Maine was in the middle of settling up with Kiwi, Pilar, Rebecca, and the others.
Normally, this kind of thing happened after a job was over, when everyone gathered in front of TURGO Convenience Store at the little plaza and raised a glass together.
But tonight, Maine still had the implant matter to deal with, and everyone had suffered injuries to varying degrees, so he decided to pay everyone first and make it easier for them to go get treatment.
Seeing that Maine was about to go off alone with Kai, Rebecca still clearly didn't trust him. She immediately proposed, "Maine, that guy looks sketchy no matter how you slice it. It's too dangerous for you to go alone. I'm barely hurt, so I'll go with you and keep an eye on him."
Maine laughed with easy confidence and turned her down.
"No need. Even if Mr. Kai wanted to make a move, he wouldn't do it now. I'm still useful to him. Relax, Rebecca."
Then he transferred another ten thousand eddies to her. She had done a lot during that fight.
Only after he had finished dealing with everyone around him did Maine finally look over at Lucy, who was standing a little farther away, smoking by herself.
"Lucy."
Lucy didn't even raise her head when she heard him. Instead, she got up and started walking toward the factory exit.
"I didn't really help much this time, so forget the pay."
As she passed the AV, she deliberately slowed her pace a little. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced into the cabin and saw Kai sitting back in the luxurious leather seat, looking entirely at ease, as if he were in the middle of reporting to his superior.
But this time, she had no intention of listening in.
The job was over, which meant the account between her and Kai had been settled for good.
The only thing that had genuinely surprised her was that, when Maine and the others were cornered, Kai had not chosen to stand by and do nothing. He had personally brought an Arasaka elite squad to rescue them.
The truth was, she had already been ready to act. If Kai had refused to save Maine and the others, she might have handled it in her own way.
Not just for the team.
More importantly, to protect herself.
If Maine's people had really died at Militech's hands, then as a direct participant in the operation, she would never have gotten away clean either.
Kai might be a senior figure in Arasaka, but he was still just an unmodified human. Going face-to-face with Militech had been an enormous risk.
Militech had not been obligated to give him any face.
But he had done it.
Without firing a single shot himself, he had forced Militech to back down and kept Maine's crew alive.
Lucy cast one last look at Kai, still inside the AV and still on the call, then withdrew her gaze and kept walking past the vehicle. As she exhaled a ring of smoke, she murmured softly,
"That really is good news."
At that moment, Kai was in the car giving Arthur a report on the situation at the scene.
He mentioned that Militech had shown up, but deliberately left out the part where they had actually fought, replacing Militech's actions with things supposedly done by Maelstrom instead.
Because the Arasaka elite squad had physically arrived at the site, there was no way to completely hide the fact that Militech had been present.
Kai's arrival with the elite squad had come after the signal at the scene had already been jammed and the fiercest part of the battle had already ended.
As long as Militech refused to admit they had fired a shot, Arasaka had no hard evidence.
At the same time, he folded Caitlin's death into the story as mission failure, with her supposedly being driven into cybernetic instability by Maelstrom pressure and then being put down on the spot.
After all, she had been blown into a cloud of blood. No one was ever going to piece together what had really happened.
Other than concealing the fact that he had intercepted the target implant from Dum Dum, Kai's report followed the overall outline of what had actually taken place.
Arthur was extremely pleased after hearing everything. His tone was no longer tense like before. If anything, he sounded excited.
"Kai, you did beautifully this time!"
"Not one eddie of your operational bonus is going to be missing. I guarantee it'll be a pleasant surprise!"
"Our Counterintel division won a gorgeous victory!"
"That bitch Susan is probably standing there with a funeral face right now, scrambling to explain herself to upper management and dump the blame on someone else!"
"I know exactly what kind of person she is. Whenever there's trouble or responsibility to answer for, all she knows how to do is shove it onto someone else's shoulders. She'd never sacrifice even a single feather of her own!"
Kai added calmly, "Even though our department didn't take any losses this time, one thing's been proven. There really are people inside the department privately colluding with Susan's side. Carter was probably already cleaned up by the operatives she sent."
Arthur immediately agreed.
"Exactly. Carter's corporate account has already been terminated. Arasaka tactical personnel officially classified him as a cyberpsychotic loss of control case and eliminated him on the spot."
"If he'd still been alive, he would've had a chance to testify against that bitch!"
"You have to admit, though, her methods really are vicious."
Kai said, "That's right. Special Ops made a major mistake, but without a key witness, it'll be hard to pin a capital charge on her."
Arthur's tone turned bitterly resigned.
"Making her choke on this and pull her claws back in is already a good result. The people backing her still haven't gone down."
"And you know Arasaka's overall stance against Militech in Night City. It's still defensive."
"Now that Militech has stuck a hand into this, the board probably won't dig too hard."
"Bringing her down for real won't be easy, unless..."
Kai knew exactly what Arthur meant, but he did not pick up that thread.
He was not suicidal enough to start arranging an assassination on Susan.
Putting aside her personal bodyguards, the number of precautions and contingencies around her made getting a clean shot at her nearly impossible.
Susan absolutely deserved to die, but this was not the time for Kai to be the one to make that move.
Of course, if Arthur found someone else willing to do it, Kai wasn't about to stop him.
If it succeeded, he'd be more than happy to enjoy the result.
"With something this big happening, tomorrow's upper-level meeting should be worth watching. At minimum, it'll reach the board level."
Arthur nodded.
"Definitely. Even the president won't be able to keep a lid on this. It has to go to the board."
"I'd really love to see how Director Susan tries to wriggle out of this. The only real shame is that the implant ended up in Maelstrom's hands."
"If that implant were sitting in my hands right now, Tanaka would probably be even more disgusted with that bitch. I can already imagine the way the board would talk about her."
"Something like, useless when it matters and worse than dead weight. Hahaha!"
Hearing Arthur's unusually open laughter, Kai could practically feel how long he had been suffocating under Susan's pressure.
While Kai had been away from Arasaka Tower, Arthur clearly had not had an easy time of it.
With Susan's temper and the power she'd gained, she had definitely been walking around with her nose in the air.
Since it was rare to hear Arthur in such high spirits, Kai decided to give him one more surprise.
"Arthur, the implant itself may indeed have been taken by Maelstrom and isn't in our hands."
"But that doesn't mean the runtime data isn't."
Arthur said, "???"
(End of Chapter)
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