Chapter 47: Identity Exchange

V sat in the car, resting her chin in her hand as she pondered the current situation.

It was all too coincidental. She had just finished talking to Lin Yue about the slider, and by nightfall, he had gone completely dark—even the ICE had been breached, triggering automated self-defense protocols.

"Drive faster!"

The agent in the front nodded, and the car sped all the way forward, finally coming to a halt in front of the Dogtown checkpoint.

Before long, a shifty-eyed Barghest soldier approached and retrieved the [Digital Encryption Chip] that V handed out through the window.

"The money's here."

V's voice was ice-cold.

The Barghest soldier wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "This really is the last time. If Hansen finds out... I'll fucking lose my head. Can you guys stop running into Dogtown for no reason?"

V simply raised her chin slightly, and the car slowly rolled into the Dogtown checkpoint.

The checkpoint sentinel responsible for scanning broke out in a cold sweat as well when he saw the contents on the fluoroscope screen; the trunk was completely stuffed with guns and weaponry.

"Pass."

The soldier modified the checkpoint logs and waved them through. The vehicle, bearing no Arasaka insignia, drove all the way toward Lin Yue's final tracked location.

"Sir, I advise you to prepare yourself. We are about to engage in an operation assessed as high-risk."

V nodded. The car screeched to a halt, and everyone simultaneously piled out of the vehicle, opening the trunk to grab rifles and other heavy armaments.

V checked the [Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen] smart submachine gun in her hand. The neural link was stable and diagnostic functions were normal. She issued the command, and the team rushed forward toward the coordinates of Lin Yue's last known appearance.

A heavy stench of blood drifted from the dilapidated buildings surrounded by darkness in the distance. Arasaka agents and counter-intelligence operatives were all too familiar with such scenes.

The battle seemed to be over.

Which meant that Lin Yue...

V couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment and powerlessness toward this somewhat reckless asset. If he had just waited for Arasaka's backup, Lin Yue might not have been wiped out like this. Losing connection was a major headache; it meant they would now have to hunt down the slider in Dogtown while running the high risk of drawing Hansen's attention.

Suddenly, V raised her hand to halt the team. The agents immediately raised their weapons, assuming a defensive posture.

Through her cyberoptics, she scanned the area outside the death-shrouded building. A figure was sitting there, cradling a heavy weapon, head bowed, smoking a cigarette.

As she approached slowly, V's scanner picked up the target's personal identification data.

It was Lin Yue!

Lin Yue sat quietly, smoking. An Arasaka agent flicked on the weapon-mounted tactical flashlight. The young man's hands were caked in dried, smeared blood, and his face was covered in cuts and bruises. He looked utterly exhausted and didn't even raise his head.

"You're alright?"

V lowered her gun. Two agents headed toward the slider's puppet workshop to monitor the area for any sudden developments.

"Hand over the cash." Lin Yue crushed out the cigarette butt with his heel, tossed a data chip onto the ground, and stared blankly at V.

His inbox was flooded with missed calls from V. Since Arasaka had figured it out long ago anyway, he had simply decided to sit right here and wait for Arasaka's people to arrive.

V instinctively caught what Lin Yue threw. "What is this?"

"A chip from the slider. It contains everything he tried to wipe... an Arasaka arms manifest—along with the database records you or other Arasaka agents pulled when accessing Dogtown. His digital signature is on it. You should be able to read that much."

V looked at the chip in her hand, seemingly digesting the information Lin Yue had just dropped.

Amid the silence, Lin Yue pulled a crumpled, blood-stained cigarette from a soaked pack, flipped it into his mouth, and clicked his lighter to spark it up again.

V frowned, reached out, plucked the cigarette from his lips, and tossed it aside.

Lin Yue stared speechlessly at the burning cigarette on the ground, smacking his lips with a lingering sense of deprivation.

Perhaps it was the residual muscle memory imprinted by the body's original owner, but whenever he survived such a harrowing ordeal, he felt an overwhelming urge to chain-smoke just to steady his nerves.

"Trying to smoke yourself to death since the slider couldn't finish the job, are we?"

She plugged the chip into the port at the back of her neck. Her eyes flashed with a digital glow as she reviewed and verified the data. Lin Yue was right... everything the slider had attempted to purge from the net was completely intact, including a particularly malicious Braindance video. The location matched Hansen's Black Sapphire, and all the details of the transactions between that individual and Hansen were recorded right here.

"Why didn't you wait for us?" V pulled out the chip, squatted down, and spoke in a tone tinged with helplessness. She couldn't understand why the asset in front of her insisted on playing with his life like this.

Did he seriously want to slave away for Arasaka?

Even she didn't believe that.

Lin Yue's eyelids felt heavy. He looked at the beautiful woman before him with completely emotionless eyes. "If I waited for you to arrive, the slider would have vanished ages ago. Besides, I did this to complete the mission. The job's done—pay up."

V pressed her lips together, recalling the promise she had made earlier. "How much?"

"I risked my life going in there to play gunfights with a bunch of netrunners. How much do you think it's worth, my dear handler?"

Naturally, Lin Yue wasn't going to use a polite tone. If it weren't for V's mess, he could have smoothly acquired the behavioral imprint faceplate, settled quietly into Dogtown, and taken Arasaka jobs only when he felt like it—or at least maintained the protection of a hidden identity.

He had that kind of confidence. Once he got the faceplate, blending in with Barghest would be a breeze, to the point where even Mr. Hands couldn't pose a threat to him.

"There's cash in the trunk. One hundred thousand eddies, and I'll wire you another hundred thousand later... You handled the job swiftly, and very... perfectly."

She truly couldn't find a single flaw. A lone man had slaughtered his way into a Voodoo Boys den and forced a netrunner working for Hansen to spill every last secret.

Seeing her hesitate with unsaid words, Lin Yue prompted, "Got something else you want to ask?"

"Think I didn't need to risk my life, huh? Or maybe you thought I was just some disposable tool who wouldn't be able to dig up info for Arasaka? Like I said, if you help me smooth things out in Dogtown, I'll deliver results. And my results are right here."

Lin Yue appeared nonchalant, but in reality, he was waiting for V's response. He refused to be a mere foot soldier for Arasaka; what he wanted was equality.

V was usually exceptionally adaptable, but at this moment, she felt completely lost. She was utterly unaccustomed to an asset operating with such terrifying efficiency.

Lin Yue continued, "I understand you. The higher-ups are leaning on you for results, so you have to squeeze me to dig into Dogtown. I'm not complaining; I knew what I was getting into when I made a deal with a megacorporation."

V nodded. "That's true."

Lin Yue let out a dry laugh. "So, once this is all over, I expect you to report what I've accomplished up to your superiors. What I want now is a change in status. I can continue providing you with intelligence from Dogtown, and once I seize half of Mr. Hands' territory, I can even help you plant your own people in here. But I refuse to be treated like a common grunt anymore. Do you understand?"

For the first time, V truly recognized the ambition hidden within the clever man sitting before her.

There were far too many people in Arasaka trying to climb the ladder, but Lin Yue was the first one gutsy enough to state his demands right to her face.

"You should know that people who are too useful never get promoted. The cleaner you pull off a job like this, the more they'll just view you as a sharp blade to handle their dirty work... It's not a very smart strategy, you know." As a veteran corporate rat, she knew that mercenaries who showed too much competence were only ever kept around for wetwork.

Lin Yue nodded and let out a scoff. "Then aren't you and your superiors curious about how I managed to track down the slider's location in just a few hours? If it were up to you lot, how many days or months would it have taken to find him?"

V froze.

"I have plenty of ways to acquire intelligence in Dogtown. I suggest you call your boss right now—or I can talk to them myself. You won't find a more efficient fixer than me in the whole of Dogtown." Lin Yue laid it all out in one breath. What he wanted next was for the corporation to formally recognize his capabilities in Dogtown.

Got a problem that needs solving? Send in the Arasaka agents. He was done risking his life as a corporate dogbody. Rather than breaking his back for ungrateful corporate suits, he'd be better off taking his chances on the streets of Night City.

"You want a partnership?"

V guessed his intent. And as Lin Yue had pointed out, tracking down netrunners—especially within Dogtown—usually required an immense amount of trouble and resources. Yet the Arasaka asset before her had resolved it in a single afternoon.

Clearly, Lin Yue possessed his own proprietary intelligence network. Treating him like a standard field operative was indeed a massive waste.

Taking advantage of the moment V turned away to make the call, Lin Yue lit the very last cigarette in his pack. V frowned deeply at the sight, but ultimately chose not to strip away his smoking privileges this time.

Ten minutes later, V finally finished the call, and a brand-new contact popped up in Lin Yue's comms:

[Arthur Jenkins]

"You can discuss the details directly with him. As of now, you're the counter-intelligence department's lead operative for Dogtown intelligence gathering, and your Arasaka security clearance has been upgraded—"

"As for the rest of your payment, take it up with Jenkins."

Lin Yue finally cracked a smile. V shook her head helplessly; fortune favored the bold, and there was undeniable truth to that. In just over a month, this asset she had practically dragged out of the wasteland had already mastered Dogtown inside and out.