Cyberpunk: I'm Not a Scavenger - Chapter 29: A New Storm (Patreon)

The moment Pantheon pushed open the doors of El Coyote Cojo, the familiar rock music and smell of alcohol washed over him.

Lucy wasn't fond of crowded places, so she'd gone home to feed the cat. Pantheon and Jackie, meanwhile, had reached an unspoken agreement. After the day's work, they deserved a drink.

“Hey! Look who's back! If it isn't our very own big shot, Jackie!”

Someone spotted them, and a crowd quickly gathered, most of them local residents or old Valentino friends of Jackie's. There were a few unfamiliar faces too, probably small-time fixers hoping to make their acquaintance.

Jackie moved through the crowd, cheerfully accepting drinks, clinking glasses with one friend and trading a few words with another. He looked positively delighted. Maybe this was exactly the sort of recognition he'd always dreamed of.

Pantheon, on the other hand, had no such trouble with admirers getting too close. His public reputation was that of a cold, ruthless killer who rarely wasted words. Plenty of people watched him from a distance and whispered among themselves, but the moment his gaze drifted their way, they abruptly found their drinks fascinating.

In one corner, several wide-eyed rookie mercenaries were listening to a veteran at the next table recount the exploits of Pantheon's crew.

“That team's never failed a gig. One hundred percent success rate! Half a month ago, they killed more than thirty Scavengers while rescuing someone!”

“That's not all. Ten days ago, they stole a shipment of smuggled chickens from the Voodoo Boys. Those creepy witch doctors couldn't do a damn thing about it!”

“Pah, that's nothing. Last week, King wiped out a whole Tyger Claws operation by himself. More than a dozen elite gang members dead. Now that was a massacre!”

“How bad was it?” one of the rookies asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

“I heard an REO cleaner took one look inside and went insane. Blood everywhere, bodies piled up, not a single corpse intact enough to put back together!”

The listeners collectively sucked in a breath. If anything, the temperature in the bar seemed to rise from all that gasping.

With his enhanced senses, Pantheon heard every word. He tried to keep a straight face, but the corners of his mouth kept climbing. It was almost impossible not to grin at people singing his praises.

Half a month had passed since the gig at Redwood Street. In that short time, he and his crew had gone from unknown rookies to expert mercenaries whose names were known throughout Night City. If they died in some spectacular fashion now, they might even be remembered as legends.

Pantheon had no intention of testing that theory. He smiled to himself and opened his status panel instead.

Body: 18 (+12)

Reflexes: 13 (+8)

Intelligence: 13 (+7)

Cool: 10 (+3)

Technical Ability: 11 (+4)

[New Abilities: [Zero-Frame Start] (Blue), [Fat-Packed Muscles] (Blue)]

[New Traits: [Fitness Enthusiast] (White), [Swordsmanship Mastery] (Blue)]

[Zero-Frame Start] (Blue)

Description: You son of a...

Effect: Reflexes +3. Special effect: Reduces the windup before an action, allowing faster attacks and movements.

[Fat-Packed Muscles] (Blue)

Description: You miserable vermin! How dare you challenge me to a fight to the death?

Effect: Body +3. Special effect: A special layer of fat increases combat endurance.

[Fitness Enthusiast] (White)

Description: Beware the wrath of an ordinary man.

Effect: Body +1. Special effect: None.

[Swordsmanship Mastery] (Blue)

Description: The dragon becomes me!

Effect: Improves combat proficiency with bladed melee weapons and deepens understanding of swordsmanship.

With the new abilities and traits, Pantheon's Body attribute had climbed all the way to eighteen.

Eighteen points in Body. What did that even mean? Adam Smasher, with an unlimited cyberware budget and the finest technology money could buy, only had eighteen. Pantheon was practically a walking forklift now, capable of shrugging off small-caliber bullets without so much as subdermal armor.

With stats like these, who could kill him? Who would even dare try?

All right, he was a little proud of himself. But could anyone blame him? Everything had gone his way. Unless one of the megacorporations deployed an entire army to deal with him, he was practically invincible in Night City.

While Pantheon entertained himself with visions of the future, Jackie finally escaped his admirers and made it to the bar.

“Pepe, get me something to eat. Anything you've got.”

His face was flushed, and he looked more energetic than ever. Jackie had changed a great deal in the past two weeks too. As the team's fire support and breacher, he'd installed several new pieces of cyberware, most notably heavy subdermal armor and Gorilla Arms. Only someone with a frame as massive as his could handle implants like those. Rebecca's situation in the anime was a special case.

Mama Welles emerged from the kitchen carrying fresh fries and a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce.

“Jackie, you're a grown man. When are you going to learn? Stop drinking so much, you hear?”

She scolded him as though he were still a little boy, but the pride beneath her exasperation was obvious.

“Got it, Mom.”

Jackie rubbed the back of his head, grinning sheepishly. Mama Welles turned to Pantheon, her expression softening.

“Pantheon, don't mind this rascal. You boys must be exhausted. Eat as much as you like.”

“Thanks, Mama Welles.”

Pantheon picked up his chopsticks and dug in without another word. He had no idea how she managed to make Night City's industrial food substitutes taste so good. One of these days, he'd have to ask her for her secret.

He'd barely finished the spaghetti and was reaching for a few fries when an encrypted communication request appeared in the corner of his vision.

Caller ID: Padre.

“Good evening, Padre.”

“Good evening, my child. I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

Padre was calling from inside his church. He looked unusually tired. Pantheon glanced at his half-eaten fries and got straight to the point.

“Let's hear it, Padre. I doubt you called just to catch up.”

“Of course not.”

The fixer's voice grew solemn.

“What do you know about Maelstrom?”

Pantheon raised an eyebrow. Everything he knew about the gang flashed through his mind. Maelstrom were lunatics obsessed with mechanical transcendence, among the most dangerous gangs in Night City. They craved the sensation of replacing human flesh with cyberware and routinely abducted people off the streets for experiments.

They controlled the Northside Industrial District, along with a great deal of machinery left over from earlier eras. With those factories and industrial systems at their disposal, they'd built up an impressive capacity for manufacturing weapons and running large-scale smuggling operations.

That much he already knew. But Northside and Heywood were separated by the entire City Center district. What the hell were Maelstrom doing down here?

Padre seemed to read the question on his face.

“They entered Heywood some time ago, claiming they were hunting a traitor. The Valentinos assumed it was a temporary operation and allowed them to stay without interfering.”

“But things didn't turn out that way. Maelstrom put down roots at the abandoned docks, built a substantial base, and now seem determined to expand it.”

“The Valentinos felt they'd been deceived and were preparing to teach them a lesson. I stopped them.”

Padre kissed the cross in his hand, then pronounced his judgment on the gang.

“'Even now, you have shown no remorse or fear, nor have you obeyed the laws and decrees I set before you and your ancestors.'”

“I don't want to see young men die in another gang war. But someone must punish those who have broken their word.”

“King, can I trust you?”