"Maybe I should hire you as our Aldecaldo tutor," Saul joked, glancing at Panam's darkened expression with undisguised schadenfreude.
"This is the first time I've ever seen her completely speechless."
Honestly, he was sick of constantly cleaning up after Panam's reckless messes.
She always had a reason for what she did, always believed she was right, and left the rest of them to suffer the fallout.
Arthur waved his hand lazily.
"Forget it. If I stay, she'll probably shoot me in the head before the first lecture's over."
He wasn't here to play babysitter to a bunch of stubborn wanderers.
He still had big dreams: like taking down the corporate giants of Night City — starting by poaching their workers — and liberating its people by giving them five extra minutes off work.
Call it confrontation, call it salvation.
Either way, Arthur liked the sound of it.
Scorpion snorted from the side, cracking open another warm beer.
"Honestly, we don't even know what's in the damn truck.
Maybe it's just a box of executive s*x toys Militech forgot to hide."
Arthur almost spit out his beer.
"Nice," he coughed, grinning. "But you're right. If you don't know what it is, you'd better take a look."
Soon enough, Saul led Arthur toward the group's makeshift camp.
The place was rough — dust blowing through battered tents, injured wanderers resting around weak fires, the air thick with exhaustion.
Arthur took it all in silently, his cigarette burning low between his fingers.
He turned his head, catching Panam out of the corner of his eye.
She walked stiffly, arms crossed, her face shadowed and unreadable.
She was taking all of this harder than she let on.
At the edge of camp, Saul stopped at an old transport van, pulled open the back doors, and gestured inside.
Arthur ducked in — and whistled low.
Neatly stacked were several armored crates, each stamped with a familiar, menacing logo: Militech.
"Basically everything we grabbed is here," Saul said.
"We haven't dared open 'em.
Figured if we did, we'd bring even more trouble down on our heads."
He gave one crate a sharp slap.
It made a dense, heavy thunk sound — the kind of sound that said important things were packed inside.
"Our plan was to dump them on the Night City black market.
Arasaka might even pay a premium for a little peek at their old friend's dirty laundry."
Arthur crouched beside a crate and inspected the high-end biometric locks.
He smacked his lips thoughtfully.
"Damn," he muttered.
"You guys sure know how to pick a fight.
These aren't supply crates... these are lab samples."
Arthur's mind raced.
Militech and Arasaka weren't just arms dealers.
They were megacorporations — building everything from basic consumer tech to experimental weapons, fleets of warships, full cybernetic ecosystems... hell, even synthetic pleasure models for the high-end market.
If this was coming straight from a Militech lab, it could be anything.
A prototype super-soldier serum.
An experimental virus.
Or something worse.
Arthur squinted at the lock and grumbled.
He needed help.
Without hesitation, he pulled up Lucy's number and hit call.
After two rings, her annoyed voice answered:
"Arthur.
What now?
Did you blow up another gang?"
Arthur chuckled.
"Hey, boss. Got some Militech crates here, thinking about opening them.
Can you remote hack the locks for me?"
There was a beat of silence on the other end — and then a machine-gun burst of complaints.
"Arthur! Your cyberpsychosis is REALLY not cured!
I'm serious!
First you start a gunfight with the Voodoo Gang, then you flirt with that psycho chick from the Terrorist Mobile Team — don't think I didn't hear about that —
Now you're poking around MILITECH property?
What's next? Arasaka? Biotechnica?
You want to just nuke Night City and be done with it?"
Arthur scratched his head sheepishly, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
"Geez, you say it like it's my fault," he mumbled.
"I'm just a small entrepreneur trying to survive."
Lucy groaned.
"You don't 'survive' by throwing rocks at corporate tanks, Arthur!"
Arthur smirked.
"Well...
If it's a tank made of money, maybe I'll survive just fine."
Lucy sighed long and hard, then gave in.
"Fine. Plug your personal link into the crate's terminal.
I'll see what I can do."
Arthur obeyed, pulling the thin data cable from his wrist and jacking into the crate's console.
Data flooded across his eyes — lines of code, warning alerts, corporate ICE protocols.
Lucy's digital presence cut through them like a hot knife.
In less than a minute, the heavy locks clicked open.
Arthur pulled the cable free and popped the crate open, expecting weapons, or tech, or maybe some freaky black project.
Instead...
there was another box inside.
He stared at it, deadpan.
"Arthur...
Matryoshka dolls.
They packed a f**king matryoshka box."
He heaved the smaller crate onto the ground and cracked it open, feeling Lucy's digital curiosity prickling over the line.
A whir of compressed air escaped.
Inside — documents.
Hard drives.
Data stacks.
Arthur's cigarette slipped from his mouth.
Lucy's voice came through, low and urgent:
"Arthur, this is bad.
Really bad."
Arthur's brow furrowed.
"What is it?"
"You're sitting on a full research package stolen from Biotechnica.
A new-generation antibacterial drug — already ready for human testing."
Arthur blinked.
"So... valuable?"
Lucy snorted.
"Valuable?
Militech stole it through corporate espionage.
Biotechnica's gonna want it back.
Militech's gonna want it back.
And now both sides will want you dead."
She paused — and then added grimly:
"Oh... and while I was snooping?
Militech put out a preliminary bounty.
Your face isn't in the system yet...
but it's just a matter of time."
Arthur rubbed his temples.
Today just kept getting better.
He looked around at the sleepy, wounded wanderer camp.
At Saul, still holding onto some faint hope of survival.
At Panam, sitting with her arms crossed tight, head down, stubborn and proud.
Arthur exhaled smoke through his nostrils, eyes narrowing.
"Guess we better figure out how to unload this sh*t fast," he muttered.
Before Militech — or worse — came knocking.