Just as Roqi and T-Bug were debating whether to continue pushing forward, Mower's voice suddenly came over the comms, sounding slightly urgent.
"Grand Imperial Mall—NetWatch's hacker knows I'm here."
She'd been discovered!?
Roqi immediately sprang to his feet and bolted toward the GIM.
During their earlier recon, they had already scoped out the general situation inside the Grand Imperial Mall.
Aside from a gang of muscle-bound Animals, they had also spotted a NetWatch van loaded with hacking gear. One of Rogue's netrunners had even attempted a test breach from cyberspace—and almost didn't make it back. That alone confirmed, with absolute certainty, that there was a NetWatch hacker stationed inside.
Mower was kitted out in full military-grade cyberware. It was robust enough to resist ICE intrusion for a while, but not invincible.
If a NetWatch-tier hacker launched a serious remote incursion, Mower wouldn't stand a chance. She'd have to run.
"Relax. He just detected my signal," Mower reassured them. "He noticed me when I triggered an active scan, but he doesn't know who I am."
"I didn't connect to the GIM subnet or hijack any satellite mesh, so they can't trace me directly."
"But the Animals inside are reacting—he must have warned them to raise their alert level."
Hearing that she wasn't in immediate danger, Roqi exhaled in relief, turned back, and grabbed all his gear.
The little square-headed bot scurried down a decorative pillar like a rat, obediently curling up in its case. Roqi stuffed it into his backpack without hesitation.
Screw the Voodoo Boys—he just needed to reach Mower.
If the mission failed, there'd be another shot. The Voodoo Boys might escape, but they wouldn't get far beyond Pacifica's Haitian zones. They were like groundhogs burrowed underground—whether here or elsewhere made no difference.
"Camera takeover failed. He's iced up every feed—I can't break through."
Mower continued relaying.
Her deck was integrated with preloaded daemons—plug-and-play quickhacks built for field ops. All she had to do was pick a target and launch. Idiot-proof.
But the downside? Zero adaptability or customization. These were general-use tools, ineffective against non-standard architectures. Against an advanced hacker running a bespoke ICE shell, they couldn't even scratch the surface.
They just weren't made for that.
These quickhacks were meant for spec-ops troops—tools to support missions, not to win net wars. Like unlocking doors instead of blasting them, flicking lights to create diversions, or disabling a camera.
Most of the time, the soldier would just scan the room, yell "Militech! Open up!" and breach straight in.
Real netrunners always worked from the rear.
"NetWatch…" T-Bug muttered.
"What, you got history with them?" Roqi picked up on the tension in her voice.
He was sprinting across Pacifica's rooftops, hauling a large pack, leaping over gaps like gravity didn't apply. He landed smoothly atop a dilapidated building across from the GIM and kept moving.
The mall was getting closer fast.
"Hmm—hic!"
By a trash-filled pool, a dazed man blinked and hiccupped.
"You see flying cash or something?" his friend giggled, her face plastered with that blissed-out look.
"I think... I saw a guy flying ↗."
She rubbed her forehead, wobbled on her feet, and hiccupped again.
"Yeah? I saw rainbow octopuses crawling through the sky, hahaha…"
Her friend flashed a "wise" smile and flopped back, giggling dumbly at the clouds.
Two drugged-out girls, talking nonsense while staring at the sky.
"I'm a netrunner. Why would NetWatch ever smile at me?" T-Bug scoffed. "They want control. Full surveillance. Total data dominance. That's their whole thing."
"Fair," Roqi nodded—just in time to get a mouthful of wind from his own parkour.
"So they're targeting the Voodoo Boys for the same reason?"
The NCPD didn't care about the Voodoo Boys—they were holed up in lawless Pacifica, low-scale and not particularly well-armed. Nasty? Sure. But small potatoes compared to the big gangs in Night City.
But NetWatch hated them for what they did in cyberspace.
The Net shrunk the world—and amplified the Voodoo Boys' reach.
On Night City turf, their actions were a direct slap in NetWatch's face—
Probing the Blackwall.
Plenty of netrunners had poked at it, but the difference was in scale. Solo hackers just dabbled. The Voodoo Boys launched full-blown assaults.
It wasn't just illegal—it was humiliation.
And these bastards were slippery. Faster than rabbits, slipperier than eels. Never fought head-on. Always set traps. Always vanished.
So while they hadn't caused serious Blackwall damage, they'd still enraged NetWatch.
Sure, NetWatch had killed some of them—ambushed the reckless ones and fried their synapses—but that only made the rest sneakier.
"I'm starting to think the real goal of the NetWatch op here is the Voodoo Boys," T-Bug said. "GIM's just their forward base."
"I thought it was a sweep."
Roqi landed near the mall. Time to stay stealthy.
"A sweep? If only." T-Bug shook her head. "In the Net, once you find the root, you can wipe them all. Otherwise? It's like grabbing worms—they scatter."
"But don't forget: NetWatch hires some shady bastards. Criminal records a mile long. They clean up and suddenly they're public servants. Still—skills are top-tier."
"Meritocracy, huh?" Roqi nodded.
Not just NetWatch. Every corp was like that—if you could deliver value, your sins were forgiven.
Threats, bribes, recruitment—whatever worked.
But if even T-Bug didn't want to provoke NetWatch, they'd better stay sharp.
"I'm at the south outer edge of the third-floor platform. Voodoo Boys have a lookout here. Take the garage and scale the north wall," Mower relayed.
A climb like that was impossible without training. Just the smooth vertical wall several meters high was already a nightmare—let alone the jagged, steep mall roof.
But Roqi wasn't just anyone. One jump, and he was up.
RATATATATA—!!
BOOM!!
CRACK—!
Explosions and gunfire suddenly erupted inside the GIM.
"What the hell!?"
Roqi flinched, voice tight with urgency.
"No idea. I've got no visual!"
Mower dropped into stealth, trying every angle to get eyes on the action inside.
Gunfire kept echoing. GIM had become a warzone.
Mixed calibers, explosions, cracking concrete, falling glass—
Had the Voodoo Boys attacked!?
That thought flashed across Roqi's mind—but he dismissed it instantly.
It wasn't their style. Even with enemies at their door, they'd sooner ghost than engage.
Storming a mall full of Animals? Way too reckless.
So then—who?
"I hear gunfire! What's going on!?" Pangolin burst over comms.
"Not us—someone's attacking the GIM! It's chaos—BOOM!!!—and they're hitting hard. This isn't a bluff!"
Roqi dropped low, sprinted for the east wall, and launched himself into the air, scrambling up the slanted glass.
Outside, alarms from the restored surveillance system were blaring.
Two Animals guarding the main entrance lay in pools of blood.
Inside, the atrium was total mayhem.
Sparks flew, bullets ricocheted, cement and debris scattered.
A speaker took a stray round, screeched with static, and started playing a warped radio broadcast before cutting off.
Pop!
As Roqi climbed, a bullet punched through the glass right next to him.
"Stray round! Fucking hell!"
Had his luck been worse, that could've been his nuts—or worse.
"Can you see anything?" T-Bug called in. "I've got nothing. Deploy the bot."
Roqi reunited with Mower on the platform, quickly crouched, pulled out Squarehead's case, and hit the switch.
Whirr…
The little robot—dog-sized but spider-shaped—scurried off into a maintenance duct.
The mall's exterior was already sealed with thick composite glass—UV-proof, soundproof, reinforced. Squarehead couldn't punch through it.
A few minutes later, the bot returned a feed.
The Animals were dug in, using mall kiosks as cover, trading fire with the intruders.
Despite their firepower, the attackers were only four.
"Unknowns… Pangolin, you recognize them?"
Nothing in their posture, tactics, or gear screamed corp training.
"Looks like mercs," Pangolin guessed. "No idea what crew. Could be lone wolves."
Lone wolves—elite mercs, hired guns.
Didn't matter who they worked for—gov, corp, cops, gangs.
They weren't soldiers or gangsters. No insignias. Just freelancers selling combat power.
"This squad's decent. But they're not gonna last."
Pangolin gave his pro take.
Not legendary, but top-tier. That's why Rogue trusted him as muscle.
His merc-spotting instincts were sharp.
"Fresh meat. Bold. Their cyberware's the latest budget-tier stuff—not fancy, but functional."
"Fighting style's green. Reckless… Oh, one down. Lemme see… nope. That's a major artery. Even in Pacifica, good luck finding antibiotics."
He commented like a dispassionate analyst, dissecting the battle play-by-play.
He had the skills to back it up. Roqi and Mower took him seriously.
"Huh… fuck. The signal's gone."
Suddenly, Roqi's PDA, T-Bug's feed, and Pangolin's broadcast all went black.
"NetWatch fried Squarehead. That hacker's definitely inside." T-Bug shrugged. "These bots are great—until they're not. One zap and they're gone."
"Do we step in?" Roqi asked.
"No. Not yet. Let's figure out who sent them first."
T-Bug stopped him. "Don't forget our real target today—the Voodoo Boys."
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💘 MY GIRLFRIEND'S A CYBERPSYCHO—WHO KNEW?
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💘 LOVE IS COMPLICATED.
Especially when your girlfriend could probably tear a squad of heavily armed mercs apart.
Welcome to Night City romance.
My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew? has 100+ chapters ahead waiting for you.
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💀❤️ ROMANCE, CHROME... AND QUESTIONABLE LIFE EXPECTANCY
💘 Romance
🤖 Cyberware
🧠 Cyberpsychosis
🔫 Night City action
😂 Chaos & dark humor
🌃 Dangerous relationships
🔥 Very bad situations getting much worse
People say relationships require patience.
Communication.
Trust.
Nobody mentioned surviving cyberpsychos.
🔥 100+ CHAPTERS AHEAD.
👉 Keep reading if you're brave enough.
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⚠️ Power Stones help decide release priority!
💘 Love hurts. In Night City, sometimes literally.