Hits and Realization. Part 1

Hits and Realization.

- You fucker! Bitch! Scum! - my fist crunches the nose of my opponent and that's enough to send him into a deep knockout.

But that's not enough for me, and I start kneading him with my legs like dough. Bones break, blood spurts, and damaged chrome sparks. This goes on for several minutes until, out of breath, I decide to stop.

- Caught me, you fucking bitches. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRG - I grab the knife stuck in my shoulder with my hands and pull it out with a loud roar.

Not the smartest idea, because now the bleeding could only get worse. Except my subcutaneous armor didn't let the knife sink deep enough. The knife was more uncomfortable because it didn't allow me to move my hand freely, causing nagging pain, and the blood loss wouldn't have been as great. A bag of donated blood and I'll be fine.

I get a special disposable hemostatic spray and treat the wound. Finished with the wound I look around, there are three bodies in police uniforms lying in a small alley near my house. One has a broken windpipe, another with part of his head missing after being shot several times at point-blank range, and the last one, who is slowly dying, wheezing more quietly each time.

I go over to the one with the more or less intact face and call Kowalski.

- Kowalski, are you busy? - I ask in a tone that indicates I'm only asking out of politeness and expect him to drop whatever he's doing and be ready to help me.

- No, no, Skipper. So a little drunk at the club, but I'm sober enough. What happened?

- Some fuckers in police uniforms and an I.D. attacked me outside my house. They're cooling off, I got a little overzealous, and now there's no one to question. Can you run them through all the databases? I wanna find out who the fuck is brave. Check the rest of our team while I send a message to the TT. I'm getting a strange and most importantly unpleasant feeling. - I sigh and send two special codes, the first one notifying that I was attacked, but I got through it, and the second one requesting a check on the TT members.

- How bad is it? Send me their id's and pics.

- Three powerful freaks tried to break every bone in my body but miscalculated, though they managed to cut me near the end. Thanks to chrome and my paranoia, they didn't succeed. I'll send an id and a picture of one of them with a more or less intact face.

- Okay. Already checking. Fuck. Skipper, I got some bad news.

- Militech? Arasaka?

- They're not corporations, they're Max-Tac members. In fact, this asshole was among the Max-Tac fighters who came to our aid the last time we fought them.

- Holy shit. Fucking retarded assholes in blue caps. Well, I'm gonna rip their balls off and don't give a shit what the city police department says. - I got a message from HQ that a couple of Archangels were attacked by unknown assailants.

The attacks were coordinated and happened at the same time. TT has declared a red alert.

- Skipper, what is this? War?

- Yeah, with nuclear explosions and aircraft carriers on the horizon. Read the TT employee handbook again. It means we all need to be prepared for any shit. Get all our guys back to base now. Tell them to try and get in groups instead of singles if possible. That's it. Stand down.

I'm ordering Delamain's cab and while I'm waiting for it, I'm going over the Archangel casualty reports. Shit," I curse out loud, several of the other squads were seriously injured, and one of them had his brains almost fried. Only I apparently managed to fight back with minimal injuries, and the rest of them were unlucky. - After I make a pyramid of cyberpsychic heads with tokens, I'll freeze the rest of the Archangel squads in training and get additional funds from the company's budget to improve the fighters.

The cab arrived quickly enough, and I got in it and began to plan the retaliation. The longer I pondered over who was behind it, my initial suspicions that it was probably a veiled revenge from the cops' bosses changed to the fact that someone else was behind it. But who exactly? The government? The Corps?

The government is less likely. There's no obvious benefit to them from attacking us. Especially they have more serious problems in the form of internal problems like fatigue of many dictatorship of the president and external, such as increased pressure from Europe and the USSR.

Corporations. There are many candidates here. Arasaka, not many people in it to like the friendly ties between me and Yerinobu, because so he indirectly strengthens its influence, and if you remember that for his sake robbed Militech, not even indirectly. Militech, we did not order weapons and other equipment from them, which reduces their profits due to the inability to use the TT as a marketing battering ram. And also the purchase of their robots did not go without some problems, which did not add to the friendship between us. There were problems with other corporations too, though not as big as Arasaka and Militech.

There may be internal traitors among the TT, but it's very unlikely. Jeremiah had done a very big cleanup, and he showed many shareholders that he had a firm grip on their necks, and he showed them the price of shares and dividends, and implicitly pointed out that it happened only thanks to the Archangels, who could, if anything, at his behest, pay a visit and explain quite capaciously, albeit painfully, that it was not worth it to be impudent.

The cab brought me to the headquarters and I lit a cigarette and walked towards the Archangels' office. On the way there I saw that the office resembled a hive of activity. The number of guards had increased, and the turrets had come out of their niches, all this showed that TT was ready to repel the attack.

When I got to my department, I noticed that the analysts and netrunners were busy gathering information and tracking Archangels who weren't on shift.

- Report and prepare an encrypted channel to Jeremiah and Ron. - I quickly give out orders and leave for my office.

Preparing a cup of coffee and smoking another cigarette, I begin to look through the first reports of the analysts.

- Well, the bastards. I knew someone would take advantage of you. Gandons with implants and tokens. - I say as I read the documents.

My suspicions turned out to be true. Max-Tac had someone using solo to cover their tracks. And all the evidence pointed to the corpo, not the government. So we need to contact the mistress of postmortem and use the emergency fund.

- Rogue. I'll be brief, time is short. I need your services.

- I've heard that the Archangels have had their wings clipped.

- Rogue, I'm not in the mood for jokes right now. I'll pay to hire your best trackers, but I need you to find me some solos as soon as possible.

- I will. But it's not gonna be cheap.

- You've got an advance on your account. I expect first results within half an hour.

- Copy that. Send me everything you've got so we can save time.

I send her the analysts and intelligence report, while I wait to set up a secure channel of communication with Jeremiah and Ron. Finally, after a while, I get a message that it's ready.

- You look like shit, Marcus. But it's a shitty situation, too. - Ron speaks first and Jeremiah just nods his head in agreement.

- I know, but I'd rather have a couple cuts and bruises than a cold corpse like those degenerates who tried to beat me up. Have you familiarized yourself with what our netrunners and analysts have learned?

- Yes. Through my contacts at the police department, I've already learned they don't know what happened. They didn't authorize anything, and they swear their dogs got loose. - Jeremiah spoke up and sent a copy of the correspondence with the cops in charge.

- If they can't control their tame cyberpsychos, they can't complain about having a few less of them, and their health will deteriorate dramatically for a very long time. Jeremiah, I need your approval to retaliate. - I answer him with stubbornness in my eyes.

- Hmm. Are you sure you should do it now? I don't mind retribution, but why hit the doll if you can't get the one pulling the strings? - Ron asks and points out that all the strings lead to the unknown solos who were the link between the hidden schemer and Max-Tac's dumb cyber-psychos.

- I've already contacted Rogue and used the emergency fund. Our specialists alone won't be enough to find these solos before they get rid of them or hide themselves so deep that it will be impossible to get them in the near future.

- That's a good idea. I should also use my connections and find out everything I can. A brazen attack like this will tarnish our image and hurt me. I'm authorizing you and Ron to retaliate. I'll be in touch. I hope by the time I get back to Night City, I'll have the heads of every bastard who thought they could lay a hand on us on my desk. - Jeremiah is leaving the canal.

- Marcus, I'll be at the office shortly. While I'm on my way, get the medics to patch you up. I have a feeling there's gonna be rivers of blood here. - Ron leaves the channel, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Half an hour later, I get a message from Rogue, who's found the solo that was involved in all this shit. I order our netrunners to trace all his connections and hack into his accounts and do it as fast as possible before he escapes or is killed by his employers.

When I get the report back with all the stuff the netrunners dug up, I swear.

- Corpo. Militech. Well, Meredith it's time for you to get a couple punches in for a better understanding that playing with us is very unhealthy.

Calling my penguins, who were just waiting for my order.

- Guys, we're going to go live-bait a big, badass fish. - My bloodthirsty smile elicits similar grins from the rest of the team.