chapter 130

Arasaka special operation team

"It's not good, Karl."

V, the team's hacker, spoke over the communication channel: "There are people from Arasaka approaching nearby. It looks like they've tracked us down."

"How so fast?" Karl was surprised. Tanaka had fainted from the pain and received basic treatment from Oliver to prevent excessive bleeding. Karl couldn't believe what V was saying.

"Even if Arasaka noticed the signal block, given the secrecy of Tanaka's meeting, it should take them time to trace him, right?"

"I know why," Lucy's voice cut in over the channel. "I just saw Tanaka's name on the latest layoff list from Arasaka. It was updated less than a minute ago. And at that exact moment, we disrupted his signal, so he never received the notice."

"What? Laid off? So now they're..."

"Dealing with him."

Karl thought back to the scene at the Ritz Bar—Tanaka, the loser of a corporate power struggle, was now caught in a storm.

Tanaka was apparently oblivious to the fact that he, too, was a target of Arasaka's purge.

"So, what now?" Maine asked, looking to Karl for instructions. "It will take time to extract the information from Tanaka's head. We may not be able to do it before Arasaka's people arrive."

Karl made his decision quickly. "Tanaka Yoshie is the section chief of the Experimental Department. The information in his head poses a significant threat to Arasaka. They're here to eliminate him. We can't afford to take him away. Maine, you, Jack, Oliver, and I will stay and deal with the Arasaka team. The others will retreat with Tanaka and extract the data from his brain once you're clear."

Leaving the four most capable members to face Arasaka's pursuers was the best option.

After hearing Karl's orders, Dorio, a female member of Maine's team, spoke up, "Just the four of you might not be enough to handle Arasaka's team. Let me stay as well."

"We need cover for the retreat," Karl responded. "Four is enough. Dorio, fall back."

Though Dorio outranked him in some respects, she couldn't argue with Karl's command. She quickly moved to organize the retreat from their hidden position.

"David, you take Tanaka with you," Karl said.

"Got it!" David, who knew he wasn't strong enough for the upcoming fight, went inside, hoisted the unconscious Tanaka over his shoulder, and began to leave.

Maine raised an eyebrow as he saw the seemingly weak David carry Tanaka away. "Karl, the intern you recommended to me is stronger than he looks."

"He bought a muscle growth supplement—the kind the Animals gang uses—just before the mission."

"Wait, so he's like me, a muscle guy?"

"More or less. He'll need to keep training to handle further augmentations, though."

David's body hadn't originally been strong enough for heavy cybernetic enhancements, so his transformation had to start with boosting his physical strength.

Shortly after David and the others left, V's voice came back over the channel. "The Arasaka team is from their Special Operations Department. Be careful, these are elite soldiers, not your typical Arasaka grunts. There are eleven of them, and they have a hacker. I can provide remote support, but I'm too far to do more than that. You'll have to handle the rest on your own."

"It's fine, this is what we signed up for," Maine said, ending the communication to prevent any further tracing back to V. He readied his Crusher kinetic shotgun. "Arasaka Special Operations? We've fought them before."

"They're just rookies with fancy toys they can't handle," Oliver remarked, positioning himself at the second-floor window with Jack's help. He had widened a gap in the ceiling with his Nova revolver. "Let's see if their smart weapons can lock onto me before I pick them off with my Nekomata rifle."

"Only eleven of them? Bad luck for them," Jack added, taking position on the first floor with his Saratoga submachine gun. "Just hope they don't drop too fast."

Karl joined Oliver on the second floor, drawing his pistol, Zhenye. "The only downside is that this will blow my cover."

Karl had hoped to keep their involvement in this operation hidden, making it easier to take future jobs—like retrieving the data on the prosthetic King Kong—but now it seemed that Arasaka's internal power struggles had made that impossible.

"It'll be harder to execute future missions, even with backing from Militech."

"Can't we just kill them all?" Maine asked, confused.

"The Special Ops guys have Brain Dance Wreath or similar surveillance software. They probably already uploaded the footage. Our last mission? It's likely out there as a film, being sold everywhere."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, so don't worry about exposure. Just make it quick and efficient."

The eleven-member Arasaka Special Operations team had quickly homed in on their location. Their commander gave the order, "Be cautious. The signal was cut over three minutes ago. There may be others involved."

"Is it the group protecting Tanaka? What's the plan?"

"Eliminate them all. No survivors."

As the team moved in, their hacker attempted to scan the area. "I'm picking up four bio-signals inside the hut. Two on the first floor, two on the second."

"Mark them for us."

"Yes, sir. It's—"

The hacker suddenly cried out as his prosthetics overheated, and he dropped dead on the spot.

"Hey! No. 6! Respond!"

"Captain, No. 6 is down. His prosthetics overheated!"

"Impossible! He was using the Arasaka Type 3, the best model we've got. We're Special Operations, and even we can barely afford that kind of gear! How could his firewall be breached like that?"

Before the captain could process what was happening, a light flashed from the second floor of the distant hut. A bullet tore through his skull, killing him instantly.

"Must be the captain," Oliver muttered as he fired, watching the body fall to the ground. With their hacker and captain dead, the elite eleven-member Arasaka team had already lost two men.

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