They entered the server room.
What happened next was similar to the game.
Jackie and Dum Dum began a "friendly consultation" over whether or not to sit on the sofa. Just as the two sides were about to engage in a more specific special conversation action, V, who "hated fighting but loved stopping fights," stepped forward, blocked both of them, and told Jackie to sit down quietly first.
Dum Dum sat on the table, pulled out a pipe, and enthusiastically invited V to take a hit. After V shook her head and refused, the guy took a puff himself, swaying his head. The smoke he exaled was black.
Combined with the acrid smell, Berry suspected that while others smoked cigarettes, this guy was smoking nuclear waste.
Due to their crude modification surgeries, Maelstrom members suffered nerve torment from aggressive cyberware. To numb the pain, they smoked potent stuff—enough to send an ordinary person straight to their great-grandfather.
"He's what you wanted, right? flathead, MTOD12 Model." At that moment, a Maelstrom member placed a heavy box on the table. Dum Dum patted the box and looked at the three Mercenaries.
"Let us see it." V glanced at the box, then looked back at Dum Dum.
"Fine, look." Dum Dum opened the box, pulled out a Control Chip, and inserted it into the slot on his head.
"This thing has plenty of tricks. Dynamic Photothermal Camouflage Armor, equipped with an Immersive Cognitive System running a Raven Controller." Dum Dum sounded like a salesman, describing the flathead's various functions. As he spoke, the flathead, resembling a steel spider, occasionally went invisible, moved its mechanical arms, and then swiftly darted off the table, scrambling onto the ceiling with agility greater than an Alien.
This made Berry's eyes light up, and she drooled with desire.
It really was a good item. Given the flathead's excellent performance in stealth and concealment, Berry was already itching to dismantle it piece by piece and understand every bit of technology inside.
Dum Dum kept promoting it, but Berry couldn't hear a single word, completely engrossed in the vividly active flathead.
If the flathead robot had emotions, seeing Berry's gaze—which wished to devour it whole—it would probably start regretting being unclothed.
"Alright, we'll take it." V was still negotiating.
"Good stuff, truly good stuff." Dum Dum removed the Control Chip. "Now, pay up."
"The money was given to Brick." V frowned.
Hearing the demand for money, V began to suspect that Maelstrom was trying to renege on the deal.
Just as V mentioned Brick, the roller door to the front room was violently pushed open, and a Maelstrom brute radiating intense hostility suddenly walked out.
"'Given to Brick...' Heh heh." The big man approached furiously. Just as the trio realized something was wrong and prepared to draw their weapons, he beat them to it, pulling out a pistol and aiming it at them.
Seeing their boss make his move, the surrounding Maelstrom subordinates quickly raised their guns and aimed at the trio. In an instant, the situation flipped, and V and her companions found themselves in extreme danger.
"Where's Brick? I don't see him, do I?"
The mocking voice belonged to Royce, the new leader of Maelstrom, whose face was half-scooped out and replaced with a crimson monocle. Hearing the name of the former leader, Brick, sent him into a rage, and he pressed the muzzle against V's forehead.
Seeing V held at gunpoint, Berry instantly clenched her jaw, glaring angrily at Royce.
The game was one thing, but seeing V threatened with a gun in reality, Berry found she couldn't suppress her temper.
Daring to point a gun at her girlfriend, this guy clearly didn't want to live.
Seeing V held at gunpoint, Berry instantly changed her mind. To hell with the deal, to hell with pretense. She wanted the guy threatening V dead.
With long and short guns aimed at the trio, Berry gripped her pants tightly. Her "vitamin b" was tucked into her waist. If she found even the slightest opportunity, she would enlighten Royce.
"Seriously, you want me to pay again?" Though startled for a moment by the sudden threat, V quickly forced herself to calm down and negotiate with Royce.
"This is my turf, no haggling." But with a gun to her head, Royce was clearly determined to fleece them, completely unyielding. "If I say pay twice, you pay twice!"
"Fine, you want the flathead, right? Then cough up the money." Royce was obviously certain he had V and the others cornered, and his tone was uncompromising.
"I think since you already got the money, you should give us a good discount."
"Discount? Discount your mother's coin." Royce spewed vulgarities. "You know, you won't say who sent you, or who you're working for..."
"Dexter DeShawn, he sent us."
"Dexter DeShawn... that old fat pig who punches the Animals and kicks Pacifica? He's still alive?" Hearing that V and the others were sent by Dexter DeShawn, Royce seemed to hear the joke of the century. He turned to mock his subordinates, subconsciously lowering his gun slightly.
A chance!
Her Fourteen-Point reaction instantly kicked in. Berry's eyes flashed, and almost the moment the thought occurred, her hand had already drawn the revolver tucked into her waist.
"Bang!"
The deafening roar of the heavy revolver exploded in the small server room. Above Royce's nose, his head was suddenly empty, as if instantly erased by some cheap photo editing software. The mocking smile on his lips hadn't faded, and he froze on the spot as if the pause button had been pressed.
The subordinates who had been laughing along with their boss froze, their faces speckled with crimson blood.
The abrupt change caused the atmosphere to fall silent for a full second.
Only when the headless body of Royce crashed down did everyone snap out of their shock.
"Move!"
V and Jackie were actually startled by Berry's sudden burst of violence, but the nerves honed by years of surviving bullet storms allowed them to react instantly. Shouting, they leaped up and dove behind the sofa, opening fire on the Maelstrom members present.
"Eliminate them!"
"Don't let them escape!"
Only then did the Maelstrom members react, pulling their triggers. Explosive gunfire and muzzle flashes erupted instantly, making the small room burst into a colorful spectacle, as if hundreds of fireworks had gone off simultaneously.
Everything around them—desks, computers, monitors, walls—was hit, sending sparks flying and debris scattering. Bodies and furniture alike were ripped apart in the storm of gunfire.
Maelstrom had superior numbers, but the trio were elite Mercenaries, especially Berry, who was a genuine sharpshooter. The sound of the firefight nearly blew the roof off the building within a second.
In the rain of bullets, Maelstrom members dropped one by one.
Berry's large-caliber revolver, in particular, could nearly launch a gang member with every shot, causing them to fall, spewing organs and cyberware fragments.
Soon, the last Maelstrom member fell, and silence returned to the room, broken only by the ragged breathing of the three survivors.
"We need to get out of here fast." Looking at the corpses littering the floor and the wrecked room, Jackie put down his smoking gun. "Grab the gear—the robot and the Control Chip, hurry!"
"Mm... We need to find a way out quickly." Stepping over a body, Jackie headed toward a potential exit. "Right, contact that Arno, and have him open a path for us through the back door."
"Can we rely on him? Never mind, I'll contact him now." V closed the box containing the flathead, picked it up, and prepared to call Arno.
"Don't worry about it, V. I already contacted him." Ejecting the golden casings and reloading a fresh cylinder of bullets, Berry said calmly.
She had already started the process.
Damn it, the plot was back to how it was in the game; they had to fight their way out of the factory.
But this factory wasn't like the game where they could escape by bypassing two or three rooms. This entire facility had over a dozen rooms, with at least dozens of fully armed Maelstrom members waiting for them. She had to make Arno move quickly to open an escape route for the trio.
"Let's go, V, let's get out of here!" Berry held her gun, covering V from the rear. Simultaneously, with her attention split, Arno outside also began to move.
"Understood." Although V didn't know how Berry had contacted Arno so quickly, she trusted Berry and followed Jackie, carrying the briefcase.
Meanwhile, outside, the sky had darkened, and a light rain was falling.
Stepping through the rain, Arno, his leather jacket soaked, walked up to the factory gate flashing with alarm lights.
The reinforced roller door was tightly locked. As a robot, Arno had a hundred ways to open it, but after a second of thought, he chose the quickest method.
He rolled up his sleeve, revealing his bare arm.
Amidst the whirring of mechanical gears, the synthetic skin on both sides of his sturdy arm peeled back, exposing the steel wiring inside and a protruding black cannon barrel.
He raised his hand, aiming the dark muzzle directly at the factory gate.
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