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Chapter 42 c
🕑 Added 2025-03-04 15:34:52 +0000 UTCChapter 42 c
Until that moment, the echo of the Cat’s-Eye tech sniper rifle’s shot finally reached them, trailing in after the impact.
Almost everyone in the room was caught off guard—almost. Because the instant the 6th Street member was blasted off his feet, Leo and Jackie struck without warning.
Leo kicked the man behind him in the calf, forcing him to kneel. Then he drove his knee upward, smashing it into the man’s face. While his victim clutched his nose and howled in pain, Leo snatched the pistol from the guy’s holster and fired two quick shots—sending him straight to the afterlife.
At the same time, Jackie attacked. He rammed an elbow into another 6th Street thug’s head. Dazed by the blow, the thug hardly had time to react before Jackie grabbed him by the skull and twisted hard. A crisp crack rang out as bones snapped.
Marmeler recovered quickly and aimed his gun at Leo. But before he could squeeze the trigger, V’s covering shot arrived first, blowing apart Marmeler’s hand in a burst of blood.
Bits of flesh and shattered gun parts flew in every direction.
Leo launched himself forward with a motion like a pouncing leopard. The powered arm bracer smashed into Marmeler’s chest, sending him flying.
The blow likely shattered most of the bones in Marmeler’s ribcage. Yet he was a retired soldier, fitted with military-grade implants, so he could take far more punishment than an ordinary human. Even after that punch, he staggered to his feet and tried to fight back.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Leo crossed his arms in front of him and charged. Sparks flashed where the bullets struck the powered bracers. Missing his dominant hand, Marmeler’s aim was all over the place.
Leo stepped in and kicked Marmeler’s pistol away. Then he grabbed Marmeler by the head with the powered bracer, lifted him up, and slammed him against the wall. Gritting his teeth, Leo yanked him sharply to the side.
A deep groove scraped into the wall, streaked with gruesome smears of blood.
When Leo finally let go, Marmeler’s corpse slumped to the floor, unmoving.
…
The 6th Street reinforcements stationed outside the motel heard the gunshots. They began to mobilize—but never got the chance.
Suddenly, a barrage of bullets raked the walls from all directions, an overwhelming metal storm that tore through any cover in its path. The 6th Street reinforcements were caught off-guard and immediately thrown into chaos, suffering massive casualties.
Earlier, when Leo and Jackie had arrived, they used tactical goggles to scan and map out every 6th Street position in and around the motel, then shared that data with Padre’s waiting ambush.
The moment V fired her opening shot, Padre’s men attacked. They had used the tech weapons Leo had created—Padre had sold most on the market but kept a portion for his own crew, along with some high-end smart guns purchased at steep prices from the megacorps.
Tech weapons easily pierced walls and other obstacles. Smart weapons, while they couldn’t shoot through walls, had homing capabilities on marked targets. With Leo’s shared scan data, their bullets rained down on the 6th Street Gang.
Well-trained or not, the 6th Street ranks were scattered and disorganized. As Marmeler himself had said, they included a handful of seasoned veterans, ex-NCPD, and fired corp security personnel—but the majority were just regular folks who’d received crash-course combat training.
Against this kind of barrage, they lasted barely a minute before their morale collapsed entirely. Most were either gunned down immediately or scattered in panic. Only a few lucky ones made it out alive.
In contrast, Padre’s men suffered no fatalities—only a handful sustained minor injuries from stray bullets. It was practically a heaven-sent victory.
Once the gunfight ended outside, Leo and Jackie mopped up Marmeler’s remaining crew inside.
They found Fidel alive upstairs and gave him emergency first aid. Jackie hoisted him onto his back and carried him out of the motel. They handed him over to Padre’s men, who expressed their thanks and whisked Fidel away.
Leo, V, and Jackie then headed to the Coyote Bar to celebrate and unwind from the day’s tension.
Early the next morning, each of them—Leo, V, and Jackie—received a thank-you from Padre: twenty thousand eurodollars apiece.
…
Only a few days passed before the 6th Street stragglers who escaped spread word about the entire firefight. Initially, nobody paid much attention; street shootouts were nothing new in Night City.
But they soon realized this was no typical brawl. Over eighty 6th Street Gang members had been involved, and only a handful escaped. The rest never made it out. Meanwhile, not a single one of Padre’s men had died.
According to an unnamed informant, Padre’s crew had overhauled their weapons, explaining this massive surge in firepower—and it was all thanks to Padre’s collaboration with a certain gunsmith.
Within days, the rumor raced through Night City. Every major gang started drooling over this mysterious gunsmith, thinking maybe they could recruit him.
But those ideas died as quickly as they surfaced. When Padre returned the bodies to the 6th Street Gang, some snoop recorded the whole thing as a braindance and spread it around. In it, the sight of Marmeler’s horrific corpse stood out—his head looked like someone had rubbed it back and forth against rough pavement.
And more chilling: the one who did it wasn’t Padre’s men. It was the gunsmith himself. Rumor said he walked away without a scratch.
All those gangs that had been scheming abruptly went silent. Fear got the better of them.
As for the corporate wage-dogs who sold out Padre’s man in the first place, they met a grim fate. One morning, a janitor discovered they had been dumped—bagged up and thrown in a trash bin. By the time anyone found them, their bodies were decomposing.
The very next day…
Rain pelted down in torrents beyond the window of the high-speed air-rail train. A gray haze hung over everything. Far below, traffic was sparse, and pedestrians were few.
“Good thing I decided to take the air-rail,” Leo muttered.
He had noticed the dark sky that morning, so instead of driving to the Coyote Bar, he hopped on the rail. Sure enough, the moment the train departed, a massive downpour slammed Night City, drenching the streets.
The city’s air-rail trains typically had only three cars. Passengers ranged from every walk of life. Compared to a taxi, the air-rail was cheaper, so you often saw plenty of people who worked for the corps, clutching briefcases or staring at their phones, eager to start the workday.
Leo scanned his surroundings out of habit, the instinct of a mercenary always assessing the environment.
Just as he was about to refocus on the pouring rain outside, he spotted someone familiar: Lucy.
She stood behind a salaryman in a suit, who was busy looking out the window. With a casual motion, Lucy brushed her hair behind her ear. In that same instant, she flicked her hand toward the back of the suit’s neck, where a chip port had popped open.
One swift move—and the chip was hers.
Lucy turned her eyes to the next mark. A corporate drone waiting by the exit, juggling his phone in one hand and a briefcase in the other, completely absorbed in whatever was on his screen.
She sidled over, pretending to study the train’s route map on the overhead display, then casually glided past, using the same sleight-of-hand to snatch another chip.
In that manner, Lucy worked her way from the rear car to the very front, pulling the same trick on unsuspecting commuters all the way there.
