Friday Night Firefight - A Cyberpunk 2077 Isekai

Friday Night Firefight - Chapter 57

The fire barrels were still lit, throwing flickering shadows across the underpass in Arroyo. The scent of gunpowder and blood hung thick in the air, sharp and metallic, impossible to ignore. My eyes traced the bullet casings scattered on the ground, glinting in the dim light like grim reminders of the chaos that tore through this place.

Blood was splattered across the crumbling concrete pillars, dark streaks marring the cold, gray surface. The pillars hadn't done anything to protect anyone. Broken-down cars, rusted and gutted long ago, dotted the camp like relics to a forgotten time. This place, this patch of asphalt and decay, was the reality for Night City's homeless. It was a small patch of livable space carved out under an overpass where they could try to stay invisible and just survive.

Now, the place was a graveyard.

What little security the camp had – the makeshift barriers, the scrap metal fences – was laughable in the face of a 6th Street assault. They'd come in with all the firepower of a gang that wanted to make a point. And they had. 6th Street was trying to say that the homeless weren't safe. Not in 6th Street territory. I couldn't protect them.

I looked around at the devastation, the bodies sprawled on the cold concrete, and a bitter taste of guilt rose in the back of my throat. None of the people here had anything to do with the war I was fighting. They were just caught in the crossfire, collateral damage in a battle they never signed up for.

The camp had been their poor attempt at sanctuary, made up of whatever they could scrape together from the junkyard across the street. Rusted metal sheets, broken appliances, old tires – they'd dragged whatever they could find to this underpass, trying to create something that offered even a sliver of protection from the outside world. I imagined how proud they must have felt while building it, even for a brief moment, thinking they had some small control over their world. It must have given them an illusion of safety that they'd clung to when they went about their day.

Illusion of safety.

I clenched my fists and walked around the underpass. The Pack was supposed to stand for something. To help people. It was supposed to be something like hope, even in this hellhole of a city. I wanted to offer the homeless more than just a chance to be ignored. But as I looked over the wreckage, at the blood on the walls of the underpass, I wondered if my ambition had drawn this death to their doorstep. Was it my ambition, my vision of something better in this shit city, that had killed these people? Without The Pack expanding, without me trying to build something in a city that refused to let anything good survive, would this camp still be standing? Would they still be huddled around barrel fires, eating whatever scraps they snatched from dumpsters and stores like the Magami Market nearby?

The market was still busy. People filtered in and out, going about their day, occasionally craning their necks to take in the carnage nearby, but not lingering. Violence in Night City was just part of the backdrop. Something you noticed for a second before moving on with your life. And the NCPD? They hadn't shown up, nor would they for a while. There wasn't an investigation about what happened here. They'd just call in the meat wagons and go about their day. The homeless weren't a priority for them, not in a city filled with gangs and corporations and cyberpsychos.

Not a single 6th Street body lay on the ground. This wasn't a firefight; it was an execution. They came in, guns blazing, and wiped out everyone. It was a message. The homeless weren't safe, and if they thought I could protect them, they were dead wrong.

And the worst part? 6th Street was right. I hadn't protected these people. This was my failure. The Pack's failure.

The war with 6th Street had only been going on for a week, but it felt like months. Every day was a grind, and every night was a reminder of how outmatched we were. 6th Street had numbers, more firepower, and experience in gang warfare. Any time we hit them, we were met with a wall of bodies – soldiers, street thugs, mercs, all armed and ready to bleed us dry. For every attack we made, they came back twice as hard.