Chapter 22 - 20: Golden Event Card

Chapter 22: Chapter 20: Golden Event Card

In the Guard Team’s cafeteria, Yin Zhen slowly drank the blood plasma she’d just collected.

Adeline, supposedly so "ambitious," spent every single day smoking, drinking, playing cards, and gaming — she never lifted a finger for anything that mattered, and joining the Eternal Council was a pipe dream at this rate.

Over on the game invasion forum, the only update in recent days had been a post by "Naming is Too Troublesome" appending an Explanation to the original thread — noting that Adeline Cavendish was not recommended as a route to pursue. Nothing new after that.

"S717, what are you doing here? Where’s Miss Adeline?"

Yin Zhen looked up at the sound of Angie’s voice, and froze.

Angie’s left arm was gone. About twenty centimeters below the shoulder, a silver-white mechanical prosthetic had been fitted in its place. Yin Zhen glanced past him — the young man who always trailed at Angie’s heels was nowhere to be seen.

"Where’s Alei?" Yin Zhen asked.

Angie’s smile stiffened for a moment. "Dead. Day before yesterday. Third district sewers — a B-level Fallen Species Nest. We got the order to clear it out. Intel said five or six of them. Turned out there were over fifty..."

Angie went quiet. At the far end of the corridor, soldiers sprinted past, their footsteps sharp and urgent.

"He’d just gotten engaged. A few days ago."

Angie said nothing more. He turned and walked away.

Yin Zhen’s grip on the blood plasma pouch tightened slowly. She drew a breath, sent Adeline a message through her wrist comm requesting leave, then grabbed the gun bag off the table and stood up.

She was going to the black market. The sewers. Anywhere there was a chance of triggering a cannon fodder event.

She couldn’t just sit around and wait. She had to take the fight to them. She had to stay alive.

She’d barely made it to the building’s entrance, though, when Adeline came rushing over and cut her off.

"Perfect timing, 717. Come with me to the Saint Group lab — I need to pay an old friend a visit."

...

The aircar cut through the skies above Night City at speed. Outside the windows, neon lights blazed without end. In the distance, sirens wailed one after another, and drones launched in massive formations — as if hunting someone down.

Yin Zhen glanced at Adeline in the rearview mirror. The young mistress was slouched in her seat, expression dark, absently turning a gun over and over in her hands.

She didn’t look like someone going to see an old friend. She looked like someone going to kill one.

Yin Zhen looked away and kept driving.

Her wrist comm suddenly buzzed, a holographic map snapping into the air above it. A red dot blinked and moved rapidly across the display. The Saint Group AI’s voice came through the band.

"Emergency directive! Defected subject S704 is moving toward your current location — distance 2.3 kilometers. Intercept immediately. All Weapons are authorized for use. Civilian casualties are permitted if necessary. No cost or consequence is to be weighed. Hold position until Bloodthorn Squad arrives. This directive supersedes all current assignments. Repeat — this directive supersedes all. Execute immediately!"

[Golden Event Card "Defection" triggered. This event is part of the Red Corpse World main storyline. Players are advised to choose carefully whether to participate.]

Yin Zhen’s pupils contracted slightly.

S704. The red-haired woman.

The one who’d shared a Treatment Pod with her back in the lab — who’d awakened Water Manipulation after the catalyst injection, and whom Victor and the researchers had treated like a prize discovery.

She’d actually defected. Which meant... could she be the protagonist of this world?

The tracking chip at the back of her neck was burning hot. Yin Zhen didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to think, didn’t even say a word to Adeline — she hit the autopilot, shoved the car door open, and threw herself out.

The wind tore at her face. In the plummeting freefall, Yin Zhen shifted into a Raven, and the weight of her body vanished instantly.

The Raven spread its wings and carved a long arc through the neon-drenched skies of Night City, diving toward S704’s position.

In a narrow, deserted alley below, S704 was sprinting in a Saint Group intern researcher’s uniform, her red hair blazing like fire. Her speed was staggering — each stride covered several meters.

Yin Zhen folded her wings and plunged. The jet-black feathers snapped back in an instant.

Bones restructured. Muscle rebuilt. She dropped straight down from the sky in human form, simultaneously drawing Night Song from her hip, already aiming ahead of S704’s escape path.

She held the trigger. The electromagnetic coils around the barrel lit up in cold blue light, charging — one second, two, three.

Bang!

The gunshot exploded through the narrow alley. The high-explosive armor-piercing round shredded the air, its muzzle velocity doubled by the electromagnetic acceleration — and it hit S704 square in the back. She went down hard.

Just before she hit the ground, Yin Zhen shifted back into a Raven, spread her wings to cushion the landing, then returned to human form.

In her downtime, Yin Zhen would run through countless scenarios in her head, working out how to get the most out of her Extraordinary Abilities in combination.

The Training Pod Adeline had given her had done plenty for her combat capability as well.

Once she steadied herself and looked up, S704 was gone. The only thing left on the alley floor was a shallow puddle — not a trace of blood.

Murderous intent surged out of the puddle. Yin Zhen threw herself backward, and a blade of water sliced across her wrist before skimming past her cheek, carving a deep gash into the wall behind her.

Her wrist comm shattered and clattered to the ground in two pieces. Yin Zhen raised Night Song toward the source of the killing intent, eyes sharp.

Water rose from the puddle and coalesced — taking the shape of S704. Soaking red hair clung to the sides of her face, the ends still dripping. Her skin was as pale as Yin Zhen’s, and a scatter of light brown freckles dusted her nose and cheekbones, like ink accidentally splattered across white paper.

She stood there as water ran off her body and pooled at her feet. She looked nothing like a fugitive — more like a stray cat caught in the rain.

"I remember you." S704’s voice was calm.

"Don’t move! Stay right there!"

Yin Zhen kept her finger on the trigger, doing her job. Even with her wrist comm deliberately destroyed by S704, drones were still circling overhead, and there were surveillance devices at the alley entrance. She couldn’t afford to slip up.

Until she made it back to her own world safe and sound — until she had her revenge — she would not allow a single thing to go wrong.

S704 smiled faintly and took a step toward her.

Bang!

S704’s head exploded. But she wouldn’t die — Yin Zhen knew perfectly well she couldn’t kill the "protagonist." What scared her more right now was dying here herself.

The water flowed back together, reconstituting S704’s head. Droplets fell from the tips of her hair, and her face wore a look of quiet, sorrowful compassion.

She raised one hand. The water at her feet scattered instantly, and in the blink of an eye it formed a massive sphere around them — opaque, impenetrable, cutting them off from every watching eye outside.

"You can’t kill me, and I have no desire to kill you. We’re the same kind."

Yin Zhen stared at her.

"My name is Zoe. Not S704 — Zoe."

"I don’t care!"

"You do. And you should have your own name too — not a number!" Zoe’s voice grew heated. "Do you know what the prefix on our designation codes actually means? SHL?"

She wasn’t waiting for Yin Zhen to answer. She was going to say it either way.

"It’s from the old-world language — ’Shell.’ We are shells. Bodies hand-picked for the nobility to inhabit!"