Chapter Text
Chapter 7: Killing In The Name
V watched as the Sixth Street reinforcements rolled in, whatever was going on, it was a hit. V hadn’t pissed anybody off and kept good standing with the Fixers of NC, Wakako and Regina at least. Jackie was a former Valentino but he kept to himself and avoided gangoon shenanigans.
That left Maine’s crew, and suddenly it kicked in. “Faraday,” V muttered.
He barely had time to focus on that, before seeing Maine punch right through a Sixth Streeter, V watched as the poor gal was quite literally ripped in half from the force of the punch, blood staining Maine. He was thankful Maine had bad ICE and that his own cyberdeck did enough at the very least.
Maine went sprinting in, grabbing whatever he could, pumping every 6th Street Gangoon he could full of lead, he raised his PLS and attempted to pull the trigger. Nothing… nothing happened. He clicked that mental trigger again and again and again and still nothing… it came back to him. Devos.
Devos had shut down some of his cyberware beyond base functions, apparently that included his trusty Projectile Launch System. Oh he’d have words with Devos over this.
Still, the fact that the bullets ricocheted off of Maine’s body, the fury he had, he still had enough passive cyberware inside his body to make anyone’s day unpleasant. And the roar extended to those around him.
V was sorry to say but if this cleared up, they may not have a Maine left. He wasn’t making any actual noises, just feral roars and guttural grunts of rage, and yet his cyberware wasn’t being used, why?
Focus on that later, V had other concerns. This was revenge, Faraday had hired a bunch of gangoons for god damned revenge. It was clear he was unhappy with the gang leaving, but most fixers just moved on, apparently not him. It made little sense, sure whacking a troublesome solo wasn’t out of the realm of fixers, but it was always for pragmatic reasons. This… this was just stupid.
Wakako had always liked V and Jackie, because the two were professionals… maybe he’d need some help from her in finding Faraday after this.
The roar coming out Maine’s pie hole made him refocus, V had seen enough psychos in his time to know that Maine was falling deep. All it took was a push, one real bad scenario and they teetered right off, and Maine and his crew were attacked like this? V was no expert but he was pretty suspicious that this was the moment that pushed him into it… but they weren’t too bad yet.
“Maine, get back here!” Dorio called out, running out into the fray… and then V saw a Kolac rifle get pulled out… aimed…
Shit.
David’s sandevistan kicked in as the distinctive krack of a Kolac rang out, a grunt, he poked his head out, bullets crawled to his slowed perspective. He surveyed the chaos, enough of V’s lessons kicking in to keep him from just rushing in blindly. Find an edge Martinez, he mentally told himself.
Surveying the fight, he saw the Sixth Street gangoon holding the Kolac, it was a large burly motherfucker with dark brown skin, a thick burly mustache, and what appeared to be a Kiroshi visor instead of regular optics. His arms were replaced with thick polycarbonate black cyberarms, his outfit was a set of torn jeans, heavy combat boots, a dumb looking cowboy hat, and a ballistic vest.
6th Street motherfucker alright.
He had already begun his attack, prioritizing him first. David ran over, drawing his Lexington, he got close… and then noticed he was pulling the trigger again. An idea formed in his head, he threw a punch, right into the man’s face, at the speed he was traveling even his weak ‘ganic knuckles would feel like a sledgehammer.
Keep calm, think this out, everyone had to get out alive. With the man’s grip slackened, he gripped onto the Kolac and began to move it, right at the man on the back of another old Colby flatbed. Judging by the black ten gallon, the old aviator shades, thick ass mustache that belonged in a bad porn BD, as well as the gold star he had literally adorned himself with… probably the leader.
The trigger was pulled, the muscle holding the Kolac kept it steadier than David could. He raised the Lexington next, aiming right down the sights… no flash… he felt nothing. He pulled the trigger, this was to keep everyone safe, if some gonk had to die, better it be the one that was trying to kill them.
He held the trigger down and let the Lexington fire out a burst. The muscle, even at this range, would be dead.
David sped away and got behind cover again, with a mental click he turned the Sandevistan off, 1 use down… he probably had 2 left.
He watched as the muscle pulled the trigger, the body of the leader of the attackers exploded into a shower of viscera and chrome, and the muscle stumbled over as his face was riddled with point blank 9mm rounds.
David took a deep exhale, proud of himself.
Then… “SOMEBODY CALL A MEDTECH! DORIO GOT HIT!”
His head jerked around in shock, as he could see that Dorio had a large hole cut out of her torso, she was bleeding bad. David ran over, swiping a maxdoc from V, he plugged it into her chest. “Come on… keep breathing… We need pressure on the wound here!”
Jackie ran over, carrying a first aid kit. “Oi, chica, this looks bad.”
Dorio was breathing heavily, she was trying to stay awake, desperately trying to stay awake. David could feel his hands trembling, he followed Jackie, opening the kit. Jackie said nothing and just started handing David things, barking orders that David didn’t dare ignore.
He heard a roar of anger, and looked over. In his vision he caught V, rushing ahead, and following where V was running to, he saw Maine sprinting off full tilt at a 6th street truck. The truck didn’t stand a chance, it was blown to hell in just a moment, Maine was coated in blood. The worst had come to worst, and David knew it.
“We got into a shootout with some 6th street, it goes well, the choom even manages to hold them back hard with his heavy hardware… but then he doesn’t stop.”
The words echoed out in David’s head, Jackie’s words had come true in the darkest way possible… he had to stop Maine somehow, he had to-
It hit him, his eyes darted to Lucy and Kiwi, he remembered something deep, what Maine had shouted so long ago.
“Lucy, Kiwi! Maine needs a lulla-bye-bye!”
The two snapped to attention, and then looked to the Edgerunner, they ran a quickhack and Maine toppled over in short order.
“Nice work kid, that won’t hold him for long!” V shouted. “Yo! Shortstack, Cowboy, Fingers! Get Dorio outta here!”
“What the fuck did you just say?! I ain’t-” Rebecca began.
“Becca just do it! We need you!” David barked.
Rebecca snapped up and with Pilar and Jackie’s help, moved Dorio off to Falco’s emperor. “I’ll get her to a ripperdoc!” Falco shouted.
More cars and pickups rolled up, the gunfire continued hard, Jackie let out a grunt as a bullet grazed him. He looked at Falco. “Holmes, I’m riding with ya, we got Sixth Street on our ass gunning, gonna need backup,” Jackie protested.
Falco was about to argue, when he saw Rebecca heft up her trusty carnage shotgun, Guts. He had no choice but to accept it, Pilar was already rigging up landmines. Falco wasn’t much for talking, hell he kept quiet most of the time and let his driving speak for him, here? Right now?
“Ah hell, buckle up!”
The Edgerunner’s wheels spun and with a loud screeching it was off, leaving V, David, Kiwi, and Lucy.
V grabbed a kolac, from what David could tell by the blood splatter it was the same one that had injured Dorio. “Got a plan?” V asked.
“Me?” David said, suddenly realizing what he had done.
“That’s fair, quick thinking there kid by the way,” V said, checking the chamber of the Kolac. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
Maine slowly started to get up, just as another pickup rounded the corner, he snapped to attention and raised his arm, with a sudden click, the PLS popped out. V and David watched as the remains of various sixth street members flew by. V clicked his tongue, looking at Lucy and Kiwi. “Well, we got Netrunner support, that’s something.”
A drop hit V’s cheek, he looked up, clouds rolling in. “Huh… rain…”
David blinked… and then heard the sound of sirens. “No…”
V snapped to where the sirens were coming from, it took him a moment to realize it wasn't going to be a regular NCPD response. The explosions, the roaring, the sound of gunfire, somebody had to have seen, this was full on MAXTAC. He looked back and saw David attempting to drag Maine back to his car.
“Shit shit shit shit,” V cursed, running over and helping David load the heavy man into the car. He tossed his keys to Kiwi. “Follow me!”
David took the shotgun seat and gripped his lexington as V took the wheel of Maine’s car. “Can you drive?”
V shot David a look, David withered a bit. “Right stupid question.”
V slammed on the pedals and the Quadra screeched as it roared off, away from where Maxtac was heading. “Where are we heading V?” David asked.
“Badlands, take him far out from the city, keep Maxtac away, we can handle him that way!”
Maine groaned and started to rouse from the quickhack induced slumber, his systems coming online one by one. Further reason to get out of the city and fast, David looked to V who nodded and then sent another quickhack knocking Maine right back.
“Gonna count ourselves lucky that he’s too buggy for proper ICE,” V muttered.
===[Badlands - Prefabs]===
V looked out the window, an old shotgun in hand. David was watching over Maine, Lucy and Kiwi had just arrived. David had been asking if they could keep Maine “sedated” with more quickhacks, V let out a scoff as he asked his questions.
“Don’t like working out here,” Kiwi said. “System network doesn’t stretch this far, can’t hack our way out.”
“Just makes things a little harder, not impossible,” Lucy countered.
V said nothing, just staring out the window, running over anything.
“Any news yet?” Lucy asked David.
David blinked, suddenly realizing that both Lucy and Kiwi were staring at him. “Uhm… uh…”
“David you made the call, they’re probably gonna hit you up first for good news,” Lucy explained. “So, any word on Dorio?”
David’s eyes glowed as he checked his messages, nothing. “No word yet, probably laying low to avoid getting the wrong attention.”
“What I wanna know is this, that 6th street ambush… how did we get caught in that?”
David paused and considered what V had said. “Yeah, how did that happen? I just got a call from Kiwi-”
V was already at Kiwi, the shotgun leveled at her head. David and Lucy started to panic, David rushing over and pushing the shotgun up. Kiwi felt her lungs start to work again as she backed up, nearly tripping over Maine’s unconscious form.
“How the fuck did it happen Kiwi?” V demanded. “I ain’t stupid so ya better start talking.”
“V, what the hell makes you think-” Lucy began.
“You really can’t be that stupid,” V interrupted. “Everyone gets called by Kiwi to come to that place, and then 6th Street shows up.”
“It has to be a coincidence,” David protested. “Right Kiwi?”
Kiwi said nothing, what could she say at all? V held the power in the situation with the old pump action leveled at her head. She was racking her brain, could she hack V and run off? Unlikely, V was a netrunner as well and so far out here the connection to any needed servers to even perform a quickhack was shit at best. Out of the corner of her eye she could even see it, no bars.
“Kiwi?” Lucy said, a tremble of worry in her voice. That stung, that stung hard, Kiwi had always said “don’t trust anyone in NC” but deep down she had taken a liking to Lucy.
“Faraday contacted me, said he had one last job for everyone and to get them all together,” Kiwi said. “Like I told you all earlier.”
“And then?” V continued.
“He said to wait, and that I’d get a bonus for being the only one still willing to talk to him, I didn’t know he’d send 6th street after us!” It was the truth, in a sense, Kiwi didn’t know that he’d be trying to bump em all off.
V lowered the shotgun. “What’d I say? Not worth the trouble and untrustworthy. Most Fixers tell ya to your face if they’re gonna ice yeah. Common courtesy, it’s professionalism.”
“Yeah real courteous to let you know you’re gonna get merc’d,” Kiwi muttered. “Faraday and I had a deal.”
“A deal?” David asked, Kiwi now cursing how easily she let that loose.
Kiwi would have clicked her tongue if she had the right mouthpiece on now, she had already said too much and Faraday had left her to die as well. No loyalty left for him, not like she had much in the first place. At least this way she wouldn’t get her brains splattered as quickly.
“You wouldn’t know this, but I only joined the crew recently, a little bit after Sasha died. Maine needed a new netrunner, and Faraday set up a meeting. I joined pretty shortly after,” she explained.
“A mole,” V said, hands still gripped tight on the shotgun. “You were a fucking mole meant to keep watch.”
“And keep them directed,” Kiwi said. “Fat lot of fucking good that did. Faraday dropped me as soon as my use was over. Like he’s some corpo on the Arasaka food chain.”
“So, all you taught me-” Lucy began.
“I taught you to never trust anyone, I never said I wasn’t included,” Kiwi countered. “Believe what I say or not, but I didn’t want you to get hurt either.”
“And you lead Faraday to us, because you still trusted him enough to not fuck you over?” David asked. “Tch, got what you deserved.”
“I get it, okay?” Kiwi said, raising her hands. “Gonk brained move, that’s over. Now I wanna get back at him.”
“What makes you think you can just walk with us, especially after telling us not to trust anybody?” V asked.
Kiwi searched her head for a response, and saw Maine stir, before he let out a groan that made everyone pause. “Maybe because if we don’t do something together, Maine might kill us all?”
V and David looked back, and saw the lumbering hulk of chrome and anger get up.
Maine stood up slowly, his head hurt, his internal clocks on his systems were out of whack, and his vision was fuzzy. Last he recalled was… Dorio… DORIO! Dorio was hit, struck with a Kolac rifle, those things were hand held anti-tank weapons! Anger flared throughout his body, nobody struck Dorio! NOBODY STRUCK ANY OF HIS CREW!
NOT AGAIN! NOBODY WAS DYING EVER FUCKING AGAIN!
He let out a roar, his optics fuzzy, things glitched, he was in a sandy field at the end of a track. He swung around, black masses of pixels were there, he couldn’t think straight, he raised his arm and fired the PLS. They had to get away, get away! He wasn’t going back, nobody defined his limits but him!
The shortest one darted around, faster than he could track, meanwhile the largest one started charging forward, intent on beating his face in with whatever it was carrying. He wasn’t about to let this gonk get him, nobody was beating him! Nobody was keeping him down!
He could feel it in his systems, he had to overclock everything. Push, push farther, he wasn’t enough, his chrome wasn’t enough, he needed more, more!
His vision cleared, there was David, DAVID! The little snot that stole his sandevistan! His! HIS! HIS!
Maine clenched and let out another scream, David wasn’t getting away this time! Little punk decided he didn’t need him anymore once that shit, V, showed up! Maine never liked him, the way he talked about his chrome, the way he got David wrapped around his finger!
Maine charged forward, intent on striking the little punk for his disrespect! Ain’t nobody disrespected Maine! He wasn’t at the end of his road, he wasn’t at the-
Maine blinked, David was gone, standing before him was… him… no… Gloria. Gloria? Gloria was here? He missed her, she was always one of his closest chooms, one of his oldest friends.
Gloria had been there for Maine during some of his toughest points, her warm smile and personality lifted everyone up. The pictures she shared of David, the dreams she had of seeing her little boy rise to the top and make something of himself.
“David my mijo, such a bright young boy. He’s going to make it to the top of Arasaka tower, just you watch! So much smarter than all those corpo kids!”
Maine paused, his muscles and servos straining against themselves. Gloria had always needed money, raising David by herself wasn’t easy, she had asked for advances, loans. Maine had never once complained, hell he remembered meeting David when he was just a toddler… poor kid’s dad had dipped out of his life.
Another deadbeat in Night City, this city was made to break people. Maine’s heart sank, Night City broke people. Sasha… Sasha had up and died due to NC. She got involved in something personal and it killed her. Gloria was involved with his crew and it killed her. Pilar was involved and was killed. Dorio was killed. David was-
Maine barely blinked before the butt of an old shotgun struck him dead in the face. Maine stumbled, but held firm, before it struck again, and again… Maine blacked out, at least he thought he did. He… he couldn’t tell any more.
“Come on man, you’re at your limit,” he heard. Panicked he whipped around, PLS at the ready, standing there was… him. The younger him, the one that always got to the end of the road.
The him before all the chrome, the him before Militech made him who he is. Maine shivered and backed away. The younger one moved in step, Maine crossed the end of the road, onto the sand, the younger Maine paused, and just gave him a sad smile.
“We’re past the end of our road, dawg. We ain’t got nowhere else left to run.”
Maine started to hyperventilate. “The fuck we do! We can go anywhere, we just need-”
“More chrome?” Young Maine asked. “Dawg, look at yourself, what’s left of ya in there?”
“Don’t give me that monk shit, I’m still the same Maine I’ve always been, no matter what part of me is still ‘ganic.”
“Ain’t what I mean.”
Maine fired his PLS, over and over, and it did nothing. The young him just stood there, waiting. “That’s the end, it’s over. We ain’t getting outta this one.”
Maine grimaced a bit, angry, his fists clenching. “There’s still people who need us, Lucy, Becca, Pilar, Kiwi… ain’t gonna leave them behind.”
“What about David?” Young Maine asked.
“The kid? Yeah… he needs me. His piece a shit dad stepped out and I shoulda… I mean… Dorio woulda loved him. I… I…”
Young Maine said nothing, Maine himself felt something. He looked over himself, his own vision of his hands, the black plastic and metal plating that made up his gorilla fists. Something was… wrong. The more he looked at his own hands the more he thought something was wrong.
Why weren’t these his hands, he had them for years now, but… they weren’t his. Something in him had snapped and he was now staring at the fingertips of his gorilla fists and wondering why they felt so foreign.
Something had changed, he was no longer who he thought he was, and his head was drifting off elsewhere. This was wrong, why was this wrong, he just needed more, he always needed more, couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop couldn’t stop couldntstopcouldntstopcouldntstopcouldntstop!
He could not-
Maine collapsed, he was at the end of his road. He couldn’t stop if he kept chroming up, something broke in him, he wanted to see this through to the end. If he couldn’t stop because of the chrome, there was only one solution left. He looked down to his left hand, the arm where the mounted PLS was, and ripped a fist into it. He screamed, he roared, and barely flinched as a sickening crunch hit as he tore out the implant.
David pressed a hand against V’s chest as he saw Maine roar, and then he began to rip the PLS out of his arms, V could only mouth “what the fuck” in response to the sight. Kiwi and Lucy stepped forward cautiously, watching synthetic blood drip from the holes in Maine’s arms.
Maine slumped over, onto his knees, the weight of all his implants becoming clearer every moment. His sunglasses fell off from the sudden shift, and he sat there kneeling. David was the first to step forward, the look in his eyes worried. “Maine?”
A weak smile spread across Maine’s face. “Hey kid… Dorio okay?”
“We… we got her out. V’s friend Jackie took her to a ripper, we’ve been laying low, haven’t heard anything since,” David said, he didn’t want to lie to Maine.
“Good, that’s… that’s good… got a chance. Do we know why 6th Street hit us?”
V opened his mouth to answer that, when suddenly. “Kiwi betrayed us!”
It was Lucy, annoyance and betrayal on her face, Maine looked to Kiwi who turned away. “Yeah, was a plant for Faraday, wanted some way to keep an eye on you.”
Maine stood slowly, old actuators and muscles groaning as he did. “It was you?”
Kiwi blinked. “You know?”
“Figured,” Maine replied. “Someone had to be it, and V’s too new to be a problem.”
V smirked and flipped Maine off, this was more the speed he wanted, instead of the mindless berserker. He looked to Kiwi, standing there in fear, as Maine slowly stood back up and walked over to her. Maine towered over the Netrunner easily, V and David almost flinched as he moved.
“So,” he began. “How you gonna make it up?”
Kiwi flinched, bracing herself for a strike… and looked up as she realized what Maine had said. “W-what do you mean?”
“Faraday fucked us over, fucked you over too. You owe the Crew, gotta fix this. How ya gonna do it?”
Kiwi was staring, her eyes wide and trembling, the brows on her head positioned in a quizzical manner. What was Maine talking about? Making it up to them, was he… was he just going to?
“Better start talking, I cleared my head enough to get this. What do you know about Faraday?”
It sank in what Maine wanted, and yet Kiwi couldn’t find any reason to ignore the request, she straightened up and looked to Lucy, to David, to V, and then finally back to Maine.
“Fine… Faraday’s secretive, kept things from me as well. What I do know is that he’s on a Corpo payroll, working for Militech probably considering the Arasaka bent in his hits. He’s wealthy enough but wants more, we were probably just the latest in the line of unfortunate Edgerunners who he wanted to hit Arasaka,” Kiwi explained. “Don’t know much more than that, used me for some smaller jobs and sent me over to watch over you all and occasionally push towards the Arasaka jobs.”
“Where does that leave you and me?” Lucy asked. “You taught me everything you knew, and what? Was I meant to be another offer for Faraday?”
“He doesn’t know about the Deep Dive Port,” Kiwi said. “I won’t lie and say I never considered it, but I wanted to hold onto that in case of an emergency. He doesn’t know about it, promise.”
“Whoa hey, the what?” V asked. “I heard of those, only special Arasaka brats got em.”
Lucy scoffed. “Guess the secret is out, special yeah, special as expendable fodder for diving into the Old Net and past the Blackwall. Arasaka had plans and I’m a missing little minion.”
V paused, thought about what to say, settled for. “Well, damn.”
“Glad we’re sharing and all,” David interrupted. “But we should get thinking about the future, we can’t wait out here forever.”
“Dunno if you noticed kid, we’re all a little messed up from the-” Kiwi began.
“Like I give a shit,” David said, cutting her off. “We got bigger crap to handle, yeah it’s all good that we’re getting it off our chest, but we gotta face the facts.”
He turned to Maine and said. “The hell do ya plan on doing? You got your lucidity back, for now, how long before you break again?”
Maine grimaced and picked up his shades, he knew the answer, it was a very obvious answer, which is why it stung so hard to admit it. “I gotta chrome down.”
V thankfully resisted the urge to say anything, David put on a smile as Maine continued. “I’m a hodgepodge of mismatched parts and malfunctioning firmware, I can’t keep pushing otherwise I’m gonna get y’all killed.”
He put the shades back on. “And I ain’t gonna be the cause of another Sasha case. Bad enough that we got Dorio shot.”
David nodded. “She’s doing okay Maine, Jackie and Rebecca got her out of there and to a ripper. She’ll be okay.”
V grabbed the shotgun and opened the door to the prefab they were in, looking out. “Nothing, I think we can afford to get moving.”
Lucy was the first out, Maine was next, but as he stepped out he felt something hit one of his Shard Ports, Lucy had connected her monowire to him. “If you start to bug out again, I’m crashing you.”
Maine let out a sigh. “Smart choice, can’t risk me going psycho.”
V climbed into the driver’s seat, and looked at David who stepped into the shotgun seat. Lucy marched Maine into the back seat as Kiwi stepped over to V’s car. It would be a long drive back to Night City, back to where he lived, David couldn’t call it civilization at all. There was something deeply wrong with the city, it built people up and tore them down, whittled away everything that made them individuals, and the Corpos were so intent on keeping to this status quo.
Maine sat quietly in the back seat, staring at his feet, Lucy watching his every move for the slightest twitch. David looked to V, and decided to keep things quiet, he turned on his Holo and called up V.
[“Wanted to keep this quiet huh?”]
[“T-That obvious huh?”]
[“You wear your heart on your sleeve, hard not to see what’s going on in that head of yours.”]
[“Think we did the right thing? Saving Maine?”]
[“He’s your friend, only you can answer that one.”]
David pondered it for a moment, before. [“Yeah, we did the right thing. Didn’t want to see him die. Think we finally got-got through.”]
[“Good enough for me. I’m glad ya saved him.”]
Good enough for V, good enough for David. [“Chroming down ain’t gonna be easy, and Doc probably ain’t a good choice for that.”]
[“Devos is a very bad choice considering he works without anesthetic yeah.”]
V seemed to lean forward a bit and eyed the skyline, grinning. [“Thankfully, Jackie might know someone.”]
David blinked, wondering. [“Oh yeah? Who?”]
There was the dialing sound, and then Jackie’s voice came over the Holo.
[“Well Holmes, if ya wanna know, let me introduce ya to him.”]