How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

26. protection tax

The street scene gradually changed.

Corporate drones flying like bees and flashing neon signs remain the same, but the sound has disappeared. The high-pitched voices soaked in methanol, the languid tunes of decadent pubs, and the repetitive, emotionless solicitation of guests are gone. Something darker than darkness encroached on 13th Street. Noah Lucas opened the passenger side car door and stepped out one step at a time.

“Bondi night guests are not welcome.”

Noah Lucas rolled up his wide sleeves and tied them with a string behind his neck. When I thought that pure white skin and a smooth nape were beautiful, it suddenly split.

To be precise, the left arm was split vertically at the base of the ring finger and middle finger. The implant exterior was split in two, and a thin blade in the form of a sword protruded. The right arm had a retractable blade spread out from below the elbow. Combined with the arm length, it became a curved sword well over 1 meter long. The pattern of the blade was geometric and beautiful.

“Uh… ugh…”

Max’s mouth was open and wouldn’t close. Noah Lucas’ total body implant rate exceeded 90%. The implant itself was also very unique.

“Even a lightweight body weighs 80 to 100 kg. Because they use chromium and synthetic fibers.”

Leonard drew his revolver and checked the cylinders. The atmosphere on the street was unusual, but the attitude was that there was nothing urgent.

“That old man’s body is heavyweight and weighs less than 50kg. So like that…”

flew like that

It was neither an exaggeration nor a leap. Noah Lucas disappeared in an instant. Max said ‘Ah!’ Before making a sound, from the other side of the darkness, ‘Kwaaagh!’ sound came first. A head wearing a cheap prosthetic protruded from the shadow hidden by the neon signboard. The bouncing sound was more terrifying than the scream. With that signal, a full-scale battle began.

“These damn fixers!”

The scavengers hiding in the darkness all at once pulled back their rags and pulled out their pipe guns. Noah Lucas also generously took out his hidden weapon. The blades continued to come out from the calves, thighs, and shoulder blades. ‘The whole body is a weapon’ was not an idiom.

bang! bang bang! bang-! Kwakwang! Wow-!

As the scavenger’s bullets became entangled like threads on a loom, the elder solver danced like a drum. When the distance closed, one of the twenty knives was sure to cut the thread. Blood and lubricant sprayed like a mist.

“The Tiger Claw gang imitates that body and uses it, but it’s not as good as the original one.”

“Shut up, corporate dog!”

The attack began in the direction of Leonard and Max. The scavenger went up to the rooftop of the second floor, grabbed a pipe gun that had converted a chair back into a butt, and shot Leonard. Scavenger himself believed so.

I don’t know who the scavenger implanted the cheap artificial eye, but Leonard’s eyes were hexagonal even before Noah Lucas moved. All implants detected in infrared vision were hacked. The butt scavenger was no exception. Firmly believing he was shooting Leonard, he shot straight through his jaw. bang-!

Max was the only one who witnessed the determined ‘suicide’. A number of scavengers who surrounded Leonard started committing suicide in the same fantasy. bang-! Tattang-! With each gunshot, the scrap metal increased one by one. It was a strange and grotesque sight.

“Look… good…”

There was also a scavenger watching the video of Leonard being shot down. Even at the dying signal, he smiled. It was like an implant cyborg that even his own death was a lie.

The only scavenger who didn’t kill himself with a gun was the scavenger who didn’t have a gun. Without credit for a pipe gun, those who brought iron pipes, lumber, and planks woke up from a false reality and panicked.

“My, get out of my eyes! Get out of my head!”

Psycho Cyborgs are terrifying not because of their ruthless violence. The fear of not being able to control oneself was beyond imagination. The fear that what he sees, hears, and feels now may be false, the fear that his memory and feelings in memory may be false is more than death. It was not the end of life, but the fear of denying life itself. The implant cyborg, who had removed himself several times, instinctively knew what it was. The existence of ‘I’ was disappearing.

bang-!

Leonard split the sobbing scavenger’s head with a 45-caliber armor-piercing bullet. There were scavengers who came to their senses and swung their weapons, but they were neither faster nor stronger than bullets. bang! bang! bang!

It took less than 30 seconds to tidy up the area around Azdek’s garage. Around the same time, the street in front of the garage was also tidied up.

“Are you done already? It’s the boogeyman from 7 years ago.”

Noah Lucas is back with some scavenger heads. Leonard opened the cylinder, brushed off the casings, and ground them with fresh bullets preloaded into the speed loader.

“What are you bringing that for? If I leave it alone, the Scavenger will take care of it?”

“I think they are the instigators. What will come out if you examine the memory chip? They might have information to sell to businesses.”

The 20-year veteran was different no matter what. But I didn’t want to follow suit. He tells Max that he doesn’t need to learn anything like that, but judging from the look on his face, he doesn’t seem to want to learn either.

Noah Lucas took out the blades from various parts of his torso and stored them back. From the vicious Queen of Blades, she has returned to being an ordinary young lady. However, the place where the knife had been torn and the marks where the bullet had passed through were still there. Max must have looked worried, Noah said with a hee-smile.

“Nothing hit me.”

The fluttering clothes were good for deceiving the enemy’s observation. Among the scavengers whose heads fell off, there must be some who regret that they got hit. Leonard took off his coat and gave it to Noah.

“The little girl is ugly. You are wearing this.”

It seems that the worried eyes are not Max’s. Noah Lucas made a complicated expression at the repeated favor.

“This is difficult…”

“Ah, don’t worry. Because there are no more detectable implants. I can hack a few surveillance drones if I’m uneasy.”

Leonard misunderstood the misunderstanding and said, ‘This is why beginners can’t do it. If you go all-in at once, there’s no backing, right?’ muttered on his back. Still, there was no need to explain. The garage opened silently, and the driver and bodyguard with a .22 pistol that even the 15-year-old Max didn’t use came out.

“We will help! Eulachacha!”

“How dare you aim for Azdek’s cargo!”

The person to be excluded from the force was not a little assistant. The solvers briefly sighed.

@

After a long night, the morning sun rose.

Nothing happened except a few curious vagrants snooping around and running away freaked out by a black corpse, and a traditional scavenger stealing an implant limb, thinking it was well hidden away.

Leonard stretched at the sight of Max sleeping peacefully in the corner of the luggage compartment, and Noah Lucas humming an old song with both feet on the passenger glove box.

The sunlight on the ground was high. Even if the air was polluted and the land and water were polluted, the sun did not change. Even in the days when people’s heads were split with a stone axe, and in the days when nuclear missiles burned the whole world, they would have shone so much right there.

“Ow! What is it all about? There’s a fuss, a fuss! The last nuclear war was no fuss!”

A potato entrepreneur came 2 hours early as if he had heard about the night before. Considering the security of Junk Town, it was a good thing that he didn’t come at dawn.

“I couldn’t believe it, but I never thought it would attack! There are a lot of things I didn’t learn! hahahaha… If it wasn’t for the fixers, it would have been a big problem.”

Not like a business man, he made a fuss. Thanks to Max, he woke up. Rubbing her eyes and yawning, she seemed to have forgotten what happened last night. Whether it was dull or quick to adapt, he had the qualities of a solver.

“If you’re really grateful, it’s okay to pay extra. Look at our little dark circles. It wasn’t a joke.”

Noah Lucas waved his hand out of the passenger seat, and Max quickly put saliva under his eye. Ddatgujeongmul melted and became a plausible camouflage. The potato entrepreneur laughed kindly even at the skit.

“Yes, of course. We will report in detail to the upper level. Eck, one died here too.”

The entrepreneur went into the garage with a pistol in his mouth and a disgusted look at the dead scavenger. Leonard shook his head. A big job was done, but the request was not finished. The mission was even to deliver potatoes to restaurants.

“Let’s go eat breakfast.”

“Yes? What about that?”

“For someone to raid corporate vehicles in broad daylight.”

Rumors should be circulating by now that Leonard Walker and Noah Lucas have annihilated a gang of fearless scavengers. Rumors are stronger than bullets, so even if you plan to reattack, you won’t be able to get around until three digits are gathered. The potato entrepreneur who confirmed that the potato was safe thought so too.

“There is nothing to treat to everyone who has worked hard, and I will buy you breakfast.”

“Five?”

Unexpectedly, food was hard. The fixers, whose expenses exceeded their income, were delighted.

@

However, Max, who did not usually spend money, was not very good.

“…Why noodles again?”

Leonard and Noah looked at each other with their noodles full. The flavor was good, but the elasticity was lacking. Even if you chew lightly, the patter-cut off.

“Isn’t it like a steak or a steak or a steak or a steak if a business man lives there?”

“You don’t know high-end food other than steak, right?”

The driver and bodyguard were abandoned to protect the potato, and to be honest, because they didn’t do anything the night before, and only the fixer’s gang came to the noodle house. And there was a reason it was a noodle house.

“This is the first store to use Azdex’s purified potatoes. Can you taste it and give us an honest rating?”

He was a businessman who did not waste even the price of 7 credit noodles. The noodle master on 13-3rd Street slammed his Chinese knife into the cutting board and wiped the implant.

“It’s embarrassing to just eat it because of how it looks, but if you make the soup and pull out the noodles like this, it tastes better and is cheaper than making it with a protein mixture.”

“Oh, is that so?”

I drank the artisan’s recipe along with the soup. I don’t know what it is because I’m from a science and engineering field, but the taste of the soup was good. The noodle master lowered his voice and said quietly.

“And if you deal directly with a company, won’t the public security side pay attention?”

I guess this was the real reason. Leonard’s bowl stopped half empty. Something passed through my mind.

“Where did you put those hairless bastards?”

“it? I just left it in front of the garage. You had a hysterical fit when you loaded it into the car.”

“It’s not until I have a seizure, let’s go right away.”

“uh? uh? Have you eaten yet?”

“I’ll give you a pizza-flavored energy bar, so hurry up!”

“…Didn’t you give it to me while you were there?”

Noah Lucas wasn’t the only one who was taken aback by Leonard’s brute force. The potato entrepreneur caught it in a daze.

“Why is that? What’s wrong?”

I can’t say it with confidence because it’s just a heart attack, but I could warn you.

“Do you know what the main income of the Blast Gang who took over 13th Street is?”

Noodle masters knew better than entrepreneurs and fixers.

“A shop protection tax?”

Then came the answer.

“There could be a gang behind the scavenger.”