Kai was in the restroom trying to work through the frustration building inside him when Jackie's call came in unexpectedly.
He steadied his tone and answered.
"Hey, Kai. How'd things go at the border? You finish the job?"
Just hearing his old choom's voice eased a good part of the bitterness in Kai's chest.
It even left him enough room to crack a lousy joke.
"Not great. Got yanked back by my superiors out of nowhere, and the border job got cut short. You probably won't believe this, but some bitch swooped in and stole my win. Heh..."
"What?! You're already back in Night City? But what do you mean the job got cut short? You nearly got yourself killed over that thing!"
Kai's voice turned mocking.
"Wouldn't be the first time. The corp's just one giant whorehouse. One day they're negotiating your price, and the next they're selling you off to scavvers to have your kidneys carved out. Hell, they might even feel sentimental during the transplant. Look at that, this kidney used to work with me. Guess we're meant to be."
Jackie sighed helplessly.
"You're gonna die doing this job one day. So what the hell happened?"
Kai noticed someone else walk into the restroom. The man washed his hands, then just stood there in front of the mirror fixing his hair instead of leaving.
Kai drove him off without hesitation.
Then he turned his attention back to Jackie.
"I need to find something. And I need you to help me check on a few things."
"What are you looking for?"
Kai lowered his voice.
"You know about the cyberpsycho attack in the corporate plaza last night?"
"Of course I know. The whole city's been blowing up over it on the news. Don't tell me the thing you're after has something to do with that cyberpsycho."
"You guessed right. I need to find the operating system implant that cyberpsycho was using. A Sandevistan."
Jackie let out a low whistle.
"That's worth a lot. After MaxTac put the cyberpsycho down, shouldn't the body have been handled by NCPD?"
"It was. But the Sandevistan is gone."
"Now that's a problem."
"Which is why I need you to ask around with your contacts in NCPD. I want to know who handled the cyberpsycho's body. I think somebody tampered with it before it ever made it to Central."
"Contacts? I've been hauled into the station enough times, sure, but most of the people I used to know there already got out."
Kai reminded him,
"I'm not talking about your lockup buddies. You remember Stints? Same as you, Heywood-born, former military."
Back in his previous life, after getting fired from Arasaka, Kai had gone with Jackie to the Afterlife in the Glen to steal a car. By pure chance, they had run into a street punk girl named V trying to steal the same ride.
NCPD caught all three of them in the act.
The owner, some rich bastard living his best life, had wanted their legs broken and their bodies dumped in the ocean for the sharks.
In the end, it was Inspector Stints from NCPD who let them go.
Stints knew Mama Welles, and he was plenty familiar with Jackie, who spent enough time getting dragged into the station.
More importantly, the district under Stints's watch happened to include the corporate plaza and the Glen.
Since the cyberpsycho had hit NCPD in the corporate plaza last night, Stints had to be sitting on the most detailed intel available.
With that reminder, Jackie quickly remembered who Kai meant.
"Oh, that guy. Right. Me and him don't exactly get along. Every time I got dragged in, Stints always made sure to give me a hard time. But if you're asking, choom, then I'll go talk to him. Worst case, I buy him a couple drinks at El Coyote Cojo."
Kai laughed helplessly.
"We're gonna need his goodwill sooner or later anyway. Hell, hand him a VIP card and let him drink on us every day, we'd still come out ahead."
Jackie laughed.
"Hah, you really know how to joke. Fine, leave it with me. I'll call you when I've got something."
The call ended.
Kai turned and left the restroom, heading for his office as deputy director.
After clearing identity verification and passing through the electronic security gate, he stepped into his office and sat down at his desk.
He swept his eyes across the room.
A reception sofa, tea cabinet, file cabinets, all the standard furnishings were there. On the desk sat one main display flanked by two secondary monitors.
The office was not especially large, but having a private office inside Arasaka Tower already meant you were no longer some bottom-tier corpo rat.
You were a mid-to-upper-tier corpo rat now.
Kai checked the placement of smaller items too, magazines, laser pointers, the usual little things.
Everything was exactly where it had been before he left.
No signs anyone had touched anything.
Then he called in his direct subordinate, Carter.
Not long after, a middle-aged man with an honest, almost simple-looking face entered the office. His manner was extremely respectful, almost timid, with a trace of ingratiation.
Kai had always had a bad temper in Counterintel.
That was not only because he looked down on corpo rats, but because he knew very well that the bastard standing in front of him was the same one who would sell him out in the future.
The comm unit over Kai's left eye immediately scanned and displayed Carter's basic information.
[Employee Name: Carter Smith]
[Employee ID: IW3918]
[Employee Grade: G4]
[Department Position: Deputy Team Lead, Counterintel]
[Personal Background: Unmarried, sole caretaker of his mother, Mary Smith]
Kai looked at Carter in silence, one finger tapping lightly against the desk.
He noticed Carter's expression gradually becoming more and more strange, more nervous by the second.
Kai weighed whether the man had already secretly thrown in with Susan.
After all, the title of Director of Special Ops carried a lot of persuasive force, especially for a spineless corpo rat like this one.
If Carter had already defected in secret, then Kai could use this little rat to feed some very useful lies to Susan.
Kai asked casually, "Give me a summary of your recent work."
As Carter's superior, there were countless ways he could deal with him.
At once, Carter's whole body tensed.
He opened his mouth to answer, but only managed to stammer and stumble over himself.
In the end, all the air seemed to go out of him, like a balloon collapsing the moment it had been inflated.
Watching him stand there with his head lowered and his brows meekly drawn, Kai asked in a tone of idle amusement,
"I've heard you've been having some private contact with people in Special Ops lately. What, thinking of jumping ship?"
The casual question scared Carter badly enough that he immediately started apologizing and explaining himself.
"No, no, nothing like that. I know a few people in Special Ops from before. It's only personal contact, nothing related to work."
To Kai, Carter's guilty look only confirmed the signs of betrayal.
Anyone in Counterintel knew how dangerous information could be.
Once the details of a scheme leaked out, what followed was total destruction.
Kai tossed a chip onto the desk in front of him and said, in a tone that sounded casual but was anything but,
"There are no walls in this world that don't leak. I want you to check the black market right now and see whether anything matching the contents of that chip is being traded. I want results in thirty minutes."
Carter hurriedly picked up the chip, wiped it clean, and nodded in frantic agreement.
Kai flicked a hand, dismissing him from the office.
Then he turned on his computer and began pulling up the intelligence related to yesterday's cyberpsycho incident.
He had no expectation that Carter would actually find anything useful.
The point was to test how deep Carter's connection to Susan ran.
At the same time, Kai was setting a cage and waiting for Susan, that bitch, to crawl right into it.
"I know exactly who's friend and who's enemy."
(End of Chapter)
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