Edgerunners2077

David: 1

Night City: Year 2077

Haunting echos of bullets sounding off hammer into the distance. Police sirens wail in either direction, cornering us off.

Figures! Maelstrom guns are pointing at us in three different directions and now we have the NCPD on our asses?! Fuck me.

Becca was holding the rear with her iconic twin pistols doubling the amount of ammo sprayed across the lot. Her menacing grin dug deep as her fingers stay glued to the trigger.

Kiwi, one of crews' netrunners, was posted just outside of the mayhem in a rundown building off of JigJig street. Or as I like to call it: Pleasure Town. Escort Central. The hole in the wall for every hooker, casual hookup, and delirious drug induced hangout in Night City. Not your usual go-to place for Netrunners, meaning the perfect hideaway for ours to do a deep dive sess in search of whereabouts on some top secret new Kiroshi Tech.

Maelstrom are gonks with more implants than you can count. Less man, more machine. They inhale beta blockers for lunch and subscribe to cheap braindances for dinner. They were sitting on stolen blueprints for Kiroshi Optics that at one time Maine was dying to get his hands on, and since I already have the Sandevistan neuralware he wanted implant on my spine, I figured I at least owe him this much.

Becca and a couple of mercenaries lended to us from Wakako are covering me with an extension of iron. BANG! BANG! BANG! Each shot felt louder than the last. Maelstrom sound off with eager trigger happy cries of their own, and an alarming amount of grenades tossed our way.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

"Retreat back out the alley!" I shout, aiming my M-10AF Lexington and returning fire. The power pistol packed one hell of a punch in a pinch. It's bullets were known for ricocheting off surfaces and hitting targets with pristine accuracy. You didn't have to be a pro to wield the damn thing either, you just had to point and shoot.

Becca laughs out loud finishing the last Maelstrom goonie to our left. If we take cover we can make a run for an exit out of this endless hellfire. Let NCPD deal with the cyborg gang, we just about got what we came for anyway. Any moment now Kiwi will give us a ring telling us to hightail it out of here, and when she does we need to be in position.

Sirens are blaring now, the cops are practically riding our asses as we speak! "MOVE!" I give the order and we all dash out from behind the blood stained van towards the next line of cover. Fire and smoke from the grenade explosions made great for fooling the average folk, not Maelstrom junkies. Their Cyber Optics scanned us almost immediately as we made a run for it and in turn they chased us down with a rain of gunfire.

I slam my back into a bent dumpster wagon and use the cover to reload, cursing as I do so. The mercs with us were shivering in their boots, freezing up from fear. I almost felt sorry for poor guys, then I remembered our line of work and the feelings dissipate almost immediately. I was in their shoes once the difference being I was 16, while these fuckers are way over 30.

"Kiroshi Tech isn't worth dealing with Maelstrom bullshit! These guys have more iron implanted in them than all of Night City combined. We are outmatched! I don't think a bullet to the brain could take these creeps out!" One merc with a red Mohawk and gnarly chrome upgrades for eyes shakes out.

"Cool it Choomba!" Rebecca chimes in, her mint colored brows furrow in disapproval. "I thought Wakako gave us Mercs to work with, not a bunch of gonkin' babies!"

I grin at her fearlessness. Always trust the advice and bravery of an Edgerunner built on the streets. Rebecca was no exception. Once a streetkid, always a streetkid. "What she said! Everyone load up. There's no backing out now! All or nothing."