Hostile Competition

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[Incoming Call: Angie]

Cade saw the comm signal about to drop and immediately stopped where he stood.

He ducked under the heavy punch from the Animals member in front of him, then drove a straight punch into the man's abdomen. Blood sprayed from the man's mouth on the spot.

Crack.

Cade easily twisted his neck with both hands. A camera in the distance had just turned toward him when Cade's kinetic pistol shot it into smoke.

"Mr... Rook. What now?"

Angie's face flickered on the other end. The netrunner's signal jammer did not cover a large range, but if Cade took one more step forward, he would lose contact with Angie completely.

"Find a position you consider safe first. My people will deal with the netrunner looking for you. If you want to become Dogtown's Animals bookkeeper, show your own ability."

Cade did not say more. Clients also had to shoulder a certain amount of risk. That was the rule.

Right now, he was competing with Mr. Hands in business.

This was Cade waging hostile competition, and this little business war had reached Mr. Hands's foundation.

As everyone knew, combat stimulants were used by most Night City corporate soldiers, mercs, and gang muscle.

Bounce Back, Glitter, and similar substances all counted as combat drugs. Beyond those were the hormones the Animals injected to grow muscle. The Animals' business was built around these products.

How large was this slice of the pie?

Even Barghest had been introduced to Aye by Hands. Mr. Hands himself could not resist reaching out for a portion of the profit.

Angie's cleverness lay in knowing she could not touch the drug and hormone business, so she focused on underground fights and cyberware instead.

That was how she had barely established herself among the Animals.

Cade ended Angie's call and ran along the network cables toward the netrunner's location.

Although the situation had been partly reversed, the netrunner still needed to be handled quickly. If he freed his hands, he could cause far greater damage.

Sometimes Cade wished he could split himself in two: one half staying in Dogtown to command, the other personally handling client problems.

An automatic door began warping quickly. Cade's Gorilla Arm grabbed the seam and tore it open.

To hell with access tokens. A heavy-handed fighter with Body above ten feared nothing.

On the second floor of the mall, which the Animals had cleared out, construction materials and trash were piled on both sides.

Thick network cables twisted together and ran toward an emergency passage deep inside the mall.

Rebecca hid in the shadow on one side and waited for several Animals grunts to pass.

Ahead, a camera swept across the entire corridor. The crew channel in Rebecca's comms seemed jammed. She could not notify the others of the netrunner's location, so she could only grit her teeth and keep moving upward.

The camera rotated around. The netrunner lying in the network room had breached the local network. Right now, he had two tasks. First, he had to use the ruined facility's LAN to help Marta eliminate enemies. Second, he had to locate Angie.

At that moment, Marta paced back and forth beside the netrunner with one hand on her waist. Two subordinates stood to the left and right of the automatic door, ready for anything.

"Where the hell did Aye go?"

Marta grabbed at her hair in a rage.

The netrunner's voice came through the camera inside the room.

"Dead. Probably got zeroed."

Marta's chest rose and fell. She muttered curses nonstop. "Aye talked shit about having a fixer helping Dogtown business, said he could solve most trouble. What the fuck is this?"

"The fixer did not have time to warn Aye. Who knows when you thick-headed idiots let someone dig up your schedule?"

"The new Dogtown arrival has corporate backing. Digging up information on a few brainless Animals is easy."

"Also, I suggest you show Mr. Hands some respect. If the drug business is going to keep operating in Dogtown, shut your mouth. Once I find Angie's position, Mr. Hands will handle it. You can forget it, useless."

The netrunner spoke without courtesy, carrying the arrogant tone of someone looking down from above.

There was no communicating with Animals whose brains had almost become muscle. They only saw the tiny patch of ground in front of them and had no long-term vision. Aye had been the smart one. Too bad he was fucked.

"Hm?"

The netrunner muttered something unclear.

"Marta, send your people to this area. A short merc snuck up."

Hearing the netrunner, Marta leaned toward the computer screen. In the camera feed, a short woman with twin tails ran up a dead escalator, then slipped quickly into an emergency passage.

The beastly woman stared at her prey and grinned.

"I am going to crush her flat."

The automatic door opened. Marta led her people out in a rush.

The netrunner lying in the chair gave a cold laugh.

"Muscle-brained idiots."

Huff. Huff.

Rebecca did not dare stop. She knew she might not be able to get close to the netrunner, but the crew's situation was too dangerous. With the signal cut off, she no longer had any road back.

Almost there.

Rebecca shot out the network camera on the automatic door in front of her. Thick network cables ran into a hole smashed through the wall.

Her instinct told her this was where the netrunner was.

Seeing the door had a code lock, she panicked a little and hurriedly searched for another entrance, a vent, anything.

While she looked around, the door in front of her opened without warning.

Rebecca quickly turned.

Her eyes landed on two massive legs, veins crawling over dense muscle, each one as thick as Rebecca's waist. Before she could look up and see who it was, a heavy punch drove straight toward her.

Rebecca dodged on instinct, but the blow still clipped her shoulder. The force sent her flying, and she smashed hard into the concrete railing behind her.

Crack.

The rifle on Rebecca's body was thrown aside, scraping across the floor until it stopped near her hand.

The camera inside the door moved quickly and aimed at Rebecca.

A red-haired woman the size of a hill bent down and emerged from inside. She lowered her head and looked at Rebecca with white teeth like a beast's.

Rebecca was dazed from the impact. She dug her fingertips into the floor and barely pushed herself up. Blood poured from her mouth. It felt as if every bone in her body was about to break.

But she would not submit. Even with pain flooding through her, she snapped her hand out, grabbed the rifle, twisted, aimed at the enemy, and pulled the trigger without thinking.

Buzz.

Electric arcs burst from Rebecca's slender arm.

"Fuck!"

She had no defense against netrunners at all. Her cyberware rapidly malfunctioned, and the gun dropped to the floor. She could only watch Marta, that giant beast of a woman, raise one knee and prepare to stomp down on her face.

Even though she could not dodge, Rebecca still pressed down hard on her trembling arm, trying to regain control. It was not over until she was dead.

She would not be afraid.

She clenched her teeth and growled, "Fuck you!"

Whizz.

A sound familiar down to the bone.

The Nekomata's firing sound and the sound of flesh being pierced were almost pleasant. Just like when she had faced Maelstrom, bullets that came from behind her always solved enemies in her blind spot.

Marta's foot stiffened. She staggered. A massive smoking hole had opened in her waist. She instinctively covered the wound, but blood poured between her fingers like a spring.

Marta had just lifted her head when a length of rebar came spinning toward her with a fierce gust.

For an instant, time seemed to freeze.

The moment the rebar struck Marta's face, her bones began to deform. Her skin swelled like weathered plastic, bulged, and burst.

Thud.

The dull sound of flesh hitting hard metal rang out. Marta toppled backward.

That foot never came down.

Cade threw aside the sniper rifle. Bullets from his kinetic pistol bounced from the wall behind two of Marta's subordinates. Then he rushed toward Rebecca only a few steps away.

Marta was not willing to die. Her deformed face looked ferocious and horrifying, exposing cyberware wiring and bone. The Pain Editor and long-term hormone use had long since taken away her ability to feel pain.

She was determined to smash Rebecca's body flat and embed her head in the pulp.

Marta rose, clasped both hands together, and hammered down toward Rebecca's head.

Bang.

Cade raised his arm. His body sank hard, and the cyberware in his arm rattled.

For the first time, his Gorilla Arm sensed pressure. The drive joints exposed black cyberware film, venting waves of heat.

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