Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

12:37 am

I leaned against the concrete wall as I scribbled in my notebook. I was mostly writing a list of places throughout Night City I wanted to visit but hadn’t had the time to because of all the jobs, all the planning, and all the pressure I’d been under.

Diego glanced over at me, watching me fiddle with my notebook. “What are you writing?” he asked, leaning in closer to get a better look.

“It’s just a list of spots in Night City I haven’t had the chance to visit yet,” I explained. “This place we’re at is pretty peaceful. I kinda like it.”

Zion snorted at that and looked up from the crate of Bombus drones he’s been fiddling with. “You wanna play tourist in this shithole?”

“Something like that,” I replied, still jotting a few things down. We were tucked away under a bridge, and the entire time we’d been sitting there, a faint memory was tickling the back of my mind. The longer I looked around, the more I was thinking the place felt familiar. And finally, I realized that we were only a stone’s throw away from the spot where V and Goro would hold a meeting with that Arasaka bodyguard to try and convince him that Saburo had been choked out by his own son.

It was sort of like I was getting a sneak peek into Night City’s future history, even if the spot was only an abandoned area near a bridge.

Our crew had set up camp in a small alcove nearby. Mor had tipped me off about it. It was a hidden spot that a couple homeless had decorated with a few beat-up couches and chairs. They’d carved out their own fiefdom here under the bridge. Our group had co-opted the place for some last-minute run-throughs of the job. It was a perfect hideout since it was far enough from Lizzie’s that, if anyone was tracking us, it would keep the alcove out of danger.

I let my mind wander to the spots in Night City I’d written down in my notebook: the Aldecaldo camp out in the Badlands, the old roller coaster in Pacifica, Corpo Plaza, Kerry’s mansion. I wanted to visit all those spots but hadn’t had the time since coming to the city. Maybe if this job worked out, I’d finally scrounge up the time and eddies to take a little vacation.

“Look lively, we got company,” announced Diego as an Archer Hella pulled up to our hideout. I pocketed my notebook and fixed a blank look on my face as the car rolled closer.

Diego and Zion joined me in front of the hideout to watch the car pull up. The doors opened and Anna stepped out, followed by a heavyset man. A quick scan told me his name was Terrance Johnson.

Terrance was our crew’s main point of contact in the prison; the guy who’d been helping us smuggle contraband into the place. As he made his way over, I couldn’t help but look at the balding patch on the top of his head and the paunch that strained against his shirt. You’d think he’d care more about staying in shape, considering the physical necessities of his job as a prison guard.

“Hey, chooms,” he called out, a smirk on his face. “This don’t look much like a party. Why’re we here and not at a club? It’s just as easy to do our business with a couple drinks and party favors.” His eyes flicked over the three of us as he pulled up short. I looked over at Anna and saw the irritation etched on her face. I could tell she was fed up with the man. She probably had been for a while.

I dipped into my pocket and pulled out a shard that I handed over to Terrance. “I need you to plug this into the prison’s SCADA system tomorrow.”

He recoiled, holding the shard like it was a live grenade ready to go off. “Whoa, what the hell choom? You think I’m dumb enough to mess with the prison’s control system?”

“I think you’re dumb enough to have photos of you smuggling contraband into the prison. And if you don’t want your bosses seeing them, you’re gonna do what I tell you to do.”

His face twisted in confusion. “It’s your contraband. We’re partners. I’ve been moving your goods.”

“And we appreciate that. But our appreciation doesn’t mean shit if you don’t do this.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “In exchange for this little favor, we’re willing to bump your people’s pay up from 25 to 30 for each shipment.”

He hesitated, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out how much room he had to negotiate. “We should be getting 40% for each shipment.”

I smiled at him. “And we should be talking to other guards in the prison to move our stuff. I’m pretty sure we could find someone willing to do it for 15. Maybe even less if they’re hungry enough. But Anna says that you’ve been doing good work. So, you’ll do it for 30 and our business will keep running smoothly.”

He sat there, thinking about it, before finally giving out a hmph and a nod. “Fine. Is that all you called me out here for?”

“No,” I said, leaning closer. “There’s a lawyer stopping by the prison tomorrow. His name’s Martin Price. He’ll be visiting around 1:30 pm, and he’ll be meeting with five prisoners, including Dario Sanchez. I want you to make sure all of them are guided to West Visiting Room 3, the one that overlooks the yard.”

Terrance’s eyes narrowed as he slowly pieced things together. “Dario is paying you to break him out, isn’t he? But why? He’s got the Animals protecting him inside. He’s safe as can be and only has another year or so on his sentence.”

I gave him a casual shrug. “I’m not the person who decides these things. I’m just delivering the message.”

“Then you need to get the guy who does decide these things down here because 40% of the contraband take is back on the table. Either that, or you give me half of whatever Dario’s paying you.”

I stared at him for a moment, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make him uneasy. “Your cut stays at 30%, but I’ll throw in a one-time payment of 50k once the job is done. For that, you’re going to personally guide them to the meeting room and make sure nobody bothers them.”

He paused, clearly weighing his options, before nodding and slipping the shard I’d given him into his pocket. “Fine. But tell whoever your lawyer is to not hit too hard. I’m assuming he’s going to have to ‘knock me out,’ before they make their grand escape. I’ll sell it and won’t fight back, but I don’t wanna end up with a concussion.”

I couldn’t help but scoff. “It’s a lawyer. He’s probably rail-thin and spends his days reading case law behind a desk. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

Anna guided Terrance back to her car and, once he was inside, I let out a frustrated sigh and muttered a curse under my breath. Diego raised an eyebrow at me in a silent question.

“He’s a liability,” I said. “We’re gonna have to deal with him sooner or later.”

3:14 am

Diego was closing the lid on a crate when we both heard footsteps approaching our little hidey-hole. I looked up to see John and Mor strolling in, a grin on Mor’s face and a blank expression on John’s.

“Nice little spot you got here,” said Mor as he stepped into our hideout and looked around. “Get some music going, maybe a grill and a cooler, and this place could make a decent hangout.”

I chuckled at that. “Not a bad idea. So, what brings you two down here?”

Mor shrugged. “Out for a stroll. Thought I’d give you a heads-up that everything’s ready on our end. The kid and I have been working with Albert, and we rounded up a small army for your election…stuff. I don’t know exactly what you wanna do with them, but they’re ready to go.”

“How’s it working with Albert?” I asked. “I get the sense he’s not my biggest fan.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say all that,” Mor smirked. “He probably thought you’d fall in line a bit more with this whole Pack business. That’s all. It’s just teething problems. Nothing major. But at the same time, I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

Before I could respond, bright headlights cut through the gloom of the night and swept over us as a van pulled up outside our hideout. John blinked against the light, steadying himself, but Diego and I had been expecting the van. It rolled to a stop, the engine cutting off, and Zion hopped out from the driver’s seat.

Diego grabbed the crate he’d just been working on and lugged it over to the van while Mor, curious as ever, watched. “What’s in the crate?”

“Bombus drones. We packed them with explosives we stole from that construction site a few days back. Diego’s been fine tuning all of them, making sure they’re ready.”

Mor nodded slowly, taking it all in. His eyes flickered between the crates that Diego was stuffing in the van and the extra explosives that were stacked in the corner of the hideout. “So, you’re going big this time, huh?”

“Yea. I can’t shake the feeling that this whole thing might be a little…much.”

7:26 am

Diego kicked my foot, jolting me out of my light nap. I’d dozed off while Zion and Diego had been busy packing the van with gear. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sat up, noticing Sandra Dorsett looming over me.

“My netrunners are ready,” she said. “What’s the plan?”

I pushed myself to my feet, stretching out the stiffness in my limbs. “We’ve got a prison guard on the inside. He’s gonna get you remote access to the SCADA system. That’ll give you and your people the chance to cause some chaos. Start a couple minutes before two, and make sure you’ve got everything wrapped up by 2pm.”

Sandra shifted her weight back and forth, rocking in place. She was obviously fighting with something, and I simply watched as she came to a decision. “You know, you got me on board with this whole thing by promising to tell me about NightCorp. My people were happy to run that whole phishing campaign against all the politicians because, well, why not? But now we’re attacking a prison, and my people aren’t doing all this out of the kindness of their hearts. They’re solid, and they expect to get paid. If there’s no eddies in this job, they’re out.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll get their cut. This is a big job, and the payout should be more than enough to keep everyone happy.” I reached into my pocket and handed her a shard. “The basics of the plan are on there. How you pull it all off, that’s up to you and your people. Just make sure it’s all done before 2pm. We need precision on this.”

Sandra took the shard and slipped it into her jacket pocket without even glancing at it. “Don’t worry, it’ll get done.” She turned to leave, but then paused and looked back at me. “We need to have that talk about NightCorp soon.”

“Yea, soon,” I agreed as she walked away.

1:32 pm

“…and it left a generation of orphans behind. But at least the kids that contracted it, if they survived into adulthood, they made it with no lasting effects. At least that’s what the docs say anyway, but I’m not so sure.

“See, back in the 2020s, just before the 4th Corporate War broke out, this unidentified AV went down near Heywood. Whatever it was carrying, it was bad stuff. In less than a month, 600 adults had died of a previously unknown disease that just melted them, literally. The whole thing got contained, cleaned up, covered up. The CDC, back when that was a thing, said that it was some sort of flu. Yea, like a flu that melts your body. But on the street, they knew the truth: it was a bio-weapon. And on the street, they started calling it the Carbon Plague.

“Now, the story goes that the orphan kids mostly wound up going to surviving relatives or the special orphanage the Night Foundation set up after the tragedy. And the story should end there, but it doesn’t. Some of those kids weren’t the same afterwards. They could do things. Things that shouldn’t be possible. Mind-reading. Hacking without a deck. Telekinesis. Literally comic book stuff.

“Story gets murky at this point, but sometime during the war, those kids all vanished. Officially counted among the missing after the downtown bombing. Some say they ran off. Another story I’ve heard is that some corp got wind of their abilities and kidnapped them using the chaos of the war as cover.

“But I’ve been hearing some stories, listener. Stories about people losing their grip on reality and doing things they normally wouldn’t. Stories about a rigid politician suddenly deciding to party with joytoys and gangsters. Stories about a trafficked kid turning on their kidnappers and dicing everyone up. And I have to admit…I’m skeptical. Something doesn’t add up. You ask me, at least one of those kids with the Carbon Plague is back in Night City. And he’s planning something big.”

I cut the engine to the car and the radio died with it. It was pretty surreal listening to Maximum Mike, voiced by Cyberpunk 2077’s creator Mike Pondsmith, on the radio. Whenever his signature gravelly voice came on during the game, I often found myself parking and just listening to what he had to say. So, it was an obvious rush to hear him talk about some of my exploits. But at the same time, it was a gut-punch of anxiety.

I thrived on anonymity. It was my greatest strength in Night City. The more people knew about me, the more people who knew my capabilities, the shorter I could expect to survive and the greater the target on my back.

I checked the rearview mirror to make sure my face implant was working before getting out of the “borrowed” Mizutani Shion. I had to suppress a sigh of regret as I tossed the car’s key fob away. Say what you want about Martin Price, but the guy had great taste in cars. It pained me to leave it in the prison parking lot, but I wouldn’t be able to come back for it once the job started.

I signed in at the front desk of the prison, flashed Martin Price’s Asukaga & Finch ID, and was greeted by Terrance, the guard on our payroll. He shot me a quick nod, nothing more, and led me through the labyrinth of prison corridors. When he thought no one could hear us, he mumbled a bit under his breath, “Everything’s done with the shard our friend gave me. No one noticed.”

My heart beat steadily in my chest. The best word to describe my plan was: ballsy. Weeks of work had gone into this job, and if even one piece failed, I’d be stuck inside the one place in Night City no criminal ever wanted to be in. But I pushed those thoughts out of my mind as I followed behind Terrance towards West Meeting Room 3.

Terrance opened the doors to the meeting room and motioned me inside. All five prisoners I’d requested were there – Dario Sanchez among them – and they all snapped their heads in my direction as I stepped through the door. I strolled to the metal table in the middle of the room, set my briefcase down, and calmly opened it to reveal a stack of papers and a burner Agent. I grabbed the Agent and placed it down on the table, tapping the screen awake and checking the time.

1:47 pm.

Getting through security took some time. I thought I’d be in the room earlier, but it was fine. We were still on schedule.

I took a seat, steadying my nerves and trying to come up with the most effective way to play the role of pampered lawyer. Before I could even introduce myself, one of the prisoners spoke up.

“Who the hell are you? You look like a lawyer, but you sure as shit ain’t one of mine.”

A quick scan gave me the guy’s name: Vincent Macuzzi. He was the unfortunate owner of one of the smallest bounties in the room at only around 200k eddies. He’d been the CEO of a third-rate construction firm that cut corners and built shoddy apartments. The best thing that could be said about his company was that they made some pretty fancy drug dens.

But that wasn’t anything new in Night City. The whole place was lousy with predatory landlords and shitty contractors. What set him apart from the crowd was that he was one of the few CEOs to have ever been prosecuted in Night City. A building his company made had collapsed and killed a young girl. It was all over the news; beautiful blond woman as victim of an exploitive building owner. That the girl had been blitzed out of her mind on blue glass was conveniently left out of the media frenzy. Even that wouldn’t have normally been enough to see a CEO prosecuted in Night City. But it turned out that the girl’s father was friends with the NCPD commissioner.

“That’s where you’re wrong Mr. Macuzzi. I am your lawyer. My name is Martin Price, and my firm has recently come into information that concerns all five of you.” Hmm, yea, leaning into the pompous twit version of Martin Price was the right way to go about this. He’d revel in the power he held over his clients, excited to see how they’d react to a bombshell revelation.

All five of the prisoners locked onto me, their expressions ranging from confused to bored to intrigued.

“My firm has learned that the NCPD has acquired evidence linking the five of you to an alleged ‘joint criminal conspiracy.’ Supposedly, you all collaborated in a scheme to smuggle illegal cyberware to ripperdocs throughout the city. Since you worked together, the DA is pushing to charge you all under the RICO statutes and is hoping for life imprisonment for all of you.”

The room filled with noise as each of the inmates tried to talk over each other. One of the inmates let out a bitter laugh. “That’s some bullshit,” he spat. “I’ve never met any of these gonks before today. We never ran together. And I definitely didn’t work with them.”

“I know, Mr. Kasugi.” Despite his last name, the guy wasn’t associated with the Tyger Claws. He was one of the few white-collar criminals locked up in here. That meant his victims were probably rich enough to make some noise about him, but not powerful enough to reach him while he was serving his time.

“The evidence is likely fabricated; probably by someone who wants to keep the five of you behind bars and away from the leadership of any of your…organizations.” As soon as I let that slip, I noticed several of the inmates perk up. “But the DA’s office doesn’t care about the evidence. They’re desperate for a win, especially during election season. And that’s something you should all be grateful for.”

“Yes. My boss isn’t a fan of the current DA. They went to the same law school and something happened. I’m not sure. But because of that, he’s offered the services of Asukaga & Finch to you all…free of charge.” At the mention of one of the most prestigious law firms in the city, the five inmates all perked up.

“I’ll prove the evidence was fabricated, kick up attention to how the DA was trying to prosecute you based on faulty evidence, and try and get the media on our side. The only way they can squash the bad press will be to, hopefully, commute the rest of your original sentences in exchange for your silence. If everything works out, you’ll all be out of here within the next three months.”

It was a bullshit story. I didn’t even know if that’s something that a law firm would even be able to do. But I said it with enough confidence that all the inmates looked to each other, trying to decide whether they should work with me or keep their heads down. The lie I told them saw them as pawns in a pissing match between two wealthy and powerful lawyers, which wasn’t an enviable position to be in. But at the same time, if they could get out of prison after only a few more months, why not take that deal?

“And what’s in it for your boss?” one of them finally asked.

I turned my attention to the speaker, noting the long, jagged scar that stretched from the top of his head down his left cheek. Jago Sbernic. The only inmate here that I was slightly wary of. Unlike all the rest, who were a mix of gang leaders and corrupt brainiacs, Jago was…dangerous. He was killer, plain and simple.

His file was a black hole of unknowns. Number of victims: unknown. Affiliations: unknown. Real name: unknown.

Out of everyone in the room, he was the only inmate who worried me. Even with him unarmed, I wasn’t sure if I could take him in a fight. There were rumors that he worked for the Russian Bratva. Others said he’s a hitter for SovOil or one of the other USSR corporations. He had Scav connections – which should have had everyone in the prison chasing after him – as well as connections to various three letter agencies and crime lords.

He also boasted the highest bounty in the room. The reason for that was simple: any unexplained disappearance in Night City was blamed on Jago.

If you were caught in the crossfire of a gang war – like Gloria from the Edgerunners anime – your body would be collected by the meat wagons once everything cooled down. If you were kidnapped by Scavs, your body would eventually turn up in a city dumpster, desiccated and stripped of all the cyberware and organs. But if you ran afoul of Jago, you were never found. He’d dump his victims in a vat of chemicals and, once the body was turned into mushy soup, he'd simply dump it down the drain. Anyone in Night City who’d lost family to an unexplained disappearance had chipped in what few eddies they could, and Jago’s bounty was a massive 650k.

Jago was the reason I was here, lying to these inmates and pretending to be a lawyer instead of simply killing them for their bounties and calling it a day.

I gave a noncommittal shrug before tapping the burner Agent. 1:53 pm. Still gotta stall. “Mostly, he’ll be happy with dicking over the DA. You wouldn’t believe the lengths the wealthy go for revenge. Plus, the idea is that it doesn’t hurt to have friends like you five in this city. If we get you all out of prison, I’m sure you can find ways to repay us.”

I got up from my seat and draped my suit jacket casually over the back of the chair. As I started unbuttoning the cuffs of my shirt, I noticed Jago’s eyes lock onto me, a flicker of suspicion crossing his face. All the rest of the inmates were busy chattering amongst themselves. Only Jago seemed to find anything odd about my actions.

As I undid the buttons on my cuffs, my mind drifted to the plan. By now, Diego should be pulling up outside the prison walls with the van we stole from the construction site. He’d park, jump out, and Cyndi would rocket up next to him, riding my Kusanagi, and drive them both away from the prison. Easy peasy.

I tapped the screen of the burner Agent again. 1:55 pm. Everything was on schedule.

As if on cue, the door to the meeting room let out a loud ‘clunk’ which signaled that the door lock had engaged. Then the alarm sounded. The sudden noise snapped everyone to attention, and I glanced over at the door to see Terrance fumbling with the handle, a look of confusion on his face when he realized it wasn’t budging.

He sighed and seemed to nod to himself before slowly turning towards me, a sentence half-formed on his lips. “At least make it look conv—”

I unspooled my monowire and slipped it over Terrance’s head like a garrote. A quick activation and pull, and the wire cut through skin, muscle, and bone as if it were nothing. His body crumpled to the floor and his head landed with a dull ‘thunk’ a moment later.

I turned back to the inmates who’d all panicked and jumped out of their seats around the table. They were shouting and cursing in a blend of fear and confusion. All except Jago. He was still seated, calm as ever, with his eyes fixed on me.

“Mr. Sbernic. My boss would like to meet with you to discuss a job. If you’d kindly follow me outside, we should be through this in a moment. The rest of you, of course, are welcome to join us. We can discuss repayment at a later date.”

Vincent scoffed. He was trying to keep up a strong front, but his voice was a little shaky. “And why would we follow you? Who the hell even are you?”

I strolled over to the table and picked up the burner Agent. 1:56 pm. Without a word I opened my briefcase and grabbed a small lump of putty. I went over to the wall of the meeting room – the one with a view of the prison yard – and pressed the Agent against it, securing it with the putty.

“You should come with me,” I said, turning back to them, “because they’ll probably add a few years to your sentence for this little jail riot. You’d be lucky to get out of here in twenty years. Also, I suggest everyone move away from the wall right now.”

“What riot?” asked another prisoner. Santiago Alvarez. I felt a twinge of regret about what was gonna happen to him. He was a netrunner who’d been branded a terrorist by the corporations he’d hacked. His most infamous act – and the one that got him sent to prison – was uploading a massive amount of incriminating data about Dynalar Technologies that eventually sparked a bloody power struggle among their board members.

Before anyone could ask anything else, an explosion ripped through the outer wall of the prison. It was large enough that I could feel the shockwave rattling my body along with the windows of the meeting room.

I calmly activated the burner Agent attached to the wall and took several steps back. The other inmates mimicked me and put some space between themselves and the Agent. I caught Jago’s eye and could see him giving me an appraising look as he shifted his gaze between me and the burner Agent.

More explosions echoed through the prison. They’d been caused by the Bombus drones, activated by Zion who was perched on the roof of a building a short way away from the prison. Each of the Bombus drones had a self-driving algorithm that Sandra’s team had been working on. And they were also programmed to lock onto a specific key fob signal emitted by a the burner Agents that Terrance and the other corrupt prison guards had been selling to the inmates. The first fifteen Agents we sold had been given to prisoners whose cells were on the outer ring of the prison.

I knew that the Bombus drones, once activated, would race towards their programmed signal like a missile. The drones had charged the prison walls and, when they got close to the key fobs, detonated their explosives. Diego had packed enough explosives so that each Bombus could blast a hole through the prison walls of the cells.

If Sandra and her netrunners had done their job right, and I had every reason to believe they had, then the prison’s SCADA system was currently broken and causing mass chaos. All the cell doors in the prison should be wide open, including those leading to the newly ruptured outer walls.

With a deafening roar, a Bombus drone crashed into the meeting room wall and detonated in a blinding flash. The wall disintegrated instantly, and the force of the blast nearly knocked me off my feet.

The five inmates were all stunned, their eyes wide as they stared at the gaping hole where a wall had been moments earlier. I scrambled over the rubble to look outside, and then turned back to face them. “It’s now or never. I can get you all out, but you’ll have to do what I say.”

They hesitated, each looking at one another, then quickly fell in line behind me as I led them out into the prison yard. As soon as we left the meeting room, we were greeted by chaos. Prisoners raced in every direction, like children high on a sugar rush. They flooded through the walls that had been torn apart by the blast of the Bombus drones. Some prisoners sprinted towards freedom, others retreated back to the inside of the prison, deciding to settle old scores before the guards could respond to the riot.

A fire had broken out somewhere within the prison and black clouds billowed into the sky. It had only been a few moments since Sandra’s team had taken down the prison’s SCADA system, but it was long enough for anarchy to reign. Staring out at the chaos around me, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen over the next few days. How would the escaping prisoners deal with the badges who were no doubt racing to the prison? Would they try and run wild and wreak havoc in the city? Or would they simply try to get as far away from the prison as they possibly could.

A prisoner, having spotted the five inmates and one guy dressed like a lawyer, detached from the crowd he was with and raced towards us. As he got closer I could see the smile stretched across his face. “Hey choom. You look like you got a ride in the parking lot. We’re gonna be friends, and you’re—”

I was getting a bit better with the monowire. It took no time at all for me to whip it forward and activate its charge. It sliced off the prisoner’s hand and carved through his face, all before he could let out a blood curdling scream and fall to the ground.

And then everything stopped. A loud crack echoed through the air, and the alarm that had been blaring moments ago, shut off. I knew exactly what had caused it; the program I’d slipped into the Night City power plant SCADA had finally activated, triggering a city-wide blackout. The prisoners, who had previously been in full-blown riot mode, stared at the skyline as the lights of Night City, for the first time in their lives, fell completely dark.

The five inmates trailing behind me all fell silent and I could see understanding and fear take shape on their faces. They were probably thinking that I worked for someone who had caused a full-scape prison break as well as a city-wide blackout. Their eyes bounced between each other and then to Jago, the only prisoner I’d shown any interest in, before turning back to me.

Jago broke the silence. “You’ve got transpo out of here, right? How am I gonna meet your boss if I’m stuck in this prison? The badges will be here any moment, and I’m not keep on getting caught escaping.”

I nodded and motioned for the inmates to follow me. We quickly weaved our way through the chaos, heading towards the section of the prison wall that had taken the brunt of the explosion. Rubble was scattered everywhere, and inmates were streaming through it, disappearing into the streets beyond. The city was theirs for the taking, and they were desperate to get as far from the prison as possible.

Noah: we’re at the wall.

A few of the escaped inmates watched as the six of us left the prison yard and stood, waiting, outside. Moments later, a Mahir Supron pulled up, its door sliding open before it even came to a stop. Going from the Shion to a Supron almost physically hurt me. It was one of the ugliest vehicles around. But, it was cheap and practical and could easily be disappeared when we were done. When the van finally came to a stop, I could see some of the inmates start rushing over, excited at seeing a car and hoping to jack it to take it to freedom. They quickly stopped when Cyndi dragged herself half out of the passenger seat window, her Satara cradled in her arms as she peered out at the scene of the chaos.

One of the escaped inmates got too close and the Satara barked in her hands. Her display of violence put an end to anyone thinking she was an easy target.

I pushed the five inmates into the van, climbing in last, and shut the door behind me as Anna drove us away from the chaos. As the prison receded into the distance, I leaned back and focused on a few messages that had been sent to my Agent. Both Diego and Deng had sent me something.

Diego was letting me know that he and Zion were wandering around in his van, scanning the escaped prisoners for anyone with a bounty. The idea was that the city would probably be hiring mercs to try and corral the escaped prisoners. If we could get a jump on things, we could round up the most dangerous ones and make a few eddies in the process. Deng, meanwhile, was with John and Mor at Lizzie’s, ready for the next part of my plan.

Deng: I take it that’s our cue to start working with the campaigns?

Noah: Yea. There’s going to be mass rioting and violence. Have the campaigns hire our people to keep the peace. Limit yourself to their districts only. A show of force should quell most of the violence and keep you all out of trouble. Should also give us a bunch of eddies.

I saw a tiny ellipsis next to Deng’s name, showing he was still writing a message. It kept appearing and disappearing, which meant Deng couldn’t find the words for what he wanted to say. My eyes were glued to it while Anna drove us away from the prison, through the city that was just now starting to come to terms with the fact that the power was out and wasn’t likely to return for a while.