Us Cracks were a girl group of three Japanese Night Citizens that each had their own color theme: red, blue and purple. Their names were ‘Red Menace’, ‘Blue Moon’, and ‘Purple Force’.

Also, they looked like bug-people.

Apparently, Kiroshi had sponsored them, and their preferred cyberoptics from the bafflingly varied catalogue that the company offered were all quite a bit… out there.

And I had thought that Faraday was a freak. Red Menace’s eyes were solid black ovaloid orbs that took up half her face. Purple Force had slightly smaller primary eyes. Yes, primary, because to the outer side of each of the eyes were two auxiliary orbs, all as pitch black as the primary ones.

Only Blue Moon seemed to have comprehensible orbs. She merely had two gray pupils and irises on each eye. Unlike her… sisters? Colleagues? Unlike them, her eyes looked recognizably human.

They were also singers of the hit songs like ‘Fuck the Baby-Ion’, ‘Punk-O-Spanko’, and who could forget their (s)hit-song ‘Ponpon Shit’?

I knew I couldn’t. Lucy played it way too often as it was, and now I was forced to listen to it in-person.

Backstage, thankfully, alongside Fei and Jin. Otherwise, I’d have to actually look at the girls for a length of time. The backstage room did have a giant screen showing several different angles of the concert, but I could always just look away.

And most of us backstage were, in fact, looking away. Jin was busy laughing and chattering with his lackeys, all low-tier Arasaka Academy students, Fei was trading barbs with some of the cattier Arasaka girls, while I stared emptily into space, rifling through an ocean of data.

The Memorial Omatsuri was, as expected, an event filled with music, alcohol and merriment. It was also a truly massive distraction from having to do real work. Work like getting on top of the semi-powergrab that Rogue was aiming for, and making sure that the Task Force didn’t move without my fullest knowledge.

The truth was, I was only here to get a recommendation letter from Jin, so that I could finally move into a nicer place. In return for that, he had asked me to waste my time with him on this nonsense.

And what a waste of time it was.

It did give me time to think, between the Us Cracks sets.

While leading the Task Force astray and keeping them on my tail, but just barely, was a good enough direction, it wasn’t an actual plan in itself. It was the idea of a plan. It needed more. More contents.

Right now, the Joint Task Force was running off a loose gaggle of conspiracy theories when it came to who and what D really was, who he was working for, what his organization was. Said theories were often hilariously awful, most were just stupid, and a few came far, far too close for comfort.

I needed the corpo spooks and their bloodhounds to lose my trail. Meaning I needed a scapegoat. Fast.

And as an agent of Arasaka, I could imagine one almost instantly: Militech.

It made sense.

Militech was on the outs with Night City as a whole. The Unification War between the NUSA and the Free States had only ended a couple of years ago, and that had basically for all intents and purposes been a hot proxy conflict between Militech and Arasaka. Forget the NUSA, even the Free States that did business with Militech weren’t Night City’s best of friends on any given day.

Meaning, on any given occasion that tensions would rise, Night City’s megacorps always knew who to eyeball first: the party that just about always stood to benefit the most from an overall drop in Night City’s productivity.

Night City’s loss was Militech’s gain, pretty much always, in any given scenario.

Convenient. I couldn’t have asked for a better scapegoat, really.

From there came one question: in what ways did my interests align with Militech’s? Could I effectively frame Militech for any given military action on my part?

More relevantly to my case, could I pin my still-loosely-planned raid on Biotechnica on Militech somehow?

Possibly. I was flush with Militech gear now. Pretty much all of the Afterlife’s edgerunners were now, after we had plundered Green Farm. But… that wasn’t enough. They’d only think to look after D even harder.

It had to be something that Militech would undeniably benefit from.

I only had vague hunches to go on, as well as a baseline understanding of Militech’s relative disposition towards Night City’s big five, and vice versa.

But that wasn’t actionable intel.

I really would need to make a gig out of digging for more information on Militech. That way, I could credibly—

Fei-Fei nudged me with her elbow. “You doing okay?”

“Huh?” I blinked at her. “Yeah, just—working.”

She pouted at me. “What’s the point of working so hard if you’re just going to work through the few free days you’ll get this semester, that also isn’t the weekend?”

I looked at her flatly for a moment, and then chuckled.

True, my timing had… left a lot to be desired. If only I had delayed my freakout for just another week, I would have had fewer things on my plate. I’d only have to deal with the Ryuzaki onboarding for one.

In an instant, my mood soured as I thought back to that fucking man.

I really couldn’t wait for the day when I could just kill him. He really needed to go. Someday. Once he had outlived his usefulness, or whenever staying in his good graces became more trouble than it was worth.

“I hope you’re at least enjoying the music.”

My chuckle turned into a laugh.

“What?!”

I shook my head. “I mean… I don’t wanna be a downer.”

“No way!” Fei exclaimed. “You don’t like Us Cracks?!”

Her statement was as understandable to me as someone asking me, in utter confusion: ‘you don’t like random strangers shitting into your mouth?’

“No, actually. Though I won’t judge you for liking it. I’m as open-minded as they come.”

She snorted. “I didn’t take you for a music snob.”

“Lazerpop ain’t exactly my scene,” I said. “I prefer more low-tech music. Like Samurai, for example.”

She looked at me flatly. “You act like you’re not basic as fuck, but you are. Samurai? That’s a huge cliché.”

I frowned. “What do you mean it’s a cliché?”

“It’s all anyone that doesn’t like Lazerpop listens to, in Night City. It’s Samurai, or Kerry Eurodyne, or freaking Ratboy—“

“Hey!” I frowned at her. “Don’t disrespect Ratboy! Who’s Ready for Tomorrow is an absolute banger! I listened to it all the time going to school—”

She giggled at me.

Dammit. I saw what she was getting at. “Alright, maybe I don’t like hyper-underground music? I’m not a hipster. I don’t have time for that shit anyway.”

“I won’t judge you for liking it,” she grinned slyly at me. “I’m as open-minded as they come.”

I sighed.

She really did have me verbally cornered.

“One difference: my music taste is actually good,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” she laughed. “Keep telling yourself that, Samurai.”

I wish. I didn’t just listen to Samurai for the beats. Silverhand had gone out a fucking legend, nuking Downtown’s Arasaka HQ. Who could possibly top that? People a thousand years from now might still be listening to his tracks. Never Fade Away was my favorite for a reason.

The cacophony finally ended. Us Cracks were on their way to the backstage area.

“Alright, alright!” Jin announced. “Now, don’t get too aroused! Remember, these are just people, like you and me. And don’t you dare ask for pictures! Got it? Good. Thank you.”

Even though I thought it was gross to watch Jin treat our ‘classmates’ like sheep, I was grateful that Fei and I were out with them, and not Jin’s actual rivals. I’d have to remain alert if so. I wouldn’t have had much time to do my own scheming.

Once the trio of color-themed musicians made their way to the backstage, Jin met them halfway and chatted with them in Japanese, all the while holding up his handheld, intending on taking a picture of all of them together.

I wondered if Lucy might appreciate a photo, too.

I texted Jin.

‘Let me take a photo with them, too.’

Jin turned to me and gave a shrug. I approached the trio, and noticed Red Force’s demeanor. Wait, no. Red Menace. Specifically, what caught my eye about her was her body language. She wasn’t scared of me, of course, but she was definitely ready for violence. She looked trained. Interesting.

They switched to English as they watched me approach. “Who is this cutie-patootie?” Red Menace’s Japanese accent was very thick as she spoke.

“Ah, this guy’s David Martinez,” Jin smirked. “You might know him as the racer.”

“You cut your hair?” Blue Moon asked me. “Maa, you looked so much cuter before!”

“You’re David Martinez?” Purple Force asked in shock. “I am, big fan! After Saturday, I could not stop thinking about you! You beat Hiro-chan!”

I gave them a pleasant nod. “Thank you.”

“Do you want a picture, David-chan?” Red Menace asked, head tilted.

“If it’s not too much of a bother,” I said. “My girlfriend is a big fan of you three.”

“And what about you?” Red Menace asked me.

There was no point in being rude. “I think your music is very catchy.” To some people. Not me.

Red Menace giggled. “Thank you. You are very polite. Come, come, let’s take that picture, okay?”

The things I do for love.

I sent Jin another text.

“Chiiiizu!” Us Cracks said as they threw their arms around my neck and beamed brightly. I cracked a small grin at their energy.

Once I snapped some pictures, Red Menace turned me around excitedly. “Oh, oh! Can we have your number, please? Maybe you can let us ride in your car one day?”

Ugh. “Maybe one day,” I said as I… reluctantly shot her my details. Christ. Why am I even doing this?

“Can we go top speed?” Blue Moon asked, poking her index finger on her lower lip.

“No, no!” Red Menace said. “Top acceleration!”

I laughed politely at what was obviously a joke on her part. At least, I hoped it was.

“Hiro-chan never lets us go so fast!” Purple Force complained.

I blinked. “Well, that’s probably because he doesn’t want to kill you.”

“Eeeeh?” Red Menace tilted her head. “Don’t they say that it’s not speed that kills you, but a sudden stop?”

Really? Were they going to make me have to explain to them basic physics?

Or… maybe they were just jerking me around? Just to be safe, I laughed at their antics. Maybe this was… what did they call this again? That Japanese form of stand-up comedy, with one funny man and a straight man. Right, Manzai. I was guessing that I was the straight man.

They laughed as well, doubling over as they did.

I hoped they weren’t laughing at my expense.

This is too damn awkward.

[Perhaps they are being nice? And maybe you just feel bad for being so judgmental towards them?]

I never judged their characters. Only their looks and musician skills: that was fair game.

I gave Jin a pointed look. ‘The rec-letter. Please.’

‘Fiiine. You can delta.’ He sent me a document then, containing an e-signed letter of recommendation from Arasaka’s executive branch. All the doors in the city were finally open for me.

After a few awkward minutes more of talking to the over-enthusiastic girls, I introduced them to Fei-Fei (much to her joy), and found an opportunity to peacefully leave.

000

An hour later, I met Qiang at a bar on the fifty-second floor in a high-rise Downtown. He was in a private booth, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Even though it was still only two PM in the afternoon, there should have been more people. He must have paid for the whole place for himself. Still lying low on account of his whole dead man act, I had to guess.

I knocked on the glass door of the booth. The door slid open, and I saw Qiang reaching over the table to do just that.

He gestured towards the sofa opposite to him and filled himself a glass of juice from a crystal bottle. Next to that bottle was a Japanese whiskey bottle. “Help yourself,” he said.

I chose the juice instead.

“So,” Qiang began. “You lied to me.”

“Not quite.”

“Then how do you explain that statement of yours?” he asked me. “In response to a simple question: are you owned by Arasaka?”

“They didn’t own me at the time,” I said.

A server, who looked like the bar’s actual owner, came over and laid down two cups of juice. Qiang took his, and chuckled dryly. “And that absolves you why?”

“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice,” I said. “My associate, the son of Ryuzaki, informed me, quite sternly, that his father… required my allegiance.”

“Did he, now? Is all that to say that you did not expect this turn of events when you gave me your answer?” Qiang asked me. “Because if so, I’m less irritated by what I initially perceived as a lie, and far more baffled by your astounding naïveté.”

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I nodded. “I won’t make any excuses for that.” He was right. I had been naïve.

“Good. Then we can begin the real work,” Qiang said.

I blinked. “So… I’m not cut?”

Qiang shook his head slightly. “Your money means next to nothing, all in all. But I’m curious to see what you can accomplish with your idea.”

“And Ryuzaki?”

“Arasaka was always intent on buying us out,” Qiang said. “Their delay in furthering our merger was merely a punishment for us losing an experimental cybernetic augmentation. Some of our board members are rather enthusiastic to see you throw your hat into the ring: they see it as a sign that Arasaka hasn’t fully abandoned us. Others… view your inclusion as an insult. But not one that they would act against. Not at this point.” He gave me a small grin. “Good news for you: no hidden knives in the dark.”

“Only the slurs,” I rolled my eyes.

He snorted. “You’re not the first white monkey we’ve brought onboard, and you won’t be the last. You should take the good with the bad, and be grateful that verbal disrespect is as far as your challenges will extend.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said. “As long as I get a decent team, people who know how to follow specific instruction and nothing else, I’m fine with whatever. I’ll just turn off my translators when someone says something shitty.” Then I glowered at him. “Also. I’m Mexican.”

Qiang laughed. “Good man,” he raised his glass of apple juice. I returned his toast, and took a sip of my own.

Hold on, this actually tastes really good!

“Good stuff,” I muttered, putting the glass down. Best not to drink it too fast, or I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it for as long.

Qiang gave the glass a nod. “No synth-stuff here. Dozens of times more expensive than the alternatives, but once you get a taste for the real thing, it’s hard to go back. Or so I’ve been told. Now then,“ Qiang said, leaning back and spreading his arms. “If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them.”

Questions. Hm. “Such as?”

Qiang gave me an unimpressed look. “Half the short sellers in NC would be dying to have your current level of access to due diligence. You’ve at least read our latest 10-K, right?”

D: What the fuck is a 10-K?

[He’s referring to the annual investor report. All companies with publicly traded stock are required to provide progress reports to their investors once per year.]

Seriously? Shit. Why hadn’t I learned about this in school?

[All companies with publicly traded stocks in the NUSA.]

And that didn’t apply to Arasaka.

Wow. Seventy-thousand Eurodollars a semester just to have vital information withheld from me. But at least, I knew how to read a conference room, and pour booze for my superiors if they were running short and looked like they wanted a refill. Not to mention the fucking flower arrangements, or the ten-week unit on learning how to apologize properly.

Corp schooling was a joke.

“Well,” I shrugged. Fuck it. “Really, I was banking on my own contributions to reverse all your money problems.”

“We’re a hundred days from insolvency.”

What the fuck?!

Qiang chuckled. “What did you think, David? Our stock price has been in a free fall for months.”

A hundred days. Holy shit. Would it even take a hundred days for the company to reach full adoption into the algorithm in the first place? There was no way an efficiency optimization algorithm could improve their situation appreciably before then.

Unless I created something truly special. Something truly out of this world.

I closed my eyes. No. That… wasn’t realistic. I would try, but I couldn’t put all my eggs in that basket. I looked into Qiang’s eyes and asked, “What’s your plan?”

“I know some people,” Qiang grinned at me. “People capable of turning our situation around, as long as we approach them with an appropriate level of competence.”

“Is it illegal?” I asked him.

I couldn’t exactly tell him that I knew he’d been selling Sandevistans to the cartels. Or at least selling through intermediaries.

“Even better,” he said. “It’s unregulated.” He chuckled, as if that was a joke. “That is all I can reveal for now, until you sign yourself to us. Then, provided you can spare some time away from this… project of yours, we can get up to some fun stuff together.”

He didn’t give a shit about my project at all.

That was strangely reassuring. I reached my hand over the table. Qiang took the hand, and we shook on it. “Saturday,” I said.

“A hundred million,” he said.

A hundred million.

000

Vincent ripped off his BD wreath and stilled his breathing, shaking away the fear still lingering in his mind from this kid Freeman’s close brush with death.

He was in his office, and his assistant Carter Smith stood opposite to his desk while he sat there, thinking.

D knew that Militech nepo’s full name. He was well-informed, but that made sense, given his chosen line of work.

He was a scary motherfucker, Vincent would give him that.

“What do you think, V?” Smith asked.

“I think…” he paused for a moment. “We should get to work. Follow up on this Maine lead.”

And I should get up off my ass and start producing results before Jenkins decides to take out his anger on me.

He had only just received this data today from Militech—they had sat on it since yesterday. They had a whole night’s head start, not to mention the other crap they probably weren’t sharing.

Like the Breached radio—the hacking traces on the network could help them trace D back to whoever outfitted him with his hacks.

He tapped his fingers on the desk, and decided to do something he might regret in the next five minutes.

He called his good friend Jackie Welles.

Jackie: What’s up, friend?

V: You know what’s up.

Jackie: *sigh* things are getting real tense, hermano. There’s talk of a new gang forming.

Vincent frowned.

V: Who’s organizing? D? He hasn’t shown his face in public since Sunday.

Jackie: It’s anyone’s game at this point. D. Rogue.

Rogue Amendiares. Vincent knew of her. Anyone in CoIntel knew of her, really. An old-school Night Citizen, and a living legend according to many in the streets. According to the rumor mill, she had dated Silverhand and Blackhand at different points in her life. She was as old as Night City’s merc scene was.

To Arasaka, she was a person of interest in the Night City Holocaust, when Silverhand had nuked HQ back in 2023. Which should have seen anyone else dead and buried a thousand yards below. But some deal had been struck at a level of classification beyond his access, and she had been allowed to roam free as Night City’s queen of fixers.

For decades, she had been content in that role, not making much trouble for Arasaka, running her bar in Watson that was patronized by Night City’s biggest and baddest hired muscle: ex-special forces, former corp security, disgraced cops, and even Lazarus rejects. Whenever the city’s edgerunners needed a watering hub, the Afterlife was the place to be.

It was also every sociopath with a gun’s second chance at making something of themselves, after their initial plans in life failed to pan out. It wasn’t a place for organization, or long-term planning. That just wasn’t in their blood.

What could they possibly be organizing towards, and why? They had already gotten the score of their lifetimes. Surely, they’d just keep trying their luck on random targets until they ended up kicking it, inevitably.

V: You think D and Rogue are on the outs? They might want to fight?

Jackie: You didn’t hear this from me, hermano, but according to my choom who was there on Sunday, D entered the Afterlife, and kicked the crap out of everyone.

Holy shit. Why am I hearing this just now?

Jackie: But he showed mercy. He didn’t kill them, when he could have. Then he told them to come with him to Tijuana, to kill the gonks that tried to shoot his friends up.

V: Maine Williams?

Jackie: …bro, are you working this?

V: Yeah.

Jackie: Shit, choom! You should have told me! Or maybe not. Shit. You know what’s been happening to people talking to the badges, do you? They get killed. By Rogue, or by D. Or even the other fixers.

He was spooked. Vincent felt a spike of guilt at that. Jackie didn’t deserve to be in this position.

V: My bad, Jackie. Should have told you.

Jackie: Tell me the truth, Hermano. Are you working with the badges, too?

V: …’Saka’s got me on this task force.

Jackie: Wait, you serious? The one all the fixers are talking about? All the megacorpo’s spooks in one room together?

V: Yes.

Jackie: Shit…

Jackie: Moving up in life, huh? I would be mad about this, but really, hombre, I’m worried. For you. You should just quit. D will fucking kill you. He’s not normal, hermano. He’s not.

V sighed.

Yeah? Well neither am I.

V: Maine Williams. Give me something, Jackie. Please.

Jackie: You’re my good choom, V. That’s why I’ll remind you of the last thing that happened when someone tried going after D’s chooms. He killed them all. Then he followed them all the way to Tijuana and killed the rest. Now he’s got more weapons than the Maelstrom, and probably enough money to do whatever the hell he wants.

Jackie: Do I think he will last long? No. Do I think ‘Saka’s gonna come down on him and his buddies like a second nuke? Yes. But none of that shit’s the point. You need to remember, when the big boots are taking their steps, you’re the ant. And they won’t feel shit underneath their feet when they smear your ass over the asphalt.

V: You want me to get away. While there’s still time.

Jackie: I can’t tell you nothing. And it’s for your own good. You hearing me? For your own good! If I thought you could get away with it, I would sing until my face was blue, tell you everything I know, and do my part in digging for more dirt. You know this. Lord knows I owe you my life as it is. A bit of sidework ain’t no sweat. But like I said: I owe you. That’s why I can’t help you with this. One big-time fixer is already dead. Faraday. That man had more money than God, and it wasn’t enough.

Vincent remembered the exact moment between Faraday opening his mouth, and a Soviet tech revolver’s bullet disintegrating his skull.

V: Alright, Jackie. Thanks. We should catch up sometime.

Jackie: You gotta get your ass outta those corpo threads, first. This isn’t the Night City you remember anymore. The lowlives are getting bolder.

Wasn’t that the fucking truth?

Ever since that incompetent fuckmunch Jerry Fawlter had become police commissioner, Night City’s streets were less safe than ever before in recent memory. That wasn’t just in the low-income neighborhoods either, like Arroyo where scav killings had reached a drastic uptick since Fawlter’s cost-cutting measures and his lagging bots-for-cops program or whatever the fuck he called it.

It was Downtown. Charter Hill. Japantown. The halfway-non-shitty areas. Already nine corporate employees had been found murdered on their way to or from work, since Sunday alone. Night City was entering a crime epidemic, and no one was safe anymore.

Vincent wondered for a moment, whether D was the disease itself, or simply a symptom of it? Would he have ever decided to wear that stupid fucking mask if there even were any Scavs, or Maelstrom, or Tyger Claws?

Vincent thought back to a graffiti’d wall he’d seen once as a kid, walking through the seedier parts of Vista Del Rey on his way home from school. It was an island of legible, sensible English in an ocean of multilingual profanity and sexual images.

It was one sentence, and it had refused to leave his mind since that day.

V: Every society has the criminals it deserves.

Jackie: Stay safe, Vincent. I mean it. Listen, I gotta go.

Vincent nodded.

V: Talk to you soon.

Vincent looked up at his assistant. “Look up Maine Williams on our merc registry. We’ll find all of D’s associates through him.”

Then he could dump that ticking timebomb onto Kate Winslow’s desk, maybe. Have that bitch kick the beehive, only for D to take her out.

Christ. What a mess.

Where’s that bastard Smasher when you need him?

Just as Smith left the room to do as he was ordered, the kid called him.

David Martinez. What, did he have some questions?

Or… did D pay him a visit, too?

Vincent accepted the call.

V: What’s up?

David M: I got done with the camera stuff. I got ID on our BD lead.

Really? Already?

V: Fuckin’ A, kid. Good hustle. I mean it.

David M: Didn’t think it would pan out. It took me all night to get it done.

V: I’ll talk to my boss. You stay put.

000

When Vincent Valeri entered his boss’ office, Arthur Jenkins instantly hung up from his phone call.

“Interrupting something?” V asked.

From the 85th floor of Arasaka Tower, Arthur Jenkins’ office overlooked Corpo Plaza and Memorial Park like a sniper’s perch, an almost literal point of overwatch for Downtown’s corporate world. And it’ll be my office if Arthur gets promoted, V knew.

“No. Just more wrangling with that bitch, Abernathy,” Arthur said, pocketing his phone with a casual drawl. “She’s starting to complain to the higher-ups about CoIntel’s, ah, lack of progress with the Joint Task Force—despite the fact that her people haven’t provided shit to the investigation.”

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” V said, nodding. “Scuttlebutt says she’s backed by Michiko. And if she manages to become CoIntel’s next director, we’re gonna have problems, boss.”

“Do not remind me,” Arthur grimaced. “This investigation becomes more important by the day. The C-suite is calling me multiple times a day demanding progress. I trust you understand the implications.”

V nodded. He did.

More than just our jobs depend on this investigation, was what Arthur Jenkins was saying.

That was the simple reality of what it was to work in CoIntel: to exist in a permanent state of fucking. Either you were doing the fucking, or you were getting fucked. If he hadn’t saved my ass back when I’d first started with ‘Saka, if everyone didn’t know that I’m Arthur’s guy…

CoIntel was where the company’s most viciously ambitious brought out their knives, with only a few of the company’s most ruthless and ambitious moving on to be promoted to positions directly under the C-suite. And V meant to win that particular rat race. Or, rather, for Arthur to win the race and for himself to be uplifted by association.

One way or another, he had picked his horse.

“Now then,” Arthur’s’ gaze met his. “Your report, V? You say you’ve made contact with the Soviet mercs.”

V nodded. “Briefly, yeah. They flew over from Vladivostok yesterday. Straight from the Organitskaya’s main eastern branch. They say they’re open to a meet tonight. Can’t say I know much about ‘em, though.” V handed the man a shard containing the full report. Arthur didn’t think twice before slotting it into his socket on the back of his neck.

“The Tsviets.” Arthur smiled thinly, browsing through the data. “I’ve worked with them before, once. Real Soviet wet-work crew, some of the best-of-the-best hunter-killers. Professional bounty hunters, with a history of work for various megacorps. You read up on their ops in Korea?”

Vincent nodded. “Tough crew, sounds like.” He’d spoken with their leader over the phone, briefly. “Acts the part too.”

CoIntel already had a file on the Russians they were looking to hire, and V had read it first thing. The Tsviets were one of the best Soviet edgerunning crews, bounty hunters with various tactical depths. Edgerunners who specialized in the assassination of elite combatants, especially other edgerunners, enemy generals on the field and so on. Most of their ops with Arasaka had been blacklisted to V’s level of security access, but he’d managed to pick up most of the gist of it. They’d been active for at least three decades, and until recently had been involved in multiple sides of ongoing conflicts in southern and eastern Africa… doing what, he couldn’t say for sure.

Given Arasaka’s offworld competitive interests and Arthur’s ongoing ops against the Pan-African Alliance and Orbital Air, it was easy to make some guesses.

“I’m guessing you couldn’t read over much of their ops history?” Arthur inquired.

Vincent nodded. “Main thing I picked up is that they haven’t always been on ‘Saka’s side.”

“That’s just how it goes with freelancers. What you certainly don’t know, V,” Arthur smiled thinly, “is that Kang Tao brought in several of China’s best edgerunning crews to run sabotage ops against us in Kenya last year. Crews from Taipei, Roanapur, Seoul. The Tsviets took care of those problems handily. And they didn’t just kill Kang Tao’s crews: they managed to shift the blame to other Euro space corps. They’re far from normal bounty hunters: they’re just as specialized in sabotage and disinformation black ops.”

Vincent grinned. He was starting to see what Arthur was getting at. “Real operators, huh. They’ll take D down and make a good story for us while they’re at it. Shift the blame and help us get decisive control of the Joint Task Force.”

Besides that, D’s bounty was running up past five million eddies, last Vincent had heard, once all the various outstanding private and public bounties were added up. Given that kind of incentive, it probably hadn’t been too hard to hire these Russians. That amount of eddies would go a long way in their homeland.

“Yes,” Arthur muttered, fingers steepled. “They are exactly what we need. But that’s the problem.”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The mercs aren’t signing any agreements with us yet,” Arthur growled. “They came to Night City on their own, and are looking to be hired by whichever megacorp has the best intel on D.”

“Ah, shit.” Vincent muttered.

“That’s your job, Vincent.” Arthur gave him a hard look. “Go to these mercs, get it done. Get them onboarded before Kang Tao or Biotechnica, or even worse, Militech manages to snap them up.”

“Understood, boss,” Vincent said drily.

“Night City’s full of mercs, psychos, and other wannabe garbage. But I don’t need cannon fodder. I need hunters that CoIntel is able to work with.” Arthur said dismissively. Then his eyes narrowed, as he looked further down the data. “Now, what else did you bring me, V?”

Vincent smirked. “Just keep looking, boss.”

Arthur’s eyes, glowing blue from all the data he was browsing, locked on one particular point in the air. His frame froze for a short moment. “You’ve got an ID on the XBD techie? How?”

“Martinez found it.” There was no recognition in Arthur’s eyes, so V clarified. “Masaru’s new nepo intern. I looked over the data and the receipts, looks legit.”

Arthur leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing at the screamsheet. “Again, this kid makes more progress on the XBD chain.” He swiped a finger across the tablet. A holo of David Martinez flickered into view, new buzzcut and threads and all. With eyes that looked too young, too hungry, for this business. V’s boss studied the holo for a few moments, narrow-eyed. “What’s your read on the kid, really?”

Vincent sighed. “Thought he was just another nepo hire at first, boss. But he’s got the skills of a real analyst. Better than quite a few of our actual ones. He’s delivering the goods.”

“This find changes things…” Arthur muttered absently. The blue glow of his eyes abated to a more natural blue hue as he refocused on Vincent. “You’re bringing the boy to the Tsviet meet,” he said.

Seriously? Vincent frowned. “David? Why?”

Arthur looked at him seriously. “The kid’s BD chain has given us more raw intel on D in twenty-four hours than Abernathy’s whole counterintel apparatus has managed in ninety-six. Follow that thread. Make it ours. Keep it up and we can axe Abernathy’s people from the Joint Task Force outright.”

V grimaced. Meaning the boss’ job promotion really is riding on this. Damn.

“I’m still not seeing a reason to bring him personally, boss.” Yes, there was opportunity in this, but: way, way too much of a risk for the new kid.

“These Soviet mercs are… irreverent. They don’t care for corpo politics, can smell suits like us from a mile away,” Arthur explained, giving Vincent a level look. “In other words, they don’t like middlemen. They care for their mission, their target, and their payday, and nothing else. They’re the type that likes to get their intel straight from the source.”

Vincent parsed those words. “Sounds like you’ve had a hard time.”

Arthur grimaced, nodded. “Personally dealing with edgerunners and other gutter trash is a chore, at best, Vincent. If you ever get this job, you’ll see how far more convenient it is to work with the company’s own soldiers.”

Vincent nodded. “In any case,” Arthur continued, “these mercs respect go-getters, not suits. A kid with fresh target data that he personally acquired? They’ll respect that.”

For all Vincent knew, Arthur was actually telling the truth. But beyond that, there was a less charitable read on this. You just want to foist your scut work off to the new intern, and let him eat the risk while you take the reward, Vincent thought, but didn’t say.

“I don’t disagree with your assessment, boss.” Vincent said carefully. He had read the file on the Tsviets, and they sounded… eclectic, to say the least. “But putting a kid in the same room as edgerunners on this level? They eat amateurs for breakfast. If they think he’s weak, they’ll stomp him into the ground just for laughs.” Literally, Vincent assumed.

Arthur frowned, but nodded. “It doesn’t matter. Let them test him. Masaru’s kid has certainly provided value. But if he cracks under pressure, that tells me all I need to know about his long-term value.”

Shit. Vincent grimaced internally, though he let nothing show on his face. None of CoIntel’s SVPs had enjoyed having the CFO drop a seventeen year old nepo hire on their department’s ops, and they’d enjoyed it even less when said kid had managed to procure more actionable intel on his first day than anyone else. Were the knives already coming out for the kid?

Arthur was making his own position clear: if he had even half an excuse to get rid of David, at least have him kicked out of CoIntel, he’d happily do so. But in the meantime, he’d use up the kid for everything he was worth.

“You’re setting up a good high school kid to get driven out of the company,” Vincent observed. “Isn’t this beneath you?”

“CoIntel isn’t a place for kids,” Arthur’s voice hardened. “I want this op done properly, V. Get the Tsviets onboarded. Shake their hands, spill vodka with them, whatever the hell they want. Either we buy the loyalty of these Soviet mercs, or someone else will.”

“You think that’s a risk?”

“A strong risk. I want these mercs hunting this terrorist for us. Not for Biotechnica or Kang Tao, and certainly not for Militech. For us. Go, get it done.” Arthur said. “And Martinez goes with you, no argument.”

Vincent snorted, shaking his head as he turned for the door.

“And V,” Arthur said from behind him. “If the kid doesn’t make it out of that meeting in one piece… then that’s no real loss for us. But if he helps get these mercs onboarded? Then I’ll know the kid’s worth betting on.”

Nothing V could say to that. This was the reality of working Arasaka Counterintelligence. Either you were useful, or you were not.

When he walked out of Arthur’s office, he was already calling up David Martinez.