Leashed Dogs

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Through the sniper scope, Cade could see a newly installed automatic door behind the spa's rusted iron gate. The camera above it swept the surroundings again and again.

Inside was a dim corridor. Behind a translucent curtain, servers cast a dull red glow.

Cade let out a breath. The structure seemed close to what he remembered.

Before acting, Cade had a habit of comparing a target against his memory. Scouting the environment was part of that.

Only when the sun began to set and no new gang members arrived at the Voodoo Boys' daemon workshop did Cade feel safe enough to try negotiating.

Without Self-ICE, he would never have come to trouble Slider on his own.

But Samir had blocked him, the purchase channel was dead, and he could only come in person.

Cade slung the sniper rifle across his back, checked the ammunition in his pistol, and advanced toward Slider's black-daemon workshop.

Before he reached the entrance, the distant Voodoo Boys raised their guns. Modified cyberoptics fixed hard on the stranger.

The Voodoo Boys were the most exclusionary group in Night City.

"I'm looking for Samir."

Cade did not rush forward. He stood three meters away and raised both hands. If there was room to talk, he did not want the situation to get too loud. Barghest rarely came up this back hill, but there was no guarantee they would not show if trouble started.

"No Samir here. Fuck off, stranger." The woman with a single horizontal optical strip snapped at him, then added a string of Haitian Creole.

Cade's translator did not have the language.

But he could guess it was nothing nice.

"Come on. I know Samir. Heard she has a piece of chrome. Not only that, I know Slider too. I want to talk real business with him."

"Who are you?" The woman's muzzle pointed at Cade.

Cade tried to look friendly. "Sent her a message, got blocked, so I thought I would ask in person. A ripperdoc said you were selling NUSA cyberware. Can we talk?"

"Idiot. That was the refusal. That thing already has a buyer."

"A ripperdoc adjusts the endocrine hormone parameters for us once and starts thinking he's someone important? Now he's introducing business to a dumbass like you?"

The woman did not soften. If anything, she became more rude. Cade frowned.

This would not be easy to get.

When had the Voodoo Boys ever spoken like normal people? No wonder people beat them.

"Highest bidder wins, right? Are Voodoo Boys always this friendly when money is on the table? I think we can still talk."

Cade held his temper. He still wanted to try.

"Fine. Someone in Dogtown offered three hundred thousand eurodollars. If you can double it, maybe we really will agree."

Cade's expression froze.

Was she joking?

The woman noticed his difficulty and laughed with the gang members around her. "Then there is nothing to discuss. You can't afford it, broke bastard."

"Where is Slider? I want to speak with him." Cade could tell this woman had no intention of negotiating. The chrome belonged to Slider, so Cade needed to reach Slider.

"Do you not understand words? No Slider here. No cyberware. Fuck off. If you don't, I put a bullet through your crotch."

The woman waved her muzzle. The surrounding members raised their guns in unison, and one even tapped Cade's chest with a barrel.

Bang.

Dirt exploded beside Cade's foot. A man speaking Haitian Creole cursed nonstop and fired to drive him away.

Cade's face did not change. He took a deep breath.

'So no talk, then?'

Fine. Fine.

The smile on Cade's face vanished. His raised hands dropped hard, and he grabbed the woman's muzzle.

In that instant, the woman's cry and the progress bar cracking his optics appeared at the same time.

Bang. The trigger was pulled.

The muzzle heat scorched Cade's hand, sending a sharp sting through his palm. At the same time, he turned, and his Gorilla Arm erupted with force. The rifle barrel twisted like soft candy. The woman fired in panic, and the gun exploded in her hands.

Cade clamped one hand around her throat. He still wanted leverage.

But the other Voodoo Boys did not care about hostages. Bullets tore toward Cade and the woman in front of him.

Rounds carried warped air and heat past Cade's cheek. A strip of synthetic skin coating was scraped away, revealing silver-white ballistic plating underneath.

Everything happened in only a few seconds.

Gunfire and curses flooded the still air.

The woman in front of Cade was punched through by her companions' bullets. A horrifying rasp came from her throat, and she muttered in her language as she died.

Cade kicked her corpse away, then charged.

His pistol pointed at the ground and fired several shots before spinning once in his hand. His other Gorilla Arm tore through the air with a whistle and slammed solidly into a male Voodoo Boy's face.

For an instant, it was like a vase hitting the floor. The man's face and skull structure deformed violently. Bone fragments and flesh shifted to the other side of his head and packed together. The force sent him flying backward until he smashed into the spa's iron gate, leaving a huge irregular dent.

Chunks and blood splattered across the door like sprayed graffiti.

Several bullets that had ricocheted from the ground completed their own work, slipping into heads and chests from strange angles and bursting into bright flowers of blood.

Everything returned to silence.

Blood dripped from between Cade's fingers. The corpses beside him slowly collapsed, each one landing with a dull thud.

His hammering heart. The soaring adrenaline.

Using Gorilla Arms felt dangerously wonderful. The rush could make a person forget fear and pain entirely.

Cade wiped blood from his face. His white teeth and smile made him look like something dragged out of hell.

No one would block his goals in this world. No one would stop him from surviving, even if a workshop full of netrunners stood in the way.

Reed and V had fought their way in. Was Cade supposed to be unable to do the same?

That faceplate was his.

[Breach Failed]

The progress bar in his optics disappeared with a beep.

A sudden sting shot through the back of Cade's head. The Self-ICE at the base of his skull had blocked the first quickhack from the netrunners inside.

The original Self-ICE cooldown had been fifty seconds. After Sammy's tuning, the dead window had been reduced to thirty, but Cade still could not relax during that gap.

His optics began tracing the source of the next quickhack. Dense red lines all came from a massive server at the center of the Voodoo Boys' daemon workshop.

Cade lifted his sniper rifle and slid on one knee toward the new automatic door. His Gorilla Arm shattered the ballistic glass with ease. The black muzzle aimed into the deepest corridor.

That was not enough.

Cade drew his pistol with one hand and fired upward without looking. The camera above him sparked and crashed to the floor.

The second hack failed immediately.

Cade did not want the camera behind him becoming a bridge for enemies to invade his system while he cleared the room.

But the rest of the dense quickhack attempts were still running. If the server was not dealt with, his cyberware or weapons could fail at any moment.

His finger rested lightly on the cold trigger. Cade took a deep breath. The Nekomata scope's night vision caught three gang members crouching and approaching his position.

The moment the three almost formed a line, the Nekomata in his hands trembled, as if waiting excitedly to fire its charged round and erase the enemy.

"Go to hell, Blackwall-digging bastards," Cade murmured.

A meteor pierced the filthy indoor air. Like a ghost, it drilled through the thin skull of the first Voodoo Boy. Fire, screaming, and death erupted in the narrow corridor as blood slowly rained down.

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