The Kabuki Theft

V wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, but Jack sent her a message at this time, urging her to meet the middleman mentioned earlier, DeShawn. V had no choice but to say goodbye to the two of them and go on a trip.

Fortunately, they were not far away, and she would be able to come back to pick up Bai Rui. It would not be too late to ask then, she thought.

Bai Rui and Victor were the only ones left in the clinic.

"Who won?" Bai Rui asked curiously as she looked at Victor leaning on his hand and watching the boxing match.

"Hernandez! Do you know? If it were in the past, that cripple Malone would have been lying down long ago!" Victor, who was staring at the screen, sounded a little excited when talking about the boxing match that he was most interested in. A boxing match was one of the few things that could stimulate his dopamine secretion. Even if he made a lot of money by cooperating with Bai Rui, it couldn't compare to this.

"Well... but nowadays." Victor's tone suddenly became depressed again. "Nowadays, even boxers in regional competitions use extra head padding... which can absorb 75% of the force."

Obviously, Victor is very dissatisfied with the current situation in the boxing world where prosthetics are abused and the spirit of boxing is abandoned. In this respect, he and Bai Rui are both conservatives who are against prosthetics.

It sounds like a hell of a joke that two guys who are against the installation of prosthetics are making money by counterfeiting prosthetics, but it is indeed true.

"You miss it a lot, don't you?" Bai Rui watched the boxing video curiously, but she didn't understand anything. She just felt that both players were very good fighters.

"Ah..." Old Vic was so engrossed in watching that he forgot to reply to Bai Rui.

"By the way, how is our business?"

Bai Rui suddenly mentioned the counterfeit prosthetics business that the two of them were involved in. Logically, Bai Rui was only responsible for the production part, and Victor was responsible for the bulk sales. But recently, relying on Arnold's reputation in the underworld, Bai Rui also reached an agreement with several middlemen - those guys were preparing to get some easy-to-use and cheap combat prosthetics for their men.

Therefore, their business is getting bigger and bigger, but fame brings troubles, and the market is so small. If they make money, it means someone loses money. Recently, many jealous people have come to make trouble for them, so Bai Rui also started to pay more attention to the business.

"Speaking of business..." Seeing that the matter was being discussed, Victor pressed the pause button even though he was reluctant. He turned around, found a chip in the drawer, and handed it to Bai Rui.

"Business has been getting better and better recently. Some mercenaries from Taiping Island are ordering our goods..."

As the saying goes, either first suppress and then praise, or first praise and then suppress. Bai Rui was not excited when she heard Victor talking about the good news of business expansion, because she knew that Victor would tell bad news next.

"But..." Yes, that's the but.

"One of our shipments to the Kabuki district was hijacked. The information is all inside. Take a look."

Upon hearing that the goods had been robbed, Bai Rui's mood instantly tensed up, but she didn't say anything for the time being. She just took out her holographic glasses, inserted the information chip, and started watching.

"This was recorded by a nearby surveillance camera."

"Just two days ago, there was an order in the Kabuki district, and I asked a friend to deliver it, but he was robbed at the Kabuki intersection."

"The driver managed to escape, but the rest of the people were not saved. The car and the goods were all stolen."

"As for who did it, the surveillance video shows it very clearly."

"Scavenger..." Looking at the guys hijacking vehicles with guns in the surveillance video, Bai Rui pronounced this annoying name hatefully.

"That's right." Victor paused and continued, "It seems that we have taken away the jobs of these kidney-cutting guys."

"That makes sense. How could these guys who sell second-hand prosthetics tolerate us bringing these cheap and durable things into their territory?"

Victor gave up all his street reputation and stayed in this little Chinatown to work as a Ripperdoc because he was tired of the fighting and killing on the streets. But now, Bai Rui, whom he valued, was in trouble, and he rarely showed any anger.

In fact, it can be said that Victor's cooperation with Bai Rui was simply to help Bai Rui, because of the income earned by the two, Victor took 30% for himself and left 70% for Bai Rui.

As a middle-aged man, Victor has little desire for wealth, but seeing such an energetic younger generation, how can Victor not help her.

The two men's business scope is mainly in the Little Chinatown and Kabuki area of ​​Watson District. Here, Victor has a wide network of contacts and the scavengers cannot reach in, but outside of this area, it is hard to say.

But now, the goods were robbed on the main street, and it was done in the Kabuki district, which was undoubtedly a slap in the face of both of them.

We can't just let this go." Bai Rui took off her holographic glasses and frowned unhappily. "This is a provocation, a naked provocation. Those kidney-cutting gangs are trying to find out our bottom line."

After all, having been on the streets for some time, Bai Rui easily saw through the scavenger's plan.

This time it was Kabuki, but if they backed down, it would mean that they would not be able to keep their business in the Kabuki district, and next time it might be Little Chinatown. How could Bai Rui tolerate this?

"Leave it to me." Bai Rui made up her mind to give the scavenger a head-on blow.

"Should we let Arnold do it?" Victor asked, leaning back in his chair.

In the past, whenever there were business problems, Bai Rui would manipulate Arnold to handle them.

"No, I'm going with Arnold this time." Bai Rui's eyes were full of fighting spirit. "My two new prosthetics are almost finished, and I can't have funding problems at this time."

This time, Bai Rui felt that it was time to teach those scavengers living in the gloomy sewers a lesson and tell them to stay away from her business.

"If you want to go, won't you call V, Jack and the others?" Victor frowned and sat up straight when he heard that Bai Rui was going in person. To be honest, it would be fine if Arnold went because the machine would be destroyed if it was destroyed. But Bai Rui was going too, which made him a little worried.

"Don't worry, Old Vic, I'm not a pushover." Bai Rui was very confident in herself. "Besides, we have Arnold here. With Arnold's strength, there aren't many mercenaries in the city who want to deal with him."

"Hmm." Victor frowned and did not comment.

Bai Rui doesn't want Jack and V to get involved for the time being. After all, the first pot of gold earned from cheap prostheses is just the beginning. She has many more plans. In order to avoid alerting the enemy, the fewer people who know about it, the better.

"Who is the customer?" Bai Rui made up her mind and prepared to deal with this mess. "The goods are lost. What does he think?"

"The lost batch of goods was ordered by a guy named Charles at the junction of Kabuki and Chengbei District. That guy is also a prosthetic doctor like me." Victor turned his chair slightly and told all the information he knew.

"As for his attitude, he was furious. He said, either you have to compensate him with another batch of goods or you have to compensate him for his deposit. What? Do you think this robbery has anything to do with our customers?"

"I didn't think so just now, but you mentioned that he is a Ripperdoc, which is a bit suspicious." Bai Rui held her chin and leaned on the table, looking thoughtful. "Not everyone is as conscientious as you, Old Vic. The other cyborg doctors in the city are more or less connected to the scavengers."

"Haha, thank you for the compliment. I just want to make some clean money, so that I can sleep more peacefully." Victor did not refute Bai Rui's words. After all, he is a Ripperdoc and he knows how complicated this industry is.

Ripperdocs are more like prosthetic dealers than doctors. They just provide installation services. If you expect them to have medical ethics, you are overthinking.

Prosthetics are not cheap, especially those produced by large companies. The purchase price is quite high. The scavenger provides these Ripperdocs with another source of goods - cheap second-hand prosthetics of unknown origin.

Although the second-hand prostheses packed in barrels in the hands of the scavengers may still be stained with blood, how could prosthesis doctors miss the opportunity to make money? Therefore, most of them started doing business with the scavengers. Even some of them who had a conscience would be forced to deal with them under the threat of violence from the scavengers. Only a ruthless person like Victor who was well-known in the underworld could avoid interference with his business.

In this way, scavengers search corpses, attack passers-by, remove prostheses, and sell them to Ripperdocs. Ripperdocs then sell these prostheses to mercenaries and gang members who cannot afford the genuine products. Then they are attacked by scavengers again, and their bodies are taken away and their prostheses are removed. It is such a cycle and such a capital chain.

Now, the cheap and high-quality counterfeit goods flowing out from Victor naturally impacted the scavengers' market and aroused their hostility.

However, facing the provocation of the scavengers, Bai Rui does not intend to back down. She wants to fight them.

"I will investigate our client and look for clues from him." Bai Rui made up her mind and prepared to leave.

"Wait..." Victor stopped her. "Since you mentioned business."

"Perhaps you can come up with a name for our small copycat prosthetics production 'group'. After all, the gangsters always call it 'Victor's prosthetics', which doesn't sound good. Our business has grown big, so we should have a formal name."

"Is that so..." Bai Rui thought.

Bai Rui scanned the decorations in the house, hoping to find some inspiration, and suddenly she saw something hanging on Victor's desk, it was a dream catcher.

"Look at this? This is a gift from a friend of mine." Victor looked at the dream catcher with a nostalgic look on his face. "That was a real Indian man, a powerful tribal warrior."

"Let's call it 'Beehive'." Looking at the fine net of the dream catcher, Bai Rui got an inspiration. "'Beehive', one day, I will build our own 'Beehive' in this Night City!"

Bai Rui looked at the dreamcatcher with a thoughtful expression, as if she could see the picture of the beautiful future that the dreamcatcher had outlined through the fine web.