Chapter 10

Kyoraku Sushi was one part of a small building in Japantown close to the Cherry Blossom Market and Jig-Jig Street in the heart of Tyger Claw Territory. It was, effectively, in what was considered the closest thing to safe territory for the Tyger Claws that you could get without going into Jig-Jig Street Proper. The Restaurant itself was lit in neon, with a constant glow of neon lights advertising this or that special as sushi arrived to hungry customers via conveyor belts.

That was just the front of course. The Back Room was where my targets would be. A smoky, dimly lit, room with various slot machines, poker tables, and other such gambling accouterments. A playground for bigwigs in the criminal underworld all while under the nominal protection of the Tyger Claws. It was part of the Tyger Claws' strategy of apeing the Yakuza, Triads, Mafia, Organiskaya, and other more organized criminal organizations, who dipped their toes into illicit gambling on a regular basis. Accordingly, it was a major money-maker for them.

Gambling was technically illegal in Night City. It hadn't used to be, back when Night City was part of the Free States Alliance. Nevada had petitioned the Free States Board to legalize Gambling and that had passed a few years before the Unification War kicked off. Now, with Night City being effectively the only remaining vestige of the Free States, it couldn't support enough of a Gambling Industry to compete with Vegas in the NUSA on its own, driving the once-thriving industry back underground. While most of the action was in the hands of the larger syndicates that could rely on other branches elsewhere for funding, the Tyger Claws made a pretty decent go of things locally, largely thanks to being propped up by Saka.

And now I was gonna put a hitch in all that by zeroing Jotaro in one of their joints, alongside the guy running the place if he stepped in. It wasn't exactly a Nova idea, but getting the Mox on-side would be pretty damned crucial if my group wanted to earn some really preem eddies going forward. After all, the Mox had a lotta badass Netrunners and connections on that side of the Edge. What they lacked was the sort of enforcers they needed to back up that capability. If we got an in with them, well, we could be Huscle for them, and since they'd need us more than we needed them, that opened up a whole bunch of possibilities.

It just meant I had to do this smart. Kyoraku and Jotaro would be in residence tonight, which Punchin' Judy assured me meant that the back room would be Tyger Claws only, no Civilians or Corpos. So long as I didn't go in through the front like a Gonk, that should make everyone in the back room fair game as far as the collateral damage was concerned. That was good because the Mox wanted collateral damage kept to a minimum. It took some doing to pull up the building specs via netrunning, but my Omnidisciplinary Abilities, enhanced intellect, and cranial implants let me hack the Night Corp database and download a bunch of preem intel on the local area without getting caught.

It turned out that the old utility tunnels of the Night City Sewers ran right under Kyoraku Sushi, with branches going under Jig-Jig Street, the Cherry Blossom Market, and Half of Japantown. Looking around, there were a lotta utility tunnels that practically honeycombed through most of Night City. Of course, the files mentioned something about getting warnings from Biotechnica about potential biohazards down in the Sewers, but that was what the Armor I had tinkered up was for.

It was, effectively, a suit of Fully-Enclosed Carapace Armor using my Mechanicus Knowledge, plus my Enhanced Intellect and Omnidsiciplinary Capabilities. An extension of the armored vest I had previously worn, I treated the Armaplas Plates and Rubberine Underlay with Alchemy to make them more impact, heat, and corrosion-resistant. Meanwhile, the electronics were only a little better than what I could already do with my implants. They were designed to work with those implants in order to allow feats greater than the sum of their parts.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the knowledge to create powered armor, but it was still a very good suit of armor. I'd put me in this suit up against any Sardine in the NUSA or Corps and give me better an eight out of ten shot of coming out on top, even without the servos or exoskeletons that powered my opposition. Against full conversion borgs like Adam Smasher? I'd rate my chances lower, maybe seven out of ten.

The thing was, I couldn't wear this sorta shit out during normal operations, since it'd draw the wrong kinda attention to me. When a solo gets this sort of gear, it tends to make everyone scramble to throw whatever they can at him in order to klep the tech after the solo bites it. Not just Gangoons, but Corpo Cylons, Badges, Sardines, Full Borgs, the works. If I wore this regularly, 'Saka, Millitech, the NUSA, Night City PD, and every Gang from here to Seattle would be after my head. Best to use this sparingly if I don't want to wind up Zeroed in my sleep or something.

Regardless, after spending the day tinkering up this Armor, I was ready to head down into the Sewers. I called up Tio Padre who sent a driver in an Ortiz Automotive Cochimetl Van to pick me up. For that, Tio Padre wanted me to cut him in on twenty percent of any eddies I got from this gig. Apparently, he felt that I should be focusing on the Biz with Sixth Street instead of slamming it on with the Tyger Claws for the Mox, which was why his cut was so steep. At least five percent over what he normally took from rookies. I didn't much care, though, since all that meant was that I'd have to rob the Casino at the same time.

Regardless, the Cochimetl pulled up to pick me up and I was surprised to see Chela driving. She cocked an eyebrow as she looked me up and down with a dubious look on her face as she pulled up to pick me up.

"The hell's the getup for?" She queried.

"Going down into the sewer access. You know how the sewers of this town are, right?" I queried back.

"Yeah, buncha weird shit down there, but you look like a pendejo. It's like there's one of those sci-fi conventions in town." Grinned Chela.

"Hey, we live in a world where Pendejos like Adam Smasher exist. It's not like I'm some gonk in a costume, this shit works." I defended.

"Whatever you say, Capitan Cosmos." Chuckled Chela.

I groaned at that, Capitan Cosmos was a Mexican Serial, a telenovela set on a space station, largely so that the titular Capitan Cosmos could romance a buncha women who weren't human and the show could mine more drama from cultural misunderstandings. It'd been a favorite of a certain type of woman back in the late twenty-fifties and early twenty-sixties.

"Yeah, yeah, groan all you want. You getting in or not?" Asked Chela.

"I'm getting in, don't rush me." I grunted.

"Right, get in the back. Don't wanna be seen with you looking like a Gonk who lives in his Ma's basement." Snickered Chela.

I grunted at that, opening the back double doors of the Cochimetl Van and getting in. I had to hunch down because the armor added a bit of extra height, and the van sagged as I got in from the weight of the carapace, but I made it, and soon Chela was driving me down to Japantown to wreck up the Casino. She parked at a sewer access point in an alleyway not too far from the Cherry Blossom Market.

"All right, I'll be waiting here. If you can't make it back, flick me the detes and I'll try picking you up somewhere else, but you gotta let me know if you're coming in hot so I'll be ready to Zero any Gangoons tailing you before we bombshell." Insisted Chela.

"I will. Thanks for this, by the by. My Crew is all busy with their own shit tonight." I nodded.

"Yeah, I hear V got winged going after Cormac. Not sure what's up with Jaquito though." Shrugged Chela.

"You've gotta be loco if you think I'm trusting Jackie to drive. Last time I made that mistake, we wound up dealing with a buncha pissed-off Scavs ready to slammit on over Jaquito almost running over one of their Rimbos." I chuckled.

"Fair enough." Grinned Chela.

And like that, I got out of the Van, pried open the sewer access manhole, and descended down into the depths of the Night City Sewers. . .

XXXX

The Sewers of Night City were one of the most hazardous fucking places in town. Some of the tunnels were full of radioactivity from the Time of the Red or hazardous waste from any of the many corpos willing to dump that sorta scop down where it wouldn't be missed. Hell, some of the tunnels had collapsed during the Night City Holocaust or Reunification War and had never been rebuilt, letting water and God knew what else from the bay flood in. Some were steam tunnels from the City's Founding that periodically let off clouds of scalding hot steam that would parboil anyone dumb enough or unlucky enough to be caught out in them when it happened.

Then there were the inhabitants. Some of the less hazardous tunnels were home to gangs of their own. Remnants of groups that'd gotten their shit rocked on the streets and needed a place to lay low, homeless gonks looking for a place to live the Badges wouldn't kick them out of, and so on. Some of the more Organized Syndicates also had strongholds down here, away from the prying eyes of the Badges where they could smuggle all sortsa contraband into the City without having anyone look too closely. There'd even been rumors of wildlife making a home in some of the tunnels, using the structures of man to evade the devastation that Mankind had wreaked on their former homes, though I wasn't too sure if I believed that.

Those weren't the only inhabitants either, there were other, stranger things that laired down here. Biotechnica was known to release failed experiments down in the sewers from time to time, genetically engineered experiments that had breached containment in some lab or other and been flushed down the tubes in order to avoid anyone the Corpos actually cared about in their facilities from getting their faces torn off. The public only knew about that from the Alligator Murders of the twenty-fifties.

 See, Biotechnica tried reviving the American Alligator in a lab using genetic engineering only to get the process wrong and wind up with a monster they flushed down into the sewers. That Monster had killed a bunch of maintenance workers the City had sent down to fix something that'd gone wrong with the power grid and it had devolved into a whole thing. Of course, Biotechnica had to pay a fine, a couple million eddies. That was no problem for a Major Corp like Biotechnica, though. It honestly figured they'd get off with a slap on the wrist. Nobody tried to take the fight to the Corps these days, not without another Corp backing them. They were just too powerful.

Haywire Combat Drones that'd come off the factory lines berserk sometimes made a home down here too, six feet of alloyed metal, ceramics, and electronic components that'd attack anything dumb enough to enter their territory. Haywire Combat Drones tended not to be capable of any of the shit that properly operated ones were. They mostly followed their programming in a fucked up way which generally meant they couldn't use iron or anything, but that didn't generally matter when a hydraulic fist was smashing in your fragile meatspace skull. Millitech had lost a couple dozen of those to the sewers a few years back and they'd had to send a MaxTac squad down to root them out. By the time they'd done that, the Panamanian Cartel had lost one of their Synthcoke Shipment Warehouses to rampaging Combat Drones.

There were also rumors of fucked up creatures that's been mutated by radiation during the Night City Holocaust and went around killing folk and snatching kids outta their beds to bring back down into the sewers, but I wasn't too sure I believed those. Radiation didn't work that way, after all, and you would get corpses from radiation poisoning instead of horrific mutants like some kinda horror vid.

Regardless, the section of tunnels I was moving through was mostly clear of any kinda monstrosities. The Tyger Claws patrolled sections of the tunnels, and so did the Yakuza and Triads, both of which had smuggling caches down here. In fact, in order to avoid more firefights, I had to detour down into the more decrepit sections of tunnels. Down here, the lights didn't work half the time, resulting in large swathes of tunnel that were stuck in a sort of permanent shadows. Fortunately, I was able to use my Armor and Cranial Implants to switch over to night vision, letting me see just fine.

Of course, that wasn't the only environmental hazard down here. Some sections of tunnel were flooded or caved in, requiring more backtracking, while others were full of hazardous chemical emissions that my Armor's HUD warned me were corrosive. While my Armor would keep me safe and was corrosion resistant thanks to the Alchemical Treatment, I had no clue how much exposure would be enough to overwhelm the treatment. My Armor was bullshit magic and sci-fi, but the chemicals down here were similarly bullshit sci-fi, after all.

Thankfully, I had the Night Corp maps to help guide me through the tunnels. Without them, I had no doubt that I'd have gotten lost and eventually wound up zeroed by environmental hazards or angry inhabitants like some Gonk down here. Even with the map, I almost wound up getting zeroed thanks to Biotechnica being Biotechnica and releasing some of their failed genetics experiments down here.

I'd been making my way through a section of Tunnels that were just north of Jig-Jig Street when it happened. I heard a raspy, clicking, growl from down a tunnel to my right. My HUD warned me that it was picking up movement with its motion-detecting sensors down there and that I could be facing anywhere between two and five potential enemies. Unfortunately, without a blueprint for any sort of sensors, I'd had to improvise for the Armor using Omnidisciplinary Science, my Enhanced Intellect, and local tech. They weren't precise enough to get exact numbers in this scenario.

Regardless, I turned to face the Tunnel and leveled my Lyndwyrm Autopistol. As I did so, time slowed down for me as three scaly things emerged from the tunnels and I began to run the numbers. They weren't completely biological, as various cybernetic bits could be seen augmenting their muscles and providing armor. Claws and teeth sharpened to a monomolecular point were enhanced with cybernetic servos for extra power. Their tails were tipped with a similar mono-barb, crackling with electricity as the servo-enhanced musculature of the tail thrashed the electro-stinger around. Yellow, slit-pupiled, eyes glowed with a light that suggested they could see in the dark.

These Cyber-Raptors had to be a joint experiment. Biotechnica to provide the genetic science to bring the base raptors to life and then someone else to cyberize them and augment them further. I suspected Millitech, just judging from the type of tech that was on display. That included what my HUD was telling me was a Thermal Weapon concealed in the back of the throat similar to the one carried by Millitech Centaurs. This was likely some sort of joint black military project to create something that could compete with 'Saka's Robot R Mark Two that they'd recently put out.

Then there was another round of clicking growls followed by the noise of a thermal weapon powering up and I was forced to dodge out of the way as all three Cyber-Raptors roared out a wave of thermal energy at me. They were fast, almost as fast as a Full Borg Conversion. With three of them firing in a wide area, I still almost didn't dodge in time, just managing to get down behind a piece of broken masonry as the wave of thermal energy filled the tunnel. It was literally the only place I could dodge the attack from, which I'd known from running the numbers. Unfortunately, the cover burst into flames from the heat, as bits of plaster and other flammable substances caught fire, setting my armored legs, hips, and ass alight as I hunkered down in a crouch behind the cover.

Fortunately, I'd used Alchemical Treatments to harden my armor against that and swiftly dove for a puddle of murky water to extinguish the flames. The murky water was slightly corrosive, but again, Alchemical Treatment had hardened my armor against that. It still wore away at the ceramic plates a bit, but as I emerged no longer on fire, firing my Lyndwrym at one of the Cyber Raptors even as the two other Cyber-Raptors ran toward my flank. The Lyndwyrm's Bullets sparked off the scaly hide of the Cyber-Raptor, which had been reinforced with Subdermal Armor. Two of the three-round burst failed to penetrate, but the third did so, wounding the beast.

I didn't have time to follow through, however, as the other two Cyber-Raptors attacked me from the side, one striking for me with a sparking tail while the other clawed at my faceplate. The Mono-Edged Claws did little except scratch the surface of my faceplate as they couldn't penetrate the advanced composite armor there. The tail on the other hand was another story. It didn't penetrate, but its electric charge did, coursing through my shoulder and using the subdermal armor there as a conductor. My left shoulder spasmed wildly as the muscle was singed and it was all I could do to press the barrel of my Lyndwyrm up against the First Cyber-Raptor's glowing eye in my right hand and pull the trigger. The eye, it turned out, wasn't made of any sort of armored material, and the bullet ripped through it and into the brain, causing an explosion of grey matter.

The Second Cyber-Raptor, seeing that its now-dead Packmate had hurt me with its tail, tried to swipe for my face with its electrified tail, only for me to duck away. The crackling tail swiped above my head harmlessly and I emptied the rest of my Lyndwyrm's Magazine into the armored torso of the Second Cyber-Raptor. The first three bullets failed to penetrate, but the remaining two shredded through the Cyber-Raptor, pulping what had to be vital organs and sending it to the floor with a pitiful whining groan. It was still alive, somehow, which told me that I ought to aim for the head.

I slapped a new magazine into my Lyndwyrm, just in time to hear the whining of a thermal weapon warming up. I turned and drew down on the last Cyber-Raptor. Time slowed down as I ran the numbers, and realized that a shot at the same time as it let off a Thermal Pulse would kill it if I hit it in the right spot. My brain calculated the angles exactly and as time sped up, I adjusted my aim and fired even as the wave of superheated air blasted out of the Cyber-Raptor's Mouth. My Bullet impacted the concealed power cell powering the thermal weapon and the last Cyber-Raptor's head exploded like a grenade had just gone off. The force of the explosion sent me hurtling back into and through the bricks of the tunnel wall.

My armor remained intact, thanks to the advanced materials and Alchemical Impact Hardening I'd done to it, but my left shoulder blade still felt bruised from the impact. Between the electrical attack from the raptor and this, my left shoulder was definitely going to be sore tomorrow. Fortunately, that was it for the trio of Cyber-Raptors. I had to hand it to Biotechnica and Millitech, they'd created something dangerous enough to give me a hard time, but it wasn't anything I couldn't power through thanks to my tech.

I picked myself up out of the remains of the brick tunnel wall to find I'd been knocked into a sub-sub-basement of some kind. Checking my pilfered Night Corp Map revealed that this was the sub-sub-basement of a building next to the Overpass that Doc Chiyo had her Ripperdoc Clinic underneath. That meant that I was only about ten or so minutes from Kyoraku Sushi. I grunted and got back to the business of navigating the tunnels.

Fifteen Minutes and one more necessary backtrack around a flooded tunnel later, and I emerged into the Sub-Basement of Kyoraku Sushi, ready to finish this. . .

XXXX

The Back Room of Kyoraku Sushi was largely empty. There was a trio of Tyger Claw Middle Management in here tonight, all crowded around a poker table. One was the operator and legal owner of the Ho-Oh Club, Shoto Jotaro, the second was the operator of this casino and the legal owner of Kyoraku Sushi, Kyoraku Shinobu, while the Third was in charge of the Joytoys of the Pinewood Street Brothel, Tanaka Haruka.

Of the three, Jotaro definitely considered himself the best dressed. His white suit was immaculate, unlike the ruffled dress shirt and trenchcoat that Shinobu wore, or the leather ensemble of Haruka. Honestly, Haruka looked more like one of the Joytoys she managed than anything else, but Jotaro simply shrugged it off. She was, apparently, capable enough with a pistol, which was why Shinobu had brought her along with them as they ascended the ranks. Privately, Jotaro wasn't so sure about that, she was a woman, after all.

Still, keeping Shinobu happy was a good idea, since by this point, the pair of them had enough blackmail on each other that the phrase mutually assured destruction was more apt than anything else. If they got into a pissing match over Haruka's inclusion in their little cabal, then there was a very real chance of that escalating in an inelegant fashion and they would wind up destroying each other. If that happened, then what was the point of all this?

As Haruka raised Shinobu another five hundred eddies, Jotaro sighed and folded when the bet came to him. He had absolute Scop for cards and was only really going to continue in this hand if he could sneak in. He'd give the woman this, she was certainly audacious enough, though as the bet inched higher and higher, Jotaro snorted, figuring that Shinobu had a preem hand and the Woman was pushing her luck. Indeed, as they showed their hands with eight thousand eddies on the table for the taking, Shinobu had a straight flush to Haruka's Full House. That was typical for a woman, they never knew when enough was enough.

"Damn. I thought you were bluffing." Scowled Haruka.

"You thought wrong." Retorted Shinobu.

"Indeed. So, before the next hand, does anyone have anything they want to bring before the group?" Questioned Jotaro, taking command of the meeting to steer it toward a more productive avenue. That was the main reason they were here, after all. To talk about anything they could bring to the group.

"Wakako-Baa-San is up to something over in Jig-Jig Street. She's been contacting a bunch of the Street Crew Leaders for extra muscle." Grunted Shinobu.

"She hasn't contacted any of mine." Frowned Haruka.

"Nor mine. I'm assuming that isn't the case for you?" Queried Jotaro.

"She had her little Errend Boy talk to Hasegawa about it." Scowled Shinobu.

"Hasegawa? You mean the Bookie you've got set up at Bar Ryu?" Asked Haruka.

"Yeah. He has a group of Tygers and an Ozeki or two working under him. Wakako-Baa-San apparently wanted him to lend her some of them as Huscle." Confirmed Shinobu.

"Such an action is without Giri. Does she not have Enforcers of her own?" Scoffed Jotaro.

"She's got connections with Arasaka and knows enough Gaijin Corpos to cover her bases too. I don't like it. It reeks of a power grab." Frowned Haruka.

"That was what I thought, so I did a bit of digging. Apparently, a couple of Wakako-Baa-San's Men went missing a little while back. She's keeping a tight lid on it, but nobody has seen Junichiro, Juri, and their crew for a bit. My instinct tells me they were zeroed and whatever did it has the Old Lady spooked." Informed Shinobu.

"That does dovetail with some information I got from Kenji at the Watson Docks. Apparently, someone brought in some heavy ordinance from back home to be shipped to Jig-Jig Street, but I haven't heard a damned thing about anyone using it. If Juri and Junichiro's crew got zeroed, maybe whoever zeroed them swiped the artillery." Added Haruka.

"Let's not get carried away. We don't even know what happened." Interjected Jotaro. Trust the Woman of the group to leap to the worst possible conclusion. Jotaro figured this was why so many women tended to get into so much trouble.

"Still, whatever happened, it rattled Wakako-Oba-San enough to come sniffing around my subordinates for Huscle. That's a problem." Insisted Shinobu.

"It will be dealt with." Nodded Jotaro.

"When?" Demanded Haruka.

"In due time. When I've confirmed Shinobu's information." Answered Jotaro.

With that, the Poker Game started up again, and one of the skeleton crew of Enforcers that Shinobu kept on hand for nights like this brought everyone a drink. As the game continued, more multiple-thousand-eddie pots came around, with Jotaro even winning some. There were some fifty-thousand eddies on the table tonight being played for, a pittance compared to what lay in the Casino's vaults, Jotaro knew. However, he found he could not enjoy the game as much as before. Not now after hearing about the difficulties with Wakako. If Wakako, a Fixer and Former Boss herself, was so rattled by one skirmish that she was resorting to trying to sneak enforcers away from other bosses, it would behoove Jotaro to find out exactly why and fast, before it became everyone's problem.

Little did Jotaro know that he would never get a chance, as the cause of Wakako's issues was about to walk into the casino to deal with him and the others. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. Picture the Cyber-Raptors as on par with a full-borg conversion or Millitech Centaur in terms of danger. Three of them together should have been enough to deal with most opponents. It's why they managed to escape the joint Biotechnica-Millitech Black Site for the sewers. Unfortunately, Big E isn't like most opponents, and his tinkered-up armor is pretty sturdy.

Now, he's going to be facing off against three up-and-coming Tyger Claws plus the skeleton crew that Kyoraku kept in the Casino for the monthly meeting. Big E will effectively be crashing a hybrid poker night and progress meeting that Jotaro's little group of Ladder Climbers hosts once a month. There literally wouldn't have been a better time for him to do this from a weakening the Tyger Claws perspective.

That attack will be coming up in the next chapter. I'll also have images and an update to the character sheet before that.

Stay tuned. . .