How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

78. War

The casino on the second floor of 11-1st Street in Junk Town closed earlier than usual.

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Jack Turner’s men cleared the dead and swept up the blood. Bondi murder is the most difficult law to clean up, except for the junk town scavenger without citizenship. If you put it on the street, a hungry hyena will tear it apart without leaving a single bone fragment.

“Isn’t that a hyena?”

If you collect scavenger implants, you can get quite a bit of credit, but Jack Turner didn’t have any regrets. Jack Turner lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

“It may not be a lion, but it will become a lone wolf.”

If Sigma had been there, he would have told me that wolves also take dead bodies. The kingdom of beasts was not formidable enough to cover this and that.

“Then what am I? Cheetah? leopard? Wolf? jackal?”

“A rhinoceros. Because I have a bad temper when it comes to the topic of herbivores, so anyone will attack me.”

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Junk Town was also teeming with beasts. If you peel off a layer of corporate-centered loose social order, there is no such thing as the law of the jungle. Jack Turner burned two puffs of cheap chemical cigarettes and threw away the filter.

“Cut out the noise. Help me, Fixer.”

“Is the building owner threatening?”

“The landlord is being threatened.”

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Jack Turner beckoned his men to leave after they had finished the rough clean-up. He behaved without words, as if he was an elite rather than a low-level gangster dealing with gamblers. Maybe it was a mercenary hired with a big heart.

“It has not been announced yet, but 11-1st and 11-9th Streets will be redeveloped and incorporated into White Town.”

It was a staggering piece of information, except that it came from gang mouths.

“Hoo? Then will I become a resident of White Town too?”

“Can it be?”

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Jack smiled. It wasn’t a mockery, but it looked dirty, so it seemed like he was laughing at me.

“Don’t you know the guys who live in this villa?”

Fixers, gangsters, strippers, illegal street vendors and more. By Junk Town’s standards, they were decent people, but they didn’t fit in as White Town’s citizens. It was not even a redevelopment for such authors in the first place. said Jack Turner, pulling out a new cigarette.

“I will kick them all out.”

“Shit.”

Leonard stared at the chemical cigarette, but was bored, so he pulled out a new lollipop. Being a herbivore, I couldn’t help it.

“But what can I do? What if the landlord sells the building? There is no protection law like in the past, and even if there is, you are not an opponent, right?”

“Have you seen the landlord here?”

“Once when you first move in?”

Leonard tried replaying his memory a long time ago. He was an early pioneer, well over sixty, and he was a decent person except for not fixing the elevator for seven months.

“He said he wouldn’t sell it.”

“why?”

“Because there is nowhere for people to go.”

“…Are you serious?”

“I don’t know. You may not like the amount offered by the company, or you may have thought that after about 10 years, it would rise several times higher than it is now, and it is right to hold on to not selling it anyway.”

Leonard guessed which one was right and hit him. It didn’t matter.

Leonard looked at the implant lenses with nerve cords dangling from his feet. It was as if his head had been smashed and his eyeballs had rolled all the way here.

“These are 11th-9th Streets?”

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Jack Turner opened his lens and brushed cigarette ash over it.

“Looks like the owner of the building over there hastily signed it.”

“By the way, what are you complaining about?”

“Because there is no redevelopment area for one of the 11th to 9th streets. They say if you don’t cross 11-1 Street together, they will sprout.”

“Aha, I roughly understood.”

It was common for interest fights to become gang fights. When the landlord of 11-9th Street uses his gang to threaten Leonard’s landlord, Jack Turner is asked to fight back. Judging from their reaction, it seems that the first bread was very effective. Jack Turner grinned at Leonard’s hint.

“They cleaned me and Bari.”

“I think this side of Nawabari has been cleaned too?”

The main business was the credit business – the private loan business, and the main business was the operation of gambling houses, so it was unfair to determine who suffered more losses. By Leonard’s standards, they weren’t interested because they were gangsters.

“You’re doing great anyway, but why do you need my help?”

“Because this is just the beginning. Since you know that you can’t solve it with your own tricks, why don’t you call an expert?”

As the name suggests, a ‘fixer’ was needed.

“I think you called first?”

“Because it’s obvious I’ll call you over there too.”

Leonard crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. The advantages of an implant body are innumerable, one of which is that it does not require shaving. As Leonard pondered, Jack Turner secretly kissed him.

“I’m glad the best fixer in Junk Town is my neighbor.”

Leonard was not swayed by flattery.

“What is the commission fee?”

“I’ll give you 7,000 credits the moment the employer over there firmly gives up.”

Seeing the big throw from the start, it seemed like the amount the landlord had promised was quite high. Leonard spread a finger. Jack Turner didn’t misunderstand what he meant by asking for another thousand.

“10,000 credits?”

“I have many places to go besides here. It sounds like you have nothing to regret. As someone said, you should be sincere in accepting a request that you normally do not receive.”

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Jack Turner had an ugly crustacean chewing expression on his face. However, he had no choice but to hire a fixer. There were few solvers as skilled and credible as Leonard.

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Jack Turner nodded, and Leonard corrected himself with a faint smile.

“Not the best in Junk Town, but the best in A-044 City.”

@

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Junk Town has a triple-digit gang, half of which are located on 11th Street. It was not because security was bad, but because it was not integrated at all.

First of all, it was geographically close to White Town, so the public security was strong. As soon as the bullets crossed one street, heavily armed public security agents drove an armored vehicle, so even if they fought, it was not a big deal.

It was also a problem for local residents to use their strength. It wasn’t enough to live in White Town, but there were quite a few people with citizenship and assets. I could tell just by looking at Leonard Walker.

For one reason or another, large gangs were unable to establish themselves, and small gangs of between 10 and 100 members sprang up.

“It’s a gang in name only, but most of them are gangsters.”

“What is different?”

“There is no such thing as a business.”

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Jack Turner was a decent boss. There is a business with a fixed income – gambling. There was no such thing, so there were many gangs who made a living by ripping off drunken customers and robbing shops.

“Is the 11th-9th Street gang any different?”

“It looks like they are selling credits.”

Leonard floated the data Jack had sent him in one corner of his field of vision. They were one of the few ‘proper’ organizations on 11th Street.

“The gang is about 30 people, and they have military implants.”

“Then would it be simple?”

said Max flirting. 30 military implants is a terrifying force, but following Leonard, my eyes got too high. Leonard was about to tell him not to underestimate the gang, but gave up.

“Mr. Ryan destroyed an organization of over 100 people by himself, right? Isn’t it cold porridge compared to that?”

“then. About 100 people are fighting dogs or cows.”

It was a self-esteem issue.

Throwing away objectivity and judging subjectively, the 11th-9th Street gang wasn’t great. It is of course dangerous to shoot head-on, but it could easily be dismantled if each was defeated through surprise attack and hacking. If it was difficult, I could just kill the boss. Indeed, this operation was useful.

Leonard and Max roamed the alleys of 11-9 streets, beating up anyone who looked like a gangster. Vigilance is high, but it’s not enough to stop hackers and solvers using thermo-optical camouflage.

“Aren’t you afraid of being a gangster? Why are you walking alone?”

“It’s strange to be together 24 hours a day.”

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Jack Turner also had the effect of destroying their hideout. Since there is no base, I couldn’t stay in one place for a long time. In fact, even if there was a hideout, there was no way that hot-blooded people in their 20s and 30s could stay hidden. I had a family and a lover in the mine, so I couldn’t live like that.

“This is the 7th person.”

Leonard knocked out a gangster with a military body and long reggae hair with an overload and loaded it into the luggage compartment of a pickup truck. I was thinking of killing him for this, and releasing him after giving him a moderate scare. If you install the suicide program with a double twist, the Junk Town parlor, which accepts gangsters, never solved it.

“In the old days, I would rob them without leaving a single bolt, but I’ve become a lot nicer too.”

Looking behind the gang, I was reminded of the old days. At that time, I was not in a position to cover my work, so I was given work at random. Because of that, there were many crises.

“What crisis?”

“It’s a common grudge.”

Now he has a reputation, he doesn’t get hit and he doesn’t want to lose his body, but in the past, he was often attacked.

“A gang ambushed?”

“The gang is also a gang, but there were more fixers than that.”

There were hundreds of soldiers who jumped into the fixer industry after the war seven years ago, the New People’s War of Independence.

Supply outnumbered demand, so everyone accepted regardless of work. There were also many former federal soldiers who had a grudge against Hexagon. It was a difficult and confusing time.

For two or three years, rank order and water changes took place, and a middleman like Jake appeared, and order was barely established. Now, there is no sharing of the same request, and even if the request overlaps, the middleman mediates and handles it gently, so there is no fight between the solvers.

“How long ago did you fight? Have you already forgotten?”

“Well…”

It was a story of a fixer who was brought in 7 years ago. The newly emerged newbies had no intention of following the existing order. It was the same with this request.

“Leonard Walker? Are you really Leonard Walker?”

A group of people appeared in front of Leonard and Max. I scanned the bodies to see if they were members of the 11th-9th Street gang, but they were all original remodeled bodies. He didn’t even look like a gangster. To put it bluntly, he looked like an outdated hippie.

“You didn’t expect to meet one of these floor legends like this, did you? Oh, nice to meet you. My name is Remington Hsu.”

One of the remodeled bodies offered a handshake. It was a trivial maneuver. Leonard scanned the folding scythe hidden in the implant arm and shook his head.

“Jack Turner was right.”

The other gang also hired a fixer. They are fresh newcomers, but the number is quite large.

When Leonard refused to shake hands, the rookie fixer scratched the back of his head as if he was embarrassed.

“Isn’t this fooling you? Is it because of Hexagon’s eyes?”

“Anyway, it’s an old-fashioned relic! Kids these days use much better ones, don’t they?”

The rookie fixers drew their weapons. There were guns, but most of them were knives or hammers built into implants. Confidence in one’s own body was great.

“Anyway, these days…”

Leonard uploaded a hacking program while leaking an inscription of at least 2,000 years of history. Contrary to their confidence, they weren’t very good bodies.

‘Is Noah Lucas feeling like this?’

While thinking the wrong thing, I triggered a hacking bomb, no, a respect bomb for seniors. pop-! boom-! Sounds rang simultaneously. The newcomers who ignored the legend collapsed all at once. Now that you have tasted the spiciness of implant hacking, it will be of great help to you as a fixer in the future. As long as you can still do the fixer.

But things weren’t over. The 11th Street gang war had just begun.