For employee ID 9527, this was anything but a good day.
The increasingly heavy workload had begun to show its true colors after some time in his new position.
As for the task his supervisor gave him—to go to Heywood and find some so-called "partner in HR management"—it didn't sound reliable at all.
He looked up at the night sky, where the moonlight was nowhere to be seen.
Damn it. They were sending him into a place like Heywood in the dead of night?
He glanced at the deserted street—at this hour in Rancho Coronado, the only things still moving were corporate transport vehicles.
Trucks rumbled past, carrying with them the crispness unique to summer nights, along with that weird, stale smell that hadn't changed in over a decade.
He suddenly felt cold.
His fat supervisor had only approved three hours for this errand.
The route from here to Heywood wasn't particularly long or short, but one thing was certain—he couldn't afford the cab fare.
And using a company car for personal tasks was strictly prohibited for low-level employees. In fact, outside of cargo transport, entry-level workers didn't even have permission to start a vehicle.
A phrase came to mind: "Don't feed the horse, yet demand it run."
"Fuck them all. If it weren't for the money, who'd put up with this shitty job?"
He spat out a curse and cast a glance at the RCS company gates.
Gripes aside, the task still had to be completed.
Employee 9527 decided to contact that so-called "HR management partner" first.
Despite the fancy title, his supervisor's awkward hesitation made it sound fishy.
If it had been legit, the fat bastard wouldn't have acted so cagey about it.
But that didn't concern him.
All that mattered was completing the damn job.
That was the one thing he'd learned in his years slaving for corporations.
Sadly, years later, he was still stuck at the bottom.
None of that mattered now. The most important thing was—if he didn't confirm the guy's location ahead of time, he risked wasting time or getting penalized for dereliction of duty.
He opened the control system, found the number his boss had sent him, and called it.
After a few beeps—
"…"
No one answered on the other end.
"Hello? Is the signal bad or something?"
He smacked his head in confusion. His neural interface was made by Tanaka Corp—famous for shoddy quality, signal loss, short circuits, and system crashes.
Tanaka Corporation.
A notorious knockoff brand in Night City. Not a great choice for anyone who valued their health or work efficiency.
But given the price? Sometimes there just weren't better options.
"Ohhh... Kid, what do you want?"
Maybe he had hesitated too long—suddenly the man on the other end grew impatient.
"Who gave you this number? Keep it short. My time's valuable."
"Huh? So the connection was fine," 9527 muttered, scratching his head. "I'm with RCS. My boss told me to find you."
"RCS?" The voice paused. "Who sent you? What's his name?"
9527 furrowed his brow, trying to remember.
"Fett Pig."
"Fett Pig?"
The voice repeated the name with a mix of contempt and irritation. Then, as if remembering something, he sighed.
"That fat bastard? I told him not to bug me unless it was urgent. I don't give a fuck about his quotas. Whatever goods he's got, that's all he's getting."
He sighed again, clearly annoyed.
"Go tell him Heywood's a fucking warzone right now. If he doesn't want more bodies turning up, he'd better stay away."
"Huh? What's going on?"
9527 scratched his head in confusion.
He hadn't seen a single news report about trouble in Heywood. Everything seemed normal.
"Fucking Tyger Claws, that's what. Forget it. You don't need to know. Just do what I say."
Click.
The line went dead.
Silence returned.
In the distance, the low roar of cargo trucks rumbled over the pavement, creating the deep ambient hum of the city's sleepless economy.
Good thing he'd had the sense to call first.
Thinking that, 9527 let out a relieved laugh.
That meant he had over two hours to do nothing.
To avoid suspicion, he'd lay low for two hours—about how long it would take to take the metro back and forth.
If the boss asked, he'd just say the guy was busy and postponed the meeting.
Heywood was a warzone right now, after all—no one was going to check.
He grinned with glee at his clever plan.
A whole two hours! 7,200 seconds!
He hadn't had this kind of break in a 14-hour shift in ages. No way he was wasting it.
Smiling like a bloomed chrysanthemum, employee 9527 was practically glowing with joy.
"BOOM——!!!!"
An earth-shaking explosion erupted behind him.
9527 flinched on the spot, his shoulders jerking up in fear as he turned to look.
It wasn't a terrorist attack, nor was he being targeted.
Just a truck transporting biofuel cells that had exploded.
Just.
That word didn't really do it justice.
Flaming liquid rained down in all directions, people were sent flying, the meticulously orchestrated transportation flow ground to a halt, and the entire scene descended into chaos.
"WHIRRRRR——!!"
Piercing alarms screamed across the site.
RCS went into full red alert in an instant.
The exterior of the corporate HQ glowed bright crimson. The holographic route projections were replaced with closed markers.
All "open access" lights turned red and crossed out.
Drones swarmed into the air like locusts.
"Level 2 Alert! Securing the scene!"
"Searching for suspicious targets..."
What. The. Hell?
9527 stood frozen in place.
This kind of chaos was virtually unheard of for a logistics megacorp. Only an armed assault or cyberattack could explain it.
Relying on his hard-earned bottom-rung instincts, he turned and ran, vanishing into the night.
...
On the other side of the RCS compound—
"Explosion confirmed. Their attention is diverted."
Holding a detonator, Karl spoke into his earpiece.
The fuel truck hadn't exploded due to poor maintenance—it was taken out by an anti-vehicle spider drone.
A brutal little killer in close-quarters urban warfare.
"Copy. Infiltrating the building."
Pangolin nodded, signaling his squad.
The fully armed mercenaries advanced undetected through robot-only security zones, casually slipping past RCS's outer perimeter.
Their target: RCS's central server.
Whether in a data center or an executive office, it didn't matter—any location with valuable information was their goal.
Every camera they passed was blinded—be it AI-based facial recognition cams or manual surveillance feeds.
T-Bug's intrusion had rendered the entire security network meaningless.
Karl didn't join the breach team.
Pangolin and his elite crew were more than capable of handling whatever resistance came their way.
Instead, Karl glanced toward the abandoned factory across the street—where T-Bug, the two other netrunners, and a squad of bodyguards were stationed.
With their controlled explosion, RCS's security was lured away from the building interior.
Classic misdirection: "Make noise in the east, strike in the west."
Simple but effective.
And it didn't stop there.
T-Bug's cyberattack triggered even more chaos. Factory systems glitched out. Vehicles rolled off on their own. Employees collapsed. Drones began fighting each other.
"Damn, you're good, T-Bug," Karl muttered from the shadows, amused.
Now, instead of thinking "we've been breached," RCS was panicking over "our systems are malfunctioning!"
With any luck, their legal teams would start yelling at Zetatech and Arasaka before they noticed the infiltration.
Karl's team didn't care either way.
"This system was hell to crack. I'm gonna enjoy myself," T-Bug said gleefully.
"Hurry up," she told Pangolin. "The system resets in 22 minutes. After that, it's game over."
Once the team breached the isolated internal network, gunfire erupted inside.
"INTRUDERS DETECTED! LEVEL ONE ALERT!!"
The chaos surged.
Machines glitched. Drones fell from the sky. Robots began shooting each other.
"It's looking good," Karl nodded to Motoko.
But something in her eyes said otherwise.
"This doesn't feel right. RCS may not be top-tier, but they have to have backup systems."
"Obviously," Karl agreed. "That's why we're here to cover the extraction."
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Just as Karl thought this op might go smoothly—
RATATATATATAT—!!
Gunfire shredded a rogue drone from the sky.
More bullets followed, wiping out glitched bots and drones like flies.
Karl looked toward the gunfire's source—RCS's main gate.
A row of gleaming silver humanoid figures stood tall, holding energy-charged rifles.
New combat droids?
"What the fuck is that!?" Karl shouted.
"Backup security bots!?" Motoko frowned—then her eyes went wide. "No! I'm reading bio-signatures! Human life!"
Life signals?
Impossible.
Karl stared at her, stunned.
"What are these things?!"
Even T-Bug was speechless.
She quickly scanned them.
"Swiss-made, next-generation semi-cybernetic bio-modified soldiers!!"
"Pangolin! Forget the data! GET OUT NOW!!"
-
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🤖 My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew?
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