Chapter Text
Adrian didn’t approach the rundown hotel from the front, as others might. Instead, he started by observing the other entrances, and found three which he could use. One was, of course, the main entrance. Probably the one that a more reckless, cocky soul would use and get shot up immediately. Or maybe the quietly confident types too, like M.
After that, there was an adjacent building which he could use to just barely get over to the other side, and slip in that way, flanking them from above. Of course, Adrian wasn’t sure he had the jump distance to quite make it, which would inevitably lead to him falling and potentially breaking several bones. Or his neck.
That left the last entrance: an old gate that wasn’t electronic in nature. In fact, it looked to be on hinges. Adrian was pretty sure he could open that thing in a couple of seconds. and without making too much noise. So, he scurried over to the gate, thankful that the Scavs had ignored the place, using it as a place to store some miscellaneous crates rather than somewhere that needed active attention.
That wasn’t to say that they weren’t dangerous, but he did think that this was a major oversight on their part. Someone could just break the lock, like he was doing now, and slip inside their base with barely a sound. He knew that the Scavs were a fairly mixed bag, since their numbers were pretty widespread despite the fact that they were mostly Russian, but he thought at least one of them would be smart enough to think that this was a possibility.
Well, Scavs aren’t exactly known for making wise decisions. Otherwise they’d be even more dangerous than they already are.
Adrian stepped into the the rear of the base in a crouch, Liberty drawn with his finger held at the, pressing into the trigger guard. It wouldn’t do to have them notice him just because he happened to twitch and fired off a preemptive shot. He didn’t want to get shot at just yet.
From the details on the job that Regina had sent over after the call, there would be about seven Scavs total here. It wasn’t a whole lot, but considering the size of the rundown hotel, he wasn’t surprised by their low numbers. They still outnumbered him by a lot, so anything he could do to thin the herd beforehand would be prudent to his success.
Adrian quickly found himself at the back of the building once more, pulling out a screwdriver to take the panel off of the latch and cut it loose. Once he did that, he slid the door quietly across it’s frame and slipped inside, careful to quietly shut the door behind him. From the look of things, it seemed that he’d entered through a janitor’s backdoor, the one that the custodians would use to get easy access to the dumpster and dispose of whatever trash bags had accumulated that day. Again, there were no Scavs back here, but that was no reason to assume that someone wouldn’t come and check on this place periodically, at the very least.
His steps were small, but quiet, and his steady progress eventually brought him to a corner. He peeked around it for a brief second, finding that the hallway he was currently in led to the main lobby of the space, with the check-in desk still mostly intact, if also under extreme disrepair. There were also a pair of Scavs conversing just around said corner in Russian.
While most people would need auto-translator programs uploaded into basic optics to understand them, Adrian actually knew several of the languages most Night City natives used, though he was most fluent in his native English and his second language of Spanish, considering just how large the Latino community was in NC. He could hold basic conversations in Japanese and Russian, and even knew bits of Haitian Creole, but that mostly amounted to single-word phrases like ‘Hello,’ ‘Goodbye,’ and ‘Fuck You.’ The three basics required for any kind of communication in Night City.
“Is Artyom doing alright? I heard he’s been skipping his immuno-blockers again.”
“As alright as anyone can. We warned him to ease into it, but he was never going to listen to us.”
“He hasn’t listened to anyone since Anya got flatlined.”
“Shame, that. She was a bitch and a slave-driver, but she knew her shit. And she could fuck the crazy out of Artyom. At least enough that it stopped him from going full chrome-junkie.”
“Mm. Bitch though she may have been on the job… I miss that cunt.”
“Me too. Anyway, it’s your turn to check around back, yeah?”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. It smells terrible back there.”
“Really? Wasn’t sure you could notice.”
“Fuck you, I smell perfectly normal.”
“Tell that to the joytoys.”
“Fuck. You.”
“I don’t swing that way, man; you know this.”
Adrian stepped back from the corner, switching off the light near the doorway and hiding near it’s frame. He quickly holstered his pistol at his side and got ready to try and pull off a silent takedown. M had showed him the basics of the technique a few days ago, and had Adrian practice until he was at least at a point that the man said was ‘adequate, if amateur.’ At least he wouldn’t accidentally snap anyone’s neck. Those first few trial runs had… not gone well, to say the least.
As the man stepped past Adrian’s hiding place, likely becoming so used to the route that the finer details slipped past him. By the time his surprise at the changes could register, even through his holographic mask, Adrian’s cybernetic hand was locked around his throat, his organic hand held over his mouth to cut off any screams of surprise as he dragged the Scav back into the janitor’s hallway.
“Nothing personal,” he whispered in Russian. The man tried to scream, shout, swear, or do anything the make noise and drawn attention. His legs kicked out in desperation as he tried to reach one of his arms behind him towards Adrian’s face while the other tried, and failed, to remove the chokehold around his neck. He glared down at the man who could so casually converse with another of his ilk while they sat in a den of harvested organs and cyberware, bodies disposed of like candy wrappers. It disgusted him.
“Well… maybe a little personal.”
Adrian tightened his right arm even further, and heard the steady crack, crack, CRACK of the bones in his neck breaking, his windpipe crushed beyond repair or replacement. His wet coughs were nearly silent as he was lowered to the ground with little grace. He’d receive no comfort from Adrian. The man would die in less than a minute. Maybe a bit longer, if he was lucky, but there would be no saving him.
Adrian had thought that he would feel something after taking a human life. That he would freeze up in realization of what he’d done or feel some part of himself die. It was how most of the books he'd read had described a character taking their first life, anyway. He didn’t feel any of that. It felt easy. He hadn’t changed. He hadn’t made some life-altering discovery about himself. The Scav was in the way, and actively chose to be part of a group that preyed on other people.
The fact that it was so easy did scare him a bit. He didn’t feel guilty, but that might well be a problem. But he wasn’t totally unprepared. M had told him that taking his first life would happen, and that it might be better for it to happen sooner rather than later. This was Night City, after all. Only the filthy rich or the truly fortunate could afford to eat with unbloodied hands. And even then, occasional spatter speckled their food with red despite their efforts.
Adrian eased out of those thoughts and stepped forward again in the crouch, ignoring the slight burn in his knees and calves at the unnatural posture as he peeked around the corner to make sure that struggle hadn’t been heard. Considering the fact that no one was looking for any kind of disturbance, he had been successful on that account. He crept back to the corner he had been across last, and found the other Scav leaning against the desk, his back turned to the hallway as he whistled a jaunty little tune to himself. Probably some kind of Russian lullaby that he couldn’t discern.
He crept up behind him, careful to make sure that he didn’t step on anything that would make a lot of noise. It could be difficult to sneak around in combat boots, but M had taught him the trick to it. It also helped that he was already naturally light-footed, if only subconsciously.
Eager to get this second Scav out of the way, Adrian stepped just a bit faster, his cyberarm eager to snap another neck as he slowly stood up, extending his hand and -
SNAP!
A loose piece of flooring, so small that he hadn’t noticed it, broke with a sound that made Adrian wince internally. The Scav started to turn, startled by the noise, and Adrian trid to salvage the situation the only he thought he could in that moment. He punched that Scav as hard as he could with his cyberarm.
The crunch of breaking bone and shattered teeth were not as loud as the man’s firearm, whose trigger he had pulled by reflex on the way down. Swearing under his breath, and knowing that there would be little point in continuing to go in quietly, Adrian pulled out his Liberty and shot the Scav twice. Once in the chest, once in the head. To make sure that he wouldn’t be getting back up despite the bloody mess Adrian had made of his face.
He slid back behind the desk, not bothering to try and hide the corpse on the other side of the desk. It was already too late for that. He could hear footsteps and shouting in Russian that was already getting closer. Before long, three of the remaining five members of this Scav outpost were back in the same space, and they sounded pretty pissed off.
Adrian slowly peeked over the edge of the check-in desk, careful to make as little noise as possible before he aimed at the closest Scav. She was in ratty street clothes, as were the rest of the Scavs with her, who each carried some variation of a Unity or a Copperhead as their primary firearm. They were currently sweeping the room for intruders, and one of them was actually kneeling near the body of the guy that Adrian had just shot.
Unwilling to let caution dictate his course of action any longer, Adrian aimed and fired at the first Scav. Her head was jerked violently to the side as the bullet passed through it with barely any resistance, her body falling to the ground in a heap.
The other two Scavs reacted by immediately going for cover or trying to blind-fire in his general direction. They missed, instead hitting the desk as Adrian got back behind cover. They fired at the spot for a few more seconds while Adrian quickly thought to how much ammo he had left in his current mag. He’d only made one shot, so he should have about thirteen rounds left overall. Hopefully, he’d be able to take these two out without having to reload.
When the bullets stopped flying, Adrian waited two seconds. When they didn’t start firing on his position immediately after they were up, he knew that they were reloading. With that as his starting signal, Adrian twisted his body and leapt over the desk, abandoning cover and darting straight for the one with the Copperhead assault rifle. His sudden appearance from behind cover must’ve startled him mid-reload, because he immediately fumbled with the magazine and failed to get it in properly. Adrian took full advantage of this by shooting him five times in quick succession. That left about eight bullets left in his gun, which meant eight bullets for Mr. Unity over there in the corner.
When said Scav peeked out of his hiding spot, Adrian took a shot at him, which went wide as he snapped back into cover just before the bullet could take him in the skull. Adrian cursed as he knelt, still aiming at that same spot, listening for any movements that he might be making. A second passed. Then another. As the silence got to be a bit too much, Adrian tried to get another angle on the guy.
A bullet thudded into the wall next to him, and Adrian immediately moved back into cover as the next few shots dug into the wall. Counting the shots, he waited until the man ran out and started to reload. Then, Adrian found his moment to strike. He dove forward and shot at the man, catching him three times in the shoulder and twice in the chest. Two bullets left, and the guy wasn’t down yet.
But that was a problem that was quickly resolved, as the shots had caused him to drop his weapon in the rush of pain coursing through his arm. When he tried to back away, it was all the opportunity that Adrian needed to take those last two shots, his clip empty and everyone before him dead.
… huh. I honestly thought that’d be-
A bullet grazed his shoulder and his side before he could finish that thought, causing him to dive forward for cover next to the man he had just killed. He rolled to his back, sitting up and putting his back to the wall as he released the empty magazine from his weapon.
But before he could load the next one that Scav came around the corner with his gun raised, ready to kill him. Adrian dropped his own weapon in a moment of panic and took the Scav’s pistol in his cybernetic hand just before it went off, a loud bang sounding out before he wrenched it from the man’s hand and punched him in the face in a single motion.
He used his left hand, which, in hindsight, was a mistake, as it gave the man a brief chance to recover and lash out with a kick. It caught Adrian in the gut, clearing his lungs of breath as he was slammed into the wall he’d been using as cover. The Scav tried to capitalize on this, lunging forward with hands extended for his throat, a wicked gleam visible even through the holographic mask.
Adrian sidestepped it, taking a breath as the man’s fingers collided painfully with the wall. Before he could recover, Adrian brought his cyberarm up, grabbed the back of the man’s head, and slammed his face into the wall. The he did it again. And again. And again. Until, finally, he slammed the Scav’s face with such force that it caused the wall to indent in a crater that held the man’s face.
Breathing heavily, Adrian stooped down to grab his Liberty, loaded another magazine, made sure everything was properly loaded, and shot the man four times. Twice in the back, and twice in the head. No chances for any comeback bullshit. Nope. None of that. Not on his watch. If you wanted someone dead, you fucking double tap. M had drilled that into his head relentlessly over the last two weeks, and Adrian was damn sure not going to forget it anytime soon.
Adrian mentally tallied the number of bodies all around him. Six, including the Scav that he’d managed to take out quietly at the start. That left the last one, probably this ‘Artyom’ that those first two Scavs had been talking about earlier. Based on the context clues from that conversation, and the fact that none of the Scavs he’d seen so far had any notable chrome beyond an occasional Gorilla Arms, it was the only logical conclusion to come to.
Still, I should be careful with that one. Maybe avoid him entirely. From the sounds of it, he’s almost fallen off the deep end of cyberpsychosis. I can’t say I’m surprised. Only junkies I know who haven’t somehow given in to that are Maelstrom, and I’m pretty sure most of them are already some kind of crazy, so how the hell would you be able to tell anyway?
Adrian also wasn’t sure how the man would react to finding out all of his friends were did, but he didn’t want to stick around to find out. Instead, he crept upstairs, no longer in a crouch. If he wanted to get out of there fast, it would be prudent for him to not be so close to the floor. Checking his corners as he went up, he started searching each of the rooms, the veneer of nice wallpaper peeling away as dust and rot ate into the sheets and mattresses of the beds. It was a similar sight for most of rooms in this place, though one did have a couple of Bounce Backs that hadn’t expired.
Making sure that the needle was clean beforehand, Adrian jammed the medicine into his shoulder and sighed in relief as the stinging pain of the clipped gunshots faded away. He was thankful that he hadn’t gotten a bullet lodged anywhere. That would’ve been significantly more painful. Plus, he didn’t have a knife on him to dig it out.
The bleeding, slight though it was, stopped and he continued searching. When he came to the last room in the motel, Adrian was honestly about to give up hope. He really didn’t want to say that this job was a bust, but it seemed like this place was extremely barebones, even for a Scav outpost.
As he opened the door to the last room, Adrian realized why.
“Damn… these fuckers must have some weird fetishes.”
Hands. Literal piles of cybernetic hands. It was like a diorama to the appendage in one of the most grotesque fashions imaginable. Some of them didn’t even look like they’d been cut off - like someone had ripped them right out of the sockets. From metallic to realskin covered, they were, one and all, hands. It was gross, and Adrian probably would’ve felt sick if M hadn’t forced him to focus so singularly on specific tasks so often for these exact kinds of situations. His disgust could wait until the job was done.
Holstering his Liberty at his side, since he hadn’t heard their last member anywhere near this floor, he started searching the piles of hands for the one he was looking for. As it turned out, the fact that there were so many goddamn hands to pick through made the process unnecessarily hard.
“Really wish these bastards had a labeling system or something..” Adrian muttered to himself, tossing a realskin hand over his shoulder as he continued to search for what he had been sent over for. Until, a few minutes later, he finally found it.
“… well, Regina definitely wasn’t wrong,” he muttered again as he examined the cybernetic hand in his grasp. It was metallic and painted a bright, almost neon yellow with the pattern of a hazard symbol contrasting against it in black. It was bizarre, to say the least. and not at all conducive to a stealthy escape. Adrian put it in the interior pocket of his jacket, making sure it was secure there as he stood up. “But fucking hell, couldn’t the guy have chosen a different pattern or something? This is just-”
Before he could finish that though, something crashed through the floor, and Adrian was knocked bodily from the room.
Adrian must’ve only been out for a couple of seconds, his mind foggy as he struggled to get his bearings. He was on asphalt, so he was likely somewhere in the parking lot of the abandoned hotel. He could move alright, so he hadn’t broken any bones. He fumbled at his side of his Liberty, finding that it was somehow still in the holster.
He didn’t have nearly enough time to check his back for the Malorian, because whoever the fuck had sent him through the wall was rocketing towards him at speed and not slowing down.
He gained enough of his wits back to roll out of the way, the impact of the figure’s foot echoing through the space so fast that it nearly deafened him. Adrian managed to get his Liberty out in time to catch a look at the cyberpsycho, and quickly found something unusual. The man was Caucasian, with sharper features and blonde hair that would make most people think ‘American,’ though he knew from his companions, and his name of 'Artyom,' that he was Russian. His clothes, or what little was left of them, consisted of a black and white tracksuit and tank top that most Scavs wore some variation of. Some of his cyberware was… haphazard. LIke they’d been grafted on by an amateur rather than an actual ripperdoc. The implants that could be reasonably construed as professionally done; the eyes, arms and legs, were all well fitted and looked consistent with his frame. The bulky, almost misshapen mass of his torso and the rough scars all across his body suggested that such implants had been added by someone who was less than an amateur.
“… they were right. Your output really did fuck the crazy out of you,” he said under his breath, thinking back to that conversation between the first two Scavs he had come across.
It seemed he hadn’t been quiet enough, however, as the man’s cybernetic eyes quickly locked on to him. Adrian cursed and readied himself for a tough fight. Even if he could outrun the cyberpsycho, which was doubtful considering the fact that he had properly installed leg implants, he wasn’t sure if he would give up the chase or just keep coming after him until he’d caught up and filled him with lead. Cyberpsychos were unpredictable at the best of times, and he couldn’t take the chance that someone that mentally unstable with a shit ton of chrome in their body wouldn’t choose the more violent route.
This is going to suck.
Adrian immediately started firing on the man, finding that he had installed some pretty high-grade Gorilla Arms that assisted him in lifting one of the many car husks that were still in the parking lot. He dove behind one, the other missing him be a few feet as metal crunched and shrieked in stress at the throw. That had already been close, and the fight was just starting.
Gotta keep him at a distance. That’s my only chance of getting out of here. There was no way, in hell or otherwise, that he was going to survive this fight otherwise. Sure, he had a cyberarm of his own to match against the guy if push came to shove, but just the one, and it wasn’t specifically designed for blocking or punching.
Adrian almost reached for the Malorian, almost took that chance with the weapon. It wasn’t like the cyberpsycho would be leaving this place alive. Or, at the very least, one of them wouldn’t be. If ever there was a time to use, it should be now. But some part of him told him to wait. Whether it was his pride or intuition of just plain instinct, he stayed his hand, for the moment.
The cyberpsycho started darting for his position, and Adrian fired at him again. This time, his bullets caught, two pinging off of his arms while a third grazed his cheek. The figure just snarled as he raced forward again, his arm cocked back in a haymaker motion. Adrian was forced to sidestep at the last moment, feeling the force of the blow displace air as it passed, leaving him slightly off balance as he responded with a backhanded blow from his metallic hand. He was lucky that his instinct had guided him well, as the blow sent the man reeling back for a single step. Adrian managed to regain his balance and started firing at him again, this time with less care for where his shots landed. When they were this close, there was little doubt they would hit their marks.
After three successful shots, one in the torso, shoulder, and the side of the cyberpsycho’s neck, Adrian’s Liberty gave a slight click. Fuck. Out of ammo. And at the worst possible time.
The cyberpsycho quickly darted forward despite his gaping injuries, grin wide and vicious as he grabbed for Adrian’s jacket, fingers finding purchase as he pulled him in. He punched him once in the gut, knocking the wind straight out of him as his body crumpled around the man’s fist. His ribs felt dangerously close to breaking, the needles of pain overwhelming as he was launched off the man’s fist by the sheer force of the blow.
Somehow, Adrian managed to turn that momentum into a roll, coming to a stop at the far end of the parking lot against, you guessed it, another fucking husk of a car. How many of these damn things were here, anyway? Gritting his teeth, Adrian searched for his Liberty, only to find that he had lost his hold on it. He must’ve dropped it when he was punched by the cyberpsycho. And from the looks of things, he wasn’t going to be getting it back anytime soon.
Bringing his left hand across his body to cradle his ribs, Adrian sucked in a breath with a wheeze, reaching to his back and pulling the Malorian from it’s holster. His cybernetic hand fit around the weapon easily, like it had been made for it, and the young man aimed straight for the cyberpsycho, who, despite the fight that had been raging just seconds ago, had stopped to stare at the hotel, as though he were lost. Or confused. Maybe even dumbfounded.
Adrian didn’t have long, but he knew that the man wouldn’t be distracted for long. With a flex of an invisible muscle, he activated Dead-Eye. If he was going to try his shot at killing the bastard, then he needed to use everything he had.
It turned out that now was not going to be one of those one in a million times that Dead-Eye decided to work properly. The information that was overlaid into his mind was painful, both in it’s quantity and in it’s content. Adrian didn’t have the mental capacity or the processing power to comprehend everything that was flying past him, calculations, equations and percentages of things he couldn’t begin to link seared through his frontal cortex, unwilling, or unable, to not make themselves known.
When Adrian released the tension in that invisible muscle, less than a second had passed. A migraine had already formed from the aftermath, and it was fucking with him. He shut his eyes reflexively, taking his eyes off the cyberpsycho even though he knew he should’ve been keeping it in sight. It was a mistake - a huge fucking mistake, he knew that, but fuck it just hurt so… so…
The ice came again, and it swallowed the pain. Adrian let it, falling into it’s cold embrace as he opened his eyes, the pain in his head little more than a mild annoyance at best. The cyberpsycho still had yet to move from it’s spot, but he could see that it was getting agitated. From the angle, and his lack of pain to distract him, Adrian could see that he was currently looking over at where his friends all lay dead in a heap. He was probably going to go into a fit of murderous rage soon, and Adrian had a scant few seconds before it turned it’s head towards him and connected the dots.
On a whim, Adrian used Dead-Eye in this icy calm. Maybe the pain dampening effects would let him see what the OS was processing more clearly. But as he pulled on that invisible muscle, he saw that it didn’t overwhelm and inundate him with a flurry of information. Instead, a progress bar appeared on his vision, quickly filled out, and displayed a single line of text.
Combat Assistance Initiated. Roll Left.
Adrian reacted on instinct to the message, rolling left just before the cyberpsycho burst towards him in an explosion of motion, his fist indenting the car he’d been leaning against less than a second ago. He could barely process the fact that he had survived, even though the icy calm, when the next line appeared.
Get on you feet, then weave left, back, and left again.
Adrian used the leftover momentum from his roll to get to a standing position, dodging a kick that was definitely meant for his head. This was quickly followed up by a right cross, a left jab, and a right haymaker, all of which he managed to weave past by the skin of his teeth. He could feel Dead-Eye starting to heat up no, even through the icy calm. This wasn’t going to last for much longer, he could tell. He just needed a little longer, and he could guarantee his survival, and his subsequent victory.
Step forward with his next punch. Get your leg behind his. Trip him. You’ll know what to do next.
Adrian did exactly that as Dead-Eye started to deactivate, fighting his natural instinct to dodge out of the way as he stepped past the cyberpsycho’s fist, getting his foot behind the man’s leg. He twisted, pulling his leg back and getting the cyberpsycho off balance, taking the man to his back with a loud thud. Before he could move, Adrian pressed his foot against the man’s nearest arm and shot it with the Malorian.
The pistol tore a hole the size of a quarter in the man’s socket, utterly destroying any control he had over the attached appendage. Adrian quickly shot the other shoulder as well, leaving the man desperately struggling to get out from under his heel as he aimed the last shot at the man’s face. There was a strange expression there. Malf manic anger, half confused worry. Like he wasn’t sure where exactly he was but knew that he was angry and wanted to hurt someone. Anyone.
Adrian shot the man once in the chest, and once more in the head. Then twice more in both spots just in case. The ice fled his veins, and Adrian fell on his ass as the adrenaline left his body, his breaths deep and exaggerated as he tried to get back some kind of control over his breathing. And through it all, he could only say one thing.
“… fucking shit, this has been one hell of first job.”
“Damn. Wasn’t expecting one of their guys to go full psycho, but I guess I’m not totally surprised. Honestly, I’m not sure why it didn’t happen sooner. Those Scav assholes mostly harvest shit for resale, but some of the twisted fucks take chrome that they really like.”
“For some reason, I can see that happening, and it disturbs me,” Adrian said, leaning against the entrance to an NCART terminal. It wasn’t the best means of transportation in the city, but it was better than using what he currently had in his garage, consisting of precisely one thing: nothing.
“Did you kill him?” Regina asked over the line.
“Had no choice. Was either him or me, and I chose me. I kinda like living, y’know?” Adrian responded. He had managed to drag himself away from that fight without major injuries, and he’d even managed to retrieve his Liberty from the chaos, but he was going to have sore ribs for weeks, despite the extra Bounce Back dulling the pain of the injury. Maybe he could ask Vik for something to speed things up, but he really couldn’t afford to make his debt any deeper than it already was.
“I get it. Life or death situation and all of that. Damn shame, though. I’d have paid a pretty eddie for you to bring him in alive.”
This immediately got Adrian’s attention, quirking a brow even though the woman on the other end of the call couldn’t see him. “There any particular reason for that?”
“Not sure you’re ready for that level of work yet, kid. I want ‘em alive, not shot in the head. I’m not looking to recruit for MaxTac. Anyway, you did good work today. Edds should be in your account promptly, with a little bonus for having to deal with a cyberpsycho on the job and coming out alive. I’ll be in touch if I have another job for you.”
“Thanks. See you around.”
The call quickly cut out as Adrian received his payment through the digital transfer, the fifteen hundred eddie bonus being more than he’d been expecting. That was half the three thousand eddie payment he’d already been guaranteed for getting the job done in the first place. Still, money was money, and Adrian needed as much of it as he could get.
With that settled, at least for the moment, Adrian looked up to the overcast sky of Night City. A rare sight, in the dryness of the California desert, but not an impossibility. The downpour was welcome, helping him unwind after the long morning. He had killed six Scavs with relative ease, up until that last one had ambushed him, and then he’d gotten ambushed again by that cyberpsycho and barely survived. He’d been forced to pull out the Malorian. More than that, he had been forced to use Dead-Eye. For some reason, despite the situation he’d been in, and the words that M had imparted to him, that still felt like a failure on his part.
But even stranger than that was the fact that, when he fell into the ice again, Dead-Eye had worked. Dead-Eye had worked! It… well, it wasn’t a surefire way to activate it beyond immediate and deadly peril, and he was still largely unsure of his current theory, but if he could fall into that state and activate Dead-Eye while he was in there, it would at least give him some margin of error. Or answers of some kind.
Adrian looked up at the sky, a weary smile on his face. “Some fucking day, huh? Only in Night City.”
Indeed.
Adrian Walker’s Status:
LEVEL: 4 → 5
SREET CRED: 1 → 2
€$: 0 → 4500
Stats and Skills:
BODY: 3 → 4
Athletics: Lvl 1 → 2
Annihilation: Lvl 1
Street Brawler: Lvl 2 → 3
REFLEX: 6
Assault: Lvl 1
Handguns: Lvl 3 → 4
Blades: Lvl 1
TECH: 6
Crafting: Lvl 3
Engineering: Lvl 1
INTELLIGENCE: 3
Breach Protocol: Lvl 1
Quickhacking: Lvl 1
COOL: 6
Ninjitsu: Lvl 1 → 2
Cold Blood: Lvl 3 → 4
Notable Cyberware:
FORNTAL CORTEX: None | None | None
OCCULAR SYSTEM: Dead-Eye Optic
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM: None | None | None
IMMUNE SYSTEM: None | None
NERVOUS SYSTEM: None | None
INTEGUMENTARY SYSTEM: None | None | None
OPERATING SYSTEM: Dead-Eye Combat Analysis Regulation & Assistance Device (Prototype)
SKELETON: None | None
HANDS: None
ARMS: Military Grade Arasaka Cyberarm
LEGS: None