Prepping for a Maelstrom raid required two non-negotiables: enough ammo to drown a small army, and forcing Jackie into something resembling armor before he waltzed into a firefight dressed like a Valentino joytoy on clearance night. The man's jacket flapped open like a welcome mat for bullets, and Oliver looked ready to strangle him with the straps of the Kevlar vest he was refusing to wear.
"Let me get this fucking straight," Oliver hissed, slamming a Militech tactical rig onto the counter hard enough to rattle the display case of subdermal armor ads. The holos flickered, casting jagged red light over Jackie's unrepentant grin. "You've been running jobs in Heywood with your actual ribcage just... out there? Like some back-alley stripper begging to catch a round?"
Carl leaned against a rack of shotgun shells, thumbing the edge of a ketchup packet he'd swiped from Jackie's infamous jacket lining—2055 expiration date be damned. "Even in a braindance glitch, this'd be stupid. But you? You're out here rawdogging Night City with the survival instincts of a scav who mainlined drain cleaner."
Jackie just shrugged, adjusting the gold-plated Saints dangling from his neck like they'd stop bullets through divine intervention. "Ay, tranquilo, chooms! Was savin' up for proper subcutaneous plating. Skip the cheap shit, go straight to Arasaka-grade."
Oliver's ocular implant did a full diagnostic zoom on Jackie's bare sternum, where a faded Valentino ink job coiled over unmodified flesh. "You don't even have trauma tape under that shit!"
Carl lobbed the mid-tier vest at Jackie's chest. It hit with a thwack that'd leave a bruise on a normal human. "Wear it or I'll staple it to you with your own ketchup packets."
The ballistic weave was bargain-bin—wouldn't stop a sniper round or a particularly motivated kitchen knife, but it'd keep a Lexington slug from turning his lungs into a colander. Not that Carl planned to test that theory. His own Lexington sat snug in its holster, grip worn smooth by dead men's sweat and his own stubborn refusal to upgrade.
Jackie eyed it like a disappointed abuela. "KK, hermano, even NCPD rookies toss those pea-shooters. Won't scratch Maelstrom's chrome."
Carl thumbed the safety, smirking as the click echoed off the gun shop's reinforced walls. "Lucky I aim for the gaps, then." He nodded at the Copperhead in the trunk. "And if I need to crack armor? That's what the rifle's for."
Oliver muttered something about "suicidal dumbasses" as they loaded up—standard 9mm for Carl, .45 ACP for Jackie, and enough rifle rounds to make a Militech quartermaster sweat.
Then came the real test of their mercenary credentials: fitting three grown killers into Oliver's two-seater Quartz.
The car's suspension screamed in protest as they piled in. Oliver wedged himself behind the wheel, his knees already pressing against the dash. Carl took shotgun, his elbow jamming against the door panel with every pothole. And Jackie—somehow—folded himself into what passed for a backseat, a glorified storage shelf with delusions of grandeur.
"Christ, Jackie," Oliver snapped, twisting the ignition. The engine coughed like a TB patient. "Did you get bigger since we left?"
Jackie grinned, adjusting his position and accidentally kneeing Carl in the kidney. "Nah, choom. Car got smaller."
Carl grunted as another pothole sent Jackie's elbow into his ribs. "Next time, we're taking the bus."
"Could've walked," Oliver muttered, swerving around a crater in the road. The Quartz's frame groaned like an old man's spine. "Would've been faster. And less likely to collapse under the weight of your ego."
Jackie just laughed, cracking open another ancient ketchup packet with his teeth. The congealed red glop inside smelled like regret and high-fructose betrayal. "Mierda, chooms. You act like you've never done a three-man stack in a two-seater before."
Carl watched a glob of the ancient condiment dangle from Jackie's incisor like radioactive blood. "Tomatoes have less protein than a Maelstrom's moral compass." He flicked the remaining packet at Jackie's forehead, where it stuck like a pathetic urban parasite. "That's just sugar and food dye pretending to be nutrients."
Oliver made a noise like a strangled Scav. "Between your dietary crimes—" he jabbed a finger at Carl a pro-vege eater, "—his fashion felonies—" a jab at Jackie's still-unbuttoned vest, "—and the fact that I can feel your knee in my fucking spine, I'm gonna flatline from secondhand stupidity before Maelstrom gets a shot off."
The tension broke as Jackie peeled the packet off his face and solemnly tucked it back into his jacket's lining with the reverence of a monk preserving sacred texts. "Emergency rations, hermano. Never know when you'll need that extra... what'd you call it, KK? 'Food-adjacent substance'?"
The Quartz lurched forward, its undercarriage scraping against the ruined pavement. Somewhere beneath them, something made a sound that definitely wasn't factory standard.
Oliver's eye twitched. "That's it. Next gig, we're stealing a fucking van."
Carl smirked, watching the industrial zone's corpse-lights flicker past. "Or you could just admit your sister's taste in cars is shit."
Oliver's grip on the wheel tightened. "Say that again and I'll make you walk."
Watson's industrial zone unfolded outside the windshield like a corpse mid-autopsy. Rusted factories hunched under flickering hazard lights, their skeletal remains gutted by automation and corporate neglect.
Decades ago, these assembly lines had pumped out enough steel to drown a city. Now? A hive of wage slaves working 17-hour shifts to keep the machines fed, their spines permanently bent under the weight of corpo gratitude.
Carl watched a group of factory drones shuffle past, their coveralls stained with synth-grease and despair. "Thank you for the opportunity," their hollow eyes said, even as their kids scavenged for protein paste in the stacks.
"Maelstrom recruits here," he mused, rolling down the window to let in the stink of burning CHOOH2 and ozone. "Can't blame 'em. At least when a ganger dies, it's quick. These folks? They rot slow."
Oliver's grip tightened on the wheel, his knuckles bleaching white under the neon glare of a Tsunami Arms billboard. "Sixth Street used to fight for them. Before we became just another protection racket with a flag fetish."
The nav system chimed, slicing through the tension. "Destination: 50 meters."
Carl racked his Copperhead's slide. The sound was a promise written in gun oil and impending violence.
Jackie cracked his neck, the gold Saints glinting. "So. We kicking in the door or what?"
Oliver checked his Nova's cylinder, the .45 rounds gleaming like tombstones. "I vote stealth."
Carl ejected his mag, counted rounds, slammed it home. "I vote fire."
Somewhere inside the warehouse, a Maelstrom junkie cackled like a broken synth, his voice glitching between organic and artificial.
Carl smiled, sharp as the knife in his boot.
This? This was gonna be fun.