Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 545: Bleeding Money.
"They sure have a lot of members..."
Leaning back in his chair, Dante let his head hang back as he faced the ceiling. A series of screens were projected on his field of sight, each one playing the recording of a shooting. The victims all had skull face tattoos, though the size of some differed.
"They are a big gang."
Relaxing on a nearby coach, Riot popped his fifth beer for the day. It wasn’t even noon yet.
"Still nothing?" He asked.
"Nope." Dante sighed.
He had sent four teams into Red hill, each one consisting of five members. Their goal was to blend in and gather info, but at the moment, that wasn’t working as well as he had thought it would.
His original plan was to use Type 8’s Spatial Awareness ability to scan the entire district and locate the places he wanted to target. Unfortunately, even at Level 6, the amount of details they could gather was very limited, making it very difficult to discern things on a large scale.
To get more accurate readings, he would have to be at the center of the desired location, on top of wearing the armor for an extended period of time. Even if he disregarded the strain on his brain and lower body, the likelihood of the BEO getting wind of what he was doing would increase drastically, even if he used Suzuka’s cloak.
Black Skull was doing a really good job at hiding their illegal businesses, which was to be expected. They had been in the game for a very long time, so it was to be expected. Right now, all Dante could do was sit down and wait for replies from his teams. While at it, he had to watch the Red Marking videos that had been submitted and hand out the bounties.
"This feels like a waste..." he grimaced.
"It’s working, isn’t it?" Riot said. "You’re the one who said you want to wipe them out."
"Not when we’re bleeding money."
"Well, you could have done it all on your own, but..."
Black Skull was a big gang with a lot of people to spare. Even with the Daggers harassing them, they still had a lot of leeway, which would have made it difficult for Dante’s spies to do their job. Dante didn’t want to give the bastards a chance to breathe, so after consulting with Viktor, they came up with the bounty plan.
5000 Gs for Red Marking a nobody would have made Dante salivate back in the day. 5k was far too enticing, so even if it meant going against an established gang like Black Skull, many were willing to risk it.
The cost of running the operation had already passed the two million mark. When he put 300k on the heads of sergeants, he didn’t expect that three would be killed in a single day. Several captains were taken out, too. If it kept going at this rate, he might have to dish out several more millions.
Of course, that didn’t seem like it would be the case. Black Skull was gradually consolidating their forces and implementing countermeasures to stop bleeding members. Those who take on Red Marking gigs are usually freelance mercs and thugs looking to join gangs, and though inexperienced, they were smart enough to make risk assessments. The money was enticing, but it wasn’t worth getting caught or ending on the gang’s bad side, both of which would lead to fates worse than death.
The number of killings would be at its highest during the first few days, but it will drop significantly as it becomes more and more difficult to catch the gangsters by surprise. Once it gets to that, Dante would have no choice but to change his strategy.
’The next phase...’
Just as he was about to authenticate another video, a message notification popped up. The sender was Bella, one of the team leaders infiltrating Red Hill. According to her, they had obtained info on the location of another illegal brothel and she was asking him to confirm it.
"I will be heading out."
"Found one?" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
"We will see."
After what happened in Heavenly Bliss, Dante was being extra cautious of traps. Though he wanted to believe that his enemies wouldn’t use the same trick twice, his mission of crushing Black Skull’s disgusting businesses made it easy to track his location, and not taking advantage of that was plain idiotic.
Even while knowing that, Dante wasn’t about to sit back and do nothing. He couldn’t risk sending anyone else, either, so he had to go himself.
Descending to the basement, he removed the chairs in one of the corners then opened the hatch under it. The tunnel it concealed led to the sewers. Thanks to the rainy weather of the past few days, they weren’t in their best state. Dante simply ignored the filthy tunnels and walked for some time before equipping 8-3, opening a portal then summoning one of Volcan’s drones.
In truth, with how secure he made the Red Oni Club and the area around it, the could have just opened a portal in a toilet or something and left from there. What made him go through this annoying ritual was the chance that someone might be watching from a distance.
There was no telling what kind of abilities his enemies have, so it wouldn’t be strange for them to have someone who can see through walls or track people’s location using something similar to Spatial Awareness.
The purpose of his short trip through the sewers was to make it seem as if he was meeting someone there, and that said person was the one who helped him move around. Those who know Volcan is in his possession wouldn’t fall for such a trick, so this wasn’t for them.
The ones he was trying to trick were Caroline and her friends in the BEO. When it came to the Genomes, he was fighting two different factions, and not just one. If he is correct and Caroline was indeed being kept in the dark about his true capabilities, then it was better to continue hiding his identity as Ghost.
