Chapter 296 – Sewers
🟥⚡ TOP 30 POWER STONE LEGENDS – NEW GENERATION ⚡🟥🦾 CYBERPUNK: 2077 HONOR TRANSMISSION 🦾>> NETLINK ESTABLISHED>> ENERGY FLOWING FROM THE 30 CORE OPERATIVES>> SYSTEM POWERED BY LOYALTY AND PURE CHROME
In this new cycle, 30 names rise at the top of the system, not just for their consistency, but for fueling this story with every power stone they've offered. These are the ones who chose the path of unwavering support, the pillars keeping this world alive.
🔋 TOP 30 CONTRIBUTORS // NIGHT CITY SIGNAL STRONGHOLD 🔋⚡ DevilsArray⚡ Aagnus⚡ Indarius⚡ deadpool2014⚡ Roach_mobile⚡ Ain388⚡ Spechtro07⚡ INDRA32⚡ ShanePsycho⚡ glurple⚡ DaoisteNPBM0⚡ Alex_IK⚡ Drwall⚡ Miedo⚡ leokratos⚡ Yvan_Luarez⚡ Outlawjessejames18⚡ Chaotic_Idiot⚡ Dreamcow101⚡ Joseph_Hill_7805⚡ Hruthik_Babu⚡ AshGraveborn⚡ DaoistahH8hp⚡ lomp⚡ Gungnus⚡ VoiceOfOmnius⚡ kpone1⚡ Loharis⚡ SaintWeetard⚡ Crak
🎙️ This chapter is a tribute to all of you.Without your support, the system would crash.With it, we keep pushing the narrative past the edge.
And if you're vibing with this story, I'd love for you to check out my other translated novels — new worlds, new drama, same high-stakes intensity.
Thanks for riding with me, chooms.📍 End of transmission. But the journey's just getting started...
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After walking a dozen meters through the alleyway, Karl came to a halt. In front of him lay the street visible at the other end of the alley.
"Not here."
He turned around and said to the others catching up behind him, "The camera across the street didn't catch James Reddington leaving this alley."
"So he did disappear in here, huh?" V scanned the three-story buildings flanking the alley, walking back and forth. He and Oliver both used their cyberoptics to examine the shadowy walls. "No obvious climbing points. No damage on the walls. No markings up top either."
"Last footprints stop right here," Oliver announced, having circled the area and now standing next to a manhole cover.
"So he really went into the sewers," Jackie muttered, squatting beside the cover. He studied it for a moment, then braced his hand against the worn concrete around it and gave it a gentle lift.
"What's down there?" Oliver leaned in, peering into the darkness—only to spot a faint red glow.
"Triggered mine," Jackie said calmly. "Tripwire's set halfway up the shaft. I haven't lifted the cover fully yet, so it hasn't gone off."
"Want me to handle it?" Karl drew his monowire, ready to snake it through the gap and disable the mine.
"No good," Jackie replied. "Old-style mine—no interface, not networked to its user. Even if it triggers, they'd never know. Totally analog."
He took a deep breath. Then, with a sudden blur of motion, his hands moved—barely visible to the naked eye—and in the next instant, he was holding a disassembled mine in pieces.
"These old mines use mechanical fuses. Trip the wire, pull the firing pin, boom. You just disable that part of the chain, and it's done."
"Disarming the igniter to interrupt the detonation sequence, huh?" V nodded, inspecting the exposed components in Jackie's hand. "Looks like it's just the tripwire that's modern—everything else is vintage."
"All clear. I'll go first and take a look."
Jackie lifted the cover fully and peered below. Confirming there were no more surprises, he carefully climbed down the ladder. A few seconds later, Oliver heard his boots hit the ground, followed by Jackie's voice echoing from below:
"Come on down. The place has been modified—the grate runoff routes water through a secondary channel. There's still a concrete path along the side. Looks like those paranoid Tyger Claws reworked this area already."
With the all-clear, the rest of the crew descended. Karl was the last one down, and he pulled the cover shut behind him—just in case some late-night pedestrian wandered by and didn't see the open hole in the dark.
Climbing down, he noticed a clunky makeshift drainpipe blocking the last stretch of ladder. He had to jump the final two meters, landing on the narrow concrete path that ran alongside the canal.
Even above, the stench of sewage and chemicals had been intense. Down here, face to face with the source, it hit him like a wall. His stomach churned.
"I really should've brought a scent-filter chip."
"Oh quit whining," Oliver said. "You'll get used to it. We've cleared out Scav dens that reeked way worse than this—bodies, blood, piss, and whatever else. This is nothing."
"I don't want to get used to it," Karl muttered, scowling. Up ahead, Jackie was already moving forward along the narrow walkway. Karl switched to comms to keep quiet. "Got a trail, Jackie?"
Jackie turned back. In the eerie glow of the chemical runoff nearby, his face was ghostly. But Karl could see him nod.
"Looks like somebody brushed up against the edge of the water. There's a trail of faint fluorescent drips every few meters. Pretty easy to follow."
"Fluorescence?"
Karl couldn't see much with Jackie blocking the view. But as Jackie moved forward and Karl's eyes adjusted, he started to spot the glowing specks too—little flickers of green along the walkway, barely visible unless you knew to look.
Following behind, Karl examined the spacing between each glowing drop.
"This looks more like deliberate trail-marking to me," he said. "The drops are spaced roughly 2.8 to 3 meters apart—about the average four strides of a standard adult male. And that 20cm variance? Could easily be margin of error from dripping liquid. Judging by the shoeprint impressions in the glowing fluid... whoever made this trail is about 180 centimeters tall."
"I get the spacing part," V said, "but how the hell did you guess the guy's height?"
"Mostly educated guessing," Karl admitted. "I learned this from a detective braindance I downloaded while posing as a Dangerous Girls bodyguard. Supposedly, the average Night City adult's height is around 6.75 times their foot length. These prints are 270 millimeters—so 27 cm. Multiply that by 6.75, and you get... 182.25 cm. Probably off by a few, but yeah, around 180 cm."
"That's wild."
V sounded impressed. "Guess that gig at the detective agency paid off. Let me borrow that BD later, will ya? I'm kinda curious what kind of nerd put something that detailed together."
"I think the creators were named John Doyle and Arthur Beck, or something like that. Sounds familiar for some reason. I keep it on my BD shelf—grab it whenever."
Chatting through the comms, the crew continued moving through the dimly glowing sewer tunnel—following the trail toward the Tyger Claws' hidden drug lab.
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..
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