Shuu Fumiya tore through the magazine until he reached the final chapter of Edgerunners.
Edgerunners Chapter 38: The Last Trip to the Moon.
The title stopped him for a second. 'Last Trip? Does that mean they make it? Or is it a dream?'
He didn't wait to find out. He dived into the panels.
The chapter picked up right where the previous one left off. David, Rebecca, and Falco were tearing through Arasaka's perimeter, heading for the tower.
But first, we saw the end of Kiwi.
Faraday had what he wanted. He had Lucy. He had the data.
Kiwi, standing on a rainy street, looked at the fixer. "I'm done, Faraday. I'm not taking any more contracts from you."
"I see," Faraday said smoothly.
BANG.
Kiwi looked down at the hole in her chest.
an insurance policy Faraday had likely kept for years.
The treachery was absolute. In Night City, the only currency that never devalued was betrayal.
"The contract states that no one who knows about the Cyberskeleton is to be left alive," Faraday sneered. "No exceptions. Sorry, Kiwi."
But Kiwi was a pro. Even with her lungs filling with blood, she managed to hit her deck and upload a virus to Faraday's system, buying herself enough time to crawl away into the shadows.
---
Meanwhile, at Arasaka Tower, the corporate executives were panicking. David, piloting the Cyberskeleton, was a god of destruction. The security teams were being vaporized.
"Send him in," the lead executive whispered.
"But the data suite isn't ready..."
"I said send him! Now!"
Only half of his face remained human, or at least, a mask that looked like a face.
He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. The sheer, suffocating pressure of his presence leaked through the page.
Adam Smasher.
"The Cyberskeleton was designed for him," the exec said. "It's only fitting he be the one to dismantle it."
---
Back on the ground, David was in the grip of a total breakdown.
The hallucinations were everywhere. He saw the bully from school, Tanaka. But in the real world, he was mowing down crowds of NCPD officers.
In the grip of "Time Dilation," the world was a still-life of horror. David saw Maine. He saw himself back in the apartment, too weak to help his mentor.
"GO TO HELL, MAX-TAC! BRING IT ON!"
He tore the hover-vehicles out of the sky with his bare hands. He was a monster.
"Is he even human anymore?!" a cop screamed before being crushed.
But then, a signal came through. A high-priority order from Arasaka: Code AS. Withdraw.
The cops fled. A silent, terrifying void opened up around David's crew.
David climbed back into the van, his nose and eyes bleeding.
"Rebecca... how many shots are left?"
"One," she whispered, her eyes red.
"Just one, huh?" David let out an exhilarated, manic laugh. He was beyond fear. He was beyond the edge.
That's when the call came.
Kiwi. She was leaned against a dumpster, her vision fading.
"I've... I've sent you the signal," she wheezed. "I bugged Faraday's transport. You can find him."
"You think we'll trust you now?" Falco's voice was like ice.
"Who knows?" Kiwi gave a bloody smirk. "I've made nothing but mistakes today. I guess this is just one more."
"I was the one who told Lucy to never trust anyone. I wasn't lying to her. In this city, everyone will sell you out eventually."
"Now... go save her. Go save the kid."
BANG.
Kiwi, the netrunner of the crew, died in a hail of lead.
Shuu Fumiya felt a lump in his throat. Readers had hated her for her betrayal, but seeing her perish in the rain, betrayed by the very man she'd chosen over her family, was almost too much. She was pathetic, hateful, and profoundly tragic.
She'd given them the path. Now it was up to David.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]