On the outskirts of Japantown, there was a beat-up car with all four wheels gone.
This was the miserable hideout of the siblings Rebecca and Pilar, who had been driven out onto the streets after Papa Sunrise disappeared.
In the front seat, Pilar was sleeping with his mouth hanging open, both hands coated in black machine grease, while Rebecca, stretched out crookedly in the back seat and fiddling with a pistol, let out a bored yawn.
Then it happened.
From the corner of the alley, the loud voices of a merc crew roughing weapons into the bed of a pickup truck drifted over. Rebecca poked her head out the window, and their urgent conversation stabbed into her sharp ears.
"Hey, hurry up! A wanted target with a 500,000-eddies bounty just popped up in Pacifica!"
"The fuck? You serious? Move it!"
"Pretty much every merc in Night City has already caught the scent and taken off! We need to floor it before we’re too late!"
"Hahahaha!! The first bastard to put a bullet in his head gets to live easy for the rest of his life!"
"Wooooo!!"
The mercs hoisted their guns toward the sky with swaggering bravado and whooped as they tore off toward Pacifica, tires screeching.
Rebecca’s eyes went wide as she listened to that greedy chatter.
In her mind, the image of the man who had casually bought them meat noodles a few months ago flashed through her head.
"Holy shit, that’s that old guy from back then...!"
Without a second of hesitation, Rebecca sprang up from the back seat and vaulted over the front.
Then she dropped straight down onto Pilar’s skinny stomach with a merciless thud.
"Oof-!!"
Pilar’s eyes bulged like a frog’s as he took a hit to the solar plexus and screamed.
"Fuck, what the hell! Cough... You crazy bitch! You finally decided to punch a hole straight through your brother’s gut?!"
"Get up, you dumbass! This is no time to be sleeping!"
Rebecca grabbed Pilar by the collar and shook him hard, shouting at the top of her lungs.
"We have to go עכשיו—pack your shit!"
Still half-asleep and gagging from the blow to his gut, Pilar asked blankly, "Damn it, seriously... where the hell are we going?"
"Where else, you idiot? We’re going to Ji-hwan’s place! There’s a bounty on that old man’s head, and every hunting dog in the district is swarming Pacifica right now!"
Only then did Pilar catch on. He dug at his nose with a grease-stained finger and snorted in disbelief.
"What? You’re going after the bounty too? And you even know exactly where that guy’s hiding in Pacifica?"
"The bounty can freeze to death! I’m going to help him!"
Rebecca slung a shotgun nearly as big as she was over her shoulder and barked, "You expect me to just stand there and watch those trash-ass bastards gang up on him?!"
"Hah, like hell you’re helping. If you go, I’ll be surprised if you don’t end up as a meat shield."
Pilar pouted and gave a lazy snort. Rebecca’s face hardened instantly at that irritating response.
"Fuck... Fine! Rot in here for the rest of your life, you lazy bastard. I’m going alone!"
Rebecca, now thoroughly pissed off, kicked the car door open and stormed out, then started jogging into the rain by herself.
"Damn it, that stubborn little brat... Hey! I’m coming too!"
Still cursing up a storm, Pilar finally grabbed his tool bag in a hurry and stumbled after his little sister.
**
But when the siblings arrived, panting, at the ruined factory on the outskirts of Pacifica, all that greeted them was silence.
"Huff... huff... Fuck... what the hell is this place?"
Rebecca stepped into the plaza where the battle in Pacifica had taken place and blurted out a string of curses, her mouth hanging open.
The ground was gouged out so deeply it looked like a bomb had gone off, and the corpses of countless mercs who had arrived first hoping for a windfall, along with shattered steel fragments, lay soaked in the rain in a scene of utter carnage. And just like that, it was over.
"Holy shit... did someone just fire missiles all over this place?"
Pilar, who had come up behind her, stared in shock at the shattered armor plates and the completely wrecked outer wall of the abandoned building.
It was devastation so extreme it was hard to believe a human being had made it.
Still gawking, Pilar looked around and asked, "But... where is that guy, anyway?"
"Didn’t you hear me say it’s already over, you moron?"
Rebecca snapped irritably and kicked Pilar in the shin, looking at him like he was hopeless.
"Aw, shit. What a letdown..."
Rebecca’s shoulders slumped. She had come all this way to help Ji-hwan, and now all she could do was lower the shotgun she’d lugged here and let out a long sigh.
"Looks like he’s been gone for a while. Let’s go back, bro."
Just as she was about to turn around, crushed by disappointment, Rebecca’s gaze drifted carelessly toward one corner of the ruined factory, and she froze.
"What the hell are those guys doing... ?"
Breaking through the dark clouds, a top-of-the-line AV bearing the Biotechnica logo floated silently above the ruined factory.
Below it, corporate field researchers in suits had come down and were combing through the deepest part of the crater, searching for something with meticulous care.
The siblings hid behind a collapsed concrete wall and watched the scene in silence.
One of the researchers pulled out a special collection device and carefully sucked up some of the blood pooled on the battlefield floor—Ji-hwan’s blood sample—through a dropper before sealing it in a refrigerated case.
An incomprehensible corporate operation.
Rebecca frowned deeply, looking back and forth between the shattered factory wreckage and the researchers gathering blood droplets.
Just what the hell did that old guy do to get megacorps hunting down his blood?
A mix of admiration and a vague, unsettling dread flashed through Rebecca’s mind at once, while Night City’s thick darkness settled heavily over the siblings.
***
Somewhere in Havana, under a blazing sun.
On the gleaming marble floor, dozens of bodies already lay with their hearts and heads pierced through.
And in the middle of it all, a blood-soaked cartel heavyweight sat tied to a chair, his entire body bound tight and his mouth wrapped in layers of tape, tears and snot streaming down his face as he desperately begged for his life.
"Mmmph!!!!!!"
But even in front of that pitiful struggle, the Mexican woman in a perfectly tailored classic suit did not so much as flinch.
She was Aguila Nubiola, the legendary assassin whose name was feared all across the world beyond Night City.
Ding-.
With the man pleading for his life at her feet, she answered a private encrypted holo-call that had come in for her.
"Ms. Aguila... I’m sorry to disturb you during work, but I have an urgent report."
The man on the other end of the line spoke in a trembling voice, using the utmost honorifics as if terrified of offending her.
"One of the 'fingers'—the action engram chips—deployed to Night City has been completely destroyed."
At that, Aguila exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke as she looked down at the bound man with languid eyes.
"One of my fingers broke, you say..."
Instead of anger, Aguila rested her chin on her hand lightly.
"It was only a cheap imitation, but it should still have been enough to chew through a few rat bastards with ease, no?"
"T-that was... by a man named K. His current location has not been confirmed."
"K."
Aguila’s lips curved into the faintest line of interest.
"Then what about the chip that held my data?"
"W-well..."
The man on the other end broke into a cold sweat and faltered.
"There were no bodies or chips left at the scene..."
"...Fine."
Aguila cut him off lazily, as if too bored to hear the excuse.
"I’m not in a hurry. The piece left behind in Night City, I’ll go retrieve it myself when the time comes."
"A-are you going to Night City right away...?"
"I’m busy with work for now, so we’ll meet naturally someday. If not, then that man will die in someone else’s hands before I ever get there."
Even after losing one of the fingers containing her killing algorithms, Aguila showed no attachment to the missing piece.
She accepted it as naturally as the sun rising and setting each day.
After ending the call, Aguila looked back down at the blood-soaked man she was in the middle of 'working on' and gave him a polite, chilling smile.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. I seem to have forgotten Havana etiquette for a moment."
"Mmm!! Mmmph!!!! Mmmph!!"
The man’s eyes swelled with sheer terror, as if they might burst.
Aguila adjusted her grip on the gun with a cool hand and murmured lazily, "Well then, goodbye."
Tatatatang!!
The merciless gunfire echoed through the mansion, and just like that, countless more met death at Aguila’s hand that day.
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