Chapter 220

We were making good progress and frankly there was a lot of stuff. Ichi was actually considering heading out with his van and coming back with the Behemoth and Hiromi was angling for that, but I kind of wanted to just get the good stuff and get out.

 

I took a break from grabbing loot to head to my Quadra, my old Shard literally didn’t work anymore, and that alone pissed me off all over again. I’d ended up breaking into my own car just to figure out what the hell had happened.

 

That device the gonk that stole my car had, really was a shard writer, it reset the vehicle to a new shard, basically re-keying the car.

 

The fact was my old shard really was useless. I had to flash a new shard as I wasn’t sure which of the gonks had actually kept my car’s new shard and I didn’t want to find out.

 

Re-keying my car took a while and when I finally opened the car I rolled my eyes at the mess inside.

The fucker had obviously been going through some shit, mostly my grenade box was opened, and from the way it looked… I’d put money on him realizing it was a bunch of grenades and doing everything possible to ignore that fact.

 

People were so squeamish about explosives in the same car as them.

 

But there was something missing.

 

“Tachikoma?” I’d set it on guard mode, but… Where was it? I reached out with the control shard and it did instantly connect which had me relaxing, but when I looked through the Tachikoma’s eyes I could only see darkness…

 

I bent down and stuck my head entirely under the seat.

 

“How did you get back there?” I couldn’t help but wonder as it was not just under the seat stuck as it struggled weakly trying to move, but was even upside down.

 

I reached in and with a bit of untangling got it free and flipped back right side up.

 

It wiggled a little.

 

Hmm. It must have reacted to the intrusion on the car but… Got itself stuck under the seat?

 

“We really need to work on your thought process.” I told it, as I settled it on the passenger seat, and double checked my car’s computer. The re-keying device was very brute force, and the last thing I needed was my poor car to fry its own computer.

 

Thankfully whoever had made the thing was talented. It hadn’t fried anything, simply disrupted the normal system long enough to switch keys.

 

“All good choom?” Rebecca called out as she stuck her head in the cab.

 

“Yeah, I re-keyed my car, and thankfully nothing is fried or broken.”

“Damn. You said this was from a piece of tech.” She asked, and I pulled the carjacker out from my jacket pocket and handed it to her.

 

“Wait really? This thing stole your car?”

“Yeah it took a bit, it needs to break the security and then slowly convince the car that a new shard is the key, but that’s what it does.”

“Huh.” Rebecca whispered, folding it over in her hands as she looked at it in interest.

“You want it?” I offered, because that was a greedy look on her face alright.

 

“Wait really? You sure?”

“I don’t need it Becca, if I want to break into a car and steal it I just break into it and steal it. That thing would take like ten twenty minutes minimum on most vehicles, and I doubt it’ll work on the real top of the line stuff. Malcolm’s Caliburn is safe.”

“Heh. I bet he’d shit his pants if I pulled up one day driving his baby.” Becca whispered evilly, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought.

 

“No stealing Malcolms baby, I really don’t want to get a call from him freaking out. Again.”

“Alright alright. Thanks Choom. I mean I got my own car now, but…” She grinned a bit evilly. “There’s this one car I’ve had my eyes on, but never really had the eddies for you know?”

“Just don’t get caught, or better yet have some backup or something.”

“Nah I know the owner. A real asshole. Used to make fun of me for always walking when Pilar took the car.”

“Ah. Revenge. Got it.”

 

The moment was ruined as I heard a heavy engine rumbling getting close suddenly. Rebecca instantly reacted, rushing to grab her HMG while I stood up to see what was happening.

 

BARGHEST was here.

 

The former Militech soldiers had very specific colors and mods to their rides, and one of their rides just turned the corner onto the ramp down into the construction site. The thing looked like someone took a truck, put a Van on top of the frame, and then stuffed it with armor and weapons.

 

Dangerous.

 

Very dangerous.

 

*Ichi, Malcolm, we have company of the unfriendly variety.* I called out to the both of them on our call channel, and then casually took a position at the back of the Quadra leaning against it as I watched the vehicle slow down, and a few Barghest guards clambered out.

 

Kids. They were basically kids. Not that much older than I was. Three boys touting Copperheads and body armor to try and look mature. But I doubt any of them could even shave, and one older guy. Definitely an actual soldier. He had the look in his eyes.

 

“Evening.” I called out loud enough for them to hear as I continued to lean against the back of the Quadra.

 

“You’re not Daniil, or a member of his group.” The big guy called out, he was carrying a nice Crusher, the Militech Shotgun. Definitely modded out too.

 

“Nope.” I responded just as calmly. “If you’re talking about the scav group that used to live here, they came down with an unfortunate case of dying horribly.” My words had the intended effect. The old soldier didn’t bat an eye, but the three kids were pointing out the dead bodies still lying out where they had fallen.

 

Joking around and whispering to each other about the bodies.

“Focus up!” The old man snapped, and the kids went rigid, their joking ending, and their guns all settling into grips ready to fire if needed.

 

Good training, but not that good.

 

I’d been hacking them from the moment they stepped out of their beast of a rig after all.

 

The big guy stepped closer, close enough we were no longer shouting at each other, and he looked me up and down.

 

There was a flicker in his face. No doubt he was trying to square the situation. Teenage girl with a lot of chrome sitting in the middle of a former Scav base that was now a graveyard.

 

His brain was no doubt fighting against the reality of what was in front of him.

 

To my surprise, he nodded simply.

 

“Not gonna ask why you felt the need, not my bizz, not Barghests bizz, but they were affiliates. Taking ‘em out? That’s gonna cost you.” He rumbled out in a gravely voice.

 

Was this guy trying to get eddies out of me or something?

 

“Not sure what you want, these gonks stole from me, I came back to collect. Far as I’m concerned, the business is done. If Barghest wants something, then Barghest is going to need to be frank about what, and why. Cause I’m just not seeing where they would get a cut.”

 

“Heh. You just came to clear out all these slime fucks, without a Fixer? That’s not very smart.”

“They stole from me.” I repeated and the man actually had a smirk on his face at my words.

 

“Hmm I can respect that. Even appreciate it. Not like these scop suckers are worth much. But still. Barghest had a deal with them. We like to keep things peaceful. People that break the peace? Disrupt the way things are? It causes us trouble. We have to explain why something happened when things are supposed to be quiet, peaceful.”

“And what does Barghest want? Cause I don’t talk eddies or deals. The only thing I deal in is death.” I repeated, because I hated this sort of stuff. Just tell me what you were trying to rip me off for and we could go from there.

 

Oh wait that actually sounded pretty cool. Good job Motoko! You said something preem!

 

The Barghest kids were chuckling at what I said, but weren’t taking me seriously, but the older man? He just nodded.

 

“The cost for something like this is standardized. I’ll pass the deets.” He offered somewhat kindly, in the gruff manner the man had, and I got a text which had…

 

Actually costs for attacks and things on Dogtown grounds.

 

This was… You had to be fucking kidding me

 

“This is the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen. NCPD has never tried to demand bribes so blatantly.”

The author’s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“NCPD are a bunch of morons. Colonel knows what’s up.”

 

“Alright give me a minute. I’ll send this to my numbers gal. This is fucking hilarious.” I sent the message to Hiromi, along with an explanation, and just continued to lean back against the Quadra.

 

It took a minute but I got a response back, and Hiromi telling me to give her a minute to look everything over.

 

So I just relaxed, waiting.

 

The soldier chilled out. Even though I noticed that his eyes flickered to Becca who was staying mostly hidden every once in a while.

 

“Don’t worry. If a fight breaks out you’ll be too busy dealing with me, to worry about her.” I offered to the man, and there was that flicker in his eyes of surprise, before his face broke into a grin.

 

“Yeah, I think you’re right on that.” He gruffed out a laugh, and actually seemed to truly relax. “Never liked these assholes. Always caused problems, liked to grab people they shouldn’t and pretend they hadn’t done shit. Bizz is bizz, but I appreciate them being gone. Hell of a lot of gonks to flatline in an afternoon.”

“Eh. It wasn’t too bad actually. I had to rush things a bit at first, cause they had my car. Some gonk stole it from the Stadium parking lot, and I had to rush all the way here to make sure they didn’t sell it off, or start taking it apart. After that, it was just systematic.” I shrugged and my low key response gave me a respectful nod.

“Hell of a job with just a few. You got what three, four upstairs? And that one with the HMG?”

“Oh they arrived after. I cleared the place before they got here. They’re just here to get a return on my time investment.” I offered, smiling at the semi-corpo speak.

 

Hiromi would have been so proud if she heard me just then.

 

“Just you?”

“Just me.” I assured him, and the kids were scoffing none too quietly.

 

“Don’t believe me?” I asked them and one of them spoke to me, only after glancing at the old man.

 

“Fuck no. You’re a kid, no hardware or shit. Those shitty arms of yours aren’t impressing.” The kid offered showing off his own left arm which was a pretty high end Militech prosthetic.