"A presidential campaign document... Honestly, I never thought I'd be doing jobs at this level." Driving their heavily modified Hera across
"A presidential campaign document... Honestly, I never thought I'd be doing jobs at this level." Driving their heavily modified Hera across
"A presidential campaign document... Honestly, I never thought I'd be doing jobs at this level."
Driving their heavily modified Hera across the Badlands, Oliver grumbled from the driver's seat.
"Back in the day, guys like the President of New America were just mythical figures to me—only ever seen in rumors or livestreams. Like clouds in the sky. Nothing to do with us on the ground."
"Well, guess we've got that chance now, huh?"
In the passenger seat, Jack looked out at the sandstorm swirling around the Hera and brought up an important question:
"Are we sure Hera can make it all the way? This off-road upgrade was kind of a last-minute job. Honestly, we probably should've taken the armored vehicle—or even the hovercar."
"Jack, stop dreaming about your damn APC. You wanna get tailed before we even get there? We're not heading into Night City, where chaos is normal and you can blend in if you don't start trouble. We're entering territory that, at least officially, belongs to New America."
V patted the seat cushion with confidence.
"And don't worry about Hera. You trust my mods or not? My old Basilisk could handle the Badlands just fine. Hera's got better parts, a better engine. I know the route to SoCal like the back of my hand. Just follow my lead and I'll get us there."
"Hey, I know the route too," Karl chimed in.
"North California, South California. Night City's in the north. We're heading south. Just keep driving south, right?"
"Leave the navigation to people who actually drive, would ya?" Oliver sighed from the front seat.
"By your logic, we could drive straight from the North Pole to the South Pole. You really don't know jack about NorCal and SoCal, do you?"
"What's the difference?"
Karl really didn't know.
"I mean, Night City's an independent city-state in NorCal. Still part of California, technically. So what's so special about SoCal?"
"You know about the Unification War, right?"
"Of course."
Karl remembered the war of 2069–2070 well enough, and Oliver continued the explanation:
"To put it simply, during the Unification War, when New America's military set foot in California, some areas of Southern California were placed under federal control. Meanwhile, the city-states in the north refused to bow to New America.
Back then, Lucius Rhyne—who's now mayor of Night City but was a councilman at the time—called in Arasaka to intervene in the conflict and secure Night City's independence.
That split the state in two. NorCal and SoCal became two completely different power zones, each influenced by different factions. Now, we're stepping into territory that belongs entirely to New America and Militech. It won't be anything like operating in Night City."
"So, basically, SoCal's under New America and Militech. We move through their turf, we follow their rules," Karl summarized.
Oliver was reminding him that in Night City, mercs like them could take jobs from any megacorp and juggle multiple roles because of the chaotic balance of power. But once in SoCal, they'd need to play by the rules, at least on the surface.
"Guess this job won't be as easy as I thought."
Karl remembered what they were here to do.
Their mission: retrieve a presidential campaign document in SoCal. Their client: someone from Militech.
Everyone knew New America and Militech were practically joined at the hip. The current president, Rosalind Myers, was Militech's former CEO. So why would someone from Militech, hiding their face and identity, send Karl's team on a covert mission to retrieve campaign material?
"We're probably caught in Militech's internal power struggle—or in a clash between Militech and the puppet government of New America."
"Looks that way," T-Bug chimed in over comms.
"Election season's coming up. If someone gets their hands on these campaign materials now, it could make whoever's responsible look incompetent—and that might hurt their chances in the race.
Especially if the speech is already written and predictable—it's easy ammo for opponents. Problem is, we don't know who the doc belongs to. The client didn't give us any names."
"It's not that they gave little info—they deliberately withheld it," Jack said flatly.
"Whether it's Myers or some internal rival, none of these people are clean. With stakes this high, they obviously don't want a bunch of mercs poking around too deep. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The fact they're trying to keep us in the dark? Means they don't plan on silencing us. At least not yet."
"So the less we know, the safer we are," Karl muttered.
As a merc, you learn to close one eye and not ask too many questions. Knowing too much only got you killed.
"Still... I think we lowballed this job," Karl added.
"They gave us a 400k euro deposit, and our total payout is only 2 million. For a job this messy? I didn't negotiate well."
"It happens," Jack said casually.
"Look at it this way—we're building reputation with Militech. If we do this well, we'll be swimming in clients."
"Might not even have enough lives to take all the jobs lined up for us," Oliver chuckled.
But then V, a little out of sync with the mood, said:
"Honestly, I think two million is already a lot."
"That's what you get for doing those low-tier solo gigs in your spare time," Karl sighed—then a new message pinged his phone.
He glanced at it.
"Welcome to the land of true New America, Mr. Karl."
Looking up, he spotted a territory boundary sign by the roadside.
They had just crossed into SoCal—and someone had already locked on to their position.
If it wasn't a top-tier netrunner tracking them…
Karl looked up at the crystal-clear blue sky—a sight you'd never see in Night City.
"Satellite surveillance, huh?"
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