Night City's rain was like a layer of gri that never ca clean. It settled on every pane of glass, every face, every conscience, and it stayed there.
Vito's target was a black Villefort. The understated model preferred by corporate middle managent — exterior like a coffin, interior like a surgical suite. He hacked the door lock in three seconds. The chanism made a sound barely worth calling a sound.
He slid into the back seat shadow like ink dropped into water.
Twenty minutes later, Jiro Hayashi arrived.
Arasaka Security Division, Thirteenth Echelon, Deputy Director. Forty-three years old. Suit immaculate. Tie clip: a miniaturized Arasaka family crest. He opened the car door without glancing at the rearview mirror. Corporate people had a way of assuming the world had already moved out of their path.
The engine turned over. The Villefort rolled into the rain. Then the middle manager noticed the sll of blood.
By the ti the car reached the dead angle where Sixth Street t the bridge, Vito moved.
First, sound. The Punishnt's hamr being drawn back slowly by a thumb. The tal friction was a thin, cold point pressed into Hayashi's ear.
"Keep driving. Drive to the underside of the bridge. Don't brake. Don't signal. Don't make feel like you're making a decision."
The voice ca out of the back seat shadow and settled against the back of his neck. In the rearview mirror: a corner of a glowing square. Flowing city nightscape. An expressionless death portrait.
He drove.
Under the bridge: rain blown sideways by the wind, breaking apart against the concrete pillars and becoming mist.
Hayashi killed the engine. Hands off the wheel, palms up. Vito slotted a signal-blocking chip.
"Na."
"Jiro Hayashi."
"Position."
"Arasaka Security Division, Thirteenth Echelon, Deputy Director."
"Tell sothing I don't already know."
The Punishnt's barrel rested against his temple. tal as cold as the concrete they were parked under.
Hayashi closed his eyes and opened them again with red creeping into the whites. He was a man who understood hardware — he'd co up from the bottom of Arasaka's forces and dealt with modified weapons for most of those years. He knew exactly what a Malorian Arms Overture would do to a skull at this range.
"What do you want to know? Are you Militech intelligence?"
"Watch your position carefully. Only one person asks questions here. Start with the Tyger Claws. What's recent?"
"The Tyger Claws processed a batch of defective units for us last month. Failed cyberware test volunteers. We paid. They provided the facility and the manpower. Final disposal was in acid pools. Bodies beca BD source material and were sold to interdiaries."
Vito almost smiled.
"Volunteers. Corpo people have a real gift for language."
"What project. Who runs it."
Hayashi hesitated. Then he spoke.
"The project designation is White Porcelain. The security director overseeing it is my superior. I don't have clearance beyond that."
The barrel moved slightly to the back of his skull.
"Continue."
"The Tyger Claws contact is nad Jotaro Shoji. Forr cyberware specialist, ex-Arasaka dical Departnt contractor, went independent. His function is converting defective units into filmable condition: severing nerves, installing suppressors, preserving full pain sensitivity for capture. He operates out of a Kabuki back alley. The address listing is false. The real na I know."
"Give it."
"Kenji Kurosawa. Warehouse 44, back entrance, blue roller door, second floor. He keeps a chanical cat nad Little Bell. It bites."
Vito laughed. On the mask, the cityscape suddenly accelerated. Like the city breaking into a run.
"Money."
Hayashi paused half a second, then indicated he needed to open the glove box. He produced a corporate chip wallet. He checked the inside suit pocket and pushed two anonymous credit chips into the back seat.
"Thirty thousand total. There's cash in the trunk as well."
"Not enough."
The barrel returned to the temple. This ti Vito pulled the trigger.
Not a shot. The hamr fell on an empty chamber and produced a clean, precise click.
Hayashi went still. For one mont, the idea that the gun might be empty moved through him. Then he looked at the blood on this man's coat, and the idea left.
"I also have a private account. The access code is—"
"No need. Let's get out of the car."
They opened the doors. Rain ca in imdiately and soaked Hayashi's suit through before he'd stood up.
"Move."
Hayashi stepped out. The neon beyond the bridge was cut apart by the rain and fell across his face in strips of color that looked like they'd been put there by sothing sharp.
Vito stood behind him. The Punishnt pressed to the back of his skull.
"On your knees."
Hayashi didn't move. He was waiting for the right mont, using words to hold Vito's attention, looking for the opening to bring the Sandevistan online.
"You have everything I can give you. There's no point in this."
Vito pressed the barrel forward.
"What's the problem? Worried about the suit?"
Hayashi couldn't read him. Corporate assassin? So rc with no survival instinct? He couldn't find the bottom of it.
"If you put the gun down, there's considerably more I could tell you."
"Such as?"
Hayashi kept talking, holding Vito's focus, watching for his mont. His pupils contracted — the precursor to triggering override.
"You want money? Arasaka can offer you more than anyone else in this city. There's an old Chinese saying — the wise man knows when circumstances require a change of allegiance. If you were to consider—"
Bang.
Punishnt fired. The large-caliber round punched through his skull. The heavy cyberware modifications in Hayashi's head ant it didn't shatter the way an unaugnted skull would.
"A Japanese man quoting Chinese wisdom at . I'm impressed."
Hayashi fell forward, face into the puddle at his feet. Blood ran from the entry point, the rain thinning it into a pale red thread that found the gutter.
Vito put a few more rounds in. Then he walked back to the Villefort, took the credit chips from the back seat, and started the engine.
The car rolled back into the rain.
The mask's cityscape kept flowing, but slower now. Like the city had finally run out of sothing.
He turned on the car audio and tuned to Body Heat Radio. Random play.
An old song ca on. "I Really Want to Stay at Your House."
The music ran into the rain and the sound of the windshield wipers, and together they beca sothing like a funeral with no one in the pews.
When it ended, Body Heat Radio played a hit by the Fierce: "ponpon shit."
Vito drove to Pacifica. The NCPD had officially declared the district abandoned. He found a spot near the wreck of a shopping mall, killed the engine, and walked away on foot.
A few Animals mbers had set up a covered position nearby and were shooting targets for their own entertainnt.
They saw the mask.
"Hey. Box Head. Your mother never tell you to carry an umbrella?"
"Which cut-rate ripperdoc put a TV on your face? Ha."
"Stop wasting your mouth on him. Box Head. You're in the wrong place. This is Animals territory."
Vito drew Punishnt and shot the first one before he'd finished the sentence.
Bang bang bang bang bang.
He worked through the rest with the sa efficiency.
When it was done, he dropped the cracked credit chips and walked into the dark.
The rain kept falling.
Like tears Night City would never wipe clean.
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