"Everything from here on is in your hands, legendary KK Squad. Don't let me down."
Wilton Holt had just dropped Lucius Raines off at a discreet back entrance. He stared at the quiet, dimly lit exterior of The Red Queen's Race club, his eyes glinting under the faint glow of the Night City skyline. Just before driving off, he suddenly called out.
"Lucius."
Raines, whose dark complexion made him blend easily into the night, turned around. He looked at Holt in the driver's seat and noticed something—his expression seemed... off. Calm, but strangely so.
"What is it?" Raines asked, puzzled by the interruption.
"Enjoy yourself. I'll come pick you up as soon as you call."
"You've always been punctual. I won't forget it."
Raines interpreted Holt's words as another loyal gesture. With a nod, he turned and entered The Red Queen's Race, never glancing back.
Watching Raines disappear into the darkness, Holt let out a deep breath. Then another.
He shut his eyes. And then opened them.
"Goodbye, Lucius."
It sounded like a farewell filled with regret—but his actions were steady and resolute.
The engine came to life with a low rumble, and Holt drove off without hesitation.
From here on, he needed to operate in plain sight, ensuring security cameras caught him clearly. His alibi had to be airtight.
His part of the plan was complete. What came next was no longer his concern.
Roughly 200 meters away, the Tianqiong Hera—a sleek, inconspicuous vehicle—came to a stop.
"I'll monitor the outside. You three handle the infiltration," Oliver said, sticking to the mission plan.
Karl, V, and Jackie stepped out, leaving Oliver behind to maintain overwatch.
"All up to you now," Karl told him, hurriedly throwing on a baggy jacket in an attempt to change his silhouette.
Under cover of night, the three moved swiftly toward the club. Their steps were silent, their figures ghosting between shadows. Not even the streetlamps could catch a glimmer of their presence.
The poor lighting around the building worked in their favor. Whether by deliberate design to preserve guest privacy or simply due to neglected maintenance, the area was dim—except for a few oddly placed bright spots. The patchy illumination made it almost impossible to clearly identify who was entering the club from a distance.
This club, like most high-end underground establishments in Night City, had multiple entrances and exits. These were meant for emergency use, ensuring guests could arrive or depart unnoticed if necessary. Every entry point was fitted with a biometric gate—verifying membership and preserving secrecy.
There were no guards. No doormen. Only the scanner gates. Entry required an anonymous keycard—no identity data, no names. Swipe the card, the gate opened, and guests would be guided directly to their assigned private rooms.
But "no staff" didn't mean "easy to breach." Any forced entry would trigger alarms across the club's soundproof suites, alerting security—and potentially even the NCPD. One of their precincts was just a few blocks away.
Even if KK Squad could deal with law enforcement, triggering an alert would kill the mission instantly.
"So how the hell are we getting in?" Jackie asked, frowning as he stared at the unmarked door in the dark. He patched into the comms. "T-BUG, any ideas on cracking this thing?"
"No need to crack it," came T-BUG's calm voice in their shared channel.
"This door's got a complicated layered protection system. Sure, I could hack it—but it'd take time. More importantly, we don't even need to go through it."
"What do you mean?" V asked.
T-BUG explained, "The club has several emergency exits—some of them link directly from the private suites to the outside. Theoretically, the membership cards are anonymous, but someone still had to set them up. That someone was Wilton Holt.
"I reviewed a braindance Holt recorded inside earlier. I found a clean route. The keycard scanner is located inside a suite. Likely a security feature—ensuring that only a real member can activate the emergency exit from within.
"But the hallway leading to that suite? No scanners. We tunnel in."
"Cutting through sounds risky. Too loud?" Jackie asked.
T-BUG sent a data packet. "I ran an acoustic test. The walls are made of next-gen dampening materials—high-end, top-of-the-line. If Karl uses his monowire, the vibration and noise will be minimal. You'll come out in a storage space on the suite's edge."
"Understood. Let's move," Karl said, nodding.
Following T-BUG's instructions, they entered an abandoned street-level building not far from the club. Inside, after moving aside several collapsed metal racks and old debris, they found what they were looking for—a hidden access point covered by a shelf.
"Found it. Let's stick to the plan," Karl said, stepping in first.
As he descended into the passageway, something else was happening inside The Red Queen's Race.
Lucius Raines, now deep inside the club, initiated a call.
The press conference had taken a turn for the worse. Before indulging in what the night had to offer, he needed to touch base with the man backing him behind the scenes.
"Can you hear me, Mr. Harvard?"
--
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