We delivered our ultimatum early in the morning of the fifth day of my break.
I spent an hour, as the sun was rising, recording the message, which explained the situation and set midnight as the last chance for them to surrender. I did my best not to come off as threatening, instead explaining the facts and what my overall goal was, but at the end of the day, I was actually delivering a threat, so that could only go so far. I explained the benefits, the drawbacks, laying it all out, before finally telling them that this was their last chance, and to agree to my terms.
We then sent that message out on small tablets, carried by dozens of service robots, hand-delivering them to the majority of each gang's leadership. With our dealings with Gustavo, I was hopeful that the Valentinos would react favorably, but I doubted the robots would survive even approaching 6th Street.
If the gangs didn't respond by midnight, Mary would spread the information around to their underlings, confirming that everyone got to make their choice, not just their greedy bosses. They would have a single day to distance themselves from the gangs before we tore them down.
Of course, that wasn't an option for anyone responsible for anything horrific, like human trafficking or predatory drug sales, especially to kids. They would be on the list whether they stuck by the gang or not.
I also sent a copy of the message discreetly to Drake, via the stealth Spartans we already had escorting her around. She had responded with confirmation that she was working on preparing her own coup. She would reach out when they were ready to begin, which was likely to be a few more days, after we finished crushing the gangs.
"We are getting closer and closer," Sable said, as we watched the feeds of the service robots as they delivered their messages. "We've come a long way since dusty meetings in the old BD Shack. You ready?"
"I think so," I said with a nod. "In all likelihood, things are only going to really pick up once we take over Night City."
"And the situation in space?"
"Samwise said he is making good progress with that," I confirmed with a nod. "Just a few more days, and he should have the final deterrents finished and in place, and he already has the largest threats under watch. If any of the corporations try to melt us off the planet, we will be able to stop them."
The data Samwise was feeding me as he explored the orbit around Earth would be a lot more worrying if he wasn't also consistently assuring me that he was handling it. Our initial scans of the objects floating around Earth by our system-wide sensor net had, unfortunately, missed a good portion of the threats aimed at Earth. The big ones, mostly the nuclear weapons and the mass drivers, were usually pretty obvious, one because of the radiation and the other because of its size. A handful of other weapons had been picked up easily as well. Unfortunately, there were hundreds of smaller weapons, things that could take out a large building or small town, rather than a whole city.
Sam was pretty sure he had even found a few biological weapons ready and waiting, with gases stored in missiles designed to disperse them over population centers.
"That's good, I'll sleep a bit better knowing they can't just drop rocks on us from space," She admitted with a frown. "So, what's next for now?"
"Now we wait," I said with a frown. "Wait and prepare. The gang leaders have a day, and then the minions have a day after that. Then it's party time."
We watched for a few more minutes as most of the Valentinos accepted the message, while, true to my prediction, most of the robots sent to the 6th Street were destroyed long before they could reach their intended recipients. Mary confirmed that at least four of the messages were received properly, even if their messengers were destroyed.
Satisfied that the leadership had received its final warning, Sable and I left the security hub behind after thanking Mary and Murtaugh for their hard work. We decided to have lunch in one of the parks, grabbing some burgers from a vendor and eating them on a picnic table. The parks around Rocky Ridge were still being marveled at by the civilians, but by now, it was starting to become a bit more normal.
"How long until the second batch of factories is complete?" I asked, watching an honest-to-god father-and-son game of catch going on farther into the park.
"Noah is doing the final checks later today," Sable explained, dipping one of her fries in ketchup. "Mary and I already have the next batch hired and ready to move in."
"We are going to need more space for the next batch after this," I pointed out. "You'll need to slow down expansion until we can finish converting the Campground into a few apartment buildings."
"So… the city is ours," Sable said, speaking hypothetically. "What's next? Not long-term, but immediately."
"We start hardening the city," I explained. "Samwise's project will keep us protected from space threats, and we still need to reach out to the Highriders, but hardening the city is priority one. I know Noah has started designing defenses, and we have weapons ready to turn this city into a safe place from ground-based threats."
"You think you will have time to do that?"
"Honestly? No," I said with a frown. "Like I told Drake, I expect the big names to try and kill me long before that. When that happens, we will melt whoever did it, assuming we can figure it out."
"Mary will help with that."
"Hopefully, but we did sort of tip our hand with Arasaka," I admitted. "I don't regret it, I'm reasonably certain smacking them down after they attacked you is why nobody else has tried yet. But we did show off that their systems are basically jokes to us. If they start making deals off the books, with air gaps, that's a problem."
My golden-eyed girlfriend nodded before taking a bite of her burger. For a few minutes, we ate in happy silence before she spoke up again.
"What about Dog Town?" she said. "There is a lot going on there."
"I think… I think we will tackle that after we have claimed the rest of the city, including booting out the megacorps," I said after a minute of thinking. "I'll lay the law out for Kurt Hansen, demand he toe the line, and when he doesn't, we will crush him like the rest of the gangs."
"Easier said than done."
"Of course, but well within our capabilities," I responded with a shrug. "Mary is already sniffing around the area, and she seems pretty confident that with the doors open, the vast majority of people will flock to the actual city, especially once we start retrofitting Pacifica and the rest of the city to be livable by our standards. Even if we do it over time, we will be able to clear out the area and start to rebuild."
"How long do you think that will take?"
"Too long," I admitted. "Dog Town is likely going to be an ongoing project, even after we are forced to crush the opposition there. We will probably just encapsulate it in our defenses and let the repair and construction teams work their way slowly through as we deal with other things."
When we finished our lunch, Sable and I went our separate ways. I went down to the lab to work on a few things, mostly a few new designs for our future projects, while Sable headed off to Apollo Tower. She and Mary had started collating hiring lists for various positions and were preparing to start actual interviews. Many of these interviews would be with people not from Night City, which posed several problems, though it was ultimately necessary.
So far, to the rest of the world, we were very much a Night City problem. In fact, according to Mary's data, while our rapid production and construction time made headlines, the story was quickly brushed aside in the civilian world, whether due to public disinterest or by order of someone in control I didn't know. The issue was that it was very much not the case for businesses and governments. They were monitoring us closely, and while sneaking around them was child's play in most situations, if we started showing up on doorsteps looking to recruit people, word was going to get out that we were sticking our noses outside the city limits.
It wasn't hard to imagine a lot of people, particularly the NUSA, having big issues with that concept. Unfortunately, despite the risk of gaining considerably more hostile attention, we needed people. We needed people to work with Sable for our growing businesses, we needed staff for the hospital, we needed staff for the dozens of apartments and businesses we were building, and we needed people to help us run the city once we controlled it.
I even wanted engineers and scientists with open minds to work directly with me. We needed more people than just Samwise and me to put the massive catalog of technology I had gathered to work. It would be a hell of a project to basically teach it all to them, but once I did, they would be able to help take what I was learning and carry it forward into the future. I had no doubt that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of small advancements we could make just by combining our tech and knowledge together in new and interesting ways.
I could do it. In fact, I frequently did do it, but I was only one person. Samwise was basically a genius when it came to combining and updating tech, but as an AI pure creativity would always be a struggle for him. I wanted whole teams of engineers working together on new concepts, making leaps of logic to combine dumb little bits of SCIENCE from the Fallout universe to the weird tech of Detroit: Become Human, or any other combination.
It was about three in the afternoon when Gustavo reached out to us, asking if he and a few of the leaders of the Valentinos could come meet with us at Rocky Ridge. I immediately agreed, telling him we would be happy to host a meeting. He also thanked me for helping his girlfriend. Apparently, she was stronger than we had hoped, as she was already conscious. She was still clearly recovering, so there was no way of knowing how deeply she was affected yet, but Gus was certain she would recover further.
It only took an hour for them to arrive, a smaller group of individuals than we had met before, as it seemed that Gus had been serious about bumping off the dumbass who had challenged me during our first meeting. Further, Campo Orta would be unable to attend, as he had used up too many favors to get a video connection for the previous meeting.
Gus did assure me that they had discussed everything at length, however, and he was on board.
We sat down in our meeting hall, in a clean and comfortable room overlooking Rocky Ridge. I could have taken the head of the table, which would have had me sitting with the rather impressive view behind me, as a not-so-subtle show of power. Unfortunately, that was not the message I was trying to send, so instead I had the head chairs removed, leaving Jackie, Gloria, Sable, Kaytlyn, and me sitting on one side, the gang leaders on the other.
"I think we can dispense with the dramatics," Gus said, leaning forward in his seat. "It was not unanimous, but we have decided to agree to your terms. A reorganizing and decriminalizing of the Valentinos, and in exchange, you will fund all of our efforts to help the people."
Volunteering to come here to talk had pretty much already revealed that they had chosen to work with us, but hearing them say that was a relief. I let out a long breath, leaning back with a smile.
"That is fantastic to hear," I said. "Honestly, guys. I promise you that you won't regret this."
"We are concerned about 6th Street," one of the other leaders said, Gus nodding in agreement. "If we start shrinking our less-than-legal businesses, they may get the idea that now is a good time to strike."
"Just focus on decriminalizing for now," I said confidently. "I will have Spartans on patrol by the end of the hour, working with your neighborhood enforcers to keep the peace and keep 6th Street from getting any stupid ideas. And by the looks of it, you won't have to worry about them for very long."
"You're going to wipe them out?" Gus asked, eyebrow raised. "When the deadline arrives?"
"At midnight tonight, our netrunners will be spreading out several recordings and the ultimatum to every member of the gang they can reach, which I assure you is a significant amount. They will have one day to meaningfully separate themselves from the gang. Anyone who doesn't will be considered an acceptable target. Now, it will not be a full slaughter like we did with Maelstrom or the gangs, nor will it be quite the bloodbath that the Tyger Claws were. But at midnight tomorrow, the 6th Street gang will cease to exist."
"For anyone else, I would question your certainty, but… Past actions are proof enough," Gus admitted, playing his part very well.
When we were done metaphorically and literally shaking hands on the general agreement, we settled in to talk about the nitty-gritty details, starting with the handover of any of the harder drugs they sold. I was under no illusion that people would always find a way to get high, but by cutting out the hard, life-ruining drugs and making sure that the safer drugs were clean and appropriately priced, we could hopefully shift the paradigm for the Night City drug scene.
I even considered using our medical knowledge to develop a few drugs that were as safe and non-habit forming, but I wanted to do some more considering and more research before voicing that option to the group.
I also appointed Jackie as their liaison. He would work with them to shift their organization into something legitimate, focused on community outreach, protection, and organizing the community to make sure everyone has a voice.
The fact that most of the leaders would be retaining their positions of power and that I would be paying them handsomely for organizing the shift went a long way toward keeping them happy and eager. They would likely lose a lot of members pretty quickly when they realized they couldn't be gangsters anymore, but when they started doing things like building churches and cleaning parks, their numbers would grow as they hired regular people to do the work.
This would hopefully keep them happy while also slowly converting their group into what was likely going to become a construction group. In fact, with how much clean up and space there was for parks, we would likely have quite a few people working to tend things like the gardens we had at Rocky Ridge or between the Gemini Towers.
It was in the latter third of the meeting when I realized what I had just done. After a minute of considering my options, I decided to keep the thought that I had just accidentally made the Hispanic gang into landscapers and laborers to myself. I would have to make sure there were plenty of opportunities for advancement and benefits. I was already considering founding a Night City university, and offering free higher education to people who had worked with me sounded like a good plan.
Shaking my obliviousness off, we enjoyed a meal with our new official associates, before they went off to get started on their tasks. I shook hands with all of them, seeing them off before heading back to my workshop, working on projects until it was eleven thirty, which was when Mary stopped by to wake me up from my focus. I had expressed interest in being in the security room when they sent out the information to all 6th Street members, so I needed to make my way there.
Mary was actively monitoring a sizable portion of the gang, and I was interested to see just what portion of the gang would react as we hopped to the message.
I was just about to cross one of our several teleporter hubs when Kaytlyn called out to me, having just stepped out of the teleporter adjacent to mine.
"Hey, Jackson," she said, her tone carrying a hint of defeat in it, not something I was used to hearing from the usually confident woman. "You got a minute?"
"I got like twenty," I responded, tapping on the teleporter, but sending it to Rocky Ridge rather than directly to the security room, so we would have a bit more privacy. "What's on your mind?"
She was quiet for a moment, clearly trying to organize her thoughts as well as find a way to put her feelings into words. We stepped through the teleporter in the garage, a mostly empty space that people rarely went into. I sat on the hood of one of our many vehicles, watching her as she formulated her words.
"I'm not doing anything," She finally said with a frown. "You keep paying me, and I keep benefiting from all the crazy shit you invent, but I'm sitting here with my thumb up my ass. I mean, you gave me my arm back, something I didn't even know I was missing until I was all meat again, and I'm sitting around like a corpo housewife, wondering when Riggs is gonna be free from guarding your ass."
As she talked, her frustration slowly leaked out more and more, until she finally thumped the car beside my current seat. What would have been a normal tap put a dent in the side panel with her current loadout of enhancements.
"You're frustrated that you don't have anything to do?" I asked. "You seemed happy that we weren't going on missions anymore."
"Yes! No… maybe?" She said, wincing at her contradictory response. "I like not having to take gigs anymore. When you first hired me, I was skeptical, but you've long since won me over to your way of thinking. But now I-"
She let out a growl, mostly directed at herself, running her hand through her dark blue hair.
"What the hell am I here for, you know?" She asked, throwing her hands up in frustration. "You hired me as muscle-"
"It is not that simple," I pointed out. "At first, it was because I needed someone to look out for me and we needed more people to go on jobs with us, but we kept you around because you had skills and opinions that were helpful."
"Anyone could do that," she pointed out. "Hell, Gloria could give you the same pessimistic, pragmatic view, but with more experience! No, you hired me to fight and run protection, and neither you nor the Ridge needs it. Riggs acts as your bodyguard, mostly just to keep up appearances, and Rocky Ridge is more guarded than any military or PMC base I've ever heard of. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm a pretty good runner, but you clearly don't need that. So what's the point? What the hell do I contribute?"
"First off, you don't have to contribute," I pointed out, catching her off guard. "You helped keep us alive before we were anything impressive. You went out on a limb for us, as far as I'm concerned, that earns you an early retirement, if you want one."
She had nothing to say to that statement, her mouth opening and closing as she considered my words. I wasn't surprised she didn't know how to respond, considering the concept of retirement for most non-corpos was already a stretch, but for a solo and edgerunner, retirement was a pipe dream at best, at worst a Sisyphean distraction.
"That said, I do understand what you're saying," I continued with a nod, my mind straying to the future, when my tech trees would spread out so much it would be centuries before I saw a new one. "I think, in a lot of ways, you have to ask yourself what you want to do with your life."
"What do you think I've been doing?" she asked, rolling her eyes, spreading her hands wide in a vague gesture at everything.
"It sounds like you've been freaking out about us no longer needing you to fight for us," I responded. "That isn't what I asked, though. I asked what you wanted to do."
"All I can do is fight," she admitted. "Sure, I might not be right on the edge like some people, but it's what I've been doing for nearly twelve years now."
"And? I was a cashier for four years, you don't see me looking for the nearest supermarket, do you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't need your violence, Kayt. So find something else you want to do, and I promise we will support you. It could be anything: a hobby from when you were younger, a flight of fancy, a daydream, anything you can think of. You might have to start from nothing, but you have plenty of time to learn whatever you want."
Like a puppet cut from its strings, she sat down heavily on the hood of the car beside the one I was sitting on. Her previously tense arms drooped, palms slapping beside her hips. She looked ahead, confused, my words bouncing around in her skull. Rather than continue preaching to her, I simply waited for her to think, using my interface to check in with Samwise and Noah. The former was chipping away at his admittedly large project in space, while Noah was in the last stages of designing the hospital.
"Cars."
I turned to look at Kaytlyn, who was still staring across the parking garage, not really looking at anything. I frowned, a bit worried she had snapped and was just saying whatever was in front of her.
"What about them?"
"I've… always liked cars," She explained. "Driving them, working on them, modifying them… The most excited I've been in a long time, aside from Riggs, was when you told me we could work on designing our own company cars."
I frowned, my enhanced mind digging back to weeks ago, back when Rocky Ridge was still mostly in its old form. I recalled Kaytlyn did have a tricked-out Type-66, a combination of the standard models and the nomad variants, with improved armor and more. I also remembered suggesting we could work together making something new, but eventually brushed it off when I realized how much we would stick out riding around in something completely custom.
It wasn't a big deal now, but originally, attracting too much attention was something I was very concerned about.
"Right, I remember that," I said with a wince. "Sorry that never took off…"
"It's fine, it happens…" she assured me. "Besides, you let me work some of your safe tech into my ride. A good chunk of my armored interior is that strange alloy you make.
I frowned before remembering that she had used Alien Alloy to make some armored panels. In truth, I had stopped making Alien Alloy almost completely at this point, having weaned almost all of my tech off of it with the last few tech trees. Advances in the materials I could use had, for the most part, made it obsolete now, save in a few very specific situations that required its more esoteric properties.
My mass production capabilities of the metal were massive, since I had set up something big to make the structural supports for the tower gardens. For a week, I was popping down to the production cavern to flip a massive lever every few hours, but now the forge was mostly silent.
"What would you like to do with cars?" I asked. "We could set you up with a garage, you could help the town keep their cars going. We may be able to reprint a car in an hour for practically nothing, but most people aren't so lucky."
"... maybe, but I'm not sure working on other people's cars would be something I want to do long term," She admitted with a frown.
"Fair."
"I think... I think I want to drive," she said after a long moment. "I don't know what that means, but I want to drive."
"Well… There has to be some sort of race out there, right?" I suggested. "Ever looked into them?"
"I've done a few street races, and they were fun," She admitted. "But I needed to focus on my work. I didn't have the money to invest in a ride, and by the time I had the money, I didn't have the time."
"Well, think on it, maybe we could open up like a raceway or something," I suggested, the idea catching her attention. "Also, just because we don't need you on the front lines, doesn't mean your fighting instincts aren't wanted at all. There is likely going to be a lot of fighting soon, from small skirmishes to something on the scale of a corporate war. Having your help from the security room could do us a lot of good."
She nodded, but she was clearly distracted by my previous suggestion to think about her options. I patted her shoulder, told her to think about it again, and that she should let me know what she came up with. She nodded and gave me a distracted goodbye before I made my way back through the teleport hub to the security building.
As I stepped into the hall leading toward the main room, I spotted Riggs waiting for me. I nodded to the usually quiet AI, only for him to speak up.
"Did she talk to you?" he asked simply.
"Yeah, we were out in the garage for some privacy," I responded. "How long has she been working through this?"
"It's been there for a while," he said. "'Letting' her stay home when we went on combat missions made it worse. Deciding we didn't need to fight in person anymore was the last straw."
"Dammit," I said, shaking my head before running my hand through my hair. "Well, I think she has a lead for where she can start. Talk to her, I'm sure she will tell you."
He nodded once before going silent, turning to follow me in when I walked past into the security room, just a few minutes before they sent out our message to the 6th Street rank and file.