28. Ten Minutes

The Alvarado vehicles used by the mercenaries were mostly wrecked in the previous rocket attacks, but fortunately, only a few mercenaries were left who could still fight. After emergency repairs, the remaining Alvarados were somehow still able to carry the ten combat-ready mercenaries.

Taking a moment to stabilize the four severely wounded men and treat the minor injuries, Oliver climbed into a new Alvarado.

"Do you think those four will make it to a hospital in a stretcher?"

"Who knows? All we can do is pray the hospital people pick them up before the gangers and the organ harvesters arrive."

Maine looked back through the rear window at the seriously wounded men lying on a relatively stable patch of ground. "If only they had Trauma Team memberships. If they did, they'd have been picked up by an assault craft shortly after getting hurt."

[Trauma Team]: A medical corporation featuring special squads of professionals trained in combat. As long as you have the money and can afford the medical insurance, they can arrive whenever a member client is harmed, come rain or shine. Anyone attempting to stop their rescue efforts will be targeted, even if it's another Trauma Team squad.

"Forget it."

Oliver felt Maine was stating the obvious. "Even the lowest Silver membership costs ten eddies a month. Do you think mercenaries like us, who spend money as soon as we make it, have that kind of steady income to cover it?"

"That's fair too."

As the vehicle drove further away, Maine withdrew his gaze and brought up another topic. "How much pay do you think they're going to get?"

"Pay? What do you mean, for the gig?"

Carl turned his head to look at Maine, not quite understanding why Maine was asking such a pointless question. "Didn't the fixer spell out the terms of the gig clearly? We have to escort them *to* the destination. Anyone who died or got too badly injured to perform before that point gets zeroed out on the payout."

"Holy shit, I knew it."

Maine covered his forehead. "These corp rats really have it all calculated out. No wonder they were so generous; it turns out they deliberately planned on us taking casualties so they'd pay out less. I should've known that whenever a corp rat bleeds money, there's some scheming behind it."

"And the sadder part is, just like I told Oliver before we got in the vehicle, maybe some of the paying corp rats didn't intend to dock our pay, but you can't stop certain executing corp rats from developing those kinds of thoughts and wanting to pocket the cash."

As the saying goes, a sensible corp rat gives you enough money, but a less sensible one swallows that money up and expects you to face the mercenaries with an attitude that you should just understand how things are.

"Damn, the more I think about it, the more I feel like this gig sucks. It's so frustrating."

Maine probably mostly took street jobs before, so he really wasn't very clear on how corporate gigs worked, but after this time, he probably wouldn't ever want to be clear on them again.

"Right? Just thinking about it makes my blood pressure spike. If the pay isn't enough, it's hard to get things done."

As Carl spoke, he noticed that the Arasaka vehicles had slowed down and were now clearing a path for the mercenaries' vehicles. Judging by their intentions...

"Hell, are they planning to make us clear the mines again? When they need us, they send us off to die; when they don't, they tell us to get lost, and when a fight breaks out, you can't even see their shadows!"

Jack's temper flared right up. Putting your life on the line for a three-hundred-thousand payout was one thing—he had already made peace with that—but why did the employers have to make things so aggravating? He was starting to seriously consider whether he even wanted this money.

"They've got our sunk costs all figured out, haven't they?"

Carl said, "Seeing that we've already invested so much, they figure we'll just grit our teeth and keep working for that money, so they use us without any restraint. After all, if we bail now, the people who died would have died for nothing."

"Aren't they afraid we'll actually quit, or turn on them?"

"That's why they're betting we don't have the guts."

At this, even Jack began swearing oaths. "If I ever take another Arasaka job again, I'm a complete idiot."

At least Militech still had some lingering goodwill from Blanca's decent gig, so that could be spared for now.

"I have to hand it to Blanca; that corp rat actually has some conscience."

Oliver remarked, "There's really no comparison without a baseline."

"I can actually tell you a corp rat joke right now: Arasaka works six to two—working from six today until two tomorrow, twenty hours a day—and yet the corp rats still find spare time to scheme against us mercenaries for our hard-earned cash."

Carl chuckled. "To hell with it. You join a corporation and instantly learn how to exploit people without even needing a teacher, huh?"

"Learn it instantly, my foot."

Jack was amused by Carl's phrasing, though to be precise, it was more like being angry enough to laugh.

While the few of them were chatting casually, the Alvarado drove automatically, passing through the Arasaka security convoy that had cleared the way.

As they took the lead again in the drive forward, the car doors beside each of them were unlocked and unlatched, ensuring they could bail and escape at a moment's notice. The impression left by the previous rocket-propelled grenade greeting was far too deep; they would probably keep this 'good' habit up forever from now on.

However, the subsequent journey somewhat exceeded Carl and the others' expectations. The road was quite peaceful, and they made it all the way out of the Northern Industrial District of Watson without encountering any more enemies.

Had the attackers deployed all their forces, failed the assault, and retreated?

Carl desperately wanted to comfort himself with that thought, but he noticed a strange detail.

The Northern Industrial District of Watson was Maelstrom territory. Logically speaking, they should have seen at least a few Maelstrom members by the roadside. But from entering to leaving—having kept a close eye on the outside ever since the rocket attack—Carl had not once caught sight of those iconic red cyberware optics.

"The sea before a storm is always calm and waveless."

The closer they got to California Avenue, where the target destination, Konpeki Plaza, was located, the more silent the atmosphere inside the vehicle became. All four of them felt the oppressive tension of a storm about to break.

When the towering structure of Konpeki Plaza finally came into view, piercing the sky, Jack suddenly broke the silence and asked Carl a question: "How much time is left?"

Carl knew what Jack wanted to say, and he knew why Jack was asking even though he already knew the answer.

"An hour and ten minutes."

Another hour and ten minutes?

No.

Jack looked at Konpeki Plaza, which was only about a ten-minute drive away.

Only ten minutes were left.