...will go wrong.

When I sat down alone for dinner, I had already done some research on the United Kingdom while in the bath, in between reading a fantasy novel, so when I was given a menu which I had already reviewed on their net site, I already had a few ideas of some of the dishes I could order which would be suitably English.

However, the more I read about cuisine in England, the more I was sure that most of the upper crust probably ate French, Italian or international cuisine instead, as most of the results I got were for things that did not seem appetising at all or were very peasanty, although, in the modern day, things like meat pies were considered a lot more high-class, depending on the type of protein that was used. That said, while soaking in the tub and reviewing the menu for the restaurant downstairs, I saw something on the menu that I thought might suit me.

Speaking of my tub, I had only gotten out of it when all my toes became unreasonably pruney, but I already had an idea to fix that issue later, so the next time I had the chance for this luxury, I could soak as much as I wanted. Pruney fingers weren't, actually, a result of water being absorbed into the skin as most people thought but a function of the sympathetic nervous system ordering your blood vessels to constrict. The reason for this evolutionary adaptation was debated, and even I did not precisely know for sure, but I felt that it might be to increase the finger's gripping friction while in the water, lest a useful tool or weapon slipped out of your hand.

Still, it was simple to treat either pharmacologically or in other ways, such as intercepting or blocking the signals from the brain and spinal cord. I hadn't yet finalised a design for my first internal pharmacopoeia, in fact, it was barely at the stage of an idea or back-of-napkin sketch, but I already knew that a supply of vasodilators would be included in the medications inside.

There were already similar implants in the world, but they loaded the chemicals into them as a consumable. I wanted something that would generate the chemicals, either on demand or to keep a supply stocked. So while I was calling it an implant, my ideas were really on the scope of a complicated, artificial organ.

Shaking my head from the digression, I glanced across the bar to the tender who was waiting for me to order. He was smiling and tapping his fingers in slow motion on the bar top, waiting for me. That was one nice thing about living in slow motion; I had more time to daydream without looking like an idiot.

I had decided to sit at the bar for dinner, as well, because the main reason I was there was to be seen. Coughing gently into my hand, I said, "I'll take the Beef Wellington, rare, and the scalloped potatoes with a Cirrus cola," I said, smiling, and continued, trying to sound cool, "Also, two fingers of the fifteen-year Glenfiddich. Neat, just pour it into a glass."

I had only drunk alcohol on a couple of occasions, and I didn't really like it. I especially didn't think it was worth a hundred eurodollars for a small glass of it, so I didn't try to order any fancy cocktail because I figured it would just ruin the taste of the other parts of the drink. It was better to think of it as medicine or something, so I asked for it by itself. I had looked up the terminology, and "neat" referred to liquor just by itself, without even ice.

Glenfiddich wasn't a super high-tier brand of whisky, but it was in the mid to upper range these days, especially in the NUSA as an imported product given the state of the global logistics supply chain, and it was still made the same way it always had been, at least if you believed their PR materials.

The bartender brought me my drinks immediately, sliding over a tall glass of cola and an empty lowball glass. He poured what I considered to be about fifty ccs of the amber liquid into the glass and placed it in front of me. I inclined my head and gave him a quiet thank you before taking a sip of the nasty stuff. I had already schooled my face to be expressionless.

It was gross, like a burning alcohol taste combined with an oaky, caramel-type flavour that was, in my opinion, a terrible combination. However, my face hid my displeasure, but it was all I could do to avoid spitting it back into the glass. A man's voice surprised me, and I glanced at him in mid-sentence, "It's nice to see someone, especially a young lass like yourself, not ruin good whisky by contaminating it with ice, much less..." he paused to add a dramatic shudder, "...try to make a cocktail out of it."

The man looked like he was in his early forties, although my trained eyes zoomed in on several tell-tale signs of life-extension therapies, so I guessed he was maybe half again that. He had a course of treatment that was strictly designed to extend his life and wasn't maximised for looking as young as possible. His hair, including a full, well-trimmed beard, had gone to salt and pepper, and my professional gaze identified that the dermis on one of his hands appeared a lot newer than the other, so I suspected he had his hand regrown as it didn't seem to be a cybernetic replacement.

That told me he had money, but the fact that he had gotten the treatment within the last twenty years told me he hadn't always had it, which was a little unusual but not unheard of. Those with real wealth would be treated with genetic therapies when they were in vitro and throughout childhood. Genetic therapies of all kinds were usually much more expensive than biosculpt. However, these days they were somewhat blurring along the edges as some biosculpt treatments included a genetic factor.

My nanosurgeons, for example, included a small genetic change that prevented my body from rejecting the artificial organ that produced the organic nanomachines. The distinction was that genetic therapies usually had to be tailored to the person being treated. When a genetic treatment became so well understood that an average doctor of middling skills could perform it, then these types of treatments filtered their way into the realm of biosculpt unless, like life extension, they were kept artificially scarce for economic or political reasons.

In almost no case, however, would any genetic therapy or biosculpt treatment be designed to alter the genome of your gametes, though. Not only did that make breeding complicated, but more importantly, it made sure the Corporations that offered these services could sell the same services to your children. There was no money to be made in Eugenics unless each subsequent generation had to pay, too, after all.

Personally, I thought that was sad. Despite how dangerous the world was, it wasn't on the same level of danger that could cause evolutionary pressure. So, it would be nice if the human organism, which had been lifted out of the dreary world of natural selection through our ingenuity, could be improved instead by that same artifice.

The way he spoke immediately brought to mind a famous Scottish actor, and I smiled, "Well, I am not a total barbarian, despite what my mum used to say." I raised a single eyebrow, which was a lot harder an expression to practice than one might think, and asked, "You sound a bit far from home."

He chortled and raised a thick mug of beer and said, "Aye. My name's Richard Stewart; I'm a sales executive for British Aerospace, in town to hawk the wares. You sound like you'd be more at home in a cold and rainy place, too."

I blinked once. I still got a lot of news based on Alt-Taylor and Alt-Danny's interests, so I had, by chance, heard that BAE was trying to sell some surplus surveillance drone systems to the Night City government. That the city would even entertain not buying the equivalent Militech product was a shock to the very Militech-focused publication. I tried to parse the last part of what he said while he waited in slow motion and finally considered that he was, as I suspected, referring to England, which, even today, was a very rainy and cloudy place.

I grinned. I found the fact that everyone always included what Corp they worked for amusing. I obviously couldn't reciprocate, but I thought I could tease the older man a little with my reply, "You're quite right. Forgive my manners for not introducing myself sooner; I am Emma Barnes, a member of no particular organisation, and I'm in town for some personal business. Don't tell me you boys are still trying to off-load those Demon Eyes, eh?"

The Demon Eye surveillance system was originally a potent, fully-integrated autonomous military surveillance drone system used to gather real-time intelligence in an entire local theatre of operations. It was one of the first such products released after the world mostly recovered from the DataKrash in the early '40s, so it was in almost all ways inferior to products that had been utilised in the 2020s, which had been lost or suborned by the wild AIs. So much technology had been lost in that incident that we still hadn't recovered from it.

Still, it was a system that was getting a bit long in the tooth today for a front-line European nation, and trying to get some money out of it by selling it for police use was not surprising, especially to what they probably considered to be a second-rate city-state like Night City.

His eyes widened for some reason, and I saw his eyes briefly dart to the obviously not solely decorative charm bracelet on my left arm, then to the barely visible cyberdeck at the base of my skull, and finally a little lower to see the beginnings of my Kerenzikov that were visible in the dress I was wearing. He chuckled a bit, a sly look now on his face, "Maybe. I could get you a good price if you're interested."

"Not me, no. But I wouldn't be surprised if the local city government was very interested in such a system," I said absently, thinking about how an integrated surveillance system like that could improve NCPD response times, which were dreadful for even very violent crimes—a year of working on a ground ambulance made it clear that something had to give. The Demon Eye had a simple machine learning algorithm that categorised possible combatants, including a confidence level of impending violence and could be used to potentially stop some types of crimes before they happened.

That caused him to grin, and he said, "Really? That's very interesting." He took a large swig of beer and watched as the bartender brought out my plate, raising an eyebrow, asking, "Do you suppose that's a real filet?"

I glanced at him sideways as I took in the plate. It smelled really good, "If by real you mean it comes from a real cow, then definitely not." The price wasn't high enough for it to be real, that way, at least. "But it's definitely some kind of vat-grown beef, so in that sense, it is real beef, if not really from a cow. I personally cannot taste the difference, and I doubt anyone who says they can."

I didn't think that industrialised animal husbandry should continue now that we could cheaply grow meat without the intrinsic suffering of that industry when it was done on an industrial scale, but that wasn't something I would comment on because it would make me seem very odd. Almost nobody cared about things like animal rights here.

"I always wondered how they make that stuff," he said absently, finishing his mug. The tender walked over and asked him if he'd like another, and he shook his head, "No, my good man. I think I'll be heading back up shortly."

I glanced at him while cutting a portion and said, "It's the same technology that they used to regrow your hand, but on an industrial scale."

He glanced down at his hand and frowned, rubbing his right wrist with his left hand, "That kind of makes it sound very unappetising. It's no wonder they don't really include that in the marketing material." He chuckled and stood up, "Well, I better go. I really appreciate your intelligence. Thank you, Miss Barnes. Rule Britannia, and all that."

Intelligence? What was he talking about? I raised an eyebrow as I watched him walk away, humming the melody to Land of Hope and Glory.

Whatever, I shifted focus back to my meal. It looked really delicious.

---xxxxxx---

Mr Stewart had called him and all three of the others to an emergency meeting at his suite, which was kind of impacting his nightlife. He had a date planned tonight with a girl of loose morals.

He arrived at his boss' suite, thankfully not the last to get there, and they waited a few more minutes for everyone to arrive. Once everyone was there, the tall Scottish man grinned and said, "Lads, ladies. I meet someone very interesting downstairs at the bar."

He made a gesture, and a still image of a side profile of a pretty young blonde woman sitting at a bar was projected on the room's SmartWall. She had blonde hair that reached her shoulders and was wearing a black dress, although it wasn't quite a little black dress, as it seemed more modest than that with a hemline that went close to her knees, and from what he could tell from this angle, a conservative chest that showed hardly any skin.

The image was obviously captured from Mr Stewart's optics. He frowned but kept his mouth shut. One of the others didn't and asked, "She seems a bit young for you, boss, but congrats on catching a classy bird like her, eh?"

"Go screw yourself, Wilson. She is younger than my daughter," grumbled Mr Stewart. The younger executive wisely kept his mouth shut as that fact rarely stopped anybody when they got to Mr Stewart's level. He continued, "She introduced herself as Emma Barnes, a member of no particular organisation." He emphasised the last three words a little.

No particular organisation? Wait... NPO? The younger executive blinked and opened his mouth for the first time, "Wait, do you mean..." He tapped his right index finger on the side of the nose twice.

The National Photography Office might have had an unassuming name, but it had a storied reputation of over a hundred and fifty years over a number of different names, from the Directorate of Military Intelligence to later the Secret Intelligence Service to the now more ambiguous National Photography Office. The name was almost a joke, as in the past fifteen years, Britain claimed not to have any foreign intelligence agency. Nobody believed that for a second, not even the Liberal party proles back home.

His boss grinned at him, "Precisely, and she fits the mould perfectly. Young, public school, highly augmented and with eyes that say she could as easily kill you as look at you. She also casually dropped information about me that I thought I had kept secret." The older man rubbed his wrist with his other hand, "I had been asking back home for a little help sealing this deal, and guess what she told me? The Night City government is very interested in the old Demon Eyes."

The younger executive started looking a little excited, too, now. Although that sounded like not a lot of intelligence, it was exactly what they needed right now and invaluable. Of course, you couldn't expect a government spook to share much more than that, but knowing that their potential client really did want to make a deal was the difference between a twenty and ten per cent profit margin, and that would quickly add up over the period of the contract, with all its support and maintenance elements. They might be looking at a serious bonus this time!

"It would be a coup if we could seal this deal right in Militech's backyard," the younger man said exuberantly.

---xxxxxx---

The next morning we all had breakfast, and although Ruslan and Jean looked slightly hungover, it wasn't to the point where I felt I needed to intervene, although I made sure they hydrated themselves well during the meal.

After that, we went over the game plan one more time. I told them what we were trading and how much I was expecting to get, which caused them to grin before arriving at the conference room a little early. Although we were only renting it starting at thirteen hundred, they let us in about fifteen minutes early. We were all wearing very obvious mercenary-style clothing, albeit of a better quality than they normally wore. I sat at the end of one table, with Ruslan and Jean standing to either side of me, acting like obvious security in their cheap suites and Kiwi sitting to my side.

As I settled into my chair to wait, I casually used the hotel's intranet to check out of our room. Frowning behind my mask, I noticed that the boys had each run up a charge of over three thousand Eurodollars. Well, I intentionally didn't look at the itemised receipt and just paid it. I would deduct most of that from their final pay, though it gave me an odd feeling that I couldn't identify.

Shrugging it off, I pulled out my mask from the bag I was carrying. I was wearing the same conservative dress that I had worn last night, but for the mask, I had selected something unusual for this world.

I was tempted to just grab a random Noh or shinobi mask that were all around Japantown, but instead, I had printed a white plague doctor's mask, which was not in the cultural vernacular at all, to the point that I had to design it myself on my CAD system. I was sure such a mask was in the histories, but unlike Earth Bet or Earth Aleph, it must have been only known to scholars here rather than basically everyone. It was white because the Biotechnica people were expecting to meet "Miss White" at this exchange.

"Woah, that looks weird, Miss White," Ruslan said as he took in my mask.

I nodded at him, "Thank you, Mr Orange." That caused him to scowl, as he wanted to be Mr Black, but I specifically had selected pink to tease him. Also, Jean had just stared at him and said that if anyone was going to be Mr Black, it was him, as he was at least actually black. Kiwi didn't like her name, Miss Pink, either, but she should have thought of that before she decided to grow up so boingy and feminine.

The Biotechnica contingent arrived on time, exactly. They had five people, which was one more person than was agreed upon, but I decided not to mention it. I wanted to seal the deal and didn't want to be confrontational from the start.

There were two obvious security guys who looked as big as Rus and Jean were, along with one guy that I was tentatively identifying as a technical expert, along with one man and woman that looked like managers or minders. I supposed that was acceptable; there could have been any number of reasons they needed five people instead of the four they agreed upon. It wasn't enough to make a big deal out of. One of the security guys carried a large nylon duffle bag, which was promising.

The male manager sat at my opposite at the other end of the table, with his security guys behind him and the other two sitting on either side of him. He nodded at me, "I take it you are Miss White, then?" He raised an eyebrow at the odd white mask I was wearing.

"Yes, Wakako has hired me as a subject matter expert in this exchange, but I'd prefer not to be identified and apologise for the discourtesy," I said in my fancy accent.

He inclined his head, "That's acceptable. We have the agreed-upon sum, four point one million. But only one half is in cash; the other half is in irrevocable digital currency."

I raised an eyebrow behind my mask. That wasn't the plan either, so I said mildly, "That isn't as agreed."

"Yes, we apologise about that. We had some issues arranging for so much untraceable cash on short notice," he simpered, spreading his hands as if to say, 'What can you do?'

I didn't believe that for a moment. Digital eurodollars were irrevocable, but they were also traceable. If I started spending these dollars, they could track who I was sending them to. Wakako could launder the money for me, giving me either untraceable digital currency or cash, but that would be another fee—I believed she charged ten per cent for this service, so this would end up costing me in real terms close to a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. That was more money than I had ever had.

Things weren't looking good for this transaction, but this was a small enough setback that it still made much more economic sense to go through with it than to back out now, and the Biotechnica man, who was not Wakako's contact, likely knew that. How annoying.

I stayed silent long enough to make him know I was considering departing or possibly consulting with Wakako digitally, staying still and staring at him from behind my mask. Finally, I said, "Very well. As stated in the agreement, we will need to verify the funds, and then I will give you the data shard that contains the information. Since you requested a subject matter expert, I have reviewed this information myself. Biotechnica indicated that this would be acceptable, and I will be available here for the next two hours if your chemist has any questions."

He nodded to the security guy, who stepped forward and set the duffle bag on the table, sliding it over almost all the way to our side of the conference table in one powerful shove. I nodded formally to my left, "Miss Pink if you would."

She nodded and pulled out a few sensors, opened the bag and started using them on the bundles of currency inside. She was not only checking for transmitters, although if Biotechnica was smart, any such devices would not be active until we left the building, but she was also using optical sensors and flipping through the stacks of currency, checking for sequential serial numbers.

If Biotechnica was a bank, it would have been theoretically plausible for them to track individual random serial numbers. They wouldn't be able to track them like digital currency, but they'd be able to identify the rough location the money was being spent as it entered the banking system. It usually took weeks or months, though, for a random bill to find its way into a bank, and sometimes they never did.

For these reasons, Wakako charged much less to launder physical notes than she did digital eurodollars. That was why I had included getting different bills from Wakako into the agreement, but I knew she would charge for the tumbling of the digital money. Speaking of which, I asked, "And the digital currency?"

He pulled out a small data shard from his breast pocket and said, "It's right here, but I'm afraid I can't let you have this until we verify the contents of the data. If I handed it to you, there would be nothing stopping you from immediately transferring to a random digital wallet in Kazakhstan."

I sighed and frowned again. What he was saying was true. All digital transfers were irrevocable. But so were transfers of data. I pulled out a similar data shard, "And I couldn't stop you from sending the data immediately back to your home office as soon as you have this, so I propose that we do a mutual exchange, then. But after Miss Pink verifies the notes."

He tilted his head to the side and paused as if considering before finally nodding and saying, "Acceptable." We sat there for a few minutes while Kiwi used some tools I had brought along to count and test the money. Finally, she zipped up the duffle bag and nodded at me. I duplicated the gesture at the Biotechnica suit, and he then handed the shard to one of the security guys behind him.

I did the same, handing it to Mr Pink, who nodded at me. The two security professionals met each other in the middle of the room and exchanged shards. Ruslan walked back to me and placed it in my hand.

I should have expected this situation, and if so, I would have brought with me a little air-gapped credshard tester. It was a small device about as big as a business card that you plugged in a shard containing funds, and it would display the amount contained within. It was a security device in case of viruses. It didn't notify you that there were viruses on the shard, just that the money was actually there. A glance at Kiwi, who winced, told me she didn't think to bring one, either.

Still, I had very good security. I triggered my Zetatech ICE to its highest security state, cutting and temporarily blocking all wireless connectivity. Then I casually inserted the shard into my datashard port and froze.

Immediately I was bombarded with messages and security alerts from my system about detected malware. My Zetatech system had mounted the datashard as an emulated drive on a fully virtual operating system and had detected malware attempting to auto-run. It wanted to know if I wanted to quarantine it or allow it to run in the sandbox. The latter was really never a good idea, but it would tell me if this malware was intended to harm me or not.

However, I already had a good guess that it was intended as a rootkit and tracking virus rather than something to burn me out. Plus, with a rootkit installed, they could always remotely load more lethal malware later if needed.

I wanted to sigh. This also wasn't a good sign. I didn't, thankfully, need to run the virus to verify that there was a preapproved digital transfer on the shard in addition to the hidden malware. All I had to do was input the desired wallet ID, and I could have the entire contents, which was two million and fifty thousand eurodollars. That was something, at least.

I used the funds to cryptographically sign the transaction, sending the funds to the public address to an empty wallet which was not located on my personal system but on the servers I used to host my modest net site. That was a little bit dangerous if I intended to keep the funds there for any length of time because, theoretically, that site could be hacked.

The wallets were among the data that I had heavily encrypted there, so it might be difficult for them to actually steal the funds, but a hacker could delete the data, and if so, over two million dollars would be gone into the æther forever. If I was smarter, I would have had a wallet that wasn't physically connected to any network, like on a different datashard that was in my drawer back home, but I hadn't thought of that.

There were some people and companies that made entirely physical and analogue digital wallets, despite how contradictory that sounded. For example, I had seen some with the digital code etched on a metal plate; they were intended to be placed in a safe or safety deposit box and basically acted as the digital equivalent of bearer bonds. You could decode the character etched on top of the plate and regenerate a digital wallet containing however much funds it had. These featured prominently as plot devices and MacGuffins in the espionage genre of BDs and films.

I finalised the transaction but did not post it to the public banking blockchain yet. Both because my network was down hard and I didn't have access to the net but more importantly because the Biotechnica people across from me would instantly be alerted, and we hadn't, actually, finalised our transaction either, so I wasn't entitled to run off with half the money. Still, I would be able to do so without using the data shard again, which was my intent.

I removed the shard from my data port and immediately triggered a full system bit-by-bit security inspection, just in case. I placed the shard in a small protective case and placed it in my backpack, zipping the small compartment I stored it in closed.

I didn't actually need the shard anymore, but I wanted to give the impression to the Biotechnica people that I did to be polite. I am sure they knew what I did, just as I am sure they would transfer the data I gave them back to their offices immediately as well, which was also against the rules of the exchange, but neither of us commented on it. It was the polite and expected way a Corpo created contingencies while pretending that we would never do such a thing. Ruslan "Trust but verify" was a Russian expression, but the average Corpo operated on the slightly different "Never trust, ever" idiom.

I had watched the manager hand the shard to the skinny man next to him, who produced a small laptop computer of all things and inserted it in. That would have been something I could have brought too, or hell, my phone. Many things could mount datashards. It made me want to chuckle because the fact that I hadn't thought to do so meant that I had really gone "native" in this world, utilising only my cybernetics like most people.

The technical expert said, "It looks correct and plausible, but I'll need to review this and possibly watch this video of it being synthesised." I had included everything, not holding anything back except the identity of the person performing the synthesis, me. I used AI tools to change the person's appearance and voice to an old lady's. Such vid modifications were easily detected, but they were lossy. They couldn't revert the old lady back to my likeness.

I watched their chemist review the material as my internal security sweep finished, finding no threat. The Biotechnica manager smiled affably at me now, "And now we wait, I suppose."

I nodded, "Could I offer you some refreshments? I can ring the Konpeki girls to bring some tea."

He gasped theatrically, "But this is the Azure Plaza, completely independent from Konpeki!" We all shared a knowing smile at that; even Kiwi snorted. Then he nodded, "Sure, that sounds nice. Gentlemen, you don't have to loom anymore if you'd like to take a seat."

I made a gesture to Ruslan and Jean as well, indicating that they could sit too.

His security man shook his head, "We're fine, sir." Diligent they were. The manager shrugged.

Jean had a look that he would have liked to take a seat, but now that the other guys said they didn't need it, there was no way he was going to sit down now. Jean said to the both of them, "We're fine, too, Miss White."

I shrugged, mirroring his gesture and sent an order for a tray of tea for six or so, including pastries and those little sandwiches, to the front desk after reenabling my wireless systems. I indicated it should arrive in two trays.

The tea arrived pretty quickly after that. A deep gong announced that someone was about to enter the room to give everyone present a chance to stop discussing confidential matters. A few seconds later, two girls my age but as heavily augmented as the front desk girl sat the tea service next to each end of the table, bowed, and left. They were also wearing yukatas, which really suited them.

The woman, which I assumed was the man's subordinate, started making tea. Kiwi glanced at her before reaching to do the same, but since I was playing the posh British girl, I stopped her, asking, "Just how often have you made tea, Miss Pink?"

She grinned at me. It was simple teabags, where you had to steep it in the teacup, so it wasn't like the Japanese or Chinese tea ceremonies I had watched on the net. I did notice that the little kettles were self-powered, despite being fine-china. It kept the water just shy of boiling, which was a nice touch.

As I was nibbling on one of the sandwiches, I noticed the Biotechnica chemist whispering to his boss. His boss nodded at him and said, "We have a question."

I sat the half-eaten mini sandwich down and nodded, "Of course."

The chemist coughed, "You've repeated this synthesis?" I nodded at him, "Okay, the fourth step, when you are supposed to fluorinate the phenyl group, wouldn't that result in a carcinogen?"

I raised my eyebrows behind my mask. No, it wouldn't. But I didn't say that. I tilted my head to the side and said exactly the opposite of the truth, "My expertise is organic chemistry synthesis, not medicine, so I can't actually comment as to the toxicity of the compound, merely its synthesis steps. That said, the end product isn't listed in any publicly known or expected carcinogen list." I spread my hands, "I was told you had already received samples of the product, so you should have already examined it?"

That merely got a shrug from the chemist. There were ways these days to test even small samples of unknown chemicals to see if they were a carcinogen, although they were expensive due to the complicated machinery they required. There was a zero per cent chance they hadn't already done these tests. There was no reason to ask me this, so it made me a little suspicious. I asked, "Do you have any questions about the synthesis?"

There were whispers at his end of the table before the chemist said, "Not right now." The whispering also made me suspicious. I wasn't using a hidden or directional microphone to listen to them, but there was no reason they shouldn't suspect I wasn't. I wouldn't use whispers to communicate with Kiwi and the others. For one, there were cybernetics that enhanced senses, including hearing, that could easily discern whispering in a room this small. In this room, I would only trust digitally encrypted peer-to-peer wireless communications in text.

Speaking of which, I sent a text to everyone explaining about the virus and my suspicions about this question. To me, it kind of sounded like they were fishing to see how much I knew about the drug's application, which wouldn't be what a hired chemist would know. Ruslan replied, "We should probably expect an ambush then. I will let the other team know, and we'll send them another alert when we're leaving the building."

I thought about that and agreed. If I wasn't being unduly paranoid, then the virus was to install a tracking system so their security forces could kidnap us at their leisure after they identified us. If that didn't work, it would make sense to proceed to plan B, which was likely a messier public ambush.

If that was their plan, then why were they doing it, though? To just get the money back, or did they think that Wakako's "hired chemist" was actually the inventor of the drug? We had gone to a lot of effort to try to give the impression this was stolen tech. Internally, sighing, I wondered why things were getting complicated. The only bonus was we did actually have possession of the funds, half of which I could spirit away past any recovery in an instant.

If they intended to get the money back, then even if they kidnapped us successfully, I would have already transferred the digital currency away, so there was no way they could get both halves back—unless perhaps the malware contained some kind of man-in-the-middle malware that would intercept the funds transfer, while still making it appear as though it went through properly from my end. That was putting a lot of trust in something as nebulous as a successful viral attack, which could go wrong in any number of ways.

There were too many questions. I asked Kiwi if I should run the malware in my Zetatech's sandbox as that might get them to call off the messy public ambush, and she glanced at me and winced, texting, "No way! Although you have better ICE than even I do, there is just no telling what might happen. It isn't impossible for viruses to escape out of a virtual machine into bare metal. And if that happens, you're probably screwed."

Yeah, that didn't seem like a good idea to me, either, but it was an option. If we were in some place that wasn't as secure as it was, we might be able to extract the malware and then assault someone and install it on their system, but trying to do that in Konpeki Plaza was pretty stupid. I didn't want the cheerful and cute kimono girls to turn into bloodthirsty killers. Going loud in a place like this pretty much ensured you wouldn't have a long life afterwards.

We waited almost the full two hours we had given them, but there were only a couple more questions, and only one of them was actually insightful.

Finally, all the Biotechnica people stood, so I did the same, Kiwi mirroring me. The Biotechnica manager said, "Thank you, we will consider this transaction concluded. We will inform the broker, as I am sure you will as well."

With that, they all walked out of the room, a security guy in front and also taking the rear. Once the door closed, I said, "Miss Pink, please sweep the room in case our guests accidentally left any surveillance devices behind."

She nodded and got some tools to walk over to their side of the table. Jean and Rus sat down at the table. They were silent, but Ruslan sent a text to our group chat, "What's the plan, now?"

I pulled the small backpack of mine that I had Jean carry into the room onto the table, as there was no way I was going to wear a backpack while wearing a dress. It was the same bag that I had placed the datashard containing the funds. Speaking of which, I immediately posted the funds transfer pending on my system to the public banking ledger, getting a green confirmation and a pleasant beep of a transfer successfully processed.

Well, that was one less thing to worry about. Out of the bag, I pulled out several objects. One was a different black duffle bag, which I slid over to Ruslan and said aloud, "Mr Orange, please transfer the cash to this bag."

He raised an eyebrow but started to comply. He texted, "Think there is a tracking device in the bag?"

I replied back in text, "That or in the bundle of bills themselves. This bag features a fine copper mesh sewed in the lining and should block any kind of radio transmission. Wakako will take it directly to a faraday-cage lined room and process the physical currency there."

He nodded and tossed the bundles of cash in the new bag as I pulled out three masks. These were half masks, unlike mine, and obvious respirators with included goggles. I slid them to each of my team and said, "Please put these on."

"Miss White, I can't detect any hidden cameras or microphones," Kiwi said formally before putting on the mask that I slid across the entire length of the table to her.

I hummed and nodded, taking out a final device. It looked like a half-sphere, and I sat it on the table like it was a gauche modern art centrepiece at Thanksgiving dinner. Jean asked in the chat as he secured his respirator on, "What is that, girl?"

I glanced around, verifying that everyone had their mask on before I pressed a button on top of the Tinkertech device. This caused the half-sphere to open up like a clamshell. Immediately, dense clouds of what appeared to be fog flowed out of the machine, filling the entire room up very quickly. I had been worried about the cloud going underneath the door of the conference room, but these doors were basically airtight due to their soundproofing.

My eyes automatically shifted to infrared and I could see the warm outlines of the others, including Jean who was waving his hands out in front of his face. He said aloud, "Woah, what the fuck!" Kiwi and Ruslan just stayed still, but Kiwi texted a long line of question marks.

I replied in the chat, "Biotechnica has known that this room was going to be the meeting site for days. That gave them the opportunity to rent the room after us in order to collect stray hairs or skin flakes in order to identify us. This will render all of those potential efforts useless. Although I don't know for sure that they are doing that, it is better to be safe than sorry. The cloud evaporates dry like an alcohol, so it won't leave a mess, but while it is fine on your skin, it is irritating to the eyes and lungs, hence the mask and goggles." It went without saying that my plague doctor mask had a respirator in it; I mean, I had that whole beak volume to use, so why wouldn't I put one in it?

Five seconds later, the machine stopped, and less than ten seconds after that, the clouds vanished as if by magic. I nodded and tossed the closed half-sphere into the bag and tossed it to Jean.

Jean grinned, "I've never carried two million eddies before." He still wasn't, but I didn't want to ruin his fun, so I just said, "Let's go."

---xxxxxx---

Being able to pay all the fees digitally over my implant meant I didn't have to walk through the front desk looking like a weirdo because I didn't intend to remove my mask until we got into the getaway van.

So we just left the room and, as a group, walked into one of the elevators, taking it to the underground parking garage. The Konpeki security guys didn't even give me a second glance, as I guess they had even a lot of weirder stuff come and go in their day.

We had to pause at this checkpoint briefly to get our bracelets removed. The security man nodded at us and said, politely but as though he was reading a script, "Pleasant travels, and always be welcomed here at the Azure Plaza."

Wakako called me as we approached the car, and I answered. She asked in an icy cold way that kind of scared even me, "You expect perfidy, Taylor? Are you being a pessimist?"

"I'm not a pessimist," I complained to her out loud, then sniffed delicately and raised my nose into the air, "But that can't possibly last."

That got a snort and a brief smile on her face. She asked, "So you are proceeding with the exfiltration plan we discussed?"

I nodded, "Yes, I think that is best."

"Very well, the bravo team is waiting and ready," Wakako said grimly, "Good luck."

Ruslan jumped into the driver's seat of the van while I jumped into the passenger seat. I really quite liked this model of van; the interior cab was exceptionally spacious, almost like an eighteen-wheeler, and one of those sleeper cab versions at that. I could reach out and not touch the windshield unless I bent really far forward. Kiwi liked driving, but it made a lot more sense for her not to have the distraction as she was the one that had the codes for all of the planted explosives, as well as the control codes for the autocannon. Wakako hadn't been able to find armour-piercing high-explosive rounds like I had wanted, but she got loads of armour-piercing incendiaries and regular high-explosive rounds, which were almost as good. They were reportedly loaded candy-cane style, with one AP round followed by an HE.

The first thing we all did was rearm ourselves. I strapped my thigh holster on and checked my submachine pistol. We all put ballistic vests on, as well, and I thought my appearance was starting to be comical as I had a gun strapped to my thigh and a vest on over my black dress. Hopefully, I wouldn't need to do any high kicks today, as I skipped the pantyhose.

"Connected to all of the devices, as well as the drones by the ambush site," Kiwi said, giving a thumbs up.

"De cash is tied down back here, and secure," Jean said. That was important as if there was a traffic collision, the last thing we wanted was for the duffel bag full of money to be ejected from the vehicle, potentially spilling millions of dollars into the air on whatever road we were travelling. That would trigger a riot.

Ruslan nodded, and he pulled out of the parking space and started driving. We left Konpeki Plaza without incident, but soon after that, Kiwi said, "It looks like we have a tail." Part of the preparation was planting quite a few stickycams along our route of exfiltration and especially near the recently replaced portions of road farther along into the bad part of town, and Kiwi was monitoring them all.

I sighed, "The nice thing about pessimists is that we are never disappointed, only very occasionally pleasantly surprised. But it looks like today is not going to be one of those days."

Ruslan snorted while Jean and I checked our weapons. Kiwi said, while her eyes still stared off into space, "It's just one car, a black SUV with tinted windows." That was on brand for any number of corporate SecTeams, including Biotechnica, which I had personally observed using this style of vehicle a number of times while working.

We were still way too close to Konpeki Plaza and the in-tact downtown area to start a firefight, as NCPD and possibly even MaxTac would be on us in a surprisingly short time. Although last night I had complained to myself about their response times, that was only for individuals reporting single crimes and in crappy parts of town. If you started a full urban street battle in the good part of town, you could expect to have the borgs of MaxTac show up even if you weren't a cyberpsycho.

But, our ambush site was not only in a bad part of town but right up against the slowly shrinking no-go zone that was a result of the Arasaka bombing decades ago. The cops likely wouldn't respond here unless the battle started expanding a few blocks past the edge of the zone.

"Two more turns, and they'll know our probable path. Get ready, equipment cross-check, da?" said Ruslan as he continued driving the speed limit strictly. All of us, even Kiwi, had more than mere pistols on this op. I had the Kang Tao submachine gun that I often used, and Kiwi had an old but serviceable looking Arasaka Nowaki, while Jean and Rus had two relatively new-looking Ajaxes, which were a fine, simple and reliable Militech product.

I checked both mine and Ruslan's weapons and spare mags, as well as the few rocket-propelled grenade reloads we had for Ruslan's projectile-launch system. I made sure to put those by him in easy reach and got a thumbs up and a grin from the man, with him grabbing the two reloads we had and stuffing them into his pockets, one on either side. Perhaps we should have bought more of those.

Shortly after Ruslan made the second turn Kiwi piped up again, "New contacts behind us. Four more SUVs. They're not bothering to hide, anymore. I think they must have been paralleling our route on a side street." I nodded while I fidgeted and tried to ignore the roiling psychosomatic feeling in my stomach. Although I had been in what would be described by anybody, rightfully, as combat, I was still scared every time it happened.

Another pause, then a hurried, "Four more SUVs coming from the other direction at our far cameras; it looks like they're setting up a roadblock right next to the abandoned building that bravo team is in." She said that last part excitedly.

That... was really good. If the Claws were smart, they would hide right now until they got set up and then attack together with Kiwi's autocannon. To set up a reasonable roadblock across the street that we were travelling, this second team would have to set themselves up to take enfilading fire from the Claws across the street in the building and from elevation to boot.

That was what we were hoping to happen, but there was no telling what might have been. Their entire snatch-or-kill team, whatever their motives were, could have swarmed the van instead, but military men were fundamentally addicted to clever plans, I thought.

I certainly wasn't really one to throw stones in this regard as this entire scheme was a series of clever plans, but when you were on the attack instead of the defence, there was something to be said for a sudden, simple attack with overwhelming force. At least, I thought so, in my lay person's opinion.

It was simple escalation, and as simple as it sounded I felt it was a winning strategy. If the enemy was prepared to deal with small arms, then you brought explosives and a surplus Soviet cannon. It was a shame this second team also darted in from a parallel track and missed the explosives that they had planted on the far side of the ambush site, but you couldn't have everything.

"Kiwi, I think you and the Tyger Claws should attack as soon as you can. That will undoubtedly cause the guys behind us to flip out and start chasing us right into our potholes," I said, glancing at Ruslan as he really did know more about this than I did, "What do you think?"

He grinned, "You read my mind? I hope not because I don't think you'd approve of the things in there. We don't want to wait until we get to the ambush on the off chance they just want to murder us all; this van isn't bulletproof."

I scowled at the implied perversion. Suddenly, even about two kilometres away, we started hearing a cacophony of automatic weapons fire. Then without further preamble, an even louder but much briefer "brrt" sound of the autocannon firing. The six-barrel beast had such an insane rate of fire, at over eight thousand rounds per minute, that Kiwi had to line up shots for a tenth of a second burst; otherwise, she'd burn through the ammo immediately.

I didn't even need Kiwi to tell us that the five vehicles behind us started accelerating because they also started shooting at us. Small, short aimed bursts from the lead vehicle, and I thought they were aiming at our tires, but not only did Ruslan start swerving erratically, but we had already replaced the tires with run-flats the same day he stole the van. Unless they got totally shredded, we'd still keep trucking along.

They'd notice that soon and try something else. There was no way they'd want us to get within range to be supported by that heavy weapons emplacement. "Approaching the first set of potholes," Kiwi said. "The gonks at the ambush site are basically annihilated, some fled on foot the north into downtown, and the Claws didn't pursue. That cannon... well... glory to socialist science, is I'll say."

Ruslan started cackling, and started singing off-key in another language, "Партыі слава! Слава Радзіме! Слава табе, Беларускі народ!" My auto-translate system hiccuped, saying I didn't have the Belarusian language pack installed, but it gave its best shot at translating it due to its similarities with other Slavic languages. Something about glory to the Party and the Motherland. I didn't even know they had a different language. To be perfectly honest, before I met Ruslan, I didn't even know that country existed. I snorted, and then I felt the van max out at about a hundred and twenty; it must have a fucking regulator on it or something because I was sure the motor had more oomph than this.

The vehicle shuddered as one of the dark SUVs collided with us from behind, ramming into us when they tried to perform a PIT manoeuvre to spin us out, getting denied by Ruslan, swerving to keep them from being able to get to the side of us. However, a second vehicle suddenly appeared right next to us, on the driver's side, slamming into us menacingly as men inside the vehicle made gestures demanding us to pull over.

"Pothole in 5," Kiwi said, and at the same time, Ruslan rolled down the driver's side window and made a rude gesture at them, following it by pointing his arm at their passenger window. The projectile launch system deployed smoothly; I had been seeing to his maintenance after all, and a small rocket-propelled grenade fired off. It detonated on the obviously ballistic-resistant transparent polymers of the windshield. But while it might have been bulletproof, it wasn't shaped charge proof and I briefly saw the carnage the weapon had done to the interior of the vehicle before the truck spun out on fire.

Near on simultaneously, we passed over the first pothole, and immediately Kiwi set off the explosion as the SUV trailing us passed it. The explosion was... a bit much. Not only did it flip the trailing SUV end over end like this was an action film, but it lifted the tail end of our van, causing me to yell, "Fuuuuuck!" I'm not sure what everyone else said, because I was too busy yelling, "Fuuuuuck!"

The tail end of the vehicle, after what seemed like an eternity, slammed back into the ground hard enough that I was worried the axle would fall off. Kiwi said, "Fuck, we missed the second pothole just now. The third is coming up."

Maybe we shouldn't have put them so close together. To be honest, we had actually made most of the potholes instead of finding existing ones and filling them. Ruslan fired another RPG from his hand, like a video game character, but this time missed as the third SUV swerved at just the right time. However, it swerved right into the third pothole, and Kiwi promptly blew it. The vehicle only took half the explosion this time, from the side and spun out and collided with a public DataTerm on the side of the street.

I blinked, as the DataTerm didn't look that damaged. Those things really were indestructible.

"That was the last one--fuuck!" yelled Kiwi as one of the last two SUVs managed to get a PIT manoeuvre off on us, spinning us two hundred and seventy degrees, followed by the last vehicle blocking us in. Ruslan didn't waste any time thinking or prevaricating; he just yelled, "Out, now!"

All four of us jumped out of the vehicle with our weapons, followed by the same by the occupants of the two SUVs. Instead of jumping out of my door, which would have exposed me to fire from their entire team, I unbuckled and leapt out of the driver's side, leaping and rolling while activating my stealth system.

Perhaps we had just infuriated them, or maybe Biotechnica was trying to cut its losses or maybe even they always intended to murder us all, but in either case, each SUV had about five men in it, and they all disembarked from their vehicles, automatic weapons firing. They were moving with a purpose and firing tactically, with several men taking turns to place continuous fire on our position to keep our heads down while the rest of them instantly split into two groups and started moving to either side of us.

About as soon as I had calculated a plan, I looked up to see a grenade sailing in a lazy arc over the roof of the van we were crouched behind. I moved at my max speed and darted up and grabbed it out of the air, and immediately threw it to the side. I was hoping to throw it at the approaching enemy, but when I grabbed it I felt that would be pushing it a little so I basically just deflected it off to the side, causing it to detonate about fifteen metres away from us, and I winced as I felt a piece of shrapnel hit and bounce off my ballistically resistant derriere. It might not be the best time to think about this, but this dress is ruined.

We should have had a better plan for what we would do after leaving the vehicle, as these guys we were facing were professionals. Even mostly invisible, it didn't seem like a great idea to stick my head out, but staying still was certain death. Finally, Kiwi said over our tacnet, "Short circ incoming in three."

Ooh, that was good. Kiwi had a very expensive cyberdeck, and one of the optimisations on it assisted her in using certain quickhacks more easily on multiple enemies. Short circuit was one of these, and while it wasn't a fatal attack, it was quite painful, and that was exactly what we needed right now. It was hard to riddle us all with bullets when some of your cybernetics were mild to moderately electrocuting you.

Ruslan and Jean glanced at me from the other side of the van, and Rus gave a thumbs up. Wait, why were both of them over there? I was alone against the other half of these guys. I didn't think I was more badassed than both Rus and Jean, not by any measure.

A loud zzzt noise and groans of pain, and most importantly, the momentary lack of gunfire, made me discard that thought, and I could see Ruslan as he activated his Sandevistan and started moving even a little quicker than I did. I darted out the other side, the barrel of my weapon rising up. I fired immediately, striking the first man, who was hunched over in pain. The four guys on this side were all stacked up, tactically approaching, so I just held the trigger down and sprayed the entire magazine in their general direction, using my enhanced strength to hold the muzzle rise down.

When the weapon clicked empty, to maximise the useful time of their incapacitation, I just dropped the weapon and pulled out my pistol, putting two rounds into the one man that was still standing. Rushing past them, I moved laterally and put a fair bit of distance between me and the edge of the van before I rounded the corner, seeing one of the two guys that had been keeping us suppressed recovered and aiming a light machine gun down at where I would otherwise have popped my head out of.

I aimed a careful shot and hit him in the centre mass, causing him to fall and me to miss my follow-on shots, which turned out to be a good thing as I immediately got an alert in my head of a Trauma Team Gold member in my vicinity that required aid, and to assist him if it was possible. Then a second burst of fire from Ruslan and Jean taking the other guy, which produced a similar alert on him.

Fuck. I sent over my tacnet, "Cease fire! Cease fire! These two guys are Trauma Team subscribers, don't fucking kill the other guy if you haven't already." Were these two the only Trauma clients? We had exploded a few cars already. Kiwi came over the radio as if reading my mind, "Yeah, Trauma collected two guys from up ahead, too; the Claws and my turret stopped shooting."

Fuck! Who knows when they'd arrive? I glanced up and moved into high gear. In one running jump, I leapt over the SUV they were using as cover, and as I landed, I grabbed the still-conscious one's head and thumped it firmly into the ground, knocking him out.

Looking at the two men and their injuries, I frowned and grabbed the more injured of the two in my arms in a princess carry and started flat running back the way we came on the road, not stopping until I got a good fifty metres away before I sat him down. I had to get these two fucks away because although we didn't have a policy of always shooting when we got on scene, this would already be labelled a high-threat situation given the earlier calls, and there was no telling what the teams on duty would do. If I moved them clearly away from us, they likely wouldn't hose us down with the miniguns on general principle.

I repeat the process with the second guy, setting him right next to the first, who looks like he might code soon if Trauma doesn't get here in the next couple of minutes. I manage to make it halfway back to our van, which Ruslan is trying to extricate from its predicament before the first AV-4 shows up. I yell, "Drop your weapons and put your hands up! They don't give a shit about our fight; they just want their patients."

It was Delta's AV that was responding, and if they fucking flatlined my friends, much less me, I was going to be so very pissed. Thankfully, they didn't hose us down on approach but merely landed right next to the dying guy and hopped out. They didn't work on him much here, just grabbed him, which was an indication that they thought there was a serious and continuing hazard to remain in this area. Then I watched them pause for a couple of seconds, talking with each other, even seeing the led Med Techie shrug, and they grabbed the other guy as well. Ballsy. That was something I would have tried to do, but if their first patient died because they tried to take two home with them, its going to be their asses.

We watch the Trauma AV-4 fly away, and Kiwi says, "Phew. Those guys are kind of scary, you know."

"Let's get the fuck out of here. Hopefully, they didn't fucking shoot the bag of cash to pieces," Ruslan groused, which caused me to wince. They had put a lot of rounds into the sides of that van. It was a wonder it was still operable. Finally, he jumped in the back of the van and yelled, "Kiwi, you drive."

The van was a lot worse for wear, but it probably wouldn't get that much attention, as I had seen a lot of vehicles in a lot worse shape driving the streets day after day. Although she looked like Swiss cheese, she wasn't even in the top five most shot-up vehicles I had seen casually be driven like nothing was wrong. I hopped into the passenger seat after recovering my SMG and carefully buckled my seatbelt again before I glanced in the back as we backed up and navigated around the SUVs and dead or incapacitated bodies. I felt kind of bad for having to shoot these guys. They weren't Scavs; they were just doing their job, no different from what I did every day. Still, I had a smouldering and growing hate for Biotechnica—one of the good ones my foot.

We didn't really need to drive past the ambush site anymore, but it was really the only way to go down this street unless we wanted to make a U-turn, which I didn't. So we drove past it quickly and gawked at the vehicle on fire. I say finally, "Glory to Socialist Science," which got a couple of chuckles as we managed to drive off into the shoulder of the road to get around the destroyed "roadblock." Ruslan said, "The cash is fine, although I think maybe a few thousand might be a bit damaged." Well, that was a good sign, at least. I had hoped so. They had tied the duffle bag underneath the seats in the back, so that was pretty much out of the way.

I started to relax a bit as we got on the freeway, and Kiwi and I grinned like fools at each other.

From the back, Ruslan said, "Alright, Kiwi, take the next exit in four kloms."

Kiwi blinked and said, "But we're supposed to meet Wakako in Japantown." Suddenly I got an alert about all my net connections failing, while at the same time Jean pointed a gun at the back of Kiwi's head. Ruslan mirrored the gesture at me, in his other hand a small but powerful signal jammer, "About that... You know, it is not personal, da? But, this is a score of a lifetime. Sorry, Kiwi... we would have brought you in, but we didn't think you would have gone for it, and then we'd have had to have killed you."

Kiwi's face, which had been smiling so happily before was still frozen in the same expression, but with shock and despair registering in her eyes, which probably mirrored my own. I blinked back tears, wondering why people who I thought were my friends always seemed to betray me.

"Don't worry; we'll leave you tied up in an abandoned building. This jammer only has a battery for about six hours, so you should be able to call someone to get free after then," Ruslan said affably.

Jean shrugged, "Yeah, sorry mon but this is retirement money, ya?"

Absently I wondered if this was why they had run up such charges on the hotel last night. They were high but not high enough that I would have immediately done something about it, but it seemed like they never intended to be around to reimburse Wakako and me for the expenses. Had they been planning this the whole time? "Wakako will find you guys. This is a braindead move," I finally said, my voice sounding tired and monotone.

"Yeaah... I don't think so. You see, I think you're very special, Miss White. And I ain't exactly new to the scene, either. I got some contacts that can definitely help us vanish, new identities, new genomes, the whole burrito," he said excitedly, and I absently wanted to correct his incorrect idiom use as I would have before, but my heart wasn't in it, "So, you're coming with us on a little road trip. Don't worry; I got a friend collecting your input and her little brat too. These people realise that family is important to be productive."

Wait, my input? All three of them had been over to my place, and I had introduced them to Gloria several times. Did they think we were dating? I didn't have the mental strength to even complain internally that they were implying Gloria wore the pants in the relationship, either. I had to think of something, a way to FUCKING KILL THESE TWO TREACHEROUS ASSHOLES so I could save Gloria and David. Being kidnapped at a young age was a very traumatic experience.

I noticed Kiwi glancing at me sideways, and I did the same and noticed her staring intently at my worn seatbelt, and I widened my eyes. Getting either Ruslan or Jean to wear a seatbelt was almost impossible. Ruslan even said, once, "In Soviet Russia, you fly out of the car like man in accident!"

I decided to keep talking to him to keep him distracted, so I lied, "You know I didn't make that drug, right? I stole it from Trauma Team."

"I don't think so. I did a lot of research after we used anaesthetics you provided, da? There is nothing like that in the world, nothink; it is like magic," he said happily, "And I even managed to klep some in the bag job gig, da? Very interested."

My judgement for trusting people was, as usual, total and utter shit. I had made several different delivery mechanisms for the drug back then, darts, a spray that I still had in my bag right now, and we finally settled on drugging his disgusting Nicola drink. I thought I had misplaced a few of the darts, but I didn't think anything of it.

"Don't worry, don't worry! You probably be richer than Croesus in a few years, and they'll make sure you'll be well protected," he said, confirming that whoever he was intending to sell me to was a Corp of some kind. He chuckled and said, "You don't need--"

He was interrupted by Kiwi roughly yanking the wheel over hard, throwing us into oncoming traffic. I could see the vehicle ahead of us and knew there was no way we could avoid a collision at this point. It was a truck, about as big as our van. I just hoped Ruslan was practising good trigger discipline and didn't shoot me in the back in the collision.

Even in slow motion, the crash was unimaginably quick and violent, with Kiwi bouncing hard off the steering wheel and dashboard. Both Jean and Ruslan were airborne, and I expected to see them fly through the windshield with no further input from me, but I saw it immediately when Ruslan activated his Sandy again.

I didn't wait any longer because he was sudden death in both hands, but then again, so was I. The expression of pure, unadulterated rage on his face told me that he wasn't thinking about his plan. Or rather, that he knew he was about to be grievously injured and wanted to burn the whole world down with him. It was an ugly and heartrending expression that I knew would stick with me for a long time in my dreams, assuming I lived through the next couple of seconds.

My left hand flashed, my monowire flying out in a difficult one-handed throw to wrap around his left arm before I yanked it tight, coiling tightly around and fouling the deployment mechanism for his projectile launch system. I didn't try for the more difficult shot to wrap around his neck because I was somewhat concerned that I would miss, and if so, I was absolutely sure he would kill me, and perhaps himself, by firing off his PLS inside the cabin of a moving vehicle.

I wanted to kick myself when I saw what was in his other hand because it was the exact same thing that was already in my hand, raising to point at him. An M-73 Omaha. I should have never let him shoot mine, as he had bought one as soon as they went on the market a few months later, and it was one of the few pistols that could punch through both my body armour and ballistic skin weave pretty much like it wasn't there.

We were levelling our weapons about at the same time, although he had the more complicated shot flying as he was sideways while tangled up with Jean, who was flying perpendicular to Ruslan's orientation. They were both about to collide with the windshield, but then again, we were all close enough to touch each other with our pistols if we only stretched our arms out a little farther, so missing was basically impossible.

I was firing from retention, keeping the pistol tucked up against my breast so as to keep him from using one of his spinning limbs to knock the barrel off-true, but it looked like we were going to fire almost simultaneously.

As I started squeezing the trigger, Ruslan's face changed from the rictus of pure rage to the cheeky, friendly, mischievous grin I had gotten so fond of.

(AN: I briefly considered ending the chapter here, but that would only be mean.)

---xxxxxx---

I did not die, although seeing my former friend's head blow apart did not fill me with the satisfaction that I thought it would have when I fantasised about murdering him in the seconds after his betrayal; in fact, it hurt a lot. Also, Rus shot me at the same time as I hit him in the chest. That also hurt, too, but not as much, if I had to admit it.

The hypervelocity, copper-coated steel projectile punched right where my liver should have been and out the other side of my back. The one downside to the Omaha was overpenetration -- there was no expansion whatsoever, which actually lessened my injuries somewhat.

I was injured enough that my Trauma Team membership tried to activate, but it was actually possible to suppress it if the internal biomonitor gauged your injuries were under a certain limit, especially if you had nanosurgeons or other first-aid style augmentations. However, if I lost consciousness for even a moment it would trigger the alert, so I was trying my best to stay conscious as I reviewed my injuries. Aside from the penetrating trauma and internal bleeding, I had a moderate to a serious concussion, and that was basically it.

My custom liver's arterial connection had been damaged, so it had already shut down its duties as my second heart, but that could be repaired. I glanced sideways to check Kiwi's status and winced.

She wasn't dead yet, but she was hurt, bad. I shook my head to clear it, as I had some work to do. I shook off Ruslan's forearm, which had been ripped off despite the fact that it had significant metal content when his body continued its travel out of the cab of the vehicle. When it was clear, I retracted my wire and unbuckled my seat. The vehicle was on its side, so I thumped to the floor and carefully freed Kiwi from the driver's seat.

She had a high cervical fracture and was displaying signs of paradoxical breathing. My medical sense estimated that there was over a ninety-six per cent chance that she was completely paralysed below the neck down, which was unfortunate but fixable. What wasn't fixable, though, at least in a van, was that she was about to stop breathing. I searched the back of the van and grabbed the medical kit I had brought with me, and dug through it before I found a small tracheostomy kit.

Working at my speed, it was no time at all before I was done with the procedure and carefully managing and manually ventilating her airway with one hand. I hadn't brought a ventilator machine with me, which was another oversight.

What to do now? I would have to perform a carjacking before the ambulance showed up. I glanced around and gathered the things I was definitely taking with me, and they only comprised a pistol, Kiwi and the bag of cash.

Right before I was about to try to extricate myself from the vehicle, I heard a voice. A man's voice, "'Ello the wreck, anyone alive in there? Are you okay?"

Frowning, I stood up and stuck my head out of what was the passenger's side window and was now the ceiling. I saw the man, and I was ready to pull my pistol but he seemed unarmed and, unusually, concerned. He grinned and said, "You okay? Do you need any help?"

The man was attractive, in his mid-twenties. My eyes zoomed in on several parts of his body. He looked like Alt-Danny's young lieutenants did, earnest and tastefully but highly augmented. He looked like a soldier, which was troubling, especially since he was helping a random stranger in Night City. That didn't usually happen. Still, I nodded and tried to play up the damsel in distress angle, "Yes, please, my friend is hurt quite badly. Can you come over here and help me lift her out of the van? I'm afraid it might catch fire soon."

He nodded, "Of course." I quickly ducked down and rummaged into the medical bag again, palming an item. As I rose up, I said, "You might need to come in here to help me."

He nodded and leaned close, and that was when I struck at my maximum speed, shoving an inhaler right by his nose and spraying him two times in the face. He had a very brief couple of seconds of confusion as the anaesthetic took effect before he slumped against the side of the van.

Sighing, I didn't really feel good about that but need's must when the devil drives. Glancing around, I frowned as I didn't see Jean. I thought he would be unconscious by Ruslan's body, but he was gone. Suddenly, I looked around everywhere just in case I was about to be ambushed, but I didn't see anyone. I couldn't think about it right now.

I ducked back in, grabbed a few other things in my med bag, and tossed them into the duffle bag full of cash, putting it over my back and gently reaching down to pick Kiwi up princess style. Instead of trying to climb out with my hands full, I judged the distance and carefully used one hand to hold Kiwi's neck stable so as not to aggravate her spinal fracture and just jumped straight up through the window. I landed on the passenger door and carefully slid down, doing my best not to jar Kiwi any more than I needed to. Every few seconds, I would pause to mechanically ventilate her.

Well, that was a coincidence. The young man/soldier's vehicle was a van exactly like the one we were driving in. I hurried over to it. There was really no good way to transport Kiwi, and I spent a couple of minutes fashioning a quick neck brace out of things I had on hand, which were duct tape and a few stacks of cash.

Glancing at the unconscious man, I hummed and quickly ran over and grabbed him as well, placing him into the passenger seat. I opened his mouth and put another inhaler inside, giving him one puff. It was my drug that caused anterograde amnesia. I would leave him with some money in compensation after I got home. He had made the correct moral decision, so I would see him rewarded for it, even if he didn't remember much of it.

I put his van into gear. Thankfully, it had an auto-drive system, and I selected my Megabuilding. Now, what else could go wrong today?

As I thought that, my phone rang now that I was outside the area effect of the small jammer that was no doubt next to Ruslan somewhere. However, it was someone I wasn't expecting. Johnny the Tyger Claw. While I wasn't expecting him, surprisingly, he was exactly who I wanted to talk to.

---xxxxxx---

Johnny was still guarding the employee's entrance to Clouds. It was kind of boring, but it gave him a lot of time to practice both his slashes and his quickdraw, so there were at least some benefits.

As he was practising the latter, he heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of a gunshot. A loud one. He checked his Tyger's Eye app. The Claws had installed a number of simple but exceeding useful security systems on this floor for the building. One of them was a series of multiple sound-detecting instruments spread across the entire floor.

They could detect gunshots, and they were also networked together, which allowed them to triangulate exactly where on the floor the gunshot happened. What he saw on the app caused him to frown in concern and stand up. The gunshot came from inside Doc Taylor's clinic.

He triggered a security alert in Clouds, which was required if he was going to leave his post, and at the same time, he tried calling his boss but found that the call went straight to voicemail. If he recalled, Mr Jin was supposed to be meeting one of the big bosses today, so it wasn't surprising he had his implants set to do-not-disturb.

He grabbed his Stetson from where he kept it on a hatrack he bought just for this purpose, settled it comfortably on his head, and started moseying his way over to Doc's clinic. It wasn't far.

He got there just in time to see the door open and an unusual man dragging Doc Gloria's kid out of the clinic. He frowned and said, "Pardner, I reckon..." He didn't get more out because as soon as he started talking, the man shifted to look at him, which allowed Johnny to see past the two into the clinic and what he saw caused him to stop talking. There was no need for words now.

He cleared leather before the man's eyes even met his own, and the scoundrel had barely the chance to look surprised before Johnny put a bullet right between his eyes, painting the Doc's door with the no-good varmint's brains. The dead man fell, both in and out of the Doc's clinic, blocking the automatic closing mechanism from working.

Sliding his pistol back into his holster with a smooth motion, he frowned. He'd have to do something about this crying child now. He was a saint of the gun and the sword, but of crying children, he was much less skilled. He'd have to do something, though, on account of what he saw in the clinic.

It was Doc Gloria, dead as a doornail on the ground.

The kid tried to run away, but that wasn't a good idea, so he grabbed the munchkin and said, "Shh, shh." Then, he had a brainstorm and called one of the dolls that he knew had a good relationship with Doc Taylor. One of the door guards was coming to investigate what happened, mouth agape.

Johnny nodded and handed the squirming brat over, and said, "Take this boy to Miss Evelyn right now. There's been a killin'." It was tough being the law 'round these parts, but despite people often making fun of him, he was higher ranked than almost everyone that worked security today, so the other man nodded, grabbed the kid and skedaddled.

He sighed and stepped over the dead man and into the clinic, and he tipped his hat sadly to the dead woman on the floor. The man had shot her with two twelve-gauge rounds to the chest; there was just no survivin' that absent some serious armour.

Doc Taylor would probably want to know, but he didn't look forward to this conversation. Sighing, he dialled her. She answered on the second ring and said, "Johnny, I need you to get security on Gloria right away. I think someone's going to try to kidnap her if they haven't already."

Giving a friend or a loved one bad news like this was never easy, so instead, he just sighed, "Ma'am, I'm afraid that's why I'm callin'. I just caught someone trying to kidnap her boy outta your clinic. I stopped him, and the boy's safe, but I'm sorry to tell you that Doc Gloria didn't make it."

Doc's voice shrieked, and Johnny winced, adjusting the call volume down, "What?!"

"Ma'am, she's dead. The kidnapper shot her," Johnny repeated. It was better to just give it to people straight, he felt.

Instead of shrieking her voice got really, really cold and she asked, "How dead?"

Johnny was confused, "Stone dead, ma'am." What the hell did she mean?

Her voice shifted to exasperated, "No, you fu... No, Johnny... I mean, what were her injuries? What's the status of her skull and brain? WHAT HAPPENED?"

"Ma'am, it looks like there was a struggle. I don't know what happened; maybe the boy can tell you as he musta have seen it. Distraught, he is, but long story short, the guy shot her in the chest twice with double ought buck. But, I mean, I guess her face is okay; we can make it an open-casket funeral and all," he said. Although he had to admit that nobody actually had funerals like that anymore, despite what he saw on his westerns, so he wondered why it mattered.

The voice was intent and commanding now, "Johnny, I need you to do two things right away."

"'Course," he replied.

She told him, and he frowned. He agreed to do it, and she said she would be there in less than ten minutes and hung up. He reached down and picked up the dead lady and said the words she told him to say, "Biobed mode."

He blinked as the Doc's chair shifted and turned into a bed or a gurney. That was pretty neat. He laid the dead woman on the bed and stepped back. He coughed and said, in Japanese, "Spider-bro, wake up."

Nothing happened, and he tilted his eyes and then coughed. The Doc had said it in English, despite the name. He tried that again, "Kumo-kun, wake up."

Suddenly the equipment above the bed started moving and making noises. She'd said that would happen, so he nodded and said, carefully reciting the words she made him memorise, "Kumo-kun, vampire cuff, emergency oxygenation mode."

What happened next caused Johnny the Gun to take a step back as six terrifying arms descended down onto the biobed and started doing things. He carefully affected an accent, a Western drawl in English and a homey Kansai-ben when he spoke Japanese, but what he saw in front of him shocked him enough that he forgot, and he spoke with the native Tokyo accent that he thought was so boring, "Maji ka?"