Chapter 96

The drive to the garage where the customer's car was to be located was calm, in comfortable silence. Well, almost silence, because the Night City radio was playing the news in the car. Well, what can I say, someone was having fun in the city again, because Max-tak had been flying to different parts of the city five times during the day to solve supercomplex tasks.

Something came into my field of vision and I jerked my hand sharply to the handbrake, pulling it up, which made the car skid, but I didn't care much, unlike the same Panam.

"You!"

She turned to me with a fierce look, but was immediately silenced when a car passing a little farther away took on its roof a member of Max-so...

Naturally, the car could not withstand such joy and crumpled, but the fighter of the special police squad calmly got off the car and stretched out his hand in our direction and the direction of the others who had managed to stop.

"That's as far as we go. Max-tac works.

"This is..."

"Yes. it seems my habit of working with Sandi has allowed me to recognize danger and react to it. I can't quite put my finger on what I saw. perhaps a shadow of some kind."

"Maybe..."

The girls looked extremely dumbfounded by this development, and I turned to Panam.

"So what were you gonna say?"

"Uh... Uh, uh. thank you?"

I grinned with the edge of my lips.

"Let's just say I believed you."

Panam frowned.

"Okay, uh. I wanted to be outraged that you pulled the handbrake and tell you what I thought about it. But as it turned out, it was you, and I can shove my indignation up my ass, because if you hadn't pulled the handbrake, our car could have been the same as that one..."

"I don't give a shit about the car..."

I shrugged.

"The problem is that we probably wouldn't survive a collision like this. And the car may well be partially survivable, by the way. but that would just mean that Max-tac would attack us and shoot us for trespassing.

"Mm..."

Judy shook her head as Panam, from uttering the horrifying truth that I didn't care about the car, went numb and could only open and close her mouth.

"This is Knight City, a town where the police first do and then beat a confession out of the victims... whether they're guilty or not. And no one can do anything about it. Even I couldn't, until you told me that it's useless to fight the system, you have to fight specific cogs that can be replaced in the system and therefore won't defend it so fiercely."

"David! Quickly apologize to Cake2!"

I looked at Panam in surprise.

"Panam, I really like our car, I really like what you have turned it into, because from an ordinary, not very comfortable car it has become very comfortable for a big company like ours..."

Panam nodded her head contentedly.

"But choosing between your lives and Tortik2, I will choose your lives, because we can create Tortik3 and Tortik5, in general, any number of machines! And no one can replace you..."

"You know, Panam, you're overreacting..."

Kiwi decided to join the conversation.

"...We all like Cake2, but in choosing between him and us..."

"You! All of you!"

"Panam, stop fooling around..."

I sighed and she shook her head.

"There we go. we can't even joke anymore, anyway, we'll be standing here for forty minutes, because we can't pass forward, and we can't back up, and we need to do something..."

"Well..."

Becca grinned wickedly.

"I, being the tiniest, can fit in front of David at his feet and suck on a lollipop..."

"Becca..."

I sighed.

"...I'd love to let you in on my "lollipop," but knowing you, you've got a lollipop on a stick in your pocket, and when you're nestled at my feet, you'll probably start licking it."

"Who do you think I am? Hey! What are you doing?!"

Lucy and Judy reached over to Becca and soon pulled a couple of regular lollipops and one on a stick out of her pockets.

"Here we go."

She pouted, but I could see she didn't mean it.

"Well, we can spend some time learning... it's not like we've explored all the training chips yet..."

"Well..."

I shrugged.

"You can do it. I nodded at the girls who were in the back of the car, but me and the guys won't. Who knows how long it will take these "fighters for justice" to dismantle another cyberpsychic for parts..."

"Yeah. they can do it in five minutes, or they can take two or three hours and call in reinforcements one after the other..."

Panam nodded confirming my words and giving her thoughts on the matter.

"Hmm. All right, well, uh."

So Judy, Kiwi, Lucy, and Becca went off to study the splinters, while Panam and I had a leisurely conversation on an off topic. We made small bets on how long we'd be here and how many of Max's representatives would die.

It went on like that for about an hour, until a police avi Max-tac flew up and picked up the operative who wouldn't let anyone else in.

The car quietly roared away, and I looked sideways to see the ambulance, which had obviously gotten here on the wrong side of the road, loading the psycho's body into a bulky van. That's how Gloria used to work. Yeah.

It's only been a few years, but it feels like ten years have passed since I was in this world...

I closed my eyes and went back to my memories... memories of how I started out and how I met Judy and Panam...

"Why are you grinning?"

"No big deal."

I shrugged.

"Ambulance work brought back so many memories..."

I shook my head.

"...including first meetings with each of you."

"And how's that?"

"Well, uh. the only positive feelings I had were for you and Judy, but Kiwi, Lucy and Becca. they ranged from suspicious to annoyed. But I quickly changed my mind about those girls."

"I see..."

The car got to the point and I had to bring the girls to their senses, after which I left to fulfill the order, and the girls were waiting for access to the garage systems. To be more precise, several garages, because we were in some garage area and I had to inspect it completely to find where exactly to keep the customer's car and to understand whether they found Samurai's disk or not...

I jumped onto the roof of the nearest garage and calmly used my optics to look around the nearest garage. The car I needed wasn't there, and neither were any other intelligent people, so I continued to walk along the rooftops with my head down.

A dozen minutes and here I am already standing next to five garages, which are next to each other and connected to each other. And there is not only the customer's car, but also two more cars, as well as about two dozen intelligent people. Some of them are handling the cars, some of them are standing in front of the garages, and some of them are guarding the cars inside...

Turning on the sandi I quickly jumped down from the roof and knocked out the first opponents who were outside the garages, putting chips into them, then calmly walked to the small door that led to the inside of the garage and opening it went inside...

Ten five minutes of subjective time and I had put the entire Sixth Street gang to bed. Except there was no disk here, unlike the car.

"David... the disk has already been bought..."

"Uh-huh?

"Uh-huh. and you won't believe who bought it.

"Well... if you're asking like that, I can assume Hanako Arasaka did it."

"Nah..."

Kiwi laughed openly at my assumption, denying its correctness. However, I didn't expect to guess on the first try who had bought the rare record.

"Saburo?"

"Stop joking around..."

Lucy joined the conversation.

"I'm not kidding... it's just that if it's a question of a person who could buy back a CD that I have a hard time believing..."

I shrugged, even though the girls couldn't see it, and opened one of the garage doors, which was exactly opposite the car of the young gambling moron. The car was obviously very expensive.

"Girls, look at this beauty..."

Panam couldn't stand it any longer and connected to my optics with the help of the Ranners and whistled when she saw the Rayfield Caliburn, the car I would have to return to its owner.

"Quiet, you're going to let me, uh."

"Cherry, won't your Cake2 be jealous of you?"

"Well, uh. Cakey2 and I will make a deal. How's that?"

"Of course I will."

I sighed.

"...to be honest, I'm a little nervous about driving one of these myself. No, I could do it, but it wouldn't be as spectacular as you driving it."

"That's good..."

I got in the car and started it up.

"Rumbles like a kitten..."

"Hey!"

"Cherry, I'll still get the car out of this garage maze, but it's up to you to drive it on the freeway and city streets."

"And go where?"

The car quietly rustled its tires out of the garage and came to a stop.

"Ladies?"

"We're done, no more chips needed."

Upon receiving this information I immediately took out all the chips and then got back behind the wheel smoothly driving the much-appreciated car out of the garage array.

Panam was already waiting for me at the exit.

"Get out!"

I left the car with a chuckle and Panam was immediately behind the wheel while opening the passenger door for me.

"Um..."

"Bookwoman can handle driving a car."

I nodded understandingly and got into the passenger seat.

"So, what, you're giving up?"

"Well... out of the unlikely options. Bestia?"

"Then why did she send us to steal the tape?"

"Well, I can't know that..."

I shrugged my shoulders and the car door closed, and then with a slip it started up, and I was literally pressed into the back of the seat and frantically fumbled for my seat belt, which I struggled to snap.

"Yoo-hoo!

"Are we out of options?"

"Nancy? I'm referring to our client's mom."

"No... but it's getting closer."

"Closer? Then how about Kerry?"

"Bingo!"

Judy cheerfully confirmed I was right and I sighed sorrowfully.

"Panam, let's go to Postmortem."

"Hmm?"

"Let Bestia hand over the car, and with the tape. I doubt she'd be happy if we broke into Kerry's place and stole the tape. So I'll talk to her first."

"Come on."

I paused the conversation with the girls and summoned Bestia.

"Quiet?"

"We're having a little trouble here..."

"Difficulties? You?"

"Uh-huh. we'll get the car back to postmortem, but the disk.

"What's wrong with the disk?"

"It's already been sold."

"And what's the problem? I take it the problem is the buyer? Because the idea of just stealing that record from the buyer is the kind of move that just begs to be made."

"Uh-huh. the buyer is Eurodin.

"Ha..."

Bestia exhaled heavily.

"...yeah... problem. I wouldn't want to steal from him, so I'll contact him and talk to him. I don't think he'll deny me the right to buy back the disk and return it to its owner. I'll give the car to Death, I'll give it to the asshole myself, along with the disk."