Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

I was seated in a dark, abandoned apartment, gazing across the street at the Ho-oh club. For the better part of two weeks, that had been my routine. I scribbled down some notes on what I saw, sifted through intercepted text messages and emails I lifted off Agents of everyone hanging around the club, and waited for something interesting to happen.

As I reorganized my notes, trying to mash them together into some cohesive narrative, my mind wandered to the peculiarities of Night City’s real estate market.

Night City, home to millions, surprisingly had a glut of deserted apartments. It didn’t make sense. In a city this size, the apartment market should have been as cutthroat as New York’s. Finding a place to live should have been a Hunger Games style competition, filled with underhanded tactics and a bit of luck. You’d expect to need connections just to find a decent place. Yet I always seemed to find a deserted apartment perfectly situated for surveillance. Clearly, Night City’s landlords weren’t doing their jobs well.

Not that I was complaining. Using abandoned apartments to spy on unsuspecting targets was slowly becoming my milieu. The Tyger Claws had no idea I was camped out directly across the street from the Ho-oh club, scouting their operation from the safety of a cozy one-bedroom. From my vantage point, I had a clear view of the entire club, including the third floor where Jotaro ran his operations. It was his apartment, his office, and his ‘playroom’ where he recorded his snuff BDs.

I was nearing the two-week deadline to report back to Susie and Anna about Jotaro. My meticulous surveillance had revealed a detailed picture of all the smuggling, kidnapping, and drug production he was responsible for. I even knew about the boxcar full of captives stashed in a storage facility in North Watson.

Shortly after leaving Anna with the Mox, I raced to the Ho-oh club and tapped into the local access point, intercepting every text and email sent to and from the club and everyone hanging around. Most of my time in the apartment had been spent sifting through the flood of inane messages, skimming and discarding the irrelevant ones.

The entire ground floor of the Ho-oh club was a gambling den and bar where locals would come to drink and toss away all their hard-earned eddies. Most of their messages were of no interest to me and were quickly trashed.

The real gold came from the second and third floors of the club. The second floor, permanently closed off to the public, acted as a private sanctuary where Tyger Claws could unwind. Through intercepted messages, I managed to piece together how the gang operated in Watson. I had names, dates, contacts, and accounts – everything Anna needed to deliver a devastating blow to the Tyger Claws in the area.

But I knew that wouldn’t happen. Unlike Anna, I understood the NCPD would never willingly crack down on the Tyger Claws. The gang paid way too much in bribes for that to happen. If I handed my findings over to Anna and she took them to the NCPD, her superiors would ignore it, the Tyger Claws would tighten their security, and Anna would be found dead in a ditch by morning.

I had left Anna with the Mox after securing a promise she wouldn’t investigate for the next two weeks. Last I heard, she was still hanging around Lizzie’s, working security at the bar. There were two reasons I didn’t want her snooping around Kabuki.

First, I doubted her ability to blend in. If she started asking around about Jotaro, her cop demeanor would inevitably alert the Tyger Claws that someone was hunting them, and they’d send a hit squad to eliminate the problem.

Second, I hoped that hanging with the Mox would give her a better understanding of what life was like on the streets of Night City. During our conversation at the diner, I saw she honestly believed the NCPD was a force for good in the city, instead of the corrupt entity that chewed up good cops and preyed on everyone else it actually was. Anna and River Ward were the only “good” cops I could remember from the game. Maybe Barry – the cop locked in his apartment mourning the loss of his turtle was also good. So, three good cops in a city teeming with thousands of bad ones.

As I was putting the finishing touches on my notes, a maroon-colored Archer Hella pulled up to the Ho-oh club. It parked in a small garage connected to the club, and the driver got out to greet the Tyger Claws milling about. I scanned the driver and his NCPD file popped up. Malcolm Bell. Border Patrol agent. This was the second time I’d seen him at the club, and I knew exactly why he was there.

One of the Claw’s eyes flashed gold briefly as Malcolm walked back to his car and leaned against the driver’s side door. Moments later, another Tyger Claw entered the garage. Everyone’s body language screamed that this man was important, so I scanned him and the name Takeshi Kazou popped up. I checked my notebook and found his name underlined several times.

Takeshi was one of Jotaro Shobo’s lieutenants, someone I’d read about in the intercepted texts and emails from the club. The little I knew about him pointed to him being as dangerous as Jotaro himself. He was Jotaro’s go-to guy for the dirtiest jobs he couldn’t – or didn’t want to – entrust to other Tyger Claws. If Jotaro needed someone disappeared or a body staked out to send a message, Takeshi was the guy he called. He was also Jotaro’s assigned bodyguard, the Claws’ way of protecting their golden goose. Over the past two weeks, I figured out that Takeshi would be my main obstacle in getting to Jotaro.

I watched as Takeshi and Malcolm greeted each other before heading to the rear of the Archer Hella. Malcolm popped open the trunk and pulled out a young man, handcuffed with a bag over his head. Malcolm handed him off to a Tyger Claw that Takeshi had signaled forward, then got back in his car and drove off.

Using my notes, I finished putting together a file for Anna. I sent her a text to meet up at the alcove, ensured I wasn’t leaving anything behind in the apartment, and the left, heading towards Lizzie’s.

By the time I arrived, Anna was already out in the alcove being entertained by Deng and Mor. She was chatting with Deng, surrounded by a few bottles of alcohol she must have brought with her from Lizzie’s. As I approached, I overheard their conversation and rolled my eyes – Deng was regaling Anna with stories about how we met. Mor was off to the side, grinning as Deng recounted my first gig where I had to wear pants that kept slipping down.

Anna’s laugh was a welcome sound. She seemed more relaxed and happier than the last time I saw her. More mellow. Being the only good cop in Watson must have been grating on her.

I sat on the couch next to Mor as Deng wrapped up his story and the three of them turned to me with expectant looks.

“Haven’t seen you around much lately, lad,” said Deng.

“Yea, I’ve been busy. Just finished up and wanted to update Anna.”

“What’ve you been working on?” Mor asked, glancing at Anna. It was the first time he’d heard I was working with a cop, and his expression made it clear he wasn’t thrilled about it.

“Tracking Jotaro Shobo.”

As soon as the name was out of my mouth, I saw the worry written on Mor and Deng’s faces.

“What the hell are you doing getting entangled with the Devil of Kabuki?” Deng demanded. Mor threw his hands in the air, shocked at what he no doubt thought was my utter stupidity.

Before I could respond, Anna interjected. “Look, Noah, I didn’t know much about this Jotaro guy when you talked about him before. I thought he was just some gonk you thought was a big deal and you were trying to use him to get me to help you with something minor.” Deng and Mor gave her incredulous looks, wondering how a cop working the Watson beat couldn’t have heard of Jotaro.

“I know better now. I spoke with a few girls working the club. The stories they told…I’m going to bring him down. But I don’t want you getting more involved.”

I huffed and shook my head. Once again, everyone was treating me like a kid. From Deng and Mor, it was somewhat understandable – they knew me when I was a naïve brat who got mugged within ten minutes of arriving in the city. But they had to see how much I’ve changed and grown. I’d pulled off serious jobs. I was getting calls from fixers.

“So, you wanna call off our bargain? You don’t want what I’ve got on his organization?”

“I’m saying you should admit to the Mox that you don’t know where he is, and I’ll find another way to bring him in.” She said the last part with little conviction. Working at Lizzie’s had been good for her. The Mox had filled her in on all the heinous things Jotaro had his hands in – the drug smuggling, selling used cyberware to rippers in Watson and Westbrook, the BD recordings of him torturing and killing kidnap victims. Anna had come to realize he could only get away with it because he had the NCPD in his pocket.

I slid two chips towards Anna and Deng, motioning for them to slot them in their neuroports.

“He’s on the third floor of the Ho-oh club, probably in his office or apartment,” I said.

Anna looked stunned. Wait, the Mox have been hunting him for years. How’d you find him so quickly?”

“Why not just sell the information to the Mox? They’d probably pay a bunch of eddies for it,” Mor chimed in.

“I wasn’t lying to Susie when I said I knew where he was. I’ve known this entire time. They haven’t been able to find him because he never leaves the club. He’s claimed the entire third floor as his personal domain. It’s where he sleeps, conducts business, and takes his victims. I already knew about that; the last two weeks have been about me mapping out his entire organization. I don’t want just Jotaro. Check the chips.”

Both Anna and Deng slotted the chips, and I began explaining the extent of Jotaro Shobo’s operation.

“First is Malcolm Bell, I said, knowing they were looking at the first photo in the file I created. He’s a border patrol agent who’s nabbed several victims for Jotaro. He specializes in runaway Nomads who ‘disappear’ in Night City. From what I can tell, he makes a drop-off at the Ho-oh club twice a month.

“Next is Callum Black.” I heard Anna suck in a breath at the name and when she saw his picture. “NCPD officer working the Watson beat. He spends his days scooping up runaways and dropping them at Jotaro’s door. I also have a list of cops on Jotaro’s payroll, but most of them are paid to look the other way when the Tyger Claws are around. Callum Black is the worst of the bunch and the only one I could find who is actively working for Jotaro.”

I could see Anna and Deng flipping through the information on the chips faster than I was talking, but I kept up a running commentary for both their and Mor’s sake.

“My issue with Callum Black is that I couldn’t find where he gets his victims or where he stashes them before dropping them off at the Ho-oh club.”

“Kiddie Village,” Anna mumbled, the sound barely audible.

“What?”

“Kiddie Village. It’s the NCPD name for a juvenile detention facility. We pick up an underage kid for truancy, we’ll ship them to kiddie village. A cop drives them out in the back of his squad car. If Callum is working for Jotaro Shobo and delivering victims to him, he’s getting them from Kiddie Village.”

“Well shit. Is there another way he could be getting his victims?”

“Yea,” she paused, thinking it through. “Catch and release, most likely. Say you find someone on your beat that you don’t want hanging around there anymore. You book them for vagrancy or something minor. Problem is, if they don’t have a jacket, the prosecutor won’t touch them. The jail is already packed wall to wall. So, a cop will grab them and make a run out to the badlands, drop them an hour outside the city, and tell them to start walking. A couple hours of trudging back to the city generally gets the point across that we don’t want them in the area.”

Mor and Deng were quiet after they heard Anna’s explanation. I knew they were thinking the same thing as I was: fucking NCPD. We’d all known a few people who had been booked for vagrancy and didn’t show up the next day.

“Back to the organization,” I said, drawing Anna and Deng’s attention back to the chips. “You’ve got Finn ‘Fingers’ Gerstatt over on Jig Jig Street. He’s the ripperdoc Jotaro sends his victims to. Fingers strips the cyberware from the dead bodies and installs it in the joytoys working out in Westbrook. He also takes ‘liberties’ with the joytoys. That might be something the Mox would want to know about.

“Next, you’ve got Jae-Hyun Lee and Katarina Mihalic. These two are probably the worst of the bunch. Malcolm Bell and Callum Black deliver people to Jotaro, but he gets most of his victims from these two. They lead a small Scav team out in Kabuki.”

Deng and Anna finished reviewing the data around the same time and sat back, each with different expressions. Deng’s face darkened, likely realizing that Jae-Hyun had probably kidnapped Tomas. Anna just seemed shocked at the deluge of information.

“That was…impressive,” she finally said after a minute.

“How long have you been tracking him?” Deng asked.

I didn’t want to explain to them that most of my knowledge about Jotaro’s activities came from a video game. I knew the broad strokes of who he was from having killed him half a dozen times. The past two weeks were about nailing down the smaller details about his organization.

“Not too long. I’m just good at this kind of stuff.”

“I’ll say,” added Anna. “The Mox are obsessed with this creep. I’ve been asking around, and it seems as if every joytoy in the place has heard about him, but they haven’t gathered nearly as much intel as you just showed.”

“So, we still got a bargain?” I asked her.

“What do you need from me?”

“Convince Susie that everything is under control. I’ll take out Jotaro, and the Mox won’t need to get involved. It’s better for everyone that way.”

“How are you going to take out his entire organization by yourself?” Mor asked.

“I still have some eddies from the…van thing.” I glanced at Anna, hoping she wouldn’t find out that I was the guy who had robbed RCS and the Tyger Claws. She was still technically NCPD and might know the badges investigating the heist. “Plus, I got a plan on how to get Jotaro. I’ll need Anna’s help with parts of it, but it should work.”

“I can talk with Susie, buy you a few days. But I want in,” Anna demanded.

Before I could object, Deng interjected. “Hold off on hiring the mercs. I think I know a few people who’d be interested in helping.”

Deng said it with almost no emotion in his voice, and a chill ran up my spine. There was no way I’d be able to keep him out of this.