Chapter 30

The second base was a little more successful, we were able to fill the luggage compartment of Tortik with chrome, but there were mainly optics, and other not large-sized chrome. And now we didn't even make it to our destination.

By the way, this time the destination was the port, or rather the part of it where the containers were stored. One of the sections had been cut off and now it was just very crowded. And scavengers and animals. just a sea of targets.

I grinned sadly, if I were in the game, I would now be sitting in the shelter, quietly hacking everyone, then quietly walked through the location knocking out all the enemies. Well, I loved stealth passages. But here to leave alive there is no desire. At the hands of these gangs have already died so many reasonable ...

And I can partially thank the Animals because it was their actions that triggered a chain of events that I believe were the point in David's story and the beginning of mine. Except that I realize how many people they kill on a daily basis.

Every night, including the news, you can hear either about corpses found dismantled for chrome, indicating the work of the Scavengers, or about shootings in which the Animals were the instigators.

I'm not an idealist, though...

No matter how many Animals and Scavengers you kill, you can't rid the city of them. One killed man is replaced by a new one, or even more than one. The good thing is that the experienced ones are replaced by untrained assholes. Really enterprising...

"Okay, there's no access point outside. This isn't civilian infrastructure, so keep your eyes open and give me access at your earliest convenience."

"That's right, Ms. Smarty-pants!

"Quiet..."

Judy grinned and tapped me lightly on the shoulder.

"Come on, get to work. We've got a lot of loading to do."

"Uh-huh...

I nodded my head.

"I just have to find a place to load it, clear it all out..."

I sighed and stepped out of the cake.

"You're not taking care of me."

"I'll save you at home... if Panam lets me."

Judy grinned at me and leaned back in the back seat, covering her eyes and obviously focusing on the picture that was coming from my optics.

"Panam..."

"I'll keep an eye out..."

She grinned and sent an air kiss.

"Who did you just kiss? David, or me watching through what optics?"

"So you think for yourself, decide for yourself who..."

Panam grinned again.

I turned around and walked to a convenient place to break in, where the residential buildings were close to a high fence. After looking around and making sure that no one was watching me, I sharply pushed off with my feet toward the fence, from which I pushed off toward the wall of the house, then back into the fence and back into the house, and the third push toward the fence allowed me to grasp its edge.

It would have been faster, but I didn't want to waste my strength getting to the edge of the fence in one or two jumps. It wouldn't have taken a lot of energy, but I had to be more economical.

My optics told me that the fence was empty, so I pulled myself up so that my eyes were above the edge of the fence, and after a quick look around, I threw myself over it in one jerk, landing softly on the ground. I didn't stay there long and quickly ran to the nearest containers, hiding between them. Unfortunately, the mass of iron prevented my optics from seeing through, and the labyrinths here were a bit of a maze, so I walked slowly and carefully.

I almost missed it when five members of the Animal Gang came out to meet me. What the hell are they doing here? It's not like there's a lot of room...

These thoughts slid through my mind as I activated the sandi and ran up to them.

First knife in the eye socket...

Fuck... stuck...

With a little more effort, in order to wrench the knife I pulled it out and threw it at the distant enemy, after which I pulled out a second knife and got to the animal closest to me...

Five corpses that I even managed to drag into the very narrow area they were headed for. Just to keep them from lying in the open.

"Shit. Quiet, with these synthetic muscles, it's getting dangerous to follow everything through your optics..."

Judy almost moaned those words, and her image began rubbing her temples in a futile attempt to reduce her migraine.

"Good girl?"

"Sandi's short sessions are fine, but now you've been working for... for a long time, subjectively almost twenty seconds and all in one... It's too much for me, good thing I got myself a powerful deck to smooth out the load as the data goes through it. But next time, be warned."

"Better turn off the picture, the sound sequence shouldn't carry such a load."

"Uh-huh...

Judy's voice was "the very least" sarcastic.

"...shouldn't. You just haven't worked with brans, you have no idea how much extraneous noise there is even in relatively prepared conditions. And in this case. No, I'm hibernating the comms channel. If you need to, you can open it."

"Roger that."

My image nodded and the channel was immediately muted.

"Well, uh. here I am all alone."

I covered my eyes for a couple seconds and after activating the sandi I opened my eyes and took the first step. The first step into hell for my opponents.

Naturally, I didn't keep Sandy on all the time, but my brain is surprisingly robust, but even it can't withstand such loads. Vaughn, Judy from one use twisted, and even though the sandi itself is rather a complex complex of chromium, which not only accelerates, but also removes part of the load from the brain, but even so I did not want to abuse it...

Two and a half hours later...

"Good girl?"

I was a little tired, sandi has to be used more often than before, and without it I killed quite a lot, and I just moved a lot and fast. So now I sat next to the access point and rested a bit.

"I'm listening to you, Tycho."

"I'm connected to the point, hack in."

"How much time do I have?"

"Who the hell knows? I've already organized a bloodbath, eliminated forty garbage men and put fifteen animals to sleep..."

I pulled wet wipes from my belt pouch and wiped my gloves, which were covered in a layer of blood that had begun to dry.

"Okay, I'm in the system. Fuck. fuck. Fuck."

"What happened? Our Clever Girl has gone pale..."

"Looks like she's been watching the cameras on the situation."

My image shrugged.

"What is it?"

"There's just dead bodies. a lot of bodies."

The image of Judy sighed.

"...okay, I'm in a resource. No distractions. I'm looking for data. found, there's a map of the area and an access point that our contacts can use. I'm sending them the coordinates. And yes, Tycho, you've eliminated all the--

I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was very difficult...

And not physically, but morally.

"That's good. you look after me, I'll just, uh. relax."

"Get some rest, of course..."

"Okay..."

I covered my eyes, okay...

"Quiet..."

I opened my eyes when Panam touched my shoulder bringing me to my senses. Did I feel better? No. But at least my body was slightly rested and the physical fatigue I was beginning to feel had receded.

"Need help?"

"Yeah..."

She nodded slightly embarrassed. I managed to catch her gaze and didn't see anything in it... It was strange, so many bodies in one place, and she was calm. Apparently I hadn't completely shrunk from this world after all. David was trained for single elimination, my adult psyche having internalized the guy's knowledge was prepared for solo work, when it is necessary to kill one, well, five reasonable, well, ten. But I was not ready for such a bloody rampage, which I organized here. To be exact, there was nothing difficult in the very arrangement, but after...

"Let's go..."

I got up and followed Panam to one of the open containers that had a cache in it.

"And that's all for us..."

I grinned and looked at Panam.

"I hadn't thought of that, but you've asked the Klan what they need first, right?"

"Sure..."

Panam grinned and threw me the list, I activated the scanner in the optic and quickly scanned everything on the racks of the container and quickly noted for myself everything that is on the list and then quickly approached the first item.

"Panam, here you go, a hand for the technician, three grand..."

I handed her the three implants then went on and picked up a few more items and took them to the entrance.

A couple of minutes and everything that was in this container is already in a small pile at its entrance. Good thing everything is hermetically sealed.

"Judy, more containers?"

"Five more..."

I shook my head and made my way to the next one, opening it I continued my work on selecting the right chrome for the Clan. And there was a lot of it, because after the last time, Saul had gotten a whole list of Clan representatives outside of Night City.

"Dude, you should get some rest, we can..."

"Scorp, don't rub it in..."

Panam looked menacingly at her friend.

"Panam..."

"Scorpio, Panam is right. I don't doubt your abilities, but how much time do we have? And how much of it will you spend trying to find what you need with a simple list of container designations? With my optics, I can scan everything and find what I need."

"Okay..."

The third container allowed the list to be sorted out, after which I looked thoughtfully at the boys and Panam.

"So, are we carrying all the expensive stuff?"

"Uh-huh...

"So..."

I strolled over and grinned and pulled out a couple of sandies that I handed to the men.

"I mean, that's..."

"Yes, the most valuable thing of all. An opportunity for your clan to form a combat wing that will be far more effective. In the meantime, take this, then the first container contained third-generation kyros...

The whole loading took us about an hour...

"Let's go..."

I got into Tortik and immediately closed my eyes relaxing. The car engine roared, and with a screech of wheels, three cars sped away from the crime scene.

I answered the call from Regina by machine.

"David..."

"Regina..."

"Thanks for telling Judy to contact me. My men are on their way up to the site and will pick up what they can. Your share will be transferred after the appraisal."

"Uh-huh...

"Are you tired?"

"Morally... very... physically. tolerable."

"Right, I didn't really bother, right after Judy called, figuring that if you didn't call, you were busy, but it's been an hour, so I thought I'd call to say thanks."

"Please..."

My image smiled, and the connection broke.

"Judy, you're a genius..."

"Huh, well I have to come up with some good ideas too..."

The girl's voice would be proud.

"What did she do?"

When asked, Panam told me about the conversation with Regina and she laughed and praised Judy's resourcefulness.

"Too bad you couldn't just rent the place out and expect to make a profit..."

"That's true. maybe Regina would give us something, but it'd be leftovers that we'd get off the table."

"Mm..."

The girls were silent for a while.

"What now, you don't think she's gonna throw leftovers at us?"

"I doubt she'd do such a thing. We're the ones who cleared the territory, and she realizes that if we once got to such a tidbit, the second time is quite possible. So if she ditches us now, she won't be called next time..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."