Cyberpunk: 2075

"A job?"

That was Carl's first reaction. His second was:

"Faraday? Who the hell are you?"

"Faraday?"

Hearing the name, Oliver immediately recognized it.

"I think... that's some fixer who works across City Center, Watson, and Santo Domingo. Back when I was in the 6th Street gang, some guys took jobs from him."

Jackie lowered his voice, asking, "How good is he?"

"Low-tier mercs get low-tier fixers."

Oliver's hushed response made it pretty clear—Faraday wasn't exactly top of the line.

Carl, however, didn't care much about that. The moment Oliver mentioned "fixer," he understood why the guy was calling.

"A fixer, huh? You looking to send a job my way?"

"One of my corporate clients passed me your number—said you've got skills. So, what do you say? Wanna get some practice in?"

"A corporate client?"

Carl only knew one corpo well enough.

Blanca.

Looked like she was satisfied enough with his work to send some business his way.

"Alright, what's the job? Give me the details."

"Nothing major—just a warm-up. Head to chop-doc turf and pull someone out. Don't overthink it—it's not an official contract. Before I hand out the big stuff, I like to get a feel for a merc's capabilities. Considering the difficulty, the pay won't be much—just 6,000 eddies. That a problem?"

6,000?

Hearing that number, Oliver and Jackie both felt like they were being played for fools.

That whole "before I send you the big jobs, I need to test your skills" spiel? Only dumbass mercs would fall for that. The real meaning was clear—"I've got a bunch of high-risk death-trap jobs, but before I send you off to die, I need to see if you can handle some low-paying grunt work where I take most of the cut."

Still, he was the first fixer to reach out to them. Oliver and Jackie weren't about to shoot Carl down. He was the one handling the business side of things. If he thought it was worth it, they'd do it. If not, no big deal. Their job was to show up and get paid.

"Rescuing someone from a scav den, huh?"

Carl thought for a moment before speaking.

"Send over the full details. What's the deadline?"

"I'll send the info now—along with 1,500 upfront as a deposit. As for the timeline? Whenever. If you're eager, hit it soon. If you're busy, take your time. Worst case scenario, the client just wants a body. The pay's already set at the minimum 'corpse retrieval' rate."

Translation: The client barely had enough cash to get their guy's body back.

"Got it. Send it over. I'll take a look before I decide."

"Alright, then. We'll leave it at that."

Faraday clearly wasn't putting much thought into it—he hung up without another word. Ten seconds later, a file came through.

Carl ran a quick scan using his cyberdeck to check for common viruses. Once the file came up clean, he opened it.

"So fixers really do just grab a bunch of desperate street-level idiots, toss them chump change that can't even buy cyberware, and send them off to die against scavs? I always thought that was just a saying—but here we are."

Jackie glanced at the bag of chips he had just opened, let out a sigh, and picked up his Saratoga SMG.

"Ain't that the truth?"

Oliver looked at Carl and could already tell—he was taking the job. With another sigh, Oliver got up to prep his gear.

"Just had to be right after dinner, huh? I'm probably gonna throw up."

Carl, still reading through the file, looked up at them.

"You guys are already gearing up? I haven't even finished looking at this yet."

"Were you really planning on resting?"

Oliver checked his loadout, then said, "C'mon, let's get this over with so we can come back and keep eating. Call it a digestion break."

"How about we take a little breather first?"

"Come on, Carl. We all know how you are."

Jackie flipped Carl off.

"Don't sit there pretending like you're the one who wants a break. We're about to go waste some scav filth, and you're out here acting coy? Move your ass before whoever blew their life savings on this gig really does just get their friend's corpse handed back to them."

"Look at you, Jackie. Such a kind soul."

Carl grinned, but he stood up, putting his full tub of fries on the table for later.

"Yeah, no way we're letting those bastards keep running their little organ market."

Scavs were scum.

Didn't matter if they had a job or not—if any of them saw those psychos on the street, they'd put them down on the spot. No one wanted to end up seeing a friend or family member disappear, only to find out they'd been gutted for parts.

They headed downstairs, piling into Oliver's beat-up car.

"Alright, listen here, Carl. You keep talking shit about my car, I'll leave your ass behind and make you walk back."

"I wasn't even saying it out loud, just thinking it!"

"Bullshit. You were muttering it loud as hell."

"Alright, enough—we're already packed in here, quit squirming. I'm practically getting my face smashed against the window."

Jackie shifted his position as best he could, then brought up something that had been bugging him.

"So, six grand for this gig. How much you think that Faraday guy skimmed off the top?"

"This dude thinks we're idiots. No way in hell he gave us a fair cut—he probably took at least half."

Oliver thought back to what he had heard about Faraday's reputation from 6th Street mercs who'd worked with him before.

"From what I heard back in 6th Street? Half is just the standard lowball."

"I dunno, man. The way he was talking? Wouldn't be surprised if he took even more. I bet this gig's really worth thirty, maybe forty grand."

Jackie shifted his weight in the seat.

"Alright, Carl. Where we headed? Let's get Oliver to floor it."

"Got it."

Carl stopped messing around and called out the location.

Their target?

City Center.

[CITY CENTER] - The heart of Night City's corporate elite. Supposedly the safest place in the city. To the average corpo wage slave, muggings, gang violence, and shootouts are just urban legends—things that only happen in the slums.

NCPD Threat Level Assessment: SAFE.