The employer had fired, so of course he fired as well. As he shot, understanding clicked into place, and he realized he had misjudged her earlier. She said there were ten enemies, and when the numbers did not seem to match on arrival, he thought her intel was wrong, but now it was clear there were exactly ten.
Blanca had planned to kill Juanito Alvarez from the start, and listening to all that talk was likely just to confirm how her information had leaked. When Juanito Alvarez fell, the Maelstrom members reacted at once and went for their guns. Their weapons were already off safety and needed only a second to turn both Carl and Blanca into targets, but fast as they were, they were still slower than him.
Over the past few days, Carl had watched many Braindance Chips at home. One of them he liked enough to watch twice, titled Western Gunslinger. From it, he learned a traditional America quick-draw style.
The gunfire was so dense it sounded like a single shot. When that sound ended, seven Maelstrom members were down. The Kenshin held twelve rounds, and he was not empty, but after firing seven shots in one breath, the recoil overwhelmed his hand and the gun flew free.
Even as a tech pistol, Kenshin still had recoil, and seven shots in a row would numb the palm of anyone, even someone with mods. Carl had no reinforced tendons or similar implants, just a lightly augmented merc. Still, losing his gun did not mean he could not finish them before they fired.
From his empty hands, two thin lines like blood vessels slid out from his wrists. He caught them between his index and middle fingers on each hand. Monowire was a single-strand cutting wire shaped like a long whip, its edge only a molecule wide and hot when fully charged, popular among netrunners because it could be used as both weapon and hacking tool.
Put simply, it had the reach of a whip, the sharpness of a flexible blade, and hacking functions, making it a close-range weapon. It was the second implant Carl had installed, paid for with all his saved money at Viktor Vektor's clinic. When he snapped his arms, the three Maelstrom members closest to him, whom he had saved for last, stopped moving halfway through drawing their guns.
A sharp sound cut the air. Carl reeled in the Monowire, bent slightly, and caught his falling JKE-X 2 Kenshin before it hit the floor. The instant his hand closed on the pistol, blood burst from the waists and arms of the three remaining Maelstrom members, and their bodies split cleanly, heads and thighs dropping to the ground together.
"Looks like I have to wash my clothes again." To ensure instant kills, something always had to be sacrificed, and he sighed at the blood soaking his outfit. He had no idea how terrifying he looked to others.
Blanca had been ready to add shots herself if he failed to finish the enemies, but now she stood frozen. What he did in that instant hit her mind almost as hard as when she first learned someone held leverage over her. She had told him to protect her, but this speed of removing threats was beyond anything she imagined.
She had prepared for a fierce firefight, even considered the chance of death, and now felt all that mental preparation was wasted. Her plan had been simple: after the hair flip, eliminate Juanito Alvarez, then fight through the ten attackers while retreating. Even with small deviations, like her shooting Juanito Alvarez herself, escaping was supposed to be the goal, and wiping everyone out in seconds had never crossed her mind.
A clean protection and escape job had turned into pure slaughter, and she wondered if mercs were all this capable now. Carl did not hear her thoughts, because to him this was obvious. Protecting the employer meant killing everyone who threatened her, and nothing could be simpler.
"Threats handled. What next, boss? I remember there are three downstairs. Want me to take care of them too?"
"Take care of them too?" She almost said that a life was still a life, but in her eyes, Maelstrom lives did not count for much. She nodded instead.
Carl moved at once. He went to the window and fired before the three Maelstrom members at the apartment entrance, already alerted by the shots, could react. Again, the sound was so fast it felt like a single gunshot.
"All done. What now?"
A notification chimed, and fifty thousand Eurodollar arrived. "Nice and quick. Then this job is finished."
Looking at the merc in front of her, his face splattered with blood that ran down his neck while he smiled brightly, Blanca felt her body tremble slightly. She had to admit she was afraid now, not of the people who threatened her, but of the one hired to protect her.
"You should wipe your face first."
After a brief pause, Blanca took out a handkerchief and handed it to Carl. "You can't really walk around looking like that."
"My face?"
Only then did Carl find a shard of broken glass in the room and look at his reflection. When he saw his own face, his expression turned sour. "No wonder it felt sticky."
He wiped his face clean with the handkerchief and then handed it back to Blanca. "Thanks."
What kind of normal person wipes blood off his face with someone else's handkerchief and then gives it back without hesitation?
Looking at the handkerchief still dripping with blood, Blanca's mouth twitched. Considering how perfectly he had handled the job, she swallowed her reaction and took it back. Then she saw Carl start searching through the bodies of Maelstrom and the others.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for cash, picking up guns, and selling them."
Doesn't a mercenary know how to loot as a matter of course?
Carl glanced at his employer, wondering what kind of rich background she had to even ask that. It was like someone who would not bother picking up money off the ground.
Realizing she had asked a stupid question, Blanca felt that her brain was not working very well around this walking killing machine.
Under her gaze, Carl finished collecting the money and weapons in ten minutes. The two of them did not linger upstairs after that, since everything was already taken care of.
When they went downstairs, Carl also searched the three bodies by the entrance. He then looked at the car that had brought them here and ultimately decided not to take it.
It was not that he did not want the car, but modern vehicles all had dedicated locks and authentication systems. Without the right tools and with his hacking skills barely started, there was nothing he could do about it.
"Do you need me to give you a ride next?"
As a small reward for her clean payment, Carl was willing to see Blanca off.
"No need. My car is here."
Carl watched the optics in Blanca's eyes flicker, and soon a Villefort Cortes V5000 Valor drove itself over from a distance and stopped in front of them.
The driver's door opened automatically, and Blanca sat down without closing it right away. With one foot still on the ground outside, she looked at Carl and made an offer. "Want me to drop you off on the way?"
She finally showed a smile. "Consider it an investment in future cooperation."
It seemed that call would be made more than once in the future.
Thinking that, Carl still refused her offer. "I'll just walk back myself."
"Alright."
Seeing his refusal, Blanca did not push it. She waved goodbye, straightened in her seat, closed the door, and drove off. Carl watched the car for a long time after it left.
A few minutes later, Carl let out a sigh. "That car has to be worth at least three hundred seventy thousand Eurodollars. My pay really is too low."
He had thought fifty thousand Eurodollars was a lot, but compared to the car his employer casually drove away in, it felt small. "I need to work harder next time."