Legal Problems Require Illegal Solutions (9)

David closes the door, ready to leave for Arasaka Academy, when he notices Mark returning to his apartment while looking worse for wear.

"Rough night?" David asks his neighbor once he notices the rare state of his person.

"Y, yeah." Mark yawns tiredly, "there is still more to do, but I need to take a shower first. I will try to catch a nap while I wait for my appointment later in the day."

"Make sure you get enough rest, and don't forget to sleep, alright? Work will still be there when you get back."

Mark blinks at David's words, grinning at the young man and reaching towards his head, ruffling the hair of the protesting teen. "Thanks for the advice, David, I appreciate it. You're right, I will sleep it off before going back to work."

David slaps Mark's hand away in embarrassment before powerwalking towards the Academy, and Mark enters his apartment once more with a tired yawn on his lips.

The transmigrator takes David's advice and takes a long, relaxing shower, then he sends a quick message to both Kiwi and Miguel regarding the affairs of the day. Finally, he falls on his bed and sleeps like the dead, or like a Factorio player who just realized the sun is already up on the window.

…

Kiwi looks at the message marked Important, realizing it's from her new employer. After quickly reading it the Netrunner sighed and pulled the files she was about to sell on the black market, a hint of amusement at the fact they would act as proper backup like her "day job" description intended.

Her "department" also has a budget and since some idiot decided to steal the physical server like a caveman instead of taking the data as a civilized person should, she will be using the budget to buy another server. For a moment, the idea of skimming off the top of the department budget crossed her head, making her weigh the pros and cons of such an action. It's not unusual for Edgerunners to klepto some valuables during a mission but depending on the fixer and the valuables stolen that would tank the cyberpunk reputation on the streets. If she decides to stay for the long term and steals from the budget she will need to work with subpar equipment or cover the difference with her ill-gotten money anyway.

Kiwi pauses once that thought crosses her mind. "Am I really willing to become a corpo after a single offer?" The Netrunner looks at the contract she signed, and the advance she received for the month. "So long as he stays professional, yeah."

In the former factory worker and Joytoy's eyes, the contract was too good to be true, but since her employer paid her in advance if things get messy she can simply delta and lay low for a while. Kiwi doubted that Wube Inc. would be so vengeful as to root out a single Netrunner in Night City.

…

Miguel knocks on the apartment door, and a small hand pointing a hand cannon to his face answers. "Hey choom, what can I do for you?"

Putting his hands up, Miguel introduces himself. "Hey, I'm Miguel, remember me? I'm a friend of your boss, Maine."

Rebbeca's eyes widen, "oh yeah, Miguel, I remember now. How are you doing, choom?" The small Solo steps aside, inviting the former Green Beret. "Come in, Maine just woke up. He got the whole crew holed up in his apartment to look after Sasha."

As Miguel enters he spots the rest of the crew. Maine looks tired despite being the middle of the day, his output is giving a dressing down to the group's Netrunner, the techie with long arms is stuffing his face with kibble as he strips and cleans a gun, and Rebbeca goes back to the kitchen to make some synth coffee.

"Good day, Maine. Can we talk a little bit? It's business."

"Hey Miguel, Nice to see you." Maine sighs, "business, eh? I can guess about what it is. Do you mind if the rest of the crew listen, or should we move this to my office?"

"Isn't your 'office' the bathroom?" Pillar asks casually, and Rebbeca casually shoots his hand for his impertinence. "Hey, that was close to the product!"

Ignoring the siblings' antics, Miguel sits at the table. "The Engineer sent me a message about yesterday's clusterfuck. He said they used your Netrunner as 'bait to draw him out of the factory so that They could raid the Starter Base.' Can you give me some more detes on what happened yesterday? I swear, the first time I get to sleep during the night this shit happens."

Maine replies with an ironic smile to his friend, "Just like in the army, huh?" Shaking his head, Maine recounts the events of the previous day.

The successful operation from the Engineer gig, waiting at Afterlife, meeting "Mr. Cool" himself, and accepting an improvised gig that paid premium for speed, Sasha completed the mission but almost fucking it up due to personal reasons, if not for the Engineer deciding to rush towards Biotechnica's building the moment he heard that Dex DeShawn was the one who gave them the gig, the subsequent rescue, and finally the Engineer leaving a stunned Sasha on the street before rushing to fight in a gang war in Pacifica.

"He won, by the way," Miguel notes to the stunned Edgerunner crew, "some people wrecked his base, but he managed to deal with the aggressors. If you go there right now you wouldn't think the place was a warzone just a few hours ago."

"Damn, no wonder he had the balls to treat my Netrunner as an amateur. Our levels are different."

Miguel shrugs, "maybe he was just angry that she almost got herself killed? Unless you're on his shitlist, he's quite generous and compassionate."

"I really should apologize to him, if he felt so strongly about it." Sasha quickly elaborates when everyone turns to her, "Not that I'm complaining about the dressing down or don't appreciate being cared for, but I was expecting that sort of behavior from the crew or my sister, not from a stranger."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, Sasha, it sounded strange at first," Maina turns to Miguel, "the Engineer had too much intel on what, where, and how Sasha would conduct her gig, and the moment Dex DeShawn name crossed his lips he ran like the Executioner was on his tail."

Miguel knew that his friend was fishing for information, however he could only shake his head. "As far as I understand, some of the things he can do are fucking magic, so I'm not going to question how he knows some secrets while being painfully naïve on certain aspects. Anyway, the Engineer isn't blaming the crew for anything if that's what you're wondering."

While the rest of the crew sighed in relief, Dorio took the opportunity to ask her question. "Then what is the Engineer's message?"

"He wants to propose a closer partnership with your crew," Miguel answers, "he will soon incorporate, and he will build the 'legal' security team to provide security for his workers, while he will hire Edgerunners for black ops operations."

"A corpo fixer, huh? That's a lot of hats the Engineer plans to wear." Pillar points out, making Maine think over the proposal. "What does he get from hiring Edgerunners instead of Arasaka or Militech mercs?"

"According to him, he likes to have a hand in a group's development, and he believes that a professional mercenary's loyalty is to their parent company, which is a conflict of interest in his opinion."

"Can't fault him there," Maine agrees with the sentiment behind the Engineer's actions, "give me the detes on the proposal, depending on what it is, it might be worthy hearing shit from Faraday."

"Just remember this," Miguel warns his friend and the crew with a somber tone, "make sure that you don't go half-cocked just so you get yourself killed, Mark is willing to help resolve your issues, but he can't read your fucking mind." The ex-special forces pause, "probably."

…

The Queen of the Afterlife is seething with rage at the sudden gang war happening in her city and is entirely in the dark about the reason why it started. She isn't entirely in the dark, however, there are too missing many pieces for her liking.

'The gang war started several hours ago, deep into the night. Several gangs arrived on Pacifica, and after a tense initial confrontation, one of the booster gangs fired the first shot, and then things went downhill.' Rogue mentally recounts the events of the night, trying to make sense of the insanity. 'A few gangs tried to blow up the Engineer's headquarters and klepto his equipment with a certain degree of success, while other gangs were killing each other within Pacifica either under orders or to stir up trouble. Every gang wanted something different, and not all of it related to the Engineer.'

The legendary Solo grabs a bottle of Vodka and pours herself a drink while glaring at her bodyguard if he ever dares take her drink away.

"This must have been an accident, or as an impulsive whim. Something of this magnitude doesn't go under the radar until the last minute without anyone hearing about it." Rogue wanted to blame the Engineer for this, but the man was simply defending his turf from the aggressors.

The only clue that she has is the piece of intel she learned while overhearing Maine's crew table. After sitting down to commemorate a successful job, Dex DeShawn approaches them, they talk for a while, Dex leaves, and The Engineer arrives and talks with the Edgerunners, Biotechnica and Dex's names are eventually dropped, then the Engineer rushes after the crew Netrunner. The rest, as they say, is history.

"What other headache does he have for me?"

Her Netrunner redirects a message from the Engineer to her Agent, answering her prayers.

It answered with scorn and mockery.