"Damn it! What happened just now?!"
Maine's voice was a ragged snarl of frustration. He stared at Tanaka's convulsing form, his own hands clenching and unclenching as if he were trying to choke the life out of the air.
Tanaka was in a bad way. The neural overload had fried his nervous system, and his pulse was fading fast.
"God damn it! If he kicks the bucket now, we're screwed!" Maine barked, his face a mask of sweating, desperate anger.
David stood there, frozen, his mind a chaotic whirl of guilt and panic. 'What was I doing? Why did I hesitate? Why did I let him get inside my head?' He was drowning in self-reproach, the weight of his own "mercy" feeling like a mountain of lead.
Dorio was the first to snap back to reality. She looked from the dying executive to the catatonic David, her eyes sharp and focused.
"David! Pull it together! You're the one who wired her in! Get her out of there, now!"
The mention of Lucy acted like a bucket of ice water. David's eyes cleared. Under Dorio's hurried direction, he moved with blurring speed, safely disconnecting the deep-dive cables from Lucy's neck.
But the reprieve was short-lived. Maine, unable to contain his simmering rage at David's failure, finally exploded.
"DAVID!"
David didn't even have time to look up before Maine's massive palm slammed into his face, the force of the blow sending him reeling back against the cold, damp wall of the hideout.
"What the hell were you thinking?!" Maine roared, his cybernetic eyes glowing with a violent red light.
David, fueled by his own mounting frustration and the raw sting of the slap, shot back, "And what about you?!"
"What did you say?" Maine lowered his head, his shadow looming over David like a predator.
"You're the one who hit Kiwi! You're the reason Lucy had to do this alone! You're the one falling apart, Maine! So don't you dare put this all on me!"
"David... you..." Maine's eyes widened, a flicker of genuine guilt crossing his face.
But there was no time for apologies. Dorio's voice cut through the air like a siren.
"MAINE! DAVID! MOVE!"
"When Tanaka's spine blew, it took out the signal jammers! The 'Platinum Alert' has been triggered!"
"The signal reached Trauma Team!"
The room went cold. In Night City, a Trauma Team Platinum signal meant an armed airborne response within minutes. High-priority "customers" like Tanaka were guaranteed a level of protection that usually involved heavy specialized weaponry and specialized combat medics who shot first and asked questions never.
And where Trauma Team went, the NCPD,the Night City Police Department,usually followed to pick up the pieces.
They were about to be caught in the middle of a two-pronged corporate and state assault.
"Damn it!" Maine's temporary lapse in sanity vanished, replaced by the grim focus of a veteran under siege. "David! Leave the talk for later! Get the car ready, now!"
David was still standing there, dazed, until the usually gentle Dorio lost her patience. She delivered a sharp, controlled punch to David's shoulder, her eyes burning with a fierce intensity.
"WAKE UP, DAVID! You promised to see this through! So do your job and get us out of here!"
The blow did what the slap couldn't. David snapped into action. He gathered the unconscious, shivering Lucy into his arms and prepared to move.
"We'll be right behind you! Just get to the van and keep the engine running!" Maine shouted. It was clear: he and Dorio would hold the line while the kids escaped.
"Understood!"
David didn't waste another second. He activated the Sandevistan, the world slowing to a crawl as he sprinted toward the exit. He felt the familiar, bone-deep ache of the tech's strain, but he pushed through it, his only focus on the woman in his arms.
Above them, the sky was already filling with the rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of heavy rotors. The Trauma Team AVs were descending like predatory birds.
"Is this what 'Platinum Member' service looks like?" Maine muttered, looking up through the shattered skylight at the approaching armored vehicles.
"Gunshot audio recorded within the perimeter. Armed hostiles confirmed. Requesting immediate NCPD tactical support for extraction zone security," the robotic voice of the Trauma Team dispatcher echoed over the external speaker of the lead AV.
Below, David made it to the van. As he threw the door open and slid into the driver's seat, the blaring, chaotic music on the dashboard switched on automatically. The noise was enough to finally jolt Lucy awake.
She opened her eyes, gasping for air, the digital ghost of Tanaka's brain still fresh in her mind. But before she could speak, the first flashbangs began to detonate in the warehouse behind them.
The battle for Night City had begun.
(End of Chapter)
---
"Holy sh*t!"
Shuu Fumiya stared at the words 'To be continued' and felt like he'd been punched in the gut.
He was at the absolute peak of the tension, the most thrilling moment of the entire series, and Aoyama had left him hanging on a cliffhanger.
His mind was a whirlwind of theories. 'What happens to David and Lucy? Why was David's profile in the Arasaka files? Can Maine and Dorio actually survive a direct confrontation with Trauma Team and the NCPD?'
The uncertainty was agonizing. Shuu felt like he wouldn't be able to sleep until the next issue arrived.
"David... you really messed up this time," Shuu muttered, his frustration almost equal to Maine's.
To the fans, David's hesitation was the ultimate sin of a novice. If he'd just stuck the needle in when he had the chance, they would have had the data and been halfway to a safehouse by now. Instead, he'd let a corporate suit manipulate him, and now the entire team was in the crosshairs of the city's most dangerous organizations.
Even if Tanaka was destined to die, there was a world of difference between a quiet death after the heist and an explosive one that summoned the cavalry.
As for Maine... the fans were surprisingly forgiving. They understood that his erratic behavior wasn't a character flaw, but a symptom of the "disease" that plagued everyone in this chrome-addicted world. Cyberpsychosis was a tragedy, not a choice. Maine didn't want to hurt his team; he was just a man losing his soul to the machine.
But as the forums erupted in a frenzy of debate, standardizing their hope for a miracle for Maine and Dorio, the "culprit" himself was blissfully unaware.
Hayashi Aoyama was currently strolling through the vibrant, neon-lit streets of The Metropolis, accompanied by a small, orange puppy named Pochita and a beautiful young woman named Tachibana Akane, who had just returned from a trip to Japan.
For Aoyama, the drama of Night City was just ink and paper. His real world was much quieter. For now.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]