CYBERPUNK: Travel to 2075

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..ACPA..

"Who would have thought that in one of the most prosperous areas of Night City, there's a scavenger's lair? I always thought this part of the city was safe," Oliver muttered as he stepped out of the car, eyeing the high-rise apartment in front of him. He adjusted his wrist and picked up his Nova revolver.

"I never believed the official propaganda the moment I hit the street," Jack replied, holding his Saratoga submachine gun. Given his broad, muscular arms, the submachine gun seemed almost comically small, like a child using oversized chopsticks.

"Everyone has their youth," Jack added with a chuckle.

After locking the car, Oliver glanced at Karl, who was holding a Kenshin pistol. "What's the plan, Karl?"

"It's on the sixth floor, take the elevator up," Karl responded. "We've marked the intermediary's floor and room number. We're going in guns blazing. The room has professional hackers monitoring, and there are four scavengers inside. Our target's still unconscious—hasn't been his turn yet."

"Then let's move," Oliver said.

The scavengers didn't concern him. If they were capable, they wouldn't have ended up in this state. Their prosthetics and weapons were often low-quality, barely better than regular civilians'. Oliver didn't even know if their bullets would pierce his body armor. Without the tight time constraints, he could easily handle all three of them, even if they fought back.

Despite being kicked out of the Sixth Street Gang after just a week, Oliver had spent his childhood practicing marksmanship, tactics, and combat with his Sixth Street Gang "dad." He'd honed those skills over time. Even the scavengers didn't pose much of a threat. Jack and Karl, frontline fighters, would have no problem dealing with them either. The only challenge here was the time crunch. The rest of the mission was easy—driving here, going up the stairs, and rescuing the target.

"My marksmanship seems to have improved again," Oliver said, surveying the four dead scavengers. He spread his arms, facing Karl. "What do you think? Evaluate it?"

"Three headshots and one heart shot," Karl said, inspecting the scene. "Shooting time: two seconds. Accuracy's fine, but you could improve your speed."

"Alright, I'll go watch some Western movies to practice," Oliver smirked. "Don't be so serious, Karl. I never realized those movies actually help with training."

Karl just shook his head and turned to Jack, who was inspecting the target lying on a bed covered in blood and filth. "Is the target okay? Should Oliver take a look?"

"He's fine," Jack replied. "Just knocked out from the anesthesia. They might've overdone it, though. He probably won't wake up today."

After confirming the target was stable, Jack stepped aside to let Oliver handle the next steps.

Oliver walked over to the bed and observed the target. He was surprised to find a young, brown-haired male who appeared to be around seventeen or eighteen—roughly the same age as Karl.

"A kid around Karl's age," Oliver mused. "Hey, Karl, no offense, but this guy really does look young. What's his name?"

Karl, flipping through the papers, glanced at the details. "Julio. He's from Japan Street."

"Julio? Seems like a pretty common name. What's the deal? Why target someone for a kidney transplant at this age?"

Jack looked confused, but Oliver quickly checked the information and confirmed Jack's earlier guess. "He's young and doesn't have any prosthetics, so he's an easy target. Japan Street's pretty close to the city center. He was probably just wandering around and got caught."

"Hopefully, he'll learn something from this," Jack said, shaking his head.

He turned to Karl. "So what's next? Do we contact the fixer?"

"We've already contacted him," Karl replied. "The Fixer's vehicle will be downstairs soon. We'll just move Julio into the car, and our part's done."

"Sounds like serious business," Jack said. "Everything's handled by the middleman, and we just do the execution."

"Yeah, and most of the money gets split," Karl added, as he walked over to the scavenger's computer. He connected to the access bay and started reviewing the data.

While scavengers were like cockroaches in Night City—impossible to wipe out entirely—Karl always liked to check for new strongholds. It never hurt to be thorough. If nothing else, it would give them a sense of fear when they heard their names.

As he scanned through the files, something caught Karl's attention.

"Jack, Oliver, you might want to see this. I found something strange."

"Strange? What is it?" Jack asked as he and Oliver approached the screen. They peered at the images Karl displayed, trying to make sense of them.

"What is this?" Jack frowned. The pictures, taken in a dimly lit environment, were blurry, but something about them seemed off.

"Is that a large machine?" he asked.

"It's not a machine," Oliver said, already recognizing what it was. His words shocked both Jack and Karl.

"This is ACPA."

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