"It's done."
Sasha stepped out of a bathtub filled with melting ice. In the room, the rugged Maine tilted his head at a forty-five-degree angle toward the ceiling, looking completely unsurprised.
Pilar wasn't around—probably tinkering with some junk in his workshop again.
Dorio draped a coat over Sasha's shoulders. Everyone was waiting for good news.
Diving into cyberspace was indeed one of the most effective ways to track leads. Netrunners also used it to support teammates in the field—providing intel or early warnings.
The catch? Don't get caught by the other side's netrunner. Corporate hackers would fry your brain without hesitation if you were exposed.
Rebecca—who had been specifically called out by Liam as a "Barghest idiot"—looked uninterested. She lay on Sasha's wide windowsill, hands behind her head, eyes closed in boredom.
"Dogtown's Net is just as busted as the town itself. But I got his name—Liam Carter."
Sasha smiled, her eyes narrowing into crescents. The cybernetic whisker-like markings on her cheeks made her look like a lazy, satisfied cat.
"And get this—someone's been running full protection on his data. Guy's got a personal netrunner shielding him."
"I don't know any Liam. Don't tell me the Barghests are actually onto us?" Rebecca blurted, leaning too close to Sasha's face.
Maine lifted Rebecca like an action figure and set her down on the bed.
She crossed her arms and sulked, burying herself inside her oversized collar.
Sasha shrugged and continued:
"Doesn't look like it. No operation logs from the Barghests tied to him. But the weird part? He got kicked out."
"His whole squad got handled by Hansen. Even his gambling buddies."
"As for the transport security—that was us."
It was Hansen's style to clean up loose ends after a job. But the fact that he spared this man named Liam puzzled Maine.
At the end of the day, it was business. A cyberpunk crew takes a contract, executes it step by step.
What worried Maine was retaliation. Colonel Hansen wasn't exactly conservative in his methods. And now this "former Barghest" named Liam was still alive—
Which might mean Liam knew something.
Maine looked up.
Everyone in the room wore the same grim expression.
"How easy is it to get into Dogtown?"
That question settled it.
Whatever Hansen's intentions were, the fact that Liam was alive made him a liability.
"We can find a fixer. There's a way in through the outer wall—but it'll take time," Dorio said, understanding Maine's plan immediately.
Rebecca slammed her fist into her palm.
"We deal with this ourselves."
Sasha nodded.
"I'm ready anytime."
...
Five hundred eddies. Five. Hundred. Eddies!
Liam's heart was bleeding.
Fifty rounds of tech sniper ammo had cost him that much.
He'd bargained hard at the Stadium Black Market, shaving off fifty eddies from the gun shop owner before finally sealing the deal.
Still, the sniper rifle wrapped in cloth on his back brought him some comfort.
If he could quantify his own abilities into stats, did that mean the skill trees from the game could work for him too?
He tried.
No luck.
Points could only be assigned to base attributes—and even those were predetermined.
Back when he played the game before transmigrating, stat points had caps. That meant choosing a build: blades, netrunning, rifles, pistols—each required investment.
For deep gameplay testing, he had even used cheat tools to try every build path.
But now? Futile.
The Development Reward System locked the points to specific attributes. He couldn't interfere.
Name: Liam Carter
Body: 9
Reflexes: 6
Technical Ability: 2
Intelligence: 4
Cool: 5
Liam frowned. Why did my Body attribute go up by one?
Was it from Mr. Hands' affinity reward?
No… wait.
A hollow feeling crept in.
He remembered.
The bloodstained military gloves still sitting in the washing machine. A gift from Sano.
No time to mourn "friends." Liam followed the road from the Dogtown checkpoint up toward the hilltop.
The hacker Mr. Hands had mentioned still hadn't answered his calls.
No idea what that guy was busy with.
Along the way, Liam passed a few hostile-looking Animals members and some drunks. He even stopped to watch a boxing match before arriving at the agreed location—a run-down motel.
"Beep—"
A distorted, fuzzy doorbell rang.
The hacker Mr. Hands called "Hamster" was cautious. By the time Liam reached the door, a surveillance camera had already locked onto him with a scanning beam.
He looked up at it.
A hoarse male voice crackled through the intercom.
"Yeah?"
"Mr. Hands sent me."
The door clicked open.
The corridor was piled with trash. What had once been a dining area now had tables stacked to one side, replaced by several sentry turrets.
From the moment Liam stepped inside, the barrels—capable of blowing fist-sized holes through him—tracked his every move.
Hamster's voice seemed to echo from everywhere.
"Third door on the left. Turn right. You'll see a ground cable hatch. Lift it, climb down. Close it behind you."
No warmth in his tone. He clearly wasn't thrilled about this job.
Inside the underground utility tunnel, only emergency lights glowed. The dim green illumination felt like a path into hell. The deeper Liam walked, the hotter it became.
After climbing out of a pipe opening, he stepped over a dense web of cables and saw a man reclining in a netrunner chair among rows of humming servers, still immersed in cyberspace.
What a shame.
If I could install a netrunner operating system cyberware, maybe someday I could enter cyberspace myself.
The thought lingered briefly.
"Did Hands tell you what you're supposed to do?" Hamster asked without opening his eyes.
Liam set down his rifle.
"Block the cyberpunk crew coming after us."
Hamster burst out laughing.
"You say that like it's as easy as heading to Clouds for a 'good time.'"
"…."
With only 4 points in Intelligence, Liam had to admit—being mocked almost made him feel like an idiot.
When that crew showed up in his face, what exactly was he supposed to do?
Honestly, he already knew which crew Hands meant. Anyone with half a brain could guess—it was Maine's team.
He gave himself a silent warning.
If things went bad, he'd better run fast.
Street mercs didn't stop chewing once they locked on.
"The netrunner in that crew is sharp," Hamster continued. "She knows where to find you. I've seen it clearly. But she's only interested in you. Hansen's nest is guarded by former Militech hackers—they can't touch him."
"And you, my friend? You're the discarded piece. Hands pushed you out as the ICE."
(Note: ICE - Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics, just think of it as a firewall.)
Liam nodded.
"So what, you're gonna train me? Like, what do I say to a cyberpunk crew trying to kill me so they holster their guns and go grab a soy-meat combo meal in Westbrook?"
He swore he only said that to provoke Hamster.
"Hahaha—idiot."
Hamster actually laughed.
"Relax. I'll handle the netrunner. Hands cares about this job. I'll upload the fake data. If their strike team comes to flatline you, just hold out a bit. The Barghest will show up once they hear the noise."
Liam pointed at himself.
Hold out?
Me?
"Wait. It's really just me?"
Hamster's tone was firm.
"Who else? We're playing cat and mouse now. First step—don't let the cat catch you. After that, Hands will arrange a ripperdoc at the Stadium. You'll get a little cosmetic adjustment."
"One extra person means extra risk."
"I take my cut. You change your face."
"We stay out of each other's business."