Chapter 18

The interior of the Militech SUV was interesting. Instead of the fully-militarized version you'd see in wartime, this was a preem version. Real Leather seats, climate controlled cabin, the works. Somebody'd shelled out some preem eddies for this. Definitely the VIP version instead of the one the Gonks on the front lines got. That told me that at the very least, Meredith Stout wasn't looking to black bag me just yet, at least.

The Woman herself was nice to look at, of course. Blonde, curves in all the right places, the Chrome she had chipped in wasn't so conspicuous as to completely fuck over her looks or need to be covered with a bunch of RealSkinn. Looks could be deceiving, though, and behind the pleasant facade was an ice-cold bitch. Meredith Stout may look like a model, but she'd zero you in a heartbeat if she thought it'd benefit her in some way. Of course, that wasn't anything new. All Corpos were like that to some degree, it was required to succeed in their world.

"So I guess the obvious question is, why would Militech be looking for me?" I questioned, opening the conversation.

"Straight to the point, huh? I can admire that." Mused Meredith Stout.

"When Militech sends a Senior Operations Executive, it pays to get to the point. Time is eddies, after all." I shrugged.

"You've read up on me?" Queried Meredith Stout.

"Please, Ms. Stout. I may be a Solo, but I'm not an amateur. I'm a goddamn professional." I huffed.

"You might want to update your files, then. As of last week, I am no longer a Senior Operations Manager. I'm Vice President of Operations in Night City." Smirked Meredith Stout.

"That's some jump." I mused.

"All thanks to you, though you had no way of knowing. Your little offensive against Sixth Street helped to smoke out an Arasaka Mole in the Night City Office." Informed Meredith Stout.

"I see. There had been hints that Morton had been taking orders from a Corpo. I just assumed it was someone on the level, relatively speaking." I nodded.

"Regardless, my capture and interrogation of the Mole revealed a wealth of intel. Enough to get me promoted." Opined Meredith Stout.

"Congratulations. What does that have to do with this little pick-up?" I asked.

"Militech has a job for you if you're interested. One of the projects we uncovered, thanks to Gilchrist's interrogation, an attempt by Arasaka to copy and improve on our Thermal Wave Cannon, is close to completion. Militech feels it needs to be set back while we prepare our legal case for theft of intellectual property." Explained Meredith Stout.

"And you want me to be the Monkeywrench here?" I questioned.

"You're in demand right now, at least as far as Night City Solos go. We thought you might be interested, especially given your interest in unique technology." Insisted Meredith Stout.

"Oh? What do you know about unique technology and me?" I queried.

"I'm a professional too, Ernesto. I did some reading up on you as well. Did you think nobody would be able to trace that armor back to you? Or the unique ballistics of your weaponry? Militech is on the bleeding edge of weapons technology, you know." Smirked Meredith Stout.

"If this is some attempt to strong-arm me, you should know it won't work." I frowned.

"No, this isn't that, not yet anyway. The Risk Analysis department has decided that there's less risk involved in hiring you than there would be to try and force you to work for us. You should be honored. That's an extremely short list, one that puts you in the same conversation as Solos like Morgan Blackhand." Informed Meredith Stout.

"Please. Nobody thinks I'm the next Blackhand." I scoffed.

"Maybe not yet. Militech is convinced you're going places, though. We want in on the ground floor." Pressed Meredith Stout.

I frowned at that. Thinking about it, though, it made a certain amount of sense. Morgan Blackhand himself had been offered preferential contracts with Militech. It'd been just that sort of Nova-Hot deal that'd led to him going missing during the Arasaka Tower Bombing and Night City Holocaust. That he'd apparently used the Time of the Red to go completely off the grid probably meant that Militech was looking for their next Preem Solo. If they thought that could be me, then sending this Preem SUV and the VP of the Night City Office to impress me would be a logical step. Networking was a thing all Corpos learned, even the Cylons in Corpo Security, after all. If they thought there were more eddies in cooperating with me, why wouldn't they try this?

"All right, I'll bite. What's it pay?" I asked.

I'd made up my mind. After all, it wasn't like I'd be sticking around for my entire life on this Earth. What would the harm be in agreeing to this? So long as Militech didn't try to zero me, I'd get out from under their thumb eventually, even if they tried to strong-arm me.

"Forty grand in eddies, plus anything you can loot from the office. There's just one caveat. You need to destroy their Prototype Thermal Wave Cannon." Answered Meredith Stout.

"Seems simple enough. Where's this lab they're using?" I questioned.

"Laguna Bend, out in the Badlands. They've converted one of the Old Residential Buildings on the Outskirts into a laboratory thinking that out of the city was out of mind." Responded Meredith Stout.

"The place they turned into a reservoir? I thought it was all underwater?" I queried.

"Most of it is. The Town Proper, anyway. A few residential buildings on the outskirts are still around, along with Poppy Farm, but that's full of Wraiths. They moved in around a year or so ago. Apparently, Arasaka pays them off to do a weekly patrol for interlopers." Added Meredith Stout.

"When do they do that?" I asked.

"They alternate between Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on a rotating cycle to keep any snoopers on their toes. Militech has their patrol schedule down, though. So long as you don't go Friday, you shouldn't have a problem with them." Smirked Meredith Stout.

"All right, flick me the detes. Just be warned, I'm currently on contract with the Moxes, so this will have to be done when I'm not dealing with them." I cautioned.

"Just so long as it gets done in the next two weeks, Militech will consider your contract successfully complete." Intoned Meredith Stout.

"Noted." I agreed.

Meredith Stout's Eyes flashed, and I suddenly was sent a data package to my implants. Of course, my Special ICE managed to block a potential lurking Daemon from piggybacking off my data storage to get at any interesting files. I frowned at that, but Meredith Stout only shrugged, realizing that she'd been blocked.

"We had to try. Besides, if you couldn't block a simple lurking dataworm, then you weren't right for the job." She admitted.

"Don't try that again." I warned.

"Oh, don't worry. We won't." Affirmed Meredith Stout.

A brief glance at the files revealed that the building in question was a former, three-storey apartment complex that used to serve the straphangar crowd commuting back and forth from Laguna Bend to Night City. There would be some remote defenses, turrets, cameras, that sort of thing, but most of the security was suspected to be Saka Cylons. The lab itself was in the basement, and Saka had partially dug out extra lab space down there, co-opting part of the old Laguna Bend sewers. How they'd managed that without flooding the tunnels from the Lagoon I wasn't sure. Probably, it had to do with something proprietary. Corpo stuff generally did.

At the same time, there was a list of objectives alongside the files. The main objective was destroying the Prototype Thermal Wave Cannon and any data on the project, sure, but there was a list of bonus objectives, each with an additional price tag attached. Apparently, this lab was one of the ones that Saka used for various off-the-books weapons projects they didn't want the other Corps to learn about, largely cause they were other Corp Designs that Saka was reverse-engineering on the sly. Alongside the Prototype Thermal Wave Cannon, there was also supposed to be a project for reverse-engineering a Zetatech Octant Combat Drone and for reverse-engineering the Rostovic Street Destroyer, a sort of Crude Railgun. Millitech wanted a copy of the data for both projects, alongside any prototypes of those destroyed. They were willing to pay an additional twenty grand eddies apiece for those preem prices.

Those paled in comparison to what Militech was offering for any executive access codes I might be able to pull off the computers there. Forty grand eddies for an access code that might get them into the Saka Mainframe. I seriously doubted I could get anything like that, but even if I couldn't, grabbing the Rostovic Iron and the Zetatech Drone data for them would be doable. Of course, I'd also be making copies for myself, but Meredith didn't need to know that. After all, always get paid twice if you can.

"All right, I don't know if I can get you any access codes to the Saka Mainframe, but the other stuff should be doable." I agreed.

"Excellent. Contact me on this number when you're finished." Confirmed Meredith Stout.

She handed me a slip of paper. There was a phone number on that slip, alongside secure contact information. I memorized the info so I could burn the paper later. As I did that, Meredith Stout knocked two times on the divider separating us and the driver while the Militech SUV slowed down and pulled up alongside the curb. Then she looked over at me and gave me a small grin.

"I think this is your stop." She intoned.

Looking outside the tinted, bulletproof windows revealed that we were pulled up in front of El Coyote Cojo. Had Meredith just had her driver take us around the block a few times? That couldn't be right, we'd been talking for long enough for that to be too conspicuous. She must have seen me frown because she just gave me a nod.

"Good instincts. We made a partial circuit of the Glen. Nobody will have suspected anything." She offered.

"Right. I'll be in touch." I nodded.

And with that, I exited the Militech SUV, ready to head into El Coyote Cojo for something to eat, though not before reaching into my jacket and pulling out a lighter to burn Meredith's Contact Info Sheet. Meredith, watching on, just cocked an eyebrow at that.

"I've got it memorized. No sense in leaving a literal paper trail. Just in case someone tries to klep the info or zero me." I explained.

Meredith could only smirk at that, nodding once before rolling the window up. Then the Militech SUV drove off, leaving me on the sidewalk with the burning paper in front of El Coyote Cojo. I dropped the paper to the pavement as soon as the flames caught sufficiently, watching the fire burn Meredith Stout's contact info to ashes. Then, the Militech SUV turned the corner, and I straightened up, putting my lighter back in my coat pocket. Then, with a final nod to no one in particular, I turned and headed inside El Coyote Cojo.

It was time to grab something to eat. . .

XXXX

It wasn't until the day after that the call came in. Suzie Q was putting out a call to anyone who was on the Moxes Payroll. Apparently, after her chat with Mastodon, the Gonks who made up the Japantown Animals had effectively rebelled against his rule. Another Gangoon named Shotgun Eddie had challenged Mastodon to a one-on-one fight for the leadership of the Japantown Pack after Mastodon had insisted that the Animals back off the Mox for obvious reasons. Apparently, Shotgun Eddie had won their duel and now the Animals were focusing on the Mox as a sort of revenge thing.

That hadn't been helped by the beating that the Animals had just taken at the hands of the Tyger Claws. Apparently, the Tyger Claws had moved into one of the Animals' Gyms, a place on Sagan Street near Japantown West, zeroed a bunch of Animals, and taken the Gym over. It was some sort of show of force, and Stanley Media had reported twenty-one zeroed Animals from the attack alone on his morning show. I wasn't sure how much I trusted a Gonk like Stanley Media's assessment on the numbers of zeroed animals, but it definitely had happened at least somewhat.

Now, Shotgun Eddie needed to prove that not only was he the Alpha for the Job to the other Animals, but he also had to show the other gangs that the Animals still had teeth. Those were just as much to blame for the attacks on the Mox as a sense of revenge for trying to blackmail the Animals into backing down when they'd been under Mastodon. Regardless, something had to be done and that meant Suzie Q calling in anyone on the Payroll to earn their keep.

V was already on her way over with Jackie in the Ao Guang. When they got here, I'd hand them their new Hurrican Variant Irons, as well as grab the Vests I'd made for Jessie Nyan and Erica Nightly to give to those two rookies when we got to Lizzie's. It sounded like they would need them, after all. Especially with the Animals this pissed off. When V and Jackie arrived, we would head right to Lizze's, where Suzie Q was gathering a response force.

It would turn out to be the biggest chance to Slammit On we would be involved in since the Stop-N-Leave Operation. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we see what Militech wants from Big E. It turns out that some of the tech that Arasaka has, such as the Minotaur or the various AV Combat Drones seen in missions like The Heist, aren't actually Arasaka Products. That makes me think that they have to have some level of reverse-engineering stuff based on Corporate Espionage that goes on. Thanks to capturing and interrogating Anthony Gilchrist, Militech now knows where that particular lab that Saka Reverse-Engineers stuff in is located. They're sending Big E in to deal with the problem while they prepare their legal case against Arasaka for Corporate Espionage.

Meredith Stout and the Higher Ups at the Night City Branch seem to think Big E is going to be as good for them as Morgan Blackhand was, and this is effectively a test of that. Of course, what very few people know is just how big of shoes those are to fill. After all, Morgan Blackhand was the real principal player in the Arasaka Tower Bombing and Night City Holocaust. Per the tabletop Module playing through the events, Johnny's full of shit on how that all went down and it was Blackhand who really planted the nuke and did most of the work. Whether Big E can fill those shoes or not remains to be seen, though.

At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude showing snippets of the various other Self-Inserts in the worlds they were sent into, lest we forget it wasn't just Big E and Aleksander Yurinov taking part in this contest. I'll also have character sheet updates out before then.

Stay tuned. . .