Chapter 43: Breakdown

Through the scope, behind the battered iron door of the spa, a newly installed automatic door stood, its surveillance camera constantly sweeping the surrounding environment.

Inside lay a dim corridor, and behind a translucent curtain, the faint red glow of servers emanated.

Lin Yue breathed a sigh of relief; the layout seemed largely consistent with his memory.

Lin Yue had a habit of cross-referencing his targets with his own memories before taking action... reconnaissance of the environment was simply part of that routine.

Until the sun sank low in the west, no other gang members had arrived at the Voodoo Boys' guarded netrunner workshop, and only then did Lin Yue feel secure enough to prepare for negotiations.

Without personal ICE, Lin Yue would never have actively sought out trouble with Slider.

Yet now that Samira had blocked him, his purchasing channel was severed, leaving him no choice but to show up in person.

Slinging his sniper rifle across his back and checking the ammunition capacity of his pistol, Lin Yue advanced toward Slider's Dark Netrunner Workshop.

Before he even reached the entrance, Voodoo Boys members in the distance raised their weapons, their modified cyberware eyes fixed firmly upon the stranger.

The Voodoo Boys were famously the most xenophobic gang in all of Night City.

"I'm looking for Samira."

Lin Yue did not force his way in. Instead, he stopped dead in his tracks three meters away, raising both hands. As long as things could be talked out, he preferred not to cause a massive commotion. Though Barghest agents rarely frequented these outer hills, there was no guarantee they wouldn't come sniffing around for trouble.

"Ain't no Samira here, scram, stranger. *[Haitian Creole curse words]*..."

The mohawked woman, whose eye was a single optical slit, spoke in a abrasive tone heavily laced with a Black accent, perfectly matching Lin Yue's stereotype of the Voodoo Boys, seeing as the gang consisted entirely of Haitians.

The sentence even concluded with Haitian Creole slang, a language absent from Lin Yue's translator.

Yet he guessed it was hardly anything pleasant.

"Come on now, sister. I know Samira. Word is she's got a piece of cyberware—more than that, I know Slider, and I'm looking to have a proper business talk with him."

"Who the fuck are you?" The woman kept her muzzle trained on Lin Yue.

Lin Yue tried to appear as amiable as possible. "I sent her a message, got blocked, so I figured I'd drop by and ask around. A ripperdoc told me you folks sell hardware smuggled straight out of New USA. Can we talk about it?"

"Idiot. That's already a rejection. That item's already claimed by a client—"

"A ripperdoc just tweaks a few hormone and endocrine system parameters and suddenly thinks he's hot shit? You think he'd refer business to a dumbass like you?"

Far from softening, the woman's tone grew even more hostile, causing Lin Yue to knit his brows.

It seemed getting his hands on that item wasn't going to be easy.

When did a Voodoo Boy ever learn to talk like a civilized human being? Getting beaten up once in a while was hardly unwarranted.

"Highest bidder gets it, right? Is that not how Haitians usually do business? I think we can still work something out." Lin Yue reined in his temper; he still wanted to make a diplomatic effort.

"Fine then. Some guy in Dogtown offered 300,000 eddies. If you can double that—maybe we'd actually consider it."

Lin Yue's expression stiffened.

Are you kidding me?

Sensing Lin Yue's predicament, the woman burst into laughter alongside the surrounding gang members. "Then there's nothing to talk about. You clearly can't afford that price, broke-ass."

"What about Slider? I want to speak to him." Lin Yue figured this Haitian woman had no intention of negotiating whatsoever. The merchandise belonged to Slider; he needed to establish a connection with Slider himself.

"Didn't you understand a word I said? There ain't no Slider here, and there ain't no cyberware. Scram! Move your feet, or I'll shove this bullet straight up your crotch!" The woman gestured with the muzzle of her gun, while the surrounding members raised their weapons in unison, occasionally jabbing the barrels against Lin Yue's chest.

Bang!

Dirt kicked up right beside Lin Yue's feet as a man shouting Haitian Creole curses continued to hurl abuses, even firing shots to drive Lin Yue away.

With an unchanged expression, Lin Yue took a deep breath.

So... there really was no room for discussion, huh?

Very well then.

Lin Yue's smiling facade vanished in an instant. The hands he had been holding high suddenly dropped, and in a flash, he grabbed the barrel of the woman's gun!

In that exact fraction of a second, the woman's gasp of shock and a decryption progress bar loading in his own eyes appeared simultaneously!

Bang! The trigger was pulled.

The scorching breath of the muzzle caused a sharp sting in Lin Yue's palm. At the same time, he spun around, his gorilla arms exerting sudden, immense force as the rifle barrel warped and deformed like soft taffy. Panicked, the woman squeezed the trigger again, causing her rifle to instantly blow up in her hands—

With one hand, Lin Yue clamped a death grip around the woman's throat. He had still hoped to avoid escalation.

To his surprise, the Voodoo Boys standing opposite him had no concept of holding back out of concern for a hostage; a hail of bullets flew straight toward Lin Yue and the woman shielding him.

The projectiles tore through distorted air and waves of heat, grazing past the skin of Lin Yue's cheek. The synthetic flesh coating was stripped away, exposing the silvery-white ballistic layer beneath.

Everything unfolded in the span of mere seconds!

Gunshots and curses flooded the previously tranquil air in unison...

The woman in front of Lin Yue was pierced through by her comrades' bullets, her throat emitting an eerie, rattling gurgle as she muttered in her native tongue right before drawing her final breath.

Lin Yue delivered a kick to the woman's corpse and lunged forward with explosive speed!

The pistol in his hand fired a few rounds into the ground before spinning gracefully in his palm. Meanwhile, his other gorilla arm, whistling as it sheared through the air, slammed solidly into the face of a male Voodoo Boy!

In that instant, it sounded like a porcelain vase shattering against the floor. The man's face and skull structure rapidly collapsed... debris and bone fragments shifted to the other side of his head, crushing together into a bloody mass. The sheer kinetic force sent him hurtling backward to crash heavily against the iron door of the spa, leaving a vast, irregular dent!

Splinters and fresh blood spattered across the door like chaotic graffiti, while a few ricocheting bullets from the ground completed their own missions—drilling at bizarre angles into the remaining members' heads and chests, blooming gorgeous, fatal flowers of crimson.

All returned to silence.

Blood dripped steadily from between Lin Yue's fingers as several corpses around him slowly crumpled to the ground with a series of dull thuds.

A heart pounding like a pile driver and a surging rush of adrenaline—

Utilizing the gorilla arms was an exquisitely exhilarating experience, one capable of making a man forget every trace of fear and pain!

Reaching up to wipe a bead of blood from his cheek, Lin Yue flashed a row of gleaming white teeth in a smile resembling that of an Asura climbing straight out of hell.

Nothing could stand in the way of his various objectives for survival in this world, not even a netrunner workshop heavily garrisoned by deckers.

If Reed and V could storm their way in, why couldn't he?

That face-plate cyberware... I am taking it!

[Hack Failed]!

The system progress bar inside his cyberware eyes was wiped clean, accompanied by a series of beeping alerts.

A sharp, sudden pain pierced the back of Lin Yue's head. His personal ICE had just successfully blocked the initial [Quickhack] launched by a netrunner within.

The original cooldown for his personal ICE was fifty seconds. Thanks to Sammy's tuning, although the vulnerable window had been reduced to thirty seconds, Lin Yue still could not afford to lower his guard.

His cyberware eyes began tracing the origin of the incoming quickhack intrusion, and Lin Yue realized that the dense, interwoven red lines marking the attack all originated from the massive server cluster situated at the dead center of the Voodoo Boys' netrunner workshop.

Clutching his sniper rifle, Lin Yue slid-kneed forward, charging through the newly installed automatic door. His gorilla arms effortlessly pulverized the bulletproof glass, and the dark muzzle pointed directly down the innermost corridor. Yet he did not stop there; drawing his pistol with one hand, he fired a blind shot upward without even looking. A split second later, the ceiling-mounted surveillance camera sparked violently and crashed to the floor.

The second hack failed as a result!

Lin Yue had no desire for that overhead camera to serve as a digital springboard for enemies to hack his systems while he was busy clearing out opposition.

However, the remaining web of dense hacks continued. Unless he dealt with the servers, Lin Yue faced the constant risk of cyberware malfunction or weapon failure.

With a finger resting gently against the cold trigger, Lin Yue took a deep breath. The superb night-vision capabilities of the Ghoul sniper scope revealed three gang members crouching and creeping toward his position.

The moment the three figures aligned into a nearly straight line—

The Mea Culpa in his grip trembled slightly, seemingly pulsing with eager anticipation to unleash a charged energy shot and obliterate the enemy!

"Go to hell, you bastards who dig into the Blackwall."

Lin Yue muttered under his breath.

A streak of falling stars pierced the turbid indoor air, piercing like a phantom through the fragile skin of the Voodoo Boys' skulls. Flames and roars, intertwined with the scent of death, erupted violently within the narrow corridor, and a gentle rain of blood slowly drifted downward...