CYBERPUNK: Travel to 2075

Visit our PATREON for more updates

Before the gunshot rang out, Blanca had casually flicked her hair, a seemingly insignificant gesture. However, when she pulled out her gun and shot the corpo sitting across from her, Karl was still caught off guard.

He hadn't expected his employer to act so decisively.

What if the target had been holding vital evidence against her? Blanca didn't care. She just killed him outright.

It seemed she had mastered the unspoken rule of corporate survival—use force when reason fails. Watching her, Karl grudgingly admitted that Juanito, for all his smugness, was no match for Blanca's ruthlessness. Perhaps there really was a reason she had risen higher in the corporate ladder than him.

As the initial shock of Blanca's action wore off, Karl's instincts kicked in.

The employer had fired first, so naturally, it was his turn to follow up.

While drawing his weapon, Karl had a sudden realization. Blanca's earlier intel about there being "ten enemies" hadn't been a miscalculation after all. She had likely intended to kill Juanito all along and only sat through his endless provocations to pinpoint the leak in her operation.

As Juanito's lifeless body slumped to the floor, the Maelstrom gang members began to react, reaching for their weapons. They had assumed their numbers and readiness would easily handle any threat. Their mistake was underestimating Karl.

He was faster.

Karl's hand blurred as he pulled his Kenshin pistol, a sleek, custom-modified weapon. He'd been binging SuperDream action flicks in his downtime lately, and one particular movie, The Big Fist, had left a lasting impression. In it, he had studied a technique inspired by traditional American iaijutsu—drawing and shooting in one fluid motion.

The room erupted into chaos.

Gunfire sounded so rapidly it might have been a single shot. By the time the ringing in Blanca's ears subsided, seven Maelstrom gang members lay dead, their bodies riddled with bullets.

The Kenshin, with its twelve-round capacity, still had ammo left, but Karl's unmodded body couldn't handle the recoil of seven consecutive shots. His hand went numb, and the pistol slipped from his grasp.

Though his weapon had fallen, Karl wasn't finished.

From his wrists, thin, glowing filaments emerged, snaking out between his index and middle fingers. These were single-molecule lines, razor-thin cutting tools capable of hacking into systems or slicing through steel. Heated to an extreme temperature, they were a favorite among netrunners who needed versatile tools for both combat and infiltration.

Karl's hands became a blur as he swung the lines like whips. The remaining three Maelstrom gang members barely had time to react before they froze mid-motion, their attempts to draw their guns cut short.

With a sharp swish, Karl retracted the single-molecule lines. At the same time, he bent to catch his falling Kenshin pistol.

Splurt.

As Karl straightened, blood sprayed from the torsos of the three gang members. Their bodies fell to the ground in pieces—cleanly severed at the waist. The smooth, surgical precision of the cuts was almost grotesque in its efficiency.

Karl glanced at the blood splattered on his clothes and sighed. "Great. More laundry."

Unaware of how terrifying he looked, Karl calmly holstered his pistol. Blood still dripped from his face and neck, but he didn't seem to notice—or care.

Blanca, meanwhile, sat frozen in her chair, stunned by what she had just witnessed.

She had prepared herself for a dangerous firefight, expecting injuries, maybe even death. She had thought Karl's role would be to provide cover while she made her escape. Instead, he had neutralized every threat in mere seconds.

Her plans, carefully laid out to account for chaos and desperation, now felt almost laughable. She had hired a bodyguard, not a one-man army.

"Y-You..." she stammered, struggling to reconcile the boyish-looking mercenary she had hired with the blood-soaked killer standing before her.

But Karl wasn't done.

"The threat's neutralized," he said casually. "There are three more Maelstrom members downstairs. Should I handle them too?"

Blanca hesitated. "Together?" she asked weakly, though she knew the answer. The lives of Maelstrom gang members weren't lives she cared about.

Karl didn't wait for further confirmation.

Walking to the window, he aimed his Kenshin at the three gang members stationed outside. They had heard the commotion upstairs and were looking up in confusion. Before they could even react, Karl fired.

Another sharp burst of gunfire echoed through the night.

"Solved," Karl said, turning back to Blanca with a bright smile. "Now what?"

At that moment, Blanca's datapad pinged with a notification:

Ding. 50,000 eurodollars have been deposited.

The sight of Karl, his face still streaked with blood and his neck glistening red, smiling like a child who had just completed a simple chore, sent a shiver down her spine.

Blanca realized something. She wasn't afraid of the people who had tried to kill her.

She was afraid of the person who had just saved her.

For advanced chapters 👇🏼

patreon.com/Thereator