Chapter 46: Night Raid
"Rhys, you're unbelievable!"
The moment Rhys hung up with Babs, Jackie exploded beside him, practically vibrating with excitement. "Seven hundred thousand?! We're really gonna score seven hundred K for this gig?!"
"Nah, more like eight hundred K, technically," Maine corrected, grinning from ear to ear.
"Can you all calm down for a second?" Dorio cut in, exasperated but amused. "Did you already forget? Those Wraiths were heavily geared, lots of high-end chrome. They're not going to be easy targets."
"Who gives a shit? For eight hundred thousand eddies, no risk is too big!" Jackie shot back instantly. He'd risked his life in the Badlands before for a few thousand, ended up eating dust and losing money. For Jackie, fame and fortune were everything.
It was clear most of the crew felt the same way, even Rebecca. Edgerunners—a breed willing to risk it all for the eddies.
Only Lucy remained detached, her expression cool. Finally, she couldn't hold back. "What do you mean? You're actually going after the Wraiths?"
Hearing her, Maine paused, remembering something. "Right, Lucy, you're technically freelance on this one. Okay, you've got two choices. One, you join us for real, go after the Wraiths, and I'll add an extra fifty K to your payout. Two, you take your eight K now and walk. The car... sorry, we need the car."
"And how am I supposed to get back?" Lucy raised an eyebrow, a challenging glint in her eyes. Walk? It'd take me until tomorrow.
"Uh... maybe you could wait here for us?" Maine trailed off, realizing how ridiculous that sounded. But Pilar's car was wrecked. If they gave Lucy a ride back, they wouldn't all fit.
"Kiwi, you're going too?" Lucy ignored Maine, turning to the other netrunner. In her experience, Kiwi was a pragmatist, prioritizing her own safety above all else. She was similar to Lucy in that way. Surely Kiwi wouldn't take this kind of risk.
To Lucy's surprise, Kiwi just took a long drag from her cigarette and replied calmly, "I'm the crew's netrunner. If I don't go, where else would I be?"
Lucy: "..."
Seriously?
"We couldn't take them in the open, sure," Rhys interjected, looking at Lucy. "But this time, we're hitting them. We choose the time, plan the attack. The risk won't be that high." He was confident. With his skill active, in close quarters, he could take out a whole squad in seconds. With his current stats boosted by Potential Overdrive—Body over 15, Reflexes approaching 15—there were few people in Night City who could stop him. Sure, the boost only lasted thirty seconds, followed by a brief period of weakness, but thirty seconds... hell, how many people could V zero in thirty seconds?
"Come on, choomba. We could really use another deckhead," Maine added sincerely.
Lucy was silent for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Sixty thousand. Fifty K for the new gig, eight K for the original contract, plus the two K hazard pay you promised."
"Deal! No problem!" Maine agreed instantly. For a high-risk job like this, sixty K for a skilled netrunner wasn't unreasonable. Although... it was steep. Sasha usually only pulled around a hundred K for corpo infiltration gigs.
Seeing Maine agree so readily, Lucy fell silent again. She'd found her justification. Sixty thousand eddies... enough for a new apartment, maybe some upgraded cyberware.
Rhys had returned to the opened container, pulling out the object that had caused all the trouble. It was an animal carcass—a hyena. Its fur was intact, a metal ring clamped around its long snout, and its body showed clear signs of cybernetic implantation. Looked like Biotechnica had been running some kind of experiment out here. In the other container, Maine and Jackie had found the body of a black cat, similarly augmented. The carcasses themselves weren't worth much, but the implants, the experimental tech... Night City used cybernetically enhanced K9 units, highly intelligent and deadly. The value wasn't in the dead animals, but in the research they represented.
"What about the vegetables?" Maine asked.
"Dump 'em. What else?" Jackie said immediately. "That gonk Babs is clearly a pain in the ass. If we bring back bruised produce, he'll just find something else to bitch about. Easier to just trash it."
"Fine by me."
They piled back into the remaining two cars. Since Sasha was absent, Maine took charge of planning.
"Can't move during the day," he said over the comms, his tone serious. "But we can't just sit on our asses either. We need to go back to the ambush site, track those tire treads, find the Wraiths' hideout."
"We hit them tonight. Same plan as before. Kiwi, Lucy, you two handle any netrunners they have. Hopefully, there aren't any. If there are, we're counting on you. Priority one is getting Rhys inside."
"Send him in?" Lucy looked at Rhys in the passenger seat, at his unchromed face. She acknowledged his speed and reflexes were unnatural, that he could handle gunners with just a blade. But sending a mostly organic guy into a base full of dozens of psychos armed with heavy weapons? Wasn't that just sending him to his death?
"That's right. Once Rhys is inside, the job's halfway done," Maine said with absolute certainty. He had total faith in Rhys.
Lucy said nothing more, but her curiosity about Rhys intensified.
Nightfall. After hours spent meticulously following tire tracks across the desolate highway, they finally located the Wraiths' base: an abandoned factory complex about fifteen kilometers from the original Aldecaldo camp.
They parked the cars a safe distance away and gathered, surveying the fire-lit compound several hundred meters ahead.
Maine looked at Rhys. "Same play?"
Rhys nodded, pulling on the new baseball cap he'd just unwrapped. Katana in hand, he melted into the darkness, moving towards the target. "Wait for my signal."
Kiwi's voice came over their neural link. "Rhys, approach from the left. Main gate has three cameras, but the left perimeter wall is blind. Heh, a three-meter wall shouldn't be a problem for you, right?"
"Piece of cake."
Following Kiwi's directions, Rhys slipped through the shadows to the factory's left wall. A running jump, a kick off the wall, and he sailed over the fence and razor wire, landing in a silent roll.
Kiwi: "Alright, now the tricky part starts. I need to map the area, get personnel locations. This isn't like the 6th Street job; we don't have fixer intel. Let me... no, let Lucy jack in with you. She's better at this part."
Rhys: "Go ahead."
A moment later, Lucy's cool voice filled his head. Lucy: "Opening permissions. I need access to your optical feed for analysis."
Rhys hesitated for a fraction of a second. Compared to Lucy's detached professionalism, Sasha was definitely warmer, cuter... He suddenly missed the little netrunner. If Sasha were here, she'd be infiltrating right alongside him.
Shaking off the distraction, Rhys focused, following Lucy's instructions.
The night raid... had begun.