Did you know following someone is actually a lot harder than you might think?

Get too far away and they could turn a corner and I might lose sight of them, stay too close and they might notice the rumble of my engine behind them. I got really lucky. I didn’t have any specific skill set helping here, but Driving and Ninjutsu came together to make sure I managed to keep on them through the streets of Night City.

All the way to their little lot, tucked away between industrial parks. I made sure to park and disappear as I watched them turn in, wait for the gate to open and then finish driving inside.

“Perfect.” I practically growled hands reflexively clenching at the slaughter that I was now eagerly looking forward to. I reached over to the bag of guns that was still sitting on my passenger seat and opened it up, only to frown.

All of it looked nice, sure, but I still learned my lesson from the Kamikaze. If I went in loud I might not walk out.

I took a deep breath and patted my poor Carnage and Tactician, I kept collecting shotguns, and not really using them.

I would have to figure out something to do with them soon.

But instead I secured the Katana on my hip once more, and made sure my Burya was loaded and ready, with plenty of ammo in my thigh pockets, along with my medical pouches.

Then I disappeared into the night. The entire area was poorly lit, old industrial parks and massive empty structures. I dashed down the sidewalk, my feet not making a single noise as I crept up to the gate the van had disappeared into. Peaking my head inside, I instantly jerked back.

The gate led to a small lot area with two buildings on each side, the one to the left was unconnected to the main structure, looking more like an office attachment. Then there was the main structure, which had a rolling garage door that was closing. There were guards, but like I expected the Maelstrom weren’t so much looking around as just lazing around the area. One was on the ground floor, back against the office building sitting in a broken old lawn chair, a little TV on a stand in front of him that he was watching.

But there were cameras. And I had noticed someone standing on top of the garage as well, turning and walking away from the courtyard. Probably having checked on the Van coming in before disappearing back over the roof..

I peeked twice more, thankfully the streets weren’t well lit out here, so I was able to scope out a few of the cameras. A quick scan using my Kiroshi told me everything I needed to know.

They were definitely connected to a secure system.

If I tried to breach them they would definitely signal an intrusion because even with a glance I could see they were more secure than I would normally attribute to Maelstrom. Luckily Ping was still safe to use. My eyes flashed as I peeked out and Pinged the camera hanging over the actual entrance door to the garage.

A moment later the Quick Hack went through and My vision even through the wall suddenly had a golden line showing me where to go.

I still loved seeing the wi-fi connections between all the systems. Although this time I was impressed. They definitely had an actual netrunner running things, because my Ping, only had a single connection point.

According to all the knowledge I had gained on Netrunning, that meant the system was secured. Each Camera might have a single hub system, but each spoke was cut off meaning I couldn’t just see every camera or security system on the system. I would have to breach the hub to be able to do that.

Unfortunately the line led inside, which means I would have to sneak in with the cameras still active and take it out and the Netrunner without sounding an alarm.

I pulled up my stat screen for a moment. I did have a stat and skill point…

It was just one more point… I could always start saving for the adaptation right after… Plus I might even get enough kills…

My finger aimed to hit the button, even if it was all virtual but I did like the feeling of actually pushing the buttons, but I stalled.

No. I could do this. I needed to experiment with Adaptation when I got home. The foreign feeling of my new arms made this an absolute priority.

Even if it would put my Cool all the way to nine… Such a big number…

I shook it away. I could still level Ninjutsu without spending a point right now.

Time to work for it. So I shook the idea out of my head and decided to find a way in. There wasn’t anything on this side of the gate, so I backed up a bit and did a fun little acrobatic somersault. I tumbled forward and then back to my feet on the other side of the gate. So fast and in the dark I knew the gonk watching TV couldn’t have seen me.

I smiled as I got an athletics alert, but I immediately started moving silently again. Time to sneak through this Maelstrom base.

I paced around the outside of the lot. The concrete wall surrounding the place was topped by barbed wire but after searching around I found an alley on the back side that had another gate leading from it, and from here, I was in even greater shadow. With it I could scope out the layout including keeping an eye for the guy on the roof.

After a minute of peeking and checking out the layout, I realized I was gonna have to kill the guy on the roof If I was going to get in. He had moved away from the edge, but with a bit of effort and pulling myself up on the concrete wall carefully avoiding the wire and peeking over I had spotted him.

He was camped in a little structure they had set up on the roof. I could faintly hear a TV going from up there as well, so both guards were distracted.

The easiest way to get up there was from the concrete wall which only had a small gap to the roof, but the barbed wire was in the way. I couldn’t exactly walk through that, it would slice me to ribbons… Or just knock me down like it did in the game…

No wait. This wasn’t a game! I rolled my eyes because bonking my head might make noise, and it would definitely be motion which was anathema to stealth. Stillness is sightless. I slipped past the rear gate towards the back corner of the property. The darkest quietest section.

It was also well hidden from any of the cameras.

With a grin I pulled out my Katana. The blazing hot edge glowing in the darkness.

I held it up and slowly cut through the razor wire. The heat slowly melted through the strand, and after a minute I had sliced two cuts into the wire. Then came the hard part, slowly before the wire could fall and make a racket I turned off the heat blade and used the sword to slowly gather up the small section of the wire I had cut, then mostly thanks to the strength in my new arms I lifted it off the wall and slowly let it fall to the ground outside the complex.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I was done, sheathing my Katana and stretching my back because that had been pretty rough on my shoulder muscles. The tension in between my shoulder blades felt horrible. I roled my shoulders, but that didn’t do anything, not like it used to, they weren’t even attached to the muscles in the same way. The tension simply sat there like a rock.

I could feel my fingers practically twitching as I felt muscles try to contract and shift try to adjust against unyielding chrome.

I shook it away, deep breath in and out. I now had a way in. Focus on the mission.

I quickly jumped the fence, Parkour making the whole thing childs play as I then basically stepped onto the roof of the garage. My trusty knife was pulled free as I lowered myself to the ground and almost crawled up to the little hidden structure.

It was a couple pieces of garbage nailed together resting on an AC unit. The whole thing was just wide enough for him to sit inside on a chair with a little TV and a table.

Luckily he was distracted by the TV. I scanned him first, making sure he wasn’t protected with Subdermal armor.

I was starting to hate running into cheaters who used subdermal armor!

He wasn’t. At least not everywhere. Knife went in and out, and his TV got sprayed with arterial blood but it was quiet. I made sure he slumped over in his chair. No one would ever notice.

*750 XP Gained.*

I blinked. That was weird, I almost never got that XP. It was usually only 500, or 1000. Why was this guy an odd number? Maybe it was the partial armor? He would be tougher than a normal gonk on the street, even if his subdermal wasn’t a full covering.

But as I started looking around I noticed it.

“Ah.” I whispered breathlessly. I reached out and took the rifle that was resting against the ‘door’ of the hide.

A Nekomata! The moment I touched her I knew she was loaded and ready, practically purring to be used. I had missed my opportunity earlier, but not again! But I shook my head. Too loud.

“Next time.” I whispered silently against her barrel as I held a toy that I was going to have so much fun with. A sniper rifle!

Oh man I was gonna get so many head shots!

But that was later. I set the Nekomata down where I could collect it later and started exploring. This guy wouldn’t be up here without a way down, and I found it. There was a door on the roof, that was a staircase access.

It was unlocked and I slipped in.

The noise inside was louder, heavy metal that the Maelstrom were rocking out to, and the general noise of people. I slipped down the stairway slowly. Making sure to check every corner. I had to be very very careful of cameras.

The stairs led to a second floor room that was overlooking the garage area, where most of the gonks were hanging around. I could hear a few curses, and raised voices from there. But that wasn’t my goal. I was following the golden light.

The first room I came to was a break room. Couches around an entertainment station, food and drinks, an old microwave.

Everything a gang would need to keep their people going. It wasn’t empty. A Maelstrom gonk was grumbling as he ripped apart some food packaging to put in the microwave.

I checked for cameras and since it was clear I moved in. This guy had better Subdermals. At least he did around his neck.

There was a serious problem with borgs. You never knew if they had a second heart or something.

Thankfully I had a way around it. My katana was drawn without a noise. The thermal blade heated up instantly to a withering temperature. As I approached something alerted him whether the heat from the blade, a noise, or a flickering of something out of the corner of his optics.

Hell it could have been a reflection in the shiny microwave.

It didn’t save him though. He started turning as my Katana flashed, cutting and burning through his armored neck. It was hard, tough, his Subdermal trying to stall out my blade, but it was kind of hard to scream when your throat was being burned away.

I jerked the blade free and he slumped to the ground, head not quite unattached, but definitely dead.

*1000 XP Gained.*

Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff.

I sheathed my Katana, asI hauled him up as best I could, grunting a bit at the weight as I pulled him into a dark corner.

Then I stood up, and continued on following that golden line. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I slipped through the shadows. I was… happy. Thrilled, excited and every positive emotion I could imagine. There was probably something wrong with that, but I didn’t care!

I guess I had been honest with Jun.

I really did love killing.

I walked out onto a catwalk overlooking the garage, and I could see them hauling the dead Maelstrom from the Van and into a small room in the back. I couldn’t quite make out what everyone was saying, the music was too loud.

I would have to do something about that, maybe a cyberware to let me make out sound better? That actually could be useful. I made a note for myself before continuing across the catwalk not a single noise was made as I stepped onto the metal grate floors. I traveled across the entire building, following the golden light. To a small room in the upper corner of the building.

I licked my lips as I got closer and closer to my target. Pressing myself up against the wall next to the see-through armored door that was so popular in Night City, I peeked in, only to still.

Empty. Whatever Netrunner ran the security here wasn’t in.

I pouted, I had been looking forward to that kill. I kind of wanted to steal some Netrunning gear.

I slipped into the room without any trouble, and looked around the array of computers. With a few minutes of work I was breaching into the security system. The cameras all turned off, while I uploaded my Daemon.

I could practically see the Daemon slipping into the network back hacking to every member of Maelstrom that was hooked into the security. Their visuals of me would distort and disappear.

I pulled out the jack from the computer rig, and had just clicked it back into my neck when I felt it.

Danger sense!

I moved, flattening myself against the wall next to the door, as the glass door opened, and a Maelstrom gonk walked in, wearing a netrunning suit.

I hadn’t seen him before, where had he been? In the small room they had taken the dead gonk from before?

It didn’t matter. I wasn’t exactly hidden from where I stood and he would see me as soon as he sat at the computer.

So I never gave him the chance. I reached out, both of my armored hands grabbing a different side of his head before I jerked.

The echoing snap of his neck shattering from the force broke the silence and I simply held his body for a moment as he twitched and shivered in his death throes.

*1000 XP Gained.*

Okay that made this easier. I also smiled at the ninjutsu alerts I was getting for the stealth kills.

I let him flop onto the ground as I stretched my back. Holding someone up by his head was hard even with Cyber arms. I walked back over to the system, and brought up the security cams.

I started scanning and counting, getting the numbers of the Strom in their little hideout, looking for the actual dangerous ones.

Marking everything I could see with the cameras, I shut them back down and slipped back out of the room.

The first Maelstrom didn’t even see me, he was looking through a tool box, digging through it as he struggled to find the tool he needed. When I dropped down from above Katana blazing the force sliced completely through his neck.

His head fell into the tool box as I pushed his body to fall away from the stuff. The noise of his body falling was completely covered up by the heavy music filling the garage.

*500 XP Gained.*

I slipped away, already heading towards the next target. A woman this time. She was in the cab of a truck that had the hood up. Another Strom working on the inside of the cab. I could hear him call out from time to time to tell her to give it some gas or test something.

With the cab door open it was a cake walk. I slipped in my knife glinting for just a moment as I ripped her throat apart pushing her to fall into the passenger seat as she bled out with quiet gasps not loud enough to be heard over the music.

*500 XP Gained.*

With her gone the guy working on the engine was next. I slipped back out and around and while his face was stuck inside the hood he got to feel a knife ripping open his throat as well. I left him there, leaking blood into the engine.

*500 XP Gained.*

Unfortunately as good as I was, I wasn’t perfect.

“FUCK!” A voice roared out and I jerked back. The Strom I had head chopped had been found.

I grumbled, stupid NPC’s! Don’t you know you are supposed to stay put? I had completely missed one! So I rushed him.

“CARL IS DEAD! FUCK WE GO-” His cry was cut off as I leapt at him, knife sinking into his throat as I twisted around him for a moment, using the centrifugal force to rip the knife right back out. He fell like I had cut his strings.

*500 XP Gained.*

*Level up achieved!*

*One Stat Point Gained.*

*One Skill Point Gained.*

I grinned despite being caught as a few Maelstrom rushed from whatever they were doing to check out what the yelling was about.

They found me there. Already moving, knife dripping with blood as I raced through the mess of vehicles and parts aiming for one thing in particular. I dodged through instinctive bullets that were arcing closer and closer to me. But I made it.

I hit the light switch and then slashed it with my Katana.

Darkness instantly smothering the entire garage beside a few electronic lights still active, radios and such.

But with darkness came a moment, where they would lose sight of me. Their optics having to react to the change in lighting, I continued running, ignoring the gun fire that splattered where I had been.

Plus I grinned, my Daemon was working through their network. I wonder what they were thinking? When despite being able to see in the dark with their stupid optics, I seemed to disappear into the shadows?