030: Neither Goods Nor Person Accounted For

"I would rather not have this bag of trash, John. There is a girl in our community, Gino, who was abducted by the Japanese from Cherry Blossom Cross Street."

Vito gestured toward the tabletop with his glass. "There is only one way to keep Gino alive now, and that is to return this bag of raw materials to its original owners."

"Return it to the original owners... so this stuff was stolen from the Owl Town Gang?"

"You could say that."

"Care to elaborate?"

Vito sighed. "Gino is an active kid. A couple of days ago, she used a homemade EMP to bring down a drone with an unknown serial number." He rubbed his brow. "It was carrying this stuff. Before she even realized what it was, they tracked her down and snatched her."

Gino's brother, Makao Imwe, is the boxer currently standing in the room. He had brought the stolen goods to Mr. Vito, hoping to use the gang's influence to ransom his sister. Gino is the youngest daughter of the Imwe family. Mr. Vito is a fellow parishioner with her mother; in the traditions and values of the Black Gold Gang, a bag of illicit raw materials is by no means more important than Gino's life.

"You lot are quite honorable," John remarked with a nod, though he was puzzled. "Why me?"

Mr. Vito explained, "The relationship between the Black Gold Gang and the Japanese is delicate." The two factions' territories had seen some overlap in recent years, and friction in their business dealings was becoming frequent. While there had been minor skirmishes, neither side was ready for all-out war.

"It’s just a hostage exchange. Anyone could do it."

"Things are a bit complicated right now." Vito Russell stared out the window with his hands in his pockets. "We had an agreement for a face-to-face trade with Owl Town, but the guy we were in contact with suddenly went dark. I have no idea what those idiots are up to." He feared that the Owl Town Gang might be using this as a pretext for war. John had a clean background, no conflicts of interest, and was sharp enough to adapt to the situation while ensuring his own safety.

[Mission: Pulling Someone Out of the Frying Pan]
[Reward: Payment, Device Intrusion Counter-Electronic Source, Transport Protocol 308 (Program)]

John frowned. The mission title sounded ominous; he felt like this job was bound to go sideways. However, the reward included an unknown protocol, which was worth looking forward to—the emergency protocol he got for Black Spider last time had been a lifesaver.

John accepted the mission. He drove his Eisenberg, carrying the bag of contraband, toward the meeting point. His sports car roared through the main urban district. He had a bounty on his head for violent conflict, and logically, drones and police should have been coming for him. But in a place like Eden City, who doesn't have a criminal record?

If every charge were to be investigated, one would find that the entire city was rotten to the core. Thus, the police had modified their scanning programs; as long as you had an external lens jammer like John’s, public scanners wouldn't trigger a warning. Unless you committed a crime in plain sight, you wouldn't trip the basic scanning restrictions and be put on a live wanted list. Only then would the police come for you.

Cherry Blossom Cross Street was an old name, but in reality, it was staggeringly vast, spanning several streets and corporate clusters. With its steep terrain, it was the largest enclave of Asian residents in Eden City, famous for its entertainment industry and home to one of the city's largest gangs: the Owl Town Gang.

John didn't know much about the Japanese faction. Rumor had it that they had shady ties with some of the major corporations in Eden City, handling all the dirty work. The Owl Town Gang ran the entertainment sector, knowing how to profit from the desires of the residents; the more decadent people were, the fuller their pockets became.

Yet, the internal management of the Owl Town Gang was remarkably restrained. Hidden beneath a veneer of rigid hierarchy and gang honor lay extreme violence. The management was ruthless, prioritizing long-term interests and acting with cold-blooded rationality when making business decisions. The lower-level members of the gang were numerous but lacked proper organization or rules. They caused trouble everywhere, engaged in low-end, vicious violent acts, and sat at the bottom of the contempt chain, forever hoping to climb up the pyramid.

[Eden City - No. 42 Cherry Blossom Cross Street]

The Silver Knight 577 slowed down. Outside the window was a forest of steel comprised of high-rise buildings; every time he stepped into this area, he felt the suffocating oppression of having the sky stolen from him. Red lights flickered on the tops of the buildings. The glass curtain walls looked gloomy and dark in the night, conveying the indifference of the elite class.

Below the midsection of the buildings was a different scene. Competition between shops was fierce, with massive neon signs fighting for every inch of space, so densely packed that one eventually became numb to the advertisements. The streets were perpetually wet. The bustling crowd crushed the light and shadow beneath their feet.

When living people walked into such a stifling environment and smelled the pervasive rot in the air, they probably thought of nothing but decadence and release. At every intersection, sex workers, tavern bouncers, and gang members mingled, creating a hedonistic and absurd atmosphere where even the most hypocritical citizens of Eden City dared to experience illegal sensory-overload chips on the street...

[Mission Objective Updated]
[Proceed to the closed casino and negotiate with the Owl Town Gang. (Incomplete)]

John pulled up his hooded jacket. Condensation flowed down the hydrophobic coating, gathered on the surface of his prosthetic limb, and dripped onto his luggage bag. The rolling shutter door had been pried open by force. The intel indicated that the Owl Town trader had gone missing, but the scene looked more like they had encountered an unavoidable accident.

Bang, bang, bang. John knocked on the door tentatively.

The half-open rolling shutter was lifted entirely, and two Owl Town thugs with vicious eyes raised their guns to scrutinize him.

"I'm here to deliver the goods for Vito Russell," John replied calmly. As he spoke, he glanced sideways to see that the mouth of the alley was completely blocked by a van.

The thugs didn't speak, their cybernetic eyes flickering. Only after receiving notification from inside did they lead John in, walking through a hallway lit by flickering LED strips and down a steel ladder into the basement.

There were quite a few people inside. All of them were Owl Town thugs, wearing white undershirts and vests, their exposed skin covered in Ukiyo-e style tattoos. The room was thick with the smell of electronic cigarettes and blood. A blood-soaked wretch was tied to a chair.

The interrogator rose slowly, wiped his palms with a wet towel, and looked at John as he entered through the main door. To John, it felt like standing before a wall.

[Name: Rokusen Sawa]
[Faction: Owl Town Gang]
[Scan: Heavy subcutaneous armor, blood pump, massive alloy prosthetic limbs, etc.]
[Bounty: Multiple counts of murder, assaulting police, human trafficking, etc.]
[File: Senior executive of the Owl Town Gang, wanted criminal, second-in-command of the Tetsuya Group, manager of over twenty entertainment properties in Eden City, internal executioner...]

A long string of criminal records flashed before John. This gang member, Rokusen Sawa, was unreasonably massive; half of his exposed face was covered in a demon tattoo, and he gripped an alloy short blade in his hand.

"Who are you?" he asked.

John placed the luggage bag on the table. "The delivery guy."

The man on the chair became agitated, pleading incessantly, "I wasn't lying to you, Lord Rokusen! I told you the Black Gold Gang would definitely bring the stuff back!"

This was the trader Vito had mentioned. Rokusen Sawa ignored him and pointed to the door. "You can go."

John didn't move. Instead, he said, "This is a trade, sir. The goods have been delivered. Where is the girl who was abducted?"

Rokusen Sawa looked confused, staring at the man on the chair again.

"Kidnapping?"

"The goods were dropped in Black Gold territory. I tied up the thief and forced them to bring the stuff back."

"And the girl?"

"I... I sold her to the Ghouls."