Outrun - Cyberpunk LitRPG

Poring over the evidence was about as fun as sticking my hand in a blender. Even with the Image Enhancer in my chrome eye, spotting the tiny scratches on every bullet was a pain in the ass. That pain was only made the worse by Iris uproariously laughing ever so often as she watched some show with the granny below me. At least I was by myself, allowing me to better use View2™ to understand how all this forensics stuff worked. Not necessarily hard, just complicated and very time-consuming.

It was about an hour by the time I separated every bullet from the gun that fired it based on their ballistic rifling marks, showing at least five different guns. Mostly small caliber, though the amount of bullets suggested a submachine gun or automatic pistol. Not too long after, I matched the bullets to records in the Blue Crusade from other crimes. After pinning each crime onto a map, I centralized the crooks to the Scath Heights.

The bat symbol also proved fruitful. It was from a gang that moved around the East End called the Wings. ‘Course, I didn’t find that out through searching the Net. No, I painstakingly went through Blue Crusade’s files until I found matching symbols on confiscated weapons and then backtracked using their investigations. Seriously a pain in the ass.

Still, that didn’t pinpoint who the attempted killers were. The audio chip from the recorder did, or at least where I might find them. The first hour was just background noise and the TV, but then a door opened and a woman’s voice spoke. “You sure this is safe?”

Next was a man, probably the Inquisitor. “Yes. You are perfectly safe. Just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll take down the whole group.”

“O-okay. I-if you can take them out, you’ll be a true hero.”

“Just the job, Linda. Seeing crooks fall is all there is to it.” His voice sounded so suave as if he was a lone ranger back in the Wild West.

There was a shifting of fabric as if someone had just sat down. “Right. Okay, so-”

Her voice cut off as a bang sounded off. A second later a louder bang followed by a high-pitched scream. Then it was a free-for-all of garbled yelling, gunfire, and metal on metal. The gunshots ended after a massive crash and thump. Probably the Inquisitor crashing through the wall.

After the fighting stopped, several ragged breaths were picked up by the mic. “Boss won’t be happy about this.”

“No shit.” A second guy groaned in pain. “Help me up.”

There was the sound of movement and cracked glass. “Damn Jonas, he got you good. Is that your intestine?”

A third guy, slightly more nasally, laughed. “That's falling out? Yeah. Pain Editor is king.”

“Let’s head to Larry’s. He owes me a favor.”

The first guy spoke again. “Are we cleaning this up? Boss won’t be happy about the Crusade sniffing around.”

“Those mutts won't even know it happened. Our choom will take care of any blowback.” The voices continued, talking about nothing important as they faded away. Then there was nothing but ambiance for two hours before someone, Iris based on the voice, entered the motel room. About four hours after that I could hear my own voice.

Thank you, Shiro, for wasting hours of your life on something pointless. Gold star! You wasted so much time tracking down each bullet and the flashbang, only to get a possible location off of an audio clip.

Based on what I gathered, Iris’s choom was meeting up with an informant about a gang or something. Likely not the Wings themselves due to that gang’s seeming focus on weapons production, but maybe a related one. The boss who was getting tossed under the bus sent a hit squad of four shooters to make sure the snitch ended up in a ditch. Fighting breaks out, and the Inquisitor smashes through the wall to escape.

So where did the informant go in all this? Did the Inquisitor pull her out with him when he went through the wall? Or did the hit squad get her? Well, it's not really any of my concern. My job is just to find the guys who beat up Iris’s choom, and I was pretty close to accomplishing that.

“You sure this is the place?” Iris asked. We were standing just outside of Larry’s Custom Cuts, and it was filthy. That's saying something considering the entire city was covered in trash, both the living and material. It was the kind of filth that would make me second guess walking through it, let alone having any kind of surgery. But that was the East End for you.

“No. It might be though.” Just like last time, I was running through almost entirely by the seat of my pants. Larry’s Custom Cuts was one of four things that popped up in my search of the Net of 'Larry' and 'Medech'. At least on this side of the city. I guess knowing the guns were around East End helped pinpoint the shop location at the least.

It was a ramshackle shop a few blocks from the Scath Heights. It had the usual neon of a barber’s shop, and yet none of the appeal. The entire thing looked like some kind of Scav den or chop shop, and I really wasn’t looking forward to heading in. Even the area smelled more like piss than usual, but that might’ve just been East End.

Iris laughed with that stupid grin on her face. “My knuckles have been thirsty! Are we finally going to bust some heads?”

“Maybe. Let me confirm this is the place before you do anything drastic though. It may not look innocent, but it could just be a Medech Barber trying to make a living.” It would suck if she went in and knocked a bunch of unrelated people over the head.

I could see the tattered remains of my morality screaming at me now. ‘Great job Shiro! You led a psychopathic Edgerunner to a bunch of civs and let her loose!’

Iris popped her knuckles and cracked her neck with her fist. “‘Course! I ain’t no barbarian. I can be… civil.” And yet the disgust she showed for the word didn’t comfort me in the slightest.

I opened the door, hearing a bell ring somewhere near the back. This wasn’t like Absolom Clinic where the entire thing was one room. This place had a front waiting area like a barber shop and supposedly a surgery room back behind. The entire place was filthy, and hair clippings were everywhere as if Larry hadn’t cleaned in years, only brushed it to the side. I get it right, we live in a trashy city. But that doesn’t mean your shop has to be nasty!

A rather thin guy walked in from the back. I really, really hoped he wasn’t Larry. For other people’s sake. The guy was obviously high on Dark Ether, the black veins protruding from his skin all but proved it. Though, his eyes weren’t dilated… either way, a Medech on Dark Ether wasn't exactly comforting. “What do you want?”

That wasn’t a good way to keep customers coming back. “We’re here for Jonas. Boss sent us.” Yep, lying was the grand strategy I came up with to see if this was the place.

His eyes narrowed in on me. “I don't know-”

Iris shifted behind me, making the guy’s eyes widen. She lightly tapped her right hand to her leg, the sharp blade of a Tickler poking out of the knuckle ‘accidentally’. “So, where are they?”

His face blanched, even the black veins significantly fading. “Um- uh, t-they’re in the back. I, uh, I have a dentist appointment.”

Larry tried to run past us, but Iris stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, her massive hand dwarfing his frail bony form. “Oh, and clean this place up sometime. This place looks like a dog park’s dumping ground.”

“Y-yes ma’am. R-right after my hospital visit.” Iris seemed satisfied, and the man sprinted out of the room.

“Well… that was easy?” Not quite what I was expecting. Maybe I should put skill points into Intimidation? Or maybe Larry was just smart enough to get out when the wine turned sour.

Iris laughed cheerfully and patted me on the shoulder, her massive paw almost knocking me to the nasty floor. “See! Civil! Now then, Jonas is one of the attackers?”

“Yes. Should be four others ‘round here too.” I shared all this with her already! Twice! She must have an audio suite specifically designed to cut out things she didn’t want to hear.

“Nova!” She cracked her knuckles and walked towards the back of the store.

I’m almost afraid to ask. “Do you… do you need help?”

She waved me off gleefully. “Against two guys? Nah! I doubt it’ll take a minute, skinny!”

I still followed behind her though with my pistol out. I didn’t intend to shoot, but I would help out if she needed me to. The gonks had it coming for attacking an inquisitor.

The back room was a cube-like room. Surprisingly, it was fairly clean. It seemed Larry actually cared about this side of his business. Four guys were hanging out covered in bandages, one guy even holding onto his gut. They were smoking - Tosta from the scent - and playing a game of cards around the guy on the Medech’s chair. The guy, Jonas by the looks of his bandaged torso, was strapped down still. It wasn’t too surprising. Medechs tended to strap people down during surgery so they didn’t move about.

“Who was it-” The guy on the chair froze, causing his buddies to turn towards us. Silence only diluted by the chaotic city in the background ensued.

“So,” Iris said, “the easy way or har-”

As if they were waiting for her voice, everyone except Jonas reached for their weapons- two SMGs of some kind and a shotgun by the look of it. I ducked behind cover, but Iris didn’t seem to care as she casually stretched out her chrome arm. In the time it took for them to draw, a shield unfolded from her arm.

They unloaded onto the shield, causing the entire thing to glow red - magitech maybe - and her body began to simmer thanks to the Light Tattoos. Iris didn’t even flinch at the oncoming fire and lunged toward the guy with a shotgun while blocking the other two with her shield.

I thought she was going for a non-lethal attack. In hindsight, I should’ve known better. As soon as she reached the guy, a shink! eerily flowed through the room as her Ticklers popped out of her knuckles. The three dagger-length claws caught the light menacingly as she moved. Iris immediately slammed it into the shotgun guy's head, causing him to drop as the blades punched through his face.

The gunfire stopped as both had to reload. Iris took advantage, jumping towards them with a flying kick to one of the guy’s chest. By the awful sound of crumpling bones, the kick had some power as he flew into the wall hard enough to shake it. He crumpled to the ground like tissue paper.

The third guy managed to reload just in time for Iris to move towards him. He began to shoot, but Iris knocked the gun away with the shield. In one smooth motion, she stretched out with her fangs and tore out the guy's throat. He collapsed backward as he gasped for air one final time. It was thankfully over before I could even shoot. Iris really was an Edgerunner after all.

I glanced around at the three fresh corpses, feeling a surge of pity. Maybe I disliked killing so much because I could understand? We all suffered in this damned city, I had just been lucky enough not to piss off anyone. I could’ve just as easily been any one of these three gonks if things had gone even slightly different when my parents died. I still could. All it would take is being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Or accepting a gig that goes south.

At the end of the day, it was better to feel at least some pity at the loss of life than nothing at all. ‘Course, I wouldn’t let my pity and desire to not kill someone stop me if it needed to be done. Dog eat dog world and all that.

“Damn, over already?” Iris sighed as she looked over to Jonas, who was struggling to move thanks to the restraints. Even her hair was flashing in such a way so as to make her look as if she was simmering with rage. “What do we have here?”