2077

CHAPTER SEVEN

Night City

Night City never slept. It pulsed.

Workers spilled from the towers, their faces hidden behind respirators, eyes lit with artificial glow. Neon veins split the smog into pink, green, and sickly yellow. Holograms watched from the skyline like silent sentinels, their giant faces flickering in and out through the mist. The rain fell—thin, endless, electric. The elders used to whisper: When Night City rains, it reigns. And tonight, the city reigned.

The streets shimmered in oil-slick reflections. Strangers brushed shoulders beneath the drizzle—some lighting cigarettes, others vanishing into noodle stalls where steam curled upward like incense. In the Red Light District, chrome and flesh paraded beneath the signs: half-human, half-machine courtesans with glittering enhancements designed to short-circuit desire. The city was a marketplace of vice, and business was always good.

But beneath the neon glow, the Yakuza ruled. Their dragon-tattooed lieutenants prowled the alleys, enforcing “protection fees” with quiet brutality. Shopkeepers paid, the police looked away, and the balance held—until whispers spread that the Yakuza were supplying weapons to the Rogues. Whispers that reached Detective Jay.

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The Meeting

Jay found himself seated across from Sakamoto, the Yakuza patriarch. The old man’s cybernetic arm gleamed in the dim light, polished steel etched with scars of betrayal. Rumor claimed he’d lost it to his own clan—yet he wore it now like a badge. His samurai robes shimmered with red and gold threads, pearls stitched into patterns like roses. A katana rested at his side, immaculate, terrifying.

Fresh sushi lay untouched on the table. Smoke curled in the air, blurring Jay’s vision. Sakamoto spoke softly in Japanese, his voice low and deliberate. One of his men nodded and vanished into the kitchen.

Moments later, chaos. Pans clattered. A man in a stained apron was dragged out, beaten and broken, blood mixing with tears. He begged in a dialect Jay didn’t understand, his body trembling, his eyes wide with despair.

Sakamoto rose slowly. His age showed in his body, but not in his strength. He unsheathed the katana—shhhk—a whisper of steel that cut through the silence. The blade caught the dim light, flawless and cold.

One strike. Swift. Final.

The chef’s head rolled onto the tatami, blood spreading across the wood like spilled ink. Sakamoto lifted it by the hair, presenting it like a grim trophy.

“Here is your culprit,” he said.

Jay’s jaw tightened, but his voice never came. He had seen enough to know when silence was survival. He left the meeting hollow, carrying nothing but the weight of failure.

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The Rogues

Back at the precinct, the Cybersquad gathered. A holographic map of Night City flickered above the table, highlighting a bunker rumored to house something called the war machine—a terraforming device capable of remaking Earth for Martian settlers.

As the briefing began, static tore across the hologram. The map dissolved, and another face appeared.

Gangus.

His voice was velvet over steel.

“Good evening, Night City. I am Gangus—the redeemer. Tonight, you breathe your judgment.”

Every screen, every neuralink, every phone in the city was hacked. Citizens froze where they stood as his words vibrated through the streets.

“Our toxin is already in your lungs. In forty-eight hours, Night City dies. From your ashes, we rise. The Martians will claim their home, and you will serve as the soil.”

The feed snapped black.

The precinct sat in silence. Then Cynch muttered, “What are we gonna do now, boss?”

Jay stared at the dead screen, his reflection warped in its surface. His eyes were heavy, his mind fractured. He whispered the only truth he had left.

“I don’t know.”

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