Metals & Roses | Dum Dum NSFW | Edgerunners2077 Spin-Off

Dum Dum: 6

District: Wellsprings, Heywood

Obsessive? Maybe. Insane? ABSOLUTELY.

It was almost twilight with the sun setting in Heywood, giving the Latin Slums a beautiful orange glow. I liked it over here. There area was full of people, with music playing out the windows, chatter on all sides of the street. There was life in Wellsprings, unlike Northside.

I had one clue to tracking down Foxie, and it was that no-good piece of shit Ripperdoc, Doc Snyder. My grip on the steering wheel is dangerously tight, my teeth grinding as the slow burning rage builds ups. She was terrified of this guy, and I was about to pay him a visit to find out why. Despite being Foxie's area, with high anticipation of hopefully stumbling upon her again, the idea of letting this shack of shit share the same air as her makes me sick to my stomach. I stay over an almost two hours away yearning for a chick who probably hasn't even given me a second thought and this Ripper gets to live his life unchecked after what he's done. 

Not anymore, I smile menacingly. 

I'm going to show this asshole why people call us Borgs the Boogieman. 

I turn near the pump station and hide my truck on a side street. The Wellsprings Ripper's office is a short walk through the gaps between of buildings. I'd hardly call them alleyways, given I have to climb up a fire escape and use it as leverage to jump from one building to the next, until an enclosed courtyard behind the property is in view. No, courtyard sounded superficial. This was an overgrown vacant space with an abandoned rotting car frame in the back and a couple of drums of gasoline rusting with a lid full of rainwater. It's the Slums, Wellsprings or not, it was still apart of Night City. A city that was carefully crafted to keep the Rich, rich and the Poor, even poorer. 

It's a shared marketspace, I realize. Off a busy street beside a cheap love motel, just above street level. While North Wellsprings was glorified by its magnificent architecture and Corpo HQ's, South Wellsprings was just the opposite. Shopping spaces for the less fortunate were bundled together in hubs around every corner you turned. Doc Synder's office was located on an upstairs shopping precinct. It was nothing special, and certainly not preem on placement like the Downtown Ripper, doing biz in the heart of the city. 

Scanning using my Kiroshi Optics, I peep two security cams. One near the side entrance, and the other pointed directly towards the stairwell leading to the back end of the motel. None of these cameras were pointed at his office, which means he didn't have access to them. 

Dumbass, I snicker. Good security is pricy but fucking necessary to keep out the untrained riffraff. At least with decent cameras you can scare off the gonks who have yet to chrome the fuck up! Even so, it doesn't take a genius to hack into security footage. I could do that shit in my sleep. But what's a Ripper in Heywood doing without security? Did he solely rely on the muscle from the Valentinos? 

Fuck! I really don't want to be on the other end of one of their barrels. Especially when I'm trying to see Foxie. 

I play the waiting game for fifteen minutes and scope out the area thoroughly before I hop down from the rooftop and kiss my feet onto the wilted grass. I spy no Valentino just yet, and if I have to make up some lie about using their Ripper to get cheap implants then so be it. They'll believe it too, I'm sure it. I'm a Borg. When has someone like me ever shied away from adding chrome?

The grass is yellow and crunchy beneath my feet, like hay as each step of mine is loud from the crackling. Frowning, I quickly leap from dead grass to dirt patch to concrete, to the oil barrel propped up just under the metal landing. I use that added leverage to pull myself up and claw my way up to the second floor. Hm, that was a little too easy. Like the back entrance was used frequently, either to avoid the cameras or prying eyes from streetside.