Chapter 179 - 163: Stolen? Found it!

Roshan, as an expert in firearms, vehicle, and even home security customization, had plenty of good stuff in his store.

The equipment rental fee of 100 euros was quite a bargain—after all, who could have expected that things would really fall from the sky?

The Bolatsk truck "bounced" onto the pile of garbage, and David immediately climbed into the exoskeleton for material handling and then connected to his personal link.

[∑ Linear Frame (Privately Modified Version)]

[Description: An old-style exoskeleton scavenged from the garbage heap, a best-selling model from 2020, modified for heavy-duty work]

This gadget used a personal link and cellular network to connect, its security was average, and its flexibility wasn’t strong, but its essential functions were still quite decent.

The work exoskeleton provided a load capacity of 250kg and allowed David to jog quickly even when carrying heavy objects, although it looked a bit stiff.

David moved his body around a bit and was just about to exclaim in admiration when Lucy knocked him, and he quickly straightened up his face—we were here to work.

Carrying a bunch of equipment over to the scrap, David said:

"Move quickly, I’ll handle moving the stuff, Lucy is responsible for scanning the scrap, Rebecca and Pila, you two take apart the goods."

Next to the dam, three military trucks were emitting sparks and dense smoke, their cargo boxes split open under the forces of gravity and impact, scattering quite a lot of items.

However, from the outside, the trucks appeared to be mostly intact...

Pila’s eyes shone with greed: "Military trucks made by the Russian Federation are so damn impressive, if we had one of these in Night City, we’d be walking sideways.

Rebecca, power it up—hey you, can’t you grow up a bit?"

While saying this, Pila’s hands wielding welding and cutting tools buzzed loudly, clearly, Rebecca had already connected the electricity.

Unfortunately, these operations seemed a bit strenuous for her: the batteries were quite heavy in comparison to an adult’s build, and Rebecca could only hang off David to adjust the wires.

David was not a big guy either, but at least he was an adult-sized person.

And there were no versions of the exoskeleton made for children...

"Get lost!" Rebecca controlled the surge in the electricity, and the sparks nearly jumped onto Pila’s sleeve.

David set down a pile of equipment, silently admiring the exoskeleton’s awesomeness, and got ready...

Time to keep moving the bricks!

"I don’t understand the technical stuff, I can only rely on you, Lucy, have you scanned anything we need?"

"Mmm... this is pretty awesome... Burger King really dares to loot, these things, even the least valuable are level two controlled equipment, if they’re in good condition, this truckload of equipment is worth..."

Lucy was somewhat lost for words after scanning, because this was a fortune beyond her expectations.

If the equipment was intact, the goods in a single cargo box might be worth more than 2 million euros in the market.

All were instruments used by the rich and biological laboratories, and some couldn’t even be scanned—

Is this a garbage truck? If this is a garbage truck, then what are we? Mercenaries less valuable than trash?

And to think of her own dream—a ticket to the Moon for just 200,000 euros...

"Lucy?"

Lucy adjusted her mindset and marked the targets for everyone:

"... I’ve marked the targets for you guys; we have 20 minutes to dismantle and harvest, then load up the truck and retreat."

Twenty minutes was neither a short nor a long time—especially since their payoff was related to the goods they could salvage.

But Lucy was obedient—Lille told her, no matter what she saw, not to label the value of the items for others.

The reason was simple; they had only 20 minutes.

She really wanted to grab more stuff, but the situation now was far beyond her imagination; greed could easily cost them their lives!

She could only mark those high-value items and the ones Burger King specifically wanted secured, praying for time to slow down a bit.

Roshan looked at the piles and piles of valuable scrap and clicked his tongue, feeling tempted.

"... Who are you guys working for?"

"You don’t need to know; you just have to understand the client has carved a path for you: we only need 20 minutes; after 20 minutes, how much stuff you can get depends on your skill—

He suggests you call over the other scavengers nearby; keeping it all to yourself could cause problems."

Carved a path?

Roshan swallowed, thinking of the white marks still on his counter and dropped the idea he had just conceived of raising the price or getting a share of the loot.

The big brother was eating meat, but he didn’t forget to leave some soup for the little brother—better to stay the little brother, then.

"I still understand the rules of the streets, first come, first served..."

After saying this, she ran into her store, timing it for the expected rush, and started calling her friends:

"At Peizhuo Petrochemical Dam, the company’s transport convoy went down! Hurry up and come make money! Whatever you find is profit!

Stealing? NCPD? Are you an idiot? We are picking, picking, you get it!"

The cooperation among the four was even more unspoken than expected; the 20 minutes passed quickly—

Having loaded the last device, Rebecca and Pila gripped a flared-up spot in the car’s paint, which wouldn’t be noticed as peeling without a close look.

But once looked at closely—the two of them jointly lifted it, directly changing the bottom color of the car into blue, white, and black.

Then they added an NCPD logo on top of it.

This way, the truck went from a reputable logistics personal vehicle to an NCPD outsourced transportation vehicle.

After placing the goods at the Lama Armory’s entrance, Pila pressed down hard on the accelerator, suddenly yelling excitedly:

"Scavenging is so damn fun!"

Rebecca smacked his head hard: "Drive properly, you dumbass big bro!"

The vehicle drove out of Saint Domingo, and as soon as it left Heidenhafen Street, they saw other scavengers coming towards them in their vehicles, excitedly.

In the distance, they could hear NCPD sirens approaching—

The four of them drove in the opposite direction and hardly encountered any traffic jams.

They even brushed past NCPD patrol vehicles.

...

At the exit of Highway 15, there was a joint checkpoint of the NCPD and Military Technology.

Less than half an hour before, troops from Military Technology had abruptly pulled out from the checkpoint, leaving all the inspections to the NCPD, which severely slowed things down.

Officers Reaver and his partner, old Han, were staring blankly at the long Mackinaw convoy.

Old Han remained expressionless, "Why did you take on this crap job?"

"What’s wrong with police doing public security work?"

"No problem with that, but why volunteer?" Old Han shifted his butt to a more comfortable position, "You don’t think that the lizard people have left the sewers and come to the desert, do you?"

Reaver didn’t say anything.

A week before, suspects in the city center had triggered an electromagnetic pulse and released lizard people—

This phenomenon hadn’t been completely verified by the outside world yet, but Reaver knew lizard people were real!

He had seen it with his own eyes!

All wickedness would be brought to justice by his efforts—lizard people included!

Old Han waved his hand dismissively, "Drop it, that creature is not something we can handle. It would be good enough just to fish for a medal..."

Beep—

The police frequency came alive.

"Attention all NCPD personnel, a carjacking incident occurred near the Saint Domingo Dam scenic spot. Wanderer hijacked a scrap vehicle from Moore Technology.

The vehicle lost control and crashed off the dam, now lying in the Saint Domingo area.

The cargo contains a level-one restricted device, and local scavengeers are closing in. Officers on duty, maintain order."

"Tss—Robbing a scrap vehicle and then crashing it, the Wanderer must have been out of their minds. Let’s deal with it.

Dispatch, how’s the overtime pay I mentioned? Still hasn’t been approved by the higher-ups?"

Tss.

Old Han laughed, "This dumb kid wants overtime pay, just like you, a simpleton."

"What’s wrong with wanting overtime pay for overtime work, why mock that?" Reaver said helplessly, "There’s a vehicle coming—our transport truck?"

"Today... indeed there is a permit that was recently approved. If everything checks out, let it go."

Two NCPD-contracted Columbus Freight trucks came driving against traffic, bypassing the line of vehicles waiting to be checked.

Reaver got out of the car and raised his hand at the vehicles, signaling them to stop: "Stop the car, check the documents."

He glanced inside, a little girl in the back seat, a young girl, and a driver with cheap prosthetic hands at the wheel.

He looked rather punk rock, but NCPD’s database confirmed he wasn’t a gang member.

Last but not least, David in the passenger seat looked quite perplexing—

You could hardly find a young man in Night City who appeared more innocent than him.

A young man fresh on the job?

David pulled a piece of paper from his backpack, "Uh... wait a minute, is it this one?"

Reaver took the paper certificate from David’s hand, then continued, "Electronic signature file?"

After the file transfer, Reaver glanced at it, "No problem... your first time hauling?"

"Yeah, first time."

"Pass through—but don’t go towards the dam; there are Wanderers there."

"Alright then, the next car is also with us..."

"I know."

Man drove past Reaver, he and his equally large girlfriend smiling like fools...

Reaver sighed helplessly, watching the two trucks head onto the highway.

"I think we should be focusing on the robbery, not here blocking civilians’ vehicles, disrupting their entry and exit."

Old Han in the passenger seat shrugged, "That’s Military Technology’s jurisdiction, NCPD can’t interfere."

"Right... Military Technology’s jurisdiction."

As Reaver watched, an idea suddenly flashed in his head, "You said... What exactly are these two trucks transporting? To whom? The Wanderers are skilled carjackers, would they really make such a mistake? Is it possible..."

A hint of unease rose in Old Han’s heart: even fools knew that over 70% of NCPD’s outsourced parts had issues!

But whatever the issue was, even finding a Havana crime syndicate wouldn’t be a big deal, but if it traced back to their own, that would be like breaking the sky!

"What the hell do you care so much for? Is there a problem with the documents?"

"No problem—if that’s the case, I’ll have to report it to the Internal Affairs Department..."

"Report to Internal Affairs?"

Old Han abruptly pressed the emergency brake button in the vehicle, interrupting Reaver’s action, "Get your head straight—"

But Reaver was swift, quickly restarting the car and slamming on the accelerator!

"Listen to me, we’ll see where they are delivering the goods—if it’s to a border checkpoint, we’ll let it be."

"Even if he’s burying it, you can’t do a thing—stop the car, stop the car now!!!"