Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 316 78. Mann and David

"Mann!"

In the wilderness of the Badlands, David stood on the trunk of a Thunderbolt Mackinaw "Warhorse", firing an Ajax kinetic rifle backwards while shouting to Mann in the driver's seat: "The Arasaka people are catching up!"

"I know!"

Mann, who was wearing sunglasses in the driver's seat, had a stern expression on his face. He drove the Thunderbolt Mackinaw and stepped on the accelerator to the bottom: "Did Dolio and the others successfully evacuate? What did Lucy say?!"

"The signal in the Badlands is too bad. I'm about to disconnect from you!"

Lucy's anxious voice rang out over the team's comms: "Falco has already taken Rebecca and the others to the other side and shaken off Arasaka's pursuers. Now the only ones left are you. Hurry and leave!"

"We're already on our way, but it's not that easy Lucy."

Mann grinned and was about to say a few more words on the comms when he found that Lucy's comms were disconnected. At the same time, there was a crackling sound of electricity coming from the positioning system in the car, which made him curse: "Block the interference. Are these Arasaka company dogs crazy? Why are they chasing and biting me?"

After cursing, Mann, who knew that the communication was cut off and he could not get support, was about to say something to David. He saw the flames coming from the back in the rearview mirror. His heart tightened and he immediately slammed the steering wheel. As the vehicle swung violently, the Thunderbolt Mackinaw tilted at an abnormally strange angle, with the tires almost hanging in the air, and then slammed back to the ground. Then the vehicle turned sharply and drove to the other side.

"boom!"

On the path that the Thunder Mackinaw was supposed to be traveling, flames of explosion burst out.

"Mann, rocket!"

David, who was thrown around heavily by the shaking car and barely managed to steady himself by holding onto the car body, only then did he shout out the words that were abruptly interrupted by the shaking of the car.

"I saw!"

Mann replied, feeling an inexplicable sense of relief in his heart: "Being chased and bombarded in the bad land, this feeling is really like a dream!"

"Can we count our success this time, Mann?!"

David, who had offered to help Mann attract attention when the team was divided, held the car and shouted in the dust: "Being chased by the Arasaka convoy, even Oliver and his friends must have never experienced it!"

"not sure!"

Mann glanced at the fuel displayed on the dashboard of the Thunderway Mackinaw and found that the methanol-2 fuel was almost used up. "If the two of us can return alive this time, I will definitely blow flowers for us in the next life. By then, I guarantee that Carl and the others will have to stand and toast us."

"Before that, we have to kill that bastard Faraday!"

David laughed loudly, but he did not forget the culprit who put them in such a predicament:
"That bastard, the information he provided is totally inaccurate. This group of Arasaka convoys does not carry any cybernetic King Kong. They are setting a trap and deliberately letting down their guard to lure us into the trap!"

"You are indeed an academy student. Listening to your description of David, you are too polite. If it were me, he is a bastard who should be buried in the sewer and drowned in sewage!" Mann's eyes flashed coldly under his sunglasses. "I used to think that guy was just a little greedy, but now I find that he can't even do the most basic intelligence work as a middleman. This guy didn't even know there was a pit ahead and pushed people into it. When I return to the city, I will definitely settle the score with him!"

Mercenaries and middlemen have a two-way relationship. Middlemen can ask mercenaries to keep their word and to follow the mission requirements, but there is a prerequisite. That prerequisite is that after officially taking over, the information must be clear, transparent and accurate. If the information is wrong, it is the responsibility of the middleman. If the mercenaries die in the mission, they naturally have nothing to say, but if there is a chance, they will let them come back alive.
Then don’t blame the mercenaries for acting as the middleman due to incorrect intelligence!

"boom!"

Fire exploded again around Thunderbolt Mackinaw. Feeling the vehicle shaking due to the shock wave, Mann's anger temporarily shifted from Faraday to Arasaka's company dog:
"We are almost close to Taiping Province, and these Arasakas still don't plan to stop. Are they going to bombard the city with rockets? This is really weird. We haven't even seen the goods today. We have nothing in our hands, but they insist on chasing us. Could it be that they are interested in the tens of thousands of Euros we have on hand?"

"It's really weird!"

David, who had been a mercenary for some time, also felt that something was unusual about Arasaka today:

"As soon as they met, they shouted Militech, and then a whole armed convoy chased us. Although we are hired by Militech, we are just mercenaries. We are paid to do the job, and we don't know how much intelligence we have. What's wrong with them that they have to chase us all the way?"

"Who knows, it feels like we copied his goods so many times."

Mann was about to say something when a warning sounded from the dashboard.

"How is that possible? I just saw on the dashboard that the fuel is running low, but it shouldn't be running so fast!"

"Mann, the fuel tank is broken and the leaking alcohol is catching fire!"

"on fire?!"

Unfortunately, although alcohol-2 fuel has been widely used in various energy fields, it still has a well-known fatal flaw, which is that it will spread very quickly after being ignited.
Ever since he and Carl did that job, he got used to the car door that was never closed tightly. Mann jumped out while shouting to David, "Jump, jump out of the car quickly, David, the car is going to explode!"

Without any hesitation, even throwing the Ajax in his hand aside, David immediately followed Mann and jumped towards the speeding vehicle.

In the raging sandstorm, the two men rolled several times, each using their own skills to cleverly stabilize their bodies while rolling. The Thunderous Mackinaw, after losing the weight of its two passengers, continued to rush forward along its original trajectory due to inertia.

The leaked methanol fuel in the car was ignited and the fire spread rapidly. The entire car was engulfed in flames just two seconds after David and Mann left.

Then, intense flames accompanied by explosions spread everywhere.

"This is bad."

Looking at the twisted frame burning in flames, standing in the wilderness, Mann looked at the Arasaka convoy approaching rapidly in the distance. The sunglasses damaged by the rolling fell off his face, revealing a pair of bright eyes.

"If I can really come back alive this time, Karl and the others will have to toast me no matter what I say."

(End of this chapter)