Oliver's chest heaved like a dying engine, his lungs burning as he scanned the carnage. Bullets had whizzed past his skull so many times he could map their paths in the air—each near-miss owed to dumb luck, not skill.
And help.
Without that mystery shooter, he'd be just another corpse leaking fluids onto Watson's piss-stained concrete.
"One survivor."
The voice cut through the haze—calm, young, utterly at odds with the slaughterhouse around them. Oliver turned to see an Asian kid who looked like he belonged in a corpo academy, not dropping Maelstrom gangers with surgical precision.
Eighteen? Nineteen tops.
In Arasaka's schools, that age meant uniforms and curfews. Even street gangs usually waited until twenty to recruit—nobody wanted some jumpy teen getting vets killed.
Oliver's trained eyes scanned the stranger's face. Chinese? Japanese? If the latter, maybe Tyger Claws—Kabukicho wasn't far, and they hated Maelstrom almost as much as they loved shaking down shopkeepers.
His thoughts short-circuited when the kid's Lexington pressed against his forehead. Cold steel kissed sweat-slick skin.
"Name."
"Oliver." No hesitation. He'd seen what this psycho could do.
"Age."
"Twenty-four. Six Street."
"Purpose here."
"Our guns got jacked. Came to ask questions. Then—" He gestured at the corpse-littered alley.
"Ah."
The stranger muttered something in a language Oliver didn't know, then extended his free hand.
"Give me."
"What?"
"Your rifle."
Oliver's mind raced. Hostage? Bargaining chip? Why waste Maelstrom if he was working with Tyger Claws—
He handed over his customized Copperhead without protest. Better unarmed than dead.
Then the kid did something inexplicable.
He started looting.
Methodically.
Carl counted silently as he worked—fourteenth pistol—stuffing weapons and blood-smeared eurobills into a soy sauce-stained plastic bag. Standard post-combat salvage. Back home, they'd call it "farming drops."
Oliver watched, unease growing, as Carl turned pockets inside out, checked behind ears, even ran fingers along boot seams. The precision reminded him of Scavs—those organ-harvesting ghouls who saw people as walking credit chips.
Except—
Carl ignored the sparking cyberware. No ripping out optics, no harvesting implants. Just cold hard cash and weapons.
Not a Scav, then.
But the way those hands moved—quick, practiced, ruthless—spoke of someone who'd done this before. Many times.
Oliver's legs moved before his brain caught up. The instant he stepped closer, Carl's Lexington snapped up, the barrel hovering between his eyes without the kid even looking.
"Problem?"
"NCPD cleanup crews'll be here soon," Oliver said, hands raised. "Might wanna vanish before they start scanning bullet trajectories."
Carl finally turned, revealing blood-crusted cheeks and a stare that made Oliver's combat implants scream. "We?" The kid wiped gore from his lashes. "I'm just a civvie who wanted lunch before your gang war ruined my appetite."
Civvie.
Right.
Because normal civilians routinely headshot Maelstrom through concrete with stock handguns. Because random noodle-shop patrons could calculate ricochet angles mid-combat like some Arasaka wetware prototype.
The sirens grew louder. Oliver made his play:
"Let me buy you dinner. As thanks." He nodded at Carl's blood-smeared face. "And maybe a washroom."
Carl eyed the bulging bag of guns and eddies.
"Vegetarian."
Of course the walking death machine eats greens.
"Sure. Saw a Chinese place two blocks over." Oliver glanced at his fallen squadmates. Their families would need notifications. The Armory would demand answers. And Maelstrom? They'd pay for this in chrome and blood.
But first—
Hospitality.
Sixth Street might be soldiers-turned-thugs, but they remembered their codes. And Oliver owed this lethal enigma a debt.