Cursed Edgerunner Chapter 12

The Sandevistan was the core of what made a top-tier Edgerunner... Top tier. The difference between someone who had one, and someone who didn't was an insurmountable divide in almost all cases that did not have that other person not having like a Kerenzikov. 

Though the Kerenzikov was also more powerful in melee combat due to it compressing the activation key even further, giving a stronger burst of controlled super nervous system activation.

But it was ONLY for a split moment. However the Sandevistan? It woudn't burn out your nerves like the Kerenzikov, it's limiter was your own body and the strain your implants could take.

With my body, Aura, and with how I wasn't moving and only using the enhanced senses, I could drive my motorbike at over a hundred and fifty miles an hour through Nightcity and it was still like I was just moving in slow motion.

Soon enough however, I reached Hab Block 6, the mega tower apartment complex that hosted the den of scum that was a sex crime ring I was to clean out and if possible. Collect the information on the kidnapped children.

"Now... The biggest question, where the hell do I find these people." I muttered as even should I do my deep dive into the NET. Searching through more than eight thousand apartments with god knows what kind of hidden security tricks the gangs might have.

That wasn't something I wanted to do obviously.

And of course, I coudn't exactly go door to door. Asking with my gun pointed at the door openers face. 'Hey, are you guys the kiddie diddlers? If so, please open the door so I don't make a mess out in front of everyone else.'

Yeah, that shit wouldn't work obviously.

So I just sighed with some annoyance before I popped my neck as this would require a bit more... Finesse then I preferred.

Obviously, my preferred method of dealing with said child molesters being breaking all their bones, tossing them into a garbage bin and then tossing an incendiary grenade into said bin to burn them alive.

"Hmm. I think I may have a way." I muttered with a frown as I walked into the market section of the hab tower that served as a mall and closed ecosystem of stores for the thousands of apartments above our heads.

If I pretended to be looking for the BD's or videos recorded from the POV's of the criminals. Then I could perhaps find them through the BD distributor through... A variety of methods.

Still I decided to just trawl the market and streets of the hab tower to get a lay of the land as it were. In case I needed to make a quick escape as there were armed gang members. Literally everywhere.

Not a single way I looked allowed me to not see some gang color flying men and women holding down certain shops, selling drugs, weapons, or god knows what else.

Not only that... But I noticed two other very important things. 1, there were zero children running around in even the 'safer' part of the market, which was controlled by the mega corps that supplied the hab tower with food and other essentials.

And secondly, I could sense a dark, cold, and sticky sort of vibe in the air. Cursed energy was clearly overflowing within this Hab Tower for any number of reasons, but it was especially strong to say the least!

'Well the children thing could be excused as news getting out on the criminal ring in the hab tower. The cursed energy however? That could be an issue, as where is the cursed energy going? What is its source?'

As the energy didn't feel like... Diluted, it felt concentrated and in a uniform sense, as if it belonged to a single major source anyway.

So with a helpless sigh as I knew I wasn't going to find the information I wanted just walking around. I went to a nearby food booth and got a mystery fucking meat skewer that tasted like shit but it was filling at least.

'Even with how garbage Remnant is in being overrun with Grimn, people can still get actual meat even if it was more on the expensive side of things.' I mused with a scowl as I tossed the metal stick into the specific bin by the stall as it's not like the sticks could be wood in this world.

An idle thought ran through my mind at the thought of flipping meat collected from the world of Remnant to be sold here in this world of Cyberpunk before I pushed the thought aside as more targeted shouts rang out.

"NCPD is here! Pack up the good shit before they take it for themselves!" The shouts rang out in some way or another and the stall guy behind me tsked and I saw him move the mystery meat off the grill and into a metal tray that he moved out of sight.

Then I looked back and I saw the cops. And it was a weird fucking duo to say the least. Both were women in NCPD uniforms and heavily armed.

Along with wearing bullet-resistant helmets that covered their heads and gave them shielding from casual quick hacks that could target their own implants.

"Fucking, Section 6 rats. Some bigwigs' interests are being messed with." The 'cook' muttered, and I noticed he was right as the uniforms they were wearing had 'Sec 6' emblazed on it in several places.

As though to clearly tell anyone who saw them not to fuck with them because they came from a group with backing and big firepower. And well, that tended to work in gang terms and even for the military side of things for the government, with like Max-Tec which was even more brutal in this verse than usual.

Because there was this little 'secret' that if you lived a life of extreme violence and then spiraled into cyber psychosis. The act of putting yourself back together while still keeping all those implants would strengthen someone's soul, making them more talented at sensing cursed energy.

So Max-Tec didn't even need to have Sorcerers on payroll when their brand of psycho could even if they weren't actual Jujutsu Sorcerers see and deal with curses using Cursed Tools.

'But those two aren't here for just a simple patrol. NCPD doesn't do patrols in the Hab Towers after all.' I mused thoughtfully.

Then I just shrugged, and after a moment of thought, I realized that I wasn't to just 'wander' into any clues as to where I could find the sex crimes ring. So I made my way to one of the gaming halls, which had full dive VR/BD games.

And by extension, the hall had an extremely powerful central computer which hosted all these games and was also connected to the Hab Tower's NET systems.

As I had an idea... No matter how advanced the ICE and disguising methods that the criminals use to hide in the Hab Tower. It didn't change the hard fact that the data for the BD's and such came through the systems of the Hab Tower in one way or another.

I quickly signed up for an hour of movie time in an adventure-based BD that was supposedly based on a romance between a silver-haired 'Gojo clan heiress' and a normal civilian who had a super 'special' cursed technique. Said movie I promptly muted for obviously being a shill for the Gojo clan/corporation.

And with the movie muted, I pushed my consciousness into the NET through that connection. But instead of doing it from home, where I was invading the individual networks and trying to find the exact location and people within the criminal ring.

"Now... Let's see, eight thousand apartments, over a hundred thousand people coming into the Hab Tower to live here, work here, and do deliveries every day. Let's sort all data, then after sorting said data, we separate the data from pictures, videos, and files to find my targets." 

While sitting around at home, I wasn't just idle. With how I myself was a Netrunner of sorts, I had already put together some Deamon's in lesser VI's that could handle simple instructions. 

Using those attack programs, I had them hack into the various server channels and storage devices that even remotely had any regular connections with the Hab Tower's data channels.

From there... It was an overwhelming flood of information that was parsed, sorted, and filtered through the programs whose soft recognition software quickly sorted the 'content' of the targets I wanted.

And then with the content I wanted collected. I used other programs to pull every ounce of information possible from the Hab Tower's info stores. Which apartments were interconnected? Which one's had Dillybob's long meat sandwich vending machines? Which one has had a history of high foot traffic for maintenance reasons?

All the information filtered down did one major thing. It allowed me to go full autsim mode and like a geo-guesser pin point the apartments in which the sex crime ring was taken place in.

"Forty-eight, sixty-four through seventy-eight... Fourteen apartments merged together into a super suit and just beside a known Maelstrom trap house for joytoys. Oh fucking joy." I muttered as I pulled out of the NET with a slight grunt of annoyance as this.

This was going to be a bloody affair. As there was zero doubt in my mind that the Maelstrom goons weren't also in on the take of the sex crimes happening next door to their trap house/brothel.

I took a deep breath before I got up and I then made my way through the elevator up to the forty-eighth floor in where my target location was at.

'Alright, god knows how many bastards are in here. So although running in with Sandy and guns blazing IS an option. If there is kids in there, I can't go in there too hard. I need to use other methods as well.' I thought.

Sadly, my crew was just me, myself, and I. Which... Was an issue with dealing with such a large target, and of course, having to worry about hostages. I couldn't take care of everything myself obviously no matter how chromed up I was.

Still, when I got closer to the mega suit and saw how they had fortified it with thick metal doors on the entrances. I made my way over to a stack of trash and hid behind it before I piggybacked into the local NET lines.

From there, I followed the lines into the apartment and as I came into the data constructed inner sanctum of the sex crime ring... My heart chilled as I saw on the far edge of the suites, next to the Maelstrom's joytoy shop was a long row against the walls of the suites in dog cages.

Dog cages that were very much within use by people they had been stuffed into them. And no doubt it was also filled with not only the sex crime rings victims. But also, people Maelstrom wanted to make disappear for a while without making a fuss.

Like an overused joy toy, for example.

"But it's off hours with how early in the day it is. So there isn't any 'work' being done... Which means, there guard is low." I muttered in realization as I saw the people locked in the cages had their NET lines disabled, and I couldn't connect to them in any way.

But the six guards here that were watching the three dozen people in the stacked dog cages? There inputs weren't ripped out or otherwise disabled.

So, like a cold reaper, I walked up to those bastards and did my usual fare when I found some shit heel gangsters targets. First, I shattered their ICE, then I crushed their synthetic eyes, and other senses before burning out any other implants I could see and connect to remotely through their own systems.

"Time to get started," I muttered as I popped my neck and moved out from the hidden garbage pile.

I ran up to the nearest door into the suite and with a zipping noise I quickly looped around my monowire made with Lightning Dust around the hinges of the door, and in but moments I sawed the wire through the hinges and then with a loud crashing noise I ripped the armored into its socket in the wall to move it out of the way.

And then as I raised up my arm, ready to blast the screaming gangster's with a massive slug from my Projectile Launch System 'Railgun' hidden in my arm.

I was instead greeted by a refrigerator-sized fist that slammed into me and slammed me into the suicide cage that prevented people from throwing themselves off each floor of the Hab Tower and into the market district below.

With slowed perception from the Sandy, I realized it wasn't that I just missed the fucking massive punch that came my way. It was a Curse that threw the punch!

And it was ALL to fucking easy to see the curses technique as the moment it stopped moving, it became completely invisible to all my forms of perception. But as it moved to punch me again, and through the suicide net.

I was actually ready now, and I knew this curse was being purposefully fed the suffering from the people in those cages as well!