Chapter 57: Chapter Fifty-Seven: Hunter

"Did everyone from Team One, Team Four, and Team Seven die?"

In the shadows, voices whispered.

"Crushed by three robots… such a bunch of useless trash."

"Hey, don't talk like that—they're our colleagues, died on duty, no need to blame them."

"You saying that because you want to be captain?"

"Shut your fucking mouth, Bit."

"Both of you, stop arguing."

The noisy chatter made her slowly open her eyes.

In the dim, hazy gloom, three twisted human shadows flickered in and out.

"Hey! How's it going, newbie!" The red-haired woman leaned in close, greeting her with enthusiastic energy.

As the host's consciousness gradually awakened, her foggy mind slowly regained bodily sensation.

She frowned, instinctively wanting to pull away from the woman whose breath reeked of alcohol.

The next instant, the sensation of being tightly bound made her abandon the thought.

"Where am I?" She tried to shout, but only emitted a hoarse murmur.

"Relax, relax, newbie. Standard procedure—don't be nervous." The man called "Bit" stepped out of the darkness, soothing her as he took his place beside the red-haired woman.

"Stay away from me, dog." The red-haired woman crossed her arms and glared fiercely at Bit.

"Rovina, stop putting on airs in front of the newbie…"

"Enough!"

Before Rovina and Bit could begin another petty quarrel, a low male voice rang out in the small room, like thunder cracking.

"Captain, could you lower your voice a bit?" Rovina clapped her hands over her ears and whispered.

"Our newbie's about to pass out," Bit said, one hand digging in his ear, the other pointing at the limp woman on the bed, grinning with malicious delight.

"Melissa Rory?" The man lowered his voice deliberately; the deep words drilled into Melissa's ears, violently vibrating her fragile eardrums.

"Who are you? Let me go! I'm…" She roared, waves of sound laced with flame surging through the cramped prison.

"From the moment you went cyberpsycho, you lost your right to be human."

The captain spoke softly, his crimson cybernetic eye glowing in the darkness, fixed unblinkingly on Melissa as she struggled desperately.

"Welcome to hell. Welcome to… the Hunter."

"Hunter? You're… MaxTac?" Melissa's eyes widened; unspeakable terror gripped her trembling heart.

From the man's words, she glimpsed a horrifying truth.

Those who hunt monsters are monsters themselves.

"This can't be true—I'm not a cyberpsycho! Let me out! You're all insane!"

Melissa screamed and thrashed; cold metal chains bound her tightly to the bed.

"You can choose not to join us," the man said slowly, word by word, "but the cost… is that your madness will no longer be suppressed."

"What does that mean?" Melissa gasped for air; the hard chains left ugly marks on her skin.

"You've probably guessed already—most MaxTac members are cyberpsychos…" The man tapped his own head, then pointed to his two silent teammates behind him, "but… look, we still hold onto our sanity…"

"That's the price of being a Hunter—stay alert and survive."

"…" Melissa fell silent, closing her eyes, searching her mind for fragmented memories of her madness.

Finally, she realized a terrible truth lay before her—she had no choice but to face it.

She was insane.

Choose to stay alert and cling to life, feeding on the blood of her own kind?

Or lose her humanity and die miserably, mad and broken?

"Fuck… there's no real choice here," she murmured, and before madness could reclaim her mind, she whispered, "I'll join you…"

"Melissa… no need to agonize over it. When you went mad, you were already dead." The man unfastened her restraints as he spoke, "Treat this as your second life. Leave everything behind."

"Were you all like this… at first?" Melissa watched silently as the man slowly unwound the chains, asking softly.

"Rovina, Bit… and our former teammates—all of them went through this." The man helped Melissa sit up and handed her over to Rovina, who had been waiting nearby.

"Forgive me—I'm Beros." A faint smile twisted his cold face as he waved to his new teammate, then pulled Bit away, leaving the room to the two women.

"Our captain's not bad, right?"

"Huh?"

"I mean… compared to me and that piece of shit Bit, he seems almost normal—except for his loud voice." Rovina lowered her gaze, hiding her emotions from Melissa.

"Sounds like there's a story there?"

Once she understood, Melissa did not sink into despair—she pulled herself together.

Before she went mad, she had been a woman who carved out her place alone in Night City.

"I'll tell you the full story later… but you're taking this awfully fast."

Rovina scratched her red hair in surprise—such a strange newbie was rare in MaxTac.

"I just heard you talking… Team One, Team Four, Team Seven… all dead?" Melissa hesitated a few seconds, then finally asked.

During her coma, something earth-shattering had happened.

Though MaxTac often dealt with dangerous cyberpsychos, their tight coordination and superior gear kept their casualty rate far lower than regular NCPD officers.

"Kang Tao Corporation's latest combat robots, plus Militech Corporation's newest Sandevistan prototype…"

Rovina shook her head, sighed lightly, then added, "We MaxTac look impressive, but we're just company guard dogs."

"To the civilians, we're top-tier Hunters; to the corporate bosses, we're nothing but experimental specimens…"

"But I don't have any other choice… do I?" Melissa listened quietly as her senior described the grim fate of this trade, then spoke helplessly.

"You've caught a good time—last time Kangtao went too far, using us as marketing background..."

"The higher-ups lost face, so they're planning to upgrade our gear, and a specialized company now handles the medication for Cyberpsycho."

Rovina fastened the last button for Melissa, her tone slightly buoyant.

"I was just about to ask—can Cyberpsycho even be treated?"

"You know Braindance? Our previous therapy was similar to Braindance—I can't explain the exact mechanism... roughly speaking, it used machines to take the burden of cybernetics off the human brain..."

"So it's different now?" Melissa slipped on the slippers by the bed, supported by Rovina as they headed toward the bathroom.

"Ding! Ding! Ding!" Rovina pulled from her pocket a pill, emerald-blue as the sea, shaped like a diamond.

"This?" Melissa raised an eyebrow. "It looks more like jewelry or art—can you actually eat this? What are the side effects?"

"Who cares about side effects when you're living one day at a time," Rovina said, unconcerned, carefully returning the pill to her pocket.

"They're all just a bunch of lunatics..."

Melissa thought silently, and under Rovina's gaze, closed the bathroom door.