25. Exoskeletons and Cat Spirits

"What just happened?"

The gunshots echoing from downstairs naturally alerted the attackers on the fifth floor. They were at least competent enough to distinguish between gunfire from the ground floor and the lower levels.

"Did someone sneak up?"

"How is that possible? The mines and motion sensors on floors one through three weren't triggered!"

"Three's vital signs are gone. Someone is downstairs!"

"Move to the stairs, fast!"

There were three attackers remaining on the upper floor. Aside from the empty rocket launchers resting beside them, each wielded a Shingen smart submachine gun. They had been thoroughly enjoying laying down suppressing fire against the desperate, scrambling mercenaries below, never expecting someone to slip right up beside them.

"Suspend the attack on the mercenaries. Take care of whoever just sneaked up first!"

Just as the attackers prepared to move, the floor beneath their feet suddenly bulged upward, and a shockwave of an explosion swept through them from bottom to top.

After the shots rang out, it took the attackers one full second to assess the source of the gunfire, another second to confirm the death of number three on the fourth floor, and two more seconds to make the decision to head for the stairs and deal with the intruder. They had wasted a full four seconds—and four seconds was more than enough time for Karl to accomplish a great deal.

For instance, using monowire to shatter a lampshade, pulling the pin from a grenade, and tossing it straight into the overhead light fixture.

Courtesy demands reciprocity. You met my kindness with a rocket-propelled grenade, so I shall repay you with a mere fragmentation grenade.

Karl felt he was being truly virtuous.

Amidst the explosive flames spreading across the fifth floor, two of the attackers were killed instantly—an outcome even Karl, upon rushing to the fifth floor, hadn't quite anticipated.

"Standing too close together? Live together, die together."

Seeing the sole surviving attacker writhing on the floor, his right arm blown off and his Shingen submachine gun nowhere in sight, Karl raised the Shingen he had just picked up. He needed to ensure the enemy had no remaining capacity for a counterattack in this state.

"Only three of them? Fewer than I expected."

A gunshot rang out, and the last attacker on this floor drifted off into a heavy "sleep."

"Oliver, they've all gone to sleep."

Maintaining squad comms, Karl delivered the good news to Oliver, Jack, and the others the moment he cleared the floor.

"We're currently using vehicles and buildings as cover to exchange fire with them, Karl. On the third floor of the apartment building directly across from you, there's a sniper. He's already used a Nekomata to pop three heads off. Any way you can take care of him?"

"A Nekomata sniper rifle?"

[Tsunami Nekomata]: A precision-engineered sniper rifle. Though it requires frequent maintenance, its tungsten-nail rounds are capable of penetrating the thickest armor and walls, shattering titanium-alloy skeletons into dust. No one can rest easy against its raw power. Due to its extreme lethality, sales of this rifle are heavily regulated; unless you're on the payroll of a major corporation or the government, ordinary mercenaries finding one is next to impossible.

In other words, anyone who could get their hands on this rifle was almost certainly a corporate stooge or government operative.

Karl thought back to the expensive Shingen smart weapons and the RPG bombardment. These attackers were making a mountain out of a molehill.

With firepower like that, why didn't you wait until we mercenaries engaged the high-end corporate security before using it on us?

Or perhaps... the corporate security was meant for someone else, and dealing with mere mercenaries like them was all you were budgeted for?

Lost in thought, Karl walked over to the blown-out balcony of the apartment and looked across to the third floor of the opposite building. Sure enough, there stood a sniper draped in a cloak, holding a Nekomata sniper rifle, cybernetic eyes glowing red as they continually locked onto the mercenaries below.

They always say a sniper should fire and relocate. Why wasn't this guy moving?

Even as Karl wondered this, he watched a mercenary below fire a round that struck the sniper dead-on, only for the bullet to bounce harmlessly off the sniper's "body."

"That's not right. That thing is..."

Through a bullet hole in the cloak, Karl caught a glimpse of what lay beneath. Judging by the pitted, metallic-sheened surface of the "body," that gear was none other than an exoskeleton combat suit.

Karl had once seen exoskeleton garments in a clothing store in northern Watson, but those models were exorbitantly expensive, offered mediocre protection, and required additional neural-ware links to even function. They were completely incomparable to the combat exoskeleton worn by the sniper before him.

Military-surplus gear, nine times out of ten.

Damn it. Even if every mercenary knew this was a suicide run, did it have to be *this* lethal?

Just as Karl was debating whether to toss a grenade across the gap, a mercenary below had the exact same idea. Unclipping a grenade from his belt, he dashed out from cover and hurled it toward the sniper's position. The very next instant, that courageous act reduced him into a headless torso, his upper body vanishing in a spray of blood.

The grenade, upon which the mercenary had pinned his dying hopes, was scanned mid-air by the sniper's optics. The sniper raised his barrel and detonated it in flight.

The moment the rifle lifted, the sniper's gaze shifted upward as well. Red lights flashed, and he locked onto Karl.

"Hell!"

Without a second of hesitation, Karl threw himself into a backward roll. The exact spot where he had been standing a moment before was shattered by a massive kinetic shockwave. A stone balcony, two meters long and one meter wide, proved utterly fragile against the Nekomata's rounds. When the bullet passed, its structural integrity vanished entirely, leaving only a cascade of shattered rock hurtling down toward the street below.

The round hadn't merely obliterated the balcony; its sheer penetration carried it straight through the fifth-floor ceiling of the apartment building. Rolling to a stop, Karl looked up and could see the heavily light-polluted sky of Night City directly through the gaping hole blasted overhead.

"Oliver, that sniper has an exoskeleton—a military-grade exoskeleton!"

"What? Military-grade? I knew this gig was a death trap."

Oliver sounded like he was in the thick of a firefight himself. After cursing, Jack's voice crackled over the comms: "Karl, since it's a military-grade exoskeleton, prioritize your own safety first. Mane, Oliver, and I are creeping up toward that apartment now and will be there in a minute. We'll take him out then. Just stay upstairs and provide cover fire."

"There are mines and motion sensors on the stairs. It won't be easy to push up... Plus, Jack, your subdermal armor won't stop that sniper rifle."

Karl tucked the Shingen submachine gun back into his belt and drew the Kenshin.

"Let me try first. He took a shot at me before I even fired a single round, and I just can't swallow this anger."

"What are you planning to do, Karl?"

Jack caught the ominous tone in Karl's voice.

"Planning a Western-style duel."

If getting hit meant death, then as long as you didn't get hit, it wouldn't matter.

How hard could it be? It's just a flawless run.

Karl leaped down through the broken floors until he reached the third. Listening closely to the gunfire, the moment he heard the distinctive report of the Nekomata ring out once more, he made his move.

An act of sheer audacity.

With a single shot from his Kenshin, he shattered the remaining obstruction on the third-floor balcony and broke into a dead sprint.

Amidst a shower of flying stone fragments, Karl's boots slammed against the edge of the balcony, and he launched himself into the air.

"Hello."

Mid-air, the pistol Karl raised beat the sniper's Nekomata to the draw.