Chapter 33: Agent Mosley
A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
Agent Mosley gets a visit.
-x-X-x-
Agent Bryce Mosley considered himself something of a straight shooter. Or at least as straight a shooter as you can be in his line of work. Still, what he did… what all of NetWatch did in fact, was downright critical to the continued existence of humanity. The DataKrash had nearly been the end of them all, and even between NetWatch and the Black Wall, it felt like they were still just barely hanging on all these years later.
And yet… humans could be such lemmings sometimes. The human capacity for self-destruction was only matched by their capacity for self-determination. They were capable of both the greatest and the worst things imaginable at the end of the day. So it didn’t really surprise Mosley that the Voodoo Boys were playing games and trying to reach past the Black Wall, risking everyone’s lives for their own personal gain.
… But it did annoy him. He tried not to put too much emotion in his work, but the NetWatch Agent would be lying if he said he didn’t get some enjoyment about shutting down idiots like these.
This mission was about more than just his personal enjoyment though. That’s why he’d been as careful as possible. Using the Animals as security had been a calculated move designed to not just keep the Voodoo Boys distracted but also leave them in the dark about their true enemy.
It’d worked too. He’d managed to lock down their leader and their second best Netrunner, putting them out of commission while he steadily worked to chew through the foundations of every Voodoo Boy Data Fortress in Pacifica. Just a little bit longer and he would be able to do the equivalent of kicking over one support, which would in turn cause every other support to fail and the data forts to fall in one fell swoop.
It was going to be glorious. It was going to-
“Agent.”
Agent Mosley twitches as the voice of Sasquatch, the Alpha of the Pack of Animals he’s paying to watch his back, comes over the secure line she’d been given. She was only ever supposed to use said secure line in case of a true emergency, given the delicate nature of the work he was doing.
Frowning, he immediately pulls up the Grand Imperial Mall’s security cameras before answering her, only to blink in surprise at seeing the hulking woman treating with what look to be a group of mercenaries he doesn’t recognize.
He would have expected Sasquatch to fight first and ask questions later but… ah. Over to the side, he sees a few Animals tending to their wounded. There had been a fight… but from the look of things, no serious injuries had been dealt to his security detail. Meanwhile, it didn’t look like these newcomers had a scratch on them.
Tch. His own alerts should have told him that something was going on. That they hadn’t… wasn’t a good sign. Sasquatch was right to contact him.
“Sasquatch. What’s happening out there?”
He watches through the cameras as the hulking woman tilts her head to the side, arms crossed over her chest.
“Edgerunners. They claim they mean no harm. Leader says his name is ‘V’. Wants to speak with you. Called you out. By name.”
That… really wasn’t good. The NetWatch Agent’s jaw clenches and he quickly brings up everything he can find on this ‘V’ character. There’s not much, but that might be an issue of branding more than anything. In a place like Night City, you know how many mercs at any given moment might be going by a single letter alias like ‘V’?
Still, he has the man’s face, and that means he finds something eventually. Again, it’s not much though… not nearly enough. Asking for Mosley by name? For a long moment, he wants to order Sasquatch to attack while he packs his shit and gets the fuck out of there. But… he can’t do it. At the end of the day, he’s just not willing to sacrifice his people, even if they are just temporary hires. Damn it all to hell.
Patching himself through, Mosley lets his voice filter out of the speakers so that V and his motley crew can hear him.
“I heard you’ve been asking for me. V, was it? Tell me V, how exactly did you discover my presence in Pacifica?”
If V is upset that the NetWatch Agent isn’t showing his face directly, he doesn’t show it. Instead, the male solo jerks a thumb in the direction of one of the women with him.
“Solid Netrunning help. Wasn’t looking for you though. Just stumbled upon your work while we were dealing with a problem.”
Mosley focuses on the woman that V has singled out for a moment. Looking into HER… well, that’s a whole lot more than there is about V. Lucyna Kushinada. NetWatch hadn’t known she was back in Night City after the incident in ’76. That was… well, it may or may not be an issue. Still, he can’t focus on that right now.
“What problem, exactly?”
V grins now, and the grin sends a shiver down Mosley’s spine.
“A Voodoo Boys-shaped problem.”
That… Mosley curses and immediately turns back to his work, fingers falling upon a keyboard as he rapidly checks up on things. If these no-name mercenaries fucked around with the Voodoo Boys, it was possible they might have accidentally helped Brigitte and Neptune get out of his trap. Or even worse, if they’d fucked up and had to run, they might have inadvertently led the Voodoo Boys right to Mosley’s doorstep. The Animals only worked as a smokescreen so well after all.
Except…
“By now you’re probably noticing something is off over there. Let me help clarify… the Pacifica Chapter of the Voodoo Boys has been wiped out. Ripped out at the root, so to speak.”
V isn’t wrong. The security over at the Voodoo Boys’ main base was fairly tough to crack. Mosley could get in through backdoors, which was how he’d managed to trap their leadership and top Netrunner, but the problem was, every Voodoo Boy was a Netrunner and Mosley was trying to stay completely under the radar.
As such, he hadn’t dared touch their security cameras for risk of discovery. But now… well, there’s no security left to speak up. Their camera system is completely exposed, allowing Mosley to slip right into it and look around. The devastation and carnage that he sees backs up V’s words. As far as Mosley can tell, the Voodoo Boys in Pacifica are gone. Every last one.
Even the room where Maman Brigitte and Ti Neptune’s bodies were being kept on ice after Mosley captured their minds is left exposed now. As such, he’s able to see both Netrunners with bullets through their skulls… and Brigitte’s second in command Placide on the ground, dead as a doornail as well.
Sitting back in his chair, Bryce Mosley finds himself at something of a loss for words for a long moment. This was… he should have noticed this happening. That he hadn’t spoke to a level of competence and a degree of sophistication from V and his crew that their history, even Lucyna’s checkered past, made seem impossible.
“Agent?”
At the sound of Sasquatch’s voice, he finally focuses back on the screen showing her facing off against V and the others, Mosley swallows hard and wets his lips before making sure his voice is steady as he responds.
“I would ask how you’ve done this, but I won’t insult either of us with stupid questions. I would ask… what exactly brought you and yours down on the Voodoo Boys’ heads?”
V tilts his head to the side at that, even as Mosley categorizes the rest of his crew. Truth be told, it’s only a three man squad that he can see right now. There’s V, there’s Lucyna… and then there’s Panam Palmer, a former Nomad turned City Merc. She’s probably their wheels, and Kushinada is known to be primarily a Netrunner, not a combatant. Meaning that either V was their only boots on the ground, or they had more people close by.
Frustratingly, looking around the area, Mosley can’t see anything that stands out to him, even as he awaits V’s response.
“They went after a friend of mine. And they would have kept going after her if I didn’t put a stop to it.”
Put a stop to it. That was certainly one way to describe destroying the entirety of one of the Voodoo Boys’ strongest chapters in what seemed like one fell swoop. Mosley literally couldn’t have done it better if he tried. He’d been beaten to the punch on his own attempt, after all. Though, the work wasn’t done just yet, now was it?
“In the end, consider this a courtesy visit. Just wanted you to know that you can topple that first domino whenever you want. Unless there’s something you want to say, we’re going to head out now.”
Mosley’s jaw clenches at the casualness in which V mentions knowing about the NetWatch Agent’s overall mission. After all, there wasn’t much else that ‘toppling that first domino’ could even mean beyond the aforementioned total destruction of the Voodoo Boys’ Data Fortresses that Mosley had been working on for weeks now.
A total destruction that still needed to happen, lest other Voodoo Boys move in and set up shop right where the previous chapter had left off. Still, it seemed V was more than happy to let Mosley handle the cleanup.
“Orders?”
Sasquatch at least has the good grace to subvocalize her question to him, even though Mosley thinks he sees V react almost imperceptibly all the same. Still… at the end of the day, these were not his enemies. And Mosley had work to do.
“Thank you for your… courtesy visit, V. There’s nothing for now, but trust that NetWatch will be in touch if we find it necessary to ask any further questions.”
Far from being intimidated by the corporate name drop, V just looks right up at the specific camera Mosley is currently watching him from, somehow managing to look Mosley right in the eye from across the length of the Mall… and smirks.
“I’m sure.”
With that, he and the two women with him turn and leave. Mosley follows them out via the security cameras, jaw clenched all the while. He doesn’t even realize how… rapidly his heart is racing until they’re finally gone and the adrenaline begins flowing out of him. That was an experience he was NOT expecting.
At the same time though… he still had to finish his job. Putting the mysterious mercenary crew out of his mind for the moment, Mosley focuses on the task at hand. Very briefly, he considers isolating the data left behind by Brigitte and Neptune’s passing for later NetWatch perusal… but ultimately decides against it under his authority as Acting Agent On Site.
There were elements in NetWatch who would have loved the chance to pick Brigitte and Neptune’s brains, or rather what was left of them… but Mosley was a straight shooter. And the world had enough danger in it without helping the lemmings among humanity along to the cliff’s edge even further.
With two decisive button presses, he wipes the remnants of Maman Brigitte and Ti Neptune from the Net and then tips the first domino over. There’s nobody left to panic or try to stop it as the Voodoo Boys’ Data Fortresses fall one by one. Instead, the only witness to their destruction is Bryce Mosley as he watches his hard work finally come to fruition.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite how he expected things to turn out… but he wasn’t complaining, in the end.
-x-X-x-
Contrary to what he believed, Mosley actually wasn’t the only one watching the data forts collapse. V watches alongside Alt as Panam drives them all away from Pacifica and back into the rest of Night City. He knew what Mosley was like from the last time around, and he believed he could trust the NetWatch Agent to do what he believed was the right thing. But that was no reason not to verify.
Still, V is glad to see that he was right. Mosley destroys the data forts completely, along with the leftover data remnants of Brigitte and Neptune. Once and for all, the Voodoo Boys of Pacifica are no more. No more trying to capture Alt for power, no more trying to silence Evelyn for her role in their schemes.
Smiling, V leans over and gives Panam a nod.
“Drop me off here if you would. Need to deliver some good news.”
Panam nods back as V sends her the address, and soon enough he’s hopping out of the truck and walking up to Judy’s apartment by himself. Well, by himself but with Alt over his shoulder, as always.
Judy opens the door as he steps up in front of it, letting him in to find Evelyn waiting at the table in the kitchen. Both women look at him as if they’re not sure what to expect. V doesn’t bother drawing shit out.
“It’s done. They won’t be coming after you again, Evelyn. They aren’t capable of coming after you again.”
There’s no missing the meaning behind V’s words, but if either woman cares that he just committed a massacre, they don’t show it. Rather, both Evelyn and Judy look relieved… though Judy looks somewhat trepidatious as well. V doesn’t really know what that’s about… until Evelyn shares a meaningful look with Judy and then smiles at him.
“Thank you V. We have something to tell you now though. We’re leaving Night City.”
Ah… that was why Judy was worried. She was afraid he would be mad that they were bailing right after he’d finished pulling Evelyn’s ass out of the fire. The thing was, he kind of knew to expect this from the previous timeline. He just hadn’t fully anticipated Judy being able to convince Evelyn to leave it all behind. But Arasaka was still very much present in the city… and Yorinobu in particular might at any point turn his mind towards the escort he’d hired one night, V supposed.
Far from getting upset, V nods casually.
“Makes sense. If you can get out before this place chews you up, you should.”
Both Judy and Evelyn look surprised at his easy acceptance. Only, Judy’s trepidation doesn’t fall away… while Evelyn is suddenly grinning as she rises from the table and begins sauntering over to him. Suddenly, her arms are around his neck and she’s kissing him.
V doesn’t mind it. His own hands fall to the former doll’s hips and he kisses her back. When they come back for air though, he does raise an eyebrow at Evelyn questioningly, which prompts her grin to turn into a wicked little smirk.
“Before we leave, Judy and I discussed things and decided we wanted to show our appreciation. You’ve more than earned it… more than earned us, V. So consider this your reward… the both of us, any time you want until we finally depart from Night City.”
That… catches V by surprise. Mostly because he’d actually tried to shoot his shot with Judy in the previous timeline only to be shot down. He’d thought she wasn’t into men, truth be told. Glancing over at her now for clarification however reveals an incredibly tantalizing sight. Judy has stripped down to her waist while he and Evelyn were kissing and exposed her tattooed torso to him, including her perfectly sized breasts, one of which is covered in an artful red spider-web.
Well. Damn.
[ ] He doesn't feel right taking advantage of either woman's generosity. Saving Ev was its own reward - 8%
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