Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 182.013. The Transaction
Climbing to greater heights amidst the tides of time? To reach a level that can determine the very height of the world?

Upon seeing the message sent by the mysterious hacker, Carl couldn't help but scoff.

How dare someone who doesn't even dare to show his true face make such a big promise to him? Do they really think he's an idiot?

No, even the most hot-blooded idiot would have to consider his own worth before hearing such words.

“I don’t know if I want to climb the wave of the times,” Carl tapped the screen rapidly, “but I know one thing very well: what you said is ridiculously fake. But since you provided some interesting information, I’ll keep this number. Next time we contact each other, let’s get real. I’d like to know who you really are.”

After sending the message, Carl put his phone in his pocket. This mysterious hacker who claimed to be close to the president was no longer worth his time.

Instead of continuing this pointless probing, it's better to go home and rest early.

After all, I've been out and about all day.

Carl rubbed his throbbing temples and called out to Delaman.

As the black luxury sedan silently glided up in front of him, he slumped into the back seat like a sack of potatoes. The leather seats emitted a faint scent of cleaning agents, and the car's AI thoughtfully adjusted the temperature to 24°C—a comfortable temperature for the human body. In this comfortable temperature, Karl closed his eyes to rest, reflecting on any possible mistakes he might have made during the day's mission.

"We have arrived at our destination, Mr. Carl." Dellaman's gentle electronic voice startled him awake. When he opened his eyes, familiar high-rise buildings were reflected in the car window.

The night breeze carried the aroma of noodles from the food stall downstairs into his nostrils—a smell that always reminded him of the cold noodles he ate when he first arrived in Night City.

The elevator operated smoothly as usual. The moment he opened the door on the top floor, he was drenched in blue light from the holographic projection in the living room, and five pairs of eyes stared at him. It seemed that Carl was the last one to finish work today; even Johnny had come back from his walk.

"Hey everyone." Carl tossed his coat onto the coat rack, which swayed like a drunkard, while simultaneously hurling his phone in a parabolic arc toward T-BUG: "Take a look at this. Some military technology insider information I got my hands on today, a little gift from the anti-presidential faction. It involves Old Man Oliver and the Sixth Street gang. See if you can look into it in detail." The phone flashed through the air before being caught firmly between the hacker girl's fingers.

"It involves my old man?" Oliver's bionic eye suddenly narrowed, and a dangerous red light flashed at the edge of the iris. Carl grabbed a cup of sweet tea from the coffee table and took a sip. He then spent three minutes explaining the whole story. As he narrated, Jack began to unconsciously stroke his pistol, and V's gaze gradually became serious.

The T-BUG's data cable slithered into the phone's interface like a live snake, reading data, while the few people who were free sat up straight.

"So, someone's planning to take advantage of the arms deal in Taiping State in three days... to eliminate my dad when he has the fewest bodyguards, and throw the entire Sixth Street Gang into chaos?" Oliver frowned deeply.

Carl sat down next to Johnny, and before Johnny noticed him brandishing his claws, he casually stroked Johnny's fur, wiped the condensation from his iced tea onto Johnny's body, and then asked Oliver as if nothing had happened: "That's about it. Do you remember the arms deal in three days?"

“I vaguely remember talking about this in my father’s communications. He said a batch of new equipment and guns were smuggled from the Badlands through Adcardo, but the arms dealer wasn’t going to leave the business to someone else. He came over himself to discuss the price with my father, and then the NCPD would also come, planning to split the weapons together after agreeing on a price with my father.”

Oliver said, "Because everyone except this arms dealer is an old acquaintance, my dad didn't plan to bring too many people. After all, Adcardo's team is led by Scorpion, and although Andy didn't come from the NCPD, the people who did come are also old acquaintances from the Special Operations Team."

This trade, which connects Adcado, the Sixth Street gang, and the NCPD, is different from the arms smuggling in Dogtown. It's like setting up a separate operation, not sourcing from Hansen, but finding cheaper arms dealers elsewhere.

This trade has been going on for a long time since Karl and his group first facilitated the deal. Every relevant faction has benefited greatly from it. After all, in Night City, weapons have always been as important as food. And with so many transactions, the procedures have become less formal than they used to be.

"Who is that arms dealer?"

Jack listened and asked Oliver about the background of the arms dealer who insisted on doing business in person. Oliver pulled up the holographic projection in his father's communication records, and a three-dimensional image of a short, fat man appeared, rotating. He had a cheap red prosthetic eye in his left eye and a jagged electronic beard on his chin.

“Everyone calls him ‘The Mole’,” Oliver zoomed in on the bullet hole repair marks on the man’s jacket in the video. “It’s said that he was originally a wanderer in the Badlands who made his fortune by selling half-destroyed weapons from the War of Unification dug out of the ruins. Somehow, he became a famous arms dealer.” The video suddenly switched to a blurry battlefield recording showing him demonstrating his products, showing how he blasted open a military technology transport vehicle with a modified rocket launcher.

V suddenly interjected: "Wait, I remember this guy. When I was a wanderer, the tribe bought his stuff. The goods were all pretty good, but some of them were more like clearance sales than things that were dug up and repaired from half-destroyed items. Back then, the tribe suspected that he might have some connection with certain companies or New America."

“I checked.” T-BUG cracked the code while looking up the weapons dealer’s information: “I happen to have his personnel information, which I probably saved while I was doing some work before. He mainly operates in Kansas and specializes in ‘retro modification’ business—modifying old weapons with smart aiming and adding thermal tracking to old RPGs. Every weapons dealer in Kansas who goes against him has never survived a week.”

Oliver grew increasingly suspicious as he listened: "So there's something wrong with this person, and he might have ill intentions?"

Jack shook his head: "It's not certain yet, but I'm very curious. A person called a mole must have something that deserves that title. I wonder what kind of treasure could make this burrowing rat come out of the sun to trade? It can't just be a batch of toy guns painted red, can it?"

“I do have the information on that,” T-BUG said. “Have you all forgotten that we also got a share after the deal was struck? I know you don’t look at it, but every time there’s a transaction, Adcardo, NCPD, and the Sixth Street Gang would send out a list and a breakdown of the profits. Let me find the shipping manifest, damn it!”

T-BUG's sudden exclamation made the others look at her in confusion, but as she sent the data to everyone afterward, they understood why she was so surprised.

Besides a series of conventional weapons, the most shocking item in this shipment was three medium-sized ACPA power armors. These were all high-end products that had recently been 'obsolete' in military technology. What was even more astonishing was that each of them had been heavily modified by the Mole—the blood-red paint made these war machines look even more ferocious, while the quadruple rocket launchers mounted on their backs indicated their terrifying destructive power.

"ACPA?"

V raised an eyebrow, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table. "I remember the Sixth Street Gang already has a few light ACPAs in their warehouse, right? What, you think you don't have enough stock and plan to get a few more?" He chuckled and shook his head. "But if it's this kind of thing, we really have to trade in a no-man's-land like Taiping Prefecture. If we let these metal lumps swagger into the city, it'll probably cause chaos throughout the whole city."

"Back then, that incident caused a long wrangling between military technology and Arasaka."

T-BUG said, "The data shows that two of these units were ordered by the NCPD." She paused, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, "But if those old men in the city council found out their police department was secretly procuring military-grade armor, tomorrow's headlines will be 'Budget hearing turns into a brawl.'" "ACPA isn't allowed in the city, so the transaction is being done in Pacific State."

Jack chuckled, his thick fingers tracing the armor diagram in the holographic projection: "Brilliant! Dropping this thing in Taiping State, which has theoretically been expelled from the city council—it's not officially considered to have entered the city, but it can be pulled out to maintain order at any time." He whistled, "If you ask me, since Johnson took office, the NCPD has become much more adept at playing word games than street thugs."

"The trade was a good trade."

Johnny's projection leaned against the sofa, a half-burnt virtual cigarette between the fingers of his metal prosthetic arm. He listened to the discussion, a cold smile playing on his lips, as if he found this naive scheme laughable.

“But have you forgotten—” he exhaled a smoke ring, his voice hoarse, with that usual unsettling sarcasm, “that in arms deals of this caliber, ultimate control always rests with the seller?”

He raised his hand and touched the ACPA image in the holographic projection with the burning cigarette butt, and the virtual Mars drew a brief trajectory in the air.

“Imagine—” his voice was low, yet carried a dangerous cadence, “what if that ‘mole’ had stuffed his own people into those iron coffins before delivery? And then, after everyone’s happily inspecting the goods and getting ready to pop the champagne—”

He flicked his cigarette ash sharply, his eyes sweeping over everyone present.

"boom!"

“Three modified ACPAs, quadruple rocket launchers, blood-red paint. In a godforsaken place like Taiping State, there isn’t a single damn eyewitness.” He grinned, revealing an almost ferocious smile. “Then, guess who will be stuffed into a body bag and transported back to Night City?”

"That's the truth."

Carl's deep voice echoed in the room. He sat on the sofa with his arms crossed, his knuckles tapping unconsciously on his arms, making a slight rustling sound as his clothes moved.

Johnny's signature loud and boisterous warning style was already a habit—this guy always spoke like he was about to start a fight in a bar, but his words, though rough, were always reasonable, and there was always a sharp edge hidden between the lines that was impossible to ignore.

“The Scorpion gang is quite skilled.” He nodded slightly, his gaze sweeping over the holographic projection. “The NCPD’s special operations team. I trust Andy’s abilities. Anyone he approves of joining must be a tough nut to crack, an elite honed in real combat.”

He paused.

“But even those elites among elites, without anti-armor EMPs or armor-piercing weapons,” his voice suddenly lowered, becoming an almost dangerous whisper, “would be trapped between the buildings at the trading site by three ACPAs in the ruins of Pacific State.”

He opened his palms to simulate the impact of an explosion.

"Even the toughest bone will be blasted into dust."

"Given Scorpion's and his group's wariness, I think they'll remain somewhat vigilant."

V said, "But no matter how vigilant we are, we probably can't prevent the ACPA from taking action."

"That"

Oliver looked at Karl, who nodded slightly: "You still have the disguise chips, right?"

As soon as Karl mentioned the fake chip, everyone else understood what he meant.

"Eight bodyguards."

Oliver looked around at his companions and counted the people. Excluding the support T-BUG and the inhuman Johnny Silverhand, he, Carl, Jack, and V had four people and eight bodyguard slots, which was more than enough. "I remember we also have a share of the profits in this business, so going to the transaction site should be considered a shareholder inspection?"

"I only went to act as a go-between the first time; the rest of the time, I just knew what the people collecting money were saying."

Carl made a sarcastic remark.

With their friend's father's safety at stake, no one dared to be careless. V repeatedly calibrated his firearms the night before the operation, and Jack thickened his subcutaneous armor. On the day the operation began, everyone was fully prepared.

As the neon lights of dawn just began to pierce the clouds, convoys from all four factions had already gathered in the abandoned industrial area. The NCPD's armored patrol vehicles had blinding searchlights flashing on their roofs, Adcado's modified armored vehicles spewed blue flames from their exhaust pipes, and the Sixth Street Gang's Thunder Villeroy Mackinac painted with the Stars and Stripes looked like a steel behemoth crawling out of hell.

The moment the door of the arms dealer's Thunderobot Mackinac La Rimore slid open, Roy's prosthetic eye immediately overloaded—his fat fingers gripped the door handle tightly, and his artificial sweat glands uncontrollably secreted coolant. Standing before him were not only the agreed-upon Sixth Street gang leader, but also Andy from the NCPD special operations team, and Thor, the leader of the Adcardo tribe.

"Damn it!" His gold-toothed lips twitched as the bodyguard captain's urgent static crackled through his subcutaneous communicator: "Boss, there are more people than expected. Please be careful."

On the mole's retinal screen, the originally green transaction icon was flashing wildly into blood red. He remembered the middleman who had asked him to sell weapons, who had made a solemn promise: "Just a safe and easy little deal"—now that everyone was present, could it really be a safe and easy little deal?

(End of this chapter)