How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

82. Amateur

The old scavenger did not have a memory chip, so there were no stored photos.

I couldn’t point out a specific place because my memory was not clear. Even so, I worked hard to extract as much information as possible. About 2 years and 2 months ago, I sold illegal implants in the black market underground at 22-2 Street.

“Isn’t that just a joke? Are the numbers too suspicious?”

“If you’re not confident enough, go somewhere else and find out!”

Since this is the first clue, we started investigating. Leonard and Max visited the 22nd Street Black Market and met the longest-serving man on the street. The beard merchant, who looked like he had eaten a rat, said bluntly.

“Not one or two scavengers come here, how can you remember what happened two years ago?”

There are two things that help improve memory, of which I used a moderate one. When I transferred 100 credits to my beard merchant virtual account, my attitude quickly changed.

“Oh oh! I remember now! I’ve come back several times since then!”

“What are you here for?”

“What is it like doing business here?”

Leonard and Max looked up a little and looked at the sign. There was a phrase ‘Implant Consultation & Exchange’ scrawled with spray.

“Are you allowed to do this?”

“Are you kidding me?”

It’s a rarer junk town that isn’t illegal, but among them, the 22nd Street Underground Black Market was especially so. The implants in this shop belonged to dead or killed scavengers.

“When was the last time you visited?”

“Well… I can’t remember that far…”

The beard merchant touched his beard and glanced sideways. There is no way that the regulars who visited many times were not stored in the memory chip. Leonard brought out the second thing that is good for memory.

“You said it was an unlicensed business? You’d better think about it.”

“Ha… hahahaha… why are you like this. It’s been about six months. Three months and ten days?”

Leonard twisted the revolver ‘Army’ left and right, which he thrust into the bearded man’s muzzle. Each time the information changed in detail.

“The implants in that picture are old. Your appearance has changed a lot now. I can send you a recent picture if you want. Let’s get this out of the way first…”

It’s not a good intention because it’s a business, but I recorded implant information in detail.

Leonard checked the ‘latest’ Mr. Harrison on the brainchip and pulled out the gun. The face remains the same, but the arms have been changed. It is not a high-end implant with a smooth texture, but an industrial implant that is large and rough compared to the body size. In the back alleys of Junk Town, I liked a strong body with better output than a sophisticated body.

“They say that rivers and mountains will be polluted in 10 years, so you’ve become a resident of Junk Town.”

In any case, it was confirmed that he was still alive.

@

Based on the new information, Leonard set out to pursue it again.

It was only a matter of time before we found specific information such as appearance, sighting location, and activity area. The request for 70,000 credits seemed to end soon.

“It’s strange to ask at this timing, but I’m thinking of you at this timing.”

“What else?”

Max crossed his arms and rested his chin on the passenger seat of the pickup truck. It wasn’t a posture suitable for a kid without a beard, but he was serious.

“Mr. Harrison Pitt. Why did you leave the house?”

Since his inheritance was recognized, he wasn’t an illegitimate child like Leonard, and he didn’t run away from a crime because he had no wanted list. Leonard instinctively reasoned and then forcibly shook it off.

“What would you do if you knew the family affairs of someone else’s house? Let’s find the material as requested and finish it.”

However, Max, who is not a professional, was full of indecisiveness.

“Mr. Harrison left the house ten years ago, and the client’s husband died nine years ago, right?”

“right.”

“So you didn’t go home when your brother died?”

“I guess so.”

“Even now when my father died, he still doesn’t go home.”

“…Right.”

It seems that there is a person in the house who dislikes the family quite a bit. Max carefully pulled out a piece of his reasoning.

“Isn’t the fixer’s rule not to suspect the client?”

There were no such rules. And I won’t be making it in the future. In fact, there was nothing less trustworthy than the client. This was especially the case with rich clients.

Ki-yi-yi-!

Leonard hit the brakes and snapped the steering wheel. It was a sharp turn that nearly threw Max out of the car. I rubbed my face against the window as it was with my arms crossed.

“Oh, really, don’t you know how to drive safely?”

Of course, I knew it well. By Junktown standards, no driver cared more about safety than Leonard. This is because preparations for pursuit, tailing, and shooting are thorough.

“The tail is attached.”

“A tail?”

Sometimes, rearview mirrors are more useful than tens of thousands of surveillance cameras and surveillance drones. A black sedan was following Leonard on a sharp turn.

If you were a pro, you would just pass by without pretense, and then trace the traffic line and reattach, but it was just an amateur who reflexively followed. However, the number was quite large.

“front! Look ahead!”

A sedan came out of an alley and blocked the lane ahead. It was too similar in design to the one chasing it to be a vehicle that got in the way by chance. First of all, it was not a car model suitable for the alleys of Junk Town.

“It looks like our client can’t trust us either.”

Leonard was conflicting between the accelerator and the brake and stepped on the brake. There were a lot of uncertainties to just hit and run.

As Leonard pulled over, the front and rear sedans also slowed to a stop. And three or four people got out from the passenger seat and the back seat. It was a familiar gang wearing black suits and matching sunglasses.

“Are you a corporate mercenary?”

Hiring a fixer and hiring another mercenary to pursue the fixer was like a business man whose credit was rotting.

Leonard winked at Max, who was loading the double-barrel shotgun, and got out of the driver’s seat. Fixers and mercenaries occupied the roads, but no passers-by protested. Ordinary people had a sea of understanding in front of submachine guns.

Leonard took out a lollipop, put it in his mouth and asked the mercenary in front.

“How much is that?”

“300,000 credits.”

“What? This is 100,000 credits?”

The corner of the corporate mercenary’s mouth went up slightly.

“It’s the credit the company eats. We are wage earners.”

It was peaceful for a conversation with a gun. Even though his professionalism was a little off, he seemed to know the physiology of the floor.

“Let’s each do our part.”

“Is there a fee for silence?”

“If there was such a thing, I wouldn’t bother pursuing it.”

Leonard chewed the lollipop and swallowed it. The mercenaries removed their guns, probably taking it as a positive sign.

Leonard climbed back into the pickup truck. Max leaned over and asked quietly.

“How is something going?”

“Don’t you know by pretending?”

“I’m not even a doctor, so how do you know by looking at Chuck?”

The front sedan opened the way. Leonard explained as he drove slowly.

“It is our role to find the target, and their role is to destroy it.”

He seemed to think that Harrison Pitt might be alive. Max hid the shotgun next to the car out of sight of the mercenary and asked again.

“What makes things so complicated? Shouldn’t it be possible to make a contract request from the beginning?”

“Entrepreneurs like complicated things. I think it would be more efficient if we left the work to ourselves.”

He would have thought that the mercenary, a corporate corporation, had a heavy mouth rather than the light mouth of the fixer, and in fact, most of the black suits did not know who they were supposed to kill. The solver was just given the mission to kill anyone he met.

“What is the cost of silence?”

“Don’t ask, think.”

Max let out a grunt, then opened his mouth a moment later.

“Shall we kill them too?”

“For now, you say no.”

“when?”

“If you were going to silence us, we would have put in a contract request as you said. If we kill Harrison Pitt, and they kill us, it’s fine.”

Max pursed his lips in admiration. With just a few words of conversation, they confirmed each other’s position. Something looks professional…

“I am also an amateur.”

Leonard had strict standards of professionalism. A real pro wouldn’t have been caught, and he wouldn’t have talked to the hacker. The second reason was particularly important. Hexagonal pupils rapidly widened as they got away from the corporate mercenary vehicle.

“uh? Huh?!”

Max let out a strange exclamation. That was a benign reaction. The corporate mercenaries chasing after Leonard screamed at all.

The hacked brain chips were popped like popcorn and blood spurted out of the nose and ears. The most fatal was the driver fainting. The steering wheel rotated randomly, collided with each other, and was pushed all the way to the building. There were no flames or explosions, but everyone was incapacitated.

“Did you just hack?”

Leonard glanced in the rearview mirror and answered indifferently.

“It’s disgusting to put a spoon on someone else’s request.”

There was a bigger reason to feel uncomfortable when someone who had been hiding well for 10 years because of Leonard died. Of course, Max didn’t believe it.

“Aren’t you mad because it’s 300,000 credits over there?”

“Well, there are some reasons for that.”

@

After some minor fuss, Leonard and Max met Harrison Pitt, the client’s seeker.

Despite wandering the streets as a scavenger, he was living a decent life. A shack with a slate roof, but with a cozy nest, a young wife with not-so-pretty implants, and a newborn baby I can’t tell if it’s a son or a daughter.

“I’ve never seen such a small kid!”

Max liked a 100% bio-human kid like himself. In ground cities, the birth rate is extremely low and the death rate is extremely high, so seeing a newborn baby was like picking stars from the sky. Leonard also looked at the wriggling baby for a long time before focusing on the target belatedly.

“Did she send it?”

His face was full of vigilance. No, that was the way he acted. He had a weapon in his hand hidden behind his waist. It was a pipe gun many times larger than the average pistol. The people who thought they could hide that size were ordinary people who couldn’t even wear it on an amateur axis. Or it could be a threat to go back quietly because there is a weapon, but threatening a professional wasn’t a good choice either.

“Get your hands off me. I won’t hurt you.”

Leonard compared the photo of the client and the photo sent by the black market merchant side by side. They were the same person at 91.1% and 98.5%, respectively.

“First of all, it is correct that Mrs. Alice sent it.”

“That damn bitch…”

“I don’t think it’s a prefix for family.”

“family? I have never had such a demon in my family!”

Leonard looked at the newborn again. The young woman was at a loss.

Considering that Harrison Pitt was close to 50, the thief was not far away. In the cyber age where whole body implants are common, age doesn’t matter…

“It was the woman who murdered my brother. It must have been that woman who killed my father.”

“If you think so, why are you running away and hiding?”

“Because those idiots don’t believe me!”

Harrison Pitt’s emotions ran high. It wasn’t the right attitude for a man with a gun. Leonard uploaded a hacking program so that he could be subdued at any time. It’s a high-end software, but it wasn’t updated for 10 years, so it was simple.

“Why don’t you believe what they say?”

“I made her strong…”

Harrison Pitt glanced at his wife and baby and corrected his terminology.

“Because I think I did something bad. She believed her words more than mine and kicked me out.”

In a flurry of anger, Max’s face turned red. But Leonard, who had gone through a lot of ups and downs in the world, didn’t believe it easily.

Now Mrs. Ellis seems like a villain, but I couldn’t tell if that was the case. If Harrison Pitt was a villain, and if that’s why Mrs. Ellis was determined to get a just vendetta, then it wasn’t a matter of interfering.

“Do you have any proof that your claims are true?”

“The absence of evidence is evidence!”

It was. Anyway, it was clear that it was a troublesome family affair.