Cyberpunk: I'm Not a Scavenger - Chapter 35: The Tables Turn (Patreon)

Pantheon found the stairs at the end of the corridor, dealt with the booby traps along the way, and headed straight for the hacking room on the second floor.

Inside, the middle-aged netrunner was still deep-diving. With the local server's processing power behind him, he'd managed to hold off Lucy and Sasha's combined assault.

But once Kiwi joined the fight, he began to struggle. His defensive network was springing leaks everywhere.

The door to the hacking room suddenly opened. The netrunner was on his guard, but he had no time to react before someone ripped the cable out of the back of his head.

Being forcibly pulled out of a deep dive dealt him a devastating blow. Sparks burst from his body, and arcs of electricity crawled over his implants.

“You...”

A towering figure appeared before him. Without saying a word, Pantheon drove a fully charged, crushing punch into him.

“Urgh!”

The impact nearly split him in two, rupturing his abdominal organs and causing massive internal bleeding.

Clutching his stomach, the netrunner convulsed on the floor. As he lay dying, he remembered the chaos that had erupted in the room at the start of the attack.

If that female netrunner hadn't died, the two of them could easily have handled these second-rate netrunners who'd come out of nowhere.

“Sergei's a goddamn amateur!”

Those were his last words. He died with resentment still burning in his eyes.

[Essence +15]

Pantheon strode to the server and plugged a shard into its port.

In Cyberspace, the ICE firewall was faltering rapidly without a netrunner to direct it. Lucy and the others were steadily eating their way through its defenses.

Lucy suddenly looked up with a smile. She'd sensed a distinct intrusion point appear inside the stronghold's data fortress, while the processing power sustaining its firewall continued to dwindle.

The virus shard she'd given Pantheon was doing its job.

All three netrunners struck at once. Streams of brilliant blue data followed the shard's signal straight into the server core, and within moments they seized the highest level of control over the local network.

“Beautiful work, King! We've got control of every device!”

Lucy's cheerful voice rang in Pantheon's ear.

“How are things going outside?”

“Jackie and the others have pulled back near the main gate. I've already told them to get behind cover.”

Standing before a second-floor window, Pantheon looked down on the battlefield and gave his orders, his face cold.

“Time to give those psychos a taste of their own medicine. Make them regret it.”

“Copy that.”

With administrator-level access secured, all three netrunners connected to the local server. Its immense computing resources allowed them to rewrite the friend-or-foe identification system almost immediately.

Out on the docks, the disabled automatic turrets whirred back to life. Their servo motors spun, turning their barrels toward the exposed backs of the Maelstrom fighters.

RATATATAT!

A merciless hail of metal swept the entire dock. Large-caliber, full-power rounds tore through Maelstrom members and their armor alike.

Severed limbs flew through the air as blood and machine oil sprayed in every direction.

“Fuck! Is Neo dead? Where's our netrunner?!”

Sergei was beside himself with rage. The enormous single cybernetic eye occupying half his face glowed an even fiercer red.

To escape the turrets firing from behind them, Maelstrom's men scrambled into the gaps and narrow passages between shipping containers.

But they'd forgotten about something else.

Beep... Beep... Beep...

At some point the hidden mines had quietly come online. Their indicator lights now glowed an unfamiliar shade of blue.

“The mines are going to blow! Run!”

BOOM!

Most of the Maelstrom fighters didn't even have time to react before the smart mines exploded and tore them apart.

One man relied on his speed and tried to outrun the blast. But could he really move faster than a proximity fuse and a cloud of fragmentation rounds?

Under the successive attacks of automatic turrets and smart mines, the entire stronghold became a sea of flames. Tens of thousands of shell casings and fragments turned the place into a meat grinder.

Even Maine's crew, safely tucked behind cover, felt the force of Pantheon's enthusiasm. They swallowed nervously.

“Pantheon's really pissed off, huh!”

Jackie stared in amazement, then burst into laughter.

“Those maniacs brought it on themselves! Hahahaha!”

Even that wasn't enough for Pantheon. He ordered Lucy and the others to turn things up another notch.

“Understood.”

Kiwi looked every bit as cool and unbothered in Cyberspace as she did in the real world. She blew smoke rings while her fingers flew across a virtual keyboard.

A torrent of quickhacks poured out like a sudden downpour, stacking one after another on the unfortunate Maelstrom gangsters.

Reboot Optics, Sonic Shock, Weapon Glitch, Overheat, Synapse Burnout, Short Circuit...

“Aaah! My eyes!”

One Maelstrom gunman screamed as his cybernetic eyes were forcibly rebooted. All he could see was a screen full of static. Disoriented, he stumbled onto a mine and was blown into the air.

“I'll throw one in too!” Sasha said with a giggle, uploading Sonic Shock to several Maelstrom psychos whose hearing had been enhanced.

The high-frequency vibrations tore their eardrums apart. They fell to the ground clutching their ears in agony, only to be shredded by machine-gun fire.

Those hit by Overheat had it even worse. Thick smoke poured from their implants, and the skin around them sizzled.

“My big cannon! Aaah! It's going to explode!”

The horrifying scream sent a chill down the spine of every man who heard it. Even Pantheon couldn't help baring his teeth in sympathy.

“Lucy, record everything. I'm sure plenty of perverts would pay good money to watch this.”

“Pretty sure you're the pervert here,” Lucy muttered.

“Hmm?”

With the battle so thoroughly in their favor, Jackie and the others had no intention of missing their chance.

Sasha even helpfully tagged the surviving Maelstrom fighters for them, making sure nobody would be overlooked.

“Die, you ugly freaks!”

Rebecca charged ahead of everyone else. Jackie followed close behind, laying down suppressive fire against Maelstrom's remaining elites.

Maine, Dorio, and the others advanced more steadily, clearing the way and finishing off the unlucky enemies who were still alive on the ground.

Pantheon couldn't sit still any longer either. He wanted to take part himself and vent some of the fury still burning inside him.

He kicked out the second-floor window and leaped into the battle.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The crisp, distinctive reports came from a new pistol in Pantheon's hand. It was far more powerful than its appearance suggested.

Even enemies protected by subdermal armor went down with a single shot. The unarmored fared worse. Each bullet left a hole the size of a bowl, the kind of wound nobody was likely to survive.

A closer look revealed that the weapon didn't fire pistol ammunition at all. It used full-sized, large-caliber sniper rounds.

That's right. This was the new weapon Pantheon had won in the lottery.

It came from the world of Apex Legends, a Wingman named Final Call.

[Wingman: Final Call] (Green)

Description: I am Bloodhound, and I have been downed.

Effect: Nine-round magazine. Skull Piercer: A special bullet structure and muzzle design that increases damage to enemies' heads.