Vito had never understood the appeal of Mantis Blades. The design worked against the body's natural chanics. The strikes required wide, sweeping body movents that telegraphed intent well in advance. In a straight fight they looked like a liability.
Now he understood why they were everywhere.
Liu Yongzhe wasn't as fast as David. But his speed was starting to fra-skip, the telltale flutter of cyberware pushing past its limits. That speed covered every weakness the blades had.
Liu ca at Vito's throat, Mantis Blades gleaming. Direct shot at the windpipe.
Body 20 answered on instinct. Vito rolled his head and shoulder to the side and felt the edge pass close enough to count.
Liu was surprised. His full-force strike hadn't opened the man's throat. He spoke carefully.
"You're not NCPD. Who are you?"
Vito sent a quick ssage to Jackie's neural comms.
"He keeps covering his head. Get ready and put two slugs into it."
Then he kept the performance going.
"We're Arasaka's people, Liu Yongzhe. Your operation has been exposed."
Pure improvisation to buy Jackie's aim ti. What he didn't expect was Liu suddenly erupting.
"That's not my fault! They shipped here from Asia as a scapegoat. Used and threw away like a dirty rag. Why should I take the fall?"
Vito recalibrated. He dropped the spent Shigure.
"I sympathize. Corporations are brutal. Why don't we sit down and talk this through?"
Liu's head wasn't entirely clear — probably so shotgun fragnts had rattled around in it. He was still trying to work out why Arasaka's people had suddenly beco reasonable.
"Jackie."
Vito dropped hard. Jackie's sawed-off barked once, the slug punching straight at Liu's skull.
Crack.
A large section of subdermal armor peeled off Liu's head from the impact.
"You rotten hunting dogs!"
Liu activated his Sandevistan and lunged. Vito drew Eddie and charged to et him.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang.
Six shots fired from a braced stance, each one aid not at Liu's head but at every angle his head would swing through on the approach.
Liu had to abandon the attack and cover himself.
"His body, Jackie!"
Liu reset himself and launched into a flying Superman-punch style Mantis Blade strike, blades extended for maximum reach. Vito called the cue. Jackie was already on it — one shot straight into Liu's open chest. The slug didn't punch through the armor but the impact threw Liu backward into the wall with a crash.
"That all you've got, punk?"
Liu's eyes were going red. His face was starting to stutter and flicker like a TV with a dying signal. His visual system was fra-skipping.
"You're not Arasaka. You're just garbage edgerunners."
He let out sothing between a shout and a screech and charged again. Vito moved toward him rather than back, timing a full-force leaping kick into Liu's chest.
"Jackie, reload! He's nearly finished!"
The collision. Liu had processed that Vito had minimal visible chro, which ant his mass with all his installed cyberware would launch Vito into the wall on contact.
Thud.
Sothing went wrong with that calculation. Liu hit the floor.
"Double shot!"
Jackie's two quick rounds landed in the torso the mont Liu was down. Subdermal armor or not, the slugs broke his circulatory system through the plating. Liu was done. He stayed on the floor.
Vito exhaled.
Body 20 had delivered, but his kicking leg was numb from the impact — the kind of numb that ca from a very hard landing.
He picked up the Shigure.
"I'll admit I underestimated you."
Liu Yongzhe, lying on the floor, registered those words and felt a powerful urge to spit blood.
That was supposed to be my line.
Vito loaded a fresh magazine, walked over, and stood above Liu.
"Liu Yongzhe. Multiple brutal murders, and justice never caught up with you. Today, that changes. Any last words?"
Liu coughed blood.
"Can we work sothing out? I can pay you eddies."
Vito smiled.
"At this particular mont? You must be joking."
Bratatatatat.
A full magazine into the torso.
Then.
With the last flicker of consciousness he had left, Liu watched Vito reach for the strange Unity pistol.
"Eddies? Let give you so today."
Bang.
An armor-piercing capped round through Liu's exposed skull. Liu Yongzhe closed his eyes for the last ti.
"Jackie. Find his computer and any credit chips."
Vito put a few more rounds in. Liu's probability of death was now one thousand percent.
"Found the computer. Hell — I was too busy fighting to notice, but this guy's apartnt is actually fitted out like a high-end place."
Vito unlocked the machine and ran the account transfer. Midway through, he noticed the computer was connected to a hidden surveillance system covering the room.
After closing the feed, he went looking for the footage files to delete the record of their fight.
Sothing in the folder stopped him.
"Jackie. Co look at this."
Jackie leaned over. The screen showed Liu and a woman in conversation. Both of them speaking Korean.
"Yuan Zhu. I love you. I can forgive you. I really can."
The woman on screen was visibly impatient, kept trying to move toward the door.
Then Liu's Mantis Blades ca across and took her head.
He held it. Eyes wide open.
"Yuan Zhu. I really do love you. I swear it. Ah—"
The rest went unsaid.
The subsequent recordings were more of the sa. Every woman who'd responded to Liu's honeypot ad had been required to play the role of Yuan Zhu. Every one of them had ended the sa way.
"What the hell. This guy is full-on cyberpsychosis."
Jackie watched the last of it and swore loudly. Liu should have paid them for the viewing experience.
"If NCPD ever updates their cyber-psycho most-wanted list, this guy would be on it."
They were nearly at the door when Vito noticed the anomaly.
"Jackie. Here."
A hollow space behind a panel. Inside: surveillance equipnt, and an old radio transceiver.
"Liu set this up?"
"No. The man has too much chro installed. He couldn't have fit in here without leaving marks."
Vito examined it carefully.
"Yuan Zhu? The one who got—"
Jackie stopped himself.
The equipnt hadn't been used in a long ti. This was a dedicated surveillance position, set up specifically to watch Liu Yongzhe. But why?
"We're pulling out. Close that panel. Don't leave any sign we found it. I think we just stepped into sothing that slls a lot worse than we planned for."
They left the apartnt. NCPD's paid-report system — perhaps the most impressively useless innovation of recent years — had done its job perfectly. A full firefight, and not a single resident had called anything in.
As they walked out of the building, a person at the xican street food stall nearby gave them a long look, then stepped inside and headed upstairs.
Room 1217.
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