I still remember that night in 2077, the humid air of Dogtown clinging to my synth-leather jacket as I stared at the wreckage of the presidential shuttle. Songbird's voice crackled in my ear, urgent but controlled, telling me the NUSA president was still alive inside. The Chimera mech had just ripped her escort to pieces, and now it was my turn to walk into the lion's den.
Most gigs in Night City come with a simple rhythm: find the target, pull the trigger, get paid. This was different. Rosalind Myers wasn't a chip to slot; she was flesh and blood, radiating a strange mix of authority and vulnerability even through torn clothing. Our first exchange was blunt — she wanted the tracker out of her neck, and she wanted it done now.
Crouched behind a bulkhead, I pressed the cold edge of my blade against her skin. She didn't flinch. The tracker popped out with a wet click, and I pocketed it just as a surveillance drone swept overhead, its searchlight scanning like a predator's eye. "Stay low," I whispered. Her breathing was shallow, but steady.
The path out of the crash site was a jagged scar through fallen concrete and twisted rebar. I helped Myers up a slope of debris to a rusted metal door that refused to budge. Together, we forced it open, shoulder to shoulder. It was the first real test of trust between us.
Inside, the building was a dark tomb of abandoned machinery. The elevator at the end of the hall had no power — its control panel lifeless. Myers frowned, her fingers brushing the inactive button. "There must be another way."
I backtracked, finding a ladder tucked behind some hissing pipes. The descent was slick with condensation. At the bottom, a shattered window offered entry into a maintenance corridor. I climbed through, my boots crunching on broken glass, and scaled another ladder to a fusebox. The spark of life returned to the building with a satisfying hum. A nearby door slid open — a shortcut I made a mental note of for later.
Back in the elevator, the ascent was tense. We both knew we weren't alone.
When the doors parted, we stepped into a hallway flickering with emergency lights. The shadow of a drone traced lazy circles beyond the window. I opted for a more surgical approach: slipping into a kitchen, I found an access point behind a counter and uploaded a quickhack. The drone's optics blinked out, and I breathed a little easier.
Alternatively, I could have crawled through a ventilation shaft I spotted earlier, bypassing the threat entirely. But the access point gave me a cleaner sightline for what lay ahead — a room crawling with Barghest guards.
Stealth was still an option, but the guards' overlapping patrol patterns made it feel like threading a needle in a hurricane. I decided to thin the herd. My silenced pistol coughed three times. Three bodies dropped before anyone raised an alarm. Myers watched from the doorway, her expression unreadable. When I waved her forward, she stepped over the corpses without a downward glance.
We boosted a truck from the loading bay, the engine growling to life as I floored it. The chase wasn't subtle — tire smoke and gunfire marked our exit. Dogtown's streets were a labyrinth of loyalties, and every blue dot on my minimap represented a patrol with twitchy trigger fingers. I threaded the vehicle through alleys and over curbs, dodging detection cones that sliced the darkness like white-hot knives.
Our destination was a parking structure northwest of our position, but a squad of guards blocked the front entrance. I cut right, finding a narrow maintenance path that snaked around their flank. Minutes later, we were in the elevator, rising toward the Expo Hall.
The exhibit floor was an eerie museum of Dogtown's past — mock-ups of the original corporate investments, holograms of failed dreams. I could have activated the displays to hear Myers' bitter commentary, but time was a luxury we didn't have. Songbird's voice guided us to a steel door at the top of a stairwell. It budged only an inch, groaning on its tracks, before I wedged my cyberarm into the gap and forced it wide enough to slip through.
The next chamber looked like an industrial cathedral, and in its center, an elevator awaited. The moment I called it, the trap snapped shut.
Barghest troopers boiled out of every entrance. I pulled Myers into cover as gunfire chewed the air. "Songbird, whatever you're planning — do it now!" I shouted over the din.
A shockwave thundered through the floor, and the Chimera mech dropped from the ceiling like a vengeful god.
For a few blissful seconds, it tore through our enemies. Then its optics flickered red. The thing was compromised. I grabbed Myers' wrist and sprinted for the maintenance shutter beside the elevator, slamming the control just as the mech's machine gun stitched a line of holes across the wall where we'd been standing.
On the other side, V's cyberware glitched, seizing my muscles. I stumbled, half-dragged by Myers toward another elevator. The Chimera's pounding footsteps grew louder. "Hold on!" she barked at me, her voice cracking.
When the elevator arrived, the world slowed to a crawl of quick-time prompts: dodge the swipe, press the button, yank the cord. We collapsed against the lift's back wall, panting. But the ordeal was far from over.
The Chimera cornered us on the floor below.
Its armored shell was littered with weak panels that glowed only fleetingly. I ducked behind a pillar, reloading my rifle, and timed my shots. A machine gun burst shredded concrete inches from my head. A laser painted a molten line across the floor. Every time I fired, I had to reposition.
Midway through the fight, the mech deployed repair drones. I switched targets, popping the marked ones before they could undo all my work. Myers, crouched behind cover, kept up a steady stream of encouragement — or maybe it was just her keeping herself sane.
Phase two pushed me upward. Toxic gas flooded the lower level, forcing me to climb. From the upper gantry, I rained fire on the Chimera while dodging missile barrages that filled the air with screaming metal. The pattern was the same: shoot, hide, shoot.
Once the last armor plate buckled, the Chimera stumbled and crashed to its knees. I didn't hesitate. I leapt onto its head, my gorilla arms crushing the access panel, and ripped out its glowing core. The light in its optics died, and with it, the immediate danger.
Silence fell, heavy and sudden. Myers walked over, her gaze fixed on the sparking shell of the machine. She didn't say thank you, not in words, but the shift in her posture told me everything. We were a team now, whether I liked it or not.
The 'Spider and the Fly' had drawn its final breath. Ahead, Dogtown still offered no promises, but for the first time that night, I felt like we might actually make it out alive. And in Night City, that's the closest thing to a happy ending you ever get.