Case 004 - Rich edgerunner.

After dealing with cyberpsycho I have received some nice bonuses. In total 10000 eddies! And this is after more than half of it being taken away as paying back a debt I owe to Trauma Team. Other team members also have received nice sums of money. But the biggest winner is our captain. Ron got in total around 50000 eddies. Firstly for being team leader. Second for landing killing blow on cyberpsycho. Third for saving a lot of clients. So he was really happy and said that he now has enough money to send all his kids to uni or elite corporate school.

I have received in total around 35000 eddies for helping captain and my act of bravery when I had to deal with psycho on my own in the beginning therefore luring him out and saving clients. Then finance department being greedy dragons took most of it leaving me with only 10000 eddies. But still I was happy with that. My debt got smaller and still I have some money left.

There were some shady thoughts about company being greedy but I shook them off. Trauma Team really saved my ass in the beginning. They have provided shelter, food and most importantly opportunity for me to survive in this world. Yeah I have donated a lot of blood and etc. to them but after realising that they would barely cover even third of the costs company spend on my training and education I was really glad that I have met Trauma Team.

Arasaka and Militech would probably butcher me for their experiments and studies while street gangs.....could turn me into a real slave or do use is some horrible braindance. So yeah, I was actually happy.

I decided to save money instead of buying some mediocre implants and cyberware. If I will have around 200000 saved before end of year as Chirstmas and New Year gift I can get some really nice implants from my Trauma Team branch hospital.

Situation with cyberpsycho made me realise how weak I am in comparison to them and that I need real level up and not waste time and money on civilian and demi-civilian grade implants. I need truly effective military or top-notch merc stuff. But that costs a lot and requires connections. Luckily for me I am in Trauma Team so getting them is not a problem. Problem is the price so I decided to go student saver menu mode and keep saving money.

Alex and Rene started laughing at me when I told them my plan. Ron and Sam motivated me on following my plan. Jorg started making scene by crying and saying that finally he is not alone. He will teach of the way of a Scrooge so that when I get old I can swim in lake made of gold coins while other team members will probably become hobo and penniless due to wasting money instead of earning and saving them. Yeah, he is jerk. But he is funny and I can trust my back on him. And way of a Scrooge sounds not too bad haha.

So days passed. Boring shifts when we had to save either overdosed celebrity or some dumb corporate that wanted to have fun at some gangs turf while drunk driving. I spend my free time either training or chatting with Sam about which implants should I get. I had to constantly fight off Jorg that wanted to teach me about the Way of a Scrooge. He started sending me articles and books about Feng Shui and other stuff that according to people's believe attract wealth and help become reach. In the end I had to buy figurine of toad sitting on a pile of coins and Maneki-neko just to make him shut up and leave me alone for a while. Now I know that finance department has a worthy opponent when it comes to getting and saving money. Their battle will be truly legendary and I can make a money by selling tickets to see it. Aaaargh damn you Jorg, his fucking Way of a Scrooge actually got into my head and now I think about how to make money out of such situation.

I just come back with team from another evac call and went to get new ammo crates and supplies. However on a way back I got urgent order to come immediately to aerodyne. I started running and I saw everyone having sour faces.

"Hey what's with face?"

" We got some shit cake for lunch." - Ron replied clearly angry

"Huh?"

"Get in. One edgerunner named Mad Kris requested immediate evac. And he is platinum level client."

Wow platinum level s really expensive one. I have seen mainly silver and gold level holders and only one platinum.

"He must be filthy rich" - I said while getting aerodyne and preparing for take off.

"Yeah, really rich kid that wants to be edgerunner."

"Why the fuck? He is rich why to go for that?"

"Rich and spoiled bastard of one of top dogs in Militech. Daddy wants to make sure his kid is safe so he paid for platinum level membership. This is not the first time Trauma Team saves his ass and every fucking time it is something really bad." - Ron said while reading intel from dispatcher about client and his whereabouts.

"Last time that moron tried to sneak into secret caches of 6th Street. In the end he fucked up and we had to fight off waves and waves of thugs while waiting for two more aerodynes with reinforcements. Little bird barely made it back, other teams had it bad as well. Really bad. We have lost two guys there and everyone else had some sort of wound or injury." - Alex told me and that made me frown.

"Just because one guy wants to show off. Sucks." - I said while preparing to man a turret with SAW.

"Couldn't agree more. Now be ready, this time we going to Pacifica."

" A shit, those Voodoo brainfriers."

" Yeah, so let's make it fast. If we get bogged down there...."

Nobody said anything since dealing with such dangerous netrunners gang is really hard. Time is their ally and for us is death reaper.

" Approaching client's location! Scanners show at least 20 tangos and some have heavy weapons on them. Rene will supress them down with our Gatling and clear a path for you. Client is fighting them off at parking lot at the moment."

"Fuck. Change of a plan. Sam you stay here and help us with SAW while me, Markus and Jorg will go after a client." - Ron said preparing for landing.

I nodded and checked my SMG and handgun. At least this time there will not be any heavily armoured tangos. Gatling started it's song of death and I could see using frontal camera feed how enemies turn into bloody mist.

When birdie reached parking lot we come out of with guns blazing. My Smart SMG locked on few targets and I just opened non stop fire till running out of bullets. Quick change of magazine and I continue supressing and killing unlucky bastards. Me and Captain were main assault force while Jorg helped from behind with his handgun. Sam tried to fend off enemies trying to encircle us with SAW on a bird. Captain and I advanced parallel to each other to clear path for Yorg.

I saw a guy with rocket launcher and made him priority target. Long fire burst and he falls down. Then I see another guy trying to shoot at us using missile launcher built into his hand and I start aiming at him. But I am late and he made a shot. I switched SMG to AA interception mode and started firing hoping that smart bullets reach a fast target.

It didn't work and I had dive down. Rocket hit a street light behind me and unleashed not only explosive wave but a lots of fragments. Some of them ended up hitting me, one even managed even to pierce through my combat suit and end up injuring my leg.

I quickly got up and fired remaining bullets at bastard that launched missile at me. I got the bastard so I decided to use combat first aid stims from med kit. While I was performing first aid I got a call from Ron.

"Markus report your status! I have seen huge explosion near your position."

"Got some minor injuries and piece of metal fragment stuck in my leg. Performing first aid and using stims. Be in few seconds, keep going!"

"Roger. We almost reached our client. Jorg will perform check up on you when we meet up there."

"Acknowledged." - I replied simultaneously finishing first aid on my wound. Stims helped to decrease the pain and wound started clotting saving me from excessive blood loss.

I checked SMG and replaced a magazine with new one then I started moving forward. Enemies decided to fall back after having severe losses. This made it easy for me to reach a meeting point. There I saw a guy with gold chrome arms and green mohawk swearing at Jorg and telling that he could pull out on his own. What a dumb fuck.

"I am done with him. We can evac now. I will perform checks on Markus while we get back to birdie." - Jorg said finishing tending client's wounds.

"Mark are you ready?" - Ron asked keeping looking for enemies.

"Yeah, let's get out of here. Last time I got my brains fried by those demons." - I replied shivering from those memories.

"Triangle formation. We are at the bottom and Jorg at top. Move!" - Ron waved his hand and we started moving.

But shit just hit the fun when we were less than 80 meters away from our aerodyne. Enemies got some cars with reinforcements. Thugs started firing at us which caused us to slow down as now we had to fall back using covers instead of running on a straight line.

I was able to shoot down some and pin others when Ron made it to cover behind me.

"Markus! Covering you!" - he said which made me start moving behind him replacing half empty mag with new one.

I got 10 meters behind him and prepared to open fire.

"Ron! Covering you! - now it was my turn to protect him. I kept shooting but all of a sudden my SMG stopped and indicators showed some weird symbols.

Fuck! They hacked my weapon. I quickly got my secondary weapon, smart handgun and kept firing hoping that it can be efficient at such range.

"Ron, my SMG is offline and went to reboot! They have netrunners after us!" - I shouted to Ron.

"Shit! We will use smoke grenades. Jorg almost made it to birdie so we can just rush back!"

"Acknowledged. Throwing smoke." - I started throwing them in front of me and last one I left at my position.

With hissing sound parking lot started to cover in thick smoke. I used this opportunity and started sprinting back to aerodyne. Bullets keep flying but so far I was lucky and had only few glancing hit on my shoulder and back. I saw Ron running with helmet's front mask up. He kept firing since his Smart Link remembers enemies positions and can send bullets at them without much loss in accuracy due to smoke.

When I finally saw birdie and Jorg getting almost in I sighed with relief. But next moment I saw something hitting gold boy in the ass. He screamed on high pitch - AAAAAA MY ASS!!!

My first thought was, fuck client got injured even more. But second thought was, good that it hit him right in the ass, maybe this will make his brains works as he is one dumb airhead.

In such bizarre atmosphere I couldn't prevent myself from laughing. So when I finally got into aerodyne I kept laughing and firing. Ron didn't get what was going on with me and thought that this is some sort of combat stress relief. But then he fully realised what happened and started laughing. He even had to put down helmet mask as he didn't want to muse at client. That's bad for business. But everyone in our team could hear our laughter via comms. Even Sam was giggling while tending gold boy's bleeding ass.

Finally karma got him. Out of us all, gold boy was the the only one to get wounded during fall back. While me and cap end up with some small scratches and bruises. And oh well little piece of metal stuck in my leg but that doesn't count.

After dropping off gold boy at one of our branch hospitals we keep laughing but now without having to hide it.

"You know, now I have strange feeling of satisfaction. Although I wish he had few hits right into his chocolate eye." - Ron said while having a look at his helmet.

"Yeah me too. But Ron what happened with your helmet?"

"Fucking Voodoo Boys couldn't break my personal ICE and instead decided to shut down my helmet visors and scanners. So I had to lift it up otherwise I will be blind as a mole. Fucking hate those Voodoo Boys and their netrunners."

"Yeah fuck them all. Let's go back this is our last hour of our shift. I need a doctor and good shot of whiskey. I really got scared when my SMG went offline."

"Me too. Fucking netrunners"

"Yeah. Fucking netrunners."