Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

“No, Boris, you don’t go in with the first wave,” I said, my patience wearing thin as I stared up at the mountain of muscle towering over me. “You and the rest of the Animals are coming in after the first wave clear the place out.”

“I want to be first,” Boris growled, his tree trunk arms crossed over his chest. He was practically blotting out the sun with his bulk, his face twisted into a stubborn scowl. “I want to storm the gates and crush some skulls.”

I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache brewing. Trying to reason with Boris was like talking to a wall – except the wall could bench press a truck and had the nasty habit of smashing things when it didn’t get its way. “Boris, you’re in the second wave, not the first,” I repeated slowly, like I was explaining basic math to a toddler.

His face scrunched up in confusion, a clear sign he was trying to process the information. “Why the hell would we wait?”

“Because,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, “the first wave is our former badges. They’re pretending to be cops, remember? It’s supposed to look like an NCPD raid, all official-like. They’re going to waltz in, get the workers and security out of the way without anyone raising the alarm. If you bust in there swinging from the get-go, it’s gonna blow the whole plan sky-high.”

Boris just stared, blinking at me like I’d asked him to recite Shakespeare. I took a deep breath and, not for the first time, wondered why I ever thought it was a good idea to partner with the Animals. “Does it make sense for the NCPD to be working with the Animals? If you go in early, they’re gonna know something’s off. Security will lock the place down, and we’ll have MaxTac on us before you can throw your first punch. You wanna fight MaxTac instead of getting paid?”

That seemed to stop him, even if only for a moment. He shifted his weight, and his thick brow furrowed. “No…but I don’t wanna wait either.”

I had to resist the urge to slap him upside his head. Instead, I glanced over at Angelica, who was standing off to the side, arms crossed, watching the whole interaction with a quiet smirk. She wasn’t going to step in. Not yet. She was probably curious how I’d handle the whole situation.

Angelica was one of the smarter Animals which, to be honest, wasn’t exactly a high bar to clear. She was sharp, cunning, and calculating, just like her boss Sasquatch. But unlike her boss, she wasn’t a walking tank. And that meant she didn’t command the same fear-based respect from the other Animals.

Sasquatch had muscles and brains, a deadly combination that kept the gang in line. She’d earned her place in the Animal hierarchy by showing that she could snap a man in half and outsmart him in the same move. But Angelica? She had to lean on her smarts to get by, and a lot of Animals didn’t respect intelligence. Idiots that they were, they couldn’t see the value in someone who could strategize, make connections, and negotiate deals, and it showed in how much of the rank-and-file treated her – especially guys like Boris.

Her power, at least in the gang’s hierarchy, came from Sasquatch’s backing. If Sasquatch hadn’t recognized her talent and helped prop her up, Angelica might’ve had a harder time climbing the ranks of the Animals. The smarter people in the gang – mostly those who worked directly under her – knew she was vital and important. They knew she was the brains behind a lot of their successful operations. But the rest? They just saw her as some skinny girl who didn’t belong.

“Look, Boris,” I said, trying to sound like I had an ounce of patience left. “You’re here to lift heavy things. And yea, when it’s time to smash shit, you’ll be the first I call. But if you charge in now, the whole plan goes up in flames. No loot, no eddies. You get that?”

He grunted, clearly frustrated that he wasn’t going to get to break down the factory door and crack skulls. After a tense moment, he uncrossed his arms and shrugged. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

As he lumbered off, probably to sulk in a corner, I bit back a sigh at having had to deal with someone like him. I turned to Angelica, who was still standing there with that smirk of hers.

“You handled that well,” she said. “Boris isn’t exactly easy to deal with.”

“You ever get tired of babysitting?”

She glanced over at Boris who was now looming over near the rest of the small batch of Animals that had come with Angelica. “All the time,” she said, the smirk fading into something more resigned. “But they listen to strength more than intelligence. Sasquatch understands the value of both…and I make sure the ones that don’t respect brains don’t survive long enough to become a problem.”

I dragged my feet over to where Anna stood with a bunch of the rest of my crew. Beside her was Albert, looking like he felt at home in the corpo suit he was wearing. Seeing him there, I could imagine him in his previous life as a corporate raider, devouring small companies for Arasaka. His job in the heist was fairly simple: play the part of a city bureaucrat coming in with some bad news for Cytech. Flash some government documents, a few important papers, tell them their time in the city was over. He looked the part well enough, but he was constantly fiddling with his tie like it was choking him, and that gave away how nervous he was. It was his first real heist, the first time he was putting himself on the line for The Pack.

Anna, though? She was the complete opposite. Standing tall in her old NCPD gear, she looked every bit the hardass cop she used to be. No nerves. No hesitation. Just calm, controlled confidence.

“Alright, listen up,” I said as I stepped up to the group. Diego and Deng immediately stopped their low conversation and turned their attention to me. Fred, Mor, and Cyndi were missing from our little group. It wasn’t all that surprising. They didn’t exactly fit the mold of ‘NCPD’ force that we were trying to pass ourselves off as. Last I checked, the police didn’t hire homeless guys or teenage girls, no matter how dangerous they were.

I glanced at everyone gathered. “You’re going in right after the factory’s lunch break. Anna’s team rolls in first, flashing badges, shutting everything down. If you play your parts right, the workers and security team will be too stunned to even think about fighting back.”

I turned to Sandra Dorsett, who was hanging back a little from the rest of the group. “Sandra, you’re up once I open that backdoor. You’re only gonna get about ten minutes. I want every alarm and security feed dead. No alerts going out to the real cops, no automated lockdown, nothing.”

She gave me a look like I had just insulted her skills.

Anna stepped forward, cool and professional. “The vans are ready. Mobile jammers are installed in each one. Once we pull up, nobody in the area is getting a phone call out. The place will be locked tight.”

I nodded, satisfied. “Good. Remember, Anna’s the badge, Albert’s the corpo stooge, and Sandra’s our ghost in the system. The rest of you are there for intimidation, nothing else. No opening fire unless you absolutely have to. A show of force should be more than enough to get everyone in line.”

I glanced at the time ticking away in the corner of my vision. “Alright, I need to get ready for my shift. Comms silent until we’re in position. No mistakes.”

&&&&&&&&&&

I strolled through the factory, doing my best to look as tired and sluggish as the rest of the workers. Most of them looked about as dead as I was pretending to feel, which was good for me. I’d kept the drinks flowing last night at the Animal fights. While the Cytech employees I was with got shit faced, most of my drinks had been Spunky Monkey, one of the most stomach-churning energy drinks you could get in Night City. But it worked like a charm. Today, the people I’d gone out with last night were zombies. Jason Reeves didn’t even glance at me when I clocked in, just gave me a half-hearted nod, his eyes locked on the assembly line like he couldn’t care less about what I was doing.

The security guards were in worse shape. I caught them nodding off at their posts, barely keeping their eyes open, jerking awake every few minutes, probably dreaming of their beds.

And then there was the netrunner. He looked like death warmed over. From the way his head kept dipping toward the keyboard, I’d bet good money he’d only gotten a couple hours of sleep, tops, after I dragged him out last night. At one point I saw him swaying in his chair a bit, threatening to topple over.

The morning passed uneventfully. I kept my head down and did the usual menial tasks – sorting parts, running errands, moving things around the factory. Nothing I did required any actual thought, but it kept me busy. The rest of the factory seemed like it was running on autopilot, too. Even the machines seemed to be moving with the same sluggish rhythm as the people running them.

About five minutes before lunch, I made my move. I wandered over to Jason’s station, holding some random paperwork and tools. It wasn’t anything important, and probably didn’t even belong where I was going. It was just an excuse to hover near the computer terminals. I set the stuff down on his desk, stacking it neatly like I was being helpful when in reality I was just killing time, trying to make it look like I was busy until the shift headed for lunch.

“Hey choom,” I said casually, trying not to sound too interested in what he was doing. “Just wrapping up a few things before lunch. You need anything?”

Jason barely lifted his head, grunting in response. “Nah, I’m good. Lunch is in a bit. I think I’ll head out.”

“I’ll join you in a bit,” I said. “Just wanna finish a couple things around here first.”

He shrugged and muttered out a “suit yourself,” before standing up out of his chair and shuffling off, leaving his terminal wide open.

As soon as he was out of sight, I slid into his chair, fingers already moving over the keyboard. I’d memorized his login credentials on my first day, and I used them to login to the terminal.

For some reason, Jason had administrator privileges on the local Cytech network. Why? I couldn’t say. Maybe it was meant as a joke. Maybe it was in deference to his seniority with the company. Maybe some lazy netrunner ages ago got tired of dealing with the day-to-day grind of the company and just handed over the keys to Jason to let him manage logins for new employees. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t going to question my luck.

The system blinked to life and the interface spread across the screen like a welcome mat. I navigated through Cytech’s security protocols and saw it was nothing too fancy. Cytech had standard enpoint detection tools running on their network. It was supposed to flag unauthorized access or malicious activity, but with Jason’s credentials, disabling them became laughably easy. A few clicks here, an edit there, and the system went blind.

Once the security tools were down, I reached into my cheap suit jacket and pulled out a shard that I slotted into the computer. It almost instantly opened up a tunnel into Cytech’s system and set up a backdoor that Sandra and her team needed.

Then came the worst part – the waiting.

Seconds felt like hours as I sat there and kept my eyes glued to the screen, waiting for the signal from Sandra’s netrunners that they had successfully breached through the backdoor of the system. The longer it took, the more my mind raced with possibilities. Someone could come back early, the system could trigger an alert I failed to shut off, everything could fall apart in an instant.

Then, finally, a tiny indicator light flashed on the system, letting me know Sandra’s team was in.

I wiped the access logs clean, scrubbing any trace of Jason’s account from the system before signing out. The shard went back into my pocket as I slid out of his chair, moving quickly but casually. Nobody pay attention to me. Just a gofer finishing up his work before lunch.

Once outside, the midday sun hit me like a punch to the face, and I blinked against the brightness. The smell of greasy street food from the carts outside the factory made my stomach growl, and I started heading towards them. No one was paying attention to me as I blended into the crowd. No one gave me a second glance. I was just another corpo drone taking advantage of his fifteen0minute lunch break.

That’s when I spotted the netrunner I’d dragged to the fights last night. He was leaning against one of the carts, looking marginally more awake than he’d been this morning. I gave him a nod and he flashed a grin back. I didn’t like that he was recovering faster than I’d hoped.

I grabbed a kibble-kebab from the nearest cart. Greasy, synthetic, and lukewarm – the average street food in Night City. Thankfully, I wasn’t thinking about the kebab as I ate, instead focused on the heist. Was everything set up right? Would everyone remember their roles? We had one shot at this, and if anything went wrong, shit would get heavy.

Before I knew it, the fifteen minutes were almost up. Workers were already shuffling back inside, eyes glazed over with the kind of boredom that comes from a soul-crushing day job. Just a few more hours and they’d get to go home and forget the factory existed for the weekend.

That’s when I heard it – the unmistakable wail of sirens cutting through the air. Anna must have gone all out with the chop shops and convinced them to attach sirens to the vans she’d had modified.

I turned and spotted the “NCPD” vans rolling into the factory grounds, complete with a couple of unmarked cars that screamed undercover. The workers around me looked confused and nervous at the sight of the cop cars, and the factory’s security guards started to tense up. I saw their hands twitch toward their holsters, ready to pull out guns at a moment’s notice. Corporate security were supposed to defend this factory from anybody who came knocking.

But that’s when Anna’s team made their move. They piled out of the vans, flashing badges, guns already drawn. The yelling started – “Freeze! Hands where we can see them!” – and I watched as the security guards hesitated. They weren’t sure what to do. Their eyes darted between the badges and the guns, trying to decide whether Cytech was paying them enough to take on the NCPD. It didn’t take them long to figure out that the answer was a resounding no. They stopped reaching for their guns and instead raised their hands, their faces tight with fear and uncertainty.

Anna stepped out of her Archer Hella like she owned the place, cool as ice, with Albert trailing behind her. He looked slightly ridiculous, a corpo suit in the middle of a bunch of badges and security with their weapons drawn. But his role in the heist was crucial.

“Who’s in charge here?” Albert’s voice cut through the murmurs. His eyes swept the crowd, scanning the faces staring back at him. When no one volunteered, he sighed dramatically and jabbed a finger at the closest guy. “You. Get someone with authority over here. I’ve got so many lawyers ready to climb up someone’s ass that, if you don’t get someone with power in this place down here, I’m going to give them you.”

The poor guy nearly jumped out of his skin and rushed inside the factory, coming back with the foreman. The same bastard who’d been skimming off my paycheck. He looked rattled and his face was pale as he hurried over to Albert. I could see the fear in his eyes, and he was practically shaking as he came to stand in front of Albert.

Albert didn’t waste any time. He whipped out some paperwork that looked official as hell and started rattling off corpo speak. “By order of the Night City government,” he announced in a voice that carried over the tense silence, “this factory is shut down. Cytech has failed to pay its city taxes for the last two fiscal years. As of today, all assets of Cytech are now property of the Night City government.”

It was a ridiculous lie. Well, part of it, anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me if Cytech was dodging their taxes – they probably had a whole team of accountants dedicated to it. But Night City seizing a corpo factory in broad daylight? That was a stretch. Still, it was just plausible enough for everyone to hesitate.

The foreman’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, gasping for air, as he read through the “official” documentation that Albert was brandishing. He tried to stammer something, but Albert shut him down with a glare, practically daring him to argue. It was like watching a corpo veteran teach a masterclass in intimidation. It somewhat reminded me of the mission of the Konpeki plaza heist where a corporate V could savage a front desk worker. Somehow, Albert’s braggadocio was enough to keep the foreman cowed.

Except, not everyone was scared of Albert. I didn’t know if Albert had been out of the game for too long and his ‘corpo schtick’ was rusty, or if the factory workers were just more ballsy than the average Night City citizen who knew that, when dealing with a high-up corporate asshole you simply nodded your head and tried to get through it. Whatever it was, I noticed that tensions were rising. The workers were starting to murmur, backs stiffening, fists clenching. Even some of the security guards were eyeing their guns again. It wasn’t all of them, but it was enough to make me worry. If things escalated, this whole heist could go sideways.

Anna didn’t have enough fake badges to quell a full-on riot. If bullets started flying, the real NCPD would show up and everything would go to shit. The entire heist would unravel before we could even get a foot inside the factory.

I took a deep breath and forced myself into action. Storming toward Albert, who was still waving around his fake city documents like a madman, I scowled for effect. “This is some bullshit!” I shouted, loud enough for the workers to hear. “You little corpo shit, you think you can screw me over like this?”

A few of the workers nodded, eyeing me and the “cops” with a look of solidarity. The tension was thick, and Anna quickly stepped between me and Albert, holding out a hand to stop me from getting closer.

“Back off. Now. I won’t say it again.”

I shot her a defiant glare and sucked in a breath, preparing for the next part of the act. “Or what bitch? Gonna whore yourself out to this corpo and fight his battles for him?” My punch came sloppy and slow, a deliberately telegraphed move that she easily dodged. With a fluid motion, she let my momentum carry me off balance and then drove a fist into my gut. Hard.

The air rushed out of me as I doubled over, collapsing onto the pavement. My knees hit the rough asphalt, scraping against it as I gasped for breath. Anna was on me in an instant, a knee digging into the small of my back as she pinned me to the ground. My cheeks were pressed into the dirt, and all I could hear was my ragged breathing as the situation unfolded around me.

I noticed a few of the workers twitch, like they were thinking about coming to my aid, but they quickly reconsidered. They suddenly remembered one of the cardinal rules of Night City: don’t step in when cops – or people pretending to be cops – have someone pinned to the ground. It was too dangerous. Instead, all the workers reverted to what they knew best: keeping their heads down and hoping not to be the next target.

Anna twisted my arms behind my back and slapped the cuffs on, her voice dripping with authority. “You’re a fucking gonk. Thought you could assault an officer? Guess we’ll have to make an example out of you.” She said it loud enough for everyone to hear.

Her crew sprang into action, brandishing guns and shouting orders. “Back off! Get down on the ground!” The workers and guards, who’d been on the edge of mutiny just moments ago, immediately backed down. All the anger and tension in the air and the threat of violence was burned out in a quick burst of violence that saw me on the ground, cuffed and out of action.

“Round ‘em all up and load them into the vans,” Anna ordered. “We’ll sort this out at the station.”

Anna’s crew oved efficiently, corralling the workers into the vans. I remained on the ground, my face still pressed into the asphalt, watching as Jason Reeves shuffled toward one of the vans. His face was pale, eyes wide with disbelief at what was happening. For a brief second, he looked at me, maybe feeling a pang of guilt that he couldn’t help out. But he quickly turned away, his head hanging low, as he let himself be herded along with the rest of the factory drones.

The workers all assumed the vans would be taking them down to the police station, where they’d be processed and then released to figure out their next move. But in reality, they were being driven straight to the Badlands. Each of the vans was equipped with the mobile jammers Rogue got us. When they got into the factory lot, the jammers had been turned on and nobody was able to make phone calls. The jammers would stay on all the way out to the Badlands and, when they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere, the spotty reception in the Badlands would keep them stranded for hours before they finally got somewhere they could make a call. By the time they managed to contact anyone, our crew would already be long gone, and the heist would be finished.

Anna yanked me up off the ground, keeping her grip tight as she steadied me. As soon as I was on my feet, she unclasped the cuffs and let them fall away with a metallic clink. I rolled my wrists, trying to shake off the stiffness.

“You need to work on your hand-to-hand,” she quipped, folding her arms. “Even for a fake punch, that was sloppy.”

I winced, more at the jab than from the earlier blow. “Yea, well, if I’m ever in a real hand-to-hand fight, I fucked up somewhere,” I muttered, brushing the dirt off my pants.

Before she could say anything more, the second wave of our team arrived. Cars and vans rolled into the factory grounds, and a motley crew began spilling out. Sandra, eager as ever, was one of the first to head my way, ready to start her part of the job. She was joined by a few netrunners from her crew and a mix of people from the Pack and the Animals. The Pack was mostly made up up Deng’s group – former street rats and homeless he’d trained into a semi-cohesive unit, along with a few ex-corpo security Albert had poached. They looked sharp and organized, especially in comparison to the chaotic mass of muscle and ego that were the Animals.

“Sandra,” I called out. “Get inside and start cracking that data fortress. We’ve got maybe a little over an hour before someone notices what we’re doing here and calls in the real badges.”

Without a word, she and her netrunner crew moved toward the factory entrance and I turned my attention to the rest of the crew – the muscle of our operation. The Animals were already twitching with excitement, practically bouncing on their feet, while The Pack stood a little more controlled.

“Alright,” I said, raising my voice to get everyone’s attention. “You know the plan. Strip this place down to its studs. We’re taking everything – cyberware, electronics, machinery – if it’s got value, I want it in the trucks.”

I pointed to the loading bay where three massive Kaukaz trucks were waiting. They were hulking beasts that were built for heavy-duty shipping, designed to haul entire factories’ worth of goods. And now, they were ours.

“Computers and servers go in the first truck,” I called out. “All the cyberware – finished, unfinished, experimental, trash – everything goes in the second. Don’t leave a single piece behind. The third truck is for all the factory equipment. Break it down, disassemble what you can, and cram it in. The more we take, the bigger the payday.”

The Animals were already moving, grinning ear to ear as the thought of tearing the factory apart. I watched as Boris yanked a piece of machinery from the floor, metal screeching as he ripped it free and bolts popped loose. The Pack, meanwhile, headed to the offices and started loading up anything that wasn’t bolted down.

By the time Sasquatch rolled in with Angelica trailing behind her, the factory had been a warzone of activity for almost an hour. The three Kaukaz trucks were quickly filled with cyberware, servers, stripped-down factory equipment, and whatever else we wanted. A few vans corralled by the Pack were brought to the factory and used as extra storage. I was standing back, letting everyone work while I quietly kept an eye on everything.

“Look at all this loot,” Sasquatch said with a wide grin, scanning the trucks. “How fast can we fence it?”

“The electronics, servers, and computers? We can move all that fairly quickly. We’ll dump it at the Kabuki Roundabout and spread it around. I’ve got some fences who can move it through the city from there,” I said, turning to Sasquatch. “But the big payday’s coming from whatever we scrape out of Cytech’s data fortress. They’ve got financial records, cyberware schematics, intel files, all that good stuff. Corporations will pay through the nose for all that data, but it’s going to take some time to see the eddies from it. Rogue from the Afterlife has promised to line up some buyers for us. I’d say probably two weeks for that.”

Sasquatch nodded, her grin fading slightly. “And the factory equipment? What’s that worth?

“We’re not selling it.”

Her smile vanished completely, replaced with a cold glare. I could feel the heat of her irritation like a furnace next to me. “What do you mean we’re not selling it? This heist is a joint operation. And my people expect to get paid. We don’t work for free.”

I sighed. “This is like the 200 eddies cover charge all over again. Sure, we could sell the factory equipment. Any corp in Night City would fall all over themselves to buy it from us. But they’d haggle, and they’d piss and moan, and they’d complain about the provenance of it.”

I could tell she wasn’t following.

“They’d know it was stolen,” I explained. “And they’ll use that information to offer us half what it’s worth. At best.”

“Half’s better than nothing,” she scoffed.

I shook my head. “Half is shit. Half is nothing. Why settle for half when we could make a lot more by using it ourselves?” I pointed at a box of factory parts being loaded into one of the trucks. “This machinery doesn’t just make components. It prints full products. Feed it materials and schematics, and we could be pumping out the same stuff Cytech sells to its distributors. Why wouldn’t we do that?”

I could see her eyes narrow, still not convinced. Angelica, standing behind her, was starting to catch on though.

“Imagine this,” I continued, “you set up a tournament – open to everyone in the city. Fighters from all walks of life: construction workers, corpo drones, street kids. It’ll be huge because everyone will want to see someone like them in the ring. And the prize?” I held up a sleek piece of cyberware I pulled from a nearby crate. The blue-metal spine gleamed under the factory lights. “This. High-end cyberware for the winner. And maybe we give them out as prizes for high-rollers and VIPs. Hell, we could even sell this shit at all the night markets that the Animals and Pack control. In a few months, we’ll make way more eddies than a corp would offer us for all this equipment.

“We’ve already got cyberware schematics from the data fortress. We’ve got a load of raw materials from what we’re taking from this factory. We set up the equipment in some small building somewhere, and suddenly we’re printing money.”

The tension was thick between us, but I could see Angelica’s expression shifting – she was getting it. She was seeing the bigger picture. She was seeing the vision I was painting. This wasn’t just a one-time payday; this was a long-term hustle. The Animals and Pack could sell their own cyberware. The Animals wouldn’t just be muscle anymore – they’d be a small corporation. And in Night City, corporations are untouchable.

Unless someone decides to rob your factory.

Sasquatch was still looking mutinous though. She wasn’t completely sold on the idea, caught between her instinct for smash-and-grab jobs and the more complicated idea I was pitching. She probably knew, deep down, that I was right. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. She wanted immediate results. I watched her jaw clench as she processed the idea. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Albert lingering nearby, quietly watching the whole exchange. He looked like he wanted to step in but thought better of it.

Finally, Sasquatch let out a sharp breath and gave me a hard, almost begrudging nod. “Fine. We’ll do it your way,” she said, her voice tight with irritation. Without another word she turned and stalked off, clearly not as thrilled as Angelica with the whole thing, but not willing to push the issue any further.

Whatever. She’d learned that I was right about changing how they sold their fights to people. She’d come to learn that I was right about this too.