The surroundings of the Afterlife were much, much calmer during daytime it seemed, leaving the small alcove leading up to the main entrance looking almost abandoned save for a couple of randoms skulking in the corners here and there.
The place was also almost suspiciously clean for Night City.
Not free of garbage of course, but it registered as notable anyway.
A few of the hangers on looked like they recognized me as I passed them by, and a few others immediately began excitedly whispering amongst each other, but (to my immense relief) contrary from one might immediately expect from the pseudo celebrity status Afterlife mercs, the 'fans' usually had the self-preservation instincts to keep their heads down and not bother us.
Being a paid mass murderer was surprisingly peaceful.
When one was not doing the mass murdering anyway.
I was quickly waved in by the same Animal bouncer/bodyguard from last time and I strolled into the surprisingly quiet bar, seeing only ten patrons inside.
'No point in overthinking it.' I reminded myself and took a seat in one of the corners with a better view of the place, and waited for Claire to come get my order.
Except before that could happen a face I never really expected to see again caught my eye, and I his evidently, as the shorter man with greyish hair I distinctly remembered stitching back together from near brain-death noticed me just as quickly, his eyes widening in recognition a moment before he made his excuses to his chooms and practically ran over to where I was seated.
"Hey!" He waved as he approached "You are Magos, right?"
"That is indeed I." I nodded, and knowing he wanted to speak I wordlessly pointed my open hand at the seat opposite me.
His eyes brightened slightly and he quickly took the offer "Man." He breathed out as he gave me a look over "When Regina sent me the recording I thought she was fucking with me but we really have a borg in the afterlife, huh?"
"It was bound to happen at some point." I made it a point to shrug dismissively before waving the bartender over "A whiskey and nicola for me."
"I'll have the same." The man added absently before focusing back on me and offering his hand "Tiny Mike, pleasure to meet you."
I shook the hand and nodded "I hope you recovered well enough? I was curious but I didn't want to bother Ms. Jones." I asked.
"Such a tender soul you are." He chuckled and nodded "Whatever magic chemistry you performed kept me alive long enough for the doc to put me back together but even then it was a close call." He shook his head "But it all worked out in the end, so thanks for that."
"Just don't try going against a fully borged out psycho next time. Or at least not alone." I said dryly "The results tend to be something of a self fulfilling prophesy."
"Ah, but what is life without a bit of adventure?" He spread his arms but I could detect he was fucking with me, which was quickly proven true as he raised them a moment later "Just kidding of course, I learned my lesson this time."
His whole expression darkened then "Next time I'll just bring a bigger gun."
I blinked, and then emitted a snort "That works too."
The drinks arrived as we spoke and and I clinked my shot glass against that of Tiny Mike, downing it all in one gulp before washing it down with another of nicola.
And dear Jesus Christ there was so much damned caffeine in the thing I wouldn't be surprised if it could wake the dead if administered quickly enough.
"Not a fan?" My fellow Mike quirked an eyebrow, slowly slurping his own cola.
"Tastes fine." I shrugged "Was just scanning the contents."
Both his eyebrows rose at that "Do I even want to know?"
"No." I deadpanned "No, you do not."
He made an 'eh' sound, as if to say I was probably right, and just kept sipping without a singular fuck given.
"So." I leaned back a bit "Did you only come here to thank me, or?"
"Just thought I might get to know the one who pulled me out of that fuckup is all." He shrugged "Not like you are doing much else right now?"
"Waiting for someone." I confirmed, and looked at my internal chronometer.
Twenty minutes left.
"Well in that case-" Tiny Mike began and we spent the rest of the time discussing our experiences on the job, and I made sure to take the opportunity to ask him for tips on what to do and what not to do in different situations.
He noticed it of course, but didn't bat an eye before answering.
Sadly, we were not given too much time to get into it as at 3 pm sharp I saw my two prospective teammates entering the bar and immediately making a beeline to the separate room we had reserved for our use.
"Our time is up." I interrupted Tiny Mike "Got to get back to work."
"Shame. You are an interesting one." He too started getting up "Don't be a stranger, yeah?"
Instead of answering verbally, I sent him my contact details, to which he smiled and nodded, leaving me on my own.
The meeting room Rogue reserved for our use was, to my pleasant surprise, actually larger than the one the old queen used, consisting of a large see-through glass room within the room that had enough space for a dozen people to sit around the central table comfortably.
And all of it was covered with a bunch of jamming tech, ensuring no one could spy on what was said.
Naturally I scanned it all just to be sure.
It was passable.
"Ah, Mr. Magos." James Sharpe, the old, and well sharp for the lack of a better word, man wearing a neomilitarist suit greeted me in a politely cheerful tone "As punctual as expected."
"Mr. Sharpe." I took his hand and shook it and looked to the final third of our team "Ms. Kimigawa."
The only reaction the Japanese woman had to my greeting, and proffered hand, was a slight tilt of the head and a downwards twitch that would probably be missed by lower grade optics.
Rude.
"Yumiko is a bit shy around new people, you see." Sharpe easily grabbed my attention "Come, let us sit. We have much to discuss."
I considered offering to fully introduce myself as we all took our seats but quickly discarded the idea.
The names the two of them were using could very well be aliases, and I wasn't even obligated to offer my own anyways. Besides, they didn't exactly ask.
Sharpe brought out a sleek laptop and placed his copy of Nix's chip into the dataport, revealing the same information packet Rogue shared with me earlier "As you have both learned, our target is Militech Complex N-16. The storage facility is located in the Glen and is masquerading as a large office building, leaving most of the actual structure well below ground level, with six levels that we know of."
Probably exactly six, if Nix was worth his rep.
"That could make exfiltration a nightmare." I pointed out "And I don't think Militech is about to make it easy for us and leave the cargo within reach."
"All too true." Sharpe nodded in agreement "Which is why we must employ utmost stealth."
"Right." I nodded slowly "And while I would adore the convenience of a vent system we could all crawl through, I doubt our stealth will go much beyond the 'no one can see you if they are dead' variety."
"Precisely." The man didn't bat an eye at the ridiculous insinuation of cutting through a corpo base "Which is why our plan must minimize the time spent within the complex in the extreme so that we can escape before reinforcements arrive."
I listed through my own data packet before focusing back on the real world "Before we start planning on how to get ourselves around two hundred crack corporate soldiers-"
And wasn't the fact I considered that possible a trip?
"-how about we first all share what we can do? I am guessing the two of you have already worked together but I have no idea about your skills outside of what I can observe."
"We worked together once." Kimigawa cut off whatever Sharpe was about to say, her words just a slight bit accented "This old man is just insufferably persistent and follows me everywhere."
"Ah, you wound me my dear!" Sharpe covered his heart "And here I thought we had something true."
The sneer on the woman's face could curdle coolant.
Not that my deadpan was any less telling 'Whatever drama these two had I didn't want to know.'
But, almost expectedly, James Sharpe took it all in stride, never loosing his calm smile that I was slowly starting to be cautious of, and spoke "Well I suppose it falls to this old man to start." He cleared his throat "I'm usually more of a social infiltrator-"
Right.
"-but for the purposes of this mission I am equipped with subdermal armoring and a light suite of biological enhancements. My primary is an Ajax AR, and I can use quickhacks proficiently."
'At least he is succinct when he wants to be.' I noted 'Even if he probably won't be of as much use once the true fighting starts.'
Like it or not, some of those corpo grunts probably had more chrome than he did.
Seeing as I remained silent, Yumiko Kimigawa took that as her cue and spoke next in a clipped tone "I'm a combat assassin, I have implants that reduce noise and visibility when needed. Preferred weapon is Monowire when infiltrating, primary is a TKI-20 Shingen but I also have a PLS as a backup."
She let her right arm disassemble to reveal the literal hand canon as she finished speaking, before allowing it all to return to normal with a satisfying click.
'Much more useful for the initial stages.' I considered 'And she probably hid a lot about her other implants. She was too 'noisy' to have just what she said.'
"Mr. Magos?" Sharpe called lightly.
I blinked and forced down my annoyance at being so easily distracted "As you can see, I am a Full Body Conversion cyborg. Anything below high caliber small arms can't even scratch me, and I have both Lynx Paw and Reinforced Joint implants for movement."
Kimigawa's eyebrows rose to her hairline at that last note.
"I use both a Crusher and Copperhead as the situation demands but I can also fight in melee with my thermal katana." I listed off "Aside from that I am an elite netrunner, and a master riper and medic."
Sharpe managed to keep his face straight but the small twitch I just barely caught told me how much he wanted to call bullshit.
"Bullshit." Evidently Kimigawa had no such compunctions, much to Sharpe's chagrin "If you can do all that why bother doing mercenary work at all?"
"Capital." I deadpanned.
An answer that amused Sharpe to no end, if his mustache's twitching was any indication.
The so called combat assassin on the other hand, still looked doubtful.
"Consider this, Ms. Kimigawa." I said after a moment of silence "Why would I lie about something upon which all of our lives will depend in the heat of the moment?"
She narrowed her eyes before clicking her tongue and looking away.
Sharpe, seeing the opportunity to redirect the conversation, quickly did so "Now that we have all been... properly introduced." His moustache twitched "Let's get into the meat of it. We must have no doubts about our approach and timing, unless we wish to have our names end up on a bottle label."
"Don't forget additional equipment upgrades." I added before he could get into it "The more I think about it the more I realize surviving this without enough firepower is a pipe dream."
Kimigawa hesitated only briefly before shrugging and Sharpe grinned "You are of course, correct Mr. Magos. But let us take things step by step first, yes?"
And so we did.
For five hours.
I think I knew more about the damned complex than the architects by the time we were done, and let me tell you.
I had criticisms to deliver.
In person.
-----
Now back home, I was slouched over my personal computer, looking over the strings of data uploading onto the final anti-netrunner chip.
It took a bit of convincing but the duo inevitably accepted the fact I could in fact turn a simple chip into an impromptu ICE implant, and no one wanted to be vulnerable to netrunners any more than necessary.
Which meant I would have to spend hours upon hours waiting for the program to properly compile before scanning it just in case.
Was it foolish to give these away for free?
Eh, probably in some sense.
But I needed the people watching my back to not be at risk of spontaneous and terminal implant combustion, and while both of them admitted to having ICE implants, the extra security would take a load off my own mind and thus allow me to focus more easily.
Jackie's experience had taught me much about the freshly named Net-Hobbler chip, and I managed to extract a lot of data when the gonk returned it as I expected him to. Which of course made the new versions that much more streamlined and effective.
I wasn't a complete gonk about it though, and installed a program that would delete all the data on the chip exactly twelve hours after they were inserted into a Neural Port.
The computer ejected the chip a moment later, and I placed it into a special plastic case for protection until delivery.
Thankfully, I didn't spend the rest of the day doing just that as I only needed to look over the installation process from time to time.
What I was most focused on was my newest implant, and I couldn't help the satisfied grin from forming on my face as I flicked on my internal music player and the familiar recording of organ music mixed with just the slightest touch of techno began playing in my mind.
My chair's Servo-Arms began moving just as I programmed them to and a moment later I felt something attach to the new port at the center of my spine, before clamping onto my sides and shoulders and then integrating with the rest of my chassis near seamlessly.
With only slight trepidation I activated the second stage of the process and immediately regretted it as I felt a buzz pass through my brain that was, for a second, even harsher than my Biopod installation.
If I wasn't sitting I would have probably fallen over by now. As I was now I felt myself slouching forward against my own will.
Thankfully, my software preparations kicked in less than a second later, and I felt the immense otherness of the mental processing retreat behind an instinctual kind of interface of my own making.
Finally sure my Biopod wasn't about to start leaking brain matter, I allowed my elation to return, and gave my new limb its first command.
With clarity and fluidity nearing perfection, a long snake-like appendage moved before my Optics, made up of titanium vertebrae joined together with only slight give between each other, and ending with three pincer-like prongs serving as the manipulator.
[Artifex Mk1 Mechadendrite implant detected... installation complete:
External Limb Software active, Vertibreal Harmonizer active, External Manipulator active.]
The three pincers spread out and snapped back together a few times, each move happening exactly when I wanted it to. With another flicker of thought, the mechadendrite shifted, and with speed far surpassing my other limbs it shot out to the other end of the room, grabbing a half-case of ammunition and bringing it before me without spilling any of the loose bullets out of it.
Such was my satisfaction that I couldn't help but gleefully mutter "Another step beyond flesh."
Naturally, it was exactly at this moment the world decided to punish me for my overdramatic proclamation as I felt my Agent buzz and groaned at the name of the caller.
It seemed the Tyger boss was back to play.
-------
The cult demands more fuel for its forges!
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