Wiped Out
The inhuman, shrill howl abruptly ceased. The headless corpse crashed heavily to the ground with a dull thud.
"Has he lost his mind? Fuck, these Arasaka monkeys always love doing all sorts of weird shit. He had cyberware but chose to bite with his mouth? Uncivilized barbarians, just as expected..."
After blowing apart the head of that "revived" Arasaka dog with a shot, the front-line combat commander of the Militech infiltration soldiers—a one-armed white brute codenamed "Assault 1"—spat, fired several more rounds into the corpse, then hurriedly checked on the technician who had been tackled.
"Cough... pfft..."
His personal link cable was taut, still connected to the console. Covering his spurting neck with one hand, the technician kept coughing up blood foam, bile, and digestive fluid, making wet, wheezing pops.
His throat had been completely torn open. His esophagus and trachea, reinforced with bioplastic, had been violently ripped out and left exposed, mixed with bloody chunks of flesh that might have been his own or might have come from the Arasaka dog's face.
The port behind his ear had also deformed under the sudden crushing force and tugging. Electric Sparks flickered in the chip slot.
Clearly, he could no longer continue cracking the console or repairing and extracting the files.
"Damn it!" the one-armed brute cursed.
That Night City bitch would arrive in a few minutes. He had no time to replace the technician and resume the cracking.
"Medic, bandage him! Stay alert—put a few extra rounds into every dead Arasaka dog on the ground! Secure the Sun Stairflower and evacuate immediately! Demolitionists, plant the timed bombs..."
Decisive when it counted, Assault 1 made his choice without hesitating over greed.
Forget whatever they could not get, but they had to secure the gains they already had.
Just as