Making It in Night City

It was the evening the day after I left the Nomad camp, and I was sitting on a concrete bench in Kabuki. I've spent the whole morning and afternoon chasing down Tygers, Scavs, and the occasional Animals. There weren't any reported NCPD hustles close to me right now, so I ate some food while waiting for the next gig. While I chomped down on a hotdog made of Tofu, I thought about the last the day before.

After I left the Nomad camp, I got a phone call from Grant, telling me he had managed to secure a meeting with Michiko. The date was set a week and a half from now, and the location was at Konpeki plaza. The meeting place introduced its difficulties, but I'll figure out how to work around them.

I called V and told her that we could proceed with my plan. I also told her we were meeting at Konpeki, which obviously brought back some bad memories and doubts that she could get in. I told her to let me worry about getting her in and focus on keeping Hellman safe and willing to spill his guts about Yorinobu.

V reassured me that she's got everything under control and also gave me some good news of her own. She got in contact with Brick, the leader of Maelstrom, and set up a meeting two weeks from now. This brought me closer to acquiring those engine parts the Aldecaldos needed for the Surveyor.

When I finished eating, I tossed the trash into a garbage can nearby and looked at the spoils of my vigilante effort. I have looted dozens of weapons and deconstructed all of them to convert them into over one hundred rare and fifty epic components. Of course, this was far from what I needed to make another Basilisk tank, but it was still a significant boost to what I had before.

Rummaging through pockets and wallets also netted me a cool profit of nineteen thousand Eddies. Combining this with the last batch of ammo I sold raised my balance to just under eighty thousand bucks. This should be enough for purchasing the next set of cyberware I wanted after the Wratih job. Besides money, I also gained a fair chunk of experience.

Hunting criminals raised my level to twenty-nine, giving me six more Attributes and Perk points. Leveling was becoming more challenging, but I couldn't complain about the efficacy. I had used two Attribute points to increase my body to eleven, unlocking the Divided Attention and Multitasker perks. Divided Attention and Multitasker allowed me to reload and shoot while sprinting, sliding, and vaulting. 

I could technically do these things before, but once I picked up these perks, I could do it more proficiently. Without the perks, my shooting would be wildly inaccurate, and reloads would take much longer. But with the perks, it was almost like my arms had built-in stabilizers weapons handling took no negative impact while I was moving.

I used four points for the first Mass Vulnerability and Big Sleep levels. Mass Vulnerability made it so that Breach Protocol reduced resistance by thirty percent to any enemies in the network while Big Sleep turned off all cameras. These two perks turned Breach Protocol into a super helpful tool. By using it before a fight, I make enemies easier to kill and make it harder to track me as the assailant.

Another two points were used to raise my Technical ability to fourteen, allowing me to pick up the two levels in Cost Optimization. Cost Optimization reduced the component cost of crafting by thirty percent, increasing my profit margins for ammo. It also, arguably more importantly, dramatically reduced the cost of making something like another Basilisk tank. It was still expensive, but much less so now.

And finally, I raised my Cool stat to five. Eventually, I want to start investing in the Cold Blooded tree, so I started growing the stat now. Since my combat style is getting as many kills as quickly as possible, the higher-level perks would be beneficial. The lower-rank skills aren't as valuable, so I didn't spend any points on them.

Each level of Cool also raised the damage I deal while in stealth by ten percent. Since I am in stealth while fighting most of the time, this was basically a straight boost to my damage output. The increase in the Body stat, stealth damage, melee damage, and reduced enemy resistances combined so well that I could easily separate limbs from bodies with my katana.

I left so many bodies either headless or with bullets in their noggins that I got a super cringy nickname. The culture vultures picked up on the alarming number of corpses in Watson without heads or slugs in their skulls. Trying to flame the fire and get their views up, they speculated that I was a cyberpsycho with a grudge against gangs and called me the "Watson Headhunter". However, that rumor was quickly put to rest by the NCPD, stating that I was an NCPD subcontractor.

At first, I wished that the NCPD hadn't done that. If the gangs thought I was a cyberpsycho, it'd be harder to pinpoint who I was. I still had a public life of being a small business owner. Nobody would expect a functioning member of society with a comfortable lifestyle to be a homicidal mental patient. 

But then I remembered MaxTac and shivered at the thought of some nosey bystander calling them in on me. Night City's idea of a SWAT team was to arm to the teeth rehabilitated and heavily chromed cyberpshycos. Maybe making me being a Subcon known was for the best. I just have to cross my fingers and hope some corrupt pig doesn't leak my info.

If you are reading this, it means that you are reading a novel stolen from the original author. If you want to support me, the original author, and read ahead for free, you can find me on scribblehub under SPS4.

My phone suddenly vibrated, and I looked at the message on it. An assault in progress was reported just north of my position, and I was offered the contract to sort it out. Since it was close by and the threat level was just 'medium' I decided to accept the job. The NCPD has its problems, but at least they make their payments to me.

I sprinted and pulled up a map to see where to go. The reported location was next to the Kabuki Market, just a few blocks away. Since it was getting late, this would probably be my last gig of the night.

After running for a few minutes, the market's central building appeared in my view. A circular overpass encircled the main structure and fed into the surrounding buildings. A large three hundred and sixty degree screen was hoisted into the air from the roof and played ads for various companies' products. Vending machines, neon signs, and shops are scattered around, giving the place a colorful backdrop. 

Arriving at the roundabout, I heard the faint noise of an alarm system going off. I quickly crossed the street and started following the sound until I found the store responsible for the noise. The sound was coming from some kind of general goods store.

Staying close to the inner wall, I walked past the graffiti and vending machines until I got to a dumpster near the storefront with shattered glass. Without poking my head out, I could already hear a lot of angry yelling and the sound of things being smashed around. I saw a camera in the corner of the shop and hacked into it to better understand what was happening.

The shop was a small bookstore selling office and school supplies. There were four hoodlums, two females and two males. The tattoos and clothing quickly revealed that it was the Tyger Claws again, which makes sense since Kabuki is their turf.

Two of the Tygers were ransacking the place for anything valuable, which wasn't much since it was an office supply shop. Of the remaining two, one was serving as a lookout while another was further in the shop harassing the clerk. He yelled at her in Japanese and dragged her from behind the counter.

I've seen enough at this point and used the camera to scan and upload a Mass Vulnerability daemon into the group. Once the hack worked, I exited the camera and drew my revolver. I stood up from my hiding spot and got ready to start the fight by taking out the Tyger on guard, but I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of something completely unexpected.

Since ordinary people didn't want to get involved with gang activity, the area had cleared out of bystanders a while ago. This worked in my favor since having fewer people around meant I didn't have to be careful about my surroundings. I expected the market to be empty until I took care of the situation, so I was surprised when I saw someone with a zipped-up hoodie and hands in their pockets walk down the stairs and into the market.

I thought maybe the person had music or a video playing and wasn't paying attention. I had my fingers crossed and hoped the Tyger Claw lookout would just let the person go, but no such luck. The guy watching out stepped in front of the person and tried to intimidate them. 

The next thing I knew, the hoodie swung open to show a hidden baseball bat and short women underneath. She had stuffed the sleeves of the hoodie into the pockets to hide the fact that her arms were gripping a weapon. Before the Tyger Claw could react, she swung the bat at the guy's head.

There was a solid *THWACK* sound as the metal connected with the skull, and the guy immediately went lights out. Was she also a subcon for the NCPD? Regardless of whether or not she was, this forced me to change my plans. I wanted to do things quietly and surprise the enemies, but the loud yelling and the girl dropping their lookout definitely would have alerted the rest of the criminals.

I stepped out from behind the dumpster and started walking towards the shop with my pistol drawn. The girl's eyes immediately looked onto me, and without the hoodie covering her, I got a better look. The girl had very pretty and was of Asian descent. Her hair was tied into two buns, and she had chrome around her eyes that looked like a cheetah's eyestripes. 

But what caught my eye more than her beautiful face was the tattoos that covered her body. The black and red markings showed dragons, geishas, koi, and waves. All things that a Tyger Claw would typically get. But if she was a member of the Tyger Claw, why did she attack this group? Intragang rivalry? But those generally are carried out in groups rather than solo.

She was obviously in a combative state, and when she saw me with my gun out, I was scared that she would get the wrong message. But instead of being aggressive, her facial expression was that of shock, which then changed to... Joy? 

This response was completely unexpected, and I wondered how I should react. If she was a member of the Tyger Claws, then working with her was out of the question. Before I could ask her who she was, one of the Tygers in the store rushed outside and shoulder charged into her. 

That caught the girl off guard and knocked her onto the ground. Before she could recover and get up, the Tyger rushed up to her and returned the favor by clubbing the side of her head with a bat of his own. Seeing her go down snapped me out of my trance, and I jumped into action by activating my Sandi and Optical Camo.

The man that hit the girl had raised his bat over his head, looking to finish the job. I missed my first shot aimed at his head and decided to target his body instead. Missing now might mean the girl gets her skull caved in. My following two bullets were hits and dug into the side of Tyger's torso, probably rupturing his lungs. 

While he was still falling over, I rushed into the store and did the same with the two female tygers. Two shots into the Tyger closest to the shopkeeper and one into the other, all center mass hits. Time then sped back up, and the one harassing the clerk fell over while the other Tyger managed to survive and tried to get up from a kneeling position.

She was still pretty fucked up by getting hit in the chest, but I didn't want to take any chances and let her recover. I circled to the kneeling Tygers side and raised my sword. My blade cut into the woman's neck and cleanly sliced through its path, lopping her head off. 

Surprisingly, the surroundings only got louder as the store clerk began screaming like she saw the devil. I turned around to her to try to get her to calm down, then remembered that I was still invisible. To her, it looked like a phantom had just killed her attackers and even pulled the head off of one of them.

I waited for my Optical Camo to wear off before approaching the woman. Even though she could see me, she was still freaking out and didn't calm down until I showed her my phone and NCPD Subcon Badge. Once she was no longer hysterical, I had her turn off the alarm.

When everything had calmed down, I went over to the mysterious Asian girl who was knocked cold on the floor. I leaned down, jacked into her interface, and ran a first-aid diagnosis. She had a concussion and a minor fracture in her skull but no internal bleeding or immediate life-endangering damages.

Scanning her with my optics showed that the girl was Tabata Yumi. She had connections to the Tyger Claws and was wanted for the usual racketeering and assault. But all of her offenses were from more than a year ago, meaning there is a chance that Yumi could have gone clean.

I heard the sirens in the distance, indicating that the NCPD had enough manpower to send someone my way. I can't just leave her here if she is trying to go clean. Once the NCPD shows up, they'll see a wanted gang member and lock her up even if she isn't a criminal anymore. 

But there is still a chance that she is still a Tyger Claw, and this was some kind of feud within the gang. Do I want to deal with this kind of crazy? The cops were getting closer, and I had to decide soon. I tried thinking about leaving her here and just couldn't do it. Fuck it. I can at least bring her to Vic to get a check-up.