บท 36: Interlude: Maine's Crew
AUTHOR NOTES: Sorry for deleting the chapter. Somehow the chapter didn't update on book two. I didn't change anything other than the chapter order. Sorry about the inconvenience.
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A short figure watches the road that exits Night City from over a thousand yards at the top of a building in Santo Domingo. She grunts in annoyance for being left on sniper duty away from the action while the rest of the crew are in the thick of the action.
"Can anybody remind me why I am here?" She grunts out on the radio.
"This is a black ops assault, sis." Rebeccaa's brother, Pilar, reminds the Solo. "Your green gremlin face is too distinctive for the job."
"Who the fuck-" she starts yelling but an echo of "Shhh!" forces her to continue in a lower voice, "Who are you calling a gremlin you lanky wanker?"
"I hate to defend your brother, Becca," Sasha says to Pilar's protest, "but it's true. You're too distinctive for the job. Everyone else is disguised, and even Pilar will use his drones to fight."
"But he gets to ride the car with everyone else," the small Solo mutters under her breath.
"We will talk more about that later," the powerful voice of their leader responds, "how's the target from your position, Becca?"
The Solo looks over the scope lens enhancing her optics and she spots the car. "They just got into sights. You're right, if you didn't know what to look for we would have missed it. They will cross the threshold in… ninety seconds."
Maine grins. "Showtime crew. Get ready."
They wait until the disguised armored car comes close enough to the ambush point, and Pilar activates his new gadget, the Tire Catcher. Several claws snap shut around the car's tire, first releasing an electric shot to fry the car's electronics, then using a micro explosive timed correctly to release steel clamps that jam the car tires in place, forcing the vehicle to drift out of the road, right into the ambush.
Maine appears in front of the armored car in his new chrome. He only finished forty percent of the full procedures, but he already feels like a new man. The customized Power Armor conceals the Solo appearance and also makes up for the loss of strength after uninstalling his Linear Frame. Maine raises his W.A., Wube Armmanents, Assault Rifle to the car while approaching the vehicle and speaks in a loud commanding voice.
"Out of the car, now!"
Flanking him is Dorio, also wearing a customized non-powered Heavy Armor to match Maine's appearance as a "generic black ops soldier." She's holding a combat shotgun supplied by W.A. chambered with armor-piercing bullets.
From the stopped car several mercenaries exit the vehicle shooting at the pair, however, the shield drones that Pilar prepared to provide cover for the two Edgerunners pull their weight, allowing Dorio to duck for cover while Maine returned fire.
Maine doesn't have a Speedware chrome to slow down his perception of time, but his new chrome works synergistically to make that redundant, as he carefully aims his gun at his target Maine shoots a three-round burst on a mercenary to take him down and forces his comrades to take cover. His armor throws a smoke grenade while he jumps over the cover to reach the hiding security forces, meanwhile, the shield drone moves to the other side to flank the group, with Dorio following.
When Maine arrives at the side of the vehicle one of the security guards tries to stab him with a Mantis Blade, but Maine parries the attack and kicks him away. A second guard shoots wildly towards the Edgerunning and misses, permitting the Solor to flatline the two guards caught off guard with two bursts quickly and efficiently. On the other side of the car, Dorio unloads her shotgun on the remaining guard, ending the immediate threat.
Maine returns to the car's door and yanks it open to find a pair of frightened Biotechnica employees: a driver and a scientist. Maine takes them away from the car and Sasha sees her opportunity to hack into the car's security system to delay the arrival of the backup from the headquarters. The Netrunner doesn't have any new chrome, but due to her connection with The Engineer she met with Kiwi and Lucy, a veteran Netrunner and a prodigy who helped improve her skills.
In less than twenty seconds she sent a signal to the tracking software to show that the car resumed motion and was heading towards the badlands to lead the reinforcements into a wild goose chase. Steadying her breath, Sasha hacks the safe containing their prize.
The group finished looting the fallen soldiers, taking any safe items for the crew, and stacking the rest inside the vehicle. The driver and scientist are "tagged" by a gadget given by the Engineer and told to run back to civilization on foot. Once all evidence and corpses are back inside the vehicle, Pilar uses his termite bombs to eat through the vehicle, leaving nothing but molten metal and cracking bones behind.
The group enters their car and they leave, feeling satisfied with a job well done.
Sometime later, the group reaches the safe house and Rebecca greets them. "Hey chooms, good work! You guys went too fast I didn't even have the chance to shoot with my new rifle! Especially you, glorious leader, you looked like one of those stars from the cheese action flicks BDs! Didn't know that a Rocker Boy was hiding inside you!"
"Yeah, it was badass," Maine admits without shame, "I can see why Mark told me not to bother with any kind of subdermal armor. If something can pierce through this armor, I have bigger problems in my hand, and a thin layer of mesh armor or even adaptative titanium plates won't do jack-and-shit. I now have enough space to put better chrome, and the focus on Iron helps me stack different chrome like crazy! It felt like I had a Sandevistan with how easily and cleanly I lined my shots, and even my old Gorilla Arms helped me shoot better!"
"It's because your hands aren't shaking anymore, you big oaf," Dorio calls to the pair. "I swear, you two are chrome nerds."
Maine scratches and laughs it off. "Alright, the job technically isn't done yet. We're doing an after-report meeting," the crew boos at Maine, "and then we can rest. The Engineer sent us dinner together with the payment. We can eat after the meeting."
"Food, why didn't you say so earlier?" Pilar calls out from the car as he unloads the unused drones. "The last one in the kitchen is a wash the dishes!" The entire crew runs after the taller man.
After concluding the meeting and recording it for later review, the group eats the feast provided by the Engineer: fresh bread, fried chicken, a salad with various fresh vegetables, and a selection of fruits for the group to eat while they drank their alcohol of choice.
"This is so good," Sasha moans while lying on the nearby couch, "I can't believe the corpos eat like this every day." The Netrunner sighs contentedly, "Another reason to hate Biotechnica."
"And Petrochem too," Dorio says while sitting on the other side of the couch, "the bread was baked using the wheat used to make CHOO2." The former Animal couldn't help but sneak another slice of bread, carefully taking a bite to avoid leaving crumbles on her couch. "According to the Engineer, rumors of the wheat being unfit for human consumption are nothing but propaganda. They put additives on the wheat slurry during pre-processing instead of being an inherent aspect of the grain."
"Fucking assholes!" Rebecca yells indignantly, "Are they purposefully starving us?"
"Probably," Pilar answers his sister, "before the fall of the old US, grain was cheaper than Gas, but then some demented mind thought it was a good idea to use arable land and a food crop to produce gas instead of food. They tried it first with corn, but it didn't work, then came the the new super wheat and CHOO2, and the rest is history."
His sister narrows her eyes at the Techie, "That sounded almost founded smart and useful, are you sure you're my bro?"
"Nah, I'm making amends for this," Pilar says before slowly backing off.
"What do you… my fried chicken piece! Come back here and die like a man!"
The sibling pair runs around the safehouse in their usual antics, meanwhile, Dorio and Maine relax on the couch after the meal.
"Now, what do you have in your mind," Maine asks his output, "don't think I didn't notice your worried glances throw my way during the mission."
The former Animal sighs. "I'm worried for you, you know? You just got back from a major overhaul of your chrome, and Vik told me you have more chrome than before. How could I not be worried?"
"I'm fine babe, promise. The Engineer hooked me with some nice techies that upgraded and reprogrammed some of the chrome I had before Vik installed it. I'm even using one of these." Maine says while showing off his medical-grade cyber arm as an example, "These quick-swap ports are a game changer. I wonder why more people don't use them."
"One, because then the corpos can't sell immunosuppressants to junkies," Dorio gives her input a pointed look, "two, because you're expecting good sense from cyberpunks."
"Ha ha, you might have a point there!"
"And what's up with the after-action report shit you're making us go through? Feeling nostalgic about your army days?"
This time it is Maine who sighs. "I realized that we're stagnating as a crew and we need to get better. To get better we need to learn from our mistakes, and to do that we need to record the results of our missions. I also want to eventually go legitimate, you know? Maybe turn our crew into a proper PMC, maybe help clean up the streets or something. I just don't want to die like a dog by cleaning up a Corpo's ass or to be discarded by a greedy Fixer like that fucker DeShawn." Maine growls at the mention of the late Fixer that he had a hand in bringing down. "I can't believe I once looked up to him."
Dorio doesn't say anything, instead, she smiles knowingly at him.
"What?"
"Nothing, I'm just proud of you, that's all."
"Hah, keep being smug like that and I won't be buying you a new lower half this Christmas."
"Careful now Maine, that sounded an awful lot like a marriage proposal."
This time it was Maine's turn to give his output a mysterious smile.
While this conversation is happening, Rebecca catches up with Pilar, who throws the stolen food back to his sister. She jumps in the air and catches the piece with her mouth, devouring the treat like a shark. With the hungry monster partially pacified, Pilar takes off his visor and looks seriously at his sister.
"Alright sis, what's eating you up? You have been mopping ever since Maine came back from his overhaul. I can tell you're not all there."
Rebecca glares at her brother, but eventually relents and sags her shoulders. "I feel left behind, you know? Maine got some preen new chrome, Sasha found new friends to nerd over Netrunning, and even you got new toys thanks to Mark's RGB chips."
"What about Dorio?"
The small Solo snorts, "Did you think this group can survive long without her mothering all of us? She's probably glad this madhouse isn't going up in flames anytime soon."
Rebecca's brother chuckles. "Yeah, you have a point there, sis. But, what about you? What do you want to do, then?"
"I was thinking of accepting the offer from Mark to sponsor our chrome." Rebecca finally admits, "That way I can keep up with the crew's advances." The small Solo eyes sparkle a the mention of advances, "I plan on getting the Raiden Build he offered, and maybe rebrand myself as something more badass, like, I don't know, The Ripper or something."
Pilar looks up and down at his sister before putting his visor back on. "Really? You're more like a Saucy Jackie than anything."
This time Rebecca doesn't shout and instead kicks her brother the balls. Pilar screams echo in the safe house, and Sasha sighs in contentment on the couch. "The natural order has been restored."
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