章 291: Wild East

Two weeks later :

Joanne Koch views the decimated city through the window of her car, her driver and other bodyguards watching the area like hawks. A month hadn't even passed since Zombie's Attack and Night City was, well, ruined. Everyone that could, left, including the corporations that saw the place as a loss, causing mass unemployment and even worse crime rates than before.

NightCorp tried to reestablish some semblance of order, but after Maelstrom wiped out half of the NCPD, the chances of that happening were minuscule. Gangs jumped at the chance to take territory, while the Valentinos took most of what was left of the Corpo Plaza, the Dragons snapped up Santo Domingo, which wasn't hard given that 6th street had all but been wiped out.

Zombie's attack on the flats also caused massive food shortages, and subsequent fighting over water filtration plants ended up disabling most of their systems. It was getting so bad that some desperate families dared to drink from the Laguna Bend reservoir, which was so toxic that they died not a day later.

The death toll was so vast that no one was sure how bad it was, no one bothered keeping track as so many corpses littered the streets, alleyways, and slowly deteriorating buildings that just getting rid of them was a task in itself.

The only good thing that came out of this, at least in Koch's view, is that she was no longer being hunted down by her former fellows in Biotechnica, or the other Corporations she'd ended up slighting.

Her underground facility was somehow one of the last places of order and civility in the region, with all the vehicles and men she'd appropriated from Biotechnica, there was a good chance to pick up the pieces and claim Night City as her own... While most might think it's a lost cause, its location, resources, and reputation could still be used, and even the risk of NUSA invading to take it back was rendered null because of Zombie...

The bastard had walked out into the desert and set up 'shop' on the main road leading to the city. Everyone was watching him via satellites to make sure he wasn't gonna try to eat the world, but the guy seemed content to stay where he is, for some reason...

She glances at the small screen in her peripheral that was perpetually open, one watching the giant black sphere which denoted Zombie's location. She was constantly watching it for one simple reason, any movement and she would take her shit and leave North America.

She was under no illusions as to his threat level, indeed, she was aware that she'd 'annoyed' him rather severely in the past... Kidnapping his family and almost having him and them murdered would do that. It was for that sole reason she'd ended up changing her face and name, Joanne Koch no longer existed but coincidentally, Julie Kallow was born on the same day and time.

The main thing she wanted from the city was the prototype tech the Corporations in NC were designing before they got wiped out. Most of it had probably been taken by gangs already, but that wouldn't be a problem once she got a foothold.

All she had to do was offer bare essentially to people and they'd rally to her... She'd already begun efforts to retake the flats from scavengers, and her prior experience with it would make it all too easy to restart production.

With plans still formulating in her mind, she glances over at her Netrunner for an update, "Any word on the refugees who went to Zombie?"

"None. That black sphere opened a door for them but they haven't been seen since. Most assume they got eaten by those nanites..."

"And your thoughts?"

"I... I wouldn't be surprised if they were still alive, Zombie is a madman, but even the insane can empathise, even from the destruction he caused. He took his friends and family before he left, so he's presumably in control of those nanites? Therefore, wouldn't it make sense for there to be a small settlement within that sphere?"

Koch, or better yet Kallow shrugs at him, "Who knows, just keep me posted if you hear anything."

"Ah... There has been news of something odd from the Crystal Palace space station, something about men with blue eyes? It's nothing concrete but I've noticed any word of it getting scrubbed from the Net moments after it's released."

"Blue eyes...? That myth?" she snorts, "I'd rather not hear about more apocalypse theories created by idiots and fools. Keep it away from me."

...

"But-... Fin-hm..!?" the Netrunner blinks behind his visor as something shocks him through his Cyberdeck.

"What?" Koch questions, wondering what the issue was.

...

"Nothing." the Runner mutters, unaware that his eyes were beginning to turn blue.

-------------------------------

You know, as strange as it might seem, destroying an entire city and moving out to the middle of the desert was turning out to be the best decision he'd ever made. Ori looked over the balcony from the central tower which held up the city-sphere, appreciating the city of thousands of pitch-black buildings that stretched from one side of the protecting shell to the other.

Sure, he had nowhere near enough people to populate the buildings, but it didn't really matter. He'd built them for the hell of it, along with filling space he had no need for. The nanites had essentially made life 'Creative Mode', every piece of scrap, trash, stone, or even flesh could be used as a building block... And since every block was a nanite, it was like having stones that could move for you.

The sphere he'd created that encapsulates the place was also made of nanites, which, with the tech of hyper-advanced solar panels, gave the place all the energy they could want... Plus the protection it granted, since he was pretty sure every other country in the world had a finger of the nuclear button, the weapons of which were probably all pointing directly at him.