D’s peasant army was… truly a beautiful sight to see.

  Rogue wondered if the kid had even gotten to meet these hopeless dreamers, yet. It was probably for the best that he hadn’t, yet. Although there were quite a few among the hundreds of people in the scrapyard in Watson that were true edgerunners, they were outnumbered several times over by streetkids and rockerboys wearing sugar skull masks and luchador masks that only vaguely alluded to skulls.

  There were quite a few EMT jackets, too. Even some fire brigade jackets, red instead of yellow. Others were lime-green. A few were pure silver reflective material. The scrapyard was like an inverted disco hall, where the crowd was the spinning disco ball.

  Rogue rolled into the scrapyard on a truck driven by Claire. Riding shotgun was Squama, and next to her, a pair of hired guns, eager to shed blood after she’d told them to stand by while she relived her glory days.

  And what fun that was.

  Of course, she’d never admit that to anyone alive. And now that she had gotten into a spat with someone bigger and a lot meaner-looking than her, she felt a slight sting of embarrassment at her own antics.

  Claire stopped the car, and everyone got out. The kiddies up ahead were blasting music and driving themselves into a frenzy. “Squama,” she called out to her loyal soldier. “Get the cargo from the back and haul him up to the roof.”

  As she said that, she easily scaled the side of the truck and got on the roof as well. This body was just… incredible. A part of her had assumed that over time, she’d really start to feel the burden of a Full-Body Conversion, but she supposed that eighty plus years of experience in flesh would make her brain actually relish the novelty of chrome. She saw far more upsides than downsides.

  For now, at least.

  An irritating thought, the reminder that she was probably living on borrowed time now. But then again, who the hell wasn’t? Living forever was a rich man’s game.

  Squama made a standing jump up to the truck’s roof, dragging with him a de-legged Soviet mercenary, his torso chained up with steel chains.

  The crowd’s noise was starting to die down, replacing itself with curious whispers as they watched the old lady on the roof of a truck, next to which she held up the bleeding form of some guy. Squama hopped down from the truck, and one of her hires tossed her a megaphone.

  Lend me some of that rabble-rousing punk dirt bag energy, Silverhand. I’m counting on you.

  “They see us,” Rogue began. The crowd grew quiet now. The volume of the music reduced to a low hum that mingled with the sound of high-vis jackets rubbing together. “They see us,” she repeated louder. “Them. The corps. The gangs. The monsters who fuck shit up for kicks and profit. They see us. They hear us. And they are fucking pissed!”

  They roared now.

  She could almost see him in the crowd now. Shoulder-length black hair, those fucking aviator shades, and arms folded, the left one steel and the right one flesh.

  Perhaps he’d be disappointed in how much she had chipped in? He always did go on about how men should be more than just machines. He was right. But it wasn’t chrome that turned man into machine.

  It was losing the spirit.

  “What more evidence do you need, people?!” Rogue shouted. “What more do you need to see to know that we mean something?! If we didn’t, then why would they try so fucking hard to kill us? But they can’t. Kill me, and someone else will take my place. There’s no stopping it now. We. Will take. This city. Back!”

  The roars were almost deafening.

  Now, time for a bit of ritual sacrifice.

  She dug into her pocket, retrieved an adrenaline-injector, and jabbed it into the big fuck’s neck. He woke up with a start. “Alright, now tell us, motherfucker!” Rogue roared through the megaphone. “Who hired you to kill us? Was it the corps? Which corp?”

  The frightening-looking man, whose name was Raduga, just chuckled. “Little puppy,” he whispered. She brought the megaphone close to his mouth. “It was little puppy… all along.” He laughed. “Pizdiet... this is funny.”

  Had he lost it already? She banged him on the head with the megaphone, lightly so as to not damage the equipment. “Don’t give me that shit,” she spat, playing up her fury to the crowd. “Spill the beans! Tell the world who sent you.”

  He laughed. “Alright, you old bitch.” He cleared his throat. “Game was fun. I tilt king now.”

  “Tell us who sent you!” she roared.

  Something in the man’s expression changed. From satisfaction, his face morphed into overly dramatic rage.

  And he roared for all the edgerunners to hear him.

  000

  “—unconfirmed reports are still coming in,” Gillean Jordan said, optics frequently flickering to ice-blue as new updates were clearly being continually fed to her. “We have now verified that more than a thousand people are dead across multiple districts. Hundreds of those casualties appear to be civilians from a low-rise Heywood residential block struck by a single salvo from what authorities are calling a swarm missile launcher. The device—described by field sources as a Soviet T40 Uragan—”

  Fei Fei sat cross-legged on the Qiang’s couch, attention rapt on the holoscreen. Somewhere beyond the lacquered doors, water ran over black stone into the koi court, and the walls were all stained mahagony. She was in her family’s home in North Oak, safe as could be. The climate control kept the air at a precise twenty-one degrees with a whisper of jasmine from the hidden diffusers.

  She still felt cold.

  Qiang stood behind her, one hand on the top of the couch beside her, the other gripping a rapidly cooling mug of coffee. She cast a quick glance up to him. He was watching the newscaster with a tight, tight expression, as if he was already mentally mapping out a future threat.

  “Does this… matter for QianT?” Fei Fei asked. Her voice was small.

  Qiang’s face rarely showed deep emotion. He was a calm, calm man, and his facial modifications had only added to that image. He didn’t respond at first, just continued watching.

  “—city officials confirm multiple coordinated strikes in Santo Domingo, Japantown, Rancho Coronado, and Watson. Sources are indicating a simultaneous attack by several gangs, including the Maelstrom and Sixth Street on previously safe territories, plus cyberattacks against city infrastructure nodes.” Gillean faltered for a beat, as if even she was shocked by the next update that came in. “A MaxTac squad is confirmed down along with their AV, and mass casualty events—” Qiang sucked in a breath next to her. “—have complicated emergency routing and delayed all medical responses, including Trauma Team. We are still awaiting an official statement from the NCPD and the city council.”

  He turned to her, finally. “I don’t see how any of this will directly matter for QianT, but that barely matters. When shit like this happens, money and contracts and allegiances rearrange overnight. If the city is burning and the corps, the NCPD, even MaxTac can’t—or won’t—protect assets and people, everyone starts getting real nervous, and starts deciding very carefully who their real friends and enemies are. QianT won’t be exempt. Nobody is.”

  Fei Fei swallowed. She couldn’t care less about the citywide political implications right now, she was just worried about her family and their interests, their employees and their families. “But, who would… I don’t understand. Why would anyone use something like that on a residential block? They hit homes.”

  The TV had shown flashes of the Heywood residential block hit by a ‘swarm missile launcher,’ whatever that was, and there hadn’t been anything left except for a sea of fire.

  On the TV, Gillean Jordan’s mouth tightened. “We cannot say who is responsible,” she read. “Officials are suggesting the pattern points to a high-level mercenary operation, but spokespeople are cautioning against premature attribution. Multiple private sources, however, indicate that mercenaries with access to heavy payload launchers were active in the Badlands and port districts earlier today. Apparently, according to other private sources, a massive attack against a cargo ship in the port district is ongoing as of this very second. Again, this is all developing.”

  Qiang shut his eyes briefly. “Someone screwed up,” he said bluntly. “Or somebody just didn’t give a fuck about the civilian casualties. To say nothing about the gang’s losses. Either way: it’ll mean blood in the streets.”

  “We advise viewers in affected areas to stay inside, follow official emergency channels, and contact relevant medical services if you require them. For those with loved ones in the hit-zones, police support is currently limited. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.”

  A draft slipped from nowhere and settled on Fei Fei’s skin. She rubbed her forearms. The room’s temperature control app said twenty-one degrees, but that had to be a lie. She was suddenly all too aware of the empty space on the cushion beside. The warmth she really wanted right now.

  I wish you were here, she thought, and the thought came with David’s voice in her head saying something stupid and warm and meant only for her, something that would make her happy.

  The space stayed empty.

  000

  I paced around in the living room while Lucy was staring out the window, holding her hand near to her mouth, going through the motions of smoking but without actually doing so.

  Dorio: He’s stable. Lost a lot of blood, but his cyberware makes it damn-near impossible for him to bleed out. He’ll be out in a couple of hours.

  D: Were you followed?

  Dorio: Falco does good work. Nobody was following us. We got out of the limelight quick. MaxTac ain’t got a clue where we are.

  D: Good. That’s good. Look, I’m sorry I couldn’t help—

  Dorio: Chill, choom. Just—don’t. Not right now. You did good. I’m not blaming you. But I’m damn-near… shit. Sorry, I’m not making any sense.

  She wasn’t doing too hot either. Made sense. Maine had almost died after all.

  D: Hey, it’s alright. I’ll meet you guys soon, okay? Thank you for answering my call in the first place. I appreciate it. A lot.

  Dorio: Don’t sweat it. And—bring food. Please?

  I grinned weakly.

  D: Did you even have to ask? I’ll bring bags full of chow.

  Dorio: Talk later, then.

  Once the call ended, I sighed wearily.

  So many fucking things happening all over the city, and I felt caged inside this fucking… oversized apartment of wasteful plenty.

  Rogue was directing a massive riot of edgerunners after having apparently publicly executed the Tsviet leader Raduga before a crowd of bloodlusted mercenaries. Her actions had managed to catch the eyes of minor news stations as well. While he couldn’t get the scary-looking fucker to admit that Arasaka had hired him, he had spared the city some colorful final words.

  ‘Rage all you want, you worthless maggots,’ he had roared in Russian. ‘They will kill you all. Every last one of you miserable, worthless stray dogs! They will kill you all! And I will laugh from hell!’

  That was when Rogue had shot him. It had taken three shots from a Malorian Overture to penetrate his dome and finally kill him. He was a monster till the bitter end.

  One silver lining, at least. His dying words had driven the crowd into a frenzy.

  And... it had identified a common enemy. That would make it easier to talk to the other fixers.

  “No losses, all in all,” Lucy said. “Of anyone we know, at least. All in all, I’d say today was an okay day.”

  I could never make Lucy care about the fixers that had died. Or Ibarra, for that matter. Hell, she might be especially enthusiastic to learn that the person I had spilled my beans to was no longer able to threaten my life.

  And I knew that I had to move on from this guilt if I wanted to accomplish something of worth.

  Rogue sent me a text.

  ‘Everyone’s ready to make a call. Choose your words carefully.’

  I sighed. Took a breath, put my game face on. It’s time.

  I took the stairs up the first floor’s mezzanine floor and entered the balcony from there, tasting the relatively fresh Charter Hill air. Nothing like Arroyo’s cloying stink of pollution that stuck in your throat like sandpaper, making your entire respiratory system feel scratchy.

  Nanny materialized in front of me, seated on the railings of the balcony precariously. [You heard the woman. Choose your words carefully.]

  I shot her a grin. We both knew that wasn’t in the cards.

  I made the call.

  It was a holo-call. Rather than use my actual likeness, I just used a Net ICON, this one designed to actually look like D and not like a person with sugar-skull face-paint and blue flames for hair.

  Having joined us were… everyone. That truly meant everyone: Rogue, Wakako, Dinovic, and Reyes, the survivors of today’s massacre. Every surviving fixer in Night City.

  Regina Jones’ eye-patch wearing self had deigned to peek her head out of the hole she had dug herself into for the meet. As had the mysterious Mr. Hands, whose holo-image was in fact a pair of hands with fingers interlocked. He somewhat reminded me of the principal of Arasaka Academy. He, too, had a fixation for showing off his hands for some reason, keeping them interlocked on the desk while a lamp illuminated the glistening gold digits.

  Mr. Hands, too, had fingers plated in something that looked like white gold, and the rest of him was bathed in shadows.

  There were a few surprises, however. Two, actually.

  One: Mikhail Akulov was still here. Somehow, the man had managed to, entirely on his own, shake off an Arasaka escort to the airport, where he was supposed to get sent back to the Union. His case hadn’t been handled by the Tsviets, because it hadn’t required any real sort of violence. V had been on top of that, actually.

  But V hadn’t told me that he had lost Akulov.

  …was he mole-ing?

  Number two on the list of surprises, a Hispanic-looking woman, honestly quite beautiful, with a severe expression, who was called ‘Panam Palmer’.

  “Greetings,” I said. “You doing alright, Reyes?”

  Reyes sighed. “I’m up to my gills with uppers, but the docs did good work. I’ll be fine for the meet.”

  I gave him a nod. “First thing’s first.”

  I kicked Akulov out of the group.

  “I’ve had my fill of Russians for now,” I lied. “Secondly: Panam Palmer. You are?”

  “She’s Aldecaldo,” Rogue explained. “Nomad through and through. Ran gigs for me more times than I can count. She’s above suspicion.”

  “You know what, Rogue? I’d almost buy that, if it wasn’t for the fact that the last time everyone got together all neat and friendly, one of the motherfuckers in that room told the corps everything. And I do mean everything, by the way. They may as well have livestreamed the meeting.” I clenched my jaws. “So here’s the deal: this little thing of ours? Stays between us, and only us: not whatever huscle you think is trustworthy enough to confide in, or bring to a meeting. And if you’re all too chicken-shit to come alone to any meeting, we might as well stay huddled in our safehouses and reach out on holo-call henceforth.”

  “You say this is our fault,” Wakako asked, scandalized.

  “Actually,” Dinovic raised a hand. “Here’s what I wanna know, Murk Man.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “How the fuck did you know this was about to go down?”

  “You knew?” Wakako gasped.

  “The answer’s pretty plain and simple, I’d say. I expected it. You don’t say the shit that I said in that meeting without ruffling some big fucking feathers. I knew that at least a couple of the idiots in your employ, plus an entire fixer or two, might end up blabbing to the megacorps for a fat paycheck. And so, I put in the work. Put out feelers everywhere I could, to gauge what the response would be—and I knew there’d be a response. Ended up finding Soviet edgerunners planning an indiscriminate attack on all of you just today. If I had been any slower, you’d have all been dead.”

  “Who hired them?” Panam asked. “Which corp was it?”

  “Does it matter?” Reyes scoffed. “They’re all complicit. They need to go down all together.”

  “This is fucking bold,” Jones scoffed. “Even for them. There’s no way the media will be able to cover it all up.”

  That ship had sailed.

  “They won’t,” Rogue said. “We’ve got proof up to our tits that this was a corp op, and even the gangs are beginning to slink back into their dens until they can make sense of this clusterfuck.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Except the Tygers,” Wakako shook her head. “There will be war between them and the Maelstrom no matter what. Especially considering the fact that the Maelstrom that attacked me were real, and not disguised operatives. It does not matter that they were acting as cat’s paws.”

  Two rivals weakening one another didn’t sound like bad news to me. Gave our outfit many opportunities to look like the good guys if we were to come in and shut them down before they could endanger too many people.

  “Mr. Hands,” I said. “You’ve been quiet. Thoughts?”

  “You’ve demonstrated a knack for organization, D,” Mr. Hands said. “As you worded it, I wanted to see an army. I’m starting to make out the beginnings of one.”

  “So you’re in?”

  “I believe there is room for a partnership, yes. Though as far as personal contributions go…”

  “I scratch your back, you scratch mine,” I said. “No one works for free. I don’t expect you to.” But this was good, that he was willing to play ball. Still didn’t mean I trusted him. Guy didn’t dare show his face anywhere. That wasn’t exactly something that inspired confidence.

  I continued: “This bears repeating, but: people. There is massive profit waiting for you in this enterprise.”

  “Profit’s profit,” Dino shrugged. “This is self-preservation. They don’t get to pull something like this uncontested. Makes us look weak. Like easy pickings.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “Great,” Rogue said. “Now, people, I do have a suggestion on what our top priority should be in this current moment: disseminating the truth, and ending the gang violence as soon as we possibly fucking can. It’s all I can do to keep Heywood from devolving into pure chaos.”

  “No, fuck that, fuck that,” Dinovic said. Then, he spat it. “Fuck that! The Maelstrom almost killed me. I say 6th Street and the Tinos should squash it, but we should let the Tygers and the Maelstrom have at it until I can blow Brick’s fucking head off. Let’s not kid ourselves, here. This is how we proceed upwards. We ride the wave. Come on, Granny Dubs,” Dino grinned, his face leering at the ‘camera’, probably referring to Wakako. “We both know you could stand to benefit if the crazies in your gang went after the Maelstrom. Especially after your pachinko parlor got blown into fucking pieces.”

  I agreed, actually. “Chaos between the Maelstrom and the Tygers is good for us. I don’t have any sort of inclination towards helping them out. And our… people… are already hard at work rooting out the Bratva, and every scav they come across.” It was pretty much open season on any criminal from the Eastern Bloc. Not ideal, to be quite honest. Ethnicity-based vendettas rarely tended to end well, even if there was power in it.

  I’d have to nip it in the bud eventually if people started acting out and trying to harm innocent civilians who just happened to share a nationality with the scavs. I’d come down on them like god’s fist, no matter the political blowback.

  “What about the nomads?” I asked, hoping Palmer would have an insight into that. “Are the Aldecaldos and the Raffen Shiv at odds, now?”

  “No, it was… pretty obvious what happened. Wraiths tend not to rig their Reavers into kamikaze rides,” Palmer frowned. “Both sides are fucking pissed, actually. Might be the first time in… fucking forever that the nomads are unified about one thing. The Wraiths can’t decide if they hate you or whoever’s responsible more.”

  Hate me? Ah. I did actually kill quite a few of them. And then sell the BDs. Forgot about that.

  “All that’s left then is mollifying the Valentinos,” Rogue said. “I’ll try to get in touch with some people.”

  “I, for one,” Mr. Hands began, “have some private matters I wish to discuss with D.”

  “The same goes for me,” Wakako said.

  “We have business, D,” Jones said.

  “You all know where to reach me,” I said. “But, beyond all your personal concerns: the bottom-line comes first. Profit, and as Dinovic said: self-preservation. Profit’s just part of the game, but self-preservation isn’t. So let’s not fuck each other over on that point. I’ve said all that needs to be said. Peace.”

  I heard Lucy’s soft footsteps as she approached me from behind, joining me on the balcony. She hugged me gently around my waist.

  “What food do you think we should bring?” I asked. “For the crew?”

  He hummed. “Abdi’s?”

  I grinned. “Sounds nova.”

  000

  Mikhail Akulov sat in an interrogation room while V watched him from another room through a one-way mirror.

  He was patched through to the Soviet fixer’s agent, and was inside the call. He saw him then. D, in a call with the surviving fixers.

  The terrorist asked how Reyes was doing. The fixer was fine, it turned out. Goddamnit.

  Then, “First thing first.”

  Mikhail’s connection got cut.

  The well-coiffed man furrowed his eyebrows. “What? What happened?”

  V bent over to press a button on the console, activating the microphone. “Call him again.”

  “He—he blocked me!”

  What the fuck?! Why?!

  Just… garden-variety discrimination, huh? Probably thought he was behind the Tsviets. Or… connected to them somehow.

  “He blocked me!” Akulov repeated.

  Fuck this. V approached the exit and kicked it off the hinges, breaking the door. A bunch of suits down the hall paused to look at him.

  He ignored them, approached a wall and punched it.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit—

  Mikhail Akulov was a long-shot. No, forget that, he was a moon-shot. But V had practically bet his house on that horse. The walls were closing in. He had nothing to give to Arthur. And the calls were coming in. From above, from below, to the sides.

  He’d fucked up.

  He’d fucked everything up. Everything.

  He walked to a bathroom, and locked the door behind him.

  Then he bent over a sink and threw up everything he’d eaten and drank that day.

  He was already running on empty from the last spew-fest, so the little that was left in him was mere trickles of water and bile.

  Then, he received it.

  A call… from Jackie.

  V crouched underneath the sink, hugged his knees close to his chest, and accepted.

  000

  Gustavo Orta was dead.

  Padre was dead.

  Jackie Welles felt numb all over as he sat on the bleachers of the same dingy streetside basketball court that Padre could usually be found in, if he wasn’t delivering sermons at the cathedral.

  The same place where he’d gotten murked.

  And whose fucking fault is that?

  It was his fault. The shouting Valentinos, riling each other up to ride out to Santo Domingo and kill every 6th Street gonk they could find, were none the wiser. They didn’t know… they didn’t know.

  What they were shouting, about how it was even feasible for 6th Street to do something as foolhardy and heinous as shooting up a church, it didn’t make sense. They didn’t care that it didn’t make sense. They were angry, and they wanted someone to kill.

  Jackie stared at the contact list in his HUD. He stared at one name, one letter.

  He summoned the courage to make a call.

  The line rung. V accepted.

  Jackie: you heard the news?

  V: About Padre? Yeah.

  Jackie mustered even more courage to ask the question.

  Jackie: Tell me this wasn’t you. Tell me you had nothing to do with this.

  V took too long to answer.

  Before he could, Jackie continued.

  Jackie: Padre had nothing to do with this fight. You—you knew Padre. Why, V? What the fuck is going on?!

  V: It… it wasn’t my call, Jackie.

  Jackie: Did you know it would happen?

  Again, fucking again, he took too long to answer.

  Jackie: You made me party to this shit, V. It’s my fault now, too. I killed Padre. We killed Padre. And you… you didn’t fucking warn me.

  All Jackie had wanted to do was keep V safe. All he wanted to do was make sure his neighborhood didn’t end up being a fucking warzone, that he wouldn’t lose any more cousins or chooms out in the streets.

  And V had used that desire of his against the neighborhood.

  V: I get it if you hate me.

  Jackie: Hate you?

  Jackie stood up from the bleachers and clenched his fists. He felt tears budding as he clenched his jaws.

  Jackie: What the fuck was it all for, V? Tell me: what the fuck was it for? For you? Your corpo ambitions?

  V: Not even, Jackie. I can’t—I can’t stop this fucking machine by myself. I try. I fucking try, but I can’t—

  This fucking machine, eh?

  That was all it ever boiled down to, wasn’t it? What the corps wanted?

  And what if… what the corps wanted was no longer what he wanted at all? Would he still feel indebted to his choom?

  Would he sell the barrios out yet again?

  V was his best friend in the whole entire fucking world, and now he was being made to choose between him and everyone else. His mama, his neighbors, everyone who ever patronized El Coyote Cojo.

  Jackie: I can’t—

  He bit his tongue.

  V: What is it, Jackie? Talk to me. Please.

  Jackie: Don’t make me choose between you and everyone else, V.

  V: I—no, of course not, I won’t. I’m sorry, Jackie. I’m fucking sorry. I never meant for it to go down this way.

  Jackie sighed.

  Jackie: But it did, V. It went down exactly this way.

  V: Jackie—

  Jackie: I’m done, V. I’m done telling you shit. Obviously, I can’t meet you anymore, either. Maybe… maybe when all this blows over? And things return to normal? But right now… I gotta choose my home. And that means no more chats.

  V: Please, Jackie.

  Jackie: Please what? Please acting the fucking snitch?

  V: I’m asking you not to toss me to the fucking curb, Jackie. You don’t gotta tell me anything. Just—don’t just up and quit me. What the fuck, man?

  Jackie: I’m choosing home.

  He hung up.

  And then… he blocked V’s number.

  A new number called him. Unknown. V again?

  Jackie: I blocked you for a fucking reason—

  ???: Jackie Welles, right?

  Not V’s voice. A woman’s.

  Jackie: Who’s this?

  ???: You were Padre’s golden boy. Shame what happened to him, ain’t it?

  Jackie: Who the fuck is this?

  ???: A friend of Padre’s. You could say I was one of his oldest colleagues. Even gave him a couple of pointers while he was still starting up.

  Wait. Rogue?! The Queen of the Afterlife was calling him?

  Jackie: You’re Rogue.

  Rogue: Correct. Listen, I won’t lie and say that Padre was sweet on the whole deal that D was trying to set up. You probably already knew where he stood, beyond what he was willing to reveal to people. He used violence to discourage violence. Not the other way around. A war wasn’t his style.

  Jackie: Why are you calling me? What do you want?

  Rogue: I want to give you the truth, Jackie. And I want you to spread it. 6th Street didn’t kill Gustavo Orta, or Padre. They wouldn’t dare.

  Jackie: I know.

  Rogue: Here’s some other things you should know, then.

  She sent him a text-message. Links to news and police reports all across the city. All happening at roughly the same time. And then a list of people dead, or attacked.

  Fixers.

  It hadn’t just been Padre. It had been almost everyone. Fucking hell.

  Rogue: I’ll give you twenty thousand if you manage to stall the lynch mob, for at least another day.

  Jackie growled.

  He wanted to say something stupid and overly dramatic like ‘keep the fucking edds’, but who would that help?

  Jackie: I would have done it for free.

  Rogue: Lesson number one, kid: don’t ever do that if you can get paid for it. Best of luck, Jackie. My condolences are with you all. We’ll get them back for this.

  She hung up then.

  Fine.

  A purpose. Purpose was good. It was better than moping around and listening to some asshole scream himself hoarse.

  He stepped down from the bleachers and walked up to the forming mosh-pit being formed around one agitator, using a voicebox implant that projected his voice across several city-blocks, delivering a rant in Spanish. The fucker was loud. “These people have hated us since the beginning! Hundreds of fucking years of murdering us. Murdering us in their state, murdering us on the border just because we wanted to cross over for a better life, escaping the devastation that they rained on us for decades! They murdered us in our own countries. They will never stop!”

  The crowd roared, calling for blood.

  There were hundreds crammed into the basketball court, roaring as one, waving their guns about. The crowd extended into the streets. Windows overhead were open. People shouted out of them.

  From the ground, the tidal wave of hatred seemed unstoppable. The oldest grievance in the Latino community was being stoked, a thing that went back almost a dozen generations.

  He muscled his way through the crowd and walked into the mosh, where the screamer, a loudmouth he recognized as Antonio, gestured towards him. “Jackie Welles! You were like a son to Padre. You did jobs for him, and he trusted you with his life! Where the fuck were you?!”

  Jackie grabbed him by his shirt and knocked the shit out of him. A tooth flew into the crowd, and a deafening silence followed.

  He faced the gobsmacked masses that seemed millimeters away from tearing him apart limb from limb for that stunt.

  “It wasn’t 6th Street,” Jackie roared.

  “What?!”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Pendejo—”

  “—Hijo de puta—!”

  Jackie unholstered his gun and fired it into the air. That had the effect of stopping the converging wave of bodies in their track. Instead, they kept a distance and aimed their own firearms at him.

  But no one wanted to fire their guns. Not fucking here, where it could easily hit a comrade. They were angry, not fucking crazy.

  “I know, for a fucking fact, that it wasn’t 6th Street,” Jackie roared. “You want to know why? Because unlike you stupid, dumb fucking gonks, I checked the fucking screamsheets. Dexter DeShawn, fixer, dead. Padre Ibarra, fixer, dead. Dakota Smith, fixer, dead. Wakako Okada, fixer, her building got lit the fuck up. Just as it happened, the Totentanz got lit up at the same fucking time, and guess who was hiding there? Dino Dinovic, fixer. Got away. El Capitan, fixer, almost died the exact same fucking hour. Shootout that led to two AVs getting downed earlier today. A whole MaxTac squad team-wiped. You think all that was 6th Street?! You really that fucking stupid?!” Spittle flew out of his mouth as he roared. “Who the fuck do you think has the power to make all these gangsters fight at the exact same fucking time? Don’t you think it was fucking planned?!”

  “There’s video!” someone shouted.

  “Check the Net! There’s video!”

  “Someone’s responsible,” Jackie roared. “And I’m fucking pissed. But I won’t let myself get tricked just because I’m itching to put lead in some motherfucker’s dome! And I won’t let you make the same mistake! There’s someone responsible, and mark my words, we’re gonna make them wish they were fucking dead.”

  A loud engine roared down the street, turning everyone’s head. The massive army of disgruntled Heywoodians parted to allow an exec car through. A Cortes V5000 Valor, the same kind that Padre rode around on. And this one had the gall to have an NUSA flag on the hood.

  The crowd was stunned into silence as the person that stepped out was none other than the same motherfucker on every 6th Street Mural from Rancho Coronado to Arroyo.

  Rick Morton.

  For a gang leader, the man had a remarkably low amount of augmentations on him. He was in his late forties, had a slight gut, and wore camo pants and a camo vest jacket over a black shirt, on top of which was a holster for a gun.

  Jackie stomped on over to him threateningly. In all actuality, it was to protect him. Someone in the crowd was less likely to take a shot at him if he was near them. Then again, if anyone was mad enough to take a shot in the crowd, they might not care about hurting him. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, Morton,” Jackie spat.

  “Padre was a friend,” Rick said. He addressed the crowd. “A personal friend. Many times did I go to his church and confess to him my sins. He never broke the seal of the confession, even once, no matter who among you tried to pay him off. He was above suspicion. He was good. And he was a friend. And I hate that this happened to him.”

  “Not good enough,” Jackie growled. It wasn’t.

  “If you want someone to kill,” Rick roared. “Then kill me.” He slowly slid off his gun and lowered it carefully on the ground. Then he took off his vest, lowering the guns holstered under his shoulders. “Take me out right here, right now. But on God above and everyone and everything I hold holy and dear, Padre was not killed by any of my men. None of us would dare. None of us would have any reason to. This place, Night City, there is only dark. But Padre’s church was one of the few places of light. We would never extinguish it. That is not what 6th Street stands for. And if my death will prove my sincerity, then I gladly offer you my life.” His eyes bore into Jackie’s. “Do it, son,” he said quietly. “It’s the only way.”

  Fuck this. “And start a war with 6th Street officially?”

  “They know what I’m here to do,” Rick replied.

  No. No.

  This wasn’t how peace was achieved.

  Rick was here to save his soul. Catholic that he was, he probably thought this was a good way to earn redemption. To die for peace.

  He didn’t care about what happened next if he could have that.

  No, not even that. There was something else. Why was he so eager to just give up his life? It couldn’t have just been his faith.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. Jackie had made his decision.

  “No!” Jackie roared. “I want the truth.” He grabbed Morton by his shirt and dragged him up to eye-level. “And if it truly wasn’t you who pulled this shit, we’ll join hands. And we’ll fight together.”

  Then he pushed him away. The crowd jeered at him. “So fuck off! Take your bullshit hero act and go the fuck home. But if we find out that you’re responsible, we won’t settle for no fucking scapegoat with nothing to lose! We’ll kill every single fucking one of you!” The crowd reacted quite positively to that.

  Morton didn’t even so much as pick up the guns that he had strewn on the ground, the fucking gonk. Just leaving them there for some kids to get. Jackie stood close by so he could pick them up after he left.

  The crowd didn’t mob him as he walked back towards his luxury car, that was being dented by dozens of kicks and punches. One of them even opened the door, allowing another person to shove him bodily inside. Morton tripped into the backseat and laid on his stomach, just for someone to push the door closed, squeezing him inside.

  They laughed.

  But they let the car go.

  The unstoppable tide had been stalled.

  Jackie faced the crowd once more. “Tomorrow!” he roared. “Wait until tomorrow! Wait until we have the facts. Until we know who to hit for killing Padre.”

  Arasaka.

  You wanna come into my house? Kill my people? Turn my own best choom against me?

  They would pay. They would fucking pay.