Friday Night Firefight - A Cyberpunk 2077 Isekai

Friday Night Firefight - Chapter 52

I'm a fast walker by nature. Always have been. It takes conscious effort on my part to keep my pace lazy and stroll down the sidewalk, slow and aimless, like I've got nowhere in particular to be. Whenever I got stuck behind some idiot drifting down the sidewalk without a care in the world, it made me want to slap them upside the head and scream at them to move. But today, I was that guy – meandering through Arroyo, trying to blend in as just another corpo drone out on a quick break.

The slow pace had its advantages. It gave me time to scope out the area without drawing attention to myself. Arroyo was a part of the city that was dominated by factories, office buildings, and the occasional alleyway that reeked of rust and piss. Everything in the place was corporate owned and crawling with security guards, and I absolutely hated it.

What added to my hatred was the fact that I had my face implant on. I'd grabbed the ID of some BD store clerk I'd met up in Kabuki, who'd wasted a good half-hour of my life giving me a rundown on why XBDs were vastly superior to joytoys. His claim that real women couldn't compare to what BD studios were putting out stuck with me in all the wrong ways. Now, every time I wore his face, I had to be reminded of that bizarre conversation. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than strolling down the street as myself. This was my fifth day this week coming to this particular part of Arroyo, and I didn't want anyone to be able to recognize me and pick me out of a police lineup in the future.

I let my eyes casually drift across the road to the reason I was here: the Cytech factory. Cytech was a mid-tier cyberware corp that specialized in implants. They weren't the first name on people's lips when it came time for them to chip in, and rumor had it that the company had hit a rough patch and was hemorrhaging money. But if the rumors were true, you couldn't tell it by looking at their factory/office building. The parking lot was bustling – vans and heavy trucks rolling in and out of the loading docks like clockwork. And the place was packed with security. Guards patrolled the grounds, cameras were posted on every corner of the building, sweeping the street, the entrances, and the parking lots.

I slowly made my way down the street towards the row of food carts set up across from the factory. The vendors were there, hoping to capitalize on the lunch break crowd. It was a prime spot for the vendors as there were several factories in the neighborhood that all let people out for break at around the same time. In a couple minutes, the carts would be swarmed by corpo drones looking for something quick to eat before rushing back to their work stations, and the vendors would all make a boat load of eddies.

One of the street vendors spotted me from a distance and waved at me like I was his best customer. I took my time walking toward him, letting my eyes keep drifting over to the security posts by the factory gates, tracking the guards who were pacing the perimeter. I made mental notes of how many guards I could spot from the street, and where all the cameras were posted.

When I finally got to the food cart, I shot the vendor a half-smile. "Hey Enrico, what's good today?"

"Same as always, choom," Enrico grinned, already flipping a scop dog on the grill. "Best dogs in Night City. Five eddies, and you'll be good till dinner."

I flicked him ten eddies and told him, "One now, one after the lunch rush."

Right on cue, the time in my HUD blinked noon, and like clockwork, the factory doors across the street burst open. Corpo drones flooded out like ants from a kicked hill, swarming the food carts to grab something to eat during their fifteen-minute lunch breaks. I'd seen it happen every day this week – like some miserable, well-oiled machine. Eat, smoke a quick cig, complain about the boss or the trains or any other standard topic, and go back to work. The joys of being a cog in the machine of Night City.

With my scop dog in hand, I leaned casually against a half-wall near Enrico's cart, doing my best to look casual as I watched the crowd. There were a bunch of drones working for Cytech and they were a mix of blue and white collar. Their Arroyo HQ was a factory and office building, a place where they made and shipped the cyberware they were known for, and dealt with all the paperwork that seemed like the lifeblood of every corporation in Night City.