9 ACPA

"Who would have thought that one of the most prosperous areas in all of Night City would hide a Scavenger nest? I really thought downtown was safe."

Getting out of the car and looking at the high-rise apartment building in front of him, Oliver stretched his wrist and picked up the Nova revolver.

"I stopped believing official propaganda the moment I stepped onto the streets."

Jack held the Saratoga Submachine Gun, his sturdy and broad arms making the gun look somewhat 'petite' in comparison, like an adult holding short chopsticks for a child to eat with.

"People are always young at some point."

After locking the car door, Oliver looked at Karl, who was holding the Kenshin Pistol. "What do you say, Karl?"

"The location is on the sixth floor, let's take the elevator."

Karl, who had already shared the general intelligence with Jack and Oliver on the way, said, "That Fixer has already marked the floor and room number for us. All that's left is for us to go clean them up with guns. It seems he has professional hackers working for him. The information about the room has been sent over in video form. There are four Scavengers inside. Our target is still lying down, it's not his turn yet."

"Then let's hurry up."

Only four Scavengers, Oliver really didn't take them seriously. If these scum who only preyed on civilians and lone gang members had any real ability, they wouldn't have ended up like this.

The cyberware on their bodies or the weapons they wielded were often the worst of the lot, only slightly better than ordinary people. It was questionable whether their bullets could even penetrate Oliver's Bulletproof vest. If it weren't for the urgency, Oliver alone could take them on three times over without breaking a sweat.

Although Oliver was kicked out of the Sixth Street Gang after only a week, he had at least practiced marksmanship, tactical movements, and fighting skills with his Sixth Street Gang dad since he was a child. Before he met Karl, it would have taken seven or eight Scavengers to take him down. Now that he had done so many jobs with Jack and Karl, he was well-trained. Dealing with a bunch of kidney-snatchers was no more difficult than slaughtering a chicken—although killing chickens was no longer allowed in Night City.

If Oliver was like this, then there was no need to mention Jack and Karl, who were the front-line combatants in the team. Either of them could easily cut through a building full of Scavengers. The whole mission was just as the three of them thought, extremely easy except for the time crunch. The most time was spent driving to the location, then going upstairs, and then taking care of the Scavengers and rescuing the target.

"Looks like my marksmanship has improved again."

Looking at the four corpses in the room, Oliver spread his hands and opened his arms to face Karl. "What do you think? Give me an evaluation?"

"Three shots to the head, one to the heart. Firing time was two seconds. Accuracy is fine, shooting speed could be improved."

"Alright, I'll watch some Western Braindance to practice later. You know, Karl, I never realized before that those Braindances actually have a training effect."

"That's because you were only focused on watching the show."

Karl shook his head and looked at Jack, who was checking the target next to a bed stained with filth and blood. "How is it, Jack? Is the target okay? Should we have Oliver take a look?"

"Nothing serious, just knocked out by the anesthetic the kidney-snatchers gave him. The dose might be a bit high, he probably won't wake up today."

After checking that the target was fine, Jack stepped aside and let Oliver take over the follow-up.

Oliver walked over and saw that the brown-haired male target was surprisingly young, looking only seventeen or eighteen years old, about the same age as Karl.

"A kid about Karl's age... Oh, Karl, I didn't mean anything by that, it's just that this guy really looks young. What's his name?"

"Name, let me see."

Not paying attention to Oliver's words, Karl flipped through the information and confirmed the name. "Julio, his name is Julio, he's from Japantown."

"Julio, sounds like a pretty common name. What's the deal? How did he get targeted by the kidney-snatchers at this age?"

Jack didn't quite understand, but Oliver, after checking and confirming that Jack's previous judgment was correct, said:

"They're after someone young with no cyberware, easy to take down. Japantown is close to downtown, he probably wandered over here."

"Hopefully, he'll learn a lesson about recklessness this time."

Saying that, Jack looked at Karl, "So what's next? Contact the Fixer?"

"Already contacted. The vehicle the Fixer sent will be downstairs in a moment. We just need to move this Julio to the back seat, then we're done. Nothing else for us to do."

"Looking at it this way, legitimate work is really different. The Fixer takes care of everything, we just handle the execution."

"Yeah, and then most of the money gets taken away."

After expressing his opinion on Jack's somewhat naive words, Karl walked to the Scavengers' computer and accessed it using a jack-in port.

He planned to check the relevant information to see if he could find other Scavenger hideouts and take them down as well.

Although Scavengers might be like cockroaches in the filthy areas of Night City these days, impossible to kill them all, it was always good to see fewer of them.

At the very least, they had to be so scared that they would wet their pants when they heard their names.

Streams of data flowed through Karl's eyes. Apart from some disgusting transaction records, a somewhat conspicuous file caught Karl's attention.

'This is...'

Looking at the file that had been specially highlighted, Karl clicked on it, and then images appeared before his eyes.

"Jack, Oliver, come take a look, I found something strange."

"Strange things?"

Hearing Karl's words, Jack and Oliver quickly walked over, and then, after seeing what Karl had brought up and displayed on the computer screen, they subconsciously moved closer, wanting to see more clearly.

"What is this?"

Jack frowned. He couldn't see this series of photos taken in dim lighting very clearly, but he could still make out a slightly different shape from the vaguely visible outline.

"Is this some kind of large machine?"

"Not a machine."

Compared to Jack, Oliver, who came from the Sixth Street Gang, had already recognized what it was.

And what he said next stunned both Jack and Karl.

"It's ACPA."