[NORTH KABUKI – Kowalski’s Clinic]

  Tuesday| 29 JUN 2077 | 14:00

  [NIGHT CITY WEATHER REPORT: TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR IMMINENT]

  Tuesday came. Will kept to his new routine.

  -Wake

  -Train

  -Eat

  -Work

  -Shoot

  Waking up at the ass-crack of dawn had become second-nature to him. He’d kept odd hours during his unemployed days, but routine gave him another reason to get up in the morning. To Will, it felt like he was finally on track, like he was about to actually do something other than rot. His body was already stronger and faster than it had been at his pre-bioware peak. Doc had said the full integration would be about six to eight weeks, but the little nanoids inside him were working diligently. His clothing fit differently, and it took less effort to move around, even though he had gained almost thirty pounds from all the carbon nanotubes woven through him. The way he moved had even changed. He wasn't sure if it was mental or not, but he walked with a confident purpose now.

  Kowalski’s clinic had been busy all morning. Four joytoys with an extremely contagious infection (from the same John) had taken up the bulk of Will’s time. Thankfully, it wasn’t airborne, but Will had wiped everything down with disinfectant all the same. Only one patient had to be restrained that day, a mox with a full-body tattoo, because of her paradoxical fear of needles. She must have been on something, because they had tried to explain they were only going to use an airhypo. Will had finally gotten her into the ripperdoc chair when Kowalski had hit her with two quick shots from airhypos. One to sedate, and the other to treat her bad case of pneumonia. Once she calmed down, she was actually not so bad. Other than that, Will just sat there restless. He felt ready for anything, but wasn’t so delusional as to believe he was.

  Ping.

  [NEW VOICE MESSAGE]

  Sender: Regina Jones

  Time: 14:00

  [Watson Community Activist]

  [PLAY ?] [TRANSCRIBE ▼]

  Nothing was going down at the moment. Kowalski had his head in a terminal ordering supplies, Bob Jones Jr. was handling a cybereye replacement with one of the new hires, and Will was tapping his foot anxiously as he stared inward at the fixer’s message.

  Will selected the play button with a mental flick. “Will, I need you to find some valuable cargo and a missing driver. Call me if you’re available right now. Need a reason to say yes? Well, the client has ten thousand of them.”

  The message stopped abruptly.

  “Doc, you need me right now?” he asked, already getting up.

  “We will hold down fort,” Kowalski replied without turning his head. Will dressed out quickly, stashing his scrubs into his locker and pulling his gear out. A minute later, he slid into the front seat of the clinic’s cargo van, wearing his street operator jacket with the armor-plate inserts. The Gibson Battle Phantom suit wouldn’t be ready for another twenty-four hours or so. He checked the Lexington in her holster and the sheathed kaiken hiding in the small of his back. Everything was where it was supposed to be.

  The internal agent pulled up his fixer’s contact and, with a mental flick, he called her. Regina answered immediately.

  “Will, glad you’re in. Need you to run up to the docks and talk to the clients. In person. You know where the DV Ebunike is?”

  Practically everyone in Night City knew where the DV Ebunike was. It was Night City’s version of a running joke and a testament to its decline. “Yeah, I know where that thing is. Sitting at the docks waiting for renovations since, what, the 2040s?”

  “I don’t need a history lesson, Will. I need you to talk to Mick and Don Coleman in person at the Ebunike dock. Put on your detective hat, because you’re looking for a missing person and a missing truck. Do that thing you’re good at and find some answers, and they’ll pay you ten thousand eddies. Forty k total if you bring back the goods.”

  “I’m headed that way. Who are these guys?”

  “Ex-Animals enforcers turned entrepreneurs. I’ll just say they’re breaking into the health-food business and leave the rest for you to figure out. Happy hunting.”

  “Thanks,” Will replied before she cut the connection.

  The cargo van pulled out of the clinic and into the dense fog that was hugging the streets. The fastest way to get to the docks was to go East on Eisenhower and take a left onto Industrial. Leaving Kabuki behind was always a visual shock, and it wasn’t just the architecture. The people who littered the sidewalks of Industrial Street looked shell-shocked rather than apathetic. Dirty faces staring off into the abyss from multiple angles all the time. The smog was much worse in Northside. Pollution here was so bad that it was like a paint-brush just slapping a dark grey onto everything and everyone.

  Auto drive took over with the tap of a screen. It was time for Will to focus on the gig. He was walking into a missing persons case, but on top of that, a ton of high-value cargo. It was almost certainly an inside job. The hardest crime to prevent was always one coming from within. Corporations had learned this over a hundred years ago. The crime stats, before corpos took over their own criminal investigations, usually said any theft within a company was by an employee. Especially a missing employee. That didn’t mean it was guaranteed, just probable. Almost two weeks earlier, he had found the corpo corpse of a man who died protecting company property from the Maelstrom gonks that had shot down his aerodyne. Still, unless there was a ransom, what was the point of dragging along the driver (dead or alive) along with the loot? It didn’t add up.

  As the van pulled up to Daniels Street will spotted the security gate. Tall gates with razorwire, cargo containers of various sizes used as physical borders. It looked a bit like a hastily crafted budget fortress. The guards were walking Herculean specimens. They were also quite stylish, wearing big, colorful guayabera shirts, vintage tan trousers, Avante brand sneakers, and their skin was adorned with gold decorative EMP threading across their massive forearms and biceps. The look was everything, but Will knew that these men were dangerous Animals. Gangers that pushed the human body farther than most people could imagine. Many eschewed chrome for a mixture of ultratestosterone and equine growth hormones, but some that passed the boundary of muscle mass that a human skeleton could support dabbled in a mix of cyberware and bioware augmentations that even Maelstrom could respect.

  Will parked the van and approached them, noting their predatory stares from a distance. His own bioware enhancements were already noticeable in areas aside from strength and speed. For one thing, his eyesight was perfectly sharp and crisp, so he could see the scars around the elbows that the two men both shared from grafted muscle procedures. He wasn’t sure if they used cadavers or grew them in a vat, but either way, it made them a sort of sub-species of human rather than just human. One wore fashionable sunglasses, and the other had a mohawk.

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  “Name?” the one in sunglasses asked in a bored voice.

  “Will Scrap, Eclipse Freight Solutions. Here to see the Mick and Don Coleman?”

  The mohawk’s eyes glowed slightly as he sent a message to the clients. “Glad you could make it,” he said in a voice that betrayed only hostility. He didn’t look glad. He looked hungry.

  The gate opened without anyone visibly activating it. “Appreciate it,” Will said simply, not wanting to provoke them. As the old idiom went, ‘don’t poke the bear’ or in this case, bears.

  It was a short walk from the gate to the Ebunike dock, though Will noted some evidence of recent gunplay here and there. The ship itself was as big and ugly as it ever was. He didn’t know much about Mayor Ebunike, but his legacy was incompetence and millions and millions of wasted eddies.

  As Will approached the accommodation ladder to the great ship, two figures stepped out from behind it. The clients, twin brothers, were even more massive than the men guarding their gate. They wore massive tailored business suits, no ties, and seemed to have walls of tattoos up that extended to their fingertips and stopped just at the jawline. They were identical aside from the fact that they had chosen different color themes for their tattoos (green and red), and one was completely bald.

  “I’m Mick,” said the one with the green tattoos and no hair. “This is my brother Don.” Don gave a reasonable facsimile of a smile and reached a hand out.

  “Mr. Coleman,” Will reached out to shake hands with the giant, his hand only feeling somewhat childlike in comparison. “Gentlemen, tell me how I can help you.”

  [NORTHSIDE DOCKS – DV EBUNIKE]

  Tuesday| 29 JUN 2077 | 14:44

  [WNS: NIGHT CITY PREPARES FOR FLOODAGGEDON]

  The Twins had hurried aboard the ship and brought Will to the galley. There was a tray of fresh strawberries and what looked like real cheese. He hesitated, but Don insisted that he help himself. Will was still on his 5,000-calorie diet, so he took up the opportunity to eat real food as the brothers explained the situation.

  They had made their fortune hopping back and forth from mixed-martial arts to professional wrestling for the past two decades. They’d started with the Animals, but moved on as their careers had skyrocketed. Will didn’t recognize them, but he was habitually out-of-touch with rockerboys and celebrity news. Three years ago, the Twins had started a small aquaponics farm out in Pacifica. They made buku eddies, but had to abandon it because of rising tension with the Voodoo Boys. Then, the opportunity of a lifetime had come their way just a few weeks ago. The previous tenants of the Ebunike had been ‘evicted’, and suddenly the massive space inside the hull, along with the still working water filtration system, was theirs for the taking.

  “So that’s the background. Fast-forward to today. Our driver and cargo-mate Big Red was supposed to pick up a huge shipment this morning at 9:00 AM. By 9:15, the tracking on the truck stopped working, right around Martin and Kennedy. Red went dark, too. Haven’t been able to ping him since this morning. Don already drove the route and met with the Maelstrom sellers, and nobody’s talking. We think the hijackers used the fog as a cover.”

  Don jumped in while Mick caught his breath (he was speaking a mile a minute), “We called Regina Jones once we realized he wasn’t just drunk at some bar or enjoying a brain dance in a parking lot. This isn’t like him.”

  Will nodded and cleared his throat. “So do you guys have any enemies? How about Big Red? Has he pissed anyone off?”

  Mick and Don exchanged a look at the last question. Mick answered, “Every enemy we have made is either dead or doing quite well in the entertainment business right now. As for Red, well…”

  Don took over, “Red was a fighter. Mostly underground stuff. He was good, but he ended up owing a lot of people money he couldn’t make back in the ring. He hit hard times, so we hired him to help out. Steady pay, even a place aboard the Ebunike to stay rent-free.”

  “Good to see that kind of loyalty shown to a friend,” Will said genuinely, thinking of Yoneda’s kindness for a moment. “Okay, so that’s one avenue I’ll look down. How about competitors? Customers?”

  “Demand’s high. If we have competitors, they’re probably raking it in too. Our customers are all legitimate restaurateurs. It’s gotta be one of Red’s creditors or some random crew,” Mick said, convinced. Will wasn’t so sure. All the evidence seemed to be pointing towards Big Red stealing the truck and the supplies and running.

  “You said he’s been living here aboard the ship. I need access to his room.”

  “I can show you to his cabin,” Mick offered.

  It was a short trip from the galley. Mick unlocked the door to Red’s cabin. Will stepped inside and was hit with the stench of bodybuilding supplements and animal pheromones. He held his breath and began the search. He checked everywhere. Under the bunk mattress, inside the small closet, around the toilet, and inside the waste basket near a small desk. It was as he was going through the trash that he found a crumpled piece of paper that turned out to be a bank statement. Even in 2077 corpos still liked torturing their customers with excessive trash.

  Will looked through the deposits, saw the payment from the Twins, a generous two thousand eddies. There were a few anonymous deposits, probably from cred chips, for three hundred, four hundred and fifty, and then eight hundred respectively. Odd. Next he checked the purchases. They were mostly receipts for booze and training supplements, but two payments stood out. One was for a storage unit at Megapax Export off Leru Street, and the other was for a vehicle loan.

  “Did Big Red have a car or a bike?” Will asked quickly.

  “He used to ride a bike all the time, but I haven’t seen it in months. I can ask Don.”

  “Don’t bother,” Will sat down on the bunk to think, then froze. There was something hard inside the mattress. He pulled off the fitted sheet and found a small zipper, unzipped it, and reached inside. He pulled out a milspec laptop and immediately placed it on the desk. He reached into a pocket and connected his external Agent. The hardware might have been milspec, but the ICE was budget at best. Will opened the email app and started reading. Mostly just porn and advertising, but he was able to spot a few from the same account. Someone by the name Super Loco had been demanding payment for several weeks now. The emails got progressively more tense and threatening. Will checked the NCPD bounty board to cross-check the alias and did find another large Animals ganger with the word ‘hate’ tattooed across his face. How lovely. His known hangout was a building in Santo Domingo dubbed the Tripple Xtreme Gym. He made a mental note to check it out.

  Will was about to close the laptop when he came across more emails from someone called Ringer. Seemed to be some sort of fixer, but the language used was so vague as to be of no use at all. A picture was forming in Will’s head, one that the Twins wouldn’t like. Before leaving the room, Will sent a quick message to his friend Scott Winter at the NCPD Netsec department.

  [OUTGOING TEXT]

  Will: Can you find out if Big Red, ex-Animals ganger and retired fighter, has been seen on any cameras? Also, any known fixers with alias of Ringer? Big Red is missing. Need some help.

  Ping.

  Scott was fast.

  [NEW TEXT MESSAGE]

  Sender: Scott Winter

  Time: 14:55

  [re: big red and ringer?]

  Scott: Will, I’ll see what I can find. Two hundred eddies up front.

  Will: Glad I still rate a discount.

  Scott: Actually, I’m charging you double my normal rates.

  Will transferred the eddies to Winter, remembering why he had left the force. Bribes were so commonplace that they had become a part of the etiquette. The system was rotten, but at least Will knew how to operate around it.

  “What did you find?” Don asked.

  “Mostly new questions. I’ve got a lead to follow, a Super Loco at the Tripple Xtreme Gym.”

  Mick’s eyes went wide. “Gutierrez? That psychopath? Punch him in the face for me, will ya? Wait, on second thought, don’t, he’ll probably kill you and have you mounted on the wall.”

  “I’ll be careful. Did either of you know that Red was working gigs on the side? Looks like he was working with a fixer called Ringer. Any ideas?”

  Don looked surprised, “Had no idea. He never talked about doing any other work.”

  Will just nodded his head. “It’s time for me to move on. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  They shook hands, and Will departed the Ebunike with the taste of strawberries still lingering in his mouth.