Chapter 17: Gigs Always Have Complications
Two cars cruised down the highway, heading out of the city towards the outskirts.
Rhys sat in the passenger seat of the second car, with Pilar at the wheel. In the back, Rebecca, Sasha, and Kiwi were crammed together.
Rebecca had her hands laced behind her head, chewing bubblegum. A Shingen Mark V SMG and an Omaha tech pistol rested on her thick thighs. Her Omaha was clearly sourced from the Mox; it had the same pink finish as Rhys's, just without the custom cute decals and the little pastel axe logo of the gang. After all, his had been a gift from Korna.
Beside her, the two netrunners were already at work, each in their own way, scouring the net for any useful intel. Sasha had a sleek datapad on her lap, a data cable running from her left wrist port into the machine. Kiwi had her red trench coat open, revealing she was wearing nothing underneath but pale skin and a modest bustline. Her eyes were closed, jacked into a small, handheld device.
Rhys stared straight ahead, avoiding the rearview mirror, listening to the chatter on the crew's comms.
Maine: "Rhys, Sasha filled you in on the gig, right?"
Rhys: "Extraction from a 6th Street turf. One-twenty K for a live target, fifty K for a corpse. Correct?"
Maine's voice grinned. Maine: "That's the one. Should be a cakewalk for us. If there are no surprises, it's basically free eddies."
Dorio: "Easy there, Maine. This is 6th Street we're talking about. The eddies might be easy to grab, but living to spend them is another story. These street gangs are all about rep. They don't care who you are; they'll come after you."
Dorio, a former member of the Animals, spoke from a place of grim experience.
6th Street—one of Night City's major gangs, with their main stronghold in Arroyo, Santo Domingo. They boasted over two thousand members and were a formidable fighting force. The gang was founded by veterans of the Fourth Corporate War, and they ran their operation with military discipline. Every member had at least some basic combat training. They were a tough nut to crack, a fact proven by their ongoing, often advantageous, war with the Valentinos in Heywood.
Maine: "We're just mercs. We do the job, we take the eddies. What's 6th Street got to do with us? The fixer will clean up the mess."
Dorio looked like she was about to argue, but Sasha cut in. Sasha: "We're close. The target is just around the next bend. We can't get any closer; the whole road ahead is under surveillance."
Maine: "Alright, park it here."
On Maine's command, both cars pulled over. The crew gathered on the side of the road.
Rhys looked up. From here, they could see a chop shop on a low hill. A massive logo was painted on its busted sign: a skull with a golden number 6 on its forehead, flanked by three golden stars on each side—the mark of 6th Street.
Maine lit a cigarette, taking a long drag. "Fixer says after we grab the target, we dump him in front of a bar in Heywood and make a call. That's it, gig's done."
"The hell? Why's Heywood involved? You didn't say anything about that yesterday, Maine," Pilar hissed.
"What's the problem?"
"What's the problem?" Pilar squawked. "We snatch someone from 6th Street turf and dump him in Heywood? This is fucking gang business, written all over it!"
As a Night City native, Pilar knew the score. This job stank to high heaven. Fixers were all the same—arrogant bastards who talked in riddles, making a simple job ten times more complicated than it needed to be, all for the sake of their so-called 'professionalism.' In reality, they were just screwing over the mercs.
"Get over it. We took on a corpo. You're scared of 6th Street?" Maine rolled his eyes. Which was the bigger headache, hitting Biotechnica or hitting 6th Street? Even a gonk could figure that one out.
"Alright, Pilar, get your gear ready," Maine ordered.
Muttering curses, Pilar went to the trunk of his car and pulled out two long, black tubes.
"Okay, listen up," Maine continued. "We're going for the big payout. Kiwi, you're new, we're not synced up yet, so you can sit this one out. You'll still get a cut."
"I get paid for doing nothing?" Kiwi asked, her eyes briefly dropping before she looked up at Maine, a strange look in them.
"Why not?" Rebecca said, patting Kiwi on the waist.
"..." Kiwi just took a drag from her cigarette.
"To get the full payout, we need to bring him out alive. That means we go in quiet, find him, and secure him first. That part's on you," Maine said, looking at Rhys, his tone serious.
Kiwi's head dropped again, an even stranger expression on her face. She glanced at Rhys, her eyes flickering. As a netrunner, the first thing she'd done upon meeting him was run a discreet scan of his cyberware. The results... had made her want to curse. An almost completely organic meat-bag was running the streets? And now, Maine was giving him the most critical role in the operation?
Was this whole crew cyberpsycho?
She shot a look at Rebecca, a hint of annoyance in her gaze. She had only joined this crew because of Rebecca. But now it seemed that aside from Maine, Dorio, and maybe the cute deckhead, the rest of them were third-rate at best. And this Rhys guy? He wasn't even rated.
The weirdest part was that no one, not even Pilar, who clearly had a problem with Rhys because of Sasha, said a word against Maine's plan. They were all trusting an organic?
"Okay," Rhys said, accepting the mission.
"Alright, let's get ready. This is a simple in-and-out. No need to overthink it," Maine said with a grin. "Sasha, you support Rhys. Hack their cams, get him inside. The second we get the word from him, me and Dorio are crashing the front gate to draw fire and provide an exit."
"Got it," Sasha said, making an 'OK' sign with her hand. She shrugged off her jacket. "Ready?" she asked Rhys.
"Yeah." Rhys took a deep breath and nodded. This was his first real gig in a way. The Biotechnica job didn't count.
The moment he agreed, a system notification chimed in his head.
[Bounty Detected: Gigs Always Have Complications]
[ACCEPT / DECLINE]
Rhys blinked at the mission title, then accepted.
[Gig Accepted: Gigs Always Have Complications]
Threat Level: Medium
Objective: Locate the target captured by 6th Street.
Reward: Random Attribute +0.1 x2.
Description: Come on, choom, this is Night City. You really think you're just extracting one guy? Sometimes, the simple jobs aren't so simple...
Reading the description, Rhys frowned. Another variable? Right... even in the anime, Maine's crew never had a clean run.
He looked at Maine.
"What are you looking at me for? Get to work!" Maine said, confused.
"..."
Does our crew have some kind of debuff? Why is every gig we take a guaranteed clusterfuck?
But he kept the thought to himself. Mercs lived on the edge. A smooth, easy job? Don't be a gonk. Just like the mission alert said—this is Night City.
He stood up and looked at Sasha. "Ready?"
"Ready. Your firewall is up. Go wild," the netrunner said with a smile.
That was all the confirmation he needed. Rhys exploded forward.
At a full sprint, he covered the distance to the low slope by the highway guardrail in seconds, scrambling up the incline in a low crouch. At the same moment, the camera on the chop shop's sign sparked faintly in the daylight and tilted downwards, dead.
"He's so damn fast. Maine, I still don't believe he doesn't have leg chrome. I'm starting to think he's got a..." Dorio's voice trailed off. That was impossible. Even a chrome-addict like Maine hadn't been able to get his hands on a Sandevistan. The military-grade tech was practically a myth on the black market, the price astronomical.
"Fast? Dorio, you didn't see him jump from the fourteenth floor!" Pilar chimed in.
Standing next to a flushed, excited Rebecca who was hugging her gun, Kiwi's cigarette fell from her fingers. She stared, her expression a mask of pure disbelief.
What the hell?
How can an organic move that fast?
That kind of speed... only a psycho with a Sandevistan should be able to do that.
But the problem is... he doesn't have a Sandevistan!