When the bulletproof glass opened, not only did Carl catch sight of the people outside, but the people getting out of the vehicles also saw KK.
There was no hesitation, no delay.
"Retreat!"
"Retreat, now! It's KK! Jefferson was meeting KK!"
In present-day Night City, there were only two kinds of people who would not run upon seeing KK.
One kind knew KK and knew he would not do anything to them. The other had enough skill to believe they could handle KK.
Clearly, these people were neither.
How was this any different from encountering a ghost while on a job? No, it was even worse than that.
The fact that they could still shout a warning instead of immediately turning tail and running was already doing right by their brothers.
Their reactions were quick enough. Tossed out onto the streets, even unarmed, they might have survived a gang war through sheer alertness alone. But to Carl—
They were still too slow.
The moment they shouted for retreat, before they could even take a step, the first person to flee stiffened.
He was the team's support netrunner, responsible for providing real-time network assistance during operations. But at that moment, his Access Port had been breached in reverse. The data link originally meant to connect the whole team was now precisely delivering paralysis commands to every member's neural ports.
A string of dull thuds rang out almost simultaneously. Every person who had arrived collapsed limply to the ground like puppets with their strings cut, unable to take even a single step.
At nearly the same moment, the squad's communications line with their superiors was cut off instantly.
But it was not because they had noticed KK's intrusion. The instant the higher-ups learned through the squad channel that KK had appeared, they