The Protagonist System

“Drek, the car I borrowed to get you all here isn't working!” Jackie Welles complained when he entered Misty's apartment. “How am I supposed to get back to mom's bar and help out my other chooms?”

Misty looked relieved, Gloria looked thoughtful, and David was just as upset as Jackie.

“It was fine a couple hours ago.” Gloria said. “Do you think someone saw the Valentinos colors on it and sabotaged it?”

Both Jackie and David cursed. Misty gave Gloria a knowing look and nodded. She handed her man a bottle of synth-beer, David a virgin Bloody Mary without telling him it was alcohol free, and Gloria and her had another small shot of the preem alcohol Gloria brought and they mixed them with cans of NiCola to make it last.

A small burst of gunfire rang out and none of them flinched. It had been happening off and on for a while and they were up high enough that any stray bullets would hit the ceiling and not them. They stayed in the center of the apartment and away from the windows, just in case.

“I better call her and let her know I'm out of the fight until I can get picked up.” Jackie said and sat down beside Misty, took a drink of his beer, and sent still for a few moments. He sighed and nodded. “She said to stay here and guard you all, since some of the other gangs know about Misty and might make a play for her shop.”

Misty looked happy about that and snuggled into his side. “Thanks, Jackie.”

Jackie gained a goofy smile on his face. “We already secured the shop, so it's just your body I need to worry about, right?”

Misty let out a little giggle and kissed his cheek.

David rolled his eyes at them and wouldn't understand for a while about what it meant to have someone like that in his life. Gloria on the other hand, immediately thought about the young man she could have had the same situation with.

When Gloria tried to send Veder a message, there was no direct connection and it went to his cyberdeck, like usual. She didn't bother leaving a message and mentally sighed. Now she really wondered where he was if he wasn't at home to receive the thing. The problem was, she also knew he no longer lived in his old apartment and wouldn't know where to look for him.

Gloria's eyes went to her son David and she thought that if he was still in school, he would have known where Veder had moved to, then she dismissed the thought of asking him to call one of his old classmates to find out. David had left that life behind and would have been on the path to joining up with the Valentinos if Misty wasn't already trying to convince Jackie to retire from gang life to settle down with her.

Two banging knocks on Misty's apartment door startled Misty and David. Jackie and Gloria stood up and Jackie nodded at her and they walked over to the door and stood on either side of it.

“Who is it?” Jackie asked in a horrible imitation of Misty's voice as he drew his pistol.

“It's Billy. Vic said he needs a hand with all the people being hurt and wants Gloria's help.” A kid's voice said. “He said he was too busy to stop working to send a message himself.”

“Drek, I forgot about checking on Victor!” Jackie said and opened the door.

The kid Veder had bought and adjusted the cyberarm for stood there, trembling a little. He looked both scared and determined as he locked eyes with Jackie, then he saw Gloria was right there and looked relieved.

“Vic said you can work out what he owes you later.” Billy said.

“Fuck that, show me the same way you came in.” Gloria said.

Billy looked down at her body and then up at her face. “You ain't gonna fit.”

“I will, though.” David said and stood.

“No, you're staying right here and...” Gloria started to argue.

“I can't do anything about wounds; but, I can kick ass with programming and troubleshooting while you and Vic focus on the hard stuff.” David said and grabbed their coats. He handed Gloria her EMT jacket and slapped Jackie's shoulder. “We'll go out the back and it's the next door. Cover us?”

“If Vic's shop wasn't in the basement of Misty's building, I'd refuse.” Jackie said with a grin. “Let's go.”

Misty hopped up and followed them, because she didn't want to sit in her apartment alone and not knowing what was happening. They went down the stairs and Jackie and David worked for a couple of minutes to unbar the thing, then Jackie covered Gloria, David, and Billy as they stepped out of the backdoor and went down the basement stairs.

There was a huge group of people waiting to enter through the same door and also stay out of sight. Most of them saw Gloria's EMT jacket and looked relieved. They let them pass without trouble and Jackie nodded at the people there and he stepped back inside the back door and spent a couple of minutes securing it again.

Misty gave him a tight hug and then took his hand and they went back up to her apartment. She whispered that they could stay in contact with David and he would let them know how everything was going. Jackie grinned at her and shut her apartment door, locked it again, and pulled her into another tight hug. This time he kissed her passionately and Misty pretty much melted into his arms.

*

It was almost funny how a normal person would become an opportunist if they knew that there were no police around to stop them from committing a crime. Even regular people, that had no disposition to become a hardened criminal or a gang member, would do things they would normally never think of doing, let alone actually do them.

Pack mentality was also a huge factor in those kinds of decisions. Once one person did something outrageous and blatantly against the law, others saw it and it gave them tacit permission to do the same or similar things. That was how a riot was born and in the places the gangs weren't having their larger clashes, that was where the riots were happening.

Cars were torched, windows were smashed, businesses were ransacked and looted, and people were assaulted and beaten when they tried to calm people down or act as a voice of reason. The lucky ones escaped with their lives an made it to their local ripperdocs, since medical services never responded.

The unlucky ones never made it out of the rioting crowds and their bodies wouldn't be found until morning, when the light of day brought some semblance of order to the chaotic night. It was almost like the people were immediately ashamed of their actions when the sunlight brought attention to them.

However, through it all, both Delamain and Atlas worked hard to keep things from boiling over. Surprisingly, the entire city was also under constant news coverage. The various news agencies had gotten word early on about things happening, thanks to some well placed informants in the gangs, and were out in force to record everything.

Delamain did his part through his constantly flowing taxi services across the entire city, through all of the war zones, and putting gang members and rioters down. Atlas was in his ship and destroyed any large concentrations of gang members and their vehicles, then making it all disappear.

The private police force Atlas Incorporated had hired were also gathering up all the unconscious people and sending them back to the warehouse to be detained. The two MaxTac teams and their upgraded military grade AVs had a great time dropping down into the middle of the various gang fights and they wiped out the combatants on both sides.

As a private police force, they no longer had to have reasonable cause to intervene or to use lethal force. It was both liberating and gave them a taste of what it was like to actually be able to do their jobs against the prevalent gang presence in Night City. Bribes and trickery, or orders from their superiors to let them go, were going to save them from justice.

If a few of the unconscious ones somehow passed away by the time they reached the warehouse's expanded jail cells, no one questioned it. The reports clearly showed they had resisted being detained and that was that. To cover their asses, they also attacked the usually long rap sheets of the now deceased prisoners. There was no such thing as too much evidence, after all.

*

Carrie and the girls were enjoying their late night VR slumber party when she received a priority message from her mother. She excused herself and dropped into a private chat to accept it.

“Sorry for interrupting, dear. I held off from contacting you until I was sure this wasn't going to blow over after a short while.” Patricia said.

“What happened?” Carrie asked.

“Arasaka Tower locked down a few hours ago and I tried to find out why. I wasn't successful.” Patricia told her. “I called in a few favors and found out what was really going on.”

Carrie's eyes widened when her mother told her about how all of the gangs in the city were in an all-out war against everyone else as the rest of the city rioted and was placed under martial law.

“What's that mean?” Carried asked.

Her mother laughed. “It means nothing, because there are no police to enforce anything.”

That sent a feeling of dread through Carrie. “What... what are we going to do?”

“Don't worry, honey. We're all safe here, thanks to the subdivision's security. I just wanted you to pass the information along to your friends, now that I know it's not stopping anytime soon.”

“Thanks, mom.” Carrie said and closed the private chat and all of her friends gave her questioning looks. She took a deep breath and told them all about what her mother said, about Arasaka Tower going into lockdown, and that the city was going crazy with gang wars and riots.

Her friends gasped and then Evelyn's avatar stopped moving. After a minute, a video feed popped up in the middle of the group and they could see several mixed feeds on the multi-split screen. “I hacked the living room's vidscreen and that's showing on all of the news channels.”

The girls all stared at the growing carnage, the blatant crimes as things were set on fire and destroyed, and even a murder happened right there on camera as a gang member was killed. None of them stopped watching, though.

It was horrible, and terrifying, and completely fascinating. One of them was even taking notes about some of the things they were seeing, as if they were going to write up a report on it, then the scene suddenly changed.

In the middle of an uncontrolled gang fight, that the newswoman was giving color commentary on, an armored AV swooped in and the sides opened up as it dropped a heavily armored and armed MaxTac team right in the middle off all the crisscrossing bullets.

The MaxTac squad didn't have an ounce of fear as they kept formation fired on everyone around them. They didn't only take down one side of the fight and shot at both of the gangs. The gang members responded in turn as both gangs switched from their previous targets and shot at the private armed force that had just appeared.

“That... that's the Atlas Incorporated logo!” Kei exclaimed and pointed. “Veder never said anything about the new company being big enough to afford its own MaxTac teams!”

The girls all leaned forward to watch as more Atlas Incorporated ground vehicles seemed to appear on every screen and well dressed company officers stepped out of their stylish rides. The rioters and smaller gangs were suddenly swamped with guns shooting red beams at them and dropped them to the ground.

To everyone's shock, especially the girls, none of the rioters were killed. Each was checked and shown that they were breathing, then a large van-like vehicle was waved into sight and the unconscious rioters were tossed in. There were no chairs and none of the people watching the news felt a lick of sorrow for them just being piled inside and the doors slammed shut.

The news commentators were going crazy with all the new information their cameras were capturing and speculating what it could mean. The gang members were put into the backs of the Atlas Inc. patrol cars and some of them were never seen again as soon as they were out of camera range.

“They're spreading out all over the city.” Carrie whispered as the feeds changed to show several camera crews following the AVs as they moved on to another area.

“How... how did it get this bad... and none of us knew about it?” Evelyn asked and looked at Carrie. “Your mother said it's been a few hours since the tower went on lockdown?”

“Yes, she said she didn't want to worry me about it if it blew over. When it didn't...” Carrie motioned with her hand at the multi-screen. “She asked me to tell the rest of you, in case this spills over into the nicer areas.”

“We're good here behind our security.” Kei said and stilled for a moment. “Dad said the staff are on alert and he's setting up the panic room, just in case.”

The other girls gave similar stories after checking with their own parents.

“Can you stay around for a while or do you need to go?” Carrie asked them and the other girls shrugged.

“We don't have anything else we need to do.” Evelyn said. “We'll get priority messages to log out if anything happens.”

Kei didn't tell them that she had tried to message Veder about everything going on and it went to his cyberdeck instead. It made her wonder where he was that he couldn't receive a personal connection and she could only leave him a message instead.

*

I sat in the back room of the Atlas Incorporated office and used a vidscreen as I monitored as much as I could of the night's events over the various taxi cameras Delamain let me tap the feeds on. Both I and the secretaries with me, admired his takedowns and how quickly he was ferrying people out of the worst combat zones. The APCs were definitely worth giving to him for how well he was using them.

Denise had been easily patched up and she kept caressing the skin that she thought was a RealSkinn application over the two holes she had in her chest. It was actually me using Panacea's power to heal her completely and I didn't enlighten her to the difference.

“It's not going to pop off.” I joked and Denise gave me a pointed look. “Look around. This is one of the best equipped ripperdoc setups you'll ever see, even at Arasaka or Biotechnica. That's how I could so easily upgrade your memory chips and software without tearing your entire skull apart.”

Denise glanced around and then nodded. Her three friends also glanced around and one focused on a stack of crates by the back door.

“I'd like to know why he has crates full of women's clothing stashed away in his back room.” One of the secretaries commented. She had chosen a nice gold colored chiffon top to replace the silk one she had donated to be a bandage for Denise's previous wounds.

“He forgot to apply for a seller's license and can't legally display anything, even if they are the height of fashion here in Night City.” I said and all four women looked at me with greedy eyes. I rolled my own eyes and waved at the opened crates. “Go ahead. They're already open and he can't sell them anyway.”

All of them squealed happily and dove for them, even Denise. They had seen a few nice things while looking for a good top to wear and now they could pilfer what they had wanted without feeling guilty about it.

To my surprise, they all stripped off right there and performed a little fashion show for themselves. They had either forgotten I was literally right there looking at them or they didn't care that I was. My bet was a mix of both, because they really got into it and occasionally glanced over to see if I was paying attention.

I definitely was and they easily noticed. They also did a few extra wiggles and bounces as they changed their clothes several times, then they traded articles of clothing and made new outfits and repeated the process. It was quite a nice time as they tried to distract themselves from what was going on in the rest of the city.

“How do I look?” Denise asked.

I turned my head and saw she wore the other secretary's gold top that was a bit too small on her and it formed around her breasts like a second skin. She also wore a very short black leather skirt, thigh high red boots, and red opera gloves with gold accents.

“Am I allowed to have gold that's not a tradeable asset on the open market?” I asked and she both blushed and laughed.

“Ooo, that was a preem line.” One of her friends whispered.

“He has been pretty charming, even with all the drek going on.” The second one whispered back.

“He's looking at us; but, he's not staring at us like a gonk that hasn't seen inputs before.” The third one whispered as well. “That's pretty rare.”

Denise walked over to me. “So, do you think I should keep this and wear it tomorrow?”

“At work?” I teasingly asked.

Denise reached over and playfully slapped my arm. “No, after work for our date.”

I looked at her face, to make sure she knew I was looking at her and not just at her body, then I slowly lowered my eyes down to her feet. “I think you should only wear it if you want me to fight off half the city to keep your attention focused on me.”

One of the women let out a soft curse and muttered about being really jealous.

Denise smiled warmly and bent over to show me the top moved with her breasts and she lightly kissed me on the lips. “Then I better pick something else out.” She said and walked back over to her friends.

They all complimented her on being so lucky and started to change clothes again.

“I wonder how long the riots are going to go on?” One of them asked as she handed Denise a more modest top and another helped her take off the high boots.

“Do you think the city can get things back in order by Monday?” Another asked. “I've got a sister coming to visit and I be home by then to see if the building's still standing.”

“Monday?” I asked and chuckled. “Atlas Incorporated will have all of it handled by the morning.”

All four women turned to stare at me with looks of disbelief on their faces.

“He's very good at cleaning things up.” I said, truthfully.