Rancho Coronado is a relatively new suburban zone that used to be a tent city after the fourth corporate war came to an end. The nuke Johnny used on the old Arasaka building killed over fifteen thousand people instantly and irradiated the inner city completely. All utilities and authority went out the window nearly overnight, as the corporations who actually ran the place found their city headquarters suddenly up in smoke.
The city council had no real authority to do anything, and NCPD was undermanned to begin with without taking their own corruption into account. What the hell could they do anyways? The NCPD were not willing to go into the old Combat Zone due to the danger.
Did anyone really expect them to go into the central city when their headquarters was a ruin, and the surrounding areas became an irradiated hellscape that the gangs were using as a battlefield to settle scores?
No, they went back to Heywood, and the richer areas, and hunkered down as things went to hell. The people were left to fend for themselves, and were forced to migrate from the inner city to the outer edges of the city, away from the radiation and fighting.
Meanwhile the then President of the NUSA declared Arasaka an enemy of the state, and forced them to leave US soil, all while nationalizing Militech, and putting an end to the fourth corporate war.
The people of Night City were behind her and her approval rating soared with NC-Natives, until she left Night City to fend for themselves instead of ingratiating herself with them through relief efforts. Thus, killing any good will she had built and hardened an already stubborn and independent populace to rebuild despite the world telling it to perish.
Thus was the Time of the Red. The world Murk had been born and raised into, until his parents were killed, and no justice was to be found for a young boy who was left to fend for himself.
Much like his DC-Comics counterpart, this lit a fire within him, a fire that demanded vengeance. It was something he built up, and with it he excelled at everything he did with hard work and determination. All until the day came, he realized the dream of being able to fight back against the demon that laid itself in the soul of Night City.
And the first thing he did, was to create a network that allowed him to tap into the city, and see all the things that happened in the dark from his command center. The network that no longer existed in this era, save a few nodes here and there.
Hence what I was doing now. Across Santo Domingo were towers with advertisement boards spinning around them. Day and night hawking whatever the corporations wanted the people to consume. Unfortunately, these networks were an obvious target. So much so that they were actively monitored by Night Corp, and they regularly captured rookie netrunners looking to bust in through signals and steal whatever, and gonks with delusions of fighting the corporations.
Less obvious however, were the smaller antenna dishes that dotted the district.
After the Time of the Red, when the district was being built into the area it was today, they lacked network connections, so the city made do with large transceivers that acted like cell towers. This allowed all the houses and people with agents (AI equipped cell phones) to access the city network, allowing communication, news updates, and commerce to recommence as it did decades ago.
Now, these units no longer served that purpose as the city network was fully repaired, and the large towers replaced them. The towers covered the whole district and everything miles beyond the city. Enough towers were in place to handle the sheer number of users always accessing the net. Something the old antennae could not.
All they did these days was act as a redundant system for communication and television. That is not to say that they did not retain their old functions. In fact, not only did they retain them, hardly anyone was using them. Only Netrunners, Edgerunners, and gangs who wanted things on the "downlow" used them. Even then, they did it only if they had no better alternatives, because the old system just was not up to the task modern systems were, nor were they compatible with newer systems and code.
Something Murk and I had no issues with.
The streets had been mostly empty save areas where cars were burning, and 6th Street gangers partied or patrolled. It was easy to glide down to the closest dish to the dam, and work the innards of the connection terminal within its container at the base of each antenna. Soon enough, I had already connected six of them to Murk back in the cave. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would run into an issue, so I kept up the camouflage when not flying.
Didn't stop people from noticing anyways.
As I finished work on the seventh antenna, I noticed a car pull up to the small house nearby. I used the mask cameras to get a good look at the pair of men in the vehicle and hissed when I noticed "Night Corp Sec" on their shoulder patches.
Glancing up, I cursed the fact I was so close to one of the advertising towers, and quickly closed up the container.
"This where they said they saw the guy land?" said one of the security agents.
"Yeah. Black armor and such. Looked like a ninja."
"Goddamn wannabes." the first man grumbled as they reached a ladder next to the tower and began to climb up.
I stayed still as the agent climbed ten feet higher than the roof I was on, before turning around and shone a light at me.
He squinted his eyes and moved the light, not seeing me as the "chameleon" system made it appear as if I were not there. If the man had gotten onto the roof for a closer look, he would have noticed the jagged outline of the suit with a light reflecting on it weirdly.
I sat there for a minute before he seemed to reach a decision, and switched his light off.
"See anything?" the Agent still on the ground called out.
"No. Whoever it was is long gone now. Wasting our time because someone is jumping at shadows." The man grumbled as he started back down.
"Well, what do you expect. The war is making everyone jumpy. My girlfriend will not stop pacing about it."
War? Ah. I remembered now. The Unification War. Night City declared its neutrality in the conflict, but was still on the chopping block as NUSA armed forces moved in closer from SoCal. At some point the battle of Ridgecrest was supposed to happen. Or maybe it already did?
Once more I shook my head and felt a wry grin form on my lips. Ever since the neural treatments, I now possess eidetic memory. Things I forgot from childhood I can recall easily as if they happened a few minutes ago. I remembered all the good things I had forgotten in my life, and remembered even more of the bad than I already had.
I felt a grimace as the lessons of failure came to the fore. Regret and guilt hit me as memories came easily. I slapped my helmet hard to cut that line of thought, and focused on the here and now.
"You in?"
"Yes. The system is different, but not so much I can't work with it. I have access to the city net now."
"So, now what?"
"Until I find something I need, you go on patrol. Get a feel for the city. If you see a crime. Stop it. See a turf war, stop it. Otherwise, keep watch for trouble and explore."
"Alright. Rooftop hopping it is." I finished with a grin as I fired a grapple towards the tower next to the antenna, and was pulled into the air. I shifted my form in midair and quickly moved my arms to my sides. Small mechanical waldos attached themselves to my vambraces, and the wings extended out past my hands as I spread my arms back out. I gazed down as I slowly glid through the air above the town, and beheld druggies, kids partying about, 6thStreet patrols and gatherings, and some ring fights.
I was surprised. I expected to run into a crime around every corner, from both the memories of the game, and the history lessons during my two years in simulation.
Maybe my memories, and training, made me grow unrealistic expectations.
The sound of explosions to the north west shifted that view.
"There's the trouble I was looking for." I murmured as I shifted my flight towards whatever was happening. I felt some trepidation as I got closer, seeing the fires and the tracers of bullets flying about. It would be the first actual fight I had gotten into since I arrived into this world. No more a simulation where I can do it over and over until I either got lucky, or got it right.
However, I had the skills, the training, and the tools. I would have to have forgotten everything to mess this up. I landed on a roof of a nearby apartment building that had been gutted and left a ruin from a previous battle some time ago.
Gazing down upon the fight, I saw what appeared to be a three way battle, two boostergangs against one, and the two were losing.
The two were the 6th Street Gang and the Voodoo Boys. The gang they were fighting was the last group I expected to see making war on the streets.
I took in what I knew, and prepared accordingly. This was going to be interesting.
--- 6th Street ---
Mando cursed loudly as he ducked back behind a concrete divider, and shook as he struggled to eject the magazine and load a new one into his rifle. Shots fired from several submachine guns chipped away at the concrete, and covered him with dust and chips that bit into his exposed skin. His light Kevlar vest covered most of him, taking the brunt of the hit, but he still flinched and dropped the loose magazine in terror.
Sandra, one of the older members of the patrol, shouted in pain as she took a burst to the chest and fell to the ground bleeding. Laughter and jeers heard the entire time. Mando desperately reached down to grab the fresh magazine when he felt something slam into his right shoulder. He felt and heard a loud crack as his shoulder dislocated and fractured under the force of the pink and white sledge hammer that hit him full force.
Pain and shouting were his world as he fell over on his side, before his head got pulled up by the hair, and forced him to look into the eyes of the enemy. The sight was one that would be burned into his memory for the rest of his life.
Wild purple hair was all over the place, showing the insanity of the painted clown face grinning widely at him. Red nose with heavy shadowed eyes and lips in the color of blue, and a painted toothy smile that spread from one side of the face to the other with jagged, shark like teeth. The painted face was unsettling enough, but the real face under that was worse. Glowing red eyes from cyber eyes, and the real smile was a cyberware mouth filled with teeth of steel, sharpened to points, with hinges and micromotors to make the bite larger and harder. They were already red with blood, having been used on someone.
The effect was nothing less than utterly demonic. Mando lamented to himself of his bad luck. Being killed by the Bozos was not something he imagine would happen to him.
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"Ah! Another blood balloon! Let's pop it!" the clown shouts in a shrill tone, before dragging him from his spot on the ground, and into the street among the mayhem. He could barely see where he was due to the pain, and was thrown back down in the middle of the group. More bodies with missing, smashed heads littered the street where these Clowns were having their fun, and all of them were laughing, shooting, and playing a little with him before one particularly large, and fat clown walked up with a deep giggle, in his hands a sledgehammer that looked like a comically oversized mallet.
"Make the melon explode!" he shouted, raising his mallet overhead. Mando could only close his eyes, flinching away.
The whine of steel was heard through the air, and the clown felt something cut into his chest. Looking down, a disc had cut through his padded leather jacket, and began beeping.
"Uh oh!" he said comically before the disc exploded, concussive force blowing the rotund man off his feet, and across the ground into other gangers who were busy shooting.
Small orbs suddenly fell among the group, and Mando stared as they bounced. He, and others screamed in pain as they exploded like fireworks, sending sparks, bursts of dazzling lights, and loud pops through the air.
He couldn't see, or hear, he felt someone pick him up and pull him across the ground. His sight returned, but his eyes were on the fritz, with static and miscoloring along his vision. Looking up, he saw his choom Greg pulling him away from the killing circle.
Looking back, he began to pull out his piece when he saw something that made him pause.
The Clowns were obscured in black smoke, but they were fighting someone who was apparently kicking their ass. The body of a less freaky member flying and landing head first inside of a burning car was a testament to that.
He didn't know who was in there, but it was mostly Clowns. So, reluctantly, he aimed his Unity and began firing into the smoke, not sure if he was hitting or not, but better than just waiting.
He only got off five shots before something flew out and hit the gun out of his hand with a slight jolt. He cried out in pain and shock, before he and Greg quickly moved away from their spot near the curb when another Clown was sent flying and bounced off the ground. Cyber limbs sparked from being bent backwards, and a cybereye was hanging out from an optical cable as the clown slammed his face into the road, grinding synthskin off.
"Holy shit!" Greg shouted; his voice hoarse from a bad hit to the neck.
Without warning, Mando and Greg had to take cover behind a nearby piece of brick wall that had come off a building. The whizzing of tracer rounds flying over their head and pelting into the spot they had just sat. Moments later several flash-bangs had gone off and more shouts of pain erupted, with Mando wincing himself. More sounds of fighting, crunches of metal and bone, thunks of flesh being hit.
It took a moment to realize that everything was now silent. Only the roar of flames filled the air. Mando blinked, and squinted as he looked over the cover he had taken refuge behind, and his eyes widened.
Standing among the flames, the smoke, and bodies of Clowns, was a man wearing what looked to him to be some preem armor. All black, heavy, and looking straight out of "Cyber Ninja Chronicles". The only thing off were the weird ears that stuck up. It gave the man a look of inhumanity, especially with the glowing red optics.
The figure looked over his work before glancing over towards him, and then to where the rest of his gang were. Without a word, he raised his arm, and a grapple shot out. It hit something, and went taut as it yanked him into the air.
Mando, got up, and ran around the corner to see where the guy had gone, only to see nothing.
"…Damn."
---
I flew over the roof tops. I went for a landing, opening my wings to slow my descent, and rolled to a stop on an old warehouse.
"Bozos. Great, and I bet they're led by a Joker or something, because of course they would be." I groused as I rolled my shoulders.
I kneeled and caught my breath, letting my heart rate slow down while counting my bombs and discs out. I had just used them in a turf war or something, so I may have to call the car for a refill.
On the plus side, the physical combat test of the suit was successful. It would have been easy to just shoot down at the gang and call it a night, but I had to put this suit through its paces since it had not gotten used before Murk kicked it.
Given I had just kicked the crap out of no less then fourteen gangoons, without taking too much damage for the trouble when I was hit, I would say it was a success. The armor tanked a full barrage of fire from seven of them, taking minimal damage, before I hit them with flash-bangs.
Aside form some dings, scratches, and tiny dents, it held up against pistol and rifle rounds. The armor is rated to handle heavy weapons, such as machinegun rounds and grenades before its compromised. That was then though, and while ballistics haven't changed since…forever, methods of projection have. I hadn't seen any tech weapons among the Clowns, nor any smart weapons. Just standard weapons really.
If I had stuck around, I would probably have seen something from the other two gangs.
Speaking of which, the sound of gunfire sounded where I came from. Probably the survivors of the 6th Street gang finishing off those I didn't outright just remove.
I flexed my hands as I did diagnostics. The micro-motors in the arms turned what was already a power limb into an outright lethal weapon. The face of the first clown I punched just broke under the force I exerted upon them. Synthskin peeled off as the "power jaw" was forced from its place and broken off its hinges. The follow up hit to the skull was enough to kill the gangoon.
I clenched my fist. My first kill in this world. The last two years of VR training have eradicated any hesitation or issues I had with doing such a thing. Still, it did sink in that it had just happened. I had fears of how I would handle myself when the time came…
=== 2 weeks, 4 days ago / 308 days ago, simulation time ===
"Please! Don't do this!" the Corpo begged as I watched Murk place the muzzle of a pistol against his forehead. My stomach twisted as I watched, every instinct in me yelling to stop this. Rationality fighting against emotion.
I had to remind myself that this was a simulation, that it wasn't real.
The tears streaming down the man's beaten face looked real enough. I didn't even know what this "mission" was other than to capture this guy and take him to Murk. I wasn't expecting Murk to then begin interrogating and torturing the guy.
I had protested, but was forced to stand by where I was and learn.
I learned more than a few things from Murk. Most of it I revolted against.
The man screamed that he had Trauma Team coverage, and that we were dead, only for Murk to take the man's manually activated Trauma Card, break it, and waited five minutes. As the time counted down, the man began to look more and more unsettled until he realized help wasn't coming.
Then he started talking, making offers, until Murk began to beat him to a pulp.
Murk demanded answers between punches periodically, before the man finally broke and gave what he wanted. I didn't understand what the "data" he gave was referring to, but Murk did.
It was enough, and Murk pulled out a pistol.
"I-I…I don't want to die!" the man screamed.
"Tell that to the Stricken." Murk growled before blowing the man's head off.
The man bled out from what was left of his cranium, with his brain matter splattered across the walls.
I grimaced as I stared before looking to Murk with a glare.
"What the hell was this!?" I growled.
"An old case."
A holographic file appeared before me, detailing the Corpo and the "Stricken" Murk mentioned. As I read, understanding came to me, and the more I understood, the more horrified and angrier I got.
"Eleven hundred people…" I murmured.
"Eleven hundred Victims. Victims of Biotechnica's testing of biotech weapons. Attacking of genetic markers of specific people. This man was the one in charge of that program."
The file disappeared as I looked to Murk, cleaning his pistol, before looking down at the victim turned perp. Any feelings I had of stopping what occurred went away, and in retrospect, I realized that Murk wouldn't have shown me such a thing for no reason.
"So, what exactly was this whole thing for?"
Murk was silent as he placed the pistol in a case, which disappeared, and turned to me.
"This is the beginning of the next stage of your training. You have had basic combat training with the military programs. Now you must handle using it on people. Not just robotic targets that fight back. In addition, you must begin to experience the way things are in Night City."
He glanced over expressionlessly over the dead Corpo.
"You will face situations where you will have to take life in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. You will face it, and you will become desensitized to it, until you are able to do it without remorse or hesitation."
I frowned. "…Just killing? Not just stopping them?"
Murk's eyes narrowed for a moment before looking his normal stoic self again.
"While you can have a no-kill policy…you will find that heroics like the comics do not work in the real world. Often you will find yourself having to kill, and often because such choices only leave enemies to come back worse than before."
He looked back at me, a hardness that was not present before filling his being.
"I learned this the hard way. In the end, ending the threat before it can fester and grow is the only real choice. Better that you get used to it than falter when it does happen."
We stared at one another, and once more I was reminded the simple truth of this world.
Cyberpunk is not a good place.
=== Present ===
My eyes narrowed from the memory.
I got used to killing. I did not hate it, but I did not like it either. I had always managed to solve most problems in my life with talking, or showing that violence was the worst thing the other asshole could have done.
I'm not a pacifist, but I wasn't a warmonger either. I was just in that sweet spot most people fit in, though more willing to handle my shit than most people
If I was going to kill, I would have a good reason for it, rather than it to be my go-to for all situations.
The sound of cars driving through the Glenn on a wild ride grabbed my attention, and I stood up.
With a roll of my neck, I fired a grapple and was sent flying into the air.
The Night is young, and I had more to do.