… that kind of stuff."
A street punk, basically.
Leo glanced at River and hesitated. He wasn't prejudiced, but he couldn't ignore the patterns he'd seen in Night City—some communities bore the brunt of poverty and hardship more than others. Generations of inequality, displacement, and systemic neglect meant that some families struggled just to survive, regardless of how hard they worked.
The slogans on the news about justice and equality sounded good, but Leo knew better. In this city, wealth and privilege still mostly flowed to the same places, and the streets didn't care about slogans. At the end of the day, this was still a society stacked in favor of those with power.
Still, even with that, how could River's nephew Randy, who had an uncle working for NCPD, dare to act so recklessly?
Leo voiced his doubt, and River sighed.
"Some people are just born to cause trouble… Randy's one of them."
Leo could hear the helplessness and bitterness in his tone.
He could picture it clearly: Randy getting arrested for petty theft or drugs, giving his uncle's name—River. Then River, embarrassed, handing out cigarettes and bribes to his colleagues, begging them to let Randy go.
Each time, River would lecture Randy earnestly, and Randy would agree on the surface but break his promises repeatedly, disappointing River and their mother, wearing them down.
Wait.
Leo suddenly noticed: River hadn't mentioned Randy's father at all.
What was going on? Was Randy's father a deadbeat?
"His mother couldn't handle him—what about his dad?"
"His dad took off years ago. Mixed up with nomads outside the city… What was the name?"
"Aldecaldos?"
"Yeah, Aldecaldos."
"A few years ago, the Aldecaldos and some other nomads—or maybe it was Raffen Shiv, I'm not sure—anyway, they fought. Turf war or something."
"And that left Joss with three kids. But she was a tough woman, barely managing to raise them all alone. She just never expected Randy to turn out like this."
Aldecaldos was the name of a clan.
Clans were made up of tribes, and tribes split further into families.
For example, Snake Nation was a clan, and the Bakker family was a family within it.
The Aldecaldos on the West Coast had many branches—not just Panam's group.
Leo couldn't be certain whether Joss's husband had been with Panam's branch. He could ask Panam, Mitch, or Scorpion later.
Either way, Leo was starting to understand why Randy had become what he was.
Joss must have worked long hours, day and night, to provide for three children—leaving little time or attention for them.
Randy, raised in a family starved of love, would have grown up with psychological and emotional issues.
On top of that, with little money, Joss and her kids likely lived in a cheap, high-crime neighborhood.
There was an old saying in Heywood: "He who stays near vermilion gets stained red; he who stays near ink gets stained black."
Even adults are shaped by their environment—how much more so for a child like Randy?
Petty theft, drug use—those bad habits had probably been learned on the streets, mingling with other kids from that community.
If Randy had been an only child, Leo believed that even without a father, under his mother's care and with River's support, Randy might not have turned out this way.
But Joss had three children—and Randy was the eldest.
Even when Joss was home, her attention would naturally shift to the younger siblings.
Randy, though older, was entering adolescence—when attention and guidance were most needed.
And though he had River as an uncle, that wasn't the same as having a father.
Even if River could help sometimes, he couldn't always be there.
The car fell into silence again.
But this time, it didn't last long.
It was Leo who broke it.
"So, when can you head back?"
"Go back where?"
"NCPD. Didn't you say the department just suspended you? If it's just suspension and not termination, then eventually you should be reinstated, right?"
"I don't know. They didn't say," River caught Leo's expression out of the corner of his eye. "Hey, don't look at me like that, okay? I don't need anyone's pity."
Leo nodded in understanding. "So what are you going to do now?"
River forced a casual tone.
"Go see my sister. Let her know I'm alright. And while I'm at it, take a look around where my nephew's staying, see if I can find any leads."
"You know that's not what I'm asking."
River sighed.
His hands gripped the steering wheel, his voice tinged with melancholy and uncertainty.
"I know… but how am I supposed to answer you? I've been suspended from the NCPD… and honestly, anyone could tell suspension is just a polite way of saying they're kicking me out. They're afraid I'll cause trouble, so they call it suspension.
But really? Most likely, I'm already out for good. No place to go, no job, no salary—not even a place to live.
When I was with the NCPD, at least I could stay in the officer's dorms. Cramped, old, and broken down—but at least it was a roof over my head.
Now that I'm suspended, all the NCPD facilities are closed off to me. If I don't want to sleep under a bridge or in some half-finished tunnel or abandoned building, I'll have no choice but to go to my sister for help."
"Sorry, Leo… I don't mean to dump all this on you."
Leo offered, "It's fine. But if you really have nowhere to go, why don't you come stay with me?"
River quickly glanced over at Leo.
"You mean join you as a mercenary? No… Look, I've got nothing against mercs, but I just think…"
"You don't need to explain. I get it. But I'm not asking you to be a merc. I want you to come work with me as PMC. More precisely, I want you to join my company."
"What? Company!?"
"Allow me to reintroduce myself: I, Leo, am now the Director and CEO of a private military company called Aurora PMC."
"Aurora PMC? A military contractor?"
River turned to Leo, eyes wide, face full of shock.
"Eyes on the road, River! Look ahead!"
"Oh—sorry, my bad."
River quickly turned his gaze back forward, then pulled over to the side of the road and parked before turning back to Leo, his voice suddenly serious and heavy.
"Leo… what you just said—are you serious?"
When he first met Leo, Leo was just a gun-for-hire running gigs across town. How long had it been since they last met? And now he was claiming to be the Director of a PMC?
In this era, it was nearly impossible for ordinary people to climb the social ladder. There was no opportunity for real upward mobility.
The reason was simple: all avenues for advancement were completely locked down by corporations.
Take Arasaka, for example. After Japan's defeat, when Saburo Arasaka first took over from his father, the company was just a relatively ordinary firm. It was Saburo who gradually grew it into the megacorporation it became.
And even after Arasaka dominated Japan's market, many upstart Japanese firms had leaders just as talented and capable as the aging Saburo.
So why is it that today, only Arasaka and Tsunami Defense Systems remain, and no other Japanese companies?
Because when Arasaka noticed any rising Japanese firms that might pose a threat, they didn't sit idly by—they acted to strangle the competition in its cradle.
Either they paid a fortune to acquire the company outright, absorbing it into Arasaka. In that case, no matter how excellent the company was, it became part of Arasaka's empire.
And if acquisition failed? Then they'd spend whatever it took to poach the rival's core teams and technical talent.
Even someone unfamiliar with corporate strategy would understand: once your core staff and technical leaders are gone, your company is as good as dead.
With these two tactics, Arasaka crushed nearly every Japanese competitor who tried to challenge them.
The same logic applied in Night City.
That's why no one dared start a company here. The risk of failure was just too high.
By comparison, becoming a legend was actually "easier."
Looking at the confused expression on River's face, Leo could easily guess what he was thinking.
He just smiled.
"Of course it's real," Leo replied, "but there's one difference—my company isn't inside the city, it's outside, and it's still under construction right now with only a small workforce."
Hearing this, River suddenly understood.
No wonder.
It was simply that the company was still too small to have drawn attention from the major players.
And River realized he had made a mistake.
He had only remembered that Arasaka's initial rise was drenched in blood but had forgotten that this wasn't Japan—they were in Night City now.
If it were Japan, Arasaka would naturally act with ruthless efficiency toward other Japanese companies; Japan was Arasaka's home base, and Arasaka would never allow trouble in its own backyard.
But in Night City, things were different.
Night City didn't belong to Arasaka alone. It was home to many megacorps: Militech, Kang Tao, Biotechnica, Tetratronic, among others. Arasaka couldn't dominate here like it could in Japan.
Moreover, Leo's company wasn't even inside Night City—it was outside the city limits.
Outside the city was not Night City jurisdiction; it was Badlands, filled with Nomads and Raffen Shiv. It was probably precisely because of this that the old megacorps didn't care—they saw no reason to intervene.
"You trying to poach me?"
"You're out of work anyway, aren't you? Why not come work for me? What do you say?"
As for River's character—there was nothing to question. He'd survived in the cesspool of the NCPD for years and yet hadn't become corrupt or compromised like so many others.
That alone was enough to make Leo trust him.
Besides, it was precisely because of River's integrity that the NCPD had driven him out—but Leo didn't worry that his sense of justice would cause trouble here.
Because what they were doing was right.
So Leo had no reason to hesitate.
In addition, River's skills were solid.
He had been an active detective—despite his complaints that most of a detective's time was spent chasing leads and writing reports, that didn't mean the pistol on his belt was just for show.
Detectives often had to go places far from safe—and not everyone respected a badge.
A capable fighter was essential.
River's combat ability ranked among the best in NCPD.
Don't forget—during that incident at City Hall, he'd put down a cyberpsycho in just three shots.
Even if that was perhaps the most pathetic cyberpsycho in history, a cyberpsycho was still a cyberpsycho.
So Leo felt River was absolutely worth recruiting—a perfect candidate to make into a core member of Aurora PMC. It would be no loss at all.
In fact, it was NCPD's stupidity to throw away such a valuable asset.
River fell silent for a long time. Leo didn't rush him.
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