A/N: So I this was my first time writing like multiple fight pov's, sorry if it low key blows.
The Badlands wind whipped at their faces as Jackie maneuvered a rented armored vehicle, its synth steel hide blending seamlessly with the urban decay on the outskirts of Pacifica. They ghosted through derelict blocks, the skeletal remains of forgotten dreams rising like monuments to Night City's ambition.
The Zoo's perimeter was a shambles, a blessing and a curse. No perimeter alarms to trip, but plenty of broken walls and shadowed culverts for feral cyberanimals or territorial scavs to use as goon lairs.
"Apex, you're up," Jackie rumbled, cutting the engine. "Find us a blind spot. Angel, get to high ground, give us eyes, chica."
Apex, despite her bulk and the large rifle slung across her back, melted into the urban decay, a wraith among the ruins. Her optical camo shimmered, making her less a person and more a distortion in the humid night air. She moved with ease through shattered gates and overgrown pathways, her neural implants mapping the decaying infrastructure. She identified an old maintenance tunnel entrance, rusted shut but vulnerable to her touch.
Angel, meanwhile, scaled the jagged remains of what was once the 'Great Ape Enclosure,' its concrete viewing platform providing a panoramic, albeit grim, vista of the zoo's sprawling devastation.
Her Foxhound nestled against her shoulder. Her comms clicked. "High ground secured. Clear path from the main entrance to what looks like the old reptile house. Heavy cover all around. Possible cyber beast den near the maintenance tunnel, Apex." (cyberbeast or cyberghouls are just borged up animals.)
"Copy that, Angel," Apex replied, her voice a low hiss in their private comms. "Tunnel clear. Just some irradiated rats and rusted pipes. Good entry point."
Rebecca hopped out, checking the load on her custom 'Guts' shotgun, its chrome finish glinting menacingly. "So, we just wait for 'em to walk into our meat grinder, then?" she asked, her voice an eager rasp.
"Patience, chica," Jackie countered, checking his own custom 'Ozob's Nose' shotgun and signature pistols. "They're pros. We spring it when we're in the best position. Teo, you got eyes on their netrunner's signature yet?"
Teo, his emerald optics glowing, was already jacked in the local net, bypassing the rudimentary security with his little ghost breach protocol. He wasn't looking for a direct link to Arasaka yet, just reconnaissance. "Scanning… nothing on their active decks yet. They're ghosting their comms. But I'm pulling residual data streams. They used a fast moving ground vehicle. Standard Arasaka heavy transport, likely dropped them off outside. They're approaching from the main boulevard. Give them ten minutes."
The crew dispersed. Jackie and Rebecca took positions near the crumbling gift shop, its shattered windows offering a perfect vantage point over a wide, central promenade. Apex, her large rifle ready, vanished into the shadows of a defunct reptile exhibit, ready to lay down heavy fire. Angel settled into her sniper's perch, a silent guardian angel perched on a throne of ruin. Teo, meanwhile, remained with Jackie, his hands already slipping out the Kenshin.
The air grew heavy with anticipation. The silence of the abandoned zoo was broken only by the distant, rhythmic hum of Night City.
Ten minutes passed like an eternity. Then, Teo's voice, sharper now, cut through the comms. "Movement. Four signatures. Heavy chrome. And... I'm picking up a high end cyberdeck signature. Their netrunner is active. They're coming."
Through the cracked concrete paths of the promenade, the Arasaka "Valkyrie" team appeared. They moved with a predatory grace, their dark combat armor almost absorbing the dim ambient light, their chrome glinting faintly.
The Arasaka Bodyguards walked point, their Type 86 smart rifles held at the ready. Behind them moved the Kereznikov Assassin, a lean shadow, and finally, the Arasaka Netrunner, cloaked in a dark, data shrouding jacket, their cyberdeck a subtle bulge at their hip.
The glow of their optics, barely visible beneath their hoods, hinted at the array of internal chrome, augmented vision, reflex boosters, hardened subdermal armor a second skin beneath their uniforms.
These weren't just security grunts, they were purpose built instruments of corporate violence, each one a walking arsenal of bioware and synth steel, virtually impervious to anything less than dedicated anti armor rounds.
Jackie inhaled, the scent of dust and stale metal filling his lungs. This was it. He thumbed his comm. "Now, chooms! Lights out!"
Rebecca let out a guttural roar, a sound of pure, unadulterated glee, as she burst from cover. Her 'Guts' shotgun barked, spewing a devastating torrent of super heated pellets. The lead Arasaka bodyguard staggered, his chest armor dissolving into shredded synth steel and atomized blood.
The impact flung him backward, a gurgle of blood mixed with coolant foamed on his lips as he hit the cracked pavement, his combat armor smoking, revealing glimpses of the reinforced, gristly subdermal plating beneath. He twitched, trying to raise a weapon.
"Jackie! Go!" Teo yelled. He didn't wait for the Arasaka Netrunner to react. He initiated a Contagion quickhack, a corrosive stream of data aiming to melt the enemy netrunner's nervous system. The code shimmered, a digital virus designed for biological meltdown.
The Arasaka Netrunner's eyes glowed with furious orange light. They weren't caught off guard. A split second before Teo's attack landed, a counter quickhack, an Optic Jammer, hit Teo's optics. His vision exploded into static and corrupted pixelation, like a digital riot in his brain. A sickening wave of nausea hit him.
"Puta Madre! He's fast!" Teo grunted, instantly deploying his Cipher ICE, a shimmering emerald shield in cyberspace that deflected the worst of the optic attack, turning the digital chaos into manageable noise.
He fired back, aiming for the enemy netrunner's cyberdeck with a Short Circuit quickhack, attempting to fry their hardware, to cook their internal systems. This was a dance of digital death, each move instantaneous, each counter a desperate gamble. He pulled his Kenshin, trying to fire a shot despite the optical issues. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! he fired three bullets, only one finding purchase in the netrunner's shoulder. His subdermal armor made a Clink! noise as the netrunner ducked into cover.
Jackie burst from his cover, roaring. "Teo! Their netrunner! Flatline that choom!" He pointed a massive chrome fist towards the Arasaka heavy on the right. "I'll take the other fucker!"
His 'Ozob's Nose' shotgun roared, unleashing a burst that shredded the Arasaka bodyguard's arm, sending a chunk of chrome and shattered bone spinning through the air. The bodyguard screamed, a chilling, metallic sound, as he clutched the grotesque stump of his shoulder.
The blast had exposed the gleaming subdermal plates beneath his skin, now twisted and sparking, a sickly mix of blood and hydraulic fluid gushing from the ruined limb. His smart rifle clattered to the ground. He stumbled, trying to put weight on his other leg, his heavy boots scraping on the concrete, his combat instincts screaming for him to reload or seek cover.
"Rebecca! The assassin's yours! Don't let that gonk get close!" Jackie bellowed, spinning to face his own target, who was still trying to recover from the initial shock.
Rebecca, a whirlwind of pink hair and righteous fury, was already moving. The Kereznikov Assassin, a blur of motion, shimmered, activating their time slowing implant, a barely visible distortion in the air.
They lunged for Rebecca, their monoknife a silvery arc aimed at her throat, moving with impossible speed. Rebecca didn't even flinch. She pivoted, her 'Guts' shotgun spitting fire at almost point blank range. The assassin's Kereznikov shimmered, but it couldn't outrun the sheer volume of lead. Pellets tore through the assassin's side, turning dark combat armor into a bloody mess, spraying a fine mist of crimson and fractured bone onto the dilapidated gift shop wall. But the assassin's advanced subdermal armor held.
It absorbed much of the kinetic energy, the pellets digging deep but failing to fully penetrate to vital organs. The assassin stumbled, a gurgling gasp escaping their lips, a thin line of blood tracing down their chin, but they were still moving, still a threat, their monoknife twitching, ready for another lightning fast strike. Their eyes, glowing faintly, burned with an unyielding corporate loyalty.
"Apex! Take the heavy on the left! Break his chrome!" Jackie commanded, as he charged his own crippled Arasaka bodyguard, a monstrous punch shattering the man's remaining arm, sending him collapsing in a heap, his cybernetic enhancements failing, leaving him a broken mess of bleeding meat and sparking wires.
Apex, true to her word, had already engaged her target. She flowed out of the shadows of the reptile exhibit, her large rifle barking like a hungry dog. A devastating burst of high caliber rounds tore through the Arasaka heavy on the left, who was distracted by Rebecca's initial volley.
The bodyguard's combat armor almost disintegrated under the assault, flesh and chrome exploding in a sickening spray. Apex, however, wasn't satisfied. She sighted again, deliberately aiming for the exposed joints and gaps in his reinforced subdermal plating. Two more shots. One round obliterated his knee, turning bone and sinew into gristle, leaving him a mangled, screaming wreck on the ground. The other tore through his neck, severing his brain stem, silencing his gurgles of pain. The body fell, riddled with holes, twitching for a second before going limp, a crimson stain blossoming on the cracked pavement.
"Target down!" Apex reported, her voice devoid of emotion, the rifle smoking faintly, the smell of cordite mixing with the humid Night City air.
High above, Angel's comm clicked. "Suppressing fire, incoming!" Her rifle barked, not a single shot, but a controlled burst of three rounds. The remaining Arasaka bodyguard, Jackie's target, attempting to scramble for a discarded weapon, found himself pinned by a rain of high caliber rounds impacting the ground just inches from his head, kicking up concrete dust and showering him with debris.
He flinched, instinctively huddling down, losing precious seconds. Angel wasn't aiming to kill yet, just to deny movement, to control the battlefield. Her scope shifted, identifying the Arasaka Netrunner, still engaged in a fierce digital battle with Teo. She adjusted her aim, not for a killing blow, but to shatter the high intensity optical cyberware the netrunner was using, a precision strike designed to cripple without immediately killing, to blind the digital warrior. A single round whistled through the night.
The Arasaka Netrunner let out a sharp, surprised yelp as Angel's round struck. Their optical implants, designed to withstand direct impact, didn't shatter but cracked, spiderwebbing across their left eye. A jolt of agonizing feedback slammed into their cyberdeck, momentarily disrupting the intricate quickhacks they were weaving.
The Optic Jammer flickered, and Teo's vision cleared just enough to see the blinding green data stream of his Short Circuit quickhack finally find its mark, hitting the Netrunner's deck like a lightning bolt. Smoke curled from the Netrunner's jacket, and a low, pained groan escaped their lips, but they were still on their feet, still fighting, albeit clumsily, their remaining eye glowing with feral intensity.
The Arasaka Netrunner, despite Teo's constant digital assault, was still lucid. Their eyes flickered, calculating. With a guttural yell, they pointed deeper into the zoo, towards the hidden entrance of the cache room. "To the cache! Break through!"
The crippled Kereznikov Assassin, surprisingly still alive despite Rebecca's brutal shotgun blast, lunged forward, bleeding heavily, a desperate, suicidal charge to buy time. The final Arasaka Bodyguard, pinned by Angel's suppressing fire, finally mustered the courage to scramble, firing wild bursts from his pistol.
"They're pushing for the cache! Don't let 'em breathe!" Jackie roared, taking the initiative. His own target was neutralized, a pulpy mess on the ground. He kicked a fallen Arasaka rifle aside. "Rebecca, keep that assassin pinned! Apex, flank 'em! Angel, keep 'em suppressed!"
"Netrunner's Still online! His deck's frying, but it's got layers!" Teo yelled trhough the comm, his fingers blurring over his mind keyboard, sweat beading on his forehead. "Deploying System Reset! Full overload!" This was a last ditch effort, draining his internal RAM, but if it hit, it would hopefully flatline the Netrunner's entire system.
Rebecca, her pink hair a blur, moved like a demon. The assassin, faster than any human, darted through the overgrown paths, a bloody trail marking their passage. Rebecca grinned, a manic, joyous expression. "You wanna dance, choom? Let's dance!" Her shotgun roared again, chewing through an old concrete planter as the assassin barely dodged, a trail of viscera following their every move.
She wasn't just shooting, she was destroying their cover, turning the environment against them. A blast tore through a rotting wooden bridge overhead, sending splinters raining down, forcing the assassin to change course.
Meanwhile, Jacks target, the Arasaka bodyguard with a shredded arm, let out a guttural roar, fueled by rage and combat stims that were flooding his augmented system. Despite the grievous wound, his subdermal armor was protecting his vitals.
He lunged at Jackie with a massive, chrome plated fist, aiming for a skull crushing blow. Jackie met him head on, their bodies colliding with the force of two freight trains. Jackie's gorilla arms roared (I assume he has them), impacting the bodyguard's chest with a sickening crunch.
Another round of synth steel shrieked and bent, but the bodyguard, despite a broken rib or two, managed to wrap his good arm around Jackie's neck, squeezing. A thin layer of blood from his ruptured arm slicked Jackie's face.
Apex, a true predator, disappeared into the shadows of the former ape house using her camo, weaving through rusted bars and crumbling structures. She emerged behind the remaining Arasaka bodyguard, a silent death. The bodyguard, focused on Rebecca's fury and Jackie's advance, never saw her as he continued to shoot.. Apex brought her large rifle up, a quick, brutal burst tearing through another bodyguard's spine. The man screamed, a gurgling sound cut short as his body dropped like a stone, twitching.
"Second heavy down," Apex confirmed, her voice a low, chilling whisper.
Rebecca, locked in a brutal dance with the Kereznikov Assassin, found herself struggling. The assassin, though bleeding profusely from the side, was inhumanly fast. Their Kereznikov implant allowed them to move in blurs that even Rebecca's enhanced reflexes barely tracked.
The monoknife, impossibly thin and sharp, flashed, scoring a shallow but deep gash across Rebecca's arm before she could bring 'Guts' to bear. Her pink jacket ripped, and a line of crimson welled up.
"Little gonk's quick!" Rebecca cursed, her eyes narrowing. She parried another monoknife thrust with the barrel of her shotgun, the metallic screech echoing in the desolate zoo. The assassin darted in, a blur of motion, aiming for her gut. Rebecca pulled the trigger, not caring about the spread, just the sheer force of the blast.
The shotgun roared, sending the assassin tumbling, a wider gash appearing on their other side, exposing more of the dense, almost bone like subdermal plating beneath their skin, now slick with blood. They gasped, a wet cough escaping their lips, but their chrome eyes were still locked on her, promising death.
"Jackie, break! I can't get a shot!" Apex called, her voice tight, seeing Jackie still struggling with his bodyguard. Her rifle, designed for heavy armor, was ineffective on the flailing, entwined mass of flesh and chrome. She switched to a custom thermal optic, searching for the bodyguard's cybernetic nodes, the weak points in his impressive chrome loadout.
Angel, high above, shifted her position, her scope locked onto the frantic movements of the Arasaka team. She saw the Kereznikov Assassin's desperate dash, heard Rebecca's maniacal laughter. She tracked the last surviving bodyguard's pathetic attempts to get cover. Every time a Valkyrie member tried to break cover or gain an advantage, a high caliber round from the Foxhound would impact just inches away, denying them the space they needed. CRACK! A round pulverized a crumbling statue that offered the assassin cover.
CRACK! Another tore through a support beam, showering debris, forcing the injured Arasaka Netrunner to scramble away from his cover.
"He's heading for the maintenance tunnels! That's the way to the cache!" Teo yelled, his voice strained. His own digital duel with the Arasaka Netrunner was pushing him to his absolute limit.
Angel, meanwhile, continued her calculated strikes. She adjusted her aim again, not for the optics this time, but for the exposed power conduits of the Netrunner's leg cyberware, a critical system link. Crack! The round struck true, and the Netrunner stumbled, their left leg seizing up, sparking violently as the conduit ruptured. They cried out, a mix of pain and frustration.
"Got some of his mobility!" Angel reported, her voice calm, the rifle still hot from repeated firing. "Teo, now!"
The Arasaka Netrunner was good. Damn good. Teo had expected that. This wasn't some corp drone. This was a seasoned veteran, their cyberdeck a fortress. Teo's Contagion had been countered by a blazing Blackwall that burned through his initial attack. His Short Circuit was met with a swift Overload that threatened to fry his own neural circuits.
He'd tried Cyberware Malfunction on the Arasaka Netrunner's optical implants, blinding them momentarily, but the counter hack, a brutal Synapse Burnout, tore through his defenses, sending a jolt of searing pain through his neural network. He gritted his teeth, his Cipher ICE shimmering furiously, barely containing the hostile intrusion.
Teo ignored the pain, his focus absolute. He knew this netrunner wasn't just defending; they were trying to create an opening for their team to reach the cache. He shifted tactics. Instead of direct damage, he went for disruption. A rapid fire Memory Wipe, followed by a Ping to expose their exact location to Angel, then, a desperate, full power System Reset aimed at their cyberdeck.
The Arasaka Netrunner screamed, a raw, primal sound in the comms as their cyberdeck, overloaded by Teo's desperate quickhack, began to spark. Their form staggered, convulsing. They tried one last, furious counter hack, a Suicide protocol aimed at Teo, a final, desperate attempt to take him with them. He also pulled a Lexington from his back and fired. Two bullets ripped into Teo, one striking his chest and the other his leg.
But Teo was ready. His Cipher ICE, pushed to its absolute limits, flared, absorbing the suicidal quickhack. The strain was immense, a burning agony in his skull, but his shield held. He slammed a virtual fist through the now failing Arasaka Netrunner's defenses. A final, devastating Reboot Optics quickhack, corrupted and overcharged, slammed into their brain.
The Arasaka Netrunner's eyes rolled back in their head, foam bubbling at their lips. They collapsed, twitching, their brain fried. But not flatlined. The advanced subdermal armor and redundant neural pathways, a testament to Arasaka's engineering, kept their core functions barely alive. They lay there, utterly incapacitated, their mind a shattered mess. Teo, despite his wounds, limped over, raising his Kenshin and double tapping the netrunner in the head making a nice blooming flower.
"Netrunner... down! Flatlined!" Teo gasped, slumping against a cracked wall, breathing heavily, his entire body trembling from the digital strain. His optics flickered, returning to steady emerald.
With the netrunner out, Jackie suddenly felt the chokehold loosen. The Arasaka bodyguard, cut off from his support, faltered, his stims beginning to wear off. Jackie roared, pulling back his chrome fist and unleashing a furious, bone shattering uppercut that snapped the bodyguard's head back.
The crunch of shattered vertebrae was sickeningly audible even over the ongoing chaos. The man's eyes glazed over, his chrome enhanced body going limp, a broken puppet. He collapsed at Jackie's feet, a mangled heap of meat and failing chrome.
"One down for good!" Jackie spat, wiping blood and coolant from his chin, his massive chest heaving. He turned, scanning the battlefield, his eyes falling on Rebecca's ongoing, desperate struggle.
The Kereznikov Assassin was now the sole physical threat, bleeding heavily but still terrifyingly fast. They darted towards a collapsed snack bar, using the debris as cover. Rebecca, fueled by pure adrenaline, pursued relentlessly, her shotgun blasts dismantling the environment around the assassin. "You can run, but you can't hide from Bex!"
Rebecca, battered and bleeding from her arm, was still trading blows with the Kereznikov Assassin. The assassin was a true nightmare, relying on their subdermal armor to shrug off hits that would have atomized lesser opponents.
They had abandoned the monoknife for a pair of retractable Mantis Blades, now humming with deadly energy, forcing Rebecca to dodge and weave, the blades carving gouges in the concrete around her. She fired 'Guts' again, point blank into the assassin's chest. The impact lifted the assassin off their feet, smashing them into the crumbling concrete wall of the gift shop.
Cracks spiderwebbed from the impact point, and a horrifying CRUNCH! echoed as the assassin's back hit the reinforced concrete. But still, they clung to life, their Mantis Blades twitching, trying to push themselves off the wall, a gurgle escaping their lips.
"They just... won't.... fucking... die!" Rebecca screamed in frustration, reloading 'Guts' with practiced, furious movements.
Apex, now with a clear shot, targeted the assassin's head. Her rifle barked, a single, devastating shot. The high caliber round, designed to penetrate vehicle armor, tore through the assassin's skull, exploding through reinforced bone and internal chrome. Their brain, a complex web of wetware and processors, simply ceased to exist. The Mantis Blades retracted as the assassin's body slid down the wall, leaving a grotesque smear of blood, brain matter, and shredded metal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ACTION END~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The silence descended, heavy and absolute, broken only by the distant hum of the city, the drip of blood, and the ragged breathing of the Valkyries. The air was thick with the acrid scent of ozone, burnt chrome, and fresh blood.
The promenade was a charnel house, littered with the broken remains of Arasaka's elite, their advanced chrome and subdermal armor finally overcome by the brutal, relentless fury of the Valkyrie crew. They had come for a fight, and Night City had delivered.
Jackie, Apex, and Angel converged on the entrance. "Teo! Get in there! Disable whatever that fucker was trying to do!" Jackie ordered, kicking aside a fallen Arasaka smart rifle. Aparently as a nice last ditch effort to get Arasaka the intel, the net runner hit the cache with a quick upload trying to at least get any information out of it.
Teo, still shaky, pulled himself up. He moved to the console, its interface humming with a complex Arasaka lock out. He jacked in, his fingers flying, bypassing the security, the last remnants of the Arasaka Netrunner's desperate efforts.
The heavy, armored door hissed, retracting into the wall, revealing a small, stark, heavily shielded chamber. At its center, a single terminal glowed with an ominous, almost ethereal blue light. This was it. The Black ICE cache.
Teo approached the terminal, his heart pounding. He could feel the raw power emanating from it, a silent, unseen force. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then extended his hand, his virtual avatar in cyberspace reaching out, fingers outstretched towards the shimmering, pulsating Black ICE wall projected by the terminal.
The moment his virtual hand made contact, the world fractured.
A deep, resonating hum vibrated through Teo's cyberdeck, not just an auditory sensation but felt through his very bones, a sound that seemed to emanate from beyond the Net itself, a cosmic chord struck in the void.
His optics flared violently, emerald light giving way to a kaleidoscope of impossible colors and fractured shapes, a visual cascade of the Old Net's true, unbound complexity, a vision of raw, untamed data far beyond anything he'd ever conceived. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once.
The Black ICE wall in cyberspace seemed to breathe, undulating like a living entity, vast and unknowable. Within its depths, fleeting, fragmented images flashed, ancient, forgotten data streams, echoes of long dead AIs, and then, for a terrifying split second, a glimpse of a vast, alien intelligence.
It wasn't just code, it was a consciousness, observing him from beyond the veil of the modern Net. It was a sensation of profound, chilling sentience, a brief, horrifying connection to something immense, cold, and utterly inhuman. This thing was...How could a corp... This was to advanced. He didn't think a corps could comprehend this at all.
Off to the side the remnant red strands of the upload was fading, erased, 'The fuck,' he said Turing his head towards the toward the large black wall. Then, he felt it.
He felt a phantom limb, cold, crystalline, not hostile but profoundly curious, reach out from the Black ICE, not to attack, but to touch, to probe. It sifted through his own neural pathways, sifting through his consciousness, examining his very being. It retracted just as quickly, leaving behind a cold, crystalline echo in his mind, like a piece of cosmic data subtly etched into his very being. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was gone. The wall returned to its ominous, silent state, and his optics snapped back to emerald.
Jackie clapped Teo on the shoulder, pulling him out of his trance. "Teo? You okay, choom? You look like you just stared down a Smasher."
Teo just shook his head, unable to articulate, terrifying experience he had, his head spun, he was bleeding.
"Ḩ̵̛̘̤͙͔̝̫̖̻̦̞͙̺̅̿͘͝ë̸͓̮͉͈͇͍̖͎̩̞͈́́́̋̇̾͋̈́̾͆͑͘͘͜͠͝ǎ̴̯̀͠d̶̡̲̗̼̮̤̤̳̲͖͓͍͔͓̓̎̽́̽̏̐͂̆͆͘͘͘ ḥ̸̨̧̗̮̖̽̂̓̀̍̋͋́̅̃͘͜͝u̷̬̩̰̫͕̘͎̔́̃̄̍͋̓r̵̡͕͈͚͍͍̼͕̍̀̈́̽̎̍͗̍́̏̚͜͠t̸̫̫̤͕̳̻̰̣̭́̌̉͝ͅi̶̡̹͈͎̳̞͙͖̾̂̀͑̀͆̑̓̽̉͐͘͘ͅǹ̷̨͍̮̥̹̘͙̗̻̬̬̜̥̮̃̒̈́̽͗̿̍̄̂̏͆͠͝ǧ̷̡̟̲̹̩̱͉̮̭͇͚̮̖̟̽̓͊̔̓̕ c̵̛̥͊r̵̡͕͈͚͍͍̼͕̍̀̈́̽̎̍͗̍́̏̚͜͠ǎ̴̯̀͠z̷̛̻̤̯̥̝͎̯͚̹͇͗̆̄̈́̅̎̓̿̎͋́̅̈́̚͜y̶͔͗ "
Jackie, shook Teos shocked form. "Hermano! Snap out of it."
Teo's optics recalibrated his slitted pupils dilating. He stared ahead at the cache's still glowing shape. That thing was a dead end, unbreachable. He fumbeled through his pockets taking a trauma stim out, and inahlled the stim. His wounds clotting stopping the bleeding.
Teo slapped his face with both hands, "right, sorry jack."
Rebecca peered over Teo's shoulder, then into the now open cache room. "What was that? Felt like the air just... vibrated."
Teo leaned back as bex caught his shoulders in her huge borged hands. "You don't want to know, fuck old tech."
Angel lowered her rifle, scanning the exterior, "No immediate alarms. But Arasaka won't stay quiet for long. We need to move."
Jackie nodded. "Alright, chooms. We did the job. Now, let's get out of this damn zoo before Max Tac decides to pay a visit."
They moved with practiced efficiency, retracing their steps, leaving behind a bloody trail and a silenced Arasaka team. The zoo, once a hunting ground, was now a grave. As they emerged into the open Badlands, the sun began to peek over the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and violet. As they loaded into the armored truck.
The dust choked air felt different to Teo now, almost alive with unseen whispers.
He knew the eddies would be good, but the cost of this gig might just be more than money. Something from the Old Net had touched him, and he had no idea what that would mean for his future. But he for sure didn't want to fuck with anymore old tech.
Then again that does raise a question, what did Araska and Militech want with an old Netwatch Blackwall cache?
(Blackwall a is a firewall developed by NetWatch. Located within the Net, it is tasked with keeping rogue AIs from breaking through into the rest of cyberspace and wreaking havoc yadda yadda.)
A/N: Okay hopefully I didn't put to many holes in the story if I did point it out. Maybe I do something like Teo gets invaded by a rogue ai or something. ANYWAY, Leave suggestions and comments bellow, also maybe an honest review, like THIS SHIT SUCKS 1 STAR, or THIS SHIT IS BEAUTIFUL 5 STARS.