chapter 106

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Four Things

"Ding ding."

"Are you awake, Karl ?"

A strange call.

Karl glanced at the time.

Six forty. Fifty minutes before school.

He had been woken up.

"I wasn't awake; you woke me up. So, who are you?"

Karl rubbed his eyes, sat up, and answered the call. On the other end, a calm, elderly male voice spoke.

"You should have heard of me from Jack. Is the name Gaius still useful?"

"Gaius?"

Hearing the name, Karl quickly sobered up and recognized the voice. It was the well-known fixer priest of Heywood.

"Father... What do you want to talk to me about?"

Karl already knew the answer. Fixer didn't contact mercenaries unless they had work to offer. And if it was the priest asking, Karl wouldn't refuse—he owed him a favor. Besides, Jack had mentioned the priest was someone worth working with.

"There's a job that requires someone with your skills. I thought you might be interested. It pays 60,000 euros. If someone with your reputation in the circle accepts, it would be great."

"Not at all, Father. I'm just an average merc. Of course, I'd be honored to help. Is this job urgent?"

"It's not urgent. A member of the Tiger Claw gang went to Heywood and killed an honest man before fleeing back to Japantown for refuge. The victim's son has spent all his savings seeking revenge. He also wants to know why his father was killed. If you can investigate the reason behind the conflict, I'll add a bonus to the payment. Thank you, K. If you're willing to bring justice to a grieving child, I'll owe you a great deal."

"If it's not too time-sensitive, I'm happy to help."

"Then I'll leave it to you. The details are in the attachment. Thank you."

The priest ended the call. Karl opened the attachment and skimmed through it. The details matched what the priest had said.

The victim was a 58-year-old man—considered elderly in Night City—yet even he couldn't escape the violence of the Tiger Claws. His son, a 16-year-old boy born during a complicated delivery, had lost his mother at birth. The father and son ran a small convenience store, scraping by. The boy was a top student at his street school and had a bright future ahead—until this tragedy struck.

Night City. You never know what'll come first—tomorrow or an accident.

Karl sighed. It was hard to maintain a good mood in the face of such tragedy.

The clock read 6:45. Any thought of going back to sleep vanished.

Karl forwarded the priest's job details to Jack and Oliver before getting up to prepare breakfast. He reheated the leftover braised pork from the night before and ate it with wheat bread.

The combination was far from traditional. If his old friends back home saw him eating like this, they'd be horrified. But without steamed buns, what could he do? Karl had wanted to make a proper Chinese hamburger with the braised pork, but the lack of ingredients forced him to improvise.

After scraping the last bit of gravy with his bread, Karl walked to the window and opened it, only to find it was drizzling outside.

A rainy day.

He shut the window, put on his Arasaka Academy uniform, and altered his appearance. Within ten seconds, his face had morphed, and Gaius emerged, yawning as he left the room.

He went upstairs to check the visitor records in the room above. Karl hadn't expected to find anything useful, but to his surprise, there was a new message in the log.

"I need to ask you to do a job. Why can't I contact you recently? Are you drunk? Meet me at 10 p.m. tomorrow night at the Dance Hall, Lizzie's Bar."

The message included an image of a tattooed young man, no older than 25.

Finally, a lead.

Though the message hinted that the sender only had a passing acquaintance with the green-haired young man Karl had been investigating, it was still better than nothing.

Over the past few days, Karl had used his NCPD contact, Johnson, to look into the identity of the green-haired man. Unfortunately, fake IDs and convoluted records made it nearly impossible to trace anything in Night City. So far, the only solid piece of information Karl had was the man's name: Alan. He'd found it in the registration records for the super-skyscraper where Alan had lived.

Step by step, Karl thought.

His priorities were clear:

Long-term: Wait for Blanca's report and uncover information about the tortured King Kong.

Short-term: Take care of the Tiger Claw member, investigate Alan's background, and find his relatives if possible.

With his plans in order, Karl shifted his attention to Lizzie's Bar.

---

Lizzie's Bar: A high-end backstreet nightclub offering "dream experiences." It was also the headquarters of the Mox gang in Night City.

Karl remembered Jack mentioning the bar once. Supposedly, it was the go-to place for BD wreaths, boasting some of the best editing quality in the city.

He also recalled something else about the bar.

The Mox gang employed a master editor for BD wreaths at Lizzie's Bar. Yesterday, David had brought Karl and the crew a BD wreath featuring their fight with former New American Lieutenant James Norris. The wreath, capturing the battle from a cyberpsychopath's perspective, left Karl with mixed feelings.

If given the chance, Karl wouldn't hesitate to punch the editor responsible for such a grim project.

Still, the editor at Lizzie's Bar was rumored to be a woman, while the creator of the Black BD wreath was supposedly a man named JK. The genders didn't match.

But in 2075, gender didn't always mean much. For all Karl knew, JK could identify as a helicopter gunship. Either way, Karl intended to find this so-called master editor.

Karl clenched his fist.

"I'll make him see what 'cyber psychosis' really means."

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