Stepping out of the megatower and back into the noise of the city, Roqi finally felt some of the pressure in his chest begin to ease. The streets were still filthy and grimy, but at least he wasn't inside that place anymore.
The black market hadn't been chaotic—in fact, it had its own kind of twisted order.
There were no prisoners in shackles, no screams of torment echoing through the air. And yet, everything on those shelves had reeked of dried blood.
They dumped the half-dead Lucas into a small storage room behind the Wild Wolf Bar.
This place was part of the Wells family's turf. Everyone nearby was someone they knew, and with Mama Wells and the Padre overseeing the area, no idiot would dare come snooping around.
A dim room. Ruthless mercs. Cold glares sharp enough to slice skin.
It was like something straight out of a movie—but the guy lying on the ground wasn't some tragic anti-hero.
He was a piece of shit.
"Time for everyone's favorite part," Roqi muttered. "Interrogation."
He couldn't find a proper chair, so he dragged over a tiny folding stool and plopped himself down in front of Lucas, wearing a lazy grin that didn't reach his eyes.
Clang!
His katana stabbed straight into the tile floor, humming with tension.
He looked at Lucas—sprawled on the ground, legs twisted grotesquely—and smiled with chilling satisfaction.
The last person he interrogated like this had been Anders Hellman.
But Hellman had gotten off easy. Slick bastard that he was, at least he had rare tech knowledge worth preserving. They'd kept him whole while he worked on the Relic under Rogue's thumb.
Lucas? Lucas had sold out his own people to the Scavs. Helped them hunt Valentinos. There was no tech expertise, no leverage, no redemption.
Just betrayal.
And now, with the Padre involved? With both Jackie and Gustavo watching?
Lucas better pray he didn't die too horribly.
"Don't kill me! Please—don't kill me!"
Lucas sobbed, crawling like a maggot toward Jackie and clinging to his ankle.
"Jackie! C'mon, man! We were boys once!"
"That's just pathetic," Roqi muttered, shaking his head.
"If begging worked, we wouldn't need laws. Oh, right—this city doesn't have any. Fine then. In the spirit of humanitarianism, I'll let you choose your method of execution."
"Heh… heh…"
Lucas let out a strangled whimper, eyes wide with terror at the katana's gleaming edge, even under this dim light.
"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Please—just don't kill me!"
"Oh? That easy?"
Roqi wasn't surprised, but it was still disappointing how quickly Lucas cracked. He gave a slight nod and pulled out his PDA.
"Go ahead. I'm listening."
"Huh?"
Lucas blinked, confused.
He glanced at Roqi, then at the three stone-faced mercs behind him. He was panicking now. This wasn't how it was supposed to go!
Where was the standard beatdown-interrogate-stall-and-bargain routine?
This guy wasn't playing the game!
Lucas had picked up his survival strategies from the best—the Night City Police Department. Even the cops who actually cared still needed warm bodies to fill jail quotas.
Getting out was easy: bribe someone. Promise favors. Flip a death sentence to a suspended one, then to life, then to parole.
But Roqi? His crew?
They didn't care about rules. Or bargaining chips.
"I—I—I…"
Lucas stuttered, unsure where to start. How much should he say? Should he talk about himself? The gang?
This wasn't how it was supposed to go!
And Roqi? Roqi no longer looked like a flashy street kid.
He looked like a surgeon who dissected people for fun.
Lucas still remembered the kick that shattered his leg. It felt like it had happened moments ago.
"I'm just a runner! I don't know anything!"
He finally blurted something out. And Roqi almost laughed.
"You've told me exactly two things," Roqi said, touching the katana's hilt. "Both were lies."
"Is it that you think one clean cut would be easier?"
Gulp.
With a blink, the blade was an inch from his throat.
Lucas tried to swallow. His mouth went dry.
One more second of this pressure, and he'd be spilling everything. He was already unraveling.
The icy floor, the silent mercs watching him like vultures, the sword vibrating near his artery—this was psychological warfare, and it worked.
Hell, if Roqi really wanted to, he could give Lucas the cyberpunk version of slow death by a thousand cuts.
Laser scalpels could shave skin into translucent ribbons. Heat cauterized the wounds instantly. Add a few hormone blockers to prevent fainting, and a victim could be dissected for days.
Not Roqi's invention, by the way. He'd found that little gem in Arasaka's torture training manuals—leaked by Rogue from a deep raid.
He even pulled out his PDA and showed Lucas a few of the methods. Golden torture packages. Premium pain plans.
Arasaka didn't mess around.
Lucas screamed.
And broke.
Hard.
He confessed everything.
Yes, he was with the Scavs.
Their operations covered most of Night City, though they were thickest in North Pacifica and southern Wellsprings.
Lucas hadn't started out with them—but the dirtier the job, the higher the pay.
And the Scavs?
Were monsters.
They hunted careless citizens and low-tier gangers, harvested cyberware and organs, and sold them on the black market. Sometimes they sold whole people.
You didn't want to know what was in their inventory.
They had no ideology, no hierarchy, just greed and cruelty.
They were the reason Night City's black market in body parts—both flesh and cyber—kept booming. They did the dirty work for clients who wanted the product but didn't want the blood on their hands.
Lucas's little crew was one of many. Small, scattered, but savage.
Their leaders weren't elected. They rose through brutality and cunning.
Compared to Maelstrom—who mostly mutilated themselves—Scavs mutilated everyone else.
Roqi had seen it before. Back in Japantown, when they'd rescued Sandra Dorsett. She'd been in Scav hands. Barely.
The method hadn't changed.
Ambush. Abduct. Harvest. Sell.
Now they just added cyber tricks—scrambling signals, faking feeds.
But at their core?
They were just upgraded bandits.
Victims never came back.
Cyberware and organs were stripped and sold. The leftovers? Shipped to Maelstrom's synthetic meat plants.
"Organ harvesters…"
Jackie's voice cracked.
Of all the horrors in Night City, the Scavs were the one thing that always made his blood boil.
Valentino brothers had died at their hands.
And Lucas had helped them?
"I need some air."
He turned and walked out.
Bright light poured through the door. Jackie winced, wiping at something wet in his eyes.
"Damn sunlight…"
He muttered as he shut the door.
The room darkened again.
"I've changed my mind," Roqi said flatly. "I think I will buy that laser cutter after all."
Then, to emphasize his point, he stomped on Lucas's ankle.
The crunch made even Gustavo flinch.
Lucas screamed. Sobbed. Begged.
Terrified that Roqi might say "Anything else to add before we send you off?", Lucas told them everything.
He was at the black market to move a fresh batch of product—cargo siphoned off by an Arasaka mole from a supposedly legal shipment at the Arasaka Waterfront.
South American goods.
Coca leaves.
They'd fought 6th Street over it. Lost a few guys.
But human trafficking?
That wasn't his gig.
Not his division.
However, the Scavs had recently ramped up their involvement in trafficking—and their partners?
The Wraiths.
And then Lucas dropped the real bomb:
"The Wraiths said they've got Nomad contacts outside the city. They can run smuggling routes through the Badlands. Move people with the rest of the cargo."
"Nomads?" Roqi asked, eyes narrowing.
"Yeah… I think the name was… Snake Nation or something."
Roqi and V locked eyes.
And in each other's gaze, they saw the same thing:
Pure, cold shock.
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🤖 My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew?
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