Chapter 12: Biotechnology
"Thanks for the intel. Send me your account number—I'll transfer the payment."
Beirson, casually working in the office, soon received a reply.
"That was fast."
Beirson glanced at the clock on the wall, surprised. It had only been three hours since he sent out the request?
Accounting for travel time, the job must've been completed in under an hour.
Even so, he still underestimated Ash and his crew's capabilities. Beyond the travel, there was also the time Sandayu Oda took to fence the loot.
Weapons, cyberware, and tech stripped from corpses—these were the spoils. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you could hack into the enemy's local account and extract funds. But that depended on whether the terminal was still intact after the firefight.
Maximizing profits required more than brute force—it demanded sharp appraisal skills. One wrong move, and you'd undersell something priceless.
That's why Ash constantly emphasized the need for up-to-date knowledge. Every member of his crew had professional-grade item appraisal training. Sandayu Oda and Tachibana Aoi, who handled finance and procurement, were experts.
They could estimate an item's worth at a glance or with a single touch.
Post-battle, they were the clean-up crew.
Scavengers might be poor, but that doesn't mean they're dumb. They could stumble on high-value gear without even realizing it.
Take the black case in front of Sandayu Oda, for example.
It bore the scars of crude attempts to open it—sword slashes, burn marks, even weld traces. Oda rolled his eyes. Who the hell unboxes biotech gear like this?
A black-and-green leaf symbol, the biotechnology logo, was etched on its side. That alone was enough to signal high danger.
No one knew what kind of bioweapon—or worse—might be inside.
If you wanted to die, fine. But don't take Night City down with you.
Corporate safes were classified by color: Silver, Gold, Platinum, Black-Gold, and Black-Red.
A Black-Gold bio-case—a Level 4 confidential container, second only to Black-Red—had just been discovered in a trash-tier scavenger den?
Something didn't add up.
Oda didn't waste time. He pinged Tachibana Aoi and hauled the case to a green vending machine-shaped device.
An object transporter.
Emergency delivery system. Limited by size and weight, but perfect for their needs.
Oda placed the case on the scanner. A green light swept across it, and a white laser engraved a tracking code. The lower hatch popped open and swallowed the container.
Within three minutes, it would be delivered via underground express tunnels beneath Night City.
Of course, such express services weren't cheap.
Oda shelled out nearly 3,000 euros for the shipment.
"Let's hope this one's worth it."
He didn't linger. Turning into a maze of industrial alleys, he vanished.
Ten minutes later, a pack of Biotech Corp enforcers arrived on the scene riding cyberbikes.
Their leader: a two-meter-tall, green-haired beast of a man, metal-studded leather jacket wide open, bronze cybermuscles twitching with flickers of red chem-fluid beneath the skin.
Not blood—pure explosive chemicals.
"Search everything. Don't miss a goddamn inch." His boots left charred prints on the pavement.
A dozen Biotech security agents spread out without a word.
A van hissed open, releasing several cyberdogs—bloody, foaming, their eyes bulging and red.
Sniffing the air, they lunged forward, accompanied by a bio-instructor in a forest-green suit marked with a three-leaf biotech emblem.
"Commander, we found seven partial bodies in the factory."
"Someone broke in, possibly extracted someone."
"The transporter shows signs of recent use."
"All nearby cameras are disabled. Data wiped."
As the reports came in, a timeline of the previous events began forming.
"Any ID on the intruder?" the green-haired commander asked the instructor.
He shook his head and pointed at the circling hounds. "Whoever it was, covered their tracks well."
Even high-end bio-hounds couldn't track without a scent or residue.
Knowing the box was biotech, of course Sandayu Oda took precautions. If Takumi Kai had been here, he'd have leveled the entire zone with explosives and laughed while watching investigators piece it together.
But alone, she had to be precise. Luckily, Ash handled the fight swiftly, giving Oda ample time to clean the scene.
She didn't move the case until the very end.
"Check the post office logs. Track that container," the commander snapped. "Fail, and don't bother coming back."
He climbed into his armored vehicle and drove off to report to his superiors.
The biotech team dispersed to hunt for leads.
---
On the other side of the delivery system—
Tachibana Aoi stood near a hidden drop point, clad in a black bodysuit and helmet, leaning against a red cyberbike.
A flicker of green light—the case arrived.
Without hesitation, Aoi pulled out a silver container, dropped the black-gold case inside, sealed it, then sped off into the night.
---
Top floor of the Biotech Corporation headquarters.
Smash!
The executive's palm shattered his steel desk.
The tracking signal embedded in the black-gold case had vanished.
He'd noticed when the transmitter suddenly accelerated and tried to intercept it—but it was already inside the underground network.
During transport, signals were blocked. Only a brief blip had flashed before Aoi sealed it in a shielded container.
But that was enough. They had a rough fix on its final coordinates.
All that remained now was locating eyewitnesses.
In Heywood, there were only about a dozen item conveyors. It wouldn't take long.
---
Elsewhere in Night City—
V, sitting in a diner, looked up with a frown at the woman glaring at him from across the table.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Where's Evelyn Parker?" The woman—roses tattooed on her arms, green and pink hair—gritted her teeth.
"Evelyn? What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb!" she snapped. "Tell me where she is!"
"Wait, wait." V put down his chopsticks, motioning for calm. "Let's talk. Evelyn Parker, right? I know who she is. But what's going on? Who are you?"
"That's not important. Just tell me where Evelyn is!" she shouted.
"If that's how you're asking, then I've got nothing to say." V coldly placed his pistol on the table. "Walk away, or I'll make you."
The woman paused, eyeing the gun, then exhaled sharply.
"My name is Judy Alvarez. I just want to find Evelyn Parker."
"There we go. We can talk."
V put the gun away and returned to his food.
"I don't know where she is either. I've been trying to find her myself."
She'd given him a job. After it was done, she disappeared. V needed answers too.
"She's been missing for a week," Judy said. "I'm her friend. You're the last one who saw her."
A week ago… V had just escaped the Blue Bi building. No wonder she couldn't be found.
"She told me she had a big job—promised we'd be rich. Then, gone."
V nodded grimly. Clients who dodge fixers often vanish just as fast.
"She have any other friends or contacts?"
"She kept to herself," Judy replied. "I was probably her closest friend."
"What about work contacts?"
Judy hesitated.
"She working in places that… don't like visitors?" V guessed.
She nodded.
"Judy, do you want my help?"
"Yes," she said, voice tight.
V hesitated. He wasn't exactly safe in public right now. Dexter's people could be anywhere.
"If you're worried about being recognized, I can make you a custom optical camo mask," Judy offered.
"You can do that?" V raised a brow.
"I'm a top-tier BD editor. I've got skills most corpos can't even dream of."
In her hands, even low-end constructs like BD Wreaths became masterpieces—capable of delivering peak immersive experiences.
V smirked. "Alright. Let's go find Evelyn."
With her help, he'd get answers—and maybe survive long enough to use them.