Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 239 1. Leaving the Baker Family

On January 2076, 1, Carl's team, who had just completed the commission, collapsed in Oliver's home.

"it is finally over!"

Oliver raised his limp hand and sighed, "We have been doing missions since Christmas and can't stop. Those middlemen really don't treat us as human beings. I have fired so many bullets in the past few days that my hands are still numb."

"I've been doing this for about 20 days. Every day I get up and take the bus to find work. I haven't seen Misty for many days."

Jack threw the 'Sadara' technology double-barreled shotgun in his hand aside, picked up the small cocoa can handed to him by T-BUG, and gulped down a sip: "Thanks, T-BUG."

"It's okay. After all, compared to you guys who are on the front line, I'm just providing online support, so I'm not very tired."

T-BUG, who recently moved her home to a super skyscraper, actually came from next door. She looked at the three people slumped on the sofa, her account balance flashed in her eyes, and she was extremely grateful for her decision to join this team.

Apart from Carl's team, can she find a second team as capable as this one in Night City?

Apparently not anymore.

In twenty days, she earned nearly 600,000 Euros, and this was based on the fact that there was no big work. T-BUG compared it with the past. When she was alone, it would take her four or five months to earn this much money. She also had to worry about whether the middleman would ask for the final payment, and whether the temporary team members would betray her.

"T-BUG, I want one too."

Carl, who was lying on the other side, raised his hand lazily, and the next moment T-BUG threw a bottle of iced sweet tea into his hand.

"Oh, T-BUG, how did you know I like to drink this?"

"You drink this every day, how could I not know?"

"Too."

As T-BUG spoke, Carl moved his body, sat up straight on the sofa, opened the sweet tea, took a sip and said, "Today's mission is the last one we've received recently. We've been busy for almost a month, and it's time to take a break. I'll go and notify the middlemen and tell them that we're taking a break these days and that they can find someone else if they need anything."

"It's about time. I plan to go back to Santo Domingo. I didn't go back to spend Christmas with my family. I have to go back when I have time to spend time with them."

Oliver agreed with Carl's decision to take a rest. In other words, if he hadn't felt that there were too many tasks on hand and it would be unreasonable not to deal with them, he would have thought about taking a rest a long time ago.

"Then just relax for the next few days."

Carl looked at his smart submachine gun, the Classic, at his feet and said, "I have to find time to repair the Classic. I always feel that the bullets are slightly sluggish when I shoot recently. I don't know if there is something wrong."

"Then when I go find Misty, I'll also ask Lao Wei to help me see how the blood pump I installed is adapting to my body."

Jack said, "Anyway, I feel like I have strength all over my body after having the blood pump."

"It speeds up the oxygen supply to the body's cells. How can you not be strong if you can run a thousand meters in one breath without even taking a breath?"

Carl thought about the prosthetics his team had recently installed.

T-BUG upgraded her access storage and installed an 'external disk' prosthesis, while Jack installed an 'adrenaline enhancer' to strengthen his subcutaneous armor, and installed a blood pump two days ago. Oliver installed smart connection and visual cortex support, and in order to ensure stability when using a kinetic sniper rifle, he changed to better nanofibers.

Then comes myself.
Carl doesn't have many prosthetics installed. Like T-BUG, he has an external disk prosthesis for the frontal cortex area, which enhances the brain's ability to store and process information. He also has a "memory enhancement" prosthesis that can optimize the synchronization between the brain and the prosthesis.

Then, with the help of T-BUG, I got three new puppets, synaptic melting, prosthetic failure, and restarting prosthetic eye.

In general, relying on these upgraded prosthetics, over the past month or so, none of the small jobs Carl and his team have taken on could not be completed within two days. And it is precisely because of this efficiency that they can get a job done by tomorrow morning or even this afternoon if they make a call today. They have a steady stream of work. To some extent, it is this efficiency that gives them more things to do.

It's quite ironic when you think about it, it feels like when you work in a company, if you are capable, you will be given more work to do. But there are differences too.

"You may be able to work hard in the company, but sometimes you may not get the compensation that matches your ability, and you may even have to work overtime voluntarily." After drinking sweet tea, Carl sent a message to the middleman, saying that he would not accept any work in the next few days and that he should not ask them for small jobs until there were urgent and large tasks, and then he received a new message.

This news made Carl's originally lazy eyes more serious.

"V has sent a message to let us know he's safe."

These words attracted the attention of the three people who were lazing on the sofa.

"V finally got to a place where communications were working?!"

Oliver came over with a little surprise and said, "I haven't been able to contact him recently. I was thinking about finding some connections to find him."

"He said there was a tornado in front of him and then he disappeared. I thought he was really caught in it."

When Jack heard that V was fine and reported that he was safe, he couldn't help but smile: "As long as he is fine."

"He said he had returned to the Buckle family, and then..."

Carl looked at the next message sent by V. His originally happy face froze for a moment after reading the next message, and he frowned: "When he returned to the Buckle family, the Buckle family had already made a fuss. The newest leader seemed to have made the decision to join the Snake Nation. V went back with money to oppose it, trying to explain that the family could take other paths, but it was completely useless. It was very unpleasant."

"Finally decided, are you still going to join the Snake Nation?"

Jack frowned as he listened to Carl's words. Because they were familiar with V, they also knew the current situation of the V family. That is, the Buckle family no longer had a leader who could convince the people, and it was difficult for them to survive. So the family was thinking about whether to change direction, but changing direction to join the Snake State was not a good idea.
"I remember Snake State. There is a company behind it, right?"

T-BUG said, and Carl nodded. "Or maybe they are just dogs raised by the company. The Wanderers are a group of people who were persecuted by the company and united in the Bad Land. Now they have to lick their faces and return to their enemies to be dogs. I have to say, it's quite ironic."

"V will never agree to this, with his personality."

Oliver sighed, "I don't think we can come to an agreement on this matter any further."

"It's not that we can't reach an agreement later."

Carl looked at the message sent by V: "He and the leader argued too much about this. He wanted to use the money he earned to show that the Buckle family could stand up again. As a result, he angered the leader, who thought he was challenging the leader's authority, so he kicked him out of the Buckle family."

"What, you kicked someone out just because of a quarrel?"

Jack was a little bit unbelievable: "V treats them as family. When he was in the city, he always wanted to make money and go back to see if he could discuss it."

"Maybe being a dog for the company is more important than being a family member."

Carl didn't know what to say: "Anyway, V has broken up with them now and is ready to come to Night City."

"I really don't know whether I should be angry or happy about V's situation."

Hearing that V was going to come back to Night City, Jack's attitude was a little complicated.

V is coming to Night City, and he must be planning to work with them. It is naturally a very happy thing to have V, who is easy to talk to, as their teammate. However, this kind of thing is based on the situation that V was kicked out of the family, which is a bit hard to say.

Jack himself couldn't figure out whether he was more angry about V being kicked out of his family, or more happy about V coming to Night City.

"Let's wait until V comes to discuss this matter."

Carl looked at the message and concluded: "It will take some time for V to come. We'll see what his attitude is then."

(End of this chapter)