Chapter 183: Picking Up the Goods
Early morning—or at least, hopefully still early morning—Arthur sat up in bed, staring groggily at the scene outside the window.
He glanced at the time on his Neural Link. At least... he hadn’t missed anything important.
He tossed the blanket over the woman. Meredith’s hair was a tangled mess, only her head sticking out from beneath the covers.
Arthur hurriedly pulled on his clothes... he needed to move fast.
Before he could leave, the woman stirred awake. Her cool, androgynous voice reached his ears. “Once the job’s done, I’ll clean up... Oh, and... consider yourself owed a favor.”
“A big one, huh? Funny—after the last job, weren’t you supposed to get promoted? How come you’re still stuck pulling all-nighters?”
Arthur’s teasing remark drew, unsurprisingly, a sharp retort.
“Get lost and do your job. At least don’t hang around my place getting in the way.”
...
By late morning, Arthur’s Avenger pulled into Watson District again—this time to pick up Jackie.
Their job today... was to pay a visit to the lunatics in the Maelstrom gang.
“They’re holed up in a meat processing plant... right here in Watson, not too far from here.”
Jackie sat in the passenger seat, eyes fixed on a factory up ahead. He asked, “So, got a plan?”
“The Maelstrom aren’t exactly easy to deal with... bunch of psychos...
Alright, let’s go pay our old friends a visit.”
With that, Arthur pushed the car door open and started toward the squat factory.
A corrugated steel fence, then a gentle downward slope—that was the entrance to the plant, probably the back door...
“Over there—the comms.”
Jackie jerked his head toward a device on the wall. “Ping them. Let ’em know the buyers are here.”
Arthur tapped the device, muttering, “Figures... no one likes dealing with these lunatics. Oh, and fair warning—today might not go so smooth. Someone else is sticking their nose in...”
The comms hadn’t connected yet, but Arthur’s words clearly lit Jackie up. He cracked his knuckles with a grin. “Heh! That’s great news! Doing business with Maelstrom is never smart... Best thing to do is put these psychos down.”
As they spoke, the device finally came to life. A dry, grating voice rasped through—like rusted metal scraping together.
“Who?”
It was the signature tone of a Maelstromer.
“We’re here for Royce. Dexter’s people.”
Jackie leaned toward the machine and shouted back.
“Come on in! We’ve been waiting.”
The voice cut off, and in the next instant, the iron gate painted with the Maelstrom emblem rose before them.
Two narrow red beams swept across them first—Auto Turrets.
“Wouldn’t have guessed... this dump actually has toys like these.”
Arthur muttered, stepping inside first.
Jackie followed, smirking. “Gotta be from convoy hits... Makes sense, with how many times they’ve pulled it off. Guess Militech isn’t as squeaky clean as it pretends to be.”
There was a hint of schadenfreude in his tone. Then he added, “Come to think of it, DeShawn’s money wasn’t wasted after all. At least we can walk right past these guns without worrying about blowing ’em up.”
“Heh—not necessarily. We could always storm the front gate and blow up the ones they’ve got stuffed down their pants.”
Arthur chuckled, mocking.
As they went deeper, the sunlight disappeared, swallowed by the pitch-black metal walls. Red lights cast an eerie glow—very much Maelstrom’s style.
Farther in, they stepped into a hall lit by cold white lamps. Several Maelstromers—each grotesquely modified—stood scattered around, glaring with predator eyes.
“You two cowards, take the elevator. Second floor.”
The same voice boomed through a loudspeaker, echoing across the hall.
Sure enough, there was an elevator ahead, its iron gate standing open.
The factory was only two floors. The elevator rumbled upward, then stopped.
When the doors slid open, a short, wiry figure stood waiting.
His modifications were extreme. His face—eye sockets and the surrounding flesh—had been completely stripped away, replaced by exposed chrome. His jaw was cyberized too, gleaming faintly with metal.
Scars marked the patchwork along his bare skull where it had been grafted with implants. Several finger-thick metal rods jutted from his cyberware cranium, dangling down his back like braids.
“Here for business?”
He held a pistol, grinning with arrogance.
“Yeah. That robot—the MDOT12, the one called Flathead...”
Arthur spoke evenly, eyes under his hat brim already sweeping the room.
Beside him, Jackie folded his thick arms and stepped forward, towering over the short man. “This is Royce’s deal. Bring him out.”
“The boss is busy... You deal with me!”
Maybe these Maelstrom freaks didn’t even know what fear was. The guy outside the elevator waved his pistol sideways.
“Over there. Sofa. That’s where we talk.
And the name’s Dum Dum.”
They hadn’t yet seen the goods, so—for now—they played along, ignoring the scrawny punk.
But soon things shifted. Maybe to push the deal forward, one of the Maelstrom underlings hauled out a box—the item they were here for.
“This beauty—thermal camouflage plating, plus the cognitive system... Don’t worry, we do business on trust. Serial number, access locks—we’ve cleared it all. You can use it however you want.”
Dum Dum hopped onto the opposite sofa, looking every bit the eager salesman.
“So... wanna check the goods?”
Arthur took the other seat, his gaze fixed on the Maelstromer carrying the box toward them.
He raised a hand. “That’s it?”
Dum Dum’s crimson cybereyes whirred and twisted before he nodded. “Course it’s the real thing. Like I said—we’ve got a reputation to keep.”
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