Cyberpunk: I'm Not a Scavenger - Chapter 12: Hammer Time (Patreon)

The trait gleaming on Pantheon's status panel was the one he'd acquired after killing the Animals leader.

[Scientific Superpower] (Blue)

Description: This punch packs the power of three thousand injections. Think you can take it?!

Effect: Body +3. Special effect: Body +3.

There was nothing fancy about this new trait, just raw numbers.

Six more points in Body had doubled his physical attribute to twelve, pushing him beyond the limits of an unaugmented human.

A chunk of concrete weighing more than fifty kilograms now felt as manageable as a baseball bat.

He swept it through the air with tremendous force, knocking the monomolecular blade from the robot's hand. A second blow sent the machine sprawling.

Pantheon looked down at his fallen opponent and broke into a distinctly wicked grin. If not for the enormous rock in his hands, someone might have mistaken him for a man about to pull a harmless prank.

"Smash!"

The first blow opened a hairline fracture along a seam in its chest armor. The plate buckled and sparks scattered.

"Smash!"

The second blow widened the crack. Wiring showed faintly through the gap as electrical arcs spat in every direction.

"Smash! Smash! Smash!"

Three more savage strikes followed, displaying the purest, crudest, most unreasonable kind of brute force.

Metal shrieked and twisted with a sound that set his teeth on edge. The robot's chest core caved in completely, its delicate electronics destroyed by the violent impacts.

Its crimson eyes flickered twice and went dark. Perhaps even the machine hadn't imagined it would meet its end like this.

Pantheon discarded the concrete, now nearly crumbled to gravel, and let out a long breath.

"Cough! Cough!"

With the fight over, everything the adrenaline had held at bay came rushing back. A dull ache returned to his newly replaced lungs.

He bent over with his hands on his knees, coughed hard a few times, and finally caught his breath.

There was still one person to deal with.

Pantheon turned and trained his gun on the Chevillon Emperor, which was little more than a wreck.

Old Dog leaned against the twisted car door, staring in blank disbelief. He finally came to his senses and looked at Pantheon with a strange, conflicted expression.

"Y-you think... this is over?"

Even with half his face charred, Old Dog managed to stretch his mouth into a smile.

"Militech... Militech won't let you get away with this..."

"I'll be waiting for you in hell..."

Pantheon put a bullet through his head before he could finish.

The Second Heart kept pumping stubbornly after its owner was gone, but eventually fell silent too.

Pantheon curled his lip. Old Dog's dying threats didn't interest him.

Militech wanted the drug, not the man selling it. Someone else could deliver the goods just as easily.

He checked his status panel. No new trait, and only thirty-three Essence points. This felt like a pretty disappointing haul.

"Not bad at all. How'd someone like you end up working as a Scavenger?"

Lucy emerged from the shadows, regarding the two wrecked robots with unmistakable interest.

"I told you, I worked for REO, not the Scavengers. And I quit. I'm a mercenary now," Pantheon explained wearily.

"What are you doing?"

Lucy had already crouched beside a robot. Without looking up, she used her tools to pry off a panel, her fingers working deftly through the exposed wiring.

"Military-grade ICE is rare. You practically can't find it even on the black market. A single unit can go for tens of thousands of eddies."

"Shame you smashed the most valuable core chip. We could've made even more."

Pantheon shrugged and let her work. They'd be splitting the proceeds anyway.

He walked over to Old Dog's corpse and expertly fished a little box from his pocket. Inside was the encrypted chip.

It was genuine. They'd really intended to complete the deal, or they wouldn't have gone to such trouble setting it up.

Old Dog had protected the chip with his own body, but almost everything else he carried had been ruined in the explosion.

Only that Second Heart might still be worth something.

Pantheon sighed. He really didn't want to go back to his old line of work.

Just as he was about to start, however, an unprecedented sense of danger swept over him. He held his breath, every hair on his body standing on end.

He whirled around. The factory was utterly still. The perimeter cameras showed nothing unusual.

"What the hell?"

His gaze searched every corner without finding anything. The warning in his mind grew more painful by the second, almost like a countdown.

Pantheon instinctively moved toward Lucy. The moment he came close, he froze.

In his vision, the two fallen robots were radiating a terrifying aura.

Were they about to self-destruct?

"Lucy! Run!"

She was still absorbed in dismantling a robot. At his shout, she stopped, confusion filling her eyes.

"What?"

There was no time to explain.

He couldn't just stand there and watch a pretty girl die in front of him, could he?

At that moment, his little head overruled his big one and issued the order before reason got a vote.

He rushed forward, wrapped his left arm around Lucy's waist, and turned her to face away from the wreckage.

With his right hand, he pulled a rod-shaped object from his coat, the prize he'd drawn in the lottery earlier.

[Magnetically Contained Plasma Energy Shield] (Blue)

Description: May the Emperor protect you!

Effect: Deploys a hemispherical energy shield, providing a deflection field and protection against energy attacks.

A pale blue, translucent force field blossomed behind him, forming a vast shield around them both.

"What are you doing? Let go of..."

BOOM!

The ruined robots exploded almost simultaneously. Flames and metal fragments ripped through most of the factory like a hurricane.

It was Old Dog's final trump card. Even dead, he'd intended to drag everyone else into hell.

The shockwave slammed into the barrier, making the blue shield shudder and ripple violently.

Pantheon's arm went numb. The force hurled him backward several meters, his shoulder striking the factory wall with a sickening impact.

Fortunately, the barrier held.

The blast demolished what was left of the surrounding debris, burying the pair in dust and smoke.

"Cough! Cough!"

"Fuck you, Old Dog! Damn you to hell! Cough, cough..."

Pantheon spat out dirty blood and launched into a string of curses.

The shield had blocked most of the explosion, but he hadn't escaped completely unscathed.

Lucy finally shook off her daze. Noticing the hand still resting rather comfortably against her waist, she gave a short, exasperated laugh.

"Enjoying yourself?"

"Can't complain."

Pantheon put on an innocent expression and withdrew his hand as casually as he could.

Lucy stood and surveyed the factory. It had been a wreck before. Now it was practically beyond recognition.

Where one thick concrete pillar had stood, only two twisted lengths of rebar remained. The metal cladding along one wall was riddled with holes.

Old Dog really had understood human nature.

Anyone tempted to salvage the security robots' expensive components would probably have been caught in the blast.

Unfortunately for him, he'd crossed paths with a man who could cheat.

Lucy gave Pantheon a long look but didn't ask about the energy shield.

Having escaped a corporation's clutches herself, she knew that some questions were better left unasked.

After what they'd survived together, she felt a faint sense of kinship. Without quite realizing it, she looked at him a little more warmly.

"Thank you."

Pantheon raised an eyebrow and laced his fingers behind his head, grinning like a troublemaker.

"Words alone won't do. How about something more practical? Throw another million or so my way when we split the money."

You've already taken eighty percent. What more could you possibly want?

Lucy gritted her teeth, furious but powerless to do anything about him.

Then her eyes flickered, and an idea occurred to her.

"Come a little closer."

A knowing, almost big-sisterly smile curved her lips. She bit her lower lip lightly.

Pantheon's heart began beating suspiciously fast. Maybe he still hadn't recovered from the explosion.

He cleared his throat twice and leaned in before he could stop himself.

Just as he began imagining the sort of romantic scene he'd always wanted to see...

Lucy turned abruptly, leaving only her bell-like laughter behind.

"You little virgin! Hahahaha!"

Pantheon stood frozen, his nose feeling hot and his face turning red.

"Fuck!"