Chapter Summaries

Carl questioned Anders Hellman, who mistook her for a corporate recruiter and tried to identify which corporation she represented. Anders Hellman’s guesses led Carl to suspect Kang Tao was interested in recruiting Arasaka talent, while Carl left her believing she might be rescued by another corporation.

• Carl told Anders Hellman she had not come to investigate Saburo’s death or silence her, prompting Anders Hellman to guess that a corporation wanted to recruit her.
• Anders Hellman considered whether Militech, Kang Tao, or Biotechnica had sent Carl, and suspected Carl might be a Kang Tao agent using a fabricated identity.
• Anders Hellman tested Carl with a Chinese phrase and a distinctive pronunciation used in Kang Tao’s recruitment process.
• Carl denied knowing what Anders Hellman meant, leading Anders Hellman to suspect Biotechnica instead and consider offering her research to survive.
• Carl watched Anders Hellman speculate and wondered whether Kang Tao was seeking Arasaka’s internal talent.

Anders Hellman was handed over to Rogue, while Carl and his crew collected their payment and discussed the drones searching the Badlands. At home, Carl found Jack and V battered after their boxing match, with Jack claiming the win and promising to face Razor next.

• Rogue's people took Anders Hellman away, and he maintained his arrogant manner as he left.
• Rogue sent Carl, Oliver, and Weyland their shares of the payment, and the men discussed drones patrolling the Badlands after the storm.
• Carl returned home and found Jack and V badly swollen from fighting each other in the ring.
• T-BUG explained that Jack and V had fought for half an hour before knocking each other down, and V said he had taken the match seriously for Old Vic and Jack.
• Jack said he had beaten V on points and promised to take down Razor next.

Carl advised Warchief on turning the boxing ring in Pacifica into a profitable venue and gathering place for the Animals Gang. Warchief embraced the idea and considered offering the Night City Police Department a courtesy payment.

• Carl met Warchief at the renovated boxing venue, where Warchief explained that Andy had suggested keeping the ring for future neighborhood boxing matches.
• Warchief asked Carl whether the venue could be profitable, and Carl assured her that ticket sales, rentals, merchandise, and the crowds would make it worthwhile.
• Carl said the venue could attract new members and strengthen the Animals Gang’s influence in Pacifica if they worked with the Night City Police Department to maintain order.
• Warchief grew excited about becoming a powerful gang leader and wondered whether she should give the Night City Police Department a courtesy tribute.
• Carl left the decision to Warchief and told her to handle the details herself.

Carl and Andy discussed the betting on Jack's match against Razor Hughes, while Andy's officers backed Jack despite the rules against police betting. Andy revealed she had also bet everything on Jack, and Orionna hurried back to collect her winnings if he won.

• Carl asked Andy about the crowd betting on the match, and Andy explained that Jack was considered a significant underdog against Razor Hughes.
• Carl noticed Orionna among the bettors, and Andy chose not to enforce the rule against officers gambling.
• Orionna told Carl she had wagered two months of salary on Jack and said nearly all of Special Operations had backed him.
• Orionna revealed the squad had also placed extra bets for other officers, then rushed back to the betting crowd.
• Andy told Carl she had bet everything on Jack, calling it free money.

Jackie Welles prepared for a boxing match against three-time heavyweight champion Razor Hughes, with his friends trying to ease his nerves and Old Vic revealing a weakness in Razor’s cyberware. The fighters faced off in the packed venue, and the match was about to begin.

• Old Vic described Razor Hughes’s cybernetic body and told Jack that Razor’s recently replaced abdominal cyberware had not fully synchronized, leaving a weakness beneath his abs.
• Carl told Jack that NCPD officers were betting on the fight, while Oliver and T-BUG helped him relax before he left the lounge.
• V picked up the white towel for Jack, and Jack joked that he would make Razor’s corner need it.
• Razor Hughes and Jackie Welles entered the venue to roaring crowds and traded taunts before the referee gave the fighters their instructions.
• Hughes slammed his glove against Jackie’s during the glove touch, and Jackie stayed calm as the fight began.

Jack Welles fought champion Razor Hughes in a boxing match, using his combat analysis and the ring ropes to knock Hughes down. Hughes recovered before the count ended, and the first round finished with both fighters preparing to continue.

• Razor Hughes opened the fight with a powerful punch, but Jack evaded it and struck Hughes's jaw, learning that his own punches could not easily overcome the champion's defenses.
• Hughes hit Jack hard enough to send him into the ropes, while Jack collected data on Hughes's speed, power, and follow-up timing.
• Jack attacked Hughes's surgically weakened abdomen, but Hughes blocked the strike and began targeting Jack's face, driving him back toward the ropes.
• Jack rebounded off the ropes and struck Hughes's jaw, then hit his abdominal weakness and damaged jaw with successive punches, knocking the champion down.
• Hughes rose before the referee's count ended, and the bell ended the first round as V waited below the ring with a towel for Jack.

Jack recovered between rounds and changed to a Filipino boxing stance, planning to overwhelm Razor Hughes with rapid punches. Razor rejected a defensive strategy and matched Jack's stance, leaving the second round poised for an offense-against-offense clash.

• V treated Jack's injured arm with Full Cure, while Carl gave him a Mexican-flavored energy gel.
• Jack told his corner he could keep fighting, then rose when the bell rang for the second round.
• Razor Hughes returned to the ring after emergency treatment and cautiously advanced with his fists raised.
• Jack switched from Mexican boxing to Filipino boxing and prepared to use his speed to attack.
• Razor Hughes chose not to defend and wait out Jack; instead, he mirrored Jack's stance and accepted the challenge.
• Jack praised Razor's choice and charged forward with a punch.

Jack and Razor Hughes traded punishing blows in the ring, with Razor targeting Jack’s injured jaw and Jack attacking Razor’s ribs. Jack used a sudden drop to evade Razor’s final hook and knocked him unconscious with a berserk-powered uppercut, leaving himself standing as the victor.

• Jack and Razor Hughes exchanged fast combinations, and Razor’s uppercut struck Jack’s chin hard enough to make him instinctively clinch.
• Jack exploited Razor’s tell before his right punches and landed hooks to Razor’s ribs, then continued attacking his body.
• During a referee break, Razor secretly hit Jack with a left uppercut and resumed a relentless assault on Jack’s injured jaw.
• Jack shut off his knee shock absorption to drop beneath Razor’s hook and drove a berserk-powered uppercut into Razor’s fractured jaw.
• Razor Hughes collapsed unconscious, and Jack rose to his feet as the victor.

Jackie Welles defeated Razor Hughes in a brutal boxing match, becoming Night City’s new street champion and wrecking the bets of gamblers who had backed Razor. As the betting house’s enforcers collected the losers, NCPD officer Orionna watched the crowd and allowed the Animals Gang to keep order.

• Jackie Welles knocked out Razor Hughes with a decisive uppercut and won the match.
• The commentator declared Jackie a champion while furious gamblers saw their bets and assets seized by debt enforcers.
• Orionna observed the enforcers take away a gambler and noted that the house was efficiently collecting its debts.
• Orionna stopped a rookie from drawing a weapon against another distraught gambler.
• An Animals Gang member punched the gambler unconscious before he could cause trouble.

Jack defeated Razor Hughes to become Night City's boxing champion, though his prize was only 30,000 eurodollars. After Hughes promised a rematch, Jack left the ring with his friends and family, battered but celebrated.

• Jack accepted Hughes's challenge to a rematch, and the two shook hands before Hughes was carried away for treatment.
• Jack told Carl that Hughes's loss could cost him endorsement deals, while V said they wanted to spar with him.
• Oliver objected to Jack's 30,000-eurodollar prize, and Old Vic praised Jack's fight and warned him to defend himself better.
• T-BUG, Misty, and Mrs. Welles joined Jack, and Mrs. Welles checked his injured teeth while Misty gave him sage.
• Jack left the mall with his friends and family as the crowd made way for them.

Carl and the others discussed the coming meeting between Arakawa Sesen and President Myles, and whether Arakawa could exploit the conflict between Myles and Militech. Carl suspected that Lucas Harford might try to kill Myles before the meeting, when she was least prepared.

• wns News reported that Arakawa Sesen and President Myles would meet in Night City in a week, as both sides considered reducing their military forces.
• Jack, V, Oliver, and T-BUG discussed how wns framed the tensions between New America and Militech and whether Arakawa was trying to deepen the rift.
• Carl argued that if Myles and Lucas Harford were fighting to the death, their conflict could resemble Sesen's struggle with Arasaka Saburo.
• The group recalled that their past work for New America had included missions involving Myles, and considered whether Lucas might be the only person with the means and motive to threaten her.
• Carl suggested that Lucas could strike before the meeting to derail Myles's negotiations and eliminate her when she was most careless.

V, Carl, and Oliver analyzed where New America’s President Myles might be most vulnerable while traveling to Night City. Carl identified a Badlands power station as a possible ambush site, leaving V uneasy about how readily she devised a plan to kill a president.

• V asked Carl when Myles would be most careless, and Carl reasoned that an attack would be likeliest outside Night City.
• Carl mapped Myles’s possible flight routes and ruled out the southern route because it crossed the hostile Republic of Texas and required a detour through Los Angeles.
• Carl pointed out that the northern and eastern routes passed near a Satellite Energy Power Station in the Badlands.
• Oliver proposed triggering an electromagnetic pulse at the station to disable Myles’s aircraft before attacking it with a missile.
• V agreed the station could be a suitable ambush site, then wondered how easily Carl had devised a plan to kill a president.

Solomon Reed infiltrated the Satellite Energy Power Station after Washington ignored his warnings about threats to the president. He reached the main control room and discovered six Federal Special Forces whose uniforms did not bear New America's flag.

• Solomon Reed found the power station after headquarters dismissed his intelligence reports and decided to act without permission.
• Reid evaded the station's searchlights and automated defenses, using an EMP grenade to disable surveillance cameras.
• Reid crossed the perimeter, avoided patrols, and used the station's maintenance ducts to reach the main control room.
• Reid looked through the control room vent and saw six Federal Special Forces wearing an unfamiliar insignia.

Reid discovered that the White Noise Eagles had survived their supposed disbandment and infiltrated the facility to activate an energy overload protocol. After they exposed him and a firefight began, Reid killed the woman at the console and faced five remaining members.

• Reid recognized the uniformed soldiers as White Noise Eagles, an extremist faction thought to have been disbanded.
• The White Noise Eagles activated the energy overload protocol, while Reid's compromised terminal exposed his position.
• The tall man spotted Reid in the ventilation shaft and opened fire as Reid escaped into the control room.
• Reid fought back with a flashbang, a knife, and thermite, but the tall man used a Sandevistan and wounded Reid's shoulder.
• Reid killed the uniformed woman with a blade from his boot, while the tall man stopped the other four soldiers from firing to avoid triggering the overload.
• Reid backed away from the five remaining White Noise Eagles, bloodied and preparing to fight.

Reid confronted the White Noise Eagles team in the control room and realized they were trying to clear the way for an assassination, believing themselves to be patriots. He killed four members in a close-quarters fight, leaving only their captain standing.

• Reid and the White Noise Eagles team put away their guns to avoid damaging critical equipment, and Reid’s wounded technician lay dying as the team advanced on him with knives.
• Reid recognized the team’s precise hostility as evidence that they meant to kill Intelligence Bureau agents and oppose his mission to protect the president.
• The White Noise Eagles captain identified Reid as Solomon-Reid and invoked West Point’s motto and Lincoln’s example, while Reid answered with a verse from the West Point song.
• The White Noise Eagles’ four enhanced fighters attacked Reid, who killed the first two and then cut the throats of the other two with his boot knife.
• Reid faced the White Noise Eagles captain alone after defeating the rest of the team.

Reid fought and killed the White Noise Eagles captain, but the captain’s neurotoxin left him rapidly weakening. With reinforcements closing in and the Intelligence Bureau no longer trustworthy, Reid realized he needed treatment and support but had no one to turn to.

• The captain used calculated Sandevistan attacks and a poisoned dagger to wound Reid and infect him with experimental neurotoxin.
• The captain attacked with electrified knuckledusters, but Reid damaged his cybereye and struck the captain’s artificial stomach.
• Reid detonated an EMP grenade, disabled the captain’s implants, and stabbed him in the neck with an obsidian shard.
• Reid killed the captain, then recognized that the spreading poison, approaching reinforcements, and loss of trustworthy contacts left him without support.

Reid woke in Viktor Vektor’s clinic after Carl rescued him from the Badlands, where neurotoxin had left him near death. He explained that he had no money to pay Carl immediately and would need to apply to the Intelligence Bureau for funding.

• As Reid was dying in the Badlands, he saw a white-coated man approach in an AV and heard him mock Reid’s pitiful state before Reid whispered for help.
• Reid woke on an operating table in Viktor Vektor’s clinic and recognized Carl beside him.
• Reid remembered sending Carl an encrypted location and asking for help because he suspected traitors within the Intelligence Bureau and New America’s leadership.
• Carl said she had found Reid in the Badlands and brought him to the clinic, then asked about the payment for the rescue and treatment.
• Reid told Carl that he had little money and promised to pay her after applying for funding from the Intelligence Bureau.

Carl learned that Reid had only five hundred eddies despite owing him for the contract and his treatment, so he covered the medical costs and gave Reid a full course of medicine. Reid left Old Vic's Clinic to recover, while a news report announced that bodies had been discovered at the Satellite Energy Power Station.

• Carl discovered Reid had only five hundred eddies and realized Reid could not pay his contract fee or medical bills.
• Carl agreed to cover Reid's treatment and add the roughly 120,000 eddies to Reid's debt.
• Carl gave Reid a bag of medicine and instructed him to follow the schedule and rest for at least a week.
• Reid struggled to stand, accepted Carl's help, and staggered out of the clinic.
• The television news reported that unidentified bodies had been found at the Satellite Energy Power Station.

After finishing their Arasaka Academy exams, Maki planned to start working for Haruko while David celebrated graduating fifth in his class. Carl asked David whether he would continue studying, join a corporation, or remain a mercenary, and David considered discussing the choice with his mother.

• Maki told Carl she had earned nearly full marks on her exams and would start helping Haruko at Arasaka the next day.
• David announced in the group channel that he had graduated fifth in the academy, and his friends congratulated him.
• Oliver invited David to celebrate at the Afterlife, while Jack asked whether he had told Maine and the others.
• Carl asked David whether he planned to keep studying or take a corporate job, and David admitted he had not told his mother about his mercenary work.
• V advised David to talk honestly with his mother, and David agreed that he should discuss his future with her.

Carl visited Arasaka Tower and used the company database to find the onboarding records for Takemura Maki and David Martinez. His trip to Human Resources left employees wondering whether he was joining Arasaka.

• Carl entered Arasaka Tower, where employees and guards recognized him and avoided questioning his visit.
• Carl searched Arasaka's database and found Takemura Maki and David Martinez listed among the outstanding academy graduates being hired directly.
• Carl recalled that David's mother had agreed to let him see the corporate career he had given up.
• Carl took the elevator to the thirty-sixth floor, politely greeting two startled employees on the way.
• The employees realized Carl was heading to Human Resources and wondered whether he was joining Arasaka.