Chapter 51: Spoils of War, Heading Home
"Still joking around, choom? You look like you're about two minutes from flatlining."
Seeing Rhys laugh brought a massive wave of relief to Jackie, who then immediately switched to his familiar, exasperated tone. What a mess... This place looked like a Scav slaughterhouse.
But wait... that big guy who was sliced open... was that a Sandevistan in his spine? Jackie's eyes lit up. He walked over to Crispin's corpse, bent down, and picked up a piece of blood-soaked, silver metal. It was damaged, sure, but it was still worth a fortune. Even better, run it through Vick's shop, and it could be installed!
"Rhys, you took out a guy with a Sandevistan and Gorilla Arms... all by yourself?" Jackie asked, looking around. He spotted Bort's smaller body, the two Mantis Blades still deployed. Jackie was stunned.
"And he had a Dynalar Sandevistan Mk.4, even better than the one I just showed you," Rhys coughed, taking a deep drag from his inhaler.
The Falcon Type-II offered decent pain relief and chronic recovery, making it better for his long-term recovery than the instant-fix Bounce Back. The only severe injury he'd taken was that Gorilla-Arm-powered punch from Crispin, which had nearly shredded his liver. If Rhys hadn't had freakish Body strength, that hit would have killed him instantly. Crispin's strength, boosted by the chrome, was close to ten on the scale.
Jackie's face was a mask of disbelief. If this story got out in Night City, everyone would call it bullshit. An organic kid takes out two guys loaded with top-tier chrome? Get out of here.
Just then, another explosion rocked the ground floor. BOOM! The whole third floor shook violently. Rebecca stomped her little boot. "Stop standing around! Get Rhys out of here, and let's go help Maine!"
Lucy remained silent. She had the eddies now. She had a reason to be here.
Jackie ignored Rebecca's demand, just offering a knowing grin. "Easy, choomba." He walked up and put a hand on Rebecca's shoulder. "Take it easy."
Then he turned to the floor below, grabbing Bort's severed head. He held it up, examining it, then turned and ran for the second-floor catwalk.
He climbed up, positioned himself, and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Everyone, stop fighting!"
Pew! A stray bullet whizzed past his face and impacted a steel beam behind him.
Jackie didn't flinch. He faced the entire crowd of Wraiths, his face fierce, his voice booming with pure, unadulterated street authority. "Look who this is, you gonks!" He held Bort's head high, then hurled it into the center of the crowd.
"Your boss is flatlined! You want to keep fighting? Come and get it! Otherwise, get the hell out of here while you still can!"
Jackie's desperate display broke the Wraiths' morale. Their leader's head tossed at their feet? The fight instantly drained out of them. "It's Bort! Holy shit, Bort's gone!" "I'm out, let me out of here!" "I knew stealing corpo shit was a bad idea..."
The remaining Wraiths scattered, disappearing into the shadows. Maine and Dorio, who had been pushing their cyberware to the brink, exhaled in unison. If the fight had gone on any longer, Maine would have suffered a disastrous cyber-overload. His chest was already smoking, his internal chrome exposed. It was over. The best possible outcome.
This Wraith family was finished. Their leaders were dead, and they'd left over forty corpses behind. Added to the ones Rhys had silently dispatched, Maine's crew had zeroed more than thirty enemies. That was enough to make the news for weeks in Night City.
Maine looked up at Jackie, who was standing tall on the catwalk. He smiled, lifting his bloody cyber-arm in salute. Jackie smiled back, returning the gesture with a thumbs-up.
...
"Fuck yeah! We're rich!"
"What the hell are you yelling about? We were rich the moment the job went down for eight hundred K!" Rebecca shouted, annoyed by her brother's antics.
"You don't get it!" Pilar shrieked, tearing at his face with his remaining arm. "The chrome on these two guys alone—we can fence it for maybe sixty thousand eddies! The Mantis Blades? That's eight grand right there!"
"Plus all the hardware in the office. Every single gun is worth thousands!"
"And all the scrap we can pull off the other zeroed Wraiths..."
Pilar's eyes were bloodshot with excitement. Everyone else shared his relief and pleasure. They'd risked their lives for eddies, and now they had more than they'd bargained for.
Lucy felt a dry heat in her throat. She looked at Kiwi. "How much are you getting?"
Kiwi, still riding the high of the successful op, looked at Lucy. "Split evenly."
"What?"
"I said, split evenly." Kiwi's mood was excellent. She winked at Lucy. "I'm looking at over two hundred thousand eddies for this gig."
"Two hundred thousand... that's enough for a new place, maybe even enough to quit the street life," Kiwi mused happily.
"Split evenly..." Lucy's eyes scanned the wreckage. She wasn't greedy; her cut was enough for her to survive for months without working. But seeing Kiwi, who had been in the thick of it with her, getting a massive haul... she felt a strange mix of emotions. Jealousy? No. Lucy actually liked Kiwi. If it weren't for her, Lucy wouldn't have adapted to Night City so quickly.
Envy? Yeah, maybe envy.
Lucy looked over at Rhys, who was surrounded by Jackie, Maine, and Rebecca. The furious little netrunner was carefully bandaging Rhys's side. Jackie handed Rhys a bottle of booze he'd found, Rhys took a swig, then passed it to Maine, who laughed and took a giant gulp.
"Alright, let's clean up the place, find the cargo, and head back to Night City," Rhys said, standing up.
"Ooh!" Rebecca cheered, ready to go.
"You know you were late, right?!" Rhys said with a laugh that was half-gasp, his voice full of mock anger.