Cyberpunk 2077: V

Chapter 41: Where The Bodies Hit The Floor

V barely set one foot outside of Misty's shop when her phone started ringing. 

It was Regina Jones.

AGAIN!

Damn, maybe she is in love with me, V thought with a dark smirk. She answered the call as she turned left to start moseying down the alley, wondering what the gig would be this time. The smirk immediately dropped when she saw Regina's expression. 

"Cyberpsycho. Maelstrom one, looks like. Sending you a ping—get there now."

With a chirp, Regina disappeared, and then came the beep of a map ping being dropped. V moved into a dead sprint, pulling up her HUD to summon her Hela as she ran toward her apartment building to meet it.

A couple of minutes later, as she approached the open atrium area out front, she heard her Hela beep in acknowledgment as it exited the parking garage. V threw herself into the car and slammed on the accelerator, peeling around the corner and gunning it down a side street. 

The map ping took her to Watson's Northside, near the well-known Maelstrom haunt Totentanz. Apprehension welled up in V's throat when she saw the ping hovering startlingly close to the chrome club. She prayed that the psycho wasn't IN the club—that would make for a very bad day. As it was, she flew through the streets in record time, only slowing down when she was just a couple blocks down from the psycho's location.

It was an old industrial area, filled with towering buildings and old warehouses. The Totentanz itself throbbed with the dull sound of far-off bass somewhere high above, where it was built into the top floors of a crumbling, abandoned office building. Red lights thumped through windows to the cadence of a heartbeat. V only gave it a passing glance as she bumped up onto the sidewalk, switched off her car, and slipped on her yokai mask. 

Once out of the car, V sprinted down the street, ignoring the strange glances from those around her. The ping was flashing behind the Totentanz, in what looked like an old company parking lot sandwiched between buildings, the parking barricade arms destroyed by time and vandalism. Maelstrom graffiti was sprayed on every surface, and V almost felt like the spider eyes were following her as she ran. She slid to a stop next to the concrete wall of a building, paused a moment to catch her breath, then peeked around the corner into the lot.

At first, all she saw were abandoned cars, old dumpsters, and various bits of burned-out or broken equipment. The ping had brought her to this spot, but as V knew, a ping like the one Regina sent her was only a director to the general proximity. She'd have to find the psycho herself. She activated her scanner, slowly moving over every inch of her view while simultaneously reaching out with her other senses.

A small breeze kicked up then, and with it came the faintest scent of blood.

V slipped around the corner, crouching, and began walking silently across the cracked and filthy synthcrete. There was an abandoned trailer with a rusty shipping container left on it, making good cover. V looked around it, noting the dry, dead grass growing between the cracks in the road and even through the abandoned hulks of dead cars.

She also noticed the source of the blood smell.

Pools of blood. Splashes of blood. All coming from several spread-out bodies about thirty feet in front of her. Some of them were in pieces. With a sick swallow, V scanned the area again, ears pricked for any semblance of sound that would indicate someone was prowling about.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she got a text from Regina.

You might be lucky—initial chatter shows an incomplete call for help from whoever was there. Just a mention about someone acting psycho, then nothing. Receiver keeps pinging them, though, wanting an answer. You're in a Maelstrom hotspot area, so safe to say you could be getting some company real soon. Be careful.