In Night City, even after nine at night, traffic was still at peak-hour levels.
The main routes leading out of Corpo Plaza toward the various districts were packed with an endless stream of cars, each lane crawling forward side by side.
Seen from above, they looked like glowing dragons winding through the city streets.
Some people were out for a night of fun.
Others were just getting off work and heading home.
At that moment, Carter was driving back toward his house.
After getting onto the elevated highway, he was surrounded by a steady flow of vehicles on both sides.
The glare of headlights and the traffic jam were making him more and more agitated, and he could not stop slamming on the horn.
Beep! Beep! Beep!!!
Suddenly, a gold-painted graffiti-covered modified car pulled up on Carter's left. The window rolled down, and the driver immediately started cursing at him.
"Corpo rat, who the hell do you think you are?! Hit that horn again and I'll ram you off the road! Piece of trash!"
Carter was driving his own private car, but for convenience he had hung up his official Arasaka transit pass.
With an Arasaka pass displayed, a lot of trouble usually disappeared on its own. Even when the NCPD set up random checkpoints, cars with Arasaka credentials generally went through without delay.
But today that trick clearly wasn't working.
Street punks did not care about that at all, and if anything, seeing a corp car only made them angrier.
Carter could only pretend he hadn't heard them. Shaking his head, he decided not to waste time on human garbage, took his hand off the horn, stepped on the gas, and squeezed two spaces forward.
But his attempt to avoid trouble only made the punks more excited.
They could tell he was a cowardly little corpo, and once they found one that obviously wouldn't fight back, there was no way they were going to let him off easy.
So they cut across two lanes again and pulled back up beside him.
The thug in the passenger seat leaned halfway out of the window, spat viciously at Carter's car, and burst into laughter.
"You spineless corpo rat! Get on your knees and apologize, or we'll kill you! Hahaha!"
Carter frowned in disgust.
He had no time to waste on them.
He could only keep looking for openings in traffic and try to shake off their harassment.
It was already close to nine-thirty.
That was the time he had reported to Deputy Director Kai.
The actual decrypted intel had put the deal at nine sharp. Delaying Counterintel's response by half an hour should have given Special Ops more than enough time to deal with the Maelstrom transaction.
The reason Carter had only delayed Counterintel by thirty minutes instead of longer was because he wanted to leave himself a way out.
A delay in decryption could still be explained away. As long as the runtime data from the implant was recovered, upper management would never bother digging too deeply into the details.
Susan had promised him that if things worked out, he would be promoted to team lead, and there would be a large cash reward on top of that.
The problem now was that the mission had probably failed.
There had been no word from Caitlin.
If Special Ops had succeeded, the promised payment should already have hit his account.
And if the operation had failed, then the runtime data would never be recovered.
If upper management started investigating, the conflict between the two departments would be dragged into the open, and his own leak to Special Ops would never stay hidden.
Susan would absolutely dump all the blame on him, claiming his intel had caused the two departments to act without coordination, and even Caitlin would probably be thrown under the bus with him.
So at this point, Carter had stopped caring about anything else and chosen to run.
Even fleeing Night City altogether was fine with him.
Because he knew that going back to Arasaka Tower meant certain death.
He had to get away from Arasaka, as far as possible.
Right now, he was rushing home to pick up his mother.
Before Susan could begin cleaning up loose ends, he wanted to take his mother and flee Night City, flee Arasaka's reach.
Then suddenly, his mother called him.
Had something happened to her?
He did not even want to imagine what Arasaka might do. He steadied himself and picked up at once.
"Mom, are you okay?!"
On the other end, Mary's voice was calm, with a hint of warm anticipation.
"I'm fine. I was just at home getting your birthday dinner ready. It got so late and you still weren't back, and I hadn't heard from you, so I wanted to ask how you were doing."
"Are you still coming home for your birthday tonight?"
Hearing the concern in his mother's voice, Carter realized this might be the last time he ever got to speak to her like this.
He knew what he should do.
He had a large amount of cash hidden away, more than enough to let him and his mother get out of Night City and disappear somewhere remote.
But the fear he felt toward Arasaka came from the deepest part of him and refused to go away.
After all his years working there, he understood Arasaka's brutality and power better than anyone.
Even though he had taken the lead and started running first, he could still feel Arasaka's shadow creeping closer behind him.
When he had value, Arasaka clung to him like a demon, feeding on his soul twenty-four hours a day.
Once he lost that value, the demon they had raised would open its jaws and devour him down to the bone, leaving not even a drop of blood behind.
At this moment, all Carter felt toward Arasaka was disgust and fear.
The world was enormous, but the only person who truly cared about him was his mother.
He had never felt warmth inside the company.
All he had ever seen there was colleagues biting at one another and superiors tearing each other apart.
He had once thought joining Arasaka was the highest honor of his life.
He had spent all these years working meekly and obediently, only to fail so completely in the end.
Carter choked up.
Thinking of his mother waiting at home alone, his eyes began to fill with tears.
"Mom... I miss you."
"I'm sorry. I'm a failure."
"Mom, please wait for me. Don't open the door for anyone, okay?"
Mary did not really understand why he was saying such depressing things on his birthday of all nights.
She only kept trying to comfort her son.
"It's okay, Carter."
"Even if something went wrong at work, don't lose heart."
"Did they make you stay late again? Are you not coming home tonight?"
"I'll light the candles here and celebrate for you myself. Work comes first."
Carter bit down so hard on his gums it hurt. The tears would not stop.
"I'm fine here..."
That damned bitch.
That damned company.
That damned Arasaka.
If Susan had not tempted him, he never would have gone down this road.
If he had not seen how highly Arthur valued the young and capable Kai, he never would have let that jealousy drive him mad.
If he had not chosen this road with no return, he could have spent tonight at home with his mother and celebrated his birthday in peace.
Carter regretted everything.
He regretted it so badly that it felt like his insides were rotting. Even his heart felt twisted in pain.
He still wanted to say something, but just then the street punks who had sped ahead earlier caught up to him again and smashed into the back of his car.
Bang!
The whole car jolted hard.
"Corpo rat, you think you can run from us?!"
"Get your ass out here and apologize! You hear me?!"
"You'd better be careful, or I'll break all three of your legs!"
Listening to the thugs screaming behind him, Carter's face slowly darkened.
The meek, harmless office-worker look he always wore disappeared without a trace.
(End of Chapter)
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