"I'm in."
Inside an ergency stairwell of the Grand Empire Mall, Karl reported through team comms.
"Encountered two Animals—avoided both. Still no sign of where the target vehicle might be parked."
A few seconds later, Jack's voice crackled in.
"Sa here. V and I haven't spotted anything either. T-BUG, Oliver—any visual from outside?"
"Nope. These Animals actually know what they're doing," T-BUG replied.
"They only restored a few key systems in this abandoned dump—stuff wired into isolated control rooms. I can't breach them all remotely."
She added, "If we want full surveillance access, I'll need to deploy Qiuqiu for a localized uplink."
"Risk assessnt?" Karl asked.
"Not much. I just need backup. The two nearest control rooms I've mapped are close to your position."
"Then send Qiuqiu to ."
Karl switched focus.
"Oliver, any sighting of Wildwoman? Johnny Handjob handed off the stolen ride to her—vehicle should be nearby."
"No visual. Just like T-BUG said, they've got real structure. I can't tell if it's just chaos or soone's coordinating them, but their movent patterns aren't random. Hard to identify command nodes or key defenses."
Oliver paused.
"Still, based on how often their patrol routes rotate, I'd bet soone's actively managing their positions."
"T-BUG, can you intercept their comms?"
"Working on it, but it'll take ti. I just started breaching their internal chatter."
T-BUG sounded genuinely puzzled.
"How the hell does a crew like the Animals pull off data security this tight? Do they actually have a competent netrunner?"
Animals with a legit netrunner… it felt like watching a roided-out bruiser recite philosophy. Like so gonk cosplaying Confucius.
Karl's thoughts drifted as he approached a stairwell cara. Just as he prepped to hack it, sothing felt off.
"Karl—careful. ICE sweep in your area. Recomnd evasion if you don't wanna get flagged," T-BUG warned.
He stopped imdiately and retreated. In the cara's blind spot, another device blinked red.
"Seriously? This level of security? I thought this place was freshly occupied—didn't think I was sneaking into their HQ."
Karl cursed over comms and suggested,
"What if we just go loud? Thirty targets, even elite—still manageable."
"Don't default to violence, Karl," T-BUG chided.
"Wildwoman runs this block for the Animals. No clue how strong she is. We charge in blind and she's the real deal—we're fucked. Their turf, their setup. Recklessness isn't smart rc work. Your own words, rember?"
Just then, a familiar black-and-white orb rolled quietly up to him.
"Let handle this," T-BUG said.
"Any hack you attempt leaves a trace. Qiuqiu doesn't."
"All yours."
Qiuqiu shifted into its compact cyberdog form and—under T-BUG's guidance—leapt between overlapping scanner fields at their mont of deadzone convergence.
"Clean jump."
Karl couldn't help but be impressed.
Qiuqiu sprinted up the wall with chanical paws.
"Added suction modules. It can run up glass now," T-BUG explained, activating its intrusion tools.
Two square ports opened on its shoulders, deploying interface tethers. Gripping them with its articulated paws, Qiuqiu jacked into the surveillance system.
Karl blinked.
"It can grip those cables?"
"Could've fired them in, sure. But this is cleaner. With those claws, Qiuqiu could sit in a chair, use chopsticks, and eat pizza if I told it to."
"Pizza with chopsticks. Nice."
The nearby cara flicked from red to green, then to blue—breach successful.
"That's done. T-BUG, where are those control rooms? Lead the way."
"Follow Qiuqiu. You'll handle anything inside."
The dog led Karl quickly through the corridors to a utility door by a stairwell.
"Seriously? Right next to the stairs? They weren't worried shoppers would just wander in?"
"It's makeshift. Construction got abandoned. Rerouting the wiring now would an a full overhaul."
T-BUG added,
"Four seconds to crack the lock. You breach and subdue. Watch for tripwires."
"Understood."
Four seconds later, the lock clicked.
Karl opened the door—
and spotted a proximity alarm rigged beside the fra.
Good news: no mines.
Bad news: it was a wide-area acoustic trigger—one that could alert half the damn mall.
He dropped, crushed the casing, and extended his monowire.
He couldn't hack and boost at the sa ti yet, but monowire tethering while in acceleration mode? That he could manage.
Low strain. Direct line.
The trigger was neutralized in under a heartbeat.
He swept the room—ten square ters, single occupant. One Animals mber sat at a terminal filled with security feeds. Young, jacked—probably Karl's age.
The guy had just started turning in his chair.
Karl retracted the monowire, stepped forward, and grabbed his head mid-turn.
His HUD flashed:
Bounty: 1,000 eddies
Cri: Fatal assault on NCPD officer (blunt force).
Understood.
Slight twist—
Crack.
The clear snap of vertebrae echoed faintly in the small space. Karl's voice ca through comms, dead calm:
"Threat neutralized."
.
.
.
📢 Chooms, Listen Up! 📢
From now on, you can jack in and get 20 chapters ahead on Patreon for Cyberpunk: The Relentless! 💾🔥
Stay plugged into the action, the chro, and the chaos—early access is live and waiting for you. 🧠💀
🔗 Join here: patreon/c/MrMagnus👤 Patreon na: SrMagnus
Preem support as always, chooms. See you in Night City. 🌆💫
Reviews
All reviews (0)