We spent the day lounging underground, taking naps and enjoying our rations while watching stupid Night City Vid Programing.

It was interesting seeing our work last night being sensationalized by the media today. I was watching one of the reporters chattering nonsense at the Garage scene when something hit me. The police were going over the area in the background, basic forensics in 2074 involved all kinds of scanners.

The blood drained from my face, we had done nothing to hide from the cameras. We hadn't policed our "brass" or recovered the bullets from the bodies. All manner of identifiers for them to latch onto. I hadn't even thought about it. My lack of forethought had just burned us good.

They had John's and my face already plastered all over the Net. They'd be able to back trace our movements... Shit!

I took a moment to consider my next steps, then I started doing what I could to mitigate the damage.

I sent a quick message to Rita, Mateo, Vik and Misty telling them to just cooperate if the NCPD came a calling. I sent a message to all available Probes to button up the Outposts by sealing them off from the topside. We'd have to expand the tunnels to have any freedom of movement around the city and hope the NCPD didn't have sensors that could penetrate the ground too deeply.

I shifted one of the robotics facilities' queue to produce a squad of Probes before returning to pumping out more Sentries. I still wanted to complete the killing quest at least once before we went home. That meant we needed a dedicated digging team to get us to the buildings we had marked yesterday.

Though it was a little too late, I designed masks for John and myself in the one of the forges. Cursing at myself the whole time. It took three tries before I managed to produce a mask we could both use without any problems.

This was why I never got around to to hiring anyone to help me back home. I was always worried that if I screwed up I'd be dragging others down with me.

Fuck, how could I be so stupid?

I really thought I was doing better about planning, and the aftermath of these actions never even crossed my mind.

Now we had to do the rest of this like some kind of mole people.

While the Probes were being assembled, I worked on some upgrades for their Particle Beams. Simple adjustments to their crystal matrix allowed for a longer lasting beam, and a reordered power distribution increased the output of the beam by around 5%. I had the ideas weeks ago I just got distracted from the implementation stage.

The new Probes were easily updated and soon all of our Probes would get modified.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

The fresh Probes lacked vitality of a Wisp infusion, but we could handle that later. Right now they started digging with their new beams. Two worked on the excavation while the other two followed behind disassembling the debris and adding the small version of Pylons into the walls. Every 400ft they added a set of Photon Cannons just in case.

The best part is now I can occasionally throw Empower Constructs on them. Which increased their workflow dramatically. What should have taken days merely took hours and we were now directly under our next target only an hour or so later than I had initially planned.

However, within moments of digging upwards, we the humans, had to retreat from revulsion. The Probes had broken into the sewage system. Thankfully, they were undeterred by the foul sludge that started cascading down upon them. Soon enough they had dammed the flow and created a workaround. The redirected flow allowed further progress towards the surface. Only then did I creep close enough to throw a barrage of Cleanses over the whole area.

The smell... blugh.

This happened two more times before we were directly under the floor of the Metalworks that had been confiscated by a gang known as The Fire.

A group of pyromaniacs that loved to burn anything and everything they could. Sadly, for them, the concrete used in modern construction could withstand incredible temperatures and so they had taken to burning other Gangs and random citizens with their plethora of incendiary devices. They even had their own makeshift flamethrowers.

We had no clue how our shields would match up to burning accelerant. So we were going to move as a group and not let them get close.

Better yet, unless they saw us come into their base, I was going to let a Probe drop a War Pylon in the mouth of the opening. Then they'd never see us at all.

The Observer that was now hovering far above reported only a dozen members in the building. The rest must have been running around causing trouble.

The encounter went off without a hitch, the Pylon hiding our presence until we were already shooting. Even the few survivors didn't have time to react to our sudden presence before we had cut them down.

Once we had cleared the area and collected the data and credit chips of the Gangoons, I let myself observe the automated Metalworks. I found the machinery fascinating, and I actually enjoyed the smell of hot metal.

The smell of burnt flesh not so much. We found piles of crisped corpses.

Given their condition The Fire hadn't gained anything for these deaths other than whatever sick satisfaction the psychos got from their victims' screams.

I wanted to give them all a proper burial, provide a little comfort and peace to the souls of these poor folk. Bring some order to what could only be called insanity. It would have to wait though, until we were sure no more of those pyro assholes still sucked air.

The Probes were scanning everything while throwing the bodies of the gangers into the tunnels where they would disassemble them later.

We waited, once again hidden by the Pylon's influence.

As the members of the Gang showed up, we simply disposed of them. Then tossed the remains into the tunnel. After each encounter I had the Probes recover any cartridges while I cast Cleanse to take care of any blood or any other sign we were here.

So easy, so efficient.

A part of me was repulsed by this, another part of me celebrated that none of my people were in any real danger while removing these scum. I merely needed to look at the mounds of victims to keep calm and stop feeling any sense of pity or remorse for the gangers.

This wasn't about honor, it wasn't about being the good guys, it was about exterminating a cancerous growth. Terrible but necessary.

When we were sure we had gotten as many as we were going to get tonight we returned to the tunnels and left. The Probes sealed up our entry point and disposed of the bodies.

A job well done.