"Biotechnica?"
"Yeah, fucking Biotechnica. Six days of paid leave a year, and they're still ranked third among Night City's Big Five employers, right after Arasaka and Militech."
"So..."
"So? Jesus, you really got a pig's brain in there or what? I'm spelling it out for you and you still don't get it? Other corps don't even give you six days off a year. With that kind of workload, that kind of grind, you think you could last without chemical help?"
"Oh, oh—I get it now."
"Then shut up and get back to—"
The male Scav was still cursing, but before he could finish, a sudden lightness filled his head, as if gravity had been turned off. For a brief moment, he felt free.
His last conscious image was looking down at his own body, still standing on the ground, now headless, slumping over the workstation.
"Strange... that body looks just like mine," he thought, before darkness swallowed his consciousness.
The female Scav's face turned pale as she saw the male Scav decapitated. She opened her mouth to scream, but Jackie was already behind her, clamping her mouth shut. His knife pressed against her jawline and sliced hard. Her eyes bulged as if they were about to pop from their sockets. Her body thrashed like a fish out of water.
"This place is a fucking nest of rot," Judy said as she caught up from behind after Leo confirmed the area was secure, her eyes sweeping the surroundings with disbelief.
She wasn't wrong.
It looked exactly like any drug lab in a film, only dirtier, messier, and far worse. Leo had heard rumors that Militech provided its employees with performance-enhancing drugs for free to boost efficiency. He didn't know if Militech was backing this place, but if they were, he pitied their workforce.
As they pushed deeper into the facility, the scenes grew even more depraved: blood-soaked bathrooms... dormitories worse than concentration camps... and corpses.
These Scavs were smarter—and more "efficient"—than the ones in the city. Victims were abducted and forced to record black Braindance sessions for their clients. When the victims died from torture, their bodies weren't discarded. Instead, their implants, organs, and anything valuable were harvested.
"Fucking scum..." The others looked sick.
Even V, Jackie, and Lucy—no strangers to death—were deeply disturbed. There was something especially grotesque about seeing human ingenuity twisted into such cruelty against their own kind.
Judy had already vomited several times.
...
In the deepest room of the second basement level, the heads of the black Braindance operation had gathered.
Papaya nova removed her braindance wreath and grinned. "Good quality. Our client's gonna love this one." She tossed the wreath aside. "Wanna try it?"
Suhanov quickly shook his head. "No thanks. I'll pass."
"No balls, huh?" Papaya nova snorted. "You should just change your name to Coward and be done with it." The rest of the room erupted in laughter.
Suhanov was a weirdo, even among Scavs. He led a crew of psychos and junkies but refused to watch Braindance. Murder, arson, rape, drug abuse—they'd committed every sin on the list. But black Braindance? That, he couldn't stomach.
Still, a strange bird in a big forest wasn't surprising. And Suhanov was effective at what he did, so the others only mocked him without malice.
Papayanova, seeing his face flush red and pale in turns, dropped the matter and shifted topics. "Right, what's the deal with that girl the Ripperdoc brought in for us?"
"She's holding up, I guess. But I got a bad feeling about her. We should get rid of her soon. No more Braindance sessions. If word gets out, we're fucked."
Papaya nova had originally intended to give Suhanov a way out of the mockery, but his cowardice pissed her off. "A bad feeling? What, you need a crystal ball too? Gonna call Grandma's ghost for advice next? You seriously scared of a comatose chick? The fuck's wrong with you?"
"What did you snort this time? Forget it, I didn't ask. I don't care what you're taking, but you need to stop. Your brain's already mush."
Another round of laughter broke out.
Then—a gunshot cut it short.
Silence.
The room went dead quiet, everyone stunned. These weren't green kids—they'd all killed before. Instantly, they grabbed their weapons and took cover.
From outside the room, they could hear their underlings shouting, the crack of gunfire, and the sounds of a firefight.
"Enemies got in? They made it this far in? What the fuck are the guys outside even doing?"
They'd stationed more than ten guards on the upper level around the generator walls, not to mention the others posted all the way down to the second basement. How the hell had intruders gotten this far unnoticed?
"Could it be corp security forces?"
Not even NCPD had this kind of efficiency. Only corporate troops, with top-tier gear and training, could have steamrolled their way in like this.
But Papaya nova quickly dismissed the idea. "No way. Don't forget, the corps need us for their drugs. Sure, the stuff we give them's dirty, the side effects nasty—but it's dirt cheap. Even Hippocrates would call us saints. If they wipe us out, who's gonna sell them their chems? They could make it themselves, sure, but their costs are higher. What, you think they're gonna take a loss out of kindness?"
No one replied.
Then, suddenly, the gunfire stopped. Not just the gunfire—everything stopped.
The shouting, the sounds of fighting—gone.
Silence returned. But not the kind of silence that comes after a party. This was something else. Deathly silence.
Scavs weren't soldiers. Hell, even in a military base, total silence was rare. Normally, there'd be loud music, brawling, shouting, cursing—constant noise.
But now, not a single sound.
Like a graveyard.
Cold sweat began forming on the foreheads of everyone in the room.
Suddenly, someone seemed to realize something and rushed over to the terminal.
The others caught on.
Of course. The terminal was hooked up to the exterior cameras. Through it, they could see what was happening outside.
But the hope they felt rising in their chests crashed just as fast.
Every camera had been blacked out. Not a single one was working.
The head at the console instinctively wanted to curse out loud, but didn't dare. He was afraid of alerting whatever was still out there.
He wanted to scream but swallowed it.
"What... what do we do now?"
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