Extra: Residual Body

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Where did cyberpsychos gather in quantity?

Night City had an easy answer: find Maelstrom.

Those bastards loved replacing chrome without anesthesia, then bolting optical implants that violated every normal standard of aesthetics onto their faces.

Red optics, black metal tattoos, illegal modifications everywhere, sometimes even hollowed-out jaws that turned their voices into electric distortion. That was Maelstrom.

Weak bodies were useless to them. If you packed enough chrome, liked grotesque violence, and preferably enjoyed death rock, Maelstrom would open its doors.

Today's job was big.

Several Maelstromers sat in the front room playing cards, passing "good stuff" between them. Every so often, someone inhaled with a sharp hiss.

That was Maelstrom. A hit whenever they felt like it.

"Where the hell is Dum Dum? He sends just us to watch this place? Dogtown is perfect for burying people. That dog should be chopped up and bricked into a concrete wall already. I'm getting itchy."

"Shit, this stuff kicks."

The choom's arms were gray-white, covered in ugly veins and soft metal lines. He threw down his empty hand of cards.

The Maelstromer beside him, whose chest plating had been stitched poorly into flesh and chrome, held a cigarette in his mouth and slammed several cards onto the table.

"Pay up. Pay up!"

They shoved each other around. Harsh laughter and crude curses filled the room.

Bang!

A violent crash came from outside the main door. Sunlight poured into the dim room at once.

The old automatic door smoked and squealed. Its lock was riddled with holes, and a boot print sat in the middle of the panel.

Everyone went quiet, except for the Maelstrom death rock still pulsing through the room. The man who had stood on the card table found his mouth hanging open as his cigarette fell to the floor.

Backlit in the doorway stood a twin-tailed edgerunner.

She held a black shotgun.

"Shit! Mercs!"

A Maelstromer bent to grab the rifle leaning against the table, but Rebecca's gun spoke first.

The choom with the unfinished cigarette was pasted across the wall by a shotgun blast.

"Fuck!"

Every Maelstrom muzzle swung toward Rebecca. A pale-blue streak flew from behind her and scraped past her shoulder.

The wind from the shot lifted her hair. Before the Maelstromer in front of her could fire, his head split open.

Rebecca slipped sideways to cover beside the computer room near the entrance. Bullets hammered the area, pinning her down.

"Nice shot, asshole!" Rebecca shouted, waiting for the enemy fire to thin so she could step out and make those gonks regret living.

On the roof of a distant building, Cade lay prone. "You're welcome."

Concrete chips flew while Maelstrom shouted from inside. A beeping grenade arced through the air toward Rebecca.

Cade's second shot solved the grenade before it landed.

The explosion kicked up dust and debris. Rebecca was almost buried in grit.

After that shot, Cade knew Rebecca was about to explode. He packed the Nekomata and moved quickly toward the Maelstrom building.

Sure enough, her furious voice slammed into his ears a second later.

"You had your fun, assholes. My turn!"

Cade tucked his neck down and quickly told Maine they could begin the breach.

Rebecca was there to draw Maelstrom attention. If they kept focusing fire on her, it would get dangerous.

Outside the ruined two-story Dogtown apartment block, Pilar's high explosive charge was already pressed against the wall. Maine stood to one side, covering his ears and waiting.

How did you fight alleys and rooms?

Cade had learned plenty from Barghest. You did not squeeze through the front door. You blew the wall.

After the last few jobs, Maine's crew had absorbed much of Barghest's combat style. If firepower solved it, drown the place in fire. If grenades fit through the opening, throw them until the room stopped arguing.

Rebecca fired while moving with surprising agility. Maelstrom muzzles chased her but failed to bite.

Then an automated machine gun Maelstrom had set up in the distance began vomiting fire. Its accuracy was far better than these chrome-addled psychos, making it the greatest threat to Rebecca.

"If Sasha were here, this turret would be hacked and shredding Maelstrom!"

Rebecca complained as she ran around the gun. When the turret's mechanical tracking lagged, she lunged and clamped one hand onto the cable at its side.

Electricity burst with an ugly crackle.

Cade stood and fired, putting one round into a hardened support wire beside the heavy gun.

Rebecca's arm tightened. With a growl, her seemingly slim arm ripped the heavy machine gun off its automated mount.

Of course, Cade shooting off the anchor was the main reason it worked.

The muzzle turned.

Rebecca planted her feet, gripping the machine gun in both hands. The pink tattoos on her thigh made the black weapon look even more brutal.

After their first job, she had upgraded her arm cyberware. She was still far from the colorful monster gun she wanted, but at least she could lift something like this now.

"Eat lead!"

Heavy fire hammered through the room. Thick casings fell one after another, and the Maelstromers' cover was ground into dust.

Boom.

The wall suddenly bulged inward. Dust and brick exploded into the room, and the Maelstromer leaning there vanished.

A massive body pushed through the hole. The Maelstromer nearest the breach stared at Maine's gorilla-dark frame and swallowed.

The rifle in his hand fired.

Not one round hit Maine. A huge impact slammed the Maelstromer backward instead, and something in his waist cracked as he dropped.

Cade slipped in behind Maine with his gun up. Not far away, Rebecca faced the enemies pinning her, unaware that several more Maelstromers had worked around behind her.

With the Lexington X-MOD and Ballistic Coprocessor, Cade bounced rounds off cover and killed every attacker trying to ambush Rebecca.

The two of them faced their own enemies and stepped back until their shoulders touched.

"Good aim," Cade said quietly.

Rebecca's voice changed with her mood. When she was happy, she could sound almost bright. In a fight, she became all grit and gunpowder.

"Do not talk down to me. I'm the edgerunner covering you!"

The muzzle of the heavy gun in her hands glowed red.

As the last round fired, Rebecca hurled the huge weapon at the cover where another Maelstromer was hiding.

By coincidence, the gonk had just peeked out and got smashed down by the gun.

Cade and Rebecca immediately shifted firing formation and advanced through the building in a search pattern.

Once the front room was cleared, Pilar entered.

He threw Biohaz grenades from his belt into the dark underground corridor like money meant nothing. Laser-trip mines activated, then detonations thundered one after another. Curses and coughs filled the passage, along with smoke and a sharp chemical stink.

Whiz.

Several bullets warped the air as they came out.

Cade lunged from the side and shoved Rebecca away. Several rounds hit his face. Blood welled from the holes immediately, and the impact knocked him stumbling before he crashed headfirst into a pile of junk in the corridor.

Not just his face. Three bleeding holes opened in one arm too. It nearly ruined the limb.

'Why the hand again? And the right one?'

The pain nearly made Cade want to die.

"Cade!" Maine froze, then shouted.

Maelstrom fire in the corridor intensified again.

Rebecca and the others could not reach him. They could only fire back and look for a chance to move in.

From the junk pile, Cade lifted the arm that still worked and called weakly, "I'm fine!"

Lying flat, he shook his dizzy head.

Clearly, Subdermal Armor was not a perfect solution, especially not armor of this grade.

"Already paid for itself."

Pilar, ducking rounds while throwing grenades, wiped sweat from his forehead in relief.

Shit. His sister had almost been hit.

"Brat's reliable!"

Seeing that Cade was alive, Rebecca and the others poured all their anger onto the Maelstromers still resisting.

The firefight returned like a rainstorm.

Painkiller and Adrenaline Rush slowly reduced Cade's suffering. The Pain Editor began working too.

The wounds looked ugly, but they were not fatal.

Cade was about to catch his breath and climb up when a line appeared in his optics.

[System Notification]

Pilar's affinity has been updated.

Affinity: 20

Reward: Technical Ability +2; Technical Ability perk tree unlocked.

Cade let out a frightening, half-delirious laugh and spat broken teeth and blood to the side.

"Worth every bullet."

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