How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

20. Consideration

Max came to his senses when he took the overpass from 15-9 Avenue to the outskirts of the city. The cracked windshield and rattling bumper rebooted the memory. A bewildered voice replaced the start-up sound.

“uh?”

Leonard glanced at the young assistant and continued the call.

“Sigma, can you tell me the head town checkpoint?”

-Checking 3 regular broadcasts and 7 pirate broadcasts. To date, there is no information regarding the gang.

At least it means that it is safe and not entangled. Leonard said to keep checking and contact him and looked at the client in the rearview mirror.

“Because it is an additional service, additional credits are added, so please be aware of it.”

The client, who survived the dead, bluffed whether it was because he was nervous or because the capacity of the memory chip was insufficient.

“The content of the request was ‘Please save me’. This is also for living, so it is not a service.”

It’s a plausible logic, but I saw Leonard Walker, who was in his 7th year as a solver, as water.

“Then shall I follow you until you die of old age? Calculating per case is the floor rule, so if you don’t like it, get off now.”

I couldn’t tell who was the saddest. The client shut up with a face chewing on a multipod subterranean animal. Max raised his right hand slightly.

“Hey, I’m sorry during the conversation, but who is he and where is he going?”

Leonard acknowledged the young assistant’s right to know.

“This is a new client. They say they’ll give you 2,500 credits plus alpha if you take them to Third Street, north of Head Town.”

“Wow! What a great stick!”

Bong’s face darkened even more. But there was nothing to be ashamed of. Leonard Walker was a well-known fixer. It was proved by going through the No. 1 Checkpoint in Head Town, northeast of A-044 City.

Baaam-! Baaam-!

I called the social security number to the tax thief company public security, but a loud horn exploded from the rear. Leonard looked in his side mirror and gnashed his teeth.

“How could you be quiet?”

Six off-road motorcycles ran frantically between the vehicles waiting for inspection. Even if it wasn’t for the odd hairstyle and long sword, you could tell by the atmosphere. It was the Tiger Claw gang. Leonard shifted up and stepped on the accelerator. The public security agent swears heartily, but I couldn’t even hear the first line.

“What is it? What else?”

Max asked, gripping the assist grip. I couldn’t see behind me from the passenger seat, but I didn’t have to answer. Six motorcycles were stuck to the left and right of the pickup truck.

“Get out the gun! It’s real!”

“OMG-! I didn’t want a real fight like this!”

There were two people on each motorcycle. The front seat was the driver, and the back seat was the Hitman. He pulled out his Schneider 10mm submachine gun and aimed it at the passenger seat.

“Shoot!”

bang-!

Perhaps it was the result of his early education, Max shot first and hit first as he had learned. The windows were shattered and the hitman shattered. Hitman’s bullet hit the car door, but it couldn’t penetrate the bulletproof plate he paid a lot of money to install.

“Whoa- Whoa-ha!”

Max slumped into the passenger’s corner and fired a shotgun. It was the first time I had shot a gun indoors, so my ears were deafened.

“You did well! It would have been better if I opened the window and shot!”

A motorcycle was attached to Leonard’s side as well. This one was a little more clever and a little more courageous. I aimed at the rear wheel with a Japanese blade. It was an awkward position to shoot. Leonard solved it primitively without hesitation in one second. I opened the car door and gently stepped on the brake.

The motorcycle, which accelerated relatively quickly, crashed into the wide open driver’s car door. After one binge, the motorcycle and the door fell off amicably. A strong draft engulfed the interior of the vehicle. Max gasped in protest.

“What is a window?”

“…my car. Never mind.”

The gangsters were alerted, but the situation did not improve. Five were still attached to the rear.

“What did you do to the gang to come after you for life?”

“Uh… uh…”

The client clutched his head and trembled. It looks like some kind of PTSD came on. At that time, a communication window appeared in the corner of my vision. It was Leonard’s original assistant, Sigma.

“Sigma! what’s the matter!”

-Mr. Leonard, according to the breaking news, there is a chase by about a dozen gangsters at the first checkpoint in Head Town.

“That’s me!”

I thought it was a really useless android, but I changed my mind. Being reported on the news means that the news drone is nearby. Leonard’s eyes turned into hexagons.

“You have to protect your portrait rights.”

After following the radio wires, there were three in total. It was a high-performance drone like a regular broadcaster subcontracted by a company. Leonard’s pupils dilated to their maximum. Images from news drones in the upper left, upper right, and lower left corners of the field of view came to mind.

This was far greater than I could have understood with my head. Multi-hacking is great, but controlling 3 at the same time without a control shard was a huge task. Even from Hexagon, there were only a few hackers who could do such a thing.

“Then I can put it to good use.”

The news drone, which lost control, spun like a guided missile and slammed down on the motorcycle. While not explosive, a 4.5 kg drone hit while sprinting was sufficiently devastating. Three motorcycles lifted forward and twisted left and right as they pulled off the road.

There were now two Tigerclaw gang motorcycles left. In one of them, a hitman was blown away by a max shotgun and he was alone. There were only three of them, so they weren’t a threat.

Leonard downshifted and slowed down slowly. It was an act of intimidation. The gangsters also noticed that the tide had changed. I applied the brakes, stopped the bike, and turned the steering wheel. It was as fast a run as the chase.

“Not very stupid.”

Leonard chuckled and shifted the gear back up. The purpose was to save the client, so there was no need to chase and fight. Head Town was not far.

@

Head Town was an old abandoned mining town.

In the early days of land pioneering, when A-044 City was called a ‘zone’, it was the first town in which heavy equipment was introduced. If you look at history, it’s a long time, but things these days that don’t care about the past were regarded as the den of old people who couldn’t die.

A mop-up pickup truck pulled into Third Street, where an ungreased implanted cyborg and a consumptive old dog stared all day.

“Eh, Achoo!”

Max brushed off the glass, then dusted it off and sneezed. The wind in the wasteland was half earth and half ash. Leonard took off his graying coat and threatened the client.

“The service should be satisfactory. Otherwise, I will charge you a separate repair fee.”

“Excellent! Because I’m not eating it!”

It was a headache to receive a request without an intermediary. There were often cases where he blindly ordered work and came out with a boat. There are fixers who sell implant organs by slicing open stomachs, but Leonard was not.

“This way.”

The client guided me through the dusty streets. Passing through a suspiciously inhabited abandoned house, they found a minivan in as bad condition as Leonard’s pickup truck.

“Do you know what the Tigerclaw gang is doing?”

“I pay rent and sell e-drugs, but my main income is not pimping.”

“yes. that’s right. They’re the ones who run the 15th Street brothel.”

After pushing his upper body through the driver’s window and rustling for a while, he took out a metal bag the size of his forearm.

“And this is the Tigerclaw Gang’s new product.”

The client whispered softly and opened the bag. The faces of Leonard and Max were full of anticipation.

“…Are you kidding me?”

I thought it would be gold, but all I had was a few poorly printed photos. Leonard was angry, but Max, who was curious, took an interest in the photographic form.

“Are you a person?”

The first picture was of a man with full hair, fingers, and toes. However, the client denied it.

“Not yet. An implant body that hasn’t been implanted yet.”

Leonard took the photo and looked it over. This is my first model, but I have seen similar products often.

“Is it a Fort Bionic product?”

“yes! that’s right! Top-notch body!”

Leonard sighed and returned the photo. I guessed without looking at the next picture.

“I was tricked.”

Max looked up curiously. However, the excited client couldn’t catch Leonard’s cold reaction.

“Tigerclaw bought these beautiful bodies for 30,000 credits each. It’s not just one or two, but 10 even if you can’t! That’s at least 300,000 credits! And now shipping to A-044 City! Look closely, this is a corporate transport vehicle, this is an escort vehicle, and this is the transport date and…”

Leonard put the picture away as if he didn’t want to see it anymore.

“So you’re going to rob a corporate convoy? Or are you going to aim for the moment the Tigerclaw gang receives their cargo?”

“No. no. Do I look that simple?”

“It’s not that big, so it looks like it’s already exploded…”

“Because it is not! I wasn’t crazy enough to touch the enterprise. But I know one such madman. Corporations, gangs, and the guys who raid on anything as long as it’s credited.”

Coincidence, Leonard knew one of those guys. Jimin asked seriously.

“Did you pass this information on to the Wildkid Gang?”

The client smiled broadly as if he understood now.

“I decided to get 7,000 credits for the information fee. Originally, it was 3,500 divided with my partner, but since I died earlier, I will get 7,000. That means you can give 2,500 enough to Hexagon. I wanted to say that.”

Leonard took one look at the cloudy sky and sighed deeply. Every time like this, I promise not to accept requests without an intermediary, but due to my sense of justice and greed, I have not been able to keep them.

“The information is probably true, given that Tiger Claw tried to kill you.”

“right? Is it too?”

“But do you believe in the Wild Kid because there is nothing to believe in the world? If things went wrong, the Fort Bionics would try to kill you, not the gang?”

“uh…? uh? no way?”

The client’s complexion changed. It seemed that the sense of reality had returned. Leonard contemplated what to do with the idiot, then rendered one last service.

“Go find the Twins. You’d better leave yourself there and do what you’re told.”

The Twins are not on good terms with Tigerclaw and Wildkid, so if they both fuck up and join in, they won’t kick them out.

“And I’ll give you two months.”

“Two months?”

“Prepare 3,500 credits. Otherwise, neither the corporations nor the gangsters will kill you.”

Subtracting the vehicle repair cost from the service fee was a consideration. Even if the client doesn’t think so.