His vision was blurred, and the grip on Brother Dao’s arm slightly relaxed. He seemed to experience a hallucination. In a blood-red world, Brother Dao was decapitated but still sent out sharp mockery towards him. The surrounding people burst into mad laughter, with expressions more maniacal than when they dissected live bodies, as if they were about to pounce and tear his flesh.
"Mad...mad...madmen... You’re all mad! A bunch of cyberpsychotics!"
His right hand holding the gun trembled slightly, wanting to kill the lunatics in front of him altogether.
However, it was unclear when a thin wire flew from the balcony below, gently wrapping around his neck, and lightly pulling.
Before he could finish speaking, his good head separated from the neck, both the corpse and head falling to the ground.
Lucy quickly jumped onto the balcony using the scaffolding.
She looked at the gruesome scene with a bit of helplessness.
"I said, I just wanted you to distract him a bit, how did you scare him ?"
The poor warrior reached out his right hand to Brother Dao lying on the ground, pulled him up, and whispered with a smile.
"Playing a bit of cosplay, mentor, who knew he’s so fragile?"
For Lucy in 2075, the word was a bit distant, only roughly understanding it as an imitation show.
But who were they imitating?
And Lucy secretly mocked in her heart,
Who could withstand being played ?
Brother Dao, who was pulled up, still cheerfully said,
"I didn’t have a choice before, now I want to be a good person, give me a chance, Officer."
And the poor warrior cooperatively replied,
"Alright, talk to the judge, see if he’ll give you a chance to be a good person."
Their conversation made the players laugh, but Simmons listened and had many questions.
Could it be that the hostage was a criminal before?
No wonder that guy wasn’t worried about Brother Dao being killed by Scavengers.
Turns out he’s a criminal, and judging from that ruthless appearance just now, probably has a history of cyberpsychosis!
Just like the Anti-Terrorism Squad, a redemption unit gathered with murderers, right?
And this poor warrior is the inspection team of the patrol unit.
Understood, with what the guy just said, now everything makes sense.
This group might be a new unit constructed by the government, testing with these Scavengers, the one caught might also be cyberpsychotic, otherwise, it doesn’t explain why that guy could bite off his own arm with his teeth.
No sane person would do such a thing.
Also explains why the Scavengers blocked signals yet he could still contact the outside, surely new high-tech equipment.
[Received a citizen alert, a large shooting incident occurred at site 103, East Industrial Road.]
The police station’s alarms ring routinely, NCPD is always short-staffed, especially these days with higher alert frequencies since a certain group showed up.
The good news is the probability of attack decreases when police arrive on-site, sometimes it feels like NCPD has got a batch of outsourced auxiliary police forces, and what they pay is the bounty no one was after anyway.
However, this time the alert place Hayden Carson remembers is a Scavengers’ stronghold, he shook his head slightly, maybe someone’s family got caught by those guys again, but reporting such things is useless, by the time police arrive, Scavengers would have stalled a bit and sent people elsewhere through the sewers, leaving no trace.
But things seem a bit different this time.
When NCPD arrived, seven or eight Scavengers had already been stripped naked, neatly squatting at the street edge in underwear, two fierce players stood by with guns.
"Behave yourself, fragrant prison food is waiting for you!"
On the other side, over twenty grimy, spiritless, or severely injured people stood, Hayden knew at once they were victims captured by Scavengers.
And behind their stronghold, he still saw people moving boxes onto vehicles.
The sheriff was almost crazy, why is it always you these few days?
Do you know how much burden you’ve added to the police station these days?
Can you calm down a bit?
Are you sent by heaven to punish us?
But this time dealing with him wasn’t the players anymore.
It was a red-haired woman, unlike those pretending players, Gloria knew exactly how to handle such things.
She stepped forward, holding out a document bag in her right hand, smiling brightly.
"Really appreciate all your hard work, officers. We reported it, this is the evidence and victim list we collected at the Scavenger stronghold."
The emergency rescue workers she brought were already giving urgent care to the captured people.
In fact, ERO arrived 20 minutes earlier than NCPD, both received the message at the same time, efficiency was evident.
Hayden Carson stepped forward to take the evidence, lightly weighed, squeezed, didn’t even need to open the document bag, already understanding.
His initially frustrated face turned tender like a spring breeze, solemnly said.
"We will preserve this evidence well, it’s really through your efforts to take down a Scavenger stronghold. You must have suffered considerable losses."
"Haha, we only assisted NCPD officers to smash a Scavenger crime den, just enthusiastic citizens rescuing innocent people. It’s the hasty police officers who truly put in the effort, right?"
Gloria clapped, and two players came out carrying a big fridge.
"Inside are the unsold stolen goods, fresh organs and cyber mods, fear many have already fallen victim. We couldn’t save them all... What a pity."
Of course, the cyber mods were picked out leftovers by Gloria, fresh organs Lin Miao and players wouldn’t accept, moving firearms, mods, the rest treated as trash given to NCPD, letting them take credit, benefiting both.
As for this bag of cash in hand, naturally a part found inside, players didn’t like using paper money much, after all, in reality, they haven’t used such things for long, carrying a wallet to play games feels somewhat inconvenient.
"Don’t think too much about it, such things happen daily in Night City, people can’t all be saved."
Having received the evidence, Hayden Carson was willing to share a few more words with this group.
"How did you find this place? And actually fought with Scavengers."
"A mercenary got caught by Scavengers, his team came to rescue, and they fought."
"Just like that simple?"
Hayden Carson chuckled, stopped asking more, instead directed his officers to set up barrier tape to seal off the scene.
He looked at the shivering victims.
"I’ll notify those people’s families soon to fetch them home, the rest you take away, as for the bounty I’ll deposit it into your account, how you split it is your problem, beyond that I won’t ask."
The evidence was in his hands, credit was everyone’s, whereas the bounty was NCPD finance office, public money spent.
Efficiency would naturally be different.