An Engineer In Night City - ch 10.6 (Patreon)

Race to Arasaka Tower (6)

The AV silently rumbles as it nears the destination. At the top of the Arasaka Tower, the Kiji representative stands flanked by four heavily armed corporate security forces and two of Arasaka's famed Cyber Ninjas. The Air Vehicle containing Faraday and David lightly touches the rooftop of the Arasaka Tower allowing its passenger to leave.

Puffing his chest with pride and almost drunk with victory, Faraday pushes David ahead making the teen stumble on his feet, before the Fixer elegantly leaves the vehicle. Giving the signal to the AV pilot, the pilot flies away from the restricted airspace of Arasaka.

The Pacifica Fixer looks around but can't find the imposing figure of Adam Smasher, meaning that he will likely remain employed by Militech. 'That's also a good outcome,' he reassures himself before preparing to meet with his contact.

Faraday fixes his necktie with practiced familiarity then places a firm hand on David's shoulder to introduce him to his new 'hosts.' Once the fixer is face-to-face with the Kiji representative he takes the sack covering David's face to confirm the teen's identity.

"Hey," the teen protests the rough treatment, "watch it you asshole!"

The Kiji representative steps out of the dimly lit area and reveals herself as a woman with black hair held in a bun by a silver hairpin, wearing a cybervisor with darkened lenses, and red lipsticks on a pale face giving the woman a similar aesthetic to a Geisha.

"Uncount as always, David-kun."

The teen gazes at the woman in front of him, before shaking his head. "I have no idea who you are."

"Good, that shall remain during your extended stay here." The Kiji representative turns to Faraday, and if what his implants can pick up is true, she gives him a genuine grateful smile, with over 95% certainty. "I'm glad that our partnership bore fruit like this, Faraday-san. I believe this to be the start of a profitable, beautiful relationship."

With the aid of his implants, Faraday returns a welcoming smile to his contact. "Of course. Please, lead the way."

The four soldiers surround David while the twin Cyberninjas escort Faraday and the Kiji representative inside Arasaka's building. They don't take more than a few steps when several figures impact the ground with force.

Surrounding the party are several Militech Commandos, ACPA produced by Militech, and those just broke through the Arasaka's anti-air defenses, meaning they are the Militech Paratrooper Commandos, a variant with restricted sale reserved for internal use by Militech operations.

'Alright, everything is going according to plan.' Faraday thought while he faked surprise. "Why are you here?"

The Commandos didn't answer back and aimed towards the bodyguards, but David acted faster than everyone and threw himself to the ground, rolling away in the confusion.

One of the bodyguards tried to catch David, but he swept the soldier's feet and crawled away. The Araska soldiers shot at David, and that's the start of the firefight. The bodyguards deployed hidden shields, but the high-caliber guns carried by the Paratroopers were enough to unbalance them. Their purpose was to draw away the attention from their VIP and the Cyberninjas.

The Cyberninjas closed the distance to the ACPAs and cut the enemy's fingers, showing their superior make against the opposing power armor. Unfortunately, the ACPAs had nanomachines repairing the armor's hand, and from their shoulders, miniguns deployed and started shooting haphazardly.

It was right at this moment the Kiji operative shouted, "Kill the boy if we can't have him!"

As one, everyone turns to David's direction, with the Arasaka security not wasting time. Some of the ACPAs tried to interpose their bodies against the incoming assault but they didn't make it in time.

Yet, when they noticed the chaos of the exchange was over, instead of staring at David Martinez's body, they saw several concrete walls surrounding the teen's body, forming a rudimentary defensive wall.

"The rumors were true!" Faraday yells in disbelief. So far only the Engineer showed signs of quick construction, while everyone else under Wube Inc.'s employ had limited access to their strange technology.

"What rumors are true, Faraday?"

Once again, everyone looks up at the floating form of the Engineer on top of the rooftop, wearing a new Power Armor. The previous armor looked strong and functional, but this version seems leek and advanced, in Stark contrast with his technology's rugged appearance. It is still painted in that horrible yellow shade.

None of the soldiers and mercenaries shoot at Mark, but they keep their weapons aimed at the new arrival.

"What rumors are true, Faraday?" The man swallows when Mark repeats his question, "Certainly, you didn't expect me to abandon my employees, did you?"

Mark softly lands on the rooftop, and a three-way staredown between the Arasaka soldiers, The Engineer, and the ACPAs start. Faraday can almost smell the fear of the common Arasaka soldiers facing such a formidable foe.

Of course, things were soon going to change.

Before Faraday could meaningfully react, his voice came from an AV's speaker flying above them.

"... I am going to have those two eating at the palm of my hand!" The slurred voice of Faraday says, confessing to his attempt at pitying both Militech and Arasaka against each other, among other ramblings he said during his vulnerable hours.

"What! How?" Faraday turns and faces the accusing glare of the Kiji representative. "This is a fake recording! There's no way I could record myself making such a stupid confession!"

"I wouldn't say so, Faraday."

Faraday paled when recognized the voice, "Kiwi?" His voice came as a whisper, but everyone in the building could hear it.

From the AV a monitor lights up, showing the meeting between Kiwi and Faraday's Crew planning on stealing David for Militech and putting the blame on Arasaka, on the man's overcomplicated feinting tactics that were thwarted earlier.

"Consider this my two weeks notice, asshole."

The Kiji representative glares at Faraday at this clear betrayal. In his place, she would have done the same. She was planning on disposing of Faraday soon, after all. However, she cannot accept that this middle manager at best dared to try and dupe her.

The AV monitor display changes, showing the face of Yorinobu staring down at everyone. As soon as the heir apparent of Arasaka's face is visible, another figure appears on top of the building.

As a methodical person, Faraday's ultimate weakness was his inability to improvise and adapt to quickly changing situations. His world crumbling down and his newly discovered sense of mortality pushed the Fixer to the limit, panicking him, which is why his next words became, "Adam Smasher! They are trying to abscond with an asset of Arasaka, kill them all!"

"Who the fuck are you!?"

Suddenly, Faraday finds himself trapped between the murderous aura of Adam Smasher, the Arasaka's Butcher, and the Engineer's unpredictable violent aura.

The two titanic presences size each other up, updating their information on each other's opponent.

"I look forward to ripping you limb by limb, fake meat."

The Engineer nods without care, "But not today."

From the AV monitor, Yorinobu Arasaka finally speaks after confirming everything with his eyes.

"I am sorry to tell you, Kiji-san, that I had already booked Adam Smasher's private services before my sister Hanako, and your faction vice leader has no authority to overwrite Chichi Ue's orders. Since the responsibility for David and Wube Inc.'s relationship falls with me, unless Saburo Arasaka-sama himself gives his express permission you are required to back off. Did I make myself clear?"

The trembling woman quickly bows at the flying screen. Not daring to move. "Hai! Osoreirimashita, Yorinobu-sama!"

The flying visage of Yorinobu pins down the opposing faction subleader in place for a while before he dismisses her. As she runs away, the guards and Cyberninja also sneak together with her, as the rooftop is already well represented by Adam Smasher's presence.

"Let's get this show on the road, then." The Engineer says without looking at Faraday, but his world explodes in pain right after.

"Argh!" He falls to the ground with his kneecap blown up, his chrome not functioning the way it should. Even with a fatal wound, he should have enough enhancements to crawl away under his power, instead of falling and crying like a normal organic man.

As he's trashing in agony he receives a message from Maine.

"I'm sorry Faraday, but me and my crew plan on focusing on different projects than yours, and we must part ways. Don't worry, my Netrunner already sent you my resignation letter. If you have any questions, you can use the last seconds of your life to scream my new employer's name in impotent rage. Fuck you, and may you rest in piss."

The coincidences, the impossibility, the broken dreams, it was too much for Faraday.

"Mark Hendersooooooonnn-"

...

Both Adam Smasher and the Engineer worked together to bring down the ACPAs. Despite the first pilot fumbling earlier and allowing his digits to be cut, they are still elite soldiers of Militech.

In front of Adam and The Engineering, they might as well be target practice.

With professional precision, Adam shoots down the Power Armor in their weak spots, disabling their critical systems and preventing the enemy from retreating. The pilots could still fight back, but they couldn't retreat now. A few of the armors proved to give more resistance, dodging his first shoot and attempting to attack back, likely indicating they were under the command of a Fullborg operator.

To Adam Smasher it just made the job more pleasurable.

Yet, despite the rare instance of fighting against Militech high-end borgs, he spent some time analyzing the combat prowess of the Engineer. Differently from before he doesn't rely as much on his appearing trick, keeping his aim steady and dodging enemy gunfire with ease, like he had installed a half-decent Speedware. The appearing trick still happens, but now it doesn't look like the man needs to think about it anymore.

After cataloging the combat data for later review, he finishes the rest of the ACPAs together with the Engineer.

Checking his internal clock, Adam confirms he killed his half of the enemies 0.4 seconds faster. "Victory."

A crunching noise sounds when Adam steps on the ground, the last remains of Faraday turning into a pulp when he eventually perished from the multiple splash damage thrown on the rooftop.

"Good work, Smasher-san. You may go make your delivery. Mark-san will clean up the rest for you. As for you David-kun, hopefully, we will see each other at the next meeting."

The image on the AV monitor disappears, and the vehicle leaves the local airspace.

"Easy for him to act cool when I'm the one footing the bill."

Adam doesn't answer but instead, he shoulder checks Mark, but to his surprise, his target doesn't budge. The rising heat of challenge ignites his reactor once again, but he has a mission to accomplish first.

"See you later, Cog Boy."

...

Mark watches Adam Smasher jump off the rooftop building and leave before returning to other matters. He cleaned up the area of corpses and wrecks but took only one ACPA as per his earlier agreement with Yorinobu Arasaka.

After the area becomes passable to humans he deconstructs the walls protecting David and frees the teen.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself, "What took you so long choom? I thought you wouldn't make it!"

The engineer laughs, "Sorry, they got me in a bad time. Thankfully I have some new fuel and my trusty Flame Tumbler to catch up with you. Now, let's get you back home, you had more than enough excitement for a day."

As they leave, Mark can't help but remain curious about Adam Smasher's final mission and sends a message to Yorinobu.

"Where did Smasher go?"

The reply at first surprised Mark, then made him laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

"He went to deliver a Cease and Desist Order to Militech."

Post Chapter Notes

I underestimated the length of the chapter, and while this was supposed to be the last chapter for the Race to Arasaka Tower Arc, there will be an epilogue afterward.

I'm not quite up to form, but I'm better now and getting the hang of the new system. More importantly, I learned not to bite more than I can chew and just finish what I already have ongoing instead of worrying about what's missing.

On an unrelated note, on the weekend I was so tripping with pain that when I woke up I thought I found the secret to unbreakable health, and if I shattered by (undefined) I could have unlimited potential, but I had no idea what the (undefined) was and how to shatter things, only it vaguely related to my smartphone.