Friday Night Firefight - A Cyberpunk 2077 Isekai

Friday Night Firefight - Chapter 55

Good evening. I'm Gillean Jordan, and this is N54 News. Tonight, we've got breaking news on the stunning collapse of one of Night City's most prominent cyberware manufacturers: Cytech. Just a month after the brazen daylight robbery of Cytech's factory and corporate headquarters, the company has officially announced that they're closing their doors for good.

Cytech's sudden downfall comes amid a storm of financial troubles, as creditors circle, claiming the company hasn't repaid enormous debts it's been racking up over the last few years. With no product, no revenue, and mounting pressure, Cytech has been forced to shutter its doors. Employees were alerted today that they have been laid off, and insiders say the company is liquidating what assets it has left.

The NCPD has come under fire as well, with many demanding answers as to why no arrests have been made for who perpetrated the robbery. Rumors have circulated that officers from the NCPD were involved in the theft, but the department is strongly denying these accusations. Earlier today, Police Commissioner Jerry Fawlter called those rumors 'baseless', and insisted that his detectives are pursuing leads suggesting the heist might have been an inside job.

Commission Fawlter claims that the 'evidence points to the involvement of high-level executives,' and that the NCPD has reason to believe 'Cytech's own CEO' may have orchestrated the robbery to dump stolen cyberware onto the black market and skip town before the company's crash.

I tuned out the rest of the news report, letting the broadcast fade into background noise as my mind drifted. I leaned back on a warn couch in the middle of the Pack's new temporary HQ, stretching out my legs as I sunk into the cushions. It wasn't luxury, but it was home for the time being.

The Pack's temporary HQ was a far cry from the dingy alleyway it had been a month ago. We'd taken this rundown space and made it our own. Graffiti was splattered across the walls, tables were shoved in corners, couches and chairs had been dragged in. Deng had pulled together a crew of homeless from the area to run security, and he and Diego had gone out and flexed some muscle in the neighborhood, letting all the smaller gangs in the area know that this was our turf now.

I ran a hand over the couch's torn armrest, feeling the rough fabric under my palm. A part of me was still surprised at how fast everything had come together. In just a few weeks, we'd carved out a fair bit of territory. A large chunk of Downtown was under our sway, and it was all ruled from this tiny makeshift alcove. We'd thrown up a makeshift bar in the back, smuggled in some mismatched furniture, added a couple radios. Now, the alley was filled with all sorts of people – ex-cops, homeless, former corpo security, a few netrunners from Sandra's crew. It was a patchwork bunch of misfits that felt like it shouldn't work, but somehow did.

Ever since the Pack started growing, I've had to learn to delegate a lot more. We weren't just a ragtag crew anymore. We'd grown beyond just Anna, Diego and I pulling gigs. And with that sudden growth came the realization that I couldn't be everywhere at once. People were naturally falling into roles that suited them, and it was a good thing too because running the whole thing started to feel like I was herding cats.

Zion and Diego were basically my go-to guys when it came to tactics and strategy. They had worked with corpo militaries and so, when they decided to pull together crews from all the people we'd recruited, I knew that they'd be the main military arm of the Pack. I didn't have to micromanage them training or planning or executing anything. I just pointed them at a problem and it disappeared.

Then there was Deng and Anna, each running their own groups like two sides of the same coin. Anna had the badges – a bunch of ex-cops who knew how to throw their weight around. They were our muscle when we needed to crack heads or push smaller gangs out of the territory we wanted. Deng, on the other hand, had built his network with the homeless. They might not look all that imposing, especially compared to the former corpo soldiers that Albert had been recruiting, but they knew the streets of Night City better than anyone. No one could operate on our territory without Deng knowing about it.