049: Clean up and leave
The truck window glass was shattered into a spiderweb pattern.
Half of the driver's head slumped sideways, the dead man's seatbelt instantly tightening as brain matter mixed with fresh blood splashed across the front windshield.
The street corner erupted into chaos.
Citizens of Eden City were exceptionally familiar with gunfire; pedestrians ducked and covered their heads almost simultaneously, scattering in all directions to get as far from the intersection as possible.
Surrounding vehicles crashed into one another.
The drivers behind wore expressions of panic as everyone instinctively scrambled away from trouble. One driver threw the car into reverse and plowed right into the hood of the car behind them, while another clipped oncoming traffic while trying to turn...
The originally wide road became completely choked.
Holding a suppressed pistol, John walked slowly past the front of the small truck.
The front-seat passenger shoved the dead driver aside, reaching to draw the gun at his waist.
John turned sideways and fired several consecutive shots, the high-penetration rounds leaving clean, distinct holes in the glass.
Ghoulish blood splattered across the seat.
Before drawing his final breath, the wretch managed to pull the trigger. The bullet ricocheted beside the seat—though it caused no harm, it alerted the accomplice in the back.
John moved to the side.
Instead of foolishly standing directly in front of the door, he pressed himself flat against the front tire and waited quietly.
Whoosh—
The ghoul suddenly flung the door open.
Tat-tat-tat!
Having avoided standing in the direct line of fire, John sidestepped the initial volley, raised his arm to adjust his angle, and blew a hole through the head of the gunman on the inside.
Chaos erupted within the vehicle.
Screams, curses, and gunfire mixed together as everything inside was knocked over.
No sooner had John killed one man than a rifle thrust out from the vehicle door before the wielder could even adjust the barrel...
John reached out, grabbed the weapon, and yanked hard.
The gunman lost his balance and tumbled entirely out of the cabin.
John slid around behind him, locked a forearm around his neck, and turned the man's body toward the interior of the truck. Terrified out of his wits, the last ghoul emptied his submachine gun's magazine in a panic, riddling his own companion's stomach with bullets.
Judging the precise moment, John extended his pistol from behind the hostage's neck.
Tap. Tap-tap.
One shot to the body, two to the head.
The corpse collapsed.
[Ghoul eliminated 5/5. (Completed)]
John dropped the corpse at his feet, bent down to wipe away the blood near the webbing of his thumb, and stepped into the cabin, immediately greeted by screams.
"Ah, no, no, please."
"Fuck!"
John instinctively drew his gun.
He felt a slight surge of annoyance. Rummaging through the vehicle and killing the occupants had gone a bit too smoothly, and he had relied too heavily on the mission prompt, failing to anticipate that there would still be a living person inside.
It was a disheveled young woman, wearing only basic cyberware and dressed in tattered rags.
Her makeup was completely smeared, her eye sockets heavily bloodshot with visible bruises, and she was cowering in the corner, shivering violently.
"Where are you from?"
"Silver Wharf... I heard from a friend there were free sample trials, I didn't know... ugh, they grabbed me."
Her eyes appeared somewhat hazy.
John noticed the woman was shockingly skinny, her emotional state abnormal, showing clear signs of a drug withdrawal.
"You got conned by junkies. Damn it, get out."
Lifting the muzzle of his gun, he coldly dragged the woman out of the vehicle.
Police sirens wailed a block away.
The cops of Eden City had no desire to die in the line of duty for a meager paycheck, which was why they always issued early warnings to give scumbags a chance to clear out, rather than turning things into a protracted, bitter firefight.
A drone swept overhead with a whir.
John immediately pulled up his hood and drew a black dust-filtering scarf up to cover the lower half of his face.
Once the police saw the battle was over, they would likely arrive soon to sweep the battlefield.
John had no desire for conflict, nor did he want his efforts to go to waste.
He grabbed an empty sack from the backseat, crammed in the scattered components, drug precursors, and cash all at once, and stripped the personal weapons from all five ghouls.
Beep-beep—
[ECPD! Drop your... weapons, keep your hands within visible range, warning...]
Subtitles flashed across John's vision.
The translation plugin provided by Tin Foil began operating, rendering the warning prompts directly before his eyes.
He zipped up the bag, slung the strap over his neck, and hurried through the alley behind him, bypassing an entire street and the crowd of rubbernecking onlookers.
[Temporary Mission - Temptation (Completed)]
[Reward: Unknown Illegal Chip, Contraband, Cash]
The Isenberg Alloy RCH sat waiting steadily.
John straddled the machine, revved the engine, and sped away from the scene, leaving the drones and the ram-bar equipped police cruisers far behind.
[Danny Street - Black Gold Gang Apartment]
John parked the motorcycle.
He walked calmly back up to street level, encountering a cluster of Black Gold Gang members lingering around the elevated ground floor.
This corner featured workout equipment, a sound system, a pristine graffiti wall, and two rows of vending machines.
The Black Gold Gang maintained its own way of managing the streets:
They scheduled regular patrols, maintained legitimate businesses, assigned tasks to low-level members, cleared out troublesome idiots, and periodically collected a percentage of rent from shop owners.
John approached a burly man wearing a thick gold chain and trendy streetwear.
[Name: Gilead]
He was the public-facing minor boss of the Livable Rental Company, also in charge of apartment security, and occasionally helped Mr. Vito pass messages to John—a lower-tier lieutenant within the Black Gold Gang.
"Yo, John."
Gilead extended a cybernetic arm to bump shoulders, looking at John with a hint of respect. "I was just looking for you... Shit, what's this?"
"Take it."
John grabbed a full bag from his pocket and tossed it to him, speaking in an indifferent tone.
"I slaughtered a truck full of ghouls."
"Nice work."
"It happened out on the street, lots of eyes around, and the police showed up. I took a bit too long leaving and I'm not sure I shook my tail entirely. If I get targeted, cover my back."
"No problem, pal."
With his massive chest muscles and mirrored shades, Gilead's expression behind the lenses looked thoroughly reliable.
John bid him farewell, stepped into the elevator, and watched the digital numbers climb.
Since he intended to live long-term on Danny Street, building a good relationship with the local gang was necessary.
When a local enforcer showed goodwill, he was more than willing to give face.
Last time Black Light went out of control and wrecked a car in the garage, Mr. Vito had helped smooth things over. It wasn't a huge deal, but he still needed to find an opportunity to say thank you.
John particularly hated owing favors.
He planned to drop his gear off in his apartment and then head to the Borago Club to find...
Ding.
Lost in thought, the elevator doors slid open.
John's train of thought was interrupted when he discovered two people standing right outside his door, both wearing Iron Gang Logistics work jackets.
A man and a woman.
The burly man's jacket strained against his frame, boasting a high rate of cybernetic enhancement; even his eyeballs were ocular implants embedded directly into his flesh, and the artificial leather on his fingers and cheeks bore specialized heat-dissipation patterns.
[Name: Armored Behemoth]
[Scan: Blood Pump, Heavy Subdermal Armor, Poly-Alloy Plating, etc.]
[Bounty: Grievous Assault, Attacking an Officer, Illegal Modification, etc.]
He stood near the back with his hands crossed over his lower abdomen like a professional bodyguard.
John shifted his focus to the woman.
She leaned against the doorway, smoking an e-cigarette, her delicate face resembling that of a high-end doll, yet entirely devoid of any seductive aura.
Sporting short black hair, she stared at the bag in John's hand and smiled.
"My, what a bountiful harvest, Mr. John. We're here to investigate the missing transport drone incident. Um... Do you have plans tonight? We'll need just a tiny bit of your time."
The woman's cybernetic eyes flickered.
[Scan detected, hacking in progress...]
John frowned and glared at her, whereupon the hacking progress bar instantly terminated.
He stared hard into the woman's face.
[Name: Oros Greener]
[Affiliation: Fixer]
[Scan: Messiah-Secret Seeker (Experimental), Atlanta Deep-Net Connection Pod (Experimental), etc.]
John immediately pressed his hand against his weapon.
"Who the hell are you?"