Fixers and the Spa

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The remains of three people scattered across the floor.

Cade aimed at the blurry translucent curtain and fired a second shot.

It was almost a blind snipe. Cade was not sure whether it could temporarily stall the server, but his Self-ICE had not recovered yet, so he could only gamble and fire.

Sparks burst from the server. The surrounding Voodoo Boys shouted to each other.

"Some bastard got in! Watch the server. Fucking notify Slider!"

Unfortunately, the shot did very little. The hack still uploaded into Cade's body and broke through the ICE.

His Gorilla Arm suddenly spat arcs of electricity. Sparks and faint burning sent sharp pain through Cade's nerves.

Fuck.

Cade experienced the power of a quickhack for the first time. His system ICE reported that this was only a Cyberware Malfunction type quickhack.

If it had been Synapse Burnout, he might have died on the spot.

He could not drag this out.

Cade moved his hacked, heavy, sluggish Gorilla Arm and dug his fingers into the seam of the automatic door. The cyberware's bearings and joints groaned as he forced the door open through the burning pain on his skin.

His cyberware parameters began stabilizing as the Self-ICE and biomonitor worked together, slowly returning to normal.

Cade smothered several burning points on his arm, and the nerve pain dropped by more than half.

He pulled a cutting grenade from his belt and threw it behind the curtain.

The grenade gave a soft detonation. Dense red light erupted.

The Voodoo Boys preparing an ambush behind the curtain screamed and howled in pain.

The high-energy lasers released by the cutting grenade were more than enough to slice through flesh and skin. Cade tore the curtain down and kicked aside severed cyberware and limbs near his feet.

A massive server stood in front of him like an ancient tree, countless cables feeding into it.

Its roar came with waves of heat from operation. The density of quickhacks rose sharply.

Each Voodoo Boy here could serve as a relay and host. Their quickhacks could use the network to attack Cade regardless of distance.

"This guy has ICE, but it is not military grade. Hit him faster, all of you."

The Voodoo Boy commanding the defense did not finish speaking. A huge blast of energy tore his head apart.

Cade used the railing as cover, killing the members whose bodies were feeding quickhacks toward him. At the same time, bombs he threw blew apart modules from the server.

The Voodoo Boys hiding behind cover were thrown into chaos. Without context, they thought Barghest had stormed in.

"Fuck! A few of you get in his face. He's a sniper. If the server goes down, we're all dead."

Several Voodoo Boys drew blades and other melee weapons from their waists. The ring-shaped corridor had staircases on both ends, and they tried to flank Cade from both sides.

The attacks on the server were having an obvious effect. Under Cade's covering fire, server functions began to degrade. Strings of electric arcs burst from it, and several quickhacks from the workshop's netrunners cut off halfway.

Cade watched the situation while keeping one eye on the Self-ICE cooldown.

A Voodoo Boy on the left who had not yet made it up the stairs was dropped by a sniper round. Cade immediately drew his pistol and chose the other end of the walkway.

As Cade advanced, a man with a machete lunged out from behind a stack of crates. Cade blocked on reflex, and the blade hacked into his arm.

Subdermal armor stopped the sharp edge after it cut only about a centimeter under the skin.

Blood welled from the wound. The Pain Editor reduced the agony. Cade grabbed the man's throat and flung him off the second floor.

Then he pulled the blade stuck in his arm free and tossed it to the floor, where it rang across the metal.

The others trying to flank him from behind saw the killer in front of them and immediately wanted to retreat. Cade did not want enemies at his back, so he raised his pistol and fired.

In this kind of narrow terrain, a kinetic pistol was a perfect killing tool.

Ricocheting rounds left the Voodoo Boys nowhere to hide. After clearing one side of the encirclement, Cade immediately fired the sniper rifle at the server again and again.

A grenade rolled to the feet of the Voodoo Boys coming from the other side. Fire exploded, tearing cyberware and bodies apart. In Cade's vision, the third quickhack was about to finish reading.

Damn it.

Cade stared nervously at the progress bar. Thankfully, after a series of cracks from the server, the progress bar stuck at ninety-nine percent.

Cade breathed out.

If his cyberware failed or his optics rebooted while he was surrounded, he would suffer a fatal blow.

There were still at least a dozen Voodoo Boys defending around the server. Cade could not split himself between watching the server and clearing personnel forever.

But careful observation let him notice that the power-hungry server was connected to generators. So while destroying the server itself, he fired at the cables feeding it.

In a corner Cade did not notice, a camera slowly turned.

Inside the red-lit lens, a blind man in the Net watched this unfamiliar young merc.

As the nonstop gunfire began to weaken, Cade finally destroyed the server. Explosions and falling metal plates crushed several Voodoo Boys who could not escape. What made Cade uneasy, however, was that the frozen quickhack progress bar in his optics still had not disappeared.

At least this could end for now.

Thinking everything had been handled, Cade started searching for the place where he remembered Slider hiding.

Then the quickhack progress bar in his vision suddenly dropped onto one hundred percent.

Bad.

Cade's heart lurched. His optics plunged into darkness.

Everything around him changed. It felt as if something had been taken from his head.

When Cade woke, he looked down at his hands and felt a weak powerlessness spread through him.

There was no cyberware. Only thinner arms, a computer screen showing game guide videos, and editing software.

His phone screen reflected his face, messy hair and the exhausted look of someone who had stayed up all night.

"What is going on?"

Cade could not understand it. The sunlight outside the window was warm, as if that other world had been only an unreachable dream.

In disbelief, he stood. His steps were unsteady from staying awake too long, and he staggered to the balcony.

Cars moved along the road below. He seemed to have returned to his original world.

Cade stared at the home he remembered, lost.

Where was that complicated, captivating neon city? Where was Night City, all sharp technology and violence?

So it had all been a dream.

He stretched his arms and gave a satisfied yawn.

"No more all-nighters. That dream was way too long."

Suddenly, the scene changed.

Maine stood above him with a cigarette in his mouth, looking down.

Rebecca and Pilar stood beside him with folded arms and hostile eyes.

"You sold us out? You miserable piece of shit..."

Dorio slowly leaned toward Cade.

Cade jumped. "What are you talking about?"

A gun appeared in his hand at some point. In panic, Cade raised it. Everyone else raised their weapons too, and the atmosphere froze.

V walked out from behind them with folded arms. She waved, her face full of cold killing intent.

A helmeted figure beside her, optics burning green under the visor, pressed a gun to Cade's head.

"MaxTac?"

Cade realized he could not move. He could only let the cold muzzle rest against his temple.

"Bang."

His mind went blank. His eyes froze in that instant. Blood sliding down his face felt strangely itchy, and the smell of rust filled his nose.

"Why?"

Cade stretched out his arm.

The Gorilla Arm had returned.

'Why are you killing me? Was I not good enough? I survived Barghest, I helped everyone earn money, so why betray me?'

His arm erupted with force. The companions in front of him turned into Arasaka agents, and Cade punched the closest agent in the face.

His expression twisted. He muttered something in a broken, animal-like voice.

An Arasaka agent trying to ambush him from the side was seized by the throat. Cade punched the agent in the face.

"Cade, why did you kill me, you bastard..."

The throat in his hand was pale and slender. Half of Rebecca's face had collapsed inward. She stared at Cade in despair, accusing and unwilling.

Cade flinched and quickly released her.

He stared at the blood on his hand in disbelief, then knelt beside Rebecca as her breath faded. He clutched his head, eyes shot through with red.

"No, no, no... it wasn't me. Rebecca, it wasn't me!"

Cade looked up. Not far from Rebecca lay everyone he knew.

V. Maine. Pilar. Dorio.

All of their heads had been smashed apart by that arm.

A beast's roar echoed through that space.

It also echoed inside Slider's chapel.

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